"Narrator" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... presence of her confidential friends she permitted Orloff's messenger, Joseph Ribas, to relate to her all the particulars of the affair from the commencement to the end, and to the narrator she nodded her approval with ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... The narrator cast a glance of supreme disgust at the laughing puncher. "No, what the hell!" he shouted. "He hugged him. Then he called in the neighbors, barbecued a yearlin' calf, an' give a barn-dance, with ...
— The Round-up - A Romance of Arizona novelized from Edmund Day's melodrama • John Murray and Marion Mills Miller
... I have thought it right to follow Wade's narrative, which appears to me by far the most authentic, if not the only authentic account of this important transaction. It is imperfect, but its imperfection arises from the narrator's omitting all those circumstances of which he was not an eye-witness, and the greater credit is on that very account due to him for those which he relates. With respect to Monmouth's quitting the field, it is not mentioned ...
— A History of the Early Part of the Reign of James the Second • Charles James Fox
... of fortune and of education to a worldly man and a traveller. The abstract speculations of the metaphysician would not have sufficed for him, nor would the continuous and simple creation of the narrator who narrates to amuse himself, nor would the ardor of the semi-animal of the man-of-pleasure who abandons himself to the frenzy of vice. He invented for himself, partly from instinct, partly from method, a compromise between his contradictory ...
— Cosmopolis, Complete • Paul Bourget
... historical event, the narrator of which represents the Indians to have been in an entirely different condition from what they are now, or have been since. This is the account of Ferdinand de Soto's expedition to Florida. There are two historians of this expedition. One is Garcilasso ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... find I have omitted thus far may seem to you to throw a little light on this matter. It does not help me much. Lib was a wonderful listener, as well as a narrator. Miss Jane sometimes took an occasional boarder. Teachers, clergymen, learned professors, had from time to time tarried under her roof. And while these talked to one another, or to some visitor from neighboring hotels, little Lib would sit motionless and silent by the hour. One would scarcely ...
— Story-Tell Lib • Annie Trumbull Slosson
... by no means a flawless book, though its defects are trivial enough. The illusion of Huck as narrator fails the least bit here and there; the "four dialects" are not always maintained; the occasional touch of broad burlesque detracts from the tale's reality. We are inclined to resent this. We never wish to feel that Huck is anything but a real character. We want him always the Huck who ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... a dairy-yard, was murmured by the voice behind the dun cow; but as nobody understood the reference, no notice was taken, except that the narrator seemed to think it might imply scepticism ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... beautiful narrator, as she enacted before her this poetry and tragedy of real life, so much beyond what dramatic art can ever furnish. Her eyes grew splendid in their depth and brilliancy; sometimes they were full of tears, and sometimes ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... excitement then," said the narrator, a clerk in one of the stores. "Everybody ran forward to pick up the general. He had been thrown so hard that he was stunned and had big bruises. That horse did him more damage than all the armies of the North have done. I can tell ...
— The Sword of Antietam • Joseph A. Altsheler
... standard at Perth, until the commencement of the retreat from Derby, Lord George Murray has left a succinct relation. It is written, as are his letters, in a plain, free, manly style, which dispels all doubt as to the sincerity of the narrator. ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume III. • Mrs. Thomson
... to this story, cross-examined the narrator upon several points, and then dismissed him to get food and rest. That same afternoon the captain, accompanied, as before, by Lieutenant Hoskins, again visited the place of ambush, and presumably made final arrangements for the capture of the cauffle, but what ...
— A Middy of the Slave Squadron - A West African Story • Harry Collingwood
... winter the windows were always wide open. 7. It is for you especially (use the word "intention") that I have composed this little tale. 8. Remember that I do not want you to speak in this way. 9. The narrator stopped short with one hand in the air. 10. Do you not miss your friend a good deal? 11. The college was divided into three departments: the Senior School, the Middle School and the Junior School. 12. As for him, he might smile at me as much as he liked, I could not like him. 13. When you ...
— Le Petit Chose (part 1) - Histoire d'un Enfant • Alphonse Daudet
... The inspired narrator notices, in the first place, the warmth of her hospitality, and its unabating continuance to Elisha. On a certain occasion, when he went to Shunem, she urged him to visit her, which issued in such a mutual esteem, that "as oft as he passed by, he turned in thither to eat ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox
... sunrise in all its splendour. I have taken down from Algonkin Indians several beautiful legends relating to them. In one, the Milky Way is the girdle of a stupendous deity, and the Northern Lights the splendid gleams emitted by his ball when playing. In another, the narrator describes him as clad in an ineffable glory of light, and in colours ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... occasion, to appear in unison with the text of the Immortal Bard, "dressed" the part in a most elaborate "neck-or-nothing tile." Upon being expostulated with by the manager, he triumphantly referred to the description of the chivalrous Prince in which the narrator particularly states— ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... minit or two ago," said the honest seafarer, swelled with the importance that belongs to the narrator of a tale of accident and disaster. "He was a-settin' there, had been for two hours 'most, just a-starin' at them houses over there, and all of a sudden chuck forward he went, right on his face. And then a man come along that knowed him, and said he'd go for a kerridge, or ...
— The Story of a New York House • Henry Cuyler Bunner
... Indian, and the Indian who killed him, with the position of the man who shot the third Indian—making three Indians and two Americans who had fallen on a very small space of ground. From the manner of the narrator, and the facts related at the time, I did not doubt the truth of his statement, nor have I ever had any reason to doubt it since. The Indian pointed out as Tecumseh, was wearing a bandage over a wound in the arm, and as it was known that Tecumseh had been slightly ...
— Life of Tecumseh, and of His Brother the Prophet - With a Historical Sketch of the Shawanoe Indians • Benjamin Drake
... at length, in an evil hour, unfortunately given it by mistake to a hackney-coachman, a complete reverse of his previous good fortune ensued, till actual ruin overtook him at last, and obliged him to expatriate himself. 'On my asking him,' says the narrator, 'why he did not advertise and offer a reward for the lost treasure; he said, "I did, and twenty people came with sixpences having holes in them to obtain the promised reward, but mine was not amongst ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume I (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... Yetive the heroine. He told her of the days when Lorry, a fugitive with a price upon his head, charged with the assassination of Prince Lorenz, then betrothed to the princess, lay hidden in the monastery while Yetive's own soldiers hunted high and low for him. The narrator dwelt glowingly upon the trip from the monastery to the city walls one dark night when Lorry came down to surrender himself in order to shield the woman he loved, and Quinnox himself piloted him through the underground passage into the very heart of the castle. ...
— Beverly of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... disciples, were with him when for the second time he expressly designated Jesus as the Lamb of God. These were Andrew and John; the latter came to be known in after years as the author of the fourth Gospel. The first is mentioned by name, while the narrator suppresses his own name as that of the second disciple. Andrew and John were so impressed by the Baptist's testimony that they immediately followed Jesus; and He, turning toward them asked: "What seek ye?" Possibly somewhat embarrassed by the ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... the narrator of maritime disaster, "her cargo held together by rotting sheathing and straining ribs. She was wrung by the seas like a dishrag in a woman's hands. She no longer mounted the waves; she bored through 'em. 'Twas a serious time—to hear Cap'n ...
— Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper • James A. Cooper
... scarcely complain of the change which brings us face to face with fair young maidens in their teens to the exclusion of the matrons and spinsters aforesaid, or the male medium who was once irreverently termed by a narrator ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... observer would have said that Densie Densmore had heard less of that strange story than any one else, but her hearing faculties had been sharpened, and not a word was missed by her—not a link lost in the entire narrative, and when the narrator expressed his love for his daughter, she darted ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes
... yon pint thar, up the river?" continued the narrator, pointing his long, bony finger towards a great bend, and a point on the ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... he was put on Mr. Newell's track. The secretary's father, it appeared, had known the Newells some twenty years earlier. He had had business relations with Mr. Newell, who was then a man of property, with factories or something of the kind, the narrator thought, somewhere in Western New York. There had been at this period, for Mrs. Newell, a phase of large hospitality and showy carriages in Washington and at Narragansett. Then her husband had had reverses, had lost heavily in Wall Street, and had finally drifted abroad and ...
— The Hermit and the Wild Woman and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... added the narrator, "we have now the boat and the assistance of Bachicha, who is as brave as Rafael: with his 'Baltimore clipper,' we shall conduct our affairs on a grander scale than heretofore. Sacre-bleu! we may now cruise under the Columbian ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... wounded. And the momentous question faced him whether he should halt, now that summer was on the wane, or snatch under the walls of Moscow the triumph which Vilna, Vitepsk, and Smolensk had promised and denied. It is stated by that melodramatic narrator, Count Philip Segur, that on entering Vitepsk, the Emperor exclaimed: "The campaign of 1812 is ended, that of 1813 will do the rest." But the whole of Napoleon's "Correspondence" refutes the anecdote. Besides, it was not Napoleon's habit to go into winter ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... attempted to sail; but the wind hauled foul immediately after the signal to weigh had been made. It did not become fair at the hour of high water, when alone heavy ships could cross the bar, until the morning of the 6th. "Rhode Island was of such importance," says the narrator already quoted, "and the fate of so large a portion of the British army as formed the garrison was of such infinite consequence to the general cause, that it was imagined the Admiral would not lose a moment in making some attempt for their relief." He ...
— The Major Operations of the Navies in the War of American Independence • A. T. Mahan
... his knowledge a transaction exactly like the present, or exactly in contrast with it, or some sentiment of poet or orator which just fits the present occasion. If it be new to his audience, he adds to it a newer delight still by his matchless skill as a narrator— a skill almost the rarest of all talents among public speakers. If it be commonplace and hackneyed he makes it fresh and pleasant by giving in detail the circumstances when it was first uttered, ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... dominant, memory and imagination will become so confused that facts and fancies will fail to be separated. The imagination will be so allowed to invest events and experiences with either a halo of glory or a cloud of prejudice that the narrator will constantly tell, not what he clearly sees written in the book of his remembrance, but what he beholds painted upon the canvas of his own imagination. Accuracy will be, half unconsciously perhaps, sacrificed to his own imaginings; he will exaggerate or depreciate—as his own impulses ...
— George Muller of Bristol - His Witness to a Prayer-Hearing God • Arthur T. Pierson
... with a libellous narrative of Casanova's relations with the Marquise d'Urfe, even stating that Casanova stole from her the jewels stolen in turn by Costa, but, as M. Maynial remarks, we may attribute this perverted account "solely to the rancour and antipathy of the narrator." It is more likely that Casanova frightened Costa almost out of his wits, was grimly amused at his misfortunes, and let him go, since there was no remedy to Casanova's benefit, for his former rascality. ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... listeners were fixed upon the narrator in the acme of expectation. A real ghost-story, from the lips of one they knew, and must believe in, was a thing of dread delight. Like ghosts themselves, they were all-unconscious of ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... 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
... said or thought a thing amiss of each other. I presume that the most insidious falsehoods are daily carried to you, as they are brought to me, to engage us in the passions of our informers, and stated so positively and plausibly as to make even doubt a rudeness to the narrator; who, imposed on himself, has no other than the friendly view of putting us on our guard. My answer is, invariably, that my knowledge of your character is better testimony to me of a negative, than any affirmative which my informant did not hear from yourself with ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... with which the worthy man, two days later, actually viewed the geyser itself from so advantageous a stand-point as the deck of the Flying Fish; such a task is utterly beyond the powers of the present narrator and must be left to the vivid imagination of the indulgent reader. For over two hours did that amiable and learned scientist sit immovably in his deck chair with a meerschaum of abnormal dimensions in his mouth, ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... mentioned by name. Their itineraries were wholly dedicated to the interests of their co-religionists. The first of the line is Eldad, the narrator of a sort of Hebrew Odyssey. Benjamin of Tudela and Petachya of Ratisbon are deserving of more confidence as veracious chroniclers, and their descriptions, together with Charisi's, complete the Jewish library of travels ...
— Jewish Literature and Other Essays • Gustav Karpeles
... of this he could write narrative that should suggest and represent the continuity of life. He could pause for description or dialogue or reflection without interrupting this stream of life. Nothing need be, and nothing was, alien to the narrator with this gift; for his writing would now assimilate ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas
... described by a Charleston bookseller, who saw him in his store in 1796, carelessly turning over books. "At length," continues this narrator, ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... Vargrave were worthy of the blessing that awaited him. Whether one of these or all united made him resolve to brave his danger, or whether, after all, he yielded to a weakness, or consented to what—invited by Evelyn herself—was almost a social necessity, the reader and not the narrator ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... and Lady Sale paid the Queen a visit at Windsor, while Miss Liddell was maid-of-honour in waiting. The lively narrator of the events of these days describes Lady Sale, as tall, thin, and rather plain, but with a good countenance, while Sir Robert was stout. Lady Sale told these wondering listeners, in a palace that she started from Cabul in a cloth habit, which got wet the first day, and became ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler
... Miller also possessed a manuscript, containing an "Account of the Earl of Rochester, Captain Kendall, and the Narrator's Journey to Salisbury with King James, Monday, Nov. 19. to ...
— Notes & Queries 1849.11.17 • Various
... story told by West "does not relate the actual circumstances of the case correctly;" that is to say, Galt had found out, in the interval, that it was open to contradiction and disproof, and it has since been disproved in the Athenaeum. So much for a story discredited by the narrator himself. Of these facts AEGROTUS is entirely ignorant, and therefore proceeds by the following extraordinary circumstantialities to uphold it. "The late President of the Royal Academy knew Maclean; and his son, the late Raphael West, told the writer ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 82, May 24, 1851 • Various
... knocked him doon, and he lost his bonnet and his matches and yer sevenpence, and baith his legs are broken, and the doctor says he'll dee; and that's a'.' And then, putting down the fourpence on the table, the poor child burst into great sobs. 'So I fed the little man,' said the narrator; 'and I went with him to see Sandy. The two little things were living almost alone; their father and mother were dead. Poor Sandy was lying on a bundle of shavings. He knew me as soon as I came in, and said, 'I got the change, sir, and ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson
... Lord Chetwynde profoundly. The story of that adventure in the Pontine Marshses had an interest for him which was greater than any that might be created by the magnificent prowess and indomitable pluck that had been exhibited on that occasion by the modest narrator. Beneath the careless and offhand recital of Obed Lord Chetwynde was able to perceive the full extent of the danger to which he had been exposed, and from which his own cool courage had saved him. An ordinary man, under such circumstances, would have basely yielded; ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... ladies drew their chairs close together, and a long conversation ensued, Lucia being the chief narrator, while her companion, whom she addressed from time to time as Emilia, did little more than listen and throw in exclamations of wonder, ...
— Captain Dieppe • Anthony Hope
... the answer would be, and there the narrator was sure to fall into a glowing tribute to the ideal companionship existing between the rector, his bride, the young district attorney, ...
— Bylow Hill • George Washington Cable
... have travelled I have observed a human weakness among the population on the question of "game;" there is a universal tendency to exaggeration; but the locality of superabundance is always distant from the narrator. As you proceed the game recedes; and you are informed that "at about two days' march you will find even more than you require." Upon arrival at the wished-for spot you are told that "formerly there was a large quantity, but that times ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... their hair was whitened with lime, they were wrapped in enormous fur cloaks, and wore those large leather boots from which was given to them the name of Large-feet or Patagonians. Their stature was not, however, so gigantic as it appeared to our simple narrator, for it varies from 5ft. 10in. to 5ft. 8in., being somewhat above the middle height among Europeans. For arms they had a short massive bow, and arrows made of reed, of which the point was ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part I. The Exploration of the World • Jules Verne
... necessary words were clearly dropped by accident.) An editor might have corrected "Wickliffe's 'Epigoniad'" to "Wilkie's 'Epigoniad'," but is unlikely to have added "Tuckerman's 'Sicily'" to the list of books read by the narrator. Griswold was not above forgery (in Poe's letters) when it suited his purpose, but would have too little to gain by such ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... one person, however, who, whether or not he believed the truth of their story, at least accepted it with extreme seriousness. And it was to him that Polly O'Neill made a determined effort to be the first narrator of ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Outside World • Margaret Vandercook
... 1871, two brothers and a sister—Sepia, an artist, Levell, an engineer, and Scribe, who is the narrator—left Chicago by the North-western Railroad, bound for Denver in Colorado, about eleven hundred miles west. The first day we were climbing the gradual ascent from the Lakes to the Mississippi, which we crossed at ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 30. September, 1873 • Various
... the fire, for the evenings were chilly, they laid their whole history open to us. What a tale it was! and what a telling of it! My own uncle, Edward, was the principal narrator, but was occasionally helped out by my newer uncle, Edmund. I had the story already, my reader will remember, in my uncle's writing, at home: when we returned I read it—not with the same absorption as if it had come first, but with as much interest, and certainly with the more ...
— The Flight of the Shadow • George MacDonald
... sacrificed merely for the sake of making clear the logical relation of events; and whenever juggling with chronology tends to obscure instead of clarify that logical relation, it is evidence of an error of judgment on the part of the narrator. Turgenieff is often guilty of this error of judgment. He has a disconcerting habit of bringing a new character into the scene which stands for the moment before the eye of the reader, and then turning the narrative backward several years in order to recount the past life ...
— A Manual of the Art of Fiction • Clayton Hamilton
... brave deeds of war, the miraculous discovery of crime, the visitations of the dead. Nance and her uncle would sit till the small hours with eyes wide open: Jonathan applauding the unexpected incidents with many a slap of his big hand; Nance, perhaps, more pleased with the narrator's eloquence and wise reflections; and then, again, days would follow of abstraction, of listless humming, of frequent apologies and long hours of silence. Once only, and then after a week of unrelieved melancholy, he went over to the 'Green Dragon,' spent the afternoon with the landlord ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson
... as the news spread about Springfield a salute of a hundred guns was fired, and during the afternoon Lincoln's friends and neighbors thronged his house to tender their congratulations and express their joy. "In the evening," says one narrator, "the State House was thrown open and a most enthusiastic meeting held by the Republicans. At the close they marched in a body to the Lincoln mansion and called for the nominee. Mr. Lincoln appeared, and after a brief, modest, and hearty speech, invited as many as could get into the house ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... character. She furnishes all the brains employed in the story. The narrator praises her "courage" twice, but she had more than courage. Fidelity, initiative, and resourcefulness must also be put among her assets. We can hardly imagine her as acting from Esther's high motive, but she lived up to the best standards of conduct that she knew. Whoever ...
— Short Stories Old and New • Selected and Edited by C. Alphonso Smith
... became a little stronger she made him tell her about the battles he was in. Mr. Mills had come to tell her that he had killed the man who killed Ad. Darby was not a good narrator, however, and what he had to tell was told in a few words. The old woman revived under it, however, and her eyes had a ...
— The Burial of the Guns • Thomas Nelson Page
... much to go on with now, my boy," continued the narrator; "for Mowla Buksh being down, the fighting elephants took good care to punish him well before they let him up again. But as the encounter had aroused the combative propensities of Chand Moorut, it was thought wise to remove him from the scene before he became ...
— The Eagle Cliff • R.M. Ballantyne
... to his explanations and went with him to his brother who told them how he had bought the animal in good faith from a stranger. Whereat they seized the narrator, bound him, and hanged him to the nearest live-oak tree; then stripped the monte-dealer to the waist, tied him to the same tree, and flogged him until the blood ran down his bare back. After which they departed, ...
— When the West Was Young • Frederick R. Bechdolt
... boys were holding splendidly, indeed were gradually eating into the enemy front. They brought weird stories of his comrades, incidents pathetic, humorous, heroic, according to the temperament of the narrator. But from more than one source came tales of Knight's machine gun section to which McCuaig was attached. Knight himself had been killed soon after entering the line, and about his men conflicting tales were told: they were holding a strong point, ...
— The Sky Pilot in No Man's Land • Ralph Connor
... fault with the matrix of this opal is probably blasphemous. But I own that I could do without the Shandean prologue and epilogue of the narrator and his man-servant Daniel Cameron. And though, as a tomfool myself, I would fain not find any of the actions of my kind alien from me, I do find some of the tomfoolery with which Nodier has seasoned the story superfluous. ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... affection for his son as his son, and his resentment against him as this young creature's husband." Here is another, less dangerous, which he took from an actual occurrence made known to him when he was at Bonchurch. "The idea of my being brought up by my mother (me the narrator), my father being dead; and growing up in this belief until I find that my father is the gentleman I have sometimes seen, and oftener heard of, who has the handsome young wife, and the dog I once took notice of when I was a little ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... rung his bell, the deputies were taking their seats, the curtain was about to rise. As a faithful narrator of the session we desire our readers to attend, we think it safer and better in every way to copy verbatim the report of the debate as given in one of the morning papers of the ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac
... planets, have both a visible and an invisible history. The astronomer threads the darkness with strict deduction, accounting so for every visible arc in the wanderer's orbit; and the narrator of human actions, if he did his work with the same completeness, would have to thread the hidden pathways of feeling and thought which lead up to every moment of action, and to those moments of intense suffering which take the quality ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... to Damascus, seeking victims for his persecuting zeal, when Jesus suddenly appeared to him and Saul was changed from a persecutor to a believer in Christ (Acts 9:3-7). The account is very brief. For an event which has had such tremendous results, the narrator is very reticent; a light from heaven, a voice speaking, and a person declaring that He is Jesus. Paul gives us two accounts of his conversion and how it took place (Acts 22:6-15; 26:12-18). The men who were with Paul saw a light and heard a voice, but not what was said. It is impossible ...
— Bible Studies in the Life of Paul - Historical and Constructive • Henry T. Sell
... John Jackson's Narrative, in Capt. J. E. Erskine's Journal of a Cruise among the Islands of the Western Pacific (London, 1853), pp. 475-477. The narrator, John Jackson, was an English seaman who resided alone among the Fijians for nearly two years ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... companion listened to this recital, he was impressed not so much by the story itself as by the essential happiness of the narrator. Here was a nature as untrammelled as the wind, that delighted to roam from land to land. Local interests, people, events, might hold him for a time, but presently he would be gone in search of new adventures. If he loved ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... man, and a traveller, it contains but a reasonable share of 'travellers' wonders.' Considering the opportunity and temptation for embellishments afforded by such a romantic tale, less has been added to it by the narrator than the usual progress of strange reports might have prepared me to expect. It is most true, as it has been stated, that I did, by her own desire, carry away from a nunnery, at ——, this lady, who was neither a nun nor a Spanish lady, nor, as I am compelled by my regard ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth
... in the case of the two nightingales, so it is with the stilted reciter and the simple narrator: one is busy displaying the machinery, showing "how the tunes go"; the other is anxious to conceal the art. Simplicity should be the keynote of story-telling, but (and her the comparison with the nightingale breaks down) it ...
— The Art of the Story-Teller • Marie L. Shedlock
... was thrilled and horrified. "Lord" Bill alone appeared unmoved. A close observer even might have noticed the faintest suspicion of a smile at the corners of his mouth. The smile broadened as the sharp doctor launched a question at the narrator of terrible facts. ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum
... Rameses," the narrator went on, "we went to Tape, my father and I, to inscribe the hatchments and carve the scene of the Judgment of the Dead in the tomb of the great king. Now, I am my father's only child and have been taught his craft. I have been an apt pupil, and ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... the other's turn to draw in his breath with a low hissing sound, and the narrator's voice sounded still more husky and strange, as if he were touched by the sympathy of his ...
— To Win or to Die - A Tale of the Klondike Gold Craze • George Manville Fenn
... the neighbourhood of Reykjavk. In his novels, and more particularly in his short stories, he is at his best in his portrayals of the simple sturdy seamen and countryfolk of his native region, which are often refreshingly arch in manner. Hagaln, who is a talented narrator, frequently succeeds in catching the living speech and characteristic mode of expression of his characters. The Fox Skin (Tfuskinni) first appeared in 1923, in one of his collections of short stories (Strandbar).—He has also been successful as a ...
— Seven Icelandic Short Stories • Various
... harrowing to allow our minds to become settled on any kind of work. It is true that we had many questions to answer, and that numerous visitors thronged our store from sunrise until dark; but after repeating our story to our friend Charley, he took upon himself the important situation of narrator of the snake's doings, and by that means we were entirely relieved of ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... positive merit. Lanier showed originality and a true poetic gift, but his talents were little effectual. From the West humorous poetry was produced by Francis Bret Harte (1839-1902), born in Albany, in The Heathen Chinee (1870) and similar verse, but he is better remembered as the artistic narrator of western mining life in his numerous stories and novels. Verse of a similar kind also first brought into literary notice John Hay (1838-1905), in Pike County Ballads (1871), who also wrote in prose; but his reputation was rather ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... thousands of his countrymen had hung entranced. He was, what is less generally remembered now, perhaps the ablest and most accomplished diplomatist ever in the public service of the United States. Jared Sparks was a profound student of history, somewhat dull as a narrator, but of unerring historic judgment. I suppose he would be placed by all our writers of history with great unanimity at the head of American historic investigators. James Walker was a great preacher and a profound thinker. In the judgment of his hearers, young ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... more. It is possible, if not likely, that some of those friends of the narrator, for whom the account was evidently written, may still be living, and that these pages may meet their eyes. If so, they may be able to solve the few problems that have entirely baffled me, and to explain, if they so choose, the secrets to which, intentionally or through the destruction of ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg
... founders and Governors of the Plymouth colony; but twenty-five years afterwards he imbibed the persecuting spirit of the Massachusetts Bay colony, became their agent and advocate in London, and by the prestige which he had acquired as the first narrator and afterwards Governor of the Plymouth colony, had much influence with the leading men of the Long Parliament. He there joined himself to Cromwell, and was appointed one of his three Commissioners to the West Indies, where he ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson
... The narrator arose, walked the length of the parlour, and came back to the four women. "Haven't you had enough for to-night? Unity looks sleepy, and Judith's knitting has lain this half-hour on the ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... one week from the attack in terrible paroxysms and ravings, frequently requiring six men to hold him on his bed. He was ill the same length of time that they falsely represented a few years before in the Toledo hotel. Said the narrator, "Thomas K. Chester's death was the most awful I ever witnessed. He cursed and swore to his last breath, saying he saw his father standing by his bed, with damned spirits waiting to take him away ...
— A Woman's Life-Work - Labors and Experiences • Laura S. Haviland
... did not entrust the manuscript to my hands but allowed me to make full notes, and afterwards at my request re-read the whole, in order that I might make sure of my facts. The story which now follows is, of course, not quoted from the lips of the first narrator, but is based upon the notes made by her granddaughter in which are embodied the recollections of the conversations ...
— First History of New Brunswick • Peter Fisher
... was in a garden resting his brazen lungs and his venomous temper, when his man announced that the jury had brought in Ralegh guilty of treason. 'Surely,' observed Coke, 'thou art mistaken; for I myself accused him but of misprision of treason.' The story, which its narrator, in the anonymous Observations upon Sanderson's History of Queen Mary and King James, issued in 1656, 'upon the word of a Christian received from Sir Edward Coke's own mouth,' will appear to any reader ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... the other, softly laying his hand on the narrator's wrist, "but I fear the colonel was of a distrustful nature—little or no confidence. He was a little ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville
... accepted a position somewhat lower than that of the Emperor of the New Rome. He sent the names of the Consuls whom he had appointed to Constantinople, an act which might be represented as a mere piece of formal courtesy, or as a request for their ratification, according to the point of view of the narrator. With a similar show of courtesy, or submission, the accession of Theodoric's descendants to the throne was, when the occasion arose, notified to the then reigning Emperor. And there were many limitations ...
— Theodoric the Goth - Barbarian Champion of Civilisation • Thomas Hodgkin
... telling about our brigade," resumed the narrator. "Of course, we think our regiment's the best by long odds in the army—every fellow thinks that of his regiment—but next to it come the other regiments of our brigade. There's not a cent of discount ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... conversation on the road. The agreement, suggested by the Host of the Tabard, was, first, that each pilgrim should tell a couple of tales while going to Canterbury, and another couple during the return to London; secondly, that the narrator of the best one of all should sup at the expense of the whole party; and thirdly, that the Host himself should be gratuitous guide on the journey, and arbiter of all differences by the way, with power to inflict the payment of travelling expenses upon any one who should ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... her in her garden, telling her for the fifth time an extraordinarily dull story about an encounter of his with a dragon, apparently in its dotage, to which Belvane was listening with an interest which surprised even the narrator. ...
— Once on a Time • A. A. Milne
... pleasing to their narrator—and went up to look at his dead grandfather. He had never seen much of him, but they had kept up a regular correspondence, and always been on terms of affection, and he was sorry that he had not been with the old man ...
— The Talleyrand Maxim • J. S. Fletcher
... Ferguson Dr. John Leaver was telling a story. He was apparently telling it to Dr. Burns, who listened with great interest, but at the same time shy Jamie Ferguson was listening too. There were curious points in the story when the narrator turned to the boy in the bed and inquired, smiling: "Could you do that, Jamie?" to which questions Jamie usually replied in the negative. They were mostly questions concerning backs and legs and hips, and the boy ...
— Mrs. Red Pepper • Grace S. Richmond
... narrator. "Well, ma'am, I went into the kitchens, the larder, the pantries, the cellars, and all sorts of places, and still no cook! Do you know, she really was nowhere! Actually, ...
— Aunt Judy's Tales • Mrs Alfred Gatty
... combination of the torrent, the herd, and all the other unmanageable things in nature and beyond, "Don't!" even from a voice that we love, with right and reason behind it, is sometimes painfully powerless. There is no intention, on the part of the narrator, of defending the previous or subsequent action of Mr. Frank Wallace on this occasion; but actual ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... his sturdy frame half in shadow, had slouched far down into himself. Only the regard of his keen eyes fixed upon Slade's face, unwaveringly and a bit anxiously, showed that he was thinking of the narrator as well as of the narrative. The others had fallen completely under the spell of the tale. They sat, as children in a theatre, absorbed, forgetful of the world around them, wrapped in a more vivid element. At the close, they stirred ...
— The Mystery • Stewart Edward White and Samuel Hopkins Adams
... after all, do these rumours, when sifted, amount to? They have no origin but this,—a silly old man of eighty-six, quite in his dotage, solemnly avers that he saw this same Zanoni seventy years ago (he himself, the narrator, then a mere boy) at Milan; when this very Zanoni, as you all see, is at least as young ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... for strength, and hills by erosion are worn to pyramids, so it is in thoughts. Yet the stability attained is not absolute, but only such stability as the circumstances require. Dramatic effect is not everywhere achieved, nor is it missed by the narrator where it is wanting, so that even the oldest and best-pruned legends are full of irrelevant survivals, contradictions, and scraps of nonsense. These literary blemishes are like embedded fossils and tell of facts which the mechanism of reproduction, for some casual reason, has not ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... was not all this, truly, more than enough to turn the head of any courtier? Besides, Saint-Aignan was the model of courtiers, past, present, and to come; and, moreover, showed himself such an excellent narrator, and so discerningly appreciative that the king listened to him with an appearance of great interest, particularly when he described the excited manner with which Madame had sought for him to converse about the affair of Mademoiselle de ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... Instead of carrying out the plan originally formed, seizing the cashier at his window and getting to the safe without interruption, they leaped right over the counter and scared Heywood at the very start. As to the rest of the affair inside the bank I take the account of a Northfield narrator: ...
— The Story of Cole Younger, by Himself • Cole Younger
... can recollect with precision the circumstances of their lives, (particularly those circumstances which transpired after middle age.) If, therefore, any error shall be discovered in the narration in respect to time, it will be overlooked by the kind reader, or charitably placed to the narrator's account, and not imputed to neglect, or to the want of attention in ...
— A Narrative of the Life of Mrs. Mary Jemison • James E. Seaver
... distinguished them in the extreme distance, or rather the cloud of dust which they created; there were dreadful stories of their violence and devastation. It was understood that a body meant to attack Trafford's works, but, as the narrator added, it was very probable that the greater part would cross the bridge and so on to the Moor, where they would hold ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... of Aesop is confined to instruction by examples; nor by Fables is anything else[1] aimed at than that the errors of mortals may be corrected, and persevering industry[2] exert itself. Whatever the playful invention, therefore, of the narrator, so long as it pleases the ear, and answers its purpose, it is recommended by its merits, not by the ...
— The Fables of Phdrus - Literally translated into English prose with notes • Phaedrus |
