"Oratorical" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Wilfer in an oratorical manner, "naturally reverts to Papa and Mama—I here allude to my parents—at a period before the earliest dawn of this day. I was considered tall; perhaps I was. Papa and Mama were unquestionably tall. I have rarely seen a finer ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VI (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland IV • Various
... young man of the most undoubted dramatic talent and oratorical ability sought us for counsel. "I have always felt," he said, "a strong inner urge, sometimes almost irresistible, to go upon the platform or the stage. But, because I have lacked confidence in myself, I have always, at the last moment, ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb
... and touched their hearts. For this reason I cannot understand how any persons can see a likeness between the orations of Lysias and those of Cato; however, this point must be decided by those who are more skilled than myself in the comparison of oratorical styles. I shall now relate a few of his more remarkable sayings, believing that a man's real character can be better judged of by his words than by his looks, although some ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long
... broke in Mr Verloc in a deep deferential bass of an oratorical quality, so utterly different from the tone in which he had spoken before that his interlocutor remained profoundly surprised. "It exists to a dangerous degree. My reports for the last twelve months ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad
... with a freedom that seems to have been not unkindly meant, but might be liable to misconstruction. As he admits that he never listened to an important debate, we can hardly recognize his qualification to estimate these gentlemen, in their legislative and oratorical capacities.] ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... open palm, dialectics the closed fist, because orators usually spoke in a rather diffuse, and dialecticians in a somewhat compressed style. I will comply, then, with your desires, and will speak, if I can, in an oratorical style, but still with the oratory of the philosophers, and not that which we use in the forum; which is forced at times, when it is speaking so as to suit the multitude, to submit to a very ordinary style. But while Epicurus, O Torquatus, is expressing his contempt for dialectics, an ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... commendation. He never spoke without preparation, and most of his orations were severely elaborated. He never trusted to the impulse of the occasion. And all his orations exhibit him as a pure and noble patriot, and are full of the loftiest sentiments. He was a great artist, and his oratorical successes were greatly owing to the arrangement of his speeches and the application of the strongest arguments in their proper places. Added to this moral and intellectual superiority was the "magic ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... adj; have a tongue in one's head, have the gift of the gab &c. n. pass one's lips, escape one's lips; fall from the lips, fall from the mouth. Adj. speaking &c., spoken &c. v.; oral, lingual, phonetic, not written, unwritten, outspoken; eloquent, elocutionary; oratorical, rhetorical; declamatory; grandiloquent &c. 577; talkative &c. 584; Ciceronian, nuncupative, Tullian. Adv. orally &c. adj.; by word of mouth, viva voce, from the lips of. Phr. quoth he, said he &c.; "action is eloquence" [Coriolanus]; "pour the full tide of ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... courtliness at the reception, Max Maretzek made himself the most envied of men at the dinner. Quite informally he was asked to say something after the set programme had been disposed of. Where the other speakers had brought forward their elegantly turned oratorical tributes the grizzled old manager told stories about the child life and early career of the guest. Amongst other things he illustrated how early the divine Adelina had fallen into the ways of a prima donna by refusing to sing at a concert in Tripler Hall unless he, who was managing the ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... distinguished services to his country and to the world at large. After a brief response through his interpreter, Li left the banquet hall at eight-thirty, and went to his night's rest. His hosts, however, were not to be balked of their evening's entertainment, and the oratorical feast was continued ...
— Fifth Avenue • Arthur Bartlett Maurice
... with majestic swellings of his broad chest, the ostentatious removal of his overcoat, and brilliant passages of oratorical action, but most imperfectly summarized in this report, was received with cheers. Mr. Snow himself feebly joined in the approval, although he knew it was intended to disarm him. His strength, his resolution, his courage, ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... had kept his oratorical arm extended during the going out, as if he were repressing with infinite solicitude and by a wonderful moral power the vehement passions of the multitude, applied himself to raising their spirits. Had not the Roman Brutus, oh, my British countrymen, condemned ...
— Hard Times • Charles Dickens*
... necessarily, inevitably, to disperse and waste an immense fraction of the power exerted by the preacher, whatever the measure, great or small, of that power might be. The reaction of this audience-room upon the oratorical instinct and habit of the man who should customarily speak in it could not but be mischievous in a very high degree. The sense, which ought to live in every public speaker, of his being fast bound in a grapple of mind to mind, and heart to heart, and soul to soul, with ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... majority of the students would have voted for its abolition. The preps and juniors saw the seniors winning electrical applause from the audience and fancied the same prize was within their reach. There was no surer or more instant success to be won than that which followed a splendid oratorical effort on the platform. ...
— A Spoil of Office - A Story of the Modern West • Hamlin Garland
... arose and stood for a moment erect, with his hand on his breast with so dignified an air that Rand could scarcely recognize in the figure before him the slouching round-shouldered aborigine, who went daily, so stolidly, about the labor of the camp. Swiftwater listened to the rather oratorical harangue which the Indian delivered, smiling at times, but giving the man respectful attention. He even gave him half a salute, as he turned and walked with ...
— The Boy Scouts on the Yukon • Ralph Victor
... have a sort of dew on them. But I found those before me quite dry, as if they had been in the room for some time. The Medium is tired and retires. Mrs. X. is requested to come under the influence of her Spirit-guides, and she does. She puts herself in an oratorical posture, eyes closed, and reels off the common-places of the Banner of Light: the Spirits are eager for investigation, but benighted men in the flesh cannot make the conditions, and thus continue to wallow in darkness. The Spirits are kind. They do not damn those poor benighted ones, but ...
— Preliminary Report of the Commission Appointed by the University • The Seybert Commission
... Democratic paper at Concord. To his able conduct is in a great measure to be ascribed the ascendency which his party acquired in the State, about the year 1828. Though possessing few of the external qualifications for a popular leader, being feeble in person, and altogether destitute of oratorical power, his unrivaled tact and untiring industry gave him an uncontrolled influence in the State. He was chosen State Senator; and subsequently United States Senator, which office he held from 1831 to 1836, when he resigned, in consequence of having been elected Governor of New Hampshire. He filled ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... along this new path. In the Inaugural address which he now delivered that spirit is none the less perceptible because he spoke of the past. The little speech at Gettysburg, with its singular perfection of form, and the "Second Inaugural" are the chief outstanding examples of his peculiar oratorical power. The comparative rank of his oratory need not be discussed, for at any rate it was individual and unlike that of most other great speakers in history, though perhaps more like that of some ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... nature, sober, decent, middle-aged, comfortable, and one who took things as they came. But Flannagan had hair that was wild and red, and his complexion was similar. He was large and bony. His voice was windy, his manner oratorical, and his nature sudden. The Japanese spoke little English and couldn't be told apart, but as to that there was no need of it. They were skilful, small, and dark, with rubber bones and extra joints, and ...
— The Belted Seas • Arthur Colton
... department of the institution and directed its policy. Its students regarded him from the beginning as the foremost man in the faculty. That he had colleagues whose mental endowments were superior to his he himself at all times freely admitted. He is said to have laid no claim to either oratorical power or professional erudition. He was not a logician, he was not brilliant, and his deliverances were spiced with neither humor nor wit. And yet, says one of his biographers, in ability to enchain the students' attention, to impress ...
— Pioneer Surgery in Kentucky - A Sketch • David W. Yandell
... Boston Latin School, where he was distinguished both for scholarship, faultless behavior, and fine declamations. Charles Sumner was his companion there, as well as in college and at the law-school. They are both said to have given striking proof of their oratorical talent, though perhaps not more so than many others have before and since. He entered at Harvard in 1827, while Sumner was a sophomore, and Dr. Holmes and his celebrated twenty-niners were in their junior year. His college life was a dream of wonder-land. Rich, ...
— Sketches from Concord and Appledore • Frank Preston Stearns
... have ended my oratorical career then and there forever, but was often placed in a similar or worse position, and compelled to meet it as I best might; for this was one of the necessities of an office which I had voluntarily taken on my shoulders, and beneath which I might be crushed by no moral ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... been a day of triumph for Colonel Starbottle. First, for his personality, as it would have been difficult to separate the Colonel's achievements from his individuality; second, for his oratorical abilities as a sympathetic pleader; and third, for his functions as the leading counsel for the Eureka Ditch Company versus the State of California. On his strictly legal performances in this issue I prefer not to speak; there were those who denied them, although the jury had accepted them in the ...
— The Best American Humorous Short Stories • Various
... subsequent war. It was in this year that one of the most remarkable men, and one of the most able and indefatigable of the colonial clergy, was strolling about Marischal College, in Aberdeen, studying philosophy. He was a very plain-looking Scotch lad and very cannie. Altogether wanting in that oratorical brilliancy so necessary for an efficient preacher of the great truths of Christianity, Mr. John Strachan had diligently acquired a dry knowledge of the humanities, to fit himself for a teacher of youth. He was, in a limited sense, a classical ...
— The Rise of Canada, from Barbarism to Wealth and Civilisation - Volume 1 • Charles Roger
... arose in his mind. He stumbled at the omnipresence of Christ's body, wrote a Latin poem against it, and, when he had completed his studies, got for a testimonium that he had distinguished himself by his oratorical talents, but was considered unfit to be a fellow-laborer in the Church of Wuertemberg. A larger ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... days, that had deserted the old politicians, and that had no candidate. He was only thirty-six years old, his face was unfamiliar, and his name had rarely been heard outside his State, but he had been preaching free silver with religious intensity and oratorical skill. His speech had grown through repeated speaking, and reached its climax as he pleaded for free silver: "If they dare to come out in the open field and defend the gold standard as a good thing, we will fight them to the uttermost. Having behind us the producing masses of ...
— The New Nation • Frederic L. Paxson
... their strength. It took forty years of wandering in the wilderness to prepare the Israelites for the occupation of the promised land. In the open and out-door life of the Athenians was developed a civilization noble in high aspirations for the ideal in beauty and life, rich in literary and oratorical achievements, and glorious in the great and profound thoughts of immortal teachers and philosophers. The august and all-conquering civilization of the Romans had its origin on Palatine Hill when herdsmen and wolves roamed over it. In Holland, where the people are ever in conflict with ...
— The Road and the Roadside • Burton Willis Potter
... at different points in the piazza. A vendor of old-clothes, in the act of hanging out a pair of long hose, had distractedly hung them round his neck in his eagerness to join the nearest group; an oratorical cheesemonger, with a piece of cheese in one hand and a knife in the other, was incautiously making notes of his emphatic pauses on that excellent specimen of marzolino; and elderly market-women, with their egg-baskets ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... mulberry trees.' Mr J. B. Uniacke rose in the House and stated that, in the conviction of the absurdity of the present irresponsible system, he had tendered to the governor his resignation as an Executive Councillor. Mr Uniacke, a man of fine presence, oratorical gifts, and high social position, had hitherto been the Tory leader and Howe's chief opponent in the House, and his conversion to the side of Responsible Government was indeed a triumph. But there was fierce work ...
— The Tribune of Nova Scotia - A Chronicle of Joseph Howe • W. L. (William Lawson) Grant
... the stranger, who had been wrinkling his brows and twisting his mustaches with well-bred patience, took advantage of an oratorical pause:— ...
— Legends and Tales • Bret Harte
... Italians, very justly, call 'Leti caca libro'. But I would rather that you chose some pieces of oratory for your translations, whether ancient or modern, Latin or French, which would give you a more oratorical train of thoughts and turn of expression. In your letter to me you make use of two words, which though true and correct English, are, however, from long disuse, become inelegant, and seem now to be stiff, formal, and in some degree ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... declaimed she with oratorical eloquence. "Did she? Not a bit of it. Minnie got pictures an' patterns from Boston; scanted the skirt; took in the sleeves; made a wide girdle with the breadths she took out of the front—an' there she ...
— Flood Tide • Sara Ware Bassett
... the constitution. Then there were the fourteen Social Democrats who had won their seats under the new franchise. The old party of the Right was, however, also broken up; side by side with forty-one Clericals there were twenty-eight Christian Socialists led by Dr Lueger, a man of great oratorical power, who had won a predominant influence in Vienna, so long the centre of Liberalism, and had quite eclipsed the more modest efforts of Prince Liechtenstein. As among the German National party, there were strong nationalist elements in his programme, but they were chiefly ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various
... It would seem that a circumstance is not an accident of a human act. For Tully says (De Invent. Rhetor. i) that a circumstance is that from "which an orator adds authority and strength to his argument." But oratorical arguments are derived principally from things pertaining to the essence of a thing, such as the definition, the genus, the species, and the like, from which also Tully declares that an orator should draw his arguments. Therefore a circumstance is not an accident ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... struggle for our social order; a life and death struggle for our continuance to exist as individuals." There was a long repetition of the terms "life and death." They appealed to some tin-pan rhythmic sense in the Judge's oratorical mind. But the phrase struck fire in Grant Adams's heart. Life and death, life and death, rang through his soul like a clamor of bells. "We have given our all," bellowed the Judge, "to make this Valley an industrial hive, where labor may find employment—all of our savings, all ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... done," said Raffles, taking hold of his hat which stood before him on the table, and giving it a sort of oratorical push. ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... of lyceums and scientific, literary, or political centers, Sandoval took advantage of all the meetings to cultivate his great oratorical gifts, delivering speeches and arguing on any subject, to draw forth applause from his friends and listeners. At that moment the subject of conversation was the instruction in Castilian, but as Makaraig had not yet ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... be were slow to recognize the desire of the students for instruction in public speaking, there were many more or less unofficial avenues for those who desired to give vent to their oratorical impulses. Two escape valves existed almost from the first, the old literary societies, and the class exhibitions and Commencement programs which have been mentioned. The first literary society, Phi Phi Alpha, was organized in 1842, to be followed, ...
— The University of Michigan • Wilfred Shaw
... of genius without principle that history produces; the Bolingbroke of antiquity, but with high military talents superadded to diplomatic and oratorical powers—on being summoned home from his command in Sicily to take his trial before the Athenian tribunal, had escaped to Sparta, and had exerted himself there with all the selfish rancor of a renegade to renew the war with Athens and to send ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 2 • Various
... parties and half talents, they excited neither hatred nor anger; but events did not listen to them, but thrusting them aside, advanced towards results that were utterly absolute. Maury and Cazales, less philosophic, were the two champions of the right side; different in character, their oratorical powers were much on a par. Maury represented the clergy, of which body he was a member; Cazales, the noblesse, to whom he belonged. The one, Maury, early trained to struggles of polemical theology, had sharpened ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... consult their dignity by ceasing to be a House at all. He has had much experience in State affairs. What he did at the India Office and as Foreign Secretary is too well known to the world. Lord Salisbury's oratorical gifts are undeniable. He is one of a select half-dozen taken from either House who stand first in the power of moving a popular assembly. Lord Beaconsfield said that he "wanted finish." The remark was more spiteful than true. Lord Salisbury could ...
— The Contemporary Review, January 1883 - Vol 43, No. 1 • Various
... his Junior Lieutenant, assuming, as he spoke, an oratorical attitude. "Why do you not go on and talk about them working out their own salvation, with muskets on their shoulders and bayonets by their sides, and with fear and trembling too, I have no doubt it would be. Carry out your ...
— Red-Tape and Pigeon-Hole Generals - As Seen From the Ranks During a Campaign in the Army of the Potomac • William H. Armstrong
... not appear to be very popular with the assembly, and some would have been delighted to change it; but Evgenie would not stop holding forth, and the prince's arrival seemed to spur him on to still further oratorical efforts. ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... satisfy some interest, or to win some good. The ways of advertisers who exaggerate, use tricks to win attention, and appeal to popular weakness and folly; the ways of journalism; electioneering devices; oratorical and dithyrambic extravagances in politics; current methods of humbug and sensationalism,—are not properly part of the mores but symptoms of them. They are not products of the concurrent and cooperative effort of all members of the society ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... 1789 there were some traces of a loftier feeling; but in the Emigration of 1830 from Paris into the country there was nothing discernible but self-interest. A few famous men of letters, a few oratorical triumphs in the Chambers, M. de Talleyrand's attitude in the Congress, the taking of Algiers, and not a few names that found their way from the battlefield into the pages of history—all these things were so many examples set before the French noblesse to show that it was still open to them ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... natural diction, which was most copious, has a hardness and obscurity, of which the brevity of Tacitus is totally void. He seems to have furthermore observed how the language of Tacitus has a poetical complexion, is figurative, nor altogether free from oratorical tinsel with mixture of foreign, especially Greek construction, and the most peculiar, new and unusual turns of expression, alliterations and similar endings of words. Yet notwithstanding all this care and diligence he was utterly ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross
... which he had laid aside at the beginning of their discussion. "What you tell me is immensely flattering to my oratorical talent—but I fear you overrate its effect. I can assure you that Miss Van Sideren doesn't have to have her thinking done for her. She's quite capable of ...
— The Descent of Man and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... though they spoke out of a mind and body grown sensitive to the edge of bewilderment among many impressions. They speak to us that we may give them certainty, by seeing what they have seen; and so it is, that enlargement of experience does not come from those oratorical thinkers, or from those decisive rhythms that move large numbers of men, but from writers that seem by contrast as feminine as the soul when it explores in Blake's picture the recesses of the grave, ...
— Synge And The Ireland Of His Time • William Butler Yeats
... 17th.—The Lords, having welcomed the Bishop of DURHAM—a notable addition to the oratorical strength of the Episcopal Bench—proceeded to show that even the lay peers had not much to learn in the matter of polite invective. Lord GAINFORD invited them to declare that the Government should forthwith reduce its swollen Departmental staffs and incidentally relieve ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, November 24, 1920 • Various
... servants of the Crown some assurance of the fate of the measure, there was a separate debate and division on the first article, understood on all hands to be a final decision. The debate was decorated by a work of oratorical art long admired in Scotland, and indeed worthy of admiration anywhere for its brilliancy and power. It was a great philippic—taking that term in its usual acceptation—as expressing a vehement torrent of bitter epigram ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson
... Mirabeau soon displayed an erratic disposition by eloping with the young wife of an aged nobleman. He fled to Holland, but was captured and imprisoned. Being at length liberated, he turned to literature and politics, and soon gained celebrity in both. His magnificent oratorical powers brought him rapidly to the front in the period immediately anterior to the outbreak of the Revolution. Mirabeau's "Memoirs, by Himself, his Father, his Uncle, and his Adopted Son," published in eight volumes in 1834, contain no original writings ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various
... would stamp with discredit. Say that he were endowed with the purest honesty, it would inevitably be dragged captive by this mysterious, Protean bad temper. There would be the fatal public necessity of justifying oratorical Temper which had got on its legs in its bitter mood and made insulting imputations, or of keeping up some decent show of consistency with opinions vented out of Temper's contradictoriness. And words would have to be followed ...
— Impressions of Theophrastus Such • George Eliot
... be the inside story of the Pinkerton Agency and the details of its methods in dealing with strikes. Clarence S. Darrow's "Speech in the Haywood Case" (Wayland's Monthly, Girard, Kan., Oct., 1907) is the plea made before the jury in Idaho that freed Haywood. Only the oratorical part of it was printed in the daily press, while the crushing evidence Darrow presents against the detective agencies and their ...
— Violence and the Labor Movement • Robert Hunter
... Drayton is afforded by a comparison of the noble speech of Fame in "The tragicall legend of Robert Duke of Normandie" (Bullen, pp. 25, 27) with Shelley's still finer "Hymn of Apollo." There is hardly any instance of direct verbal resemblance; but the metre, the strain of sentiment, the oratorical pose, the mental and moral attitude of the two poems are so much alike as to justify the assertion that the younger owes its form and much of its spirit ...
— The Battaile of Agincourt • Michael Drayton
... employ images, but with a very different object, as you are well aware. The poetical image is designed to astound; the oratorical image to give perspicuity. Both, however, seek to ...
— On the Sublime • Longinus
... strode along facing the crisp morning air he was rehearsing under his breath, emphasizing his periods in tragic whispers with sweeping gestures and liberal facial contortions. So absorbed was he in his oratorical soliloquy that he forgot due military precaution and ran plump into the face of a savage picket guard who, without respect for the great M. Roussillon's dignity, sprang up before him, grunted cavernously, flourished a tomahawk and spoke in excellent and exceedingly ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... communist association in America. They act like the barrister who does not see in the counsel for the opposite side a representative of a cause, or an opinion contrary to his own, but a simple nuisance,—an adversary in an oratorical debate; and if he be lucky enough to find a repartee, does not otherwise care to justify his cause. Therefore the study of this essential basis of all Political Economy, the study of the most favourable conditions for giving society the greatest amount of useful products with the least waste ...
— The Conquest of Bread • Peter Kropotkin
... town-house, with slaves, attendants and following to match. This will suffice to show that he had the wherewithal. But could he enjoy it? He was a literary man: his uncle had settled that for him. He was an oratorical light in the Senate. His letters show that he was a gentleman, whose delicacy of feeling was as fine as the lauded courtesies of modern times. As proof that he was a gentleman, and that he knew how to distinguish a good from a poor dinner, and as ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 31. October, 1873. • Various
... readiness of my general information; but in all other respects idle, capable of great sudden exertions, (such as thirty or forty Greek hexa-meters, of course with such prosody as it pleased God,) but of few continuous drudgeries. My qualities were much more oratorical and martial than poetical, and Dr. Drury, my grand patron, (our head master,) had a great notion that I should turn out an orator, from my fluency, my turbulence, my voice, my copiousness of declamation, and my action.[27] I remember that my first declamation astonished him into some ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. I. (of VI.) - With his Letters and Journals. • Thomas Moore
... oratorical powers which were likely to gain him employment as a leader, Gaselee's reputation for legal knowledge soon recommended him to a judge's place. He was accordingly selected on July 1st, 1824, to fill ...
— Bardell v. Pickwick • Percy Fitzgerald
... explain that their subtle significance cannot be given in a matter-of-fact narrative. These secret schemes and calculations do not show themselves as brutally and undisguisedly while taking place as they must when the history of them is related. To set down in writing the circumlocutions, oratorical precautions, protracted conversations, and honeyed words glossed over the venom of intentions, would make as long a book as that magnificent poem called ...
— Pierrette • Honore de Balzac
... humanitarianism of a Clerambault was too vague, it contented itself with pleasant hopes, without risk or vigour, which the quietude of a generation grown old in the talkative peace of Parliaments and Academies, alone could have permitted. Except as an oratorical exercise it had never tried to foresee the perils of the future, still less had it thought to determine its attitude in the day when the danger should be near. It had not the strength to make a choice between widely differing courses ...
— Clerambault - The Story Of An Independent Spirit During The War • Rolland, Romain
... annals of American speech there had been no such scene since Patrick Henry's electrical warning to George the Third. It was that greatest of oratorical triumphs when a supreme emotion, a sentiment which is to mold a people anew, lifted the orator to adequate expression. Three such scenes are illustrious in our history: that of the speech of Patrick Henry at Williamsburg, ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter
... must keep his head; where incessant pressing necessities required ever a prompt and sufficient answer in deeds; and where words needed to be but few, and those the plainest and directest, required no delay nor preparation, nor oratorical coquetting, nor elaborate preliminary scribble; no hesitation nor doubts in deeds; no circumlocution in words. To restrain, influence, direct, govern, such a surging sea of life as this, required something very different ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... grew rather long behind, yet the length did not suggest, as it often does, effeminacy. He was masculine in everything—look, gesture, speech. Sparing of gesture, sparing of emphasis, careless of mere rhetorical or oratorical art, he had nevertheless the secret of the highest art of all, whether in oratory or whatever ...
— Autobiography and Selected Essays • Thomas Henry Huxley
... and the orators of the land made pilgrimages, stopping one day in a place, putting themselves on exhibition, and giving the people a taste of their quality at fifty cents per head. Recently, there has been a relapse of the oratorical fever. Every city from Leadville to Boston has its College of Oratory, or School of Expression, wherein a newly discovered "Natural Method" is divulged for a consideration. Some of these "Colleges" have done much good; one in particular I know, that fosters ...
— Little Journeys To the Homes of the Great, Volume 3 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... regarded her in open-eyed perplexity. The door leading to the garden had just closed behind the valiant Joseph, and he stared with growing uneasiness at the slight figure of Miss Vickers as it stood poised for further oratorical efforts. Before he could speak she gave her lips a rapid lick ...
— Dialstone Lane, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... reproach him if he abandoned the rights that had been transmitted to him; that he could not live with reputation if he lightly abandoned an enterprise which had been the first act of his reign; that he would sooner be crushed with his whole army, etc. And then, descending from his oratorical elevation, declared that he would now "not only have the four duchies, but all Lower Silesia, with the town of Breslau. If the Queen does not satisfy me in six weeks, I will have four duchies more. They who want peace will give me what I want. I ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... It was Saturday night, and Elder Wheat was preaching as he entered the crowded room. A buzz and mumble of surprise stopped the orator for a few moments, and he shook hands with Mr. Pill dubiously, not knowing what to think of it all, but as he was in the midst of a very effective oratorical scene, ...
— Other Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... thoroughly bad form to make speeches to an audience of one. I must say that he seldom does. I suppose that his intimate association with Mrs. Ascher had spoiled his manners in this respect. She encouraged him to be oratorical. But I am not Mrs. Ascher, and I saw no reason why I should stand that kind of thing at my own ...
— Gossamer - 1915 • George A. Birmingham
... there are not many speeches which compare in importance and oratorical elevation with the brilliant orations and despatches of Lord Dufferin's Canadian administration; but we have a volume abounding in light on Indian history and rich in hereditary refinement of diction and vivacity of perception.... The actual ...
— Mr. Murray's List of New and Recent Publications July, 1890 • John Murray
... click of hoofs on stone, the opening of heavy doors, the sudden sparkling invasion of frigid air, the uplifting of voices in greeting,—but all familiar! There were Gabriel Lane's cheery, hopeful tones, the soprano of Cousin Jane and Cousin Emma, the baritone of Mr. Gunn, and the grave measured oratorical utterance of Parson Dexter, who had joined the party at the station; but certainly the accents of no STRANGER. Had he come? Yes, for his name was just then called, and the quick ear of Marie had detected a ...
— Sally Dows and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... and retiring on half pay, just as he came into unexpected possession of some forty or fifty thousand pounds, bequeathed by a distant relation, Captain Dashmore was seized with a vindictive desire to enter parliament, and inflict oratorical ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... art of speaking that his college had heaped many honors upon him. He was chosen one of the speakers on graduation day, and most important of all, he had been chosen to represent his college in the annual oratorical contest with the other colleges of the state. Now, after all these honors, he had come back to his home vicinity, and for some mysterious reason the people would not hear him. Surely this was enough to dampen the ardor ...
— Modern Americans - A Biographical School Reader for the Upper Grades • Chester Sanford
... dead," he reiterated with parrot-like singleness of idea. "Mary's heart's broke.... I'm drunk." One hand waved broadly in an oratorical gesture. After a moment he added in solemn ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... wholly natural. The celestial truths to which they had listened were arguments susceptible of examination; Seraphita was a girl, more or less eloquent; allowance must be made for the charms of her voice, her seductive beauty, her fascinating motions, in short, for all those oratorical arts by which an actor puts a world of sentiment and thought into phrases which are ...
— Seraphita • Honore de Balzac
... wise in his own folly," went on the encouraged Mr. Evans, and then, alas! a victim to the slight oratorical thrill these words brought him,—"honestly uttering what every last man believes and feels about woman in his heart and yet what no sane man running for office can say ...
— The Sturdy Oak - A Composite Novel of American Politics by Fourteen American Authors • Samuel Merwin, et al.
... with the melting of the throng, and Graves had to listen to an antiphony of praise, sung by Ruth and Mrs. Hilliard. In a lull he asked Shelby if he admired the oratorical methods of ...
— The Henchman • Mark Lee Luther
... of Bourgoyne, governor under Alva for the Island of Walcheren, made his appearance in Flushing. Having a high opinion of his own oratorical powers, he came with the intention of winning back with his rhetoric a city which the Spaniards had thus far been unable to recover with their cannon. The great bell was rung, the whole population assembled in the marketplace, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... called speech-making. Their use of language is highly self-conscious, and abounds in marks of elaborateness, as if their mind were more intent on the figure they are making than on what they are talking about: so that the right colloquial tone is lost in a certain ambitious, oratorical, got-up manner of speech; and we feel a want of that plain, native, spontaneous talk wherein heart and tongue keep touch and time together: in short, they speak rather as authors having an audience in view than as men and women moved by the real passions ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... with pride over his oratorical triumphs, his chest expanded, his countenance wrinkled into a thousand guileless, grateful ...
— Old Lady Number 31 • Louise Forsslund
... founded great hopes upon him as a result of this, introduced him into the class of patricians and trained him for rulership. In everything that is proper to come to the notice of one destined to control so great a power well and worthily he educated him with care. The youth was trained in oratorical speeches, not only in the Latin but in this language [Greek], labored persistently in military campaigns, and received minute instruction in politics and ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol. III • Cassius Dio
... of course," he hurried to add with oratorical emphasis. "Nothing like that! There never was anything mean or sneaking about Jeddy, s'far as I can recollect. Just mischievous—mischievous and up and coming all the time. But there were folks," Judge Maynard's voice became heavy with righteous accusation—"it's always ...
— Once to Every Man • Larry Evans
... free play and a fair hearing, the result of allowing the people to judge for themselves, has been a prolonged spectacle of political hari-kiri which has had a wholesome though negative educational influence. The most accomplished oratorical Pierrot of our day, who changes his political philosophy as easily as he changes his costume, has seen one hundred and sixty cities and towns in America turn to government by commission, and has kept the heraldic donkey ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... by them before, and many of them did not know what to make of it. The originality of his thoughts, the consummate beauty of the language in which they were clothed, the calm dignity of his bearing, the absence of all oratorical effort, and the singular directness and simplicity of his manner, free from the least shadow of dogmatic assumption, made a deep impression on me. Not long before this I had listened to a wonderful sermon by Dr. Chalmers, whose force, and energy, and vehement, but rather turgid ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... of fire on the fevered limbs of the body politic. He goes on to say that if Junius made his phrases concise, and selected his epithets, it was not from a love of style, but in order the better to stamp his insult. Oratorical artifices in his hand became instruments of torture, and when he filed his periods it was to drive the knife deeper and surer, with an audacity of denunciation and sternness of animosity, with a corrosive and burning irony applied to the most secret corners of private ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... of the citizens;" he was also "among the noblest of them," and the nephew of the powerful Athenian, Pericles. Moreover, he was rich, though this was a smaller matter. All these things, however, had lifted Alcibiades up; and with the vanity of youth, he was ambitious for a great oratorical career, without having in reality any sufficient preparation. It is at this juncture that he falls in with Socrates, who begins to question him kindly about his plans. The young man confesses his ambitions, and the philosopher ...
— Raphael - A Collection Of Fifteen Pictures And A Portrait Of The - Painter With Introduction And Interpretation • Estelle M. Hurll
... Although he is, at heart, only a very moderate Liberalist, this young man, with the very chic side whiskers, defends the most republican of "beards," if it can be called defending; for in spite of his fine oratorical efforts, his clients are regularly favored with the maximum of punishment. But they are all delighted with it, for the title of "political convict" is one very much in demand among the irreconcilables. They are all convinced that the time is near when they will overthrow the ...
— A Romance of Youth, Complete • Francois Coppee
... connection I am reminded of—can I ever cease to remember?—the unlucky lecturer at our lyceum a few winters ago, who, on rising to address his audience, applauding him all the while most vehemently, pulled out his handkerchief, for oratorical purposes only, and inadvertently flung from his pocket three "Baldwins" that a friend had given to him on his way to the hall, straight into the front row ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various
... possessed the clear eye to see the situation. College trained, his vision was not blinded by proximity to issues of the Civil War, nor by financial dependence, nor by excessive spirituality. The elder Negro possessed the oratorical and linguistic powers to state the case. Also college trained, of long experience, possessing a widespread oratorical clientele, he spoke with a voice that stirred and played upon the heartstrings of all ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller
... dignitaries. The grand climax of the Deutschland joy carnival was to be a magnificent banquet with plenty of that rare luxury, bread and butter, at the famous Bremen Rathaus accompanied by both oratorical and pyrotechnical fireworks. The correspondents were given an opportunity to watch the triumphal progess of the Deutschland through the Weser into Bremen harbour, but at night, when they looked for their places at the Rathaus feast, they were informed that there was no room for ...
— The Land of Deepening Shadow - Germany-at-War • D. Thomas Curtin
... Socialists persisted in charging admission for their meetings—why they could not let people in free as the Democrats and Republicans did. They would go to Democratic and Republican meetings, and enjoy the brass band and the fireworks, pyrotechnical and oratorical—never dreaming it was all a snare paid ...
— Jimmie Higgins • Upton Sinclair
... pencil of prophecy with so much exactness that "he who runs may read." By examining the word of God you will find that the Free-thinkers of our country, the Illuminati of Germany, Darwin, Strauss, Huxley, Tyndal, Renan, and the man of our own land who is most noted in our midst for oratorical accomplishments without logic, argument or truthfulness of statements touching the Christian religion, are all present evidences of the divinity of the prophetic words ...
— The Christian Foundation, Or, Scientific and Religious Journal, - Volume I, No. 10. October, 1880 • Various
... verse at an astonishing rate; he explored the country for miles around, making frequent pilgrimages to the birthplace of Henry Clay, which is the chief historical glory of Ashland, and to that Hanover Court House which was the scene of the oratorical triumph of Patrick Henry; he flirted with the pretty girls in the village, and even had two half-serious love affairs in rapid succession; he slept upon a hard mattress at night and imbibed more than the usual allotment of Greek, Latin, and mathematics ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick
... unsurpassed by any writers of our day. The former is remarkable for her descriptive powers, intuition of character, and rare common sense; the latter for patient research, sound reason, and high moral tone. No country has produced a woman of such oratorical powers as our peerless Anna Dickinson. Young, beautiful, and always on the right side of every question, her influence on the politics of this country for the last four years has been as powerful as beneficent. She has more invitations ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... Lord has been good to Rev. Daniel Webster Davis, blessing him with intellectual force, blessing him with poetic utterance, blessing him with oratorical ability, blessing him in domestic felicity. Not yet in his prime, yet so richly endowed in the gifts which make men strong and powerful, it is hoped that he may be spared many years to work in the Master's vineyard, and many years ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... seeing the attention of the counsel and Court entirely withdrawn from him, thought he perceived here his opportunity, turning and beaming upon the jury, he began simply to talk, but as the grandeur of his position grew upon him —talk broadened unconsciously into an oratorical vein. ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 7. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... material, the conception is positively stunning. Let us settle all scores by subscribing to a colossal statue of the late Town-Crier in bell-metal, with the inscription, "VOX ET PRAETEREA NIHIL," as a comprehensive tribute to oratorical powers in general. He, at least, never betrayed his clients. As it is, there is no end to it. We are to set up Horatius Vir in effigy for inventing the Normal Schoolmaster, and by-and-by we shall be called on to do the same ill-turn for Elihu Mulciber for getting uselessly learned (as if any ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860 • Various
... Beckendorff. With no family to uphold him, he supports himself by a lavish division of all the places and patronage of the State among the nobles. If the younger son or brother of H peer dare to sully his oratorical virginity by a chance observation in the Lower Chamber, the Minister, himself a real orator, immediately rises to congratulate, in pompous phrase, the House and the country on the splendid display which ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... whatever it might have been, was never completed nor administered, for his emotions becoming too much for him to hold in check, Palmer Billy sprang upon Gleeson, and gave vent to his feelings in a manner which was more satisfying to him than a mere oratorical outburst. Had he been allowed to complete his intention, the future career of Gleeson would not have been connected with mining swindles. For a time Peters and Tony, neither being predisposed in favour of Gleeson, stood by watching the chastisement Palmer Billy meted out, undisturbed by the ...
— Colonial Born - A tale of the Queensland bush • G. Firth Scott
... by his eloquence that he was commonly called the Roman Demosthenes; but his manner of life was yet more famous and talked of. For oratorical skill was, as an accomplishment, commonly studied and sought after by all young men; but he was a rare man who would cultivate the old habits of bodily labor, or prefer a light supper, and a breakfast which never saw the fire; or be in love with ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch
... verses on which I happened to come were too deep for my intellect, and I had not the patience to read them twice. I was so absolutely sure of the power of my mind that I ascribed my lack of understanding to the poet. Then his poems were so different from the easy, rhythmic, oratorical verses on which I had been brought up. In Palamas, I missed those pleasant trivialities which attract a boy's mind in poetry. One thing, however, was clear to me even then. Dark and unintelligible though his poems appeared, they were certainly ...
— Life Immovable - First Part • Kostes Palamas
... Cap'n Stidger, Chairman of our Central Committee, Mr. Henry J. Hoskins, of the firm of Hoskins and Bloomer, and Joe Slate, of the 'Union Press,' one of our most promising journalists. Gentlemen," he continued, suddenly and without warning lifting his voice to an oratorical plane in startling contrast to his previous unaffected utterance, "I needn't say that this is the honorable Paul Hathaway, the youngest state senator in the Legislature. You know his record!" Then, recovering the ordinary accents of humanity, ...
— A Ward of the Golden Gate • Bret Harte
... I sat, and in a voice that sounded thin as a fly's after the oratorical bass of the last ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin
... Queensberry" emphasizes. This term "Marquis of Queensberry" has been given to that management which is thought of as a mental and physical contest, waged "according to the rules of the game." These two names are most valuable pictorially, or in furnishing oratorical material. They are constant reminders of the constant desire of the managers to get all the work that is possible out of the men, but they are scarcely descriptive in any satisfactory sense, and the visions they summon, while they are perhaps ...
— The Psychology of Management - The Function of the Mind in Determining, Teaching and - Installing Methods of Least Waste • L. M. Gilbreth
... feather, and away rattled the carriage into the City. The ponies were all alive, the driver's eye keen as a bird's; her courage and her judgment equal. She wound in and out among the huge vehicles with perfect composure; and on those occasions when, the traffic being interrupted, the oratorical powers were useful to fill up the time, she shone with singular brilliance. The West End is too often in debt to the City, but, in the matter of chaff, it was not so this day; for whenever she took a peck she returned a bushel; and so she rattled to the door ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade
... Protestantism in those hardy Scandinavian and Flemish regions where it had taken secure root. Meantime he despatched, in solemn mission to the republic and to the heretic queen, a diplomatist whose name and whose oratorical efforts have by a caprice of history been allowed to endure to ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... woman." Mrs. Jenkins is a fluent and agreeable speaker, and has a good degree of power in swaying an audience. But Mrs. Rose is the queen of the company. On the educational question in particular, she rises to a high standard of oratorical power. When speaking of Hungary and her own crushed Poland, she is full of eloquence and pathos, and she has as great a power to chain an audience as any of ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... and possibilities in the ardent young hill-man, and actually did him the kindness and the honor of introducing him to an audience in one of the Massachusetts towns; and it was really a great kindness and a great honor, from a man who had won his fame to a young man just beginning an oratorical career. ...
— Acres of Diamonds • Russell H. Conwell
... a near scream. What a waste of oratorical and perhaps organizational energy, I mused as I strode along rapidly, still intent on escaping the fanatic. Under different circumstances, I thought, a man like this might turn out to be a capable clerk or minor executive. ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... that it was in behalf of the Anglican Chapters, threatened by the reforming spirit of the day, that he then addressed the House of Lords; and the occasion called for the exercise, not only of the talents which I have already dwelt upon, but for those which are more directly oratorical. And these were not wanting. I never heard him speak; but I believe he had, in addition to that readiness and fluency of language, or eloquence, without which oratory cannot be, those higher gifts which give ...
— Memoirs of James Robert Hope-Scott, Volume 2 • Robert Ornsby
... wrinkles about his mouth and eyes—the former adding something to the already humorous twinkle of the eyes. His voice has a timbre reminding me of George M. Cohan's voice. He is hardly an orator in the sense that Bryan is, yet he is not without simple oratorical tricks—as for example a tremolo, as of emotion, which I have heard him use in uttering such a phrase as "the grea-a-a-at Daniel Web-ster!" Also, he wears a low turnover collar and a black string ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street
... when he harangued the Roman populace, modulated his tone by an oratorical flute or pitch pipe. Wilhelmus Kieft, not having such an instrument at hand, availed himself of that musical organ or trump which nature has implanted in the midst of a man's face; in other words, he preluded his address by a sonorous blast of the nose; a preliminary ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... (His oratorical flight, so buoyant and sustained, having come to its calculated end, he drops deftly to earth, encountering directly for the first time the flattered smile with which the Queen has listened ...
— Angels & Ministers • Laurence Housman
... faire meme oublier les succes oratoires que—Latiniste incomparable, et voue au purisme Ciceronien—il a obtenus dans les regions plus septentrionales.' To this chaff Lord Dufferin replied in English: 'Lord Granville has been good enough to allude to what he is pleased to describe as an oratorical triumph in a distant country; and I would venture to remind you—and you may take the word of an experienced person in confirmation of what I am about to say—that when anybody wishes to make a speech in a foreign language, he will ...
— Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Henry Reeve, C.B., D.C.L. - In Two Volumes. VOL. II. • John Knox Laughton
... old man raised an oratorical hand, and looked round on his audience, like one to whom public speaking was ...
— Lady Merton, Colonist • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... arguments are characterized by strength of logic, and, like those of other patriots, are, as the dispute advances, based less on precedent and documentary authorities and more on "natural right.'' Although he lacked oratorical fluency, his short speeches, like his writings, were forceful; his plain dress and unassuming ways helped to make him extremely popular with the common people, in whom he had much greater faith than his cousin John had; and, above all, he was ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... those who were present agree that Mirabeau seemed to be disconcerted and appalled by the strength of the case against him, and sat with the perspiration streaming down his face. His reply was, as usual, an oratorical success; but he did not carry his audience with him, and he went home disheartened. The ...
— Lectures on the French Revolution • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... the longest speech the Prince had made, yet he never spoke better; he had both mastered his nervousness and his need for notes. Decrying his abilities as an orator, he yet won his hearing by his very lack of oratorical affectation. ...
— Westward with the Prince of Wales • W. Douglas Newton
... don't intend to carry out any great reforms; they wish to avoid all foreign complications until the yearned-for hour arrives when Germany will be forced to disgorge what they are pleased to term its ill-gotten booty; they have in their ranks almost all the administrative and oratorical powers of the country; and they tell you that M. Grevy, the present president of the Chamber of Deputies, will succeed to the presidency, when the "stupid" MacMahon goes out, with just as little difficulty as the latter had in coming in, and that he, in turn, will in all probability ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 • Various
... he had positively caught the roar of cries and stilled it, by capping the cries in turn, until the people cheered him; and the effect of the scene upon Victor Radnor disposed him to rank the gift of repartee higher than a certain rosily oratorical that he was permitted to tell himself he possessed, in bottle if not on draught. Let it only be explosive repartee: the well-fused bomb, the bubble to the stone, echo round the horn. Fenellan, would have discharged an extinguisher ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... domestic symphony was liable to furious flaws,—let us hope at great distances apart:—that 'plates' in presence of the lackeys, actual crockery or metal, have been known to fly from end to end of the dinner-table; nay they mention 'knives' (though only in the way of oratorical action); and Voltaire has been heard to exclaim, the sombre and majestic voice of him risen to a very high pitch: 'Ne me regardez tant de ces yeux hagards et louches, Don't fix those haggard sidelong eyes on me in that way!'—mere shrillness of pale rage presiding ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. X. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—At Reinsberg—1736-1740 • Thomas Carlyle
... English Minister at the Sublime Porte. Then you should have heard the chorus of Turks in reply: a dozen voices rose up from the divan, shouting, screaming, ejaculating, expectorating (the Arabic spoken language seems to require a great employment of the two latter oratorical methods), and uttering what the meek interpreter did not translate to us, but what I dare say were by no means complimentary phrases towards us and our nation. Finally, the palaver concluded by the cadi declaring that by the will of Heaven horses should ...
— Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo • William Makepeace Thackeray
... merits, without even a plea of extenuating circumstances. Voorhees was young, ambitious, and anxious to display his oratory. He arranged with his colleagues at the beginning that he should make a speech, and he spent several hours in his room at the hotel in the preparation of an oratorical avalanche. It became generally known that Dan was going to out-do himself, and the expectation of the community was at its highest tension. The little old court-house was crowded. The ladies were out in full force. Voorhees ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... the age of forty-seven years. His death was a serious loss to the anti-slavery Democrats of Massachusetts and the country. He was one of the three distinguished men that the county of Essex has produced in his century: Choate, Cushing and Rantoul. In oratorical power he could not be compared to Choate. In learning he was of the three the least well equipped. In logic he was superior to Cushing, and he was more direct, and more easily comprehended than either Cushing or ...
— Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 1 • George Boutwell
... told regarding the authorship of the chronometer, they held that they had been told also respecting the mechanism of the chronometer. Attaching literal meanings to what we now recognize as merely poetic or oratorical figures, they believed that not only was it revealed to them that God had created the heavens and earth, but also that he had created the earth in the form of an extended plain, and placed a semi-globular heavens over it, just as one places a semi-globular ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller
... their shrunken bodies should have been clamouring for healthy food,—Marguerite thus absorbed, had totally forgotten her earlier prejudices and now completely failed to note all that was unreal, stagy, theatrical, in the oratorical declamations of the ex-actress from ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... this that aroused the attention of the country at large and convinced many that the basis of the real power of Plymouth Church lay not so much in any oratorical gifts of its pastor, as in the substantial Christian life of its members. Those who could hold together under such a strain were not likely to fall apart under the pressure of any lesser difficulty. Undoubtedly there was a certain amount of esprit de corps, a realisation ...
— Sixty years with Plymouth Church • Stephen M. Griswold
... prepared himself for it by taking the yolk of an egg beaten up in a glass of sherry, Mr Bright's priming was said to be a glass of a particular old port, and there was a malicious whisper to the effect that Mr Lowe, whilst Chancellor of the Exchequer made ready to enter the oratorical arena by taking a glass of iced water at the bar, being moved to his choice of a stimulant by considerations of economy. Mr Disraeli then was reported to the gallery as having taken his half-bottle, and very shortly afterwards he slipped into the ...
— Recollections • David Christie Murray
... sought the door. Her head was in a whirl of excitement, and she wished only to escape from Mrs. Lippett's platitudes and think. She rose and took a tentative step backwards. Mrs. Lippett detained her with a gesture; it was an oratorical opportunity ...
— Daddy-Long-Legs • Jean Webster
... 'Whin I begin peggin' ar-round a few iv these vilets I'll make Ol' Hoar look like confederate money,' an' th' pa-apers tell that th' Infant Demostheens iv Barry's Junction is about f'r to revive th oratorical thraditions iv th' sinit an' th' fire department comes up f'r a week, an' wets down th' capitol buildin'. Th' speech comes off, they ain't a dhry eye in th' House, an' th' pa-apers say: 'Where's ye'er Dan'l Webster an' ...
— Mr. Dooley's Philosophy • Finley Peter Dunne
... always misgiven me about Lord Grey, and what I have lately heard of him satisfies me that a more overrated man never lived, or one whose speaking was so far above his general abilities, or who owed so much to his oratorical plausibility. His tall, commanding, and dignified appearance, his flow of language, graceful action, well rounded periods, and an exhibition of classical taste united with legal knowledge, render him the most finished orator of his day; but his conduct has shown ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville
... exuberance of their convictions, they had widened the discussion into a sort of oratorical joust in which each fought eagerly for the opinions which he held dear. And Le Corbier knew better than to interrupt a duel whence he had little doubt that some unexpected light would flash, at last, from ...
— The Frontier • Maurice LeBlanc
... and Turgot, of linguistics with Des Brosses, and of arithmetical morals and criminal legislation with Bentham. Finally, if none of these conditions are complied with, the same efforts will, in the hands of philosophical amateurs and oratorical charlatans, undoubtedly only produce mischievous compounds and destructive explosions.—Nevertheless good procedure remains good even when ignorant and the impetuous men make a bad use of it; and if we of to day resume the abortive ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... you are now a speech-maker by profession. Now that you are in Congress, you will never be free from the oratorical liability. Wherever two or three are gathered together, and you are one of them, you'll have to return thanks, and wave the glorious flag of our country. And you'll have ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis |
