"First reading" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... one should prefer the passage of Shakspeare, because the direct mention of the corporal existence gives a magnificent liveliness to the picture, and because the very contrast of the space appears most lively by it; whereas, at the first reading of the other passages, it is not the human being, consisting of body and soul, which comes in our mind, but only the human spirit, of which we know already that it cannot be buried in ...
— Notes and Queries, 1850.12.21 - A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men, Artists, - Antiquaries, Genealogists, etc. • Various
... the house, restless and feverish. Presently it occurred to her that it would be best to take the will wholly into her own keeping. She unlocked the desk, took it out with a trembling hand, but did not open it again. It was not necessary. A first reading had burned every item of it into her brain. It seemed to be a sort of living thing. She despised herself for being so agitated, and for the furtive feeling that overcame her as she glanced about to be sure that she was alone, and then ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... no man to help him; so he was forced to do it all for himself; so he went forward gallantly, first reading a set of Scripture sentences while the officers collected first for the poor-box, and then, as it was one of the offering-days, collected again the dues for the curate. It was largely upon these, in such poor parishes as was this, that the minister ...
— Come Rack! Come Rope! • Robert Hugh Benson
... all. They have fallen back upon the ghost in 'Hamlet' for a precedent and have tried to illuminate the subject with the light of Lessing's famous comparison of Shakspere's ghost with Voltaire's in 'Semiramis'. Others have been shocked by Schiller's bold departure from history at the close. On a first reading of 'The Maid of Orleans', Macaulay recorded in his journal an opinion that "the last act was absurd beyond description. Schiller might just as well have made Wallenstein dethrone the emperor and reign himself over Germany—or Mary become Queen of England ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... never pass through one in bloom and in fruit—the white and purple blossoms, mingled with the green of the leaves and all banked over billows of snowy lint,—that she did not stop, thrilled with the same childhood feeling that came with the first reading ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore
... on the first reading of the Bill has been so grossly misrepresented by the English Press, both Liberal and Conservative, which published only carefully-prepared epitomes of his speech, that it is necessary that one should devote some attention to what he actually said. After asserting that ...
— Ireland and the Home Rule Movement • Michael F. J. McDonnell
... "some good Grammar, either that now used [Lilly's], or any better," and the Italian or Continental mode of pronouncing Latin, instead of the customary English, was to be carefully taught from the first; but as to the first reading-books to be used along with the Grammar, or any method for simplifying and accelerating entrance into Latin, whether that of Comenius or any other, there is no hint as yet. Neither is there any hint as to the manner of learning Arithmetic and ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... familiarity with the events of Pope's life, and many lines convey only a part of their meaning unless we are familiar not only with the events, but with the characters of the persons mentioned. Passages over which we pass carelessly at the first reading then come out with wonderful freshness, and single phrases throw a sudden light upon hidden depths of feeling. It is also true, unluckily, that parts of it must be read by the rule of contraries. They tell us not what Pope really was, but what he wished others to think ...
— Alexander Pope - English Men of Letters Series • Leslie Stephen
... sonnet, On First Reading Chapman's Homer, was printed in 1817. The 'Cortez' of the eleventh verse is a mistake; the discoverer of the ...
— Lyra Heroica - A Book of Verse for Boys • Various
... to be found in Chesterton's masterly study of Charles Dickens it lies in the fact that in parts of the book the meaning is not always clear, or, rather, it is not always so at a first reading. Whether this may be justly termed a fault depends largely upon what the reader of ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Patrick Braybrooke
... the autocrat. Even in the bloody despotisms of the Barbary States, there has always existed in the religious prejudices of the people, which could not be violated with safety, one check more upon the caprices of the despot than was found at Rome. Upon the whole, therefore, what affects us on the first reading as a prodigy or anomaly in the frantic outrages of the early Caesars—falls within the natural bounds of intelligible human nature, when we state the case considerately. Surrounded by a population which had not only gone through a most vicious and corrupting ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... initiative as for an earthquake; for he knew now at the roots of his soul that the phrasing of the note was misleading, and that Julian had come to charge him with having misappropriated the sum of nine hundred and sixty-five pounds. He had, in reality, surmised as much on first reading the note, but somehow he had managed to put away the surmise as ...
— The Price of Love • Arnold Bennett
... AUGUSTINE BIRRELL to-day brought in Bill for First Reading. No need of persuasion of silver tongue to carry this stage. Proceeding purely formal. Fight opens on Monday, when PREMIER, moving Second Reading, will ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, March 11, 1914 • Various
... water they had to drink, seemed to me the very acme of religious fervor and sacred self-sacrifice. I wonder what I should think of the book were I to read it now, which Heaven forefend! The really powerful impression made upon my imagination and feelings at this period, however, was by my first reading of Lord Byron's poetry. The day on which I received that revelation of the power of thought and language remained memorable to me for many a ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... book appear unduly long in prospect, the longest and most detailed chapter, that on Sensation, might perfectly well be omitted, on the first reading, without appreciably disturbing the continuity ...
— Psychology - A Study Of Mental Life • Robert S. Woodworth
... two gentlemen for their wrath, and at the same time said he thot' it high time to deliver judge Child's message. Here Mr. Thompson apparently supposing himself only entrusted with the charge, seemed not to understand.—After a great deal of argument, the paper at last had a 'first reading,' & was the proceedings of the McBain meeting, signed by Child, Thompson and Stillwell; and was delivered to Mr. Bunce, to shew his compositor, who was in bed. Mr. Bunce insisted that some of the gentlemen should deliver the message which judge Stillwell ...
— A Review and Exposition, of the Falsehoods and Misrepresentations, of a Pamphlet Addressed to the Republicans of the County of Saratoga, Signed, "A Citizen" • An Elector
... the Bill for enacting his Majesty's declaration in religious matters and to have its first reading. It is said that on Sunday next Doctor Reynolds shall be ...
— Andrew Marvell • Augustine Birrell
... enter in." Methinks the words, at the first reading, do intimate to us, that the Christian, in all that ever he does in this world, should carefully heed and regard his soul—I say, in all that ever he does. Many are for their souls by fits and starts; but a Christian ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... on my first reading that he must have been egare at the time of writing: a condition which I well remember saying to Spedding long ago that one of his temperament might likely fall into. And now I see that Mrs. Oliphant hints at something of the sort. ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald in Two Volumes - Vol. II • Edward FitzGerald
... word. Blench signifies to flinch. If 'blanch' be the word, the next ought to be 'hair.' You cannot here use brow for the hair upon it, because a white brow or forehead is a beautiful characteristic of youth. 'Sickly ardor o'er' was at first reading to me unintelligible. I took 'sickly' to be an adjective joined with 'ardor,' whereas you mean it as a portion of a verb, from Shakspeare, 'Sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought.' But the separation of the parts or decomposition of the word, as here done, ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... sure, more than pardon me for giving them the following poem on Aiken-Drum, for the pleasure of first reading which, many years ago, I am indebted to Mr. R. Chambers's Popular Rhymes of Scotland, where its ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... different sense is given to the passage; by the last reading it would appear that the "I" was a Bork, who had taken the tale from Schwalenberg's history of the Pomeranian Dukes, a work which exists only in manuscript, and to which I have had no access; but if we admit the first reading, then the writer must be a Schwalenberg. Even the "grandmother" will not clear up the matter, for Sidonia, when put to the torture, confessed, at the seventh question, that she had caused the death of Doctor Schwalenberg (he was counsellor ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V1 • William Mienhold
... is fully equal to her prose. Willow's Forge is a slender book, but in interest it is large, so large indeed that a first reading only makes one aware of the presence of riches that require time to fully appreciate.... Lovers of real, not to say remarkable, poetry must haste to secure this small but wonder-working book. It contains not one but half a dozen ...
— A Cluster of Grapes - A Book of Twentieth Century Poetry • Various
... the very manner of its delivery, that the applause of his hearers interrupted him repeatedly—the close of these recitations by the great author-reader being greeted with prolonged and resounding acclamations. Nay, not only are these particulars related as to the First Reading recorded as having been given by a Great Author, but, further than that, there is the charming incident described of Thucydides, then a boy of fifteen, listening entranced among the audience to the heroic occurrences recounted by the sonorous and impassioned ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent
... was not so generous as it seemed on first reading, a suspicion which seems to have been justified by the interpretation put upon it by the final authority upon international engagements, the Republican National Convention at Chicago. And if it was as generous as it seemed let not America think Great ...
— The Mirrors of Washington • Anonymous
... the Voyages of Vincent le Blanc without having been able to discover the passage alluded to; and as the Dutch author says that some time had elapsed between his first reading those Voyages and the composition of his treatise, and as he seems to quote only from memory, I am led to believe his having confounded Vincent le Blanc with some other traveller of the ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 58, December 7, 1850 • Various
... to him that I would not sign it without first reading it. I read it over and signed for duration of war. Some of the recruits were lucky. They ...
— Over The Top • Arthur Guy Empey
... of several methods. Any member of the house may deposit a bill in a box near the speaker's desk. Sometimes a bill is introduced by the report of a committee, or even by a messenger from the senate. When the bill has been introduced, it is given a first reading. With the consent of the house, the speaker then refers the measure to the appropriate committee. The adverse report of the committee generally kills the bill; but if the bill is favorably reported, and ...
— Problems in American Democracy • Thames Ross Williamson
... The first reading is the formal placing or presenting of the bill before the house. At the second reading the bill is discussed, and any member who wishes to say anything for or against it is at liberty to ...
— Civil Government of Virginia • William F. Fox
... heads. I think you have one Shakespearean scene: that of the delegate to the Convention with his two secretaries, is of an incredible strength. It makes one cry out! There is one also which struck me very much at the first reading: the scene where Saint-Gueltas and Henri each have the pistols in their pockets: and many others. What a fine page (I open by chance) ...
— The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters • George Sand, Gustave Flaubert
... steps. It was an omnibus bill put forth as a substitute for the existing law defining the status of foreign corporations. It had originated in the governor's office,—a fact which Kent had ferreted out within twenty-four hours of its first reading,—and for that reason he had procured a printed copy, searching it diligently for the hidden menace ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde
... chronological order. As the various chapters have appeared in proof, they have been put to a practical test in the sixth grade in several grammar schools. In a number of instances the pupils learned that, in the first reading, some of the stories were less difficult than others. From the nature of the subject-matter this is inevitable. For instance, it was found easier, and doubtless more interesting, to read "The Patriot Spy" and "A Daring Exploit" before beginning ...
— Hero Stories from American History - For Elementary Schools • Albert F. Blaisdell
... trunks without being watched by the gendarme; and when they took out a letter of recommendation, written by Dr. Steinkopf to the clergyman of the place, whom they had requested to call upon them, the gendarme insisted on first reading it. On their expostulating with the landlord at being treated in this manner, instead of making a direct reply, he strutted up and down the room, repeating continually, "Ja, ja, ja, ja! they shall ...
— Memoir and Diary of John Yeardley, Minister of the Gospel • John Yeardley
... it. She turned over a few pages of the book, "Supposing the defendant's counsel essays to prove by means of—" that was his writing again, a marginal, note. There were marginal notes on every page—even the last was covered with them, And then at the end, "First reading, February, 1858. Second reading, July, 1858. Bought with some of money obtained by first article for M. D." That capacity for work, incomparable gift, was what she had always coveted the most. Again she rested her elbows on the desk and her ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... laughter a chance; they stood like such a hasty levy of raw recruits raised for war, going through the goose-step, with pretty accurate shoulders, and feet of distracting degrees of extension, enough to craze a rhythmical drill-sergeant. I exulted at the first reading, shuddered at the second, and at the third felt desperate, destroyed them and sat staring at vacancy as if I had now lost the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... upon nothing whatever but the injury done to the story, the loss of its full potential value. Is there so much that is good in War and Peace that its inadequate grasp of a great theme is easily forgotten? It is not only easily forgotten, it is scarcely noticed—on a first reading of the book; I speak at least for one reader. But with every return to it the book that might have been is more insistent; it obtrudes more plainly, each time, interfering with the book that is. Each time, in fact, ...
— The Craft of Fiction • Percy Lubbock
... appeal to the sympathies with a sometimes powerful effect. Maria Edgeworth was deeply moved by the "Simple Story." "Its effect upon my feelings," she said after reading it for the fourth time, "was as powerful as at the first reading; I never read any novel—I except none,—I never read any novel that affected me so strongly, or that so completely possessed me with the belief in the real existence, of all the persons it represents. I never once recollected the ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman
... undertakes to deal with a subject without first reading, and as far as possible, mastering, the best books on that subject, would no more be a lecturer than a man who tried to cut a field of wheat with a pocket-knife ...
— The Art of Lecturing - Revised Edition • Arthur M. (Arthur Morrow) Lewis
... any one in Virginia City or Carson City would for a moment take any stock in the wild invention, yet so graphic was it that nine out of ten on first reading never stopped to consider the entire impossibility of the locality and circumstance. Even when these things were pointed out many readers at first refused to confess themselves sold. As for the Bulletin and other California papers, they were taken-in completely, and were ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... a surprise to those who had watched Mr. Chamberlain for years, to see that he was making a very bad and poor speech on the second reading of the Home Rule Bill—a speech certainly far inferior to that which he had delivered on the first reading. He had exhausted the poor soil; he had really no more to say. He was unfortunately helped by Mr. Gladstone, who, instead of listening in silence to attacks grown stale by their infinite repetition, attempted to correct some of Mr. Chamberlain's statements. This was ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor
... about one that I read some months ago; but I read half of it again last night, and shall finish it. Some passages are either new or were not studied enough by me before. It strikes me as admirable, as it did on the first reading, though I differ in some ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin
... and that minister reluctantly acknowledged that such a treaty was in agitation, though as it was not authenticated by our ambassador he could not say that it was concluded. The motion for bringing in the bill was carried by a majority of about two to one, and on the first reading some of the Tory members expressed their disapprobation of our wholly renouncing the right of taxing the colonists. In reply, Lord North declared that the not exacting the renunciation of independence by the Americans ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... the one set caressed and spoilt, and "beguiled too long;" by the other, "betrayed too late." The recent memoirs of Frances Ann Kemble present a curious record of the process of passing from one extreme to the other. She dwells on the fascination exerted over her mind by the first reading of his poetry, and tells how she "fastened on the book with a grip like steel," and carried it off and hid it under her pillow; how it affected her "like an evil potion," and stirred her whole being with a tempest of excitement, till ...
— Byron • John Nichol
... producing a confusion; but no one could recite better when a passage had taken strong hold of his imagination, and he gave it the full effect of the modulations of his fine voice, conveying in its inflections the impressions which stirred him profoundly. He was just now enchanted with his first reading of 'Thalaba,' where he found all manner of deep meanings, to which the sisters listened with wonder and delight. He repeated, in a low, awful, thrilling tone, that made Amy shudder, the lines in the seventh book, ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... yard, and there a bonfire can be made without the smoke giving any annoyance." The housekeeper said the same, so eager were they both for the slaughter of those innocents, but the curate would not agree to it without first reading at any rate ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... writers have ever found that even in prose ideas are most forcibly conveyed by means of imagery. Hazlitt, it should be remembered, was an ardent admirer of the picturesque qualities in the prose of Burke, the most brilliant of the eighteenth century. In recalling his first reading of Burke, he tells how he despaired of emulating his felicities. But whether by dint of meditating over Burke or by the native vigor of his fancy, Hazlitt learned to write as boldly and as brilliantly as the great orator. ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... the kings of Assyria, with whom He had no sympathy, to do the work, and paid them in palaces and spoils and annexations. These kings were hired to execute the divine behests. And now the text, which on its first reading may have seemed trivial or inapt, is charged with momentous import: "In the same day shall the Lord shave with a razor that is hired—namely, by them beyond the river, by the King ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage
... wonderful careers of Sevier and Robertson. Had he laid no claim to historic accuracy I should have been tempted to let his books pass unnoticed; but in the preface to his "John Sevier" he especially asserts that his writings "may be safely accepted as authentic history." On first reading his book I was surprised and pleased at the information it contained; when I came to study the subject I was still more surprised and much less pleased at discovering such wholesale inaccuracy—to be perfectly just I should be obliged to use a stronger term. Even a popular history ought to pay at ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Two - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1777-1783 • Theodore Roosevelt
... to the charms of the ladies of New York. He had been three months in the town, and his name had not been coupled with that of any woman there. We might have surmised from this a concealed preoccupation. And, moreover, there was my first reading of his countenance, the night of the Morris ball; this I had not forgotten, yet I ignored it, or else I shut my eyes to my inevitable inferences, because I could see no propriety in any possible interference ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens
... which I suppose one ought not to call coarse without calling one's self prudish; and I was often hiding away in discreet holes and corners the letters in which he had loosed his bold fancy to stoop on rank suggestion; I could not bear to burn them, and I could not, after the first reading, quite bear to look at them. I shall best give my feeling on this point by saying that in it he ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... pleasure which the boy received from the poem, seemed to increase in proportion to the exactness with which it was explained. The succeeding year, on May-day 1797, the same poem was read to him for the third time, and he appeared to like it better than he had done upon the first reading. If, instead of perusing Racine twelve times in one year, the young prince of Parma had read any one play or scene at different periods of his education, and had been led to observe the increase of pleasure which he felt from being able to understand what ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth
... extract from this diary, just before I had parted with my worthy agent aforesaid:—"He has told me some curious anecdotes about eminent artistes whom he has chaperoned, e.g. Thackeray came to Clifton to give four readings on the Georges; the first reading had only three auditors, the second not one; so Thackeray went away. Bellew is uncertain; sometimes having empty benches, sometimes overflowing ones, according to the programme, whether serious or laughable. Tom Hood gave a lecture on Humour, which was so dull that the audience ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... casuistry for a country; and if he be a Catholic, yet another casuistry that has professors, schoolmasters, letter-writing priests, and the authors of manuals to make the meshes fine, comes between him and English literature, substituting arguments and hesitations for the excitement at the first reading of the great poets which should be a sort of violent imaginative puberty. His hesitations and arguments may have been right, the Catholic philosophy may be more profound than Milton's morality, or Shelley's vehement ...
— Synge And The Ireland Of His Time • William Butler Yeats
... QUEER QUERIES.—A FIRST READING.—Would some person kindly inform me of a good Recitation for a Smoking Concert? I have been asked to recite "something telling" after the annual banquet of a Club of local Licensed Victuallers. I am thinking ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101. July 4, 1891 • Various
... of the 'Journal' makes this story rather puzzling at the first reading, because several words have changed in meaning since it was written. The name 'professors,' did not then mean learned men who teach or lecture in a University, but any men who 'professed' to be particularly religious and good. ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin
... introduce a bill for the abolition of slavery in the province and leave was unanimously given. On the twenty-sixth of February, Panet introduced a bill pursuant to leave given, and it was read in French and in English. On the eighth of March, Mr. B. Panet proposed the first reading of the bill and it was so read. On the nineteenth of April Mr. P. L. Panet moved that the bill be taken into consideration by the Committee of the Whole on the following Tuesday. The motion was debated and ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 5, 1920 • Various
... told what the whole convention felt. We felt that the word had just been uttered which would be mighty, through God, to the pulling down of the strongholds of slavery." Such was the scene at the first reading of the Declaration of Sentiments, Dr. Atlee, the reader. The effect at its final reading was, if possible, even more dramatic and eloquent. Whittier has depicted this closing and thrilling scene. He has described how Samuel J. May read the declaration ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke
... "Waller, Spenser, and Dryden were Mr. Pope's great favourites, in the order they are named, in his first reading, till he was about twelve years ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... tell you what I am a-going to do with you. I am a-going to offer you the general miscellaneous lot, her own book, never read by anybody else but me, added to and completed by me after her first reading of it, eight-and-forty printed pages, six-and-ninety columns, Whiting's own work, Beaufort House to wit, thrown off by the steam-ingine, best of paper, beautiful green wrapper, folded like clean linen come home from the clear-starcher's, ...
— Doctor Marigold • Charles Dickens
... Lady Beaumaris, under whose bright, inspiring roof the Tory party had long assembled, sanguine and bold. Other considerable peers followed the precedent of Lord Beaumaris, and withdrew their support from the ministry. Waldershare moved the amendment to the first reading of the obnoxious bill; but although defeated by a considerable majority, the majority was mainly formed by members of the opposition. Among these was Mr. Ferrars, who it was observed never opened his lips during ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli
... chaos there darted flashes of light, like rapier thrusts, words that looked and stabbed, heroic laughter. Gradually an impression emerged from his first reading, perhaps through the biased scheme of the selections. Voluntarily or involuntarily the German editors had selected those pieces of French which could seem to establish by the testimony of the French themselves the failings ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... lines. Sonia Turgeinov again watched him; her interest was now of that vague kind she had sometimes experienced when the manager appeared on a darkened stage, with a fresh crackling manuscript. Then she had lolled back and listened to the first reading. She would have lolled back now—for the air was soporific—but, instead, she started suddenly. The old wound on Mr. Heatherbloom's head, heretofore concealed by the cap Francois had procured for him, had reopened as he ...
— A Man and His Money • Frederic Stewart Isham
... the book. What kind of book shall it be? Shall it be an old book which we have forgotten just sufficiently to taste surprise as its felicities come back to us, and remember just sufficiently to escape the attentive strain of a first reading? Or shall it be a new book by an author we love, to be glanced through with no critical purpose (this may be deferred to the second reading), but merely for the lazy pleasure of recognizing the familiar brain at work, and feeling happy, perhaps, at the success of a friend? There is no doubt which ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... there appeared from Gyldendal's publishing-house in Copenhagen a novel, entitled "The Visionary" (Den Fremsynte), by Jonas Lie. To analyze the impression which this strange book makes at the first reading is difficult. I thought, as I sat rejoicing in its vivid light and color, twenty-four years ago: "This Jonas Lie is a sort of century-plant, and 'The Visionary' is his one blossom. It is the one good novel which ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... dealt with was Judah's sin; and that being taken away, all good and blessing would start into being, as flowerets will spring when the baleful shadow of some poisonous tree is removed. Now, my text at first reading seems to expend a great many unnecessary words in saying the same thing over and over again, but the accumulation of synonyms not only emphasises the completeness of the promise, but also presents different aspects of that ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... enclosed your kind note in one of his own, after first reading it himself, if you ever heard of such a man. I had to laugh all alone while reading it, which was not a little provoking. We are having very nice times here indeed. Breakfast at eight, dinner at half-past twelve, and tea at half-past six, giving us an afternoon ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... previous words: "exceed all the pictures wherewith licentious poesy hath proudly embellished the golden age." The play was in all probability written in or before 1610. It remains to show that on his first reading of Florio's Montaigne, in 1603-4, Shakspere was more deeply and widely influenced, though the specific proofs are in the nature of ...
— Montaigne and Shakspere • John M. Robertson
... have been ignorant of their fate, for he was writing three weeks after it, from Dublin. He was silent, too, of the injury which he had received from the pirates, though eloquent on the boats which he burnt at the Skerries.—State Papers, Vol. II. p. 205. On first reading Skeffington's despatch, I had supposed that the "brilliant victory" claimed by the Irish historians (see Leland, Vol. II. p. 148) must have been imaginary. The Irish Statute Book, however, is too explicit to allow of such a hope. "He ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude
... chained; he has become the contented slave of its fascinations; and he will read and read, devour and devour, and will not let it go out of his hand till it is finished to the last line, though the house be on fire over his head. And after a first reading he will not throw it aside, but will keep it by him, with his Shakespeare and his Homer, and will take it up many and many a time, when the world is dark and his spirits are low, and be straightway cheered and ...
— The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... family sat up till two o'clock, listening to a novel that my boy long ago forgot the name of, if he ever knew its name. It was all about a will, forged or lost, and there was a great scene in court, and after that the mother declared that she could not go to bed till she heard the end. His own first reading was in history. At nine years of age he read the history of Greece, and the history of Rome, and he knew that Goldsmith wrote them. One night his father told the boys all about Don Quixote; and a little while after ...
— Boy Life - Stories and Readings Selected From The Works of William Dean Howells • William Dean Howells
... very bewildering to Rosalie. She never understood it properly. At the beginning it had nothing at all to do with Anna, and yet Anna from the very first reading of Uncle Tom's letter—All that Rosalie understood ...
— This Freedom • A. S. M. Hutchinson
... represented in the Platonic Dialogues, may seem, therefore, inconsistent with itself, if you isolate this or that particular movement, in what is a very complex process, with many phases of development. It is certainly difficult, and that not merely on a first reading, to grasp the unity of the various statements Plato has made about it. Now it may seem to differ from ordinary reasoning by a certain plausibility only: it is logic, plus persuasion; helping, gently ...
— Plato and Platonism • Walter Horatio Pater
... first reading of the Thoughts of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, we marked many sentences that appeared to us specially good; in the second, twice as many more. Where all is good it is hard to emphasize, but we will cite just one of his reflections, as illustrating the trend of his mind: "I have often wondered," ...
— The Thoughts Of The Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus • Marcus Aurelius
... answers, "Here am I." The person behind the bush then says, "Draw not nigh hither; put off thy shoes from off thy feet; for the place whereon thou standeth is holy ground (his shoes are then slipped off). Moreover, I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." The person first reading then says, "And Moses hid his face; for he was afraid to look upon God." At these words the bandage is ...
— The Mysteries of Free Masonry - Containing All the Degrees of the Order Conferred in a Master's Lodge • William Morgan
... letting him say what he has to say, in his own manner to an open mind that seeks only to receive the impressions which the writer wishes to convey. First let the mind and spirit of the writer come into free, full contact with the mind and spirit of the reader, whose attitude at the first reading should be simply receptive. Such reading is the condition precedent to all true judgment of a writer's work. All criticism that is not so grounded spreads as fog over a poet's page. Read, reader, for yourself, ...
— Essay on Man - Moral Essays and Satires • Alexander Pope
... history. It is indeed rather the last voice of the middle ages than the first voice of the Renaissance that speaks to us out of these clear, black, handsome pages that were pulled damp from the press four hundred and twenty-eight years ago on the fourth of last June. At first reading one is moved to mirth, then to wonder, then perhaps to disgust, but last of all to the haunting melancholy of Omar ...
— Printing and the Renaissance - A paper read before the Fortnightly Club of Rochester, New York • John Rothwell Slater
... the concession on the Right of Search tempts me to a personal confession. In the Bill, as brought in, there was a most salutary provision giving the police the right to search houses in which murders were believed to be plotted. After making us vote for this clause three times—on the First Reading, on the Second Reading, and in Committee—the Government, as we have just seen, yielded to clamour, and proposed on Report to alter the clause by limiting the Right of Search to day-time. I opposed this alteration, as providing a "close time for murder," and ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell
... the House by his agitated colleague, recognised that his old Parliamentary hand had got into a hornet's nest, and promptly withdrew it. To the best of my recollection this is the first time on record that a Government measure has perished before its first reading. Conceived in secrecy and delivered in pain, its epitaph will be ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, May 3, 1916 • Various
... Hebrew account of Creation in the first chapter of Genesis and that preserved in the "Seven Tablets".(1) It will suffice to emphasize two of them, which gain in significance through our newly acquired knowledge of early Sumerian beliefs. It must be admitted that, on first reading the poem, one is struck more by the differences than by the parallels; but that is due to the polytheistic basis of the poem, which attracts attention when compared with the severe and dignified monotheism of the Hebrew writer. And if allowance be made for the change ...
— Legends Of Babylon And Egypt - In Relation To Hebrew Tradition • Leonard W. King
... Sir, on our first reading of the will in town, the observations I made on the foul play which it is evident the excellent creature met with from this abandoned man, and what I said upon the occasion. I am not used to repeat things ...
— Clarissa Harlowe, Volume 9 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... his list with tolerable patience; but when the pedler, having given it a first reading, proposed a second, with passing comments on the prospects of sale of each separate article, by way of recapitulation, the youth could stand it no longer. Apologizing to the tradesman, therefore in good set terms, he hurried away to ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... drains more slowly. Much time may be saved in the aggregate by learning to fold a filter in such a way as to improve its effective filtering surface. The directions which follow, though apparently complicated on first reading, are easily applied and easily remembered. Use a 6-inch filter for practice. Place four dots on the filter, two each on diameters which are at right angles to each other. Then proceed as follows: (1) Fold the filter evenly across one of the diameters, creasing it carefully; (2) open the paper, turn ...
— An Introductory Course of Quantitative Chemical Analysis - With Explanatory Notes • Henry P. Talbot
... din, you will not disdain the whisper from such sincere admirers as I am myself, and my wife and daughter are. I don't know which of the trio is the warmest one, and we have been fighting over the book, as it is one which, for the first reading at least, I did not like to hear aloud. I am only writing in a vague, maundering, uncritical way, to express sincere sympathy and gratitude, not to exhibit any dissenting powers, if I have any. If I were composing an article for a review, of course I should feel obliged ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... unfinished novels assumed a more ambitious form, and were modelled chiefly upon Jane Eyre, with occasional tentative imitations of Thackeray. Stories of gentle hearts that loved in vain, always ending in renunciation. One romance there was, I well remember, begun with resolute purpose, after the first reading of Esmond, and in the endeavour to give life and local colour to a story of the Restoration period, a brilliantly wicked interval in the social history of England, which, after the lapse of thirty years, I am still as bent upon taking for the background of a love story ...
— The Idler, Volume III., Issue XIII., February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly. Edited By Jerome K. Jerome & Robert Barr • Various
... At first reading it may appear that this breath consists of three distinct movements. This, however, is not the correct idea. The inhalation is continuous, the entire chest cavity from the lowered diaphragm to the highest point of the chest in the ...
— The Hindu-Yogi Science Of Breath • Yogi Ramacharaka
... which I want a copy; you may remember, when you gave me the papers, I neglected to take that, and I am sure you are a man too careful of antiquities to have let it fall aside. I shall have a little introduction descriptive of my visit to Edinburgh, arrival there, denner with yoursel', and first reading of the papers in your smoking-room: all of which, of course, you well remember. - ...
— Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 2 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... may go to it and judge for himself; but, if it is made to appear unintelligible by a passage extracted from it and distorted by misprints, I have no redress.' He also failed to realize those conditions of thought, and still more of expression, which made him often on first reading difficult to understand; and as the younger generation of his admirers often deny those difficulties where they exist, as emphatically as their grandfathers proclaimed them where they did not, public opinion gave him little help ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... correlated with what is already known, and will in this way be easily retained by the memory. Remember and observe Jacotot's maxim, "Learn something accurately, and refer {43} the rest to that." Unessential facts, or those of secondary importance, may be passed over in the first reading, and left for a second or later reading, for a proper method of study always ...
— How to Study • George Fillmore Swain
... the moral causes of Roman decadence. But somehow the dominance of the moral interest and the frequent interruption of the narrative by scenes of senatorial inefficiency serve to obscure the plain sequence of events. It is difficult after a first reading of the Histories to state clearly what happened in these two years. And this difficulty is vastly annoying to experts who wish to trace the course of the three campaigns. Those whose interest is not in Tacitus ...
— Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II • Caius Cornelius Tacitus
... of it are even exquisite; in particular your personal account of the Maid far surpasses anything of the sort in Southey. [1] I perceived all its excellences, on a first reading, as readily as now you have been removing a supposed film from my eyes. I was only struck with a certain faulty disproportion in the matter and the style, which I still think I perceive, between these lines and the former ones. I had an end in view,—I wished to make you reject ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... authorised them to speak the language of 'We, the people,' instead of 'We, the States'? States are the characteristics and the soul of a confederation." "I stumble at the threshold," said Samuel Adams, on first reading the document. "I meet with a national government, instead of a federal union of sovereign States." Said a member of the first North Carolina Convention, "I am astonished that the servants of the Legislature of North Carolina should go to Philadelphia and, instead of speaking of the 'State' of North ...
— The United States of America Part I • Ediwn Erle Sparks
... o'clock, and by water to White Hall; and there took coach, and with Mr. Moore to Chelsy; where, after all my fears what doubts and difficulties my Lord Privy Seale would make at my Tangier Privy Seale, he did pass it at first reading, without my speaking with him. And then called me in, and was very civil to me. I passed my time in contemplating (before I was called in) the picture of my Lord's son's lady, a most beautiful woman, and most like to Mrs. Butler. Thence very much joyed to London back again, and found out ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... nothing in this letter to give any offence to Felix Graham, and so he acknowledged to himself. He made himself so acknowledge, because on the first reading of it he had felt that he was half angry with the writer. It was clear that there was nothing in the letter which would justify censure;—nothing which did not, almost, demand praise. He would have been angry with her ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... respect they are like that Nature to which Bacon directed men's thoughts. The whole volume may be read through in an evening; but after one has read them a dozen times he still finds as many places to pause and reflect as at the first reading. If one must choose out of such a storehouse, we would suggest "Studies," "Goodness," "Riches," "Atheism," "Unity in Religion," "Adversity," "Friendship," and "Great Place" as an ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... by that philosophy which, one gathers from a first reading of Plutarch, "a man is a deal like a sword. If he be good and true, it matters not into what kind of ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... "Address" is in simplicity, harmony, and elegance of versification, fully equal to the "Seasons." Like Thomson, too, he has looked into nature for himself: you meet with no copied description. One particular criticism I made at first reading; in no one instance has he said too much. He never flags in his progress, but, like a true poet of nature's making kindles in his course. His beginning is simple and modest, as if distrustful of the strength of his pinion; only, I do ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... said to Koerner, "I am only now beginning to understand my trade." Following "Mary Stuart," he wrote "The Maid of Orleans," and then he was absorbed in what is perhaps the greatest of his works, "William Tell," the first reading of which took place in Goethe's house on March 6, 1804. On the 9th it was rehearsed at the theatre, and on the very next day he commenced a new drama, "Demetrius, or, The Bloody Bridal of Moscow," thus following out, as indeed he had ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... he read them—but for the most part each line brought back vivid recollections of the very mood and place in which it had been composed. And now he observed something which he had not noticed in first reading the Review—namely, that 'Illusion' was published by the very firm to which he had sent his own manuscript. Had not Mark given him to understand that Chilton and Fladgate had rejected it? How could he reconcile this and the story that the manuscript had afterwards been accidentally destroyed, ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... have spoken with reserve, for we have simply stated the feelings with which we regarded this little volume on first reading it; but the reserve is no longer necessary, and the misgivings which we experienced have not been justified. At the close of last year another volume was published, again of miscellaneous poems, which went beyond ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude
... On first reading Mr. Cushing's letter, its obscurity puzzled us not a little. There are passages in it that would have pleased Lycophron himself, who wished he might be hanged if anybody could understand his poem. Dilution was to be ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various
... debate or conversation on the motion; but it is rarely so long and so earnest a discussion as that which took place when Lord John Russell brought in the Reform Bill. One result of the length of the debate which preceded the first reading was that when the motion for the second reading came on the leading members of the Opposition were found to have expressed fully their opinions already, and the discussion seemed little better than the ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume IV (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... for its religious purport. It is a great novel—so great, that, after living with its characters, we cease to regard it as a novel at all. It keeps our suspense on the stretch through nearly five hundred pages. Will the Saint triumph—will love victoriously claim its own? We hurry on, at the first reading, for the solution; then we go back and discover in it another world of profound interest. That is the true ...
— The Saint • Antonio Fogazzaro
... is nothing compared to that which your Majesty has just expressed, such is your sureness of judgment and your tact. I know by experience that those scenes of my comedies which, at a first reading, are applauded by your Majesty, always win most applause from ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... Fishwives had stuck Marie Antoinette's head without more ado upon a pike. Imagine all these people assembled in order to hear M. de Beaumarchais, in the full glory of his millions and his wonderful garden, give a first reading of his Mere Coupable, after inviting them to prepare themselves to weep (which was easy in those days of soft hearts) "a plein canal." Or else listening to the cold and solemn M. de Condorcet, prophesying ...
— The Countess of Albany • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)
... of thought and style that make the essay so amusing and so readable, one sees that its writer knows his world well, and has given graver thought to matters matrimonial than at a first reading ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson • Margaret Moyes Black
... stretching behind him in so terribly long a perspective. No one else knew how he had craved for the darkness which all the time he had both feared and shunned. No one else knew how miserable a travesty on sleep his sleep had been, first reading until a heavy physical weariness came, then lying in his bed through the latter hours of the night, fitfully dozing, often rousing, while from either side of his bed, from the ceiling above, from the headboard behind him, and from the footboard, strong lights played full and flary ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... of The Double-Dealer are obvious on a first reading, and were very justly condemned on a first acting. The intrigue is wearisome: its involutions are ineffectively puzzling. Maskwell's villainy and Mellefont's folly are both unconvincing. The tragedy of Lady Touchwood, less tragic ...
— The Comedies of William Congreve - Volume 1 [of 2] • William Congreve
... Julia the least of them all. He was wont to call her a meddling old woman,—remembering her bitterness and pride in those now long bygone days in which the gallant major had run off with Lady Fanny. When he first received this letter, he did not, on the first reading of it, believe a word of its contents. "Cross-grained old harridan," he said out loud to his nephew. "Look what that aunt of yours has written to me." Bernard read the letter twice, and as he did so his ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... resolution was adopted, referred, and reported back with draft of an amendment. The committee were Messrs. True, Windham, Batty, Simonton, Mitchell, Sparks and Gaylord. On motion of Mr. True the joint resolution was ordered to first reading; no further mention ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... the cabin but Mr. Baskirk and myself, and Dave had been stationed at the door; or at least he was there, for he beckoned you out into the gangway just as you were beginning to read the orders," argued Flint. "Possibly I should have understood the first reading better if I had not seen for myself that you had taken all precautions against any listener. You went out when Dave called you; but you were not gone half a minute; and that was not long enough for the steward to spin any ...
— On The Blockade - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray Afloat • Oliver Optic
... voice, the slow, deliberate utterance, the natural and naive train of ideas which marked his conversation, captivated my whole heart in the first hour of our meeting, just as his great work had formerly, on my first reading it, taken my whole understanding by storm. I fancied a lofty world sage out of Hellenic antiquity—a Socrates or Aristotle—stood alive before me. Our conversation, of course, turned principally on the subject which lay nearest the hearts of both—on the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 358, November 11, 1882 • Various
... shelter her Antony from the vengeance of Octavius assumes the mask of raging jealousy, thus taking upon herself the blame and responsibility of their final separation, is expressed with such consummate and artistic simplicity of power that on a first reading the genius of the dramatist may well blind us to the violent unlikelihood of the action. But this very extravagance of self-sacrifice may be thought by some to add a crowning touch of pathos to the unsurpassable beauty of the scene in which her child, after the murder of his mother, relates ...
— The Age of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... most excellent speech in moving the first reading of the Regency Bill, and was cheered on both sides of the House. It seems as if the measure would be unanimously approved. Lord Eldon seemed to say he should advise the Duke of Cumberland to ...
— A Political Diary 1828-1830, Volume II • Edward Law (Lord Ellenborough)
... pleased to think that his brother was so uneducated, so he had him study. Leopard was highly gifted; he understood a book at first reading; yet he felt no inclination to become a man of learning. To shoot and to ride was what he best loved to do. So he rose to high rank as a professional soldier, and finally married the ...
— The Chinese Fairy Book • Various
... not have need to read more at present than from the 8th to the 23rd page, and as far as the end of section 33. There you will find in what year the excellent man, whose life you write, became a Master of Arts: how his first reading of learned Hooker had been occasioned by certain puritanical pamphlets; and how good a preparative he found it for his reading of Calvin's Institutions, the honour of whose name (at that time especially) gave such credit to his errors: how he erred with Mr. Calvin, ...
— Lives of John Donne, Henry Wotton, Rich'd Hooker, George Herbert, - &C, Volume Two • Izaak Walton
... he tells us some twenty years later—that he sat down to a volume of the 'New Heloise,' at the inn at Llangollen, over a bottle of sherry and a cold chicken. He tells us which passage he read and what was the view before his bodily eyes. His first reading of 'Paul and Virginia' is associated with an inn at Bridgewater; and at another old-fashioned inn he tells how the rustic fare and the quaint architecture gave additional piquancy to Congreve's wit. He remembers, too, the spot at which he first read Mrs. Inchbald's 'Simple Story;' ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... think it improper to commit it to so large a committee as has been mentioned; a variety of causes may be supposed to show that such a hasty decision is improper; perhaps the prayer of it is improper. If I understood it right, on its first reading, though, to be sure, I did not comprehend perfectly all that the petition contained, it prays that we should take measures for the abolition of the slave trade; this is desiring an unconstitutional act, because the constitution ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... at some time or another in the hope of coming on a long succession of sleeping beauties. The average man retires disappointed from the quest. He would have to be unusually open to suggestion not to be disappointed at the first reading of most of the plays. Many a man can read the Elizabethans with Charles Lamb's enthusiasm, however, who never could have read them with ...
— The Art of Letters • Robert Lynd
... (1818-1892) was a friend and imitator of Espronceda and the last surviving member of his school. He was one of several who attempted the vain task of completing the "Diablo Mundo." He was a guest of honor with Espronceda at the first reading of "El Estudiante de Salamanca" at Granada in 1837. His verse is mediocre, and he is best known for the Cuento en prosa here quoted. This Fitzmaurice-Kelly terms "a charming tale," and Pieyro praises ...
— El Estudiante de Salamanca and Other Selections • George Tyler Northup
... passages of situation and description, and in the comic part is very rich and entertaining. I do not remember being so much pleased with it at first. There is a want of story, always fatal to a book the first reading—and it is well if it gets a chance of a second. Alas! poor novel! Also read again, and for the third time at least, Miss Austen's very finely written novel of Pride and Prejudice. That young lady had a talent for describing the involvements and feelings and characters of ordinary ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... conquered. I believe it a mistake to postpone all treatment of the uses of the subjunctive, for instance, or of the constructions of indirect discourse until the study of Nepos or Caesar is begun. Besides, it is easier to neglect notes than to supply them, and the teacher who prefers to do the first reading without much attention to the more difficult constructions will only need to tell his students to disregard certain of my ...
— Ritchie's Fabulae Faciles - A First Latin Reader • John Kirtland, ed.
... the father, mother, and fianc are found discussing the situation, and finally deciding to let their friends come to the congratulatory festival on first reading of the banns, and pretend that nothing unusual had happened. Afterwards they ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... expect to get the grace of God by singing psalms on Sunday, whatever rascality they practice during the week. In the modern popular drama of "School,"[108] the only religious figure is a dirty and malicious usher who appears first reading Hervey's "Meditations," and throws away the book as soon as he is out of sight of the company. But when Andrew is found by Frank "perched up like a statue by a range of beehives in an attitude of devout contemplation, with one eye watching the ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... the way to his place of death, in our judgement, produces more poetical effect than all the skilful intricacy of the plot of the Tyrannus. The latter excites an interest which scarcely lasts beyond the first reading—the former decies repetita placebit. ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... chapters of Adam Bede was put into his hands, and he writes thus to Lewes after the first perusal: 'Tell George Eliot that I think Adam Bede all right—most lifelike and real. I shall read the MS. quietly over again before writing in detail about it.... For the first reading it did not signify how many things I had to think of; I would have hurried through it with eager pleasure. I write this note to allay all anxiety on the part of George Eliot as to my appreciation of the merits ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke
... On a first reading of the incomplete MS. of The Ebb Tide, without its concluding chapters, which are the strongest, dislike of the three detestable—or rather two detestable and one contemptible—chief characters had made me unjust to the imaginative force ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... tell you what I wish in regard to this affair. I should like that your first reading should have nothing to do with me-that you should go quick through it, or let my father read it to you-forgetting all the time, as much as you can, that Fannikin is the writer, or even that it is a play in ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... this perturbation of the faculties, as might be supposed, affects persons of genius physically. What a forcible description the late Madame Roland, who certainly was a woman of the first genius, gives of herself on her first reading of Telemachus and Tasso. "My respiration rose; I felt a rapid fire colouring my face, and my voice changing, had betrayed my agitation; I was Eucharis for Telemachus, and Erminia for Tancred; however, during ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... ward, filled with old numbers of standard English periodicals; among them: Westminster Review, Edinburgh Review, London Quarterly, and Blackwood's. There were also copies of Harper's and The Atlantic Monthly, dated a generation or more before my first reading days. Indeed, some of the reviews were over fifty years old. But I had to read their heavy contents or go without reading, for I would not yet ask even for a thing I ardently desired. In the room of one of the patients were ...
— A Mind That Found Itself - An Autobiography • Clifford Whittingham Beers
... held by Mr Boffin to have been quite unworthy of his English origin, and 'not to have acted up to his name' in his government of the Roman people. With the death of this personage, Mr Wegg terminated his first reading; long before which consummation several total eclipses of Mrs Boffin's candle behind her black velvet disc, would have been very alarming, but for being regularly accompanied by a potent smell of burnt pens when her feathers took fire, which acted as a restorative and woke ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... don't know Hamlet? How rich I should feel myself if I had the first reading of it before me like you!—But imagine how different it would have been if, instead of such a roof, we had only clouds, hanging always down, like the flies in a theatre, within a yard ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald
... Philosophical Society of Manchester, October 21, 1803. This was published in 1805, and contains the atomic weight of twenty-one substances, some of which were probably added, or corrected, between the date of the first reading and the publication. ...
— A History of Science, Volume 5(of 5) - Aspects Of Recent Science • Henry Smith Williams
... reservations with regard to Dickens. He could not easily forgive any one who made him laugh immoderately. The first reading of "Dr. Marigold" in Boston was an exciting occasion, and Emerson was invited to "assist." After the reading he sat talking until a very late hour, for he was taken by surprise at the novelty and artistic perfection ...
— Authors and Friends • Annie Fields
... in their present disconnected state, the fragments are quite unavailable to us, but when worked into a story, they ought to make a success. I hope we shall have the first reading of the completed book. I understand it is the work of a beginner, but it bears none of the marks of the novice, and I can but think we have discovered the ...
— A Village Ophelia and Other Stories • Anne Reeve Aldrich
... writing to me. There were expressions in the letter which seemed to indicate that he had some such headlong project in his mind. And yet, surely, if it were so, I ought to have noticed them at the first reading. I can only hope I am wrong in my present interpretation of much of what he has written to me—hope it earnestly ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... hopeful prognostications. At all events, the reception of Mr. Birrell's speech, even by Redmond's own colleagues, marked a sudden change in the atmosphere. Some desired to vote at once against the measure; many were with difficulty brought into the lobby to support even the formal stage of first reading. In Ireland there was fierce denunciation. A Convention was called for May 21st. The crowd was so great that many of us could not make our way into the Mansion House; and Redmond opened the proceedings by moving ...
— John Redmond's Last Years • Stephen Gwynn
... said the same, so eagerly did they both thirst for the death of those innocents. But the priest would not consent to it without first reading the titles at least. ...
— Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... the impression that you have so great a mind that you can understand the most profound writer at a first reading?" ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... Peter would be well cared for, instead of being left in charge of the Spanish hospital orderly, whenever weakness and pain obliged him to lie down, Tom abandoned his place by the bedside, and prepared for a tranquil night's rest, first reading ...
— The Young Buglers • G.A. Henty
... multiplicatis numero et merito fratribus, electi fuerant ministri, et missi cum aliquot fratribus quasi per universas mundi provincias in quibus fides catholica colitur et servatur. What does this expression, inceptio religionis, mean? At a first reading one unhesitatingly takes it to refer to the foundation of the Order, which occurred in April, 1209, by the reception of the first Brothers; but on adding eleven full years to this date we reach the summer ...
— Life of St. Francis of Assisi • Paul Sabatier
... butcher's shop, with every fresh endeavour Abraham has made to find out 'zackly wot de missis do want;' so the day before yesterday, while I was painfully dragging S—— through the early intellectual science of the alphabet and first reading lesson, Abraham appeared at the door of the room brandishing a very long thin knife, and with many bows, grins, and apologies for disturbing me, begged that I would go and cut up a sheep for him. My first impulse of course was to decline the very unusual ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble
... lived in Castle Street, Cavendish Square, he used frequently to visit two ladies who lived opposite to him—Miss Cotterells, daughters of Admiral Cotterell. Reynolds used also to visit there, and thus they met. Mr. Reynolds had, from the first reading of his "Life of Savage," conceived a very high admiration of Johnson's powers of writing. His conversation no less delighted him, and he cultivated his acquaintance with the laudable zeal of one who was ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... before the House the facts and reasons which 'induce the Government to believe in the necessity of the measure.' Mr. O'Connell and his followers had already announced their intention of opposing the first reading of the bill, an allowable but very unusual course. It is competent to the House of Commons to refuse a first reading to any bill sent down to it; but the journals afford few examples of the exercise of such a privilege. A member of the House of Lords ...
— Lord George Bentinck - A Political Biography • Benjamin Disraeli
... first reading of those pregnant words, all the even and hopeless monotony, all the dull and barren plane of life had suddenly erupted into one towering and consuming passion for activity, for return to his old world with its gentle anaesthesia of ever-widening plans and its ...
— Phantom Wires - A Novel • Arthur Stringer
... I own, that (at first reading) I was much affected with your mother's letter sent with the patterns. A strange measure however from a mother; for she did not intend to insult you; and I cannot but lament that so sensible and so fine a woman should stoop to so much art as that letter is written ...
— Clarissa, Volume 2 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... Innisfree," that so charmed Stevenson that he had to write its author, and say it cast over him a spell like that of his first reading of the "Poems and Ballads" of Swinburne and the "Love in ...
— Irish Plays and Playwrights • Cornelius Weygandt
... the physicians upon my friend's dearest friend, Miss Dorothy Wilson], and yet I know not, except your sorrow, what there is so deplorable in the fact that Dorothy, who is one of the living best prepared for death, should have received a summons, which on first reading of it shocked ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... circles. Nietzsche clearly saw that the "philologists" (using the word chiefly in reference to the teachers of the classics in German colleges and universities) were absolutely unfitted for their high task, since they were one and all incapable of entering into the spirit of antiquity. Although at the first reading, therefore, this book may seem to be rather fragmentary, there are two main lines of thought running through it: an incisive criticism of German professors, and a number of constructive ideas as to what classical ...
— We Philologists, Volume 8 (of 18) • Friedrich Nietzsche
... The first reading was on March 28th, and the passage through the House of Commons was smooth. At the second reading, on April 1st, General Oglethorpe was asked to explain why the privilege of affirming should be extended to Moravians in Great Britain and Ireland. Why ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton
... riots, from ever after holding any office of magistracy in Edinburgh or Great Britain; to subject him to imprisonment for a year; to abolish the town guard, and to take away the gates of the nether Bowport of the city." Oglethorpe objected to the first reading of the bill, and it encountered his vigorous opposition. He engaged in a warm defence of the magistrates, and of the guard, declaring that there was no dereliction of duty on the part of the magistrates and of the guard, but they were ...
— Biographical Memorials of James Oglethorpe • Thaddeus Mason Harris
... I further demanded of him what he had ate or drank that day? He replied, "Nothing but a dish of water-gruel with a few plums in it." In the next place, I felt his pulse, which was very low and languishing. These circumstances confirmed me in an opinion, which I had entertained upon the first reading of his letter, that the gentleman was far gone in the spleen. I therefore advised him to rise the next morning, and plunge into the cold bath, there to remain under water till he was almost drowned. ...
— Isaac Bickerstaff • Richard Steele
... make sure whether I wrote to you yesterday, and told you that we had done very well at the first reading after all, even in money. The reception was prodigious, and the readings are the town talk. But I rather think I did actually write this to you. My doubt on the subject arises from my having deliberated about ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 2 (of 3), 1857-1870 • Charles Dickens
... there, such as he remembered in his father's face: only trouble, pain, and their mysteriously refining tracery. But the heaviness was in his heart. He had to understand the letter absolutely, not only what it said but all it implied. If it actually meant what he believed it to mean at first reading, it drew a heavy line across his own life. Nan had drawn the line before, but this broadened it, reenforced it with a band of black absolutely impossible to cross. And it did mean it, and, having seen that, without a possibility of doubt, he enclosed ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... first reading of this letter produced on me, I shall say nothing. Even at this distance of time, I shrink from reviving the memory of what I suffered, alone in my room on that miserable night. Let it be enough if I tell you briefly at ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins
... at me if I tell you. I am afraid my first reading of your face was wrong—I am afraid you are a ...
— The Two Destinies • Wilkie Collins
... long and long after the experience I am recording, I thought Carlyle, and wrote Carlyle; and that neither the thinking nor the literary mode could ever have occurred to me without his influence; but in my first reading of his pages, he seemed to be telling me things which were deeply implanted in my soul already. The truth about the matter is, probably, that he dominated me so completely that I did not think at ...
— Recollections • David Christie Murray
... over this preposterous epistle again before I fully grasped its significance. On the first reading it seemed incredible that the man could be sincere in his professions; on the second, his perfect good faith manifested itself in every line. Had I read it a third time, I, no doubt, should have regarded him as an heroic figure, with a halo already ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke
... interesting literary gossip about their common acquaintances. But the letter had been chiefly filled with questions as to why he had not yet written, and, above all, why he did not send on some verses. Horace still felt the irritation of the first reading, although he had had his lunch and his nap, and had reached the serenest hour of the day. When they said good-by in Rome he had told Florus that he should not write: he was too lazy in these later years to ...
— Roads from Rome • Anne C. E. Allinson
... more interruptions, the poem came to an end—whereupon, of course, the poet immediately read it through once more from the beginning, its personal and emotional elements, he felt, having been done more justice on a first reading than its ...
— Prose Fancies (Second Series) • Richard Le Gallienne
... problems in arithmetic and geometry, and with the same gusto. They studied grammatical construction much as they studied the tracks and the habits of wild animals. They read the books in Skipper Ed's library with the feelings and sensations of explorers. In the first reading they were going through an unknown forest, and with each successive reading they were retracing their steps and exploring the trail in minute detail and becoming thoroughly acquainted ...
— Bobby of the Labrador • Dillon Wallace
... blush at the first reading, and to laugh at the second, saying that it was just like him to call her Chloe when her name was Clara. Ridiculous young man! But when, between ten and eleven on a rainy morning, Edwin Mallett laid his life at her feet she ran out of the room and hid herself in her bedroom, and Timothy below ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... married a daughter of the Duke of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, it was proposed to augment his income of about 20,000l. a year by a further pension of 6000l. A bill to that effect was brought in by Lord Castlereagh, and, after much sullen opposition from independent members, allowed a first reading by a majority of seventeen. On the second division the majority was reduced to twelve. The bill was brought on for the third reading on the 3rd of July, and would have been passed through the House of ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, G.C.B., Admiral of the Red, Rear-Admiral of the Fleet, Etc., Etc. • Thomas Cochrane, Earl of Dundonald
... to go as far as possible in aiding them, but was opposed to voting such a vast landed property belonging to the city into the hands of any church, and I fought the bill at all stages. In committee of the whole, and at first reading, priestly influence led a majority to vote for it, but at last, despite all the efforts of Tammany Hall, ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... offered a petition to the House of Commons for a continuance of the Act, which was not suffered to be brought up; upon this they applied themselves to the Lords, who passed a Bill accordingly, and sent it down to the Commons, where it was not so much as allowed a first reading. ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift
... upon a passage common to both German and English, which in its turn was followed in the English by the sub-apologetic paragraph which I had been struck with on first reading, and which was not in the German, its place being taken by a much longer passage which had no place in the English. A little farther on I was amused at coming upon the following, and at finding it wholly transformed in the supposed ...
— Unconscious Memory • Samuel Butler |
