"By heart" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... mean to look me in the face and tell me that you are not acquainted with her works,—that you don't know pages of them by heart, that you don't sleep with them under your pillow, don't travel about with them in your dressing-bag? I'm afraid we ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... seemed a 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 with ...
— A Room With A View • E. M. Forster
... ought to have been nominated in 1876, and if he were a candidate, he would probably have the largest following; but my understanding is, that he does not, in any event, wish to be a candidate. He is a man perfectly familiar with the politics of this country, knows its history by heart, and is in every respect probably as well qualified to act as its Chief Magistrate as any man in the nation. He is a man of ideas, of action, and has positive qualities. He would not wait for something ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll
... about the Milky Way," said the Story Girl, brightening up. "I read it in a book of Aunt Louisa's in town, and I learned it off by heart. Once there were two archangels in heaven, ...
— The Story Girl • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... out along the field road. It was pitch-dark and raining, but he knew every ditch and path by heart. Far up on the hill there shone a light which resembled a star that hung low in the sky. It must be the lamp in Brun's bedroom. He wondered at the old man being up still, for he was soon tired now that he had given up the occupation of a long lifetime, and generally went to bed early. Perhaps ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... another person altogether—a thoughtful and intelligent young Frenchman, who loved reading poetry aloud or being read to; especially English poetry—Byron! He was faithful to his "Don Juan," his Hebrew melodies—his "O'er the glad waters of the deep blue sea." We knew them all by heart, or nearly so, and yet we read them still; and Victor Hugo and Lamartine, and dear ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... some. You might suppose that two days is a short time in which to become so familiar with a strange language that you may be able to understand and answer any question which may be put to you in it. Sly friend, however, did not let this worry him. He learnt by heart a long and detailed narrative, embracing all the most impressive idioms and all the most popular slang, the subject of which was an accident which had occurred to him in the earlier days of the campaign, a long and a vivid story, which, once started, would last indefinitely ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Aug 15, 1917 • Various
... to the opera one night and heard "Les Danaides," Salieri's opera, performed with all the splendid completeness of the Academie Royale. This awakened into fresh life an unquenchable thirst for music, and he neglected his medical studies for the library of the Conservatoire, where he learned by heart the scores of Gluck and Rameau. At last, on coming out one night from a performance of "Iphigenie," he swore that henceforth music should have her divine rights of him, in spite of all and everything. Henceforth ...
— Great Italian and French Composers • George T. Ferris
... time Reade knew the little medicine book by heart. He also knew the label and dose of every drug in the case. But he had not been able to improve upon his first ...
— The Young Engineers in Nevada • H. Irving Hancock
... the best-mathematicians in England of his day, and was likewise deeply skilled in other branches of science and philosophy. The Greek language was as familiar to him as the English; he was said to know every line of Homer by heart. In public life, on the contrary, he was shy, ungainly, and embarrassed. From his first onset in Parliament, he took part with vehemence against the administration of Sir Robert Walpole." Bishop Secker says, that Lord Stanhope "spoke a precomposed speech, which ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... work was never quite so much appreciated as it ought to have been. "The Black Dragoons," "The Queen's Own," and "The Romance of War" all contained good work, and many gallant lads delighted their hearts with them; I know that one youth at least learned "The Black Dragoons" by heart, and amused the people in a lonely farm-house by reciting whole chapters on winter nights, and I have some reason to believe that the book gave the boy a taste for literature which ended in his becoming a novelist. But, as Grant went on with machine-like regularity, how curiously ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... impression which Homer has made upon the mind of Europe it would be difficult to give an estimate. The Greeks themselves early came to regard his text with a sort of veneration; it was learned by heart and quoted to spellbound audiences in the cities and at the great national meetings at Olympia. Every Greek boy was expected to know some portion at least by heart; Plato evidently loved Homer and when he was ...
— Authors of Greece • T. W. Lumb
... regard and affection, a part of which the young gentlemen very gratefully returned. She was charmed to hear of Harry's valour in the campaign; she was delighted with George's success at the theatre; she was for ever going to the play, and had all the favourite passages of Carpezan by heart. One day, as Mr. George and Miss Theo were taking a sentimental walk in Kensington Gardens, whom should they light upon but their cousin Maria in company with a gentleman in a smart suit and handsome laced hat, and who should the gentleman be but his Majesty King Louis of Hungary, Mr. Hagan? ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... very well know.) She was a bel esprit, and a dreadful Radical for those days. She had been in France (where St. Just, they say, inspired her with an unfortunate passion), and loved, ever after, French novels, French cookery, and French wines. She read Voltaire, and had Rousseau by heart; talked very lightly about divorce, and most energetically of the rights of women. She had pictures of Mr. Fox in every room in the house: when that statesman was in opposition, I am not sure that she had not flung ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... prelude, Mr Meagles went through the narrative; the established narrative, which has become tiresome; the matter-of-course narrative which we all know by heart. How, after interminable attendance and correspondence, after infinite impertinences, ignorances, and insults, my lords made a Minute, number three thousand four hundred and seventy-two, allowing the culprit to make certain trials of his ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... What wilt thou proue? Boy. A man, if I liue (and this) by, in, and without, vpon the instant: by heart you loue her, because your heart cannot come by her: in heart you loue her, because your heart is in loue with her: and out of heart you loue her, being out of heart ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... think we're going to see? Hamlet. Think of that! We studied it for four weeks in Shakespeare class and I know it by heart. ...
— Daddy-Long-Legs • Jean Webster
... she was a little girl she had knelt at the feet of Betty Zane, and listened to the old lady as she told of her brother's capture by the Indian Princess, of the burning of the Fort, and of her own race for life. I knew these stories by heart when a child. ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey
... mother be proud o' that letter nyther? Why, laws, sir, the ole 'oman 'll get the minister to read that letter. And then she'll make everybody as comes to the house as can read, read it over and over again for the pride she takes in it, till she'll fairly know it all by heart," ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... 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 the cause of my being ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas
... wonderful how much you young people have learned about radio—so much more than I had any idea," said the school teacher. "Of course you can write a little prose essay, Jessie, get it by heart, and repeat it at each session in the tent, if you feel timid about giving an off-hand talk ...
— The Campfire Girls of Roselawn - A Strange Message from the Air • Margaret Penrose
... rich collection of foreign and idiomatic phrases, which he must have learned by heart from a book and with which he adorned ...
— Kimono • John Paris
... Antoinette, with a sad smile, "if they heard it they would say that it was only something learned by heart, with which I was trying to disarm the righteous anger of my enemies. It is in vain to want to excuse or justify myself, for no one will hear a word. I must be guilty, I must be criminal, that they ...
— Marie Antoinette And Her Son • Louise Muhlbach
... children know, by heart, what a time there was between these two men afterwards, these men that had 'struck the foremost man of all the world,' and had congratulated themselves that it was not murder, and that they were ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... dear friend, this has been my first visit to Scotland since Lord Beltham's death. I found your tenants still grievously upset by the tragedy that occurred nearly a year ago. They have got by heart all the newspaper accounts of the mysterious circumstances attending Lord Beltham's death, but those are not enough to satisfy the sympathetic curiosity of these excellent people, and I was obliged to tell them over and over again in full ...
— Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... will have the honour to take you in, Miss Devereux," she said. The words sounded as though they had been learnt off by heart. ...
— The Story of Bawn • Katharine Tynan
... best; I mean that he could not have been better. Knowing that Count Arco sang, he insisted on hearing him. Arco at first declined, but finally yielded—there was no resisting the arch-charmer. Liszt played the "Suoni la tromba" (Arco's cheval de bataille), by heart, of course, singing himself, to help the timid singer, and adding variations ...
— The Sunny Side of Diplomatic Life, 1875-1912 • Lillie DeHegermann-Lindencrone
... 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 what ...
— The Ocean Cat's Paw - The Story of a Strange Cruise • George Manville Fenn
... Bale, and sir Iohn Prise, are in effect reported after this sort. They did vse to record the noble exploits of the ancient capteins, and to drawe the pedegrees and genealogies of such as were liuing. They would frame pleasant dities and songs, learne the same by heart, and sing them to instruments at solemne feasts and assemblies of noble men and gentlemen. Wherefore they were had in so high estimation, that if two hosts had bene readie ranged to ioine in battell, and that any of them had fortuned to enter among them, both the hosts (as well the enimies ...
— Chronicles (1 of 6): The Historie of England (1 of 8) • Raphael Holinshed
... 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 entire disappearance amid the engulfing exits ...
— Lady Baltimore • Owen Wister
... that struggle of two beings always in one another's presence, bound forever, who have coupled each other under the strange impression that they were suited. No, to tell you those things would be merely a repetition of Boileau, and we know him by heart. Still, I'll forgive your absurd idea if you will promise me to marry "en grand seigneur"; to entail your property; to have two legitimate children, to give your wife a house and household absolutely distinct from yours; to meet her only in society, and never to ...
— The Marriage Contract • Honore de Balzac
... when once taught to slake her thirsty imagination beyond the S.P.C.K. She did not marvel at the set look of pain with which Robert heard passionate verses of Shelley and Byron fall from those dying lips. They must have been conned by heart, and have been the favourite study, or they ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... sir," said Lee. "That was wrote up in Drumston church, I mind, and some other things alongside of it, which I could say by heart once on a time—all on black boards, with yellow letters. And also, I remember a spick and span new board, about how Anthony Hamlyn (that's Mr. Geoffry Hamlyn's father) 'repaired and beautified this church;' which meant that he built a handsome ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... make our way gradually through the literature. In Zend, the grammatical terminations had first to be discovered by a careful anatomy of the literature. The Parsis themselves possessed no such work. Even their most learned priests are satisfied with learning the Zend-Avesta by heart, and with acquiring some idea of its import by means of a Pehlevi translation, which dates from the Sassanian period, or of a Sanskrit translation of still later date. Hence the translation of the Zend-Avesta published by Anquetil ...
— Chips From A German Workshop - Volume I - Essays on the Science of Religion • Friedrich Max Mueller
... insolence of that functionary recalls to his mind the Platonic theory of the divine original of rulers, and he proceeds to quote a long passage from the Laws, which even his ready scholarship could scarce have had by heart. ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden
... "Men would be insufferably unhappy if in the presence of women they thought the least bit in the world of that which they know by heart." ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... sister?" said Mrs. Tulliver. "Mr. Tulliver's not a man to be dictated to,—not if I was to go to the parson and get by heart what I should tell my husband for the best. And I'm sure I don't pretend to know anything about putting out money and all that. I could never see into men's business as ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... and I never read any,' she said to him once, quietly, as he fell to comparing some peasant story she had told him with an episode in one of George Sand's Berry novels. It seemed to him that she knew her Wordsworth by heart. And her own mountain life, her own rich and meditative soul, had taught her judgments and comments on her favourite poet which stirred Elsmere every now and then to enthusiasm—so true they were and pregnant, so full often of a natural magic of expression. On the other hand, when he ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... sure that he would not forget any of the verses when he got up on the platform. He had practiced his "piece" at home over and over until he knew it "by heart," and could almost say it in ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue Keeping Store • Laura Lee Hope
... Sheba planted everything themselves—or, rather, Sheba walked about with him or stood by his side and talked while he worked. In time she knew almost as well as he did the far-away garden he took as his model. She learned to know the place by heart. ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... and stop this endless swaying and rocking and trembling of all things else! And then, following close, came other words, more lately learned. Not now read over, with those pencil marks beside them; but read often enough before, happily, to have been learned by heart; and now passing and re-passing in unceasing procession ...
— The Gold of Chickaree • Susan Warner
... will detect it. And I understood the ladies was to sup in their dresses, and on such an occasion I presumed you would like Miss Georgiana to have an entire cap a pie new dress, as the Lady Arlingtons and every body has seen her appear in this, and has it by heart, I may say—and the Count too, who, of course, will expect, to see Zara spick and span—But I leave it all to your own better judgment, ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... name, but the millionaire did not look at it any more than he had looked at the others lower down. He knew them all by heart. He dropped his valise, took a small key from his pocket, opened the door, picked up his valise again, and, as neither hand was free, he shut the door with his heel as he passed in, and it slammed behind him, sending dismal echoes down the ...
— The Primadonna • F. Marion Crawford
... my dear fellow; if my method displeases you or Liubka, then I'm even ready to resign. My problem consists only of bringing in a genuine element of discipline into her education. If she does not understand anything, then I compel her to learn it by heart, aloud. With time this will cease. That is unavoidable. Recall, Lichonin, how difficult the transition from arithmetic to algebra was for us, when we were compelled to replace common numerals with letters, and did not know why this was ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... herself to read over the original of Eleanor's story in "The Quiver" that Dorothy had lent her. It was the same and yet not the same. Plot and characters had been taken directly from the original, but the phrasing— Betty knew Eleanor's story almost by heart—was quite different, and a striking little episode at the end that Miss Raymond had particularly admired ...
— Betty Wales, Sophomore • Margaret Warde
... warn't no churches for Negroes 'til the war was over. Not a slave on our place could read a word from the Bible, but some few could repeat a verse or two they had cotch from the white folks and them that was smart enough made up a heap of verses that went 'long with the ones larned by heart. Us went to Poplar Springs Baptist church with Marse Robert's fambly; that church was 'bout 3 miles from whar us lived. Miss Betsey, she tuk Grandma Ca'line with her to the Hardshell Baptist church about 10 miles ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... continual toil. In our popular amusements the village folk do not take part, except as spectators, and therefore lose half the pleasure; whereas in the time of the Virgin Queen the rehearsals, the learning the speeches by heart, the dresses, the excitement, all contributed to give them fresh ideas and new thoughts. The acting may not have been very good; indeed Queen Elizabeth did not always think very highly of the performances of her subjects at Coventry, and was heard ...
— English Villages • P. H. Ditchfield
... the house by heart; but Edward was less familiar with its winding passages and crooked stairs. However, he knew the position of the rooms occupied by the farmer and his son, and groped his way thither; whilst Paul, with more certain step, sped lightly along another passage toward the room in ...
— In the Wars of the Roses - A Story for the Young • Evelyn Everett-Green
... "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire." The original newspaper comment, dated some thirty years back, the doctor had preserved, and would produce it, now somewhat frayed and worn, and read it to visitors. He knew it by heart, but to him it always possessed a contemporary and ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis
... and the other retaliation on England. The French officers and soldiers who after this went to America, were eventually placed in the school of Freedom, and learned the practice as well as the principles of it by heart. ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... that I have to ask and it is to take the liberty of decorate the Smiling hill with the American flag. La Bandiera Stellata (note: I am not an American legally, no; to say I renounce to my country, impossible, but I am an American by heart if U. Sam can use me. I was not trained to be a soldier, but in matter of shooting very seldom I fail to get a rabbit when I want it, more so lately that a box of shells from 60 cents jumped to $1.00). As a rule the ridents colline are very monotonous, but when I am home, more ...
— The Smiling Hill-Top - And Other California Sketches • Julia M. Sloane
... wasn't easy. There were dozens of them, and they all looked alike. His head wasn't working and his eyes kept seeing gray fog. Why, he knew this gadget by heart! He'd practically built most of it, and he'd checked it out half ...
— The Scarlet Lake Mystery • Harold Leland Goodwin
... not to hear her mother's remark, although she knew it all by heart, for it had been dinned into her ears twenty times a day for weeks, and sooth to say, she liked to hear it, and fully appreciated the honors to come from the ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... so as to do well for the two parts she was to perform this night, of gentlewoman and queen—black velvet, with black velvet cap and feathers. She sat the whole time, and with a large Shakespear before her; as she knew the part of Katherine by heart, she seldom required the help of glasses, and she recited it incomparably well: the changes of her countenance were striking. From her first burst of indignation when she objects to the Cardinal as her judge, to her last expiring scene, was all so perfectly natural and so touching, ...
— The Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... else have reached,—mutually necessary to each other's thrift and protection,—making a nation adapted by its organic constitution to the region of the earth which it occupies,—and now, by previous memories and traditions, by millions of social and domestic alliances, knit by heart-strings the sundering of which will be followed by a flow of the life-blood till all is spent,—these terms are but a feeble setting forth of the relations of these States to each other and to the Union. Some of these ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 49, November, 1861 • Various
... on no encomium upon Massachusetts; she needs none. There she is. Behold her, and judge for yourselves. There is her history; the world knows it by heart. The past, at least, is secure. There is Boston, and Concord, and Lexington, and Bunker Hill; and there they will remain forever. The bones of her sons, fallen in the great struggle for independence, ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter
... "Since you desire to know everything, I have written this 'book of notes,' that you may learn of what the universe and its elements consist, what the world contains, and what the human race has done.'' It seems to have been intended as a text-book to be learnt by heart. The little work, in fifty chapters, gives a sketch of cosmography, geography, mythology (chaps. i.-x.), and history (chap. x.-end). The historical portion, dealing mainly with the republican period, is untrustworthy, and ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... it is the aroma of an earlier age when men and women opened their hearts like children. Lamb lays a spell upon us such as no other writer can work; he plays upon the strings of our hearts, now surprising us into wholesome laughter, now melting us to tears. You may know his essays by heart, but you ...
— Modern English Books of Power • George Hamlin Fitch
... to the grand total of Louis' inheritance, which Rachel had known by heart for several days past; yet Batchgrew rolled it out as a piece of tremendous news, and immediately afterwards hinted that the sum represented less than the true worth of Louis' inheritance, and that he, Batchgrew, as well as his lifelong friend the valuer, had been influenced by ...
— The Price of Love • Arnold Bennett
... might have guessed her older than the twenty-six years she had just completed—she seemed grave and matronly— her face had a bleak look. Mary's last letter from France had come more than a month ago, and a face can change much in a month of waiting. She knew that last letter—a mere scrap—by heart. ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale
... his discourse where he had left it, finished it to the last word, saluted me profoundly, and marched off his contingent. He probably would not have minded had I refused to supply the seats, but after all his trouble in getting it by heart he would have resented bitterly being robbed of any part of his speech. So, though it kept more important business waiting, I had to ...
— Glimpses of Bengal • Sir Rabindranath Tagore
... we got out our slips and were a little disappointed to find that they contained the same words. The girl had economized time and labor by using a formula which she knew by heart. However, we argued—safely enough—that the FIRST type-girl must naturally take rank with the first billiard-player: neither of them could be expected to get out of the game any more than a third or a half of what was in it. If the machine survived—IF it survived—experts ...
— The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... old one, figuring in one of the School Readers, and we scholars all knew it off by heart. Sara Ray alone had not heard the Story Girl recite it. The latter had not been drilled at practices as had the other pupils, Mr. Perkins choosing not to waste time teaching her what she already ...
— The Golden Road • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... chair and a foot-warmer to be brought out for her that she might sit and watch the painter. Soon she began to talk to him, asking him about the marriages and births and deaths of which she had not yet heard, and adding these fresh details to the genealogical trees which she already knew by heart. Beside her, astride a chair, sat Julien, smoking a pipe and occasionally spitting on the ground as he watched the growth of the colored certificate of his nobility. Soon old Simon on his way to the kitchen garden stopped, with his spade on his shoulder, ...
— The works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 5 (of 8) - Une Vie and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant 1850-1893
... delivered a little speech, well prepared, well studied, almost learned by heart, for since your departure I have scarcely thought of anything else; I repeat it to myself from morning to night. That is what I had proposed to do, and you understand that your letter caused me much embarrassment. I reflected a little, and thought that if I addressed ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... sucked the dregs of beer off his moustache. Dad recognized the opening sentence. It was one of the interminable stories out of the Decameron of the bar-room, realistic and obscene, that circulate among drinkers. Dad knew it by heart. He looked at his glass, and remembered that it was his fourth drink. Instantly he thought of the Duchess. With his usual formula "'Scuse me; I'm a married man, y'know," he hurried out of the bar in search ...
— Jonah • Louis Stone
... that speech, intending to deliver it here to-day. I was called to Canton on business early in the week, and during my absence Tom Bannister went to my house and got my manuscript and learned it by heart. To prove to you what I say is true, I will ...
— Southern Lights and Shadows • Edited by William Dean Howells & Henry Mills Alden
... change our day travel into night travel, for freezing was resumed each night after the sun was set, and the surface grew hard again. So at this cabin we lay all the next day, with an interesting recluse of these parts who knows many passages of Shakespeare by heart, and who drew us a chart of our course to the next habitation, marking every bend to be followed and the place where the river must be crossed. But there is always difficulty in getting a new travel schedule under way, and we did not leave until five in the morning ...
— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck
... poems are not written in this stiff, pompous German. Do you not know one of your fables by heart?" ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... obtained in their studies and their games. If Paul memorized one canto of "Marmion," Lloyd memorized two cantos, Paul came back with three, and Lloyd again with four, till each knew the whole poem by heart. I remember an incident that occurred at the swimming hole—an incident tragically significant of the life-struggle between them. The boys had a game of diving to the bottom of a ten-foot pool and holding ...
— Moon-Face and Other Stories • Jack London
... ordinary little variety actress, and he knew her little programme pretty well by heart. But her fascinations were independent of the glamour of the foot-lights. It was off the stage that he had first come to know her, really know her, a thing that at the first blush of it seems impossible; for the great ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... thy life by heart-throbs; He thinks and lives the most Who with the noblest actions Adorns his ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... knew his battalion-drill by heart and backwards. Was it his fault that his officers were fools and his ...
— Driftwood Spars - The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who - Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life • Percival Christopher Wren
... the principal actor, not having the author's words by heart, and being of a suggestive wit and good assurance, substituteth others, which ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, September 25, 1841 • Various
... remarkable misfortune, of course, deprived me of the influence of the bashful man, and as I was no dissembler I could not take advantage of the appearance of my distress. My blushes were wholly due to choking and could not pass for flashes reflexed by heart-throbs. ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent
... of magic was by no means easy. The days went by with Chris's mornings and afternoons spent in Mr. Wicker's study, reading books too heavy for him to lift, learning incantations by heart, and how to blend simple formulae over the fire. He had told his master at once about Simon Gosler, his horde of money and his hiding places for it. Mr. Wicker though interested and attentive, gave Chris the impression that what he had been told was not new to him. At times Chris was ...
— Mr. Wicker's Window • Carley Dawson
... 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
... not at home. Is there any young man in the Peerage unmarried and richer than Farintosh? I forget. Why does not some one publish a list of the young male nobility and baronetage, their names, weights, and probable fortunes? I don't mean for the matrons of Mayfair—they have the list by heart and study it in secret—but for young men in the world; so that they may know what their chances are, and who naturally has the pull over them. Let me see—there is young Lord Gaunt, who will have a great fortune, ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the credit of "private theatricals," that the play had no slight share in the plot. The easy intercourse produced by rehearsals, the getting of tender speeches by heart, the pretty personalities and allusions growing out of those speeches, the ramblings through shades and rose-twined parterres, the raptures and romance, all tend prodigiously to take off the alarm, or instruct the inexperience, of the female heart. I know no more certain cure for ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various
... words in Dutch, which I repeated after him until I knew them by heart. Then I went below and gabbled them to Hendrik, not more than half wrong, for he seemed to understand. But while the pink youth abandoned the operation of rubbing brass with cotton waste in favor of bailing up water, I stood gazing at the ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... me the letters over the shop doors, as we went to our work, but now I know all the words by heart, and if you'd kindly let us have some books to read and teach us to do sums and ...
— Little Folks (November 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... serious books: histories, philosophies, and scientific works; also a Bible and a dictionary. He had studied these and knew them by heart; he was a direct and diligent talker. He never talked of himself, and beyond the statement that he had acquired his knowledge from reading, and not at school, his personality was a mystery. He left the house at six in ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... was a mine: she knew by heart All Calderon and greater part of Lope, So that if any actor miss'd his part She could have served him for the prompter's copy; For her Feinagle's were an useless art, And he himself obliged to shut up shop—he Could never make a memory ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... had received in my girlhood, from my best friend, the works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, in five volumes in blue and gold, I had read and re-read the pages, till I knew scores by heart. I had longed to see the face and home of her whom the English call "Shakespeare's daughter," and whom Edmund Clarence Stedman names "the ...
— Lives of Girls Who Became Famous • Sarah Knowles Bolton
... inspiration—short sentences which came like lightning, dazzling, burning, striking down everything before them—sentences which, spoken at critical moments, decided the fate of great questions—sentences which at once became proverbs—sentences which everybody still knows by heart—in these chiefly lay the oratorical power both of Chatham and of Mirabeau. There have been far greater speakers, and far greater statesmen, than either of them; but we doubt whether any men have, in modern times, exercised such vast personal influence over stormy and divided assemblies. ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... dishonour, and observing that many of the younger men were eager for an excuse to fight, but dared not propose to do so because of this law, pretended to have lost his reason. His family gave out that he was insane, but he meanwhile composed a poem, and when he had learned it by heart, rushed out into the market-place wearing a small felt cap, and having assembled a crowd, mounted the herald's stone and recited the poem which begins with ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... secretaries and others, there was quite a gathering. After M. Briand had welcomed us cordially and in felicitous terms, Mr. Asquith got a charming little speech in French off his chest; it may perhaps have had a whiff of the lamp about it and had probably been learnt by heart, but the P. M. undoubtedly managed to serve up a savoury appetitif, and we felt that in the matter of courtesy and the amenities our man had held his own. In the course of the discussion that followed, Sir E. Grey's minute-gun process of turning our host's delightful language to ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell
... solemn prayer, which was the stretching out of the hands [and eyes] towards heaven, as other passages of the Old and New Testament inform us. Nay, by the way, this posture seemed to have continued in the Christian church, till the clergy, instead of learning their prayers by heart, read them out of a book, which is in a great measure inconsistent with such an elevated posture, and which seems to me to have been only a later practice, introduced under the corrupt state of the church; though the constant use of divine forms of prayer, praise, and thanksgiving, appears to me ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... not look at them at present. Has Nick learned this story by heart?" I inquired. "He used to be a very bungling liar when we were small boys together; and I don't know whether he has improved ...
— Up the River - or, Yachting on the Mississippi • Oliver Optic
... 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 to ...
— Young Folks' Library, Volume XI (of 20) - Wonders of Earth, Sea and Sky • Various
... on a paragraph in some holy book and commit to memory. Learn by heart one paragraph daily taking care not to forget the old ones. In time, you will ...
— The Doctrine and Practice of Yoga • A. P. Mukerji
... not want you this afternoon, Mr. Brooke. Here is a plan showing the position of the different corps. You had better get it by heart. When it gets cooler, this afternoon, I should advise you to ride out and examine the position and the roads; so that even at night you can, if necessary, carry a message to any of the regiments. The Burmese are constantly creeping up and ...
— On the Irrawaddy - A Story of the First Burmese War • G. A. Henty
... the Queen after a long pause, "—but that is one of the cant phrases that we have learned by heart. I mean just the reverse of what I have said. You can imagine the change that your words ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... 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 ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... what was in the old alligator-skin valise he carried. It was books. Half the time he didn't have to read to us, but just talked off the stuff he'd learned by heart. We got to know a lot before the trip was half begun, just by associating with Thomas Jefferson Brown—or Thomas Jefferson, as he ...
— Thomas Jefferson Brown • James Oliver Curwood
... circumstances might require. Once on foot, we proceeded without noise in a body, avoiding as much as we could the bazaars, where I knew that the officers of the police kept watch, and by lanes reached the gate of the caravanserai. Here was a place, every square inch of which I knew by heart, namely, my father's shaving shop. Being aware that the gate of the caravanserai would be locked, I made the party halt there, and, taking up a stone, knocked, and called out to the doorkeeper by name: 'Ali Mohammed,' said ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier
... mild faces of the deer looking gravely reproachful, as if asking what business she had there. She had lain asleep on the sloping bank above the lake on drowsy afternoons, tired by wandering far a-field with her young esquires. She knew the Abbey by heart—better than even Urania knew it; though she had used that phrase to express utter satiety. Ida Palliser had a deeper love of natural beauty, a stronger appreciation of all that made the old place interesting. She had a curious feeling, too, about the absent master ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... she. "I can not bear to recall it. It is all here, and you may read it for yourself. It was all public ten years ago, and in this package are the reports of the trial. I have read them over so often that I almost know them by heart; and I know, too, the haste of that trial, and the looseness of that evidence. I have marked it in places—for your eyes only, dearest—for I prepared it for you, to be handed to you in case of my death. My life, however, has been preserved, and I now give this ...
— The Living Link • James De Mille
... consistently and with understanding needs no other education. Like the philosopher Emerson he boiled down the world's thoughts into terse sentences and one goes into a new universe when reading any of the plays. It is a good thing to learn parts of them by heart so that we can apply them to our own lives. They strengthen the mind ... their beauty lifts us into a great realism of splendid thought ... and they fill the heart with a longing to do something great. Such books ...
— Laugh and Live • Douglas Fairbanks
... trying to the lungs, 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
... them over and over so many times that she always knew what was coming next, even before she turned the page; and she had read them to the other children so many times that they, too, knew them almost by heart. ...
— The Little Colonel's House Party • Annie Fellows Johnston
... wet her feet, and when to cloak and uncloak, and to help tear the check-book out of money, is no more of a mother than old Simonds was of a Solomon, when he made that will which every one of us knows by heart quite as well as ...
— Autobiography of a Pocket-Hankerchief • James Fenimore Cooper
... learn the collect for the day and the verse of a hymn every Sunday, but never by any chance knew either. No one ever thought of reading the thing over to her, and fixing her attention on it by some little explanation; and learning by heart from a book did not come naturally to her. She learned by ear easily enough, but not by sight. The hymns and prayers which Kitty had repeated to her, she very soon picked up; but Kitty had true sympathetic ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... her autograph album was written an old rhyme. The ink had faded so that it was scarcely legible, but Miss Hitty knew it by heart: ...
— A Spinner in the Sun • Myrtle Reed
... [Footnote: Jerome Napoleon.] who would have been happy to see you and who loves you and appreciates you a great deal. Tourgueneff has been more fortunate than we, since he was able to snatch you from your ink-well. I know him personally very little, but I know his work by heart. What talent! and how original and polished! I think that the foreigners do better than we do. They do not pose, while we either put on airs or grovel: the Frenchman has no longer a social milieu, he has no longer ...
— The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters • George Sand, Gustave Flaubert
... are in fact provincials. They take up fashions of literature as country people do fashions of dress, when the capital has left them off. When I was young you probably had ceased to be familiar with Richardson. We knew him by heart. We used to weep over the Lady Clementina, whom I dare say Miss ...
— Correspondence & Conversations of Alexis de Tocqueville with Nassau William Senior from 1834 to 1859, Vol. 2 • Alexis de Tocqueville
... would follow up and down the streets of Florence or of Milan beautiful unknown faces, learning them by heart, interpreting their changes of expression, reading the thoughts through the features. These he afterwards committed to paper. We possess many such sketches—a series of ideal portraits, containing each an unsolved riddle that the master read; a procession of shadows, ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds |
