"Story-telling" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 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
... 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 ...
— The Money Moon - A Romance • Jeffery Farnol
... Asia Minor, is called the "Father of History." He travelled over much of the then known world, visiting Italy, Egypt, and Babylonia, and as an eye- witness describes with a never-failing vivacity and freshness the wonders of the different lands he had seen. Herodotus lived in a story-telling age, and he is himself an inimitable story-teller. To him we are indebted for a large part of the tales of antiquity—stories of men and events which we never tire of repeating. He was over-credulous, and was often imposed upon by his guides in Egypt and ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers
... on 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 boughs ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... Aesopic Fables are in fact only a part of the primitive folk-lore, that springs up in prehistoric times, and passes from country to country and from race to race by the process of popular story-telling. They reached Greece, undoubtedly through Egypt and Persia, and even in their present form they still retain certain Oriental, or at any rate non-Hellenic elements, such as the introduction of Eastern animals,—the ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... 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 ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... readers can supply for themselves or draw from textbooks on the short story, is not a wholly bad method of writing fiction. It is, I venture to assert, a very good one,—if you desire merely effective story-telling. It is probably the best way of making the short story a thoroughly efficient tool for the presentation of modern life. And there lies, I believe, the whole trouble. The short story, its course plotted and its form prescribed, ...
— Definitions • Henry Seidel Canby
... alone frequently threw off the constraint which fettered all, and one even turned with the gayest ease from one person to another. This was Baron Malfalconnet, one of the Emperor's major-domos. He was permitted to do what no one else ventured, for his cheerfulness and wit, his gift of story-telling, and sharp tongue often succeeded in dispelling the clouds of melancholy from the brow ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... explained in the minutest and keenest 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
... they clustered as usual about the story-telling tree, and Martin looked inquiringly from Jane to Joscelyn and from Joscelyn to Jane. And Joscelyn's expression was one of uncontrolled indifference, and Jane's expression was one of bridled excitement. So Martin ignored ...
— Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard • Eleanor Farjeon
... never occur to you that this "going back and living up" in a story-book is a sign of a possibility that may be laid by in the divine story-telling, for the things we have to hurry away from, and miss of, now? It does to me. I know that That can manage at least as well ...
— The Other Girls • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... 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. ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... same story-telling bent which long held me back while from time to time I generalized on gardening and on gardens other than my own. A well-designed garden is not only a true story happening artistically but it is one that ...
— The Amateur Garden • George W. Cable
... of what you are saying or have no answer; if however I were to answer, you would be quite certain to accuse me of haranguing; therefore either permit me to have my say out, or if you would rather ask, do so, and I will answer 'Very good,' as they say to story-telling old women, and will nod 'Yes' ...
— The Republic • Plato
... in the 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 ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... Story-telling being now the order of the evening, Silver tells of the gun trick being tried in the Far West. One day, just as the conjuror had caught the bullet in his teeth, another whizzed close to his head, and a voice came from the ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... place for story-telling, Jean. See!" Little Laurence Boreland pointed to the dim-limned schooner. "The Hoonah looks like a ghost-ship out there. Listen! I'll tell you the story Kayak Bill scared me most to death with last night. Ugh! It's spooky, Jean!" The boy's eyes were round and his voice ...
— Where the Sun Swings North • Barrett Willoughby
... to say so. But perhaps it's just as well to let the old 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
... 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 ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... 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 are all ...
— A Lover in Homespun - And Other Stories • F. Clifford Smith
... 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. In one volume, the ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Campfire Stories • Various
... been wanting to say a word about a book for children, perfect of its kind—I mean LITTLE PRUDY. It seems to me the greatest book of the season for children. The authoress has a genius for story-telling. Prudy's letter to Mr. 'Gustus Somebody must be genuine; if an invention, it shows a genius akin to that of the great masters. It is a positive kindness to the little ones to remind their parents that there is such a book ...
— Prudy Keeping House • Sophie May
... I venture to think it was, after all, the instinct for "making out," as the Brontes used to call their own wonderful story-telling passion, which rendered this historical work so enthralling to me. Those far-off centuries became veritably alive to me—the Arian kings fighting an ever-losing battle against the ever-encroaching power of the Catholic Church, backed by the still lingering and still potent ghost of ...
— A Writer's Recollections (In Two Volumes), Volume I • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... guide was leading my camel by its halter along the banks of those ancient rivers, and he told me story after story until I grew weary of his story-telling and ceased to listen. I have never been irritated with that guide when he lost his temper as I ceased listening. But I remember that he took off his Turkish cap and swung it in a circle to get my attention. I could see it through the corner of my eye, but I ...
