"Story-telling" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... William Gilmore Simms, historical or imaginative romances form no inconsiderable part. As a novelist he is vigorous in delineation, dramatic in action, poetic in description, and skilled in the art of story-telling. His pictures of Southern border scenery and life are ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... TROWBRIDGE'S humor, his fidelity to nature, and story-telling power lose nothing with years; and he stands at the head of those who are furnishing a literature for the young, clean and sweet in tone, and always of ...
— Seek and Find - or The Adventures of a Smart Boy • Oliver Optic
... young tourist. The tropical scenery by day and night on the river, the fandango at Gorgona, and the ride to Panama through the dense dark forest, with death, in the shape of a cholera-stricken emigrant, following at their heels, are in the raciest spirit of story-telling. The steamer from Panama touched at the ancient city of Acapulco, and took in a company of gamblers, who immediately set up their business on deck. At San Deigo, the first overland emigrants by the route of the ...
— International Weekly Miscellany Vol. I. No. 3, July 15, 1850 • Various
... observation has astonished me. What have most pleased me have been 'Recollections after a Ramble,' and those 'Grongar Hill' kind of pieces in eight-syllable lines, my favourite measure, such as 'Cowper Hill' and 'Solitude.' In some of your story-telling ballads the provincial phrases sometimes startle me. I think you are too profuse with them. In poetry, slang of every kind is to be avoided. There is a rustick Cockneyism as little pleasing as ours of London. Transplant Arcadia to Helpstone. The true rustic style, the ...
— Life and Remains of John Clare - "The Northamptonshire Peasant Poet" • J. L. Cherry
... whom story-telling was begun no one can say. From the first use of speech, no doubt, our ancestors have told stories of war, love, mysteries, and the miraculous performances of lower animals and inanimate objects. The ultimate source of all stories lies in a thorough democracy, ...
— Short-Stories • Various
... history of social and moral ideals will find much to interest him in Chretien's romances. Mediaeval references show that he was held by his immediate successors, as he is held to-day when fairly viewed, to have been a master of the art of story-telling. More than any other single narrative poet, he was taken as a model both in France and abroad. Professor F. M. Warren has set forth in detail the finer points in the art of poetry as practised by Chretien ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes
... has been publishing a series of these "Tales While You Wait" in Reedy's Mirror during the past few months, and I should much prefer them to those of Jack Lait for the complete success with which he has achieved his aims. Imitation of "O. Henry" has been the curse of American story-telling for the past ten years, because "O. Henry" is practically inimitable. Mr. Lewis is not an imitator, but he may well prove before very long to be "O. Henry's" successor. In the words of Padna Dan and Micus Pat, "Here's the chance for some one to ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... has a real gift of story-telling to begin with. And he has other greater qualities than that.... His latest novel possesses a broad human interest as a really imaginative study of life."—RICHARD LE ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... story-telling, it is possible that I have neglected chronology in this account. I referred just now to the time we couldn't get into Harlson's house because we hadn't carried the Ninth Ward and to the Ape crowing at the window in his mother's arms. Time ...
— A Man and a Woman • Stanley Waterloo
... not of delight or curiosity at all. In the picture galleries, it is true, the dull eyes are lifted and the weary faces brighten, because here, if you plea, we touch upon that art which every human being all over the world can appreciate. It is the art of story-telling. The visitors go from picture to picture and they read the stories. As for landscapes, figures, portraits, or slabs, they pass them by. What they love is a picture of life in action, a picture that tells a story and quicken their pulses. You may observe this in every picture gallery—even at ...
— As We Are and As We May Be • Sir Walter Besant
... they are epic. No English verse narrative except Chaucer's ranks, as a whole, above Scott's. Chaucer's disciple, William Morris, has an equal flow and continuity, and keeps a more even level of style; but his story-telling is languid compared with Scott's. The latter is greater in the dynamic than in the static department—in scenes of rapid action and keen excitement. His show passages are such as the fight in the Trosachs, Flodden Field, William of Deloraine's ride to Melrose, the trial of Constance, the muster ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... is laid aside in a justifiable disgust, the tale being horrid; my third, 'The Merry Men,' I am more than half through, and think real well of. It is a fantastic sonata about the sea and wrecks; and I like it much above all my other attempts at story-telling; I think it is strange; if ever I shall make a hit, I have the ...
— The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... story-telling, drinking of healths, and rejoicing, until Pitter Nilken was quite overcome, and offered of his own accord to sing "The Knife-Grinder's Courtship"—a song which had been a great favourite in the days of his youth. He sang amidst rounds of applause, in a curious thin voice, which ...
— Garman and Worse - A Norwegian Novel • Alexander Lange Kielland
... That the story-telling type was a bore, I grant. To be grabbed on entering your club and obliged to listen to Smith's last, or to have the conversation after dinner monopolized by Jones and his eternal "Speaking of coffee, I remember once," etc. added an additional hardship to existence. But the opposite pose, which ...
— Worldly Ways and Byways • Eliot Gregory
... for instance, with the fires blazing brightly, there was a vast deal of boisterous hilarity, in which the deep guttural tones of the men and the shrill voices of the squaws were intermingled. Around the fires there were endless gossiping, story-telling, and jesting. Jokes, by no means delicate and decidedly personal, provoked uproarious laughter, in which the victim ...
— French Pathfinders in North America • William Henry Johnson
... 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 for story-telling. ...
— A Mother's List of Books for Children • Gertrude Weld Arnold
... edified by that wherewith Shehrzad bespoke him and sought help of God the Most High. Then said he to her, "Tell me another of thy stories, O Shehrzad; let it be a pleasant one and this shall be the completion of the story-telling." "With all my heart," answered Shehrzad. "It hath reached me, O august King, that a man once said to his fellows, 'I will set forth to you a means[FN148] of security[FN149] against vexation.[FN150] A friend of mine once related to me and said, "We attained [whiles] to security[FN151] ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne
... would go to the bottom lands paw-paw gathering. Winter nights there was story-telling in the huts. We had a kind of corn, very small, that burst out white like a flower when ...
— The Trail Book • Mary Austin et al
... the sight of the ugly cancer would help its removal. Thus he became the conscious protester, the critic of autocracy; and he became such because his gifts were best fitted for such labor. For coupled with his unsurpassed gift of story-telling was another distinct trait of the Cossak in him,—the ability of seeing good-humoredly the frailties of man; and his humor, undefiled by the scorn of the cynic, proved a most powerful weapon in his hands. Ridicule has ever proved ...
— Lectures on Russian Literature - Pushkin, Gogol, Turgenef, Tolstoy • Ivan Panin
... knack of story-telling, but there you must yield to me, if you hearken attentively to what I am about to disclose, you will be convinced; it is a tale, my dear Boswell, which whether we consider the turnings and windings of fortune, or the sadness of the catastrophe, is delightful and improving.—You ...
— Boswell's Correspondence with the Honourable Andrew Erskine, and His Journal of a Tour to Corsica • James Boswell
... door, which did not come. Immediately after that, Patsy, happy in sitting down to table with "the quality"—for such they were to him—because he saw that Louise must be distracted, and because he had seen story-telling, many a time, draw people away from their troubles even more than ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... the following days, was Master Joel's slave, was stating the case lightly. However, she thought by her story-telling she got off easily, as each evening saw the boys drag their unwilling feet to-bedward, and leave Ben and herself in peace to plan and work undisturbed. There they would sit by the little old table, around the ...
— Five Little Peppers And How They Grew • Margaret Sidney
... Black Crows had less to do in the way of handling and nursing the schooner. Their plans when the "Boomskys" should be reached were rehearsed over and over again. Then came spells of card and checker playing, story-telling, or hours of silent inertia when, man fashion, they brooded over pipes in a patch of sun, somnolent, the ...
— A Deal in Wheat - And Other Stories of the New and Old West • Frank Norris
... is the way in which these things are handled. It has as mere story-telling little merit: the question is whether the spirit, the conduct, the details, do not show a temper much more akin to mediaeval than to classical treatment. I think they do. Hysminias is rather a silly, and more than rather ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury
... can understand him; nine-tenths of the songs we hear are songs without words." Happily this condition is gradually yielding to a better one, stimulated in part by the examples of visiting singers and actors. In story-telling songs and in oratorio, slovenly delivery is reprehensible, but when the words of a song are the lyric flight of a true poet, a careless utterance ...
— Resonance in Singing and Speaking • Thomas Fillebrown
... of story-telling: Individual enterprise has given us what is admittedly the most efficient railroad system in the world. It has done so whilst making our average capitalization per mile of road less, the scale of wages higher, the average ...
— Government Ownership of Railroads, and War Taxation • Otto H. Kahn
... fairytale, had he words exact enough to hold a subtle ear. He alarmed me, though not as Henley did for I never left his house thinking myself fool or dunce. He flattered the intellect of every man he liked; he made me tell him long Irish stories and compared my art of story-telling to Homer's; and once when he had described himself as writing in the census paper 'age 19, profession genius, infirmity talent,' the other guest, a young journalist fresh from Oxford or Cambridge, said 'What should I have written?' and was told that it ...
— Four Years • William Butler Yeats
... wonderful gift," said Lincoln, as he listened to it, his eyes filled with tears, "to be able to stir men like that." "The Skeleton in Armor," "A Ballad of the French Fleet," "Paul Revere's Ride," "The Wreck of the Hesperus," are ballads that stir men still. For all of his skill in story-telling in verse—witness the "Tales of a Wayside Inn"—Longfellow was not by nature a dramatist, and his trilogy now published under the title of "Christus," made up of "The Divine Tragedy," "The Golden Legend," ...
— The American Spirit in Literature, - A Chronicle of Great Interpreters, Volume 34 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Bliss Perry
... feeling with equally tremendous technique. The entire audience was under the witchery of his art." Diotti slowly negatived that statement with bowed head. "His tone is full, round and clear; his interpretation lends a story-telling charm to the music; for, while we drank deep at the fountain of exquisite melody, we saw sparkling within the waters the lights of Paradise. New York never has heard his equal. He stands alone, pre-eminent, ...
— The Fifth String, The Conspirators • John Philip Sousa
... Journaux and the other little masterpieces of story-telling in verse are unfortunately untranslatable, as are all poems but a lyric or two, now and then, by a happy accident. A translated poem is a boiled strawberry, as some one once put it brutally. But the tales which M. Coppee has written in prose—a true poet's ...
— Ten Tales • Francois Coppee
... small-pox caused him to be taken from under the care of his story-telling preceptor, Byrne. His malady had nearly proved fatal, and his face remained pitted through life. On his recovery he was placed under the charge of the Rev. Mr. Griffin, schoolmaster of Elphin, ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... the sea. There is an excellent bit of ocean poetry here (ll. 210-224), and we get a vivid idea of the hospitality of a brave people by following the poet's description of Beowulf's meeting with King Hrothgar and Queen Wealhtheow, and of the joy and feasting and story-telling in Heorot. The picture of Wealhtheow passing the mead cup to the warriors with her own hand is a noble one, and plainly indicates the reverence paid by these strong men to their wives and mothers. Night comes on; the fear of Grendel is again upon the Danes, and all withdraw after the king ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... University of Pavia, but went early to Milan, where he cultivated literature rather than the austerer science to which he had been bred, and soon became the fashion, writing tales in Milanese and Italian verse, and making the women cry by his pathetic art of story-telling. "Ildegonda", published in 1820, was the most popular of all these tales, and won Grossi an immense number of admirers, every one (says his biographer Cantu) of the fair sex, who began to wear Ildegonda dresses and Ildegonda bonnets. The poem was printed and reprinted; it ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells
... of story-telling has produced the Gilgamesh epic and, like a true story, it grows in length, the oftener it is told. Gilgamesh is merely a peg upon which various current traditions and myths are hung. Hence the combination of Gilgamesh's adventures with those of Eabani, and hence also the association of Gilgamesh ...
— The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria • Morris Jastrow
... measures always pace sedately. Doubtless there is a certain general fitness, in various stanza forms, for this or that poetic purpose: the stanzas employed by English or Scotch balladry are admittedly excellent for story-telling; Spenser's favorite stanza is unrivalled for painting dream-pictures and rendering dream-music, but less available for pure narration; Chaucer's seven-line stanza, so delicately balanced upon that fourth, pivotal line, can paint a picture and tell a story too; Byron's ...
— A Study of Poetry • Bliss Perry
... this is only a stage of transition. In dancing as in painting we are on the threshold of the art of the future. The same rules must be applied in both cases. Conventional beauty must go by the board and the literary element of "story-telling" or "anecdote" must be abandoned as useless. Both arts must learn from music that every harmony and every discord which springs from the inner spirit is beautiful, but that it is essential that they should spring from the inner spirit and from ...
— Concerning the Spiritual in Art • Wassily Kandinsky
... ventured to say of the really historical personages. Mr. Fox Bourne's 'English Merchants' furnished the tradition respecting Whittington. I am afraid the knighthood was really conferred on Henry's first return to England, after the battle of Agincourt; but human—or at least story-telling—nature could not resist an anachronism of a few years for such a story. The only other wilful alteration of a matter of time is with regard to the Duke of Burgundy's interview with Henry. At the time of Henry's last ...
— The Caged Lion • Charlotte M. Yonge
... an instant it was grim, the chin coming forward, the brows contracting; then it was transformed with something that was as a complete surrender to the transport of irresistible temptation. He looked down at her quickly and she saw him in the mood of story-telling to the children, suffused with the radiance of ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... story-telling age, I have been tempted occasionally to give the reader one of the many tales that are served up with supper at the Hall. I might, indeed, have furnished a series almost equal in number to the Arabian Nights; but ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... to story-telling. There was an autumnal languor in the air, and a dreamy haze softened the dark green of the distant pines and the deep blue of the Southern sky. The generous meal he had made had put the old man in a very good humor. He was not always ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... was backward. A great many teachers have discovered that the strongest motive which they can find for good work in the field of English is to be found in providing an audience, both for the reading or story-telling, and for the English composition. The idea which prevails is that if one is to read, he ought to read well enough to entertain others. If one has enjoyed a story, he may, if he prepares himself sufficiently well, tell it to the class or ...
— How to Teach • George Drayton Strayer and Naomi Norsworthy
... than he has elsewhere shown; but most of them contain touches of what is peculiar in his talent, and are full of that rich eloquence and of those pleasing descriptions of natural scenery which always flow so easily from his pen. They have little in common with the graceful story-telling spirit of Boccaccio and his followers, and still less with the strictly practical tone of Don Juan Manuel's tales; nor, on the other hand, do they approach, except in the case of the 'Impertinent Curiosity,' the class ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... for times when intelligent people had but little else in which they could take pleasure, and when they must needs supplement the sordid miseries of their own lives with imaginations of the lives of other people. But I say flatly that in spite of all their cleverness and vigour, and capacity for story-telling, there is something loathsome about them. Some of them, indeed, do here and there show some feeling for those whom the history-books call 'poor,' and of the misery of whose lives we have some inkling; but presently they give it up, and towards the end ...
— News from Nowhere - or An Epoch of Rest, being some chapters from A Utopian Romance • William Morris
... a loquacious mood after supper, devoting himself entirely to Necia, in whom he seemed to take great interest. He was an engaging talker, with a peculiar knack of suggestion in story-telling—an unconscious halting and elusiveness that told more than words could express—and, knowing his West so well, he fascinated the girl, who hung upon ...
— The Barrier • Rex Beach
... since that time, most of this audience know. He has not been noticeably active in the affairs of the village, but when you have met him in private intercourse, you have known that he retained the fine social qualities—the love of story-telling, and the keen, yet harmless wit—for which he was always remarkable. Those whose memory goes back thirty years, must have noticed, I think, that he became more uniformly serene and cheerful in the latter part of his life. The old graduates of the college ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith
... a rage.) Why, you little story-telling creature, coming here to impose upon your good uncle! You know that no one has been here—not a soul;—and as for yourself, you have been too busy looking after a certain gentleman ever to think of your poor uncle;—that you have;—taking advantage of his illness to behave in so indecorous ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat
... me in charge to you?" Laura said, looking up into Mr. Pynsent's face, and dropping her eyes instantly, like a guilty little story-telling coquette. ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the next day Jack and his companions sought fresh playing fields and some new story-telling pastures. Indeed, it was a fine sight to see this pale, handsome, elegantly dressed young fellow lounging along between a blue-checkered pinafored girl on one side and a barefooted boy on the other. The ranchmen ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... vulgar details in his most exquisite passages. There is something childish about almost all the thought and art of the Middle Ages—at least outside of Italy, where classical models and traditions never quite lost their hold. But Chaucer's artlessness is half the secret of his wonderful ease in story-telling, and is so engaging that, like a child's sweet unconsciousness, one ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... had been transferred to a china dish, and the browned butter was ready to pour over it. The potatoes were steaming themselves into mealy delicacy, and Aunt Jane peered into the stove where the dumplings were taking on a golden brown. Her story-telling evidently did not interfere with her culinary ...
— Aunt Jane of Kentucky • Eliza Calvert Hall
... jocular man with a peculiar twang in his speech, the result of having been long a prisoner in Ireland. We mention these men particularly, because it was they who took the chief part in conversations and in story-telling. The two Scots were also there, but they were very quiet, and talked little; nevertheless, they were interested and attentive listeners. Olaf was there also, all eyes and ears,—for Olaf drank in stories, and songs, and jests, as the sea-sand ...
— The Norsemen in the West • R.M. Ballantyne
... like a horse when I sat on his shoulders. It was rather hard on him, after his work in the fields, but he felt his responsibility and applied himself with due diligence and became a very promising child. I also gave strict attention to his talent for story-telling. It improved rapidly. Being frank in my criticism he was able to profit by all his failures in taste and method, so that each story had a fierce bear in it and a fair amount of growling by and by. ...
— The Light in the Clearing • Irving Bacheller
... the right were the Cavalry and the Artillery; in the center of all was the tent of the chief. Everywhere, as evening fell, the red warmth of fires rose; the caldron of soup or of coffee simmered, gypsy-like, above; the men lounged around, talking, laughing, cooking, story-telling at their pleasure; after the semi-starvation of the last week, the abundance of stores that had come in with other Tringlos besides poor Biribi caused a universal hilarity. The glitter of accouterments, the contents of open knapsacks, the skins of animals just killed for the marmite, the ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... a good deal of story-telling in some quarters; in others, little but silence. In this society, more than any other that ever I was in, it was the narrator alone who seemed to enjoy the narrative. It was rarely that any one listened for the listening. If he lent an ear to another man's story, it was because he ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... gentleman drop, for his adventures were rather strange; but the narration of them is not very profitable, not that I go in for the utilitarian theory of conversation; but I think, on the whole, that, in story-telling, fiction should be preferred to dull facts like these, and so the next time I tell a story I ...
— The Dodge Club - or, Italy in 1859 • James De Mille
... only those in their anecdotage should tell stories. De Quincey wanted all story-tellers to be submerged in a horse-pond, or treated in the same manner as mad dogs. But story-telling has its legitimate and appropriate use, and if certain rules are observed may give added charm ...
— Talks on Talking • Grenville Kleiser
... Roars of laughter succeeded, and a teacup did duty for the soup-ladle. The probable consequence of this unlucky exposure of the domestic economy of the host, namely, a sound drubbing to the poor maty-boy, brings to my mind an anecdote which, being in a story-telling vein, I cannot resist the temptation of introducing. It was related to me, with great humour, by one of the principals in the transaction, whose candour exceeded his fear of shame. He had been in the habit ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13, Issue 353, January 24, 1829 • Various
... Cassilis, with his supercilious smile, "ah, indeed! dragons should be interesting, especially in such a very quiet, shady nook as this,—quite an idyllic place for story-telling, it's a positive shame to disturb you," and his sharp, white teeth gleamed beneath his moustache, as he spoke, and he tapped his riding-boot lightly with his hunting-crop as he fronted Bellew, who had risen, and stood ...
— The Money Moon - A Romance • Jeffery Farnol
... set times and seasons for story-telling among the various Indian tribes, but the winter season, when there is likely to be most leisure and most need of fireside entertainment, is a general favorite. However, some tribes have myths that "can not be told in summer, others only at night, etc."[16] ...
— The Unwritten Literature of the Hopi • Hattie Greene Lockett
... devilish propensities, receives her quietus by being very properly "smitten on the neck." So ends this fine story, and then comes the conclusion of the whole work. This is very touching, especially where the story-telling queen, who assumes that death is to be her portion, wants to bid adieu to the children whom she had borne to the king. But, as the dullest reader must have divined, the king had long before "pardoned" her in his heart, and all ends pleasantly with the marriage of her sister ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... together." He then began his tale of the Vampire; and, having the whole arranged in his head, repeated to them a sketch of the story[120] one evening,—but, from the narrative being in prose, made but little progress in filling up his outline. The most memorable result, indeed, of their story-telling compact, was Mrs. Shelley's wild and powerful romance of Frankenstein,—one of those original conceptions that take hold of the public mind at once, ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... winter came, and the sun went down at half-past four o'clock, and left the long, dark hours of evening to be provided for, the necessity of amusement became urgent. Hence, in those days, chimney-corner story-telling became an art and an accomplishment. Society then was full of traditions and narratives which had all the uncertain glow and shifting mystery of the firelit hearth upon them. They were told to sympathetic audiences, by the rising and falling light of the solemn ...
— Oldtown Fireside Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... Herbert went to live with his uncle, the Reverend Thomas Spencer, at Bath. Here the same methods of education were continued that had been begun at home—conversation, history in the form of story-telling, walks and talks, and mathematical calculations carried out as pleasing puzzles. In mathematics the boy made rapid progress, but the faculty of observation was the dominant one. Every phase of cloud and sky, of water ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard
... that tend to develop this larger community sense are games, athletic sports of all kinds, including team work and competition between small, well-knit groups. Folk dancing and other forms of amusement, such as dramatics, pageants, and story-telling, serve a similar purpose because they all mean the possession of a resource not only for the right use of the girl's own leisure time, but for serving this ...
— Educational Work of the Girl Scouts • Louise Stevens Bryant
... to more than thirteen thousand lines. His language shows some advance from that in which the Cid was written, but the power and movement of that remarkable legend are entirely wanting in these poems. There is a simple-hearted piety in them, however, that is very attractive, and in some of them a story-telling spirit that is occasionally ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... to social gatherings. If the night was pleasant groups would assemble, for conversation, singing and story-telling; varied with dancing by the young people of some companies. The more religious sang hymns and read the Bible sometimes, in lieu of attendance at any church service. When wood was plentiful, a bonfire added to the cheerfulness and comfort of the occasion. Often ...
— Crossing the Plains, Days of '57 - A Narrative of Early Emigrant Tavel to California by the Ox-team Method • William Audley Maxwell
... so, however, let us notice a method of the old Mnemonics, which is still taught and which should never be resorted to. It is their story-telling method. A story or narrative is invented for the purpose of helping the student, as it is claimed, to memorise it. In this poem we find there are four stanzas, each occupied with a different kind ...
— Assimilative Memory - or, How to Attend and Never Forget • Marcus Dwight Larrowe (AKA Prof. A. Loisette)
... extremely large, oval, elevated, scarlet nostrils; we have shot at seals, and almost hit them in the most admirable manner; we have hunted for an indubitable polar bear,—and found a dog and a midnight mystification; we have played at chess, euchre, backgammon, whist, debating-club, story-telling, nightmare,—one of our number developing an incomparable genius for the last; we have played at getting tolerable cooking out of two slovens, one of whom knows nothing, and the other everything ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various
... Sunday sings, Save that upon his upper lip His beard, a good palm's length at least, Level and pointed at the tip, Shot sideways, like a swallow's wings. The poets read he o'er and o'er, And most of all the Immortal Four Of Italy; and next to those, The story-telling bard of prose, Who wrote the joyous Tuscan tales Of the Decameron, that make Fiesole's green hills and vales Remembered for Boccaccio's sake. Much too of music was his thought; The melodies and measures fraught With ...
— Tales of a Wayside Inn • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... himself a character fit to govern others, and one that the people will one day need and honor. The secret of Abraham Lincoln's success was the "faith that right makes might." This principle the book seeks by abundant story-telling to illustrate and ...
— In The Boyhood of Lincoln - A Tale of the Tunker Schoolmaster and the Times of Black Hawk • Hezekiah Butterworth
... ready for the children as she had promised. It was such a mild beautiful day, though only April, that she got leave to take them out-of-doors for the story-telling, and in a favourite corner, sunny yet sheltered, they settled their little camp-stools in a circle round her ...
— Hoodie • Mary Louisa Stewart Molesworth
... modestly, his final discomfiture would not have been so galling; but his vanity was apparent to the most shallow observer, and although he was brave, clever, and educated, he inspired distrust by his much promising and general love of gossip and story-telling. He had all of Mr. Lincoln's garrulity (which I suspect to be the cause of their affinity), and none of that good old man's ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... was a playful jest on the long-winded story-telling of the old romances, and had specially in mind Thomas Chestre's version of Launfal from Marie of France, and the same rhymer's romance of "Ly Beaus Disconus," who was Gingelein, a son of Gawain, called by his mother, for his beauty, only Beaufis (handsome son); but when he offered himself in that ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... to week the story-telling in the dark went on, and whatever I had within me that was romantic or dreamy was encouraged by it. By degrees the other boys joined the circle of listeners. Traddles was always overcome with mirth at the comic parts ...
— Ten Boys from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... Lightfoot too, and was not a whit less handsome than Lightfoot is now," continued Grandfather Frog in his best story-telling voice. "He had just such slim legs as Lightfoot has now and just such wonderful, branching horns. When he had the latter, he was not much afraid of anybody. Those enemies swift enough of foot to catch him he could successfully fight ...
— Mother West Wind "How" Stories • Thornton W. Burgess
... deftly touched with a gentle humor. It is a dainty book—daintily illustrated."—New York Tribune. "A wholesome, bright, refreshing story, an ideal book to give a young girl."—Chicago Record-Herald. "An idyllic story, replete with pathos and inimitable humor. As story-telling it is perfection, and as portrait-painting it is true ...
— At the Time Appointed • A. Maynard Barbour
... my purpose now to put in written form, I have at various times briefly or in part related to one and another of my intimate friends; but they all mistook my facts for fancies, and good-naturedly complimented me on my story-telling powers—which was certainty not flattering to my qualifications ...
— A Strange Discovery • Charles Romyn Dake
... his devotion to fiction; but I suspect that these admirers are mistaken. A novelists he is not, after the old fashion, or after any fashion but his own; yet since he has finally made his public in his own way of story-telling—or call it character-painting if you prefer,—it must be conceded that he has chosen best for himself and his readers in choosing the form of fiction for what he has to say. It is, after all, what a writer has to say rather than what he has to tell ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... to the Children's Museum in Brooklyn was developed a feature article for the New York Herald, and from a story-telling hour at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts was evolved a feature story for the Boston Herald on the telling of stories as a means of ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer
... I know of these legends, keeping as near as possible to the Indian's style of story-telling, and using only tales told me by the older men of the Blackfeet, Chippewa, ...
— Indian Why Stories • Frank Bird Linderman
... she found herself pitted against Souwanas, the great story-teller of the tribe. However, being determined that Souwanas should not rob her of the love of the children, she was tempted to begin her story-telling even though the children were exhausted, and so it was that when the lad asked ...
— Algonquin Indian Tales • Egerton R. Young
... was joining in commiseration of old Stephen, towards whom she herself felt rather brutal, she was casting about for some means of coming at the truth. Irene was no good, however altruistic her motives might be for story-telling.... No!—his eyes looked at her in quite another fashion that evening at Arthur's Bridge, in the light of the sunset. She must get at the ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... this volume give evidence not only of innate capacity for story-telling, but of conscientious elaboration of the various plots. All the stories have their characteristic merits, and they ...
— A Lover in Homespun - And Other Stories • F. Clifford Smith
... the entertainment and is found enough. Dumas approaches perhaps nearest of any modern to these Arabian authors in the purely material charm of some of his romances. The early part of "Monte Cristo," down to the finding of the treasure, is a piece of perfect story-telling; the man never breathed who shared these moving incidents without a tremor; and yet Faria is a thing of packthread and Dantes little more than a name. The sequel is one long-drawn error, gloomy, bloody, unnatural, and dull; but as for these early chapters, I do not believe there is another volume ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... tragedy is altogether of a different kind, and though unnecessary to the story, and contrary to that practice of story-telling which seems to demand that calamities to those personages with whom we are to sympathise should not be brought in at the close of a work of fiction, is so beautifully told that no lover of Thackeray's work would be willing to part ...
— Thackeray • Anthony Trollope
... about their new companion except what they had seen of him on board the vessel; their mother had not understood who was their story-telling friend, and in the excitement of the storm and the hasty visit to the city, he had been quite forgotten by all three. Nor were any of the family aware of his vicinity; thus it happened that the lads had not ...
— Elsie's children • Martha Finley
... fashion, discussions on abstruse subjects being sometimes relieved by an anecdote or two, a bit of folklore, worldly wisdom, or small talk. Scattered through its numerous volumes are priceless gems of poetry, epigram, and story-telling ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... for story-telling and pipes. The blizzard, which had been brewing for a week or more, had burst forth in all its fury, and the elements were in frightful commotion. The wind howled mournfully through the branches of the evergreens that covered the bluff behind the cabin; ...
— Elam Storm, The Wolfer - The Lost Nugget • Harry Castlemon
... themselves indulged a fond, secret, half-belief that these child's stories of theirs were, if the truth could be got at, more than half true. We should be sorry to believe that this good old life of story-telling and story-hearing had utterly gone out. It belonged to an age that only very foolish men and very vulgar men ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various
... and over the lawless, turbulent oil-drillers, his success in his profession and in his love affair. It displays a delightful appreciation of the essential points of typical American characters, a happy outlook on everyday life, a vigorous story-telling ability working in material that is thrilling in interest, in a setting that is picturesque and unusual. The action takes place in a little western Pennsylvania village at the time of the oil fever, and a better situation can scarcely be found. Mr. Pier's account of the ...
— Blue Goose • Frank Lewis Nason
... and help you eat them. I had figured on riding back to the Frio to-night, but I've changed my mind. Got any horse hobbles here?" The two men, George Nathan and Hugh Trotter, were accommodated with hobbles, and after an exchange of commonplace news of the country, we settled down to story-telling. Trotter was a convivial acquaintance of Aaron Scales, quite a vagabond and consequently a story-teller. After Trotter had narrated a late dream, Scales unlimbered and told one ...
— A Texas Matchmaker • Andy Adams
... to the course of conversation in mixed companies, consisting not merely of learned persons and subtle reasoners, but also of men of business or of women, we observe that, besides story-telling and jesting, another kind of entertainment finds a place in them, namely, argument; for stories, if they are to have novelty and interest, are soon exhausted, and jesting is likely to become insipid. Now of all argument there is none in which persons are more ready to join who ...
— The Critique of Practical Reason • Immanuel Kant
... for economic independence. It must also furnish the stimulus for mental culture and direct a proper aspiration for social enlightenment. The curriculum should include biology, hygiene, psychology, home beautifying, the story-telling side of literature, music and a few other studies tending to make woman more like woman than she is to-day. When we have this, teaching for mothercraft will be more ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Volume I. (of IV.) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague, M.D.
... de Nasis is extremely scarce, it may not be unacceptable to the learned reader to see the specimen of a few pages of his original; I will make no reflection upon it, but that his story-telling Latin is much more concise than his philosophic—and, I think, has more of ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... working for my father five years before I was born. He was not a strong man and had never been able to carry the wide swath of the other help in the fields, but we all loved him for his kindness and his knack of story-telling. He was a bachelor who came over the mountain from Pleasant Valley, a little bundle of clothes on his shoulder, and bringing a name that enriched the nomenclature of our neighbourhood. It ...
— Eben Holden - A Tale of the North Country • Irving Bacheller
... guests are seated a little distance away. Even in general conversation a good story, if short and crisp, is no doubt a good thing; but when either a host or a guest does nothing but "anecdote" from the soup to the coffee, story-telling becomes tiresome. Anecdotes should not be dragged in by the neck, but should come naturally as the talk about many different ...
— Conversation - What to Say and How to Say it • Mary Greer Conklin
... difficulty in letting Mr Henderson go ahead whenever he likes. I will write my story up to its legitimate conclusion, and then we shall be in a position to judge whether a sequel would be desirable, and I myself would then know better about its practicability from the story-telling point of view.—Yours very ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson - a Record, an Estimate, and a Memorial • Alexander H. Japp
... me to read. It was an old leather-bound book filled with the record of his voyages and adventures. I thought what a veritable treasure trove it would be to a writer. Every sentence was a nugget. In itself the book had no literary merit; Uncle Jesse's charm of story-telling failed him when he came to pen and ink; he could only jot down roughly the outlines of his famous tales, and both spelling and grammar were sadly askew. But I felt that if anyone possessing the gift could take that simple record of a brave, adventurous life, ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1909 to 1922 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... to "let go the anchor," which Main Brace did promptly, with an "Ay, ay, sir!" and then he "clewed" up the sails, and spread a white and red striped and red-fringed awning over the place where they were seated, and said he was now going on with the story. "Isn't this a tip-top place," said he, "for story-telling?" And the children all said it was "tip-top," and "jolly," and "grand," and made many little speeches about it, which to put down here would make this account so long that everybody would get tired before getting ...
— Cast Away in the Cold - An Old Man's Story of a Young Man's Adventures, as Related by Captain John Hardy, Mariner • Isaac I. Hayes
... has been denounced by the purists because he makes settings too large a portion of his story-telling, and transforms his theatre into the paradise of the property-man. But this very quality of the well spaced setting, if you please, has made his chance for the world's moving picture anthology. As reproduced ...
— The Art Of The Moving Picture • Vachel Lindsay
... believed was no more than the winding of a call on board the brigantine, who had taken occasion, when other vessels were glad to anchor, to get under way, in her own fashion. There was also a fore-top-man named Robert Yarn, a fellow whose faculty for story-telling equalled that of Scheherazade, and who not only asserted, but who confirmed the declaration by many strange oaths, that while he lay on the lee-fore-top-sail-yard-arm, stretching forth an arm to grasp the leech of the sail, a dark-looking female ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... school teachers. The child and the parent are strangers to one another necessarily, because their ages must differ widely. Read Goethe's autobiography; and note that though he was happy in his parents and had exceptional powers of observation, divination, and story-telling, he knew less about his father and mother than about most of the other people he mentions. I myself was never on bad terms with my mother: we lived together until I was forty-two years old, absolutely without the smallest friction ...
— A Treatise on Parents and Children • George Bernard Shaw
... Sir Walter Scott gathered round him at the fireplace in the Parliament Hall of Edinburgh a company of young brother advocates to hear the latest of Lord Eskgrove's eccentric sayings from the Bench, that rendezvous has been the favourite resort for story-telling among succeeding generations of counsel. While the Court is in session, they vary their daily walk up and down the hall by lounging round the spot where the future Wizard of the North proved a strong counter-attraction to many an interesting case being argued before a Lord ...
— Law and Laughter • George Alexander Morton
... said. "Where is the story-telling lady? The reason we comed back was because I thought she'd be here, too. Cousin Dink told ...
— Mary Louise and Josie O'Gorman • Emma Speed Sampson
... of such "good things" which make Chaucer a constant delight to those who, by a very little practice, can understand him almost as easily as Shakespeare. Moreover he was a careful artist; he knew the principles of poetry and of story-telling, and before he wrote a song or a tale he considered both his subject and his audience, repeating to himself his ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... himself as indebted to his father for his frame and steady guidance of life, to his mother for his happy disposition and love of story-telling, to his grandfather for his devotion to the fair sex, to his grandmother for his love of finery. Schopenhauer reduces the law of heredity to the simple formula that man has his moral nature, his character, his inclinations, ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... all, and so beautiful did they appear to her that she was reluctant to leave, and begged to be taken back to see it all again. Unfortunately it is not true. A full and careful inquiry has been made into the story, of which there are several versions, and its origin traced to a little story-telling Wiltshire boy who had read or heard of the white-robed priests of the ancient days at "The Stones," and who just to astonish other little boys naughtily pretended that he had seen it ...
— Afoot in England • W.H. Hudson
... from which he was miraculously preserved, he banished the poor son of Zebedee to a desert island in the Archipelago, where he was gifted with the second sight, and saw as many wild beasts as I have seen since I came to Edinburgh; which, a circumstance not very uncommon in story-telling, brings me back to where ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... catches the very air of popular poetry, and the dovetailing is done with most happy skill. "Proud Maisie is in the Wood" is a fine example of the ballad manner of story-telling ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... his assent, and after an evening spent in story-telling and chaffing, Jim went to bed upon the shakedown in an upper room to which ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... Henry Dickens, K. C., the son of the novelist; Mr. Percy Fitzgerald, who had the honour of being intimately associated with Dickens on Household Words; Mr. Luke Fildes, R. A., among whose many famous paintings is that pathetic story-telling canvas, "The Empty Chair," being a reproduction of that portion of Dickens' study at Gad's Hill, wherein stood the ...
— Dickens' London • Francis Miltoun
... and serene strength. I know but one other instance[3] of so great tragedy, told in so few and simple words. "Arne," "En Glad Gut" (A Happy Boy), and the amusing dialect story, "Ei Faarleg Friing" (A Dangerous Wooing), also belong to this delightful collection. These little masterpieces of concise story-telling have been included in the popular two-volume edition of "Fortaellinger," which contains also "The Fisher-maiden" (1867-68), the exquisite story, "The Bridal March" (1872), originally written as text to three of Tidemand's paintings, and a vigorous bit of disguised autobiography, "Blakken," of ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... months,—just eight little weeks,—but I'm going to crowd them so full of glorious hard work that I'll accomplish wonders. There'll be no end of good times, too: clambakes and fishing and bathing to fill up the chinks in the days, and the story-telling in the evenings around the driftwood fires. It will be over before we know it, and I'll be back here ready to take you home before you have ...
— The Little Colonel: Maid of Honor • Annie Fellows Johnston
... wherefores, as they make poor story-telling, and leave me, Basdel Morris, overlong in quitting the thicket about my tree. And yet the wise man always looks backward as well as forward when entering on a trail, and children yet unborn may blaze a better trace if they understand what lies ...
— A Virginia Scout • Hugh Pendexter
... songs for childhood, for girlhood, boyhood, and sacred songs—the whole melody of childhood and youth bound in one cover. Full of lovely pictures; sweet mother and baby faces; charming bits of scenery, and the dear old Bible story-telling pictures.—Churchman, N. Y. ...
— Harper's Young People, April 6, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... post, under May 2, 1780. Dr. A. Carlyle (Auto. p. 219) mentions another great-grandson of Charles II. (Commissioner Cardonnel) who was 'the most agreeable companion that ever was. He excelled in story-telling, like his great-grandfather, Charles II., but he ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... worth living for—except love—which is good to a certain extent, but not absolutely all in all, save to the eroto-maniac. And as most novelists now pretend to instruct and convey ideas, beyond mere story-telling, or even being "interesting," which means the love or detective business, I would suggest to some of these writers that the marvelous latent powers of the human mind, and also some art which does not consist of the names and guide-book praises of a few great painters and the Renaissance ...
— The Mystic Will • Charles Godfrey Leland
... would seem almost ludicrous did we not keep in mind its reason for existence. It was, first, symbolic story-telling art, and secondly, architectural decoration. As a story-teller it was effective because of its simplicity and directness. As decoration, the repeated expressionless face and figure, the arbitrary color, the absence of perspective ...
— A Text-Book of the History of Painting • John C. Van Dyke
... God. Daniel is shown four visions of future events, all covering the same general stretch of events, but with a fuller description, here of one part and there of another. The four Gospels are a familiar illustration of the same principle in teaching and story-telling. This is the ...
— Quiet Talks on the Crowned Christ of Revelation • S. D. Gordon
... paste and wood pulp. He ate it quickly, then sat brooding over the empty tray, hating to admit to another dead end. Who could supply him with answers? All the people he had talked to were so young. They had no interest or patience for story-telling. That was an old folks' hobby—and there were ...
— Deathworld • Harry Harrison
... them both. With the wave went a broken rail and part of the splintered house. Following the crashing of the wood and glass came the frightened questions and the patter of excited people running out of their rooms. The story-telling group from the barroom came as one man. The glass of the window over their heads had been showered on to their table. The bartender stopped only to empty his cash register, stuff the money in his pocket, and get into a great ...
— Wide Courses • James Brendan Connolly
... to hear, though, something about those days gone by, Captain," said Mr Clare, suspecting that the worthy old seaman was in the vein for story-telling. "It is a long time since you have spun us a yarn, and the boys have been much ...
— Captain Mugford - Our Salt and Fresh Water Tutors • W.H.G. Kingston
... a story?" she then said in a mild fit of desperation, for story-telling was as little in her ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various
... indeed, one of those delightfully simple and captivating tales which, as soon as finished, we are not unwilling to begin again. Even the adult becomes himself like the child who cannot be satisfied with the repetition of a favourite tale, but harasses the story-telling aunt or nurse, to know more of the incidents and characters. In this respect Bunyan has contrived a contrast, which, far from exhausting his subject, opens new sources of attraction, and adds to the original impression. The pilgrimage ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XVII. No. 469. Saturday January 1, 1831 • Various
... only wonderful travellers in this vile world, but splenetic travellers, and of these not a few, and also conspicuous enough. It is a pity, therefore, that the Baron has not endeavoured to surpass them also in this species of story-telling. Who is it can read the travels of Smellfungus, as Sterne calls him, without admiration? To think that a person from the North of Scotland should travel through some of the finest countries in Europe, and find fault with everything he meets—nothing to please him! And therefore, ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen • Rudolph Erich Raspe
... solemn state of suspended animation which the temperance bar-rooms of modern days produce on human beings, as the Grotta del Cane does on dogs in the well-known experiments related by travellers. This bar-room used to be famous for drinking and story-telling, and sometimes fighting, in old times. That was when there were rows of decanters on the shelf behind the bar, and a hissing vessel of hot water ready, to make punch, and three or four loggerheads (long irons clubbed at the end) were always lying in the fire in the cold season, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... brother of the story-telling trade, at Naples, preaching to a pack of good-for-nothing honest lazy fellows by the sea-shore, work himself up into such a rage and passion with some of the villains whose wicked deeds he was describing and inventing, that the ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... women as human beings. Real work may be followed with a great deal of enjoyment provided it is creative and awakens the instinct of workmanship. But it is when at play that a human being realizes his own nature the most fully. So dancing, sports of all kinds, hiking, camping, boating, athletics and story-telling are encouraged not only as a means of recreation and for physical development, but are made a basic part of the ...
— Girl Scouts - Their Works, Ways and Plays • Unknown
... attaining it; and I believe had never thought of it more, but that my Memory has been lately refreshed by seeing some of these ingenious Gentlemen ply in the open Streets, one of which I saw receive so suitable a Reward of his Labours, that tho' I know you are no Friend to Story-telling, yet I must beg leave to trouble you with ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... art of story-telling must be manifest to everybody; for here I am talking of Helen, as of a young lady of sixteen or more, with shy notions of beaux and lovers in her head,—whereas, in point of time, my story has not advanced by regular stages beyond the period of her childhood, when she thought more of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... Teacher, on being asked "Who is my neighbour?" replied "A man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho," and the parable which followed is the most beautiful which language has ever recorded. Story-telling, though often abused, is the medium by which truth can be most irresistibly conveyed to the majority of minds, and in the present instance we have a desire to portray in some slight degree the importance of Charity in ...
— Friends and Neighbors - or Two Ways of Living in the World • Anonymous
... in the hay-field. Eric excelled himself in his rare power of story-telling. Basil and Ermie sat side by side, and whispered together. Miss Nelson had seldom seen a softer look on her elder pupil's face than now. She determined that Basil and his sister should be together as much as ...
— The Children of Wilton Chase • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... fight is long-drawn-out, and much more stress is laid on the pathetic aspect of the situation. Hence it is generally assumed that LL preserves an old version of the episode, and that the scribe of the Yellow Book has compressed the latter part. It is not, however, usual, in primitive story-telling, to linger over scenes of pathos. Such lingering is, like the painted tears of late Italian masters, invariably a sign of decadence. It is one of the marks of romance, which recognises tragedy only when ...
— The Cattle-Raid of Cualnge (Tain Bo Cualnge) • Unknown
... country towns, but who tried a good many cases before juries. All the courts for the county in those days were held in Worcester. Among these country lawyers was old Nat Wood of Fitchburg, now a fine city; then a thriving country town. Mr. Wood had a great gift of story-telling, and he understood very well the character and ways of country farmers. He used to come down from Fitchburg at the beginning of the week, stop at the old Sykes Tavern where the jurymen and witnesses put up, spend the evening in the bar-room getting acquainted with the jurymen ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... acquaintances would be out. As she sat by the window, watching the little streams of water as they ran down the glass, she said to herself that this was one of the days when she could not hope to be entertained by story-telling. ...
— Mouser Cats' Story • Amy Prentice
... for boys and girls deal with life aboard submarine torpedo boats, and with the adventures of the young crew, and possess, in addition to the author's surpassing knack of story-telling, a great educational ...
— Grace Harlowe's First Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... cheated the Devil, presently breaking silence—"methinks there be very few of the women folk who do their share of this story-telling. So far we have had but one, and that is Lady Cinderella. I see another one present, and ...
— Twilight Land • Howard Pyle
... be doubted that the Indians were delighted with the tale which had just been related to them, for they relish story-telling with as much zest as the Wild Arabs, they did not express their pleasure by any of those boisterous emotions of joy and satisfaction which, in civilized countries, and among men of a less taciturn disposition, are accorded to a good story well told. ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 1 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... things he wrote down. Most of the coinage of his mind, and I think the best of it, came forth in a form which does not permit of its being recalled, the form of the spoken and unrecorded word. He was by nature an improvisor. In the inclusive sense of the term, the sense which includes poetry, story-telling, description as well as pleading and exhortation, he was a born orator; and he was at his best when in the glow of pure improvisation. It thus happened that it was often a group of friends around a fireside, or a casual audience, who were the witnesses ...
— Irish Fairy Tales • Edmund Leamy
... could conquer him. He was fearless, fearless. Only this haunting dream of the coming white man's camp he could not drive away; it was the one thing in life he had tried to kill and failed. It drove him from the feasting, drove him from the pleasant lodges, the fires, the dancing, the story-telling of his people in their camp by the water's edge, where the salmon thronged and the deer came down to drink of the mountain streams. He left the Indian village, chanting his wild songs as he went. Up through the mighty forests he climbed, through the trailless deep mosses ...
— Legends of Vancouver • E. Pauline Johnson
... course, be denied that Mr. Collins's stories are interesting; for an infinite number of persons read them through. But it is the bare plot that interests, and the disposition of mankind to listen to story-telling is such that the idlest conteur can entertain. We must demand of literary art, however, that it shall interest in people's fortunes by first interesting in people. Can any one of all Mr. Collins's readers declare ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 107, September, 1866 • Various
... thought it; you were his mother," Mrs. Wade, or Mrs. Comerford, said simply. Then she settled down as to a story-telling. ...
— Love of Brothers • Katharine Tynan
... The love of story-telling seems to be ingrained in human nature. Travellers tell of vari-coloured races sitting round their watch fires reciting deeds of the past; and letters from colonists show how, even amidst forest-clearing, they have beguiled their evening hours ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... these probabilities, Victor Carrington rode slowly on towards Hallgrove. He had taken accurate observations; he had nicely calculated time and place. All the servants, tenants, and villagers were gathered together under Lionel Dale's hospitable roof. To the feasting had succeeded games and story-telling, and the absorbing gossip of such a reunion. That which Victor Carrington had come to do, he did successfully; and when he returned to his inn, and gave over his horse to the care of the ostler, no one but he, not even the man who was there listening to every word spoken among the servants ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... a raconteur herself, and she, too, was ready with a story on the same subject. She and her husband never interfered with each other's story-telling. Each chose his or her own story and proceeded with it quite independent of the other one. But it was confusing to the audience when the two stories ran concurrently, as ...
— The Second Chance • Nellie L. McClung
... of time for preparation. If she accepts, I will see the managers of the various institutions, offer her services, and arrange for the hours. I am confident that they will receive my protegee with delight, and I am sure that I shall bring the good old art of story-telling into fashion again, through this gifted girl. Now, ...
— Polly Oliver's Problem • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... soon afterwards, and stay till eleven or twelve. Japanese chess, story-telling, and the samisen fill up the early part of the evening, but later, an agonising performance, which they call singing, begins, which sounds like the very essence of heathenishness, and consists mainly in a prolonged vibrating "No." ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird
... time for story-telling. The rooms had to be swept, the bread to be baked, the clothes to be washed, the pigs and chickens to be fed. Moreover, to-day was the first day of the Michaelmas fair, and things must be bought ...
— Our Little Lady - Six Hundred Years Ago • Emily Sarah Holt
... curious ingenuity and often much poetry in his Wisdom of the Ancients. Towards the end of his life he began to embody his thoughts and plans in a philosophical tale, which he did not finish—the New Atlantis—a charming example of his graceful fancy and of his power of easy and natural story-telling. Between the Advancement and the Novum Organum (1605-20) much underground work had been done. "He had finally (about 1607) settled the plan of the Great Instauration, and began to call it by that name." The plan, first in three or four divisions, had been finally ...
— Bacon - English Men Of Letters, Edited By John Morley • Richard William Church
... ages has been the place of council and friendship and story-telling. The mystic glow of the fire quickens the mind, warms the heart, awakens memories of happy, glowing tales that fairly leap to the lips. The Boy Scouts of America has incorporated the "campfire" in its program for council and friendship and story-telling. ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Campfire Stories • Various
... very fine novels," he said cheerily. "And no one need be ashamed of liking that form of story-telling. I always fail to understand the attitude of the person who says 'I never read novels!' as though he were claiming a tremendous superiority, whereas he's only showing himself a narrow-minded ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes
... in the street, no story-telling in the dooryards, no jesting in the stores and houses, no merry parties, gladdened by the notes of the violin, in the days and nights of ...
— A Man for the Ages - A Story of the Builders of Democracy • Irving Bacheller
... by a wild boar, that by chance struck him on the leg; he could not be satisfied his leg was sound (in all other things well) until two Franciscans by chance coming that way, fully removed him from the conceit. Sed abunde fabularum audivimus,—enough of story-telling. ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... in story-telling was 'The Midge,' which appeared in 1886. It is a tale of New York life in the interesting old French quarter of South Fifth Avenue. Again, in 'The Story of a New York House,' he displayed the same quick feeling for the spirit of the place, as it was and is. This tale first appeared ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... were evanescent. He was oftener gay than somber. One morning before we settled down to work he related with apparent joy how he had made a failure of story-telling at a party the night before. An artist had told him a yarn, he said, which he had considered the most amusing thing in the world. But he had not been satisfied with it, and had attempted to improve on it at the party. He had told it with what he considered the nicest elaboration of detail ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... equally satisfied with both. But one should, of course, add that it is only in respect of its supposed humour that this story shakes its readers' faith in the gifts of the narrator. As a mere piece of story-telling, and even as a study in landscape and figure-painting, it is quite perversely skilful. There is something almost irritating, as a waste of powers on unworthy material, in the prettiness of the picture ...
— Sterne • H.D. Traill
... the setting sun the curling smoke vapours assumed the bluest tints. Odours of spirits trailed along the tablecloth. Disconnected fragments of conversation, heard against the uninterrupted murmur of Mortimer's story-telling, struck the ear. The baronet's son was now explaining to his three ladies that no woman could expect to get on in life unless she were very immoral or very rich; Dubois argued across the table with Leslie ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore
... is a bargain. You do the reminding and I will do the story-telling. Are you satisfied and ready to go to bed ...
— Steve and the Steam Engine • Sara Ware Bassett
... stables, through the dark inextricable labyrinths of streets, archways, and alleys, which we had threaded after leaving the main street from the Jaffa Gate. There, there was still some life. Numbers of persons were collected at their doors, or smoking before the dingy coffee-houses, where singing and story-telling were going on; but out of this great street everything was silent, and no sign of a light from the windows of the ...
— Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo • William Makepeace Thackeray
... islands, close on the western shore of the lake—the principal of which are Kivira, Kabizia, and Kasenge, the only ones inhabited—a watch-boat belonging to Sultan Kasanga, the reigning chief of this group, challenged us, and asked our mission. Great fraternising, story-telling, and a little pipe ensued, for every one loves tobacco; then both departed in peace and friendship: they to their former abode, a cove in a small uninhabited island which lies due south of Kivira; whilst ...
— What Led To The Discovery of the Source Of The Nile • John Hanning Speke
... officer turned to his sergeant with a triumphant expression. "Just what I thought. Anybody that can't give a better account of himself than that had better be locked up. Spies—aha! Another of you came ashore a while ago—a glib-tongued, story-telling gentleman who fooled us into letting him off, but we've got you safe and sound and here you'll ...
— The Wonderful Bed • Gertrude Knevels
... speed, the unexhausted joyfulness, which, in spite of a view of life as grave as Virgil's own, make the Iliad and Odyssey unique in poetry; nor, which is more to the point as regards the Aeneid, the narrative power, the genius for story-telling, which is one of the rarest of literary gifts, and which Ovid alone among the Latin poets possessed in any high perfection. We shall not find in him that high and concentrated passion which in Pindar (as afterwards in Dante) fuses the elements of thought and language into a ...
— Latin Literature • J. W. Mackail
... they carried, imprisoned in their bodies and heaped upon their backs and sides, the plunder from their wreckage of the range. This they heaped as large moraines in the broad valleys. The moraines of the Rocky Mountain National Park are unequalled, in my observation, for number, size, and story-telling ability. They are conspicuous features of the great plateau upon the east, and of the broad valley of the Grand River west of the park. Even the casual visitor of a day is stirred to curiosity by the straight, high wall of the great moraine ...
— The Book of the National Parks • Robert Sterling Yard
... eagerly prepared herself to listen. Such a story was then poured out that it held her spell-bound. Goblins, elves, and fairies, underground glories, thrilling adventures and escapes. Was it any wonder that with such a gift for story-telling Teddy was the king of the village? It came to an end at last, and Nancy drew a long breath of relief and content when she heard the concluding sentence, 'And I quickly opened the little door, and there I was outside the oak, and safe ...
— Teddy's Button • Amy Le Feuvre
... their soaking waist girdles of leaves for waist-cloths of gaily-coloured print or navy-blue calico, and set to work to cook the crayfish, always bringing us the best. Then came a general gossip and story-telling or singing in our hut for an hour or so, and then some one would yawn and the rest would laugh, bid us good-night, go off to their mats, and the skipper and I would be ...
— The Call Of The South - 1908 • Louis Becke
... however, he is worth knowing; and I propose to myself to be his Boswell, and to introduce him—or, at least, his views—to other people. I have entitled them the Midway Inn, partly from my own inveterate habit of story-telling, but chiefly from an image of his own, by which he once described to me, in his fine egotistic rolling style, the position he seemed to himself to occupy in ...
— Some Private Views • James Payn
... Never was story-telling so hard; she could not collect her thoughts; she could not think of a single thing that would interest that frightened crowd. The blizzard—the horror of it—the dread of what it might bring to these children under her charge—then the terrors of hunger and ...
— Kristy's Rainy Day Picnic • Olive Thorne Miller
... more lasting shrine, while the artificiality of her books has caused them to decay even faster than those of some of her contemporaries. Her successors in Irish fiction, with no lack of talent, have been too often careless in using it, or have preferred story-telling to observation. Miss Laffan wields a genuine Irish pen, graphic, keen of satire, with plenty of sharp Hibernian humor, but she shows in its exercise a care and directness of aim which are not the common ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880. • Various |
