"Reciter" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... instrument, but that a "professor" could be secured to go out from Detroit twice a week—if desired. We seemed to be in for it, so the lessons were desired, and we comforted ourselves with the assurance that if Mary did not turn out to be a tiptop reciter she would surely prove a tiptop cornet player. Her unusual talent would justify my wife in her unusual step, and the society of Lake City would forgive her for attempting to thrust the girl into its midst as an equal. Many of our acquaintances seemed to take mother's view of the case,—"Matter ...
— The Making of Mary • Jean Forsyth
... The young Reciter is seldom happy in his delivery of blank verse. To which the unsympathetic may retort, that he does not deserve to be. Mr. Punch, however, recommends his pupils to treat such sneers with the contempt they merit, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 93, September 24, 1887 • Various
... Brandram' in the Dictionary of National Biography is a reciter who died in 1892; he certainly had less claim to the distinction ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter
... have been a curious study for such men as love to gaze upon the dark and wily features of human character, to have watched the contrast between the reciter and the listener, as Beaufort, with much circumlocution, much affected disdain and real anxiety, narrated the singular and ominous conversation ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 4 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... represents the debris of this romance has only been recovered in a single text, from the memory of an old man in Unst, Shetland, and it is incomplete in verse-form, though the reciter remembered the gist of the story. This version of the ballad is further complicated by the fact that the old man sang it to a refrain which appears to be Unst pronunciation of Danish—a startling ...
— The Sources and Analogues of 'A Midsummer-night's Dream' • Compiled by Frank Sidgwick
... the room, and flung his arms above his head. Then he dropped them to his side, and shrugged his shoulders, finishing in an attitude reminiscent of Plate 6 ("Despair") in "The Home Reciter." ...
— The Prince and Betty - (American edition) • P. G. Wodehouse
... The poet thought they were Gothic, and probably he was right. In this town the talk was mostly about Art, and many fine things were said in regard to "sweetness and light." Everybody claimed to be an artist of some kind, whether painter, musician, novelist, dramatist, verse-maker, reciter, singer, or what not. But although they seemed so greatly devoted to the Graces and the Muses, it was but the images of the Parnassian Gods that they worshipped. For in the purlieus of this fine town, horrible cruelties and abuses were committed, yet none of the so-called poets ...
— Dreams and Dream Stories • Anna (Bonus) Kingsford
... seemed to me that the lengthening and shortening of syllables according to their position, as happens in classical Latin, with regard to the syllables that follow them, must always have corresponded with the stresses or absence of stress which would naturally be made apparent by the voice of an ideal reciter; and to me, as to some other people, the question has proved amusing of how far in English verse Latin prosody could be reproduced. Many attempts have been made at deciding this question by experiments. The most remarkable of these are two which were made by Tennyson. One of them, called "Hendecasyllabics," ...
— Memoirs of Life and Literature • W. H. Mallock
... down from male to female, and from female to male. They are also in common use in Ireland. Besides healing diseases, such charms are supposed to cause fertility or bring good luck, or even to transfer the property of others to the reciter, or, in the case of darker magic, to cause death or disease.[1127] In Ireland, sorcerers could "rime either a man or beast to death," and this recalls the power of satire in the mouth of File or Druid. ...
— The Religion of the Ancient Celts • J. A. MacCulloch
... a public speaker is radically different from that of the actor or reciter. You are not impersonating some one else, nor interpreting the thought of another. You must above all things be natural, real, sincere and earnest. Your work ...
— Model Speeches for Practise • Grenville Kleiser
... Jaques' immortal speech of "All the world's a stage," in a thoroughly natural and unconventional manner, chiefly remarkable for the absence of every gesture or tone that could make it a mere theatrical recitation by a modern professional reciter at a pic-nic. Mrs. LANGTRY'S Rosalind is charming, her scenes with Orlando being as pretty a piece of acting as any honest playgoer could wish to see. And what a pretty Lamb is she they call ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, April 5, 1890 • Various
... 'gentleman's hosiery' was a well-known reciter, and he was called upon loudly to perform by all the assistants in his department. Needing no pressing, he gave a long poem of tragic character, in which he rolled his eyes, put his hand on his chest, and acted as though he were in great agony. The point, that he had eaten cucumber for ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... the longest poem or most interesting tale. Living in the land of Ossian, it was natural to ask a stranger, "Can you speak of the days of Fingal?" If the answer was in the affirmative, then the neighbors were summoned, and poems and old tales would be the order until the hour of midnight. The reciter threw into the recitation all the powers of his soul and gave vent to the sentiment. Both sexes always participated ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean
... think it must have been on this very occasion that my father invited some of his friends in the evening to meet Miss Bronte—for everybody was interested and anxious to see her. Mrs. Crowe, the reciter of ghost-stories, was there. Mrs. Brookfield, Mrs. Carlyle, Mr. Carlyle himself was present, so I am told, railing at the appearance of cockneys upon Scotch mountain sides; there were also too many Americans for his taste, "but the Americans were as gods compared to the cockneys," says the philosopher. ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... that moment turned towards him simultaneously. The ardour of the poet appeared to communicate itself to the audience. Their wild and sunburnt countenances assumed a fiercer and more animated expression; all bent forward towards the reciter, many sprang up and waved their arms in ecstasy, and some laid their hands on their swords. When the song ceased, there was a deep pause, while the aroused feelings of the poet and of the hearers gradually subsided into their ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... letter in which Pliny (Bk. v. letter 17) tells Spurinna the pleasure he had just received from a recitation by a noble youth in the house of Calpurnius Piso, and how, when it was over, he gave the youth many kisses and praises, congratulated his mother and his brother, in whom, as the reciter tried his powers, first fear for him and then delight in him was manifest. To the sentences quoted above the ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... went back—had been a scene, for our young woman, of supreme brilliancy; a party given at a "gallery" hired by a hostess who fished with big nets. A Spanish dancer, understood to be at that moment the delight of the town, an American reciter, the joy of a kindred people, an Hungarian fiddler, the wonder of the world at large—in the name of these and other attractions the company in which, by a rare privilege, Kate found herself had been freely convoked. She lived under her mother's roof, as she considered, ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume 1 of 2 • Henry James
... was engaged in chanting in a corner of his cell. Directly he heard the uproarious yelling of the Frog he was astounded, and came out with the intention of taking a look at the reciter; and while occupied with listening to him, kept smiting his hands together and shaking his head. These gestures, which seemed to display approbation, pleased the Frog and he made advances toward acquaintance with him. In short, being mutually pleased with each ...
— The Talking Beasts • Various
... general observations hold; save that they are less filthy, though no less sensual. In the era producing these tales, witness this fact: The stories are represented as told by a company of gentlemen and ladies, the reciter being sometimes a man, sometimes a woman; the place, a country villa, whither they had fled to escape a plague then raging in Florence. The people, so solacing themselves in retreat from a plague they should ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle
... brother reciting, she called the Chief Eunuch and said to him, "Go, fetch me the man who is repeating this poetry!" Replied he, "Of a truth I heard him not and I wot him not and folks are all sleeping." But she said, "Whomsoever thou seest awake, he is the reciter." So he went, yet found none on wake save the Stoker; for Zau al-Makan was still insensible, and when his companion saw the Eunuch standing by his head he was afraid of him. Then said the Eunuch, "Art thou he who repeated poetry but now and my lady ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton |
