"Firstborn" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... ago, in the winter when they had used one of their two demolition-bombs to blast open a cavern in the mountains. It had been a hard winter; two children had died, then—Kyna's firstborn, and the little son of Kalvar Dard and Dorita. It had been their first encounter with the ...
— Genesis • H. Beam Piper
... too severely blamed for selling his birthright for a mess of pottage. The lot of the firstborn is not necessarily to be envied. The firstborn of a well-to-do patriarch, like Isaac, or of a Rothschild of to-day, inherits, with his father's flocks and slaves and coffers, a troop of cares and responsibilities; unless he be a man without a sense of duty, in which case we are not supposed ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin
... study with the earthly birth of the Holy Babe of Bethlehem, we shall consider the part taken by the Firstborn Son of God in the primeval councils of heaven, at the time when He was chosen and ordained to be the Savior of the unborn race of mortals, the Redeemer of a world then in its formative stages of development. We are to study Him as the Creator of the world, as the ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... Land of the Four Regions, and called the Children of the Sun to revolt against their oppressors. He, more blessed than I who am his lord, has both wife and child, and if the prophecy is to be fulfiled, and I am to reign in the City of the Sun, then I will take his firstborn and instruct him in all the lore of our people and the duties of their ruler, and if he proves worthy he shall wear the ...
— The Romance of Golden Star ... • George Chetwynd Griffith
... May day it seemed Monday all along the way; for dames with baskets balanced on their heads were making their way to the waterside, followed by troops of barefoot or sabot-shod children. There was one fine young woman with a baby in her arms, and the innocent firstborn was busily taking its breakfast as the mother walked calmly along, bearing on her well-poised head the family wash. And a mile farther on, as if she had seen her rival and gone her one better, was ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 2 of 14 - Little Journeys To the Homes of Famous Women • Elbert Hubbard
... brought forth her firstborn Son, and wrapped Him in swaddling clothes, and laid Him in a manger."—Luke ...
— Our Master • Bramwell Booth
... worshiped them. He had never been known to lend a horse to his best friend, and no one but himself had ever been allowed to feed or groom them. He was prouder of them than a father might be of his firstborn son, and as careful of them as any doting mother. Therefore his assent to Scipio's request was quite staggering to his companions. Nor did he know why he did it, and a furious anger followed immediately upon this unusual ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them ...
— Christmas in Legend and Story - A Book for Boys and Girls • Elva S. Smith
... kubiustis? Or could he not make up his accounts properly?' The critic is then informed of a certain difference between 'sacred' and other coins; and he further gets a lesson in the matter of Levites and Firstborn, which silences him. Again, the Talmud decides that, if a man have bought a slave who turns out to be a thief or a kubiustis,—which has here been erroneously explained to mean a 'manstealer,'—he has no redress. He must keep him, ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume II (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... chose to throw on her screen, were such as appealed to the most elemental principles of human nature, such as the mother could not forget when she heard her own children say their evening prayer, such as led her to consent to send her firstborn to the war, such as to make Uncle Tom's Cabin outsell every other book written by an American, to cause it to be translated into more than thirty foreign languages, to lead a lady of the Siamese court to free all her slaves in 1867, ...
— History of American Literature • Reuben Post Halleck
... move from the cot, hoping awhile that she might come in, dew-footed, and yet kiss him. That clear shining of the face which one sometimes observes in pure-minded devotees, or in young mothers over their firstborn, gave him a look of nobility in the pallid ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, August, 1885 • Various
... he is the first born, but will recognise as his superior whoever is able to see the crown of his head or the soles of his feet. Vishnu thereupon transforms himself into a boar, pierces underground, and thus sees the feet of Siva, who salutes him on his return as the firstborn of the gods. Now, De Gubernatis regards this fable as 'making the boar emblem of the hidden moon'; and Mr. Conway thinks there is no doubt that the boar at an early period became emblematic of the wild forces of Nature. 'From being hunted by King Odin on earth, ...
— Storyology - Essays in Folk-Lore, Sea-Lore, and Plant-Lore • Benjamin Taylor
... And it came to pass that in the morning, behold, it was Leah: and he said to Laban, What is this thou hast done unto me? did not I serve with thee for Rachel? wherefore then hast thou beguiled me? And Laban said, It must not be so done in our country, to give the younger before the firstborn. Fulfil her week, and we will give thee this also for the service which thou shalt serve with me yet seven ...
— The Dore Gallery of Bible Illustrations, Complete • Anonymous
... more durable; and there entered into the prayers she made for him since the burning disgrace of the divorce, even the hope that he might be happy in his private life, and that his new wife might bear this child, this firstborn of his dynasty, to him whom she herself could ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... mere act of sitting and keeping silence. In a few days he had imitators not a few, stirred by his example. So he who at first sat alone[198] and the only son of his father, became now one of many, from being the only-begotten[199] became the firstborn among many brethren.[200] And as he was before them in conversion,[201] so was he more sublime than they in conversation; and he who came before all, in the judgement of all was eminent above all in virtue. And he seemed both ...
— St. Bernard of Clairvaux's Life of St. Malachy of Armagh • H. J. Lawlor
... of the century a Dakota woman fasted and prayed, and Thunder came to her in her vision. To the god she promised to give her firstborn child. When she became a mother, she forgot in her joy that the life of her little one did not belong to her; nor did she recall her fateful vow until one bright spring day, when the clouds gathered and she heard the roll of the thunder,—a sound which summoned all persons consecrated ...
— Indian Story and Song - from North America • Alice C. Fletcher
... but think it ladylike to remain uninformed until experience teaches them, and that teaching is often accompanied by heart-breaking sorrow. If you should make inquiry you would discover that a large proportion of mothers have buried their firstborn children, and should you ask them why, they would in all probability say, almost without exception, that it was because they did not know how to give them a dower of health, or how to care for ...
— What a Young Woman Ought to Know • Mary Wood-Allen
... and neglect; the very tramp who wanders houseless on the moorside is His brother; in his sufferings the Saviour of the world has shared, when the foxes had holes, and the birds of the air had nests, while the Son of God had not where to lay His head. He is the King of the poor, firstborn among many brethren; His tenderness is Almighty, and for the poor He has prepared deliverance, perhaps in this world, surely in the world to come—boundless deliverance, out of the treasures of ...
— Sermons on National Subjects • Charles Kingsley
... trusting mortal! Love has heaved its firstborn sigh; But from the pellucid portal ...
— Hesperus - and Other Poems and Lyrics • Charles Sangster
... I had been neglected for the firstborn, I had enjoyed through this neglect an absolute freedom with regard to associating with fisher-boys and all the shoeless, hatless 'sea-pups' of the sands, and now, when the time had come to civilise me, my mother had found that it was too late. I was bohemian to the core. My childish ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... part of her life to say her prayers night and morning; and now she found it was all pretence. But, lying awake, she still tried to believe it, because to that she had been bound when she brought him, firstborn, into the world. Her other son, her daughters, she loved them too, but it was not the same thing, quite; she had never wanted them to want her, because that part of her had been given once ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... to the last moment, in order to stand godfather to Nancy's healthy firstborn. John Lambert—honest man and proud father—had honoured the event with a dinner, and very nearly wrecked his own domestic peace by sending out the invitations in his own hand and including Mr. and Mrs. Wright. For ...
— Hetty Wesley • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... son, my hope, my firstborn!"—and the mother's heart gushed forth in all the fondness of early days. "Don't speak so terribly, you ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the ruin he had caused; and, pointing to the Wildgrave and his myrmidon, who were scampering towards the castle, he exclaimed: "The vapours of the hellish pool will not, one day, strike him with such horror, O Faustus, as this thy deed: his young and beloved wife was a few days ago delivered of her firstborn." ...
— Faustus - his Life, Death, and Doom • Friedrich Maximilian von Klinger
... serving as a new instrument for her father's ambition. As the pope was not satisfied with an empty triumph of vanity and display for his son, and as his war with the Orsini had failed to produce the anticipated results, he decided to increase the fortune of his firstborn by doing the very thing which he had accused Calixtus in his speech of doing for him, viz., alienating from the States of the Church the cities of Benevento, Terracino, and Pontecorvo to form, a duchy as an appanage to his son's house. Accordingly this proposition was ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... education, and Tom Pipes, at his own petition, put into livery, and appointed footman to the young squire. Mr. Pickle approved of the plan, though he durst not venture to see the boy; so much was he intimidated by his wife, whose aversion to her firstborn became every day more inveterate and unaccountable. Her second son, Gam, now in the fourth year of his age, had been rickety from the cradle, and as the deformity increased, the mother's fondness was augmented. ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... firstborn affections— Those winged seekers of the world within, That search about in all directions, Some bright thing for themselves to win— Through pathless woods, through home-bred fogs, Through stony plains, through treacherous ...
— The Poetical Works of George MacDonald in Two Volumes, Volume I • George MacDonald
... me note that the maid to us committed (assert they) Was but a fraud: her mate never a touch of her had, 20 * * * * * * * * But that a father durst dishonour the bed of his firstborn, Folk all swear, and the house hapless with incest bewray; Or that his impious mind was blunt with fiery passion 25 Or that his impotent son sprang from incapable seed. And to be sought was one with nerve more nervous endowed, ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus
... would have been terrible, my dear!" exclaimed Mrs. Herbert, so full of pity for Christopher that she was willing to give him anything short of her firstborn. She was ...
— The Farringdons • Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler
... Opportunities which are offered to him, is throwing down Blessings on the Son, and the Son endeavouring to appear the worthy Offspring of such a Father. It is after this manner that Camillus and his firstborn dwell together. Camillus enjoys a pleasing and indolent old Age, in which Passion is subdued, and Reason exalted. He waits the Day of his Dissolution with a Resignation mixed with Delight, and ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... immediately sprang up a goodly tree covered with blossoms, the scent of which operated so strongly on her nerves that she awoke. The attentive sage, after some deliberation, assured my parents, that their firstborn would be a great traveller; that he would undergo many dangers and difficulties, and at last return to his native land, where he would flourish in happiness and reputation. How truly this was foretold will appear in the sequel. It was not long before ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... and clothed in a high-necked, long-sleeved silk shirt and a blanket, all of which could be done in five minutes. As babies lie still most of the time the first six weeks, they need no dressing. I think the nurse was a full hour bathing and dressing my firstborn, who protested with a melancholy wail ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... Rankin Little Hands Laurence Binyon Bartholomew Norman Gale The Storm-Child May Byron "On Parent Knees" William Jones "Philip, My King" Dinah Maria Mulock Craik The King of the Cradle Joseph Ashby-Sterry The Firstborn John Arthur Goodchild No Baby in the House Clara Dolliver Our Wee White Rose Gerald Massey Into the World and Out Sarah M. P. Piatt "Baby Sleeps" Samuel Hinds Baby Bell ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 1 (of 4) • Various
... make a woman so superlatively happy as to have a baby of her own to kiss," exclaimed Mrs. McBride, rapturously, as she fondled her firstborn. ...
— The New Pun Book • Thomas A. Brown and Thomas Joseph Carey
... and our babe was some few days buried in the churchyard of this parish of Ditchingham, I dreamed a very vivid dream as I slept one night at my wife's side. I dreamed that my dead children, the four of them, for the tallest lad bore in his arms my firstborn, that infant who died in the great siege, came to me as they had often come when I ruled the people of the Otomie in the City of Pines, and talked with me, giving me flowers and kissing my hands. I looked upon their strength and beauty, and was proud ...
— Montezuma's Daughter • H. Rider Haggard
... April's husband showers Shall bless the fruitful Maia's bed, We'll bring the firstborn of her flowers To kiss thy feet, and crown thy head: To thee, dear Lamb! whose love must keep The shepherds ...
— England's Antiphon • George MacDonald
... For they had done more than kill his story. They had killed the spirit of Youth in him. There would be other battles, he knew, and perhaps other victories—but never again that fine, careless rapture of Youth! For they had killed his firstborn! ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... Wales it is allowed upon all hands is the finest baby ever sent into this naughty world since the firstborn of Eve. At a day old he would make three of any of the new-born babes that a month since blessed the Union bf Sevenoaks. There is, however, a remarkable providence in this. The Prince of Wales is born to the vastness of a palace; the little Princes of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... over the silken lap in which the child was comfortably nestling, and in that attitude had a faint consciousness that Mrs. Horncastle was mischievously breathing into his curls a silent laugh. Barker lifted his firstborn with proud skillfulness, but that sagacious infant evidently knew when he was comfortable, and in a paroxysm of objection caught his father's curls with one fist, while with the other he grasped Mrs. Horncastle's brown braids ...
— The Three Partners • Bret Harte
... mystery about the precise respective ages of Vannozza's two eldest sons, and we fear that at this time of day it has become impossible to establish beyond reasonable doubt which was the firstborn; and this in spite of the documents discovered by Gregorovius and his assertion that they remove all doubt and enable him definitely to assert that Giovanni was born in ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini
... had been unable to attain to because he was angry with the king, and these who are angry with anyone can imagine evil of him, but not good. (43) The theory that God does not reveal Himself to the angry or the sad, is a mere dream: for God revealed to Moses while angry, the terrible slaughter of the firstborn, and did so without the intervention of a harp. (44) To Cain in his rage, God was revealed, and to Ezekiel, impatient with anger, was revealed the contumacy and wretchedness of the Jews. (45) Jeremiah, miserable ...
— A Theologico-Political Treatise [Part I] • Benedict de Spinoza
... on to expound its virtues with all the fond enthusiasm of a father showing off his firstborn, and wound up with a demonstration of the illuminating appliance. I'm afraid, though, he got little encouragement from Mr. Burnham. He considered the machine with a dispassionate air, it's true, and admitted its practical ...
— The Fortune Hunter • Louis Joseph Vance
... odour of tobacco was still strong on the close air—but he had been having a good deal of stomach trouble of late, and the children made him nervous, and he had gone out for a walk. Poor May, smiling gallantly over the difficulties of her life, drew her firstborn to her knees, brushed back the child's silky, pale hair with bony, trembling fingers, and prophesied that things would be easier when mamma's girlies got to work: Evelyn was going to be a dressmaker, and Marguerite ...
— The Story Of Julia Page - Works of Kathleen Norris, Volume V. • Kathleen Norris
... Queen of the Goths, whose firstborn son is sacrificed by Titus Andronicus, determines to be revenged. She succeeds in her determination. Titus and his daughter are mutilated. Two of the ...
— William Shakespeare • John Masefield
... blessing to the younger; with those words which haunt the memory and sink into the heart: "The angel which redeemed me from all evil, bless the lads." And Joseph is moved by what he thinks to be a mistake, and would correct it, so as to give the larger blessing to his firstborn. But Jacob refuses. "I know it, my son, I know it ... he also shall be great, but truly his younger brother ...
— The Thread of Gold • Arthur Christopher Benson
... the natural children of Abraham. By rights Ishmael should have enjoyed the prerogatives of the firstborn, if physical generation had any special value. Nevertheless he was left out in the cold while Isaac was called. This goes to prove that the children of faith are the real ...
— Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians • Martin Luther
... I am proud of them all, living or dead—here or there. So I said, 'Well, Miss Harlow, John is not my firstborn. There was a lovely little girl, who went back to God before she was quite a year old. People said I ought to think it a great honor to give my first child to God, but it was a great grief to me. Soon after ...
— The Measure of a Man • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... to be a great comfort and blessing to the parents who have done me the honour to call their firstborn for me," returned the old gentleman, a gleam of pleasure lighting up his face. "I want to see the bit bairn myself when the mother is well enough to enjoy a call from her auld kinsman. And how soon do you think that may be, doctor?" ...
— Elsie at Home • Martha Finley |
