"By heart" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of which Walter was the bearer had been written on very small pieces of paper, and had been sewn up inside the collar of his coat. His instructions, as to the persons on whom he was to call, had been learned by heart and the paper destroyed. Larry was in high glee at taking part in the adventure, and laughed and jested as they made ...
— Orange and Green - A Tale of the Boyne and Limerick • G. A. Henty
... tired of your beauty, that I know your voice and your gestures by heart, and that neither your whims nor your stupidity nor your craftiness can any longer entertain me. Can you tell me then why I ...
— Mogens and Other Stories - Mogens; The Plague At Bergamo; There Should Have Been Roses; Mrs. Fonss • Jens Peter Jacobsen
... of the mission, easily procured a passage to Scotland by sea for Mr. Nicholas Monk. He sailed for Leith, Aug. 5. He had not run the risk of carrying with him the King's letters to Monk and Greenville; but he had got their substance by heart. And so, having first sounded Monk's domestic chaplain, Dr. John Price, who was of Royalist proclivities too, he had opened to Monk the fact that his sole purpose In coming was not to bring back his daughter. ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... to go to school; to a day school, it need hardly be specified, for a boarding school would be entirely out of keeping with the family life. Here, he is given the "Trimetrical Classic" to start on, that he may learn the characters by heart, picking up incidentally what ideas he may. This book is followed by the "Century of Surnames," a catalogue of all the clan names in China, studied like the last for the sake of the characters, although the suggestion of the importance of the family contained in it is probably not lost upon his ...
— The Soul of the Far East • Percival Lowell
... you (and not a day passes that I do not think and talk of you), but an idea that you might, yourself, dislike it. You cannot doubt my sincere admiration, waving personal friendship for the present, which, by the by, is not less sincere and deep rooted. I have you by rote and by heart; of which 'ecce signum!' When I was at * *, on my first visit, I have a habit, in passing my time a good deal alone, of—I won't call it singing, for that I never attempt except to myself—but of uttering, to what I ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. II - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... his speculations and his hopes. He had read, from year to year, of the conquests of Alexander and of Caesar; he had studied the wars of France, and drawn the plans of campaigns in the sand before his door till he knew them by heart; but it had not occurred to him, that while empires were overthrown in Asia, and Europe was traversed by powers which gave and took its territories, as he saw the negroes barter their cocoa-nuts and plantains on Saturday nights—while such ...
— The Hour and the Man - An Historical Romance • Harriet Martineau
... into the long parlor, which ran the full depth of the house, some sixty feet, in which he had passed many pleasant evenings. He sent up his card, and in a few moments Buttons returned and delivered the speech which Mrs. Chessman had taught him and which he had learned by heart: "Mrs. Chessman desires that you will come ...
— Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks - A Picture of New England Home Life • Charles Felton Pidgin
... fault? Why not stop his pudding, or something of that sort? Here you are associating verses in the Bible, in his mind, with the idea of punishment and being locked up in the cold! You may make him get his text by heart, I dare say, by fairly tiring him out; but I tell you what I'm afraid you'll make him learn too, if you don't mind—you'll make him learn to dislike the Bible as much as other boys ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... where she lived for a few years. Her poems are very beautiful, and "September" and "October's Bright Blue Weather" are especially good pictures of these autumn months. Every child should know these poems by heart. ...
— The Elson Readers, Book 5 • William H. Elson and Christine M. Keck
... said Lady Mabel, "I will send Major Warren to make his acquaintance. The major will be charmed with him. For his ambition is to take all sorts of game, in every possible way; and though I have, or might have had, the history of all his hunts by heart, neither lynx or otter has yet figured in the scene. You remember, Colonel L'Isle, how much satisfaction he expressed when you lately hinted at the probability of our brigade finding itself in the north of Portugal early in the coming campaign. I at first thought that the soldier saw some military ...
— The Actress in High Life - An Episode in Winter Quarters • Sue Petigru Bowen
... apply it to herself, and he did not wish her head to be filled with romantic nonsense. So he took away the portfolio, much to Marjory's disgust, for she had looked forward to showing it to Blanche and Alan. Still, she had a good memory, and could repeat every word of it by heart, and was ...
— Hunter's Marjory - A Story for Girls • Margaret Bruce Clarke
... then, to which I sought in vain to make thee listen this very morning—a certain great saying of my lord of Verulam, mistress Dorothy. I had learnt it by heart that I might repeat it word for word to my lady, but ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald
... on his first arrival on the banks of the Leman Lake, O Maison d'Aristippe! O Jardin d'Epicure, &c. had been imparted as a secret to the gentleman by whom I was introduced. He allowed me to read it twice; I knew it by heart; and as my discretion was not equal to my memory, the author was soon displeased by the circulation of a copy. In writing this trivial anecdote, I wished to observe whether my memory was impaired, and I have the comfort of finding that every line ...
— Memoirs of My Life and Writings • Edward Gibbon
... do so. I asked if he had ever read the life of Paul with attention, and this question appeared to amuse him still more; and then he told me he had been through the Book of Acts in Sunday school, and had learned several chapters in it by heart; but for all that he had never thought of St. Paul as ...
— Hurrah for New England! - The Virginia Boy's Vacation • Louisa C. Tuthill
... the lonely headstone—Suddenly William saw himself in his true and fitting character—Sydney Carton! He had lately read A Tale of Two Cities, immediately re-reading until, as he would have said, he "knew it by heart"; and even at the time he had seen resemblances between himself and the appealing figure of Carton. Now that the sympathy between them was perfected by Miss Pratt's preference for another, William decided to mount the scaffold in place of George Crooper. The scene became ...
— Seventeen - A Tale Of Youth And Summer Time And The Baxter Family Especially William • Booth Tarkington
... squatted down on the deck and taken out their little books containing the translated portions of the New Testament, along with hymns and spelling-books, and were now busily engaged, some vociferating the alphabet, others learning prayers off by heart, while a few sang hymns,—all of them being utterly unmindful of our presence. The teacher soon joined them, and soon afterwards they all engaged in a prayer which was afterwards translated to us, and proved to be a petition ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... hour a day,[70] and those who could not afford even such expenses adopted what means they could. It is touching to read such incidents as that of one Alice Collins, sent for to the little gatherings "to recite the Ten Commandments and parts of the epistles of SS. Paul and Peter, which she knew by heart." "Certes," says old John Foxe in his Book of Martyrs, "the zeal of those Christian days seems much superior to this of our day, and to see the travail of them may ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... like all the other days; she prayed longer and closed her shutter earlier for fear of the drunkards. After saying a long row of graces which she knew by heart, she went to her bedroom. In the stuffy air of that closed upper chamber, she lay thinking. She was not sleepy and it was nice, in the evening stillness, covered in her white sheets, to lie with her eyes looking through the split in the white curtains ...
— The Path of Life • Stijn Streuvels
... allusions to the mythological stories of Ovid. The Brahminical metempyschosis is represented as an article of the Mussulman creed; and the Mussulman Sultanas burn themselves with their husbands after the Brahminical fashion. This drama, once rapturously applauded by crowded theatres, and known by heart to fine gentlemen and fine ladies, is now forgotten. But one noble passage still lives, and is repeated by thousands who know not whence it ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... four days at her aunt Moss's giving the early June sunshine quite a new brightness in the care-dimmed eyes of that affectionate woman, and making an epoch for her cousins great and small, who were learning her words and actions by heart, as if she had been a transient avatar of perfect ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... long time in reaching Santa Croce, the tower of which had been plainly visible from the landing window. But Miss Lavish had said so much about knowing her Florence by heart, that Lucy had followed her ...
— A Room With A View • E. M. Forster
... scarcely be aware of how much cotton stocking can be seen when she lolls so,) the Unfounded Rumor concerning two gentlemen of different political views in this county was not correct. (Miss BABCOCK will learn four chapters in Chronicles by heart to-night, for making her handkerchief into a baby,) as proper inquiries have assured us that no more blood was shed than if the parties to the strife had been a Canadian and a Fenian. We will, therefore, drop the subject, ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 15, July 9, 1870 • Various
... depend on my learning my lessons as rapidly as they are given me. I am already tolerably perfect in the A B C, etc. I am much obliged to you for the pretty little hymn which I have already got by heart, but cannot promise to sing it scientifically, though I will endeavour to ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... feasts, which can never be forgotten, were over, I had to resume my life as a day scholar, at the Abbey. I made good progress with my lessons, and remembered easily the sense of what I read, but I had the greatest difficulty in learning by heart; only at catechism were my efforts crowned with success. The Chaplain called me his little "Doctor of Theology,"[7] no doubt ...
— The Story of a Soul (L'Histoire d'une Ame): The Autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux • Therese Martin (of Lisieux)
... how much harm is done by poets? They introduce the bravest men lamenting over their misfortunes: they soften our minds, and they are besides so entertaining, that we do not only read them, but get them by heart. Thus the influence of the poets is added to our want of discipline at home, and our tender and delicate manner of living, so that between them they have deprived virtue of all its vigour and energy. Plato ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... I have found a commissionnaire for you; one who professes to know Venice and its golden book by heart." ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... Scriptures. The young persons in her class learn texts, and are questioned to see if they thoroughly understand the subject. On our asking whether the children answered the questions from what they had learnt by heart, she replied, "No; it would be of no use, you know, for the dear children to repeat merely by rote; we want the great truths of the gospel to sink into ...
— Memoir and Diary of John Yeardley, Minister of the Gospel • John Yeardley
... while as for angry shots at either end of Africa, it was never I who had been there to hear them. I must have come by my sticks in some less romantic fashion. Nothing could convince me that I had ever been many days or miles away from a room that I knew by heart, and found full as I left it of familiar trifles ...
— No Hero • E.W. Hornung
... I from denying that "any one who, instead of burying himself in the pages of the commentators, would learn the Sacred Writings by heart, and paraphrase them in English, will probably make a nearer approach to their true meaning than he would gather from any Commentary." Quite certain is it that "the true use of Interpretation is to get rid of interpretation, and leave us alone in company with the ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... genius, Mr. Titmarsh," said the young lady, with a most killing look of her beautiful blue eyes, "and I have every one of your works by heart—all, except the last, which I can't endure. I think it's wicked, positively wicked—My darling Scott—how can you? And are you going to make ...
— The Christmas Books • William Makepeace Thackeray
... hills and valley, the birds, the flowers, the clouds, the sun, he had the Rampio, he had Annunziata, he even had Annunziata's uncle; and with all this he had a sense of having stepped out of a world that he knew by heart, that he knew to satiety, a world that was stale and stuffy and threadbare, with its gilt rubbed off and its colours tarnished, into a world where everything was fresh and undiscovered and full of ...
— My Friend Prospero • Henry Harland
... Uncle Paul, and Rodd, who was in his room with his face under water, raised it up, grinning, for he knew his uncle's peculiar ways by heart, and he went on listening to ...
— The Ocean Cat's Paw - The Story of a Strange Cruise • George Manville Fenn
... true meaning of a troublesome passage or an accurate comment upon it. His aim is to make the book in its English dress not only absolutely literal in text but Oriental in tone and colour. He knows the tales almost by heart, and used to keep the Bedouin tribes in roars of laughter in camp during the long summer nights by reciting them. Sheiks to whom a preternatural solemnity of demeanour is usual were to be seen rolling on the ground in paroxysms of uncontrollable mirth. It was also Burckhardt's ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... that is hard on me," said Sheffield. "Did not I go to be one of old Thruston's sixteen pupils, last Long? He gave us capital feeds, smoked with us, and coached us in Ethics and Agamemnon. He knows his books by heart, can repeat his plays backwards, and weighs out his Aristotle by grains and pennyweights; but, for generalizations, ideas, poetry, oh, it was desolation—it was a darkness which could ...
— Loss and Gain - The Story of a Convert • John Henry Newman
... explanations how to draft it in different positions, also in circular pallet and single roller. We are convinced that by so doing we will do a service to many, we also wish to avoid what we may call "the stereotyped" process, that is, one which may be acquired by heart, but introduce any changes and perplexity is the result. It is really not a difficult matter to draft escapements in different positions, as ...
— An Analysis of the Lever Escapement • H. R. Playtner
... repeated, trying to remember his declaration, but by this time the English sentence he had learned by heart ...
— The Music Master - Novelized from the Play • Charles Klein
... The men, too, had a very nice time in the miners' cottages in Verquin, and other mining villages. Shops and village life always had their attraction, and we felt very much at home in this part of France, which in the end we came to know almost by heart. The French miner was always particularly kind to us all. It may be that many of our miners, by exchanging views on their calling, enlisted the sympathies of the Frenchmen in the Battalion as a whole. Whether this is ...
— The Sherwood Foresters in the Great War 1914 - 1919 - History of the 1/8th Battalion • W.C.C. Weetman
... to the Mahavaggo, it is stated that disciples of Gotama, who knew his sermons and his parables by heart, determined the canon "after his death." The expression might mean anything. But a ponderable antiquity is otherwise shown. Asoko, a Hindu emperor, sent an embassy to Ptolemy Philadelphos. The circumstance was set forth bilingually on various heights. In another inscription Asoko recommended ...
— The Lords of the Ghostland - A History of the Ideal • Edgar Saltus
... the list, cold and venomous as a snake. Enthusiasm in him there was none. The problem of his character is too complex to be entered on here. But we may lay to heart the warning that, if a man is not knit to Christ by heart's love and obedience, the more he comes into contact with Jesus the more will he recoil from Him, till at last he is borne away by a passion of detestation. Christ is either a sure foundation or a ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren
... de' Medici, that monster of genius, had not long printed his Caccia col falcone. Angioletto had it by heart against his need; using it now he could never have made a better choice—as, indeed, he guessed. It was as good as a play to watch Borso's wary eyes at the commencement of this piece, and to see them drop their fence as the declamation went on. Lorenzo ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... out, and Frank was ushered into the presence of Mr Bideawhile. He had got his lesson by heart, and was going to rush into the middle of his subject; such a course, however, was not in accordance with Mr Bideawhile's usual practice. Mr Bideawhile got up from his large wooden-seated Windsor chair, and, with a soft smile, in which, however, was mingled some ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... commodity the average might be about one to eight learners. A few minutes having elapsed, during which Mr. Squeers looked very profound, as if he had a perfect apprehension of what was inside all the books, and could say every word of their contents by heart, if he only chose to take the trouble, that gentleman called ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... Cadmeian inscriptions there: therefore Herodotus is most manifestly lying. Moreover, this Herodotus never speaks of Sophocles the Athenian, and why not? Because he, being a child at school, did not learn Sophocles by heart: for the tragedies of Sophocles could not have been learned at school before they were written, nor can any man quote a poet whom he never learned at school. Moreover, as all those about Herodotus knew Sophocles well, ...
— Letters to Dead Authors • Andrew Lang
... are liable. A gentleman, on whom I can rely, assured me that he had been an eye-witness of the following scene:—A small dinner-party was given in honour of an extremely shy man, who, when he rose to return thanks, rehearsed the speech, which he had evidently learnt by heart, in absolute silence, and did not utter a single word; but he acted as if he were speaking with much emphasis. His friends, perceiving how the case stood, loudly applauded the imaginary bursts of eloquence, whenever his gestures indicated a pause, and the man never discovered ...
— The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals • Charles Darwin
... history by heart and toyed with it; politics was his delight. But it is a mistake to call him a statesman. He was bold to rashness, impulsive, impatient and vehement. Because a man is great is no reason why he should be proclaimed perfect. Such men as Victor Hugo need no veneer—the truth will answer: he ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 1 of 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great • Elbert Hubbard
... other. In truth, Blifil had greatly gained his master's affections; partly by the profound respect he always showed his person, but much more by the decent reverence with which he received his doctrine, for he had got by heart, and frequently repeated, his phrases, and maintained all his master's religious principles, with a zeal which was surprising in ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IV. • Editors: Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... clear that the domestic type of woman was his ideal, and I did not care to outrage his belief in me. So I took the cook book into the pantry and read the recipe over three times. When I came back I knew it by heart, although I did ...
— When a Man Marries • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... is not a God, inasmuch as we can conceive of no such being, nor of anything in the least like it. It is, like Pantheism, an illusion, which can be believed only by those who repeat a formula which they have learnt by heart in a foreign language of which they understand nothing, and yet aver that they believe it. There are doubtless many who will say that this is possible, but the majority of my readers will hold that no proposition ...
— God the Known and God the Unknown • Samuel Butler
... know how wrapped up Beryl is in that kind of thing. And, of course, she knows all the Paris collections by heart. Is the Wallace Collection ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens
... not years; in thoughts, not breaths; In feelings, not in figures on a dial. We should count time by heart-throbs. He most lives Who thinks most, feels the ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden
... say, Bunny and Sue had each forgotten. Some days past their aunt and mother had made them learn, by heart, the number and the street where Aunt Lu's house stood. But now, try as they did, neither Bunny nor Sue could remember it. Watching the monkeys and parrots had made ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue at Aunt Lu's City Home • Laura Lee Hope
... merit of Munich might be. But after two days at Nuremberg I was so deeply interested in its antique sequestered life, the charms of which had not been deadened by previous anticipations, that I resolved to remain there until I had mastered every detail and knew the place by heart. ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... eleven and a halfpenny," said Miss Biles, who had learned the figures by heart before she ...
— The Struggles of Brown, Jones, and Robinson - By One of the Firm • Anthony Trollope
... catalogue of those in each society, go to each house. Deal gently with them, that the report of it may move others to desire your coming. Give the children the instructions for children, and encourage them to get them by heart. Indeed, you will find it no easy matter to teach the ignorant the principles of religion. So true is the remark of Archbishop Usher—'Great scholars may think this work beneath them. But they should consider, the laying the foundation skilfully, as ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... had their death and their life also under their own control; and they had few sufferings; had no fear; and had their wishes fulfilled; and they were free from trouble; could visit the gods and the magnanimous saints; knew by heart all righteous rules; were self-controlled and free from envy. And they lived many thousand years; and had many thousand sons. Then in course of time they came to be restricted to walking solely on the surface of the earth, overpowered by lust and wrath, dependent for subsistence upon falsehood ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... barbarous people that was difficult to be performed, or that laid any remarkable restraint upon their appetites and passions. The principal injunctions they imposed upon these rude proselytes were that they should get by heart certain summaries of doctrine, and to pay the images of Christ and the saints the same religious services which they had formerly offered to the statues of the gods" (p. 142). Libraries were formed in many of the monasteries, and schools were opened, but apparently only for those who intended ...
— The Freethinker's Text Book, Part II. - Christianity: Its Evidences, Its Origin, Its Morality, Its History • Annie Besant
... happen, tell me, That I who was most erudite of lawyers, Who knew Blackstone and Coke Almost by heart, who made the greatest speech The court-house ever heard, and wrote A brief that won the praise of Justice Breese How does it happen, tell me, That I lie here unmarked, forgotten, While Chase Henry, the town drunkard, ...
— Spoon River Anthology • Edgar Lee Masters
... I had already read my uncle's letter a hundred times, and I am sure that I knew it by heart. None the less I took it out of my pocket, and, sitting on the side of the lugger, I went over it again with as much attention as if it were for the first time. It was written in a prim, angular hand, such as one might expect from a man who had begun life as a village attorney, ...
— Uncle Bernac - A Memory of the Empire • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the neighbourhood of the Palais Royal, doubtful to what amusement we should next betake ourselves. My friend proposed a visit to Frascati's; but his suggestion was not to my taste. I knew Frascati's, as the French saying is, by heart; had lost and won plenty of five-franc pieces there, merely for amusement's sake, until it was amusement no longer, and was thoroughly tired, in fact, of all the ghastly respectabilities of such a social anomaly as a ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery - Riddle Stories • Various
... expressing her views strongly and plainly to him as the weeks went by without any signs of Tony's return, while rumour was busy with the names of Ailleen and Dickson. "I understand, lad. You come along and see your mother. She's got it all off by heart, and will talk to you about it. She'll tell you all you want ...
— Colonial Born - A tale of the Queensland bush • G. Firth Scott
... arrived when he should make profession of his faith, which, at Rome, they, who are about to approach Thy grace, are accustomed to deliver from an elevated place, in view of the faithful people, in a set form of words learnt by heart. But the presbyters, he said, offered Victorinus the privilege of making his profession more privately, as was the custom to do to those who were likely, on account of bashfulness, to be afraid; ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.
... father's love and talent for music, and knew all the old Mission music by heart. This hymn ...
— Ramona • Helen Hunt Jackson
... opinion of the Egyptian people than Ameres. His piety and learning rendered him distinguished among his fellows. He was high priest in the temple of Osiris, and was one of the most trusted of the councilors of the king. He had by heart all the laws of the sacred books; he was an adept in the inmost mysteries of the religion. His wealth was large, and he used it nobly; he lived in a certain pomp and state which were necessary for his position, but he spent but a tithe of his revenues, and the rest he distributed ...
— The Cat of Bubastes - A Tale of Ancient Egypt • G. A. Henty
... The Holy Spirit, another Weiss' New Testament Theology, and the third Conybeare and Howson's Life and Epistles of St. Paul. Each of these may be said, in its own way, to exhibit Christianity entire, and I learned them almost by heart, as one does a text-book. I was not then thinking much of subsequent benefit; but I can say, that each of them has ever since been a quarry out of which I have dug, and probably I have hardly ever preached a sermon which has not exhibited traces of ...
— The Preacher and His Models - The Yale Lectures on Preaching 1891 • James Stalker
... a loss what passages to quote from it, but fortunately "an unanimous posterity has done Parini due honor"; and he supposes "now there is no man, of whatever sect or opinion, but has read his immortal poem, and has its finest scenes by heart." It is this fact which embarrasses me, however, for how am I to rehabilitate a certain obsolete characteristic figure without quoting from Parini, and constantly wearying people with what they know already so well? The gentle reader, ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells
... do not read Ethnology—by all means do so; and above all things read, until you know it by heart, Primitive Culture, by Dr. E. B. Tylor, regarding which book I may say that I have never found a fact that flew in the face of the carefully made, broad- minded deductions of this greatest of Ethnologists. In addition you must know your Westermarck on Human Marriage, ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... you. This girl of mine reads pretty trashy stuff, and she knows about all the cheap novels there are. She dotes on 'The Duchess,' and puts her last dime into Braddon. She knows them all by heart. Have you ever read 'Lady ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume III. (of X.) • Various
... could no more get any other ideas out of his mind than he could those of the figures on the board. He was a great reader, but had not the least taste. Indeed the violence of his memory tyrannised over and destroyed all power of selection. He could repeat (all) Ossian by heart, without knowing the best passage from the worst; and did not perceive he was tiring you to death by giving an account of the breed, education, and manners of fighting-dogs for hours together. The sense of reality quite superseded the distinction between the pleasurable and the ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... of Palliano, was a young woman distinguished for her beauty no less than for her Spanish pride. She had received a thoroughly Italian education; could recite the sonnets of Petrarch and the stanzas of Ariosto by heart, and repeated the tales of Ser Giovanni and other novelists with an originality that lent new charm to their style.[208] Her court was a splendid one, frequented by noble youths and gentlewomen of the best blood in Naples. Two of these require particular notice: Diana Brancaccio, ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... thou excel?' 'O my lord,' answered she, 'I am versed in syntax and poetry and jurisprudence and exegesis and lexicography and music and the knowledge of the Divine ordinances and in arithmetic and geodesy and the fables of the ancients. I know the sublime Koran [by heart] and have read it according to the seven and the ten and the fourteen [modes]. I know the number of its chapters and verses and sections and words and letters and its halves and fourths and eighths and tenths, the number of acts of adoration, that occur in it, and what there is ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume IV • Anonymous
... again; truly, Marjorie. I'm going to learn that poem of your mother's by heart, and I know I'll never lose my ...
— Marjorie at Seacote • Carolyn Wells
... vulgar nor ambitious. She regarded Washington Square as the birthplace of Society, knew by heart all the cousinships of early New York, hated motor-cars, could not make herself understood on the telephone, and was determined, if she married, never to receive a divorced woman. As Mrs. Marvell often said, such girls as Harriet ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... necessarily live, move, and have her being in another: now that her father was taken from her, she nestled to Graham, and seemed to feel by his feelings: to exist in his existence. She learned the names of all his schoolfellows in a trice: she got by heart their characters as given from his lips: a single description of an individual seemed to suffice. She never forgot, or confused identities: she would talk with him the whole evening about people she had never seen, and appear completely to realise their aspect, ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... they pay it, now the man is dead?" demanded Scott, as if he felt that everyone knew his affairs by heart and could understand his meaning. "I need the money now—to-day—this minute! It's bad enough when a man stays healthy so long, and looks as if he'd last for twenty years. That's bad enough without ...
— A Husband by Proxy • Jack Steele
... advocates for matrimonial obedience, who, making a distinction between the duty of a wife and of a human being, may blame my conduct.—To them I write not—my feelings are not for them to analyze; and may you, my child, never be able to ascertain, by heart-rending experience, what your mother felt before the present emancipation ...
— Posthumous Works - of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman • Mary Wollstonecraft
... did not Henry IV., in the midst of his Gascon gaieties and sallies, compose his sweet song of Charmante Gabrielle? Jasmin indeed is the poet who is nearest the region of Henry IV."{6} Me cal Mouri was set to music by Fourgons, and obtained great popularity in the south. It was known by heart, and sung everywhere; in Agen, Toulouse, and throughout Provence. It was not until the publication of the first volume of his poems that it was known to be the work ...
— Jasmin: Barber, Poet, Philanthropist • Samuel Smiles
... he heard from the window, partially opened, for the day was clear and fine, Fanny's sweet voice. She was chaunting one of the simple songs she had promised to learn by heart; and Vaudemont, though but a poor judge of the art, was struck and affected by the music of the voice and the earnest depth of the feeling. He paused opposite the window and called her by her name. Fanny looked ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 5 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... at Dereham again in 1811, and George went to school "for the acquisition of Latin," and learnt the whole of Lilly's Grammar by heart. Other marches of the regiment left him time to wonder at that "stupendous erection, the aqueduct at Stockport"—to visit Durham and "a capital old inn" there, where he had "a capital dinner off roast Durham beef, and a capital glass of ale, which I believe was ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas
... listeners with every modulation of melody. It accustomed itself to the use of quicker time, and thereby compelled the player to more lively action. Musical and dramatic connoisseurship was developed; the -habitue- recognized every tune by the first note, and knew the texts by heart; every fault in the music or recitation was severely censured by the audience. The state of the Roman stage in the time of Cicero vividly reminds us of the modern French theatre. As the Roman mime corresponds ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... perfect. The first ten years of her life were spent either out of doors, or in her father's lap. He would not allow her to attend the district school; all she knew she learned from him. Reuben Miller had never looked into an English grammar or a history, but he knew Shakespeare by heart, and much of Homer; a few odd volumes of Walter Scott's novels, some old voyages, a big family Bible, and a copy of Byron, were the only other books in his house. As Draxy grew older, Reuben now and then borrowed from the minister books which he thought would do her good; but ...
— Saxe Holm's Stories • Helen Hunt Jackson
... accomplishments. The butterflies which she embroidered upon satin appeared to live and beat their wings, and one could almost hear the song of the birds which grew under her fingers, and smell the perfume of the flowers she wrought upon canvas. She knew the "Book of Odes" by heart, and could repeat the five rules of life without missing a word. Her handwriting was perfection, and she composed in all the different styles of Chinese poetry. Her poems were upon all those delicate themes which would attract the mind of a pure young girl; upon the return of the swallows, ...
— The Aldine, Vol. 5, No. 1., January, 1872 - A Typographic Art Journal • Various
... this dread command with effect, for she had heard and cried over it too often not to have it quite by heart. ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott
... four-mile ride over a devious track among trees which my companion knows by heart. Paths diverge into the forest on either side, running north and south, east and west, straight and crooked, narrow and broad; but B. follows unerringly the right, though undistinguished trail. This knowledge of woodcraft,—how it appalls and wonder-strikes the unlearned ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various
... much more attention. But that diligence which a student commonly bestows on a difficult moral treatise, or an obscure drama, or a perplexed history,—analyzing it, comparing passage with passage, and learning a great deal of it by heart,—I am quite at a loss to understand why a student of the Bible should be a stranger to.—"I do much condemn," (says Lord Bacon), "I do much condemn that Interpretation of the Scripture which is only after the manner ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... though he looked cross then, after referring to the book he answered me: "It's a fire, or drowning, or an apoplectic fit, or anything of that sort." After which explanation, he hurried on. If what he said next came out of his own head, or whether he had learned it by heart, I ...
— A Great Emergency and Other Tales - A Great Emergency; A Very Ill-Tempered Family; Our Field; Madam Liberality • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... fly only short stretches and you will have to observe everything, very carefully, so that you can find your way back home again. Your companion will show you the hundred flowers and blossoms that yield the best nectar. You'll have to learn them by heart. This is something no bee can escape doing.— Here, you may as well learn the first line right away—clover and honeysuckle. Repeat ...
— The Adventures of Maya the Bee • Waldemar Bonsels
... half-serious notions. "You recall to me," said he, "my own feelings when I was a boy and was made by my father to learn the Farewell Address by heart. In those days General Washington was a sort of American Jehovah. But the West is a poor school for Reverence. Since coming to Congress I have learned more about General Washington, and have been surprised to find what a narrow base his reputation rests on. A fair ...
— Democracy An American Novel • Henry Adams
... continued just As thread-bare, and as full of dust. His talk was now of tithes and dues; He smoked his pipe and read the news; Knew how to preach old sermons next, Vamped in the preface and the text; At christenings well could act his part, And had the service all by heart; Wished women might have children fast, And thought whose sow had farrowed last Against Dissenters would repine, And stood up firm for Right divine. Found his head filled with many a system, But ...
— The Battle of the Books - and Other Short Pieces • Jonathan Swift
... to know God's desires by heart, and then accommodate our own to His: so shall we learn to be pleasing to Christ, that He may lead us, whilst here, into His Garden. For to the creature that ardently pursues God there comes at last a time when He reveals Himself to the searching ...
— The Golden Fountain - or, The Soul's Love for God. Being some Thoughts and - Confessions of One of His Lovers • Lilian Staveley
... They learned by heart the most celebrated dialogues of Racine and Voltaire, and they used to declaim them in the corridor. Bouvard, as if he were at the Theatre Francais, strutted, with his hand on Pecuchet's shoulder, stopping at intervals; and, with rolling eyes, he would open wide his arms, ...
— Bouvard and Pecuchet - A Tragi-comic Novel of Bourgeois Life • Gustave Flaubert
... and worn into his heart by her sadness and tears. She cultivated the memory of my father in my heart and affections, even in my earliest childhood, by reading to me passages from the poets, and obliging me to learn by heart and repeat such as were best adapted to her own circumstances and feelings. Among others, the whole leave-taking of Hector and Andromache, in the sixth book of Pope's Homer, was one of her favorite lessons, which she made me learn and frequently repeat. Her imagination, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... acceptable when it is palpable to the hearers that the discourser has committed it to memory, and is bound to go on to the bitter end. Possibly this adds to the feeling of exasperation. Nevertheless, there are those who must learn their speeches by heart, or else not speak at all. As Luttrell contended that Lord Dudley ...
— By-ways in Book-land - Short Essays on Literary Subjects • William Davenport Adams
... disposition of things hid it. I caught myself craning my neck and singing the hymn simultaneously and with no difficulty, because all my childhood was in that hymn; I couldn't tell when I hadn't known words and music by heart. Who was she? I tried for a clear view when we sat down, and also, let me confess, when we knelt down; I saw even less of her so; and my hope at the end of the service was dashed by her slow but ...
— Lady Baltimore • Owen Wister
... the Twins and Wiggins were in request as the lighter element in the Christmas gatherings. Thanks to the Terror, the three of them took this brightening function with considerable seriousness: each of them learned by heart a humorous piece of literature, generally verse, for reciting; and they performed two charades in a very painstaking fashion. They had but little dramatic talent; but they derived a certain grave satisfaction from the discharge of ...
— The Terrible Twins • Edgar Jepson
... are few of us, surely, who do not possess, somewhere in their life, friends of the highest value whom they have barely known—met with once or twice perhaps, talked with, and for some reason not met again; but never lost sight of by heart and fancy—indeed, more often turned to, and perhaps more deeply trusted (as devout persons trust St. Joseph and St. Anthony of Padua, whom, after all, they scarcely know more than their own close kindred) than so many of, ostensibly, our nearest ...
— Hortus Vitae - Essays on the Gardening of Life • Violet Paget, AKA Vernon Lee
... the day Maud knew the whole passage by heart. The more her mind dwelt on it, the more clearly did it seem to express what she had felt but could not put into words. The point about jousting struck her as particularly well taken. She had looked up 'joust' in the dictionary, and it seemed to her that in these ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... father to prevent his son enjoying himself. Ruskin's mother gratified the sensual side of her maternal passion, not by cuddling her son, but by whipping him when he fell downstairs or was slack in learning the Bible off by heart; and this grotesque safety-valve for voluptuousness, mischievous as it was in many ways, had at least the advantage that the child did not enjoy it and was not debauched by it, as he would have been by ...
— Getting Married • George Bernard Shaw
... early days embraced a wide range. He was particularly fond of all stories containing fun, wit and humor, and every one of these he came across he learned by heart, thus adding to his ...
— Lincoln's Yarns and Stories • Alexander K. McClure
... was, in some points, unique. His reading was prodigious, and his memory so tenacious, that it was said, with but little exaggeration, that he never forgot any thing that he had read. He could repeat the whole of Paradise Lost by heart, and thought it probable that he could rewrite Sir Charles Grandison from memory. In his books, in his speeches in the House of Commons, and in private conversation—for he was an eager and fluent talker, running on often for hours at a stretch—he was never at a loss to fortify and illustrate ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... ignorant, but she knew the piano well enough to accompany the old-fashioned songs she had sung for thirty years. Uncle William used to tell Philip that when he was a curate his wife had known twelve songs by heart, which she could sing at a moment's notice whenever she was asked. She often sang still when there was a tea-party at the vicarage. There were few people whom the Careys cared to ask there, and their parties consisted always of the curate, Josiah Graves with his sister, Dr. ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... and soaring, would be its song. His passion was all for nature, and his mother out of her small earnings had managed to get quite a number of volumes together for him. These he read and re-read until he knew them by heart; and on Sundays, or any other day they could take, those two lonely ones would take a basket containing their luncheon, her work and a book or two, and set out on a long ramble along the coast to pass the day in some solitary ...
— Afoot in England • W.H. Hudson
... Beauty, and she had been chosen as the wicked fairy, a part which she rehearsed with much spirit. She was unwearied in her efforts at arranging costumes, constructing scenery, and coaching her fellow performers in their speeches. She soon had the whole play by heart, and could act prompter without the help of the book—a decided convenience to those whose memories were liable to fail ...
— The Leader of the Lower School - A Tale of School Life • Angela Brazil
... be back again," he remarked, letting his eyes wander round the familiar walls. "I know your things by heart, Lady Garnett; there's not one of them I could spare. Thanks, Mary, no sugar; cream, if you please. After all, I don't know anyone who has such charming rooms. Let me see if there is anything new. Yes, those enamels; introduce me, Mary, please. Yes, they are very nice. By the way, ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... Glocketty Angus McClan." But for real poetic feeling, Sadie Kate beats us all. She calls him "Mister Someday Soon." I don't believe that the doctor ever dropped into verse but once in his life, but every child in this institution knows that one poem by heart. ...
— Dear Enemy • Jean Webster
... of biology, of whom Professor Karl Pearson is the most distinguished leader, are already showing us that facts of inherited variation can be so arranged that we can remember them without having to get by heart millions of isolated instances. Professor Pearson and the other writers in the periodical Biometrika have measured innumerable beech leaves, snails' tongues, human skulls, etc. etc., and have recorded in each case the variations of any quality in a related group of individuals ...
— Human Nature In Politics - Third Edition • Graham Wallas
... didn't believe that his father had been killed by Marcel or any one. The doctors said that the wound at the back of the head could quite well be the result of the fall; and that death might have been caused by heart failure. As for the handkerchief, Marcel Senior assured Peter that he and young Marcel used the same monogram: also that more than once his handkerchiefs and Justin Stanislaws' had been mixed together by the laundress, as they were of exactly the same size and quality, differing only ...
— The Lightning Conductor Discovers America • C. N. (Charles Norris) Williamson and A. M. (Alice Muriel)
... that he owed his success to his methods of learning rather than to his ability. On the night before an exam, he would retire to some secret, solitary place, such as the boot-room, and commence learning these notes by heart. This, though a formidable task, was not so bad as the other alternative. The result was that, although in the majority of cases he would put down for one question an answer that would have been right for another, yet ...
— Tales of St. Austin's • P. G. Wodehouse
... had to run the gauntlet of a second court, and the judge's eyes seemed to look me through and through. I also saw with much alarm that my second statement differs somewhat from the first one, so I have now learned it by heart. Ludovic is a sharp fellow, and quite self-possessed. I would like to have him in my household. I keep myself shut up in my house for fear of meeting friends who want to hear all the details of the accident. I believe ...
— Caught In The Net • Emile Gaboriau
... the sixth, "let the earth bring forth," and "the heavens were finished." Two men read a large portion, but a small portion was read by one. At morning prayer, at the following prayer, at the evening prayer, they went in and read orally (by heart), as they read the "Hear,"(342) etc. On the eve of the Sabbath they did not go in to evening prayer for honor to ...
— Hebrew Literature
... names and eras of china, and has discrimination. Her little bit of French is well pronounced. She is not so well posted in modern painters, but she has the o'd ones, with their virgins and saints and crucifixions, all by heart. ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... she went on, "he decided that he would write on 'Historical Parallels,' and he has a real good oration, and says it beautifully. He has said it to me a great many times. I almost know it by heart. O, it begins so pretty and so grand! This is the way it begins," she added, encouraged by the interest she must have seen in my face: "'Amid the combinations of actors and forces that make up the great kaleidoscope of history, we often find ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... you think I can't see through your game?" says Sir Hastings, in his most offensive way, which is nasty indeed. "You hope to keep me unmarried. You tell yourself, I can't live much longer, at the pace I'm going. I know the old jargon—I have it by heart—given a year at the most the title and the heiress will both be yours! I can read you—I—" He breaks off to laugh sardonically, and the cough catching him, shakes him horribly. "But, no, by heaven!" ...
— A Little Rebel • Mrs. Hungerford
... about books. Mrs. Wilmot has, I think, read everything that has been written, also she is very keen about poetry and has my gift—or is it a vice?—of being able to say great pieces by heart, so between us G. is sometimes just a little bored. You see, G. hasn't been brought up in a bookish atmosphere and that makes such a difference. The other night she was brushing her hair, unusually silent ...
— Olivia in India • O. Douglas
... it by heart—my part of it. You see, he wouldn't keep away from me while he was thinking of it. He kept consulting me about everything in it. In a way, we worked over ...
— In the Bishop's Carriage • Miriam Michelson
... doubtless appeal to a certain class of minds. But, indeed, the schoolmaster is not abroad; he is domesticated in every village in America, where each hamlet has its would-be Shakespeare, and each would-be Shakespeare has his 'Hamlet' by heart. Learning is rampant in the land, and valuable information is pasted up in the streetcars so that he who rides ...
— The Eagle's Shadow • James Branch Cabell
... nothing was the proper use of speech. He called it "Big Thinks" to distinguish it from "Little Thinks," the sane every-day interests of life. If ever I made a remark he did not understand, he would praise it very much, ask me to say it again, learn it by heart, and go off repeating it, with a word wrong here or there, to all the milder of the Beast People. He thought nothing of what was plain and comprehensible. I invented some very curious "Big Thinks" for his ...
— The Island of Doctor Moreau • H. G. Wells
... the rich scene that took place when he came up, stammering and very sick, to thank her! Didn't she flash up grandly and beautifully and scornfully? So like "Medora," Rattler said—Rattler knew Byron by heart—and wasn't old Fagg awfully cut up? But he got over it, and when Rattler fell sick at Valparaiso, old Fagg used to nurse him. You see he was a good sort of fellow, but ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... called in, one after the other, or together, to achieve that great object of the policy of the Tudors and of the first Stuart. It is not necessary to go over what every person conversant with the history of the time knows by heart; it is only proper to indicate, as briefly as possible, the gradual results of that crafty and ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... whose fields and woodlands he had wandered from his infancy, and whose every meadow-path and wayside tree and flower-sown brook he knew by heart as a lover knows the lines ...
— Stories By English Authors: France • Various
... unamused as he at his certainty that it had something to do with them, or she would not have mentioned it. She explained, "It's not a famous line at all, nothing I ever heard anybody else admire. We had to learn the poem by heart, when I was a little girl and went to school ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... never mustered courage even to speak in a public prayer-meeting until after I was in the theological seminary. Then I felt, if I was to enter the ministry, I must be able to at least speak in a prayer-meeting. I learned a little piece by heart to say, but when the hour came, I forgot much of it in my terror. At the critical moment, I grasped the back of the settee in front of me and pulled myself hurriedly to my feet and held on to the settee. One Niagara seemed to be going up one side and another down another; my voice faltered. I repeated ...
— The Person and Work of The Holy Spirit • R. A. Torrey
... placed with the mummy in its coffin contained the needful topo-graphical directions and passwords, in order that he might neither stray nor perish by the way. The wiser Egyptians copied out the principal chapters for themselves, or learned them by heart while yet in life, in order to be prepared for the life beyond. Those who had not taken this precaution studied after death the copy with which they were provided; and since few Egyptians could read, a priest, or relative of the deceased, preferably his son, recited the prayers in the mummy's ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 1 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... tore up the telegram. But she gave Mae ten demerits, and made her go without dessert for a week, and learn Thanatopsis by heart. And she can't ever go shopping in the village any more. When she needs new hair ribbons or stockings or anything, she must send for them by some of the ...
— Just Patty • Jean Webster
... by heart the figures and bearings of Biorn's voyage, for first Einar had drawn them on Orme's table, then Heriolf on his own, and then Biorn on Eric's table. She fetched a charcoal from the kitchen and drew the map, with all the company ...
— Gudrid the Fair - A Tale of the Discovery of America • Maurice Hewlett
... speak more clearly than children brought up entirely at home. But they are prevented from acquiring as clear a pronunciation as the peasants in this way—they are required to learn all sorts of things by heart, and to repeat aloud what they have learnt; for when they are studying they get into the way of gabbling and pronouncing carelessly and ill; it is still worse when they repeat their lessons; they cannot find the right words, they drag out their ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... is that he read thoroughly and "inwardly digested" a few books. He knew the Bible, Shakespeare, and Burns, Aesop's "Fables," Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress," and "Robinson Crusoe." He read a history of the United States and a life of Washington, and he learned by heart the statutes of the State of Indiana. Moreover, he studied without guidance algebra and geometry. It is said that later in life, when his political career was beginning, he continued his studies even more seriously and attempted to ...
— The French in the Heart of America • John Finley
... Euripides: close the volume—all is gilt edge and exquisite tooling. Well may they hate the confidants of such crimes, and plot their destruction! What if the outcast should take to rehearsing in public the tragedy that he has got by heart? ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... from the lamp and he looked full at her. This was a Lydia he meant never to call out from her maiden veiling after to-night until the day when he could summon her for open vows and unstinted cherishing. He wanted to learn her face by heart. How was her brave soul answering him? The child face, sweet in every tint and line of it, turned to him in an unhesitating response. It was the garden of love, and, too, a ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown
... little piece of verse intended to be comic, which, on the contrary, is really serious and philosophical, if you understand it. Learn it by heart, and apply it to all kinds and conditions of things, and see if it does not help you ...
— Young Folks' Library, Volume XI (of 20) - Wonders of Earth, Sea and Sky • Various
... disposition was not more early developed than his duplicity. By the time he was two years of age, I had got the following maxim by heart: "Whenever J. is particularly quiet, look out for squalls." He was sure to be in some mischief. And I must say there was a novelty, an unexpectedness, an ingenuity, in his badness that constantly astonished me. The ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 122, December, 1867 • Various
... courtier. In fact, he declares that, as to framing compliments, he is "the verriest calf and beast in the world," and threatens to get one Bizzarro to write him some, which he will get translated (for all sorts of people), and learn them by heart. He managed on this occasion to speak his mind to Lorraine pretty freely respecting the real origin of the war (the conversation took place in 1562), and told the churchman the uncomplimentary truth, that his brother's deed at Vassy was the cause of all the troubles. ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... very great," wrote Court to a friend abroad; and the same statement was repeated in many of his letters. His principal need was of Bibles and Testaments; for every Huguenot knew the greater part of the Psalms by heart. When a Testament was obtained, it was lent about, and for the most part learnt off. The labour was divided in this way. One person, sometimes a boy or girl, of good memory, would undertake to learn one or more chapters in the Gospels, another a certain number in the ...
— The Huguenots in France • Samuel Smiles
... and foot, 'tis a question o' which gets a chance. All the way from Sahagun to Corunna 'twas we that took and gave the knocks—at Mayorga and Rueda, and Bennyventy.'—The reason, sir, I can speak the names so pat, is that my father learnt 'em by heart afterward from the trumpeter, who was always talking about Mayorga and Rueda and Bennyventy.'—We made the rear-guard, under General Paget; and drove the French every time; and all the infantry did was to sit about in wine-shops till we whipped 'em out, ...
— The Roll-Call Of The Reef • A. T. Quiller-Couch (AKA "Q.")
... indeterminate nose. His features were all small, but none ill-shaped. A rosette of pins decorated the lappel of his coat. His remarks, you would observe, were entirely what people used to call cliche, formulae not organic to the occasion, but stereotyped ages ago and learnt years since by heart. "This, madam," he would say, "is selling very well." "We are doing a very good article at four three a yard." "We could show you something better, of course." "No trouble, madam, I assure you." Such were the simple ...
— The Wheels of Chance - A Bicycling Idyll • H. G. Wells
... played well on the harp, and moderately well on the piano. She sang, at least in good taste and in tune. Of things to be learned by reading she knew much, having really taken diligent trouble with herself. She had learned much poetry by heart, and could apply it. She forgot nothing, listened to everything, understood quickly, and was desirous to show not only as a beauty but as a wit. There were men at this time who declared that she was simply the cleverest and the handsomest woman in England. As an independent young woman she ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... photographs of her mother, her father, Monkey Brand in the Putnam colours, and the Passion Play at Oberammergau; while pinned above the clock was the one poem, other than certain hymns and psalms, that Boy knew by heart. ...
— Boy Woodburn - A Story of the Sussex Downs • Alfred Ollivant
... omnibus when it pulled up at Charing Cross, so that legally there was room for just one more. I had travelled enough in omnibuses to know my fellow-passengers by heart— a governess with some sheets of music in her satchel; a minor actress going to rehearsal; a woman carrying her incurable complaint for the hundredth time to the hospital; three middle-aged city clerks; a couple of reporters with weak eyes and low collars; an old loose-cheeked woman exhaling ...
— Noughts and Crosses • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... the larger and principal centres, is almost entirely in the hands of the Mullahs, so that naturally, as in our clerical schools, religion is taught before all things, verses of the Koran are learnt by heart, and the various rites and multiple religious ceremonies are pounded into the children's brains, and accessory religious sanitary duties of ablutions, etc., which are believed to purify the body and bring it nearer to Allah, are inculcated. Even in remoter villages, the boys ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... had pictured her in my Lotus Club dreams, more gracious than Ingonde or Chlodoswinde or any of the belles dames du temps jadis whose ballade by Maitre Francois Villon my master had but lately made me learn by heart and whose names were so many "sweet symphonies." It was Joanna, "pure and ravishing as an April dawn"; Joanna beloved of Paragot in those elusive days when I could not picture him, before he smashed ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... long absence dwindled to a short holiday. The world's wide highways were far off. I was back in the English fields. My slight annoyance passed away. I fell into a pleasant day-dream, which was broken by a soft voice, every undulation of which I already knew by heart. ...
— The Crack of Doom • Robert Cromie
... as I do," said Enid. "I learn the beginning of the history portion almost by heart. Then I look very intelligent and attentive, and when Miss Harper asks me a question, I rattle off a long answer nearly word for word from the book, at such a tremendous rate that she can scarcely follow me, and says, 'That will do, Enid'. ...
— The Nicest Girl in the School - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... birds and gossips," she said, "and I can never step out-of-doors but I feel that they are watching me, and trying to attract my attention. They have a pretty song, but they seem to have learned it by heart, and as soon as they are through they make that horrid noise, as if in their own natural tone they were saying something disagreeable ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... easy enough. I am very fond of poetry, and have such a good memory that I know volumes of it by heart. There is nothing pleasanter than repeating verses that you like,—except, perhaps, ...
— Atlantic Monthly,Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... I've got the hang of it. You look as if you had a clear head: some other time, if you consent, we'll have a go at it, such as it is, together. Poverty was staring me in the face; I sat down and tried to commit the 'points' of our case to memory, as I used to get nine-times-nine by heart as a boy. I dreamed of it for six months, half-expecting to wake up some fine morning and hear through a latticed casement the cawing of an English rookery. A couple of months ago there came out to England on business of his own a man who once got me ...
— A Passionate Pilgrim • Henry James
... idolatry; and all these do covetousness. 'The wicked boasteth of his heart's desire, and blesseth the covetous, whom the Lord abhorreth' (Psa 10:3). Now the way to remedy this disease is, to learn the lesson which Paul had got by heart; to wit, 'In whatsoever state you are, therewith to be content' ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... Greeks were a nation of actors, and the recitations in the schools and the acting in the theaters gave plenty of opportunity for expression. There were no schoolbooks, as we know them. The master dictated and the pupils wrote down, or, not uncommonly, learned by heart what the master dictated. Ink and parchment were now used, the boy making his own schoolbooks. Homer was the first and the great reading book of the Greeks, the Iliad and the Odyssey being the Bible of the Greek people. Then followed Hesiod, ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY
... student, conceals himself behind the railing that divides the women's gallery from the rest of the synagogue, to steal a look at her. Alas, this flower of womankind is betrothed by her father to a certain Hillel, a sour specimen, ugly, stupid, repulsive. But he knows the Talmud by heart, folio by folio, and to say that is to say everything. The marriage comes off in due time, the young couple eat at the table of Bath-shua's parents for three years, and two children spring ...
— The Renascence of Hebrew Literature (1743-1885) • Nahum Slouschz
... curious things about youth is that children love to hear the same stories over and over again, even after they know them almost by heart. This is undoubtedly due to the fact that the appeal is principally to the feelings and not to the intellect. Intellectual people, when once they know the contents of a book, seldom have any further interest in it. But music and painting ...
— Heart and Soul • Victor Mapes (AKA Maveric Post)
... would teach her, not hearing her say what she had learned, but telling her fresh sounds and combinations of letters. Five or six times he would go over them, and expected—for Jack was tyrannical in his ways—that she would carry them away with her and learn them by heart, and go through them again and again, so that when he questioned her during their longer talks she would ...
— Facing Death - The Hero of the Vaughan Pit. A Tale of the Coal Mines • G. A. Henty
... the reader could give no precise indication of where the murmur of the current began, or of where it died away. These passages in which he delighted were our favourites also. For my own part I knew all of them by heart. I felt even disappointed when he resumed the thread of his narrative. Whenever he spoke of something whose beauty had until then remained hidden from me, of pine-forests or of hailstorms, of Notre-Dame de Paris, of Athalie, ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... influences the minds of the people, and a Ulysses had greater influence than an Ajax. From his earliest childhood Beric had listened to the stories and legends told by bards in the rough palace of his father, and his sole schooling before he went to Camalodunum had been to learn these by heart, and to repeat them with due emphasis and appropriate gesture. His father had been one of the most eloquent and influential of the chiefs of the Iceni, and had early impressed upon him the importance of cultivating the power ...
— Beric the Briton - A Story of the Roman Invasion • G. A. Henty
... order to encourage me to practise. What horrible torture it was! I used, very wickedly, to do my utmost to set my mother and my music mistress at variance. They were both of them as short-sighted as possible. When my mother had practised a new piece three or four days, she knew it by heart and played it fairly well, to the astonishment of Mlle. Clarisse, my insufferable old teacher, who held the music in her hand and read every note with her nose nearly touching the page. One day I heard, with joy, a quarrel beginning between ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt
... this picture T.A. Buck saw in his untasted coffee cup. Much of it Emma visualized in her speeding motor car. All of it Grace knew by heart as she moved about the new, shining house in the Chicago suburb, thinking, planning; feeling his agony, and trying not to admit the transparency of the look about her hands and her ...
— Half Portions • Edna Ferber
... Oz—and the idea now came to him that if he could transform himself into a bird, he could fly to any place he wished to go and fly back again whenever he cared to. It was necessary, however, to learn by heart the way to pronounce the magic word, because a bird would have no way to carry a paper with it, and Kiki would be unable to resume his proper shape if he forgot the word ...
— The Magic of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... live, is the proper accomplishment of every gentleman and scholar; an highly useful, I had almost said essential, part of liberal and polite education. And in this I am warranted by the example of antient Rome; where, as Cicero informs us[a], the very boys were obliged to learn the twelve tables by heart, as a carmen necessarium or indispensable lesson, to imprint on their tender minds an early knowlege of the laws and ...
— Commentaries on the Laws of England - Book the First • William Blackstone
... party of twelve, Grandpapa and all, began to sing snatches from the newest operas down to college songs. For Grandpapa hadn't forgotten his college days when he had sung with the best, and he had the parson on this occasion to keep him company, and the young people, of course, knew all the songs by heart, as what young person doesn't, pray tell! So the bits and snatches rolled out with a gusto, and seemed to echo along the whole mountain side as the procession of sure-footed animals climbed the ...
— Five Little Peppers Abroad • Margaret Sidney
... acquainted with the words of the prophecy which foretold his appearance; for so important, so vital to the interests of the nation, were those words regarded that it has been our rule throughout the ages to teach them to every child until that child can repeat them by heart. You are therefore perfectly cognisant of all the signs and tokens of identification by which the re- incarnated Manco was to be recognised when in the fulness of time he should again come to us, to execute his great mission of our regeneration. ...
— Harry Escombe - A Tale of Adventure in Peru • Harry Collingwood
... never-failing resource of long yarns, which eke out many a watch, seemed to have failed us now; for we had been so long together that we had heard each other's stories told over and over again till we had them by heart; each one knew the whole history of each of the others, and we were fairly and literally talked out. Singing and joking we were in no humor for; and, in fact, any sound of mirth or laughter would have struck strangely upon ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... in truth, between the devil and the deep sea. Let me repeat the legal and actual condition of things as summarized by Mr. Montagu Crackanthorpe, Q.C. These six propositions ought to be learned by heart before anyone allows himself to talk of Home ...
— About Ireland • E. Lynn Linton
... wild. He began to teach them the ways of the birds they would see in New Jersey, how to tell their songs apart, where to look for their nests; all the queer little wonderful things that a bird lover knows, and that Michael because of his long habits of roaming about the woods knew by heart. The little bird in its cage stayed in the yellow and white room, and strange to say thrived, becoming a joy and a wonder to all visitors, and a marvel to those who lived in the court because of its continuous volume of brilliant ...
— Lo, Michael! • Grace Livingston Hill
... brune—and the Highland rivers of the colour of porter "with a head on it," and the mackerel-hued sea, and the marble, and the martyrs, and the Mediterranean—they are all dear to various classes of our teeming population. The critic may say he has seen them all before, he knows them off by heart; but then so does he know Raphael's infants, and Botticelli's madonnas, and Fra Angelico's angel trumpeters, and Vecelli's blue hills, and Robusti's doges, and Lionardo's smiling, enigmatic ladies. He does not say he is tired of these, but that is only his eternal affectation. ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang
... undeceiv'd. It vexes them to have seriously admir'd those Works, which my Satires have expos'd to universal Contempt; and to see themselves condemn'd, to forget in their old Age, those Verses which they got by heart in their Youth, as Master-pieces of Wit. Truly I am sorry for 'em, but where's the help? Can they expect, that to comply with their particular Taste, we should renounce common Sense? applaud indifferently all the Impertinencies which a Coxcomb shall think fit to throw upon ...
— An Essay on Satire, Particularly on the Dunciad • Walter Harte
... countess hid the horses and tied and gagged them, Michu removed the stones and opened the entrance to the caverns. The countess, who thought she knew the forest by heart, was amazed when she descended into the vaulted chambers. Michu replaced the stones above them with the dexterity of a mason. As he finished, the sound of horses' feet and the voices of the gendarmes ...
— An Historical Mystery • Honore de Balzac
... these: aqua, aura, unda! All English poetry that I had yet learned by heart—it is only children who learn by heart, grown people "commit to memory"—had not so awakened the vision of what literature might mean. Thenceforth all ...
— A Handbook for Latin Clubs • Various
... case was almost exactly opposite. It was a waste of time trying to teach her mathematics, she had not sufficient brain power to grasp them, and if she succeeded in learning a proposition by heart like a parrot, it was only to collapse into helpless tears and protestations when the letters were altered, and, as it seemed to her, ...
— About Peggy Saville • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey
... truckling to a lord; that there is no fly-blown peer but he is pleased to have him at his table, proud beyond measure to call him by his surname (without the lordly prefix); and that those lords whom he does not know, he yet (the freeborn Englishman) takes care to have their pedigrees and ages by heart from his world-bible, the "Peerage:" as this is an indisputable fact, and as it is in this particular class of Britons that our agent must look to find clients, I need not say it is necessary that the agent should be as high-born as possible, and that he should ...
— The Fitz-Boodle Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... there is opportunity, I will try to thank you. Meantime, all is well with me. Please trouble no more. And forget.' Such were the exact terms of the note from Camilla Payne delivered to him by Albert Shawn. Of course, he knew it by heart. It was scribbled very hastily in pencil on half a sheet of paper, and it bore no signature, not even a solitary initial. If it had not been handed to Albert by Camilla in person, Hugo might have doubted its genuineness, ...
— Hugo - A Fantasia on Modern Themes • Arnold Bennett
... from early association and close investigation and reading with the crises of the Revolutionary War, which were successfully decided on the patriots' side on the banks of the Hudson. I lived near Washington Irving, and his works I knew by heart, especially the tales which gave to the Hudson a romance like the Rhine's. The subject was new for an academic stage, and the speech made a hit. Nevertheless, it was the saddest and most regretful day of my life when ...
— My Memories of Eighty Years • Chauncey M. Depew
... how easily Those ships their helm obey'd, When in that storm your vessel's form So near the rocks was laid. Young man so stern, you've yet to learn That sailing on life's sea Is not an art to get by heart, Just like the rule ...
— Canada and Other Poems • T.F. Young |
