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Story-teller   Listen
noun
Story-teller  n.  
1.
One who tells stories; a narrator of anecdotes,incidents, or fictitious tales; as, an amusing story-teller.
2.
An historian; in contempt.
3.
A euphemism or child's word for "a liar."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Story-teller" Quotes from Famous Books



... strong-hearted men in a navy full of such, and at a time before the days of steam. "Cooper's ships live," so says Captain Mahan; and continues: "They are handled as ships then were, and act as ships still would act under the circumstances." This naval historian thought "the water a noble field for the story-teller." "The Two Admirals" first appeared in Graham's Magazine, for which Cooper was regularly engaged to write in 1842. On June 16 of this year a decision was rendered in the "Naval History" dispute. One of the questions was whether Cooper's account ...
— James Fenimore Cooper • Mary E. Phillips

... made him enjoy among women the confidence inspired by mature age, although he had not given up the thought of love affairs. He talked of his native mountains with enthusiasm. He would at any time sing the "Ranz des Vaches" with tears in his eyes, and was the best story-teller in the Comtesse Jules's circle. The last new song or 'bon mot' and the gossip of the day were the sole topics of conversation in the Queen's parties. Wit was banished from them. The Comtesse Diane, more ...
— Memoirs Of The Court Of Marie Antoinette, Queen Of France, Complete • Madame Campan

... a new claim to notice, for beneath it, according to Drake's Historic Middlesex, "Sam Lawson, the good-natured, lazy story-teller, in Oldtown Folks, put his blacksmith's shop. It was removed when the church ...
— Bay State Monthly, Volume I, No. 2, February, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various

... much with them, and in the woods and in the streams—down by St. Roch and up by Ville Marie—chansons of two hundred years ago mark the strokes of labour as of the evening hour when the professional village story-teller cries "cric-crac" and begins his tale of the loup-garou, or rouses the spirit of a pure patriotism by a crude epic of some valiant atavar; when the parish fiddler brings them to their feet with shining eyes by ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan

... The story-teller swallowed something in his throat, his gaze still on his persecutor. "No, sir," he continued, hoarsely, "them bucks jumped to their feet with the most awful yells I ever heard, and made a rush toward where I was standing. They was exactly in a line, ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish

... already largely quoted. I have indeed listened to many more stories than I have ventured here to insert; some I have rejected from the nature of their details, others from there being a strong impression on my mind that they were the extempore invention of the story-teller with a view to the rupee, which he feared he would not secure if he confessed he had nothing to relate. I have not perhaps been judicious in my selection of those which I hoped would amuse the reader, but I have done my best to choose ...
— A Peep into Toorkisthhan • Rollo Burslem

... and some of his adventures had such a marvellous edge that I secretly wondered if Uncle Jesse were not drawing a rather long bow at our credulous expense. But in this, as I found later, I did him injustice. His tales were all literally true, and Uncle Jesse had the gift of the born story-teller, whereby "unhappy, far-off things" can be brought vividly before the hearer and made to live again in ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1909 to 1922 • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... eight tales of Perrault three others have been added here. 'Beauty and the Beast,' by Mme Leprince de Beaumont (1711-1781), has a celebrity which warrants its inclusion, however inferior it may seem, as an example of the story-teller's art, to the masterpieces of Perrault. 'Princess Rosette' and 'The Friendly Frog' are from the prolific pen of Mme d'Aulnoy (1650-1705), a contemporary of Perrault, whom she could sometimes rival in invention, if ...
— Old-Time Stories • Charles Perrault

... richly mellow scene of activity, and not the least attractive feature of it is the little fiddling boy on the left. Carpaccio has so enjoyed the pageantry and detail, even to frescoes on the house, crowded bridges, and so forth, that his duty as a story-teller has suffered. In the next picture, No. 575, which is really two, divided by the flagstaff, we have on the left the departure of the English prince from an English seaport (of a kind which alas! has disappeared ...
— A Wanderer in Venice • E.V. Lucas

... whether Edmund Burgess could have become a citizen of York after serving an apprenticeship in London. Evil May Day is closely described in Hall's Chronicle. The ballad, said to be by Churchill, a contemporary, does not agree with it in all respects; but the story-teller may surely have license to follow whatever is most suitable to the purpose. The sermon is exactly as given by Hall, who is also responsible for the description of the King's sports and of the Field of the Cloth of Gold and of Ardres. Knight's admirable Pictorial History ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... and the Three Ghosts; in these spider-stories the insect, like the fox with us, is the most intelligent of animals (the late Rev. J. Zimmermann's Akra or Ga Grammar, Stuttgart, 1858). It is represented as speaking through the nose like the local 'bogy,' and its hobbling gait is imitated by the story-teller. Another superstition is that the Ananu (the Akra form of the word) injures children sleeping in the same room with it. At Fernando Po I found another valuable spider which preys upon cockroaches. When a cruiser was particularly afflicted by the blatta, ...
— To The Gold Coast for Gold, Vol. II - A Personal Narrative • Richard Francis Burton and Verney Lovett Cameron

... simply, and I knew you were speaking the truth. Then you spoke just as naturally of Wee Brown Elspeth. That startled me because not long before I had been told the tale in the Highlands by a fine old story-teller who is the head of his clan. I saw you had never heard the story before. And yet you were telling me that you had played with ...
— The White People • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... Helen made hasty preparations for bed. "I think you have enough to worry about and be frightened over, without getting up a lot of extra things on purpose. I can hear that blood-hound panting under the window this very minute. Isn't Mrs. Brooks a wonderful story-teller?" ...
— Betty Wales, Sophomore • Margaret Warde

... midst of one of his stories; the soldier was standing still, leaning on his stick, and laughed with a touch of annoyance, for he was growing vain of his skill as a story-teller. ...
— Angelot - A Story of the First Empire • Eleanor Price

... slit in the sash, to let in the cold air. As a rule, the occasional opening of the outer door to admit some one sufficed, for out rushed the hot blast, and in came the dry, frosty air to brace to their tasks the cheerful story-teller ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... when a few interested listeners were gathered around the wigwam fire of the old story-teller, whom they had made happy by gifts of venison and tobacco, Oowikapun said to him, "Good father, you are wise in many things about which we are ignorant, and long ago the old men of our people handed down to you ...
— Oowikapun - How the Gospel Reached the Nelson River Indians • Egerton Ryerson Young

... Marlborough. The portrait instantly arrests attention. His ideal personages had been drawn in such a sketchy way, they presented so many imperfectly harmonized features, that they never became real, with the exception, of course, of the story-teller himself. But the vigor with which the presentment of the imperial ship-carpenter, the sturdy, savage, eager, fiery Peter, was given in the few opening sentences, showed the movement of the hand, the glow of the color, that were in due ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... world-famous story-teller of Danish birth, son of a poor shoemaker, born at Odense; was some time before he made his mark, was honoured at length by the esteem and friendship of the royal family, and by a national festival on his ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... motive force does not concern the literary critic. But when two sceptics, who are to expose a charlatan’s tricks by watching how the believers are succumbing to mesmeric hallucinations, are found succumbing to the same hallucinations themselves—succumbing because the story-teller needs them as witnesses of the phenomena—then the literary critic grows pensive, for he sees what havoc the scientific method will work ...
— Old Familiar Faces • Theodore Watts-Dunton

... emigration to the United States which absorbed the Irish during the '40's and '50's depreciated the sale of such works as those of the Banims to the lowest point, and Michael had good reason, aside from the loss of his brother's aid, to lay down his pen. The audience of the Irish story-teller had gone away across the great western sea. There was nothing to do but sit by the lonesome hearth and await one's own to-morrow for the ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner

... railway facilities worth mentioning, and they had to go by private conveyance—wagon or carriage or on horseback as the case might be. Probably a dozen lawyers might go together, all putting up at the same hotel, and generally having a good time at night, spinning yarns. Lincoln was a good story-teller, and so was Davis; and the evenings were made exceedingly agreeable ...
— Fifty Years of Public Service • Shelby M. Cullom

... The young story-teller went on. "That's just it. The mediums are so nonchalant while causing these marvels that they fail to convince. Why, when I was holding a slate in order that they might write upon it, I minded the scratching no more than ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland

... better chance could you ask?' I cried. 'Man, I've often thought that an innkeeper would make the best story-teller ...
— The Thirty-nine Steps • John Buchan

... Iagoo, the great boaster, He the marvelous story-teller, He the traveler and the talker, He the friend of old Nokomis, Made a bow for Hiawatha; From a branch of ash he made it, From an oak-bough made the arrows. Tipped with flint, and winged with feathers, And the cord he ...
— The Elson Readers, Book 5 • William H. Elson and Christine M. Keck

... which Lincoln possessed of fitting language to thought is marked. It made him the matchless story-teller, and gave sublimity to his graver addresses. His thoroughness and accuracy were a source of wonder and delight to scholars. He had a masterful grasp of great subjects. He was able to look at events from all sides, so as ...
— The Life of Abraham Lincoln • Henry Ketcham

... an entertaining story-teller, which [sic] sometimes he rather embellished; so that the writer of this once heard Dr. Johnson say:—"Campbell will lie, but he never lies on paper."' Gent. Mag. for ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell

... those, we hope, of our readers who have not yet turned their attention to the works written in the Icelandic tongue, fail to be moved more or less by the dramatic power and eager interest in human character, shown by our story-teller; we say, we hope, but we are sure that no one of insight will disappoint us in this, when he has once accustomed himself to the unusual, and, if he pleases, barbarous ...
— The Story of Grettir The Strong • Translated by Eirikr Magnusson and William Morris

... Anne, as the old story-teller sailed off. "That she loves him, and that her mother is anxious to secure him, is evident; but he is truthful and open, and would never conceal it. No, no, Lady Maude! you are cherishing a false hope. You are very beautiful, but you are not worthy of him; and ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood

... not forget that it is wholly and solely to the genius of the Gaul that Europe owes "The Arabian Nights' Entertainments" over which Western childhood and youth have spent so many spelling hours. Antoine Galland was the first to discover the marvellous fund of material for the story-teller buried in the Oriental mine; and he had in a high degree that art of telling a tale which is far more captivating than culture or scholarship. Hence his delightful version (or perversion) became one of the world's classics and at once made Sheherazade and Dinarzarde, Haroun ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton

... this fact in the bud of my narrative, because I like to do as I would be done by, when I can just as well as not. It rasps a person of my temperament exceedingly to be deceived. When any one tells a story, we wish to know at the outset whether the story-teller is a man or a woman. The two sexes awaken two entirely distinct sets of feelings, and you would no more use the one for the other than you would put on your tiny teacups at breakfast, or lay the carving-knife by the butter-plate. Consequently it is very exasperating to sit, open-eyed ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 55, May, 1862 • Various

... pay store-rent, and may carry all his affairs under his hat, as the phrase is. He alone among men of letters may look forward to that sort of continuous prosperity which follows from capacity and diligence in other vocations; for story-telling is now a fairly recognized trade, and the story-teller has a money-standing in the economic world. It is not a very high standing, I think, and I have expressed the belief that it does not bring him the respect felt for men in other lines of business. Still our ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... Babylonia, and as an eye- witness describes with a never-failing vivacity and freshness the wonders of the different lands he had seen. Herodotus lived in a story-telling age, and he is himself an inimitable story-teller. To him we are indebted for a large part of the tales of antiquity—stories of men and events which we never tire of repeating. He was over-credulous, and was often imposed upon by his guides in Egypt and at Babylon; but he describes with great care and ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers

... between the Androscoggin and the Saco,—I don't feel bound to tell you precisely where, and I have only a story-teller's word to give you for it at all,—lies the little neighborhood of Outledge. An odd corner of a great township such as they measure off in these wilds; where they take in, with some eligible "locations" of intervale land, miles also of pathless forest where the bear and ...
— A Summer in Leslie Goldthwaite's Life. • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney

... so called after one of the troops of the Fatimite Caliphs. The name "Yamaniyah" is probably due to the story-teller's inventiveness. ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton

... have only too frequently been modified, or the reverse. At the same time, embellishments of the kind are interesting, as showing how familiar these traditionary beliefs were in olden times to the story-teller, and how ready he was to ...
— The Folk-lore of Plants • T. F. Thiselton-Dyer

... doubtful if his listeners ever derived a fraction of the amusement from his fabrications that he himself enjoyed. Paloma's spirit of contradiction was the only fly in his ointment; now that his daughter was old enough to "keep books" on him, much of the story-teller's ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach

... laired on the sunny side of the ditches and hedges, or collected in rings round that respectable character, the Academician of the village, or some other well-known Senachie, or story-teller, they amuse themselves till the priest's arrival. Perhaps, too, some walking geographer of a pilgrim may happen to be present; and if there be, he is sure to draw a crowd about him, in spite of all the efforts of the learned Academician to the contrary. It is no unusual thing to see such ...
— The Ned M'Keown Stories - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton

... cried another in an entreating voice, for it was well known all over that region that the bold hunter was a good story-teller, and as he had served a good deal on the frontier as guide to the United States troops, it was understood that he had much to tell of a thrilling and adventurous kind; but although the men about him ceased to talk and looked ...
— Charlie to the Rescue • R.M. Ballantyne

... court and tells how these maidens are the descendants of those ravished by King Amangons and his men, and how, could the court of the Fisher King, and the Grail, once more be found, the land would again become fertile. Blihos-Bliheris is, we are told, so entrancing a story-teller that none at court could ever weary of ...
— From Ritual to Romance • Jessie L. Weston

... old lady had to relate. Mrs. Margaret having led a life without adventures, had made up their deficiency by being a most graphic recorder of the histories of others; Scheherazade herself was not a more amusing story-teller; and if the Arabian Princess had recourse to genii, talismans, and monsters, to adorn her narratives, neither was Mrs. Dymock without her marvellous apparatus; for she had her ghosts, her good people, her dwarfs, and dreadful visions of second sight, wherewith to embellish ...
— Shanty the Blacksmith; A Tale of Other Times • Mrs. Sherwood [AKA: Mrs. Mary Martha Sherwood]

... tolerably complete autobiography. This is in one respect an advantage for any one who attempts to give an account of his life. But it has a counterbalancing disadvantage in the circumstance that there is grave reason to doubt his veracity, Defoe was a great story-teller in more senses than one. We can hardly believe a word that he says about ...
— Daniel Defoe • William Minto

... by a man who was not telling it to his hearers as a thing new to them, but as a thing which they had witnessed and would remember. He was a dull person, and ignorant; he had no gift as a story-teller, and no invention; in his mouth this episode was merely history—history and statistics; and the gravest sort of history, too; he was entirely serious, for he was dealing with what to him were austere facts, and ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... with laughter except Romer. His interest had been so all-absorbing, his excitement so great, and his faith in the story-teller so reverential that at first he could not grasp the trick at the end of the story. His face was radiant, his eyes were dark and dilated. When the truth dawned upon him, amaze and disappointment changed his mobile face, and then came mirth. He shouted ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey

... pocket a folded paper, shook it abroad, and disclosed a rough draft of an announcement to the effect that Mrs. Petherwin, Professed Story-teller, would devote an evening to that ancient form of the romancer's art, at a well-known fashionable hall in London. 'Now you see,' she continued, 'the meaning of what you observed going on here. That you heard was one of three tales I am preparing, with a view of selecting the best. ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy

... Judged by standards of the present day, these are far from faultless. The facts are not very coherent, the diction is artificial in the fashion of the day. But when all is said, Brown was a rare story-teller; he interested his readers by the novelty of his material, and he was quite objective in its treatment, never obtruding his own personality. 'Wieland,' 'Edgar Huntly,' and 'Arthur Mervyn,' the trilogy ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various

... folk-lore, and neither by coaxing nor by offers of money could an Indian be persuaded to relate a myth. In most instances, Professor Hartt was met with statements to the effect that some old woman of the neighborhood was the story-teller, who could make him laugh with tales of the animals; but he never ...
— Nights With Uncle Remus - Myths and Legends of the Old Plantation • Joel Chandler Harris

... began. She was a charming woman and a gifted story-teller. She had traveled all over the world, and because she was interested in all the little things, her adventures had been many. She told them to-night about one ride she had taken for miles inland and held every one of them spellbound by her account ...
— Polly's Senior Year at Boarding School • Dorothy Whitehill

... high part of the town; and from the window of her summer apartment, we had the prospect of the sea, the islands, and the Asian mountains.—My letter is insensibly grown so long, I am ashamed of it. This is a very bad symptom. 'Tis well if I don't degenerate into a downright story-teller. It may be, our proverb, that knowledge is no burden, may be true, as to one's self but knowing too much, is very apt to make us troublesome to other people. ...
— Letters of the Right Honourable Lady M—y W—y M—e • Lady Mary Wortley Montague

... said he was a story-teller,' sobbed Dora. 'And now you say the same of me! Oh, what shall I do! What shall ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens

... Some time, during the holidays, I may turn story-teller, if you wish it; but here we are at the ferry; now look ...
— Little Folks Astray • Sophia May (Rebecca Sophia Clarke)

... other of these narratives, four or five men talking at the top of their voices at the same time, each one telling a different story. At first each story-teller addressed himself to the company generally, but after a while, finding it impossible to make himself heard, he would select some particular individual who seemed disposed to listen and tell him the story. It sometimes happened that in the middle of the tale the man to whom ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell

... From the young Stuart Prince's curious looks at me 'twas plain to be seen that Creagh was recounting the tale of my adventures. Once I heard the Prince exclaim, "What! That boy?" More than once he laughed heartily, for Creagh was an inimitable story-teller and every point to be scored in the telling gained sparkle from his Irish wit. When he had finished Prince Charles sent for me and congratulated me warmly on the boldness and the aplomb (so he was kind enough to phrase it) which had carried me ...
— A Daughter of Raasay - A Tale of the '45 • William MacLeod Raine

... demons or spirits of the forest. They were all very appropriate to the time and place, for now and then a yell or a shriek resounded through the gloomy wilderness around the shed. One old parchment-faced fellow, with a skin the colour of mahogany, seemed to be a capital story-teller; but I was sorry I did not know enough of the language to follow him in all the details which he gave. Amongst other things, he related an adventure he had once had with a jaguar. He got up from his hammock in the course of the narrative to give it the greater effect by means of gestures; ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates

... hypocrite; sophist, Pharisee, Jesuit, Mawworm^, Pecksniff, Joseph Surface, Tartufe^, Janus; serpent, snake in the grass, cockatrice, Judas, wolf in sheep's clothing; jilt; shuffler^, stool pigeon. liar &c (lie) &c 544; story-teller, perjurer, false witness, menteur a triple etage [Fr.], Scapin^; bunko steerer [U.S.], carpetbagger [U.S.], capper [U.S.], faker, fraud, four flusher [Slang], horse coper^, ringer [Slang], spieler^, straw bidder [U.S.]. imposter, pretender, soi-disant [Fr.], humbug; adventurer; Cagliostro, Fernam ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... gravely, "we cannot leave without seeing the hostess, and if we do not ask to kiss this famous wind-instrument, it is a out of respect for so good a story-teller." ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac

... thing serious to him in the whole matter, and that is not so very serious. {2} The story-teller is no Mimnermus, Love and Youth are the best things he knew,—"deport du viel caitif,"—and now he has "come to forty years," and now they are with him no longer. But he does not lament like Mimnermus, like Alcman, like Llwyarch Hen. "What is Life, ...
— Aucassin and Nicolete • Andrew Lang

... think what she chooses," he replied. "I have never 'taken hold' of her in my life. Lord knows, I might if I wanted to. All the other boys boast that they take turn about, but—. She would be a fool to tell if it were true, and a story-teller if not. So I'll settle the question ...
— A Forest Hearth: A Romance of Indiana in the Thirties • Charles Major

... forms of human expression, there is a stage in the telling of lies where the normal condition has passed and the diseased one has not yet begun. The extreme limit on the one side is the harmless story-teller, the hunter, the tourist, the student, the lieutenant,—all of whom boast a little; on the other side there is the completely insane paralytic who tells about his millions and his monstrous achievements. The characteristic pseudologia phantastica, the lie of advanced hysteria, in which people ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden

... ages, from the remotest antiquity, the story-teller has flourished. Evidences of his existence are to be found among the most ancient monuments and writings in the Orient. In Egypt, Nineveh, Babylon, and other ancient lands he flourished, and in the homes of the noblest he was ever ...
— Algonquin Indian Tales • Egerton R. Young

... at last, as the suspense became unbearable, "and we're kinder bashful about singin' to company, anyway. But if you want to hear somethin' good, you want to git Bill goin' about Coloraydo. Sure, Mr. Lightfoot is our best story-teller; and he's had some mighty excitin' times up there in them parts, hain't ...
— Hidden Water • Dane Coolidge

... safety's sake, in the next street to the apothecary's, and of two out of three bottles being filled with poison, which is at once a proceeding natural in itself, and increases the chances against the two rioters when they are left to choose for themselves. This it is to be a good story-teller. But of a different order is the change introduced by Chaucer into his original, where the old hermit—who, of course, is Death himself—is fleeing from Death. Chaucer's Old Man is SEEKING Death, but seeking him ...
— Chaucer • Adolphus William Ward

... things still touching or sacred for the mass of mankind had the old Voltairean flavour. But somehow, presented in this form and at this moment, David no longer found it attractive. He sat nursing his knee, his dark brows drawn together, studying the story-teller, whose florid Norman complexion and blue eyes were already seared ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... father and the "baby" of his family, of the hasty leaving home of the boy, of the meagre news of his early marriage, and lastly of the years that were empty of tidings. These Polly was able to fill up in part, when the story-teller turned listener, with interest almost as ...
— Polly of Lady Gay Cottage • Emma C. Dowd

... man got into your house, without you, or the guard set to watch you, knowing it? Could any one have done it better? Did it not have to be done? As for humor— have they not enjoyed the task? Has it not been a sweeter tale in their ears than the story-teller's at the corner, because they have told it to themselves and acted ...
— Guns of the Gods • Talbot Mundy

... story-teller by getting up and tucking a heavy rug snugly around Baby Van Rensselaer's feet, for the sky was now overcast and gray and the air was damp ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Mystic-Humorous Stories • Various

... humor. He was not solemn. Solemnity is a mask worn by ignorance and hypocrisy—it is the preface, prologue, and index to the cunning or the stupid. He was natural in his life and thought—master of the story-teller's art, in illustration apt, in application perfect, liberal in speech, shocking Pharisees and prudes, using any ...
— Our American Holidays: Lincoln's Birthday • Various

... a return to the old school day methods of testing a sentence for coherence. It must be corrected, and that vigorously and radically, for it is fatal to a good short story style. An instance of how much stress editors lay upon procuring only the "concentrated extract of the story-teller's art" may be found in a letter received by a young writer from the editor of a prominent publication: "We will pay $100 for your story as it is. If you can reduce it a third, we will pay you $150; if ...
— Short Story Writing - A Practical Treatise on the Art of The Short Story • Charles Raymond Barrett

... phrase is. There were occasional anecdotes of "bustings-up" on the southern rivers, "making tracks" from importunate creditors, of practical jokes, and glaring impositions. There was a great deal of "liquoring-up" going on the whole time. The best story-teller was repeatedly called upon to "liquor some," which was accordingly done by copious draughts of "gin-sling," but at last he declared he was a "gone 'coon, fairly stumped," by which he meant to express that he was tired and could do no more. This assertion was met by encouragements ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird

... is a French story, but the scene is laid in Germany," he replied, coolly. "Do you desire to teach me my profession? Understand that nothing is more elastic than a German court; the story-teller can introduce there whoever he likes; I may bring in the Shah of Persia and the Emperor of China if I care to. However, if you prefer the court of Italy, it is the same thing ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... Zola has become a novelist. He has certainly written essays, but he knows how inconsiderable have been their sales in comparison with those of his works embodying precisely the same principles, but placed before the world in the form of novels. To criticise him as a mere story-teller ...
— With Zola in England • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly

... story-teller who was made a Bishop on account of his peculiar talent, had the effrontery to put one of his worst stories, that about the adventures of Fra Lippo Lippi, into the mouth of Leonardo. This rough-cast tale, somewhat softened down and hand- polished, served ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard

... shall be amused. Bismillah! he wills it so. If the story-teller becomes prolix and tedious—the bow-string and the sack, and two Nubians to drop him into the Piscataqua! But truly, Jack, I have a hard task. There is literally nothing here—except the little girl over the way. She ...
— Marjorie Daw • Thomas Bailey Aldrich

... writing in the Nineteenth Century, October 1887, said: "I have left till the last any mention of the lady who, by right of merit, should stand first. Mrs. Molesworth is, in my opinion, considering the quality and quantity of her labours, the best story-teller for children England has yet known. This is a bold statement and requires substantiation. Mrs. Molesworth, during the last six years, has never failed to occupy a prominent place among the juvenile writers ...
— A Christmas Posy • Mary Louisa Stewart Molesworth

... hundred horse-power mouth. It admitted no trifling. When it spoke seriously, it spoke finally. But his eyes, with their merry twinkle, showed that he could also speak humorously. He was indeed a famous story-teller, fond of all sorts of riddles and jests, and remembering all of them he heard. He used often to point his arguments with an anecdote, always a fresh one. Believing with Lamb that a man should enjoy his own stories, he would laugh ...
— James B. Eads • Louis How

... I presume now, the college youth harkened to inspired voices. Sir Walter Scott belonged to a previous generation. Having held the close attention of a delighted world as the most successful story-teller of his own or any preceding period, he had passed off the stage; but only a short twenty years before. Other voices no less inspired had followed; and, living, spoke to us. Perhaps my scheme to-day is best ...
— 'Tis Sixty Years Since • Charles Francis Adams

... of such a port," said some of his auditors; "you're humbugging us." "I have been to America, the West and East Ingees, but I never heard of such a port," said another. "Why, you lubbers," said the story-teller, "if you go to France, you'll see thousands of them. It's what they drive the coaches under into their yards." I was inclined to correct the word, but I thought it better not to interrupt them. "Where did I leave off?" ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman

... wheaten rolls and poppy-seed cakes with honey in the other world!) could tell a story wonderfully well. When he used to begin a tale you could not stir from the spot all day, but kept on listening. He was not like the story-teller of the present day, when he begins to lie, with a tongue as though he had had nothing to eat for three days, so that you snatch your cap and flee from the house. I remember my old mother was alive then, and in the long winter evenings when the frost was crackling out of doors, and had sealed ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol

... Northern neighbors, the feasts of the Saracens were marked by sobriety. Wine was prohibited. The enchanting moonlight evenings of Andalusia were spent by the Moors in sequestered, fairy-like gardens or in orange-groves, listening to the romances of the story-teller, or engaged in philosophical discourse; consoling themselves for the disappointments of this life by such reflections as that, if virtue were rewarded in this world, we should be without expectations in the life to come; and reconciling themselves to their daily ...
— History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science • John William Draper

... are intended to bring before the American public a few of the tales related by Visayan parents to their children, or by the public story-teller in the market, as the people gather to buy the material for the evening meal. It was only toward the close of a three years' stay in the Islands, in one province, and in neighboring places, and after a fair acquaintance with Spanish and a little knowledge of the native dialect had enabled ...
— Philippine Folk-Tales • Clara Kern Bayliss, Berton L. Maxfield, W. H. Millington,

... the legend of Solomon—not the Solomon of the Bible, but the much more wonderful Solomon of the Arabian story-teller. His power is said to have been in a certain seal ring, upon which the mystical name of Allah, or at least one of the ninety and nine mystical names, was engraved. When he chose to use this ring, all the spirits of air, the spirits of earth, the spirits of water and the spirits of ...
— Books and Habits from the Lectures of Lafcadio Hearn • Lafcadio Hearn

... a famous story-teller; after I had acquired language he used to spell clumsily into my hand his cleverest anecdotes, and nothing pleased him more than to have me repeat them ...
— Story of My Life • Helen Keller

... it? He has a tongue. Why shouldn't he tell us something? I want to judge whether he is a good story-teller; anything you like, prince-how you liked Switzerland, what was your first impression, anything. You'll see, he'll begin directly and tell us all about ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... peg set up a certain space off in the deck,—a game which they eagerly took up in the afternoon, after pushing about the flat wooden disks all the morning. Most of the talk at the table was of the varying fortunes of the players; and the yarn of the story-teller in the forecastle remained half-spun, while the sailors off watch gathered to look on, and to bet upon Lydia's skill. It puzzled Staniford to make out whether she felt any strangeness in the situation, which she accepted ...
— The Lady of the Aroostook • W. D. Howells

... often be noticed small doorways, whose white plaster is decorated by some bright though crude design in many colours; this is the "hammam," or public bath, while the shop of the barber, chief gossip and story-teller of his quarter, is easily distinguished by the fine-meshed net hung across the entrance as a protection against flies, for flies abound in Cairo, which, however disagreeable they may be, is perhaps fortunate in a country where the laws of ...
— Peeps at Many Lands: Egypt • R. Talbot Kelly

... in their earliest years and passed them on to their children and grandchildren in turn. And, as is natural, in all this telling the stories changed little by little. New and more familiar characters were introduced, or a story-teller with more vivid imagination than his fellows would add a bit here and there to make a better ...
— Legend Land, Vol. 1 • Various

... dressing up a bit of philosophical observation into a story very happily. He had much feeling for symbol, and, like the old architects, would fill all things, pretty or ugly, with meaning. When one reads these stories, one does not feel as if it were the writer's vocation to be a story-teller, but as if he were using the story as a philosophical toy. And it was fortunate for him that he fell on an age of periodicals, a class of works which just suited his genius. He and the modern development of periodical literature grew up together, and grew prosperous together. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various

... this tale is Numbers xv. 32-36. Upon referring to the sacred text, we certainly find a man gathering sticks upon the Sabbath day, and the congregation gathering stones for his merciless punishment, but we look in vain for any mention of the moon. Non est inventus. Of many an ancient story-teller we may say, as Sheridan said of Dundas, "the right honourable gentleman is indebted to his memory for his jests and to his imagination for ...
— Moon Lore • Timothy Harley

... was in the volunteer corps, in eighteen hundred and six,'—but, as he spoke very slowly and softly, and his better half very quickly and loudly, he rarely got beyond the introductory sentence. He was a melancholy specimen of the story-teller. He was the wandering Jew ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens

... the tribe of Al-Yam, which ranges on the border of that fortunate part of the Arabian peninsular known as Arabia the Happy. My youngest brother, Ismail, desirous of seeing the world, went to the court of Oman, where struck by his inimitable skill in narration, the imam installed him as royal story-teller. But having in the space of a year exhausted his stock of stories, the imam, who is blessed with an excellent memory, discovering that he was telling the same stories over again, shut him up in a tower constructed of vermilion stone quarried on the upper waters ...
— The Strange Adventures of Mr. Middleton • Wardon Allan Curtis

... Una of Java, who shone like a jewel in the world which could not tarnish the purity and devotion of one whose heart entertained no evil thought. In the intricate byways of the crumbling Kraton, a professional story-teller draws a squalid crowd of women from their dark hovels and cellars, with the magic wand of enchantment wielded by the reciter of heroic deeds from the Panji, exaggerated out of all recognition by the addition of fairies and giants, demons and dwarfs, to the simple ...
— Through the Malay Archipelago • Emily Richings

... did Cuchulain; and one finds memories of Danish invasions and standing armies mixed with the imaginations of hunters and solitary fighters among great woods. One never hears of Cuchulain delighting in the hunt or in woodland things; and one imagines that the story-teller would have thought it unworthy in so great a man, who lived a well-ordered, elaborate life, and had his chariot and his chariot-driver and his barley-fed horses to delight in. If he is in the woods ...
— Gods and Fighting Men • Lady I. A. Gregory

... and so recently that he was animated by something like a convert's zeal. Beginning his narrative quietly, in a reminiscent vein, with intervals in which he lapsed altogether into meditation, he was presently fired with all the animation in a story-teller when he perceives he is holding his hearer spellbound. As a matter of fact, he was moved not so much by the desire of convincing Conquest of Miriam Strange's nobility, as by the impulse to do her justice, once in his life at least, in language ...
— The Wild Olive • Basil King

... native land." And there the matter rested. Only, when we separated that night, each of us carried a sealed envelope containing a numbered slip, which decided the question of precedence, and it was agreed that no one but the story-teller should know who was to be the evening's entertainer, until story-telling hour arrived with the coffee ...
— Told in a French Garden - August, 1914 • Mildred Aldrich

... know exactly what, but she thought she would like to reassure the Marquis. . . . On second thoughts she decided too that it would be better (perhaps) to refrain. Well, to escape from the toils of an interesting story (for I'm no longer a story-teller but a prefacer) I will say that three nights later Sir Hugh took the Marchioness in to dinner; he sat in his predecessor's chair, knowing nothing of him, thereby startling his hosts, who, however, ...
— Muslin • George Moore

... speaking the thing that was not in his mind with the deplorable facility of the professional story-teller—"supposing that illness had been a sham, and they had really meant to ...
— The Shadow of the Rope • E. W. Hornung

... the story-teller heard it, but with different results. The latter stirred and looked about him, as though new hope and strength had come to him. The former, led by Tim and Judy, broke simultaneously into anxious speech. Maria, having slept profoundly since the ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood

... lightly. "She didn't say anything to me. Only I'm glad to have your opinion of her, how she's such a story-teller and all—if I ever want ...
— Gentle Julia • Booth Tarkington

... churches and individuals took refuge when called upon to "come up to the help of the Lord against the mighty." But Dr. Bailey said he knew them personally, and that despite their public record, they were at heart anti-slavery, and that prudence alone dictated their course. Mrs. Stowe was a graphic story-teller, had been in Kentucky, taken in the situation and could describe the peculiar institution as no one else could. If he could only enlist her, the whole family would most likely follow into the abolition ranks; but the bounty money, alas, where could ...
— Half a Century • Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm

... good part, and we had a pleasant evening at the Hall. He discharged a good many other puns, which I am glad to say I have forgotten. But there was a man present who was a good story-teller. Some I had heard before, but they were none the less welcome, while one or two I related were as good as new to my host and old Squire Fullerton, who had once been High Sheriff, and was supposed to know all about circuit business. He prefaced ...
— The Reminiscences Of Sir Henry Hawkins (Baron Brampton) • Henry Hawkins Brampton

... translator must give his own; and the endings are equally unsatisfactory, they usually content themselves, after "native" fashion, with "Intiha" finis, and the connection with the thread of the work must be supplied by the story-teller or the translator. Headlines were not in use for the MSS. of that day, and the catchwords are often irregular, a new word taking the place of the initial in the ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton

... King was a capital story-teller, and among them I remember this one: At one time he was general manager of the Baltimore and Ohio under John W. Garrett. In order to raise money for his projected extensions, Garrett had gone to Europe. The times were financially very difficult. Johns Hopkins, ...
— My Memories of Eighty Years • Chauncey M. Depew

... not many people—and as it is desirable that a story-teller and a story-reader should establish a mutual understanding as soon as possible, I beg it to be noticed that I confine this observation neither to young people nor to little people, but extend it to all conditions of people: little and big, young and old: ...
— A Budget of Christmas Tales by Charles Dickens and Others • Various

... and baseness, the glamor and grotesqueness, the magic and the mournfulness, the bravery and baseness of Oriental life are here: its pictures of the three great Arab passions—love, war, and fancy—entitle it to be called 'Blood, Musk, and Hashish.' And still more, the genius of the story-teller quickens the dry bones of history, and by adding Fiction to Fact revives the dead past; the Caliphs and the Caliphate return to Baghdad and Cairo, whilst Asmodeus kindly removes the terrace-roof of every tenement and allows our curious glances to take in the whole ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various

... So, whenever a story-teller chanced in that neighbourhood he was directed to the monastery, and there he received a welcome and his fill of all that is good ...
— Irish Fairy Tales • James Stephens

... to visit in prison before she was really well) she would sit down and begin talking to "Maximushka" about trifling matters, to keep her from thinking of her sorrow. The old man turned out to be a good story-teller on occasions, so that at last he became necessary to her. Grushenka saw scarcely any one else beside Alyosha, who did not come every day and never stayed long. Her old merchant lay seriously ill at this time, "at his last gasp" ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... the subject with airiness somewhat exaggerated, drew out his huge gilt snuffbox. The snow was now falling more thickly, drawing a white and fleecy veil between the two upon the road and the story-teller and his audience beneath the distant elm. "Are you for Williamsburgh?" demanded the Highlander, when he had somewhat abruptly declined to take snuff with Monsieur ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston

... must ask of those wiser than I, for I am only the story-teller, sitting in the shadow of the market-place, passing on the tale that comes to my ears. But I can remind you that May Eve is one of the most bewitched and bewitching times of the whole year—reason enough to account for any number of strange happenings; and I can point out to your notice that ...
— The Primrose Ring • Ruth Sawyer

... when one of her stories went well, with the true instinct of a story-teller could seldom be persuaded to follow it with another, fearing an anti-climax perhaps. She turned in under her little tent, and soon thereafter trumpeted to ...
— The Woman from Outside - [on Swan River] • Hulbert Footner

... to camp, where the old man was still regaling the boys with anecdotes, having proved himself a most entertaining story-teller. ...
— Ted Strong's Motor Car • Edward C. Taylor

... dark-browed apparitions that crossed his vision could be said to fulfil all these requirements, the indications scattered among them were sufficiently suggestive to have an exhilarating effect upon the genial little story-teller. ...
— Peak and Prairie - From a Colorado Sketch-book • Anna Fuller

... Among the numerous passages in his memoirs in which scenes are described which hardly one of his contemporaries would have thought worth a line of notice, we will here only mention the boat-race on the Lake of Bolsena. We are not able to detect from what old letter-writer or story-teller the impulse was derived to which we owe such lifelike pictures. Indeed, the whole spiritual communion between antiquity and the Renaissance is full of delicacy and ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt

... and skillful performance, giving an evidently faithful picture of society, and evincing the art of a true story-teller."—Philadelphia Telegraph. ...
— A Little Norsk; Or, Ol' Pap's Flaxen • Hamlin Garland

... out, and not even a skirt rustled in that dark studio as the story-teller paused a moment to steady her voice, and put a hand softly up to her eyes ...
— The Best Ghost Stories • Various

... he asked, abruptly. He was not a good story-teller perhaps. And while slowly cutting his beef across and across, in a forlorn hope that it might, perchance, not give him dyspepsia this time, he recited in a ...
— The Vultures • Henry Seton Merriman

... Hermine, as the crew had been so weakened by sickness and death. They captured Donnacona and several other chiefs and determined to take them to France "to relate to the king the wonders of the world Donnacona [evidently a great story-teller] had seen in these western countries, for he had assured us that he had been in the Saguenay kingdom, where are infinite gold, rubies, and other riches, and white men dressed in woollen clothing." In the vicinity of the fort, at the meeting of the St. ...
— Canada • J. G. Bourinot

... written out; many of them grew out of single incidents or little inventions of fancy, and became longer and larger as they passed from one story-teller to another and ...
— Folk Tales Every Child Should Know • Various

... fortune and became idle, and was satisfied to be a good story-teller. He was very amusing, and contrived to survive the dinners of the new and old regime. [Footnote: I smiled when I wrote the above, for it recalled to me an Academician, the eulogium of whom Fontenelle undertook. The deceased knew only how to ...
— The Physiology of Taste • Brillat Savarin

... best plan is to set a time for them to come to the library, say Saturday morning at ten, when they can feel that the children's worker is all their own. They like to be read to, but they love to hear stories told. Telling stories to them is a great pleasure to the story-teller, because of their responsiveness, their readiness to enjoy. But besides the enjoyment of the children there is something far higher to work for—the development of the moral sense. The virtues of obedience, kindness, courage and unselfishness are set forth over and over again in the fairy ...
— Library Work with Children • Alice I. Hazeltine

... delighted, though the elders more, Of course, than were the children.—Thus, before Much interchange of mirthful compliment, The story-teller said his stories "went" (Like a bad candle) best when they went out,— And that some sprightly music, dashed about, Would wholly quench his "glimmer," and inspire ...
— A Child-World • James Whitcomb Riley

... just seeing a castle," he began in the accepted manner of the story-teller, and in his pleasant, soothing voice. "A great big castle on the summit of a mountain, with a golden flag fluttering in the sunset; and I think it must be the 'Castle of Heart's Desire,' because all up the craggy path that leads to it there ...
— Max • Katherine Cecil Thurston

... moreover, without being necessary one to another, they yet have a coherent sequence, and follow one another like the days of a week. They are mine only by right of discovery. From various necessities of the case I am sometimes the story-teller, and sometimes, in the reader's interest, have to abridge; but I add no fact and trim naught of value away. Here are no unconfessed "restorations," not one. In time, place, circumstance, in every essential feature, I give them as I got them—strange ...
— Strange True Stories of Louisiana • George Washington Cable

... the change in his condition had had a chastening effect—just as some fruits become mellower and better after being bruised a little and frost-bitten. He was a great lover of children, and withal an inveterate story-teller. ...
— Wreaths of Friendship - A Gift for the Young • T. S. Arthur and F. C. Woodworth

... his early companions as a wit and story-teller. The women complained because at their parties all the men were drawn off to hear Abe Lincoln's stories. When he came to be a public speaker, he feathered the shafts of his argument with jest and anecdote. The vein of humor in him was rich ...
— The Negro and the Nation - A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement • George S. Merriam

... the name of two German brothers.... Their studies they carried on together, though Jacob was the more learned, and made great contributions to the science of language, while Wilhelm was more artistic in his tastes and was a capital story-teller.... They lived in the province of Hesse-Cassel, ... and it was from the peasants in this province that they derived a great many tales. The best friend they had was the wife of a cowherd, a woman of about fifty, who had a genius for story-telling. ...
— A Mother's List of Books for Children • Gertrude Weld Arnold

... in order to secure a baseball team, or an athletic team. Select men of diverse gifts. One should know something about nature study, another about manual training, another a good story-teller, another a good athlete or baseball player, another a good swimmer, another a musician, etc. Always remember, however, that the chief ...
— Camping For Boys • H.W. Gibson

... Mr. Merwyn's benefit; for if Strahan had been left on the field, either killed or wounded, I do not see how he could have escaped me." Then, with a smile at the young girl, he added: "Since you credit me with some skill as a story-teller, and since my story is so long, perhaps it should be divided. In that case what I am now about to relate should be headed with the words, ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe

... in his youth; being more accustomed to the ways of her people than of his own. For nearly twenty years he had lived a thriftless, bachelor existence, known among men, and by hearsay among women, as a noted story-teller, and genial, devil-may-care, old mountain man, whose heart was in the right place, but who never drew very heavily upon his brain resources, except to embellish a tale of his early exploits in Indian-fighting, ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor

... Borough Farm. We had grown out of Borough and were for the moment houseless, so far as summer quarters were concerned. And for my work's sake, I felt that eagerness for new scenes and suggestions which is generally present, I think, in the story-teller of all shades. Suddenly, in a house-agent's catalogue, we came across an astonishing advertisement. Hampden House, on the Chiltern Hills, the ancestral home of John Hampden, of ship-money fame, was to let for the summer, and for a rent not beyond our powers. The new Lord Buckinghamshire, ...
— A Writer's Recollections (In Two Volumes), Volume II • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... be Maupassant, the novelist, a story-teller, a writer, and a philosopher by turns. I will add one more trait; he was devoid of all spirit of criticism. When he essays to demolish a theory, one is amazed to find in this great, clear writer such ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant

... great boaster, He the marvellous story-teller, He the friend of old Nokomis, Saw in all the eyes around him, Saw in all their looks and gestures, That the wedding guests assembled, Longed to hear his pleasant ...
— The Ontario Readers - Third Book • Ontario Ministry of Education

... wholly wrapped in the words of the story-teller, and now I took a deep breath and settled myself so that I might not disturb him by the slightest movement while he was reciting his tale. We were taught this courtesy to our elders, but I was impulsive and ...
— Indian Boyhood • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman

... wanderer narrated his escapes and adventures to Queen Dido, her Majesty, as we read, took the very greatest interest in the fascinating story-teller who told his perils so eloquently. A history ensued, more pathetic than any of the previous occurrences in the life of Pius Aeneas, and the poor princess had reason to rue the day when she listened to that glib ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray

... straight-way she dishes it up for me as if it had been bone of her bone and marrow of her marrow; she knows just what to leave out and what to put in, somehow. You had one of your happy inspirations about that girl, Margaret,—she is a born story-teller. She ought to wander about the country with a lute under her arm. ...
— Polly Oliver's Problem • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin

... Uncle Beamish very much, for he was not only a good story-teller, but he was willing to listen to my stories, and when I found he wanted to hire a horse and sleigh to go to the house of his married sister, with whom he intended to spend Christmas, and that his sister lived on Upper Hill turnpike, on which road the Collingwood house was ...
— The Magic Egg and Other Stories • Frank Stockton

... to market" has possibilities in the hands of a skillful mother. The bedtime story is a definite institution in many families. It deserves to be so in all. Beginning with the nursery rimes, the stories will gradually broaden in theme, and if their dramatic possibilities are at all realized by the story-teller, the children will broaden in their conception of the lives and feelings of others. Sympathy will thus in most cases be a plant of natural ...
— Vocational Guidance for Girls • Marguerite Stockman Dickson

... him to read, so did he teach me. Because he died shortly after from the pick-handle beating, Roger Vanderwater took me out of the slave pen and tried to make various better things out of me. I might have become an overseer in Hell's Bottom, but I chose to become a story-teller, wandering over the land and getting close to my brothers, the slaves, everywhere. And I tell you stories like this, secretly, knowing that you will not betray me; for if you did, you know as well as I that my tongue will be torn out and that I shall tell stories ...
— When God Laughs and Other Stories • Jack London

... commended this fat Bamboir as an excellent story-teller, and thanked him for his true picture of La Jongleuse, whom, to my regret, I had never seen. I would not forget his stirring description, as he should see. I gave point to the tale by squeezing an inflated toy in my pocket, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... financial disaster was eased by the prospect of "goin' East." The "East" was the fairyland of her dreams, the childhood's home of her father, who was a good story-teller when he was not irritated, the Mecca and Medina of all the pilgrimages of all their little world. To go East was to be a travelled person, to attain distinction, just the next best thing in fact to being made President of the United States. To go East ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger

... that goodly cast. Then followed the two woundings and the two throws that overcame him, till Ferdiad made a second throw towards Cuchulain's left, and with that throw he stretched low and killed Indolb dead on the floor of the ford. Hence it is that the story-teller sang the rann:— ...
— The Ancient Irish Epic Tale Tain Bo Cualnge • Unknown

... took me by the hand, and—an oddity of dispensation which, I trust, there is no irreverence in smiling at—has led me, as the newspapers announce while I am writing, from the old Manse into a Custom House! As a story-teller, I have often contrived strange vicissitudes for my imaginary personages, but none like this. The treasure of intellectual gold which I had hoped to find in our secluded dwelling, had never come to light. No profound treatise of ethics—no philosophic history—no novel, even, ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various

... internally, looking with half-shut eyes at the inquiring child. With the malicious delight old servants take in deceiving young ones, she encouraged the laughable simplicity of the girl. "Yes, Timea," in the important tone of a story-teller, "that is a wonderful ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai

... the boys drew closer. Dan'l was a famous story-teller and his tales were always popular ...
— The Boy with the U. S. Weather Men • Francis William Rolt-Wheeler



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