"Narrative" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... all idea of practising as a barrister. He still intended to go through the form of being called; but his profession was to be that of an author. He had all manner of works in hand: poems, plays, political pamphlets, infidel essays, histories, and a narrative of his travels in the East. He had made up his mind fully that there were in England only two occupations worthy of an Englishman. A man should be known either as a politician or as an author. It behoved a man ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... implicitly trusts, has reached me since the previous chapters were written. It covers six pages of foolscap, and is written in defiance of all grammatical and orthographical principles; but as it conveys important intelligence in regard to some of the persons mentioned in this narrative, I will transcribe a ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 2, August, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... six months. He saw himself a welcome visitor at every station, even up to furthest lonely Condamine, retailing the news of these occurrences with all the authenticity of an eye witness, improving his narrative by each repetition. Here was the basis of a new tale, Ode, Epic, Saga, or what you may please to call it, which he Burnside, the bard, should sing at each ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... Now, it occurred to me that if a man of his education could make such a blunder as that and still write a book, I ought to be able to do it, too. I went home that very day and began a story, "The Old Guide's Narrative," which was sent to the New York Weekly, and came back, respectfully declined. It was written on both sides of the sheets but I didn't know that this was against the rules. Nothing abashed, I began another, and receiving some instruction, from a friend of mine who was a ...
— The Telegraph Boy • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... Second Edition of the Memoir, but also to enlarge it with some additional matter which I might have scrupled to intrude on the public if they had not thus seemed to call for it. In the present Edition, the narrative is somewhat enlarged, and a few more letters are added; with a short specimen of her childish stories. The cancelled chapter of 'Persuasion' is given, in compliance with wishes both publicly and privately ...
— Memoir of Jane Austen • James Edward Austen-Leigh
... might have amused us with an account of his hardships and the perils surmounted by his courage, he overcame the temptation of interrupting his narrative by personal adventures. He disdained the beaten track. He does not tell us the road he took, the accidents he met with, or the impressions he received. He carefully avoids appearing upon the stage; ...
— The Ruins • C. F. [Constantin Francois de] Volney
... under the New Monarchy broke the continuity of its life; and the depth of the rift between the two ages is seen by the way in which History passes on its revival under Elizabeth from the mediaeval form of pure narrative to its modern form of an investigation and reconstruction of the past. The new interest which attached to the bygone world led to the collection of its annals, their reprinting and embodiment in an English shape. It was his desire to give the Elizabethan ...
— History of the English People, Volume V (of 8) - Puritan England, 1603-1660 • John Richard Green
... [22] The curious narrative of this embassy, which required few observations, and was not susceptible of any collateral evidence, may be found in Priscus. But I have not confined myself to the same order; and I had previously extracted ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various
... great part of incidents from the Bible, as Christians know it. Mohammed probably picked up a good deal of hearsay knowledge in this department from Jews and Christians. Some of his historical incidents are purely fabulous, others are perversions or falsifications of the Scriptural narrative. This portion of the "Koran," interesting and anecdotic as it is, is the least satisfactory of the work, and shows the writer in his true ignorance, and disregard for historic verification. When, for instance, he confounds ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various
... extend over the fields of fiction, criticism, and the occasional essay. His Study of Prose Fiction, a clear exposition of narrative writing, is one of the best-known college textbooks on the subject. His Walt Whitman is without doubt his most careful and elaborate critical work and is a recognized authority. The Amateur Spirit, a series of familiar essays, shows Professor Perry at his best and should be read especially ...
— A Williams Anthology - A Collection of the Verse and Prose of Williams College, 1798-1910 • Compiled by Edwin Partridge Lehman and Julian Park
... foregoing chapters bring this appalling story of death down to June 4th. We continue the narrative as given from day to day by eye-witnesses, as this is the only method by which a full and accurate description of Johnstown's ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker
... Grace, as her father paused for a moment in his narrative, "if he was the Indian who, in that fight, aimed so many times at Washington, yet failed to hit him, and at last gave up the attempt to kill him, concluding that he must be under the special protection of ...
— Elsie at the World's Fair • Martha Finley
... horror escaped Deodati. Eager to hear the remainder, Mr. Van de Werve gazed fixedly upon the narrator. The bailiff was more calm—he listened attentively and nodded his head, as if he foresaw the conclusion of Turchi's narrative. ...
— The Amulet • Hendrik Conscience
... and down in front of the playhouse Lavinia told the actor the whole story. Spiller smiled indulgently at the love portion of the narrative, but was impressed by the test Lavinia had gone through at Pope's Villa and by Gay's ...
— Madame Flirt - A Romance of 'The Beggar's Opera' • Charles E. Pearce
... from anything I may set down in this narrative that I was a child of close observation, or that as a man I have a strong memory of my childhood, I undoubtedly lay claim to both of ...
— The Law and Lawyers of Pickwick - A Lecture • Frank Lockwood
... doubtless, followed the Latin Vulgate, as we have no reason to think that a knowledge of Greek was a common possession among Old English poets; but, as Professor Cook says, "the order of events is not that of the original narrative. Many transpositions have been made in the interest of condensation and for the purpose of enhancing the ...
— Elene; Judith; Athelstan, or the Fight at Brunanburh; Byrhtnoth, or the Fight at Maldon; and the Dream of the Rood • Anonymous
... exploration to his young lieutenant, Niverville. One incident of his life there remains to be described before we close this story of the search for the Western Sea. It cannot be better told than in Saint-Pierre's own narrative: ...
— Pathfinders of the Great Plains - A Chronicle of La Verendrye and his Sons • Lawrence J. Burpee
... the bosoms of them all, as they met and shook hands; by far too much to enable either of them to begin his story and tell it in a proper equable style of narrative. Mr. Harding was some minutes quite dumbfounded, and Mr. Arabin could only talk in short, spasmodic sentences about his love and good fortune. He slipped in, as best he could, some sort of congratulation about the deanship, and then went on with his hopes and fears—hopes ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... negative assertions and fanciful conjectures. To give therefore, what was said by both parties at these times, would be but useless repetition[A]. To give, on the other hand, that which was said on one side only would appear partial. Hence I shall offer to the reader little more than a narrative ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade by the British Parliament (1808) • Thomas Clarkson
... of the matter in itself scarcely demands a serious attempt to reconcile this discrepancy; and it is safer to accept each party's statement of his own force. The two agree that the action lasted eight or nine hours, and that both were much cut up. It is evident also from each narrative that they lay alongside most of the time, which makes it probable that the ship's height saved her from being overborne ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 2 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... us escape into a more general narrative. The latest facts need not be painfully enumerated. There is little left, indeed, to particularize. Mary's health fluctuates, perhaps, more frequently than heretofore. At one time she is well and happy; at ...
— Charles Lamb • Barry Cornwall
... fact, but those who have gone beneath the surface of events, and tracked the source of political convulsions by a thousand pulses back to the hidden heart of some great principle. This Philosophy of History, which has become almost a distinct branch of literature, gives vitality to the narrative, by leading us to causes which may still exist; thus connecting our interest in the Present with the fate of the Past. In this country, where every man is more or less a political philosopher, a history ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848 • Various
... graces of the performance. Hitherto such forecasts have been presented almost invariably in the form of fiction, and commonly the provocation of the satirical opportunity has been too much for the writer;[2] the narrative form becomes more and more of a nuisance as the speculative inductions become sincerer, and here it will be abandoned altogether in favour of a texture of frank inquiries and arranged considerations. Our utmost aim is a rough sketch of the coming ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells
... wondered, but could not even venture an answer. Soon the boys left the girls and hurried to the academy, where their story, had to be told over again. Captain Putnam looked exceedingly grave over the narrative. ...
— The Rover Boys in the Jungle • Arthur M. Winfield
... Although the narrative of my journey, "with knapsack and staff," is now strictly finished, a few more words of explanation seem necessary, to describe more fully the method of traveling which we adopted. I add them the more willingly, as it is my belief that many, ...
— Views a-foot • J. Bayard Taylor
... of PERICLES or LINCOLN, as Mr. ASQUITH tactfully remarked—fewer and briefer speeches might have sufficed. The PRIME MINISTER painted the lily a little thickly, though no one would have had him omit his picturesque narrative of the first battle of Ypres—I hope some of its few survivors were among the soldiers in the Gallery—or his tributes to the Navy and the Merchant Service. Nor did one grudge Mr. REDMOND'S paean in praise of the Irish troops. It's not his fault, at any ...
— Punch, or The London Charivari, Vol. 153, November 7, 1917 • Various
... his office, he tells us, and was content therewith. He was the last high officer of the government to fight a duel. That bloodless contest between the Secretary of State and John Randolph was as romantic and absurd as a duel could well be. Colonel Benton's narrative of it is at once the most amusing and the most affecting piece of gossip which our political annals contain. Randolph, as the most unmanageable of members of Congress, had been for fifteen years ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... explanations, she could hardly understand Maurice's narrative, but she gathered that on Thursday, the brothers had ridden out, and were about to turn homewards, when Archie Tritton, of whom to her vexation Maurice spoke familiarly, had told Gilbert that a friend was waiting for him at the inn connected with the training ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... notice, and I have since used two of them each year with my class of beginners in Latin with increasing appreciation. Indeed, I know nothing better to introduce the student into the reading of connected narrative, and to bridge the great gulf between the beginner's book of the prevailing type and the Latinity of Caesar or Nepos. They are adapted to this use not merely by reason of their simplicity and interest, but more particularly by the graduating of difficulties and the large ...
— Ritchie's Fabulae Faciles - A First Latin Reader • John Kirtland, ed.
... of tune. Call on him when you would, and you found him self-poised and fresh. Argument or narrative followed at your command. This part of his character was very apparent to me during the last seven years of his life. In that interval I called to see him frequently; and, as my own studies lay in the walks of our ...
— Discourse of the Life and Character of the Hon. Littleton Waller Tazewell • Hugh Blair Grigsby
... of his enemies, Lieutenant de France, who became his prisoner in 1836, and who followed his movements for five months, taking down his daily talk and habits like a Boswell, but leaving nothing in his narrative that is not to the sultan's credit. Of Abd-el-Kader at twenty-eight the lieutenant says: "His face is long and deadly pale, his large black eyes are soft and languishing, his mouth small and delicate, and his nose rather aquiline: his beard is thin, but jet-black, and he wears a small ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XI, No. 27, June, 1873 • Various
... spoke she realized that the very wildness of her narrative was against its verity in the minds of these ...
— The Secret Witness • George Gibbs
... cares the historian, however, as he skips gayly from one past generation to another, waving his phantoms off the stage of memory with a sweep of his cane, and poking others on to make their bow to the man with the crowbar, who thus, piecing the narrative out with his own detective work in wood, rebuilds the story. It was but a little house which began with two rooms on the ground floor and two attic chambers, built for Stoddard who married the daughter of the pioneer landowner of the vicinity, and it nestled up within ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard
... of the usages and habits of this people, and of such particulars as have special reference to them, will now close this narrative: and first it may be observed that the extensive works which they completed and kept in repair for a number of years, would seem to indicate, and that almost beyond a doubt, that the Boeothicks were once a ...
— Lecture On The Aborigines Of Newfoundland • Joseph Noad
... pictures that are hung up in the long gallery of my memory: a man may see very distinctly the landscape before him, yet he may be unable to delineate that which he gazes upon and is intimately acquainted with. A viva voce narrative of an incident told to a friend in conversation may pass muster, and one is able to fill up any gaps in an imperfect description; but it always occurred to me that I had no right to task a reader's time and patience ...
— Reminiscences of Captain Gronow • Rees Howell Gronow
... after reading in the New Testament the narrative of Christ's sufferings, one day asks—"Why did Jesus come and suffer and be crucified?" I then explained to her as well as I could in her own tongue. She always seems thoughtful when she reads the Scriptures. Will some maternal ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various
... about one of the boys who has an "active war" in his family and whose martial adventures with those of his grown-up brother give a strong appeal to the narrative and ...
— Sight to the Blind • Lucy Furman
... doubted: this passed invention. And he was thanked, not chidden for his narrative, ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... different periods are relieved from monotony, and derive new importance from the ever-varying effects which they produce on the human character. Thus, in the great occurrence which forms the foundation of our narrative, we may find little in the siege of Rome, looking at it as a mere event, to distinguish it remarkably from any former siege of the city—the same desire for glory and vengeance, wealth and dominion, which brought Alaric to her walls, brought other invaders before him. But if ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... odd expression. In Cherryvale it would be considered bad grammar; but, evidently, grammar rules were different in olden times. The unusual phraseology of the whole narrative fascinated Missy; even when you could hardly understand it, it was—inspiring. Yes, that was the word. In inspiring! That was because it was the true language of Romance. The language of Love... Missy's thoughts ...
— Missy • Dana Gatlin
... talent, he put it out to usury, and it multiplied under the mighty hand of God, so that during his long itinerant ministry, multitudes were led to the Saviour. . . . Those who would be fishers of men will find their souls kindled by the weird narrative of this strange, yet saintly ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... incapable being, involved in thoughts of funereal density, bent his footsteps to an inaccurate turning, and after much wandering was compelled to pass the night upon a desolate heath—but that would be the matter of another narrative. ...
— The Mirror of Kong Ho • Ernest Bramah
... narrative of the Pacific Transit Scheme with the despatch of the 1st May, 1863, which summarises the proposals made and generally concurred in. These long discussions were not abortive, for they led up to the great question of the buying out of the Hudson's Bay Company, without which neither successful ...
— Canada and the States • Edward William Watkin
... interrupting your Highness," Gervaise said; "but the matter is so important that I knew you would listen to it, however occupied you were." And he then repeated the narrative of the sailor's discovery. ...
— A Knight of the White Cross • G.A. Henty
... volume is virtually a continuation of this narrative. The careers of the four sons—Frank, Ernest, Fritz, and Jack—are taken up where the preceding chronicler left them off. The subsequent adventures of these four young men, by flood and field, are faithfully detailed. With these particulars are mingled the experiences ...
— Willis the Pilot • Paul Adrien
... motive and of execution is concerned: but the conception was a little too ingeniously remote for the public to ratify the author's predilection. The Hero and Leander will be at once recognized as modelled on the style of Elizabethan narrative poems: indeed Marlow treated the very same subject, and his poem, left uncompleted, was finished by Chapman. Hood's is a most astonishing example of revivalist poetry: it is reproductive and spontaneous at the same time. It resembles its models closely, ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... Land amongst your volcanic islands? I have a curious book of a sealer who was wrecked on the island, and who mentions a volcanic mountain and hot springs at the S.W. end; it is called the "Wreck of the Favourite." (378/1. "Narrative of the Wreck of the 'Favourite' on the Island of Desolation; detailing the Adventures, Sufferings and Privations of John Munn; an Historical Account of the Island and its Whale and Sea Fisheries." Edited by ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin
... affecting narrative, written in Coleridge's person by the tender-hearted Elia, gives the best view possible of Coleridge's scanty and suffering commencement of life. At that time, it may be premised, the dietary of Christ's Hospital ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... me of the various tricks and cheats which kept them all alive. I found his narrative interesting enough then, but the reader would find it dull, and I expect will be grateful for ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... what Meynell had told me," continued Bradshawe, "when I met Shortridge, and lo! L'Isle had already found them out in their dirty lodgings," and the colonel went on to repeat and embellish Shortridge's narrative of L'Isle's kind attention, and the origin of their intimacy. Various were the comments of the company on the affair. But they all agreed to the justness of their colonel's criticism, when he remarked: "That scene in the Patriarchal Church must have been exceedingly well got up. I should like much ...
— The Actress in High Life - An Episode in Winter Quarters • Sue Petigru Bowen
... make it a matter of regret that she did not live to carry it out. But her chief literary enterprise during the last year of her life was her story of "Maria; or, The Wrongs of Woman." Her interest in it as an almost personal narrative, and her desire to make it a really good novel, were so great that she wrote and rewrote parts of it many times. She devoted more hours to it than would be supposed possible, judging from the rapidity with which her ...
— Mary Wollstonecraft • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... followed is the most famous in Viking story. We know it chiefly through poetic records. But there is no doubt the "Saga" preserves for us much of the living tradition of the time, and if its writers yielded to the temptation of decorating their narrative with picturesque detail, it must be remembered that they told the tale of Olaf's last sea-fight to men who knew from experience what Northern war was like, so they give us what we chiefly want, a lifelike ...
— Famous Sea Fights - From Salamis to Tsu-Shima • John Richard Hale
... his character has been apparent in the course of the narrative. Dying before he had quite completed his thirty-third year, he excites pity and admiration almost as much as censure. His military career was a blaze of glory. Commanding in the Moorish wars at twenty-three, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... outset of the narrative, Benjulia angrily laid aside his pipe, on the point of interrupting the lawyer. He changed his mind; and, putting a strong constraint on himself, listened in silence. "I hope, sir," Mr. Mool concluded, ...
— Heart and Science - A Story of the Present Time • Wilkie Collins
... Hastings turned first to Judge Wilton for a description of the discovery of the body. The judge was in better condition than the others for connected narrative, Arthur Sloane had sunk into a morris chair, where he sighed audibly and plied himself by fits and starts with the aroma from the bottle of smelling salts. Young Webster, still breathing as if he had been through exhausting physical endeavour, stood near the table in the centre of the ...
— No Clue - A Mystery Story • James Hay
... manner of Jules Renard. He is fond of "artistic writing," a typically Parisian product, a style which in ordinary times seems to "powder puff" the emotions, but which, amid the convulsions of the war, exhibits a certain heroic elegance. The narrative is terse, gloomy, stifling; but there come episodes of repose, which break its unity, and by these the tension is relieved for a moment. Few readers will fail to appreciate the charm, the discreet emotion, of these episodes, as for instance in the chapter "On ...
— The Forerunners • Romain Rolland
... supposed to invent as they go on speaking. Some of these people speak with great fluency, and collect crowds round them in the public streets. When an Improvisatore sees the attention of his audience fixed, and when he comes to some very interesting part of his narrative, he dexterously drops his hat upon the ground, and pauses till his auditors have paid tribute to his eloquence. When he thinks the hat sufficiently full, he takes it up again, and proceeds with his story. The hat was dropped just as Francisco and his two friends ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth
... the narrow room, while the white-faced clock continued to tick off each succeeding second of time. Heron had once more buried his head in his hands; a trembling—like an attack of ague—shook his wide, bony shoulders. Armand had listened to the narrative with glowing eyes and a beating heart. The details which the two Terrorists here could not probably understand he had already added to the picture which his ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy
... shell. He splashes the surrounding rocks with gouts of blood, and then shudders dismally at the sight his fancy has conjured up. When the thrilled listener has refreshed the tale-teller from his whisky flask, the romancist takes up the thread of his narrative once more, and tells how the Lancers thundered over the shivering veldts in pursuit of flying hordes of foemen, and for awhile, like some graveyard ghoul, he revels in the moans of the dying and the blood of the slain. ...
— Campaign Pictures of the War in South Africa (1899-1900) - Letters from the Front • A. G. Hales
... and Provencal Chronicles (who has his secure immortality, by Dante set forth in leonine guise—a guisa di leon quando si posa—in the "Purgatorio"), both these are the most shadowy of prototypes. The Sordello of Browning is a typical poetic soul: the narrative of the incidents in the development of this soul is adapted to the historical setting furnished by the aforesaid Chronicles. Sordello is a far more profound study than Aprile in "Paracelsus," in whom, however, ...
— Life of Robert Browning • William Sharp
... may be opposed the approbation of Locke, and the admiration of Molyneux, which are found in their printed "Letters." Molyneux is particularly delighted with the song of Mopas, which is therefore subjoined to this narrative. ...
— Lives of the English Poets: Prior, Congreve, Blackmore, Pope • Samuel Johnson
... unique form of this literature was the drama of the Breton Calvaries, which portrayed one subject and one only,—the "Life and Passion of Christ," taken from Prophecy, Tradition, and the Gospels. Cathedrals, both North and South, used the narrative form. They told story after story; and their makers showed an intimate knowledge of Biblical lore that would do credit to the most ardent theological student. At Nimes, by no means the richest church in carvings, there are besides the Last Judgment and the reward of ...
— Cathedrals and Cloisters of the South of France, Volume 1 • Elise Whitlock Rose
... thing had happened. The born novelist had just discovered himself and clamoured for artistic self-expression. He was writing this book just because he could not help it, finding gladness in the mere work, delighting in the mechanics of the thing, and letting himself go in the joy of the narrative. What was going to become of it when written, I did not enquire. It was rather too delicate a matter. Jaffery Chayne could be nothing else than Jaffery Chayne. A new novel published by him would resemble "The Greater Glory" as closely ...
— Jaffery • William J. Locke
... Discovery of Vineland." He had just read aloud Mr. Aal's interesting introduction to the Sagas of Erik Roede and Karlefne, and now proceeded to read these two Sagas themselves, which contained the narrative of the first discovery of America, and of which we ...
— Strife and Peace • Fredrika Bremer
... ancient. Both sentences and paragraphs are more precise and definite—they do not run into one another. They are also more regularly developed from within. The sentence marks another step in an argument or a narrative or a statement; in reading a paragraph we silently turn over the page and arrive at some new view or aspect of the subject. Whereas in Plato we are not always certain where a sentence begins and ends; and paragraphs are few and far between. The language ...
— Charmides • Plato
... brief a space no man could say, but first there ran a whisper and then a stir, and then half a dozen men came in at once, each with an elaboration of the theme more horrible than the last. The store-keeper culled the choicest fragments from every version, strung them together with a narrative of his own fertile invention, polished off the tale by a few rehearsals in his home, and then placed his product on the open market. The very first day he kept the store-room well filled ...
— The Seventh Man • Max Brand
... purpose of this narrative to dwell minutely upon the events of the next few months. Truth to say, they were devoid of incidents of sufficient moment in themselves to warrant chronicle. What they led ...
— David Harum - A Story of American Life • Edward Noyes Westcott
... happened in the monastery, the community in which it was located, or even the country. At first dry notebooks without historical perspective and with very little detail, they gradually developed into something like a historical narrative of occurrences with estimates of character and statements as to the causes and effects, as well as the mere occurrence, of events. Then came works on natural history, medicine, music, grammar, in fact all the matters ...
— Books Before Typography - Typographic Technical Series for Apprentices #49 • Frederick W. Hamilton
... The narrative is continued in the language of Mr. Cochran: "Priest John returned from England flushed with the apparent success of his mission. At Geog Tapa, the next Sabbath after our communion, at early dawn he baptized fifteen children with much display. ...
— History Of The Missions Of The American Board Of Commissioners For Foreign Missions To The Oriental Churches, Volume II. • Rufus Anderson
... as might be expected from the indications of character developed by this incident, forms a narrative that is full of interest ...
— Peter the Great • Jacob Abbott
... into the forepeak had put my mind upon the treasure, which, as I had gathered from the Frenchman's narrative, was somewhere hidden in the schooner—in the run, as I doubted not; I mean in the hold, under the lazarette, for you will recollect that, being weary and half-perished with the cold, I had turned my back on ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell
... universe" in a picture of all the good impulses of the human heart, that should be so fruitful, poisoned by the pressure of religious and political authority. It was natural that the method which he chose should be that of the romantic narrative—we have noticed how he began by trying to write novels—nor is that method essentially unfitted to represent the conflict between good and evil, with the whole universe for a stage; instances of great novels that are epics in this sense will occur to every one. But realism is required, and Shelley ...
— Shelley • Sydney Waterlow
... interesting letter, full of the sort of details you fully relish, to read the same with selfish pleasure, and not even have the manners to thank your correspondent, and express how very much you enjoyed the narrative. I did enjoy the narrative in your last very keenly.... Which of the Miss Woolers did you ...
— The Three Brontes • May Sinclair
... Interesting Narrative without being deeply affected by the perils and misfortunes to which the small remnant of persons, who were saved from this deplorable Shipwreck, were exposed. Of one hundred and fifty persons embarked upon the raft, and left to their fate, only fifteen ...
— Narrative of a Voyage to Senegal in 1816 • J. B. Henry Savigny and Alexander Correard
... taken on board an English ship called the 'Diana,' and, sailing in this, I reached Yarmouth and afterwards Blackwall, where I met my father, to the great joy of us both. Thus I conclude my narrative, with humble thanks to God for His wonderful preservation of me through so ...
— The Red True Story Book • Various
... this tableau of ruin, not that it was in any way connected with the events of our narrative, but that it had strangely affected me. On the day before, as we rode past, I had halted a moment by the rancho, and contemplated the scene with a feeling of melancholy that amounted almost to sadness. Little thought I ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid
... to the account of one passage in Pen's career, and it is manifest that the whole of his adventures cannot be treated at a similar length, unless some descendant of the chronicler of Pen's history should take up the pen at his decease, and continue the narrative for the successors of the present generation of readers. We are not about to go through the young fellow's academical career with, by any means, a similar minuteness. Alas, the life of such boys does not bear telling altogether. I wish it did. I ask you, does yours? ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... insert novels, either separate or interwoven, but only episodes, something like them, arising out of the circumstances the facts present; and even these sparingly, and with no more words than suffice to make them plain; and as he confines and restricts himself to the narrow limits of the narrative, though he has ability; capacity, and brains enough to deal with the whole universe, he requests that his labours may not be despised, and that credit be given him, not alone for what he writes, but for what he ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... at Hampton Court many times during her reign of a dozen years, but the story of that reign is not much associated with the Palace, though that association is immortalized in a couplet of Pope's Rape of the Lock, the scene of which comedy-narrative is set here. Here the bold baron of the poem cut one of the tempting locks from the fair Belinda's head, and a family feud followed which was only ...
— Hampton Court • Walter Jerrold
... contents of which might only be guessed at—the whole thing observed by hidden spectators—these were things he had read of in fiction, but had never expected to have the luck to see in real life. And being gifted with some powers of imagination and of narrative, he made the most of his story to a pair of highly attentive listeners, each of whom had his, and her, ...
— The Paradise Mystery • J. S. Fletcher
... that after an interval of thirty years, forgotten by, and forgetful of the world, her mournful solitude was inaccessible to hope and fear: that truth, the naked perfect truth, was more dear than the memory of her parent. Yet instead of the simplicity of style and narrative which wins our belief, an elaborate affectation of rhetoric and science betrays in every page the vanity of a female author. The genuine character of Alexius is lost in a vague constellation of virtues; ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... until reiterated and exhaustive search had failed to recover from the "wallet" wherein Time "puts alms for oblivion," more than those few imperfect fragments which, by your valued help, are here arranged in such order as to carry on the narrative of Pausanias, with no solution of continuity, to the middle of the ...
— Pausanias, the Spartan - The Haunted and the Haunters, An Unfinished Historical Romance • Lord Lytton
... attending on the Necessities of Nature. And thus he continu'd, till he was past the seventh Septenary of his Age; that is, till he was about fifty Years of Age, and then he happen'd to be acquainted with Asal. The Narrative of which meeting of theirs, we shall now (God ...
— The Improvement of Human Reason - Exhibited in the Life of Hai Ebn Yokdhan • Ibn Tufail
... my first novel and almost certainly my last, I want to get in, too, all sorts of things that struck me, things that amused me and impressions I got—even although they don't minister directly to my narrative at all. I want to set out my own queer love experiences too, such as they are, for they troubled and distressed and swayed me hugely, and they still seem to me to contain all sorts of irrational and debatable ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... two vast giant epics there were written among the Indians a number of shorter narrative poems, very varied both in tone and manner, which suggest an uninterrupted succession of highly important and animated schools of literature. Nearer to our own time—that is, towards the fifth or sixth century of ...
— Initiation into Literature • Emile Faguet
... had listened with an expression of amused doubt to the early portion of the narrative; but when Geoffrey came to the part where accident had shown to him that one of these men proceeding towards the house was a disguised priest, his face became serious, and he listened with deep attention to ...
— By England's Aid or The Freeing of the Netherlands (1585-1604) • G.A. Henty
... defence of the Suez Canal. The things that befell the battalion during this long period have been admirably described in Major Hurst's book With Manchesters in the East, and this short history will attempt to continue the narrative from the ...
— The Seventh Manchesters - July 1916 to March 1919 • S. J. Wilson
... seen, likewise, that this Custom-House sketch has a certain propriety, of a kind always recognised in literature, as explaining how a large portion of the following pages came into my possession, and as offering proofs of the authenticity of a narrative therein contained. This, in fact—a desire to put myself in my true position as editor, or very little more, of the most prolix among the tales that make up my volume—this, and no other, is my true reason for assuming a personal relation with the public. In accomplishing the main purpose, ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... began a narration of the scene that had ended in his being relieved from engineering instruction that forenoon. Jordan didn't exactly lie, which is always a dangerous thing for a West Point cadet to do, but he colored his narrative so cleverly as to make it rather plain that Cadet Prescott had acted beyond his ...
— Dick Prescotts's Fourth Year at West Point - Ready to Drop the Gray for Shoulder Straps • H. Irving Hancock
... which ensued between the old nobles, we momentarily drop the curtain, to proceed to other incidents of our narrative. It may, however, be generally observed that the day passed quietly away, without the occurrence of any event which it is necessary to relate, all in the chateau, with the exception of the travellers, being principally occupied by the approaching ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... verity of all the particulars of this narrative, Mr. Hunter attempts to show that it contains a substratum of fact. Edward the First, he informs us, was never in Lancashire after he became king; and if Edward the Third was ever there at all, it was not in the early years of his reign. But Edward the Second did make one single progress ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... Bible,—the time for the disclosure had not come,—and therefore it is said, with beautiful simplicity, 'Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made;' and the narrative has respect only to the external appearance of the tempter, the serpent, because it would have been premature as yet to bring in the story of fallen angels, ...
— Bertha and Her Baptism • Nehemiah Adams
... Pinchas from behind the battery of his blue spectacles. The poet was, however, rapt in a discussion as to the best printer. The Committee were for having Gluck, who had done odd jobs for most of them, but Pinchas launched into a narrative of how, when he edited a great organ in Buda-Pesth, he had effected vast economies by starting a little printing-office of his own in connection with ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... Maldonado; and Estevanico, who had originally come from the west coast of Morocco and who was a slave of Dorantes. These men had most remarkable adventures in the years between 1528 and 1536, and as a narrative of suffering and privation Cabeza de Vaca's Journal has hardly an equal in the annals of the continent. Both Dorantes and Estevanico were captured, and indeed for a season or two all four men were forced to sojourn among the Indians. They treated the sick, and with such success did they work ...
— A Social History of the American Negro • Benjamin Brawley
... the peaceful setting of the sun, now blazing high overhead. Yet that simple noonday repast, partaken of beneath the shadow of the overhanging rock, remains in memory as more redundant with merriment of tongue and face than any since we made departure from New Orleans. Were I not writing truthful narrative, I might hesitate at setting this down, yet there are doubtless others living to bear witness with me that there is often experienced an odd relief in discovering the presence of actual danger; that uncertainty and mystery try most ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... liberties in respect to the historical personages he introduces; but there is no doubt that the romance is told with vigour and dramatic movement, and it is an excellent example of the novelist's spirited style of narrative, though, judged on purely literary merits, like his other works, the "Tower of London" will not bear comparison with the masterpieces of Sir Walter Scott in the field of historical romance. Ainsworth died at Reigate on January ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol. I • Various
... pervades the old Norman French in which the romances of chivalry were first written, which is well reflected in the English of Sir Thomas Malory. Of plot there is none. The same vagueness pervades the course of the narrative, which is characteristic of the historical groundwork, the geography, and the time of action. Most of the incidents depend on chance. Life in the Middle Ages was a very serious affair, and in the romances there was almost no attempt at wit or humor. In the "Morte d'Arthur," ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman
... is not one of those for whom these pages are meant. Having no particular interest in the writer or his affairs, he does not care for the history of "the migrations from the blue bed to the brown" and the many Mistress Quicklyisms of circumstantial narrative. Yet all this may be pleasant reading to relatives ...
— Our Hundred Days in Europe • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... playing a funeral march, and that battleship with the dead sailors—the fellows who died for our country at Vera Cruz, you know—creeping up to the dock. Oh, it was—well, I cried!" He made confession proudly, then hastened into less personal narrative. ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... don't realize all your talents, Jake. For one thing, you have a gift for narrative, and the portrait you drew of Carmen with a stroke or two was lifelike. Then, when you met and bluffed her into giving Daly away, you couldn't have taken a more effective line if you had been an ambassador. What ...
— Carmen's Messenger • Harold Bindloss
... During this little narrative, we had been riding over the bleak downs which render the environs of Valenciennes such a barren contrast to the general luxuriance of northern France; and were examining the approaches to the city, when Guiscard called to ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various
... thing to seek to arrest the public attention with the vernacular applied to public affairs. Major Jack Downing and Sam Slick had been notable examples, and they had many imitators; but the reader who laughed over the racy narrative of the unlettered Ezekiel, and then took up Hosea's poem and caught the gust of Yankee wrath and humor blown fresh in his face, knew that he was in at the appearance of something new in American literature. The force which Lowell displayed ...
— The Vision of Sir Launfal - And Other Poems • James Russell Lowell
... I shall only notice one or two very strange occurrences of divine providence towards him; which he observes, with a few of his own expressions concerning himself and exercise, and his condition toward the end of his narrative and life also, which follows ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... memories, particularly the enduring image of that black serpent which when recalled restores most vividly the emotion experienced at the time, serve to remind me of a subject not yet mentioned in my narrative: this is animism, or that sense of something in nature which to the enlightened or civilized man is not there, and in the civilized man's child, if it be admitted that he has it at all, is but a faint survival of a phase of the primitive ...
— Far Away and Long Ago • W. H. Hudson
... demur to the ordinary criticisms upon Herodotus. These criticisms build the principle of their objection generally upon the marvellous or romantic element which intermingles with the current of the narrative. But when a writer treats (as to Herodotus it happened that repeatedly he treated) tracts of history far removed in space and in time from the domestic interests of his native land, naturally he misses as any available guide the ordinary utilitarian relations ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... the idea that he thought we might perhaps prove to be rather dangerous guests, under all the circumstances. If, however, any such idea really entered his mind he was careful to restrain all expression of it, and at the end of Smellie's narrative he uttered just the few courteous phrases of polite concern which seemed appropriate to the occasion and then allowed the subject to drop. Dona Antonia, on the contrary, evinced a most lively interest in the story, her face lighting up and her eyes flashing ...
— The Congo Rovers - A Story of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood
... "Narrative" for 1771 (p. 29) Dr. Wheelock, alluding to the period immediately following his removal to Hanover, says: "there were evident impressions upon the minds of a number of my family and school which soon ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith
... some we regard as very fine specimens?' The boys took him out to the barn, shut the door, locked it, and whispered: 'Senator, we have no live stock, but we have a bottle here in the hay mow which we think will do you good.' And the senator wound up his narrative by saying: 'The wettest place that I know of is a ...
— My Memories of Eighty Years • Chauncey M. Depew
... little worked themselves up into the belief that on his reappearance they had seen wounds upon him, and that the details of the Crucifixion were afterwards revealed in a vision to some favoured believer, until in the course of a few years the narrative assumed its present shape: that then the reappearance of Christ was denied among the Jews, while the Crucifixion as attaching disgrace to him was not disputed, and that it thus became so generally accepted ...
— The Fair Haven • Samuel Butler
... spring of 1876 and of 1877, letters under the heading "Uppingham by the Sea" were published in The Times newspaper, and were read with interest by friends of the school. We have thought the following narrative would be best introduced to those readers under a name already pleasantly familiar to them, and have borrowed, with the writer's permission, the title of his sketches for our own more detailed ...
— Uppingham by the Sea - a Narrative of the Year at Borth • John Henry Skrine
... then, unable to resist the temptation, she continued her narrative—Bill had said this, she had said that. She rattled on, until they came to the corner of Old Compton Street. Esther, who was a little tired of her, held out her hand. "I suppose you must be getting back; would you like ...
— Esther Waters • George Moore
... this attack on her, for she attacked him, in turn, in her "New Atalantis," and printed, in her dedication to the "Memoirs of Europe," Steele's denial of the authorship of this paper. This did not, however, prevent her making new charges against him. "The Narrative of Guiscard's Examination," "A Comment on Dr. Hare's Sermon," and "The Duke of Marlborough's Vindication," were written either by herself, or at the suggestion of, and ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift
... at liberty; and years afterwards related this narrative to M. Joly de Fleury, procureur-general of the Parliament, by which magistrate it was related to me. From this same magistrate I learned that, a few days before the second marriage of Monsieur, the King took Madame aside and told her that circumstance, assuring her that he ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... insolent," roared the Dean. "Your reverence would fain make a Sentimental Journey of the narrative, I doubt not, and find pathos in a dead donkey—though faith, no man can blame thee for mourning over thy ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the narrative style permits us to say infrequently), Pettit went to pieces. All those pains, those lover's doubts, those heart-burnings and tremors of which he had written so unconvincingly were his. Talk about Shylock's pound of flesh! Twenty-five ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry
... tiara. This highly meritorious old man, whom we have to thank for some valuable contributions towards the history of the rebellion of the Low Countries, and whose confidential correspondence with his friends has generally been the guide of our narrative, was one of the greatest lawyers of his time, as well as a theologian and priest, and had already, under the Emperor, filled the most important offices. Familiar intercourse with the learned men who adorned the age, and at the head of whom stood Erasmus of Rotterdam, combined with frequent travels ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... understood the causes which brought about the Record of the Stone, but as you are not, as yet, aware what characters are depicted, and what circumstances are related on the surface of the block, reader, please lend an ear to the narrative on the ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin |
