"Heirloom" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... "there is a cimeter which is an heirloom. It was brought from the East during the Crusades by an ancestor. While there, he was wounded and taken prisoner by a Saracen emir named Hayreddin. This Saracen treated him with chivalrous generosity, and a warm friendship sprung up between them. ...
— A Castle in Spain - A Novel • James De Mille
... was fading in the upper air, and underneath the canopy of leaves the wood was darkening on to twilight, when I made ready to be gone. Because I thought I might have need of it before the night was done, I buckled on the heirloom sword; and telling Tomas and the other blacks for their own safety to keep an alarm guard waking through the night, I sallied forth upon ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... the sum named was considerably less than its market value, but sell it she could not. It was a sacred trust, and the last link (except the silver spoons marked "J.") that bound the squalid present to the comfortable past. It was an heirloom, and she could never bring ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... which all the workpeople who wanted any tools sharpened carried their instruments, the smith being able to put a better edge on. Other blacksmiths or carpenters, if they required a particularly good edge for some purpose, came to him. This art he had acquired from his grandfather as a sort of heirloom or secret. The grandfather while at work used to trouble and puzzle himself how to get a very sharp edge, and at length one night he dreamed how to do it. From that time he became prosperous. If a celebrated sonata was revealed in a ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... losing its soft curves and rose tints. Celia was another of his favorites, and he knew she was having her battle with misfortune, meeting it as bravely as a young woman could. Thomas Gilpin might so easily have smoothed the way for her. The spinet was an interesting heirloom, no doubt, but would not help Celia solve the problem of bread ...
— Mr. Pat's Little Girl - A Story of the Arden Foresters • Mary F. Leonard
... so sure about that, sir," he said. "You're aware that there were certain small matters at Hathercleugh of what we may term the heirloom nature, though whether they were heirlooms or not I can't say—the miniature of himself set in diamonds, given by George the Third to the second baronet; the necklace, also diamonds, which belonged to a Queen of Spain; the small picture, priceless, given ...
— Dead Men's Money • J. S. Fletcher
... the atheling of earlmen to each of the heroes Who the ways of the waters went with Beowulf, A costly gift-token gave on the mead-bench, Offered an heirloom, ...
— Beowulf - An Anglo-Saxon Epic Poem • The Heyne-Socin
... by the advocate, and asked if you were for sale. And then the ruined advocate clasped his hands, rubbed them, set his head heart-brokenly on one side, took you down, heaved a sigh, shrugged his shoulders, and sold you—you! a family heirloom! Well, at least you are old, and you represent to me acres of dim, religious canvas in that beloved land; and here is the dollar now asked for you: I could not have bought you for so little ...
— Suburban Sketches • W.D. Howells
... the rounds of the treasure room, pointing out and giving the history of each precious family heirloom or art object with an encyclopedic knowledge that should have caused his companion to wonder how he knew so much. Several times he slipped in the pronoun I, hoping that this might have some effect in waking Helen from the obsession ...
— Officer 666 • Barton W. Currie
... romantic. But he suddenly blossomed out into all sorts of pleasant American ways, sent Caro flowers and things every day, though I fancy he couldn't afford it, gave her a lovely solitaire diamond ring, which I'm sure he couldn't, and a "guard," an heirloom in ...
— Lady Betty Across the Water • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... was cherished as a great prize by the Honeyman family, and remained in their possession for many years; and it was indeed an heirloom worth preserving. But, although it proved a safeguard for Mrs. Honeyman, it did not remove the prejudices against her husband, and for a long time after that it would have been a very unwise thing for Tory Honeyman to come to Griggstown. Of course, it would have been an easy thing ...
— Stories of New Jersey • Frank Richard Stockton
... lady brought me a very valuable crucifix of ivory, a family heirloom, she said. Not afflicted with the sin of hypocrisy, I told my generous lady frankly that I do ...
— The Crushed Flower and Other Stories • Leonid Andreyev
... period dates his downward career. He advocated the Douglas movement, and then supported Breckinridge and Lane. He voted for and signed the Ordinance of Secession, declaring he intended to preserve as an heirloom in his family the pen with which he attached his name to the ordinance; and then he became the head and front of the Union element in the State during the war. At the close of the war, as we have seen, he was made ...
— School History of North Carolina • John W. Moore
... square ancestral carpet of considerable intrinsic value, but treasured also as an interesting heirloom in the family. They decided to cut it up and make three square rugs of it, so that each should possess a share in her ...
— The Canterbury Puzzles - And Other Curious Problems • Henry Ernest Dudeney
... It is unique in two dimensions—in altitude and in expanse. It soars to the highest heights of human utterance, and it covers an unequalled area of the earth's surface. Undoubtedly it is the most precious heirloom of our race, and as such we must reverence and guard it. Nor must we islanders talk as though we hold it in fee-simple, and allowed our trans-Atlantic kinsfolk merely a conditional usufruct of it. Their property ...
— America To-day, Observations and Reflections • William Archer
... by no means a trifling bauble. It was massive, beautifully carved, and hung round with little silver cups and diamond-shaped pieces of silver about the size of a man's thumb-nail. It was much prized by its owner on account of being an heirloom of his family, having been carried to Iceland by his forefathers when they were expatriated from ...
— The Norsemen in the West • R.M. Ballantyne
... and further they asked to carry to Rolf Stake those costly things which they in his behalf should choose. These were the helmet Battleboar, and the corslet Finnsleif, which no weapon could pierce, and the gold ring called Sviagriss, an heirloom from Adils' forefathers. But the King denied them all the costly things, nor did he ...
— The Red True Story Book • Various
... continual pilfering, I was assured, was a serious tax on the cultivation of the estates around. But I was told, too, frankly enough, by the very gentleman who complained, that this habit was simply an heirloom from the bad days of slavery, when the pilfering of the slaves from other estates was connived at by their own masters, on the ground that if A's Negroes robbed B, B's Negroes robbed C, and so all round the alphabet; one more evil instance ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... delicacy; her hair of a raven blackness, and eyes of that dark lustre which reappears for generations in the descendants of Europeans who have mingled their blood with that of the aborigines of the forest. The Indian eye is preserved as an heirloom, long after all memory of the red stain has vanished from the traditions of the family. Her complexion was pale, naturally of a rich olive, but now, through sorrow, of a wan and bloodless hue—still very beautiful, and more appealing ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... only child, and the cot was a carved one, an heirloom in which several generations of the family ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... formerly promoted for reasons of State, namely, the tendency of the Hegelian philosophy: yea, it would perhaps be no exaggeration to say that, in the subordination of all strivings after education to reasons of State, Prussia has appropriated, with success, the principle and the useful heirloom of the Hegelian philosophy, whose apotheosis of the State in this subordination ...
— On the Future of our Educational Institutions • Friedrich Nietzsche
... that our old and long-tried cook, Bathsheba, who had been an heirloom in the family, suddenly fell in love with the older sexton, who had rung the passing-bell for every soul who died in the village for forty years, and took it into her head to marry him, and desert our kitchen for his little ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 106, August, 1866 • Various
... nest, a family heirloom which needs but a little restoring, is a precious thing for the Mason, ever sparing of her time. We find so many of the old homes repaired and restocked that I suspect the Bee of laying new foundations ...
— The Mason-bees • J. Henri Fabre
... in this volume, starting with the running over of a hamper of good things lying in the road. A precious heirloom is missing, and how it was traced up is told with absorbing interest. Mrs. Penrose's books are as safe as they are interesting and should be on the bookshelf of every ...
— Dorothy Dale's Queer Holidays • Margaret Penrose
... as a festival dress, is now seldom met with; but Captain Bob had often shown us one which he kept as an heirloom. It was a cloak, or mantle, of yellow tappa, precisely similar to the "poncho" worn by the South-American Spaniards. The head being slipped through a slit in the middle, the robe hangs about the person in ample drapery. Tonoi obtained sufficient coarse brown tappa to ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... fill the quaint century old punch-bowl for the center of the table. All things possible should be done to make Jim feel himself, that night, the honored guest, the person of most importance in their world. It was an heirloom—the Mason china—quaint and curious, and most highly prized. There was a superstition—how originated none knew—that the breakage of a piece, whether by design or accident, foreboded misfortune to the house of Mason. Very carefully it was always kept, ...
— Princess • Mary Greenway McClelland
... defended its hue in single combat, and his eye was treated for it with beefsteak by Peter in the pantry. We were immensely, though silently, proud of her in her white embroidered cambric frock, red sash and shoes, and coral necklace, almost an heirloom, for it had been brought from Sicily in Nelson's days by my mother's poor young father. How parents and doctors in these days would have shuddered at her neck and arms, bare, not only in the evening, but by day! When she was a little ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge
... it a bit. I sometimes answer to the name of Soozles, but I suppose that would only do for really intimate cheques. How would 'S. Beverley T.-Jones' do? I shouldn't like to lose the 'Beverley' as it's a kind of family heirloom, and I always use it, even when I'm writing to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, March 3rd, 1920 • Various
... clearly hers, and, egad, I believe that if I were heartless enough to take them from her, the wicked old fellow would be out of his grave in a fortnight, leading me the devil of a life. As for their being heirlooms, nothing is an heirloom that is not so mentioned in a will or legal document, and the existence of these jewels has been quite unknown. I assure you I have no more claim on them than your butler, and when Miss Virginia grows up, I dare say she will be pleased to have pretty things to wear. Besides, ...
— Humorous Ghost Stories • Dorothy Scarborough
... pomatum, some were mere little golden curls, such as grow low down upon a girl's neck, others were streaked with grey. The whole of this collection subsequently passed into the hands of Adam, the famous Scotch henchman of the Regent. In his family, now resident in Glasgow, it is treasured as an heirloom. I myself have been privileged to look at all these locks of hair, and I have seen a clairvoyante take them one by one, and, pinching them between her lithe fingers, tell of the love that each symbolised. I have heard her tell of long rides ...
— The Works of Max Beerbohm • Max Beerbohm
... my dear Mueller, he has done so, and in wrath. You know well that hastiness of temper is an heirloom of the Brandenburg princes, and Frederick William can not deny that he has the family failing. Yes, he has dismissed me; but then, you know, it was perfectly natural, for he loves the Princess Ludovicka Hollandine, and I ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... It is quite natural that Mrs Ferriers should wish to give you some little remembrance as you were the means of restoring a valuable heirloom. It is a good stone. You must be careful not to ...
— A College Girl • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... possession of the government at the very time Chancellor von Bethmann-Hollweg was declaring that the United States had placed an interpretation on the submarine declaration "never intended by Germany," and that Germany had promoted and honored friendly relations with the United States "as an heirloom from Frederick the Great." ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller
... yesterday. There was the same hard, stern, relentless look on the face. In reality, the miniature was copied from an old portrait of Colonel Pyncheon which hung within the house. Was it that the expression had been transmitted down as a precious heirloom, from that Puritan ancestor, in whose picture both the expression, and, to a singular degree, the features, of the modern judge were shown as by a kind ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume V. • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... went up to his bedroom, and soon came down with a bundle of letters wrapped in a newspaper. He started looking through them while all the family stood around him, watching as eagerly as if he were searching for an heirloom. ...
— Pictures of Jewish Home-Life Fifty Years Ago • Hannah Trager
... earth, whiles I live. But I haven't any children, and goodness only knows what will become of the dear old heirloom. Why did you ask?" ...
— Polly's Business Venture • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... hesitate for a moment. Breaking into a run, he dashed across the hall toward a wall where hung a heavy sword, an heirloom that had not been used for a hundred years. Before he could be stopped he tore it from its fastenings and started toward the nearest of the ruffians, who brought him to a standstill ...
— High Noon - A New Sequel to 'Three Weeks' by Elinor Glyn • Anonymous
... other insects. Colour is a very constant feature in certain groups of flowers. One of these includes the forget-me-nots, the borage, the alkanet, and the viper's bugloss, which keep up this blue as a family heirloom. Others of the tribe, like the comfrey, have it not, but those which possess it ...
— The Naturalist on the Thames • C. J. Cornish
... denies himself shall gain the more (III, xvi, 21). He that ruleth his spirit is better than the lord of Carthage. Hold fast the golden mean (II, x, 5). The poor man's supper, spare but neat and free from care, with no state upon the board except his heirloom silver saltcellar, is better than a stalled ox and care therewith (II, xvi, 13). And he practised what he preached, refusing still fresh bounties which Maecenas pressed upon him. What more want I than I ...
— Horace • William Tuckwell
... tenderer, and more unselfish—the instinct of chivalry; and the widowed queen, or the prince, became to them a precious jewel committed to their charge by the will of their forefathers and the providence of God; an heirloom for which they were responsible to God, and to their forefathers, and to their children after them, lest their names should be stained to all future generations by the crime of baseness ...
— All Saints' Day and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... was more saddening than the actual loss of the cloak, though that bereft her wardrobe of far and away its most valuable property, which should have descended as an heirloom to her little Katty, who, however, being at present but three months old, lay sleeping happily unaware of the cloud that ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... for freedom bestowed he could not properly estimate the factors necessary to form an homogenous citizenship. The ways for two centuries had been divergent paths. The dominant claiming and exercising, as an heirloom, every civil and political right; the subordinate, with knowledge the most meager of their application or limits, by compulsion was made to concede the claim. Neither is it singular that participation in the exercise of these rights by the freedman ...
— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs
... my old shoes, laid it on the sleeves, and cut out thus good uppers and sewed them carefully; then soaked the soles and sewed the cloth to them. I am so proud of these home-made shoes, think I'll put them in a glass case when the war is over, as an heirloom. H. says he has come to have an abiding faith that everything he needs to wear will come out of that trunk while the war lasts. It is like a fairy casket. I have but a dozen pins remaining, so many I gave away. Every time these are used they are straightened and kept from ...
— Famous Adventures And Prison Escapes of the Civil War • Various
... their nature," replied the Earl, "there was my wife's coronet, her diamond necklace, and the Ellersdeane butterfly, of which I suppose all the world's heard—heirloom, you know. It's a thing that can be worn in a lady's hair or as a pendant—diamonds, of course. As to their value—well, I had them valued some years ago. They're worth about a hundred ...
— The Chestermarke Instinct • J. S. Fletcher
... When these young hands first closed upon a goose; I have a scar upon my thimble finger, Which chronicles the hour of young ambition. My father was a tailor, and his father, And my sire's grandsire, all of them were tailors; They had an ancient goose,—it was an heirloom From some remoter tailor of our race. It happened I did see it on a time When none was near, and I did deal with it, And it did burn ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VI. (of X.) • Various
... Surveyor Pue, emphatically nodding the head that looked so imposing within its memorable wig,—"do this, and the profit shall be all your own! You will shortly need it; for it is not in your days as it was in mine, when a man's office was a life-lease, and oftentimes an heirloom. But, I charge you, in this matter of old Mistress Prynne, give to your predecessor's memory the credit which will be rightfully due!" And I said to the ghost of Mr. Surveyor Pue, ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... another, as the years passed by, bore witness to the loyalty of his heart; for he would not abandon the pre-historic tailor who was a sort of heirloom in the Collin family. In consequence, the rise and fall of William's coat, in its caudal parts, as he walked down the aisle with the plate on the Sabbath day, had become part of St. Cuthbert's ritual—and we all thought it beautiful. He was one of the two, ...
— St. Cuthbert's • Robert E. Knowles
... brothers; but when the sorrowful father sent a priest to entreat Geoffrey to make peace over his grave, the fierce youth only answered that it was vain. "Our grandmother, the Witch, has left us a doom that none of us shall ever love the rest. It is our heirloom, and the only one of which we ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... fact. This done, he must leave it to you to take your husband into your confidence, at your own time. It will then be for Mr. Eustace to decide whether he will open the inclosure—or whether he will leave it, with the seal unbroken, as an heirloom to his children, to be made public or not, at their discretion, when they are of an age to think for themselves. Do you consent to this, my dear? Or would you prefer that Mr. Playmore should see your husband, and act for you ...
— The Law and the Lady • Wilkie Collins
... the most part, inherited that precious heirloom of contentment and elasticity, and were as happy in nooks and corners in bedroom, nursery, staircase or kitchen, as they could have been in extensive ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... it," said Lady Blanchemain. "It's a woman's ring, of course. But as for accepting it, you need have no scruples. It's an old Blanchemain gem, that was in the family a hundred years before I came into it. It's properly an heirloom, and you're the heir. I give it to you for a purpose. Should you ever become engaged, I desire you to placcit upon the ...
— My Friend Prospero • Henry Harland
... consider this psalm awhile, for it is a precious heirloom to mankind. It has been a guide and a comfort to thousands and tens of thousands. Rich and poor, old and young, Jews and Christians, Romans, Greeks, and Protestants, have been taught by it the character of God; and taught ...
— Westminster Sermons - with a Preface • Charles Kingsley
... 1824, but are now for ever lost; to say nothing of the painted Renaissance architecture and the historic legends which looked like solid realities when the facade was studied. But "Mizraim is become merchandise"; and all that is now left of what should have been a treasured and priceless heirloom is but a monument to the shame of that citizen, a banker, who could condemn such a thing to destruction as indifferently as if it had been a cowshed, and to the shame of the municipality which, at any cost, did not prevent it. Some hasty sketches—due ...
— Holbein • Beatrice Fortescue
... been gradually gaining ground, and this was a time of great suffering, as he stood alone in his forefathers' house, and felt himself, in his early youth, a doomed man, destined to bear the penalty of their crimes in the ruin of his dearest hopes, as if his heirloom of misery had but waited to seize on him till the very moment when it would give him the most ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the old system was that all paid alike. First came the Heirloom Act, and then the change by which inherited wealth paid three times the duty of earned wealth, leading up to the acceptance of Karl Marx's doctrines in '89—but the former came in '77.... Well, all these things kept England up to the level of the Continent; she had only been just in ...
— Lord of the World • Robert Hugh Benson
... Monte-Cristo, coolly, "I know what I am speaking about. The man whose name I mentioned has sworn to accept the bloody heirloom of Abd-el-Kader and before four weeks have elapsed the revolutionary flag will again wave throughout all parts ...
— The Son of Monte-Cristo, Volume I (of 2) • Alexandre Dumas pere
... settlers. This insinuating personage once crept into the vitals of my great grandfather and dwelt there many years, tormenting the old gentleman beyond mortal endurance. In short it is a family peculiarity. But, to tell you the truth, I have no faith in this idea of the snake's being an heirloom. He is my own ...
— Mosses from an Old Manse and Other Stories • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... country gentlemen bring with you into the People's House a freshness and sweet savour which our citizens lack mightily. I would fain merit your esteem, heedless of those pursy fellows from hulks and warehouses, with one ear lappeted by the pen behind it, and the other an heirloom, as Charles would have had it, in Laud's Star-chamber. Oh, they are proud and bloody men! My heart melts; but, alas! my authority is null: I am the servant of the Commonwealth. I will not, dare not, betray ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... du Foy belonged to Claude d'Urfe, whose library of 4000 books, 'all in green velvet,' was kept in his castle at La Bastie; when all the others were dispersed the Gruthuyse volume remained as an heirloom, and descended to Honore d'Urfe, the dreariest of all writers of romance. In 1776 it belonged to the Duc de la Valliere, and was purchased for the French Government at one of his numerous sales. Some of the Flemish books remained in ...
— The Great Book-Collectors • Charles Isaac Elton and Mary Augusta Elton
... only thing is Morten's Ane Kirstine at the farm where you went last night. But her parents won't let me have her; they say I have too little, and that is true too.' 'Hm, man,' says he, 'you look as if you had a pair of strong arms of your own; that is a good heirloom, and she has some pennies,—in a couple of days you might go and see what the old man's mind is. I'll help along the best I know how.' I listened to that, for evil upon them, those gipsies—they are not such fools. They can tell fortunes and discover stolen goods, and they can do both ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... Estates" are mentioned frequently, but the point is, where are they to be found? Neither the "teepan-tlalli" nor the "tlatoca-tlalli," still less the "calpulalli," show any trace of individual ownership. "Eredad" (heirloom) is called indiscriminately "milli" and "cuemitl" (Molina, Parte Ia, p. 57). The latter is also rendered as "tierra labrada, o camellon" (Molina, Parte IIa, p. 26). It thus reminds us of the "chinamitl" or garden-bed (as the name "camellon" also implies), and reduces ...
— Houses and House-Life of the American Aborigines • Lewis H. Morgan
... the German host, refugees of all classes were streaming into Brussels—young and old, rich and poor, priest and layman. Nearly all bore some burden of household treasure, many some pathetically absurd family heirloom. Every kind of vehicle appeared to have been called into use, from smart carriages drawn by heavy Flemish horses to little carts harnessed to dogs. Over all reigned a stupefied silence, broken only by shuffling footfalls. Among them the absence of automobiles and light horses would indicate ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume II (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... nine-and-twenty can make a good husband out of very unpromising material. The Templar wore a scared look in those days and went home betimes. His cronies knew the fun was over when they heard what happened to the great punchbowl—she made it a swine-trough. It was the heirloom of a hundred years, and as much as a man could carry with his arms out, a massive curio in stone; but to her husband's plaint about its degradation, "Oh," she cried, "it'll never know the difference! It's been used ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown
... adventurer who stole it, the cardinal who bought it, the Pope who graciously accepted it, the favored son of the Church who received it, the gay and giddy duchess who pawned it, down to the eminent prelate who now holds it in trust as a family heirloom. ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... the function of the constituent Assembly to recast the laws in conformity with the Rights of Man, to abolish every survival of absolutism, every heirloom of inorganic tradition, that was inconsistent with them. In every department of State they were obliged to make ruins, to remove them, and to raise a new structure from the foundation. The transition from the reign of force to the reign of opinion, ...
— Lectures on the French Revolution • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... spending more than they could afford on house and clothing; with rare exceptions they had no hope, no chance, of reaching independence; enough if they upheld the threadbare standard of respectability, and bequeathed it to their children as a solitary heirloom. The oldest looked the poorest, and naturally so; amid the tramp of multiplying feet, their steps had begun to lag when speed was more than ever necessary; they saw newcomers outstrip them, and trudged ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing
... necessary to take a brief survey of the intellectual state of Greece prior to that wonderful era of Athenian greatness which commenced with the laws of Solon. At this period the continental states of Greece had produced little in that literature which is now the heirloom of the world. Whether under her monarchy, or the oligarchical constitution that succeeded it, the depressed and languid genius of Athens had given no earnest of the triumphs she was afterward destined ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... of one-inch gas-pipe eight inches long. In one end of it and in the middle of it was a lead plug. One-half of it was packed tight with solder. Black Riley carried a slung-shot, being a conventional thug. "One-ear" Mike relied upon a pair of brass knucks—an heirloom in the family. ...
— Strictly Business • O. Henry
... worship, it isn't likely. For all, I came honestly by the article. It's an heirloom in our family; belonged to my great-great-grandfather, and's descended through several generations. For know, Senor, my ancestors were not deformed like poor me. Some of them were gallant soldiers, as yourself. Indeed, one of them rose to the rank of sergeant—that was my mother's grandfather; ...
— The Free Lances - A Romance of the Mexican Valley • Mayne Reid
... heavily damascened with gold and its guard closely set with diamonds and rubies. It is the sword of Savaji, the founder of the Mahratta dominion in India. It has been sacredly guarded at Kolhapur by two men with drawn swords for a period of two hundred years, being a family and national heirloom, and an object of superstitious reverence as the emblem of sovereignty. The delivery of it to the prince of Wales was regarded as a transfer of political dominion, an admission that the latent hopes of the Bhonsla family were now merged in ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... Suffering is her heirloom. Disasters, which would crush the spirit of man, often turn her heart to steel, and she performs deeds grand and heroic. Disheartened by continuous neglect, she will make heroic efforts to throw her influence all the more ...
— The Jericho Road • W. Bion Adkins
... "What—the heirloom you used to eat your porridge out of?" Ralph detained her hand to put a kiss on it. ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... elaborately ornamented and much prized. The horn, however, is the most coveted acquisition. It is believed to have peculiar virtues, and is popularly supposed by its mere presence in a house to mitigate the pains of maternity. A rhinoceros horn is often handed down from generation to generation as a heirloom, and when a birth is about to take place the anxious husband often gets a loan of the precious treasure, after which he has no fears for the ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... heirloom, and all our family history is full of stories of this ring. There are so many tales connected with it, that every one of us has looked upon it with a sort of superstition, and cherished it as a talisman connected with our lives. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various
... his hand in a princely way—this gesture was an heirloom from his ancestry. "I understand your feelings—I've seen what has been going on—but naturally I want my daughter to marry one worthy of her. You shall have my Marg when you have proven yourself! I've misjudged you, Jed, but this ...
— The Man Thou Gavest • Harriet T. Comstock
... Novelists, and Essayists furnished contributions prepared expressly for its columns; and their efforts in behalf of the noble charity which the paper represented, should alone entitle the volume to be cherished as a most valued memento and heirloom. ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 6, No. 1, July, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... lovely chain that is, Georgia." She hoped her voice sounded more natural to Georgia than it did to herself. "Is it a family heirloom?" ...
— Betty Wales Senior • Margaret Warde
... athletic exercises. It was a discipline in hardy and temperate habits. Etiquette, in all ranks of the people, was highly esteemed. The Persians, as a nation, were bright-minded, and not deficient in fancy and imagination. But they contributed little to science. Their religious ideas were an heirloom from remote ancestors. The celebrated Persian poet, Firdousi, lived in the tenth century of our era. His great poem, the Shahnameh, or Book of Kings, is a storehouse of ancient traditions. It is probable that the ancient poetry ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... throughout your future successes—and even failures. The latter will not do you any great harm, provided that you know how to keep that attachment to work, and that perseverance in noble ideas, which are the chief heirloom of the artist. Lassen tells me that we are shortly to hear your "Tasso" here: my attentive sympathy is wide awake; so fulfil your promise, dear Franz, by coming before the end of this month, and we will talk at our ease at the Hofgartnerei of ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 2: "From Rome to the End" • Franz Liszt; letters collected by La Mara and translated
... as has been said not long since, that a young divinity student is as competent to deal with the latter as an old physician is to meddle with the former, suggests the idea that wisdom is not an heirloom in the family of the one who says it. What a set of idiots our clerical teachers must have been and be, if, after a quarter or half a century of their instruction, a person of fair intelligence is utterly incompetent to form any ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... time. They couldn't at first get this set. The knightly owner of the armor, "in whose family it was an heirloom, was, from our point of view, singularly unreasonable: he ... was unwilling to part with it; the psychological crisis when he would allow it to pass out of his hands must, therefore, be awaited." For there comes "a propitious moment in cases of this ...
— The Crow's Nest • Clarence Day, Jr.
... nine doz. of Moco handle knives and forks mounted in gold which I bought at Rome, and likewise the whole length portraits of the late Duke of Kingston and of the present Duchess of Kingston, to be put up at Thoresby which as well as all the plates shall be reputed as an heirloom to the said house; and I also give him the several pieces of cannon and the Ships and ...
— The Dukeries • R. Murray Gilchrist
... painted wood confronted each other primly from opposite ends of the rug. Half a dozen straight-back chairs, also "boughten," were disposed stiffly against the walls. A large folding-leaf dining-table of real mahogany, an heirloom in the family, occupied the space between two windows, and held ...
— Southern Lights and Shadows • Edited by William Dean Howells & Henry Mills Alden
... plaited that in texture it resembles fine canvas, though in appearance it is like straw. It is exceedingly tough, takes a very long time to manufacture, and costs many dollars—so many, indeed, that a hat of the kind is thought worthy of being preserved and left as an heirloom from father to son ...
— The Rover of the Andes - A Tale of Adventure on South America • R.M. Ballantyne
... world might perceive the harmless and innocent character of your intercourse, and, last, of your miniature, painted by the prince himself, from memory. This casket the prince requests you to accept as his legacy. It is a set of pearls, an heirloom of his family, which his dying mother once gave to him in order to adorn with it his bride on his wedding-day. The prince sends it to you and implores you to wear it as a souvenir from him, because you were the bride of his heart. And here, Fanny, here ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... old square of canvas, my fair cousin," said he, "has been an heirloom in the province-house from time immemorial. As to the painter, I can tell you nothing; but if half the stories told of it be true, not one of the great Italian masters has ever produced so marvellous a piece of work as ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... those dusky slaves, so obsequious to their master the day before, so prompt to sing and dance before his Northern visitors, were all swift to transform themselves into fiends of retribution now; show them sword or musket, and they grasped it, though it were an heirloom from Washington himself. The troop increased from house to house,—first to fifteen, then to forty, then to sixty. Some were armed with muskets, some with axes, some with scythes, some came on their masters' horses. ...
— Black Rebellion - Five Slave Revolts • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... it hangs Over a moldering heirloom, its companion, An oaken chest, half-eaten by the worm, But richly carved by Antony of Trent With scripture stories from the life of Christ; A chest that came from Venice, and had held The ducal robes of some old ancestors— That, by the way, it may be true or false— But don't ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... possessions to the uttermost farthing, and part company for ever. With merchant-like exactness, every tittle was reckoned up and shared. The old house was to be sold to a Jew for a sum already agreed on, and one item only remained which they could not divide, an heirloom's value being fixed upon it. That was the Coverdale Bible with which their grandfather had ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 432 - Volume 17, New Series, April 10, 1852 • Various
... carriages are so peculiar to the place and people as to merit description. One of these, the "araba," is an heirloom from their old Tartar ancestry, and is only an exaggerated ox-cart with seats, and a scaffolding of poles around it. Over these poles there hangs a canopy of red to keep off the sun, and the seats are well-stuffed cushions, making a kind of bed of the bottom of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - April, 1873, Vol. XI, No. 25. • Various
... got up, and crept on tiptoe past the door of the best bedroom, which stood a little open, and invited him inwards by the mysterious gleam on the ceiling and the thrilling shadows of the great four-poster with its dusky hangings—a family heirloom, hint of far-off family prosperity, big enough for a hearse and quite as gloomy to look at. A heavy, solid mahogany chest of drawers stood near the window, and Paul, aided by the gaslights glistening amongst the polished tinware in the shop opposite, ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... power, thus placed to minister To every pressing local, social claim, Of those who gave you this authority, Trusting you to act wisely in their name, See that the precious heirloom of our race, For which our fathers suffered, toiled and bled, Our glorious Constitution, Britain's pride, Be to the people's ...
— Home Lyrics • Hannah. S. Battersby
... degraded into dinginess, and the faded, patched chintz sofa, that was not only comfortable, but respectable, in the old wainscoted sitting-room, has suddenly turned into "an object," when lang syne goes by the board and the heirloom is incontinently set adrift. Undertake to move from this tumble-down old house, strewn thick with the debris of many generations, into a tumble-up, peaky, perky, plastery, shingly, stary new one, that is not half finished, and never will be, and good enough for it, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... ceased to be a virtue. Either it must go, or I shall. Look at Dick! His heart is beating itself almost out of his poor little body, he is so frightened. And there's that china dragon, that has been a family heirloom for generations,—all broken! And my precious little keepsakes, that I have cherished since childhood, all scattered or lost! Oh, Tom, you do not know how cruelly it ...
— The Story of Dago • Annie Fellows-Johnston
... Poor Marie had been unjustly accused of the theft of a watch which was an heirloom belonging to an aunt of hers. ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans
... is more important than the personal dignity of the wife), and the sinner is castigated (wird tuechtig durchgepeitscht). The whip used, the household sword and sceptre, is handed down from generation to generation as a sacred heirloom." I have translated this passage instead of alluding to it, because I thought it was an occasion on which Herr Riehl should literally ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick
... will—I never doubt it." Mrs. Toomey endeavored to make her tone convincing. "Let's have tea in the heirloom before we part with it," she suggested brightly. "It's never been used ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... three eggs, and three strips of bacon, so we insisted that we must share and share alike, or we would have nothing. I made the tea, in a battered tin pot which looked like an heirloom, and we all sat at an uncovered kitchen table together, though our host protested. It was fun; and the old thing told us weird tales of the forest which made me conscious that I have a spine and marrow, ...
— Set in Silver • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... received his kingdom from God, not that he should expose it to invasion by the enemy, as if it were a thing with which he can do anything he pleases, but that he should rule it as a father, and transmit it as a precious heirloom to his posterity." He demanded at the same time the convocation of the ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... As a matter of fact, its value is great. It has been an heirloom in my family for many years. At one time ...
— The Ivory Snuff Box • Arnold Fredericks
... strong cane, which was adorned with a golden cross- piece, that the tottering octogenarian might lean on it. Joseph Haydn now left the room slowly, his right hand leaning on his cane, his left arm resting on the shoulder of his servant. Behind him walked with a grave step the old cat, an heirloom from Haydn's lamented wife, and hence highly prized and honored by the aged maestro. Purring softly, now raising its beautiful long tail, now rolling it up, the cat followed close in the footsteps of its master, through the hall and across the ...
— Andreas Hofer • Lousia Muhlbach
... still a much-prized heirloom now in Glasgow—a rustic chair used by the Prince when in Skye. The story is that, secreted in one of his cave dwellings, he espied a lad in his immediate vicinity tending some cows. Hunger made him reveal himself, with the result that he was taken to the boy's home, a farm not far off, ...
— Secret Chambers and Hiding Places • Allan Fea |
