"Tale" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... His black cap—like the beret worn by the Basque people—showed a brow as white as snow, where grace and innocence shone with an expression of divine sweetness—the light of a soul full of faith. A poet's fancy would have seen there the star which, in some old tale, a mother entreats the fairy godmother to set on the forehead of an infant abandoned, like Moses, to the waves. Love lurked in the thousand fair curls that fell over his shoulders. His throat, truly a swan's throat, was white and exquisitely round. His blue eyes, bright ...
— The Exiles • Honore de Balzac
... must speak to the beholder and tell him something.... If a picture is a representation only, then regard it from that point of view only. If it treats of a historical event, consider whether it fairly tells its tale. Then there is another class of picture, that whose purpose is to convey suggestion and idea. You are not to look at that picture as an actual representation of facts, for it comes under the same category of dream visions, aspirations, and we have nothing very distinct ...
— Watts (1817-1904) • William Loftus Hare
... without mercy; the remainder threw themselves into this house, resolving to defend themselves to the last. It is said they made a brave resistance, but the building was stormed, and not one of its defenders was left alive to tell the tale. The house has ever since remained in ruins, and shunned by all the peasants in the neighbourhood. Several similar outbreaks have occurred at different times among the serfs, with similar consequences. The people of Russia are not fit to govern themselves. They may at some ...
— Fred Markham in Russia - The Boy Travellers in the Land of the Czar • W. H. G. Kingston
... telephone number and promised to call her in a moment. Eternity is but a moment—to some centrals. Marie Louise, being finite and ephemeral, never heard from that central again. Later she took up the receiver and got another central, who had never heard her tale of woe and had to have it all over again. This central also asked her name and number and promised to report, then vanished into the interstellar limbo where ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... treats a sin and a smile as synonimous; one half of which has been discarded from his childhood. If a smile in the house of religion, or of mourning, be absurd, is there any reason to expel it from those places where it is not? A tale will generally allow of two ingredients, information and amusement: but the historian and the antiquarian have, from time immemorial, used but one. Every smile, except that of contempt, is beneficial to the ...
— An History of Birmingham (1783) • William Hutton
... schooner the next morning to help the crew unload was the signal for a veritable native-son demonstration. Not only had the story of Code's sudden liberation and Nat's as sudden imprisonment spread like wild-fire clear to Southern Head Light, twenty miles away, but the tale was hailed with joy. ...
— The Harbor of Doubt • Frank Williams
... the change in him was staggering. Now a gaunt, grey-faced man looked out upon the world through eyes which burned with the light of fever. His movements were slow, deliberate. Only his eyes betrayed his condition, telling a tale of a strange new life ...
— In the Brooding Wild • Ridgwell Cullum
... instruction. I have endeavored to avoid this, and I hope that the accounts of battles and sieges, illustrated as they are by maps, will be found as interesting as the lighter parts of the story. As in my tale, "The Young Franc-Tireurs," I gave the outline of the Franco-German war, so I have now endeavored to give the salient features of the great Peninsular struggle. The military facts, with the names of generals and regiments, ...
— The Young Buglers • G.A. Henty
... weather, though very different were their feelings on the subject! Lisette had been kept awake by the thought of her approaching triumph; Caliste, too, had not slept; but her pale countenance and hollow eye told a tale ...
— The Young Lord and Other Tales - to which is added Victorine Durocher • Camilla Toulmin
... thick-crowding enigmas, those perpetual beckonings from the "theatre" into the judicial palace of the mind. It was reserved for the student who would recognise, at last, the mind that was seeking so perseveringly to whisper its tale of outrage, and "the secrets it was forbid." It waited for one who would answer, at last, that philosophic challenge, and say, "Go on, I'll follow thee!" It was reserved for one who would count years as days, for the love of the truth it hid; who would never turn back on the long road of ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... surface, ascertains the fineness, but not the weight of the metal. Abraham weighs to Ephron the four hundred shekels of silver which he had agreed to pay for the field of Machpelah. They are said, however, to be the current money of the merchant, and yet are received by weight, and not by tale, in the same manner as ingots of gold and bars of silver are at present. The revenues of the ancient Saxon kings of England are said to have been paid, not in money, but in kind, that is, in victuals and provisions of all sorts. William ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... you a story, however, founded on The Second Sight, the belief in which was common to our ancestors, I owe you, at the same time, an apology. For the tone and colour of the story are so different from those naturally belonging to a Celtic tale, that you might well be inclined to refuse my request, simply on the ground that your pure Highland blood revolted from the degenerate embodiment given to the ancient belief. I can only say that my early education was not Celtic enough to enable me to do better in this respect. ...
— The Portent & Other Stories • George MacDonald
... my friend," said he, "monstrous strange. Your unicorns are great, and your women are little. Methinks to give thy tale proportion thou shouldst ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough
... and pitiful loneliness, that her lover—the man she would have died for— seemed to have deserted her. Then it was that a sudden hatred against him rose up in her—to be swept away as swiftly as it came by the memory of his broken tale of love, his passionate words: "I have never loved any one but you in all my life, Rosalie." And also, there was that letter from Chaudiere, which said that in the hour when the greatest proof of his love must be given he would give it. Reading the letter again, hatred, doubt, even sorrow, passed ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... regularly succeeded by each other, and the adventurer might very suddenly pass from the gloom of woods, or the ruggedness of moors, to seats of plenty, gaiety, and magnificence. Whatever is imaged in the wildest tale, if giants, dragons, and enchantment be excepted, would be felt by him, who, wandering in the mountains without a guide, or upon the sea without a pilot, should be carried amidst his terror and uncertainty, to the hospitality and ...
— A Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland • Samuel Johnson
... this nature, I am of opinion that it is requisite to ascertain first whether there exist any contemporary documents which may throw light upon the history of the fabric, and then to let the stones tell their own tale." Now there is an abundance of documentary evidence for our purpose; but recent criticism has shewn that not all is to be relied upon as authentic. And the Latin expressions for different portions of the building can, in many instances, not be interpreted with certainty; while the absence ...
— The Cathedral Church of Peterborough - A Description Of Its Fabric And A Brief History Of The Episcopal See • W.D. Sweeting
... sought refuge on the banks of the Loire. The chroniclers wove these traditions into a legendary history of Britain. From this compilation Geoffrey of Monmouth, in the twelfth century, constructed a Latin historical work; and the poets of chivalry, allured by the beauty and pathos of the tale, made it for ages the centre of the ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... thing," roared Jenk, losing his head at what now seemed an easy victory, "and I'll settle with you when I get through with Joe, for being such a mean sneak as to turn tell-tale, Tom." ...
— Five Little Peppers at School • Margaret Sidney
... indulged in no metaphorical allusions, he had this figure of the head clearly enough in his mind, when he wrote four weeks later to Lord Minto: "I regret that one escaped, and I think, if it had pleased God that I had not been wounded, not a boat would have escaped to have told the tale; but do not believe that any individual in the fleet is to blame. In my conscience, I believe greater exertions could not have been, and I only mean to say, that if my experience could in person have directed[66] those exertions of individuals, ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... of it?" I asked, tendering my offering. "You didn't have any dinner, you know." I sat down beside her. "See, I'll be the table. What was the old fairy tale? 'Little goat bleat: little table appear!' I'm perfectly willing to be the ...
— The Man in Lower Ten • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... and indifferent, flies equally fast in Joppa; and had there been a town-crier deputed for the purpose, Phebe's accident could not have sooner become a household tale in even the most distant districts of the place. After a contradiction of the first rumor, reporting her burned to a crisp and only recognizable by a ring of her mother's on her left hand,—which ring by-the-way she never wore,—and after a ...
— Only an Incident • Grace Denio Litchfield
... Pen," laughed Bobby, "and create a general diversion, I'll tell a story myself—you'll see the kind of confession stuff we generally put over in our little group of unconventional thinkers. Attention, folks! Harken to the Tale of Dora the Dressmaker! Which proves that the way of the transgressor, as observed on Manhattan Island, is not always ...
— Possessed • Cleveland Moffett
... melancholy tale. Charles was hopeless. For some inscrutable reason he was true to Stafford (who had aided his secret flight from Rome in 1744) and to Sheridan, supporting them ...
— Pickle the Spy • Andrew Lang
... she is not exactly a fairy, she will be so rich when she is found that she will be like a princess in a fairy tale. We called her the fairy princess at first, ...
— A Little Princess • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... they lost sight of their original designs. And lest I should grow wearisomely prosaic, and see the yawn behind your white hand, belle Beatrice, let me make my disquisition a half story, and point my moral, not as fairies do, with a pinch, but with the shadow of a tale. ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... France. The people, who are called Bretons, are descendants of the ancient Celts. They have a language of their own, are very imaginative, and delight in extravagant tales like this one, which is one of their special favorites. Laboulaye also gives a version of this tale in his "Fairy Book."] ...
— Contes et lgendes - 1re Partie • H. A. Guerber
... gone from her widowed cheeks, leaving them really sallow and wrinkled. There's nothing like a contented, happy disposition, Mrs. Kinalden, to preserve one's youth and beauty. You need not brush up your fading charms before your tell-tale mirror, and try to restore your lost luster by artificial means; it won't effect any thing. The fact is, the trouble is internal. You must cleanse first the inner man of the heart, and you will be surprised at the reflection of your own face then, it will ...
