"Recitation" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Greek which your sister knows or doesn't know will always be a very unimportant matter; she has things that are so infinitely more valuable to give to the world. And deserves so much better things for herself," he added, drawing together his texts for the next recitation. ...
— Different Girls • Various
... spiritual. In every town of the land the Meeting-house arose, opening its doors upon the Sabbath and on market days, to the villagers, who gathered for a simple service of instruction and devotion. The service began with a short prayer, which was followed by the recitation of some portions of "The Law," setting forth the great beliefs and duties of the Jewish religion—a confession of faith, in other words. After this came the long prayer, which, in later times, became liturgical; and then the reading of the lesson for the day from "The Law," with its ...
— The Right and Wrong Uses of the Bible • R. Heber Newton
... With the letters of this 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 ...
— Chips From A German Workshop, Vol. V. • F. Max Mueller
... to play it a second time, greatly to the apparent satisfaction of the audience. It was clear that, whatever might be thought of Professor Riccabocea's recitation, the young violinist ...
— The Young Musician - or, Fighting His Way • Horatio Alger
... long ago did Benjamin Franklin live? Learn all that you can about his life and work, and repeat it to the class at the next recitation. ...
— The New McGuffey Fourth Reader • William H. McGuffey
... 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 ...
— Our Bessie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... mind his deliberate and strong utterance. His mode of speaking was indeed very impressive[958]; and I wish it could be preserved as musick is written, according to the very ingenious method of Mr. Steele[959], who has shown how the recitation of Mr. Garrick, and other eminent speakers, might be ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... everything he read. He achieved familiarity with Latin and with Latin authors, and absorbed a great deal of history. He was the best general scholar in the college. He was not only not deficient but he showed excellence at recitation in every branch of study. He could learn anything if he tried. But with all this he never gained more than a smattering of Greek and still less of mathematics, because those studies require, for ...
— Daniel Webster • Henry Cabot Lodge
... 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 ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.
... was loud enough to break the slumberous silence of the great Zaouia. And the singing of the men in the near oasis who fought the sand, the groaning of the well-cords woven of palm fibre which raised the buckets of hollowed palm-trunks, was as monotonous as the recitation of the Koran. The woman had heard it so often that she had long ago ceased to hear ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... has recited her lesson without a fault. She receives a good mark. Emmeline Capel too receives a good mark for her recitation in arithmetic. ...
— Our Children - Scenes from the Country and the Town • Anatole France
... duty to march his section to the proper recitation room in Academic Hall, to preserve discipline while marching, and to report his ...
— Dave Darrin's First Year at Annapolis • H. Irving Hancock
... be given as a recitation by changing the title to "Puerto Rico." The words apply to this island as well as to ...
— A Little Journey to Puerto Rico - For Intermediate and Upper Grades • Marian M. George
... to evade hard work. The fact that Teacher took no delight in traveling the prosaic highways of addition, multiplication and division, but could be easily lured to wander the flowery lanes of romantic fiction, was soon grasped by the downstairs pupils. The hour set for recitation by the first class in arithmetic was often and often monopolized by a hold-over of the first class in reading, while Miss Floretta, artfully spurred by questions asked by the older scholars, rhapsodized on the beauties of James Fenimore Cooper's ...
— Shavings • Joseph C. Lincoln
... 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 ...
— Under the Lilacs • Louisa May Alcott
... dedicated to him one of his many philological treatises. The date of his death is not quite certain; but it may be safely assigned to about 90 B.C. With him died tragic writing at Rome: scarcely a generation after we find tragedy has donned the form of the closet drama, written only for recitation. Cicero and his brother assiduously cultivated this rhetorical art. When writing failed, however, acting rose, and the admirable performances of Aesopus and Roscius did much to keep alive an interest in the old works. Varius and Pollio seem for a ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... attention of 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, ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... the process of lionization. He has introduced a new feature into his representation of the part, by the recitation in public of his own verses. He has produced for the Great London Exhibition a "Hymn for all Nations," which is to be translated into thirty different languages, set to music, and printed. This polyglott will be a philological ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... end of two weeks, school with its games and its bells for recitation had become a thing of the past and Christopher felt as much at home in his father's shop as if his name was ...
— Christopher and the Clockmakers • Sara Ware Bassett
... college 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 mud;" and so on, until he came to a favorite, when the ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls, Vol. XIII, Nov. 28, 1891 • Various
... won't disappear before the school concert. How am I to get up there and recite? You know there is one line in my recitation, 'She waved her lily-white hand,' and I have to wave mine when I say it. Fancy waving a lily-white hand all covered with warts. I've tried every remedy I ever heard of, but nothing does any good. Judy Pineau said if I rubbed them ...
— The Golden Road • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... grand 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 the plot of the tragedy.... ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells
... enthusiastically, to draft the memorial—a process in the course of which they soon caught fire; and I had no more ado but to sit looking on and answer an occasional question. The paper was very well expressed; beginning with a recitation of the facts about myself, the reward offered for my apprehension, my surrender, the pressure brought to bear upon me; my sequestration; and my arrival at Inverary in time to be too late; going on to explain ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 11 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... listening to a foreign tongue. He does not find this very stimulating, and is slow to respond to the more subtle incentives of the schoolroom. The peasant child is perfectly indifferent to showing off and making a good recitation. He leaves all that to his schoolfellows, who are more sophisticated and equipped with better English. His parents are not deeply interested in keeping him in school, and will not hold him there against his inclination. ...
— Democracy and Social Ethics • Jane Addams
... officers, to wind up. Baden-Powell himself seems to have descended from the eyrie from which, like a captain on the bridge, he rang bells and telephoned orders, to bring the house down with a comic song and a humorous recitation. The ball went admirably, save that there was an interval to repel an attack which disarranged the programme. Sports were zealously cultivated, and the grimy inhabitants of casemates and trenches were pitted ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... rang and she went to her recitation. It was in Civil Government. Lydia sat down dejectedly next to Charlie Jackson, the splendid, ...
— Lydia of the Pines • Honore Willsie Morrow
... the first view of the sanctuary to arrival at the gate, and thence to this point, the Jew had promptly followed his guide, especially in recitation of the prescribed prayers, he was about to do so now; already his ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... and trim them to please a later taste, they are as full of vigour and sap to-day as they were in the Ballad Age, when such poetry sprung up naturally and spontaneously. It is probable that not one of the old ballads that have come down to us by oral recitation is the product of a single hand; or of twenty hands. The greater its age, and the greater its popular favour, the greater is the number of individual memories and imaginations through which it has been filtered, taking from each some trace of colour, ...
— The Balladists - Famous Scots Series • John Geddie
... friend furthermore observed, that the demolition of Drury Lane Theatre by fire, its reconstruction under the auspices of the celebrated Mr. Whitbread, {2} the reward offered by the Committee for an opening address, and the public recitation of a poem composed expressly for the occasion by Lord Byron, one of the most popular writers of the age, formed an extraordinary concurrence of circumstances which could not fail to insure the success of the Rejected Addresses, while it ...
— Rejected Addresses: or, The New Theatrum Poetarum • James and Horace Smith
... 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
... took her books and sat down to her studies, as attentively as if her mother had been waiting to hear her recitation. ...
— Parker's Second Reader • Richard G. Parker
... 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
... until they be hatched." Nevertheless, genuine fables of Esop were current in Athens at the best period of its literary history, though it does not appear that they existed in writing during his lifetime. Aristophanes represents a character in one of his plays as learning Esop's fables from oral recitation. When first reduced to writing they were in prose, and Socrates is said to have turned some of them into verse, his example being followed by Babrius, amongst others, of whose version but few fables remain entire. The most celebrated of his Latin ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston
... Cumberland; men who had been tried and never found wanting; men whom he assured General Schofield would go wherever ordered, and against any foe. After the adjournment of the public demonstration, the two generals, with their staffs, were handsomely entertained by Captain Roper, where song, sentiment, and recitation were the order of the evening—Colonel George, Colonel Vandeveer, Colonel Long, and other ...
— Incidents of the War: Humorous, Pathetic, and Descriptive • Alf Burnett
... given a most effective description of the dream; the accompanied recitation being very fine indeed, and splendidly performed by Miss JULIA NEILSON, who, like JUBAL, has been in the Tree's Shadow at the Haymarket. Fine triumphal march and chorus. Your own MAGGIE MCINTYRE, and your Mr. BARTON McGUCKIN, were in excellent form, and everybody was delighted, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, March 15, 1890 • Various
... what they have heard. They should learn 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, or even ...
