"Firstborn" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... proportion of illegitimate births very high, since in Berlin it is 17 per cent., and in some towns very much higher, but ante-nuptial conceptions take place in nearly half the marriages, and sometimes in the majority. Thus in Berlin more than 40 per cent, of all legitimate firstborn children are conceived before marriage, while in some rural provinces (where the proportion of illegitimate births is lower) the percentage of marriages following ante-nuptial conceptions is much higher than in Berlin. The conditions in rural ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... cells of the spore emits exteriorly one or several of these corpuscles, supported on very short slender pedicels, which remain after the corpuscles are detached from them. This latter circumstance evidences that new corpuscles succeed the firstborn one on each pedicel as long as there remains any plastic matter within the spore. The latter, in fact, in consequence of this labour of production, becomes gradually emptied, and yet preserves the generative pedicels of the corpuscles, even ...
— Fungi: Their Nature and Uses • Mordecai Cubitt Cooke
... furthest coast of Cornwall—the king sent for Merlin, to take counsel with him and to pray his help. This, therefore, Merlin promised him on one condition—namely, that the king should give him up the first son born of the marriage. For Merlin by his arts foreknew that this firstborn should be the long-wished ...
— The Legends Of King Arthur And His Knights • James Knowles
... it shall be that the firstborn which she beareth shall succeed in the name of his brother that is dead, that his name be not put out ...
— On The Structure of Greek Tribal Society: An Essay • Hugh E. Seebohm
... had fulfilled her months, Her firstborn son (came forth) like a lamb. There was no bursting, nor rending, No injury, no hurt; Showing how wonderful he would be. Did not God give her the comfort? Had he not accepted her pure offering and sacrifice, So that thus easily she brought ...
— The Shih King • James Legge
... may understand these words, and the destruction of the Hebrew commonwealth, we must bear in mind that it had at first been intended to entrust the whole duties of the priesthood to the firstborn, and not to the Levites (see Numb. viii:17). (166) It was only when all the tribes, except the Levites, worshipped the golden calf, that the firstborn were rejected and defiled, and the Levites chosen in their stead (Deut. x:8). (167) When I reflect on ...
— A Theologico-Political Treatise [Part IV] • Benedict de Spinoza
... white man's wives," gruffly. "The squaws of the Senecas long for them. And shall the Seneca see his favorite wife weep like a mother who has lost her firstborn?" ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... Prince may have felt glowing in his heart a sweet prescience of the peculiar comfort and joy he afterwards found in the loving devotion and noble character of his firstborn, that little blessing that would come, ...
— Queen Victoria, her girlhood and womanhood • Grace Greenwood
... should keep the Agenais and La Reole, as belonging to France by right of Charles of Valois' recent conquest. Bitterly mortified at this treachery, Edward took upon himself the title of "governor and administrator of his firstborn, Edward, Duke of Aquitaine, and of his estates". By this technical subtlety, he thought himself entitled to resume the control of the ceded districts and resist the attack which was bound to follow hard upon the new breach. Once more Charles IV. pronounced the sequestration of the duchy, and despite ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout
... largest sum that functionary had ever in his life received all at once in a single payment—Guy little knew that Nevitt was really the chief friend and founder of the family fortunes, and was prepared to compel the "unknown benefactor" (for a moderate commission) to recognise his unacknowledged firstborn sons before all the world as the heirs to Tilgate. But yesterday, they were nameless waifs and strays, of uncertain origin, ashamed of their birth, and ignorant even whether they had been duly begotten in lawful wedlock; to-day, they were the legal inheritors ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen
... say unto thee, let my son go, that he may serve me: and if thou refuse to let him go, behold, I will slay thy son, even thy firstborn: ...
— The Woman's Bible. • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... sure, to be sure," said Mrs. McNally nervously. She was very much in awe of her firstborn, who was indeed possessed of a considerable amount of determination. "The young man, of course, 'ull make his own choice, but I must say I think it 'ud be only becoming ...
— North, South and Over the Sea • M.E. Francis (Mrs. Francis Blundell)
... seen the young mother going to the pagoda on the hilltop with a little offering of a few roses or an orchid spray, and pouring out her soul in passionate supplication to Someone—Someone unknown to her sacred books—that her firstborn might recover of his fever, and be to her once more the measureless delight of her life; and it would seem to me that she must believe in a God and in ...
— The Soul of a People • H. Fielding
... away all tears from our eyes." By the anticipations of faith, we are "come unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus the Mediator ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox
... higher room of God's great House. The Apostle, speaking of the Church, says, "Ye are come, (not ye will come,) unto Mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the Heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and Church of the firstborn which are written in Heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus the Mediator of the New Covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that ...
— The Life of Duty, v. 2 - A year's plain sermons on the Gospels or Epistles • H. J. Wilmot-Buxton
... of Wales it is allowed upon all hands is the finest baby ever sent into this naughty world since the firstborn of Eve. At a day old he would make three of any of the new-born babes that a month since blessed the Union bf Sevenoaks. There is, however, a remarkable providence in this. The Prince of Wales is born to the vastness of a palace; the little ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, December 18, 1841 • Various
... on to expound its virtues with all the fond enthusiasm of a father showing off his firstborn, and wound up with a demonstration of the illuminating appliance. I'm afraid, though, he got little encouragement from Mr. Burnham. He considered the machine with a dispassionate air, it's true, and admitted its practical ...
— The Fortune Hunter • Louis Joseph Vance
... bear a son, though old in winters, and fate shall be fulfilled according to My word. I will bless Ishmael, thy firstborn, with My blessing as thou dost ask, that his days may be long in the land, and his race may multiply. This will I grant thee. So also will I prosper Isaac, thy younger son, who is not yet born, with every good and pleasant thing all the days ...
— Codex Junius 11 • Unknown
... was called, had taken his medical degree, and, by the indulgence of his father, whose heart yearned sympathetically toward his firstborn, opportunity was afforded him to spend a year in Paris. Mrs. Meeker groaned over this unnecessary expense. When she saw that on this occasion she was not to have her own way, she insisted that the money her husband was wasting on Frank should be charged against ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... everything that could increase his glory and render it more durable; and there entered into the prayers she made for him since the burning disgrace of the divorce, even the hope that he might be happy in his private life, and that his new wife might bear this child, this firstborn of his dynasty, to him whom she herself could ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... violence, and enter the earth, beneath her feet, whence immediately sprang up a goodly tree covered with blossoms, the scent of which operated so strongly on her nerves that she awoke. The attentive sage, after some deliberation, assured my parents, that their firstborn would be a great traveller; that he would undergo many dangers and difficulties, and at last return to his native land, where he would flourish in happiness and reputation. How truly this was foretold will appear in the sequel. It was not long before some officious ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... is Constance, the general's firstborn," introduced Winifred, still retaining her liveliness despite Mama's low temperature. Constance was the perfect connectinglink between Winifred and her mother, not yet gray but soon to be so, without Winifred's animation, but with the ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... others' thankfulness; and all stablished together by God. In Heb. xii. 22 mount Zion is taken as the symbol of Christ's Church; and the readers are addressed as members thereof, together with the spirits of just men made perfect, who are enrolled in heaven as the general assembly and church of the firstborn. Thus the {113} Church, or Society of Saints includes the imperfect, and those who are made perfect; those who are alive there, and those who are alive here. The condition of membership is briefly described in Acts ii. 38, 42 Repentant, Baptized, having the Gift of the Holy ...
— The Prayer Book Explained • Percival Jackson
... countless hands the measure beat, As mix and part in amorous maze Those floating arms and bounding feet. But none of all the race of Cain, Save those whom he hath deigned to grace With yellow robe and sapphire chain, May pass beyond that outer space. For now within the painted hall The Firstborn keeps high festival. Before the glittering valves all night Their post the chosen captains hold. Above the portal's stately height The legend flames in lamps of gold: "In life united and in death "May Tirzah and Ahirad be, "The bravest he of all the ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 3. (of 4) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... Queen of the Goths, whose firstborn son is sacrificed by Titus Andronicus, determines to be revenged. She succeeds in her determination. Titus and his daughter are mutilated. Two of the Andronici, his ...
— William Shakespeare • John Masefield
... on life: the Soul Between them shone, and soared above their strife, And left on Time's unclosed and starry scroll A sign that quickened death to deathless life. Peace rose like Hope, a patient queen, and bade Hell's firstborn, Faith, abjure her creed and die; And Love, by life and death made sad and glad, Gave Conscience ease, and watched Good Will pass by. All these make music now of one man's name, Whose life and age are one with love ...
— A Channel Passage and Other Poems - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne—Vol VI • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... hit him where he lived, and he began jerking frantically at his encased feet and sobbing low in his throat. They'd hear him if he kept that up. He stopped and covered his ears to close out the cry of his firstborn. A light went on in the house, and when it went off again, ...
— The Hoofer • Walter M. Miller
... world, he had received a hurt. She knew so little of him, had only had him for such a little, little while under the influence of her love and in the shelter of her heart, and she loved him, her firstborn, with a love beyond words. Thinking to do the best for him, and making the biggest mistake of all, beating down her beloved husband's opposition, she had sent the boy to England, and in the subsequent eight years had only seen ...
— The Hawk of Egypt • Joan Conquest
... firstborn married. The younger brothers and sisters worked under him and for him. In the lonely farms of the mountains of the South, far from all neighbours and every woman, brothers and sisters lived together, the latter serving and ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet
... Mr. Knight commanded. 'It's like him to begin making a noise just now. I'll take a look at Susan—and my firstborn.' ...
— A Great Man - A Frolic • Arnold Bennett
... character of these States, whether republics or despotisms, lies, not the only, but the chief reason for the early development of the Italian. To this it is due that he was the firstborn among the sons ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... fault with the performance, I should pronounce it defective in dignity and sentiment. It is the expression of a peasant rather than of the mother of God. She exhibits the fondness and joy of a young woman towards her firstborn son, without that rapture of admiration which we expect to find in the Virgin Mary, while she contemplates, in the fruit of her own womb, the Saviour of mankind. In other respects, it is a fine figure, gay, agreeable, and very expressive of maternal tenderness; and the bambino is ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... they create awe of me in those beings who dwell in their divine territories. Behold, I am exalted upon my standard, and upon my seat, and upon the throne which is adjudged [to me]. I am the god Nu, and the workers of iniquity shall not destroy me. I am the firstborn god of primeval matter, that is to say, the divine Soul, even the Souls of the gods of everlastingness, and my body is eternity. My Form is everlastingness, and is the lord of years and the prince of eternity. [I am] the creator of the darkness who ...
— Egyptian Literature
... megatherium[obs3]; Sanskrit. tradition, prescription, custom, immemorial usage, common law. V. be old &c. adj.; have had its day, have seen its day; become old &c. adj.; age, fade, senesce. Adj. old, ancient, antique; of long standing, time-honored, venerable; elder, eldest; firstborn. prime; primitive, primeval, primigenous[obs3]; paleolontological, paleontologic, paleoanthropological, paleoanthropic[obs3], paleolithic, ; primordial, primordinate[obs3]; aboriginal &c. (beginning) 66; diluvian[obs3], antediluvian; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... themselves between Pangasinan and Manila and would make their visits less arduous. But since that was a very painful proposition to those who governed our discalced order, namely, the abandonment of certain Indians who were the firstborn of their spirit, and a land watered by the blood of so many martyrs, the claim could never be made effectual, however much it was smoothed over by the name of exchange, our province being offered other ministries, in ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 41 of 55, 1691-1700 • Various
... him my firstborn, higher than the kings of the earth. My mercy will I keep for him for evermore, and my covenant shall stand fast with him. His seed also will I make to endure forever, and his throne as the days of heaven. If his children forsake my law and walk not in my judgements; if they break my statutes ...
— God's Plan with Men • T. T. (Thomas Theodore) Martin
... more about thirteen being an unlucky number. The common law of England, which usually has some good reason based on commonsense for its existence, makes the eldest son the heir: this on the assumption that the firstborn inherits brain and brawn plus. If the firstborn happened to be a ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard
... down as gently as a mother would her firstborn, Ruby placed a coat under her head, and bade his comrades stand back and give her air. It was fortunate for him that one of the foremen, who understood what to do, came up at this moment, and ordered him to leave off chafing the girl's hand with his wet fists, and go get some water boiled at the ...
— The Lighthouse • Robert Ballantyne
... at the front, to bar the way, The Red Sea waters stand, And Egypt's hosts are close behind, A fierce relentless band; Intent their firstborn to avenge, Their Hebrew slaves to claim: Look up, and see the pyramids, ...
— War Rhymes • Abner Cosens
... in her is of the Holy Spirit" . . . This came to pass that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet: . . . "Behold a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son." And Joseph "knew her not until she had brought forth her firstborn son; and he called His ...
— Spiritual Life and the Word of God • Emanuel Swedenborg
... Feet Elizabeth Akers The Babie Jeremiah Eames Rankin Little Hands Laurence Binyon Bartholomew Norman Gale The Storm-Child May Byron "On Parent Knees" William Jones "Philip, My King" Dinah Maria Mulock Craik The King of the Cradle Joseph Ashby-Sterry The Firstborn John Arthur Goodchild No Baby in the House Clara Dolliver Our Wee White Rose Gerald Massey Into the World and Out Sarah M. P. Piatt "Baby Sleeps" Samuel Hinds Baby Bell ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 3 (of 4) • Various
... tried so many years to believe that he did, till it had become part of her life, as it was part of her life to say her prayers night and morning; and now she found it was all pretence. But, lying awake, she still tried to believe it, because to that she had been bound when she brought him, firstborn, into the world. Her other son, her daughters, she loved them too, but it was not the same thing, quite; she had never wanted them to want her, because that part of her had been given once for ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... first printed in The Gem, 1829. The Gem was then edited by Thomas Hood, whose child—his firstborn—it was thatinspired the poem. Lamb sent the verses to ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb
... the other, "Am I awake, or do I dream?" There was a piteous helplessness. Strong men bowed down and wept. Other and common griefs belonged to some one in chief; this belonged to all. It was each and every man's. Every virtuous household in the land felt as if its firstborn were gone. Men were bereaved and walked for days as if a corpse lay unburied in their dwellings. There was nothing else to think of. They could speak of nothing but that; and yet of that they could speak only falteringly. All business was laid aside. Pleasure ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... their knees beside it, close as bride and bridegroom on altar steps, as father and mother at the firstborn's cradle. The dusk was melting into moonlight; they could not see each other's faces. When his big frame heaved with heavy sobs, she laid a timid hand—her beautiful hand—on his shoulder; and when he felt that sympathetic woman's touch, he turned suddenly and kissed her. Afterwards he did not ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... Primrose, firstborn child of Ver; Merry springtime's harbinger, With her bells dim; Oxlips in their cradles growing, Marigolds on ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... institution of the Passover; the Death of the firstborn; and the Exodus of the Israelites—by Mr. ...
— Ely Cathedral • Anonymous
... killed my son, Macumazahn?" he asked in a hollow voice, the tears running down his handsome face, for he had loved his firstborn. ...
— Child of Storm • H. Rider Haggard
... Christ is in the proper sense [Greek: idios] the only Son begotten of God, being His Word [Greek: logos] and Firstborn Power' [Endnote 284:1]. Again, 'But His Son who alone is rightly [Greek: kurios] called Son, who before all created things was with Him and begotten of Him as His Word, when in the beginning He created and ordered all things through Him,' &c. Again, 'Now the next Power ...
— The Gospels in the Second Century - An Examination of the Critical Part of a Work - Entitled 'Supernatural Religion' • William Sanday
... enjoy the freedom of air with the bird, and the glow of the sun with the lizard; to sport through the blooms of the earth, Nature's playmate and darling; to face, in the forest and desert, the pard and the lion,—Nature's bravest and fiercest,—her firstborn, the heir of her realm, with the rest ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... baby was to be called after a pope and bear, in Protestant Sweden. Nono (the ninth) suited him better than any one around him suspected. The tiny Italian was really the ninth baby that had come to the golden house. Karin had now six children. She had laid her firstborn in the grave long ago, and lately her little Gustaf had been placed beside him ...
— The Golden House • Mrs. Woods Baker
... had fulfilled her months, Her firstborn came forth like a lamb. There was no bursting, no rending, No injury, no hurt, In order to emphasise his divinity. Did not God give her comfort? Had He not accepted her sacrifice, So that thus easily ...
— Religions of Ancient China • Herbert A. Giles
... bathing, with the words, 'Let us flee, lest the room should indeed fall in, for Cerinthus, the enemy of the truth, is within.' Yea, and Polycarp himself also on one occasion, when Marcion confronted him and said, 'Dost thou recognize me?' answered, 'I recognize the firstborn of Satan.' Such care did the Apostles and their disciples take not to hold any communication, even by word, with any of those who falsify the truth, as Paul also said, 'A man that is a heretic after a first and second admonition, avoid; knowing that such an one is ...
— Essays on "Supernatural Religion" • Joseph B. Lightfoot
... been neglected for the firstborn, I had enjoyed through this neglect an absolute freedom with regard to associating with fisher-boys and all the shoeless, hatless 'sea-pups' of the sands, and now, when the time had come to civilise ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... deferred his journey to the last moment, in order to stand godfather to Nancy's healthy firstborn. John Lambert—honest man and proud father—had honoured the event with a dinner, and very nearly wrecked his own domestic peace by sending out the invitations in his own hand and including Mr. and Mrs. Wright. For weeks after, Nancy shuddered to think what might ...
— Hetty Wesley • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... much, until he left numbering; for it was without number. And unto Joseph were born two sons, befare the years of famine came, which Asenath, the daughter of Poti-pherah, priest of On, bare unto him. And Joseph called the name of the firstborn Manasseh: "For God," said he, "hath made me forget all my toil, and all my father's house." And the name of the second called he Ephraim: "For God hath caused me to be fruitful in the land ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... enough of clipping and embracing her; and she would look at Birdalone's hands and her feet and her arms, and stroke them and caress them; and she wondered at her body, as if she had been a young mother eaten up with the love of her firstborn. And as for Birdalone, she was as glad of her mother as might be; and yet in her heart she wondered if perchance one of the fellowship might stray that way, and be partaker in her joy of this newfound dear friend; and she said, might it be Viridis; but in her inmost heart, though she told ...
— The Water of the Wondrous Isles • William Morris
... her firstborn Son, and wrapped Him in swaddling clothes, and laid Him in a manger." (Luke ...
— Our Master • Bramwell Booth
... thy people, whom thou hast called thy firstborn, thy only begotten, and thy fervent lover, are ...
— Deuteronomical Books of the Bible - Apocrypha • Anonymous
... Duchess was Lady Victoria Alexandrina Violet, born in 1890. She was highly honoured at her christening, for Queen Victoria acted as sponsor person, and held the baby in her arms. There is at Welbeck an autograph letter from the Queen, congratulating the parents on their firstborn. The next was the heir to the Dukedom, William Arthur Henry, Marquis of Titchfield, born March 16th, 1893, and the third Lord Francis Norwen Dallas, ...
— The Portland Peerage Romance • Charles J. Archard
... saith He, 'A Judge.' Now, therefore, say not in your hearts, 'What have we done?' Your dogs may answer that, To make whom fiercer for the chase, ye feed With captives whom ye slew not in the war, But saved alive, and living throw to them Daily. Your wives may answer that, whose babes Their firstborn ye do take and offer up To this abhorred snake, while yet the milk Is in their innocent mouths,—your maiden babes Tender. Your slaves may answer that,—the gangs Whose eyes ye did put out to make ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Jean Ingelow
... Isaac were both the natural children of Abraham. By rights Ishmael should have enjoyed the prerogatives of the firstborn, if physical generation had any special value. Nevertheless he was left out in the cold while Isaac was called. This goes to prove that the children of faith are the ...
— Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians • Martin Luther
... and ask him to come here," said Mrs. Morpher, without noticing a sudden irregularity of conduct in her firstborn. "Run quick!" ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... he had been called opened pleasantly and increased in happiness and opportunity, except for the sadness of bereavements, for, in the first few years, his brilliant brothers Edward and Charles died, and soon afterward Waldo, his firstborn son, and later his mother. Emerson had left traditional religion, the city, the Old World, behind, and now went to Nature as his teacher, his inspiration. His first book, "Nature," which he was meditating while in Europe, was finished ...
— Poems - Household Edition • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... vocation to the Deacon now within a month of the Priesthood. Was it not an evident call from Him by whom the whole Church is governed and sanctified? And surely the noble old man, who forced himself not to withhold 'his son, his firstborn son,' received his crown from Him who said: 'With blessing I will ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... repeating. "The tender worm of 'en! But I'll have 'en back, if I've to go to the naughty place to fetch 'en. Why, what sort of a tale be I to pitch to my Dan'l, if he comes home and his firstborn gone?" ...
— News from the Duchy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... as he announced to his friend Ruhel, his 'dear Kate brought him, by the great mercy of God, a little Hans Luther,'—her firstborn. With joy and thankfulness, as he says in another letter, they now reaped the fruit and blessings of married life, whereof the Pope and his creatures ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin
... annoyed at the presumption of the lad, as if he wished to be above Moa the firstborn. He feigned an errand, and called the boy to come and scratch his back. The boy went to perform the operation, but on stretching out his hand was seized by his grandfather, and beaten with the handle of his fly-flapper. Lu made his ...
— Samoa, A Hundred Years Ago And Long Before • George Turner
... We were dead, but behold, we live! We spent our energies in profitless work; but now we bear fruit unto God. We were lonely and isolated, but now have come to the heavenly Jerusalem, to the innumerable company of angels, and to the Church of the Firstborn. Our prayers were aimless and ineffective; but now we have the petitions we desired. New hope and joy have filled our hearts, as the ruddy clusters hang full and ripe in the autumn. Prove Him for yourself and see if this shall not be ...
— Love to the Uttermost - Expositions of John XIII.-XXI. • F. B. Meyer
... pictures by Lady Alma-Tadema are "Hush-a-Bye," "Parting," in the Art Gallery at Adelaide, New South Wales, "Silent Persuasion," "The Carol," and "Satisfaction." Her picture in the Academy Exhibition, 1903, a Dutch interior with a young mother nursing "The Firstborn," was much admired and was in harmony with ...
— Women in the fine arts, from the Seventh Century B.C. to the Twentieth Century A.D. • Clara Erskine Clement
... best. She was like a fair young mother radiant with the joys attaching to the birth of her firstborn. The striking of the quarter on the church clock was borne to her on the light wind; she heard a rumble and caught a glimpse through the young foliage of the white panelled carriages of a train ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte
... the poor old gardener, a brown-black funeral cloak thrown over his homely dress, and supporting his wife with steps scarcely less feeble than her own. He had come to church that afternoon, with a promise to her that he would return to lead her to the funeral of her firstborn; for he felt, in his sore perplexed heart, full of indignation and dumb anger, as if he must go and hear something which should exorcize the unwonted longing for revenge that disturbed his grief, and made him conscious of that great blank of consolation which faithfulness ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. I • Elizabeth Gaskell
... read and did not learn to write until her firstborn had gone away from the home nest. Then it was that she sharpened a gray goose-quill and labored long and patiently, practising with this instrument (said to be mightier than the sword) and with ink she herself had mixed—all that she might write a letter to her boy; and how sweetly, ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 1 of 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great • Elbert Hubbard
... 1562-63 in January, 1563-64, the Chamber was found in debt to John Shakespeare 25s. 8d., as if he had been the finance Chamberlain of the two. Both of his daughters were dead when, on April 26, he christened his firstborn son William. That summer the plague raged in Stratford; the Council meetings were held in the garden, to avoid infection, and collections were made among the burgesses for the relief of the poor, to each of which ...
— Shakespeare's Family • Mrs. C. C. Stopes
... Burns blessed in his parents, especially in his father. Naturally such a father wished his children to have the best education his means could afford. It may be that he saw even in the infancy of his firstborn the promise of intellectual greatness. Certain it is he laboured, as few fathers even in Scotland have done, to have his children grow up intelligent, thoughtful, and virtuous men ...
— Robert Burns - Famous Scots Series • Gabriel Setoun
... use in attempting to define or explain the first God in the Platonic system, who has sometimes been thought to answer to God the Father; or the world, in whom the Fathers of the Church seemed to recognize 'the firstborn of every creature.' Nor need we discuss at length how far Plato agrees in the later Jewish idea of creation, according to which God made the world out of nothing. For his original conception of matter as something which has no qualities is really a negation. Moreover in the Hebrew Scriptures ...
— Timaeus • Plato
... of Christ in Hebrews 1, 3, refers to him as the express image of God's substance. Again, in Colossians 1, 15 he says of Christ: "Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation." We must take these words for what they say—that all creatures, even angels and men, are ranked below Christ. This classification leaves room for God only: taking away the creature, ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. III - Trinity Sunday to Advent • Martin Luther
... health and spirits, and with the hope and apparently the prospect of many years of service before him. And yet, just as the summer was beginning, he was called to the presence of the King, and to the perfect work and fellowship of 'the Church of the firstborn.' Had he been able to choose his fate he would hardly have wished it other than it was. His work in Mongolia was steadily growing; slowly, it is true, but yet gaining a strength and impetus that will abide, and has well begun the conquest ...
— James Gilmour of Mongolia - His diaries, letters, and reports • James Gilmour
... way or another; and I had not the courage to give him the second place, and the Quaker, David Claridge, the first place. Why Luke Claridge, his grandfather, chose the course he did, does not concern me, no more than why you chose secrecy, and kept your own firstborn legitimate son, of whom you might well be proud, a stranger to you and his rights all these years. Ah, Eglington, you never knew what love was, you never had a heart—experiment, subterfuge, secrecy, 'reaping where you had not sowed, and ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... lack of tact and refinement was painful to his young wife, whose tenderest feelings he ruthlessly and thoughtlessly trampled upon. Things were looking unpromising, when, happily for her, Madame Godefroy died in giving birth to her firstborn. When he spoke of his deceased wife, the banker waxed poetical, although had she lived they would have been divorced in six months. His son he loved dearly for several reasons—first, because the child was an only son; secondly, because he was a scion of two such houses as Godefroy and ...
— The Lost Child - 1894 • Francois Edouard Joachim Coppee
... her heart rejoice, and the might of her spirit exult in her then, Child yet no child of the night, and motherless mother of men? Was it Love brake forth flower-fashion, a bird with gold on his wings, Lovely, her firstborn passion, and impulse of firstborn things? Was Love that nestling indeed that under the plumes of the night Was hatched and hidden as seed in the furrow, and brought forth bright? Was it Love lay shut in the shell ...
— Songs before Sunrise • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... Well, her nest is scarcely cold, when in comes me Mistress Adversity, a wee outspoken sour crabbit gizzened anatomy of an old woman—"You ne'erdoweel, Tam," quoth she, "is it no enough that you consort with that scarlet limmer, who has just yescaped thorough the winday, but ye maun smoors my firstborn, puir Conscience, atween ye? Whare hae ye stowed him, mantell me that?" And the ancient damosel gives me a shrewd clip on the skull with the poker. "That's right, mother," quoth Conscience, from beneath the ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... early part of the century a Dakota woman fasted and prayed, and Thunder came to her in her vision. To the god she promised to give her firstborn child. When she became a mother, she forgot in her joy that the life of her little one did not belong to her; nor did she recall her fateful vow until one bright spring day, when the clouds gathered and she heard the roll of the thunder,—a sound ...
— Indian Story and Song - from North America • Alice C. Fletcher
... even pavement, and see the place as it used to be five hundred years ago. It was wild then. Out of broken and rocky ground rose the ancient Church of Aracoeli, the Church of the Altar of Heaven, built upon that altar which the Sibyl of Tivoli bade Augustus raise to the Firstborn of God. To the right a rude fortress, grounded in the great ruins of Rome's Archive House, flanked by rough towers, approached only by that old triumphal way, where old women slowly roasted beans in iron chafing-dishes ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 2 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... years ago, in the winter when they had used one of their two demolition-bombs to blast open a cavern in the mountains. It had been a hard winter; two children had died, then—Kyna's firstborn, and the little son of Kalvar Dard and Dorita. It had been their first encounter with the ...
— Genesis • H. Beam Piper
... what I have committed to Him until that day." All the children of God have known, loved, and trusted their Father, and have reflected that holy light which shone with unclouded and faultless lustre in the Firstborn of all the brethren; for Jesus ever held fast His confidence in God until His last cry of faith, "Father, into Thy hands ...
— Parish Papers • Norman Macleod
... I am my Father's heir, his firstborn, and the only delight of his heart. I am therefore come up against thee in mine own right, even to recover mine own ...
— The Holy War • John Bunyan
... young April's husband showers Shall bless the fruitful Maia's bed, We'll bring the firstborn of her flowers To kiss thy feet, and crown thy head: To thee, dear Lamb! whose love must keep The shepherds while they ...
— England's Antiphon • George MacDonald
... them that at last they themselves had been forgiven. But all was in vain. The cold, hard mother was deaf to all their entreaties, and left them under the inexorable punishment of the death of their firstborn, whom she had taken and carried away, and whom she ...
— The Dream • Emile Zola
... Cormac a son, her firstborn, named Cairbry, who was King of Ireland after Cormac. It was during the lifetime of Cormac that Cairbry came to the throne, for it happened that ere he died Cormac was wounded by a chance cast of a spear and lost one of his ...
— The High Deeds of Finn and other Bardic Romances of Ancient Ireland • T. W. Rolleston
... the king, and these who are angry with anyone can imagine evil of him, but not good. (43) The theory that God does not reveal Himself to the angry or the sad, is a mere dream: for God revealed to Moses while angry, the terrible slaughter of the firstborn, and did so without the intervention of a harp. (44) To Cain in his rage, God was revealed, and to Ezekiel, impatient with anger, was revealed the contumacy and wretchedness of the Jews. (45) Jeremiah, miserable and weary of life, prophesied ...
— A Theologico-Political Treatise [Part I] • Benedict de Spinoza
... and a Cycloid order, composed of fishes whose scales, like those of the salmon, are defined all around by a simple continuous margin; and no sooner was the division effected than it was found to cast a singularly clear light on the early history of the class. The earliest fishes—firstborn of their family—seem to have been all placoids. The Silurian System has not yet afforded trace of any other vertebral animal. With the Old Red Sandstone the ganoids were ushered upon the scene in amazing abundance; and for untold ages, ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller
... houses were found in it; the best in the town; so that the Spaniards have been mining there; but no coin or bullion except a little plate. One English captain is killed, and that captain is Walter Raleigh, his firstborn. He died leading them on, when some, 'more careful of valour and safety, began to recoil shamefully.' His last words were, 'Lord have mercy upon me and prosper our enterprise.' A Spanish captain, Erinetta, struck him down with the butt of a ...
— Sir Walter Raleigh and his Time from - "Plays and Puritans and Other Historical Essays" • Charles Kingsley
... firstborn son into my arms, I had no high thoughts. I trembled, indeed, but it was with fear lest I should ...
— The Dew of Their Youth • S. R. Crockett
... clumsy morally in his love for his firstborn, it must be acknowledged that he is so physically in ...
— Monsieur, Madame and Bebe, Complete • Gustave Droz
... impossible not to admire her efforts to keep her stolid inarticulate husband in the right path and her intense wild animal- like love of her children—the three dirty-faced English-looking offspring of her strange marriage, and Dardo, her firstborn, the son of the wind. He, too, was an interesting person; small or short for his years, he was thick and had a curiously solid mature appearance, with a round head, wide open, startlingly bright eyes, and aquiline features which gave ...
— Far Away and Long Ago • W. H. Hudson
... the cot, hoping awhile that she might come in, dew-footed, and yet kiss him. That clear shining of the face which one sometimes observes in pure-minded devotees, or in young mothers over their firstborn, gave him a look of nobility in the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, August, 1885 • Various
... helped to conceal it from the prying eyes of Hun aeroplanes. Let into the ground and mounted and clamped to a stand was the mortar itself—while beside it sat a very young gunner officer, much in the attitude of a mother beside her firstborn. He was obviously new to the game, and the Sapper surveyed him ...
— No Man's Land • H. C. McNeile
... costs money is money; that whatever or whoever you pay money for, is an article of property, and the fact of your paying for it, proves it property. 1. The children of Israel were required to purchase their firstborn from under the obligations of the priesthood, Num. xviii. 15, 16; iii. 45-51; Ex. xiii. 13; xxxiv. 20. This custom still exists among the Jews, and the word buy is still used to describe the ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... into the thick of the fighting at Cressy, and died on the field. Welsh archaeologists, however, maintain that these words are Celtic, and mean "behold the man;" their theory suggests that this was the phrase used by Edward I. when he presented his firstborn son to the Welsh people as their prince, and that the words thus became the motto of the princes of Wales. This is a rather far-fetched piece of reasoning, and one would certainly prefer to accept the more picturesque tradition which connects the phrase with the glories of Cressy. ...
— The Cathedral Church of Canterbury [2nd ed.]. • Hartley Withers
... responsibilities and duties they are not only ignorant, but think it ladylike to remain uninformed until experience teaches them, and that teaching is often accompanied by heart-breaking sorrow. If you should make inquiry you would discover that a large proportion of mothers have buried their firstborn children, and should you ask them why, they would in all probability say, almost without exception, that it was because they did not know how to give them a dower of health, or how to ...
— What a Young Woman Ought to Know • Mary Wood-Allen
... as October 14th Lucretia returned to Rome. November 1, 1499, she gave birth to a son, who was named, in honor of the Pope, Rodrigo. Her firstborn was baptized with great pomp November 11th in the Sistine Chapel—not the chapel now known by that name, but the one which Sixtus IV had built in S. Peter's. Giovanni Cervillon held the child in his arms, and near by were the Governor of Rome and a representative ...
— Lucretia Borgia - According to Original Documents and Correspondence of Her Day • Ferdinand Gregorovius
... pass the tenfold seven times seven, Draw Thou mine eyes, draw Thou my heart above, My treasure ad my heart store Thou in Thee, Brood over me with yearnings of a dove; Be Husband, Brother, closest Friend to me; Love me as very mother loves her son, Her sucking firstborn fondled on her knee: 30 Yea, more than mother loves her little one; For, earthly, even a mother may forget And feel no pity for its piteous moan; But thou, O Love of God, remember yet, Through the dry desert, through the waterflood (Life, death) until the Great White Throne ...
— Goblin Market, The Prince's Progress, and Other Poems • Christina Rossetti
... shield thee, trusting mortal! Love has heaved its firstborn sigh; But from the pellucid portal Of her ...
— Hesperus - and Other Poems and Lyrics • Charles Sangster
... never set eyes upon her firstborn, and Sir Burnham, who did, readily reconciled himself to the loss of such a daughter. The announcement which should have appeared joyfully under the press-heading "Births" was unobtrusively inserted under "Deaths," ...
— The Green Eyes of Bast • Sax Rohmer
... a bootless endeavour. As the flight of a bird of the air Is the flight of a joke—you will never See the same one again, you may swear. 'Twas my firstborn, and O how I prized it! My darling, my treasure, my own! This brain and none other devised it - And now ...
— Fly Leaves • C. S. Calverley
... milder manners of an age when the Phoenicians had been brought into close contact with the Greeks. In the older days of Canaanitish history human sacrifice had held a foremost place in the ritual of Syria. It was the sacrifice of the firstborn son that was demanded in times of danger and trouble, or when the family was called upon to make a special atonement for sin. The victim was offered as a burnt sacrifice, which in Hebrew idiom was euphemistically described as passing ...
— Patriarchal Palestine • Archibald Henry Sayce
... said to have appeared to her sons, and accosting Rhiwallon, her firstborn, to have informed him that he was to be a benefactor to mankind, through healing all manner of their diseases, and she furnished him with prescriptions and instructions for the preservation of health. Then, promising to meet him when her counsel was most needed, she vanished. On ...
— Welsh Folk-Lore - a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales • Elias Owen
... visited by dreams that mingled in a strange way with the impressions of the storm, and more than once made her heart stop, and start again at its own stopping. One of these fancies she never could forget—a dream about little Concha,—Conchita, her firstborn, who now slept far away in the old churchyard at Barcelona. She had tried to become resigned,—not to think. But the child would come back night after night, though the earth lay heavy upon her—night after night, through ...
— Chita: A Memory of Last Island • Lafcadio Hearn
... let me note that the maid to us committed (assert they) Was but a fraud: her mate never a touch of her had, 20 * * * * * * * * But that a father durst dishonour the bed of his firstborn, Folk all swear, and the house hapless with incest bewray; Or that his impious mind was blunt with fiery passion 25 Or that his impotent son sprang from incapable seed. And to be sought was one with nerve more nervous endowed, Who ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus
... was Adam Craig's grandson. His firstborn, Tom, was wild, and went to sea—the old story—leaving wife and unborn child for his father to look to. Six years had gone—the seventh began at New Year's; the boy was born, burnt, saved alive, and not idiotic; its mother had ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 6, No. 1, July, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... 'There exist two kinds of men: the heavenly man and the earthly man.'[42] The long Life of Moses[43] represents him as the King, Lawgiver, High Priest, Prophet, Mediator. The Word, the Logos (which here everywhere hovers near, but never reaches, personality) is 'the firstborn son of God', 'the image of God'[44]; its types are 'the Rock', the Manna, the High Priest's Coat; it is 'the Wine Pourer and Master of the Drinking Feast of God'.[45] The majority of the Jews, who did not accept Jesus as the Christ, soon felt they ...
— Progress and History • Various
... and wife, long estranged, met at the grave of their firstborn, the child of their youthful strength. Their strife had been bitter, their love had turned to hate, and they elected to tread life's path apart. They stood, one on either side, and looked coldly upon each other. Then they looked down upon the little mound that held the broken ...
— Volume 12 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... the oracles, of limited application. But it proves true in some unexpected places outside of the realm of theology. Was there something prophetic in the legend that it was only by the sprinkling of the blood of the Paschal Lamb above the doorway that the plague of the firstborn could be stayed? To-day the guinea-pig is our burnt offering against a plague as deadly as any ...
— Preventable Diseases • Woods Hutchinson
... part of the South? The answer is written in flames of light along the sky, and in letters of blood upon the breadth of the land. Slavery first, slavery middle, and slavery last. Accursed slavery! firstborn of the evil one—the lust of dominion over others for one's own selfish purposes, in its naked, most shameless, and undisguised form. Dominion of man over man in other modes, such as absolute monarchy, aristocracy, feudalism, ecclesiastical rule—all these ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol III, Issue VI, June, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... long-sleeved silk shirt and a blanket, all of which could be done in five minutes. As babies lie still most of the time the first six weeks, they need no dressing. I think the nurse was a full hour bathing and dressing my firstborn, who protested with a melancholy ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... sleep, Thy mother sings to her firstborn; Sleep, O boy, sleep, Thy father cries out to his little child. Thousands of praises we sing to ...
— A History of Nursery Rhymes • Percy B. Green
... as Pemberton eventually learned, for services. For what services he never clearly ascertained: this was a point—one of a large number—that Mr. Moreen's manner never confided. What it emphatically did confide was that he was even more a man of the world than you might first make out. Ulick, the firstborn, was in visible training for the same profession—under the disadvantage as yet, however, of a buttonhole but feebly floral and a moustache with no pretensions to type. The girls had hair and figures and manners and small fat feet, ...
— The Pupil • Henry James
... cholera-infantum. And this disease prevails chiefly, almost entirely, from June to October, the season when all out-of-door influences are most tempting and most needed. The weekly record of August and September is that of a pestilence. The destroying angel carries off the firstborn, and, oftener still, the last-born, out of almost every household in certain districts, as in the heaviest curse laid on Egypt. Thousands have fled the city, as they deserted London in the season of the plague; but thousands are left to follow ...
— Parks for the People - Proceedings of a Public Meeting held at Faneuil Hall, June 7, 1876 • Various
... low, sir. I suppose it's God's doing; but it comes hard upon me. He was my firstborn child.' He said this almost as if speaking to a stranger, and informing him of facts of which he ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... taken in painting it! And now the mother mourned unceasingly the loss of those little sons, and of one other whom Mary had never seen, and of whom they had no likeness. It was indeed hard that the one son left them,—their firstborn,—their hope and pride, should now be going away to leave them, going perhaps ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine
... into life, so too Baal was regarded sometimes as the friend and helper of man, sometimes as a fierce and vengeful deity who could be appeased only by blood. In times of national or individual distress his worshippers were called upon to sacrifice to him their firstborn; nothing less costly could turn away from them the anger of their god. By the side of Baal was his colourless wife, a mere reflection of the male divinity, standing in the same state of dependence towards him as the woman ...
— Early Israel and the Surrounding Nations • Archibald Sayce
... firstborn chile and my mommer have two gal chillen, me and Hannah, and she have seven boy. Where I's born was old wild country and old Virginny run down thataway. Everything was plenty good to eat and I seed strawberries what would push you to git 'em in ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves. - Texas Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... the darkness beams! Celestial airs along the water glide:— What Spirit art thou, moving o'er the tide So beautiful? oh, not of earth, But, in that glowing hour, the birth Of the young Godhead's own creative dreams. 'Tis she! Psyche, the firstborn spirit of the air. To ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... would have been terrible, my dear!" exclaimed Mrs. Herbert, so full of pity for Christopher that she was willing to give him anything short of her firstborn. She ...
— The Farringdons • Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler
... dashed on cliffs, The tempest's fury on the grinding woods, Or elemental crashing in the heavens: Beyond a lover's gladness when he feels His maiden's bosom throbbing tremulously, Beyond a father's when he feels in hand The rounded warmth of little firstborn's limb, Or in beholding him grown tall and strong: And their delight will never wane, but wax In greatness with the roll of time, and burn More brightly fed with noble deeds. For souls Obedient to divine impulse, ...
— My Beautiful Lady. Nelly Dale • Thomas Woolner
... the little one passed away while her father was absent with me on duty.) Our English missionary sister has also been passing through woman's time of trial and honour, and we are now able to rejoice with her and her husband in the gift of a little girl, their firstborn. God bless and keep ...
— With the Harmony to Labrador - Notes Of A Visit To The Moravian Mission Stations On The North-East - Coast Of Labrador • Benjamin La Trobe
... of Witchcraft! firstborn child of Crime! Produc'd before the bloom of Time; Ambition's maiden Sin, in Heaven conceiv'd, And who could have believ'd Defilement could in purity begin, And bright eternal Day be soil'd with Sin? Tell us, ...
— The History of the Devil - As Well Ancient as Modern: In Two Parts • Daniel Defoe
... and to be a great comfort and blessing to the parents who have done me the honour to call their firstborn for me," returned the old gentleman, a gleam of pleasure lighting up his face. "I want to see the bit bairn myself when the mother is well enough to enjoy a call from her auld kinsman. And how soon do you think that may be, doctor?" he asked, ...
— Elsie at Home • Martha Finley
... hope that God would grant them aid against the unbrotherly descendants of Esau. In many other respects, too, Joseph was the opposite of Esau, and his services stood his descendants in good stead in their battles against the descendants of Esau. Esau was the firstborn of his father, but through his evil deeds he lost his birthright; Joseph, on the other hand, was the youngest of his father's sons, and through his good deeds was he found worthy of enjoying the rights of a firstborn son. Joseph had faith in the resurrection, while Esau denied it; hence God said, ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME III BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... actively to help it and to take sides against his father; but all these difficulties his unselfish heart overcame, and he stands for all time as the noblest example of human friendship, and as not unworthy to remind us, as from afar off and dimly, of the perfect love of the Firstborn Son of the true King, who has loved us all with a yet deeper, more patient, more self-sacrificing love. If men can love one another as Jonathan loved David, how should they love the Christ who has loved them so much! And what sacrilege ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... Jesus Christ in Palestine was a foreshadowing of His life in all who accept Him. God appointed Him a Saviour, not only because He should bring redemption nigh by a sacrifice which He alone could offer, but because He was also appointed to be the firstborn of many brethren, to be the head of a new family, the beginning—the new Adam—the first of a new line, in which character should cease to be merely human, even though perfect with all human perfections, and should become a union of the human and the Divine; in which, ...
— Our Master • Bramwell Booth
... was amongst the Yadavas a chief named Sura. He was the father of Vasudeva. And he had a daughter called Pritha, who was unrivalled for beauty on earth. And, O thou of Bharata's race, Sura, always truthful in speech, gave from friendship this his firstborn daughter unto his childless cousin and friend, the illustrious Kuntibhoja— the son of his paternal aunt—pursuant to a former promise. And Pritha in the house of her adoptive father was engaged in looking ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa - Translated into English Prose - Adi Parva (First Parva, or First Book) • Kisari Mohan Ganguli (Translator)
... remaining children, Susan, Jim, Bessy, and Charley, graduating uniformly though at wide stages from the age of sixteen to that of four years—the eldest of the series being separated from Dick the firstborn by ...
— Under the Greenwood Tree • Thomas Hardy
... I do this? It is not because I am a coward, for there are few men who are in reality braver than I am. I carried my firstborn in my arms round the drawing-room when she was a week old, and I have done other things equally brave, the enumeration of which I spare you. But I could no more think of getting my hair cut without previously informing my wife than I could think ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Jan. 8, 1919 • Various
... their human dumplings at every head; but, considering the tortures they have suffered, and the anguish the little egotistical viper they have just hatched will most likely give them, and considering further that their love of their firstborn is greater than their pride, and their pride unstained by vanity, one must make allowances ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade
... their bondage; you find Egypt resisting the command, and God sent among the people of Egypt signs and wonders, and plagues by the hand of Moses, but they submitted not. He called them to obedience, but they rebelled. By and bye, He slew their firstborn, the chief of all their strength, and then the people came out with silver and with gold. Nations are not simply chastised in this world, they are also punished. Every one of us shall give an account of himself to ...
— The Wesleyan Methodist Pulpit in Malvern • Knowles King
... xlvii:2). "He shall judge thy people with righteousness, and the poor with judgment." "Yea, all Kings shall fall down before Him; all nations shall serve Him." "His name shall endure forever—all nations shall call Him blessed" (Ps. lxxii:1, 11, 17). "Also, I will make Him my Firstborn, higher than the Kings of the earth" (Ps. lxxxix:27). "Behold, a King shall reign in righteousness" (Is. xxxii:1). "Behold the days come, that I will raise unto David a righteous Branch, and a King shall ...
— The Work Of Christ - Past, Present and Future • A. C. Gaebelein
... but He who was a Child, the firstborn Son of His mother, does not afflict your baby without cause. He has laid on him as much of His cross as he can bear; and if it be yours also, you know that it is blessed to you both, and will ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Wildgrave and his myrmidon, who were scampering towards the castle, he exclaimed: "The vapours of the hellish pool will not, one day, strike him with such horror, O Faustus, as this thy deed: his young and beloved wife was a few days ago delivered of her firstborn." ...
— Faustus - his Life, Death, and Doom • Friedrich Maximilian von Klinger
... lap in which the child was comfortably nestling, and in that attitude had a faint consciousness that Mrs. Horncastle was mischievously breathing into his curls a silent laugh. Barker lifted his firstborn with proud skillfulness, but that sagacious infant evidently knew when he was comfortable, and in a paroxysm of objection caught his father's curls with one fist, while with the other he grasped Mrs. Horncastle's brown braids and brought their heads ...
— The Three Partners • Bret Harte
... strangely; it seemed to tell him things he had never known before, to speak a wisdom he had never dreamed of, to breathe a sweeter music than he had ever heard, to inspire ambitions purer and better than any he had ever felt—the voice of his firstborn—you know, fathers, what that meant ...
— Second Book of Tales • Eugene Field
... his son Horus by his fingers. He shall announce him, he shall make him rise up like the Great God in the Sky. They shall cry out concerning Unas: Behold Horus, the son of Osiris! Behold Unas, the firstborn son of Hathor! Behold the seed of Keb! Osiris hath commanded that Unas shall rise as a second Horus, and these Four Spirit-souls in Anu have written an edict to the two great gods in the Sky. Ra set up the Ladder[1] in front of Osiris, Horus set up the ...
— The Literature of the Ancient Egyptians • E. A. Wallis Budge
... roused the angry passions of his vast audience, and having alarmed their fears by this pretended scheme against their firstborn (an artifice which was indispensable to his purpose, because it met 30 beforehand every form of amendment to his proposal coming from the more moderate nobles, who would not otherwise have failed to insist upon trying the ...
— De Quincey's Revolt of the Tartars • Thomas De Quincey
... married but two years, and our babe was some few days buried in the churchyard of this parish of Ditchingham, I dreamed a very vivid dream as I slept one night at my wife's side. I dreamed that my dead children, the four of them, for the tallest lad bore in his arms my firstborn, that infant who died in the great siege, came to me as they had often come when I ruled the people of the Otomie in the City of Pines, and talked with me, giving me flowers and kissing my hands. I looked upon their strength and ...
— Montezuma's Daughter • H. Rider Haggard
... Yadus, was the father of Vasudeva. He had a daughter called Pritha, who for her beauty, was unrivalled on earth. And Sura, having promised in the presence of fire that he would give his firstborn child to Kuntibhoja, the son of his paternal aunt, who was without offspring, gave his daughter unto the monarch in expectation of his favours. Kuntibhoja thereupon made her his daughter. And she became, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... mind that he remembered all the rest of his life. The Moscow lady died, and Mitya passed into the care of one of her married daughters. I believe he changed his home a fourth time later on. I won't enlarge upon that now, as I shall have much to tell later of Fyodor Pavlovitch's firstborn, and must confine myself now to the most essential facts about him, without which I could ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... of her head satisfied the mother that her four firstborn were safe and well disposed. Immediately then, with never a thought of rest, her nose thrust the new-comer into position between her fore-paws, and she proceeded to administer the life-giving and stimulating tongue-wash. Over and over the little shapeless grey form was turned, cheeping ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson
... When the firstborn affections, Those winged seekers of the world within, That search about in all directions, Some bright thing for themselves to win, Through unmarked forest-paths, and gathering fogs, And stony plains, ...
— A Hidden Life and Other Poems • George MacDonald
... suffering, to which does the name of anguish belong? For the loss of parents, Nature has in a manner prepared us; physical suffering, again, is an evil which passes over us and is gone; it lays no hold upon the soul; if it persists, it ceases to be an evil, it is death. The young mother loses her firstborn, but wedded love ere long gives her a successor. This grief, too, is transient. After all, these, and many other troubles like unto them, are in some sort wounds and bruises; they do not sap the springs of vitality, and only a ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Honore de Balzac
... between those dearest Relations of human Life. The Father, according to the Opportunities which are offered to him, is throwing down Blessings on the Son, and the Son endeavouring to appear the worthy Offspring of such a Father. It is after this manner that Camillus and his firstborn dwell together. Camillus enjoys a pleasing and indolent old Age, in which Passion is subdued, and Reason exalted. He waits the Day of his Dissolution with a Resignation mixed with Delight, and the Son fears the Accession of his Fathers Fortune with Diffidence, lest ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... movement! there they trace Their blank infinitudes of time and space, Vault with careering curves her central goal, Pour forth her day and stud her evening stole, Heedless of count; their numbers still unknown, Unmeasured still their progress round her throne; For none of all her firstborn sons, endow'd With heavenly sapience and pretensions proud, No seraph bright, whose keen considering eye And sunbeam speed ascend from sky to sky, Has yet explored or counted all their spheres, Or fixt or found their past record of years. Nor ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow
... who, in ascending the throne of France, has not ceased to be a thorough Spaniard, still preserves these pretty weaknesses of her youth. She vowed a chapel to her patron saint if her firstborn was a man-child, and paid it. She has hung a vestal lamp in the Church of Notre Dame des Victoires, in pursuance of a vow she keeps rigidly secret. She is a firm believer in relics also, and keeps a choice assortment on hand in the Tuileries for sudden emergencies. ...
— Castilian Days • John Hay
... serving as a new instrument for her father's ambition. As the pope was not satisfied with an empty triumph of vanity and display for his son, and as his war with the Orsini had failed to produce the anticipated results, he decided to increase the fortune of his firstborn by doing the very thing which he had accused Calixtus in his speech of doing for him, viz., alienating from the States of the Church the cities of Benevento, Terracino, and Pontecorvo to form, a duchy as an appanage to his son's house. Accordingly ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... her firstborn, when this little matter was referred to him, and his mother vehemently insisted that he should declare himself, was of the opinion of Mr. Washington, and Mr. Draper, the London lawyer. The boy said ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... The flesh they were to eat in the night, roasted, with bitter herbs and unleavened bread, as the inauguration of the Passover. The Lord meant to pass through the land in the dark, and slay all the firstborn in Egypt; and lest he should make some mistakes he required the Jews' houses to be marked with blood so that he might distinguish them. We should expect God to dispense with such "aids to memory." What followed must be told in the language ...
— Bible Romances - First Series • George W. Foote
... not Nature's hand Keep the wild flood confined; let Order die, And let the world no longer be a stage, To feed contention in a lingering act; But let one spirit of the firstborn Cain Reign in all bosoms, that each heart being set On bloody courses, the wide scene may end, And darkness be the ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... fond of astronomy, and during the months of his engagement one of his favorite occupations was to take her out of an evening and show her the constellations. It is even said that, among the daydreams in which they indulged, one was that their firstborn might be an astronomer. Probably this was only a passing fancy, as I heard nothing of it during my childhood. The marriage was in all respects a happy one, so far as congeniality of nature and mutual regard could go. Although the wife died at the early age of thirty-seven, ...
— The Reminiscences of an Astronomer • Simon Newcomb |
