"Tale" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... can be no doubt that this circumstance will always secure to them a preponderating influence over the militia. In reading many of the publications against the Constitution, a man is apt to imagine that he is perusing some ill-written tale or romance, which instead of natural and agreeable images, exhibits to the mind nothing but frightful and distorted shapes "Gorgons, hydras, and chimeras dire''; discoloring and disfiguring whatever it represents, and transforming everything it touches ...
— The Federalist Papers
... Moineau, and a lanky, sneaking, turnip-complexioned under-usher, who used to write execrable verses to the sickly housemaid, and borrow half-crowns of the simple wench, wherewith to buy pomatum to plaster his thin, lank hair. He was a known sneak, and a suspected tell-tale. The booby fell a-crying in a dark corner, and we took him with his handkerchief to his eyes. Out of the respect that we bore our French and Latin masters, we gave them their liberty, the door being set ajar for that purpose; but we reserved the usher, ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... her uncle—the carriage in which he had so often been seated by her side; he would not, he could not pass her by without one word. She deceived herself. His majesty was laughing at some merry tale, by which he was so much engrossed that he rode on without even bestowing a look upon the gilded coach and ...
— Louis XIV., Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott
... for every conceivable thing that could or might be amiss, Don Anastasio's steward led them into the sala, a long front room, the hacendado's hall of state. To all appearances it had not been so used in many years, but the old furnishing of some former Spanish owner still told the tale of coaches before the colonnade outside and of hidalgo guests within the great house. There was the stately sofa of honor flanked by throne-like armchairs, with high-backed ones next in line, all once ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... every page I have to pull myself together to remind myself that it is not of the Right Honorable Sir Robert Maurice, Bart., M.P., that I am telling the tale—any one can do that—but of a certain Englishman who wrote Sardonyx, to the everlasting joy and pride of the land of his fathers—and of a certain Frenchman who wrote Berthe aux grands pieds, and moved his mother-country to such delight of tears and ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... knot of friends A fancy-tale of woes That cloud your matrimonial sky, And banish all repose— A solemn lady overhears The story of your strife, And tells the town the pleasant news: You quarrel with ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... weighed the eighth of an ounce, and carried, as you see, on one side the image of St. John Baptist, on the other the Fleur-de-lys. It is the coin which Chaucer takes for the best representation of beautiful money in the Pardoner's Tale: this, in his judgment, is the fairest mask of Death. Villani's relation of its moral and commercial effect at Tunis is worth translating, being in the substance of ...
— Val d'Arno • John Ruskin
... fail. The form of the orange-tree, the cocoa-nut, the palm, the mango, the tree-fern, the banana, will remain clear and separate; but the thousand beauties which unite these into one perfect scene must fade away: yet they will leave, like a tale heard in childhood, a picture full of indistinct, but ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin
... delicate boy, indeed he had not long to live, but many a happy day he spent, this summer (1827), riding about the woods of Abbotsford with his kind grandfather, listening to the tales he told. For Scott, too, the rides were a joy, and helped to make him forget his troubles. When he had told his tale in such a simple way that Littlejohn understood, he returned home and ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... for the gent." And while the refreshment was being procured he observed parenthetically: "A nice little piece, ain't she? Very smart and dossy. Come on, Smith, my boy—my jolly old beau—dear old cracker, soak up the juice of the barley and expound the tale of woe." ...
— Men of Affairs • Roland Pertwee
... 'Campeggiar del angelico riso.' This showed me how easy it was to fall into the habits of a country. Gladstone is as unoriental as any man well can be, yet his calling on Lacaita to recite was really just the same thing that every Pasha does after dinner, when he orders his tale-teller to repeat a story. The ladies meanwhile were packed off to the harem for the night, Lady Bowen acting as their interpreter. My L.H.C., his two secretaries, his three aide-de-camps, Captains Blomfield and Clanricarde, and the vice-consul, all slept in ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... a report of a little affair during which one of his men had been obliged to snuff out the lives of a couple of Mexican horsethieves and seriously damage a third. Writing was laborious work for the Captain of Rangers, though he told no varnished tale. His head and shoulders were hunched over the table and his fingertips were cramped close to the point of the pen. Each letter as it was set down had its whispered ...
— Oh, You Tex! • William Macleod Raine
... reminiscence, the sergeant glanced at his men. Apparently all was well: the only visible menace lolled within easy arm's reach, swinging his short legs and sucking noisily on his candy. Nevertheless the non-com shifted to a slightly better tactical position as he awaited the continuance of the tale. ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, October, 1930 • Various
... Correveidile (tale-bearer) Hazmereir (laughing-stock) Metomentodo (busybody) Paternoster (Lord's Prayer) Quitaipon (ornament for headstall of draught beasts) Sabelotodo (presumptious ...
— Pitman's Commercial Spanish Grammar (2nd ed.) • C. A. Toledano
... a Chinese tale, known as "The Singing Prisoner," in which a friendless man is bound hand and foot and thrown into a dungeon, where he lies on the cold stones unfed ...
— Tales of Wonder Every Child Should Know • Various
... from their evil ways. For a hundred and twenty years was sounded in their ears the warning to repent, lest the wrath of God be manifested in their destruction. But the message seemed to them an idle tale, and they believed it not. Emboldened in their wickedness, they mocked the messenger of God, made light of his entreaties, and even accused him of presumption. How dare one man stand up against all the great men of the earth? If Noah's message were true, why did ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... of the Life of Hogarth would end, did we not feel inclined to venture a word or two respecting the omission of Hogarth's Tailpiece, engraved in Ireland's "Life," and there described as his last work. With the superstitious tale attached to it almost every one is familiar; yet some notice ought surely to have been taken of the story, even had it only been to expose its ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 382, July 25, 1829 • Various
... But he stole in in my absence and robbed me. Why didn't he win you away before, when nobody would have been grieved?—when nobody would have been set tale-bearing. Now the people sneer at me—the very hills and sky seem to laugh at me till I blush shamefully for my folly. I have lost my respect, my good name, my standing—lost it, never to get it again. Go and marry ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy
... steam, her hair dressed by a professional; powdered, and for the first time in her life rouged to hide the tell-tale absence of her natural quickening color, came forward to meet her guests in supreme unconsciousness of the pathos of the effect she had achieved. She was dressed in snowy white like a bride,—the only gown she had ...
— Outside Inn • Ethel M. Kelley
... filled the gloomy house with sunshine, had fled, where, where, I could not tell!" Here the speaker's voice trailed off and came to a stop. Then he turned to the group about him, saying, half questioningly, half apologetically, "I fear to tire you with this so long tale. After all, I suppose it is interesting only ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... reader were we to continue our description of the daily proceedings of our adventurers in journalistic form. To get on with our tale requires that we should advance by bounds, and even flights—not exactly of fancy, but over stretches of space and time, though now and then we may find it desirable to creep ...
— The Rover of the Andes - A Tale of Adventure on South America • R.M. Ballantyne
... was raging altogether too strong; for the windows shook with a terrible clatter, and the man telling the tale had hurriedly ended to go ...
— An Iceland Fisherman • Pierre Loti
... him in doubting surprise. To catch Emerson Mead unarmed seemed a most unlikely fairy tale. The two men held his arms and Daniels called a third to search him. Mead ...
— With Hoops of Steel • Florence Finch Kelly
... he talked in a raised voice, pacing briskly backwards and forwards over the space of his allotted limits, and laughing with ludicrous regularity and complacency at every jest that he happened to make in the course of his ill-rewarded narrative. He little thought, as he continued to proceed in his tale that its commencement had been welcomed by an unseen hearer, with emotions widely different from those which had dictated the observations of the unfriendly ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... like," he answered, and then conquering any fear he might have felt, he added—"But gentlemen, assertions are not proofs. This latter tale is too clumsy an imitation of the first we have just heard not to make a man of sense discredit it. Let us hear what the ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... Smallridge, it will be remembered, was the gentleman who indignantly denied the authorship of "A Tale of a Tub" (see vol. i. of this edition). He became Bishop of Bristol in 1714, and died in 1719. His style was well thought of at the ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. III.: Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Vol. I. • Jonathan Swift
... into many inconsistencies. We are sure that inconsistencies, scarcely less gross than the worst into which Bunyan has fallen, may be found in the shortest and most elaborate allegories of the Spectator and the Rambler. The Tale of a Tub and the History of John Bull swarm with similar errors, if the name of error can be properly applied to that which is unavoidable. It is not easy to make a simile go on all-fours. But we believe that no human ingenuity could ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... we can't get more system here," she observed, for Miss Smith, she knew, was no tale-bearer. "The waste of time and misdirected energy are appalling. The business would be worth three times as much to anybody who could give her whole attention to it, but, as Madame is forever telling us, her health keeps her ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... forehead against the window sash, and looking vacantly out on the bay. Nelly observed her a moment, stopped suddenly in the tale of her troubles, and said, in another voice, "Jenny Crow, I believe you are laughing at me. It's always the way with you. You can take ...
— Capt'n Davy's Honeymoon - 1893 • Hall Caine
... easy enough to begin talking. I told her a tale about being a newspaper woman out on a story; how I'd run across the baby and all the ...
— In the Bishop's Carriage • Miriam Michelson
... to tell me he was in extremity. God knows I had every cause to have returned him the same answer. I must think his situation worse than mine, as through his incoherent, miserable tale, I could see that he had exhausted each access to credit, and yet fondly imagines that, bereft of all his accustomed indulgences, he can work with a literary zeal unknown to his happier days. I hope he may labour enough to gain the mere support of his family. For myself, the ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... of such reading, served out in large folios,—the yellow-covered novels of their time,—did the Pizarros and Balboas and Corteses and other young blades while away the weary hours of their camp-life. Glad enough was Cortes out of such a tale to get the noble name ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various
... word was said, and not one of the three stirred, until a sharp crackling of the wood above told its own tale. The soldier still held up his brand till the place was well alight. Then withdrawing it, and beckoning to his companion, he began to retreat towards the mouth of the cave, saying as he did ...
— Boycotted - And Other Stories • Talbot Baines Reed
... at last and stood up, shaking his head. Suddenly the Med Ship seemed empty. Then he saw Murgatroyd staring at the exit-port. The inner door of that small airlock was closed. The tell-tale said the outer was not locked. Someone had gone out, quietly. The girl. ...
— Pariah Planet • Murray Leinster
... tale," Miss Alicia would breathe, enraptured as he jumped from one story to another. "It's exactly ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... perusing the much vaunted "papers" with intense interest. Unluckily Castaldo chooses that moment to complain, that Martinuzzi will not let him marry her rival. The queen, being by no means a temperate person, and wondering at his impudence in telling her such a tale, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... night subtle electricity had carried the tale over all the wires of the continent and under the sea; and in all villages and towns of the Union, from the. Atlantic to the territories, and away up and down the Pacific slope, and as far as London and Paris and Berlin, that morning the name of Laura Hawkins was ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Q." the other day (Vol. viii., p. 464.) contained a curious tale of a cat: will you insert as a pendent the following one of a dog? The supposition that D. Julio was some obnoxious Frenchman protected by the Government, seems necessary to account for the "teachyng a dogg frenche" ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 216, December 17, 1853 • Various
... will always remain unanswered. Our position as regards them will always be ignoramus et ignorabimus—we do not know the solutions and we never shall know them. I do not ask now whether du Bois-Reymond was right in his judgement or not. If he was right, that means, of course, that the one tale of everything will never be told by human lips to human ears. There will no more ever be a finally true Philosophy than there will ever be a finally perfect poem or picture or symphony. But there is no reason why we should ...
— Recent Developments in European Thought • Various
... in leathern purse retains A splendid shilling: he nor hears with pain New oysters cried, nor sighs for cheerful ale; But with his friends, when nightly mists arise To Juniper's Magpie or Town Hall[4] repairs. Meanwhile he smokes and laughs at merry tale, Or pun ambiguous or conumdrum quaint; But I, whom griping penury surrounds, And hunger sure attendant upon want, With scanty offals, and small acid tiff (Wretched repast!) my meagre corps sustain: Then solitary walk or doze at home ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... in a whirl. The desolate-looking sewing-machines of my deserted shop seemed to have suddenly brightened up. I looked at the check again and again. The figure on it literally staggered me. It seemed to be part of a fairy tale ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... coloured races, a recklessness that leads them to think as little of firing at a black, as at a bird, and which makes the number they have killed, or the atrocities that have attended the deeds, a matter for a tale, a jest or boast at their pothouse revelries; overlooking these, let us suppose that the settler is actuated by no bad intentions, and that he is sincerely anxious to avoid any collision with the natives, ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... the best story that ever appeared in McClure's Magazine. A really humorous tale ...
— The Thin Santa Claus - The Chicken Yard That Was a Christmas Stocking • Ellis Parker Butler
... the scribe's lot is worse than the officer's? Come and see my blue stripes and swollen body; meanwhile I will tell thee the tale of ...
— The Pharaoh and the Priest - An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt • Boleslaw Prus
... dreaded Isles of Demons. And here an incident befell which the all-believing Thevet records in manifest good faith, and which, stripped of the adornments of superstition and a love of the marvellous, has without doubt a nucleus of truth. I give the tale ...
— Pioneers Of France In The New World • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... sort of a tale this is about the White Lady?" asked Count Schwarzenberg of his Chamberlain von Lehndorf, after his guests had ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... and follies in sole quest, Is a one-eyed divinity at best," My guide responded, slowly. "The tale of ZOILUS hath its moral still. Such critics are but blowflies, their small skill To carrion ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 98, March 1, 1890 • Various
... his Noble Guard to the Castle of St. Angelo to inquire after the prisoner, and the young soldier brought back a pitiful tale. Donna Roma was ill and could not be removed at present. Her nervous system was completely exhausted and nobody could say what might not occur. Nevertheless, she was very brave, very sweet and very cheerful, and everybody ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... of the stories in Mrs. Gatty's "Aunt Judy's Letters," The Flatlands Fun Gazette and The Black Bag, were founded on this custom, Mrs. Ewing being the typical "Aunt Judy" of the book. Mrs. Gatty described how the children were called upon each to contribute a tale for The Black Bag, and how No. 5 remonstrated by saying—"I've been sitting over the fire this evening trying to think, but what could come, with only the coals and the fire-place before one to look at? ...
— Miscellanea • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... the school, being "Prefect of Hall" when he left in 1788. Beyond these facts, Winchester seems to retain no impressions of her brilliant son, in this respect contrasting strangely with other Public Schools. Westminster knows all about Cowper—and a sorry tale it is. Canning left an ineffaceable mark on Eton. Harrow abounds in traditions, oral and written, of Sheridan and Byron, Peel and Palmerston. But Winchester ...
— Sydney Smith • George W. E. Russell
... and pinching poverty. The bed for the three was in one corner, and this, with one table and a few chairs, comprised all their worldly goods. The healthy girl was washing for those who never knew how many a tale of want and woe their finely-embroidered clothes could tell. A line was stretched across the narrow space, and there hung the fine linen and muslin, streaming out the death-mist upon the weakened lungs of that wretched girl in the corner; and the old woman, with her ...
— The Elm Tree Tales • F. Irene Burge Smith
... I had in securing Regalis in such complete form seems to me the greatest that ever happened to any, worker in this field, and it reads more like a fairy tale than sober every-day fact, copiously illustrated with studies from life. At its finish I said, "Now I am done. This book is completed." Soon afterward, Raymond walked in with a bunch of lilac twigs in his hand from which depended three rolled ...
— Moths of the Limberlost • Gene Stratton-Porter
... and week out, seeking the souls of the people. The mother in the little quarters, sitting with her work-basket beside the window, giving a smile to passers-by, and welcoming her daughters as they came to meals, always bringing with them some new tale of joy, of sorrow, of fighting, of victory or defeat. The little mother truly found her niche. Soldiers and adherents came to reckon upon her gentle patient influence, and her "never-mind-me" spirit was a constant ...
— The Angel Adjutant of "Twice Born Men" • Minnie L. Carpenter
... a child. Nor, notwithstanding the untruths or half-truths she had told me, could her connection with the abominable rogue-fool in the next room appear other than an enormity—as if she might be the enchanted heroine of some fairy-tale, condemned to the service of a monster. At last, when she came and laid a board and pan on the table beside me, and, rolling up the sleeves about her capable, round little arms, began a severe maltreatment of a batch of dough, I could keep silence no longer; curiosity ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... reader will find here a tale of love passionate and pure; the student of character, the subtle analysis and deft portrayal he loves; the historian will approve its conscientious historic accuracy; the lover of adventure will find his blood stir and pulses quicken as ...
— Man Overboard! • F(rancis) Marion Crawford
... otherwise; and as it was, I was the only man who came hand to hand with the enemy. I was wounded in a desperate manner; and had it not been for the river between us, not a man of them would have been left to tell the tale. You will say all this, and as much more as you please'; then, giving me a packet of letters to the grand vizier, and to the different men in office, and an arizeh (a memorial) to the Shah, he ordered me to depart; I found the Shah still encamped at Sultanieh, ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier
... child, he is indeed her child," answered Cecile, who had listened breathless to this tale. "Oh! I know why he ran away. Oh, yes, Mme. Malet is indeed his mother. I always thought his mother lived in the Pyrenees. I never looked to find her here. Oh! my poor, poor dear Joe! Oh, Mme. Suzanne, you don't know how my poor Joe did ...
— The Children's Pilgrimage • L. T. Meade
... my tale," said the Colonel. "I took the letter and placed it in my pocket. Madame ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon
... is probably derived from a Spanish version of "The Forty Thieves," but like all the stories of this collection, it is from an oral version of the Tagalog tale. ...
— Philippine Folk-Tales • Clara Kern Bayliss, Berton L. Maxfield, W. H. Millington,
... almost, she must tell Miss Asenath's interesting story, beginning way back at the very beginning, with the Romance before the Fall. Her sympathetic telling of her Tale, her gestures and her earnest voice, attracted every other girl at that counter, for it was not a very busy morning, so that long before she had finished, four or five other heads were bent in solemn consultation above the three shawls from which ...
— The Heart of Arethusa • Francis Barton Fox
... George Whitfield, John Wesley, and a few other brave men, whose hearts were roused by the Spirit of God, went up and down the country proclaiming the glad tidings of the cross, which for so long had been as an idle tale to the English people. ...
— Excellent Women • Various
... the tears that continued to rise; she seemed terribly affected at finding herself to have been the cause (no matter how innocently) of this latest tale of wrack ...
— The Rejuvenation of Aunt Mary • Anne Warner
... once or twice, he had never answered her—shame was in his heart. Yet all the time the old song was in Sally's ears. Jim Templeton had touched her in some distant and intimate corner of her nature where none other had reached; and in all her gay life, when men had told their tale of admiration in their own way, her mind had gone back to Jim, and what he had said under the magnolia-trees; and his voice had drowned all others. She was not blind to what he had become, but a deep belief possessed her that she, of all the world, ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker
... "I'll tell my own tale, if you please, Bill Yawl," interrupted the other as I thought rather peremptorily. "My name is Kidd, and I'm a native of Barbadoes in the West Indies, by calling, a mariner, and late second mate of the brig Sulky Sail, Jones, master, bound from Liverpool ...
— Mr. Fortescue • William Westall
... called the leader of the opposition from the precedence which he took in the company in opposing all existing institutions,)—"You must, indeed; you are a stranger here. You must not believe all you hear. These fellows will trump up any tale. I know them of old. Don't you be taken in. Take my word—it's a man's own fault if he comes to want. Depend ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various
... I told her the tale of the "little black- eyed pretty singing Felippa"; of her "single day," and of her singing that "righted all again" on that holiday ...
— The American Child • Elizabeth McCracken
... of these reports the fact is urged that they were placed before Parliament, and that the members of both Houses were so impressed by the tale of corruption and wickedness which they disclosed that they decided on the immediate suppression of the monasteries. If this were true and if Parliament in the days of Henry VIII. enjoyed the same ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance • Rev. James MacCaffrey
... concluded her glowing tale. Depression may take hold of the most careless and light-hearted for a moment, and even the attraction of making a good end, with an opportunity of spurning a worthless ordinary, cannot always appeal. ...
— The Brown Mask • Percy J. Brebner
... nice of him to speak to his sister that way, and it wasn't right for him to go where his father had told him not to go. Of course Rose didn't want to be a tattle-tale, but still it was better to be that than to let her brother do what he intended. So, while Russ and Laddie got ready for their race, Rose skated, as quickly as she could, to the other end of the pond, where her father was giving Violet, Mun Bun and Margy ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Grandpa Ford's • Laura Lee Hope
... was at war with it; but, after much persuasion, he consented, provided that the guide should be allowed to return as soon as he came in sight of the enemy's village. This we felt to be a misfortune, as the people all suspect a man who comes telling his own tale; but there being no help for it, we went on, and found the head man of a village on the rivulet Kalomba, called Kangenke, a very different man from what his enemy represented. We found, too, that the idea ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... that time (San Juan and San German) there were "very few Spaniards and only 6 negroes in each." The incursions of the French and English freebooters, to which he refers in the same letter, had commenced six years before, and these incursions bring the tale of the island's ...
— The History of Puerto Rico - From the Spanish Discovery to the American Occupation • R.A. Van Middeldyk
... England at this moment." As ship after ship of the enemy loomed up through the haze, successive reports were made to him. "There are eight sail-of-the-line, Sir John." "There are twenty sail-of-the-line, Sir John." "There are twenty-five of-the-line, Sir John." Finally, when the full tale of twenty-seven was made out, the captain of the fleet remarked on the greatness of the odds. "Enough of that, sir," retorted the admiral, intent on that victory which was so essential to England; "if there are fifty sail, I will go through them." This reply so delighted Hallowell, ...
— Types of Naval Officers - Drawn from the History of the British Navy • A. T. Mahan
... visited by folk who have heard of my travels, and would fain have particulars of them from my own lips; so that ofttimes I have to tell my tale, or part of it, a dozen times in the year. Nay, upon one occasion I even told it to the King's majesty, which was when I went up to London on some tiresome law business. Sir Ralph Wood, who is my near neighbor and a Parliament man, had mentioned me to the King, and so I had ...
— In the Days of Drake • J. S. Fletcher
... was a "gala" performance at the Royal Opera, the play presented being, of all things in the world, Auber's "Bronze Horse," which is a farcical Chinese fairy tale set to very light and pleasing music. The stage setting was gorgeous, but the audience was still more so, delegates from all the greater powers of the world being present, including the heirs to the British ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White
... well-worn old one that had been the delight of her girlhood; but meeting her at such an inauspicious time, he had absently carried it away with him. He turned the pages idly until he came to the story of Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp, and presently, in spite of his thirty-four years, the old tale held him spellbound as it did in the days when he first read it as a boy. But there were certain paragraphs that especially caught his eye and arrested his attention,—paragraphs that he read and reread, finding in them he knew ...
— Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... so home, where I fell to read "The Fruitless Precaution" (a book formerly recommended by Dr. Clerke at sea to me), which I read in bed till I had made an end of it, and do find it the best writ tale that ever I read in my life. After that done to sleep, which I did not very well do, because that my wife having a stopping in her nose she snored much, which I never did hear ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... know full well that all Northern Europe once rang with shrill gossip over the affair, and as usual the woman was declared the guilty party. Even yet, when topics for scandal in Belgium run short, this old tale is revived and gone over—sides being taken. I've gone over it, too, and although I may be in the minority, just as I possibly am as to the "guilt" of Eve, yet I stand firm on the side of the woman. I give the facts just as ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 4 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Painters • Elbert Hubbard
... was a crack in the fine structure of Jurgis' faith in things as they are. The crack was wide while Dede Antanas was hunting a job—and it was yet wider when he finally got it. For one evening the old man came home in a great state of excitement, with the tale that he had been approached by a man in one of the corridors of the pickle rooms of Durham's, and asked what he would pay to get a job. He had not known what to make of this at first; but the man had gone on with matter-of-fact ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... be anything you don't like, my dear," said her father with gentleness. "But you know, child, we have not the whole world to choose from; being kings and queens and princesses doesn't make life a fairy tale." ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... giving the story of his adventure. He did not look at Alice, but he told the tale to her alone and was aware of the eagerness with which ...
— The Vision Spendid • William MacLeod Raine
... of readers.... The great charm about Miss Fowler's writing is its combination of brilliancy and kindness.... Miss Fowler has all the arts. She disposes of her materials in a perfectly workmanlike manner. Her tale is well proportioned, everything is in its place, and the result is thoroughly pleasing."—Claudius Clear, in ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope
... sides of walls of solid brick-work, sometimes even a piece of a human head or limb, or a corner of sculptured stone-slab, always of colossal size and bold, striking execution. All this tells its own tale and the conclusion is self-apparent: that these elevations are not natural hillocks or knolls, but artificial mounds, heaps of earth and building materials which have been at some time placed there by men, then, collapsing and crumbling to rubbish from neglect, have concealed ...
— Chaldea - From the Earliest Times to the Rise of Assyria • Znade A. Ragozin
... worthy of the name of dialectician if, in order to avoid this difficulty, I were to say (as you are saying of pleasure) that there is no difference between one science and another;—would not the argument founder and disappear like an idle tale, although we might ourselves escape drowning ...
— Philebus • Plato
... realise how deeply Anglicised I was, and how all this reading produced associations and feelings which made dwelling in England in later years seem like a return to a half-forgotten home, of which we have, however, pleasant fairy-tale reminiscences. ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... her lying-in she was changed into a wani or crocodile (de Visser, p. 139), elsewhere described as a dragon (makara). De Visser gives it as his opinion that the wani is "an old Japanese dragon, or serpent-shaped sea-god, and the legend is an ancient Japanese tale, dressed in an Indian garb by later generations" (p. 140). He is arguing that the Japanese dragon existed long before Japan came under Indian influence. But he ignores the fact that at a very early date both India and China were diversely influenced by Babylonia, ...
— The Evolution of the Dragon • G. Elliot Smith
... first news of Bunker Hill battle reached a New England town. The tale would have run thus: "The patriots are routed,—the redcoats victorious, Warren lies dead upon the field." With what scorn would that Tory have been received, who should have charged Warren with imprudence! ...
— American Eloquence, Volume II. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various
... interest the tale of the adventures of the "Rose"; and when the Earl of Evesham said that it was to Cuthbert that was due the thought of the stratagem by which the galley was captured, and its crew saved from being carried away into hopeless slavery, the king patted ...
— Winning His Spurs - A Tale of the Crusades • George Alfred Henty
... never a better play than POT LUCK; for it tells a tale with a point and a tale that might happen any day among English peasants. There were never better actors than the local Buckinghamshire Players: for they were acting their own life with just that rise into exaggeration which is the transition ...
— A Miscellany of Men • G. K. Chesterton
... impossible to take seriously statements which make the tomb of Ninus some 5,500 feet high and 6,100 in diameter. The history of Ninus and Semiramis as Ctesias tells it, is no more than a romantic tale like those of the Shah-Nameh. All that we may surely gather from the passage in question is that, at the time of Ctesias, and perhaps a little later, the remains of a great staged-tower were to be seen among the ruins of Nineveh. The popular imagination had dubbed this the tomb of Ninus, ...
— A History of Art in Chaldaea & Assyria, v. 1 • Georges Perrot
... For not to live at Ease is not to live. Death stalks behind thee, and each flying Hour Does some loose Remnant of thy Life devour. Live while thou livest, for Death shall make us all A Name of Nothing, but an Old Wife's Tale. Speak: wilt thou AVORICE or PLEASURE Chuse To be thy Lord? ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various
... they gave up their search, and concluded to put their household goods back into their cellar, they told the tale to some of the neighbors, and other people went out and dug, not only at the place which had been designated, but miles up and down the coast, and then the story was told and retold, and so it has lasted until ...
— Buccaneers and Pirates of Our Coasts • Frank Richard Stockton
... moral courage, or of power, to dry up the sources whence the corporate funds are derived, but far less easy will it be to obviate the consequences of a step so ill-judged. It is one thing to demand the usual tale of bricks when the supply of straw is cut off, and another to obtain it. In vain will the Government call upon the City to construct prisons and asylums, to widen the thoroughfares, to cleanse the river, to embellish the streets. Such work as this can only be accomplished through the employment ...
— The Corporation of London: Its Rights and Privileges • William Ferneley Allen
... counts much in these years to assist Al Sharpe in the coaching; Tom Fennel, Taussig and Freeborn. With these stars assisting, Cornell could do nothing with Princeton's great team and the score 37 to 0 tells the tale. ...
— Football Days - Memories of the Game and of the Men behind the Ball • William H. Edwards
... patient efforts of this Government to promote peace and welfare among these Republics, efforts which are fully appreciated by the majority of them who are loyal to their true interests. It would be no less unnecessary to rehearse here the sad tale of unspeakable barbarities and oppression alleged to have been committed by the Zelaya Government. Recently two Americans were put to death by order of President Zelaya himself. They were reported to have been regularly commissioned officers ...
— State of the Union Addresses of William H. Taft • William H. Taft
... knew, whatever she might think of Jeffreys, would never forgive the informant who should be the means of turning him out of Wildtree, still less would Percy. Nor was Mr Rimbolt likely to esteem his guest more highly in the capacity of tale-bearer; and he decidedly wished to "keep in" ...
— A Dog with a Bad Name • Talbot Baines Reed
... the original story as my father told it to me here, but it was the tale of how a sergeant in the Old Guard, having shared his bivouac supper of roasted potatoes with the Emperor, was told by Napoleon that he should sup with his Emperor when they returned to Versailles. The old sergeant appeared at Versailles in course ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... there were playing at casino—a crowd squatted around the squalling gamblers, and talking and looking on with eager interest. In one place of the bazaar we found a hundred people at least listening to a story- teller who delivered his tale with excellent action, voice, and volubility: in another they were playing a sort of thimble-rig with coffee-cups, all intent upon the game, and the player himself very wild lest one of our party, who had discovered where the ...
— Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo • William Makepeace Thackeray
... name to conjure with. Between him and these assaults on his almost proverbial kindness stood the Princess, and the list of his great musical productions during this period, to say nothing of his literary work, like the rhapsody on Chopin, is the tale of what the world owes her for her devotion. The relations between Liszt and the Princess were frankly acknowledged, and by the world as frankly accepted, as if they were two exceptional beings in whom one could pardon things ...
— The Loves of Great Composers • Gustav Kobb
... my nature to be very tender," said Anna, shrugging her shoulders. "I read in one of my books lately a fairy tale, in which there was a young girl, of whom it was said that a bad fairy had bound her heart in iron, to prevent its full play; the girl was constantly bewailing this fatality, saying, 'I can only like, but never love.' Perhaps ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... every mischief and discontent, that an old woman had prophesied the arrival of several French frigates, or larger ships of war, who were, after destroying the settlement, to liberate and take off the whole of the convicts. The rapidity with which this ridiculous tale was circulated is incredible. The effect was such as might have been expected. One refractory fellow, while working in a numerous gang at Toongabbie, threw down his hoe, advanced before the rest, and gave three cheers for liberty. This for a while seemed well received; but, a magistrate ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 2 • David Collins
... no trace was left of where it had been, a tiny library of slim volumes uniformly bound in amber leather, a miracle of binding, the work of Grossart of Tours, a map-rack containing large scale maps of the world, and a tell-tale compass shewing the course of the Gaston de Paris to whomever cared to read it. A long mirror let into the bulkhead aft increased the apparent size of the place. A bath-room ...
— The Beach of Dreams • H. De Vere Stacpoole |
