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More "Talker" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... thereto, for he was a golden talker, and he sat in the midst of hero-worship devoid of all taint of self-interest. The boys asked him of the birth of his book, and whether it was hard to write, and how his notions came to him; and he answered ...
— This is "Part II" of Soldiers Three, we don't have "Part I" • Rudyard Kipling
... then, Gagnrad! speakest thou from the floor? Take in the hall a seat; then shall be proved which knows most, the guest or the ancient talker. ...
— The Elder Eddas of Saemund Sigfusson; and the Younger Eddas of Snorre Sturleson • Saemund Sigfusson and Snorre Sturleson
... fine talker, Langdon," said Peabody, coming to Stevens' rescue, "but I can readily see what you are driving at. You want an investigation. You think you will catch some of us with what you reformers call 'the goods,' but forget evidently the entirely simple facts that your family has invested in Altacoola ...
— A Gentleman from Mississippi • Thomas A. Wise
... Widow Steavens? She knows more about it than anybody else. She helped Antonia get ready to be married, and she was there when Antonia came back. She took care of her when the baby was born. She could tell you everything. Besides, the Widow Steavens is a good talker, and she has ...
— My Antonia • Willa Sibert Cather
... he made a noble picture on his big troop-horse before the frowzy band whose gaunted members squatted in the bear-grass, their beady eyes glinting on him under their dirty turbans. And he was a good, persuasive talker. He promised them safe-conduct to the reservation and assured them that their truancy would be overlooked, were they to come ...
— When the West Was Young • Frederick R. Bechdolt
... here.' She pointed to her long neck, where the fine wrinkles marked her age. 'But after all,'... you have the good looks, so what does it matter? Such was her thought, but she did not express it. A brilliant talker, perfectly trained in the fibs and commonplaces of society, a perfect adept in expression and suggestion, she was left without words for the only real feeling which she had ever experienced. And indeed she really was not one of those women who cannot ...
— The Immortal - Or, One Of The "Forty." (L'immortel) - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... good Lord Cardinall? O my Wolsey, The quiet of my wounded Conscience; Thou art a cure fit for a King; you'r welcome Most learned Reuerend Sir, into our Kingdome, Vse vs, and it: My good Lord, haue great care, I be not found a Talker ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... my right sat in grim silence, quizzing each talker in turn with puckered eyes. The only comment he made was a sort of internal rumbling, suggestive of the preliminary ...
— Jimgrim and Allah's Peace • Talbot Mundy
... served to knock me down, Which makes me thus a talker; And once, while I was out of town, ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... one of you men who started out with us, and who have done such fine, loyal work, a good-sized cash bonus. I perhaps don't need to tell you that I never made a speech in my life—so my friends say—but money is a loud talker; so, at the end of the season, we'll let money tell you how much we appreciate the good work you fellows ...
— Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders in the Great North Woods • Jessie Graham Flower
... don't think we made them particularly welcome. It was thus that I first met Arnold Bennett and Clive Bell. One of these casual visitors was Aleister Crowley. He was spending the winter in Paris. I took an immediate dislike to him, but he interested and amused me. He was a great talker and he talked uncommonly well. In early youth, I was told, he was extremely handsome, but when I knew him he had put on weight, and his hair was thinning. He had fine eyes and a way, whether natural or acquired I do not know, of ...
— The Magician • Somerset Maugham
... Turkish renegade, was one of the most interesting men whom we met. He was a marvellous talker—in fact, he never stopped during our visit. How the subject came up has passed my memory, but suddenly he rushed out of the room and brought back a handful ...
— The Land of the Black Mountain - The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro • Reginald Wyon
... Of this period of his life, shortly after the death of Mrs. Browning, Chesterton gives us a clear picture. 'Browning liked social life, he liked the excitement of the dinner, the exchange of opinions, the pleasant hospitality that is so much a part of our life. He was a good talker because he had something ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Patrick Braybrooke
... in the wrong. Bennet, ye should be glad to be corrected," said Sir Oliver. "Y' are a prater, Bennet, a talker, a babbler; your mouth is wider than your two ears. Mend ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 8 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... his death; the ancient Dame Zat al-Dawahi merits her title Lady of Calamities (to her foes); Princess Abrizah appears as a charming Amazon, doomed to a miserable and pathetic end; Zau al-Makan is a wise and pious royalty; Nuzhat al-Zaman, though a longsome talker, is a model sister; the Wazir Dandan, a sage and sagacious counsellor, contrasts with the Chamberlain, an ambitious miscreant; Kanmakan is the typical Arab knight, ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... apron. "If that's so, why doesn't he go to work?" And without waiting for an answer he dodged quickly inside his house. He was building an addition to his home; and naturally he was quite busy. He knew, too, that Mrs. Ladybug was a terrible talker. ...
— The Tale of Daddy Longlegs - Tuck-Me-In Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... the West talk ain't much at all," continued Beasley. "I'm no talker. I jest want to tell my case an' make a deal if you'll have it. I can prove more in black an' white, an' with witness, than you can. Thet's my case. The deal I'd make is this.... Let's marry an' settle a bad ...
— The Man of the Forest • Zane Grey
... having come upstairs at a run. He is a college graduate and volunteer revolutionist, one of the organizers of the "Society of the Friends of Russian Freedom"; handsome and ardent, eager in manner, and a great talker.] Hello, Julia. ...
— The Machine • Upton Sinclair
... and his name would have lingered in my memory, even if it had not been a peculiar one. He was called Vantrasson. He was a tall, robust man, with eyes that made me tremble whenever he fixed them upon me. He was a soldier; intensely proud of his uniform; a great talker, and enchanted with himself. He evidently thought himself irresistible. It was from that man's mouth that I heard the first coarse word at which my unsophisticated heart took offence. It was not to be the last one. He finally told me that he had taken a ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... talker he wouldn't be holding the job he's got," Lone argued. "Don't get the wrong idea again, Swan. Yuh may pin this on to Al, but that won't let the Sawtooth in. The Sawtooth's too slick for that. They'd be more likely to make up a lynching party ...
— Sawtooth Ranch • B. M. Bower
... her stories of his school-days and of the glorious holidays he had spent at his uncle's country home. Arthur was a close observer and an interesting talker, and even Mrs. Perkins sometimes sat up to listen to him. Thomas Perkins said he didn't take much stock in the stories that young English chap told, and so he usually retired to the kitchen, where he ...
— The Second Chance • Nellie L. McClung
... quick upward glance at his hostess' face and then repeated slowly, "Yes'm, dat sutny is de trufe. I ain't nevah t'ought o' that befo'. Hit ain't no ha'dah lookin' out fu' two dan hit is fu' one," and though he was usually an incessant talker, he lapsed into ...
— The heart of happy hollow - A collection of stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... had received and obeyed this order, Captain Clinton, who was a fast talker, had told the corporal just what he wanted him to do, and explained to him the contents of the paper he had copied from his note-book; and Bob, who was quick to comprehend, had caught and weighed all his words as fast as they were uttered. He then put himself at the head of his men and led ...
— George at the Fort - Life Among the Soldiers • Harry Castlemon
... Balzac was perhaps not so brilliant in conversation as were her brothers and sisters. Her mind had something pedantic in it, and she was rather a good listener than a good talker, but whatever she said was to the point, and she was eloquent with her pen. She had that large glance only given to superior minds which allows them, according to the words of Catherine of Russia, 'to read the future in the history of the past.' She observed everything, was indulgent to every ...
— Women in the Life of Balzac • Juanita Helm Floyd
... visit, in which he should express sorrow for the hardships it would be to leave their claims, with the hope that the time was not distant when all might lawfully return, etc. The Major said he was not a speech-maker, or a very good talker, but would read the orders sent to him to dispossess them, and see that they ...
— Autobiography of Ma-ka-tai-me-she-kia-kiak, or Black Hawk • Black Hawk
... of many children, divorced on account of the dissipation, drinking and otherwise, of her husband. She is of the creole type, but large and almost repulsive. She is a brilliant talker and she supports herself by writing. She has fallen in love with a number of young men, 'wildly, madly, passionately,' as one of them told me, and I am sure she suffers greatly from the lack of satisfaction. She would no doubt procure it if it ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... rector have rapped out an uncomplimentary adjective, the duchess would have felt cheered. As it was, a fixed and settled melancholy lay upon her spirit until she saw in a dealer's list an advertisement of a prize macaw, warranted a grand talker, with a vocabulary of over five ...
— The Rosary • Florence L. Barclay
... was over, Radway would smoke a cigar in his company, listening to his stories of old Galway days and sportsmen long since dead. As Jocelyn's memory for immediate things had faded he seemed to remember his early days more clearly, and, like many Irishmen, he was an amusing talker. Gabrielle would sit on a low stool between them in the white dress that Radway loved. It made the solitude for which they were both waiting seem more precious to see her thus at a distance, pale and fragile ...
— The Tragic Bride • Francis Brett Young
... communicate to them all he knows of the gossip of the place; and as each customer supplies him with a little, he of course comes to know more than anybody else. And as his light and easy work lays no stress on his respiration, in course of time he learns to be a fast and fluent talker, with a great appetite for news, but little given to dispute. He acquires, too, if his round of customers be good, a courteous manner; and if they be in large proportion Conservatives, he becomes, in all probability, a Conservative too. The young tailor goes through an entirely different process. ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... questions. On subjects of politics, war, or the abolition of slavery, he was, on the other hand, strongly conservative. He had the aristocratic dread of change. He was distinctly the courtly gentleman, the gifted talker, and ...
— History of American Literature • Reuben Post Halleck
... precious for conversation. What do you think an admiring friend said the other day to one that was talking good things, —good enough to print? "Why," said he, "you are wasting mechantable literature, a cash article, at the rate, as nearly as I can tell, of fifty dollars an hour." The talker took him to the window and asked him to look out and tell ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... white," he replied; "a newspaper, old lady, up to date and go-ahead, like the old 'Firebrand.'" Then he turned again to Kathleen. "You don't know me," he said. "You imagine I am nothing better than a talker; just wait for three ...
— Grey Town - An Australian Story • Gerald Baldwin
... who shared the suppers at the hospitable home of Simms in Charleston none perhaps enjoyed them as vividly as Timrod. He chooses the word that well applies to Timrod's life in all its variations. He was vivid in all that he did. Being little of a talker, he was always a vivid listener, and when he spoke, his words leaped forth like ...
— Literary Hearthstones of Dixie • La Salle Corbell Pickett
... Fort Chiswell. One, whose name was Cutcheon, was a little man with a short forehead and a bad eye, and he wore a weather-beaten blue coat of military cut. The second was a big, light-colored, fleshy man, and a loud talker. He wore a hunting shirt and leggings. They were both the worse for rum they had had on the road, the big man ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... years before, when we crossed the ocean together—he then going as minister to China, and I as attache to St. Petersburg. His discussions both of American and French politics were interesting; but a far more suggestive talker was Mme. Blaze de Bury. Though a Frenchwoman, she was said to be a daughter of Lord Brougham; his portrait hung above her chair in the salon, and she certainly showed a versatility worthy of the famous ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White
... recovered, which he quickly did, from the exhaustion of a long and severe day's work, and his fund of anecdote appeared inexhaustible. Never was any man farther removed from being that insufferable social nuisance, a professed talker. Display of any kind was quite foreign to his nature; and whenever he chanced to encounter a person cursed with that propensity, he would sit in silence for a whole evening: not in the silence of vexation or pique, but of a man left at leisure to pursue his own thoughts, or calmly amuse ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various
... her own family and among her neighbors) had the reputation of being very devotedly pious, who went to her pastor, (an aged and venerable man,) greatly grieved because he was in the habit of combing his hair upwards, so as to cover his baldness. She was afraid it was pride. She was a great talker, and often had difficulties with her brethren and sisters in the church; for she thought it her duty to exercise a watchful care over them. Whether she was self-deceived, or hypocritical, I cannot say; but she used to shed tears freely in her religious conversations. She, however, as I ...
— A Practical Directory for Young Christian Females - Being a Series of Letters from a Brother to a Younger Sister • Harvey Newcomb
... means of communication, the problem is the same. The two methods of inquiry may supplement each other; but their substantial agreement is the test of their accuracy. If Johnson, as a writer, appears to us to be a mere windbag and manufacturer of sesquipedalian verbiage, whilst, as a talker, he appears to be one of the most genuine and deeply feeling of men, we may be sure that our analysis has been somewhere defective. The discrepancy is, of course, partly explained by the faults of Johnson's style; but the explanation ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... Scott, his son-in-law and later biographer, Mr. Lockhart, Sir Walter's daughters, Mrs. Lockhart and Miss Anne Scott. He says Mrs. Lockhart "is just the woman to have success in Paris, by her sweet, simple manners." He had a stately chat with Mrs. Siddons, and Sir James Mackintosh he called "the best talker I have ever seen; the only man I have yet met in England who appears to have any clear or definite notions of us." Rare indeed were these flash-lights of genius that Samuel Rogers charmed to his "feasts of reason and flow ...
— James Fenimore Cooper • Mary E. Phillips
... Sawyer, of Wisconsin. It was in the Senate that I served with him, and came to have for him a very great respect. He was not very well educated, not a lawyer nor an orator, and excepting in a conversational way, not regarded as a talker; yet he was an uncommonly effective man in business as well as in politics, and was once or twice invited to become chairman of the National ...
— Fifty Years of Public Service • Shelby M. Cullom
... scalded bodies and limbs, I got hold of the boy for a moment. I asked him his name and he told it, and then I said: 'You've played football, haven't you?' And he said he had, a little. He wasn't much of a talker, and when some of us said some nice things about what he had done he got horribly fussed and tried to get away. But someone wanted to shake hands with him, and he wouldn't, and I saw that his own hand was burned all inside ...
— Left Guard Gilbert • Ralph Henry Barbour
... was a brilliant 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; ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... asked why he had been gone so long, he blushed, and, as Seth thought, looked guilty. He did not say he had put any money in the bank, and did not even mention having been at Harlow at all. Nobody could think why he should make such a secret of going to Harlow, for Caleb was a great talker, and usually told all his ...
— Little Grandfather • Sophie May
... this turn did not last long, and whatever induced him to take it up, he apparently became bored with his self-imposed restrictions, and after a little while he threw off his short-lived sanctity, and resumed his worldly habits and irreverent language, for he was always a loose talker. Active and ambitious in his pursuits, and magnificent in his tastes, he devoted himself to literature, politics, and society; to the two first with greater success than would be expected of a man whose talents for composition were below mediocrity, and for public speaking ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. III • Charles C. F. Greville
... far-seeing wisdom, Christian humanity, and a charity that gave and forgave to the end. He was a courtier and a statesman, a soldier and a sailor, a merchant and an explorer. His life was one of splendid and honorable deeds; he was not a talker, and found scant leisure to express himself in writing; though when he chose to write poetry he approved himself best in the golden age of English literature; and his "History of the World," composed ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... the people of New Salem. They respected him for his uprightness and admired him for his genial and social qualities. He had an earnest sympathy for the unfortunate and those in sorrow. All confided in him, honored and loved him. He had an unfailing fund of anecdote, was a sharp, witty talker, and possessed an accommodating spirit, which led him to exert himself for the entertainment of his friends. During the political canvass of 1834, Mr. Lincoln made the acquaintance of Mr. John T. Stuart of Springfield, Ill. Mr. Stuart ...
— Our American Holidays: Lincoln's Birthday • Various
... to have fried bacon with hot biscuit and coffee," Stallings informed them with a hearty laugh. "Pong is not much of a talker. That's about as much as you ever will hear him say. He's weak on talk and ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Texas - Or, The Veiled Riddle of the Plains • Frank Gee Patchin
... in some roundabout way," said Estelle, "as long as Italo and Clotilde both knew it. They might let the cat out of the bag without intending to. He talks so much. Never knew such a talker. But what I want to know is how he knew ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... that although Pope was so constantly imitated, no later and contemporary writer succeeded in approaching his excellence. Young, of the Night Thoughts, was an extraordinarily clever writer and talker, even if he did not (as one of his hearers asserts) eclipse Voltaire by the brilliance of his conversation. Young's satires show abundance of wit, and one may not be able to say at a glance in what they are inferior to Pope. Yet they have hopelessly perished, whilst ...
— Alexander Pope - English Men of Letters Series • Leslie Stephen
... was justified by the prevalent ignorance and frivolity of the age. But the lighter portions of the Spectator are those which have worn the best. Their style is at once correct and easy, and it is as a humorist, a sly observer of manners, and above all, a delightful talker, that Addison is best known to posterity. In the personal sketches of the members of the Spectator Club, of Will Honeycomb, Captain Sentry, Sir Andrew Freeport, and, above all, Sir Roger de Coverley, the quaint and honest country gentleman, ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... Gross was an impressive talker, due to the fact that he plagiarized office platitudes; he ran on pompously, dropping trade mottoes and shop-worn bits of philosophy until young Mitchell, unable longer to endure the light of admiration he saw in Miss Harris's ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach
... sleepy, George spent the whole evening in chattering to Evelyn, or, rather, in making her chatter. Lady Tressady loitered near them once or twice. She heard the names "Letty," "Miss Sewell," passing and repassing—one talker catching up the other. Over any topic that included Miss Sewell they lingered; when anything was begun that did not concern her, it dropped at once, like a ball ill thrown. The mother went ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. I • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... has faith," returned Linnet, earnestly. "Don't you know—oh, you don't remember—when the Evangelist—that always reminds me of Marjorie"—Linnet was a somewhat fragmentary talker like her mother—"but when Mr. Woodfern was here four of the Rheid boys joined the Church, all but Hollis, he was in New York, he went about that time. Mr. Woodfern was so interested in them all; I shall never ...
— Miss Prudence - A Story of Two Girls' Lives. • Jennie Maria (Drinkwater) Conklin
... He bears on his very brow the newest flunky-stamp. The poor young fellow, after all, is no villain; he has no kind of connexion with the horrid rascal SIR EMERSOM TENNENT alludes to—with the blackguard. That he is a boaster, a talker, an idiot, a nincompoop; that he scatters "words, words, words," as Polonius did of old; that he is bombastic, wordy, prosy, nonsensical, and a fool, no one will deny. But he is no rogue, though he utters rogueries and ...
— Notes and Queries, No. 209, October 29 1853 • Various
... it is John's part to carry it, and now that he is sick I know not to whom I should look, unless it was yourself. The matter is very delicate; I could not carry it with my own hand for a sufficient reason; I dare not send Macconochie, who is a talker, and I am—I have—I am desirous this should not come to Mrs. Henry's ears," says he, and flushed to his neck as ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Brigadier General John A. B. C. Smith soon completely dissipated this chagrin. My friend leaving us immediately, we had quite a long tete-a-tete, and I was not only pleased but really—instructed. I never heard a more fluent talker, or a man of greater general information. With becoming modesty, he forebore, nevertheless, to touch upon the theme I had just then most at heart—I mean the mysterious circumstances attending the Bugaboo war—and, on my own part, what I conceive to ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... ear very sensitive to silence; he himself was a great talker, and he was inordinately fond of chatterers. It was no wonder! He had passed all his life with the gentry at banquets, hunts, assemblies, and district consultations; he was accustomed to having something always drumming in his ears, even when he himself was silent, or was stealing ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz
... me up to the point of embarrassment, then replied drily that she always breakfasted in her room. The rest of our conversation was on general topics. I am bound to say it was unexpectedly easy. The old man was a good talker, and possessed social ease and a certain charm, which he seemed to be trying to exert. Among other things, I remember, he told me of the Indian councils he used to hold in the ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White
... onlooker must have wondered at and felt grateful for our British phlegm; surprised that so little actual harm was done (except to the bodies of the Suffragists), that no Home Secretary or Police Inspector or magistrate, no flippant talker-out of would-be-serious Franchise Bills was assassinated, trounced, tarred and feathered, kidnapped, nose-tweaked, or even mud-bespattered. (I am reproducing here the growing comprehension of the problem ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... hard to speak of the usefulness of one man by thinking too much of the deeds of another. You have your gifts like others, I suppose, and little do I wish to disturb them. But as to me, the Lord has made me for a doer and not a talker, and therefore do I consider it no harm to shut my ears ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... say how much I was interested in Lady Betty's childish talk, and yet I knew it was wrong not to check her. What would Miss Hamilton say if she were to hear of our conversation? Jill was rather a reckless talker, but she was nothing compared with this daring little creature. Lady Betty told me afterwards, when we were better acquainted, that it had amused her so to see how widely I could open my eyes when I was surprised. I believe she did it out of ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... the acknowledged belle of New York, and her position has not been disputed. She is a dark beauty, her features of classical purity, her profile very delicate and her figure superb. She is a brilliant talker, and her talents are many and varied. Presumably she has been the object of many masculine attentions and the subject of many masculine quarrels; but she has kept her head and hand to herself. At least she has done so until a few weeks ago. Then the announcement of her engagement to Mr. ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... anything," continued the Duke, "as long as the talker talks in good faith and does not say things that should not be said, or deal with matters that are offensive. I could talk for an hour about bankers' accounts, but I should not expect a stranger to ask me the state of my own. She has almost persuaded me to send ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... his peculiar if not unique genius consist of three different kinds; reported or remembered conversations and jokes, letters, and formal literary work. He was once most famous as a talker; but conversation is necessarily the most perishable of all things, and its recorded fragments bear keeping less than any other relics. Some of the verbal jests assigned to him (notably the famous ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... a favourite of the Queen, and she gave him as a residence a house and grounds in Richmond Park. He was a man of the world and an agreeable talker, very well read, fond of quoting poetry, and especially pleased if he could indulge in reminiscences in his own circle of what his royal mistress had said ...
— Queen Victoria • E. Gordon Browne
... but found him uncommunicative, almost brusque, in his reticence. Leigh suspected that the subject might be a sore one with him, and that he thoroughly disapproved of Miss Wycliffe's odd charity. When a talker is silent, his silence has the tactile quality of Egyptian darkness, and so it now appeared in Cardington. Concerning Miss Wycliffe herself they made no comment, doubtless because they were thinking of her so intently. Leigh reviewed every moment he ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... of a talker, wasn't Andy, and he didn't chat in that cab. He didn't say a word till we was ...
— The Man with Two Left Feet - and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... their inmates' lives. At high tide the hulk of the Alcazar had been full of water, which was now pouring out through a hole in the planking of her side in a continuous, murmurous stream, like the voice of a persistent talker in a silent company. The old ship looked much too big for her narrow grave at the foot of the green cliff, in which her anchor was deeply sunk and half overgrown with thistles. Her blunt bow and the ragged stump of the figure-head rose, dark ...
— In Exile and Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... administered a telling and dignified rebuke for the outrageous behaviour of the King at the levee. A reply came on the morrow, couched in pompously ungrammatical terms, which sufficiently refute the rumour that it was composed by that polished talker, Loughborough. George declared that his Oath bound him to support the Established Church; that State officials must be in active communion with that Church. He therefore refused to discuss the present proposals, which tended to destroy the groundwork ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... "I have just come from Virginia, but not a recruit could I get. It is like a nest of ants in a turmoil, and the worst of all are the officers who served in the French war. There is, too, a noisy talker, Patrick Henry, ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell
... grave by a device that startles the reader by its cold-blooded, calculating cruelty. Surely no novelists outside of Russia have drawn such evil women. The hero, Romashov, is once more the typical Russian whom we have met in every Russian novelist, a talker, a dreamer, with high ideals, harmlessly sympathetic, and without one grain of resolution or will-power. He spends all his time in aspirations, sighs, and tears—and never by any chance accomplishes anything. The ...
— Essays on Russian Novelists • William Lyon Phelps
... this, I believe, which prevented one's observing that he was, in fact, like Homer's heroes, somewhat of a talker (UN PEU BABILLARD), though a sublime one. It is to their voices, their noise and gestures, that talkers often owe their reputation as such; for certainly one could not find a greater talker than the King; but one was delighted at his being ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... thankful to be back, Mrs. Doctor, dear. Matilda's leg was broken and no mistake, but her tongue was not. She would talk the legs off an iron pot, that she would, Mrs. Doctor, dear, though I grieve to say it of my own sister. She was always a great talker and yet she was the first of our family to get married. She really did not care much about marrying James Clow, but she could not bear to disoblige him. Not but what James is a good man—the only fault I have to find with him is that he always starts in to say grace with such an ...
— Anne's House of Dreams • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... sought their favorite pine parlor, and were deep in talk. High would be a more descriptive adjective; for Viola Vincent was the principal talker, and her shrill, clear treble quivered up to the very tree-tops, startling the birds in their nests, and sending the squirrels scampering to ...
— The Merryweathers • Laura E. Richards
... and went through the steps of the quadrille without so much as a look at the talker, Ratman was sober enough to be annoyed at ...
— Roger Ingleton, Minor • Talbot Baines Reed
... tales—"old-man talk," as the Siwashes call them—was, that there was much superstition interwoven with them; and the Indians were so reticent about their religious beliefs, that if one was not exceedingly cautious, the lively, gesticulating talker of one moment was liable to become the personification of ...
— The Bridge of the Gods - A Romance of Indian Oregon. 19th Edition. • Frederic Homer Balch
... nervously, and put his dead cigarette to his lips. "I ain't much of a talker," he said, almost sheepishly. "Meyers, he's got it down fine. I tell you what. I'll be in New York the twenty-first. We can go over the books and papers and the whole business. And I like you should know my wife. And I got a little girl —Would you believe ...
— Roast Beef, Medium • Edna Ferber
... it in his fingers, the sensation of having it in his pocket. Smith was vain, in his way, and money satisfied his vanity. It gave him prestige, power, the attention he craved. He could call any flashy talker's bluff when his pockets were full of money. It imparted self-assurance. He could the better indulge his propensity for resenting slights, either real or fancied. Money would buy him out of trouble. Yes, Smith liked the feel of money. He ...
— 'Me-Smith' • Caroline Lockhart
... Frenchman's vanity, however grotesque it may sometimes be, rather than to our own reserve, shyness, formality, or under whatever other name we please to designate, and seek to hide its unamiable synonym, pride. Vanity, always a free, is not seldom an agreeable talker; but pride is ever laconic; while the few words he utters are generally so constrained and dull, that you would gladly absolve him altogether from so painful an effort as that of opening his mouth, or forcing it to articulate. Self-love may ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... any one of the thousands and it could not be," he said. "It is easy to tell that. The footsteps are those of a white man, because they turn out, and not in, as do ours of the red race. That is very easy; even Dagaeoga here, the great talker, knows it. The footsteps are far apart, so we are sure that they are those of a tall man; the imprints are deep, proving them to have been made by a heavy man, and at the outer edge of the heel the impression is deeper than on the inner edge. I noticed, when we last ...
— The Lords of the Wild - A Story of the Old New York Border • Joseph A. Altsheler
... century, and who looked like a modernized Nestor. I made his acquaintance many years ago, when he was Ambassador of Turkey in St. Petersburg. He was then a favorite everywhere in the Russian capital as a conscientious Ambassador, a charming talker, and a professional peace-maker, who wished well to everybody. The Young Turks having recalled him from St. Petersburg, he soon afterward became Grand Vizier to the Mbret of Albania. Far resonant events removed the Mbret from the throne, Turkhan Pasha from the Vizierate, and Albania ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... though a pretty fair one, than as a man to rise in life. Every faculty he had was an energy. He aimed at everything: lost some things, gained others. He was a great speaker in a debating society, a member of some politico-economical club. He was an eternal talker,—brilliant, various, paradoxical, florid; different from what he is now, for, dreading fancy, his career since has been one effort to curb it. But all his mind attached itself to something that we Englishmen call solid; it was a large mind,—not, ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... stood in rather a precarious position, as regarded her future subsistence. She was not the best kind of woman for the scheme; but there was no alternative. One quality of hers was valuable; she was not a talker. I went to London the very next day, called at the Hoxton lodging of my wife (the only place at which she had been known as Mrs. Manston), and found that no great difficulties stood in the way of a personation. And thus favouring circumstances ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... Brudenell, Walter, and Ishmael were present. It was in order that people should be merry on a marriage morning; but somehow or other that order was not followed. Judge Merlin, Mrs. Middleton, and Bee were unusually grave and silent; Mr. Brudenell was always sad; Ishmael was no conventional talker, and therefore could not seem other than he was—very serious. It was quite in vain that Mr. Middleton and Walter tried to get up a little jesting and badinage. And when the constraint of the breakfast table ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... and reserved in public, Wheatstone was a clear and voluble talker in private, if taken on his favourite studies, and his small but active person, his plain but intelligent countenance, was full of animation. Sir Henry Taylor tells us that he once observed Wheatstone ...
— Heroes of the Telegraph • J. Munro
... It was a good speech, but he could never be prevailed upon to repeat the experiment. He was always at his worst in a large company. The sight of a great number of unknown or half-known faces confused his thoughts and clogged his tongue. His intimates knew him for a brilliant and ready talker, full of easy fun ...
— Washington Irving • Henry W. Boynton
... Aberdeen. Then we fell flat, socially prone. Sitting in his study, with Titus between us on the hearthrug, we knew no more what to say or do. I regretted that Brindley's wife's grandmother should have been born on a fifteenth of February. Brindley was a vivacious talker, he could be trusted to talk. I, too, am a good talker—with another good talker. With a bad talker I am just a little worse than he is. The doctor said abruptly after a nerve-trying silence that he had forgotten a most important ...
— The Matador of the Five Towns and Other Stories • Arnold Bennett
... mountain yesterday wanted to know, brethren, how I happened to take up this roving life, and I told them. They seemed impressed by it, and I'm going to tell you. To begin with, the best temperance talker is the man who has led a life of drunkenness and through the grace of the Lord got out of it to give living testimony as to its evil. Now, I'm pretty sure, for the same reason, that a man who has been through ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben
... book of travels; a dissertation on medals, not very deep; four acts of a tragedy, a great classical exercise; and the Campaign, a large prize poem that won an enormous prize. But with his friend's discovery of the Tatler, Addison's calling was found, and the most delightful talker in the world began to speak. He does not go very deep: let gentlemen of a profound genius, critics accustomed to the plunge of the bathos, console themselves by thinking that he couldn't go very deep. There are no traces ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Christians—men and women who make noble sacrifices in their effort to live the good life—it is also true that we have no Christian society anywhere on earth, no Christian civilization anywhere under the stars. Sometimes a careless talker will refer to our social order as "a Christian civilization." All such references, dear friends, disturb our hearts; for they prove that the speaker has no conception of what a Christian civilization would be, how noble and brotherly it would be. Five minutes' reading ...
— Giant Hours With Poet Preachers • William L. Stidger
... parties sent out by societies interested in geography, natural history or astronomy. And hence it had fallen to the lot of Mr. Jameson to experience some remarkable adventures. The boys felt that he was the most interesting talker they had ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Afloat • George A. Warren
... asked why the talker went chiefly to Lowell for the illustration of his theory, and was frankly answered, For the same reason that he had first alluded to Leigh Hunt: because he had lately been reading him. It was not because he had not read any other criticism, or not that he entirely admired Lowell's; ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells
... am fond of writing and of public speaking," said Emerson, "I am a very poor talker, and for the most part prefer silence"; and he went on to compare himself in this respect with Alcott, "the prince of conversers." Alcott was undoubtedly the prince of fluency, and Emerson rarely, in private dialogue, ventured to ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne
... Albert. (He holds the brush in his hands and is about to begin the recitation when Crofton Crilly enters from the Master's apartments. Crofton Crilly has a presentable appearance. He is big and well made, has a fair beard and blue eyes. A pipe is always in his mouth. He is a loiterer, a talker, a listener) ...
— Three Plays • Padraic Colum
... dollars apiece, if a girl is right, and that means twenty-five for you. You've been drawing money from me for three weeks without bringing in a cent. Now you get on the job. Try Waverley Place and come in here to-morrow. You're a good talker in Yiddish, and you ought to be able to get some action. Hustle out ...
— Traffic in Souls - A Novel of Crime and Its Cure • Eustace Hale Ball
... between Salvatierra and his guest that night it becomes me not, as a grave chronicler of the salient points of history, to relate. I have said that Master Peleg Scudder was a fluent talker, and under the influence of divers strong waters, furnished by his host, he became still more loquacious. And think of a man with a twenty years' budget of gossip! The commander learned, for the first time, ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... promoter; the Countess of Besborough's, at whose house The Duke could be seen; the Wimbledon country seat of Lord and Lady Spence; Belzoni, a giant of six feet five, the centre of a group of eager auditors of the Egyptian marvels; Hallam, affable and unpretending, and a copious talker; Gifford, a small, shriveled, deformed man of sixty, with something of a humped back, eyes that diverge, and a large mouth, reclining on a sofa, propped up by cushions, with none of the petulance that you would expect from his Review, but ...
— Washington Irving • Charles Dudley Warner
... and Marston's work being entitled "The Scourge of Villainy"). Apparently we must now prefer for Carlo a notorious character named Charles Chester, of whom gossipy and inaccurate Aubrey relates that he was "a bold impertinent fellow...a perpetual talker and made a noise like a drum in a room. So one time at a tavern Sir Walter Raleigh beats him and seals up his mouth (that is his upper and nether beard) with hard wax. From him Ben Jonson takes his Carlo Buffone ['i.e.', jester] in 'Every Man in ...
— The Poetaster - Or, His Arraignment • Ben Jonson
... government agreed on so many important particulars. He did not at first discover that it was Ericson's unconstitutional act in enforcing his reforms, rather than the actual reforms themselves, that aroused Sir Rupert's admiration. Sir Rupert was a good talker, a master of the manipulation of words, knowing exactly how much to say in order to convey to the mind of his listener a very decided impression without actually committing himself to any pledged opinion. Ericson was a shrewd man, ...
— The Dictator • Justin McCarthy
... to all workers. Generally, good, useful work, whether of the hand or head, is either ill-paid, or not paid at all. I don't say it should be so, but it always is so. People, as a rule, only pay for being amused or being cheated, not for being served. Five thousand a year to your talker, and a shilling a day to your fighter, digger, and thinker, is the rule. None of the best head work in art, literature, or science, is ever paid for. How much do you think Homer got for his Iliad? or Dante for his ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... was ugly to the measure of hideousness; his lower jaw protruded so as to make it impossible for his teeth to meet, and his speech was for that reason barely intelligible. A voracious eater, an incessant talker, adventurous, a born soldier, fond of tournament, spectacular in war and peace and abdication, now crippled in hands and legs, he stands, a picture of decrepitude, ready to give away a crown he can no longer wear. Philip, the son, is thin and fragile ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle
... platitude—'but a star.' Newness of information is no necessity of conversation: else were the Central News Agency the best of talkers. Indeed, the oldest information is perhaps the best material for the artist as talker: though, truly, as with every other artist, material matters little. There are just two or three men of letters left to us, who provide us examples of that inspired soliloquy, those conversations of one, which are our nearest approach to the talk of other days. How good it is to listen ...
— Prose Fancies • Richard Le Gallienne
... it as you may imagine," he replied, smiling. "I'm not much of a talker. I've been alone a whole lot, in lonesome places where there wasn't anybody to talk to. I suppose talking is a habit. When there are people around who talk about things it's natural to get into the way of talking. ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... shown many symptoms of impatience during this recital. He saw his theme in danger of being taken out of his hands by a rival story-teller, which to an able talker is always a serious grievance; it was also in danger of being taken away by a Neapolitan, and that was still more vexatious; as the members of the different Italian states have an incessant jealousy of each other in all things, great and small. He ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... Barings. Alas, only the last of these three is left among us! Thackeray was a man of no great power of conversation. I doubt whether he ever shone in what is called general society. He was not a man to be valuable at a dinner-table as a good talker. It was when there were but two or three together that he was happy himself and made others happy; and then it would rather be from some special piece of drollery that the joy of the moment would come, than from the discussion of ordinary topics. ...
— Thackeray • Anthony Trollope
... had been swung in that direction by Mrs. Morse, who had been invidiously singing the praises of Mr. Hapgood. The cashier was Martin's black beast, and his temper was a trifle short where the talker ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... mental excitement, she was a rapid, fluent talker, and this was especially her condition this evening. As she looked earnestly at Gregory while she spoke, her dark eyes glowing with feeling and intelligence and lighting her whole face, he was impressed more than he could have been by the labored arguments of a cool, logical scholar. ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... when we came in from our forenoon work, we found 'Squire Black was to take dinner with us, and as he was reputed to be the wealthiest man in the township, we felt quite honored. He was a very genial man and an excellent talker, and had an adroit way of flattering and making every one feel easy in ...
— Choice Readings for the Home Circle • Anonymous
... OF CONVERSATION.—With directions for self-culture. A sensible and instructive work, that ought to be in the hands of every one who wishes to be either an agreeable talker or ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... his own case in Athens, but not every man is an equally good orator. If a litigant is very inept, he can simply say a few words, then step aside with "My friend so-and-so will continue my argument"; and a readier talker will take his place.[*] Ariston, however, is a fairly clever speaker. Having what he conceives a good case, he has obtained the indirect services of Hypereides, one of the first of the younger orators of Athens. Hyperedies has written a speech which he thinks is suitable to the occasion, ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis
... have been more exact to say that she listened, as she was not a great talker herself. She had a horror of a certain kind of conversation, of that futile, paradoxical and spasmodic kind which is the speciality of "brilliant talkers." Sparkling conversation of this sort disconcerted ...
— George Sand, Some Aspects of Her Life and Writings • Rene Doumic
... the series of humanity, had no powers or faculties which his descendants do not possess, and as they all have been under the necessity of learning to talk by hearing others talk, will you unbelievers and skeptics tell us, if you can, how that first man became a talker? Can the life-long deaf talk as well as those whose ears are perfect? No. Well, then, the difficulty rests upon you. That you may remember it, I will repeat it once more, it is this: who did the first man hear in order to ...
— The Christian Foundation, Or, Scientific and Religious Journal, - Volume I, No. 10. October, 1880 • Various
... purpling laugh. A word,—a shout,—a mighty roar,—'t is done; Extinguished; lassoed by a treacherous pun. A laugh is priming to the loaded soul; The scattering shots become a steady roll, Broke by sharp cracks that run along the line, The light artillery of the talker's wine. The kindling goblets flame with golden dews, The hoarded flasks their tawny fire diffuse, And the Rhine's breast-milk gushes cold and bright, Pale as the moon and maddening as her light; With crimson juice the thirsty southern sky Sucks from the hills ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... permitted to loaf around on the streets. Nobody jumped on him, and he didn't jump on anybody. He attended strictly to his own business. He had his lessons when he went to class. He was not a big talker. He said a lot in a few words, and didn't try to cut any swell. He was a hard student. He was not brilliant, but firm, solid, and would hang on to the very last. We used to study our lessons together evenings. About nine-thirty or ten o'clock, ...
— Boys' Book of Famous Soldiers • J. Walker McSpadden
... something of a talker, and liked to hear the sound of his own voice; but Cuthbert was of the opinion that the presence of Owen had rather upset the big chap, and that some of this patter was intended to hide his confusion, and allow him to ...
— Canoe Mates in Canada - Three Boys Afloat on the Saskatchewan • St. George Rathborne
... atmosphere. I saw rising about me the vanished life, which the dramatist knew so well that its secrets of conviction and temperament were all open to him; in architecture, poetry, religion, politics, and manners, it was quietly rebuilded for me in such wise that my own imagination was stirred to meet the talker half-way, and to fill in the outlines of a picture so swiftly and skilfully sketched. When I went to the play I went as a contemporary of its writer might have gone. I did not need to enter into it, for it had already entered into me. A man of scholarship could have set ...
— Books and Culture • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... be a great talker. And since Betsy Butterfly was an excellent listener, they spent ...
— The Tale of Betsy Butterfly - Tuck-Me-In Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... eye for his plate and glass, being particularly liberal with the cider. The lawyer spoke little; when he did his voice was rich and unctuous—the sort of voice that Ishmael always described to himself as "porky." He was as attentive to Mrs. Ruan's wants as Tom to his, and she, never a great talker save in her outbursts, still kept up a spasmodic flow of low-toned remarks to him, whom of all men she ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... {147a} Billies, fellows, used rather contemptuously. {147f} Blellum, idle talker. {150a} Boddle, a Scottish copper coin worth the third part of an English halfpenny; said to be named after the Mint-master who first coined it, Bothwell. {150h} Bore, hole in the wall. {91e} But, "without," "but merriness," without mirth. ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... please. The Major will order, and captains, and lieutenants, and ensigns must obey. I know the officer you mean, a red faced, gay, oh! be joyful sort of a gentleman, who swallows madeira enough to drown the Mohawk, and yet a pleasant talker. All the gals in the valley admire him, and they say he admires all the gals. I don't wonder he is your dislike, Judith, for he's a very gin'ral lover, if he isn't a ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... than the devotion of the plodding clerk. Webber was simple and vulgar, but he was sincere and good-hearted. He was striving to get together a little money for a home. Sommers told Alves that she should influence Miss M'Gann to accept the clerk, instead of beguiling herself with the words of a talker. ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... necessity of a good site and attractive building, etc., etc. Erica only wished that Tom could have been there, he would have been so thoroughly in his element. By and by the conversation drifted away to other matters. And as Leslie Cunningham was a good and very amusing talker, and Gladys the perfection of a hostess, the dinner proved very lively, an extraordinary contrast to the dreary, vapid table talk to which Erica had lately been accustomed. After the ladies had left the room, Donovan, rather to his amusement, found the talk veering round to Luke Raeburn. Presently, ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... Pollingray a month back? I see the change, I feel the change; but I have no retrospection, no remorse, no looking forward, no feeling: none for others, very little, for myself. I am told that I am losing fluency as a dinner-table talker. There is now more savour to me in a silvery laugh than in a spiced wit. And this is the man who knows women, and is far too modest to give a decided opinion upon any of their merits. Search myself through as I may, I cannot tell when the change began, or what the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... himself this bit of shrewd practice,—which, by the bye, would have won him the regard of the Chevalier de Gramont, a smile from the Baron de Foeneste, a shake of the hand from the Marquis de Moncade,—was he any the less that amiable guest, that witty talker, that imperturbable card-player, that famous teller of anecdotes, in whom all Alencon took delight? Besides, in what way was this action, which is certainly within the rights of a man's own will, —in what way was it contrary to the ethics of a ...
— The Jealousies of a Country Town • Honore de Balzac
... checked. Toby remained by her side. They walked together about the streets for an hour, he smoking cigarette after cheap cigarette, and every now and then saying something that was nothing. He was not a good talker. He could not express himself, but said "er" between words, and moved his hands. Partly it was nervousness. Sally often grinned at knowledge of this and of his bad way of speaking, which made him sometimes appear almost loutish. ...
— Coquette • Frank Swinnerton
... detractors as a superficial, prating pretender. But from the absence of show in Harley's discourses many people inferred that there must be much substance; and he was pronounced to be a deep read, deep thinking gentleman, not a fine talker, but fitter to direct affairs of state than all the fine talkers in the world. This character he long supported with that cunning which is frequently found in company with ambitious and unquiet mediocrity. He constantly had, even with his best friends, an air of mystery and reserve which ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... in that place and the way he sputtered and jabbered and talked! He wuz a whole show all to himself. Wall, I bought one of them birds from a feller one time—he said it wuz a good talker. Wall, I took it hum and hed it about three months, and it never sed a durned word. I put in most of my spare time tryin' to git it to say "Uncle Josh," but the durned critter wouldn't do it, so I got mad at him one day and throwed him out in the barn yard amongst the ...
— Uncles Josh's Punkin Centre Stories • Cal Stewart
... the best fellow in the world—almost like a brother, his greatest friend, though not exactly an intimate friend. Romer was too shy to be intimate with any one. Harry was lively, amusing, a brilliant talker; kind, good-natured, a capital chap. He appreciated Valentia, or he could not have painted that portrait. Romer was very grateful for the portrait; yet it sometimes hurt him to think Harry had painted it. It showed how ...
— The Limit • Ada Leverson
... no talker," he said. "I'm at a disadvantage. But I got to do the best I can. I want you as much as him, though I can't tell you so good. I'm five years younger. That's something. I'm the strongest man here. That's something, too, in a land ...
— The Huntress • Hulbert Footner
... advantage than any other it was in my power to achieve. Mr. Nicholls in his last letter refers touchingly to his earnest desire to prove his gratitude to papa, by offering support and consolation to his declining age. This will not be mere talk with him—he is no talker, no dealer in ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... army now lost touch with each other; and that was the ruin of them all. Norreys was persuaded by Don Antonio, pretender to the throne of Portugal which Philip had seized, to march farther inland, where Portuguese patriots were said to be ready to rise en masse. This Antonio was a great talker and a first-rate fighter with his tongue. But his Portuguese followers, also great talkers, wanted to see a victory won by ...
— Elizabethan Sea Dogs • William Wood
... observed the ways of others with quiet, ironic humour, saying nothing unkind. Pamela, when she didn't like a way of talking—when Rosalind, for instance, was being malicious or indecent or both—would skilfully carry the talk somewhere else. She could be a rapid and good talker, and could tell story after story, lightly and coolly, till danger points were past. Pamela was beautifully bred; she had savoir-faire as well as kindness, and never lost control of herself. These family gatherings really bored her a little, because her work and interests ...
— Dangerous Ages • Rose Macaulay
... expressed in the young Michelangelo's sudden taunt that he could not cast the statue he had modelled. Michelangelo was one of those who see in life always the great task to be performed and who judge a man by his performance; to him Leonardo was a dilettante, a talker; he made monuments, but Leonardo remains his own monument, a prophecy of what man shall be when he comes into his kingdom. With him, we must confess, it is more promise than performance; he could paint "The Last Supper" because it means the future; he could never, ...
— Essays on Art • A. Clutton-Brock
... compelled to spend the night at Rochester, some miles out. The accommodations at this place were very poor, and a few of the ex-President's Springfield friends proposed to go out to meet him and try to aid in entertaining him. Knowing Lincoln's ability as a talker and story-teller, they begged him to go with them and aid in making their guest at the country inn pass the evening as pleasantly as possible. Lincoln, with his usual good nature, went with them, and entertained the party for hours with graphic descriptions of ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... his experiment, sitting proudly in one of the front seats. A pole was set up at the front of the hall, supporting the end of a telegraph wire that ran from Salem to Boston. And Watson, who became the first public talker by telephone, sent messages from Boston to various members of the audience. An account of this lecture was sent by telephone to The Boston Globe, which announced ...
— The History of the Telephone • Herbert N. Casson
... needle-work the talk ran on, largely reminiscent in character, and mostly in a joyous strain. The young matron, Mrs. Larrimer Driscoll, was evidently no ready talker, but her interest was so vivid that she was a constant incitement to Joyce, who seemed to have broken bounds, and was by turns grave and gay, imperious and pleading in a succession of moods as natural as a child's and almost as little controlled. Presently ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... thought he was right about the others, but mistaken as to Bret Harte; in substance I said that Harte was good company and a thin but pleasant talker; that he was always bright, but never brilliant; that in this matter he must not be classed with Thomas Bailey Aldrich, nor must any other man, ancient or modern; that Aldrich was always witty, always brilliant, if there was anybody present capable of striking his flint at the ...
— Chapters from My Autobiography • Mark Twain
... auditor, capable of any degree of intelligent sympathy, whom she had met with in a very long while. Her conversation was remarkably suggestive, alluring forth one's own ideas and fantasies from the shy places where they usually haunt. She was indeed an admirable talker, considering how long she had held her tongue for lack of a listener,—pleasant, sunny and shadowy, often piquant, and giving glimpses of all a woman's various and readily changeable moods and humors; and beneath them all there ran a deep and powerful under-current of earnestness, ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... I am active, cheerful, communicative, a natural talker and story-teller. I am not noisy, like the ocean, except occasionally when I am rudely interrupted, or when I stumble and get a fall. When I am silent you can still have pleasure in watching my changing ...
— A Mortal Antipathy • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... nothing essentially more worthy in the art of saying things than in the art of doing things. The basic merit in literature, as in speech, lies in the thing said. This the makers of many books have utterly forgotten. "She's a beautiful talker!" we might say of someone. "It's perfectly lovely! Such language! Such expression! It's a ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... neither an orator nor a good talker. He could not make a speech. His voice would sink downwards instead of rising ...
— Thomas Jefferson • Edward S. Ellis et. al.
... name turned out to be Ghamba, proved himself a talker after Langley's own heart. They discussed all sorts of things. Ghamba startled his hearer by his breadth of experience and his shrewdness. He said he was a "Hlubi" Kaffir from Qumbu, in the territory of Griqualand East, but that ...
— Stories by English Authors: Africa • Various
... has produced good work of all kinds "et voila tout." Every generation, every country, has its Catulle Mendes. Robert Buchanan is ours, only in the adaptation Scotch gruel has been substituted for perfumed white wine. No more delightful talker than Mendes, no more accomplished litterateur, no more fluent and translucid critic. I remember the great moonlights of the Place Pigale, when, on leaving the cafe, he would take me by the arm, and expound Hugo's or ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... mention of the "handsome god.[FN81]" Having vainly endeavoured to stop by angry mutterings the course of the Baital's eloquence, he stepped out so vigorously and so rudely shook that inveterate talker, that the latter once or twice nearly bit off the tip of his tongue. Then the Vampire became silent, and Vikram relapsed into a walk which allowed ...
— Vikram and the Vampire • Sir Richard F. Burton
... conscription scandals, and forced at this time to leave the service, had taken advantage of his fine figure to get hold of a dowry of sixty thousand francs that offered in the person of a hosier's daughter who had fallen in love with his good looks. A fine man, a great talker, making his spurs ring as he walked, wearing whiskers that ran into his moustache, his fingers always garnished with rings and dressed in loud colours, he had the dash of a military man with the easy go of ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert
... all conceivable or inconceivable things; and liked nothing better than to have an intelligent, or failing that, even a silent and patient human listener. He distinguished himself to all that ever heard him as at least the most surprising talker extant in this world,—and to some small minority, by no means to all, as ...
— The Life of John Sterling • Thomas Carlyle
... must both speak and listen to our Father; in other words we must use the great dynamic of prayer. "More things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of." We are told that one of the requisites of the really good talker is to be a good listener; the apparently good talker is in reality a monologuist. In our prayer-life today do we recognize sufficiently the need for listening to God? We are perhaps ready enough to ask for blessings and mercies, but that is only a part of the full life ...
— Towards the Great Peace • Ralph Adams Cram
... and that night Mr. Favor and all of his St. Louis friends accompanied us from the store down to the hotel for supper. There was one gentleman in the crowd who was a splendid talker, and apparently an intelligent man, and when at the supper table that night, he mentioned the matter to Uncle Kit again of having his life published. On turning his eyes to the refined gentleman, he said: "I would have you understand that when I say anything I mean it. I told you in plain English ...
— Thirty-One Years on the Plains and In the Mountains • William F. Drannan
... few guests, old acquaintances from town,—among them sometimes Forster, Carlyle, Reade, Collins, Layard, Maclise, Stone, Macready, Talfourd,—he was always the choicest and liveliest companion. He was not what is called in society a professed talker, but he was something ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... lacked, and, unlike the Jesuits, he approached life in America from the standpoint of a layman. His prolixity often serves as a foil to the terseness of Champlain, and suggests that he must have been a merciless talker. Yet, though inclined to be garrulous, he was a good observer and had many correct ideas—notably the belief that corn, wine, and cattle are a better foundation for a colony than gold or silver mines. In temperament he and Champlain were very dissimilar, ...
— The Founder of New France - A Chronicle of Champlain • Charles W. Colby
... a smooth talker. I saw him not long after you left, Your Majesty, when I went out to inspect the garbage incinerator. He had shaved off his dinky mustache and changed the color of his ...
— Satan and the Comrades • Ralph Bennitt
... to learn from Sverre until his plans were ripe. He was too shrewd and cautious for that. He wanted to feel the sentiment of the people, and was disappointed to find them all well satisfied with their king. Full of humor and a good talker, everybody he met was pleased with him, and when he talked with the men-at-arms of Erling Skakke they told him all they knew about the state of affairs. They were quite won over by this lively priest from the Faroes. He even made the acquaintance of Erling Skakke himself and got a thorough ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 9 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. Scandinavian. • Charles Morris
... "he is a good talker, a regular society man; he is no great favorite of mine; I think he will be a little too much for us in a small ...
— Rujub, the Juggler • G. A. Henty
... smelt of eau-de-Cologne, for instance. In his long, unshaven, bluish double chin, which looked like a thistle, his goggle eyes, his shortness of breath, and in the whole of his clumsy, slovenly figure, in his voice, his laugh, and his words, it was difficult to recognize the graceful, interesting talker who used in old days to make the husbands of the district jealous ...
— The Wife and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... was a great talker and a dreadful liar thought to persuade me by shewing me a number of open letters, commending him in pompous terms to the best houses in Florence. I read the letters, but I found no mention of money in them, and I told him ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... what to do, but to tell you your Master's secret, "If you give Him the will, He will find for you the way." Although you might be the veriest stammerer, if Christ speaks out in all your life, you will be the best talker in the world. We must believe in our work; we cannot make others believe until we first believe ourselves. Our feet must be upon the rock; there is no question of success or failure there. It may be Athanasius against the world, but the Athanasius and ...
— Five Sermons • H.B. Whipple
... every night after I got to sleep, and staid till five o'clock in the morning, and then returned in time to make a —— fool of me. But look out for breakers hereafter. No more clean, nice, tidy boarding-houses for me, no matter how home-like it is, nor how good a talker the old woman is. I am through—through forever, even though all the well-bred children in Missouri starve for the want of income from boarders, I am going ...
— Twenty Years of Hus'ling • J. P. Johnston
... TALKERS.—In marrying a wit or a talker merely, though the brilliant scintillations of the former, or the garrulity of the latter, may amuse or delight you for the time being, yet you will derive no permanent satisfaction from these qualities, for there will be no common bond of kindred feeling to assimilate ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols
... the song the face and shoulders of the TALKER appear at the open lattice window on the left. He listens with a bland and happy smile until ...
— First Plays • A. A. Milne
... itself to abstract subjects; Lamb's was more practical, and embraced men. Hunt was somewhat indifferent to persons as well as to things, except in the cases of Shelley and Keats, and his own family; yet he liked poetry and poetical subjects. Hazlitt (who was ordinarily very shy) was the best talker of the three. Lamb said the most pithy and brilliant things. Hunt displayed the most ingenuity. All three sympathized often with the same persons or the same books; and this, no doubt, cemented the intimacy that existed between them for so many years. Moreover, ...
— Charles Lamb • Barry Cornwall
... that the trip was proving entirely comfortable, as the Jinjin had promised it would be; but this meant a longer journey and the only way they could make time pass was to engage in conversation. The dragon seemed a willing and persistent talker and he was of so much interest to them that they encouraged him to chatter. His voice was a little gruff but not unpleasant when one became ...
— Tik-Tok of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... Villainy"). Apparently we must now prefer for Carlo a notorious character named Charles Chester, of whom gossipy and inaccurate Aubrey relates that he was "a bold impertinent fellow...a perpetual talker and made a noise like a drum in a room. So one time at a tavern Sir Walter Raleigh beats him and seals up his mouth (that is his upper and nether beard) with hard wax. From him Ben Jonson takes his Carlo Buffone ...
— The Poetaster - Or, His Arraignment • Ben Jonson
... fury. Charles had been a silent, placable man all his life through. Born and bred in the Quaker settlement, till he had taken to the life of the forest he had been a man of quiet industry and toil rather than a fighter or a talker. A peaceful creed had been his, and he had perhaps never before raised a hand in ...
— French and English - A Story of the Struggle in America • Evelyn Everett-Green
... lay-off from your boss and we'll pull the deal through. I'll tell my old partner I've taken you in on my share and he'll carry out his part of it. He's a good deal of a bonehead, but no talker. But you'll have to put on some miner's duds and spend to-day riding around the hills to get a little sunburn. You don't look like ...
— They of the High Trails • Hamlin Garland
... lady, who was between nineteen and twenty years of age, drew upon herself everybody's attention by her over-strained and unnatural manners. A great talker, with a memory crammed with maxims and precepts often without sense, but of which she loved to make a show, very devout, and so jealous of her husband that she did not conceal her vexation when he expressed his satisfaction ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... opposed to it as you may imagine," he replied, smiling. "I'm not much of a talker. I've been alone a whole lot, in lonesome places where there wasn't anybody to talk to. I suppose talking is a habit. When there are people around who talk about things it's natural to get into the way of ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... citizens of our country. Questions connected with war—when resort to war is justifiable, preparation for war, the conduct of war—are questions of national moment, in which each voter—nay, each talker—has an influence for intelligent and adequate action, by the formation of sound public opinion; and public opinion, in operation, constitutes national policy. Hence it is greatly to be desired that there should be more diffused interest in the critical study ...
— Lessons of the war with Spain and other articles • Alfred T. Mahan
... A great talker. Tells of families where the children had to stay in all winter for ...
— The Narrative of Gordon Sellar Who Emigrated to Canada in 1825 • Gordon Sellar
... education, which Champlain lacked, and, unlike the Jesuits, he approached life in America from the standpoint of a layman. His prolixity often serves as a foil to the terseness of Champlain, and suggests that he must have been a merciless talker. Yet, though inclined to be garrulous, he was a good observer and had many correct ideas—notably the belief that corn, wine, and cattle are a better foundation for a colony than gold or silver mines. In temperament he and Champlain were very dissimilar, ...
— The Founder of New France - A Chronicle of Champlain • Charles W. Colby
... We went in his father's carriage. A jolly wind blew clouds and dust and leaves: I could have fancied I was going to my own father. The sensation of freedom had a magical effect on me, so that I was the wildest talker of them all. Even in the middle of the family I led the conversation; and I did not leave Salter's house without receiving an assurance from his elder sisters that they were in love with me. We drove home—back to prison, we called it—full of good things, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... the Queen, and she gave him as a residence a house and grounds in Richmond Park. He was a man of the world and an agreeable talker, very well read, fond of quoting poetry, and especially pleased if he could indulge in reminiscences in his own circle of what his royal mistress had ...
— Queen Victoria • E. Gordon Browne
... has met him occasionally in company in other houses—memorably in that of the late Mrs Cunningham, Lord Cunningham's widow—but never, so far as she can remember, in that of her father. He was at that time considered a good talker—his company was sought for the sake of his conversation. His defect in conversation was that 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 ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... little cultivation of form is usually given to this kind of speaking. The result is much complaining from auditors about inaudibleness, dullness, monotony, annoying mannerisms, or a too formal, academic tone that keeps the audience remote, a lack of what is called the human quality. A good talker from the desk not only has the reward of appreciation and gratitude, but is able to accomplish results in full proportion to all that he puts into the improvement of his vocal work. An agreeable tone, easy formation of words, clear, well-balanced emphasis, good phrasing, or grouping of words ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter
... like her very much," Doris said, with some slight emphasis on the last two words. "She is a very interesting talker." ...
— The Hidden Places • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... work for my father, but I am sorry to find that Simon does not seem to like the idea of taking him on. It is not easy always to make out Simon's meaning. When I spoke to him, he said something about a bleating sheep losing a bite; but I should think this young man is not much of a talker in general?"—she paused. ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... to be a great talker. And since Betsy Butterfly was an excellent listener, they spent ...
— The Tale of Betsy Butterfly - Tuck-Me-In Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... speculations in the company of Franklin and Rittenhouse. He was a member of the American Philosophical Society, as well as an A. M. of the University of Philadelphia. His reputation, his wonderful memory, the shrewd originality of his remarks, made him a welcome guest in the best society. He was no talker or conversationist, (an excellent word we should like to see legitimated,) but a quiet, observing man, who spoke to the point, inoffensive in manner, and not unprepossessing in appearance. As one of the lions of the country, he was much looked ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... young fellow, and a formidable rival, for he was always well-dressed, a good talker and more or less of a lady's man. Besides that, he was on the ground all the time and I had to be away two-thirds of the ...
— Danger Signals • John A. Hill and Jasper Ewing Brady
... call brutality, by the very proper remark that he had no notion of people being in earnest in good professions if their practice belied them. When we think what well-known ground this was to Lord Macaulay, it is impossible to suppress a wish that the great talker had been at hand to avenge his grandfather and grand-uncle. Next morning "Mr. Macaulay breakfasted with us, nothing hurt or dismayed by his last night's correction. Being a man of good sense he had a just admiration of Dr. Johnson." ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... to my school experiences, which had the effect of "drawing me out," and he listened to all I had to say with just that appearance of friendly interest which is so flattering and encouraging to a youthful talker. His treatment of me was everything that could be desired—except that he seemed to be rather taking the ground of an elder friend than of a parent. I should have preferred a shade less of the polite ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood
... lamentable loss of opportunity! This is the more remarkable and lamentable because the President is a charming personality, an uncommonly good talker, a man who could easily make personal friends of all the world. He does his own thinking, untouched by other men's ideas. He receives nothing from the outside. His domestic life is spent with his own, nobody else, except House ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume II • Burton J. Hendrick
... appeared with a twofold fame, that of a pronouncer of bon-mots and that of a lover of horrors. His wit was of the quaintest order. He was no inveterate talker, like Sydney Smith; no clever dissimulator, like Mr. Hook. Calmly, almost sanctimoniously, he uttered those neat and telling sayings which the next day passed over England as 'Selwyn's last.' Walpole describes his manner admirably—-his eyes turned up, his mouth set primly, a look almost ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton
... quite true, Bertha, and to add to it all, he is a remarkably handsome fellow, a first-rate talker, and when he pleases can make himself ...
— The Queen's Cup • G. A. Henty
... who shall live in America or France, will look back with contemplative pride on the origin of their government, and say, This was the work of our glorious ancestors! But what can a monarchical talker say? What has he to exult in? Alas he has nothing. A certain something forbids him to look back to a beginning, lest some robber, or some Robin Hood, should rise from the long obscurity of time and say, I am the origin. Hard as Mr. Burke laboured ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... on my right sat in grim silence, quizzing each talker in turn with puckered eyes. The only comment he made was a sort of internal rumbling, suggestive of the preliminary notice of ...
— Jimgrim and Allah's Peace • Talbot Mundy
... prevailing wind. Mrs. Robson was a Cumberland woman, and as such, was a cleaner housewife than the farmers' wives of that north-eastern coast, and was often shocked at their ways, showing it more by her looks than by her words, for she was not a great talker. This fastidiousness in such matters made her own house extremely comfortable, but did not tend to render her popular among her neighbours. Indeed, Bell Robson piqued herself on her housekeeping generally, ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. I • Elizabeth Gaskell
... bought chickens at Tubuai, and they had two of them, boiled, for supper that night in the cabin. It was a feast, after the long months of sober diet; and the presence of Mark made it something more. He was a good talker, and without revealing anything of the months of his disappearance, he nevertheless told them stories that held each one breathless with interest. But after supper, he went on deck with Finch, and Joel and Priss sat in the ...
— All the Brothers Were Valiant • Ben Ames Williams
... Smith soon completely dissipated this chagrin. My friend leaving us immediately, we had quite a long tete-a-tete, and I was not only pleased but really—instructed. I never heard a more fluent talker, or a man of greater general information. With becoming modesty, he forebore, nevertheless, to touch upon the theme I had just then most at heart—I mean the mysterious circumstances attending the Bugaboo war—and, on my own part, what ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... banish a great talker. Lamb, Charles, his epistolary excellence. Latimer, Bishop, episcopizes Satan. Latin tongue, curious information concerning. Launcelot, Sir, a trusser of giants formerly, perhaps would find less sport therein now. Laura, exploited. Learning, three-story. ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... that. His careless, good-humored air, and easy, unceremonious manners, showed plainly that he knew how to take men and things on their bright side. But though he had not yet opened his mouth, he gave one the impression of being a great talker, and moreover, one of those absent folks who neither see though they are looking, nor hear though they are listening. He wore a traveling cap, and strong, low, yellow boots with leather gaiters. His pantaloons and jacket were of brown velvet, and their innumerable pockets were stuffed ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... recent an event, it instantly absorbed all. Then Mr. Brewster told about the plans to ride up the Trail on the morrow and ascertain just how much damage had been done. John seemed to be as excited a talker as any one, but his mother saw him send many a searching glance around for some one he had ...
— Polly and Eleanor • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... find it hard to pick up the sign language; the motions represent the thing itself. When a sign requires several motions, a good sign talker will make them all as rapidly as we pronounce syllables, and he will tell a long story using one hand ...
— Pluck on the Long Trail - Boy Scouts in the Rockies • Edwin L. Sabin
... Shongut, to talk to your mother like that—a girl that I've indulged like you. To sass her mother like that! A man like Max Hochenheimer comes along, a man where the goodness looks out of his face, a man what can give her every comfort; and, because he ain't a fine talker like that long-haired Sollie ...
— Every Soul Hath Its Song • Fannie Hurst
... drawing-rooms, which Carlyle calls sham gentility. He bears on his very brow the newest flunky-stamp. The poor young fellow, after all, is no villain; he has no kind of connexion with the horrid rascal SIR EMERSOM TENNENT alludes to—with the blackguard. That he is a boaster, a talker, an idiot, a nincompoop; that he scatters "words, words, words," as Polonius did of old; that he is bombastic, wordy, prosy, nonsensical, and a fool, no one will deny. But he is no rogue, though he utters ...
— Notes and Queries, No. 209, October 29 1853 • Various
... indicated, and found him the best he had ever mounted. That experience led to his acquaintance with Blowy. He was a ceaseless talker, hence his name, but beloved by all the outfit. Pan learned something from every cowboy he met and it was ...
— Valley of Wild Horses • Zane Grey
... had written a book of adventure which found many readers and admirers. An avowed skeptic, he was yet respectful in his allusions to sacred things, and I am sure his editorial notices of the pulpit efforts of a certain young preacher who had much to learn were more than just. He was a brilliant talker, with a vein of enthusiasm that was very delightful. His spirit was generous and frank, and I never heard from his lips an unkind word concerning any human being. Even his partisan editorials were free from the least tinge ...
— California Sketches, Second Series • O. P. Fitzgerald
... greater as a talker, in my opinion, than as a writer, and no fame is more quickly evanescent. If I do not tell his story and paint his portrait, it seems unlikely that anyone ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 1 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... was still, at sixty-seven years of age, a very brilliant man, having seen much and lived much; a good talker, a man of honor and a gallant man, but who held as to women the most detestable opinions; he loved them, and he despised them. Their honor! their feelings! Ta-ra-ra, rubbish and shams! When he was with them, he believed in them, the ci-devant "monstre"; he never contradicted ...
— Ferragus • Honore de Balzac
... will be any trouble at all" the miner said. "I was never set much on travelling alone as some men are. I ain't much of a talker, but I ain't fond of going two or three months without opening my mouth except to put food and drink into it. So if you think you will like it I shall be glad enough to take you. I know Straight Harry well, ...
— In The Heart Of The Rockies • G. A. Henty
... harbours. There shines among the woods the Castle of Watermouth, on its lovely little salt-water loch, the safest harbour on the coast; and there is Combe-Martin, mile-long man-stye, which seven centuries of fruitless silver-mining, and of the right (now deservedly lost) of 'sending a talker to the national palaver,' have neither cleansed nor civilized. Turn, turn thy head away, dear Claude, lest even at this distance some foul odour taint the summer airs, and complete the misfortune already presaged by that ...
— Prose Idylls • Charles Kingsley
... mastered one of these muses. Singin' and speakin' are closely allied, startin' from the same source. And hand-painting it allus seemed to me, is really elocution in oils; for a be-yutiful picture is a silent talker. What suggestions it brings to us as we look upon a paintin' of a wreath of flowers, or fruit, or a handsome lady! This art is lastin'. Speakin' and singin' is over as soon as they is done. So I have often thought that had I only time I'd hand-paint; but bein' a busy man I've ...
— The Soldier of the Valley • Nelson Lloyd
... made him a great talker, and conspicuously convivial,—yea, convivial, at times, up to heights of vinous glory which the Currans and Sheridans shrank not from, but which a respectable age discourages. And here I must undertake the task of saying something about his conversational wit,—so celebrated, yet so difficult (as ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... was a talker he wouldn't be holding the job he's got," Lone argued. "Don't get the wrong idea again, Swan. Yuh may pin this on to Al, but that won't let the Sawtooth in. The Sawtooth's too slick for that. They'd be more likely to make up a lynching ...
— The Quirt • B.M. Bower
... writing and of public speaking," said Emerson, "I am a very poor talker, and for the most part prefer silence"; and he went on to compare himself in this respect with Alcott, "the prince of conversers." Alcott was undoubtedly the prince of fluency, and Emerson rarely, in private dialogue, ventured to string together many ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne
... any place in my life. I must say that my friend was an ideal host, quiet, benevolent, anxious that people should enjoy themselves in their own way, and yet with a genial firmness of administration which is the greatest of all luxuries if it co-exists with much liberty. He was not a great talker, though he occasionally uttered a witty epigram, often of a somewhat caustic kind; but the air of serene benevolence with which he used to preside always set people at their ease. There was, too, another friend, who was there less often, but who shared the expense of the house, who was a singularly ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson
... calumny that associated this man's order with underbred habits and disloyal ambitions. He spoke little, but he was an admirable listener, and there was a sweet encouragement in the bland nod of his head, and a racy appreciation in the bright twinkle of his humorous eye, that the prosiest talker ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... rushing out of the window with his heavy sack loaded to the brim, interrupted their low laughter. He was no talker, but a man of action. Busily all this time he had been gathering up the loose, stray fragments that floated off from the cloud, and stuffing them into the sack. He now flew, singing, into the night, and they barely caught the last words of ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood
... that no one ever stammered out such fine, piquant, deep, eloquent things in a half-dozen half-sentences as he did. "He always made the best pun and the best remark in the course of the evening." Lamb was undoubtedly "matchless as a fireside companion," inimitable as a table-talker, "great at the midnight hour." The "wit-combats" at his Wednesday-evening parties were waged with scarcely inferior skill and ability to those fought at the old Mermaid tavern between Shakspeare and Ben Jonson. Hazlitt, in his delightful ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... all about it, ma'am,' replied Susan, who, by the way, was rather a pretty young woman, though she was, like all ladies' maids, a prodigious talker. 'You see, ma'am, I once went to live in the family of a minister, and a very excellent man he was, as prayed night and morning, and said grace afore meals. Oh, he was a dreadful clever gentleman, 'cause he always used to kiss me when he catch'd me ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... Piper," to many groups of Irishmen, for it cut alike at the Parliamentary Nationalists, the Sein Feiner, and the shoneen. Even though one admires the courage of the Piper and Black Mike, one realizes the futility of both, and of Larry the Talker, Tim the Trimmer, and Pat Dennehy, all typical of too many men in Ireland to be endurable to the usual theatre audience. There is a white heat of feeling, however, under the play that to some degree makes one forget its rather indifferent ...
— Irish Plays and Playwrights • Cornelius Weygandt
... it. Yet perhaps even more than most persons he loved the feel of it in his fingers, the sensation of having it in his pocket. Smith was vain, in his way, and money satisfied his vanity. It gave him prestige, power, the attention he craved. He could call any flashy talker's bluff when his pockets were full of money. It imparted self-assurance. He could the better indulge his propensity for resenting slights, either real or fancied. Money would buy him out of trouble. Yes, Smith liked the ...
— 'Me-Smith' • Caroline Lockhart
... the motherly old lady who had sheltered Bell in the days of his experiment, sitting proudly in one of the front seats. A pole was set up at the front of the hall, supporting the end of a telegraph wire that ran from Salem to Boston. And Watson, who became the first public talker by telephone, sent messages from Boston to various members of the audience. An account of this lecture was sent by telephone to The Boston Globe, which announced ...
— The History of the Telephone • Herbert N. Casson
... with unabated zest. I solaced myself by thinking that it would be useful for me to find out what I could about Strickland's state of mind. It also interested me much more. But this was not an easy thing to do, for Strickland was not a fluent talker. He seemed to express himself with difficulty, as though words were not the medium with which his mind worked; and you had to guess the intentions of his soul by hackneyed phrases, slang, and vague, unfinished gestures. But though he said nothing of any consequence, there was something in his ...
— The Moon and Sixpence • W. Somerset Maugham
... the hotel. My fellow passenger was about my age, and was a shrewd, well-informed native of the vicinity. He knew the mineral, timber and agricultural resources, was evidently an enterprising business man and an intelligent but not voluble talker. He accepted a cigar, and advised me to see the house in Barbourville where the late Justice Samuel Miller was born. At the hotel he registered first, and, as he was going to leave next day and I was to remain several days, he told the ...
— The Delicious Vice • Young E. Allison
... gods, I grow a talker!"[637] Let us prate. The next of perils, though I place it sternest, Is when, without regard to Church or State, A wife makes or takes love in upright earnest. Abroad, such things decide few women's fate— ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... particularly proud and since his marriage with Sue he had taken her often for an evening to the house of the venerable surgeon. Doctor Grover was a scholar, a man of note in the medical world, and a rapid and absorbing talker and thinker on any subject that aroused his interest. A certain youthful enthusiasm in his outlook on life had attracted to him the devotion of Sue, who, since meeting him through Sam, had counted him a marked addition to their little group of friends. His wife, a white- haired, plump ...
— Windy McPherson's Son • Sherwood Anderson
... rather pleasant that evening. We had the Prefet, M. Sebline; Senator of the Aisne, Jusserand, present Ambassador to Washington; Mme. Thenard, of the Comedie Francaise, and several young people. Jusserand is always a brilliant talker—so easy—no pose of any kind, and Sebline was interesting, telling about all sorts of old customs ...
— Chateau and Country Life in France • Mary King Waddington
... memory of him: 'I saw Callinan one time when we went to dig potatoes for him at his own place, the other side of Craughwell. We went into the house for dinner; and we were in a hurry, and he was sitting by the hearth talking all the time; for he was a great talker, so that the veins of his neck swelled up. And he was telling us about the song he made about his own Missus when she was out washing by the river. He was up to eighty years at that time.' And there are accounts of the making of some of his songs that show ...
— Poets and Dreamers - Studies and translations from the Irish • Lady Augusta Gregory and Others
... light-brown eyes had an uneasy look as though they wanted to rest on something that should be less hard and real than what they saw. He was not handsome; his mouth was a little sensual; his yellowish beard was ragged. He was apt to be silent until his shyness wore off, when he became a rapid, nervous talker, full of theories and schemes, which he changed from one day to another, but which were always quite complete and convincing for the moment. At times he had long fits of moodiness and would not open his mouth for days. At other times he ...
— Esther • Henry Adams
... engaged in field sports and in writing stories and poems for the "Southern Literary Messenger" and other magazines. His lyric, "Florence Vane," has been very popular and has been translated into many languages. He was said to be stately and impressive in manner and a brilliant talker. Philip Pendleton and John Esten Cooke were first cousins of John Pendleton ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... religious ceremony he would take an active part, would fast if the shamans said it was pleasing to Okee, would kill his enemies or save them for slaves, whichever the shamans suggested. He was himself little of a talker except when after victory he was loud and long in his boasting; but he loved nothing better than to listen when the shamans told tales, as they sat on winter evenings around a lodge fire, or as they lay during the long summer twilights on the ...
— The Princess Pocahontas • Virginia Watson
... sought the veranda of the little office and lured the new bookkeeper from his work, and on several occasions had had him at the ranchhouse. Not only was he an interesting talker; but there was an element of mystery about him which appealed to the girl's sense ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... certainly find pleasure in his society," she admitted. "I cannot conceive any one who would not. He is a brilliant, a wonderful musician, a delightful talker, a generous host and companion. He has treated me always with the most scrupulous regard, and I feel that I am entirely reasonable in resenting ...
— Mr. Grex of Monte Carlo • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... her face was full of frank admiration of his skill as an angler and of interest in the wild scenes described. Burt had spent more time in society than over his books while at college, and was a fluent, easy talker. Webb felt that he suffered in contrast, that he was grave, heavy, dull, and old—no fit companion for the girl whose laughing eyes so often rested on his brother's face and responded to his mirth. Perhaps Burt would not have long to wait; ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... on the road. You began badly, but improved. Of old you were a fantastic talker, but there is a man in you, and I will bring it out." It was fine to see the Paladin's face light up when she said that. "Will you ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc - Volume 1 (of 2) • Mark Twain
... great boaster, He the marvelous story-teller, He the traveler and the talker, He the friend of old Nokomis, Made a bow for Hiawatha; From a branch of ash he made it, From an oak-bough made the arrows. Tipped with flint, and winged with feathers, And the cord he ...
— The Elson Readers, Book 5 • William H. Elson and Christine M. Keck
... Burne's a damn good talker, and so obviously sincere that you can't get anywhere with him. It's so evident that resigning from his club means so much more to him than preventing it does to us that I felt futile when I argued; finally took a ...
— This Side of Paradise • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... really teach any practical study; there was indeed some pretence at geography and arithmetic, but these we were allowed to neglect at our own sweet will. His forte was "moral influence" and "sympathetic intellectual communion" by talking; and oh, heaven! what a talker he was! He was then an incipient Transcendentalist, and he did not fail to discover in me the seeds of the same plant. He declared that I had a marvellous imagination, and encouraged my passion for reading ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... a fluent talker my friend is!" said George. "He never is at a loss for a word. It doesn't make any difference to him whether he knows ...
— Go Ahead Boys and the Racing Motorboat • Ross Kay
... girl wasn't much of a talker while we were en route. A little general chitchat once in a while, then she'd clam up to do a little mental orbit figuring. I didn't mind. I was in no mood to pump her just yet, and I was usually figuring orbits myself. You get in the habit after ...
— A Spaceship Named McGuire • Gordon Randall Garrett
... with you to see Poppa," she said, stopping at the top of the last flight. "Poppa's kind of a rough talker sometimes." ...
— Hidden Creek • Katharine Newlin Burt
... old diary that the Goschens dined with us in Russell Square two nights before the historic division on the Home Rule Bill, and I remember how the talk raged and ranged. Mr. Goschen was an extremely agreeable talker, and I seem still to hear his husky voice, with the curious deep notes in it, and to be looking into the large but short-sighted and spectacled eyes—he refused the Speakership mainly on the grounds of his sight—of which ...
— A Writer's Recollections (In Two Volumes), Volume II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... said a word to me about either of the suitors. It wasn't because she didn't talk, for she was a great talker. We had to postpone a card-party one evening, on account of the continuous flow of Mrs. Gunning's conversation, which never ceased until it was time for refreshments, there being not a moment's pause for the tables to ...
— A British Islander - From "Mackinac And Lake Stories", 1899 • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... "I am no talker," he said. "I'm at a disadvantage. But I got to do the best I can. I want you as much as him, though I can't tell you so good. I'm five years younger. That's something. I'm the strongest man here. That's something, too, in a land where you get right down to tacks. But that ain't what I want to ...
— The Huntress • Hulbert Footner
... that under such a system the man with the glib tongue and the persuasive manner, the babbling talker and the scheming organizer, would secure all the places of power and profit, while patient merit ...
— The Unsolved Riddle of Social Justice • Stephen Leacock
... book of information, amusement, and instruction, and one that ought to be in the hands of every one who wishes to be an agreeable talker or listener. 12mo. cloth ...
— Red-Tape and Pigeon-Hole Generals - As Seen From the Ranks During a Campaign in the Army of the Potomac • William H. Armstrong
... hard," Farnam replied. "The boys get talking, evenings, with Mabel's kitchen help and I guess she tells them all about the house and our habits. The girl's a powerful talker." ...
— The Lure of the North • Harold Bindloss
... in a frog's face" to talk to these, my children, who think a man, with words upon his lips, a sage. I say a dog is not a good dog because he is a good barker, nor should a man be considered a good man because he is a good talker; but I see only pity in their faces that their mother is so far behind the times. These boys of ours are so much attracted by the glimpses they have had of European civilisation, that they look down upon their own nationality. ...
— My Lady of the Chinese Courtyard • Elizabeth Cooper
... into the life of Prudence. One of the lightest-minded of the many light-minded college men, had been deeply smitten by the charms of dignified Fairy. He walked with her, and talked with her,—this young man was a great deal of a talker, as so pathetically many college men are! He planned many little expeditions and entertainments for her amusement, and his own happiness. ...
— Prudence of the Parsonage • Ethel Hueston
... mouth shows a man to be bold, warlike, shameless and stout, a great liar and as great a talker, also a great eater, but as to his intellectuals, he is very dull, being for the most part ...
— The Works of Aristotle the Famous Philosopher • Anonymous
... The old man stared at me up to the point of embarrassment, then replied drily that she always breakfasted in her room. The rest of our conversation was on general topics. I am bound to say it was unexpectedly easy. The old man was a good talker, and possessed social ease and a certain charm, which he seemed to be trying to exert. Among other things, I remember, he told me of the Indian councils he used to ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White
... She did not care to be out of humanity's reach, nor to take her small journeys alone; she liked to hear the sweet music of speech, and if she started at the sound of her own, Bessie would have been on the jump all day, for she was a brilliant and effusive talker. ...
— Revenge! • by Robert Barr
... accidental subject and play upon it, and make it pass from guest to guest at dinner or in the drawing-room. It is the discussion of any topic whatever, from religion to the fashions, and the avoidance of any phase of any subject which might stir the irascible talker to controversy. As exprest by Cowper in ...
— Conversation - What to Say and How to Say it • Mary Greer Conklin
... a good talker on a thousand and one subjects, a thinker and psychologist. Psychology is his strong point. He argues brilliantly on the subject, yet I need only look at him to upset his thesis, to make him stammer ...
— Secret Memoirs: The Story of Louise, Crown Princess • Henry W. Fischer
... exclaimed the other. "If it come to Horace, I have a line in my mind: Loquaces si sapiat——How doth it run? The English o't being that a man of sense should ever avoid a great talker. That being so, if all were men of sense then thou wouldst be a ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... a talker, and D'Artagnan had too many things to think about to say much. From Planchet's shop to the Louvre was not far—they arrived in ten minutes. It was a dark night. M. de Friedisch wanted to enter by the wicket. "No," said ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... surprise. His raid was successful. The field-pieces and the property of the colonists which had been carried away in June were recovered. {85} Cameron himself was made a prisoner. But he was not held long. The man was a born actor and a smooth talker. In all seeming humility he now made specious promises of future good behaviour, and was allowed to ...
— The Red River Colony - A Chronicle of the Beginnings of Manitoba • Louis Aubrey Wood
... the city all yesterday afternoon. You know Pierriche is a great talker, and likes to know all the news. Every time he goes to the city he has enough to talk about for a week afterwards. Well, do you know what he says? He is such a hoaxer, such a blagueur, that I did not believe him, and hardly believe ...
— The Bastonnais - Tale of the American Invasion of Canada in 1775-76 • John Lesperance
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