"Tale" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and decided favourably. But her tale of woe was not yet complete. "Mother's ill again," she announced gloomily. "I mustn't play band or nail the slats on the rabbits' hutch. Aunt Amy gave me my dinner on the back porch. I liked that. I wouldn't go in the house, ...
— Up the Hill and Over • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... tale as sound reading to all who desire to know the truth concerning the incidents which actually occurred along the Old Trail, and the real friendly relations which existed between the Indians and the white men, such as our ...
— The Second William Penn - A true account of incidents that happened along the - old Santa Fe Trail • William H. Ryus
... looked up as we came into the room, my mate leading me by the hand, and he called out in his rough, good-tempered voice, "Here, my masters, I bring you tidings and a tale; give it meat and drink that it may be strong ...
— A Dream of John Ball, A King's Lesson • William Morris
... found had been very much countenanced by the Squire, who, though not superstitious himself, was very fond of seeing others so. He listened to every goblin tale of the neighbouring gossips with infinite gravity, and held the porter's wife in high favour on account of her talent for the marvellous. He was himself a great reader of old legends and romances, and often lamented ...
— Old Christmas From the Sketch Book of Washington Irving • Washington Irving
... my daughter, the tale is told. Read it to your children and assure them that all is true; that there is here no exaggeration; that they can put faith in their old grandmother's story and take their part in her pleasures, her ...
— Strange True Stories of Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... strange cries, having been heard issue from that room—whispers which had revived in the house in Mrs Courthope's own time. No one had slept in that part of the roof within the memory of old Eppie: no one, she believed, had ever slept there since the events of her tale; certainly no one had in Mrs Courthope's time. It was said also, that, invariably, sooner or later after such cries were heard, some evil befell either the Lord of Lossie, or some one ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... patient efforts of this Government to promote peace and welfare among these Republics, efforts which are fully appreciated by the majority of them who are loyal to their true interests. It would be no less unnecessary to rehearse here the sad tale of unspeakable barbarities and oppression alleged to have been committed by the Zelaya Government. Recently two Americans were put to death by order of President Zelaya himself. They were reported to have been regularly commissioned officers in the organized ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... tale of romance! How learned you all this, Angelique?" exclaimed Amelie, who had listened with ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... small British columns had been operating during these months—operations which were destined to increase in scope and energy as the cold weather drew in. The weekly tale of prisoners and captures, though small for any one column, gave the aggregate result of a considerable victory. In these scattered and obscure actions there was much good work which can have no reward save the knowledge of duty done. Among many successful raids and skirmishes may be mentioned two ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... deposed. If he does not carry quite another memory of that transaction in the inmost recesses of his heart, he is unworthy to reign; he is unworthy to live. In the chronicle of disgrace he will have but this short tale told of him, "he was the first emperor of his house that embraced a regicide: he was the last that wore the imperial purple."—Far am I from thinking so ill of this august sovereign, who is at the head of ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... desperate struggle by his set teeth and hard breathing. That huge scar on the face of the gaunt, sallow figure beside him, whose soiled red shirt and matted beard would just suit the foreground of a Nevada gully, might tell a strange tale. That handsome, statuesque countenance yonder, again, faultless but for the sinister gleam of its restless eyes—what can it be doing among these coarse, uncultivated men, not one of whom can tell why they should all shrink from it as ...
— Harper's Young People, March 16, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... note, in passing, that to each planet a special metal is assigned, as also particular colours. Chaucer, in the Chanones Yemannes' Tale, succinctly describes the distribution of the metals ...
— Myths and Marvels of Astronomy • Richard A. Proctor
... that she should at once tell her mother, and ask her mother's leave. She had once before confessed a tale of love, and had done so with palpitation of the heart, with trembling of the limbs, and floods of tears. Then her tale had been received with harsh sternness. Now she could tell her story without any trembling, with no tears; but it was almost indifferent to her whether ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... and privately expressed. A fragment of a story entitled 'The Watsons' is printed; and extracts are given from a novel which she had begun a few months before her death; but the chief addition is a short tale never before published, called 'Lady Susan.' {0a} I regret that the little which I have been able to add could not appear in my First Edition; as much of it was either unknown to me, or not at my command, ...
— Memoir of Jane Austen • James Edward Austen-Leigh
... thou art angry all our days are gone: we bring our years to an end, as it were a tale that ...
— The Book of Common Prayer - and The Scottish Liturgy • Church of England
... favourite food of many birds, as well as quadrupeds. Hogs eagerly feed upon and destroy vast numbers of them; and even the squirrels devour them with as great a relish as they do nuts. These facts were furnished by the hunter-naturalist, but our trappers had an equally interesting tale to tell. ...
— The Hunters' Feast - Conversations Around the Camp Fire • Mayne Reid
... was a faint, metallic clangor in the clock—a falter like that which comes in the voice of a very old man. And the sound of this clock took possession of every silence until it seemed like the voice of a doomsman counting off the seconds. Ay, everyone in the room, again and again, took up the tale of those seconds and would count them slowly—fifty, fifty-one, fifty-two, fifty-three—and on and on, waiting for the next speech, or for the next popping of the wood upon the hearth, or for the next wail of the wind that would break upon ...
— The Night Horseman • Max Brand
... archives of Gotham) it was certainly the Plan of Mrs. Wadman's attack of my uncle Toby in his sentry-box, by Plan. Now, the plan hanging up in it at this juncture, being the Plan of Dunkirk, and the tale of Dunkirk a tale of relaxation, it opposed every impression she could make: and, besides, could she have gone upon it, the maneuver of fingers and hands in the attack of the sentry-box was so outdone by that of the fair Beguine's, in Trim's story, that just then, that particular ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IV (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland II • Various
... as George expected he would be, the unfortunate creature was lying on his back, his ghastly white face upturned to the sky, and his eyes fixed and staring, with that terrible indescribable expression in them which tells at once and unmistakably the dreadful tale of madness. ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood
... libellous or literally indecent. But the modern editor regards himself far too much as a kind of original artist, who can select and suppress facts with the arbitrary ease of a poet or a caricaturist. He "makes up" the paper as man "makes up" a fairy tale, he considers his newspaper solely as a work of art, meant to give pleasure, not to give news. He puts in this one letter because he thinks it clever. He puts in these three or four letters because ...
— All Things Considered • G. K. Chesterton
... from a dream built up by the music. Then he told briefly the tale of the tyranny aboard the Mary Rogers, now apparently to ...
— Harrigan • Max Brand
... of smelling salts. Everyone was hugging Elizabeth, or shaking hands with Mr. Kernaby, or slapping one another on the back and assuring one another that they had always said so. Tinker watched their exuberance with some distaste, which redoubled when Elizabeth's tangled and incoherent tale drew upon him the embraces of half a dozen animated and highly scented ladies of the kind who haunt the houses of unprotected millionaires. When at last quiet was restored, he told his story, omitting ...
— The Admirable Tinker - Child of the World • Edgar Jepson
... told a far different tale,—the shabby furniture, the dismantled walls, the worn carpets, as well as the threadbare coat of Moronval himself, and the shiny scant robe of the little ...
— Jack - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... if my Brother were In any danger, let not thy tale make Him abide there long before thou bring him off, For all that while my ...
— A King, and No King • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... if I cannot listen to the tragic details of a battle, while sitting here in this quiet room, and I wish to realize, as I never have done, what you and others have passed through. Do not be so modest that you cannot tell us exactly what you did. In brief, a plain, unvarnished tale unfold, and I shall ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... instance, under awkward circumstances, the pilot may have, say, three courses open to him in regard to his descent. Two may spell disaster and the third safety. It is here that the innate judgment of a pilot, combined with his experience, will tell its tale. But this personal element in flying, and particularly in regard to an accident, is often a very difficult one for which to ...
— Learning to Fly - A Practical Manual for Beginners • Claude Grahame-White
... was in the merriest humour, and told us a tale of how, that day, the sky had fallen. There had been down on the Pump pasture, deep fog, white and thick and folded in, and above him blue sky, when he had emerged on the Hill Road and driven on with his eyes shut. ...
— Friendship Village • Zona Gale
... are daily multiplied without increase of knowledge. The tale of the morning paper is told again in the evening, and the narratives of the evening are bought again in the morning. These repetitions, indeed, waste time, but they do not shorten it. The most eager peruser of news is tired before he has completed ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... other, "I had the honour to be presented to you by Monsieur le Duc himself. My name is Gaubert—Fabre Gaubert." And as he introduced himself he rose out of respect for Garnache, who had remained standing. Garnache knew him not at all, yet never doubted that his tale was true; the fellow had a very courtly, winning air; moreover, Garnache was beginning to feel lonely in the wilds of Dauphiny, so that it rejoiced him to come into the company of one whom he might regard as something of a fellow-creature. ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini
... that the story is not probable. Pshaw! Isn't it written in a book? and is it a whit less probable than the first part of the tale? ...
— Stories of Comedy • Various
... may be the outcome of this!" he thought. "He'll go about tale-bearing now, the rascal. He'll disgrace me before the whole ...
— The Slanderer - 1901 • Anton Chekhov
... me until it was too late to retreat. At half-past eleven William Achrow turned out the gas, and when we were all seated round the fire, he suggested we should each relate in turn, the most thrilling ghost tale we had ever heard. The idea, being approved of generally, was carried out, and when we had been thrilled, as assuredly we had never been thrilled before, William coolly proclaimed that he had put ...
— Byways of Ghost-Land • Elliott O'Donnell
... BOTT ("Contact") has a literary gift of a high order, the gift of getting the very last thrill out of his experiences while telling his tale in the simplest and most straightforward way. In Eastern Nights (BLACKWOOD) he describes his adventures as a prisoner of the Turks, first in Damascus and Asia Minor and finally in Constantinople. The narrative, which is purely one of action, the action being supplied ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, August 4th, 1920 • Various
... been guilty of the most nefarious designs against him: he only sought to protect her from the vengeance of the kinsmen of the three Gothic nobles whom she had murdered". An embassy composed of Roman Senators was ordered to carry this tale to Justinian and to confirm it by a letter which, under duresse, had been wrung from the unfortunate princess in her prison. When the ambassadors arrived at Constantinople one of them spoke the words of the part which had been set down for him and declared that Theodahad had done nothing ...
— Theodoric the Goth - Barbarian Champion of Civilisation • Thomas Hodgkin
... him as a gift: he did not work for money, but for influence and a promised bishopric. But the Queen—a pious woman of the conventional school—would never hear of his elevation to the bench of bishops, in consequence of the "Tale of a Tub," in which he had ridiculed everything sacred and profane. He was the bitterest satirist that England has produced. The most his powerful friends could do for him was to give him the deanery of St. Patrick's in Dublin, worth about L800 ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VII • John Lord
... sudden bursts of vicious fire in our neighbourhood. But that night, and the next day and the next, we began to get through information of what had been happening all along the line. And when, a week later, the whole tale could be told, it was evident that no great offensive on any Front during this war, prepared with so great elaboration and carried out with so great resources, had ever quite so blankly failed, as the great Austrian offensive ...
— With British Guns in Italy - A Tribute to Italian Achievement • Hugh Dalton
... and black, like a magpie's wing, had strayed from beneath the Colonel's cap; while thick, fair curls clustered about the magistrate's temples. The Colonel was tall, spare, dried up, but muscular; the lines in his pale face told a tale of vehement passions or of terrible sorrows; but his comrade's jolly countenance beamed with health, and would have done credit to an Epicurean. Both men were deeply sunburnt. Their high gaiters of brown leather carried souvenirs ...
— Farewell • Honore de Balzac
... and was afraid—more afraid than he had been at any time since he had overheard Howells catalogue his case to Graham in the library. Why, even in so much confusion, had Graham and he failed to think of those tell-tale marks in the court? They had been intact when he had stood there just before dark. It was unlikely any one had walked across the grass since. He saw Graham's elaborate precautions demolished, the case against him stronger than it had been before Howells's murder. Graham's face revealed ...
— The Abandoned Room • Wadsworth Camp
... said: "My life has been so wonderful and so like a fairy-tale, that I think I had a fairy godmother who granted my every wish, for if I had chosen my own life's way, I could ...
— Denmark • M. Pearson Thomson
... my writings to the pampered palates of literary epicures, I might have availed myself of the obscurity that overshadows the infant years of our city, to introduce a thousand pleasing fictions. But I have scrupulously discarded many a pithy tale and marvelous adventure, whereby the drowsy ear of summer indolence might be enthralled; jealously maintaining that fidelity, gravity, and dignity which should ever distinguish the historian. "For a writer of this class," observes an elegant ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... Mr. Temple and Mr. Hampton returned to their homes, to be amazed at the tale of developments during their absence. Over their cigars in Mr. Hampton's library, the two, alone, looked at each other ...
— The Radio Boys with the Revenue Guards • Gerald Breckenridge
... some great events for the morrow. A circle of ladies had gathered round him as he spoke, quite a number of pretty women feverish with curiosity, who jostled one another in their eagerness to hear that brigand tale which sent a little shiver coursing under their skins. However, Amadieu managed to slip off after paying Rosemonde twenty francs for a cigarette case, which ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... for his rudeness, his statue stands (so runs the tale) in the Fenway of Boston to ...
— This Giddy Globe • Oliver Herford
... Our tale now returns to Isaac of York.—Mounted upon a mule, the gift of the Outlaw, with two tall yeomen to act as his guard and guides, the Jew had set out for the Preceptory of Templestowe, for the purpose of negotiating his ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... around her ankles complete the costume. Such is the woman who has played and still plays an ominous part in the history of Okoya's mother, and in the history of the people at the Rito de los Frijoles. Now that we have seen her home and her person, let us proceed with the tale of her doings on the afternoon to which the close of the preceding chapter has ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier
... made the comparison between the walls of men and the walls of stone. The spring sunlight, flooding white masonry reared but yesterday and buildings centuries old, shone full likewise upon thousands of bronzed faces, each one with its own tale of perils passed, each one gravely expectant of perils ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Honore de Balzac
... hoped. Nor was it long before every doubt was removed. The truthful, conscientious Beulah, had well consulted her heart; and, while she blushed at her own temerity, she owned her attachment to her admirer. The very day of his arrival they became formally betrothed. As our tale, however, has but a secondary connection with this little episode, we shall not dwell on it more than is necessary to the principal object. It was a busy morning, altogether; and, though there were ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper
... to folk-lore and fairy tale, is a fairy child that the fairies substitute for a human child that they have stolen. The changeling was generally sickly, shrivelled and in every way repulsive. Here the poet reverses the superstition, substituting the angels ...
— The Vision of Sir Launfal - And Other Poems • James Russell Lowell
... hue as the rest of the form. It is strange that I cannot recall her features; but they, as well as her somewhat girlish figure, left on me simply and only the impression of intense loveliness. I lay down at her feet, and gazed up into her face as I lay. She began, and told me a strange tale, which, likewise, I cannot recollect; but which, at every turn and every pause, somehow or other fixed my eyes and thoughts upon her extreme beauty; seeming always to culminate in something that had a relation, ...
— Phantastes - A Faerie Romance for Men and Women • George MacDonald
... puckered with rage and shame. He went slowly to where Bert Stone lay. His friend was white and unconscious ... perhaps already his tale was told. Hap Smith looked from him to the girl who, her face as white as Bert's, was trying to staunch ...
— Six Feet Four • Jackson Gregory
... driven by the French. As they in the most cowardly manner decline to come out of it, the wily Parisian braves are rubbing the outer circle of trees over with petroleum, as a preparatory step to burn them out. This veracious tale is believed by ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere
... of Dumont's profound indifference to money that he listened without any emotion either of anger or of regret to the first part of Culver's tale, the survey of the wreck—what had been forty millions now reduced to a dubious six. Dumont had neither time nor strength for emotion; he was using all his mentality in gaging what he had for the work in hand—just how long ...
— The Cost • David Graham Phillips
... the spot where, in the wild days of the Roses, a Parker Putwell had slain a Blount in unfair fight for a light of love not worth the blood of a rabbit. Nance had very earnestly told me the old, sad tale, to impress the spot on my mind, for the long lane up to Ellerton Grange began in the shadows just beyond the monument, and wound away up the slope to the right. The road carried us up where the moon-light fell on meadows that ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... no new 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 the following pages ...
— Monsieur Maurice • Amelia B. Edwards
... this paper "Bugle Blasts" simply because that seems as appropriate as anything. It refers to some incidents and experiences in the cavalry; exciting and sometimes thrilling to those engaged, if not interesting to him who hears the tale told. ...
— Bugle Blasts - Read before the Ohio Commandery of the Military Order of - the Loyal Legion of the United States • William E. Crane
... make your laws, do you make your covenants, for the very purpose of their being evaded? Is this the purpose for which a British tribunal sits here, to furnish a subject for an epigram, or a tale for the laughter of the world? Believe me, my Lords, the world is not to be thus trifled with. But, my Lords, you will never trifle with your duty. You have a gross, horrid piece of corruption before you,—impudently confessed, and more impudently defended. But you will not suffer Mr. Hastings ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XII. (of XII.) • Edmund Burke
... little more of my tale to tell. Here the Swift One and I lived and reared our family. And here my memories end. We never made another migration. I never dream beyond our high, inaccessible cave. And here must have been born the child that inherited the stuff of ...
— Before Adam • Jack London
... Flaherty, master of the Bodega, and Tiernan, the assistant superintendent on night watch, sat around a hot little box stove engaged in that occupation so dear to the maritime heart, to-wit: spinning yarns. Dan Hicks had the floor, and was relating a tale that had to do with his life as ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... itself the only English fortress that had ever resisted the avenger of France, the constable Bertrand du Guesclin. But, in spite of its pride, it proved to be commanded by a yet higher point, sufficiently near to throw round shot into the Castle in the more advanced days to which our tale relates. For this reason, and also because of the smallness of the harbour at its feet, Mont Orgueil had given way to the growing importance of S. Helier, protected by its virgin Castle. Hence the place, though not quite in ruins, had sunk to a minor ...
— St George's Cross • H. G. Keene
... una sola evacuatione furor cessavit et quietus inde vixit. Tale exemplum apud Sckenkium et apud Scoltzium, ep. 231. P. Monavius se stolidum curasse jactat hoc ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... visible. His eye was unsettled and blood-shot; his manner uneasy, and the whole bearing indicative of hope, ecstasy, apprehension, and doubt, all flitting across each other like clouds in a sky troubled by adverse currents, but each and all telling a tale of the tumult which ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... reason why in novels the story ends with a marriage is partly that the excitement of the tale ceases then, and partly also because of a theory that marriage is an epoch, determining the career of life after it. The epoch once announced, nothing more need be explained; everything else follows as a matter of course. These notes of mine ...
— Mark Rutherford's Deliverance • Mark Rutherford
... Central India and Bengal the pilgrim's statistics tell the same tale, namely that though Buddhism was represented both by monasteries and monks, the Deva-temples and unbelievers were also numerous. The most favourable accounts are those given of Kanauj, Ayodhya and Magadha where the sacred sites naturally caused the ...
— Hinduism And Buddhism, Volume II. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... appearance created a diversion in his favor. The six rushed on her tumultously. They seized her hands or struggled for a fragment of her skirt to hold while they poured out their tale. Pop had fished up a man—he'd been throwed in the river! Pop didn't know if he was dead or not—he was ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester
... rejection. He had entertained none of that feeling of which lovers speak when they declare that they are staking their all upon the hazard of a die. It had not seemed to him that he was staking anything, as he gently told his tale of languid love, lying on the turf by the ha-ha. He had not regarded the possibility of disappointment, of sorrow, and of a deeply-vexed mind. He would have felt but little triumph if accepted, and had not thought that ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... to confess that he was puzzled. "Their stories hold together well enough," he said, "but if they have anything to hide (mind, I don't say they have) they're the sort to get up their tale beforehand, so as to make it water-tight. We called last night, and that man Constant must have known we'd come again, whether we heard from Miss Ray or whether we didn't—still more, if we didn't. ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... Matilda, what a tale is mine to tell! Misfortune from the cradle has set her seal upon your unhappy friend. That we should be severed for so slight a cause—an ungrammatical phrase in my Italian exercise, and three false notes in one of Paesiello's sonatas! But it is a part of my father's character, ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... at every turn, in regard to his regular system, his constant method, nay, his minutest tricks of habit, so to speak, both as Reader and as Novelist. It was so when as an Author, for example, note was taken, now of his careful forecast of a serial tale on as many slips as there were to be green monthly numbers; now of his elaborately corrected and recorrected manuscripts; now of the proof-sheets lying about, for revision at any and every spare moment, during the month immediately before publication. Or, when, on the other hand, ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent
... then he would carry his books off to the best parlour or stroll around the farm with Mr. Joll and discuss the stock. There were no loose rails in Mr. Joll's gates, no farm implements lying out in the weather to rust. Mr. Joll worked early and late, and his shoulders had a tell-tale stoop—for he was a man in the prime of life, perhaps some five years ...
— The Ship of Stars • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... Hate Song—Gudewife, Count The Lawin Election Ballad At the close of the contest for representing the Dumfries Burghs, 1790. Elegy On Captain Matthew Henderson The Epitaphon Captain Matthew Henderson Verses On Captain Grose Tam O' Shanter: A Tale On The Birth Of A Posthumous Child Elegy On The Late Miss ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... to see distress, It tells a tale they dread to know, And guilt, tho' thron'd in mightiness, In every ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... example of others, and the people pressing him much, he bade them apply themselves to the wealthy; for his part he should blush to make a present here, rather than a repayment there, turning and, pointing to Callicles, the money-lender. Being still clamored upon and importuned, he told them this tale. A certain cowardly fellow setting out for the wars, hearing the ravens croak in his passage, threw down his arms, resolving to wait. Presently he took them and ventured out again, but hearing the same music, once ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... to the next village because he was at war with it; but, after much persuasion, he consented, provided that the guide should be allowed to return as soon as he came in sight of the enemy's village. This we felt to be a misfortune, as the people all suspect a man who comes telling his own tale; but there being no help for it, we went on, and found the head man of a village on the rivulet Kalomba, called Kangenke, a very different man from what his enemy represented. We found, too, that the idea of buying and selling took the place ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... Black, who jumped from his seat and ran up the companion-way to confirm the tale, and he shouted down to us, "Crack another bottle, if it's the last, and give it to the nigger; ...
— The Iron Pirate - A Plain Tale of Strange Happenings on the Sea • Max Pemberton
... there's a sort of protection about 'em, a kind of muddy practicality! They prevent things getting at him. And it's not your poetry only. It's the poetry of the customer too. Poet answering to poet—soul to soul. Health, Strength and Beauty—in a bottle—the magic philtre! Like a fairy tale.... ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... into the feminine circle. He saw Rovard Grauffis, small and saturnine, Duke Angus' henchman, and Burt Sandrasan, Lady Lavina's brother. They spoke, and then an upper-servant, his tabard blazoned with the yellow flame and black hammer of Karvall mills, approached his master with some tale of domestic crisis, and ...
— Space Viking • Henry Beam Piper
... and bring her to a hostless house? I wish I was as nice as you think I am, dear madam, but I'm not. I suppose you also want me to apologize to your guest for your absence from home, tell her a pretty fairy tale and say—" ...
— The Man in Lonely Land • Kate Langley Bosher
... nurses' tale is, that the man was sent to the moon by Moses for gathering sticks on the Sabbath, and they refer to the cheerful story in Numbers xv. 32-36. According to German nurses the day was not the Sabbath, but Sunday. Their ...
— Myths and Marvels of Astronomy • Richard A. Proctor
... name, was discovered dead on his miserable pallet. But at Skibbereen, in the fruitful County Cork whose seaports were thronged with vessels laden with corn, cattle, and butter for England, the rate collector told a more tragic tale. Some houses he found deserted; the owners had been carried to their graves. In one cabin there was no other occupant than three corpses; in a once prosperous home a woman and her children had lain dead ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne
... Comly, to visit his only brother, who was a Rough Rider. The Speedy had just come from Santiago, and of course Ensign Comly knew all about Hobson. Would he tell the story of the Merrimac? Certainly he would, and so a few minutes after his arrival the naval man was relating the thrilling tale as follows: ...
— "Forward, March" - A Tale of the Spanish-American War • Kirk Munroe
... characters in literature. Her virtues have been quoted in the stately cathedral, in the courts of justice, in the editorial sanctum, in both tragedy and comedy on the stage, to point a moral and adorn a tale. Some of the fairest of Eve's daughters bear her baptismal name, and she has been immortalized in poetry and prose. Wordsworth sends her with his Peter Bell to enjoy the first flowers of early spring. To express her love of the beautiful ...
— The Woman's Bible. • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... into Committee of Supply, HOPE of Sheffield moved reduction of his salary on account of alleged failure to take necessary steps to maintain high standard of single-minded disinterestedness in public service. Though nominally concerned with the PREMIER and the public service HOPE told a flattering tale which was a thinly veiled attack on that meek personage the CHANCELLOR ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, July 8, 1914 • Various
... and another of flat cakes, and he guessed that these had all been put on board the evening before, in readiness for a start in the morning. This relieved him of his chief anxiety, for he had been unable to think of any plan for replenishing his supply, or to concoct a likely tale that, were he obliged to go on shore, would account for his being alone in a craft of ...
— A Knight of the White Cross • G.A. Henty
... which an impartial examination would have shown was essentially absurd and infamously false. Mr. Madison's intelligence is not to be impugned. He was too sagacious, as well as too unimpassioned a man, to be taken in by the ingenious tale of such an adventurer as Henry. In a letter to Colonel David Humphreys, written the next spring, in defense of the policy of commercial restrictions, he says: "I have never allowed myself to believe that the Union was in danger, or that ...
— James Madison • Sydney Howard Gay
... the tale of the Titanic sailor be true, expiated his negligence by shooting himself within sight of all alleged victims huddled in life-boats or struggling in the ...
— Sinking of the Titanic - and Great Sea Disasters • Various
... than Rupert to believe that my merits had gained for me the regard of two of the upper boys. I was exultingly happy. Not a qualm disturbed the waking dreams in which (after I was in bed) I retold my family tale at even greater length than before, except that I remembered one or two incidents, which in the excitement of the hour I had forgotten when ...
— A Great Emergency and Other Tales - A Great Emergency; A Very Ill-Tempered Family; Our Field; Madam Liberality • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... russet-brown? His distant step sounds hollow on the frozen ground; no beam of beauty is on his face, but his look is healthy, and his step is firm. As he approaches the peasant bars his door and renews his fire. The sparkling home-brewed goes round and mantles in the foaming jug, the oft-repeated tale is told, the rain patters against the casement, but the night passes away, and the ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas
... of the best, which is law. For inasmuch as reason is beautiful and gentle, and not violent, her rule must needs have ministers in order to help the golden principle in vanquishing the other principles. And thus the moral of the tale about our being puppets will not have been lost, and the meaning of the expression 'superior or inferior to a man's self' will become clearer; and the individual, attaining to right reason in this matter of pulling the strings of the puppet, should live according to ...
— Laws • Plato
... affection of the Duchess of Choiseul: she declined the personal favors which the king offered her, setting all her husband's friends the example of a fidelity which was equally honorable to them and to him. Acute observers read a tale of the growing weakness of absolute power in the crowd which still flocked to a minister in disgrace; the Duke of Choiseul remained a power even during a banishment which was to last as long as ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... here stop to notice, and the reader will allow us to notice with summary indignation, the slanderous and idle tale which represents Shakspeare as having fled to London in the character of a criminal, from the persecutions of Sir Thomas Lucy of Charlecot. This tale has long been propagated under two separate impulses. Chiefly, ...
— Biographical Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... chamber before the cruel-lipped man who was his sire, he found his courage oozing, and he dared not speak of the princess hid within his palace. It occurred to him to test his father's sentiments upon the subject, and so he told a tale of capturing one who claimed to know the whereabouts of ...
— Thuvia, Maid of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... have sacrificed my honor and my reason both to you, you will perhaps believe in my loyalty. The tale which was related to you in Madame's apartments, and by Madame herself, is utterly false; and that which I said ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... dead, but since they were not in the Regiment their honour concerns themselves only. So far as we were touched, see how correctly we came out of the matter! I think the King should be told; for where could you match such a tale except among us Sikhs? Sri wah guru ji ki Khalsa! Sri wah guru ji ki futteh!' said ...
— A Diversity of Creatures • Rudyard Kipling
... God limns, And tenderly, life's little dream, But naught extenuates or dims, Setting the thing that is supreme. Nor is there wanting in the press Some spirit to stand simply forth, Heroic in its nakedness, Against the uttermost of earth. The tale of earth's unhonored things Sounds nobler there than 'neath the sun; And the mind whirls and the heart sings, And a shout greets the daring one. But always God speaks at the end: 'One thought in agony of strife The bravest would have by for friend, The memory that he chose the life; But ...
— A Boy's Will • Robert Frost
... the Assembly and where is the king?" the marquise asked, after the first exclamation of horror at the tale they had heard. ...
— In the Reign of Terror - The Adventures of a Westminster Boy • G. A. Henty
... were now absolutely without supplies either of ammunition or provisions; and that, for seven days, they had suffered under a total deprivation of water, the sources of which were now in the hands of the enemy, and turned into new channels. The winding up of the memorable tale is soon told:—the main body of the fighting Suliotes, agreeably to the treaty, immediately took the route to Parga, where they were sure of a hospitable reception, that city having all along made common cause with Suli against ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... tale is soon spoken. She bored me. I show'd it. She saw it. What next? She reproach'd. I retorted. Of course she was vex'd. I was vex'd that she was so. She sulk'd. So did I. If I ask'd her to sing, she look'd ready to cry. I was contrite, submissive. She soften'd. I harden'd. ...
— Lucile • Owen Meredith
... from nature. Violent conventionalism of light and shade, sketchy forms continually less and less developed, the walls and the faces drawn with the same stucco color, alike opaque, and all the shades on flesh, dress, or stone, laid in with the same arbitrary brown, forever tell the same tale of a mind wasting its strength and substance in the production of emptiness, and seeking, by more and more blindly hazarded handling, to conceal the weakness which the ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin
... see, affords a simple explanation of these facts. We have evidence of almost every conceivable kind, organic and inorganic, that within a very recent geological period, central Europe and North America suffered under an Arctic climate. The ruins of a house burnt by fire do not tell their tale more plainly, than do the mountains of Scotland and Wales, with their scored flanks, polished surfaces, and perched boulders, of the icy streams with which their valleys were lately filled. So greatly has the climate of Europe changed, that in Northern ...
— On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection • Charles Darwin
... but Jack, such eyes! such eyes! so innocently wild! so bashfully irresolute! not a glance but speaks and kindles some thought of love! Then, Jack, her cheeks! her cheeks, Jack! so deeply blushing at the insinuations of her tell-tale eyes! Then, Jack, her lips! O, Jack, lips smiling at their own discretion; and if not smiling, more sweetly pouting; ...
— The Rivals - A Comedy • Richard Brinsley Sheridan
... down under this hawthorn tree, The morrow's light shall lend us day enough— And tell a tale of Gawain or Sir Guy, Of Robin Hood, or of good ...
— A Bundle of Ballads • Various
... almost perfect art of the best of Mary Lamb's: of Father's Wedding-Day, which Landor, with wholly pardonable exaggeration, called 'with the sole exception of the Bride of Lammermoor, the most beautiful tale in prose composition in any language, ancient or modern.' There is something of an incomparable kind of story-telling in most of the best essays of Elia, but it is a kind which he had to find ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... sent his Noble Guard to the Castle of St. Angelo to inquire after the prisoner, and the young soldier brought back a pitiful tale. Donna Roma was ill and could not be removed at present. Her nervous system was completely exhausted and nobody could say what might not occur. Nevertheless, she was very brave, very sweet and very cheerful, and everybody was in love with her. The Castle ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... Second Constable's History c. Third Constable's History d. Fourth Constable's History e. Fifth Constable's History f. Sixth Constable's History g. Seventh Constable's History h. Eighth Constable's History ha. The Thief's Tale i. Ninth Constable's History j. Tenth Constable's History k. Eleventh Constable's History l. Twelfth Constable's History m. Thirteenth Constable's History n. Fourteenth Constable's History na. A Merry Jest of a Clever Thief nb. Tale of the Old Sharper o. ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... condescend to strike down the mere things that he does not fear? Who would debase himself to be merely brave, like any common prizefighter? Who would stoop to be fearless—like a tree? Fight the thing that you fear. You remember the old tale of the English clergyman who gave the last rites to the brigand of Sicily, and how on his death-bed the great robber said, 'I can give you no money, but I can give you advice for a lifetime: your thumb on the blade, ...
— The Man Who Was Thursday - A Nightmare • G. K. Chesterton
... to keep their full weight. They used to pass current by weight, not by tale, whence the words for profit and expenditure[488]. Pecunia was named from cattle (pecus). You must see that our money does not return to this low condition. King Servius first used stamped money. Take then the care of the mint; hold ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)
... correspondent has invented the tale of one butchery, it is no reason why the people in the United States should dismiss all the others as sensational fictions. After I went to Cuba I refused for weeks to listen to tales of butcheries, because I did not believe in them and because there seemed to be no ...
— Cuba in War Time • Richard Harding Davis
... learnt the strangest tale that ever a man was told, and knew the miracle to which ...
— Uncanny Tales • Various
... the malefactors, only with the malefactors themselves, and their mental condition after the deed was actually done. But it was with the fascination of a hopeless horror, making me feel almost as if I had committed every crime as I perused its tale, that I regarded them. They were to me like living crimes. It was not until long afterwards that I was able to understand that a man's actions are not the man, but may be separated from him; that his character even is not the man, but may be changed while he yet holds the same individuality,—is ...
— The Vicar's Daughter • George MacDonald
... They tumble up and down in his mind like the pieces of painted glass in a kaleidoscope, and present themselves in new combinations at every turn. His last acknowledged composition was a wonderful tale which appeared in the Protestant Annual for the present year, and—strange subject for such a writer—it purported to be a Tale of the Covenant. Honest Peter Walker had told the same story, that of John Brown of Priesthill, about a century and a half ago; but there had been much left ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller
... the alacrity of human folly in rising to the bait. No doubt I am. The greed of that absurd monster is incalculable, unfathomable, inconceivable. The career of de Barral demonstrates that it will rise to a naked hook. He didn't lure it with a fairy-tale. He hadn't ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... with intense attention to Harley's story. When the tale was over, he and Harley whispered together long and earnestly, and Jimmy Grayson frequently nodded his head in assent. Then they awoke the driver, a heavy man, but with a keen Western mind that at once became alert ...
— The Candidate - A Political Romance • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... rites of their converts in oblivion, and abstained from giving information about them. What we know is drawn from Church writers. The Eddas belong to a much more developed stage of Teutonic life; they tell their own tale, which will ...
— History of Religion - A Sketch of Primitive Religious Beliefs and Practices, and of the Origin and Character of the Great Systems • Allan Menzies
... Lois, the day of her return, that Mr. Keith had written asking her permission to come down and see them. The blood sprang into Lois's face, and if Miss Abby had had on her spectacles at that moment, she must have read the tale it told. ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page
... thy Genius freely give; For not to live at Ease is not to live. Death stalks behind thee, and each flying Hour Does some loose Remnant of thy Life devour. Live while thou livest, for Death shall make us all A Name of Nothing, but an Old Wife's Tale. Speak: wilt thou AVORICE or PLEASURE Chuse To be thy Lord? Take One ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various
... of white marble had been erected by Giles, and already that was becoming discolored. Daisy and her resting-place were forgotten. The poor child might have been dead a hundred years instead of six months. Only the tale of her death remained as a fireside legend, to be amplified and improved upon as the years ...
— A Coin of Edward VII - A Detective Story • Fergus Hume
... determine some of my friends to look on me as a much smaller man than either they or myself judge me at present to be. I will, therefore, ask it as a favour of you to acquaint the Doctor with the difficulty he has brought me to. In travelling among rival clans, such a silly tale as this might easily be whispered into the ear of a passing stranger; but as it has no foundation in fact, I hope the Doctor will be so good as to take his own way in undeceiving the publick, I principally mean my friends and connections, who will be first angry at ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... tale of winter adventures in the wilderness, showing how the photo-play actors sometimes suffer. The proof on the ...
— The Girls of Central High on Lake Luna - or, The Crew That Won • Gertrude W. Morrison
... tale told him once by a survivor of a trading ship Judd the Kite had destroyed. It wasn't a nice tale. The Kite, so the report ran, was diabolically ingenious with a long peeling knife, and could improvise with it for hours. Friday pursued the tack of thought, and then ...
— Hawk Carse • Anthony Gilmore
... are now praising thee, will very soon blame thee, and neither a posthumous name is of any value, nor reputation, nor anything else." What has become of all great and famous men, and all they desired, and all they loved? They are "smoke, and ash, and a tale, or not even a tale." After all their rages and envyings, men are stretched out quiet and dead at last. Soon thou wilt have forgotten all, and soon all will have forgotten thee. But here, again, after such thoughts, the same moral is always introduced again:—"Pass ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar
... consternation may be imagined as she listened to the tale they had to tell. From time to time during its relation she ...
— The Girl Aviators' Motor Butterfly • Margaret Burnham
... findin' out everybody's little secrets, an' our village beats every other one I ever heard tell on at that kind o' work, it do reely now! I say, Passon, when they was spreadin' all the stories round about you an' Miss Vancourt, I could a' told a tale about the 'oley bit, ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli |
