"Teller" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... must ask of those wiser than I, for I am only the story-teller, sitting in the shadow of the market-place, passing on the tale that comes to my ears. But I can remind you that May Eve is one of the most bewitched and bewitching times of the whole year—reason enough to account for any number of strange happenings; and I can point out to your notice that Margaret ...
— The Primrose Ring • Ruth Sawyer
... suddenly in the foreground of a picture by Carpaccio or Bellini. Where else had one seen just those rows of white-turbaned majestic figures, squatting in the dust under lofty walls, all the pale faces ringed in curling beards turned to the story-teller in the centre of the group? Transform the story-teller into a rapt young Venetian, and you have the audience and the foreground of Carpaccio's "Preaching of St. Stephen," even to the camels craning inquisitive necks above the turbans. ...
— In Morocco • Edith Wharton
... MACDOUGA I have to be teller of very bad new sister, my poor wife die morning. It will not be a shock to you than it wa me. I had no thought it was likely to happen a few hours previous sent her love to you her mother. The ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... wheaten rolls and makovniki [FOOTNOTE: Poppy-seeds cooked in honey, and dried in square cakes.] with honey in the other world!) could tell a story wonderfully well. When he used to begin on a tale, you wouldn't stir from the spot all day, but keep on listening. He was no match for the story-teller of the present day, when he begins to lie, with a tongue as though he had had nothing to eat for three days, so that you snatch your cap and flee from the house. As I now recall it,—my old mother was alive then,—in the long winter evenings when the frost was crackling out of doors, ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Russian • Various
... get it? There is a hunter here just now who goes by the name of Jacques Caradoc. He is a first-rater—can do anything, in a wild way, that lies within the power of mortal man, and is an inexhaustible anecdote-teller, in a quiet way. He and I have been out buffalo-hunting two or three times, and it would have done your heart good, Harry, my dear boy, to have seen us scouring over the prairie together on two big-boned Indian horses—regular trained buffalo-runners, that didn't need the spur to urge, ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... When the story-teller had concluded amidst a general call for more drinks, Sperry approached the driver. The latter recognizing him, turned to his companion carelessly, said, "Here's one of 'em," and was going ...
— Colonel Starbottle's Client and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... in the village, among the boats beside the little pier, or in the fields, when the men worked there. Everyone petted and loved him, from Father Moran, the priest who had started the national school, down to old Shamus, the crippled singer of interminable Irish songs and teller of heroic legends of the past. It was when he heard the boy repeat a story of Finn MacCool to the old crone in the kitchen that Mr. Conneally awoke to the idea that he must educate his son. He began, naturally enough, with Irish, for ...
— Hyacinth - 1906 • George A. Birmingham
... worked and got some wages. Then I got a job on the railroad. Our car was side tracked at a place called Silver Springs," said Uncle George, "and right at that place came trouble that took the happiness out of my life forever." Here the story teller paused to collect his thoughts and conquer the nervous twitching of his lips. "It was like this: Three of us boys worked together. We were like three brothers, always sharing our fortunes with each other. We should ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - From Interviews with Former Slaves: Indiana Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... teach you how to tell fortunes—really and truly?" asked Betty. "We had a fortune-teller's tent at the School Bazaar last year, and the youngest Smithson girl dressed up in spangles and a red dress and said she was Zara, the Eastern Mystic Hand-Reader, and Foreteller of the Future. But she got it all out of ...
— The Incomplete Amorist • E. Nesbit
... and it is doubtful if his listeners ever derived a fraction of the amusement from his fabrications that he himself enjoyed. Paloma's spirit of contradiction was the only fly in his ointment; now that his daughter was old enough to "keep books" on him, much of the story-teller's joy ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach
... happily. He had much feeling for symbol, and, like the old architects, would fill all things, pretty or ugly, with meaning. When one reads these stories, one does not feel as if it were the writer's vocation to be a story-teller, but as if he were using the story as a philosophical toy. And it was fortunate for him that he fell on an age of periodicals, a class of works which just suited his genius. He and the modern development of periodical literature grew up together, and grew prosperous together. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... will be severe in demanding domestic economies. This is what kills tens of thousands of women—attempting to make five dollars do the work of seven. How the bills come in! The woman is the banker of the household; she is the president, the cashier, the teller, the discount clerk; and there is a panic every few weeks! This thirty years' war against high prices, this perpetual study of economics, this life-long attempt to keep the outgoes less than the ...
— The Wedding Ring - A Series of Discourses for Husbands and Wives and Those - Contemplating Matrimony • T. De Witt Talmage
... small tables under the beech-tree where she sat. She opened the book and began reading, because she did not know what else to do. While she had been watching Lloyd in the boat, Elise had been summoned to the house to try on the dress she was to wear in the tableau of the gipsy fortune-teller. The people on the porch had divided into little groups which she did not feel free to join. She was afraid they would think she was intruding. Even her own sister seemed out of her reach, for she and Lieutenant Logan had taken their share of paper roses over to a rustic seat ...
— The Little Colonel: Maid of Honor • Annie Fellows Johnston
... the land blessed by nature, the land where men took joy in living, the land of life, flowing with gaiety and love, the land of the Song of Songs and of Ruth. He drew Isaiah for them, not as a saintly Rabbi or a teller of mystical dreams, but a poetic Isaiah, patriot, sublime moralist, the prophet of a free Judea, the preacher of earthly prosperity, of goodness, and justice, opposing the narrow doctrines and minute and senseless ceremonialism ...
— The Renascence of Hebrew Literature (1743-1885) • Nahum Slouschz
... continued, "Her head will be slightly in danger, but of this no appearance will remain half an hour afterwards." It was impossible to doubt the facts. They appeared so surprising to the King, that he desired some inquiry to be made concerning the fortune-teller. Madame, however, protected her from the pursuit of ...
— Memoirs And Historical Chronicles Of The Courts Of Europe - Marguerite de Valois, Madame de Pompadour, and Catherine de Medici • Various
... clever little book, and many of them will, no doubt, commend themselves to our readers. The maxim, 'If you find the company dull, blame yourself,' seems to us somewhat optimistic, and we have no sympathy at all with the professional story-teller who is really a great bore at a dinner-table; but Mr. Mahaffy is quite right in insisting that no bright social intercourse is possible without equality, and it is no objection to his book to say that it ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... ancient popular forms of divination which still survive, the most commonly practised in households is divination by dry rice. For the public, Chinese divination is still in great favour; but it is interesting to observe that the Japanese fortune-teller invariably invokes the Shinto gods before consulting his Chinese books, and maintains a ...
— Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation • Lafcadio Hearn
... and the endings are equally unsatisfactory, they usually content themselves, after "native" fashion, with "Intiha" finis, and the connection with the thread of the work must be supplied by the story-teller or the translator. Headlines were not in use for the MSS. of that day, and the catchwords are often irregular, a new word taking the place of the initial in ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... causes discomfort, and disturbs the grooves of action. To say that the object of the realist is to enlighten rather than to delight, is not to say that in his art the realist is not amusing himself as much as ever is the teller of a fairy-tale, though he does not deliberately start out to do so; he is amusing, too, a large part of mankind. For, admitted that the abject, and the test of Art, is always the awakening of vibration, of impersonal emotion, it is still usually forgotten that men fall, roughly ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... her now, sitting on that crimson velvet seat in the lounge and looking past the gesticulations of the General to Jevons, who was shaking his head at her as much as to say, "Don't you believe the old boy, he's a shocking story-teller." ...
— The Belfry • May Sinclair
... liberal of their wealth. Melchior, it appeared, gained money in three different characters; as a quack doctor, the character in which we first saw him; secondly, as a juggler, in which art he was most expert; and thirdly, as a fortune-teller, and wise man. ...
— Japhet, In Search Of A Father • Frederick Marryat
... that truth should not be spoken at all times; and those whom a sick conscience worries into habitual violation of the maxim are imbeciles and nuisances." It is strong language, but true. None of us could live with an habitual truth-teller; but thank goodness none of us has to. An habitual truth-teller is simply an impossible creature; he does not exist; he never has existed. Of course there are people who think they never lie, but it is not so—and this ...
— On the Decay of the Art of Lying • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)
... 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 ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... log-book in it. Dates are painfully pressed upon the memory. Facts are repeated over and over in varying phrases, till you cannot chuse but believe them. It is like reading Evidence given in a Court of Justice. So anxious the story-teller seems, that the truth should be clearly comprehended, that when he has told us a matter of fact, or a motive, in a line or two farther down he repeats it with his favorite figure of speech, 'I say' so and so,—though he had made it abundantly ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... tell you that one thing, my dear, to show you what a good fortune-teller I am. If you like, I will give you a ...
— The Red Fairy Book • Various
... the fancies one may hear in any little hillside cabin in Geesala, or Carraroe, or Dingle Bay. All art is a collaboration; and there is little doubt that in the happy ages of literature, striking and beautiful phrases were as ready to the story-teller's or the playwright's hand, as the rich cloaks and dresses of his time. It is probable that when the Elizabethan dramatist took his ink-horn and sat down to his work he used many phrases that he had just heard, as he sat at dinner, from ...
— The Playboy of the Western World • J. M. Synge
... dat one now, Miss Davis? What de next? Great Jeruselum! Dem chillun done carry dat tune way wid dem. I can' turn dat one to save my neck. Just can' come to de turn table as de old man would say. (12 o'clock mill whistle blows, time teller for many colored people of the community). Lord a mercy, what dat whistle say? It done come 12 o'clock en dat pot ain' thought bout to kick up none yet. I tell you, honey, it sho a 'sponsibility I got put on me here to ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 1 • Various
... hurry on, thinking how awful the world would be, if every one went about without eyelids. There are junk-shops in Golosh Street that seem to have got hold of all the old nails in the Ark and all the old brass of Corinth. Madame Filomel, the fortune-teller, lives at No. 12 Golosh Street, second story front, pull the bell on the left-hand side. Next door to Madame is the shop of Herr Hippe, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... persons!" exclaimed Nathan, when told of the cashier's remark; "I will make these gentlemen see what sort of private persons we are." Three weeks later he presented a five-pound note at the bank at the opening of the office. The teller counted out five sovereigns, looking surprised that Baron Rothschild should have troubled himself about such a trifle. The baron examined the coins one by one, weighing them in the balance, as he said "the ...
— How to Succeed - or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune • Orison Swett Marden
... the household needs. Kano visited the temple, also, and spent long hours in conference with his personal friend, the abbot. Even old Mata, abandoning for the moment her Protestantism and reverting to the yearning (never entirely stifled) for mystic practises, went to an old charlatan of a fortune-teller, and purchased various charms and powders for driving the demons from the unconscious Tatsu. Ume-ko soon discovered this, and the fear that Tatsu would be poisoned added to a load of anxiety ...
— The Dragon Painter • Mary McNeil Fenollosa
... Tod, of Ohio, as Secretary of the Treasury to succeed Mr. Chase, was not well received in either House. If the Members had known Tod as well as I did, they would have known that he was not only a good story teller, but a sound, able, conservative business man, fully competent to deal with the great office for which he was nominated. His declination, however, prevented a controversy which would have been injurious, whatever might have been the ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... he said to the caliph, "which of us is the truth-teller. Here is the lost leg of the table. I found the table and kept this for evidence. It is the same with most of the treasures Musa has shown you. It was I who won them and captured the cities in which ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume VII • Charles Morris
... a fortune teller Anna knew was really bad. That had to be told to the father just as it was and penance had then to ...
— Three Lives - Stories of The Good Anna, Melanctha and The Gentle Lena • Gertrude Stein
... Well-House, and at the next her heels were up among the apples. Then Martin ensconced himself upon a lower limb of the tree, which had a mossy cushion against the trunk as though nature or time had designed it for a teller of tales. The milkmaids sprang quickly into other branches around him, shaking a hail of sweet apples about his head. What he could he caught, and dropped into the swinger's lap, whence from time to time he helped himself; ...
— Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard • Eleanor Farjeon
... he crossed the street to the First National, bounced in and presented himself at the teller's window, lighting a cigar, puffing like a tugboat. "To open a small account—two of 'em. Checks for collection," he announced. Tone and manner were breezily self-assertive; the president, from his desk, turned and looked. He indorsed, blotting with a swift dab, and a final fillip through the window. ...
— The Desire of the Moth; and The Come On • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... cast this record into story form and have used the license of a story-teller. I have incorporated a few adventures on the border which strictly do not belong to this tale. Every one of them, however, is true, and I hope will help in giving a true picture of ...
— Scouting with Daniel Boone • Everett T. Tomlinson
... Gilbert Parker, now a 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 in the same field of effort. Other meritorious Canadian ...
— Canada under British Rule 1760-1900 • John G. Bourinot
... Muawiyeh ben Abou Sufyan, who was then Khalif in the Hejaz; so he wrote to his lieutenant in Senaa of Yemen to send for the teller of the story and question him of the truth of the case. Accordingly the lieutenant sent for me and questioned me, and I told him what I had seen; whereupon he despatched me to Muawiyeh, to whom I repeated my story; but he would not credit it. So I brought out to him some of ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume III • Anonymous
... unwillingly. The fortune-teller spread his little carpet and knelt down in order to read the palm of his hypothetical client, but ...
— Brood of the Witch-Queen • Sax Rohmer
... implored her to engrave in her dear mind, if she would not write it in her heart, that he wished her to use some of her leisure time in writing a few lines to him daily. As was his custom when in distress, he sought a fortune-teller for comfort, and as usual, was delighted with his prophecy. The notorious Balthazar described to him perfectly the woman he loved, told him that his love was returned, that there would never be a cloud in their sky, in spite of the intensity of their characters, and that he would ...
— Women in the Life of Balzac • Juanita Helm Floyd
... in his parable, should compare Abimelech to a thorn-bush, while he characterized his predecessors, Othniel, Deborah, and Gideon, as an olive-tree, or a fig-tree, or a vine. This Jotham, the youngest of the sons of Gideon, was more than a teller of parables. He knew then that long afterward the Samaritans would claim sanctity for Mount Gerizim, on account of the blessing pronounced from it upon the tribe. For this reason he chose Gerizim from which to hurl his curse upon Shechem and ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME IV BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... have therefore chosen this alternative. The variations, both in questions and answers, are many, as is perhaps natural considering the popularity of the riddle in the folk mind, which would make it easy for a story-teller to make changes. ...
— Europa's Fairy Book • Joseph Jacobs
... Returning safely to Abbeville, they would write hair-raising accounts of the dangers they had passed through to the motor-cycling papers. It is only right that I should here once and for all confess—there is no finer teller of tall stories ...
— Adventures of a Despatch Rider • W. H. L. Watson
... with a smile, that in spite of their early tribulations the sins for which the boys suffered had gotten a little mixed in their result, for fibbing Steve was now the tidy one, and careless Mac the truth teller. But such small contradictions will happen in the best-regulated families, and all perplexed parents can do is to keep up a steadfast preaching and practicing in the hope that it will bear fruit sometime, for according to an old proverb, Children pick ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... dynamited, that much was sure. By whom, no one knew. The house, if ever a house had been built over those rain-bleached rocks, had been struck by lightning, hurricane, blown up by giant powder, rotted away—a dozen other tragic ends, as the whim of the story-teller dictated. The owner had been murdered, lynched, had committed suicide—no one knew, but everyone was positive that there was something fearfully, ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Air on Lost Island • Gordon Stuart
... was the name of two German brothers.... Their studies they carried on together, though Jacob was the more learned, and made great contributions to the science of language, while Wilhelm was more artistic in his tastes and was a capital story-teller.... They lived in the province of Hesse-Cassel, ... and it was from the peasants in this province that they derived a great many tales. The best friend they had was the wife of a cowherd, a woman of about fifty, who had a genius ...
— A Mother's List of Books for Children • Gertrude Weld Arnold
... for me at ten. Long before that time I was sitting on the edge of the chair, ready and waiting, trying to coax into my over-soul an ounce or so of poise, a measure of serenity. It needed no fortune teller to forecast that this visit to the Kencho would be productive of results, whether good or bad the coming hours alone ...
— The House of the Misty Star - A Romance of Youth and Hope and Love in Old Japan • Fannie Caldwell Macaulay
... actors live in Kadalayapan and Kaodanan, [6] towns which our chief story teller—when trying to explain the desire of Kanag to go down and get fruit—assures us were somewhere in the air, above the earth (p. 141). [7] At other times these places are referred to as Sudipan—the term by which spirits are supposed to call the present earth—while the actors are ...
— Traditions of the Tinguian: A Study in Philippine Folk-Lore • Fay-Cooper Cole
... seen by Strype in his own handwriting, from which it was foretold that she should marry, in middle life, a foreign prince younger than herself; and probably be the mother of a son, who should be prosperous in his middle age. Catherine de' Medici also, to whom some female fortune-teller had predicted that all her sons should be kings, hoped, after the election of her second son to the throne of Poland, to find the full accomplishment of the prophecy in the advancement of the youngest to the matrimonial crown of England. So serious was the belief ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... color and life from end to end, that few who read the first two or three stories will lay it down till they have read the last—and the last is a veritable gem * * * contains some of the best of his highly vivid work * * * Kipling is a born story-teller and a man of humor into ...
— The Forsaken Inn - A Novel • Anna Katharine Green
... meet fellows right along who pass as good men for a while, because they say they're good men; just as a lot of fives are in circulation which are accepted at their face value until they work up to the receiving teller. And you're going to see these men taking buzzards and coining eagles from them that will fool people so long as they can keep them in the air; but sooner or later they're bound to swoop back to their dead horse, and ...
— Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son • George Horace Lorimer
... men went out on the porch with their pipes and we to the sitting-room, where Molly, the story-teller, seated herself in a comfortable chair, her feet outstretched before her. She made a lap, a generous lap, to which she tried to beguile the baby, ...
— The Woman Who Toils - Being the Experiences of Two Gentlewomen as Factory Girls • Mrs. John Van Vorst and Marie Van Vorst
... 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 or cockatrice scales;[83] of the ...
— Early Theories of Translation • Flora Ross Amos
... story teller of his time," thought Dr. Bellows. "Gifted with an exquisite, a delicious sense of the ludicrous, and given to bursts of uncontrollable merriment, happy as childhood and as innocent," this is the verdict of one of his earliest biographers,—E. ...
— Starr King in California • William Day Simonds
... the identity of the money, the Court charged that it made no difference which person performed the physical act of placing the cash in the hands of the receiving teller of the bank, so long as it was deposited to ...
— True Stories of Crime From the District Attorney's Office • Arthur Train
... of the more rustic festivals in honor of the same god the performance was of a more jocose or satirical character; and hence arose the term comedy, [Footnote: From the Greek ko'me, "a village," and o'de, "a song."] from the two Greek words signifying "village" and "song"—village-song. In the teller of mythological legends we find the first germ of dialogue, as the chorus soon came to assist him by occasional question and remark. This feature was introduced by Thespis, a native of Ica'ria, in 535 B.C., under whose direction, and that of Phryn'icus, his ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... day, please! I think you're a first-rate story-teller. You're almost as good as old Mary O'Grady. I've often sat by her peat fire and heard about the banshee and the leprechaun; only, she believes in them. I'm so glad I've moved into this bedroom! I like you far better than those girls in ...
— The New Girl at St. Chad's - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... military government." "If this bill had been law," Grattan added, "the independence of the Irish Parliament, the emancipation of the Catholics, and even the English revolution of 1688, could never have taken place!" The teller in favour of the Convention Act was Major Wellesley, member for Trim, twenty years later—Duke of Wellington! It became and still remains the law ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... 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 all conditions of people: little and big, young and old: yet growing up, or already growing down ...
— The Chimes • Charles Dickens
... not know a truth-teller when they see one? And so they would keep you on bread and water? Not if Nurse Camilla can prevent it. See, now! here is a plenty to eat, and just what my own boy likes, does he not? Eat, eat, my son, and never mind the stale bread of that ...
— The Boy Life of Napoleon - Afterwards Emperor Of The French • Eugenie Foa
... give me far too much of the quality of his voice." Here also Sir Charles made friends with Governor Curtin, the American Minister, 'formerly Lincoln's Governor of Pennsylvania during the war, and the best story-teller in the world.' 'I went about a good deal with Baron Jomini and Baron von der Osten Sacken, and saw much of the Emperor's aunt, the Grande Duchesse Helene. My chief friends were at this time Princess Galitzin, Prince Orlof ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn
... and 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
... army tempts him with opportunities for intrigue; but whether in the shape of Machiavelisms, miracles, or mutinies, he is forever making mischief. Whether as messenger, dancing-master, conjurer, fortune-teller, speculator, mountebank, politician, priest, or Sepoy, he is ever the same Asirvadam the Brahmin,—sleekest of lackeys, most servile of sycophants, expertest of tricksters, smoothest of hypocrites, coolest of liars, most insolent ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... gave us Miss Ogden, the Y. W. C. A. woman from d. o. U. S. A. to read President Wilson's proclamation. How strange it seemed to us soldiers standing there under arms. And Major Moodie the old veteran of many a British campaign, and friend of Kitchener, the good old story teller praised the boys and prayed with them. Major Nichols and Major Alabernarde spoke cheering and bracing words to the assembled American and French soldiers. It was an occasion that raised ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore
... would like us to have our fortunes told. I know she was very much displeased with one of the servants allowing the gipsy woman to tell her hers. If we want to see the encampment, we had better not have anything to do with the fortune-teller. Mamma says it is not only silly but wicked to ...
— Carry's Rose - or, the Magic of Kindness. A Tale for the Young • Mrs. George Cupples
... plausibility, in that virtue which may be defined as "the writer's imagination," whose lack is something more than careless writing. How often one puts down a story with the feeling that it would take little to make it a "rattling good tale," but alas, that little is everything. A story-teller's craft depends not only on a sense of style, that is, form and good writing, but also on the creation of an atmosphere, shall we say hypnotic in effect, and capable of persuading the reader that he is a temporary ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors
... a yeoman, no matter how gifted he may be with letter file or typewriter, has a rating to tell a story—no, no more than anybody else aboard ship. Some of us had heard the story before, and it had always been mangled in the telling, through the teller not knowing all the facts, or having perhaps never met any of the principal characters in it. But Dalton not only knew the tale from beginning to end; he was, though he would never admit it in a crowd, himself concerned ...
— Wide Courses • James Brendan Connolly
... was trying to ease his mind by moving from place to place, and from excitement to excitement. But he thought about Blanche as he sauntered in the dark walks; he thought about Blanche as he looked at the devices of the lamps. He consulted the fortune-teller about her, and was disappointed when that gipsy told him that he was in love with a dark lady who would make him happy; and at the concert, though Mr. Momus sang his most stunning comic songs, and asked his most astonishing riddles, never did a kind smile come to visit ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Stone, Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell and many individuals and associations — Addresses by Mrs. Cannon, a woman State Senator from Utah, Mrs. Conine, a woman State Representative from Colorado, Miss Reel, State Superintendent of Instruction from Wyoming, U. S. Senators Teller and Cannon, and others — Senate Hearing — Wm. Lloyd Garrison on The Nature of a Republican Form of Government — May Wright Sewall on Fitness of Women to Become Citizens from the Standpoint of Education and Mental Development — The Rev. Anna Garlin Spencer on Moral Development — Laura ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... understand in the present day the deep-seated faith in amulets and charms, which were thought to have brought about what would now be regarded as curious coincidences, or to place reliance upon the babbling utterances of some old crone who posed as a witch or a fortune-teller. Yet among such old-world stories there are germs of truth although misapplied. The emblems, amulets, and charms so implicitly believed in a few centuries ago are objects numbered among collectable curios, valued even in this prosaic ...
— Chats on Household Curios • Fred W. Burgess
... a story which I told with the purpose of every story-teller—to amuse. Hence, if it seem strange to you, that strangeness is the romance; it is what contrasts it with real life; it is the invention, in brief, the fiction as opposed to the fact. For do but ask yourself, my dear Charlie," lovingly leaning over towards him, "I rest ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville
... state-chamber are covered with looking-glasses. One side of the room opens into a court adorned with flowers and fountains. Great part of his time is spent in amusements, such as hunting and shooting, writing verses, and hearing stories. He keeps a man called a story-teller, and he will never hear the same story repeated twice. It gives the man a great deal of trouble to find new stories every day. The king keeps jesters, who make jokes; and he has mimics, who play antics to make him laugh. He dines at eight in the ...
— Far Off • Favell Lee Mortimer
... periodicals are only sporadically successful. Now and again a true poet flashes through their pages; less often a true story-teller, although the mechanical excellence of most of the stories is unquestionable,—they go through the motions quite as if they were the real thing. But the appeals of the editors for poetry and literary prose; their occasional sardonic comments upon the apathy of the college ...
— The Story of Wellesley • Florence Converse
... right, within two minutes of the unlocking of the bank and the rolling up of the shades. Jeff Hall was the first man to walk in, and he stopped short when he saw Bud lounging before the teller's window and the cashier busy within. Other men were straggling up on the porch, and two of them entered. Jeff walked over to Bud, who shifted his position enough to bring him facing Jeff, whom he did not trust ...
— Cow-Country • B. M. Bower
... the boys came together in some uncertainty in regard to who was to be the story-teller. But Will Sampson, the stammering president of the club, had taken care to notify John Harlan, the widow's son, that he was to tell the story. If there was any general favorite it was John; for while ...
— Queer Stories for Boys and Girls • Edward Eggleston
... might take hold here and make it hot for those d-d rascals in the Northeastern, after all. You couldn't botch it worsen Hammer has, and you might do some good. I said I'd make 'em dance, and by G-d, I'll do it, if I have to pay that Teller Levering in New York, and it takes the rest of my life. Look the situation over, and come back to-morrow and tell me ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... to me during a series of experiments which I had conducted with a friend of mine. It so happened that this friend was paying teller in one of our well-known banks of Chicago, where he is to-day. He is a thoroughly honorable man in every way, but I found that he was a good hypnotic subject, or sensitive, as we call it. At first he could not be considered first class, but ...
— Montezuma's Castle and Other Weird Tales • Charles B. Cory
... this book, as it is only in Ireland, of the countries that retain a Celtic culture, that the movement is the dominating influence in writing in English; and it is with the drama only that I have now to deal, though when a playwright is a poet or a story-teller, too, I have written of his attainment in verse and tale also. Had I been writing five years ago, I should have said that it was in poetry that the Celtic Renaissance had attained most nobly, but since then the drama has had more recruits of power ...
— Irish Plays and Playwrights • Cornelius Weygandt
... do we recognize the budding of Hawthorne's genius. This clear introspective analysis is the foundation of all true mental power, and Hawthorne might have become a Platonic philosopher, if he had not preferred to be a story-teller. ...
— The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne • Frank Preston Stearns
... Chaucer and his nine-and-twenty pilgrims stood in picturesque confusion in the early dawn of that spring morning, long, long ago; and agreed for their common amusement on the road each one of them should tell at least one tale in going to, and another in returning from Canterbury; the best story teller to be treated to a supper by his fellow travelers on their return to the Tabard Inn. The company comprises representatives from all classes of society except the two extremes; there is neither a prince nor a beggar. ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... held the margins on Joseph's grain corner. "Katch" broke his neck by falling into the wheat pit, but the incident was soon forgotten in the advancing prosperity of the bank. The place is in ruins, but we saw the "paying teller's gun," which was a decorated club with spikes on it; it lay unnoticed in a nook in the big amalgamated copper vault, covered with papyrus books and records of the bank. Some of the old past due notes on the shelves were still drawing interest and you could hear it tick ...
— A Fantasy of Mediterranean Travel • S. G. Bayne
... to me to suggest somethin'." Mr. Gibney smiled benignly, as if a money-making idea was the easiest thing on earth to produce. "The last thing I remember before we went to that Turkish bath was us four visitin' a fortune teller an' havin' our fortunes told, past, present, an' future, for a dollar a throw. Anybody here remember what ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... after all, it did not quite fit in with all that her memory held in connection with that little scene at the Restaurant des Ambassadeurs. She made an effort to recall it in detail. Had not Lady Clifford said something about a visit to a fortune-teller of some sort? What was it? Of course! She said the woman went into a trance and described "Charles" lying ill in bed, with a doctor beside him and ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell
... which to base the history before that date. We may reasonably believe, however, that at some time the marshy ground in the forum gave way, as ground often does, and that there was difficulty in filling up the chasm. A grand opportunity was thus offered for a good story-teller to build up a romance, or to touch up the early history with an interesting tale of heroism. The temptation to do this would have been very strong ...
— The Story of Rome From the Earliest Times to the End of the Republic • Arthur Gilman
... very pithy anecdotes. Mr. Rankin very kindly writes:—"Your 'Reminiscences' are most refreshing. I am very little of a story-collector, but I have recorded some of an old schoolmaster, who was a story-teller. As a sort of payment for the amusement I have derived from your book, I shall ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... character. In her majestic personality, the virtues and the vices of the Spanish Gypsy fortune-teller were incarnate. The vices were legion; the virtues were two—the love of kindred, and physical chastity—the chastity of the ...
— The Redemption of David Corson • Charles Frederic Goss
... rank. The influence of Rasputin over the Imperial family was denied again and again. It has been said from authoritative sources that the Czar did not know him by sight, and that the Czarina knew him only as a superstitious and neurotic woman might know some fortune teller or other charlatan. Nevertheless the credulous public believed him to be the evil spirit of the Imperial circle, and every false move, every unpopular act, was ascribed to his baneful influence. But such a career could not last long, and ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish
... mythological, historical, and geographical allusion, the compactness of his expression, and the maturity and depth of his intellect, a barrier calling for too much effort. Both will prefer Virgil—Virgil of "arms and the man," the story-teller, Virgil the lover of Italy, Virgil the glorifier of Roman deeds and destiny, Virgil the readily understood, Virgil who has already drawn aside, at least partly, the veil that hangs before the mystic other-world, Virgil the almost Christian prophet, with the almost Biblical ...
— Horace and His Influence • Grant Showerman
... and in a lonesome glade we met the apparition of an Indian chief, dressed in appropriate costume of blanket, feathers, and paint, and armed with a musket. Almost at the same time, a young gypsy fortune-teller came from among the trees, and proposed to tell my fortune. While she was doing this, the goddess Diana let fly an arrow, and hit me smartly in the hand. The fortune-teller and goddess were in fine contrast, ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 2. • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... glorified journalist and reviewer, who brings the matured results of scholars to the man in the street in a form that he can remember and enjoy, when he could not make use of a merely learned book. He performs the office of the ballad-maker or story-teller in an age before books were known or were common. And it is largely due to his influence that the best journals and periodicals of our day are written in a style so clear, ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... similar tale is told by Miss Holbrook in The Book of Nature Myths. Also by Mary McDowell as "The Three Little Christmas Trees." A simple version of this tale, "The Three Little Christmas Trees that Grew on the Hill," is given in The Story-Teller's Book by Alice O'Grady and ...
— A Study of Fairy Tales • Laura F. Kready
... be on the stage, and take part in its life, his desires were satisfied. He lived an absolutely contented life, smoked infamous tobacco out of clay-pipes, and was in high repute amongst his intimates as a singer of jovial songs, and a teller of brisk theatrical anecdotes. There was not a spark of envy in his nature. He honoured the great actors, and was always ready to do all he could to smooth the path of any nervous youngster with excellent advice and cheerful help. He is still acting. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, April 15, 1893 • Various
... Canada thistles growing in clumps, all a-bloom, as if the farmer had given up cultivating, and let things just go to rack and ruin. I was never up there myself, but from what I've heard my father say, I rather think that must be the Hoskins place. They say he consulted some fortune teller a couple of years ago, who told him he would some day discover a gold mine on his property that would make him a millionaire; and ever since the farmer has spent about all his time digging here and there, but up to now without any success ...
— The Aeroplane Boys Flight - A Hydroplane Roundup • John Luther Langworthy
... Chesterfield (ante, i. 261). A gentleman arrived late. Shelburne, telling him what he had missed, went on:-'I dare say the Doctor will be kind enough to give it to us again.' 'Indeed, my Lord, I will not. I told the circumstance first for my own amusement, but I will not be dragged in as story-teller to a company.' In an argument he used some strong expressions, of which his opponent took no notice, Next morning 'he went up to the gentleman with great good-nature, and said, "Sir, I have found out upon reflection ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... tell my reader 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 ...
— The Underdog • F. Hopkinson Smith
... contributed. In five minutes he had all the secrets of the meeting safely lodged in the hands of the first Secret Service man. At this point the third representative of the Government arose and nominated the second Secret Service speaker, who had just taken his seat, as teller to count the funds, and in recognition of this man's gifts the teller immediately afterwards appointed the third Secret Service man assistant teller. During the next three hours, in the secrecy of their own meeting, ...
— The Blot on the Kaiser's 'Scutcheon • Newell Dwight Hillis
... Downcast, who was a church-member and had just come from the top of the tower, visited this fortune teller, and by her descriptions of his happy future on the Broad Highway he was induced to travel thereon ...
— Mr. World and Miss Church-Member • W. S. Harris
... story practically is based on the "Yotsuya Kwaidan" of Shunkintei Ryuo[u], a famous story-teller of the Yoshiwara, and an old man when the "Restoration" of the Meiji period occurred. The sketch given in the "O'Iwa Inari Yu[u]rei" of Momogawa Jakuen filled in gaps, and gave much suggestion in moulding the story into a consistent whole. Parts merely ...
— The Yotsuya Kwaidan or O'Iwa Inari - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 1 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... of discourse truth-telling is comparatively easy. Abstract remarks are a great relief to the lazy honest man. They spare him the trouble of meticulous investigation of unimportant facts. But a concrete remark, touching upon a number of small details, is full of traps for the truth-teller." ...
— Days Off - And Other Digressions • Henry Van Dyke
... A fortune-teller was consulted, and put into a magnetic sleep, and, if the description they had painted of the man they were after could be depended on by her, they would find him, under another name, in a national ship on the ...
— Godey's Lady's Book, Vol. 42, January, 1851 • Various
... truth teller. An English writer who made money by being honest enough to tell people what they knew. S.'s enemies claim he would have to work should his theories be put into practice. Believes in socialism and wants everything. Author of considerable sarcasm, ...
— Who Was Who: 5000 B. C. to Date - Biographical Dictionary of the Famous and Those Who Wanted to Be • Anonymous
... according to the standard of fineness. 5. The auditor, who takes the accounts, and makes them up. 6. The surveyor-general, who takes care that the fineness be not altered in the melting. And, 7, the weigher and teller. ...
— London in 1731 • Don Manoel Gonzales
... Uncle Beamish very much, for he was not only a good story-teller, but he was willing to listen to my stories, and when I found he wanted to hire a horse and sleigh to go to the house of his married sister, with whom he intended to spend Christmas, and that his sister lived on Upper Hill turnpike, ...
— The Magic Egg and Other Stories • Frank Stockton
... of mine, now I think of it, was a great story-teller. I have sometimes nearly half made up my mind, while casting about me, to find some new mine of stories for my young readers, that I would put my thinking cap on, and see if I could not recollect a budget of my grandfather's stories, large enough ...
— Mike Marble - His Crotchets and Oddities. • Uncle Frank
... touches that every good story-teller bestows upon a story, he described the vision of the lake—the strange woman's face, as he had seen it in the ...
— Helena • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... a collection of good stories. He was observant, truthful, and kindly—perhaps the chief requisites in a good story-teller. Occasionally he used newspaper phrases, conscientiously learned in his efforts at self-instruction, but when he talked naturally he was always worth listening to. Never having had any schooling to speak of, he had, almost from ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... quality was a humorous urbanity. As a story-teller he was unsurpassed. He had been everywhere and had known every one. He was quick to seize a point, and extraordinarily apt in anecdote and illustration. His fine taste appreciated whatever was best in life, in conversation, in literature, ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... Harum" have the pleasure of presenting the only other story written by the lamented Edward Noyes Westcott. Mr. Westcott's business life lay with practical financial matters, and in "The Teller" he has drawn upon his knowledge of life in ...
— Kate Bonnet - The Romance of a Pirate's Daughter • Frank R. Stockton
... AND STOUGHTON) is revealed a breadth of vision which may astonish some of us who have been inclined to regard SAPPER as merely a talented story-teller. Among the writers on the War I place him first, for the simple reason that I like him best; and I am not at all sure that I should like him any better if he cured himself of his cardinal fault. With his tongue in his cheek he dashes away from his story to give us either a long or ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Aug 15, 1917 • Various
... won repute as a teller of dramatic stories, and those who listened to his arguments in court were expecting to have his words to the jury brightened and rendered for the moment more effective by such stories. The hearers ...
— Abraham Lincoln • George Haven Putnam
... expedition from the arrival of Major Clarke's force at Corn Island, until Kaskaskia was captured. He relates that part of Simon Kenton's life history which is not usually touched upon either by the historian or the story teller. This is one of the most entertaining books for young people which has ...
— Dick, Marjorie and Fidge - A Search for the Wonderful Dodo • G. E. Farrow
... division of the subject—the outdoor ghost who haunts the roadways, country lanes, and other places. Sceptics on ghostly phenomena are generally pretty full of explanations when they are told of a ghost having been seen in a particular spot, and the teller may be put down as hyper-imaginative, or as having been deluded by moonlight playing through the trees; while cases are not wanting where a reputation for temperance has been lost by a man telling his experiences ...
— True Irish Ghost Stories • St John D Seymour
... Apostle Mohammed (upon whom be the benediction of Allah and His salvation!), for a blessing to some and a bane to others; and He elected for him those with him and took him to Himself, leaving the people a stream whereof they might drink. After him Abu Bakr[FN287] the Truth teller became Caliph and he left the river as it was, doing what was pleasing to Allah. Then arose Omar and worked a work and strove in holy war and strife where of none might do the like. But when Othman ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... that the essential characteristic of Gogol's art was his wonderful power as a teller of a story. This came to him directly from the grandfather through the father. But the father was already a man of a certain degree of culture. He was fond of reading, subscribed to the magazines, loved to entertain, and more than once had even ...
— Lectures on Russian Literature - Pushkin, Gogol, Turgenef, Tolstoy • Ivan Panin
... Philip is an excellent teller of stories. He does not need to mar them by additions, because his quickness of observation takes in every detail, and his excellent memory lets nothing slip. He has a faculty for recalling past scenes in pictures, and tells a story ...
— The White Ladies of Worcester - A Romance of the Twelfth Century • Florence L. Barclay
... bank-front which crossed my mind gave me another clue to Meeker's solicitude about me and the letter. I remembered seeing a sign over the teller's window, which stated that the bank was a branch of a Russian financial house. What could be more natural for a Russian spy than to cash his drafts in a place which dealt with Vladivostok and Port Arthur, or ...
— The Devil's Admiral • Frederick Ferdinand Moore
... of the meeting of the doctors round the sick child's bed, of their quotations from Hippocrates, of the uncertainty and helplessness of the orthodox practitioners, and of the ready resource of the free-lance—who happens also to be the teller of the story—is a richly typical one.[75] "We, the physicians and the father of the child, met about seven in the morning, and Della Croce made a few general observations on death, for he knew that Sfondrato ...
— Jerome Cardan - A Biographical Study • William George Waters
... attitudes, all expressed on their motionless features the absolute abandonment of their intelligence to the narrator. It was a curious picture, illustrating the enormous influence exercised over every class of mind by poetry. In exacting from a story-teller the marvelous that must still be simple, or the impossible that is almost believable, the peasant proves himself to be a true lover of ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... could carry and returned to my own country, where I told the folk what I had seen. After a time the news reached Mu'awiyah, son of Abu Sufyan, who was then Caliph in Al-Hijaz; so he wrote to his lieutenant in San'a of Al-Yaman to send for the teller of the story and question him of the truth of the case. Accordingly the lieutenant summoned me and questioned me of my adventure and of all appertaining to it; and I told him what I had seen, whereupon he despatched me ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 4 • Richard F. Burton
... physical powers of the child. Whenever the signs of strain appeared, however, the mother would be overtaken by a fit of repentant watchfulness, and for days together Robert would find her the most fascinating playmate, story-teller, and romp, and forget all his precocious interest in history or vulgar fractions. In after years when Robert looked back upon his childhood, he was often reminded of the stories of Goethe's bringing-up. He could recall exactly the same scenes as Goethe describes,—mother and ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... A story-teller, or dealer in anecdote, is an abomination that ought to be expelled from all well-regulated societies. A man of an original and truly powerful mind never deals in anecdotes, unless it be for the purpose of illustrating some general principle. Women and weak men ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 583 - Volume 20, Number 583, Saturday, December 29, 1832 • Various
... the "watch-dog of the treasury." Rats in the cellar were nothing to be compared to this boy for destructiveness in pies. He used to go down whenever he could make an excuse, to get apples for the family, or draw a mug of cider for his dear old grandfather (who was a famous story-teller about the Revolutionary War, and would no doubt have been wounded in battle if he had not been as prudent as he was patriotic), and come upstairs with a tallow candle in one hand and the apples or cider in the other, looking as innocent and as unconscious as if he ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... about?" I retorted. "And you can't have spent five years at a great public school like Kensingtowe without one or two sensational things. Pick them out and let us have them. For whatever the modern theorists say, the main duty of a story-teller is certainly to ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... to explain to Kenneth why it had been possible for her to leave the gypsy camp in charge of another fortune teller, but when she saw the boy's moody expression and sulky attitude her sense of humour was touched, and she giggled to herself at the idea of Kenneth being angry at such ...
— Patty's Summer Days • Carolyn Wells
... seat, madam, there's plenty of room on the strap. Wonder why the pavement on Chestnut Street is the slipperiest in the world? Always fall down just in front of our bank; most embarrassing; hope the paying teller doesn't see us. Very annoying to lose our balance just there. Awfully nice little girl in there who balances the books. Has a kind heart. The countless gold of a merry heart, as William Blake said. She looks awfully downcast when our balance gets the way it is now. Hate ...
— Pipefuls • Christopher Morley
... not a little to the author's reputation as a teller of clever tales. It is of the social life of to-day in Denver—that city of gold and ozone—and deals of that burg's peculiarities with a keen and flashing satire. The character of the heroine, Patricia, will hold the reader by its power and brilliancy. ...
— The Bright Face of Danger • Robert Neilson Stephens
... the career of such men, it will be found that many of them united several or all of the functions just mentioned; that the alchymist was a fortune-teller, or a necromancer — that he pretended to cure all maladies by touch or charm, and to work miracles of every kind. In the dark and early ages of European history, this is more especially the case. Even as we advance to more recent ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... is told no significance in after years? Can such not stir, when it is worth the telling, the hearts of men, to whom it comes as an echo from the past? Have not those tales remained most vital and most widely known which are told and told again and again, face to face and heart to heart, when the teller and the listener are adding, down the ages, strength to the current of a mighty thought or a mighty deed and ...
— The Drama • Henry Irving
... down from father to son, with little variation, through countless generations, until the white man slaughtered the buffalo, took to himself the open country, and left the red man little better than a beggar. But the tribal story-teller has passed, and only here and there is to be found a patriarch who loves the legends ...
— Indian Why Stories • Frank Bird Linderman
... made the discovery so slowly and so recently that he was animated by something like a convert's zeal. Beginning his narrative quietly, in a reminiscent vein, with intervals in which he lapsed altogether into meditation, he was presently fired with all the animation in a story-teller when he perceives he is holding his hearer spellbound. As a matter of fact, he was moved not so much by the desire of convincing Conquest of Miriam Strange's nobility, as by the impulse to do her justice, once in his life at least, ...
— The Wild Olive • Basil King
... great charm, when the emotion of the subject is quiet, recollective, or deep. The descriptions of Nature in the poem are some of the most vivid and true in Browning's work. The sketches of animal life—so natural on the lips of the teller of the story—are done from the keen observation of a huntsman, and with his love for the animals he has fed, followed and slain. And, through it all, there breathes the romantic passion—to be out of the world of ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke
... supernatural, any summons to another and an impalpable world, would have made much impression on that stolid, prosaic intelligence and that heart of lead. Besides, according to some versions of the tale, it was not, after all, a letter from his wife which impressed him, but only the warning of a fortune-teller—a woman who admonished the King to be careful of the life of his imprisoned consort, because it was fated for him that he should not survive her a year. This story, too, is told of many kings ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume I (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... young; Wizards, Will-o'-the-Wisp, Witch Peddler, Protophantasmist, Servibilis, Monkeys, Spirits, Journeymen, Country-folk, Citizens, Beggar, Old Fortune-teller, Shepherd, Soldier, Students, etc. ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... mostly in words of one syllable. In this book we find the story of the lame dog that, when cured, brought another lame dog to be doctored: of the kind boy who freed his caged bird; of the cruel boy who drowned the cat and pulled wings and legs from flies; of Peter Pindar the story teller, and the "snow dog" of Mount St. Bernard; of Mr. Post who adopted and reared Mary; of the boy who told a lie and repented after he was found out; of the chimney sweep who was tempted to steal a gold watch but put it back and was thereafter educated by its owner; of the whisky boy; and of ...
— A History of the McGuffey Readers • Henry H. Vail
... that had been told before. Hence the emphatic sentences marked in the good old (but deserted) Italic type; and hence, too, the frequent interposition of the reminding old colloquial parenthesis, 'I say,' 'Mind,' and the like, when the story-teller repeats what, to a practised reader, might appear to have been sufficiently insisted upon before: which made an ingenious critic observe, that his works, in this kind, were excellent reading for the kitchen. And, in truth, the heroes and heroines of De Foe can never ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various
... there was a cave high up among the precipices on the southeast side of Nipple Top. He scarcely volunteered the information, and with seeming reluctance gave us any particulars about it. I always admire this art by which the accomplished story-teller lets his listener drag the reluctant tale of the marvelous from him, and makes you in a manner responsible for its improbability. If this is well managed, the listener is always eager to believe a great deal more ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... where I am supposed to be enjoying myself. When my friend the politician gets too far into the personal details of the quorum pars magna fui, I find myself all at once exclaiming in mental articulation, Popgun! When my friend the story-teller begins that protracted narrative which has often emptied me of all my voluntary laughter for the evening, he has got but a very little way when I say to myself, What wouldn't I give for a pellet from that popgun! In short, so useful has that trivial implement proved as a jaw-stopper ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... should they happen to be inquisitive secret service agents. Another few days and he would have nothing more to fear. The presses would soon have completed their work and $500,000 worth of as fine a $10 counterfeit as ever deceived a bank teller would be ready for distribution. Half of them had already been run off and, as he held them up to the light and critically examined the silken thread that ran here and there through the specially prepared ...
— The Mask - A Story of Love and Adventure • Arthur Hornblow
... he teach me. Because he died shortly after from the pick-handle beating, Roger Vanderwater took me out of the slave pen and tried to make various better things out of me. I might have become an overseer in Hell's Bottom, but I chose to become a story-teller, wandering over the land and getting close to my brothers, the slaves, everywhere. And I tell you stories like this, secretly, knowing that you will not betray me; for if you did, you know as well as I that my tongue will be torn out and that ...
— When God Laughs and Other Stories • Jack London
... The old teller of riddles pointed out that there was good in their telling. "People have been known to be scared out of doing meanness just by a riddle. Now what would you ...
— Blue Ridge Country • Jean Thomas
... when the teller of this story had stopped speaking. He was not looking at him,—of that the old man was certain. He seemed to be looking nowhere, and to see nothing that ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 107, September, 1866 • Various
... the premises," continued the gentleman in the velvet coat, "and I must confess that they're the most trifling push I ever saw. There's the manager, a feeble rat of a man; another fellow that's short-sighted and wears specs.; a boy, and the teller, a swell who wears gloves on his boots and looks as if he laced himself up ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... cognomen applies to two soldans of Egypt, of whom the later Abu al-Abbas Ahmad the Abbaside (A.D. 1261-1301) has already been mentioned in The Nights (vol. v. 86). The tale suggests the earlier Al-Hakim (Abu Ali al-Mansur, the Fatimite, A.D. 995-1021), the God of the Druze "persuasion;" and the tale-teller may have purposely blundered in changing Mansur to Maamun for fear of offending a sect which has been most dangerous in the matter of assassination and which is capable ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... as 1883 he was appointed a clerk in one of the Departments at Washington by Secretary Teller. He held this position until under a Democratic administration he was for partisan reasons asked to resign. President Harrison, recognizing his ability, appointed him Postmaster ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 5, 1920 • Various
... qualities amusing in themselves, quite apart from any relation to the point. Precise instruction cannot be given, but concentration along this line will of itself develop the humorous perception of the story-teller, so that, though the task may appear too difficult in prospect, it will not prove so in actual experience. But, in every instance, care must be exercised to keep the point of the story clearly in view, and to omit nothing essential ...
— Jokes For All Occasions - Selected and Edited by One of America's Foremost Public Speakers • Anonymous
... who told me that the Patagonians were a friendly race is a traitor to science. I, Professor Simeon Sandburr, brand him a teller of untruths. For Professor Thomas Tapper, who told me about the fur-bearing pollywog of the South Polar seas, I have the warmest respect. I leave all my books, bottled fishes and reptiles to the Smithsonian Institute. My servant, James, may have my stuffed Wogoliensuarious. ...
— The Boy Aviators' Polar Dash - Or - Facing Death in the Antarctic • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... the 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 ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood
... and thanks to the lawyer—who proved himself a real and true friend—I was given a minor position in a small bank. Oddly enough, considering my former life, I liked the work, it interested me, and during the next few years I was made, by successive promotions, bookkeeper, teller, and, at last, assistant cashier. No news came from the absconder. The police had lost track of him, and it seemed probable that he would never be heard of again. But over Mother and myself hung always the dread that he might be found and all the dreadful business ...
— The Rise of Roscoe Paine • Joseph C. Lincoln
... concerning hair-raising escapes from shot and shell. He splashes the surrounding rocks with gouts of blood, and then shudders dismally at the sight his fancy has conjured up. When the thrilled listener has refreshed the tale-teller from his whisky flask, the romancist takes up the thread of his narrative once more, and tells how the Lancers thundered over the shivering veldts in pursuit of flying hordes of foemen, and for awhile, like some graveyard ghoul, he revels in the ...
— Campaign Pictures of the War in South Africa (1899-1900) - Letters from the Front • A. G. Hales
... 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 ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... be jolly!" cried the miller, and he went and looked, and found the roast meat. The Little Farmer made the fortune-teller speak again, and ...
— Household Stories by the Brothers Grimm • Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm
... narratives as the present, changes like other earthly things. Time was that the tale-teller was obliged to wind up his story by a circumstantial description of the wedding, bedding, and throwing the stocking, as the grand catastrophe to which, through so many circumstances of doubt and difficulty, he had at length happily conducted his hero and heroine. ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... scrawled notes on the back of a menu, rose and observed that, whereas acting was her favorite pastime, her real and serious business was sleep. At her door she held her face up to him as straightforwardly as a child. "Good luck to you, dear boy," she said softly. "If I ever were a fortune-teller, I would say that your star was for happiness ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... original, I say; is it possible he could have read it somewhere, adding a few little touches of his own? Unfortunately, our story-teller in his desire for artistic ...
— The Fur Bringers - A Story of the Canadian Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... a bill-board flaunted a many-colored advertisement, but it did not distract his attention—it had lost its novelty from over-production. There was to be a Street Carnival beginning July first. There would be a Fortune Teller, a Lion Show, a Snake Den, etc. The Fourth of July would be the Big Day; a Day of Confetti, of Fireworks, of Riotous Mirth and patriotism—the last word was the only one ...
— Fran • John Breckenridge Ellis
... not much business going on in the bank. The paying teller and the receiving teller listened to the questions and answers. The receiving teller was a young man, and his face wore a sneering look of incredulity. He regarded Frank with open doubt, and, once ...
— Frank Merriwell's Bravery • Burt L. Standish
... letter, and though there was really no vacancy in the bank at the moment, Mr. Bowlsby lent himself to the illusion that he required a private secretary. A few weeks later a vacancy occurred unexpectedly, that of paying-teller—a position in which Lynde acquitted himself with so much quickness and accuracy, that when Mr. Trefethen, the assistant cashier, died in the December following, Lynde was promoted ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... remember that one of his grandparents was a full-blooded negress. Dumas' literary work is essentially romantic; his themes are courage, loyalty, honour, love, pageantry, and adventure; he belongs to the tradition of Scott and Schiller, but as a story-teller excels every other. His plays and novels are both very numerous; the "OEuvres Completes," published between 1860 and 1884, fill 277 volumes. Probably "Monte Cristo" and "The Three Musketeers" are the most famous ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... Douglas Hyde brought home one day a story from Kilmacduagh bog, in which Aristotle took the place of Solomon, the Wise Man in our tales as well as in those of the East. And he said that as the story grew and the teller became more familiar, the name of Aristotle was shortened ...
— Three Wonder Plays • Lady I. A. Gregory
... was about eleven years old, my brothers and sisters were suffering from boils, and my parents asked a fortune-teller what they should do to get rid of them. He told my parents that the boils had come in consequence of their neglect of serpent-worship, and that the children would be cured if my parents would again worship snakes. These reptiles often take up their abode in white-ant-hills, ...
— Old Daniel • Thomas Hodson
... was about to relate some tale of scandal, and we accordingly watched him, somewhat as the stenographer of the Moniteur might watch, as he mounted the tribune, a minister whose speech had already been written out for the reporter. The story-teller on this occasion was an old marquis, whose fortune, together with his wife and children, had perished in the disasters of the Revolution. The marchioness had been one of the most inconsistent women of the past generation; the marquis ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part II. • Honore de Balzac
... the species. In three years' practical experience among the children of the poorer classes, and during all the succeeding years, when I have filled the honorary and honorable offices of general-utility woman, story-teller, song-singer, and playmaker-in-ordinary to their royal highnesses, some thousands of babies, I have been struck with the greater hardness of the small boys; a certain coarseness of fibre and lack of sensitiveness which ...
— Children's Rights and Others • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... the imagination has ever had or can ever have. It is moral, and it always has a tremendous stimulus to the imagination, and that is why stories and fire go together. You cannot tell a good story unless you tell it before a fire. You cannot have a complete fire unless you have a good story-teller along! ...
— Boy Scouts Handbook - The First Edition, 1911 • Boy Scouts of America
... of money for whose fidelity another officer is under official bond; but this exception shall not include any officer below the grade of assistant cashier or assistant teller, nor the cashier, nor the two clerks employed as assistant disbursing clerks in the division of accounts and disbursements in the Department ...
— Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Volume 8, Section 2 (of 2): Grover Cleveland • Grover Cleveland |
