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Discourse   /dˈɪskɔrs/   Listen
Discourse

verb
(past & past part. discoursed; pres. part. discoursing)
1.
To consider or examine in speech or writing.  Synonyms: discuss, talk about.  "The class discussed Dante's 'Inferno'"
2.
Carry on a conversation.  Synonym: converse.
3.
Talk at length and formally about a topic.  Synonyms: dissertate, hold forth.



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"Discourse" Quotes from Famous Books



... word height in the title-page, and another which had the word salt conspicuous he threw among books on Chemistry or Cookery. But when he began a regular classification, it appeared that the former was 'Longinus on the Sublime,' and the other a 'Theological Discourse on the Salt of the World, that good Christians ought to be seasoned with.' Thus, in a catalogue published about eighty years ago the 'Flowers of Ancient Literature' are found among books on Gardening and Botany, ...
— The Book-Hunter in London - Historical and Other Studies of Collectors and Collecting • William Roberts

... to be played with. Read no paper or book in company. Come not near the papers or books of another when he is writing. Let your countenance be cheerful; but in serious matters be grave. Let your discourse with others, on matters of business, be short. It is good manners to let others speak first. When a man does all he can, do not blame him, though he succeeds not well. Take admonitions thankfully. Be not too ...
— How To Behave: A Pocket Manual Of Republican Etiquette, And Guide To Correct Personal Habits • Samuel R Wells

... immortal. In his earlier ministry he had been dwelling upon the presence of the divine kingdom in the earth, the practical conditions for membership therein, and the inclusion of Gentile as well as Jew in the gracious provision. Novel were his words. Whoever had heard his discourse on the Mount or the parable of the lost sheep was rich beyond the modern sons of men. But now, in the closing period of his stay with mortals, he was more frequently foretelling the life to come. Like a footworn traveler drawing near the homeland, ...
— An Easter Disciple • Arthur Benton Sanford

... spoke freely with them of whatever came uppermost, or lay deepest in his heart or their own. While they talked together, his face would kindle, unawares, and shine upon them, as with a mild evening light. Pensive with the fulness of such discourse, his guests took leave and went their way; and passing up the valley, paused to look at the Great Stone Face, imagining that they had seen its likeness in a human countenance, but ...
— The Snow Image • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... At this discourse the fair slave, who, according to her usual custom, had hearkened to the king with downcast eyes, and had given him cause to believe not only that she was dumb, but that she had never laughed in her life, began to smile a little. The King of Persia perceived it ...
— Fairy Tales From The Arabian Nights • E. Dixon

... would have sent her away with blunt peremptoriness; but now he seemed well content to have her there. He had no secrets to discuss, as he sat in his old place in the window-seat; yet Grace was too happy to see him there to find fault with his discourse. ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey

... grace her hospitality, as if in deference to the travelled dignity of her guest. After a long, and, seemingly, a meditating silence, the emigrant, who had, however, seen no apparent necessity to suspend the functions of his masticating powers, resumed the discourse. ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper

... to this long discourse, but her thoughts often wandered away into the next room, to aunty and the bags. How were they getting on all ...
— Gritli's Children • Johanna Spyri

... continually gather knowledge. But let his Questions not be troublesome, for that is fit for a Poser; and let him be sure to leave other Men their turn to speak." What Bacon has said so wisely and so well, "OF DISCOURSE," we would apply to our little Journal; and beg our kind friends to remember, that our space is necessarily limited, and that, therefore, in our eyes, Brevity will be as much the Soul of a communication as it is said to be ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 25. Saturday, April 20, 1850 • Various

... relating facts of no consequence, not at all out of the road of such common incidents as happen every day; and this I have observed more frequently among the Scots than any other nation, who are very careful not to omit the minutest circumstances of time or place; which kind of discourse, if it were not a little relieved by the uncouth terms and phrases, as well as accent and gesture peculiar to that country, would be hardly tolerable.—Hints ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb

... chamber; and at the same time the head of the stranger turning towards him, he recognised the face of Peter Leroux staring at him, with that very look of stupified astonishment with which for two hours the unlucky ploughman had listened to his brilliant discourse in the ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 456 - Volume 18, New Series, September 25, 1852 • Various

... Tidy advancing, however, she ceased her evolutions, and, turning to the others with a comic grimace, she bade them hold off, while she held discourse with ...
— Step by Step - or, Tidy's Way to Freedom • The American Tract Society

... soldier of the name of Cesar, never returned. Tradition, always eager to make up to history for its want of interest, asserted that after marching for years they reached a city. Perhaps it was the mystic Trapalanda of which the Gauchos used to discourse at night when seated round a fire of bones upon the pampa. Perhaps some other, for enchanted cities and Eldorados were plentiful in those days in America, alternating with occasional empires, as that of Puytita, near the ...
— A Vanished Arcadia, • R. B. Cunninghame Graham

... decided itself by the moral sentiments which are the principle of the sympathetic movements. When a person speaks, we see his looks, his lineaments, his hands, often the whole person all together speaks to us; and it is not rare that this mimic part of the discourse is the most eloquent. Still more there are cases where an intentional movement can be considered at the same time as sympathetic; and it is that which happens when something involuntary mingles with the voluntary act which determines ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... Thomas Westwood, whose gentle poetry, it is to be feared, has won but few listeners, has drawn this fancy picture of the commotion in St. Dunstan's Churchyard on a May morning of the year 1653, when Richard Marriott first published the famous discourse, little dreaming that he had been chosen for the godfather of so distinguished an immortality. The lines form an epilogue to twelve beautiful sonnets a propos of the ...
— The Complete Angler 1653 • Isaak Walton

... speaking from his different point of view! True that Guaire's point of view is only just indicated—he listens to his brother, for a hermit's view of life is more his own than a king's. It pleases me to think that the day the twain met to discourse of life and its mission was the counterpart of the day I spent on the island. My day was full of drifting cloud and sunshine, and the lake lay like a mirror reflecting the red shadow of the island. So you will understand that the reasons Marban gave for living there in preference to living ...
— The Lake • George Moore

... included not only Cecilia's sin of the moment, but her upbringing, her French education, her "foreign fashion of speaking," and her sinful extravagance in shoes. These, and other matters, were furnishing Mrs. Rainham with ample material for a bitter discourse when she became aware of another presence in the room, and her eloquence faltered at the sight ...
— Back To Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce

... After his discourse in praise of the founder of the rival order, immediately followed by its counterpart—an eloquent summary of the career of St. Dominic, put into the mouth of the Franciscan Bonaventura—St. Thomas speaks again (Canto xiii.), in order to explain an apparent over-estimate ...
— Dante: His Times and His Work • Arthur John Butler

... one may perceive, how well qualify'd he is to form Schemes, for the refining of our Tongue, and the Advancement of Religion; of both which he has written. The latter does not come under Consideration so naturally in this Discourse as it will in another, and therefore it shall be deferr'd till such an Opportunity offers. Perhaps Our Elegant Writer will pretend to justify these Innovations in our Speech, for which the best Critick upon him would be my Lord Chief Justice, by the Example of our Modern Poets, and the Oaths and ...
— Reflections on Dr. Swift's Letter to Harley (1712) and The British Academy (1712) • John Oldmixon

... assure you, sir; why at any time when it please you, I shall be ready to discourse to you all I know;—and more too ...
— Every Man In His Humor - (The Anglicized Edition) • Ben Jonson

... sunshiny weather, fell into fits), and lost for a time the use of his hand; wherefore he withdrew, and left them as before, to consider what to do. Then did the prisoners consult between themselves, whether it was best to take his counsel or no; and thus they began to discourse: ...
— Journeys Through Bookland - Volume Four • Charles H. Sylvester

... world of meaning in those half-sad, half-smiling lines, and many an hour-long discourse might fail to throw more lurid light on one of the strangest historical problems in the world. The flower of England's manhood must needs go; and our most brilliant scholars, our boldest riders, our most perfect ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman

... have Petrarch, Angelo and Milton. It awaits a truer unfolding in opposition and rebuke to that subterranean prudence which presides at marriages with words that take hold of the upper world, whilst one eye is prowling in the cellar; so that its gravest discourse has a savor of hams and powdering-tubs. Worst, when this sensualism intrudes into the education of young women, and withers the hope and affection of human nature by teaching that marriage signifies nothing ...
— Essays, First Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson

... and his subordinate talents were beneficially employed in the public service. Yet the Phrygian was dissatisfied at receiving as a favor a scanty portion of the Imperial prize which he had bestowed on his equal; and his discontent, which sometimes evaporated in hasty discourse, at length assumed a more threatening and hostile aspect against a prince whom he represented as a cruel tyrant. That tyrant, however, repeatedly detected, warned, and dismissed the old companion of his arms, till fear and resentment prevailed over ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon

... she loved me, I would confess my errors, and trust to her generosity to pity and pardon me." He soon overtook her, and offering her his arm, they sauntered to pleasant but unfrequented walks. Belcour drew Mr. Franklin on one side and entered into a political discourse: they walked faster than the young people, and Belcour by some means contrived entirely to lose sight of them. It was a fine evening in the beginning of autumn; the last remains of day-light faintly streaked the western sky, while the moon, with pale and virgin lustre in ...
— Charlotte Temple • Susanna Rowson

... Seaman, who received him with honour and seated him by his side. As soon as the rest of the company was assembled, he set meat and drink before them and, when they had well eaten and drunken and were merry and in cheerful case, he took up his discourse and recounted to them in these words ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton

... will soonest prove itself. No matters how "flat, stale and unprofitable," the remarks of another may be, the well-bred man will listen with an appearance at least of interest, replying in such a manner as to show that he entirely "follows the thread of the discourse." ...
— Frost's Laws and By-Laws of American Society • Sarah Annie Frost

... to follow her discourse because of the keen discomfort I was feeling as the remainder of the licorice water trickled down my right leg. I was brought up with a start by Mrs. Handsomebody ...
— Explorers of the Dawn • Mazo de la Roche

... choice of the 'Murder of Gonzago,' and perhaps his conduct during the performance, have shown a spirit of exaggerated hostility against the King which has excited general alarm. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern discourse to Claudius on the extreme importance of his preserving his invaluable life, as though Hamlet's insanity had now clearly shown itself to be homicidal.[60] When, then, at the opening of the interview between Hamlet and his mother, the son, instead of listening to her remonstrances, roughly ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley

... implements with which to dig a grave. Then Okiok and his party hastily constructed a rude snow-hut to protect them from the storm. Here for two more days and nights they were imprisoned, and much of that time they passed in listening to the pleasant discourse of Hans Egede, as he told the northern natives the wonderful story of redemption through Jesus Christ, or recounted some of his own difficulties ...
— Red Rooney - The Last of the Crew • R.M. Ballantyne

... Abbeville, to judge of her discourse and conversation, was also an ardent friend and well-wisher of the Emperor; and when, in July, 1804, he passed through Abbeville, on his journey to the coast, she, also, threw herself at his feet, and declared that she would ...
— Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud, Complete - Being Secret Letters from a Gentleman at Paris to a Nobleman in London • Lewis Goldsmith

... This discourse enraged Don Quixote nearly as much as the words of the guard had done, and he answered the fellow in terms so abusive that the convict's patience, which was never very great, gave way altogether, and he and his comrades, picking up what stones ...
— The Red Romance Book • Various

... indeed, sir," Amelius answered. "Only as much religion as there is in the New Testament. I was not quite old enough to understand him easily—so he wrote down his discourse on the fly-leaf of a story-book I had with me, and gave it to me to read when I was tired of the stories. Stories were scarce with me in those days; and, when I had exhausted my little stock, rather than read nothing I read my sermon—read it so often that I think ...
— The Fallen Leaves • Wilkie Collins

... putting ashore at Hooper's Island." The last question was, "What news of Talbot?" and Roger's answer, "He had not been within twenty miles of him; neither did he know anything about the Colonel" !! But, on further discourse, he let fall, that "he knew the Colonel never would come to a trial,"—"that he knew this; but neither man, woman, nor child should know it, but those who knew ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various

... work itself is entitled, "A playne Discourse and humble Advise for our Gratious Queene Elizabeth, her most Excellent Majestie to peruse and consider, as concerning the needful Reformation of the Vulgar Kalender for the civile yeres and daies accompting, or verifyeng, according to the ...
— The Private Diary of Dr. John Dee - And the Catalog of His Library of Manuscripts • John Dee

... that Barbox by no means hurried himself. His heart being in his work of good-nature, he revelled in it. There was the joy, too (it was a true joy to him), of sometimes sitting by, listening to Phoebe as she picked out more and more discourse from her musical instrument, and as her natural taste and ear refined daily upon her first discoveries. Besides being a pleasure, this was an occupation, and in the course of weeks it consumed hours. It resulted that his dreaded birthday was close upon him before ...
— Mugby Junction • Charles Dickens

... GOV. CLINTON, in a discourse delivered before the New York Historical Society, says: "Previous to the occupation of this country by the progenitors of the present race of Indians, it was inhabited by a race of men much more populous ...
— Birch Bark Legends of Niagara • Owahyah

... us see what this rest is. Though the sense of the text includes in the word "rest" all that ease and safety which a soul hath with Christ in this life—the rest of grace—yet because it chiefly intends the rest of eternal glory I shall confine my discourse ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various

... themselves with the tillage of the earth and the building of towns and other mechanical crafts and useful arts, whilst the women govern and fill the great offices of state and bear arms." At this the youth marvelled with exceeding marvel and, as they were in discourse, behold, in came the Wazir who was a tall gray-haired old woman of venerable semblance and majestic aspect, and it was told him that this was the Minister. Quoth the Queen to her, "Bring us the Kazi and witnesses." So she went out to do this, and the Queen, turning ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton

... reveal himself, for he had not meditated sufficiently nor found out his first apostles. But in his forty-second year he began freely to speak and to gather disciples, wandering about Podolia and Wallachia, and teaching by discourse and parable, crossing streams by spreading his mantle upon the waters, and saving his disciples from freezing in the wintry frosts by touching the trees with his finger-tips, so that they burnt without ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill

... things preternatural and unreal, vacantly conceived, and illogically supposed to have something to do with living issues. But truth and perfection, for the very reason that they are not problematic existences but inherent ideals, cannot be banished from discourse. Experience may lose any of its data; it cannot lose, while it endures, the terms with which it operates in becoming experience. Now, truth is relevant to every opinion which looks to truth for its standard, and perfection is envisaged in every cry for relief, in every effort ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana

... Dr. Miley preached his funeral sermon at the Metropolitan Chapel, Marlborough Street. It was an eloquent eulogy upon the character of the departed; his errors, personal and political, were passed over, and the idea pervaded the discourse that the departed was ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... arcades of the Odeon, and said to him: "Come and dine with me." They went off to Rousseau's and spent six francs. Marius ate like an ogre. He gave the waiter six sous. At dessert, he said to Courfeyrac. "Have you read the paper? What a fine discourse Audry de Puyraveau delivered!" ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo

... Archduke praised his protege in glowing words, and he was given a small post at Court. Nature had favoured him at the start, for he is said to have been of 'a moving beauty that ... exacted a liking if not a love from all that saw him' and to this valuable gift was added that of a 'learned discourse and generous deportment.' ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote

... storm and plead, But you shall never hear me supplicate. These long months that have magnified my need Have made my asking less importunate, For now small favors seem to me so great That not the courteous lovers of old time Were more content to rule themselves and wait, Easing desire with discourse and sweet rhyme. Nay, be capricious, willful; have no fear To wound me with unkindness done or said, Lest mutual devotion make too dear My life that hangs by a so slender thread, And happy love unnerve me before May For that stern part that I ...
— Poems • Alan Seeger

... carefully to her truncated phrases, where what she did not say was the most eloquent part of her discourse. He nodded freely and sagely; he was conciliatory, but clear in opinion. "I know, I know," he said. "It's very rum—you must naturally find it so. I know exactly how you feel about it. Oh, rum's the only word for it. Or rummy. ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett

... as: "A subject or plan which one is constantly setting off," or "a favorite and ever recurring theme of discourse, thought, or effort," but the editor of The Century Dictionary has a better definition, more in accord with modern thought, viz., "That which a person persistently pursues or dwells upon with zeal or delight, as ...
— Quit Your Worrying! • George Wharton James

... had control enough over himself to keep quiet, and after standing by the Nurnberg master's work for nigh an hour, praising, marveling, expatiating in the lengthy German tongue, the men moved to a little distance and began talking of sums of money and divided profits, of which discourse he could make out no meaning. All he could make out was that the name of the king—the king—the king came over very often in their arguments. He fancied at times they quarreled, for they swore lustily and their voices rose hoarse and high; but after a while they ...
— Bimbi • Louise de la Ramee

... With such discourse the hour of dinner passed; and after dinner Flemming went to the Cathedral. They were singing vespers. A beadle, dressed in blue, with a cocked hat, and a crimson sash and collar, was strutting, like a turkey, ...
— Hyperion • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

... foamed with rage, and threatened and pommelled the enchained and defenceless Norbery. Norbery grew more eloquent and more argumentative under this treatment. Nearly an hour passed before a file could be procured and the chain severed, and by that time Norbery had ample opportunity to finish his discourse, and was conveyed to the police station in a ...
— A Girl Among the Anarchists • Isabel Meredith

... I marvelled this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so plainly, Though its answer, little meaning, little relevancy bore; For we cannot help agreeing that no living human being Ever yet was blessed with seeing bird above his chamber door— Bird or beast upon the sculptured bust ...
— Poems Every Child Should Know - The What-Every-Child-Should-Know-Library • Various

... adroitly as a horse-thief. He felt obliged to keep up the convention that an uncle is always wiser than a nephew, even if he could keep it up no otherwise than by listening in serious silence to Felix's quick, light, constant discourse. But there came a day when he lapsed from consistency and almost asked his ...
— The Europeans • Henry James

... yonder hears and sees, Part in their songs he taketh, And knows all wisdom's mysteries; His high discourse he maketh What none of us can ever know With all our searching here below, To none on earth 'tis given, Reserv'd it is ...
— Paul Gerhardt's Spiritual Songs - Translated by John Kelly • Paul Gerhardt

... I commiserate her, and gently strove to draw her into discourse. I found her ignorant, oh! how profoundly ignorant! She had no ideas beyond the estate in which she lived, and those that she had gathered from the gang of negroes that worked it. Her father had taught her nothing ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard

... of an end which is potentially attainable by all men, and which is therefore worthy of Man as Man. The idea of there being such an end has indeed been almost wholly lost sight of. Those among us who are of larger discourse than the rest and less absorbed by personal aims, ask themselves mournfully: What is the meaning of life? Why are we here? Is life worth living? and other such questions; and being unable to answer them to their satisfaction, or get them answered, resign themselves to a state of quasi-stoical ...
— What Is and What Might Be - A Study of Education in General and Elementary Education in Particular • Edmond Holmes

... National Guard followed pretty close to the royal carriage, I had occasion to note how far below what had been hoped was the reception at the gate of La Villette, where a triumphal arch had been erected. Some groups, plainly soldiers, after the discourse of the Prefect of Paris and the response of the King, uttered some huzzas that found no echo. When we approached the boulevards, the public warmed up a little. The windows were lined with women, ...
— The Duchess of Berry and the Court of Charles X • Imbert De Saint-Amand

... Europe. Even Italy had its romantic movement; Manzoni began, like Walter Scott, by translating Buerger's "Lenore" and "Wild Huntsman", and afterwards, like Schlegel in Germany and Hugo in France, attacked the classical entrenchments in his "Discourse of the Three Unities." It is no part of our undertaking to write the history of the romantic schools in Germany and France. But in each of those countries the movement had points of likeness and unlikeness which shed light upon our own; and ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers

... clergyman I read of, who on pulling out his pocket-handkerchief in the midst of his discourse, pulled out two bouncing apples with it that went rolling across the pulpit floor and down the pulpit stairs. These apples were, no doubt, to be eaten after the sermon on his way home, or to his next appointment. ...
— Birds and Bees, Sharp Eyes and, Other Papers • John Burroughs

... I refer mainly to a Discourse by the Rev. M.D. Conway, delivered before the "Emancipation League," ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 54, April, 1862 • Various

... gesticulated to aid his glib tongue. W. E. Henley (whose acquaintance Louis made about 1875, and who helped Stevenson with his chary praise and frank criticism) says of his friend, "He radiates talk. He will discourse with you of morals, music, marbles, men, manners, meta-physics, medicine, mangold-wurzel, with equal insight into essentials and equal pregnancy and felicity ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson • E. Blantyre Simpson

... he appeared to be very old. He would sit half bent in the arm-chair in Stone Buildings, and look as though he were near a hundred. And from day to day he seemed to lean more upon his son-in-law, whose visits to him were continued, and always well taken. The constant subject of discourse between them was Everett Wharton, who had not yet seen his father since the misfortune of their quarrel. Everett had declared to Lopez a dozen times that he would go to his father if his father wished it, and Lopez as often reported to the father that Everett would not go to him ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope

... discourse like this to me, I own, is one of life's most pleasant features; [To the animals.] Say, cursed dolls, that sweat, there, toiling! What are ...
— Faust • Goethe

... the state," put him in good humour. The junior alderman immediately set out with one of the four syndics, and the mayor sent to his house to order every thing proper for the festival. The devil Leviathan was engaged with Faustus in a deep discourse when these ambassadors were announced. They were instantly admitted. They welcomed, with all humility, in the name of the senate, the distinguished guest, and gave him to understand that his noble person, as well as his important errand, were well ...
— Faustus - his Life, Death, and Doom • Friedrich Maximilian von Klinger

... Thomas in vain objected to this inconvenient and involuntary adhesion to veracity, which would make him, as he thought, unfit for church or for market, for king's court or for lady's bower. But all his remonstrances were disregarded by the lady; and Thomas the Rhymer, whenever the discourse turned on the future, gained the credit of a prophet whether he would or not, for he could say nothing but what was sure to ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends - Scotland • Anonymous

... body, sir, a puir body at a sermon. I like a gun and a minister to shoot close. Dr. MacDonald is an awfu' scattering man. He'll be frae Genesis to Revelations in the same discourse, sir." ...
— A Daughter of Fife • Amelia Edith Barr

... discourse upon old days, that brought a glow to my heart the brandy I forgot had never brought to my head. We talked of school, and the gay days in wood and field, of our childish wanderings on the shore, making sand-keps and ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro

... Sylvester, "is an attempted faint adumbration of the nature of Mathematical Science in the abstract. What is wanting (like a fourth sphere resting on three others in contact) to build up the Ideal Pyramid is a discourse on the Relation of the two branches (Mathematics and Physics) to, their action and reaction upon, one another, a magnificent theme, with which it is to be hoped that some future President of Section A will crown the edifice and make the Tetralogy (symbolizable ...
— Five of Maxwell's Papers • James Clerk Maxwell

... out that her husband should have, without her knowing of his intention, brought in these gentlemen. Still, the matter of their conversation was new to us, and we became at last so mightily interested in it that we listened to the discourse without bemoaning ourselves that we had lost the amusement we looked for. I know I wished at the time that you had been there. I say not that I can repeat all that I heard, but as I had before read some of the matters spoken of in the ...
— When London Burned • G. A. Henty

... hotel drawing-room, but it taxed even her ingenuity to segregate herself from the Telfers. When the feat was accomplished, and it became evident that Mr. Langhope could yield himself securely to the joys of confidential discourse, he paused on the brink of disclosure to say: "It's as well I saved that Ming ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton

... before the cavity was filled, and a demonstration that a lake of such vast extent was the work of man's hands, in one prince's reign. This is what several historians have related concerning the lake Moeris, on the testimony of the inhabitants of the country. And M. Bossuet, the bishop of Meaux, in his discourse on universal history, relates the whole as fact. For my part, I will confess that I do not see the least probability in it. Is it possible to conceive, that a lake of a hundred and eighty leagues in circumference, ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin

... every house, and the self-importance of every alderman, and reflecting that these people, if they liked, might own yachts of white and brass; yet they preferred to crouch among the bric-a-brac and to discourse to him of one another's violations and interferences. By the time that he had reached home that dripping night and had put captions upon the backs of the unexpectant-looking photographs which were his trophies, he was in that state of comparative anarchy to be effected only by imaginative youth ...
— Romance Island • Zona Gale

... This discourse afflicted the poor fisherman extremely: I am very unfortunate, cries he, to come hither to do such a piece of good service to one that is so ungrateful. I beg you to consider your injustice, and revoke such an unreasonable oath: pardon me, and Heaven will pardon you; if you grant me my life, Heaven ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Volume 1 • Anonymous

... generally including a few Clary's Grove Boys, he always was present. The first speech he made was after a sale at Pappsville. What he said there is not remembered; but an illustration of the kind of man he was, interpolated into his discourse, made a lasting impression. A fight broke out in his audience while he was on the stand, and observing that one of his friends was being worsted, he bounded into the group of contestants, seized the fellow who had his supporter down, threw him "ten or twelve feet," ...
— McClure's Magazine, January, 1896, Vol. VI. No. 2 • Various

... is seen against the background of eternal mystery. In Macaulay's pages this element is altogether absent. We see a figure from the past as vividly as if he were present. We observe the details of his dress, the odd oaths with which his discourse is interlarded, the minute peculiarities of his features or manner. We laugh or admire as we should do at a living man; and we rightly admire the force of the illusion. But the thought never suggests itself that we too are passing into ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen

... of registering and licensing the medical and legal professions presented itself. And those who are indignant at the thought of the clairvoyant charging a fee may profitably reflect on the general assumption that the labourer is worthy of his hire. The deans and bishops who discourse so eloquently on the sins of the necromancers are not, I believe, renouncing the material benefits and emoluments ...
— Mountain Meditations - and some subjects of the day and the war • L. Lind-af-Hageby

... ascend upon deck, and after eying each other for a brief space and with a friendly modest hesitation, we begin anon to converse about the weather and other profound and delightful themes of English discourse. We confide to each other our respective opinions of the ladies round about us. Look at that charming creature in a pink bonnet and a dress of the pattern of a Kilmarnock snuff-box: a stalwart Irish gentleman in a green coat and bushy red whiskers is whispering something ...
— Little Travels and Roadside Sketches • William Makepeace Thackeray

... falls as it us'd to doe, sir; but a Countrey life is the best when all's done. What thinke you of a bridg from Lion key to Flaunders? You may guess I talke at randum, gentlemen; but you must not interpret all foolish discourse a distemper of the braine: Lords would take it for a Scandalum Magnatum and your Ladies would ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Various

... influence of Chloe's smiles and unsophisticated admiration. In these moments of weakness the black would bow his head, give vent to a short laugh when, suddenly recovering himself, he would endeavour to appear dignified. While this pantomime was in the course of exhibition forward, the discourse ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper

... citizens, and makes the others more dissolute, was not ashamed of his ministry, and would not own himself to be an ill magistrate. This was reported to Critias and Charicles, who forthwith sent for Socrates, and showing him the law they had made, forbid him to discourse with the young men. Upon which Socrates asked them whether they would permit him to propose a question, that he might be informed of what he did not understand in this prohibition; and his request being granted, he spoke in this manner: "I am most ready ...
— The Memorable Thoughts of Socrates • Xenophon

... wickedly took advantage of it. His father—the doctor—was in the habit of delivering a course of botanical lectures to a circle of very select ladies, and Eugene suspected that his father, notwithing his voluble discourse, had little knowledge of botany. He, therefore, with one or two of his companions, took occasion (as it was their task to prepare plants and flowers in vases, with their names written upon the vases for ...
— Paris: With Pen and Pencil - Its People and Literature, Its Life and Business • David W. Bartlett

... its shadows, but recalling vividly the cloudy April morning on which, fifteen years agone, I left the inn of the "Green Man and Black Head," in the pretty town of Ashbourne, and strolled away by the same road on which Mr. Charles Cotton opens his discourse of fishing with Master "Viator," and plunged down the steep valley-side near to Thorpe, and wandered for three miles and more, under towering crags, and on soft, spongy bits of meadow, beside the blithe river where Walton had cast, in other days, a gray ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various

... to the revelation he had made to Kurt. They met often, but in ranch life discourse is not frequent, and Jo instinctively felt that his recital of Love's Young Dream had fallen upon unsympathetic ears, while the foreman, unversed in the Language of Love, was mystified ...
— Penny of Top Hill Trail • Belle Kanaris Maniates

... How could she discourse on the principle of beauty in music when she had the whole weight of the evening on her shoulders? Musa was the whole weight of the evening. Would he succeed? She was his mother, his manager, his creator. He was her handiwork. If ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett

... talk nothing but motor jargon or golfing shop—I select the instances of the conversation that is personally to me the dreariest—he need not attempt to talk of golf or motors, and he is equally bound not to discourse of his own chosen intellectual interests; but he ought to endeavour to find a common region, in which he can meet the golfer or the motorist ...
— From a College Window • Arthur Christopher Benson

... lord, the feeble garrulity of age, which loves to diffuse itself in discourse of the departed great. At my years we live in retrospect alone; and, wholly unfitted for the society of vigorous life, we enjoy, the best balm to all wounds, the consolation of friendship in those only whom ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke

... this sensibility is to develop, to educate, to chasten the highest faculties, our vast discourse of reason, our unselfish aspiration, our deep instinct of truth, our capacious love. To educate these is its cardinal duty, and lacking this they remain uneducated. But its beneficent influence is felt likewise in the less elevated ...
— Essays AEsthetical • George Calvert

... coming round a bend of the river. Hope told her all about the royal birds, and that they belonged to sovereigns in one district, to cities in another. Meantime the fair birds sailed on, and passed stately, arching their snowy necks. Grace gloated on them, and for a day or two her discourse ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade

... Juliette wondered what had sent her father down that road, and the little congregation, those of them who understood, thought it a pleasant change from his usual discourse upon their sins, since they at least had never practised demonology. But to Godfrey, to whom, indeed, it was addressed, it brought much comfort, for in the Pasteur and his pure and beautiful doctrine, he saw a rock on which he might ...
— Love Eternal • H. Rider Haggard

... held a living: at his own request, the Chief Baron's reverend friend preached the Assize sermon. The time being the month of March the weather was cold, the judge was chilled, and unhappily the sermon was long, and the preacher tedious. After the discourse was over, the preacher descended from the pulpit and approached the judge, smirking and smiling, looking fully satisfied with his own exertions, and expecting to receive the compliments and congratulations of his quondam chum. "Well, my lord," ...
— Law and Laughter • George Alexander Morton

... are good sermons for all that, veritable tours de force considering who is their author and how alien to him was the practice of preaching. His essay entitled "A Little Sermon on Failures" might be read with profit in many a pulpit, and "Vanity of Vanities" would serve as an admirable discourse on Ecclesiastes. They illustrate the manysidedness of their gifted author not less than his sympathetic treatment of distress and want ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman

... of whom, as of a champion of the Covenant, he augured great things. The second part he applied to the punishments which were about to fall upon the persecuting government. At times he was familiar and colloquial; now he was loud, energetic, and boisterous;—some parts of his discourse might be called sublime, and others sunk below burlesque. Occasionally he vindicated with great animation the right of every freeman to worship God according to his own conscience; and presently he charged the guilt and misery of the people on the awful negligence of their rulers, who had ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... a small sunken eye, and long, loose hair, brushed back and falling over the collar of a seedy black coat. He looked like a dilapidated scare-crow, and his pale, sallow face, and cracked, wheezy voice, were in odd and comic keeping with his discourse. His text was: "Speak unto the children of Israel, that they go forward." And addressing the motley gathering of poor whites and small planters before him as the "chosen people of God," he urged them to press on in ...
— Among the Pines - or, South in Secession Time • James R. Gilmore

... jealousy brought on by his grief: however, after a short while he remembered the Lamp and, recovering his spirits said, "By thy life, O my mother, do thou believe that the Wazir's son will not enjoy her as thou thinkest. But now leave we this discourse and arise thou and serve up supper[FN142] and after eating let me retire to my own chamber and all will be well and happy." And Shahrazad was surprised by the dawn of day and ceased ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton

... not uncommon to find a lady, who, though she does not know a rule of Syntax, scarcely ever violates one; and who constructs every sentence she utters, with more propriety than many a learned dunce, who has every rule of Aristotle by heart, and who can lace his own thread-bare discourse with the golden shreds of Cicero ...
— Essays on Various Subjects - Principally Designed for Young Ladies • Hannah More

... To the discourse which followed Beulah listened with the deepest interest. She followed the speaker over the desert of ancient Oriental systems, which he rapidly analyzed, and held up as empty shells; lifting the veil ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans

... be Religious Services (Unitarian) on Sunday Morning next, October 20th, at Simmons' Athenaeum Hall. Entrance on Commercial and Sacramento Streets. A Discourse will be preached ...
— A Backward Glance at Eighty • Charles A. Murdock

... discourse as stunned as if a bomb had dropped on the roof. They were still discussing it when I left Paris. No doubt it is already beginning to bear fruit. Few of them but have that most dismal of all fireside ornaments, ...
— The Living Present • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton

... expectation, especially in the afternoon, that the men of war would fire; however they did not. It did not at all look like a Sunday. In some churches they had no service; in others hardly any People. In the forenoon we had a discourse from behind the table, from the yesterday's watch-word; "I the Lord do keep it; I will water it every moment, lest any hurt it," &c. In the afternoon was preaching on Lamentations III. 39-41: "Wherefore doth a living man complain, &c. Let us search and try our ways," &c. Both ...
— The Campaign of 1776 around New York and Brooklyn • Henry P. Johnston

... uncriticised—the garden of the devil. "Supersimian" Wisdom. Autonomous truth and autonomous falsehood. Other Varieties of truth and untruth. Mathematics as the study of fate and freedom. The prototype of reasoned discourse often disguised as in the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution of the United States, the Origin of Species, the Sermon on the Mount.—Nature of mathematical transformation. No transformation, no thinking. Transformation ...
— Manhood of Humanity. • Alfred Korzybski

... be publicly read for edification, and that it should be read as God's message to men and not as an exercise subordinate to the preaching, or intended merely to throw light upon the subject of the discourse. ...
— Presbyterian Worship - Its Spirit, Method and History • Robert Johnston

... the priest received me courteously, and when I asked him, concerning Herodotus, whether he were a true man or not, he smiled and answered "Abu Goosh," which, in the tongue of the Arabians, means "The Father of Liars." Then he went on to speak concerning Herodotus, and he said in his discourse that Herodotus not only told the thing which was not, but that he did so wilfully, as one knowing the truth but concealing it. For example, quoth he, "Solon never went to see Croesus, as Herodotus avers; nor ...
— Letters to Dead Authors • Andrew Lang

... a great deal more. It says that his manners and discourse express the feelings and education ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott

... conferred on him the Degree of Doctor of Science and the Cambridge University, the degree of M.A., in 1896. And, to crown all, the Royal Institution of Great Britain—rendered famous by the labour of Davy and Faraday, of Rayleigh and Dewar—honoured him by inviting to deliver a 'Friday Evening Discourse' on his original work. It would not be out of place to observe that the rare privilege of being invited to deliver a 'Friday Evening Discourse' is regarded as one of the highest distinction that can be conferred on a ...
— Sir Jagadis Chunder Bose - His Life and Speeches • Sir Jagadis Chunder Bose

... excuses for the man Stanley's goin' to kill. Ye'll have to wait another hour yet, little man. Spit it out, Jock, an' bellow melojus to the moon. It takes an earthquake or a bullet graze to fetch aught out av you. Discourse, Don Juan! The a-moors av Lotharius Learoyd! Stanley, kape a rowlin' rig'mental ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling

... of the principal terms occurring in the debate. When in scientific discourse we speak of anything as a property of an object, we mean thereby not simply that it is a thing belonging to the object, but also that it is a thing without which the object could not subsist. We mean that it is one of the constituents inherent ...
— Old-Fashioned Ethics and Common-Sense Metaphysics - With Some of Their Applications • William Thomas Thornton

... dec'mals," boasted Johnnie; "and fractions. And I can spell ev'ry word that was in Cis's spellin' book." Yes, and he knew much more that he dared not confess in the hearing of Barber. He longed to discourse about his five books, and all the wonderful people in them, and to say something about the "thinks" he ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates

... of the hymn, the preacher made a prayer; but it was cold and disjointed. He had no freedom of utterance. A chapter was read, an anthem sung, and then Mr. Adkin arose in the pulpit, took his text, and, ere giving utterance to the first words of his discourse, let his eyes wander over the congregation. A little to the right sat Mr. Giles, wearing a very sober aspect of countenance, and looking at him with knit brows and compressed lips. The sight caused the words "brother going to law with brother" to pass almost electrically through his ...
— Finger Posts on the Way of Life • T. S. Arthur

... stationed in a small gallery extending across the church at the lower end, over the door: and the voices were led by the clerk, who, it was evident, derived no slight pride and gratification from this portion of the service. The discourse was plain, unpretending, and well adapted to the comprehension of the hearers. At the conclusion of the service, the villagers waited in the churchyard, to salute the clergyman as he passed; and two or three, I observed, stepped aside, as if communicating some little difficulty, and ...
— Sunday Under Three Heads • Charles Dickens

... the night long nor the day, Listening to your fine discourse; More melodious is your mouth than the singing of the birds; From my heart in my breast you have ...
— Poets and Dreamers - Studies and translations from the Irish • Lady Augusta Gregory and Others

... together beneath a shadowing tree, and evidently engaged in earnest conversation, he could not resist stealing silently behind them, and lurking in the underwood that formed a thick background to their position, in order to listen to the subject of their discourse. How astonished and how indignant was he to find that Henrich was reasoning eloquently against the cruel and ridiculous superstitions of the Indian tribes, and pointing out to his attentive hearers the infinite ...
— The Pilgrims of New England - A Tale Of The Early American Settlers • Mrs. J. B. Webb

... the mockery of colours, which, we are told, are the emblems of freedom; and those whose relations have expired on the scaffold, or who are pining in dungeons for having heard a mass, were obliged to listen with apparent admiration to a discourse on the charms of religious liberty.—The people, who, for the most part, took little interest in the rest of this pantomime, and insensible of the national disgrace it implied, beheld with stupid satisfaction* the inscription on the ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady

... delved foss, and sat down in the open, where the mid-space was clear of dead men fallen, where fierce Hector had turned again from destroying the Argives, when night covered all. There sat they down, and declared their saying each to the other, and to them knightly Nestor of Gerenia began discourse: "O friends, is there then no man that would trust to his own daring spirit, to go among the great-hearted Trojans, if perchance he might take some straggler of the enemy, yea, or hear perchance some ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer (Lang, Leaf, Myers trans.)

... day last week, MR. W.S. LILLY—i.e. W. "SHIBBOLETHS" LILLY—delivered an excellent lecture on the Papal-Italian question, and although at Birmingham, it was by no means a brummagem discourse. But to quote the immortal ballad of Billy Taylor, "When the Captain he come for to hear on't, He werry much applauded what she'd done," and, to apply the lines to the present instance, "When the POPE he comes for to hear on't," will ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, March 12, 1892 • Various

... nest of porcupines." To translate from books I had already, to a certain degree, taught myself, and at his first visit I discovered, and he himself acknowledged, that at book Welsh I was stronger than himself, but I learnt Welsh pronunciation from him, and to discourse a little in the Welsh tongue. "Had you much difficulty in acquiring the sound of the ll?" I think I hear the reader inquire. None whatever: the double l of the Welsh is by no means the terrible guttural which English people ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow

... arise as mere popular witticisms or vulgarisms may be brought into the language as permanent acquisitions. "Mob," now a quite legitimate word, was originally a shortening of mobile vulgum, and was, only a hundred years ago, suspect in polite discourse. ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman

... be ridiculing you to suppose you could believe him. Then look at the man's character. He was a constant attendant at that scene of villany into which he vainly endeavoured to seduce the prisoner at Mrs. Mulready's. It is plain enough that Ussher's death was a constant theme of discourse at that haunt; it is plain enough that a project did exist there to accomplish his murder; and is it not plain enough that this man was one of the conspirators—one of the murderers? Would he have been admitted to their counsels—to their dangerous ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope

... at once careless, remiss, self-satisfied, and haughty: and there is Intellectual Prowess, with a pale cheek and serene brow, leading in chains Truth, her beautiful and modest captive. The one makes her salutation with a discourse of ease, pleasure, freedom, and domestic tranquillity; or, if she invite to labour, it is labour in the busy and beaten track, with assurance of the complacent regards of parents, friends, and of those with whom we associate. The promise ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth

... said M. Renault, "you remind me of a college commencement. We have listened to your dissertation just as they listen to the Latin discourse of the professor of rhetoric; there are always in the audience a majority which learns nothing from it, and a minority which understands nothing of it. But every body listens patiently, on account of the sensations which are to come by and by. M. Martout and I are ...
— The Man With The Broken Ear • Edmond About

... sure, sir." Judge Henry gave me (it almost seemed) additional warmth of welcome for arriving to break up the present discourse. "Let me introduce you to the Rev. Dr. Alexander MacBride. Doctor, another guest we have been hoping for about this time," was my host's cordial explanation to him of me. There remained the gentleman with his wife from New York, and to these I made my ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IV. (of X.) • Various

... a great infidel and an evil liver, but now he was converted, and was as good as he formerly had been wicked; and be hoped that all his hearers would take example from him and do as he had done—forsake the crooked paths and steadfastly follow the straight." After this autobiographical discourse was at length over, and a brother snip invited him to dinner, I was also honoured with an invitation, which my curiosity ...
— Twenty-Seven Years in Canada West - The Experience of an Early Settler (Volume I) • Samuel Strickland

... East he was styled, (Continuator Theophan. l. iii. p. 84;) but such was the ignorance of the West, that his ambassadors, in public discourse, might boldly narrate, de victoriis, quas adversus exteras bellando gentes coelitus fuerat assecutus, (Annalist. Bertinian. apud Pagi, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon

... finished his discourse, to receive the thanks of his listeners, they walked back through the yard toward the road. Mr. Anderson, who led the ...
— The Desert of Wheat • Zane Grey

... cruelty of mistaking—of—of"—and here the major, hitherto famous for facile compliments, utterly broke down. But the hand he held was no longer cold, but warm and intelligent; and in default of coherent speech he held fast by that as the thread of his discourse, until Mistress Thankful quietly withdrew it, thanked him for his forgiveness, and retired ...
— Thankful Blossom • Bret Harte

... said city, did spend the little remainder of his life in great devotion at Godstow, but that he died in the condition which Foxe mentions there is no tradition among the inhabitants of Wolvercote. True it is that I have heard some discourse, many years ago, from some of the ancients of that place, that a certain bishop did live for some time, and exercised his charity and religious counsel among them, and there died; but I could never learn anything of them of the manner of his ...
— Studies from Court and Cloister • J.M. Stone

... effected the alteration of the greatest states and commonwealths, the erection of monarchies, the conquest of kingdoms and empires, guided handfuls of men against multitudes of equal bodily strength, contrived victories beyond all hope and discourse of reason, converted the fearful passions of his own followers into magnanimity, and the valour of his enemies into cowardice; such spirits have been stirred up in sundry ages of the world, and in divers parts thereof, to erect and cast down again, to establish and to destroy, ...
— The Fifteen Decisive Battles of The World From Marathon to Waterloo • Sir Edward Creasy, M.A.

... had actually cudgelled a Frenchmen out of the name of Mustafa (which he had assumed with a Turkish dress) into that of John, which he would fain have renounced. His farms and garden-houses were also under the directions of his own Christians. I have heard much discourse of an entertainment he once made, at his garden, for all the chief Armadores and Corsairs, at which the Pasha was also a guest, but found his own victuals, as fearing some foul play; nothing of which is ill taken among the Turks. All was dressed at town in the general's own kitchen, and passed ...
— The Story of the Barbary Corsairs • Stanley Lane-Poole

... Our discourse in this sweet airing turned upon our future manner of life. The day is bashfully promised me. Soon was the answer to my repeated urgency. Our equipage, our servants, our liveries, were parts of the delightful ...
— Clarissa, Volume 5 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson

... old life. The horrid tragedy in which he had played such a disastrous part now began, for the first time since he stole on board the fruiter, a wretched fugitive, to lose its sharper outlines. Distance lent assuagement to his view. Bibb had opened the flood-gates of a stream of long-dammed discourse, overjoyed to have captured an audience that had not suffered under a hundred repetitions of his ...
— Whirligigs • O. Henry

... she's never done a day's work in her life, and I don't remember when I didn't work. Let me see—I've most forgot the thread of my discourse. Oh, you never would believe, Betty, that twenty year ago there was just such a fashion. I had a white beaver—what possessed me to get it I don't know. Everything was awful high. I had an idea that white would be rather plain, but when it ...
— A Little Girl in Old Boston • Amanda Millie Douglas

... a question; a reply, to an assertion. When we are addressed, we answer; when we are accused, we reply. We answer letters, and reply to any arguments, statements, or accusations they may contain. Crabb is in error in saying that replies "are used in personal discourse only." Replies, as well as answers, are written. We very properly write, "I have now, I believe, answered all your questions and replied to all your arguments." A rejoinder is made to a reply. "Who goes there?" he cried; and, receiving no answer, ...
— The Verbalist • Thomas Embly Osmun, (AKA Alfred Ayres)



Words linked to "Discourse" :   visit, communicating, context of use, expansion, church, dilation, claver, language unit, shoot the breeze, speak, preachment, baccalaureate, kerygma, communication, consideration, jaw, chew the fat, cover, deal, argue, descant, Sermon on the Mount, fence, contend, dissertate, handle, church service, talk, linguistic unit, treat, question, context, address, chat, confab, linguistic context, homily, chatter, chit-chat, speech, talk shop, enlargement, evangelism, plow, debate, detail, natter, chitchat, gossip, chaffer, confabulate, sermon, elaboration, kerugma, interview



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