"Tale" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... had peppered him in the eye, ten years before, as he was crossing Barrow Common at dusk. One eye had been taken out, and the other was almost useless; there he sat, blind, and cheerfully telling the tale—"Muster Marsham—Muster Henry Marsham—had been verra kind—ten shillin' a week, and an odd job now and then. I do suffer terr'ble, miss, at times—but ther's noa good ...
— The Testing of Diana Mallory • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... with this news, and withdrew to my cabinet. Almost immediately afterwards Madame la Duchesse d'Orleans joined me there. We were bursting to speak to each other alone, upon a point on which our thoughts were alike. She had left Meudon not an hour before, and she had the same tale to tell as the Chancellor. Everybody was at ease there she said; and then she extolled the care and capacities of the doctors, exaggerating their success; and, to speak frankly and to our shame, she and I lamented together to see Monseigneur, in spite of his age and his fat, escape from ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... to get round the settlement to the coast, reach the settled districts, and, by some tale of shipwreck or of wandering, procure assistance. As to what was particularly to be done when he found himself among free men, he did not pause to consider. At that point his difficulties seemed to him to end. Let him but traverse the desert ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... had loved Nero, so did the aristocracy love Marcus Aurelius; his foster-father Antonin excepted, he was the only gentleman that had sat on the throne. No wonder they loved him; and seeing this early edition of the prince in the fairy tale emerge from the bogs of Germany, his fair face haloed by the glisten and gold of his hair, hearts went out to him; the wish of his putative father was ratified, and the son of a gladiator was emperor ...
— Imperial Purple • Edgar Saltus
... one clue to the age of the legend of Havelok in the statement by the eleventh-century Norman poet that his tale comes from a British source, which at least gives a very early date for the happenings related; while another version tells us that the king of "Lindesie" was a Briton. Welsh names occur, accordingly, in several places; ...
— Havelok The Dane - A Legend of Old Grimsby and Lincoln • Charles Whistler
... story, true or legendary. The Teuton is easily the world's master in the art of conserving local lore. As one speeds down the broad breast of this wondrous river, gay with summer and flushed with the laughter of early vineyards, so close is the network of legend that the swiftly read or spoken tale of one locality is scarce over ere the traveller is confronted by another. It is a surfeit of romance, an inexhaustible hoard of the ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence
... Southern leaders, three years before, had eagerly joined with Douglas to claim a right of free choice for the Kansas people. The shamelessness of this attempt to trick them out of it is more significant even than the tale of Preston Brooks. There was no hot blood there; the affair was quietly plotted by respected leaders of the South. They were men in many ways of character and honour, understood by weak men like Buchanan to represent ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... the olive-tree; but we all know of the treatment she received at the hands of the Ant. On such trifles does Fame depend! A legend of very dubious value, its moral as bad as its natural history; a nurse's tale whose only merit is its brevity; such is the basis of a reputation which will survive the wreck of centuries no less surely than the tale of Puss-in-Boots and ...
— Social Life in the Insect World • J. H. Fabre
... The tale is as old as the Eden Tree—and new as the new-cut tooth— For each man knows ere his lip-thatch grows he is master of Art and Truth; And each man hears as the twilight nears, to the beat of his dying heart, The Devil drum ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various
... of this tale was taken from The Mariners' Chronicle, compiled by a person named Scott early in the last century—a curious book of narratives of maritime adventures, with exceedingly quaint illustrations. Nothing has ever shown me ...
— A Modern Telemachus • Charlotte M. Yonge
... illustrator are without end, and the problems are beyond number. It is a difficult performance to hand out, to order, pictures in which human emotions stand counterfeited. In the fact that illustration springs from and stands with the written tale and must finally serve its proper place between board covers, the man who labors at it finds some of his work already finished for him by the author. But it is a saving that tantalizes more ...
— The Building of a Book • Various
... wholesome tale, wherein the love affairs of Chip and Delia Whitman are charmingly and humorously told. Chip's jealousy of Dr. Cecil Grantham, who turns out to be a big, blue eyed young woman is very amusing. A clever, realistic story of the ...
— 'Me-Smith' • Caroline Lockhart
... woman may forget that she is neither young nor handsome; for the absence of these claims to attention does not expose her to be neglected by the male sex. In England, the elderly and the ugly "could a tale unfold" of the naivete with which men evince their sense of the importance of youth and beauty, and their oblivion of the presence of ...
— The Idler in France • Marguerite Gardiner
... so much of the ordinary experience of ordinary Christians should present a sadly broken line—a bright point here and there, separated by long stretches of darkness? The gaps in the continuity of their joy are the tell-tale indicators of the interruptions in their faith. If the latter were continuous, the former would be unbroken. Always believe, and you will always be glad ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren
... and whispered again to the Gascon, "Let him tell it, friend; this tale, at least, is worth the trouble. I ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue
... the forest and of the wild rushing stream," exclaimed Sassacus, in his own language, "be to him as the rock to which the wind whispers an idle tale." ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams
... time, as everybody, save the black musicians, is dancing the everlasting contra-danza. Some of the excited toe-trippers have abandoned their masks. One of these, an olive-complexioned senorita, wears a tell-tale patch of blue paint on her left cheek; condemning testimony that at some period of the evening she danced with that 'mamarracho' whose face is painted like an Indian chief! In a dark corner of the billiard-room, where ...
— The Pearl of the Antilles, or An Artist in Cuba • Walter Goodman
... Long time since the tale began. You would not live to wrong your brothers: Oh lad, you died ...
— A Shropshire Lad • A. E. Housman
... the arms of her wheel-chair and resumed her tale, as if she had not been interrupted. It was of no interest as a story, yet possessed a sentimental value from the fact that all the characters save the raconteur were dead, and possibly all but her forgotten. Fran loved to hear the old lady evoke the shades of long ago, shades ...
— Fran • John Breckenridge Ellis
... from various sources, more or less unreliable, while Col. Booker was in a similar position before advancing on the Fenian force at Ridgeway. Had an efficient troop of cavalry scouts been employed to thoroughly scour the country in advance of these two columns, a different tale might be related of ...
— Troublous Times in Canada - A History of the Fenian Raids of 1866 and 1870 • John A. Macdonald
... Bird-catcher; the other players then each choose the name of a bird, but no one must choose the owl, as it is forbidden. All the players then sit in a circle with their hands on their knees, except the Bird-catcher, who stands in the center, and tells a tale about birds, taking care to specially mention the ones he knows to have been chosen by the company. As each bird's name is called, the owner must imitate its note as well as he can, but when the owl is named, all hands must be put behind the chairs, and remain ...
— Games For All Occasions • Mary E. Blain
... rosignoli con le loro musiche ariuare, non che con questa carta: l'amore singulare che e conciputo fra noi, e simile a vn'horto di Vccelli vagi; che il Signor Dio la faci degna di saluacione, e il fine suo sia tale, che in questo mondo e nel' futuro sia con pace. Doppo comparsi li suoi honorati presenti da la sedia de la Serenita vostra, sapera che sono capitati in vna hora che ogni punto e stato vna consolation di lungo tempo, per occasione ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, - and Discoveries of The English Nation, v5 - Central and Southern Europe • Richard Hakluyt
... two parts) is really as amusing as any 'tale' that ever emanated from a female hand. There is a moral melancholy about it that is inexpressibly interesting, like two lovers intended for each other, and that some untoward circumstance has separated; they are 'parted,' and yet are still 'attached,' and it is evident ...
— The Sketches of Seymour (Illustrated), Complete • Robert Seymour
... Fall out, which first shall let me in. I enjoy my selfe, what need I more? Of every sense I lock the dore; And close shut up, a taske I find In the retyring house o'th' mind: The Theatre of my life I view My owne spectator and iudge too— Whether the tale I first begun In well digested Acts I'ue spun; In every scene, if every clause Goes neatly off, with heav'ns applause: Each Action scan'd, is there set free Or sentenc'd by authoritie— If there, with well Done I escape, I'me blest without the ...
— The Odes of Casimire, Translated by G. Hils • Mathias Casimire Sarbiewski
... our unexpected shame, and the tale of the table and the dancing plates was not told as a sad one. But it is a sad one when you ...
— Lin McLean • Owen Wister
... "Whereby hangs a tale for when we've talked ourselves out, though I have often thought it was that long swim that started it. Still, the Island of Elba is a rummy show, I can assure you. And ...
— Raffles - Further Adventures of the Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung
... XLVII His tale the mournful cavalier so taught; And when he now had closed his history, With pity touched, somewhile immersed in thought Rinaldo mused, and after made reply: "Right ill advice to thee Melissa brought, Who moved three thus to anger wasps; and I Perceive in thee small wisdom, that ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... only on the side of the Agora) is covered with vivid frescoes. Here Polygnotus and other master painters have spread out the whole legendary story of the capture of Troy and of the defeat of the Amazons; likewise the more historical tale of the battle of Marathon. Yet another promenade, the "Stoa of Zeus," is sacred to Zeus, Giver of Freedom. The walls are not frescoed, but hung with the ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis
... if so in truth she has. If therefore she will come with us and we can escape with her, why, let her come. Only swear to me, Aziel, that you will make no wife of her till the king, your grandsire, has heard this tale and given judgment ...
— Elissa • H. Rider Haggard
... The goatherd's tale gave great satisfaction to all the hearers, and the canon especially enjoyed it, for he had remarked with particular attention the manner in which it had been told, which was as unlike the manner of a clownish goatherd ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... tricks; and how easily then may they cheat an honest, unsuspecting country justice! I have been led into this excusable digression from the recollection of Aris's exposure in the House of Commons; and what a tale shall I have by and by to unfold, of the scenes that are perpetrated with impunity in this gaol. Some of the most atrocious acts are here made a merit of, and the gaoler even boasts of them in the ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt
... who sat by Thorpe, was absorbed in the tale, and her large dark eyes glowed, with intense interest ...
— The Come Back • Carolyn Wells
... have no glory though martyred. The youth felt it, even to the seeing of why it was; and he resolved, in justice to the dear girl, that he would break loose from his fetters, as we call our weakness. Behold, Rose met him descending the stairs, and, taking his hand, sang, unabashed, by the tell-tale colour coming over her face, a stave of a little Portuguese air that they had both been fond of in Portugal; and he, listening to it, and looking in her eyes, saw that his feelings in—the old time had been hers. Instantly the old time gave him its breath, the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Vandeloup, with a smile, 'but I refuse to accept any terms till I have given you thoroughly to understand what I mean; so you must hear this little tale of Adele Blondet.' ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume
... be admitted that Reason cannot give any answer. Socrates, when his reasoning comes to an end, often permits himself to tell a story. "My dialectic," he seems to say, "is of no further use; but here is a tale for you," and as he goes on with it we can see his satyr eyes gleam with an intensity which shows that he did not consider he was inventing a mere fable. That was the way in which he taught theology. Perhaps we may find that something less than logic and more than a dream may be ...
— Pages from a Journal with Other Papers • Mark Rutherford
... "Tale me," said the landlord, as he concluded the recital, "w'y deen Bras Coupe mague dad curze on Agricola Fusilier? Becoze Agricola ees one sorcier! Elz 'e bin ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
... Chagrin," which we render as "The Magic Skin." Published in 1831, it is the earliest in date of his veritable masterpieces, and the finest in conception. There is no novel more soberly true to life than this strange fairy tale. His hero, the Marquis de Valentin, is a young aristocrat of the Byronic type. He rejects the simple joys and stern realities of human existence; he wants more than life can give. He gets what he wants. He obtains a magic skin which enables him to fulfil his ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol. I • Various
... be questioned concerning the theories which they spread: and not without some purely literary advantage. Bacon, Hobbes, and Locke are the ancestors of many poets who have never read their works, but who have breathed an air impregnated with their thought. Dreamers will be followed, singers, tale-tellers, and preachers, wherever it pleases them to lead us: to the Walhalla of the north, to the green dales of Erin, to the Saxon church of Bradford-on-Avon, to Blackheath, to the "Tabard" and the "Mermaid," to the "Globe," ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... me," laughs he. "We hit the glory trail. No human man as I have read Darst loop a ragin' lion's head, Nor ever hawse could drag one dead Until we told the tale." ...
— Songs of the Cattle Trail and Cow Camp • Various
... Shakespeare to such of his readers as find the intricacies of the plots of the dramas somewhat difficult to manage. The stories which constitute the main plots are given, and are interspersed with the dramatic dialogue in such a manner as to make tale and verse interpret ...
— Little Lucy's Wonderful Globe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... desire to be widely read in history of men and their arts will become irresistible; and through the knowledge gradually amassed it will be thought a sorry chance if any ramble of wider compass yield no vision which in comeliness or deformity tells its tale of changing fortune. To appreciate human work, and the conditions under which it is born, is to exult in abounding sympathy with this man's conquest over things poor in promise, or to condole with that man's failure to do the best ...
— Apologia Diffidentis • W. Compton Leith
... of Edgar A. Poe, who was then elaborating those complex tales into whose labyrinths he leads the trembling reader, until, when he almost feels himself lost, the clue suddenly brings him to daylight and to upper air. Poe founded upon this terrible tragedy the tale of Marie Roget, in which he effects a plausible solution of the question of guilt. Why did he not also solve that question, equally perplexing, as to who murdered Ellen Jewett? The deed was committed ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... it was a bum rap they were trying to pin on Mary as soon as I heard about it," I explained. "This business about Mary having HC. There just isn't any such Psi power as hallucination, and every one of you knows it—it's an old wives' tale. I wouldn't touch this little lady with a ten-foot pole if I really thought she had the Stigma. I have a living to make around this town—and you can't handle Stigma business and ...
— Modus Vivendi • Gordon Randall Garrett
... a tale that not everyone knows, don't you see. And Mistress Becky would not care to be reminded of it, mark you, for reasons I ...
— Mr. Wicker's Window • Carley Dawson
... amounting almost to contempt, to the speeches on this occasion, which were of every kind and description. On the second day of my stay my host's wife came back from Weimar (where it was market-day) full of a curious tale: the composer of an opera which was being performed there on that very day had been obliged to leave Weimar suddenly because the warrant for his arrest had arrived from Dresden. My host, who had been let into my secret by Professor Seibert, asked playfully what his name was. ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... a late phase in the life of Jo Hertz. He had been a quite different sort of canine. The staid and harassed brother of three unwed and selfish sisters is an under dog. The tale of how Jo Hertz came to be a Loop-hound should not be compressed within the limits of a short story. It should be told as are the photo plays, with frequent throwbacks and many cut-ins. To condense twenty-three years of a man's life into some five or six thousand words requires a verbal economy ...
— Cheerful—By Request • Edna Ferber
... would take time. In that case we should have to go, first of all, to Varses and see Benny and give all the performances that we could on our way. And then on our return we would have the money and we would go to Chavanon and act the fairy tale, "The Prince's Cow." ...
— Nobody's Boy - Sans Famille • Hector Malot
... that at this time Mrs Hume did not know all that was to be known of John and his troubles. As for the minister, he was scarcely as much moved as his wife thought he ought to have been by the tale she had told. ...
— Allison Bain - By a Way she knew not • Margaret Murray Robertson
... "A nice tell-tale mess you've made of this business, Power," he said savagely, the red spot still lingering on his cheek, as he confronted his former friend; "I hope ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar
... will suffice for the impost called "Diagraph[e]." At this time especially, the cities were afflicted with heavy losses, the causes and extent of which I will say nothing about, for it would be an endless tale. These losses had to be repaired by the landed proprietors in proportion to the rate at which they were assessed. Their misery, however, did not stop there, but, although pestilence had attacked the whole world, and, especially, the Roman Empire; ...
— The Secret History of the Court of Justinian • Procopius
... and the stern-windows were fitted with handsome lace curtains, much too large for the position which they occupied. Two very handsome swinging lamps, of different designs, were suspended from the beams; a tell-tale compass and a ship's barometer occupied respectively the fore and after ends of the skylight; and the bulkhead which formed the fore end of the cabin was fitted above the sideboard with racks in which reposed six repeating rifles; the panels which ...
— The Pirate Island - A Story of the South Pacific • Harry Collingwood
... or the real motives for Fouquet's disgrace, it was never considered unjust, and this leads me to tell the tale of his mad folly ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan
... only sighed in her sleep, and muttered, wickedly, 'Ma, take me home. I 'm starved at Cotton's.' 'Mercy on me! is the child going to have a fever?' cried the old lady, who did not observe the tell tale nuts at ...
— An Old-fashioned Girl • Louisa May Alcott
... heart, that the silly thing, dancing with delight, seems as if it meant to leap out of your breast; and it is not mere seeming either—for hearts have been altogether lost in this way before now. Oh! it's a dangerous game, that game of chess. But to return to my tale. ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... good fellow," said Levy, with great composure, "you need not threaten me, for what interest can I possibly have in tale-telling to Lord L'Estrange? As to hating you—pooh! You snub me in private, you cut me in public, you refuse to come to my dinners, you'll not ask me to your own; still there is no man I like better, nor would more willingly serve. When do ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... "that this must be one of the embellishments which have crept in since you first began telling the tale. I don't think I should keep it in if I were you, because the fact that there are neither lions or elephants in South America throws a doubt upon the accuracy of this portion ...
— By Sheer Pluck - A Tale of the Ashanti War • G. A. Henty
... C. to a girl rallied round its chief. After that sad Saturday the meetings were resumed with as much spirit as ever. Katy's steadiness and uniform politeness and sweet temper impressed even those who would have been glad to believe a tale against her, and in short time the affair ceased to be a subject for discussion,— was almost forgotten, in fact, except for a sore spot in Katy's heart, and one page in Rose Red's album, upon which, under the date of that fatal day, were written these words, headed by an appalling skull and ...
— What Katy Did At School • Susan Coolidge
... her arms, and which she pressed ever and anon with frantic energy to her breast, uttering occasionally a wail of such heart-broken sadness that the tears sprang irresistibly into my eyes while I gazed upon her. There needed no explanation of her tale of woe. The poor mother had crept back to her hut after the fierce din of battle was over to search for her child, and she had found it; but ah, who can conceive the unutterable anguish of heart that its ...
— The Gorilla Hunters • R.M. Ballantyne
... when the master leaned and called he found something in his great heart with which to answer. A ghost of his old buoyancy came in his stride, the drooping head rose, one ear quivered up, and he ran against the challenge of those fresh ponies from Wilsonville. There were men who doubted it when the tale was told, but Mark Retherton swore to ...
— The Seventh Man • Max Brand
... Mofina Mendes is especially celebrated because Mofina Mendes, personification of ill-luck, with her pot of oil is the forerunner of La Fontaine's Pierrette et son pot au lait: it was perhaps suggested to Vicente by the tale of Do[n]a Truhana's pot of honey in El Conde Lucanor; the theme of counting one's chickens before they are hatched also forms the subject of one of the pasos, entitled Las Aceitunas, of the goldbeater of Seville, Lope de Rueda[147]. Vicente's piece consists, like some picture of El Greco, ...
— Four Plays of Gil Vicente • Gil Vicente
... of Five Hundred. It is perfectly clear, however, that, as soon as the plan was carried into active operation, the Athenians could not, as Diodorus would lead us to suppose, have been kept in ignorance of its nature; and all of the tale of Diodorus to which we can lend our belief is, that the people permitted the Five Hundred to examine the project, and that the popular assembly ratified the approbation of that senate without inquiring the reasons upon which ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... tale of human passion, in past ages, there is something of interest even in the remoteness of the time. We love to feel within us the bond which unites the most distant era—men, nations, customs perish; THE AFFECTIONS ARE IMMORTAL!—they are the sympathies ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... were not ended. In the following year he was again at Port Jackson with another tale of woe. He had never reached his home, though he had actually been within sight of it. Instead of being allowed to land there, he had been carried away by the unprincipled captain, robbed again of his ...
— A History of the English Church in New Zealand • Henry Thomas Purchas
... the tale tells how the Tarquins were driven out to a perpetual exile, and by and by allied themselves with Porsena, and marched on Rome, and were stopped only at the Sublician bridge by ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 1 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... An oriental tale relates how the rose was made white by God, but that Adam looked upon her when she was unfolding, and she was ashamed and turned crimson. We are of the number who fall speechless in the presence of young girls and flowers, since we think them worthy ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... lere What mischief that this vice stereth, Which in his Anger noght forbereth, Wherof that after him forthenketh, Whan he is sobre and that he thenketh 140 Upon the folie of his dede; And of this point a tale I rede. Ther was a king which Eolus Was hote, and it befell him thus, That he tuo children hadde faire, The Sone cleped was Machaire, The dowhter ek Canace hihte. Be daie bothe and ek be nyhte, Whil ...
— Confessio Amantis - Tales of the Seven Deadly Sins, 1330-1408 A.D. • John Gower
... Scripture. But try them, I say, and you shall find but a little, if any, of the faith of the operation of God in the hearts of poor men, to believe the Scriptures, and things contained in them. Many, yea, most men believe the Scriptures as they believe a fable, a story, a tale, of which there is no certainty! But alas! there are but few do in deed and in truth believe the Scriptures to be the ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... story! Why, it sounds like a fairy tale. But does not Mr. Baxter hate my father for having been the means of making him ...
— The Adventurous Seven - Their Hazardous Undertaking • Bessie Marchant
... about somebody having met some one who said that some one else had overheard a conversation between the Baas and somebody else, to the effect that the Kafirs were getting too rich on his property. This much involved tale incidentally conveys the idea that the Baas was himself getting too rich on his farm. For the Native provides his own seed, his own cattle, his own labour for the ploughing, the weeding and the reaping, and after bagging his grain he calls in the landlord to receive ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje
... wildest notions. He loved women and would sing Southern Russian songs about them. He had a strain of fantasy that continually surprised one. He liked fairy tales. He would say to me: "There's a tale? Ivan Andreievitch, about a princess who lived on a lake of glass. There was a forest, you know, round the lake and all the trees were of gold. The pond was guarded by three dwarfs. I myself, Ivan Andreievitch, have seen a dwarf in Kiev no higher than your ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole
... books, and how many more by foolish books! Boys, for example, read in some worthless book of desperate deeds of highway robbery or piracy, and are at once filled with the desire to imitate the hero of the tale. Young girls, on the other hand, are equally infatuated by the wonderful fortunes and adventures of some young woman whose life has been so vividly described in a trashy novel. As the result of such reading, young persons lose the ...
— Baltimore Catechism No. 4 (of 4) - An Explanation Of The Baltimore Catechism of Christian Doctrine • Thomas L. Kinkead
... of the South African diamond mines and adventures in London, on the sea and in America: "As a story teller Mr. Marshall cannot be improved upon, and whether one is looking for humor, philosophy, pathos, wit, excitement, adventure or love, he will find what he seeks, aplenty, in this capital tale." ...
— You Should Worry Says John Henry • George V. Hobart
... child will discover with ease The point of the tale I've related— A blockhead could not, let me say what I please— Then why need my MORAL ...
— Wreaths of Friendship - A Gift for the Young • T. S. Arthur and F. C. Woodworth
... companion in those speculative wanderings over the Town Moor or the Elswick Fields, when, as an apprentice, he planned his future a la Franklin, and devised schemes for his conduct in life. In attaining Cornaro's tale of years he did not succeed; though he seems to have faithfully practised the periods of abstinence enjoined (but probably not observed) by another of the "noble Venetian's" professed admirers, ...
— De Libris: Prose and Verse • Austin Dobson
... Herefordshire; red earth and oak- trees. Miles of the road were like Gainsborough-lane, on a large scale, and looked quite English; only here and there a hedge of prickly pear, or the big white aruns in the ditches, told a different tale; and the scarlet geraniums and myrtles ...
— Letters from the Cape • Lady Duff Gordon
... ignorant emigrants, had entered the mills only a few years before they, the Bumpuses, had come to Hampton, and were now independent property owners. Still rankling in Hannah's memory was a day when Lise had returned from school, dark and mutinous, with a tale of such a family. One of the younger ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... without asking further questions, Nellie," her father said. "It is ill asking one with victuals before him to begin a tale that may, for aught I know, last an hour. Let him have his food, lass, and then I will light my pipe, and John Wilkes shall light his here instead of going out for it, and we will have the yarn in peace and ...
— When London Burned • G. A. Henty
... away from life's difficulties, but for those who face them. 'Take my yoke ... and ye shall find rest.' It were not well for our own sakes that we had wings. It were not well for us to be able to avoid the burden-bearing and the tale of tired days, for God has hidden the secret of our rest in the heart of our toiling. They who come unto the City of God come there not by the easy flight of a dove, but by the ...
— The Threshold Grace • Percy C. Ainsworth
... MACBETH (1798-1851).—Poet and miscellaneous writer, was a doctor at Musselburgh, near Edin., and a frequent contributor, under the signature of [Greek: D], to Blackwood's Magazine in which appeared Mansie Waugh, a humorous Scottish tale. He also wrote The Legend of Genevieve (1824), Domestic Verses (1843), and sketches of the poetry of the earlier half of the 19th century. His poetry was generally grave and tender, but ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin
... But no, he could not keep her. She wanted the dead world again-she wanted to walk on the outside once more. She was going to give a tea-party. It made him frightened and furious and miserable. He was afraid all would be lost that he had so newly come into: like the youth in the fairy tale, who was king for one day in the year, and for the rest a beaten herd: like Cinderella also, at the feast. He was sullen. But she blithely began to make preparations for her tea-party. His fear was too strong, he was troubled, he hated her shallow anticipation ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... Trinidad, "but Christmas trees ain't no fairy tale. This one's goin' to look like the ten-cent store in Albuquerque, all strung up in a redwood. There's tops and ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... on, now and then pausing to laugh boisterously at some recollection. As his whirligig tale touched upon indecent episodes, his voice lowered and he sought for convenient euphemisms, helped out by sympathetic nods. Mrs. Preston made several attempts to interrupt his aimless, wandering talk; but he started again each time, excited by the presence of the ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... have been at the Morrises', something pleasant has happened to me, but I cannot put all these things down, nor can I tell how Miss Laura and the boys grew and changed, year by year, till now they are quite grown up. I will just bring my tale down to the present time, and then I will stop talking, and go lie down in my basket, for I am an old dog now, and get ...
— Beautiful Joe - An Autobiography of a Dog • by Marshall Saunders
... bow to the wishes of the public in unimportant matters. Politics are the most important thing in life—for a newspaper, anyway; and if I want to carry my public with me on the path that leads to liberty and progress, I must not frighten them away. If they find a moral tale of this sort in the serial at the bottom of the page, they will be all the more ready to read what is printed above it; they feel ...
— An Enemy of the People • Henrik Ibsen
... then go on to tell of holy St. Servan's feats in the way of detecting sheep-stealers by making them, like Speed under the influence of Proteus' reasoning, cry "Baa," or relate some such pretty human story as that of how he turned water into wine for the sake of a sick monk, or unfold the thrilling tale of how he fought the Dovan dragon, as Wyntoun ...
— Chronicles of Strathearn • Various
... winners, and again and again interfered to prevent the ruin of some gambler by whose folly he would himself have profited. His constant charity was well known; the money so lightly come by was at the disposal of any one who could prefer a piteous tale. Moreover he made no scruple about exacting from others that charity which they could well afford. One may easily guess who was the duchess mentioned in the following ...
— Goldsmith - English Men of Letters Series • William Black
... debility of the whole frame, especially of the womb. It is generally produced by scanty or by improper food, by the want of air and of exercise, and by too close application within doors. Here we have the same tale over again—close application within doors, and the want of fresh air and of exercise. When will the eyes of a mother he opened, to this important subject?—the most important that can engage ...
— Advice to a Mother on the Management of her Children • Pye Henry Chavasse
... Germany, he who sheds tears when leaning over an expiring friend, or, bending over the patient's couch, does but wipe them off, enhances, they say, the difficulty of death's last struggle. I believe the same poetical superstition is recorded in Mary Barton, a Tale of ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 52, October 26, 1850 • Various
... the most part envy and condemn, especially when youth and beauty in some sort excuse the transgression. Any sort of celebrity bestows an inconceivable prestige. Apparently for women, as for families, the glory of the crime effaces the stain; and if such and such a noble house is proud of its tale of heads that have fallen on the scaffold, a young and pretty woman becomes more interesting for the dubious renown of a happy love or a scandalous desertion, and the more she is to be pitied, the more she excites our sympathies. We are ...
— The Deserted Woman • Honore de Balzac
... of the debut arrived, as doomsday will come at last; and after having been elaborately arrayed for her part by a gossiping tire-woman, who would chatter incessantly, relating, for the encouragement of the debutante, tale after tale of stage-fright, swoons, and failure,—after having been plumed, powdered, and most reluctantly rouged, the rose of nineteen summers having suddenly paled on her cheek, Zelma was silently conducted from her dressing-room by her husband, who, as Osmyn, took his stand with her, the guards, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various
... know that you could ride," remarked the subaltern dubiously, fancying that Bela Moshi in his desire to accompany him was inventing a fairy tale ...
— Wilmshurst of the Frontier Force • Percy F. Westerman
... any one in that Community sought out a Busy Man of Affairs and began to unwrap his Tale of Woe and offer to exhibit his wounds, the B.M. of A. would say, "Here, I'll give you a Letter of Introduction to my old friend Jasper. He is a Samaritan ...
— People You Know • George Ade
... scowling with impatience, then Felicia's fear moved him and calling the child to him he began to tell her of the old swimming pool. The others listened and laughed and when Felicia begged for more, Gustav told a charming tale of his own Bavarian childhood. And he and Ernest sang together some tender folk songs which Felicia insisted on learning. While Gustav and Ernest undertook this pleasant task ...
— The Forbidden Trail • Honore Willsie
... welfare sometimes induced him to lend too ready an ear to busybodies, who informed him of failings in the boy which would have been treated more lightly, and perhaps more wisely, by a less devoted father. In the early months of 1814 he writes as follows, after hearing the tale of some guest of Mr. Preston whom Tom had no doubt contradicted at table in presence ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... Tale of Old Turley. Humorous fiction in this well-known author's happiest style. 12mo. ...
— The Brighton Boys in the Radio Service • James R. Driscoll
... sleep. Edna sent the quadroon away to her supper and told her she need not return. Then she sat and told the children a story. Instead of soothing it excited them, and added to their wakefulness. She left them in heated argument, speculating about the conclusion of the tale which their mother promised to finish the ...
— The Awakening and Selected Short Stories • Kate Chopin
... that very spot myself. An I war thinkin, as I war a comin up the bay, that that thar isle of the ocean was about the only spot belongin to this here bay that hadn't been heerd from. An it ain't onlikely that them shores could a tale onfold that mought astonish some on us. I ...
— Lost in the Fog • James De Mille
... hour spent by him in Cadogan Place on the eve of his marriage and the afternoon of Charlotte's reappearance. Something now again became possible for these communicants, under the intensity of their pressure, something that took up that tale and that might have been a redemption of pledges then exchanged. This rapid play of suppressed appeal and disguised response lasted indeed long enough for more results than one—long enough for Mrs. Assingham to measure the feat of quick self-recovery, possibly therefore of recognition ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James
... the life of the blessed St. Neot." His connection with the series ceased. But his curiosity was excited. He read far and wide in the Benedictine biographies. No trace of investigation into facts could he discover. If a tale was edifying, it was believed, and credibility had nothing to do with it. The saints were beatified conjurers, and any nonsense about them was swallowed, if it involved the miraculous element. The effect upon Froude may be left to his own words. "St. Patrick I found once ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul
... Bees; but the majority were still wandering in search of this provisional refuge. It was by this wandering population that I had been invaded when I lay down at the foot of the bank. It was impossible that all these larvae, the tale of whose alarming thousands I would not venture to define, should form one family and recognize a common mother; despite what Newport has told us of the Oil-beetles' astonishing fecundity, I could not believe this, so great ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre
... son's purse, presumably, and crammed his willing ears with some ridiculous, fantastic tale concerning my book—"The Big Drum." Mr. Dunning professes to have discovered that I have conspired with a wicked publisher to deceive you all; that the book's another of my miss-hits, and that I'm a designing rogue and liar. [To BERTRAM.] Come on, Bertram; don't sit there as ...
— The Big Drum - A Comedy in Four Acts • Arthur Pinero
... human indignity tortured Benham's imagination much more than it tortured the teller of the tale. It filled him with shame and horror. For three or four years every detail of that circumstantial narrative seemed unforgettable. A little lapse from perfect health and the obsession returned. He could not endure the neighing of horses: ...
— The Research Magnificent • H. G. Wells
... company as much as possible, particularly as they required nothing else for their civilities. Such was the Empress's expression to her lady in waiting, the handsome Madame Seran, with whom no confidence, no tale, no story, and no scandal expires; and who was in a great hurry to inform, the same evening, the tea-party at Madame de Beauvais's of this good news, complaining at the same time of not having had the least share in ...
— Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud, Complete - Being Secret Letters from a Gentleman at Paris to a Nobleman in London • Lewis Goldsmith
... Orellana, deserting him, floated down the Napo and made the magnificent discovery of the mighty Amazon. Gonzalo, "who was held to be the best lancer that ever went to these countries—and all confess that he never showed his back to the enemy"—returned to Quito with a few survivors to tell a tale of almost unparalleled suffering. A century elapsed (1530-1637) before any one ascended from Para to Quito by way of the Rio Napo; this was accomplished by ...
— The Andes and the Amazon - Across the Continent of South America • James Orton
... the tale. There's a rope running overhead, looped to the upper deck, for the overseer to catch hold of when the ship rolls. When the overseer misses the rope once and falls among the rowers, remember the hero laughs at him and gets licked for ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... last, and to pay it all his dues, with the arrears and interest on them. Goethe, who figures as some absurd high-stalking hollow play-actor, or empty ornamental clock-case of an "Artist" so-called, in the Tale of the Onyx Ring, was in the throne of Sterling's intellectual world before all was done; and the theory of "Goethe's want of feeling," want of &c. &c. appeared to him also abundantly contemptible ...
— The Life of John Sterling • Thomas Carlyle
... to a pitiful tale. She heard nothing but that, when she went on her rounds of visits to the agents. Oh, the distress which she beheld there! It made Lily feel quite ill at night. A little more and she would have said her prayers, before getting into bed, to thank God that she hadn't come to that. ...
— The Bill-Toppers • Andre Castaigne
... progenitors that all of these stories were once sung; that they themselves remembered when many of them were poems. This was fully proved by discovering manifest traces of poetry in many, and finally by receiving a long Micmac tale which had been sung by an Indian. I found that all the relaters of this lore were positive as to the antiquity of the narratives, and distinguished accurately between what was or was not pre-Columbian. In fact, ...
— The Algonquin Legends of New England • Charles Godfrey Leland
... Burton's life what Burton himself called his dual nature. In the tale of Janshah in The Arabian Nights we read of a race of split men who separated longitudinally, each half hopping about contentedly on its own account, and reuniting with its fellow at pleasure. If Burton in a pre-existent state—and he half believed in the Pre-existence of Souls—belonged to this ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... When this improbable tale was told, I asked them if they believed it to be true. "Yes," said two of them, "we do, because we have had shipmates who lived with some of the mermaidens for several years and had children; but as for their ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman
... wounded, decorated and married. The conversion of Red Pepper, the doctor, and of Jane Ray, who became Mrs. Black, is a little too easily contrived to be very convincing. But this is a simple work for simple souls who like a wholesome tale with a distinct list to the side of the angels. Such untoward conduct as here appears is not put in for its own interesting sake, but merely to bring out the white-souled ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, March 17, 1920 • Various
... informed of all my proceedings from persons in his service who attended me everywhere, could not be induced to lend an ear to this story. Le Guast, finding himself foiled in this quarter, applied to the King, who was well inclined to listen to the tale, on account of his dislike to my brother and me, whose friendship for each other ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... and veneration because she had the moral qualities which Christianity developed. If she entered with eagerness into the pleasures of the chase or the honor of the banquet, if she listened with enthusiasm to the minstrel's lay and the crusader's tale, her real glory was her purity of character and unsullied fame. In ancient Rome men were driven to the circus and the theatre for amusement and for solace, but among the Teutonic races, when converted to Christianity, rough warriors associated with woman without seductive pleasures to disarm her. ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... the Indian in awed and speechless horror. His tale of suffering was told before he spoke. He had come from a land of Tragedy. He had been stalking side by side ...
— The Gaunt Gray Wolf - A Tale of Adventure With Ungava Bob • Dillon Wallace |
