"Recitation" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... alphabet the priests perform incantations(110) to expel demons, rescue souls from hell, bring down rain on the earth, remove calamities, etc. They turn and twist them in every shape, and maintain that the very demons tremble at the recitation of them." ...
— Chips From A German Workshop, Vol. V. • F. Max Mueller
... from his theory of their origin. His aristocratic instincts perhaps helped to determine his belief that ballads were composed by gifted minstrels, and that they had deteriorated in the process of being handed down by recitation. He called tradition "a sort of perverted alchymy which converts gold into lead." "All that is abstractedly poetical," he said, "all that is above the comprehension of the merest peasant, is apt to escape in frequent repetition; ...
— Sir Walter Scott as a Critic of Literature • Margaret Ball
... from his nine-thirty recitation and found "Cap" Smith waiting for him. Smith was a Beta Rho, and he had waited there in the same way for the same Freshman more than once in the month since the opening. It was Pellams who had discovered the boy, one night in Mason's room, where the Junior ...
— Stanford Stories - Tales of a Young University • Charles K. Field
... of this new club which I propose to organize will be one of welfare. The girls will do more for themselves as a self-governing body than I can possibly do for them. By the way, I wonder if Miss Ward is up yet. She overslept and missed her first recitation yesterday morning. She came down to the dining-room long after breakfast was over. Susan was rather upset over having to serve an extra breakfast. I was obliged to tell Miss Ward that if it occurred again she would have to abide by the ...
— Grace Harlowe's Return to Overton Campus • Jessie Graham Flower
... audience, who had not given himself very much to the study of elocution or the belles-lettres; he had been too much occupied in his younger days in dealing at close quarters with the French under Howe and Nelson, to leave him much time for the niceties of recitation or criticism. But the brave old man bore a genial, generous heart; and the strictures of the elocutionist, emitted, as all saw, in the presence of the assailed author, jarred on his feelings. "It was not gentlemanly," he said, "to attack in that way ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... and the choice of the people. Even as a boy he had a countenance of serene beauty, and to the gifts of Nature he added the endowments of the mind. From his parents in household lays he learned the great deeds of the old Decii. Once, at a great spectacle, the whole school at the recitation of the Lay of the Decii turned their eyes on Importunus, discerning that he would one day rival his ancestors. Thus his widowed mother brought him up, him and all his troop of brothers, and gave to the Curia as ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)
... had finished the recitation of this exquisite passage, the sky, which had been all the afternoon dull and heavy, began to look more and more threatening; darker clouds, like wreaths of black smoke, flew across the dead leaden tint; a cooler, damper air blew over the meadows, and a few ...
— Our Village • Mary Russell Mitford
... have just come from the inaugural lecture of Victor Cherbuliez in a state of bewildered admiration. As a lecture it was exquisite: if it was a recitation of prepared matter, it was admirable; if an extempore performance, it was amazing. In the face of superiority and perfection, says Schiller, we have but one resource—to love them, which is what I have done. I had the ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... public recitation in the Chapel. Mr. Page considered it good for boys and girls to work together, which was a new way of regarding it peculiar to grammar school, for hitherto, boys, like the skull and cross-bones bottles in Aunt Cordelia's closet, had been ...
— Emmy Lou - Her Book and Heart • George Madden Martin
... schools mentioned by him was one in which the scholars were inadequately provided with dormitory and recitation room facilities, and where the industries were crowded into old cabins and ...
— American Missionary, August, 1888, (Vol. XLII, No. 8) • Various
... given as a recitation by changing the title to "Puerto Rico." The words apply to this island as well as to the island ...
— A Little Journey to Puerto Rico - For Intermediate and Upper Grades • Marian M. George
... the head teacher said to me: 'The adjoining recitation room needs sweeping. Take the broom ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb
... talk of Alpheus and Arethusa," murmured an idling sophomore, who had found his way thither during recitation hours, "but the Croton in passing over an arm of the sea at Spuyten Duyvil, and bursting to sight again in this truncated pyramid, beats it all hollow. By George, too, the bay yonder looks as blue as ever the AEgean Sea to Byron's eye, gazing from ...
— The Man In The Reservoir • Charles Fenno Hoffman
... rang and she went to her recitation. It was in Civil Government. Lydia sat down dejectedly next to Charlie Jackson, the splendid, swarthy ...
— Lydia of the Pines • Honore Willsie Morrow
... is limited it might be well to omit the General Reference Summaries (see, for instance, p. 43) and to read the text as a continuous narrative. Then the important points in each day's lesson might be talked over at the end of the recitation ...
— The Leading Facts of English History • D.H. Montgomery
... a course of study at the Bradford Academy, and soon distinguished herself as a quick and ready scholar. One of her fellow pupils remarks that "she seldom entered the recitation room unprepared. She seemed to take peculiar pains in doing things well; and though much of her time was spent in reading, her standing in her class was always more than respectable." Though but a child at this time, she kept a diary which would have done no discredit to a person of mature ...
— Daughters of the Cross: or Woman's Mission • Daniel C. Eddy
... were merrily dancing to the music of a piano, but ceased in order to listen to words of cheer from Mrs. Lockwood, Mrs. Hooker and Mrs. Sewall. At the close of their remarks Mr. Jordan brought forward a reluctant young girl who could give us, if she would, a charming recitation from "That Lass o' Lowrie's," in return for our kindness in coming to them. And after saying in a whisper to one who kindly urged compliance to this unexpected call, that this had been such a busy day she feared her dress was not all right, her ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... advance to keep seats for their masters and mistresses. They were instructed to be there "by Five at the Farthest." If ladies "chused to sit in the Pit" a place was partitioned off for them. The admission price was a dollar. There was variety in the entertainment furnished. One actor gave a character recitation entitled "The New Bow Wow." In this he played the "Sly Dog, the Sulky Dog, the Hearty Dog, and many other dogs in his character ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle
... her genius also which had invented the verses for recitation, so that there seemed a double reason for giving her the place of honour. So Rhoda had sent home an imperious dressmaking order, and here she was, dainty as loving care could make her, her flaxen mane streaming over her ...
— Tom and Some Other Girls - A Public School Story • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... now, in that filthy hole, looked at the faces of young men who in two or three hours were to brave death in one of the biggest tasks that had been laid upon us, the words stirred up all sorts of conflicting emotions. The recitation seemed to be so well received that I ventured on another—in fact several more—and then I noticed a curious thing. It was the preternatural silence of my audience. Generally speaking, when I recited ...
— The Great War As I Saw It • Frederick George Scott
... expected his unadorned recitation of the boy's appearance to make any impression upon his hearer he would have been disappointed. But, without any confessed reason for so doing, Caleb had aimed rather at the opposite effect. And Allison turned from it with a large, matter-of-fact indifference, to rise and bow to ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... will start in after the intermission with that beautiful and thrilling song, 'Down in a Coal Mine.' Some member of the company, whoever knows it, can recite 'Shamus O'Brien,' or some other equally popular recitation." ...
— A Pirate of Parts • Richard Neville
... I didn't hear the rising bell this morning, then I broke my shoestring while I was hurrying to dress and dropped my collar button down my neck. I was late for breakfast and also for first-hour recitation. I forgot to take any blotting paper and my fountain pen leaked. In trigonometry the Professor and I had a disagreement touching a little matter of logarithms. On looking it up, I find that she was right. ...
— Daddy-Long-Legs • Jean Webster
... stage, for a girl to stop, an' let off some elercution while the villain still pursued her, but here in New York City it wouldn't work. Not on your life it wouldn't. Villains ain't pausin' these busy days, in their mad careers, for no recitation-stunts, I don't care how genteel you get 'em off. If they're on the job, you got to step lively, an' not linger 'round for no sweet farewells. Now, you got your little temper with you, all right, all right! If you also got ...
— Martha By-the-Day • Julie M. Lippmann
... university life in most countries is distinguished, and were continually brought under the inflictions of college discipline, and now and then some one was expelled. The favorite tricks of getting a horse or cow into the recitation rooms, fastening the tutors in their rooms just before the class hours, tying up, or stealing, the bell which used to wake the students and call them to prayers or recitations, with rare and perilous excursions into the civic ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James
... |future, some of a year hence, others of two years, | |are vying with the older girls for busy days, and | |the social calendar shows scarcely a resting moment | |from the day they come home from school until they | |rush back to their studies in time to reach the | |first recitation class. And as for beauty sleep, | |there will be none. There will not be a night during| |the Christmas vacation when this younger set will | |not be dancing. Time was when dinner parties were | |composed of elderly, or at least middle-aged, people| |only, but now even the near-debutantes ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer
... devoted to myself. Here were wealth and liberality, in the harmonious combination so seldom discovered by the spectator of small means. I controlled my first feeling of bewilderment just in time to answer Mrs. Fosdyke on the subject of reading and recitation—viewed as minor accomplishments which a good governess might ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins
... assume, I begged the orator at the wardrobe to put an end to the speech he was delivering on his views of a landlady's duties towards her tenants. At length my patience gave way, and, sitting up in bed, I commanded him in a voice of authority to give, over his poetry and recitation, and to blow out the light and get into bed. Balder at length seemed to realise that he was trespassing on my hospitality, and that a certain amount of respect was due to my wishes as his host. He became silent; put his ...
— The Idler Magazine, Vol III. May 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... segars and a glass of water. I never spoke. On these occasions they don't want you to talk; only to listen. They say in a sweet and confiding manner, 'you know I have no one to sympathize with me;' and off they go, like the recitation of Pope's Homer, made by some school girl who has been sentenced to run through so many lines. I slipped the reveries into their place, so that she would not be hurt, and I do assure you that when she had got ...
— A Christmas Story - Man in His Element: or, A New Way to Keep House • Samuel W. Francis
... misfortunes and poetical talent gained him the friendship of one Tychias, an armourer. "And up to my time," continued the author, "the inhabitants showed the place where he used to sit when giving a recitation of his verses, and they greatly honoured the spot. Here also a poplar grew, which they said had sprung up ever ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... month before the close of school, an evening entertainment for the parents and friends of the pupils is given which is designed to show what the pupils of the school can do in the way of kindergarten exercises, dialogue, recitation and music, both vocal and instrumental. This is called the "Junior Exhibition." The members of the senior class do not take part in these exercises, as ...
— The American Missionary - Volume 52, No. 3, September, 1898 • Various
... angels with a trumpet, and a great voice, and they shall gather the elect upon the four winds. Two shall be in the fields; one shall be taken and the other left." He suddenly broke off the recitation with a heartpiercing cry. "My Lord and my God! Let none of Thy children here be left. Let none of those loved ones, for whom they have come here to entreat Thee, be among those who are left. Let it suffice Thee, Lord, that these have ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... spoken in low, measured tones, in words which were so formal that they sounded like a school-girl's recitation—a long, dull monotone—the monotony of despair. Her face drooped—her eyes were fixed on the floor—her white hands clasped each other, and she sat thus—an image of woe. Hilda looked at her steadily. For a moment there flashed over her lips the faintest shadow of a ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... Let me conclude by—the recitation of yet another brief poem—one very different in character from any that I have before quoted. It is by Motherwell, and is called "The Song of the Cavalier." With our modern and altogether rational ideas ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... himself an artificial corpulence, lest his deficiency in this respect should emphasize his disproportionate height. And in the middle of it all is the actor, shouting away, now high, now low,—chanting his iambics as often as not; could anything be more revolting than this sing- song recitation of tragic woes? The actor is a mouthpiece: that is his sole responsibility;—the poet has seen to the rest, ages since. From an Andromache or a Hecuba, one can endure recitative: but when Heracles himself comes upon the stage, and so far forgets himself, and the respect due to the lion-skin ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... schoolhouse it was nice and cool, with a large entry and recitation-room, and flowers on the desks and tables. The teacher, "that homely Miss Pike," moved about softly, and spoke in low, sweet tones, smiling, and ...
— The Twin Cousins • Sophie May
... he would like to meet some of the professors on the Hill.... I hurriedly gathered together a small group of them and Baxter gave a talk to them in one of the unoccupied recitation rooms. Nor did he fail in telling them that in me Kansas had a great poet in the making ... the professors who were not invited to my hasty ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... generally a married woman, at the top for zelatrice: the leader of the band. Indulgences, plenary and partial, follow on the performance of the duties of the Association. 'The partial indulgences are attached to the recitation of the rosary.' On 'the recitation of the required dizaine,' a partial indulgence promptly follows. When people serve the kingdom of heaven with a pass-book in their hands, I should always be afraid lest they should carry the same commercial spirit into their dealings with their fellow-men, ...
— An Inland Voyage • Robert Louis Stevenson
... or what he said, he did not himself know when the words had been spoken. He rushed through the speech he had prepared like a frightened child at recitation and waited for the outburst of her ...
— The Lighted Match • Charles Neville Buck
... for classes sounded and the girls picked up their books. At the second bell they filed out through the corridor to their various recitation rooms. As Grace, who had stopped to look for a lost pencil, hurried toward the geometry classroom, she passed Julia Crosby, who was moping along, wiping her eyes with her handkerchief. Julia cast an angry glance at Grace, and ...
— Grace Harlowe's Sophomore Year at High School • Jessie Graham Flower
... have written down from recitation all the passages that he could collect. Then he was obliged to construct a narrative sequence containing a plot, which he fashioned by a process of selection and rejection; and then he had to combine passages, alter them, add as much as he thought fit, remove anachronisms, remove discrepancies, ...
— Homer and His Age • Andrew Lang
... disposition not to do so. They have, however, sent "liberal donations" to the Fund. We then find that "we are nevertheless so fortunate as to have with us to-night" a young actor. The Actor gives a serio-comic recitation. But his encore is his piece de resistance. It proves to be a vivid verse about marine disaster, a form of selection obviously suited to the occasion. Where, except at a ship's concert, can one get the full ...
— Ship-Bored • Julian Street
... illustrate the general difference between the effect of telling a story and of reading one. Everyone who knows children well has felt the difference. With few exceptions, children listen twice as eagerly to a story told as to one read, and even a "recitation" or a so-called "reading" has not the charm for them that the person wields who can "tell a story." And there are sound reasons for ...
— How to Tell Stories to Children - And Some Stories to Tell • Sara Cone Bryant
... Paul nettled and disturbed, and in consequence the Latin recitation that followed went badly; ...
— Paul and the Printing Press • Sara Ware Bassett
... by J. Dewar in prose from oral recitation in Gaelic in 1860. Translated by H. McLean, of Islay. It is rendered ...
— Memories of Canada and Scotland - Speeches and Verses • John Douglas Sutherland Campbell
... the lower classes at the door of a recitation room were accounted quite comfortable and idle affairs, and a blow delivered openly and in hatred fractured a sharply defined rule of conduct. The corridor was in a hubbub. Many Seniors and Juniors, bursting from old and iron discipline, wildly clamoured ...
— Active Service • Stephen Crane
... stop talking with you any longer. I must go out to Cambridge. I have a recitation in ...
— Sam's Chance - And How He Improved It • Horatio Alger
... self-possession, the unfortunate Hartley was now about to intrude upon the precincts of the Mosque in person, in hopes of interrupting the formal prolonged recitation which issued from its recesses, when an old man laid his hand on his shoulder, and prevented him from a rashness which might have cost him his life, saying, at the same time, "You are a Sahib Angrezie, [English gentleman;] I have been a Telinga [a private soldier] ...
— The Surgeon's Daughter • Sir Walter Scott
... the cithern, was preferred by the Greeks to all wind instruments because it was not exciting, and allowed the accompaniment of recitation or song, i.e. the contemporaneous activity of the spirit in poetry. Flute-playing was first brought from Asia Minor after the victorious progress of the Persian war, and was especially cultivated ...
— Pedagogics as a System • Karl Rosenkranz
... there was much recitation by the priests, reading from the ritual of the Church, swinging of censers, singing by the chorus of male voices, chanting and intonation, and responses by the victims. There were frequent signs of the cross with bowing or kneeling. ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... silence bell rang, and then conversation instantly ceased, and the recitation of some Latin prayers commenced, ...
— Awful Disclosures - Containing, Also, Many Incidents Never before Published • Maria Monk
... dead, save that it glowed with an intense heat. I was, however, at ease enough to write a sublime piece of blank verse on the cataract; and, proud of my production, I attempted reading it to Cousin William. But William had taken lessons in recitation under the great Mr. Thelwall, politician and elocutionist; and deeming it proper to set me right in all the words which I mispronounced—three out of every four at least, and not unfrequently the fourth word also—the reading of the piece proved ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... 1845 or 1846 that the Howitts made the acquaintance of Tennyson, whose poetry they had long admired. 'The retiring and meditative young poet, Alfred Tennyson, visited us,' relates Mary, 'and cheered our seclusion by the recitation of his exquisite poetry. He spent a Sunday night at our house, when we sat talking together till three in the morning. All the next day he remained with us in constant converse. We seemed to have known him for ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... desks where the deputies stood in groups, the green hangings on the walls, that pulpit at the rear occupied by a man with a bald head and stern features, all in the quiet gray light falling from above, made her think of a recitation about to commence, preceded by the moving about ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... "Common Sense" was first recited from the rostrum in the Sheldonian theatre, and Wilson always remembered the hearty applause of the young man who sat waiting his turn. But the effect of the recitation of "Palestine" was entirely unrivalled on that as on any other occasion. Reginald Heber,—a graceful, fine-looking, rather pale young man of twenty,—with his younger brother Thomas beside him as prompter, stood in the rostrum, and commenced in a clear, beautiful, melancholy ...
— Pioneers and Founders - or, Recent Workers in the Mission field • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... recitation, then," persisted Medora; "or tell us a story. Or make up"—here she indulged herself in an airily imperious flight—"a story of your own ...
— Bertram Cope's Year • Henry Blake Fuller
... nothing by my recollection of your manner of reciting 'em, for I too bear in mind "the voice, the look" of absent friends, and can occasionally mimic their manner for the amusement of those who have seen 'em. Your impassioned manner of recitation I can recall at any time to mine own heart, and to the ears of the bystanders. I rather wish you had left the monody on C. concluding as it did abruptly. It had more of unity.—The conclusion of your R Musings I fear will entitle you to the reproof of your Beloved woman, who ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... the college there, of the high walls and the benches in the court-yard, where the pupils cut their names; of the solemn professor, who sternly said, if a whisper was heard, "Not so much noise, if you please!" The close air of the recitation-rooms, the monotonous scratching of pens, the lessons repeated over and over again, were all new and very trying to Madou. His one idea was to get into the sun; but the walls were so high, the court-yard so narrow, that he could never find enough to bask in. Nothing amused or interested him. He ...
— Jack - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... with a Sunday-school picnic along in the glen, and Archie made me take him there. And he had tea—I hope the little chap won't be ill, by the by. And he made a speech or a recitation or something of the sort. Nobody understood it, but it ...
— The Half-Hearted • John Buchan
... Gayatri, consisting of three lines, must be considered as the mouth (or entrance) of Brahman (the Veda)," or, as the commentators observe, the means of attaining final emancipation; and "The syllable Om is the supreme Brahman. (Three) regulated breathings, accompanied with the mental recitation of Om, the three mysterious words Bhuh, Bhuvah, Swah and the Gayatri, ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various
... was, perhaps, intentional. Certainly but little enthusiasm could be expected from the crowd, had the text of the amnesty been heard. It consisted of three parts—a recitation of the wrongs committed, a statement of the terms of pardon, and a long list of exceptions. All the sins of omission and commission, the heresy, the public preaching, the image-breaking, the Compromise, the confederacy, the rebellion, were painted in lively ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... write some of his most sublime cantatas for the evening recreations of her sisters and herself. And what can more conduce to elegant literary knowledge, or be less dangerous to the morals of the young, than domestic recitation of the finest flights of the intellect? Certain it is that Marie Antoinette never forgot her idolatry of her master Metastasio; and it would have been well for her had all concerned in her education done her equal justice. The Abbe Vermond ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 3 • Madame du Hausset, and of an Unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe
... would be wrong to say that there is no one hero in a saga, it would be more correct to say that that hero's name is legion. From generation to generation a saga-history wends its way, each period dominated by a great hero. The annals of a family edited for purposes of oral recitation, or the life of the principal member of that family with an introduction dealing with the great deeds of as many of his ancestors as he would be proud to own—this seems to be what ...
— The Influence of Old Norse Literature on English Literature • Conrad Hjalmar Nordby
... greater annoyance to a company than for one person to take up all the time and attention by reciting a poem, a speech, a passage from a book, especially if it be the speaker's own book, speech or poem. Of course, if the company meet especially for mutual enjoyment in elocution or recitation, this rule does not apply. It is applicable only for general society. Short, pungent, epigrammatic quotations, if suitable to the subject of conversation, may be occasionally introduced, but their use should be the exception, not ...
— Frost's Laws and By-Laws of American Society • Sarah Annie Frost
... results the following plan, tested by experience, is suggested: Let the assigned lesson be wrought out and recorded by the pupil in the cheap tablet. At the next recitation let this recorded lesson be read and corrected. At the following recitation this lesson first assigned and corrected is to be recited from memory. So at each recitation the following will be the general order: (1) The assigning of ...
— A Bird's-Eye View of the Bible - Second Edition • Frank Nelson Palmer
... intended to do the thing himself. Dickens furnished the learned notes. This account of what occurred was given by Mr. Walter Hamilton, but Mr. Sala furnished another version. The 'authorship of the ballad,' Mr. Sala justly observed, 'is involved in mystery.' Cruikshank picked it up from the recitation of a minstrel outside a pot-house. In Mr. Sala's opinion, Mr. Thackeray 'revised and settled the words, and made them fit for publication.' Nor did he confine himself to the mere critical work; he added, in Mr. Sala's opinion, that admired passage about 'The young bride's mother, who never ...
— The Valet's Tragedy and Other Stories • Andrew Lang
... spacious apartment whose windows looked out upon the near shrubberies and the distant woods. Here on the right hand were seated the five boys under their tutor; and on the left were gathered the girls under their governess. But when a class was called up for recitation, before the tutor, boys and girls engaged in the same studies, and in the same stage of progress stood up together, that their minds might be ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... Margaret returned to Cambridge and resumed her private studies, except that, for a Greek recitation, she attended an academy in which Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes was then fitting for college. Her day at this period, as she gives it, was occupied thus: she rose before five, walked an hour, and practiced at the piano till seven: breakfasted and read French till ...
— Daughters of the Puritans - A Group of Brief Biographies • Seth Curtis Beach
... their family when taken to task, felt a sort of pride in doing something he imagined would cause them further pain. Cousin Charley was obdurate to any overtures towards a reconciliation, or at least pretended to be. Go he would. He had poor "Al-f-u-r-d" entirely miserable as he listened to the recitation of the many wrongs he ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field
... minstrel in a distant square, insists on singing, "Cheer, Boys, Cheer," or, "Tommy, make room for your uncle" (tunes I cannot abide), with words, accompaniment, and all, complete, and not quite so refined an accent as I could wish; so that I have to leave off my recitation and whistle "J'ai du Bon Tabac" in quite a ...
— Peter Ibbetson • George du Marier et al
... been convened to my rooms, he would take a leading part, generally appearing gracefully draped and appropriately illuminated, and thus forming a fitting background to the gay proceedings of the evening. We had music, recitation, and acting, mostly of an improvised, homemade character. The sounds thereof were not confined, however, to the narrow limits of home, but spread far beyond it, a fact which the neighbours, I am sure, would have been at any time ready ...
— In Bohemia with Du Maurier - The First Of A Series Of Reminiscences • Felix Moscheles
... frantically, David's and Patricia's wildly beat the air; but the young teacher either was too much occupied with her visitors or did not choose to notice, and the would-be defenders were soon called to recitation. ...
— Polly of Lady Gay Cottage • Emma C. Dowd
... enough to prevent the boys' whispering. A blackboard set into the wall extended clear across the end of the room; on a raised platform near the door stood the master's table; and directly in front of this was a recitation-bench capable of seating fifteen or twenty pupils. A pair of globes, tattooed with dragons and winged horses, occupied a shelf between two windows, which were so high from the floor that nothing but a giraffe could have looked out ...
— The Story of a Bad Boy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... the recitation which gained the applause of all who heard it, although not one of them knew Italian, Madame Denis, his niece, asked me if I thought the passage her uncle had just recited one of the finest the poet ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... of the dead husband, the wife tenaciously following, and—by the resistless charm of perfect poetic recitation!— eventually redeeming ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... your having previously heard, in the same piece, the lighter conversation of men under no strong emotion. The very nakedness of the stage, too, was advantageous,—for the drama thence became something between recitation and a re-presentation; and the absence or paucity of scenes allowed a freedom from the laws of unity of place and unity of time, the observance of which must either confine the drama to as few subjects as may be counted on the fingers, or involve gross improbabilities, far more striking than the ...
— Literary Remains, Vol. 2 • Coleridge
... one of his scholars who caused him any serious annoyance, but he had grown very weary of contending with her, and one day when she had failed in her recitation and answered impertinently his well-merited reproof, he said to her, "Lucilla, you may leave the room and consider yourself banished from it for a week. At the end of that time I shall probably be able to decide whether I will ever again listen to ...
— The Two Elsies - A Sequel to Elsie at Nantucket, Book 10 • Martha Finley
... about the University of Chicago except its architecture. The presence of a fat abbot, or a lady prioress in the corridor outside the recitation room would have fitted in admirably with the look of the warm gray walls and the carven pointed arches of the window and door casements, the blackened oak ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... will not do in one term nor in one year, but he will have found himself in the library, he will have acquired a bond to culture that will not break as he steps out of his last recitation, that will not yield when time and distance have relegated his college friendships, with his lost youth, to the Eden or the Avilion of memory. And if afterwards he comes, with Emerson, to find the chief value of his college training in the ability it has ...
— The Booklover and His Books • Harry Lyman Koopman
... fundamentally the attitudes of many people, both black and white. In some instances it is readily apparent that the recollections of persons being interviewed have been colored by the changes of the 1950's and 1960's, and while their recitation of specific events can be checked against the records, their estimates of attitudes and influences, not so easily verified, should be used cautiously. Much of this danger can be avoided by a skillful interviewer with special knowledge of integration. Because ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.
... of your topics and practice thinking of the items you have included under it. Be ready to speak on any one of your topics at class recitation. ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... of Orestes in Andromaque, is another character in which the acting of Talma is seen to much advantage: and to a foreigner, it is peculiarly interesting, as it displays, more than any other almost, that uncommon power of recitation which distinguishes his acting from the tame and monotonous declamation of the ordinary actors; and which gives to the splendid language, and elevated sentiments of the French tragedies, an effect which cannot easily be understood by any one who has never seen them ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison
... to hear not the leaders themselves, but Pollio's recitation of their exploits. There is nothing weak in this, as Orelli thinks. Horace has not seen Pollio's work, but compliments him by saying that he can imagine what its finest passages will be like—"I can fancy ...
— Odes and Carmen Saeculare of Horace • Horace
... letters, or connected with the Government—from the soldier to the good President of the Republique Francaise—is spared. The eccentricity of each celebrity is caught by them, and used in song or recitation. ...
— The Real Latin Quarter • F. Berkeley Smith
... change of circumstance. He had in him, says Gautier, the stuff of a great actor, possessing a full, sonorous, metallic voice of rich, powerful timbre, and kept his audience under the spell from the beginning to the end of the recitation. If Vedel and Desmousseaux, the administrators of the Comedie Francais heard him interpret his own pieces, they might be excused for having, as he asserted they had, a high opinion of his ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton
... happens in prayer. I pass over the simple recitation of verbal prayers, which will better be dealt with when we come to consider the institutional framework of the spiritual life. We are now concerned with mental prayer or orison; the simplest of those degrees of contemplation which may pass gradually into mystical experience, and are at least ...
— The Life of the Spirit and the Life of To-day • Evelyn Underhill
... Its design arose originally from the suggestion of the lovely Countess of Dalkeith, who had heard a wild, rude legend of Border diablerie, and sportively asked him to make it the subject of a ballad. He cast about for a new variety of diction and rhyme, and having happened to hear a recitation of Coleridge's unpublished "Christabel" determined to adopt a similar cadence. The division into cantos was suggested by one of his friends, after the example of Spenser's "Faery Queen." The creation of the framework, the conception of the ancient ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various
... aides-de-camp, Captain Tiago, the alcalde, the alferez, and Ibarra, and preceded by the guards, to open a passage, was to view the procession from the house of the gobernadorcillo. This functionary had built a platform for the recitation of a loa, a religious poem in honor ...
— An Eagle Flight - A Filipino Novel Adapted from Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... Almighty. To this end I would use whatever outward aids time and experience have shown will strengthen and deepen the spiritual understanding. I should not fear to use the cross, the sacraments, the kneeling posture, the great picture, the carving, the recitation of prayers and hymns, not alone to intensify this sense in the believer but equally to create it in the non-believer. The external world moulds the internal, even as the internal makes the external. If these things mean little in the beginning, there is still truth in the assertion of the devotee ...
— Preaching and Paganism • Albert Parker Fitch
... essential to religion, which cannot exist without both of them. But it is not necessary that religious practice should always take the form of a ritual; that is, it need not consist in the offering of sacrifice, the recitation of prayers, and other outward ceremonies. Its aim is to please the deity, and if the deity is one who delights in charity and mercy and purity more than in oblations of blood, the chanting of hymns, and the fumes of incense, his worshippers will best please him, not by prostrating ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... thirty years, is a most interesting document to the lover of Chekhov. Every play he wrote in later years was either a one-act farce or a four-act drama. [Note: "The Swan Song" may occur as an exception. This, however, is more of a Shakespeare recitation than anything else, and so neither ...
— Plays by Chekhov, Second Series • Anton Chekhov
... had passed, and the sun was shining quite cheerily in the eastern recitation-room the next morning, when Miss Kate, whose seat was nearest the window, placing her hand pathetically upon her heart, affected to fall in bashful and extreme agitation upon the shoulder of Carry her neighbor. "HE has come," she ...
— Tales of the Argonauts • Bret Harte
... Frederick of Prussia; and I will frankly add," said she, laughing and offering her BONBONNIERE, "that I HAVE heard so much of the years which immediately succeeded the Revolution, that I sometimes am apt to confuse the vivid descriptions fixed on my memory by the frequent and animated recitation of others, for things which I myself have actually witnessed. I caught myself but yesterday describing to Lord M—the riding of the last Scottish Parliament, with as much minuteness as if I had seen it, as my mother did, from the balcony in front of Lord Moray's ...
— Chronicles of the Canongate • Sir Walter Scott
... her chums awaited their final tests eagerly—so excited the last day or two they could scarcely keep their minds on their books or sit in patience through a recitation—and passed them with flying colors. Constance Howard was an excellent swimmer, and it was the sight of her paddling gracefully about the lake on sunny Saturday afternoons that spurred the seven who could not ...
— Betty Gordon at Boarding School - The Treasure of Indian Chasm • Alice Emerson
... selected as a specimen of Mackay's descriptive poetry. It is in a style peculiar to the Highlands, where description runs so entirely into epithets and adjectives, as to render recitation breathless, and translation hopeless. Here, while we have retained the imagery, we have been unable to find room, or rather rhyme, for one half of the epithets in the original. The power of alliterative harmony in the ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... unreasonably and are inexcusable, unless it should happen by accident that no one is present; in this case it is sufficient if they can be heard by the server who is close at hand. This will also show us what use we are to make of chant, or of recitation without chant, in prayer in common: it must be governed by our common devotion. And in whatever fashion such prayer may be made this rule must always be observed: it must be said so intelligibly that the meaning of the words ...
— On Prayer and The Contemplative Life • St. Thomas Aquinas
... the old spring and elasticity seemed gone forever; there was manifest effort in everything she did through the day, and yet she never rested willingly. She laid out plans for every hour, she made appointments with her friends; every day there was driving, shopping, tea-drinking, often a concert or recitation to finish off the evening; but now and then, in the midst of a lively conversation, there would be the look of utter exhaustion on her face, and when her friends had left she would throw herself on the couch as though all strength had gone. On these occasions, ...
— Our Bessie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... accomplishments, which were intended to render him a delightful companion in the hall, as the others were calculated to make him a formidable enemy in the field. The science of music, both instrumental and vocal; the composition and recitation of ballads, roundelays, and other minor pieces of poetry; an acquaintance with the romances and the writings of the popular poets of the times; were all essential branches in the system of education which was then adopted in the castle of every feudal chief; and from Pelham, who had himself ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 570, October 13, 1832 • Various
... be sanitary, they should be beautiful. What influences one most at college, and makes most for one's happiness, is not the fact of the work in recitation-rooms, out of books, laboratories, and under teachers. The glory of college life is, that wherever one goes, the eyes look out on beauty, and wherever one works, there are those whom we love who ...
— The Warriors • Lindsay, Anna Robertson Brown
... but to the action of a single book, such as the twelfth, with which it has been already compared. If the story of the English Waldere, when complete, was not more elaborate than the extant Latin Waltharius, it must have come far short of the proportions of Homer. It is a story for a single recitation, like the story of Finnesburh in Beowulf. The poem of Beowulf may have more in it than the story of Walter and Hildegund, but this advantage would seem to be gained at the expense of the unity of the poem. It is lengthened ...
— Epic and Romance - Essays on Medieval Literature • W. P. Ker
... promise he did not somehow very much appreciate—but he had made no progress with Frank. He shook hands all round very carefully, told Jimmie not to miss Sunday-school, and publicly commended Maggie for a recitation she had accomplished at the Band of Hope on the previous evening; and then went out, accompanied by Mrs. Partington, still silent, as far as the door. But as he actually went out, someone pushed by the woman and came ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson
... forest came frowning to the river's brink, with only here and there, at long intervals, an opening, where some adventurous pioneer had cut and burned the cane, and built his shanty. The time was whiled away with song, recitation, anecdotes, and laughter, until midnight brought us to Natchez. It was a terrible night—dark, and beginning to rain. Under the hill at Natchez, forty-five years ago, was a terrible place. The road up the bluff was precipitous and muddy. There were no accommodations ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... that, if we go on so three evenings, you will all have got three lessons, and the fourth evening we will have for recitation. I will hear you spell, and examine your writing, and see if your sums are ...
— Jonas on a Farm in Winter • Jacob Abbott
... When we first met here 7 years ago—many of us for the first time—it was with the hope of beginning something new for America. We meet here tonight in this historic Chamber to continue that work. If anyone expects just a proud recitation of the accomplishments of my administration, I say let's leave that to history; we're not finished yet. So, my message to you tonight is put on your work shoes; we're still on ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... be taken down from the recitation of a woman eighty years old, was accompanied with some explanatory notes, characteristic of the dry antiquary, thus: "Hardriding Dick is not an epithet referring to horsemanship, but means Richard Ridley of Hardriding, the seat of another family of that name, which, in the time ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... detects any difference between such a hymn and those to Sin and Nebo. The lines are adapted, like the other specimens, for recitation by two parties. The last line forms a solemn close to a section of this hymn. In the section that follows, the same character is maintained till we approach the close, when the exorciser steps in and ...
— The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria • Morris Jastrow
... expeditions, spectacles and parades; and the only field for the exercise of that kind of intellectual ability which is employed in modern times in investigating and recording historic truth, was the invention and recitation of poems, dramas and tales, to amuse great military audiences in camps or public gatherings, convened to witness shows or games, or to celebrate great religious festivals. Of course under such circumstances there would be no interest felt ...
— Romulus, Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... could not tolerate such at Vassar. The forms and benches of the recitation-room were better for taking notes than ...
— Maria Mitchell: Life, Letters, and Journals • Maria Mitchell
... recitation, quoth Taj al-Muluk, "I see thy conduct without consequence; tell me then why weepest thou at the sight of this rag!" When the young merchant heard speak of the piece of linen, he sighed and answered, "O my lord, my story ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... described as of singular and conspicuous merit. He wrote a history of St. Alban, and arranged it for musical recitation. Being afraid of a Danish invasion, and thinking that the relics of the protomartyr, which had already been once carried away to Denmark, would not be safe in the shrine as it stood, he hid them under the altar of St. Nicholas, and ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Saint Albans - With an Account of the Fabric & a Short History of the Abbey • Thomas Perkins
... in the habit of repeating for his friends' amusement, and about the year 1837, when he was about twenty-three years of age, Joseph Le Fanu said to him that he thought an Irish story in verse would tell well, and that if he would choose him a subject suitable for recitation, he would write him one. 'Write me an Irish "Young Lochinvar,"' said his brother; and in a few days he handed him 'Phaudrig ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume I. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... a strange conglomerate of the unpronounceable, a sad model to set in childhood before one who was himself to be a versifier, and a task in recitation that really merited reward. And I must suppose the old man thought so too, and was either touched or amused by the performance; for he took me in his arms with most unwonted tenderness, and kissed me, and gave me a little kindly sermon for my psalm; so that, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... take care of your actions," retorted Miss Dill tartly, and turning to one of the other girls called upon her for a recitation. ...
— Billie Bradley at Three Towers Hall - or, Leading a Needed Rebellion • Janet D. Wheeler
... M. Edmond, has come,' explained Alphonse; 'they are going upstairs to the concert-room. They will have a recitation perhaps,—ombres chinoises,—music. Come and look at the ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... that is accomplished by the others," put in Sharp at this point. "The orator gives pleasure to those who are fond of recitation or declamation; the musician pleases those who are fond of sweet sounds, and the gambler gives pleasure to men who are fond of the excitement of play. Besides, by paying his way he gives benefit to all whom ...
— Personal Reminiscences in Book Making - and Some Short Stories • R.M. Ballantyne
... recitation, passion overcame her and she was distraught for love and wept copious tears, rain-like streaming down. This burnt the Prince's heart and he in turn became troubled and distracted for love of her. So ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 7 • Richard F. Burton
... Word, Allyne turned and looked into her white young face, suffering and terrified, yet self-controlled, then secretly clutching a fold of her gown, as she sat on the floor beside him in such a position that he could wedge her into a safe corner, he too joined in the solemn recitation, thinking inside ...
— All Aboard - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... man and of a big stature; and great multitudes would resort thither to hear him, because he could read well and had an audible voice." But the "goodly exercise" of readers such as Porter was soon superseded by the continued recitation of both Old Testament and New in the public services of the Church; while the small Geneva Bibles carried the Scripture into every home, and wove it into the life of ...
— History of the English People, Volume V (of 8) - Puritan England, 1603-1660 • John Richard Green
... a young teacher at the Kreuz Grammar School, a Master of Arts named Sillig, who proved very helpful to me. He often permitted me to visit him and show him my work, consisting of metric translations and a few original poems, and he always seemed very pleased with my efforts in recitation. What he thought of me may best be judged perhaps from the fact that he made me, as a boy of about twelve, recite not only 'Hector's Farewell' from the Iliad, but even Hamlet's celebrated monologue. On one occasion, when I was in the fourth form of the school, one of my schoolfellows, ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... inert, and of those which are not inert in what order they arrange their action. The principium movendi, the central force which organizes and assigns its place in the system to all the other forces, these are quite undetermined by any mere arithmetical recitation of the agencies concerned. Often these primary principles can be deduced only tentatively, or by a regress to the steps, historically speaking, through which they have arisen. Sometimes, for instance, the population, ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. II (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... difficulty you will encounter is the substitution of the lecture for the class recitation to which you were accustomed in high school. This substitution requires that you develop a new technic of learning, for the mental processes involved in an oral recitation are different from those used in listening ...
— How to Use Your Mind • Harry D. Kitson
... as to be unforgettable. In one way and another he had made all his teachers, men and women alike, conscious of the same feeling of physical aversion. In one class he habitually sat with his hand shading his eyes; in another he always looked out of the window during the recitation; in another he made a running commentary on the ...
— The Troll Garden and Selected Stories • Willa Cather
... she honestly could, and corrected his many blunders so quietly that he soon ceased to be a deep, distressful red during recitation, and tugged away so manfully that no one could help respecting him for his efforts, and trying to make light of his failures. So the first hard week went by, and though the boy's heart had sunk many a time at the prospect of a protracted wrestle with his own ignorance, ...
— Under the Lilacs • Louisa May Alcott
... Grace made a startling discovery. It was directly after breakfast that she made it. Having fifteen minutes to spare before going to her first recitation, she decided to reread her theme. What one wrote always read differently after one had slept over it. What seemed clever at night might be very commonplace when read in the cold light of the morning. Grace reached for the book ...
— Grace Harlowe's Second Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... children came to the door of the chapel after the recitation of the oath, she saw the civil population moving along the street in the direction of the range. Suddenly they paused in a common impulse and their heads turned as one head on the fulcrum of their necks, and their faces as one face in a set ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer
... men of the Counter-reformation, lost the control of the academies: and here, as elsewhere, Latin poetry was replaced by Italian. Before long every town of the least importance had its academy, with some strange, fantastic name, and its own endowment and subscriptions. Besides the recitation of verses, the new institutions inherited from their predecessors the regular banquets and the representation of plays, sometimes acted by the members themselves, sometimes under their direction by young amateurs, and sometimes by paid players. The fate of the Italian stage, ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... greeted the close of the recitation, and praise more sincere than that with which politeness generally greets the drawing-room performances of minor poets. Hyacinth joined in neither. It seemed to him that the verses were too beautiful to speak about, so sacred that praise was a kind of sacrilege. Perhaps some ...
— Hyacinth - 1906 • George A. Birmingham
... added a number of practical exercises such as the author has used for several years in the class room. These are not made so numerous as to displace the problems which no doubt many teachers prefer to have their pupils solve impromptu during the recitation, but may, it is hoped, ...
— The Elements of Geology • William Harmon Norton
... of string, by the ocean travel, by the whole thing dwindling, by the recitation, by the actual counting there are things to doubt, there are more exaggerations there than there is a twinkling bucket. So the decision has that vellum syncopation. A blind bed bite ...
— Matisse Picasso and Gertrude Stein - With Two Shorter Stories • Gertrude Stein
... similar to the Christian Endeavor pledge, though there is no organization. Over one hundred have signed this covenant within the past year. The school is growing rapidly; its outlook is most hopeful. It is already cramped for room. Every recitation room has been full, and many crowded, this term. One class had to overflow into the chapel. Between thirty and forty girls who wished to come were obliged to stay at home because the Ladies' Boarding Hall has been crowded to its utmost capacity. A new one ...
— The American Missionary, Volume 43, No. 6, June, 1889 • Various
... too sharp for comedy, and her figure not quite tall enough for tragedy. She herself preferred tragedy, which decided the point; and Mr Revel, who knows all the actors, persuaded Mr Y—— (you know who I mean, the great tragic actor) to come here, and give his opinion of her recitation. Mr Y—— was excessively polite; declared that she was a young lady of great talent, but that a slight lisp, which she has, unfitted her most decidedly for tragedy. Of course, it was abandoned for comedy, ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... In class recitation or spelling match his father's millions did not aid him in competing with Patsy Halloran, the mathematical prodigy whose father was a hod-carrier, nor with Mona Sanguinetti who was a wizard at spelling and whose widowed mother ran a vegetable store. Nor were ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London
... for his indefatigable application and perseverance. When a task was set him, he never left it until he had mastered it; nor did he ever feign to possess knowledge which he had not entirely acquired. "Again and again," wrote one who knew him, "when called upon to answer questions in the recitation of the day, he would reply, 'I have not yet looked at it; I have been engaged in mastering the recitation of yesterday or the day before.' The result was that he graduated seventeenth in a class of seventy. There was probably in the whole class not a boy to whom Jackson ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles
... team, do you suppose that the coach, or the captain, would let her stay on? Not for a moment; off she would go and very much humiliated, too. If it is a discussion, the touch and go of the whole recitation will depend upon the presence of the team-play, or fair-play, spirit in the course. The instructor may do her best but if there is no play-the-game in that classroom, she might just as well fold up her tent, like the proverbial Arab, "and silently steal away." It is not that any recitation ...
— A Girl's Student Days and After • Jeannette Marks
... was erected two years after the Restoration of Charles II., and has been the scene, doubtless, of many ceremonials and high banquetings since that period; and, among other illustrious personages, Queen Victoria has honored it with her presence. Thence we went into several recitation or lecture rooms in various parts of the buildings; but they were all of an extreme plainness, very unlike the rich old Gothic libraries and chapels and halls which we saw in Oxford. Indeed, the contrast between this Scotch severity and that noble luxuriance, and antique majesty, and ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... duties in connection with the College Classes, but also instructing the students in Theology. Those who were there under his instruction, will not soon forget the delightful evenings in his study, when the recitation being over, conversation took its place, and stores of the most useful and varied learning were opened to them, with a kindness and unreservedness, which never could have been surpassed. In 1837, he became Rector ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... conducted the civic procession of penitents. Before this pompous gathering, after a statement of the city's sin and sorrow, the precious charter called the Grand Privilege of Ghent was solemnly read aloud, and then cut up into little pieces with a pen-knife. Next followed a recitation of the penalties imposed upon, and accepted by, the citizens (closing of the gates, etc)., and then the paternal Count of Flanders, duly mollified, pronounced the fault forgiven with the benediction, "By virtue of this submission and by keeping your promises and being good children, you ...
— Charles the Bold - Last Duke Of Burgundy, 1433-1477 • Ruth Putnam
... over all the songs and stories was the trail of tragedy, under all the heart-ache of a hunted race. There are few more plaintive chants in the world than the recitation of the Psalms by the "Sons of the Covenant" on Sabbath afternoons amid the gathering shadows of twilight. Esther often stood in the passage to hear it, morbidly fascinated, tears of pensive pleasure in her eyes. Even the ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... few learned folk. In early days, there was little reading or writing, except in the shelter of the great monasteries. The common folk-literature, which is a very precious thing, is preserved, in such times as we are thinking of, in people's memories, and circulated by recitation, this recitation being accompanied by music or by rhythmical movements of the body. We all know how much easier it is to remember a page of verse than a page of prose. Thus, the form that could most easily be carried in the memory and ...
— Our Catholic Heritage in English Literature of Pre-Conquest Days • Emily Hickey
... to talk; it is a rare accomplishment, and extremely healthy. They should have music always at their meals. The theatre, entirely remodelled and reformed, and, under a minister of state, should be an important element of education. I should not object to the recitation of lyric poetry. That is enough. I would not have a book in the house, ...
— Lothair • Benjamin Disraeli
... easy to be good but now he was finding it quite as easy to be naughty, very naughty indeed. His speculations as to just how long he could be imprisoned for his crimes and misdemeanors to date resolved themselves into a question with which he interrupted the Governor in a sonorous recitation of Tennyson's Ode on the Death of the ...
— Blacksheep! Blacksheep! • Meredith Nicholson
... man recalls two characteristic anecdotes about a well-known Harvard professor, Sophocles, or "Sophy," as he was generally called. He was an excellent teacher, but he had his favorites, whom he would never allow to fail in recitation. One day the question under discussion was the dark color of the water of a certain river. "Why was the water dark?" said Sophocles. One pupil ventured, "Because it was so deep." "That is not right. The next." "Because of the color of the ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls, Vol. XIII, Nov. 28, 1891 • Various
... the megrims before or after them. Once, and once only, I have heard a poet recite his verses in a well-filled drawing-room; and though I have every reason to think him clever, my ear was so little accustomed to the language, that, in the mouthing of French recitation, I ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper
... reached and execution is the order of the day, dismiss absolutely all responsibility and care about the outcome. Unclamp, in a word, your intellectual and practical machinery, and let it run free; and the service it will do you will be twice as good. Who are the scholars who get "rattled" in the recitation-room? Those who think of the possibilities of failure and feel the great importance of the act. Who are those who do recite well? Often those who are most indifferent. Their ideas reel themselves out of their memory of their own accord. Why do we hear the complaint so often that social ...
— A Book of Exposition • Homer Heath Nugent
... good old days you had only to casually drop a word to a freshman on the way to recitation to wait for you when evening came, and he would turn up promptly, take his little dose meekly and go back to bed a better boy for it. But ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... not starred or featured the poems of John Greenleaf Whittier. Stuart's eyes dwelt devouringly on the elocutionist—as yet unruffled by suspicion. They were doing their best to say the things at which his lips balked. But as the recitation proceeded their light died from hope to misery and from misery to the anger of hurt pride. He stood very rigid and very attentive, making no effort to interrupt, but holding her gaze defiantly as ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... sick and suffering, he has his personal and private exercises: at first, his breviary, the reading of which demands each day an hour and a half, no practical duty being so necessary. Lamennais obtained a dispensation from it, and hence his lapses and fall.[5275] Let no one object that such a recitation soon becomes mechanical[5276]; the prayers, phrases and words which it buries deep in the mind, even wandering, necessarily become fixed inhabitants in it, and hence occult and stirring powers banded together which encompass the intellect and lay siege to the will, which, in the subterranean regions ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 6 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 2 (of 2) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... rechristened by his large circle of friends and acquaintances Owen Garry. The exhibition, which is the result of years of training by kindness and a carefully thoughtout dietary system, comprises, among other achievements, the recitation of verse. Our greatest living phonetic expert (wild horses shall not drag it from us!) has left no stone unturned in his efforts to delucidate and compare the verse recited and has found it bears a ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... the preceptor's back was turned, he would throw a paper ball across the room. When the class was called up to recite, George would come drowsily along, looking as mean and ashamed as though he were going to be whipped. The rest of the class stepped up to the recitation with alacrity, and appeared happy and contented. When it came George's turn to recite, he would be so long, and make such blunders, that all most heartily wished him out ...
— The Child at Home - The Principles of Filial Duty, Familiarly Illustrated • John S.C. Abbott
... Priscilla, in a hard, Neill Burgess voice, "guessed" that the adjoining recitation-room needed sweeping and dusting. She handed Booker a broom and dust-cloth, motioned to the ...
— Little Journeys To The Homes Of Great Teachers • Elbert Hubbard
... who had carefully puffed a cigar alight and smoked it thoughtfully during Stanton's recitation, dropped the remains of the cigar into an ash receptacle. "Accurate but incomplete," he said quietly. "You must have made some guesses. I'd like ...
— Anything You Can Do ... • Gordon Randall Garrett
... passions, which are commonly sparing of words, are in his system condemned to speak much, and to explain themselves too much.... To what shall we attribute that respectful somnolence which nowadays reigns over the audience during the recitation of Alfieri's tragedies, if they are not sustained by some theatrical celebrity? You will certainly say, to the mediocrity of the actors. But I hold that the tragic effect can be produced even by mediocre actors, if this effect truly abounds in ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells
... dramatic verse, only the little volume of "In the Seven Woods," the little series on Flamel, and a few snatches, in all about a thousand lines. Some of this verse Mr. Yeats wrote for the psaltery, and in 1902 he was determined to write all his shorter poems for recitation to this instrument and "all his longer poems for ...
— Irish Plays and Playwrights • Cornelius Weygandt
... the recitation of the benediction, looking towards the tiring-room.]—Lady, when you have finished attiring yourself, ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... The recitation—vivid, accompanied by the direct, expressive gesture for which Mademoiselle de Bonvouloir was so famous—was followed at appropriate intervals by one or two items of instrumental music, and then Diana found herself mounting the little platform, and a ...
— The Splendid Folly • Margaret Pedler
... to concerts, but the only part of a sonata or symphony which took hold of me was that which was melodious. The long passages with no striking theme in them conveyed nothing to me, and as to Bach, excepting now and then, his music was like a skilful recitation of nonsense verses. The Marseillaise on a barrel-organ was intelligible, but gymnastics on strings—what did they represent? With pictures the case was somewhat different. I often left Clapton early in order that I might have half an hour at Christie's in quiet, ...
— More Pages from a Journal • Mark Rutherford
... subjecting himself to much ablution and shaving; eating little but bread, vegetables, and poultry, and abstaining from pulse and the flesh of all beasts—not merely of the prohibited animal, swine; wearing nothing but pure linen clothing, and setting apart certain hours for the recitation of those heathen forms of prayer whose magic power was to compel the gods to grant the desires of those who thus ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... same volume which contains this story there are many others that lend themselves to recitation. "Moriah's Mourning" is one of the best pieces of humor which Mrs. Stuart has written; "Christmas at the Trimbles" has proven itself a never-failing success, and "The Second Mrs. Slimm" is ...
— The Speaker, No. 5: Volume II, Issue 1 - December, 1906. • Various
... intellectual now. In the winter particularly. But, Jocelyn—don't come to the recitation, will you? It would spoil my performance if you were there, and I want to be as good ...
— The Well-Beloved • Thomas Hardy
... papal court had been transacted by John Caryl. This gentleman was known to his contemporaries as a man of fortune and fashion, and as the author of two successful plays, a tragedy in rhyme which had been made popular by the action and recitation of Betterton, and a comedy which owes all its value to scenes borrowed from Moliere. These pieces have long been forgotten; but what Caryl could not do for himself has been done for him by a more powerful genius. Half a ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... not only with interest, but with a devotion akin to that of those who took part in it. He also looked fixedly down, turning his eyes to the mihrab, and listening attentively to the chanting of the Imam, of whose Arabic recitation, however, he could not understand any more than Paul himself. For a long time no one of the three spoke, nor ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford
... a very naughty boy," said Clemence. "I think Johnny is one of the best behaved boys in school. He is so quiet that I hardly know he is there, except when he is reading his lessons, and those he always has well learned. He very seldom fails with a recitation." ...
— Clemence - The Schoolmistress of Waveland • Retta Babcock
... different subjects, but in most cases it is from 20 to 24 semester hours. Recall what is meant by the work of a semester hour and you will easily see how broad our academic requirement is. It means that in addition to one's high school work he is required to carry the subject in practically daily recitation for from 2-1/2 to 3 years in the University. To some that may seem too much, but we feel that the first requirement for teaching in the high school should be a thoro grounding in ...
— On the Firing Line in Education • Adoniram Judson Ladd
... a curious mixture of song, recitation, addresses, and readings, in which many noble sentiments were uttered, and not a few humorous anecdotes and incidents related. It was presided over by Tufnell, the manager, a soldierly-looking man, who had himself originally been in the army, and who had, for many years, ...
— Blue Lights - Hot Work in the Soudan • R.M. Ballantyne |
