"By heart" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 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 further down ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... it won't be fine—it will pour!" said Elsie gloomily, and wagged her head in the hopeless manner of one who has tasted deeply of the world, and knew its hollowness by heart. If there was by chance a cheerful and a melancholy view to be taken on any subject, Elsie invariably chose the melancholy one, and gloated over it with ghoulish enjoyment. She was never so happy as when she was miserable,—as an Irishman would have had it,—and hugged ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... have by heart, Thy happy deeds of heavenly choice, Deeds that rise rapt and shine apart As echoes of a perfect voice Rise and rejoice when voices sing, Linger and ring—linger and ring Till heaven is of their echoing And all the heights ...
— Perpetual Light • William Rose Benet
... see any one that night. I had not even the courage to see myself, for I was afraid that my tears might a little reproach me. I went up to my room in the dark, and prayed in the dark, and lay down in the dark to sleep. I had no need of any light to read my guardian's letter by, for I knew it by heart. I took it from the place where I kept it, and repeated its contents by its own clear light of integrity and love, and went to sleep ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... was called A ONE VOLUME ENCYCLOPEDIC HISTORY and it told about just everything—except Crimson. There was no mention of Crimson at all. Robin read the book over and over again until she almost knew it by heart. Even Charlie had listened to it twice all the way through when she read it, but he had never wished for the ...
— A World Called Crimson • Darius John Granger
... ready for a start, but there was one thing needful, light, for the risk was too great to attempt to get round the southern point in the darkness. It was dangerous with the gig, but they had learned the positions of the rocks by heart, and could come round now with ease. With a boat drawing so much water, however, as the cutter, it was different, and the course necessary so intricate, that, tremendously in their favour as a start would now be, the captain dared not ...
— Mother Carey's Chicken - Her Voyage to the Unknown Isle • George Manville Fenn
... found room in the narrow confines of a cabin for his Plato; for the rude 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
... to recite all these things by heart, his father made up a pack of hounds for him. There were twenty-four greyhounds of Barbary, speedier than gazelles, but liable to get out of temper; seventeen couples of Breton dogs, great barkers, with broad chests and russet coats flecked with white. For wild-boar ...
— Three short works - The Dance of Death, The Legend of Saint Julian the Hospitaller, A Simple Soul. • Gustave Flaubert
... back door, gazing at the moon walking in brightness, and wandered into the garden, to enjoy what to her was beyond all other delights, reading Gessner's Death of Abel by moonlight. There was quite sufficient light, even if she had not known the idyll almost by heart; and in a trance of dreamy, undefined delight, she stood beside the dark ivy-covered wall, each leaf glistening in the moonbeams, which shed a subdued pearliness over her white apron and collar, paled but gave a shadowy refinement to her ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... could not and would not go to Mrs Hurtle. But when the letter had been in her possession three or four days,—unanswered, for, as a matter of course, no answer to it from herself was possible,—and had been read and re-read till she knew every word of it by heart, she began to think that if she could hear the story as it might be told by Mrs Hurtle, a good deal that was now dark might become light to her. As she continued to read the letter, and to brood over it all, by degrees her ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... cycle, "Arnljot Gelline," the only long poem that he has written. The volume of lyrics includes many pieces of imperfect quality and slight value,—personal tributes and occasional productions,—but it includes also those national songs that every Norwegian knows by heart, that are sung upon all national occasions by the author's friends and foes alike, and that have made him the greatest of Norway's lyric poets. No translation can ever quite reproduce their cadence or their ...
— Bjoernstjerne Bjoernson • William Morton Payne
... was an especial favourite of Sir W. Scott. In his "Life of Mr. Lockhart" he mentions having found in one of his books a mention that "he was taught 'Hardyknute' by heart before he could read the ballad itself; it was the first poem he ever learnt, the last he should ever forget" (c. 2). And in the very last year of his life, while at Malta, in a discussion on ballads in general, "he greatly lamented his friend ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole
... then another, and another: I was still as far from poetry as ever; every object about me seemed bent against my abstraction; the card-racks fascinating me like serpents, and compelling me to read, as if I would get them by heart, "Dr. Joblin," "Mr. Cumberback," "Mr. Milton Bull," &c. &c. I took up my pen, drew a sheet of paper from my writing-desk, and fixed my eyes upon that;—'t was all in vain; I saw nothing on it but ...
— Lectures on Art • Washington Allston
... and they went their way through the forest. And the strange part of it was that though Fairyfoot thought he knew ill the forest by heart, every path they took was new to him, and more beautiful than anything he had ever seen before. The moonlight seemed to grow brighter and purer at every step, and the sleeping flowers sweeter and lovelier, and the moss greener and thicken Fairyfoot felt so happy and ...
— Little Saint Elizabeth and Other Stories • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... breakfasted on warm milk, fed our animals, and then, my children and their mother seated on the turf, I placed myself on a little eminence before them, and, after the service of the day, which I knew by heart, and singing some portions of the 119th Psalm, I told ...
— The Swiss Family Robinson; or Adventures in a Desert Island • Johann David Wyss
... practice. Read a passage from the author of your choice; grasp thoroughly its purport, but do not learn it by heart. Then close the book, and endeavour to set down in fresh words the thing you have read. In a few days (not at once) compare your work with the classic. The comparison will induce humility, and humility is the beginning of knowledge. After a period of pure imitation you will begin, at first ...
— Journalism for Women - A Practical Guide • E.A. Bennett
... 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
... occurred among the greater part of the company, for such copies of the Midsummer Night's Dream, or the volume of Shakspeare containing it, as could be got in the neighbourhood; for, notwithstanding Lady Penelope's declaration, that every one who could read had Shakspeare's plays by heart, it appeared that such of his dramas as have not kept possession of the stage, were very little known at St. Ronan's, save among those people who are ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... Strabo, Diodorus, Stephanus, 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 ...
— Chronicles (1 of 6): The Historie of England (1 of 8) • Raphael Holinshed
... and after it her recreation, which consisted, in fine weather, of a walk to the summit of the rocks, where she contemplated the greatness of God in His works, and praised and blessed His infinite perfections in pious songs which she knew by heart, or with which Divine love inspired ...
— The Life of St. Frances of Rome, and Others • Georgiana Fullerton
... Oh! don't be frightened by me and never come again. I would not harm a hair of your head. And,' opening her eyes, and looking earnestly at Margaret, 'I believe, perhaps, more than yo' do o' what's to come. I read the book o' Revelations until I know it off by heart, and I never doubt when I'm waking, and in my senses, of all the glory ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... that Herr Joachim played such and such a sonata without the music, because he was such and such an arrangement of matter in such and such circumstances, resembling those under which he played without music on some past occasion. This goes without saying; we say only that he played the music by heart or by memory, as he ...
— Selections from Previous Works - and Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals • Samuel Butler
... Galba, who can defend you with greater warmth and vehemence than I." Galba, from respect to Laelius, was unwilling to undertake the case; but, having finally agreed, he spent the short time that was left in getting it by heart, retiring into a vaulted chamber with some highly educated slaves, and remaining at work till after the consuls had taken their seat. Being sent for he at last came out, and, as Rutilius the narrator and eye-witness declared, ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... by heart, has listened, his eyes almost suffused—repeating each word to himself, as she reads. He has lived over each generation down to the present and nods in approval as she reaches this point.] The foundation of our house. And ...
— The Return of Peter Grimm • David Belasco
... the same? Certainly, St. Simon, Fourier, and their respective flocks committed a serious blunder in attempting to unite, the one, inequality and communism; the other, inequality and property: but you, a man of figures, a man of economy,—you, who know by heart your LOGARITHMIC tables,—how can you make so ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... Verses warm from the poet's brain have a certain intoxicating quality akin to the toddy, and no doubt the citizens slapped their thighs and snapped their fingers with delight when some well-known name appeared, the incidents of some story they knew by heart, or the features of some familiar character. The satisfaction of finding in what they would call poetry a host of local allusions about which there was no ambiguity, which they understood like their ABC, would rouse the first hearers to noisy enthusiasm. And thus encouraged, the cheerful ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... about?" she asked soothingly, keeping the two cold, clutching hands in her warm grasp. "Shall I tell you a story? I know a great many stories by heart, and I will say them for you if you like. It was ...
— The Rose Garden Husband • Margaret Widdemer
... No Canadian named Lecour can be what he pretends—nay, not even a petty gentleman, for I know the whole list by heart to its obscurest members. No Lecour whatever is on it. Who of that name is at Repentigny? Only the merchant of St. Elphege, my old protege. Can it be any of his people! What is the ...
— The False Chevalier - or, The Lifeguard of Marie Antoinette • William Douw Lighthall
... astonishment in him. There were in Madame de T.'s salon some very noble ladies named Mathan, Noe, Levis,—which was pronounced Levi,—Cambis, pronounced Cambyse. These antique visages and these Biblical names mingled in the child's mind with the Old Testament which he was learning by heart, and when they were all there, seated in a circle around a dying fire, sparely lighted by a lamp shaded with green, with their severe profiles, their gray or white hair, their long gowns of another age, whose lugubrious colors could not be distinguished, dropping, at rare intervals, ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... see that there are no names upon these letters; only a small private mark, differing in each case, by which you can distinguish them. Here is a paper which is a key to those marks. You must, before you start, learn by heart the names of those for whom the various letters are intended. In this way, should the letters fall into the hands of the Spaniards, they will have no clue as to the names of those to whom they ...
— By Pike and Dyke: A Tale of the Rise of the Dutch Republic • G.A. Henty
... not enough to learn by heart the "principal parts" of a verb; the habit of using them correctly should be acquired. The ...
— Practical Exercises in English • Huber Gray Buehler
... galleries, on which sat girls dressed in white, like angels, sending their slaves out with baskets of flowers to strew in the way; when he saw floating tableaux of men and scenes in the early history of the Territory,—heroes whose exploits he knew by heart; and when he heard the shouting which seemed to fill the rivers from bluff to bluff, he was willing to wade through purgatory to pay ...
— Old Kaskaskia • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... 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 ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... "Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands"; see whether they do not all enjoy the music and majesty of those lines. You will not find it difficult to secure their co-operation in learning that by heart. ...
— Religious Education in the Family • Henry F. Cope
... tells the story of a young enamoured Dervish who knew the whole Koran by heart, but forgot his very alphabet in presence of the princess. She tried to encourage him, but he only found tongue to say, "It is strange that with thee present I should have speech left me;" and having said that he uttered a loud groan and surrendered ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... little press away, but he could not resist the fascination of Mr. Daggett's printing office. One day he came from it bearing an inky and much-thumbed catalogue. He fairly learned it by heart—not only the machines, from the tiny card press to the beautiful fifty-dollar self-inker beyond which his ambition did not stray, but also all the little accessories of the trade—the mallet, the patent quoins, the sticks, the type-cases, the composing ...
— The Adventures of Bobby Orde • Stewart Edward White
... of every description in pencil, in crayon, in mussy water-colours, done on scraps of paper of every shape and size. The mother knew them all by heart, every single one, but she examined each with a devotion and ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... lived, and lying in their unknown graves all Scotland over. From his boyhood he had studied eagerly the old tunes, and the old words where there were such, that had come down to him from the past, treasured every scrap of antique air and verse, conned and crooned them over till he had them by heart. This was the one form of literature that he had entirely mastered. And from the first he had laid it down as a rule, that the one way to catch the inspiration, and rise to the true fervour of song, was, as he phrased it, "to sowth the tune over and over," till the words came spontaneously. ...
— Robert Burns • Principal Shairp
... say? Certainly nothing new! Winnington knew it all by heart—had read it dozens of times in their strident newspaper, which he now perused weekly, simply that he might discover if he could, what projects his ward might ...
— Delia Blanchflower • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... are a few, an apple or two by the banks of Ulai, which we may pluck as the night approaches. One is almost necessarily accidental, for it would be rash and somewhat cold-blooded to plan it. It consists in the reading, after many years, of a book once familiar almost to the point of knowing by heart, and then laid aside, not from weariness or disgust, but merely as things happened. This, as in some other books mentioned in this history, was the case with the present writer in respect of Candide. From twenty to forty, or thereabouts, I ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... the author of "Waverley." "Geoffrey Crayon is the most fashionable fellow of the day," wrote the painter Leslie. Lord Byron, in a letter to Murray, underscored his admiration of the author, and subsequently said to an American, "His Crayon,—I know it by heart; at least, there is not a passage that I cannot refer to immediately." And afterwards he wrote to Moore, "His writings are my delight." There seemed to be, as some one wrote, "a kind of conspiracy to hoist him over the heads of his contemporaries." Perhaps the most satisfactory evidence of his ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... 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; ...
— Bouvard and Pecuchet - A Tragi-comic Novel of Bourgeois Life • Gustave Flaubert
... "I can repeat by heart what I read above a year agone, albeit I cannot bring to mind the title of the book in which I read it. These ...
— Citation and Examination of William Shakspeare • Walter Savage Landor
... When the days got colder, we would sit under the straw rick, George and I. And he would sing to me. Some of his songs, I could say off by heart this day. ...
— Six Plays • Florence Henrietta Darwin
... be done decently, and by judicious gradations, nor is the transition attended with much difficulty, in consequence of the natural tendency which hypocrisy and profligacy always have to meet. Still, I think you ought to attempt the thing. Get by heart, as her father advises, half-a-dozen serious texts of Scripture, and drop one in now and then, such as, 'All flesh is grass.' 'Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.' 'He that marrieth not doth well, but he that marrieth ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... familiars of absolute princes taunt us, as they are wont to do, with the only apothegm they ever learnt by heart,—namely, that it is better to be ruled by one master than by many,—I quite agree with them; unity of power being the principle of republicanism, while the principle of despotism is division and delegation. In the one system, every man conducts his own affairs, either personally or through ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... every line by heart. She had thought of it, dreamed of it, since the time when she had first realized that a woman's life is wholly incomplete without the care of a man upon her hands. Sometimes she had felt that Jeffrey Masters possessed depths which could ...
— The Forfeit • Ridgwell Cullum
... dear Basil," said he, "this is what will cure you for life, and this you must get perfectly by heart, before I give you ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... 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
... all; but piecemeal thou must break To separate contemplation, the great whole; And as the ocean many bays will make, That ask the eye—so here condense thy soul To more immediate objects, and control Thy thoughts until thy mind hath got by heart Its eloquent proportions, and unroll In mighty graduations, part by part, The glory which at once upon ...
— Childe Harold's Pilgrimage • Lord Byron
... herself such airs; and you have managed to over-educate yourself somehow, although how remains a mystery. But one thing I am determined upon. Your poor sisters shall never have a book I don't know off by heart myself. I shall lock them all up. Not that it is much use, for no one will marry them now. No man will ever come to the house again to be robbed of his character, as Major Colquhoun has been by you. I am sure no one ever knew anything bad about ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... all my verses are rubbish; but nevertheless they delight me. I should feel dumb without the power to make verses; it is a means of expression that satisfies when nothing else will. I always carry my last about in my pocket. I know them by heart, of course, but still it is a pleasure to read them; and so it continues until I write some more; and then I immediately perceive that the old ones are bad, and I destroy them—when I remember. Those were ...
— Ideala • Sarah Grand
... away, and had been left till the last probably owing to the fact that the squire was not particularly noted for his liberality. If, however, he had been at home that week, and had any sense of music, he would have learned all their tunes off by heart, as the band must have been heard clearly enough when playing at the ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... 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
... Aramis that he cannot quit the camp, and that nobody but one of ourselves is trustworthy; that two hours after the messenger has set out, all the Capuchins, all the police, all the black caps of the cardinal, will know your letter by heart, and you and your ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... year—and he was taking refuge with an English brotherhood to lead, for a time, a cloistered life instinct with beauty and its worship, but that there as everywhere he was hers eternally. How glad I was of the verbal memory I have been so often praised for! I knew almost every word of that lovely letter by heart after the one reading. I shall ...
— The Whole Family - A Novel by Twelve Authors • William Dean Howells, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Mary Heaton Vorse, Mary Stewart Cutting, Elizabeth Jo
... de Mogente was married in a little mountain chapel by the light of two candles and a waning moon, while Sarrion and the officer in his dusty uniform stood like sentinels behind them, and the bishop recited the office by heart because he could not see to read. He was a political bishop and no great divine, but he knew his business, and got through ...
— The Velvet Glove • Henry Seton Merriman
... on a child to get by heart a long scroll of phrases without any ideas, is a practice fitter for a jackdaw than for anything that wears the ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson
... the French Canadians even at the risk of offending the ultra-loyal party, who claimed special consideration in the management of public affairs. Responsible government was in a fair way of being permanently established when Sir Charles Bagot unhappily died in 1843 of dropsy, complicated by heart-disease; and Lord Metcalfe was brought from India to create—as it soon appeared—confusion and discord in the political affairs of the province. His ideas of responsible government were those which had been steadily inculcated ...
— Canada under British Rule 1760-1900 • John G. Bourinot
... than yesterday. In the cathedral I came in for a sermon which began 'Illustrissimo Senor' so I suppose the Archbishop was present, and probably had me in his eye. I could understand very little, so I did not stay it out. It was delivered without notes (having evidently been learnt by heart), in rather a monotonous way; with a sort of little action, all confined to a slight movement of the hands and flipping of the fingers.... The Archbishop is, I am told, very bigoted. He did not come to ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin
... Keats. He is my Sunday luxury. I do not read him on the week-days for fear I should get him by heart, and every Sunday I start as though I were dipping into ...
— The Romance of the Coast • James Runciman
... This queer feeling would hardly last over the solid threshold of Home, whose atmosphere was almost notoriously uncongenial to eccentricities of that sort. But it did linger now, as Cally trod somewhat dreamily over streets that she had long known by heart. Four blocks there were; and the half-lights flickering between sky and sidewalk were of the color of the ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... was put, and the native, speaking slowly and quietly, and evidently repeating a lesson that he had learned by heart, said, "The chief sends his greeting to his three friends, Harry, Dick, and Doctor, also to Captain. He is well in body; he is cured, and can throw a spear and lead his men to battle. He has sent four messengers one after another, but none have returned ...
— Among Malay Pirates - And Other Tales Of Adventure And Peril • G. A. Henty
... colleges, districts, neighbourhoods. If you attach to yourself the leading men of these, you will by their means easily keep a hold upon the multitude. When you have done that, take care to have in your mind a chart of all Italy laid out according to the tribe of each town, and learn it by heart, so that you may not allow any municipium, colony, prefecture, or, in a word, any spot in Italy to exist, in which you have not a sufficient foothold. Inquire also for and trace out individuals in every region, inform yourself about them, ...
— The Letters of Cicero, Volume 1 - The Whole Extant Correspodence in Chronological Order • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... a scrimmage at a small preparatory school and the genuine thing at Harrow. Lawrence insisted that all new boys should play, and the Caterpillar informed him that he would have to learn the rules of Harrow "footer" by heart, and pass a stiff examination in them before the House Eleven, with the penalty of being forced to sing them in Hall if he failed to satisfy his examiners. The Duffer lent him a House-shirt of green and white stripes, and a pair of white ...
— The Hill - A Romance of Friendship • Horace Annesley Vachell
... "the ebony maid with the ivory head." Mamise told her not to summon her lame mistress to the telephone, but merely to say that Miss Webling was dining with Mr. Davidge and going to the theater with him. She made the maid repeat this till she had it by heart, then rang off. ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... talked this year past, 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 ...
— Loss and Gain - The Story of a Convert • John Henry Newman
... problem of its puzzling history. Scott certainly got it from the mother of the Ettrick Shepherd, in 1801. The Shepherd's father had been a grown- up man in 1745, and his mother was also of a great age, and unlikely to be able to learn a new-forged ballad by heart. The Shepherd himself (then a most unsophisticated person) said, in a letter of June 30, 1801, that he was "surprized to hear this song is suspected by some to be a modern forgery; the contrary will be best proved by most of the old ...
— A Collection of Ballads • Andrew Lang
... be disheartened, and lose your first class and perhaps your trial. But you are safe now, dear Alfred; I am sure the judge sees through them; for I have studied him for you. I know his face by heart, and all his looks and what they mean. My Alfred will be cleared of this wicked slander, ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... the patient states, "I talked a great deal in my sleep. When I had a task to learn by heart, I said over the given selection or the poem in my sleep. This happened the first time when I was eight years old, on a bright moonlight night. I was sleeping at the time in the bed with my sister and I ...
— Sleep Walking and Moon Walking - A Medico-Literary Study • Isidor Isaak Sadger
... was dragging. In a moment people would be yawning and talking to one another; the pit would become noisy with its feet; already there was a rustle; if they would only look at the stage instead of trying to learn their programmes by heart! They should have done that before! And still the house was cold. . . . God in heaven! small ...
— The Education of Eric Lane • Stephen McKenna
... owned, to 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 ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various
... because he was bigger and bolder. When she came back from her year in the convent at Roberval it was certainly Prosper, because he could talk better and had read more books. He had a volume of songs full of love and romance, and knew most of them by heart. But this did not last forever. 'Toinette's manners had been polished at the convent, but her ideas were still those of her own people. She never thought that knowledge of books could take the place of strength, in the real battle ...
— The Ruling Passion • Henry van Dyke
... sewing and sat at the little round table by her mother, sharing the light of the scanty dip-candle. No one spoke. Every one was absorbed in what they were doing. What Philip was doing was, gazing at Sylvia—learning her face off by heart. ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. I • Elizabeth Gaskell
... 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
... human brain! A splendid word to serve, you'll find For what goes in—or won't go in—your mind. But first, at least this half a year, To order rigidly adhere; Five hours a day, you understand, And when the clock strikes, be on hand! Prepare beforehand for your part With paragraphs all got by heart, So you can better watch, and look That naught is said but what is in the book: Yet in thy writing as unwearied be, As did the Holy Ghost ...
— Faust • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... pass'd the evening hours: But Cynthia's soul was soft, her wishes strong, Her judgment weak, and her conclusions wrong; The morning-call and counter were her dread, And her contempt the needle and the thread: But when she read a gentle damsel's part, Her woe, her wish! she had them all by heart. At length the hero of the boards drew nigh, Who spake of love till sigh re-echo'd sigh; He told in honey'd words his deathless flame, And she his own by tender vows became; Nor ring nor licence needed souls ...
— The Borough • George Crabbe
... a deep impression upon the notary and Gobenheim, and upon Madame Latournelle and Madame Mignon. Modeste looked as though she were at the theatre, in an attitude of enthusiasm for an actor,—very much like that of Ernest toward herself; for though the secretary knew all these high-sounding phrases by heart, he listened through the eyes, as it were, of the young girl, and grew more and more madly in love with her. To this true lover, Modeste was eclipsing all the Modestes he had created as he read her letters ...
— Modeste Mignon • Honore de Balzac
... fondness for low company. We who from daily experience knew Miss Smedley like a book—were we not only too well aware that she had neither accomplishments nor charms, no characteristic, in fact, but an inbred viciousness of temper and disposition? True, she knew the dates of the English kings by heart; but how could that profit Uncle George, who, having passed into the army, had ascended beyond the need of useful information? Our bows and arrows, on the other hand, had been freely placed at his disposal; and a soldier should not have hesitated in his choice a moment. No: Uncle ...
— The Golden Age • Kenneth Grahame
... be difficult to find English prose more simple, earnest, strong, imaginative, and dramatic than this. Bunyan's style felt the shaping influence of the Bible more than of all other works combined. He knew the Scriptures almost by heart. ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck
... selected for it. In this sense, Ladies, (Miss PARKINSON can 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
... and atheism in poetry I cared little for novels. Scott seemed to me on a par with Burke's speeches; that is to say, too impersonal for my very personal taste. Dickens I knew by heart, and Bleak House I thought his greatest achievement. Thackeray left no deep impression on my mind; in no way did he hold my thoughts. He was not picturesque like Dickens, and I was at that time curiously eager for some adequate philosophy of life, and his social satire seemed very small beer indeed. ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... 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
... Raphael's symmetry, Tibaldi's fitness and solidity, Primaticcio's erudite invention, with something of Parmigianino's grace (Fels. Pittr. vol. i. p. 129). Zanotti adds: 'This sonnet is assuredly one which every painter ought to learn by heart and observe in practice.'] ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... this in the three words I had, parrot-like, learned by heart, astonished that such sounds could mean anything, astonished, too, at their being understood. We started, he running at full speed, I dragged along and jerked about in his light chariot, wrapped in oilcloth, shut up as if in a box—both of us unceasingly ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... thought of Jesus, that every advance toward the Kingdom of God, that is, toward the true social order, involves a raising of the ethical standards accepted by society. This is a principle of social progress which every leading intellect ought to know by heart. ...
— The Social Principles of Jesus • Walter Rauschenbusch
... and youth may learn these laws by heart and understand and agree to the fine statements by which they are expounded and make through them a detailed promise to obey the laws of "right living" by which alone the citizenship of our country may serve its best interests—that in itself could not make all citizens what they should ...
— The Family and it's Members • Anna Garlin Spencer
... stood at the bar and guzzled quantities of liquor. On the decks the main pastime was reading California travels like Fremont's explorations, or Richard Dana's splendid "Two Years Before the Mast"—which Charley knew almost by heart; or in speculating on "How much gold can I dig in a day?" That was the favorite question: "How much gold do you suppose a fellow can dig in a day?" The calculations ran all the way from $100 ...
— Gold Seekers of '49 • Edwin L. Sabin
... my grandfather must have been at least twice as large as any one is nowadays. This," she went on, as if she knew what she had to say by heart, "is the original manuscript of the 'Ode to Winter.' The early poems are far less corrected than the later. Would you like ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... followed the humble trade of a weaver. He seems to have obtained some knowledge of astronomy and geography as a student in the university of Pavia, but at an early age he became a sailor. Columbus knew the Mediterranean by heart; he once went to the Guinea coast; and he may have visited Iceland. He settled at Lisbon as a map-maker and married a daughter of one of Prince Henry's sea-captains. As Columbus pored over his maps and charts and talked with seamen about their voyages, the idea came to him that ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER
... Delaroche married, is the king of French battle-painters—an amazingly rapid and dexterous draughtsman, who has Napoleon and all the campaigns by heart, and has painted the Grenadier Francais under all sorts of attitudes. His pictures on such subjects are spirited, natural, and excellent; and he is so clever a man, that all he does is good to a certain degree. His "Judith" is somewhat ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Kate's letter, by heart, now, both in the original, and in its different versions, and she knew that, despite her struggles, she was being forced straight toward Kate's own verdict: that she, Billy, was the cause, in some way, of the deplorable change in Bertram's appearance, manner, and work. Before she ...
— Miss Billy's Decision • Eleanor H. Porter
... wished to be a philosopher—a remark that was rather due perhaps to Voltaire's habitual complaisance than to any serious consideration of Diderot's qualities. But if he could not be a poet himself, at least he knew Pindar and Homer by heart, and at the Hague he never stirred out without a Horace in his pocket. And though no poet, he was full of poetic sentiment. Scheveningen, the little bathing-place a short distance from the Hague, was Diderot's favourite spot. "It was there," ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley
... be in the Old or in the New Testament."[41] "He who thinks that he can be made truly righteous by means of a Book is ascribing to the dead letter what belongs to the Spirit."[42] He does not belittle or undervalue the Scriptures—he knew them almost by heart and took the precious time out of his brief life to help to translate the Prophets into German—but he wants to make the fact forever plain that men are saved or lost as they say yes or no to a Light and Word ...
— Spiritual Reformers in the 16th & 17th Centuries • Rufus M. Jones
... reading from the very first. On the day on which we began German we began reading Schiller's "Wilhelm Tell," and the verbs given to us to copy out were those that had occurred in the reading. We learned much by heart, but always things that in themselves were worthy to be learned. We were never given the dry questions and answers which lazy teachers so much affect. We were taught history by one reading aloud while the others worked—the boys as well as the girls learning the use ...
— Autobiographical Sketches • Annie Besant
... became fashionable among the ladies of the Moro's court, and was commonly worn by the servants and pages in the palace. Lodovico early gave signs of the love of literature and the great abilities which distinguished him in after-life. His quickness in learning by heart, his extraordinary memory, and the fluency with which he wrote and spoke Latin amazed his tutors. And he was fortunate in receiving an excellent education from the first Greek scholars of the day. Madonna Bianca, the only daughter of Filippo Maria, the last ...
— Beatrice d'Este, Duchess of Milan, 1475-1497 • Julia Mary Cartwright
... midnight for matins. Then she lay listening to the soft murmur of voices in the dark, as the red lamp glimmered before the silver Christ upon the wall. The nuns needed no light, knowing the office by heart: ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... it. He passed the Whippoorwill Mill, the bubbling spring, the old moss-covered watering-trough, and then cut across the widow Buzzell's field straight to the Rumford farm. He kept rehearsing the subject-matter of a certain speech he intended to make. He knew it by heart, having repeated it once a day for several months, but nobody realized better than he that he would forget every word of it the moment he saw Huldah—at least, if the Huldah of to-day were anything like the Huldah of ...
— Ladies-In-Waiting • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... thousands of the youth wished for somebody to begin, but did not dare to stir first for fear of the law, counterfeited a distraction, and by his own family it was spread about the city that he was mad. He then secretly composed some elegiac verses, and getting them by heart, that it might seem extempore, ran out into the market-place with a cap upon his head, and, the people gathering about him, got upon the herald's stand, and sang that elegy ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch
... him wider awake than it found him, and give a new significance to all he may see for many days to come. There is something in the mere name of the South that carries enthusiasm along with it. At the sound of the word, he pricks up his ears; he becomes as anxious to seek out beauties and to get by heart the permanent lines and character of the landscape, as if he had been told that it was all his own—an estate out of which he had been kept unjustly, and which he was now to receive in free and full possession. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... to us,—for buying and selling were no longer to be counted on,—with, a pair of strong horses, able and willing to force their way through mud-holes and amid stumps, and a guide, equally admirable as marshal and companion, who knew by heart the country and its history, both natural and artificial, and whose clear hunter's eye needed, neither road nor goal to guide it to all the spots where beauty ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... no money, Yellow Brian. I seek only a master such as yourself; a man who is a master among men, and whom I can set higher still if he will heed my counsels. I am old, you are young; I know all parts of the land by heart, from the Mayo shore to Youghal, and I am skilled at many things. Take my service and you will ...
— Nuala O'Malley • H. Bedford-Jones
... next day, and Hetty was thankful to have a book placed before her, and a lesson appointed for her to learn. It was a page in the very beginning of a child's English history, and Hetty read it over and over again till she had the words almost by heart without in the least having taken in their sense. Her thoughts were busy all the time with the looks and words of her companions, and with going back over all that had occurred that day. Phyllis had been gentler than she expected. Perhaps she was not going to be unkind any ...
— Hetty Gray - Nobody's Bairn • Rosa Mulholland
... do anything like what he had read about, he never would be satisfied until he could do it all exactly as the reading said it was. So when we had read Robinson Crusoe together—I think Billy knew it all by heart as well as he knew the table of sevens in the multiplication table—he said, "Now let's play Robinson Crusoe." First he called the old open cellar Crusoe's cave, and scooped out a place between some stones and made it clean, and I braided a ...
— Harper's Young People, November 18, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... her, for every night she would take one of the books down, and although she could not read, yet, by having them continually read to her, and knowing the pages so exactly, she could almost repeat every line by heart which the various bills contained; and then there was always a story which she had to tell about each—something relative to the party of whom the transaction reminded her; and subsequently, when Joey was fairly domiciled with her, she would make him hand down one of the books, and talk away from ...
— The Poacher - Joseph Rushbrook • Frederick Marryat
... the fact has gone quite over into the new element of thought, and has lost all that is exuvial. This generosity bides with Shakspeare. We say, from the truth and closeness of his pictures, that he knows the lesson by heart. Yet there is not ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... scientific and edifying manner, but volunteered a recipe for certain little mutton pies, the fashion of the season. In drinking he was equally at home. Edward had produced his father's choicest hermitage and lachryma, and he seemed to me to know literally by heart all the most celebrated vintages, and to have made pilgrimages to the most famous vineyards all over Europe. He talked to Helen Dunbar, a musical young lady, of Grisi and Malibran; to her sister Caroline, a literary enthusiast, of the poems of the year, ...
— The London Visitor • Mary Russell Mitford
... resource, next to my books. Indeed, in summer time the books had to take the second place, and it should be so. You remember Bacon, Hugh: 'God Almighty first planted a garden; it is the purest of human pleasures,' etc. I used to know that essay by heart. In summer time, the Great Book, sir, the Book of Nature, is opened for us, spread open by a divine hand; it were thankless as well as stupid to refuse to study it. So I studied my garden first, and after that, my fields ...
— Fernley House • Laura E. Richards
... man like that. He'll be ready to play upon you in every way, and you must let him see that you do not mean to be imposed upon. Sounds harsh, but I know Master Jack by heart." ...
— Diamond Dyke - The Lone Farm on the Veldt - Story of South African Adventure • George Manville Fenn
... studying history madly—and set 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 ...
— Betty Wales, Sophomore • Margaret Warde
... that 'oman's name ter me, an' I hev knowed him ez well ez ennybody hyar. Jes t'other day whenst that boy kem, bein' foolish an' maudlin, he seen suthin' on-common in Lee-yander's eyes—they'll be mighty oncommon ef he keeps on readin' his tomfool book, ez he knows by heart, by the firelight when it's dim. Ef folks air so sot agin strong drink, let 'em drink less tharsefs. Hear Brother Peter Vickers preach agin liquor, an' ye'd know ez all wine-bibbers ...
— The Moonshiners At Hoho-Hebee Falls - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... party, but there was another which wanted a change. They had been in a rut long enough, and they laughed at the Colonel's formula, which nearly every child knew by heart. The Colonel was too old to run things,—they must have something up to date, and when the president of Mayville Normal School applied for a situation for Eloise she was accepted, and Ruby Ann went to the wall. She was greatly ...
— The Cromptons • Mary J. Holmes
... began working there in the perfect summer weather; and the tale went abroad that he was building an organ, so that he might play for all who came, the music he heard on the Golden Pipes—for they had ravished his ear since childhood, and now he must know the wonderful melodies all by heart, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... day was spent in preparing the crown, throne, and flowers, &c., and Frederick set himself to work to learn by heart some lines his Mother ...
— The Apple Dumpling and Other Stories for Young Boys and Girls • Unknown
... the most nor the least, yet will be sufficient unto the demands of fast ..." Duke quoted directly from the Earthworm Manual, a book that was not prescribed learning in the Academy, but woe unto the Earthworm who did not know it by heart when ...
— Treachery in Outer Space • Carey Rockwell and Louis Glanzman |
