"Teller" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... though, as I look back the noo, I can see I was'na too kind to feel as I did aboot puir Jock. Jock coul no stand it to have anyone else applauded, or to see them getting attention he craved for himself. He could no sing, but he was a great story teller. Had he just said, out and out, that he was making up tales, 'twould have been all richt enough. But, no—Jock must pretend he'd been everywhere he told about, and that he'd been an actor in every yarn he spun. He was ...
— Between You and Me • Sir Harry Lauder
... pasha shall be amused. Bismillah! he wills it so. If the story-teller becomes prolix and tedious—the bow-string and the sack, and two Nubians to drop him into the Piscataqua! But truly, Jack, I have a hard task. There is literally nothing here—except the little girl ...
— Marjorie Daw • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... a dangerous business. Our little daughter has such a passion for birds and beasts, that if she once finds out you are a story-teller, she won't ...
— Minnie's Pet Parrot • Madeline Leslie
... the fortune-teller must have transpired, for Louvois had considered her arrest as an ill-omen for the Countess de Soissons. Not only for Olympia, however, was the arrest of Catherine a calamity, for she was the trusty counsellor ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... 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 strong to ...
— The Story of Rome From the Earliest Times to the End of the Republic • Arthur Gilman
... suggestive: having summoned the imaginative power, he must turn it to account and keep it employed, or it will run against him in indignation. Whatever he does merely to realize and substantiate an idea is impertinent; he is like a dull story-teller, dwelling on points which the hearer anticipates or disregards. The imagination will say to him: "I knew all that before; I don't want to be told that. Go on; or be silent, and let me go on in my own way. I can tell the story better ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume III (of 3) • John Ruskin
... was a humorous urbanity. As a story-teller he was unsurpassed. He had been everywhere and had known every one. He was quick to seize a point, and extraordinarily apt in anecdote and illustration. His fine taste appreciated whatever was best in life, in conversation, ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... number of metal brethren at two dozen instead of twenty-five, or missed out a single stage of the duckling's wanderings, she would have been instantly tripped up by her audience. But Queen Mab was too skilful a story-teller to leave out the minutest detail in describing the perilous voyage of the paper boat, or to spare the duckling a single snub from the narrow-minded hen or the bumptious tom-cat. The "Tin Soldier" she generally ...
— Soldiers of the Queen • Harold Avery
... stark impudence. The idea of shooting at a mark attached to some valuable or beloved person is an idea doubtless that might easily have occurred to any inventive poet. But it is also an idea that might easily occur to any boastful archer. It might be one of the fantastic caprices of some story-teller. It might equally well be one of the fantastic caprices of some tyrant. It might occur first in real life and afterwards occur in legends. Or it might just as well occur first in legends and afterwards occur in real ...
— Heretics • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... of the tongue (without knowing herself one), used to make him grave, or gay, or sad, at will, and watch the effect of her art upon his countenance; and a very pretty art it is—the viva voce story-teller's—and a rare one among the nations ...
— Christie Johnstone • Charles Reade
... the arrival of Major Clarke's force at Corn Island, until Kaskaskia was captured. He relates that part of Simon Kenton's life history which is not usually touched upon either by the historian or the story teller. This is one of the most entertaining books for young people which has ...
— Dick, Marjorie and Fidge - A Search for the Wonderful Dodo • G. E. Farrow
... of dialogue, in recitative, is kept up by the performers. In one direction, a conjurer is seen exhibiting his feats of manual dexterity, surrounded by a motley gaping crowd;—in another, a story-teller exercises the risible faculties of the sedate Turk, as well as of the merry laughter-loving Greek. A string of Armenian women approach, walking two and two with slow solemn steps, and followed by a slave carrying a basket of refreshments. Behind ...
— Journal of a Visit to Constantinople and Some of the Greek Islands in the Spring and Summer of 1833 • John Auldjo
... mutual. Gee, it was especially mutual. There was a crowd outside the car, staring up at it. It must have looked funny standing there with BREWSTER'S CENTRE sprawled all over it. There were all kinds of people in that crowd. One of them was a woman who was a fortune teller. She had on a dress with all spangles on it. Her name was Princess Mysteria. I wanted to ask her when the train would come for us and if we'd have any more adventures, but Westy wouldn't let me, because it cost twenty-five cents. He said he'd rather spend the twenty-five cents ...
— Roy Blakeley's Camp on Wheels • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... must always present a certain lack of finality, especially startling when contrasted with the usual methods of solution by rewards and punishments, by crowned love, by fortune, by a broken leg or a sudden death. Why the reading public which, as a body, has never laid upon a story-teller the command to be an artist, should demand from him this sham of Divine Omnipotence, is utterly incomprehensible. But so it is; and these solutions are legitimate inasmuch as they satisfy the desire for finality, for which our hearts yearn with a longing greater than the longing for the loaves ...
— Notes on Life and Letters • Joseph Conrad
... friends on their way to the oratory, where they went to worship, were met by a female slave who was possessed with a spirit of divination and uttered ambiguous predictions. She had acquired great reputation as an oracle or fortune-teller and for making wonderful discoveries. By this practice she brought her masters considerable gain and was very valuable to them. When Paul cast out the evil spirit and restored the maiden to her normal condition of body and mind, her master was full of wrath, ...
— The Woman's Bible. • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... Maurice agreed, "Don't you wish we could get inside the Gilpin house? Mr. Wells, the teller in our bank, sleeps there. I wish he ...
— Mr. Pat's Little Girl - A Story of the Arden Foresters • Mary F. Leonard
... 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
... likewise been reported, on reliable authority, that the original Mr. Black, whose Christian name was Andrew, was a famous teller of stories and narrator of facts regarding the persecution of the Covenanters, especially of the awful killing-time, when the powers of darkness were let loose on the land to do their worst, and when the blood of Scotland's ...
— Hunted and Harried • R.M. Ballantyne
... wheaten rolls and makovniki [FOOTNOTE: Poppy-seeds cooked in honey, and dried in square cakes.] with honey in the other world!) could tell a story wonderfully well. When he used to begin on a tale, you wouldn't stir from the spot all day, but keep on listening. He was no match for the story-teller of the present day, when he begins to lie, with a tongue as though he had had nothing to eat for three days, so that you snatch your cap and flee from the house. As I now recall it,—my old mother was alive then,—in the long winter evenings when the frost was crackling out of doors, ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Russian • Various
... this which will make him a source of highest aesthetic delight for a period at least as long as decipherable traces of his handiwork remain on mouldering panel or crumbling wall. For great though he was as a poet, enthralling as a story-teller, splendid and majestic as a composer, he was in these qualities superior in degree only, to many of the masters who painted in various parts of Europe during the thousand years that intervened between the decline ...
— The Florentine Painters of the Renaissance - With An Index To Their Works • Bernhard Berenson
... the name of two German brothers.... Their studies they carried on together, though Jacob was the more learned, and made great contributions to the science of language, while Wilhelm was more artistic in his tastes and was a capital story-teller.... They lived in the province of Hesse-Cassel, ... and it was from the peasants in this province that they derived a great many tales. The best friend they had was the wife of a cowherd, a woman of about fifty, who had a ...
— A Mother's List of Books for Children • Gertrude Weld Arnold
... unity of conception, in coherence of detail, in keen appreciation of humor and in skill of literary treatment. The grotesque statement of impossibilities with which it begins is the Caucasian story-teller's conventional method of forewarning his hearers that they are about to listen to a burlesque, a pure extravaganza, lying entirely outside the domain of fact and reality. There is no attempt made to give ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, November, 1878 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... The teller of the Merchants' and Fruitgrowers' Bank looked through the bars of his gilded cage, and repeated the name reflectively. He did not notice the eager look of the woman who confronted him, but he did wonder a little that she had failed to brush the thick dust of travel from the shoulders ...
— The Wizard's Daughter and Other Stories • Margaret Collier Graham
... persons!" exclaimed Nathan, when told of the cashier's remark; "I will make these gentlemen see what sort of private persons we are." Three weeks later he presented a five-pound note at the bank at the opening of the office. The teller counted out five sovereigns, looking surprised that Baron Rothschild should have troubled himself about such a trifle. The baron examined the coins one by one, weighing them in the balance, as he said "the law gave him the right to do," put them into a little canvas bag, and offered a second, ...
— How to Succeed - or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune • Orison Swett Marden
... into the cup, and continued, "Her head will be slightly in danger, but of this no appearance will remain half an hour afterwards." It was impossible to doubt the facts. They appeared so surprising to the King, that he desired some inquiry to be made concerning the fortune-teller. Madame, however, protected her from the pursuit ...
— Memoirs And Historical Chronicles Of The Courts Of Europe - Marguerite de Valois, Madame de Pompadour, and Catherine de Medici • Various
... he got the money from my teller that day, he was rushing away. I followed him to the door—that part of my suite opened out on the sidewalk, for the convenience of my crowds of customers. "I'm just going to lunch," said I. "Come ...
— The Deluge • David Graham Phillips
... friends," Frona conciliated. "And such a teller of good tales that your friends cannot forbear ...
— A Daughter of the Snows • Jack London
... could tell you where you ought to find the gold in a certain region, but he couldn't guarantee that there would be any. Experience counts a lot, of course, but I do know something about sylvanite, or white gold. I've seen its big field over in Boulder and Teller Counties, Colorado. They call it graphic gold, sometimes, because the crystals are very frequently set up in twins and branch off so that they look like written characters. The crystals are monoclinic and occur in porphyry almost exclusively. It is a mixture of gold and ...
— Rimrock Trail • J. Allan Dunn
... cried Anne, as the old story-teller sailed off. "That she loves him, and that her mother is anxious to secure him, is evident; but he is truthful and open, and would never conceal it. No, no, Lady Maude! you are cherishing a false hope. You are very beautiful, but you are not worthy ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... The story-teller saw his audience melt away in a minute. He went out on the porch. Fluttering across the fields and sand lots from all directions were the neighbors—both men and women. The possibility of a wreck—the great tragedy of long-shore existence—would bring everybody ...
— Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper • James A. Cooper
... Miss Ward; what do you mean, you sneaking little tell-tale?' he exclaimed. 'No, you're worse than that, you are a right-down story-teller.' ...
— Miss Mouse and Her Boys • Mrs. Molesworth
... The old teller of riddles pointed out that there was good in their telling. "People have been known to be scared out of doing meanness just by a riddle. Now what would you think this ...
— Blue Ridge Country • Jean Thomas
... enjoyment and interest, is endless. I could cite an instance when what was called a bank was in operation for many years among a certain number of children, with excellent effect. One was appointed president, another cashier, another paying-teller. There was a ledger under the charge of the cashier, with a list of stockholders, and the number of shares held by each, which was in proportion to the respective ages of the children. The bank building was a little toy secretary, something in the form ...
— Gentle Measures in the Management and Training of the Young • Jacob Abbott
... of the siren. He may be down at Coney Island or at the races enjoying himself; utterly unconscious that a pair of watchful eyes is observing every motion and chronicling every act. Some fatal morning the reckoning comes. He may be a bank teller, and he is requested by the board of directors to show his books and give an account of the situation and prospects of the bank. Despite his proficiency in bookkeeping, he will be unable to figure up and cover the money he has squandered in gambling houses, on the street, ...
— Danger! A True History of a Great City's Wiles and Temptations • William Howe
... the so-called educated classes, there are many which are obviously written under the impression that Dogberry's view of writing coming 'by nature' is especially true of the writing of fiction. Because I ventured to hint that the study of Greek was not essential to the calling of a story-teller, or of a contributor to the periodicals, or even of a journalist, these gentlemen seem to jump to the conclusion that the less they know of anything the better. Nay, some of them, discarding all theories (in the fashion that Mr. Carlyle's heroes are wont to discard all formulas), proceed ...
— Some Private Views • James Payn
... deliberating over some vexed affair, and you should use much caution in giving consent to its consummation. For a young woman, this portends a choice between two rivals. She will be worried to find out the standing of one in business and social circles. To dream that she is engaged to a fortune-teller, denotes that she has gone through the forest and picked the proverbial stick. She should be self-reliant, or ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller
... good a fortune-teller not to be able to foresee that his own destiny would be tragical if he waited the arrival of the man with the silver greyhound upon his sleeve. He made, as we say, a moonlight flitting, and was nowhere to be seen or heard of. Some noise there was about papers or letters found ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... to the missionary station at Norway House. Did you ever get it? There is a hunter here just now who goes by the name of Jacques Caradoc. He is a first-rater—can do anything, in a wild way, that lies within the power of mortal man, and is an inexhaustible anecdote-teller, in a quiet way. He and I have been out buffalo-hunting two or three times, and it would have done your heart good, Harry, my dear boy, to have seen us scouring over the prairie together on two big-boned Indian ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... a man named Joseph, who was renowned for honoring the Sabbath-day. He had a rich neighbor, a Gentile, whose property a certain fortune-teller had said would eventually revert to Joseph the Sabbatarian. To frustrate this prediction the Gentile disposed of his property, and with the proceeds of the sale he purchased a rare and costly jewel which he fixed to his turban. On crossing a bridge a gust of wind blew his turban into the river ...
— Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala • Various
... many rich men who had not married that it had become a lucrative trade to flatter them in order to be mentioned in their will; by having no children one could surround himself with a crowd of flatterers. "In the city," says a Roman story-teller, "all men divide themselves into two classes, those who fish, and those who are angled for." "Losing his children augments the ...
— History Of Ancient Civilization • Charles Seignobos
... me to be Maupassant, the novelist, a story-teller, a writer, and a philosopher by turns. I will add one more trait; he was devoid of all spirit of criticism. When he essays to demolish a theory, one is amazed to find in this great, clear writer such lack of precision of thought, and such ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... in Kadalayapan and Kaodanan, [6] towns which our chief story teller—when trying to explain the desire of Kanag to go down and get fruit—assures us were somewhere in the air, above the earth (p. 141). [7] At other times these places are referred to as Sudipan—the term by which spirits are supposed to call the present earth—while the actors are ...
— Traditions of the Tinguian: A Study in Philippine Folk-Lore • Fay-Cooper Cole
... enjoyed the confidence of his people and the devotion of his friends. His fellow men of whatever degree in life, judge, lawyers, witnesses, jurors, litigants, all gathered affectionately around him to hear him talk and to tell stories. But he was not a mere story teller. His conversation was such as to draw men to him for its very worth. He was fundamentally serious, dignified, and never given to ...
— Life of Abraham Lincoln - Little Blue Book Ten Cent Pocket Series No. 324 • John Hugh Bowers
... comes to be told, and to pass from mouth to mouth, it ends of quite a different shape from that in which it began. It has been added to, taken from, twisted in every direction according to the fancy or the carelessness of each teller, till what really happened in the first case no one will be able to say; {204} and this is, therefore, what actually happened, in the case of these reported wonders. Moreover (and this is the most important consideration of all) for men to be fair judges ...
— The Hermits • Charles Kingsley
... legs, arms, and various impostures of the beggar are denounced by the brother-beggar, on whose monopoly he has infringed. Our wit was soon compelled to confine himself to his own set, and gradually he degenerated from being the wit to being the good story-teller of the company. A man who lives by pleasing must become whatever the society in which he lives desire. Colonel Hauton and his associates had but little taste for pure wit—low humour and facetious stories were more suited to their capacities—slang and buffoonery were their delight. Buckhurst ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... endorsed Georgia votes, it was discovered to be totally irregular. The statement now about to be given is derived from an honourable gentleman, a member of Congress from the state of New-York during the administration of Mr. Jefferson, and yet living in this state. He says that Mr. Wells (a teller on the part of the Senate) informed him that the envelope was blank; that the return of the votes was not authenticated by the signatures of the electors, or any of them, either on the outside or the inside of the envelope, or in any ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... in the favourite after dinner pipe, with one exception, it was proposed that this one, whom they called Amos, should tell them one of his stories. Amos, nothing loth, and, evidently accustomed to occupy the position of a story teller, without ...
— Yorksher Puddin' - A Collection of the Most Popular Dialect Stories from the - Pen of John Hartley • John Hartley
... hear teller him?" asked the child. "He's ole Aunt Blue-Gum Tempy's Peruny Pearline's boy; an' Peruny Pearline," he continued enthusiastically, "she ain't no ord'nary nigger, her hair ain't got nare kink an' she's got the grandes' clo'es. ...
— Miss Minerva and William Green Hill • Frances Boyd Calhoun
... stand on a pedestal so high,—the two exalted to so equal a vocation. And if Dickens showed the best of his power early in life, so did Thackeray the best of his intellect. In no display of mental force did he rise above Barry Lyndon. I hardly know how the teller of a narrative shall hope to mount in simply intellectual faculty above the effort there made. In what then was the difference? Why was Dickens already a great man when Thackeray was still a ...
— Thackeray • Anthony Trollope
... direction, and prevent him from being influenced by the good advice which had been given. This man had many accomplishments; he was skilled in dancing, music, and singing; quick at repartee; a good story-teller; full of fun and jokes; but devoid of honour and honesty; false, slanderous, a receiver of bribes, a bad man in every way; yet, from his wit and humour, very acceptable to the king, whom he now thus addressed: 'Wherever ...
— Hindoo Tales - Or, The Adventures of Ten Princes • Translated by P. W. Jacob
... itinerant minstrel recites the history of Johar Mankain, the Una of Java, who shone like a jewel in the world which could not tarnish the purity and devotion of one whose heart entertained no evil thought. In the intricate byways of the crumbling Kraton, a professional story-teller draws a squalid crowd of women from their dark hovels and cellars, with the magic wand of enchantment wielded by the reciter of heroic deeds from the Panji, exaggerated out of all recognition by the addition of fairies and giants, ...
— Through the Malay Archipelago • Emily Richings
... me that the Patagonians were a friendly race is a traitor to science. I, Professor Simeon Sandburr, brand him a teller of untruths. For Professor Thomas Tapper, who told me about the fur-bearing pollywog of the South Polar seas, I have the warmest respect. I leave all my books, bottled fishes and reptiles to the Smithsonian Institute. ...
— The Boy Aviators' Polar Dash - Or - Facing Death in the Antarctic • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... of William Chester (foil to hero) Mr. JOHN HOWELL brought a certain unliveliness of his own. A better chance was taken by Miss STELLA RHO, who gave proof of a vivid personality in her brief sketch of a professional fortune-teller who admitted to her clients (this must be very unusual) that she nearly always made ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, March 19, 1919 • Various
... the well. Then Jesus looks on her with infinite pathos and says: "If you only knew the gift of God, and who it is that is now speaking to you!" But she does not know, and shoulders her pitcher and trudges home again, reporting only that she has seen some one who appeared a wonderful fortune-teller, and never dreaming that the greatest words of human history had been spoken to her, and ...
— Mornings in the College Chapel - Short Addresses to Young Men on Personal Religion • Francis Greenwood Peabody
... curiously, but with a kind of unwilling impatience. The man seemed to impress him in spite of himself, in spite of disgust at the stories and dislike of the teller. Once or twice he laughed, and then General Ratoneau gave him a stare, as if just reminded of his existence, and went on to some further piece ...
— Angelot - A Story of the First Empire • Eleanor Price
... suspicion at Quallatown: the craft of the Cherokees is an antiquated endowment, and has not kept pace with modern progress. Even the woman, who arrogated a spirit of prophecy and had long practised the devices of a fortune-teller, thus accustomed to scan the possibilities and in some degree versed in the adjustment of the probabilities, accorded the homely verisimilitude of their worldly-wise representations the meed of a simple and respectful credulity. The mountaineers ...
— The Ordeal - A Mountain Romance of Tennessee • Charles Egbert Craddock
... Englishman has gone confidently to the bank on which it was drawn with a cheque, the signature to which he knew to be good, and has expected to have the money paid over the counter to him without a word. All that the English paying teller needs to be satisfied of is that the signature of the drawer is genuine and that there is money enough to the credit of the account to meet the cheque. But the Englishman in the strange American bank finds that the document in his ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson
... that every good story-teller bestows upon a story, he described the vision of the lake—the strange woman's face, as he had seen it in the ...
— Helena • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Pat Dirane, the story-teller old Mourteen had spoken of on the other island. I wished to turn back, as he appeared to be on his way to visit me, but Michael would ...
— The Aran Islands • John M. Synge
... (died 1932) wrote only two books, Native Tales of New Mexico and Indian Stories from the Pueblos, but as a delighted and delightful teller of folk tales ...
— Guide to Life and Literature of the Southwest • J. Frank Dobie
... niddick and the sweat running down his face; but he kept his nerve pretty clever and crept away and ran for all his might to the village and went to see Parson. They believed more in those days than what they do now, and Parson, whatever he may have thought, knew young Knowles for a truth-teller and obeyed his petition to come at once. But the good man stopped in the churchyard and gathered up a handful of sacred ground; and then he went along to ...
— The Torch and Other Tales • Eden Phillpotts
... whom they sell trifling wares, and tell their fortunes, which indeed is their principal aim, as it is their greatest source of gain. They have been awkwardly fixed, both servants and the Gipsy fortune-teller, when the lady of the house has unexpectedly gone into the kitchen and surprised them while thus employed; and sometimes, to avoid detection, the obnoxious party has been hurried into a closet, or butler's pantry, ...
— The Gipsies' Advocate - or, Observations on the Origin, Character, Manners, and Habits of - The English Gipsies • James Crabb
... car on a snowy night. Please have my seat, madam, there's plenty of room on the strap. Wonder why the pavement on Chestnut Street is the slipperiest in the world? Always fall down just in front of our bank; most embarrassing; hope the paying teller doesn't see us. Very annoying to lose our balance just there. Awfully nice little girl in there who balances the books. Has a kind heart. The countless gold of a merry heart, as William Blake said. She looks awfully downcast when our balance gets the way it is now. ...
— Pipefuls • Christopher Morley
... hour, the ruined town Benin. We ascended the mountain from Rieha, turned round its eastern corner, and in one hour from Rieha, reached the village of Kefr Lata [Arabic]. We were hospitably received at the house of the Sheikh of Kefr Lata, although his women only were at home. A wondering story-teller amused us in the evening with chanting the Bedouin history of the Beni Helal. Kefr Lata belongs to Ibn Szeyaf, one of the first families ...
— Travels in Syria and the Holy Land • John Burckhardt
... de la Paix would make such a tale as your ordinary simple citizen, ignorant of the world's resources in luxury and therefore incredulous about them, would read with a laugh at the extravagance of the teller. ...
— The Price She Paid • David Graham Phillips
... something you must ask of those wiser than I, for I am only the story-teller, sitting in the shadow of the market-place, passing on the tale that comes to my ears. But I can remind you that May Eve is one of the most bewitched and bewitching times of the whole year—reason enough to account for any number of strange happenings; and I can point out ...
— The Primrose Ring • Ruth Sawyer
... high part of the town; and from the window of her summer apartment, we had the prospect of the sea, the islands, and the Asian mountains.—My letter is insensibly grown so long, I am ashamed of it. This is a very bad symptom. 'Tis well if I don't degenerate into a downright story-teller. It may be, our proverb, that knowledge is no burden, may be true, as to one's self but knowing too much, is very apt to make us troublesome to other ...
— Letters of the Right Honourable Lady M—y W—y M—e • Lady Mary Wortley Montague
... passengers said he was a clairvoyant. Hah!" Morgan expressed the ultimate of disgust. "He was a fortune-teller! He didn't know there was anything better than that! A fortune-teller! But he's a Talent! He's a born charlatan, but he's an authentic Talent, and he doesn't know what that is! He thinks predictions as Madame Porvis thinks scandals! And they're just as crazy! But he is a Talent ...
— Talents, Incorporated • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... opportunity while handing her into her sedan to say, 'We will try the fortune-teller for a lucky ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... complete Love Stories by popular authors, Set of Dominoes, 15 Portraits of Female Celebrities, Dictionary of Dreams, 20 Popular Songs, 134 Conundrums, 276 Autograph Album Selections, 67 Magical experiments, Lovers' Telegraph, Guide to Flirtation, Golden Wheel Fortune Teller, Magic and Mystic Age Tables, Game of Authors—43 pieces, with full directions—2 Morse Telegraph Alphabets, 11 Parlor Games, Calendar for current year, Games of Shadow Buff, Letters, etc., the Deaf and Dumb Alphabet. Send ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls, Vol. XIII, Nov. 28, 1891 • Various
... on one of the snowy walls he found a speck; swore; had it instantly removed. Thence into the labor-yard, and prepared a crank for an athletic prisoner by secretly introducing a weight, and so making the poor crank a story-teller, and the prologue to punishment. Returning to the body of the prison, he called out, "Prisoners on the list for hard labor to ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... was born with few nerves. A region especially afflicted was the confluence of the Croton and the Hudson, for the Kitchawan burying-ground was here, and the red people being disturbed by the tramping of white men over their graves, "the walking sachems of Teller's Point" were nightly to be met on their ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... The teller of that story who was on the spot at the time, says, that although having a great desire for the dollar, Tad did murmur a few times after this, and when they were ready to go back to Washington, Lincoln held up a dollar ...
— Ten Boys from History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... the point of her shoe cleared the door of the Well-House, and at the next her heels were up among the apples. Then Martin ensconced himself upon a lower limb of the tree, which had a mossy cushion against the trunk as though nature or time had designed it for a teller of tales. The milkmaids sprang quickly into other branches around him, shaking a hail of sweet apples about his head. What he could he caught, and dropped into the swinger's lap, whence from time to time he helped himself; and she ...
— Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard • Eleanor Farjeon
... in Cambridge! Cross the bay and see How a world delighted hastes to honor thee. Seek the fortune-teller and thy future hear; There is empire yonder; there ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend
... service to furnish some amusement. "Dick," a forecastle man, is a born story-teller, and we knew if we could get him started, ...
— A Gunner Aboard the "Yankee" • Russell Doubleday
... people are ineradicable. One among those instincts, so foolishly styled "superstition," runs in the blood of the populace, and tinges no less the intellects of better educated folk. More than one French statesman has been known to consult the fortune-teller's cards. For sceptical minds, astrology, in French, so oddly termed astrologie judiciare, is nothing more than a cunning device for making a profit out of one of the strongest of all the instincts of human nature—to wit, curiosity. The sceptical mind consequently ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac
... in the city where I lived, my house was near a small aua, a park in which was a tii, a monument, to a great writer, a teller of tales on paper. On a tall block of stone is a ship of gold, with the sails spread; so she seems to be sailing over the ocean. The friends of the teller of tales built this in in his honor after he died. Now that writer ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... menstruated once or twice before I first had her, and now her courses had stopped. There was no attempt at making a market of me, all needed was to get her right again. The elder took Martha to a fortune-teller, and she got better of her difficulty. I borrowed money of my aunt and giving Martha all I could, went back to London. She ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... the same time if I was a good "story teller." This of course gave me an "inkling" as to the best means of getting in his good graces. During the evening I lost no time in arriving at a point in our conversation where I could relate a few of my latest stories, which pleased him greatly. He became so much interested in ...
— Twenty Years of Hus'ling • J. P. Johnston
... an old barometer of the banjo type in the parlour of the White House, which, whatever might have been its character for veracity in former days, had now become such an inveterate story-teller, that it was pretty safe to accept as true, exactly the reverse of what it indicated. One evening Mr Sudberry kept tapping that antique and musical-looking instrument, with a view to get it to speak out ...
— Freaks on the Fells - Three Months' Rustication • R.M. Ballantyne
... naturel. And they are prying as children. For instance the European novelist marries off his hero and heroine and leaves them to consummate marriage in privacy; even Tom Jones has the decency to bolt the door. But the Eastern story teller, especially this unknown "prose Shakespeare," must usher you, with a flourish, into the bridal chamber and narrate to you, with infinite gusto, everything he sees and hears. Again we must remember that grossness and indecency, ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... army tempts him with opportunities for intrigue; but whether in the shape of Machiavelisms, miracles, or mutinies, he is forever making mischief. Whether as messenger, dancing-master, conjurer, fortune-teller, speculator, mountebank, politician, priest, or Sepoy, he is ever the same Asirvadam the Brahmin,—sleekest of lackeys, most servile of sycophants, expertest of tricksters, smoothest of hypocrites, coolest ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... details, tells harrowing stories concerning hair-raising escapes from shot and shell. He splashes the surrounding rocks with gouts of blood, and then shudders dismally at the sight his fancy has conjured up. When the thrilled listener has refreshed the tale-teller from his whisky flask, the romancist takes up the thread of his narrative once more, and tells how the Lancers thundered over the shivering veldts in pursuit of flying hordes of foemen, and for awhile, like some graveyard ghoul, he revels in the moans of the dying and ...
— Campaign Pictures of the War in South Africa (1899-1900) - Letters from the Front • A. G. Hales
... this reproach has been removed by Mr. Gilbert Parker, now a resident in London, but a Canadian by birth, education and sympathies, who is animated by a laudable ambition of giving form and vitality to the abundant materials that exist in the Dominion for the true story-teller. His works show great skill in the use of historic matter, more than ordinary power in the construction of a plot, and, above all, a literary finish which is not equalled by any Canadian writer in the same field of effort. Other meritorious Canadian workers ...
— Canada under British Rule 1760-1900 • John G. Bourinot
... had become a sort of oracle among the dwellers in "Mill avenue," as the street was facetiously called, and he was ready for any dish of gossip, not infrequently making himself conspicuous as a teller of news; he was faithful in gathering up and retailing small items among such ladies of the "avenue" as, being exempted from mill work because of family cares, had time and inclination, and this latter was seldom lacking, to chatter with him about the ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch
... again. That is the difficulty with the unprofessional story-teller: he yaws back and forth and can't keep in the wind; he drops his characters overboard when he hasn't any further use for them and drowns them; he forgets the coffee-pot and the frying-pan and all the other small essentials, and, if he carries ...
— The Man in Lower Ten • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... Aiwohikupua and his brother, the Sun god, not to Laieikawai, and were certainly not hers when Waka deserted her. If they were given her for protection by Kahalaomapuana or through the influence of the seer with the Kauai family, the story-teller does not inform us of ...
— The Hawaiian Romance Of Laieikawai • Anonymous
... went out on the porch with their pipes and we to the sitting-room, where Molly, the story-teller, seated herself in a comfortable chair, her feet outstretched before her. She made a lap, a generous lap, to which she tried to beguile the baby, ...
— The Woman Who Toils - Being the Experiences of Two Gentlewomen as Factory Girls • Mrs. John Van Vorst and Marie Van Vorst
... usual supper of berries, cake, and ice cream, there will be some fine tableaus, I am told, and also a tent with a real gypsy fortune-teller, they say. I suppose we ought to patronize it for charity's sake, and because the girls might find ...
— Dainty's Cruel Rivals - The Fatal Birthday • Mrs. Alex McVeigh Miller
... a number of his fellow-creatures—was, that he could not bear to have any one looking over him when he was reading. In early life, when he used to read poems, plays, or stories, this had been the natural consequence of the desire which the reader feels, like the poet, or the actor, or the story-teller, to make surprises, to pause, to excite expectation; and this sort of effect was naturally defeated when a third person's eyes could run on before him, and see what was coming. On such occasions, therefore, he was accustomed to place himself in such a position ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... in clumps, all a-bloom, as if the farmer had given up cultivating, and let things just go to rack and ruin. I was never up there myself, but from what I've heard my father say, I rather think that must be the Hoskins place. They say he consulted some fortune teller a couple of years ago, who told him he would some day discover a gold mine on his property that would make him a millionaire; and ever since the farmer has spent about all his time digging here and there, but up to now without any success ...
— The Aeroplane Boys Flight - A Hydroplane Roundup • John Luther Langworthy
... Mills. He was in the middle thirties, temperate, studious, a moderate smoker, and—one would have said—a bachelor of the bachelors, armour-plated against Cupid's well-meant but obsolete artillery. Sometimes Sidney Mercer's successor in the teller's cage, a sentimental young man, would broach the topic of Woman and Marriage. He would ask Henry if he ever intended to get married. On such occasions Henry would look at him in a manner which was a blend of scorn, amusement, and indignation; and ...
— The Man with Two Left Feet - and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... when the decision of the white men was made known to him, and the native chief was naturally much distressed, for, not only was he about to lose two men of whom he had become very fond, but he was on the point of being bereft of his story-teller, the opener up of his mind, the man who, above all others, had taught him to think about his Maker ...
— Black Ivory • R.M. Ballantyne
... form, and Una en otra and Elia o la Espana treinta anos ha are excellent specimens of picturesque narration. It would be difficult to maintain that Fernan Caballero was a great literary artist, but it is certain that she was a born teller of stories and that she has a graceful style very suitable to her purpose. She came into Spain at a most happy moment, before the new order had perceptibly disturbed the old, and she brought to bear not alone a fine natural gift of observation, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... her that they resolved and declared that no one short of a lord, or a rich baronet should ever marry her—that she should become "my lady" somebody, or remain Kathleen More, to the day of her death. They were strengthened in this resolution by a famous fortune-teller, who foretold that Kathleen would become a grand lady—live in a castle, ride in a coach, and have jewels and fine dresses, ponies, pages, parrots, and ...
— Stories and Legends of Travel and History, for Children • Grace Greenwood
... coax, Mr. Craig. Last job was a paying teller. He had twenty thousand in his jeans when he stepped out of the taxi that had taken him and Elsham to the steamer dock. Tickets for Rio! Crowley, our pinch artist, nabbed him and bawled out Elsham, who was ...
— Joan of Arc of the North Woods • Holman Day
... last ride The Englishman Canada The Call Coronation Poem and Prayer Two Voices A Ballade of the Unborn Dead The Truth Teller Just You Reflection Songs of Love and the Sea Acquaintance In India's Dreamy Land Rangoon Thoughts on leaving Japan On seeing the Diabutsu—at Kamakura, Japan The Little Lady of the Bullock Cart East and West The Squanderer ...
— The Englishman and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... at school with a teller of stories knows what the wonder means—how he or she is followed about and besought in a whisper to relate romances; how groups gather round and hang on the outskirts of the favored party in the hope of being allowed to join in and listen. Sara not only could ...
— A Little Princess • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... claims to be somewhat clairvoyant. She gave a brief analysis of my character, stating accurately my regular calling and a few of my personal traits even indicating roughly my bringing-up and where. She is not a professional fortune-teller, and merely ventured a few statements. My impression was that she was an unusually close and alert observer. Like her mother she is somewhat taciturn. I should have said that her mother was reserved as well as forgetful. The mother never ventured a word except in answer to a question, ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Arkansas Narratives Part 3 • Works Projects Administration
... the Dean of ST. PAUL'S at a recent social gathering not in the character of a wet blanket, but as a teller of jocund tales and a retailer of humorous anecdotes, must not be taken as an isolated and transient transformation, but as foreshadowing a general conversion of writers and publicists hitherto associated with ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, March 17, 1920 • Various
... house. His Eastern costume was almost equal to that of the Dey in magnificence, but there was a tinselly look about the embroidery, and a glassy sheen in the jewels, which, added to the humorous and undignified cast of his countenance, bespoke him one of low degree. He was the Dey's story-teller, and filled much the same office at the palace that was held by court jesters in the olden time. The presence of some such individual in Achmet's court, even in the first quarter of the present century, was rendered necessary by the fact that the Dey himself had risen from the ranks, and was ...
— The Pirate City - An Algerine Tale • R.M. Ballantyne
... by a confederacy, consisting of Charles Duncomb, receiver-general of the excise, Bartholomew Burton, who possessed a place in that branch of the revenue, John Knight, treasurer of the customs, and Reginald Marriot, a deputy-teller of the exchequer. This last became evidence, and the proof turning out very strong and full, the house resolved to make examples of the delinquents. Duncomb and Knight, both members of parliament, were expelled and committed to the Tower; Burton was sent to ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... double tongue; perhaps he knew that the accusation was just enough, and he had no reason to tremble for his popularity on that score. He must have been a great liar, indeed, to have excelled or even equalled the most ordinary story-teller in the Comanche nation; for the mendacity of these Indians would have been ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid
... negroes than Georgia? In ante-bellum days Georgia outdid all other slave-holding States in cruelty to its slave population. The North Carolina master could subdue the most unruly slave by threatening to sell him or her into Georgia. The old negro voo-doo doctor or fortune teller could fill any negro for whom she had formed a dislike with terror, and bring him to her feet begging for mercy by walking backward, making a cross with her heel and ...
— Hanover; Or The Persecution of the Lowly - A Story of the Wilmington Massacre. • David Bryant Fulton
... the reason for his wide diversities of narrative: he had to make one story as rich as a ruby sunset, another as grey as a hoary monolith: for the story was the soul, or rather the meaning, of the bodily vision. It is quite inappropriate to judge 'The Teller of Tales' (as the Samoans called him) by the particular novels he wrote, as one would judge Mr George Moore by 'Esther Waters.' These novels were only the two or three of his soul's adventures that he happened to tell. But he died with a ...
— Twelve Types • G.K. Chesterton
... of romances lying about unused," said Ben. "I should like to have a story-teller's ...
— A Little Girl of Long Ago • Amanda Millie Douglas
... jobs of the kind, he came to Reno and settled down for another two years to study at the University. And so on. The scene kept changing with kaleidoscopic rapidity until finally he found a congenial position in the Washoe County Bank, with the position of Receiving Teller. Political ambitions then began to take possession of this ever-progressive man, and he—was elected a Republican member of the 25th Legislature from Washoe County, receiving the highest vote of any of the twenty-seven candidates. In recognition of ...
— Reno - A Book of Short Stories and Information • Lilyan Stratton
... goodness; I never had time to waste over the crooked letters. But I have heard say that prophetes means, not a foreteller, but an out-teller—one who declares the will of a deity, and interprets his oracles. ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley
... pretentiousness will not prevent the unpremeditated betrayal of conditions, facts, and incidents, which help reconstruct the milieu; how much more, then, the unaffected simplicity of the born story-teller. I do not know how Froissart ranks as an authority with historians. I have not read him for years; and my recollections are chiefly those of childhood, with all the remoteness and all the vividness which memory preserves from early impressions. I think I now might find him wearisome; not ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... handwriting, from which it was foretold that she should marry, in middle life, a foreign prince younger than herself; and probably be the mother of a son, who should be prosperous in his middle age. Catherine de' Medici also, to whom some female fortune-teller had predicted that all her sons should be kings, hoped, after the election of her second son to the throne of Poland, to find the full accomplishment of the prophecy in the advancement of the youngest to the matrimonial crown of England. So serious was the belief of that age in ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... corresponded so exactly with the communication of AEGROTUS, that I must believe either that your correspondent has seen that letter, or that both writers had their information from a common story-teller. ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 82, May 24, 1851 • Various
... new stories as any of them might have acquired since they had last met. After modestly standing at the door for several days, Mr. Lincoln was reminded of a story, and by New Year's he was recognized as the champion story-teller of the Capitol. His favorite seat was at the left of the open fireplace, tilted back in his chair, with his long legs reaching over to the chimney jamb. He never told a story twice, but appeared to have an endless ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. VI., No. 6, May, 1896 • Various
... In this version of Morris, the main features of the saga are kept, and distracting details are properly subordinated to the principal interest. Through the nineteen divisions of this story the interest moves rapidly, and wonder as to the issue is never lost. As a story-teller, Morris is distinctly powerful in this poem, and all the qualities that endear the story-teller to us are here found joined to many that make the poet a favorite with us. There are no lyrics in the poem—the original saga was without the song-snatches that ...
— The Influence of Old Norse Literature on English Literature • Conrad Hjalmar Nordby
... one of the king's daughters-in-law. In this position his duty would be partly to perform various humble work in the household, partly also to help amuse the leisure of the inmates, and it is easy to suppose that he soon won favor as a fluent story-teller. He early became acquainted with the seamy as well as the brilliant side of courtly life; for in 1359 he was in the campaign in France and was taken prisoner. That he was already valued appears from the king's subscription of the equivalent of a thousand dollars of ...
— A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher
... young man when he was telling in low whispers how he hoped to make the world wiser and better by his presence in it, or when he narrated some incident of great danger in which he took part, where (unconsciously, perhaps, on the teller's part) his own heroism was shown forth to the best possible advantage. Then Bessie's eyes would grow large and humid and tender, and a subdued light would come into them as she hung breathlessly on his words. Did not Desdemona capture Othello ...
— Revenge! • by Robert Barr
... When at 1.30 the little command mounted and moved away it was at brisk, steady walk, "column half right," with the pole star high aloft but straight ahead. Ten minutes out and they struck the trot. "Bedad!" said Trooper Riley, at the rear of column, "Old Chrome Teller's had his nap out ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... something in a bank, Mrs. Salisbury. He's paying teller in that little bank at Burton Corners, beyond Burning Woods. But, of course, he hopes for promotion; they all do. I believe he is trying to get into the River Falls Mutual Savings, ...
— The Treasure • Kathleen Norris
... folk-tales is equally indicative of the temperament of a nation. The stories which have come down to us from ancient Egypt are often as frivolous as they are quaint. Nothing delighted the Egyptians more than the listening to a tale told by an expert story-teller; and it is to be supposed that such persons were in as much demand in the old days as they are now. One may still read of the adventures of the Prince who was fated to die by a dog, a snake, or a crocodile; ...
— The Treasury of Ancient Egypt - Miscellaneous Chapters on Ancient Egyptian History and Archaeology • Arthur E. P. B. Weigall
... the astrologer predict anything of the kind to me," she replied. From this I knew the cause of her being in the street so late,—a secret visit to some fortune-teller. Then she called to the stout woman, who was looking for a place to step over the pool. "Come, Isa, in the name of Heaven. You know that if the ...
— An Enemy To The King • Robert Neilson Stephens
... speaking with the king, behold, the damsel raised a corner of the curtain that shut in the litter, so she might look upon the speaker, and saw the king. When Azadbekht beheld her and noted her fashion and her loveliness (and indeed never set story-teller[FN95] eyes on her like,) his soul inclined to her and she took hold upon his heart and he was ravished by her sight. So he said to the eunuch, "Turn the mule's head and return, for I am King Azadbekht ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne
... in its whole breadth by the Rocky Mountains. An English family, after being ruined in St Louis, and reduced to their last hundred pounds, are persuaded by a Scottish miner to accompany him across this desert to New Mexico. 'They are a wonderful people,' says the story-teller, 'these same Scotch. They are but a small nation, yet their influence is felt everywhere upon the globe. Go where you will, you will find them in positions of trust and importance—always prospering, yet, in the midst of prosperity, still ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal - Volume XVII., No 422, New Series, January 31, 1852 • Various
... was to get the forged check certified. That, also, proved a very simple matter. Any one can walk into a bank and get a check for $25,000 certified, while if he appears, a stranger, before the window of the paying teller to cash a check for twenty-five dollars he would almost be thrown out of the bank. Banks will certify at a glance practically any check that looks right, but they pass on the responsibility of cashing them. Thus before the ...
— Constance Dunlap • Arthur B. Reeve
... there was a cave high up among the precipices on the southeast side of Nipple Top. He scarcely volunteered the information, and with seeming reluctance gave us any particulars about it. I always admire this art by which the accomplished story-teller lets his listener drag the reluctant tale of the marvelous from him, and makes you in a manner responsible for its improbability. If this is well managed, the listener is always eager to believe a great deal more than ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... some people to the end of life. It is not uncommon to find people who dare not go out alone after dark because they were scared in childhood. Children like exciting stories that would naturally inspire fear, but it is not difficult for the reader or story teller to inform the little ones that there are no big black bears or bold robbers in the neighborhood, and that now there is nothing to fear in ...
— Maintaining Health • R. L. Alsaker
... with his goods, and Lincoln lived by odd jobs. At the very beginning one Mentor Graham, a schoolmaster officiating in some election, employed him as a clerk, and the clerk seized the occasion to make himself well known to New Salem as a story-teller. Then there was a heavy job at rail-splitting, and another job in navigating the Sangamon River. Offutt's store was at last set up, and for about a year the assistant in this important establishment had valuable opportunities of conversation with all New Salem. He ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... The receiving-teller gave her her vouchers. She put them in her handbag and somehow got round a perambulator, and the two went ...
— Bertram Cope's Year • Henry Blake Fuller
... instance, have contented myself with writing out the narratives of a veteran shipmaster, one of the Inspectors, whom I should be most ungrateful not to mention, since scarcely a day passed that he did not stir me to laughter and admiration by his marvellous gifts as a story-teller. Could I have preserved the picturesque force of his style, and the humorous coloring which nature taught him how to throw over his descriptions, the result, I honestly believe, would have been something new in literature. Or I might readily have found a more serious task. It ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... always in Canada regarded as a young man, with fine business qualities and promise. For three years just before his connection with the rebels, and their Northern conspirators, he occupied a very responsible position as a clerk and teller, in one of the branches of the bank of Upper Canada, and was in every way worthy the confidence reposed in him. During the spring and summer of 1864, he however became acquainted with rebel soldiers in Canada, ...
— The Great North-Western Conspiracy In All Its Startling Details • I. Windslow Ayer
... sat under the shade of a big tree, mopping his brow with a red handkerchief—for the weather was somewhat sultry. Before the hip was a table covered with a blue cloth, and upon the cloth was embroidered the words: "Professor Hipmus, Fortune Teller." ...
— The Woggle-Bug Book • L. Frank Baum
... would have made much impression on that stolid, prosaic intelligence and that heart of lead. Besides, according to some versions of the tale, it was not, after all, a letter from his wife which impressed him, but only the warning of a fortune-teller—a woman who admonished the King to be careful of the life of his imprisoned consort, because it was fated for him that he should not survive her a year. This story, too, is told of many kings and other ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume I (of 4) • Justin McCarthy |