— Acres of Diamonds • Russell H. Conwell
... 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 ...
— Worldly Ways and Byways • Eliot Gregory
... 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 ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... weather was good their spirits rose and there were many rounds of singing and story-telling as they sat clustered together like bees under the lee of the deck-house, and in all of these ...
— The Life of Robert Louis Stevenson for Boys and Girls • Jacqueline M. Overton
... had but little time for story-telling; for he had hardly got his breath after the exertions of his perilous achievement, before Euthemio gave him the glass and pointed where he ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai
... collector to the tellers in Hindustani after they were told, and a second time by the annotator before they were printed. "I never saw people more anxious to have their tales retold exactly, than are Dunkni and Muniya," the two story-telling ayahs. Not till each tale was pronounced by them to be exact was it sent to the press. The stories may be taken then as faithful transcripts of Indian thought. The merits of the copious Notes contributed by the late ...
— Indian Fairy Tales • Anonymous
... that this slovenly narrative is the very perfection of bad story-telling. But the story itself is striking, and, by the very oddness of the incidents, not likely to have been invented. The effect, from the position of the two parties—on the one side, a simple child from Devonshire, dreaming ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... 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 his tales ...
— The Barrier • Rex Beach
... valleys 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 for which Moraine Park is named, ...
— The Book of the National Parks • Robert Sterling Yard
... in the year 1620, little Philip noticed that there was less general story-telling than usual, and that the Indians seemed greatly interested in a long story which one of their number was telling. He could not understand the story, but he frequently caught the words, "Squanto" and "English." These were new ...
— Four American Indians - King Philip, Pontiac, Tecumseh, Osceola • Edson L. Whitney
... O kind-hearted reader, I feel myself constrained, in the telling of this little story, to depart altogether from those principles of story-telling to which you probably have become accustomed, and to put the horse of my romance before the cart. There is a mystery respecting Mr. and Mrs. Peacocke which, according to all laws recognised in such matters, ...
— Dr. Wortle's School • Anthony Trollope
... French geniality and good nature, and when our soiree came to an end, everyone returned home well fortified with umbrellas, cloaks, and goloshes in the best possible humour. Sometimes these veillees will be devoted to declamation and story-telling, one or two of the party reading aloud a play or poem, or reciting for the benefit of the rest. In the bitter winter nights this sociable custom is not laid aside, even ladies with their lanterns braving the snow ...
— Holidays in Eastern France • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... 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 interest and ...
— Stand By The Union - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic
... or favor, may be ridiculed, but he makes for 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 ...
— In The Boyhood of Lincoln - A Tale of the Tunker Schoolmaster and the Times of Black Hawk • Hezekiah Butterworth
... all I passed through after leaving that rock, you will know that this story-telling is not worth thinking about," said Blauvelt, with a slight laugh, "All my exposure was well worth the risk, for the chance of telling it to a woman of your nerve. My hope now is that Strahan may some day learn how stanch was our ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... 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, and his heart from his ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... collection of one hundred and twelve short tales. An attempt to unify them is seen in the design to have the confessor relate, at the lover's request, those stories which reveal the causes tending to hinder or to further love. Gower had ability in story-telling, as is shown by the tales about Medea and the knight Florent; but he lacked Chaucer's dramatic skill and humor. Gower's influence has waned because, although he stood at the threshold of the Renaissance, his gaze was chiefly turned backward toward medievalism. ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck
... 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
... While in a story-telling mood, I may as well relate an account that was given me of the manner in which Jung distinguished himself on one occasion with a musk elephant. The story is interesting, as it was by such daring ...
— A Journey to Katmandu • Laurence Oliphant
... deduction as I have just indicated, the reader would be doing but his share of the task; the grand point is to get him to make it. I hold that there is a way. It is perhaps a secret; but until it is found out, I think that the art of story-telling cannot be said ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866 • Various
... preceding their second annual examination, the furloughmen, as they are called, have class meetings, or rather furlough meetings, to celebrate the "good time coming." They hold them almost weekly, and they are devoted to music, jesting, story-telling, and to general jollification. It can be well imagined with what joy a cadet looks forward to his furlough. It is the only interruption in the monotony of his Academy life, and it is to him for that very reason extremely ...
— Henry Ossian Flipper, The Colored Cadet at West Point • Henry Ossian Flipper
... 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 ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... 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 ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... accordingly, there was a consultation in Mr Benson's study one morning. Ruth was there, quiet, very pale, and with compressed lips, sick at heart as she heard Miss Benson's arguments for the necessity of whipping, in order to cure Leonard of his story-telling. Mr Benson looked unhappy and uncomfortable. Education was but a series of experiments to them all, and they all had a secret dread of spoiling the noble boy, who was the darling of their hearts. And, perhaps, this very intensity of love begot an impatient, unnecessary ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... it out. But—and this consideration may afford a ground of conciliation with Miss Faraday and the scholars who hold by the lateness of the episode—the intrinsic beauty and pathos of the situation, the fact of its constituting an artistic climax, would naturally tempt the more gifted of the story-telling class. There would be a tendency to elaborate, to adorn in the newest fashion, hence to modernise, and it is not only conceivable but most probable that the original form should be farther departed from than in the case of ...
— Heroic Romances of Ireland Volumes 1 and 2 Combined • A. H. Leahy
... 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 it is voluble, and prodigal ...
— The Cattle-Raid of Cualnge (Tain Bo Cualnge) • Unknown
... 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, ...
— Life and Remains of John Clare - "The Northamptonshire Peasant Poet" • J. L. Cherry
... "To-morrow he won't even remember he ever saw us. You're letting your story-telling instinct warp your judgment, Lucy. You're looking for mysteries. I'll get ...
— The She Boss - A Western Story • Arthur Preston Hankins
... doubt, become one of the greatest bores in Great Britain. At present, 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 ...
— Some Private Views • James Payn
... dashes, and the rows of stops, the black pages and the marbled pages which he employs to force a guffaw from his readers. The abstinence from any central story in Tristram is one of those dubious pieces of artifice which may possibly show the artist's independence of the usual attractions of story-telling, but may also suggest to the churlish the question whether his invention would have supplied him with any story to tell; and the continual asides and halts and parenthetic divagations in the Journey are not quite free from the ...
— The English Novel • George Saintsbury
... medley, with a sort of divine fascination about it,—that we are always interested to hear how anybody has borne himself through whatever varieties of fortune. At the basis of every other character which can be assumed by man lie the conceiver and the teller of stories; story-telling is the prima facie quality of an intelligent and sociable being leading a life full of events in a universe full of phenomena. The child believes the wonders of romance by a right instinct; narratives of love and peril and achievement come home to the spirit of the youth; and the mystical, ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various
... government and in the rational and convenient ordering of things. Her tales to illustrate the truths of political economy are what might be expected from a writer of this character. They are far from being wanting—many of them—in the genuine interest of good story-telling. They are rapid, definite, and without a trace of either slovenliness or fatigue. We are amazed as we think of the speed and prompt regularity with which they were produced; and the fertile ingenuity with which the pill of political economy is wrapped up in the confectionery ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 3 of 3) - Essay 6: Harriet Martineau • John Morley
... back," the boy 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
... 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 of beating his servants, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13, Issue 353, January 24, 1829 • Various
... great historian? G.C.M. of course. A great engineer? G.C.M. A great poet? received with acclamation G.C.M. A great painter? oh! certainly, G.C.M. If a great painter, why not a great novelist? Well, pass, great novelist, G.C.M. But if a poetic, a pictorial, a story-telling or music-composing artist, why not a singing artist? Why not a basso-profondo? Why not a primo tenore? And if a singer, why should not a ballet-dancer come bounding on the stage with his cordon, and cut ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... 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 ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells
... 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, ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... fairyland; for their order and its vows they are ready to dare all. Lawlessness is tamed and cruelty is punished, and no perilous quest presents itself but there is a champion ready to follow it to the end. And if severe critics tell us that they find no true gift of story-telling here, let us go for a verdict to the young. They may not be good judges of style, or safe interpreters of shades of thought, but they know when a story carries them away; and the Idylls of the King, like the Waverley ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore
... not have 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
... Who at the mass on 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 sunshine and the open air, Of vineyards and the singing sea Of his ...
— Tales of a Wayside Inn • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... have a book devoted to the special pillage of statues and other ornaments, which, for the genius displayed in story-telling, is perhaps of all the Verrine orations the most amusing. The Greek people had become in a peculiar way devoted to what we generally call Art. We are much given to the collecting of pictures, china, bronze, and marbles, partly from love of such things, ...
— Life of Cicero - Volume One • Anthony Trollope
... ball and yard off and how to run 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. But I could not ...
— The Light in the Clearing • Irving Bacheller
... books 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 Sophomore Year at High School • Jessie Graham Flower
... to sunset, when even the little ones must labour, not a word; but from sunset to sunrise, when no man can work, the tongues chatter glibly enough, for that is story-telling time. Then, after the scanty meal is over, the bairns drag their wooden-legged, string-woven bedsteads into the open, and settle themselves down like young birds in a nest, three or four to a bed, while others coil up on mats upon the ground, and some, stealing in for an hour from distant ...
— Tales Of The Punjab • Flora Annie Steel
... is best to begin with the children, but the parents can {131} sometimes be induced to join in. Story-telling is also an unfailing resource in our efforts ...
— Friendly Visiting among the Poor - A Handbook for Charity Workers • Mary Ellen Richmond
... fell in fitful spasms and long-drawn gasps by the flickering campfire. But music failed to fill entirely the aching void left by insufficient food, and a new diversion was proposed by Piney—story-telling. Neither Mr. Oakhurst nor his female companions caring to relate their personal experiences, this plan would have failed, too, but for the Innocent. Some months before he had chanced upon a stray copy of Mr. Pope's ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... England. Our new imaginative stories are now told in nurseries, listened to at evening when the children assemble in the fire-light to hear tales from their parents, and eagerly read by boys at school. A fresh world of story-telling has been opened to the imagination of ...
— The High Deeds of Finn and other Bardic Romances of Ancient Ireland • T. W. Rolleston
... 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 ...
— Friends and Neighbors - or Two Ways of Living in the World • Anonymous
... counterfeited such an ague of terror, that he was overheard by Mr. Creakle, who was prowling about the passage, and handsomely flogged for disorderly conduct in the bedroom. Whatever I had within me that was romantic and dreamy, was encouraged by so much story-telling in the dark; and in that respect the pursuit may not have been very profitable to me. But the being cherished as a kind of plaything in my room, and the consciousness that this accomplishment of mine was bruited about among the boys, and attracted a good ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... Lothair, says that he "could always, when necessary, sparkle with anecdote or blaze with repartee." The former performance is considerably easier than the latter. Indeed, when a man has a varied experience, a retentive memory, and a sufficient copiousness of speech, the facility of story-telling may attain the character of a disease. The "sparkle" evaporates while the "anecdote" is left. But, though what Mr. Pinto called "Anecdotage" is deplorable, a repartee is always delightful: and, while by no means inclined ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... 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 low houses which ...
— Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo • William Makepeace Thackeray
... letter, nodding confidently to Mrs. Sherman, who had come over to help with Lloyd's costume. "You remember Nell Bond, do you not? She took the prize every year in elocution, and was always in demand at every entertainment. She is the most charming reader I ever heard, and as for story-telling—well, she's better than the 'Arabian Nights.' You must let the Little Colonel come over every ...
— Two Little Knights of Kentucky • Annie Fellows Johnston
... mother, who was not thinking of story-telling, "I am afraid I have forgotten all the ones I ever knew. Besides, darling, it is time for you to go ...
— A Tale of a Lonely Parish • F. Marion Crawford
... in the telling," he responded, "as I am not good at story-telling. Well, to begin with, this friend of mine loves a fair and beautiful young girl who is very poor. A wealthy suitor, a dissipated roue, had gained the consent of her father to marry her, before my friend met and knew her and learned to love ...
— Jolly Sally Pendleton - The Wife Who Was Not a Wife • Laura Jean Libbey
... dervish came to his turn to speak, he said: 'My tale is but short, although story-telling is my profession. I am the son of a schoolmaster, who, perceiving that I was endowed with a very retentive memory, made me read and repeat to him most of the histories with which our language abounds; and when he found that ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier
... French differ more from each other in the art and mystery of story-telling than either of them do from the English. It would be very easy to point out tales which are very popular in Paris, that would make no sensation at Vienna or Berlin; and, vice versa, we cannot imagine how the French can possibly enter into the spirit of many of the best known authors of Deutschland. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various
... story-telling has become traditional. Indeed, almost every good story that has been invented within a hundred years has been laid at his door. As a matter of fact, though he was fond of telling them, and told them well, he told comparatively few of the number that have been credited ...
— The Boys' Life of Abraham Lincoln • Helen Nicolay
... 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 would not ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... It was true; she had a real gift for story-telling, and though her accent sounded strange, her words were so correctly chosen, and her whole tone had so much charm about it, that it was almost difficult to believe that she had not at some time of her life been in a much ...
— Miss Mouse and Her Boys • Mrs. Molesworth
... triumph—his triumph over himself 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 ...
— Blue Goose • Frank Lewis Nason
... 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 ...
— The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria • Morris Jastrow
... be with you. You are here to listen. Never mind if they tell you that story-telling is a cheap thing, a popular thing, a mean thing. It is the instrument that is given to you and if, when you come to die you know that, for brief moments, you have heard, and that what you have heard you have written, Life has ...
— Fortitude • Hugh Walpole
... lighted a fresh cigar he recounted a number of adventures, speaking in his habitual, dry, matter-of-fact tone, and with curious unexpected turns of phrase. Conversation in Indiana seems to drift into story-telling inevitably. John Ware once read a paper before the Indianapolis Literary Club to prove that this Hoosier trait was derived from the South. He drew a species of ellipsoid of which the Ohio River was the axis, sketching his line to include the Missouri of Mark ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson
... and looked at her from time to time. A little farther off, near the main-hatch, Nils Buvaagen (whom Salve had met again at Notteroe, and persuaded to take service with him) and a couple of the crew who were off duty were engaged in story-telling, the others lounging about near them to listen. Elizabeth, too, ...
— The Pilot and his Wife • Jonas Lie
... the next night came, so impressed were we with the orderly character of the neighborhood, that we concluded that no guard was needed until bedtime. Within our main tent the evening was spent in story-telling, singing and general amusement. When the hour to retire arrived, it was discovered that our other tents had been robbed and everything of value stolen. The work was done before we thought a guard necessary." It is never too soon ...
— Days of Heaven Upon Earth • Rev. A. B. Simpson
... 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 interesting children ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer
... a house-picnic means this: It means the whole house thrown open from ten in the morning till ten at night. It means fun in the garret, music and games in the parlor, story-telling in odd corners, candy-pulling in the kitchen, sliding-curtains, tinkling bells, and funny performances in the library; it means almost any right thing within bounds that you and about thirty other youngsters choose to make it, with ...
— Donald and Dorothy • Mary Mapes Dodge
... stones and several of Gaboriau's novels. These last he eagerly skimmed until an advanced hour in the morning; but although they introduced him to many new ideas, he could nowhere discover what to do with a stolen diamond. He was annoyed, moreover, to find the information scattered amongst romantic story-telling, instead of soberly set forth after the manner of a manual; and he concluded that, even if the writer had thought much upon these subjects, he was totally lacking in educational method. For the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 4 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... 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
... finding that she soon tired of story-telling, he took it up, and gave a chapter of his own which had wild success, so that the children begged for more and more, until five o'clock was past and twilight coming on. As Esther was on foot, Mr. Hazard said ...
— Esther • Henry Adams
... in pleased anticipation, and a marvelous tale they listened to. Miss Eloise had a wonderful gift of story-telling and made every incident seem real and every character to stand out as vividly as if he or she were actually before them. The children listened in wrapt attention. She was a ...
— A Dear Little Girl at School • Amy E. Blanchard
... Satan. "Let the lamp and these new notions and all go! Christ don't care anything about you; such a miserable, wicked, story-telling boy as you have been, do you expect Him to ...
— Tip Lewis and His Lamp • Pansy (aka Isabella Alden)
... preface states that "this volume is really an abridgment of Keary's The Heroes of Asgard, adapting it to classroom use for pupils of about the fourth and fifth grades." The selection is presented here as a splendid specimen of "made-over" literature, as well as, in its own right, a masterpiece of story-telling for children. ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... be followed by "The Fisher Maiden," in which Bjornson makes a new departure, and exhibits his powers in a somewhat different vein of story-telling. ...
— A Happy Boy • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... As is well known, story-telling was often with President Lincoln a weapon which he employ'd with great skill. Very often he could not give a point-blank reply or comment—and these indirections, (sometimes funny, but not always so,) were probably the best responses possible. In the gloomiest ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... exclaimed. "Glad are we to see the Bard of Imarina. Your coming is well-timed. We are feasting, and singing, and story-telling. Words from the poet ...
— The Fugitives - The Tyrant Queen of Madagascar • R.M. Ballantyne
... is of very great importance to the American magazine. But in the British magazine the serial Novel is the one thing of consequence, and all else is termed "padding." In England the writer of three-volume Novels is the best paid of literary laborers. So in England whoever has the gift of story-telling is strongly tempted not to essay the difficult art of writing Short-stories, for which he will receive only an inadequate reward; and he is as strongly tempted to write a long story which may serve first as a serial and afterward ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, October 1885 • Various
... story. It was stipulated that each story must be a good one, and, furthermore, that it must be a story no one had ever heard before. The penalty for failure was the threshing-machine. Nobody failed. And I want to say right here that never in my life have I sat at so marvellous a story-telling debauch. Here were eighty-four men from all the world—I made eighty-five; and each man told a masterpiece. It had to be, for it ...
— The Road • Jack London
... 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." As soon as I hear it I feel as ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird
... finest poems of its kind in the language. But the glory of C. is, of course, the Canterbury Tales, a work which places him in the front rank of the narrative poets of the world. It contains about 18,000 lines of verse, besides some passages in prose, and was left incomplete. In it his power of story-telling, his humour, sometimes broad, sometimes sly, his vivid picture-drawing, his tenderness, and lightness of touch, reach their highest development. He is our first artist in poetry, and with him begins modern English literature. His character—genial, sympathetic, ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin
... among the passengers one old gentleman of a very pleasant and venerable appearance, and judging from his countenance that he possessed intelligence, as well as experience, we respectfully invited him to relate a story for our entertainment. "I am not at all skilled in story-telling," replied the old gentleman, "but, as a means of passing away the tedious hours of the uncomfortable ride, I will relate some circumstances which took place many years since, and which also have connection with my present journey, although the narrative may not possess ...
— The Path of Duty, and Other Stories • H. S. Caswell
... country. The quality of your 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 "Cooper 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 rustic Cockneyism, as little pleasing as ours ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... famous place in the north of the county, where—prior to his retirement to his native town of Marychurch, upon a generous pension—her father, Lomas Fisher, had for many years occupied the post of second gardener. Here was material for story-telling to the child Damaris' heart's content! For Brockhurst is rich in strange records of wealth, calamity, heroism, and sport, the inherent romance of which Mary's artless narrative was calculated to enhance rather ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... the same time cast a glance into Susanna's heart? It is rather curious there. The fact was, that Harald had,—partly by his provocativeness and naughtiness, and partly by his friendship, his story-telling, and his native worth, which Susanna discovered more and more,—so rooted himself into all her thoughts and feelings, that it was impossible for her to displace him from them. In anger, in gratitude, in evil, in good, ...
— Strife and Peace • Fredrika Bremer
... first Steamboat, the Railroad, and the Telegraph, as well as of the Purchase of Florida, the War of 1812, and the Discovery of Gold. It will be found that no event of importance has been omitted, and any child fond of story-telling will gain from this book an amount of knowledge which may far exceed that which is usually acquired from the rigid instruction ...
— The Bee-Man of Orn and Other Fanciful Tales • Frank R. Stockton
... the ladies and cavaliers entertained one another with dancing and singing and story-telling. And then, as the plague had abated in Florence, they returned to the city. But before they went Dioneo told them a very strange and ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol. I • Various
... associated play under the guidance of a teacher; gymnastic exercises; several sorts of handwork suited to little children; going for walks; learning music, both instrumental (on the method of Madame Wiseneder[5]) and vocal; learning and repetition of poetry; story-telling; looking at really good pictures; aiding in domestic occupations; gardening; and the usual systematic ordered occupations of Froebel. Madame Schrader is steadfastly opposed to that conception of the Kindergarten which insists upon mathematically shaped materials for the Froebelian ...
— The Child Under Eight • E.R. Murray and Henrietta Brown Smith
... no linguistic impediments to intercourse. The whole world will surely have a common language, that is quite elementarily Utopian, and since we are free of the trammels of convincing story-telling, we may suppose that language to be sufficiently our own to understand. Indeed, should we be in Utopia at all, if we could not talk to everyone? That accursed bar of language, that hostile inscription in the foreigner's eyes, "deaf and dumb to you, sir, and so—your enemy," is the very ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells
... skill, so as to interest anything which would make life 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 ...
— The Mystic Will • Charles Godfrey Leland
... evening, 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
... 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 to the ...
— At the Time Appointed • A. Maynard Barbour
... sometimes sails his son's vessels, and sometimes looks after the secular education of the Sunday-school children—the said education being conducted on the principle of unlimited story-telling with illimitable play of fancy. But his occupations are irregular— undertaken by fits and starts, and never to be counted on. His evenings he usually devotes to poetry and pipes—for the captain is obstinate, ...
— Blown to Bits - The Lonely Man of Rakata, the Malay Archipelago • R.M. Ballantyne
... 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, ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 1 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... more even than on the Continent or with ourselves, is there a passion for story-telling with the brush, a desire to give ideas instead of pictures, a denial of the fact that the main object of a picture is to please the eye just as truly and as surely as the main object of a symphony is to please the ear. If we look through the catalogue of a Royal Academy exhibition, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December 1878 • Various
... was named 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 ...
— Mother West Wind "How" Stories • Thornton W. Burgess
... principle. My pen-children are all mine, and I cannot think of disowning one, though it may happen to be born hump-backed. But I beg of you, gentlest of unfortunate readers, not to take DAISY'S NECKLACE as a serious exponent of my skill at story-telling. It is not printed at the "urgent request of numerous friends"—I am so fortunate as not to have many—but a seductive little argument in the shape of a cheque is the sole cause of its present form; otherwise, I ...
— Daisy's Necklace - And What Came of It • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... seashore. Only two short 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 time ...
— The Little Colonel: Maid of Honor • Annie Fellows Johnston
... Hebrides, Aug. 21. See 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 seldom ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... Hel. Valkyries, warlike women who rode through the air on swift horses, seized the heroes from the field of slaughter, and took them to the halls of Valhalla, where they enjoyed daily combats, long feasts, and drinking-bouts, music and story-telling. ...
— The Book of Hallowe'en • Ruth Edna Kelley
... had been dead seven years before his plays were collected. However the people of his day regarded him, it is safe to say that they could not have had any conception of the importance of the work he was doing. They were doubtless satisfied with him. It was a great age for romances and story-telling, and he told stories, old in new dresses, but he was also careful to use contemporary life, ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... 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 of short novels ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... we take to be that he is so purely a novelist. The chief requisite for writing a novel in the present age seems to be that the writer should be everything else. It implies that the story-telling gift is very well in its way, but that the inner substance of a tale must repose on some direct professional experience. This fashion is of very recent date. Formerly the novelist had no personality; he ...
— Atlantic Monthly,Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... 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 ...
— Girl Scouts - Their Works, Ways and Plays • Unknown
... 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, ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... possibly somewhat in season of the year, almost as sharply as work differs from play, or perhaps as the virility of man that loves to command a phalanx, be a martinet and drill-master, differs from femininity which excels in persuasion, sympathetic insight, story-telling, and in the tact that discerns and utilizes spontaneous interests ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... Unaccustomed to 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 passed after that, ...
— A Man and a Woman • Stanley Waterloo
... slanting rays of 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 and Bret concerning the production of the voice: Beaumont cast luminous and provoking glances ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore
... virtues. The novel might, it is true, savor a little of Parisian cockneyism. Fastidious critics might discover in it some mixture of weak sentimentalism, or a few traces of Dickensian affectation and cheap tricks in story-telling. Young men of the new social school might take exception to that old-fashioned democracy which had its apotheosis in Risler senior. Despite all those objections, it was pronounced a masterpiece of legitimate pathos and ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... The reader will do well to remember that while everything ghostly, and not to be explained by known physical facts, is in the view of science a hallucination, every hallucination is not a ghost for the purposes of story-telling. The hallucination must, for story-telling purposes, ...
— The Book of Dreams and Ghosts • Andrew Lang
... 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 ...
— Law and Laughter • George Alexander Morton
... Gilbert's story-telling and verse-making began very early, but not, I think, in great abundance; his drawing even earlier, and of this there is a great deal. There is nothing very striking in the written fragments that remain, but his drawings even at the age of five are ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... 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 were not inappropriate ...
— A Text-Book of the History of Painting • John C. Van Dyke
... laughing, 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. ...
— Garman and Worse - A Norwegian Novel • Alexander Lange Kielland
... reality of it 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 ...
— Afoot in England • W.H. Hudson
... Bhats and Charans. At sunset the torch-bearers appear and supply the chamber with light, upon which all those who are seated therein rise and make obeisance towards the chief's cushion. They resume their seats, and playing, singing, dancing, story-telling go on as before. At about eight the chief rises to retire to his dinner and his hookah, and the party is broken up." There is little reason to doubt that the Rajputs ascribed a divine character to opium and the mental exaltation produced by it, as suggested in the article on Kalar in reference ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... 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
... are not the summary of a study in national growth and decay, but expressive of the fact that a French bicycle team wins a signal victory over a group of exhausted English competitors. Do you see now how far towards the art of simplified story-telling ...
— The Patient Observer - And His Friends • Simeon Strunsky
... he deals is more complex. He is really a cosmopolitan writer and has no other connexion with America than the accident of birth. A third novelist, also a foreign resident, Francis Marion Crawford (1854-1909), falls into the same category. A prolific novelist, in the beaten track of story-telling, he has always a story to tell and excellent narrative power. The work regarded as most important from his hand is Saracinesca (1887) and its sequels; but his subjects are cosmopolitan, his talent is personal, and he has no effectual connexion with ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... humour of story-telling, the young nobleman went on, addressing himself chiefly to his servants, without minding ...
— A Legend of Montrose • Sir Walter Scott
... attention to public life, and toward the end of his administration he was rewarded by public confidence and a respect for his honesty and singleness of aim toward the good of the nation. He had a great relish for story-telling and used his fund of anecdote to good advantage in illustrating points ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 4 of 8 • Various
... night sittings nothing unbefitting the solemnity of the occasion was done, the circumstances of the meeting gave opportunity for love-making. The first portion of the night was generally passed in reading,—some one reading aloud for the benefit of the company, afterwards they got to story-telling, the stories being generally of a ghostly description, producing such a weird feeling, that most of the company durst hardly look behind them for terror, and would start at the slightest noise. ...
— Folk Lore - Superstitious Beliefs in the West of Scotland within This Century • James Napier
... the usual success which attends teachers of these elements. After the birth of her first child, Emily, her moral nature showed an unaccountable weakening; the origin was no doubt physical, but in story-telling we dwell very much on the surface of things; it is not permitted us to describe human nature too accurately. The exigence of her temper became something generally described by a harsher term; she ...
— A Life's Morning • George Gissing
... who has held a prominent place in the firm's catalogue, is Mr. George M. Baker. Although he has done much for the entertainment of the young people in the line of story-telling, his greatest success has been found in his series of amateur dramatic books, which have long ago become standard. I would not undertake to mention how many "plays" he has written; but to simply read the "mail orders" for such literature or watch customers as they come and go from "headquarters," ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Vol. II, No. 6, March, 1885 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... mother, "She had a large share of romance, and loved a tale of witches, or a love-story"—and so did her daughter. The supernatural gained fresh interest from her skilful story-telling, and the art of the raconteur still lives in her pages. Here is one of the best of her stories. Even now it gives a ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... 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 ...
— Boswell's Correspondence with the Honourable Andrew Erskine, and His Journal of a Tour to Corsica • James Boswell
... of the halibut and the cormorant, recently reported in the daily Press, has brought us a budget of interesting letters, from which we select the following as agreeable evidence of the return of normal conditions in the fish-story-telling industry:— ...
— Punch, Volume 156, 26 March 1919 • Various
... interesting parallel in the two great classes of primitive art—the one symbolic, merely suggestive, shaped by the space it had to fill, and so degenerating into the slavishly symmetrical, the other descriptive, 'story-telling' and without a trace of space composition. On neither side is there evidence of direct aesthetic feeling. Only in the course of artistic development do we find the rigid, yet often unbalanced, symmetry relaxing into a free substitutional ...
— Harvard Psychological Studies, Volume 1 • Various
... Hanna. Nor did it mean that there was no discord among Republicans, for there was much. The discipline proceeded from the candidate's influence, from his harmonizing personal leadership. This he exercised not through oratory, for he had none of the tricks of speech, not even the knack of story-telling, but by the mere force of his ...
— History of the United States, Volume 5 • E. Benjamin Andrews
... Story-telling has always been popular, of course; and the desire is deep-rooted in all of us to hear and to tell some new thing and to tell again something deserving remembrance. But the novel itself, and the short-story also, must confess that they have only of late been able to claim equality ...
— A Manual of the Art of Fiction • Clayton Hamilton
... sentences or periodic? In literature the loose more frequently occur. They are informal and conversational, and are especially suited to letter-writing, story-telling, and the light essay. The period is formal; it has the air of preparation. The oration, the formal essay, well-wrought argument,—forms of literature where preparation is expected,—may use the period with good effect. It has a finish, a scholarly refinement, not ...
— English: Composition and Literature • W. F. (William Franklin) Webster |
