"Volubility" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the flabby devil was running that show. White men with long staves in their hands appeared languidly from amongst the buildings, strolling up to take a look at me, and then retired out of sight somewhere. One of them, a stout, excitable chap with black mustaches, informed me with great volubility and many digressions, as soon as I told him who I was, that my steamer was at the bottom of the river. I was thunderstruck. What, how, why? Oh, it was 'all right.' The 'manager himself' was there. All quite correct. 'Everybody had behaved splendidly! ...
— Heart of Darkness • Joseph Conrad
... servant, but just a woman, in the strictly domestic sense of that fashionable word) reluctantly opened the door. French and Italian were alike incomprehensible to this lady, and de Vasselot was still explaining with much volubility, and a wealth of gesture, that the man he sought wore a tonsure, when Clement himself, affable and supremely indifferent to the scantiness ...
— The Isle of Unrest • Henry Seton Merriman
... impotent rage passed over the country when the nature and acceptance of the Japanese Ultimatum became generally known. The Chinese, always an emotional people, responding with quasi-feminine volubility to oppressive acts, cried aloud at the ignominy of the diplomacy which had so cruelly crucified them. One and all declared that the day of shame which had been so harshly imposed upon them would never ...
— The Fight For The Republic in China • Bertram Lenox Putnam Weale
... jot. All she drew from this confused volubility was the fact that Major Harper had somehow lost money, for which she was very sorry. But to her utter ignorance of financial or business matters the term "losing money" bore very little meaning. However, ...
— Agatha's Husband - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)
... on a self-willed woman like our mother. The means he had to make himself respected at home he hath squandered away here. He has flung his patrimony to the dogs, and poverty and subserviency are now his only portion." Mr. Warrington delivered this speech with considerable spirit and volubility, and ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... influence on the Roman religion, because the latter from the first dealt only in allegory and not in fable, and it was not possible in Rome as in Hellas to write biographies of Zeus the first, second, and third. The modern sophistry could only succeed where, as in Athens, clever volubility was indigenous, and where, moreover, the long series of philosophical systems that had come and gone had accumulated huge piles of intellectual rubbish. Against the Epicurean quietism, in fine, everything revolted that was sound and honest in the Roman character so thoroughly addressing itself ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... carriage going out bodily, with legions of industrious fleas harnessed to and drawing it off, on their own account. We have a couple of Italian work-people in our establishment; and to hear one or other of them talking away to our servants with the utmost violence and volubility in Genoese, and our servants answering with great fluency in English (very loud: as if the others were only deaf, not Italian), is one of the most ridiculous things possible. The effect is greatly enhanced ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... sat down side by side. The Major walked across and took a vacant seat on the other side of Janie. The slightest look of surprise showed on Harry Tristram's face. A duel began. Duplay had readiness, suavity, volubility, a trick of flattering deference; on Harry's side were a stronger suggestion of power and an assumption, rather attractive, that he must be listened to. Janie liked this air of his, even while she resented it; here, in his own county at least, a Tristram of Blent was somebody. ...
— Tristram of Blent - An Episode in the Story of an Ancient House • Anthony Hope
... sharp and rather treble volubility, and got through his long speech with surprising despatch, giving the blade of his knife an affectionate rub on his ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... this dreamy haze that she was wakened by the sound of voices outside the house, under the window by which she lay. There were the tones of a stranger and those of old Mrs. Pritchard, but now flowing on briskly with a volubility unrecognizable. Virginia sat up, hesitating Were they only passing by, or stopping? Should She show herself or let them go on? In an instant the question was settled for her. It was too late. She would only shame them ...
— Hillsboro People • Dorothy Canfield
... low, insistent undertone beneath the rattle of Lady Arabella's volubility Michael could hear again the murmur of a soft, dragging voice: "I'm sorry you're ...
— The Lamp of Fate • Margaret Pedler
... good dear!" said the latter, with as much volubility as emotion, while her pretty blue eyes were filled with tears; "is it possible that you did so stupid a thing? Do not poor people help one another? Could you not apply to me? You knew that others are welcome to whatever is mine, and I would have made a raffle ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... much more with the volubility of relieved feelings. When he stopped, out of breath, Madison said, "I have had a visitor since ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... her mild and pleasing features, at some of the more marked exuberances of folly among the crowd, and a form which, notwithstanding her lessened bloom, was nearly perfect. If these symptoms of delicate health, did not prevent this fair girl from being amused at the volubility and arguments of the different orators, she oftener manifested apprehension at finding herself the companion of creatures so untrained, so violent, so exacting, and so grossly ignorant. A young man, wearing the roquelaure and other similar appendages of a Swiss in foreign military service, ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... to believe anything the bees tell you if only you will get us a cup of tea," interrupted Isabella, cutting short the stream of the good woman's volubility. "Now come in," she continued, ...
— East of the Shadows • Mrs. Hubert Barclay
... answer questions and roll off speeches and chaff adversaries—he could do these things because it was amusing and slightly dangerous, like playing football or ascending an Alp, pastimes for which nature had conferred on him an aptitude not so very different in kind from a due volubility on platforms. There were two voices to admonish him that all this was not really action at all, but only a pusillanimous imitation of it: one of them fitfully audible in the depths of his own spirit and the other speaking, in the equivocal accents of a very crabbed ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... man of sense, and a concise speaker; —the Q. and D. Valerii of Sora, my neighbours and acquaintances, who were not so remarkable for their talent of speaking, as for their skill both in the Greek and Roman literature; and C. Rusticellus of Bononia, an experienced Orator, and a man of great natural volubility. But the most eloquent of all those who were not citizens of Rome, was T. Betucius Barrus of Asculum, some of whose Orations, which were spoken in that city, are still extant: that which he made at Rome against Caepio, is really an excellent ...
— Cicero's Brutus or History of Famous Orators; also His Orator, or Accomplished Speaker. • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... Will no one speak for my life?" These words were ejaculated with the ghastly accent and volubility of terror. ...
— Cudjo's Cave • J. T. Trowbridge
... seemed extremely talkative, approached the governor's guard, examined them a moment, and said with excessive volubility, "My orders are simply to prevent persons going toward the wharf, just now the Chameleon, and a fine vessel she is, belonging to Blue Beard, and which has bravely run down a Spanish pirate—came last night to ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue
... rustling down of a handful of dust. And she reminded me of some such unshakable prehistoricism. She certainly was an amazing talker—racy, extravagant, with a delivery that was perfectly overwhelming. As for Seaton—her flashes of silence were for him. On her enormous volubility would suddenly fall a hush: acid sarcasm would be left implied; and she would sit softly moving her great head, with eyes fixed full in a dreamy smile; but with her whole attention, one could see, slowly, joyously ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors
... her business! I know what I'm about!" Tim said to some one near him, while Mr. Bills rang the changes on that dollar with astonishing volubility, and Tom kept his eyes on Jack for ...
— The Cromptons • Mary J. Holmes
... conceit. A man who, in the easiness of his heart, would listen humbly, patiently, approvingly to Mr Planner, must pronounce the ardent character an angel. The remarkable docility which Mr Planner evinced under such treatment, was only to be equalled by the volubility and pleasure with which he communicated his numerous and ingenious ideas. Sceptics—nay, men who had ventured only to contend for the soundness of their preconceived ideas, and who had been met with a torrent of vituperation and reproach in ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various
... Mick, by the way, is one of the most wonderful and plausible fellows I have met out here. To say he could talk a donkey's hind leg off would be a mild way of describing his excessive volubility—he would chatter a centipede's legs off. Often when he comes in, with another orderly's broom, to make a pretence of sweeping the tent out, and leaning on the stick, starts retailing stories of mystery and imagination, I lay down the book ...
— A Yeoman's Letters - Third Edition • P. T. Ross
... although probably themselves no admirers of the country, profess themselves so fond of English society, that they insist upon accompanying us; and it is curious to witness the artificial French manners, and the noisy volubility of French, tongues introduced into those retired and beautiful scenes, which, in our own country, we associate with the simplicity ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison
... but that he was the first to be tired. However, he said it was fine; and was quite surprised to hear me read Greek with such sonorous volubility. For his part it was long since he had read such authors: to which I sarcastically yielded my ready assent. He had partly forgotten them, he said. Indeed! answered I. My tone signified he never knew them—'but you think the composition good do you ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... much likeness to his natural mirth, as hot-house peas at five guineas the quart, resemble in flavour the growth of the dews, and air, and rain of Heaven. But as one o'clock, the hour for going aboard, drew near, this volubility dwindled away by little and little, despite the most persevering efforts to the contrary, until at last, the matter being now quite desperate, we threw off all disguise; openly speculated upon where we should be this time to- morrow, ...
— American Notes for General Circulation • Charles Dickens
... he observes breezily to the plump epiciere. This is his invariable greeting to French ladies who display any tendency to volubility—and ...
— The First Hundred Thousand • Ian Hay
... the Frenchwoman, with angry volubility, "what has she done that you call contumacy and disrespect? Yes, dear madame, there is the question; and if he cannot answer, is it not most cruel to call me conspirator, and spy, and intrigant, because I talk ...
— The Evil Guest • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... was not left long in her new house without visitors. Early on the day after her arrival, Mrs. Houghton came to her, and began at once, with great volubility, to explain how the land lay, and to suggest how it should be made to lie for the future. "I am so glad you have come. As soon, you know, as they positively forbade me to get on horseback again this winter, I made up my ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... word Champfort, Marriott's mouth opened eagerly, and she began to answer with her usual volubility. Lady Delacour waited not for any reply to the various questions which, in the hurry of her mind, she had asked; but, passing swiftly by Marriott, she threw open the door of her dressing-room. At the sight of Belinda she stopped short; and, totally overpowered, she would ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth
... did you only excel me in words, I could forgive you: for there may be a knack, and a volubility, as to words, that a natural talent may supply; but to be thus out-done in thought and in deed, who can bear it? And in so young an ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... replied May, in her volubility effacing any shy attempt at greeting on Dora's part, "I am so sorry for Tray's rudeness in going into your shop without being invited; but I do think he knew you again, I am almost sure of it," she ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler
... Aether, on which I feed, oh! thou Volubility of Speech, oh! Craftiness, oh! Subtle Scent! enable me to crush ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... features which could not fail to mislead an unthinking or superficial mind. Her mother had early taught her the trick of agreeable talk which appears to imply superiority, replying to arguments by clever jests, and attracting by the graceful volubility beneath which a woman hides the subsoil of her mind, as Nature disguises her barren strata beneath a wealth of ephemeral vegetation. Natalie had the charm of children who have never known what it is to suffer. She charmed by her frankness, and had none of that solemn air which mothers impose on their ...
— The Marriage Contract • Honore de Balzac
... acquaintanceship they were all glad to court. The ladies, in truth, seemed much taken with his society. They put fifty questions to him about the play—the assembly—the sermon—marriages—deaths—christenings, and what not; the whole of which he answered with surprising volubility. His tongue was the only active part about him, going as glibly as if he were ten stones, instead of thirty, and as if he were a Tims in person as well as in name. In a short time I found myself totally neglected. Julia ceased to eye me, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 13, No. 359, Saturday, March 7, 1829. • Various
... always arrayed with red cloth, in the same manner as was done to Captain Cook, and a small pig was their usual offering to the Eatooas. Their speeches, or prayers, were uttered too with a readiness and volubility that indicated them to be ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr
... voices warned them that their seclusion was on the point of being broken into. Their hostess, an elderly lady of great social gifts and immense volubility, appeared, having for her escort a tall, well-groomed man of youthful middle-age, with the square jaw and humorous gleam in his grey eyes of the best trans-Atlantic type. Lady Amesbury beamed upon ...
— The Profiteers • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... porters who formerly met one with volubility and the expectation of a fabulous tip have given place to khakied orderlies, the polite customs officials to old-soldier myrmidons of the worried embarkation officer. Store dumps with English markings ...
— Cavalry of the Clouds • Alan Bott
... and always on the lookout for squalls. Here, and there one spied out the flannel shirt and coarse canvas trousers of a seaman—a runaway, in all probability, from a South Sea whaler; while one or two stray negroes chattered with all the volubility of their race, shaking their woolly heads and showing their white teeth. I got into conversation with one tall American; he was a native-born Kentuckian, and full of the bantam sort of consequence of his race. He predicted wonderful ...
— California • J. Tyrwhitt Brooks
... suspected that he was dead, and even guessed the place of his burial. This was indicated by the fact that they frequently visited the spot, looking around with great interest, and talking together with much volubility. ...
— Ferdinand De Soto, The Discoverer of the Mississippi - American Pioneers and Patriots • John S. C. Abbott
... towards her the chair he had not offered to Waters and erupting forthwith into uneasy volubility. "This is it. Sit down, madam; sit right down and tell me what I can do ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... companion, as a token of having been well received. The general suspected some mystery in this man, yet ordered a cheese and two new loaves to be given him, which he sent away to his companion. He continued talking with great volubility, and sometimes so unguardedly as to raise suspicions of his being a spy. On this Paulo de la Gama, who particularly suspected him, inquired of some of the natives if they knew who this man was; they immediately told him he was a pirate, who had boarded many other ships ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr
... the night he was awakened suddenly by a shout from Madou, who was singing and talking in his own language with frightful volubility. Delirium had begun. ...
— Jack - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... home and could not meet her. Once he had seen Mary as she came along the road, and he drew back into a doorway. A young man was marching by her side, a young man who gabbled without ceasing and to whom Mary chattered again with an equal volubility. As they passed by Mary caught sight of him, and her face went flaming. She caught her companion's arm, and they hurried down the road at a great pace.... She had never chattered to him. Always he had done the talking, ...
— Mary, Mary • James Stephens
... were. At any rate, I prevailed on him to return to his room, when he took my arm, and, seating himself on the bedside, recited to me the paradigms of the more anomalous Greek verbs with great volubility for twenty minutes on end—that is to say, until Mrs. Stimcoe returned with the doctor safely tucked under ...
— Poison Island • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... herself. She liked him. She told herself so every day, and it was a pleasure to her to see him so happy. But when she had accepted him he was so diffident, so quiet, so anxious, that she had not realized that he would return to his previous happy self-confidence, his volubility, his gray hats—in fact, his former gay self—directly his mind was at ease and he had got what he wanted. She saw at once that the change was natural, but she found it difficult to keep pace with, and the effort to do ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... rattled these symptoms off with great volubility. The Count looked at him with open-eyed wonder. The professor was not less astonished at the positiveness with which Dr. Jones thus detailed the Count's symptoms without any previous knowledge ...
— Doctor Jones' Picnic • S. E. Chapman
... absurd. To say perfectly once and for all what one has to say is surely as fine an achievement as to keep restlessly trying to say it a thousand times over. Gray was no blabber. It is said that he did not even let his mother and his aunts know that he wrote poetry. He lacked boldness, volubility and vital energy. He stood aside from life. He would not even take money from his publishers for his poetry. No wonder that he earned the scorn of Dr. Johnson, who said of him to Boswell, "Sir, he was dull in his company, ...
— The Art of Letters • Robert Lynd
... pronounced it "bully," unable to see that Laura evinced only a mild interest in the performance. On each propitious occasion he had made love to her extravagantly. He continually protested his profound respect with a volubility and earnestness that was quite ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris
... ought to do." The little bit of conversation remained with me, and I remember particularly the quick way Frances interrupted and turned the talk upon the delinquencies of servants in general, telling incidents of her own at our flat with a volubility that perhaps seemed forced, and that certainly did not encourage general talk as it may have been intended to do. We lapsed into ...
— The Damned • Algernon Blackwood
... harangue was given with such volubility, that Charlotte could not find an opportunity to interrupt her, or to offer a single word till the whole was finished, and then found her ideas so confused, that she knew not ...
— Charlotte Temple • Susanna Rowson
... dimples, about our darling father, whose history it professes to relate in the most ignoble, the most revolting terms. Papa's in the most awful state!" and Mme. de Brecourt panted to take breath. She had spoken with the volubility of horror and passion. "You're outraged with us and you must suffer with us," she went on. "But who has done it? Who has done it? Who ...
— The Reverberator • Henry James
... to betray them to these others savoured after all of treachery. And besides much as he had craved to see Lady Harman again, he now realized he didn't in the least want to see her in association with the exuberant volubility of Lady Beach-Mandarin and the hard professional observation, so remarkably like the ferrule of an umbrella being poked with a noiseless persistence into one's eye, of Miss Sharsper. And as he thought these ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... unnatural to them, and, above all, to utter speeches natural neither to them nor to any one whatever. Thus, in "Othello," altho that is, perhaps, I will not say the best, but the least bad and the least encumbered by pompous volubility, the characters of Othello, Iago, Cassio, Emilia, according to Shakespeare, are much less natural and lifelike than in the Italian romance. Shakespeare's Othello suffers from epilepsy, of which he has an attack on the stage; moreover, in Shakespeare's version, Desdemona's murder is preceded ...
— Tolstoy on Shakespeare - A Critical Essay on Shakespeare • Leo Tolstoy
... that?—And did you ever hear how the Prince of Porcia died—he who advised the dauphin to divorce his wife because she had been married for eight years and had borne him no children?" continued Strozzi, with increasing volubility. ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... Giuglini," as he was called. Was there ever such sweet, luscious tenor voice, or a more charming and graceful style of vocalization? He literally sang like a bird. He opened his mouth and the notes were warbled forth with exquisite volubility and ease. Giuglini's voice had not the power and breadth which Sims Reeves could command, nor was his style so impassioned and fervent as Mario's, but his tones and vocalization were something to hear once ...
— A Tale of One City: The New Birmingham - Papers Reprinted from the "Midland Counties Herald" • Thomas Anderton
... truth, I was so much overjoyed and excited by the sight of my old friend and companion that I had some difficulty at first in fixing my attention on what he said, the more especially that he spoke with extreme volubility, and interrupted his discourse very frequently, in order to ask questions ...
— The Gorilla Hunters • R.M. Ballantyne
... the patients, whilst wishing to walk in the ordinary mode, are forced to run, which has been seen by Carguet and by the illustrious Gaubius; a similar affection of the speech, when the tongue thus outruns the mind, is termed volubility. Mons. de Sauvages attributes this complaint to a want of flexibility in the muscular fibres. Hence, he supposes, that the patients make shorter steps, and strive with a more than common exertion or impetus to overcome the resistance; ...
— An Essay on the Shaking Palsy • James Parkinson
... being presented to Mrs. Tarrant, the old lady with whom Jessica lived, Mr. Vawdrey's mother-in-law. At the age of three score and ten, Mrs. Tarrant still led an active life, and talked with great volubility, chiefly of herself; Nancy learnt from her that she had been married at seventeen, and had had two children, a son and a daughter, both deceased; of relatives there remained to her only Mr Vawdrey and his family, and ...
— In the Year of Jubilee • George Gissing
... Carefinotu was listening with extreme attention. His eyes sparkled with intelligence. One could see that he understood what was being said in his presence. He then spoke with extreme volubility, but it was only a succession of onomatopoeias devoid of sense, of harsh interjections with a and ou predominant, as in the ...
— Godfrey Morgan - A Californian Mystery • Jules Verne
... of her slaves and handmaids, seconded by the old Ayesha, waited with impatient silence for an opportunity to speak. At length, when she had found utterance, her mouth appeared too small for the volume of words which flowed from it. Her volubility unloosed the tongue of Ayesha, and the old woman's those of all the other women, until there arose such a tempest of words and screams, all of which were directed against me, that I was ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier
... groups, many of them bleeding from ghastly wounds, yet devouring the dried food they carried, the while comrades were treating their hurts after a fashion which would have caused the civilized being to shriek aloud with agony; the ferocious volubility wherewith they discussed and fought the battle over again; and away beyond their lines, the earth black with corpses of the slain; while up yonder, though this he could not see, the rock circle was literally ...
— The Sign of the Spider • Bertram Mitford
... be on the verge of abstract discussion. As a metaphysician, he was not to be borne with. There was one method of escape; I interfered to coax the currents of his volubility into other and what were ...
— Wolfville Nights • Alfred Lewis
... and the young man descended the stairs and passed along the Chiaja towards their hotel. As they gained the broad and open space on which it stood, with the lovely sea before them, sleeping in the arms of the curving shore, Maltravers, who had hitherto listened in silence to the volubility of his companion, ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the old gentleman, seated by the fire, busied himself in toasting a slice of bread on a fork, which he kept at a slow-toasting distance from the coals. An English lady was present, learned in art, who, with a volubility worthy of an American, rushed into every little opening of Mrs. Somerville's more measured sentences with her remarks upon recent discoveries in her specialty. Whenever this occurred, the old man grew ...
— Maria Mitchell: Life, Letters, and Journals • Maria Mitchell
... birddom none excel and few equal the white-eyed vireo for volubility and downright audacity. All his songs—and he has quite a respectable list of them—seem to be either a protest or a challenge; a protest against your intrusion into his precincts, a challenge to find him and his nest if you can. Again and again in Kansas I crept ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser
... attempting to soothe her indignation, assumed the authority and prerogative of a husband, and sharply reprehended her for her credulity and indecent warmth. This rebuke, instead of silencing, gave new spirit and volubility to her reproaches, in the course of which she plainly taxed him with want of honesty and affection, and said that, though his pretence was love, his aim was no other than a ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... tribus Anticyris caput insanabile, hellebore itself can do no good, nor that renowned [721]lantern of Epictetus, by which if any man studied, he should be as wise as he was. But all will not serve; rhetoricians, in ostentationem loquacitatis multa agitant, out of their volubility of tongue, will talk much to no purpose, orators can persuade other men what they will, quo volunt, unde volunt, move, pacify, &c., but cannot settle their own brains, what saith Tully? Malo indisertam prudentiam, quam loquacem, stultitiam; and as [722]Seneca ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... love Amelia, and we've been engaged almost all our lives," Osborne said to his partner; and during all the dinner, George rattled on with a volubility which surprised himself, and made his father doubly nervous for the fight which was to take place as soon as the ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... measures as experiments, and parliaments are ever ready to rescind their votes. Find a man who, totally destitute of genius, possesses nevertheless considerable talents; who has official aptitude, a volubility of routine rhetoric, great perseverance, a love of affairs; who, embarrassed neither by the principles of the philosopher nor by the prejudices of the bigot, can assume, with a cautious facility, the prevalent tone, and disembarrass himself of it, with a dexterous ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli
... stately, kind-hearted, whimsical, pedantic; and Flora MacIvor (whom even we forgive for her Jacobitism), the fierce Vich Ian Vohr, and Evan Dhu, constant in death, and Davie Gellatly roasting his eggs or turning his rhymes with restless volubility, and the two stag-hounds that met Waverley, as fine as ever Titian painted, or Paul Veronese:—then there is old Balfour of Burley, brandishing his sword and his Bible with fire-eyed fury, trying a fall with the insolent, ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... however, which had swept off our hostess's larder, had swept in a great deal of good company, and she was evidently resolved on setting the one evil over against the other. She now showered upon us a long, rapid, and vehement address; and he who has not heard the Tuscan discourse does not know what volubility is. "What does she say?" I inquired at one of my two Russian friends. "She says very many words," he replied, "but the meaning is moneys, moneys." "Have you any coffee?" I asked. "Oh, coffee! delightful coffee; but it had ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie
... conversing, if the expression is not improper when I have not had an opportunity of speaking a syllable, more than two hours with a French officer, who has declaimed the whole time with the most astonishing volubility, without uttering one word which could either entertain or instruct his hearers; and even without starting any thing that deserved the ...
— The History of Emily Montague • Frances Brooke
... With great volubility the fox commiserated his long journey, and excused the delay in admitting him under plea of an indisposition caused by eating too much honey, a ...
— Legends of the Middle Ages - Narrated with Special Reference to Literature and Art • H.A. Guerber
... the tailor stepped to the door and beckoned to the policeman. With much volubility he explained the situation and his suspicions. The constable listened gravely. He was very young to his duties, and remembered the cautions that had been given him not to accept any one's word ...
— The Grell Mystery • Frank Froest
... this attack upon him, was swearing abundance of oaths, and making tell thousands of exclamations, in proof of his innocence. Nothing, however, could stop the volubility of his wife, or calm her rage. By this time she had worked her passion up to such a pitch, that oath succeeded oath; and blasphemy blasphemy, in one raging, unceasing torrent. From her husband she ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier
... to me. She knew I should like it if you could carry out your idea. Not because she cared for you but because she did think of me," Miss Tita went on with her unexpected, persuasive volubility. "You could see them—you could use them." She stopped, seeing that I perceived the sense of that conditional—stopped long enough for me to give some sign which I did not give. She must have been conscious, ...
— The Aspern Papers • Henry James
... the gist of the matter which Robertson related to the inspector with many repetitions and persistent volubility. ...
— The Old Man in the Corner • Baroness Orczy
... his volubility, for he was a man who delighted in conversation, Desmond gradually gave the talk a personal turn. But willing as Mortimer showed himself to discuss the war generally, about his personal share he was as mute as a fish. Try as he would Desmond could get nothing ...
— Okewood of the Secret Service • Valentine Williams
... violent hysterical laugh, 'that he'll go down into it now immediately and quite comfortable, but bless your heart my dear Miss Floy he won't, he's a great deal too happy in seeing other people happy for that, he may not be a Solomon,' pursued the Nipper, with her usual volubility, 'nor do I say he is but this I do say a less selfish human creature human nature never knew!' Miss Nipper being still hysterical, laughed immoderately after making this energetic declaration, and then informed Florence that he was waiting ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... flannel shirts. Three big Bohemians were drinking raw alcohol, tinctured with oil of cinnamon. This was said to fortify one effectually against the cold, and they smacked their lips after each pull at the flask. Their volubility drowned every other noise in the place, and the overheated store sounded of their spirited language as it reeked of pipe smoke, damp ...
— O Pioneers! • Willa Cather
... this chute, for the rest of the afternoon, they poured one avalanche of stones after another, waking the echoes of the glen. Meantime we elders sat together on the platform, Hanson and his friend smoking in silence like Indian sachems, Mrs. Hanson rattling on as usual with an adroit volubility, saying nothing, but keeping the party at their ease like ...
— The Silverado Squatters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... likewise. And some such would tell us that there is intellect in plenty in the modern Nausicaa: but not of the quality which they desire for their country's future good. Self- consciousness, eagerness, volubility, petulance in countenance, in gesture, and in voice—which last is too often most harsh and artificial, the breath being sent forth through the closed teeth, and almost entirely at the corners of the mouth—and, with all this, a weariness often about the wrinkling forehead and ...
— Sanitary and Social Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... are cruelly voluble, but their volubility taps the evil humour of the universal human disease. Their thoughts are our thoughts, their obsessions, our obsessions. Let no one think, in his vain security, that he has a right to say: "I have no part in this morbidity. I am different ...
— Visions and Revisions - A Book of Literary Devotions • John Cowper Powys
... know the half!" said the excitable little editor, who, despite the frequency of his gestures and the volubility of his explanations was busily working with diagrams the while. "You know there was a census in ...
— The Boy With the U.S. Census • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... Buzfuz, who had proceeded with such volubility that his face was perfectly crimson, here paused for breath. The silence awoke Mr. Justice Stareleigh, who immediately wrote down something with a pen without any ink in it, and looked unusually profound, to impress the jury with the belief that he always ...
— The Law and Lawyers of Pickwick - A Lecture • Frank Lockwood
... the activity of their minds. Sometimes they rambled or rested on the sunny slopes in groups, sometimes in couples, and sometimes singly. March Marston and the artist sauntered about together, and conversed with animated fluency and wandering volubility—as young minds are wont to do—on things past, present, and to come; things terrestrial and celestial. In short, there was no subject, almost, that did not get a share of their attention, as they sauntered by the rippling ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne
... you come by this?" I asked. She turned on at once the tap of her volubility and I was not surprised to learn that the grandee had not done such an extraordinary thing as to call upon me in person. A young gentleman had brought it. Such a nice young gentleman, she interjected with her piously ghoulish expression. He was not very ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... with his rifle on his shoulder, sauntered around, an aged Irish woman, full of nerve and volubility, caught sight of him. She was the mother of the girl, and had been told of the object of David's visit. He must have appeared very boyish, for he had not yet entered his eighteenth year, and though very wiry and athletic, he was of slender frame, ...
— David Crockett: His Life and Adventures • John S. C. Abbott
... drawing materials, I amused the Indians with a sketch of the interior of the tent and its inhabitants. An old woman, who was relating with great volubility an account of some quarrel with the traders at Cumberland House, broke off from her narration when she perceived my design; supposing, perhaps, that I was employing some charm against her; for the Indians have been taught a supernatural dread of particular pictures. ...
— Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, in the Years 1819-20-21-22, Volume 1 • John Franklin
... their roots and trampled them under foot in the rush of his stinging invective. Although of Italian origin, "Gassy" was born near the site of the Tower of Babel, and its propinquity and influence gave him that varied volubility in expressing fine shades of meaning in many languages that made him the pride of the profession of which he was a distinguished light. His ebullitions were frequently hurled at the "boots" for neglecting ...
— A Fantasy of Mediterranean Travel • S. G. Bayne
... was always an interesting figure. His volubility of talk bordered on the miraculous; and whenever he began to swathe the Senate in his interminable rhetoric it awakened the laughter or the despair of everybody on the floor or in the galleries. Bayard and Thurman were recognized as the strong men on their side of the Senate in the Forty-first Congress. ...
— Political Recollections - 1840 to 1872 • George W. Julian
... he saw her, notwithstanding the noise of the wind and waves, he would let loose upon her with such power and volubility that every one would laugh, although they pitied her greatly. When he arrived at the dock he would relieve his mind, while unloading the fish, in such an expressive manner that he attracted around him all the loafers of the neighborhood. The ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... undeniably had a habit of regarding people as human beings. You found her talking to chambermaids and delivery boys, and elevator starters, and gas collectors, and hotel clerks—all that aloof, unapproachable, superior crew. Under her benign volubility they bloomed and spread and took on color as do those tight little paper water flowers when you cast them into a bowl. It wasn't idle curiosity in her. She was interested. You found yourself confiding to her your innermost ...
— One Basket • Edna Ferber
... my readiness to proceed, but our guides protested against such a measure. With great volubility, in their native Neapolitan dialect, with which we were not very familiar, they told us that there were spectres, that the roof would fall in, that it was too narrow to admit us, that there was a deep hole within, filled with water, and we might be drowned. ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... well, that the language of common people, when giving utterance to passionate emotions, is highly figurative; and hence he concludes not so well fit for a lyrical ballad. Their volubility is great, nor few their flowers of speech. But who ever heard them, but by the merest accident, spout verses? Rhyme do they never—the utmost they reach is occasional blanks. But their prose! Ye gods! how they do talk! The washerwoman absolutely froths ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... contents of the report; but his mind seemed to nauseate its subjects. Afraid to look me in the face, he sat with his feet not-reaching the ground, and with his countenance averted from me at an angle of about seventy degrees, while, with the eccentricity, the volubility, and, indeed, the appearance of a madman, the tiny creature raved in all directions about grievances here, and grievances there, which the committee, he said, had not ventured, to enumerate. 'Sir,' I exclaimed, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... it. They greatly hinder edification, and spoil the order, beauty, and harmony there: they are the proud, self-conceited men, who are vainly puffed up with high thoughts of themselves, and their own abilities, because they have got some speculative knowledge into their heads, with a volubility of speech, while they are destitute of spiritual wisdom and humility in their hearts; and therefore they conceive that they are wiser than the church, and more able to manage and order church affairs than their ...
— The Divine Right of Church Government • Sundry Ministers Of Christ Within The City Of London
... his mental power became evident to every person there. Timorous hearts regained their composure, and the Curator—who in his ten years of service had never felt the burden of his position so acutely as in the last ten minutes—showed his relief by a volubility quite unnatural to him under ordinary conditions. As he conducted the detectives across the court, he talked not of the victim, as might reasonably be expected, but of the woman who had been found leaning over her with her hand ...
— The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green
... board a fellow-passenger, whose discourse in verity might have beguiled a longer voyage than we meditated, and have made mirth and wonder abound as far as the Azores. He was a dark, Spanish complexioned young man, remarkably handsome, with an officer-like assurance, and an insuppressible volubility of assertion. He was, in fact, the greatest liar I had met with then, or since. He was none of your hesitating, half story-tellers (a most painful description of mortals) who go on sounding your belief, and only giving you as much as they ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... she answered, hiding her emotion with great skill the moment she perceived attention directed to herself, and speaking with a sudden volubility that made us all stare. "They are expected any day. I didn't know it till yesterday—was it yesterday? No, the day before—when young Mr. Franklin—he is the oldest son, sir, and a very nice man, a very nice man—sent me word by letter ...
— That Affair Next Door • Anna Katharine Green
... reception he had experienced. He had forced himself in, and the woman of the house sat in a corner looking upon him with dread. I addressed him, but he would scarcely return an answer. At last he commenced discoursing with great volubility in Gypsy and Latin. I did not understand much of what he said. His words were wild and incoherent, but he repeatedly threatened some person. The last bottle was now exhausted—he demanded more. I told him in a gentle manner that he had drunk enough. He looked ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas
... talkativeness &c adj.; garrulity; multiloquence^, much speaking. jaw; gabble; jabber, chatter; prate, prattle, cackle, clack; twaddle, twattle, rattle; caquet^, caquetterie [Fr.]; blabber, bavardage^, bibble-babble^, gibble-gabble^; small talk &c (converse) 588. fluency, flippancy, volubility, flowing, tongue; flow of words; flux de bouche [Fr.], flux de mots [Fr.]; copia verborum [Lat.], cacoethes loquendi [Lat.]; furor loquendi [Lat.]; verbosity &c (diffuseness) 573; gift of the gab &c (eloquence) 582. talker; chatterer, chatterbox; babbler &c v.; rattle; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... dicta, emphatic conclusions. He attained his remarkable facility by persistent, continuous, and patient toil; and a glance at his notebooks and fly-leaves would be the best of lessons for anyone who was tempted to depend upon fluid and easy volubility. He used to say that, after long practice, a sermon would fall into shape in a very few moments; and I remember his once taking carefully written address of my own, summarising and denuding it, and presenting me with ...
— Hugh - Memoirs of a Brother • Arthur Christopher Benson
... Cantacuzene began to speak to Quinet in the most Wallachian words in the world, with incredible assurance and volubility, so much so that the gendarme, convinced that he had to deal with all Wallachia in person, and seeing the train ready to start, returned the passport to Quinet, saying to him, "There! be off with you!"—a few hours afterwards ...
— The History of a Crime - The Testimony of an Eye-Witness • Victor Hugo
... it; said the weather was against a child born in India—blamed the east wind. Even when the family doctor tried to let him know that the child was not likely to be long for this world, he was angry, with all the unreasonable volubility of a man who thinks others are deceiving him, rather than grieved for the peril of the little life and the anguish of ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow
... so, however, there would seem to be no pressing need of his long soliloquy. He being ex proposito a man of few words, his sudden volubility is a little surprising, though it should be duly noticed that the soliloquy is not a self-defense. There is no casuistry in it. Tell does not argue the case with himself, like one in doubt about the rightness of his conduct. That is ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... increasing always by degrees, till it burst out full as she reappeared in a flood of light at the spot where we least expected her. And then she came so near that she touched us with her dress, clashing the castanets with a maddening volubility, till they weakened once more and twittered like cicalas, while now and then across their monotonous racket she uttered shrill yet tender cries which pierced to our own souls. Afterwards she retired once more, but plunged herself only half in the darkness, appearing and disappearing ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... I stand on that dim verge And look across the sea; The waves have changed into a dirge Their volubility. And in my disillusioned heart Is a little ...
— Poems of West & East • Vita Sackville-West
... said, with captivating volubility, "you are feeling yourself at home, are you not? You know any guest who feels uncomfortable in his coat may take it off... and the ladies, too. Ha! ha! ha! That's the way to make one's self happy, is it not, my little dears?" And before he had finished laughing he printed a ...
— Monsieur, Madame and Bebe, Complete • Gustave Droz
... no time in conveying him stealthily, for the warrant of the parliament of Paris was still in force, to a house at Fleury. But the Friend of Men, to use his own account of himself, "bore letters as a plum-tree bears plums," and wrote to his guest with strange humoristic volubility and droll imperturbable temper, as one who knew his Jean Jacques. He exhorts him in many sheets to harden himself against excessive sensibility, to be less pusillanimous, to take society more lightly, ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... put this threat in execution, nothing could give me greater uneasiness: for her violence and volubility would ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney
... moment, in a voice that I could scarce have recognised, my kinsman began swearing and praying in a mingled stream. I looked at him; he had fallen on his knees, his face was agonised; at each step of the castaway's the pitch of his voice rose, the volubility of his utterance and the fervour of his language redoubled. I call it prayer, for it was addressed to God; but surely no such ranting incongruities were ever before addressed to the Creator by a creature: surely if prayer can be a sin, this mad harangue was sinful. I ran to my kinsman, I seized ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson
... never failed to rise to an occasion which required the display of fervid eloquence. The Roman eloquence, which in its energetic volubility was the chief force of Juvenal, added a tidal strength and stress of storm to the quick gathering thoughts of the greater poet. The exordia to the first and second books, the analysis of Love in the fourth, the praises of Epicurus ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... and prayer, by which exorcism the youngest imp was "delivered." The poor woman, crazed with all this pother,—if in her right mind before,—and defending herself unskilfully in her foreign gibberish and with the volubility of her race, was interpreted as making some confession. A gossiping witness testified that six years before she had heard another woman say that she had seen the accused come down a chimney. She was ...
— Great Epochs in American History, Vol. II - The Planting Of The First Colonies: 1562—1733 • Various
... grasping and avaricious with all; singing a piece from "Norma" in a voice, about the size of a thread No. 150, that showed traces of former excellence; or cheapening a bushel of corn meal with equal volubility. What a character! Full of little secrets and mysteries. "Now, my dear, I don't ask you to tell a story, you know; but if the others ask you if you knew it, just look surprised and say, 'Oh, dear ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... While indulging this noisy volubility he was seated on the top of his dining-stump. Suddenly he caught sight of something that smote him into silence and for the space of a second turned him to stone. A few paces away was a weasel, gliding toward him like a streak of baleful light. For one second only he crouched. ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts
... that you are English," the innkeeper continued, with easy volubility. "For I know you belong to no other nation. I said so to myself the moment I saw you, riding up here on horseback alone. I called upstairs to Juanita that there was an English Senorita coming on a horse, and Juanita replied with a malediction, that I should raise my voice when ...
— Tomaso's Fortune and Other Stories • Henry Seton Merriman
... I have found so difficult to define, is by no means noisy. As a mere piece of writing it may be described as being breathless itself and taking the reader's breath away, not by the magnitude of its message but by a sort of anxious volubility in the delivery. The constantly elusive argument and the illustrative quotations go on without a single reflective pause. For this reason alone the reading of that work ...
— Notes on Life and Letters • Joseph Conrad
... coolly, "an' if you pull that gun out an inch furder I'll kill ye as shore as thar's a God in heaven." And at that moment the door opened and Pleasant Trouble swung in on his crutch and grinned. Doctor Jim then heard the tongue-lashing of his life. The woman's volubility was like a mill-race, and her command of vitriolic epithets was beyond his ken. She recited what Juno had done, Doctor Jim was doing, the things Jerry had done and left undone, ...
— In Happy Valley • John Fox
... was the growing slackness in his personal habits.... He had addressed her with great volubility and earnestness upon his belief that now they were married, she must get rid of all her virginal book-learned notions about reticence between husband and wife. Such feminine "hanky-panky tricks," he assured her, were the cause of "all these finicky, unhappy marriages and these rotten divorces—lot ...
— The Job - An American Novel • Sinclair Lewis
... the inventor of lithotomy, whatever you may say. Then came another whom I forget; you do somewhat perturb me with your petty exceptions. Then came Ammonius, the author of lithotrity, and here comes Hans with the basin-to stay your volubility. Blow thy chafer, boy, and hand me the basin; 'tis well. Arabians, quotha! What are they but a sect of yesterday who about the year 1000 did fall in with the writings of those very Greeks, and read them awry, having no concurrent light of their own? for their demigod, and camel-driver, ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... At last he said to himself: "Look here! She is not a baby. She is nearly twenty years old. I have been wondering why her face was so steady and wise." The thought that she was not a child tilled his heart with pleasure and his face with light. But his volubility seemed to die suddenly away. He sat for a good while in silence, and started a little as she looked up ...
— The Bread-winners - A Social Study • John Hay
... greater favourite with the public. So much has been said of the glibness of a female tongue that many of the comparisons made on the subject are become proverbial; but nothing that I ever heard in that way can be compared to the volubility of utterance of Mademoiselle DELILLE, except the clearness of her articulation. A quick and attentive ear may catch every syllable as distinctly as if she spoke with the utmost gravity and slowness. The piece in which she exhibits this talent to great advantage, and ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... I year tell, Miss F'raishy—sho'," Mingo assented, with great heartiness. But Mrs. Bivins's volubility would hardly wait for this perfunctory indorsement. She talked as she arranged the dishes, and occasionally she would hold a piece of crockery suspended in the air as she emphasised her words. She dropped into a mortuary strain—"Poor pa! I don't never have nuthin' extry an' I ...
— Mingo - And Other Sketches in Black and White • Joel Chandler Harris
... outbursts—turns it aside, so to speak, instead of giving it free play after the favourite plan both of Borodine the great and purely Russian composer, and Dvorak the little Hungarian composer. The second theme does not appear to me equal to the rest of the symphony. It has that curious volubility and "mouthing" quality that sometimes gets into Tschaikowsky's music; it is plausible and pretty; it suggests a writer who either cannot or dare not use the true tremendous word at the proper moment, and goes on delivering himself ...
— Old Scores and New Readings • John F. Runciman
... and easy Motion, the Volubility of your Discourse, the Suddenness of your Laugh, the Management of your Snuff-Box, with the Whiteness of your Hands and Teeth (which have justly gained You the Envy of the most polite part of the Male World, and the ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... poems of Skelton (d. 1529) are singularly though coarsely energetic. He was the tutor of Henry VIII., and during the greater part of the reign of his pupil he continued to satirize social and ecclesiastical abuses. His poems are exceedingly curious and grotesque, and the volubility with which he vents his acrid humors is truly surprising. Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey (1516-1547), opened a new era in English poetry, and by his foreign studies, and his refinement of taste and feeling, was enabled to turn poetical literature into a path as yet untrodden, although in ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... In the course of his speech he faltered, stammered and seemed to lose the thread of his reasoning. The House, then, as now, indulgent to novices, and then, as now, well aware that, on a first appearance, the hesitation which is the effect of modesty and sensibility is quite as promising a sign as volubility of utterance and ease of manner, encouraged him to proceed. "How can I, Sir," said the young orator, recovering himself, "produce a stronger argument in favour of this bill than my own failure? My fortune, my ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... dangerous character. Like myself, he had died a hundred deaths, and yet lived! His gleesome spirit had sustained him throughout the dread ordeal. He had even joked with his cruel tormentors! Now that the dark hour was past, his jeux d'esprit were poured forth with a continuous volubility. No; not continuous. At intervals, a shadow crossed his spirit, as it did that of all of us. We could not fail to lament the fate ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... when she comes. Say that she rail; why, then I'll tell her plain She sings as sweetly as a nightingale: Say that she frown; I'll say she looks as clear As morning roses newly wash'd with dew: Say she be mute, and will not speak a word; Then I'll commend her volubility, And say she uttereth piercing eloquence: If she do bid me pack, I'll give her thanks, As though she bid me stay by her a week: If she deny to wed, I'll crave the day When I shall ask the banns, and when be married. But here she comes; and ...
— The Taming of the Shrew • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]
... The volubility of his guides, restrained during the repast by the more important business of satisfying their appetites, now broke out to his great disturbance. They chattered almost incessantly during great part of the ...
— A New Voyage Round the World in the Years 1823, 24, 25, and 26. Vol. 1 • Otto von Kotzebue
... preceding day. I made no reply; but at the first pause suggested that he had better dress himself. To this he paid no attention, but stamped round the room, continuing his argument with his usual vehemence and volubility. Half an hour had elapsed, when some one knocked. Gurowski roared, "Come in!" A maid-servant opened the door, and of course instantly retreated. I turned the key, and again entreated the Count to put on his clothes. He did not comply, but kept on with his argument. Presently some one else rapped. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 109, November, 1866 • Various
... delivered with a somewhat hysterical volubility, Poppy made no direct reply. Surely it was cruel, cruel, that at this juncture, when she had so honestly striven to refuse the evil and choose the good, this recrudescence of all that was most hateful to her should take place? Moreover, now as always, just that modicum of truth underlay ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... that was to your taste. You commonly hate much volubility. How have I heard you bemoan yourself when ...
— Cecilia Volume 1 • Frances Burney
... those days, on a par with "Yankee" troops. A sprinkling of Dutchmen was all right. We had in the Sixty-first Germans and Dutchmen, who were the peers as soldiers, of any in the regiment, but this Seventh regiment when it went into action jabbered and talked Dutch to exceed in volubility any female sewing society ever assembled. As they came up and got into position the volume of jabber almost overcame the rattle of musketry and the roar of artillery. I am certain their conduct did not favorably impress our men. If the German Emperor's army is not made of grimmer stuff than ...
— Personal Recollections of the War of 1861 • Charles Augustus Fuller
... learns to play upon the piano, and it is certain that the modest performances of the ladies of Mrs. Barbauld's time would scarcely meet with the attention now, which they then received. But all the same, the stock of true feeling, of real poetry, is not increased by the increased volubility of our pens; and so when something comes to us that is real, that is complete in pathos or in wisdom, we still acknowledge the gift, ...
— A Book of Sibyls - Miss Barbauld, Miss Edgeworth, Mrs Opie, Miss Austen • Anne Thackeray (Mrs. Richmond Ritchie)
... marvellous gifts entrusted to a son of man, who verily is not a man, a light of the captivity ... a holy light, a saintly man ... who dwells at present in the great city of London. Albeit I could not fully understand him on account of his volubility and his speaking as an inhabitant of Jerusalem.... His chamber is lighted by silver candlesticks on the walls, with a central eight-branched lamp made of pure silver of beaten work. And albeit it ...
— Secret Societies And Subversive Movements • Nesta H. Webster
... such expense for me! But I have an idea that my guv'nor will hardly laugh when I tell him this. Still, thank you all the same, m'sieur, and au revoir." He was darting off when a sudden thought detained him. "Excuse me," said he, with conjuror like volubility; "I was so horrified that I forgot business. Tell me, m'sieur, if the count dies, you'll take charge of the funeral arrangements, won't you? Very well; a word of advice then. Don't go to the regular undertakers, but come to me: here's my address"—proffering a card—"I ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... strange dream of St. Mary of Egypt, as a very old woman, clothed in the mantle of Zosimus—the lion who was to bury her, couchant at her feet. Helbeck looked into it; admired some points, criticised others. Williams got down from his stool, talked with a low-voiced volubility, an egotistical passion and disturbance that roused astonishment in Laura. Till then she had been acquainted only with the measured attitudes and levelled voice that the Jesuit learns from the "Regulae Modestiae" of his order. But for the first time she felt ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... have failed to find the messenger, of whose appearance you have received definite information, is that you have not looked among the servants of a certain distinguished visitor in town. Oh," I burst forth with feverish volubility, as I saw the inspector's lips open in what could not fail to be a sarcastic utterance, "I know what you feel tempted to reply. Why should a servant deliver a warning against his own master? If you will be patient with me you will soon see; but first I ...
— The Woman in the Alcove • Anna Katharine Green
... listen to that night before the clock struck twelve. Each man present had some humorous or thrilling experience to relate, with the exception of a certain glum and dark-browed gentleman, who sat somewhat apart from the rest, and who said nothing. His reticence was in such marked contrast to the volubility about him that he finally attracted universal attention, and more than one of the merry-makers near him asked if he had not some anecdote to add to the rest. But though he replied with sufficient politeness, it was evident that he had no intention of dropping his reserve, ...
— The Forsaken Inn - A Novel • Anna Katharine Green
... pleasant Image of our Proselite, Mr. President told me I should be his Stranger at the next Night's Club: Where we were no sooner come, and Pipes brought, but Mr. President began an Harangue upon your Introduction to my Epistle; setting forth with no less Volubility of Speech than Strength of Reason, "That a Speculation of this Nature was what had been long and much wanted; and that he doubted not but it would be of inestimable Value to the Publick, in reconciling even of Bodies and Souls; in composing and quieting the Minds of ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... would succumb and give over definitely the search. The idea roused her to a sort of galvanic energy in promoting the project, and she would continually formulate fantastic plans and suggest to him tenuous theories with feverish volubility, only to have him thrust them aside with a lacklustre indifference that their ...
— The Ordeal - A Mountain Romance of Tennessee • Charles Egbert Craddock
... in Argument, or rather borne down by the arrogant, ignorant volubility of the Squire."—"This effectually raised the laugh against poor Moses." It is well grouped; but the only successful figure is Moses. The squire is not the well-dressed, designing profligate. If the story were not well told by the grouping, we might have taken the squire ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various
... should speak to them all respectively and several ways; though this politic part of eloquence in private speech it is easy for the greatest orators to want: whilst, by the observing their well- graced forms of speech, they leese the volubility of application; and therefore it shall not be amiss to recommend this to better inquiry, not being curious whether we place it here or in that ...
— The Advancement of Learning • Francis Bacon
... instantly at their side, assisting to remove its housings, and the alforjas, or bags. His tongue had become unloosed, as if by sorcery; and far from being unable to speak, he proved that, when it suited his purpose, he could discourse with wonderful volubility. The donkey was soon tied to the manger, and a large measure of barley emptied before it, the greatest part of which the Gypsy boy presently removed, his father having purposely omitted to mix the barley with the straw, with ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow
... she turned cold, unseeing eyes on the newsboy when he passed through the car with his towering load of varicolored periodicals, and rather than be forced to the final resort of the unaccompanied traveler, she welcomed the advent of an acquaintance possessed of volubility of an ejaculatory, eruptive variety. After many gentle jets and spurts of gossip much remained to be told, as the lady hastily gathered up her impedimenta preparatory to alighting at her ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume V. (of X.) • Various
... deal more was related by the unfortunate diver, while having his dress removed, his volubility increasing as his fears were allayed, but he was not fairly restored to his wonted state of mind until he had swallowed a stiff glass of grog, and been put into his hammock, where, in his sleep, he was heard to protest with great fervour that he wouldn't go under water again for any ...
— Under the Waves - Diving in Deep Waters • R M Ballantyne
... learned through the indiscriminate volubility of his host who, when his feelings had been injured, was amusingly naive for such a ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers
... though he said little or nothing, was secretly amazed at the gaiety and volubility of the young people. The children were allowed to take turns sitting in the front seat, and, as was their nature, they talked rapidly and steadily to ...
— Marjorie's Maytime • Carolyn Wells
... to the rigid propriety of the French court, was not a little surprised to hear Christina, during the comedy, interlard her conversation with hearty oaths, with all the volubility of an old guardsman. She flung about her legs in the most astonishing manner, throwing them over the arms of her chair, and placing herself in attitudes ...
— Louis XIV., Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott
... published, had already for two years been the wife of Sir Thomas Hanmer. At the age of twelve, and probably in Dublin, Hopkins met the mysterious lady who animates these volumes under the name of Amasia. Who was Amasia? That, alas! even the volubility of her lover does not reveal. But she was Irish, the daughter of a wealthy and perhaps titled personage, and the intimate companion for many years of the beautiful Duchess ...
— Gossip in a Library • Edmund Gosse
... for a while, said something sharply to Makola, who shook his head. Then the man, after looking round, noticed Makola's hut and walked over there. The next moment Mrs. Makola was heard speaking with great volubility. The other strangers—they were six in all—strolled about with an air of ease, put their heads through the door of the storeroom, congregated round the grave, pointed understandingly at the cross, and generally made ...
— Tales of Unrest • Joseph Conrad
... continued Lisarda, with marvellous volubility of tongue, "is the signal of numberless pleasures; for now, thank God and the mighty Santiago, the Moors have had such a dressing that they will be in no humour for some time to renew their unruly frolics, and that ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... the turn himself and almost bumped into Jack. Even the darkey's volubility was stilled at the ...
— On a Torn-Away World • Roy Rockwood
... "No, mother, I am not hurting her," and indeed the surprise seemed to have taken away her rage and volubility, and unresistingly she allowed him to seat her in a chair. Still holding her arm, he made his clear boyish voice resound through the hall, saying, "Retainers all, know that, as I am your lord and master, so is my honoured mother lady of the castle, and she is never to be gainsay'ed, ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
... not slow to admire; she pretty well guessed Miss Bertram's feelings, and made it a point of honour to promote her enjoyment to the utmost. Mrs. Norris was all delight and volubility; and even Fanny had something to say in admiration, and might be heard with complacency. Her eye was eagerly taking in everything within her reach; and after being at some pains to get a view of the house, and observing that ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... historian expresses it, even the gay levity of Buckingham seems never, in approaching the king, to have violated. Charles admired in Henrietta all those personal graces which he himself wanted; her vivacity in conversation enlivened his own seriousness, and her gay volubility the defective utterance of his own; while the versatility of her manners relieved his own formal habits. Doubtless the queen exercised the same power over this monarch which vivacious females are privileged by nature to possess over their husbands; she was often listened to, and her suggestions ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli |
