"Heirloom" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... hesitate for a moment. Breaking into a run, he dashed across the hall toward a wall where hung a heavy sword, an heirloom that had not been used for a hundred years. Before he could be stopped he tore it from its fastenings and started toward the nearest of the ruffians, who brought him to a standstill ...
— High Noon - A New Sequel to 'Three Weeks' by Elinor Glyn • Anonymous
... your grandma found such an odd thing nor why she sent it to a little girl; but she says it will be an heirloom for you." ...
— Jewel's Story Book • Clara Louise Burnham
... before the German host, refugees of all classes were streaming into Brussels—young and old, rich and poor, priest and layman. Nearly all bore some burden of household treasure, many some pathetically absurd family heirloom. Every kind of vehicle appeared to have been called into use, from smart carriages drawn by heavy Flemish horses to little carts harnessed to dogs. Over all reigned a stupefied silence, broken only by shuffling footfalls. Among ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume II (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... Over a moldering heirloom, its companion, An oaken chest, half-eaten by the worm, But richly carved by Antony of Trent With scripture stories from the life of Christ; A chest that came from Venice, and had held The ducal robes of some old ancestors— That, by the way, it may be true or false— But don't forget ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... devote a morning to the requisite sitting, until, after lingering for several days, he at length became satisfied that, by whatever magic his host might contrive to keep Ballantyne's presses in full play, he had always abundance of leisure for matters less important than Ferguson's destined heirloom. I shall now, however, return to his correspondence; and begin with a letter to Joanna ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... did. One work was given them, and that one they fulfilled as it had never been fulfilled before; as it will never need to be fulfilled again; for the Greeks' work was done not for themselves alone but for all races in all times; and Greek Art is the heirloom of the whole human race; and that work was to assert in drama, lyric, sculpture, music, gymnastic, the dignity of man—the dignity of man which they perceived for the most part with their intense aesthetic sense, through the beautiful in man. Man with them was divine, inasmuch ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... nearly a century had bronzed it with its harvest suns and blown on it with its winter winds. She wore always the same garb of homely dark-blue serge, always the same tall white head-gear, always the same pure silver ear-rings that had been at once an heirloom and a nuptial gift. She was always shod in her wooden sabots, and she always walked abroad with a staff of ash. She had been born in the Berceau de Dieu; had lived there and wedded there; had toiled there all her life, and never left it for a greater distance than a league, or for ...
— Stories By English Authors: France • Various
... known to her friends as "sticking her nose in the air." I do not think that Molly's reason for refusing to join could have been a truly good one. I should add that her most precious possession—a treasure which accompanied her even if she went away for only one night's absence—was an heirloom, a little miniature portrait of the old Molly Stark, painted when that far-off dame must have been scarce more than twenty. And when each summer the young Molly went to Dunbarton, New Hampshire, to ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister
... tints. Celia was another of his favorites, and he knew she was having her battle with misfortune, meeting it as bravely as a young woman could. Thomas Gilpin might so easily have smoothed the way for her. The spinet was an interesting heirloom, no doubt, but would not help Celia solve the ...
— Mr. Pat's Little Girl - A Story of the Arden Foresters • Mary F. Leonard
... Even Dorothea Stettin consented, on condition that she received back the sub-prioret. Whereupon Sidonia loosed her veil with the one golden key, and restored it to Dorothea with the Judas kiss; then bid her fetch the veil of the abbess with the two golden keys, for this was an heirloom in the cloister. When it arrived, Sidonia goes to her trunk, and takes out a large regal cape that looked like ermine, but was only white cat's skin. She hung this ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... at the moment buttering a delicious French roll and she was daintily pouring tea from an old family heirloom. The contrast between this and the dust and the grease of a midday meal at the end of a "chuck wagon" lent accent to his ...
— Wyoming, a Story of the Outdoor West • William MacLeod Raine
... sacredness is gone, their dignity has degraded into dinginess, and the faded, patched chintz sofa, that was not only comfortable, but respectable, in the old wainscoted sitting-room, has suddenly turned into "an object," when lang syne goes by the board and the heirloom is incontinently set adrift. Undertake to move from this tumble-down old house, strewn thick with the debris of many generations, into a tumble-up, peaky, perky, plastery, shingly, stary new one, that is not half finished, and never will be, and good enough ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... however, had sufficient faith in the reality of the vision to increase his nervous condition considerably, and he resolved to lie down with his "arms handy." These arms consisted of a flint-lock blunderbuss, an heirloom in his father's family, and a bowie-knife, which had been presented to him by an American cousin on his leaving England. Twice during that day's march had the blunderbuss exploded owing to its owner's inexperience in fire-arms. Fortunately no harm ...
— The Settler and the Savage • R.M. Ballantyne
... than the actual loss of the cloak, though that bereft her wardrobe of far and away its most valuable property, which should have descended as an heirloom to her little Katty, who, however, being at present but three months old, lay sleeping happily unaware of the cloud that had come ...
— Strangers at Lisconnel • Barlow Jane
... old heirloom, with ancient wine stains on it, and had come down from the days of her grandfather; and in it there were many boldly and brightly-colored pictures, which as a little girl she had often looked at so eagerly ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... word!" Greyson waved his hand in a princely way—this gesture was an heirloom from his ancestry. "I understand your feelings—I've seen what has been going on—but naturally I want my daughter to marry one worthy of her. You shall have my Marg when you have proven yourself! I've misjudged you, Jed, but this will wipe ...
