Online dictionaryOnline dictionary
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Narrative   /nˈærətɪv/  /nˈɛrətɪv/   Listen
Narrative

adjective
1.
Consisting of or characterized by the telling of a story.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |
Add this dictionary
to your browser search bar





"Narrative" Quotes from Famous Books



... had suggested that he should try to recount to them one which he had used to hear in his youth, and which afforded an instance of the latter and better kind of feeling, his heroine being also a lady who had married beneath her, though he feared his narrative would be of a much slighter kind than the surgeon's. The Club begged him to ...
— A Group of Noble Dames • Thomas Hardy

... litill greave us, who most injustlie war accused; for thare is never a sentence of the narrative trew, except that we stayed the irnes, and that for most just causses, to witt, because that daylie thair was suche nomber of Hard-headis printed,[853] that the basenes thairof maid all thingis exceiding dear; and thairfoir we war counsaled by the wysest to stay the irnes,[854] ...
— The Works of John Knox, Vol. 1 (of 6) • John Knox

... of narrative is peculiar. The stories open, as a rule, with some traditionally accepted gambit. "There was once a man ..." or "A fatherless boy lived in the house of the many brothers." The ending may occasionally point ...
— Eskimo Folktales • Unknown

... Sometimes his narrative would be coherent for pages together, and he could answer any questions without hesitation; at others, he was now here and now there, and if I tried to keep him to the order of events he would say that he had forgotten intermediate incidents, but that they would ...
— Erewhon Revisited • Samuel Butler

... the New Testament, we find that modern critical research only brings out more clearly than ever the extraordinary vagueness and uncertainty which enshroud every detail of the narrative. From the article on "Chronology" we learn that everything in the Gospels is too uncertain to be accepted as historical fact. There are numerous questions which it is "wholly impossible to decide". We do not know when Jesus was born, or when he died, or who was his ...
— Communism and Christianism - Analyzed and Contrasted from the Marxian and Darwinian Points of View • William Montgomery Brown

... a most interesting account of Jack, Tim and Fritz, and as we will soon be in their company once more, let us conclude this narrative. ...
— Jack Wright and His Electric Stage; - or, Leagued Against the James Boys • "Noname"

... kindness of his own mother to the young child Yaḥya was owing to a prophetic dream which she had, and in which the Apostle of God and the King of Saintship figured as the child's protectors. Evidently this part of the narrative is imaginative, and possibly it is the work of Mirza Jani. But there is no reason to doubt that what follows is based more or less on facts derived from Mirza Ḥuseyn 'Ali. 'I busied myself,' says the latter, 'with the instruction ...
— The Reconciliation of Races and Religions • Thomas Kelly Cheyne

... in Judea. By William Ware, author of "Zenobia," etc. Handsomely printed from new, large type, on laid paper, and illustrated with full-page plates reproducing historic scenes described in the narrative. Small 8vo, cloth, gilt top, uniform with our holiday editions of "Zenobia" and "Aurelian," each ...
— Nautilus • Laura E. Richards

... press Jean Paul had begun Hesperus, or 45 Dog-post-days, which magnified the merits of the earlier novel but also exaggerated its defects. Wanton eccentricity was given fuller play, formlessness seemed cultivated as an art. Digressions interrupt the narrative with slender excuse, or with none; there is, as with the English Sterne, an obtrusion of the author's personality; the style seems as wilfully crude as the mastery in word-building and word-painting is astonishing. On the other hand there ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... of our narrative, we must state that some weeks before this happy event the remains of the unfortunate Sir Luke Rookwood had been gathered to those of his fathers. The document that attested his legitimacy being found upon his person, the claims denied ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth

... of the French horn, related in the twentieth chapter, will recall to the reader of the "Sparrowgrass Papers" an incident related in that most charming book of humor. Perhaps it ought to be said that the former narrative was at least suggested by ...
— Elbow-Room - A Novel Without a Plot • Charles Heber Clark (AKA Max Adeler)

... nation as well, it begins, as every one, whether German or foreign, sees, to furnish unexpected and wonderful lessons. But these can only be understood in the light of the past. Taylor could end his work with the birth of the Empire, but the additional narrative merely foreshadows the events of the future. It may be that all the doings of the past ages on German soil are but the introduction of what is to come. That is certainly the thought which grows upon one as he peruses this ...
— Admiral Farragut • A. T. Mahan

... for truth, a mania, almost, for actualities, there must have been somewhere in his make-up a gentleness, a tenderness and refinement which explain his fine appreciation of the genius of the place he had in mind to represent. There is not an atom of legend in Homer, it is always and always narrative of the obvious world. There is at once the essential dramatic import ruling the scene. With him it is nothing but dramatic relationship, the actionary tendency of the facts themselves, in nature. You are held by him constantly to the bold and naked theme, and you are left to wander in the imagination ...
— Adventures in the Arts - Informal Chapters on Painters, Vaudeville, and Poets • Marsden Hartley

... narrative of the destruction of the colossal statue of Serapis by Theophilus, Mr. Garfield said: "So slavery sat in our national Capitol. Its huge bulk filled the temple of our liberty, touching it from side to side. Mr. Lincoln, on ...
— History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States • Wiliam H. Barnes

... away. When a moment later he resumed his narrative, she noticed that his eyes were ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe

... book many histories, chronicles, and legends have been consulted, and it is hoped that a fair degree of accuracy has been attained where the narrative belongs to the domain of history. The stories of Roland and the Cid, of course, are largely legendary, and there is evidently a considerable admixture of fiction in the contemporary accounts of Godfrey and Richard. The authors have endeavored to follow recognized historical authority closely ...
— With Spurs of Gold - Heroes of Chivalry and their Deeds • Frances Nimmo Greene

... it," said Keogh. "I said my instincts of narrative were perplexed. Don't you believe it. It's an art I've acquired along with many other ...
— Cabbages and Kings • O. Henry

... Judy was refreshed with a good breakfast, she began and told Mrs. Ford the history of her sorrows and troubles, which we will let Mrs. Ford tell to the children herself. It was quite a long narrative. ...
— A Child's Anti-Slavery Book - Containing a Few Words About American Slave Children and Stories - of Slave-Life. • Various

... my reconciliation with him, of my father's first embrace and kisses, even of the queer smothered sound like a groan and the slamming of a door which I had heard. Then I told him of my father's gift of money to me, which I had not yet touched, but I noticed that toward the last of my narrative Jack seemed preoccupied. ...
— Revelations of a Wife - The Story of a Honeymoon • Adele Garrison

... disgrace, and therefore chose to pass for what he was not. The only certainty is that he was born at Montauban, and in actual rank and position he was captain of the Tracy regiment. At the time when this narrative opens, towards the end of 1665, Sainte-Croix was about twenty-eight or thirty, a fine young man of cheerful and lively appearance, a merry comrade at a banquet, and an excellent captain: he took his pleasure with ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE

... to explain and vindicate her own share in the transaction, tallies with that of her brother-in-law, except that she states that Lord Hardwicke had been much more favourable to the idea of Charles Yorke's acceptance than the above narrative leads one to suppose; according to her the family felt 'it was too great a thing to refuse.' Lord Hardwicke's wife, the Marchioness Grey, indeed, had called upon Mrs. Yorke to urge it, saying among other things that 'the great office to which Mr. Yorke was invited was in the line of his profession, ...
— Charles Philip Yorke, Fourth Earl of Hardwicke, Vice-Admiral R.N. - A Memoir • Lady Biddulph of Ledbury

... moment he recognized him, he sprang from his horse, and uncovering his head and kneeling down, presented the parchment as Rodolph advanced. Without dismounting, the duke received the missive, and eagerly unrolling it, began to read. The instrument contained a narrative of the proceedings of the council and a transcript of the sentence of excommunication. The noble's eagle eye flashed at it scanned the page, and his broad bosom heaved. He struck his breast in his excitement, and brandishing the parchment in the air, exclaimed aloud, in a deep, tremulous ...
— The Truce of God - A Tale of the Eleventh Century • George Henry Miles

... from his friends halted the narrative there. Before the teller of the tale went on, Lance pulled his cap down over his eyes, got up and walked out ...
— Rim o' the World • B. M. Bower

... Nazareth, and the other holy places of Syria, was driven by storms on his return to the great Irish monastery of Iona. There he described his wonders to the Abbot Adamnan, who then sat in the seat of the Irish Apostles Patrick and Columba, and by Adamnan this narrative was presented and dedicated to Aldfrith the Wise, last of the great Northumbrian Kings, in his Court at York (c. A.D. 701). Not only does the original remain to us, but we have also two summaries ...
— Prince Henry the Navigator, the Hero of Portugal and of Modern Discovery, 1394-1460 A.D. • C. Raymond Beazley

... such combinations as Dr. Hibbert has recorded of the spectral illusion with an actual disorder, and that of a dangerous kind, was frequently related in society by the late learned and accomplished Dr. Gregory of Edinburgh, and sometimes, I believe, quoted by him in his lectures. The narrative, to the author's best recollection, was as follows:—A patient of Dr. Gregory, a person, it is understood, of some rank, having requested the doctor's advice, made the following extraordinary statement of his complaint. "I am in the ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott

... the governess began the narrative, of which she had given Dr. Grey a hasty resume, and when she mentioned the midnight labors in which she had engaged, the copying of legal documents, the sale of her drawings, the hoarding of her salary in order to aid her mother ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson

... historical events." (Ibid. pages 28, 29.) Lamprecht deduces the idea of a special historical science, which might be called "historical ethnology," dealing with the ages of civilisation, and bearing the same relation to (descriptive or narrative) history as ethnology to ethnography. Such a science obviously corresponds to Comte's social dynamics, and the comparative method, on which Comte laid so much emphasis, is the ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others

... but a short period before the commencement of our narrative that Eleanor Byron was really in love, and for the first time; for though her cousin Oliver, as she usually called him, had stormed, and perchance carried the outworks, yet the citadel was impregnable and unapproached. But she knew not that it was ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby

... perhaps Jimmy Sears was so intent upon escaping from the shadow that lowered over his family that he did not read the signs, and so rushed into his misfortunes blindly. These, however, are idle speculations; they are the materials from which sages spin their dry and ethereal webs. But this narrative is concerned only with the facts in the case. Therefore it is necessary to know only that when Jimmy Sears stooped to pick up his nail-pointed arrow, lying beside a stunned pullet, he heard the sharp nasal "sping" of a rock whirring near his head. Chicken and bow and arrow in hand, he ...
— The Court of Boyville • William Allen White

... so much suffice for general occasions of freedom of speech. There are also particular occasions, which our friends themselves furnish, that one who really cares for his friends will not neglect, but make use of. In some cases a question, or narrative, or the censure or praise of similar things in other people, gives as it were the cue for freedom of speech. Thus it is related that Demaratus came to Macedonia from Corinth at the time when Philip was at variance with his ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch

... but harmed her not; neither was she in the least frightened by them. All know that in ordinary cases fierce packs of blood-thirsty wolves would devour a man, and even a horse. But this little one was invincible in her trusting, simple faith. The narrative states: "She said that the wolves kept close to her heels and snapped at her feet; but her mother told her that if she was good the Lord would always take care of her; so she asked the Lord to take care of ...
— The Wonders of Prayer - A Record of Well Authenticated and Wonderful Answers to Prayer • Various

... on the verge of the path and was at times obliged to step on to the road, owing to his companion's rudeness, wore an amused listening face. He was squat and ruddy. A yachting cap was shoved far back from his forehead and the narrative to which he listened made constant waves of expression break forth over his face from the corners of his nose and eyes and mouth. Little jets of wheezing laughter followed one another out of his convulsed body. His eyes, twinkling with cunning enjoyment, glanced ...
— Dubliners • James Joyce

... the Times of 9th July, "now claims our solicitude for the auriferous mountains and rushing rivers of the Far West and the shores of the remote Pacific. What most of us know of these ultra-occidental regions may be summed up in a very few words. We have most of us read Washington Irving's charming narrative of 'Astoria,' sympathised with the untimely fate of Captain Thorn and his crew, and read with breathless interest the wanderings of the pilgrims to the head waters of the Columbia. After thirty years, the curtain ...
— Handbook to the new Gold-fields • R. M. Ballantyne

... dogs and men, and they even make this a great end to aim at, killing both ants and serpents and all other creeping and flying things. About this custom then be it as it was from the first established; and I now to the former narrative. 145 ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 1(of 2) • Herodotus

... he said quietly, when the narrative was finished. "To-morrow we will talk about it all again. I think I can go to sleep now. But will you first, please, read a little from ...
— The Golden Shoemaker - or 'Cobbler' Horn • J. W. Keyworth

... is not to be corrected without a hearty recognition of his superior diligence and exemplary fidelity, gives an account[G] of this first legislative body, though he errs a little in the date by an inference from Rolfe's narrative, which ...
— Colonial Records of Virginia • Various

... natural way of considering the literature has been followed by Professor Gardiner. He finds four elements in the literature of the Bible: its narrative, its poetry, its philosophizing, and its prophecy. It is not necessary for our purpose to go into details about that. We shall have all we need when we realize that, small as the volume of the book is, it yet does cover all these types of literature. ...
— The Greatest English Classic A Study of the King James Version of • Cleland Boyd McAfee

... scarcely be paralleled In the annals of the world: a conflict distinguished by a character which raises it far above your ordinary every-day battles. Its consequences will extend not to Europe only, but to regions separated from it by vast oceans. You must not expect from me a narrative that will enter into military details, but merely a faithful historical picture of what fell under my own observation; of what my own eyes, assisted by an excellent telescope, could discover from one of the highest buildings ...
— Frederic Shoberl Narrative of the Most Remarkable Events Which Occurred In and Near Leipzig • Frederic Shoberl (1775-1853)

... become Pope Clement VII., to suffer the sack of Rome in 1527, and to make the concordat with Charles V. at Bologna in 1529-30, which settled for three centuries the destiny of Italy. We shall hear much more of him from Cellini in the course of this narrative. ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini

... is, that we know not who would have acted as you have done, upon the whole. So, Pamela, you see I put myself upon the same foot of correspondence with you. Not that I will promise to answer every latter: no, you must not expect that. Your part will be a kind of narrative, purposely designed to entertain us here; and I hope to receive six, seven, eight, or ten letters, as it may happen, before I return one: but such a part I will bear in it, as shall let you know our opinion of ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson

... away over time and space! What a rush of incidents crowd into my memory, merely from having mentioned this circumstance of the white elephant. I did once intend to have written a narrative of what passed during our sojourn in that country, for I saw more of the inhabitants than most people; but others have forestalled me, and it is now too late. Nevertheless, it will perhaps amuse the reader, if, without entering into the military ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)

... have been taken from the Tragedies, the young readers will perceive, when they come to see the source from which these stories are derived, that Shakespeare's own words, with little alteration, recur very frequently in the narrative as well as in the dialogue; but in those made from the Comedies the writers found themselves scarcely ever able to turn his words into the narrative form: therefore it is feared that, in them, dialogue has been made use of too frequently for young people not accustomed ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb

... of present importance from this narrative is that afforded by the illustration not only of the ease with which the matter all but escaped the attention of a careful grower but of the difficulty of even impressing upon him the full gravity of the situation. In spite of a prejudice ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Fifteenth Annual Meeting • Various

... and long before the whole story was told, the pilot's Christian virtues had broken down. At frequent intervals while the narrative was being told he interjected, "Oh! why didn't you tell me?" His mind was transfixed. Then the processes of it became confused. The vision of wealth and the reckless squandering of some of it took possession of him, and with ...
— Looking Seaward Again • Walter Runciman

... cousin, John Herncastle. The reserve which I have hitherto maintained in this matter has been misinterpreted by members of my family whose good opinion I cannot consent to forfeit. I request them to suspend their decision until they have read my narrative. And I declare, on my word of honour, that what I am now about to write is, strictly ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins

... treating of the Natural History of a district so well known, and often described as the southern portion of La Plata, which has a temperate climate, and where nature is neither exuberant nor grand, a personal narrative would have seemed superfluous. ...
— The Naturalist in La Plata • W. H. Hudson

... that it will not be repeated, as my red-faced cousin, who every day is to be seen on 'Change, might be seriously angry if he was suspected of mercenary motives. With this introduction I will commence my narrative. ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes

... obstinate vanity, his irritable nervous nature, his impatience of advice and his wonderful confidence in his own genius are admirably brought out in the course of the narrative and the chapter containing his letters to his brother is one of the best in the book. It shows his character humorously and without exaggeration, and this is typical of the whole story. The author ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham

... are those in which there is a slight mixture of caricature; and we are not aware that the best histories are not those in which a little of the exaggeration of fictitious narrative is judiciously employed. Something is lost in accuracy; but much is gained in effect. The fainter lines are neglected; but the great characteristic features are imprinted on the ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou

... not a narrative of war. It matters very little, for instance, how Cecil's regiment left Salisbury and went to Soissons, in France. What really matters is that at last the Canadian-made motor lorries moved up their equipment, and that, after digging practice trenches in the yellow clay of old ...
— Love Stories • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... family, and how he had met Big and Little Jerry on the street, and how they had taken him in, and then been driven by fear to let him go again. He told his check-weighman story, and was telling how Jeff Cotton had arrested him; but they came to the Minetti cabin, and the terrifying narrative was cut short. ...
— King Coal - A Novel • Upton Sinclair

... Freydissa, and that gentle woman revenged herself by giving an account of the manner in which Hake had robbed Biarne of the honour of killing a brown bear, the mention of which ferocious animal naturally suggested to Olaf the brave deed of his dear pet the black bull, to a narrative of which he craved and obtained attention. From the black bull to the baby was an easy and natural transition—more so perhaps than may appear at first sight—for the bull suggested the cows, and the ...
— The Norsemen in the West • R.M. Ballantyne

... in these pages the narrative of our escape, I have done nothing but think over those moments, too dangerous because too dear; but at last I have steeled my heart—I have yielded to my own weakness too long—I shudder at the abyss from which I have escaped. ...
— Falkland, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... had passed slowly by, their sojourn in this village came to an end too. It was a dull place, very dull, and they had nothing to do; and the few poor people who lived there seemed to have very little or nothing to do. We will, therefore, pass it over, and resume our narrative at the point when the old trader announced to Barney that the flood was at its height and they would now continue their journey. They embarked once more in their old canoe with their goods and chattels, not forgetting Marmoset and Grampus, whose friendship during their inactive life had ...
— Martin Rattler • Robert Michael Ballantyne

... is endorsed: "Miss P.'s Narrative of the causes leading to the celebrated Miss Burney's retirement from Court in the year 1791."]@@The intention of this narrative of Miss Burney's later residence at the Court of Their Majesties King George the Third and Queen Charlotte is simple. I am ...
— The Ladies - A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty • E. Barrington

... Creation, the Fall, the Redemption, Justification, Regeneration, and Salvation, Miracles, Inspiration, Prophecy, Heaven and Hell, Eternal punishment and a Day of Judgment, Creeds, Liturgies, and Articles, the truth of Jewish History and of Gospel narrative; a sense of doubt thrown over even the Incarnation, the Resurrection, and Ascension, the Divinity of the Second Person, and the personality of the Third. It may be that this is a true view of Christianity; but we insist, in the name of common sense, that it is a new ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon

... this story I have not only followed closely Smith's own narrative of what occurred, but have made use of the very words in which he recorded the conversations. For instance the incident related on page 101 was set down by Smith himself; on pages 144, 154, 262 the words are those of Smith as given ...
— The Princess Pocahontas • Virginia Watson

... of his discovery of Mike Dougherty, of his leaving a treble guard around the Nelson, and of numerous other adventures in the city, which, not being in any way connected with this narrative, are not ...
— Boy Scouts in an Airship • G. Harvey Ralphson

... views, which time and opinion has ratified as just. But the poetical temperament was not thrown away upon him; it never is on any one; it was this great gift which prevented his being a mere literary antiquary; it was this which animated his page with picture and his narrative with interesting vivacity; above all, it was this temperament, which invested him with that sympathy with his subject, which made him the most delightful biographer in our language. In a word, it was because he was a poet, that he was ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli

... his son the story of the oppression of the patricians, and the son told the same sad narrative to his offspring. The mother mourned with her daughter over the sufferings brought upon them by the rich, for whom their poor father and brothers were obliged to fight the battles while they were not allowed to ...
— The Story of Rome From the Earliest Times to the End of the Republic • Arthur Gilman

... must have exacted of himself in the fiction of other tongues. He liked to hear Lemuel talk, and he used the art of getting at the boy's life by being frank with his own experience. But this was not always successful, and he was interested to find Lemuel keeping doors that Sewell's narrative had opened carefully closed against him. He betrayed no consciousness that they existed, and Lemuel maintained intact the dignity and pride which come from the sense of ignominy ...
— The Minister's Charge • William D. Howells

... doubted the maid's story, he was now convinced. The ring and her question confirmed Jacqueline's narrative. Moodily he surveyed the great claws of the griffin, firmly planted on the earth, and then looked from the feet to the laughing mouth of the stone figure, or so much of it as ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham

... the master, stopping abruptly in his narrative, "for a few hours you must make up your minds to sit still and bear it. Every man has to learn that lesson at times. Your landlord has—I would rather be the poorest among you than Lord Luxmore this night. Be patient; ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik

... of the finer and tenderer feelings which is disclosed in the little passages of narrative in the record of the Autocrat and of his legitimate brothers, the Professor and the Poet, at the Breakfast Table, gives a grace and a sweetness to the work which naturally flow into the music of the poems ...
— Literary and Social Essays • George William Curtis

... held several large assemblies in which they discussed their affairs. They drew up an important document—an address to the king, entitled, "Complaints of the Reformed Churches of France." Many pages were filled with a narrative of the intolerable grievances they endured. This paper contained, in conclusion, the ...
— Henry IV, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott

... dignity of history. Several connected books of chronicles have indeed been found; there is a synchronistic book of annals of Babylonia and Assyria, there is a long Assyrian chronicle, and there are annalistic fragments. But there is no digested historical narrative, which gives a clear picture of the general civil and political situation, or any analysis of the characters of kings, generals, and governors, or any inquiry into causes of events. It is possible that narratives having a ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner

... abroad) convention of a journey he grafted a structure based in its outline on the form of the ancient epic. It proved extraordinarily suitable for his purpose. Not only did it make it easy for him to lighten his narrative with excursions in a heightened style, burlesquing his origins, but it gave him at once the right attitude to his material. He told his story as one who knew everything; could tell conversations and incidents as he conceived them happening, ...
— English Literature: Modern - Home University Library Of Modern Knowledge • G. H. Mair

... country was circumstanced some years since, rather than as it appears to be in the present date; several years elapsing between the alarm of the loyal magistrate on the occasion now related, and a subsequent event that further illustrates the remark with which the narrative commences. ...
— Tales • George Crabbe

... social and literary cliques. The exquisite art, and the wise, clear mind of Goethe need not come into contrast, to disable us from giving Richter the reception which alone he would value or command. Nor is it necessary to deny that the frequent intercalations and suspensions of his narrative, racy and suggestive as they are, and overflowing with feeling, will fret a modern reader who is always "on time," like an express-man, and is quite as regardless of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... he exactly spoken of as one of the enemy. It sounds rather as if he were some local go-between and non-combatant; perhaps a guide or a journalist. He has been closeted with old Colonel Clancy; but is more often seen talking to the major. Indeed, the major is somewhat prominent in this soldier's narrative; a lean, dark-haired man, apparently, of the name of Murray—a north of Ireland man and a Puritan. There are continual jests about the contrast between this Ulsterman's austerity and the conviviality of Colonel Clancy. There is also some joke about ...
— The Innocence of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton

... whole, so far as Turkey and her military actions against the Allies were concerned, as to the outcome of these various operations in three fields—the Caucasus, Mesopotamia, and Egypt—during the first six months of the war? The military narrative is recorded in the chapter following. It will be seen that all of them were inconclusive. Indeed, from what we knew of the circumstances surrounding them, all we are justified in saying is that none of them was serious in the sense that they were not ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various

... am digressing from the narrative of my first experience in San Francisco. After taking my breakfast, as already stated, the first thing I noticed was a small building in the Plaza, near which a crowd was gathered. Upon inquiry, I was told it ...
— Personal Reminiscences of Early Days in California with Other Sketches; To Which Is Added the Story of His Attempted Assassination by a Former Associate on the Supreme Bench of the State • Stephen Field; George C. Gorham

... thought, and the other took motto candy and valentines and red apples and picture cards and other tokens of esteem from other boys, and beat on with any number of thoughts, entirely immaterial to the uses of this narrative." This "showing-off" in the boy lover is the forerunner of the skillful, purposive and elaborate means of self-exhibition in the adult male and the charming coquetry in the adult female, ...
— A Preliminary Study of the Emotion of Love between the Sexes • Sanford Bell

... admirable," cried Marlow interrupting his narrative. "Admirable!" And as I looked dubiously at this unexpected enthusiasm he started justifying it after his ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad

... manner in which the dialogues of Plato are severally composed, and the cast of genius given them in their composition. The form under which they appear, or the external character that marks them, is of three sorts: either purely dramatic, like the dialogue of tragedy or comedy; or purely narrative, where a former conversation is supposed to be committed to writing, and communicated to some absent friend; or of the mixed kind, like a narration in dramatic poems, where is recited, to some person present, the story of ...
— Introduction to the Philosophy and Writings of Plato • Thomas Taylor

... incidents in our naval history has inspired so many writers as the Mutiny of the Bounty. Histories, biographies and romances, from Bligh's narrative in 1790 to Mr. Becke's "Mutineers" in 1898, have been founded upon it; Byron took it for the theme of the least happy of his dramatic poems; and all these, not because the mutiny left any mark upon history, but because it ranks first among the stories of the sea, instinct ...
— Voyage of H.M.S. Pandora - Despatched to Arrest the Mutineers of the 'Bounty' in the - South Seas, 1790-1791 • Edward Edwards

... ago—before Sir Winterton's split with the Liberals. Tom was a keeper in Sir Winterton's employ, and Sir Winterton charged him with netting game and sending it to London on his own account." Foster's narrative ceased and he looked again at his candidate's back. The papers rustled and the cigar smoke mounted to the ceiling. ...
— Quisante • Anthony Hope

... life, pleased with his own fluency, and not a little surprised at it. In half an hour she knew his story since the day he left the Francis Cadman, with certain judicious reservations and emendations. Aurora's name did not appear once in the narrative. This suppression was quite instinctive? Lucy told something of her existence on the station, and they chatted cheerfully of the people on shipboard and the incidents of the voyage, avoiding only the most sensational incident of ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson

... and stirring up the little faculty I have of handling and employing them, heating and distending my discourse, which were a pity: as I have observed in several of my intimate friends, who, as their memories supply them with an entire and full view of things, begin their narrative so far back, and crowd it with so many impertinent circumstances, that though the story be good in itself, they make a shift to spoil it; and if otherwise, you are either to curse the strength ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne

... Edmund punished terribly, yet with mercy: A Narrative significant of the Time. Henry Earl of Essex, standard-bearer of England: No right reverence for the Heavenly in Man. A traitor or a coward. Solemn Duel, by the King's appointment. An evil Conscience doth make cowards of us all. ...
— Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle

... not intended for a continuous narrative, but for a series of impressions. I must therefore condense the events of Disraeli's second Administration (during which he became Lord Beaconsfield) and of Gladstone's Administration which succeeded it, hurrying to meet Lord Salisbury, whom ...
— Prime Ministers and Some Others - A Book of Reminiscences • George W. E. Russell

... I am making the narrative as brief as possible. Your mother tells me that when the baby was given to her to care for she meant to be very good to it. She was miserable at the time, for her sorrows with and about your father had almost maddened her. ...
— The Honorable Miss - A Story of an Old-Fashioned Town • L. T. Meade

... duty before me considerably, in my opinion," he began, "is that I am bound to recall and relate the very worst action of my life. In such circumstances there can, of course, be no doubt. One's conscience very soon informs one what is the proper narrative to tell. I admit, that among the many silly and thoughtless actions of my life, the memory of one comes prominently forward and reminds me that it lay long like a stone on my heart. Some twenty years since, I paid a visit to Platon Ordintzeff at his country-house. He had just been elected ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... perhaps; but that everything was over in just twenty-four hours is an exact statement. Fyne was able to tell me all about it; and the phrase that would depict the nature of the change best is: an instant and complete destitution. I don't understand these matters very well, but from Fyne's narrative it seemed as if the creditors or the depositors, or the competent authorities, had got hold in the twinkling of an eye of everything de Barral possessed in the world, down to his watch and chain, the money in his trousers' pocket, his spare suits of clothes, and I suppose the cameo pin ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad

... belonging to the Sheriff. As that which followed relating to this rencontre is described minutely, and in the most simple manner, I will give it verbatim, as I find it recorded in the family document, from which I have taken the whole narrative. Colonel Hunt and the Collier were standing at the window, each with a loaded musket; the collier's wife stood behind, with a loaded blunderbuss in one hand, and with the other she was to supply the powder and slugs, for they ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt

... as much attention as it deserved to the narrative with which the officer favored us en route, of how he had been gradually getting the clew to the fugitive's many doublings and disguises till he came upon his retreat at last. "They mostly make for home when they're dead beat," he remarked, alluding to Bruce's having ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence

... with her narrative, Grandma Sherwood began to understand that the children had been in real danger, and she clasped her little grandchild closer until her own dress was nearly as wet ...
— Marjorie's Vacation • Carolyn Wells

... body, and tell them, by way of conclusion, that that is what has frightened them behind doors, hidden in the arras, or in cellars where the dead man was buried and forgotten. In spite of his aversion for prefaces, the author feels bound to place the following statement at the head of this narrative. Ferragus is a first episode which clings by invisible links to the "History of the Thirteen," whose power, naturally acquired, can alone explain certain acts and agencies which would otherwise seem supernatural. Although it is permissible in tellers ...
— Ferragus • Honore de Balzac

... charm of the stories is not the least of their attractions. The interest is all the greater for the style in which the story is told, and the author's sympathy with her young friends lends a vital warmth to her narrative.—Philadelphia Public Ledger. ...
— The Rejuvenation of Aunt Mary • Anne Warner

... is so contagious! Slowly nodding with her gray head, she again fell all in a heap. It was apparent that some time must elapse before this recollection, once risen in her mind, could settle to rest again. After what seemed to us hours she slowly raised herself again and continued her tragic narrative. ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai

... main event out of which this story springs, on a fact within my own knowledge. In afterwards shaping the course of the narrative thus suggested, I have guided it, as often as I could, where I knew by my own experience, or by experience related to me by others, that it would touch on something real and true in its progress. My idea was, that the more of the Actual I could garner up as a text to speak from, ...
— Basil • Wilkie Collins

... the priest told his story, and as he strove to convey the tragedy of the tormented dead he not only felt the poverty of his expression—for he was little used to narrative—but the torturing thought assailed him that what he said sounded wild and unnatural, real as it was to him. But he was not prepared for its effect on the bishop. He was standing in the middle of the room, whose gloom was softened and gilded by the waxen ...
— The Bell in the Fog and Other Stories • Gertrude Atherton

... lucid, and incisive. He does not waste words or revel in bombastic diffuseness. Every phrase of his narrative is a definite contribution towards the vivification of his realistic effects. His concise, laconic periods are pregnant with deep meaning, and instinct with that indefinable Norse essence which almost eludes the translator—that ...
— Norse Tales and Sketches • Alexander Lange Kielland

... The friends of the dead prophet gathered in the prison, and, taking up the headless body of their master, they carried it away to a reverent, tearful burial. Then they went and told Jesus. The narrative says, "When Jesus heard of it, he departed thence by ship into a desert place apart." His sorrow at the tragic death of his faithful friend made him wish to be alone. When the Jews saw Jesus weeping beside the grave of Lazarus they said, "Behold how he loved him!" No mention is made of tears ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller

... came out, and beamed pleasure at sight of the doctor: he got down, and told her the case, privately, and gave her precise instructions. She often interrupted the narrative with "Lawkadaisies," and other rural interjections, and simple exclamations of pity. She promised faithful compliance ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade

... a pretty narrative of child life, describing the simple doings and sayings of a very charming and rather precocious child. This is a delightful book for ...
— Katie Robertson - A Girls Story of Factory Life • Margaret E. Winslow

... remedy by which you can be relieved. These considerations constrain me to take another wife. This wife shall be under your control in every respect and ever second to you in my affections." She listened to his narrative in painful anxiety and endeavored to reclaim him from his wicked purpose, refuting all his sophistry by expressions of her unaffected conjugal affection. He left her to meditate. She became more industrious and treated him more tenderly than ...
— Among the Sioux - A Story of the Twin Cities and the Two Dakotas • R. J. Creswell

... forever hidden among the mysteries of the purple East, shrouded as it is in legend and fable, scholars have marshaled sufficient facts to prove that the beverage was known in Ethiopia "from time immemorial," and there is much to add verisimilitude to Dufour's narrative. This first coffee merchant-prince, skilled in languages and polite learning, considered that his character as a merchant was not inconsistent with that of an author; and he even went so far as to say there were some things (for instance, coffee) on which a merchant ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers

... corner of the four-cornered chest Mrs. Pinkus was pleased to call a sofa, looking like a sagacious elderly ape who despises the race of men, and bites his keeper when he can. He listened with critical interest to his pupil's narrative, and shook his head or smiled, according ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag

... industries, but also for the pleasure of its quaint turns of phrase, the ponderous classic authorities which he marshals to support a simple fact—and there are indeed some strange wild-fowl among his authorities—and above all for a gentle and unobtrusive humour which seasons all the narrative. Westcote gives a list of the fish afforded by the Devon seas (a very imperfect list by modern computation), ...
— Lynton and Lynmouth - A Pageant of Cliff & Moorland • John Presland

... after many years of disgrace was pardoned only on account of the courage with which he dared expose himself to the anger of the Emperor. The authenticity of the details which I shall relate can be attested, if necessary, by living persons, whom I shall have occasion to name in my narrative, and whose testimony no ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant

... Fort Hall, where the Oregon emigration went north'ard, and swung south for Californy," was his way of concluding the narrative of that arduous journey. "And Bill Ping and me used to rope grizzlies out of the underbrush of Cache Slough ...
— The Red One • Jack London

... idea of the fall of man from some hieroglyphic representation which he happened somewhere to see. As for the entrance of the serpent into Paradise, it is just as improbable as the rabbinical notion that the serpent of Eden had many feet. In the opinion of some, the whole narrative is only an allegory, or "a poetical description of the transition of man from a more brutish creature into humanity, from the baby-wagon of instinct into the government of reason, from the guardianship of nature into the condition of freedom."[48] ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst

... the floor. I was afterwards concerned at the blow, though the consequence was only a bloody nose, and the lad, who was a companion of the other's, and had uttered many wicked things, which I pretermitted in my narrative, very well deserved correction. ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding

... that Silas Jones listened to Frank's story with great attentiveness, apparently greatly interested in the narrative. ...
— Frank Merriwell's Bravery • Burt L. Standish

... between madam and the strange gentleman, I understood that young madam had been sent to reside with some friend or relation at a great distance, because her father wanted her to marry a man, and she wishes to marry somebody else." From John's plain and simple narrative, Alonzo concluded that Melissa had been removed by her father's order, or through the agency, or instigation of her aunt. Whether his visit to the old mansion had been somehow discovered or suspected, ...
— Alonzo and Melissa - The Unfeeling Father • Daniel Jackson, Jr.

... divine. The term comedy however is not used in the modern sense which suggests to us a light laughable drama written in a familiar style. "Comedy" Dante himself explains in his dedication of the poem, "is a certain kind of poetical narrative which differs from all others. It differs from tragedy in its subject matter in this way, that tragedy in the beginning is admirable and quiet, in its ending or catastrophe foul and horrible ... Comedy ...
— Dante: "The Central Man of All the World" • John T. Slattery

... this book through in a single sitting, delighted by its easy yet careful narrative, its sane and kindly comment, and last, not least, by its ...
— Sydney Smith • George W. E. Russell

... the Coreans in the service of Kublai Khan suggested to him that his way was now open to Japan, 1265. Next year Kublai selected a chief envoy whose name, as Parker says, appears in Chinese characters precisely the same as that of Sir Robert Hart,[75] and whom the author of the narrative immediately following, in order to avoid uncouth names, designates as "Hart." By this envoy Kublai sent a letter to Japan, and this act was the beginning of the execution of his designs against that country, formed upon the advice of the Coreans. In this letter the Mongol Emperor called ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various

... England, Barlow and Amidas immediately sought the Queen, and laid before her an account of their voyage and of its results. There was much of truth as a basis for their wondrous descriptions; but the sober observer will not fail to mark in this narrative the impress of imaginations heated by the novelty of their performance and the encouraging hope of their royal mistress. They spake of the land they had visited as an earthly paradise; its seas were tranquil and gemmed with green ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various

... (or will be) inquired of by correspondents from different parts of the country, whether this narrative is a true one; and to these inquiries she will give one general answer. The separate incidents that compose the narrative are to a very great extent authentic, occurring, many of them, either under her own observation, or that of her personal friends. She or her friends have observed characters ...
— Aunt Phillis's Cabin - Or, Southern Life As It Is • Mary H. Eastman

... see, the oar I grasped when Bruno came to give the alarm proved of inestimable value; and so all through my marvellous years of sojourn among the cannibals an undeniable Providence guided my every action. But this will be seen from my narrative in a hundred amazing instances. I climbed aboard the catamaran and paddled it into shallow water; and then, jumping overboard again I pulled it right up on to the beach, and carried the four blacks one by one into my hut. They were in a most pitiable state of collapse. Their tongues ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont

... that when men once surrender themselves to any unnatural and brutal vice, the gratification of the abnormal instinct thus acquired becomes the most imperative need of their nature. The Falkland Islands case, as bearing specially upon the foregoing narrative, may be mentioned. Some convicts escaped from the Falkland Island convict station, and succeeded in reaching the coast of Patagonia. They then endeavored to make their way to Montevideo, but having to keep along the shore so as to avoid the natives, who would ...
— Stories by English Authors: Africa • Various

... was didactive and narrative. In the didactic portion, the minister was exceedingly close in laying down the principles of honesty in all transactions between man and man, and showed that for a man to live beyond his known income, when that was sufficient to supply his actual wants, was dishonest. Then he gave ...
— Lessons in Life, For All Who Will Read Them • T. S. Arthur

... thick weather-boarding, overlapping in layers, was brown with age and smooth with the polishing of time and the backs, no doubt, of countless loiterers who had come and gone in the making of the narrative that Hart's Tavern could relate. The porch itself, while old, was comparatively modern; it did not belong to the century in which the inn itself was built, for in those far-off days men did not waste ...
— Green Fancy • George Barr McCutcheon

... relate any of the stories which I have heard at various times from persons whose likenesses I have been employed to take, it will not be amiss if I try to secure the reader's interest in the following pages by briefly explaining how I became possessed of the narrative ...
— Stories By English Authors: France • Various

... party divided, the greater portion going by Fort Hall and reaching California in safety. With the large train, which journeyed the old road, this narrative is no longer interested. Eighty-seven persons, however, took the Hastings Cut-off. Their names are included in the ninety mentioned in the preceding chapter, it being remembered that Mrs. Sarah Keyes had died, and that Lewis and Salvador were not yet members of the party. ...
— History of the Donner Party • C.F. McGlashan

... upon the conclusion of the narrative, "why the wily Assistant should be thine enemy, but he clearly is. Thou art honored in this respect as ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams

... Rev. Dr. Norman Macleod give a most interesting account of his visit to Canada. In the course of his eloquent narrative he mentioned a conversation he had with a Scottish emigrant, who in general terms spoke favourably and gratefully of his position in his adopted country. But he could not help making this exception when he thought of the "banks and braes o' bonny Doon"—"But ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay



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



Copyright © 2024 Dictionary One.com