"By heart" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of children, young men and maidens among their Little Deeping friends; and the Twins and Wiggins were in request as the lighter element in the Christmas gatherings. Thanks to the Terror, the three of them took this brightening function with considerable seriousness: each of them learned by heart a humorous piece of literature, generally verse, for reciting; and they performed two charades in a very painstaking fashion. They had but little dramatic talent; but they derived a certain grave satisfaction from the discharge ...
— The Terrible Twins • Edgar Jepson
... keep both; but I have read 'Pilgrim's Progress' until I know it by heart, so that I would be willing to part with it for Burton's books, if I can get ...
— From Boyhood to Manhood • William M. Thayer
... his opponents by quoting Scripture, many passages of which he had learned by heart long ago from his friend the preacher—did not reply for a few seconds. Then, looking earnestly at his brother ...
— The Prairie Chief • R.M. Ballantyne
... with every modulation of melody. It accustomed itself to the use of quicker time, and thereby compelled the player to more lively action. Musical and dramatic connoisseurship was developed; the -habitue- recognized every tune by the first note, and knew the texts by heart; every fault in the music or recitation was severely censured by the audience. The state of the Roman stage in the time of Cicero vividly reminds us of the modern French theatre. As the Roman mime corresponds to the loose ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... his most habitual haunts. Of another such haunt his friend Lady Richardson says, "The Prelude was chiefly composed in a green mountain terrace, on the Easdale side of Helm Crag, known by the name of Under Lancrigg, a place which he used to say he knew by heart. The ladies sat at their work on the hill-side, while he walked to and fro on the smooth green mountain turf, humming out his verses to himself, and then repeating them to his sympathising and ready scribes, to be noted down on the spot, ...
— Wordsworth • F. W. H. Myers
... friends to town, that the unfilled gaps of time confronting her produced a sharp sense of waning popularity. It was as she had said to Selden—people were tired of her. They would welcome her in a new character, but as Miss Bart they knew her by heart. She knew herself by heart too, and was sick of the old story. There were moments when she longed blindly for anything different, anything strange, remote and untried; but the utmost reach of her imagination did not go ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... learned by heart will convince the soldier that the unorganized natives who spontanement (that is, of their own free will) take up arms and threaten his life every moment of the day and night should be recognized ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... your Grace," said Jeanie, "if it wasna ower muckle trouble, wad it no be better to tell me what I should say, and I could get it by heart?" ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... a moment, I know the rest by heart. Now let me ask you something. Is it your belief that Rue Barree ...
— The King In Yellow • Robert W. Chambers
... Clearly I must get out of bed and say my prayers properly. So I stepped on to the floor, reeling dizzily from my enforced recumbence, and knelt by the side of the bed. Falling into prayers that I knew by heart, and scarcely heeding what I was saying, I prayed (as my mother had taught me to do when I was a little knickerbockered boy) for the whole chain of governesses who had once taken charge of me. I enumerated them by their nicknames: "Tooby and Dinky ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... that branch of study. He now remembered a thousand circumstances of voice and manner, which, had his own prepossession been less, must surely have discriminated the brother from the sister; and he felt ashamed, that, having as it were by heart every particular of Catherine's gestures, words, and manners, he should have thought her, notwithstanding her spirits and levity, capable of assuming the bold step, loud tones, and forward assurance, which accorded well enough ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... hymn book by heart, and loved to repeat hymns so well, that she could hardly have told her story without this preface. She immediately ...
— Conscience • Eliza Lee Follen
... prelude, Mr Meagles went through the narrative; the established narrative, which has become tiresome; the matter-of-course narrative which we all know by heart. How, after interminable attendance and correspondence, after infinite impertinences, ignorances, and insults, my lords made a Minute, number three thousand four hundred and seventy-two, allowing the culprit to make certain trials of his ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... devour in winter nights when the winds were whistling around the house. Oh! how my blood used to glow at the descriptions of Magyar valour, and likewise of Turkish; for Florentius has always done justice to the Turk. Many a passage similar to this have I got by heart; it is connected with the battle on the plain of Rigo, which Hunyadi lost: 'The next day, which was Friday, as the two armies were drawn up in battle array, a Magyar hero, riding forth, galloped up and down, challenging ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... heaps of things by heart, and I love them, and would have gone on and on, so as to fill up the time, but they all said "Thank you" in a chorus after each bit, and ...
— Red Hair • Elinor Glyn
... Teresa Careno. She is a wunderkind. Her mother says she is nine years old; she looks twelve, but may be sixteen. No one can ever tell how old a wunderkind really is. Her playing is marvelous, her technic perfect. She knows about two hundred pieces by heart, is extremely pretty and attractive, and performs whenever she is asked. I think she has a great career before her, and she has already got the toss-back of her black hair in the most approved pianist manner. "Elle ne manque ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone
... saluted us, I did not observe one who did not give to this simple action all the politeness and modesty which it was capable of expressing. They were invited to exhibit us the different kinds of talent which distinguished them, and one of them, who knew by heart pieces of the best French authors, repeated to me several of the most eloquent pages of my father's Course of Religious Morals. This delicate attention probably came from the empress herself. I felt the most lively emotion in hearing that language uttered, ...
— Ten Years' Exile • Anne Louise Germaine Necker, Baronne (Baroness) de Stael-Holstein
... excuse to fight, but dared not propose to do so because of this law, pretended to have lost his reason. His family gave out that he was insane, but he meanwhile composed a poem, and when he had learned it by heart, rushed out into the market-place wearing a small felt cap, and having assembled a crowd, mounted the herald's stone and recited the poem which begins ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... Indians sat around the fire and told stones about the Great Spirit and many other strange beings, some good and some evil. They told, too, wonderful tales about omens and charms. The same story was told over and over again, so that in time little Pontiac knew by heart the legends of the Ottawas. He remembered and firmly believed all his life stories that as a child he listened to with awe, ...
— Four American Indians - King Philip, Pontiac, Tecumseh, Osceola • Edson L. Whitney
... from the cradle. His lullabies were Jacobite songs; his grandmother told him tales of moss-troopers, and his Aunt Janet read him ballads from Ramsay's "Tea-table Miscellany," upon which his quick and tenacious memory fastened eagerly. The ballad of "Hardiknute," in this collection, he knew by heart before he could read. "It was the first poem I ever learnt—the last I shall ever forget." Dr. Blacklock introduced the young schoolboy to the poems of Ossian and of Spenser, and he committed to memory "whole duans of the one and cantos ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... you desire to know everything, I have written this 'book of notes,' that you may learn of what the universe and its elements consist, what the world contains, and what the human race has done.'' It seems to have been intended as a text-book to be learnt by heart. The little work, in fifty chapters, gives a sketch of cosmography, geography, mythology (chaps. i.-x.), and history (chap. x.-end). The historical portion, dealing mainly with the republican period, is untrustworthy, and the text in many places corrupt; the earlier chapters are more valuable, and ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... young man in the Peerage unmarried and richer than Farintosh? I forget. Why does not some one publish a list of the young male nobility and baronetage, their names, weights, and probable fortunes? I don't mean for the matrons of Mayfair—they have the list by heart and study it in secret—but for young men in the world; so that they may know what their chances are, and who naturally has the pull over them. Let me see—there is young Lord Gaunt, who will have a great fortune, and is desirable because you ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... "At two and a half years of age he pronounced English, Latin, and French exactly, and could perfectly read in these three languages." As he lived precisely five years, all he did was done at that little age, and it comprised this: "He got by heart almost the entire vocabulary of Latin and French primitives and words, could make congruous syntax, turn English into Latin, and vice versa, construe and prove what he read, and did the government and use of relatives, verbs, ...
— The Children • Alice Meynell
... right, either by himself or by his representative, to a free voice in determining the necessity of public contributions, the appropriation of them, and their amount, mode of assessment, and duration." He knew them by heart. "It is the truth," he continued: "you must come to that, unless you believe in the Divine appointment of dynasties. There is no logical repose between Lord Liverpool and the Declaration. What ...
— The Revolution in Tanner's Lane • Mark Rutherford
... had seen such scraps of paper before. He had learnt the doggerel rhyme by heart, even though the English tongue was quite unfamiliar to him. He loathed the English—the entire nation—with all that deadly hatred which a divergence of political aims will arouse in times of acute crises. He hated the English government, Pitt and ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... by heart, each one," he answered. "I am thinking of a pose. You know your husband wished a half ...
— The Devil - A Tragedy of the Heart and Conscience • Joseph O'Brien
... and Dorothea, who knew every word of it by heart, was on the alert. At its close the audience held their breath for a second or two and then—satisfied, as their hostess rose, that he had really come to an end—tendered their applause, and, breaking into promiscuous chatter, trooped towards the tea-room. Narcissus lingered, with ...
— The Westcotes • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... She quite wore this book out, carrying it about with her in her working-dress pocket. After that, "Locke on the Understanding" was used in the same way. She must have known both books through and through by heart. Then she read Combe and Abercrombie, and discussed their physics and metaphysics with our girl boarders, some of whom had remarkably acute and well-balanced minds. Her own seemed to have turned from its early bent toward the romantic, her taste being now for serious and practical, though ...
— A New England Girlhood • Lucy Larcom
... and, as I confessed to a great love for fairy lore of every description, he asked me if I would accept a child's fairytale book he had written, called "Alice in Wonderland." I replied that I knew it nearly all off by heart, but that I should greatly prize a copy given to me by himself. By return came "Alice," and "Through the Looking-glass," bound most luxuriously in white calf and gold. And this is the grateful and kindly note that came with them: "I am now sending you 'Alice,' and the 'Looking-glass' as well. ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... manly hearts mourning for you. From generation to generation we take up the fond tradition of your beauty; we watch and follow your story, your bright morning love and purity, your constancy, your grief, your sweet martyrdom. We know your legend by heart. You are one of the saints of ...
— Penelope's Irish Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... the Milky Way," said the Story Girl, brightening up. "I read it in a book of Aunt Louisa's in town, and I learned it off by heart. Once there were two archangels in heaven, named Zerah ...
— The Story Girl • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... tired with such thoughts, he drew forth from an inside pocket a small book. It was well marked and showed constant usage. It was a volume of Emerson's Essays, a number of which he knew almost by heart. It was only natural that the book should open at the essay on Self-reliance, for there the pages were most thumb-marked. His eyes rested upon the words: "There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance." He read on to ...
— Under Sealed Orders • H. A. Cody
... of age. These had been taught by Yonan, and were quite familiar with the Old Testament, from the creation to the reign of David. One old blind woman wanted to point out the stopping places of Israel in the desert, on the map which hung on one of the tall trees: she had learned their names by heart, and was familiar with their location ...
— Woman And Her Saviour In Persia • A Returned Missionary
... "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 within themselves. ...
— Spiritual Reformers in the 16th & 17th Centuries • Rufus M. Jones
... out of his pocket a few sheets of closely typewritten tissue paper. He did not look at them. Evidently he knew the contents by heart. Constance did not need to be told that this was a sheaf of the daily reports of the ...
— Constance Dunlap • Arthur B. Reeve
... answer on many a sleepless pillow, and had it by heart. It came so glibly, although in such a constrained and agitated voice, that he instantly knew it must have been long ...
— Potts's Painless Cure - 1898 • Edward Bellamy
... avoirdupois-weight to learn, nor troy-weight, nor apothecaries', nor long-measure, nor square-measure, nor cloth-measure, nor liquid-measure, nor dry-measure, but one decimal scale of weights and measures would suffice for every commodity, and there would only be their names to get by heart in order! Every one sees that there would be an astonishing simplification in this system of reckoning by tens—that the study of arithmetic would be immensely facilitated, and the business of the counting-house divested of puzzling ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 428 - Volume 17, New Series, March 13, 1852 • Various
... he wrote, "in my youth there were detestable books which ought to have been burned by the hands of the common hangman, for they contained questions and answers to be learned by heart, of this sort, 'What is a horse? The horse is termed Equus caballus; belongs to the class Mammalia; order, Pachydermata; family, Solidungula.' Was any human being the wiser for learning that magic formula? Was he not more foolish inasmuch as he was deluded into ...
— Thomas Henry Huxley; A Sketch Of His Life And Work • P. Chalmers Mitchell
... insensibility, at the mercy of the hurts and insults of life. Women of India, like women everywhere, have their share of suffering, but it radiates through the ideal, and becomes, like sunlight, a creative force in their world. Our women know by heart the legends of the great women of the epic age—Savitri who by the power of love conquered death, and Sita who had no other reward for her life of sacrifice but the sacred majesty of sorrow. They know ...
— Creative Unity • Rabindranath Tagore
... During the fifteenth century persecution did much to check this open preaching, but passages from Wyclif's tracts and texts from the Bible were copied by hand and passed about among tradesmen and artisans, yeomen and plough-boys, to be pondered over and talked about and learned by heart. It was a new revelation to the English people, this discovery of the Bible. Christ and his disciples seemed to come very near when the beautiful story of the gospels was first read in the familiar speech ...
— The Beginnings of New England - Or the Puritan Theocracy in its Relations to Civil and Religious Liberty • John Fiske
... sure I conned these few brave words till I had them well by heart; and later, when my voice was surer and my eyes less dim, I summoned Darius and bade him tell me all he knew. And it was thus I learned what I have here set down of ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... over the list until they knew it by heart. They wondered who would come first, how soon they should begin dancing, how soon serve supper. Mrs. Monroe thought supper should be served at half-past ten. Martie groaned. Oh, they couldn't serve supper until almost ...
— Martie the Unconquered • Kathleen Norris
... "range-finding." Every gun had its officer crew and the rapidity of fire was recorded. Each man in turn was chosen to give the necessary orders and to judge the ranges and deflections. In this way not only was the practical work learned by heart, but also the theory of naval gunnery, so far as it related to the smaller types ...
— Submarine Warfare of To-day • Charles W. Domville-Fife
... talked more of one person than another, it was Emerson. Not only did he know Emerson by heart as an author, but he knew him by heart as a spirit. He taught me to know Emerson. He had so saturated himself with Emerson that at one time he thought as he did and even fell into his mode of expression. But afterward he found his own way—which for ...
— My Life and Work • Henry Ford
... did not suspect me. I never went to Brompton without finding the third volume in Richard's hands; he speaks of all the characters as if they were his acquaintance, and Praises different parts perpetually: both he and Miss Humphries seem to have it by heart, for it is always 'a propos to Whatever is the subject of discourse, and their whole conversation almost consists ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... his life? 4. What was his education? 5. What was his profession and what positions, if any, did he fill? 6. Describe his character. 7. His style of writing. 8. Give the names of his Works. 9. Title and contents of the extracts given. 10. Learn the short extracts and poems by heart. 11. Find on the map all the places mentioned. (This is of prime importance, and I beg that this ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... spare him," said Joe. And then she had by heart the whole story, how she had called him Peter, and how angry he had been at ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope
... attempt to realize this title is an honest one, and I can assert, without fear of contradiction, that every one of the poems I have included is a "gem of purest ray serene"; that none can be too often read or too often repeated to one's self; that every one of them should be known by heart by every lover of good literature, so that each may become, as it were, a ...
— The Hundred Best English Poems • Various
... shivered again as I looked at them; then I crossed over to Mother's old piano, opened it, and touched the keys. I love to play. There wasn't any music there, but I don't need music for lots of my pieces. I know them by heart—only they're all gay and lively, and twinkly-toe dancy. Marie music. I don't know a one that would be proper ...
— Mary Marie • Eleanor H. Porter
... passed the window and there was no candle. I settled down to recite the Chapter of the Stallion to him. Perhaps you do not know your Koran very well, monsieur? Well, I knew it by heart then, as I know it by heart now. The style is a little exasperating for anyone who is in a hurry. But, then, what would you have? The people in the East are never in a hurry, and it was written for them. I repeated it all with the dignity and solemnity ...
— The Green Flag • Arthur Conan Doyle
... with every regiment who know where ditches are that they can use as trenches, and who have studied the land so that they recognize places they have never seen, just from the maps that they have studied until they know them by heart. And it isn't only France that they know that way, but England, and some parts of Russia, too. Why, I've even heard that they've studied parts of America, around New York and ...
— The Boy Scouts on the Trail • George Durston
... nineteenth century in that respect were unknown to him. He had come to conquer, to civilize, to convert (for he was really a devout man from his youth upward); and, as his chaplain takes care to tell us, knew many prayers and psalms of the choir by heart; and the lives of thousands of barbarians, for so he deemed them, were of no account in the balance of his mind, when set against the great objects he had in view. In saying this, I am not apologizing for this cruelty; I am ...
— South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... city to show Tim the sights, and, therefore, though like a man in a dream, he drove conscientiously about the gay streets, pointing out whatever he thought might interest the boy, and generally discovering that Tim had the new information by heart already. All the while a question pounded itself, like the beat of the heart of an engine, through the noise and the talk: "Shall I give up Richards or be turned ...
— Stories of a Western Town • Octave Thanet
... that? She doesn't believe in practical demonstrations of our lessons, or in self-reliance; she says we've just to do what we are told. She got quite raggy when Diana mentioned it. We mayn't go near the stable for a week, and we've each to learn ten pages of poetry by heart." ...
— A harum-scarum schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... increase are one and 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 ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... route until she knew it by heart, and was just burning to pilot us through Bordeaux and ...
— Jonah and Co. • Dornford Yates
... 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; ...
— The Golden Age • Kenneth Grahame
... 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 patronage of ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... his bags, whose every parcel begets his adoration. Then to his studies, which are how to cozen this tenant, beggar that widow, or to undo some orphan. Then his bonds are viewed, the well-known days of payment conned by heart; and if he ever pray, it is some one may break his day that the beloved forfeiture may be obtained. His use is doubled, and no one sixpence begot or born but presently, by an untimely thrift, it is getting more. His chimney must not be acquainted with fire for fear of mischance; but if extremity ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... it through again and again till I had learned every word by heart. Who wrote it? I knew not. I counted no friends among the enemy, and danger was hardly likely to come from Raoul's party. Peleton's attempt to murder me was merely the outcome of personal spite, and ...
— My Sword's My Fortune - A Story of Old France • Herbert Hayens
... year passed by in this fashion, and at last the Emperor and his Court and all the Chinese people knew every turn and trill of the Nightingale's song by heart, and this pleased them more than ever. They often sang with it, and the street-urchins, even, could sing "Tchoochoohuh juggjugg jugg," and the Emperor just the same. It ...
— Tales of Wonder Every Child Should Know • Various
... adventures with his all-star company had been so freely discussed in every haunt where actors most do congregate that inside of a week after the Pleiades returned the frequenters of the Rialto had the story by heart. ...
— A Pirate of Parts • Richard Neville
... of a century since I have seen Uncle Remus. He visited us in our home in Hartford and was reverently devoured by the big eyes of Susy and Clara, for I made a deep and awful impression upon the little creatures—who knew his book by heart through my nightly declamation of its tales to them—by revealing to them privately that he was the real Uncle Remus whitewashed so that he could come into people's ...
— Chapters from My Autobiography • Mark Twain
... widely—Soutar was soaked in Carlyle, and Marget Howe knew her "In Memoriam" by heart—but our intellectual life centred on the weekly sermon. Men thought about Sabbath as they followed the plough in our caller air, and braced themselves for an effort at the giving out of the text. The hearer had his snuff and selected his attitude, and from that moment to the ...
— Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush • Ian Maclaren
... knowledge seemed to end, and it further appeared that Mrs. Best heard the Catechism and Collect on Sundays from the unconfirmed, and had tried to get the Gospel repeated by heart, but had ...
— Modern Broods • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... told us very little, only the position of the camp. But he knows all the plans and orders off by heart. He stole the plans from Winthrop's tent. But they have taken him—a spy! I tell ...
— The Southern Cross - A Play in Four Acts • Foxhall Daingerfield, Jr.
... suggestion, I would advise that, as soon as one has overcome the difficulties of the text (if actually learning by heart, there is nothing but the drudgery of constant repetition), and as one begins to work the story into true dramatic form, always say the words aloud, and many times aloud, before trying them even on one person. More suggestions come to one in the way of effects from ...
— The Art of the Story-Teller • Marie L. Shedlock
... for anybody to learn by heart!" commented her neighbor admiringly, as the old pianist finished, and stood up wiping his forehead. "Say, Mr. Burkhardt, what's the name of that selection?" ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield
... whole Gospel almost by heart, but he said that every time he read it he enjoyed a new and genuine spiritual delight. He said that not only was everything intelligible to him in the Gospel, but that when he read it he seemed to be reading in his own soul, and felt himself capable of rising higher and higher toward God and merging ...
— Reminiscences of Tolstoy - By His Son • Ilya Tolstoy
... to him a foreign art. He hired a poet of repute, Learnt yards of eloquence by heart, Came, full of it, to press his suit; At sight of me forgot his part ... What could I say when ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, June 10, 1914 • Various
... seest not 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[pq] In mighty graduations, part by part, The Glory which at once upon thee did ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... passed through a period of wild enthusiasm for Italian painting, and had haunted the National Gallery, and knew by heart Sir Charles Eastlake's edition of Kugler's ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... and mingling without a day's interruption. There were thus in reality for us only a few hours' absence; in the evening and at night. But even these I consecrated to her: I was surrounded with her letters,—they lay open upon the table, my bed was strewn with them; I learned them by heart. I often repeated to myself the most affecting and impassioned passages, adding in fancy her voice, her gesture, her tone, her look; I would answer her, and thus succeed in producing such a complete delusion of her real presence, that I felt impatient and annoyed when I ...
— Raphael - Pages Of The Book Of Life At Twenty • Alphonse de Lamartine
... literature was kept alive in our country by King Alfred's affection for the old English songs. We know that he used to recite them himself and would make his children get them by heart. He was not much of a scholar himself, but he had all the learning of Mercia to help him. Archbishop Plegmund and his chaplains were the King's secretaries, 'and night and day, whenever he had time, he commanded these men to read to him.' From France came Provost ...
— The Great Book-Collectors • Charles Isaac Elton and Mary Augusta Elton
... and especially that of France, is one vast, long drama, in which events are linked together according to defined laws, and in which the actors play parts not ready made and learned by heart, parts depending, in fact, not only upon the accidents of their birth, but also upon their own ideas and their own will. There are, in the history of peoples, two sets of causes essentially different, and, at the same time, closely connected; the natural ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume I. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... time, began to recount the story of the fifty thousand francs. His nephew, who knew it by heart, and all the variations with which he embellished it, ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... man named Vaner. Some of the biographers say Lincoln borrowed [it,] but it appears that he became the owner of the book, either by purchase or through the generosity of Vaner, for it was never returned to the latter. It is said that Lincoln learned this grammar practically by heart. "Sometimes," says Herndon, "he would stretch out at full length on the counter, his head propped up on a stack of calico prints, studying it; or he would steal away to the shade of some inviting tree, and there spend ...
— McClure's Magazine, January, 1896, Vol. VI. No. 2 • Various
... has but one answer, and that is "Sail on." He says "Sail on, sail on," over and over again, at the end of each stanza. I grant you it must have been monotonous enough to the crew, who after the first week or two probably knew it by heart; but never mind, it sounds well to us. It's especially good when declaimed. I don't suppose Columbus himself climbed the poop and declaimed it; he merely stopped shaving, stuck his head out of the chart-room and screeched it,—suitably mixed with whatever ...
— The Crow's Nest • Clarence Day, Jr.
... with the oppression of the poor, they held up to universal scorn and execration, as the dregs of hypocrisy. They warned the creature of such professions, that he could escape the wrath of Jehovah only by heart-felt repentance. And yet, according to the ecclesiastics with whom we have to do, the Lord of these prophets passed by in silence just such enormities as he commanded them to expose and denounce! Every where, he came in contact with slavery in its worst forms—"horrible cruelties" ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... it); 'and this man's translation is thus,' and then he repeated that also, exactly, though he had never seen it before, and read it over only once, and that too, without any intention of getting it by heart. ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell
... letters, as we have said. All their government and religion is founded on tradition, and on custom introduced by the Devil himself, who spoke to them through their idols and the ministers of these. They preserve it in songs, which they know by heart and learn when children, by hearing these sung when they are sailing or tilling their fields, when they are rejoicing and holding feasts, and especially, when they are mourning their dead. In these barbarous songs they relate the fabulous ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XII, 1601-1604 • Edited by Blair and Robertson
... unamused as he at his certainty that it had something to do with them, or she would not have mentioned it. She explained, "It's not a famous line at all, nothing I ever heard anybody else admire. We had to learn the poem by heart, when I was a little girl and went to school in Bayonne. It ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... children shall stop at home and arrange what to have for dinner, and the grown-up people shall be sent to school. We will start them off each morning with a little satchel. They shall be made to read 'Grimm's Fairy Tales' in the original German, with notes; and learn 'Old Mother Hubbard' by heart and explain ...
— They and I • Jerome K. Jerome
... chapel, and the chambers, and expatiated on the chances of attaining to New College. Being moreover a scholarly fellow, he and Ambrose fell into a discussion over the passage of Virgil, copied out on a bit of paper, which he was learning by heart. Some other scholars having finished their game, and become aware of the presence of a strange dog and two strange boys, proceeded to mob Stephen and Spring, whereupon the shy boy stood forth and declared that the Warden of St. Elizabeth's had brought ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... to you in the common interest, to warn you against that man. I believe he is on his way here to offer his services as a guide. He is fearless, untiring, and knows all this region by heart." ...
— The Cavalier • George Washington Cable
... of any man they proposed. Women were of consequence even in the eyes of the old and of the clergy; they were thoroughly familiar, to an extraordinary degree, with the march of events; they knew by heart the characters and habits of the king's friends and ministers. One of these, on returning to his chateau from Versailles, informed his wife about every thing with which he had been occupied; at home ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... let me love my Lord more fathom deep Than there is line to sound with: let me love My fellow not as men that mandates keep: Yea, all that's lovable, below, above, [11] That let me love by heart, by heart, because (Free from the penal pressure of the ...
— Select Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier
... to talk, yet not directly of the matter which perturbed his mind; but somehow by hearing his own voice he hoped to arrive at the popular sentiment. It was a way he had; and the Queen, who was often his audience, knew the preliminary symptoms by heart. So when presently he began crackling his newspaper and drawing a series of audible half breaths as though about to begin reading, his wife recognized the sign that here was something she must listen to. She put down her letters ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... better. Odd choice—for such a peaceable-looking fellow, isn't it? As for me—something I'll have to work hard to listen to, something to keep an edge on my mind. I've counted the cracks in the ceiling till I have a map of them by heart. I've worked out a system by which I can drain that ceiling country and raise crops there. There isn't much else in this room that I can count or lay out—worse luck! So I've named all the roses, and have wagers with myself ...
— Red Pepper's Patients - With an Account of Anne Linton's Case in Particular • Grace S. Richmond
... also, she knew by heart. This strange, bearded, greyish-haired brother of hers had come very often during the past half-year to the little book-shop, and the widow's home above it, his misshapen handbag full of papers, his ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... the gentry too, of the neighborhood for many miles round, to show their respect for her memory, because she had been such a good and religious woman; so good, indeed, that she knew all the Psaltery by heart, ay, and a great part of the Testament besides. Here little ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Vol. V (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland III • Various
... main boulevards noisy groups are commenting upon the events of the day. At the corner of the Rue Drouot an officer of the 117th Battalion is reading in a loud voice, or rather reciting, for he knows it all by heart, the proclamation of M. Picard, the official poster of ...
— Paris under the Commune • John Leighton
... imagined. I wept copiously all the time. I was so moved that I believe if the Emperor had been present, I should have flung my arms about his neck, to beg for pardon afterwards at his feet. After this I supped out: every one plied me with questions. I knew the whole bulletin by heart, and kept repeating it; and was glad to be able to tell the news to so many people, to repeat those simple impressive words, with a feeling of owning them, which you can understand better than I can define. I missed you much in all my joy, which I should have gladly shared with you; ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand
... been not unfavorably compared to Gibbon's "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire." The original newspaper comment, dated some thirty years back, the doctor had preserved, and would produce it, now somewhat frayed and worn, and read it to visitors. He knew it by heart, but to him it always possessed ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis
... it is told us that she was a girl. But maybe this is carping. There are young girls and old girls. Perhaps it is as well to have it in black and white; she was young. She was an American young girl. There is but one American young girl in English fiction. We know by heart the unconventional things that she will do, the startlingly original things that she will say, the fresh illuminating thoughts that will come to her as, clad in a loose robe of some soft clinging stuff, she sits before the fire, in the solitude of ...
— Idle Ideas in 1905 • Jerome K. Jerome
... 'My bird, my bonnie, bonnie bird, Is that a sang ye borrow? Are these some words ye've learnt by heart, Or a lilt o' dool an' sorrow? 'Oh, no, no, no,' the wee bird sang; 'I've flown sin' mornin' early; But sic a day o' wind an' rain— Oh, wae's me ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... sprang toward her, but she fended him off, and gave him a pained look and went on as he sank moaning into his chair: "Tom, dear, how should we spend the first whole hour we have ever had in our lives alone together? I have read and re-read your beautiful letters, dear. Oh, I know some of them by heart. I am yours, Tom—all yours. Now, dear," he made a motion to rise, "come here by my chair, I want to touch ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... compose his sweet song of Charmante Gabrielle? Jasmin indeed is the poet who is nearest the region of Henry IV."{6} Me cal Mouri was set to music by Fourgons, and obtained great popularity in the south. It was known by heart, and sung everywhere; in Agen, Toulouse, and throughout Provence. It was not until the publication of the first volume of his poems that it was known to be ...
— Jasmin: Barber, Poet, Philanthropist • Samuel Smiles
... calmly, as she "refooted" one of the father's stockings, "We did a good deal of the grammar, which I fear I have forgotten, and I learnt by heart a few of the Psalms in Latin, which I remember well. Also we commenced the system of Mr. Linnaeus, but I was very stupid, and ever preferred those plates which pictured the flower itself to those which gave the torn pieces, and which he thought most valuable. But, above all, he taught me to ...
— Melchior's Dream and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... till I have got it all by heart," said Thorold. "The worst is, I shall never find it in ...
— Daisy • Elizabeth Wetherell
... crimson maple-boughs, I know by heart each burning leaf, Yet would that like a barren reef Stripped to the breeze those ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 62, December, 1862 • Various
... then, or else skip the whole description. All the same. I know the whole story by heart. Love's young dream, and all that ...
— The American Baron • James De Mille
... personages of full-dress histories; to deal with them all as Thackeray has done with the Grand Monarque in one of his caustic sketches,—this would be as exciting, one might suppose, as to sit through a play one knows by heart at Drury Lane or the Theatre Francais, and might furnish occupation enough to the curious idler who was only in search of entertainment. The mechanical obstacles of half-illegible manuscript, of antiquated forms of speech, to say nothing of the intentional obscurities ...
— Memoir of John Lothrop Motley, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... to take care of herself now," she thought, "and I have nothing to do. I wish I cared about reading, but I don't. I like people to tell me stories, but nobody has more than a few, and you get to know them all off by heart. The books always say such a lot between the happening parts, and if you skip too much you lose part of the story. The story people all sit down and fold their hands, and wait till the close thick pages of prosy prosy are over, and when they get up again and go on they have forgotten their parts. ...
— Terry - Or, She ought to have been a Boy • Rosa Mulholland
... trouble, however, to read the notice. He knew it and the 'Parlour' behind it by heart. But he moved away, pondering ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... was looking at the liquid boiling; my father, seated near the window, had just opened the Court Almanac which he received every year. This book had great influence over him; he read it with extreme attention, and reading prodigiously stirred up his bile. My mother, knowing by heart all his ways and oddities, used to try to hide the miserable book, and often whole months would pass without a sight of it. But, in revenge whenever he did happen to find it, he would sit for hours with ...
— Marie • Alexander Pushkin
... comment, which preserves its interest as hearing on recent educational controversies:—"I wish to express that we become tired of the task before we can comprehend the beauty; that we learn by rote, before we get by heart; that the freshness is worn away, and the future pleasure and advantage deadened and destroyed, at an age when we can neither feel nor understand the power of composition, which it requires an acquaintance with life, as well as Latin and Greek, ...
— Byron • John Nichol
... feel sure that no study without trial is of avail; life must be lived to learn these truths. I believe, if a man knows his Bible fairly, and then goes forth into the world, God will show him His works. The Jews learnt the Scripture by heart, and so I expect our Saviour did; He therefore had no need to study it. He applied its teachings to life ...
— General Gordon - A Christian Hero • Seton Churchill
... beginning to see life, the sweetness of stolen pleasures; and when he entered, he put his hand on the door-handle with a joy almost sensual. Then many things hidden within him came out; he learnt couplets by heart and sang them to his boon companions, became enthusiastic about Beranger, learnt how to make punch, and, finally, how ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert
... is to Chicago we must turn for the most extraordinary results of this atmospheric disturbance. It is needless to tell the story in detail. The world knows it by heart: ...
— Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel • Ignatius Donnelly
... captain commenced, in a tone of voice like a schoolboy reciting the catalogue of the ships in Homer. He had been evidently conning the symptoms, and learning them by heart. Nor was there a single nook or corner in his anatomical organization, so far as the captain was acquainted with that structure, but what some symptom or other was dragged therefrom, and exposed to day. The squire ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... out ice cream with enthusiasm, so I supposed he was getting rich. It never occurred to me to compare his present occupation with the position for which he had been originally destined; or if I thought about it, I was just as well content, for by this time I had by heart my father's saying, "America is not Polotzk." All occupations were respectable, all men ...
— Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools - Edited With Notes, Study Helps, And Reading Lists • Various
... of winter on the Divide. Canute stumbled into his shanty carrying a basket of cobs, and after filling the stove, sat down on a stool and crouched his seven foot frame over the fire, staring drearily out of the window at the wide gray sky. He knew by heart every individual clump of bunch grass in the miles of red shaggy prairie that stretched before his cabin. He knew it in all the deceitful loveliness of its early summer, in all the bitter barrenness of its autumn. ...
— The Troll Garden and Selected Stories • Willa Cather
... ye jest the eend I've come to Arter cipherin' plaguy smart, An' it makes a handy sum, tu, Any gump could larn by heart; Laborin' man an' laborin' woman Hev one glory an' one shame, Ev'y thin' thet 's done inhuman Injers all on ...
— The Biglow Papers • James Russell Lowell
... with me a book of anatomical designs, and when I was at home I stood before the glass and said suddenly to myself, putting my finger on some part of my body, "Now then, what is that?" I had to answer immediately, without hesitation, and when I hesitated I compelled myself to learn by heart the muscles of the head or the arm, and did not sleep till ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt
... apprehend, comprehend; take, realize, understand, savvy [Slang], appreciate; fathom, make out; recognize, discern, perceive, see, get a sight-of, experience. know full well; have some knowledge of, possess some knowledge of; be au courant &c adj.; have in one's head, have at one' fingers ends; know by heart, know by rote; be master of; connaitre le dessous des cartes [Fr.], know what's what &c 698. see one's way; discover &c 480.1. come to one's knowledge &c (information) 527. Adj. knowing &c v.; cognitive; acroamatic^. aware of, cognizant of, conscious of; acquainted with, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... endless swaying and rocking and trembling of all things else! And then, following close, came other words, more lately learned. Not now read over, with those pencil marks beside them; but read often enough before, happily, to have been learned by heart; and now passing and re-passing in unceasing procession ...
— The Gold of Chickaree • Susan Warner
... in both. Nay, but I was anxious, how I might retain all [these precepts]; as being things of a delicate nature, and in a delicate style. Tell me the name of this man; and at the same time whether he is a Roman, or a foreigner? As I have them by heart, I will recite the precepts: the author ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace
... Joseph and his bad brothers, and the frogs that came up out of the sea, and dear little Moses in the water, and ever so many more lovely ones, but I liked about the Good Man best of all, and Grandpa told it to me so many times that I learned it by heart, and he gave me this picture so I shouldn't forget, and it was put up here once when I was sick, and I left it for other sick ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... from Percentage through the arithmetic four times—Rebecca Mary's splendid in arithmetic. And she knows the geography and grammar by heart." ...
— Rebecca Mary • Annie Hamilton Donnell
... made light on it, and he says, "Pooh, pooh, Macey, make yourself easy," he says; "it's neither the meaning nor the words—it's the regester does it—that's the glue." So you see he settled it easy; for parsons and doctors know everything by heart, like, so as they aren't worreted wi' thinking what's the rights and wrongs o' things, as I'n been many and many's the time. And sure enough the wedding turned out all right, on'y poor Mrs. Lammeter—that's Miss Osgood as was—died afore the lasses was growed ...
— Silas Marner - The Weaver of Raveloe • George Eliot
... want to keep our eyes about us," remarked Fred, "so as to know the trail by heart. All of us but Sid have already been across to the other road, but on that account don't think you know it all. Observe everything around, and make a mental map of the course. It'll be a great help, ...
— Fred Fenton Marathon Runner - The Great Race at Riverport School • Allen Chapman
... led me to thee. It is said that thou art the most clever of actresses and the most irresistible of women. That which is related of thy riches and thy love affairs seems fabulous, and calls to mind the old story of Rhodope, whose marvellous history is known by heart to all the boatmen on the Nile. Therefore I was seized with a desire to know thee, and I see that the truth surpasses the rumour. Thou art a thousand times more clever and more beautiful than is reported. And now that I see thee, I say to myself, 'It is impossible to approach ...
— Thais • Anatole France
... not say, do not read Ethnology—by all means do so; and above all things read, until you know it by heart, Primitive Culture, by Dr. E. B. Tylor, regarding which book I may say that I have never found a fact that flew in the face of the carefully made, broad- minded deductions of this greatest of Ethnologists. In addition you must know ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... Claes, with its fine architecture, its portraits, its dark furniture and gleaming silver, its garden of rare tulips—Balzac's imagination is poured into the scene, it is exactly the kind of opportunity that he welcomes. He knows the place by heart; his description of it is in his most methodical style. Steadily it all comes out, a Holbein-picture with every orderly detail duly arranged, the expression of good manners, sound taste and a solid position. On such a world, created as he knows how to create ...
— The Craft of Fiction • Percy Lubbock
... then to speak of Leonardo da Vinci, mingling with his own fantasies the perfect words of that essay which, so wonderful was his memory, he seemed to know by heart. He found exotic fancies in the likeness between Saint John the Baptist, with his soft flesh and waving hair, and Bacchus, with his ambiguous smile. Seen through his eyes, the seashore in the Saint Anne had the airless lethargy of some damasked chapel in a Spanish ...
— The Magician • Somerset Maugham
... of the concert she superintended Lark's dressing with maternal care. "You look all right," she said, "just fine. Now don't get scared, Lark. It's so silly. Remember that you know all those people by heart, you can talk a blue streak to any of them. ...
— Prudence Says So • Ethel Hueston
... swallows fly when our Winter comes on, lived a King who had eleven sons, and one daughter named Eliza. The eleven brothers were Princes, and each went to school with a star on his breast and his sword by his side. They wrote with pencils of diamond upon slates of gold, and learned by heart just as well as they read: one could see directly that they were Princes. Their sister Eliza sat upon a little stool of plate-glass, and had a picture-book which had been bought for the ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... To the Great Spirit, would his spirit bow, With hopes that Nature's impulses impart; Unlike the Christian, who just says his vow With heart enough to say it all by heart. Did we his virtues from his faults discern, 'Twould teach a lesson that we well might learn: An inculcation worthiest of our creed, To tell the simple truth, and do ...
— The Emigrant - or Reflections While Descending the Ohio • Frederick William Thomas
... lawyer and orator, was born at Ipswich, Massachusetts, on the 1st of October 1799, the descendant of a family which settled in Massachusetts in 1667. As a child he was remarkably precocious; at six he is said to have been able to repeat large parts of the Bible and of Pilgrim's Progress by heart. He graduated as valedictorian of his class at Dartmouth College in 1819, was a tutor there in 1819-1820, spent a year in the law school of Harvard University, and studied for a like period at Washington, in the office of William Wirt, then attorney-general of the United States. ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various
... satin appeared to live and beat their wings, and one could almost hear the song of the birds which grew under her fingers, and smell the perfume of the flowers she wrought upon canvas. She knew the "Book of Odes" by heart, and could repeat the five rules of life without missing a word. Her handwriting was perfection, and she composed in all the different styles of Chinese poetry. Her poems were upon all those delicate themes which would attract the mind of a pure young girl; upon the return of the swallows, the ...
— The Aldine, Vol. 5, No. 1., January, 1872 - A Typographic Art Journal • Various
... story as Dad sucked the dregs of beer off his moustache. Dad recognized the opening sentence. It was one of the interminable stories out of the Decameron of the bar-room, realistic and obscene, that circulate among drinkers. Dad knew it by heart. He looked at his glass, and remembered that it was his fourth drink. Instantly he thought of the Duchess. With his usual formula "'Scuse me; I'm a married man, y'know," he hurried out of the bar in ...
— Jonah • Louis Stone
... Bede, in their elegant treatises, had given of them, I found nothing said of those kings who lived here before Christ, nor of Arthur, and many others; though their actions were celebrated by many people in a pleasant manner, and by heart, as if they had been written. Whilst I was thinking of these things, Walter, Archdeacon of Oxford, a man learned in foreign histories, offered me a very ancient book in the Britannic tongue, which, in a continued ...
— Mediaeval Wales - Chiefly in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries: Six Popular Lectures • A. G. Little
... "But I won't take up your time with details. You know the progress of an ordinary love affair. Throw in a few more flowers and a little more sunshine than is usual, a man who is practically a hermit and a woman who knows the world by heart, and ...
— The Masquerader • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... play, and that they knew their own limitations—neither Jim nor Wally ever deluded themselves with the idea that they knew as much as their hard-bitten non-commissioned officers. But they learned their men by heart, knowing each one's nickname and something of his private affairs; losing no opportunity of talking to them and gaining their confidence, and sizing them up, as they talked, just as in old days, ...
— Captain Jim • Mary Grant Bruce
... meanly of me,' went on Cyril in the same heavy, monotonous voice, as though he were repeating some lesson that he had carefully conned and got by heart, 'as to suppose that I should take advantage of her promise and yours? If you will let me see her, I will tell her so. Do you think I would drag her down to ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... business that I have been to the palace to-night," Archer went on simply, "and where I've been kept four hours, in an anteroom, with nothing but yesterday's Times, which I knew by heart, as I wrote three of the leading articles myself; and though the Lord Chamberlain came in four times, and once holding the royal teacup and saucer in his hand, he did not so much as say to me, 'Archer, will you have ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... respect, shown by the assembled crowd, to that solemn functionary. As to taking out a summons, it's quite a hopeless case if Simmons attends it, on behalf of the parish. He knows all the titles of the Lord Mayor by heart; states the case without a single stammer: and it is even reported that on one occasion he ventured to make a joke, which the Lord Mayor's head footman (who happened to be present) afterwards told an intimate friend, confidentially, was ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... a certain class of minds. But, indeed, the schoolmaster is not abroad; he is domesticated in every village in America, where each hamlet has its would-be Shakespeare, and each would-be Shakespeare has his 'Hamlet' by heart. Learning is rampant in the land, and valuable information is pasted up in the streetcars so that he ...
— The Eagle's Shadow • James Branch Cabell
... such dry topics. He succeeded, and in that line is now the best speaker in the House. I have no doubt he has studied his subjects and practised himself in public speaking. Years and years ago I remember his delight on Hume's comparison between Demosthenes and Cicero, and how he knew the passage by heart; but it is one thing to attack strong abuses and fire off well-rounded set phrases, another to administer the naval affairs of the country and be ready to tilt against all comers, as he must do for the future.[4] Palmerston ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville |
