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noun
Birth  n.  
1.
The act or fact of coming into life, or of being born; generally applied to human beings; as, the birth of a son.
2.
Lineage; extraction; descent; sometimes, high birth; noble extraction. "Elected without reference to birth, but solely for qualifications."
3.
The condition to which a person is born; natural state or position; inherited disposition or tendency. "A foe by birth to Troy's unhappy name."
4.
The act of bringing forth; as, she had two children at a birth. "At her next birth."
5.
That which is born; that which is produced, whether animal or vegetable. "Poets are far rarer births than kings." "Others hatch their eggs and tend the birth till it is able to shift for itself."
6.
Origin; beginning; as, the birth of an empire.
New birth (Theol.), regeneration, or the commencement of a religious life.
Synonyms: Parentage; extraction; lineage; race; family.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Birth" Quotes from Famous Books



... into a festival of "concord, harmony, and artistic enthusiasm of the combined Art-fellowships of Vienna." [Liszt was invited by the magistrate of the city of Vienna to conduct two concerts on the 27th and 28th of January, 1856, for the celebration of the centenary of Mozart's birth.] ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 1, "From Paris to Rome: - Years of Travel as a Virtuoso" • Franz Liszt; Letters assembled by La Mara and translated

... done?—Man came (There's nothing that sticks like dirt), Looked at me with eyes of blame, And called me 'Squinancy-wort!' What have I done? I linger (I cannot say that I live) In the happy lands of my birth; Passers-by point with the finger: For me the light of the sun Is darkened. Oh, what would I give To creep away, and hide my shame in the earth! What have I done? Yet there is hope. I have seen Many changes since I began. The web-footed beasts have been (Dear beasts!)—and gone, being part of some ...
— An Englishwoman's Love-Letters • Anonymous

... pursued, after inflating Ripton with this rapturous prospect, "they got her away, and I recovered. It was Mister Adrian's work. What's my father's objection to her? Because of her birth? She's educated; her manners are beautiful—full of refinement—quick and soft! Can they show me one of their ladies like her?—she's the daughter of a naval lieutenant! Because she's a Catholic? What has religion to do with"—he ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... now fled to Corinth, where at length they found, for a time, peace and tranquillity, their happiness being completed by the birth of ...
— Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome • E.M. Berens

... has overtaken nearly all his brethren, who are called by Keats Titans and Giants indiscriminately, though in Greek mythology the two races are quite distinct. These Titans are the children of Tellus and Coelus, the earth and sky, thus representing, as it were, the first birth of form and personality from formless nature. Before the separation of earth and sky, Chaos, a confusion of the elements of all things, had reigned supreme. One only of the Titans, Hyperion the sun-god, still keeps his kingdom, and he is about to ...
— Keats: Poems Published in 1820 • John Keats

... quitting the place of their birth. In one hour we passed Seleim, which in 1810 was inhabited by a few poor Druses, but is now abandoned. Here are the ruins of a temple, built with much smaller stones than any I had observed in the construction of buildings of a similar size in the Haouran. ...
— Travels in Syria and the Holy Land • John Burckhardt

... away from earth, And place with those dost claim, The Children of the Second Birth, Whom the world could ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner

... Constantinople and Cherson who followed in the train of the Prince, excepting only of one, Anastasius, the priest who had rendered him such good service during the siege; but the Books of the Genealogies give the name of Michael, a Syrian by birth, and of six other bishops who were sent together with him to Cherson by the patriarch Nicholas Chrysoberges. Some have ventured to suppose that Michael was the name of the bishop of the times of Oskold; but Nestor says nothing about him, and this much ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 5 • Various

... healthy—been alive, as it were—you would have had your work cut out; but it is dead and has been dead for ages perhaps. You find less trouble in working it than you would ordinary clay or sand, or even gravel, which formations together are really rock in embryo—before birth as ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson

... her eyes fell. Two weeks ago she had been a splendid young creature, as untaught of life as one of the wild forest animals and as unconsciously eager for it. But there had come a change over her, a birth of womanhood from that night when she had stood between Stephen Fraser and death. No doubt she would often regret it, but she had begun to live more deeply. She could never go back to the care-free days when she could look all men in the face with ...
— A Texas Ranger • William MacLeod Raine

... the promised sign, And brought their birth-gifts from the East, Dear to that Mother as the wine That hallowed Cana's bridal feast; But what to these are myrrh or gold, And what Arabia's costliest gem, Whose eyes the Child divine behold, The blessed Babe ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various

... of temperature and food which suit them, and there they remain, separate from the salmon of other rivers, until it is time for them to return to fresh water. Considering the certainty with which the salmon of any particular river return again to the stream of their birth, the latter theory seems the ...
— New England Salmon Hatcheries and Salmon Fisheries in the Late 19th Century • Various

... war, yet these will never be regarded as the greatest of evils by the friends of liberty and of the rights of nations. Our country has before preferred them to the degraded condition which was the alternative when the sword was drawn in the cause which gave birth to our national independence, and none who contemplate the magnitude and feel the value of that glorious event will shrink from a struggle to maintain the high and happy ground on which ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... name George Ewart denotes, I am of cosmopolitan birth and education, my early youth having been spent on the Continent, where my father was agent ...
— The Count's Chauffeur • William Le Queux

... of a small band, and within six miles of two other small bands, of that tribe. They were a remnant of the Pawkunnawkuts, who, at the first settlement of the country, were a very numerous, powerful, and warlike nation, but at the time of my birth had dwindled in numbers to about five hundred souls, and were restricted in territory to some six or seven thousand acres. They then, and at present, sank their primitive appellation in the less poetic name of Gayheads, which was given them by the white people with reference to ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 1 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones

... to him a debt of gratitude, I was obliged to refuse; for to grant his request would have been to allow private feeling to interfere with the justice of the people; but now it is different. You tell me that, except by birth, she is no aristocrat; that she has long been a friend of the people, and that she is going to be your wife; on these grounds I can with a good ...
— In the Reign of Terror - The Adventures of a Westminster Boy • G. A. Henty

... to say, that, at thy birth, New joy was sprung in heaven as well as here on earth? For sure the milder planets did combine On thy auspicious horoscope to shine, And even the most malicious were in trine. Thy brother-angels at thy birth Strung each his lyre, and ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy

... silence and darkness of the forests in which they are situated, the only proof of their connection with the world at large being the roads which run by their doors. The pulpit of one is filled by a white preacher of Northern birth and education, who removed to this section after the war; and the only objection that can be urged against him is that he often holds religious revivals at the time when the tobacco-worm is most active ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December, 1885 • Various

... enacted at Oudenarde, the birth place of Duchess Margaret. She was the daughter of the puissant Charles the Fifth, but her mother was only the daughter of a citizen of Oudenarde; of a "quidam" like the nameless weaver who had thus been burned by her express order. It was not to be supposed, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... creature; her face blotched with red by acid stain or by a birth mark. Why does she not kill herself? Why didn't she die before I saw her? I shall dream of her for months—of her and Darmstetter, old and wrinkled as I shall be some day, and dead—with that same awful look in my ...
— The Bacillus of Beauty - A Romance of To-day • Harriet Stark

... to the common English pronunciation of St. John, almost Sinjin. John St. John Long (1798-1834), an Irishman by birth, practised medicine in London. He claimed to have found a specific for rheumatism and tuberculosis, but upon the death of one of his patients in 1830 he was tried for manslaughter. He died of tuberculosis four years later, refusing to take his ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan

... God's name," he asked himself, "did Adam Ward's excited fears mean? What terrible thing gave birth to his mad words? What awful pattern was this that the unseen forces were weaving? And what part was he, with his love for Helen, destined to fill in it all?" That his life was being somehow woven into the design he felt certain—but how ...
— Helen of the Old House • Harold Bell Wright

... years of the century, had kept the mill up at Trethake Water, two miles above Gantick. There were two sons, of whom Reub, the elder, succeeded to the mill. Nat had been apprenticed to the thatching. Accident of birth assigned to the two these different walks of life but by taking thought their parents could not have chosen more wisely, for Nat was born clever, with an ambition to cut a figure in man's eyes and just that sense ...
— The Laird's Luck • Arthur Quiller-Couch

... to the conquest of New Spain, I have to observe that we were for the most part hidalgos, or gentlemen, though some were not of such clear lineage as others; but, whatever may have been the dignity of our birth, we made ourselves much more illustrious by our heroic actions in the conquest of this country, at our own sole cost, without any aid or support, save that of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. In the ancient history of our own country, many cavaliers rose to dignity and honours by valiant ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. IV. • Robert Kerr

... ever since he was born, and indeed had missed being present at his birth only because the Khedive Ismail had summoned him unexpectedly to Cairo. But the Levantine merchant who was Arthur's father had been his most intimate friend, and it was with singular pleasure that Dr Porhoet saw the young man, on his advice, enter his own profession and achieve ...
— The Magician • Somerset Maugham

... boundless love is in my heart, That birth-hymn on the air; I clasp in mine, with grateful faith, ...
— Indian Legends and Other Poems • Mary Gardiner Horsford

... in the sense in which we ordinarily use the term, is to all intents and purposes an invention of the genius of Handel reacting on his English environment: the form was of course older, but he gave it a specific shape that set the fashion for future times. It had its birth in a business speculation; it was a novelty designed to occupy the Lenten season when the theatres were not available for opera. Like the opera, it supplied narrative and incident and characterization though ...
— Recent Developments in European Thought • Various

... With that of their plantation; lest the tree, Translated should not with the soil agree. Beside, to plant it as it was, they mark The heav'ns four quarters on the tender bark, And to the north or south restore the side, Which at their birth did heat or cold abide: So strong is custom; such effects can use In tender ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory

... legged telescope. A butcher is just as good as anybody, understand us, but they must keep their distance. We don't want to look into, the hind end of no cutter that is filled with slaughter house ornaments, and we won't. It is not pride of birth, or anything of that kind, but such people ought to drive on Wells ...
— Peck's Sunshine - Being a Collection of Articles Written for Peck's Sun, - Milwaukee, Wis. - 1882 • George W. Peck

... and heir of Sir Thomas Temple, in whose right he claimed the proprietorship of Acadia, under an old grant of Oliver Cromwell. He was familiar both with that country and with Canada, which he had visited several times before the war. As he was a man of birth and breeding, and a declared enemy of Phips, and as he had befriended French prisoners, and shown especial kindness to Meneval, the captive governor of Acadia, he was treated with distinction by Frontenac, who, though he knew him to be a determined enemy of the French, lodged ...
— Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV • Francis Parkman

... ahead into the bushes, on that side—Friedrich's right wing knows nothing of the shaggy elevations horrent with wood, which lie to southward; and merely intends to play its Twenty Cannon upon them, should they give birth to anything. This is Friedrich's posture on his ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVIII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Seven-Years War Rises to a Height.—1757-1759. • Thomas Carlyle

... please," he whispered into her ear by way of a return of the introduction. His little mother tongue had evidently suffered a slight twist by his birth and sojourn in a foreign country, but it served to express the normal condition ...
— The Road to Providence • Maria Thompson Daviess

... birth of the heir of England (the Black Prince, 1330), a great tournament was proclaimed in London. Philippa and all the female nobility were invited to be present. Thirteen knights were engaged on each side, and the ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury

... twining arms the baby finds a place to fit him, and falls asleep contentedly in the nest created for him. It would be thought that woman serves a mysterious apprenticeship to maternity. Man, on the other hand, is greatly troubled by the birth of a child. The first wail of the little creature stirs him, but in this emotion there is more astonishment than love. His affection is not yet born. His heart requires to reflect and to become accustomed to these fondnesses so new ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... drew the iron rod again, thrust it into the loops, threw the piece muzzle forward, opened the pan to see that it was full of powder, shut it down again, and made a careful examination of the flint. For these were the days long prior to the birth of the copper percussion-cap, and plenty of preliminaries had to be gone through before the ...
— !Tention - A Story of Boy-Life during the Peninsular War • George Manville Fenn

... There remained only Claire, the sledge-dog, with her pathetic brown eyes, and her affectionate ways of the female dog. They went to kill her, and discovered her in the act of defending the young to which she had just given birth. Near at hand crouched Mack and Billy, their eyes red with famine, their jaws a-slaver, eager to devour the newborn puppies. And in the grim and dreadful sight Sam Bolton seemed at last to glimpse the face of his ...
— The Silent Places • Stewart Edward White

... soul; but think what would have happened to you, to your wife, and perhaps to your children, if Michael one day blurted out the truth in some fit of drunken rage, or if Beliani and that other white faced hound obtained evidence of your birth. That is why I was resolved to force you, if possible, to wed a Serbian Princess. Your marriage to a woman of our own race would have borne down opposition. And now what will happen? The future is black. Michael is unworthy to be a King; Marulitch, ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy

... Hawthorne, Mrs., mother of Nathaniel; relations with her son; her solitary life; Elizabeth Peabody's description of; delight in her grandchildren; her home in Herbert Street; moves to Mall Street; death. Hawthorne, Nathaniel parentage; date of birth; life at Raymond, Me; returns to Salem; early reading; preparation for college; letters to his sisters and mother; considers choice of profession; enters Bowdoin College; youthful characteristics; excels in Latin and English; narrow circumstances; early friendships; changes ...
— Nathaniel Hawthorne • George E. Woodberry

... leader, "there is something in this mountain work besides just hunting bear. The people who live in the lowlands don't always stop to think very much where their rivers come from and what keeps them up. Here you have seen the birth of a river, or a part of a river. That mass of packed snow will lie there nearly all summer, just melting a little bit at times, and feeding this stream which runs right past us here. Still farther back in the mountains you'll see the glaciers—great ice-fields which never ...
— The Young Alaskans in the Rockies • Emerson Hough

... like the one I have), I mean to shave this scanty trouble-laden hair about my temples and go in search of some unsullied place where I can spend the rest of my days alone! I shall thus also avoid the crime of heaping, above, insult upon my predecessors, and, below, of having given birth ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin

... singular than the various success of men in the House of Commons. Fellows who have been the oracles of coteries from their birth; who have gone through the regular process of gold medals, senior wranglerships, and double firsts, who have nightly sat down amid tumultuous cheering in debating societies, and can harangue with unruffled foreheads and unfaltering voice, from one end of a dinner-table to the other, who, on all occasions, ...
— The Young Duke • Benjamin Disraeli

... I owe much, but to two women I owe more, My mother and my wife. And to them I dedicate this account of the boy to whom one gave birth and brought to manhood and the other blessed with all a home ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok (1863-1930)

... Mrs. Canning admitted nothing of all this. Sceptics, with their usual acuteness, maintained that the disappearance was meant to stimulate charity, and that the mother knew where the daughter was; or, on the other hand, the daughter had fled to give birth to a child in secret, or for another reason incident to 'the young and gay,' as one of the counsel employed euphemistically put the case. The medical evidence did not confirm these suggestions. Details are needless, ...
— Historical Mysteries • Andrew Lang

... at page 342 is mentioned the anecdote of Petrarch, who when returning to his native town, was informed that the proprietor of the house in which he was born had often wished to make alterations in it, but that the town's-people had risen to insist that the house consecrated by his birth should remain unchanged;—"a triumph," adds D'Israeli, "more affecting to Petrarch than even ...
— The Diary of an Ennuyee • Anna Brownell Jameson

... supernumeraries were needed. The role of leading lady, too, was vacant. An empress was to be sought for without delay. Negotiations were opened with several princely houses for the hands of damsels of royal birth, but speedily came to naught. As yet, the new-made emperor was a parvenu amid his royal contemporaries. The negotiations for the hand of the Swedish princess Vasa did indeed promise at one time to be crowned with success. But the emperor sent ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various

... bodies of the scratched-up army. Did ever one see a Gael that nestled to an Irishman? Here's one who will swear it impossible, though it is said the blood is the same in both races, and we nowadays read the same Gaelic Bible. Colkitto MacDonald was Gael by birth and young breeding, but Erinach by career, and repugnant to the most malignant of the west clans before they got to learn, as they did later, his quality as a leader. He bore down on Athole, he and his towsy rabble, hoping to get the clans there to join him greedily ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro

... practical and philosophic eye of Thomas Jefferson perceived the national necessity for a great trans-Alleghany water-line, and early in the year 1786, though still tossed on the wave of the Revolution, and not yet recovered from the shock of British invasion, the State which gave birth to the author of the "Declaration of Independence" declared for the enterprise. With all the means and energy at its command it pushed forward the work from year to year, and directed it, as Mr. Jefferson had proposed, so as to connect the head-waters ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 24, March, 1873 • Various

... fell into systematic order and grew rapidly under the stimulus of fruitful investigation, but in turn contributed to the firmer establishment of the theoretical views to which the subject owed its systematic new birth. On the other hand, every chemist knows that it is only the simpler of the carbohydrates which are so individualised as to be connoted by a particular formula in the stereoisomeric system. Leaving the monoses, ...
— Researches on Cellulose - 1895-1900 • C. F. Cross

... was ardor and hope. Men of birth and station, and the ministers themselves, labored with pick and shovel to finish the fort. Every day exhortations, sermons, prayers, followed in close succession, and Villegagnon was always present, ...
— Pioneers Of France In The New World • Francis Parkman, Jr.

... silence. I hoped I had recalled to her thoughts the great canvas that stood complete in her studio. For myself, I knew that the keenest touch of pleasure that stirred my frame now was held in the ever-present thought that this day saw the birth of my work in Paris. Not for worlds would I have hinted this to Lucia. To have breathed a word that assigned even a part of my pleasure at the moment to anything but the possession of herself was the last thing that I would ...
— To-morrow? • Victoria Cross

... had been observed to enter a palace and there lie down on a couch; as no disaster took place subsequently it was believed that if the occurrence was repeated it would be an omen of good fortune. On the other hand, the fall of a house had been preceded by the birth of a child without a mouth; the same result, it was supposed, would again accompany the same presage of evil. These pseudo-scientific observations had been commenced at a very early period of Babylonian history, and were embodied in a great work which ...
— Babylonians and Assyrians, Life and Customs • Rev. A. H. Sayce

... experience of the officers. Each baron conducted his own vassals: his rank was greater or less, proportioned to the extent of his property: even the supreme command under the prince was often attached to birth; and as the military vassals were obliged to serve only forty days at their own charge; though if the expedition were distant, they were put to great expense; the prince reaped little benefit from their attendance. Henry, sensible of these inconveniences, ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume

... produced the Building of the Ark, the Fishers and Mariners " Noah and the Flood, the Spicers " " Annunciation, the Tilers " " Birth of Christ, the Goldsmiths " " Adoration, the Vintners " " Wedding in Cana, the Skinners " " entry into Jerusalem, the Baxters " " Last Supper, the Tapiters and Couchers " Christ before Pilate, the Saucemakers " " Death of Judas, the Bouchers " " Death of Christ, the ...
— Life in a Medival City - Illustrated by York in the XVth Century • Edwin Benson

... left, swung around, and, in a minute, saw thirty trees suddenly give birth to thirty gray, swift-moving men, who, with guns swinging loosely in their hands swooped down the declivity at alarming speed. Seguis, tall and lithe, ...
— The Wilderness Trail • Frank Williams

... concerning the People of the Chain. The Father of Swords listened to him, drawing meditatively at his waterpipe. He thereupon inquired if Matthews were acquainted with another friend of the prince among the merchants of Shuster, himself a Firengi by birth, though recently persuaded of the truths of Islam; and not like this visitor of good omen, in the bloom of youth, but bearded and hardened in battles, bearing the scars of ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... marvels for Athens; lifting her out of obscurity to a position which should invite great souls to seek birth in her. He died in 527; two years later a son was born to the Eupatrid Euphorion at Eleusis; and I have no doubt there was some such stir over the event, on Olympus or on Parnassus, as happened over a birth at Stratford-on-Avon ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris

... brightly written story of a girl of twelve, who, when the mystery of her birth is solved, like Cinderella, passes from drudgery to better circumstances. There is nothing strained or unnatural at any point. All descriptions or portrayals of character are life-like, and the book has an indescribable ...
— Dorothy Dainty at Glenmore • Amy Brooks

... now He moves this way to promulgate his will To such as have not heard, nor lightly holds The thing he bids, but, whoso disobeys, The citizens shall stone him to the death. This is the matter, and thou wilt quickly show If thou art noble, or fallen below thy birth. ...
— The Seven Plays in English Verse • Sophocles

... rule, every boy and every girl ought to be trained to take a wide-awake interest in public affairs. This training cannot begin too early in life. A wise old man once said, "In a republic you ought to begin to train a child for good citizenship on the day of its birth." ...
— Agriculture for Beginners - Revised Edition • Charles William Burkett

... given accounts of conversations with Gipsies, introducing in their language and in English their own remarks (noted down by me) on certain curious customs; among others, on one which indicates that many of them profess among themselves a certain regard for our Saviour, because His birth and life appear to them to be like that of the Rommany. There is a collection of a number of words now current in vulgar English which were probably derived from Gipsy, such as row, shindy, pal, trash, bosh, and niggling, and finally a number of Gudli or short stories. These ...
— The English Gipsies and Their Language • Charles G. Leland

... cooked for all the boarders herself," and in the preceding sentence states, "The baby, six months old, kicked and cried in a champagne-basket cradle." Shirley does not use the word "boarders." The baby was only two weeks old. With the details of the birth of this baby omitted, Shirley's account of these matters is ...
— The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 • Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe

... rank with the many errors that mankind have been led into by travellers addicted to the marvellous; and there is every reason to believe that the furious quarrels, desperate assassinations, and sanguinary attacks, which the use of opium is said to give birth to, are idle notions, originally adopted through ignorance and since maintained from the mere want of investigation, without having any solid foundation. It is not to be controverted, that those desperate acts of indiscriminate ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden

... that the limocon has sung in the east but once since it heralded the birth of Ohto, who is the greatest chief they ever had. But it has sung in the west eight times—and each time it was followed by the death of one of Ohto's family. Now the old man is the last of his line. These things may have been mere coincidences but you can see why they believe implicitly in ...
— Terry - A Tale of the Hill People • Charles Goff Thomson

... is not to say race. It may be that a given people tend to have a characteristic head-form, not so much because they are of common breed, as because they are subjected after birth, or at any rate, after conception, to one and the same environment. Thus some careful observations made recently by Professor Boas on American immigrants from various parts of Europe seem to show ...
— Anthropology • Robert Marett

... hand. "I won't make use of the expression then," I said, "in the article in which I shall eventually announce my discovery, though I daresay I shall have hard work to do without it. But meanwhile, just to hasten that difficult birth, can't you give a fellow a clue?" I felt much ...
— Embarrassments • Henry James

... The real sovereign is the people themselves. Presidents and congressmen and judges are the creatures of the people. If we had a governing class—if men were presidents or senators by virtue of birth—then we might talk about the danger of centralization; but if the people are sufficiently intelligent to govern themselves, they will never create a government for the destruction of their liberties, and they are just as able to protect their ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll

... the vulgarity of chapped red lips, gave colour to the dull brown flesh, overflowed in the smile on lips half parted in silent prayer, in timid kisses offered with simple good faith, and returned no doubt in an ineffable thrill by the Holy Child they had cherished from His birth, who, since the martyrdom of Calvary, had grown to be the Spouse ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans

... all our democratic allies. And we must not break faith with those who are risking their lives—on every continent, from Afghanistan to Nicaragua—to defy Soviet-supported aggression and secure rights which have been ours from birth. ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Ronald Reagan • Ronald Reagan

... pay the price of perjury. —There too Belshazzar's banquet shines, Voluptuous women, costly wines; But in the amazed sight of all The dread hand writes upon the wall. —Lastly the pictures represent How Sarah listens in the tent While God Almighty, come to earth, Foretells to Abraham the birth Of Isaac and his seed thereafter. Sarah cannot restrain her laughter, Since both are well advanced in years. God asks when he the laughter hears: "Doth Sarah laugh then at God's will, And doubt if this he may fulfil?" Her indiscretion ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various

... serious reflections they give birth to. Faithful to his promise, the old warder had called for Germain. When Boulard re-entered the prison, the door opened, Germain entered, and Rigolette was no longer separated from her poor lover but by a ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue

... threads is brighter and gayer in effect, but is apt to fade in frequent washing; but white embroidery relieved by open spaces in, or shapes cut from, the linen ground, is possessed of an entirely new charm; and from a sense of this the birth may be traced of an art in the result of which happy contrasts are effected between ornamental details of close texture and ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde

... a little portion of the green, ambitious earth; Only to sow and sing and reap in the land of our birth. ...
— The Silk-Hat Soldier - And Other Poems in War Time • Richard le Gallienne

... that Pedro, who, as mentioned in a preceding chapter, had conducted the unfortunate expedition to Quito. After his brother's departure, Diego had attached himself to the fortunes of Almagro, had accompanied him to Chili, and, as he was a cavalier of birth, and possessed of some truly noble qualities, he had gained deserved ascendency over his commander. Alvarado had frequently visited Hernando Pizarro in his confinement, where, to beguile the tediousness of captivity, he amused himself with gaming, ...
— The History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William H. Prescott

... mother had taken the house soon after they were married. He, Gilbert, was born there; so was his younger brother Archie. Three years after the birth of Archie, God visited upon them a great misfortune by calling to Himself Mr. Wyndham. Gilbert had by this time started on his school career, for he was several years older than his brother. The second misfortune occurred ...
— The Hero of Garside School • J. Harwood Panting

... involuntary sibilation through the gaps between his front teeth. "It's a much more heroic thing than an ordinary theft; and I can't let you belittle it as something commonplace because it happens every day. So does death; so does birth; but ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells

... journey thereafter to the Northern hospitals,—some dying by the way, and lowered through the shifting, restless waves, or buried with hasty yet kindly hands in alien soil,—accounted strangers and foemen in the land of their birth. God grant that no tread of rebellion in the years to come, nor thunder of contending armies, may ...
— What Answer? • Anna E. Dickinson

... been a Montmorenci, my uncle could not have been more respectful and gallant than he was to that meek descendant of the Tibbetses. He held, indeed, which I never knew any other man, vain of family, approve or support,—a doctrine deduced from the following syllogisms: First, that birth was not valuable in itself, but as a transmission of certain qualities which descent from a race of warriors should perpetuate; namely, truth, courage, honor; secondly, that whereas from the woman's side we derive our more intellectual faculties, from the man's we ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... work out the age of each of her children on request. She puts down in a row bits of leaf or stick, one for each year, working back from the present, and recalling each year by the name of the place where the PADI crop of that year was raised. When she reaches back to, the year of the birth of any one of her children, she says that the child was born about or before or soon after this particular harvest, and by counting the pieces of stuff laid down she then arrives at the ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall

... of that dismal cavern. He heaped fresh wood upon his fire, that the bright light might drive out the gruesome things that lurked above, below, and around him. He became afraid to look behind him, lest some shapeless mass of mid-sea birth—some voracious polype, with far-reaching arms and jellied mouth ever open to devour—might slide up over the edge of the dripping caves below, and fasten upon him in the darkness. His imagination—always sufficiently vivid, ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke

... that involve the welfare of all humanity or the destiny of a nation,—an atmosphere seldom stirred by the strong, pure breezes of the mountain and the ocean,—the best thought and impulse of which humanity is capable is stifled in its birth, or if it comes forth feels the overshadowing ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, June 1887 - Volume 1, Number 5 • Various

... Shall lose their limits in the vast domain; But my bold banks with proud impatience wait The palm of glory in a work so great; On me thy sons their central seat shall raise, And crown my labors with distinguish'd praise. For this, from rock-ribb'd lakes I forced my birth, And climb'd and sunder'd many a mound of earth, Rent the huge hills that yonder heave on high And with their tenfold ridges rake the sky, Removed whole mountains in my headlong way, Strow'd a strong ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow

... played, said: 'That music was never composed on earth, it was born in heaven,' Mr. Herne heard my husband make that remark, and said, 'In order to play that kind of music, you have got to live in the same world as Penloe does. That is how it has its birth.'" ...
— A California Girl • Edward Eldridge

... O Dispeller of all woe, Thou art the Refuge of all creatures, and Thou art their Guide. Thou hast the Universe for thy mouth. Through thy grace, O Lord of the gods, the gods are ever happy. Through thy grace the Earth hath always been freed from terrors. Therefore, O thou of large eyes, take birth in the race of Yadu.[386] For the sake of establishing righteousness, for slaying the sons of Diti, and for upholding the Universe, do what I have said, O Lord. O Vasudeva, that which is thy supreme mystery, that, O Lord hath been sung by me through Thy ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... writers who have taken notice of JOHN EARLE agree in stating, that he was born in the city of York, although not one of them has given the exact date of his birth, or any intelligence relative to his family, or the rank in life of his parents. It is, however, most probable, that they were persons of respectability and fortune, as he was sent, at an early age, to Oxford, ...
— Microcosmography - or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters • John Earle

... wind westerly or N.W., squally with rain. In the morning we unmoored, and shifted our birth farther out of the cove, for the more ready getting to sea the next morning; for at present the caulkers had not finished the sides, and till this work was done we could not sail. Our friends having brought us a very large ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr

... What ere you are y'ar mine, and I shall give you To a most noble service, to this Lady, This bright yong Virgin; pray, observe her goodnesse; You have honourd hir faire birth-day with your vertues, And as your due y'ar hirs: ...
— The Two Noble Kinsmen • William Shakespeare and John Fletcher [Apocrypha]

... between the achievements of this untaught lad of humble birth and narrow opportunities, and the works of the great Sir Walter, with his matured powers and his stores of solid antiquarian lore. But the impulse that conducted them to their not dissimilar tasks was the same. In "Yarrow Revisited," Wordsworth uses, a propos of Scott, the expression "localized ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers

... to be done for women, Stephen. We are the heart of life, birth and begetting, the home where the future grows, and your schemes ignore us and slide about over the superficialities of things. We are spoiling the whole process of progress, we are turning all the achievements of mankind to nothingness. Men invent, create, do miracles with the world, and ...
— The Passionate Friends • Herbert George Wells

... 1863, Lincoln signed the inevitable draft law; it enrolled in the national forces liable to military duty all able-bodied male citizens and persons of foreign birth who had declared their intention to become citizens, between the ages of twenty and forty-five years—with exemptions on grounds of physical weakness and dependency. From the men enrolled were drawn ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard

... do," she went on in a lower tone; and for one half of a second there arose in the mind of the elder sister a kind of wistful half envy of Lucy, who was young, and knew how to manage—a feeling which died in unspeakable remorse and compunction as soon as it had birth. ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant

... the sons of sires that baffled Crowned and mitered tyranny: They defied the field and scaffold For their birth-rights—so will we!" ...
— Inez - A Tale of the Alamo • Augusta J. Evans

... the hands, and the soles of the feet, was covered with small excrescences in the form of prickles. These appendages were of a reddish-brown color, and so hard and elastic that they rustled and made a noise when the hand was passed over their surfaces. They appeared two months after birth and fell off every winter, to reappear each summer. In other respects the man was in very good health. He had six children, all of whom were covered with excrescences like himself. The hands of one of these children has ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould

... have dared much, and more Have suffered; but what mother hath so scarred Her soul for the dear fruit of her body as I? Thy birth-pang was the least of all the throes That I for thee have suffered—a brief pain, A little, little pain we share with creatures; But what was this to torments of the mind, The dark, imperial meditations, Musing with eyes half-closed in moonless night; The crimes—yes, ...
— Nero • Stephen Phillips

... pleasure to write you a few words of commendation in reference to the truss I purchased from you in March, 1910. I, at first, doubted its full value as I thought my rupture was incurable, but subsequent results have proved my error. Ever since my birth I have endured the pains and torture of a rupture until I started to wear your truss, which was nearly eight months ago. I am now entirely cured of my rupture— thanks to the Cluthe Truss. Gentlemen, I thank you very much ...
— Cluthe's Advice to the Ruptured • Chas. Cluthe & Sons

... I have often told you before from this same place, that beside the history of the spirit the history of the body is nothing—and that history of the spirit is no easy, tranquil progress from birth to death, but must rather be, if we are to have any history at all, a struggle, a wrestling, a contest, bloody, unceasing, uncertain in its issue from the first hour until the last. This is no mere warning ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole

... religion? Practical needs, egoism. Consequently the monotheism of the Jew is in reality the polytheism of many needs. Practical needs or egoism are the principle of bourgeois society, and they appear openly as such so soon as bourgeois society gives birth to the political state. The God of practical needs and egoism ...
— Selected Essays • Karl Marx

... into a gaunt ecclesiastic, fanatically fighting for the rights of his see, of his order, and of Rome. In any drama which professes to deal (as this does) with his whole career, the intellectual interest cannot but centre in an analysis of the forces that brought about this seeming new-birth of his soul. It would have been open to the poet, no doubt, to take up his history at a later point, when he was already the full-fledged clerical and ultramontane. But this Tennyson does not do. He is at pains to present to us the magnificent ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer

... son by birth, he is in love and affection," said Katrina, with moist eyes and trembling hands. "Between him, and Otto, and Vanda, we have made no difference—we have never thought of him only as ...
— The Waif of the "Cynthia" • Andre Laurie and Jules Verne

... Schneider's polite intention to banish me as far as possible from the place of my birth; and he had, accordingly, selected the Spanish frontier as the spot where I was to display my ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray

... again I trace The light of her who gave thee birth; She who endowed thy form and face With glory which ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 3 September 1848 • Various

... at paternity whatever; I even refuse to help in the procreation of the marmot [brat]; and, far from making myself, before my time, in any way its champion or propagandist, I hesitate over the difficulties which are opposed to its birth. I have explained these many a time to my Budapest friends, and the difficulties have increased rather than diminished during these last ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 2: "From Rome to the End" • Franz Liszt; letters collected by La Mara and translated

... certain that it is better for her to be allowed to breed at her first heat. Nature has so arranged matters that a Bull bitch is not firmly set in her bones until she reaches an age of from twelve to eighteen months, and therefore she will have less difficulty in giving birth to her offspring if she be allowed to breed at this time. Great mortality occurs in attempting to breed from maiden bitches exceeding three years of age, as the writer knows to ...
— Dogs and All About Them • Robert Leighton

... he said thoughtfully, "one can understand. He is married, isn't he, and with all the splendid breadth of his intellectual outlook he is still harassed by the social fetters of his birth and bringing up. I can conceive Tallente as a person too highminded to seek to evade the law and too scornful for intrigue. But you, Nora, how is it that your love brings you unhappiness? You are young and free, ...
— Nobody's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... a Florentine by birth and training, was patronized in turn by the Sforza family of Milan, by the Medici of Florence, and by the French royal line. His great paintings—the Holy Supper and Madonna Lisa, usually called La Gioconda—carried to a high degree ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes

... "sometimes the enemy were successful," down to the thorough defeat of some raiding body or other of the Pagans at an unknown place which he calls "Mons Badonicus." This decisive action, he also tells us, took place in the year of his own birth. ...
— Europe and the Faith - "Sine auctoritate nulla vita" • Hilaire Belloc

... I think, could bear. Where, for the space of two hours, I was like a man bereft of life, and as now past all recovery, and bound over to eternal punishment. And withal, that scripture did seize upon my soul, 'O profane person, as Esau, who, for one morsel of meat, sold his birth-right; for ye know how that afterwards, when he would have inherited the blessing, he was rejected; for he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears.' These words were to my soul like fetters of brass, in the continual sound ...
— Life of Bunyan • Rev. James Hamilton

... Brown, George, birth, 1; education, 1; leaves Scotland for the United States, 2; visits Canada, 4; founds the Banner, 5; founds the Globe, 20; addresses Toronto Reform Association, 21; refuses to drink health of Lord Metcalfe, ...
— George Brown • John Lewis

... the preceding chapter has prepared us for the study of poetry, for the two arts are akin. Both are arts of sound and both employ rhythm as a principle of order in sound. They had a twin birth in song, and although they have grown far apart, they come together again in song. In many ways, music is the standard for verse. Yet, despite these resemblances, the differences between the arts are striking. In place of music's disembodied feelings, poetry offers us concrete intuitions of ...
— The Principles Of Aesthetics • Dewitt H. Parker

... it held some mysterious meaning. Perhaps the reason was that from early childhood there had been accumulating in some dusky chamber of her mind stray happenings and remarks, all baring upon the unsuspected secret of her birth and the unsuspected strangeness of her position in the world where everyone else was definitely placed and ticketed. She was wondering about Ruth's queer hysterical outburst, evidently the result of a quarrel with Arthur Sinclair. ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips

... circumstances of alarm, hardship and danger, recollect,' General Burgoyne wrote, 'that the subject of them was a woman, of the most tender and delicate frame, of the gentlest manners, habituated to all the soft elegances and refined enjoyments that attend high birth and fortune. Her mind alone was formed for such trials.' But in very many cases heroines have been women from whom few would have expected heroism. The blustering braggart does not often prove to be a hero in time of danger, and the gentle, unassuming woman is the type ...
— Noble Deeds of the World's Heroines • Henry Charles Moore

... power at all except the power of the good and its forceful presentation. A democracy is a society in which the aristocrats rule by persuasion, although we must think of this aristocracy as an aristocracy of intellect and morality rather than of birth and wealth. The ideal, we suppose, toward which our definition of democracy leads is a state in which authority as represented in the institutions of government, and leadership represented in natural superiority coincide. It is a State in which the good and the great shall govern. ...
— The Psychology of Nations - A Contribution to the Philosophy of History • G.E. Partridge

... the country; a rigorous winter was approaching and the city was almost destitute of provisions. The people sank into deep despondency. They called to mind all that had been predicted by astrologers at the birth of their ill-starred sovereign, and all that had been foretold of the fate of Granada at the time ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving

... his own master. Many a man considers himself a gentleman who has not the indispensables that must complete the profession. A clerk in the Treasury, or public offices, considers himself a gentleman; and so he is by birth, but not by profession; for he is not his own master, but is as much tied down to his desk as the clerk in a banker's counting-house, or in a shop. A gentleman by profession must be his own master, ...
— The Poacher - Joseph Rushbrook • Frederick Marryat

... had been less fortunate; and the latter would point with pride to the poverty which proved that they had been true to themselves and principle, and accept what friendship offered. This was the result of a kind of community of property, to which the revolution had given birth. Those who had possessions considered it their duty to divide with those who had not, and the latter regarded this division rather as a right than ...
— Queen Hortense - A Life Picture of the Napoleonic Era • L. Muhlbach

... been found guilty of a crime that would have appeared impossible in one removed from temptation by birth and education such as yours have been. What the steps may have been that led to such guilt, must lie between your own conscience and that God whose justice you have acknowledged. To Him you have evidently been ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge

... understand that nothing of that kind would influence him in the slightest degree in our favour. He loves me; oh, yes! he loves me more than anything else in the world; and I believe he would do almost anything to secure my happiness—but not that. My father is proud—very proud—of his birth and lineage; and whenever the idea of my marriage may suggest itself to him I am certain he will wish me to wed some noble of at least equal rank with himself. Of you, my poor Leo, he knows nothing save that you are a prisoner; ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood

... polite to a wife who is by birth a von Lueben, and the daughter of the head of a department ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein

... of the Guelfs and Ghibellines he bore the sufferings of failure, persecution, and exile. But above all these trials rose his heroic spirit and the sublime voice of his poems, which became a quickening prophecy, realized in the birth of Italian and of European literature, in the whole movement of the Renaissance, and in the ever-advancing development of ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... a recluse, and a widower, for my mother, a Scotswoman, died at or shortly after my birth. Being very High Church for those days he was not popular with the family that owned the Priory before me. Indeed its head, a somewhat vulgar person of the name of Enfield who had made money in trade, almost persecuted him, as he ...
— When the World Shook - Being an Account of the Great Adventure of Bastin, Bickley and Arbuthnot • H. Rider Haggard

... styled, resolved to publish to the world their "Testimony to the cause and truth which they defended, and against the sins and defections of the times." They chose the 29th of May for this purpose, that being the anniversary of the King's birth and restoration. Led by Robert Hamilton, a small party of them rode into the royal burgh of Rutherglen; and there, after burning various tyrannical Acts—as their adversaries had previously burnt the Covenants—they nailed to the cross ...
— Hunted and Harried • R.M. Ballantyne

... designed by Sir G. G. Scott, presented by the Treasurer of the Province. It consists of three principal compartments, in which are groups of figures (sculptured by Redfern) intended to represent the Birth, Burial, and Ascension of Christ. The smaller figures in the niches are Moses and David and St. Peter and St. Paul. Above are nine angels, bearing the various emblems of our Lord's Passion. This reredos was unveiled with ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Gloucester [2nd ed.] • H. J. L. J. Masse

... assuming that he was capable of making himself agreeable to her. He was a cheat to Lord Chiltern when riding his horses, and pretending to be a proper associate for a man of fortune. Why,—what was his income? What his birth? What his proper position? And now he had got the reward which all cheats deserve. Then he went to bed, and as he lay there, he thought of Mary Flood Jones. Had he plighted his troth to Mary, and then worked like a slave under ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope

... of cattle can be approximated closely by the appearance, development, and subsequent wear of their second incisor teeth. Cattle have eight incisor teeth, all in the lower jaw. In the calf at birth two or more of the temporary or first incisor teeth are present. With the first month the entire eight ...
— Determining the Age of Cattle by the Teeth • George W. Pope

... anything singular in that. I know Wetzel better, perhaps, than any man living; but have seldom talked about him. He doesn't like it. He is by birth a Virginian; I should say, forty years old. We were boys together, and and I am a little beyond that age. He was like any of the lads, except that he excelled us all in strength and agility. When he was ...
— The Spirit of the Border - A Romance of the Early Settlers in the Ohio Valley • Zane Grey

... responsibility is the less. For the child's earliest impressions are the most lasting, and the earliest influences that act upon his life are the most powerful in determining its outcome. Remember that the babe, starting at birth with nothing, has in a few years learned speech, become acquainted with much of his immediate world, formed many habits which will follow him through life, and established the beginnings of permanent character and disposition. Remember the indelible impression of the bedside ...
— How to Teach Religion - Principles and Methods • George Herbert Betts

... the pleasure," replied Prince Andrew, "not only of taking part in the retreat but of losing in that retreat all I held dear—not to mention the estate and home of my birth—my father, who died of grief. I belong to the province ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy

... is to say, on some occasion a little subsequent to the conversation above alluded to—Bertram also told his friend what he knew of Miss Waddington's birth. ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope

... to mention that!" Toby instantly exclaimed. "He certainly did have just such a disfigurement, though I took it for a birth-mark and not a scar or healed wound. So then you've already got a good suspicion about his identity, have you? Well, this keeps on growing more and more interesting. Steve and myself will be glad when the time comes for you to open up and tell us ...
— Jack Winters' Campmates • Mark Overton

... evening. I have made him this." She writhed and wrung her hands over his unconscious form, appearing as might one of Milton's fallen angels that had lost Heaven and happiness but not the primal beauty of his birth-place. ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe

... Indo-Dutch Society may be found, consisting of retired colonial civil servants, who very often have married Indian women, and have either returned home to live on well-earned pensions or who prefer to spend the money gained in India in the country which gave them birth. But Holland has not yet begun to develop as far as she might the great resources of Netherlands India, and therefore no very great amount of interest is taken in the colonial possessions outside merely home, official, or Indo ...
— Dutch Life in Town and Country • P. M. Hough

... one of vital importance, because it is essential to salvation. The heart, by nature, is hard, and cannot, and will not break itself. Angels have no power to perform this miracle of mercy and of justice. It is the work of the Holy Spirit in the NEW BIRTH. Some have supposed that God always prepares the heart for this solemn, this important change, by a stroke of his providence; but it is not so. Who dares limit the Almighty? He takes his own way with the ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... born, flourish, and at length die, just as our human bodies do. The moon is, as you may have observed, a dead planet, such as our earth may be some day. The same growth and decay are also manifest in national life. First, there is the birth of the nation, which sometimes lies a long time in a dormant state, and then wakes up to life and energy. China and Russia are examples of dormant States, just waking from a long sleep of childishness and ignorance. The next stage is the ...
— The Romance of Mathematics • P. Hampson

... come into the world a little sooner than his brother, and who, by right of birth, had therefore a more audacious manner, stepped boldly up to Melissa and presented his, while Nemesianus at the same instant bowed to her, and begged her to give his ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... nucleus round which grew the Senhusian school of a later day, where neither reading nor writing could be had until the pupil was fifteen years old. But this is anticipatory, for the school was a matter of long gestation and tentative birth. ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett

... become of my poor, desolate people, only too wretched already as they are? You would not be alone in your desperation, Adone. But do not let us take alarm too quickly. This measure is in gestation; but it may never come to birth. Many such projects are discussed which from one cause or another are not carried out; this one must pass through many preliminary phases before it becomes fact. There must be surely many vested rights which cannot with impunity be ...
— The Waters of Edera • Louise de la Rame, a.k.a. Ouida

... of the Rising of 1848 I was commencing my apprenticeship with a firm of builders, who were also my father's employers. They were successors to the firm through whose agency he had been sent to Ireland as clerk of the works, just previous to my birth there. It was the custom of the firm, when a boy came to commence his apprenticeship to be a joiner, to keep him in the office for a time as office boy. I was employed in the office at the time of the Rising, but one of the partners in this firm of builders, who was also an ...
— The Life Story of an Old Rebel • John Denvir

... politicians and Prime Ministers skilled in finance, and some critics (Menage and Sarrazin and Vaugelas), if ladies of birth and taste, if all the world in fact, combined to tell you that you were a great poet, how can we blame you for taking yourself seriously, and appraising yourself ...
— Letters to Dead Authors • Andrew Lang

... wholesome-looking creatures pass into haggard, middle-aged women with vacant faces, owing to the blackening of the teeth and removal of the eyebrows, which, if they do not follow betrothal, are resorted to on the birth of the first child. In other houses women are at their toilet, blackening their teeth before circular metal mirrors placed in folding stands on the mats, or performing ablutions, unclothed to the waist. Early the village is very silent, while the children ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird

... be brought to perfection without exciting the rancorous hostility of thousands, whom various motives and interests attached to the cause of ancient superstition; and the abolition, by authority, of the mass, and the destruction of images and crucifixes, had given birth to serious disturbances in different parts of the country. The want and oppression under which the lower orders groaned,—and which they attributed partly to the suppression of the monasteries to which they had ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin

... sped with astonishing swiftness, skimming over fallen logs, darting this way and that through festoons of vines, with the grace of a frightened doe. In freedom of motion she was as some wild thing of forest birth, suggesting the spirits of the wind, the dappled sunlight, the dancing waters; yet never lacking an ineffable refinement that added ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris

... eaves. Through the darkness of the doorway he could hear the soft warbling of his womenkind, busy round the looms where they were weaving the checkered pattern of his gala sarongs. Right and left of him on the flexible bamboo floor those of his followers to whom their distinguished birth, long devotion, or faithful service had given the privilege of using the chief's house, were sleeping on mats or just sat up rubbing their eyes: while the more wakeful had mustered enough energy to draw a chessboard with red clay on ...
— An Outcast of the Islands • Joseph Conrad

... Evolution. He claims that if the pressure of population on the means of subsistence were arrested, and all individuals were allowed equally to propagate their kind, the human race would not only not progress, but actually retrograde.[201] If we accept this as true, it would follow that a high birth rate and a high death rate are necessary in order that the process of selection and rejection may go on. This is indeed a pleasant prospect for all except the fortunate few. But the question, of course, is not whether this is pleasant to contemplate or unpleasant, but whether it is true. ...
— The Spirit of American Government - A Study Of The Constitution: Its Origin, Influence And - Relation To Democracy • J. Allen Smith

... two gentle eyes 10 Will shine no more on earth; Quenched are the hopes that had their birth, As we watched them slowly rise, Stars of a mother's fate; And she would read them o'er and o'er, Pondering, as she sate, Over their dear astrology, Which she had conned and conned before, Deeming she needs must read aright 19 What was writ so passing bright. ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell

... beautiful Princess Tecuichpo is still commemorated by the Spaniards, since from her by a subsequent marriage are descended some of the illustrious families of their own nation. She was kindly received by Cortes, who showed her the respectful attentions suited to her rank. Her birth, no doubt, gave her an additional interest in his eyes, and he may have felt some touch of compunction as he gazed on the daughter of the unfortunate Montezuma. He invited his royal captives to partake of the refreshments which their exhausted condition rendered ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various

... in spite of their liberty and property, more wretched slaves than even the subjects of absolute power who breathe clear air in a sunny climate, while men of low degree often enjoy a tranquillity and content that no advantage of birth or fortune can equal. Such indeed was the case while the rich alone could afford to be debauched; but when even beggars became debauchees, the ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner

... Presbyterian faith, and pursued his studies at Princeton Theological Seminary, after serving a year as a tutor in Baltimore, where he made the acquaintance of Miss Anne Neale, daughter of a prominent law publisher of Irish birth, with whom he united in marriage after completing his studies, in 1829. He was located in pastorates, successively, at Windham, Conn.; Portsmouth, Va.; Caldwell, N.J., and Fayetteville, N.Y. Subsequently, moved by failing health, he sought ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume II. No. 2, November, 1884 • Various

... papers to no advantage. He took personal cognizance of the projects which were submitted to him; he was the indefatigable promoter of all those which narrow-minded persons sought to stifle in their birth; we may include in this last class, the superb road from Grenoble to Turin by Mount Genevre, which the events of 1814 have so unfortunately interrupted, and especially the drainage of ...
— Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men • Francois Arago

... thin-lipped, gray, cold-eyed astuteness, the pomp and splendid masks, of the marts and avenues I have seen in my time. I'd be a Newfoundlander, outport born, outport bred, of outport strength and tenderness of heart, of outport sincerity, had I my birth to choose.... ...
— The Cruise of the Shining Light • Norman Duncan

... former of which he was subject. There was a mystery, too, about the young knight, which heightened the interest he excited; he bore no device on his shield, no cognizance whatever to mark his name and birth and his countenance, beautiful as it was, often when in repose expressed sadness and care unusual to his years, for he was still very young, though in reply to the king's solicitations that he would choose one of Scotland's fairest ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar

... of it, but the "maynew" is not as long as a search warrant. But O, my kingdom for a plate of ham and eggs. Ham is scarcer here than at a Jew wedding feast, and as for eggs, there ain't no sich thing in the world. I think that some of Bill of Berlin's ginks in this country have been hanging up birth control "info" in every hen house in the U.S. least ways sumpin has ...
— Love Letters of a Rookie to Julie • Barney Stone

... although born beneath a heart full of grief, Frederick was a healthy, pretty child who grew strong in the fresh air. His father loved him dearly, never came home without bringing him a roll or something of that sort, and it was even thought he had become more temperate since the birth of the boy; at least the noise ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various

... listen to the roundelays and ballads which the poets composed in his honour, play the lute and the mandore, make acrostics, eat, drink and be merry. One day his mistress having just risen from her confinement, after having given birth to the sweetest little mouse-sorex or sorex-mouse, I know not what name was given to this mongrel food of love, whom you may be sure, the gentlemen in the long robe would manage to legitimise" (the constable of Montmorency, who had married his son ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 2 • Honore de Balzac

... hurried westward into the cities of the Mississippi valley, the native population was startled by the appearance of men who often could not speak our language. In Cincinnati in 1840 one half the voters were of foreign birth. The cry was now raised that our institutions, our liberties, our system of government, were at the mercy of men from the monarchical countries of Europe. A demand was made for a change in the naturalization law, so that no foreigner ...
— A School History of the United States • John Bach McMaster

... disposition have rendered my office easy to me; but when I was young, before I married, my trials were severe, poignant. I should not like a—— I should not like you to endure similar ones. It was my lot to enter a family of considerable pretensions to good birth and mental superiority, and the members of which also believed that 'on them was perceptible' an unusual endowment of the 'Christian graces;' that all their hearts were regenerate, and their spirits in a peculiar state ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte

... passing foolishness of childhood: as Dolly grew up, however, it became clearer each day that the defect was in the grain—that Dolly's whole mind was incurably and congenitally aristocratic or snobbish. She had that mean admiration for birth, position, adventitious advantages, which is the mark of the beast in the essentially aristocratic or snobbish nature. She admired people because they were rich, because they were high-placed, because they were courted, because they were respected; not because they were good, because they were ...
— The Woman Who Did • Grant Allen

... to the land of the poppy, There's a lure to the land of your birth, You swear you abhor it, and yet you'll long for it As no other land on this earth. There's the lure of the snow mantled vastness, There's the lure of each valley and hill, Of friends that you've met, that you'll never forget And you'll want to ...
— Rhymes of a Roughneck • Pat O'Cotter

... space. Childish and immaterial as the topic was, the quality of their reasoning was still more childish and immaterial. In truth, there was very little reasoning or none at all. Their method was one of assertion, assumption, and denunciation. They proved that a seal pup could swim or not swim at birth by stating the proposition very bellicosely and then following it up with an attack on the opposing man's judgment, common sense, nationality, or past history. Rebuttal was precisely similar. I have related this in order to show the mental calibre of the men with ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London

... impatiently, "this is not selling but giving away one's birthright. Where is the advantage of birth if breeding is not supposed to go along with it? Where the parents have had intelligence and refinement, do we not constantly see them inherited by the children? and in an increasing degree from generation ...
— Queechy, Volume I • Elizabeth Wetherell

... usable; but they are examined first, and any that are found too defective are canceled by stamping a hole in them. These canceled notes pass from one official to another, and are grouped in classified bundles; the book that records the birth of each note now receives a notification of its civil death, and after three years incarceration in a great oak chest, a grand conflagration takes place. A huge fire is kindled in an open court; the defunct notes are thrown into a sort of revolving ...
— Scientific American, Vol.22, No. 1, January 1, 1870 • Various

... the comfortably-upholstered bench on the dais of the Audience Hall, didn't look particularly regal. But then, to a Terran, any of the kings of Ullr would have looked like a freak birth in a lizard-house at a zoo; it was hard to guess what impression Harrington would make ...
— Ullr Uprising • Henry Beam Piper

... every possible way for Alvarado. Had he been a man of family like his friend, de Tobar, he would have gone boldly to the Viceroy and asked for the hand of his daughter, in which case he thought he would have met with no refusal; but, being ignorant of his birth, having not even a legal right to the name he bore, he knew that the proud old Hidalgo would rather see his daughter dead than wedded to him. Of all the ancient splendors of the Spanish people there was left them but one thing of which they could be proud—their ancient ...
— Sir Henry Morgan, Buccaneer - A Romance of the Spanish Main • Cyrus Townsend Brady

... to me, not to any human being does Ishmael owe education or profession; but to God and to himself alone. Never was a boy born in this world under more adverse circumstances. His birth, in its utter destitution, reminds me (I speak it with the deepest reverence) of that other birth in the manger of Bethlehem. His infancy was a struggle for the very breath of life; his childhood for ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth

... not merely among the Chinooks, but among most of the tribes about this part of the coast, which is the flattening of the forehead. The process by which this deformity is effected commences immediately after birth. The infant is laid in a wooden trough, by way of cradle. The end on which the head reposes is higher than the rest. A padding is placed on the forehead of the infant, with a piece of bark above it, and is pressed down by cords, which pass through holes on each side of the trough. As the tightening ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving

... more truly pervaded with a strong conviction that the most effective way to educate the public to realize the evils of which such affairs as the Amalgamated are the direct result, is to expose before it the brutal facts as to the conception, birth, and nursery-breeding of this the foremost of all the unsavory offspring of the "System." Thus it may learn that it is within its power to destroy the brood already in existence and render ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson

... boy's pony. Must be guaranteed sound, strong, handsome, intelligent. Used to trains, trams, motors, fire engines, and motor 'buses. Any failure in above respects will disqualify. Certificate of birth required as well as references from ...
— Three Elephant Power • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson

... last I procured a litter of four or five young hedge-hogs, which appeared to be about five or six days old; they, I find, like puppies, are born blind, and could not see when they came to my hands. No doubt their spines are soft and flexible at the time of their birth, or else the poor dam would have but a bad time of it in the critical moment of parturition: but it is plain that they soon harden; for these little pigs had such stiff prickles on their backs and sides as would easily have fetched blood, had they not been ...
— The Natural History of Selborne • Gilbert White

... and emotion can persist in this way so long after the brain that sent them forth has crumbled into dust, how vitally important it must be to control their very birth in the heart, and guard them with the keenest ...
— Three More John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood



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