— The Elm Tree Tales • F. Irene Burge Smith
... only, produces a present joy and peace. Is there, then, any wonder that so much of the ordinary experience of ordinary Christians should present a sadly broken line—a bright point here and there, separated by long stretches of darkness? The gaps in the continuity of their joy are the tell-tale indicators of the interruptions in their faith. If the latter were continuous, the former would be unbroken. Always believe, and you will always be glad ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren
... "cooling" in effect upon a too hectic world. He sees in its perfect grace, its calm and almost childlike simplicity, a power for individual and general good. "It combines all the fascination of a fairy tale and all the simple truth of human adventure, holding out the same allurement to every being, whether he is a noble, a commoner, a merchant, a literate or illiterate person, a private soldier, a lackey, children of both sexes, beginning at an age when a child begins to love ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... further had commissione to serche all the libraries of England for Chaucer's works, so that oute of all the abbies of this realme (which reserved any monuments thereof), he was fully furnished with multitude of bookes," &c. On Thynne's discovering Chaucer's Pilgrim's Tale, when Henry VIII. had read it—"he called (continues the son) my father unto hym, sayinge, 'William Thynne, I doubt this will not be allowed, for I suspecte the byshoppes will call thee in question for yt.' To whome my father ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... promote peace and welfare among these Republics, efforts which are fully appreciated by the majority of them who are loyal to their true interests. It would be no less unnecessary to rehearse here the sad tale of unspeakable barbarities and oppression alleged to have been committed by the Zelaya Government. Recently two Americans were put to death by order of President Zelaya himself. They were reported to have been ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... talked in the dark little union headquarters where shawled spinners and weavers were coming in with their big copper dues, "I have heard stories that were so much fuel on the prejudice pile. When I was small, I believed anything I was told about the Catholics. I remember this tale that my mother repeated to me as she said her grandmother had told it to her: 'A neighbor of grandmother's was alone in her cabin one night. There was a knock at the door. A Catholic woman begged for shelter. The neighbor could not bear to turn her back into the night. Then as there was ...
— What's the Matter with Ireland? • Ruth Russell
... and round about And you'll discover never A tale so free from every doubt - All probable, possible shadow of doubt - All possible ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... permutations of the soul Are infinite, but how to be revealed? On what impassive matter must the whole Inveterate coil of good and ill be sealed! How much too simple all the tale of deeds To pattern out these labyrinthine things, These knots of bright unreason, ghostly bredes Veiled weavers weave, moving with silver wings Within the duskling sense. Most diverse visions Their visionaries darkly reconcile At one sad end. Fate's delicate derisions ...
— The Hours of Fiammetta - A Sonnet Sequence • Rachel Annand Taylor
... gather, while Mrs Rowland and Matilda would draw down their black crape veils, and walk on with scarcely a passing salutation. Every such meeting with the lady, every civil bow from Mr Walcot, every tale which Mrs Grey and Sophia had to tell against the new surgeon, seemed to do Hester good, and make her happier. These things were appeals to her magnanimity; and she could bear for Edward's sake many a trial which ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... thankfulness wrung my heart. I had attempted to move the pity of the apothecary at whose shop I obtained the drug, by an account of the scene I had witnessed, in order to induce him to pay a visit to the house of mourning; but in vain. To him, who had not witnessed it, it was nothing but a tale of every-day distress. All that long night I worked at the merchant's coffin, and the dim grey light of the wintry morning found me still toiling on. Often, during the hours passed thus heavily, that picture of wretchedness rose before me. Again I saw the leaning and exhausted form of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XIX. No. 540, Saturday, March 31, 1832 • Various
... between the Crown of Great Britain and the Sublime Porte. But in this remote part of the Empire, these and many other worse enormities were possible; and I remained as one Dead and Buried. To a few English and French Travellers passing through Damascus did I tell my piteous Tale, and entreat their help; but the account that I gave of myself was so rambling and confused, and contained, I could but confess it, many Incredible Particulars, that I could plainly see no one believed my Tale, or accounted me ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 3 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... of which we have been witnesses, that Montalais made to La Valliere, in a preceding chapter, very naturally makes us return to the principal hero of this tale, a poor wandering knight, roving about at the king's caprice. If our reader will be good enough to follow us, we will, in his company, cross that strait more stormy than the Euripus—that which separates Calais from Dover; we will ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... the periodicals more widely circulated. It was plain that literature was his vocation, and he was going to write a novel to be published in a serial, the instalments paying his expenses for the trial. The only doubt was what it should be about, whether a sporting tale of modern life, or a historical story in which his familiarity with Italian art and scenery would be available. Jock advised the former, Armine inclined to the latter, for each had tried his hand in his own particular line ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... waif when the tale opens, but the way in which he takes hold of life; the nature friendships he forms in the great Limberlost Swamp; the manner in which everyone who meets him succumbs to the charm of his engaging personality; ...
— The Black Box • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... a mere codification of lies; but the men of the Fifth were ready to answer for its authenticity, and Van fully looked the character they gave him. He was now in his prime. He had passed the age of tell-tale teeth and was going on between eight and nine, said the knowing ones, but he looked younger and felt younger. He was at heart as full of fun and frolic as any colt, but the responsibilities of his position weighed upon him at times and lent to his elastic step the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various
... face began to glow, and once or twice she answered him, but still she would not quite join company. If only it had not been Sunday—if it had been a lonely road, and not so near the village, if she had not had the two tell-tale children with her—she would have been very good friends with the dirty, chalky, ill-favoured, and ill-savoured wretch. At the parting of the roads each went different ways, but she could not ...
— The Open Air • Richard Jefferies
... its side in the snow. Quick as a flash the young hunter had drawn his knife, and, in accordance with the laws of the chase, had driven it into the breast of the animal. But the glance from the dying eyes—that glance, of which every elk-hunter can tell a moving tale—pierced the boy to the very heart! It was such a touching, appealing, imploring glance, so ...
— Boyhood in Norway • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... not allow you to treat me with ridicule on this point till you have heard the second part of my tale. Ten years after I had recovered from the fever, and when I had almost lost the recollection of the vision, it was recalled to my memory by a very blooming and graceful maiden, fourteen or fifteen years old, that I accidentally met during my travels in Illyria; but I cannot say that ...
— Consolations in Travel - or, the Last Days of a Philosopher • Humphrey Davy
... lament, the burden of which was drawn from a vivid imagination. Yet can there be little doubt that it scarcely presented the whole truth; an exact reproduction of all the heart-rending scenes then daily enacted in the unfortunate island would prove a tale as moving as ever harrowed the pitying heart of ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... which we have insisted, and must keep insisting, for it is of the first importance. "It is a priori the most probable" supposition that, "in an uncritical age," poets do not "reproduce the circumstances of the old time," but "only clothe the old tale in the garb of their own days." Poets in an uncritical age always, in our experience, "clothe old tales with the garb of their own time," but Mr. Leaf thinks that, in the case of the Homeric poems, this idea "is not wholly borne ...
— Homer and His Age • Andrew Lang
... came, as it had an awkward way of doing in his tell-tale face, but before he could stammer a reply, Harry ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 3. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... official watcher, conveying into his voice a subtle indication that he had become excessively fatigued. "It's like a nursery tale—never too old to take with the kids. Well, come along, poor lamb, the ...
— The Mirror of Kong Ho • Ernest Bramah
... had told his tale, the judge directed his speech to the prisoner at the bar, saying, Thou runagate, heretic, and traitor, hast thou heard what these honest gentlemen have witnessed ...
— Bible Stories and Religious Classics • Philip P. Wells
... removed, On shores by human footsteps never trod, Where the gay sun ne'er lifts his radiant orb, Or with the envenomed face of savage beasts That range the howling wilderness for food, Will I proclaim the story of my woes— Poor privilege of grief!—while echoes hoarse Catch the sad tale, and ...
— Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... summer of our tale, Rodd turned into the bookshop to consume the lunch he had bought at the German Delicatessen-Magasin up the road. He found the bookseller bubbling over with happiness, dusting his books, re-arranging them, emptying large parcels of new books, and not such very subversive books either ...
— Mummery - A Tale of Three Idealists • Gilbert Cannan
... the evil one," said the gardener. "Could any man of himself think of destroying a living soul? We had a fellow once—" and the gardener was about to commence his tale when the train began ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy
... Creeps on this petty pace from day to day To the last syllable of recorded time; And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, And then is heard no more. It is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord
... Rachel agreed. The tale of the illness, then, was spread over the town! She was glad, and her self-consciousness somehow decreased. She now fully understood the wisdom of Mrs. Maldon in refusing to let the police be informed of the disappearance ...
— The Price of Love • Arnold Bennett
... stately lines of yellow iris above the white water-ranunculus. The girl was sensitive to moods of season and weather, and she had almost laughed at the incongruity of the two of them in modern clothes in this fit setting for an old tale. Dickon of Glenavelin, the sworn foe of the Lord of Etterick, on such nights as this had ridden up the water with his bands to affront the quiet moonlight. And now his descendant was pointing out dim shapes in the park which ...
— The Half-Hearted • John Buchan
... sir. I was thinking of a tale my Uncle Cyril used to tell me as a child. An absurd little story, sir, though I confess that I have always found it droll. According to my Uncle Cyril, two men named Nicholls and Jackson set out to ride to Brighton ...
— Right Ho, Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... then takes up the first subject, it is as if we were transported into another world and breathed a purer atmosphere. First, there are some questions and expostulations, then the composer unfolds a tale full of sweet melancholy in a strain of lovely, tenderly-intertwined melody. With what inimitable grace he winds those delicate garlands around the members of his melodic structure! How light and airy the harmonic base on which it rests! But the contemplation ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... tenderest of vergers. Most of our flock were Americans, and we put our guide to such question in matters of imagination and information as the patience of a less amiable shepherd would not have borne. Many a tale, true or o'ertrue, our verger had, which he told with unction; when he ascended with us to the body of the church, and said that the stained glass of the gigantic windows suffered from the depredations of the mistaken birds which pecked holes in the joints of their ...
— Seven English Cities • W. D. Howells
... The courage of the troops was stimulated by the divine promises of victory, which were read (and on like occasions still are read) at the head of each column drawn up for battle. Thus, on the field of Cadesiya[d], which decided the fate of Persia, the Sura Jehad, with the stirring tale of the thousand angels that fought on the Prophet's side at Bedr was recited, and such texts ...
— Two Old Faiths - Essays on the Religions of the Hindus and the Mohammedans • J. Murray Mitchell and William Muir
... say that the story is not probable. Pshaw! Isn't it written in a book? and is it a whit less probable than the first part of the tale? ...
— Stories of Comedy • Various
... these wars without a murmur, they have fought in a hundred battles without taking breath, they have neither counted the cost nor spared their labor, and one feels astounded at living amid such heroes, who seem to belong to a fairy tale. This generation has done more than its duty, and if now it is weary and will rest for thirty years in peace, surely no one can ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau
... would be accounted flagitious crimes? Unless, indeed, by involving the memory of the deceased Squire Woodcock in his own self acknowledged proceedings, so ungenerous a charge should result in an abhorrent refusal to credit his extraordinary tale, whether as referring to himself or another, and so throw him open to still ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville
... lay in his bed was a portrait which I had formerly seen in his parlor. Thereby hung a curious tale. Years before, at the very beginning of Mr. May's career, he had been a teacher in the town of Canterbury, Connecticut, when Miss Prudence Crandall was persecuted, arrested, and imprisoned for teaching colored children. Mr. May had taken up her case earnestly, ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... securing Regalis in such complete form seems to me the greatest that ever happened to any, worker in this field, and it reads more like a fairy tale than sober every-day fact, copiously illustrated with studies from life. At its finish I said, "Now I am done. This book is completed." Soon afterward, Raymond walked in with a bunch of lilac twigs in his hand from which depended three rolled leaves securely bound ...
— Moths of the Limberlost • Gene Stratton-Porter
... dead, and her children too, the villagers would tell the tale of her imprisonment underground, as they sat carving wood in ...
— The Brown Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... for thee, O Joseph, my son, for now I am distressed on thy account. O my son Joseph, where art thou, and where is thy soul? Arise, arise from thy place, and look upon my grief for thee. Come and count the tears that roll down my cheeks, and bring the tale of them before God, that His wrath be turned away from me. O Joseph, my son, how painful and appalling was thy death! None hath died a death like thine since the world doth stand. I know well that it came to pass by reason of my sins. O that thou wouldst return and see the ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... parrot-like way of learning. As the teachers needed instruction as well as the pupils, sometimes, the text-books were taken away. The teachers were required to tell a story every day; and with the story a verse of the Scriptures, meant for a peg on which to hang the tale, was committed to memory by the girls. The teacher would write six easy characters each afternoon on the blackboard for the girls to copy before going home. Thus the girls learned how to listen, to memorize, and to write. Since the number of girls increases perceptibly when we have a little ...
— Notable Women Of Modern China • Margaret E. Burton
... (which some have thought one of the best of Scott's novels and which few good judges would put much lower) is written in it to a great extent, but not wholly. And it may be noticed that this combination of Letters and narrative, which came in pretty early, is rather tell-tale. It is a sort of confession of what certainly is the fact—that the novel entirely by letters is a clumsy device, constantly getting in the way of the "story." Indeed the method of Redgauntlet is a kind of retreat to the elder and more ...
— A Letter Book - Selected with an Introduction on the History and Art of Letter-Writing • George Saintsbury
... them, horrified at their revolting account of an attack upon a lone country-house, where, having murdered the inmates, they had possessed themselves of all of value in the house. Exultingly they told their tale of horror, their painted faces and blood-stained garments looking ghastly in the moonlight. One man threw an ornament, torn from the person of a white woman, to his squaw, who had brought his supper; and another, with a fiendish laugh, tossed a scalp to Millicent, calling out in coarse ...
— The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 5, Bay State Monthly, Volume 4, No. 5, May, 1886 • Various
... greatly mollified by the sympathy of his new friend, moved on to find fresh auditors for his tale ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various
... its passengers before the smallish gentleman could catch the eye of its operator, flew suddenly upward in the echo of a gate slammed shut in his face; and all the other cars were still at the top, according to the bronze arrows of their tell-tale dials. The late arrival held up patiently; but after an instant's deliberation, doffed his hat, crushed it flat, slipped out of his voluminous cloak, and beckoned ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance
... us to make them more fully acquainted with the man who is to take the first place in the story. The origin of Gaudin de Sainte-Croix was not known: according to one tale, he was the natural son of a great lord; another account declared that he was the offspring of poor people, but that, disgusted with his obscure birth, he preferred a splendid disgrace, and therefore chose to pass for what ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... I came here after you?" he sneered. "I've come to see the Squire." All the selfishness and cowardice latent in Sanderson's character were reflected in his face, at that moment, destroying its natural symmetry, disfiguring it with tell-tale lines, and showing him at his par value—a weak, contemptible ...
— 'Way Down East - A Romance of New England Life • Joseph R. Grismer
... man had rested on his oars while she hurried through this tale, with a mischievous twinkle in her eyes, as if she thought she was forestalling him. Now he picked them up again and began rowing out ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston
... still fresh enough in the memory of St. Louis folk to make this seem no improbable tale, and the utmost confusion ensued. Some of the young men, with Josef Papin and Gabriel Cerre at their head, were for going at once to our rescue; but the maidens implored, and Yorke averred it was too late, and reported the savages in such numbers as would make such an undertaking only foolhardy. ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... nothing at rest or in motion escaped them. They had begun to track game as soon as they could walk; a scrape on a tree trunk, a bruised leaf, a faint indentation of the soil, which the eye of no white man could see, all told them a tale as plainly as if it had been shouted in their ears.[14] With moccasined feet they trod among brittle twigs, dried leaves, and dead branches as silently as the cougar, and they equalled the great wood-cat in stealth and far surpassed it in cunning and ferocity. They could no more ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume One - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1769-1776 • Theodore Roosevelt
... at the altar as he remembered this tale; at the row of stalls on either side, the dark roof overhead, the glowing glass on either side and in front—and asked himself whether it was true, whether God had spoken, whether a chink of the heavenly gate had been opened here to let ...
— The King's Achievement • Robert Hugh Benson
... services had so long been faithfully rendered. The last place in the south of Scotland supposed to have been honoured, or benefited, by the residence of a Brownie, was Bodsbeck in Moffatdale, which has been the subject of an entertaining tale by Mr. James Hogg, the self-instructed ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott
... be no more of this tale, seeing that we have found ourselves at last come from beginning to end of Robin's quarrelings with the Sheriff. Most histories end, and end properly, with just such a marriage ...
— Robin Hood • Paul Creswick
... who is not very familiar with Greek, but speaks a sort of mixed jargon; they are, however, under the necessity of submitting to any conditions they can get, and the sovereignty of the world is left to the birds. However much all this resembles a mere farcical fairy tale, it may be said, however, to have a philosophical signification, in thus taking a sort of bird's-eye view of all things, seeing that most of our ideas are only true in a human point ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... would not thank him if he did, I dare say. Perhaps they could not understand him. Time enough! Twenty years hence they will be able to sit down at his feet, and count griefs with him, and tell him tale for tale. Human hearts get ruinous in so much less time than stone walls and towers. See, the young man has thrown himself down at the girl's feet on a little space of grass. In her scarlet cloak she looks like a blossom springing out of a crevice on the ruined steps. He gives her a flower, and she ...
— Dreamthorp - A Book of Essays Written in the Country • Alexander Smith
... soon he began to want to hit the trail for home. I helped him out of town an' started him back for camp, where, I reckon, his old lady was waitin' to give him fits for forgettin' the calico and beads." The captain paused as if his tale was completed. ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... moments, Burrill avoids Heath, and can not be brought to mention his name. But when he gets a little too much on board—beg pardon, Conny—I mean, somewhat intoxicated, he becomes very loquacious; then he throws out strange hints, and gives mysterious winks; states that he could tell a tale about Heath that would open everybody's eyes. He talks of 'borrowed plumage,' and insinuates that Heath would like to buy him off. He says that he took to his heels because he knew that Heath did not mean fair play, etc. Finally, two or three evenings ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch
... tale with the scenes laid in Indiana. The story is told by Little Sister, the youngest member of a large family, but it is concerned not so much with childish doings as with the love affairs of older members of the family. Chief among them is that of Laddie and the Princess, an English ...
— The Range Boss • Charles Alden Seltzer
... of the ensuing Tale relating to the Grocer of Wood-street, and his manner of victualling his house, and shutting up himself and his family within it during the worst part of the Plague of 1665, is founded on a narrative, which I have ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... wisdom without life's little things is impotent for happiness. Genius hath its charm; nevertheless, the wisest of men have also been the saddest of men. The story of literary greatness is a piteous tale. History tells of many beautiful and gifted girls who have married scholars for their genius, fame and position. When these honors were theirs they wakened to discover that all were less than nothing, since tenderness refused its mite and ...
— The Investment of Influence - A Study of Social Sympathy and Service • Newell Dwight Hillis
... and ill-tempered with the scoffers. "Man, if I had twenty more years I would grow hoofs on your horse and udders on your in-coming queys." Well, well, I'm fond of this farming, but I have set out to tell a tale, which in my poor fancy should even be like a rotation of crops, from the breaking in of the lea to the sowing out in grass, with the sun and winds and sweet rains to ripen and swell the grain—the crying of the harvesters and ...
— The McBrides - A Romance of Arran • John Sillars
... feature of the whole wild tale was that at the last he should have parted with the cherished secret of ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon
... cover the former beliefs and rites of their converts in oblivion, and abstained from giving information about them. What we know is drawn from Church writers. The Eddas belong to a much more developed stage of Teutonic life; they tell their own tale, which will be ...
— History of Religion - A Sketch of Primitive Religious Beliefs and Practices, and of the Origin and Character of the Great Systems • Allan Menzies
... for the Elizabethan age. This story, as it appears in Whetstone's endless comedy, is almost as rough as the roughest episode of actual criminal life. But the play seems never to have been acted, and some time after its publication Whetstone himself turned the thing into a tale, included in his Heptameron of Civil Discourses, where it still figures as a genuine piece, with touches of undesigned poetry, a quaint field-flower here and there of diction or sentiment, the whole strung up to an effective brevity, and with the fragrance of that admirable ...
— Appreciations, with an Essay on Style • Walter Horatio Pater
... heard the tale with incredulity, a smile of ridicule parting his lips. "Suspect Arthur of theft!" he exclaimed. "What next? Had I been in my place on the magistrates' bench that day, I should have dismissed the charge at once, upon such defective ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... great shock of surprise, when the word murderer dropped from his lips, and he reproached his sister so harshly and unreasonably, Burton Jerrold stood with folded arms, and a gloomy, unsympathetic face, as immovable at first as if he had been a stone, and listened to the tale as repeated by his father. But when the tragic part was reached, and he saw the dead man on the floor, his sister crouching in the corner of the room, with Rover at her side, the rude coffin, the open grave, and the secret ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes
... craftsmen are known to us, it will be interesting to glance at a few names of prominent artists in this branch of work. Bernardo Agnolo and his family are among them; and Domenico and Giovanni Tasso were wood-carvers who worked with Michelangelo. Among the "Novelli," there is a quaint tale called "The Fat Ebony Carver," which is interesting ...
— Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages • Julia De Wolf Addison
... saw hot Percy goad His slow artillery up the Concord road, A tale which grew in wonder year by year; As every time he told it, Joe drew near To the main fight, till faded and grown gray, The original scene to bolder tints gave way; Then Joe had heard the foe's scared double-quick Beat on stove drum with one uncaptured stick, And, ere ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... mother, became the portion of her gifted child. But even this depressing and arduous change in the duties of her existence did not suspend her literary pursuits and labors. She profited by all the intervals she could command, and wrote the tale of the "Martyr," the "Spirit of Judaism," and "Israel Defended;" the latter translated from the French, at the earnest request of a friend, and printed only for private circulation. The "Magic Wreath," a little poetical work, and the first our authoress ever published, dedicated ...
— The Vale of Cedars • Grace Aguilar
... for the company there are any amount of Indian myths and queer old traditions handed down from the first settlers, and I made a collection of them. It's rather a hobby of mine. I was discussing them with Mr. Larkin when he recalled this odd tale. He had forgotten the particulars, but he said you would be able to supply them. The pool was supposed to be located somewhere around ...
— The Fifth Ace • Douglas Grant
... Now the tale of Grendel's deeds went forth into many lands; and amongst those who heard of it were the Geats, whose king was Higelac. Chief of his thanes was a noble and powerful warrior named Beowulf, who resolved to go to the help ...
— Myths and Legends of All Nations • Various
... lifted his hat. The bishop held out a firm white hand. "I've heard of you, Mr. Clark, and am glad to see that Mahomet has come to his mountain. It's a little like a fairy tale to me." ...
— The Rapids • Alan Sullivan
... Justice, in affright, "Fiend, I adjure thee, speak thine errand here!" And lo! it pointed in the failing light Toward the woman, answering, cold and clear, "Thou art ordained an answer to thy prayer; But first to tell her tale that kneeleth there." ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Jean Ingelow
... first meeting with the latter, an artist superior to Tolstoy. "The first time I saw Turgenieff was at Gustave Flaubert's—a door opened; a giant came in, a giant with a silver head, as they would say in a fairy tale." This must have been in 1876, for in a letter dated January 24, 1877, Turgenieff writes: "Poor Maupassant is losing all his hair. He came to see me. He is as nice as ever, but very ugly just at present." In 1880 the young man published a volume of poetry, ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker
... could now hear the words. They were the words of a man in delirium, spoken in a voice of great pleading. He was telling some tale ...
— The Four Feathers • A. E. W. Mason
... wist! Live, day by day, With little and with little swelling Thy tale of duty done—the way The ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various
... and more, before the holy man's tale, which ran back through the past seventeen years, was finished. And when it had been told the high caste youth trembled in the ecstasy of his religion, amazed at the enlightenment thrown upon his own enigmatical life, uplifted at the task before him. Yea! ...
— Leonie of the Jungle • Joan Conquest
... Will hastily hid the tell-tale print as Jerry was seen approaching. The other looked a little suspiciously at them as though he wondered why Will secreted something so hurriedly at his coming; but other matters arising, ...
— The Outdoor Chums at Cabin Point - or The Golden Cup Mystery • Quincy Allen
... severely. It was not often that Johnny was corrected, and this time he was very indignant. He reflected that if it had not been for Dotty Dimple his sin would not have been found out. Dotty had ceased to be a "brick;" she was a tell-tale—a hateful, mean tell-tale; and he wished she would go home and ...
— Dotty Dimple At Home • Sophie May
... advances, or to refuse to renew them. As a matter of fact, Smith was a perfectly sound man, but he had so persistently complained that people began to suspect there really was something wrong with his finances. He endeavoured to explain, but was met with the tale that he had himself started. He then honestly produced his books, and laid his position bare to ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies
... cab which Thompson had ordered, though we never saw it we later heard all about it. It went to the wrong house because, as the proprietor of the mews informed us with shame and regret, the driver entrusted with the order had been very much under the influence of alcohol. Altogether it is a sordid tale, made no better by the fact that the house which the drunken driver chose to go to and insult was ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 146., January 21, 1914 • Various
... crutches, and, lastly, as a ransomed soul raised up by angels, had always had the most intense interest for August, and he had made, not one history for him, but a thousand; he seldom told them the same tale twice. He had never seen a story-book in his life; his primer and his mass-book were all the volumes he had. But nature had given him Fancy, and she is a good fairy that makes up for the want of very many things! only, alas! her wings are so very soon broken, ...
— The Nuernberg Stove • Louisa de la Rame (AKA Ouida)
... monstrously wicked that he can hardly conceive it credible—is a kind of hope. He furiously demands proof, ocular proof. And when he is compelled to see that he is demanding an impossibility he still demands evidence. He forces it from the unwilling witness, and hears the maddening tale of Cassio's dream. It is enough. And if it were not enough, has he not sometimes seen a handkerchief spotted with strawberries in his wife's hand? Yes, it was ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... with impatience, I quickly outlined my movements from the time of my arrival at Upper Crossleys, the Inspector following me closely. The tale concluded: ...
— The Green Eyes of Bast • Sax Rohmer
... Dujardin, valet to Roger de Briqueville had told him he knew of a cask secreted in the castle, full of children's corpses. He said that he had often heard people say that children were enticed to the chteau and then murdered, but had treated it as an idle tale. He said, moreover, that the marshal was not accused of having any hand in the murders, but that his servants were ...
— The Book of Were-Wolves • Sabine Baring-Gould
... out his remorse; beside him on the sofa she patted those brown hands. He told his gloomy tale; she patted the more lovingly— assured him that, if the Yorkshire place had failed, something equally good ...
— Once Aboard The Lugger • Arthur Stuart-Menteth Hutchinson
... thought that he understood the young man's reticence, and he was once again very wretched. There came that cloud upon his brow which never sat there without being visible to all who were in the company. No man told the tale of his own feelings so plainly as he did. And Mrs. Houghton, though declaring herself to be ignorant of the figure, had described the dance as a farrago of polkas, waltzes, and galops, so that the thing might be supposed to be a ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... greedily, just as everybody devours certain public prints without ceasing to impeach their veracity. Lacking newspapers at which to pish! and pshaw! they listened to Windy Jim, disbelieving the only unvarnished tale that gentleman had ever told. For Windy, with the story-teller's instinct, knew marvellous enough would sound the bare recital of those awful Dawson days when the unprecedented early winter stopped the provision boats at ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)
... turn one after t'other out of dores; and is afreard that a new one should come in again. And is also ashamed that the Neighbors should see every foot a new Maid upon her flore; who by an evil nature, are ready to beleeve the worst of their fellow neighbours, what is told them by a tale-carrying, long-tongued Slut of a Maid; though they many times observe how wickedly they are ...
— The Ten Pleasures of Marriage and The Confession of the New-married Couple (1682) • A. Marsh
... uncut hair, wildly floating round a great, gaunt forehead; the cheeks yellow and hollow, the mouth fallen, the thin white lips not trembling but shaking, the sunken eyes, once small, now glaring with the light of madness—all told the sad tale but too surely. I hastened to my friend, greeted him in my gayest manner, as I knew he best liked, drew him quickly into the room, and forced upon him a stiff glass of hot brandy. Under its influence and ...
— Emily Bront • A. Mary F. (Agnes Mary Frances) Robinson
... him with suspicion, And paused ere he would give the least permission For him to enter his small, rude, log dwelling, While WILLIAM'S heart was with keen feelings swelling. Anon, a gentle word would turn the scale— The man would list the youthful tinker's tale; Would give a hearty welcome to his house, And introduce him to his thrifty spouse; Would bid her bring; that leaky pail, or pan, Which had been tinkered by "that other man," Who got from her the ...
— The Emigrant Mechanic and Other Tales In Verse - Together With Numerous Songs Upon Canadian Subjects • Thomas Cowherd
... 'Persuasion' is given, in compliance with wishes both publicly and privately expressed. A fragment of a story entitled 'The Watsons' is printed; and extracts are given from a novel which she had begun a few months before her death; but the chief addition is a short tale never before published, called 'Lady Susan.' {0a} I regret that the little which I have been able to add could not appear in my First Edition; as much of it was either unknown to me, or not at my command, ...
— Memoir of Jane Austen • James Edward Austen-Leigh
... think of his ruin," said Thackeray, "is like thinking of the ruin of an empire." No more original work of genius than Swift's "Gulliver's Travels" exists in the English language. For sheer intellectual power it may not be equal to the "Tale of a Tub," but as it has more variety, so it has more art. "Gulliver" was published in 1726, at a period when life's disappointments had ceased to worry Swift. It is probable, however, that the book was planned some years ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... tale was whispered in his ear. He paused to hear. His thoughts were food that helped a falsehood ...
— New Thought Pastels • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... accepted, with sore injury to Nina's pride. As she thought of this, standing in the gloom of the evening under the archway, she remembered that the very frock she wore had been sent to her by her aunt. But I in spite of the bitter tongue, and in spite of Ziska's derision, she would tell her tale, and would tell it soon. She knew her own courage, and trusted it; and, dreadful as the hour would be, she would not put it off by one moment. As soon as Anton should desire her to declare her purpose, she would ...
— Nina Balatka • Anthony Trollope
... by the prudent and spirited conduct of James, were doomed to a sudden and fatal reverse. Why should we recapitulate the painful tale of the defeat and death of a high-spirited prince? Prudence, policy, the prodigies of superstition, and the advice of his most experienced counsellors, were alike unable to subdue in James the blazing zeal of romantic ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish border (3rd ed) (1 of 3) • Walter Scott |
