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He reached the Hall, and sat down to wait for the dressing-bell, but the hour before dinner, usually so heavy to him, went by briskly. During dinner he made no attempt at sustained conversation, yet he answered his grandfather's few short questions with a ready cheerfulness and fluency which made the old man regard him with narrowed eyes.
He talked with fluency and spirit and there was an archness and pleasantry in his manner which interested, though it was hardly understood by her.
He stood more than six feet high, and was built in proportion. His shoulders were broad, his chest ample, and his arms long. His head was immoderately large. His countenance was commanding and his bearing dignified. He spoke with great fluency and with astonishing conciseness.
Your obedient and faithful servant, Kilgobbin. The cry which followed the reading of this document can only be described as a howl. It was like the enraged roar of wild animals, rather than the union of human voices; and it was not till after a considerable interval that McGloin could obtain a hearing. He spoke with great vigour and fluency.
Then he went on, with unbroken but lethargic fluency; read long extracts from the public papers, inflicted a whole page from the blue-book, wound up with a peroration of respectable platitudes, glanced at the clock, saw that he had completed the hour which a Cabinet minister who does not profess to be oratorical is expected to speak, but not to exceed; and sat down.
The expression came with the thought. His ideas were never vague, and needed no laborious translation. Along with them came apt words and the finished sentence. Yet his fluency never ran off into the fatal channels of verbosity.
Enter into conversation with him; talk of his speech; congratulate him upon it; tell him you were extremely struck by the freshness and naturalness of what he said, that there is something delightful in hearing an unhackneyed speaker, that to speak with entire fluency looks professional, it is like a barrister or a clergyman.
Jack was beginning to speak French pretty well, and Bill was able to gabble away with considerable fluency, greatly to the delight of Jeannette, who was his usual instructress. He tried to teach her a little English in return, but she laughed at her own attempts, and declared that she should never be able to pronounce so break-jaw a language.
For example, Britain has produced Ramsey MacDonald, who writes books and makes speeches with a rare grace; John Burns, who quotes Shakespeare or recites history with wonderful fluency; Keir Hardie, a miner from the ranks, who was possessed of a charming poetic fancy; Philip Snowden, who displays the spiritual qualities of a seer; and John Henderson, who combines philosophical power with skill in dialectics.
We look less curiously into the mythology of scandal; we accept easily and willingly stories disparaging to illustrious persons in history, because similar stories are told and retold with so much confidence and fluency among the political adversaries of those who have the misfortune to be their successful rivals.
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