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More "Conversationalist" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... "there's no reason why we shouldn't go on with that amusing argument. I'm sorry that you have to express yourself lying on your back on the floor, and, as I told you before, I've no more notion why you are there than the man in the moon. A conversationalist like yourself, however, can scarcely be seriously handicapped by any bodily posture. You were saying, if I remember right, when this incidental fracas occurred, that the rudiments of science might with advantage ...
— The Club of Queer Trades • G. K. Chesterton
... conversational gladiators. He had one advantage which has pretty well disappeared from modern society, and the disappearance of which has been destructive to excellence of talk. A good talker, even more than a good orator, implies a good audience. Modern society is too vast and too restless to give a conversationalist a fair chance. For the formation of real proficiency in the art, friends should meet often, sit long, and be thoroughly at ease. A modern audience generally breaks up before it is well warmed through, and includes enough strangers to break the magic ...
— Samuel Johnson • Leslie Stephen
... pathological lying, we have discriminated against as not being profitable for us to discuss here, while not denying, however, the possibility in some instances of lies coexisting with actual delusions. We well remember a patient, a brilliant conversationalist and letter writer, but an absolutely frank case of paranoia, whom we had not seen for a period during which she had concocted a new set of notions involving even her own claim to royal blood, confronting us with a merry, significant smile ...
— Pathology of Lying, Etc. • William and Mary Healy
... The brilliant conversationalist never monopolizes the talk, as such a method would prevent his most telling points or his keenest wit from having dramatic expression. If he tells an anecdote which holds the attention of the table or of the circle of listeners, he permits his duller neighbor to tell the next, not only ...
— The Etiquette of To-day • Edith B. Ordway
... talker; he was admittedly more a talker than a conversationalist. But this quality had nothing in common with self-assertion or love of display. He had too much respect for the acquirements of other men to wish to impose silence on those who were competent to speak; and he had great pleasure in listening to a discussion on any ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... are a conversationalist. You are not an elegant, sprucely dressed abbe; you are an abbe who is cynical and ill- natured, who likes to fancy himself a savage amid the comfortable surroundings of ...
— Youth and Egolatry • Pio Baroja
... Raphael Morghen, the engraver, and that curious example of the Florentine universalist, whose figure we saw under the Uffizi, Leon Battista Alberti (1405-1472), architect, painter, author, mathematician, scholar, conversationalist, aristocrat, and friend of princes. His chief work in Florence is the Rucellai palace and the facade of S. Maria Novella, but he was greater as an influence than creator, and his manuals on architecture, painting, and the study of perspective helped to bring the arts to perfection. ...
— A Wanderer in Florence • E. V. Lucas
... that she had nothing particular to do till four that day, and had immediately "pinned her." Besides disliking Mrs. Wolfstein, Lady Holme was a little afraid of her. Like many clever Jewesses, Mrs. Wolfstein was a ruthless conversationalist, and enjoyed showing off at the expense of others, even when they were her guests. She had sometimes made Lady Holme feel stupid, even feel as if a good talker might occasionally gain, and keep, an advantage over a lovely woman who did not talk so well. The sensation ...
— The Woman With The Fan • Robert Hichens
... upheld Mr. Gresley as a clergyman, but as a conversationalist the young vicar wearied him. If the truth were known (which it never was), he had arranged to visit Hester when he knew Mr. Gresley would be engaging the reluctant attention of ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley
... days all the male Pikes in the camp sat on the log in front of Sam's door, and expressed their sympathy as did the three friends of Job—that is, they held their peace. But on the fourth their tongues were unloosed. As a conversationalist the Pike is not a success, but Sam's actions were so unusual and utterly unheard of, that it seemed as if even the stones must have wondered ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... later and the four of them were outside in the verandah taking ices together. Rawlins might have been, and no doubt was, a finished scoundrel, but there was no question as to his fascinating manner and his brilliant qualities as a conversationalist. A man of nerve too, and full of resources. All the same, Littimer was asking himself and wondering who the man really was. By birth he must have been born a gentleman, Littimer did not doubt ...
— The Crimson Blind • Fred M. White
... grieved about something, and he asked me if I hadn't time to go away into a quiet place where we could talk it over by ourselves; but he had a kind of a cruel, insincere look in his eye, and I said no, I believed I didn't care to, and that I was a poor conversationalist, anyhow; and so I came away, and left him looking at his brass locket and kicking holes in the ground ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... been a brilliant and laudatory conversationalist, and had so soothed and exhilarated Mr. Hutchinson that such perils had beset him as his most lurid imaginings could never have conceived in his darkest moments of believing that the entire universe had ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... conversation will read and learn up all about Procyon, Pizemysi, and Pyrheliometer, Quotelet, Quintal, and Quito, Regulus, Ramazan, Rheumatism, Rhynchops, Rum-Shrub, and Rupar, Samoyedes, Semiquaver, Sahjehanpur, Silket, Sinter, and Size. When it is known what a gay conversationalist he is, he may induce some one to put him up for a cheery Club, where he will be Blackie-balled. Still, by studying the Cyclopedia carefully, with a view to being ready with words for charades and dumb-crambo during the festive Christmas-tide, he may once again achieve ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, October 4, 1890 • Various
... conversationalist is so delightful," said Mrs. Windsor, "I wonder more people don't follow it. You are too generous, Esme; you took it up out of pure ...
— The Green Carnation • Robert Smythe Hichens
... younger people, Bjoernson was a better talker than conversationalist. Sometimes he came out with decidedly rash expressions of opinion, conclusively dismissing a question, for instance, with severe verdicts over Danish music, Heyse's excepted, judgments which were not supported by sufficient knowledge of the subject at issue. But much of what he said ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes
... think she said tae me?" Then Drumtochty understood that there had been an incident, and that Elspeth as a conversationalist, if not as a raconteur, had found ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren
... replies to a sportsman's inquiries: "Well, sir, middlin', pretty middlin'. But, oh dear, it's awk'ard this 'ere Twelfth bein' fixed of a Sunday! Now might Mr. Gladstone ha' had hanything to do wi' that arrangement, sir?" An outraged correspondent—a fluent Yorkshire conversationalist, of course—at once corrected the original version and translated it into the true vernacular: "Nobbut middlin', sir, nobbut middlin'. But, ah lad, it's a fond business this puttin' t' Twelfth o' a Sunday. ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... enough brilliant sayings and lively anecdotes in this book to supply an after-dinner speaker or conversationalist for a lifetime. It is wise, witty, ...
— How to Succeed - or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune • Orison Swett Marden
... return from the East, remarked to a friend who had been speaking of the distinguished conversationalist: "Yes, he is certainly more agreeable since his return from India. His enemies might perhaps have said before (though I never did so) that he talked rather too much; but now he has occasional flashes of silence, that make his conversation ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon
... unattached, sat in meagerly furnished quarters with his heels on a table. He is not a doctor, yet he read a book on surgery, and when he went over to the club he carried the book under his arm and continued to read it there. He is considered a rotten conversationalist, and he did nothing at the club to ...
— King—of the Khyber Rifles • Talbot Mundy
... be a good conversationalist, though he prefers to close his eyes and listen to others. Nothing pleases him better than to lure a man on and draw him out and encourage him to turn his mind wrong side out and empty it. He then richly repays this confidence by saying that if it doesn't rain any more we will ...
— Nye and Riley's Wit and Humor (Poems and Yarns) • Bill Nye
... philosophy, religious works, poetry, et cetery, the whole selected by eight of the most eminent professors of literature in our colleges and universities, both at home and abroad. Or I indulge in conversation, in which what better guide than is to be found on page 662, 'The Polite Conversationalist,' including gems of wit, apt quotations, how to gain and hold the attention, how to amuse, instruct and argue, et cetery? When it is remember that all this, and much more, can be had for only five dollars, neatly bound in cloth, one dollar down and one dollar a month until ...
— Kilo - Being the Love Story of Eliph' Hewlitt Book Agent • Ellis Parker Butler
... wished to smoke. The requesting of permission to do so, it struck him, might open the way to conversation. He was not an ardent conversationalist, but it seemed to him rather ridiculous that two persons should thus travel together in a canoe without saying a word ...
— One Day's Courtship - The Heralds Of Fame • Robert Barr
... friend, Barbour Lathrop, with whom I had been associated in journalism in San Francisco and who is famous from the Bohemian Club literally around the globe and in many of its most out-of-the-way islands as a most entertaining, albeit incessant, story-teller and conversationalist. Pretty nearly all subjects that interest humanity have engaged his attention. He could no more rest from travel than Ulysses; and he brought to those he associated with all the fruits that faring forth in strange lands could ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... "A charming conversationalist, one Comrade Parker, hinted at something of the sort," said Psmith, "in a recent interview. Cosy Moments, however, cannot ...
— Psmith, Journalist • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... reminiscences of those who knew him (and he was known in half the countries of Europe), out of which we can construct a portrait. One finds in the Life of Sir Charles Dilke, for instance, that Dilke considered Turgenev "in the front rank" as a conversationalist. This opinion interested one all the more because one had come to think of Turgenev as something of a shy giant. I remember, too, reading in some French book a description of Turgenev as a strange figure in the literary circles of Paris—a ...
— Old and New Masters • Robert Lynd
... excellent conversationalist; humorous without being cynical, scholarly without being pedantic, and showing especial familiarity with ...
— At the Time Appointed • A. Maynard Barbour
... last Bernard Shaw has been nothing but a conversationalist. It is not a slur to say so; Socrates was one, and even Christ Himself. He differs from that divine and that human prototype in the fact that, like most modern people, he does to some extent talk in order to find out what he thinks; whereas they knew it beforehand. But he has the ...
— George Bernard Shaw • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... away to the prince and the Lump, and was quite content with the grunts of assent with which the prince punctuated her observations. But she was presently annoyed to find that he shone no more as an assistant mushroomer than as a conversationalist. It was not so much that he was ignorant of the difference between mushrooms and toadstools, and equally unskilful in discovering either, as that he often trod on the fairest members of the group he was picking. Pollyooly therefore gave ...
— Happy Pollyooly - The Rich Little Poor Girl • Edgar Jepson
... no accounting for tastes, and we went in to dinner, and began to talk of less gruesome things. Lorrimore was a brilliant and accomplished conversationalist, and the time passed pleasantly until, as we men were lingering a little over our wine, and Miss Raven was softly playing the piano in the adjoining drawing-room, the butler came in and whispered to his master. Raven turned an astonished face ...
— Ravensdene Court • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher
... Geoffrey Westbourne—how shall I describe him? Tall and commanding in figure, with glossy purple-black hair, and the midnight eyes that matched it, he was eminently handsome, and, as everybody agreed, a splendid conversationalist. Notwithstanding his acknowledged superiority to all others, and the fact that he was petted and caressed by every one, I felt an instinctive repugnance to him, that for a long time I tried in vain to overcome. Perhaps it was because I had heard him so highly ...
— Clemence - The Schoolmistress of Waveland • Retta Babcock
... the Lord knows I certainly shall rejoice to have some o' my own to talk to, f'r blood is thicker 'n water, 'n' although I don't want to hurt your feelin's, Mrs. Lathrop, still you can't in conscience deny 's you ain't no conversationalist. Nobody is that I know hereabouts, neither. The minister talks some, but I 'm always thinkin' how much more I want to tell him things 'n I ever want to hear what he has to say, so I can't in truth feel 's his talkin' gives me much pleasure. Mrs. Macy 's great on gaspin', but she don't as a ...
— Susan Clegg and Her Friend Mrs. Lathrop • Anne Warner
... an extraordinary character. He was urbane in manner and a pleasant conversationalist. Like the majority of the Boers he was deeply religious, and tried to introduce the precepts of his religion into his daily life. Although he was sixty-five years old when the war began he had the energy and spirit of a much younger ...
— With the Boer Forces • Howard C. Hillegas
... favoured with his epistles preserved them as literary curiosities, under lock and key, by reason of the writer's rare faculty of expressing the most atrocious things in correct and even admirable English. Chaster than snow as a conversationalist, he prostituted his mother-tongue, in letter-writing, to the vilest of uses. Friends of long standing called him an obscene old man. When taxed with this failing—by Mr. Eames, for instance, who shivered at what he called PRAETEXTATA VERBA—he would ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... a great source of comfort to Bob during the lonely days at the Hat Ranch. At night she sang to him, or sat contentedly at his side while he told her whimsical tales of his wanderings. He was an easy, natural conversationalist, the kind of a man who "listens" well—an optimist, a dreamer. He was, seemingly, possessed of a fund of unfailing good-nature, and despite the fact that the past seven years of his life had been spent far from that civilization in which he had ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... conversation, in which I employed all that I had in memory, and all that had been created in myself by the electric collision of great authors. Never did a professional wit more ingeniously produce as sudden coruscations the bon mots tediously studied; never did a philosophical conversationalist use to more advantage the wisdom conned over in the closet. I talked eloquently, profoundly. I rattled forth witticisms and poetical quotations. I amazed her. The man whom she thought incapable of any ideas beyond his ledger, and ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... about Henry, too, is his lack of discernment regarding men. I have known him speak glowingly, and with unabated enthusiasm, of 'a most interesting chap' he has met at his club, referring to him as 'altogether delightful,' 'a charming conversationalist,' and so on, until I have felt impelled to ask Henry to bring ...
— Our Elizabeth - A Humour Novel • Florence A. Kilpatrick
... devoted to the selection of a topic, good taste demanding that one should sedulously avoid any subject of which one's vis-a-vis may be in ignorance. Nor are the mere words alone to be considered. In the art of conversation much depends upon manner. The true conversationalist must, in opening, invest himself with an atmosphere of interest and solicitude. He must, as we say in French, be prepared to payer les rais de la conversation. In short, he must 'give ...
— The Hohenzollerns in America - With the Bolsheviks in Berlin and other impossibilities • Stephen Leacock
... larger than a bronco. The oil prospector was astride a rangy roan. He was no horseman, but as a perpetual-motion conversationalist the old wildcatter broke records. He was a short barrel of a man, with small eyes set close together, and he made a figure of fun perched high up in the saddle. But he permitted no difficulties of travel to interfere with ...
— Gunsight Pass - How Oil Came to the Cattle Country and Brought a New West • William MacLeod Raine
... and had not entirely forgotten it. He told anecdotes of Lincoln, Stanton, Sumner, Fremont, Garibaldi, the Count of Paris, and many other famous men whom he once knew, and proved to be a very interesting conversationalist. ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... to me as a conversationalist, As you wrote in your note you appreciate my sensible conversation I am afraid you overestimate me. I have a friend who is really brilliant, and can converse eloquently upon any subject. May ...
— The Erie Train Boy • Horatio Alger
... with thoughtful eyes. Though his attire was neater than it had been when she had seen him on other occasions, he still wore the bush packer's usual dress. There was, however, a subtle grace in his manner, and, though he was by no means a brilliant conversationalist, there was something in his voice and the half-whimsical tricks of fancy which now and then characterized him that made a wide distinction between him and the general hired hand. Once more it seemed to her that when he had called the ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss
... she said, "is a very good 'quid pro quo'—is that right?—and I have no doubt that it is more or less true; and for a doctor to speak truth and a professor to be under stood is a matter for angels. And I actually believe that, in time, you will be free from priggishness, and become a brilliant conversationalist; and—suppose we wander on to our proper places in the scene. . . . Besides, I want to see that ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... of the luncheon. An adept conversationalist, he created conversationalists on every side. Mrs. Prohack liked him at once. Sissie could not keep her eyes off him. Charlie was impressed by him. Lady Massulam treated him with the familiarity of an intimate. Mr. Prohack alone was sinister in attitude. Ozzie brought the great world into the room ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett
... George IV. was Prince, the clever talkers certainly abounded; and men talk well or ill exactly as there is a demand for the article. The wittiest conversationalist that ever existed would be powerless in a circle of these modern "Unsurprised ones." Their vacant self-possession would put down all the Grattans and Currans and Jeffreys and Sydney Smiths in the world. I defy the most brilliant, the readiest, the most genial of talkers to vivify the mass ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever
... at the Harvard Medical School, and wrote some scientific works, he is best known as the author of poems and essays, mostly humorous, light, and fanciful. He was very popular in his time as a witty conversationalist and ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... matrimonial plunge again. Chesterton seems to think it is amusing to poke fun at those who are sensible enough to wish to make lunacy a sufficient ground for divorce. 'The process' he says, 'might begin by releasing somebody from a homicidal maniac and end by dealing with a rather dull conversationalist.' He might have added, to make the joke complete, or from some one who snores, or keeps cats, or reads ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Patrick Braybrooke
... general conversation General Grant was the most reticent of men, but among those whom he knew a most entertaining conversationalist. He went over a wide field on such occasions and was interesting on all subjects, and especially instructive on military campaigns and commanders. He gave me as his judgment that among all the military ...
— My Memories of Eighty Years • Chauncey M. Depew
... was, in every sense, a choice spirit: gentle, kindly, and of a most remarkably even temperament. His knowledge of art, his wide reading, his extensive travel, and an interest in every phase of the world's doings, made him a rare conversationalist, when inclined to talk, and an encyclopedia of knowledge as extensive as it was accurate. It was very easy to grow fond of Father Kipling, and he won Bok's affection as few men ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok
... doubt a charming conversationalist—in English; but he does not know one single word of any other language. He requires every observation of their alien fellow-travellers to be translated, and then says 'Oh!' discontentedly, or 'It seems to me that foreigners have no ideas.' And not for one ...
— Some Private Views • James Payn
... the Colonel's own family, the boys who had enlisted and those who were left behind, the war spirit of Canada, its women and their work and their heroism (here the Colonel talked softly), the war and its prospects. The Colonel was a brilliant conversationalist when he exerted himself, and he told of the way of the war in England, of the awakening of the British people, of the rush to the recruiting offices, of the women's response. He had tales, too, of the British Expeditionary Force which he had received in private ...
— The Major • Ralph Connor
... stogie, Tomboy Taylor was a mighty attractive dish, and I knew that she could also be a bright and interesting conversationalist if she wanted to be. Under other circumstances I might have enjoyed the company, but it was no pleasure to know that every grain of her one hundred and fourteen pounds avoirdupois was Barcelona's Personal Property. At that moment I realized that I was not too much concerned with what Barcelona's ...
— The Big Fix • George Oliver Smith
... cultivated a style peculiarly his own; was proud of his rhetoric; not averse to speaking of himself, often in the third person, and he could bestow praise upon the person he was talking about without the least embarrassment. Taylor was not a conversationalist, but on paper he could put his meaning so plainly that there could be no mistaking it. He knew how to express what he wanted to say in the fewest well-chosen words, but would not sacrifice meaning to the construction of ...
— Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete • Ulysses S. Grant
... for you to do a little washing for me." The old creature was glad to get it, as I agreed to pay her what it was worth. Her name was Aunt Daphne, and if she had been a politician, she would have been a success. I do not remember of a more fluent "conversationalist" in my life. Her tongue seemed to be on a balance, and both ends were trying to out-talk the other—but she was a good woman. Her husband was named Uncle Zack, and was the exact counterpart of Aunt Daphne. He always sat in the chimney ...
— "Co. Aytch" - Maury Grays, First Tennessee Regiment - or, A Side Show of the Big Show • Sam R. Watkins
... contained nothing but the dead ashes of bygone money; but one morning business picked up with a jerk. He found a mine investment agent awaiting him when he arrived, and before he was through with this clever conversationalist a man was in to get him to buy a racing stable. Affairs grew still more brisk as the morning wore on. Within the next two hours he had politely but firmly declined to buy a partnership in a string of bucket shops, to refinance a defunct irrigation company, to invest in ...
— The Making of Bobby Burnit - Being a Record of the Adventures of a Live American Young Man • George Randolph Chester
... and then, too. Gin'rally I haven't anyone to talk to but the First Mate, bless his sociable heart. He's a mighty good listener, and has forgot more'n any MacAllister of them all ever knew, but he isn't much of a conversationalist. You're young and I'm old, but our souls are about the same age, I reckon. We both belong to the race that knows Joseph, as Cornelia ...
— Anne's House of Dreams • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... is wonderful; and not only that, she has a brilliant intellect if she could only have advantages, and notwithstanding all the difficulties and obstacles with which she has had to contend, she has already acquired a fair education, is remarkably well informed and a good conversationalist." ...
— The Award of Justice - Told in the Rockies • A. Maynard Barbour
... independently, or of taking things unquestioningly on the authority of others. We may form the habit of carefully reading good, sensible books, or of skimming sentimental and trashy ones; of choosing elevating, ennobling companions, or the opposite; of being a good conversationalist and doing our part in a social group, or of being a drag on the conversation, and needing to be "entertained." We may form the habit of observing the things about us and enjoying the beautiful in our environment, ...
— The Mind and Its Education • George Herbert Betts
... good talker is always welcome, but I often wonder why Americans, who generally are so quick to improve opportunity, and are noted for their freedom from traditional conventionalisms, do not make a more systematic use of the general love of good conversation. Anyone who is a witty conversationalist, with a large fund of anecdote, is sure to be asked by every dinner host to help to entertain the guests, but if the company be large the favorite can be enjoyed by only a few, and those who are too far away to hear, or who are just near enough to hear a part ...
— America Through the Spectacles of an Oriental Diplomat • Wu Tingfang
... corner of the cave, out of the sun, out of sight of the sea, and William prepared to renew his efforts as a conversationalist. In the hope of collecting a few ideas as to what the London clubs were talking about he picked up the discarded newspaper, and saw with disgust that it was the local Herald. But just as he threw it down, a line in it caught his eye and ...
— Once a Week • Alan Alexander Milne
... service were at worst occasional; the embarrassment of the man's talk incessant. He was plainly a practised conversationalist; the nicety of his inflections, the elegance of his gestures, and the fine play of his expression, told us that. We, meanwhile, sat like aliens in a playhouse; we could see the actors were upon ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Cartoner's cigarette with the satisfaction of a conversationalist who has pulled off a ...
— The Vultures • Henry Seton Merriman
... little pride in my French, which had been often praised as elegant and pure, and this had fostered in me a taste for conversation such as was still to be enjoyed in intelligent French society at that time, and of which I had never been deprived at home, my father being an excellent conversationalist, and receiving political friends of great talent as orators and debaters, such as Michel de Bourges, Baudin, Madier-de-Montjau, Boysset, and many others, as ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... are a swell dresser also, and a pleasant conversationalist; in fact, have all the requirements ...
— Fifteen Years With The Outcast • Mrs. Florence (Mother) Roberts
... tones the great orator at once replied, "Knott, you are the only man on earth who could have thought of such a story just at the opportune moment." The temporary depression vanished; Lamar was himself again, and was at once the brilliant conversationalist of ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson
... had sat there looking into those deep, luminous, spiritual orbs, while the conversationalist was interesting them, so that two hours had flown before they thought an hour ...
— A California Girl • Edward Eldridge
... to hold her own in the social circles that it is presumed she will adorn. At least that was the way Miss Thompson looked at the profound problem of girls' education. She herself was accounted "accomplished," a "brilliant conversationalist," and "broadly cultured," with the confident air that the best society is supposed to give, and her business was to impart some of this polish to her pupils. "Conversation," it may be added, was one of ...
— Clark's Field • Robert Herrick
... affection. I remained faithful to the first, J.H., until she was kept by a man, and gave up her gentlemen friends. Then came D.V. She got in the family way and left London. Last, M.P. She was not pretty, but a good figure, well dressed, a bright conversationalist, and an intelligent mind. Her regular price for the night was L5, but when she got to know one she would take one for less and take one 'on tick.' She was very sensual. On one occasion, between 11 P.M. and about midday ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... still fragrant as a most gracious and lovely woman, a brilliant conversationalist, and a queen of society. It is said of her that her tongue never wounded and that she never had ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... sensible to a feeling of annoyance and depression at the accident, but she turned politely to listen to Mrs. Greech's account of a misfortune in which four soup-plates were involved. Mrs. Henry was not a brilliant conversationalist, and her flank was speedily turned by Stephen Thorle, who recounted a slum experience in which two entire families did all their feeding out ...
— The Unbearable Bassington • Saki
... sociable and entertaining in the families under whose roofs they found shelter. Brother Kline had an inexhaustible fund of information gained by reading and traveling, and he was not reserved in the way of keeping it all to himself. Brother Kline was what may be called a good conversationalist. He did not flood your attention with words, nor bore you with tiresome narratives of great exploits in which he was the hero. He would tell you of sights he had seen, and experiences he had had in traveling and otherwise, in a way that would so absorb you in the ...
— Life and Labors of Elder John Kline, the Martyr Missionary - Collated from his Diary by Benjamin Funk • John Kline
... about him in the letters and reminiscences of those who knew him (and he was known in half the countries of Europe), out of which we can construct a portrait. One finds in the Life of Sir Charles Dilke, for instance, that Dilke considered Turgenev "in the front rank" as a conversationalist. This opinion interested one all the more because one had come to think of Turgenev as something of a shy giant. I remember, too, reading in some French book a description of Turgenev as a strange figure in the literary circles of Paris—a large figure with a curious chastity of ...
— Old and New Masters • Robert Lynd
... happened that the word came in very inappropriately, as if tugged heroically to the front by a clumsy conversationalist. ...
— The Last Hope • Henry Seton Merriman
... there had been the tenderest love, for she was all that was left to him of four. In the old days Mrs. Clancy had been the belle of the soldiers' balls, a fine-looking woman, with indomitable powers as a dancer and conversationalist and an envied reputation for outshining all her rivals in dress and adornment. "She would ruin Clancy, that she would," was the unanimous opinion of the soldiers' wives; but he seemed to minister to her extravagance with ...
— The Deserter • Charles King
... early in the season, and only for partridges—afterwards, nothing but No. 5. To the average shot, No. 6 throughout the season." This sounds dreadfully invidious. If a good shot cannot kill grouse with No. 6, how on earth is a merely average shot to do the trick? But, in these matters, the conversationalist finds his opportunity. Only they must not be pushed too far. There was once a party of genial, light-hearted friends, who went out shooting. Early in the day, slight differences of opinion made themselves observed with reference to the size of shot. Lunch found them still more or less ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, October 15, 1892 • Various
... himself sociably in the chair, "there's no reason why we shouldn't go on with that amusing argument. I'm sorry that you have to express yourself lying on your back on the floor, and, as I told you before, I've no more notion why you are there than the man in the moon. A conversationalist like yourself, however, can scarcely be seriously handicapped by any bodily posture. You were saying, if I remember right, when this incidental fracas occurred, that the rudiments of science might with ...
— The Club of Queer Trades • G. K. Chesterton
... that we were in the presence not only of a trained soldier, a linguist and a diplomat, but also of a conversationalist ...
— Frenzied Fiction • Stephen Leacock
... the British metropolis, and treated with great consideration. Under all the trying circumstances of high social life, among the nobility and rarest literary genius of London, this redeemed child of the desert, coupled to a beautiful modesty the extraordinary powers of an incomparable conversationalist. She carried London by storm. Thoughtful people praised her; titled people dined her; and the press extolled the name of Phillis Wheatley, ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... his best to fall in with the humour of the day, and told a good story or two in his slow voice—among them one of his mother exercising her gift of impressive silence towards a tiresome chatterbox of a man, with such effect that the conversationalist's words died on his lips, after the third or fourth pause made for applause and comment. He told the story well, and Lady Torridon seemed to move among them, her skirts dragging majestically on the ...
— The King's Achievement • Robert Hugh Benson
... Manchester, in Edinburgh and Glasgow. Countess Feenix took her up, invited her to dinner parties where she found herself placed next to statesmen in office, who at first morose and nervous—expecting every moment a personal assault—gradually thawed when they found her a good conversationalist, a clever woman of the world, becomingly dressed. After all, she had been a third wrangler at Cambridge, almost a guarantee that her subsequent life could not be irregular, according to a man's standard ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... proved a great source of comfort to Bob during the lonely days at the Hat Ranch. At night she sang to him, or sat contentedly at his side while he told her whimsical tales of his wanderings. He was an easy, natural conversationalist, the kind of a man who "listens" well—an optimist, a dreamer. He was, seemingly, possessed of a fund of unfailing good-nature, and despite the fact that the past seven years of his life had been spent far from that civilization in which he had grown to manhood, in ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... really necessary to warn Nancy not to talk too much and tell all she knew? That was a man's idea of a girl's conversation: to tell all she knew. How absurd! Besides, Nancy was not much of a conversationalist and it's only people who talk all the time who tell secrets. After they exhaust every other subject, they begin to draw on their ...
— The Motor Maids in Fair Japan • Katherine Stokes
... affection for this low-voiced, sweet-tempered, witty American woman has never wavered. Every now and then one hears anew in London drawing rooms of some amusing saying of hers, for she is as gracious and graceful a conversationalist as of yore, and with three young and blooming American duchesses to rival her, still stands well apart from and ahead of them all, at least so far as the homage of our smart and titled society can be accepted as proof ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various
... that something was wrong, and in my innocence I even wondered if possibly my cognac had not been a little too strong. For she suddenly developed into a most brilliant conversationalist, and applauded and laughed at everything I said, and fired off questions at me like a machine gun, so that I had no time to think of anything but of what she was saying. Whenever I stirred she stopped her chattering ...
— In the Fog • Richard Harding Davis
... notice you are a swell dresser also, and a pleasant conversationalist; in fact, have all the requirements if ...
— Fifteen Years With The Outcast • Mrs. Florence (Mother) Roberts
... a conversationalist," said Jack. "You agree with any foolishness as if it were a new theory of ethics. You are an ideal companion. I never have to listen to you in order that I may in turn have ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... have been read only by a mathematician who presided over an observatory in the Ural Mountains. He had an extraordinary power of making his abstruse results clear to the ordinary intellect, and was in various directions a brilliant conversationalist. One day, going into Boston in the omnibus with him, I questioned him as to the famous problem. To my astonishment he went through a demonstration adapted to my intelligence which made me understand the nature of the substitution ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James
... gift of bringing out the best in people. Danvers needed such incentive; although denying it, he was a good conversationalist. Now his whole being responded to this clear-eyed, pleasant-voiced girl who sat in the low rocker beside him. She would understand. The few times he had essayed to speak to others of his service in the Mounted Police, he had met with such indifference that the words were killed; ...
— A Man of Two Countries • Alice Harriman
... who talk of her with moistened eyes and softened tones. "She was a beautiful girl," says her cousin, James McGrady Rutledge, "and as bright as she was pretty. She was well educated for that early day, a good conversationalist, and always gentle and cheerful. A girl whose company people liked." So fair a maid was not, of course, without suitors. The most determined of those who sought her hand was one John McNeill, a young man who had arrived in New Salem from New York soon after the founding of the town. ...
— McClure's Magazine, Volume VI, No. 3. February 1896 • Various
... profession of medicine, was Professor of Anatomy and Physiology at the Harvard Medical School, and wrote some scientific works, he is best known as the author of poems and essays, mostly humorous, light, and fanciful. He was very popular in his time as a witty conversationalist and ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... peculiarly his own; was proud of his rhetoric; not averse to speaking of himself, often in the third person, and he could bestow praise upon the person he was talking about without the least embarrassment. Taylor was not a conversationalist, but on paper he could put his meaning so plainly that there could be no mistaking it. He knew how to express what he wanted to say in the fewest well-chosen words, but would not sacrifice meaning to ...
— Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete • Ulysses S. Grant
... was a type of the gentleman of the old school. Tall, with a commanding figure, expressive features, blue eyes, and light hair, he was a brilliant conversationalist and ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... reticent than Browning in describing his emotions after virtue had passed out of him. He never talked about his poetry if he could help it; and the hundreds of people who met him casually met a fluent and pleasant conversationalist, who gave not the slightest sign of ever having been on the heights. We know, for example, that on the third day of January, 1852, Browning wrote in his Paris lodgings to the accompaniment of street omnibuses the wonderful poem Childe Roland: what a marvellous ...
— Robert Browning: How To Know Him • William Lyon Phelps
... exhilarating. This explains the eternal impulse to decorate totem poles and paint pictures, write poetry and expound philosophy. One of the chief delights of conversation is the opportunity it affords for self-expression. A good conversationalist who monopolizes all the conversation, will be voted a bore because he denies others the enjoyment of self-expression, while a mediocre talker who listens interestedly may be considered a good conversationalist because he permits ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... erudite Latinist, a brilliant conversationalist, a sure and generous friend. He possessed a library extraordinary for an epoch when nothing was read but theology and lives of saints. We have the description of several of his manuscripts; Suetonius, Valerius Maximus, and an Ovid on parchment ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans
... brown eyes, half sad and half voluptuous in their tenderness; the soft, pleading face, with a refinement—even a sort of nobleness—that had outlived the sacrifice of her virtue and reputation. To the last she was a lady of extreme sweetness of manner, and a fascinating and interesting conversationalist. ...
— Danger! A True History of a Great City's Wiles and Temptations • William Howe
... attracts in the pages of a good writer, or the talk of a brilliant conversationalist, is the apt choice and contrast of the words employed. It is, indeed, a strange art to take these blocks, rudely conceived for the purpose of the market or the bar, and by tact of application touch them to the finest meanings and distinctions, restore to them their primal energy, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... had been a brilliant and laudatory conversationalist, and had so soothed and exhilarated Mr. Hutchinson that such perils had beset him as his most lurid imaginings could never have conceived in his darkest moments of believing that the entire universe had ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... the English language, so that one may acquit himself as a correct conversationalist in the best society or be able to write and express his thoughts and ideas upon paper in the right manner, may be ...
— How to Speak and Write Correctly • Joseph Devlin
... much of his spare time as possible with the other passengers of the ship. He was gregarious, a fine conversationalist, and had a nicely-balanced sense of humor. Particularly, he was a favorite of the younger women, since he had reached the age where he could flatter them with his attention without making ...
— The Dueling Machine • Benjamin William Bova
... too keenly to continue in such a light strain. He was no weak-minded, pleasant conversationalist, but a prophet, who knew how to speak hard ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... society, he could not opine; and it annoyed him keenly, for he was, like most society-men, very punctilious regarding the manners of the particular woman who belonged to him. That she was, in fact, an elegant conversationalist, quick and brilliant at repartee, a fine linguist and an intelligent thinker for a ...
— Not Pretty, But Precious • John Hay, et al.
... showed symptoms of beginning again in her quaint universal-conversationalist style her father ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... and nodded. It might be for all he knew or cared. He wondered idly whether she was a poor conversationalist because she got no attention or got no attention because she was ...
— Flappers and Philosophers • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... freezing out such dilatory supper-guests as would fain sit up and talk. This is a system even more effective than the ancient one of mopping up the floors, piling chairs upon the tables, and turning out enough lights to make the room dull. A good post-midnight conversationalist—and Baltimore is not without them—can stand mops, buckets, and dim lights, but turn cold drafts upon his back and he gives up, sends for his coat, buttons it about his paunch and ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street
... sat there looking into those deep, luminous, spiritual orbs, while the conversationalist was interesting them, so that two hours had flown before they thought ...
— A California Girl • Edward Eldridge
... of service were at worst occasional; the embarrassment of the man's talk incessant. He was plainly a practised conversationalist; the nicety of his inflections, the elegance of his gestures, and the fine play of his expression, told us that. We, meanwhile, sat like aliens in a playhouse; we could see the actors were upon some material business and performing well, but the plot of the drama remained undiscoverable. Names ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of conversation, in which I employed all that I had in memory, and all that had been created in myself by the electric collision of great authors. Never did a professional wit more ingeniously produce as sudden coruscations the bon mots tediously studied; never did a philosophical conversationalist use to more advantage the wisdom conned over in the closet. I talked eloquently, profoundly. I rattled forth witticisms and poetical quotations. I amazed her. The man whom she thought incapable of any ideas beyond ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... fearless. As a translator, his work was marked by carefulness and accuracy. In social life, old-fashioned hospitality made every one feel at home, and one would have to travel far to find a more animated and interesting conversationalist. He held his convictions with great tenacity, and was a powerful debater, but ...
— Forty Years in South China - The Life of Rev. John Van Nest Talmage, D.D. • Rev. John Gerardus Fagg
... little time later and the four of them were outside in the verandah taking ices together. Rawlins might have been, and no doubt was, a finished scoundrel, but there was no question as to his fascinating manner and his brilliant qualities as a conversationalist. A man of nerve too, and full of resources. All the same, Littimer was asking himself and wondering who the man really was. By birth he must have been born a gentleman, Littimer did not doubt for ...
— The Crimson Blind • Fred M. White
... Judgment. She was Mistress of all the pleasing Arts of Conversation, but us'd 'em not to any but those who love Plain-dealing.' So she comes before us. A graceful, comely woman,[53] merry and buxom, with brown hair and bright eyes, candid, sincere, a brilliant conversationalist in days when conversation was no mere slipshod gabble of slang but cut and thrust of poignant epigram and repartee; warm-hearted, perhaps too warm-hearted, and ready to lend a helping hand even to the most undeserving, a quality which gathered all Grub Street ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn
... she appealed to him at last, "how might one reopen a—a rather difficult subject with—with a suddenly most difficult conversationalist?" ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... in meagerly furnished quarters with his heels on a table. He is not a doctor, yet he read a book on surgery, and when he went over to the club he carried the book under his arm and continued to read it there. He is considered a rotten conversationalist, and he did nothing at the club ...
— King—of the Khyber Rifles • Talbot Mundy
... to be a poor conversationalist, and her success in fellowship lay in drawing out the interests of others. She was a good listener, rather than an entertainer. Humility was one of her greatest charms and she had no hesitation in confessing her limitations. ...
— The Angel Adjutant of "Twice Born Men" • Minnie L. Carpenter
... Blue and double First at Oxford, weary of gerund-grinding at a fashionable preparatory school for L500 a year, charming conversationalist, expert auction-bridge player, is open to accept partnership in well-established financial house on the basis of four months' holiday a year and genuine ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, June 24, 1914 • Various
... "You are a conversationalist. You are not an elegant, sprucely dressed abbe; you are an abbe who is cynical and ill- natured, who likes to fancy himself a savage amid the comfortable surroundings of ...
— Youth and Egolatry • Pio Baroja
... General Sir Henry Johnson, who was defeated and captured by General Anthony Wayne at Stony Point. Rebecca Franks was one of the most beautiful and brilliant women of her day. Well educated, a gifted writer and fascinating conversationalist, witty and winsome, she was popular in society and one of the belles of the celebrated "Mischianza", which was given May 18, 1778, by the British officers in honor of General Lord Howe upon his departure for England. This was ...
— The Colonial Architecture of Philadelphia • Frank Cousins
... me; and so after two or three "splendid orations," as my friends termed them, I was satisfied with the puffs of the pamphleteers and closed my political career. I was now, then, the wit and the conversationalist. With my fluency of speech and variety of information, these were easy distinctions; and the popularity of a dinner-table or the approbation of a literary coterie consoled me for the more public and more durable applause I ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... sayings and lively anecdotes in this book to supply an after-dinner speaker or conversationalist for a lifetime. It is ...
— How to Succeed - or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune • Orison Swett Marden
... herself that she forgot everybody else and thought more of her rights than her duties. The difference between Mrs. Lasette and Mrs. Larkins was this, that in passing through life one scattered sunshine and the other cast shadows over her path. Mrs. Lasette was a fine conversationalist. She regarded speech as one of heaven's best gifts, and thought that conversation should be made one of the finest arts, and used to subserve the highest and best purposes of life, and always regretted ...
— Trial and Triumph • Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
... anything too seriously is an unconscious policy of fat people. They show it plainly in their actions and speech. The very fat man is seldom a brilliant conversationalist. He is often a "jollier" and tells stories well, especially anecdotes ...
— How to Analyze People on Sight - Through the Science of Human Analysis: The Five Human Types • Elsie Lincoln Benedict and Ralph Paine Benedict
... a voice of rare flexibility and power; a born actor, ranging with ease through every part, from refined comedy to tragic unction, was called upon to reply to a toast. The orator was a very busy man, a charming conversationalist and by no means despised a good dinner; and, I imagine, rose without having given a thought to what he was going to say. The rhythmic roll of sound was admirable, the gestures perfect, the earnestness impressive; nothing ...
— Discourses - Biological and Geological Essays • Thomas H. Huxley
... P., was born without arms or legs, yet it is said that he was a good shot, a skillful fisherman and sailor, and one of the best cross country riders in Ireland. He was a good conversationalist, and an able member of Parliament. He ate with his fork attached to his stump of an arm, and wrote holding his pen in his teeth. In riding he held the bridle in his mouth, his body being strapped to the saddle. He ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden
... her Pittsburgh stogie, Tomboy Taylor was a mighty attractive dish, and I knew that she could also be a bright and interesting conversationalist if she wanted to be. Under other circumstances I might have enjoyed the company, but it was no pleasure to know that every grain of her one hundred and fourteen pounds avoirdupois was Barcelona's Personal Property. At that moment I realized that I was not too much concerned ...
— The Big Fix • George Oliver Smith
... I describe him? Tall and commanding in figure, with glossy purple-black hair, and the midnight eyes that matched it, he was eminently handsome, and, as everybody agreed, a splendid conversationalist. Notwithstanding his acknowledged superiority to all others, and the fact that he was petted and caressed by every one, I felt an instinctive repugnance to him, that for a long time I tried in vain to overcome. Perhaps it was because I had heard him so highly ...
— Clemence - The Schoolmistress of Waveland • Retta Babcock
... much the artist with her needle as with her voice. She wrote and spoke five languages, and often used them with different interlocutors with such readiness and accuracy that she rarely confused them. Her wit and vivacity as a conversationalist were celebrated, and her mots had the point as well as the flash of the diamond. Her retorts and sarcasms often wounded, but she was quick to heal the stroke by a sweet and childlike contrition that made ...
— Great Singers, Second Series - Malibran To Titiens • George T. Ferris
... only one that is considered by Mr. Mahaffy as being absolutely essential to a good conversationalist, is the possession of a musical voice. Some learned writers have been of opinion that a slight stammer often gives peculiar zest to conversation, but Mr. Mahaffy rejects this view and is extremely severe on every eccentricity ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... subjects for dinner conversation will read and learn up all about Procyon, Pizemysi, and Pyrheliometer, Quotelet, Quintal, and Quito, Regulus, Ramazan, Rheumatism, Rhynchops, Rum-Shrub, and Rupar, Samoyedes, Semiquaver, Sahjehanpur, Silket, Sinter, and Size. When it is known what a gay conversationalist he is, he may induce some one to put him up for a cheery Club, where he will be Blackie-balled. Still, by studying the Cyclopedia carefully, with a view to being ready with words for charades and dumb-crambo ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, October 4, 1890 • Various
... poetry, et cetery, the whole selected by eight of the most eminent professors of literature in our colleges and universities, both at home and abroad. Or I indulge in conversation, in which what better guide than is to be found on page 662, 'The Polite Conversationalist,' including gems of wit, apt quotations, how to gain and hold the attention, how to amuse, instruct and argue, et cetery? When it is remember that all this, and much more, can be had for only five dollars, neatly bound in cloth, one dollar down and one dollar a month until paid, what ...
— Kilo - Being the Love Story of Eliph' Hewlitt Book Agent • Ellis Parker Butler
... get out of it. Mrs. Wolfstein had overheard her saying to Lady Cardington that she had nothing particular to do till four that day, and had immediately "pinned her." Besides disliking Mrs. Wolfstein, Lady Holme was a little afraid of her. Like many clever Jewesses, Mrs. Wolfstein was a ruthless conversationalist, and enjoyed showing off at the expense of others, even when they were her guests. She had sometimes made Lady Holme feel stupid, even feel as if a good talker might occasionally gain, and keep, an advantage over a lovely woman who did ...
— The Woman With The Fan • Robert Hichens
... enrich his discourse, whether in private or public. He has often been spoken of as of the Corwin cast, perhaps a slight personal resemblance aiding the suggestion. He certainly has the like gifts of the charming conversationalist and the popular orator, in which last capacity, for many years, he was the prompt choice of the public on leading occasions, such as at the grand reception given to Van Buren after his defeat in 1840; the magnificent reception tendered by the city to Kossuth; at the completion of the Cleveland ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin
... pursued Mr. Truefitt, "a wonderful housekeeper, a good conversationalist, a good cook, always punctual, always at ...
— Salthaven • W. W. Jacobs
... A brilliant conversationalist, Marivaux excelled in the quality, no less rare, of being a good listener, and never gave way to "that distraction which always wounds when it ...
— A Selection from the Comedies of Marivaux • Pierre Carlet de Chamblain de Marivaux
... combat, but at bottom is amicable. An issue which is essentially general and impersonal is lost in the accidental conflicts of personalities, because the quality which plays the most important part is presence of mind, not correct reasoning. A conversationalist whose argument is wholly fallacious will often, by exercise of verbal adroitness, dispose of an objection which is really fatal. The full swing of the personalities of the speakers in a conversation is what makes ...
— Conversation - What to Say and How to Say it • Mary Greer Conklin
... proved rather shy at this first meeting, being content to exchange smiles with the other girls, but their aunt was an easy conversationalist and rambled on about the delights of Hollywood and southern California until they were all in a friendly mood. Among other things Mrs. Montrose volunteered the statement that they had been at the hotel for several weeks, but aside from that remark disclosed ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Out West • Edith Van Dyne
... sight of, the strange young man Mr. V.V., upon whom her eyes had not fallen since a sunny May morning when she had sat and wept before him. He stood quite near, the founder of the Settlement, though in an obscure corner: backed there, it seemed, by a fat conversationalist in a purple bonnet. But there must have been telepathy in Cally's gaze for her one confidant; for she had no sooner descried his tall figure through the fuss and feathers than he turned his eyes and ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... no simpering schoolgirl. She was thirty-five or so and square-jawed, and did her hair plain, and had a managing voice that would go good at club meetings. She read library books and was a good conversationalist. And what did she do the first evening, when Homer was mending one of his shirts by the kitchen lamp, but wrench it away from him roguishly and do the job herself, while she entertained him with conversation. It was bound to be entertaining, ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson
... support to Pitt, by whom he was appointed first lord of the admiralty, in 1794. It was during the period of her husband's brilliant career in this office that the Countess made her greatest success as a hostess in ministerial society. She was a good conversationalist, and especially attractive to men of individuality who admired her sagacious, picturesque pungency of expression. The great naval commanders, who frequented the admiralty, were impressed with the frankness ...
— Some Old Time Beauties - After Portraits by the English Masters, with Embellishment and Comment • Thomson Willing
... of the things that had helped me, some of the sights that had pleased me, some of the thoughts that had fed me. I do not really know what else is the purpose of writing at all; it is only a kind of extended human intercourse. I am not a good conversationalist; my thoughts do not flow fast enough, do not come crowding to the lips; moreover, the personalities of those with whom I talk affect me too strongly. There are people with whom one cannot be natural or sincere. There are people whose whole range ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson
... landscapes and figure pieces as well as marines, but was versatile in his talents. His musical instincts were marked, and, although self-taught, he played on a number of instruments, and he had also, through years of industrious reading and study, become thoroughly well-informed and an interesting conversationalist. He was of a most generous nature, and was not only ever ready to assist young artists with advice and material aid as well, but also, when the occasion arose, to devote the fruit of his labors to any meritorious charitable object. Thus, for example, ...
— Thirteen Chapters of American History - represented by the Edward Moran series of Thirteen - Historical Marine Paintings • Theodore Sutro
... skull-cap and played tedious fugues. This prejudice, needless to say, was dispelled at their first meeting, when she found the crabbed creation of her fancy a man of the world, with gracious, winning manners, and a brilliant conversationalist not only on music, but also on ...
— The Loves of Great Composers • Gustav Kobb
... slipped pleasantly away. Draconmeyer was a born conversationalist,—a good talker and a keen tactician. The food and the wine, too, did their part. Presently Violet lifted her head, the colour came back to her cheeks, she too began to talk and laugh. All the time he was careful not to press home his advantage. He remembered that one night in the library ...
— Mr. Grex of Monte Carlo • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... silent,' said Elena, affecting a lightness of tone which somewhat disguised her voice. 'You have the reputation of being a brilliant conversationalist—exert yourself ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio
... not read that paper on the looking-glass," replied Clarence, whose chief fault as a conversationalist was that he was perhaps a shade too Ollendorfian. "But I know ...
— The Swoop! or How Clarence Saved England - A Tale of the Great Invasion • P. G. Wodehouse
... gifts, Pedro A. Paterno has made his mark in literature with works too numerous to mention; he is a fluent orator, a talented musician, and the composer of the argument of an opera, Sangdugong Panaguinip ("The Dreamed Alliance"). As a brilliant conversationalist and well-versed political economist he has few rivals in his country. A lover of the picturesque and of a nature inclined to revel in scenes of aesthetic splendour, his dream of one day wearing a coronet was nurtured by no vulgar veneration for aristocracy, but by a desire for a recognized ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... red-faced man, who looked like an English sporting publican—the kind of man who wears a fawn-coloured top-coat and drives to the Derby in a dog-cart; and usually there seemed to be nothing on his mind except the vagaries of the weather, concerning which he was a great conversationalist. But now moodiness had claimed him for its own. After a short and melancholy "Good morning," he turned to the task of measuring out ...
— Indiscretions of Archie • P. G. Wodehouse
... 'quid pro quo'—is that right?—and I have no doubt that it is more or less true; and for a doctor to speak truth and a professor to be under stood is a matter for angels. And I actually believe that, in time, you will be free from priggishness, and become a brilliant conversationalist; and—suppose we wander on to our proper places in the scene. . . . Besides, I want to see that strange man, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... I am not a brilliant conversationalist, but she was the most easily amusable person in the world—interested in everything that interested me, and I disdamaged myself (to use one of her Anglo-Gallicisms) of ...
— Peter Ibbetson • George du Marier et al
... in his library, and likes nothing better than to be surrounded by books of all sorts. Every modern book worth reading is forwarded to him by its publisher. He is a very interesting man and a brilliant conversationalist. Perhaps I ought to put all this in the past tense, for now he scarcely ever speaks—he reads next to nothing—it is difficult to persuade him to eat—he will not leave the house—he used to have a rather ruddy complexion—he is now deadly pale and terribly emaciated. ...
— The Strand Magazine: Volume VII, Issue 37. January, 1894. - An Illustrated Monthly • Edited by George Newnes
... points—into a state of conversational unrest in which they would finally ask recklessly, "Have you been to the theater lately?" and she would question gently, "The theater?" as much as to say, "I've heard that word somewhere before," until the conscientious conversationalist, rushing from futility to futility, would be finally engulfed in some yawning banality and sink out of ...
— The Happiest Time of Their Lives • Alice Duer Miller
... the favor of the ministers of the day, and throughout almost all the rest of his life he held important political places, some even, thanks to Swift, during the period of Tory dominance. During his last ten years he was a member of Parliament; but though he was a delightful conversationalist in a small group of friends, he was unable ...
— A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher
... Lisbeth Fisher in her last illness [Cousin Betty.] Finally, in 1844, Dr. Bianchon was consulted by Dr. Roubaud regarding Mme. Graslin at Montegnac. [The Country Parson.] Horace Bianchon was a brilliant and inspiring conversationalist. He gave to society the adventures known by the following titles: A Study of Woman; Another Study of Woman; La ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe
... so that the Broadstone people were obliged to stay indoors. Dick Lancaster found Mr. Fox a very agreeable and well-informed man, and Mrs. Fox was also an excellent conversationalist. Mrs. Easterfield, who, after the confidences of the morning, could not help looking at him as something more than an acquaintance, talked to him a good deal, and tried to make the time pass pleasantly, at which business she was an adept. All this ...
— The Captain's Toll-Gate • Frank R. Stockton
... it is amusing to poke fun at those who are sensible enough to wish to make lunacy a sufficient ground for divorce. 'The process' he says, 'might begin by releasing somebody from a homicidal maniac and end by dealing with a rather dull conversationalist.' He might have added, to make the joke complete, or from some one who snores, or keeps cats, or ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Patrick Braybrooke
... Bernard Shaw has been nothing but a conversationalist. It is not a slur to say so; Socrates was one, and even Christ Himself. He differs from that divine and that human prototype in the fact that, like most modern people, he does to some extent talk in order to find out what he thinks; whereas they knew it beforehand. But he has ...
— George Bernard Shaw • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... a delightful conversationalist. His friends Brander Matthews, Lawrence Hutton and others speak of his ready wit, his kindness of heart, and his wonderfully varied store of information. He was a constant reader, and a good memory enabled him to retain what he read. It is said that one could hardly name a poem that he had not read, ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... why you should become a disciple of the pithy, everyday conversationalist and of the rough-and-ready master of harangue as well as of the practitioner of precise and scrupulous discourse. Many a speaker or writer has thwarted himself by trying to be "literary." Even Burns when he wrote ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... loneliness of the place and the characters it sometimes harboured. As for my host, I had to admit, despite my mental queries, that his bearing and manner completely captivated me, for a more delightful conversationalist it would have been ...
— A Village of Vagabonds • F. Berkeley Smith
... everywhere was a profusion of cut flowers and potted ferns. At the entrance the visitors were greeted by Mrs. Greenleaf, president of the club, who presented them to Miss Anthony. In greeting each new-comer the hostess displayed her remarkable power of memory and brilliance as a conversationalist, having a reminiscent word for every one. In the parlor before the fireplace stood the old spinning-wheel which in 1817 had been a wedding gift to her mother. It was decked with marguerites and received no small ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... too much in earnest to make a pleasant dinner-table conversationalist. As he spoke, he shut one big brown hand. It was a trifling action, and he was, perhaps, unconscious of it, but Helen, who noticed the flicker in his eyes and the vindictive tightening of the hard fingers, shrank from ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... wrong thing in the wrong way! Of course, it was all immensely exaggerated. If one went into chapel, for instance, with a straw hat, which one had forgotten to remove, over a surplice, one had the feeling for several days that it was written in letters of fire on every wall. I was myself an ardent conversationalist in early years, and, with the charming omniscience of youth, fancied that my opinion was far better worth having than the opinions of Dons encrusted with pedantry and prejudice. But if I found myself in the society of these petrified persons, by the time that I had composed a suitable remark, ...
— From a College Window • Arthur Christopher Benson
... a compliment to me as a conversationalist, As you wrote in your note you appreciate my sensible conversation I am afraid you overestimate me. I have a friend who is really brilliant, and can converse eloquently upon any subject. May I bring ...
— The Erie Train Boy • Horatio Alger
... well said that there is a great difference between a brilliant conversationalist and a ready small-talker. The former is apt to be feared, and to produce a silence around him. We all remember Macaulay and "his brilliant flashes of silence." We all know that there are talkers so distinguished that you must not ask both ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
... if she could only have advantages, and notwithstanding all the difficulties and obstacles with which she has had to contend, she has already acquired a fair education, is remarkably well informed and a good conversationalist." ...
— The Award of Justice - Told in the Rockies • A. Maynard Barbour
... now member of the Chamber of Deputies. He learned English when in America, and had not entirely forgotten it. He told anecdotes of Lincoln, Stanton, Sumner, Fremont, Garibaldi, the Count of Paris, and many other famous men whom he once knew, and proved to be a very interesting conversationalist. ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... our mutual friend, Barbour Lathrop, with whom I had been associated in journalism in San Francisco and who is famous from the Bohemian Club literally around the globe and in many of its most out-of-the-way islands as a most entertaining, albeit incessant, story-teller and conversationalist. Pretty nearly all subjects that interest humanity have engaged his attention. He could no more rest from travel than Ulysses; and he brought to those he associated with all the fruits that faring forth in strange lands could give to a mind singularly alert for education and ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... pretty middlin'. But, oh dear, it's awk'ard this 'ere Twelfth bein' fixed of a Sunday! Now might Mr. Gladstone ha' had hanything to do wi' that arrangement, sir?" An outraged correspondent—a fluent Yorkshire conversationalist, of course—at once corrected the original version and translated it into the true vernacular: "Nobbut middlin', sir, nobbut middlin'. But, ah lad, it's a fond business this puttin' t' Twelfth o' ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... known my son as he was to me. I wish all fathers could know their sons as I knew John. He was the most brilliant conversationalist I have ever known. He ...
— A Minstrel In France • Harry Lauder
... Scott were the two most brilliant story-tellers, in their several ways, he had ever happened to meet. Both exerted themselves, and it was hard to say which shone the most.' Indeed His Royal Highness appears to have been a fine conversationalist, with a wide range of knowledge and great humour. We, who have come at length to look upon stupidity as one of the most sacred prerogatives of Royalty, can scarcely realise that, if Georges birth had been never so humble, he would have been known to us as a ...
— The Works of Max Beerbohm • Max Beerbohm
... conscientious conversationalist, but he originated talk in others, and listened to them with his best attention. And he invariably stepped into gaps with praise-worthy tact and skill. Thus the chat meandered easily from subject to subject—the ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett
... over, the AEmilian household partook cheerfully of the social meal. Marina, the wife of Marcus, and Columba sat on carved chairs, the men of the family reclining on the couches constructed to hold three. The bright wit of Sidonius, an eminent conversationalist, shone the more brightly for his rejoicing at his return to his beloved country and flock, and to the friend of his youth. There were such gleams in the storms that were overwhelming the tottering ...
— More Bywords • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Church, and to him is that religious body indebted for that grand institution, "Drew Theological Seminary." Many men would have made a worse use of vast wealth than did Daniel Drew. He was a man who was quiet; he kept his "points," and was a pleasing conversationalist. In 1879 he died, leaving ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis
... the final act of the luncheon. An adept conversationalist, he created conversationalists on every side. Mrs. Prohack liked him at once. Sissie could not keep her eyes off him. Charlie was impressed by him. Lady Massulam treated him with the familiarity of an intimate. Mr. Prohack alone was sinister in attitude. Ozzie brought the great world ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett
... for such was the lady's name, proved an excellent travelling companion. She was not only a splendid conversationalist, but also she knew how to procure warm tea from the porter. Soon she and Nancy were quite at ease with each other, Nancy contributing her share at the entertaining, with her homely gossip of the Monk Road and its people. The baby was her chief solace, however, and its mother only had it during the ...
— Nancy McVeigh of the Monk Road • R. Henry Mainer
... he was a bad listener. His own part was well sustained. His enormous store of varied information poured forth naturally and easily, and was interspersed with a wonderful stock of lively anecdotes and jokes. But he always lacked that greatest power of the conversationalist, that subtle ready sympathy which draws forth the best powers ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... Macaulay's return from the East, remarked to a friend who had been speaking of the distinguished conversationalist: "Yes, he is certainly more agreeable since his return from India. His enemies might perhaps have said before (though I never did so) that he talked rather too much; but now he has occasional flashes of silence, that ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon
... my mother-in-law, Mrs. Simpson, was not only a very charming person in herself, but, partly owing to a natural gift for, and love of, Society, and partly owing to the fact that her father, Mr. Nassau-Senior, the conversationalist, had been one of the best-known men in the political-literary world of London and of Paris, from 1820 to 1860, she knew a very large number of distinguished men and women of the middle Victorian epoch. By this I mean ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... sits cross-legged on a Persian nummud, is a handsome, intelligent-looking man, who seems to be the most pleasant-faced and entertaining conversationalist of the nomads. The kahn grows particularly talkative and communicative, the evening hours flow on, and while addressing his remarks and queries directly to the chief, he gazes about him to observe the effects of his words on the general assembly gathered ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... pretty face which allures him; tomorrow a fine conversationalist, or a musical person may attract. The next day a woman with tremendous vitality may charm him. So he wanders, but he does not intend to stray. One or several streaks in his make-up have been satisfied, but his wife still ...
— The Colored Girl Beautiful • E. Azalia Hackley
... considerable salt. My observation—and experience—has been that men are much more addicted to the snake habit than are women. I gather from Genesis that after the Edenic reptile had done the damage it was condemned to go upon its belly all the days of its life. That indicates that it was not only a good conversationalist, but had legs. Now I submit it to you in all seriousness: which member of the original family was most likely to see such a serpent as that? I think I should have given Adam the Keeley cure, then crossexamined him a ...
— Volume 12 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... about no accounting for tastes, and we went in to dinner, and began to talk of less gruesome things. Lorrimore was a brilliant and accomplished conversationalist, and the time passed pleasantly until, as we men were lingering a little over our wine, and Miss Raven was softly playing the piano in the adjoining drawing-room, the butler came in and whispered to his master. Raven turned an astonished ...
— Ravensdene Court • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher
... strangest meal of which I had ever partaken commenced. Less than a week before, the man sitting in front of me had endeavoured to bring about my destruction; now he was my host, and to all outward appearances my friend as well. I found him a most agreeable companion, a witty conversationalist, and a born raconteur. He seemed to have visited every part of the known globe; had been a sailor, a revolutionist in South America, a blackbirder in the Pacific, had seen something of what he called the "Pig-tail trade" to Borneo, some very queer ...
— My Strangest Case • Guy Boothby
... took to reporting his little sayings about photographs and ornaments, ideals and fashions, he has been setting up as a conversationalist. He thinks he was designed by Providence to that end, and aids his destiny as much as he can by ...
— Select Conversations with an Uncle • H. G. Wells
... older people took the lead in the conversation, while the boys and Della were content to listen unless addressed. Colonel Graham was a brilliant conversationalist, and once he became launched on a series of war stories there was no time for the boys to interrupt, nor had they any inclination. He had been one of the handful of American engineers impressed into a make-shift army by General Byng to stop the Germans when ...
— The Radio Boys with the Revenue Guards • Gerald Breckenridge
... walked back toward the park entrance. The minister seemingly exerted himself to regain the ground he had lost with Orme. He proved an interesting conversationalist—keen, slightly cynical, but not ...
— The Girl and The Bill - An American Story of Mystery, Romance and Adventure • Bannister Merwin
... Chappy, "you want examining. You're not only a shocking bad conversationalist, but also a little mad. That's your doctor's opinion; ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
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