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Narrative   Listen
noun
Narrative  n.  That which is narrated; the recital of a story; a continuous account of the particulars of an event or transaction; a story. "Cyntio was much taken with my narrative."
Synonyms: Account; recital; rehearsal; relation; narration; story; tale. See Account.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Narrative" Quotes from Famous Books



... Oregon, meeting Shahaptian territory on about the forty-fourth parallel or along the Blue Mountains. Upon the northeast the eastern limits of the pristine habitat of the Shoshonean tribes are unknown. The narrative of Lewis and Clarke[79] contains the explicit statement that the Shoshoni bands encountered upon the Jefferson River, whose summer home was upon the head waters of the Columbia, formerly lived within their own recollection in the plains to the east of the Rocky Mountains, whence ...
— Indian Linguistic Families Of America, North Of Mexico • John Wesley Powell

... prudent and virtuous minister died, and was succeeded in his post by his son, Zabita Khan. It is not necessary to enlarge upon the upright and faithful character of Najib-ud-daulah, which has been sufficiently obvious in the course of our narrative, as have also his skill and courage. It would have been well for the empire had his posterity inherited the former qualities. Had Zabita, for instance, followed in his father's steps, and had the Emperor at the same ...
— The Fall of the Moghul Empire of Hindustan • H. G. Keene

... Clark, dated July 7, 1606, written by one Mr. Bovy to a minister in London, where he thus writes: 'Touching news, you shall understand that Mr. Sherwood hath received a letter from Mr. Arthur Hildersham, which containeth this following narrative: that at Brampton, in the parish of Torksey, near Gainsborough in Lincolnshire, an ash-tree shaketh both in the body and boughs thereof, and there proceed from thence sighs and groans, like those of a man ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 82, May 24, 1851 • Various

... acts are never lost upon a woman of the superior order of mind. The favour of the throne followed alike in both instances; and Potemkin soon became the guide of the Russian councils. It was the custom of the French memoir writers—a race who always aimed at pungency of narrative in preference to truth, and who, for their generation, performed the part of general libellers—to represent Potemkin as a savage, devoted to drinking, and whose influence was solely the result of his grossness. But the conferences which he held with this British ambassador, and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 348 • Various

... is your narrative?" said Frederick, at last, turning his back upon Pollnitz, and stepping to the window ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach

... returned. "Let me tell you what evidence I have seen of it." And I told him what I had not mentioned in my narrative, of that ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens

... word of this narrative Elinor had listened, absorbed and self-forgetful. As for the Princess, she loved the unexpected, and here she found it. The more she studied Pats, the better she liked him and his cheerfulness,—a cheerfulness which seemed to rise triumphant ...
— The Pines of Lory • John Ames Mitchell

... second gardener. Here was material for story-telling to the child Damaris' heart's content! For Brockhurst is rich in strange records of wealth, calamity, heroism, and sport, the inherent romance of which Mary's artless narrative was calculated to enhance rather ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet

... published in the London Medium a very interesting narrative of his seances with the Emperor and Empress of Russia, the royal family and nobility. In the first royal seance, the Grand Duchess Vladimir proved to be a medium, and was lifted in the air, screaming the while. 'As she continued to ascend,' says Mr. Eglinton, 'I was compelled to leave her hand, ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, August 1887 - Volume 1, Number 7 • Various

... The narrative of his experience at Gloucester, with some letters from Mr. Nash, a detailed account of efforts to catch the serpent, and some statements in regard to its visit to Long Island Sound later in the year, make eighty-six pages of pleasant reading, ...
— The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 1, January 1886 - Bay State Monthly, Volume 4, No. 1, January, 1886 • Various

... eyes, and a quantity of grey curling hair, which was combed back off his forehead, and fell down over his shoulders. He was introduced to Vivian as the Prince's particular friend; and then he listened, apparently with interest, to his Highness' narrative of the morning's adventure, his danger, and his rescue. Young Maximilian never took his large, dark-blue eyes off his father while he was speaking, and when he had finished the boy rushed to Vivian and threw his arms round his neck. Vivian was delighted with the affection of the child, who whispered ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield

... complete and a thing of power. . . . To take a bright period or personage of history, to frame it in a firm outline, to conceive it at once in article-size, and then to fill in this limited canvas with sparkling anecdote, telling bits of colour, and facts, all fused together by a real genius for narrative, was the sort of genre-painting which Macaulay applied to history. . . . And to this day his essays remain the best of their class, not only in England, but in Europe. . . . The best would adorn any literature, and ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... one would see a perfect specimen of the triumph of style, let him compare the interminable prolixities of Zurita with Mariana, who, in this portion of his narrative, has embodied the facts and opinions of his predecessor, with scarcely any alteration, save that of greater condensation, in his own transparent and harmonious diction. It is quite as great a miracle in its way ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V3 • William H. Prescott

... ago, Cutter went into the hardware store and bought a pistol, saying he was going to shoot a dog, and adding that he 'thought he would take a shot at an old cat while he was about it.' (Here the children interrupted Rudolph's narrative by smothered giggles.) ...
— My Antonia • Willa Cather

... designations, [Greek: kurios, angelos, kataskopos, episkopos, theos] associated with the philosophers as with Christ, e.g., in Justin; nay, the Cynics and Neoplatonics speak of [Greek: episkopoi daimones]); cf. also the remarkable narrative in Laertius VI. 102, concerning the Cynic Menedemus; [Greek: houtos, katha phesin Hippobotos, eis tosos ton terateias elasen, hoste Erinuos analabon schema perieiei, legon episkopos aphichthai ex Haidou ...
— History of Dogma, Volume 1 (of 7) • Adolph Harnack

... to include within the limits of one volume the whole of the contents of the logbooks. The story of the Lady Nelson as told by Grant has in places been paraphrased, for he sometimes writes it in diary form under date headings and at others he inserts the date in the narrative. The entries from the logbooks of Murray, Curtoys and Symons, in the Public Record Office, with such omissions as I ...
— The Logbooks of the Lady Nelson - With The Journal Of Her First Commander Lieutenant James Grant, R.N • Ida Lee

... to the Court of Directors. A separate letter was also written by him, about the same time, desiring, on his part, that, in any inquiry into his conduct, "not a single word should escape observation." This proceeding in the Council your Committee, in its natural order, and in a narrative chain of circumstantial proof, offered in evidence. It was not permitted to be read; and on the 20th and 21st of May, 1789, we were told from the woolsack, "that, when a paper is not evidence by itself," (such ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... be greeted with the shout, "Frenchman, Frenchman! why don't you call a coach?" whenever he went out with his "fine silk umbrella, newly brought from Spain." Records of the Umbrella's first appearance in other English works have also been preserved. In Glasgow (according to the narrative in Cleland's "Statistical Account of Glasgow ") "the late Mr. John Jamieson, surgeon, returning from Paris, brought an Umbrella with him, which was the first seen in this city. The doctor, who was a man of great humour, took pleasure in relating to me how he was stared at with his Umbrella." ...
— Umbrellas and their History • William Sangster

... much read by children (nor even by 'grown-ups' for that matter), the editor hopes children will be pleased to find the 'Adventures in Anahuac' in this collection. Miss Edgeworth tells us in Orlandino how much the tale delighted the young before Mr. Prescott wrote that excellent narrative of the world's chief adventure. May it please still, as it did when ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang

... of these pages the cause of this strong feeling against Madame de Genlis will be explained. To dwell on it now would only turn me aside from my narrative. To pursue ...
— The Secret Memoirs of Louis XV./XVI, Complete • Madame du Hausset, an "Unknown English Girl" and the Princess Lamballe

... a part of the lyric consciousness of the people; often the singers do not know that what they are singing has a literary origin—they have thoroughly assimilated it. In the best sense of the term, the songs of The Boy's Magic Horn are folk-songs. They are both narrative and dramatic as well as pure lyric in form, and are simple, powerful, and direct in expression. They treat all phases of German life of the past, from a crude version of the Lay of Hildebrant to the riddles, lullabies, ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various

... possessing any atom of conscience, I beg to remind them that I am still minus fifty pounds; and as all claim seems to be quite out of the question, excepting on their "known and boundless generosity," I beg to wind up this little narrative of the transaction in the usual words of the beggar's petition, "The smallest ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various

... says beguilingly to a clever but shy man, "John, what was that story you told me——" and then she repeats briefly an introduction to a topic in which "John" particularly shines. Or later on, she begins a narrative and breaks off suddenly, turning to some one else, "You ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post

... in a year's time. The history of the few people involved in the making of this narrative presents but few new aspects, and yet there is now to be disclosed an unerring indication of great and perhaps enduring changes in the lives of every ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon

... faithfully the incidents at Waterloo Station, and the beginning of Mrs. Maskell's narrative in the cab. At the disclosure of her relations with Redgrave, he was interrupted by a ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing

... hard, undeniable facts, presenting a problem both startling and sensational, the reader will quickly learn from this straightforward narrative—an open confession of ...
— The Stretton Street Affair • William Le Queux

... narrative was related by a father to his son, as a warning, from his own bitter experience of the sin of resisting a ...
— Tiger and Tom and Other Stories for Boys • Various

... subdue the flames, but ineffectually, the fire continuing to spread, until, some three hours after the discovery of the outbreak, the flames burst through the deck, when it became apparent that the ship was doomed, and the boats were ordered out. According to the narrative of the men the ship had been abandoned in a perfectly orderly manner, the passengers going away in the cutters and gigs, in charge of the captain and the three mates, while the remaining portion of the crew, for whom room could not be found in these boats, were told off ...
— The Castaways • Harry Collingwood

... recalled Jim's narrative of his lone prairie section home, and he adroitly questioned the lad and discovered that the country about Rugby was a desolate prairie, that post offices and banks were few, widely scattered and poorly patronized, and that Joe had never heard of any one of these being robbed, nor even a ...
— The Trail of the Tramp • A-No. 1 (AKA Leon Ray Livingston)

... Chwen Tang Luh (Kei-toku-den-to-roku), published by Tao Yuen (Do-gen) A.D. 1004, gives a detailed narrative concerning this incident as stated here, but earlier historians tell us a different story about the mutilation of Shang Kwang's arm. Compare Suh Kas San Chwen (Zoku-ko-so-den) and Hwui ...
— The Religion of the Samurai • Kaiten Nukariya

... opening of the second winter campaign in the Carpathians, the reader should remember that, as stated in the beginning of this narrative, a Russian army under General Radko Dmitrieff (a Bulgarian), held an advanced position on the Dunajec-Biala line, extending from the Vistula to Zmigrod, northwest of Dukla. This force was consequently beyond the zone of the Austro-German ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various

... effort in historical composition was an article of fifty pages in "The North American Review" for October, 1845. This was nominally a notice of two works, one on Russia, the other "A Memoir of the Life of Peter the Great." It is, however, a narrative rather than a criticism, a rapid, continuous, brilliant, almost dramatic narrative. If there had been any question as to whether the young novelist who had missed his first mark had in him the elements which might give ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... educated officer with the army of invasion, who became the chief English historian of the campaign, in his "Narrative," ...
— The Battle of New Orleans • Zachary F. Smith

... second wasted in parley. Men gathered up the injured mechanician and hurried him away. Mr. Rose looked on as if at a stage scene which did not interest him, and dully resumed his narrative. ...
— From the Car Behind • Eleanor M. Ingram

... perceive the variations and discrepancies of text which showed their mythical character, and oftentimes her black eyes would snap and her knitting-needles rattle with an admonitory vigor as he went on, and sometimes she would unmercifully come in at the end of a narrative with,— ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... from auricular confession. I solemnly declare that except in a few cases, in which the confidence of the penitents is bordering on idiocy, or in which they have been transformed into immoral brutes, nine-tenths of the multitudes who go to confess, are obliged to recount some such desolate narrative as that of Miss Richardson, when they are sufficiently honest to ...
— The Priest, The Woman And The Confessional • Father Chiniquy

... were so ferocious that he was called The Wasp because of the keenness of his sting. Glutted with looting, he enlists in the navy and gives up his life defending his country's flag. A love story with the winsome Kitty Trimmer for its heroine lends a fascinating charm to the narrative. ...
— The Pirate of Panama - A Tale of the Fight for Buried Treasure • William MacLeod Raine

... of that wonderful region of invention where imagination and reality so nearly meet. There is no more interesting field for stories for wide-awake boys. Mr. Sayler combines a remarkable narrative ability with a degree of technical knowledge that makes these books correct in all airship details. Full of adventure ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Abroad • Edith Van Dyne

... touched disagreeably by this outburst. "His holiness, my father," said he, after a while, "presented these things to me differently; when we were here five years ago, the sacred lord told me the following narrative: ...
— The Pharaoh and the Priest - An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt • Boleslaw Prus

... has been made to my narrative, and I cannot pass it by without a word of remark;—"these Confessions are wanting in scenes of touching and pathetic interest" (FOOTNOTE: We have the author's permission to state, that all the pathetic and moving incidents of his career he has reserved for a second ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Vol. 1 • Charles James Lever

... beginning of 1859, he was engaged in the preparation of his "Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru, and Brazil from Spanish and Portuguese Domination."[24] That work was immediately followed by his "Autobiography of a Seaman," of which the first volume was completed in December, 1859, the second in September, 1860; bringing ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, Vol. II • Thomas Lord Cochrane

... a sign of agreement, and when Thirlwell had read Agatha's account of her meeting with the burglar and Stormont, he remarked: "It's a nice frank letter, and Miss Strange has some talent for dramatic narrative." ...
— The Lure of the North • Harold Bindloss

... Times of Montrose—a work as chivalrous in its tone as the Chronicles of Froissart, and abounding in original and most interesting materials; but, in order to satisfy all scruple, the authorities for each fact are given in the shape of notes. The ballad may be considered as a narrative of the transactions, related by an aged Highlander, who had followed Montrose throughout his campaigns, to his grandson, shortly ...
— Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers and Other Poems • W.E. Aytoun

... like the others, but with the same expression as if she had been listening to someone reading aloud from an amusing narrative. Her face did not betray the remotest realization of the fact that the speaker was Casanova; that she was listening to the man who had had all these experiences and many more; that she was sitting beside the lover of a thousand women. Very different was the fire in Amalia's eyes. To her, Casanova ...
— Casanova's Homecoming • Arthur Schnitzler

... so," said my friend; "and yet once or twice this evening I saw your cheek alternately flush and grow pale, with a suddenness that alarmed me for your health. In one of your pleasantest stories, while you were acting the narrative with a liveliness evidently unconscious, and giving me and mine a treat which we have not had for a long time, I observed your voice falter, as if some spasm of soul had shot across you; and I unquestionably saw, that rare sight in the eyes of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various

... have an eye. Mr. Boughton's, in his good-humored Dutch wanderings, holds from morning till night a sociable, graceful revel. From the moment it opens till the moment it closes, its day is a round of adventures. His jolly pictorial narrative, reflecting every glint of October sunshine and patch of russet shade, tends to confirm us afresh in the faith that the painter's life is the best life, the ...
— Picture and Text - 1893 • Henry James

... connection with specific historical traditions. True, 'Freedom' implies the Exodus; 'Revelation,' the Sinaitic theophany; 'Joy,' the harvest merry-makings, and perhaps some connection with the biblical narrative of Israel's wanderings in the wilderness. But the connection, though essential for the construction of the association, is not essential for its retention. 'The Passover,' says Mr. Montefiore (Liberal Judaism, p. 155), 'practically celebrates the formation ...
— Judaism • Israel Abrahams

... Vaucouleurs, was an eye-witness of the meeting. He accompanied Joan of Arc later on to Chinon, and left a record of the almost brutal manner with which Baudricourt received the Maid. From this soldier's narrative we possess one of the rare glimpses which have come down to us of the appearance of the heroine: not indeed a description of what would be of such intense interest as to make known to us the appearance and features ...
— Joan of Arc • Ronald Sutherland Gower

... that has elapsed since the following pages were written for the Ave Maria—by the kindness of whose editor they are reprinted now—it is impossible for me to verify the spelling of all the names that occur in the course of the narrative. I made notes while at Lourdes, and from those notes wrote my account; it is therefore extremely probable that small errors of spelling may have crept in, which I ...
— Lourdes • Robert Hugh Benson

... by a Rabbi initiated into the mysteries of the Cabala."[83] Whether then the Toledot Yeshu had existed for many centuries before it was first brought to light or whether it was a collection of Jewish traditions woven into a coherent narrative by a thirteenth-century Rabbi, the ideas it contains can be traced back at least as far as the second century of the Christian era. Origen, who in the middle of the third century wrote his reply to the attack of Celsus on Christianity, ...
— Secret Societies And Subversive Movements • Nesta H. Webster

... the nose of its representative demolished by Haldane, was naturally prejudiced against him; and, influenced by its darkly-colored narrative, the citizens shook their heads over the young man, and concluded that he was a dangerous character, who had become unnaturally and precociously depraved; and there was quite a general hope that Mr. Arnot would not fail to prosecute, so ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe

... the above narrative were committed by Bhooree Khan, in the process of converting his estate of Dewa into a jungle, and building strongholds for his gang as it increased and became more and more formidable. Having converted Deogon into a jungle, and built his ...
— A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II • William Sleeman

... and of 1877, letters under the heading "Uppingham by the Sea" were published in The Times newspaper, and were read with interest by friends of the school. We have thought the following narrative would be best introduced to those readers under a name already pleasantly familiar to them, and have borrowed, with the writer's permission, the title of his sketches for our own more detailed account of the ...
— Uppingham by the Sea - a Narrative of the Year at Borth • John Henry Skrine

... where something in the nature of a struggle, a moral duel, goes on. In such passages every power at the writer's command is needed; unerring directness of thought, and words which clothe this thought as an athlete's garments fit the body. Everything must count, and the movement of the narrative must be sustained to the utmost. The chess-playing scene between Elfride and Knight in A Pair of Blue Eyes is an illustration. Sergeant Troy displaying his skill in handling the sword—weaving his spell about Bathsheba ...
— The Bibliotaph - and Other People • Leon H. Vincent

... in the first act, and the first scene in the second act between Idomenco and Arbace, are both too long, and sure to weary the audience, particularly as in the first the actors are both bad, and in the second one of them is also very inferior; besides, the whole details are only a narrative of what the spectators have already seen with their own eyes. The scenes will be printed just as they are. I only wish the Abbate would point out to me how not only to curtail them, but very considerably to curtail them; otherwise I must do it myself, for the scenes ...
— The Letters of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, V.1. • Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

... importance for English literature was the publication by Southey of an epic poem. This poem, the Joan of Arc, was the earliest work of much pretension amongst all that Southey wrote; and by many degrees it was the worst. In the four great narrative poems of his later years, there is a combination of two striking qualities, viz., a peculiar command over the visually splendid, connected with a deep-toned grandeur of moral pathos. Especially ...
— Biographical Essays • Thomas de Quincey

... this just as she told it. How much of it is fact and how much is hysterics I can't say. She was scared half out of her wits by what happened afterward, and may have got mixed up in her narrative. ...
— The Crime of the French Cafe and Other Stories • Nicholas Carter

... thrilling narrative, a disclosure of official secrets while groups of war-worn Tommies listened with eager interest. "Spreading the News" was a tragi-comedy enacted daily ...
— Kitchener's Mob - Adventures of an American in the British Army • James Norman Hall

... had the mysterious stranger mixed the "insane verb" with the family pottage? He returned before I could answer this self-asked inquiry, and resumed coolly his broken narrative. Finding myself forgotten in the man I had so long hesitated to introduce to my friends, I retired to rest early, only to hear, through the thin partitions, two hours later, enthusiastic praises of the new guest from the voluble ...
— Drift from Two Shores • Bret Harte

... me that for certain reasons this wedding will not take place in the Ever-faithful Isle. What those reasons are, and how my curiosity respecting the past of the pretty mulatto girl is at last gratified, will appear in the following brief narrative, which, as the matter contained in it was chiefly derived from the young lady herself, I propose to repeat as nearly as possible in ...
— The Pearl of the Antilles, or An Artist in Cuba • Walter Goodman

... narrative the captain's face grew crimson with mortification and chagrin, as he saw ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely

... no questions and made no comments. What he had to tell met with chill silence. Johnnie's guileless narrative had made clear to her that Clay had brought Kitty home about midnight, had mixed a drink for her, and had given her his own clothes to replace her wet ones. Somehow the cattleman's robe, pajamas, and bedroom slippers obtruded unduly from his friend's ...
— The Big-Town Round-Up • William MacLeod Raine

... you are correct in your suppositions, but I do not profess to be an antiquary, so that I won't dispute the subject with you. At the same time, I may observe that it does seem to me as if there were a screw loose somewhere in the historical part of your narrative, for methinks I have read, heard, or dreamt, that King Arthur was Mordred's uncle, not his cousin, and that Mordred was slain, and that the king was the victor, at the fatal field of Camelford, although the victory was purchased dearly—Arthur having been ...
— Deep Down, a Tale of the Cornish Mines • R.M. Ballantyne

... reader—for well, indeed, has thy patience been tried, during the progress of this tantalizing narrative—we beg to assure thee, that unless thou art so exquisitely tender-hearted as to mourn over the fate of Bartle Flanagan, the shadows which darkened the morning and noon of our story have departed, and its eye will be dewy, ...
— Fardorougha, The Miser - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... grievance was the publication of Admiral de Robeck's despatch concerning the first landing at Gallipoli. In the original document, a schedule was given showing the detail of troops told off to each of the separate landings; and the narrative, in which a sailor spoke with frank enthusiasm of the desperate valour shown by soldiers, was written with constant reference to the detail given. As some evil chance willed, the narrative mentioned ...
— John Redmond's Last Years • Stephen Gwynn

... said the Professor, after listening to the narrative with the utmost attention, when ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey

... be feared the reader will find fault with this chapter. But there is no remedy; he must submit quietly to a break of three years in the narrative: having to choose between the unities and the probabilities, we greatly preferred holding to the last. The fault, indeed, of this hiatus, rests entirely with the young folk of Longbridge, whose fortunes we have undertaken to follow; had they remained together, we should, of ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper

... interested themselves. This shows that there is no deficiency in their capacity. Every one, who has had any experience of the pleasure of talking, knows how intimately it is connected with the pleasure of being listened to. The auditors, consequently, possess supreme power over narrative childhood, without using any artifice, by simply showing attention to well arranged, and well recollected narratives, and ceasing to attend when the young orator's memory and story become confused, he will naturally be excited ...
— Practical Education, Volume II • Maria Edgeworth

... Alexyei again pulled out his handkerchief, and again wiped away his tears, but not by stealth this time, and after resting for a little while, he resumed his cheerless narrative. ...
— A Reckless Character - And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev

... the creator notwithstanding. And precisely because history is more supple and more variable than a dream to him, he can invest the most individual case with the characteristics of a whole age, and thus attain to a vividness of narrative of which historians are quite incapable. In what work of art, of any kind, has the body and soul of the Middle Ages ever been so thoroughly depicted as in Lohengrin? And will not the Meistersingers continue to acquaint ...
— Thoughts out of Season (Part One) • Friedrich Nietzsche

... the world's native wantonness, the world's acquired decorum: society's irrepressible original and its powerfully resisting second nature. All the rogues of the fine sphere ran about with it, male and female; and there was the narrative that suggestively skipped, and that which trod the minuet measure, dropping a curtsey to ravenous curiosity; the apology surrendering its defensible cause in supplications to benevolence; and the benevolence damnatory in a too eloquent ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... book of the season and is as handsome mechanically as it is interesting as a narrative. The sparkle, the glow, the charm of the risque, the shimmer of silks, and the glint of jewels—are all so ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume X (of X) • Various

... youngsters, without casting another thought on the speronara. I, however, particularly wish my readers not to forget her, and also to remember the man-of-war brig, and the merchantman, as both are destined to play a conspicuous part in the following narrative. ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston

... lived, his father would have made a name for himself; and that it was in that hope, and not of the pay that he would receive as an interpreter, that he had gone up with Hicks; and that, had he not died at that little village by the Nile, he would assuredly have done so, for the narrative he had left behind him would in itself, if published, have shown what stuff there ...
— With Kitchener in the Soudan - A Story of Atbara and Omdurman • G. A. Henty

... far from a neologism. The OED says: "That which connects the successive points in anything, esp. a narrative, train of thought, or the like; the sequence of events or ideas continuing throughout the whole course of anything;" Citations are given going ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0

... account, detailed particular account, circumstantial account, graphic account; narration, recital, rehearsal, relation. historiography[obs3], chronography[obs3]; historic Muse, Clio; history; biography, autobiography; necrology, obituary. narrative, history; memoir, memorials; annals &c. (chronicle) 551; saga; tradition, legend, story, tale, historiette[obs3]; personal narrative, journal, life, adventures, fortunes, experiences, confessions; anecdote, ana[obs3], trait. work of fiction, novel, romance, Minerva ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... in detail through the innumerable twists and turns of his experimentation and research on the storage battery, during the past ten years, would not be in keeping with the scope of this narrative, nor would it serve any useful purpose. Besides, such details would fill a big volume. The narrative, however, would not be complete without some mention of the general outline of his work, and reference may be made briefly to a few of the chief items. And lest the reader ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin

... many opponents; but in this state of our work we conceive our duty to be that of giving a simple narrative of the philosopher's ideas, rather than a history of the various criticisms upon those ideas, the more especially as our pages scarcely afford room for such a ...
— Ancient and Modern Celebrated Freethinkers - Reprinted From an English Work, Entitled "Half-Hours With - The Freethinkers." • Charles Bradlaugh, A. Collins, and J. Watts

... showman of the human comedy, the quality that all who write about him seem chiefly to mark in him is his scorn of conventional form, his tendency to approach his story from two directions at once, his frequent involvement in apparently inextricable snarls of narrative, sub-narrative and sub-sub-narrative. "Lord Jim," for example, starts out in the third person, presently swings into an exhaustive psychological discussion by the mythical Marlow, then goes into a brisk narrative at second (and sometimes ...
— A Book of Prefaces • H. L. Mencken

... months. Professor William James hypnotised him, and no sooner was he put into the trance and was told to remember what happened January 17th, 1887, than he became A. J. Brown again, and gave a clear and connected narrative of all his doings in the Brown state. He did not remember ever having met Ansel Bourne. Everything, however, in his past life, he said, was "mixed up." He only remembered that he was confused, wanted ...
— Real Ghost Stories • William T. Stead

... Mrs. Simmons, resuming her narrative, 'with increasing interest the progress of the grand anti-slavery drama, until that winter which, in defiance of all mathematical measurements, every American knows to be the longest in the annals of his country. With fixed attention she watched every event, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... did not contradict her, but commenced a narrative, which he intended to convey to his listeners exactly the same impressions which were on his own mind. In this, however, he failed. He told them that de Lescure had been carried senseless from the field, and had been taken by Henri in a litter on the road towards ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope

... otherwise I shall keep on piling fact upon fact on you, until your reason breaks down under them and acknowledges me to be right. Now, Mr. Jabez Wilson here has been good enough to call upon me this morning, and to begin a narrative which promises to be one of the most singular which I have listened to for some time. You have heard me remark that the strangest and most unique things are very often connected not with the larger but with the smaller crimes, and occasionally, indeed, where there is room for doubt whether ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various

... Measure is a tradition of great antiquity, of which there are several versions, narrative and dramatic. A contemptible tragedy, the Promos and Cassandra of George Whetstone, is supposed, from various coincidences, to have furnished Shakspeare with the groundwork of the play; but the character of Isabella is, in conception and execution, all his ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson

... he. "You're lazy, that's all. You use the narrative form because it's easier. Buckle to it—you can write stories as well as I can—but ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland

... But his narrative was nipped in the bud. There was a bustle outside, and Mrs. Hudson opened the door to usher in two robust and official-looking individuals, one of whom was well known to us as Inspector Gregson of Scotland Yard, an energetic, gallant, and, ...
— The Adventure of Wisteria Lodge • Arthur Conan Doyle

... period was in the seventies, before his Italian journeys; during and after that time he wrote more dramatic and epic poetry, with ballads and the more narrative kind of epic. In sending Der Juengling und der Muehlbach to Schiller from Switzerland in 1797, he wrote: 'I have discovered splendid material for idylls and elegies, and whatever that sort ...
— The Development of the Feeling for Nature in the Middle Ages and - Modern Times • Alfred Biese

... is a spirited and graphic narrative of a stirring episode in history. To use his own words, the author (see p. 271) has "endeavoured to surround the reader with the spirit of the times, and, in a word, to make him a contemporary ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XII. - Modern History • Arthur Mee

... Napoleon's carriage was taken ... and were shown the spot where the Brunswick Hussars cut down the French General as a retaliation for the life of the Duke. The Postmaster told us what he could, which was not much; the only curious part was that in his narrative he never called the Highland Regiments "Les Ecossais," but "Les Sans Culottes." The setting sun found us all covered with dust, rather tired and very hungry, and driving up, with some misgivings from what we had heard and from what we saw, to our Inn at Charleroi. ...
— Before and after Waterloo - Letters from Edward Stanley, sometime Bishop of Norwich (1802;1814;1814) • Edward Stanley

... done with your money," said Frank, as the speaker paused at the close of the narrative. "It was like you, Tony—noble ...
— All Aboard; or, Life on the Lake - A Sequel to "The Boat Club" • Oliver Optic

... part of the narrative that George Kirwin got from Joe Nevison: Joe began with the coal strike at Castle Rock, Wyoming, in 1893, when the strikers massed on Flat Top Mountain and day after day went through their drill. He told a highly dramatic story of the stoutish little man of fifty-five, with a fat, smooth-shaven ...
— In Our Town • William Allen White

... without ceremony. "Favor me," he said, addressing his wife, "by inducing Mrs. Eyrecourt to continue her narrative ...
— The Black Robe • Wilkie Collins

... the woods alone and kill the Pongos with their poysoned arrows." It is somewhat surprising that Tyson, who gives in his essay (p. 80) the account of the same people published at a later date (1686) by Dapper, should have missed his fellow-countryman's narrative. The existence of this tribe has been established by a German expedition, one of the members of which, Dr. Falkenstein, photographed and measured an adult male whose stature was four feet ...
— A Philological Essay Concerning the Pygmies of the Ancients • Edward Tyson

... of others I am indebted to the narrative of a Micmac Indian, taken down by Mr. Edward Jock; also to another version in the Rand MS. The story is, in the main-points, similar to that given by David Cusick in his History of the Six Nations, of Enigorio the Good ...
— The Algonquin Legends of New England • Charles Godfrey Leland

... is the scape-goat!—The rest of the narrative may be briefly told.—On the day appointed, arrives the officer commissioned to identify and receive the head of the youth. Will he be deceived by the false head? The poor Genzo's hand is on the hilt of the sword, ready to strike a blow either at the man or at himself, should ...
— Bushido, the Soul of Japan • Inazo Nitobe

... strip of embroidered canvas, still so fresh in its colours that it might have been finished, if indeed it is finished, yesterday. It is technically crude, childishly conventionalised, wrought with an enforced economy of means. Yet how superbly direct and bold in the presentation of the narrative, in the realism of the essential details, in all this marshalling of ships and horses and men, in this tragic multiplication of death on the battlefield. One feels behind it the fine and free energy of a creative spirit. It is one of our great European masterpieces ...
— Impressions And Comments • Havelock Ellis

... titles of the most important secondary authorities. These works will furnish a fuller account of the matters that have been treated in outline in this book, indicate the original sources, and give opportunity and suggestions for further study. An introductory chapter and a series of narrative paragraphs prefixed to other chapters are given with the object of correlating matters of economic and social history with other aspects of the ...
— An Introduction to the Industrial and Social History of England • Edward Potts Cheyney

... any panic was very creditable to the passengers. It, however, was mainly due to the conduct of the two Ambassadors, who, during the whole time, remained quietly seated on the poop conversing together, as if no danger 'impended.'—Personal Narrative of Occurrences during Lord Elgin's Second Embassy to China, by H.B. ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin

... with the President, about two o'clock that night the officer went to the White House, woke up Mr. Lincoln, and requested him to come into his office, where he told him his story. Mr. Lincoln listened with great interest until the narrative was completed, and then asked a few questions, ...
— Lincoln's Yarns and Stories • Alexander K. McClure

... and with pitiful sobs related her awful narrative. That every word of it was true no one could doubt who saw her as she told it. Briefly this is her story: A "fine lady" who wore beautiful clothes came to her where she lived with her parents, made friends with her, told her she was uncommonly ...
— Fighting the Traffic in Young Girls - War on the White Slave Trade • Various

... to you at Montreal, since which we have been travelling so much that I have had no time for writing till to-night. I must now, therefore, endeavour to resume the thread of my narrative, though it is a little perplexing to do so after going over so much ground as we have done lately in a ...
— First Impressions of the New World - On Two Travellers from the Old in the Autumn of 1858 • Isabella Strange Trotter

... simplicity; the language is neither overloaded with ornament, nor made to abound with well-rounded terms, at the sacrifice of perspicuity and truth; but there is throughout the work an air of impartiality and patient investigation which should uniformly characterize historical narrative. We make a few selections from various parts of the volume towards what may be termed a personal ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 20, Issue 561, August 11, 1832 • Various

... 1915, an Eyewitness with the British Headquarters in France, continues and supplements his narrative of operations: ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... impressions of an Inn dated from the Nursery; consequently I went back to the Nursery for a starting-point, and found myself at the knee of a sallow woman with a fishy eye, an aquiline nose, and a green gown, whose specially was a dismal narrative of a landlord by the roadside, whose visitors unaccountably disappeared for many years, until it was discovered that the pursuit of his life had been to convert them into pies. For the better devotion of himself to this branch of industry, he had ...
— The Holly-Tree • Charles Dickens

... and the Golden Fleece is known to old and young the world around. To the latter, perhaps, no other simple narrative in Greek mythology is more fascinating, nor holds a more valuable lesson if they will but seek to learn it. But especially to the boy or young man of thoughtful mind does the glorious adventure ...
— A Fleece of Gold - Five Lessons from the Fable of Jason and the Golden Fleece • Charles Stewart Given

... "Why, Charles, the narrative concerning Julia's life is very interesting. Some of the people around us would be just as good material for a novel as those we read about ...
— A California Girl • Edward Eldridge

... of certain ecclesiastics, Hippolyto Joseph de Costa, in his 'Narrative of the persecution' he suffered while lodged gratis by the Portuguese Inquisition for the pretended crime of Free Masonry, says, it would exceed the bounds of credulity, had not facts in corroboration of it been so established ...
— An Apology for Atheism - Addressed to Religious Investigators of Every Denomination - by One of Its Apostles • Charles Southwell

... from action and suffering. Sir Robert Walpole might naturally exclaim, "Do not read history to me, for that, I know, must be false." But if he had read it, I do not doubt that he would have seen through the film of false and insufficient narrative into the depth of the matter narrated, in a way that men of great experience can ...
— Friends in Council (First Series) • Sir Arthur Helps

... Tabora, where Livingstone was to await their arrival. He had entrusted his journals, letters, and maps to Stanley's care, and that was fortunate, for when Stanley first arrived in England his narrative was doubted, and he was coldly received. Subsequently a revulsion of feeling set in, and it was generally recognised that he ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin

... narrative there was a trenchant silence. All eyes were upon Monty. He looked beaten, disgraced, a disgusted man. Yet there shone from his face a wonderful admiration ...
— The Light of Western Stars • Zane Grey

... and Lucile's hand went out instinctively to silence the interruption. "Sh-h!" she warned, but the Frenchman seemed not to have heard and continued his narrative, while his hand beat a nervous tattoo on ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield

... some of the defences of this subject which the writings of Woolston and others had provoked. Its object was to show that the writings which record the statement of Christ's prediction of his own death are a forgery; that the narrative of the resurrection is incredible on internal grounds, and the variety in the various accounts of it are evidences of fraud. It indicates the commencement of the open allegation of literary imposture as distinct from philosophical error, which ...
— History of Free Thought in Reference to The Christian Religion • Adam Storey Farrar

... Christian Church to evangelize the western districts of Africa constitute one of the saddest and most discouraging records of history. From the first attempt of the Roman church in 1481, it has been one continuous narrative of a futile struggle against disease and death. A whole army of martyrs has gone bravely to its doom leaving no trace of its sacrifice save unmarked and forgotten graves. It has indeed been a bitter experience ...
— History of Liberia - Johns Hopkins University Studies In Historical And Political Science • J.H.T. McPherson

... in the old woman's narrative—for she was really possessed of no ordinary capacity, and, though rude and uneducated might have been a very superior person under different circumstances—that I rummaged among my store, and soon found a piece of ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie

... My own personal narrative begins again two days after the London meeting, that is to say on the Friday before ...
— The Red Hand of Ulster • George A. Birmingham

... from Malta, he thus describes her in prose:—"This letter is committed to the charge of a very extraordinary woman, whom you have doubtless heard of, Mrs. S—— S——, of whose escape the Marquis de Salvo published a narrative a few years ago. She has since been shipwrecked, and her life has been from its commencement so fertile in remarkable incidents that in a romance they would appear improbable. She was born at Constantinople, where her father, Baron H——, was Austrian ambassador; married unhappily, ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. I. (of VI.) - With his Letters and Journals. • Thomas Moore

... of Joseph and his brethren. Simeon, if we may credit the Talmudists, must have been quite a Hercules in strength. The Biblical narrative of Simeon's detention by his brother Joseph is brief but most expressive: "And he turned himself about from them and wept; and returned to them again, and communed with them, and took from them Simeon, and bound ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston

... and enliven by adding something that is not necessarily or very closely connected with that to which it is added; to illustrate is to add something so far like in kind as to cast a side-light upon the principal matter. An author embellishes his narrative with fine descriptions, the artist illustrates it with beautiful engravings, the binder gilds and decorates the volume. Garnish is on a lower plane; as, the feast was garnished with flowers. Deck and bedeck are commonly ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald

... meeting of welcome by the Royal Geographical Society a few days after my arrival in London in December last, Sir Roderick Murchison, the President, invited me to give the world a narrative of my travels; and at a similar meeting of the Directors of the London Missionary Society I publicly stated my intention of sending a book to the press, instead of making many of those public appearances ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone

... ridiculous thing concerning the interior of Guiana has been propagated and received as true merely because six or seven Indians, questioned separately, have agreed in their narrative. ...
— Wanderings In South America • Charles Waterton

... will be many things in this narrative which I, an unlearned man, cannot explain. Still, I must tell of matters as they occurred, this, among others, especially as my relations with Eli Fraddam, Betsey's son, have been condemned by Parson Inch. It is said that the Fraddam ...
— The Birthright • Joseph Hocking

... Khan; being a narrative of his Journey from Delhi to Calcutta, and thence by Sea to England: containing his remarks upon the manners, customs, laws, constitutions, literature, arts, manufactures, &c., of the people of the British Isles. Translated from the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various

... land-company, the precursor of many that have resembled it. The lands they offered had been bought of the Ohio Company, but were never paid for. When the poor French barbers, fiddlers, and bakers, as they are called in a contemporary narrative, reached the banks of la belle riviere, they found that their title-deeds were good for nothing, and that the woods produced savages instead of sugar. Some died of privation, some were scalped, and some found their way to New Orleans. The few who remained eventually obtained a grant of a few acres ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various

... Before we pursue our narrative, let us say a few words touching the recently established connection between the Slasher and Martial. As soon as Germain had left the prison, the Slasher, who easily proved that he had robbed himself, confessed to ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue

... to break off, and now resume the narrative. It was resolved at the Cabinet that Palmerston should summon the Ministers of the Conference and ask their consent to his making some communication to Guizot. The Austrian and the Prussian said ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville

... sketches. It is like an old photograph album, wherein each photograph is made lifelike by memory or narrative. The doors of a whole country neighborhood are thrown ...
— 'Doc.' Gordon • Mary E. Wilkins-Freeman

... conversation of Gregory, a free-spirited Abyssinian priest, whom he invited from Rome to the court of Saxe-Gotha. See the Theologia Aethiopica of Gregory, in (Fabric. Lux Evangelii, p. 716—734.) * Note: The travels of Bruce, illustrated by those of Mr. Salt, and the narrative of Nathaniel Pearce, have brought us again acquainted with this remote region. Whatever may be their speculative opinions the barbarous manners of the Ethiopians seem to be gaining more and more the ascendency over the ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon

... Sleswic by the Saxons, but by the Danes Haithaby. The other traveller was Wulfstan, who sailed in the Baltic, from Slesvig in Denmark to Frische Haff within the Gulf of Danzig, reaching the Drausen Sea by Elbing. These voyages were taken from the travellers' own lips. Of Wulfstan's, the narrative passes at one time into the form of direct personal narration—"Wulfstan said that he went . . . that he had . . . And then we had on our left the land of the Burgundians [Bornholmians], who had their own king. After the land of the Burgundians we had on our left," ...
— The Discovery of Muscovy etc. • Richard Hakluyt

... The narrative he had framed did not carry him further, or perhaps he could not bring himself to speak the final words, for it was some time before the low-voiced ...
— Maria Chapdelaine - A Tale of the Lake St. John Country • Louis Hemon

... preparing any work, particularly in the department of history, it is to be presumed that the explorations of the writer extend far beyond what he may conclude to put into his book. He will find much that is of no account whatever; that would load down his narrative, swell it to inadmissible dimensions, and shed no additional light. Collateral and incidental questions cannot be pursued in details. A new law, however, is now given out, that must be followed, hereafter, ...
— Salem Witchcraft and Cotton Mather - A Reply • Charles W. Upham

... door opened, and an old man appeared. It was the man whom we saw in the Black Forest in the beginning of our narrative, the man who then escaped from the assassin, and who told the old Marquis of Simon's retreat. But the ten years that had since elapsed had left their traces on his brow; and perhaps it was not years alone that had lined his brow, faded his eyes, and bent his form. His face was sad—a shadow ...
— The Son of Monte Cristo • Jules Lermina

... account of not wishing to leave the colonel or not, still every delay gave him more chance of ultimate success. Isabel, who had stayed away that the colonel might have time to make any communications to Newton, now returned, and the conversation became general. Newton entered into a narrative of what had occurred during his passage home, and amused them with his ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat



Words linked to "Narrative" :   fairy story, folktale, communicatory, content, folk tale, message, fairy tale, tearjerker, tale, communicative, Canterbury Tales, tall tale, nursery rhyme, narrate, sob story



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