"Story-teller" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the party in question, I feel that I am wrong in implying that the conversation was mainly composed of anecdotes. It was mainly composed of narratives; but that is a different matter. There is a clear distinction between the mere story-teller and the narrator. Two or three of the party were brilliant narrators, and delighted us with accounts of personal experiences, quaint character-sketches, novels in a nutshell. One of the guests was, without exception, the most ready-witted ...
— America To-day, Observations and Reflections • William Archer
... am wandering again. That is the difficulty with the unprofessional story-teller: he yaws back and forth and can't keep in the wind; he drops his characters overboard when he hasn't any further use for them and drowns them; he forgets the coffee-pot and the frying-pan and all the other small essentials, and, if he carries a love ...
— The Man in Lower Ten • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... one fan was placed at the disposal of the story-teller for the time, so No. 5 handed it to No. 4, with a graceful bow; and No. 4 waffed it to and fro ...
— Aunt Judy's Tales • Mrs Alfred Gatty
... story-teller. "If I can't tell that story now, I'm going to be mum forever." He suddenly looked at Dave. "What is taking you to ...
— Dave Porter and His Double - The Disapperarance of the Basswood Fortune • Edward Stratemeyer
... narrative style. History, poetry, and all forms of literature take their origin in the story-teller who once discharged all their functions. The so-called dry facts of science, well told, make a ...
— The Art of Lecturing - Revised Edition • Arthur M. (Arthur Morrow) Lewis
... collected in this Paradise. They rejoiced, they feasted, they frolicked, they danced, they sang. They listened to the tales of the Arabian story-teller, at once enchanted and enchanting, or melted to the strain of the Persian poet as he painted the moon-lit forehead of his heroine and the wasting and shadowy form of his love-sick hero; they beheld with amazement the feats of the juggler of the Ganges, or giggled ...
— Alroy - The Prince Of The Captivity • Benjamin Disraeli
... here that the Doctor is a born story-teller and something of an actor as well. He seldom explains his characters or situations as he goes on by putting in "I said" and "he said" and similar expressions. You know by the tones of his voice who is speaking, and his gestures supply ...
— The Underdog • F. Hopkinson Smith
... "You wicked young story-teller," I cried, raising the pole quarter-staff fashion, and making an offer at him, when Pomp dropped on his knees again, and raised ...
— Mass' George - A Boy's Adventures in the Old Savannah • George Manville Fenn
... as the phrase is. He alone among men of letters may look forward to that sort of continuous prosperity which follows from capacity and diligence in other vocations; for story-telling is now a fairly recognized trade, and the story-teller has a money-standing in the economic world. It is not a very high standing, I think, and I have expressed the belief that it does not bring him the respect felt for men in other lines of business. Still our people cannot deny some consideration ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... silver crossing a palm has other powers besides that of inspiring a fortune-teller. It can inspire a story-teller, as well. Stuart, scenting a story which he could send to the paper from Kingston, put half-a-crown where he thought it would do most good, namely, in the steward's palm and heard the strange (and absolutely true and authentic) story of the ...
— Plotting in Pirate Seas • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... him, wholly wrapped in the words of the story-teller, and now I took a deep breath and settled myself so that I might not disturb him by the slightest movement while he was reciting his tale. We were taught this courtesy to our elders, but I was impulsive ...
— Indian Boyhood • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... the age," said the Water-rat. "Every good story-teller nowadays starts with the end, and then goes on to the beginning, and concludes with the middle. That is the new method. I heard all about it the other day from a critic who was walking round the pond with a young man. He spoke of the matter at great length, and I ...
— The Happy Prince and Other Tales • Oscar Wilde
... Edmund Burgess could have become a citizen of York after serving an apprenticeship in London. Evil May Day is closely described in Hall's Chronicle. The ballad, said to be by Churchill, a contemporary, does not agree with it in all respects; but the story-teller may surely have license to follow whatever is most suitable to the purpose. The sermon is exactly as given by Hall, who is also responsible for the description of the King's sports and of the Field of the Cloth ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... "The Cliff End," almost unanimously laudatory, show in a bright light our national indifference to composition in art. Some reviewers, while stating that the story itself was a poor one, insisted that Mr. Booth is a born and accomplished story-teller. Story-tellers born and accomplished do not tell poor stories. A poor story is the work of a poor story-teller. And the story of "The Cliff End" is merely absurd. It is worse, if possible, than the story of Mr. Maxwell's "Vivien," which reviewers accepted. It would appear ...
— Books and Persons - Being Comments on a Past Epoch 1908-1911 • Arnold Bennett
... of the Oneota. He was afterwards relieved by Acting Master H. E. Bartlett. Thomas Cook was her chief engineer, and Don Carlos Hasseltino was chief engineer of the monitor Catawba. One of the officers of the Oneota was a persistent story-teller, and the only way to get him to stop telling his story was to suggest to him to make a chalk mark and finish the remainder of it the following day. One day, early in the morning, he and I went ashore in Kentucky, hunting; and hunted all day without any dinner. I got very tired ...
— Reminiscences of Two Years in the United States Navy • John M. Batten
... serial in some Hawaiian newspaper are of necessity cut down to a summary narrative, sufficiently suggesting the flavor of the original, but not picturing fully the way in which the image is formed in the mind of the native story-teller. Foreigners and Hawaiians have expended much ingenuity in rendering the mele or chant with exactness,[5] but the much simpler if less important matter of putting into literal English a Hawaiian kaao has ...
— The Hawaiian Romance Of Laieikawai • Anonymous
... card-case on her lap, and clasped her hands together in preparation, and the girls watched her with approving eyes, for Mrs Maitland was a most satisfactory story-teller. She began at the beginning—the very smallest possible beginning—instead of halfway through the narrative, as other grown-up people had a habit of doing, and went straight through to the end, noticing every detail, and describing it in racy, ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... dozen of them at the same time to the post-office or the country store, he was able, according to his years, to add his full share to the gaiety of the company. By reason of his reading and his excellent memory, he soon became the best story-teller among his companions; and even the slight training gained from his studies greatly broadened and strengthened the strong reasoning faculty with which he had been gifted by nature. His wit might be mischievous, but it was never malicious, and his nonsense was never intended ...
— The Boys' Life of Abraham Lincoln • Helen Nicolay
... for the construction of history in its complete sense. And this evidence, when subjected to judicious criticism, is trustworthy; for the ancient story-teller and poet reflects the customs and ideas and ideals of his own time, even though the combination of agencies and the preternatural proportions of the actors and their deeds belong to the imagination. The historian must know how to supplement and ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... The story-teller who roars with the lion and bleats with the lamb is sure to be rewarded with shouts of enthusiastic ...
— The Junior Classics, V5 • Edited by William Patten
... local color, having an authenticity of their own, are not to be challenged. You cannot charge the writer with ignorance of the period in which his narrative is laid, since the period is as vague as the geography. He walks on safe ground, eluding many of the perils that beset the story-teller who ventures to stray beyond the bounds of the make-believe. One peril he cannot ...
— Ponkapog Papers • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... keen," said the story-teller, "for it is a long way off. Well, he had never felt them so objectionable as on one particular night, when, the house being full of company, it was decided that the boys should sleep in 'barracks,' as they called it; that is, all in ...
— Melchior's Dream and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... replied the story-teller. "While mixing various combinations of clays Boettger and his associates came upon a hard pottery clay which was neither white nor translucent like the Chinese, but which nevertheless was nearer ...
— The Story of Porcelain • Sara Ware Bassett
... 'That comes o' ringin' t' fire-bell,' said he to himself; 'it were shame for it to be tellin' a lie, poor oud story-teller.' ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. II • Elizabeth Gaskell
... say that many of the etymologies given in Irish sources are pure invention, stories being often made up to account for the names, the real meaning of which was unknown to the mediaeval story-teller or scribe. ...
— The Cattle-Raid of Cualnge (Tain Bo Cualnge) • Unknown
... cried another in an entreating voice, for it was well known all over that region that the bold hunter was a good story-teller, and as he had served a good deal on the frontier as guide to the United States troops, it was understood that he had much to tell of a thrilling and adventurous kind; but although the men about him ceased to talk and looked at him with expectancy, ...
— Charlie to the Rescue • R.M. Ballantyne
... supernatural may seem, to Occidental readers, rather daring and irreverent, but it is perfectly in harmony with the Russian peasant's anthropomorphic conception of Deity, and should be taken with due allowance for the educational limitations of the story-teller and his auditors. The Russian muzhik often brings God and the angels into his folk-tales, and does so without the least idea of treating them disrespectfully. He makes them talk in his own language because he has no other language; and if the talk seems a little ...
— Folk-Tales of Napoleon - The Napoleon of the People; Napoleonder • Honore de Balzac and Alexander Amphiteatrof
... wildness and the development of extremes. I saw in a moment that, should this development proceed both with force and logic, my "story" would leave nothing to be desired. There is always, of course, for the story-teller, the irresistible determinant and the incalculable advantage of his interest in the story AS SUCH; it is ever, obviously, overwhelmingly, the prime and precious thing (as other than this I have never been able to see it); as ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James
... lodging-house before Leonard was up, took possession of her old chamber, and presenting herself to Leonard, as he was about to go forth, said (story-teller that she was), "I am sent away, brother, and I have come to you to take care of me. Do not let us part again. But you must be very cheerful and very happy, or I shall think that I am ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... is important," replied the story-teller. "But if you must know, I believe it was the ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers
... her now, sitting on that crimson velvet seat in the lounge and looking past the gesticulations of the General to Jevons, who was shaking his head at her as much as to say, "Don't you believe the old boy, he's a shocking story-teller." ...
— The Belfry • May Sinclair
... sympathy, engaging fascination—these may be found alike by philosopher and winsome youth. The story is no more immoral than a drop of dew or a lotus bloom; and, as to interest, in the land of the improviser and the story-teller one is obliged to be interesting. For there the audience is either spellbound, or quickly fades away and leaves the poet to realize that ...
— Malayan Literature • Various Authors
... rather than elaborately worked out, of human passion and motive, the building out and development of the character of the woman who becomes the hero's wife and whose love he finally wins, being an especially acute and highly finished example of the story-teller's art. . . . That it is beautifully written and holds the interest of the reader, fanciful as it all is, to the very end, none who know the depth and artistic finish of Mr. Crawford's work ...
— Casa Braccio, Volumes 1 and 2 (of 2) • F. Marion Crawford
... Campbell was an entertaining story-teller, which [sic] sometimes he rather embellished; so that the writer of this once heard Dr. Johnson say:—"Campbell will lie, but he never lies on paper."' Gent. Mag. for ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... his romances followed in quick succession. Embodying extravagant adventures, they must be classed nevertheless in the category of the sentimental novel to which the writings of Sand and Feuillet belong. Cherbuliez is always an interesting story-teller and an ingenious artificer of plot, but his psychology is conventional and his descriptive passages superficial though clever. "Samuel Brohl & Co.," published in 1877, illustrates his power of drawing cosmopolitan types, Russians, Poles, English, ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... story-teller resumed, "the Indians who lived out in the woods, far from towns or cities, had to find all their own food. They caught fish, shot animals and birds, planted corn and gathered berries. Some of them they ...
— Amanda - A Daughter of the Mennonites • Anna Balmer Myers
... Learned their names and all their secrets, How the beavers built their lodges, Where the squirrels hid their acorns, How the reindeer ran so swiftly, Why the rabbit was so timid, Talked with them whene'er he met them, Called them "Hiawatha's Brothers." Then Iagoo, the great boaster, He the marvellous story-teller, He the traveller and the talker, He the friend of old Nokomis, Made a bow for Hiawatha; From a branch of ash he made it, From an oak-bough made the arrows, Tipped with flint, and winged with feathers, And the cord he made of deer-skin. Then he said to Hiawatha: "Go, my son, into ...
— Voices for the Speechless • Abraham Firth
... her grandfather the tale of The Talking Doll while they walked their horses through a favorite wood-road, Mr. Evringham keeping his eyes on the animated face of the story-teller. His own was entirely impassive, but he threw in an exclamation now and then to prove ...
— Jewel's Story Book • Clara Louise Burnham
... him den. Ain' nothin I despises worser den a story-teller. (Lizzie slaps Possum on the shoulder several times and sends him in the house to dry, shivering ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 1 • Various
... put it into your head to choose the old story-teller for a model? You look the part to perfection, it is true; but what is that thing you ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... [FN5] The story-teller does not remember that "the city-folk trust to the locking of the gates" (dccclxxxix.); and forgets to tell us that the Princess took the keys from the Wazir whom she had hocussed. In a carefully corrected Arabic Edition of The Nights, a book much wanted, the texts which are now in a mutilated ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton
... finest host and story-teller in the country. His genial courtesy was simply another expression of that mental grace which made his reputation as a poet, and his manner of reciting an incident, otherwise trivial, would give it the same ...
— Cambridge Sketches • Frank Preston Stearns
... and the poet's fame Shed their twinned lustre round his name, To gild our story-teller's art, Where each in turn must play ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... internally, looking with half-shut eyes at the inquiring child. With the malicious delight old servants take in deceiving young ones, she encouraged the laughable simplicity of the girl. "Yes, Timea," in the important tone of a story-teller, "that is a wonderful sight. You will ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai
... some are purely imaginative, some authentic, not a few jotted down from oral narrative, or derived from the vague remembrance of some old play or adventure; but the form at least is my own, and that is about all that a professional story-teller, gleaning his matter at random, ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage
... are intended to bring before the American public a few of the tales related by Visayan parents to their children, or by the public story-teller in the market, as the people gather to buy the material for the evening meal. It was only toward the close of a three years' stay in the Islands, in one province, and in neighboring places, and after a fair acquaintance with Spanish and a little knowledge of the native dialect had ...
— Philippine Folk-Tales • Clara Kern Bayliss, Berton L. Maxfield, W. H. Millington,
... Panathenaea, Bias, servant of Democrates, had supped with Phormio,—for in democratic Athens a humble citizen would not disdain to entertain even a slave. The Thracian had a merry wit and a story-teller's gift that more than paid for the supper of barley-porridge and salt mackerel, and after the viands had disappeared was ready even to tell tales against ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... little story-teller. Why, they are my college colors. I wouldn't part with them for worlds. I'll give you a lock of my hair, and the prettiest handkerchief you can find in Oxford; ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... story-teller!" simpered Miss Peyton; "just as if I'd believe such nonsense. Have they got ...
— Fame and Fortune - or, The Progress of Richard Hunter • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... fine shades of expression is seen in a high degree in all he wrote, and his work has the merits and defects that accompany this extreme preoccupation with style. But he had also great virtues of matter. He was a superb story-teller, an acute and sensitive critic, a genial and whole-hearted lover of life. In the essay on "Truth of Intercourse" will be found an example of his gracious and tactful moralising; In "Samuel Pepys," a penetrating interpretation of one of the most amazing pieces of ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... better chance could you ask?' I cried. 'Man, I've often thought that an innkeeper would make the best story-teller in the world.' ...
— The Thirty-nine Steps • John Buchan
... put the idea into my head was a half-caste Mexican, who had an extraordinary grip on the history of his country, especially as far as legends and traditions were concerned. He was a well-educated man, and an exceedingly fascinating story-teller. It was he who first gave me the history of what he called the Four Finger Mine. It appears that this mine had been discovered some century or more ago by a Frenchman, who had settled down in the country and married the daughter ...
— The Mystery of the Four Fingers • Fred M. White
... had listened attentively to Lydia's story—the inner mind of her all the time closely and critically observant of the story-teller, her beauty, the manner and quality of it, her movements, her voice. Her voice particularly. When the girl's little speech came to an end, Victoria still had the charm of it in ...
— The Mating of Lydia • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... roaming thoughts by help of a good yarn, when it could be got. There were plenty of individuals, amongst a crew of forty, calculated by their experience, or else by their flow of spirits, and fancy, to spin it. Each watch into which they were divided had its especial story-teller, with whose merits it twitted the other, and on opportunity of a general reunion, they were pitted against one another like two fighting-cocks, or a couple of rival novelists in more polished literary society at home. The one was a grave, solemn old North-Sea ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 1, August 1850 - of Literature, Science and Art. • Various
... housekeeper at Crewe Hall, where my mother was born, and I have often heard her say that the greatest treat that could be given her and her brother and sister was an afternoon in the housekeeper's room at Crewe, for Mrs. Dickens was a splendid story-teller, and used to love to gather the children round her and tell them fairy stories. And so it was only natural that my mother should feel a special interest in Charles Dickens, when she came to know him in after life. ...
— The Idler Magazine, Vol III. May 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... story, but the scene is laid in Germany," he replied, coolly. "Do you desire to teach me my profession? Understand that nothing is more elastic than a German court; the story-teller can introduce there whoever he likes; I may bring in the Shah of Persia and the Emperor of China if I care to. However, if you prefer the court of Italy, it is the same thing ...
— Gerfaut, Complete • Charles de Bernard
... involved magic: now I thought that perhaps it involved a magician. And this pointed a profound emotion always present and sub-conscious; that this world of ours has some purpose; and if there is a purpose, there is a person. I had always felt life first as a story: and if there is a story there is a story-teller. ...
— Orthodoxy • G. K. Chesterton
... recklessness, daring, and wild humour: that of the salmon-fishers was cheerful, picturesque, infrequently dangerous, mostly simple and quiet. The river-driver chose to spend his idle hours in crude, rough sprightliness; the salmon-fisher loved to lie upon the shore and listen to the village story-teller,—almost official when successful,—who played upon the credulity and imagination of his listeners. The river- driver loved excitement for its own sake, and behind his boisterousness there was little evil. When the salmon-fisher was roused, his anger became desperately serious. It ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... the Celtic mind is never more strikingly displayed than in the legends and fanciful tales which people of the humbler walks of life seldom tire of telling. Go where you will in Ireland, the story-teller is there, and on slight provocation will repeat his narrative; amplifying, explaining, embellishing, till from a single fact a connected history is evolved, giving motives, particulars, action, and result, ...
— Irish Wonders • D. R. McAnally, Jr.
... hear about Sally and the bear," proposed Ruth, eagerly, knowing what a resourceful story-teller Long Jerry was. ...
— Ruth Fielding at Snow Camp • Alice Emerson
... and amiable character, a good scholar and apt at arms. But his family were poor; and he had no patron among the military nobility,—so that his prospects were small. He lived in a very quiet way, devoting himself to the study of literature, and having (says the Japanese story-teller) "only the Moon and the ...
— The Romance of the Milky Way - And Other Studies & Stories • Lafcadio Hearn
... P. Cranch. He was not a professional, at that time, having just completed his course of study for the ministry, but he was certainly a most successful entertainer. There was nothing he could not do. He was a painter of more than fair ability, a sweet singer, a poet, a mighty good story-teller—and we knew a good story-teller when we heard one—and he could play on any instrument from an organ to a jewsharp. Whatever he undertook he did well, and his range of accomplishment was amazing. As Miss Russell remarked his versatility amounted to universatility. We liked and admired ...
— My Friends at Brook Farm • John Van Der Zee Sears
... spontaneously sure that no story-teller, though he were a Timon of Athens double distilled, can ever be so unsympathetic and unnatural as destiny, who tells the only story that never winds up. We cannot understand destiny; we never know to what lengths she may go: but the story-teller ...
— Archibald Malmaison • Julian Hawthorne
... would not do. Grizel was ablaze with indignation. "You are a horrid story-teller," she said, "and if I had known you were ashamed of being seen with me, I should never have spoken to you. Take him," she cried, giving Tommy a push toward Elspeth, "I don't want the mean ...
— Sentimental Tommy - The Story of His Boyhood • J. M. Barrie
... and never lost an opportunity of telling how she trampled upon her husband. The neighbors, however, knew that she waited upon Peter hand and foot, and that he was growing fat and arrogant. So Elizabeth did not know just how much the brindled-cow story was colored by the story-teller's imagination. She responded with a tale of the city, such as Sarah Emily liked, full of finely dressed ladies, and flower-bedecked drawing-rooms. Then Sarah Emily recounted once again her experiences when she worked as maid for Mrs. Oliver and first ...
— 'Lizbeth of the Dale • Marian Keith
... few who read the first two or three stories will lay it down till they have read the last—and the last is a veritable gem * * * contains some of the best of his highly vivid work * * * Kipling is a born story-teller and a man of humor into ...
— At the Time Appointed • A. Maynard Barbour
... story-teller, and that all sounds like a story-book romance," commented Bob, when Frank paused ...
— The Boys of Bellwood School • Frank V. Webster
... called the girl to her and pointed out the shepherds and shepherdesses carved on the white Italian marble of the fireplace; she invented a little story about them to amuse the child, while the mother stood by and at the end thanked the story-teller with more enthusiasm than seemed called for. Mrs. Lee did not fancy her effusive manner, or her complexion, and was glad when Dunbeg appeared ...
— Democracy An American Novel • Henry Adams
... us in childhood has constructed such an invisible dramatis personae, but it never occurred to our nurses to correct the composition by careful comparison with Balzac. In the East the professional story-teller goes from village to village with a small carpet; and I wish sincerely that anyone had the moral courage to spread that carpet and sit on it in Ludgate Circus. But it is not probable that all the tales of the carpet-bearer are little gems of original artistic workmanship. Literature ...
— The Defendant • G.K. Chesterton
... again, and, dismissing the subject with airiness somewhat exaggerated, drew out his huge gilt snuffbox. The snow was now falling more thickly, drawing a white and fleecy veil between the two upon the road and the story-teller and his audience beneath the distant elm. "Are you for Williamsburgh?" demanded the Highlander, when he had somewhat abruptly declined to take ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... pretend that the spell I was under was wholly of a moral or social texture. For the most part I was charmed with him because he was a delightful story-teller; because he could thrill me, and make me hot and cold; because he could make me laugh and cry, and stop my pulse and breath at will. There seemed an inexhaustible source of humor and pathos in his work, which I now find choked and dry; I cannot laugh ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... somewhere between the Androscoggin and the Saco,—I don't feel bound to tell you precisely where, and I have only a story-teller's word to give you for it at all,—lies the little neighborhood of Outledge. An odd corner of a great township such as they measure off in these wilds; where they take in, with some eligible "locations" of intervale land, miles also of pathless forest where the bear and ...
— A Summer in Leslie Goldthwaite's Life. • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... foraged about, and picked up all the small scraps of biscuit; these they carried to the second rat, which seemed blind, and staid right on the spot where they had left it, nibbling such food as its faithful friends, whom the story-teller thinks were its children, brought to it from the more remote parts ...
— Anecdotes of Animals • Unknown
... because all such phrases, besides being absolutely out of date and fashion in Ireland, raise too high an expectation in the minds of a British audience, operating as much to the disadvantage of the story-teller as the dangerous exordium of—"I'll tell you an excellent story;" an exordium ever to be avoided by ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth
... certain lack of finality, especially startling when contrasted with the usual methods of solution by rewards and punishments, by crowned love, by fortune, by a broken leg or a sudden death. Why the reading public which, as a body, has never laid upon a story-teller the command to be an artist, should demand from him this sham of Divine Omnipotence, is utterly incomprehensible. But so it is; and these solutions are legitimate inasmuch as they satisfy the desire for finality, for which our hearts yearn with a longing greater ...
— Notes on Life and Letters • Joseph Conrad
... threaten to dump them all on the floor, they would grab the table and yell "Whoa!" or "Wait a second!" with just a suggestion of hysteria in their throats; and somebody would call out, "Go on with the story, Joe!" and the story-teller would ...
— Wide Courses • James Brendan Connolly
... the great boaster, He the marvellous story-teller, He the friend of old Nokomis, Saw in all the eyes around him, Saw in all their looks and gestures, That the wedding guests assembled, Longed to hear his ...
— The Ontario Readers - Third Book • Ontario Ministry of Education
... already largely quoted. I have indeed listened to many more stories than I have ventured here to insert; some I have rejected from the nature of their details, others from there being a strong impression on my mind that they were the extempore invention of the story-teller with a view to the rupee, which he feared he would not secure if he confessed he had nothing to relate. I have not perhaps been judicious in my selection of those which I hoped would amuse the reader, but I have done my best to choose for insertion those which differed the most from each ...
— A Peep into Toorkisthhan • Rollo Burslem
... witticisms are constructed on the same model. We might make up any number of them, when once we are in possession of the recipe. But the art of the story-teller or the playwright does not merely consist in concocting jokes. The difficulty lies in giving to a joke its power of suggestion, i.e. in making it acceptable. And we only do accept it either because it seems ...
— Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic • Henri Bergson
... those ravished by King Amangons and his men, and how, could the court of the Fisher King, and the Grail, once more be found, the land would again become fertile. Blihos-Bliheris is, we are told, so entrancing a story-teller that none at court could ever weary ...
— From Ritual to Romance • Jessie L. Weston
... and it was this that chilled the heart of the story-teller who instinctively felt that though he had shocked his hearer, he had not aroused that high spirit of revolt against injustice which converts a man into a living trumpet, a living axe, or a ...
— The Pools of Silence • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... palm-tree reading life by superb flashes of vulgarity. The bright colours of the bazaars dazzle one's eyes. The jaded, second-rate Anglo-Indians are in exquisite incongruity with their surroundings. The mere lack of style in the story-teller gives an odd journalistic realism to what he tells us. From the point of view of literature Mr. Kipling is a genius who drops his aspirates. From the point of view of life, he is a reporter who knows vulgarity better than any one has ever known it. Dickens knew its clothes and its comedy. Mr. Kipling ...
— Selected Prose of Oscar Wilde - with a Preface by Robert Ross • Oscar Wilde
... preferred that she had omitted this detail; but Rosalie was literal-minded and lacked the story-teller's instinct for suppression. ...
— Just Patty • Jean Webster
... not only an excellent story-teller but naturally very jovial, and M. de Hanski suffered from ennui and wished to be amused, they became friends. On his return to Paris, they exchanged a few letters, and Balzac introduced stories to amuse him in his letters to Madame Hanska. He wrote ...
— Women in the Life of Balzac • Juanita Helm Floyd
... man of supreme fortitude; the honest man, the truthful king, and the woman that knows how to wait for the man she loves; voices in the air, signs in the sky—in short, everything. Even poor old Aesop wasn't in time to grasp a reputation for originality. The modern story-teller may combine, extend, and elaborate; but all opportunity for a display of invention seems to ...
— A Strange Discovery • Charles Romyn Dake
... that every good story-teller bestows upon a story, he described the vision of the lake—the strange woman's face, as he had seen it in the ...
— Helena • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... and richly mellow scene of activity, and not the least attractive feature of it is the little fiddling boy on the left. Carpaccio has so enjoyed the pageantry and detail, even to frescoes on the house, crowded bridges, and so forth, that his duty as a story-teller has suffered. In the next picture, No. 575, which is really two, divided by the flagstaff, we have on the left the departure of the English prince from an English seaport (of a kind which alas! has disappeared for ever) to join in his lady-love's pilgrimage to Rome. ...
— A Wanderer in Venice • E.V. Lucas
... passages in his memoirs in which scenes are described which hardly one of his contemporaries would have thought worth a line of notice, we will here only mention the boat-race on the Lake of Bolsena. We are not able to detect from what old letter-writer or story-teller the impulse was derived to which we owe such lifelike pictures. Indeed, the whole spiritual communion between antiquity and the Renaissance is full of ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... Lord against the mighty." But Dr. Bailey said he knew them personally, and that despite their public record, they were at heart anti-slavery, and that prudence alone dictated their course. Mrs. Stowe was a graphic story-teller, had been in Kentucky, taken in the situation and could describe the peculiar institution as no one else could. If he could only enlist her, the whole family would most likely follow into the abolition ranks; but the ...
— Half a Century • Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm
... very grand to have the first telling; and I daresay there might be a peculiar freshness about it, because everything would be nearly as new to the story-teller himself as to ...
— At the Back of the North Wind • George MacDonald
... Usefulness." It represented a man going out into the street, and "pitching into" every person he met with, upon the subject of religion, or starting a conversation and immediately giving it a spiritual twist. I thought then that he was a remarkably ingenious man—a wonderful story-teller, to say the least of him. I am inclined to think now that he romanced a little. Every operation was so neatly done, and turned out so well, that I really suspect it was pure fiction. I have this to say, at any rate, that if he did and said ...
— Lessons in Life - A Series of Familiar Essays • Timothy Titcomb
... keener wit or kinder humor. He was not solemn. Solemnity is a mask worn by ignorance and hypocrisy—it is the preface, prologue, and index to the cunning or the stupid. He was natural in his life and thought—master of the story-teller's art, in illustration apt, in application perfect, liberal in speech, shocking Pharisees and prudes, using any word that ...
— Our American Holidays: Lincoln's Birthday • Various
... to be in the presence of a constructor who arranges things, of a moralist turning ancient stories with a latent purpose of decorum, of an official Englishman looking about for old confirmations of modern sociology, of a salaried laureate inventing a prototype of Prince Albert. The singleness of a story-teller who has convinced himself that he tells a true story is gone. That this diversion into the region of didactics is accompanied, on our poet's part, with every ingenuity of ornament, and every grace of a style which people have learned to like and which he has made his own, need ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various
... story-teller; after I had acquired language he used to spell clumsily into my hand his cleverest anecdotes, and nothing pleased him more than to have me repeat ...
— Story of My Life • Helen Keller
... tongue; perhaps he knew that the accusation was just enough, and he had no reason to tremble for his popularity on that score. He must have been a great liar, indeed, to have excelled or even equalled the most ordinary story-teller in the Comanche nation; for the mendacity of these Indians would have been a match ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid
... put to the test our claim that woman as decoration is a beguiling theme worthy of days passed in the broad highways of art, and many an hour in cross-roads and unbeaten paths, we would recommend to them the fascinations of a marvellous story-teller, one who, knowing all there is to know of his subject, has had the genius to weave the innumerable and perplexing threads into a tapestry of words, where the main ideas take their places in the foreground, standing out clearly defined against the deftly woven, intelligible ...
— Woman as Decoration • Emily Burbank
... boys, the adventurous Mayne Reid continues from year to year his good work as a story-teller. Since he held the youthful student a spellbound reader of "The Desert Home," he has sent abroad a dozen volumes, all excellent in their way, for the entertainment of his ever-increasing audience. He has not, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various
... kindness, and the virtues in general, the old story-tellers admire successful cunning as much as Homer does in the Odyssey. At least, if the cunning hero, human or animal, is the weaker, like Odysseus, Brer Rabbit, and many others, the story-teller sees little in intellect but superior cunning, by which tiny Jack gets the better of the giants. In the fairy tales of no country are 'improper' incidents common, which is to the credit of human nature, as they were obviously composed mainly for children. It is not difficult to ...
— The Orange Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... among his early companions as a wit and story-teller. The women complained because at their parties all the men were drawn off to hear Abe Lincoln's stories. When he came to be a public speaker, he feathered the shafts of his argument with jest and anecdote. ...
— The Negro and the Nation - A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement • George S. Merriam
... to letters, to the love of locality, to music, and even to good manners. The phrase about no priest coming between a man and his Creator is but an impoverished fragment of the full philosophic doctrine; the true Puritan was equally clear that no singer or story-teller or fiddler must translate the voice of God to him into the tongues of terrestrial beauty. It is notable that the one Puritan man of genius in modern times, Tolstoy, did accept this full conclusion; denounced all music as a mere drug, and forbade his own admirers to read his own admirable novels. ...
— A Short History of England • G. K. Chesterton
... and he was anxious to get her into the yards before the horse sales were over; this was to be the last day of the sales. Jim was the best "barracker" of the two; he had great imagination; he was a very entertaining story-teller and conversationalist in social life, and a glib and a most impressive liar in business, so it was decided that he should hurry on into Bourke with the mare and sell her for Bill. ...
— Children of the Bush • Henry Lawson
... endured"; and the more exalted he was, the less endurable would he be. In short, man instinctively refuses to regard the literal inculcation of the Decalogue as the final word of God to the human race, and much less to the individuals of that race; and when he finds a story-teller proceeding upon the contrary assumption, he is apt to put that story-teller down as either an ass ...
— Confessions and Criticisms • Julian Hawthorne
... to write about?' I retorted. 'And you can't have spent five years at a great public school like Kensington without one or two sensational things. Pick them out and let us have them. For whatever the modern theorists say, the main duty of a story-teller is certainly ...
— When Winter Comes to Main Street • Grant Martin Overton
... have had adventures! Or you are the biggest liar and the cleverest story-teller I ever met. If you invented that story you deserve help as a paragon among improvisators; if you had all those adventures you deserve help ten times over and you certainly need it. Somehow I believe you. I'll help you all I can. You are ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... just telling us about a donkey-boy she had in Galway last summer," Sir Harry Towne explained as the circle closed up again. Lord Westmere stroked his long white mustache with his bloodless hand and looked at Alexander blankly. Hilda was a good story-teller. She was sitting on the edge of her chair, as if she had alighted there for a moment only. Her primrose satin gown seemed like a soft sheath for her slender, supple figure, and its delicate color suited her white Irish skin and brown hair. Whatever she wore, people felt the charm of her active, ...
— Alexander's Bridge and The Barrel Organ • Willa Cather and Alfred Noyes
... most devoted, and most original workers, rests on his novels. Judged by standards of the present day, these are far from faultless. The facts are not very coherent, the diction is artificial in the fashion of the day. But when all is said, Brown was a rare story-teller; he interested his readers by the novelty of his material, and he was quite objective in its treatment, never obtruding his own personality. 'Wieland,' 'Edgar Huntly,' and 'Arthur Mervyn,' the trilogy of his best novels, are not to be contemned; ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... The reward of the story-teller who has successfully met the child's story interest is the plea embodied in the title of this book: "Tell me another story." The book meets this child longing on a psychologic basis. It consists of groups of stories arranged so that their telling will result in definite mental growth for ...
— Tell Me Another Story - The Book of Story Programs • Carolyn Sherwin Bailey
... often the controls say that they will go and find other controls, and, generally, after a short interval, the new control manifests. It is impossible to read many of the accounts, whether one regards them as fictitious or not, without getting an impression—like that given by a good story-teller, if you please, of a life outside this one, among a host of personalities who communicate freely with each other and, through difficulties, with us. The nature of the communication we have already tried ...
— The Unpopular Review, Volume II Number 3 • Various
... had lived up to that time in the smaller cities he had a large number of acquaintances and a certain following in the journalistic and artistic world, of which from the very moment of his entrance into journalism he never had been deprived. His immense fund of good humor, his powers as a story-teller, his admirable equipment as an entertainer, and the wholehearted way with which he threw himself into life and the pleasures of living attracted men to him and kept him the centre of the multitude that prized his fascinating ...
— A Little Book of Western Verse • Eugene Field
... mature age, although he had not given up the thought of love affairs. He talked of his native mountains with enthusiasm. He would at any time sing the "Ranz des Vaches" with tears in his eyes, and was the best story-teller in the Comtesse Jules's circle. The last new song or 'bon mot' and the gossip of the day were the sole topics of conversation in the Queen's parties. Wit was banished from them. The Comtesse Diane, more inclined to literary pursuits than her sister-in-law, one day, recommended her to ...
— Memoirs Of The Court Of Marie Antoinette, Queen Of France, Complete • Madame Campan
... things are cheery to read about, especially when shown in a light so human, with the accompaniment of so much geniality and mirth. No; the pages which invigorated me are those where we see Dickens at work, alone at his writing-table, absorbed in the task of the story-teller. Constantly he makes known to Forster how his story is getting on, speaks in detail of difficulties, rejoices over spells of happy labour; and what splendid sincerity in it all! If this work of his was not worth doing, why, nothing was. A ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing
... The Lang Men o' Larut is just a yarn spun for the yarn's sake: it informs us of nothing, and is closely related (if I may use some of Mr. Howells' expressive language for the occasion) to "the lies swapped between men after the ladies have left the table." And the reason why the story-teller, when (as will happen at times) his invention runs dry, can take no comfort in the generous outpourings of his unknown friends, is just this—that the plots are merely plots, and the anecdotes merely ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... breath, and the story-teller, watching her face, saw that she was stirred with an emotion which he put down, with a slight surprise, to ...
— The Militants - Stories of Some Parsons, Soldiers, and Other Fighters in the World • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... One side of the room opens into a court adorned with flowers and fountains. Great part of his time is spent in amusements, such as hunting and shooting, writing verses, and hearing stories. He keeps a man called a story-teller, and he will never hear the same story repeated twice. It gives the man a great deal of trouble to find new stories every day. The king keeps jesters, who make jokes; and he has mimics, who play antics to make him laugh. He dines at eight in the evening from ...
— Far Off • Favell Lee Mortimer
... contributed another. He made our equipment a personal matter and he was never too busy to assist us in the smallest details. Moreover, we could spend hours listening to the tales of his early life, for his keen sense of humor made him a delightful story-teller. One of the most charming aspects of our wandering life is the friends we have made in far corners of the world, and for none have we a more affectionate regard than for ...
— Across Mongolian Plains - A Naturalist's Account of China's 'Great Northwest' • Roy Chapman Andrews
... us real characters in the garb of fiction; but Thackeray uses fiction as the vehicle of social philosophy. Great name, second only to Dickens; he is not a story-teller, but an eastern Cadi administering justice in the form of apologue. Dickens is eminently dramatic; Thackeray has nothing dramatic, neither scene nor personage. He is Democritus the laughing philosopher, or Jupiter the thunderer; he arraigns ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... followed by others made with the son and tutor of a family among our circle of friends, we always brought our mother great bunches of flowers, and often beautiful stories, too; for the tutor, Candidate Woltmann, was an excellent story-teller, and I early felt a desire to share with those whom ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... Italy, Egypt, and Babylonia, and as an eye- witness describes with a never-failing vivacity and freshness the wonders of the different lands he had seen. Herodotus lived in a story-telling age, and he is himself an inimitable story-teller. To him we are indebted for a large part of the tales of antiquity—stories of men and events which we never tire of repeating. He was over-credulous, and was often imposed upon by his guides in Egypt and at Babylon; but he describes with great care and accuracy what he himself saw. It is ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers
... me by the hand, and—an oddity of dispensation which, I trust, there is no irreverence in smiling at—has led me, as the newspapers announce, while I am writing from the Old Manse, into a custom-house.[76] As a story-teller I have often contrived strange vicissitudes for my imaginary personages, ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IX (of X) - America - I • Various
... predecessors, but developed from his own personality. He seems to have founded a modern school, with a lightness of touch and a felicity of expression unparalleled. He was vividly imaginative, and also had the faculty of giving dramatic form and consistency to an incident or story told by another. He was a story-teller, equally dexterous in prose or verse. His taste was unerring and he sought for perfect form. His atmosphere was breezy and healthful—out of doors with the fragrance of the pine-clad Sierras. He was never morbid and introspective. His characters are ...
— A Backward Glance at Eighty • Charles A. Murdock
... though the elders more, Of course, than were the children.—Thus, before Much interchange of mirthful compliment, The story-teller said his stories "went" (Like a bad candle) best when they went out,— And that some sprightly music, dashed about, Would wholly quench his "glimmer," and ...
— A Child-World • James Whitcomb Riley
... of genius, realism is apt to be dull. It gives us uninteresting photographs. There are times when we do not care so much for instruction as for amusement and recreation. This fact opens a legitimate field for the imaginative story-teller. There is to-day a decided reaction against realism in the form of what has been called the new romanticism. It does not present to us elaborate studies of actual life, but entertains us with an interesting or exciting story. Stevenson, Weyman, Hope, and Doyle have been leaders in this movement, ...
— Elementary Guide to Literary Criticism • F. V. N. Painter
... fluttered, and finally settled, it was not possible to escape the great thought that in a few moments we should see at that queer, stiff table the creator of Sam Weller, and Oliver Twist, and Micawber, and Dick Swiveller, and the rest of the endless, marvellous company—the greatest story-teller since Scott, one of the most famous names in literature since Fielding. When he was here before Carlyle growled in Past and Present about "Schnauspiel, the distinguished novelist," and there were some who laughed. But the laugh has passed by.—Look! ...
— From the Easy Chair, vol. 1 • George William Curtis
... distinctly recollect the desire I had of being able to know something about every pebble in front of the hall door—it was my earliest and only geological aspiration at that time. I was in those days a very great story-teller—for the pure pleasure of exciting attention and surprise. I stole fruit and hid it for these same motives, and injured trees by barking them for similar ends. I scarcely ever went out walking without saying I had seen a pheasant ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin
... or three thousand centuries, ten or fifteen thousand generations. So slowly, by human standards, did humanity gather itself together out of the dim intimations of the beast. And that first glimmering of speculation, that first story of achievement, that story-teller bright-eyed and flushed under his matted hair, gesticulating to his gaping, incredulous listener, gripping his wrist to keep him attentive, was the most marvellous beginning this world has ever seen. It doomed ...
— The World Set Free • Herbert George Wells
... childhood have for a moment believed that many of these tales might be based upon scientific truths? Of course it is probable that most of these stories have no basis of fact behind them, but that they are merely the product of the story-teller's imagination—just as similar stories today are produced in this manner. But, on the other hand, it is quite conceivable that many of the seemingly fabulous accounts are in truth based upon realities; and that genuine ...
— The Problems of Psychical Research - Experiments and Theories in the Realm of the Supernormal • Hereward Carrington
... dressing up a bit of philosophical observation into a story very happily. He had much feeling for symbol, and, like the old architects, would fill all things, pretty or ugly, with meaning. When one reads these stories, one does not feel as if it were the writer's vocation to be a story-teller, but as if he were using the story as a philosophical toy. And it was fortunate for him that he fell on an age of periodicals, a class of works which just suited his genius. He and the modern development of periodical literature grew up ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... of the king's daughters-in-law. In this position his duty would be partly to perform various humble work in the household, partly also to help amuse the leisure of the inmates, and it is easy to suppose that he soon won favor as a fluent story-teller. He early became acquainted with the seamy as well as the brilliant side of courtly life; for in 1359 he was in the campaign in France and was taken prisoner. That he was already valued appears from ...
— A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher
... each other sufficiently well when the distribution was made, they might regard the decision as a match made for them in Heaven, and take the money as the dowry of the bride. This thoroughly practical, and, at the same time, thoroughly absurd suggestion, arrested the attention of a distinguished story-teller, a dear friend of mine, who proposed to me that we should each of us write the history of one of the two successful parties, to be woven together by their union at the end. The plan, however, lay latent for years,—the gift enterprise of course blew up,—and it was not until the summer ...
— If, Yes and Perhaps - Four Possibilities and Six Exaggerations with Some Bits of Fact • Edward Everett Hale
... the thought of the particular lives in which the wider interest of the book (as I take it to be) is firmly lodged. From a huge emotion that reaches us through the youth exposed to it, the war is changed into an emotion of our own. It is rendered by the story-teller, on the whole, as a scene directly faced by himself, instead of being reflected in the experience of the rising generation. It is true that Tolstoy's good instinct guides him ever and again away from the mere telling of the story on his own authority; at high ...
— The Craft of Fiction • Percy Lubbock
... man in a long life will become a magazine of wisdom or folly, and will consequently discharge itself in something impertinent or improving. For which reason, as there is nothing more ridiculous than an old trifling story-teller, so there is nothing more venerable than one who has turned his experience to the ...
— Isaac Bickerstaff • Richard Steele
... Gaylord would cause trouble," Stark was saying, "for he didn't seem to be a jealous sort, just stupid and kind of heavy-witted; but one night he took advantage of Bennett's absence and sneaked up to the house." The story-teller paused, and Necia, who was under the spell of his ...
— The Barrier • Rex Beach
... certain that Geoffrey did not write history, but he did make a capital story, partly by collecting legends about British heroes, partly by inventing stories of his own; so that though he is not entitled to fame as an historian, he may claim to rank high as a romantic story-teller who set a fashion destined to last ...
— Stories from Le Morte D'Arthur and the Mabinogion • Beatrice Clay
... with an offering from Carluke, containing two very pithy anecdotes. Mr. Rankin very kindly writes:—"Your 'Reminiscences' are most refreshing. I am very little of a story-collector, but I have recorded some of an old schoolmaster, who was a story-teller. As a sort of payment for the amusement I have derived from your book, I shall ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay |
