"Teller" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and the same question was put to A. E. Bunker, teller, and Frank J. Wilcox, assistant bookkeeper, each of whom made ...
— The Story of Cole Younger, by Himself • Cole Younger
... a book in which the teller or cashier credits him on the left-hand side with the amount deposited. Other deposits are treated in the same way, and at proper times, if interest is allowed, it is ...
— Business Hints for Men and Women • Alfred Rochefort Calhoun
... much, for he was not only a good story-teller, but he was willing to listen to my stories, and when I found he wanted to hire a horse and sleigh to go to the house of his married sister, with whom he intended to spend Christmas, and that his sister lived on Upper Hill turnpike, on which road the Collingwood house ...
— The Magic Egg and Other Stories • Frank Stockton
... Lanza, wished for him as well. The description of the meeting of the doctors round the sick child's bed, of their quotations from Hippocrates, of the uncertainty and helplessness of the orthodox practitioners, and of the ready resource of the free-lance—who happens also to be the teller of the story—is a richly typical one.[75] "We, the physicians and the father of the child, met about seven in the morning, and Della Croce made a few general observations on death, for he knew that Sfondrato was a sensible man, and he himself was both honoured ...
— Jerome Cardan - A Biographical Study • William George Waters
... drawn out the papers he required for his proposed transaction, set out for the Bourse; while I, disguised as one of his serving-men, accompanied Jacob to the abode of the old fortune-teller. Flemish being my native tongue, it must be remembered I had no difficulty in passing for the character I had assumed; and I thought that, probably, the Dame Barbara ...
— The Golden Grasshopper - A story of the days of Sir Thomas Gresham • W.H.G. Kingston
... praises Mr. Kipling as an artist when it is really Mr. Kipling as a propagandist who has moved him. The anti-Imperialist, on the other hand, is often led by detestation of Mr. Kipling's politics to deny even the palpable fact that Mr. Kipling is a very brilliant short-story teller. It is for the reviewer to raise himself above such prejudices and to discover what are Mr. Kipling's ideas apart from his art, and what is his art apart ...
— The Art of Letters • Robert Lynd
... at the same time if I was a good "story teller." This of course gave me an "inkling" as to the best means of getting in his good graces. During the evening I lost no time in arriving at a point in our conversation where I could relate a few of my latest stories, which pleased him greatly. He became so much interested in me and my business as ...
— Twenty Years of Hus'ling • J. P. Johnston
... more jocose or satirical character; and hence arose the term comedy, [Footnote: From the Greek ko'me, "a village," and o'de, "a song."] from the two Greek words signifying "village" and "song"—village-song. In the teller of mythological legends we find the first germ of dialogue, as the chorus soon came to assist him by occasional question and remark. This feature was introduced by Thespis, a native of Ica'ria, in 535 B.C., under whose direction, and that of Phryn'icus, his ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... chosen in order to secure a baseball team, or an athletic team. Select men of diverse gifts. One should know something about nature study, another about manual training, another a good story-teller, another a good athlete or baseball player, another a good swimmer, another a musician, etc. Always remember, however, that the chief qualification should be ...
— Camping For Boys • H.W. Gibson
... teller him?" asked the child. "He's ole Aunt Blue-Gum Tempy's Peruny Pearline's boy; an' Peruny Pearline," he continued enthusiastically, "she ain't no ord'nary nigger, her hair ain't got nare kink an' ...
— Miss Minerva and William Green Hill • Frances Boyd Calhoun
... Truth-Teller" could utter its lies, as a privileged publication, at the period of this narrative. Types still had a sanctity; and it is surprising how much they deceived, and how many were their dupes. The journal did not even take the ordinary pains ...
— The Crater • James Fenimore Cooper
... happy one. Prof. Stowe, who seemed so much like a myth to the general public, was a man of great learning and keen intelligence, unimaginative as he says himself, but richly endowed with "a certain broad humor and drollery." His son tells us that he was "an inimitable mimic and story-teller. No small proportion of Mrs. Stowe's success as a literary woman is to be attributed to him." The Sam Lawson stories are said to be a little more his than hers, being "told as they came from Mr. Stowe's lips with little or no alteration." For ...
— Daughters of the Puritans - A Group of Brief Biographies • Seth Curtis Beach
... derived from his nephew's letter, and though there was really no vacancy in the bank at the moment, Mr. Bowlsby lent himself to the illusion that he required a private secretary. A few weeks later a vacancy occurred unexpectedly, that of paying-teller—a position in which Lynde acquitted himself with so much quickness and accuracy, that when Mr. Trefethen, the assistant cashier, died in the December following, Lynde ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... also disclosed to me that, in establishing a branch in California, he was influenced by the apparent prosperity of Page, Bacon & Co., and further that he had received the principal data, on which he had founded the scheme, from B. R. Nisbet, who was then a teller in the firm of Page, Bacon & Co., of San Francisco; that he also was to be taken in as a partner, and was fully competent to manage all the details of the business; but, as Nisbet was comparatively young, ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... point at which the amassing of details is effective. On the other hand, the swiftness of the narrative of the Mariage de Roland, and the soldierly brevity of the Cimetiere d'Eylau, a piece not included in this volume, are alike admirable, and show Hugo at his best as a story-teller. ...
— La Legende des Siecles • Victor Hugo
... the house forsaken, and had already reached the end of the lane in their return, when they were accosted by an old woman, who gave them to understand, that if they had occasion for the advice of a fortune-teller, as she did suppose they had, from their stopping at the house where Dr. Grubble lived, she would conduct them to a person of much more eminence in that profession; at the same time she informed them, that the said Grubble had been lately sent to Bridewell; a circumstance ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... glasses of sweetened tea in the public room and a shake-down in a rough, unfurnished apartment over the stable; eatables have to be obtained elsewhere, but it matters little so long as they are obtainable somewhere. During the evening a Persian troubadour and story-teller entertains the patrons of the tchai-khan by singing ribaldish songs, twanging a tambourine-like instrument, and telling stories in a sing-song tone of voice. In deference to the mixed nationality ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... boaster, He the marvellous story-teller, He the traveller and the talker, He the friend of old Nokomis, Made a bow for Hiawatha; From a branch of ash he made it, From an oak-bough made the arrows, Tipped with flint, and winged with feathers, And the ...
— The Song Of Hiawatha • Henry W. Longfellow
... citizen of Heaven, and to your Heavenly Master must the account be rendered. There shall enter into Heaven nothing that maketh a lie. If our lives are not quite genuine and honest here, we are locking ourselves out of Heaven. Let us, as citizens of no mean city, keep aloof from the hypocrite, the teller or maker of a lie, and speak every man truth with his neighbour. Again, I think that as citizens of Heaven, we ought to take very good heed to our words. You know how our streets and lanes in this world are defiled and made hideous ...
— The Life of Duty, v. 2 - A year's plain sermons on the Gospels or Epistles • H. J. Wilmot-Buxton
... her tales with wonder and delight. Even Connie found dish-doing hours irresistible, and could invariably be found, face in her hands, both elbows on the table, gazing with passionate earnestness at the young story-teller. Now, some of Lark's stories were such weird and fearful things that they had seriously interfered with Connie's slumbers, and Prudence had sternly prohibited them. But this evening, just as she opened the kitchen door, she heard ...
— Prudence of the Parsonage • Ethel Hueston
... as fond of fairy stories as are any other children, and they are lucky in having a great number, for that famous story-teller, Hans Christian Andersen, was a Dane, and as the Danish language is very like the Norwegian, his stories were probably known in Norway long before they were known in England. But the Norwegians have plenty of other stories of their own, and they ...
— Peeps at Many Lands: Norway • A.F. Mockler-Ferryman
... over their racing handle-bars, and sprint for dear life. Returning safely to Abbeville, they would write hair-raising accounts of the dangers they had passed through to the motor-cycling papers. It is only right that I should here once and for all confess—there is no finer teller of tall stories ...
— Adventures of a Despatch Rider • W. H. L. Watson
... to Jericho!" growled the story-teller of the school. "Well, this is about two men who hired a room in a hotel. It was in the summer-time and the room was very hot. They opened the window on the court, but it didn't let in enough air. In the middle of the night one ...
— Dave Porter in the Far North - or, The Pluck of an American Schoolboy • Edward Stratemeyer
... army tempts him with opportunities for intrigue; but whether in the shape of Machiavelisms, miracles, or mutinies, he is forever making mischief. Whether as messenger, dancing-master, conjurer, fortune-teller, speculator, mountebank, politician, priest, or Sepoy, he is ever the same Asirvadam the Brahmin,—sleekest of lackeys, most servile of sycophants, expertest of tricksters, smoothest of hypocrites, coolest of liars, most insolent of beggars, most versatile of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... T. Washington, the teller of the tale which follows, Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation brought freedom when he was but three years old. But Mr. Washington's struggles, first for an education, later in behalf of his black brethren, have endowed him with understanding ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume III (of 6) - Orators and Reformers • Various
... the window in the moonlight, he told his tale. The moon lighted up his pale face as he told it, and gave rather a wild expression to his eyes, eager to find faith in me.—I have not much of the dramatic in me, I know; and I am rather a flat teller of stories on that account. I shall not, therefore, seeing there is no necessity for it, attempt to give the tale in his own words. But, indeed, when I think of it, they did not differ so much from the form ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald
... result!" exclaimed Josephine, whose curiosity was excited by the very diffidence of the fortune-teller. "Say what you see in my future life. I wish it, I order you ...
— The Empress Josephine • Louise Muhlbach
... "As a teller of short stories 'Q' is an author of infinite variety and charm unfailing. His invention is fertile in surprises, and his conceits are a ...
— Major Vigoureux • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... Poppy-seeds cooked in honey, and dried in square cakes.] with honey in the other world!) could tell a story wonderfully well. When he used to begin on a tale, you wouldn't stir from the spot all day, but keep on listening. He was no match for the story-teller of the present day, when he begins to lie, with a tongue as though he had had nothing to eat for three days, so that you snatch your cap and flee from the house. As I now recall it,—my old mother was alive then,—in the long winter evenings when the frost ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Russian • Various
... that time, having just completed his course of study for the ministry, but he was certainly a most successful entertainer. There was nothing he could not do. He was a painter of more than fair ability, a sweet singer, a poet, a mighty good story-teller—and we knew a good story-teller when we heard one—and he could play on any instrument from an organ to a jewsharp. Whatever he undertook he did well, and his range of accomplishment was amazing. As Miss Russell remarked his versatility ...
— My Friends at Brook Farm • John Van Der Zee Sears
... anecdote has also to true; it must be, in our proverbial phrase, "if not true, well invented." Even if exaggeration and humour contribute to give it a twist, the essence of parody is that it parodies—it must conform to the original even where it leaves it. A good story-teller will hardly tell the same story of Mr. Roosevelt and the Archbishop of Canterbury—unless it happens to be true, and then he will be cautious. "Truth," to quote another proverb, "is stranger than fiction"; because fiction has to go warily to be probable, and must be, more or less, conventional. ...
— The Jesus of History • T. R. Glover
... knew a fortune-teller who really believed in the science that he professed. He had learned, as a student of the old Chinese philosophy, to believe in divination long before he thought of practising it. During his youth he had been in the service of a wealthy daimyo, but subsequently, like thousands ...
— In Ghostly Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
... can equal the art of the Hopi story-teller, for the story is told with animation and with the zest that may inspire the narrator who looks into ...
— The Unwritten Literature of the Hopi • Hattie Greene Lockett
... fable-teller does, Saying in winter thou dost seek Flies, grubs, corn—thou dost never eat like us! —Corn! Couldst thou eat it, with thy beak? Thou hast thy fountain with ...
— Social Life in the Insect World • J. H. Fabre
... of a veteran shipmaster, one of the Inspectors, whom I should be most ungrateful not to mention, since scarcely a day passed that he did not stir me to laughter and admiration by his marvelous gifts as a story-teller. Could I have preserved the picturesque force of his style, and the humourous colouring which nature taught him how to throw over his descriptions, the result, I honestly believe, would have been something new in literature. Or I might readily have found a more ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... himself from the charge of the double tongue; perhaps he knew that the accusation was just enough, and he had no reason to tremble for his popularity on that score. He must have been a great liar, indeed, to have excelled or even equalled the most ordinary story-teller in the Comanche nation; for the mendacity of these Indians would have been a match for ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid
... his fortune told by a woman named Du Perehoir, who practised her trade secretly at Paris, and that she had predicted he would be soon drowned. I rated him soundly for indulging a curiosity so dangerous and so foolish. A few days after he set out for Amiens. He found another fortune-teller there, a man, who made the same prediction. In marching afterwards with the regiment of the King to join the army, he wished to water his horse in the Escaut, and was drowned there, in the presence of the whole regiment, without it being possible to give him any aid. I felt extreme ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... the story-teller is advised not to commit it to memory. Such a method is apt to produce a wooden or glib manner of presentation. It is better for her to read the story over and over again until its plot, imagery, style, and vocabulary become ...
— Good Stories For Great Holidays - Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the - Children's Own Reading • Frances Jenkins Olcott
... a pleasant lingering one. They talked of people in Edinburgh with whom they had some kind of a mutual acquaintance, and Mistress Brodie did the most of the talking. She was a charming story-teller, and she knew all the good stories about the University and its great professors. This day she spent the time illustrating John Stuart Blackie taking his ease in a dressing gown and an old straw hat. She made you see the man, and Ian ...
— An Orkney Maid • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... "sivin childher," had a sister Tilly, who emigrated to Philadelphia, started as a greenhorn at $2 a week, learned to cook and bake and wash, all American fashion, and before a year was gone had money enough laid up to send for the teller of the story. The two gradually brought over the whole family, and Joseph owns a big flour store and Phil is a broker, while his son is in politics and the city council, and his daughter Ann (she ...
— Aliens or Americans? • Howard B. Grose
... Professor Steiner has the story-teller's knack and uses his art with consummate skill in this collection, where will be found dramatic tragedy and profound pathos in strong contrast with keen humor and brilliant wit, all permeated by an uncompromising optimism. No man has probed the heart of the immigrant more deeply, and his interpretation ...
— A Girl's Student Days and After • Jeannette Marks
... the polite General, while Paul noted how little the author of "Shadowmere" minded, as he phrased it to himself, when addressed as a celebrated story-teller. The young man had an idea he should never get used to that; it would always make him uncomfortable—from the suspicion that people would think they had to—and he would want to prevent it. Evidently his great colleague had toughened and hardened—had ...
— The Lesson of the Master • Henry James
... aghast at her appearance. She had followed so quickly upon Stamfordham's steps that he was still standing looking round him at his strange surroundings, Lady Adela facing him with a smile of welcome. The apparatus of the fortune-teller apparently consisted in certain cabalistic properties—wands, dials with signs upon them, and the like—arranged round a table. Stamfordham spoke first. He was absolutely convinced that Rachel had come to appeal to him for mercy, ...
— The Arbiter - A Novel • Lady F. E. E. Bell
... had in Madame Marve a perfect wife for a showman. In addition to her value as the Egyptian Mystic, a wonder-worker, and teller of for tunes, she was chief cook and housekeeper for the whole caravan, but she had a flirtatious disposition, and the attentions Nicholas Crips offered in his unprofessional moments were received in a spirit of frivolous appreciation that disturbed ...
— The Missing Link • Edward Dyson
... was a fortune-teller, so people often went to him to inquire what was to happen to them. One day, shortly after he became king, Attila went to the cave to get ...
— Famous Men of the Middle Ages • John H. Haaren
... quarrel between the father and the "baby" of his family, of the hasty leaving home of the boy, of the meagre news of his early marriage, and lastly of the years that were empty of tidings. These Polly was able to fill up in part, when the story-teller turned listener, with interest almost as great ...
— Polly of Lady Gay Cottage • Emma C. Dowd
... Englishman has gone confidently to the bank on which it was drawn with a cheque, the signature to which he knew to be good, and has expected to have the money paid over the counter to him without a word. All that the English paying teller needs to be satisfied of is that the signature of the drawer is genuine and that there is money enough to the credit of the account to meet the cheque. But the Englishman in the strange American bank finds that the document in his hands ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson
... this same spirit that he attended the coroner's inquest, which was held in the town hall. Over the deliberations, which were, at best, rather informal, Coroner Billy Teller presided. ...
— The Golf Course Mystery • Chester K. Steele
... a fortune-teller not to be able to foresee that his own destiny would be tragical if he waited the arrival of the man with the silver greyhound upon his sleeve. He made, as we say, a moonlight flitting, and was nowhere to be seen or heard of. Some noise there was about papers or letters ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... ballots, and forbade any one to cast more than twelve, whether for or against a candidate or in blank. If a man held any one of his slips in reserve for a more satisfactory candidate, he had none for the teller, and thus the secrecy of the ballot was almost destroyed. New candidates or those not up for reelection, whose names appeared at the foot of the list, whatever the number of votes received, were sometimes kept waiting years for an election, until those above ...
— The Development of Religious Liberty in Connecticut • M. Louise Greene, Ph. D.
... man, the strong man, and the man of supreme fortitude; the honest man, the truthful king, and the woman that knows how to wait for the man she loves; voices in the air, signs in the sky—in short, everything. Even poor old Aesop wasn't in time to grasp a reputation for originality. The modern story-teller may combine, extend, and elaborate; but all opportunity for a display of invention seems to ...
— A Strange Discovery • Charles Romyn Dake
... made the discovery so slowly and so recently that he was animated by something like a convert's zeal. Beginning his narrative quietly, in a reminiscent vein, with intervals in which he lapsed altogether into meditation, he was presently fired with all the animation in a story-teller when he perceives he is holding his hearer spellbound. As a matter of fact, he was moved not so much by the desire of convincing Conquest of Miriam Strange's nobility, as by the impulse to do her justice, once in his life at least, ...
— The Wild Olive • Basil King
... The teller of that story who was on the spot at the time, says, that although having a great desire for the dollar, Tad did murmur a few times after this, and when they were ready to go back to Washington, Lincoln held up a dollar bill ...
— Ten Boys from History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... lives of dead heroes. We need to be quite as much concerned about coming heroes. We must excite the imagination of the young and prejudice the public mind through educational channels, in favor of sincere and true leaders. The opportunity of the story teller is large, in this work, and we need also to develop to a very high degree of excellence the educational newspaper. One of our great needs in education in this country is a daily newspaper for all schools—one that shall be ...
— The Psychology of Nations - A Contribution to the Philosophy of History • G.E. Partridge
... according to the taste of his customers. Hardly has dessert ended when an elderly Mahomedan in shabby garb falls out of the group and clearing his throat to attract attention commences to recite a flowery prelude in verse. He is the "Dastan-Shah," own brother (professionally) of the "Sammar" or story-teller of Arabia and the "Shayir" of Persia and Cairo: and his stories, which he delivers in a quaint sing-song fashion, richly interspersed with quotations from the poets of Persia, are usually culled from the immortal ...
— By-Ways of Bombay • S. M. Edwardes, C.V.O.
... What put it into your head to choose the old story-teller for a model? You look the part to perfection, it is true; but what is that thing you have got ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... must ask of those wiser than I, for I am only the story-teller, sitting in the shadow of the market-place, passing on the tale that comes to my ears. But I can remind you that May Eve is one of the most bewitched and bewitching times of the whole year—reason enough to account for any number ...
— The Primrose Ring • Ruth Sawyer
... brought half a dozen of them at the same time to the post-office or the country store, he was able, according to his years, to add his full share to the gaiety of the company. By reason of his reading and his excellent memory, he soon became the best story-teller among his companions; and even the slight training gained from his studies greatly broadened and strengthened the strong reasoning faculty with which he had been gifted by nature. His wit might be mischievous, but it was never malicious, and his nonsense ...
— The Boys' Life of Abraham Lincoln • Helen Nicolay
... boyhood; in his present humiliation his presence jarred upon him. He would have slipped away, but to do so he would have had to pass before the counter again, and Hooker, with the self-consciousness of a story-teller, had an eye on his audience. Brant, with a palm-leaf fan before his face, was ...
— Clarence • Bret Harte
... would tell domestic affairs not proper for common people to know." I then said my reason for not seeing her before was, that the four times I had sent messengers to make an appointment for the following day, they had been repulsed from her doors. This she would not believe, but called me a story-teller in very coarse language, until the men who had been sent were pointed out to her, ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... don't mind telling you about that, youngster, though I ain't much of a story-teller. You just wait till I get my pipe filled, and I'll spin a yarn for you, as they used to say ...
— The Young Trail Hunters • Samuel Woodworth Cozzens
... his friends halted the narrative there. Before the teller of the tale went on, Lance pulled his cap down over his eyes, got up and walked out and stood on ...
— Rim o' the World • B. M. Bower
... discovered to be totally irregular. The statement now about to be given is derived from an honourable gentleman, a member of Congress from the state of New-York during the administration of Mr. Jefferson, and yet living in this state. He says that Mr. Wells (a teller on the part of the Senate) informed him that the envelope was blank; that the return of the votes was not authenticated by the signatures of the electors, or any of them, either on the outside or the inside of the envelope, or in any other manner; that it merely stated ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... very costly dinners at the restaurants, he will be severe in demanding domestic economies. This is what kills tens of thousands of women—attempting to make five dollars do the work of seven. How the bills come in! The woman is the banker of the household; she is the president, the cashier, the teller, the discount clerk; and there is a panic every few weeks! This thirty years' war against high prices, this perpetual study of economics, this life-long attempt to keep the outgoes less than the income, exhausts millions ...
— The Wedding Ring - A Series of Discourses for Husbands and Wives and Those - Contemplating Matrimony • T. De Witt Talmage
... its eastern corner, and in one hour from Rieha, reached the village of Kefr Lata [Arabic]. We were hospitably received at the house of the Sheikh of Kefr Lata, although his women only were at home. A wondering story-teller amused us in the evening with chanting the Bedouin history of the Beni Helal. Kefr Lata belongs to Ibn Szeyaf, one of the first families ...
— Travels in Syria and the Holy Land • John Burckhardt
... it had become a lucrative trade to flatter them in order to be mentioned in their will; by having no children one could surround himself with a crowd of flatterers. "In the city," says a Roman story-teller, "all men divide themselves into two classes, those who fish, and those who are angled for." "Losing his children augments the influence of ...
— History Of Ancient Civilization • Charles Seignobos
... "Story-teller" and Eunice's dark eyes assumed the look of a roguish little girl. "You can't fool me, Alvord; now tell me, and I'll invite you in to ...
— Raspberry Jam • Carolyn Wells
... being profitably worked upon. Here was a vast continent, the particular concern of the English, where all kinds of interesting work was being done, where stories grew too thickly for counting, and where there was, ready to the teller's eye, a richness and diversity of setting which beggared the most eager penmanship. Moreover, this continent was virtually untouched in the popular literature of the day. Naturally Mr Kipling made full use of his opportunity. He did not write of India because India was essential to ...
— Rudyard Kipling • John Palmer
... who was a church-member and had just come from the top of the tower, visited this fortune teller, and by her descriptions of his happy future on the Broad Highway he was induced to ...
— Mr. World and Miss Church-Member • W. S. Harris
... the house, with the superintendent as paying teller. He had to be consulted, particularly as it was past banking hours; but the affair having been succinctly put before him by a committee, of which Lem and Gimpy and Stretch were the talking members, he readily consented to a reopening of business for a scrutiny ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis
... The treatment of the supernatural may seem, to Occidental readers, rather daring and irreverent, but it is perfectly in harmony with the Russian peasant's anthropomorphic conception of Deity, and should be taken with due allowance for the educational limitations of the story-teller and his auditors. The Russian muzhik often brings God and the angels into his folk-tales, and does so without the least idea of treating them disrespectfully. He makes them talk in his own language because he ...
— Folk-Tales of Napoleon - The Napoleon of the People; Napoleonder • Honore de Balzac and Alexander Amphiteatrof
... thoroughness, indeed, is the criticism we should make on his work as a biography. Even as a history, the reader might complain that it confuses by the multiplicity of its details, while it wearies by want of continuity. Mr. Masson lacks the skill of an accomplished story-teller. A fact is to him a fact, never mind how unessential, and he misses the breadth of truth in his devotion to accuracy. The very order of his title-page, "The Life of Milton, narrated in Connection with the Political, ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell
... Yes, friendly in heart and act, when he could be prevailed on to act. But his rare virtues and gifts were rendered useless, extinguished, by the killing vice of procrastination. He never listened to a story that he did not sympathize with the teller of it. The request must be a wild one indeed which he did not feel an instant desire to grant. He would promise with the most sincere and honest intentions to perform; but, hurried away by new petitioners, or projects ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... by your mother's blessing, therefore you have been blest. You gave food to the raven when it hungered, you were true to the promise you had made to me, and did not suffer yourself to be turned aside by vain shows. You were skilled to perceive that the boy who tempted you to leave the temple was a teller of false tales, and took with a grateful heart what the poor had to offer you. Last of all, difficulties gave you courage, ...
— The Orange Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... and Una en otra and Elia o la Espana treinta anos ha are excellent specimens of picturesque narration. It would be difficult to maintain that Fernan Caballero was a great literary artist, but it is certain that she was a born teller of stories and that she has a graceful style very suitable to her purpose. She came into Spain at a most happy moment, before the new order had perceptibly disturbed the old, and she brought to bear not alone a fine natural gift of observation, but a freshness of vision, undulled ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... a fortune-teller you are, but the joke will be on you if it should prove not to have been ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Alaska - The Gold Diggers of Taku Pass • Frank Gee Patchin
... Christianity—that all that is good comes from God; but miracles, inspiration, everything immediately coming from God, they wholly disbelieve. Among this class are Kant, Steinbart, Krug, as philosophers; and, as divines, W. A. Teller, Loeffler, Thiess, Henke, J. E. C. Schmidt, De Wette, Paulus, Wegscheider, and Roehr. The fourth class go a little higher. They consider the Bible and Christianity as a divine revelation in a ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst
... dollars was written in the first check Thomas A. Edison ever received. With throbbing heart and trembling fingers he took it to the bank and handed it in to the paying teller, who looked at it disapprovingly and passed it back, saying something the young inventor could not hear because of his deafness. Thinking he had been cheated, Edison went out of the bank, as he said, 'to let ...
— Radio Boys Cronies • Wayne Whipple and S. F. Aaron
... his powers as story-teller, to suit his exacting audience, and was making his bear work havoc upon poor Tommy in a way captivating to all, even Joel, when, "Well, I declare," sounded Mrs. Pepper's cheery voice coming in upon ...
— Five Little Peppers And How They Grew • Margaret Sidney
... breath, and the story-teller, watching her face, saw that she was stirred with an emotion which he put down, with a slight surprise, to ...
— The Militants - Stories of Some Parsons, Soldiers, and Other Fighters in the World • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... prophet, prophesier, seer, soothsayer, augur, fortune teller, crystal gazer^, witch, geomancer^, aruspex^; aruspice^, haruspice^; haruspex; astrologer, star gazer^; Sibyl; Python, Pythoness^; Pythia; Pythian oracle, Delphian oracle; Monitor, Sphinx, Tiresias, Cassandra^, Sibylline leaves; Zadkiel, Old Moore; sorcerer &c 994; interpreter, &c 524. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... was born, and I have often heard her say that the greatest treat that could be given her and her brother and sister was an afternoon in the housekeeper's room at Crewe, for Mrs. Dickens was a splendid story-teller, and used to love to gather the children round her and tell them fairy stories. And so it was only natural that my mother should feel a special interest in Charles Dickens, when she came to know him in after life. I believe that the very last time that ...
— The Idler Magazine, Vol III. May 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... may either take place by overlooking instances, or by overlooking some of the circumstances of a given instance. If we were to conclude that a fortune-teller was a true prophet, from not adverting to the cases in which his predictions had been falsified by the event, this would be non-observation of instances; but if we overlooked or remained ignorant of the fact ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... with great charm, when the emotion of the subject is quiet, recollective, or deep. The descriptions of Nature in the poem are some of the most vivid and true in Browning's work. The sketches of animal life—so natural on the lips of the teller of the story—are done from the keen observation of a huntsman, and with his love for the animals he has fed, followed and slain. And, through it all, there breathes the romantic passion—to be out of the world of custom and commonplace, set free to ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke
... happily. He had much feeling for symbol, and, like the old architects, would fill all things, pretty or ugly, with meaning. When one reads these stories, one does not feel as if it were the writer's vocation to be a story-teller, but as if he were using the story as a philosophical toy. And it was fortunate for him that he fell on an age of periodicals, a class of works which just suited his genius. He and the modern development of periodical ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... from the "opening" luncheon in its richly decorated directors' rooms, and it was said that once a homely would-be depositor from One Horse Gulch was so cowed by its magnificence that his heart failed him at the last moment, and mumbling an apology to the elegant receiving teller, fled with his greasy chamois pouch of gold-dust to deposit his treasure in the dingy Mint around the corner. Perhaps there was something of this feeling, mingled with a certain simple-minded fascination, in the hesitation of ...
— The Three Partners • Bret Harte
... after the fashion of a story-teller who had-reached a crisis in his tale, "she asked Max here if he wouldn't be willing to undertake a trip to the mountains with several of his good chums, meaning us, fellows, to try and locate the missing Roland, and bring back some encouraging news; for the good old soul is in great fear that ...
— At Whispering Pine Lodge • Lawrence J. Leslie
... a wooden horse and went gravely round and round with a stick in his hand, trying to knock off a ring from the top of a pole in the middle. Here, also, was a band in a gaily decorated orchestra; a circular area roped off for dancers; a mysterious tent with a fortune-teller inside; a lottery-stall resplendent with vases and knick-knacks, which nobody was ever known to win; in short, all kinds of attractions, stale enough, no doubt, to my companions, but sufficiently novel and ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards
... farmer had given up cultivating, and let things just go to rack and ruin. I was never up there myself, but from what I've heard my father say, I rather think that must be the Hoskins place. They say he consulted some fortune teller a couple of years ago, who told him he would some day discover a gold mine on his property that would make him a millionaire; and ever since the farmer has spent about all his time digging here and there, but up to now without any ...
— The Aeroplane Boys Flight - A Hydroplane Roundup • John Luther Langworthy
... of them with the brilliance of the story-teller himself. The wilderness picture—with the cowardly horse sitting in the mud—was again before his eyes; and none of the hardship of the journey could cost him his joy in it. Bill Bronson was no longer just a dim form on the twilight hilltop. The lamplight showed him plain. In this circle ...
— The Snowshoe Trail • Edison Marshall
... him, by painting the terrible fate that would befall them if they failed to kill the white stranger, who had insulted their gods; and they predicted hosts of calamities that were to happen, in consequence of their having allowed the teller of lies to work ...
— The Little Savage • Captain Frederick Marryat
... I presume now, the college youth harkened to inspired voices. Sir Walter Scott belonged to a previous generation. Having held the close attention of a delighted world as the most successful story-teller of his own or any preceding period, he had passed off the stage; but only a short twenty years before. Other voices no less inspired had followed; and, living, spoke to us. Perhaps my scheme to-day is best expressed ...
— 'Tis Sixty Years Since • Charles Francis Adams
... hosses. Let me put in a word edgeways, Captain Danvers—'scuse me, I mean colonel. You spoke of Andy Jackson. He's not my stripe—I'm a Federalist yist'day, to-day and forever—but Old Hickory is a truth teller. What did Jackson say? I give you his upside dixit, word for word, ex litteratum, as they say. Andrew Jackson says, says he, 'Whatever may have been the project of Burr, James Wilkinson has went hand in hand ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... have my seat, madam, there's plenty of room on the strap. Wonder why the pavement on Chestnut Street is the slipperiest in the world? Always fall down just in front of our bank; most embarrassing; hope the paying teller doesn't see us. Very annoying to lose our balance just there. Awfully nice little girl in there who balances the books. Has a kind heart. The countless gold of a merry heart, as William Blake said. She looks awfully downcast when our balance ...
— Pipefuls • Christopher Morley
... takes the reader on that famous expedition from the arrival of Major Clarke's force at Corn Island, until Kaskaskia was captured. He relates that part of Simon Kenton's life history which is not usually touched upon either by the historian or the story teller. This is one of the most entertaining books for young people which ...
— Dick, Marjorie and Fidge - A Search for the Wonderful Dodo • G. E. Farrow
... shall make you a full scenario as soon as the Emigrant is done. (4) Emigrant. He shall be sent off next week. (5) Stories. You need not be alarmed that I am going to imitate Meredith. You know I was a story-teller ingrain; did not that reassure you? The Vendetta, which falls next to be finished, is not entirely pleasant. But it has points. The Forest State or The Greenwood State: A Romance, is another pair of shoes. It is my old Semiramis, our half-seen Duke and Duchess, which suddenly ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... account, Gregory asked me if that sounded sentimental. I said no, and thereupon he actually tried to apologize to me as though I were a professional story-teller, for having had so few deep feelings in the moments where the romancists are supposed to place them. I told him what I had once seen a mechanic do on a steep, slated roof nearly a hundred feet from the pavement. ...
— Strong Hearts • George W. Cable
... Where the squirrels hid their acorns, How the reindeer ran so swiftly, 155 Why the rabbit was so timid, Talked with them whene'er he met them, Called them "Hiawatha's Brothers." Then Iagoo, the great boaster, He the marvellous story-teller, 160 He the traveller and the talker, He the friend of old Nokomis, Made a bow for Hiawatha; From a branch of ash he made it, From an oak-bough made the arrows, 165 Tipped with flint, and winged with feathers, And the cord he made of deer-skin. Then he said to ...
— The Song of Hiawatha - An Epic Poem • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... of good stories. He was observant, truthful, and kindly—perhaps the chief requisites in a good story-teller. Occasionally he used newspaper phrases, conscientiously learned in his efforts at self-instruction, but when he talked naturally he was always worth listening to. Never having had any schooling to speak of, he had, almost from the time he first ran ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... this event that first gave the people of old Russia a place on the page of history. Herodotus, the charming old historian and story-teller, wrote down for us all he could learn about them, though what he says has probably as much ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 8 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... seasons, and the characters of the neighbouring lairds. Politics proper I never heard. During the whole season a newspaper never once entered the barrack door. At times a song or story secured the attention of the whole barrack; and there was in especial one story-teller whose powers of commanding attention were very great. He was a middle-aged Highlander, not very skilful as a workman, and but indifferently provided with English; and as there usually attaches a nickname to persons in the humbler ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... distinction." Yet M. Funck-Brentano tells us that in Mazarin's time "valets mixed up with royal plots" were kept in the Bastille. Again, in 1701, in this "noble prison," the Mask was turned out of his room to make place for a female fortune-teller, and was obliged to chum with a profligate valet of nineteen, and a "beggarly" bad patriot, who "blamed the conduct of France, and approved that of other nations, especially the Dutch." M. Funck-Brentano himself ...
— The Lock and Key Library/Real Life #2 • Julian Hawthorne
... the old manse at Concord. It was a most fortunate step; his wife proved a real inspiration, and in the months that followed, he wrote the second series of "Twice-Told Tales," and "Mosses from an Old Manse," which mark the culmination of his genius as a teller of tales. ...
— American Men of Mind • Burton E. Stevenson
... it happens, very likely, that such boys and girls have to leave home, and establish themselves at one or another new home, where more is expected of them in a social way. Here is Stephen, who has gone through the High School, and has now gone over to New Altona to be the second teller in the Third National Bank there. Stephen's father was in college with Mr. Brannan, who was quite a leading man in New Altona. Madam Chenevard is a sister of Mrs. Schuyler, with whom Stephen's mother worked five years on the Sanitary Commission. All the bank officers ...
— How To Do It • Edward Everett Hale
... career of such men, it will be found that many of them united several or all of the functions just mentioned; that the alchymist was a fortune-teller, or a necromancer — that he pretended to cure all maladies by touch or charm, and to work miracles of every kind. In the dark and early ages of European history, this is more especially the case. Even as we advance to more recent periods, we shall find great difficulty ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... antecedents they arose. If they started at once from the middle of things, they made their story, as it unfolded itself, explain, by more or less skilful devices, all that needed to be known about their beginnings. They did not think of rules of art. They did of themselves naturally what a good story-teller does, to make himself intelligible and interesting; and it is not easy to be interesting, unless the parts of the story are in ...
— Spenser - (English Men of Letters Series) • R. W. Church
... Montgomery loves Grace, when he is himself and not at the card table, but what chance have they to form a union of any solidity and permanence? Billy's nephew, Clive Harvey, has always loved Bessie Thornton, but he is teller in the Goodloets bank and almost never sees her. He is one of the stewards in the Harpeth Jaguar's church, and the suffering on his slim young face hurts me like a blow every time I meet him. What's going to satisfy him, no matter what ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... the liberty I am taking, on account of its object. I represent the public, which is ever anxious to obtain the earliest information on all matters of general concernment, and I feel emboldened by duty, to introduce myself—Colonel Positive of the Federal Truth Teller, a journal that your honoured father once did us the favour to take—we have this moment heard of the atrocities committed on you, Captain Wallingford, by 'a brigand of a French piratical, picarooning, plundering ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper
... story teller: Hawthorne. Wonder book. Hawthorne. Tanglewood tales. Kingsley. Heroes, or, Greek fairy tales ...
— Lists of Stories and Programs for Story Hours • Various
... explanation. By dint of questioning, Margaret extracted from her the horrible fact that Betty Barnes, having been induced by a gypsy fortune-teller to lend the latter her husband's Sunday clothes, on promise of having them faithfully returned on the Saturday night before Goodman Barnes should have missed them, became alarmed by their non-appearance, and her consequent dread of her husband's anger, and as, according to one of the ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... 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 fell down ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various
... which my mother visited when a girl, there came a celebrated fortune-teller, and led by curiosity, my mother and my aunt one day made two of the crowd that thronged the ...
— Last of the Great Scouts - The Life Story of William F. Cody ["Buffalo Bill"] • Helen Cody Wetmore
... and spent long hours in conference with his personal friend, the abbot. Even old Mata, abandoning for the moment her Protestantism and reverting to the yearning (never entirely stifled) for mystic practises, went to an old charlatan of a fortune-teller, and purchased various charms and powders for driving the demons from the unconscious Tatsu. Ume-ko soon discovered this, and the fear that Tatsu would be poisoned added to a ...
— The Dragon Painter • Mary McNeil Fenollosa
... saw things quite so badly mixed up as they are in this country," said Rodney, when the camp and its occupants had been left out of sight. "And neither did I dream that you were such an expert story-teller. Suppose I had said or done something to arouse the suspicions of the men we have just left; where would ...
— Rodney The Partisan • Harry Castlemon
... her best moments. She took his fancy, seemed to him a pretty little saint; and so far did he believe in her enlightenment from above, as to speak to her thoughtlessly of all his affairs, his interests, his future doings, consulting her as he would have consulted a teller of fortunes. ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet
... of the Princess Taik and of the virtuous youth occupies all the energies of an agile story-teller for seven weeks," replied Kai Lung, not entirely gladdened that she should deem him capable of offering so meagre an entertainment as that she indicated. "There is a much-flattened version which may be compressed within the narrow limits of a single day and night, but ...
— Kai Lung's Golden Hours • Ernest Bramah
... it was a Crime deserving the Doom of Death, since it inferred the disowning of Jehovah's Supremacy—Other Texts of Scripture, in like manner, refer to something corresponding more with a Fortune-teller or Divining Woman than what is now called a Witch—Example of the Witch of Endor—Account of her Meeting with Saul—Supposed by some a mere Impostor—By others, a Sorceress powerful enough to raise the Spirit of the Prophet by her own Art—Difficulties attending ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott
... overthrow of love and feeling, she bravely tried to pick up the threads of the old intellectual pleasures. And both Ferrier and Chide, two of the ablest men of their generation, were never tired of helping her thus to recover herself. Chide was an admirable story-teller; and his mere daily life had stored him with tales, humorous and grim; while Ferrier talked history and poetry, as they strolled about Siena or Perugia; and, as he sat at night among the letters of the day, had a score of interesting ...
— The Testing of Diana Mallory • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Kingsley the poet, preacher, and reformer, with Kingsley the laughing, genial teller of stories who never cherished a hobby in his life, would seem to be as superfluous on general grounds as it is premature in respect of the only possible question as to which of them is likely to ...
— Australian Writers • Desmond Byrne
... not curiously, but with a kind of unwilling impatience. The man seemed to impress him in spite of himself, in spite of disgust at the stories and dislike of the teller. Once or twice he laughed, and then General Ratoneau gave him a stare, as if just reminded of his existence, and went on to some further ...
— Angelot - A Story of the First Empire • Eleanor Price
... the mournfulness, the bravery and baseness of Oriental life are here: its pictures of the three great Arab passions—love, war, and fancy—entitle it to be called 'Blood, Musk, and Hashish.' And still more, the genius of the story-teller quickens the dry bones of history, and by adding Fiction to Fact revives the dead past; the Caliphs and the Caliphate return to Baghdad and Cairo, whilst Asmodeus kindly removes the terrace-roof of every tenement and allows ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... thought of the particular lives in which the wider interest of the book (as I take it to be) is firmly lodged. From a huge emotion that reaches us through the youth exposed to it, the war is changed into an emotion of our own. It is rendered by the story-teller, on the whole, as a scene directly faced by himself, instead of being reflected in the experience of the rising generation. It is true that Tolstoy's good instinct guides him ever and again away from the mere telling of the story on his own authority; at high ...
— The Craft of Fiction • Percy Lubbock
... soon informed of the peculiar talent which gave him a prominent position. He was an inexhaustible teller of stories; and, added my informant, "he can drink as much beer as any ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie
... listeners ever derived a fraction of the amusement from his fabrications that he himself enjoyed. Paloma's spirit of contradiction was the only fly in his ointment; now that his daughter was old enough to "keep books" on him, much of the story-teller's joy was denied him. ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach
... ambition: so long as he could be on the stage, and take part in its life, his desires were satisfied. He lived an absolutely contented life, smoked infamous tobacco out of clay-pipes, and was in high repute amongst his intimates as a singer of jovial songs, and a teller of brisk theatrical anecdotes. There was not a spark of envy in his nature. He honoured the great actors, and was always ready to do all he could to smooth the path of any nervous youngster with excellent advice and cheerful ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, April 15, 1893 • Various
... went in the afternoon to Mr. John Teller's, to ascertain whether he had any good wine, and to purchase some for our voyage, and also some brandy. On arriving at his house, we found him a little cool; indeed, not as he was formerly. We inquired ...
— Journal of Jasper Danckaerts, 1679-1680 • Jasper Danckaerts
... the Giant Killer" is exactly the opposite to Shaw's idea. If it were not a tale of effort and triumph hardly earned it would not be called "Jack the Giant Killer." If it were a tale of the victory of natural advantages it would be called "Giant the Jack Killer." If the teller of fairy tales had merely wanted to urge that some beings are born stronger than others he would not have fallen back on elaborate tricks of weapon and costume for conquering an ogre. He would simply have let the ogre conquer. I will not speak of my ...
— George Bernard Shaw • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... on her lap, and clasped her hands together in preparation, and the girls watched her with approving eyes, for Mrs Maitland was a most satisfactory story-teller. She began at the beginning—the very smallest possible beginning—instead of halfway through the narrative, as other grown-up people had a habit of doing, and went straight through to the end, noticing every detail, and describing it in racy, ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... strove to reach? I have said that I do not think he was on the whole a good critic (for a man may be a good critic and a bad reviewer, though the reverse will hardly stand), and I have given my reasons. That he was neither a great, nor even a very good poet or tale-teller, I have no doubt whatever. But this leaves untouched the attraction of his miscellaneous work, and its suitableness for the purpose of recreation. For that purpose I think it to be among the very best work in all literature. Its unfailing ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... call waking dreams or castle-building recurring to the mind in this condition, and now believed to have a real existence." Thus, for example, one patient believed in the reality of the good luck previously predicted by a fortune-teller. Other writers on mental disease observe that it is a common thing for the monomaniac to cherish the delusion that he has actually gained the object of some previous ambition, or is undergoing ...
— Illusions - A Psychological Study • James Sully
... to slip by. No honeymoon should be shorter than that. It is meet that we should grant our quiddlers three and their excellent parent the supreme felicity of enjoying the period without being spied upon by a mercenary story-teller. But all interests, as well as all roads, lead to a common centre. The centre in this case was ...
— Her Weight in Gold • George Barr McCutcheon
... of the court asked casually whether any one had since visited the spot; and as it was near lunch-time some one else suggested that the court adjourn while an officer motor-cycled over and made inquiries. And I'm hanged," concluded the teller of the story, "if the officer didn't come back and report that the waggons were still there, had been there all the time, and were in good condition and under a guard. Piles of official correspondence had been written over the ...
— Pushed and the Return Push • George Herbert Fosdike Nichols, (AKA Quex)
... to madness by the faithlessness of Jean Armour, he rends himself in a whirlwind of passion, and seeks sympathy and solace in the love of Mary Campbell. What a situation for a novelist! This is just how the story-teller would have made his jilted hero act; sent him with bleeding heart to seek consolation in a new love. For novelists make a study of the vagaries of love, and know that hearts are caught ...
— Robert Burns - Famous Scots Series • Gabriel Setoun
... nearly all the most elaborate descriptions of attractive individuals it is the visible elements that are in most cases chiefly emphasized. Whether among the lowest savages or in the highest civilization, the poet and story-teller who seeks to describe an ideally lovely and desirable woman always insists mainly, and often exclusively, on those characters which appeal to the eye. The richly laden word beauty is a synthesis of complex impressions obtained ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... ineradicable. One among those instincts, so foolishly styled "superstition," runs in the blood of the populace, and tinges no less the intellects of better educated folk. More than one French statesman has been known to consult the fortune-teller's cards. For sceptical minds, astrology, in French, so oddly termed astrologie judiciare, is nothing more than a cunning device for making a profit out of one of the strongest of all the instincts of human nature—to wit, curiosity. ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac
... literary and social leaders of the eighteenth century was Mme. de Genlis, a prodigy in every respect, an amateur performer upon nearly every instrument, an authority on intellectual matters as well, a fine story teller, a consummate artist, entertainer, and general charmer. Authoress, governess of Louis-Philippe, councillor of Bonaparte, her success as a social leader established her reputation and places her in the file of great women, although ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme
... I distinctly recollect the desire I had of being able to know something about every pebble in front of the hall door—it was my earliest and only geological aspiration at that time. I was in those days a very great story-teller—for the pure pleasure of exciting attention and surprise. I stole fruit and hid it for these same motives, and injured trees by barking them for similar ends. I scarcely ever went out walking without ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin |
