"Birthday" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... she used to say; 'the only happy time of my life was the time passed there.' On my sacred word of honour, this was the sort of talk that passed between us, for week after week. What other talk could pass between a man whose one and twentieth birthday was then near at hand, and a woman who was close on forty? What could I do, when the poor, broken, disappointed creature met me on the hill or by the river, and said, 'You are going out for a walk; may I come with you?' I never attempted ...
— The Fallen Leaves • Wilkie Collins
... thousand man, with which he opposed the Imperial progress. He afterwards became the tool of the Russian policy, and was rewarded with the first palatinate of the kingdom. He gave a masquerade on the empress's birthday to near three thousand masks; and it was calculated that, besides the other wines, they drank a thousand bottles of champagne." The prodigality of a Polish feast exceeds all comprehension. This prince ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 348 • Various
... cabinetmaker, made four francs a day at his trade; but as they had three children, it was all that they could do to gain an honest living. Yet I have never met with more sterling honesty than in this man and wife. For five years after I left the quarter, Mere Vaillant used to come on my birthday with a bunch of flowers and some oranges for me—she that had never a sixpence to put by! Want had drawn us together. I never could give her more than a ten-franc piece, and often I had to borrow the money for the occasion. This will perhaps explain my ...
— Facino Cane • Honore de Balzac
... at Bayonne the Emperor entered Paris on the 14th of August, the eve of his birthday. Scarcely had he arrived in the capital when he experienced fresh anxiety in consequence of the conduct of Russia, which, as I have stated, had declared open war with Sweden, and did not conceal the intention of seizing Finland. But Bonaparte, desirous of actively carrying ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... look forward; these were the days not of Victor Emanuel but of Charles Albert; and it was on Charles Albert that mother and son had now fixed their eyes as on the sword-bearer of Italy. On Fleeming's sixteenth birthday, they were, the mother writes, "in great anxiety for news from the army. You can have no idea what it is to live in a country where such a struggle is going on. The interest is one that absorbs all others. We eat, drink, and sleep ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... birthday," answered the merchant, "to-night being the feast of St Bartlemy; but, as thou knowest well, the astrologer that cast her figure gave no hope of her amendment should this day pass and never a husband. Who would yoke with a colt untamed? O Timothy! it were well nigh to make an old man weep. ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... the joys of Paradise! He used,' she turned to Sanin, 'to fill all my rooms with camellias every February on my birthday, But it wasn't worth spending the winter in Petersburg for that. He must have been over seventy, I should say?' she said ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev
... to use the calendar of Pope Gregory, which added eleven days to the reckoning, but people still used the old style as well as the new. By the new style, the birthday was February 22, and that is the day which is now observed. The family into which the child was born consisted of the father and mother, Augustine and Mary Washington, and two boys, Lawrence and Augustine. These were sons of Augustine Washington by a former wife who had died four ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... of merriment is March 7th, very much of a feast-day indeed—the birthday of President Masaryk. Were I a Czech or Slovak, I should celebrate right heartily at least once a week the birthday of the present President, for he is one of the few great men among the swarm that arrived at the top as a ...
— From a Terrace in Prague • Lieut.-Col. B. Granville Baker
... The birthday of the Emperor comes conveniently, in late August, in the good weather which is pretty sure to fall then, if ever in the Austrian summer. For a week past, at Carlsbad, the workmen had been building a scaffolding for the illumination in the woods on a height overlooking the town, and ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... true; on my tenth birthday I stopped going to school. I thought it was a grand way to keep it. But I picked up some information ...
— The American • Henry James
... thirteenth birthday, Susan became a member of the Society of Friends which met in nearby Easton, New York, and learned to search her heart and ask herself, "Art thou faithful?" Parties, dancing, and entertainments were generally ruled out of her life ...
— Susan B. Anthony - Rebel, Crusader, Humanitarian • Alma Lutz
... birthday was saddened by the death of Mother Sub-Prioress; I assisted with the infirmarian during her agony, and two more deaths quickly followed. I now had to do the Sacristy work single-handed, and I wonder sometimes how I ...
— The Story of a Soul (L'Histoire d'une Ame): The Autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux • Therese Martin (of Lisieux)
... excess of their adoration, they desired even to place his image in the Temple of Quirinus himself, with an inscription to him as [Greek: Theos animaetos], the invincible god. Golden chairs, gilt chariots, triumphal robes were piled one upon another with laurelled fasces and laurelled wreaths. His birthday was made a perpetual holiday, and the month Quinctilis[5] was renamed, in honor of him, July. A temple to Concord was to be erected in commemoration of his clemency. His person was declared sacred, and to injure him by word or deed was ...
— Caesar: A Sketch • James Anthony Froude
... dazzle one's eyes with tinsel and gold leaf; not because they present to us, once again, the well-beloved chalked faces, and goggle eyes of our childhood; not even because, like Christmas-day, and Twelfth-night, and Shrove-Tuesday, and one's own birthday, they come to us but once a year;—our attachment is founded on a graver and a very different reason. A pantomime is to us, a mirror of life; nay, more, we maintain that it is so to audiences generally, although they are not aware of it, and that this very circumstance ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... certain to be happy at the White House. They thought so from the first moment, but when they found the back of the house covered with jasmine, an in white flower, and smelling like a bottle of the most expensive scent that is ever given for a birthday present; and when they had seen the lawn, all green and smooth, and quite different from the brown grass in the gardens at Camden Town; and when they had found the stable with a loft over it and some old hay still left, they were almost certain; and when Robert had found the broken swing and ...
— Five Children and It • E. Nesbit
... Prim as soldiers on parade stood the books,—not a gap in their ranks,—evidently never now displaced for recreation; well bound, yet faded, dusty; relics of a bygone life. Some of them might perhaps have been prizes at school, or birthday gifts from proud relations. There, too, on the table, near the spirit-case, lay open a once handsome workbox,—no silks now on the skeleton reels; discoloured, but not by use, in its nest of tarnished silk slept the golden thimble. There, too, in the corner, near a music-stand piled high with ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... livres in the year—besides a present, in ready money, of one hundred napoleons d'or. Another poetaster, Barre, who has served and sung the chiefs of all former factions, received, for an ode of forty lines on Bonaparte's birthday, an office at Milan, worth twenty thousand livres in the year—and one hundred napoleons d'or for ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... regret her marriage. She was reconciled to her daughters sufficiently to renew a friendly intercourse; but the elder ones set up a separate establishment. Piozzi died not long afterwards. She was still a vivacious old lady, who celebrated her 80th birthday by a ball, and is supposed at that ripe age to have made an offer of marriage to a young actor. She died in May, 1821, leaving all that she could dispose of to a nephew of Piozzi's, who had been naturalised ...
— Samuel Johnson • Leslie Stephen
... twenty-ninth was in San Francisco, I remember - rather a bleak birthday. The twenty-eighth was not much better; but the rest have been usually ...
