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Firstborn   Listen
adjective
Firstborn  adj.  First brought forth; first in the order of birth; eldest; hence, most excellent; most distinguished or exalted; as, the firstborn child.
Synonyms: eldest.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Firstborn" Quotes from Famous Books



... but not with a scholar’s love. The most humble and pious among women was yet so proud a mother that she could teach her firstborn son no Watts’ hymns, no collects for the day; she could teach him in earliest childhood no less than this, to find a home in his saddle, and to love old Homer, and all that old Homer sung. True it is, that the Greek was ingeniously rendered ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake

... Sarah bear a son, though old in winters, and fate shall be fulfilled according to My word. I will bless Ishmael, thy firstborn, with My blessing as thou dost ask, that his days may be long in the land, and his race may multiply. This will I grant thee. So also will I prosper Isaac, thy younger son, who is not yet born, with every ...
— Codex Junius 11 • Unknown

... in comes me Mistress Adversity, a wee outspoken sour crabbit gizzened anatomy of an old woman—"You ne'erdoweel, Tam," quoth she, "is it no enough that you consort with that scarlet limmer, who has just yescaped thorough the winday, but ye maun smoors my firstborn, puir Conscience, atween ye? Whare hae ye stowed him, mantell me that?" And the ancient damosel gives me a shrewd clip on the skull with the poker. "That's right, mother," quoth Conscience, from beneath the straw mattrass—"Give ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott

... (because he was of the house and lineage of David,) to be taxed | with Mary his espoused wife, being great with child. And so it | was, that, while they were there, the days were accomplished | that she should be delivered. And she brought forth her firstborn | son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a | manger; because there was no room for them in the inn. And there | were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping ...
— The Book of Common Prayer - and The Scottish Liturgy • Church of England

... there's a dear, and ask him to come here," said Mrs. Morpher, without noticing a sudden irregularity of conduct in her firstborn. "Run quick!" ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte

... the significance of it. It hit him where he lived, and he began jerking frantically at his encased feet and sobbing low in his throat. They'd hear him if he kept that up. He stopped and covered his ears to close out the cry of his firstborn. A light went on in the house, and when it went off again, the infant's cry ...
— The Hoofer • Walter M. Miller

... been terrible, my dear!" exclaimed Mrs. Herbert, so full of pity for Christopher that she was willing to give him anything short of her firstborn. She was really a ...
— The Farringdons • Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler

... and to be a great comfort and blessing to the parents who have done me the honour to call their firstborn for me," returned the old gentleman, a gleam of pleasure lighting up his face. "I want to see the bit bairn myself when the mother is well enough to enjoy a call from her auld kinsman. And how soon do you think that may be, doctor?" he ...
— Elsie at Home • Martha Finley

... we are both responsible, one way or another; and I had not the courage to give him the second place, and the Quaker, David Claridge, the first place. Why Luke Claridge, his grandfather, chose the course he did, does not concern me, no more than why you chose secrecy, and kept your own firstborn legitimate son, of whom you might well be proud, a stranger to you and his rights all these years. Ah, Eglington, you never knew what love was, you never had a heart—experiment, subterfuge, secrecy, 'reaping where you had not sowed, and gathering where you had not strawed.' Always, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... strangely; it seemed to tell him things he had never known before, to speak a wisdom he had never dreamed of, to breathe a sweeter music than he had ever heard, to inspire ambitions purer and better than any he had ever felt—the voice of his firstborn—you know, fathers, what that meant ...
— Second Book of Tales • Eugene Field

... was first printed in The Gem, 1829. The Gem was then edited by Thomas Hood, whose child—his firstborn—it was thatinspired the poem. Lamb sent the verses to Hood ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb

... the anniversary of the Death of the Firstborn, and of this matter it pleased him to talk to me. Up and down the chamber he walked and, watching him by the lamplight, I noted that of a sudden he seemed to have grown much older, and that his face had become ...
— Moon of Israel • H. Rider Haggard

... Swinburne Little Feet Elizabeth Akers The Babie Jeremiah Eames Rankin Little Hands Laurence Binyon Bartholomew Norman Gale The Storm-Child May Byron "On Parent Knees" William Jones "Philip, My King" Dinah Maria Mulock Craik The King of the Cradle Joseph Ashby-Sterry The Firstborn John Arthur Goodchild No Baby in the House Clara Dolliver Our Wee White Rose Gerald Massey Into the World and Out Sarah M. P. Piatt "Baby Sleeps" Samuel Hinds Baby Bell ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various

... son, my hope, my firstborn!"—and the mother's heart gushed forth in all the fondness of early days. "Don't speak so terribly, you ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 1 • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... Simon and Guy had made themselves; the thought of his father's grief at former doings of theirs, which had fallen so far short of the atrocity of this. He knew that his father had rather have seen each one of his five sons slain, or helpless cripples like the firstborn, than have been thus avenged. Nay, had he this morning prayed for the pardon of a crime, to which he would thus become a ...
— The Prince and the Page • Charlotte M. Yonge

... Yadus, was the father of Vasudeva. He had a daughter called Pritha, who for her beauty, was unrivalled on earth. And Sura, having promised in the presence of fire that he would give his firstborn child to Kuntibhoja, the son of his paternal aunt, who was without offspring, gave his daughter unto the monarch in expectation of his favours. Kuntibhoja thereupon made her his daughter. And she became, thenceforth, in the house of her (adoptive) father, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... Maurice Grey, were twins, whose mother had died at their birth, and all through their infancy and childhood the old wine-merchant had been to them as father and mother in one, and the brothers had grown up to manhood, loving him and each other as dearly as heart could wish. Already Stephen, the firstborn of the twins, had become partner in his father's flourishing business, and Maurice was preparing at a military college for service in the army, which he was shortly to join, when a certain event occurred ...
— Dreams and Dream Stories • Anna (Bonus) Kingsford

... firstborn chile and my mommer have two gal chillen, me and Hannah, and she have seven boy. Where I's born was old wild country and old Virginny run down thataway. Everything was plenty good to eat and I seed strawberries what would push you to git 'em in ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves. - Texas Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration

... make him my firstborn, higher than the kings of the earth. My mercy will I keep for him for evermore, and my covenant shall stand fast with him. His seed also will I make to endure forever, and his throne as the days of heaven. If his children forsake my law and walk not in my judgements; if they break my statutes ...
— God's Plan with Men • T. T. (Thomas Theodore) Martin

... even his heritage," Falkenberg promised. "Make of him a Frenchman or an American, if you will. He is your own son. Take him. I give my firstborn for my country. You will not refuse ...
— The Mischief Maker • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... a new instrument for her father's ambition. As the pope was not satisfied with an empty triumph of vanity and display for his son, and as his war with the Orsini had failed to produce the anticipated results, he decided to increase the fortune of his firstborn by doing the very thing which he had accused Calixtus in his speech of doing for him, viz., alienating from the States of the Church the cities of Benevento, Terracino, and Pontecorvo to form, a duchy as an appanage to his son's house. Accordingly ...
— The Borgias - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... surrendered to him in the summer, and announced that he should keep the Agenais and La Reole, as belonging to France by right of Charles of Valois' recent conquest. Bitterly mortified at this treachery, Edward took upon himself the title of "governor and administrator of his firstborn, Edward, Duke of Aquitaine, and of his estates". By this technical subtlety, he thought himself entitled to resume the control of the ceded districts and resist the attack which was bound to follow hard upon the new breach. Once more Charles IV. pronounced ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout

... very tramp who wanders houseless on the moorside is His brother; in his sufferings the Saviour of the world has shared, when the foxes had holes, and the birds of the air had nests, while the Son of God had not where to lay His head. He is the King of the poor, firstborn among many brethren; His tenderness is Almighty, and for the poor He has prepared deliverance, perhaps in this world, surely in the world to come—boundless deliverance, out of the treasures of His ...
— Sermons on National Subjects • Charles Kingsley

... functionary had ever in his life received all at once in a single payment—Guy little knew that Nevitt was really the chief friend and founder of the family fortunes, and was prepared to compel the "unknown benefactor" (for a moderate commission) to recognise his unacknowledged firstborn sons before all the world as the heirs to Tilgate. But yesterday, they were nameless waifs and strays, of uncertain origin, ashamed of their birth, and ignorant even whether they had been duly begotten in lawful wedlock; to-day, they were the ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen

... in the Law. Hence Our Lord said (John 7:20) that circumcision was "not of Moses, but of his fathers." Again, among those who worshipped God, the priesthood was in existence before the Law by human appointment, for the Law allotted the priestly dignity to the firstborn. ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas

... The firstborn, Fritz, with his closely cropped hair and swarthy complexion, took after his dead father, who had been a Holsteiner—a mariner by profession, who had sailed his ship from the Elbe some years before for the last time, and left ...
— Fritz and Eric - The Brother Crusoes • John Conroy Hutcheson

... Children of the Sun to revolt against their oppressors. He, more blessed than I who am his lord, has both wife and child, and if the prophecy is to be fulfiled, and I am to reign in the City of the Sun, then I will take his firstborn and instruct him in all the lore of our people and the duties of their ruler, and if he proves worthy he shall ...
— The Romance of Golden Star ... • George Chetwynd Griffith

... the four remaining children, Susan, Jim, Bessy, and Charley, graduating uniformly though at wide stages from the age of sixteen to that of four years—the eldest of the series being separated from Dick the firstborn by a nearly ...
— Under the Greenwood Tree • Thomas Hardy

... had fulfilled her months, Her firstborn came forth like a lamb. There was no bursting, no rending, No injury, no hurt, In order to emphasise his divinity. Did not God give her comfort? Had He not accepted her sacrifice, So that thus easily she brought forth ...
— Religions of Ancient China • Herbert A. Giles

... the sea, very much, until he left numbering; for it was without number. And unto Joseph were born two sons, befare the years of famine came, which Asenath, the daughter of Poti-pherah, priest of On, bare unto him. And Joseph called the name of the firstborn Manasseh: "For God," said he, "hath made me forget all my toil, and all my father's house." And the name of the second called he Ephraim: "For God hath caused me to be fruitful in ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes

... morally in his love for his firstborn, it must be acknowledged that he is so physically in the manifestation of ...
— Monsieur, Madame and Bebe, Complete • Gustave Droz

... buried in the churchyard of this parish of Ditchingham, I dreamed a very vivid dream as I slept one night at my wife's side. I dreamed that my dead children, the four of them, for the tallest lad bore in his arms my firstborn, that infant who died in the great siege, came to me as they had often come when I ruled the people of the Otomie in the City of Pines, and talked with me, giving me flowers and kissing my hands. I looked upon ...
— Montezuma's Daughter • H. Rider Haggard

... 'Let us flee, lest the room should indeed fall in, for Cerinthus, the enemy of the truth, is within.' Yea, and Polycarp himself also on one occasion, when Marcion confronted him and said, 'Dost thou recognize me?' answered, 'I recognize the firstborn of Satan.' Such care did the Apostles and their disciples take not to hold any communication, even by word, with any of those who falsify the truth, as Paul also said, 'A man that is a heretic after a first and second admonition, avoid; knowing that such ...
— Essays on "Supernatural Religion" • Joseph B. Lightfoot

... recognise as his superior whoever is able to see the crown of his head or the soles of his feet. Vishnu thereupon transforms himself into a boar, pierces underground, and thus sees the feet of Siva, who salutes him on his return as the firstborn of the gods. Now, De Gubernatis regards this fable as 'making the boar emblem of the hidden moon'; and Mr. Conway thinks there is no doubt that the boar at an early period became emblematic of the wild forces ...
— Storyology - Essays in Folk-Lore, Sea-Lore, and Plant-Lore • Benjamin Taylor

... procuring them as chattels, seems based upon the fallacy, that whatever costs money is money; that whatever or whoever you pay money for, is an article of property, and the fact of your paying for it, proves it property. 1. The children of Israel were required to purchase their firstborn from under the obligations of the priesthood, Num. xviii. 15, 16; iii. 45-51; Ex. xiii. 13; xxxiv. 20. This custom still exists among the Jews, and the word buy is still used to describe the transaction. Does this prove that their firstborn were or are, held as property? They were ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... exercise of supreme power, and had the same right of inheritance and possession as regards sovereignty that women had in human law.[*] Isis was entitled lady and mistress at Buto, as Hathor was at Denderah, and as Nit at Sais, "the firstborn, when as yet there had been no birth." They enjoyed in their cities the same honours as the male gods in theirs; as the latter were kings, so were they queens, and all bowed down before them. The animal gods, whether entirely ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 1 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... I had seen the young mother going to the pagoda on the hilltop with a little offering of a few roses or an orchid spray, and pouring out her soul in passionate supplication to Someone—Someone unknown to her sacred books—that her firstborn might recover of his fever, and be to her once more the measureless delight of her life; and it would seem to me that she must believe in a God and ...
— The Soul of a People • H. Fielding

... Only the firstborn married. The younger brothers and sisters worked under him and for him. In the lonely farms of the mountains of the South, far from all neighbours and every woman, brothers and sisters lived together, the latter serving and in all ways belonging to the former; a way of life analogous to that in Genesis, ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet

... and quieten him!' Mr. Knight commanded. 'It's like him to begin making a noise just now. I'll take a look at Susan—and my firstborn.' ...
— A Great Man - A Frolic • Arnold Bennett

... good walnut stick and beat the Indian to purpose till she promised to do so no more." Mr. Thatcher was really a very kindly gentleman and a good Christian, but the natural solicitude of a young father over his firstborn provoked him to the telling use of the walnut stick as ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle

... again! to enjoy the freedom of air with the bird, and the glow of the sun with the lizard; to sport through the blooms of the earth, Nature's playmate and darling; to face, in the forest and desert, the pard and the lion,—Nature's bravest and fiercest,—her firstborn, the heir of her realm, with the rest of ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... bootless endeavour. As the flight of a bird of the air Is the flight of a joke—you will never See the same one again, you may swear. 'Twas my firstborn, and O how I prized it! My darling, my treasure, my own! This brain and none other devised it - ...
— Fly Leaves • C. S. Calverley

... Their blank infinitudes of time and space, Vault with careering curves her central goal, Pour forth her day and stud her evening stole, Heedless of count; their numbers still unknown, Unmeasured still their progress round her throne; For none of all her firstborn sons, endow'd With heavenly sapience and pretensions proud, No seraph bright, whose keen considering eye And sunbeam speed ascend from sky to sky, Has yet explored or counted all their spheres, Or fixt or found their ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow

... for doubting that this beautiful Epistle is the work of St. Paul. It is full of Pauline thought, and is well attested by external evidence. It is apparently quoted in the very ancient work known as the Epistle of Barnabas, and Justin Martyr quotes the title of Christ "the firstborn of all creation" (Col. i. 15). It is included in Marcion's canon and in the Muratorian Fragment, as well as in the Old Latin and Peshitta Syriac versions. The notion that it is only a weak reflection of Ephesians seems incredible, for neither of the two Epistles is appreciably inferior to the other, ...
— The Books of the New Testament • Leighton Pullan

... this sacrifice, assumed the form of Varuna, have their wish (in the matter of the offspring).' At these words, although born of Brahman, the puissant Mahadeva in the form of Varuna, the ruler of all aquatic creatures received the firstborn one, viz., Bhrigu endued with the effulgence of the sun as his own child. The Grandsire then intended that Angiras should become the son of Agni. Conversant with the truth in respect of everything, the Grandsire then took Kavi as his own son. Engaged in ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... behold, we live! We spent our energies in profitless work; but now we bear fruit unto God. We were lonely and isolated, but now have come to the heavenly Jerusalem, to the innumerable company of angels, and to the Church of the Firstborn. Our prayers were aimless and ineffective; but now we have the petitions we desired. New hope and joy have filled our hearts, as the ruddy clusters hang full and ripe in the autumn. Prove Him for yourself and see if this shall not be so for you also. ...
— Love to the Uttermost - Expositions of John XIII.-XXI. • F. B. Meyer

... earthly man.'[42] The long Life of Moses[43] represents him as the King, Lawgiver, High Priest, Prophet, Mediator. The Word, the Logos (which here everywhere hovers near, but never reaches, personality) is 'the firstborn son of God', 'the image of God'[44]; its types are 'the Rock', the Manna, the High Priest's Coat; it is 'the Wine Pourer and Master of the Drinking Feast of God'.[45] The majority of the Jews, who did not accept Jesus as the Christ, soon felt they had no need for so much allegory, ...
— Progress and History • Various

... proud of them all, living or dead—here or there. So I said, 'Well, Miss Harlow, John is not my firstborn. There was a lovely little girl, who went back to God before she was quite a year old. People said I ought to think it a great honor to give my first child to God, but it was a great grief to me. Soon after her death John was born, and after John came Clara Ann. She married ...
— The Measure of a Man • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr

... her bonnet, and he took it as he might have taken his firstborn, and laid it gently to rest on his cabinet. Then he pushed the gas-bracket so that the light came through the large crystal sphere, and ...
— The Matador of the Five Towns and Other Stories • Arnold Bennett

... the century a Dakota woman fasted and prayed, and Thunder came to her in her vision. To the god she promised to give her firstborn child. When she became a mother, she forgot in her joy that the life of her little one did not belong to her; nor did she recall her fateful vow until one bright spring day, when the clouds gathered and she heard the roll of the thunder,—a sound which summoned all persons consecrated ...
— Indian Story and Song - from North America • Alice C. Fletcher

... His mother, who had borne him, nursed him, reared him; who had loved him with that love—like none other in the world—the love of a woman for her firstborn son, all ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik

... Berlin it is 17 per cent., and in some towns very much higher, but ante-nuptial conceptions take place in nearly half the marriages, and sometimes in the majority. Thus in Berlin more than 40 per cent, of all legitimate firstborn children are conceived before marriage, while in some rural provinces (where the proportion of illegitimate births is lower) the percentage of marriages following ante-nuptial conceptions is much higher than in Berlin. The conditions ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... of Heaven, Firstborn Or of the Eternal, co-eternal beam, May I express thee Unblamed? since God is light, And never but in unapproached light Dwelt from eternity—dwelt then in thee, Bright effluence of bright essence increate! Or hear'st thou, rather, pure ...
— Russell H. Conwell • Agnes Rush Burr

... calm placidity, with an eye looking benevolence, and a considerateness that took note of your smallest want, she sustained the pangs of one yearning for her firstborn; dissatisfied and disappointed in his career, and apprehensive for his fate. The family was no longer happy. The worm was busy in all their hearts. They treated me kindly, but it was obvious that they were suffering. A visible constraint chilled and baffled ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms

... may understand these words, and the destruction of the Hebrew commonwealth, we must bear in mind that it had at first been intended to entrust the whole duties of the priesthood to the firstborn, and not to the Levites (see Numb. viii:17). (166) It was only when all the tribes, except the Levites, worshipped the golden calf, that the firstborn were rejected and defiled, and the Levites chosen in their ...
— A Theologico-Political Treatise [Part IV] • Benedict de Spinoza

... hands the measure beat, As mix and part in amorous maze Those floating arms and bounding feet. But none of all the race of Cain, Save those whom he hath deigned to grace With yellow robe and sapphire chain, May pass beyond that outer space. For now within the painted hall The Firstborn keeps high festival. Before the glittering valves all night Their post the chosen captains hold. Above the portal's stately height The legend flames in lamps of gold: "In life united and in death "May Tirzah and Ahirad be, "The bravest he of all the sons of Seth, "Of all the house ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 3. (of 4) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... 1526, as he announced to his friend Ruhel, his 'dear Kate brought him, by the great mercy of God, a little Hans Luther,'—her firstborn. With joy and thankfulness, as he says in another letter, they now reaped the fruit and blessings of married life, whereof the Pope and his creatures ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin

... Then it should be bathed, fed, and clothed in a high-necked, long-sleeved silk shirt and a blanket, all of which could be done in five minutes. As babies lie still most of the time the first six weeks, they need no dressing. I think the nurse was a full hour bathing and dressing my firstborn, who protested with a melancholy wail ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton

... sufficiently roused the angry passions of his vast audience, and having alarmed their fears by this pretended scheme against their firstborn (an artifice which was indispensable to his purpose, because it met 30 beforehand every form of amendment to his proposal coming from the more moderate nobles, who would not otherwise have failed to insist upon trying the effect of bold addresses ...
— De Quincey's Revolt of the Tartars • Thomas De Quincey

... his father; but all these difficulties his unselfish heart overcame, and he stands for all time as the noblest example of human friendship, and as not unworthy to remind us, as from afar off and dimly, of the perfect love of the Firstborn Son of the true King, who has loved us all with a yet deeper, more patient, more self-sacrificing love. If men can love one another as Jonathan loved David, how should they love the Christ who has loved them so much! And what sacrilege ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... trusted, and I am persuaded He can keep what I have committed to Him until that day." All the children of God have known, loved, and trusted their Father, and have reflected that holy light which shone with unclouded and faultless lustre in the Firstborn of all the brethren; for Jesus ever held fast His confidence in God until His last cry of faith, "Father, into Thy ...
— Parish Papers • Norman Macleod

... Primrose, firstborn child of Ver; Merry springtime's harbinger, With her bells dim; Oxlips in their cradles growing, Marigolds on death-beds blowing, ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy

... movement of her head satisfied the mother that her four firstborn were safe and well disposed. Immediately then, with never a thought of rest, her nose thrust the new-comer into position between her fore-paws, and she proceeded to administer the life-giving and stimulating tongue-wash. Over and ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson

... long estranged, met at the grave of their firstborn, the child of their youthful strength. Their strife had been bitter, their love had turned to hate, and they elected to tread life's path apart. They stood, one on either side, and looked coldly upon each other. Then they looked ...
— Volume 12 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann

... sad event was to take place in June. I didn't go. The latest was a cream-laid affair, from another quarter, on which I was requested in letters of gold to honour certain near and dear relatives with my presence at the christening of their firstborn. As the affair was to take place in December, and I received the pressing invitation at the end of January—I was again unable to be present at another interesting ceremony. I have also received several invitations to Terpsichorean revels. My R.S.V.P. has been curtly to the effect that "Mr. P.T.R. ...
— A Yeoman's Letters - Third Edition • P. T. Ross

... human, not superhuman; by their mistaken attempts. It is by and through human ties of love and sympathy that the Self unfolds. It is said of the Masters that They love all humanity as a mother loves her firstborn son. Their love is not love watered down to coolness, but love for all raised to the heat of the highest particular loves of smaller souls. Always mistrust the teacher who tells you to kill out love, to be indifferent ...
— An Introduction to Yoga • Annie Besant

... and to pray his help. This, therefore, Merlin promised him on one condition—namely, that the king should give him up the first son born of the marriage. For Merlin by his arts foreknew that this firstborn should be the long-wished prince, ...
— The Legends Of King Arthur And His Knights • James Knowles

... not Mustapha, of course, but the poor fellaheen who were doing his corvee instead of the Pasha's by the Moudir's order. I went to the Gezeereh and thought that Moses was at work again and had killed a firstborn in every house by the crying and wailing, when up came two fellows and showed me their bloody feet, which their wives were crying over like for a death, Shorghl el Mizr—things of Egypt—like Cosas ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon

... making up of the Chamberlain's accounts for 1562-63 in January, 1563-64, the Chamber was found in debt to John Shakespeare 25s. 8d., as if he had been the finance Chamberlain of the two. Both of his daughters were dead when, on April 26, he christened his firstborn son William. That summer the plague raged in Stratford; the Council meetings were held in the garden, to avoid infection, and collections were made among the burgesses for the relief of the poor, to each of which John ...
— Shakespeare's Family • Mrs. C. C. Stopes

... silken lap in which the child was comfortably nestling, and in that attitude had a faint consciousness that Mrs. Horncastle was mischievously breathing into his curls a silent laugh. Barker lifted his firstborn with proud skillfulness, but that sagacious infant evidently knew when he was comfortable, and in a paroxysm of objection caught his father's curls with one fist, while with the other he grasped Mrs. Horncastle's brown braids and brought their heads into contact. Upon which humorous ...
— The Three Partners • Bret Harte

... have appeared to her sons, and accosting Rhiwallon, her firstborn, to have informed him that he was to be a benefactor to mankind, through healing all manner of their diseases, and she furnished him with prescriptions and instructions for the preservation of health. Then, promising to meet him when her counsel was most needed, she vanished. ...
— Welsh Folk-Lore - a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales • Elias Owen

... fools, you shall crush my new-budding hope that there is something somewhere which will make me what I know that I ought to be, and can be—If you shall crush that, I say, by any misdoing of yours, you had better have been the murderer of my firstborn; with such a hate—a hate which Jews alone can feel—will I ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley

... said, "I know you have your pistol on you, for only the other day you brought it into my presence, and through light and darkness you nurse it as a mother does her firstborn. Now since the Opener of Roads desires it, I command you to fire at that which seems to stand above us. If it be a mortal woman, she is a cheat and deserves to die. If it be a spirit from heaven it can take no harm. Nor can you take ...
— Finished • H. Rider Haggard

... never clearly ascertained: this was a point—one of a large number—that Mr. Moreen's manner never confided. What it emphatically did confide was that he was even more a man of the world than you might first make out. Ulick, the firstborn, was in visible training for the same profession—under the disadvantage as yet, however, of a buttonhole but feebly floral and a moustache with no pretensions to type. The girls had hair and figures and manners and small fat feet, but had never been out alone. As for Mrs. Moreen ...
— The Pupil • Henry James

... moods of weary irritation. The cut of her gowns, the little niceties of table-service or of children's clothing no longer concerned her. She merely wanted her family comfortable, fed and housed and clothed, and well. Nancy could advise other women about the capable handling of children, before her firstborn was three ...
— Undertow • Kathleen Norris

... Now, therefore, say not in your hearts, 'What have we done?' Your dogs may answer that, To make whom fiercer for the chase, ye feed With captives whom ye slew not in the war, But saved alive, and living throw to them Daily. Your wives may answer that, whose babes Their firstborn ye do take and offer up To this abhorred snake, while yet the milk Is in their innocent mouths,—your maiden babes Tender. Your slaves may answer that,—the gangs Whose eyes ye did put out to make them work By night unwitting (yea, by ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Jean Ingelow

... more about thirteen being an unlucky number. The common law of England, which usually has some good reason based on commonsense for its existence, makes the eldest son the heir: this on the assumption that the firstborn inherits brain and brawn plus. If the firstborn happened to be ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard

... called, had taken his medical degree, and, by the indulgence of his father, whose heart yearned sympathetically toward his firstborn, opportunity was afforded him to spend a year in Paris. Mrs. Meeker groaned over this unnecessary expense. When she saw that on this occasion she was not to have her own way, she insisted that the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... in a strange way with the impressions of the storm, and more than once made her heart stop, and start again at its own stopping. One of these fancies she never could forget—a dream about little Concha,—Conchita, her firstborn, who now slept far away in the old churchyard at Barcelona. She had tried to become resigned,—not to think. But the child would come back night after night, though the earth lay heavy upon her—night after night, through long distances of Time and Space. Oh! the fancied clinging of infant-lips!—the ...
— Chita: A Memory of Last Island • Lafcadio Hearn

... shield thee, trusting mortal! Love has heaved its firstborn sigh; But from the pellucid portal Of her calm, ...
— Hesperus - and Other Poems and Lyrics • Charles Sangster

... fishes whose scales, like those of the salmon, are defined all around by a simple continuous margin; and no sooner was the division effected than it was found to cast a singularly clear light on the early history of the class. The earliest fishes—firstborn of their family—seem to have been all placoids. The Silurian System has not yet afforded trace of any other vertebral animal. With the Old Red Sandstone the ganoids were ushered upon the scene in amazing ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller

... country, and he worshiped them. He had never been known to lend a horse to his best friend, and no one but himself had ever been allowed to feed or groom them. He was prouder of them than a father might be of his firstborn son, and as careful of them as any doting mother. Therefore his assent to Scipio's request was quite staggering to his companions. Nor did he know why he did it, and a furious anger followed immediately upon ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum

... I come before the Lord, and bow myself before the Most High God? shall I come before Him with burnt offerings, with calves of a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil? shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin ...
— The New Theology • R. J. Campbell

... child—her child and Angus's,—would be a deformity, a shame to its parents, a dishonour to its race. How should she ever bear to look upon it? Still more, how should she ever dare to show the poor cripple to its father, and say, "This is our child—our firstborn." Would he not turn away in disgust, and answer that it had ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)

... priesthood until they leave it; and all the sons of the principal inhabitants, both nobles and respectable citizens, are placed in the temples and wear the same dress from the age of seven or eight years until they are taken out to be married; which occurs more frequently with the firstborn, who inherits estates, than with the others. The priests are debarred from female society, nor is any woman permitted to enter the religious houses. They also abstain from eating certain kinds of food, more at some seasons of ...
— South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady

... he had been called opened pleasantly and increased in happiness and opportunity, except for the sadness of bereavements, for, in the first few years, his brilliant brothers Edward and Charles died, and soon afterward Waldo, his firstborn son, and later his mother. Emerson had left traditional religion, the city, the Old World, behind, and now went to Nature as his teacher, his inspiration. His first book, "Nature," which he was meditating ...
— Poems - Household Edition • Ralph Waldo Emerson

... great array of little ones, himself, in virtue of his firstborn childhood, the first recipient of the revelations of his father, having thus given thanks, and said why he gave thanks, breaks out afresh, renewing expression of delight that God had willed it thus: 'Even so, father, for so it ...
— Hope of the Gospel • George MacDonald

... helplessness. Strong men bowed down and wept. Other and common griefs belonged to some one in chief; this belonged to all. It was each and every man's. Every virtuous household in the land felt as if its firstborn were gone. Men were bereaved and walked for days as if a corpse lay unburied in their dwellings. There was nothing else to think of. They could speak of nothing but that; and yet of that they could speak only falteringly. ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various

... while they were there, the days were fulfilled that she should be delivered. And she brought forth her firstborn son; and she wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger, because there was no room ...
— His Life - A Complete Story in the Words of the Four Gospels • William E. Barton, Theodore G. Soares, Sydney Strong

... put my firstborn son into my arms, I had no high thoughts. I trembled, indeed, but it was with fear ...
— The Dew of Their Youth • S. R. Crockett

... for you in my other world. Get Dilly to make you that boiled rice every night after your brainwork. Years and years I loved you, O, my son, my firstborn, when ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce

... chamber, Death! Come to the mother, when she feels For the first time her firstborn's breath; Come when the blessed seals That close the pestilence are broke, And crowded cities wail its stroke; Come in consumption's ghastly form, The earthquake's shock, the ocean storm; Come when the heart beats ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey

... others' thankfulness; and all stablished together by God. In Heb. xii. 22 mount Zion is taken as the symbol of Christ's Church; and the readers are addressed as members thereof, together with the spirits of just men made perfect, who are enrolled in heaven as the general assembly and church of the firstborn. Thus the {113} Church, or Society of Saints includes the imperfect, and those who are made perfect; those who are alive there, and those who are alive here. The condition of membership is briefly described ...
— The Prayer Book Explained • Percival Jackson

... child I had been neglected for the firstborn, I had enjoyed through this neglect an absolute freedom with regard to associating with fisher-boys and all the shoeless, hatless 'sea-pups' of the sands, and now, when the time had come to civilise me, my mother had found that it was too late. I was bohemian ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton

... everything that could increase his glory and render it more durable; and there entered into the prayers she made for him since the burning disgrace of the divorce, even the hope that he might be happy in his private life, and that his new wife might bear this child, this firstborn of his dynasty, to him whom she herself could not make ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... Dominicans among themselves between Pangasinan and Manila and would make their visits less arduous. But since that was a very painful proposition to those who governed our discalced order, namely, the abandonment of certain Indians who were the firstborn of their spirit, and a land watered by the blood of so many martyrs, the claim could never be made effectual, however much it was smoothed over by the name of exchange, our province being offered other ministries, in which was shown clearly the ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 41 of 55, 1691-1700 • Various

... beheld it return with equal violence, and enter the earth, beneath her feet, whence immediately sprang up a goodly tree covered with blossoms, the scent of which operated so strongly on her nerves that she awoke. The attentive sage, after some deliberation, assured my parents, that their firstborn would be a great traveller; that he would undergo many dangers and difficulties, and at last return to his native land, where he would flourish in happiness and reputation. How truly this was foretold will appear in the sequel. It was not long before some officious person informed ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett

... pavement, and see the place as it used to be five hundred years ago. It was wild then. Out of broken and rocky ground rose the ancient Church of Aracoeli, the Church of the Altar of Heaven, built upon that altar which the Sibyl of Tivoli bade Augustus raise to the Firstborn of God. To the right a rude fortress, grounded in the great ruins of Rome's Archive House, flanked by rough towers, approached only by that old triumphal way, where old women slowly roasted beans in iron chafing-dishes over little fires that were sheltered from the north wind by the vast ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 2 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford

... the work of saving could be finished. O redemption, redemption by blood, is the heart-endearing consideration! This is that which will make the water stand in our eyes, that will break a heart of flint, and that will make one do as they do that are in bitterness for their firstborn. ...
— The Riches of Bunyan • Jeremiah Rev. Chaplin

... for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit" . . . This came to pass that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet: . . . "Behold a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son." And Joseph "knew her not until she had brought forth her firstborn son; and he called His ...
— Spiritual Life and the Word of God • Emanuel Swedenborg

... think, my dear mother, that Harry has the best claim to it; he is your firstborn, ...
— The Evil Eye; Or, The Black Spector - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... she kept repeating. "The tender worm of 'en! But I'll have 'en back, if I've to go to the naughty place to fetch 'en. Why, what sort of a tale be I to pitch to my Dan'l, if he comes home and his firstborn gone?" ...
— News from the Duchy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... journey to the last moment, in order to stand godfather to Nancy's healthy firstborn. John Lambert—honest man and proud father—had honoured the event with a dinner, and very nearly wrecked his own domestic peace by sending out the invitations in his own hand and including Mr. and Mrs. Wright. ...
— Hetty Wesley • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... conditions Thomas Jefferson was sure to be the child of many prayers on the mother's part; and perhaps of some naturally prideful hopes on Caleb's. When a man touches forty before his firstborn is put into his arms, he is likely to take the event seriously. Martha Gordon would have named her son after the great apostle of her faith, but Caleb asserted himself here and would have a manlier name-father for the boy. So Thomas Jefferson was named, not ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde

... heaviest ocean-plunges dashed on cliffs, The tempest's fury on the grinding woods, Or elemental crashing in the heavens: Beyond a lover's gladness when he feels His maiden's bosom throbbing tremulously, Beyond a father's when he feels in hand The rounded warmth of little firstborn's limb, Or in beholding him grown tall and strong: And their delight will never wane, but wax In greatness with the roll of time, and burn More brightly fed with noble deeds. For souls Obedient to divine impulse, ...
— My Beautiful Lady. Nelly Dale • Thomas Woolner

... chiefly, almost entirely, from June to October, the season when all out-of-door influences are most tempting and most needed. The weekly record of August and September is that of a pestilence. The destroying angel carries off the firstborn, and, oftener still, the last-born, out of almost every household in certain districts, as in the heaviest curse laid on Egypt. Thousands have fled the city, as they deserted London in the season of the plague; but thousands are left ...
— Parks for the People - Proceedings of a Public Meeting held at Faneuil Hall, June 7, 1876 • Various

... honour in rotation, and admit none that have not tickets: one doorkeeper was the worthy Sieur Lais, a patriotic Opera-singer, stricken in years, whose windpipe is long since closed without result; the other, young, and named Louis Philippe, d'Orleans's firstborn, has in this latter time, after unheard-of destinies, become Citizen-King, and struggles to rule for a season. All-flesh is grass; higher ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle

... unto thee, let my son go, that he may serve me: and if thou refuse to let him go, behold, I will slay thy son, even thy firstborn: ...
— The Woman's Bible. • Elizabeth Cady Stanton

... movement on the part of the South? The answer is written in flames of light along the sky, and in letters of blood upon the breadth of the land. Slavery first, slavery middle, and slavery last. Accursed slavery! firstborn of the evil one—the lust of dominion over others for one's own selfish purposes, in its naked, most shameless, and undisguised form. Dominion of man over man in other modes, such as absolute monarchy, aristocracy, feudalism, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol III, Issue VI, June, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... has its disadvantages. There must have been great bitterness in the Brown household before its mistress obtained her own way, and even more in the heart of our poor friend as he stood at the font and heard his firstborn son irrevocably named—George. ...
— The Book-Hunter at Home • P. B. M. Allan

... words which haunt the memory and sink into the heart: "The angel which redeemed me from all evil, bless the lads." And Joseph is moved by what he thinks to be a mistake, and would correct it, so as to give the larger blessing to his firstborn. But Jacob refuses. "I know it, my son, I know it ... he also shall be great, but truly his younger brother shall ...
— The Thread of Gold • Arthur Christopher Benson

... new epithets that are attached to him in the Assyrian inscriptions, there is one which, just as in the case of Nin-ib, connects the Assyrian Sin cult with the oldest phase of moon-worship in the south. It is one of the last kings of Assyria, Ashurbanabal, who calls Sin 'the firstborn son of Bel.' He appears in this relationship to Bel in the religious texts of Babylonia. The Bel here meant can only be the great god of Nippur, and the title 'son of Bel' accordingly shows that the moon-worship of Assyria is ultimately ...
— The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria • Morris Jastrow

... I do this? It is not because I am a coward, for there are few men who are in reality braver than I am. I carried my firstborn in my arms round the drawing-room when she was a week old, and I have done other things equally brave, the enumeration of which I spare you. But I could no more think of getting my hair cut without previously informing my wife than ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Jan. 8, 1919 • Various

... uninformed until experience teaches them, and that teaching is often accompanied by heart-breaking sorrow. If you should make inquiry you would discover that a large proportion of mothers have buried their firstborn children, and should you ask them why, they would in all probability say, almost without exception, that it was because they did not know how to give them a dower of health, or how to care for ...
— What a Young Woman Ought to Know • Mary Wood-Allen

... said—and indeed the odour of tobacco was still strong on the close air—but he had been having a good deal of stomach trouble of late, and the children made him nervous, and he had gone out for a walk. Poor May, smiling gallantly over the difficulties of her life, drew her firstborn to her knees, brushed back the child's silky, pale hair with bony, trembling fingers, and prophesied that things would be easier when mamma's girlies got to work: Evelyn was going to be a dressmaker, and Marguerite ...
— The Story Of Julia Page - Works of Kathleen Norris, Volume V. • Kathleen Norris

... brought forth her firstborn Son, and wrapped Him in swaddling clothes, and laid Him in a manger." ...
— Our Master • Bramwell Booth

... their divine territories. Behold, I am exalted upon my standard, and upon my seat, and upon the throne which is adjudged [to me]. I am the god Nu, and the workers of iniquity shall not destroy me. I am the firstborn god of primeval matter, that is to say, the divine Soul, even the Souls of the gods of everlastingness, and my body is eternity. My Form is everlastingness, and is the lord of years and the prince of eternity. [I am] the creator of the darkness who maketh his ...
— Egyptian Literature

... and refinement was painful to his young wife, whose tenderest feelings he ruthlessly and thoughtlessly trampled upon. Things were looking unpromising, when, happily for her, Madame Godefroy died in giving birth to her firstborn. When he spoke of his deceased wife, the banker waxed poetical, although had she lived they would have been divorced in six months. His son he loved dearly for several reasons—first, because the child was an only son; secondly, because he was ...
— The Lost Child - 1894 • Francois Edouard Joachim Coppee

... clearly taught,[87] but He is the agent in the creation of the universe, the vital principle upholding and pervading all that exists. "The Son," we read in the Epistle to the Colossians,[88] "is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; for in Him were all things created, in the heavens and upon the earth; all things have been created through Him, and unto Him; and He is before all things, and in Him all things consist" (that is, "hold together," ...
— Christian Mysticism • William Ralph Inge

... room Mrs. Hardy kneeled in an agony of petition for that firstborn son, crying out of her heart, "O God, it is more than I can bear! To see him growing away from me so! Dear Lord, be Thou merciful to me. Bring him back again to the life he used to live! How proud I was of him! What a joy he was to me! And now, and now! O gracious Father, ...
— Robert Hardy's Seven Days - A Dream and Its Consequences • Charles Monroe Sheldon

... the first distinct word the old lady spoke, "Joyce, he has come at last. He has come! Come here, dear. Kiss your brother. This is my firstborn—my little Steve." ...
— Tomaso's Fortune and Other Stories • Henry Seton Merriman

... with her; the others were ADOPTED by certain of her friends, and she was to be permitted to visit them every Saturday afternoon. The selection was a cruel trial, so cruel that, knowing her undoubted preference for her firstborn, Misery, we would not have interfered for worlds, but in her unexpected choice of "Johnny Dear" the most unworldly of us knew that it was the first glimmering of feminine tact—her first submission to the world of propriety that she was now entering. "Johnny Dear" was undoubtedly the most presentable; ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte

... exteriorly one or several of these corpuscles, supported on very short slender pedicels, which remain after the corpuscles are detached from them. This latter circumstance evidences that new corpuscles succeed the firstborn one on each pedicel as long as there remains any plastic matter within the spore. The latter, in fact, in consequence of this labour of production, becomes gradually emptied, and yet preserves the generative pedicels of the corpuscles, even when it no longer contains any solid ...
— Fungi: Their Nature and Uses • Mordecai Cubitt Cooke

... the eternal Word, the eternal Christ, manifesting in his clean, strong, upright soul, so that the young Jewish rabbi and prophet, known in all his community as Jesus, the son of Joseph and Mary and whose brothers and sisters they knew so well,[E] became the firstborn—fully born—of the Father. ...
— The Higher Powers of Mind and Spirit • Ralph Waldo Trine

... his footsteps; Misery and ruin stand ready by his side: The limbs of his body[225] shall be gnawed, Devoured by the firstborn of death.[226] ...
— The Sceptics of the Old Testament: Job - Koheleth - Agur • Emile Joseph Dillon

... falling to the share of each inhabitant. In order to support the 1,500,000 inhabitants distributed in Thibet, upon a surface of 1,200,000 square kilometres, the Buddhists were forced to adopt polyandry. Moreover, each family is bound to enter one of its members in a religious order. The firstborn is consecrated to a gonpa, which is inevitably found upon an elevation, at the entrance of every village. As soon as the child attains the age of eighteen years, he is entrusted to the caravans which pass Lhassa, where he remains from eight to fifteen years as a novice, in one of ...
— The Unknown Life of Jesus Christ - The Original Text of Nicolas Notovitch's 1887 Discovery • Nicolas Notovitch

... higher room of God's great House. The Apostle, speaking of the Church, says, "Ye are come, (not ye will come,) unto Mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the Heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and Church of the firstborn which are written in Heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus the Mediator of the New Covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than ...
— The Life of Duty, v. 2 - A year's plain sermons on the Gospels or Epistles • H. J. Wilmot-Buxton

... who was led into the thick of the fighting at Cressy, and died on the field. Welsh archaeologists, however, maintain that these words are Celtic, and mean "behold the man;" their theory suggests that this was the phrase used by Edward I. when he presented his firstborn son to the Welsh people as their prince, and that the words thus became the motto of the princes of Wales. This is a rather far-fetched piece of reasoning, and one would certainly prefer to accept the more picturesque tradition which connects the phrase with the glories of Cressy. The other word ...
— The Cathedral Church of Canterbury [2nd ed.]. • Hartley Withers

... superior.[131] Of all the mountains the great Meru is said to be the first-born. Of all the cardinal and subsidiary points of the horizon, the eastern is said to be the foremost and first-born. Ganga of three courses is said to be the firstborn of all rivers. Likewise, of all wells and reservoirs of waters, the ocean is said to be the first-born. Iswara is the supreme Lord of all the deities and Danavas and ghostly beings and Pisachas, and snakes and Makshasas and human ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... brings us always declamation without sense or knowledge, and ridicule without good humour or conciliation. Oh, Mr. Plymley, this never will do. Mrs. Abraham Plymley, my sister, will be led away captive by an amorous Gaul; and Joel Plymley your firstborn, will ...
— Peter Plymley's Letters and Selected Essays • Sydney Smith

... of sacrifice, and that other look when she defied Cuitlahua the emperor, who would have slain me. Once more I seemed to hear her cry of bitter sorrow as she uncovered the body of the dead babe our firstborn, and to see her sword in hand standing ...
— Montezuma's Daughter • H. Rider Haggard

... his dealings with Israel in Egypt, and frequently calls Egypt the land of Ham. How can this be accounted for if Egypt was not peopled by the posterity of Ham? But he goes further than this; he calls their dwellings the tabernacles of Ham. "He smote the firstborn in Egypt; the chief of their strength in the tabernacles of Ham." Psalm lxvii, 51: "Israel also came into Egypt; and Jacob sojourned in the land of Ham." Psalm cv, 23: "He sent Moses, his servant and Aaron whom he had chosen. They set ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various

... grandson. His firstborn, Tom, was wild, and went to sea—the old story—leaving wife and unborn child for his father to look to. Six years had gone—the seventh began at New Year's; the boy was born, burnt, saved alive, and not idiotic; its mother had died; Adam's ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 6, No. 1, July, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various

... the spectacle of his son, folding in his arms his firstborn, they shut out for ever the things of time and sense, and consciousness that forsook him then never reoccupied its throne. He was carried from the brilliant salon of the popular actress to the home of his son; medical skill exhausted its ingenuity, ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson

... health and spirits, and with the hope and apparently the prospect of many years of service before him. And yet, just as the summer was beginning, he was called to the presence of the King, and to the perfect work and fellowship of 'the Church of the firstborn.' Had he been able to choose his fate he would hardly have wished it other than it was. His work in Mongolia was steadily growing; slowly, it is true, but yet gaining a strength and impetus that will abide, and has well begun the conquest of Mongolia for Christ. Though practically ...
— James Gilmour of Mongolia - His diaries, letters, and reports • James Gilmour

... the presumption of the lad, as if he wished to be above Moa the firstborn. He feigned an errand, and called the boy to come and scratch his back. The boy went to perform the operation, but on stretching out his hand was seized by his grandfather, and beaten with the handle of his fly-flapper. Lu made ...
— Samoa, A Hundred Years Ago And Long Before • George Turner

... on; behind came the poor old gardener, a brown-black funeral cloak thrown over his homely dress, and supporting his wife with steps scarcely less feeble than her own. He had come to church that afternoon, with a promise to her that he would return to lead her to the funeral of her firstborn; for he felt, in his sore perplexed heart, full of indignation and dumb anger, as if he must go and hear something which should exorcize the unwonted longing for revenge that disturbed his grief, and made him conscious of that ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. I • Elizabeth Gaskell

... writes. 'Jesus Christ is in the proper sense [Greek: idios] the only Son begotten of God, being His Word [Greek: logos] and Firstborn Power' [Endnote 284:1]. Again, 'But His Son who alone is rightly [Greek: kurios] called Son, who before all created things was with Him and begotten of Him as His Word, when in the beginning He created and ordered all things through Him,' &c. Again, 'Now the next Power to ...
— The Gospels in the Second Century - An Examination of the Critical Part of a Work - Entitled 'Supernatural Religion' • William Sanday

... brothers, but then as now it was easier for men to find a place for themselves in the world than for women, and the army or the Church rarely failed to furnish some sort of career for all those who were denied the rights and privileges of the firstborn. The lot of the sister, however, was pitiful in the extreme (unless it happened that the older brother was kind and considerate), for if she were in the way she could be bundled off to a cloister, ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger

... girded, your shoes on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and ye shall eat it in haste: it is the Lord's passover. 12. For I will pass through the land of Egypt this night, and will smite all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment: I am the Lord. 13. And the blood shall be to you for a token upon the houses where ye are: and when I see the blood, I will pass over ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren

... perverse children, who mother trunk thought at one time were going to ruin her life, but you know lives aren't so easily ruined after all. 'Now you go right up there at an angle of twenty-two degrees,' she said to her eldest child. 'Not at all,' said the firstborn, 'I intend to lean right over here at whatsoever angle will best express my individuality.' And though the mother grieved for a long time she knows now—Karl—how foolish we are! But listen. You hear ...
— The Glory Of The Conquered • Susan Glaspell

... been two years ago, in the winter when they had used one of their two demolition-bombs to blast open a cavern in the mountains. It had been a hard winter; two children had died, then—Kyna's firstborn, and the little son of Kalvar Dard and Dorita. It had been their first encounter with the Hairy ...
— Genesis • H. Beam Piper

... to expound its virtues with all the fond enthusiasm of a father showing off his firstborn, and wound up with a demonstration of the illuminating appliance. I'm afraid, though, he got little encouragement from Mr. Burnham. He considered the machine with a dispassionate air, it's true, and admitted its practical advantages, but ...
— The Fortune Hunter • Louis Joseph Vance

... am my Father's heir, his firstborn, and the only delight of his heart. I am therefore come up against thee in mine own right, even to recover mine own inheritance out ...
— The Holy War • John Bunyan

... which they hoped, was for another infant, a child of pardon, the only sign which would assure them that at last they themselves had been forgiven. But all was in vain. The cold, hard mother was deaf to all their entreaties, and left them under the inexorable punishment of the death of their firstborn, whom she had taken and carried away, and whom she refused to restore ...
— The Dream • Emile Zola

... Fable. Tamora, Queen of the Goths, whose firstborn son is sacrificed by Titus Andronicus, determines to be revenged. She succeeds in her determination. Titus and his daughter are mutilated. Two of the ...
— William Shakespeare • John Masefield

... Saw Nature then more godlike as she smiled. Life smiled on death, and death on life: the Soul Between them shone, and soared above their strife, And left on Time's unclosed and starry scroll A sign that quickened death to deathless life. Peace rose like Hope, a patient queen, and bade Hell's firstborn, Faith, abjure her creed and die; And Love, by life and death made sad and glad, Gave Conscience ease, and watched Good Will pass by. All these make music now of one man's name, Whose life and age are one with love ...
— A Channel Passage and Other Poems - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne—Vol VI • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... education, and Tom Pipes, at his own petition, put into livery, and appointed footman to the young squire. Mr. Pickle approved of the plan, though he durst not venture to see the boy; so much was he intimidated by his wife, whose aversion to her firstborn became every day more inveterate and unaccountable. Her second son, Gam, now in the fourth year of his age, had been rickety from the cradle, and as the deformity increased, the mother's fondness was augmented. Though she no longer retained the notion of ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.

... his brethren who were in the territory of Cenel Fiachrach, and when he saw the maiden Darerca before him, he asked for her of her [friends and her][8] parents, so that she was given him to wife. Thereafter she bore five sons to him, and this is the order in which they were born: Lucoll her firstborn, Donnan the second, Ciaran the third, Odran the fourth, Cronan the fifth—he was a deacon, but the other four sons were archpresbyters. Furthermore she bore three daughters to him; two of them were virgins, to wit Lugbec and Rathbeo; ...
— The Latin & Irish Lives of Ciaran - Translations Of Christian Literature. Series V. Lives Of - The Celtic Saints • Anonymous

... Egypt, and delivered to him God's command to let the people of Israel go; telling him that if he disobeyed terrible plagues would come upon his land. Pharaoh hardened his heart against God, and refused to let the people go; so ten dreadful plagues were sent, the last of which was that the firstborn of every Egyptian should die, whether it were man or beast. But not a single Israelite was to suffer harm. This plague God said should come in the night; when an angel would pass through the land, destroying the Egyptians ...
— Mother Stories from the Old Testament • Anonymous

... the place of the man. But this was the result of the milder manners of an age when the Phoenicians had been brought into close contact with the Greeks. In the older days of Canaanitish history human sacrifice had held a foremost place in the ritual of Syria. It was the sacrifice of the firstborn son that was demanded in times of danger and trouble, or when the family was called upon to make a special atonement for sin. The victim was offered as a burnt sacrifice, which in Hebrew idiom was euphemistically described as passing ...
— Patriarchal Palestine • Archibald Henry Sayce



Words linked to "Firstborn" :   progeny, Fast of the Firstborn, first, issue, eldest



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