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More "Topic" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... been disturbed in his mind by the delay of the building-committee in the matter of the new vicarage, but on the topic of the church restoration he had been heard to say very bitter things,—far too bitter, it was thought, to proceed from the lips of such a new-comer. It is not always wise to be outspoken, and when Mr. Drummond expressed himself a little too frankly on the ugliness of the sacred edifice, which ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... There is another topic he takes up more seriously, and as a general rebutter to the charge. Says he, "After a great many of these practices with which I am charged, Parliament appointed me to my trust, and consequently has acquitted me."—Has it, my Lords? I am bold to say that the Commons are wholly guiltless of this ...
— The Works Of The Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IX. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... lawyer's office in the city of Montreal. One of them was the most distinguished advocate of that place; a man of some three score years, and of a commanding yet wild and singular aspect. His companion was a well-dressed female of middle age, and comely, though mournful countenance. Some disagreeable topic seemed to have just ruffled both of their tempers, for her face was moist with tears, and darkened with an expression of disappointment. His own was slightly marked with annoyance, and, suddenly ceasing to arrange some folded law papers that he held in his hands, and had gathered up from the table ...
— The Advocate • Charles Heavysege
... with a topic, the examples of which are ready to hand, and may easily be multiplied, to almost any extent, by the reader for himself—the better realisation of our duties to society at large as distinct from particular individuals. When ...
— Progressive Morality - An Essay in Ethics • Thomas Fowler
... childish figure, glowing face, and sublime confidence affected her with a sense of something strange and remote. Yet the conversation interested her greatly. People are very foolish who restrain spiritual confidences; no topic is so universally and permanently interesting as religious experience. Elizabeth felt its charm at once. She loved God, but loved him, as it were, afar off; she almost feared to speak to him. She had never ...
— The Hallam Succession • Amelia Edith Barr
... very silently exercised, if at all. The town is rife with reports of changes and appointments, some very natural and others very absurd; all agree that the power vested in Melbourne's hands is unbounded, and that (as far as Court appointments are concerned) he uses it with propriety. The great topic of interest is the question of Lord Hill's removal,[2] which the Radicals and violent Whigs have been long driving at, but to which it is believed Melbourne is himself adverse. So Lord Stanley told me the other day as his belief; and when I said that though this might be so, it was doubtful how far ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... finance in the Bakufu days is exceedingly complicated, and a very bare outline will suffice. It has already been noted that the unit of land-measurement varied from time to time and was never uniform throughout the empire. That topic need not be further discussed. Rice-fields were divided into five classes, in accordance with which division the rates of taxation were fixed. Further, in determining the amount of the land-tax, two methods were followed; one by inspection, the other by average. In the case of the former, ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... on this topic are to be found in these two authors, but need not be here quoted. Many resemblances in the words and in the spirit of the philosophy of the two Bacons have been pointed out, and it has even been supposed that the later of these two ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860 • Various
... subject, I ought to narrate that the study of this topic has convinced me that the Germans have a long task if they hope within a reasonable number of months to reduce by submarine torpedo practice the efficiency of the English navy to a basis that will warrant German warships ...
— The Audacious War • Clarence W. Barron
... exhausted by the charming photographs; the task remaining for Mr. DARYL KLEIN, Lieutenant in the Chinese Labour Corps, of so conveying the atmosphere as to absorb the reader's attention, was not achieved. On the two main aspects of the topic, the origin in China and the result in France, he makes no serious attempt. I got no clear impression of the coolie at home or of why he took to being an ally, and I was left with but the vaguest conception of the unit ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, February 18th, 1920 • Various
... thinking of that when you commenced this unwelcome topic. We had better look out for the water before dark, and as soon as we have replenished our jars, we will ...
— The Phantom Ship • Captain Frederick Marryat
... Mr. Garfield, of Ohio, among the friends of the measure, delivered a speech "on the Freedmen's Bureau Bill," in which the topic discussed was "Restoration of the Rebel States." In the course of his ...
— History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States • Wiliam H. Barnes
... kinds of bowing with celerity. Without the Tourte bow, Paganini and the modern school of virtuosos, which has followed so splendidly from his example, would have been impossible. To many of our readers an amplification of this topic may be of interest. While the left hand of the violin-player fixes the tone, and thereby does that which for the pianist is already done by the mechanism of the instrument, and while the correctness of his intonation depends on the proficiency of the left hand, it is the ...
— Great Violinists And Pianists • George T. Ferris
... his life he kept the curtain resolutely down. No ray of conversation would he admit into the more personal affairs of his heart, or of the woman who had been his wife, and even when the talk turned on the boy he quickly withdrew it to another topic, as though the subject were dangerous or distasteful. But once, after a long silence following such a diversion, had he betrayed himself into a whispered remark, an outburst of feeling rather than a communication. "I've been alone so ...
— The Cow Puncher • Robert J. C. Stead
... after the inauguration of President Polk in 1845 the great controversy over the Mexican War and Negro slavery arose. The Negro question was the topic of the day, both in and out of Congress and among all classes. This continued until in 1846, when the war broke out between the United States and ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 4, 1919 • Various
... the Doctor; and there the conversation sank. There was no topic suited to so fleeting a moment, and when they had smiled all round again Dr. Sevier lifted his hat. Ah, ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... that he felt it was indelicate to allude further to the cause of woman, and, for a change, endeavoured to elicit from his companion some information about the gentlemen present. He had given her a chance, vainly, to start some topic herself; but he could see that she had no interests beyond the researches from which, this evening, she had been torn, and was incapable of asking him a personal question. She knew two or three of the gentlemen; she had seen them before at Miss Birdseye's. Of course she ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. I (of II) • Henry James
... bristling with facts, and glowing with enthusiasm to renew the crusade against slavery. Garrison, broken in health as he was, went on from Boston to attend this school of his disciples. He spoke briefly but repeatedly to them upon the all-absorbing topic which had brought them together. "It was a happy circumstance, too," he wrote, "that I was present with them, and that they had an opportunity to become personally acquainted with me; for, as I am a great stumbling-block in the way of the ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke
... doctor, too honest for his situation, provoked the Emperor to exclaim: "Ye are as false as those of Damascus: Moawiyah was a usurper, Yezid a tyrant, and Ali alone is the lawful successor of the Prophet." A prudent explanation restored his tranquillity, and he passed to a more familiar topic of conversation. "What is your age?" said he to the cadi. "Fifty years." "It would be the age of my eldest son: you see me here," continued Timur, "a poor, lame, decrepit mortal. Yet by my arms has the Almighty been pleased to subdue the kingdoms of ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... To these is now added the all-important department of Foreign Affairs; so that, if things remain as they are, the representatives of the people must be content to feed on second-hand information.... Most of us can remember a time when it was a favorite topic with popular agitators to expatiate on the number of lords which a government contained, as if every peer of Parliament wielded an influence necessarily hostile to the liberties of the country. We look down in the present age with contempt ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... exigencies, it is highly dangerous to suppose that the House speaks anything contrary to the sense of the people, or that the representative is silent, when the sense of the constituent, strongly, decidedly, and upon long deliberation, speaks audibly upon any topic of moment. If there is a doubt whether the House of Commons represents perfectly the whole commons of Great Britain, (I think there is none,) there can be no question but that the Lords and the Commons ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... assembling of the new parliament, Mr. Brougham, in connexion with the topic of the recent revolutions on the continent, and parliamentary reform in this country, concluded an interesting debate by saying—"He was for reform—for preserving, not for pulling down—for restoration, not for revolution. He was a shallow ...
— The Mirror Of Literature, Amusement, And Instruction, No. 496 - Vol. 17, No. 496, June 27, 1831 • Various
... the rustic vigor of a style which intentionally foregoes the graces of polish on the one hand, and of scholastic precision on the other—that quality of merit has never been attained in a degree so eminent. This first interchange of thought upon a topic of literature did not tend to slacken my previous disposition to retreat into solitude; a solitude, however, which at no time was tainted with either the moroseness or the pride of ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... known little else than matter and material life, with small comprehension even of that. To do so would be analogous to transferring suddenly a ploughboy into a company of metaphysicians. The pursuit of any topic implies some preliminary acquaintance with its nature, aims, and mental requirements; and the more elevated the topic, the more copious the preparation for it. It is inevitable that a being who has before him an eternity of progress through zones of knowledge ...
— Reincarnation and the Law of Karma - A Study of the Old-New World-Doctrine of Rebirth, and Spiritual Cause and Effect • William Walker Atkinson
... doctor talked of the social consequences of his chemical inquiries as if he were living in the middle ages. However, I was far too anxious to see the charming brown eyes again to ask questions which would be sure to keep them cast down. So I changed the topic to chemistry in general; and, to the doctor's evident astonishment and pleasure, told him of my own early studies ...
— A Rogue's Life • Wilkie Collins
... in it a reason for suspecting Russia, hating England, and jealously watching every movement in France. Germany's future, it seemed, would have to be safeguarded by all the peaceable means available. How natural, then, to tone down her internal religious strifes by bringing forward another topic of still more absorbing interest, and to aim at building up a self-contained commercial life in the midst of uncertain, or possibly hostile, neighbours. In truth, if we view the question in its broad issues in the life of nations, we must ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... did not sympathize in the violent passions which raged on that occasion, although he was much under the power of the delusion. But the affair of drowning the horses was probably for a long time a topic of gossip, and may have given to the author of the catastrophe a notoriety which nearly cost him ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... him she was liable to the derision of the world, to sneers from strangers, and remonstrances from her friends, to becoming a topic for ridicule, if not for slander, and an object of curiosity if not ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... doctor had prevailed upon Andrews to tolerate the Eurasian's company, and I could not help noticing how Tcheriapin skilfully and deliberately goaded the Scotsman, seeming to take a fiendish delight in disagreeing with his pet theories and in discussing any topic which he had found to be ...
— Tales of Chinatown • Sax Rohmer
... hide this strange state of things from her friends, Madame Claes was obliged sometimes to allude to it. The social world of Douai, in accordance with the custom of provincial towns, had made Balthazar's aberrations a topic of conversation, and many persons were aware of certain details that were still unknown to Madame Claes. Disregarding the reticence which politeness demanded, a few friends expressed to her so much anxiety on the subject that she found herself ...
— The Alkahest • Honore de Balzac
... her, which he lived in too dazzling a gayety of his own to see—a halo of a mind more beautiful than the body which shut it in; and in this intellectual orbit of guidance to interchange of mind, with manifold deeper and higher reach than Palgray's, upon whatever topic chanced to occur, revolved I, around her who was the loveliest and most gifted of all the human beings I had been ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol. XXXII No. 2. February 1848 • Various
... glad enough to get away from a topic that seemed to be somewhat distasteful to my host. "Excellent, indeed, and far more luxurious than anything to which I have been accustomed on board my ...
— The Pirate Slaver - A Story of the West African Coast • Harry Collingwood
... preliminary step in which involves a large purchase of land, and the erection of a spacious edifice, at an expense considerably beyond his means; inasmuch as these are to be reckoned in copper or old iron much more conveniently than in gold or silver. He hammers away upon his one topic as lustily as ever he did upon a horseshoe! Do you know such a person?" I shook my head, and was turning away. "Our friend," he continued, "is described to me as a brawny, shaggy, grim, and ill-favored personage, ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... said Scheffer, quietly; and Paul hurried back to the old queer topic, and said, half in jest: 'You mean to keep house, ...
— The Continental Monthly , Vol. 2 No. 5, November 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... constantly pour upon them their worthless population. They, therefore, destroyed their farms and their bridges; and collecting their horses and cattle, they retreated upon the Red River among their own people. The Cherokee campaign is a topic of much boasting among the Texians, as they say they expelled the Indians from their country; but a fact, which they are not anxious to publish, is, that for every Cherokee killed, twenty Texians bit ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... to mention the chief thing For which all saints should meet on Sabbath day; But first my Muse would boldly spread her wing, For she could always on this subject stay. Your kind indulgence, reader, I would pray, As this sweet topic is most dear to me. Most gracious Savior, who for me didst pay Thy precious blood upon the cursed tree, That I might be redeemed from sin ...
— The Emigrant Mechanic and Other Tales In Verse - Together With Numerous Songs Upon Canadian Subjects • Thomas Cowherd
... broaching a topic I don't understand or speaking a language I've never learned. If you don't mind, we won't discuss the subject, and we'll speak our mother-tongue—the mother-tongue of people like you ...
— The Wild Olive • Basil King
... up with a smile, in which an onlooker might have detected a spark of malice, as though Rainham were aware that his suggested topic was not without attraction to his friend. He was a slight man of middle height, and of no apparent distinction, and his face with all its petulant lines of lassitude and ill-health—the wear and ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... has a kind of idolatry . . . And what answers can I give? I supplicate her with looks. She observes them, my efforts to divert them from being painful produce a comic expression to her, and I am a charming 'rogue', and I am entertained on the topic she assumes to be principally interesting me. I must avoid her. The thought of her leaves me no choice. She is clever. She could ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... treatment, I have, without neglecting moral analysis or reflective exposition, even greater prominence to biographic narrative, living presentation of instances from which the reader may draw the befitting lessons of the topic, and apply them for personal profit. Poetry, it has been said, is balm on the wounds of non- fulfilment in our lives. When our own experience and imagination are wanting in that balm, we must borrow it from ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger
... Edouard's great delight, another hunt was proposed, and it furnished a topic for conversation during dinner and part of the evening. By ten o'clock, as usual, all had retired to their rooms, except Roland, who was ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... nothing, and Alston, in his easy, almost boyish way, glanced off to some other topic. But before he started for England he ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... their guard against such curiosity, and give their domestics no cause to employ their penetration. These and other such reflections were occasionally whispered as secrets among those who were known to be communicative; so that, in a few hours, it became the general topic of discourse; and, as it had been divulged under injunctions of secrecy, it was almost impossible to trace the scandal to its origin; because every person concerned must have promulgated her own breach of trust, in discovering ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... said nothing, and Hetty fancied he was not desirous of following up the topic, while as they sat silent a big locomotive backed another great train of emigrant cars in. Then the tramp of feet commenced again, and once more a frowsy host of outcasts from the overcrowded lands poured into the depot. Wagons piled with baggage ...
— The Cattle-Baron's Daughter • Harold Bindloss
... uncalled-for bitterness in this; but the poor fellow can't be contented, with his lonesome and aimless life. "We're not talking about me, Jim. You're the topic. Stick to your text, and preach away: my soul is not so immersed in oil that I can't listen. But I don't blame you for going back on the law; a beast of a business, I always thought it. Why didn't you go for ...
— A Pessimist - In Theory and Practice • Robert Timsol
... from the bedroom divested of their wraps, began at once to relate their own experiences in geology, but they had no more than stated the bare facts when they became aware that there was a more absorbing topic in the air. Somebody had told Mrs. Osgood's hired man, who had told his wife, who told Mrs. Osgood—but for that matter there was no great secret ...
— The Wrong Woman • Charles D. Stewart
... touched many matters relating to the happenings in the lives of the long separated families. Madelene plied her knife and fork industriously, and jumped from topic to topic, expressing a lively interest in all the events ...
— The Secret of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... stoop of a student told that plainly enough. Nor was the loss one dating from early life: he used his left arm too awkwardly for the event not to have had a recent date. Had it anything to do with his melancholy? Here was a topic for my vagabond imagination, and endless were the romances woven by it during my silent dinner. For the reader must be told of one peculiarity in me, because to it much of the strange complications of my story are due; complications into ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... in its symbolical suggestion as in its form and construction—a model of which was brought to London by Judah Templo in the reign of Charles II.[125] It was much the same on the Continent, but so far from being a new topic of study and discussion, we may trace this interest in the Temple all through the Middle Ages. Nor was it peculiar to the Cabalists, at least not to such a degree that they must needs be brought in to account for the Biblical imagery and symbolism in Masonry. Indeed, ...
— The Builders - A Story and Study of Masonry • Joseph Fort Newton
... town, killing and murdering. Some one said the ill-omened face of Mohun had been seen at the theatre the night before, and Macartney and Meredith with him. Meant to be a feast, the meeting, in spite of drink, and talk, was as dismal as a funeral. Every topic started subsided into gloom. His grace of Ormonde went away because the conversation got upon Denain, where we had been defeated in the last campaign. Esmond's general was affected at the allusion to this action too, for his comrade of Wynendael, ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... occasionally had made a similar promise to deliver a sermon on good works;[3] and when Luther actually commenced the composition he had nothing else in view but the preparation of a sermon for his congregation on this important topic. ...
— Works of Martin Luther - With Introductions and Notes (Volume I) • Martin Luther
... went on the four men came closer and watched the operation of the machine. The ribbon unrolled slowly; it was plain that, if the one topic occupied the whole reel, then it must have the length of an ordinary chapter. And as the voice continued, certain dramatic qualities came out and governed the words, utterly incomprehensible though they were. There was a real thrill ...
— The Lord of Death and the Queen of Life • Homer Eon Flint
... conversed about the sayings and doings of the Wright family, and of the world at large, and about the loss of the cable-ship; but gradually and slowly, yet surely, the minds and converse of the little party came round to the all-absorbing topic, like ...
— The Battery and the Boiler - Adventures in Laying of Submarine Electric Cables • R.M. Ballantyne
... liked it better than the wild talk about impending eruptions, and began to feel rather pleased that he had met Merton after all. Still, he could not help experiencing some curiosity about his mysterious friend's way of life; and in spite of prudence he led the way to this dangerous topic. ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... which comes next, follows ordinary lines, and is chiefly remarkable for its busy clergy. I included it because the topic of kidnapping is one of which I think every collection of old stories for children should take notice. In every book of this nature at least one child's face must be stained with walnut juice. The story is from the anonymous Tales of the Hermitage, written for the ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas
... take it for granted that you can start the engine of the Leopard," continued Percy, coming back to the topic which interested him most. "What are you going to do after ...
— Taken by the Enemy • Oliver Optic
... table, with the affrighted Indian squaw waiting upon them, the professor took up the topic of earthquakes again, in answer ...
— On a Torn-Away World • Roy Rockwood
... question of religion is taken; but upon the continent of Europe—in France, Germany, and I had almost added Switzerland and Italy, the case is already different or fast becoming so. Rationalism is rampant, and the reader should constantly bear in mind, as I may not often return to this topic, that the majority of the intelligent people in most places are of the camp that I have described as holding these meetings on Hyde Park and in the ...
— The Youthful Wanderer - An Account of a Tour through England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany • George H. Heffner
... He had not left any message or note for Marcello. This was as it should be, and Marcello did not care to know whither he had gone, since he was out of the house. He was glad, however, that he had left Rome at once instead of going to an hotel, which would have made an interesting topic of conversation for gossips. ...
— Whosoever Shall Offend • F. Marion Crawford
... breadth of the little preacher's topic, I fled up-stairs again. There an inspiration did, indeed, strike me; for I remembered an old fur cape, or pelisse, of my mother's, out of fashion, but the warmer for that; and straightway I got me into it, and curled up, with my ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 6, No. 5, April, 1896 • Various
... trial of relief and amusement; many wakeful nights did she sit by my bedside in trembling expectation that every hour would be my last." Gibbon is rather anxious to get over these details, and declares he has no wish to expatiate on a "disgusting topic." This is quite in the style of the ancien regime. There was no blame attached to any one for being ill in those days, but people were expected to keep their infirmities to themselves. "People ...
— Gibbon • James Cotter Morison
... the weary hours of an invalid's day. At such times she would listen with patient indifference while they sought to interest her with current local gossip, and as soon as possible would turn the conversation back to the old happy days before her sickness. On this topic she was never weary of talking, but it was impossible to induce her to take any interest ...
— Miss Ludington's Sister • Edward Bellamy
... such a vital way that they become moving ideas, motive-forces in the guidance of conduct. This demand and this opportunity make the moral purpose universal and dominant in all instruction—whatsoever the topic. Were it not for this possibility, the familiar statement that the ultimate purpose of all education is character-forming would be hypocritical pretense; for as every one knows, the direct and immediate attention of teachers and pupils must be, for the greater part of the ...
— Moral Principles in Education • John Dewey
... the Aztecs who built the old city of Mexico will be made a separate topic; but it may be said here that when they came into the Valley of Mexico they were much less advanced in civilization than their predecessors. There is no reason whatever to doubt that they had always resided in the country as an obscure branch of the aboriginal ...
— Ancient America, in Notes on American Archaeology • John D. Baldwin
... Paris is still everywhere talking of Mr. Roosevelt. It was a thing almost without precedent that this blase city kept up its interest in him without abatement for eight days; but that a week after his departure should still find him the main topic of conversation is a fact which has undoubtedly entered into Paris history. The Temps [one of the foremost daily newspapers of Paris] has had fifty-seven thousand copies of his Sorbonne address printed and distributed free to every schoolteacher in France and to many other ...
— African and European Addresses • Theodore Roosevelt
... of the elder Camusot, before the very persons who had heard Mme. de Marville singing Frederic Brunner's praises but a few days ago, that lady, to whom nobody ventured to speak on the topic, plunged ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... would interest the Father Superior of a French Monastery, presumably indifferent to everything that passed outside its walls? Suddenly I had an inspiration: the Arian Heresy! We had had four lessons on this interesting topic at Chittenden's five years earlier (surely rather an advanced subject for little boys of twelve!), and some of the details still stuck in my head. A brilliant idea! Soon we were at it hammer and tongs; discussing ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton
... of Cuba formed a prominent topic in my last annual message. They remain in an uneasy condition, and a feeling of alarm and irritation on the part of the Cuban authorities appears to exist. This feeling has interfered with the regular commercial intercourse between ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Millard Fillmore • Millard Fillmore
... assumption of plurality of existence—is not only useless but even opposed. The consideration of the Udgitha and the like, which is supplementary to works only, finds a place in the Vedanta-texts, only because like them it is of the nature of knowledge; but it has no direct connexion with the true topic of those texts. Hence some prerequisite must be indicated which has reference to the principal topic of the sastra.—Quite so; and this prerequisite is just the knowledge of works; for scripture declares that final release results from knowledge with works added. The Sutra-writer himself ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Ramanuja - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 48 • Trans. George Thibaut
... the purpose of this plain record to enlist sympathy for the recorder. The topic upon which, here, I have ventured to touch was one fascinating enough to me; I cannot hope that it holds equal charm for any other. Let us return to that which it is my duty to narrate and let us forget ...
— The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... doesn't form a ground of common interest for us. I talked with you about the Miss Northwicks' affairs the other day—too much, I think. But I can't to-day. I shall be glad to converse with you on any other topic—discuss the ways of God to man, or any little interest of that kind. But unless I can see my way clearer to confidence between us in regard to my clients' affairs than I do at present, I ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... leave you to follow out the subject for yourselves, as I said I should, and proceed, in our next lecture, to examine the two other branches of our subject—namely, how to accumulate our art, and how to distribute it. But, in closing, as we have been much on the topic of good government, both of ourselves and others, let me just give you one more illustration of what it means, from that old art of which, next evening, I shall try to convince you that the value, both moral and mercantile, is greater ...
— A Joy For Ever - (And Its Price in the Market) • John Ruskin
... Verinder did not intend to give her an opportunity. From the soup to the walnuts the topic of conversation had to do with the impending departure of the mine owner. Joyce was prepared to be very kind to him, but he did not for an instant let his eyes dwell in hers. Behind the curtain of her ...
— The Highgrader • William MacLeod Raine
... depot, its comfortable lounge and tempting refreshments. A salesman in such an apartment did Denton now become. It was his business to attend to any of the incessant stream of ladies who chose to stop with him, to behave as winningly as possible, to offer refreshment, to converse on any topic the possible customer chose, and to guide the conversation dexterously but not insistently towards hats. He was to suggest trying on various types of hat and to show by his manner and bearing, but without any coarse ...
— Tales of Space and Time • Herbert George Wells
... confusion. With all his incisive thought and fine command of language, Addison could not think on his feet. And as if aware of his limitations, in one of the "Spectator" essays he said, with more or less truth, "The fluent orator, ready to speak on any topic, is never profound, and when once his thought is cold it will seldom repay examination—it was ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... think that many amiable and really candid minds in search of truth are laid hold of by some plausible argument, as in this case the young physician, by a topic of political economy, when a local examination of the argument would altogether change its bearing. This argument, popularly enforced, seemed to imply the impossibility of supporting a large force when there ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... "The topic goes into this tube, a sort of phonograph Which acts directly on my mind,—it does, you needn't laugh! I do not have to think at all, for, as I pull this chain, My wonderful machine transmits ...
— The Jingle Book • Carolyn Wells
... into the town to tell the news of the Bridau arrival, describe Agathe's dress, and more particularly to picture Joseph, whose haggard, unhealthy, and determined face was not unlike the ideal of a brigand. That evening Joseph was the topic of conversation in all ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... approved and permission was granted. Soon after a gentleman of Merton College, who was one of our little company, now consisting of five persons, acquainted us that he had been much rallied the day before for being a member of the Holy Club, and that it was become a common topic of mirth at his college, where they had found out several of our customs, to which ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various
... motionless as long as he cared to talk of his sister, in her wide, meditative eyes the shadow of a great unvoiced longing. It always seemed to make her grave and thoughtful, he had noticed, so he had tried lately to avoid the topic, and to-night in particular he wanted to do so, for this was no time for melancholy. He had not even allowed himself to think, as yet, and there were reasons why he did not wish her to do so; thought and realization and a ...
— The Barrier • Rex Beach
... Paris meeting of 1878, that the basic process would so speedily prove itself to be of such paramount value as we now know it to possess. On the other hand, the extinction of the old puddling process has long been the favorite topic of one of our most practical ex-presidents, and I have shown you by figures that the process is not only not yet dead, but that the manufacture of wrought iron is actually flourishing side by side with that of its younger brother, steel. How much longer this may continue to be the case it ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XV., No. 388, June 9, 1883 • Various
... literature and languages. His essays and studies in Greek attracted world-acknowledgment, but at home he was known chiefly as a genial, self-effacing lawyer, not ambitious for a large practice and oblivious of position, but happy in his friends and in delving deep into whatever topic in the world of letters ...
— A Backward Glance at Eighty • Charles A. Murdock
... the crowd in the court-room craned their necks in closer attention, one man standing on his chair for a better view until a deputy ordered him down. They knew what the charge was. It was the defence they all wanted to hear. That had been the topic of conversation around the tavern stoves of Bug Hollow ...
— The Underdog • F. Hopkinson Smith
... I do! The river before that. Thank God, I still have my self respect left!" Quickly changing the topic, he went on: "I met an old friend of ...
— The Easiest Way - A Story of Metropolitan Life • Eugene Walter and Arthur Hornblow
... Academy in self-defence," said Reginald. "It is the one topic one has in common with the ...
— Reginald • Saki
... she succeeded in changing the topic of conversation, and presently they rose to join his mother at the tea-table in ...
— The House of Whispers • William Le Queux
... all this, as every one did. The cost of living, the best way of meeting the problem, whether by city or suburb or country, was the most frequent topic of conversation in all circles, altogether crowding out the weather and scandal. At first Jack was severe about the leaping scale of expenditure and inclined to hold his wife accountable for it as "extravagance." He would even talk of giving up their pretty home and going to some impossible ...
— One Woman's Life • Robert Herrick
... and moody, and though saying nothing directly on the topic nearest her heart, yet intimating by every look and action that she considered Agnes as a most ungrateful and contumacious child. Then there was a constant internal perplexity,—a constant wearying course of self-interrogation ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... Calvinism honours the sovereignty of God, and exalts the grace of Christ, their religious and holy feelings are enlisted in a cause which little deserves these high and evangelic eulogies. While the love of God in Christ, to themselves in particular, is made the prevailing topic, the gloomy and suspicious parts of the system are kept in the ...
— On Calvinism • William Hull
... Another topic, which concerns most vitally the character and integrity of the Royal Society, I hardly know how to approach. It has been publicly stated that confidence cannot be placed in the written minutes of the Society; and an instance has been adduced, in which ...
— Decline of Science in England • Charles Babbage
... when we crossed the Indian trail and that was the general topic of conversation the balance of the day. If they had been on foot we could easily have told what tribe they belonged to by their moccasin tracks, but they all being on ...
— Thirty-One Years on the Plains and In the Mountains • William F. Drannan
... said, Blueskin was the one engrossing topic of talk, and it added not a little to Levi's prestige when it was found that he had actually often seen that bloody, devilish pirate with his own eyes. A great, heavy, burly fellow, Levi said he was, with a beard as black as a hat—a devil with his ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard I. Pyle
... the dangerous topic!" rejoined the Signor. "If you stay here long, I think you and the prison-walls will become acquainted. But here is what used to be poor Mr. Royal's happy home, and yonder is where Madame Papanti resides,—the Madame Guirlande I told you of, who befriended ...
— A Romance of the Republic • Lydia Maria Francis Child
... that she did not speak of Regnault till Paris lay but a few hours away. The whirlwind of her mood was a thing that did not touch him, but it would have been mere torment to battle on with that one topic. When she did speak of him it was with the suddenness with which she approached everything. She had been silent for nearly an hour, gazing through the window at the ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon
... handling—important because it helps us to interpret the ideas of the Romans about their sacrifices, and the attitude in which they conceived themselves as standing towards the deities whom they thus approached. I propose to occupy the rest of this lecture in considering this most interesting topic. I wish first to draw attention to a particular feature, or rather expression, which occurs in the authentic wording of certain prayers which we are lucky enough to possess, because I think it throws some light on the meaning which the Romans attached ...
— The Religious Experience of the Roman People - From the Earliest Times to the Age of Augustus • W. Warde Fowler
... ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption, of our body." In his address, at Jerusalem, before his accusers and the people, he cried out, "Of the hope and resurrection of the dead I am called in question." It was uniformly a prominent topic of his thoughts. ...
— Catharine • Nehemiah Adams
... the railway was to be built in the spring caused a great stir in the village. The strangers who went about buying land from the peasants were the sole topic of conversation at the spinning-wheels on winter evenings. One poor peasant had sold his barren gravel hill, and had been able to purchase ten acres of the ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... cut—otherwise a poem—is unchangeable, imperditable. Seeing it has been manufactured once, nobody tries to make it over again. The fact is regarded subject to liberal translation; poems circulate virgin and verbatim. In some future article I may recur to this topic with reference to the Columbia River, and the capital light afforded to delvers in its wondrous trap-rock by the lantern of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various
... the dinner into its various courses, and under each course is given what I call an "opening sentence," together with your partner's probable reply and the topic which is then introduced for discussion. And, most valuable of all, under each such topic I have listed certain helpful facts which will enable you to prolong the conversation along those lines until the arrival of the next course, and the consequent ...
— Perfect Behavior - A Guide for Ladies and Gentlemen in all Social Crises • Donald Ogden Stewart
... and petitions sent to Congress and the people, but now for woman's enfranchisement. When the whole nation was as it were resolved into its original elements, and the fundamental rights of citizens the topic for discussion in the halls of legislation and at every fireside, the time seemed so opportune for the settlement of the broad question of representation, that the persistency and determination of a few women to secure their rights ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... forth at the beginning of each question and at certain other places, are ordinarily presented on a separate line for each topic. ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... Archey called, full of the topic which had been started that afternoon. Hutchins told him what ...
— Mary Minds Her Business • George Weston
... been hastily thrown together in explanation of the vote above recited. They make no pretension to a full argument of the topic. I hope that in a short time I shall get leisure sufficient to present to our opponents, unless some one does it for me, a full statement of the reasons which have led us to ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... find it a good idea to take up some craze or topic of the moment. 'The Drama on Crutches' I wrote when the craze first arose amongst the aristocracy for going on the stage. One of the sketches which you will find outlined in that little notebook is entitled, 'Is Music a Failure?' and I endeavoured to answer the question by showing how popular ...
— The Idler, Volume III., Issue XIII., February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly. Edited By Jerome K. Jerome & Robert Barr • Various
... made one of those restful interludes which are so necessary, and often so hard to produce, between two people whose thoughts run upon a strong common interest, and who find it difficult to exchange half a dozen words without being led back to the absorbing topic. ...
— Don Orsino • F. Marion Crawford
... you have indeed put aside the courtier; talking of worms and caterpillars to me, a king and a demi- god! To renown, for your theme: a more agreeable topic." ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... industriously sought? He himself said, very truly, in the debate, that no artifices were necessary to draw from him his opinions upon that subject. But to fall upon Mr. Burke for making an use, at worst not more irregular, of the same liberty, is tantamount to a plain declaration that the topic of Franco is tabooed or forbidden ground to Mr. Burke, and to Mr. Burke alone. But surely Mr. Fox is not a republican; and what should hinder him, when such a discussion came on, from clearing himself unequivocally (as his ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IV. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... design. The conception of reason in the world passed from him to Aristotle, to whom it seemed the dawn of sober thought after a night of disordered dreams. From Aristotle it descended to his commentators, and under the influence of Averroes became the engrossing topic of speculation. ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... under the guidance of intelligence which adapts the parts to each other. When therefore we find that the simplest life substance is a machine, we are forced to ask what forces exist in nature which can in a similar way build machines by the adjustment of parts to each other. But this topic belongs to the second part of our subject, and must ...
— The Story of the Living Machine • H. W. Conn
... the prisoner by an interpreter, who in his turn appeared to feel the gravity of the occasion. He alluded with bated breath to the topic of corned beef; he slid, so to speak, over the soap; only in the mention of the fifty marks did his voice ring out confidently, as though righteous indignation had overcome the baser sentiment of pity. Pumpenheim listened in silence. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, June 4, 1919. • Various
... neglect of dress, that he was a planter in moderate circumstances, and of course not gifted with extraordinary powers of intellect; but let him open his mouth, and the delusion vanishes. At the time alluded to he was surrounded by the rest of the cabinet, in our office, and the topic was the policy of the war. He was for taking the initiative, and carrying the war into the enemy's country. And as he warmed with the subject, the man seemed to vanish, and the genius alone was visible. He was most emphatic in the advocacy of his policy, and bold almost to rashness ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... topic he will be delighted to hear your views. Chatty remarks on bimetallism would meet with his earnest attention. A lecture on what to do with the cold mutton would be welcomed. But not Ireland, if you don't ...
— Love Among the Chickens - A Story of the Haps and Mishaps on an English Chicken Farm • P. G. Wodehouse
... our compartment would talk, however, and he would keep the topic down to red trousers, and to the red trousers of a French Territorial opposite, with an index finger when his gesticulatory knowledge of the French language, which was excellent, came to the rescue of his verbal knowledge, which ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... thought, ] Topic. — N. subject of thought, material for thought; food for the mind, mental pabulum. subject, subject matter; matter, theme, [Grk], topic, what it is about, thesis, text, business, affair, matter in ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... settled down to the work of "Reconstruction." Already the eyes of every serious minded Canadian scan the horizon, wondering if these transatlantic liners now bound for our ports carry in their dark hulls hosts of new settlers. Immigration is the topic of the hour. Confronted as we are by a fabulous national debt, GREATER PRODUCTION is the only solution. This intense and extensive development of agriculture and industry necessarily involves immigration.—Immigration is therefore an ...
— Catholic Problems in Western Canada • George Thomas Daly
... repulse and the terrible losses in the Highland brigade, and of Gatacre's disaster, cast a greater gloom over Buller's army than their own failure had done. The one topic of conversation among the officers was, what would be the feeling in England, and whether there would be any inclination to patch up another dishonourable peace like that after Majuba. But the feeling wore off as day after day the news came that ...
— With Buller in Natal - A Born Leader • G. A. Henty
... had not an idea to give him, gave him a great many good ideas, to which he appeared to listen, while he was contemplating her trim figure, and the animated expression of her face, and thinking how very well she would look at the head of that poetical table behind that phantom teapot. At last the topic of Popular Education ran out; and Overtop felt that this kind of imposition could not be practised ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... little during this meal, and for the life of her Barbara Harding could not think of any topic with which to distract his attention ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... too, Markham's conversation had a particularity known to distinguish it. War was his favourite topic, and caught, perhaps, from the worthy major, his father, and from his crony Webb, afterwards the general. It was apparent upon all occasions; when he was to choose his reading as a private study, in the sixth form, Caesar was his first book; and so continuing ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... the way down the river, the general topic of conversation was the contrast between the desolate slave-cursed shores of Kentucky, and the smiling plenty of the opposite bank; but Louisville was largely settled by Northern people, and was to prove an oasis ...
— Half a Century • Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm
... Gazette, of course," said Hammerton, a little taken aback by the cool change of both topic and manner, "but my private suspicion is that it entertained a few doubts on the subject. What do we think now? Look here, Mr. Varney," the boy said amiably, "you've been white about this business, and I do really want to show that I ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... He kindly invited me to join him at the table, an invitation which I accepted with alacrity, enjoying the meal with a relish known only to a very-hungry man, for I had eaten nothing since morning. Of course the events of the day were the chief topic of discussion—as they were during my stay at headquarters—but the conversation indicated that what had occurred was not fully realized, and I returned to my troops impressed with the belief that General Buell and his staff-officers were unconscious of the magnitude of the battle ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... suspecting Russia, hating England, and jealously watching every movement in France. Germany's future, it seemed, would have to be safeguarded by all the peaceable means available. How natural, then, to tone down her internal religious strifes by bringing forward another topic of still more absorbing interest, and to aim at building up a self-contained commercial life in the midst of uncertain, or possibly hostile, neighbours. In truth, if we view the question in its broad issues in the life of nations, we must grant that Free Trade could scarcely be expected to thrive ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... were still at Bell Hammer. More than once the latter had revived her suggestion of a visit to the South of France. Each time Valerie had applauded the idea and then promptly switched the conversation on to another topic.... Women understand women, and with a sigh her aunt resigned herself to the prospect of a winter in Hampshire. Return to Town she would not. London was not what it had been, and the vanities of the metropolis fell dismally short of the old pre-War standard. ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... "Anti-Orange-peel-and-Banana-skin Association" has been organized in the city of New-York. The great number of severe accidents annually caused by the idiotic custom of casting orange-peel and such other lubricious integuments recklessly about the side-walks, has long furnished a topic for public animadversion. Some of our leading citizens have taken the matter in hand—or, to speak more correctly, on foot. The picture at the top of this page gives a life-like representation of the Association referred to, engaged in their benevolent work of removing from ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 2, April 9, 1870 • Various
... declined. Sixty new members were admitted into the church, and things settled into the old state. School was resumed; I found that not one of my schoolmates had met with a change, but Miss Black did not touch on the topic. My year was nearly out; March had come and gone, and it was now April. One mild day, in the latter part of the month, the girls went to the yard at recess. Charlotte Alden said pleasantly that the weather was fair enough for out-of-doors play, and asked if I would try the tilt. I ...
— The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard
... (preface of the edition of 1594), "Works," vol. iv. p. 5. He recurs again to the same topic in his "Lenten Stuffe" (1599), and complains that when he talks of rushes it is taken to ...
— The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare • J. J. Jusserand
... assistance was most valuable; and that he looked upon him as a brother, just as he looked upon her ladyship as a sister. It seems to have been quite a family party altogether. Frank warmed with the topic. ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville
... gathered that the topic was distasteful; but the doctor carried it off gaily. "My poor Utterson," said he, "you are unfortunate in such a client. I never saw a man so distressed as you were by my will; unless it were that hide-bound pedant, ...
— Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde • ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
... Laura has returned, and I have found her changed. The old-time freshness and softness have gone. She is, if anything, more beautiful. She refused to go into details on the subject of her married life, and the fact that we have this forbidden topic seems to make a difference to our old relations. Sir Percival made no pretence to be glad to see me. They brought two guests with them, Count Fosco and his wife, Laura's aunt. He is immensely fat, with a face like that of the great Napoleon, and eyes which have an extraordinary ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... with his favorite dish of pork and beans. The Amelioration of the condition of the Working Classes is another favorite theme with GREELEY, and, in order to discuss clearly and cogently the many phases and ramifications of this lively and exciting topic, he devotes several hours to the study of "Idleness as a Fine Art." Before writing a particularly funny or spirited article upon Politics, the Fine Arts, or the Drama, H.G., it is said, may be seen for several hours at the Astor Library, poring over BURTON'S Anatomy of ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 1, Saturday, April 2, 1870 • Various
... and could just tell where he was at fault now. There was only one will to be found, and that was the one which the deceased had declared should be null and void. The group below who were conversing on some interesting topic, were soon amazed to hear Mr. Fielding's voice in loud and excited tones at the head of the staircase. Clearing two or three steps at a time, he bounded into the room, followed by Mr. Jerrold, who was pale and silent. He was usually a grave ...
— May Brooke • Anna H. Dorsey
... Condict, New York, May 6, 1878. My last Bible-reading, or rather one of the last, was on prayer; as I could not do justice to it in one reading, I concluded to make a resume of the whole subject. Though I devoted all the readings to this topic last summer, yet it loomed up wonderfully in this resume. Last week the subject was "the precious blood of Christ," and in studying up the word "precious" I lighted on these lovely verses, Deut. xxxiii. 13-16. Since I began to study ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... previous and similar occasion. M. le docteur Veron, now the proprietor of the Constitutionnel, and as sagacious as ever in catering for the public taste, proposed to him to furnish every Monday an article on some literary topic. The notion of writing for the masses, of adapting his style to the requirements of a newspaper, gave him a momentary shock. Hitherto he had addressed only the most select audiences. But, after all, he was conscious of an almost boundless versatility, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... over long hills, and looked at Criffel, then without his cap, and down into Wordsworth's country. There we sat down and talked of the immortality of the soul. It was not Carlyle's fault that we talked on that topic, for he has the natural disinclination of every nimble spirit to bruise itself against walls, and did not like to place himself where no step can be taken. But he was honest and true, and cognizant of the subtile links that bind ages together, and saw how every event affects all the future. 'Christ ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, - 1834-1872, Vol. I • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... brought us to the Judge's house at Kew, where we found dinner nearly ready, though not waiting: and the events of the day were the topic, and the Count the hero ...
— Valerie • Frederick Marryat
... Inverary," in honour of Lady Charlotte Campbell, afterwards Lady Bury, was set to music, and made the subject of elaborate criticism. On his return to the university, he composed with redoubled ardour, contributing verses on every variety of topic to the newspapers and periodicals. Several of his pieces, attracting the notice of some of the ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... to impart spiritual offices and gifts; that is impossible to any but God. These three—God, Lord and Spirit—are not Gods of unlike nature, but one in divine essence. The Lord is no other God than God the Father; and the Spirit is none other than God and the Lord. But more on this topic elsewhere. ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. III - Trinity Sunday to Advent • Martin Luther
... are no less than eleven principal kinds of Japanese names. The jitsumyo, or 'true name,' corresponds to our Christian name. On this intricate and interesting topic the reader should consult Professor B. H. Chamberlain's excellent little book, Things ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan - First Series • Lafcadio Hearn
... not assemble until the 31st of January. The first topic mentioned in the king's speech was the marriage of his second son, the Duke of York, with the Princess Frederica, daughter of the King of Prussia. His majesty then informed the two houses that a treaty had been concluded, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... to finish, it is said, the vast collection of all known traditional Scottish and English Ballads, with all accessible variants, a work of great labour and research, and a distinguished honour to American scholarship. We are not told, however, that he had written a general study of the topic, with his conclusions as to the evolution and diffusion of the Ballads: as to the influences which directed the selection of certain themes of Marchen for poetic treatment, and the processes by which identical ballads were distributed ...
— A Collection of Ballads • Andrew Lang
... caught the New York the other day his plans would have miscarried. I'd never have married that Osborne man; I'd have snubbed Balderstone the moment he spoke to me; and if Stuart Harley had got a book out of my trip to Europe at all, it would have been a series of papers on some such topic as 'The Spinster Abroad, or How to be Happy though Single.' No more shall I take the part he intends me to in this Newport romance, unless he removes Count Bonetti from the scene entirely, and provides me with a different ...
— A Rebellious Heroine • John Kendrick Bangs
... in which the Duke of Wellington, Charlotte's hero, was sure to come off conqueror. When the argument got warm I had sometimes to come in as arbitrator." Long before Maria Bronte died, at the age of eleven, her father used to say he could converse with her on any topic with as much freedom and pleasure ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... conscious of her cheery presence. Sometimes whistling to her dogs, chatting briskly to any in her path, and always full of energy and spirit; but now she sat with a dreamy, absent look in her eyes, and started if I addressed her on any topic. Later in the evening, as we sat over the drawing-room fire with our books, she suddenly looked up and said, 'Play to me, child; I am out of sorts. Colonel Hawkes brought up old scenes and memories which ...
— Dwell Deep - or Hilda Thorn's Life Story • Amy Le Feuvre
... laughing. Moliere alone passed his hand across his eyes. Why? Perhaps to wipe away a tear, perhaps to smother a sigh. Alas! we know that Moliere was a moralist, but he was not a philosopher. "'Tis all one," he said, returning to the topic of the conversation, "Pelisson ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... few weeks since the first rumor of the Judge's big barn-raising and masquerade had gone forth, no matter how early he started or how much haste he made, he always found Dryad Anderson there before him. For weeks no other topic had passed the girl's lips, and with each recurring visit to the small clearing hidden back in the thicket near the ...
— Once to Every Man • Larry Evans
... a stronger proof of that genuine freedom, which is the boast of this age and country, than the power of discussing and examining, with decency and respect, the limits of the king's prerogative. A topic, that in some former ages was thought too delicate and sacred to be profaned by the pen of a subject. It was ranked among the arcana imperii; and, like the mysteries of the bona dea, was not suffered to be pried into by any but such as were initiated ...
— Commentaries on the Laws of England - Book the First • William Blackstone
... one that of water, the black one that of food '), the collocation of words clearly shows that 'food' means something of the same kind as fire and water, viz. the elements of earth. And there are other texts also which treat of the same topic and declare the origination of earth from water, cp. Taitt. Up. II, 1, 'from fire sprang water, from water earth.' All this proves that the term 'food' denotes earth, and that hence earth ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Ramanuja - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 48 • Trans. George Thibaut
... must have sounded like robin sounds because he listened with interest and at last—miracle of miracles as it seemed to me—he actually fluttered up on to a small shrub not two yards away from my knee and sat there as one who was pleased with the topic of conversation. ...
— My Robin • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... music, a tempest, a topic, an issue, dies. Expire (literally, to breathe out) is a softer word for die; it is used figuratively of things that cease to exist by reaching a natural limit; as, a lease expires; the time has expired. To perish (literally, in Latin, to go ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... for us; sort o' took his word for p'sition an' stood pat tharon. It's in the Red Light the very evenin' when Texas subdoos that bronco, an' lets the whey outen Jack Moore to the extent of said jug of Valley Tan, that Colonel Sterett goes off at a round road-gait on this yere very topic of pol'tics, an' winds up by tellin' us of his attitood, personal, doorin' the civil war, an' the debt he owes some Gen'ral named Wheeler for savin' ...
— Wolfville Days • Alfred Henry Lewis
... that his turning away from the topic in this apparently indifferent way did not sit well with me. Quickly he understood my dissatisfaction and said: "I suppose you think I am cold and indifferent and little less than human, but, my dear fellow, you are mistaken, for ...
— Woodrow Wilson as I Know Him • Joseph P. Tumulty
... little pause, during which neither spoke. At last, returning to the only topic in either ...
— The Queen Against Owen • Allen Upward
... and reading Emerson and Professor Drummond, which, of course, was quite in keeping with the peculiarities of his temperament. He had little to say to Phil as the latter dropped in to see him from time to time; and the all-absorbing topic of the town—DeRue Hannington's big reward—seemed to interest him about as much as did the approaching dissolution of his hold on the ranch he had contracted ...
— The Spoilers of the Valley • Robert Watson
... introduce the topic,' began Herbert, who had been watching Pip's table manners for some little time, 'by mentioning that in London it is not the custom to put the knife in the mouth—for fear of accidents—and that while the ...
— The Book of Business Etiquette • Nella Henney
... it; so that the trembling bachelor may become a wise and good lover." He stutters and hems in the utmost distress; to increase which, all his tormentors turn up the stage, leaving him to entertain the lady alone. The sketches naturally suggest a topic, and, plunging in medias res at once, he vehemently praises her legs! The lady is astonished, and the mamma alarmed; but having explained that the allusion was to the drawings, he is afterwards punished for the blunder by being threatened with a song. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... worthless population. They, therefore, destroyed their farms and their bridges; and collecting their horses and cattle, they retreated upon the Red River among their own people. The Cherokee campaign is a topic of much boasting among the Texans, as they say they expelled the Indians from their country; but a fact, which they are not anxious to publish, is, that for every Cherokee killed, twenty ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat
... over of unpalatable truths—the same quiet-breathing counsel—the same tranquil sort of hopefulness—fully satisfied the lover that his cause was gained. How could he think otherwise? In the father's absence, he had broached that mighty topic to the mother, who even now hailed him as her son, and promised him his father's favour. What could be more delicious than all this? and what more honourable, while prudent, too, and filial, than to acquiesce in Lady Dillaway's fears about ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... the sick man on to tell you the details of his illness, and to describe all his symptoms, while your own body responds with sympathetic aches and pains as you listen, it is kinder to divert his attention to some cheerful and merry topic, or to refer to some case like his own which resulted in perfect restoration to health. Instead of going down into his underground cave of depression, bring him out into the wholesome sunlight of your own healthful state, even if for a moment only, and impress ...
— The Heart of the New Thought • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... life the parting of lovers happens so frequently that it become. a stock topic in poetry and often, as here, the lover complains of parting when he is not parted. But the gravamen lies in the word "Wasl" which may mean union, meeting, reunion Or coition. As Ka'ab ibn Zuhayr began his famous poem with "Su'ad hath departed," 900 imitators ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... is never more himself, never appears greater, or wiser, than when he enters on this topic, namely, the many and various causes beside truth which occasion men to hold an opinion ...
— The Literary Remains Of Samuel Taylor Coleridge • Edited By Henry Nelson Coleridge
... Leaving the topic of general endowments to take up those sources of revenue destined to defray particular forms of expenditure, we find that Permanent Parish Endowments in lands, goods or money devoted to the defraying of Specific Parish Administrative ...
— The Elizabethan Parish in its Ecclesiastical and Financial Aspects • Sedley Lynch Ware
... glanced at his companion as though he hardly understood. But he asked no questions. What he did not understand he habitually let slip from his mind as not worth comprehension. He spoke at once upon a different topic. ...
— The Four Feathers • A. E. W. Mason
... appointed for this purpose, at the week-night prayer-meeting, or at the young people's devotional meeting Sunday evening, let the studies for the week be reviewed and the memory verses recited. Short talks may also be given on each topic ...
— The Art of Soul-Winning • J.W. Mahood
... I find it a good idea to take up some craze or topic of the moment. 'The Drama on Crutches' I wrote when the craze first arose amongst the aristocracy for going on the stage. One of the sketches which you will find outlined in that little notebook is entitled, 'Is Music a Failure?' and I endeavoured to answer the question by showing how popular ...
— The Idler, Volume III., Issue XIII., February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly. Edited By Jerome K. Jerome & Robert Barr • Various
... not replied to by anyone. The loud shout that succeeded it sprang from a different cause; and the words that were afterwards uttered had no reference to the topic under consideration. ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid
... couldn't get them now. My idea is to catch your celebrity young. When a man produces his first play or novel or book of poems I write him an admiring letter. You can't lay it on too thick. Ask him some question on a topic that interests him. It always draws. They are unused to praise and you catch them before the public has spoilt them. I card-index all the replies I get. Of course nine out of ten of the people turn ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, April 7, 1920 • Various
... house in Grosvenor Place was very large and very gorgeous. On this occasion it was very gorgeous indeed. The party had grown in dimensions. The new Moldavian dance had become the topic of general discourse. Everybody wanted to see the Kappa-kappa. Count Costi, Lord Giblet, young Sir Harry Tripletoe, and, no doubt, Jack De Baron also, had talked a good deal about it at the clubs. It had been intended to be a secret, and the ladies, probably, ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... on board ship are too despicable in this matter of gossip,' she said. 'It would seem that they are literally incapable of evolving any other topic than the doings, or supposed doings, of those about them. And the men seem to me just as ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson
... she did not speak of Regnault till Paris lay but a few hours away. The whirlwind of her mood was a thing that did not touch him, but it would have been mere torment to battle on with that one topic. When she did speak of him it was with the suddenness with which she approached everything. She had been silent for nearly an hour, gazing through the ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon
... cabin door behind him and stumping out on the deck, interrupted my reflections, though I made a mental note of the topic for use in a projected essay which I had thought of calling "The Necessity for Freedom: A Plea for the Artist." The red-faced man shot a glance up at the pilot-house, gazed around at the fog, stumped across the deck and ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London
... before the world, if he had not surrounded the first colloquy between the plenipotentiaries of two such mighty princes, with as much pomp as the circumstances of time and place would allow. After this superfluous rhetoric had been poured forth, he calmly dismissed the topic which Dr. Dale had come all the way from. Ostend to discuss, by carelessly observing that President Richardot would confer with him on the subject of ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... night Mrs. Fairbank and I had a discussion in the sanctuary of our own room. The topic was "The Hostler's Story"; and the question in dispute between us turned on the measure of charitable duty that we owed to ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... no roads then over the mountains and travelling was very severe work. At every halt—for rest in the midday heat, or a cup of black coffee to stimulate me for another two or three hours on horse and on foot—the Serbian murders were the one topic. Boshko, my guide, with the latest news from Podgoritza was in great request and a proud man. Everywhere the crime was approved. The women raged against Draga, even saying "She ought to lie under the accursed stone heap!"—a ...
— Twenty Years Of Balkan Tangle • Durham M. Edith
... score of women were turned upon Dan, as he was daily seen, round-shouldered and hollow-chested, toiling along the snowy country roads to and from school, coughing as he went. The topic was not an uncongenial one to the members of the sewing-circle, who had really very little to talk about. So absorbed were they, indeed, in the discussion of poor Dan's fate, and of the long list of casualties that had preceded it, ...
— A Bookful of Girls • Anna Fuller
... society at the same time that I laid down the commission she had obtained for me. I did not question his judgment, but avoided giving any promise to be guided by it. Perceiving that I was not willing to be pressed, he passed from the topic with a sigh, and began to discourse on the state of the kingdom. Had I paid more heed to what he said I might have avoided certain troubles into which I fell afterwards, but, busy staring about me, I gave him only such attention as courtesy required, and not enough for a proper understanding ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope
... a dangerous topic. It makes me reel. Give me a glass of water, Malcolm, and let us talk of something else," said ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... the cattle bring forth abundantly: he had the golden wand of wealth. But he was also tricksy as a Brownie or as Puck; and that fairy aspect of his character and legend, he being the midnight thief whose maraudings account for the unexplained disappearances of things, is the chief topic of the gay and reckless hymn. Even the Gods, even angry Apollo, are moved to laughter, for over sport and playfulness, too, Greek religion throws her sanction. At the dishonesties of commerce (clearly regarded as a form of theft) Hermes winks his laughing ...
— The Homeric Hymns - A New Prose Translation; and Essays, Literary and Mythological • Andrew Lang
... true. If it came to the point, Audrey would boldly offer her own character for dissection rather than suffer conversation to be diverted to a less interesting topic. Hardy had rather neglected these opportunities for psychological study, and herein lay the secret of his failure. He continued, adopting a more practical line of argument suggested by the episode ...
— Audrey Craven • May Sinclair
... of free-State men angered yet more the Borderers who were gathered there to hinder and, if possible, prevent further immigration. Mr. Bryant chafed under the necessity of keeping his voice hushed on the topic that engaged all his thoughts; and Oscar and Sandy were ready to fight their way across the river; at least they ...
— The Boy Settlers - A Story of Early Times in Kansas • Noah Brooks
... him once (when I was going to the Fulton house a good deal), but we had to give it up as a topic. Fulton saw something fine and generous in the man, and could not speak of him without emotion, while I found it impossible to speak of him ...
— We Three • Gouverneur Morris
... supposed treachery of Home, and in arguing whether the hapless James had fallen in battle, or gone on a pilgrimage to merit absolution for the death of his father. And when this other more modern mark was affixed, the Gowrie conspiracy must have been the topic of the day, and the mechanics were probably speculating,—at worst not more doubtfully than the historians have done after them,—on the guilt or innocence of the Ruthvens. It now rose curiously enough in memory, that I was employed in fashioning one of the stones marked by the anchor,—a corner ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... substance of which he had the honour of submitting to your Majesty was, as far as he could judge, favourably received. Earl Grey attempted to provoke a Corn Law discussion, but the feeling of the House was against the premature introduction of so complicated and exciting a topic. Lord Aberdeen, dissenting from any alteration of commercial policy, entirely concurred in Lord Derby's views of Foreign Affairs, and of the course to be adopted in dealing with Foreign Nations. Lord Derby did not omit to lay stress upon "the strict adherence, in letter and in spirit, to the obligations ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Vol 2 (of 3), 1844-1853 • Queen Victoria
... quizzing, quiz, examination; objection, dispute, gainsaying, scruple, cavil; inquest, debate, discussion, disquisition, inquisition; subject, theme, topic, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... While upon this topic, I may as well carry the record up to the date of publication of Currer Bell's poems. A Leaf from an Unopened Volume was written in 1834, as were also The Death of Darius, and Corner Dishes. Saul: a Poem, was written in 1835, and a number of other still unpublished verses. ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... the case rather nettled Chippy's acquaintance, and he began to argue the matter. But he was no match for Chippy there. Away went the latter in full burst upon his beloved topic, and the other heard of such pleasures and such fascinating sport that his cigarette went out, and was finally tossed ...
— The Wolf Patrol - A Tale of Baden-Powell's Boy Scouts • John Finnemore
... the lower animals, down to the number of their ribs, seemed no proper topic for light talk at an evening party. It made Aunt Euphemia gasp. Anatomy was Lou's hobby. She was an excellent and practical taxidermist, thanks to her father. And she had learned to name the bones of the human frame ...
— Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper • James A. Cooper
... upon a topic that should prove inexhaustible. Believe me, Miss Maxwell, that is my pet subject. More than once, needing a listener, I have even lectured my long-suffering ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... type was, for me, exhausted by the charming photographs; the task remaining for Mr. DARYL KLEIN, Lieutenant in the Chinese Labour Corps, of so conveying the atmosphere as to absorb the reader's attention, was not achieved. On the two main aspects of the topic, the origin in China and the result in France, he makes no serious attempt. I got no clear impression of the coolie at home or of why he took to being an ally, and I was left with but the vaguest conception ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, February 18th, 1920 • Various
... the plan we have adopted. We merely give each picture a comprehensive and striking title, and print beneath it the Bible text which is illustrated. By this means the satire is greatly heightened. Not even the sentences of a Voltaire could so illuminate and emphasise the grotesqueness of each topic as this juxtaposition of the solemnly absurd Scripture with the gaily ...
— Comic Bible Sketches - Reprinted from "The Freethinker" • George W. Foote
... sentiments, the more inextricably was the magician caught, and the more firm and inexorable was his purpose. Perceiving however that he had little to hope from the most skilful detail of the pleas of passion, he turned the attention of the shepherdess to a different topic. "Behold Imogen," cried he, "the richness of the landscape on our right hand! The spot in my eye is farthest from the castle, and divided from the rest of the prospect with a tall hedge of poplars and alders. It is full of the finest grass, and its soil is rich and luxuriant. It is ...
— Imogen - A Pastoral Romance • William Godwin
... are the sole topic of conversation; and I advise you not to go there unless you wish to settle in the country, for they would never let you go. You would have all the nobility at your feet, and above all, the ladies anxious to know the lot of their daughters. Everybody believes in judicial astrology now, ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... Miss Caroline with precisely this end in view—called singly, and by twos and threes. But for some reason they seemed always to find obstacles in the way of bringing forward this most vital topic. If they had only discovered Miss Caroline in her cups, or if her shaded rooms had been littered with empty rum bottles and pervaded by the fumes of strong drink, or if she had audaciously offered them wine, doubtless the thing would have been easy. But none of these helpful phenomena could be observed, ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... for two reasons. First, that I had given my views on the subject before, and, second, because argument from me was, in that company, fruitless effort. The simplest way to end discussion of a disagreeable topic was to ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln
... greatest interest; otherwise, it must be confessed, Mr. Thurston's audience was somewhat inattentive. Mr. Warlock's mind was obviously elsewhere; he passed his hand through his beard, his eyes staring at the table-cloth. Mr. Thurston, noticing this, tried another topic. ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... but never desert her. The presence of Lucy was too necessary in keeping up the order of the house, and in preventing the whole establishment from going to wreck, for him to permit her to leave him. He yielded the point; but in all accesses of anger, or in his drunken fits, he recurred to the old topic, and stung poor Lucy's heart by opprobrious epithets bestowed ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... German verses. Enthusiastic admirer of Shakspere, Byron, Goethe, he used to spice his conversation abundantly with quotations from these his favorite authors. A pertinacious arguer, so much so that sometimes he watched my awakening in order to continue a discussion on some topic of science, poetry, or practical life cut short by the chime of the small hours, he never lost his mild and amiable temper.... The most striking feature of his handsome and delicate appearance was uncommonly large and beautiful eyes. He never entered a drawing-room ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... death-bed, was anxious to see him, but he had strolled away after some boyish amusement, with companions as thoughtless as himself. The news of her death scarcely produced an hour's seriousness. He made my affliction a topic of ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown
... week, instead of the usual meeting for testimony and prayer. At first they concentrated on helping the speakers prepare their messages for the next street meeting. Later they chose a Book of the Bible, or a certain topic, and asked Mr. Trainer to lead them in their study. Notebooks were filled, and practical methods of Bible study became familiar processes, but most of all they learned to look to the Holy Spirit to take the Word given by His own inspiration ...
— Have We No Rights? - A frank discussion of the "rights" of missionaries • Mabel Williamson
... did the Conference fail to agree, and that was in regard to Women's Suffrage. But, after Mr. ASQUITH'S handsome admission that, by their splendid services in the War, women had worked out their own electoral salvation, even that topic seemed to have lost most of its provocative quality; and there is a general desire to forget what the late PRIME MINISTER described as a detestable campaign and bury the hatchet and all the other weapons employed ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, April 4, 1917 • Various
... error a substratum of truth, and that the more important the subject the more important the substratum, but because the investigation will give almost a history of human aberrations, that this otherwise unpromising topic assumes so high an interest. The superstitions of every age, for no age is free from them, will present the popular modes of thinking in an intelligible and easily accessible form, and may be taken as a means of gauging (if the expression be permitted) the philosophical ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet
... talent to the fitting-up of her house the American woman is apt to be thrifty, ingenious and economical; and since she has learned what decorative art really is, she works miracles of cleverness and beauty. And, as we began by saying, it is a real blessing to have a new topic of conversation. True, there can be nothing more fatiguing to those who are free from the mania for pottery and porcelain than a discussion between china-lovers and china-hunters concerning, for instance, the difference between porcelain from Lowestoft and porcelain ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December 1878 • Various
... which she liked the sound) they should put in their allowance together; but she already felt the prospect quite weary and worn with the way he went round and round on it. It had become his sole topic, the theme alike of his most solemn prudences and most placid jests, to which every opening led for return and revision and in which every little flower of a foretaste was pulled up as soon as planted. He had announced at the earliest day—characterising the whole business, from ...
— In the Cage • Henry James
... his thermometer in public; and this was the more remarkable in an hotel where people would even leave off a conversation and say: "Excuse me, Sir or Madam, I must now take my temperature. We will resume the topic ...
— Ships That Pass In The Night • Beatrice Harraden
... a while to another topic. 'I think you have boasted more than once in society that when you first met Lady Georgina Fawley you had twopence in your pocket to go round the ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen
... specially by Irishmen, but by a political party which includes large numbers of Scotchmen and Englishmen. The assertion, however, that to look at Home Rule from an English point of view is the way to minimise irritation, and to deal fairly with a topic specially requiring fair treatment, ...
— England's Case Against Home Rule • Albert Venn Dicey
... first time sound learning unhampered by pedantry. The lively Galiani proved that social tastes and a broad wit are not incompatible with more serious interests; and Filangieri threw the charm of a graceful personality over any topic he discussed. In the latter, indeed, courtly, young and romantic, a thinker whose intellectual acuteness was steeped in moral emotion, Odo beheld the type of the new chivalry, an ideal leader of the campaign against social injustice. Filangieri ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... great lad," laughed John Coulson. "He'll never grow old. I wonder why he never married," he added, returning to his favorite topic. ...
— 'Lizbeth of the Dale • Marian Keith
... White Hands stands out with the right Prae-Raphaelite distinctness and charm; and the story of Merlin and Vivian, with which, in the manner so dear to him, he diverts the attention of the reader from the main topic at the end, is beautifully told. For attaching quality on something like a large scale I should put this part of Tristram and Iseult much above both Sohrab and Rustum and Balder Dead; but the earlier parts are not worthy of it, and ...
— Matthew Arnold • George Saintsbury
... Evelyn was long and painful. It was reserved for Maltravers to break to her the news of the sudden death of Lord Vargrave, which shocked her unspeakably; and this, which made their first topic, removed much constraint and deadened much excitement ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... kind of male green-sickness. At this crisis of their innocent existence, our ogre friend encountered these lambs at dinner, with their father, at Cerjat's house; and, as if possessed by a devil, launched out into such frightful and appalling impropriety—ranging over every kind of forbidden topic and every species of forbidden word and every sort of scandalous anecdote—that years of education in Newgate would have been as nothing compared with their experience of that one afternoon. After turning paler and paler, and more and more stoney, the baronet, with a half-suppressed cry, ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... congratulation) to say, to the most humiliated creature that crawls upon the earth, that great public benefits are derived from the murder of his servants, the attempted assassination of himself and of his wife, and the mortification, disgrace, and degradation that he has personally suffered. It is a topic of consolation which our ordinary of Newgate would be too humane to use to a criminal at the foot of the gallows. I should have thought that the hangman of Paris, now that he is liberalized by the vote ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... figure, the movement, were all unchanged. There was the same rapt introverted glance as he began in a low voice, and for an hour the older tree shook off a ceaseless shower of riper, fairer fruit. The topic was "Table-Talk, or Conversation;" and the lecture was its own most perfect illustration. It was not a sermon, nor an oration, nor an argument; it was the perfection of talk; the talk of a poet, of a philosopher, of a scholar. Its wit was a rapier, smooth, sharp, ...
— From the Easy Chair, vol. 1 • George William Curtis
... attitude. The others deemed it their duty never to refrain from some reference to the subject wherever and whenever they encountered him. The one exception was Miss Westlake. She congratulated him once, quietly but with warm sincerity; and when next she came to his door, dealt with another topic. ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... ingratitude? Perhaps the ladies of the house-boats, when they found themselves—as they often did—in companies of four or five, had each other in to "evenings," at which one of them read a paper on some artistic or literary topic. ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... from his horse. He kindly invited me to join him at the table, an invitation which I accepted with alacrity, enjoying the meal with a relish known only to a very-hungry man, for I had eaten nothing since morning. Of course the events of the day were the chief topic of discussion—as they were during my stay at headquarters—but the conversation indicated that what had occurred was not fully realized, and I returned to my troops impressed with the belief that General Buell and his staff-officers were unconscious of the magnitude of the battle ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan
... he was interested in Wagstaffe's unusual expansiveness: possibly he hoped to steer the conversation away from the topic of V.A.D.'s—possibly ...
— All In It K(1) Carries On - A Continuation of the First Hundred Thousand • John Hay Beith (AKA: Ian Hay)
... that the Master had much less desire for disputation than the Candidate had had; and when Mrs. Gunilla took the field against him more than once with a whole host of monads and nomads, he only laughed. Now, indeed, Jacobi had a favourite topic of conversation, and that was his Excellency O——. The distinguished personal qualities of his Excellency, his noble character, his goodness, his spirit, his commanding carriage, his imposing exterior, could not be sufficiently celebrated and exalted ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... one is constantly treated to general reflections expressive rather of broad wisdom and piety than of feelings directly and dramatically aroused; much also is made of retrospection and relation, whether the topic is ancient history, the events of a recent voyage, or a barely completed crime. The sage backward glance of the Chorus is quick to discover in present ruin a punishment for past crime; so that the plot becomes in a manner a picture of the ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne
... the national gravity of my countrymen as they silently sat around the cabin stove. Some on errands of relief to friends and relatives wore anxious faces, and conversed soberly on the one absorbing topic. Others like myself, attracted by curiosity, listened eagerly to newer details. But, with that human disposition to seize upon any circumstance that might give chance event the exaggerated importance of instinct, I was half conscious of ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... has taken the liberty, for the sake of continuity, of going beyond the conventional limits of a personal memoir, but in doing this he has touched on no topic not connected ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer
... apparent causes of the Baronet's rudeness was indeed childish enough. The company were talking of shooting, the most animating topic of conversation among Scottish country gentlemen of the younger class, and Tyrrel had mentioned something of a favourite setter, an uncommonly handsome dog, from which he had been for some time separated, but which he expected would rejoin him in ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... IX., X., these being such extremely "late" books? As to the later use of the Article in the Odyssey and the Odyssean Books of the Iliad, it appears to us that Book I. of the Iliad uses the article as it is used in Book X.; but on this topic we must refer to a special treatise on the language of Iliad, Book X., ...
— Homer and His Age • Andrew Lang
... a walk by the river, towards Ballochcoil. It was hoped that the fresh air and sunshine would cheer Miss Du Prel. The Professor led the conversation to her favourite topic: ancient Greek literature, but this only inspired her to quote the discouraging opinion of ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... something over a hundred thousand pounds. Then I have also—well, let us say a trifle more, invested in first-class mines. Do me the favour of lunching with me, Mr. Mangan, and although Africa will never be a favourite topic of conversation with me, I will tell you about some of ...
— The Great Impersonation • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... and pleasant experience to meet a book on such a general topic as delinquency, which has not as its raison d'etre the exploitation of some over-worked hypothesis. The Director of the Psychopathic Institute of the Juvenile Court in Chicago has, however, not only avoided this danger but has given ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10
... of the approaching Fourth of July had for some days been the chief topic of conversation in Dolittle Cottage. The idea of a picnic, with the whole community invited, was in itself a startling innovation to girls who were city-bred, and the entertainment promised in the shape of various contests, ...
— Peggy Raymond's Vacation - or Friendly Terrace Transplanted • Harriet L. (Harriet Lummis) Smith
... Apiarians, from attempting at the furthest, to do more than to triple their stocks in one year. In order to furnish directions for very rapid multiplication, sufficiently full and explicit to be of any value to the inexperienced, I should have to write a book on this one topic; and even then, the most of those who should undertake it, would be sure at first ...
— Langstroth on the Hive and the Honey-Bee - A Bee Keeper's Manual • L. L. Langstroth
... world had long since forgotten his mole, if ever it had been concerned in it. Yet here was a girl whose thoughts might be expected to run on youths and ribands talking of it in a little village four miles from Leamington as though there were no topic more universal. Sir ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason
... and his hands trembled as he thus abruptly turned the topic, showing how deeply the subject moved him; notwithstanding ...
— Virgie's Inheritance • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... ill-judged and premature attempt at secession made by the Calhoun wing of the slave power, which was then the most exciting topic in South Carolina. Thomas Grimke was one of the few eminent lawyers in the State who, from the first, denounced and resisted the treasonable doctrine,—he so termed it in an open letter of remonstrance addressed to Calhoun, ...
— The Grimke Sisters - Sarah and Angelina Grimke: The First American Women Advocates of - Abolition and Woman's Rights • Catherine H. Birney
... captain, and presently the steward came and beckoned me to follow him down to his cabin, remarking that nobody would see me. I saw the captain, and told him what I knew of the matter. The robbery continued to be the sole topic of talk the rest of the journey. Clearing the coast of Fife, we soon came in sight of Edinburgh, and, sailing up the Forth, we finally landed at Leith. It was Sunday afternoon, and there were large numbers of people about to watch us land. The majority of the people ran for the first pier, ...
— Adventures and Recollections • Bill o'th' Hoylus End
... passed the legislature shortly prior to my arrival, and, as might be expected, the political situation was the all-engrossing topic of thought and conversation. In the estimation of the whites a glorious future was about to open on the little state. Whether she stood alone, or supported by the other slave states, she would assume a high rank among the nations of the earth; her cotton and rice would draw trade and wealth from ...
— Among the Pines - or, South in Secession Time • James R. Gilmore
... hear her discussed, and in such terms as made his ears tingle and his hands itch to be at work in her defence; for, with smirks and sneers and innuendoes, her escapade with Lord Rotherby continued to furnish a topic for the town as her ladyship had sworn it would. Yet by what right could he espouse her cause with any one of her defamers without bringing her fair name into still ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini
... romantic incident and susceptible of that glowing and perhaps slightly over gorgeous coloring which he laid on with a liberal hand. His completed histories, in their order, are the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, 1837; the Conquest of Mexico, 1843—a topic which Irving had relinquished to him; and the Conquest of Peru, 1847. Prescott was fortunate in being born to leisure and fortune, but he had difficulties of {505} another kind to overcome. He was nearly blind, and had to teach himself Spanish and look up authorities through ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... can grant you progeny, but this topic on which ye have just now dilated is a very painful one. May ye be prosperous! All honour to you, ladies, do ye vouchsafe to ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... could have wished that the author, if not the lecturer, might have indulged himself, and pleased and instructed his readers, by presenting under one more topic, or under a miscellaneous category, the resources of the American Colonies at the date of the Revolution, what they had besides land and water; the characteristics of the diverse elements of the population; the manufacturing interests, which had ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... matter," said Schuyler, in a low voice. "Indiscreet friendship may make it worse. I regard General Gates as a patriot and a brother soldier.... Pray let us choose a gayer topic ...
— The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers
... Frank, candid, and affable, yet opinionated, insolent, and an egotist, her candour and affability appeared the effect of a naturally good temper, her insolence and egotism only those of a spoiled child. She seemed to talk of herself purely to oblige others, as the most interesting possible topic of conversation; for such it had always been to her fond mother, who idolized her ladyship as an only daughter, and the representative of an ancient house. Confident of her talents, conscious of her charms, and secure of her station, Lady Geraldine gave free scope to her high spirits, her fancy, ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth
... wind and was the general topic of conversation all over that part of the county. The rioters had publicly intimated their intention of assembling on the next market day at Salisbury, and compelling the farmers to sell their corn at a moderate price, or abide by the ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt
... excite our notice and surprise that the number of clergymen both in America and Great Britain who thrust forward their evidence on this medical topic was singularly large in proportion to that of the members of the medical profession. Whole pages are contributed by such worthies as the Rev. Dr. Trotter of Hans Place, the Rear. Waring Willett, Chaplain to the Earl of Dunmore, the Rev. Dr. Clarke, Chaplain to the Prince of Wales. The style ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... of language, Addison could not think on his feet. And as if aware of his limitations, in one of the "Spectator" essays he said, with more or less truth, "The fluent orator, ready to speak on any topic, is never profound, and when once his thought is cold it will seldom repay examination—it was only ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... captain," replied Hereward: "because it is the safer for us both that thou canst not on such a topic either offend me, who hold thy judgment as light as thou canst esteem mine, or speak any derogation of a person whom you never saw, but whom, if you had seen, perchance I might not so patiently have brooked any reflections upon, even at the ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... me much upon 705 T' enervate this objection, And prove myself; by topic clear No gelding, as you would infer. Loss of virility's averr'd To be the cause of loss of beard, 710 That does (like embryo in the womb) Abortive on the chin become. This first a woman did invent, In envy of man's ornament; SEMIRAMIS, of Babylon, 715 Who first ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... to go off at some new tangent. If I did not imagine myself in the actual embrace of some grave physical or mental disease, I feared that something would in the near future attack me; and that brings me to the main topic ...
— Confessions of a Neurasthenic • William Taylor Marrs
... outstanding feature of Dr. Johnson's administration was the organization of a Sunday School Lyceum in 1885 which was one of the most popular literary organizations in the Capitol, meeting Sunday afternoons, when there were discussions of some foremost topic by representative thinkers of both sexes and races. Notable among the presidents of the Sunday School Lyceum were Mr. Jesse Lawson, Mr. R. D. Ruffin, and Mr. R. W. Thompson, the newspaper correspondent. Johnson died in 1917 mourned by the congregation ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 7, 1922 • Various
... golden showers, partly concealed her face. She was tracing letters upon the gravel-walk with her parasol. Gaston was too much moved by his painful conversation with Lord Linden to start any indifferent topic; and Bertha's manner, so different from her usual frank, lively bearing, made it still more difficult for him to know how ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... Barrackpur, he went to and from his office, or didn't, at his whim, with entire lack of ostentation. Soft-spoken and gifted with a distinct sense of the humorous, he would converse agreeably and intelligently upon any impersonal topic for hours at a time, when the spirit so moved him. As an entomologist his attainments were said to be remarkable; he was admittedly an interested student of ethnology; and he filled in his spare time compounding unholy smells in a little laboratory connected with his suburban ...
— The Bronze Bell • Louis Joseph Vance
... formed a prominent topic in my last annual message. They remain in an uneasy condition, and a feeling of alarm and irritation on the part of the Cuban authorities appears to exist. This feeling has interfered with the regular commercial intercourse between the United States and the island and led ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Millard Fillmore • Millard Fillmore
... steps of the cottage hidden away in a green and purple and golden and pink tangle of bloom and sweet odors; ivy and wistaria and jasmine and honeysuckle. Beside the steps grew some of his special pet roses. Their glowing and fragrant presence sometimes afforded him a congenial topic of discourse when a guest chanced to approach too closely the subject of the literary work of the host, if one may use the term in connection with a writer who so constantly disclaimed any approach to literature, and so persistently declined to take ...
— Literary Hearthstones of Dixie • La Salle Corbell Pickett
... as though witches were the commonest topic of conversation, but finding my eyes turned upon her in frank wonder, ...
— Lady Larkspur • Meredith Nicholson
... his numerous unfinished statues. Accordingly a myth has sprung up representing the great master as working in solitude upon huge blocks, with nothing but a sketch in wax before him. Fact is always more interesting than fiction; and, while I am upon the topic of his method, I will introduce what Cellini has left written on this subject. In his treatise on the Art of Sculpture, Cellini lays down the rule that sculptors in stone ought first to make a little model two palms high, and after this to form another as large as the statue ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... was the common topic in the village that the king had wept. To me he said: 'Last night I no can 'peak: too much here,' laying his hand upon his bosom. 'Now you go away all the same my pamily. My brothers, my uncle go away. All ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... is a foolish story to assert that Catherine could not bear to see me; and as to surprising her, I don't desire it: you must prepare her—ask her if I may come. You say she never mentions my name, and that I am never mentioned to her. To whom should she mention me if I am a forbidden topic in the house? She thinks you are all spies for her husband. Oh, I've no doubt she's in hell among you! I guess by her silence, as much as anything, what she feels. You say she is often restless, and anxious-looking: is that a proof of tranquillity? You talk of her mind being ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte
... the allusion in the concluding sentence of his Lordship's letter refers to Mysore; that the King had probably heard of our actual assumption of the government of that country, and the Resident must avail himself of this topic to impress upon-his mind the consequences which a similar state of things ...
— A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II • William Sleeman
... even greater. As soon as discussion begins the savage propensities of men break forth; even in modern communities, where those propensities, too, have been weakened by ages of culture, and repressed by ages of obedience, as soon as a vital topic for discussion is well started the keenest and most violent passions break forth. Easily destroyed as are early free states by forces from without, they are even more liable to destruction ...
— Physics and Politics, or, Thoughts on the application of the principles of "natural selection" and "inheritance" to political society • Walter Bagehot
... day were over, I was sitting in my little 4x7 of stone. The outside world was in convulsions over the presidential campaign. There were no convulsions, however, where I was. It was painfully quiet. Everywhere, all over the broad land, except behind prison walls, politics was the all-absorbing topic. As I sat there in my solitude the question came to my mind as to what part of the great political play I would be engaged in were I a free man. Some months prior to this a petition signed by 5,000 people had been forwarded to President Cleveland for my pardon. ...
— The Twin Hells • John N. Reynolds
... little. That was her unfailing topic. But Mrs. Morel was not cordial, and turned ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence
... quiet of the sanctuary, an access of strength seemed to be granted her, and in somewhat similar spirit to that of the old patriarchs, when about to bid farewell to the scene of labor and life, she lifted up her voice once more with weighty, solemn words of counsel. The prominent topic of her discourse was "the death of the righteous." She expressed the deepest thankfulness, alluding to her sister-in-law, Elizabeth Fry, for mercies vouchsafed to one who, having labored amongst them, had been called from time to eternity. She quoted that text, "Blessed are ...
— Elizabeth Fry • Mrs. E. R. Pitman
... Anaxagoras, Empedocles and Plato, and brings forward reasons to refute them. Secondly, because wherever he speaks of this subject, he quotes the testimony of the ancients, which is not the way of a demonstrator, but of one persuading of what is probable. Thirdly, because he expressly says (Topic. i, 9), that there are dialectical problems, about which we have nothing to say from reason, as, ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I (Prima Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... as a particular favor, that he would permit me to wait on him some day that week. He did so, and I went to Versailles the Friday following, (the 9th of December.) M. de Reyneval was with the Count. Our conversation began with the usual topic; that the trade of the United States had not yet learned the way to France, but continued to centre in England, though no longer obliged by law to go there. I observed, that the real cause of this was to be found in the difference of the commercial ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... the boundless perversity of mankind. The exhibition of human folly never ceased to divert him, and though his examples of it seemed mainly drawn from the columns of one exiguous daily paper, he found there matter for endless variations on his favorite theme. If this monotony of topic did not weary the younger man, it was because he fancied he could detect under it the tragic implication of the fixed idea—of some great moral upheaval which had flung his friend stripped and starving on the desert island of the little ...
— The Hermit and the Wild Woman and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... called, full of the topic which had been started that afternoon. Hutchins told him what ...
— Mary Minds Her Business • George Weston
... had been wriggling since the introduction of this topic. He now gave a cry of exasperation and made a furious motion with his hand. "Oh, don't bother me!" he said. He was enraged against the tattered man, and could have strangled him. His companions seemed ever to play intolerable parts. They were ever upraising the ghost of shame ...
— The Red Badge of Courage - An Episode of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... principle, honesty, self-discipline, statistics, aesthetics, and a perfect consciousness of possessing all these virtues, and a full recognition of their market values. I think he tolerated me as a kind of foreigner, gently but firmly waiving all argument on any topic, frequently distrusting my facts, generally my deductions, and always my ideas. In conversation he always appeared to descend only half way down a long moral and intellectual staircase, and always delivered his conclusions ...
— Drift from Two Shores • Bret Harte
... made it so; and therefore it is best. But it seems to me a little too much confidence of our own wisdom to say,—'I think it best; and therefore God hath made it so.' And in the matter in hand, it will be in vain to argue from such a topic, that God hath done so, when certain experience shows us that he hath not. But the goodness of God hath not been wanting to men, without such original impressions of knowledge or ideas stamped on the mind; since he hath furnished man ...
— An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume I. - MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books I. and II. (of 4) • John Locke
... ambitious designs and encroaching spirit of France; blamed ministers for laying aside all jealousy of that power; and asserted that the court of Versailles was at that very moment labouring to counteract Pitt's diplomatists. But though Fox censured the French treaty, which formed the leading topic of the king's speech, he voted for the address, a circumstance for which he received a little banter from the lips of the minister. Pitt remarked:—"I am happy that, notwithstanding the vehemence with which the right honourable gentleman has argued against ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... I might as well," said Joe, pouring what remained into a tumbler and drinking it off. "Is there any other topic you'd like to mention? If I can 'ave any influence on you, I shall ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... Grammar was a topic that could not be taken in snippets and bits. Whole paragraphs had to be read until Martha could read them without a halt or a mispronunciation, and then committed to memory with the "Run" button held down. At ...
— The Fourth R • George Oliver Smith
... painted, and entire new furniture to be put into it, belonging to I do not know who(m). He was security for an annuity of Richard's, and so suffered this seizure on his account. It is a strange combination altogether, and is now more the subject of conversation than any other topic, and it serves me also as one to fill my letter. Si le recit vous ennuye, vous n'ignorez pas le motif que j'ai a vous le faire. I suppose that you are not always at audiences, and that you may like sometimes to know what passes in circles from ...
— George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life • E. S. Roscoe and Helen Clergue
... you a tip," said the Major, resuming the interrupted topic. "War is a business. The more business capacity you have, the more likely you are to succeed. I'm a ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett
... had made some friends. He had been uneasy at that, and questioned them. But it appeared they had talked chiefly of their Uncle Arthur. Well, damnable as Uncle Arthur was as a man he was safe enough as a topic of conversation. He was English. He was known to people in America like the Delloggs and the Sacks. But it was now clear they must have said things besides that. Probably they had expatiated on Uncle Arthur from some point ...
— Christopher and Columbus • Countess Elizabeth Von Arnim
... their compatriots here to rebellion; that all have been wrought upon until they believe that the conduct of England to Ireland is only to be paralleled by that of Russia to Poland; that on this exciting topic, therefore, a kind of holy indignation mixes itself with more questionable impulses; that Guy Fawkes Papineau, actuated by the most malignant passions, irritated vanity, disappointed ambition, and national hatred, which unmerited favour has only served to exasperate, is waving ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin
... with both him and herself, I was sure. Indeed, I was dissatisfied with the result of the interview myself. But my lady was not one to speak out her feelings on the subject; nor was I one to forget myself, and begin on a topic which she did not begin. She came to me, and was very tender with me; so tender, that that, and the thoughts of Mr. Gray's sick, hopeless, disappointed ...
— My Lady Ludlow • Elizabeth Gaskell
... trade against protection. Then came one night when the Board of Trade Minister had to speak in the House of Commons as a defender of the Government policy against a motion put forth by the Opposition in favor of tariff reform. After speakers on both sides had debated the topic for some hours it was Lloyd George's duty to wind up the discussion for the Government. When he rose there was much excitement on both sides and a good deal of shouting and counter-shouting. Remarks were thrown across from the Opposition ...
— Lloyd George - The Man and His Story • Frank Dilnot
... theatre to fight in. He began by handing her to dinner, and with modest assurance seated himself by her side. But so well was he aware of her failing, that he never once alluded to our unfortunate element; on the contrary, he led her away with every variety of topic which he found best suited to her taste: so that she was at last compelled to acknowledge that he might be one exception to her rule, and I took the liberty of hoping ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... collections. It was a rule of his preachers never to omit a single preaching appointment, except when the "risk of limb or life" required. He was the first to apply extensively the plan of tract distribution. He wrote, printed, and scattered over the kingdom, placards on almost every topic of morals and religion. In addition to the usual means of grace, he introduced the band meeting, the class meeting, the prayer meeting, the love feast, and the watch night. Not content with his itinerant laborers, he called into use the less available powers of his people ...
— The Book of Religions • John Hayward
... Her father, with one side palsy-stricken, wavered out every morning to his office, and sat there all day, the tremulous shadow of his former will. Sometimes his old friends came in to see him; but no one expected now to hear the Squire "get going." He no longer got going on any topic; he had become as a little child,—as the little child that played about him there in the still, warm summer days and built houses with his law-books on the floor. He laughed feebly at her pranks, and submitted to her rule with pathetic ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... rations—a topic which, with escape or exchange, were to be the absorbing ones for us for the next fifteen months. There was now issued to every two men a loaf of coarse bread—made of a mixture of flour and meal—and about the size and shape of an ordinary brick. This half loaf was accompanied, ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... to rouse public opinion on this question of the alleged over-representation of Ireland in the House of Commons, and in view of the share of attention which the matter received in the closing days of the last Parliament it is as well to devote some attention to the topic. ...
— Ireland and the Home Rule Movement • Michael F. J. McDonnell
... Christianity to the theme of the volume presents a delicate, and, it may be thought, a dangerous topic of discussion, for a so decidedly secular pen as Mr. Leland's; but he touches upon it with freedom and boldness, though with frankest sympathy and reverence for the great Spirit, whose religion is the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3 No 2, February 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... when he went skiing, a sport he loved, and which she did not practise. The he seemed to sweep out of life, to be a projectile into the beyond. And often, when he went away, she talked to the little German sculptor. They had an invariable topic, in ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... side by side, dined together, and passed almost every hour in confiding conversation. It was Napoleon's great object to withdraw Alexander from the English alliance. In these long interviews the fate of Turkey was a continual topic of conversation. Alexander was ready to make almost any concession if Napoleon would consent that Russia should take Constantinople. But Napoleon was irreconcilably opposed to this. It was investing Russia with too formidable power. He was willing that the ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott
... begins to bear fruit in its fourth or fifth year. Now it is agreed that, as with men, the cacao tree needs protection in its youth, but whether it needs shade trees when it is fully grown is one of the controverted questions. When the planter is sitting after his day's work is done, and no fresh topic comes to his mind, he often re-opens the discussion on the question of shade. The idea that cacao trees need shade is a very ancient one, as is shown in a very old drawing (possibly the oldest drawing of cacao extant) beneath which it is written: "Of the ...
— Cocoa and Chocolate - Their History from Plantation to Consumer • Arthur W. Knapp
... dinner-party was not quite so ponderous and learned as usual, for the incidents of the day formed the main topic of conversation. The Doctor was in high good-humour, and naturally felt rather proud of his pupils. They had distinguished themselves, and in so doing had distinguished him and his school, and the ...
— Glyn Severn's Schooldays • George Manville Fenn
... October 24, 1840: "My dear Margaret, I have your frank and noble and affecting letter, and yet I think I could wish it unwritten. I ought never to have suffered you to lead me into any conversation or writing on our relation, a topic from which with all persons ...
— Emerson and Other Essays • John Jay Chapman
... accounting for this state of mind it must be remembered that, except for the topic of our conversations, there was in my surroundings next to nothing to suggest what had befallen me. Within a block of my home in the old Boston I could have found social circles vastly more foreign to me. The speech of the Bostonians of the twentieth century ...
— Looking Backward - 2000-1887 • Edward Bellamy
... life in a way worthy of the Gospel of Christ." "Only"; as if this were the one possible topic for him now. This will content him; nothing else will. He "desires one thing of the Lord"—the practical holiness of his beloved converts; and he cannot possibly do otherwise, coming as he has just come from ...
— Philippian Studies - Lessons in Faith and Love from St. Paul's Epistle to the Philippians • Handley C. G. Moule
... consolation, at least, of having heard no single word concerning their countrymen uttered in the conversations at the mine. Had Captain Francis Drake and his companions arrived upon the coast, it was almost certain that their presence there would be the all-absorbing topic among the Spanish colonists. ...
— Under Drake's Flag - A Tale of the Spanish Main • G. A. Henty
... hard work for her; but she got along well with Count Munster, and when she came to me I soon brought the conversation upon the subject of the "House in the Wood" by thanking her for the pains her government had taken in providing so beautiful a place for us. This new topic seemed to please her, and we had quite a long talk upon it; she speaking of her visits to the park, for skating and the like, and I dwelling on the beauty of the works of art and the views in the park. ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White
... of a cut." Nasmyth's desire to escape from the topic was a trifle too plain, as he added, ...
— The Greater Power • Harold Bindloss
... vice, but they raised first that devil which now they conjure and cannot bind; though there were before no punishments for wickedness, yet there was less committed because there were no rewards for it. But the men who praise philosophy from this topic are much deceived; let oratory answer for itself, the tinkling, perhaps, of that may unite a swarm: it never was the work of philosophy to assemble multitudes, but to regulate only, and govern them when they were assembled, to make the best of ...
— Cowley's Essays • Abraham Cowley
... waited quietly until the boy was dressed also, and they went down to breakfast together. Despite the lateness of the hour the dining-room was still crowded, and the room buzzed with animated talk. Harry knew very well that Charleston was the absorbing topic, just as it had been the one great thought in his own mind. The people about him seemed to be wholly of Southern sympathies, and he knew very well that Tennessee, although she might take her own time about it, would follow South Carolina out ...
— The Guns of Bull Run - A Story of the Civil War's Eve • Joseph A. Altsheler
... personally," replied Lidgerwood, taking Benson's abrupt change of topic as a matter of course. "He seems a fine fellow; much too fine a fellow to be wasting himself out ...
— The Taming of Red Butte Western • Francis Lynde
... North. Samuel J. Mills organized at Williams College, in 1808, for missionary work, an undergraduate society, which was soon transferred to Andover, and resulted in the establishment of the American Bible Society and Board of Foreign Missions. But the topic which engrossed Mills' most enthusiastic attention was the Negro. The desire was to better his condition by founding a colony between the Ohio and the Lakes; or later, when this was seen to be unwise, ...
— History of Liberia - Johns Hopkins University Studies In Historical And Political Science • J.H.T. McPherson
... unpleasantness was agony to a man who had the habit of perfection. It was dawning on him that unless he exercised considerable caution he would find himself mixed up in an uncommonly disagreeable affair. He might even be held responsible for it, since the dubiousness of the topic need never have emerged if he had not unveiled it to his wife. So that, when Miss Keating, in her unsteadiness, declared that there must not be a moment's doubt as to her attitude, the Colonel himself was seized with a slight vertigo. ...
— The Immortal Moment - The Story of Kitty Tailleur • May Sinclair
... continued he, "to the disparagement of the King of Poland, or of any other great personage who is much the subject of conversation. I only intended to say that everything has its fashion. The ruin of Poland was the fashionable topic for a month after it happened; and now nobody minds ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... sincerity." Everyone treated her with marked respect, yet everyone was at ease in her society. She preserved her wit, judgment, and vivacity to the last, but often complained of her memory. She chose men rather than women for her companions, "the usual topic of ladies' discourse being such as she had little knowledge of and less relish." "Honour, truth, liberality, good nature, and modesty were the virtues she chiefly possessed, and most valued in her acquaintance." In some Prayers used by Swift during ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... hand, naval historians have troubled themselves little about the connection between general history and their own particular topic, limiting themselves generally to the duty of simple chroniclers of naval occurrences. This is less true of the French than of the English; the genius and training of the former people leading them to more ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan
... almost as much a literary man as he was a sculptor; he was the friend and companion of literary men, and to the fact that art in the middle years of the nineteenth century was far more a literary topic than a matter of critical scrutiny, Mr. Story owed an incalculable degree of his fame. He was an extremely interesting figure with his social grace, his liberal culture, and his versatile gifts. His life was centred ...
— Italy, the Magic Land • Lilian Whiting
... of thought appears to depend—first, on a large attendance in the antechamber; secondly, on the presence there of no ideas except such as are strictly germane to the topic under consideration; thirdly, on the justness of the logical mechanism that issues the summons. The thronging of the antechamber is, I am convinced, altogether beyond my control; if the ideas do not appear, I cannot create them, nor compel them to come. The exclusion ...
— Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development • Francis Galton
... quaint little pamphlet of advice, "is best carried on if some definite topic is introduced. This, however, must he accomplished with ease and grace, lest a feeling of awkwardness ...
— The Heart of Arethusa • Francis Barton Fox
... fond of music, and it was never any task to me to practice," Mona remarked. Then she added, to change the topic: "Shall I baste this ruffle in the full width, or shall I set it down ...
— Mona • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... were watched with great interest by the neighbors, and the probable outcome of it all was often a topic of conversation ...
— The Black Creek Stopping-House • Nellie McClung
... fact was noticed by many officers, and is particularly referred to by Pleasonton, Warren, and Howard. Jackson's columns and trains had been strongly reconnoitred, their force estimated, and their direction noted. The question as to what might be the objective of such a movement, had been the main topic of discussion during the day throughout ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge
... class-room is on a busy street and must be ventilated by means of open windows. Finally, in the use of illustrative materials, the teacher should see that the concrete matter will not stimulate the child unduly in ways foreign to the lesson topic. For example, in teaching a nature lesson on the crow, the teacher would find great difficulty in keeping the children's attention on the various topics of the lesson, if he had before the class a live crow that ...
— Ontario Normal School Manuals: Science of Education • Ontario Ministry of Education
... out into his usual topic—convict discipline. It was pleasant for him to get a listener; for his wife, cold and unsympathetic, tacitly declined to enter into his schemes for the subduing of the refractory villains. "You insisted on coming here," she would say. "I did not wish to come. I don't like to talk of these things. ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... avoided any personal topic and talked about Canadian farming, sitting silent when he could, while Muriel gazed about with pleasurable curiosity. It is never quite dark on those wide levels in summertime, and, for there was no moon, the prairie stretched away before them shadowy, silent, and mysterious. Now they passed ...
— Prescott of Saskatchewan • Harold Bindloss
... have lately been visited by a succession of brilliant sunsets, concerning which there have been various theories. This has been a charming subject for conversation, yet at the average dinner we have heard but few persons mention this interesting topic. Perhaps one is afraid to start a conversation upon celestial scenery at a modern dinner. The things may seem too remote, yet it would not be a ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
... notice and surprise that the number of clergymen both in America and Great Britain who thrust forward their evidence on this medical topic was singularly large in proportion to that of the members of the medical profession. Whole pages are contributed by such worthies as the Rev. Dr. Trotter of Hans Place, the Rear. Waring Willett, Chaplain to the Earl of Dunmore, the Rev. Dr. Clarke, Chaplain to the Prince of Wales. ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... was, that I was as sensible of it as he could be, but that I could not help it; that I deserved all the punishment I met with, and threw myself entirely on his mercy. He used frequently to call me over to the weather side of the deck, when he would converse with me on any topic which he thought might interest or amuse me. Finding I was tolerably well read in history, he asked my opinion, and gave me his own with great good sense and judgment; but such was the irresistible weight of my eyelids, that I used, when he was in the midst ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... such a thing, yet he has done it simply and naturally, as he would write on any other topic in which he was genuinely interested. To be naked and unashamed is a condition lost by most of us long ago, but retained by a few who still have many of the traits ...
— Our Friend John Burroughs • Clara Barrus
... become a practice of late years in this Society for one of the Vice-Presidents to read an Annual Address on some topic or topics connected with Archaeology. I appear here to-night more in compliance with this custom than with any hope of being able to state aught to you that is likely to prove either of adequate interest or of adequate importance for such ...
— Archaeological Essays, Vol. 1 • James Y. Simpson
... had given his entire time and thought, himself, verily, to the "great argument" which involved the welfare of the Colonies, and as we now see it, of the world. To allow one idea exclusive occupancy of the mind and constantly to ponder a single topic, is a very frequent and almost sure cause of mental distress. It was his highest merit and at the same time his greatest misfortune, that Otis permitted this political controversy to have such an absorbing and despotic command of ...
— James Otis The Pre-Revolutionist • John Clark Ridpath
... tongues; and again because it is natural to us, while the other is artificial." Speech, Dante declares, is the prerogative of man alone, not required by the angels and not possible for brutes; there was originally but one language, the Hebrew. In treating of this latter topic Dante introduces a personal reference of extraordinary interest in its bearing on his feeling in respect ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... better to give titles than to alter tariffs in return for subscriptions to party funds. The subject was not a very interesting one and both men were pleased when the arrival of the steamer gave them a new topic. ...
— The Island Mystery • George A. Birmingham
... expressions—phrases, figures, metaphors, and quotations; such as—not to mince the matter, took occasion to, won golden opinions, the cynosure of all eyes, mental vision, smell of the lamp, read mark learn and inwardly digest, inclines towards, indulge in, it is whispered, staple topic of conversation, hit the happy medium, not wisely but too well, I grieve to say, reign supreme, much in request, justify its existence, lend itself amiably to, choice galore, call for remark, hail with delight; and forty thousand others. The work ...
— Journalism for Women - A Practical Guide • E.A. Bennett
... supposed,' said Scheffer, quietly; and Paul hurried back to the old queer topic, and said, half in jest: 'You mean to keep ...
— The Continental Monthly , Vol. 2 No. 5, November 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... extraordinary and honourable, that he doubted all the regard due to his own ecclesiastical character would be scarcely sufficient to make it believed. Indeed, we were afterwards informed that he and the rest of the prisoners had not been silent on this topic, but had given the highest commendations of our commodore, both at Lima and other places; and the Jesuit, as we were told, had interpreted in his favour, in a lax and hypothetical sense, that article of his ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... still at Bell Hammer. More than once the latter had revived her suggestion of a visit to the South of France. Each time Valerie had applauded the idea and then promptly switched the conversation on to another topic.... Women understand women, and with a sigh her aunt resigned herself to the prospect of a winter in Hampshire. Return to Town she would not. London was not what it had been, and the vanities of the metropolis ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... "Sow in the morn thy seed," the Association was addressed by Rev. W.B. Wright, D.D., on the Educational Work, presenting the report of the committee and speaking in its behalf. Rev. F.P. Woodbury, D.D., spoke also on the same topic. ...
— American Missionary, Volume 43, No. 12, December, 1889 • Various
... was the principal topic of dissension between these lovers. His opinion of the world affected her like a creature threatened with a deprivation of air. He explained to his darling that lovers of necessity do loathe the world. They live in the world, they accept its benefits, and assist it ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... knowledge of the human heart with its ten thousands of conflicting passions, as in the structure of the kingly verse, wherein he delineated character as never man did, saving only he. But hold, Arvina. Though I could willingly spend hours with thee in converse on this topic, the state has calls on me, which must be obeyed. Tell me, therefore, I pray you, as shortly as may be, what is the matter you would have me know. Shortly, I pray you, for my time is short, and my duties ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... old man divined a good deal too. Patsy did not care to talk about anything but the Valleys. She rejected topic after topic and returned to the Free Trade, the "running" of cargoes, the lads who had beaten the press-gang, and ...
— Patsy • S. R. Crockett
... astonished at so much politeness, and told him my name and followed him. He took me into a box where there were two ladies and an elderly man. They were talking about the ball, so I put in a remark or two on the same topic, which seemed to meet with approval. One of the two ladies, who retained some traces of her former beauty, asked me, in excellent French, what ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... of three assemble in their little sitting-room, after a frugal supper, tobacco is the Colonel's chief care, and becomes the first topic of conversation. ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... without some security upon the other side. However, Sir, as that is his affair, and as I do not find it very interesting—no offense, Sir, for I shall always be happy to see my daughter-in-law—we had better, perhaps, find some other topic. The art of life, my young friend, is to avoid what is disagreeable. Don't you think Mr. Ele quite a remarkable man? I regard him as an honor to your ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis
... not much movement any way, and for several hours before and after noon they lay almost becalmed upon the ocean. This period was passed in silence and inaction. There was nothing for them to talk about but their forlorn situation, and this topic had been exhausted. There was nothing for them to do. Their only occupation was to watch the sun, until, by its sinking lower in the sky, they might discover ...
— The Boy Slaves • Mayne Reid
... a fair way to realize his favorite dream of making a fortune and returning to the North to marry. The subject of Slavery was then seldom discussed. North and South seemed to have entered into a tacit agreement to ignore the topic completely. Alfred's experience was like that of most New Englanders in his situation. He was at first annoyed and pained by many of the peculiarities of Southern society, and then became gradually accustomed to them. But his natural sense of justice was very strong; and this, added ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 7, May, 1858 • Various
... manner that problematical science—which is, nevertheless, so sure of itself!—called political economy, Sallenauve had also studied the sources which contribute to form the great current of national prosperity; and in this connection the subject of mines, the topic at this moment most interesting to Monsieur de Camps, had not been neglected by him. We can imagine the admiration of the iron-master, who had studied too exclusively the subject of iron ore to know much about the other branches of metallurgy, when the young deputy told him, apropos ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac
... resources of Siberia and the designs of the Japanese empire upon that territory. About the time the black coffee made its appearance, Kay's harassed soul had found sanctuary in the discussion of a topic which she knew would be of interest—one in which she felt she ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... to talk of the weather, and, like everybody else, he complained of the heat. Receiving no encouragement so far, he selected politics as his next topic. Randal was unapproachably indifferent to the state of parties, and the urgent necessity for reform. Still bent, as it seemed, on preventing his visitor from taking a leading part in the conversation, Mr. Sarrazin ...
— The Evil Genius • Wilkie Collins
... arrogance. With one mind, their intent eyes all fastened upon the old man's knife, as he carved the chief dish before him. I do not suppose that for the world they would have profaned that moment with the slightest observation, even upon so neutral a topic as the weather. No! And when reaching out his knife and fork, between which the slice of beef was locked, Ahab thereby motioned Starbuck's plate towards him, the mate received his meat as though receiving alms; and cut it tenderly; and a little ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... "Aha! At last!" and nodding lightly to me, entered the coffee-house with the negro. I remained under the awning. I wished to wait until the baron should come out again, not so much for the sake of entering again into conversation with him (I really did not know what topic I could start with), as for the purpose of again verifying my first impression.—But half an hour passed; an hour passed.... The baron did not make his appearance. I entered the coffee-house, I made the circuit of all the rooms—but ...
— A Reckless Character - And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... day Mr Sudberry and his boys learned a great deal about their new home from McAllister, whom they found intelligent, shrewd, and well-informed on any topic they chose to broach; even although he was, as Mr Sudberry said in surprise, "quite a common man, who wore corduroy and wrought in his fields like a mere labourer." After dinner they all walked out together, and had a row on the lake under his guidance; and in the ...
— Freaks on the Fells - Three Months' Rustication • R.M. Ballantyne
... the matter, I will say here that no will ever did turn up, and that Maillot inherited the entire Page fortune. I merely mentioned this topic to pave the way ...
— The Paternoster Ruby • Charles Edmonds Walk
... than declamations on the hollowness and transitoriness of human life and grandeur: but here, too, the great charm of Marcus Aurelius, his emotion, comes in to relieve the monotony and to break through the gloom; and even on this eternally used topic he is imaginative, ...
— Selections from the Prose Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... scientific interest to the missionary during this period was—the desiccation of Africa. On this topic he addressed a long letter to Dr. Buckland in 1843, of which, considerably to his regret, no public notice appears to have been taken, and perhaps the letter never reached him. The substance of this paper may, however, be gathered from a communication subsequently ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie
... Germano-Gallic war; the light that might be thrown upon the sources of HORACE GREELEY'S agricultural information; the settlement of the Coolie question. Then, see what effect a clear and candid discussion of the topic would have on the public morality, security, and peace! How often it appears that, in spite of the normal equanimity observable in circumstantial evidence, hereditary disciplinarisms are totally devoid of potential abstemiousness. This may be owing to the fact that at ebb and neap tides the obliquity ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 24, September 10, 1870 • Various
... day, I had occasional doubts, which had I suffered them to prevail, would have been exceedingly mortifying. The young lady was certainly a beautiful lady: was modest too, and well bred. I had seen nothing to impeach her virtue: on the contrary, it had been the principal topic of our discourse. 'Tis true I had, as became me, been too respectful to put her chastity to any proof. I was ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... The other topic I shall take leave to mention goes deeper into the principles of our national life and policy. It is the subject ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... been memorably engaged; but so much was she enraptured by the knowledge that his regiment, and therefore that he, had rendered conspicuous service in the dreadful conflict—a service which had actually made them, within the last twelve hours, the foremost topic of conversation in London—so absolutely was fear swallowed up in joy—that, in the mere simplicity of her fervent nature, the poor woman threw her arms round my neck, as she thought of her son, and gave to me the kiss which secretly was meant ...
— The English Mail-Coach and Joan of Arc • Thomas de Quincey
... of this magnificent castle in the air and of the festivities at which he had the honor to be a guest. So saying, Monsieur On-Dit made his bow and hurried from one to another of the company, with all of whom he seemed to be acquainted and to possess some topic of interest or amusement for every individual. Coming at last to the Oldest Inhabitant, who was slumbering comfortably in the easy-chair, he applied his mouth to ...
— A Select Party (From "Mosses From An Old Manse") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... you didn't frighten me, Mr. Courtland. I was only wondering how you would go on—whether you would treat the topic ...
— Phyllis of Philistia • Frank Frankfort Moore
... who were within hearing of it smile. The seduction of Francoise de Rohan by the Duc de Nemours was the topic of all conversations; but, as the duke was cousin to Francois II., and doubly allied to the house of Valois through his mother, the Guises regarded him more as the seduced than the seducer. Nevertheless, the power of the house of Rohan was such that the Duc de Nemours was obliged, after the death ...
— Catherine de' Medici • Honore de Balzac
... to that high perfection which enabled him to practice all kinds of bowing with celerity. Without the Tourte bow, Paganini and the modern school of virtuosos, which has followed so splendidly from his example, would have been impossible. To many of our readers an amplification of this topic may be of interest. While the left hand of the violin-player fixes the tone, and thereby does that which for the pianist is already done by the mechanism of the instrument, and while the correctness of his intonation depends on the proficiency of the left hand, it is the action of the ...
— Great Violinists And Pianists • George T. Ferris
... all built on a ridiculous assumption," Lee reminded her; "I even forget how we started. Suppose we talk about something else; Mrs. Grove, as a topic, is pretty well exhausted." Fanny, narrow-eyed, relapsed into an intent silence. She faded from his mind, her place taken by Savina. Immediately he was conscious of a quickening of his blood, the disturbed ...
— Cytherea • Joseph Hergesheimer
... marquis reached the main corridor, where the scene was almost as animated as in the bar and where the principal topic of conversation seemed to be horses and races that had been or were about to be run. "I'd put Uncle Rastus' mule against that hoss!" "That four-year-old's quick as a runaway nigger!" "Five hundred, the gelding beats the runaway nigger!" "Any ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... thought of the highboy as they rode along the pleasant country roads. She remembered the expression she had caught on the face of Phares and the remembrance troubled her. She sought desperately for some topic of conversation that would lead the man's thoughts from the highboy and prevent the return of the mood she had discovered ...
— Patchwork - A Story of 'The Plain People' • Anna Balmer Myers
... have met before this, and have much to tell one another; Treaty of Seville by no means their only topic. Nay the flood of cordiality went at length so far, that at last Friedrich Wilhelm, the conscientious King, came upon the most intimate topics: Gravenitz; the Word of God; scandal to the Protestant Religion: ...
— History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 7 • Thomas Carlyle
... else supremely indifferent to it. She did not seem unfriendly, and I imagined that she harbored some curiosity in regard to me. My dress, manner, and some slight personal allusions secured far more attention than any abstract topic I could introduce. Her lips, however, were so exquisitely chiselled that they made, for the time, any utterance agreeable, and suggested that only tasteful thoughts and words could come ...
— A Day Of Fate • E. P. Roe
... being Ramazan, we remained under a large tree before the Menzel, smoking and conversing till very late. The researches which Mr. Seetzen made here four years ago were the principal topic; he continued his tour from hence towards the lake of Tabaria, and the eastern borders of the Dead Sea. The Christians believe that he was sent by the Yellow King (Melek el Aszfar, a title which ...
— Travels in Syria and the Holy Land • John Burckhardt
... redskins had almost disappeared from view. The teamsters eagerly asked us a hundred questions concerning our fight, admired our fort, and praised our pluck. Simpson's remarkable presence of mind in planning the defence was the general topic of conversation among ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... talked, the Duc de Vivonne came into my room. Learning the topic of our discussion, he spoke as follows: "I should not be general of the King's Galleys and a soldier at heart and by profession if my opinion in this matter were other than it is. I have attentively read controversies on this point, and have ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan
... conversational gamut, and "that awful pause" in which neither seems to have anything to say, occurs. And having risen, do not "stand upon the order of your going;" do not linger for last words, or begin a fresh topic at the door, keeping your hostess standing and perhaps detaining her from other guests. "Parting is such sweet sorrow" in some cases that it becomes awkward and embarrassing because so prolonged. Especially does it seem difficult for the youth who has not yet attained the aplomb which makes ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... Mrs. Markham and walked with her into one of the smaller parlours, where Mr. Sefton, Winthrop, Raymond, Redfield and others were discussing a topic with ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... poem. He then considered what was the most melancholy subject of mankind, and found it was death, and that that melancholy theme was most poetical when allied to beauty. Hence the death of a beautiful woman was unquestionably the most poetic topic in the world. It was equally beyond doubt that the lips best suited for such topic were those of a bereaved lover. Thus he worked himself up, or rather back, to the climax of the poem, for he wrote the last stanza, in which the climax occurs, first. His ...
— The Last Harvest • John Burroughs
... that he must be invading some region of singularity, good or bad. The devout hope is that he is doing well. The secret faith is that he is making a mess of it. Half a dozen comfortable marketmen, who were habitual callers at the Quiet Woman as they passed by in their carts, were partial to the topic. In fact, though they were not Egdon men, they could hardly avoid it while they sucked their long clay tubes and regarded the heath through the window. Clym had been so inwoven with the heath in his boyhood that hardly anybody ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... Sreenuggur—and now let me make a few observations on a topic which I dare say you are surprised has not been mentioned before, I mean the women; the far-famed beauties of Kashmir. I am not ungallant, while I have been silent, I have been observing, and have delayed my remarks in order that they might have the benefit of the largest experience I could ...
— Three Months of My Life • J. F. Foster
... hand, Mr. Garfield, of Ohio, among the friends of the measure, delivered a speech "on the Freedmen's Bureau Bill," in which the topic discussed was "Restoration of the Rebel States." In the course of his ...
— History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States • Wiliam H. Barnes
... the discrimination, but let it pass. "We can hardly make that our chief subject—at least not TOO intentionally," she suggested. "Of course we can let our talk DRIFT in that direction; but we ought to have some other topic as an introduction, and that is what I wanted to consult you about. The fact is, we know so little of Osric Dane's tastes and interests that it is difficult ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 2 (of 10) • Edith Wharton
... war the all-absorbing topic for several years. Hot debates were held on the question as to whether, on one hand, the Arbuckles had the right to enter the sugar-refining business and, on the other, as to whether the sugar-trust ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... the topic; but as he lay awake that night, feeling his heart jump at every footstep and word in the room, he made the most desperate and heroic resolves to become a perfect griffin to all Templeton. For all that, he also nearly made ...
— Follow My leader - The Boys of Templeton • Talbot Baines Reed
... faculty were greatly divided in opinion, as to the rectitude of this practice, insomuch that Dr. Friend thought himself under a necessity of vindicating it; and therefore sent to our author for the purport of their former conversation upon this topic, desiring it might be reduced into writing. Such was the friendship that mutually subsisted between these learned men, that this request was granted without hesitation, and Dr. Mead's letter was shewn to Dr. Radcliffe, who prevailed ...
— Medica Sacra - or a Commentary on on the Most Remarkable Diseases Mentioned - in the Holy Scriptures • Richard Mead
... foolish couple," she went on, warming with the charm of her topic till she looked beautiful in the half light thrown upon her by the shaded lamp. "We are interested in people and things, and get half our delight from the perfect congeniality of our natures. Mr. Stone ...
— That Affair Next Door • Anna Katharine Green
... alone passed his hand across his eyes. Why? Perhaps to wipe away a tear, perhaps to smother a sigh. Alas! we know that Moliere was a moralist, but he was not a philosopher. "'Tis all one," he said, returning to the topic of the conversation, "Pelisson ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... had risen in the family esteem. My father's death once fittingly referred to, with a ceremonial lengthening of Scotch upper lips and wagging of the female head, the party launched at once (God help me) into the more cheerful topic of my own successes. They had been so pleased to hear such good accounts of me; I was quite a great man now; where was that beautiful statue of the Genius of Something or other? "You haven't it here? not here? Really?" asks the sprightliest of my cousins, ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... met Merefleet's for a second. There was a touch of uneasiness about him, as if he feared Merefleet might misconstrue something. And Merefleet considerately struck a topic which he believed ...
— The Odds - And Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... one of the chief topics with which I have to deal—viz. the doctrine of Design in Nature, and thus the whole question of Natural Religion in its relation to Natural Science. In handling this topic I shall endeavour to take as broad and deep a view as I can of the present standing of Natural Religion, without waiting to show step by step the ways and means by which it has been brought into this position, by the ...
— Thoughts on Religion • George John Romanes
... even two cocktails were powerless to render Mrs. Poundstone oblivious to it. Shirley and her uncle saw the Mayor's lady flush slightly; they caught the glint of murder in His Honour's eye; and the keen intelligence of each warned them that closed cars should be a closed topic of conversation with the Poundstones. With the nicest tact in the world, Shirley adroitly changed the subject to some tailored shirt-waists she had observed in the window of a local dry-goods emporium that day, and ...
— The Valley of the Giants • Peter B. Kyne
... both exercised their talents chiefly in the study of divinity, this was, from their first acquaintance, the most common topic of conversation between them. The captain, like a well-bred man, had, before marriage, always given up his opinion to that of the lady; and this, not in the clumsy awkward manner of a conceited blockhead, who, while he civilly yields to ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... skill all the technical devices of exposition and argument—a very careful ordering of ideas according to a plan made clear, but not too conspicuous, to the hearer or reader; the use of summaries, topic sentences, connectives; and all the others. In style he had made himself an instinctive master of rhythmical balance, with something, as contrasted with nineteenth century writing, of eighteenth century formality. Yet he is much more varied, flexible, and fluent than Johnson ...
— A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher
... is that so few English-speaking people care to read them. But I assure you that the one all-absorbing topic of the German people is this one of Germany's manifest destiny to rule and elevate the world. And remember these two things go together. They have no idea of dominating the world intellectually or even commercially—but perhaps you are sick ...
— The Major • Ralph Connor
... dust off his embroidered waistcoat and exuded vanity. Prescott would have gone away at once, but such an act would have had an obvious meaning—the last thing that he desired, and he stayed, hoping that the current of talk would float to a new topic. Winthrop and Raymond glanced at him, knowing the facts of the Wilderness and of the retreat that followed, ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... recurred to the subject of Rieseneck or his return, though the baroness constantly expected him to do so, and watched his inscrutable face to detect some signs of a wish to discuss the matter. For two reasons, she would not take the initiative in bringing up the topic. In the first place, as he was the person most nearly concerned, her tact told her that it was for him to decide whether he would talk of his brother or not. Secondly she was silent, because she had noticed something, and knew that he ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford
... morals there is no more important topic. Unselfishness is too often only the most exasperating form of selfishness. Here ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson - a Record, an Estimate, and a Memorial • Alexander H. Japp
... breach of engineering ethics, however otherwise secure from the clutches of the law, occur to the writer, but the two just cited ought to serve. At best, the topic is unpleasant and by no means indicates the character of the profession as a whole. Where there is one engineer who will perjure himself in the fashion as set forth above there are many thousands of engineers who could not ...
— Opportunities in Engineering • Charles M. Horton
... with me a carefully selected list of the things that New York was thinking about at the moment. These I selected from the current newspapers in the proportions to the amount of space allotted to each topic and the size of the heading that announced it. Having thus a working idea of what I may call the mind of New York, I was able to collect and set beside it a list of similar topics, taken from the London Press to represent the mind of London. The two placed side by side make an ...
— My Discovery of England • Stephen Leacock
... Bassett's store at mail times, in the sitting-rooms and kitchens and around breakfast, dinner and supper tables from West Bayport to East Bayport Neck and from Poverty Lane to Woodchuck's Misery—the principal topic was Captain Kendrick's ...
— Fair Harbor • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... gossiped, basking in the autumn sunshine. They still quarreled over the outcome of the war between the states, but now they had a fresh topic of never-ending interest to discuss and that was their own debut party. Congratulations were ever in order on their extreme ...
— The Comings of Cousin Ann • Emma Speed Sampson
... of courtship is not only as old as the human race, but is perhaps the most common one used by animals. While the complete discussion of this topic is reserved for the chapter upon courtship, the picture of love as it is experienced by the young people in this second stage would not be complete without at least a passing reference to it. It constitutes one of the chief numbers in the boy's ...
— A Preliminary Study of the Emotion of Love between the Sexes • Sanford Bell
... statesman. Yet I believe that few things could have better fallen in with his mood than that wild travelling. He might have been almost shaken to pieces,—but the very severity of the shaking served to divert his thoughts from the one dread topic which threatened to absorb them to the exclusion of all else beside. Then there was the tonic influence of the element of risk. The pick-me-up effect of a spice of peril. Actual danger there quite probably was none; but there very really seemed to be. And one ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh
... numbers, is, in itself, a mere negation of number; and such terms as oneness, unity, duality, are not used in calculation,) are collective nouns—a circumstance which seems to make the discussion of the present topic appropriate to the location which is here given it under Rule 15th. Each of them denotes a particular aggregate of units. And if each, as signifying one whole, may convey the idea of unity, and take a singular verb; each, again, as denoting so many units, may quite as naturally take a plural ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... evening he found that opportunity. Soon after his arrival at the house of Mr. Birtwell he saw Mr. Elliott in one of the parlors, and made his way into the little group which had already gathered around the affable clergyman. Joining in the conversation, which was upon some topic of the day, Mr. Ridley, who talked well, was not long in awakening that interest in the mind of Mr. Elliott which one cultivated and intelligent person naturally feels for another; and in a little while, they had the conversation pretty much to themselves. It ...
— Danger - or Wounded in the House of a Friend • T. S. Arthur
... favors from Providence, furnishing the raw material of song and ballad. Welcome to us in our country seclusion as Autolycus to the clown in Winter's Tale, we listened with infinite satisfaction to his readings of his own verses, or to his ready improvisation upon some domestic incident or topic suggested by his auditors. When once fairly over the difficulties at the outset of a new subject, his rhymes flowed freely, "as if he had eaten ballads and all men's ears grew to his tunes." His productions answered, as nearly as I can remember, to Shakespeare's description ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... solicitude felt by our citizens of all classes throughout the Union for the total discharge of the public debt will apologize for the earnestness with which I deem it my duty to urge this topic upon the consideration of Congress—of recommending to them again the observance of the strictest economy in the application of the public funds. The depression upon the receipts of the revenue which had commenced with the year 1826 continued with ...
— State of the Union Addresses of John Quincy Adams • John Quincy Adams
... not doubt that the topic of Free Love engages the attention of the corrupt Londoner. There are plenty of such persons who are only too glad to get the sanction of writers for the maintenance and practice of their evil thoughts, but the purest and best lives in all parts of the field ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... psychological laboratory: the purposes of the economic life, the purposes of commerce and industry, of business and the market in the widest sense of the word. The question how far applied psychology can be extended in this direction is the topic of the following discussions. ...
— Psychology and Industrial Efficiency • Hugo Muensterberg
... see from the jealous way in which, smiling and cheerful as her demeanour was, she caught every look, every word of those around her which might chance to bear reference to her husband; in her quick avoidance of every topic connected with these disastrous times, and, above all, in her hurried grasp of a newspaper that some careless servant brought in fresh from the night-mail, wet ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... topics, set forth at the beginning of each question and at certain other places, are ordinarily presented on a separate line for each topic. ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... complaint, it was a singularly childish one. If he was at Brook Farm without being of it, this is a very fortunate circumstance from the point of view of posterity, who would have preserved but a slender memory of the affair if our author's fine novel had not kept the topic open. The complaint is indeed almost so ungrateful a one as to make us regret that the author's fellow-communists came off so easily. They certainly would not have done so if the author of Blithedale had been more of a satirist. Certainly, ...
— Hawthorne - (English Men of Letters Series) • Henry James, Junr.
... for her class the next day. If, on the other hand, you go into a classroom you will find the shop is brought into the classroom just as the classroom has been brought into the shop. For instance, in a certain English class the topic assigned for papers was "a model house" instead of "bravery" or "the increase of crime in cities," or "the landing of the Pilgrims." The boys of the class had prepared papers on the architecture and construction of a model house, while the girls' papers were devoted ...
— Booker T. Washington - Builder of a Civilization • Emmett J. Scott and Lyman Beecher Stowe
... most sorrowful reaction the political condition of Germany was so wretched that any discussion concerning it was gladly avoided. I do not remember having attended a single debate on that topic in the circles of the students with which I was ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... on the point of shrinking into himself, as was his wont if any personal topic of conversation came up, when it flashed into his mind that here was an opportunity. If he did not take it, so easy a one might not occur again. He braced himself ...
— The Second Latchkey • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... their followers unreserved obedience and submission to the civil authorities. I need not here quote the language of our Saviour; it must be familiar to every Bible reader. I will, however, quote the remarks of St. Paul and St. Peter, on this topic. The former says, "Let every soul be subject to the higher powers." "Whosoever therefore, resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God; and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation." He instructs ...
— A Review of Uncle Tom's Cabin - or, An Essay on Slavery • A. Woodward
... The absorbing political topic in 1855 was the contest in Kansas, which proved the battle-ground for the struggle over the introduction of slavery into the territories north of the line established by the "Missouri Compromise." Lincoln's views on the subject are defined in a notable letter to his friend ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... and, light-hearted and joyous, the future of the silver canyon became the principal topic of conversation ...
— The Silver Canyon - A Tale of the Western Plains • George Manville Fenn
... evidently satisfied with the frankness of my story, which I told in concise sentences enough, for I felt horribly weak; and when it was finished he reverted at once to the topic of Natural History and his own biological studies. He began to question me closely about Tottenham Court Road and Gower Street. "Is Caplatzi still flourishing? What a shop that was!" He had evidently ...
— The Island of Doctor Moreau • H. G. Wells
... style as well. In this, the opening number of his individual journal, Mr. Kleiner provides us with a pleasing variety of literary matter; two serious poems, two rhymes of lighter character, an essay on the inevitable topic of Consolidation, and a brilliant collection of short editorials ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... in Townsville, and arrived in Winton to celebrate the new year of 1888. Election news was the absorbing topic. ...
— Reminiscences of Queensland - 1862-1869 • William Henry Corfield
... Ripon was not disposed to talk further on the subject, a fresh topic of conversation was started. There was news that Ayoub Khan—the brother of Yakoob, who was governor at Herat—was marching south, at the head of a large force, with the intention of opposing Abdul-Rahman, and again ...
— For Name and Fame - Or Through Afghan Passes • G. A. Henty
... I think so," said Jack; "dancing Circassian girls and the seraglio was the topic of the conversation, unless I am wandering ...
— Jack Harkaway's Boy Tinker Among The Turks - Book Number Fifteen in the Jack Harkaway Series • Bracebridge Hemyng
... nothing more about this matter, Owen," I added; "it is not a pleasant topic to me, any more ...
— Up the River - or, Yachting on the Mississippi • Oliver Optic
... shudders with ill-concealed horror when anybody refers to his beloved city as Frisco—which nobody ever does unless it be a raw alien from the other side of the continent; 2—He does not brag of the climate with that constancy which provides his neighbor of Los Angeles a never-failing topic of congenial conversation; and 3—He assures you with a regretful sighing note in his voice that the old-time romance disappeared with the destruction of the old-time buildings, the old-time ...
— Roughing it De Luxe • Irvin S. Cobb
... my best to put him in possession of the leading features, it seemed to have taken very strong hold of his mind, as he frequently, at our subsequent meetings, reverted to the subject. Upon another occasion by degrees the topic of conversation slipped into its wonted channel—the rebellion of 1745, its final disaster, and the singular escape of the Prince from the pursuit of his enemies. The Comte inquired what effect the failure of the enterprise ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... terms (locus inventionis the place or topic of invention, and medium, the argument or middle term of a syllogism) which, belonging to the dialectic art, were employed by the school-men. All the arts and sciences have certain general subjects connected with them which presuppose particular facts, axioms, and rules. These ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... vital and formative principle, which was active during the process of crystallization into sects, or schools of thought, or governments, ceases to act; and what was once a living emanation of the Eternal Mind, organically operative in history, becomes the dead formula on men's lips and the dry topic of the annalist. It has been our good fortune that a question has been thrust upon us which has forced us to reconsider the primal principles of government, which has appealed to conscience as well as reason, and, by bringing the theories of the Declaration ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... she needed to know; and he would take it for granted that she would pounce upon the information and stow it away in her mind—just as he would have done in a similar case. But then, two or three weeks later, the same topic would come up, and he would see a look of sudden terror come into Corydon's eyes—she had ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair
... even compare these two so utterly different beings. I yielded to these reflections during lunch, because the topic in question had brought me on that track; besides, the analysis of Aniela's beauty always gives me a keen delight. My aunt interrupted the discussion, deeming it proper, as lady of the house, to say something ...
— Without Dogma • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... "On any other topic he will be delighted to hear your views. Chatty remarks on bimetallism would meet with his earnest attention. A lecture on what to do with the cold mutton would be welcomed. But not Ireland, if you don't ...
— Love Among the Chickens - A Story of the Haps and Mishaps on an English Chicken Farm • P. G. Wodehouse
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