— The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... stories depicting struggle for supremacy are those portraying the joys or the sufferings of the very old or very young, or of those who are physically or mentally unable to struggle. The joy of an aged mother because her boy remembered her birthday, the undeserved sufferings of an old man, the cry of a child in pain, the distress of a helpless animal, all are full of interest to the average reader. Helplessness, particularly in its hours of suffering or its moments of unaccustomed pleasure, compels the sympathy of everyone, ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer
... right in a way," laughed the Doctor; "but you need not give up the Owls in order to celebrate the Eagle's birthday. We will have an Eagle's birthday party at the beach on the Fourth; and on the eighth—which is Dodo's birthday, if I am not mistaken—we will have an Owl party up ...
— Citizen Bird • Mabel Osgood Wright and Elliott Coues
... loving and cheerful, telling how, his landlord being a carpenter, he did amuse himself mightily at his old trade in the workshop, and was all agog for learning to turn wood in a lathe, promising that he would make her a set of egg-cups against her birthday, please God. Added to this, the number of her friends multiplying apace, every day brought some new occupation to her thoughts; also, having now those three thousand pounds old Simon had promised us, Moll set herself to spending of them as quickly as possible, by furnishing herself with all sorts ...
— A Set of Rogues • Frank Barrett
... dear little woman. You must have often seen his pictures of her and the children. He has numbers of children and adores them. La petite Margot is my special pet and she always sends me a little present on my birthday. Madame Belot was once his model," Karen added, "and is quite du peuple, and I believe that some of his friends were sorry that he married her; but she makes him very happy. That beautiful nude in the Luxembourg by Chantefoy is of her—long before she married, of ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... brothers, that I have invited you to celebrate the birthday of the blessed Crispina, and that I have kept up the feast a little too long. Well, might not the same thing happen if some soldier were to ask you to dinner and obliged you to drink more than is wise? Let me do as much for the Word of God, with which you ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand
... I hope I shall grow old as beautifully as mamma does, so that people can write poetry to me if they feel like it! Here is Jack's, for Polly's birthday; he says he got the idea from a real poem which is just as ...
— A Summer in a Canyon: A California Story • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... for many daughterly services, my dear; and my husband wishes me to offer these with thanks to the patient secretary who has often helped him so willingly," she said, as she came to wake Jenny with a kiss on the morning of her twenty-first birthday. ...
— A Garland for Girls • Louisa May Alcott
... "It's my birthday, too, to-day," said Jesse. "I was born on the fourth day of June, fourteen years ago. My! it seems an awful ...
— The Young Alaskans on the Missouri • Emerson Hough
... said. She knew well enough of what event to-morrow was the anniversary, and it is to her credit she added: "Well, for this once—!" For of all the women whom I had loved, there was but one that Bettie Hamlyn had ever bothered about. And to-morrow was Stella's birthday, as I had very unconcernedly mentioned a few moments earlier, when I was looking for the Austin Dobson book, and had my back turned ...
— The Cords of Vanity • James Branch Cabell et al
... 8: "This is my birthday, on which I complete my thirty-first year. The Persian New Testament has been begun and finished in it. Such a painful year I never passed, owing to the privations I have been called to, on the one hand, and the spectacle before me of human depravity on the other. But I hope ...
— Life of Henry Martyn, Missionary to India and Persia, 1781 to 1812 • Sarah J. Rhea
... some of the Bread ashore out of the Bread Room to dry and Clean. Yesterday being His Majesty's birthday, we kept it to-day and had several of the Chiefs ...
— Captain Cook's Journal During the First Voyage Round the World • James Cook
... Nanna?" asked Timmy officiously. "She's so looking forward to seeing you. She wants to thank you for the big Shetland shawl she supposes you sent her last Christmas, and she has an idea that the little real silver teapot she got on her birthday came from you too. It has on it 'A Present for ...
— What Timmy Did • Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes
... day during the Second Moon, the family had just returned from the temple. It was Kwan-yin's birthday, and, led by Lu-san, they had gone gladly to do the goddess honour. They had just mounted to the vessel's deck when Lu-san's father, who had been looking off towards the west, suddenly called the family to his side. "See!" he exclaimed. "What kind of ...
— A Chinese Wonder Book • Norman Hinsdale Pitman
... Mother's fete," cried the music-mistress, falling into the trap and even saving Eileen from the lie direct. "Good, my child," and she smiled tenderly upon her. For the birthday of the Lady Superior which was imminent was heralded by infinite mysteriousness. The Reverend Mother was taken by surprise, regularly and punctually. The girls all subscribed, their parents were invited to send plants and flowers. The air vibrated with sublime ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... money had been spent on it, and as bulbs were dear and my weekly allowance small, in a fatal hour I had borrowed from Fraulein Wundermacher, selling her my independence, passing utterly into her power, forced as a result till my next birthday should come round to an unnatural suavity of speech and manner in her company, against which my very soul revolted. And after all, nothing came up. The labour of digging and watering, the anxious zeal with which I pounced on weeds, the poring over gardening ...
— Elizabeth and her German Garden • "Elizabeth", AKA Marie Annette Beauchamp
... the municipal authorities of Louvain, Belgium, to give American names to certain streets of the city is set forth in a formal resolution of thanks which was adopted on Washington's Birthday by the Burgomaster and Aldermen of Louvain and sent to the American Commission for Relief in Belgium. The ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... stone was laid by Gilbert Vyvyan, Sir William's third son, the Psalm, "Lo, we heard of the same at Ephrata, and found it in the wood," sounded most applicable. St. Mark was the saint of the dedication, which fell opportunely on 21st April 1841, very near Mr. Keble's birthday, St. Mark's day, and to many it was a specially memorable day, as the Rev. J. H. Newman was present with his sister, Mrs. Thomas Mozley, and her husband, then vicar of Cholderton; and the Rev. Isaac Williams, a sacred poet, whose writings ought to be better known ...
— John Keble's Parishes • Charlotte M Yonge
... book-notices, which were then printed at the end of the periodical in finer type; and I was to have forty dollars a week. I said that I was getting that already for less work, and then Mr. Fields offered me ten dollars more. Upon these terms we closed, and on the 1st of March, which was my twenty-ninth birthday, I went to Boston and began my work. I had not decided to accept the place without advising with Lowell; he counselled the step, and gave me some shrewd and useful suggestions. The whole affair was conducted by Fields with his unfailing tact ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... missions in 1833-34 came a change in the peaceful pastoral life. In each section all that was of interest had from the first centered around its mission. One of the chief pleasures of the early Californians was the feast day, "La Fiesta," which celebrated a saint's birthday. During the year there were many of these festivals. First there were religious exercises at the mission church; then in the great square there followed dancing, games, and feasting, in which all classes took some part. These happy church festivals ceased with the breaking ...
— History of California • Helen Elliott Bandini
... see what you mean"—Winnie replied, her dark cheek flushing faintly under the tacit reproof. She had passed her twenty-fifth birthday, but her voice had in it the docile self-repression of a school-girl. She spoke with diffident slowness, her gaze fastened upon her plate. "Of course—my grandfather was a lawyer—and your point is that merchants—and others who make ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... 'before my twenty-first birthday—led up to, long before, but not begun till near that time. I had robbed them when I came of age. I robbed them afterwards. Before my twenty-second birthday, it was all found out; and then, Walter, from all ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... their end, but nobody yet had time to think of that, for the Director's birthday was drawing near and this was to be the great feast day for everybody. Mrs. Halm had asked each of the children to think out some surprise for Mr. Hellmut. For Mux, however, she wrote a beautiful birthday ...
— Cornelli • Johanna Spyri
... they would not surrender a moment of its term or a fragment of its many-coloured experience. And that is the case with all healthy-minded people. We may, like Job, in moments of depression curse the day when we were born; but the curse dies on our lips. Swift, it is true, kept his birthday as a day of mourning; but no man who hates humanity can hope to find life endurable, for the measure of our sympathies is the measure ...
— Pebbles on the Shore • Alpha of the Plough (Alfred George Gardiner)
... October was Rose's birthday, but no one seemed to remember that interesting fact, and she felt delicate about mentioning it, so fell asleep the night before wondering if she would have any presents. That question was settled early the next morning, for she was awakened by a soft tap on her face, and opening ...
— Eight Cousins • Louisa M. Alcott
... determined to have a May-bush round the nursery-window, duly gathered before sunrise. "Pretty Bessy," our nursemaid, can do anything with flowers, from a cowslip ball to a growing forget-me-not garland. The girls are apt pupils, and pride themselves on their birthday wreaths. The boys are admirably adapted for May sweeps. Clatter is melodious in their ears. They would rather be black than white. Burnt cork will disguise them effectually; but they would prefer soot. A pole is forthcoming; ribbons are not wanting; the poodle will dance with ...
— Miscellanea • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... compulsory military service; during wartime the law allows for recruitment beginning January of the year of inductee's 18th birthday, thus including 17 year olds; 17 years of age for volunteers; conscript service obligation - 1 year for all services; women are eligible for voluntary ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... their king was Simonides, commonly called the good Simonides, because of his peaceable reign and good government. From them he also learned that king Simonides had a fair young daughter, and that the following day was her birthday, when a grand tournament was to be held at court, many princes and knights being come from all parts to try their skill in arms for the love of Thaisa, this fair princess. While the prince was listening to this account, and secretly lamenting the loss of ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... and whist at his club, and perpetual cigars on morocco sofas, and a beautiful absence of purpose. Nature had thrown in a remarkably fine hand, which he sometimes passed over his children's heads when they were glossy from the nursery brush. On Rose's eighteenth birthday he said to her that she might go to see her mother, on condition that her visits should be limited to an hour each time and to four in the year. She was to go alone; the other children were not included in the arrangement. This was the result of a visit that he himself ...
— The Chaperon • Henry James
... Next week was Bobby's birthday. He received many gifts, but as usual, saved the biggest package until the last. It had come wrapped in stout manila paper, tied with a heavy cord, and ornamented with the red sticker and seals of the Express Company. With some importance Bobby opened his new knife and cut the string. The ...
— The Adventures of Bobby Orde • Stewart Edward White
... Tilak brought Shivaji to the forefront and set in motion a great "national" propaganda which culminated in 1895 in the celebration at all the chief centres of Brahman activity in the Deccan of Shivaji's reputed birthday, the principal commemoration being held under Tilak's own presidency at Raighar, where the Mahratta chieftain had himself been crowned. What was the purpose and significance of this movement may be gathered from a Shlok or sacred poem improvised on this ...
— Indian Unrest • Valentine Chirol
... holiday attire, seemed to have cast away all thought of the wants, cares, and occupations of everyday life. For, although it was not Sunday, it was a holiday—a holiday for Neustadt, since this was the birthday of Neustadt's fame. For hundreds of years the little village had existed in profound obscurity, its simple inhabitants dreaming away their lives far from the clamor of the world and its vicissitudes. Their slumbers had been disturbed by the Seven Years' War, and many a father, son, husband, ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... oyster shells, to the red currant bushes beyond, he laid his pruning-knife on the ground, and sat down on an old bench beside a little green table, on which a sparrow was hopping about. On his seventy-fifth birthday he had resigned his profession to take to gardening, and I had heard from no less an authority than the General that "that old fool Theophilus was spending more money in roses than Mrs. Clay was making ...
— The Romance of a Plain Man • Ellen Glasgow
... addressed. Their friendship was sincere and devoted; and yet there were coolnesses, caused largely by the influence of their mother,—and of M. Surville, whose jealous and tyrannical disposition prevented their seeing each other as frequently as they would have liked. She once celebrated her birthday by visiting her brother, but she held her watch in her hand as she had only twenty minutes for the meeting. For awhile, he could not visit her; later, this estrangement was overcome, and after the first presentation of his play Vautrin (1840), his sister cared for him ...
— Women in the Life of Balzac • Juanita Helm Floyd
... and mental exuberance, you will have pleased your Auto-Comrade to such an extent that he will most likely startle and delight you with a birthday present as the reward of virtue. Some fine morning you will climb out of the right side of your bed and come whistling down to breakfast and find by your plate a neat packet of spiritual exuberance with his best wishes. Such a gift is what the true artist enjoys when ...
— The Joyful Heart • Robert Haven Schauffler
... be very careful of it, and not drop it, for it is solid silver and will dent, or mar, easily." She was searching in her bag, and presently took out a very valuable drinking cup, gold lined and with much engraving on it. The cup had been presented to Flossie and Freddie on their first birthday, and bore each of their names. They were very proud ...
— The Bobbsey Twins at School • Laura Lee Hope
... nothing could please His Majesty better than to hear that his loyal subjects of both sexes in this kingdom celebrated his birthday (now approaching) universally clad in their own manufacture. Is there virtue enough left in this deluded people to save them from the brink of ruin? If the men's opinions may be taken, the ladies will look as handsome in stuffs as brocades; and since all will be equal, ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift
... done it without her letting him. In some ways she was good enough; she would let him take out things to the boys in the back yard from the table, and she put apple-butter or molasses on when it was hot biscuit that he took out. Once she let him have a birthday party, and had cake and candy-pulling and lemonade, and nobody but boys, because he said that boys hated girls; even his own sisters did not come. Sometimes she would give him money for ice-cream, and if she could have got over being particular about his ...
— The Flight of Pony Baker - A Boy's Town Story • W. D. Howells
... French king dispatched a part of his force to Naples, and with the other turned aside to blockade the city of Pavia. This blunder enabled the Imperialists to reform their ranks and to march towards Pavia in order to join the besieged. Here on 24 February, 1525,—the emperor's twenty-fifth birthday,—the army of Charles won an overwhelming victory. Eight thousand French soldiers fell on the field that day, and Francis, who had been in the thick of the fight, was compelled to surrender. "No thing in the world is left me save my honor and my life," wrote the king to his ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... camp. Mohamad's account of his long imprisonment. Superstitions about children's teeth. Concerning dreams. News of Lake Chowambe. Life of the Arab slavers. The Katanga gold supply. Muabo. Ascent of the Rua Mountains. Syde bin Habib. Birthday, 19th March, 1868. Hostility of Mpweto. Contemplates visiting Lake Bemba. Nile sources. Men desert. The shores of Moero. Visits Fungafunga. Return to Casembe's. Obstructiveness of "Cropped-ears." Accounts of Pereira and Dr. Lacerda. Major Monteiro. ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume I (of 2), 1866-1868 • David Livingstone
... de Santiago did not seem to mind answering questions about her powers, which everyone asked across the dinner-table. She said that since her seventh birthday she had been able, under certain circumstances, to see hidden things in people's lives, ...
— The Second Latchkey • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... mine 'tis thy birthday morn, And friends with fair gifts around thee come, Outside the circle I stand forlorn, My hands are ...
— Verses and Rhymes by the way • Nora Pembroke
... breakfast was served as usual; but, being a fast-day, he refused to take anything. At dinner-time the King said to Clery, "Fourteen years ago you were up earlier than you were to-day; it is the day my daughter was born—today, her birthday," he repeated, with tears, "and to be prevented from seeing her!" Madame Royale had wished for a calendar; the King ordered Clery to buy her the "Almanac of the Republic," which had replaced the "Court Almanac," and ran through ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... born at Great Grimsby on March 15th, 1849—curiously enough these lines will be read on the anniversary of her birthday. Her grandfather, father, ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 27, March 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... dramatist Md. Mahomet, De Soto, Mary's Birthday, Aladdin's Palace, Senor Valiente, Cromwell, Seven Sisters, Abou Hassan the Wag, Landing of the Pilgrims of Maryland, Christine (story in verse), Inkerman (lyric), Glimpses of Tuscany, Loretto or the Choice, Truce of ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... happened to be my birthday. It had been the day of death to my lamented follower, Monsoor; but ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... your birthday, dear Bertalda,' said Undine. 'Wait only until then, and I will tell you the ...
— Undine • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque
... and evening, and thought to do so by proposing this same change. He did not reckon foolishly. The governor gave him to understand that there would be feasting next day: first, because it was the birthday of the Duke of York; secondly, because it was the anniversary of the capture from the Dutch; and, last of all, because there were Indian chiefs to come from Albany to see New York and himself for the first ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... He hummed an air, and played it out with his fingers on the counter as he thought. Then he flashed into life. "The twelfth of May! That is just a week ago. I have it, Senor Don Luis! Hear my explanation. This thing of nought was presented to the gentleman upon his birthday—the twelfth of May. The giver was poor, or he would have made a more considerable present; and he was very dear to the gentleman, or he would not have dared to present such a thing. Nor would the gentleman, I think, have ...
— The Spanish Jade • Maurice Hewlett
... individual down to the latest-born child.* *In order that I may not be as one that beateth the air, I venture to suggest a method of laying the foundation of records that has been helpful in my own work. I send to each family a "Family Register" blank with spaces for the name, birthday and place of birth of each member of the family. The information thus obtained is transferred to a card catalogue in which the additional relation of each individual to the church and its work is noted. In this way, or by means of a loose-leaf record book, available and ...
— The Lutherans of New York - Their Story and Their Problems • George Wenner
... a year or two, no, not even to a few years," she answered. "And to the best of my belief, sir, it'll be a good thirty years, at the least. It was just after I was married to Hanson, and that was when I was about three-and-twenty, and I was fifty-six last birthday. James came—once—to see me and Hanson soon after we was settled down, and I've never set eyes on him from that day to this. But—I should know ...
— Dead Men's Money • J. S. Fletcher
... lunch, minced mule, curried locusts. All well." Occasionally I used to be allowed a tiny white roll for breakfast, but it had to last for dinner too. Mr. Weil bought the last remaining turkey for L5, with the intention of giving a feast on Her Majesty's birthday, and the precious bird had to be kept under a Chubb's lock and key till it was killed. No dogs or cats were safe, as the Basutos stole them all for food. But all the while we were well aware our situation might have been far worse. The rains were over, the climate was glorious, fever was fast ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson
... General-Lieutenant, ausser Dienst. A charming and dignified man, accepting philosophically the fact that Hanover had become Prussian, but loyal in his heart to his King and to old Hanover; pretending great wrath when, on the King's birthday, he found yellow and white sand strewn before his door, but unable to conceal the joyful gleam in his eye when ...
— Vanished Arizona - Recollections of the Army Life by a New England Woman • Martha Summerhayes
... and Jaffa, and you have made the city of Acre much stronger than it was. And now for your own kingdom's sake, you must needs depart." And to this the King gave his consent, though with an unwilling heart. So he departed, and this, as it chanced, on his birthday. As the ship went forth from the harbour he said to the Lord of Joinville, who stood by him, "On this day I was born." And the Lord of Joinville said to him, "Truly, sire, I should say that you are beginning ...
— Heroes Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... have stayed two days longer," declared Jeannette with evident longing, "if it hadn't been for that sister of mine. I'm sure she could have had a birthday dance without me—but no! How I wish I were taking you all with me—even you, Mr. Jefferson," she added with one of her adorable smiles, as she turned to him; "you, whom I can't possibly imagine caring to dance a step, not even with the ...
— Under the Country Sky • Grace S. Richmond
... it to be. He has been scurrilously treated, and somebody must stand by him. Now, to-morrow, February 14th, is his birthday. I remember it because we met on St. Valentine's day, and it wasn't many hours afterward that I guessed how he felt ...
— Ladies-In-Waiting • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... are brought forward upon all occasions of ceremony, religious, official and convivial. If the viceroy visits the capital of one of the native states he is entertained by their best performances. They have a place on the programme at all celebrations of feast days; they appear at weddings and birthday anniversaries, and are quite as important as an orchestra at one of our social occasions at home. They are invited to the homes of native gentlemen on all great occasions and are treated with the utmost deference ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis
... he was an imbecile. And my friend Mr. Leiper of the Morning Post speculated as to whether he was more likely to end his days in a lunatic asylum or a prison. But Radi['c] was caring about none of these things; his birthday happened at about this time and some 30,000 of his adherents came to do him honour at his birthplace, over 500 of them on decorated horses having met him at Sisak station the previous evening. When I asked him what he had to say about the ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 2 • Henry Baerlein
... was sinking into years and in miserable health, apparently only waiting and anxious for death, and it was clear that he would not marry again. The only one of Anne's many children who approached maturity, the Duke of Gloucester, died just after his eleventh birthday. The little duke was a pupil of Bishop Burnet, and was a child of great promise. {4} Readers of fiction will remember that Henry Esmond, in Thackeray's novel, is described as having obtained some distinction in ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume I (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... She showed it to her friends with pride. The children were allowed in there on Sunday afternoons. I did an equally silly thing myself not long ago. Lured by a furniture catalogue, I started Robina in a boudoir. I gave it to her as a birthday-present. We have both regretted it ever since. Robina reckons she could have had a bicycle, a diamond bracelet, and a mandoline, and I should have saved money. I did the thing well. I told the furniture people I wanted it just ...
— They and I • Jerome K. Jerome
... Normanby, then English ambassador to the court of Tuscany, and this enlightened nobleman strongly encouraged him to extend his repertory of Shakespearian characters. In 1865 occurred the sixth centenary of Dante's birthday, and the four greatest Italian actors were invited to perform in Silvio Pellico's tragedy of Francesca di Rimini, which is founded on an episode in the Divina Commedia. The cast originally stood on the play-bills thus: Francesca, Signora ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various
... resolution; and eventually he succeeded, through his early acquaintance with George Stephenson, in gaining for me an entrance to the engineering works of Robert Stephenson and Co., at Newcastle-upon-Tyne. I started there as a pupil on my fifteenth birthday, for an apprenticeship of five years. I was to spend the first four years in the various workshops, and the ...
— Men of Invention and Industry • Samuel Smiles
... anything for? HE don't know. Said to-day was his birthday and he'd hand 'em over to-night at twelve o'clock. He'll have drunk himself blind by that time. He has been at it ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... she said, "have passed since I took you into my life. At that time I was told that I was doing a rash thing, a dangerous thing—that before your twenty-fifth birthday the bad blood would out; that you would, in short, have shot a man. And the prophecy has come true. By an irony of chance it has happened on the very last day. And by another irony you picked your victim from among the guests under ...
— Black Jack • Max Brand
... is agreed that the foundation of the city took place on the eleventh day before the Kalends of May (the 21st of April). And on this day the Romans keep a festival which they call the birthday of the city. At this feast, originally, we are told, they sacrificed nothing that has life, but thought it right to keep the anniversary of the birth of the city pure and unpolluted by blood. However, before ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... surprise. "Your ladyship's husband," said I, "who was with you on the balcony." She flushed crimson. "What strange fancies you have in your head!" she exclaimed. "That was the Countess's son, who had just returned from his travels, and, since it happened to be my birthday, he led me out on the balcony with him that I might have a share of the cheers. Was that why you ran away?" "Good heavens, yes!" I cried, striking my forehead with my hand. She shook her head and ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... some pathetic attempts to put her little house in order. She destroyed all her letters. She arranged her drawers with many sudden rushes of tears as various articles called up memories of earlier and happier days. Among other things she came across a little birthday present that her father had given her when she was but six years of age, and she vividly recalled the happy child she was ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... Queen Victoria celebrated her seventieth birthday by commencing the study of Hindustani under the tuition of a skilled Moonshee. At the farewell audience the Queen gave my sister, Her Majesty, on learning that Lady Lansdowne intended to begin learning Hindustani as ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton
... the Tabernacle dressed with roses; but one was wanting fit to crown the whole! All the neighboring gardens had been ransacked. I alone possessed a flower worthy of such a place. It was on the rose-tree given me by my mother on my birthday. I had watched it for several months, and there was no other bud to blow on the tree. There it was, half open, in its mossy nest, the object of such long expectations, and of all a child's pride! I hesitated for some moments. No one had asked me for it; I might easily avoid losing it. ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... board, I found the cook very busily binding, with a piece of yarn, an immense round of beef, which had been purchased for the crew by R——, in order that they might have a regular jollification to-morrow, it being his birthday. Along the rigging were white trowsers, check shirts, and all the other paraphernalia of a sailor's wardrobe, hung up to swing to the wind, and dry; and, as Jerome sat on the windlass, scraping and screwing his fiddle by way ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... corresponding to them, express themselves by no features like those in which the same seasons are invested under our temperate climes: so that, if knowing, we cannot at least feel the identity of their revolutions. We were married, I have said, on the birthday—the seventeenth birthday—of Agnes; and pretty nearly on her eighteenth it was that she placed me at the summit of my happiness, whilst for herself she thus completed the circle of her relations to this life's duties, by presenting me with a son. Of this child, knowing how wearisome ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... a birthday. I looked in the glass and communed with my features. I saw some gray hairs ...
— The University of Hard Knocks • Ralph Parlette
... Charlotte mightn't send something. She forgot your birthday and sometimes Christmas; but, to make up for that, she remembered in between. Every time she was going to be married ...
— Mary Olivier: A Life • May Sinclair
... different ideal was persistently forced by the parents upon the two, although Fanny, more fortunate than many girls, was, nevertheless, allowed to study her art as well as she could in intervals of housekeeping. On her twenty-third birthday, her father again felt it necessary to check his gifted daughter in her pursuit of her art. He wrote her a letter in which he praised her conduct in ...
— Among the Great Masters of Music - Scenes in the Lives of Famous Musicians • Walter Rowlands
... pre-eminently the birthday of womanhood. The material has long held in bondage the spiritual; henceforth the two, the material refined by the spiritual, the spiritual energized by the material, are to walk hand in hand for the moral regeneration of mankind. Mothers, for the first time ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... inaugurations, centennials, dedications of cemeteries, meetings of medical associations, mercantile libraries, Burns clubs, and New England societies; at rural festivals and city fairs; openings of theaters, layings of corner-stones, birthday celebrations, jubilees, funerals, commemoration services, dinners of welcome or farewell to Dickens, Bryant, Everett, Whittier, Longfellow, Grant, Farragut, the Grand Duke Alexis, the Chinese embassy, and what not. Probably no poet of any age ...
— Initial Studies in American Letters • Henry A. Beers
... steamer 'Amazon,'" replied Cabot, stiffly, ignoring his guardian's proffered hand. "I only dropped in to hand you that Bell Island report, and to say that, as this happens to be my twenty-first birthday, I shall be pleased to receive whatever of my property you may still hold in trust at your earliest convenience. With that business transacted, it is perhaps needless to add, that I shall trouble no further the man who was cruel enough to leave me ...
— Under the Great Bear • Kirk Munroe
... ... Grandma Edmonson's birthday is the 30th of May, and Mrs. O'Shaughnessy suggested that we give her a party. I had never seen Grandma, but because of something that happened in her family years ago which a few narrow-heads whom it didn't concern in the least cannot forgive ...
— Letters of a Woman Homesteader • Elinore Pruitt Stewart
... it said in passing, is very fond of long words, and has asked for a dictionary for her next birthday present. ...
— Choice Readings for the Home Circle • Anonymous
... soldier passes from the army reserve into what is described as the Landwehr, where artillerymen and cavalrymen remain three years; those of other branches of the military five years. The soldier passes from the first division or class of Landwehr to the second, where he remains until his 39th birthday. ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller
... York restaurants, and to quite expensive hotels, for at least once a year, on his birthday, Mr. Pilkings took him to lunch at the Waldorf. While he had apparently been devoting himself to arranging the tables his cunning old brain had determined to order tea and French pastry. Apparently the Tea Shoppe was neutral. There was no French pastry on the bill, but, instead, such curious edibles ...
