"Mother's son" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... thing made that took him, the drama in the book; to the book itself, to any merit of the making, he was long strangely blind. He would prefer the AGAMEMNON in the prose of Mr. Buckley, ay, to Keats. But he was his mother's son, learning to the last. He told me one day that literature was not a trade; that it was no craft; that the professed author was merely an amateur with a door-plate. 'Very well,' said I, 'the first time you get a proof, I will demonstrate that it is as much a trade ...
— Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin • Robert Louis Stevenson
... must needs cast my arms about my own mother's son before I depart: so go we now, as all this talk hath worn away more than an hour of those ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris
... master. My min' is not good but I remember we used water from a spring and lived in a little log house out from my master's 'great house'. I remember sein' de slaves but I do not remember how many dere wus. I never saw a slave whupped. My mother's son wus sold, that wus my brother Washington wus sold away from her before de surrender. Mother cried a lot about it. I remember sein' her cry about my brother ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves, North Carolina Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... long cord, gave me one end, and ran to the opposite side of Jermyn Street with the other in his hand, holding it about two feet from the pavement. The old Scouts came up in droves, and we had 'em down in a moment, for every mother's son of the guardians were caught in the trap, and rolled over each other slap into the kennel. Never was such a prime bit of gig! They lay stunn'd with the fall—broken lanterns, staves, rattles, Welsh wigs, night-caps and old hats, were scattered about in abundance, ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... my mother. And I ask for no better. She has squandered love upon me—squandered money, upon me too; but wisely and cleverly, with results. Still—" he paused—"well, it takes two, doesn't it, to make a man? One isn't one's mother's son only." ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... sank before your very eyes. For why? The crew, who were pirates, and the captain, who was yonder gentleman, did not agree. The one wished to attack you, board you, rummage you, and slay, after recondite fashions, every mother's son of you; the other demurred,—so strongly, in fact, that his life ceased to be worth a pin's purchase. Indeed, I believe he resigned his captaincy then and there, and, declining to lift a finger against an English ship, defied them to do their worst. He ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... of men passes away, and another set comes on; but the Princess goes on conquering, regardless of the moans of her victims as they writhe on the bloody battlefield. O, I'm used to being shoved aside, and feeding on my woes in silent patience. The flowret fades when day is done, and so does every mother's son Who thinks his course is just begun, And knows not that his race is run—How does it go on, Clarice? I forget the rest ...
— A Pessimist - In Theory and Practice • Robert Timsol
... Show yourself fit to influence her. Don't get a grouch at me, Doug. I've come a long, hard, lonely road. And all because I thought everybody was wrong but myself. I don't want your mother's son to make the same mistake, if I can ...
— Judith of the Godless Valley • Honore Willsie
... said Gambardella, who was excessively bored, 'we will skewer every mother's son of you in five minutes, by the holy ...
— Stradella • F(rancis) Marion Crawford
... Heintzehvan, Keyes, Franklin, Andrew Porter, W. T. Sherman, and others, who had been colonels in the battle, and all of whom had shared the common stampede. Of course, we discredited the truth of the list; and Heintzehvan broke out in his nasal voice, "Boys, it's all a lie! every mother's son of you will be cashiered." We all felt he was right, but, nevertheless, it was true; and we were all announced in general orders as ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... FALSTAFF. Thy mother's son! like enough; and thy father's shadow: so the son of the female is the shadow of the male: it is often so indeed; but much of the ...
— King Henry IV, Second Part • William Shakespeare [Chiswick edition]
... blank faces and stony looks. He waited a moment, smiled bitterly, and went to the door. There he faced round once more. "You won't? You bloomin' lot of yrpocrits. No? What 'ave I done to yer? Did I bully yer? Did I 'urt yer? Did I?... You won't drink?... No!... Then may ye die of thirst, every mother's son of yer! Not one of yer 'as the sperrit of a bug. Ye're the scum of ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... there is a Frenchman, and if we don't take she, 'Tis a thousand bullets to one, that she will capture we; I haven't the gift of the gab, my boys; so each man to his gun; If she's not mine in half an hour, I'll flog each mother's son. For odds bobs, hammer and tongs, long as I've been to sea, I've fought 'gainst every odds—and I've ...
— Lyra Heroica - A Book of Verse for Boys • Various
... he said, as soon as he caught his breath, "if we should sail into Havana harbor every mother's son of us would be ...
— A Voyage with Captain Dynamite • Charles Edward Rich
... Well, I mean to give your watch liberty today, so you may get ready as soon all you please, and go; but understand this, I am going to give you liberty because I suppose you would growl like so many old quarter gunners if I didn't; at the same time, if you'll take my advice, every mother's son of you will stay aboard and keep out of the way of the bloody cannibals altogether. Ten to one, men, if you go ashore, you will get into some infernal row, and that will be the end of you; for if those tattooed scoundrels get you a little ways back into their valleys, they'll nab you—that ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... Jinn fill thy stomach with green figs for such a question of my mother's son! What things? Two horses out of the Emperor's stable. And thou—what wilt thou put ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace
... mother) and he, and Mr Ponsonby, son to the Earl of Besborough, the greatest man of the three, but of an English family, went to see one of those ancient Irish, and that he distinguished them thus: 'O'Hara, you are welcome! Mr Sandford, your mother's son, is welcome! Mr ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell
... time, watching her friend's face softened by his dreams, seeing him as his mother's son, she questioned her right to violate them. She did not know why she had not thought more about it before. It had seemed such a joke on the people in the enclosure. But it was not going to be a joke to hurt them. Was that what came of violating the canons? Was the hurt to one's friends the punishment ...
— The Visioning • Susan Glaspell
... was to set everything to music) began to harp and sing most gloriously, and made every mother's son of them feel as if nothing in this world were so delectable as to fight dragons and nothing so truly honorable as to be eaten up at one mouthful, ...
— Famous Tales of Fact and Fancy - Myths and Legends of the Nations of the World Retold for Boys and Girls • Various
... Tho' he's my Mother's son, and churchmen say There's something sacred in the name of Brother. My soul endures him not, and he's the bane Of all my hopes of greatness. Like the sun He rules the day, and like the night's pale Queen, My fainter beams are lost when he appears. And ...
— The Prince of Parthia - A Tragedy • Thomas Godfrey
... there be men who would think no little of overcoming the biggest man and the fellest fighter of Oakenrealm, but at least great things shall come thereof. King, thy strokes of this day have won thee Oakenrealm, or no man I know in field, and many a mother's son have they saved from death. For look thou yonder over the river, Goldilind, my Lady, and tell me what thou seest." She turned to him and said: "Lord Earl, I ...
— Child Christopher • William Morris
... thou sawest a thief, then thou consentedst with him; thou hast been partaker with adulterers, Thou givest thy mouth to evil, and thy tongue frameth deceit. Thou sittest and speakest against thy brother; thou slanderest thine own mother's son. ...
— The Forbidden Gospels and Epistles, Complete • Archbishop Wake
... eye on me as long as possible. That's fair enough. You heard what I said to those boys. Well, every mother's son of 'em will toe the mark. There will be no change at all in the routine. Simply we lay a new course that will carry us outside and round Formosa, down to the South Sea and across to the Catwick. I'll give you one clear idea. A million and immunity ...
— The Pagan Madonna • Harold MacGrath
... it is not true, but if he does come, please keep quietly in the house, and let him take every mother's son of a horse. I shall be around watching, but hanged if it will do to identify myself with you as I wish to do. They'd ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes
... even a black dose, of his murdering propensities and his low, mean, unprofessional style of practice; nevertheless, he had done nothing to undermine him with these Scatcherds. Dr Thorne might have sent every mother's son at Boxall Hill to his long account, and Dr Fillgrave would not have interfered;—would not have interfered unless specially and duly called upon to ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... that Osman an' his dirty naygurs would come down on us this night, for we're fresh an' hearty, just off the say, burnin' for fame an' glory, ivery mother's son of us, an' fit to cut the black bastes up into mince-meat. Och! but it's ...
— Blue Lights - Hot Work in the Soudan • R.M. Ballantyne
... with it?" he demanded. "Gentleman, eh? You two seem to think that these pretty gentlemen can't do anything wrong. Why, they're rottener than nine-tenths of the blokes that follow this show—every mother's son of 'em. I'm sick of having this gentleman business thrown up to me. That's all you two talk about. I suppose you think you're better than the company you live with. Let me tell you this, you're show people and nothin' more. I don't ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon
... This was the work of that Spanish stranger whom I had met as he hurried from the place of murder, who, because of the wickedness of his heart or for some secret reason, had striven to slay me also when he learned that I was my mother's son. And I had held this devil in my power, and that I might meet my May, I had suffered him to escape my vengeance, who, had I known the truth, would have dealt with him as the priests of Anahuac deal with the victims ...
— Montezuma's Daughter • H. Rider Haggard
... Paul, the truth is this: if the captain says we must fight and sink her, it must be done, even if every one on us had a mother's son aboard. I stick up for discipline, come what ...
— Paul Gerrard - The Cabin Boy • W.H.G. Kingston
... your mother's son,' said Skarphedinn. 'It was I who avenged your father, therefore it is natural to one of your kind that you should wish to slay me,' and he stepped back to pick ...
— The Red Romance Book • Various
... poor PAT you'd try, Or would raise the Home Rule cry, And change the Constitution—just for fun; There's one thing ye've got to do,— Just prepare for Phillaloo, For the PATS will raise it—every mother's son. It may be very fine, PAT's no enemy of mine, But, as I think, ye'll aisily suppose, Whatever line we take Peace is mighty hard to make, When 'United Ireland' ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., Dec. 20, 1890 • Various
... When the executioner had to throw the limbs into the fire that the ashes, according to the sentence, might be flung to the winds, the whole crowd rushed on to claim them. "But," adds the same chronicler, "the people rushed on so impetuously that every mother's son had a piece, even the children, who made fires of them at ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... sleep! You ought to be sound and hearty, I'm sure. Good luck to you, every man of you at the guns! Bless my soul! if I were the Markiss of Montcalm, when I awoke in the morning to see the English ships in the basin above the town, I'd hang every mother's son of them each to his own gun! But poor fellows, it would be hard to blame them. They can't help being born Frenchmen and ...
— French and English - A Story of the Struggle in America • Evelyn Everett-Green
... of ducks, chickens, and ganders; such a lowing of oxen, and bleating of lambkins, penned up here and there along the deck, to provide sea repasts for the officers. More rural than naval were the sounds; continually reminding each mother's son of the old paternal homestead in the green old clime; the old arching elms; the hill where we gambolled; and down by the barley banks of the ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... tale o' truth shall read, Ilk man and mother's son tak heed: Whane'er to drink you are inclin'd, Or Cutty Sarks rin in your mind, Think, ye may buy the joys owre dear; Remember Tam o' ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt
... the talk of them North County[A] fellers, who've squatted round har. We'll hang every mother's son on 'em, ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... cloth on the spot where he had been sitting, and the first mother's son who passed that way found the ...
— Stories from Pentamerone • Giambattista Basile
... the trees beginning to wave? It's just as if a lake had broke loose and was coming sweeping over the country. You, Harry Briggs, hold fast to that tiller. You others, look at your work, and pull. Turn your heads, you lubbers! I'll do all the looking out. And when I say row, every mother's son of you pull for ...
— The Ocean Cat's Paw - The Story of a Strange Cruise • George Manville Fenn
... police. I suppose he'd rub them out, every mother's son, if he could. He and Warrigal can't stick ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... of every mother's son of us," he answered, quite calmly. "I've often thought of death, and I am prepared to die, for I trust in One who is mighty to save my soul alive. Have you the same hope, young gentleman? I trust you have. It's my duty as a fellow man to urge you to lay hold of it. There's nothing ...
— A Voyage round the World - A book for boys • W.H.G. Kingston
... town'll fall for anything! That act's got barnacles. But the little devils look cute, though. Say—say, old man, cut that out! This is no place for your mother's son. Say!" ...
— Humoresque - A Laugh On Life With A Tear Behind It • Fannie Hurst
... were now above deck, and every mother's son of them sang. Each had a pretty fair voice, but no ear. Nearly all their notes in the upper register were more or less cracked and disobedient. The remarkable thing about the voices was their range. In that crowd were cats of seventeen octaves, ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce
... inscribed in the temple of renown, and handed down, in company with all the other great men of the year, for the admiration of posterity. Finally, he swore to them, on the word of a governor (and they knew him too well to doubt it for a moment), that if he caught any mother's son of them looking pale or playing craven, he would curry his hide till he made him run out of it like a snake in spring-time. Then, lugging out his trusty saber, he branished it three times over his head, ordered Van Corlear to sound the charge, and, shouting the words, ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester
... take them letters 't Major Henry's jest brought in, and deface the stamps on 'em? Turn the ink enter them pictur's o' George Washin'ton so 't his own mother's son wouldn't know him. I don't calk'late to have no stamps 't 's sent out from the Basin post-office washed out an' used over ag'in. The defacement they gets here is for everlastin' ...
— Vesty of the Basins • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... into the present. "George last Sunday—no, not ill: just gone under. He is never ill. But he is his mother's son. Her eyes were his, and she had that forehead that I think so beautiful, and he will not think it worth while to live. It was always touch and go. He will live; but he will not think it worth while to live. He will never think ...
— A Room With A View • E. M. Forster
... with a surprise that broke forth from his more absorbing emotions. "Happier! Why, all things have prospered with you; and you are rich enough now; and—you shake your head. Brother, is it possible! do you want money? Pooh, not accept money from your mother's son!—stuff!" Out came the squire's pocketbook. Audley put ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... over his face and rested in emphatic creases around his eyes, he readjusted the dwarfed pipe between his sallow teeth, and Guy heard him mutter, as he leaned forward to rest the lines, while he rubbed the little shavings between his brawny hands. "Ye're a dacent mother's son, ivery inch o'you, so ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera
... take that school, young lady, an' I'll see that my end of th' thing's kep' up. I'll come over there an thrash every mother's son of 'em if I have t'. I'd kind o' like t' lick a few of 'em anyhow, an' if my young ones give any trouble, you jes' stop in on your way home an' I'll see that it don't never ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger
... "Now, by my mother's son," said be, "and that is myself, it shall be the moon, or stars, or what I list, before I journey to your father's house." He then made as if he were going back again. But Katharine, no longer Katharine the Shrew, but the obedient wife, said, "Let ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... by that very fact a social obligation comes into existence. Trouble is, every mother's son tries to escape it in his own case. What is every one's business is no one's business. Every fellow thinks he's got away from being bothered with such things. Sooner or later he'll find out he hasn't, and then he'll have to pay for ...
— Gold • Stewart White
... assumed a prodigiously fierce and authoritative look and said: "Say, do you fellows suppose that we commanding officers of companies are going to give away to a lot of lousy privates a confidential communication from the Colonel? If you are guilty of any more such impertinent conduct, I'll have every mother's son of you bucked and gagged." The boys all laughed, and after a little more fun of that kind, I repeated to them literally every word the Colonel said, and then we all set about getting dinner. About this time Lieut. Wallace rode ...
— The Story of a Common Soldier of Army Life in the Civil War, 1861-1865 • Leander Stillwell
... mad, ivery mother's son o' them," exclaimed O'Riley, who for some time had been endeavouring to barter an old rusty knife for a ...
— The World of Ice • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... past him proved that he had lost some of his old-time skill and cunning in a crowd. But he did not mind; he was here on a holiday, and they were here on business and had their rights. He recognized every mother's son of them. Neither the young ones nor the old ones were a day older. They wore the same clothes, carried the same bundles and passed the same remarks. The solid business man weighted with the burden of a Long Island estate was there; ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... master, the young Rajah of Allahapoor—as he now is, seeing that his grandfather, the old rajah, has ordered him to tack that title to his name—to tell your worships that the rascally natives have determined, if they can get the chance, to cut the throats of every mother's son among the English, on the first opportunity. It may be soon or it may be some time hence, but he thinks it as well that you should be warned, and be ...
— The Young Rajah • W.H.G. Kingston
... again, assuring us that the Lima ship of which he had news was far greater and richer, and would make princes of us all; which bark came in sight on the sixteenth day, and was taken without shot or slaughter. The taking of which bark, I verily believe, was the ruin of every mother's son of us." ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... we draw the net too soon, what then? Most of the conspirators escape. The story leaks out. The Jews get the blame for the attempt, and sooner or later the massacre begins anyhow. What we've got to do is bag every last mother's son of them, and suppress the whole story—return the TNT to store, and swear ...
— Jimgrim and Allah's Peace • Talbot Mundy
... a good job done," said the captain. "But it makes me boil to think they want to keep me off my own ship. On the ocean that would be mutiny, and I could hang every mother's son of them from the ...
— The Rover Boys on Land and Sea - The Crusoes of Seven Islands • Arthur M. Winfield
... to come perhaps. All trotting down with porringers and tommycans to be filled. Devour contents in the street. John Howard Parnell example the provost of Trinity every mother's son don't talk of your provosts and provost of Trinity women and children cabmen priests parsons fieldmarshals archbishops. From Ailesbury road, Clyde road, artisans' dwellings, north Dublin union, lord mayor in his gingerbread coach, ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... courage lead to leap the fold, And 'mid the trembling flocks to seize his prey; E'en so Achilles hath discarded ruth, And conscience, arbiter of good and ill. A man may lose his best-lov'd friend, a son, Or his own mother's son, a brother dear: He mourns and weeps, but time his grief allays, For fate to man a patient mind hath giv'n: But godlike Hector's body, after death, Achilles, unrelenting, foully drags, Lash'd to his car, around his comrade's tomb. ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... to kill one or two men or women or children of his prisoners, and bury with it, so that their sperits might keep watch on it ef anybody was to dig arter it. That 'are thing has been tried and tried and tried, but no man nor mother's son on 'em ever got a cent that dug. 'Twas tried here'n Oldtown; and they come pretty nigh gettin' on't, but it gin 'em the slip. Ye see, boys, it's the Devil's money, and he holds a pretty ...
— Oldtown Fireside Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... Thorer, and complained of their distress, saying, "The fugitives who have escaped from the battle have proceeded up over the valley of Veradal, and are destroying our habitations, and there is no safety for us to travel home so long as they are in the valley. Go after them with war-force, and let no mother's son of them escape with life; for that is what they intended for us if they had got the upper hand in the battle, and the same they would do now if they met us hereafter, and had better luck than we. It may also be that they ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson
... after being sorely knocked about as horseboy and as groom. I tried that once, but found it meant kicks, and oaths, and vile company—such as I would not have for thy mother's son, Steve. Headley is a well-reported, God-fearing man, and will do well by thee. And thou wilt learn the use of arms ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... much that was unpleasant—even from our point of view. It is the letter of a gentleman anyway; and I know very well that his mother's son could not say or do or think anything that was not like a gentleman. I knew her, poor dear, when we were both young. See, here is the letter. You may read it. It was flung to me. Your uncle did not care who saw it, or who knows ...
— Viking Boys • Jessie Margaret Edmondston Saxby
... own mother's son, Still, thou art king, and the law stands. It were not meet the balance swerved, The sword were ...
— Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... accused himself of many faults and made impetuous confession to his wife and her father. On these occasions Phoebe softened his self-blame, but Mr. Lyddon let Will talk, and told him for his consolation that every mother's son must be accused of ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... "'Never a mother's son in all the world past fourteen years,' says I, 'hasn't a ghost o' wicked conduct t' haunt ...
— Harbor Tales Down North - With an Appreciation by Wilfred T. Grenfell, M.D. • Norman Duncan
... every mother's son of them," he said, tugging at his forelock; "but my feelin's carries ...
— Jack Harkaway and his son's Escape From the Brigand's of Greece • Bracebridge Hemyng
... wooden palaces with much scrollwork ornamentation were being built on Stockton Street and the Rincon Hill. All these things, as well as the climate, the mines, the agricultural resources, the commerce, the scenery, were fully appreciated and enthusiastically made the most of by every mother's son. Any man among them was ready at a moment's notice to wax enthusiastic about the resources and the future of the place. They were "boosters" in the ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White
... his father, and some assured me even with the present chief. Lord Kingsborough, Mr. Ponsonby, Mr. O'Hara, Mr. Sandford, etc., came to see him, and his address was curious: "O'Hara, you are welcome! Sandford, I am glad to see your mother's son" (his mother was an O'Brien): "as to the rest of ye, come in as ye can." Mr. O'Hara, of Nymphsfield, is in possession of a considerable estate in Sligo, which is the remains of great possessions they had in that country. He is one of the few descendants ...
— A Tour in Ireland - 1776-1779 • Arthur Young
... bestowed gift and privilege, and which has been defined as the spirit of God in the created nature, seeking to become the creature's own spirit. Now, the power to correct this evil does not abide in us as individuals, nor will a literal adherence to the moral law avail to purify any mother's son of us. Conscience always says "Do not,"—never "Do"; and obedience to it neither can give us a personal claim on God's favor nor was it intended to do so: its true function is to keep us innocent, so that we may not individually obstruct the accomplishment ...
— Confessions and Criticisms • Julian Hawthorne
... your peril!" exclaimed Egremont, "or I will forget you are my mother's son, and cleave you to the ground. You have been the blight of my life; you stole from me my bride, and now you would rob me ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... go down with the tide. 'Who's that?' says one. 'That! Why, that's John Silver. I knowed him well,' says another. And you can hear the chains a-jangle as you go about and reach for the other buoy. Now that's about where we are, every mother's son of us, thanks to him, and Hands, and Anderson, and other ruination fools of you. And if you want to know about number four, and that boy, why, shiver my timbers, isn't he a hostage? Are we a-going to waste a hostage? No, not us; he might be our last chance, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... ungrown, And fountains unflown, And flowers unblown, And seed never strown, And meadows unmown, And maids all alone, And lots of things to you unknown, And every mother's son of us must Always blow ...
— Bart Ridgeley - A Story of Northern Ohio • A. G. Riddle
... despatched for them. He couldn't be gone longer than half an hour. Half an hour! thought Bagshaw; 'tis eleven now; and the tide.—But the servant was absent a few minutes beyond the half-hour, and poor Bagshaw suffered severely from that gnawing impatience, amounting almost to pain, which every mother's son of us has experienced upon occasions of greater—or less importance than this. They were again at the very point of starting, when a message was brought to Mrs. Snodgrass that little Master Charles ...
— Stories of Comedy • Various
... thousand years ago, that swords shall be beaten into ploughshares and that nations shall learn war no more. She will be repaid for all her patience and her waiting if now, by her ballot, she can make it unnecessary for another mother's son to be offered upon the altar of Mars. That this nation is in a better position than ever before to lead the world in every good cause is due to the gifts that have come with American citizenship, only three of which I ...
— In His Image • William Jennings Bryan
... your business prospects. Shelter the good name of your mother's son. You can do me absolutely no good by telling any different story from the one I was forced to tell. Let ...
— Sheila of Big Wreck Cove - A Story of Cape Cod • James A. Cooper
... ivery fowl that flies the air or roosts on poles. But, changin' the subject of my few small remarks here, and thankin' yez wid an overflowin' heart but a dhry tongue, I have the honor to propose, gintlemen, long life and health to ivery mother's son o' yez, and success to the ...
— Complete Works of James Whitcomb Riley • James Whitcomb Riley
... the maid's a maid One would not set to guide the chant in church, But when she sings to earn her father's bread, The mildest mother's son may cry 'Amen.' ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Jean Ingelow
... Surely he was his mother's son now. He never looked more like her than at this moment, with his dark, destroying beauty, and his peculiar, passionate, demoniacal glance. Perhaps it was this glance which brought Adelheid ...
— The Northern Light • E. Werner
... looked up and saw Benjamin his brother, his own mother's son, he said, "Is this your youngest brother of whom you spoke to me?" And he added, "God be gracious to you, my son." Then because of his longing for his brother he sought a place in which to weep. So he went into his ...
— The Children's Bible • Henry A. Sherman
... dear lady, and a Christian clergyman in the face, sir?" bounced out the Doctor, in spite of Helen's pale, appealing looks. "Where has he been? Where his mother's son should have been ashamed to go. For your mother's an angel, sir, an angel. How dare you bring pollution into her house, and make that spotless creature wretched with the thoughts of ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... "Every mother's son of them down to Dawson long ago. Not a native in the whole country, barring Winapie here, and she's a Koyokuk lass,—comes from a thousand miles or so down ...
— The God of His Fathers • Jack London
... his little green eyes brighter, with every stave; and particularly when he perceived any falling off of time or discrepancy in pitch; with what redoubled vigor would he thump the gallery and roar at the delinquent quarter, till every mother's son and daughter of them skipped and scrambled ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... around and introduced me to Tom, Dick and Harry or rather to Tim, Denny and Larry. This crowd came nearer to the notion I had of ward politicians. They were a noisy, husky-throated lot, but they didn't leave you in doubt for a minute but what every mother's son of them was working for Sweeney as though they were one big family with Daddy Sweeney at the head. You could overhear bits of plots and counter plots on every side. I was offered a dozen cigars in as many minutes and though some of the men rather shied away from me at first a whispered endorsement ...
— One Way Out - A Middle-class New-Englander Emigrates to America • William Carleton
... this minute than all the kings of Erin, or than all the other princes and kings and chieftains in the whole world. But you and your father and mother were kind to me on a wild winter's night, and I'd never see your mother's son without a wedding robe fit for the greatest princess that ever set nations to battle for her beauty. So go and pluck me a handful of wild forest flowers, and I'll weave out of them a wedding robe with all the colours of the rainbow, and one that will be as sweet and as fragrant ...
— Irish Fairy Tales • Edmund Leamy
... this tale o' truth shall read, Ilk man and mother's son, take heed: Whane'er to drink you are inclined, Or cutty-sarks run in your mind, Think! ye may buy the joys owre dear - Remember ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... him, and his gentle blood, and noble breeding, and his patrician greatness! Woe for the unlearned mother's son, who has made him great with such a training, that Rome's weal and his, Rome's greatness and his, must needs contend together—that 'Rome's happy victory' must needs be the blaze that shall darken ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... them divils are all armed, every mother's son of them,' exclaimed O'Leary, as the strangers gained ...
— Blackbeard - Or, The Pirate of Roanoke. • B. Barker
... years ago the Blue Horizon busted, And every mother's son uv us got up one day 'nd dusted, While Pettibone perceeded East with wealth in his possession, And went to Yurrup, as I heerd, to study his perfession; So, like as not, you'll find him now a-paintin' heads 'nd faces At Venus, Billy Florence, ...
— A Little Book of Western Verse • Eugene Field
... of 1813 had the kick of ill fortune in it for every mother's son of us there in the North country. I have ever noticed that war goes in waves of success or failure; If we had had Brown or Scott to lead us that year, instead of Wilkinson, I believe it had had a better history. Here was I in the enemy's ...
— D'Ri and I • Irving Bacheller
... Vandal, for example. He loves his kind so much that he has not a word softer than a brickbat for a single mother's son of them. He goes about to save them by proving that not one of them is worth damning. And he does it all from the point of view of an early (a knurly) Christian. Let me illustrate. I was sauntering along Broadway once, and was attracted by a bird-fancier's shop. I like ...
— The Function Of The Poet And Other Essays • James Russell Lowell
... fight yesterday at Green River bridge. Ar'n't you glad of the drubbing our boys gave the rebels? There's many a mother's son of them lying in those green bottom lands there, that the morning's reveille ...
— That Old-Time Child, Roberta • Sophie Fox Sea
... confounded servants left us yesterday before we came—every mother's son of 'em. There isn't a servant ...
— The Man From Brodney's • George Barr McCutcheon
... have it, too; an' they all come, every mother's son of 'em—from a to izzard—even to them that has expressed secret dissatisfactions; which they was all welcome, though it does seem to me thet, ef I 'd been in their places, I'd 'a' hardly had the face to come ...
— Sonny, A Christmas Guest • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... 'Every mother's son of them. Ah! this is refreshing after that room. What a pity it is that all men are not born with heads ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... "Just drop that set you've got into, and be your own upright, honourable self again, and you shall never hear another word of such talk out of me. But," he added earnestly, "I cannot, I will not stand seeing you, my brother, my chum, our mother's son"—Fee's voice shook—"going all wrong, without lifting a finger to save you. Why, Phil, I'd give my very life, if need be, to keep you from becoming a drunkard and a gambler. Don't go back to those fellows to-night, dear old boy; for—for her sake, ...
— We Ten - Or, The Story of the Roses • Lyda Farrington Kraus
... lucky yees are here," said Tim, "for every mother's son that can swim will be hugged by a half-dozen that can't, which would be ...
— Adrift in the Wilds - or, The Adventures of Two Shipwrecked Boys • Edward S. Ellis
... gaal might a been one of his sisters that's here. Besides, he's got a gun, and so have I, and I'm a goin' to be true to my word, Doctor, to you and the bailiff too, ef I have to shoot aivery mother's son ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... blame themselves and everyone else for the sins of their sons. The innocent friends come in for the principal share of censure, each mother's son leading the ...
— File No. 113 • Emile Gaboriau
... to love any. Nevertheless, at the last, she wedded a brave man; that was the falcon she dreamed of erstwhile, as her mother foretold it. Yea, bitter was her vengeance on her kinsmen that slew him, and by reason of his death died many a mother's son. ...
— The Fall of the Niebelungs • Unknown
... heard nothing of her for many years, when, on arriving at Beyrout in 1835, he found that her name was in every mouth. Anxious to see this romantic vision of his childhood, he wrote to Lady Hester, and asked if she would receive his mother's son. A few days later, in response to a gracious letter of invitation, Kinglake made ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... enquired particularly who Ernest and two or three others were. I believe each one of Ernest's friends was given to understand that he had been more or less particularly enquired after. Ernest's vanity—for he was his mother's son—was tickled at this; the idea again presented itself to him that he might be the one for whose benefit Mr Hawke had been sent. There was something, too, in Badcock's manner which conveyed the idea that he could say more if he chose, but ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... you can laugh at such things, Bill Hinkley, but I can't. There was a time when every mother's son in Kentucky was a man, and could stand up to his rack with the best. If he couldn't keep the top place, he went a peg lower; but he made out to keep the place for which he was intended. Then, if a man disliked his neighbor he crossed over to him and said ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... tenantry," said another. "I swear, though there's not a freehold registered on the estate, that they'll vote, every mother's son of them, or devil a stone of the court-house they'll leave ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... father said after my first fight, that it might be questioned whether I was my mother's son or no,—there was no doubt that ...
— The O'Ruddy - A Romance • Stephen Crane
... fingers' length of service colors on his blouse. Lean he was and bony-jawed, with deep-set eyes. He loved every mother's son of the Braves, from illiterate to the chanter of the "Odyssey"; from peasant's son to penniless nobleman, and thought any one of his privates rather superior to a home ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer
... was trafficking with this wretched old Begum's misfortune; and would extort a seat in Parliament out of that miserable Clavering. Good heavens! was my uncle mad, to tamper in such a conspiracy? Fancy our mother's son, Laura, trading on such ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Negore said gently. "But I shall make thee understand. Know that I was away on the hunt of the bear, with Kamo-tah, my mother's son. And Kamo-tah fought with a great bear. We had no meat for three days, and Kamo-tah was not strong of arm nor swift of foot. And the great bear crushed him, so, till his bones cracked like dry sticks. Thus I found him, very sick and groaning upon the ground. And there was no meat, nor ...
— Love of Life - and Other Stories • Jack London
... Margari had a veritable ague fit of terror. All this time he had remained ducking down in the carriage firmly persuaded that the robbers in this lonely place would cut down every mother's son of them at nightfall. In such a case he was prepared to swear that he had never belonged to the party at all, but would pretend he was only a poor tramp, and so escape that way. And now the baron had ruined his little plan by ordering him to come forth! The robbers would now absolutely ...
— The Poor Plutocrats • Maurus Jokai
... General Arnold, I am surprised you should do these honest men the injustice to suppose that such an impudent, flimsy, bombastic tirade as that same proclamation of Burgoyne's, should have a feather's weight with any mother's son of them. ...
— The Bride of Fort Edward • Delia Bacon
... the end indeed. He was his mother's son as well as his father's. The father had ruled down to that day, but it was the turn of the mother now. He could not resist her. She was alive in his blood, and he ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... war in the same house; and then they jawed it out ever so long, and Ussher said as how the whole counthry through war worse than ever with the stills; and Counsellor Webb said that war the fault of the landlords; and Brown said, he hoped they'd take every mother's son of 'em as they could lay hands on in the counthry, and bring 'em there; and so they jawed it out a long while; and then, Sir Michael, who'd niver said a word at all, good, bad, or indifferent, said, as how Paddy Byrne and Smith war to pay each ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope
... Crockett, "an' come on the rest of you fleet-footed fellows! Every mother's son of you has driv' the cows home before in his time, an' now you kin do ...
— The Texan Scouts - A Story of the Alamo and Goliad • Joseph A. Altsheler
... won't nuver kill. Thar's a sperit that some of us hes fostered hyar, and hit'll go on jest ther same without us—hit's a bigger thing then any man, an' hit's goin' ter dog ye till hit gits ye all—every sneakin' mother's son an' every murderin' man-jack of yore sorry outfit! What things we've ondertook hain't a-goin' ter die with me ner with no other man ye gang murders—an' when ther high co'te sets next time, thar'll be soldiers hyar thet hain't none affrighted ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... the bulwark over which I had been contemplating the vasty deep, and saw the sorriest, most woe-begone lot that the imagination can conceive. Every mother's son was wretchedly sea-sick. They were paying the penalty of their overfeeding in Wilmington; and every face looked as if its owner was discovering for the first time what the real lower depths of human ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... mean? answer me. Finding myself thus hard pushed, I replied. I mean, sir, the same ancient Catholic Church to which you and I, and Captain Peleg there, and Queequeg here, and all of us, and every mother's son and soul of us belong; the great and everlasting First Congregation of this whole worshipping world; we all belong to that; only some of us cherish some queer crotchets noways touching the grand belief; in that we all join hands. Splice, thou mean'st splice hands, cried Peleg, drawing ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... be thy mother's son still and surrender This toy of Rome to her: she bought it you: Now, ...
— Nero • Stephen Phillips
... colonel, springing from his chair in alarm. "Are we attacked? Get out there, every mother's son of you!" he continued, as the men, having been aroused by the noise, came pouring out of the rooms in which they were quartered. "Every man able to draw a saber get out there! Run for the river! That's where the reports sounded, and if there are any boats there capture them. That will keep ...
— Frank on the Lower Mississippi • Harry Castlemon
... desk-work, and—and—" The Boy shifted about on his wooden stool, and held up his hands to the reviving blaze. "Life owes us steady fellows one year of freedom, anyhow—one year to make ducks and drakes of. Besides, we've all come to make our fortunes. Doesn't every mother's son of us mean to find a gold-mine in the spring when we get to the Klondyke—eh?" And he laughed again, and presently he yawned, and tumbled back into his bunk. But he put his head out in a moment. "Aren't you ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)
... I can't abide it, Camilla. He's a nice lad, though he is his mother's son; and Lenore's heart is set on him, and I can't ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge
... with this, and forgot that in finding you your mother's son, he would prove you to be your ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... are the avowed objects of its pursuit, but likewise the lawmakers and enforcers themselves. Like all abuses, in its own entrails are the seeds of its destruction. Laws now on our books, if radically applied, would land almost every mother's son of us behind prison bars. And no doubt, when the murderer, forger, swindler, or white slaver, in his cell, begins to recognize in his new cell mate the judge who sentenced him, the attorney who prosecuted him, the juryman who convicted him, or the plaintiff ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne
... is a Frenchman, and if we don't take she, 'Tis a thousand bullets to one, that she will capture me; I havn't the gift of the gab, my boys, so each man to his gun, If she's not mine in half an hour, I'll flog each mother's son. Odds bobs, hammer and tongs, long as I've been to sea, I've fought 'gainst every odds—and I've ...
— Snarleyyow • Captain Frederick Marryat
... guns double loaded, and let fly at them in the midst of their dreadful ceremony: and having killed two or three of them at every shot, fall upon the rest suddenly with my three pistols, & not let one mother's son escape. Thus imagination pleased my fancy so much that I used to dream of it in the night time. To put my design in execution, I was not long in seeking for a place convenient for my purpose, where unseen I might behold every action of the savages. Here I placed my two muskets, each of ...
— The Life and Most Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of - York, Mariner (1801) • Daniel Defoe
... the means towards it. [Applause.] Now, I want to ask you what you are going to do. [A voice—'shoot, shoot.'] There are ways of managing this matter without shooting anybody. Be sure that these men who have kidnapped a man in Boston, are cowards, every mother's son of them; and if we stand up there resolutely, and declare that this man shall not go out of the city of Boston, without shooting a gun—[cries of 'that's it,' and great applause,]—then he won't go back. Now, I am going ...
— The Trial of Theodore Parker • Theodore Parker
... mother's son," saith he somewhat drily. "Daughter, see thou put God first: and love all other as much as ever ...
— In Convent Walls - The Story of the Despensers • Emily Sarah Holt
... I tell you, Morgan?" whined the captain. "She's slowing up, and that whistle means for us to show lights. The next thing we shall see will be a small boat coming off. I hope the swell'll turn it upside down and drown every mother's son of her crew that—On deck, there," he shouted, in great consternation. "Get out lights, and be quick about it. She'll be on top of ...
— Marcy The Blockade Runner • Harry Castlemon
... felt the craven foe, Its hilt was black with gore, And many a mother's son did rue His ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... very gude to be in the wood from morning till night, there would be a hopeful lad lost, and no making a man of him. It was not so, he had heard, in Lord Ravenswood's time: when a buck was to be killed, man and mother's son ran to see; and when the deer fell, the knife was always presented to the knight, and he never gave less than a dollar for the compliment. And there was Edgar Ravenswood—Master of Ravenswood that is now—when he goes up to the wood—there hasna been a better hunter ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... came to be captured. Let me begin at the beginning, and you shall hear all about it. You know when freedom is first born she is a puny infant and has to be suckled. That she cries for blood instead of milk is something we can't help. So all the young men of Toroczko enlisted in the militia,—every mother's son of them,—and they are now serving in the eleventh, the thirty-second, and the seventy-third battalions. You ask me, perhaps, why we mountain folk must needs take the field when already we are fighting for our country all our life long in the bowels of the earth. ...
— Manasseh - A Romance of Transylvania • Maurus Jokai
... render godly men as odious and contemptible as he could; any lies that were made by any, to their disgrace, those he would avouch for truth, and would not endure to be controlled. He was much like those that the prophet speaks of, that would sit and slander his mother's son (Psa 50:19,20). Yea, he would speak reproachfully of his wife, though his conscience told him, and many would testify, that she was a very virtuous woman. He would also raise slanders of his wife's friends himself, affirming that their doctrine tended to lasciviousness, and ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... Street—not so now. So far as our struggle with him is concerned, he's all over the Kingdom; for he is public opinion. The governing crowd in usual times and on usual subjects can here overrun public opinion—can make it, turn it, down it, dodge it. But it isn't so now—as it affects us. Every mother's son of 'em has made up his mind that Germany must and shall be starved out, and even Sir Edward's scalp isn't safe when they suspect that he wishes to be lenient in that matter. They keep trying to drive him out, on two counts: (1) he lets goods out of Germany ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume II • Burton J. Hendrick
... energetic and "forehanded," and without the slightest approach to intentional cruelty, looked to his wife to "keep up her end of the log." He tolerated no wastefulness, and expected to be well fed and comfortable; and comfort with this Yankee mother's son implied tidiness. To meet his view, as well as to satisfy her own conscience, his partner became a model manager, a ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... apologies? After all, every man that lives has his great adventure, whether it come garbed in drab or radiant with the glow of the sunrise. A prosaic, money-grubbing age we call this, but by the gods! romance hammers once in a lifetime at the door of every mother's son of us. There be those too niggardly to let her in, there be those to whom the knock comes faintly; and there be a happy few who fling wide the door and embrace ...
— The Pirate of Panama - A Tale of the Fight for Buried Treasure • William MacLeod Raine
... snapped. "Now get out on that river, every mother's son of you. Get that drive going and keep it going. I've cleared the river for you; and if you'd any one of you had the nerve of my poor old fat sub-centre, you'd have done it for yourselves. Get ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... on my knees and fired once—and again, pointblank at them with the heavy Colt's. It worked a miracle. Every mother's son of them fell flat upon his pony; they all swooped to right and to left as if the bullets had cleaved them apart in the center; and while I gaped, wondering, they swept past at long range, half on either flank, pelting in ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin
... at easy running distance from the schoolhouse at noontime or recess, crawled the little river, with its inevitable "hole," which each mother's son was warned to avoid in swimming, lest he be seized with cramp there where the pool was bottomless. What eerie wonders lurked within the mirror of those shallow brown waters! Long black hairs cleaved ...
— Meadow Grass - Tales of New England Life • Alice Brown
... the handle, "You're truthful, and you canna deny it. Nor will you deny that I shamed you and every other mother's son that night. You try to hod it out o' pity, smith, but even as you look at me now, does the man in you ...
— Sentimental Tommy - The Story of His Boyhood • J. M. Barrie
... tempt me not too far," exclaimed Nigel, his cheek flushing, and springing towards him, his hand upon his half-drawn sword. "By heaven, wert thou not my mother's son, I would compel thee to retract these words, injurious, unjust! How darest thou judge me coward, till my cowardice is proved? Thy blood is ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar
... character, and that, in proportion as she acquires notoriety, she loses delicacy. I always consider a female author as a sort of half-man." He was also, quite properly, shocked at some gossip which attributed "The Monk," to his mother instead of to his mother's son. ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... say anything of the Leighs, a few sentences must be devoted to George Austen's relations of the half-blood—the Walters. With his mother's son by her first husband, William Hampson Walter, he remained on intimate terms. A good many letters are extant which passed between the Austens and the Walters during the early married life of the former, the last of them containing the news of the birth of Jane. Besides this, ...
— Jane Austen, Her Life and Letters - A Family Record • William Austen-Leigh and Richard Arthur Austen-Leigh
... their beginning no man knoweth. Should I, for fear of thee, be found guilty against them? That I should die I knew. Why not? All men must die. And if I die before my time, what loss? He who liveth among many sorrows, even as I have lived, counteth it gain to die. But had I left my own mother's son unburied, this ...
— Stories from the Greek Tragedians • Alfred Church |