— The Man Thou Gavest • Harriet T. Comstock
... old Mason china, and rifled the garden of roses to fill the quaint century old punch-bowl for the center of the table. All things possible should be done to make Jim feel himself, that night, the honored guest, the person of most importance in their world. It was an heirloom—the Mason china—quaint and curious, and most highly prized. There was a superstition—how originated none knew—that the breakage of a piece, whether by design or accident, foreboded misfortune to the house of Mason. Very carefully ...
— Princess • Mary Greenway McClelland
... the uttermost farthing, and part company for ever. With merchant-like exactness, every tittle was reckoned up and shared. The old house was to be sold to a Jew for a sum already agreed on, and one item only remained which they could not divide, an heirloom's value being fixed upon it. That was the Coverdale Bible with which their grandfather ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 432 - Volume 17, New Series, April 10, 1852 • Various
... of the treasure room, pointing out and giving the history of each precious family heirloom or art object with an encyclopedic knowledge that should have caused his companion to wonder how he knew so much. Several times he slipped in the pronoun I, hoping that this might have some effect in waking Helen from the obsession ...
— Officer 666 • Barton W. Currie
... no reasonable doubt but that some one would do it again. For a moment she questioned if it would not be sufficient if she bought the ring and allowed the watch to remain. But she recognized that the ring meant more to her than the watch, while the latter, as an old heirloom which had been passed down to him from a great-grandfather, meant more to Philip. It was for Philip she was doing this, she reminded herself. She stood holding his possessions, one in each hand, and looking at the ...
— The Exiles and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... Holiness—and when I tell you a thing it is true. That is the son of to-day. He will call his mother a liar as soon as look at her. It was a ring beyond price. A ring such as there are few in the world. And instead of taking care of this precious heirloom, he goes and locks it away in a safe. Ah! you fill me with shame. Monsieur Pujol, I am sorry I can play no more, I must retire. ...
— The Joyous Adventures of Aristide Pujol • William J. Locke
... francs," he announced, "and it has a history. Perhaps I am indiscreet to mention it, but it may add to the interest, and I see that the illustrious Signor is a countryman of my own. This jewel was an heirloom in a very ancient family; but great misfortunes overtook them some years ago. The heir was accused of crime, and banished for life to Noumea. They were forced to ...
— The Castle Of The Shadows • Alice Muriel Williamson
... M. de Ribaumont, with his Bible, Marot's Psalter, and Calvin's works, Beranger still tenderly kissing a lock of Follet's mane, and Madame mourning for the pearls, which her husband deemed too sacred an heirloom to carry away to a foreign land. Poor little Eustacie, with her cousin Diane, was in the convent of Bellaise in Anjou. If any one lamented her absence, ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... shall gain the more (III, xvi, 21). He that ruleth his spirit is better than the lord of Carthage. Hold fast the golden mean (II, x, 5). The poor man's supper, spare but neat and free from care, with no state upon the board except his heirloom silver saltcellar, is better than a stalled ox and care therewith (II, xvi, 13). And he practised what he preached, refusing still fresh bounties which Maecenas pressed upon him. What more want I ...
— Horace • William Tuckwell
... grittiest little girl ever—and a lady! My God, when I think of it all! . . . Well, she's come through it alive. What's more, she's not going to suffer any bad consequences from it, not if I can help it! Come on. Got your heirloom rag?" ...
— Out of the Primitive • Robert Ames Bennet
... ceases (for the genius of the house is more important than the personal dignity of the wife), and the sinner is castigated (wird tuechtig durchgepeitscht). The whip used, the household sword and sceptre, is handed down from generation to generation as a sacred heirloom." I have translated this passage instead of alluding to it, because I thought it was an occasion on which Herr Riehl should literally ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick
... mother's mother and grandmother; and she remembered some happy smiles which it had reflected. Of course, if she could have offered the priests a certain sum of money in place of the mirror, she could have asked them to give back her heirloom. But she had not the money necessary. Whenever she went to the temple, she saw her mirror lying in the court-yard, behind a railing, among hundreds of other mirrors heaped there together. She knew it by the Sho-Chiku-Bai in relief on the back of it,—those ...
— Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things • Lafcadio Hearn
... "Post and Lightning;" it is yellow with age. It had probably been handed down from generation to generation as a precious heirloom. The column containing the marriage notices is folded outward, and one marked ...
— Silver Links • Various
... county court should be abolished or not. Fairfax County's representatives in the convention voted for retaining the county court, arguing that the monthly sessions had significant social values—an "heirloom of great psychological importance." Ultimately, however, the vote went against retention of the county court and it was abolished. Its judicial functions were assigned to the circuit court, and its legislative and administrative functions were ...
— The Fairfax County Courthouse • Ross D. Netherton
... with a determination to guard it as a precious treasure, and to leave it as an heirloom to his children. He penned upon its flyleaf the beautiful words of the poet Morris, as they so explicitly expressed the incidents which were associated with his ...
— From Wealth to Poverty • Austin Potter
... harder to escape. Federal welfare programs have created a massive social problem. With the best of intentions, government created a poverty trap that wreaks havoc on the very support system the poor need most to lift themselves out of poverty: the family. Dependency has become the one enduring heirloom, passed from one generation to the next, of too many ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Ronald Reagan • Ronald Reagan
... and pluck. The jewels are clearly hers, and, egad, I believe that if I were heartless enough to take them from her, the wicked old fellow would be out of his grave in a fortnight, leading me the devil of a life. As for their being heirlooms, nothing is an heirloom that is not so mentioned in a will or legal document, and the existence of these jewels has been quite unknown. I assure you I have no more claim on them than your butler, and when Miss Virginia grows up I daresay she will be pleased to have pretty things to wear. Besides, you forget, Mr. ...
— Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories • Oscar Wilde
... dear Mueller, he has done so, and in wrath. You know well that hastiness of temper is an heirloom of the Brandenburg princes, and Frederick William can not deny that he has the family failing. Yes, he has dismissed me; but then, you know, it was perfectly natural, for he loves the Princess Ludovicka Hollandine, and I ventured to ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... to bedroom-door with some cough lozenges which she asked me to take to the new billet. Took them. Private Montease thanked me, but said he didn't mind coughing. Said it was an heirloom; Montease cough, known in highest circles all over Scotland since time ...
— Deep Waters, The Entire Collection • W.W. Jacobs
... old-fashioned," cried Silvia, "set in silver. But then, it's big, and a very pure stone, my mother says; and quite shows that the family must have been something, for it is an heirloom." ...
— Five Little Peppers at School • Margaret Sidney
... in power, thus placed to minister To every pressing local, social claim, Of those who gave you this authority, Trusting you to act wisely in their name, See that the precious heirloom of our race, For which our fathers suffered, toiled and bled, Our glorious Constitution, Britain's pride, Be to the people's rights in ...
— Home Lyrics • Hannah. S. Battersby
... unselfish—the instinct of chivalry; and the widowed queen, or the prince, became to them a precious jewel committed to their charge by the will of their forefathers and the providence of God; an heirloom for which they were responsible to God, and to their forefathers, and to their children after them, lest their names should be stained to all future generations by the crime ...
— All Saints' Day and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... hours of her arrival—had shown her yesterday. There was the same hard, stern, relentless look on the face. In reality, the miniature was copied from an old portrait of Colonel Pyncheon which hung within the house. Was it that the expression had been transmitted down as a precious heirloom, from that Puritan ancestor, in whose picture both the expression, and, to a singular degree, the features, of the modern judge were shown as ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume V. • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... heartily. "Aren't they the damnedest ever seen, though?" he asked. "Made in Germany, about 1870 or '80, about the time arms-collecting was just getting out of the family-heirloom ...
— Murder in the Gunroom • Henry Beam Piper
... long. In one end of it and in the middle of it was a lead plug. One-half of it was packed tight with solder. Black Riley carried a slung-shot, being a conventional thug. "One-ear" Mike relied upon a pair of brass knucks—an heirloom in the family. ...
— Strictly Business • O. Henry
... than those who have gone before. They want to try experiments of their own with life, and shake off the shackles of old moral laws and religious creeds, and be free to do and think as they please, and put the Bible away on the shelf, and shove prayer aside as a sort of worn-out heirloom, and have a merrier and better time than the old folks knew. That was the course which Manasseh took, just as headstrong and irreverent ...
— Men of the Bible; Some Lesser-Known Characters • George Milligan, J. G. Greenhough, Alfred Rowland, Walter F.
... and dwelt there many years, tormenting the old gentleman beyond mortal endurance. In short it is a family peculiarity. But, to tell you the truth, I have no faith in this idea of the snake's being an heirloom. He is my own ...
— Mosses from an Old Manse and Other Stories • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... here. My brethren in Clarence are not readers. I read little myself. We are poor; we have no time to read. Except the Bible, I know of but one book in this entire community. Sister Dawson has a copy of Bunyan's sublime work, 'Pilgrim's Progress.' It was an heirloom. Be seated," he said, and Eliph' Hewlitt seated ...
— Kilo - Being the Love Story of Eliph' Hewlitt Book Agent • Ellis Parker Butler
... trust is very adollarable, and so is the Tobacco and Standard Oil and the rest; but in the assets of the nation, more valuable, to my mind, is the heirloom of the tradition of gentle manners and cordial kindliness held so well in trust by the people of that city ...
— Impressions of a War Correspondent • George Lynch
... curiosity by telling me sensational details of a widespread plot to dethrone the Sultan. An essential part of the conspiracy was to obtain possession of the diamonds before they had been cut, as they were an heirloom from the Prophet, and it would be a terrible thing in the eyes of the more fanatical section of the Mohammedans if they were tampered with in ...
— The Albert Gate Mystery - Being Further Adventures of Reginald Brett, Barrister Detective • Louis Tracy
... do is to consign him to Madge," said Mrs. Arnold, with an affected air of deep regret. "It is certain that he clings to the family, and his great wealth would be an heirloom for many generations." ...
— Marguerite Verne • Agatha Armour
... wasn't looking, but she had her doubts about me. Not exactly doubts, either. She knew very well I would. One day when she was not present, Henry took sugar from her prized and precious old English sugar-bowl, which was an heirloom in the family—and he managed to break the bowl. It was the first time I had ever had a chance to tell anything on him, and I was inexpressibly glad. I told him I was going to tell on him, but he ...
— Chapters from My Autobiography • Mark Twain
... on, did he? Son, you're gettin' a pile more education out of this than you would in college. No, honey, you just keep your locket. It ain't worth five dollars. Did you? That jeweler ought to have my job, 'cause he sure robbed you! You call that watch an heirloom? Heirloom is my middle name, miss. Just get them danglers out'n your ears, lady. Thanks! Don't hurry, ...
— Way of the Lawless • Max Brand
... azure of the chalk-blue butterflies is common among other insects. Colour is a very constant feature in certain groups of flowers. One of these includes the forget-me-nots, the borage, the alkanet, and the viper's bugloss, which keep up this blue as a family heirloom. Others of the tribe, like the comfrey, have it not, but those which possess it keep ...
— The Naturalist on the Thames • C. J. Cornish
... worn as a festival dress, is now seldom met with; but Captain Bob had often shown us one which he kept as an heirloom. It was a cloak, or mantle, of yellow tappa, precisely similar to the "poncho" worn by the South-American Spaniards. The head being slipped through a slit in the middle, the robe hangs about the person in ample drapery. Tonoi obtained sufficient coarse ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... Frank of Cologne has in his possession a Haggada, admirably illustrated, an heirloom at one time of the Van Geldern family, and it is not improbable that it was out of this artistic book that Heinrich Heine asked the Mah nishtannah, the traditional ...
— Jewish Literature and Other Essays • Gustav Karpeles
... contains, among many other subtle inspirations, one conception with which we may fitly end our survey, for it strongly suggests Bach himself and the destiny of all that work which he finished so lovingly, with no prospect of its becoming more than a family heirloom and a salutary tradition in his Leipzig choir-school. In the Magnificat he sets the words "quia respexit humilitatem ancillae suae" to a touchingly appropriate soprano solo accompanied by his favourite oboe d'amore. With the next sentence "ecce ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various
... gaining ground, and this was a time of great suffering, as he stood alone in his forefathers' house, and felt himself, in his early youth, a doomed man, destined to bear the penalty of their crimes in the ruin of his dearest hopes, as if his heirloom of misery had but waited to seize on him till the very moment when it would give ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... cowherd's hut and see what she would find there. She thought no more of the matter until the following spring, when on entering the hut she found on the table half a dozen large spoons of pure silver with her name engraved thereon in neat letters. These spoons long remained an heirloom in the clergyman's family to testify the truth of the story. A Swedish book, published in 1775, contains a tale, narrated in the form of a legal declaration solemnly subscribed on the 12th April 1671 by the fortunate midwife's husband, whose name was Peter Rahm, and who also seems to ...
— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland
... very little to do with it, and, to her, it has come to represent some sort of entailed possession that becomes more sacred every year. It's a family heirloom, like a title, or some very old and valuable piece of jewelry. Other people have family plate and family traditions, but we've got a vineyard, or, to speak more truthfully, ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... library and scattered all about were samples of Hen Tomlins' art. Hen was a rare workman, their minister told them. With his box of tools and his cunning hands Hen had taken old, broken but still beautiful heirloom furniture and refashioned it into ...
— Green Valley • Katharine Reynolds
... was worth more than a few dollars, but the watch was of gold, and I presume it must have cost fifty or sixty dollars. It was an heirloom and I ...
— The Rover Boys at Big Horn Ranch - The Cowboys' Double Round-Up • Edward Stratemeyer
... received; gives Mr. Wade's testimony; states that a copy of Miss Carroll's paper was shown him immediately after the success of the campaign, by the late Hon. Elisha Whittlesey,[35] of Ohio (Mr. Whittlesey had asked Miss Carroll for a copy that he might leave it in his family as an heirloom); notes Miss Carroll's statement that no military man had ever controverted her claim to having originated the campaign, ...
— A Military Genius - Life of Anna Ella Carroll of Maryland • Sarah Ellen Blackwell
... some metaphysicians may dispute it, but whether debatable or not in the abstract, William Douglas had the good fortune, as he deemed it, to grow up in the bosom of a family in which the characteristic of worth was cherished and transmitted as an heirloom. ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume VI • Various
... nest, a family heirloom which needs but a little restoring, is a precious thing for the Mason, ever sparing of her time. We find so many of the old homes repaired and restocked that I suspect the Bee of laying new foundations only when ...
— The Mason-bees • J. Henri Fabre
... dust had been driven away by the gentle breezes coming in from the bay of Naples. Some courageous citizens returned, searching in the hot ashes for the crashed-in roofs of their villas, to recover this or that. Perhaps they hoped to salvage the strong box in the atrium, or a heirloom from the triclinium. But soon they gave up. Despairing, or hoping for better days to come, they vanished in the mist of time. Pompeii, the fair, the hospitable, the gay city, just like any individual out of luck, ...
— Cooking and Dining in Imperial Rome • Apicius
... an expedition for the destruction of the enemies of the faith.[102] Such an expedition, he once said, he owed to God for his peaceful accession; at another time he declared[103] that he cherished, like an heirloom, the ardour against the infidel which he inherited from his father. He repressed that ardour, it must be added, with as much success as Henry VII.; and apart from this one youthful indiscretion, he did not suffer his ancestral zeal to escape into action. His ...
— Henry VIII. • A. F. Pollard
... golden clasp; And on her brow, fairer than alabaster, A coronet of pearls. But then her face, So lovely, yet so arch, so full of mirth, The overflowings of an innocent heart— It haunts me still, though many a year has fled, Like some wild melody! Alone it hangs Over a mouldering heirloom, its companion, An oaken chest, half-eaten by the worm, But richly carved by Antony of Trent With Scripture stories from the Life of Christ, A chest that came from Venice, and had held The ducal robes of some old ancestor. That by the way—it may be true or false— But don't forget the ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard
... murmured the thoughtful Puddock when he had read over the list of ingredients. These, however, he got from Toole, close at hand, and with a little silver grater and a pretty little agate pocket pestle and mortar—an heirloom derived from poor Aunt Bell—he made a wonderful powder; 'nutmeg and ginger, cinnamon and cloves,' as the song says, and every other stinging product of nature and chemistry which the author of this famous family 'purge for the head' could ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... the new hut rose as if by magic. This continual pilfering, I was assured, was a serious tax on the cultivation of the estates around. But I was told, too, frankly enough, by the very gentleman who complained, that this habit was simply an heirloom from the bad days of slavery, when the pilfering of the slaves from other estates was connived at by their own masters, on the ground that if A's Negroes robbed B, B's Negroes robbed C, and so all round the alphabet; one more evil instance of the demoralising effect ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... on the crumbs of the munificent house—and Charles Gould beheld all the extent of his domestic establishment, even to the gatekeeper. This was a half-paralyzed old man, whose long white locks fell down to his shoulders: an heirloom taken up by Charles Gould's familial piety. He could remember Henry Gould, an Englishman and a Costaguanero of the second generation, chief of the Sulaco province; he had been his personal mozo years and years ago in peace and war; ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... to them when her future mother-in-law presented her with a beautiful diamond cross, which was an old family heirloom, and must belong by ...
— The Honorable Miss - A Story of an Old-Fashioned Town • L. T. Meade
... distinction; but having killed his wife, whose birth had shown its unfortunate effects too soon in flagrant infidelity, he was in turn disgraced and fined, but in turn was also reinstated. His son Louis de Breze was given the apparently imperishable family heirloom of the office of Grand Seneschal in August 1490, and the great seal of the Senechaussee of Normandy was henceforth his coat of arms. More of a soldier and a courtier than a man of law or of finance, this de Breze left the duties of his office to a numerous ...
— The Story of Rouen • Sir Theodore Andrea Cook
... said Mr. Arnold, "have you succeeded in deciphering that curious inscription yet? I don't like the ring to remain long out of my own keeping. It is quite an heirloom, I assure you." ...
— David Elginbrod • George MacDonald
... and in great agony, "May God have mercy on your soul—and mine!" on which the muscles in my left arm stiffened. The big biceps—an heirloom of my athletic days—thickened up, and I turned my eyes away from the dying face, half hidden by the darkness. His struggles were very terrible, but with my weight upon his lower limbs, and my ...
— The Crack of Doom • Robert Cromie
... I.—'What might it be?'—'Hm! The only thing is Morten's Ane Kirstine at the farm where you went last night. But her parents won't let me have her; they say I have too little, and that is true too.' 'Hm, man,' says he, 'you look as if you had a pair of strong arms of your own; that is a good heirloom, and she has some pennies,—in a couple of days you might go and see what the old man's mind is. I'll help along the best I know how.' I listened to that, for evil upon them, those gipsies—they are not such fools. They can tell fortunes and discover stolen goods, and they ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... with you into the People's House a freshness and sweet savour which our citizens lack mightily. I would fain merit your esteem, heedless of those pursy fellows from hulks and warehouses, with one ear lappeted by the pen behind it, and the other an heirloom, as Charles would have had it, in Laud's Star-chamber. Oh, they are proud and bloody men! My heart melts; but, alas! my authority is null: I am the servant of the Commonwealth. I will not, dare not, betray it. If Charles Stuart had threatened my death ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... you to wear it," said Lady Blanchemain. "It's a woman's ring, of course. But as for accepting it, you need have no scruples. It's an old Blanchemain gem, that was in the family a hundred years before I came into it. It's properly an heirloom, and you're the heir. I give it to you for a purpose. Should you ever become engaged, I desire you to placcit upon the finger of the ...
— My Friend Prospero • Henry Harland
... likeness to the Homeric way of quoting old stories. Waldere answers, and this is the substance of his argument: "Lo, now, Lord of the Burgundians, it was thy thought that Hagena's hand should end my fighting. Come then and win my corselet, my father's heirloom, from the shoulders weary ...
— Epic and Romance - Essays on Medieval Literature • W. P. Ker
... the constituent Assembly to recast the laws in conformity with the Rights of Man, to abolish every survival of absolutism, every heirloom of inorganic tradition, that was inconsistent with them. In every department of State they were obliged to make ruins, to remove them, and to raise a new structure from the foundation. The transition from the reign of force to the reign of opinion, from custom to principle, led to a new order through ...
— Lectures on the French Revolution • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... my facts, if that is what you mean," said I. "The stiletto is an English heirloom, and bears on its blade, among other devices, that of Mr. Grey's family on the female side. But that is not all I want to say. If the blow was struck to obtain the diamond, the shock of not finding it on his victim must have been terrible. Now Mr. Grey's heart, if ...
— The Woman in the Alcove • Anna Katharine Green
... expense, and the State revenue was thus for ever relieved of a very heavy item of expenditure, which could be devoted to the increase of the national wealth instead—a peaceful security accompanied with an intrinsic gain constituting a veritable and permanent heirloom for the ...
— Origin of the Anglo-Boer War Revealed (2nd ed.) - The Conspiracy of the 19th Century Unmasked • C. H. Thomas
... privations, I could never part with my only treasure. But to-day I do so joyously. Give me my iron rings!" She took those handed her, and placed them on her finger. "Farewell, sir," she said. "These will be my daughter's heirloom, and I know she will rejoice over them." She had not yet crossed the threshold when another lady appeared, and another, and more followed in rapid succession. The newspapers, containing the request, had been read in the whole city; all the married ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach
... all sorts of pleasant American ways, sent Caro flowers and things every day, though I fancy he couldn't afford it, gave her a lovely solitaire diamond ring, which I'm sure he couldn't, and a "guard," an heirloom in ...
— Lady Betty Across the Water • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... and her companion, I do not know. As for Lucy and myself, it was all plain-sailing and fair dealing. The excellent creature forced on me six gold pieces, which I knew had come to her as an heirloom from her mother, and which I had often heard her declare she never meant to use, unless in the last extremity. She knew I had but five dollars on earth, and that Rupert had not one; and she offered me this gold. I told her Rupert had better take it; no, I had better take ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... it true," said his father, doggedly, and angered because he was in his own soul bitterly ashamed to have bartered away the heirloom and treasure of his race and the comfort and health-giver of his young children. "You will find it true. The dealer has paid me half the money to-night, and will pay me the other half to-morrow when he packs it ...
— The Nuernberg Stove • Louisa de la Rame (AKA Ouida)
... keep that part throughout your future successes—and even failures. The latter will not do you any great harm, provided that you know how to keep that attachment to work, and that perseverance in noble ideas, which are the chief heirloom of the artist. Lassen tells me that we are shortly to hear your "Tasso" here: my attentive sympathy is wide awake; so fulfil your promise, dear Franz, by coming before the end of this month, and we ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 2: "From Rome to the End" • Franz Liszt; letters collected by La Mara and translated
... sobbed, promised, and louted confusedly; and in due course of time, when King Edward had been long in his grave, and Kate was a staid grandmother, the crown-piece held the place of honour on her son's chest of drawers as a prized family heirloom. ...
— The White Lady of Hazelwood - A Tale of the Fourteenth Century • Emily Sarah Holt
... husband on our wedding-day. The ring is an heirloom in my family. Jewellers value it at ...
— The Coming Conquest of England • August Niemann
... Marie had been unjustly accused of the theft of a watch which was an heirloom belonging to an aunt of hers. The aunt had ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans
... that she must always be sending out messages of love, north, east, south, and west. So she sent a rather spiky one in the direction of her husband who was sitting due east, so that it probably got to him at once, and smiled the particular hard firm smile which was an heirloom inherited from her ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... the plot of this story. The Middleton who emigrated to America, more than two hundred years ago, had been a dark and moody man; he came with a beautiful though not young woman for his wife, and left a family behind him. In this family a certain heirloom had been preserved, and with it a tradition that grew wilder and stranger with the passing generations. The tradition had lost, if it ever had, some of its connecting links; but it referred to a murder, to the expulsion ...
— The Ancestral Footstep (fragment) - Outlines of an English Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... by birth, but of Irish extraction, and to an attentive ear there was a faint echo of the brogue in his tone, which seemed to have been handed down to him as a threadbare and almost worn-out heirloom. ...
— The Dog Crusoe and His Master - A Story of Adventure in the Western Prairies • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... obtained a new demonstration of love and favor from the prodigious image of the most Holy Mary, from that extremely ancient image which, saved from iconoclastic fury, always engaged the devout worship of their ancestors; and which their not degenerate descendants keep as a noble and precious heirloom of their hereditary religion, finding in it all comfort and support against public and private calamities. The late incessant and unseasonable rains having hindered the gathering in of autumn fruits, and impeded cultivation for the coming year, the active pastor, the very revered ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... not a fault. It is a beauty, an heirloom, a distinction. A local accent is like a landed inheritance; it marks a man's place in the world, tells where he comes from. Of course it is possible to have too much of it. A man does not need to carry the soil of ...
— Fisherman's Luck • Henry van Dyke
... revered hero, the trusty blade which only left Montgomery's hands, when in his death- throes he 'like a soldier fell,' and the pitiless snow became his winding-sheet. On a table below this interesting and valuable historic relic, now in possession, as an heirloom, of J. Thompson Harrower, Esq., of this city, was exhibited the full uniform of an artillery officer of the year 1775. Several quaint old sketches and paintings were placed around the Library, which, ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... tea-caddy, a workbox, some tumblers, and a decanter full of water; the other side being filled with a bookcase and books. There were two or three pictures on the walls; one was a portrait of Voltaire, another of Lord Bacon, and a third was Albert Durer's St. Jerome. This latter was an heirloom, and greatly prized I could perceive, as it was hung in the place ...
— The Autobiography of Mark Rutherford • Mark Rutherford
... "A family heirloom, then," said the Doctor in a tone which showed his interest. "Now I understand," and he smiled pleasantly. "I hope that 'he is not foolish enough to wear it at any time.'—Of course; hardly an article of ornament for a young scholar ...
— Glyn Severn's Schooldays • George Manville Fenn
... they asked to carry to Rolf Stake those costly things which they in his behalf should choose. These were the helmet Battleboar, and the corslet Finnsleif, which no weapon could pierce, and the gold ring called Sviagriss, an heirloom from Adils' forefathers. But the King denied them all the costly things, nor did he ...
— The Red True Story Book • Various
... show? That their parents had very probably been lovers of music, and the piano may have been an heirloom. ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Literature • Ontario Ministry of Education
... question, whether New England or New Africa shall extend her limits,—whether the country shall be occupied a century hence by a civilized or by a barbarous race. Every rood of ground yielded to the pretensions of the masters of slaves is so much of the heirloom of freedom and of civilization lost without hope of recovery. ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various
... Ordinarily he wore one of those canned suits that you buy in the coat-and-pants emporiums, giving your age and waist measure in order to get a perfect fit. He wore a celluloid collar with it and a necktie that must have been an heirloom in the family; and he wore a straw hat most of the year. He wore each one till it blew away and then got another. This rig was good enough for Ole in ordinary little social affairs, but when it came to dances and receptions he blossomed out ...
— At Good Old Siwash • George Fitch
... silver watch, an heirloom of considerable antiquity, and the chain was jet. Sunk of a sudden in profoundest gloom he led the way to the exit, walking like a shamefaced plebeian who had got into the room by mistake. Polly's spirits were higher than ever. Just beyond the ...
— The Town Traveller • George Gissing
... Hegelian philosophy: yea, it would perhaps be no exaggeration to say that, in the subordination of all strivings after education to reasons of State, Prussia has appropriated, with success, the principle and the useful heirloom of the Hegelian philosophy, whose apotheosis of the State in this subordination certainly reaches ...
— On the Future of our Educational Institutions • Friedrich Nietzsche
... class beneath them lay in the privilege of spending more than they could afford on house and clothing; with rare exceptions they had no hope, no chance, of reaching independence; enough if they upheld the threadbare standard of respectability, and bequeathed it to their children as a solitary heirloom. The oldest looked the poorest, and naturally so; amid the tramp of multiplying feet, their steps had begun to lag when speed was more than ever necessary; they saw newcomers outstrip them, and trudged ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing
... persuade Macayre to tell them the ancient tales he knew—of the days when Agricola forced his way in among the Men of the Woods, who would die any savage death rather than be conquered. Macayre was a sort of heirloom himself, and he ...
— The White People • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... herself admitted, that he must die; but yet, with so much artifice and intrigue did she envelope in mystery his lost condition, that, even in the Palace of the Louvre, his own nearest relations were ignorant how near approached the hour, which, by leaving the crown as heirloom to a successor far away in a distant country, opened a field to the ambitious designs of so many ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... it isn't likely. For all, I came honestly by the article. It's an heirloom in our family; belonged to my great-great-grandfather, and's descended through several generations. For know, Senor, my ancestors were not deformed like poor me. Some of them were gallant soldiers, as yourself. Indeed, one of them rose to the rank of sergeant—that ...
— The Free Lances - A Romance of the Mexican Valley • Mayne Reid
... Indeed Griff had defended its hue in single combat, and his eye was treated for it with beefsteak by Peter in the pantry. We were immensely, though silently, proud of her in her white embroidered cambric frock, red sash and shoes, and coral necklace, almost an heirloom, for it had been brought from Sicily in Nelson's days by my mother's poor young father. How parents and doctors in these days would have shuddered at her neck and arms, bare, not only in the evening, but by day! When she was a little younger she could so ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge
... place Anders came to get an armful of wood. Baard stood in the corner and saw him distinctly; he had put off his threadbare Sunday clothes and wore the uniform he had brought home with him from the war, the match to Baard's, and which he had promised his brother never to touch but to leave for an heirloom, Baard having given him a similar promise. Anders' uniform was now patched and worn; his strong, well-built frame was encased, as it were, in a bundle of rags; and, at the same time, Baard heard the gold watch ticking in his own pocket. Anders ...
— A Happy Boy • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... the heirloom with a little cry of joy. Then she threw her arms about Betty's neck, and began to ...
— The Outdoor Girls on Pine Island - Or, A Cave and What It Contained • Laura Lee Hope
... gifts. The discussion is thus one big tissue of simulation, and is carried on in succession by the elders on each side. The bridegroom's father keeps offering betel nut and brew to his new "cofather-in-law"[6] and selects a favorable moment to make him a big present, possibly of an old heirloom, a jar, or a venerable old spear, the value of which he estimates at P50, although it may ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... several years he succeeded in getting her to return to him through pity, but she died soon after this reconciliation, leaving one son born of their reunion. The Comte de Bauvan, completely broken, set out for Italy about 1836. He had two residences at Paris, one on rue Payenne, an heirloom, the other on Faubourg Saint-Honore, which was the scene of the domestic reunion. [Honorine.] In 1830, the Comte de Bauvan, then president of the Court of Cassation, with MM. de Granville and de Serizy, tried to save Lucien de Rubempre from a criminal judgment, and, after the ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe
... a finishing touch as she drew round her cousin's not very slender waist a black band fastened with a silver clasp—an heirloom in the family since the time that the Macivors used to wear the Highland garb among their ...
— Shenac's Work at Home • Margaret Murray Robertson
... which more than anything else Grettir cast his eyes, a short sword, which he declared to be finer than any weapon which he had ever seen. It was the last thing that he showed. Thorfinn opened his eyes when he saw the sword, for it was an heirloom of his family and had never been ...
— Grettir The Strong - Grettir's Saga • Unknown
... invariably the first comers, had taken possession of front-row seats. This year Miss Edith had the Burnham lace—an heirloom whose glory could on no account be dimmed by a tri-partite division—and Miss Annie had the Burnham pearls. They were a modest string, perhaps, but they lived on after more spectacular ones became gummy. As for ...
— Tutors' Lane • Wilmarth Lewis
... Mrs. Judge Ryder and the girls just now. 'Did you ever see such an upstart?' And, 'What an extravagant dress she has on—it is ridiculous,' Josephine Ryder said. When Ben Somers heard this attack on you, he told them that your lace was an heirloom. Here he is." Mr. Parker took her away, and Ben Somers went in pursuit of a seat. The quadrille was over, I was engaged for the next, and he had not come back. I saw nothing of him till the country ...
— The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard
... toothpicking beyond anything we know. They make an outdoor pastime and function of it, whereas we pursue this sport more or less privately. Over there, a toothpick is a family heirloom and is handed down from one generation to another, and is operated in company ostentatiously. In its use some Europeans are absolutely gifted. But then we beat the world at open-air gum-chewing—so I reckon the honors ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... party, inflicted the pang courted by the advocate, and asked if you were for sale. And then the ruined advocate clasped his hands, rubbed them, set his head heart-brokenly on one side, took you down, heaved a sigh, shrugged his shoulders, and sold you—you! a family heirloom! Well, at least you are old, and you represent to me acres of dim, religious canvas in that beloved land; and here is the dollar now asked for you: I could not have bought you for ...
— Suburban Sketches • W.D. Howells
... and the cot was a carved one, an heirloom in which several generations of the family ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... famous heirloom of the Redclyffes," said the Warden, "on the possession of which (as long as they did possess it) they prided themselves, it is said, more than on their ancient manor-house. It was a Saxon ornament, which a certain ancestor was said to have had from Harold, the old Saxon king; but if ...
— Doctor Grimshawe's Secret - A Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... her hand, and the beams fell full upon her soft, white dress and the Eucharis lily in her hair. She had twisted a string of pearls three times round her neck—it was an heirloom of great value. The other ornaments were all Richard's gifts; two broad bands of gold set with pearls and diamonds upon her arms, and the diamond ring which had been the pledge of her betrothal. She was very pale, and her eyes were large with anxiety as she asked her question of the two men, whom ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... heirloom silver were missing now, and so was the filmy lace, but the tired mistress, could sleep as long as she pleased, thank Heaven! and the same loving care be given her. And the meal could be as nicely served, even though the thick cup cost but a penny ...
— Felix O'Day • F. Hopkinson Smith
... just to jot down briefly the results of our efforts to hold a conversation with the people living in the adjacent planet. Get a better notion by this means of what we are doing than the minutes can afford. Shall leave this book as an heirloom to my successors in office. In 1892, when we were last nearest Mars (only at a distance of 35,000,000 miles or thereabouts), we came to the conclusion that the Marsians were trying to speak to us. They seemed to be making signals. With the assistance of our new telescope (six times as ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, August 20, 1892 • Various
... and forks mounted in gold which I bought at Rome, and likewise the whole length portraits of the late Duke of Kingston and of the present Duchess of Kingston, to be put up at Thoresby which as well as all the plates shall be reputed as an heirloom to the said house; and I also give him the several pieces of cannon and the Ships and vessel on ...
— The Dukeries • R. Murray Gilchrist
... stories, these 'Maehrchen' which nurses still tell, with almost the same words, in the Thuringian forest and in the Norwegian villages, and to which crowds of children listen under the Pippal-trees of India—these stories, too, belonged to the common heirloom of the Indo-European race, and their origin carries us back to the same distant past, when no Greek had set foot in Europe, no Hindoo had bathed in the sacred ...
— The Antediluvian World • Ignatius Donnelly
... th'enchanted rod was broke, They vanish'd in a stinking smoke. Achilles' sceptre was of wood, Like Sid's, but nothing near so good; Though down from ancestors divine Transmitted to the heroes line; Thence, thro' a long descent of kings, Came an HEIRLOOM,[6] as Homer sings. Though this description looks so big, That sceptre was a sapless twig, Which, from the fatal day, when first It left the forest where 'twas nurs'd, As Homer tells us o'er and o'er, Nor leaf, nor ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... apparatus he intended to plant on his head, he encountered great difficulties. His ideal was an enormous hat, large at the crown, small below, broad in the brim, and curved far down behind and before; in a word, the historic heirloom to which the founder of Bolivia gave his name long ago. The shop had to be turned upside down, and all its recesses searched, ...
— The Man With The Broken Ear • Edmond About
... already laid his grimy fingers; they hang over the back and fondle the padded arms; and the old grandmother, with clasped hands, entreats that, if able to raise the money in a few days, they may be allowed to buy back that loved heirloom. ...
— The Idler, Volume III., Issue XIII., February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly. Edited By Jerome K. Jerome & Robert Barr • Various
... nominalists and the realists, and the doctores fundatissimi, resolutissimi, refulgentes, profundi, and extatici, have left this heirloom of logomachy to a race as subtle and irrefragable! An extraordinary scene has recently been performed by a new company of actors, in the modern comedy of Political Economy; and the whole dialogue has been carried on in an inimitable "confusion of words!" This ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... with their happy mingling of merriment and devotion in the presence of the gods! What a universe of romance in that Buddhist art which has left its impress upon almost every product of industry, from the toy of a child to the heirloom of a prince;—which has peopled the solitudes with statues, and chiselled the wayside rocks with texts of sutras! Who can forget the soft enchantment of this Buddhist atmosphere?—the deep music of the great bells?—the ...
— Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation • Lafcadio Hearn
... another, as the years passed by, bore witness to the loyalty of his heart; for he would not abandon the pre-historic tailor who was a sort of heirloom in the Collin family. In consequence, the rise and fall of William's coat, in its caudal parts, as he walked down the aisle with the plate on the Sabbath day, had become part of St. Cuthbert's ritual—and we all ...
— St. Cuthbert's • Robert E. Knowles
... But I reflected that probably the censorship of plays was an inactive monstrosity; not exactly a survival, since it seemed obviously at variance with the genius of the people, but an heirloom of past ages, a bizarre and imported curiosity preserved because of that weakness one has for one's old possessions apart from any intrinsic value; one more object of exotic virtu, an Oriental potiche, a magot chinois conceived by a childish and extravagant imagination, ...
— Notes on Life and Letters • Joseph Conrad
... the furniture, dating from the time of Louis Philippe, was upholstered in red velvet; the family portraits were in severe black and gold frames; in the centre of the table, in the place of honor, there was a large Bible that had been printed in the sixteenth century. This was a precious heirloom that had come down to us from our Huguenot ancestors who had, at that time, been persecuted for their faith. We had baskets and vases of flowers disposed about the room, a custom which then was not so ...
— The Story of a Child • Pierre Loti
... accordingly by a certain sacredness or "divinity." I well remember with what surprise and pride I found myself asked by a blacksmith's wife in a remote hamlet among the hop-gardens of Kent, if I was "the son of the Self-interpreting Bible." I possess, as an heirloom, the New Testament which my father fondly regarded as the one his grandfather, when a herd laddie, got from the Professor who heard him ask for it, and promised him it if he could read a verse; and he has in his beautiful small hand written in it what follows: "He (John Brown of Haddington) ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... of the most perplexing was the theft of Lady Littlewood's rubies. There have, of course, been many greater robberies in point of value, but few so artfully conceived. Lady Littlewood, of Romley Manor, had a beautiful but rather eccentric heirloom in the form of a ruby brooch. While staying at her town house early in the eighties she took the jewel to a shop in Brompton for some ...
— Amusements in Mathematics • Henry Ernest Dudeney |