— Lothair • Benjamin Disraeli
... 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
... Breakfast, responded Mr. Daley, was at seven-thirty and ran half an hour. Chapel was at eight-fifteen usually, although there would be none to-morrow, as school did not officially begin until noon. The first recitation hour was nine o'clock. Dinner ran from twelve-thirty to one-thirty. Recitations began again at two and lasted until half-past three. Supper was at six. Between seven and eight the students were required ...
— Left End Edwards • Ralph Henry Barbour
... 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 colors. Pardon, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... Army" Private Allanson. Song Private "Sport" Edwards. Song Private Bolt. Recitation "Voice of Gallipoli" Private Carr. Song "Queen of Angels" Private Rolfe. Song Private Allanson. Song Private Piggott. Sketch "Chrysanthemums" Corpl. Haydock. Song Private Carr. Recitation Lieut. Field. Song Private Vicaridge. Song Private "Sport" Edwards. Song ...
— The 28th: A Record of War Service in the Australian Imperial Force, 1915-19, Vol. I • Herbert Brayley Collett
... had originated in my refusal to marry Isabella Gayerson—a young lady with landed estates and a fortune of eighty thousand pounds. I merely informed Monsieur, I confess, that my father and I had fallen out over money matters. Cannot most marriages arranged by loving parents be so described? To my recitation the old gentleman listened with much patience, and when I had partially eased my soul ...
— Dross • Henry Seton Merriman
... introducing details which belonged to the realm of romance rather than to that of ordinary history. These Katari-be would seem to have been the sole repository of their country's annals until the sixth century of the Christian era. Their repertories of recitation included records of the great families as well as of the sovereigns, and it is easy to conceive that the favour and patronage of these high personages were earned by ornamenting the traditions of their households and exalting their pedigrees. But when the art of writing was introduced ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... seated in a semi-circle around the teacher, and all whispering was strictly forbidden during the recitation. One day—but I must stop here, and tell you that we all wore white stockings and low shoes then. We never had any high shoes at all. Our white stockings must always be fresh and clean, of course, and I always put on a clean ...
— Cricket at the Seashore • Elizabeth Westyn Timlow
... Greek—about as well as most of the class; but the manner in which the ancient languages were then studied was deplorably superficial. It was confined to the most cursory reading of the text. Besides the Latin and Greek languages, we had a weekly recitation in Lowth's English Grammar, and in the Hebrew Grammar, without points; also in Arithmetic and History, the last from Millot's Compend as a text-book. In all these branches there was an entire want of apparatus; and the standard, compared with that which now exists, was extremely ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various
... represented in India, which is itself represented every year with such magnificence and to such crowds of people in the neighbourhood of Ayodhya, a poem welcomed at its very birth with such favour, as the legend relates, that the recitation of it by the first wandering Rhapsodists has consecrated and made famous all the places celebrated by them, and where Rama made a shorter or longer stay, how, I ask, could such an epic have been purely allegorical? How, upon a pure invention, upon ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... of commencing with the above line, in the second volume of the Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, p. 114. It is entitled "Barthram's Dirge," and "was taken down," says Scott, "by Mr. Surtees, from the recitation of Anne Douglas, an old woman, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 201, September 3, 1853 • Various
... passes over their heads, clinging obstinately to old songs and beliefs learned in childhood, and handing them on to posterity. Walter Scott got much of the material for his "Ministrelsy of the Border" from the oral recitation of pipers, shepherds, and old women in Ettrick Forest. Professor Child's—the latest and fullest ballad collection—contains pieces never before given in print or manuscript, some of them obtained ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... 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 of the absurdity and impiety of warfare, we are not ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... I got to go to a mathematics recitation, Bill. You make yourself comfortable, and I'll be ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis
... the one the school-boy makes, when he opens his Virgil at the Fourth Eclogue, and lumberingly reads, "Sicilian Muses, let us sing things a little greater." But there is nothing clumsy, nothing which smacks of the recitation-room, in these lines of Mr. Longfellow. For easy grace and exquisite beauty it would be difficult to surpass them. They may well bear comparison with the beautiful lines into which Lord Byron has rendered the ...
— The Unseen World and Other Essays • John Fiske
... had been indefatigable at the rehearsals, frequently going through the whole character of Romeo himself until he was completely exhausted with the fatigue of recitation. This was only a short period before the death of that ...
— Beaux and Belles of England • Mary Robinson
... the use of "ponies," and much less reputable aids to perfect recitation in school and in college, is not considered dishonorable among the youth of the present age. Unmannerly and cruel as the girls in our seminary appeared to me, they had a certain sense of honor, a respect for truth ...
— When Grandmamma Was New - The Story of a Virginia Childhood • Marion Harland
... Palatine chapel, with its Saracen arches and priceless mosaics, and the ancient oriental-looking Norman church of S. Giovanni degli Eremite. Dulcie, who had been learning Longfellow's Robert of Sicily for her last recitation in the elocution class at school, was much thrilled, and wanted to know in which of the churches he had made his famous defiance of Heaven, and had been turned from his throne by the angel, who temporarily took his place as king till he repented of his vain glory. ...
— The Princess of the School • Angela Brazil
... 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 ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... and published, being pressed for money, he wished to sell the copyright. After a recitation of his pecuniary troubles, Hunt concluded a lengthy ...
— A Publisher and His Friends • Samuel Smiles
... and fearless handling, and liquor-drinking was rebuked in almost every conceivable way and rubbed in repeatedly. The old and the modern ways of teaching were compared and illustrated; indeed, every recitation was evidently selected with reference ...
— American Missionary, Volume 50, No. 8, August, 1896 • Various
... dwell in my recitation on the vices and frailties of my brothers of the dust, and to describe myself as an innocent sufferer; but I now approach a period of my life, from the mention of which I shrink with well-grounded ...
— Theresa Marchmont • Mrs Charles Gore
... quite 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
... had been instructed in particular speeches, and to these, as a rule, he was obliged to restrict his efforts. For a long time he had been wishing to learn 'Satan's Address to the Sun,' a favourite recitation of his father's; but old Lawrence had declined to intrust him with so important a subject. Nevertheless the boy had acquainted himself with the tone and manner appropriate to the piece, and announced ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook
... night I asked my mother what I should learn as my recitation. She got down a book that she had used when she was a little school girl, and in it were a number of nice pieces. There was one about Mary and her little lamb, but I thought that was too young for me to take, so ...
— Bunny Brown and his Sister Sue Giving a Show • Laura Lee Hope
... beyond the schoolroom. A pupil has a problem, but it is the problem of meeting the peculiar requirements set by the teacher. His problem becomes that of finding out what the teacher wants, what will satisfy the teacher in recitation and examination and outward deportment. Relationship to subject matter is no longer direct. The occasions and material of thought are not found in the arithmetic or the history or geography itself, but ...
— Democracy and Education • John Dewey
... may have many imperfections, but if it may be happily instrumental in producing a regard to Religion and Virtue in the minds of Young Persons, and afford them an innocent, and perhaps not altogether unuseful amusement in the exercise of recitation, the end for which it was originally composed ... will be fully answered." A drama may seem to us above the comprehension of the poor and illiterate class of people whose attention Miss More wished to hold, but when we feel inclined to ...
— Forgotten Books of the American Nursery - A History of the Development of the American Story-Book • Rosalie V. Halsey
... "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 ...
— Pioneers and Founders - or, Recent Workers in the Mission field • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... that ten cups of wine be drunk in the house by the funeral party; three before supper, to whet the appetite; three during supper, to aid digestion; and four after the meal, at the recitation of the four benedictions. Afterward four complimentary cups were added, one in honor of the precentors, one in honor of the municipal authorities, another in remembrance of the Temple, and the fourth in the memory of Rabbon Gamliel. Drunkenness so often ensued on these occasions ...
— Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala • Various
... the one true method of intellectual advance, what should we expect but a confusion of clashing, imperfect, or tentative processes of instruction? He who could, to-day, ciceroned by some pedagogic Asmodeus, visit one hundred of our schools, or listen successively to a recitation on a given topic, conducted by one hundred qualified and faithful instructors, would find the methods and no-methods of introducing to the century of classes the truths of this self-same subject to be—and we do not mean in the personal element, ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... 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 showing even ...
— The Twin Cousins • Sophie May
... on some point in recitation, he could retrieve himself by reciting it correctly later with extra information on the point, gathered from the reference books, and thus he was saved from humiliation and discouragement, and at the same time, he was stimulated to making independent researches in the school and ...
— The Gentleman from Everywhere • James Henry Foss
... the class passed out to a recitation-room, the empurpled Victorine among them, and Miss Spence started the remaining half through the ordeal of trial by mathematics. Several boys and girls were sent to the blackboard, and Penrod, spared for the moment, followed their operations a little while with his ...
— Penrod • Booth Tarkington
... were Dr. Johnson, Fox, Burke, Dr. Parr, Northcote, and many other celebrities of his day. Apart from his own special art, he was passionately devoted to poetry, and is said to have had a wonderful memory for recitation. The house at which he was born is situated about half-way between St. Agnes and Perranporth. Trevaunance Porth, which now has some insignificant accommodation for shipping, is notable for the difficulties that ...
— The Cornwall Coast • Arthur L. Salmon
... penitential action which accompanied prayer was the 'cros-figul.' This was an extension of the arms in the shape of a cross; if anyone wants to know how difficult a practice this is let him try it for, say, fifteen minutes. Regarding recitation of the Divine Office it was of counsel, and probably of precept, that is should not be from memory merely, but that the psalms should all be read. For this a good reason was given by Maelruin, i.e. that the recitation might engage the eye as well as the tongue and thought. An Irish ...
— The Life of St. Mochuda of Lismore • Saint Mochuda
... too favourable a representative of readers at large. It is of course to be supposed that I determined rather to guide my opinion by what my friend might appear to feel, than by what he might think fit to say. His reception of my recitation, or prelection, was rather singular. He placed his hand across his brow, and listened with great attention through the whole account of the stag-hunt, till the dogs threw themselves into the lake to follow their master, who embarks with Ellen Douglas. He then started up with a sudden ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... in astronomy," answered Anne, "and lately she fails every day in recitation. You know it's a one-term study, and she will have to try an exam in it before long. I don't believe she'll pass, and she told Nora at the beginning of the year that if she failed in one study this year she wouldn't have enough credits to get ...
— Grace Harlowe's Senior Year at High School - or The Parting of the Ways • Jessie Graham Flower
... and then the mandolins and guitars; yes, Sister, and then Mary Cudahy's recitation; yes, Sister. Is that too near Loretta's song? All right, Sister, the French play can go in between, and ...
— Poor, Dear Margaret Kirby and Other Stories • Kathleen Norris
... 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, suggest ...
— The Elements of Geology • William Harmon Norton
... school-children with corkscrew curls held a heated argument—in rhyme—on the benefits of temperance; and, most surprising and thrilling of all, Mr Jevons, the butler from The Manor, so far descended from his pedestal as to volunteer "a comic item" in the shape of a recitation, bearing chiefly, it would appear, on the execution of a pig. The last remnant of stiffness vanished before this inspiring theme, and the audience roared applause as one man, whereupon Mr Jevons bashfully hid his face, ...
— A College Girl • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... picked up the recitation of the days of the week for her own private use, and was repeating it ad libitum in a melodious undertone, always becoming louder on Flyday, Tackyday, Tunday. She was hanging over the window-sill watching the surgical case opposite. How glad I am now when I recollect my impulse ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... entered so quietly was only the chambermaid, come to perform some forgotten duty, Isabelle did not interrupt her study or look up, but went on composedly with her recitation. The duke, who had breathlessly advanced to the centre of the room, paused there, and stood motionless, gazing with rapture upon her beauty. As he waited for her to open her eyes and become aware of his presence, he sank gracefully down upon one knee, ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... recitation and was drowsing, her head pillowed on the table. The reddish light was growing, and I realized that I was waiting for dawn as, days ago, I had waited for sunset in Shainsa, with every nerve stretched to the breaking point. It was dawn of the third morning, and this bird lying on the table before ...
— The Door Through Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... what is worthy of attention, and guard him against the errors to which he is constantly exposed; for first impressions are lively and permanent, and the errors of the study, even though corrected in the recitation, not unfrequently leave an impression on the mind ...
— Germania and Agricola • Caius Cornelius Tacitus
... i.e. those whose place it was to entertain him by night with the relation of stories and anecdotes and the recitation ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne
... was trying to dispose of two thick slices of bread and butter before recitation, was too ...
— Harper's Young People, August 10, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... stolen article and buries it in the ash-heap where it is duly found, the necessity for resorting to the further method of divination being thus obviated. Occasionally the Bharia in his character of a Hindu will make a vow to pay for a recitation of the Satya Narayan Katha or some other holy work. But he understands nothing of it, and if the Brahman employed takes a longer time than he had bargained for over the recitation he ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell
... affectation of effrontery. "But really we needn't go over it again. You know what a nice letter he wrote Aunt Frances?" And instead of waiting for an answer, Tishy, perhaps to avoid catechism about the moonrise and things, ploughs straight on into a recitation of her lover's letter to her aunt: "Dear Lady Sales—Of course it will (quite literally) give me the greatest possible pleasure to come. I will bring the Strad"; and then afterwards he said: "I hope your niece will give a full account of me, and not draw any veils over ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... school-boys might play in our own land. While his back was turned they took his whip and hid it and duly triumphed in his mystification and dismay. We did not wait for the catastrophe, but by the politeness of another student found the booth of the custodian, who showed us to the library. A noise of recitation from the windows looking into the patio followed us up-stairs; but maturer students were reading at tables in the hushed library, and at a large central table a circle of grave authorities of some sort were smoking the air blue with ...
— Familiar Spanish Travels • W. D. Howells
... brushing out schoolrooms and mopping floors. Anne was determined, however, to give one good, thorough search for her letter and she accordingly mounted to the floor where the freshmen class room was situated and entered the large, empty recitation room. ...
— Grace Harlowe's Plebe Year at High School - The Merry Doings of the Oakdale Freshmen Girls • Jessie Graham Flower
... well the girl from Bohemia fitted into the life at Harding. She had never experienced an examination or even a formal recitation until the beginning of her freshman term. She had seldom lived three months in any one place, and she had grown up absolutely without reference to the rules and regulations and conventions that meant so much ...
— Betty Wales, Sophomore • Margaret Warde
... 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 out by a sequel, by the addition of a new adventure which requires ...
— Epic and Romance - Essays on Medieval Literature • W. P. Ker
... Reading in his Garret His First Books Florian's Romances Begins to Rhyme The Poetic Nature Barbers and Poetry Importance of the Barber Jasmin first Theatrical Entertainment Under the Tiles Talent for Recitation Jasmin begins Business ...
— Jasmin: Barber, Poet, Philanthropist • Samuel Smiles
... was twenty-two, a French officer visited him, who was a great admirer of poetry, and who brought the poems of Malherbe. La Fontaine became excited by the poetry, or the passionate recitation, and for days did nothing but read and recite poetry. He commenced writing odes in imitation of Malherbe, and when his father beheld his first attempt, he cried for joy. The character of the poetry was certainly different ...
— Paris: With Pen and Pencil - Its People and Literature, Its Life and Business • David W. Bartlett
... school. His discipline was of a most fantastic kind. He had a feeling that all lessons were a bore, therefore he would assign the shortest and easiest of tasks. But having assigned the tasks, he expected perfection in recitation, and impressed his pupils with the idea that nothing less would pass. His ideas of order were of the loosest kind, and hence the noise at times was such that even the older pupils found it unbearable; but when the hour for recitation came, somehow a deathlike ...
— Glengarry Schooldays • Ralph Connor
... around the altar was accompanied by the singing or chanting of a sacred ode. Of the three parts of the ode, the strophe, the antistrophe, and the epode, each was to be sung at a particular part of the procession. The analogy between this chanting of an ode by the ancients and the recitation of a passage of Scripture in the masonic circumambulation, ...
— The Symbolism of Freemasonry • Albert G. Mackey
... elected, "to find his own chair!"—a vast saving to the State, if the same chair I saw in Mr. Whackum's school-room. For his chair there was one with a hickory bottom; and doubtless he would have filled it, and even lapped over its edges, with equal dignity in the recitation ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume III. (of X.) • Various
... only 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
... branches. The objects which are really most important. Advanced scholars. Examination of school and scholars at the outset. Acting on numbers. Extent to which it may be carried. Recitation ...
— The Teacher - Or, Moral Influences Employed in the Instruction and - Government of the Young • Jacob Abbott
... Having begged pardon of our sins, and deprecated vengeance, it proceedeth to evil in general, and some few sins in particular, and thence to a more particular enumeration of judgments; and thence to a recitation of the parts of that work of our redemption, and thence to the deprecation of judgments again, and thence to prayers for the King and magistrates, and then for all nations, and then for love ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... nor Senachi had existed for some centuries. I have no reason to suppose it exactly known at what time the custom ceased, nor did it probably cease in all houses at once. But whenever the practice of recitation was disused, the works, whether poetical or historical, perished with the authors; for in those times nothing had been ...
— A Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland • Samuel Johnson
... B. Donne, J. M. Kemble, and William Airy the brother of Sir George Airy, formerly Astronomer-Royal. I have often heard him say that the best piece of declamation he had ever listened to was Kemble's recitation of Hotspur's speech, beginning 'My liege, I did deny no prisoners,' on a prize day at Bury. When he left for Cambridge in 1826 the Speddings were at the head of the School. He was entered at Trinity ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald - in two volumes, Vol. 1 • Edward FitzGerald
... arranged in six rows, with spaces between just wide 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 ...
— The Story of a Bad Boy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... two 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 ...
— An Eagle Flight - A Filipino Novel Adapted from Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... prize. I felt confused, but it did not cause me any disappointment, as I quite expected things to be like this. Several persons had protested in my favour. Camille Doucet, who was a member of the jury, had pleaded a long time. He wanted me to have a first prize in spite of my bad recitation. He said that my examination results ought to be taken into account, and they were excellent; and then, too, I had the best class reports. Nothing, however, could overcome the bad effect produced that day by my nasal voice, my swollen face, and my heavy flakes of hair. ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt
... said as clearly as possible: "No, no, you can't call me either ill-mannered or ill-natured. I'm the showman of the occasion, moreover, and I avert myself, leaving you to judge. If there's a thing in life I hate it's this idiotic new fashion of the drawing-room recitation and of the insufferable creatures who practise it, who prevent conversation, and whom, as they're beneath it, you can't punish by criticism. Therefore what I'm doing's only too magnanimous—bringing these benighted women here, paying with my ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... Linao, where he was killed by the insurgents, May 16, 1651. His body, after being treated with indignities by the natives, was finally buried by a pious native woman. The section and chapter close with the recitation of several miraculous occurrences.] ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXXVI, 1649-1666 • Various
... energetic ways of passing the evening had been proposed,—music, games, reading aloud, recitation,—none had found favour in everybody's sight, and now Gladys Lloyd's proposal that they should "tell ghost stories" seemed likely to ...
— Four Ghost Stories • Mrs. Molesworth
... 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 room, and ...
— Little Journeys To The Homes Of Great Teachers • Elbert Hubbard
... thought his voice the richest I had ever known any one to possess. It was a full deep barytone, capable of easy modulation, and with undertones of infinite softness and sweetness, yet, as I afterwards found, with almost illimitable compass, and with every gradation of tone at command, for the recitation or reading of poetry. The studio was a large room probably measuring thirty feet by twenty, and structurally as puzzling as the other parts of the house. A series of columns and arches on one side suggested that the room had almost certainly been at some period the site of an ...
— Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti - 1883 • T. Hall Caine
... of penance. This he accomplished in a masterly manner—to the astonishment of his masters, and the delight of his school-fellows—some of whom became afterwards distinguished men. We can fancy the scene at the day of the recitation—the grave and big-wigged schoolmasters looking grimly on—their aspect, however, becoming softer and brighter, as one large hexameter rolls out after another—the strong, awkward, ugly boy, unblushingly pouring forth his energetic lines—cheered by the ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... wasted less time upon us; and I could not deny that if the girls who cut little holes in their fans through which one could look, undetected and unreproved, at one's favorite Academy boy, on some public occasion, had been preparing to meet or pass that boy at Euclid or Xenophon recitation next morning, he would have occupied less of their fancy. Intellectual competition is simpler, severer, and more wholesome than the unmitigated social plane; and a mingling of the two may be found calculated to produce the ...
— McClure's Magazine, January, 1896, Vol. VI. No. 2 • Various
... We are not informed as to the purpose of the festival, and its name, which signifies "eating bread made with water," is merely that of one of the regular systems of fasting in vogue in ancient Mexico. (See Sahagun, Lib. III., cap. 8.) The song before us appears to be a recitation calling on a number of ...
— Rig Veda Americanus - Sacred Songs Of The Ancient Mexicans, With A Gloss In Nahuatl • Various
... or two she finds herself in regular working order, one of a class of four. "And am I only to have fifteen minutes for my lesson," she asks herself, "when I always had an hour from the professor at Woodville?" She knows that recitation is the cream of the lesson. In the actual rendering of her task she can, in justice to her companions, consume but a quarter of the allotted hour, but she soon discovers that she is to a great extent ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, October, 1880 • Various
... let us flee from humorous recitations," added Elisabeth. "There are few things in the world more heart-rending than a humorous recitation—with action. As for me, it unmans me completely, and I quietly weep in a remote corner of the room until the carriage comes to take me home. Therefore, I avoid such; as no woman's eyelashes will stand a long course of humorous recitation without being the ...
— The Farringdons • Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler
... 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
... entrances, where they are received by assistants and suspended from the rafters of the interior. On the evening of the last day, the chief and officiating priests visit the candidate and his preceptor, in the sweat-lodge, when ceremonial smoking is indulged in followed by the recitation of Mid[-e]/ chants. The following (Pl. XVI, A) is a reproduction of the chant taught to and recited by the candidate. The original was obtained from an old mnemonic chart in use at Mille Lacs, Minnesota, in the year 1825, which in turn had been copied from a record in the possession ...
— The Mide'wiwin or "Grand Medicine Society" of the Ojibwa • Walter James Hoffman
... the son of a famous father; he is very nice, but, whatever he does, every one says: "That is very well, but it is nothing to the father." Once he gave a recitation at an evening party; all the performers had a success, but of him they said: "That is very well, but still it is nothing to the father." He went home and got into bed and, looking at his father's portrait, shook ...
— Note-Book of Anton Chekhov • Anton Pavlovich Chekhov
... followed naturally 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; and the lacunae thus created are filled up ...
— Sir Walter Scott as a Critic of Literature • Margaret Ball
... native Scotch dialect, thus giving rise to what is known as Gaelic literature, which continued to flourish until the Reformation. Samples of this old Gaelic or Erse poetry were discovered by James Macpherson in the Highlands, taken down from recitation, and used for the English compilation known as the Poems of Ossian. Lacking sufficient talent and learning to remodel these fragments so as to produce a real masterpiece, Macpherson—who erroneously termed his work a translation—not only incurred the sharpest criticism, ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... used to go to what they call 'a pleasant evening' with them. We sat around a big room lit with wax candles, and held improving conversation, or some one sang one or two of Mrs. Hemans' songs, like 'Passing Away' or 'He Never Smiled Again.' Perhaps there was a comic recitation, at which no one laughed, and finally we had wine and hot water—they called it 'port negus'—and tongue sandwiches and caraway cakes. My dear Ethel, I yawn now when I think of those dreary evenings. What must Dora have felt, right out of the maelstrom ...
— The Man Between • Amelia E. Barr
... like most other nations, however small and inconsiderable. They have certainly no lack of songs, ballads, and stanzas, but of a character by no means entitled to the appellation of poetry. I have noted down from recitation a considerable portion of what they call their poetry, but the only tolerable specimen of verse which I ever discovered amongst them was the following stanza, which, after all, is not entitled to very ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... Domini—then it stopped, but the priest, as soon as he had recovered from the first shock, and remembering with bitter self-reproach his omission, took up the words where the supernatural voice had left off, and finished the recitation of the De Profundis, resolving, as he did so, that, for the time to come, nothing should prevent him from reciting it every day, and more than once in the day, for the benefit ...
— Purgatory • Mary Anne Madden Sadlier
... 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 ...
— Tom and Some Other Girls - A Public School Story • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... with Andy. Forward and backward then went over the clear recitation space. The ruler was dropped in the scrimmage. As Mr. Darrow stooped to repossess it, Andy managed to ...
— Andy the Acrobat • Peter T. Harkness
... 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 |
