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Oratory   Listen
noun
Oratory  n.  The art of an orator; the art of public speaking in an eloquent or effective manner; the exercise of rhetorical skill in oral discourse; eloquence. "The oratory of Greece and Rome." "When a world of men Could not prevail with all their oratory."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Oratory" Quotes from Famous Books



... Incorruptible, with which he was honoured by his partizans. He appears to have possessed little talent, saving a deep fund of hypocrisy, considerable powers of sophistry, and a cold exaggerated strain of oratory, as foreign to good taste, as the measures he recommended were to ordinary humanity. It seemed wonderful, that even the seething and boiling of the revolutionary cauldron should have sent up from the bottom, and long supported on the surface, a thing so miserably void ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 262, July 7, 1827 • Various

... angels with palms in their hands. The appeal is primarily sensuous, and it is hardly too much to say that the Negro is thrilled not so much by the moral as by the artistic and pictorial elements in religion. Every member of the race is an incipient poet, and all are enthralled by music and oratory. ...
— A Social History of the American Negro • Benjamin Brawley

... the same fluent oratory, which in his place in Parliament he had so often practised—"I sat for an hour or more by Lord Steyne's bedside, beseeching, imploring Lord Steyne to forego his intention of demanding a meeting. I pointed ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray

... there never has been, there never will, in brief, there never can be a truly great orator without a great purpose, a great cause behind him. You may study in all the best schools in the country, the best universities and the best schools of oratory. You may study until you exhaust all these, and then seek the best in other lands. You may study thus until your hair is beginning to change its color, but this of itself will never make you a great orator. You may become ...
— What All The World's A-Seeking • Ralph Waldo Trine

... a telling speech, pleaded eloquently, flattered skillfully, and David, who never could withstand the beauty and oratory of another man's wife, granted her every request, as he himself confessed and said (I notice David always got particularly pious when he was going to do or had done anything particularly ...
— Fair to Look Upon • Mary Belle Freeley

... in the woods in the hot days of summer." There is not a flaw in it. It is so filled with simple beauty and tenderness, and there is so much of the genuine word-magic in its language, that one is carried away as by the spell of natural oratory. It has, too, that intimate sympathy with nature which is another racial note in these stories. The enchanted moor, with its silence, where no sound is heard—the wind which shouted beyond the mountains, "when it sped across the moor it ...
— Irish Fairy Tales • Edmund Leamy

... the door of the quaint old Normandy omnibus, by the driver of the same, was proof that the lesson of good oratory, administered by generations of bishops, had not been lost on the Bayeux inhabitants. Two rebellious English tourists furnished the text for the driver's sermon; they were showing, with all the naive ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd

... half-naked pugilist. And this man comes from a judicial bench, and passes for an eloquent orator!" On another occasion, the same critic tells us, Douglas "raved an hour about democracy and anglophobia and universal empire." Adams had been professor of rhetoric and oratory at Harvard College, and he was the last man in the country to appreciate an oratorical manner that departed from the established rules and traditions of the art. Ampere, a French traveler, thought Douglas a perfect representative of the energetic ...
— Stephen Arnold Douglas • William Garrott Brown

... hope!" rejoined the monk, breathing more freely. Moving across the room, he opened a door which communicated with the private oratory of the palace. "Retire within this sacred chapel, Don Camillo, while we await the explanation of so extraordinary ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper

... eye, courageous look, And conscious step of purity and pride. 295 Among the band of my compeers was one Whom chance had stationed in the very room Honoured by Milton's name. O temperate Bard! Be it confest that, for the first time, seated Within thy innocent lodge and oratory, 300 One of a festive circle, I poured out Libations, to thy memory drank, till pride And gratitude grew dizzy in a brain Never excited by the fumes of wine Before that hour, or since. Then, forth I ran 305 From the assembly; through a length of streets, Ran, ostrich-like, ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth

... understood. Word for word, sentence for sentence, paragraph for paragraph, Tom was delivering the Colonel's own sonorous speech! Of course the application was reversed here and there, so that the wit, the humor, and the personal thrusts all went home. It was a wonderful piece of ad captandum oratory. The crowd went wild from start ...
— Southern Lights and Shadows • Edited by William Dean Howells & Henry Mills Alden

... "Wedding-ring Edwards," in his quaint, sententious manner, growled out brief epigrammatic sentences, full of shrewdness and wisdom, most strangely seasoned with semi-contemptuous sarcasm. Here Isherwood Sutcliff, with his well-dressed, dapper figure, and his handsome Roman face, was wont to air his oratory; and here occasionally he, placing his right foot upon a spittoon, would deliver himself of set orations; most carefully prepared; most elegantly phrased; copiously garnished with Byronic quotations; and delivered with considerable grace and fervour. ...
— Personal Recollections of Birmingham and Birmingham Men • E. Edwards

... little part either in debates or committees. In March 1742, on a motion being made for an inquiry into the conduct of Sir Robert Walpole for the preceding ten years, he delivered his maiden speech; (25) on which he was complimented by no less a judge of oratory than Pitt. This speech he has preserved in his letter to Sir Horace Mann, of March 24th, 1742. He moved the Address in 1751; and in 1756 made a speech on the question of employing Swiss regiments in the colonies. This speech he has also himself preserved in the second volume of his "Memoires." ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole

... would have to import a little hay occasionally for the goat. Nor would this be all; he would have to go on shore every Sunday to hear Mass, unless he built a chapel. The hermit of Church Island had an oratory in which he said Mass! But if he left his island every Sunday his hermitage would be a mockery. For the moment he couldn't see how he was to build a chapel—a sheiling, perhaps; a chapel was out of the ...
— The Lake • George Moore

... He shouted loudly at once for descending and offering battle. "But boys," he added, "first wait till I adthress the meeting," and he made for the opening in the canvas through which the outside platform was reached. Stump oratory and a free fight were just the two temptations which Donovan was wholly unable to resist; it was with a face radiant with devil-may-care delight that he burst through the opening, followed by all the ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes

... alike from the embraces of her husband and the gaieties of his Court, finding her chief pleasure in music and painting, in long talks with the most serious-minded of her ladies, in Masses and prayers—spending gloomy hours in her oratory with its death's head, which she always carried with her on her journeys. Such was the nun-like wife whom Louis XV. led to the altar shortly after he had entered his sixteenth year, and had already had his initiation into that career of vice which he pursued ...
— Love affairs of the Courts of Europe • Thornton Hall

... was very much crowded; for much amusement had been received on former occasions when Peter had volunteered his own oratory, and had been completely successful in routing the gravity of the whole procedure, and putting to silence, not indeed the counsel of the opposite ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott

... bones that they may live, or, if ineffectual, remains recorded in condemnation, perhaps against the utterer and listener alike, but assuredly against one of them. We shall not so easily bear with the silk and gold upon the seat of judgment, nor with ornament of oratory in the mouth of the messenger: we shall wish that his words may be simple, even when they are sweetest, and the place from which he speaks like a marble rock in the desert, about which the people ...
— Stones of Venice [introductions] • John Ruskin

... That is a pregnant query, not hastily to be dealt with by genial after-dinner oratory about the self-governing capacity of the Anglo-Norman race—still less by Fourth of July declamations over what the leader of the Massachusetts Bar used to call the 'glittering generalities' of ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert

... Stoic, the Epicurean school found adherents. Cato—who, although a historian and an orator, was, in theory and practice, a rigid man, with the simple ways of the old time—procured the banishment of Carneades, together with Critolaus the Peripatetic, and the Stoic Diogenes. The schools of oratory he caused to be shut up. He did what he could to prevent the introduction of the healing art, as it was practiced by the Greeks. He ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher

... deathly yellow of the religious objects that filled the other end of the studio. Accustomed to see it, the two artists had passed in front of it several times without noticing its nakedness that seemed more insolent and triumphant now that the studio was converted into an oratory. ...
— Woman Triumphant - (La Maja Desnuda) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... there came a contest; Garrison triumphed by a narrow vote, but a secession followed. Of his immediate and permanent allies the most important was Wendell Phillips. He threw himself heart and soul into the cause; he gave to it an educated and brilliant mind, and a fascinating oratory; he was as uncompromising ...
— The Negro and the Nation - A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement • George S. Merriam

... Penitentiary goes in state to S. John Lateran's. He is met, before he enters their college, by the minor penitentiaries, who at this basilic are Franciscans, minori osservanti. Having sprinkled those present with holy water, he goes up to their private oratory[44] in the Lateran palace, whither he is escorted by the prelates and other ministers of the apostolic Penitenzieria. After a short prayer, he proceeds to the library, where he holds the Segnatura or tribunal for signing documents relating to his office, and afterwards enters the basilic of ...
— The Ceremonies of the Holy-Week at Rome • Charles Michael Baggs

... he was delighted to spin his yarn to such sympathetic listeners and told it with so much embroidery and discursive oratory that to repeat it in his words would be tedious. We shall ...
— The Boy Aviators' Treasure Quest • Captain Wilbur Lawton

... life very sweet as he grew into the hearts of the townsfolk and came to know their perfectible qualities; he was acquiring a fine reputation for pulpit oratory. Every Thursday and every Sunday afternoon and evening were spent at the Boyds' as their accepted son-in-law to be. On these occasions it was his keenest pleasure to lay his sermons and plans before Belle for her criticism and approval. When they were not together indoors, they were in the saddle ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton

... years, we Frenchmen, eating dirt in the country we owned from the start; and I'd rather die fighting to get back the old citadel than live with the English heel on my nose," said Lavilette, with a play-acting attempt at oratory. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... many-sided, the all-accomplished man; the polutropos, the polumetis, the tlemon, the polutlas, the polumekanos, the poikilometis, the poluphron, the daiphron, the talasiphron. (What a peck of p's!) In battle never foiled! In council supreme! His oratory like the snow-flakes of the winter storm. Superbly representative Phoenician! "But over and above this universality of ODYSSEUS in the arts of life, he bears the Phoenician stamp in what may be termed his craft." Aha! The "Old Parliamentary Hand" of his period plainly. Wonder if ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, September 17, 1892 • Various

... studies. The monk led him into his cell and showed him a few common volumes upon his table. Thomas explained that the books he wished to see were those from which the learned master drew so many wonders. Thereupon Bonaventura showed him a small oratory. 'There,' he said, 'are my books; that is the principal book from which I draw all that I ...
— The Book-Hunter at Home • P. B. M. Allan

... for lack of anything bigger than a launch to compare with) had to be put in the water and outfitted, and the season's catch of fur inventoried, baled and put aboard. By Victoria Day all was ready. They took the day off to celebrate with games and oratory (chiefly for the benefit of the helpless natives) followed by a big bonfire and dance at Simon ...
— The Woman from Outside - [on Swan River] • Hulbert Footner

... of applause, surely as pardonable as any an Alexandrian church ever heard, followed this dexterous, and yet most righteous, turn of the patriarch's oratory: but Philammon raised himself slowly and fearfully to his knees, and blushing scarlet endured the gaze ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley

... instinctive respect for people who would undertake to move themselves, the third of the population of a planet, over a distance that meant years of voyaging. They might have tastes in costume that he did not share, and they might go in for elaborate oratory instead of matter-of-fact statements, but ...
— The Pirates of Ersatz • Murray Leinster

... warrant was transacted without notable discussion or difference. Mr. Belcher's ticket for town officers, which he took pains to show to those around him, was unanimously adopted. When it came to the question of schools, Mr. Belcher indulged in a few flights of oratory. He thought it impossible for a town like Sevenoaks to spend too much money for schools. He felt himself indebted to the public school for all that he was, and all that he had won. The glory of America, in his view—its pre-eminence above all the exhausted and decayed civilizations ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland

... is not the age of gold. We have no pastoral-writers equal to Theocritus, nor any landscapes like those of Claude Lorraine. The best parts of Spenser's Shepherd's Calendar are two fables, Mother Hubberd's Tale, and the Oak and the Briar; which last is as splendid a piece of oratory as any to be found in the records of the eloquence of the British senate! Browne, who came after Spenser, and Withers, have left some pleasing allegorical poems of this kind. Pope's are as full of senseless finery ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt

... being with GOD to be always at church: we may make an oratory of our heart wherein to retire from time to time to converse with Him in meekness, humility and love. Every one is capable of such familiar conversation with GOD, some more, some less: He knows what we can do. Let us begin, then. Perhaps He expects but one generous ...
— The Practice of the Presence of God the Best Rule of a Holy Life • Herman Nicholas

... Northward Warrior, rose to reply in defense of himself and his captive, and Atta-Kulla-Kulla listened as courteously as the rest, although the speech of the ada-wehi depended, like the oratory of many young men, chiefly on a magical assurance. He had an ally, however, in the dominant superstition of the Cherokees. Numbers of the warriors now ascribed their recent disasters to the neglect of various omens, or the omission of certain propitiatory observances of their ...
— The Frontiersmen • Charles Egbert Craddock

... handkerchiefs have ceased waving, your soprano hurrahs ceased ringing; or else they are given to some pet officer for a coverlet. They cost a great deal of money; they oblige the poor soldiers to endure a mort of flatulent oratory at a parade rest; and they force the poor colonel, in a great perspiration, to stumble through a few feeble, ineffectual, and disjointed words of thanks, which he committed to memory last night from the original, written for him by the adjutant or the young regimental poet, but of which he ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 6, No 5, November 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... destitute of design and merit. They will crayon out an animal, a plant, or a country, so as to prove the existence of a germ in their minds which only wants cultivation. They astonish you with strokes of the most sublime oratory; such as prove their reason and sentiment strong, their imagination glowing and elevated. But never yet could I find that a black had uttered a thought above the level of plain narration; never saw ever an elementary trait of ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 3, 1918 • Various

... original circumstances of composition to a forceful and practical application to the needs of his day and of all time. With his exegetical skill (he was inferior in pure dogma to Theodore of Mopsuestia) he united a wide sympathy and a marvellous power of oratory. ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various

... "noble Polonian," and concocting the fine story with which they afterwards excited his curiosity, and drew him firmly within their toils. "Suddenly," says Dee, as they were thus employed, "there seemed to come out of the oratory a spiritual creature, like a pretty girl of seven or nine years of age, attired on her head, with her hair rolled up before and hanging down behind, with a gown of silk, of changeable red and green, and with a ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay

... has been a failure nowhere. In war, there stands Toussaint L'Overture and Maceo; in education, B. T. Washington; in oratory, Frederick Douglas; in art, H. O. Tanner; in letters, Phyllis Wheatley and Paul Lawrence Dunbar. These and others like them are our prophets of the future. Being thus judged by our best men, it doth not yet appear what we shall be. ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various

... piece of wood carving with a central group of the pelican in her piety, typical of Christ giving His life's blood for fainting souls, is the work of Grinling Gibbons. The organ, in the western gallery, is supposed to have been the work of Bernard Schmidt and was built for the Roman Catholic Oratory at Whitehall, but was given to St. James's by ...
— The Strand District - The Fascination of London • Sir Walter Besant

... women whose names are famous in history. He had much in common with Scipio Aemilianus, whom he resembled in rank and refinement, in valour, in his familiarity with Hellenic culture, and in the style of his speeches. Diophanes, of Mitylene, taught him oratory. The philosopher, Blossius, of Cumae, was his friend. He belonged to the most distinguished circle at Rome. He had married the daughter of Appius, and his brother had married the daughter of Mucianus. ...
— The Gracchi Marius and Sulla - Epochs Of Ancient History • A.H. Beesley

... manner, all alien and uncongenial matter has been separated from political science, and what is precious and of a kindred nature has been left; there remain the nobler arts of the general and the judge, and the higher sort of oratory which is an ally of the royal art, and persuades men to do justice, and assists in guiding the helm of States:—How can we best clear away all these, leaving him whom ...
— Statesman • Plato

... employed the balance of his time in gossiping among the women, or lounging at the drinking saloons, talking a great deal about the wrongs of the working classes, and winning to himself some friends from a certain turbulent class who listened admiringly to his loud, communistic oratory. ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch

... talking with great vehemence the old gentleman, who was turning over the pages of some document, was heard by an appreciative House to murmur: "Oh, be still, my child, be still!" But the most unfortunate episode in Markovi['c]'s oratory was when he expressed the hope that Communism would rage through the country like an epidemic, forgetting for the moment that those municipalities which had gone over to Communism had won general praise for their improvements in the ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 2 • Henry Baerlein

... skill or observation can entirely frustrate his communicating his intention to kindred natures if he is utterly sincere. An infant communicates its joy. It is probable that the inexpressible is never felt. Stammering becomes more eloquent than oratory, a child's impulsiveness wiser than circumlocutory experience. When a single intention absorbs the whole nature, communication is direct and immediate, and makes impotence itself a means of effectiveness. So the naiveties of early art put to shame the purposeless ...
— Albert Durer • T. Sturge Moore

... enthusiasm, faith and youthful candour: from Florence, which he enriched with admirable frescoes, and innumerable pictures dazzling with gold and azure, to Rome, where he left his grand pictorial legacy in the oratory of Pope ...
— Fra Angelico • J. B. Supino

... that we cannot even explain them to ourselves. We may feel a collective emotion under the impulse of some powerful event or personality. We may ebb and flow as a tide to the rhythm of a great melody or to the incantation of noble oratory. The news of a great victory in these days would move us to our common centre and bring all our separate worlds into a mighty chorus of thanksgiving. But even in these common emotions there are infinite shades of difference, and when ...
— Pebbles on the Shore • Alpha of the Plough (Alfred George Gardiner)

... in prayer in her little oratory, her father appeared to her enveloped in the flames of Purgatory, and, conjuring her to deliver him, he said to her: "Daughter, I shall remain in this fire until thou hast done penance for me." With a heart full of compassion, Catherine promised her father to satisfy the ...
— Purgatory • Mary Anne Madden Sadlier

... brothers, Joseph and Lucien, who, being moved at his instance, were constantly attending clubs and popular meetings where they often delivered speeches and debated public matters, while Napoleon sat listening in silence, as he had no turn for oratory." "One day in December," the narrator continues, "I was sent for by his uncle already mentioned, in order to assist him in preparing his testament; and, after having settled his family concerns, the conversation turned upon politics, when, speaking of the improbability of Italy being ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane

... London on the day that comes so mercifully between the Saturday and Monday) beside the enisled Marble Arch, I spent half an hour in listening to the astonishing oratory that was going on there. Although I had not done this for many, many years, there was so little change in the proceedings that I gained a new impression of perpetual motion. The same—or to all intents and purposes the same—leather lungs were ...
— A Boswell of Baghdad - With Diversions • E. V. Lucas

... nothing out of him. His only answers are grunts and shrugs of the shoulders. He generally lives on the first floor of the donjon, a big room that once served for an oratory. He lives like a bear, never goes out without his gun, and is only pleasant with the girls. The women, for twelve miles round, are all setting their caps for him. For the present, he is paying attention to Madame ...
— The Mystery of the Yellow Room • Gaston Leroux

... up to them, and told them with oratory that they now had a Prince who wore a blue coat and white breeches, they grasped their rifles, and kissed wife and children, and went down the mountain and offered their lives in defense of the white coat and the dear ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... which never forsook him. As a young man he diligently attended the chambers of renowned jurisconsults, especially those of the elder and younger Scaevola, Crassus, and Antonius, and soon found that his calling in life was oratory. It was not till he was twenty-eight years old, however—when he had already written much and pleaded many cases—that he went on a visit of between two and three years to Greece, Asia, and Rhodes, to study in the various schools of rhetoric and philosophy, and to view their famous ...
— The Letters of Cicero, Volume 1 - The Whole Extant Correspodence in Chronological Order • Marcus Tullius Cicero

... decried, wit not understood; when the theatres are puppet-shows, and the comedians ballad-singers; when fools lead the town, would a man think to thrive by his wit? If you must write, write nonsense, write operas, write Hurlothrumbos, set up an oratory and preach nonsense, and you may meet with encouragement enough. Be profane, be scurrilous, be immodest: if you would receive applause, deserve to receive sentence at the Old Bailey; and if you would ride in a coach, deserve ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding

... companion of the palmy days of youth, methinks—as they say in the wild and wondrous West—you hit me where I live. But none of these things move me. I am lost in admiration of your oratory: really, Bob, I didn't think it was in you. But you said all this, in ...
— A Pessimist - In Theory and Practice • Robert Timsol

... Scott, and heard the whole of the speech. It was heavy in the extreme, and I confess that I was disappointed and tired long before it was finished. No doubt the speech was full of fact and argument, but it had none of the fire of oratory, or intensity of feeling, that marked all ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman

... official ceremonies over, the occasion became informal, and soon generals and young women alike were surrounded by admirers, war and beauty having chances about equal in the competition. The good spirits of the crowd, moved by triumphant oratory, the beauty of the women and the blaze of uniforms, grew to such a pitch that no discordant note marred the cheerfulness of those gathered in ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler

... make a fine appearance, striving to excel in pulpit oratory, advertising the work they have done—so many have been converted through my labors, etc. All these works are indications of ...
— The Gospel Day • Charles Ebert Orr

... susceptible to oratory and now another shout of rage came from them. The taunts of Long Jim were too much, and a dozen dusky forms sprang from the undergrowth and rushed up the slope. There was a puff of smoke from the cleft in the cliff and the foremost warrior fell, shot squarely ...
— The Keepers of the Trail - A Story of the Great Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler

... (we shall call her the Princess Amelia only officially), in the grand ducal palace, had been furnished by Rudolph's care, with extreme taste and elegance. From the balcony of the young girl's oratory could be seen, in the distance, the two towers of the Convent of St. Hermangilda, which, rising above immense masses of verdure, were themselves commanded by a high wooded mountain, at the foot of which the abbey stood. On a beautiful morning in summer, Fleur-de-Marie was allowing her glances ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue

... minutes more of the sermon, he reduced the amount of his prospective contribution to twenty-five dollars, after half an hour more of eloquence, he cut the sum to five dollars. At the end of an hour of oratory when the plate was passed, he stole ...
— Jokes For All Occasions - Selected and Edited by One of America's Foremost Public Speakers • Anonymous

... say that you shall!" As the audacious words were flung forth, she looked him full in the eyes, while her voice rang with its old imperious oratory. "You are a great chief; you are as a monarch here; you hold the gifts and the grandeur of the Empire; but, because of that—because you are as France in my eyes—I swear, by the name of France, that you shall see justice done to him; after death, if you cannot in life. Do you know who he is—this ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]

... is probably the last cabinet meeting before the coming of the Mekinese. I do not think oratory is called for. I put the situation as it stands. A fleet will come from Mekin for our answer to their ultimatum. Our space-fleet will not surrender. Our air force is openly mutinous at the idea of submission. ...
— Talents, Incorporated • William Fitzgerald Jenkins

... fitfully, according to the various humours of the successive pontiffs, the papal capital drew within its walls eminent scholars from all the states of the Italian peninsula. Rome was the world-city, a centre from which radiated honours, distinctions, and fortune. Gifts of oratory, facility in debate, ability in the conduct of diplomatic negotiations, a masterly style in Latin composition, and even perfection in penmanship, were all marketable accomplishments, for which Rome was the highest bidder. If classical learning and the graces of literature received ...
— De Orbe Novo, Volume 1 (of 2) - The Eight Decades of Peter Martyr D'Anghera • Trans. by Francis Augustus MacNutt

... wherever they go, but so it was. There was a secret in her history, her friends said, for though they knew nothing of her little bit of private religion, and although she never admitted a soul into the little oratory where the image of her Saviour hung, everybody was aware that there was "a something about her" which took her out of the class to which she externally and by much of her ordinary conduct appeared to belong, and of course the theory was an early love disappointment, the only theory which the average ...
— Miriam's Schooling and Other Papers - Gideon; Samuel; Saul; Miriam's Schooling; and Michael Trevanion • Mark Rutherford

... with his own oratory. The sensation of bullyragging a genuine millionaire was new and exhilarating. He expanded his chest and spread ...
— Something New • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse

... into such English as a political orator of the present day might use, without attempting to impart to them any antique colouring, such as the best-known English translations either had from the first or have acquired by lapse of time. It is of the essence of political oratory that it is addressed to contemporaries, and the translation of it should therefore be into contemporary English; though the necessity of retaining some of the modes of expression which are peculiar to Greek ...
— The Public Orations of Demosthenes, volume 1 • Demosthenes

... the great struggle for liberty which was to ensue was Francisco Miranda. The character of Miranda resembled not a little that of Bolivar. Both men were of exalted and enthusiastic temperaments; both were skilled in the arts of oratory and the management of men, and both possessed a visionary side. For each the situation in the New World formed an ample and, indeed, ...
— South America • W. H. Koebel

... into a description of his oratory, then related how he had won over juries in several important cases. His arms, his hands were going, his eyes were glistening, his voice had that rich, sympathetic tone which characterizes the egotist when the subject is himself. Miss Severence listened without comment; indeed, he was not sure that ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips

... XIV the Comtesse de Lude devoted herself to the hunt with a frenzy born of an inordinate enthusiasm. At the head of a pack of hounds she knew no obstacle, and, on one occasion, penetrated on horseback, followed by her dogs, into the oratory of the nuns of the ...
— Royal Palaces and Parks of France • Milburg Francisco Mansfield

... women have led in scholarship, taken prizes in composition and oratory, while upon one occasion the delighted students dragged forth the only artillery in the village to voice their enthusiasm over the fact that to Miss Lizzie R. Hunt had been awarded at the great international contest the first prize for the best ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various

... her hand the wine of the faithful; and may the applause of the good at your departure resemble the waves of the ocean beating musically upon rocky caverns. Thy servant, inexperienced in oratory, retires abashed at the greatness of his subject, and the insignificance of his expressions.' So then he ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade

... Mater. T, Haviland Hicks, Jr., and timorous little Theophilus had jointly delivered the Valedictory, eight other Seniors, including Butch, Scoop, and the lengthy Ichabod, had swayed the crowd with oratory. Kindly old Prexy, his voice tremulous, had talked to them, as students, for the last time. The Class Ode had been sung, the Class Shield unveiled, and then—Hicks and his ...
— T. Haviland Hicks Senior • J. Raymond Elderdice

... Wednesday, and in the afternoon Miss Celia went to hear the children "speak pieces," though it was very seldom that any of the busy matrons and elder sisters found time or inclination for these displays of youthful oratory. Miss Celia and Mrs. Moss were all the audience on this occasion, but Teacher was both pleased and proud to see them, and a general rustle went through the school as they came in, all the girls turning from the visitors to nod at Bab and Betty, who smiled all over their round ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. V, August, 1878, No 10. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various

... never likely to make a hardy soldier or sailor, it became a question for what he was best fitted. If the body could not be exercised, the mind might be. At that time Athens had its famous schools of philosophy and rhetoric, and the art of oratory was diligently cultivated. It is interesting to know that outside of Athens Greece produced no orators, if we except Epaminondas of Thebes. The Boeotians, who dwelt north of Attica, were looked upon as dull-brained ...
— Historic Tales, vol 10 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... Dame of Paris was similarly turned into a coach-office when I last saw it—1872. [Footnote: See Fors Clavigera in that year.] Within fifty yards of me as I write, the Oratory of the Holy Ghost is used for a tobacco-store, and in fine, over all Europe, mere Caliban bestiality and Satyric ravage staggering, drunk and desperate, into every once enchanted cell where the prosperity of kingdoms ruled ...
— Mornings in Florence • John Ruskin

... was very careful in his language, labouring night and day to learn to express himself with accuracy, with no needless repetition of words, perspicuously with regard to the special object he might have in view. He had taught himself to believe that oratory, as oratory, was a sin against that honesty in politics by which he strove to guide himself. He desired to use words for the purpose of teaching things which he knew and which others did not know; and he desired also to be honoured ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope

... apostles, and evangelists, grace the upper part of the choir—executed from the characteristic designs of Candit. The pulpit and the seats are beautifully carved. Opposite the former, are oratories sustained by columns of red marble; and the approach to the royal oratory is rendered more impressive by a flight of ten marble steps. The founder of this church was William V., who lies buried in a square vault below: near which is an altar, where they shew, on All Saints ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Three • Thomas Frognall Dibdin

... at Wynton or Winchester), quoted by Rudborne in "Anglia Sacra," John of Exeter, and other writers, we have it that a great church was rebuilt from its foundations at Caergwent by Lucius after his conversion in A.D. 164; and that he erected also smaller buildings with an oratory, refectory, and dormitory for the temporary abode of the monks until the monastery itself should be completed. Quotations from another lost author, Moracius, provide us with the dimensions of this edifice, the length being variously given as 209 and 200 passus, the breadth as 80 and 130, while ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Winchester - A Description of Its Fabric and a Brief History of the Episcopal See • Philip Walsingham Sergeant

... Faustus by name, a great snare of the Devil, and many were entangled by him through that lure of his smooth language: which though I did commend, yet could I separate from the truth of the things which I was earnest to learn: nor did I so much regard the service of oratory as the science which this Faustus, so praised among them, set before me to feed upon. Fame had before bespoken him most knowing in all valuable learning, and exquisitely skilled in the liberal sciences. And since ...
— The Confessions of Saint Augustine • Saint Augustine

... there were a multiplicity of leaders and a constant shifting of groups. In Lower Canada, after the defection of James Stuart in 1817, there was only one leader, Louis Joseph Papineau. For twenty years Papineau was the uncrowned king of the province. His commanding figure, his powers of oratory, outstanding in a race of orators, his fascinating manners, gave him an easy mastery over his people. Prudence did not hamper his flights; compromise was a word not found in his vocabulary. Few men have been better equipped for ...
— The Canadian Dominion - A Chronicle of our Northern Neighbor • Oscar D. Skelton

... genius of poetry, I own, if Nature has not given it you, you cannot have it, for it is a true maxim that Poeta nascitur non fit. It is much otherwise with oratory, and the maxim there is Orator fit, for it is certain that by study and application every man can make himself a pretty good orator, eloquence depending upon observation and care. Every man, if he ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton

... of their testimony; the extreme indigence in which they had lived, though engaged, as they pretended, in a conspiracy with kings, princes, and nobles; the credit and opulence to which they were at present raised. With a simplicity and tenderness more persuasive than the greatest oratory, he still made protestations of his innocence; and could not forbear, every moment, expressing the most lively surprise and indignation at the audacious ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part F. - From Charles II. to James II. • David Hume

... superficial: it may be got for a few years, in a formal way, at a Conservatoire, but it is not within reach of all; the child does not breathe music as, in a way, he breathes the atmosphere of literature and oratory; and although nearly everyone in France has an instinctive feeling for beautiful writing, only a very few people care for beautiful music. From this arise the common faults and failings in our music. It has remained a luxurious art; it has not become, like German music, the poetical ...
— Musicians of To-Day • Romain Rolland

... (1803-1873).—Divine and philanthropist, b. at Brechin, studied for the Church, and became a minister in Edin. Possessed of a commanding presence and voice, and a remarkably effective and picturesque style of oratory, he became perhaps the most popular preacher of his day in Scotland, and was associated with many forms of philanthropy, especially temperance and ragged schools, of the latter of which he was the founder. He was one of the leaders of the Free Church, and raised over ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin

... success. Great prejudice existed against Mrs. Rose on account of her alleged infidelity, there was no interest in the question of woman's rights, and Washington was not a good field for lectures of any sort, Congress furnishing all the oratory for which the public cared. The papers were kind about publishing notices, but with the exception of the Star, gave no reports. Chaplain Milburn refused to let them have the Representative chamber for a ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper

... his oratory when he heard the mingled singing and shouting, and at the same moment a servant entered in great alarm, despite the strict regulation of the Arch-priest that he was never to be interrupted at his prayers. This man announced that a body of fanatics was coming down the hill, but ...
— Massacres Of The South (1551-1815) - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... the house itself, which they call sibi, dividing it into three naves and lengthening the fourth. They adorned it with leaves and flowers on all sides, and many lighted lamps. In the middle was placed another large lamp, with many ornaments. Such was their simbahan or oratory. This feast was called pandot; it was their most solemn one, and lasted four days. During that time they played many musical instruments, and performed their adorations, which is called nag aanito [350] ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 40 of 55 • Francisco Colin

... took two or three turns about the room, reflecting and sighing. Then suddenly, as if a happy thought had struck him, running to the oratory, he extinguished the two candles lighted for the safeguard ...
— An Eagle Flight - A Filipino Novel Adapted from Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal

... any like style of behaviour or oratory or social intercourse or household arrangements or public institutions, or the treatment by bosses of employed people, nor executive detail, or detail of the army or navy, nor spirit of legislation, or courts or police, or tuition or architecture, or songs or amusements, or the costumes ...
— Poems By Walt Whitman • Walt Whitman

... Insist that there shall be a service suitable for them parallel to the adult service of worship.[47] Next, try to overcome the present popular obsession regarding the sermon. The church is more than an oratory station. The sermon is only one incident. Many criticisms of the sermon indicate that the critic measures the preacher by ability to entertain, that he attends church to be entertained. If that is essentially your attitude, you cannot complain if your children ...
— Religious Education in the Family • Henry F. Cope

... in the Exeter family I am unable to give any account. The attempt to get into Parliament was at Cirencester, where Young stood a contested election. His grace discovered in him talents for oratory as well as for poetry. Nor was this judgment wrong. Young, after he took orders, became a very popular preacher, and was much followed for the grace and animation of his delivery. By his oratorical ...
— Lives of the Poets: Gay, Thomson, Young, and Others • Samuel Johnson

... it had earned the honor." [1] How simple it is, and how beautiful. And how it beggars the studies eloquence of the masters of oratory. Eloquence was a native gift of Joan of Arc; it came from her lips without effort and without preparation. Her words were as sublime as her deeds, as sublime as her character; they had their source in a great heart and were ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... Latin oratory took place in a similar way. The Roman youth of rank, who were even at an early age incited to come forward in public with panegyrics and forensic speeches, can never have lacked exercises in oratory; but it was only at this epoch, and in consequence of the new exclusive culture, ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen

... touched his brow. Bending over him was the woman clothed like the princess of old, with blue eyes, now soft and humid with human sympathy. Under his head on the pavement were silks and furs. With Raggles's hat in his hand and with his face pinker than ever from a vehement burst of oratory against reckless driving, stood the elderly gentleman who personified the city's wealth and ripeness. From a nearby cafe hurried the by-product with the vast jowl and baby complexion, bearing a glass full of a crimson ...
— The Trimmed Lamp • O. Henry

... exactly to that point at which men are most susceptible of strong and sudden impressions, acute, but not sound reasoners, warm in their feelings, unfixed in their principles, and passionate admirers of fine composition, oratory received such encouragement as it ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Contibutions to Knight's Quarterly Magazine] • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... to traverse were silent and deserted, save occasionally where a drinking or an eating house had its swing-doors still invitingly open. From these places, as de Batz strode rapidly by, came sounds of loud voices, rendered raucous by outdoor oratory; volleys of oaths hurled irreverently in the midst of impassioned speeches; interruptions from rowdy audiences that vied with the speaker in invectives and blasphemies; wordy war-fares that ended in noisy vituperations; ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy

... limes and elms, and fine old chestnut-trees. Adjoining, is the Deepdene, the classical seat of the author of "Anastasius," a place, says Salmon, "well calculated for the religious rites of the Celts," and consecrated by the philosophical pursuits of the Hon. Charles Howard, who built an oratory and laboratory, and died here in 1714. Next are several fir-crowned ridges, which shelter Bury Hill, the mansion of Mr. Barclay, the opulent brewer; whence you ascend the opposite line of hills, till you reach Denbies, nearly facing the most prominent point of Box Hill. This elegant seat is the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 12, Issue 337, October 25, 1828. • Various

... his belongings into their charge, and fastened his horse in their out-house. Then he asked them not to speak of him to anyone, and to keep his affairs secret. He exchanged his royal dress for another, and next morning, just as the sun looked forth from its eastern oratory, he went again into the city. He turned over in his mind without ceasing how he was to find out the meaning of the riddle, and to give them a right answer, and who could help him, and how to avenge his brothers. ...
— The Brown Fairy Book • Andrew Lang

... (1612-1686), French sculptors, were two brothers, natives of Eu in Normandy. Their apprenticeship was served in the studio of Simon Guillain. The chief works of Francois are the monument to Cardinal de Berulle, founder of the Carmelite order, in the chapel of the oratory at Paris, of which all but the bust has been destroyed, and the mausoleum of Henri II., last duc de Montmorency, at Moulins. To Michel are due the sculptures of the triumphal arch at the Porte St. Denis, begun in ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 2, Part 1, Slice 1 • Various

... had been resolved upon, and prompt action, was now apparent. Stabber, fighting chief though he had been in the past, had had his reason for opposing the plans of this new and vehement leader; but public sentiment, stirred by vehement oratory, had overruled him, and he had bolted the field convention in a fury. Lame Wolf, a younger chief than Stabber, had yet more power among the Ogalallas, being Red Cloud's favorite nephew, and among the Indians at least, his acknowledged representative. ...
— A Daughter of the Sioux - A Tale of the Indian frontier • Charles King

... may have peace. It is not certainly ours, unless we follow the two conditions He lays down. First, of abiding in Him; and, secondly, of meditating on His words. But if these be observed we shall have in the midst of strife, just as there is an oratory in the heart of the castle keep; a hollow cone in the midst of the candle flame; and a centre of safety in the midst of the sweeping whirlwind. Oh, abide there, child ...
— Love to the Uttermost - Expositions of John XIII.-XXI. • F. B. Meyer

... any systematic doctrines or to any clear and logical development or statement of his thought. Indeed, Marx and Engels seemed more amused than concerned and simply treated his essays as a form of "hyper-revolutionary dress-parade oratory," to use a phrase of Liebknecht's. They ridiculed him as an "amorphous pan-destroyer," and made no attempt to refute his really intangible social and ...
— Violence and the Labor Movement • Robert Hunter

... interpret the adaptation of means to end, or, to use the language of the present, we should be making a quest to determine how the products of field, orchard, and pasture may be utilized that they may function in poetry, in oratory, in discoveries, and in inventions. In short, we should be trying to explain to ourselves how agriculture ...
— The Vitalized School • Francis B. Pearson

... and, having decided at any cost to obtain the surgeon's pardon, she addressed a petition to the Emperor, which closed with this sentence, expressing angelic forgiveness: "Sire, I am going to fall on my knees in my oratory, and will not rise until I have obtained from Heaven your Majesty's pardon." The Emperor could no longer hold out; he granted the pardon, and M. M—— was released after a month of close confinement. ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant

... on July Fourth he gave a dinner to the principal Americans who happened to be in London. To be invited to this dinner was an event. Peabody himself always presided, and there was considerable oratory sometimes of the brand known as Southwestern, which Peabody tolerated with gentle smiles. On one occasion, however, things did not go smoothly. Daniel Sickles was Consul to London and James Buchanan, ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 11 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen • Elbert Hubbard

... magnificent Latin oration of some twenty minutes, a second time proposes my health; to which, utterly at my wits' end, I had the audacity to reply in the same language. As it is fit so great an effort of oratory should not perish, I send you some ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)

... dignified, the circumstances more significant, addresses take on a different aspect. They become more soberly judicial, more temperately laudatory, more feelingly impressive. At such times public speaking approaches most closely to the old-fashioned idea of oratory, now so rapidly passing away, in its attempt to impress upon the audience the greatness of the occasion in which it is participating. The laying of a corner-stone, the completion of a monument or building, a national holiday, the birthday of a great ...
— Public Speaking • Clarence Stratton

... 'brevity is the soul of wit,'—the thing that keeps it alive. A good joke prolonged degenerates into teasing; and a merry jest with explanations becomes funereal. When a man repeats the point of his story it is already broken off. Somebody said of Mr. Gladstone's oratory that it was 'good, but copious.' Canaries sing well, but the defect of their music is its abundance. I prefer the hermit-thrush to the nightingale, not because the thrush's notes are sweeter, but because he knows when to leave off, and let ...
— Days Off - And Other Digressions • Henry Van Dyke

... undertaken. Mrs. Carteret took off her coat to the work, or rather, to be accurate, she put on a fur-lined one, and attended a Nationalist meeting in the Town Hall to judge for herself how the voices carried. She returned rejoicing—she had sat at the back of the hall, and had not lost a syllable of the oratory, even during sundry heated episodes, discreetly summarised by the local paper as "interruption". The Town Hall was chartered, superficially cleansed, and in the space of a week the ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross

... great since I was born.'—'Divine!' said I; and thus we went on with our interjections, not to say tears, to the end. Tears enough were shed. Not a dry eye, I believe, in the house, except some of the jackasses who had occasioned the necessity of the oratory. These attempted to laugh, but their visages 'grinned horribly ghastly smiles.' They smiled like Foulon's son-in-law when they made him kiss his father's dead and bleeding hand. Perhaps the speech may not read as well. The situation of the man excited compassion, and interested all hearts in his ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing

... round, as he entered this bright chamber of his fancy, but saw not its expected occupant. A recess in the deep wall at the farthest side of the room contained an oratory with an altar and a crucifix upon it. The recess was partly in the shade. But the eyes of the Intendant discerned clearly enough the kneeling, or rather the prostrate, figure of Caroline de St. Castin. Her ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby

... for everything," said Mr. Carlisle coolly; "and this sort of imaginative fervour which is upon you is sure to find a cold bath of its own in good time. My purpose is simply in future, whenever you wish to hear another specimen of the kind of oratory we have listened to this evening, to be with you that I may ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume I • Susan Warner

... [the Duchess of Orleans] had an intrigue with another person, whom I knew well, the Count of Treville. When she was in her agony, she said, "Adieu, Treville." He was so struck with this accident, that it had a good effect on him; for he went and lived many years among the Fathers of the Oratory, and became both a very learned, and devout man. He came afterwards out into the world. I saw him often. He was a man of a very sweet temper, only a little too formal for a Frenchman. But he was very sincere. He was a Jansenist. He hated the Jesuits.—Swift. ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift

... which was kindled by Conaire every night, to wit, a "Boar of the Wood." Seven outlets it had. When a log was cut out of its side every flame that used to come forth at each outlet was as big as the blaze of a burning oratory. There were seventeen of Conaire's chariots at every door of the house, and by those that were looking from the vessels that great light was clearly seen through ...
— The Harvard Classics, Volume 49, Epic and Saga - With Introductions And Notes • Various

... ever restrained vague oratory by a rule that there must always be a question of yes or no, fitted for a division as the text of a debate. In Scotland on this occasion, as on many others, there was at first a discussion of the general question; and when this, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson

... Walter de Stavenby, an able and learned man. During his episcopacy the friars made their appearance in England, and by him the Franciscans were introduced at Lichfield, while at Coventry Ranulph, Earl of Chester, gave them land in Cheylesmore on which to build their oratory and house. ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Churches of Coventry - A Short History of the City and Its Medieval Remains • Frederic W. Woodhouse

... many Indians among his friends. He claims that during these years it was his pleasure, as well as a part of his professional duty, to study the past history of India. Ignorance of Indian history vitiates much of the writing and oratory on Indian subjects. As a member of the staff of an Indian college, with six hundred University students, the writer claims to have had exceptional opportunities of entering into the thoughts of the new middle class, and ...
— New Ideas in India During the Nineteenth Century - A Study of Social, Political, and Religious Developments • John Morrison

... to be Mr. William Douglas's forte. Coached by that practiced diplomat, Certina Charley, he made a speech memorable chiefly for what it did not say. The one bright, definite gleam, amidst rolling columns of oratory, was the proposal that an Emergency Committee of One Hundred be appointed to cope with the situation, that the initial sum of twenty-five thousand dollars be pledged by subscription, and that their distinguished fellow citizen, Dr. L. Andre Surtaine, be permanent ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... Cicero in eloquence, the one (as Cicero testifieth of them) pretended not to know art, the other, not to set by it: because with a plain sensibleness they might win credit of popular ears; which credit is the nearest step to persuasion: which persuasion is the chief mark of oratory; I do not doubt (I say) but that they used these tracks very sparingly, which who doth generally use, any man may see doth dance to his own music: and so be noted by the audience more careful to speak curiously, than ...
— English literary criticism • Various

... there was one thing Barnriff bowed the knee to it was the man who could, and would, make a speech. It had all the masses' love for oratory, and was as easily swayed by it as a crowd of ignorant political voters. Besides, Doc Crombie was a tried orator in Barnriff. He had addressed a meeting once before, and, speaking on behalf of a church mission, and asking for support of the cause, he had created ...
— The One-Way Trail - A story of the cattle country • Ridgwell Cullum

... of thinking the opposite, the test of truth, and then to shut one's eyes to those evidences which might compel one to think the opposite, is the essence of irrationality. One attains by this method indefinite assertiveness, but not certainty. Newman lived in some seclusion in the Oratory of St. Philip Neri in Birmingham for many years. A few distinguished men, and a number of his followers, in all not more than a hundred and fifty, went over to the Roman Church after him. The defection was never so great as, in ...
— Edward Caldwell Moore - Outline of the History of Christian Thought Since Kant • Edward Moore

... bed's foot, and makes me lie beside him, that we may talk at ease; and he told me, not long since, how that this trouble and doubt were so growing upon him, that once he had fasted for a whole day, and had passed the night upon his knees in the oratory, praying for a sign whereby he might truly know whether he were the real heir, and the kingdom justly his. For that were it not so, he would sooner escape to Spain or Scotland to pass his days in peace; but that if the Lord would send ...
— A Heroine of France • Evelyn Everett-Green

... who, partly to show Bella that she (Lavinia) could do what she liked with him, and partly to pay him off for still obviously admiring Bella's beauty, led him the life of a dog. Illuminated on the one hand by the stately graces of Mrs Wilfer's oratory, and shadowed on the other by the checks and frowns of the young lady to whom he had devoted himself in his destitution, the sufferings of this young gentleman were distressing to witness. If his ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens

... their height. And now, indeed, after a short interval of muttered soliloquy, in which his face worked so that the veins on his temples swelled like cords, he abruptly left the room, and sought the private oratory connected with his closet. Over the emotions there indulged let us draw the veil. Who shall describe those awful and mysterious moments, when man, with all his fiery passions, turbulent thoughts, wild hopes, and despondent fears, demands the ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... is so ill-regulated as to defeat its own little object. His lack of the higher sentiments, the more generous feelings, the nobler aims, neutralizes even his intellect. He publishes his speeches, carefully solicitous of his fame, and provokes comparison in laboured dissertations with the oratory of Demosthenes and Cicero; he eulogizes the Duke of Wellington, and demands by inference whether he cannot praise as classically as even the ancients themselves; but his heartless though well-modulated eloquence lingers ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller

... and philosophy. We believe it has rarely, if ever happened, that one has attained to a symmetry and finished excellency of character, in the varieties of any one department of learning, who has not, at least in the early stages of education, received inspiration from the oratory and poetry of other times, when language was an index to the passions and emotions of the soul, and conveyed, not the names only, but the properties of things, the qualities of mind. The very vigor of thought and power of eloquence with which many, with a parricidal spirit, ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith

... that was beautiful in nature was reverently and assiduously nurtured, and all that was noble and natural in art was magnificently encouraged; an age in which refinement and nobility were not accidents, but necessities; when politics had reached the high grade of an art, and oratory attained a beauty and power beyond which no Pitt, Canning, or Brougham has ever yet aspired; an age when the gifted Aspasia held her splendid court, and Alcibiades and Socrates were proud to sit at the Milesian's feet; when Pericles, who 'well deserved ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various

... ancient schools of rhetoric to take an abstract question, and to harangue first on one side and then on the other. The question, Ought popular discontents to be quieted by concession or coercion? would have been a very good subject for oratory of this kind. There is no lack of commonplaces on either side. But when we come to the real business of life, the value of these commonplaces depends entirely on the particular circumstances of the case which we are discussing. Nothing is easier than to write ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... to-day and the teacher kept me after class. He said he'd been watching me for some time and he wanted to tell me he thought I'd make a great orator, some day. He's going to give me special training out of school hours, for nothing. I'm darned lucky. If a guy's going into politics, oratory's the biggest help. But to be famous as a speaker isn't why I'm going into politics. I'm going to clean Minetta Lane up. I'm going to try to fix it in New York so's a fellow couldn't have a mother and a stepfather ...
— The Enchanted Canyon • Honore Willsie Morrow

... knowledge and good nature, was the president of that university. Its professors were the cluster of able men who had gone along with Washington and Jefferson in the measures which resulted in the independence of the country. Patrick Henry was there to teach him the arts of oratory. There was a flourishing and famous debating society, the pride of the young men of Richmond, in which to try his half-fledged powers. The impulse given to thought by the American Revolution was quickened and ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton

... distant relationship to the Expounder of the Constitution; he began to think that Mrs. Lee was a very intelligent person. His modest admission of the resemblance gave her the opportunity to talk of Webster's oratory, and the conversation soon spread to a discussion of the merits of Clay and Calhoun. The Senator found that his neighbour—a fashionable New York woman, exquisitely dressed, and with a voice and manner seductively soft and gentle—had read the speeches ...
— Democracy An American Novel • Henry Adams

... hounds. Finally the girl spoke aloud. "Until last August!" Katharine said. "Until last August! Poised kingdoms topple on the brink of ruin, now that you bid me come to you again. And I bade this devil's grandson come to me, as my lover!" Presently she went into her oratory and ...
— Chivalry • James Branch Cabell

... wholly skylarky on the way, and how the unfortunate vegetables were good for nothing but firewood by the time they reached their destination; the humours of the open-air feast of the Republic; the storming of the Assembly by the clubs; the oratory of Malvina (a very delectable morsel) in one of the said clubs devoted to the Rights of Women;[293] the scene where Oscar, coming by his own account from the barricades "with his hands and his feet and his raiment all red," manifests a decided disinclination to return ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury

... feeling of the lawyers and insisting that justice be fully and speedily accomplished, are hard to draw. On the one hand there are the courts where no limit is put to the digressions of attorneys and where they may wander on and on, apparently merely to display their oratory to their clients, and other courts where the undoubtedly bad manners of the bench to the ...
— The Man in Court • Frederic DeWitt Wells

... at the feet of a certain local preacher who was notorious for his illiteracy; and the spectacle filled them with bewilderment and wonder. Some suggested that he was, in an intellectual sense, living a double life. Tyndall said that, when Faraday opened the door of his oratory, he shut that of his laboratory. He did nothing of the kind. He never closed his eyes to any fragment of truth; he never divided his mind into watertight compartments; he never shrank from the approach of a doubt. He ...
— A Handful of Stars - Texts That Have Moved Great Minds • Frank W. Boreham

... (1) his wonderful personality, (2) his boundless vitality and energy, (3) his heartfelt sympathy for the downtrodden ones of the world, (4) his wonderful ideas and ideals, (5) his quickness of intelligence, (6) his ardent patriotism, (7) his remarkable powers of oratory, and (8) his almost uncanny gift of seeing into the future—and you have a man whose superior it would indeed be hard to find. Nietzsche would have welcomed him as his superman incarnate! I have never wavered ...
— War Letters of a Public-School Boy • Henry Paul Mainwaring Jones

... all the arts of oratory, letter-writing, essay-writing, and all that sort of thing, among which there is one to which I wish particularly to call ...
— The American Baron • James De Mille

... stem of an artificial rose, worn in the button-hole in the intervals of tooting, and little earthen pig-bells, whose ringing scares away the lightning. There is but one duty of the day to flavor all its pleasures. The faithful must go into the oratory, pay a penny, and kiss a glass-covered relic of the saint which the attendant ecclesiastic holds in his hand. The bells are rung violently until the church is full; then the doors are shut and the ...
— Castilian Days • John Hay

... near the door. I forget now what.... O yes, it was on the Pope, the late Pope. I remember it well. Upon my word it was magnificent, the style of the oratory. And his voice! God! hadn't he a voice! The Prisoner of the Vatican, he called him. I remember Crofton saying to ...
— Dubliners • James Joyce

... in the perpetual revival of the Blood Accusation against the Jews, or the pathetic clinging to the miracles of exposed Spiritualists and Theosophists; in the Gladstone of Tory imaginations and the Balfour of Radical; in the Irish patriot of oratory; in the big-footed Englishwoman of French fancy, and the English conception of the Scotchman who cannot see a joke; in the persistence of traditional beliefs or prejudices that would be ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill

... the Church of England, though generally looking askance at the chapels and their swarming congregations, now, carried away by the enthusiasm of the people, consented to attend the meetings, secretly looking forward, with the Welsh love of oratory, to the eloquent sermons generally to be heard on ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine

... This selection and also the selections on pages 202, 209, and 231 are fine examples of American oratory, such as was practiced by the statesmen and public speakers of the earlier years of our republic. Learn all that you can about Patrick Henry, Daniel Webster, Edward Everett, Theodore Parker, and other eminent orators. Before attempting to read this selection ...
— Eighth Reader • James Baldwin

... appeared to me not quite to resemble that of the great master, but I understand too little of these things to be able to judge on such a subject. At any rate it is a fine piece. A few steps below the church lies the oratory, which nearly equals it in size, and also contains a handsome painting over the altar. "St. Augustine" also repays the trouble of a visit; it displays great wealth in marble, sculptures, frescoes, and arabesques. "St. Joseph" is also rich in various kinds of ...
— A Visit to the Holy Land • Ida Pfeiffer

... With a strong probability. If you have a mind to study this Oriental figure of rhetoric, the painche, here it is for you in its most complete perfection. No rhetorician ever gave an example of any figure of oratory that ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. X. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... handsome fellow, with a look of infinite self-confidence, who at that moment made a low bow to the assembly, and then began to recite with much force a splendid burst of oratory from one of Burke's great speeches; which he did with the air of one who had no doubt that Burke himself might have studied with benefit the scorn which he flung into his invective and the Olympian grace with which he waved his arm. A burst of applause ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar

... thrown up from oblivion into note. He could not form a Cabinet, certainly not; but he might help to bring a Cabinet together, reconcile jarring elements, adjust disputed questions, take in such government some high place, influence its councils, and delight a public weary of the oratory of the day with the eloquence of a former race. For the public is ever a laudator temporis acti, and whatever the authors or the orators immediately before it, were those authors and orators Homers and ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... by appearance of BOBBY SPENCER at the Table. BOBBY doesn't often witch the House with oratory. Content with important though to outsiders obscure position he occupies in Party administration. His is the hand that pulls the strings to which Liberal Party dance. SCHNADHORST gets some credit, but everybody knows BOBBY's the man. To see these two political ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, April 2, 1892 • Various

... appropriate subjects for narrow partisan oratory. They go to the heart of what we Americans are all about—all of ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... was there. A few steps more, and taking out a small key, he fitted it into the same little door, and led them into a dark passage, then up a stair, into a large room, simply furnished, and one end almost like an oratory. Here, looking anxiously from the window, was an old lady in a plain black dress and black silk hood, with a white apron and keys ...
— Stray Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge

... Knight, the token!" exclaimed Halbert Glendinning, who, impatient of Sir Piercie's interminable oratory, reminded him of the ground of their quarrel, as the best way to compel him to the purpose of ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott

... were dissatisfied because the Reform Bill of 1832 had stopped short of their political stratum. The Chartists copied the method of agitation which O'Connell had employed in extorting Catholic emancipation. Monster meetings, mile-long petitions, copious effusions of printer's ink and oratory, and a National Charter Association were a part of the machinery. In 1848, when the prevalent hard times increased the restless discontent of the masses, the movement culminated in a vast assembly on Kennington Common. A respectful half-million ...
— Ten Englishmen of the Nineteenth Century • James Richard Joy

... and pealing organs, artistic choirs, and costly edifices, and upholstered pews, and polished oratory which more and more avoids any reference to this alarming theme, afford rest and entertainment to the fashionable congregations that gather on the Lord's day, and are known to the world as the churches of Christ ...
— Love's Final Victory • Horatio

... trick of intellect which could possibly be employed by an experienced man of the world who has a wide knowledge of his fellows. Nothing which could be effected by pleasantness of demeanour, by moving oratory, by clouds of flattery, and by the occasional insertion of a coin into a palm did he leave undone; with the result that he was retired with less ignominy than was his companion, and escaped actual trial on a criminal charge. Yet he issued stripped of ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol

... the West, and whose eloquence so mystifies his faithlessness to Ireland as to confuse you, and almost lade you captive, until, on cooler deliberation, you find that his response to 'the toast of the evenin,' is naither more nor less than a superb burst of oratory, robed in green and goold, but with a heart as purely English as that which throbbed within the breast of the renegade Wellington or the late wily Lord Palmerston. Oh, no! the St. Patrick Societies of America, and of every other portion of ...
— Ridgeway - An Historical Romance of the Fenian Invasion of Canada • Scian Dubh

... Sir Thomas More has exhausted all his eloquence and imagination to work up a piteous scene, in which the queen is made to excite our compassion in the highest degree, and is furnished by that able pen with strains of pathetic oratory, which no part of her conduct affords us reason to believe she possessed. This scene is occasioned by the demand of delivering up her second son. Cardinal Bourchier archbishop of Canterbury is the instrument employed ...
— Historic Doubts on the Life and Reign of King Richard the Third • Horace Walpole



Words linked to "Oratory" :   epideictic oratory, declamation, stump speech, salutatory address, valedictory address, salutatory oration, nomination, keynote address, nominating address, valediction, address, speech, nominating speech, oratorical, salutatory, valedictory oration, keynote speech



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