"Great-aunt" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... found for them among their kindred according to the following table of affinity: first, their father's brothers; secondly, the sons of their father's brothers; thirdly, of their father's sisters; fourthly, their great-uncles; fifthly, the sons of a great-uncle; sixthly, the sons of a great-aunt. The kindred in such cases shall always be reckoned in this way; the relationship shall proceed upwards through brothers and sisters and brothers' and sisters' children, and first the male line must be taken and then the female. If there is a dispute in regard ...
— Laws • Plato
... enough to marry a wife. He would have married her whether he had enough to live on or not. She was an artist, and she was twenty when Perry met her. We had been spending a month in Maine, on an island as charming as it was cheap. Rosalie was there with a great-aunt and uncle. She was painting the sea on the day that Perry first saw her, and she wore a jade-green smock. Her hair was red, drawn back rather tightly from her forehead, but breaking into waves over her ears. With the red of her cheeks and the red of ...
— The Gay Cockade • Temple Bailey
... no attention to the tone of my reply or its curtness. He did not refer to Dorinda again. She might have been my wife or my great-aunt for all ...
— The Rise of Roscoe Paine • Joseph C. Lincoln
... the tanner's great-aunt was distantly related to Andy Byers. Being ill, and an extremely old woman, she was supposed to be lying at the point of death, and her kindred had been summoned to hear her ...
— Down the Ravine • Charles Egbert Craddock (real name: Murfree, Mary Noailles)
... baby for Stuart's great-aunt Patricia, who for so many years had been like a mother to the boys and Elsie. She felt that she owed the dear, prim old lady that much as a sort of reparation for all she had suffered at the hands of the boys whom she had loved so dearly in spite of her inability to understand them. ...
— The Little Colonel's Chum: Mary Ware • Annie Fellows Johnston
... has a lot of old spavined furniture which would bring about tu'pence at public sale. Some of it was your great-aunt's. All of it has been in the family from time immemorial; and its peculiar and considerable value, your aunt and her neighbours are agreed, resides in the esoteric fact that it is the kind of thing which ...
— Walking-Stick Papers • Robert Cortes Holliday
... of a story. I had a great-aunt who was worth a lot of money, and who was eccentric. She was in a way fond of me when I was a child, and used to have me at the house a good deal. I confess I didn't like it much. Things went by rule, and the rules were often ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates
... this simple tale to narrate the conversation that befel on the departure of Nora. It was chiefly of a retrospective character, with disquisitions on such abstractions as the consolations that sometimes follow on the loss of a wealthy great-aunt, the difficulties of shaving with a "tennis elbow," the unchanging quality of certain emotions. This later topic was still under discussion when Nora burst ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross
... this cause. I was again invited out; this time to a lunch party, specially to meet the friend of a friend of mine. The very morning of the day it was to take place I received a telegram stating that my great-aunt had died suddenly in California. Now people don't usually care much about their great-aunts. They can bear to be chastened in this direction very comfortably; but I did care about mine. She had been very kind to me, and though the width of a continent had separated us ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... rap for anyone but himself; he will have a separation; he will stick to your money, and leave you poor, and consequently you will be a nobody. The income of a hundred thousand livres that you have just inherited from your maternal great-aunt will go to pay for his mistresses' amusements. You will be bound and gagged by the law; you will have to say Amen to all these arrangements. Suppose M. de Montriveau leaves you——dear me! do not let us put ourselves in a passion, my dear niece; a man does not leave a woman while ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... the wall of Barnum's old museum, through which you could see cities and mountains bathed in sunshine, so, as you drink from the tea-cup, and get on toward the bottom so that it is sufficiently elevated, you can see almost anything glorious that you want to. We had a great-aunt who used to come from town with the pockets of her bombazine dress standing way out with nice things for the children, but she would come in looking black as a thunder cloud until she had got through with her first cup of tea, when she would empty her right pocket of sugarplums, and ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage
... had been reared differently than the poor old woman to whom she gave the name of grandmother, but who is reality was but a distant great-aunt. ...
— An Iceland Fisherman • Pierre Loti
... various degrees—took their tone from her, if only for the sake of peace:—the widowed sister-in-law, suavely satirical; a great-aunt, whose tongue clacked like a rice-husker; two cousins, correctly betrothed to unseen bridegrooms, entitled to look askance at the abandoned one, who was neither wife nor mother; and two children of a poor relation—embryo women, who echoed the jeers of their elders at her ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... the young lady, with a grateful eye-shot, vanished round the corner. But the force of her appeal had been a little blunted; for the young man was not only destitute of sisters, but of any female relative nearer than a great-aunt in Wales. Now he was alone, besides, the spell that he had hitherto obeyed began to weaken; he considered his behaviour with a sneer; and plucking up the spirit of revolt, he started in pursuit. The reader, if he has ever plied the fascinating trade of the noctambulist, will ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... to come out. It is not more than twelve feet square, and the persons most continuously in it, not counting those who are in transit, are the Padrona Angela; the Padrona Angela's daughter, Signorina Rita; the Signorina Rita's temporary suitor; the suitor's mother and cousin; the padrona's great-aunt; a few casual acquaintances of the two families, and somebody's baby: not always the same baby; any baby answers the purpose and adds to the confusion ...
— Penelope's Postscripts • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... was not altogether happy." "Why, as to rumor," said Mason, "there goes one in Accomac, that Colonel Singleton offers himself to her regularly every Valentine's day; and there are some who add that your old great-aunt helps his suit." "Aunt Jeanette!" said Dunwoodie, laughing. "Dear, good soul, she thinks but little of marriage in any shape, I believe, since the death of Dr. Sitgreaves. There were some whispers of a courtship between them formerly, but it ended in nothing but civilities, and I suspect that ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... you have become a native of us," said a chuckling old Margravine, great-aunt to the Prince, when informed of the exploit by one of her grand-nephews who had mischievously lured Charlotte on. ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... that scolding was peculiar to any occasion; it regularly ran on through all the day, like bells on harness, inspiriting the work, whether it were done well or ill." In the annotated volume of the son's memoir which belonged to Edward FitzGerald, the writer added the following detail as to his great-aunt's temper and methods:—"A wench whom Mrs. Tovell had pursued with something weightier than invective—a ladle, I think—whimpered out 'If an angel from Hiv'n were to come mawther'" (Suffolk for girl) "'to missus, she wouldn't give ...
— Crabbe, (George) - English Men of Letters Series • Alfred Ainger
... but I can't, my dear, I can't.... Anyway, nobody will have better china. I've given you six of Aunt Alison's rosy ones; I hope the scout won't break them. And your tablecloths and sheets and towels are all right, thanks to our great-aunt's stores.... And you'll write as often as you can and tell us everything, if you get a nice scout, and all about your rooms, and if cushions would be any use, and oh, my dear, eat as much as you can—don't save ...
— Penny Plain • Anna Buchan (writing as O. Douglas)
... belonged to her old aunt. Alongside stretched the verandah running round the four sides of the open inner quadrangle, on which had fallen the faint afternoon glow of the clouded sky, and finding me weeping over one of its sorrowful situations my great-aunt came and took away the book ...
— My Reminiscences • Rabindranath Tagore
... was unfortunately seated between one of the giggling girls and a very deaf old lady who was the great-aunt of Nina and Vera. This old lady trembled like an aspen leaf, and was continually dropping beneath the table a little black bag that she carried. She could make nothing of Bohun's Russian, even if she heard it, and was under the impression that he was a Frenchman. ...
— The Secret City • Hugh Walpole
... without stopping to rest, from Dublin to Touggourt, where father was stationed. They say it's wild there even now. It was far wilder then, more than twenty-one years ago. He nursed mother himself, scarcely eating or sleeping: not taking off his clothes for weeks. One of his aunts—my great-aunt—told me the story. It came to her from a friend of father's. He never spoke of it. For three months mother wasn't out of danger. Father was her nurse, her doctor, not her husband. But at last she was well again. They had their honeymoon in a tent in the desert. She loved the desert, then—or ...
— A Soldier of the Legion • C. N. Williamson
... It's a long story. You see, dear Terence, your grandfather married my great-aunt's sister, and your father again married my grandmother's niece, who, dying without a will, was, according to ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... enjoying his rubber comforter on the cool green grass, or on the slightly painful gravel, or on the fiercely hot asphalt, summer was to him a season of unsurpassed sensuality, flooding his character with rich productive thought and a passionate adoration for his great-aunt Maud, who was wont to beguile the long sun-stained hours by lying amid cushions among the foliage, humming "The Star-Spangled Banner," while she removed with the point of her nail-scissors caramels and other adhesive morsels from the gutta-percha ...
— Terribly Intimate Portraits • Noel Coward
... little man, cheerfully. "I never was more surprised in my life, except when my great-aunt's grandmother got into such a rage, and changed me into a robin-redbreast. I tell you, ...
— Little Saint Elizabeth and Other Stories • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... went to Dunbarton, New Hampshire, to pay her established family visit to the last survivors of her connection who bore the name of Stark, no word that she heard in the Dunbarton houses pleased her so much as when a certain great-aunt would take her by the hand, and, after looking with fond intentness at her, pronounce: "My dear, you're getting more like the General's wife ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister
... Grandfather Ackley had seven children; four of them died here to my certain knowledge, besides grandfather and grandmother. I think Great-grandmother Ackley, grandfather's mother, died here, too; she must have; and Great-grandfather Ackley, and grandfather's unmarried sister, Great-aunt Fanny Ackley. I don't believe there's a room nor a bed in this house that somebody ...
— The Wind in the Rose-bush and Other Stories of the Supernatural • Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman
... often when I ponder over my life it seems like some brilliant dream. Just think of being left a squalling baby for Mrs. Calvert, my great-aunt, to take care of, then sent to Mother Martha and Father John, because Aunt Betty felt that she should be free from the care of raising a troublesome child. Then, after I've grown into a sizable girl, in perfect ignorance as to my real parentage, Aunt ...
— Dorothy's Triumph • Evelyn Raymond
... like my great-aunt," she gaspingly admitted. "But, oh, it was terrible! Why do you let her go into ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland
... knack of getting their wishes granted. Jack is one of that ilk. Just as he made the remark, Davenport sauntered in and, finding out what was going on, volunteered to tell a ghost story himself—something that had happened to his grandmother, or maybe it was his great-aunt; I forget which. It was a very good ghost story as ghost stories go, and Davenport told it well. Even Jack admitted that, but ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1902 to 1903 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... year ergo. You was all th' one I had then, 'n' yer pappy was erway from home all th' week, 'cept from Sat'day evenin' tell 'fore day Monday monrin'. Melindy White staid wi' me; she was Zekle's great-aunt, 'n' er ole maid, 'n' people did say she was monst'ous cross 'n' crabbed, but she warn't never cross ter me. I mind me of er Sat'day, 'n' I'd be spectin' of yer pappy home. I'd git up at th' fust cock-crow, 'n' go wake Melindy, ...
— Southern Lights and Shadows • Edited by William Dean Howells & Henry Mills Alden
... these degenerate times would care to have so brave a wife. Indeed, some of these Irish dames were quite capable of defending both their rights and their privileges against assailants belonging to what is called the "stronger sex." Sir Jonah Barrington's great-aunt, Mrs. Elizabeth Fitzgerald, and her husband held the castle of Moret against the O'Cahils, who claimed it as having been originally theirs and taken from them by another Elizabeth, the queen of England. They were repulsed with much slaughter, but ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 20, August 1877 • Various
... lady in her pattens, comes home to the writer of these notes, who has perhaps the distinction of being the only authoress now alive who has ever walked out in pattens. At the age of seven years she was provided with a pair by a great-great-aunt, a kind old lady living at Fareham, in Hampshire, where they were still in use. How interesting the little circles looked stamped upon the muddy road, and how nearly down upon one's nose one was at every ...
— Our Village • Mary Russell Mitford
... had been for a long while inscribed in their city upon the register of industrial corporations. His father, John van Artevelde, a cloth-worker, had been several times over-sheriff of Ghent, and his mother, Mary van Groete, was great-aunt to the grandfather of the illustrious publicist called in history Grotius. James van Artevelde in his youth accompanied Count Charles of Valois, brother of Philip the Handsome, upon his adventurous expeditions in Italy, Sicily, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... said Jane, 'you are already assuming all the dignity of my Aunt Marianne, and William's Aunt Marianne—oh! and of little Henry's Great-aunt Marianne. Now,' she added, laughing, 'can you guess ...
— Scenes and Characters • Charlotte M. Yonge
... herself, pleased at being appealed to. "I don't see how you could, dear. But I suppose your dear aunt—great-aunt, that is—has become so foreign that she's forgotten our simple ways. So long as ...
— The Street Called Straight • Basil King
... climbed upward and upward, till, at the age of forty, he had amassed L5,000. He then looked about for a wife. An honest trader in the Strand, who dealt largely in cotton prints, possessed an only daughter; this young lady had a legacy, from a great-aunt, of L3,220., with a small street in St. Giles's, where the tenants paid weekly (all thieves or rogues-all, so their rents were sure). Now my grandfather conceived a great friendship for the father of this young lady; gave him a hint as to a new pattern in spotted cottons; enticed him to take out ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 3 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... that in front of him when he set out to be immoral, on ne peut plus, in seven volumes octavo. There simply were not enough vices to go round. He ended, therefore, by being a dull as well as a dirty dog. "Take back your bonny Mrs. Behn," said Walter Scott's great-aunt to him after a short inspection, "and if you will take my advice, put her in the fire, for I found it impossible to get through the very first novel." The nemesis of the pornographer: he can't ...
— In a Green Shade - A Country Commentary • Maurice Hewlett
... occurs what is to me a very curious reminiscence. A dear old great-aunt of mine had purchased my discharge, and had furnished me with money to go home. We were then stationed at Ballincollig, in County Cork, and I had secured a suit of civilian toggery from a Cork tailor. I was ...
— Recollections • David Christie Murray
... pleasure of the summer. Yesterday morning, Elizabeth Beadle had an attack of lumbago; painful thing; confined to her bed; excellent woman, none better in the world. Never could understand why good people should have lumbago; excellent complaint for scoundrels; excellent! well, the boy—his great-aunt, you understand!—refuses to leave her. Says she likes to have him read to her! Preposterous! I insisted, Elizabeth Beadle insisted, with tears in her eyes; tears, sir! I mean my dear! Boy immovable; Gibraltar vacillating beside him; tottering, sir, on ...
— The Merryweathers • Laura E. Richards
... they had reached Beechleigh, and turning short across the green by the pond they tramped in at the gate of the funny little house where their great-aunt, Miss Judith Webber, had lived and died, and which was the only home they had known since Ducky ...
— The Adventurous Seven - Their Hazardous Undertaking • Bessie Marchant
... with contempt on the new brick wall across the lane. 'Odi profanum vulgus'. It was on account of the new brick wall, in fact, that Honora, through the intervention of Mrs. Grainger and Mrs. Shorter, had been able to obtain this most desirable of retreats, which belonged to a great-aunt of Miss ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... to-day whose fault it was," declared Stanley Clark cheerfully; "the part of the story that interests us is that the family thought that all Great-aunt Judith's children were dead. Here is where Uncle William got his surprise. When he was coming on from Arkansas he stopped over for a day at the town where Aunt Judith had posted her last letter to Grandfather, about sixty years ...
— Ethel Morton's Enterprise • Mabell S.C. Smith
... Viscount Sondes, by Lady Catherine Tufton, coheiress of the sixth Earl of Thanet, the son of Lady margaret Sackville, the heiress of the De Cliffords: she was the mother of Edward Southwell, Esq., member for Gloucestershire, who, on the death of the great-aunt, Margaret Tufton, Baroness de Clifford, was ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... away at a school for two years, having lost her father and mother, and old Madam Winthrop had adopted her, in a sort of way, being her great-aunt, and was to leave her all ...
— The Strange Cases of Dr. Stanchon • Josephine Daskam Bacon
... "I had a great-aunt," began Rankin with willful irrelevancy, "a very wonderful old woman who taught me most of what I value. She was considered cracked, so maybe that's why I am a freak, and she was as wise as wise! And she had ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield
... somebody to lend 'im a watch, and, arter he 'ad promised to take the greatest care of it, Dicky Weed, the tailor, lent 'im a gold watch wot 'ad been left 'im by 'is great-aunt when she died. Dicky Weed thought a great deal o' that watch, and when the conjurer took a flat-iron and began to smash it up into little bits it took three men to hold 'im down in ...
— Odd Craft, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... remember is Mackery End; or Mackarel End, as it is spelt, perhaps more properly, in some old maps of Hertfordshire; a farm-house,—delightfully situated within a gentle walk from Wheathampstead. I can just remember having been there, on a visit to a great-aunt, when I was a child, under the care of Bridget; who, as I have said, is older than myself by some ten years. I wish that I could throw into a heap the remainder of our joint existences, that we might share them in equal division. But that is impossible. The house was ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb |
