"Oratory" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... labouring people, he assisted earnestly to his last hour; and the readiness with which he took the chair at meetings having such objects in view, the help he gave to important societies working in beneficent ways for themselves or the community, and the power and attractiveness of his oratory, made him one of the forces of the time. His speeches derived singular charm from the buoyancy of his perfect self-possession, and to this he added the advantages of a person and manner which had become as familiar and as popular as his books. The most ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... concerned, will appear to be a mere cipher. But it does not require the meddlesomeness of a Whalley, or the volubility of a Newdegate, to make a politician. In politics, as in the minor affairs of life, tact and discrimination often go for more than fervid bursts of oratory, or highly-concentrated genius. In the region of politics, too, there are wheels within wheels—an imperium in imperio. The House of Commons bears, in some respects, a remarkable affinity to a puppet-show. You cannot always see the magician who pulls the strings, ...
— Western Worthies - A Gallery of Biographical and Critical Sketches of West - of Scotland Celebrities • J. Stephen Jeans
... Missouri between the years 1856 and 1860, in some of which he had had the honor to take part—minima pars, gentlemen! Here he digressed elegantly upon civil dissensions, and Ballard, listening to him and marking the slow, sure progress of the hour, told himself that never before had Gilet's oratory seemed more welcome or less lengthy. A plan had come to him, the orator next announced, a way out of the present dilemma, simple and regular in every aspect. Let some gentleman present now kindly draft a bill setting forth ...
— Red Men and White • Owen Wister
... enough, but so as to keep body and soul together; and now, how they could nohow manage to do it. The bare details of the ages of their children, and what the little things could do, and the prices of bacon and bread, and calico and coals, had more pathos in them than any oratory heard elsewhere." ...
— Sophisms of the Protectionists • Frederic Bastiat
... to hear him say, when I was a mere boy,—and he would bring his fist down on the table with an emphasis that made the dishes rattle, for all he averred that he never used gesticulation to aid his oratory,—he used to say,—I remember his words, as if it were but yesterday,—'Slavery is a crime which we, the whole nation, are accountable for, and for which we will be held accountable. If we as a nation will not do away with it by legislation or mutual compact ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine
... when he came to speak on the second immortal day at Gettysburg, he condensed into a few sentences the innermost meaning of the struggle and the victory in the life of the nation. It was this deep heart of pity and love in him which carried him far beyond the reaches of statesmanship or oratory, and gave his words that finality of expression which marks ...
— Our American Holidays: Lincoln's Birthday • Various
... manners of the time, that in a small recess, illuminated by a taper, were disposed two hassocks of velvet and gold, corresponding with the bed furniture, before a desk of carved ebony. This recess had formerly been the private oratory of the abbot; but the crucifix was removed, and instead there were placed on the desk, two Books of Common Prayer, richly bound, and embossed with silver. With this enviable sleeping apartment, which was so far removed from every sound save that of the wind sighing among the oaks of ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... Grace and my Lady Elizabeth," and the next mention of her is in a licence of Thomas, Archbishop of Canterbury, "authorised thereto by parliament to Henry VIII. (who has deigned to marry the Lady Katharine, late wife of Lord Latimer deceased) to have the marriage solemnised in any church, chapel, or oratory, without the issue of banns." It took place on the 12th July following, in an upper oratory called the Queen's Privy Closet, within the honour of Hampton Court, Gardiner, ...
— Studies from Court and Cloister • J.M. Stone
... the honour of receiving him, and every one wanted to meet him. Places of worship where he was to preach were thronged, and every public meeting where he was expected to speak was fully attended; but all this fervour of welcome was a distress to him, his affection of the throat made oratory painful and often impossible, and the mere going silently to an evening assembly so excited his nerves that he could not sleep for the whole night after. Any sort of display was misery to him; he could not bear to ...
— Pioneers and Founders - or, Recent Workers in the Mission field • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... officiate at a christening. He went. There sat the relatives—intelligent-looking relatives they were. The little clergyman's instinct came to him to make a great speech. He was given to flights of oratory that way—a very dangerous thing, for often the wings which take one into clouds of oratorical enthusiasm are wax and melt up there, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... That is a pregnant query, not hastily to be dealt with by genial after-dinner oratory about the self-governing capacity of the Anglo-Norman race—still less by Fourth of July declamations over what the leader of the Massachusetts Bar used to call the 'glittering generalities' of the American Declaration ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... necessary to effective oratory. The great majority of Negroes in Africa are both orators and logicians. A people who have such noble qualities as this race seems to possess has, as a logical necessity, the poetic element in ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... seemingly so novel and recherche, called out several new speakers. This was the school where Lilie Devereux Blake, Dr. Clemence Lozier, Isabella Beecher Hooker, and others made their first attempts at oratory. ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... attendance of voters at the meeting, showing as it did a preconcerted purpose and design on the part of the employers to use their power as such, to overcome their political opponents, was the cause of great indignation at the meeting, and gave occasion for some flights of oratory which would have fallen upon dull ears but for the potent truth on which they were based. Even the cool and cautious Eliab Hill could not restrain himself from an allusion to the sufferings of his people when he was raised upon the platform, still sitting in his rolling-chair, ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... mine the last epoch is the best, and its utterances will long live a classic in pulpit literature. The pictures of the first epoch are already fading; the fervid oratory of the second epoch depends so much on the personality of the preacher, that as the one grows dim in the distance the other must grow dim also; but the third, more enduring though less fascinating, will remain so long as the heart of man hungers for the truth ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... from which her upbringing had divorced her mind. She would even secretly pray. Greatly daring she fled on several occasions from her visitation of the hostels or slipped out of her home, and evading Mr. Brumley, went once to the Brompton Oratory, once or twice to the Westminster Cathedral and then having discovered Saint Paul's, to Saint Paul's in search of this nameless need. It was a need that no plain and ugly little place of worship would satisfy. It was a need ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... especially gifted in imitating these petitions, with the very intonations of their authors, and these parodies were in great demand on festive occasions. The pet phrases, the choice rhetoric, and the impressive oratory of these prayers were thus made so familiar to us in caricatures that the originals were ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White
... regular steps, Sir Thomas More has exhausted all his eloquence and imagination to work up a piteous scene, in which the queen is made to excite our compassion in the highest degree, and is furnished by that able pen with strains of pathetic oratory, which no part of her conduct affords us reason to believe she possessed. This scene is occasioned by the demand of delivering up her second son. Cardinal Bourchier archbishop of Canterbury is the instrument employed by ...
— Historic Doubts on the Life and Reign of King Richard the Third • Horace Walpole
... other golden youth of his time, he was like a Greek in possession of their liquid tongue and in a mastery of oratory that filled the soul of Giustinian Giustiniani with satisfaction, the young patrician himself had acquired this learning, less with a thought of one day shining in the Senate than because it pleased him as a touch of finish. He was, in some sort, a reaction from the proud and typical Venetian ...
— A Golden Book of Venice • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... were among the principal leaders of the House, and certainly, few were the men in that house whether democrats or republicans, who could outrank them in oratory ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 5, 1920 • Various
... Friar spoke, the sound of his voice seemed to penetrate into her very soul. Though no other of the Spectators felt such violent sensations as did the young Antonia, yet every one listened with interest and emotion. They who were insensible to Religion's merits, were still enchanted with Ambrosio's oratory. All found their attention irresistibly attracted while He spoke, and the most profound silence reigned through the ...
— The Monk; a romance • M. G. Lewis
... memory, as does an actor. Indeed, he repeats the same lecture over and over again, I am told, without the change of a word or of an action. I did not like Mr. Everett's lecture. I did not like what he said, or the seeming spirit in which it was framed. But I am bound to admit that his power of oratory is very wonderful. Those among his countrymen who have criticised his manner in my hearing, have said that he is too florid, that there is an affectation in the motion of his hands, and that the intended pathos of his voice sometimes approaches too near the precipice ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope
... play of imagination in the brain of the opium-eater is as free as that of genius itself, and the creations produced in that state by the pen or pencil are as wildly beautiful as those owed to the nobler influences. In years gone by, the oratory of the statesman in the senate has been kindled by semi-intoxication, when his noble utterances were set down by his auditors to the ...
— Sermons Preached at Brighton - Third Series • Frederick W. Robertson
... villa-covered ridges to the right melting into the Campagna; and far away, the blue, Sabine mountains—'suffused with sunny air'—that look down with equal kindness on the refuge of Horace, and the oratory of St. Benedict. What sharpness of wall and tree against the pearly sky—what radiance of blossom in the neighbouring gardens—what ruin ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... of action slowly. Mr. Rudolph still paused and moistened his lips impatiently. Men can give and take away popularity in the same breath, but a dog fight is arranged by occult forces, and must, like opportunity, be taken when it comes. We are educated to accept oratory, but we need no education in the matter of a dog fight. This red corpuscle was transmitted to us from the Stone Age, and the primordial pleasures alone ...
— Half a Rogue • Harold MacGrath
... began, and in a few minutes had so interested his hearers that they gazed in his face and hung upon his words with rapt attention, while he detailed the incidents of the combats with a degree of fluency and fervour that would have thrown the oratory of Glumm and Kettle quite into the shade had it been told ...
— Erling the Bold • R.M. Ballantyne
... a portal communicated by a long and dark passage with the prior's lodging. This was a sort of inferior castellated mansion, with a spacious hall, and a smaller dining-chamber immediately adjoining. At the end was a fair chapel or oratory. Ascending a flight of stone steps, they came to a low door. The conductor knocked, and De Poininges soon found himself in the presence of the proud Prior of Burscough. He wore a square cap of black stuff, after the fashion of his order. His cloak, or upper garment, ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... {who, to say truth, had been a little ruffled & put beside his oratory} in as few, & yet as obliging words as possible, assured them of entire welcome; &, with a graceful turn, singling out poor Twenty-Ninth of February, that had sate all this while mumchance at the side-board, begged to couple his health with that of the good company before him—which ...
— A Masque of Days - From the Last Essays of Elia: Newly Dressed & Decorated • Walter Crane
... He first affected oratory, and something of a theatrical attitude in his sermons, which greatly attracted the populace; and he startled those preachers who had so long dozed over their own sermons, and who now finding themselves with but few slumberers about them, envied ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... the literary work of the Negro, his pre-eminence in the field of oratory is striking. Since the early nineteenth century until the present time, he is found giving eloquent voice to the story of his wrongs and his proscriptions. Crude though the earlier efforts may be, there is a certain grim eloquence in them that is touching, there must be, because ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various
... their churches possess over the rest of the negroes. A verbatim report of an exhortation given, just before the expedition to Jacksonville, Fla., to the soldiers of Colonel Higginson's 1st South Carolina Volunteers, by one of these negro preachers, would be worthy a place in 'American Oratory.' I remember only one striking passage, where, in his appeal to the troops to fight bravely, he urged them to seek always the post of danger, since heaven would be the immediate reward of all who should ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 2, August, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... selection and also the selections on pages 202, 209, and 231 are fine examples of American oratory, such as was practiced by the statesmen and public speakers of the earlier years of our republic. Learn all that you can about Patrick Henry, Daniel Webster, Edward Everett, Theodore Parker, and other eminent orators. ...
— Eighth Reader • James Baldwin
... declining invitations to dinner-parties and balls. Now, if a woman defies popular decrees by refusing to exhibit herself for the popular entertainment, the horrible whisper is forthwith circulated that she has been 'disappointed,' and is hiding her green wound in her sewing-room or oratory. 'Disappointed,' forsooth! That is what they say of every girl who is not married to somebody by the time she is twenty-five. It matters not whether she cares for him or not. Having but one object in existence, there can be but ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... years ago, before the passing of the Reform Bill, there existed at Cambridge a certain debating club, called the "Union"; and I remember that there was a tradition amongst the undergraduates who frequented that renowned school of oratory, that the great leaders of the Opposition and Government had their eyes upon the University Debating Club, and that if a man distinguished himself there he ran some chance of being returned to Parliament as a great nobleman's ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... infernal regions—of the abiding agonies—the level lake that burneth—the tossing of the waves that glow; and, when he had thrown two or three old women into hysterics, and two or three young ones into fainting-fits, amidst the torrent of his oratory, and the groaning, and the "Lord have mercy upon me's," of his audience, he made a sudden pause. There was a dead silence for half a minute, then suddenly lifting his voice, he pointed to me, and exclaimed, "Behold that beautiful child—observe ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... intentions, beside which our actual achievement seems small. In such moments we should remember that just after the delivery of the Gettysburg Address Lincoln believed it an utter failure. Yet the address was a masterpiece of commemorative oratory. ...
— It Can Be Done - Poems of Inspiration • Joseph Morris
... manners and appearance of force of oratory of, in campaign of 1877 mentioned appreciation by, of value of Tunisian protectorate comparison of Grevy and General amnesty, discussion of the. Germans, want of tact characteristic; position of women among; advance in comfort and elegance among. Germany, feeling in, over ...
— My First Years As A Frenchwoman, 1876-1879 • Mary King Waddington
... Methinks I could find a thousand arguments against it. Well, then, let yonder shaggy rock, mid-deep in the surf,—see! he is somewhat wrathful,—he rages and roars and foams,—let that tall rock be my antagonist, and let me exercise my oratory like him of Athens, who bandied words with an angry sea and got the victory. My maiden speech is a triumphant one; for the gentleman in sea-weed has nothing to offer in reply, save an immitigable roaring. His voice, indeed, will be heard a long while ...
— Footprints on The Sea-Shore (From "Twice Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... every subtle trick of intellect which could possibly be employed by an experienced man of the world who has a wide knowledge of his fellows. Nothing which could be effected by pleasantness of demeanour, by moving oratory, by clouds of flattery, and by the occasional insertion of a coin into a palm did he leave undone; with the result that he was retired with less ignominy than was his companion, and escaped actual trial on a criminal charge. Yet he issued stripped ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... in the case of the abbot of Torun, M. 22 E. 3. 24. who had caused a certain prior to be summoned to answer at Avignon for erecting an oratory contra inhibitionem novi operis; by which words Mr Selden, (in Flet. 8. 5.) very justly understands to be meant the title de novi operis nuntiatione both in the civil and canon laws, (Ff. 39. 1. C. 8. ...
— Commentaries on the Laws of England - Book the First • William Blackstone
... this, he hated ceremonies, presentations, receptions in hotels, and all the promiscuous contact of political gatherings. Nevertheless, when he came to such an occasion no living man acquitted himself better. Apart from his oratory, he had an admirable manner, a dignified yet friendly courtesy which gained attachment. In the course of the autumn and winter following the Irish Council Bill he must have met and been seen by a hundred times more of his adherents than in any similar period of his leadership. ...
— John Redmond's Last Years • Stephen Gwynn
... principles and practice of their own national jurisprudence, a careful training in the schools of the rhetoricians, and a fondness for either partaking in or watching the intellectual strife of forensic oratory had become generally diffused, without, however, having humanized the old Roman spirit of cruel indifference to human feelings and human sufferings, and without acting as the least checks on unprincipled avarice and ambition or on habitual and ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 2 • Various
... been called the greatest of Protestant commentators and theologians, and the inspirer of the Puritan exodus. He often preached every day for weeks in succession. He possest two of the greatest elements in successful pulpit oratory, self-reliance and authority. It was said of him, as it was afterward said of Webster, that "every word weighed a pound." His style was simple, direct, and convincing. He made men think. His splendid contributions to religious ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Volume I - Basil to Calvin • Various
... schoolmistress desirous of enlivening a monotonous existence, Miss Wilkes certainly took us out of ourselves a good deal. Did my Father know what danger he ran? It was the opinion of Miss Marks and of Mary Grace that he did not, and in the back-kitchen, a room which served those ladies as a private oratory in the summer-time, much prayer was offered up that his eyes might be opened ere it was too late. But I am inclined to think that they were open all the time, that, at all events, they were what the French call 'entr'ouvert', that enough light for practical purposes ...
— Father and Son • Edmund Gosse
... Catholicism is well known. His first successes of oratory in the House of Lords were due to the cause of Catholicism in Ireland, which he defended; and when he wished his little daughter Allegra to be brought up in the Catholic faith, he wrote to Mr. Hoppner, British consul at Venice, who had always taken ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... after this incident I tried to avoid Doctor Khayme, but as he had charge of our rhetoric and French, as well as oratory, it was impossible that we should not meet. In class he was reserved and confined himself strictly to his duties, never by tone or look varying his prescribed relation to the class; yet, though his outward gravity and seeming indifference, I sometimes felt that he influenced me ...
— Who Goes There? • Blackwood Ketcham Benson
... Catiline, nor perils, nor factions, nor Rome. But now bankruptcy, hideous bankruptcy, is there; it threatens to consume you, your properties, your honour, and yet you deliberate!" Mirabeau had carried away the assembly by his oratory; and the patriotic contribution was ...
— History of the French Revolution from 1789 to 1814 • F. A. M. Mignet
... Katharine said. "Until last August! Poised kingdoms topple on the brink of ruin, now that you bid me come to you again. And I bade this devil's grandson come to me, as my lover!" Presently she went into her oratory ...
— Chivalry • James Branch Cabell
... only that," she continued. "He reminds me of that man whom we all used to go and hear preach at the Oratory. He was the same in the pulpit and when one saw him in the street. His eyes seemed to see through one; he seemed to be living in ...
— The Illustrious Prince • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... into a beautiful young girl, or a wrinkled old Jew, or an Artful Dodger, or anything else you had a fancy for. Music, again—think of the effect of that slow music in the first act. There was pathos for you, if you like. Oratory—talk of Demosthenes or Cicero, Mr Gladstone or John Bright! Why, they're nowhere, my dear young friend, literally nowhere. Didn't my description of the dream just fetch you? Be honest now; by George, Sir, it thrilled the house. Look here, young man"—and Sardanapalus began ...
— Austin and His Friends • Frederic H. Balfour
... was born in Lisbon of Marrano parents, who emigrated to Amsterdam a few years after their son's birth. He displayed a youthful talent for oratory, and was a noted preacher in his teens. He started the first Hebrew printing-press established in Amsterdam, and from it issued many works still remarkable for the excellence of their type and general workmanship. Manasseh was himself, not only a distinguished linguist, ...
— Chapters on Jewish Literature • Israel Abrahams
... and were they at the same time fully masters of the language in which they write, there would be occasion for few rules."—Ib., 102. "Rhetoric, or oratory, is the art of speaking justly, methodically, floridly, and copiously, upon any subject, in order to touch the passions, and to persuade."—Bradley's Literary ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... carefully instructed in the more refined Parts of classical Learning; oriental, antient, and modern Languages; Criticism, sacred and profane History, Oratory, Logick, Ethicks, and Metaphysicks; in natural and experimental Philosophy; Anatomy, Botany and Chymistry; the mathematicks, in Theory and Practice; Civil and Canon Laws; Theology, Controversy, and Ecclesiastical History: So that, with a good Capacity, ...
— An Essay on the Antient and Modern State of Ireland • Henry Brooke
... word, in what manner a sentence strikes, springs, rushes, flows, and comes to a close; he alone had a conscience in his ears, often enough a bad conscience: for reasons are not lacking why proficiency in oratory should be especially seldom attained by a German, or almost always too late. The masterpiece of German prose is therefore with good reason the masterpiece of its greatest preacher: the BIBLE has hitherto been the best German book. Compared with Luther's Bible, almost everything else is ...
— Beyond Good and Evil • Friedrich Nietzsche
... some, that good debaters depend for their refutation on the inspiration of the moment. Great speakers often spend incalculable time in preparing to answer the arguments of the opposition. Webster's Reply to Hayne, which is a recognized masterpiece of oratory, and which is almost entirely refutation, was at first thought to have been composed over night, but Webster declared that all the material he had used had lain in ...
— Practical Argumentation • George K. Pattee
... great Penitentiary goes in state to S. John Lateran's. He is met, before he enters their college, by the minor penitentiaries, who at this basilic are Franciscans, minori osservanti. Having sprinkled those present with holy water, he goes up to their private oratory[44] in the Lateran palace, whither he is escorted by the prelates and other ministers of the apostolic Penitenzieria. After a short prayer, he proceeds to the library, where he holds the Segnatura ...
— The Ceremonies of the Holy-Week at Rome • Charles Michael Baggs
... so opposite in character, was never disturbed by any collision in the courts. In a letter written, I think, a few weeks after he had made that "Reply to Hayne" which is conceded to be one of the great masterpieces of eloquence in the recorded oratory of the world, Webster wrote jocularly to Mason: "I have been written to, to go to New Hampshire, to try a cause against you next August.... If it were an easy and plain case on our side, I might be willing to ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... discontents,—ethical and religious,—of the world; from him I learnt how to speak in public. He was then an actor, a sort of wandering 'Bohemian,'—but he soon tired of the sordidness of the stage and aspired to higher platforms of work, and he had already begun to lead the people by his powers of oratory, as he leads them now. I heard him speak in French as fluently as in English; and I resolved on my part to speak likewise in English as easily as he did in French. And when we parted it was with a mutual ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... subtler form which is essentially that of the Soul, and that my own experience of it, still so imperfect, so fragmentary, when compared with the experience of the highly trained, is like the first struggles of a child learning to speak compared with the perfect oratory of the practised speaker; that consciousness, so far from being dependent on the brain, is more active when freed from the gross forms of matter than when encased within them; that the great Sages spoken of by H.P. Blavatsky exist; that they ...
— Annie Besant - An Autobiography • Annie Besant
... at the age of eighty-six, and the letter of Mad. de Sevigne, of the date of Sept. 23, 1671, will alone consign him to the respect of future ages;[6] Jean Paul de Ardenne, superior of the congregation of the oratory of Marseilles, one of the most famous florists of the period in which he lived, and who devoted great part of his time in deeds of charity; Francis Bertrand, who, in 1757, published Ruris delicae, being poems from Tibullus, Claudian, Horace, and from many French writers, ...
— On the Portraits of English Authors on Gardening, • Samuel Felton
... little. Lady Carey made a little speech, I remember that, but just what she said I have forgotten. "Much pleasure in rewarding skill," "Dear old Scottish game," "English sportsmanship," "Race not to the swift"—I must have been splashed with these drops from the fountain of oratory, for they stick in my memory. Then, in turn, the winners were called up to select their prizes. Wilson, the London attorney, headed the list; the sporting curate came next; Heathcroft next; and then I. It had not occurred to me that I should win a prize. In fact I had not thought ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln
... date set, and then was witnessed the remarkable spectacle of the conservative members denouncing the Government with the fiery oratory of Socialist agitators. The president himself, Michael Rodzianko, who hitherto had always been a stanch supporter of the autocracy, being a prosperous landowner and the father of two officers in a crack regiment, arraigned Sturmer as ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume VI (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... Webster, and near General Scott, and heard the whole of the speech. It was heavy in the extreme, and I confess that I was disappointed and tired long before it was finished. No doubt the speech was full of fact and argument, but it had none of the fire of oratory, or intensity of feeling, that marked all of Mr. ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... with a trade can do things. A theorist can say things. Things done with the hands are wealth, things said with the mouth are words. When the housing shortage is over and we find the nation suffering from a shortage of words, we will close the classes in carpentry and open a class in oratory." ...
— The Iron Puddler • James J. Davis
... cultivating, even clinging to a certain plebeian strain, never so apparent as when he spoke, or in his gestures. He was a Member of Parliament for a Labour constituency, a shrewd and valuable exponent of the gospel of the working man. What he lacked in the higher qualities of oratory he made up in sturdy common sense. The will-o'-the-wisp Socialism of the moment, with its many attendant "isms" and theories, received scant favour at his hands. He represented the solid element in British Labour politics, and it was well known ...
— The Devil's Paw • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... where good spirits ought to have been. Along the walls were fixed seats, like those in the apse of some morally fallen cathedral, and they were covered with blue threadbare magnificence that told the secrets of vanity. Heavy tables crowded down the centre of the room. I came, saw, and fled. The oratory was the most thrilling place of all. It opened out of my sister's room, which was a large, sombre apartment. It was said to attract a frequently seen ghost by the force of its profound twilight and ...
— Nathaniel Hawthorne • George E. Woodberry
... is the speech which I was going to make, but our minister, General Schenck, presided, and after the blessing, got up and made a great long inconceivably dull harangue, and wound up by saying that inasmuch as speech-making did not seem to exhilarate the guests much, all further oratory would be dispensed with during the evening, and we could just sit and talk privately to our elbow-neighbors and have a good sociable time. It is known that in consequence of that remark forty-four perfected speeches died in the womb. The depression, the gloom, the ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... stunned his hearers for the time being. Some members said afterwards that they could hear their own watches ticking. Then Mr John Redmond, the Leader of the Irish Nationalist Party, rose and said, in a slow, and deliberate voice, which contrasted strikingly with his usual style of oratory: ...
— The World Peril of 1910 • George Griffith
... his explanation that shapely hands played so important a part in pulpit oratory. For that matter, she now accepted whatever he said or did with admirable docility. It was months since he could remember her venturing upon a critical attitude ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic
... climbed up to them, and told them with oratory that they now had a Prince who wore a blue coat and white breeches, they grasped their rifles, and kissed wife and children, and went down the mountain and offered their lives in defense of the white coat and the ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... "May God bless our dear old brother Nikky," says the peasant as he tastes his morning glass of rakia. There is no brilliance but a profound knowledge of human nature in this humorous old Balkan gentleman. It is not by brilliant oratory that he sways the Skup[vs]tina, for he merely thinks aloud; slowly and haltingly, while he caresses his beautiful white beard, the words come out in a very bass voice—it is a grave and confidential talk, although a merry ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 1 • Henry Baerlein
... mansion, and before Its walls there was a steed caparisoned. Within an antique oratory lay The boy of whom I spake; he was alone, And pale and tossing to ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... child, which was granted to him. He then made acquaintance with the Marquis de Pompadour, who, as we have said, was one of the pages of honor. When he was of an age to decide on his profession, he joined the Fathers of the Oratory. He was a clever and an ambitious man, but, as often happens to the greatest geniuses, he had never had an opportunity ...
— The Conspirators - The Chevalier d'Harmental • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... that? What age? Run over the times of your life—by yourself, if you are ashamed before me. Did you examine your principles when a boy? Did you not do everything just as you do now? Or when you were a stripling, attending the school of oratory and practising the art yourself, what did you ever imagine you lacked? And when you were a young man, entered upon public life, and were pleading causes and making a name, who any longer seemed equal to you? And at what moment would you have endured another examining your principles ...
— The Golden Sayings of Epictetus • Epictetus
... eye in the house," he says, "except some of the jackasses who had occasioned the oratory.... The ladies wished his soul ...
— Revolutionary Heroes, And Other Historical Papers • James Parton
... first as one might watch a game of skill, enjoying the intellectual form of it, and counting the good points, but by the end he was not a little carried away. The peroration was undoubtedly very moving, very intimate, very modern, and Langham up to a certain point was extremely susceptible to oratory, as he was to music and acting. The critical judgment, however, at the root of him kept coolly repeating as he stood watching the people defile out of the church: 'This sort of thing will go down, will make a mark; Elsmere is at the beginning ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... without any further promises, to sell a lot of bogus lockets at five dollars each, and in a few minutes had disposed of about forty. Having, therefore, about two hundred dollars in his pocket, and trade slackening, he coolly observes, with a terseness and clearness of oratory that would ...
— The Humbugs of the World • P. T. Barnum
... midday dinner approached and there was no sign of Miss Thackeray's return from the woods. Barnes sat for two exasperating hours on the porch and listened to the confident, flamboyant oratory of Mr. Lyndon Rushcroft. His gaze constantly swept the line of trees, and there were times when he failed to hear a word in whole sentences that rolled from the lips of the actor. He was beginning to feel acutely uneasy, when suddenly ...
— Green Fancy • George Barr McCutcheon
... in his oratory when he heard the mingled singing and shouting, and at the same moment a servant entered in great alarm, despite the strict regulation of the Arch-priest that he was never to be interrupted at his prayers. This man announced that a body of fanatics was coming down the hill, but ...
— Massacres Of The South (1551-1815) - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... this convention were up to the high standard of those which had preceded them during the past years, and no organization in existence, of either men or women, can show a more brilliant record of oratory. As Mrs. Stanton, Lucy Stone and Miss Anthony came on the platform the first evening they were enthusiastically applauded. The mental and physical vigor of Mrs. Stanton was much commented upon as in a rich and resonant voice she read the speech which she had ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... thought of John Randolph, with his sway over the minds of others, with a "wit and eloquence that recalled the splendours of ancient oratory," yet with so little command over himself that his weak frame sometimes sank beneath the excitement of his temper, and gusts of passion were succeeded by fainting-fits; and when the one desire of his heart was denied, when a love mighty as every other passion ...
— Words of Cheer for the Tempted, the Toiling, and the Sorrowing • T. S. Arthur
... Stanfield, George Cattermole, the good Tom Landseer, Frank Stone, and other old friends were members, and where, out of much enjoyment and many disputings,[27] there arose, from Dickens and all of us, plenty of after-dinner oratory. The closing months of this year of 1839 had special interest for him. At the end of October another daughter was born to him, who bears the name of that dear friend of his and mine, Macready, whom he asked to be her godfather; and before the close ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... "this is very interesting, both as a point of view and as oratory; but it isn't business. Peter, we came down this morning to take whatever legal steps are necessary to put Dot in possession of her grandmother's money, of which I have been trustee. Here is a lot of papers about it. I suppose everything is there ...
— The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him • Paul Leicester Ford
... and his councellors. Forthwith I sought out a lonely spot known to me of old in the region of Troyes, and there, on a bit of land which had been given to me, and with the approval of the bishop of the district, I built with reeds and stalks my first oratory in the name of the Holy Trinity. And there concealed, with but one comrade, a certain cleric, I was able to sing over and over again to the Lord: "Lo, then would I wander far off, and remain in the wilderness" ...
— Historia Calamitatum • Peter Abelard
... motion in the House of Commons, and his speech was a truly marvellous feat of oratory. He was interrupted on all sides of the House, and in a speech of nearly five hours in length never once lost the thread ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey
... man was at first ignorant. Impatience at detention in such a place warred with strict conceptions of duty, yet his excellent training in subservience to his Church and a ready gift of oratory assisted him in a decision to do the best he could for the new paroisse, heretofore so distinctively Catholic, of Juchereau de St. Ignace. That M. Poussette's congregation was more distingue than numerous ...
— Ringfield - A Novel • Susie Frances Harrison
... equality and personal intimacy among the Fabians to allow of any member presuming to get up and preach at the rest in the fashion which the working-classes still tolerate submissively from their leaders. We knew that a certain sort of oratory was useful for 'stoking up' public meetings; but we needed no stoking up, and, when any orator tried the process on us, soon made him understand that he was wasting his time and ours. I, for one, should be very ...
— The History of the Fabian Society • Edward R. Pease
... festival of Minerva, for whom he had appointed a college of priests, out of which were chosen by lot persons to preside as governors over the college; who were obliged to entertain the people with extraordinary chases of wild-beasts, and stage-plays, besides contests for prizes in oratory and poetry. He thrice bestowed upon the people a largess of three hundred sesterces each man; and, at a public show of gladiators, a very plentiful feast. At the festival of the Seven Hills [803], he distributed large hampers of provisions ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... pardon one of their great leaders, all of whom fell victims in one shape or another to a temper frivolous as that of a child, ferocious as that of men,—'espece de moutons enrages, toujours menes par la nature, et toujours par nature devorant leurs bergers.' As for their oratory, 'the tribune of Athens would have been the disgrace of mankind if Phocion and men like him, by occasionally ascending it before drinking the hemlock or setting out for their place of exile, had not in some sort balanced such a mass ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3) - Essay 4: Joseph de Maistre • John Morley
... oratory that flooded the country in the month preceding the elections the Prime Minister's sentence on Ireland at the Albert Hall passed almost unnoticed in English and Scottish constituencies, or was quickly lost sight of, like a coin in a cornstack, under sheaves ...
— Ulster's Stand For Union • Ronald McNeill
... little thrown back. It wasn't so easy to tell these gentlemen anything new, harnessed as he was at this moment; so he looked back at his honourable supporter for some further hint. "Say something about their daughters," whispered George, whose own flights of oratory were always on that subject. Had he counselled Mr Moffat to say a word or two about the tides, his advice would not have ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... confidentially, of matters within his professional competency. During that year and the next Lord Cromer spoke with increasing frequency. There were great differences of opinion with regard to his efficiency in Parliament. I may acknowledge that I was not an unmeasured admirer of his oratory. When he rose from his seat on the Cross-bench, and advanced towards the table, with a fine gesture of his leonine head, sympathy was always mingled with respect. His independence and his honesty were patent, and his slight air of authority satisfactory. His public voice ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... place (1) his wonderful personality, (2) his boundless vitality and energy, (3) his heartfelt sympathy for the downtrodden ones of the world, (4) his wonderful ideas and ideals, (5) his quickness of intelligence, (6) his ardent patriotism, (7) his remarkable powers of oratory, and (8) his almost uncanny gift of seeing into the future—and you have a man whose superior it would indeed be hard to find. Nietzsche would have welcomed him as his superman incarnate! I have never wavered in my admiration for L. G. Even when he was in hot water ...
— War Letters of a Public-School Boy • Henry Paul Mainwaring Jones
... who was to love her and be the all of her solitary life. I said she dwelt with the Fairy; true, but of her presence she had never dreamed. Always invisible, the being had yet never left her. She whispered prayer in her ear, as she knelt morning and evening in the dim little oratory; she brought calm and happy feelings to her breast, which the commonest things awoke to joy and life; she led her to seek and feel for the needy, the sick, and the suffering; she nurtured in her the holiest faith in God, and trust in man; yet the maiden thought she breathed all this from the summer ...
— Dawn • Mrs. Harriet A. Adams
... the general decadence, as it ever must be, since they always respond to the dominant ideals of a time and a people. To this general statement the exception must be noted that philosophy, as represented by Plato and Aristotle, and oratory, as represented by a long succession of Attic orators, had developed into higher and better forms. The history of human experience has shown that philosophy often becomes more subtle and more profound in times when men fall away from their ancient high standards, and ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... and of varied and profound learning, eminently versed in mathematics and natural sciences, abounding in classical lore, endowed with a vast memory, and gifted with a concise, clear, and graceful style; rich and fluent in conversation, but without the least pretension to oratory and wholly incapable of extempore speaking. He was removed from the presidency of St. John's by a board of democratic trustees because of his federal politics; and, years afterward, he gave his son ...
— Oration on the Life and Character of Henry Winter Davis • John A. J. Creswell
... He shouted loudly at once for descending and offering battle. "But boys," he added, "first wait till I adthress the meeting," and he made for the opening in the canvas through which the outside platform was reached. Stump oratory and a free fight were just the two temptations which Donovan was wholly unable to resist; it was with a face radiant with devil-may-care delight that he burst through the opening, followed by all the rest (who felt that the matter was out of their hands, ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... delivered the first of a course of lectures on German Literature, at Willis's Rooms, on Tuesday, to a very crowded and yet a select audience of both sexes. Mr. Carlyle may be deficient in the mere mechanism of oratory; but this minor defect is far more than counterbalanced by his perfect mastery of his subject, the originality of his manner, the perspicuity of his language, his simple but genuine eloquence, ...
— On the Choice of Books • Thomas Carlyle
... sweeping gestures of a hand which suggested a prehensile, well-inked claw, welcomed him in an outburst of oratory, iridescent with adjectives which gushed from him like a volume of water from a fire-plug, that made Crowheart's jaw drop. While Symes may have felt that the editor was going it rather strong when he compared him to the financial geniuses of the world beginning with Croesus ...
— The Lady Doc • Caroline Lockhart
... integrity and existence of our civilisation. The labour-question and the race-question and the international question, aroused by the presence of the Chinese within our borders, will from time to time cause agitation and provoke discussion and heated debate and evoke oratory of one kind or another; but the question which should be uppermost in the minds of wise statesmen is how shall they be assimilated to our life? How shall we make them Christians? The answer will be the best solution of ...
— By the Golden Gate • Joseph Carey
... Burns, Longfellow, Tennyson, Hume, Gibbon, Prescott, Thackeray, Dickens, De Musset, Balzac, Gautier, Flaubert, Goethe, Schiller, Dante, and Tasso. There were shelves and shelves of encyclopedias, of anthologies, of "famous classics," of "Oriental masterpieces," of "masterpieces of oratory," and more shelves of "selected libraries" of "literature," of "the drama," and of "modern science." They made an effective decoration for the room, all these big, expensive books, with a glossy ...
— The Turmoil - A Novel • Booth Tarkington
... the winds are blowing the great clouds along the sky, this pale prisoner is condemned to pore over title-deeds which secure the "quiet enjoyment" of the land to others; and if they imitate the oratory of their superiors, they will remark upon the strange injustice, that he should be bound down a slave to musty papers, which give to others those pastures from which he never reaps a single blade of grass, and which he is not even permitted ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various
... days Miss Duncan and Dr. Hepburn, instructors, respectively, in English and Latin, and Dr. Darrow, professor of Oratory and Dramatic Expression, had been interviewed and had consented to act as judges. The moment these preliminaries had been attended to, Gertrude Wells had begun an elaborate poster to hang above the bulletin board in Overton Hall announcing the contest. At the bottom of the poster ...
— Grace Harlowe's Fourth Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... Southampton, and addressed by a famous preacher of total abstinence. The meeting was enthusiastic, and the Blue Ribbon was freely distributed. Next morning the lady anxiously asked her cook what effect the oratory had produced on her, and she replied, with the evident sense of narrow escape from imminent danger, "Well, my lady, if Mr. —— had gone on for five minutes more, I believe I should have taken the Ribbon too; but, thank goodness! he ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... Irene is inconsolable. Intensely Greek, and patriotic, and not a little versed in politics, she sees nothing cheering in the situation of the Empire. The vigils of night in her oratory are leaving their traces on her face. Her eyes are worn with weeping. I find it impossible not to sympathize with so much beauty tempered by so many virtues. When the worst has befallen, perhaps my Lord will know how ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace
... I betook myself to a certain wilderness previously known to me, and there on land given to me by certain ones, with the consent of the Bishop of the region, I constructed out of reeds and straw a sort of oratory in the name of the Holy Trinity where, in company with one of our clergy, I might truly chant to the Lord: "Lo I have wandered far off, and have remained ...
— Readings in the History of Education - Mediaeval Universities • Arthur O. Norton
... 1692, and entered St. John's College, Cambridge, in 1709. After obtaining his degree he was invited to take charge of the Grammar School in his native place, and raised it from decay. He published Esther, a poem; went to London; introduced action into pulpit oratory; missing preferment, gave lectures and orations, religious on Sundays, and political on Wednesdays; was described by Pope in the Dunciad as the Zany of his age, and represented by Hogarth upon a scaffold with a monkey by his side saying Amen. He edited a paper of nonsense called the Hip Doctor, ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... ineffectual, remains recorded in condemnation, perhaps against the utterer and listener alike, but assuredly against one of them. We shall not so easily bear with the silk and gold upon the seat of judgment, nor with ornament of oratory in the mouth of the messenger: we shall wish that his words may be simple, even when they are sweetest, and the place from which he speaks like a marble rock in the desert, about which the people ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume II (of 3) • John Ruskin
... course or by artificial methods. Above all, he must not be deluded into believing that his condition can be permanently bettered by a mere battledoor [sic] and shuttlecock of words, or by any process of mere mental gymnastics or oratory. What is desired along with a logical defense of his cause are deeds, results,—continued results, in the direction of building himself up, so as to leave no doubt in the mind of any one of ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... remained shattered and stupefied by this terrible interview. At length he arose, and made his way, he scarce knew how, to the oratory. But it was long before the tumult of his thoughts could be at all allayed, and he had only just regained something like composure when he was disturbed by hearing a slight sound in the adjoining chamber. A ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... talents as he had. Whoever wished to talk with him about personal, moral or religious conditions found in him a profitable counsellor. In his preaching, which was equal to anything America has ever known, he made no attempt to win his hearers by tricks of oratory or by emotional appeals, though he had a most fascinating personality. He was six feet in height, slender in form, with a high, broad forehead, eyes piercing and luminous and a serene countenance. In the pulpit he was graceful, easy, natural and earnest, though he had little ...
— Jukes-Edwards - A Study in Education and Heredity • A. E. Winship
... In great oratory the same transposition takes place. Almost every one can recall occasions when there was an absolute fusion of thought, feeling and emotion between the speaker and the audience—when one mind dominated all, and every heart beat in unison with his. The ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard
... while New York met it with a glow of fascinated horror, like an inevitable earthquake, and heard Ternina announce it with conviction that made nerves quiver and thrill as they had long ceased to do under the accents of popular oratory proclaiming popular virtue. Flattery had lost its charm, ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... Oratory and poetry—all foolishness, I say. Better far are drawing-lessons, and raffia-work, and clay-modeling than: "I come not here to talk," and "A soldier of the Legion lay dying at Algiers," and "Old Ironsides at anchor lay." (I observe that these lines are ...
— Back Home • Eugene Wood
... much objection to this plan, but he proceeded to carry it out, taking all three boats this time, loaded with "wares of exchange, with corn and other seeds, with hens and cocks of Castile." This region he called the Province of Campanna de la Cruz, and he left orders for the building of an oratory or chapel to be named the Chapel of Our Lady de la Buena Guia. The river he called the Rio de Buena Guia (good guidance) from the motto on the viceroy Mendoza's coat of arms. It was Tuesday, the 14th of September, when he started, taking with ...
— The Romance of the Colorado River • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... I never do if I would," I made her answer. "Here my every thought is reverence as in the oratory of a saint." ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... Iphigenia in Aulis, and Hecuba, is as brief and energetic in his expression as Shakspeare himself. Simplicity of language, energy of thought, and force of passion, are the grand characteristics of the Greek drama, as they were of the Greek oratory, and their combination constituted the excellence of both. The fire of the poet, the reach of imagination, was reserved for the chorus, which frequently exhibited the most sublime specimens of lyric poetry, rivalling the loftiest strains of the Pindaric muse. Thus the audience, in a short piece, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... Before an altar with a gentle bride; Her face was fair, but was not that which made The starlight of his boyhood:—as he stood Even at the altar, o'er his brow there came The self-same aspect, and the quivering shock That in the antique oratory shook His bosom in its solitude; and then— As in that hour—a moment o'er his face The tablet of unutterable thoughts Was traced—and then it faded as it came, And he stood calm and quiet, and he spoke The faltering vows, but heard not his own words, And all things reeled around him: he ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt
... made himself an ardent advocate of his brother's reforms, and with such impassioned oratory that he gained adherents on every side. He made himself active in all measures of public progress, advocating the building of roads and bridges, the erection of mile-stones, the giving the right to ...
— Historic Tales, Volume 11 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... settled more cases by compromises, however, than I tried before a jury. I got the reputation of being successful by full preparation and a thorough knowledge of the facts and law of the case. In addressing a jury I rarely attempted flights of oratory, and when I did attempt them I failed. I soon learned that it was better to gain the confidence of a jury by plain talk than by rhetoric. Subsequently in public life I preserved a like course, and ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... elekto—ajxo. Opulence ricxeco. Opulent ricxa. Opusculum libreto, brosxuro. Or aux. Oracle orakolo. Oral vocxa, parola. Orange orangxo. Orange (colour) orangxkolora. Orangery orangxerio. Oration parolado. Orator oratoro, parolisto. Oratory (chapel) pregxejeto. Oratory elokventeco. Orchard fruktarbejo. Orchestra orkestro. Ordain ordeni. Ordeal provo, ekzameno. Order, to put in ordigi. Order (goods) mendi. Order (command) ordoni. Orders (instructions) instrukcio. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... for people who would undertake to move themselves, the third of the population of a planet, over a distance that meant years of voyaging. They might have tastes in costume that he did not share, and they might go in for elaborate oratory instead of matter-of-fact statements, but ...
— The Pirates of Ersatz • Murray Leinster
... produced among his hearers; or to the fable, which was spoken by Menenius Agrippa to the Roman populace; by which an illiterate multitude were brought back to their duty as citizens, when no other species of oratory could prevail. ...
— An Essay on the Slavery and Commerce of the Human Species, Particularly the African • Thomas Clarkson
... the men who had attended this strange Parliament of unpractical enthusiasts, there was a Prussian country squire by the name of Bismarck, who had made good use of his eyes and ears. He had a deep contempt for oratory. He knew (what every man of action has always known) that nothing is ever accomplished by talk. In his own way he was a sincere patriot. He had been trained in the old school of diplomacy and he could outlie his opponents just as he ...
— The Story of Mankind • Hendrik van Loon
... be overcome and the impression to be absolutely evolved from such a work, in order to make it at once true to Nature and to character;—we might repeat the declaration, that no figure, ancient or modern, so entirely illustrates the classic definition of oratory, as consisting in action, as the statue of Patrick Henry, which seems instinct with that memorable utterance, "Give me liberty or give me death!" The inventive felicity of the design for one of the pediments of the Capitol might be unfolded as a vivid historic poem; and it requires no imagination ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... the woman's curses and imprecations upon us filled the grey silence of the street. At last a porter on his way to work passed us, and she transferred her attentions and oratory to him. Dick ...
— To-morrow? • Victoria Cross
... statesman must be an orator. Schoolboy-like, they judge on English precedents. In England, the Parliament is omnipotent; it makes and unmakes administrations, therefore oratory is a necessary corollary in a statesman; but here the Cabinet acts without parliamentary wranglings, and a Jackson is the true type of an American statesman. Washington was not an orator, ...
— Diary from March 4, 1861, to November 12, 1862 • Adam Gurowski
... employment, in the arts and sciences, in the highest range of literature, in philosophic and mathematical investigations, in the professions of law, medicine, and divinity, in high scholarship, in educational training and supervision, in rhetoric and oratory, in the lyceum, or in discharging the official duties connected with the various departments of the State ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... lying habit called confession, which the Army encourages because it lends itself to dramatic oratory, with plenty of thrilling incident. For my part, when I hear a convert relating the violences and oaths and blasphemies he was guilty of before he was saved, making out that he was a very terrible fellow then and is the most contrite and chastened of Christians now, ...
— Bernard Shaw's Preface to Major Barbara • George Bernard Shaw
... a short speech between each item on the programme, burst forth, almost before J. P. had sat down, with the further announcement, accompanied by a great deal of oratory, that the temperance forces would carry their banner to victory and mount over every difficulty even as his Highland ancestors had stormed the heights of Alma. For when Lawyer Ed got upon the platform, a strange transformation always came over him. His Hibernianism ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith
... calamity that had befallen him. The whispered disgrace had become a public record. Would he defend his son against the charges? All in all, it was a most sensational scandal—one sure to move a congregation more deeply than the richest oratory. ...
— The Scarlet Feather • Houghton Townley
... in the beginning of March that the captive trio, in charge of Elmingo Leget, arrived at Kenilworth. Two rooms were allotted for the use of Constance and Maude. The innermost was the bedchamber, from which projected a little oratory with an oriel window; the outer, the "withdrawing chamber," which opened only into a guardroom always occupied by soldiers. Bertram was permitted access to the Princess's drawing-room at her pleasure, and her pleasure was to admit him very frequently. She found her prison-life ...
— The White Rose of Langley - A Story of the Olden Time • Emily Sarah Holt
... to Tom, lighted one, and had begun to talk with a rhetorical and sententious balancing of periods—which, to his mind, full of the oratory of Prentiss, was the essence of impressiveness—when a negro woman entered the room. And ...
— An Arkansas Planter • Opie Percival Read
... savors of bombast to many Americans, but in the history of political and military oratory in their own land they can find an endless number of speeches that, in that particular quality, rival if they do not surpass it. The Cuban situation was desperate, and the Cuban attitude was one of fixed determination. Productive industry was generally ...
— Cuba, Old and New • Albert Gardner Robinson
... brilliant lawyer and statesman, the American Demosthenes who could sway multitudes by his matchless oratory, once said, "In order to succeed a man must have a purpose fixed, then let his motto be VICTORY OR DEATH." When Henry Clay, the poor country boy, son of an unknown Baptist minister, made up his mind to ...
— Eclectic School Readings: Stories from Life • Orison Swett Marden
... man be all this and not be a gentleman; and not have had an education in the midst of the best company—an insight into the most delicate feelings, and wants, and usages? The pulpit oratory of such a man would be invaluable; people would flock to listen to him from far and near. He might out of a single teacup cause streams of world-philosophy to flow, which would be drunk in by grateful thousands; and draw out of an old pincushion points of wit, morals, and experience, that would ...
— The Fitz-Boodle Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... others he reads, "Soit fait comme vous desirez." And to the Subsidys, as well that for the Commons, I mean the layety, as for the Clergy, the King writes, "Le Roy remerciant les Seigneurs, &c., Prelats, &c., accepte leur benevolences." The Speaker's speech was far from any oratory, but was as plain (though good matter) as any thing could be, and void of elocution. After the bills passed, the King, sitting on his throne, with his speech writ in a paper which he held in his lap, and scarce looked off of it, I thought, ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... witness, John Adair. The judge hesitated, Burr had nothing to say, and the spectators manifested signs of democratic protest against being disappointed in their hopes of a forensic entertainment. Burr's lawyers were very willing to treat the populace to a taste of oratory, which, in the guise of legal discussion, might produce remote political effects, for office-seeking was a fine art in the good old days of Jackson and Clay. Colonel Allen arose to insist that the investigation ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... fantastic oratory, utterly unexpected as it was, had as yet left their wits no time to set their tempers on fire; but when, weak from his wounds, he paused for breath, there was a haughty murmur from more than one young gentleman, who took his speech as an impertinent interference ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... not then convicted of baseness by this conduct, who hast received benefits from me such as thou acknowledgest thou hast, and doest us no good in return, but evil, as far as in thee lies? Thankless is your race, as many of you as court honor from oratory before the populace; be ye not known to me, who care not to injure your friends, provided you say what is gratifying to the people. But plotting what dark design have they determined upon a decree of death against my child? Did fate impel them ...
— The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I. • Euripides
... friends or scaring enemies. No sound-hearted man ever rose from talk with him with a tithe of the veneration felt by those who sat at the feet of Washington or Hamilton or Channing. Neither was his position due to oratory: he could deal neither in sweet words nor in lofty words. Yet, in spite of these wants, he wrought on the nation ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... at the further end, holding forth to the audience, was—not a man, as I had expected—but a Woman, and that woman, MOTHER OLDERSHAW! You never listened to anything more eloquent in your life. As long as I heard her she was never once at a loss for a word anywhere. I shall think less of oratory as a human accomplishment, for the rest of my days, after that Sunday evening. As for the matter of the sermon, I may describe it as a narrative of Mrs. Oldershaw's experience among dilapidated women, profusely ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... member of the Oratory of Jesus, in Paris, which was opposed by the Jesuits, completed the development of Cartesianism in the religious direction adopted by Pascal. His thought is controlled by the endeavor to combine Cartesian metaphysics and Augustinian Christianity, those two great forces ...
— History Of Modern Philosophy - From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time • Richard Falckenberg
... of commons. With the exception of Mr. Peel, who filled the post of leader in that house, there was no man who could fight their battles of debate with any degree of talent and vigour, no one that held any high place in public opinion, either for oratory or information. Finally, the ministry increased their unpopularity by prosecutions for libel arising out of the Catholic relief bill. While that bill was pending, the press had given birth to much vehement and angry discussion, and some of the papers having gone beyond the ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... for that town did not remind me, as Versailles did, both of happy times and of the misfortunes of France. I took with me a nun of l'Enfant-Jesus, to give an unquestionable pledge of my religious principles. The school of St. Germain was the first in which the opening of an oratory was ventured on. The Directory was displeased at it, and ordered it to be immediately shut up; and some time after commissioners were sent to desire that the reading of the Scriptures should be suppressed in my school. I inquired what books were to be substituted in their stead. After some ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... me too large, and too unusual a digression, to have been composed by Judas on this occasion. It seems to me a speech or declamation composed formerly, in the person of Judas, and in the way of oratory, that lay by him, and which he thought fit to insert on this occasion. See two more such speeches or declamations, Antiq. B. VI. ch. 14. ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... the writings of Thackeray a reality quite inexpressible, there was a secret delight in finding it justified in his speaking; for he speaks as he writes -simply, directly, without flourish, without any cant of oratory, commending what he says by its intrinsic sense, and the sympathetic and humane way in which it was spoken. Thackeray is the kind of "stump orator" that would have pleased Carlyle. He never thrusts himself between you and his thought. If his conception of the time and his estimate ...
— Literary and Social Essays • George William Curtis |
