"Birthday" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... "The day is unimportant. We may have Christ's birthday correct, or we may not. I am not historian enough to speak positively on this point. But one thing there is upon which I can speak positively; and all the enemies of Jesus are unable to wrest the conviction of that truth ...
— Life and Labors of Elder John Kline, the Martyr Missionary - Collated from his Diary by Benjamin Funk • John Kline
... ideal place for flowers. Such carnations as those which are grown in the nursery gardens there are never seen elsewhere—they are a revelation in horticulture; nor are the roses any less wonderful. The bouquet with which a Spaniard, whether hidalgo or one of your servants, greets your birthday is generally a pyramid almost as tall as yourself. It needs to be placed in a large earthenware jar on the floor, and if you should be happy enough to have a good many friends, there is scarcely room for anything ...
— Spanish Life in Town and Country • L. Higgin and Eugene E. Street
... hardly necessary for me to assure the indulgent reader that such a method of composition is not altogether an easy task for a man who is shortly to celebrate his nine hundred and sixty-fifth birthday, more especially since at no time in my life have I studied the arts of the Stone-Cutter, or been a master in the Science of Quarrying. Nor is it easy at my advanced age, with a back no longer sinewy, ...
— The Autobiography of Methuselah • John Kendrick Bangs
... Flora Lee's birthday came in July. Her mother wished very much to celebrate the occasion in a proper manner. Flora was a good girl, and her parents were always glad to do any thing they could to please her, and ...
— The Birthday Party - A Story for Little Folks • Oliver Optic
... a lot about life this morning, coming home from church. You know the 27th of November is Mother's anniversary.... Today is the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, always a great Catholic Feast ... Father's birthday was the 23rd of December, he was buried on Christmas day—their wedding anniversary was December 3lst— my birthday is January first, J—'s the seventh, Mother's the fifth. So the whole season is full of memories, churches, masses, prayers, associations. ...
— Perpetual Light • William Rose Benet
... hall clock was not asked to the party, but it was there, all the same. It was Milly Holland's birthday party. Milly was just fourteen years old, and most of the boys and girls near her own age whom she knew had been invited, and among them little Caddy Podkins, too little and young to care for at all, Milly thought; but ...
— Harper's Young People, January 20, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... he was a thief breaking into the quiet house, he stole up the dimly-lighted staircase, and paused for a minute or two before a door, listening intently. Then he crept in. A low shaded lamp was burning, giving light enough to guide him to the cot where Felix was sleeping. It would be his birthday to-morrow, and the child must not lose his birthday gift, though the relentless floods were rushing on toward him also. Close by was the cot where his baby daughter, Hilda, was at rest. He stood between them, and could lay a hand ...
— Cobwebs and Cables • Hesba Stretton
... she should not carry this doll, no matter whence it came, to school, and she never did but once—that was on her birthday, and she teased so hard, and promised not to let any one take ...
— Young Lucretia and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins
... service was said by one of these poor old people to be like a great funeral. Sexagesima Sunday was Sir John's sixty-sixth birthday, and it was spent in expectation that it would be the last of the whole party at home, for on the Monday Sir John was obliged to go to London for a meeting of the Judicial Committee. The two notes his son wrote during his absence are, perhaps to prove good spirits, full of the delights of ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... was now the saddest rhetoric, and Childe Harold's plaint unseemly lamentation; I had erased from my calendar of saints the names of apostles of affliction once held in honour; the Caliph Amurath with his tale of fourteen happy days out of a long life of royal opportunity; Swift with his birthday lection from Jeremiah. Rather there trooped into memory with a quiet pomp and induction of joy, forms of men who, though justified in rebellion by every human suffrage, remained loyal to the end and proved by endurance a more imperial humanity. ...
— Apologia Diffidentis • W. Compton Leith
... I met the other day an old man, who asked me to drink. "I am not thirsty," said I, "and will not drink with you." "Yes, you will," said the old man, "for I am this day one hundred years old; and you will never again have an opportunity of drinking the health of a man on his hundredth birthday." So I broke my word, and drank. "Yours is a wonderful age," said I. "It is a long time to look back to the beginning of it," said the old man; "yet, upon the whole, I am not sorry to have lived it all." "How have you passed ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... day of his fiftieth birthday he walked briskly along the corridor of the Bureau building. He paused only when he came to the glass door which was lettered in gold: National Bureau of Scientific Development, Dr. William Baker, Director. He was unable to regard ...
— The Great Gray Plague • Raymond F. Jones
... She glanced at Mrs. Burns. "My good fairy begged that I might go early, because it is her little son's birthday. I am to be at a real ...
— Red Pepper's Patients - With an Account of Anne Linton's Case in Particular • Grace S. Richmond
... Aunt 'Livia, don't you? It's Aunt 'Livia's birthday I'm making it for, it's going to be a present. Once she gave me a present ...
— Rebecca Mary • Annie Hamilton Donnell
... sense of personal generosity. What gave him this relief and now suffuses his very soul with charity? It was a date which for the moment he had forgotten and which has occurred most fortunately. To-morrow will be the birthday of a man whom he has known all his days and more intimately than any other person, and although he has not so high an idea of the man as the world is good enough to hold, and although he has often quarrelled ...
— Books and Bookmen • Ian Maclaren
... passage in Browning's poetry, expressive of his ideal of a complete man under the conditions of earth-life, is found in 'Colombe's Birthday', Act IV. Valence says ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson
... of an anniversary of the birthday of his grandson, the palatine rode abroad with a party of friends, who had been celebrating the festival with their presence. The countess (his daughter) and Thaddeus were left alone in the saloon. She sighed as she gazed on her son, who stood at some distance, fitting to his youthful ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... 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
... intestinal trouble, that I do not know if I shall ever be strong enough to move in winter. Well, we shall see. The hope of finding you there will give me courage; that is not what will be lacking, but, since I passed my seventieth birthday, I have been very much upset, and I do not yet know if I shall get over it. I cannot walk any more, I who used to love to be on my feet so much, without risking atrocious pains. I am patient with these miseries, I work all the more, and I ...
— The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters • George Sand, Gustave Flaubert
... recipient's name or the season's greeting. During the holidays the letters may be made from winter scenes to spell "A Merry Christmas" or "A Happy New Year." An Easter greeting may have more spring-like subjects and a birthday remembrance a fitting month. The prints are no more difficult to make than the ordinary kind. In cutting out an 0, for example, do not forget to cut out a piece to correspond to the center. This ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics
... the daughter of the Spring, Upon whose birthday morning the birds delight to sing. They would not sing one note for you, if you should so command, Although you are a princess, a princess of ...
— Robert F. Murray - his poems with a memoir by Andrew Lang • Robert F. Murray
... you a kiss. Anything you like, Valeria. I shall be sixty-five next birthday; and I thought I knew something of women, at my time of life. It seems I know nothing. Loxley's Hotel is ...
— The Law and the Lady • Wilkie Collins
... signalise its eleventh birthday, produced a "Monster Number," yet it contained no portrait of ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, November 11, 1914 • Various
... somewhat similar to the birthday celebrations of England and America, only the day on which they were held was not the birth-day of the lady, but the fete-day, as it was called, of her patron saint—that is, of the saint whose name she bore. All the names for girls used in those ...
— Peter the Great • Jacob Abbott
... could guess just how she went, if you should try from now until your next birthday, so I'll tell you first how she came to ...
— The American Missionary - Volume 42, No. 2, February 1888 • Various
... boy, Jimmy. Not to be opened until his thirtieth birthday except in case of his death, when it shall be opened ...
— Pollyanna Grows Up • Eleanor H. Porter
... the Grand Councils were held, convening respectively on the 22d of August and the 22d of February—the latter, in sacrilege be it said, being religiously observed as the birthday of Washington. ...
— The Great North-Western Conspiracy In All Its Startling Details • I. Windslow Ayer
... Miss Mitford, for this welcome letter written on your birthday! May the fear of small-pox have passed away long before now, and every hope and satisfaction have ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... 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 ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... will was made some few months before my father was twenty-one, and it was stipulated that he was to receive the L500 on his twenty-first birthday. ...
— The Birthright • Joseph Hocking
... sky the luminous point that would explain my anxious and blissful expectation. Expectation of what? I could not have answered that question then, any more than I can now after much reflection. I was on the eve of my fifteenth birthday, and I was in a state of expectation as to the future of my life. That particular morning seemed to me to be the precursor of a new era. I was not mistaken, for on that September day my fate was settled ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt
... Swinburne Recessional. A Victorian Ode Rudyard Kipling To a Waterfowl William Cullen Bryant The Death of the Flowers William Cullen Bryant Thanatopsis William Cullen Bryant From "Woodnotes" Ralph Waldo Emerson Daybreak Henry Wadsworth Longfellow The Fiftieth Birthday of Agassiz Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Hymn to the Night Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Longing James Russell Lowell The Finding of the Lyre James Russell Lowell Waiting John Burroughs Columbus Joaquin Miller Evening Songs John Vance Cheney A Vagabond Song ...
— Graded Poetry: Seventh Year • Various
... seen—had been the dearest thing in the old bachelor's life. Actually, he was not Danny's uncle, but his grand-uncle. He had lived alone in St. Augustine and had liked living alone. The only relative he had tolerated was Danny, when Danny was a small boy. Then, as Danny approached his ninth birthday, the old man had said, "They're teaching you too much at school, son. Too many wrong things, too many highfalutin' notions, too much just plain old hogwash. Why don't you kind of make yourself scarce for a few years?" It had been blunt and to the point. It had made Danny cry. ...
— My Shipmate—Columbus • Stephen Wilder
... sweeping, dusting, and washing and dressing the dolls, I read to the children "How the House was built." Then we all pretended to bake, making rolls and cakes as next day was to be the doll Winnie's birthday. We baked our cakes on a piece of wood ...
— The Child Under Eight • E.R. Murray and Henrietta Brown Smith
... have turned out quite kindly," spoke up Barbara. "It happens to be Anne's birthday, so mamma sent me just now into the kitchen with a cake and a bottle of wine, desiring them to drink her health. I shut the door and told them to make themselves comfortable; that if we wanted anything ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... evening, the eve of his birthday anniversary, after thanking the assembled thousands for their "magnificent welcome," and defining the words "Coercion" and "Invasion"—at that time so loosely used—he continued: "But if the United States should merely hold ...
— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan
... sat perched on the iron fence surrounding a handsome house, within which a birthday party was going on merrily. It was dark outside, and the street lamps were not bright enough to betray this little watcher to the gaze of the young people who were dancing under the light of brilliant chandeliers, and sending the sweet music of their ...
— Harper's Young People, August 17, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... moved in, and, before an interested throng of natives, started to unpack my trunks and boxes with a sense of genuine relief; for I had had four months of traveling and living out of steamer-trunks. But I returned to Oroquieta all in good time for the doctor's birthday and the annual Oroquieta ball. I found the doctor wandering about Aloran late one afternoon; for he had been attending a sick Chinaman. We started back together through the night, and, in the darkness, voices greeted us, ...
— The Great White Tribe in Filipinia • Paul T. Gilbert
... a succession of balls and parties in the town. At Sandsgaard only one large ball was given every year, and that was on the old Consul's birthday, which fell ...
— Garman and Worse - A Norwegian Novel • Alexander Lange Kielland
... in the woods when Spring comes gaily in. Spring is the very Saviour, as it were, of all the numberless folk, great and small, which grow green and blossom there, wherefore the forest holds festival for his birthday and cradle feast as is but fitting! The fir-tree lights up brighter tips to its boughs, as children do with tapers at Christmastide. Then comes the largesse. It lasts much more than one evening, and the gifts bestowed on all are without number, and bright ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... 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 pay for ...
— Story of My Life • Helen Keller
... and obscene monsters which the mediaeval imagination sculptured upon the cathedrals. This famous copperplate prompted Fouque's romance, "Sintram and his Companions." He had received a copy of it for a birthday gift, and brooded for years over its mysterious significance; which finally shaped itself in his imagination into an allegory of the soul's conflict with the powers of darkness. His whole narrative leads up to the description of Duerer's picture, which occupies the twenty-seventh and climacteric ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... morning. I am going to send you a birthday gift with this letter. I hope it will please you very much, because it makes me happy to send it. The dress is blue like your eyes, and candy is sweet just like your dear little self. I think mother ...
— Story of My Life • Helen Keller
... and they were soon rolling quickly on their way. It was good of Jackie to have asked for her to go, Mary thought, after she had been so cross. She could not have done it in his place, and she determined to give him a very handsome present on his birthday, which was ...
— A Pair of Clogs • Amy Walton
... Gertie. Find out his address in some way, and we will write to him on some pretext or other. Rex has probably quarreled with the haughty heiress of Whitestone Hall, and one of us ought certainly to catch his heart in the rebound. Send him an invitation to your birthday party, Gertie." ...
— Daisy Brooks - A Perilous Love • Laura Jean Libbey
... toasted each other. We toasted the Flathead flowing just beside us. We toasted the full moon rising over the Kootenais. We toasted the good fairy. The candles burned low in their sockets—this, also, is figurative; they were stuck on pieces of wood. With due formality I was presented with a birthday gift, a fishing-reel purchased by the Big and the Middle and ...
— Tenting To-night - A Chronicle of Sport and Adventure in Glacier Park and the - Cascade Mountains • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... thought themselves bound to spare no cost in scenery and dresses. The decorations, it is true, would not have pleased the skilful eye of Mr. Macready. Juba's waistcoat blazed with gold lace; Marcia's hoop was worthy of a Duchess on the birthday; and Cato wore a wig worth fifty guineas. The prologue was written by Pope, and is undoubtedly a dignified and spirited composition. The part of the hero was excellently played by Booth. Steele undertook to pack a house. The boxes were in a blaze with the stars of the ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... treat—his birthday. Because of it, they had given him actual food for the first time in years: a cake, conspicuous in its barrenness of candles; a glass of real vegetable juices; a dab of potato; an indescribable green that might have been anything ...
— Life Sentence • James McConnell
... passed. One still, warm morning a letter was brought to the hospital. Vera Iosifovna wrote to Dmitri Ionitch that she was missing him very much, and begged him to come and see them, and to relieve her sufferings; and, by the way, it was her birthday. Below was a postscript: "I join in ...
— The Lady with the Dog and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... mother, "are from a little tree which was planted in Caroline's flower-garden on her birthday. It is but a few days since they became ripe; the enemy, perhaps, did not notice the ...
— Among the Trees at Elmridge • Ella Rodman Church
... in the early autumn, Rollo was sitting on the red velvet hassock which his mother had given him for his birthday, his chin resting on the sill of the window which faced toward Park Avenue. Below was a pleasant picture of green spaces and cheerful nursemaids attentively watching the tall constable on the corner, while their little ...
— Rollo in Society - A Guide for Youth • George S. Chappell
... I'll wear your colors with all my heart, especially today, for it is my birthday." And Paul looked up at the blooming little face with unusual softness in his ...
— The Mysterious Key And What It Opened • Louisa May Alcott
... against Jacobinism, the Roman Catholics were the natural allies of royalty and aristocracy. But the help of these allies was contumeliously rejected by those politicians who make themselves ridiculous by carousing on Mr Pitt's birthday, while they abjure all Mr Pitt's principles. The consequence is, as you are forced to own, that there is not in the whole kingdom a Roman Catholic of note who is your friend. Therefore, whatever your inclinations may be, you must intrust power in Ireland to Protestants, to Ultra-Protestants, ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... about Amelia and her little boy, and by orders to his agents kept the latter provided with picture-books, paint-boxes, desks, and all conceivable implements of amusement and instruction. Three days before Georgie's sixth birthday a gentleman in a gig, accompanied by a servant, drove up to Mrs. Sedley's house and asked to be conducted to Master George Osborne. It was Woolsey, military tailor, who came at the Major's order, to measure George for a ...
— Boys and girls from Thackeray • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... debut in society, she is not seen at a party of adults except in her own home, and not there at a formal entertainment unless it be a birthday party, a marriage, or ...
— The Etiquette of To-day • Edith B. Ordway
... composing "Over There," Horace was leading the sophomore class by several lengths and digging out theses on "The Syllogism as an Obsolete Scholastic Form," and during the battle of Chateau-Thierry he was sitting at his desk deciding whether or not to wait until his seventeenth birthday before beginning his series of essays on "The Pragmatic Bias of ...
— Flappers and Philosophers • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... to tell him, and left the house, taking with me as I did so (but without any definite purpose) a heavy loaded stick, a most formidable weapon, even in the hands of a boy, and which I myself had given to Lintot on his last birthday. ...
— Peter Ibbetson • George du Marier et al
... all, made up the cheeriest and most festal scene that I have seen in Japan; men, women, and children, vans and kurumas, policemen and horsemen, all on their way to a mean-looking town, Minato, the junk port of Kubota, which was keeping matsuri, or festival, in honour of the birthday of the god Shimmai. Towering above the low grey houses there were objects which at first looked like five enormous black fingers, then like trees with their branches wrapped in black, and then—comparisons ceased; they were ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird
... day, about twelve o'clock, her waiting, longing spirit went home. Washington's birthday was her birthday to a higher life. After many a sleepless night, this last evening she was permitted to rest quietly, till the midnight cry struck upon her ear, "Behold, the bridegroom cometh!" It found her ready, with her ...
— Mary S. Peake - The Colored Teacher at Fortress Monroe • Lewis C. Lockwood
... were running down Lower San Francisco Bay to Bay Farm Island. Paul Fairfax and I went to the same school, lived next door to each other, and "chummed it" together. By saving money, by earning more, and by each of us foregoing a bicycle on his birthday, we had collected the purchase-price of the Mist, a beamy twenty-eight-footer, sloop-rigged, with baby topsail and centerboard. Paul's father was a yachtsman himself, and he had conducted the business for us, poking around, overhauling, sticking his penknife into the timbers, ...
— Dutch Courage and Other Stories • Jack London
... German authorities forbade the display of the Belgian Flag, and the Tri-Color so dear to our hearts had to be hauled down, the American Flag everywhere took its place. Washington's birthday and Independence Day were almost as solemn festivities to the Brussels people as the fete nationale, and thousands of persons called at the legation on those days; deputations were sent by the town and official authorities ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy
... 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 ...
— John Keble's Parishes • Charlotte M Yonge
... the King's cup. Now, inasmuch as none lived within the limits named by Betty Nasroth, save on the one side sundry humble labourers, whose progeny could expect no such fate, and on the other my Lord and Lady Quinton, who were wedded but a month before my birthday, the prophecy was fully as pointed as it had any need to be, and caused to my parents no small questionings. It was the third clause or term of the prediction that gave most concern alike to my mother and to my father; to my mother, because, ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope
... on this matter. It seems that at one time he even thought of abdicating in favour of his son rather than "see the Prussian title supplanted[73]." However, he soon showed his gratitude for the immense services rendered by Bismarck to the Fatherland. On his next birthday (March 22) he raised the Chancellor to the rank of Prince and appointed him Chancellor of ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... said. "Never allow yourself to believe that silly folly about a woman being as old as she looks. As if a mirror had more mind than the person looking in it! I remember very well waking up on the morning of my thirtieth birthday and thinking, 'I am thirty. I am growing old.' But, thank heaven, I had a mind. I soon put a stop to that. 'Not a day older will I grow!' I said. And I never have. What's a mind for, if not to make ...
— The Window-Gazer • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... and he was standing at his bedroom window before breakfast looking out into the old garden below, his busy brain full of thought and conjecture. His birthday was a very important day to him, and for some years now there had been a settled programme for the day. His guardian, an old Indian officer living in the neighborhood, and formerly a very old friend of his father's, always came over to see him and stayed to lunch, the ...
— His Big Opportunity • Amy Le Feuvre
... was that which celebrated the French king's birthday on Friday, the 25th of August. The ships were decorated with the flags of all nations during the day and brilliantly illuminated at night. High mass was celebrated on the flag-ship, after which a number ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, September 1880 • Various
... The occasion was a birthday party, an outdoor affair, and the large yard was hung with Japanese lanterns ready to light when the sun went down. As the children came flocking in with their bright faces and gay ribbons, it was ...
— The Story of the Big Front Door • Mary Finley Leonard
... kept idle in harbour until the season opened for visiting Newfoundland again; but this did not come within the scope of the management of that day. In 1787, we returned to our station at Newfoundland. The summers there are very hot, and on the birthday of the good old king, George III., the 4th of June, the ship's company obtained permission to bathe. The ship was at anchor in St. John's harbour, and the captain prepared himself for the public dinner at the Governor's by dressing in his full ...
— The Life of Admiral Viscount Exmouth • Edward Osler
... birthday occurred on a raw Sunday in December. He had been promised, as a special treat on that occasion, a visit to Hogson's Corner, an old meeting-house near the bay-side, twenty miles distant. His mother ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend
... the Kaiser's birthday, military bands played everywhere. When one passes and listens to this tomfoolery, and sees the emaciated and overworked men in war-time, swaying to the sounds of music, and enjoying it, one's very gall rises. ...
— Towards The Goal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... 1845, he had written: "I long to be once more back at dear little Sunnyside, while I have yet strength and good spirits to enjoy the simple pleasures of the country, and to rally a happy family group once more about me. I grudge every year of absence that rolls by. To-morrow is my birthday. I shall then be sixty-two years old. The evening of life is fast drawing over me; still I hope to get back among my friends while there is a ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... king to do but to make the best of the inevitable by ceding the Floridas to the United States in return for five million dollars to be paid to American citizens having claims against Spain. On Washington's birthday, 1819, the treaty was signed. It ceded the Floridas to the United States and defined the boundary between Mexico and the United States by drawing a line from the mouth of the Sabine River in a northwesterly ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard
... that the empresses had decided that she was worthy of the high rank to which she was to be raised. The marriage ceremony was deferred on more than one plea until after the emperor had reached his sixteenth birthday, but in October, 1872, there was thought to be no longer any excuse for postponement, and it was celebrated with great splendor on the 16th of that month. The arrangements were made in strict accordance ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... approach without being discovered, and make a simultaneous attack in more than one place, the royal forces, then probably either engaged in drinking their commander's health (the 15th happened to be the anniversary of the Duke's birthday, and was celebrated as such by his army), or sleeping off the effects of the debauch, must be completely surprised and cut to pieces, or at least effectually routed. The time appointed for setting out upon the march ...
— Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers and Other Poems • W.E. Aytoun
... was not at all indifferent in his own person to being comfortable. One with his intense power of enjoying the gentleness of the universe could not be so. Hence it was always easy to make him a little present; whereas I have still to rack my brains for weeks before my bear's birthday comes round, to think of something that will in itself have a chance of giving him pleasure. Of course, it would be comparatively easy if I had plenty of money to spare, and hadn't "to muddle it all away" in paying butchers and bakers, and ...
— The Vicar's Daughter • George MacDonald
... perhaps you know, they have the pretty custom of sending presents on St. Valentine's day, with the donor's name unknown, and, of course, the mystery constitutes half the enjoyment. The fourteenth of February was Libbie's birthday too, and many a year, in the happy days of old, had her mother delighted to surprise her with some little gift, of which she more than half-guessed the giver, although each Valentine's day the manner of its arrival was varied. Since then ...
— The Grey Woman and other Tales • Mrs. (Elizabeth) Gaskell
... enchanting glimpses of sapphire lake and emerald hill, and he was seized with an intense longing to return to his outdoor life. If he could only get back to his old environment for even a day, he felt he could readjust his ideas and see things more clearly. The 24th of May, the birthday of the good Queen, brought him the longed-for holiday. The office claimed him for a few hours in the morning, but early in the afternoon he hired a canoe, and, supplied with a gun and rod, a blanket and plenty of bread and meat, he paddled away into the blue expanse. He would go on until he came ...
— The Silver Maple • Marian Keith
... sought to drag her by marriage. Caligula suddenly declared her a goddess, to whom all the cities must pay honors. He had a temple built for her, and appointed a body of twenty priests, ten men and ten women, to celebrate her worship; he decreed that her birthday should be a holiday, and he wished the statue of Venus in the Forum to be carved in ...
— The Women of the Caesars • Guglielmo Ferrero
... are more scrupulously and formally observed in Germany than with us. There are cakes and lighted candles and flowers for the one whose birthday makes him for the time the most important personage in the family, and who sits in holiday dress in the reception-room, to receive the calls and congratulations of friends. Those who cannot call send letters and presents, which are displayed, with those ...
— In and Around Berlin • Minerva Brace Norton
... "With his usual impetuosity, he has selected tonight, and will pay the Embassy a formal call at nine o'clock, after the celebration at the Palace in honour of the birthday of one ...
— L. P. M. - The End of the Great War • J. Stewart Barney
... you, sweetheart," said Noel, with cheery assurance. "She has eyes of wedgewood blue, and hair of golden down, a mouth like a rose, and the jolliest little turn-up nose in the world. And she's going to be six next birthday." ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... anything else," Hsueeh P'an chimed in, "I wouldn't have made bold to disturb you; but it's simply in connection with my birthday which is to-morrow, the third day of the fifth moon. Ch'eng Jih-hsing, who is in that curio shop of ours, unexpectedly brought along, goodness knows where he fished them from, fresh lotus so thick ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... and in her patient industry Katie forgot how old she was growing, until suddenly, on her thirtieth birthday, something—the sight of a deepened line on her face, perhaps, or a pang of memory of the old childish past, such as birthdays always bring—something smote her with a sudden consciousness that life itself was slipping ...
— Between Whiles • Helen Hunt Jackson
... miniature lake, and we therefore left it in disgust and adjourned to the deerskin tent shared by Stepan and the drivers, hard snow being a preferable couch to several inches of icy-cold water. This happened to be my birthday, and Harding triumphantly produced a tiny plum pudding, frozen to the consistency of a cannon-ball, which he had brought all the way from England in honour of the occasion. But we decided to defer the feast until we could ...
— From Paris to New York by Land • Harry de Windt
... in new shoes or a new overcoat; sometimes in a pair of skates or in luncheon; and on a very red-letter day, such as a birthday or anniversary of some sort, in ...
— Christopher and the Clockmakers • Sara Ware Bassett
... Sissy's birthday, you know, JACK," says the nephew, with a squint through the door and around the corner of the adjoining apartment toward the crude picture over the mantel, "and, if our respective respected parents hadn't bound us by will to marry, ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 11, June 11, 1870 • Various
... of age for compulsory military service; during wartime the law allows for recruitment after reaching January of the year of inductee's 18th birthday, thus including 17 year olds; 17 years of age for volunteers; conscript service obligation - 12 months for the Army and Air Force, 15 ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... birthday, Mr. Craven," she went on, "and I have come to ask you to wish me many happy returns of the day, and to do something for ...
— The Uninhabited House • Mrs. J. H. Riddell
... containing the twenty-eight architects came down, and not one escaped death. This accident occurred a short time previous to the 8th of January, two years after Jesus had commenced preaching; it took place on Herod's birthday, the same day that John the Baptist was beheaded in the Castle of Marcherunt. No Roman officer attended these festivities on account of the affair of the aqueduct, although Pilate had, with hypocritical politeness, been requested to take a part in them. Sister Emmerich saw some of ...
— The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ • Anna Catherine Emmerich
... nursery, where Jane Dodson was not bad company when allowed to talk in her own slow way. There were to-morrow's lessons in the first place—pleasant, easy lessons to do alone, and not too much of them; and there was the kettle-holder she was making for grandmamma's birthday! But no, Biddy refused to listen. She was determined to carry out the wild scheme she had got in her head—'It will be nice to put Celestina down,' she said ...
— The Rectory Children • Mrs Molesworth
... 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 to strangers ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... return of the Druses," a "Blot in the 'Scutcheon," and "Colombo's Birthday," all have the same originality of conception, delicate penetration into the mysteries of human feeling, atmospheric individuality, and skill in picturesque detail. All three exhibit very high and pure ideas of Woman, and a knowledge, very rare in man, of the ways in which what is ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... far from an useless life. When he was seventy-four he succeeded to his father's peerage, on the death of his elder brother; but he did not long enjoy the title, by which, indeed, he was not very careful to be distinguished, and in the spring of 1797 he died, within a few months of his eightieth birthday. ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole
... port. Having carefully and warily decanted both, he changed the subject of his praise; and, assuring Clarence that the wine he was about to taste was at least as old as Master Clinton, having been purchased in joyous celebration of the young gentleman's birthday, he whiled away the minutes with a glowing eulogy on its generous qualities, till Mary entered with ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... creature listened carefully, and then climbed from Tom's knee to the table, on which stood an ornamental calendar that the Princess had given Tom for a Christmas present. With its tiny trunk the elephant pointed out a date—the fifteenth of August, the Princess's birthday, and looked ...
— The Book of Dragons • Edith Nesbit
... anything more needed today in rural life than this spirit of co-operation. The schools can perform no better service than in training young people to work together for common ends. In this work such things as special day programmes, as for Arbor Day, Washington's Birthday, Pioneer Day; the holding of various school exhibitions; the preparation of exhibits for county fairs, and similar endeavors, are useful and are being carried out in many of our rural schools. But the best example of this work is a plan that is being used in ...
— Chapters in Rural Progress • Kenyon L. Butterfield
... 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
... Reverend 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 secrecy, amid ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... enemy was near by. Inquiries and determination concerning a safe journey by land proceeded. I also heard that in the interior, about six days' journey away, there was healthy highland where our fever invalids could recuperate. I therefore determined to journey next to Sana. On the Kaiser's birthday we held a great parade in common with the Turkish troops—all this under the noses of the Frenchmen. On the same day we marched away from Hodeida to ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... my next birthday," said Archie, "and, sir, I've had some experiences in the last two weeks, which make me feel as if I were about five years older than I really am. I've been through some ...
— The Adventures of a Boy Reporter • Harry Steele Morrison
... 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 received at ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden
... many other things much more disturbing and important to the world than a girl's birthday; seventeen was gone, with passing events more complicated still and increasingly significant, but even the owners of the hands hovering over the Chessboard, which was the Map of Europe, did not keep a watch on all of them as close as might have been kept with advantage. ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... back as Amedee Violette can remember, he sees himself in an infant's cap upon a fifth-floor balcony covered with convolvulus; the child was very small, and the balcony seemed very large to him. Amedee had received for a birthday present a box of water-colors, with which he was sprawled out upon an old rug, earnestly intent upon his work of coloring the woodcuts in an odd volume of the 'Magasin Pittoresque', and wetting his brush from time to time in his mouth. The neighbors in the next ...
— A Romance of Youth, Complete • Francois Coppee
... wisdom, such as that of arts and handicrafts, is mean and vulgar. Now these spirits or intermediate powers are many and diverse, and one of them is Love.' 'And who,' I said, 'was his father, and who his mother?' 'The tale,' she said, 'will take time; nevertheless I will tell you. On the birthday of Aphrodite there was a feast of the gods, at which the god Poros or Plenty, who is the son of Metis or Discretion, was one of the guests. When the feast was over, Penia or Poverty, as the manner is ...
— Symposium • Plato
... her years, and she had at this critical moment in her step-mother, Margaret of York, an experienced and capable adviser at her side. A meeting of the States-General was at once summoned to Ghent. It met on February 3, 1477, Mary's 20th birthday. Representatives came from Flanders, Brabant, Artois and Namur, in the southern, and from Holland and Zeeland in the northern Netherlands. Mary saw there was no course open to her but to accede to their demands. Only eight days after the Assembly met, the charter of Netherland liberties, ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson
... to the end of her patience. "Listen, Theodor. I do not know whether to-day is your fete or not, but one thing I do know, that it is not Noemi's birthday. And yet more surely I know that Noemi will not marry you, if you were the only man on ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai
... Harrington's old nurse. Zoe often paid a visit to her cottage, but she never came to Vizard Court except on Harrington's birthday, when the servants entertained all the old pensioners and retainers at supper. Her sudden appearance, therefore, and in gala costume, astonished Zoe. Probably her face betrayed this, for the old lady began, "You wonder to see me here, ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... brilliant sunshine and warmth of South Africa, we managed to enjoy ourselves thoroughly during the ensuing two months. Then, with Nell's cordial approval, I put her to a first-rate school at Bath, where she remained until her eighteenth birthday, emerging therefrom a very beautiful, accomplished, and lovable ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... Marjorie Westford, an eccentric person, whose property at her death reverted to a distant relative. A short time before she died she divided her few trinkets and personal possessions between the three young people, bequeathing to Anna, in addition, a sealed letter, to be read on her twenty-first birthday. The girl hid the packet away lest she should be tempted to read it before the appointed time; but ere that arrived she was drowned by the upsetting of a boat, and never since had the concealed letter been found, although every likely place had been searched for it. Lucy never married, and George ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... of his birthday he received a matutinal call from Major Decies, who was returning from his daily visit to the ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren
... the Lady Sybilla, very gently; "such kindness is not for such as I am. But if I may, while I live I will keep the golden cross you lent me—the crucifix your brother gave to you on your birthday!" ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... safely be made while the passions excited by the French revolution were raging, he never uttered a word indicating that he should not be prepared at a more convenient season to bring the question forward a fourth time. The toast of Protestant ascendency was drunk on Pitt's birthday by a set of Pittites who could not but be aware that Pitt had resigned his office because he could not carry Catholic emancipation. The defenders of the Test Act called themselves Pittites, though they could not be ignorant that Pitt had laid before George the Third unanswerable ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 3. (of 4) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... * looks well,—seems pleased, and dressed to sprucery. A blue coat becomes him,—so does his new wig. He really looked as if Apollo had sent him a birthday suit, or a wedding-garment, and was witty and lively. He abused Corinne's book, which I regret; because, firstly, he understands German, and is consequently a fair judge; and, secondly, he is first-rate, and, consequently, the best of judges. I reverence and admire him; ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. II - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... and Impressions Adoption and Education of Piozzi's Nephew, afterwards Sir John Salusbury Life in Wales Character and Habits of Piozzi Brynbella Illness and Death of Piozzi Miss Thrale's Marriage The Conway Episode Anecdotes Celebration of her Eightieth Birthday Her Death and Will Madame D'Arblay's Parallel between Mrs. Piozzi and Madame de Stael Character of Mrs. Piozzi, ...
— Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi (Thrale) (2nd ed.) (2 vols.) • Mrs. Hester Lynch Piozzi
... I cannot sell my boat. Did I not make it myself, from an old fisherman's boat, with only a little help from Carlo, in his workshop on the canal of the chestnut trees? And of a truth I will not sell it to Nicolo. But I shall give it to him for his birthday gift, if in return he will carry old Grandmother Nanna every Sunday morning to early Mass, so that she will not miss it because I am ...
— Rafael in Italy - A Geographical Reader • Etta Blaisdell McDonald
... the kite-flying match, many had supposed that the feast in Dormitory No. 6 was not to come off, but Sam, Tom, Frank, and several others got their heads together and prepared for a "layout" for the following Wednesday, which would be Dick's birthday. ...
— The Rover Boys in the Jungle • Arthur M. Winfield
... priests put to death. For the destruction of the great temple of Hikozan, whose priests were reported to have prayed for the tyrant's death, he is said to have maliciously chosen the sixth day of the fifth month (1576),—the festival of the Birthday of ...
— Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation • Lafcadio Hearn
... to give your excellency unnecessary trouble, but if you would instruct your secretary to furnish the pardons this afternoon, we know of one man who will receive it as the greatest birthday present that can ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... Writing on his birthday, he inserted the prayer he had offered up to his patron-saint for the accomplishment of his desires, its burden indicating how near he believed himself to the longed-for goal: "O great Saint Honore, thou to whom is dedicated a street in Paris ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton
... Barry acting Queen Elizabeth in the coronation robes of James II.'s queen, who had before presented the actress with her wedding suit. Mrs. Barry is said to have given her audience a strong idea of Queen Elizabeth. Mrs. Bellamy played Cleopatra in a silver tissue "birthday" dress that had belonged to the Princess of Wales; and a suit of straw-coloured satin, from the wardrobe of the same illustrious lady, was worn by the famous Mrs. Woffington, in her performance of Roxana. The robes worn by Elliston, when he personated George IV., and represented the ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... 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 ...
— The Flight of Pony Baker - A Boy's Town Story • W. D. Howells
... the birthday in the little nest in the raspberries, and on my usual morning call I found four featherless birdlings, with beaks already yawning for food. Every morning, of course, I looked at the babies, but it was not ...
— A Bird-Lover in the West • Olive Thorne Miller
... Laurence Clayton. The others were instructed by a governess at home. Laurence was a fine boy, the hope and pride of his family. For nine birthdays he had received gifts from the hand of his father as the reward of his good conduct, and now his tenth birthday was approaching, and Mr. Clayton had heard so pleasing an account of Laurence from his schoolmaster, that he said, beside the present he meant to give him, he would on the birthday grant any favour Laurence should ...
— The Bad Family and Other Stories • Mrs. Fenwick
... girl, aged nine, called her father to her bedside the other evening. "Papa," said the little diplomat, "I want to ask your advice." "Well, my little dear, what is it about?" "What do you think would be best to give me on my birthday?" ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls - Volume XIII, No. 51: November 12, 1892 • Various
... was holding a great pagan festival. The object of this meeting has been disputed, some authorities saying that it was convoked to celebrate the Beltinne, or fire of Bal or Baal; others, that the king was commemorating his own birthday. On the festival of Beltinne it was forbidden to light any fire until a flame was visible from the top of Tara Hill. Laeghaire was indignant that this regulation should have been infringed; and probably the representation of his druids ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... for a little girl's birthday," came from the Monkey on a Stick. "You are right, Tin Soldier, that doll was very clever at answering the riddles the ...
— The Story of a White Rocking Horse • Laura Lee Hope
... is on the north-east slope, facing Surrey. The poet laid the foundation stone on April 23 (Shakespeare's birthday), 1868: the inscription on the stone running "Prosper thou the work of our hands, O prosper thou our handiwork." Of the site Aubrey de Vere wrote:—"It lifted England's great poet to a height from which he could gaze on a large portion of that English land which he loved so ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... on this our Lord's birthday, Lit by the glory whence she came, Peace, like a warrior, stands at bay, ...
— Mr. Punch's History of the Great War • Punch
... aggravated by the ominous outlook in the political world. But the house was finally completed, and was blessed by Father Hecker on the 24th of November, the feast of St. John of the Cross, one of his very special patrons. This was within a few weeks of his fortieth birthday. On the 27th of the same month, the first Sunday of Advent, the chapel was blessed and Solemn Mass was celebrated in it. Thereafter the Fathers had to act as parish priests as well as missionaries. A few weeks before this the first recruit joined ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... folks have themselves a regular birthday but this old colored man just pick out any of the days during the year—one day just about as good ...
— Slave Narratives, Oklahoma - A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From - Interviews with Former Slaves • Various
... where he had not the least competence; and in general the Montenegrins resented the dictation of the Russian staff, even where it had every reason to urge its own views of the operations. On the occasion of the next birthday of the Czar, which was as usual celebrated in Montenegro by a diplomatic and official dinner, the Prince refused to come to the table, sending Duby to preside. Jonine was extremely unpopular with Prince and people, owing to his dictatorial ways. The Austrian representative had ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume II • William James Stillman
... MARCH 6TH.—My birthday—55. Bright and frosty; subsequently warm and pleasant. No news. But some indignation in the streets at the Adjutant-General's (Cooper) order, removing the clerks and putting them in the army, ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... Charlotte; but instead, Jack stood before him. Jack, on account of the occurrence of his mother's birthday, had a holiday, and was at work with his books. Ida was asleep on her bed in the alcove. The two men looked at each other in silence. This time the poet had not the advantage. In the first place, he was not at home; next, how could he treat as an inferior this tall, proud-looking ...
— Jack - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... bring his young Canadian friend, who, he was secretly convinced, stood sorely in need of just such benediction as his saintly aunt could bestow. The day of Jack Charrington's coming to Ruthven Hall was the birthday of his better life, when he had a vision of his profession in the light of that great ministry to the world's sick and wounded and weary by Him who came to the world "to heal." In another sense, too, it was for him the beginning of days, for ...
— The Doctor - A Tale Of The Rockies • Ralph Connor |
