"Mother's son" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... messages for Saunders mean, very likely. Baumberger had to have someone here to spy around for him and perhaps help him choose—or at least get together—those eight men. They must have come in on the night train, for I didn't see them. I'll bet they're tough customers, every mother's son of them! Fighters down to the ...
— Good Indian • B. M. Bower
... by reason of her long connection with the boarding-house across the street was a sort of unofficial official of the State, came over and made the coffee and sandwiches, all the while calling down blessings on the head of every mother's son of them, and announcing in loud, firm tones that while all five of her boys belonged to the union she'd be after tellin' them what she thought of ...
— Lifted Masks - Stories • Susan Glaspell
... away, they may let us off," he said prudently; "but if we're caught after firing on the king's uniform, it's hanging for every mother's son of us." ...
— Athelstane Ford • Allen Upward
... upon spiteful neighbours, Whose malicious humours are bent, And do practise and strive every day To wrong the poor innocent. By means of such persons as they, There hath many a good mother's son Been utterly brought to decay, Their wives and their children undone. For this I will make it appear, And prove by experience I can, 'Tis the excellen'st thing in the world To ...
— Ancient Poems, Ballads and Songs of England • Robert Bell
... made that motion again, assuring us that the Lima ship of which he had news was far greater and richer, and would make princes of us all; which bark came in sight on the sixteenth day, and was taken without shot or slaughter. The taking of which bark, I verily believe, was the ruin of every mother's son of us." ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... what matters it, Signori, to be speaking of the qualities of men! We are all alike, honorable, merciful, more disposed to help others than to help ourselves, and so little given to selfishness, that nature has been obliged to supply every mother's son of us with a sort of goad, that shall be constantly pricking us on to look after our own interests. Here are animals whose dispositions are less understood, and we will bestow a useful minute in examining their qualities. Reverend Augustine, this mastiff ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... Major, too much afraid. Also we their blood-brothers now, because we bring them first-class dinner and save chief from lion's fury. No blame them too much, Major, good fellows really with gentle heart, but grub like that from generation to generation. Every mother's son of them have many men inside, that why they so big and strong. Ogula people cover great multitude like Charity in Book. No doubt sent by Providence to keep down extra pop'lation. Not right to think ...
— The Yellow God - An Idol of Africa • H. Rider Haggard
... increase of rage. "In my devotion to you I risked my skin for the husband of madame! while madame, outrageously mocking her husband and me, abandoned herself to orgies with a lot of scamps. I am beside myself! My mother's son does not merit having been born in my country and having played all manner of pranks, as they say, in the capital of the world, if he cannot find something, in his turn, to laugh at in this adventure. In a word, madame," ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue
... men on the farm ordering and beating me—and giving me the wrong start. Then when I was a nurse, it was men again hanging around, bothering me, trying to see what they could get. [She gives a hard laugh.] And now it's men all the time. Gawd, I hate 'em all, every mother's son of ...
— Anna Christie • Eugene O'Neill
... left to come down upon the enemy's position from the wooded slope behind the encampment. We met no let or hindrance in this approach. Secure in their stronghold, the Indians had no patrols out; and as for the Englishmen, every mother's son of them, it seemed, was basking in the light of a great fire built ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... somehow, but I know not how, that the men of Essex were gathering to rise against the poll-groat bailiffs and the lords that would turn them all into villeins again, as their grandfathers had been. And the people was weak and the lords were poor; for many a mother's son had fallen in the war in France in the old king's time, and the Black Death had slain a many; so that the lords had bethought them: "We are growing poorer, and these upland-bred villeins are growing richer, and the guilds of craft are waxing in the towns, and soon what will there ...
— A Dream of John Ball, A King's Lesson • William Morris
... sell to him "as long as he had a dime." Another mother, an old lady, made the same request, "lest," she said, "he may some day fill a drunkard's grave." "Madam," he replied, "your son has as good a right to fill a drunkard's grave as any other mother's son." And in one of the Hillsboro saloons a lady saw her nephew. "O, Mr. B——," said she, "don't sell whiskey to that boy: if he has one drink he will want another, and he may die a drunkard." "Madam, I will sell to him if ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... devil tempts one mother's son To rage against another: So wicked Cain was hurried on, Till he ...
— Divine Songs • Isaac Watts
... the self-same falcon she in her dream had seen, Foretold by her wise mother. What vengeance took the queen On her nearest kinsmen who him to death had done! That single death atoning died many a mother's son. ...
— Song and Legend From the Middle Ages • William D. McClintock and Porter Lander McClintock
... would come to that," Sergeant Corney whispered to me, with a sigh. "It don't stand to reason that any man could hold his temper a great while under such a tongue-lashin' as those curs gave the commander, an' I'm predictin' that every mother's son of 'em will rue this ...
— The Minute Boys of the Mohawk Valley • James Otis
... to be, you're the best Christian any way ever I happened on! so never fear, honey, for yourself nor your daughter, God bless her! Not a soul shall go near yees, nor a finger be laid on her, good or bad. Sure I know them all—not a mother's son o' the boys but I can call my frind—not a captain or lader that's in it, but I can lade, dear, to the devil and back again, if I'd but whistle: so only you keep quite, and don't be advertising yourself any way for a Jew, nor be ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth
... but I would rather see an older head on his shoulders just at present. It is all very well for him to say as there may be no natives within twenty miles; but how is he to know that? There may be a village just round the turn of the river. All these chaps are pirates when they get a chance, every mother's son of them, and there may be half a dozen war-canoes lying a mile up this river. It would be natural that they should be somewhere near its mouth, ready to start out if a sail is sighted, or news is brought to them that there is a ship anchored ...
— With Cochrane the Dauntless • George Alfred Henty
... rather to Tim, Denny and Larry. This crowd came nearer to the notion I had of ward politicians. They were a noisy, husky-throated lot, but they didn't leave you in doubt for a minute but what every mother's son of them was working for Sweeney as though they were one big family with Daddy Sweeney at the head. You could overhear bits of plots and counter plots on every side. I was offered a dozen cigars in as many minutes and ...
— One Way Out - A Middle-class New-Englander Emigrates to America • William Carleton
... "asked me if I would give him an annuity to keep it quiet; threatened me, me, as if I was trafficking with this wretched old Begum's misfortune; and would extort a seat in Parliament out of that miserable Clavering. Good heavens! was my uncle mad, to tamper in such a conspiracy? Fancy our mother's son, Laura, trading on ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... wedding robe to give her, she'd rather have you this minute than all the kings of Erin, or than all the other princes and kings and chieftains in the whole world. But you and your father and mother were kind to me on a wild winter's night, and I'd never see your mother's son without a wedding robe fit for the greatest princess that ever set nations to battle for her beauty. So go and pluck me a handful of wild forest flowers, and I'll weave out of them a wedding robe with all the colours of the rainbow, and one that will ...
— Irish Fairy Tales • Edmund Leamy
... have a better way. I have faith, for one thing, in your blood. The son of Maria Menrad must be—his mother's son. And the Crown Prince is attached to you. Not for your sake, but for his, I am inclined to be lenient. What I shall demand for that leniency is that no word of love again pass between you and ...
— Long Live the King • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... what a good mother means. Then he accused himself of many faults and made impetuous confession to his wife and her father. On these occasions Phoebe softened his self-blame, but Mr. Lyddon let Will talk, and told him for his consolation that every mother's son must be ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... planets such that whosoever shall lose a hatchet, shall immediately grow rich? Ha, ha, ha! by Jove you shall even be lost and it please you, my dear hatchet! With this they all fairly lost their hatchets out of hand. The devil of a one that had a hatchet left; he was not his mother's son that did not lose his hatchet. No more was wood felled or cleared in that country, through want of hatchets. Nay, the Aesopian apologue even saith, that certain petty country gents of the lower class who had sold the Woodman their little mill and little field to have ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3 No 2, February 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... for anything! That act's got barnacles. But the little devils look cute, though. Say—say, old man, cut that out! This is no place for your mother's son. Say!" ...
— Humoresque - A Laugh On Life With A Tear Behind It • Fannie Hurst
... sword once felt the craven foe, Its hilt was black with gore, And many a mother's son did ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... cider-barrel in the cellar, with a jug in one hand and a goblet in the other. He offered them a drink out of his goblet, but just as one of the soldiers was putting it to his mouth-Whew! a flash of fire blazed through the cellar, blinded every mother's son of them for several minutes, and when they recovered their eye-sight, jug, goblet, and red-cap had vanished, and nothing but ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... flagstaff if you like," conceded the other one magnanimously. "A notice to the effect that it is the duty of every jack mother's son of them to douse the foreign devils, man, woman, and child, and especially the talk-book pass-hat-round men. Also that he has had several brick-ends heaved at him on his way back. Then stops suddenly, hits ...
— The Mirror of Kong Ho • Ernest Bramah
... started into the present. "George last Sunday—no, not ill: just gone under. He is never ill. But he is his mother's son. Her eyes were his, and she had that forehead that I think so beautiful, and he will not think it worth while to live. It was always touch and go. He will live; but he will not think it worth while to live. He will never think anything worth while. You remember ...
— A Room With A View • E. M. Forster
... vittles. Ther's such a heap o' things to kids o' that age it makes me nigh sweat at the tho't. Howsum, Zip's down an' out, an' we got to see him right someways. As 'pres' of this lay-out, I tell you right here, every mother's son of us had best git out an' learn all we ken about fixin' kids right. How to feed 'em, how to set their pretties on right, how to clean 'em, how to—well, jest how to raise 'em. If any o' you got leddy friends I'd say ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... liberty today, so you may get ready as soon all you please, and go; but understand this, I am going to give you liberty because I suppose you would growl like so many old quarter gunners if I didn't; at the same time, if you'll take my advice, every mother's son of you will stay aboard and keep out of the way of the bloody cannibals altogether. Ten to one, men, if you go ashore, you will get into some infernal row, and that will be the end of you; for if those tattooed scoundrels get you a little ways back into their valleys, they'll ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... as soon as he caught his breath, "if we should sail into Havana harbor every mother's son of us would be ...
— A Voyage with Captain Dynamite • Charles Edward Rich
... "The fugitives who have escaped from the battle have proceeded up over the valley of Veradal, and are destroying our habitations, and there is no safety for us to travel home so long as they are in the valley. Go after them with war-force, and let no mother's son of them escape with life; for that is what they intended for us if they had got the upper hand in the battle, and the same they would do now if they met us hereafter, and had better luck than we. ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson
... to leap again in his veins. His nostrils dilated and his chin was raised proudly—a racial chord touched within him that had been dumb a long while. And that was all it was—the blood of his fathers; for it was honor and not love that bound him to his own flag. He was his mother's son, and the unspoken bitterness that lurked in her heart lurked, likewise, on her account, ...
— Crittenden - A Kentucky Story of Love and War • John Fox, Jr.
... you are your mother's son and mine. Some day you may go back. Who knows? But—no, no. Canada is your country. Go back." The lad still clutched him. "Boy," said his father, steadying his voice with great effort and speaking quietly, "with us, in our country, ...
— The Foreigner • Ralph Connor
... "but you'd better shut your face, for I'm not that kind of a man. If I t'ought I had wan that money fair, there's never a soul here could get it from me. But I t'ought it was in fun; that was my mistake, ye see; and there's no man big enough upon this island to give a present to my mother's son. So there's my opinion to ye, plumber, and you can put it ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... them North County[D] fellers, who've squatted round har. We'll hang every mother's son on 'em, ...
— Among the Pines - or, South in Secession Time • James R. Gilmore
... the bulwark over which I had been contemplating the vasty deep, and saw the sorriest, most woe-begone lot that the imagination can conceive. Every mother's son was wretchedly sea-sick. They were paying the penalty of their overfeeding in Wilmington; and every face looked as if its owner was discovering for the first time what the real lower depths of human misery was. They all seemed afraid they would not die; as if they were ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... at such things, Bill Hinkley, but I can't. There was a time when every mother's son in Kentucky was a man, and could stand up to his rack with the best. If he couldn't keep the top place, he went a peg lower; but he made out to keep the place for which he was intended. Then, if a man disliked his neighbor ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... Leo, my lad," Terrence, with a wink to the others, answered him. "Females are conservative. They keep the type true. They fix it and hold it, and are the everlasting clog on the chariot of progress. If it wasn't for the females every blessed mother's son of us would be a sporting dominant. I refer to our distinguished breeder and practical Mendelian whom we have with us this evening to ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London
... one certain minute, Perhaps to-morrow Charon's wherry, May every mother's son take in it, And waft ...
— Ebrietatis Encomium - or, the Praise of Drunkenness • Boniface Oinophilus
... Woods and Meadows. If thou dost not come up quickly, we shall conclude [that] thou art in Love with one of Sir ROGER's Dairy-maids. Service to the Knight. Sir ANDREW is grown the Cock of the Club since he left us, and if he does not return quickly will make every Mother's Son of us ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... "I swear, though there's not a freehold registered on the estate, that they'll vote, every mother's son of them, or devil a stone of the court-house they'll leave ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... is Philip Vandal, for example. He loves his kind so much that he has not a word softer than a brickbat for a single mother's son of them. He goes about to save them by proving that not one of them is worth damning. And he does it all from the point of view of an early (a knurly) Christian. Let me illustrate. I was sauntering along Broadway once, and was attracted by a bird-fancier's ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860 • Various
... Disco, with a knowing look, "he won't—that's where it is, sir. I've not a spark o' belief in that man, or in any Arab on the coast. He's a slaver in disguise, he is, an' so's every mother's son of 'em." ...
— Black Ivory • R.M. Ballantyne
... be, my boy. There's a brace of pistols for every mother's son of us, and if we can't carry this ship, with the crew at our back, it's time we were all sent to a young Miss's boarding school. You speak to your mate on the left to-night, and see if he is to ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 28, April 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... "Drowned!—every mother's son of them!" observed Mr. Gillett, with a possible trace of complacency. "Not that I fancy the country they were going to mourned much about that. I understand a strong sentiment's growing out there against that sort ...
— Half A Chance • Frederic S. Isham
... at your peril!" exclaimed Egremont, "or I will forget you are my mother's son, and cleave you to the ground. You have been the blight of my life; you stole from me my bride, and now you would rob me of ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... had been in quite a "state of mind" for at least three minutes; but he would hardly have been his own mother's son if he had let himself be entirely "posed." Up rose his long right arm with the heavy string of fish at the end of it, and Annie's fun burst out into a musical laugh, ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. V, August, 1878, No 10. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... Ned," cried Crockett, "an' come on the rest of you fleet-footed fellows! Every mother's son of you has driv' the cows home before in his time, an' now you ...
— The Texan Scouts - A Story of the Alamo and Goliad • Joseph A. Altsheler
... Cadwallader's brains were unsettled. He, perceiving our amazement, told us he would explain the mystery; but at the same time bade us take notice, that he had lived poy, patchelor, married man, and widower, almost forty years, and in all that time there was no man, nor mother's son in the whole world who durst use him so ill as Captain Oakum had done. Then he acquainted us with the dialogue that passed between them, as I have already related it: and had no sooner finished this ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... huge wooden palaces with much scrollwork ornamentation were being built on Stockton Street and the Rincon Hill. All these things, as well as the climate, the mines, the agricultural resources, the commerce, the scenery, were fully appreciated and enthusiastically made the most of by every mother's son. Any man among them was ready at a moment's notice to wax enthusiastic about the resources and the future of the place. They were "boosters" in the modern acceptation ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White
... as much mischief for idle hands in Lindsay as anywhere else. The worst tragedy I ever heard of happened on a backwoods farm, fifteen miles from a railroad and five from a store. However, I expect your mother's son to behave himself in the fear of God and man. In all likelihood the worst thing that will happen to you over there will be that some misguided woman will put you to sleep in a spare room bed. And if that does happen may the Lord have ...
— Kilmeny of the Orchard • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... say much that was unpleasant—even from our point of view. It is the letter of a gentleman anyway; and I know very well that his mother's son could not say or do or think anything that was not like a gentleman. I knew her, poor dear, when we were both young. See, here is the letter. You may read it. It was flung to me. Your uncle did not care who saw it, or who knows about his 'feud'—oh, ...
— Viking Boys • Jessie Margaret Edmondston Saxby
... suppose that we commanding officers of companies are going to give away to a lot of lousy privates a confidential communication from the Colonel? If you are guilty of any more such impertinent conduct, I'll have every mother's son of you bucked and gagged." The boys all laughed, and after a little more fun of that kind, I repeated to them literally every word the Colonel said, and then we all set about getting dinner. About this time Lieut. ...
— The Story of a Common Soldier of Army Life in the Civil War, 1861-1865 • Leander Stillwell
... play wid a gun," Mr. Quilty declared oracularly. "I'm an owlder man nor ye, an' I worked me way West wid railway construction. I knowed th' owld-time gunmen—the wans they tell stories of. Where are they now? Dead, ivery mother's son iv thim, an' most iv thim got it from a gun. No matther how quick a man is, if he kapes at ut long enough he meets up wid some felly that bates him till it—wanst. And wanst ...
— Desert Conquest - or, Precious Waters • A. M. Chisholm
... great adventure, whether it come garbed in drab or radiant with the glow of the sunrise. A prosaic, money-grubbing age we call this, but by the gods! romance hammers once in a lifetime at the door of every mother's son of us. There be those too niggardly to let her in, there be those to whom the knock comes faintly; and there be a happy few who fling wide the door and embrace her ...
— The Pirate of Panama - A Tale of the Fight for Buried Treasure • William MacLeod Raine
... expression developing to something like white fury. "They started. It's business this time. I got a message up they were stopping the grinders. It's the 'heads' gave the order. Oh, they're all in it. They got a meeting on in that darn recreation parliament place of theirs, and every mother's son on the machines was called to it. They've shut down! You get that? There isn't even a greaser left at the machines. It's set me with a feeling I'm plumb crazy. I've been down, and they're right there crowding ...
— The Man in the Twilight • Ridgwell Cullum
... the Anointed Presence; and I strive, in my remote privacy, to form a clear picture of that solemnity,—on a sudden, as by some enchanter's wand, the—shall I speak it?—the Clothes fly-off the whole dramatic corps; and Dukes, Grandees, Bishops, Generals, Anointed Presence itself, every mother's son of them, stand straddling there, not a shirt on them; and I know not whether to laugh or weep. This physical or psychical infirmity, in which perhaps I am not singular, I have, after hesitation, thought right to publish, for the solace ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... is, men. If the skipper dies, all agree to obey my orders, and in less than three weeks I'll engage to have five hundred barrels of sperm oil under hatches: enough to give every mother's son of ye a handful of dollars when we get to Sydney. If ye don't agree to this, ye won't have a farthing coming ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... odious and contemptible as he could; any lies that were made by any, to their disgrace, those he would avouch for truth, and would not endure to be controlled. He was much like those that the prophet speaks of, that would sit and slander his mother's son (Psa 50:19,20). Yea, he would speak reproachfully of his wife, though his conscience told him, and many would testify, that she was a very virtuous woman. He would also raise slanders of his wife's friends himself, affirming that ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... the threshold and lifted his weapon, then, with a gasp of amazement, dropped it. "By Heaven, sir!" he cried, "that's odd! Those damned sepoys tried to prevent my seeing you and now they've cleared out, every mother's son of them!" ...
— The Bronze Bell • Louis Joseph Vance
... to have them understood. If you heed them and work smartly, you'll get along as well as you deserve. If you don't heed them, you'd better be dead and done with it. If you don't heed them—" he sneered disagreeably—"if you don't heed them I'll lash the skin off the back of every bloody mother's son of ye. This voyage from now on is to be carried out for the best interests of all concerned." He stopped and smiled and repeated significantly, "Of ALL concerned." After another pause, in which some of the men exchanged ...
— The Mutineers • Charles Boardman Hawes
... the colonel, springing from his chair in alarm. "Are we attacked? Get out there, every mother's son of you!" he continued, as the men, having been aroused by the noise, came pouring out of the rooms in which they were quartered. "Every man able to draw a saber get out there! Run for the river! That's where the reports sounded, and if there are any boats there capture them. That will keep the ...
— Frank on the Lower Mississippi • Harry Castlemon
... very good master. My min' is not good but I remember we used water from a spring and lived in a little log house out from my master's 'great house'. I remember sein' de slaves but I do not remember how many dere wus. I never saw a slave whupped. My mother's son wus sold, that wus my brother Washington wus sold away from her before de surrender. Mother cried a lot about it. I remember sein' her cry about my ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves, North Carolina Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... now above deck, and every mother's son of them sang. Each had a pretty fair voice, but no ear. Nearly all their notes in the upper register were more or less cracked and disobedient. The remarkable thing about the voices was their range. In that crowd were cats of seventeen octaves, and the average could not have been less ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce
... merely as being my cousin and my nearest of kin, but because he is his mother's son, and Mr. Cardross's grandson, and worthy of them both—also because, for his own sake, I respect him, and I love him. I give you the health ...
— A Noble Life • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... he sat still in his saddle impatiently watching; "why don't they move? It will be too late in a minute. I'll thrash every mother's son of them when we get back to Ashby, that I will. Dear me! what a fool I am to forget the signal;" and putting his hand to his mouth he blew a loud shrill whistle ...
— Heiress of Haddon • William E. Doubleday
... enfor-rce the law agin carrying arms, nary a jack-knife even. If it's help ye nade, I guess we might be able to scrape up a shooter apiece. We lug 'em along for ballast, ye understand, in the absence o' fire-water. If it's a foighter ye're talking like, ivery devil of a mother's son of us can make a bang like a gun, with a bullet t'rowed in—though for meself I prefer a shillalah. I'm going to be in this foight if I have to use a lead ...
— The Return of Blue Pete • Luke Allan
... agin the board in front, an' we holdin' on for dear life expectin' every moment to be dashed out on to the floor an' have all our bones broken. We was too frightened to say a word, but we prayed, oh, my! how we did pray, every mother's son of us. For nigh onto three days that poor boat struggled on bravely agin the ragin' storm, but the ship wasn't built that could live in that sea, an' the end was bound to come sooner or later. Come, it did, at ...
— The Alchemist's Secret • Isabel Cecilia Williams
... 'Every mother's son of them. Ah! this is refreshing after that room. What a pity it is that all men are not ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... pastoral to a sheep-tending Phillis. Our casual observations of all these people, however, have been vague and slight, for few have probably had patience to follow these worthies to their retirement, and look over their shoulders at the memoirs which every mother's son and daughter of the set, from the prime minister to the cook, found—it is impossible to tell how—time to scribble down for the edification of posterity. In the volumes of Arsene Houssaye before us, these gay but unsubstantial shadows take flesh and blood, and become the Men and Women—the ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... king's subject. How false it would be to teach scholars the idea of property and government in such cases. The teacher's scholars should never learn that by virtue of their grammars, or the apostrophe and letter s, they have a right to govern their teachers; nor the mother's son, to govern his mother. Our merchants would dislike exceedingly to have the ladies understand them to signify by their advertisements that the "ladies' merino shawls, the ladies's bonnets and lace wrought veils, the ladies' ...
— Lectures on Language - As Particularly Connected with English Grammar. • William S. Balch
... must needs cast my arms about my own mother's son before I depart: so go we now, as all this talk hath worn away more than an hour of those four that were ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris
... saying them. But that's because she is put there, not because she climbs up some other way. If a woman honestly has something that she must say—some great word from the Lord, or for her country, or for suffering people,—then let her say it; and every real woman's husband, and every real mother's son, will hear her with his very heart. Or if even she has some sure wonderful gift,—if she can sing, or read, or recite; if she can stir people up to good and beautiful things as one in a thousand, that's ...
— The Other Girls • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... is not true, but if he does come, please keep quietly in the house, and let him take every mother's son of a horse. I shall be around watching, but hanged if it will do to identify myself with you as I wish to do. They'd shoot me ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes
... than on all police. I suppose he'd rub them out, every mother's son, if he could. He and Warrigal can't stick ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... thy mother's son still and surrender This toy of Rome to her: she bought it you: ...
— Nero • Stephen Phillips
... mean? answer me. Finding myself thus hard pushed, I replied. I mean, sir, the same ancient Catholic Church to which you and I, and Captain Peleg there, and Queequeg here, and all of us, and every mother's son and soul of us belong; the great and everlasting First Congregation of this whole worshipping world; we all belong to that; only some of us cherish some queer crotchets noways touching the grand belief; in that we all join hands. Splice, thou mean'st splice hands, ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... seeking biographic clues, through hereditary influences, we are impressed with the astounding animal-basis of strength behind the Bismarcks, from earliest recorded history. They were a deep-drinking, prolific gormandizing race, and every mother's son had to do battle by brawn backed by the sword, or die like a dog! This bred high tempers, turbulent manners and ...
— Blood and Iron - Origin of German Empire As Revealed by Character of Its - Founder, Bismarck • John Hubert Greusel
... the polls may be the fulfilling of the prophecy, spoken more than two thousand years ago, that swords shall be beaten into ploughshares and that nations shall learn war no more. She will be repaid for all her patience and her waiting if now, by her ballot, she can make it unnecessary for another mother's son to be offered upon the altar of Mars. That this nation is in a better position than ever before to lead the world in every good cause is due to the gifts that have come with American citizenship, only three of which I have had time ...
— In His Image • William Jennings Bryan
... pestering Rafael with a lot of nonsense about the orange business, giving the young man advice on a new bill he had drawn up and wanted to have introduced in Congress—a protectionist measure for Spanish oranges. "Why, it will be the making of the city, boy! Every mother's son of us swimming in money!" as he guaranteed with his ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... the island," he said. "Nothin' dangerous. Reg'lar lighthouse. Now, boys," he went on, his deep voice ringing with exhilaration, "there's gold in sight! Whistle for a change of weather, every mother's son of you!" ...
— A Man to His Mate • J. Allan Dunn
... mind, that's half the fun of being a sojer; the pay's small and the life's hard, and you keep ungodly hours; but 'tis a consolation to sit out here 'pon a rock and know you'm a man of blood and breaking every mother's son of the Ten Commandments wi' the ...
— The Mayor of Troy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... were he thine own mother's son, Still, thou art king, and the law stands. It were not meet the balance swerved, The sword ...
— Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... faltered, "I had a little brother once, and he was blind. Born blind, Sidi, my own mother's son. But you wouldn't think how happy he was for all that? You see, Sidi he never missed anything, and so his little face was like laughing water! By Allah! I loved that boy better than all the world! Women? Why—well, never mind! He was six and I was eighteen, and he ...
— The Scapegoat • Hall Caine
... go out Monday morning. A committee will wait on Bennington in the morning. He won't back down and discharge the English inventor, so it's a sure thing they'll walk out, every mother's son of them." ...
— Half a Rogue • Harold MacGrath
... thought, "but he hasn't said the customary peace-be-with-you. I'm glad I've come into the forest," I thought. "This is my home, and from this day forth, no mother's son shall come within ...
— Look Back on Happiness • Knut Hamsun
... Franklin, Andrew Porter, W. T. Sherman, and others, who had been colonels in the battle, and all of whom had shared the common stampede. Of course, we discredited the truth of the list; and Heintzehvan broke out in his nasal voice, "Boys, it's all a lie! every mother's son of you will be cashiered." We all felt he was right, but, nevertheless, it was true; and we were all announced in general orders as ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... cried the coxswain, who was the man who hailed—"send the boat immediately, or we'll cut the throats of every mother's son of you, ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Captain Frederick Marryat
... every ile lamp carrid round durin' this campane. I wish thare was. I wish thare was furrin missions to be filled on varis lonely Islands where eppydemics rage incessantly, and if I was in Old Abe's place I'd send every mother's son of you to them. What air you here for?" I continnered, warmin up considerable, "can't you giv Abe a minit's peace? Don't you see he's worrid most to death? Go home, you miserable men, go home & till the sile! Go to peddlin tinware—go to choppin ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 1 • Charles Farrar Browne
... motley associates at work in their cabbage garden; or anything else that was miserably out at elbows, and most clumsily patched in the rear. We might have been sworn comrades to Falstaff's ragged regiment. Little skill as we boasted in other points of husbandry, every mother's son of us would have served admirably to stick up for a scarecrow. And the worst of the matter was, that the first energetic movement essential to one downright stroke of real labor was sure to put a finish to these poor habiliments. So we gradually flung them all aside, and took ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... wouldn't trust you boys to rob a hen-roost, the amateur way you go at it. When you get through, you'll all go to drinking like blue blotters. I know your kind—hell-bent to spend what you cash in, and every mother's son of you in the pen or with his toes turned ...
— Bucky O'Connor • William MacLeod Raine
... And fountains unflown, And flowers unblown, And seed never strown, And meadows unmown, And maids all alone, And lots of things to you unknown, And every mother's son of us must Always blow his ...
— Bart Ridgeley - A Story of Northern Ohio • A. G. Riddle
... the big woman of the island, gel, and there won't be a mother's son that dare say boo ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... to know the private opinion and personal integrity of ivery fowl that flies the air or roosts on poles. But, changin' the subject of my few small remarks here, and thankin' yez wid an overflowin' heart but a dhry tongue, I have the honor to propose, gintlemen, long life and health to ivery mother's son o' yez, and success to the ...
— Complete Works of James Whitcomb Riley • James Whitcomb Riley
... of us, says you. But you're wrong. Those of us that waited for the draft had our choice of going to the hoosgow, as 'conscientious objectors,' if we didn't want to fight. And every mother's son of us knew we was fighting for the Right; and that we was making the world a decenter and safer place for our grandchildren and our womenfolks to live in. We didn't brag about God being on our side, like the boches do. It was enough for us to know WE was on GOD'S side and fighting His great ...
— Bruce • Albert Payson Terhune
... a thief, then thou consentedst with him; thou hast been partaker with adulterers, Thou givest thy mouth to evil, and thy tongue frameth deceit. Thou sittest and speakest against thy brother; thou slanderest thine own mother's son. ...
— The Forbidden Gospels and Epistles, Complete • Archbishop Wake
... replied that young gentleman. "He seems as cool as a cucumber, but he's boiling with rage, and if he had that Yankee here he'd hang him from the yard-arm as sure as he's his mother's son." ...
— Hunting the Skipper - The Cruise of the "Seafowl" Sloop • George Manville Fenn
... gat," said Dick Four. "As soon as it was dark, and he'd had a bit of a snooze, him and thirty Sikhs went down through the staircase in the tower, every mother's son of 'em salutin' little Everett where It stood propped up against the wall. The last I heard him say was, 'Kubbadar! tumbleinga! [Look out; you'll fall!] and they tumbleingaed over the black edge of nothing. Close upon 9 p.m. the combined ...
— Stalky & Co. • Rudyard Kipling
... Wheatley, "none worth telling. Oh, yes!" he continued, suddenly recollecting himself, "there is a bit. You remember those hang-dog greasers that used to loaf about the village when we first came? Well, they're gone, by thunder! every mother's son of them clean vamosed from the place, and not a grease-spot left of them. You may walk through the whole settlement without seeing a Mexican, except the old men and the women. I asked the alcalde where they had cleared to; but the old ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid
... say anything of the Leighs, a few sentences must be devoted to George Austen's relations of the half-blood—the Walters. With his mother's son by her first husband, William Hampson Walter, he remained on intimate terms. A good many letters are extant which passed between the Austens and the Walters during the early married life of the former, the last of them containing the news of the birth of Jane. Besides this, William Walter's daughter, ...
— Jane Austen, Her Life and Letters - A Family Record • William Austen-Leigh and Richard Arthur Austen-Leigh
... Seventh Gate the seventh chief, Thy proper mother's son, I will announce, What fortune for this city, for himself, With curses he invoketh:—on the walls Ascending, heralded as king, to stand, With paeans for their capture; then with thee To fight, and either slaying near thee die, Or thee, who wronged him, chasing forth alive, Requite in kind his proper ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... begirt with briars, Instead of coat and smallclothes, than put on A single stitch reflecting upon friars, Although you swore it only was in fun; They'd haul you o'er the coals, and stir the fires Of Phlegethon with every mother's son, Nor say one mass to cool the cauldron's bubble That boiled your bones, unless you paid ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... said Friedel, enthusiastically, "or, at least, he would know my mother's son in me; and, could I no otherwise ransom him, I would ply the oar in ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Morgan?" whined the captain. "She's slowing up, and that whistle means for us to show lights. The next thing we shall see will be a small boat coming off. I hope the swell'll turn it upside down and drown every mother's son of her crew that—On deck, there," he shouted, in great consternation. "Get out lights, and be quick about it. She'll be on top of ...
— Marcy The Blockade Runner • Harry Castlemon
... towards it. [Applause.] Now, I want to ask you what you are going to do. [A voice—'shoot, shoot.'] There are ways of managing this matter without shooting anybody. Be sure that these men who have kidnapped a man in Boston, are cowards, every mother's son of them; and if we stand up there resolutely, and declare that this man shall not go out of the city of Boston, without shooting a gun—[cries of 'that's it,' and great applause,]—then he won't go back. Now, I am going to propose that when you adjourn, it be to meet at Court Square, to-morrow ...
— The Trial of Theodore Parker • Theodore Parker
... for judges. The general played thus, he replied with such a card, Padre Irene had a certain card; he led, and then that fool of a Padre Irene didn't play his card! Padre Irene was giving the game away! It was a devil of a way to play! His mother's son had not come here to rack his brains for nothing ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... incapacity to administer properly even a black dose, of his murdering propensities and his low, mean, unprofessional style of practice; nevertheless, he had done nothing to undermine him with these Scatcherds. Dr Thorne might have sent every mother's son at Boxall Hill to his long account, and Dr Fillgrave would not have interfered;—would not have interfered unless specially and duly ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... restoration to Hozier. Such a fact was gall and wormwood to a man of his character, and he was mean-souled enough to be vindictive. Promising himself the future joy of pounding to a jelly the features of every mother's son among the forecastle hands, he ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... was the work of that Spanish stranger whom I had met as he hurried from the place of murder, who, because of the wickedness of his heart or for some secret reason, had striven to slay me also when he learned that I was my mother's son. And I had held this devil in my power, and that I might meet my May, I had suffered him to escape my vengeance, who, had I known the truth, would have dealt with him as the priests of Anahuac deal with the victims of their gods. I understood and shed ...
— Montezuma's Daughter • H. Rider Haggard
... no comment. What could he say? If Thorne were his step-mother's son, it was only natural that he should live in the house of which ...
— Frank and Fearless - or The Fortunes of Jasper Kent • Horatio Alger Jr.
... throats of every mother's son of us," he answered, quite calmly. "I've often thought of death, and I am prepared to die, for I trust in One who is mighty to save my soul alive. Have you the same hope, young gentleman? I trust you have. It's my duty ...
— A Voyage round the World - A book for boys • W.H.G. Kingston
... aboard that ship which so providentially sank before your very eyes. For why? The crew, who were pirates, and the captain, who was yonder gentleman, did not agree. The one wished to attack you, board you, rummage you, and slay, after recondite fashions, every mother's son of you; the other demurred,—so strongly, in fact, that his life ceased to be worth a pin's purchase. Indeed, I believe he resigned his captaincy then and there, and, declining to lift a finger against an English ship, defied them to do their worst. He ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... There ev'ry mother's son Prepared to fight and fall is; The enemy of one The enemy of all is! The enemy of one The enemy ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... not gone, we should not have found out that the blacks were thinking of attacking us," answered Doyle. "They might have been down upon us during the night, and killed every mother's son among us before we were awake in the morning; so you see, Mr Pullingo, our journey has been of more use than you're inclined to suppose. And pray how comes it, if you knew they were there, that ...
— Twice Lost • W.H.G. Kingston
... 'See that you stow that main-topsail in a brace of shakes! And you lubbers below, wake up there!' he exclaimed over the fore-hatch, firing a shot down below as he spoke. 'Wake up there and on deck; or, I'll riddle every mother's son of you before I count ten. You, Black Harry, I know you've set this pretty little scheme going! Up with you, or by the Lord Harry, your namesake, I'll put ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson
... thousand acres in the pasture, and by eleven o'clock everything was thrown together. The private horses of all the boys had been turned into a separate inclosure, and before the cutting out commenced, every mother's son, including Don Lovell, arrived at the round-up. There were no corrals on the ranch which would accommodate such a body of animals, and thus the work had to be done in the open; but with the force at hand we threw a cordon around ...
— The Outlet • Andy Adams
... very fact a social obligation comes into existence. Trouble is, every mother's son tries to escape it in his own case. What is every one's business is no one's business. Every fellow thinks he's got away from being bothered with such things. Sooner or later he'll find out he hasn't, and then he'll have to pay for ...
— Gold • Stewart White
... whence they had come, rather than risk longer unauthorized visits among such smiling soft voiced savages. Since his eminence had learned thus much of their horrors, who was to know how many might be left untold?—or how soon the tribes might have a mind to circle the camp and offer every mother's son of the Christians on some such ...
— The Flute of the Gods • Marah Ellis Ryan
... the frontier town had changed. That little semidormant spark of wickedness and criminality which is perhaps in every mother's son and daughter of us had been fanned to a flame by the lawlessness of Ragtown. The feverish night life, the chink of gold on gambling tables that were seldom unoccupied, the continual drinking of intoxicants, ...
— The She Boss - A Western Story • Arthur Preston Hankins
... population. They adore the institution of African slavery. They hate New England. They will not buy even a Yankee clock if it is adorned with an image of the Yankee Goddess of Liberty. But they are mine, every mother's son of them, and what is more important, every father's daughter of them. I took the city by storm, and the outlying provinces belong to us. We have a people and, virtually, an army. The moral conquest is complete. When the hour strikes for extending the borders of our conceded ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... and the cotton-fields and the sugar-canes, and the moss hanging like banners from taller trees than this gum, to New Orleans. And there the Intendant would have laid hands on our cargo and sent every mother's son of us packing, but Miro, that was governor, stood our friend, being frightened indeed of what Kentucky might do if put to it! And there, on the levee, we sold that tobacco and flour and bacon; and the tobacco which we ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston
... "Every mother's son of them is in his war-paint," said Lewis—who, by the way, divided his words with Tom, the other two rarely speaking except when directly ...
— The Riflemen of the Miami • Edward S. Ellis
... though his will was very gude to be in the wood from morning till night, there would be a hopeful lad lost, and no making a man of him. It was not so, he had heard, in Lord Ravenswood's time: when a buck was to be killed, man and mother's son ran to see; and when the deer fell, the knife was always presented to the knight, and he never gave less than a dollar for the compliment. And there was Edgar Ravenswood—Master of Ravenswood that is now—when he goes up to the wood—there hasna ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... simply because you have not made a failure of your mother's son. And you look like her, too." It is one of the privileges of old persons to compare the young ...
— A Splendid Hazard • Harold MacGrath
... instance, who buffoons Brutus, with his brothers, are indeed capital brutes by nature, but as deficient of the art histrionic as any biped animals well can be. I remember a very clever artist exhibiting a picture of the colonel and his mother's son, Augustus, with a Captain Austin, in the exhibition of the Royal Academy for the year 1823, in the characters of Brutus, Marc Antony, and Julius Caesar, which caused more fun than anything else in the collection, and produced ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... and "forehanded," and without the slightest approach to intentional cruelty, looked to his wife to "keep up her end of the log." He tolerated no wastefulness, and expected to be well fed and comfortable; and comfort with this Yankee mother's son implied tidiness. To meet his view, as well as to satisfy her own conscience, his partner became a model manager, a ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... his petticoats. Ere long he was a pickle of the first order, equalling the sublime naughtiness of Holiday House, and was continually being sent home by private tutors, who could not manage him. All the time I had a secret conviction that, if he had been my own mother's son, she could have managed him, and he would never have even wished to do what she disapproved; but Lady Diana had no sympathy or warmth in her, and while she loved her children she fretted them, and never thawed nor unbent; and when she called in her brother's ...
— My Young Alcides - A Faded Photograph • Charlotte M. Yonge
... to myself to lie privately in ambush, in some convenient place, with my three guns double loaded, and let fly at them in the midst of their dreadful ceremony: and having killed two or three of them at every shot, fall upon the rest suddenly with my three pistols, & not let one mother's son escape. Thus imagination pleased my fancy so much that I used to dream of it in the night time. To put my design in execution, I was not long in seeking for a place convenient for my purpose, where unseen I might behold every action of the savages. ...
— The Life and Most Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of - York, Mariner (1801) • Daniel Defoe
... The familiar expression "every mother's son of us" finds kin in the Modern High German Muttersohn, Mutterkind, which, with the even more significant Muttermensch (human being), takes us back to the days of "mother-right." Rather different, however, is the idea called up by the corresponding Middle Low German modersone, which ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain |
