"First person" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... English student of Ibsen to speak with moderation. It is true that thirty-six years ago some of Ibsen's early metrical writings fell into the hands of the writer of this little volume, and that I had the privilege, in consequence, of being the first person to introduce Ibsen's name to the British public. Nor will I pretend for a moment that it is not a gratification to me, after so many years and after such surprising developments, to know that this was the fact. But, save for this accident of time, it was Mr. Archer and no other who was really the ...
— Henrik Ibsen • Edmund Gosse
... has changed, it's much better you shouldn't marry me. There's nothing so foolish as to marry some one you don't love; and I only wish for your happiness, I'm sure. I daresay you'll find some one can make you much happier than I could; the first person we love is seldom the right one. You are very young; it's quite natural ...
— The Story of an African Farm • (AKA Ralph Iron) Olive Schreiner
... and then buffet them; in order that, for the purpose of avoiding the insults of such treatment, they may become more affectionate and in due season may turn their thoughts to marriage. But at Athens Cecrops was the first person who married a man to one woman only, when before his time connections had taken place at random and men ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... not done with this confusing set of terms. Brahm[a] is the first person of the Hindu divine triad—the Creator—who along with the other two persons of the triad, has proceeded from a divine essence, Brahma or Brahm. Brahma is Godhead or Deity: Brahm[a], is a Deity, a divine person who has emanated from the Godhead, Brahma. ...
— New Ideas in India During the Nineteenth Century - A Study of Social, Political, and Religious Developments • John Morrison
... man of "C" Company came in through "B" Company's right post. He was one of Corpl. Hunter's devoted band, and along with another had been sent to see about rations, and give information about the post. Unfortunately his pal was killed by an enemy grenade, and he was the first person to let us know that the post was still gamely holding out. It was too late, however, ...
— The Fifth Battalion Highland Light Infantry in the War 1914-1918 • F.L. Morrison
... word with reference to this first person singular, and then I shall close. I came here in an open, honest, and confiding spirit, if ever man did, and because I felt a deep sympathy in your land; had I felt otherwise, I should have kept away. As I came here, and am here, ...
— Speeches: Literary and Social • Charles Dickens
... unamiable, if we please, but in a frivolous world amiability can hardly go with firm resolve to live an independent life after your own fashion. The many distasteful sides of Rousseau's character ought not to hinder us from admiring his steadfastness in refusing to sacrifice his existence to the first person who spoke him civilly. We may wish there had been more of rugged simplicity in his way of dealing with temptations to sell his birthright for a mess of pottage; less of mere irritability. But then this irritability is one side of soft temperament. The soft temperament ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... had, but reminded Mrs. Lascelles that the first person I had spoken to was also the greatest gossip in the hotel. She paid no attention to the remark, but stood looking at me again, with the look that I could never ...
— No Hero • E.W. Hornung
... always found it was the better way to let him have a sfogo, or "vent," for his temper, and afterwards he was himself again. He never could keep a para in his pocket, but would give his money to the first person who would ask him for it. I am obliged to buy him snuff every week, and a stock for the journey. With this he is accustomed to treat everybody, and is therefore very popular. Even the Governor thinks him the best Negro he ever knew. As is natural enough, he is a great favourite ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... in the afternoon the first person he spied was Lady Alicia, and five minutes afterwards they were sailing off ...
— The Lunatic at Large • J. Storer Clouston
... wronged and youths who were jilted; of wives who led their husbands a deuce of a dance, and of wives who kept their husbands out of the bankruptcy court. When young Trexham, the son of the Lord Lieutenant of the county, married a minor light of musical comedy at a registrar's office, I was the first person in the place to be told; and I flatter myself that I was instrumental in inducing a pig-headed old idiot to receive an exceedingly charming daughter-in-law. I loved to look upon Wellingsford as an open book. Can you blame me for my resentment at coming ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke
... that the villagers, who must have seen the Queen hundreds of times, did not seem to recognize her, and sometimes bowed to me, thinking, I suppose, that I, being on the first seat, must naturally be the first person. How different it is in Denmark! When any royal carriage passes, people courtesy, sometimes even when ...
— The Sunny Side of Diplomatic Life, 1875-1912 • Lillie DeHegermann-Lindencrone
... first time I have seen her," replied her companion, "and I, too, am amazed at her marvelous beauty. As I stepped into the ball-room she was the first person I beheld, and she has dazzled my eyes ever since. Oh, it was a wonderful picture she made, standing under a slender palm tree, in her white tulle dress flecked with gold and pearls, and those blood-red rubies encircling her white ...
— Pretty Madcap Dorothy - How She Won a Lover • Laura Jean Libbey
... up). I don't know if I told you that in my last great work of the imagination, in which I collaborated with the Bishop of London, I wrote throughout in the first person. Nearly a million copies were sold, thus showing that the heart of the great public approved of my method of telling my story through the mouth of a young and innocent girl, exposed to great temptation. I should wish, therefore, to repeat that method in ...
— Once a Week • Alan Alexander Milne
... view of the three-cornered field and the snug cottage, and down she rushed to embrace her darling Andy and his gentle bride. Puffing and blowing like a porpoise, bang she went into the cottage, and Matty being the first person she met, she flung herself upon her, and covered her with ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... shape of the stump will hint at figure of prospective wife or husband. Its length will suggest age. If much soil clings to it, life-partner will be rich; if not, poor. Finally, the stump is carried home and hung over door, first person outside of family who passes under it will bear a name whose initial is same as that ...
— Games For All Occasions • Mary E. Blain
... but such a remark never occurred to her. Although she had bullied and badgered the wretched little man until he had seized the first opportunity of finding in the grave the peace denied him in life, she really and truly believed that she had been a model wife. The egotism of first person singular was so firmly ingrained in the woman that she could not conceive what a scourge she was to mankind in general; what a trial she had been to her poor departed husband in particular. If the late Archdeacon Pansey had not died he would doubtless have become ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... were going to your death. How could you expect to get away in such an outfit without being discovered? When you were missed the whole countryside would have been up, and even before the hue- and-cry the first person who saw you would have taken ...
— The Man • Bram Stoker
... The first person to move was Miss Wheatly, who rose quietly and walked to the front of the room and faced the audience. "Madam President," she began in her even voice, "I have been waiting quite a while for this, I think. I said to-day that if any one knew of a real, full-sized woman's job, I would like to be ...
— The Next of Kin - Those who Wait and Wonder • Nellie L. McClung
... songs here of the river in the first person of a water-nymph, a goddess, and I know not what, according to the humour of the ancient poets; I shall talk nothing of the marriage of old Isis, the male river, with the beautiful Thame, the female river (a whimsey ...
— From London to Land's End - and Two Letters from the "Journey through England by a Gentleman" • Daniel Defoe
... a little severe. He got angry"—Chatty did not observe the look of recognition in Lady Markland's face, as of a fact connu. She went on slowly: "I wish that you would give me your opinion. I thought for a long time I was the first person to be thought of, and that Dick must do everything that could be done to set us right. But now it seems that is not the right view. Mamma hesitates,—she will not speak. Oh, will you tell me ...
— A Country Gentleman and his Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... him on mounting his horse to go away, if he had any farther commands. To this Cortes replied, "Remember what has been settled between us, or if you don't, I shall be in your quarters before three days, and you shall be the first person at whom I will throw my lance." Duero answered laughing, that he would not fail, and immediately set off for the quarters of Narvaez, where he is reported to have said that Cortes and all his men were ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. IV. • Robert Kerr
... time briefly to narrate it before coming home, where the first person they met was Aubrey, exceeding pale, and in great distress. 'Papa, I must tell you,' he said, drawing him into the study. 'I have done terrible harm, I am afraid.' And he explained, that in the morning, when Mrs. Pugh ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... his heavy bulk against the door, burst lock and hinge, and sent it flat on the garret floor. Blinding smoke met and almost choked him as he fell, and Sam, tumbling over him, caught up the first person his hands touched and bore her out. It was old Liz—half dressed, and wrapped in a blanket! Susy, also half dressed, and with a shawl wrapped round her shoulders, was carried out by Laidlaw. Both were unhurt, though half stifled by smoke, ...
— The Garret and the Garden • R.M. Ballantyne
... the very first person whom he met, on entering the shop, was his respected employer; who, plucking his watch out of his fob, and looking furiously at it, motioned the trembling Titmouse to follow him to the farther end of the long shop, where there happened to ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... were among the infuriated populace, though even without their presence he was a doomed man; for he was the first person on whom the excited mob could show that they were resolved upon revenge. Rushing upon him with savage yells, the lifeless bodies of the luckless wretch and his family were soon strewn over the ground. Nobody knew ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... was a work which a midshipman in those days often had to perform for himself; but then it was very different doing it for another, and that other a Frenchman. At length, however, the boys were dismissed, having performed all the tasks given to them. They hurried forward and dived below. The first person they met was Pierre, who looked with commiseration ...
— Adrift in a Boat • W.H.G. Kingston
... persons ministered to her pleasure, well and good,—she would be graciously pleased to smile, and be good-humored. If she were displeased, if her preferences were not consulted, if her plans were interfered with, woe betide the first person who entered her presence; and still more woe betide the person who ...
— Mercy Philbrick's Choice • Helen Hunt Jackson
... he possessed abundant wisdom and eloquence, and enough boldness to say what was in his mind, regardless of the good-will of the great. Perhaps a further and more weighty reason was that he was steward of the Earl of March. He was the first person to hold an office indistinguishable in all essentials from that of the later Speaker. Under his guidance the commons worked out an elaborate policy of revenge and reform. The contempt with which John of Gaunt and the courtiers had at first regarded their action, gave place to fear. The duke found ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout
... as that of Montaigne, is, indeed, the natural attitude of the familiar essayist who must be egotistic, not from self-consciousness but from the lack of it. In putting his opinions and experiences in the first person, we feel that Lamb did so almost unconsciously, because it was for him the easiest way of expressing himself. It was not, in fact, egotism at all in the commonly accepted sense of meaning, too frequent or self-laudatory use of ...
— Charles Lamb • Walter Jerrold
... gran' an' tall, an' mighty fine spoken, like all dem quality from de Norf," she said, although in fact he was the first person she had ever seen from the North; but that made no difference with Mandy Ann. "He was a gemman—he had given her a dollar, and he was ...
— The Cromptons • Mary J. Holmes
... law, spent one of his vacations at the chateau Nahant, and was the first person who turned Madame Dudevant's attention to literary pursuits. He returned to Paris profoundly in love with the lady, though he had not dared to mention it. M. Nerard, a botanist, came also to the chateau, to give lessons to M. Dudevant, and ...
— Paris: With Pen and Pencil - Its People and Literature, Its Life and Business • David W. Bartlett
... shot gun which was loaded with buck shot. The Kid then broke the gun across the window sill, then going to the room where the weapons were kept the Kid picked out what guns he wanted and broke the balance. Then he made the first person he met break the irons from his legs and bring him a horse. The Kid then took four revolvers and two Winchester rifles and rode away. Sheriff Garret was at White Oaks at the time and as soon he as heard of ...
— The Life and Adventures of Nat Love - Better Known in the Cattle Country as "Deadwood Dick" • Nat Love
... that occur in both, but nowhere else in the New Testament." Luke, moreover, as the travelling companion of Paul, had all needed facilities for composing such a work. With regard to the latter portion of the book, this is denied by none. His use of the first person plural, "we endeavored," "the Lord had called us," "we came," etc.—which first appears, chap. 16:10, and continues, with certain interruptions, through the remainder of the book—admits of but one natural ...
— Companion to the Bible • E. P. Barrows
... his care, Tonsard replied to the first person who happened to mention that Mademoiselle Laguerre had given it to him, "I've bought it deuced hard, and paid well for it. Do rich folks ever give us anything? Are one hundred days' work nothing? It has cost me three hundred francs, and the land is all stones." ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... plotting her ruin is the first person presented to her. He is a graceful dancer and makes the evening pass pleasantly for her, by his kind attentions and praise of her grace in dancing, and when the school is dismissed he escorts her home, which courtesy she accepts, because ...
— From the Ball-Room to Hell • T. A. Faulkner
... permitted to think, however, that to Dr. Orchard belongs the distinction of being the first person of this erratic trinity, and therefore we may still regard him with that measure of curiosity which is the tribute paid by simple people to the eccentric ...
— Painted Windows - Studies in Religious Personality • Harold Begbie
... to the house, and not too soon. Seeing the waggons arrive and having made sure that the Amahagger were gone, Thomaso and the other cowards emerged from their hiding-places and returned. Unfortunately for the former the first person he met was Umslopogaas, who began to revile the fat half-breed in no measured terms, calling him dog, coward, and other opprobrious names, such as deserter of women and children, and so forth—all of ...
— She and Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... Mandarin Li Keen?" replied the first person to whom Ling addressed himself. "It would indeed be a difficult and hazardous conjecture to make concerning his sacred person. By chance he is in the strongest and best-concealed cellar in Si-chow, unless ...
— The Wallet of Kai Lung • Ernest Bramah
... against that mighty little flirt after a space of fifteen years—to come across it all again by accident! Look here! I land out of the Grande Marie de Luxembourg at Naples, with no more idea of revivin' old times than of escapin' into the next century, and who's the first person that I meet but little Gertie, and what's the first word that I hear but the isolation of ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... fellow citizens of these United States in general! know ye, that I, Solomon Smooth, in the first person singular, as Uncle Sam Houston used to say, being worn out with the fatigues of the Ostend-Aix-la-Chapelle Congress, crossed the Atlantic in two steamships—wanted to do both a good turn—got busted up by neither—and ...
— The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth • Timothy Templeton
... and will doubtless send it back to you, for he has made a score of copies of it, and they are all over the district. Why, the rascal, whoever he is, nailed one to the door of the Commissariat Store not long ago, and the first person to see it was Mr Sampson himself. He is mightily wroth about it, I can tell ye, and somehow suspects that the picture came from someone in this house, and told your father that these copies were given about by your man Trenfield. So just ye give a hint to the fellow, ...
— Ridan The Devil And Other Stories - 1899 • Louis Becke
... were considerably softened by Booth's last speech; but he again contracted them into a vast degree of fierceness before he cried out—"Boy, thou hast reason enough to be vain; for thou art the first person that ever could proudly say he gained an advantage over me in combat. I believe, indeed, thou art not afraid of any man breathing, and, as I know thou hast some obligations to my brother, I do not discommend thee; for nothing more becomes the dignity of a man than gratitude. ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding
... Johnson, in the Lives of the Poets, that Benjamin, the eldest son of the poet Waller, was disinherited by his father as wanting common understanding, and sent to New Jersey. It was not, however, from this Benjamin—a name still popular in the family—that the Virginia Wallers derive their origin. The first person of the name in Virginia was Edmund Waller, who bore the name of the poet, and was probably his grandson, and who came over in the beginning of the eighteenth century. His son Benjamin, the future judge, was born in 1716, was probably educated at William ...
— Discourse of the Life and Character of the Hon. Littleton Waller Tazewell • Hugh Blair Grigsby
... themselves at frequent intervals along his path, and each one was to comment on how badly he looked, and intimate to him that he was sick. So on a certain morning as the professor was walking to the college (and he was feeling as well as usual), the first person he met was one of the students who greeted him warmly with a hearty 'good morning' and then added, 'What is the matter, professor, are you sick?' The professor said, 'No, I am feeling as well as usual; why do you ask?' The ...
— The Pastor's Son • William W. Walter
... and personal feelings and habits already existing. Reding, for instance, felt a difficulty in determining how and when the sins of a Christian are forgiven; he had a great notion that celibacy was better than married life. He was not the first person in the Church of England who had had such thoughts; to numbers, doubtless, before him they had occurred; but these numbers had looked abroad, and seen nothing around them to justify what they felt, and their feelings had, in consequence, ...
— Loss and Gain - The Story of a Convert • John Henry Newman
... which it did the moment wraps were off, then their pride got a fall; for the first person who tasted the stuffing (it was big Cousin Mose, and that made it harder to bear) nearly ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... of the "Atlantic," that your articles are commonly written in the imperial style; but I must beg allowance to use the first person singular. I cannot, like old Weller, spell myself with a We. Ours is, I believe, the only language that has shown so much sense of the worth of the individual (to himself) as to erect the first personal pronoun into a kind of votive column to the dignity of human nature. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860 • Various
... courser, Baron Durer, the Minister, got home in safety to his chateau. The first person that he met was the baroness. He turned abruptly ...
— The Children's Portion • Various
... a kiss on each very rough forehead, passed through the little postern door, heard the dogs whining behind her, did not dare to look back, and ran as fast as she could to the house. She was quite late for the midday dinner; and the first person she met was Miss Symes, who came up to her in a state of great excitement. "Why, Betty!" she said, "where have you been? We have all been terribly anxious ...
— Betty Vivian - A Story of Haddo Court School • L. T. Meade
... mile necessary to take her to the Melkbridge boot manufactory with a light heart. She reached it at nine, to find a square, unlovely building, enclosed by a high stone wall of the usual Wiltshire type, broken slabs of oolitic formation loosely thrown together. She explained her errand to the first person she met inside the gate, and was told to await the arrival of Mr Gaby, the manager, who was due in half an hour, the time, she afterwards learned, at which the lady clerks were expected. When Mr Gaby came, she found him to be a nervous, sandy-haired ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte
... tried to bribe him with the offer of it to accompany me to my favourite haunt. The brave young hunter refused again and again; but on each occasion he offered to perform some other service or to give me something in exchange for the box. At last I told him that I would give it to the first person who should accompany me, and fearing that someone would be found valiant enough to win the prize, he at length plucked up a spirit, and on the next day, seeing me going out for a walk, he all at once offered to go with me. He cunningly ...
— Green Mansions - A Romance of the Tropical Forest • W. H. Hudson
... his imagination, the imaginary being whom he is acting. And this, that it is entirely a third person, excuses his heart from the otherwise inevitable charge of selfish vanity; and so by madness itself he preserves our esteem, and renders those actions natural by which he, the first person, deserves it. ...
— Literary Remains (1) • Coleridge
... as the first person who reported to Tigranes that Lucullus was in the country got nothing for his pains, but had his head cut off, nobody else would tell him, and Tigranes was sitting in ignorance while the fires of war were ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long
... her, and left her for a while. He changed clothes with the first person he met in the town, and having bought a certain powder returned to the princess, who let him in by ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments • Andrew Lang.
... to the eastwards. On the 1st of August the entrance into a broad inlet was discovered, into which the current ran very rapidly. The opening of this inlet was known before, and is indeed laid down in the charts attached to Marchand's Voyage round the World; but Kotzebue is certainly the first person who explained it. As it was perfectly calm when he reached this inlet, he resolved to go on shore, and examine from some eminence the direction of the coast. "We landed," he observes, "without difficulty, near a hill, which I immediately ascended; from ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson
... he come thar to see. Old mistress had three boys till one died. I was brushin' flies offen him. She come and cry and go way cryin'. He callin' her all time. He quit callin' her then he was dead. Made a sorter gurglin' sound. That the first person I seed die. When they say he dead I got out and off I was gone. I was usin' a turkey wing to brush flies offen him. I don't know what was the matter wid em. They buried him on her place whah the grave yard was made. Both her husbands buried down there. She had a fine marble put ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: Volume II, Arkansas Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... the British public will wake up and will refuse to read the works of a smug- faced man in spectacles who tries to make them believe that he is doughty, fearless, and beloved of beautiful damsels. The bookstalls are full to-day of works written in the first person singular, and relating deeds of the utmost daring; while on the cover is a portrait of the author—the aforesaid smug man in spectacles—who has not the good sense ...
— Tomaso's Fortune and Other Stories • Henry Seton Merriman
... motion. One of its first uses after it became a really useful machine was to propel ships, though many a weary hour was spent to bring it to this point. There is a very pretty monument on the Clyde, dedicated to Mr. Bell, who I believe was the first person who successfully brought steamers to work on its waters. The first who used steam for ships was Mr. James Taylor, in conjunction with Mr. Miller of Dalswinton. The danger of the fire-ship took such hold on people's minds that ...
— Lectures on Popular and Scientific Subjects • John Sutherland Sinclair, Earl of Caithness
... he had to go - which was a pity, as he was the first person with a sense of humour who ever entered that village as a resident. One could positively talk sense to him, without being regarded as a lunatic. As a rule, you had to feign imbecility there if you didn't want to be considered mad. I had just made up my mind to learn to knit men's ties, instead ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page
... dress business, but no more than that. She mustn't know a word about the rest. She has a frightful temper, you know. If she happened to get good and mad at me, she'd tell everything she knew to the very first person she ran across. She'll be properly shocked when she hears about the dress. We'll tell it to her as a great secret," planned Marian. "I won't say anything outright about the ring. I'll leave it to her to draw her own conclusions. She's rabid about Judy Stearns. ...
— Jane Allen: Right Guard • Edith Bancroft
... The first person to discover what was going on was a Mr. Lukey Carrington, a special science teacher under the London Education Board, and, in his leisure, a specialist in fresh-water algae, and he is certainly not to be envied his discovery. He had come down ...
— The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth • H.G. Wells
... poor. He adorned Athens with many public buildings. He commenced on a stupendous scale a temple to the Olympian Zeus, which remained unfinished for centuries, and was at length completed by the emperor Hadrian. He was a patron of literature, as well as of the arts. He is said to have been the first person in Greece who collected a library, which he threw open to the public; and to him posterity is indebted for the collection of the Homeric poems. On the whole it cannot be denied that he made a wise and ...
— A Smaller History of Greece • William Smith
... evinces its existence; and there is not one, perhaps, more disagreeable than the affected avoidance of what is generally regarded as egotism. Depend upon it, my reader, that the straightforward and natural writer who frankly uses the first person singular, and says, "I think thus and thus," "I have seen so and so," is thinking of himself and his own personality a mighty deal less than the man who is always employing awkward and roundabout forms of expression to avoid the use of the obnoxious I. Every such periphrasis testifies ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 44, June, 1861 • Various
... somewhat higher than a man, and next to God. But before the Wars they stiled him Dionanxi, which is a Title higher than God by the addition of Nanxi. This Title the King took before the Rebellion, but since he forbad it. When they speak to the King concerning themselves, they do not speak in the first person, and say I did so or so, but Baulagot the limb of a Dog did it or will do it. And when they speak of their Children unto the King, they call them Puppies. As if he ask them how many Children they have, they say so many Puppy dogs, and so ...
— An Historical Relation Of The Island Ceylon In The East Indies • Robert Knox
... that he should almost be ashamed to bequeath his wretched structure to any respectable dog. But now to the case, which, for the sake of avoiding the constant recurrence of a cumbersome periphrasis, the author will take the liberty of giving in the first person. ...
— Confessions of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas De Quincey
... proper order, I am detailed for officer of the guard. True, the cadets expressed some wonderment, but why? Simply, and reasonably enough too, because I was the first person of color that had ever commanded a guard at the Military Academy of the United States. It is but a natural curiosity. And how am I treated? Is my authority recognized? Indeed it is. My sergeant not only volunteered to ...
— Henry Ossian Flipper, The Colored Cadet at West Point • Henry Ossian Flipper
... important matter—as I regard it. In the year '74 the young woman copied a considerable part of a book of mine ON THE MACHINE. In a previous chapter of this Autobiography I have claimed that I was the first person in the world that ever had a telephone in the house for practical purposes; I will now claim—until dispossess—that I was the first person in the world to APPLY THE TYPE-MACHINE TO LITERATURE. That book must have been THE ...
— The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... Guizot, "was the first person in France who spoke of Shakespeare's genius; and although he spoke of him merely as a barbarian genius, the French public were of the opinion that he had said too much in his favor. Indeed, they thought it nothing less than profanation to apply the words genius and glory to dramas which they considered ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... sprained her ankle while looking at the old man instead of watching the path, and the hot fomentation had reduced the swelling. She is not the first person to hear spirit voices in his or her ...
— The Conjure Woman • Charles W. Chesnutt
... owes his importance in literature to the systematic expulsion from his writings of all contractile elements. The only sentiments he allowed himself to express were of the expansive order; and he expressed these in the first person, not as your mere monstrously conceited individual might so express them, but vicariously for all men, so that a passionate and mystic ontological emotion suffuses his words, and ends by persuading the reader that men and women, life ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... the person who told you?" asked the doctor a little impatiently. "We want to get at the first person who gave this information. Was it one of yourselves or a stranger? Do you actually know the ...
— The Hilltop Boys on the River • Cyril Burleigh
... receive other callers yet. You can't understand now, dearie. God grant you may never understand. She shut herself up four years ago when she found out that she would never get well enough to walk again, and you are the first person she has ever seen since that time, except her own household and the physician. Perhaps you are the opening wedge, child. Oh, I trust it ...
— The Lilac Lady • Ruth Alberta Brown
... Humbert, and her kindness to the lonely Petronella when her pitiful story was told, quite decided Cuthbert to confide the golden secret to her. She listened in amaze, but was highly pleased at being the first person to know it. She laid her hand on Cuthbert's head, and spoke to him of the old saw which predicted that fortune should return to the Wyverns through the daughters' sons, and declared that he was fulfilling the prophecy she had longed to live to ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... animated vocal contest between her and the bagpiper. It is abruptly terminated, however, by the arrival of Hoeel. Dinorah makes her escape by a window, and Hoeel relates to Corentin the story of the Korigans' treasure. As the first person who touches it will die, he determines that Corentin shall be his messenger, and to rouse his courage sends for wine. While Corentin is absent, Hoeel sings an aria ("Se per prender") which has always been a favorite ...
— The Standard Operas (12th edition) • George P. Upton
... were not slow to hear of what had happened, and they regarded the matter in so serious a light, that they summoned a Seniority for its immediate investigation. Kennedy was obviously the first person of whom to make inquiries, and he told them exactly what had occurred, viz, that De Vayne after drinking a single glass of wine, fell back in his chair in the condition wherein he still continued. "Was anything the matter with the wine, Mr Kennedy?" asked Mr Norton, ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar
... had set out to educate Mrs. Douglas van Tuiver in the things I thought she needed to know. A part of my programme was to find some people of modern sympathies whom she might meet without offence to her old prejudices. The first person I thought of was Mrs. Jessie Frothingham, who was the head of a fashionable girls' school, just around the corner from Miss Abercrombie's where Sylvia herself had received the finishing touch. Mrs. Frothingham's ...
— Sylvia's Marriage • Upton Sinclair
... must be urged. Christ has not given His message in the first person. If He had done so our position would be stronger. It has been repeated by the hearsay and report of earnest but ill-educated men. It speaks much for education in the Roman province of Judea that these fishermen, ...
— The Vital Message • Arthur Conan Doyle
... fancy pillows,—some made of cigar-ribbons, one of braided strips of black and red satin, one in a shield of rough, coarse knotted lace, and one with a little boy printed in color upon it, a boy whose trousers were finished with real tin buttons. Mary Lord was always the first person Susan thought of when the girls in the office argued, ignorantly and vigorously, for or against the law of compensation. Here, in this stuffy boarding-house room, the impatient, restless spirit must remain, chained and tortured day after ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris
... forgot that,' he said. 'Yes, they won't like it—they meant well, poor girls, and took a lot of trouble. Still, you're the first person to be considered, Ella. I'll try and smooth it over with them, and if they choose to be offended, why, they must—that's all. And I tell you what. Suppose we go and see the house now, and you shall tell me just what wants doing ...
— The Talking Horse - And Other Tales • F. Anstey
... contains no reference to the legend of the Van Pool. The volume in question includes a transcript of another manuscript of the work, which is ascribed in the colophon to Howel the Physician, who, writing in the first person, claims to be "regularly descended in the male line from the said Einion, the son of Rhiwallon, the physician of Myddfai, being resident in Cilgwryd, in Gower." This recension of the work is much later in date than the former. A portion of it cannot be older ...
— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland
... he died alone in an empty house, and that flames were seen about the house all night; and 'the flames were the angels waking him.' But many told me he had died in the house of a man near Craughwell; and one autumn day I went there to look for it, and the first person I asked was able to tell me that the house where Raftery had died was the other side of Craughwell, a mile and a half away. It was a warm, hazy day; and as I walked along the flat, deserted road that Raftery had often walked, ...
— Poets and Dreamers - Studies and translations from the Irish • Lady Augusta Gregory and Others
... first person I've mentioned it to. It's not the sort of thing you'd bring up casually, ...
— The Edge of the Knife • Henry Beam Piper
... gave me my first impulse to composition." Weber, in a letter from Munich written in 1812, says: "Fancy my delight when I beheld lying upon the table of the hotel the play-bill with the magic name Armand. I was the first person in the theatre, and planted myself in the middle of the pit, where I waited most anxiously for the tones which I knew beforehand would elevate and inspire me. I think I may assert boldly that 'Les Deux Journees' is a ...
— Great Italian and French Composers • George T. Ferris
... long as it is possible for him to sleep, dresses slowly, amuses himself in conversation with the first person that calls upon him, and loiters about till dinner. Or if he engages in any employment, however important, he leaves it the moment an opportunity of talking occurs. At length dinner is served up; and after lounging at the table a long time, the evening will ...
— The Young Man's Guide • William A. Alcott
... priest, educated at Oxford, began in the latter end of Edward III. to spread the doctrine of reformation by his discourses, sermons, and writings; and he made many disciples among men of all ranks and stations. He seems to have been a man of parts and learning; and has the honor of being the first person in Europe that publicly called in question those principles which had universally passed for certain and undisputed during so many ages. Wickliffe himself, as well as his disciples, who received the name of Wickliffites, or Lollards, was distinguished by a great austerity of life and ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part B. - From Henry III. to Richard III. • David Hume
... care. I had heard much of the clever old Moor, who was born in very poor surroundings, started life as a camel driver, and is now the wealthiest and most powerful unofficial resident in Southern Morocco, if not in all the Moghreb, so I bade M'Barak find him without delay. The first person questioned directed us to one of Boubikir's fandaks, and by its gate, in a narrow lane, where camels jostled the camp-mules until they nearly foundered in the underlying filth, we found the celebrated man sitting within the porch, on ...
— Morocco • S.L. Bensusan
... The first person he met was a farm labourer walking alongside a load of peat and smacking at his horse. He made a bow so deep that his back came near breaking, and he was dumbfounded, I can tell you, when he saw it was ...
— The Book of Stories for the Storyteller • Fanny E. Coe
... were hammering so loudly that in the outer room and the office no one heard him come in. A postman he knew was coming down the stairs with a bundle of letters in his hand; he was wincing at the noise, and he did not notice Laptev either. The first person to meet him upstairs was his brother Fyodor Fyodorovitch, who was so like him that they passed for twins. This resemblance always reminded Laptev of his own personal appearance, and now, seeing before him a short, red-faced man with rather thin hair, with narrow plebeian hips, ...
— The Darling and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... GERALD,—I have some surprising news for you; but I hardly think that you will be more surprised than I was. I am going to marry Mr. Kane. I accepted him some days ago, but have been getting used to the idea since then, and you are the first person, after Aunt Grizel, who knows. It will be announced next week and we shall probably be married very soon after you and Althea. I hope that both our ventures will bring us much happiness. The more I see of Mr. Kane, the more I realise how fortunate ...
— Franklin Kane • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid, That at every such trial of slaves committing capital or other offences, the first person in commission sitting on such trial, shall, before the examination of every negro, mulatto or Indian, not being a christian, charge ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... who fell in love, posed for his statues, patronized music and poetry, and, finally, had a table water named in his honor. Career: See longer and less respectable biographies. A. was the first person to sing to the accompaniment of a musical instrument, but he was a good singer. Ambition: Paris. Recreation: Music, travel, archery. ...
— Who Was Who: 5000 B. C. to Date - Biographical Dictionary of the Famous and Those Who Wanted to Be • Anonymous
... Fowler Pratt. Pratt was the oldest friend he had in the world, and it had happened that when he first woke to the misery that he had prepared for himself in throwing over Lily and betrothing himself to his late wife, Pratt had been the first person to whom he had communicated his sorrow. Not that he had ever been really open in his communications. It was not given to such men as Crosbie to speak openly of themselves to their friends. Nor, indeed, was Fowler Pratt one who was fond of listening to ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... Obligations she is under to protect, cherish, and instruct her offspring, what can be expected of that Man's heart and understanding who has continually (from Childhood to Maturity) beheld so pernicious an Example? His nearest relation is the first person he is taught to revere as his Guide and Instructor; the perversion of Temper before him leads to a corruption of his own, and when that is depraved, vice quickly becomes habitual, and, though timely Severity may sometimes be necessary & justifiable, surely a peevish harassing System ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero
... her through it. On her recovery, in her burning impatience to escape from the parental roof, she declared she would accept the first person who sought her hand, provided he was a man of a certain age; by this proviso wishing her lover to understand that her marriage was wholly due to constraint. An advocate of some repute, a Herr Pfeiffer, proposed and was accepted. This was ...
— Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century • W. H. Davenport Adams
... The first person they met aboard was Captain Long, whom they had not seen when he paid his visit to Captain Miles ...
— Young Glory and the Spanish Cruiser - A Brave Fight Against Odds • Walter Fenton Mott
... the single exception of "Christ's Tears over Jerusalem," which was issued again in 1613. His name was mentioned and some interest in his writings was awakened at the close of the next century by Winstanley and by Langbaine, but Oldys, the celebrated antiquary, was the first person who seriously endeavoured to trace ...
— The Vnfortunate Traveller, or The Life Of Jack Wilton - With An Essay On The Life And Writings Of Thomas Nash By Edmund Gosse • Thomas Nash
... observed, could never do anything but put finger in eye at a wedding. Even Mrs. Poyser could not trust herself to speak as the neighbours shook hands with her, and Lisbeth began to cry in the face of the very first person who told her she was getting ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... the Declaration of Independence shows the influence of her mind. Among others who sought her counsel upon political matters were Samuel and John Adams, Dickinson, that pure patriot of Pennsylvania, Jefferson, Gerry, and Knox. She was the first person who counseled separation and pressed those views upon John Adams, when he sought her advice before the opening of the first Congress. At that time even Washington had no thought of the final independence of the colonies, emphatically denying such intention or desire ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... the garrison was destroyed.... What a moment was that, when, thanks be to Heaven, the gale in some degree abated. The officers crept out one after the other, and the scene that followed can be compared only to that which one sees and feels after an action—who has escaped?—who is dead?... The first person I found wounded was Mrs. Brocklass, the lady of an officer of the 1st West India Regiment, who, with three fine children, finding the roof over them falling, hastened from under it. She had the misfortune to be knocked ...
— The History of the First West India Regiment • A. B. Ellis
... this moment, I have contained myself with all due restraint; but feeling, as I do feel, that patience has finally ceased to be a virtue, I am now constrained to address you in the first person singular, being further emboldened by the reflection that already a bond of sympathy and understanding exists between us, you for years having been connected with one of our largest educational institutions and fonts of learning, namely, ...
— Fibble, D. D. • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... result of causing it to turn upon its master at the other side. Some of the blows of my cane came home and roused its snakish temper, so that it flew upon the first person it saw. In this way I am no doubt indirectly responsible for Dr. Grimesby Roylott's death, and I cannot say that it is likely to weigh very heavily ...
— The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... questions and replies, it will be readily understood that the child does not employ the ordinary artifices of mathematicians. Marquess Scriso, who was the first person to discover this singular talent, is about, with several other persons of distinction in the city, to solicit the aid of Government in the education of the child, every one being fully aware of the impropriety of subjecting him to ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 397, Saturday, November 7, 1829. • Various
... writing in 1430, says: "The inhabitants of Java and Sumatra exceed every other people in cruelty. They regard killing a man as a mere jest; nor is any punishment allotted for such a deed. If any one purchase a new sword, and wish to try it, he will thrust it into the breast of the first person he meets. The passers-by examine the wound, and praise the skill of the person who inflicted it, if he thrust in the weapon direct." Yet Drake says of the south of Java: "The people (as are their kings) are a very loving, true, and just-dealing people;" and Mr. Crawfurd says that the Javanese, ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume II. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... the gold-fields. Almost the first person he met on the streets of Julesberg was George Chrisman, who had been chief wagon-master for Russell, Majors & Waddell. Will had become well acquainted with Chrisman on the various expeditions he had ...
— Last of the Great Scouts - The Life Story of William F. Cody ["Buffalo Bill"] • Helen Cody Wetmore
... was cut through the wilderness from Haverhill to Penacook. In the fall of 1727, the first family, that of Captain Ebenezer Eastman, moved into the place. His team was driven by Jacob Shute, who was by birth a Frenchman, and he is said to have been the first person who drove a team through the wilderness. Soon after, says tradition, one Ayer, a lad of 18, drove a team consisting of ten yoke of oxen to Penacook, swam the river, and ploughed a portion of the interval. He is supposed ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau
... rather more than six months in making this voyage, and is the first person who ever circumnavigated the continent of New Holland. On his passage to Batavia, he had discovered several islands, which he gave names to and, after fighting his way against adverse elements and ...
— A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson • Watkin Tench
... Caffe della Spaderia, kept by Marco Ancilloto, some radicals proposed to open a reading-room to encourage the spread of liberal ideas. The inquisitors sent a foot-soldier to notify the proprietor that he should inform the first person entering the room that he was to present himself before their tribunal. ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... testimony only to his composition of a single ode,—the second of the fifteenth Book in Part I [2]. Some of the other pieces in that Part, of which the historical interpretation may be considered as sufficiently fixed, are written in the first person; but the author may ...
— The Shih King • James Legge
... of a man who had many enemies, only because he loved the Lord Jesus; and at last they hated him so much as to kill him. He was the very first person who ever suffered death for the Lord's sake. Give me your Bible, and I will read ...
— Fern's Hollow • Hesba Stretton
... my boyish ambition to find some corner of those rocky wilds where no human being had ever set foot and to be the first person to behold it. What boy has not felt that Columbus had several centuries' advantage of him: that Balboa was a meddlesome old chap who might better have stayed in Spain and left American oceans to American boys to discover? ...
— A Mountain Boyhood • Joe Mills
... with great contrition to the castle of Roche-Corbon and the first person he met was the seneschal, who was polishing up his arms, helmets, gauntlets, and other things. He was sitting on a great marble bench in the open air, and was amusing himself by making shine again the splendid ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... seemed like a civil and well-meaning woman, and was the first person who had spoken to us in a social way, I didn't mind talking to her, and I told her we was only stopping in London until we could find the kind of country house we wanted, and when she asked what kind that was, I described what we wanted and ...
— Pomona's Travels - A Series of Letters to the Mistress of Rudder Grange from her Former - Handmaiden • Frank R. Stockton
... look of things, I am not the first person who has trodden on that object, whatever it is. Do you mind holding the lamp ...
— The Mystery of 31 New Inn • R. Austin Freeman
... time of Edward IV. the art of knitting stockings was probably not known in any part of Europe. Their hose were made of common cloth, which may have been one of the causes of their dearness. The first person that wore stockings in England is said to have been Queen Elizabeth. She received them as a present from ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... animal thus caught by you is deemed your property so long as it is completely under your control; but so soon as it has escaped from your control, and recovered its natural liberty, it ceases to be yours, and belongs to the first person who subsequently catches it. It is deemed to have recovered its natural liberty when you have lost sight of it, or when, though it is still in your sight, it would ...
— The Institutes of Justinian • Caesar Flavius Justinian
... the first person who has ever said that," the woman said, surprised. "I am so short, and ...
— The Young Franc Tireurs - And Their Adventures in the Franco-Prussian War • G. A. Henty
... to purchase on the morrow. Kern's endeavor was to convey the idea that, in cases such as this, many men ever made it a practice to keep the old suit by, like for rainy days, and under no circumstances to give it away to the first person comes along and asts them for it. Clearly the reference here was to her father, the erring Mister, who had appeared at the Dabney House in June's first blush and was now (it was presumable) wearing Mr. V.V.'s derby down ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... by evolutionists may be checked up and disproved by mathematical problems. No stronger proof could well be devised. For pattern solutions, refer to the preceding text. A reward will be given to the first person who points out a material error. Test, verify or correct the ...
— The Evolution Of Man Scientifically Disproved • William A. Williams
... the private opinion of Cicero, that the Latin had the advantage; and if Csar did not accompany him to that length, he yet felt that it was but the more necessary to draw forth any single advantage which it really had. [Footnote: Csar had the merit of being the first person to propose the daily publication of the acts and votes of the senate. In the form of public and official dispatches, he made also some useful innovations; and it may be mentioned, for the curiosity of the incident, that the cipher which ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... The first person Montague met there was Harry Curtiss, who greeted him with eagerness. "I was pleased to death when I heard that you were in on this deal," said he; "we shall have ...
— The Moneychangers • Upton Sinclair
... The first person whom I met on the deck was Hurliguerly; he gave me a look of triumph, which said as plainly as speech: "Ha! you see now. Our hard-to-manage captain has given in at last. And to whom do you owe this, but to the good boatswain who did ...
— An Antarctic Mystery • Jules Verne
... nightcap. The old thoughts, the old dreams—yes, they remained still in the old bachelor's nightcap. Wish not for that. It will make your brow too hot, make your pulses beat too violently, bring dreams that seem reality. This was proved by the first person who put it on—and that was not till fifty years after—by the burgomaster himself, who was blessed with a wife and eleven children. He dreamt of unhappy love, ...
— The Sand-Hills of Jutland • Hans Christian Andersen
... that you have the papers," he pointed out. "You were the first person to go up the stairs after Graham had been rendered unconscious. Joseph admits that he had been forced to leave him—the orchestra was waiting to play. He was alone in that little room. That you should have known of its existence and his presence there is surprising, but nothing more. Furthermore, ...
— The Pawns Count • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... having heard only that the Beauty was to leave the village, and having heard nothing of the fire, and not having prospered where he was, returned to his old home. The first person he saw he asked of the Beauty, and that one told him of the holocaust of her graces, and warned him, remembering that the Fool had always spoken his thoughts without tact or discretion—warned the Fool to disguise when he saw her the shock he must ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... no limit to the treachery of youth! I ordered the Hawley Boy, as he valued my patronage, not to call. The first person I stumble over literally stumble over in her poky, dark little drawing-room is, of course, the Hawley Boy. She kept us waiting ten minutes, and then emerged as though she had been tipped out of the dirtyclothes-basket. You know my way, dear, when I am at all put ...
— Under the Deodars • Rudyard Kipling
... One particular type of personal experience article that enjoys great popularity is the so-called "confession story." Told in the first person, often anonymously, a well-written confession article is one of the most effective forms in which to present facts ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer
... This was the first balloon that ascended from English ground. On the 22nd of February 1784 a hydrogen gas balloon, 5 ft. in diameter, was let up from Sandwich, in Kent, and descended at Warneton, in French Flanders, 75 m. distant. This was the first balloon that crossed the Channel. The first person who rose into the air from British ground appears to have been J. Tytler1, who ascended from the Comely Gardens, Edinburgh, on the 27th of August 1784, in a fire-balloon of his own construction. He descended on the road to Restalrig, ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... the weeds and cornfields. They waylaid the men and boys working in the fields, beset every pathway, watched every watering place, and shot down the cattle. "In the night," says Humphrey Marshall, "they will place themselves near the fort gate, ready to sacrifice the first person who shall appear in the morning; in the day, if there be any cover, such as grass, a bush, a large clod of earth, or a stone as big as a bushel, they will avail themselves of it, to approach the fort, by slipping forward on ...
— The Land of the Miamis • Elmore Barce
... who, escaping when you were attacked by our people, whose livery he knew, watched the direction in which you were taken. Immediately he set off to Wittemburg to give information of what had become of you, and the very first person he encountered was Dr Martin whom he at once recognised as your companion on the road, in spite of his change of dress. The Doctor knew well that I could not be cognisant of what had occurred, and he hoped that my good lord would not be insensible to a direct appeal from himself. ...
— Count Ulrich of Lindburg - A Tale of the Reformation in Germany • W.H.G. Kingston
... and listening to their hearty wishes for his safe and speedy return, he mounted his horse, which stood at the porch saddled and bridled, took his pack-mule by the halter and rode away toward Mr. Gilbert's ranche. The first person to greet him as he drew rein in front of the door was Zeke, who had so emphatically declared that he would not have another word ...
— George at the Fort - Life Among the Soldiers • Harry Castlemon
... went ashore at the Grand Quay, the captain sent me to the house of my new master, Mr. D——, to whom Captain I——had sold me. Grand Quay is a small town upon a sandbank; the houses low and built of wood. Such was my new master's. The first person I saw, on my arrival, was Mr. D——, a stout sulky looking man, who carried me through the hall to show me to his wife and children. Next day I was put up by the vendue master to know how much I was worth, and I was valued at one ...
— The History of Mary Prince - A West Indian Slave • Mary Prince
... is used—in the first person only to obviate ambiguity in the sentence. Women use it more frequently than men. In the second person it is used to express emphasis, great familiarity, impertinence, or rebuke. The last two uses are frequent. Ordinarily the honorifics and ...
— The Yotsuya Kwaidan or O'Iwa Inari - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 1 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... inquired Dick. "Why, the United States government, to increase the interest in aviation, and to encourage inventors, has offered a prize of twenty thousand dollars to the first person who takes his airship from the Atlantic to the Pacific, or rather, from New York to San Francisco with but two landings. I'm going to have a ...
— Dick Hamilton's Airship - or, A Young Millionaire in the Clouds • Howard R. Garis
... eventually settled and went into the freighting business and running a store, we were not so progressive as Ragtown even. So when I went to boarding school in the Middle West I was virtually immune from many of the new fads. You, then, are the first person that ever washed my hair—except myself, of course. I remember even that my dear old foster mother always made me wash it when I was a kid—once a year perhaps," she ended with a laugh. "Poor ma! She had little enough time to fuss with a child's hair, cooking for big, hungry men all the ...
— The She Boss - A Western Story • Arthur Preston Hankins
... people often were, to an apparently irrelevant tenderness for her. His voice softened into a playfulness like that of a person speaking to an imaginative little girl. "Why, didn't you learn in school that all wise old nations have the belief that the first person you meet after you go out in the morning decides the fortune of the day for you? Now, what kind of a day are you going ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield
... passed on to the ballroom, where the first person to meet her was Lord Chandos; he looked ...
— A Mad Love • Bertha M. Clay
... met the noon boat. They went in the motor because Philip was too weak to walk so far. As soon as people could be distinguished at all Elnora and Philip sighted an erect figure, with a head like a snowdrift. When the gang-plank fell the first person across it was a lean, red-haired boy of eleven, carrying a violin in one hand and an enormous bouquet of yellow marigolds and purple asters in the other. He was beaming with broad smiles until he saw ...
— A Girl Of The Limberlost • Gene Stratton Porter
... worthless affair, and would never get to sea. The result has since proved this; for the vessel subsequently ran the blockade and foundered near shore, the crew barely escaping with their lives. I had the pleasure, as it happened, of being the first person to forward this information to Admiral Dupont, when it came through the pickets, many months after,—thus concluding my report on ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... made their compilation, reduced the Memoirs containing all the remarkable events of their master's life into a narrative, addressed to himself in propria persona. And thus, instead of telling his own story, in the third person, like Julius Caesar, or in the first person, like most who, in the hall, or the study, undertake to be the heroes of their own tale, Sully enjoyed the refined, though whimsical pleasure, of having the events of his life told over to him by his secretaries, being himself the auditor, as he was also the hero, ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... Again, how could the Athenians, in an age when their piety had not yet given way to scepticism, have endured such dramatic treatment of the chief of the gods? It is almost as if a Mystery Play had been presented in the Middle Ages with Satan for the hero and the First Person of the Trinity in the character of an oppressor. Perhaps the position of Zeus in the drama as a usurper may, in some degree, have ...
— Specimens of Greek Tragedy - Aeschylus and Sophocles • Goldwin Smith
... albumin. On the day I was taken sick, August 31, 1900, Dr. Lazear applied the same mosquito, with three others, to another individual who suffered a comparatively mild attack and was well before I had left my bed. It so happened that I was the first person in whom the mosquito was proved to convey ...
— Insects and Diseases - A Popular Account of the Way in Which Insects may Spread - or Cause some of our Common Diseases • Rennie W. Doane
... you that I commenced my tract distribution at the White House, and the first person I offered one to was Abraham Lincoln. He took it ...
— The Lincoln Story Book • Henry L. Williams
... I like it better; and we've known each other long enough to account for your doing so." He did not give her a chance of objecting, but continued, "I only landed in England yesterday, and you are the first person I've called on. I got your address from my cousin, Mrs. Perry—Maud Elliott that was; she's living in Monte Video, you know; I saw her for a few hours as I passed through. Really, Selina, you're looking prettier ...
— The Empire Annual for Girls, 1911 • Various
... control himself at the sight, Norris burst through the guard, and rushing up the great staircase, soon gained the apartment to which the queen had been conveyed. Owing to the timely aid afforded her, she was speedily restored, and the first person her eyes fell upon was her lover. At the sight of him a glance of affection illumined her features, but it was instantly changed into an ...
— Windsor Castle • William Harrison Ainsworth
... The first person King encountered on the piazza of the Grand Union was not the one he most wished to see, although it could never be otherwise than agreeable to meet his fair cousin, Mrs. Bartlett Glow. She was in a fresh morning toilet, dainty, ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... sooner ridden out of the forest shade when I saw that the place was in an uproar, men and women gathering in groups and running here and there between the cabins. Urging on the mare, I cantered across the fields, and the first person ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... for some days, but lived at an hotel. I returned late one afternoon, with my servant Francisco, a Basque of Hernani, who had served me with the utmost fidelity during my imprisonment, which he had voluntarily shared with me. The first person I saw on entering was the Gypsy soldier, seated by the table, whereon were several bottles of wine which he had ordered from the tavern, of course on my account. He was smoking, and looked savage and sullen; perhaps ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow
... died before de war, but Miss Melvina wus so good ter us we didn't know so much difference. Mother wus de first person I remember seein' dead. When she died Miss Melvina, marster's wife, called us chillun in and says, 'Chillun your mother is dead, but anything in dis kitchen you wants ter eat go take it, but don't slip nuthin'. If you ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States • Various
... porches in which lay "a great multitude of impotent folk, of blind, halt, withered, waiting for the moving of the water." It seems that at certain intervals the waters of the pool were troubled, as if moved by some unseen agency. It was believed that the first person stepping in thereafter would be healed of ...
— Van Dyck - A Collection Of Fifteen Pictures And A Portrait Of The - Painter With Introduction And Interpretation • Estelle M. Hurll
... ate their ices, while listening to a couple of bands, which discoursed very eloquent music. Altogether the scene was extremely pleasing and gay, yet we did not venture to enjoy it. So as we turn our backs upon it, let me cease, for a while, to write in the first person, that I may the more effectively deal with the somewhat grave and important matters, which it ...
— Germany, Bohemia, and Hungary, Visited in 1837. Vol. II • G. R. Gleig
... reached the mainland but left untouched their lonely rock, sent a missive to the bishop containing the two words DO DEKANUS: give us a deacon! The grammar is at fault, he explains, because of their rudimentary knowledge of the Latin tongue; they had only learnt, hitherto, the first person singular and the nominative case—so he says; and then proceeds to demonstrate, with unanswerable arguments, that Greek was the spoken language of Nepenthe at this period. Several scholars have been swayed by his specious logic to abandon the older and sounder interpretation. ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... hungry, and uncomfortable from many other causes; but however this may have been, he felt in the mood for making trouble; for seeing somebody else unhappy beside himself. This prosperous, well-dressed boy, with his books under his arm, and his happy face, was the first person he had come across—and here then was ...
— The Errand Boy • Horatio Alger
... the first person on whom she undertook to try the effect of her invention; and after comfortably seating the parties she withdrew to a little distance ...
— Precaution • James Fenimore Cooper
... glue. In 1830 he erected large iron works at Canton, one of the suburbs of Baltimore, and he subsequently carried on extensive iron and wire works at Trenton, New Jersey. The greater part of his fortune has been gained by the manufacture of iron and glue. He was the first person to roll wrought iron beams for fire-proof buildings, and soon after opening his Baltimore works, he manufactured there, from his own designs, the first locomotive ever made in America. He has been interested in various enterprises, the majority of which have proved successful, ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... Sikhs and Marathas, commanded by European officers, after he had been recognized as a general officer by the Governor-General of India. George Thomas had latterly twelve small disciplined battalions officered by Europeans. He had good artillery, cast his own guns, and was the first person that applied iron calibres to brass cannon. He was unquestionably a man of very extraordinary military genius, and his ferocity and recklessness as to the means he used were quite in keeping with the times. His revenues were derived ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... being resolved to out-write all his Predecessors, a few Years ago introduced three Children with great Success; and as I am informed a young Gentleman who is fully determined to break the most obdurate Heart, has a Tragedy by him where the first Person that appears on the Stage is an afflicted Widow, in her mourning Weeds, with half a dozen fatherless Children attending her, like those that usually hang about the Figure of Charity. Thus several Incidents that are beautiful in a good Writer become ridiculous ...
— Critical Strictures on the New Tragedy of Elvira, Written by Mr. David Malloch (1763) • James Boswell, Andrew Erskine and George Dempster
... came along, bound for St. Louis. I took passage in her, and left Edmonds behind, not a little to my gratification. We had not proceeded far from the Point, when the Chester broke down, and I was obliged to get on board of a down boat, and return to the Point. On arriving there, the first person I encountered was the dumb negro, who told me that Edmonds had died suddenly, since my departure, of the cholera, which was raging at that time on the Mississippi, and which cut men down almost without warning. On inquiry, I found the negro had ...
— Secret Band of Brothers • Jonathan Harrington Green
... be," said Lady Paulina, "and yet imply no falsehood on my part. Falsehood! I disdain such an insinuation; your highness has been the first person who ever dared to make it." At that moment she called to mind the robbery of her carriage at Waldenhausen. Coloring deeply with indignation, she added, "Even in the case, sir, which you have supposed, as unconscious bearer of this or any other paper, I am still innocent ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... pit doors were made to open, and it had been inserted), I felt I had no longer any right to neglect acquaintanceship with so important a feature in the life of the people. Accordingly, one Saturday night, I wended my way to the "Pav."; and there the first person that I ran against was my uncle. He laid a heavy hand upon my shoulder, and asked me, in severe tones, what I was doing there. I felt this to be an awkward question, for it would have been useless trying to make him understand my real motives (one's own relations are ...
— John Ingerfield and Other Stories • Jerome K. Jerome
... imperative that a relation of individual experiences—however devoid of stirring incident and adventure—should be written in the first person. At the same time, the writer of this unpretentious story of a summer's tramp cannot but feel that he owes his readers—should he have any an apology for any avoidable egotism. His excuse is that, no twit notwithstanding ...
— A Tramp Through the Bret Harte Country • Thomas Dykes Beasley
... The first person who came to ask for justice was a woman whose brother had taken the money the father had left for her. The brother said it was the uncle who had the money. There was a good deal of talk and the children were ...
— The Story of the Amulet • E. Nesbit
... Wells' pen that one wonders if she possesses a dual personality or is it merely extraordinary versatility, for she can certainly write detective stories just as well as she can write nonsense verse. The story is told in the first person by a modest young sleuth who is sent to a suburban place to ferret out the mystery which shrouds the murder of a prominent man. Circumstantial evidence in the shape of a gold mesh bag points to a woman as the criminal, and the only possible one is the dead man's niece with ...
— From the Car Behind • Eleanor M. Ingram |