— The Innocents - A Story for Lovers • Sinclair Lewis
... and even of Thoreau's beloved science of Natural History, very little. He does, indeed, begin one letter with "Dear Mother, ... Pray have you the seventeen-year locust in Concord?" which recalls Mendelssohn's birthday letter to his mother, opening with two bars of music. But even such mundane matters as these occur rarely in the book, which is chiefly made up of pure thought, and that of the highest and often of the most ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865 • Various
... Bar of the mulatto Ned. His birthday-celebration dinner, at which the New Year's piscatory phenomenon figures in the bill of fare. A total disregard of dry laws at the dinner. Excitement over reported discovery of quartz-mines. A complete humbug. Charges ...
— The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 • Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe
... swear to increase it in his turn, so that the children of your grandchildren may imitate their fore-fathers, and may themselves be imitated by their posterity. Here is the collection. The first roll contains the story of all that has chanced to our family up to the anniversary of my dear Hena's birthday, that day which also saw her die. This other roll I received this evening about sunset from my son Albinik the mariner. It contains the story of his journey across the burnt territory, to the camp of Caesar. This account throws honor on the courage of the Gaul, it ...
— The Brass Bell - or, The Chariot of Death • Eugene Sue
... This is not a birthday that signifies. It is the next will be the birthday concerned with the great ...
— Three Wonder Plays • Lady I. A. Gregory
... when he's in port. He's just a shade older than I am; he was eighteen around noon, and my eighteenth birthday won't come till midnight, Fenris Standard Sundial Time. His father is Joe Kivelson, the skipper of the Javelin; Tom is sort of junior engineer, second gunner, and about third harpooner. We went ...
— Four-Day Planet • Henry Beam Piper
... in this way, a summer, a winter, part of a spring, and Hetty's forty-fifth birthday came, and found her a seriously unhappy woman. Yet, strange to say, nobody dreamed of it. So unchanged was the external current of her life: such magnificent self-control had she, and such absolute disinterestedness. Little Raby was the only one who ever ...
— Hetty's Strange History • Helen Jackson
... Brincliffe, was a man of independent mind, and though the boys liked him well enough, there was a difference of opinion regarding his regulations. For example, the same term in which the door was opened to day-pupils, it was shut to hampers, even birthday ones. Cadbury suggested reporting this high-handed act to the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, but decided to let him off when a permission was announced which almost atoned for the loss of cakes and ...
— Jack of Both Sides - The Story of a School War • Florence Coombe
... no wrong? You were in open insurrection. On the birthday of your gracious master the king, instead of hanging out Bavarian flags, as you had been ordered, you hung out ...
— Andreas Hofer • Lousia Muhlbach
... which forms so conspicuous a note in his later writings. Heather and wave struck the keynotes. A son of the people, he went first, in his boyhood, to the village school at Ellington; but on his eleventh birthday he was removed from the wild north to a new world at Greenwich. There he spent two years in the naval school; and straightway began his first experiences of life on his own account as a pupil teacher at North Shields Ragged School, not far from ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... ceased to yield him pleasure. A friend used to take him to the opera, but by the end of the first act, he was generally in a profound slumber. Yet on one occasion he enjoyed a visit to the Haymarket with a party of friends on his birthday, to see T. P. Cooke, in "Black-eyed Susan;"—if that can be called enjoyment which kept him in a state of tears during half the performance. At other times he visited Newcastle, which always gave him great pleasure. He would, on such occasions, go ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles
... England the daisy grows wild almost everywhere, a little, low plant which produces its heads of white, pink-tipped flowers from a rosette of leaves. In the United States we often see daisies in cultivation but they are nowhere native. The child is at her seventh birthday and has learned her multiplication table, the "sevens". Nowadays in our schools the children do not have the drudgery of committing the long tables to memory as their grand-parents did. Our little friend thinks that as she has lived seven years that ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester
... Anyhow—thus I to myself in the same strain, continuing—anyhow, I was not actually getting fat. Nothing so gross as that. I merely was attaining to a pleasant, a becoming and a dignified fullness of contour as I neared my thirtieth birthday. So why worry about what was natural and normal among persons of my temperament, and having my hereditary impulses, upon attaining a ...
— One Third Off • Irvin S. Cobb
... birthday was approaching, and a famous, notable day it always was for the whole county of Szabolcs. The clergymen in all the surrounding villages ordered new frock-coats from Debreczin or Nagy-Kun-Madaras a month beforehand, at the ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai
... world, on terms of his own. Concerning whom there circulates in military circles this Anecdote, among many others;—which is set down as a fact; and may be, whether quite believable or not, a symbol of all the rest, and of a man not unimportant in these Wars. "Two years ago, on King Friedrich's birthday, 24th January, 1759, the Count had a select dinner-party in his tent in Ferdinand's Camp, in honor of the occasion. Dinner was well over, and wine handsomely flowing, when somebody at last thought of asking, 'What is it, then, Herr Graf, that whistling kind of noise we hear every now and then overhead?' ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... dated the day before. I knew that that was the birthday of the writer; in common parlance, the day on which ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid
... them together? Not merely to do honor to the memory of one man or of several men, though their memories are inseparably blended with the thoughts and associations of the occasion. "In many centenaries the dominant interest is the personal. The birthday of the 'monk that shook the world' is a handy peg on which to hang the whole of his marvellous career, and the massive personality of the man is never absent from view. But in the consecration of Bishop Seabury the Churchman beholds, not the ...
— Report Of Commemorative Services With The Sermons And Addresses At The Seabury Centenary, 1883-1885. • Diocese Of Connecticut
... the parents. It may have been that benefactor of Europe, Hans Christian Andersen, born at Odensee in Denmark in April 1805. He died, near Copenhagen, in 1875, having by a few months outlived his 70th birthday. I like to think that his genius, a continuing influence over a long generation, did more than anything else to convert the parents. The schools, always more royalist than the King, professionally ...
— On The Art of Reading • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... reach the palace until the 29th of May, that being the king's birthday, and, moreover, the anniversary of his entrance into London; a date which the Queen's arrival now caused to be celebrated with triple magnificence and joy. When the coach that conveyed their majesties drew near, the whole palace seemed astir with happy excitement. Double lines ...
— Royalty Restored - or, London under Charles II. • J. Fitzgerald Molloy
... of course," said Lapham. "Got it up and put the first of it on the market her last birthday. ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... the father, delighted to see his Eugenie looking well in a new gown, exclaimed: "As it is Eugenie's birthday let us have a fire; it will ...
— Eugenie Grandet • Honore de Balzac
... employer with their whole hearts; there was nothing they would not do for him. When his factory had been established twenty-five years, the workmen determined to have a jubilee on the occasion, and to hold it on his birthday. They kept their intention a secret from him till the day arrived; but they were obliged to tell his children, who, they knew, would wish to make arrangements for receiving them in such a way as their father would approve of, if ...
— The Pedler of Dust Sticks • Eliza Lee Follen
... of those two prognostics was to be verified. Returning home at that late hour, Boleslas did not even retire. He employed the remainder of the night in writing a long letter to his wife, one to his son, to be given to him on his eighteenth birthday, all in case of an accident. Then he examined his papers and he came upon the package of letters he had received from Madame Steno. Merely to reread a few of them, and to glance at the portraits of that faithless mistress again, heightened his anger to such a degree ...
— Cosmopolis, Complete • Paul Bourget
... scaled Table Mountain, lying back of Capetown, and there picked a tiny white flower which he had pressed in the Bible presented to him there that day; each sailor in port had received a Bible that day with this inscription: "Capetown, Africa, Christ's Birthday, December 25, 19—." White Mountain snowshoed twenty miles in Yellowstone to have Christmas dinner with another ranger, but when he got there he found his friend delirious with flu. "Did he die?" we questioned anxiously. Ranger ...
— I Married a Ranger • Dama Margaret Smith
... 1879. Theodor Storm called it the best lyric poem since Goethe. Compare C. F. Meyer's letter to Keller congratulating him on his seventieth birthday. Meyer praises Keller's poetry because of its "innere Heiterkeit," and continues: "Auch meine ich, dass Ihr fester Glaube an die Guete des Daseins die hoechste Bedeutung Ihrer Schriften ist. Ihnen ist wahrhaftig nichts zu wuenschen als die Beharrung ...
— A Book Of German Lyrics • Various
... awfully sorry about—banging up my racket like this. The second time it came down on this club. Why do they carry those things? Perfectly fantastic, I'll say, going around with a club. But as long as you were asking me what I wanted for my birthday— ...
— Plays • Susan Glaspell
... young folk of to-day will drone out precisely similar nonsense for the aggravation of the next generation. "Oh, give me back the good old days of fifty years ago," has been the cry ever since Adam's fifty-first birthday. Take up the literature of 1835, and you will find the poets and novelists asking for the same impossible gift as did the German Minnesingers long before them and the old Norse Saga writers long before ...
— Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome
... and her tears burst upon it.] How well do I recollect the sweet evening when you gave me these! That evening, my father joined our hands; and joyfully I pronounced the oath of eternal fidelity.—It is broken. This locket, you gave me on my birthday—That was a happy day! We had a country feast—How cheerful we all were!—This bracelet, I received after my William was born! No! take them—take them—I cannot keep these, unless you wish, that the sight of them should be an incessant reproach to ...
— The Stranger - A Drama, in Five Acts • August von Kotzebue
... devoted himself to the Pirate profession at a comparatively early age. We find him in command of a splendid schooner of one hundred guns, loaded to the muzzle, 'ere yet he had had a party in honour of his tenth birthday. ...
— Captain Boldheart & the Latin-Grammar Master - A Holiday Romance from the Pen of Lieut-Col. Robin Redforth, aged 9 • Charles Dickens
... Occupied at Brussels in the interests of his orphaned grandchildren, he was requested to leave, on the ground of his zeal on behalf of the fallen Communists; he returned to Paris, and pleaded in the Rappel for amnesty. In 1875 he was elected a senator. His eightieth birthday was celebrated with enthusiasm. Three years later, on May 23, 1885, Victor Hugo died. His funeral pomps were such that one might suppose the genius of France itself was about to be ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden
... they're young," said the captain. "If they don't, like as not they're crazy to marry in their old age. There's my landlord here at Tranquil Vale, fifty-two next birthday, and over his ears in love. He has got it about as bad as a man can ...
— Salthaven • W. W. Jacobs
... Dal Segno's sister Julia, lady's maid to the Princess, enters with birthday-presents for her niece Cornelia, and among the things which attract her attentions sees the cracknel, beside which she finds a note from her own faithless lover Louis. Filled with righteous indignation ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley
... doubt intended to indicate the vernal equinox as the birthday of Rama. For the month Chaitra is the first of the two months assigned to the spring; it corresponds with the latter half of March and the former half of April in our division of the year. Aditi, the mother of the Gods, is lady of the seventh ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... occasion, when the birthday of Louis Philippe was to be celebrated, my French midshipman friend came on board officially and said, 'Sir, the first of the month is the feast of the King; you must fire the gun.' 'All right,' ...
— Sketches From My Life - By The Late Admiral Hobart Pasha • Hobart Pasha
... has much to say about 'Mr. Best' and 'Mr. Sadler.' The Prince was apparently at or near Worms; his letters went by Mayence. On December 30 he sends for 'L'Esprit des Lois' and 'Les Amours de Mlle. Fanfiche,' and other books of diversified character. On Decemuber 31, his birthday, he wrote to Waters, 'the indisposition of those I employ has occasioned this long silence.' Mr. Dormer was his chief medium of intelligence with England. 'Commerce with Germany' is mentioned; efforts, probably, to interest Frederick the Great. On January 27, 1751, Mademoiselle Luci ...
— Pickle the Spy • Andrew Lang
... majeste. Still more recently, it is the section in the German legal code dealing with sexual offences against children, which is chiefly utilised for such purposes, "The good-natured householder who, because it is his birthday, presents a few sweets to children assembled in the courtyard of his house, is suspected of an offence against sexual morals;" when he finds it necessary to give warning to his untrustworthy hall-porter, this latter revenges himself by lodging a false accusation of this ...
— The Sexual Life of the Child • Albert Moll
... Percey J. climbs out, asks the kid gentle what all the woe is about, and discovers that she's lost a whole nickel that Daddy has given her to buy lolly-pops with on account of its bein' her birthday. ...
— On With Torchy • Sewell Ford
... be sad to be old and rich," she said softly, almost as if she were speaking to herself. "It is so very certain that we can carry nothing out of this world.... I read somewhere of a man who, on every birthday, gave away some of his possessions so that at the end he might not be cumbered and weighted with them." She looked up and caught the gaze of Peter Reid fixed on her intently. "It's rather a nice idea, don't you think, to give away all the superfluous money and lands, ...
— Penny Plain • Anna Buchan (writing as O. Douglas)
... had just heard. The Count de Flora and his lady, who were at this time in the house, ridiculed the fears of Arthur, and could not be prevailed upon to remove even as far as Naples. The lady was intent upon preparations for her birthday, which was to be celebrated in a few days with great magnificence at their villa; and she observed that it would be a pity to return to town before that day, and they had everything arranged for the festival. The prudent Englishman had not the gallantry to appear to be convinced by these ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth
... though surfeited with victory, were much pleased with their Cuban conquest. Sir Joseph Yorke, writing on the 9th of October, ten days after the news had reached England, says,—"All the world is struck with the noble capture of the Havana, which fell into our hands on the Prince of Wales's birthday, as a just punishment upon the Spaniards for their unjust quarrel with us, and for the supposed difficulties they have raised in the negotiations for peace." Those negotiations had been openly commenced in less than a month after the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various
... allegiant to him, as my commander-in-chief, whenever we "took the field;" secondly, by the law of nations, I, being a cadet of my house, owed suit and service to him who was its head; and he assured me, that twice in a year, on my birthday and on his, he had a right, strictly speaking, to make me lie down, and to set his foot upon my neck; lastly, by a law not so rigorous, but valid amongst gentlemen,—viz., "by the comity of nations,"—it seems I owed eternal deference to one so much older than ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... kinsman on his birthday invited some boys to supper and Cato with them, in order to pass the time they played in a part of the house by themselves, younger and older together: and the game consisted of accusations and trials, and the arresting of those who were convicted. Now one of the ...
— Social life at Rome in the Age of Cicero • W. Warde Fowler
... "Why, I've never known you do such a thing before. Have you been here all this time? I've been looking for you all over the place. I couldn't leave without one more good-bye. And see here, cherie, you must—you must—come to my birthday-party on New Year's Eve. If you won't come and stay with me, which I do think you might, you must come down for that one night. It's no distance, you know. And it's only a children's show. There won't be any grown-ups except my cousin Reggie, ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell
... Versailles was a matter of great consequence. Court-dress was then an affair of as much importance at Paris as it seems to be now in London, if we may judge by the columns of birthday dresses, and the honourable notice of gentlemen's coats and waistcoats. It was then at Paris, however, as it is now and ever will be all over the world, essential to the appearance of a gentleman, that whatever time, pains, or expense, it might have cost, he should, from the moment he is ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth
... about your age, so curious, in fact, and so full of certainty that you were thirty-five and a blighted existence, if an hour, that I felt inclined to rap out there and then, and hang what came of it: "My daughter, ladies, was to my own and her mother's certain knowledge only twenty-one last birthday, and has as bright a heart as anybody in London." One of them actually said that you must be fifty to have got such an experience. Her guess was a very shrewd one in the bottom of it, however, for it was grounded upon the way you use those strange experiences of mine in the ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... The Prayer-book was one given him on his twelfth birthday by his mother. His name in it was in her own handwriting. The Bible was a much newer book, and bore but few marks of use. It was a gift from Mary Oliphant. The handwriting of his name was hers, as was also ...
— Frank Oldfield - Lost and Found • T.P. Wilson
... was still a fine-looking, well-kept man. His hair was thin, but that fact did not show; and his waist was lost, but riding and tennis would set that right. He had means outside of his official salary, and there was the title, such as it was. Lady Greville the wife of the birthday knight sounded as well as Lady Greville the marchioness. And Americans cared for these things. He doubted whether this particular American would do so, but he was adding up all he had to offer, and that was one of the assets. He was sure she would not ...
— The Lion and the Unicorn and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... was a little girl, my mother once gave me, as a birthday present, a small volume of poems. The first ...
— The Reminiscences of an Astronomer • Simon Newcomb
... great hobby lay in the line of photography, and such had been his remarkable success with a cheap outfit that his mother had surprised and delighted the boy on a recent birthday by giving him ...
— The Outdoor Chums - The First Tour of the Rod, Gun and Camera Club • Captain Quincy Allen
... major did not feel much like eating. The watch was a gold one and the chain was also of gold, and both were valuable. They had been a birthday gift from his parents. ...
— The Mystery at Putnam Hall - The School Chums' Strange Discovery • Arthur M. Winfield
... ses. 'Fancy a gal getting love-letters from a thing like that! And she was on'y twenty last birthday. Keep your eye on 'er, Bill, and don't let 'er out of your sight. You're ...
— Night Watches • W.W. Jacobs
... what of the "desire of honour and repute and immortal fame seated in the breast of every true scholar?" That his correspondent may the better understand him, he encloses a "Petrarchean sonnet," recently composed, on his twenty-third birthday, not one of his best, but precious as the first of his ...
— Life of John Milton • Richard Garnett
... have read these words, "God said," "God called," "God saw." They are quickly read. But who shall say how wonderful is that of which they speak? God has been pleased in these few words to tell us what no one could ever have found out about the birthday of that mighty world of waters, when it was gathered together unto the place which He had prepared for it, and ...
— Twilight And Dawn • Caroline Pridham
... comble!" observed Trent. "You are a nice young woman for a small tea-party, I don't think. A star upon your birthday burned, whose fierce, serene, red, pulseless planet never yearned in heaven, Celestine. Mademoiselle, I am busy. Bon jour. You ...
— The Woman in Black • Edmund Clerihew Bentley
... spend what was left of her benevolent fund in a treat for the children of the neighboring work-house. The fund was low, and this had decided the matter. The following Wednesday would be her twenty-first birthday. If the children came to tea with her, the foundation of the entertainment would, in the natural course of things, be laid in the Vicarage kitchen. The charity bag would provide the extras of the feast. ...
— Jackanapes, Daddy Darwin's Dovecot and Other Stories • Juliana Horatio Ewing
... tone that prevailed. This varied considerably, when we take into account the beginning and the end. The beginning was marked by toasts in fine style, and occasionally, especially if the feast was at the same time a family party—a birthday celebration or something of the sort—there were even verses, which from the point of view of regularity of form and cleverness of ideas left nothing to be desired. Only recently I found among my father's papers some of these literary efforts and was astonished to see how good they were. Humor, ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... copied the story and sent it to him for his birthday. It was suggested that I should change the title from "Autumn Leaves" to "The Frost King," which I did. I carried the little story to the post-office myself, feeling as if I were walking on air. I little dreamed how cruelly I should ...
— Story of My Life • Helen Keller
... down-stairs. She had in her hand her purse, which contained ten dollars, which her father had given her on her birthday, also a book of New York tickets which had been a present from Ida, and which Ida herself had borrowed several times since giving them to Maria. Maria herself seldom went to New York, and Ida had a fashion of giving presents which might react to her own benefit. Maria, as she passed ...
— By the Light of the Soul - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... on the other by the old tower, covered with ivy and studded with wall-flowers. No one would have thought in looking at this old, weather-beaten, floral-decked tower (which might be likened to an elderly dame dressed up to receive her grandchildren at a birthday feast) that it would have been capable of telling strange things, if,—in addition to the menacing ears which the proverb says all walls are provided with,—it had also a voice. The garden was crossed by a path of red gravel, edged by ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... a parade march to Berlin, even fixing the day of their entrance into that city - August 15th, the emperor's birthday. On the contrary, they failed to set their foot on German territory, and soon found themselves engaged in a death struggle with the invaders of their own land. In truth, while the Prussian diplomacy was conducted by Bismarck, the ablest statesman Prussia had ...
— A History of The Nations and Empires Involved and a Study - of the Events Culminating in The Great Conflict • Logan Marshall
... Otranto, had contracted a marriage for his son Conrad with the Marquis of Vicenza's daughter, Isabella. Young Conrad's birthday was fixed for his espousal, and Manfred's impatience for this ceremonial was marked by everyone. His tenants and subjects attributed this haste to the Prince's dread of seeing accomplished an ancient prophecy that the Castle ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... has told about him,—a man by the name of Wheatley,—and he says that this Valentine was a good bishop who lived long ago, and so famous for his love and charity that after he died he was called Saint Valentine, and a festival was held on his birthday, when all the people would send love tokens to ...
— A Flock of Girls and Boys • Nora Perry
... pleased to feign a wish for, I am proud to furnish. In Skitzland, the inhabitants, until they come of age, retain that illustrious appearance which you have been so fortunate as never to have lost. During the night of his twenty-first birthday, each Skitzlander loses the limbs which up to that period have received from him no care, no education. Of those neglected parts the skeletons alone remain, but all those organs which he has employed ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various |
