"Birthday" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... William's third son, the Psalm, "Lo, we heard of the same at Ephrata, and found it in the wood," sounded most applicable. St. Mark was the saint of the dedication, which fell opportunely on 21st April 1841, very near Mr. Keble's birthday, St. Mark's day, and to many it was a specially memorable day, as the Rev. J. H. Newman was present with his sister, Mrs. Thomas Mozley, and her husband, then vicar of Cholderton; and the Rev. Isaac Williams, a sacred ...
— John Keble's Parishes • Charlotte M Yonge
... omit the incognito, Herr Schwartzmann," she said; "it is no longer required. I have enjoyed a birthday since last we met: it was passed in a place of darkness and anguish, where strong men and brave forgot their own suffering to try by every means to bring comfort to a girl who was facing death. For that reason I say that I enjoyed it.... And that birthday ...
— Astounding Stories, May, 1931 • Various
... lamentation; I had erased from my calendar of saints the names of apostles of affliction once held in honour; the Caliph Amurath with his tale of fourteen happy days out of a long life of royal opportunity; Swift with his birthday lection from Jeremiah. Rather there trooped into memory with a quiet pomp and induction of joy, forms of men who, though justified in rebellion by every human suffrage, remained loyal to the end and proved by endurance a more imperial humanity. Socrates unperturbed by mortal injustice; Dante ...
— Apologia Diffidentis • W. Compton Leith
... and the killing of an ox is a sacrificial function. Conspicuous among Egyptian animal cults was that of the bull, Apis. It was distinguished by certain marks, and when the old Apis died a new one was sought; the finder was rewarded, and the bull underwent four months' education at Nilopolis. Its birthday was celebrated once a year; oxen, which had to be pure white, were sacrificed to it; women were forbidden to approach it when once its education was finished. Oracles were obtained from it in various ways. After death it was mummified and buried in a rock-tomb. ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 2, Part 1, Slice 1 • Various
... ought to be celebrated as the birthday of the English drama; for it was on this day that Thomas Sackville caused to be represented at Whitehall, for the entertainment of Elizabeth and her court, the tragedy of Ferrex and Porrex, otherwise called Gorboduc, the joint production of himself and Thomas ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... shingles led to Divisional Island. Blue rollers swung themselves on the air below the cliffs; and on the pebbles an owl skipped and danced, showing off in the beautiful evening sunlight. This was a daily performance, Thornhill told me. It had been General Peebles' birthday, and the brag about the cake was splendidly ...
— The Leicestershires beyond Baghdad • Edward John Thompson
... my life before, when yesterday, in a lucky hour for me, I fell in with Eucrates. After saluting him respectfully as usual, I was making off—not to bring discredit on him by walking at his side in my shabby clothes—when he spoke to me: 'Micyllus,' he said, 'it is my daughter's birthday to-day, and I have invited a number of friends to celebrate it. One of them, I hear, is indisposed, and will not be able to come; you can take his place, always provided that I do not hear from him, for at present I do not know whether ...
— Works, V3 • Lucian of Samosata
... originated in the office of Herreshoff, the world-famous yacht designer, and embraced in her construction every last refinement known to the most up-to-date naval constructor. She had been built to the order of Mr Julius Vansittart, the multi-millionaire engineer and steel magnate, as a birthday present to his wife. Mrs Vansittart's passion was yachting, and she was wont to knock about New York Bay, the Hudson River, and Long Island Sound, with occasional adventurous stretches down the coast as far as Delaware Bay, ...
— The First Mate - The Story of a Strange Cruise • Harry Collingwood
... honey which clung to one's finger. There were flowers all the sweeter for a battle with the rain; a flower like aromatic medicine; another like summer lingering into winter; it ripened as fruit does; and another was like August, his own birthday time, dropped into March. ...
— Miscellaneous Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... England, with Three other Poems—Ode to St. Helena, to My Daughter on her Birthday, and To the Lily ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... that Mrs. WILSON FOX has at least one essential quality of the historical novelist in her appreciation of picturesque raiment. Almost indeed she emulates those jewelled paragraphs in which the creator of Windsor Castle would fill half a chapter with a riot of sartorial coruscations. As a birthday present, say for an appreciative niece, I can think of few volumes whose welcome would be ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, March 12, 1919 • Various
... house, and yet what does she do at Murphy's sale but bid on sixty-two feet and three elbows of rusty stovepipe and cart it home with four debilitated gingham umbrellas. Said the umbrellas were a bargain because, by putting in new covers and handles and a rib here and there, they would do for birthday presents for her aunts. And the stovepipe could be sent out to the farm to be put around the peach trees to keep the cows off. How in thunder she was ever going to get a stovepipe around a peach tree never crossed her mind. She is just as impractical ...
— Elbow-Room - A Novel Without a Plot • Charles Heber Clark (AKA Max Adeler)
... again, and once again, and many times to that. You have given me a new reason for remembering this day, which is already one of mark in my calendar, it being my birthday; and you have given those who are nearest and dearest to me a new reason for recollecting it with pride and interest. Heaven knows that, although I should grow ever so gray, I shall need nothing to remind me of this epoch in my life. But I ...
— Speeches: Literary and Social • Charles Dickens
... quiet visit we attended a great and ceremonious assembly. There were two parts in the programme, in the first of which I was on the stage solus,—that is, without my companion; in the second we were together. This day, Saturday, the 29th of May, was observed as the Queen's birthday, although she was born on the 24th. Sir William Harcourt gave a great dinner to the officials of his department, and later in the evening Lady Rosebery held a reception at the Foreign Office. On both these occasions everybody is expected to be in court dress, but my host told me I might present ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... considered so cheap. The best families, according to the value they place upon the friendship of their friends, pay for every present received a certain per cent. of its value to their servants; and at every birthday of any member of the family, every wedding, every birth and death, there are hundreds of presents exchanged. I saw many servants in the large cities carrying these various gifts, and some of the servants were dressed very well, having, on the garments ...
— An Ohio Woman in the Philippines • Emily Bronson Conger
... Mamma can't either, we mustn't go on in this stupid way; we must do something; I'll get one of your books." But I had none there. "Would you like me to get out the books now that your grandmother is going to give you for your birthday? Just think it over first, and don't be disappointed if there is nothing new for ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... far beneath her. Besides this, it was a little difficult when the time came to part with the half-crown. It would only leave sixpence in her purse—Maria's lucky sixpence with a hole in it—and that she did not want to spend. It was comforting, however, to remember that her birthday was near, when her mother would certainly send her some money as a present. And she was really anxious for Sophia Jane to have a doll to play with, and it would be nice to go and see Mademoiselle Delphine again about the bonnet; and finally, a bargain ...
— Susan - A Story for Children • Amy Walton
... shrugged his shoulders, and said, "The exiled work daily for twelve hours; on Sundays too. They must never pause. But, no; I am mistaken. Twice a year, though, rest is permitted to them—at Easter-time, and on the birthday ...
— The Contemporary Review, Volume 36, September 1879 • Various
... was told to arrange for the wedding to take place that very month, as Lita's birthday fell in the next month, which therefore was not suitable for his wedding. Then the bride's family sent him back to say that they were prepared to send a string of nine knots; and the next day the go-between told this to Lita's family and they said that they were willing to accept it; so ...
— Folklore of the Santal Parganas • Cecil Henry Bompas
... cockade. The Te Deum, which is celebrated every year, on November 15th, in honour of King Albert's Saint's day, is forbidden. From the month of March, 1915, it is practically a forbidden thing to sing the Brabanconne, even in the schools. All patriotic manifestations, on the occasion of the King's Birthday (April 8th) and of the anniversary of Belgian Independence day (July 21st) are ...
— Through the Iron Bars • Emile Cammaerts
... is March 7th, very much of a feast-day indeed—the birthday of President Masaryk. Were I a Czech or Slovak, I should celebrate right heartily at least once a week the birthday of the present President, for he is one of the few great men among the swarm that arrived at the top as a ...
— From a Terrace in Prague • Lieut.-Col. B. Granville Baker
... joy of living which was stirring now, lighting the girl's soft brown eyes with that tender whimsical smile which was never very far from them. She was resting after the early excitements of the day. It was her twenty-second birthday, and, in consequence, with so devoted a father, a day of no small importance. She had been warned by that solicitous parent to "go—an' have a sleep, so you don't peter right out when the fun gets good an' plenty." But Nan had no use ...
— The Forfeit • Ridgwell Cullum
... pleasure that seldom came to Tad, for his lines had not fallen altogether in pleasant places. The boy was now seventeen, and from his twelfth birthday he had been almost the sole support of his mother. His time, out of school hours, was spent largely in doing odd jobs about the village where his services were in demand, and on Saturday afternoons and nights he delivered goods for a grocery store, ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in the Rockies • Frank Gee Patchin
... He was always a good boy, an' a bright one, too. I wish we had been able to entertain him better. But he knows that the times are again us. He is twenty-four years of age; an' I often think it strange that his father's birthday and his own fall on the same day of the month—the 10th of October. I hope we'll both live to see him an ornament to his profession yet. There is only the girl, an' Stephen, an' myself left at home now, an' we have hard work to pull through, I can assure ye; though ...
— Home-Life of the Lancashire Factory Folk during the Cotton Famine • Edwin Waugh
... I was about seventeen - a self-conscious hobbledehoy - Mr. Ellice took me to one of her large receptions. She received her guests from a sort of elevated dais. When I came up - very shy - to make my salute, she asked me how old I was. 'Seventeen,' was the answer. 'That means next birthday,' she grunted. 'Come and give me a kiss, my dear.' I, a man! - a man whose voice was (sometimes) as gruff as hers! - a man who was beginning to shave for a moustache! ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... my birthday and on New Year's Day. On those days M. d'Espard does me the favor of ...
— The Commission in Lunacy • Honore de Balzac
... of age for compulsory military service; during wartime the law allows for recruitment beginning January of the year of inductee's 18th birthday, thus including 17 year olds; 17 years of age for volunteers; conscript service obligation - 1 year for all services; women are eligible ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... the King's breakfast was served as usual; but, being a fast-day, he refused to take anything. At dinner-time the King said to Clery, "Fourteen years ago you were up earlier than you were to-day; it is the day my daughter was born—today, her birthday," he repeated, with tears, "and to be prevented from seeing her!" Madame Royale had wished for a calendar; the King ordered Clery to buy her the "Almanac of the Republic," which had replaced the "Court Almanac," and ran through it, marking with a ...
— Memoirs Of The Court Of Marie Antoinette, Queen Of France, Complete • Madame Campan
... too short to fulfil his designs. Like the wise, laborious men of all ages, he almost repined at the swiftness of the years. "I am amazed at the flight of time," he said to me, on the arrival of his forty-second birthday; "it seems only a year since I was thirty-two;—I have lost ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various
... of the birthday of Schiller, which, according to the accounts published in the German newspapers, seems to have been celebrated in most parts of the civilized, nay, even the uncivilized world, is an event in some respects unprecedented in the literary ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... understood, is an important event in Finnish family history, a festival equivalent to our birthday rejoicings; and in the case of the father or mother, the children generally all assemble on their parent's name-day. The richer folk have a dinner or a dance, or something of that kind—the poor a feast; but all ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... Nautch dances on R[a]macandra's birthday. Religious dances, generally indecent, are also a prominent feature of the religions of the wild tribes (as among American and African savages, Greeks, ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins
... gone, youth is past, prodigality at an end, the summer over. The year is on the wane and tends toward winter; it is once more in harmony with my own age and position, and next Sunday it will keep my birthday. All these different consonances ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... that we have still a destiny to work out for ourselves, a niche to secure in the great temple of humanity, obstacles to surmount, difficulties to overcome, bitter and deadly foes to vanquish. And how totally devoid of heart have been even our celebrations of our great national birthday and holiday! While we have amused ourselves with the explosion of crackers and blowing off of our neighbors' arms by premature discharges of rusty cannon, while we have rent the air with squibs, shouts, and exclamations, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 2, August, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... was washing or baking, I brought you to the school. The only quarrel she and I ever had was about my teaching you the Lord's Prayer in Greek as soon as you could say father and mother. It was to be a surprise for her on your second birthday. On that day, while she was ironing, you took hold of her gown to steady yourself, and began, 'IIater haemon ho en tois ohuranois,' and to me, behind the door, it was music. But at agiasthaeto, of which ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie
... Barsimon said nothing, but frowned more darkly than ever. At last he spoke. "Have you forgotten that a month from tomorrow is Samuel's birthday—that he will ...
— The New Land - Stories of Jews Who Had a Part in the Making of Our Country • Elma Ehrlich Levinger
... was my birthday and I had my own ideas of how I wanted to spend it. My hobby was modelling. My father had no sympathy with this hobby. To him it was a waste of time better spent in study or such sports as would fit me for study. But he had never absolutely forbidden me to exercise ...
— Dark Hollow • Anna Katharine Green
... in the twenty-first verse of this chapter, that Herod on his birthday made a supper to his lords, and the high captains, and the chief men of Galilee. Now, of course, Galilee, over which Herod had jurisdiction, and where, for the most part, he dwelt, in the beautiful city of Tiberias, the ruins of which are still washed by the blue waters ...
— John the Baptist • F. B. Meyer
... noted in passing that early marriages were much in vogue in those days, particularly with the ladies. Sarah Le Baron was not sixteen years of age when she married William Hazen. Hannah Peabody had not passed her seventeenth birthday when she married James Simonds. Elizabeth Peabody was about seventeen when she married James White and her sister Hephzibeth somewhat younger when she married Jonathan Leavitt. In most cases the families were large and the "olive branches" doubtless furnished ...
— Glimpses of the Past - History of the River St. John, A.D. 1604-1784 • W. O. Raymond
... began, not through any healing power in time, but under the holy influences of duty and love and hope, to cover with flowers their furrows of grief. Hester's birthday was at hand. The major went up to London to bring her a present. He was determined to make the occasion, if he could, a ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... 81. BOSWELL. 'This day,' he wrote on his birthday, 'has been passed in great perturbation; I was distracted at church in an uncommon degree, and my distress has had very little intermission.... This day it came into my mind to write the history of my melancholy. On this I purpose to deliberate; I know not whether it may not too much ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... Germany, among the most ordinary of birthday or holiday presents are the elegantly painted porcelain tops for beer glasses. The works of great masters may be found copied in exquisite style for this purpose, as well as illustrations suited to uncultivated tastes. To these pictures there are appropriate mottoes, ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various
... funny. One of his "star turns", was a noisy sitting of the Reichstag with speeches by Prince Buelow and August Bebel and "interruptions"; another, a patriotic oration by an old Prussian General at a Kaiser's birthday dinner. Francis had a marvellous faculty not only of seeming German, but even of almost looking like a German, so absolutely was he able to slip into ...
— The Man with the Clubfoot • Valentine Williams
... in the defence of a city, the town guard was merely a body of rather inefficient policemen, the trained bands mere ornamental volunteers who shut their eyes if they had to let off a firearm in honour of the king's birthday. As soon as it seemed certain that the Highland army was approaching Edinburgh, preparations, frantic but spasmodic, were made to put the city in a ...
— The Red True Story Book • Various
... last birthday. Next, his unmarried sister—nearly eighty. Next, his man-servant, Mr. Rook—well past sixty. And last, his man-servant's wife, who considers herself young, being only a little over forty. That is the household. Mrs. Rook is coming to-day to attend Emily on the journey to ...
— I Say No • Wilkie Collins
... But Marian loves the Earl of Huntingdon and is by him beloved; and all would go well with those lovers, and with Sir Richard, but that the Earl of Huntingdon is poor. Poor though he be, however, he makes a feast, to celebrate his birthday, and to that festival Sir Richard and his daughter are bidden. Act first displays the joyous proceedings of that good meeting and the posture of those characters toward each other. The Sheriff of Nottingham ...
— Shadows of the Stage • William Winter
... hardly necessary for me to assure the indulgent reader that such a method of composition is not altogether an easy task for a man who is shortly to celebrate his nine hundred and sixty-fifth birthday, more especially since at no time in my life have I studied the arts of the Stone-Cutter, or been a master in the Science of Quarrying. Nor is it easy at my advanced age, with a back no longer sinewy, and muscles grown flabby from lack of active exercise, for me to lift a virgin ...
— The Autobiography of Methuselah • John Kendrick Bangs
... an obvious meaning in the adoption by the Jacobites of this flower as the emblem of the Pretender, to whose service they were secretly sworn. It was the white rose that was especially affected by the Stuarts, and the Pretender's birthday, the 10th of June, was for long known as 'White Rose Day,' much as 'Primrose Day' is now definitely associated with the late Lord Beaconsfield. The story of the Wars of the Roses is, of course, known to everybody, and how, in consequence ...
— Storyology - Essays in Folk-Lore, Sea-Lore, and Plant-Lore • Benjamin Taylor
... coloured folks with less sensitive organs and no dainty prejudices. But his temper was consonant with, at least, my perception of the condition of his oysters. It was bad; and he spoke harsh things of white men, and of Christmas and of the doings of Christians during the celebration of the birthday of the Founder of their faith. Perhaps he was paying off in advance for the scorn with which his fragrant oysters were sure to ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... Queen's Day (Birthday of Queen-Mother JULIANA in 1909 and accession to the throne of her oldest daughter ...
— The 2001 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... gone a-berrying, and I have been making jelly. We're going to have a party to-night for your birthday." ...
— Darrel of the Blessed Isles • Irving Bacheller
... he in a sarcastic tone, "you will come to see me once a year, upon my birthday, and will be careful ...
— Stories of Modern French Novels • Julian Hawthorne
... in the great world once, in an old, roomy house beside a little wood of larches, with an aunt of the name of Sophia. My father and mother died a few days before my fourth birthday, so that I can conjure up only fleeting glimpses of their faces by which to remember what love was then lost to me. Both were youthful at death, but my Aunt Sophia was ever elderly. She was keen, and just, seldom less than kind; but a child was to her something of a little animal, and it ...
— Henry Brocken - His Travels and Adventures in the Rich, Strange, Scarce-Imaginable Regions of Romance • Walter J. de la Mare
... marvellous collection. Silk stockings in grey and white, and in all shades of lavender and purple, embroidered and plain, with shoes to match in satin and suede, occupied a goodly space in her wardrobe. At Christmas-time and on her birthday, Rose always gave her more, for it was the one gift which could never ...
— Old Rose and Silver • Myrtle Reed
... of seven little Emma was sent by her parents to her grandmother at Konigsberg, the city of Emanuel Kant, in Eastern Prussia. Save for occasional interruptions, she remained there till her 13th birthday. The first years in these surroundings do not exactly belong to her happiest recollections. The grandmother, indeed, was very amiable, but the numerous aunts of the household were concerned more with the spirit of practical rather ...
— Anarchism and Other Essays • Emma Goldman
... it said in passing, is very fond of long words, and has asked for a dictionary for her next birthday present. ...
— Choice Readings for the Home Circle • Anonymous
... custom, if not a law, that every boy shall learn a trade. I believe this is a fact, though I have no certain proof of it. The Emperor Wilhelm is said to be a glazier, the Crown Prince a compositor, and on the Emperor's birthday not long ago his majesty received an engraving by Prince Henry and a, book bound by Prince Waldemar, two younger sons of the Crown Prince. Let me refer to sacred writ; the prophet Isaiah, telling of the golden days which ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 497, July 11, 1885 • Various
... thought Alice. 'I'm glad they don't give birthday presents like that!' But she did not venture ...
— Alice's Adventures in Wonderland • Lewis Carroll
... Warren, shall have reached her twenty-first birthday, when one-half of the principal of said estate, together with one-half of the accumulated interest, shall be given to her, and the trust continued for the education and maintenance of my son, Stephen Cole Warren, until he shall ...
— Cap'n Warren's Wards • Joseph C. Lincoln
... urged seriously, "better not skip a morning. Your birthday is next week, isn't it? Well, if you're not tall enough by Wednesday morning, you can't have the present I bought for you last night. Too short, ...
— Brother and Sister • Josephine Lawrence
... to be old and rich," she said softly, almost as if she were speaking to herself. "It is so very certain that we can carry nothing out of this world.... I read somewhere of a man who, on every birthday, gave away some of his possessions so that at the end he might not be cumbered and weighted with them." She looked up and caught the gaze of Peter Reid fixed on her intently. "It's rather a nice idea, don't you think, to give away all the ...
— Penny Plain • Anna Buchan (writing as O. Douglas)
... with you," answered Linda, "and now in pursuance of a recently arrived at decision, I have resigned, vamoosed, quit, dead stopped being waitress for Eileen. I was seventeen my last birthday. Hereafter when there are guests I sit at my father's table, and you will have to do the best you can with ...
— Her Father's Daughter • Gene Stratton-Porter
... services of the pioneers of 1792), each in his own sphere having a common end in view, and animated by the same spirit, gave an impetus to the movement, the value and far-reaching extent of which it is almost impossible to exaggerate. Lord Shaftesbury,[294] celebrating his eightieth birthday this year, still lives to witness the fruits of his labours, of which the success of the well-known Acts with which his name is associated, will form an enduring memorial. Dr. Conolly was in his prime. He had been two years at Hanwell, and was contending ...
— Chapters in the History of the Insane in the British Isles • Daniel Hack Tuke
... my soul! I nearly forgot," exclaimed Colonel Jinks, as he came back into the store. "To-morrow is Sam's birthday and I promised Ma to bring him home something for a present. Have you got anything for a boy ...
— Captain Jinks, Hero • Ernest Crosby
... kindness are beyond counting. He rescued his friend Dr. Johnson from debt—thereby saving him from prison; and when a young lad, "a son of Dr. Mudge," who was very anxious to visit his father on the occasion of his sixteenth birthday, grew too ill to make the journey. Reynolds said gaily: "No matter my boy. I will send you to your father." He painted a splendid portrait of the boy and sent it to Dr. Mudge. This gift of a picture, however, ...
— Pictures Every Child Should Know • Dolores Bacon
... Phemie!" cried her brother, joyfully. "To-day's your birthday: thirteen years old—almost as old as I am. Bet you thought I'd forgotten it; but I didn't, dearie; ...
— Harper's Young People, July 27, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... all, if he is consulted about it before it is done. So not a word! I shall buy it, make the garden, furnish it, down to the minutest detail, and engage the servants, and then he'll give it me for a birthday present. I had to tell ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... here. After he had become a Spiritualist, that is, on the 5th of April, 1862, the evening before his seventy-seventh birthday, he wrote a poem of one hundred and sixty lines, entitled "Meditations of a Birthday Eve," a copy of which he sent me on the 10th of November following, upon the express condition that nobody but myself was to see it, until it should be all over ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 110, December, 1866 - A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics • Various
... published, Querer per solo querer: "To love only for love's sake," a dramatic piece, represented before the King and Queen of Spain; and Fiestas de Aranjuez: "Festivals at Aranjuez"; both written originally in Spanish, by Antonio de Mendoza; upon occasion of celebrating the birthday of King Philip IV. in 1621, at Aranjuez. They were translated by Sir Richard in 1654, during his confinement at Tankersley Park, in Yorkshire; which situation induced him to ...
— Memoirs of Lady Fanshawe • Lady Fanshawe
... you know? The adage is as old as the hills and as true as the heavens, and it is this, that a man's twenty-first birthday is an index to his after life:—if it be clear, he will ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... days longer," declared Jeannette with evident longing, "if it hadn't been for that sister of mine. I'm sure she could have had a birthday dance without me—but no! How I wish I were taking you all with me—even you, Mr. Jefferson," she added with one of her adorable smiles, as she turned to him; "you, whom I can't possibly imagine ...
— Under the Country Sky • Grace S. Richmond
... the following year contributions written in elegant Latin are to be found attached to his name in the Leipsic Nova Acta Eruditorum. In 1764 he alluded gracefully to the connection between Hanover and England in a piece upon the birthday of Queen Charlotte, and having been promoted secretary of the University Library at Goettingen, the young savant commenced a translation of Leibniz's philosophical works which was issued in Latin and French after the original MSS. in the Royal Library ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen • Rudolph Erich Raspe
... like you to understand that it was not just an ordinary tea, but a special one; for it was grandpapa's birthday, and, as perhaps you know, grandpapas don't often have birthday parties, so it was ...
— The Empire Annual for Girls, 1911 • Various
... war on the Christians. Now 84 after his first years spent in rustic life, he had come from his flocks to military service in the reign of the Emperor Severus and at the time when he was celebrating his son's birthday. It happened that the Emperor was giving military games. When Maximinus saw this, although he was a semi-barbarian youth, he besought the Emperor in his native tongue to give him permission to wrestle with 85 the trained soldiers for the prizes offered. ...
— The Origin and Deeds of the Goths • Jordanes
... innumerable blades, with pickers, tweezers, corkscrews, and other indescribable implements; also a note-book, a pencil, a small pocket-case of surgical instruments (without which he never moved during his wanderings), and a Testament—the one that had been given to him on his last birthday by his mother. Old Peter contributed to the general fund his flint, steel, and tinder—most essential and fortunate contributions—and a huge clasp-knife. Indeed we may omit the mention of knives in this record, for each man possessed one as a matter ...
— Lost in the Forest - Wandering Will's Adventures in South America • R.M. Ballantyne
... that art was preserved from utter decay. One may trace the Schul-comoedie until far down in the eighteenth century, and in the last mention of it I find appears an interesting figure. In 1780, at the military school in Stuttgart the birthday of the Duke of Wuertemberg was celebrated by a performance of Goethe's Clavigo. The leading part was taken by a youth of twenty-one, with high cheek-bones, a broad, low, Greek brow above straight eyebrows, a prominent nose, and lips ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer
... themselves with books, and sat in rows before the fire, while artistic spirits set themselves copies, and filled up page after page of their sketching-books. Flora stitched on a table-centre destined to be a birthday present for her mother, and the younger girls clustered round Pixie, and besought her to think of some new ...
— Pixie O'Shaughnessy • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... Pressure and quantity. Drawing out the wire. Tools for drawing the wire. Friction. Molecules and atoms. Accomplishments of "Baby." Climbing trees and finding nuts. George as cook. Making puddings. "Baby's" aid. Finding eggs of prairie chicken. Planning a surprise for the Professor. The birthday party. George's cakes to celebrate the event. Harry's gong. The missing cakes. "Baby" the thief. The feast. Why laughter is infectious. Odors. Beautiful perfumes wafted to long distances. Bad odors destroyed. Why. Oxygen as ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Exploring the Island • Roger Thompson Finlay
... On the Kaiser's birthday one-and-twenty large shells were dropped accurately into a farm suspected of being a battalion or brigade headquarters. The farm promptly acknowledged the compliment by blowing up, and all round it little explosions followed. Nothing pleases a gunner more than ...
— Adventures of a Despatch Rider • W. H. L. Watson
... elimination of agency charges, would warrant. The formal opening of the Delagoa Bay Railway by the President furnished him with an opportunity to express with significant emphasis his friendliness for all things German. At a banquet given in honour of the German Emperor's birthday, January 27, 1895, the President, after eulogizing the old Emperor William, the present Emperor, and the loyalty of the Germans in the ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick
... interesting to note that the Mosaic law recognized the law of periodicity and fixed upon Sunday as the first day or "birthday" of the week, and upon Saturday (the Sabbath) as the last or "rest" day, in which to prepare for ...
— Nature Cure • Henry Lindlahr
... overdone: at moments one feels the little game is worked a bit too openly. The other evening, for instance, when we entered the dining-room of our hotel and found it decorated with flags and flowers, because, forsooth, it was the birthday of “Victoria R. and I.,” when champagne was offered at dessert and the band played “God Save the Queen,” while the English solemnly stood up in their places, it did seem as if the proprietor was poking fun at his guests in ...
— The Ways of Men • Eliot Gregory
... of the Bread ashore out of the Bread Room to dry and Clean. Yesterday being His Majesty's birthday, we kept it to-day and had several of the Chiefs to dine ...
— Captain Cook's Journal During the First Voyage Round the World • James Cook
... while his other hand was upon her shoulder, his adoring eyes upon her silly face. He, Smith, was rocking in the blue plush chair for which the fool with the calloused hands had done extra work that he might give it to the woman upon her birthday. Each time that she screeched the refrain, "Love, I will love you always," she lifted her chin to sing it to the man beaming down upon her, while upstairs her trunk was packed to ...
— 'Me-Smith' • Caroline Lockhart
... little interruption, for more than two years; and Mr. Verdant Green had for some time assumed the toga virilis of stick-up collars and swallow-tail coats, that so effectually cut us off from the age of innocence; and the small family festival that annually celebrated his birthday had just been held ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... Horace Porter at a dinner given by the Republican Club in honor of the ninetieth anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's birthday, New York City, February 12, 1889. Mortimer C. Addams, the newly elected President of the Club, occupied the chair. General Porter was called upon for a response to the first toast, "Abraham Lincoln—the fragrant memory of such ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... and then discovering that it is not what we had fancied—that it will not make us happy. Is not this disappointment ft It everywhere? When the writer was a little boy, he was promised that on a certain birthday a donkey should be bought for his future riding. Did not he frequently allude to it in conversation with his companions? Did not he plague the servants for information as to the natural history and moral idiosyncrasy of donkeys? Did not the long-eared visage appear sometimes through his dreams? ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... old Conservative war-horse, was gathered to his fathers at the ripe age of eighty-seven years, the Reform paper said that Mr. Grover's death was not entirely unexpected, as his health had been failing for some time, the deceased having passed his seventieth birthday. ...
— Sowing Seeds in Danny • Nellie L. McClung
... And the depilatory, and also the dye, And I'm charmed with the trial; and now, my dear Brown, I have one other favor,—now, ducky, don't frown,— Only one, for a chemist and genius like you But a trifle, and one you can easily do. Now listen: tomorrow, you know, is the night Of the birthday soiree of that Pollywog fright; And I'm to be there, and the dress I shall wear Is too lovely; but"—"But what then, ma chere?" Said Brown, as the lady came to a full stop, And glanced round the shelves of the little back shop. "Well, I want—I want something ...
— East and West - Poems • Bret Harte
... dreariest of them—and the day came for Cousin Helen to go home, Mrs. Dudley being now quite her old self. Loud were the regrets at her departure, and overwhelming were the thanks and blessings showered in loving profusion; but it was two weeks later, when Tom, Carrie, and the twins each sent her a birthday present, that an idea came to Miss Mortimer. She determined at once to carry it out, even though the process might cause her ...
— The Tangled Threads • Eleanor H. Porter
... rock of gold, he had made up his mind for me to be there, and he even put the business off, because I would not come one night, for I had a superstitious fear on account of its being my father's birthday. Uncle Sam had forgotten the date, and begged my pardon for proposing it; but he said that we must not put it off later than the following night, because the moonlight would be failing, and we durst not have any kind of lamp, ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... his ablutions, again looked round, and he had more reason than ever to ask what it was all about. Marmaduke's bedroom at Denby Hall had been a dream of satinwood and dull blue silk. The furniture and hangings had been Mrs. Trevor's present to Marmaduke on his sixteenth birthday. He remembered how he had been bored to death by that stupendous ass of an old woman—for so he had characterized her—during the process of selection and installation. The present room, although far more luxurious than any that Phineas McPhail had slept in for ...
— The Rough Road • William John Locke
... eighteen hundred and twenty-seven, when "Atlantic Stories" were published, and as her sketches of child-life appeared one after another, her pen grew more sure in its delineation of characters and her talent was speedily recognized. Even now "Birthday Stories" are worth reading and treasuring because of the pictures of family life eighty years ago. The "Souvenir," for example, is a Christmas tale of old Philadelphia; the "Cadet's Sister" sketches life ...
— Forgotten Books of the American Nursery - A History of the Development of the American Story-Book • Rosalie V. Halsey
... she said. "Never allow yourself to believe that silly folly about a woman being as old as she looks. As if a mirror had more mind than the person looking in it! I remember very well waking up on the morning of my thirtieth birthday and thinking, 'I am thirty. I am growing old.' But, thank heaven, I had a mind. I soon put a stop to that. 'Not a day older will I grow!' I said. And I never have. What's a mind for, if not to ...
— The Window-Gazer • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... accepted, and after having divided his considerable fortune among his children, upon which his young wife insisted, he was induced by her to pass the rest of his life in Paris, where he enjoyed a great reputation till his death, which took place July 2nd, 1843. On the centenary of his birthday in 1855, a statute was erected to ...
— Allopathy and Homoeopathy Before the Judgement of Common Sense! • Frederick Hiller
... ceremonies, might easily imagine that he helped the labouring sun to relight his dying lamp, or at all events to blow up the flame into a brighter blaze. Certain it is that the winter solstice, which the ancients erroneously assigned to the twenty-fifth of December, was celebrated in antiquity as the Birthday of the Sun, and that festal lights or fires were kindled on this joyful occasion. Our Christmas festival is nothing but a continuation under a Christian name of this old solar festivity; for the ecclesiastical authorities ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer
... been to postpone the affair, held really in celebration of Ray's birthday, until Kenneth's return, but as this idea had met with decided opposition from the younger element, she had reluctantly given way. Besides, there was no knowing when Kenneth would return. Nothing as yet had been heard from him excepting a brief cablegram announcing ...
— The Mask - A Story of Love and Adventure • Arthur Hornblow
... January passed,—his birthday. He was now nineteen. When the world is bright before us, birthdays are not so unpleasant. But to feel that your time is slipping away from you, with nothing accomplishing,—to see no rainbow of promise in the clouds,—to walk the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 78, April, 1864 • Various
... anniversary of Baby's birthday. She was delighted with the presents which had already been collected for her at various places, and with ...
— The Last Voyage - to India and Australia, in the 'Sunbeam' • Lady (Annie Allnutt) Brassey
... his own work, but his mother's) Georgie bore no vivid resemblance to the fabulous little Cedric. The storied boy's famous "Lean on me, grandfather," would have been difficult to imagine upon the lips of Georgie. A month after his ninth birthday anniversary, when the Major gave him his pony, he had already become acquainted with the toughest boys in various distant parts of the town, and had convinced them that the toughness of a rich ...
— The Magnificent Ambersons • Booth Tarkington
... half an hour can be given in the train between two given points. They act as living memorandum books, knock at the Emperor's door to announce that it is time for him to go to this or that appointment, remind him that a congratulatory telegram on some one's seventieth birthday or other jubilee has to be sent, or perhaps whispers that Her Majesty the Empress wishes to see him. All the Emperor's correspondence passes through their hands. They accompany the Emperor on his journeys and voyages, and when thus employed are usually invited to his table. ...
— William of Germany • Stanley Shaw
... to it the full power of her young womanhood with its wealth of dauntless courage and unfailing hope. She resigned the presidency of the National Association in February, 1900, which marked her eightieth birthday, in order that she might carry out this project and one or two others of especial importance. Among her birthday gifts she received $1,000 from friends in all parts of the country, and this sum she resolved ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... societies, as known to us in England; or still more closely to have been formed upon the same model as Italian confraternite of the Middle Ages. The Lex, or table of regulations, was drawn up in the year 133 A.D. It fixes the birthday of Antinous as v.k. Decembr., and alludes to the temple of Antinous—Tetrastylo Antinoi. Probably we cannot build much on the birthday as a genuine date, for the same table gives the birthday of Diana; ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... her tenth birthday the confusion within her seemed to settle as the queer pain increased, and she began to think, to wonder what it ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... approves of her as part of the picture. Instead of trying to develop some moral sense in the little creature, Salemina asked her to alternate roses and oleanders with poppies in her hair, and gave her a coral comb and ear-rings on her birthday. Thus does a warm climate undermine the strict virtue engendered by Boston ...
— Penelope's Postscripts • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... the father, delighted to see his Eugenie looking well in a new gown, exclaimed: "As it is Eugenie's birthday let us have a fire; it will be a ...
— Eugenie Grandet • Honore de Balzac
... the opportunity of watching her eating cakes. They met at the birthday party of a mutual classmate, and Evangeline Fish took her stand by the table and consumed cakes with a perseverance and determination worthy of a nobler cause. William accorded her a certain grudging admiration. Not once did she falter or faint. Iced cakes, ...
— More William • Richmal Crompton
... he pulled open a drawer: 'Why, Anna,' he cried, 'where on earth did I get all these new socks? The pair I left in here must have been alive: they've bred like rabbits.'—'Why, you've forgotten,' I said. 'It's your birthday; and I have made you over, so that you are ...
— The Mettle of the Pasture • James Lane Allen
... Paris is very gloomy; the rabble armed—keeping the Government in awe—failures in all directions, and nothing but ruin and misery. This is too gloomy a letter for a birthday, and the Queen must apologise for it. The Prince wishes to be ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Vol 2 (of 3), 1844-1853 • Queen Victoria
... technical success. She would consummate her marriage with Liszt in a blaze of glory and with all the blessings of religion upon it. In the spring of 1860, she had gone to Rome to further her divorce proceedings. Liszt was to arrive and be married on his fiftieth birthday, the princess then being forty-two. All went merrily as a marriage bell. It is generally believed that Liszt's "Festklaenge" was written for this occasion as a splendid orchestral wedding festival ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 2 • Rupert Hughes
... in the career of Jesus is his birthday. This is known by every scholar to be fictitious. The primitive Church was ignorant of the day on which Jesus was born. But what was unknown to the apostles, one of whom is said to have been his very brother, was opportunely discovered by the Church three hundred years afterwards. For some time ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (First Series) • George W. Foote
... Elmwood, only the house is not as grand as I supposed, and there are not as many servants, and the family carriage is awful poky. Guy is to give me a pretty little phaeton on my birthday. ...
— Miss McDonald • Mary J. Holmes
... and Ruth's birthday was at hand. Her mind had long been made up; and now Christmas light and gladness reigned supreme. It was just at the close of the day when entering the fire-lit room upon the arm of her tall, distinguished-looking father, she threw her arms ...
— Idle Hour Stories • Eugenia Dunlap Potts
... the walking-stick, stepping or hopping up toward the lounge and leaning thoughtfully over the head of it, "Now, I say that it is a shame that when the birthday of that Lord Jesus, who said it is more blessed to give than to receive, comes round, all of you Sunday-school scholars are thinking only of what you ...
— Queer Stories for Boys and Girls • Edward Eggleston
... Well, she's coming home, as I said, and we must make home seem home to her. The child's growing up. Why, she'll be eighteen week after next. You must give her something nice on her birthday." ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe
... A torrential rain had set in. The car slid from one side of the road to the other like a Scotchman coming home from celebrating Bobbie Burns's birthday and repeatedly threatened to capsize in the ditch. The mud was ankle-deep and the road back to Malines was now in the possession of the Germans, so we were compelled to make a detour through a deserted country- side, running through the inky blackness without lights so as not to invite a visit ...
— Fighting in Flanders • E. Alexander Powell
... gold watch ticked peacefully, lying on the table beside her bed as it had lain beside her for so many years; her beautiful little watch, treasured by her since the distant birthday when Onkel Ernst ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... gave the country a new interest, and accustomed for many years of his life to devote an hour in his garden each morn, had taken a little ready furnished cottage a short ride from his residence, with the intention of frequenting it until after the birthday. Thither then Pendennyss took his bride from the altar, and a few days were passed by the newly married pair in this ...
— Precaution • James Fenimore Cooper
... for a parade march to Berlin, even fixing the day of their entrance into that city - August 15th, the emperor's birthday. On the contrary, they failed to set their foot on German territory, and soon found themselves engaged in a death struggle with the invaders of their own land. In truth, while the Prussian diplomacy was conducted by Bismarck, the ablest statesman Prussia had ever known, the movements of the army ...
— A History of The Nations and Empires Involved and a Study - of the Events Culminating in The Great Conflict • Logan Marshall
... your sort." My face flushed. "I said this girl was a printer. I should have said she used to be. Two years ago she was caught in some machinery at the place where she worked and has never been able to stand up since. On her birthday her friends give her a party that she may have a bit of brightness. I went over to play that they might dance. She is fond of music and an old piano has recently been given her by—by ...
— People Like That • Kate Langley Bosher |
