"Exordium" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Such was the exordium. As an exordium, it was faultless. But it was destined to remain a fragment. It goes down to history as a perfect fragment, like the beginning of a pagan temple that the death of gods ...
— Helen with the High Hand (2nd ed.) • Arnold Bennett
... John the Baptist and his formula of securing remission of sins by repentance and the rite of baptism (being born again of water and the spirit). Peter's first harangue softens us by the human touch of its exordium, which was a quaint assurance to his hearers that they must believe him to be sober because it was too early in the day to get drunk; but of Jesus he had nothing to say except that he was the Christ foretold ...
— Preface to Androcles and the Lion - On the Prospects of Christianity • George Bernard Shaw
... After an exordium of respectful compliment to the Parliament, the rhetorical skill of which is as masterly as the sincerity is obvious, Milton announces his purpose. He thinks so highly of the Parliament that he will pay them the supreme compliment of questioning the wisdom of one of their ordinances and asking ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... is far from my intention to make any formal exordium, even if I knew the exact object of ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... exordium of his invective against Rufinus, which is curiously discussed by the sceptic Bayle, Dictionnaire ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 3 • Edward Gibbon
... (who was himself an exile from Athens at this period, and may probably have been at Sparta, and heard Alcibiades speak), we are at loss whether most to admire or abhor his subtile and traitorous counsels. After an artful exordium, in which he tried to disarm the suspicions which he felt must be entertained of him, and to point out to the Spartans how completely his interests and theirs were identified, through hatred of the Athenian democracy, he thus proceeded:—"Hear me, at any rate, on the matters which require your ...
— The Fifteen Decisive Battles of The World From Marathon to Waterloo • Sir Edward Creasy, M.A.
... nothing, and magnificently sinking the sense of fallen material grandeur in the more liberal resentment of depreciations done to his more lofty intellectual pretensions, "Have you heard" (his customary exordium)—"have you heard," said he, "how they treat me? they put me in comedy." Thought I—but his finger on his lips forbade any verbal interruption—"where could they have put you better?" Then, after a pause—"Where I formerly played Romeo, I now play Mercutio,"—and ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... into a neat pad, smiled professionally. The letter might not be an ordinary sort of letter; but he had in old days listened some hundreds of times to this exordium. ...
— Hocken and Hunken • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... quidam bis biennis in molendino aquatico submersus fuerat (et) ad inuocacionem beati regis henrici resuscitatus a mortuis anno dominice incarnacionis 1481. qui erat annus regni Edwardi quarti regis famosissimi vicesimus primus. Et primo ponitur exordium breue ...
— Henry the Sixth - A Reprint of John Blacman's Memoir with Translation and Notes • John Blacman
... corrupted and had sold himself. For (not to mention the other speeches which, as I have told you, he had made on former occasions) at the first of the assemblies in which you debated about the Peace, he rose and delivered an exordium which I think I can repeat to you word for word as he uttered it at the meeting. {14} 'If Philocrates,' he said, 'had spent a very long time in studying how he could best oppose the Peace, I do not think he could have found a better device than a motion of this ...
— The Public Orations of Demosthenes, volume 1 • Demosthenes
... chose to add an exordium for the benefit of the astonished boatsman still lying on ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... disbelief of a Supreme Deity and state that he could not credit the existence of a Being whose power was said to extend everywhere but whom he had not yet seen, although he was now an old man. The aged sceptic is not a little conceited as the following exordium to one of his speeches evinces: "It is very strange that I never meet with anyone who is equal in sense to myself." The same old man in one of his communicative moods related to us the following tradition: The earth had been formed but continued enveloped in total darkness, when ...
— The Journey to the Polar Sea • John Franklin
... but the Englishman of October 29, 1713, which was probably written by Addison, speaks handsomely of this poem. The Last Day was published soon after the peace. The vicechancellor's imprimatur, for it was printed at Oxford, is dated May the 19th, 1713. From the exordium, Young appears to have spent some time on the composition of it. While other bards "with Britain's hero set their souls on fire," he draws, he says, a deeper scene. Marlborough had been considered by Britain as her hero; but, when the Last Day was published, female cabal had blasted, ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... about the boatman's face, and the boys winked at each other as much as to say that after such an exordium they must expect something rather staggering. The boatman took two or three hard whiffs at ...
— By Sheer Pluck - A Tale of the Ashanti War • G. A. Henty
... of its containing damaging reflections on the elders. Then the present opening (vv. 1—5) was borrowed from Θ, and is marked in both Cod. Chis. and Syro-Hex. as not part of the original work, but a foreign exordium. Rothstein (p. 184, note) thinks that in place of the present borrowed commencement there stood a short introductory remark on the two judging elders. Though lacking proof, this conjecture is well within the bounds of possibility. Yet in the Syro-Hexaplar text the first five verses are obelised, ...
— The Three Additions to Daniel, A Study • William Heaford Daubney
... Americans surpass them in oratory and the spirited manner in which they conduct meetings. They have no system of elocution in England such as we have—a thorough training of the voice, in what is called vocal gymnastics. A hesitating, apologetic way seems to be the national idea for an exordium on all questions. Even their ablest men who have visited this country, such as Kingsley, Stanley, Arnold, Spencer, Tyndal, Huxley, and Canon Farrar, have all been criticised by the American public for their stammering enunciation. They have no speakers to compare ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... to the conversations very well dressed, and, altogether, looked sumptuously. She began them with an exordium, in which she gave her leading views; and those exordiums were excellent, from the elevation of the tone, the ease and flow of discourse, and from the tact with which they were kept aloof from any excess, and from ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. I • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... intense consideration, and not till then, pronounce, Whether on the utmost verge of our actual horizon there is not a looming as of Land; a promise of new Fortunate Islands, perhaps whole undiscovered Americas, for such as have canvas to sail thither?—As exordium to the whole, stand here ...
— Sartor Resartus - The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh • Thomas Carlyle
... darlint," shouted Tim after me as I rushed up the poop ladder and swung myself into the shrouds; but, I was half-way up the ratlines before he could get out the end of his exordium, ...
— Afloat at Last - A Sailor Boy's Log of his Life at Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson
... time after this amiable exordium to make the stranger understand the right a Capuchin ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... than the first insinuating How d'ye of a caressing prefacer, stifling his reader, as a lover sometimes does a coy mistress, into silence. For alas! could this effusion of light have been as easily procured, as the exordium wished it—I tremble to think how many thousands for it, of benighted travellers (in the learned sciences at least) must have groped and blundered on in the dark, all the nights of their lives—running their heads ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... bitter and foul air, Listening unto my Leader, who said only, 'Look that from me thou be not separated.' Voices I heard, and every one appeared To supplicate for peace and misericord The Lamb of God who takes away our sins. Still Agnus Dei their exordium was; One word there was in all, and metre one, So that all harmony appeared among them. 'Master,' I said, 'are spirits those I hear?' And he to me: 'Thou apprehendest truly, And they the knot of anger go unloosing.'" (Canto, ...
— Dante: "The Central Man of All the World" • John T. Slattery
... aware," he continued, clearing his throat which had grown somewhat rusty from his pompous exordium "the late respected gentleman in question did not leave matters in as satisfactory a condition as might have been desired—in fact—eh—well, altogether, the residue of his once considerable fortune makes but a paltry annuity for his bereaved survivors. Were Mrs. Hampden the only claimant ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"
... to Lorenzo de' Medici, does not greatly differ from the Maggio in structure. It admitted, however, of great varieties, and was generally more complex in its interweaving of rhymes. Yet the essential principle of an exordium which should also serve for a refrain, was rarely, if ever, departed from. Two specimens of the Carnival Song will serve to bring into close contrast two very different aspects of Florentine history. ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... over which she had passed, excitement and the novelty of it had, until then, supported her. But at that exordium, instantly, they fell away; instantly fear, like a wave, swept over her. Instantly she felt, and the feeling is by no means agreeable, that she was struggling with the intangible in a void. But she had not intended to drown, or no, that was not it, she had not wanted to marry. Aware of the ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus
... however. Prince Ernest, now being truly alarmed, despatched a messenger to the church for her Highness; but as Doctor Gerschovius had not yet ended his exordium, her Grace would by no means be disturbed, and desired the messenger to go to Ulrich, who no sooner heard the tidings than he rushed down to the water-gate. There he found a great crowd assembled, all eagerly trying, with poles and hooks, ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V1 • William Mienhold
... understood, of Mr. Mill," likewise present. As soon as the Court broke up, I burst into Mill's room, boiling over with indignation, and exclaiming, "What an infamous shame!" and no doubt adding a good deal more that followed in natural sequence on such an exordium. "What's the matter?" replied Mill as soon as he could get a word in. "M——[the director] was quite right. The petition was the joint work of —— and myself."—"How can you be so perverse?" I retorted. "You know that ...
— John Stuart Mill; His Life and Works • Herbert Spencer, Henry Fawcett, Frederic Harrison and Other
... all the autumn. At the opening of the Opera House, on the 20th of November, Mrs. Yates, an actress whom he held in great esteem, delivered a poetical exordium of his composition. Beauclerc, in a letter to Lord Charlemont, pronounced it very good, and predicted that it would soon be in all the papers. It does not appear, however, to have been ever published. In his fitful state of mind Goldsmith may have taken no care ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... in certain words in the exordium of the Fourth Gospel: "That [Word] was the true light which lighteth every man that cometh into ...
— The Lost Gospel and Its Contents - Or, The Author of "Supernatural Religion" Refuted by Himself • Michael F. Sadler
... reluctant to open a business so fearfully momentous. This "deep and deathlike silence" was beginning to become painfully embarrassing, when Patrick Henry arose. He faltered at first, as was his habit; but his exordium was impressive; and as he launched forth into a recital of colonial wrongs he kindled with his subject, until he poured forth one of those eloquent appeals which had so often shaken the House of Burgesses and gained him the fame of being the greatest orator ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving
... at this time joint manager of the Opera with Mrs. Brook. In November 1773, she spoke a Poetical exordium, by which it appeared that she intended mixing plays with operas, and entertaining the public with singing and declamation alternately; but permission could not be obtained from the Lord Chamberlain to put this plan ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... to a distribution of the characters in our representation of the life and history of the great Macedonian, of the 'Marriage of Alexander and Roxana,' and I hereby request those among you to come upon the stage whom our artists have selected to take part in this scene in the procession." After this exordium he shouted in a deep and resonant voice a long list of names, and while this was going on every other sound was hushed in ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... hear a word of this exordium, smiled sheepishly,— and twirling the cap he held, put his coloured handkerchief into it and squeezed it tightly within the lining. Bainton, with the impending fate of the Five Sisters in view, judged ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... the wild harts, the graceful beauty of the brown deer, and the roaring stag, with the banners, ensigns, and streamers of the race of Cona,—all share in the poet's admiration. The following constitutes the exordium ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... (the bishop) was sometimes too hasty, but it was soon over; he further said, that he should have consigned him to his own ordinary for examination, but for the particular interest he took in his welfare, for his and his friends' sake. From this exordium he proceeded to the touchstone question of the real presence ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox |
