"Good story" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the fight, and reconciling themselves to the end of it with "Kismet." I also turned some of the horses into camels, and (for the sake of the Indian troops) several pairs of puttees into chupaties. It was a good story while ...
— The Sunny Side • A. A. Milne
... of them flinched,' he repeated, rising a little feebly from his chair, 'for they were Englishmen, and Englishmen know how to die. Why are you staring at me, boy? It is a good story, is it not?' ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... now," answered Paul, with a short glance at the Indian chief, who still sat, profoundly grave, in the dreamland of smoke. "There's no time like after supper for a good pipe an' a good story—not that what I'm goin' to tell ye is much of a story either, but it's true, if that adds vally to it, an' it'll be short. It's about a brave young Indian I once had the luck to meet with. ...
— Twice Bought • R.M. Ballantyne
... and with confidence to those who like a really good story, well constructed and ...
— More Cricket Songs • Norman Gale
... romancing a little now and then, and embellishing a good story, he was absolutely truthful in important matters, and to be relied ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... learn to really use the library; to feel that they are standing on their own feet and using their own tools, not merely that there is a pleasant room where a good story may be had for the asking. They must grow up in such familiar use of the library in all its departments that it will come to be an actual necessity to them in the pursuit ...
— Library Work with Children • Alice I. Hazeltine
... nothing would have stopped me. But, talking of hell, I heard a good story yesterday. Pat Carabine was telling his flock last Sunday of the tortures of the damned, and having said all he could about devils and pitchforks and caldrons, he came to a sudden pause—a blank look came into his face, ...
— The Lake • George Moore
... how well-behaved folk like to talk. But another thing. When at wine, it would be fitting to relate some good story of your youthful days. What is your ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... is a good story of how at an election meeting in Cork a few years ago, when he was a candidate, one of a crowd of working women pushed her way into a brake from which he was addressing a throng in the market square and suddenly put her arm round his neck and killed ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Aug 8, 1917 • Various
... misdoubt, Sir, it won't turn out to be no good story for no one,' said Mr. Larcom, in a low and sad tone, and with a long ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... a "good story" which raised so much hubbub that nothing else could be heard. Feodor Feodorovitch was so amused that he had tears in his eyes. Rouletabille said to himself as Matrena talked, "I never have seen men so gay, and yet they know perfectly they are apt ...
— The Secret of the Night • Gaston Leroux
... nuts to a monkey. He's an artist, that man is. Been in the circles where the band plays good and soft, where the music smells—fairly smells like parfumery," responded Sibley. "I'd like to get at the bottom of him. There's a real good story under his asbestos vest—something that'd make a man call for the oh-be-joyful, same ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... tune of smothered complaints from the miserable figures bouncing upon the rear seat before Gray said: "I fear you are a selfish pair of rascals. Have you no concern regarding the fate of the third member of your treasure-hunting trio?" Evidently they had none. "Too bad! It's a good story." ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... old folks' wishes, most likely. For the rest, Edgar can make a good story. One can't wonder at the preference, and there's no denying that it is a ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... could never resist a good story, and, indeed, never made any attempt to do so, and she usually wrote them down to ...
— Lady Mary Wortley Montague - Her Life and Letters (1689-1762) • Lewis Melville
... experience and travel he was not overmuch of a raconteur, but he once told me a good story about his friend Thackeray. The two were driving to a banquet of the Literary Fund, where Dickens was to preside. "Lamar," said Thackeray, "they say I can't speak. But if I want to I can speak. I can speak every bit ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson
... absorbing story."—New York Times. "Intensely thrilling in parts, but an unusually good story all through. There is a love affair of real charm and most novel surroundings, there is a run on the bank which is almost worth a year's growth, and there is all manner of exhilarating men and deeds which should bring the book ...
— Doctor Luke of the Labrador • Norman Duncan
... than that of Thackeray—though, doubtless, with an over-elaborated self-consciousness, and perceptible suggestions of the laboratory of the student. Trollope tells his artless tales in perfectly pure, natural, and most articulate prose, the language of a man of the world telling a good story well. And a dozen living novelists are masters of a style of extreme ease ...
— Studies in Early Victorian Literature • Frederic Harrison
... a panorama, however, depended largely upon the person who explained its pictures. If he were witty, and knew how to tell the good story of which each one was certain to remind him, all went well, and the fame of that panorama spread far and wide. If, on the other hand, he was prosy, and offered only dry explanations of his pictures, the impatient river-town audience did not hesitate to express their dissatisfaction, ...
— Raftmates - A Story of the Great River • Kirk Munroe
... companions until they kill him. Wotan's autobiography on the second evening becomes his biography in the mouths of the Norns on the fourth. The little that the Norns add to it is repeated an hour later by Valtrauta. How far all this repetition is tolerable is a matter of individual taste. A good story will bear repetition; and if it has woven into it such pretty tunes as the Rhine maidens' yodel, Mimmy's tinkling anvil beat, the note of the forest bird, the call of Siegfried's horn, and so on, it will bear a good deal of rehearing. Those who have but newly learnt their way through ...
— The Perfect Wagnerite - A Commentary on the Niblung's Ring • George Bernard Shaw
... Lector, that is a very good story. It is simple and full of plain human touches. You know how to deal with the facts of everyday life... It requires a master-hand. Tell me, Lector, ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... two nights ago, my son brought home young William Strong to dinner. Our families are old friends and Billy's father and I were chums in college, so the boy is at home in our house. As you probably know, he has the gift of telling a good story, so when he began on the events of an evening ...
— A Good Samaritan • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... Spaniard, but I could not help that, for I had no choice but to hail her. They took me to Porto Rico and there reported me as a shipwrecked sailor they had picked up. The governor questioned me closely as to what vessel I had been lost from, and although I made up a good story he had his doubts. Fortunately it did not enter his mind that I was not a Spaniard; but he said he believed I was some bad character who had been marooned by my comrades for murder or some other crime, and so put me in prison until he could learn something that would ...
— By England's Aid • G. A. Henty
... telling tales. Story-tellers can not be hired, and the guest at the proper moment says (after having prepared himself beforehand), "That reminds me of a story," and he relates what he has learned with great eclat and applause, as every American will applaud a good story, even if he has heard it time and again. At one dinner which I attended in New York story-telling had been going on for some time when a well-known man came in late. He was received with applause, and when called on for a speech told exactly the same story, by a strange coincidence, ...
— As A Chinaman Saw Us - Passages from his Letters to a Friend at Home • Anonymous
... additions. It belongs to the aptly called "cumulative" tales. The refrains act like sign-posts to help the child to mark the progress. This is simply a skilful way of making the continuity close, of showing the ladder rungs for the child's feet. I venture to say that any good story-teller consciously or unconsciously puts up sign-posts to help the children. If he is skilful, he makes a pattern of them so that they are not merely intellectually helpful but charming as well. So Kipling in his "Just So Stories" uses his sign-posts,—which are sometimes words, sometimes ...
— Here and Now Story Book - Two- to seven-year-olds • Lucy Sprague Mitchell
... what a witty poet—I forget his name: he lived to be ninety—said of the man who had been his valet for more than half a century? 'For thirty years he was the best of servants; and for thirty years he has been the hardest of masters.' Quite true—I might say the same of my housekeeper. Rather a good story, isn't it?" ...
— I Say No • Wilkie Collins
... jolly good fellow,—just the man to sit on the box seat and drive the three horses through ruts and "thank-you-ma'ams," slush and mud and snow. There was a perennial twinkle in his eye, his ruddy cheeks were wrinkled with laughter, and he had a good story forever on the tip of his tongue. He stood six feet two in his stockings (his mother used to say she had the longest Life of any woman in the State o' Maine); his shoulders were broad in proportion, and his lungs just the sort to fill amply his noble chest. Therefore, ...
— The Village Watch-Tower • (AKA Kate Douglas Riggs) Kate Douglas Wiggin
... a good story, as a story,' returned that gentleman; 'as good a thing of its kind as need be. This Mr Dorrit (his name is Dorrit) had incurred a responsibility to us, ages before the fairy came out of the Bank and gave him his fortune, under a bond he ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... more than the average insight into the intricacies of Mahomedan doctrine, and being possessed of ready wit, and considerable ability in debate, he was ever anxious to enter into doctrinarian discussions with the mullahs. Their superstitions especially came in for his lively ridicule, and a good story is told by old native officers illustrating his views. One day, Dilawur with a crowd of other passengers was crossing the Indus, which there was very deep and rapid, in the ferry-boat. Being over-heavily loaded, ...
— The Story of the Guides • G. J. Younghusband
... just three miles ahead in the wind's eye. But although he beat us going free, he was no match for us, on a wind, and before noon we had possession of him and all his harem. By-the-by, I could tell you a good story about the ladies. She was a very valuable prize, and among other things, she had a puncheon of otto ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... tongue, too, this Brown, when he chooses to use it, and a good story is told of this quality of his. He was once calling the carriages at a brilliant party. Among the guests was Harry X—-, a young gentleman of fortune, concerning whose morals some hard things were said. ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... a good story in reading one of Jean Astruc's medical works. "Theodore de Henry, of Paris, coming one time into the church of St. Dionis, he fell prostrate at the foot of the statue of Charles the Eighth, as in a sudden fit of devotion. When being told by one of the monks ...
— Moon Lore • Timothy Harley
... never before known exactly what to do for the young folks. She could have a little supper for them in the evening, and ask them to come and read with her; or perhaps she might propose to read some good story to them, and some poetry. They ought to know something of the great poets. Miss Mary Leicester was taken up with the important business of her own invalidism, but it might be a very good thing for her to take some part in such pleasant ...
— Betty Leicester - A Story For Girls • Sarah Orne Jewett
... good story, a novel that is full of romance and adventure, I would advise you to read Before Adam, by Jack London, a Socialist writer. It is a novel, but it is also a work of science. He gives an account of the life of the first men and ...
— The Common Sense of Socialism - A Series of Letters Addressed to Jonathan Edwards, of Pittsburg • John Spargo
... "That's a good story," admitted Ruth, "but try to think up some way of finding poor little Amy, instead of ...
— Ruth Fielding in Moving Pictures - Or Helping The Dormitory Fund • Alice Emerson
... invasion of his rights. Hence there were many collisions between landlord and tenant in the early days of Hyde Hall. The warm aspect of his nature, which disarmed the enmities of tenants, appeared in his social qualities. He was companionable, gave good dinners, conversed well, told a good story, delighted in a good one from others, and when in a gay mood would sing an excellent song, generally one that he had brought with him from ...
— The Story of Cooperstown • Ralph Birdsall
... could run almost as fast as this train goes, anyway," boasted her brother. "And speaking of slow trains, that reminds me of a good story I ...
— The Radio Boys at the Sending Station - Making Good in the Wireless Room • Allen Chapman
... by cattle men in Montana, and the money ought to go to buy more cattle for the Indian, and clothes for our children. I like to tell the truth just as I have seen it with my own eyes, and I will have another good story for you to-morrow night. I am getting old, but when I begin to talk about the old times I think I am young again, and that I am the biggest ...
— The Vanishing Race • Dr. Joseph Kossuth Dixon
... may reasonably believe, however, that at some time the marshy ground in the forum gave way, as ground often does, and that there was difficulty in filling up the chasm. A grand opportunity was thus offered for a good story-teller to build up a romance, or to touch up the early history with an interesting tale of heroism. The temptation to do this would have been very ...
— The Story of Rome From the Earliest Times to the End of the Republic • Arthur Gilman
... down the hill, a few minutes, to see the little twinkling lights, and the happy family is getting undressed in double quick time, for Akela has promised a good story to-night—a "nexiting" one ...
— Stories of the Saints by Candle-Light • Vera C. Barclay
... outran her knowledge of it, otherwise she would hardly have permitted a dramatist to speak of his "caste," or the leading lady to leave the theatre (even under circumstances of faintness) in her stage costume. But for all that my congratulations to her on a good story. ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, September 9, 1914 • Various
... "A really good story.... He is a most attractive hero, always plucky and fine-spirited. Numerous hair-breadth escapes and a happy ending—what more could young people want? Boys, and girls too, are strongly advised to read ...
— The Dash for Khartoum - A Tale of Nile Expedition • George Alfred Henty
... elephant, and who were the living black spots which we have already mentioned, had been held in awe by the flame of the candle, so long as it had been lighted; but as soon as the cavern, which was the same as their city, had returned to darkness, scenting what the good story-teller Perrault calls "fresh meat," they had hurled themselves in throngs on Gavroche's tent, had climbed to the top of it, and had begun to bite the meshes as though seeking to pierce ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... that the whole piece of literature will best be classified by discovering the purpose of the author. If his purpose is simply to tell a good story, his work is narration; if the purpose is merely to place a picture before the reader's mind, it is description; if to explain conditions and nothing more, it is exposition; if to prove to the reason the truth or ...
— English: Composition and Literature • W. F. (William Franklin) Webster
... "How d'ye do, Grey? How d'ye do, Grey?" burst from a knot of unhappy fellows, who would have felt quite delighted had their newly arrived co-mate condescended to entertain them, as usual, with some capital good story fresh from town. ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... story which I picked up on board the boat that night. I insert it in this place merely because it is a good story, not because it belongs here—for it doesn't. It was told by a passenger—a college professor—and was called to the surface in the course of a general conversation which began with talk about horses, drifted into talk about astronomy, then ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... very good fellow." He was Irish by his mother's side, Scotch by his father's, but much more Irish than Scotch by predilection, and it was his mother tongue he spoke, exaggerating the accent slightly to heighten the effect of a tender speech or a good story. With the latter he kept Mr. Frayling well entertained, and Evadne he plied with the former ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... of the Yale-Princeton game. The sporting department will cover the technical story, but a big steamboat collision has just happened in North River, two or three hundred drowned and so on, and I need every man in the shop. As an old Yale player I am sure I can depend on you for a good story, and I know you used to do this kind of stuff ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... king, "behold the twilight hour, in which ears feminine may be regaled with certain pleasant stories, for the ladies can laugh without blushing, or blush without laughing, as it suits them best. Give us a good story—a regular monk's story. I shall listen to it, i'faith, with pleasure, because I want to be amused, and ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 3 • Honore de Balzac
... subtends an appreciable angle in the horizon of thought, I am as receptive as the contribution-box in a congregation of colored brethren. If, when I am exposing my intellectual dry-goods, a man will begin a good story, I will have them all in, and my shutters up, before he has got to the fifth "says he," and listen like a three-years' child, as the author of the "Old Sailor" says. I had rather hear one of those grand elemental laughs from either ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various
... and loved, but only Marx, the great leader and teacher, with a thousand heavy problems burdening his mind. But the Marx that I knew—my friend Karl—was human, boy, very human. He could sing a song, tell a good story, and enjoy a joke, ...
— The Marx He Knew • John Spargo
... "It's a good story, and if we didn't know Steve was after at least one of those men, we'd ...
— The Wailing Octopus • Harold Leland Goodwin
... Spanish birth; for his eyes and his hair were dark as many of the native-born Californians, and his speech was as their own; he was good-humored, just in his judgments, reasonable in his demands. He could tell a good story well if he liked, or he could keep silent and listen with that sympathetic attention that never fails to flatter the teller of a tale. To a man they liked him, and they were not slow to show their liking after the manner of ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower
... the life of anybody present was worth to respond to this challenge. One or two who could never hear a good story too often would not have objected if somebody else had demanded further information. But for their own part, their discretion outdid their curiosity, and they retained their seats amidst a ...
— The Master of the Shell • Talbot Baines Reed
... he lay as straight as a mummy, with his soul filled with radiance of complete mental peace. After months of distress and confusion, he'd got straight again. He was in the middle of a real good story, bright and clean. He knew ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... one time in command of the guard over the Reformers, informed the writer that he had formed one of the cavalry escort. 'It is a good story,' he said, 'but what fools we would have been to send our guns shut up in trucks through a hostile camp of 20,000 armed men—as we thought—round two sides of a triangle instead of going by the ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick
... might have been Slowtongue with equal propriety, for she was quite an adept at the art of silence. She frequently caused a giggle to do duty for speech. This suited her husband admirably, for he was fond of talking—could tell a good story, sing a good song, and express his feelings in a good ...
— The Buffalo Runners - A Tale of the Red River Plains • R.M. Ballantyne
... a good story told a propos of the candidature of "The Cardinal." Of course, the votes recorded for him were solely Catholic, the Irish turning up in great force. Two gentlemen from Erin were found fighting a deadly battle. When separated and the battle changed ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol 2 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... read the really good story scrawled on the scraps of brown paper that John, the hermit, had put in the manager's hands, the girl had suddenly claimed the authorship of the story. There was nothing to prove her claim. It ...
— Ruth Fielding Down East - Or, The Hermit of Beach Plum Point • Alice B. Emerson
... be very curious and complicating if that were true; but I don't believe it is. Palliser, of course, likes to tell a good story. I shall be able to discover in time whether it is true or not; but at ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... Buren was noted for his willingness to sign applications for office, and he used to tell a good story illustrating his readiness to oblige those who solicited his aid. When Governor of the State of New York, a lawyer called upon him to get a convict pardoned from the penitentiary, and stated the case, which was a clear one. "Have you the papers?" he asked. "If so, ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... Grimm version of "The Sleeping Beauty" is, by all odds, the finest one. Its perfect economy in the use of story materials has always been admired. Perrault's version drags in an unnecessary ogre and spoils a good story by not knowing when to stop. The Grimm title is "Dornroeschen," and the more literal translation, "Brier Rose," is the one generally used as the English title, rather than the one given by Taylor, whose translation follows. Tennyson has a ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... "I heard a very good story the other day on the steamer going to Bermuda"—then he pauses with a certain doubt in his face—"but perhaps you've ...
— Further Foolishness • Stephen Leacock
... a two-fold reason for the success which Cooper's novels won at home and abroad. In the first place, Cooper could invent a good story and tell it well. He was a master of rapid, stirring narrative, and his tales were elemental, not deep or subtle. Secondly, he created interesting characters who had the restless energy, the passion for adventure, the rugged confidence, ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... it long. The poor little fellow died young. But I was telling you of the night when she first heard he was ailing. Philemon had been telling a good story, and we were all laughing, when Sairey came in. I can see Agatha now. She always had the most brilliant eyes in the county, but that day they were superbly dazzling. They changed, though, at the sight of Sairey's face, and she jumped to meet her just as if she knew ...
— Agatha Webb • Anna Katharine Green
... waving handkerchiefs and strips of material in token of surrender! Whereupon our infantry were signalled to take possession, which they did. Don't shrug your shoulders, friend the reader, and say: "Quite a good story, but tall, very tall." The facts were related in the R.F.C. section of 'Comic Cuts,' otherwise ...
— Cavalry of the Clouds • Alan Bott
... others who exhibit as undeniably the marks of the Divine handiwork can give comparatively little account of how it took place. The test of the reality of the change is not its power of being made into a good story. In the one case, however, as in the other, a conscientious man will give all diligence to make his calling and election sure. Excellent chapters on the subject will be found in Spurgeon's Lectures to My Students and Blaikie's For the Work of ...
— The Preacher and His Models - The Yale Lectures on Preaching 1891 • James Stalker
... very good story, and some day perhaps I may tell it to you. It was about how, when Grandpa was a young frog, he started out to hunt blackberries, and got caught in a briar bush and couldn't get loose for ever so long, and the mosquitoes bit him ...
— Bully and Bawly No-Tail • Howard R. Garis
... "It is a good story," replied Portnoff with a laugh, "but not pleasant for Sprink to tell. It appears he was negotiating with Mr. French, suggesting a partnership in the mine, but Mr. French kicked him out. It was amusing to hear Sprink tell the tale with many oaths ...
— The Foreigner • Ralph Connor
... with a new motive—a sense that I was needed, a purpose to be ready to help her children—the one service I could give to her. There's a long, cruel story back of her marriage to Tank—a story of deception, coercion, love of money, and all the elements of common cussedness—too common to make a good story. And, as generally happens, when Tank married the girl who didn't want him he treated her as ...
— Winning the Wilderness • Margaret Hill McCarter
... Headquarters has just telephoned that a man has been found dead in the Barowsky Brothers' bank building, and there's some yarn to the effect that he is the fourth to die alone in that particular office. Better go down and take a look at things. May be a good story ...
— The Gates of Chance • Van Tassel Sutphen
... will not go down the ages as a companion of Scott's, Thackeray's, Hugo's and Dumas'; but read at any time by any fresh-minded person, it will afford that shock of pleasure which always comes of a good story enthusiastically told, and of a pretty love-drama frankly and joyously presented. Mr. Major has the true dramatic vision and notable cleverness in the art of making ...
— When Knighthood Was in Flower • Charles Major
... are quite behind the age," said the Water-rat. "Every good story-teller nowadays starts with the end, and then goes on to the beginning, and concludes with the middle. That is the new method. I heard all about it the other day from a critic who was walking round the pond with a young man. He spoke of ...
— The Happy Prince and Other Tales • Oscar Wilde
... want," from a serious old lady, "to get a book for a young man studying for the ministry." "I want," exclaimed a very smart apparition, "a dashing book for a man!" "What is the best book on Russia?" "Do you know, now, if this is a good story?—there are so many poor books nowadays." Says a large, uncommonly black lady, "I want 'Spears of Wheat, No. 3.'" (Discovered to be a prayer book.) "I want the latest book, please, on how to bring up a baby." "I'd like to see what you ...
— Walking-Stick Papers • Robert Cortes Holliday
... the wood alone. Archie and Dahlia had gone arm-in-arm up the hill to look at a view, Simpson was helping Myra with the hampers, and Thomas, the latest arrival from town, was lying on his back, telling them what he alleged to be a good story now going round London. Myra told it to me afterwards, and we agreed that as a boy it had gone round the world several times first. Yet I heard her laugh unaffectedly—what ...
— The Holiday Round • A. A. Milne
... A very good story is told of a thief and a tortoise. The thief was prowling about the larder of an hotel in search of plunder, when he came upon a large market-basket filled with provisions. He immediately inserted his hand ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... A very good Story indeed! fit for no body but the Devil to put into any Man's Head; But so it is, B being put in mind, forsooth, that he is a Man of Honour, starts back and must act the honourable Part; so he lets A get up, put ...
— The History of the Devil - As Well Ancient as Modern: In Two Parts • Daniel Defoe
... West of London both were objects of interest, and told their tales with unfailing exaggeration. The boatswain was especially attractive, owing to his rugged personality and his unaffected manner. His sanguinary tales of American packet-ship life were much canvassed for, and being a good story-teller, he embellished them with incidents that gave them a fine finishing touch. He was asked by some young ladies if he ...
— Looking Seaward Again • Walter Runciman
... that classic. Hence you are glad that George Eliot, the Bronts, Thackeray, are considered as classics, because you really *do* enjoy them. Your sentiments concerning them approach your sentiments concerning a "rattling good story" in ...
— LITERARY TASTE • ARNOLD BENNETT
... to encourage a high standard.[9] The method of "showing the machinery" has more immediate results, and it is easy to become discouraged over the drudgery which is not necessary to secure the approbation of the largest number. But, since I am dealing with the essentials of really good story-telling, I may be pardoned for suggesting the highest standard and ...
— The Art of the Story-Teller • Marie L. Shedlock
... his own, when he was catching wild horses in Texas with his adventurous cousin, at a time when he must have been quite a boy. He told the story with a good deal of spirit,—so much so, that the silence which often follows a good story hung over the table for an instant, to be broken by Nolan himself. For he asked ...
— The Man Without a Country and Other Tales • Edward E. Hale
... spoil a good story for?" protested Nevius. "That's a funny story, and it is true. It is supposed to be laughed at. And Reddy is better off. He had so many bugs you couldn't tell which was bugs and which was Reddy. He was an ugly guy, too, and he was stuck on a girl ...
— Sunny Slopes • Ethel Hueston
... girl have suffered! Could the old man suspect? Singleton was true to me as steel, I knew. He could not have whispered,—nor Barry; but that Jane, Barry's wife. O woman! woman! what newsmongers they are! Here were Julia and I, made miserable for life, perhaps, merely that Jane Barry might have a good story to tell. What right had Barry to a wife? Not four years out of college, and hardly settled in his parish. To think that I had been fool enough to trust even him with the particulars of my all-important secret! But here I was again interrupted, coffee-cup still full, toast still ...
— If, Yes and Perhaps - Four Possibilities and Six Exaggerations with Some Bits of Fact • Edward Everett Hale
... disappointed in him. He had only a slight personal acquaintance with him, but he had heard so much of him from the others that he had looked forward with interest to making the acquaintance of the "sharp Yankee deacon." For Harry had a good story about "Uncle Sampson" ready for all occasions, and there was no end to the shrewd remarks and scraps of worldly wisdom that he used to quote from his lips. But Harry's acquaintance had been confined to the first years of their Merleville life, and Mr Snow had changed much since ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson
... lawyers, the wig was worn to conceal the tonsure. He had anecdotes to tell of Johnson, Lamb, Macaulay, Voltaire, Talleyrand, etc., and quoted passages from Burke and from Junius at length in the exact words. Junius he considers proved to be Sir Philip Francis. He told a good story against Wordsworth, contained in a letter from Lamb to Talfourd, which the latter showed to Buckle, but had considered among the things too personal to be published. Wordsworth was decrying Shakspeare. "Pooh!" he said, "it is all very easy: I could write ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various
... sit by me, Millington," cried old Lady Oldtown; "I have a good story to tell you of the Duc ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... would be, if you would take it, but you won't—not now. You need something else first and I'll give it to you. But I'll tell you this, and I mean it: Downstairs, in that dining-room of yours, there's one mighty good story, at least." ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln
... There is a good story told that after Thaddeus Stevens died, a friend of Mr. Blaine's was walking with him one day through the Rotunda of the Capitol toward the House of Representatives. Mr. Blaine said: "The death of Stevens is an emancipation for the Republican Party. He kept the party ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... Maria Saksis, a very intelligent Penobscot woman, a widow of a former governor, whom I met at North Conway, in the White Mountains, N. H. In her dialect Glooskap is invariably called Glus-gah-be. She told it with that admirable dry drollery, characteristic of a good story-teller in a race where there are no bad ones. The exquisite humor and humanity of this little legend, placed as a pendant to the stupendous successes of the giant hero, are such as to entitle its Indian author to rank as a genius. I have ...
— The Algonquin Legends of New England • Charles Godfrey Leland
... journalist, but with a Chinese statesman wishing to pull the Occidental leg—these and many other incidents are admirably described by a writer who, though he long ago doffed his journalistic harness, has not forgotten how to write up a "good story." Be your opinion of the New Journalism what it may I guarantee that you will find its champion ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, March 10th, 1920 • Various
... a man of large frame, and gives evidence of unusual physical strength. He has a strong head, a kind heart, and is inclined to the humorous. He can tell a good story in a social circle, and can relate a good anecdote in the pulpit. In the latter he is gifted in the line of similes, which often in his hands make the sermon interesting and profitable. He gives promise of many more years ...
— Thirty Years in the Itinerancy • Wesson Gage Miller
... his countenance, than you could out of the poker, and yet Monsieur Margot was by no means a melancholy man. He loved his joke, and his wine, and his dinner, just as much as if he had been of a fatter frame; and it was a fine specimen of the practical antithesis, to hear a good story, or a jovial expression, leap friskily out of that long, curved mouth; it was at once a paradox and a bathos—it was the mouse coming out of its hole ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... of his talk, as it is of his character, is its conscientiousness. He has the truthfulness of a thorough gentleman, and his affections are as strong as his hatreds. I do not believe he would sacrifice a friend even to a good story, and where is there another man of whom that ...
— Correspondence & Conversations of Alexis de Tocqueville with Nassau William Senior from 1834 to 1859, Vol. 2 • Alexis de Tocqueville
... the veteran editor and author, has scored a double success in his new book, 'The Last of the Flatboats,' which has just been published. Written primarily as a story for young readers, it contains many things that are of interest to older people. Altogether, it is a mighty good story, and well worth reading." ...
— John and Betty's History Visit • Margaret Williamson
... do not remember how we came to know her, but some good angel saw to it. She used to send around little bowls of luscious dessert, and half a pie, or some hot muffins. Then I was always grateful also—for it made such a good story, and it was true—to the New England wife of a fellow graduate student who remarked, when I told her we had one baby and another on the way, ...
— An American Idyll - The Life of Carleton H. Parker • Cornelia Stratton Parker
... spread of new discoveries and useful knowledge in practical affairs, especially in the way of farming and agriculture. Franklin always had a fancy for agriculture, and conferred many a boon upon the tillers of the soil. A good story, which may be true, tells how he showed the fertilizing capacity of plaster of Paris. In a field by the roadside he wrote, with plaster, THIS HAS BEEN PLASTERED; and soon the brilliant green of the letters carried ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.
... unwittingly the air castle which Lite had been three years building, but he did not say a word about it to Jean. Wistful eyed, but smiling with his lips, he would sit while Jean spoiled whole sheets of perfectly good story-paper, just figuring and estimating and building castles with the dollar sign. If Robert Grant Burns persisted in his mania for "feature-stuff" and "punches" in his pictures, Jean believed that she would have a fair start toward ...
— Jean of the Lazy A • B. M. Bower
... good part, and we had a pleasant evening at the Hall. He discharged a good many other puns, which I am glad to say I have forgotten. But there was a man present who was a good story-teller. Some I had heard before, but they were none the less welcome, while one or two I related were as good as new to my host and old Squire Fullerton, who had once been High Sheriff, and was supposed to know all about circuit business. He prefaced ...
— The Reminiscences Of Sir Henry Hawkins (Baron Brampton) • Henry Hawkins Brampton
... reason why you should always be sure that a story you repeat is a good story. Then you will be glad to have it travel on and on and on, and will never want to call it back. But if you tell a story that isn't true or nice, the time is almost sure to come when you will want to call it ...
— The Adventures of Prickly Porky • Thornton W. Burgess
... the power of writing a rattling good story with a sound and full knowledge of conditions of the life which he is depicting. Mr. White brings to the history of Rome all the picturesqueness and power which made his South American novel, "El Supremo," so remarkable. The result is ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White
... "I'm no great hand at talking. I can write pretty decently when I've a good story to tell, but I don't talk an awful lot, because I never can express what I mean unless I've got a pen in my hand. Frankly, I find it hard to tell you what I think. When I write my article this evening, I'll get all these things marshalled in proper form, and I shall write clearly ...
— The Middle Temple Murder • J.S. Fletcher
... to congratulate you on the good story you wrote in Everybody's Magazine this month. It is the beat story I ever read and the best I ever saw published in ...
— Friday, the Thirteenth • Thomas W. Lawson
... "There's always a good story in a Crockett novel, and has been ever since the days of 'The Stickit Minister.' Sandy is a typical new Scot, most modern and most masterful of all heroes in current fiction.... As winning a heroine as any one could desire is skillfully wrought into the warp and woof of Mr. Crockett's fabric ...
— The Return of the Prodigal • May Sinclair
... fine example of faithful preaching, and of an honest hearer! This illustration of true penitence, which is given in the picture at the beginning of this history of the kings, suggests a good story of modern date. Jacob, an intelligent negro, was bribed and intoxicated to make him commit murder. He was convicted of the crime, and sent to the State prison for life. He could not read, but a bible was in his cell, and he learned ...
— Half Hours in Bible Lands, Volume 2 - Patriarchs, Kings, and Kingdoms • Rev. P. C. Headley
... make the siege weigh as little upon the population as possible. Thus, for instance, few lamps are lit in the streets, but the shops and cafes are still a blaze of light; they close, however, early. Here is rather a good story; I can vouch for its truth. The Government recently visited the Tuileries. They were received by the governor, whom they found established in a suite of apartments. He showed them over the palace, and then offered them luncheon. They then incidentally ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere
... James Williams faced his captors with a smile. He was thinking what a good story he would have to tell in Cloverdale about having been mistaken for a burglar. The Rubberneck coach lingered, out of respect for its patrons. What could be a more ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry
... unbounded. You see, I feel convinced that it all depends on you!" Then, under the impulsion of her enthusiasm she clapped her hands together as she exclaimed: "Oh, I am sure you will clear the prince! And then, like the hero in all good story books, ...
— The Title Market • Emily Post
... off on another tack. He knew such a good story, which, having told, he seemed to have forgotten all about the clock, for he said nothing more about it, and not much ...
— The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green
... Hobson was telling one of her confounded long stories, I found her audience was diminished to one. Crackthorpe, Lord Highgate, and Lady Clara, we had all been sitting there when the bankeress cut in (in the mid of a very good story I was telling them, which entertained them very much), and never ceased talking till I fell off into a doze. When I roused myself, begad, she was still going on. Crackthorpe was off, smoking a cigar on the terrace: my Lord and Lady Clara were nowhere; and you ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... rebellion, which all patriots are striving to put down, in our once happy land. When the news of the taking of New Orleans reached our city, a friend meeting on the street another, who, like our worthy President, is fond of a good story, spake as follows: ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... are supposed to know something of the tribal stories, not all are expected to be good story-tellers. Story-telling is a gift, we know, and primitives know this too, so that everywhere we have pointed out a few individuals who are the best story-tellers, usually an old man, sometimes an old woman, and occasionally, as the writer has seen it, a young man of some dramatic ...
— The Unwritten Literature of the Hopi • Hattie Greene Lockett
... made straight for the county clerk's office, too absorbed in their mission to observe that their passing had brought the three newspaper men from the hotel lobby. Bland fell into step with one of these and gave the news. The three scented a good story ...
— The Thunder Bird • B. M. Bower
... where the doctor made his first slip. It never pays to underestimate your enemy. Hoffman certainly had a good story, and he told it well, but after thirteen years in the Secret Service I shouldn't trust the Archbishop of Canterbury till I'd proved his credentials. I agreed to dine at Parelli's, but I took the precaution of having two of my own men there as well—one in the restaurant ...
— A Rogue by Compulsion • Victor Bridges
... occasion, and provides him with the inevitable situations proper to the tertium quid. The defects of The Purple Mists all arise from the fact that Miss MILLS YOUNG has been told by her friends that she tells a good story. If, next time, she thinks first of her characters and then chronicles their logical development, instead of forcing them into a threadbare plot, she will give us the fine book of which I ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, March 18, 1914 • Various
... was the opposite of the Emperor; sung a good song—told a good story—and gloried in making ladies blush. He depended on his cousin, Colonel Bloomfield, procuring him a commission in his regiment, and cheated tailors, hosiers, glovers, coach-makers, and even lawyers, with impunity. Happily for ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 387, August 28, 1829 • Various
... in Parliament to a hazardous leap at the Aquarium—jostled one another on the wide staircase and in the gravely ornate drawing-rooms. And amid the motley crowd the genial host was omnipresent, with a warm greeting and a twinkling smile for each successive guest—a good story, a happy quotation, the last morsel of piquant gossip, the newest theory of ethics ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... in this way, that one can sit over them, pen in hand, for days together, and not notice how time passes, and at the same time be conscious of life of a sort. That's from the hygienic point of view. And from the point of view of usefulness and so on, to write a fairly good story and give the reader ten to twenty interesting minutes—that, as Gilyarovsky says, ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov
... Inchbald's artificialities, in spite of her lack of that kind of realistic description which seems to modern readers the very blood and breath of a good story, she has the power of doing what, after all, only a very few indeed of her fellow craftsmen have ever been able to do—she can bring into her pages the living pressure of a human passion, she can invest, if not with realism, with something greater than realism—with ...
— A Simple Story • Mrs. Inchbald
... medicine you swallow that paralyzes pain so much as it is the quiet magnetism of a good story and the snap of a pleasant eye. I had one physician who tried to look joyous when he came into the room, but he generally asked me to run my tongue out till he could see where it was tied on, then he would feel my pulse with his cold finger and time it with a $6 watch, ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... was a good story, but I am unable to understand why they did not find a lot of stagnant air. Air that had lain stagnant for the time that cavern must have been closed would have killed the person who breathed it. Also, I would imagine that it wouldn't ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various
... the story of the master who fancied his man was drunk? 'Donald, you're trunk,' says he. 'It's a tam lee,' says Donald. 'Donald, ye ken ye're trunk,' says the master. 'Ah ken ah wish to Kott ah was!' says Donald. Good story, ain't ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 12, No. 32, November, 1873 • Various
... good story of the "hold-up" at the club, but he did not relate all the details. One of the listeners was a new public commissioner who was aggressive in his efforts at reform. Accordingly Brewster was summoned to headquarters the next morning for the purpose ...
— Brewster's Millions • George Barr McCutcheon
... "It is a good story and it is true. You should know it by heart and gain a lesson from it," she replied. "It was in the forests of Minnesota, in the country that now belongs to the Ojibways. From the Bedawakanton Sioux village a young married couple went into the woods to get ...
— Indian Child Life • Charles A. Eastman
... every one in his neighborhood, he was the most popular youth in all the country round. No "husking bee," or "house raising" or merry-making of any kind was complete if Abraham was not present. He was witty, ready of speech, a good story-teller, and had stored his memory with a fund of humorous anecdotes, which he always used to good purpose and with great effect. He had committed to memory, and could recite all the poetry in the various school readers ...
— Eclectic School Readings: Stories from Life • Orison Swett Marden
... "the other day, a good story in the Scottish American, entitled 'Endless Gold.' A fellow, Brown hadn't a sou, but always declared he would win an heiress; his friends laughed at him; but one evening, on a great cotton lord, Sir Calico Twill, making a speech, he put in 'hear, hear' at the right time. ...
— A Heart-Song of To-day • Annie Gregg Savigny
... whisky and soda. He was very fat and he sweated profusely. He took off his gold-rimmed spectacles and wiped them; you saw then that his little eyes, benevolent behind the large round glasses, were shrewd and cunning; the party had been somewhat dull till he came, but he was a good story-teller and a jovial fellow. Soon he had the two women, Ethel and my friend's wife, laughing delightedly at his sallies. He had a reputation on the island of a lady's man, and you could see how this fat, gross fellow, old and ugly, had yet the ...
— The Trembling of a Leaf - Little Stories of the South Sea Islands • William Somerset Maugham
... about and driven back on the road by which they had come. It was useless to remonstrate when the rifles of a dozen men were levelled at the would-be immigrants. But our travellers in Parkville heard a good story of the bravery of one free-State man who had been refused transportation across the ferry at Platte City, kept by an ardent pro-slavery man. The intending immigrant, unconscious of any hindrance to his crossing, was calmly driving down to the ferry-boat, a flat-bottomed ...
— The Boy Settlers - A Story of Early Times in Kansas • Noah Brooks
... were once popular enough. But there is a fashion in novels, as there is in colours and petticoats; and now I fear they are drugs in the market. It is hard to say why a good story should not have a fair chance of success whatever may be its bent; why it should not be reckoned to be good by its own intrinsic merits alone; but such is by no means the case. I was waiting once, when I was young at the work, in the back parlour of an eminent ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... oratory a good story is told of a barrister pleading before Lord Ellenborough: "My lord, I appear before you in the character of an advocate for the City of London; my lord, the City of London herself appears before you as a suppliant for ...
— Law and Laughter • George Alexander Morton
... the pleasure of his father and Mrs. Weston, indifferent as to how his conduct might appear in general; he became liable to all these charges. His father only called him a coxcomb, and thought it a very good story; but that Mrs. Weston did not like it, was clear enough, by her passing it over as quickly as possible, and making no other comment than that "all young people would have ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... it was an integral part of the road. "Danged if that baint[*] queer!" he exclaimed. "At home the dogs be tied and the stones be loose. Here the dogs be loose and the stones be tied." Now, if that man had enjoyed a school excursion to the town when a boy, he would have deprived me of a good story. A glimpse of the town in youth might also do good in checking the perpetual urban immigration, which, alas! removes so many of the rustic population from the soil, and places them under it. To this end all school excursions to London should take place in November. Yes, there is ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill |
