"Red-letter" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... till nine. My business and office business in general have increased so; I don't mean I am there every night, but I must expect a great deal of it. I never leave till four, and do not keep a holiday now once in ten times, where I used to keep all red-letter days and some five days besides, which I used to dub nature's holidays.... I had formerly little to do.... Hard work and thinking about it taints even the leisure ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... applause, the line in Italics, saying, "What a well-condensed expression!" After making numerous and eager inquiries about him, personally, and with reference to any peculiarities of mind and manner, the visit ended in my being requested to bring him over to the Vale of Health. That was a red-letter day in the young poet's life,—and one which will never fade with me, as long as memory lasts. The character and expression of Keats's features would unfailingly arrest even the casual passenger in the street; ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various
... many red-letter days when I was entertained by friends; but I am afraid I only squeaked when they expected roars—to be lionized was too unusual not to have ...
— "Over There" with the Australians • R. Hugh Knyvett
... Davidson to wait until Marjory's birthday before making himself known to her, in order that the day might be a red-letter one in her life. The Foresters had kept the secret carefully, Captain Shaw had kept his, and not a whisper had gone abroad of the wonderful event about to happen, and all had fallen out just as the doctor ...
— Hunter's Marjory - A Story for Girls • Margaret Bruce Clarke
... about with the Maluka and "Gadgerrie" lived like a red-letter day in old Goggle-Eye's memory; for did he not himself strike a dozen ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... place; and so we gathered the young people from far and near for one more good time, for one more communion. With what pleasure I recall those few hours. How happy we were! How social and loving and dear we were to one another! In the many years passed since then, there is no red-letter day like that one. We were about twenty in number. There were fourteen of us between the ages of fifteen and twenty-one years. The remainder were older. We filled a table in the reading room. Little we cared if we sat crowded close together, ...
— Brook Farm • John Thomas Codman
... a red-letter day for the sturdy beggars, for the news flew fast that an ovation of some popular kind was to be given to the Bourgeois Philibert. The habitans came trooping up the rough mountain-road that leads from the Basse Ville to the Upper Town; and ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... preservation of the old was in lyrical poetry. What Robert Burns achieved for the songs, however, Walter Scott did for the ballads and prose legends of Scotland. The appearance of the Border Minstrelsy makes 1802 the red-letter year in the later annals of the Scottish Ballad. More than twenty years before, the little lame boy, with the good blood of two Border clans, the Scotts and the Rutherfords, in his veins, had lain on the braes of Sandyknowe, and had drunk in through all his senses the history and ...
— The Balladists - Famous Scots Series • John Geddie
... if it had been dyed in Bullock's blood; here are some whose cocoons are finished. There is plenty of everything, from the egg to the larva whose period of activity is over. I mark the 2nd of September as a red-letter day; it has given me the final key to a riddle which has kept me in suspense for nearly half ...
— More Hunting Wasps • J. Henri Fabre
... day Lady Thesiger had arranged to come to Crown Anstey with Agatha, for the purpose of choosing from some very choice engravings that had been sent to me from London. I asked Sir John to accompany them and stay at lunch. It was always a red-letter day to me when my darling came to my house, and I remember this one—ah, me!—so well. It was fine, clear and frosty; the sky was blue; the sun shone with that clear gold gleam it has in winter; the hoar frost sparkled on the leafless trees and hedges; the ...
— Coralie • Charlotte M. Braeme
... some natural phenomenon. The boom of the surf announced the end of the journey. As the Mountaineers left the canoes on the beach at Taholah, it was agreed that the trip down the Quiniault marked the red-letter day ...
— The Beauties of the State of Washington - A Book for Tourists • Harry F. Giles
... but his own enthusiasm was so contagious that he soon had them as eager as he was, and the afternoon when they kept the 'varsity from scoring during two twelve-minute periods was a red-letter day, and supper that evening was almost like a banquet. Fortunately the 'varsity table and the second team table were separated by the width of the hall. Otherwise the 'varsity fellows might have taken exception to some of the remarks that passed ...
— Left Tackle Thayer • Ralph Henry Barbour
... hamlet life, and to them it must be a great pleasure to resort to the gatherings of their people, where religion, business, and amusement are very happily combined, and where there is so much to interest, exhilarate, and gratify them. These times are to them the red-letter days of the year, without which life would be intolerably dull. Resort to these gatherings no doubt involves them in toil, in expense, and sometimes in great suffering; but they do not shrink from the cost, as ...
— Life and Work in Benares and Kumaon, 1839-1877 • James Kennedy
... cloud cast its shadow over the girl's heart during these red-letter days of life—the fear of what her father would do to her lover's people. Ben had asked her whether he must speak to him. When she said "No, not yet," he forgot that such a man lived. As for his politics, he knew nothing ...
— The Clansman - An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan • Thomas Dixon
... twice a week—on Tuesdays and Fridays. As Wattie went to school he met her, and, being allowed by his granny one penny to spend at Mary's cart, he generally occupied most of church time, and all the school hours for a day or two before these red-letter occasions, in ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... we have been through dry places, and camped in desolate places, hardly ever seeing a European, and enjoying ourselves extremely. One day, a red-letter day, Boggley shot two crocodiles. One was a fish-eater, but the other was a great old mugger, most loathsome to look at. Autolycus hoped for human limbs inside it, and I believe they did actually find relics of his gruesome meals in the shape of anklets and rings and bangles. Boggley is going ...
— Olivia in India • O. Douglas |
