"Voluble" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... in giving to the editors of the proposed magazine permission to use the title they wish for. He finds that the Anglo-Saxon word "wocer" or "wocor" signifies "offspring" or "fruit." Taking "jabber" in its ordinary acceptation of "excited and voluble discussion," this would give the meaning of "the result of much excited discussion." Whether this phrase will have any application to the projected periodical, it will be for the future historian of American literature ...
— The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll • Stuart Dodgson Collingwood
... been produced to the testator's solicitor, a benevolent gentleman of the Old School, who, after an interview with Sir Giles Molehill and Blithe at the Royal Courts of Justice, was entirely satisfied regarding its validity. Indeed, his anxiety to wash his hands of the usurper was almost voluble. ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... clans. I thought my friend the Writer none of the least savage. Who, that had only seen him at a counsel's back before the Lord Ordinary, or following a golf-ball and laying down his clubs on Bruntsfield links, could have recognised for the same person this voluble and violent clansman? ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 11 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... and the other women were voluble in their expressions of satisfaction at the change in Edgar. They had been but little in the towns, and the comparatively tight-fitting European garments were, in their eyes, ugly and unbecoming. Seen in the more graceful dress of the ...
— At Aboukir and Acre - A Story of Napoleon's Invasion of Egypt • George Alfred Henty
... smiled again, as the comparison between the drunken old saddler and his own fair, sweet young wife, flitted across his brain. Ann Holland, in her voluble flow of words, hit upon curious combinations. Still she had not removed his anxiety about his wife. "Was Sophy suffering from the effects of ...
— Brought Home • Hesba Stretton
... are: they make up in sentiment what they lack in sense; and very often it happens that a bit of poetry is more than a match for a piece of logic. 'No more of that, Hal, an' thou lovest me.' Your book is a miserable one. All your voluble ingenuity ...
— Daisy's Necklace - And What Came of It • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... filling. A plethoric, sandy-haired German squatted beside the hunchback, watching an unproductive pole with a patience worthy of a better cause. At John's corner, a party of voluble loafers joked noisily as they unwound long, many-hooked throwlines and jointed nondescript rods. Beside Bill, a phlegmatic Scandinavian puffed morosely at an empty pipe. Just beyond, a fat negress shifted ...
— A Son of the City - A Story of Boy Life • Herman Gastrell Seely
... were made by Darius, as well for his own safety as his glory; as also them that were made Emperors; who from private men by corrupting the soldiers, attaind to the Empire. These subsist meerly upon the will, and fortune of those that have advanced them; which are two voluble and unsteady things; and they neither know how, nor are able to continue in that dignity: they know not how, because unless it be a man of great understanding and vertue, it is not probable that he who hath always liv'd a private life, can know how to command: neither are they able, ...
— Machiavelli, Volume I - The Art of War; and The Prince • Niccolo Machiavelli
... has never as yet Esteemed it proper or fit To detain you with a long Encomiastic song On his own superior wit; But being abused and accused, And attacked of late As a foe of the State, He makes an appeal in his proper defense, To your voluble humor and temper and sense, With the following plea: Namely, that he Never attempted or ever meant To scandalize In any wise Your mighty imperial government. Moreover he says, That in various ways He presumes to ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... good diddle is this. A housekeeper in want of a sofa, for instance, is seen to go in and out of several cabinet warehouses. At length she arrives at one offering an excellent variety. She is accosted, and invited to enter, by a polite and voluble individual at the door. She finds a sofa well adapted to her views, and upon inquiring the price, is surprised and delighted to hear a sum named at least twenty per cent. lower than her expectations. She hastens to make the purchase, gets a ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... tongue. From one end of Dublin to the other she was notorious for her powers of abuse, and even in the provinces Mrs. Moriarty's language had passed into currency. The dictionary of Dublin slang had been considerably enlarged by her, and her voluble impudence had almost become proverbial. Some of O'Connell's friends, however, thought that he could beat her at the use of her own weapons. Of this, however, he had some doubts himself, when he had listened once or twice ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... was rudely and unmistakably giving the impression of not having heard a word she said; but this attempt on his part, instead of offending his thin and voluble companion, only ...
— The Silver Butterfly • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... rode over to the Irishman's cabin to see his girl, and to find out how she lived, and what sort of people composed the family. Arriving at the log hut, he found the father to be a silent, staid old man, and the mother as voluble and nervous a little woman as ever lived. Much to his disappointment, the girl was away. After an hour or two she returned, having been absent at some meeting or merry-making, and, much to his chagrin, she brought ...
— David Crockett: His Life and Adventures • John S. C. Abbott
... could not have failed of success. But where the mind is too deeply interested, there it is that the faculties are most treacherous. Ardent were the sighs of Edwin, but his voice refused its assistance, and his tongue faultered under the attempts that he made. Fluent and voluble upon all other subjects, upon this he hesitated. For the first time he was dissatisfied with the expressions that nature dictated. For the first time he dreaded to utter the honest wishes of his heart, apprehensive that he might do violence to the ...
— Imogen - A Pastoral Romance • William Godwin
... What's that—Swedish? I don't know it. [Then as if seeking relief from the tension in a voluble chatter.] Gee, I had an awful trip coming here. I'm all in. I had to sit up in the dirty coach all night—couldn't get no sleep, hardly—and then I had a hard job finding this place. I never been in New ...
— Anna Christie • Eugene O'Neill
... men. To be sure, we remember Sir Philip Sidney's contention, supported by his anecdote of the loquacious horseman, that men of all callings are equally disposed to vaunt themselves. If the poet seems especially voluble about his merits, this may be owing to the fact that, words being the tools of his trade, he is more apt than other men in giving expression to his self-importance. But our specific objection to the ...
— The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins
... woman, very fat and very dark, of that reddish or mahogany colour which, taken with the black eyes and coarse black hair, is commonly seen in persons of mixed blood—Iberian with aboriginal. I took her age to be about fifty years. And she was as voluble as she was fat and dark, and poured out such a stream of talk on or rather over me like warm greasy water, and so forcing me to keep my eyes on her, that it was almost impossible to give any attention to the other two. One was her husband, Spanish and dark too, but with a different ...
— A Traveller in Little Things • W. H. Hudson
... behind him. He embraceth naturally ancient custom, conversing in open fields and lowly cottages. If he visit cities or towns, 'tis but to deal upon the imperfections of our weaker vessels. His tongue is very voluble, which with canting proves him a linguist. He is entertained in every place, but enters no further than the door, to avoid suspicion. Some will take him to be a coward, but believe it, he is a lad of metal; his valour is commonly three or four yards long, ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... as he made voluble explanation—the attendance at the sanitorium had fallen off with the approach of autumn—they really needed no assistant to the resident physician—he thought it best to hurry his search for an opening in New York before the winter should set in. Then, put at ...
— The House of Mystery • William Henry Irwin
... a transaction depends on its being negotiated in a cafe; and it was in one of these I first saw him. He was seated at a table near me, absorbed with the contents of a box of baby-clothes, while a rather pretty and exceedingly voluble modiste harangued him on their beauty. The tenderness of his expression struck me. He took out the articles one by one, examining each with the interest of a woman. He ran his fingers through the tiny sleeves, ...
— Trifles for the Christmas Holidays • H. S. Armstrong
... was walking through the wards of his hospital he stopped for a moment by the bed of a brewer's drayman who was suffering from an access of delirium tremens. The drayman's language was violent and voluble. But he sank into a coma with the usual suddenness common to such cases, and in the pause which followed Lincott heard a gentle voice a few beds away earnestly apologising to a nurse for the trouble she was put to. "Why," ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason
... no withstanding such a welcome as this. Francois Le Rue thawed instantly, and thereafter warmed up to intense cordiality while he plied his knife and fork on the "pig," and quaffed the steaming "tae," talking between mouthfuls as his voluble ...
— Wrecked but not Ruined • R.M. Ballantyne
... was recovering rapidly. From the hour that he could walk briskly about the garden his voluble irascibility left him, and he reverted to something more than his old taciturnity; he rarely opened his mouth except to put the plainest of food into it, even to speak to Mr. Polk. His brows were lowered constantly over heavy ...
— The Californians • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... impertinent details of life. And on this particular morning Honor found herself plunged neck-deep in prose. Domestic trifles thrust themselves aggressively to the fore. Parbutti assailed her after breakfast with a voluble diatribe against the dhobi's wife, whose eldest son was going to and fro in the compound unashamed, wearing a shirt made from the Memsahib's newest jharrons. She did not feel called upon to add that her ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... was still fine, and the artist took the opportunity of the pale sunshine to sketch a great deal of the marsh scenery. Lucy attended him as a rule when he went abroad, and sometimes Mrs. Jasher, voluble and merry, would come along with them to play the part of chaperon. But the girl noticed that Mrs. Jasher's merriment was forced at times, and in the searching morning light she appeared to be quite old. Wrinkles ...
— The Green Mummy • Fergus Hume
... learned of the rapid retreat of the Rebels, and the equally rapid pursuit by our own forces. About twenty miles south of Springfield one of the natives came to his door to greet us. Learning to which army we belonged, he was very voluble in his efforts to explain the consternation of the Rebels. A half-dozen of his neighbors were by his side, and joined in the hilarity of the occasion. I saw that something more than usual was the cause of their assembling, and inquired what it ...
— Camp-Fire and Cotton-Field • Thomas W. Knox
... and look after baby. She found the little fellow supremely contented with his new quarters, having made loving advances to a gray kitten who, though suspicious of his favors, was too meek to escape them; and Mrs. Hoffstott declared he had been "so goot as nefar vas!" The older children were voluble over their school, Morton talking most of the great, cheerful rooms, with their wonderful conveniences for study; while Molly expatiated at large over a little girl with the euphonious name of Henrietta May Hendrington, with whom she seemed ...
— Sara, a Princess • Fannie E. Newberry
... surprise nor seemed to attach the least importance to his inopportune visit. In a miserable indecision he allowed himself to be carried away by the high-flown hospitality of his Spanish hostess, and consented to stay to an early dinner. It was part of the infelicity of circumstance that the voluble Dona Maria—electing him as the distinguished stranger above the resident Fletcher—monopolized him and attached him to her side. She would do the honors of her house; she must show him the ruins of the old Mission beside the corral; Don Diego and Clementina would join them ...
— A First Family of Tasajara • Bret Harte
... The voluble teacher.—And while she rambles on in her aimless talking the children are bored, inexpressibly bored. It is axiomatic that the learning process does not flourish in a state of boredom. Under the ordeal of verbal inundation the children wriggle ...
— The Vitalized School • Francis B. Pearson
... with dull eyes and pachydermatous folds in her face. She had a husky voice and a funereal manner. Jessie, her eldest daughter, was not altogether uncomely in a commonplace way: she was dark-haired, high-coloured, loud-voiced—generally sprightly and voluble and overpowering; she was in such a hurry to speak that her words tripped one another up, and she had a meaningless and, to ...
— The Talking Horse - And Other Tales • F. Anstey
... seize her hand, was pouring out voluble expressions of adoration in execrable French, and Zara el-Khala was retreating step by step. She had quickly thrown the veil about her again. I heard the pad of swiftly running feet. If I was to intervene before the arrival of the Hindu, I must act rapidly. ...
— The Golden Scorpion • Sax Rohmer
... mentioned with distinction. The eloquence of the pulpit was of course much less cultivated in a nation which lives chiefly in politics. Lachowski, a Jesuit and court preacher of the last king, is by the Poles considered as an eminent preacher; although according to German judges he was shallow and voluble, and was surpassed by his cotemporary Wyrwicz, and above all by Karpowicz. Prazmowski, Jakubowski, Woronicz bishop of Warsaw, Szismawski, Szweykowski, Zacharyaszewicz, and others, ...
— Historical View of the Languages and Literature of the Slavic - Nations • Therese Albertine Louise von Jacob Robinson
... voluble old lady told me the whole story of the poisoning with which we need not, at present, concern ourselves. By and by the tale grew especially interesting, ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various
... joined, and communicating spirit and hope to one another, the eighteen were more than twice as strong as the eleven had been. The Ring Tailed Panther poured forth a stream of cheer and encouragement. He grew more voluble at the approach of danger. Never had his teeth and ...
— The Texan Star - The Story of a Great Fight for Liberty • Joseph A. Altsheler
... our rugs upon the ground and lay down, and then we discovered that old Jimmy had left the camp, and thought he had given us the slip in the dark. We had been lying down some time when the old fellow returned, and in the most voluble and excited language told us he had found the water; it was, he said, "big one, watta, mucka, pickaninny;" and in his delight at his success he began to describe it, or try to do so, in the firelight, on the ground; he kept saying, "big one, watta—big one, watta—watta ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles
... manner which is (in her class) so rarely discovered to be insolence in disguise. Her power of easy self-assertion found people ready to accept her on her own terms wherever she went. She was one of those big, overpowering women, with blunt manners, voluble tongues, and goggle eyes, who carry everything before them. The highest society modestly considered itself in danger of being dull in the absence of Mrs. Drumblade. Even Hardyman himself—who saw as little of her as possible, whose frankly straightforward nature recoiled by instinct from ...
— My Lady's Money • Wilkie Collins
... off at score about his own affairs, his college, his prospects of winning a famous mathematical prize given by the Berlin Academy, his own experience of German Universities, and the shortcomings of Oxford. On these last he became scornfully voluble. He was inclined to think he should soon cut it, and go in for public life. These university towns ...
— Lady Connie • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... how he had heard of new-comers and felt it his duty to welcome them and tender his services. He had been four years in Canada and his experience would be of high value in directing them what to do. Growing voluble he pointed out what he considered were the mistakes we had already made, ending with a plump proposal that, for his board and a certain money consideration, he would take the direction of the settlement and guarantee its immediate prosperity. He paused and asked for a drink. Mrs Auld handed him ...
— The Narrative of Gordon Sellar Who Emigrated to Canada in 1825 • Gordon Sellar
... the first time, curiosity to know where their walk was to terminate. It chanced, that this was precisely the question which he needed not to have asked, if he had paid but the slightest attention to the very voluble communications of her ladyship, which had all turned upon ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... (I have not seen him these two years)—and I shall never be able to keep from driving the great wedge right through his breast and descending lower, from riveting his two foolish legs to the wintry chasm; for I that stammer and answer hap-hazard with you, get proportionately valiant and voluble with a mere cupful of Diderot's rinsings, and a man ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... talked his little eyes sparkled, and his red, little tongue pushed away the recalcitrant hairs of his moustache from his voluble lips. Daniel stood by the door, leaning against the post, his arms folded across his chest, and regarded now his mother, who, dumb and suddenly old, sat in a corner of the sofa, now the oil portrait of his father on the opposite wall. A friend of Gottfried Nothafft's ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... persuaded of his own youthfulness of race. He writes, and recites, poems about ranches and canyons; they are designed to betray the recklessness of his nature and to reveal the good that lurks in the lawless ways of a young society. He is there to explain himself, voluble, with a glossary for his own artless slang. But his colonialism is only provincialism very articulate. The new air does but make old decadences seem more stale; the young soil does but set into fresh conditions the ready-made, the uncostly, the refuse feeling of a race decivilising. American fancy ...
— The Rhythm of Life • Alice Meynell
... had listened to the long tirade with marked impatience, here interrupted the voluble lady, with ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy
... and is twenty-nine, and was lost sight of in England nine years ago. He has been traveling ever since, and where-ever he went he flirted; we gather so much from his accomplishment in the art; fluent, not to say voluble at times, but no egotist, for he never tells you anything about himself, nor even about his family, still less about the numerous affaires de coeur in which he has been engaged. Perhaps he is reserving it ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... zeal of welcome Miss Verity was voluble to the point of inconsequence, not to say incoherence. Questions poured from her. She appeared agitated, quaintly self-conscious, so at least it occurred to Damaris. Finally she ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... others of the party to remain outside the gate, Law led him within the stockade. On one hand stood Pierre Noir, tall, silent, impassive as a savage, leaning upon his gun and fixing on the red coat of the English uniform an eye none too friendly. Jean Breboeuf, his piece half ready and his voluble tongue half on the point of breaking over restraint, Law quieted with a gesture. Back of these, ranged in a silent yet watchful group, their weapons well in hand, stood numbers of the savage allies of this new war-lord. Pembroke turned ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough
... could say my master had gone at all out of his mind, no man could deny that he had drifted from his character. It was the same to the end, with his manner and appearance. Some of the heat of the fever lingered in his veins: his movements a little hurried, his speech notably more voluble, yet neither truly amiss. His whole mind stood open to happy impressions, welcoming these and making much of them; but the smallest suggestion of trouble or sorrow he received with visible impatience, and dismissed again with immediate relief. It was to ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... twenty minutes, decided that she was the most brilliant and agreeable of companions. He had talked, and she had spoken only with her listening, sympathetic eyes. He was always apt to be voluble. On this occasion he was too voluble. "You are from Weir, I think, in Delaware, Mrs. Waldeaux?" he asked. "I must have seen the name of the town with yours on the list of passengers, for the story of a woman who once lived there has been haunting ...
— Frances Waldeaux • Rebecca Harding Davis
... something in her own dialect, which no one could interpret. But they understood her gestures, and showed her the kirtle of plaited grass, still damp with the thorough washing it had had the night before. At sight of it she became quite voluble; but what she said no one knew. "What gibberish you talk!" exclaimed Charley. She would not allow him to come near her. She remembered how he had pulled her hair and tussled with Willie. But two bright buttons ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 65, March, 1863 • Various
... at the head of the stairs, and one of the doors was open, and had a heavy portiere hanging across it. Behind this was young Mr. Noble, "peekin'" most greedily, together with a middle-aged gentleman not described by the voluble parlor maid. They did n't seem to notice me; they were otherwise occupied, or perhaps they thought me one of the nurses or mothers. I had heard the sound of a piano as I crossed the hall, but ...
— Polly Oliver's Problem • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... many questions, and obliged her, in fact, to speak constantly though she seemed to listen but little. And when at last the girl herself, growing interested in her own narrative about a kidnapper, grew voluble and animated, and looked round upon the young lady at the crisis of the tale, she was surprised to remark, on a sudden, that she was gazing vacantly into the bars; and when Margery, struck by her fixed and melancholy countenance, stopped in the midst of a sentence, the young lady turned and gazed ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... incurably averse to voluble speech, whether public or private, arose and said, in ...
— The Sky Pilot in No Man's Land • Ralph Connor
... went, I saw, suddenly emerging from behind the convent wall and coming out into the pool of light, the swinging serapes and great shadowy hats of the Mexicans. They were crossing Lombard, they were keeping straight on down Powell, probably for some of the North Beach resorts; but, as with voluble talk and laughter they passed the opposite curb, I noticed a singular thing—one man who dropped out of the group silently as if unobserved by his companions. He seemed to make one step from the lighted street into the shadow, ...
— The Other Side of the Door • Lucia Chamberlain
... two deaths; the following day three; then it jumped to eight. It was curious to see how we took it. The natives, for instance, fell into a condition of dumb, stolid fear. The captain—Oudouse, his name was, a Frenchman—became very nervous and voluble. The German, the two Americans, and myself bought up all the Scotch whisky and proceeded to drink. The theory was beautiful—namely, if we kept ourselves soaked in alcohol, every smallpox germ that came into contact with us would immediately be scorched to a cinder. And ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... placidly playing chess with his mother, stroking his dogs, and dipping into Greek tragedies; there is the excellent Martin Poyser at the Farm, good-natured and rubicund; there is his wife, somewhat too sharply voluble, but only in behalf of cleanliness and honesty and order; there is Captain Donnithorne at the Hall, who does a poor girl a mortal wrong, but who is, after all, such a nice, good-looking fellow; there are Adam and Seth Bede, the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866 • Various
... this morning," at length answered the seaman; the mutual delight of their meeting rendering him, for a time, as inarticulate as it did her voluble; "and I have been gone six months. Time has stood still with me, dearest Julia, I assure you; and besides, I have had such a tedious passage home, that I began at last to think I was never to be blessed with another fair wind. I need not ask how you have been during that time," he continued, fixing ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... and shook his partner, waking him with voluble profanity. The night had come, the dark that was to hide their stealthy exit. They went different ways; Knapp by a series of trails and planks to the south bank and thence across country, footing it through the night to his ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner
... pillow and gone by night toward the northern limit of the line of quarters. If Wren were tried, or even accused, that fact would be the first urged in his defense. Plume's stern accusation of Elise had evoked from her nothing but a voluble storm of protest. Madame was ill, sleepless, nervous—had gone forth to walk away her nervousness. She, Elise, had gone in search and brought her home. Downs, the wretch, when as stoutly questioned, ...
— An Apache Princess - A Tale of the Indian Frontier • Charles King
... constantly varying group is gathered, washing, drinking, and filling their flasks and vases. Near by, a charlatan, mounted on a table, with a huge canvas behind him painted all over with odd cabalistic figures, is screaming, in loud and voluble tones, the virtues of his medicines and unguents, and his skill in extracting teeth. One need never have a pang in tooth, ear, head, or stomach, if one will but trust his wonderful promises. In ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... attacks upon his and his wife's friends, the coal conspirators. When he had definitely cast in his lot with "the shearers" why persist in making his hypocrisy more abominable by protesting more loudly than ever in behalf of "the sheep?" Above all, why had he let his habit of voluble denunciation lead him into this hypocrisy with the woman ...
— The Great God Success • John Graham (David Graham Phillips)
... Cape Palmas was practically as far from the homes of most of them as New Orleans or Rio Janeiro was; that is they would be eternally separated from home there. And their interpreters, as we could understand, instantly said, "Ah, non Palmas" and began to propose infinite other expedients in most voluble language. Vaughan was rather disappointed at this result of his liberality, and asked Nolan eagerly what they said. The drops stood on poor Nolan's white forehead, as he hushed ...
— Famous Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... uninterested person might, then asked some questions about Hugh Price and his good wife Dorothe, and the refractory children, who were causing so much trouble. He found the Virginian voluble and willing to impart all the information he had; but he grew heartily tired of the loafer and ...
— The Real America in Romance, Volume 6; A Century Too Soon (A Story - of Bacon's Rebellion) • John R. Musick
... this tent, and many regiments are represented among the patients; there is an Imperial Light Horse man, who has been in most of the big fights, a mercurial Argyll and Sutherland Highlander, with a witty and voluble tongue; men of the Wilts, Berks, and Yorks regiments, and in the next bed a trooper of the 18th Hussars, who was captured at Talana Hill in the first fight of the war, had spent seven months at Waterval in the barbed-wire cage which we saw, and two since at the front. It was ...
— In the Ranks of the C.I.V. • Erskine Childers
... must have some message to deliver, so they pursed up their lips and directed her to the inner-room. Chou Jui's wife gently raised the curtain-screen, and upon entering discovered madame Wang, in voluble conversation with "aunt" Hsueeh, about family questions and ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... right hand passed behind, and holding the left fore-arm in its grasp. As the elders moved with gravity on the beach, the girls romped and raced with the seamen—repelling, without resenting, their rudeness. They were sprightly and voluble, and chatted on without intermission. On one occasion they were missed, when, turning to a tree, they were seen perched naked in the branches, about nine feet from the ground: an interesting ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West
... clearness, simplicity, and force. He was not a mystic; his thoughts and emotions are not obscured in voluble melody. To him poetry is more than rhythmic harmony. Beneath his delicate imagery and rhythmical sweetness are poured treasures of thought and truth. In diction he belongs to the school of Wordsworth; his language is not ...
— Poets of the South • F.V.N. Painter
... her feet, her face livid. She would have leaped at the prisoner, but the colonel held her back. But he could not hold back the flood of voluble French ...
— The Golf Course Mystery • Chester K. Steele
... voluble Fran Augusta, "you must not think I am criticizing the authorities. It is all very necessary. And for the most part I think they have done very well by me. My ten children have six fathers. All of them but the first were men of most gracious manner and superior intelligence. The first ...
— City of Endless Night • Milo Hastings
... cheerful whistle. The dogs were whining and snapping like joyous puppies as Mukoki unfastened them. The Cree himself was voluble in a chuckling and meaningless way. There was a great contentment in the air, an indefinable inspiration that seemed to lift the gloom. David could not understand it, though in an elusive sort of way he felt it. He did not understand until Father ...
— The Courage of Marge O'Doone • James Oliver Curwood
... side of her mother's temperament had, for some reason, suggested that image to me, and I was quite absurdly dumfounded for the moment when I saw this little, roundabout, dark-haired Frenchwoman, as typically exotic as her husband was home-grown, voluble, brisk despite the handicap of her figure, and with nothing English about her unless it ...
— The Jervaise Comedy • J. D. Beresford
... of Washington as a marble statue on a pedestal rather than as a being of flesh and blood with human feelings, faults and virtues. He was self-contained, he was not voluble, he had a sense of personal dignity, but underneath he was not cold. He was really hot-tempered and on a few well-authenticated occasions fell into passions in which he used language that would have blistered the steel sides of a dreadnaught. Yet he was kind-hearted, ...
— George Washington: Farmer • Paul Leland Haworth
... together, when they reached the old garden Clarence and Susy found themselves considerably in advance of Mary Rogers, who had become suddenly and deeply interested in the beauty of a passion vine near the gate. At the first discovery of their isolation their voluble exchange of information about themselves and their occupations since their last meeting stopped simultaneously. Clarence, who had forgotten his momentary irritation, and had recovered his old happiness ...
— Susy, A Story of the Plains • Bret Harte
... Among the voluble, excited, commencement-bound crowd that boarded the Northampton train at Springfield two male passengers were conspicuous for their silence as they sat absorbed in their respective newspapers which each had hurriedly purchased in transit ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper
... paper whose flowers and branches, although faded, preserved their original pattern, thanks to the cleanliness which reigned in each and every part of the dwelling. The clock, from the case of which hung, uncovered, the apparently motionless weights and the voluble pendulum, perpetually repeating No, no, occupied, with its variegated dial, the most prominent place among the solid pieces of furniture of the dining-room, the adornment of the walls being completed by a series of French engravings representing the exploits of the conqueror of Mexico, with ...
— Dona Perfecta • B. Perez Galdos
... vowels. Bewildered, a little frightened, Mrs. McChesney stood helplessly by. The official laid a none too gentle hand on her shoulder. A little group of lesser officials stood, comic-opera fashion, in the background. And then Emma McChesney's New York training came to her aid. She ignored the voluble interpreter. She remained coolly unruffled by the fusillade of Portuguese. Quietly she opened her hand bag and plunged her fingers deep, deep therein. Her blue eyes gazed confidingly up into the Brazilian's snapping black ones, and as she withdrew ...
— Emma McChesney & Co. • Edna Ferber
... William Murray, here began his career. When at school, he was not remarkable for personal courage, or for mental bravery; though one of the stoutest boys of his standing, he was often beat by boys a year or two below him; and though then acute and voluble, his opinions were suppressed and retracted before minds less powerful but more intrepid than his own. Of his money allowance he was always so good a manager, 70that he could lend to him who was in need. The ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... Gladstone ever hypnotised the House by his personality as Parnell did. There was a mystery in everything connected with the great Irish leader; no mystery hung about Mr. Gladstone. Mr. Gladstone in the House was voluble, eloquent, communicative. Mr. Parnell was silent, a poor speaker, and as uncommunicative as the Sphinx. Mr. Gladstone's power lay in his unreservedness; Mr. Parnell's lay in his absolute reserve. His orders ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... cared for him until the end, which came a few days later. During these last days his monkey was the man's inseparable companion. It cuddled beside him in bed, and answered his feeble terms of endearment with voluble chatterings. With his latest breath the dying stranger consigned his helpless pet to the same pitying care that had helped him over the bitterest of all human journeys. He said, "Monka, Don Bolossi, ...
— Raftmates - A Story of the Great River • Kirk Munroe
... in herself, with her body tied to a coffee-barrow in the Liverpool Docks, and her mind ever wandering in search of the son who had run away to sea. Jack, the English hero, comes across Biddy in the docks just before he starts as a stowaway for America, and his stiff, crude replies to her voluble outpourings are ...
— Juliana Horatia Ewing And Her Books • Horatia K. F. Eden
... outside, scanning, with cunning eyes, the passers-by. If any one paused to examine his stock, he was immediately assailed by voluble recommendations of this or that article, and urgently entreated to "just ...
— Sam's Chance - And How He Improved It • Horatio Alger
... office, and he had not yet served in any subordinate place. And there was another man, who was supposed to carry all English law in his head, full of rude force and endless precedents, hard of heart and voluble of tongue, who also wanted it. An Attorney-General was one who would bring all the resources and hidden subtleties of English law to the service of the Crown, and use them with thorough-going and unflinching resolution against those whom the Crown accused of treason, ...
— Bacon - English Men Of Letters, Edited By John Morley • Richard William Church
... building, but of destroying—not of Heaven, but of Hell—not of self-denial, but of reddest orgy. Constantinople—beware!' I tossed the chair aside, and with a stamp was on my feet: and as I stood—again, again—I heard: the startlingly sudden wrangle, the fierce, vulgar outbreak and voluble controversy, till my consciousness could not hear its ears: and one urged: 'Go! go!' and the other: 'Not there...! where you like, ... but ...
— The Purple Cloud • M.P. Shiel
... expositor - Delivers in such apt and gracious words, That aged ears play truant at his tables, And younger hearings are quite ravished, So sweet and voluble is ...
— A Defence of Poesie and Poems • Philip Sidney
... stay-at-home master. One night, however, instead of separating as usual, they returned to Number 1, and the first glance at their faces showed that the denouement had been reached. The General was red, Miss Beveridge was white; he was voluble with excitement, she was too excited to speak. Mrs Trevor read the signs of the times, and thoughtfully led the way to the drawing-room, so that the formal announcement of the engagement could be made away from the somewhat embarrassing scrutiny of ...
— Betty Trevor • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey
... Constitution submitted to the people,—to protect them against fraud and violence in voting upon it,—and to proclaim, in the event of any interference with their rights, that the Constitution "would be and ought to be rejected by Congress." Walker was voluble in proclamations to that end. The trainers of the Constitution, aware of its invalidity without the sanction of the people, provided for its submission to "approval" or "disapproval," to "ratification" or "rejection"; and yet, by the paltriest juggle ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 6, April, 1858 • Various
... man of pleasing exterior, smooth ways, and an unexceptionable flow of talk, whether in French or English) he was excellently well received; and presently, with one of the last eight bottles of beer on a table at his elbow, found himself the rather silent centre-piece of a voluble ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... down, Mr. Washington, your modesty is even greater than your valor"—must have consoled many a voiceless hero. Washington Irving tried to welcome Dickens, but failed in the attempt, while Dickens was as voluble as he was gifted. Probably the very surroundings of sympathetic admirers unnerved both Washington and Irving, although there are some men who can never "speak on their legs," as the saying goes, in ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... owing to Miss Mapp's dissemination of it, and now, whenever Mr. Wyse raised his voice ever so little, everybody else stopped talking, in the expectation that the news was about to be announced. Occasionally, also, the Contessa addressed some remark to her brother in shrill and voluble Italian, which rather confirmed the gloomy estimate of her table-manners in the matter of talking with her mouth full, for to speak in Italian was equivalent to whispering, since the purport of what she said could not be understood by anybody except ...
— Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson
... I saw the man that got away over the cliff, and shattered every bone in his body. I saw him carried out o' hospital and tied up and flogged, for a caution, till the blood run down and the doctor gave the word stop." He went on in a voluble and disjointed way to tell how this man was "still there! There where your son, mother, spent fourteen out of these ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... Edgecombe seemed fairly crazed by his joy. After so many long years of hopeless grief and wistful longing, to find his loved ones, safe and sound, far more beautiful than of yore! Surely enough to turn the gravest of men into a laughing, jesting, voluble lad! ...
— The Lost City • Joseph E. Badger, Jr.
... quite independently of others' opinion, and even in defiance of it, cherishes a conviction that her external attractions have a considerable value; the young man who, in the face of general indifference, persists in his habit of voluble talk on the supposition that he is conferring on his fellow-creatures the fruits of profound wisdom; and the man of years whose opinion of his own social importance and moral worth is quite disproportionate to the estimation which others form of his claims—these alike illustrate the force and ...
— Illusions - A Psychological Study • James Sully
... eccentric and incredible. These epithets may also be applied to the hotel itself—an extraordinary structure, all facade, which exposes an uncovered rear to the gaze of nature. There is a demonstrative, voluble landlady, who is of course part of the facade; but everything behind her is a trap for the winds, with chambers, corridors, staircases all exhibited to the sky as if the outer wall of the house had been lifted off. It would have been delightful for Florida, ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James
... one of her fiercest opponents, described her as "a woman of haughty and fierce carriage, of a nimble wit and active spirit, and a very voluble tongue, more bold than a man, though in understanding and judgment inferior ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... intuitively. "I am growing rusty, and they think I need a vacation." I was glad Ethel was there with her voluble chatter. ...
— Arms and the Woman • Harold MacGrath
... meadow lands sprouting with thistle, Where the humming wings of the blackbirds pass, Where the hollows are banked with the violets flowering, And the long-limbed pendulous elms are towering, Where the robins are loud with their voluble whistle, And the ground sparrow scurries away ...
— Among the Millet and Other Poems • Archibald Lampman
... grown somewhat calmer, but remained full of irony. To divert his mind, no doubt, he talked on in the most voluble manner, reverting to the women of Rome and to that fete which he had at first found splendid, but at which he now began ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... feet some of them were turning back toward the inviting door in which the bartender stood with his dirty apron knotted into a string before him. Some of the more voluble were accusing the others of not having supported them, and loudly expounding the method of attack that would have been successful. The man with red welts across his face was swearing that if he ever got a chance he would "put a rifle ball through Bully." The young man by ...
— The Plunderer • Roy Norton
... this minute, you may rely upon it,' said the voluble Nipper. 'I have been in this house waiting on my young lady a dozen year and I won't stop in it one hour under notice from a person owning to the name of ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... in a sudden and shocking burst of that high, voluble, metallic speech which Captain Alec had heard through the ceiling of the parlor, he began to address them, if indeed it were they whom he addressed, and not some phantom audience of Princes, Marshals, Admirals, or trembling sheep-like re emits. It was difficult to hear the words, hopeless to make ...
— The Secret of the Tower • Hope, Anthony
... were by nature unequal, that the debate had turned. Prothero was passionately against the idea at that time. It was, he felt, separating himself from Benham more and more. He spoke with a personal bitterness. And he found his chief ally in a rigorous and voluble Frenchman named Carnac, an aggressive Roman Catholic, who opened his speech by saying that the first aristocrat was the devil, and shocked Prothero by claiming him as probably the only other sound Christian in the room. Several biologists were present, and one tall, fair ...
— The Research Magnificent • H. G. Wells
... in she caught sight of her gown held aloft by Mr. Bills, and heard his voluble "Going, going, at ...
— The Cromptons • Mary J. Holmes
... pipeful of tobacco. Langley always carried some loose leaves broken up in his pocket, so he at once pulled some of these out and half filled the claw-like hand outstretched to receive them. The old native was voluble in his thanks. There was a large ant-heap close to the one on which he had been sitting, and on which he reseated himself while filling his pipe. Against this Langley leaned and took a good look at his companion. The man had a most extraordinary ...
— Stories by English Authors: Africa • Various
... with burning brands which many of the Indians had brought, and the camp was in an uproar with the voluble chatter of the men as they crowded round the captives, while Thunder-maker excitedly cried out ...
— The Fiery Totem - A Tale of Adventure in the Canadian North-West • Argyll Saxby
... till the utter consummation and ultimate ascension of dramatic poetry incarnate and transfigured in the master-singer of the world, the quality of his tragedy was as that of Marlowe's, broad, single, and intense; large of hand, voluble of tongue, direct of purpose. With the dawn of its latter epoch a new power comes upon it, to find clothing and expression in new forms of speech and after a new style. The language has put off its foreign decorations of lyric and elegiac ornament; it has found already its infinite ...
— A Study of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... thanks to his ready wit and resource, had his laugh at those, who by robbing him of the feather thought to make a laughing-stock of him. They, indeed, being among his hearers, and marking his novel expedient, and how voluble he was, and what a long story he made of it, laughed till they thought their jaws would break; and, when the congregation was dispersed, they went up to him, and never so merrily told him what they had done, and returned him his feather; which next year proved no less lucrative to ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio
... brother, the Chevalier des Meloises, with whom she lived, a man of high life and extreme fashion, was to-night enjoying the more congenial society of the officers of the Regiment de Bearn. At this moment, amid the clash of glasses and the bubbling of wine, the excited and voluble Gascons were discussing in one breath the war, the council, the court, the ladies, and whatever gay topic was tossed from end to end ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... on her hat with two jabs of the hat-pins, and hastened to the elevator, exulting in freedom. The elevator was crowded with girls in new white frocks, voluble about their afternoon's plans. One of them carried a wicker suit-case. She was, she announced, starting on her two weeks' vacation; there would be some boys, and she was going to have "a peach ...
— The Job - An American Novel • Sinclair Lewis
... last night's student-lamp is stuccoed all over with tiny gnats, and the breath of the blossoming grape is wafted in at the open window, and the robins, those melodious rowdies, are whistling and piping over the lawn and through the trees in voluble mockery of the professor's task. "Come out," they say, "come out! Why do you look in a book? Double, double, toil and trouble! Give it up—tup, tup, tup! Come away and play for a day. What do you know? ...
— Days Off - And Other Digressions • Henry Van Dyke
... head keeper, steward, butler, and general major-domo, and ought on such a day as this to have been in half a dozen places at once. From the earliest morning he had been hurrying hither and thither, in his impatience making use of much voluble Gaelic. He had seen the yacht's crew in their new jersies. He had been round the kennels. He had got out a couple of bottles of the best claret that Castle Dare could afford. He had his master's letters arranged on the library table, and ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... day of rest, this enactment, which was not submitted to the Chambers, passed for an arrogant piece of interference on the part of the clergy with national habits; and while it caused no inconvenience to the rich, it inflicted substantial loss upon a numerous and voluble class of petty traders. The wrongs done to the French nation by the priests and emigrants who rose to power in 1814 were indeed the merest trifle in comparison with the wrongs which it had uncomplainingly borne at the hands of Napoleon. But the glory of the Empire, the strength ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... was not so much a private bureau, as a waiting-room to which repaired every official of the police service who found time hanging on his hands. On the afternoon of Miss Holland's surprising adventure, a plainclothes man of "D" Division brought to Mr. Mansus's room a very scared domestic servant, voluble, tearful and agonizingly penitent. It was a mood not wholly unfamiliar to a police officer of twenty years experience and ...
— The Clue of the Twisted Candle • Edgar Wallace
... then lunch. But, alas, no such luck! Apparently something out of the ordinary was afoot. Even the dignity of the heavy-weight, superior, self-satisfied, alleged Swiss maitre d'hotel was for the moment disturbed. Native s'fragis, neglecting their work, were voluble, gesticulatory, but quite unintelligible. ...
— The Tale of a Trooper • Clutha N. Mackenzie
... once broken, he felt the need of speaking—of speaking out relentlessly all that was in him. And, as he talked, he found it impossible to keep still; he paced the room. He was very pale and very voluble, and made a clean breast of everything that troubled him; not so much, however, with the idea of confessing it to her, as of easing his own mind. And now, again, he let her see into his real self, and, unlike the previous occasion, it was here more ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... the Mavis or Brown Thrasher. I have never heard the Mocking-Bird sing at liberty; and while the caged bird may surpass the Red Thrush in volume of voice and in quaintness of direct imitation, he gives me no such impression of depth and magnificence. I know not how to describe the voluble and fantastic notes which fall like pearls and diamonds from the beak of our Mavis, while his stately attitudes and high-born bearing are in full harmony with the song. I recall the steep, bare hill-side, and the two great boulders which guard the lonely grove, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... locked up in a closet. But the uncomfortable feeling soon passed, and they began to talk about the strange woman and to gossip and play and amuse themselves with her sorrow. A crowd collected about the aide, who grew more and more voluble and important each time he repeated his explanation ...
— Trapped in 'Black Russia' - Letters June-November 1915 • Ruth Pierce
... that this was once the largest city in the western world,—once the centre of European civilization? So at least history informs us. Not even one foundation of its three hundred mosques can be found to-day. Seneca and Lucan were born here before the time of Christ, and the guide rehearsed with voluble facility some other high-sounding names of historic fame who were natives of the place, but who were quite unfamiliar to us. When we pointed, however, to the broad, pale-yellow river crossed by the old Roman bridge, and ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou
... "Wonderful, serr, wonderful;" "Ah, well, may-ay-be, may-ay-be"—these be words of potent irony when uttered with a certain birr. Long practice had made Gourlay an adept in their use. He never spoke to those he despised or disliked without "the birr." Not that he was voluble of speech; he wasn't clever enough for lengthy abuse. He said little and his voice was low, but every word from the hard, clean lips was a stab. And often his silence was more withering than any utterance. It struck life like ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown
... opportunity to abandon the Governor, but keen now for new experiences and sensations, Archie dismissed the idea. The appeal of the Governor's sister had imposed a new burden upon him, and the Governor's voluble prattle about fate and the inevitable drawing of destiny had impressed him. He could depart for Banff and take the chance of never being molested for any of his crimes, but to do this would be cowardice, just that fear of his fate that Isabel had ...
— Blacksheep! Blacksheep! • Meredith Nicholson
... way they captured a railway official and told him to reserve a coupe lit compartment. In the midst of their hasty meal the Frenchman arrived, voluble, apologetic. The train was crowded. Never had there been such a rush to the South. By the exercise of most profound care he had secured them two seats in a compartment, but the third had already taken itself. He was sorry for it; ...
— The Albert Gate Mystery - Being Further Adventures of Reginald Brett, Barrister Detective • Louis Tracy
... had not been for his army. He was, in his conversations before the destruction of the Spanish fleet, and while he was on his way to Cavite, a professed friend of the annexation of the Philippines to the United States, and constantly a very voluble creature. The American Consul at Manila, writing from Manila Bay, opposite to the city, May ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead
... behind the lights of his cabin; and the thud of oars, the voluble noises of the water, and the crackling of the cresset overhead had, too, the quality of impersonal and supernatural phenomena. ...
— The Fifth Queen • Ford Madox Ford
... stranger chanced to wander near her hut and overhear her jargon, incessant as it was, and shrill, he might speculate in vain on the reason of these sounds. If he waited in expectation of hearing some reply, he waited in vain. The strain, always voluble and sharp, was never intermitted for a moment, and would continue ...
— Edgar Huntley • Charles Brockden Brown
... so little as he did that next morning at breakfast. Such plans as he detailed for unmasking the murderer of Mrs. Webb! Such business for the day! So many people to see! It made her quite dizzy, she said. And, indeed, Sweetwater was more than usually voluble that morning,—perhaps because he could not bear his mother's satisfied smile; and when he went out of the house it was with a laugh and a cheery "Good-bye, mamsie" that was in spiking contrast to the irrepressible exclamation ...
— Agatha Webb • Anna Katharine Green
... pompous vaunts and high disdain; O sharp in scandal, voluble and vain! How weak is mortal pride! To Heaven alone The event of actions and our fates are known: Scoffer, behold what gratitude we bear: The victim's heel is answered with ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope |
