"Story-teller" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... south-eastern room, where the sunshine comes in, warmly and brightly, through the better half of a winter's day. Eustace put his bundle of manuscript into my hands; and I skimmed through it pretty rapidly, trying to find out its merits and demerits by the touch of my fingers, as a veteran story-teller ought to know how ...
— Tanglewood Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... 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 ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid
... methods of testing a sentence for coherence. It must be corrected, and that vigorously and radically, for it is fatal to a good short story style. An instance of how much stress editors lay upon procuring only the "concentrated extract of the story-teller's art" may be found in a letter received by a young writer from the editor of a prominent publication: "We will pay $100 for your story as it is. If you can reduce it a third, we will pay you $150; ...
— Short Story Writing - A Practical Treatise on the Art of The Short Story • Charles Raymond Barrett
... friend of us all, who is found in all parts of all countries, who is immoderately fond of a funny story, and who, unfortunately, attempts to tell a funny story himself—one that he has been particularly delighted with. Well, he is not a story-teller, and especially he is not a funny story-teller. His funny stories, indeed, are oftentimes touchingly pathetic. But to such a story as he tells, being a good-natured man and kindly disposed, we have to listen, because we do not want to wound his feelings by telling him that ...
— Complete Works of James Whitcomb Riley • James Whitcomb Riley
... distributed into the members' boxes, to exchange such new stories as any of them might have acquired since they had last met. After modestly standing at the door for several days, Mr. Lincoln was reminded of a story, and by New Year's he was recognized as the champion story-teller of the Capitol. His favorite seat was at the left of the open fireplace, tilted back in his chair, with his long legs reaching over to the chimney jamb. He never told a story twice, but appeared to have an endless ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. VI., No. 6, May, 1896 • Various
... the street, dears. Some time, during the holidays, I may turn story-teller, if you wish it; but here we are at the ferry; now ...
— Little Folks Astray • Sophia May (Rebecca Sophia Clarke)
... dismissing the subject with airiness somewhat exaggerated, drew out his huge gilt snuffbox. The snow was now falling more thickly, drawing a white and fleecy veil between the two upon the road and the story-teller and his audience beneath the distant elm. "Are you for Williamsburgh?" demanded the Highlander, when he had somewhat abruptly declined to take snuff with Monsieur ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... lives, had been well taught under their father's influence; and the former, who had inherited much of his talent and poetical nature, had availed herself of every scanty opportunity of feeding her imagination by book or ballad, story-teller or minstrel; and the store of tales, songs, and fancies that she had accumulated were not only her own chief resource but that of her sisters, in the many long and dreary hours that they had to pass, unbrightened save by the inextinguishable buoyancy ...
— Two Penniless Princesses • Charlotte M. Yonge
... person who laughs internally, looking with half-shut eyes at the inquiring child. With the malicious delight old servants take in deceiving young ones, she encouraged the laughable simplicity of the girl. "Yes, Timea," in the important tone of a story-teller, "that is a wonderful sight. ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai
... beloved. "His society," writes Mr Deans, "was courted by the rich and the poor, the learned and the unlearned. In every company he was alike kind, affable, and unostentatious; as a companion, he was the most engaging of men; he was the best story-teller of his day." His power of humour was unbounded; he had a joke for every occasion, a bon-mot for every adventure. He had eminent power of satire when he chose to wield it; but he generally blended ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... germ of his next conception for a book arose out of this country rambling before the days of railroads. At the end of "The Seven Vagabonds," he represented himself as taking up the character of an itinerant story-teller on the impulse of the moment. To this he now returned, and proposed to write a series of tales on the thread of the adventures of this vagrant, and call it "The Story-Teller." The work, such as he here conceived it, exists only as a fragment, "Passages ...
— Nathaniel Hawthorne • George E. Woodberry
... vanished with that vicious switch of his tail, we have a little feeling of having been "sold,"—a feeling which great art never gives. But we are in the best of humor; for were we not warned all along against just this foible of curiosity, and is not the story-teller smiling inscrutably and advising us to be thankful that we at least still have our ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments • Anonymous
... drew upon 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 them, "if this ...
— Five Little Peppers And How They Grew • Margaret Sidney
... a world-famous story-teller of Danish birth, son of a poor shoemaker, born at Odense; was some time before he made his mark, was honoured at length by the esteem and friendship of the royal family, and by a national festival on his ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... comes o' ringin' t' fire-bell,' said he to himself; 'it were shame for it to be tellin' a lie, poor oud story-teller.' ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. II • Elizabeth Gaskell
... conduct complained of was that he had drifted into the habit of winding up every meal by taking out his false teeth and hurling them at his wife, which, you will allow, is not an action likely to occur to the imagination of the average story-teller. Take a pinch of snuff, Doctor, and acknowledge that I have scored over you in ...
— The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... applicant, with the least risk of unnecessary annoyance to his feelings, the "no" that was necessary. It is doubtless also the case that, as has happened to other men gifted with humour, Lincoln's reputation as a story-teller caused to be ascribed to him a great series of anecdotes and incidents of one kind or another, some of which would have been entirely outside of, and inconsistent with, his own standard and his own method. There ...
— Abraham Lincoln • George Haven Putnam
... Burgundian, gravely, "we cannot leave without seeing the hostess, and if we do not ask to kiss this famous wind-instrument, it is a out of respect for so good a story-teller." ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... occasion, found himself in the Oak Chair. "Very true," said the next man to the left. "Cuiridh an teanga snaim nach t-fhuasgail an fhiacaill"—(The tongue will tie a knot which the tooth cannot loosen). "Let some one give us a story." "Cha robh sgialach nach robh briagach"—(He who is a good story-teller is also a good retailer of lies), says Callum a Ghlinne, or Malcolm of the Glen, an excellent story-teller when he liked. "I'll give you a riddle though, and perhaps we may get a sgeulachd from the stranger, the gentleman, on my left," "An ...
— The Celtic Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 2, December 1875 • Various
... you are a story-teller and a little fool," cried Sylvie. "After what happened this morning do you suppose I can believe a word you say? You ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... said Athelney Jones, "You are a man to be humored, and we all know that you are a connoisseur of crime, but duty is duty, and I have gone rather far in doing what you and your friend asked me. I shall feel more at ease when we have our story-teller here safe under lock and key. The cab still waits, and there are two inspectors down-stairs. I am much obliged to you both for your assistance. Of course you will be wanted at the trial. ...
— The Sign of the Four • Arthur Conan Doyle
... because several of my intimate friends are in the guilt; and that is, the humour of taking snuff, and looking dirty about the mouth by way of ornament. My method is to dive to the bottom of a sore before I pretend to apply a remedy. For this reason, I sat by an eminent story-teller and politician who takes half an ounce in five seconds, and has mortgaged a pretty tenement near the town, merely to improve and dung his brains with this prolific powder. I observed this gentleman the other day in the midst of a story diverted from it by looking ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... of chicken broth, and piles of biscuits. Upon this, the pouter-pigeon lady bore off her small son to be fed, other mothers did the same, and the remaining children, at the lure of food, sidled off of their own accord, or sped wildly, whooping out promises to return. For the moment, the story-teller was alone. Stefan, seeing the Scot bearing down upon her with two cups of broth in his hand and purpose in his eye, wakened to the danger just in time. Throwing his cigarette overboard, he sprang lightly between ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale
... ideas is not obvious. One can hardly help being reminded of a certain great man's Rochester speech as commonly reported by the story-teller. "Rome in her proudest days never had a waterfall a hundred and fifty feet high! Greece in her palmiest days never had a waterfall a hundred and fifty feet high! Men of Rochester, go on! No people ever lost their liberty who had a waterfall ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... Gayther busied himself in making the "story-telling place" attractive he felt glad that there were others besides himself who liked to tell stories. There was such a thing as overworking a mine. He was that rare thing, a story-teller who is also a good listener. Moreover, John felt very diffident about telling one of his stories before the Master of the House, who was a man prone to speak his mind. Not that John disliked the Master of the House. Far from it. He, with the family, was pleased when the Master of the House ...
— John Gayther's Garden and the Stories Told Therein • Frank R. Stockton
... flashes of vulgarity. The bright colours of the bazaars dazzle one's eyes. The jaded, second-rate Anglo-Indians are in exquisite incongruity with their surroundings. The mere lack of style in the story-teller gives an odd journalistic realism to what he tells us. From the point of view of literature Mr. Kipling is a genius who drops his aspirates. From the point of view of life, he is a reporter who knows vulgarity better than any one has ever known it. Dickens knew its clothes and its comedy. ...
— Selected Prose of Oscar Wilde - with a Preface by Robert Ross • Oscar Wilde
... which Lincoln possessed of fitting language to thought is marked. It made him the matchless story-teller, and gave sublimity to his graver addresses. His thoroughness and accuracy were a source of wonder and delight to scholars. He had a masterful grasp of great subjects. He was able to look at events from all sides, so as to appreciate how they ...
— The Life of Abraham Lincoln • Henry Ketcham
... is a dangerous business. Our little daughter has such a passion for birds and beasts, that if she once finds out you are a story-teller, she won't let you ...
— Minnie's Pet Parrot • Madeline Leslie
... direct than that which is portrayed in the drama; for there the poet does not impersonate the agents in the story, but describes them. His description is the first thing which we get; we get the action only indirectly through that. Hence the story-teller himself—his manner of telling, his reactions to what he tells, his sympathy, humor, and intelligence—are part of what he expresses. He himself is partly theme. No matter how hard he may try to do so, ...
— The Principles Of Aesthetics • Dewitt H. Parker
... said the story-teller, "for it is a long way off. Well, he had never felt them so objectionable as on one particular night, when the house being full of company, it was decided that the boys should sleep in 'barracks,' as they called it; that is, all ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book II - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various
... resident in London, but a Canadian by birth, education and sympathies, who is animated by a laudable ambition of giving form and vitality to the abundant materials that exist in the Dominion for the true story-teller. His works show great skill in the use of historic matter, more than ordinary power in the construction of a plot, and, above all, a literary finish which is not equalled by any Canadian writer ...
— Canada under British Rule 1760-1900 • John G. Bourinot
... is the legend of Solomon—not the Solomon of the Bible, but the much more wonderful Solomon of the Arabian story-teller. His power is said to have been in a certain seal ring, upon which the mystical name of Allah, or at least one of the ninety and nine mystical names, was engraved. When he chose to use this ring, ...
— Books and Habits from the Lectures of Lafcadio Hearn • Lafcadio Hearn
... more for the fruit than the flower, and that is no great loss per haps. In these new chapters, as in the old ones, I have invented nothing but my comments and one or two deceitful sentences that may keep some poor story-teller's commerce with the devil and his angels, or the like, from being known among his neighbours. I shall publish in a little while a big book about the commonwealth of faery, and shall try to make it systematical and learned enough to buy pardon ...
— The Celtic Twilight • W. B. Yeats
... while for the most part a story read is a story done with? Balzac is always good to re-read, but not Tolstoi: and I couple two of the giants. To take lesser artists, I would say that we can re-read Lavengro but not Romola. But what seems puzzling is that Hardy, who is above all a story-teller, and whose stories are of the kind that rouse suspense and satisfy it, can be read more than once, and never be quite without novelty. There is often, in his books, too much story, as in The Mayor of Casterbridge, ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... Froude was a born story-teller, with an irresistible propensity for making books. The fascination which, throughout his life, he had for women showed itself almost before he was out of his teens; and in this case the feeling was abundantly returned. Nevertheless he could, within a few years, publish the whole ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul
... is a great story-teller. Every tribe has its traditions, and the elderly men and women like to recount them, for they always find listeners. And odd stories they tell, too. Just listen to this, for example. It is a legend ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... a story-teller may take of his business, 'tis happy when he can think, "This book of mine will please such and such a friend," and may set that friend's name after the title page. For even if to please (as some are beginning to hold) should be no part of his aim, at least 'twill ...
— The Splendid Spur • Arthur T. Quiller Couch
... and nothing would induce him to go down on his knees and touch the ground with his forehead. In vain Meroo, the cook-boy, promised him sweets if he would only obey orders; in vain Old Faithful spoke of a ride on his old war-horse, and Roy, who was a most wonderful story-teller, promised him the best of all, Bopuluchi. In vain his mother, losing patience at such a terrible piece of indecorum, rushed at him and cuffed him soundly. He only howled ...
— The Adventures of Akbar • Flora Annie Steel
... imperfect but sufficient French. But as he told of one striking incident in the Rockies, he heard Jacques make a quick expression of dissent. He smiled. He had made some mistake in detail. Now, Jacques had been in his young days in Quebec the village story-teller; one who, by inheritance or competency, becomes semi- officially a raconteur for the parish; filling in winter evenings, nourishing summer afternoons, with tales, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... offer these "impressions" to any non-combatants they may interest. They must not look for the talents of a great story-teller, nor the thrilling interest of a novel. All they will find is the simple tale of an eyewitness, the unschooled effort of a soldier more apt with the sword than ...
— In the Field (1914-1915) - The Impressions of an Officer of Light Cavalry • Marcel Dupont
... serial in some Hawaiian newspaper are of necessity cut down to a summary narrative, sufficiently suggesting the flavor of the original, but not picturing fully the way in which the image is formed in the mind of the native story-teller. Foreigners and Hawaiians have expended much ingenuity in rendering the mele or chant with exactness,[5] but the much simpler if less important matter of putting into literal English a Hawaiian kaao has never ...
— The Hawaiian Romance Of Laieikawai • Anonymous
... classes, there are many which are obviously written under the impression that Dogberry's view of writing coming 'by nature' is especially true of the writing of fiction. Because I ventured to hint that the study of Greek was not essential to the calling of a story-teller, or of a contributor to the periodicals, or even of a journalist, these gentlemen seem to jump to the conclusion that the less they know of anything the better. Nay, some of them, discarding all theories (in the fashion that Mr. Carlyle's heroes are ...
— Some Private Views • James Payn
... a good reputation as a story-teller. It was pleasant to get an auditor who seemed to like to hear the stories which have got rather too commonplace to be worth telling over here. He had a great admiration for President Lincoln, and was eager to hear anything anybody had to ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... of the house gathered eagerly round to listen while he told his adventures. Many an accomplished story-teller has had less attentive listeners than those who hung on the lips of this humble carpenter's apprentice, transformed into a sort of hero by a sudden and unexpected accident. Out of doors it was already growing dark, as the cold November ...
— The Young Carpenters of Freiberg - A Tale of the Thirty Years' War • Anonymous
... telling a good story. But there are some people born with the gift of telling a good story better than others, and of telling it in such a way that a great many people can enjoy its flavor. Most of you are acquainted with some one who is a gifted story-teller, provided that he has an audience of not more than one or two people. And if you chance to live in the same house with such a man, I think you will find that, no matter how good his story may have been when you first heard it, it tends ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... be 20 sen a day, and the average to which it was brought by good work 30 sen. There were thirty or more girls who had deductions from their 20 sen. Apprentices were shown as working at a loss. Once or twice a month a story-teller came to entertain the girls and every fortnight a teacher gave them instruction. When I asked if a priest came I was told that "in this district the families are not so religious, so the girls are not so pious." Two doctors visited the factory, ...
— The Foundations of Japan • J.W. Robertson Scott
... Egypt, and Babylonia, and as an eye- witness describes with a never-failing vivacity and freshness the wonders of the different lands he had seen. Herodotus lived in a story-telling age, and he is himself an inimitable story-teller. To him we are indebted for a large part of the tales of antiquity—stories of men and events which we never tire of repeating. He was over-credulous, and was often imposed upon by his guides in Egypt and at Babylon; but he describes with great care and accuracy ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers
... desire of the novelist to try his fate as a dramatist. "To work successfully beneath a few grave, rigid laws," so Mr. James once declared, "is always a strong man's highest ideal of success." The novelist often fails as a dramatist, because he has the gift of the story-teller only, and not that of the play-maker, but more often still because the writing of fiction has provided him with no experience in working beneath any law other ...
— Inquiries and Opinions • Brander Matthews
... will find translations, condensations of whole books, of interminable romances, and a few sketches by the author embodying Japanese ideas, beliefs and superstitions. I have taken no more liberty, I think, with the native originals, than a modern story-teller of Tokio would himself take, were he talking in an American parlor, instead of at his bamboo-curtained stand in Yanagi Cho, (Willow Street,) in the ...
— Japanese Fairy World - Stories from the Wonder-Lore of Japan • William Elliot Griffis
... her head being towards it!" said the story-teller with the ruined head, giving a knowing wink on the sound ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... acquaintances and a certain following in the journalistic and artistic world, of which from the very moment of his entrance into journalism he never had been deprived. His immense fund of good humor, his powers as a story-teller, his admirable equipment as an entertainer, and the wholehearted way with which he threw himself into life and the pleasures of living attracted men to him and kept him the centre of the multitude that prized his fascinating ...
— A Little Book of Western Verse • Eugene Field
... cried, "you have had adventures! Or you are the biggest liar and the cleverest story-teller I ever met. If you invented that story you deserve help as a paragon among improvisators; if you had all those adventures you deserve help ten times over and you certainly need it. Somehow I believe you. I'll help you all I can. You ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... are described which hardly one of his contemporaries would have thought worth a line of notice, we will here only mention the boat-race on the Lake of Bolsena. We are not able to detect from what old letter-writer or story-teller the impulse was derived to which we owe such lifelike pictures. Indeed, the whole spiritual communion between antiquity and the Renaissance is full of ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... source of highest aesthetic delight for a period at least as long as decipherable traces of his handiwork remain on mouldering panel or crumbling wall. For great though he was as a poet, enthralling as a story-teller, splendid and majestic as a composer, he was in these qualities superior in degree only, to many of the masters who painted in various parts of Europe during the thousand years that intervened between the decline ...
— The Florentine Painters of the Renaissance - With An Index To Their Works • Bernhard Berenson
... Bonaventure Deschamps the hero, a school-examination the circumstance, and he, G. W., the accidental arbiter of destinies that hung upon its results. The big-waisted man had retired for the night, and half an eye could see that the story-teller had captivated the whole remaining audience. He was just at the end as Marguerite re-appeared at the door. The laugh suddenly ceased, and then all rose; it ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... grandfather the tale of The Talking Doll while they walked their horses through a favorite wood-road, Mr. Evringham keeping his eyes on the animated face of the story-teller. His own was entirely impassive, but he threw in an exclamation now and then ...
— Jewel's Story Book • Clara Louise Burnham
... the ruined town Benin. We ascended the mountain from Rieha, turned round 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 ...
— Travels in Syria and the Holy Land • John Burckhardt
... They were still unresolved when she was interrupted by the entrance of a blowsy Irish girl with a basket on her arm. The newcomer caused a momentary diversion, and when she had departed the old lady, who was evidently as intolerant of interruption as a professional story-teller, insisted on returning to the beginning of her complicated order, and weighing anew, with an anxious appeal to the butcher's arbitration, the relative advantages of pork and liver. But even her hesitations, ...
— Bunner Sisters • Edith Wharton
... listlessly towards the aunt's end of the carriage. Evidently her reputation as a story-teller did not ...
— Beasts and Super-Beasts • Saki
... sailor boy. He was on the Peacock when it was wrecked years ago near the mouth of the Columbia River. He lived for years in the Rocky Mountains, and was the first man to report to the United States government the Mormon preparations to resist it. He had a Cheyenne wife, was a good story-teller, and loved whiskey. ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... Yet, in spite of these unsociable habits, she was a great favourite with her school-fellows. She was always ready to try and do what they wished, though not sorry when they called her awkward, and left her out of their sports. Then, at night, she was an invaluable story-teller, frightening them almost out of their wits as they lay in bed. On one occasion the effect was such that she was led to scream out aloud, and Miss W—-, coming up stairs, found that one of the listeners had been seized with violent palpitations, in ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Volume 1 • Elizabeth Gaskell
... Nicolas, in which the same statements were made, supported by the same authorities,—which, in fact, corresponded so exactly with the communication of AEGROTUS, that I must believe either that your correspondent has seen that letter, or that both writers had their information from a common story-teller. ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 82, May 24, 1851 • Various
... again. That is the difficulty with the unprofessional story-teller: he yaws back and forth and can't keep in the wind; he drops his characters overboard when he hasn't any further use for them and drowns them; he forgets the coffee-pot and the frying-pan and all the other small essentials, and, if he carries a love ...
— The Man in Lower Ten • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... had been told in Babylon, Nineveh, and Damascus, and he might think of the people in those cities sitting in the calm evenings under the almond-trees on the banks of the Euphrates or the river Abana listening to the story-teller, who probably did his best to make ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin
... very good company, or would have been if, in the week he has been in the house, I had been in better mood to enjoy him. He's a capital story-teller." ...
— The Mayor's Wife • Anna Katharine Green
... tale 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 ...
— Good Stories For Great Holidays - Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the - Children's Own Reading • Frances Jenkins Olcott
... narrative style. History, poetry, and all forms of literature take their origin in the story-teller who once discharged all their functions. The so-called dry facts of science, well told, make a "story" of ...
— The Art of Lecturing - Revised Edition • Arthur M. (Arthur Morrow) Lewis
... more boys' books of equal merit with The Wreck of the Golden Fleece, more than one hitherto popular story-teller will have to ...
— The Dash for Khartoum - A Tale of Nile Expedition • George Alfred Henty
... churches and individuals took refuge when called upon to "come up to the help of the Lord against the mighty." But Dr. Bailey said he knew them personally, and that despite their public record, they were at heart anti-slavery, and that prudence alone dictated their course. Mrs. Stowe was a graphic story-teller, had been in Kentucky, taken in the situation and could describe the peculiar institution as no one else could. If he could only enlist her, the whole family would most likely follow into the abolition ranks; but the bounty money, alas, ...
— Half a Century • Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm
... and Professor Kelton were launched upon a fresh exchange of reminiscences and the return of Ware and Sylvia did not disturb them. It seemed, however, that Ware was a famous story-teller, and when he had lighted a fresh cigar he recounted a number of adventures, speaking in his habitual, dry, matter-of-fact tone, and with curious unexpected turns of phrase. Conversation in Indiana seems to drift into story-telling inevitably. John Ware once read a paper before the ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson
... had already found beneath the sign of an Encompassed Goat. Here, by the sarcasm of destiny, I encountered the person who had drawn the slighting analogy between this one's pig-tail and his ability as a story-teller. For a brief space of time the ultimate development of the venture was doubtfully poised, but recognising in each other's features the overhanging cloud of an allied pang, the one before me expressed a becoming contrition for the jest, together ...
— The Mirror of Kong Ho • Ernest Bramah
... considering the quality and quantity of her labors, is the best story-teller for ...
— Miss Ashton's New Pupil - A School Girl's Story • Mrs. S. S. Robbins
... a 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 as ...
— Polly of Lady Gay Cottage • Emma C. Dowd
... clipped sentences fell in soft gutturals from Injun's lips his face remained expressionless, except for his eyes, which gazed back into the dim, smoke-laden tepee and into the face of his father, a great story-teller of a race of great story-tellers; a survivor of the age-old days when the deeds and legends of all men were made history by the voice alone. And the men, their wager forgotten, and Whitey, too, leaned forward and saw the tepee ...
— Injun and Whitey to the Rescue • William S. Hart
... here that the Doctor is a born story-teller and something of an actor as well. He seldom explains his characters or situations as he goes on by putting in "I said" and "he said" and similar expressions. You know by the tones of his voice who is speaking, and his gestures ...
— The Underdog • F. Hopkinson Smith
... snmiths are at work, making knife-blades, repairing spears, &c. with small boys working the bellows, formed of simple leathern bags that open and close by the pressure of two sticks. The object that draws a crowd around him is a professional story-teller, wonderfully witty, no doubt, as, being mounted upon a camel from which he addresses his audience, he provokes roars of merriment; his small eyes, overhanging brow, large mouth, with thin and tightly compressed lips and deeply dimpled cheeks, combined with an unlimited amount of brass, completed ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker
... about his ugly dreams, or to relate his own. They all knew what sort of terms Sturk and Nutter had been on. They tried to put the thought away, for though Nutter was not a joker, nor a songster, nor a story-teller, yet they liked him. Besides, Nutter might possibly turn up in a day or two, and in that case 'twould go best with those who had not risked an atrocious conjecture about him in public. So every man waited, and held his tongue upon that point till ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... score of white-bearded, white-robed warriors, or grave seniors of the city, seated at the gate of Jaffa or Beyrout, and listening to the story-teller reciting his marvels out of "Antar" or the "Arabian Nights?" I was once present when a young gentleman at table put a tart away from him, and said to his neighbor, the Younger Son (with rather a fatuous ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... with eyes glued upon the story-teller, thrilling as he talked, planning secretly to emulate his example, proving some of his statements by daily short excursions. However, the Parson was not always away on trips. Sometimes he guided visitors to the top of the Peak or worked ...
— A Mountain Boyhood • Joe Mills
... old story-teller, "came to Kentucky from Virginia. His name was Abraham Lincoln. I have always thought that was a good, solid name—a worthy name—and so I gave it to my boy here, and hope that he will never bring any disgrace upon it. I never can be much in this ...
— In The Boyhood of Lincoln - A Tale of the Tunker Schoolmaster and the Times of Black Hawk • Hezekiah Butterworth
... among his early companions as a wit and story-teller. The women complained because at their parties all the men were drawn off to hear Abe Lincoln's stories. When he came to be a public speaker, he feathered the shafts of his argument with jest and anecdote. The vein of humor in him was rich and deep; it helped him through the hard places. When ...
— The Negro and the Nation - A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement • George S. Merriam
... however, also, that the story-teller may all along have meant nothing but what he said; and that, incredible as the events may appear, he himself literally believed—and expected you also to believe—all this about Hercules, without any latent moral or history whatever. And it is very necessary, in reading traditions ...
— The Queen of the Air • John Ruskin
... desert, the jackal in possession of the carcass, the vulture impatiently waiting his good pleasure for the last scraps; of the natives working at the endless shadoofs; of a group of listeners around a professional story-teller—unfinished, for he ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley
... the mysteries of Greece by Homer, the work at Greek was no longer tedious. Herodotus was a charming and humorous story-teller, and, as for Thucydides, his account of the Sicilian Expedition and its ending was one of the very rare things in literature which almost, if not quite, brought tears into one's eyes. Few passages, indeed, have done that, and they are curiously discrepant. The first book ...
— Adventures among Books • Andrew Lang
... As each story-teller began his narrative, she cast a momentary glance in his direction, and then turned back to fire-gazing once more. Once or twice she cast a curious glance towards the far corner where Dan Vernon was seated, but he had drawn his chair ...
— A College Girl • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... Widely Read Than Any Other Story-Teller—The Greatest of the Modern Humorists Appeals to the Readers of ...
— Modern English Books of Power • George Hamlin Fitch
... skillful performance, giving an evidently faithful picture of society, and evincing the art of a true story-teller."—Philadelphia Telegraph. ...
— A Little Norsk; Or, Ol' Pap's Flaxen • Hamlin Garland
... boys. It was soon after I began collecting stones, i.e., when 9 or 10, that 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 saying I had seen a pheasant or some ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin
... atmosphere and local color, having an authenticity of their own, are not to be challenged. You cannot charge the writer with ignorance of the period in which his narrative is laid, since the period is as vague as the geography. He walks on safe ground, eluding many of the perils that beset the story-teller who ventures to stray beyond the bounds of the make-believe. One peril he cannot ...
— Ponkapog Papers • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... made me more uncomfortable still. I would have given anything not to have been so much in the bright old lady's confidence if I could have possibly declined it. It gave me the most inconsistent opinions of her. At one time I thought she was a story-teller, and at another time that she was the pink of truth. Now I suspected that she was very cunning, next moment I believed her honest Welsh heart to be perfectly innocent and simple. And after all, what did it matter to me, and why did it matter ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... Daniel Cameron. And though, as a tomfool myself, I would fain not find any of the actions of my kind alien from me, I do find some of the tomfoolery with which Nodier has seasoned the story superfluous. Why call a damsel "Folly Girlfree"? What would a Frenchman say if an English story-teller christened some girl of Gaul "Sottise Librefille"? "Sir Jap Muzzleburn," the Bailiff of the Isle of Man, and his black poodle-equerry, Master Blatt, amuse me but little; and Master Finewood, the shipbuilder,—whose ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... and became idle, and was satisfied to be a good story-teller. He was very amusing, and contrived to survive the dinners of the new and old regime. [Footnote: I smiled when I wrote the above, for it recalled to me an Academician, the eulogium of whom Fontenelle undertook. The deceased knew only how to play at all games. Fontenelle made ...
— The Physiology of Taste • Brillat Savarin
... startling when contrasted with the usual methods of solution by rewards and punishments, by crowned love, by fortune, by a broken leg or a sudden death. Why the reading public which, as a body, has never laid upon a story-teller the command to be an artist, should demand from him this sham of Divine Omnipotence, is utterly incomprehensible. But so it is; and these solutions are legitimate inasmuch as they satisfy the desire for finality, for ...
— Notes on Life and Letters • Joseph Conrad
... a small fishing town on the Gulf of Spezia. Here I met with an adventure which with a little exaggeration and embellishment, such as no real story-teller ever spares, would make an admirable morceau for a quarto tourist; but, in simple ...
— The Diary of an Ennuyee • Anna Brownell Jameson
... one respect an advantage for any one who attempts to give an account of his life. But it has a counterbalancing disadvantage in the circumstance that there is grave reason to doubt his veracity, Defoe was a great story-teller in more senses than one. We can hardly believe a word that he says about himself ...
— Daniel Defoe • William Minto
... his life peacefully on his fair estate in Champagne. No doubt he liked to look back to the stirring days of his youth, and I dare say the young folk who gathered round his hospitable hearth knew the Sire de Joinville for a good story-teller, who could beguile a winter evening with tales of that luckless Crusade in which he bore his part, and of his hero and leader, sovereign, saint, and soldier in one, Louis, the cross-bearing King of France; and, happily for us, before the stories died with the teller, the young Queen, ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... Work; Later Work and Death; Source of "Rosalynde": "The Tale of Gamelyn"; Form: A Pastoral Romance; Spanish Influence; Style: Euphuistic; One of the Last Examples of Euphuism; The Charm of the Book; Lodge's Skill as a Story-teller; The Lyrical Interludes; Historical Significance; Shakespeare's ...
— Rosalynde - or, Euphues' Golden Legacy • Thomas Lodge
... in my hand, or else sewing buttons on to a shirt-collar. But he never forgave me about the mutton broth. He told me, in so many words, that I was a—story-teller. And for the matter of that, ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... personal matter and he was never too busy to assist us in the smallest details. Moreover, we could spend hours listening to the tales of his early life, for his keen sense of humor made him a delightful story-teller. One of the most charming aspects of our wandering life is the friends we have made in far corners of the world, and for none have we a more affectionate regard ...
— Across Mongolian Plains - A Naturalist's Account of China's 'Great Northwest' • Roy Chapman Andrews
... The story-teller saw his audience melt away in a minute. He went out on the porch. Fluttering across the fields and sand lots from all directions were the neighbors—both men and women. The possibility of a wreck—the great tragedy ...
— Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper • James A. Cooper
... a palm has other powers besides that of inspiring a fortune-teller. It can inspire a story-teller, as well. Stuart, scenting a story which he could send to the paper from Kingston, put half-a-crown where he thought it would do most good, namely, in the steward's palm and heard the strange (and absolutely true and authentic) story of ...
— Plotting in Pirate Seas • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... a firm belief in his own value as a story-teller and it piqued his pride to have it thought that he was spoiling a good yarn, so ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Life-Savers • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... 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, ...
— The Jesus of History • T. R. Glover
... when one of her stories went well, with the true instinct of a story-teller could seldom be persuaded to follow it with another, fearing an anti-climax perhaps. She turned in under her little tent, and soon thereafter trumpeted to the ...
— The Woman from Outside - [on Swan River] • Hulbert Footner
... three months 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 ...
— Her Weight in Gold • George Barr McCutcheon
... pitched. Providence took me by the hand, and—an oddity of dispensation which, I trust, there is no irreverence in smiling at—has led me, as the newspapers announce while I am writing, from the old Manse into a Custom House! As a story-teller, I have often contrived strange vicissitudes for my imaginary personages, but none like this. The treasure of intellectual gold which I had hoped to find in our secluded dwelling, had never come to light. No profound treatise of ethics—no ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... story-teller by getting up and tucking a heavy rug more snugly around Baby Van Rensselaer's feet, for the sky was now overcast and gray, and the air was damp ...
— Humorous Ghost Stories • Dorothy Scarborough
... dignified to admit that he did not know. No man had keener wit or kinder humor. He was not solemn. Solemnity is a mask worn by ignorance and hypocrisy—it is the preface, prologue, and index to the cunning or the stupid. He was natural in his life and thought—master of the story-teller's art, in illustration apt, in application perfect, liberal in speech, shocking Pharisees and prudes, using any word that wit ...
— Our American Holidays: Lincoln's Birthday • Various
... for me by creole friends, with better success. To obtain them in all their original simplicity and naive humor of detail, one should be able to write them down in short-hand as fast as they are related: they lose greatly in the slow process of dictation. The simple mind of the native story-teller, child or adult, is seriously tried by the inevitable interruptions and restraints of the dictation method; —the reciter loses spirit, becomes soon weary, and purposely shortens the narrative to finish the task as ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn
... The reward of the story-teller who has successfully met the child's story interest is the plea embodied in the title of this book: "Tell me another story." The book meets this child longing on a psychologic basis. It consists of groups ...
— Tell Me Another Story - The Book of Story Programs • Carolyn Sherwin Bailey
... as it is desirable that a story-teller and a story-reader should establish a mutual understanding as soon as possible, I beg it to be noticed that I confine this observation neither to young people nor to little people, but extend it to ...
— A Budget of Christmas Tales by Charles Dickens and Others • Various
... little, I ween, divine or ingenious; but, at least, I have been honest. In no fact or picture have I consciously set down aught the counterpart of which I have not seen or known; and whatever the finished picture may lack of completeness, this lack is due now to the story-teller, now to the artist, but never to the herald ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... orgies of their Northern neighbors, the feasts of the Saracens were marked by sobriety. Wine was prohibited. The enchanting moonlight evenings of Andalusia were spent by the Moors in sequestered, fairy-like gardens or in orange-groves, listening to the romances of the story-teller, or engaged in philosophical discourse; consoling themselves for the disappointments of this life by such reflections as that, if virtue were rewarded in this world, we should be without expectations in the life to come; and reconciling ...
— History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science • John William Draper
... and each reader in each age, must judge for itself and himself. I think the author of the Odyssey (the Iliad comes rather in competition with the chansons than with these romances) was a better poet than the author of Partenopeus, and I also think that he was a better story-teller; but I do not think that the latter was a bad story-teller; and I can read him with plenty of interest. So I can most of his fellows, no one of whom, I think, ever quite approaches the insipidity of their worst English imitators. The knights do not weary me with their exploits, and I confess ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... two, and presently Tony fell into narration. From the young Stuart Prince's curious looks at me 'twas plain to be seen that Creagh was recounting the tale of my adventures. Once I heard the Prince exclaim, "What! That boy?" More than once he laughed heartily, for Creagh was an inimitable story-teller and every point to be scored in the telling gained sparkle from his Irish wit. When he had finished Prince Charles sent for me and congratulated me warmly on the boldness and the aplomb (so he was kind enough to phrase it) which had carried me ...
— A Daughter of Raasay - A Tale of the '45 • William MacLeod Raine
... the women of her race. Her tales were of the kindergarten, happenings in her life and the lives of others, and I have sought to set them down as she told them to me in her quaint, broken English. But they miss the earnest eyes and dramatic gestures of the little story-teller as she sat in the glow of the hibachi fire, with a background of paper doors, with shadow pictures of pine-trees and bamboo etched by the moonlight, the far-off song of a nightingale, and the air sweet ...
— Mr. Bamboo and the Honorable Little God - A Christmas Story • Fannie C. Macaulay
... ward returned once more to the chateau, N'Oun Doare riding his new purchase, when it entered into his head to untie one of the knots on the halter. He did so, and immediately descended in the middle of Paris—which we must take the story-teller's word for it is five ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence
... does not pay store-rent, and may carry all his affairs under his hat, as the phrase is. He alone among men of letters may look forward to that sort of continuous prosperity which follows from capacity and diligence in other vocations; for story-telling is now a fairly recognized trade, and the story-teller has a money-standing in the economic world. It is not a very high standing, I think, and I have expressed the belief that it does not bring him the respect felt for men in other lines of business. Still our people cannot deny some consideration to a man who gets a hundred ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... Mr. Laing's 'Heimskingla; or Chronicles of the Kings of Norway,' supplemented by Mr. Ballantyne's own experience and adventures in the wilderness of America. These ingredients are put together with the skill and spirit of an accomplished story-teller; and the result is a book that cannot possibly be laid down till the very last word of the last ...
— Blown to Bits - or, The Lonely Man of Rakata • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... already a the Rue de Severs, and in a little while we shall be in sight of your windows. I am a very bad story-teller; and if I were—by some impossible chance—to take it into my head to compose a novel, I know I should never succeed. I have been drawing out to tiresome length a narrative which I must finish briefly; for there is a certain ...
— The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard • Anatole France
... 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
... the king of Annwn, who changed semblance for a year with Pwyll, prince of Dyved, and reigned in his place? These are no mediaeval personages; they belong to an older, pagan, mythological world. The very first thing that strikes one, in reading the Mabinogion, is how evidently the mediaeval story-teller is pillaging an antiquity of which he does not fully possess the secret; he is like a peasant building his hut on the site of Halicarnassus or Ephesus; he builds, but what he builds is full of materials ...
— Celtic Literature • Matthew Arnold
... bounding vigor, which had not tempered down to the strength of my mature manhood. It was well for me that a sobering responsibility fell on me early, else I might have squandered my resources of endurance, and in place of this sturdy story-teller whose sixty years sit lightly on him, there would have been only a ripple in the sod of the curly mesquite on the Plains and a little heap of dead dust, turned to the inert earth again. The West grows large men, as it grows strong, beautiful women; and I know that the ...
— The Price of the Prairie - A Story of Kansas • Margaret Hill McCarter
... story-teller heard it, but with different results. The latter stirred and looked about him, as though new hope and strength had come to him. The former, led by Tim and Judy, broke simultaneously into anxious speech. Maria, having slept profoundly since the first mention ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood
... arm along the back of his chair and crossed one leg over his knee. He could hear Absalom closing the shop behind him, and he turned his curious, expressionless eyes upon the boy as he passed down the steps and mingled with the crowd in the street. Just opposite, a story-teller squatted on the ground in the centre of a group of men who laughed and clapped their hands, his flashing teeth and quick gesticulations adding to each point he made; it was still clear enough to see his alternating ...
— The Pointing Man - A Burmese Mystery • Marjorie Douie
... 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 ...
— The Young Trail Hunters • Samuel Woodworth Cozzens
... his first purpose. Sometimes the reference to source suggests accuracy: "And five and thirty, as I find, were in the river drowned."[80] "Rhinoceros, as I read, the book them calls."[81] The strength of some authority is necessary to support the weight of the incredible marvels which the story-teller recounts. He tells of a valley full of serpents with crowns on their heads, who fed, "as the prose tells," on pepper, cloves, and ginger;[82] of enormous crabs with backs, "as the book says," bigger and harder than any common stone ...
— Early Theories of Translation • Flora Ross Amos
... station; and listening for the teuf-teuf of motors along the distant road prevented Mrs. West from attending to her brother's suggestions. He had had an inspiration for the new novel they were planning together, and was explaining it eagerly, for Basil was a born story-teller. Only, he had never found time for story-telling until lately. He was tremendously happy in his new way of life, although only a terrible illness which had closed others paths of success had opened this door for him. It did not matter in the least ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... The story-teller swallowed something in his throat, his gaze still on his persecutor. "No, sir," he continued, hoarsely, "them bucks jumped to their feet with the most awful yells I ever heard, and made a rush toward where I was standing. They was exactly in a line, and I let drive at that ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... finest host and story-teller in the country. His genial courtesy was simply another expression of that mental grace which made his reputation as a poet, and his manner of reciting an incident, otherwise trivial, would give it the same additional quality as in his verses on Springfield Arsenal and the crooked ...
— Cambridge Sketches • Frank Preston Stearns
... to understand the diverse springs of human action, Mr. Reade is clearly no novelist in the true sense of the term. He is, however, an admirable describer and a capital story-teller. He is consequently always entertaining and secure of his reader. Yet, inasmuch as he professes to relate and describe only actual facts, we cannot but regret that he should have adopted a form which ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 12, No. 32, November, 1873 • Various
... do not know whether Edmund Burgess could have become a citizen of York after serving an apprenticeship in London. Evil May Day is closely described in Hall's Chronicle. The ballad, said to be by Churchill, a contemporary, does not agree with it in all respects; but the story-teller may surely have license to follow whatever is most suitable to the purpose. The sermon is exactly as given by Hall, who is also responsible for the description of the King's sports and of the Field of the Cloth of Gold and of Ardres. Knight's admirable ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... the old man was still regaling the boys with anecdotes, having proved himself a most entertaining story-teller. ...
— Ted Strong's Motor Car • Edward C. Taylor
... larger work. He had already incidentally proved that he possessed an instinct for narrative such as no Roman poet had hitherto had—such, indeed, as it would be difficult to match even in Greek poetry outside Homer. A born story-teller, and an accomplished master of easy and melodious verse, he naturally turned for subjects to the inexhaustible stores of the Graeco-Roman mythology, and formed the scheme of his Metamorphoses and Fasti. Both poems were all but complete, but only ...
— Latin Literature • J. W. Mackail
... last of the books is the plays of Shakespeare. A play always contains a story, and it is the stories of some of Shakespeare's dramas that are given here. In the real plays there is much more than stories, however, because Shakespeare was not only a story-teller but also a poet. A poet must express what he sees and thinks in a way to give pleasure and he must see more than other people. Now when Shakespeare puts a thought into words, we find that no one else has expressed it so well. Moreover, he sees more ...
— The Children's Hour, v 5. Stories From Seven Old Favorites • Eva March Tappan
... peoples who heard it have fitted the story to their own geographical horizon, and in all good faith and by a purely logical process the mountain-tops are represented as submerged, and the ship, or ark, or chest, is made to come to ground on the highest peak known to the story-teller and his hearers. But in its early Sumerian form it is just a simple tradition of some great inundation, which overwhelmed the plain of Southern Babylonia and was peculiarly disastrous in its effects. And so its memory survived in the picture of Ziusudu's solitary coracle upon ...
— Legends Of Babylon And Egypt - In Relation To Hebrew Tradition • Leonard W. King
... too, was about to plead, she did not know exactly what, but she thought she would like to reassure the Marquis. . . . On second thoughts she decided too that it would be better (perhaps) to refrain. Well, to escape from the toils of an interesting story (for I'm no longer a story-teller but a prefacer) I will say that three nights later Sir Hugh took the Marchioness in to dinner; he sat in his predecessor's chair, knowing nothing of him, thereby startling his hosts, who, however, soon recovered their ...
— Muslin • George Moore
... a story-teller, do you?" cried the butcher's daughter. "How dare you! I'll get even with ...
— The Girls of Central High Aiding the Red Cross - Or Amateur Theatricals for a Worthy Cause • Gertrude W. Morrison
... you ask?' I cried. 'Man, I've often thought that an innkeeper would make the best story-teller in ...
— The Thirty-nine Steps • John Buchan |
