"Childless" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... traditional Edwardian policy in Scotland, and accepted David's offer. David returned to Scotland and laid before his Parliament the less violent of the two schemes, the proposal that, in the event of his dying childless, Prince Lionel of England ...
— An Outline of the Relations between England and Scotland (500-1707) • Robert S. Rait
... a centre of ideal activity and accumulation. So, it afterwards seemed, was her image left in his imagination. Twenty-six years passed in absence and silence. Humboldt had become famous and prominent, and was blessed with a happy family. Charlotte had been married, and was now a childless widow. Deprived of her parents, her husband, her property, she was overwhelmed with misfortunes. Her large property having been devoted to the State, it occurred to her that her old friend, of the three youthful days at Pyrmont, now a minister of the king, might assist her ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger
... edited his Discourses, and Simon Patrick who delivered the remarkable sermon on the occasion of his funeral.[4] From these sources we learn that John Smith was born at Achurch near Oundle about the year 1618, "of parents who had long been childless and were grown aged." It appears incidentally that his parents were poor, and that Benjamin Whichcote, who was Smith's college Tutor, made "provision for his support and maintenance" in his early student days.[5] He entered Emmanuel College in 1636, and here he came under the profound religious ...
— Spiritual Reformers in the 16th & 17th Centuries • Rufus M. Jones
... his magnificent house was the centre of literary society in Rome, He helped both Virgil and Horace in a substantial manner, and the latter is constantly referring to him in his poetry. He died (8 B. C.) childless, and left his ...
— History of Rome from the Earliest times down to 476 AD • Robert F. Pennell
... nations, the Chinese have an overmastering desire to have children. More than death itself the Chinaman fears to die without leaving male progeny to worship at his shrine; for, if he should die childless, he leaves behind him no provision for his support in heaven, but wanders there a hungry ghost, forlorn and forsaken—an "orphan" because he has no children. "If one has plenty of money," says the Chinese proverb, "but no children, he ...
— An Australian in China - Being the Narrative of a Quiet Journey Across China to Burma • George Ernest Morrison
... singular cloud came one night in the Adirondack hunting lodge of Norman Westfall, a young Southerner whose inheritance of a childless uncle's millions had made him a conspicuous figure months before. He was living there with his sister and both, as usual, were at odds with the grim old father down South who resented the wild, unconventional ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple
... To the childless old people, Andreas and Gretchen Futteral, leading their sweet orchard life, there comes, in the dusk of evening, a stranger of reverend aspect—comes, and leaves with them the "invaluable Loan" of the baby Teufelsdroeckh. ...
— Among Famous Books • John Kelman
... to 1760.*—The last three rulers of the Tudor family had died childless. James, king of Scotland, their cousin, therefore inherited the throne and became the first English king of the Stuart family. James reigned from 1603 to 1625. Many of the political and religious problems which had been ...
— An Introduction to the Industrial and Social History of England • Edward Potts Cheyney
... come into the story afterwards, were three sons, Harald Ungi or Harald the Young, Magnus nick-named Mangi, and Ragnvald, and three daughters, Ingibiorg, Elin[44] and Ragnhild, all of whom, so far as the Saga relates, died childless save Ragnhild, whose son by her second husband Gunni, was Snaekoll Gunni's son, who about 1230 claimed the Ragnvald lands in Orkney from Earl John, son of Earl Harold Maddadson,[45] and complained that Earl John was keeping him out of his rights in Caithness to Ragnvald's share of the earldom ...
— Sutherland and Caithness in Saga-Time - or, The Jarls and The Freskyns • James Gray
... My child isn't a centipede. Considering the way they move us about in those horrid jungle stations, without a decent bungalow to set one's foot in, I consider I've got a hearthless child, rather than a childless hearth. Thank you for your sympathy all the same. I dare say it was well ...
— Reginald in Russia and Other Sketches • Saki (H.H. Munro)
... his sister's rose had many a thorn; he did not say so, however, though the words trembled on his lips, and the thought would not be banished from his mind; and, for the first time in his life, he rejoiced that he was childless. But D'Elsac was in such a deep darkness then, that, beholding faults in his nearest and dearest connexions, made him look upon men with disgust; for he saw not, nor knew of that blood of the Lamb, which, "though men's sins be as scarlet, yet ...
— The Young Lord and Other Tales - to which is added Victorine Durocher • Camilla Toulmin
... fears a pauper fate, So hoarding is his ruling passion:— Some gloomy souls anticipate A waistcoat, straiter than the fashion! She childless pines, that lonely wife, And secret tears are bitter shedding; Hector may tremble all his life, And die,—but not of ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various
... of modesty to all he does Richelieu came and shackled the nation Rochefoucault, who, I am afraid, paints man very exactly See what you see, and to hear what you hear Seems to have no opinion of his own Seldom a misfortune to be childless She has uncommon, sense and knowledge for a woman Speaking to himself in the glass Style is the dress of thoughts Success turns much more upon manner than matter Tacitus Take characters, as they do most ...
— Widger's Quotations from Chesterfield's Letters to his Son • David Widger
... for at either entrance stood small eaved lodges in which were housed the two gardeners and their wives. To be lodge-keeper to the Park was as great a guarantee of respectability in Norton as to be vicar of the parish church itself. Only middle-aged, married, teetotal, childless churchmen could apply for the posts, and among their scant ranks the most searching inquiries were instituted before an appointment was finally arranged. It is safe to affirm that no working couples on earth were more clean, industrious, ...
— Flaming June • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... something queer stirred in me with a sharp pain and then was quiet. He was the most delicious bit of five-year-old humanity I had ever beheld and I doubt if any childless woman could have seen such a child cuddle to another woman's breast and shoulder and not have had something of the same thrill of pain. His whiteness and pinkness and sturdy chubbiness were like many another infant's charms but his jet black top-knot that ascended on ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... to Virginia. He came here four years ago and settled at Curies on the upper James River. His uncle, who lives in Virginia, was a member of the king's council. He is Nathaniel Bacon, senior, a very rich politic man and childless, who designs his nephew, Nathaniel ...
— The Real America in Romance, Volume 6; A Century Too Soon (A Story - of Bacon's Rebellion) • John R. Musick
... wherever there are human beings there are the little histories. I have come home realizing anew how happy I am, how much I have been spared, and how many of life's blessings are mine. Poor Mrs. Louderer, childless and alone, openly envying Mrs. O'Shaughnessy her babies! In my bedroom there is a row of four little brown heads asleep on their pillows. Four precious kiddies all my own. And not the least of my blessings, you to tell my happiness to. Has my trip interested you, dear friend? I hope you liked ...
— Letters on an Elk Hunt • Elinore Pruitt Stewart
... came to him from his father, John the Fearless, in 1419. In 1421, he bought Namur. In 1430, he declared himself heir to his cousins in Brabant and Limbourg when Duke Anthony's second son followed his equally childless brother into a premature grave, and the claims were made good in spite of all opposition. Holland, Zealand, and Hainaut became his through the unwilling abdication of his other cousin, Jacqueline, in 1433. To save the life of her husband, Frank van Borselen, the last representative ...
— Charles the Bold - Last Duke Of Burgundy, 1433-1477 • Ruth Putnam
... Childless mothers, orphaned daughters, From the seaward-facing crag, Vainly searched the vacant waters For that unreturning flag! But, suspense and tears are ended, Lo! it floats upon the breeze! Ne'er from eager hearts ascended Thankful prayers as warm ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)
... who "wrought this deed of shame,"' I reflected, but then I understood that he had been 'reconciled' to Rome before he died, had given gifts to the Church, built the chapel here, and so 'made a good end.' On the other hand I remembered that he had died childless. ...
— Border Ghost Stories • Howard Pease
... they are removed from the senses. The artifices to which so many have recourse to conceal their declining years, are often intended more to soothe themselves, than to impose on others. This aversion to growing old is specially natural and excusable in the celibate and the childless. The ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 17, No. 483., Saturday, April 2, 1831 • Various
... By the childless charm-stricken bed Where, barren of glory and good, Knowing nought if she would not or would, England slept ...
— Songs before Sunrise • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... if it were a queen's, and went on his way, thinking of the little daughter whose death left him childless in ...
— A Modern Cinderella - or The Little Old Show and Other Stories • Louisa May Alcott
... and aspiring, but it had fallen into decay and dejection. Pale young men, with flurried-looking wives, seemed to Boyce to occupy most of the houses. Sometimes three or four couples would live in one house. Most of these appeared to be childless. The women made a pretence at fashionable dressing, and wore their hair elaborately in fashions which somehow suggested boarding-houses to Boyce, though he could not have told why. Every house in the block needed fresh paint. Lacking this renovation, the householders tried ...
— The Shape of Fear • Elia W. Peattie
... makers and mothers. But the world is now far from those ancient ways and out-of-date ideals. Marriage has little to do with home making these modern days. It has almost nothing to do with children. We have, in our down-to-date-ism, come to be a nation of childless wives and homeless husbands. We are dwellers in flats, apartments, hotels, where children would be in the way but dogs are welcome if only they be useless dogs. We live in houses that are always for sale or rent. It is our proud boast that we possess nothing that is not on the market ...
— Their Yesterdays • Harold Bell Wright
... which, as we explained before, he had inherited claims from Valentina Visconti, his grandmother; and, secondly, his spiritual aid to dissolve his marriage with Jeanne, the daughter of Louis XI; a childless and hideously deformed woman, whom he had only married by reason of the great fear he entertained far her father. Now Alexander was willing to do all this far Louis XII and to give in addition a cardinal's hat to his friend George d'Amboise, provided only that the King of France would use his ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... neglect me for other women, as you neglected Zinita for Nada the Beautiful, Nada the witch. I am childless, as are all your wives because of the curse that this Nada left behind her. I demand that this curse should be lifted from me. For your sake I abandoned Lousta the Chief, to whom I was betrothed, and this is the end of it, that I am ...
— She and Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... character of his position. The First Man could n't help getting a certain reputation, would he, n'ould he. But from Adam to Adrian—silence. Then sudden silvery music. And Adrian—mark the predestination—Adrian is childless. He is the last link. With him the chain, five thousand years long, stops. He is the sudden brilliant flare-up of the fire before it goes out. Well, now, tell me—which end of this stick would you prefer to be? The shining silver handle, or the dull ...
— The Lady Paramount • Henry Harland
... were likely to be advanced if Henry died leaving a daughter to succeed him. They would all inevitably be advanced if he died childless; and no great political sagacity was required to foresee the probable fate of the country if such a moment was chosen for a French and Scottish invasion. The very worst disasters might be too surely looked for, and the hope ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... the room And back again, pausing awhile to bask And wink its painted fans on the warm sill; A bird piped in the roses and there came Into the childless mother's ears a sound Of happy ...
— The New Morning - Poems • Alfred Noyes
... found that other small fires continued to occur. He searched the roofs of the houses, and on two or three found little smouldering balls of rolled-up cloth. Knowing of the superstition he called all the childless married women of the place together and admonished them severely, and the fires stopped. On another occasion the same officer's wife was ill, and his little son, having fever, was sent daily to the dispensary ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... married, she sighed over the miseries of the wedded state; if they were single, she bewailed their solitary, useless condition; if they were parents, she pitied them for having children; if they had no children, she pitied them for being childless. But one of her own letters will do greater justice to the turn of her mind than the ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... foundation; but Buckingham, by installing the "widow of his own creation" in his own and his wife's house, outraged even the lax opinion of that day. He was thought to have originated the project of obtaining the divorce of the childless queen. He intrigued against James, against Sir William Coventry—one of the ablest statesmen of the time, whose fall he procured by provoking him to send him a challenge—and against the great duke of Ormonde, who was dismissed in 1669. He was ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... tongue by reporting his words to the king, and bearing false witness against him." On this renewed persecution the prophet does not as usual give way to lamentation, but hurls his maledictions. "O Jehovah! give thou their sons to hunger, deliver them to the sword; let their wives be made childless and widows; let their strong men be given over to death, and their young men ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume II • John Lord
... which might give rise to this horrible doubt in other men's minds now struck him, one after another, as plain, obvious, and exasperating. That a childless old bachelor should leave his fortune to a friend's two sons was the most simple and natural thing in the world; but that he should leave the whole of it to one alone—of course people would wonder, ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant
... of a fated or gifted hero is familiar in Eastern tales, and he is often described as a divine reward to a long-childless king. This element of fate or destiny is, however, not seen before this age in Egyptian ideas; nor, indeed, would it seem at all in place with the simple, easygoing, joyous life of the early days. ...
— Egyptian Tales, Second Series - Translated from the Papyri • W. M. Flinders Petrie
... realise to the full the unfortunate position of a childless widow. According to the custom of the country, the nearest male relative on her husband's side should have been her protector, but this duty devolved on a nephew who was an opium smoker, gambler, and unregenerate ...
— The Fulfilment of a Dream of Pastor Hsi's - The Story of the Work in Hwochow • A. Mildred Cable
... male line from one (or more) of the forty noblemen who forced King John to sign the Magna Charta are what our Washington Mrs. Malaprop would call “legible,” the action attests a diseased condition of the community. Any one taking the trouble to remember that eight of the original barons died childless, and that the Wars of the Roses swept away nine tenths of what families the others may have had, that only one man in England (Lord de Ros) can at the present day prove male descent further back than the eleventh century, must appreciate the absurdity of our compatriots’ pretensions. Burke’s ...
— The Ways of Men • Eliot Gregory
... women stay'd. One laden was with years and care, A gray and faded dame, Of Judah's ancient lineage, And Naomi her name; And two were daughters of the land, Fair Orpah and sweet Ruth, Their faces wearing still the bloom, Their eyes the light of youth; But all were childless widows, And garb'd in weeds of woe, And their hearts were full of sorrow, And fast ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume VI - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... college. He was a delightful specimen of a country parson. Cheerful, unaffected, and good-natured, there was a dash of quaintness or roughness about his manners, that reminded you of the crust in very fine old port. He had been a widower, and childless, for fifteen years. His parish had been ever since his family, whom he still watched over with an affectionate vigilance. He was respected and beloved by all. Almost every man, woman, and child that ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... there she stands, Childless and crownless in her voiceless woe; An empty urn within her withered hands, Whose holy dust was scattered long ago; The Scipios' tomb contains no ashes now: The very sepulchres lie tenantless Of their heroic dwellers; dost thou flow, Old Tiber! through a marble wilderness? ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... blessing makes us merry, we laughed at Philumene's cunning, and her childrens experience in the art, which wou'd profit 'em little with us; for to no other end were they left, but to be heirs to what we had. When reflecting on this sordid manner of deceiving childless age, I took occasion to consider the condition of our present fortune, and told Eumolpus that the deceivers might be deceiv'd, that therefore all our actions shou'd be of a piece with the character we bore. "That Socrates, the wisest of men, us'd to boast he never ...
— The Satyricon • Petronius Arbiter
... is still in force, Lady Helga visits Brand's wife, Jorun. Childless herself, she desires to foster up one of Jorun's sons in her own cruel way, promising, in return, to procure an honorable peace for Brand; or else, to destroy him. The loving mother staunchly refuses. But ...
— Poet Lore, Volume XXIV, Number IV, 1912 • Various
... Fenn's books, which involve dire situations with pirates in the China Seas, and other such places, the entire action of this book takes place in a small English village. The local doctor, having retired childless, decides he would like to adopt a boy. Being a Governor of the local Institute for the Poor he goes there and selects a boy who at the age of two had been a foundling, and who is now ...
— Quicksilver - The Boy With No Skid To His Wheel • George Manville Fenn
... Though formerly married, she was true to her kind in being childless. All her interests were in senses of her own; or in the senses of men and women who fell beneath her eye; pale, narrow temples were hers, but crowded with what sensational memories! A hundred and a few odd pounds, every ...
— Fate Knocks at the Door - A Novel • Will Levington Comfort
... had a wonderful faculty for winning the love of women. His father had made a second marriage with a lady of considerable means; and the affection of the step-mother, who seems to have been herself childless, was soon centred on her husband's elder son.[1145] At her death he was found to be her heir, and the fortune thus acquired was added to or increased by another that had also come by way of legacy from a woman. This benefactress was Nicopolis, a woman ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... the reason," said Hemangini quickly. "You must have committed some sin. Look at my aunt. She is childless. It must be because her heart has some wickedness. But what wickedness is in ...
— The Hungry Stones And Other Stories • Rabindranath Tagore
... voices reply, Little ones' hands at your skirts softly pull; Widowed and lonely and childless am I, Empty my ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson
... Notwithstanding this tragical result, however, the murderer alike of the father and the son boldly returned to Paris, where he was visited and congratulated by numbers of the nobles, who, instead of shrinking from all contact with a man who had desolated the hearth and home of a sorrowing and now childless widow, were loud in their encomiums on his bravery and skill. Nor was this the most revolting feature of the case; for it is on record that Marie de Medicis herself, in her eagerness to retain the alliance of his family, no sooner learnt ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 2 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... [Sidenote: Thord goes to Hoskuld] To this Hoskuld agreed, and had it bound by witnesses. This Melkorka took heavily, deeming the fostering too low. Hoskuld said she ought not to think that, "for Thord is an old man, and childless, and I wish Olaf to have all his money after his day, but you can always go to see him at any time you like." Thereupon Thord took Olaf to him, seven years old, and loved him very dearly. Hearing this, the men who had on hand the case against ...
— Laxdaela Saga - Translated from the Icelandic • Anonymous
... learned the secrets of witchcraft from an old woman. By means of this unholy knowledge, along with several other evil deeds, she so bewitched the whole princely race that the six young princes, who were each wedded to a young wife, remained childless; but no public notice was taken until Duke Francis succeeded to the duchy in 1618. He was a ruthless enemy to witches; all in the land were sought out with great diligence and burned, and as they unanimously named the Abbess of Marienfliess [Footnote: Sidonia never attained ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V1 • William Mienhold
... them. He is a little loose, shy, independent person. Except for eating and drinking—in moderation, he has never done anything real from the day he was born. He has frequently not even faced the common challenge of matrimony. Still more frequently is he childless, or the daring parent of one particular child. He has never traded nor manufactured. He has drawn his dividends or his salary with an entire unconsciousness of any obligations to policemen or navy for these punctual payments. Probably he has never ventured even to reinvest his little legacy. ...
— War and the Future • H. G. Wells
... father When he is childless will be happier. As for the State, I think our state of Florence Needs no adulterous pilot at its helm. Your ...
— A Florentine Tragedy—A Fragment • Oscar Wilde
... on the coast of Ponthieu. Its count sold him to the Duke; and as the price of return to England William forced him to swear on the relics of saints to support his claim to its throne. But, true or no, the oath told little on Harold's course. As the childless King drew to his grave one obstacle after another was cleared from the earl's path. His brother Tostig had become his most dangerous rival; but a revolt of the Northumbrians drove Tostig to Flanders, and the earl was able to win over the Mercian house of Leofric to his cause by owning Morkere, ...
— History of the English People, Volume I (of 8) - Early England, 449-1071; Foreign Kings, 1071-1204; The Charter, 1204-1216 • John Richard Green
... she said, "as a poor, desolate, old childless widow could hope to be. There is no happiness left for me ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... feast days did he indulge in meat or wine; his time was passed in prayer and study; by day he taught the Law to students, whom his fame had drawn to Bacharach; and by night he gazed on the stars in heaven, or into the eyes of Beautiful Sara. His married life was childless, yet there was no lack of life or gaiety in his home. The great hall in his house, which stood near the synagogue, was open to the whole community, so that people went in and out without ceremony, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... there are many childless folk who would envy you your charge, but, methinks, you have the air of one who is burdened with a hidden grief. Now, if I can, by hearing it, assuage it, and you would fain bring it to me, I would do what in me lies as a minister of Christ to ...
— Penshurst Castle - In the Days of Sir Philip Sidney • Emma Marshall
... very tall, and being in bad health might have died suddenly. My being received, argued nothing against this, since the first nine days after a death, the house is invariably crowded with friends and acquaintances, and the widow, or orphan, or childless mother must receive the condolences of all and sundry, in the midst of her first bitter sorrow. There seems to be no idea ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... in silent thoughtfulness for a few moments, he added: "Of my two sons by Artaynta, one died in childhood; the other was killed in battle, before I came to Athens. I had never ceased my exertions to discover you; but after I became childless, it was the cherished object of existence. Some information received from Phoenician sailors led to the conclusion that I owed my misfortune to Greek pirates; and when the Great King informed me that he had need of services in Athens, I cherfully ...
— Philothea - A Grecian Romance • Lydia Maria Child
... off at once for London, but on the way thought of nothing but the disturbance in his life that would be caused if her death forced him to undertake the care of her son. He was well over fifty, and his wife, to whom he had been married for thirty years, was childless; he did not look forward with any pleasure to the presence of a small boy who might be noisy and rough. He had ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... especially well governed just then. A. Young, i. 480. Serfdom still existed in some remote French provinces, especially in the Jura mountains. Its principal characteristic was the escheating to the lord of the property of all serfs dying childless.] And in France prosperity was growing. The peasant's taxes were constantly getting heavier, but his means of bearing them increased faster yet. The rising tide of material prosperity, the great change of modern times, could ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell
... human egg, must travel through these tubes to reach the uterus and, if they are destroyed, has no other way of reaching the womb and, if it cannot reach the womb and be impregnated, cannot develop into the babe, then we realize how this disease is dooming women to childless lives,—women whose natural instincts and desires cry out for motherhood. When we consider the factors that promote race suicide we must not forget this important one. Even though the woman refuses an operation, or in a case in which the inflammation is not ...
— Herself - Talks with Women Concerning Themselves • E. B. Lowry
... never did she forget to be silent. The seemingly happy days, however, were only qualified to bring about the proper time of trials and temptations. The beginning was easy enough for her, the middle and end were times of real pain. The first years of their wedded life were childless. "It is well," the people in the gasse said, "that she has no children, and God has rightly ordained it to be so. A mother who cannot talk to her child, that would be something awful!" Unexpectedly to all, she rejoiced one day in the birth of a daughter. And when ...
— The Best Ghost Stories • Various
... was, after all, a cloud that cast a shadow upon the happiness of the Lindsays,—a cloud of which they rarely spoke, but about which each of them thought a great deal: they were childless. In the early months of their married life they had been wont to talk of their prospective children, and to say what they would do and what they would not do when they had a child; but when the months lengthened into years, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, Old Series, Vol. 36—New Series, Vol. 10, July 1885 • Various
... been a teacher for about twelve years, and she was so sick at heart of the work, was so anxious for a home of her own, that she decided to take the risk. And they got married. The marriage remained childless. The man developed general paresis (softening of the brain) three years later and died about a year afterward. The woman, now a widow, I understand, is not sorry for the step she had taken. This shows what things our social-economic ...
— Woman - Her Sex and Love Life • William J. Robinson
... places among Roman Emperors or German Kings; Henry III. (or IV.) being famous as the great opponent of Pope Gregory VII.; Henry IV. (or V.) interesting to us as the first husband of the daughter of Henry I. of England, renowned in English history as the Empress Maud. The last Henry died childless in 1125. But the Franconian line was not extinct. Half a century or so before, Bishop Otto of Freising tells us "a certain count, by name Frederick, sprung from one of the noblest families of Suabia, had founded ...
— Dante: His Times and His Work • Arthur John Butler
... the quartier-general had lost much of its animation since the marshal's second marriage. His first union had been childless, and his delight in the joys and cares of a tardy paternity absorbed all the leisure left him by the military and other responsibilities of ...
— Maximilian in Mexico - A Woman's Reminiscences of the French Intervention 1862-1867 • Sara Yorke Stevenson
... quietude, and here he wrote his 'Telemaque,' a historical trace of which is found in a little island of the Dordogne, which is called 'L'Ile de Calypso.' It is recorded that the mother of the great Churchman and writer, when she feared that she would be childless, went on a pilgrimage to Roc-Amadour, and that Fenelon was the consequence of that ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker
... witnesses examined by Burnet of Monboddo, Gardenstone, Hailes, and Eskgrove, and at last in July 1767 the Court of Session issued its decision. Lord Dundas, the President, speaking first, and dwelling on the age of Lady Jane, childless by a former marriage, the secrecy of the birth, and the intrinsic valuelessness of death-bed depositions when set against pecuniary interests and family pride, recorded his vote in favour of the Hamiltons. Six days were subsequently taken up with the speeches of the other judges, ...
— James Boswell - Famous Scots Series • William Keith Leask
... and his wife were childless, and the slender willowy figure I had seen across the garden wall was that of Lilian Roseblade, their niece and adopted daughter. She came into the room shortly afterward, and I felt, as I went through ...
— Stories By English Authors: London • Various
... Duc de (1760-1838), French soldier, was brought up at Chanteloup, under the care of his relative, Etienne Francois, duc de Choiseul, who was childless. The outbreak of the Revolution found him a colonel of dragoons, and throughout those troublous times he was distinguished for his devotion to the royal house. He took part in the attempt of Louis XVI. to escape from Paris on the 20th of June ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various
... account of himself, in contrast, was very brief. All he had to report was that his marriage had remained childless and his wife, a physician, overwhelmed with a sort of midwife practice, had to fight against the climate and was sick with longing for her father and mother and her ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... it unto thee, O Spitama Zoroaster! the man who has a wife is far above him who lives in continence; he who keeps a house is far above him who has none; he who has children is far above the childless man; he who has riches is far above ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... whom I have been staying is a man of considerable wealth. He has no occupation but the pursuit of culture. He is married to a charming wife, also wealthy; but they are childless, and the result is that they have nothing to expend their energies upon except books and art and society. At long intervals my friend produces a tiny volume, beautifully printed and bound, which he presents to his friends. Last year it ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson
... our old relation, Sir Hurricane Tempest, much to our surprise, sent to ask one of us to go and nurse him, saying that he was, he believed, on his death-bed, and beseeching us to have compassion on a friendless, childless old man. The lot fell on me. I found him very different to what I expected, and interested in all matters concerning us. Do you remember, Hurry, rescuing an old gentleman from the mob in London during the Lord George Gordon riots? ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston
... mile from the camp live two childless old people who then were keepers of the toll-gate on the road into town. I am ashamed to say that I have forgotten their name, it being a common one; but I remember what their lives were, and I am sure that they who carry the record ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... Lady Henrietta, married to Lord Godolphin, who, by act of Parliament, succeeded as Duchess of Marlborough. She died in 1738, childless; and the issue of her next sister, Lady Sunderland, succeeded to the duchy ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... of the misguided youth, there had been defiance and revilement, and at last, as the father confessed to me, with the tremor of shame in his voice, an insulting blow in the face. This was too much to endure. Mirza Shah had disowned his son. He declared he was henceforth childless, for, perhaps as I have told you, there had been no other babe born all these years ...
— Tales of Destiny • Edmund Mitchell
... was first fortified by Duke Richard the Good, the Duke who would have none but gentlemen about him, and in whose days the peasants arose against their masters. He gave his sister Matilda in marriage to Odo, Count of Chartres; he gave her lands by the Arve as her dowry; but when she died childless, he held that he had a right to take them back again. To this doctrine the widower naturally did not agree; disputes arose between the two princes, and the fortress of Tillieres—one would like to know its exact shape in those days—arose ...
— Sketches of Travel in Normandy and Maine • Edward A. Freeman
... sons, George III had five surviving daughters. Of these, two—the Queen of Wurtemberg and the Duchess of Gloucester—were married and childless. The three unmarried princesses—Augusta, Elizabeth, and ...
— Queen Victoria • Lytton Strachey
... her no happiness; sickly, ill-favored, childless, unloved, the poor woman spent herself for naught. Her first great mistake was that she resolutely turned her face toward the past; her second, that she loved Philip II of Spain (S369) with all her heart, soul, and strength; and so, out ...
— The Leading Facts of English History • D.H. Montgomery
... those tall spare men, black-haired and black-eyed, capable of bearing great fatigue, full to the brim of vitality. He was a great reader, fond of music and art; married to a no less cultivated and active wife, but childless. There never was a man who had a keener enjoyment of existence in all its aspects. It used to be a marvel to me to see at how many points a man could touch life, and the almost child-like zest which he threw into everything which ...
— The Thread of Gold • Arthur Christopher Benson
... I asked the negress for her master: she answered rudely that she had no master, and would have slammed the door in my face. Why tell the story of a life surrounded by taste and womanly adornments, followed by a childless, wifeless old age? The poor, wizened old creature was rotting in life on that low stool among his former dependants, their support and scorn. The Emancipation Proclamation did not reach him. But one power could break ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 31. October, 1873. • Various
... saved from the rack, and put out of their misery at once. Some confessed that they had had children by the devil; but no one who had ever been a mother gave utterance to such a frantic imagining, even in the extremity of her anguish. The childless only confessed it, and were burned instanter as unworthy ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... or Rhea Ilia, a priestess of Vesta, so that she might remain a virgin. He stood in terror of an oracle which foretold his death at the hands of the children of Numitor. For this reason he had killed AEgestes and made the other a priestess of Vesta, that she might continue a virgin and childless. But she while drawing water in Mars's grove conceived, and bore Romulus and Remus. The daughter of Amulius by supplication rescued her from being put to death, but the babes she gave to Faustulus, a shepherd, ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol VI. • Cassius Dio
... progeny. Since then everything seemed to have gone wrong. The last six years of Henry the Second's reign were years of piteous misery, shame, and bitterness. His two elder sons died in arms against their father, the one childless, the other, Geoffrey, with a baby boy never destined to arrive at manhood. The two younger ones were Richard and John. History has no story more sad than that of the wretched king, hard at death's door, compelled to submit ...
— The Coming of the Friars • Augustus Jessopp
... I loved her mother dearly for sixteen years, and all that time it was our great sorrow that we were childless, and I fervently thanked God on the day she told me our hopes were to be realized. Had I known the trouble that child was to cost me, I would have been less fervent. A little girl was born to us, and a week later she ...
— Australia Revenged • Boomerang
... Odyssey as a highly respected matron, who has had an adventure in early life; while Andromache, having seen her husband slain and dragged round the walls of Troy behind the chariot of Achilles, is carried off a childless ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... attempted to see her—this in the interests of her reputation every bit as much as in those of my own. For her station in life she was a woman of remarkable qualities and character. She had made an ugly, a repulsive marriage, and she was childless.—More than this it is not seemly ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... to retain them long. On the 7th of June they lost their son William after a short illness. Shelley loved this child intensely, and sat by his bedside for sixty hours without taking rest. He was now practically childless; and his grief found expression in many of his poems, especially in the fragment headed "Roma, Roma, Roma! non e piu com' era prima." William was buried in the Protestant cemetery, of which Shelley had ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley • John Addington Symonds
... born, when all the sons of George III. were childless, the Duke of Kent was urged to marry, so that he might have a family to continue the succession. In resenting the suggestion he said many things, and among them this was ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... tender bein's, half clothed, fill our streets on icy midnights, huntin' up drunken husbands and fathers and sons. They are driven to death and to moral ruin by the miserable want liquor- drinkin' entails. They are starved, they are frozen, they are beaten, they are made childless and hopeless, by drunken husbands killing their own flesh and blood. They go down into the cold waves, and are drowned by drunken captains; they are cast from railways into death, by drunken engineers; they go up on the scaffold, and die of crimes committed by the direct ...
— Sweet Cicely - Or Josiah Allen as a Politician • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)
... wise, lonely, childless men who, in furtherance of their own greatness, had cut themselves adrift from the sweet and simple things of life and from the kindly ways of their brethren, and had grown old in unhappy and profitless wisdom, knew ...
— A Christmas Mystery - The Story of Three Wise Men • William J. Locke
... established in Eighteen Hundred Thirty-six, at Blankenburg, a little village near Keilhau. Froebel was then fifty-four years old, happily married to a worthy woman who certainly did not hamper his work, even if she did not inspire it. He was childless, that all ...
— Little Journeys To The Homes Of Great Teachers • Elbert Hubbard
... a province of Persia, a king of the kings, who was mighty of estate, endowed with majesty and venerance and having troops and guards at his command; but he was childless. Towards the end of his life, his Lord vouchsafed him a male child, and the boy grew up and was comely and learned all manner of knowledge. He made him a private place, to wit, a lofty palace, builded with coloured ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne
... therefore amused, but no longer surprised, at the exaggerated way in which the childless Lady of the Bluffs,—her step-daughter having ten years back made a foolish foreign marriage,—gave me her views upon the drawbacks of the daughters of her world, when she made me, on her return from a European trip, a visit upon the twins' first birthday,—bearing, with her usually reckless generosity, ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright
... limits to my ability to serve him; but if you can detain the horse for two hours, he is assuredly safe. After what you have already done, I can believe you equal to any duty. God has denied to me children, young lady; but if it had been His blessed will that my marriage should not have been childless, such a treasure as yourself would I have asked from His mercy. But you are my child: all who dwell in this broad land are my children, and my care; and take the blessing of one who hopes yet to meet you in ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... antics at first with disapproval—what could you expect, she would say, from Russians? Then she observed them eating raw crabs and things. It struck her that they must be hungry. Being a lady of the sentimental type, childless, and never so happy as when feeding or mothering somebody, she took to sending them down baskets of food, or carrying it herself. They were so poor, so far from their homes, so picturesque in those ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... newsboy. He had laughing blue eyes and a handsome face, while his mouth showed that he possessed a dauntless spirit. His mother died long before his father did, and he and his little sister lived with an aunt—his mother's sister—who was a childless widow. She was a mother to him and Adah, who was two years younger than Fred, a pretty blue-eyed little miss with golden ...
— Halsey & Co. - or, The Young Bankers and Speculators • H. K. Shackleford
... attention to him. But a short, bare-headed civilian, who was struggling in the crowd, heard, and shouted in answer, waved his arms, and began to force his way toward the four. It was Roscoe, the secretary of President Hargreaves. The President was a childless widower, and Roscoe lived in the White House with him and ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, October, 1930 • Various
... intended to do his duty, and so should every man subject to his orders. The Government had trusted him and he held himself responsible. This would probably be his last duty, and it would be well done. He was childless, sixty-five years old, and had been idle for years. Now he would show his neighbors something of his skill and his power to command. He did not need the pay; he needed the occupation and the being in touch with ...
— The Tides of Barnegat • F. Hopkinson Smith
... defiance to the conventions of the time, and so he sacrificed his sense of niceness to his desire to epater les bourgeois. He said that a beard was a sign of Virility!... Mrs. Haverstock and he were childless. Mrs. Haverstock, a quick-witted and merry-minded American, had married her husband in the days when she believed that a man who wrote books of sufficient dullness must be a distinguished and desirable man; and since she brought a considerable ...
— The Foolish Lovers • St. John G. Ervine
... very much against his will, however (preferring another), to the niece of the Dowager Empress, the beautiful Yohonola; her photograph proves this to be a true statement. For her has been reserved the sad fate of remaining childless, and, in consequence, she is kept in the background and rarely ever mentioned. Tsze Hsi An is really one of the most remarkable women in the world's history. Of very humble origin, and uneducated, ...
— Travels in the Far East • Ellen Mary Hayes Peck
... not be doomed to starvation by being deprived of a crown pension of L80 a year. The older branch of the Careys also had fallen on evil times, and it became extinct while the future missionary was yet four years old. The seventh lord was a weaver when he succeeded to the title, and he died childless. The eighth was a Dutchman who had to be naturalised, and he was the last. The Careys fell lower still. One of them bore to the brilliant and reckless Marquis of Halifax, Henry Carey, who wrote one of the few English ballads that live. Another, ...
— The Life of William Carey • George Smith
... and wife, childless, desired to part, there was no physical infidelity on either side, but love had died. Both partners desired to remarry. The wife proved desertion against the husband (arranged between them beforehand by the help of a lawyer). She had to write and urgently ...
— Women's Wild Oats - Essays on the Re-fixing of Moral Standards • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... sake of her husband's health. They are about to move to a new residence on the Lake of Neuchatel in a week, and they will be ready to receive Mrs. Miller as visitor in a fortnight from that time. This said, the writer next enters into an important domestic detail. She has been childless for years—she and her husband have now no hope of children; they are lonely; they want an interest in life; they have decided on adopting a child. Here the important part of the letter begins; and here, therefore, I read it to you word ...
— No Thoroughfare • Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins
... those wonderful hopes, only one person by her conduct had raised a cloud on that heaven, beaming serenely. That was widow Clemens, an old servant of the house, and once his nurse, not young even at that time, and a childless widow. ...
— The Argonauts • Eliza Orzeszko (AKA Orzeszkowa)
... contention seemed likely to wear out of its own accord, for the Count de Ribaumont was an elderly and childless man, and his brother, the Chevalier de Ribaumont, was, according to the usual lot of French juniors, a bachelor, so that it was expected that the whole inheritance would centre upon the elder family. However, to the general surprise, the Chevalier late in life married, and ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... but with an Olympian irony, not bitterness. The central figure is an aged, childless widow, whose enormous wealth is eagerly awaited by a host of distant relatives. She changes her mind, and starts to give away her property to the Church, with natural disappointment to the heirs. Casandra, not an heir, ...
— Heath's Modern Language Series: Mariucha • Benito Perez Galdos
... Rupert agreed; "but then, you see, Madge, Edgar may have thought that he had been adopted, not as childless people sometimes adopt children, but because they ...
— The Dash for Khartoum - A Tale of Nile Expedition • George Alfred Henty
... in the reign of Henry the Second, made a journey to Jerusalem, and died in the Holy Land. None of his four sons survived him. His eldest daughter Maud married the Earl of Warwick; but, dying childless, her sister Agnes became sole heir to the broad lands of the Percys. She married the son of the Duke of Brabant, the condition of her marriage being that he should either take the arms of the Percys, instead of his own; or continue to bear his own arms, and take the name of Percy. ...
— Both Sides the Border - A Tale of Hotspur and Glendower • G. A. Henty
... away We abode the kindreds' coming as the wet night bideth day? Dost thou remember, Otter, how many a joy we had, How many a grief remembered has made our high-tide glad? O fellow of the hall-glee! O fellow of the field! Why then hast thou departed and left me under shield? I the ancient, I the childless, while yet in the Laxing hall Are thy brother's sons abiding and their children on ...
— The House of the Wolfings - A Tale of the House of the Wolfings and All the Kindreds of the Mark Written in Prose and in Verse • William Morris
... lies in his cabin in Dyot-street, St. Giles, as stiff as a poker,—and to-night, your onor, we are going to wake him, poor sowl! to smoke a pipe, and spake an horashon over his corpse before we put him dacently to bed with the shovel. Then, there's his poor widow left childless, and divil a rap to buy paraters wid—bad luck to the eye that wouldn't drap a tear to his mimory, and cowld be the heart that refuses to comfort his widow!" Here poor Barney could no longer restrain his feelings, ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... connected with the imperial house. The effect of such a marriage went to incapacitate the children who might be born under it, male or female, from succeeding. On that account, as well as because current report had represented her as childless, the widow lady escaped all attempts from the assassin. Meantime this lady, who was no other than Sister Madeline, had been thus indebted for her safety to two rumors, which were in fact equally false. She soon found means of convincing ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... seed was distinctly recorded, and he had formed his matrimonial connection in the fear of God. As he partook of the trial, he seems to have been endowed with the spirit of his illustrious father; though he lived childless, he did not cherish despondency, but "entreated the Lord for his wife," which was the only effectual means of ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox
... evening we childless parents were sitting together by our cottage hearth. We had no desire to talk, even if our tears would have permitted us. As we thus sat in mournful stillness, gazing into the fire, all at once we heard something without,—a slight rustling ...
— Undine - I • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque
... an old saw framed in ancient days In memories of men, that high estate, Full grown, brings forth its young, nor childless dies, But that from good success Springs to the race a woe insatiable. But I, apart from all, Hold this my creed alone: Ill deeds along bring forth offspring of ill ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... secrets of her husband is despised by him. As for seeking to obtain the regard of her husband, Gonardiya says, that it should always be done in private, for fear of the elder wife. If the elder wife be disliked by her husband, or be childless, she should sympathize with her, and should ask her husband to do the same, but should surpass her in leading the ...
— The Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana - Translated From The Sanscrit In Seven Parts With Preface, - Introduction and Concluding Remarks • Vatsyayana
... tombstone had time to lose its first light dusty gray, had accredited Cousin Lucy Fentnor with illimitable willingness to become Mrs. Rudolph Musgrave, upon proper solicitation, although such tittle-tattle is neither here nor there; for at worst, a widowed, childless and impoverished second-cousin, discreetly advanced in her forties, was entitled to keep house for the colonel in his bereavement, as a jointly beneficial arrangement, without provoking scandal's tongue to more than a jocose innuendo or two when people met for "auction"—that ...
— The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck - A Comedy of Limitations • James Branch Cabell
... she might, in her solitude, mourn over her repentant husband, would his repentance suffice to restore him at once to his place in her heart: to efface from her strong and reflecting mind the recollection of his miserable weakness? or can we fancy this high-souled woman—left childless through the injury which has been inflicted on her, widowed in heart by the unworthness of him she loved, a spectacle of grief to all—to her husband a continual reproach and humiliation—walking through the parade of royalty in the court which had witnessed her ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... anxious council what was to become of them. Before the way to Delphi was stopped, they had asked the oracle what they were to do, and the answer had been, "Pallas had prayed for her city, but it was doomed; yet a wooden wall should save her people, and at Salamis should women be made childless, at seed-time ...
— Aunt Charlotte's Stories of Greek History • Charlotte M. Yonge
... been strongly opposed by the oligarchical party. His life had terminated in the year 1650, amidst great civil troubles. He died childless: the adherents of his house were left for a short time without a head; and the powers which he had exercised were divided among the Town Councils, the Provincial ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... kept in reserve, which is very seldom committed to any definite action. Endless as are the attitudes of Greek sculpture, exquisite as is the invention of the Greeks in this direction, the actions or situations it permits are simple and few. There is no Greek Madonna; the goddesses are always childless. The actions selected are those which would be without significance, except in a divine person—binding on a sandal or preparing for the bath. When a more complex and significant action is permitted, it is most often ...
— The Renaissance - Studies in Art and Poetry • Walter Pater
... doubt,—has he chosen the right woman for him? Just as if he wasn't, after all, the best judge for himself. Of course he is; and in time I know I shall be able to thank God he made this choice, but just now—just to-night—it seems to me I come nearer to envying you your childless wifehood than I ...
— The Smart Set - Correspondence & Conversations • Clyde Fitch
... Victor Hugo's Ruy Blas. The unhappy Charles II. of Spain, a kind of "mammet" (as the English called the Richard II. who appeared up in Islay, having escaped from Pomfret Castle), had for his first wife a daughter of Henrietta, the favorite sister of our Charles II. This childless bride, after some ghostly years of matrimony, after being exorcised in disgusting circumstances, died in February, 1689. In May, 1690 a new bride, Marie de Neuborg, was brought to the grisly side of the crowned mammet of Spain. She, too, failed to prevent ...
— The Lock and Key Library/Real Life #2 • Julian Hawthorne
... English ground, Where she was childless, daily did repair To a poor neighbouring Cottage; as I found, For sake of a young Child whose ...
— Poems In Two Volumes, Vol. 2 • William Wordsworth
... ever thought to reproach this act of their ancestor. The details of the life of one of these men would have sufficed for all, until the breaking of the direct line. But the last Prince had died childless; and the estate descended by entail to Michael, eldest son of the dead Prince's dead brother. And though in the present Gregoriev the instincts of his race survived, they had been in a large measure altered and redirected. For when, at the age of twenty, Michael had ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... came very near being an only child. If seventeen children had not come to bless the home of Benjamin's parents, they would have been childless. Think of getting up in the morning and picking out your shoes and stockings from among seventeen pairs of them. Imagine yourself a child, gentle reader, in a family where you would be called upon, every morning, to select your own cud of spruce gum from a collection of seventeen similar cuds ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... women who ignorantly bring forth large families and who thereby enslave themselves, we find a few women who have one, two or three children or no children at all. These women, with the exception of the childless ones, live full-rounded lives. They are found not only in the ranks of the rich and the well-to-do, but in the ranks of labor as well. They have but one point of basic difference from their enslaved sisters—they are not burdened with the ...
— Woman and the New Race • Margaret Sanger
... grew intimate at the house which, from the first, was open to him as a kinsman. After the death of Carolus van Hout, Dirk had continued to visit there, especially on Sundays, when he was duly and ceremoniously received by Lysbeth's aunt, a childless widow named Clara van Ziel, who acted as her guardian. Thus, by degrees, favoured with such ample opportunity, a strong affection had sprung up between these two young people, although as yet they ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... they both loved, Greenfield, with his wealth, had been steadfast in his thoughtful care. When baby Willard's mother died soon after the death of his father, she—knowing the heart of the man whose love for her had kept him childless—committed to him her only child, and Greenfield, accepting the trust, had taken the boy into his life and ...
— The Winning of Barbara Worth • Harold B Wright
... been fatherless from childhood. At the age of sixteen he was working at the profession, largely self-taught, of a surveyor of land. At the age of twenty-seven he married Martha Custis, a rich widow with children, though her marriage with Washington was childless. His estate on the Potomac River, three hundred miles from the open sea, recently named Mount Vernon, had been in the family for nearly a hundred years. There were twenty-five hundred acres at Mount Vernon with ten miles of frontage on the tidal river. The Virginia planters were a landowning ...
— Washington and his Comrades in Arms - A Chronicle of the War of Independence • George Wrong |
