"Heirloom" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... have long ago come to such a pass that neither I in my old age can give the Roman people any better gift than a good successor, nor you in your prime anything better than a good emperor. Under Tiberius, Caligula, and Claudius, Rome was the heirloom of a single family. There is a kind of liberty in the free choice we have begun to exercise. Now that the Julian and Claudian houses are extinct, by the plan of adoption the best man will always be discovered. Royal birth is the gift of fortune, and ...
— Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II • Caius Cornelius Tacitus
... habits. Etiquette, in all ranks of the people, was highly esteemed. The Persians, as a nation, were bright-minded, and not deficient in fancy and imagination. But they contributed little to science. Their religious ideas were an heirloom from remote ancestors. The celebrated Persian poet, Firdousi, lived in the tenth century of our era. His great poem, the Shahnameh, or Book of Kings, is a storehouse of ancient traditions. It is probable that the ancient poetry of the Persians, like this production, was of moderate merit. ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... household duty courtesy ceases (for the genius of the house is more important than the personal dignity of the wife), and the sinner is castigated (wird tuechtig durchgepeitscht). The whip used, the household sword and sceptre, is handed down from generation to generation as a sacred heirloom." I have translated this passage instead of alluding to it, because I thought it was an occasion on which Herr Riehl should literally ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick
... France. A fine copy of the Forteresse du Foy belonged to Claude d'Urfe, whose library of 4000 books, 'all in green velvet,' was kept in his castle at La Bastie; when all the others were dispersed the Gruthuyse volume remained as an heirloom, and descended to Honore d'Urfe, the dreariest of all writers of romance. In 1776 it belonged to the Duc de la Valliere, and was purchased for the French Government at one of his numerous sales. ...
— The Great Book-Collectors • Charles Isaac Elton and Mary Augusta Elton
... goose; I have a scar upon my thimble finger, Which chronicles the hour of young ambition. My father was a tailor, and his father, And my sire's grandsire, all of them were tailors; They had an ancient goose,—it was an heirloom From some remoter tailor of our race. It happened I did see it on a time When none was near, and I did deal with it, And it did burn ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VI. (of X.) • Various
... to himself, as he took the glass and raised it to the light, and winked at it wickedly, "this is some rare old spirit peculiar to the district—some old heirloom kept specially ...
— Diary of a Pilgrimage • Jerome K. Jerome
... Terence's schooling, for Terence's clothes, for one thing and another that required money. They had gone, oh! so quickly; had melted away so certainly. That first visit of her son's to England had cost Mrs. O'Shanaghgan her long string of pearls, which had come to her as an heirloom from her mother before her. They were very valuable pearls, and she had sold them for a tenth, a twentieth part of their value. The jeweler in Dublin, who was quite accustomed to receiving the poor lady's trinkets, had sent her a check for fifty pounds ...
— Light O' The Morning • L. T. Meade
... nation in Europe, an instinct even deeper, and tenderer, and more unselfish—the instinct of chivalry; and the widowed queen, or the prince, became to them a precious jewel committed to their charge by the will of their forefathers and the providence of God; an heirloom for which they were responsible to God, and to their forefathers, and to their children after them, lest their names should be stained to all future generations by the crime of baseness toward ...
— All Saints' Day and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... preciousness of the household linen which has been for generations an heirloom in a family. Yet in numerous instances, linen sheets, table-cloths, and napkins, from one hundred and twenty to two hundred years old, which no money could have purchased, were dedicated, often by those who had nought else to give, to ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... superstition exists, trade upon it, and in old times in Denmark this brought them a rich harvest. They persuaded the farmers' wives that they must have inherited silver, or they could do nothing against evil influences, and acquired thereby many an old-fashioned heirloom. With us they have never pursued, as you ...
— A Danish Parsonage • John Fulford Vicary
... his bedroom, and soon came down with a bundle of letters wrapped in a newspaper. He started looking through them while all the family stood around him, watching as eagerly as if he were searching for an heirloom. ...
— Pictures of Jewish Home-Life Fifty Years Ago • Hannah Trager
... wear it," said Lady Blanchemain. "It's a woman's ring, of course. But as for accepting it, you need have no scruples. It's an old Blanchemain gem, that was in the family a hundred years before I came into it. It's properly an heirloom, and you're the heir. I give it to you for a purpose. Should you ever become engaged, I desire you to placcit upon the ...
— My Friend Prospero • Henry Harland
... dining-room is a handsomely carved mahogany sideboard, a family heirloom, containing china and silver which belonged to mother and grandmother, and here hang very old steel engravings of Washington and Lincoln. The large, light kitchen, with its hard coal range, is a favorite ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... within a few hours of her arrival—had shown her yesterday. There was the same hard, stern, relentless look on the face. In reality, the miniature was copied from an old portrait of Colonel Pyncheon which hung within the house. Was it that the expression had been transmitted down as a precious heirloom, from that Puritan ancestor, in whose picture both the expression, and, to a singular degree, the features, of the modern judge were shown as by a ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume V. • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... "set in silver. But then, it's big, and a very pure stone, my mother says; and quite shows that the family must have been something, for it is an heirloom." ...
— Five Little Peppers at School • Margaret Sidney
... This continual pilfering, I was assured, was a serious tax on the cultivation of the estates around. But I was told, too, frankly enough, by the very gentleman who complained, that this habit was simply an heirloom from the bad days of slavery, when the pilfering of the slaves from other estates was connived at by their own masters, on the ground that if A's Negroes robbed B, B's Negroes robbed C, and so all round the alphabet; one more evil instance of the demoralising effect of a state of ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... philosophy: yea, it would perhaps be no exaggeration to say that, in the subordination of all strivings after education to reasons of State, Prussia has appropriated, with success, the principle and the useful heirloom of the Hegelian philosophy, whose apotheosis of the State in this subordination ...
— On the Future of our Educational Institutions • Friedrich Nietzsche
... from him, and he was "hedged" accordingly by a certain sacredness or "divinity." I well remember with what surprise and pride I found myself asked by a blacksmith's wife in a remote hamlet among the hop-gardens of Kent, if I was "the son of the Self-interpreting Bible." I possess, as an heirloom, the New Testament which my father fondly regarded as the one his grandfather, when a herd laddie, got from the Professor who heard him ask for it, and promised him it if he could read a verse; and he has in ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... carving, what the moths had left of the tapestries, all testified to that; and, as for the evil days, they hung about the place, evident even by the light of one candle guttering with every draught that blew from the haunts of the rats, an inseparable heirloom for all ...
— Don Rodriguez - Chronicles of Shadow Valley • Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, Baron, Dunsany
... other side being filled with a bookcase and books. There were two or three pictures on the walls; one was a portrait of Voltaire, another of Lord Bacon, and a third was Albert Durer's St. Jerome. This latter was an heirloom, and greatly prized I could perceive, as it was hung in the place of ...
— The Autobiography of Mark Rutherford • Mark Rutherford
... moment then, She poised upon the dishpan's utmost verge The heirloom teapot old, with flowers bedight. ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... life save those they voluntarily assumed. The women who sewed night and day upon garments for field and hospital, were the same who were wont to employ their white hands with fragile china and heirloom plate, or dally with needlework in the morning room. These were the mothers who, standing by the slaughtered first-born, gave his sword to the next son, and bade him go at his country's call. There was the spirit of heroism not surpassed by the heroes of the sterner ...
— Historic Papers on the Causes of the Civil War • Mrs. Eugenia Dunlap Potts
... the best of intentions, government created a poverty trap that wreaks havoc on the very support system the poor need most to lift themselves out of poverty: the family. Dependency has become the one enduring heirloom, passed from one generation to the next, of too ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... infant was proclaimed king over each grave—heir to France and England, to Valois and Lancaster. Poor child, his real heirloom was the insanity of the one and the doom of the other! Well for him that there was within him that holy innocence that made his ...
— The Caged Lion • Charlotte M. Yonge
... They vanish'd in a stinking smoke. Achilles' sceptre was of wood, Like Sid's, but nothing near so good; Though down from ancestors divine Transmitted to the heroes line; Thence, thro' a long descent of kings, Came an HEIRLOOM,[6] as Homer sings. Though this description looks so big, That sceptre was a sapless twig, Which, from the fatal day, when first It left the forest where 'twas nurs'd, As Homer tells us o'er and o'er, Nor leaf, nor fruit, nor blossom bore. Sid's sceptre, full ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... word was a curious one. It took the form of a pearl necklace, her one possession of value, last surviving heirloom of the Quineys, of whom she was the last surviving descendant: her last tangible evidence, too, of those bygone better days. She never wore it, and it never saw the light save when she unlocked the worn jewel-case to make sure that her treasure had ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... going to ask Mrs. Tupman to take them home herself," said Mrs. Triplett, "but she left earlier than I thought she would, and I had no chance to say anything about them. We oughtn't to trust anything as valuable as gold beads that are an heirloom to any outsider, no matter how honest. They might be lost. Suppose you just wear them home to her. Do you feel like doing that? And keep them on your neck till she unclasps them with her own hands. Don't leave them with ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston
... Stake asked for their wage, three pounds of gold apiece; and further they asked to carry to Rolf Stake those costly things which they in his behalf should choose. These were the helmet Battleboar, and the corslet Finnsleif, which no weapon could pierce, and the gold ring called Sviagriss, an heirloom from Adils' forefathers. But the King denied them all the costly things, nor did ...
— The Red True Story Book • Various
... poor old pa give you this to go to school on, did he? Son, you're gettin' a pile more education out of this than you would in college. No, honey, you just keep your locket. It ain't worth five dollars. Did you? That jeweler ought to have my job, 'cause he sure robbed you! You call that watch an heirloom? Heirloom is my middle name, miss. Just get them danglers out'n your ears, lady. Thanks! Don't hurry, mister; ...
— Way of the Lawless • Max Brand
... It would not be strange if he contemplated self-destruction as a means of putting my mother and myself positively beyond the reach of poverty. He had rowed out to White Rock. He had left the old watch—I had the heirloom in my pocket now—for the boy who was yet to grow up and bear his name. The fog and the Sally Smith had appeared together and offered him means ...
— Swept Out to Sea - Clint Webb Among the Whalers • W. Bertram Foster
... all the treasure he had taken in the barrow; but one matter there was thereof, on which he must needs keep his eyes; this was a short-sword, so good a weapon, that a better, he said, he had never seen; and this he gave up the last of all. Thorfinn was blithe to see that sword, for it was an heirloom of his house, and had never yet gone out of ...
— The Story of Grettir The Strong • Translated by Eirikr Magnusson and William Morris
... old Blake portraits still presided, and he found, for the first time, an artless humour in the formality of the ancestral attitude—in the splendid pose which they had handed down like an heirloom through the centuries. Among them he saw the comely, high-coloured features of that gallant cynic, Bolivar, the man who had stamped his beauty upon threegenerations, and his gaze lingered with a gentle ridicule on the blithe candour in the eyes and ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... of time the Sutherland table had been drawn out to a cosy position near the fire and spread with a substantial repast, while Mrs. Lister took her place behind the ponderous old silver urn which had been an heirloom in her husband's family for the last two centuries. The Listers were full of talk about their own travels—a long-delayed continental tour which had been talked of ever since their return from the honeymoon ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... Carroll's paper was shown him immediately after the success of the campaign, by the late Hon. Elisha Whittlesey,[35] of Ohio (Mr. Whittlesey had asked Miss Carroll for a copy that he might leave it in his family as an heirloom); notes Miss Carroll's statement that no military man had ever controverted her claim to having ...
— A Military Genius - Life of Anna Ella Carroll of Maryland • Sarah Ellen Blackwell
... had bronzed it with its harvest suns and blown on it with its winter winds. She wore always the same garb of homely dark-blue serge, always the same tall white head-gear, always the same pure silver ear-rings that had been at once an heirloom and a nuptial gift. She was always shod in her wooden sabots, and she always walked abroad with a staff of ash. She had been born in the Berceau de Dieu; had lived there and wedded there; had toiled there all her life, ...
— Stories By English Authors: France • Various
... their nature," replied the Earl, "there was my wife's coronet, her diamond necklace, and the Ellersdeane butterfly, of which I suppose all the world's heard—heirloom, you know. It's a thing that can be worn in a lady's hair or as a pendant—diamonds, of course. As to their value—well, I had them valued some years ago. They're worth about a ...
— The Chestermarke Instinct • J. S. Fletcher
... their dictionary, from the time which preceded their separation, but that they likewise retained the names of some of their deities, some legends about their gods, some popular sayings and proverbs, and in these, it may be, the seeds of parables, as part of their common Aryan heirloom. Their mythological lore fills, in fact, a period in the history of Aryan thought, half-way between the period of language and the period of literature, and it is this discovery which gives to mythology its importance in the eyes of the student of the ...
— Chips From A German Workshop, Vol. V. • F. Max Mueller
... as though he would forbid the selling of the heirloom; but it closed again, because he knew he had no right to withhold it from the hammer; and he took on a look like that which comes to the eyes of a child when it faces humiliating denial. Quickly as it came, however, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... the privilege of spending more than they could afford on house and clothing; with rare exceptions they had no hope, no chance, of reaching independence; enough if they upheld the threadbare standard of respectability, and bequeathed it to their children as a solitary heirloom. The oldest looked the poorest, and naturally so; amid the tramp of multiplying feet, their steps had begun to lag when speed was more than ever necessary; they saw newcomers outstrip them, and trudged under ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing
... trader; 'too good for a Kanaka.' 'How much you got? I take him all,' replied his majesty, and became the lord of seventeen boxes at two dollars a cake. Or again, the merchant feigns the article is not for sale, is private property, an heirloom or a gift; and the trick infallibly succeeds. Thwart the king and you hold him. His autocratic nature rears at the affront of opposition. He accepts it for a challenge; sets his teeth like a hunter going at a fence; and with no mark of emotion, scarce even of interest, stolidly piles up ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... nondescript helpers living on the crumbs of the munificent house—and Charles Gould beheld all the extent of his domestic establishment, even to the gatekeeper. This was a half-paralyzed old man, whose long white locks fell down to his shoulders: an heirloom taken up by Charles Gould's familial piety. He could remember Henry Gould, an Englishman and a Costaguanero of the second generation, chief of the Sulaco province; he had been his personal mozo years and years ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... look with some interest. She had never had an opportunity of examining it closely before, and she now said, "I am much inclined to believe that this is the belt that used to be an heirloom in the Jerfield family, and which ought to be in ...
— My Young Alcides - A Faded Photograph • Charlotte M. Yonge
... birth, but of Irish extraction, and to an attentive ear there was a faint echo of the brogue in his tone, which seemed to have been handed down to him as a threadbare and almost worn-out heirloom. ...
— The Dog Crusoe and his Master • R.M. Ballantyne
... gave the whole a finishing touch as she drew round her cousin's not very slender waist a black band fastened with a silver clasp—an heirloom in the family since the time that the Macivors used to wear the Highland ...
— Shenac's Work at Home • Margaret Murray Robertson
... present writer still has in his possession, as a cherished heirloom, the sword and sash of his grandfather, the owner of Tanshelf House, Pontefract, as well as of residences at ...
— A History of Horncastle - from the earliest period to the present time • James Conway Walter
... error," quoth Adrian, smiling back, "for one of your seals bear unmistakably the arms of Cochrane of the Shaws, doubtless some heirloom, some inter-marriage." ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... was losing its soft curves and rose tints. Celia was another of his favorites, and he knew she was having her battle with misfortune, meeting it as bravely as a young woman could. Thomas Gilpin might so easily have smoothed the way for her. The spinet was an interesting heirloom, no doubt, but would not help Celia solve the problem ...
— Mr. Pat's Little Girl - A Story of the Arden Foresters • Mary F. Leonard
... awoke with such a feeling of repose, of being at home at last. I was lying in a poster bed, which Mrs. Clayton had told me was an heirloom from North Carolina. In my view was a lovely bureau of mahogany; on a stand a vase of roses; at the windows snowy curtains; on the walls pictures of Mr. Clayton in his soldier's uniform, and of Reverdy as a young boy and ...
— Children of the Market Place • Edgar Lee Masters
... known of the history of the MS. from 1547 to 1723, when it was in possession of the Regent Philippe d'Orlans. Possibly it had remained as an heirloom in the family. Philippe gave it to his natural son the Abb Rothelin, a great lover of rare books and a noted collector, at whose death it was bought by Gaignat, another collector, who sold it to the Duc de la ...
— Illuminated Manuscripts • John W. Bradley
... say nothing of the painted Renaissance architecture and the historic legends which looked like solid realities when the facade was studied. But "Mizraim is become merchandise"; and all that is now left of what should have been a treasured and priceless heirloom is but a monument to the shame of that citizen, a banker, who could condemn such a thing to destruction as indifferently as if it had been a cowshed, and to the shame of the municipality which, at any cost, did not prevent it. Some hasty sketches—due to individual ...
— Holbein • Beatrice Fortescue
... tapestry hangings it turned out there was a secret door. And her betrothal ring had gone from off her hand. This ring was of an unusual pattern; seven little gold stars alternated on it with seven silver stars; it was an old family heirloom. Her husband asked her what had become of the ring; she could give him no answer. Her husband supposed she had dropped it somewhere, searched everywhere, but could not find it. He felt uneasy and distressed; he decided to go home as soon as possible and directly the doctor allowed ...
— Dream Tales and Prose Poems • Ivan Turgenev
... fury of blow on blow, and down to the eyebrows, cleft, fly shattered the skulls beneath. In them no defect is found, save only that in their swords are notches, a many, gained from smiting of host on host: An heirloom of old, those blades, from the fight of Halimah's day, and many the mellay fierce that since has their temper proved; Therewith do they cleave in twain the hauberk of double woof, and kindle the rock beneath ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... said poor mother. 'It's an heirloom, quite irreplaceable. I do not know how I shall ever have courage to tell my father-in-law. No, I can't blame my maid. I told her not to touch it, as the General had fastened it himself all ready. But how can ...
— The Girls and I - A Veracious History • Mary Louisa Stewart Molesworth
... astonished lover, "how can you term them borrowed, when they are the Patterne jewels, our family heirloom pearls, unmatched, I venture to affirm, decidedly in my county and many others, and passing to the use of the mistress of the house in the natural ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... shade trees. Regarded simply from a commercial point of view one cannot make a more paying investment than setting out an oak, elm, maple or other shade tree about his premises. To a second generation it becomes a precious heirloom, and the planter is duly held in remembrance for those finer qualities of heart and head, and the wise forethought which prompted a deed simple and natural, but a deed too often undone. What an increased value ...
— Our Common Insects - A Popular Account of the Insects of Our Fields, Forests, - Gardens and Houses • Alpheus Spring Packard
... considered a dispenser of coins. Still, I rather like the idea of possessing this queer bit of money as a pocket-piece. I intend to keep it forever, and let it descend as an heirloom to the generations that follow me," he said, laughingly. "Why are ...
— Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... ring, ornamented her looking glass. It was while gazing at the latter that she was reminded of her wonderful mother's tales of the ancient Saxons and sea-foragers of the English coasts. From the chest of drawers that had crossed the plains she drew forth another of her several precious heirloom—a scrap-book of her mother's in which was pasted much of the fugitive newspaper verse of pioneer California days. Also, there were copies of paintings and old wood engravings from the magazines of a generation ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London
... he exclaimed; "it is one I myself gave her mother, telling her that it was an heirloom, and that she should bestow it upon her daughter. I doubt not that she fastened it round her neck before she fled from home, that should she and the child be separated, she might again recognise her by it. And you say the little girl you met was called Elizabeth? ...
— John Deane of Nottingham - Historic Adventures by Land and Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... most part, inherited that precious heirloom of contentment and elasticity, and were as happy in nooks and corners in bedroom, nursery, staircase or kitchen, as they could have been in extensive play-rooms ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... there is still a much-prized heirloom now in Glasgow—a rustic chair used by the Prince when in Skye. The story is that, secreted in one of his cave dwellings, he espied a lad in his immediate vicinity tending some cows. Hunger made him reveal himself, with the result that ...
— Secret Chambers and Hiding Places • Allan Fea
... Thus, much debate was spent on how voting qualifications should be regulated, and whether the old county court should be abolished or not. Fairfax County's representatives in the convention voted for retaining the county court, arguing that the monthly sessions had significant social values—an "heirloom of great psychological importance." Ultimately, however, the vote went against retention of the county court and it was abolished. Its judicial functions were assigned to the circuit court, and its legislative and administrative functions were performed ...
— The Fairfax County Courthouse • Ross D. Netherton
... it on the sleeves, and cut out thus good uppers and sewed them carefully; then soaked the soles and sewed the cloth to them. I am so proud of these home-made shoes, think I'll put them in a glass case when the war is over, as an heirloom. H. says he has come to have an abiding faith that everything he needs to wear will come out of that trunk while the war lasts. It is like a fairy casket. I have but a dozen pins remaining, so many I gave away. Every ...
— Famous Adventures And Prison Escapes of the Civil War • Various
... belongings was hard to be borne. The dresser; like enough there would not be room for the dresser in the boat—Mary had no notion as to the size of the vessel that was to convey her and her belongings to America—and what about the bed then? The bed, a valuable heirloom which had stood in its own particular corner of the cabin for nearly a century, which had been Mary's mother's bed, the pride and joy of Mary's heart, and the envy of the neighbours. What in the world was to be done with this priceless treasure? Good-natured as she ...
— North, South and Over the Sea • M.E. Francis (Mrs. Francis Blundell)
... Italy; but these very stories, these 'Maehrchen' which nurses still tell, with almost the same words, in the Thuringian forest and in the Norwegian villages, and to which crowds of children listen under the Pippal-trees of India—these stories, too, belonged to the common heirloom of the Indo-European race, and their origin carries us back to the same distant past, when no Greek had set foot in Europe, no Hindoo had bathed in the sacred waters of ...
— The Antediluvian World • Ignatius Donnelly
... see the decoration laid on that already gasping breast, without any consciousness on the part of the poor hero. His mother and wife, at least, before they buried him, could take the glorious emblem to hand down as heirloom and as instruction to his three little ones. It is a noble idea of the French Government, to give the decorations of soldiers killed by the enemy to their families—their widows, their orphans, or, if they are not married, to their old parents. During ...
— World's War Events, Volume III • Various
... standing near Mrs. Judge Ryder and the girls just now. 'Did you ever see such an upstart?' And, 'What an extravagant dress she has on—it is ridiculous,' Josephine Ryder said. When Ben Somers heard this attack on you, he told them that your lace was an heirloom. Here he is." Mr. Parker took her away, and Ben Somers went in pursuit of a seat. The quadrille was over, I was engaged for the next, and he had not come back. I saw nothing of him till the country dance before supper. He was at ...
— The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard
... years, and thinks all the world of Sir Charles, and showed me the damask table-cloths that were used for the prince's visit, and the white satin coverlet, embroidered with gold thistles, quite an heirloom, which had been worked by the ladies of the house when James I. slept there. ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... Emperor Saimei that I was first brought here from Kudara; and I dwelt in the august residence until the time of the Emperor Saga, when I was augustly bestowed upon the Lady Kamo, Naishinn[o] of the Imperial Court.[69] Thereafter I became an heirloom in the House of Fuji-wara, and so remained until the period of H[o]gen, when I was dropped into the well. There I was left and forgotten during the years of the great war.[70] The Master of the Well[71] was a venomous Dragon, who used to live in a lake ...
— The Romance of the Milky Way - And Other Studies & Stories • Lafcadio Hearn
... me and this casket, and the cross mentioned in this scroll, there is a mysterious link. The cross is an amulet, an heirloom of dreadful potency for good and ill. It has been disturbed; it has been stolen from my father's grave, and there is but one way of setting right that disturbance. To avert unspeakable calamity from falling upon two entire families (the family of Aylwin and that of her to whom this ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... I offered for this heirloom of the Templeton family? Ten? Ten! Fifteen over there, thank you, Mr. Cody. Why, gentlemen, that bed cannot be duplicated in America! A real product of Colonial art! Look at the colour of it! Where will you find such ...
— Great Possessions • David Grayson
... a fault. It is a beauty, an heirloom, a distinction. A local accent is like a landed inheritance; it marks a man's place in the world, tells where he comes from. Of course it is possible to have too much of it. A man does not need to carry the soil of his whole farm around with him on his boots. But, within limits, the accent of ...
— Fisherman's Luck • Henry van Dyke
... wanted any tools sharpened carried their instruments, the smith being able to put a better edge on. Other blacksmiths or carpenters, if they required a particularly good edge for some purpose, came to him. This art he had acquired from his grandfather as a sort of heirloom or secret. The grandfather while at work used to trouble and puzzle himself how to get a very sharp edge, and at length one night he dreamed how to do it. From that time he became prosperous. ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... rather say skirmish, of Villers en Couche? If I am rightly informed, it must be one of the most remarkable actions on record, when the comparative numbers of the troops engaged are taken into consideration. We have, as an heirloom in our family, a medal won by an officer on that occasion: it is suspended from a red and white ribbon, and is ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 192, July 2, 1853 • Various
... hesitate for a moment. Breaking into a run, he dashed across the hall toward a wall where hung a heavy sword, an heirloom that had not been used for a hundred years. Before he could be stopped he tore it from its fastenings and started toward the nearest of the ruffians, who brought him to a standstill with ...
— High Noon - A New Sequel to 'Three Weeks' by Elinor Glyn • Anonymous
... mortal illness at home, and Consuelo is implored to return there. She does so, and a marriage in articulo mortis follows, the supposed dead Zdenko (whom we did not at all want) turning up alive after his master's death. Consuelo, fully if not cheerfully adopted by the family, is offered all the heirloom jewels and promised succession to the estates. She refuses, and the book ends—with fair warning that it is ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... Judge Ellis before the Democratic State Convention at Charlotte, and from that period dates his downward career. He advocated the Douglas movement, and then supported Breckinridge and Lane. He voted for and signed the Ordinance of Secession, declaring he intended to preserve as an heirloom in his family the pen with which he attached his name to the ordinance; and then he became the head and front of the Union element in the State during the war. At the close of the war, as we have seen, he was made Provisional Governor ...
— School History of North Carolina • John W. Moore
... a family heirloom which needs but a little restoring, is a precious thing for the Mason, ever sparing of her time. We find so many of the old homes repaired and restocked that I suspect the Bee of laying new foundations only when there are no secondhand ...
— The Mason-bees • J. Henri Fabre
... "A family heirloom, then," said the Doctor in a tone which showed his interest. "Now I understand," and he smiled pleasantly. "I hope that 'he is not foolish enough to wear it at any time.'—Of course; hardly an article of ornament for a young scholar to wear, ...
— Glyn Severn's Schooldays • George Manville Fenn
... vitals of my great grandfather and dwelt there many years, tormenting the old gentleman beyond mortal endurance. In short it is a family peculiarity. But, to tell you the truth, I have no faith in this idea of the snake's being an heirloom. He is my own snake, and ...
— Mosses from an Old Manse and Other Stories • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... thought no more of the matter until the following spring, when on entering the hut she found on the table half a dozen large spoons of pure silver with her name engraved thereon in neat letters. These spoons long remained an heirloom in the clergyman's family to testify the truth of the story. A Swedish book, published in 1775, contains a tale, narrated in the form of a legal declaration solemnly subscribed on the 12th April 1671 by the fortunate midwife's husband, whose name was Peter Rahm, and who also seems ...
— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland
... my dear Mueller, he has done so, and in wrath. You know well that hastiness of temper is an heirloom of the Brandenburg princes, and Frederick William can not deny that he has the family failing. Yes, he has dismissed me; but then, you know, it was perfectly natural, for he loves the Princess Ludovicka Hollandine, and I ventured ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... dinginess, and the faded, patched chintz sofa, that was not only comfortable, but respectable, in the old wainscoted sitting-room, has suddenly turned into "an object," when lang syne goes by the board and the heirloom is incontinently set adrift. Undertake to move from this tumble-down old house, strewn thick with the debris of many generations, into a tumble-up, peaky, perky, plastery, shingly, stary new one, that is not half finished, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... outward loveliness advertised a nature equally lovely, but for my sudden and extreme interest I had other excuses. Her in dependence in earning her living, her choice in earning it among books and pictures, her pride of family as shown by her efforts to buy the family heirloom, all these justified my admiration. And her refusing to go joy-riding with an impertinent stranger, even though the impertinent stranger was myself, was an act I applauded. The more I thought of Miss Briggs the more was I disinclined to go away leaving with her an impression of myself so ...
— The Log of The "Jolly Polly" • Richard Harding Davis
... procured the whisky. Hardly thinking it possible his mother should have money in her possession, so careful was he to prevent it, he questioned, and found that she had herself provided the half-crown required, and that her mistress had given her in return a valuable brooch, an heirloom, which was hers only to wear, not to give. He took this from her, repaid her the half-crown, gave her her wages up to the next term, and sent Mrs. Bremner home with her immediately. Her father being one of his own tenants, he rode ...
— Heather and Snow • George MacDonald
... there came to this man another—and, in time, others— of like nature, chosen by the gods—and so they worked together; and soon they fashioned, from the moistened earth, forms resembling the gourd. And with the power of creation, the heirloom of the artist, presently they went beyond the slovenly suggestion of Nature, and the first vase was ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... saw him distinctly; he had put off his threadbare Sunday clothes and wore the uniform he had brought home with him from the war, the match to Baard's, and which he had promised his brother never to touch but to leave for an heirloom, Baard having given him a similar promise. Anders' uniform was now patched and worn; his strong, well-built frame was encased, as it were, in a bundle of rags; and, at the same time, Baard heard the gold watch ticking in his own pocket. Anders walked to where the fagots lay; instead ...
— A Happy Boy • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... 16: "A decided predilection for the aristocracy appears to have lingered as an heirloom of the past in the older ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins
... are children, and otherwise sitting behind them. The barber has a prescriptive right to receive the clothes in which the bridegroom goes to the bride's house, as on the latter's arrival he is always presented with new clothes by the bride's father. As the bridegroom's clothes may be an ancestral heirloom, a compact is often made to buy them back from the barber, and he may receive as much as Rs. 50 in lieu of them. When the first son is born in a family the barber takes a long bamboo stick, wraps it round with cloth and puts an earthen pot over it and carries this round to the relatives, ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... boy, you will be honoured to-night. You must save this scarf as an heirloom, for when you get it back it will be deeply stained with the ...
— The King's Esquires - The Jewel of France • George Manville Fenn
... engraved: "Presented to Hon. J.R. Lynch, Speaker of the House of Representatives, by the Members of the Legislature, April 19, 1873." That watch the writer still has and will keep as a sacred family heirloom. ...
— The Facts of Reconstruction • John R. Lynch
... to her mother's mother and grandmother; and she remembered some happy smiles which it had reflected. Of course, if she could have offered the priests a certain sum of money in place of the mirror, she could have asked them to give back her heirloom. But she had not the money necessary. Whenever she went to the temple, she saw her mirror lying in the court-yard, behind a railing, among hundreds of other mirrors heaped there together. She knew ...
— Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things • Lafcadio Hearn
... small amounts, a safe investment that paid six per cent. and escaped taxation. These people didn't want to be paid. In many cases their fathers had loaned the money to the town, and the safe and sound six per cent. seemed an heirloom too ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... buttering a delicious French roll and she was daintily pouring tea from an old family heirloom. The contrast between this and the dust and the grease of a midday meal at the end of a "chuck wagon" lent accent to ...
— Wyoming, a Story of the Outdoor West • William MacLeod Raine
... now mounted to L10 6s. Again the cup was dashed from her lips, for I had only given her L9. But she went to the Rabbi, and offered if he supplied the balance to repledge the Sabbath silver candlesticks that were the one family heirloom in the bundle, and therewith repay him instantly. While she was pleading with him, in came a noble Jew, paid the balance, lodged her and fed her, and saw her safely on board with the ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... than a mere fortune, his work he left as an heirloom for all time; his drawings, not the least among them without the stamp of his genius; his prints, still unsurpassed, though it was he who first developed the possibilities of etching; his pictures, "painted with light," as Fromentin has said. His subjects he may have ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 8 (of 8) • Various
... and three strips of bacon, so we insisted that we must share and share alike, or we would have nothing. I made the tea, in a battered tin pot which looked like an heirloom, and we all sat at an uncovered kitchen table together, though our host protested. It was fun; and the old thing told us weird tales of the forest which made me conscious that I have a spine and marrow, ...
— Set in Silver • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... north, east, south, and west. So she sent a rather spiky one in the direction of her husband who was sitting due east, so that it probably got to him at once, and smiled the particular hard firm smile which was an heirloom inherited from ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... table, covered with a perfectly white cloth, stood a basin of broth, with some toast, a little brandy in a wine-glass, a jug of water, and a tumbler. The books, including the Bible, had apparently not been read much, and were probably an heirloom. As Zachariah began to recover strength he read the Ferguson. It was the first time he had ever thought seriously of Astronomy, and it opened a new world to him. His religion had centred all his thoughts upon the earth as the theatre of the history of the universe, ...
— The Revolution in Tanner's Lane • Mark Rutherford
... company for ever. With merchant-like exactness, every tittle was reckoned up and shared. The old house was to be sold to a Jew for a sum already agreed on, and one item only remained which they could not divide, an heirloom's value being fixed upon it. That was the Coverdale Bible with which their grandfather had fled ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 432 - Volume 17, New Series, April 10, 1852 • Various
... said the ghost of Mr. Surveyor Pue, emphatically nodding the head that looked so imposing within its memorable wig,—"do this, and the profit shall be all your own! You will shortly need it; for it is not in your days as it was in mine, when a man's office was a life-lease, and oftentimes an heirloom. But, I charge you, in this matter of old Mistress Prynne, give to your predecessor's memory the credit which will be rightfully due!" And I said to the ghost of Mr. Surveyor Pue, ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... "What—the heirloom you used to eat your porridge out of?" Ralph detained her hand to put a kiss on it. ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... worn as a festival dress, is now seldom met with; but Captain Bob had often shown us one which he kept as an heirloom. It was a cloak, or mantle, of yellow tappa, precisely similar to the "poncho" worn by the South-American Spaniards. The head being slipped through a slit in the middle, the robe hangs about the person in ample drapery. Tonoi obtained sufficient coarse brown tappa to make ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... her hand, and the beams fell full upon her soft, white dress and the Eucharis lily in her hair. She had twisted a string of pearls three times round her neck—it was an heirloom of great value. The other ornaments were all Richard's gifts; two broad bands of gold set with pearls and diamonds upon her arms, and the diamond ring which had been the pledge of her betrothal. She was ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... wrist; the bodice is a stiff and most elaborately ornamented piece of armor; and there is a kind of breastplate, or center-piece, of gold, silver, and precious stones, or what passes for them; and the head is adorned with some monstrous heirloom, of finely worked gold or silver, or a tower, gilded and shining with long streamers, or bound in a simple black turban, with flowing ends. Little old girls, dressed like their mothers, have the air of creations of ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... bit of scarlet in the service;" while he added, in a whisper, "it's the ould Roscommon Yeomanry. My uncle commanded them in the year '42, and this was his coat. I don't mean to say that it was new then; for you see it's a kind of heirloom in the Quill family, and it's not every one I'd be ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... brought me a very valuable crucifix of ivory, a family heirloom, she said. Not afflicted with the sin of hypocrisy, I told my generous lady frankly that I do not ...
— The Crushed Flower and Other Stories • Leonid Andreyev
... Edward with the splendid silver-hilted sword which he wore, itself an heirloom of the Stuarts. Then he gave him over into the hands of Fergus Mac-Ivor, who forthwith proceeded to make Waverley into a true son of Ivor by arraying him in the tartan of the clan, with plaid floating over his shoulder and buckler glancing ...
— Red Cap Tales - Stolen from the Treasure Chest of the Wizard of the North • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... by the look in her eyes. But though a green turban's as good as an heirloom, and extorts respect wherever it goes, even a Hadji may have jealous detractors. I have mine. Another green turban in this town, whose genuineness is doubted for some obscure reason or other, has sneered ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... the rounds of the treasure room, pointing out and giving the history of each precious family heirloom or art object with an encyclopedic knowledge that should have caused his companion to wonder how he knew so much. Several times he slipped in the pronoun I, hoping that this might have some effect in waking ...
— Officer 666 • Barton W. Currie
... breezes coming in from the bay of Naples. Some courageous citizens returned, searching in the hot ashes for the crashed-in roofs of their villas, to recover this or that. Perhaps they hoped to salvage the strong box in the atrium, or a heirloom from the triclinium. But soon they gave up. Despairing, or hoping for better days to come, they vanished in the mist of time. Pompeii, the fair, the hospitable, the gay city, just like any individual out of luck, was and stayed forgotten. The Pompeians, their joys, sorrows, ...
— Cooking and Dining in Imperial Rome • Apicius
... another, as the years passed by, bore witness to the loyalty of his heart; for he would not abandon the pre-historic tailor who was a sort of heirloom in the Collin family. In consequence, the rise and fall of William's coat, in its caudal parts, as he walked down the aisle with the plate on the Sabbath day, had become part of St. Cuthbert's ritual—and we all thought it beautiful. ...
— St. Cuthbert's • Robert E. Knowles
... quite a swell, with a tortoise-shell visor to his cap and a Malacca sword-cane which swung from a gold cord. He was as much pleased over it as a boy with his first watch, and informed me that it had been used to assassinate his uncle, ex- President Rojas. As he seemed to consider it a very valuable heirloom, I moved my legs so that, as though by accident, my sword fell forward where he could see it. When he did he exclaimed upon its magnificence, and I showed him my name on the scabbard. He thought it had been presented to me for bravery. He was very ...
— Captain Macklin • Richard Harding Davis
... brought down after the heroes' fall; yea, the Danish princes slew him! See now, a son of one or other of the men of blood, glorious in apparel, goes through the hall, boasts of the stealthy slaying, and bears the goodly heirloom that thou of ...
— Epic and Romance - Essays on Medieval Literature • W. P. Ker
... confusedly; and in due course of time, when King Edward had been long in his grave, and Kate was a staid grandmother, the crown-piece held the place of honour on her son's chest of drawers as a prized family heirloom. ...
— The White Lady of Hazelwood - A Tale of the Fourteenth Century • Emily Sarah Holt
... pearls. But then her face, So lovely, yet so arch, so full of mirth, The overflowings of an innocent heart— It haunts me still, though many a year has fled, Like some wild melody! Alone it hangs Over a mouldering heirloom, its companion, An oaken chest, half-eaten by the worm, But richly carved by Antony of Trent With Scripture stories from the Life of Christ, A chest that came from Venice, and had held The ducal robes of some old ancestor. That by the way—it may ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard
... that Molly's reason for refusing to join could have been a truly good one. I should add that her most precious possession—a treasure which accompanied her even if she went away for only one night's absence—was an heirloom, a little miniature portrait of the old Molly Stark, painted when that far-off dame must have been scarce more than twenty. And when each summer the young Molly went to Dunbarton, New Hampshire, to pay her established family visit to the last survivors of her connection who bore the name of Stark, ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister
... "I have long, long kept a bridal veil in my closet," she went on, "and knew not it was to be mine!" Opening a wardrobe, she took out a long black veil. It had belonged to her grandaunt, the nun, Madelaine de Repentigny, and was kept as an heirloom in her family. ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... but it was afterwards judged that I had special qualifications for the part of Princess. Like the youths in Comus, my unrazored lips in those days were as smooth as Hebe's, and I had a slenderness that was quite in keeping. Dressed in an old brocade gown, an heirloom from the century before, with a lofty white wig, and proper patches upon my pink cheeks, I essayed the role of une belle dame sans merci. Brooks and I were rivals for the affection of Tom Thumb, and I do not recall which ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer
... little to do with it, and, to her, it has come to represent some sort of entailed possession that becomes more sacred every year. It's a family heirloom, like a title, or some very old and valuable piece of jewelry. Other people have family plate and family traditions, but we've got a vineyard, or, to speak more ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... can do is to consign him to Madge," said Mrs. Arnold, with an affected air of deep regret. "It is certain that he clings to the family, and his great wealth would be an heirloom ...
— Marguerite Verne • Agatha Armour
... their ancient customs and liberties were to be held as of inheritance from the king and his heirs. They became, therefore, the property of the citizens, and were bequeathed from father to son, as a cherished heirloom. It is true that under Richard I. they were exposed to some extortion, for which they received ample amends during the reign of his weak and inglorious successor. Not only did they obtain five different charters confirmatory of ...
— The Corporation of London: Its Rights and Privileges • William Ferneley Allen
... affection, and in due course he will give me to his daughter among her wedding presents (much to her annoyance, but the bridegroom will soothe her). This will happen through several generations until I find myself an heirloom. . ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... 11.45 p.m.—Maid came to bedroom-door with some cough lozenges which she asked me to take to the new billet. Took them. Private Montease thanked me, but said he didn't mind coughing. Said it was an heirloom; Montease cough, known in highest circles all over Scotland since time of ...
— Deep Waters, The Entire Collection • W.W. Jacobs
... grim, black-browed style. The new black velvet dress, with its train and V-neck, which she had made purposely for the party, became her stately, massive figure. She wore coiled around her neck the rich heavy necklace of amber beads which was a family heirloom. Her walk in the frosty air had stung her cheeks into a glowing scarlet. But her steel-blue eyes were as icy and unyielding as the sky of the winter night. She stood waiting in a silence which Rosemary could break only by a ...
— Rainbow Valley • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... galloping away from five wild redskins, who not only desire to kill him then and there, but have, further, the sportsman-like anxiety to strip his scalp, and hang the dearly-beloved trophy in some filthy lodge, where it will gradually dry up, and remain the most valued heirloom in the family of the "Big Snake," or the "Screeching Eagle," or some other no ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various
... that will be next to love? I will some time let him know of the friends my literary efforts have brought me. I know he will be proud of the judgment that scholarly men, whose opinions he honors, have placed upon the heirloom of intellectual ability that has been my sole dower from my dear father and his learned ancestors. And when I am Ross Norval's wife I will reveal myself to these letter-friends of my inner life, and, meeting them no longer ...
— Not Pretty, But Precious • John Hay, et al.
... of 1891, as her uncle proposed to make his home with his cousins, the Cartlands, in Newburyport, his niece had this ancient desk sent there. Mr. Whittier was greatly pleased, upon his arrival, to find in his room the heirloom which was hallowed by so many associations connected not only with his ancestry, but with his own early life. Nearly all of the literary work of his last year was done upon this desk. To his niece ...
— Whittier-land - A Handbook of North Essex • Samuel T. Pickard
... appropriateness to inaccurate vigor of utterance or meaningless beauty of sound. Its favorite measure, the decasyllabic couplet, moulded by Jonson, Sandys, Waller, Denham, and Dryden, it accepted reverently, as an heirloom not to be essentially altered but to be polished until it shone more brightly than ever. Pope perfected this form, making it at once more artistic and more natural. He discountenanced on the one hand run-on lines, alexandrines, hiatus, and sequence ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... Possessing such an heirloom myself, I can therefore readily sympathise with those who own a similar treasure—such, for example, as the famous, or rather infamous, Drummer of Cortachy Castle, who is invariably heard beating a tattoo before the death of a member of the clan ...
— Scottish Ghost Stories • Elliott O'Donnell
... loaves of cake awaiting with lemonade, and something warm for those who desired it. An ancient service of rare and unique design was brought out by Clara for the occasion. It belonged to her husband's family in France and came to him as an heirloom. The contrast between it and the mulberry set which mother gave me struck me as singular, but the flowers and figures of the mulberry ware did not fall into insignificance. They were to me the embodiment of beauty. Among my earliest disappointments was the giving ...
— The Harvest of Years • Martha Lewis Beckwith Ewell
... in the success you have obtained, and I wish to keep that part throughout your future successes—and even failures. The latter will not do you any great harm, provided that you know how to keep that attachment to work, and that perseverance in noble ideas, which are the chief heirloom of the artist. Lassen tells me that we are shortly to hear your "Tasso" here: my attentive sympathy is wide awake; so fulfil your promise, dear Franz, by coming before the end of this month, and we will talk at our ease at the Hofgartnerei of our ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 2: "From Rome to the End" • Franz Liszt; letters collected by La Mara and translated
... no written message to my lord the duke, only a ring of gold hung in a little bag about my neck, that our abbot said would stand me in better stead with William, recalling past services and duties, and would be thought, were I taken by the pirates, but some harmless relic or valued heirloom. Now, the ring had on it but the letter "A," and the motto ...
— The Fall Of The Grand Sarrasin • William J. Ferrar
... are you going to augment or squander that solemn trust fund? are you going to disinherit your sons and daughters of the heirloom which your parents left you? Ah! that cannot be possible, that cannot be possible that you are going to take such a position as that. You are very careful about the life insurances, and careful about ...
— The Wedding Ring - A Series of Discourses for Husbands and Wives and Those - Contemplating Matrimony • T. De Witt Talmage
... am, sir. Was not the O'Caharney your ancestor? Is it likely that an old race had not traits of feature and lineament that ages of descent could not efface? I'd swear that strong brow and frank look must be an heirloom.' ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... that was lost,' I said, 'worth ever so much, and an heirloom too. Didn't you know? Cousin Dorothea knew. Mother lost it the day of the Drawing-room. Oh,' as light began to break in upon me, 'it must have dropped on to your cape and caught in the fur—it is very fuzzy fur—and ...
— The Girls and I - A Veracious History • Mary Louisa Stewart Molesworth
... Athens," said he, "were republics—commercial and maritime—placed under the same sky, surrounded by the same neighbours, and rent by the same struggles between Oligarchy and Democracy. Yet, while one left the world an immortal heirloom of genius, where are the poets, the philosophers, the statesmen of the other? Arrian tells us of republics in India, still supposed to exist by modern investigators; but they are not more productive of liberty of thought, ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book VI • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... of this memorable Sunday that Sir Everard entered the library, where he narrowly missed surprising our young hero as he went through the guards of the broadsword with the ancient weapon of old Sir Hildebrand, which, being preserved as an heirloom, usually hung over the chimney in the library, beneath a picture of the knight and his horse, where the features were almost entirely hidden by the knight's profusion of curled hair, and the Bucephalus which he bestrode concealed by the voluminous robes of the Bath ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... savour which our citizens lack mightily. I would fain merit your esteem, heedless of those pursy fellows from hulks and warehouses, with one ear lappeted by the pen behind it, and the other an heirloom, as Charles would have had it, in Laud's Star-chamber. Oh, they are proud and bloody men! My heart melts; but, alas! my authority is null: I am the servant of the Commonwealth. I will not, dare not, betray it. ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... Belgian gets a little book, giving his name and his wife's, their ages, their occupations, and address. As children are born their names are added. A Belgian holds as fast to this book as a woman to a piece of jewellery that is an heirloom. ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer |
