"Tale" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... obtruding their direful visages; namely, "auction-block," "overseer," "whip," "chattelism," "separations," "down-trodden," "cattle." Hence it is easy for orators and preachers to work on our sympathies. There are scattered facts enough to justify any tale which any public speaker chooses to relate. I confess that my respect for many of our Northern people has not risen, as I see them from this point of view. They ought not to be so easily duped, so ready to believe evil, so ...
— The Sable Cloud - A Southern Tale With Northern Comments (1861) • Nehemiah Adams
... 16.] Mr. Maclaurin wrote an essay against the Homeric tale of 'Troy divine,' I believe, for the sole purpose of ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... left not the service of her Lord, cleaving unto His House, till death came to her." And a tale is also told by Mlik bin Dnr[FN467] (Allah have ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... if not my misfortunes, give me a claim upon their assistance in obtaining, at least, an examination into my crimes or my innocence; and this claim I now make. See these celebrated men, Sir, explain to them the circumstances of my situation, tell them the plain tale, and that it is towards them, though so distant, that my looks are directed; your own name will give you an introduction, and the cause you undertake will not ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis Volume 2 • Matthew Flinders
... training in business habits, was a good teller of a plain and straightforward tale: Appleyard, for the same reason, was a good listener. So one man talked, in low, earnest tones, checking off his points as he made them, taking care that he emphasized the principal items of his news and dwelt lightly on the connecting ...
— The Rayner-Slade Amalgamation • J. S. Fletcher
... enough, and certainly there was nothing in it that was awkward; but I think that the writer had suffered more in the writing than Harry had done in producing his longer epistle. But she had known how to hide her suffering, and had used a tone which told no tale of her wounds. We are quits now, she had said, and she had repeated the words over and over again to herself as she walked up and down her room. Yes, they were quits now, if the reflection of that fact could do her any good. She had ill-treated him in her ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope
... this belief attained the grandeur of epic poetry. There is a fine tale on one of the tablets [Footnote 2: "Cuneiform Inscriptions of Western Asia," vol. iv. pl. 5.] of the seven evil spirits assaulting heaven, and the gods alarmed standing upon the defensive, no doubt successfully, ...
— Babylonian and Assyrian Literature • Anonymous
... fellow," said Levy, with great composure, "you need not threaten me, for what interest can I possibly have in tale-telling to Lord L'Estrange? As to hating you—pooh! You snub me in private, you cut me in public, you refuse to come to my dinners, you'll not ask me to your own; still there is no man I like better, nor would more willingly serve. When do you ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... he resumed, following a considerable pause which I was jealous to guard against word or question of my own; "I tells this tale to Colonel Sterett, Old Man Enright, an' the others one time when we're restin' from them Wolfville labours of ours an' renooin' our strength with nosepaint in the Red Light bar. Jest as you does now, Dan Boggs takes up this question of luck where Cherokee ...
— Wolfville Nights • Alfred Lewis
... Arabian tale, perhaps partly founded upon some real revolution in the government of Malabar. But it would much exceed the bounds of a note to enter upon disquisitions relative to ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr
... open vaunt that he was the "Bonaparte of the Antilles," incensed Bonaparte; and the haste with which, on the day after the Preliminaries of London, he prepared to overthrow this contemptible rival, tells its own tale. ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... additions in 1869), displayed some power of observation and record; and Moods, a novel (1864), despite its uncertainty of method and of touch, gave considerable promise. She soon turned, however, to the rapid production of stories for girls, and, with the exception of the cheery tale entitled Work (1873), and the anonymous novelette A Modern Mephistopheles (1877), which attracted little notice, she did not return to the more ambitious fields of the novelist. Her success dated from the appearance of the ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... that swayed her.... Here was the man she loved in his bitterest, darkest moment—and she was barred away from him by unwelcome barriers. She could not soothe him, she could not lighten his suffering with the tale of her love for him, but she must remain mute, holding out no hand to ...
— Youth Challenges • Clarence B Kelland
... be anything you don't like, my dear," said her father with gentleness. "But you know, child, we have not the whole world to choose from; being kings and queens and princesses doesn't make life a fairy tale." ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... average; in the second, it is probable that, in the competition for food and other amenities of life, the disadvantage, whatever it is, under which the animal suffers will shorten its career, and abbreviate the tale of its offspring; while, in the third case, an average career may be expected. Hence, disregarding accidents, which may be eliminated from the problem by taking many cases, there is a continual tendency among the members of a species of animals in favour of the proportionate ...
— Text Book of Biology, Part 1: Vertebrata • H. G. Wells
... flight, his attack with the peasants and his rescue, and then recited the whole of his conversation with his rescuer and his proceedings after leaving his house. "So you see," he concluded, "that strangely enough it was the teaching of your father, Chebron, and the tale that Ruth told us, and that her grandfather before told you, of the God of their forefathers, that saved my life. Had it not been that this prince of Israelitish birth also believed in one God, it could hardly be that he would have saved me from the vengeance ...
— The Cat of Bubastes - A Tale of Ancient Egypt • G. A. Henty
... had he been settled a week when there came a letter addressed to Paul Armstrong, Esq., care of Messrs. Blank and Blank, reporting that the editor of a certain magazine had read with much pleasure a tale from Mr. Armstrong's pen, and would be happy to receive from him one of the same length. Paul danced and sang, and then plunged into labour, wrote his story, received his proof-sheet and his cheque, and with the letter a request that he would submit anything he might ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... race. But the lawlessness of Ireland is a Christian lawlessness, founded on reason and justice. The Fenian is rebelling against something he understands only too well; but the true citizen of fairyland is obeying something that he does not understand at all. In the fairy tale an incomprehensible happiness rests upon an incomprehensible condition. A box is opened, and all evils fly out. A word is forgotten, and cities perish. A lamp is lit, and love flies away. A flower is plucked, and human ...
— Orthodoxy • G. K. Chesterton
... Jurgis' faith in things as they are. The crack was wide while Dede Antanas was hunting a job—and it was yet wider when he finally got it. For one evening the old man came home in a great state of excitement, with the tale that he had been approached by a man in one of the corridors of the pickle rooms of Durham's, and asked what he would pay to get a job. He had not known what to make of this at first; but the man had gone on with matter-of-fact frankness to say that he could ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... were they without presents at Christmas time. But this year——" Here the woman stopped and put her apron to her face. It was for only an instant, however, for quickly removing it she continued: "But gracious me! here I've been bothering you with my long tale of woe, when you, poor man, have troubles enough of your own. I have some fresh bread, butter, milk and preserves, which you shall have at once," and the little woman bustled away, leaving ...
— Under Sealed Orders • H. A. Cody
... and the child—for she was little more—became locked in a close embrace. After some minutes, Mrs. Burton unclasped the young arms from her neck, and, sitting hand in hand with her adopted daughter, she told her all the wondrous tale. ...
— The Golden Shoemaker - or 'Cobbler' Horn • J. W. Keyworth
... after wandering about for a few months only, they turned their steps towards Switzerland, reaching Zurich on August 1st, and encamped during six days before the town, exciting much sympathy by their pious tale and sorrowful appearance. In Switzerland the inhabitants were more gullible, and the soft parts of their nature were easily getatable, and the consequence was the Gipsies made a good thing of it for the space of four years. Soon after leaving Zurich, according to Dr. Mikliosch, ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... exploration period of the fifteenth was well advanced, the masters of music were absorbed in controlling the elements of their art. Since then event has crowded upon event with rapidly increasing ratio. During the past two centuries the progress of the art has been like a tale in fairyland. We now possess a magnificent musical vocabulary, a splendid musical literature, yet so accustomed are we to grand treasure-troves we perhaps prize them no more than the meagre stores of the ...
— For Every Music Lover - A Series of Practical Essays on Music • Aubertine Woodward Moore
... him there, training and teaching him until he shall have arrived at an age when he can be taught a trade. The tiny fellow is small for his eight years, and his little wizened face, sallow and delicate, has a plausible tale to tell. He is always fretting and grieving for those whose heads were shown to him after decapitation. However, he is being cared for, and it is doubtful whether the authorities—or even the emperor himself—will ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle
... Scott's tale of the then little-known land of Australia—for it is told of a time prior to the discovery of gold—is strikingly original and ingenious, animated, interesting, and puzzling.... 'The Track of Midnight' deserves grateful recognition by lovers ...
— Colonial Born - A tale of the Queensland bush • G. Firth Scott
... papas are not so poor as those in Australia, but have plenty of cattle and milk, and good mealies to eat, and live in houses like very big bee-hives, and wear clothes of a sort, though not very like our own. 'Pivi and Kabo' is a tale from the brown people in the island of New Caledonia, where a boy is never allowed to speak to or even look at his own sisters; nobody knows why, so curious are the manners of this remote island. The story shows the advantages of good manners and pleasant behaviour; and the natives ...
— The Brown Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... engagement, the French had massacred their Turkish prisoners, [64] they might impute to themselves the consequences of a just retaliation. [641] A knight, whose life had been spared, was permitted to return to Paris, that he might relate the deplorable tale, and solicit the ransom of the noble captives. In the mean while, the count of Nevers, with the princes and barons of France, were dragged along in the marches of the Turkish camp, exposed as a grateful trophy to the Moslems of Europe and ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... and full of ardour, Mr. Carlyle found his mission in rushing with all his might to the annihilation of this terrible poet, who, like some gorgon, hydra, or chimera dire planted at the gate, carried off a yearly tale of youths and virgins from the city. In literature, only a revolutionist can thoroughly overpower a revolutionist. Mr. Carlyle had fully as much daring as Byron; his writing at its best, if without the many-eyed ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Vol. I - Essay 2: Carlyle • John Morley
... a rare holiday. The smallest babies had not been left at home, but were there in all their primary scarletude, set off by the whitest of lace-frilled caps trimmed with the bluest of ribbons. And now came the time for these small choristers to take up the "wondrous tale"; for the big horns had ceased to wrangle, and the crushing and rushing of the crowd woke up infancy to a sense of its wrongs and a consciousness of ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various
... and accusations against him, which his own secrecy with regard to the events of his life had perhaps originated, he expressed himself ready to satisfy the curiosity of the public, and to give a plain and full account of his career. He then told a romantic and incredible tale, which imposed upon no one. He said he neither knew the place of his birth nor the name of his parents, but that he spent his infancy in Medina in Arabia, and was brought up under the name of Acharat. He lived in the palace of the Great Muphti in that city, and always had three servants ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... reported to have said: "Peter Wilkins is, to my mind, a work of uncommon beauty.... I believe that 'Robinson Crusoe' and 'Peter Wilkins' could only have been written by islanders. No continentalist could have conceived either tale.... It would require a very peculiar genius to add another tale ejusdem generis to 'Robinson Crusoe' and 'Peter Wilkins.' I once projected such a thing, but the difficulty of the preoccupied ground stopped me. Perhaps La Motte Fouque might effect ...
— Life And Adventures Of Peter Wilkins, Vol. I. (of II.) • Robert Paltock
... where, I could not tell!" Here the speaker's voice trailed off and came to a stop. Then he turned to the group about him, saying, half questioningly, half apologetically, "I fear to tire you with this so long tale. After all, I suppose it is interesting only ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... manly and strong, and somehow touched her with a subtle influence. It is not in a woman's nature to listen to a tale of passionate love unmoved. "Once, among the Hurons an old witch woman was wild to adopt me for her son. She gave me a great many secret charms, many you white people would think the utmost foolishness. Some were curious. And my people are superstitious. I have used them more ...
— A Little Girl in Old Quebec • Amanda Millie Douglas
... Ambassador. A straightforward mystery tale of Paris and London, in which a rascally maitre d'hotel plays ...
— The Lighted Way • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... more valuable; but tell me, Philip, how does it fare with my Lady Rich? Rumour is busy, and there are tale-bearers, who have neither clean hearts nor clean tongues. Sure you can pick and choose amongst many ladies dying for your favour; sure your Queen may lay claim to your devotion. Why waste your sighs on the wife ...
— Penshurst Castle - In the Days of Sir Philip Sidney • Emma Marshall
... out in the grounds, a little while since, as the search-light went down, and they came to—to rescue the young lady. I— I succeeded in convincing them that their eyes had deceived them, and told them that you were so annoyed at that senseless tale that you had gone away from the island; that you did not intend to come back, your aim ...
— Kidnapped at the Altar - or, The Romance of that Saucy Jessie Bain • Laura Jean Libbey
... him in the little back room—the lamp was on the table—and when they sat down to dinner she began the tale of her day's doings. But she hadn't got farther than the fact that they had asked her to stay to tea at Queen's Gate, when her tongue, which always went quite as fast as her thoughts, betrayed her, and before she was aware, she had said that her pupil's ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore
... officers were sitting, others standing, all motionless and rigid, and each one in the position he occupied when last awake. The king held a goblet filled with wine, for he had been giving a toast. The chamberlain had his throat half filled with a lying tale, which there had been no time to finish. One had the end of a joke upon his lips, another a dainty morsel between his teeth, or a tale ready cooked ...
— Fairy Tales of the Slav Peasants and Herdsmen • Alexander Chodsko
... ev'ning bells, those ev'ning bells, How many a tale their music tells!"—Moore's Melodies, ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... An End of His Tale of the Swimming. Wealhtheow, Hrothgar's Queen, Greets Him; and Hrothgar Delivers to Him the Warding of ...
— The Tale of Beowulf - Sometime King of the Folk of the Weder Geats • Anonymous
... many little children's books; and then the lines written for his bread, which, except that they were written for Punch, were hardly undertaken with a more serious purpose. In all of it there was ample seriousness, had he known it himself. What a tale of the restlessness, of the ambition, of the glory, of the misfortunes of a great country is given in the ballads of Peter the French drummer! Of that brain so full of fancy the pen had lightly written all the fancies. He did not know it when he was doing so, but ...
— Thackeray • Anthony Trollope
... on her with a little wry smile. "I haven't told it often, but you shall hear," he said. "It's a tale of a black failure." He stretched out a hand and pointed to the sliding fog and ranks of tumbling seas. "It was very much this kind of night, and we were lying, reefed down, off one of the Russians' beaches, when I asked for volunteers. I got them—two boats' crews of the finest ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... in act betterd our counsailes And in his execution set them off, All we designd had ben but as a tale Forgot ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Various
... placing my hopes in a Dervish. Yet stay. You have, doubtless, spoken of me to this Julius Faber, your fellow-physician and friend? Promise me, if you bring him here, that you will not name me,—that you will not repeat to him the tale I have told you, or the hope which has led me to these shores. What I have told you, no matter whether, at this moment, you consider me the dupe of a chimera, is still under the seal of the confidence which a patient reposes in the physician he himself ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... see the great public devouring the tale—the Wall Street clerks in the cars, and the shop-girls over their sandwiches and coffee, and the loungers in the cafes of the Tenderloin! Could not one picture their smiles—not contemptuous, but genial, as of people who ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair
... published with the book. But the late W. E. Henley, who had the courage at that time (1897) to serialize my "Nigger" in the New Review judged it worthy to be printed as an afterword at the end of the last instalment of the tale. ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... Scotch-Irish gentleman, well known in that city, an old friend, spoke across the table to me. He said he had heard recently a story of the Scottish hills that he wanted to tell. And we all listened as he told this simple tale. I have heard it since from other lips, variously told. But good gold shines better by the friction of use. And I want to tell it to you as my old friend from the Scotch end of Ireland ...
— Quiet Talks on Service • S. D. Gordon
... Lady Bearcroft, "no, no, do not ask—better not; best you should know no more—only keep your temper whatever happens. Go you up the hill, like the man in the tale, and let the black stones bawl themselves hoarse—dumb. Go you on, and seize your pretty singing thinking bird—the sooner the better. So fare ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... the mistake in identification might have arisen from the fact that there were several ladies who answered to that description. In the following sentence from the draft of a letter to a masculine sympathizer, also preserved in the tell-tale diary of 1748, there is certainly an indication that the constancy of the lover was not perfect. "Dear Friend Robin," he wrote: "My place of residence at present is at his Lordship's, where I might, were my ...
— George Washington, Vol. I • Henry Cabot Lodge
... reckon, allowing for the ever-present currents, Dave believed they were nearing the Pole. But his brain was now throbbing as if a hundred trip-hammers were pounding upon it. Moments alone would tell the tale, for the oxygen in the air was exhausted. Already half the crew were unconscious; others were reeling like drunken men. The Doctor had been the first to succumb to the ...
— Lost In The Air • Roy J. Snell
... told her the story; his eyes were half closed, and with his fingers clasped and intertwined beneath his square-chiseled chin he recounted the steps of the recent event with the monotone of one who chants a mechanically memorized tale. ...
— The Ghost Breaker - A Novel Based Upon the Play • Charles Goddard
... my pain and passion were confessed. Fast and fervently the tale was told; and as the truth dawned on that patient wife, a tender peace transfigured her uplifted countenance, until to me ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... that nothing could be more unwise. Aunt Maria was good, but she lacked practical sense; even Clara, girl as she was, could see the one fact as well as the other. Her final and sagacious resolve was to tell the tale to ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... interested with an Englishman's point of view. He had much to learn, and he invented a tale of his fortunes which let him into their confidences, especially into that of Jim Coast, waiter like himself, whose bunk adjoined his own. Jim Coast was a citizen of the world, inured to privation under many flags. He had been born in New ...
— The Vagrant Duke • George Gibbs
... uncertainty as to his scalp, we cannot expect from him systematic habits of writing; and therefore we are compelled to call upon the earth and sea for information concerning these early adventures. Generously have they responded, producing silent witnesses who tell the tale of disaster with a melancholy fidelity more real than the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 12, No. 32, November, 1873 • Various
... life could form a tale of thrilling interest, if it were separated from other facts and told by itself. He constantly went forward, purchased houses, added lands, and erected new homes when he had no money in reserve, but unfailingly when the time came for payments to be made the sum ...
— Deaconesses in Europe - and their Lessons for America • Jane M. Bancroft
... within a creation. For just as the great artists, from Homer and AEschylus, down to Shakespeare and Keats, did not go directly to life for their subject-matter, but sought for it in myth, and legend, and ancient tale, so the critic deals with materials that others have, as it were, purified for him, and to which imaginative form and colour have been already added. Nay, more, I would say that the highest Criticism, ...
— Intentions • Oscar Wilde
... the feeble quivering hands clasped his belly. "Ah! This pinching hunger. Double Cho[u]bei's suffering; of mind and body. Apply for alms or food, and the leper is repulsed. See! Two fingers remain on this hand. Count of the rest fills out the tale for but one member. O'Hana San, condescend a rice ball for this Cho[u]bei. You, at least, know not the pinch of hunger.... Ah! She still possesses some of that beauty and charm for which Iemon has brought ruin upon all." Before the horrible lascivious ...
— The Yotsuya Kwaidan or O'Iwa Inari - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 1 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... and philological distinctions, geographical association makes it more natural to include a Finnish tale in the volume with Scandinavian stories than in any other volume ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors • Various
... belief that a bear will not molest a dead man, and that by "playing 'possum" a person attacked by a bear may evade further injury. That belief or theory has been held from the earliest times, and it is by no means certain that it is a mere idle tale or bit of nursery lore. Aesop uses it in one of his fables. Two men are assailed by a bear, and one climbs a tree while the other throws himself upon the ground and feigns death. The bear sniffs at the man on the ground, who holds his breath, concludes that the man is dead, and ...
— Bears I Have Met—and Others • Allen Kelly
... perished! And Miss La Rue—could a young girl long have survived the horrors of Caspak after having been separated from all of her own kind? The assistant secretary wondered if Nobs still was with her, and then we both smiled at this tacit acceptance of the truth of the whole uncanny tale: ...
— The People that Time Forgot • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... money and he kept a woman, he said, "You get a shove out of ———," meaning his woman, "she likes you, and I shant mind, but don't tell me." I actually did fuck her; nor did he ever ask me,—but that tale will be told hereafter. Nothing till his death pleased him more than referring to our having looked at the backside of his mother and at his sister's quims, he would roar with laughter at it. He was an ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... carried on a running feud, came out of the frozen North and overwhelmed them. Dim traditions that were whispered among the natives for centuries told of that last fight. It was the Ragnarok of the Northmen. Not one was left to tell the tale. Long years after, when fishing vessels landed on that desolate coast, they found a strange and hostile people in possession. No one had ever dared ...
— Hero Tales of the Far North • Jacob A. Riis
... of antiquity altogether absent. Along with Old French national and Arthurian epics there were a number of romances based on the legends of Alexander, Caesar, and the tale of Troy. Alexander, or Saunder, was the favourite among this class of names, especially in Scotland. Cayzer was generally a nickname (Chapter XIII), its later form Cesar being due to Italian influence, ...
— The Romance of Names • Ernest Weekley
... way for his father to handle the affair," smiled Mr. Prescott. "However, in making the charge for the book I shall deduct the profit. Like yourself, son, I don't want to profit by tale-bearing. And now, why not run out and see if you can find your young friends? I don't believe I shall need you ...
— The Grammar School Boys in Summer Athletics • H. Irving Hancock
... and whips, stained with blood. This circumstance was spoken of one evening at supper, at Madame de Pompadour's, and not one of the guests seemed at all tempted to imitate the Chevalier. Eight or ten days afterwards, the following tale was sent to the King, to Madame de Pompadour, to the Baschi, and to the Duc d'Ayen. At first nobody could understand to what it referred: at last, the Duc d'Ayen exclaimed, "How stupid we are; this is a joke on the austerities of the Chevalier de Montaign!" This ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 1 • Madame du Hausset, and of an Unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe
... story—one that I find it very hard to believe. I must have proof. It must be substantiated. You will consider yourselves prisoners until the matter has been investigated, unless in the meantime there should be someone here who will vouch for your honesty and the truth of this remarkable tale." ...
— The boy Allies at Liege • Clair W. Hayes
... the Knightly Tale of Galogras, The Temple of Glas, Lodge's Nettle for Nice Noses, or the Book of Fayts of Armes, by Christene of Pisa, or Caxton's Pylgremage of the Sowle, or his Myrrour of the Worlde, will be long inquired after before they come to the market, thoroughly contradicting ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... descendants of Europeans; nay more, that he should pay a price for each scalp so barbarously taken, is more than will be believed in Europe, until authenticated facts shall, in every gazette, confirm the truth of the horrid tale. ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 2 (of 5) • John Marshall
... advancing enemy told its tale, and many saddles were emptied, but they were now nearly at close quarters. Helmar and his men clubbed their ...
— Under the Rebel's Reign • Charles Neufeld
... a tell-tale!" said Dotty, slipping off half a dozen rings in haste. "There, I won't wear but just two—one on each thumb. Who wants the old watch? Tick's all out of it. You don't know, Prudy, how tight those rings ...
— Prudy Keeping House • Sophie May
... vehement, sincere, but not fascinating volumes, largely composed of extracts from public papers and speeches. Sweeping condemnation of the Public Works policy, of Radical reforms, and recent Socialistic experiments, complete his tale. The volumes have their use, but are not ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... of this wicked boyhood presents but little variety, except that of sin and crime. It is one long tale of evil-doing and of the sorrow which it brings. Once, when his money was all recklessly wasted, hunger drove him to steal a bit of coarse bread from a soldier who was a fellow lodger; and looking back, long afterward, to that hour of extremity, he exclaimed, "What a ...
— George Muller of Bristol - His Witness to a Prayer-Hearing God • Arthur T. Pierson
... practical "business" of changing the material glasses and thus hampering the actor by the necessity of altering his expression and his manner in accordance with his deposition or his resumption of these spectacles, seems to me to be childish to a degree, and tends towards turning this simple tale into a kind of fairy story, in which the spectacles play the part of a magic potion or charm, such as Mr. W. S. GILBERT would use in his Creatures of Impulse, his Fogarty's Fairy, and his Sorcerer, whenever ...
— Punch, or, the London Charivari, Volume 98, March 8, 1890. • Various
... the errant phantasy, No more by sense imprisoned, Creates what possibly might be But actually isn't: And this my tale is past belief, Of truth and reason emptied, 'Tis fiction manifest—in brief I was asleep, ...
— Lyra Frivola • A. D. Godley
... recital, which, although there are few things to which I have a greater objection than being the hero of my own story, I accordingly did. Several remarks were made as I concluded, but, owing either to my well-known dislike of exaggeration, or to the air of truthfulness with which I had told the tale, nobody seemed inclined to doubt that the adventure had occurred in the manner I related, although it was of a more incredible nature than the feat Curtis had recounted. This fact had just excited my attention, when Wilford, turning to the man on his right hand, observed: ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... into that young lord's house. How long would it be, Mrs. Roden, before he saw some little trick that would displease him? Some word would be wrongly spoken, some garment would be ill-folded, some awkward movement would tell the tale,—and then he would feel that he had done wrong to marry the Quaker's daughter. All the virtues under the sun cannot bolster up love so as to stand the battery of one touch of disgust. Tell my father that, ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope
... in their bearing on the events of his life. I have made them reveal the man in his personal relations to Pope Julius II., to Vittoria Colonna, to Tommaso dei Cavalieri, to Luigi del Riccio, to Febo di Poggio. I have let them tell their own tale, when sorrow came upon him in the death of his father and Urbino, and when old age shook his lofty spirit with the thought of approaching death. I have appealed to them for lighter incidents: matters of courtesy, the completion of the Sistine ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... ship's moving! Is it foggy this morning? It's time to get up! I've slept in my clothes! Oh, for a dip! How I smell of smoke! What a noise of a steamer! And the squire at Riversley! Fancy Uberly's tale!' ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... dreary watchings beside the sick bed of that beloved mother, became the portion of her gifted child. But even this depressing and arduous change in the duties of her existence did not suspend her literary pursuits and labors. She profited by all the intervals she could command, and wrote the tale of the "Martyr," the "Spirit of Judaism," and "Israel Defended;" the latter translated from the French, at the earnest request of a friend, and printed only for private circulation. The "Magic Wreath," a little poetical work, and the first our authoress ...
— The Vale of Cedars • Grace Aguilar
... exhilarating; cardiac, cardiacal[obs3]; pleasing &c. 829; palmy. Adv. cheerfully &c. adj. Int. never say die! come! cheer up! hurrah! &c. 838; "hence loathed melancholy!" begone dull care! away with melancholy! Phr. "a merry heart goes all the day" [A winter's Tale]; "as merry as the day is long" [Much Ado]; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... stranger with the sacred arrow. When the hunter's tale of the stranger's arrow reached the ears of the chieftain, his face brightened with a smile. He sent forth fleet horsemen, to learn of him his birth, his name, ...
— Old Indian Legends • Zitkala-Sa
... former self. His only daughter, a pretty girl of eighteen, was engaged to marry the ostler at the Crown Inn, a fine-looking young man, who had lately come from London. He saw Nancy Jarvis, became enamoured of the fisherman's daughter, told his tale of love, and was accepted. The old man was rather averse to the match; for, in his eyes, no man was worthy of his Nancy, who was not a genuine son of the sea. Robert Green at last succeeded in overcoming his nautical prejudices; ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie
... protests against the inequalities of wealth may be taken as parts of that 'ancient tale of wrong' which has in all ages been steaming up from the suffering world, and provoking a smile from epicurean deities. As Owenism advanced, the argument took a more distinct form. Mill[456] mentions William Thompson of Cork as a 'very estimable ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen
... baker was softened by the child's simple tale, and instead of chiding her or visiting threats of punishment, as is usually the case, he said: "You poor, dear girl; here, take this to your mother," and he filled a large basketful ...
— The Wonders of Prayer - A Record of Well Authenticated and Wonderful Answers to Prayer • Various
... were worked up into a state of fear bordering on panic, but wise old Mbonga affected to feel considerable skepticism regarding the tale, and attributed the whole fabrication to their fright in the face of some ...
— Tarzan of the Apes • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... vanquished us all in battle before, in the city of Virata. Indeed, after this, that Ape-bannered (warrior) consumed in battle, taking up his fierce weapons, those Danavas of terrible deeds called the Nivatakavachas. On the occasion also of the tale of cattle, when captured by the Gandharvas, this Karna and all these thy counsellors and thyself accoutred in mail and on thy car, were all liberated from the grasp of the Gandharvas by that Arjuna. That is a sufficient proof. Therefore, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... aside to tell the tale to us, and to summon thee to come with thy men and fight in the king's quarrel against this wicked man. And whilst ye lead your soldiers into Wales, Arthyn and I will to the court, to lay the story before the royal Edward, and to gain from him the ...
— The Lord of Dynevor • Evelyn Everett-Green
... censured by his superior will be looked upon as oppressed; whoever is careless in his opinions and loose in his morals will be called a liberal man, and will be supposed to have incurred hatred because he was not a bigot. Informers, tale-bearers, perverse and obstinate men, flatterers, who turn their back upon their flock and court the Protestant gentlemen of the country, will be the objects of preferment. And then I run no risk in foretelling that whatever order, quiet, and morality you have in the country will be lost. ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IV. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... I doubt if he will ever be fit to ride again. But I can't make it out quite yet, it's very vexing. I had rather have given a hundred pounds than it should have happened. And Dick, too; the fellow told the queerest tale about it. I should have thought he was telling a lie, only he was taking the blame to himself, and that didn't look like lying.—By-the-by, Amos, have you been out riding ...
— Amos Huntingdon • T.P. Wilson
... night subtle electricity had carried the tale over all the wires of the continent and under the sea; and in all villages and towns of the Union, from the Atlantic to the territories, and away up and down the Pacific slope, and as far as London and Paris and Berlin, that morning the name of Laura Hawkins was spoken by millions ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
... keen eye, and beating heart, The anxious mind still seeks relief From those who can the tale impart, How pass their ...
— Poems • Sir John Carr
... matters with the late Comte de Noce, of whom I have already had occasion to speak, a tall white-haired old man, his intimate friend, whose name I will not give, because he is still alive, looked at us with a somewhat melancholy air. We guessed that he was about to relate some tale of scandal, and we accordingly watched him, somewhat as the stenographer of the Moniteur might watch, as he mounted the tribune, a minister whose speech had already been written out for the reporter. The story-teller on this occasion was an old marquis, whose fortune, together with ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... does anything. It is a literary "dodge" to reach the reader's sympathies by drawing the blackguard in order to find the hero; one good deed in that world of unreality wipes out all the unworthiness of a lifetime, and the reader puts down the tale with a longing to fall on the neck and wring the hand of the very next hiccupping Tommy he encounters. ...
— The Story of Baden-Powell - 'The Wolf That Never Sleeps' • Harold Begbie
... wore them.... But, the tale runs, the Governor looked——He certainly did establish a precedent at that dinner. Mockers say that Judge Pat McCarran ran a close second, because his Excellency is lean and lank, while Judge McCarran would make two of him one way, and almost half of him the other, and because what happened ...
— Reno - A Book of Short Stories and Information • Lilyan Stratton
... and her one desire was to make her lover happy. She was not a great woman, but she was good, which is better, and she filled her husband's heart to the brim. Those first few years of their married life read like a fairy-tale. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 4 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Painters • Elbert Hubbard
... Joseph pretended to be very angry, but as he listened to their tale and heard how they dared not face their father without the beloved youngest son, he saw that they had earned his forgiveness, and he kept up the pretence no longer. Sending all the servants away he held out his hands to his brothers, his eyes ...
— Joseph the Dreamer • Amy Steedman
... of being called a tell-tale has occasioned many good servants to shut their eyes against ...
— The Cook's Oracle; and Housekeeper's Manual • William Kitchiner
... like the heathen nations the Israelites were commanded to destroy ages ago. He had but too good reason for wishing justice to be done. After he returned to his home in Tennessee, he wrote: "There is but one tale in the whole country: every comfort of life is purloined, clothes all in rags, a great many men and boys murdered, and, worst of all, Christianity seems to have gone up from the earth, and plunder and rapine to have filled its place. Surely war was instituted by Beelzebub. The guerillas are ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 118, August, 1867 • Various
... as true chivalry as ever animated knight or champion of the olden time. Tall, upstanding fellows of sixteen or seventeen, clean-limbed and broad-shouldered, wild-run all their lives; hunters, with a tale of big game to the credit of some of them would make an English sportsman envious; unaccustomed to any restraint at all and prone to chafe at the slightest; unaccustomed to any respect for women, to any of ...
— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck
... I shall unfold, A sweeter tale was never told; But then the facts, I must allow, Are in the east not common now; Tho' in the 'olden time,' the scene My Goaour (sic) describes had often been. What is the cause! Perhaps the fair Are now more ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... had managed to make good his position as a fashionable teacher of singing, in spite of the defects plainly mentioned in the above verses. In the first verse, 'counter' is a musical term, here used with the meaning of 'to embroider' the tale. 'Knack' is still used in Yorkshire for 'affected talk.' 'Monachord' is the ancient one-stringed fiddle called Tromba Marina, and is here used as a joke on 'monachi' or 'holy water clarks.' In verse 2, 'rule and space' is simply 'line and space,' i.e., on the ...
— Shakespeare and Music - With Illustrations from the Music of the 16th and 17th centuries • Edward W. Naylor
... power of its own. It may be deeply historical, like "Waverly," and "The Tale of Two Cities." It may be a picture of vivid local colouring, like "Ivanhoe," or "Lorna Doone," or "Dr Antonio." It may be full of social hints and glimpses, with many a covert wise suggestion, like Miss Austin's "Emma." It may shew up a vital truth or ...
— Tired Church Members • Anne Warner
... experience. As age creeps on, we all have the same tale to tell. The days of our youth are those we remember best and most fondly, and even the sorrows of that bygone time become pleasures in the retrospect. Of my own solitary childhood I retain the keenest recollection, as ...
— Monsieur Maurice • Amelia B. Edwards
... to steal some oranges which their owner had set for safe-keeping at the heels of his horse, while Robert was kicked at once (there was a picture that showed him holding his stomach with both hands), and afterwards came to a bad end, through attempting to take one. My boy conceived from the tale that the name of Robert was necessarily associated with crime; it was long before he outgrew the prejudice; and this tale and others of a like vindictive virtuousness imbued him with such a desire to lead an upright life that ...
— A Boy's Town • W. D. Howells
... the Misses Woodhouse never had any to relate; so this was Lois's first and only chance, and she would sit, clasping her knees with her hands, listening with wide, frank eyes, and cheeks flushed by the fire and the tale. ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
... and am about to leave the shop. But the old saleswoman who knows her customers and has perceived the tale of love lurking under my whispering and my hesitation, feels a ...
— The Indian Lily and Other Stories • Hermann Sudermann
... You cut open your own heart, and you offered the world a magnifying glass to study its wounds. You wrote your own story. You told the tale of your own suffering. Of course it was strong, of course it rang with all the truth of genius. So you loved that child, Arnold! You, a man of the world, not a callow schoolboy. You loved her magnificently. Did ...
— The Master Mummer • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... in young babies who have been taken out of doors without proper protection to the ears; or, it may be associated with a cold in the head, which is not detected until the mischief has already been done, while the resulting running ear tells the tale of woeful suffering. Earache must always be thought of as a possible cause when the cry of pain accompanies a cold in the head, and if medical aid is secured early, the abscess may be aborted and the deafness of later years entirely ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler
... gorgeous Tragedy In sceptred pall come sweeping by, Presenting Thebes, or Pelops' line, Or the tale of Troy divine, Or what (though rare) of later age 5 Ennobled hath the ...
— Teachers' Outlines for Studies in English - Based on the Requirements for Admission to College • Gilbert Sykes Blakely
... and his face cleared. He knew that if that hunter had killed any Ducks, there would be tell-tale feathers in the blind, and there ...
— Blacky the Crow • Thornton W. Burgess
... rapidity towards the climax and the catastrophe. The incident of the attempted barter of a discarded mistress to clear off the score of a gambling debt is derived from the scandalous chronicle of English nineteenth century society.[116] Browning's tale of crime was styled on its appearance by a distinguished critic of Elizabethan drama the story of a "penny dreadful." He was right; but he should have added that some of the most impressive and elevated pieces of our dramatic literature have had sources of no greater dignity. The story of the ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... hated tale-bearing—that is, of course, in the case of a man; the case of a woman was different—and just as, when he went to Bellew he had been careful not to give George away, so now he was still more on ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... spouse, my heart could not demand Than thus to see thee near, to clasp thy hand, A sweeter solace for my long dismay, And all the awful wonders of this day. Hear the surprising tale, And thou wilt know ...
— The Two Lovers of Heaven: Chrysanthus and Daria - A Drama of Early Christian Rome • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... exaggerated lament, the burden of which was drawn from a vivid imagination. Yet can there be little doubt that it scarcely presented the whole truth; an exact reproduction of all the heart-rending scenes then daily enacted in the unfortunate island would prove a tale as moving as ever harrowed the pitying heart ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... full and complete. Will Apleon, the Traitor to his covenant-word, ever know the fate of our pursuers? I believe not, unless anyone of us here retrace his steps to Jerusalem to tell him, and that would mean public torture and death to the tale-bearer." ...
— The Mark of the Beast • Sidney Watson
... not to interrupt one in the relation of his tale, or to feed it with odde interlocutions: One shall learne also not to laugh at his own jest, as too many used to do, like a Hen, which cannot lay an egge ...
— English Travellers of the Renaissance • Clare Howard
... learned some toleration. As she said, the old laird was a just man and a kind one, and until he made his will she had no fault to find with him; and as for the young ladies, they were just the cleverest and the tenderest-hearted to the poor of all the gentry in the country-side. Many a tale of distress had Peggy told them, and had never failed to find the girls open their purses, or go to see the poor people. They had a liberal allowance, and had no extravagant tastes in dress; but their charities had been so extensive that at the time of their ...
— Mr. Hogarth's Will • Catherine Helen Spence
... carry out. She had reminded Egbert of it at intervals all through the autumn term, then had given it up as "a bad job." To find him waiting for her in Miss Burd's study, ready to escort her to the Alhambra tea-rooms, seemed like a fairy tale come true. She whisked off at once to make the best possible toilet in the circumstances, and reappeared smilingly ready. When you have tea every day at a long table full of girls, the meal is apt to grow monotonous, and it was a welcome change to take it instead in a gay Oriental room with Moorish ...
— A Popular Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... tell him an endless tale she had heard in her childhood of a wonderful country beyond the sea where dwelt the Princess Beauty. And the heart of the young Prince would become sick with longing, as he sat on the threshold, looking out on the ocean, listening to his mother's wonderful story, while the ...
— The Hungry Stones And Other Stories • Rabindranath Tagore
... now a melancholy tale to relate. For the first two days his party had nothing whatever to eat. On the third day, Michel arrived with a hare and partridge, which afforded each a small morsel. Then another day passed without food. On the 11th, ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne
... much interested by the shops and their signboards. The latter were fixed all over the fronts of the shops, and contained a delineation of the goods sold within. There was no necessity for reading. The pictorial portraits told their own tale. They were admirable specimens of what is called still-life pictures; not only as regards the drawing and colouring of each object, but with respect to the grouping, which was in most cases artistic and natural. Two reasons were given me ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth
... nuggets. Eagle Hawk derives its name from the number of eagle-hawks seen in the gully before the sounds of the pick and shovel drove them away. Murderer's Flat and Choke'em Gully tell their own tale. The Irish clan together in Tipperary Gully. A party of South Australians gave the name of their chief town to Adelaide Gully. The Iron Bark is so called from the magnificent trees which abound there. Long, Piccaninny, and Dusty Gully need no explanation. The Jim Crow ranges are ...
— A Lady's Visit to the Gold Diggings of Australia in 1852-53. • Mrs. Charles (Ellen) Clacey
... of a Greek chorus, the tale was flung at him, piecemeal and in chunks, and in a triple key. When presently he understood, Hazen looked down for a moment at the puppy—which was making sundry advances of a shy but friendly nature toward him. Then he looked at the boy, and noted Dick's hero-effort ...
— Bruce • Albert Payson Terhune
... O how grateful to a wounded heart The tale of misery to impart; From others' eyes bid artless sorrows flow And raise esteem upon the ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... rid of their favoured rival by mixing poison with her food. They had just succeeded in effecting their purpose, which had caused the poor fellow much distress, and he had not recovered the effects of his loss on the morning on which he came onboard the Portia. His tale was simple and unvarnished, and while he was relating it to Lander, the tears were trickling down his face. Lander never before saw a black man feel so much for the loss of a wife as he did. This remarkable custom of mourning ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... these things to which thou shouldest give heed—the passing of the world, and the Day of Judgment, and the pains of Hell to shun them, and the rewards of Heaven to earn them?" When the maiden went home, she tells that tale to her father and her mother. They came and offered the maiden to Ciaran. "If she sacrifice her virginity to God," said Ciaran, "and if she serve Him, I will be in union with her." Then the maiden offered her virginity to God and to Ciaran, and her folk offered their perpetual ...
— The Latin & Irish Lives of Ciaran - Translations Of Christian Literature. Series V. Lives Of - The Celtic Saints • Anonymous
... Slingsby, has told the story of that college life fifty and sixty years ago. The collegian danced and drove and flirted and dined and sang the night away. Robert Tomes echoed the strain in his tale of college life a little later, under stricter social and ecclesiastical conditions. There was a more serious vein also. In 1827 the Kappa Alpha Society was the first of the younger brood of the Greek alphabet—descendants of the Phi ...
— Ars Recte Vivende - Being Essays Contributed to "The Easy Chair" • George William Curtis
... used only in this country. In England the novel was called "The Borderers;" in France "The Puritans of America, or the Valley of Wish-ton-Wish." This work was begun during his residence in Switzerland in 1828, and was completed at Florence. It has never been popular, particularly in America. The tale is a tragic one throughout, and the prevailing air of sombreness is rarely lightened by any success in the management of minor incidents. The introduction too was marked by (p. 075) one of Cooper's besetting faults, intolerable ...
— James Fenimore Cooper - American Men of Letters • Thomas R. Lounsbury
... northwest, distant eighteen miles. The signal-officer on Kenesaw reported that since daylight he had failed to obtain any answer to his call for Allatoona; but, while I was with him, he caught a faint glimpse of the tell-tale flag through an embrasure, and after much time he made out these letters-" C.," "R.," "S.," "E.," "H.," "E.," "R.," and translated the message—"Corse is here." It was a source of great relief, for it gave me the first assurance ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... NOTE.—Here ends the tale, but by patient research we have discovered one verse of an ancient ballad, supposed to have the same tradition for its subject. It is preserved in a curious collection of fragmentary poetry, to be found in most private libraries, and, in its more ancient and valuable editions, in ...
— Autumn Leaves - Original Pieces in Prose and Verse • Various
... by "JOHN STRANGE WYNTER," called, The Other Man's Wife, as the French would observe, "without pleasure." As a rule he rather enjoys the works of the Author of Bootle's Baby, and other stories of a semi-ladylike semi-military character; but the newest tale is one too many for him. The "man" is a mixture of snob and cad,—say "a snad,"—the "other man" a combination of coward and bully, the "wife" a worthy mate to both of them. The plot shows traces of hasty construction, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 100, April 25, 1891 • Various
... of shocking the reader, it has been decided that the real permanent detective stories of the world were ill represented without Dostoyevsky's terrible tale of what might be called "self-detection." If to sensitive readers the story seems so real as to be hideous, it is well to recall that Dostoyevsky in 1849 under-went the agony of sentence to death as a revolutionist. Although the sentence was commuted to hard labor in Siberia, and ...
— The Continental Classics, Volume XVIII., Mystery Tales • Various
... steel spread terror throughout the streets of the city. 'What steel! alack, what steel!' Such were the bewildered cries the citizens raised. The firmness of manhood and of youth gave way at sight of the steel; and the steel paralyzed the wisdom of graybeards. That which I, poor tale-teller, mumbling and toothless, have attempted to depict in a long description, Ogger perceived at one rapid glance, and said to Didier, 'Here is what ye have so anxiously sought': and while uttering these words he ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various
... there was no time to make any defence. The women and children, as they were overtaken, were indiscriminately slaughtered. The plunder that was considered worth carrying off was collected, and then in wantonness the village was set on fire. A few of the fugitives had at length reached Durango with the tale of their misfortunes. Some troops had been sent out with orders to exterminate the savages, but they took very good care not to come near them, while the Indians indeed were probably making a foray some ...
— A Voyage round the World - A book for boys • W.H.G. Kingston
... Goethe and Christiane became their marriage. They, wondered just where it was he saw the young girl coming to meet him as the Grand-Duke's minister with an office-seeking petition from her brother, Goethe's brother author, long famed and long forgotten for his romantic tale of "Rinaldo Rinaldini." ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... Collingwood's own age, gave him the instant impression of being bored to death; the lack-lustre eye, the aimless lounge, the hands thrust into the pockets of his Norfolk jacket as if they took refuge there from sheer idleness—all these things told their tale. Here, thought Collingwood, was a fine example of how riches can be a curse—relieved of the necessity of having to earn his daily bread by labour, Harper Mallathorpe was ...
— The Talleyrand Maxim • J. S. Fletcher
... dwellers in the backwoods that but a small percentage of tigers are man-eaters, perhaps not five per cent., otherwise village after village would be depopulated; as it is the yearly tale of lives ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... his story is thoroughly typical of the class of esoteric tradition in which Catholic truth and faith crystallised themselves in simpler and purer-hearted times than these. Students of religious mystic thought can scarce do better than turn to such a tale by way of proem to more elaborate research. There, in softened outlines and graceful language, they will find an exposition of the whole argument of spiritual metaphysics, and a complete vindication of the method of ...
— Dreams and Dream Stories • Anna (Bonus) Kingsford
... permit us to look backward, for we have (in following the principal persons of our history) neglected some others in Bretagne, who deserve some notice; besides, if we do not represent them as taking an active part in this tale, history is ready with her inflexible voice to contradict us; we must, therefore, for the present, submit to the ...
— The Regent's Daughter • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... face was refined, but it was also a worn and sad one, and told a tale (or so I seemed to read it) of much illness and suffering, sweetly and patiently borne. She had a little crutch to help herself along with: and she was now standing, looking wistfully up the long staircase, and apparently waiting till she could muster courage ...
— Sylvie and Bruno • Lewis Carroll
... tomb; Let them forge lies, and histories for Hume; Let them with Home, the very prince of verse, Make something like a Tragedy in Erse; Under dark Allegory's flimsy veil Let them with Ogilvie spin out a tale Of rueful length; Let them plain things obscure, Debase what's truly rich, and what is poor Make poorer still by jargon most uncouth; With ev'ry pert, prim prettiness of youth Born of false Taste, with Fancy (like a child Not knowing what it cries ...
— English Satires • Various
... threatening sky. I am all alone to-day, too, and I may be alone to-night. I rather like the adventure of staying alone; perhaps something will happen that never happened to any one before, and I may live to tell the tale to my grandchildren. It is early in the morning, that is, early to be writing a letter, but I shall not have much dinner to get for myself and I want to write letters all day. That is an adventure that never happened to me before. How do you think it happens that I am alone? Of course ...
— Miss Prudence - A Story of Two Girls' Lives. • Jennie Maria (Drinkwater) Conklin
... beside a basket three-parts full of bottles, each neatly enwrapped in white paper and inscribed with the name and address of the customer to whom it was to be delivered in due course. Apparently the package then in course of preparation would complete the tale of those to be delivered that night; for as Stukely tied the string and wrote the address in a clear, clerkly hand, the lad Dunster straightened himself up and laid a hand upon the basket, as though suddenly ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... felt very much amused. Never had he heard of anything so droll! But the Englishman's tale of love was not to run smooth after all, for now another complication had arisen, and the very last one any ...
— The Chink in the Armour • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... following Olive's fortunes, it may be as well to set the reader's mind at rest concerning the incident narrated in the preceding chapter. It turned out the olden tale of passion, misery, and death. No more could be made of it, even ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)
... I must reserve the tale of all I did and saw there for word of mouth. From Alexandria I went to Messina, and thence made an excursion along the lovely Sicilian coast to Catania and Etna. The old giant was half covered with snow, and this fact, which would have tempted you to go to the top, stopped ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley
... alone, leaving out the Great King who probably has forgotten as he was drunk at the time. Oh! Master, when you have neither bow nor spear at hand, it is not wise to kick a sleeping lion in the stomach, for then he will remember its emptiness and sup off you. Beside, when first I told you that tale I made a mistake. I did tell the Great King, as I now remember quite clearly, that the beautiful lady was named Amada, and he only sent for you to ask ...
— The Ancient Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... his first reference to the great calamity he had told to her a short time before. Its recurrence after she had resolved to regard it as an impossible and blasphemous tale brought ...
— The City of Delight - A Love Drama of the Siege and Fall of Jerusalem • Elizabeth Miller
... imparem ut Regiae Celsitudinis vel aliorum regum oratores ea lege in aula sua degerent; vereturque ne ob id apud Caesaream majestatem unicum ejus Dominum et alios male audiret, possetque sinistre tale institutum interpretari.—Reply of the Elector: State Papers, Vol. ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude
... is nourished in the sunlight of laughter blooms rapidly into intimacy, and Paul Burton would have been surprised had he known how often his eyes wakened into a tell-tale glow of delight and admiration, and how easily any one looking on might have fallen into the egregious error of construing his attitude into one distinctly loverlike. All this while she continued to pique his curiosity by a sustained reserve as ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... where harvests were ripening. And in the shadow of the awning Susan heard from those pretty, coarse lips, in language softened indeed but still far from refined, about all there is to know concerning the causes and consequences of the eternal struggle that rages round sex. To make her tale vivid, Mabel illustrated it by the story of her own life from girlhood to the present hour. And she omitted no detail necessary to enforce the lesson in life. A few days before Susan would not have believed, would not have understood. Now she both believed ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... great statue of General Washington on horseback; upon Daniel Webster; and then, upon the Lilliputians that were walking around looking at them; then, you could shut your eyes and listen to the music, and fancy you were in some enchanted region, for it was quite like a fairy tale, the ...
— Little Ferns For Fanny's Little Friends • Fanny Fern
... I have often remarked how little real conception of the moving world, as it is, people in remote regions get from the newspaper. It needs to be read in the midst of events. A chip cast ashore in a refluent eddy tells no tale of the force and swiftness of ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner |
