"Family circle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and to drink with patience the sweet and bitter which our Father mingles in life's mysterious cup. Here, where old friends are always cherished and new ones gladly come. Here, where the dearest ties of earth have bound us in a family circle; and though here and there we find broken links, we still keep hold of them, and they ...
— Humanity in the City • E. H. Chapin
... be!" responded Nan, softly, for to her no lot seemed sweeter than this. To be the centre and support of a large family circle,—the friend and trusted confidante of each! What a wonderful creature this Grace must be! and how could he speak of her in that pitying tone? "No life of her own!" Well, what life could she want better ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... the denizens of the inner apartments?" said a hen-pecked Chinaman one day to us—and we think he was consoled to hear that viragos are by no means confined to China. One of the happiest moments a Chinese woman knows, is when the family circle gathers round husband, brother, or it may be son, and listens with rapt attention and wondering credulity to a favourite chapter from the "Dream of the Red Chamber." She believes it every word, and wanders about these realms of fiction with as much confidence as ...
— Chinese Sketches • Herbert A. Giles
... to Stuart was written he took him with brotherly love and authority under his special care. He closed up his affairs in Springfield, and went with Lincoln to Kentucky, and, introducing him to his own cordial and hospitable family circle, strove to soothe his perturbed spirit by every means which unaffected friendliness could suggest. That Lincoln found much comfort and edification in that genial companionship is shown by the fact that after he became President he sent to Mr. Speed's mother a photograph of himself, ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay
... day in the Cheyenne annals of prowess. That small but gallant band were relieved of their shields and lances by tender-hearted squaws, and accompanied to their respective homes, to repose by the lodge-fire, consume choice meat, and to be the heroes of the family circle. ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman
... interest attaches to the illusion of 'her private means,' for, except for her small Army allowance, Kate Lee had no private funds. Reserve and independence are characteristics of the Lee family, and are, despite warm affection, observed within their tiny family circle. When the mother joined her Officer daughters in their home, Lucy and Kate realized that if she were aware of the smallness of their allowance, she would feel that a third person could not share it without causing strain, and such knowledge would be a continual ...
— The Angel Adjutant of "Twice Born Men" • Minnie L. Carpenter
... family, so unexpectedly left destitute, devoted the remainder of his life to making strenuous efforts to maintain and educate the orphans. Even when the police official was spending his evenings at the theatre, the worthy actor generally filled his place in the family circle, and it seems had frequently to appease my mother, who, rightly or wrongly, complained of ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... Jean, a fine boy four months old, the son of Pierre and Marie. The latter, simply in order to protect the child's social rights, had been married civilly at the town-hall of Montmartre. Then, by way of pleasing Guillaume, who wished to keep them with him, and thus enlarge the family circle, they had continued living in the little lodging over the work-shop, leaving the sleepy house at Neuilly in the charge of Sophie, Pierre's old servant. And life had been flowing on happily for the fourteen months or so that they had now belonged ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... consideration, you know! He is a fine, noble, generous, chivalrous fellow, and I like and admire him. And more than this—more than all else, he is my dear daughter's choice, and as such I shall welcome him into the family circle." ...
— Her Mother's Secret • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... well-behaved, Christian young lady. I have known her for a good many years, and would recommend her to anybody. I know she is looking out for such a situation as this. She would serve you well—better than any young man, I know—and would be a most agreeable addition to your family circle. Besides, by engaging my friend, Miss Owen, you would be affording help in a case of real need and sterling merit. The girl has no parents, and has been brought up by some kind friends. But they are not rich, and she ...
— The Golden Shoemaker - or 'Cobbler' Horn • J. W. Keyworth
... infancy. His father, like all Skye gentlemen in those good olden times, was a very social and hospitable man, who seemed never to be contented unless he had his house at Ceann-Uachdarach full of neighbours to enjoy themselves in his family circle. The company were often much amused with little Lachlan when a mere child, seeing the facility with which he composed couplets on any subject prescribed to him. At the age of eight he possessed a vigour ...
— The Celtic Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 3, January 1876 • Various
... the family circle of the de Courcys. Among their present guests I need not enumerate many. First and foremost in all respects was Lady Dumbello, of whose parentage and position a few words were said in the last chapter. She was a lady still very young, having ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... become superfluously vigorous and extensive, he lifts his hoofs high in air as he parades before the eyes of his fellows.... Many children clearly exhibit this instinct of self-display; before they can walk or talk the impulse finds its satisfaction in the admiring gaze or plaudits of the family circle as each new acquirement is practiced; a little later it is still more clearly expressed by the frequently repeated command, "See me do this," or "See how well I can do so and so"; and for many a child more than half the delight of riding on a pony, of wearing a new coat, consists ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman
... she occupied her accustomed place in the family circle with health seemingly unimpaired, that her children had almost forgotten to realize that a day must come when she would be removed from their midst, and the place which then knew her would know her no more forever. Very silent and gloomy was the old farm-house, during the ...
— Walter Harland - Or, Memories of the Past • Harriet S. Caswell
... repeated as to become tiresome; but on one handsome monument is carved a wreath of flowers, from which a rose has apparently dropped, and fallen on the pedestal,—a beautiful illustration of the loss the family circle had sustained in the death of her who rests below. Another child-grave, the tombstone a small upright slab surmounted by a wreath of flowers, bears ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... increases, the number of peremptory interferences may be, and should be, diminished, with the view of gradually ending them as maturity is approached. All transitions are dangerous; and the most dangerous is the transition from the restraint of the family circle to the non-restraint of the world. Hence the importance of pursuing the policy we advocate; which, by cultivating a boy's faculty of self-restraint, by continually increasing the degree in which he is left to his self-restraint, and by so bringing him, step by step, ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer
... with his youthful esposa; all the happier that in due time a son and daughter—the former resembling himself, the latter a very image of her mother—enlivened their home with sweet infantine prattle. And as the years rolled by, a third youngster came to form part of the family circle—this neither son nor daughter, but an orphan child of the Senora's sister deceased. A boy ...
— Gaspar the Gaucho - A Story of the Gran Chaco • Mayne Reid
... passed away, during which the young couple were very happy in each other's love, and three children were added to their little family circle. Abram worked on the land, and was for a time employed in the construction of the Ohio and Pennsylvanian Canal. To provide for his growing family, the young husband then bought fifty acres of land, a few miles away from his first ...
— The Story of Garfield - Farm-boy, Soldier, and President • William G. Rutherford
... again. Shadows vanish, but still I linger round my lonely pine. Home once more! I'll have no friendships to distract me hence. The times are out of joint for me; and what have I to seek from men? In the pure enjoyment of the family circle I will pass my days, cheering my idle hours with lute and book. My husbandmen will tell me when spring-time is nigh, and when there will be work in the furrowed fields. Thither I shall repair by cart or by boat, through the deep gorge, over the dizzy cliff, trees bursting merrily into leaf, the ...
— The Civilization Of China • Herbert A. Giles
... the Italians, that I had already spent two Christmases in Venice without learning any thing of their home celebration of the day. Perhaps a degree of like difficulty attends like inquiry everywhere, for the happiness of Christmas contracts the family circle more exclusively than ever around the home hearth, or the domestic scaldino, as the case may be. But, at any rate, I was quite ready to say that the observance of Christmas in Venice was altogether public, ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... and private wishes. We see them in their daily occupations and amusements, at their work and at their play. We follow them from the battle-field and council chamber, from the chase and tournament, to the privacy of domestic life and the intimate scenes of the family circle. And we realize how, in spite of the tragic stories or bloodshed and strife that darkened their lives, in spite, too, of the low standard of morals and of the crimes and vices that we are accustomed to associate with Renaissance princes, there was a rare measure of beauty and goodness, of ...
— Beatrice d'Este, Duchess of Milan, 1475-1497 • Julia Mary Cartwright
... not think a lady ought to give too much thought to her apparel; neither should she feel too much above her clothes. I say this in the kindest spirit, because I believe that man should be a friend to woman. No family circle is complete without a woman. She is like a glad landscape to the weary eye. Individually and collectively, woman is a great adjunct of civilization and progress. The electric light is a good thing, but how pale and feeble it looks by the light of a good woman's ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... accordingly he applied the whole varied power and energy peculiar to him to the creation of a prose literature in his native tongue. This effort was all the more Roman and all the more deserving of respect, that the public which he primarily addressed was the family circle, and that in such an effort he stood almost alone in his time. Thus arose his "Origines," his remarkable state-speeches, his treatises on special branches of science. They are certainly pervaded ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... the other. What is the love and submission of one manly heart to the woman whose ambition it is to sway the minds of multitudes as did a Demosthenes or a Cicero? What are the tender affections and childish prattle of the family circle, to women whose ears itch for the loud laugh and boisterous ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... observe that at this moment, I am not speaking of the ordinary conditions of life. I grant you, that in general marriage is an excellent thing, and that the majority of men only begin to be of some account when the family circle completes them or makes them greater. Often, indeed, it is necessary to a profession. A bachelor lawyer cannot even be imagined. He would not have the needful air of weight and gravity. But for all of us, painters, poets, ...
— Artists' Wives • Alphonse Daudet
... soothing to the susceptible heart. Every delicate attention which tenderness prompts; every mark of politeness which refined society requires, ought to pervade the intercourse of brothers and sisters. It is a mistake that good manners are to be reserved for visitors, and that, in the family circle, negligence and coarseness may be indulged with impunity. Even nature's affections may be undermined or shaken by perseverance in an improper deportment, more than by lapses into error and folly. For the latter, repentance may atone, while the former check the flow of the heart's ...
— The Ladies' Vase - Polite Manual for Young Ladies • An American Lady
... that all her sympathies went with them—and on the state of their spiritual atmosphere depended all her cheerfulness and comfort; and now the cool, distant, sorrowful condition of the members of the little family circle—"ebery single mudder's son and darter ob 'em, superamblated off to derself like pris'ners in a jailhouse"—as she said—depressed her spirits very much. Jenny's reaction from depression was always quite querulous. And toward the height of the ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... accumulate in the course of a breathless morning; she rushed to give her first information whenever that encroaching monster the sea broke down her castles. And as soon as it appeared that her papa liked Augustina, and had a use for her, Laura at the age of eight promptly accepted her as part of the family circle, without the smallest touch of either sentiment or opposition. She walked gaily hand in hand with her father to the registry office at St. Bees. The jealously hidden, stormy little heart knew well enough that it had ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. I. • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... member of some family. We were born into the family circle, and our parents first taught us to obey. By insisting upon obedience, parents govern their children, and thus keep them from evil and from danger. The family, then, is a form of government, established for the good of the children themselves, and the first government that ...
— Elements of Civil Government • Alexander L. Peterman
... and danced round by Phebe and Nat till the house seemed a great hive of hilarious and affectionate bees. At first the strangers stood apart, but Phebe spread their story with such complimentary additions of her own that the family circle opened wide and took ...
— Moods • Louisa May Alcott
... pantomime for great and small children, "The Rose and the Ring." The composer has a sister, Frau Adelheid Wette, wife of a physician in Cologne. She, without any particular thought of literary activity, had been in the habit of writing little plays for production within the family circle. For these plays her brother provided the music. In this way grew the first dramatic version of the story of Hansel and Gretel, which, everybody who has had a German nurse or has read Grimm's fairy tales knows, tells the adventures of two children, a brother and sister, who, driven into the ...
— A Book of Operas - Their Histories, Their Plots, and Their Music • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... this awkward manner, she regarded as the dying convulsions of this man's conscience. One blow more, and his pride, his vows, would be killed. At the evening meal, the three were alone together. After the long visit of their guests, this was quite unusual; but such an undisturbed family circle is usually very agreeable. Then husband and wife say to each other, "Our guests were dear to us, but now that they are gone, they ...
— Peter the Priest • Mr Jkai
... be. By the way, it may be well to add that the artist in question is not Sir Edward Burne-Jones, whose caricatures, that are the delight of children of all ages who know them, have been so far strictly kept to members of the family circle, ...
— Children's Books and Their Illustrators • Gleeson White
... [Laughter.] It revolutionizes society; it revolutionizes religion; it revolutionizes the constitution and laws; and it revolutionizes the opinions of those so old-fashioned among us as to believe that the legitimate and proper sphere of woman is the family circle as wife and mother and not as politician and voter—those of us who are proud to ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... life were gathered round Washington in the last days at Mount Vernon. The love and veneration of a whole people for his illustrious services, his generous and untiring labors in the cause of public utility; his kindly demeanor to his family circle, his friends, and numerous dependents; his courteous and cordial hospitality to his guests, many of them strangers from far distant lands; these charities, all of which sprang from the heart, were the ornament of his declining years, and granted the most sublime scene in nature, when human ...
— Washington's Birthday • Various
... for some time, and it was not until the third day after the arrival of the Langhams that he returned again to the Palms. On the afternoon when he climbed the hill to the bungalow he found the Langhams as he had left them, with the difference that King now occupied a place in the family circle. Clay was made so welcome, and especially so by King, that he felt rather ashamed of his sentiments toward him, and considered his three days of absence to be well repaid by the heartiness of ...
— Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis
... cared to hear. But so engrossed was I that I stupidly failed to notice this, and I did not perceive that I had been neglecting the most favorable opportunities of declaring the state of my affections until she informed me, not in a private interview, but in the midst of her family circle, that she had made up her mind to become a missionary and go to India to work among the heathen. I was greatly shocked, but I could say nothing then, and afterwards had ...
— John Gayther's Garden and the Stories Told Therein • Frank R. Stockton
... country round which had not been decked out and prepared for the reception of some merry party. And now our young visitor, before departing, wished to do his part as well, and invited the young couple, with a small family circle, to an expedition on the water. They went on board a large beautiful vessel dressed out in all its colors—one of the yachts which had a small saloon and a cabin or two besides, and are intended to ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... such business as happened to be on hand, he went again to his study, and continued there till three o'clock, when he was summoned to dinner. The remainder of the day and the evening were devoted to company, or to recreation in the family circle. At ten he retired to rest. From these habits he seldom deviated, unless compelled to do ...
— George Washington • William Roscoe Thayer
... arrived for their return to town, and, to judge from the pleasure depicted in the countenances of the happy pair, the contemplated intrusion of the world on their family circle was anything but disagreeable. Old John, under the able generalship of Mrs. Waddledot, had made every requisite preparation for their reception. Enamelled cards, superscribed with the names of Mr. and Mrs. Applebite, and united ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... of him. By common consent efforts were always made in the family circle to keep Timmy down—but such efforts were ...
— What Timmy Did • Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes
... Repetto is pleasant. I know few men whom I would not rather meet on a lonely road than Comrade Repetto. He is one of nature's black-jackers. Probably the thing crept upon him slowly. He started, possibly, in a merely tentative way by slugging one of the family circle. His aunt, let us say, or his small brother. But, once started, he is unable to resist the craving. The thing grips him like dram-drinking. He black-jacks now not because he really wants to, but because he cannot help himself. There's something singularly consoling ...
— The Prince and Betty - (American edition) • P. G. Wodehouse
... old bear, we won't harp on that twice-told tale again," Clara interrupted, with a knowing smile. "Point da rechauffes! Let us leave one another's misdeeds and one another's explanations for their proper sphere—the family circle. The orchids did NOT turn up, that is the point; and I managed to make shift with the plumbago and the geraniums. Maisie, my sweet, NOT that pudding, IF you please; too rich for you, darling. I know your digestive capacities better than you do. I have told you ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... was spent with Mr Brassey, a Lombard Street banker, and ancestor of the present peer. "The banker," he says, "once cursed because he enjoyed too much happiness in this world." He gave lessons to Miss Brassey, and "enjoyed the repose of country life in the midst of a family circle all cordially devoted to him." In November he was the guest at two Guildhall banquets—that of the outgoing Lord Mayor on the 5th and that of his successor on the 9th. Of these entertainments he has left a curious account, and as the memorandum is in English it may, perhaps, be reproduced ...
— Haydn • J. Cuthbert Hadden
... with no other purpose than that of satisfying, by this illusory way, their wishes of having a son to nurture and of dispelling the anguish felt by them, on account of the desolation and void in their family circle (round ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... dismal and intricate kind. The Fair Margaret was beloved by two young men, one of whom (Sir Frederico) was dark, and (necessarily, therefore) as badly disposed a young man as you would desire to keep out of your family circle, and the other (Sir Verdour) was light, and (consequently) as mild and amiable as any given number of maiden aunts could wish. As a matter of course, therefore, the Fair Margaret perversely preferred the dark Sir Frederico, ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... no means approved of her husband bringing his librarian into the drawing-room. She considered it a slight to herself and dangerous to Percy and Raby to have this person added to their family circle; and she most conscientiously made a point of lessening that danger on every occasion, by reminding him of his place and rendering his temporary visits to exalted latitudes as uncomfortable as possible. Mr Rimbolt, ...
— A Dog with a Bad Name • Talbot Baines Reed
... greatest, but poor Annette was left behind. Mrs. Lasette, who happened in the house the evening before the entertainment, asked, "Is not Annette going?" when Mrs. Harcourt replied, very coldly, "She is not one of the family," referring to her mother's family circle. ...
— Trial and Triumph • Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
... what follows; I wish to speak to the family circle. Between those of a trade there is ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... there will be someone to cheer us on our way. We may be strong and thoroughly able to rely upon ourselves but there comes a time when we need friendship and sympathy. Society would crumble into dust without these influences. The family circle would degenerate into a hollow mockery if consideration each for the other was absent. It sweetens and makes wholesome what otherwise might only be an existence ...
— Laugh and Live • Douglas Fairbanks
... disguises. The cheapest dominoes, and generally nothing more than a mask, afforded them all they wanted—the opportunity to carry on a bravado and promiscuous flirtation with these women. That part of the family circle tier which faces the stage was given up to the musicians. The rest of the gallery was crowded with spectators. The boxes below were all taken up, the occupants being mainly maskers overlooking the dance. But the proscenium boxes, and notably ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... speculate upon. I have told you all I know. I have done what I was bidden to do, up to a certain point. I am now here to recruit, and restore my wasted energies, and possibly to heal (observe, I say possibly) my wounded affections in the intimacy of my family circle. That reminds me that that little ungrateful imp Molly has not yet made the slightest demonstration of joy at my arrival. Where is she?" and without waiting for an answer, which he was well aware would not be forthcoming, Charles rose and strolled towards the house ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... drawing around him the best young men that could be found to do that work. He made it a point that his relations with his scientific subordinates should be not only official, but of the most friendly social character. All were constantly invited to his charming family circle. It was from the occasional talks thus arising that I learned the details of his plan of work with ...
— The Reminiscences of an Astronomer • Simon Newcomb
... of the community and Jaffray and Renestine went often to the theatre, accompanied by their two daughters, who were in their advanced school-day years and able to appreciate it. There were two little sons added to their family circle; they remained asleep in their trundle beds with old Aunt Caroline watching over them, as she had watched over the little daughters. Josiah had died right after the war was over, but he lived to see his people freed and schools opened where they ...
— The Little Immigrant • Eva Stern
... breaking out in Philadelphia, Kosciuszko went for a time elsewhere: first to New York, to the beautiful house of his old friend and commander, Gates, later to New Brunswick, where he stayed with another friend of the past. General White, in a family circle that attracted his warm regard. He was still confined to his sofa, and amused himself by his favourite pastime of drawing and painting, tended by the ladies of the house with a solicitude which drew from him after he had gone back to Philadelphia ...
— Kosciuszko - A Biography • Monica Mary Gardner
... political prospects till she made him feel his honest passion almost a form of treachery to his party. She also hinted that, for the time being, it did not make particularly for her own comfort in the family circle, Mr Milburn having grown by this time quite bitter. She herself drew the excitement of intrigue from the situation, which she hid behind her pretty, pale, decorous features, and never betrayed by the least of her graceful gestures. She told herself that she had never been so ...
— The Imperialist • (a.k.a. Mrs. Everard Cotes) Sara Jeannette Duncan
... b. at Derby, the s. of a teacher, from whom, and from his uncle, mentioned below, he received most of his education. His immediate family circle was strongly Dissenting in its theological atmosphere, his f., originally a Methodist, having become a Quaker, while his mother remained a Wesleyan. At 13 he was sent to the care of his uncle, ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin
... desolation standing apart in the centre of the wholesome, happy family circle, grew to have her peculiar habits and occupations, her self-contained life into which none of ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... hard intellectual labour is an eminently isolated thing, and what they desire most in the family circle is to cast off all thought of it. I have known two men who were in the first rank of science, intimate friends, and both of them of very domestic characters. One of them was accustomed to do nearly all his work in the presence of his wife, and in the closest possible ...
— The Map of Life - Conduct and Character • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... now. George Boult had assumed for years the habit of dropping in at Queen Anne Street on Sunday afternoons to smoke a cigar and drink a glass of wine with the lawyer, but it was a function the men had enjoyed tete-a-tete: as an intimate in the family circle ...
— Mrs. Day's Daughters • Mary E. Mann
... disquieting and dark corner of Paris. In this bad spot, the denizens were little and formidable. They formed a family circle—of dwarfs. They had their maxim: to enjoy themselves. They lived on public death. There they inhaled shame, and they throve on that which kills others. It was there that was reared up with art, purpose, industry, and goodwill, ...
— The History of a Crime - The Testimony of an Eye-Witness • Victor Hugo
... to smile—he scarcely ever opened his lips. His very soul seemed to have quitted him with its faults; and he performed all the functions of his situation with the quiet listless regularity of a machine. Only when the work was done and the shop closed, instead of joining the family circle in the back parlour, he would stroll out in the dusk of the evening, away from the town, and not return till the hour at which the family retired to rest. Punctual in all he did, he never exceeded that hour. He had heard once a week from his ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... nebulae have been reduced, and others proved to be in a gaseous condition, like comets. The latter bodies have been chained down to regular orbits, followed far beyond those of the old planets, and brought into genealogical relations with these through the links of bolides and asteroids. The family circle of planets proper has been immensely increased, a new visitant to the central fire appearing every few years or even months. Newton connected the most distant points of the universe by the one principle of gravitation: the spectroscope unites them by identity of structure and composition. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 17, - No. 97, January, 1876 • Various
... world than with those [408] who go out of it. Proverbially the Parsley-bed is propounded to our little people who ask awkward questions, as the fruitful source of new-born brothers and sisters when suddenly appearing within the limits of the family circle. In Suffolk there is an old belief that to ensure the herb coming up "double," Parsley seed must ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie
... the family goes to the table. Parents should insist, as far as possible, that their children discuss at the dining-table only the pleasant and interesting happenings of the day. "First of all," says Mr. Mahaffy, "let me warn those who think it is not worth while taking trouble to talk in their family circle, or who read the newspaper at meals, that they are making a mistake which has far-reaching consequences. It is nearly as bad as those convent schools or ladies' academies, where either silence or a foreign tongue is imposed at meals. Whatever people may think of the value of theory, ...
— Conversation - What to Say and How to Say it • Mary Greer Conklin
... Amidon it seemed really awful—albeit somewhat florid in style; and when Alvord nudged him at one passage in the obligation, he resented it as an irreverence. Then he noted that it was a pledge to maintain the sanctity of the family circle of brother Martyrs, and Alvord's reference of the night before to the obligation as affecting his association with the "strawberry blonde" took on new and ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VI. (of X.) • Various
... article for a magazine of the first class. He poured scorn on the cold nature that could not, and the affectation that would not, appreciate the domestic festivities of this sacred season. What, he asked, could be more delightful, more perfect than such a gathering as this, of the family circle round the Christmas hearth? He spoke with feeling, and it may be said with disinterested feeling, for he had not joined his family circle himself this Christmas, and there was a vacant place by the hearth of his ...
— The Brownies and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... soldier and a man, than Washington, and such names as Greene, Knox, Lincoln, Lee, Steuben, Kosciusko, and many more, form those of intimate and tried associates. Nor was he less solicitous to preserve unbroken friendship with many unknown to fame, and with a large family circle. The wealth that he acquired was liberally dispensed, and his bounty was always readily extended to the deserving. To his brother he says in one of his letters—"Whatever is mine in Maryland is yours, ...
— A sketch of the life and services of Otho Holland Williams • Osmond Tiffany
... for a general exchange before winter, though I hope and pray that it may take place to-morrow. There is now an opportunity for sending boxes to prisoners. I should be glad to receive one from home if convenient. Please give my love to all the family circle. Remember me to my friends, ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... the family circle, the father was known as the heart, the mother as the brains; but in Louise's case it might well read "ambition." She wished to see Otto von Bismarck, her youngest son, become a diplomatist—a judgment that in the light of after ...
— Blood and Iron - Origin of German Empire As Revealed by Character of Its - Founder, Bismarck • John Hubert Greusel
... surely cowardly and wrong. This great question, which is really so engrossing that it is more talked of in the family circle than any other—this profound and intricate problem, upon the solution of which the comfort, happiness, and thrift of every household in the land depend more than upon almost any other—surely demands the most careful study, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... in order to be near the lady of his love, had taken up his quarters at Harold's Hotel, in Albermarle Street, a very quiet, but aristocratic place, leading into Picadilly. Beyond the Bartons and their family circle, he had few intimate friends, in fact, except Draycott, the surgeon of his regiment, with whom he had been on the most intimate terms for years in India, and to whom he revealed all his joys and sorrows, there ...
— Vellenaux - A Novel • Edmund William Forrest
... the fifty-fourth regiment showed a kindly spirit of comradeship by sending their band from Colberg. Otherwise, as is usually the case in the country, we were confined to our family circle; only Motley, the former American Ambassador in London, a friend of my early youth, happened to be here on a visit. Besides her Majesty the Queen, his Majesty the King of Bavaria, and their Royal Highnesses Prince Carl and ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... himself had known the state of affairs in his family circle, they would have been relieved earlier; for, even while they were talking about him, he had reached the end of his adventures, and was already in the house. It had not so much as occurred to him that his mother would hear of the disaster ...
— Dab Kinzer - A Story of a Growing Boy • William O. Stoddard
... the female members within the family circle, the sons, who remained in peace, would be forced to continue the practice of capturing their wives, and would bring in women to live with them from other groups. It is assumed that these captures were in all cases hostile. I have ...
— The Position of Woman in Primitive Society - A Study of the Matriarchy • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... protested Frau Kellermann, "you must remember that one has so few opportunities for exhibiting Love within the family circle nowadays. One's husband is at business all day, and naturally desires to sleep when he returns home—one's children are out of the lap and in at the university before one can lavish anything at all ...
— In a German Pension • Katherine Mansfield
... something more than an ordinary family disagreement to have made them feel thus. I recalled the pained look in Ma Fewkes's face, as she sat with her shoulder-blades drawn together and cast Rowena out from the strange family circle. What could it be? I turned my back to her as I sat on the ground; and she took me by the shoulders, pulled me down so that my head was lying in her lap, and began smoothing my hair back from my forehead ...
— Vandemark's Folly • Herbert Quick
... me, I think, more than anything else of that other home, that other family—the home of a Father and of a Son, the family circle of the Three who live in one unity. We should thank God for every family circle on earth into which we are allowed to enter, and in whose life He allows us to share—for any true family on earth—yes, and every little child who is born into this strange world ...
— Letters to His Friends • Forbes Robinson
... about his early career, and very sedulous to sink the posture-master in the traveller. He was often present at Mr. Murray's receptions; and on one particular occasion he was invited to join the family circle in Albemarle Street on the last evening of 1822, to see the Old Year out and the New Year in. All Mr. Murray's young people were present, as well as the entire D'Israeli family and Crofton Croker. After a merry game of Pope Joan, Mr. Murray presented each ...
— A Publisher and His Friends • Samuel Smiles
... to become a doctor. From earliest childhood he had practised writing recipes on little slips of paper. Mrs. Peterkin, to be sure, was afraid of infection. She could not bear the idea of his bringing one disease after the other into the family circle. Solomon John, too, did not like sick people. He thought he might manage it if he should not have to see his patients while they were sick. If he could only visit them when they were recovering, and when the danger of infection was over, he ...
— The Peterkin Papers • Lucretia P Hale
... between mother and child, are manifestly predetermined in the physiological organization of the individual man and woman. Furthermore, man is, by his instincts and his inherited dispositions, predestined to a social existence beyond the intimate family circle. Society must be conceived, therefore, as a part of nature, like a beaver's dam or the nests ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... Family Story-Teller, looking round upon the family circle the next evening, that this is a story of mistakes. It will be a hard story to follow, and unless you pay close attention, you will forget which is Evelyn and which is the other girl, and why it was that Mrs. Stimpcett thought ...
— Harper's Young People, February 17, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... Now I pass into a more retired street, where the dwellings of wealth and poverty are intermingled, presenting a range of strongly contrasted pictures. Here, too, may be found the golden mean. Through yonder casement I discern a family circle,—the grandmother, the parents, and the children,—all flickering, shadow-like, in the glow of a wood- fire. Bluster, fierce blast, and beat, thou wintry rain, against the window-panes! Ye cannot damp the enjoyment ...
— Beneath An Umbrella (From "Twice Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... speaking in envy," responded Elpidias, pained. "I am sorry for you, unfortunate Socrates, although, between ourselves, you really deserved your fate. I myself in the family circle said more than once that an end ought to be put to ...
— Best Russian Short Stories • Various
... sickness lifted the roof from his house and family circle, and his relations as son, husband, and father stood revealed in the broadest sunlight of publicity. The picture endeared him wherever is understood the full significance of that matchless word 'Home.' When he stood by ...
— From Canal Boy to President - Or The Boyhood and Manhood of James A. Garfield • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... get in the scale of animal life the less the part played by sexual gratification and the greater the part played by love of offspring. In some of the higher animals, especially those in which the family circle is maintained or the community life highly developed, there is frequently at work still another consideration that may play no small part in ameliorating or compensating the sacrifice incident to ...
— The Biology, Physiology and Sociology of Reproduction - Also Sexual Hygiene with Special Reference to the Male • Winfield S. Hall
... laughter drowned her words, and she sat there dimpled, mischievous, naively looking around, yet in her careful soul shrewdly pursuing her wise policy of airing all sentimental matters in the family circle—letting in fresh air and sunshine on what so often takes root and flourishes ...
— Ailsa Paige • Robert W. Chambers
... but nothing was done or left undone out of consideration for his feelings. If they were content to talk about sheep and cattle, he would converse with them, and he was even capable of enthusiasm on the subject of horses, but evidently had no interests apart from these matters. Nobody outside the family circle had known him to address more than half a dozen words to his wife at one time, and his average remark contained one monosyllable. He behaved a good deal like a stranger towards his own children. ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson
... a broken heart. As she gave way to the deep yearnings of affection for the mother that bore her, still a slaveholder, for her brothers and sisters, a large family circle, and for all who had been most closely bound to her by ties of kindred and neighborhood, she must have felt the desolation of a soul disappointed and broken in its dearest earthly hopes and love. All the sweet and tender affections which ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... closely associated with them at Steventon, who must have introduced greater variety into the family circle. This was the daughter of Mr. Austen's only sister, Mrs. Hancock. This cousin had been educated in Paris, and married to a Count de Feuillade, of whom I know little more than that he perished by the ...
— Memoir of Jane Austen • James Edward Austen-Leigh
... and hope. I did not know how it would strike you. I did not know but some of you might think that the great ocean was too wide to be crossed by your little charities; that others might say, "He is only an English boy—he doesn't belong to our family circle—let him alone," And so I waited anxiously to hear from you; for I was sure you would talk it over among yourselves in the "School-room," and on the way home, and by the fireside. Well, after waiting a few weeks, the English steamer came in from ...
— Jemmy Stubbins, or The Nailer Boy - Illustrations Of The Law Of Kindness • Unknown Author
... "If my family circle ever gets wise that you and the Queen of Laughter over there are excess baggage it'll be to the cabbage ...
— You Can Search Me • Hugh McHugh
... its nobility and its power; but in our experience manifest fraternal charity is one of those things even the wise man knew to be rare under the sun. Where we have been privileged to look in behind the veil of the family circle, we are more convinced than ever that fraternal affection an all the boasted nobility of sisterly love dwindle down to a series of petty quarrels and jealousies as painful as they are unchristian and unbecoming. The reserve, or rather the hypocrisy of politeness, ...
— Alvira: the Heroine of Vesuvius • A. J. O'Reilly
... her brothers MM. de Pont-Carre and de Viarme who had lately been chosen head of the trade companies, and his son. I have already spoken of Madame du Chatelet, the marchioness's daughter, but an unlucky lawsuit separated them, and she no longer formed one of the family circle. ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... ashes, and ate it straight away; and so small bird after small bird went down their throats all day long, and they never thought to keep them until they had sufficient for a good square meal. No doubt in their family circle they have to take what they can get, and only make sure of keeping what they have, ...
— Spinifex and Sand - Five Years' Pioneering and Exploration in Western Australia • David W Carnegie
... cottage at her service; the offer being the result of a domestic colloquy, diffused through the ensuing twenty-four hours, in the course of which the two foreign visitors were discussed and analyzed with a great deal of earnestness and subtlety. The discussion went forward, as I say, in the family circle; but that circle on the evening following Madame M; auunster's return to town, as on many other occasions, included Robert Acton and his pretty sister. If you had been present, it would probably not have seemed to you that the advent of these brilliant strangers was treated as an ...
— The Europeans • Henry James
... Montcalm at Candiac. He was there as much as possible, and spent his time between his castle and his olive groves, his study and his family circle. His eldest son was a young man of much promise, growing immensely tall, devoted to the army, and engaged to be married. His wife and her mother-in-law were as happy as ever with him and with each other. Nothing seemed more ...
— The Passing of New France - A Chronicle of Montcalm • William Wood
... stirred the embers with a trembling hand, and sat shivering over them. His wife, willing enough to believe in "harnts"* as appearing to other people, was disposed to repudiate them when they presumed to offer their dubious association to members of her own family circle. ...
— Down the Ravine • Charles Egbert Craddock (real name: Murfree, Mary Noailles)
... rule for forty years, beloved of all, and respected by the Egyptians and the other nations, and during all that time his brethren dwelt in Goshen, happy and blithe in the service of God. And in his own family circle Joseph was happy also; he lived to act as godfather at the circumcision of the sons of his ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... their unreasonableness or ignorance could suggest. Mothers who were in the daily practice of begging from door to door would come on some silly pretext and take away their children because they would be no worse off at home. On Sundays especially the whole family circle, from parents to the remotest cousin, would assemble in a body at the asylum, and, after filling the minds of the children with their idle whims, would either take them home or leave ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... been a German diplomatist, and who had made nearly all his career in Italy, at the most interesting period of her history, when she was struggling for emancipation from the Austrian rule and independence. I was an American, quite a new element in the family circle. We had many and most animated discussions over all sorts of subjects, in two or three languages, at the tea-table under the big tree on the lawn. French and English were always going, and often German, ...
— My First Years As A Frenchwoman, 1876-1879 • Mary King Waddington
... (and two only surviving children) dashed into view on the dingy old oaken stairs, with the suddenness of a flash of light; and clearing the last three steps into the hall at a jump, presented herself breathless in the breakfast-room to make the family circle complete. ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... received. There was no special enthusiasm over our return, no marked demonstrations of delight; but they seemed glad to see us, and all the unpleasant things of the past, if not forgotten, were tacitly ignored on all sides. We passed a pleasant evening together in what seemed a re-united family circle—one of the brothers only was absent—and next morning we met cordially around the breakfast table. I really began to think it was possible that all the old difficulties might be healed, and that the pleasant picture Sarah ...
— Seven Wives and Seven Prisons • L.A. Abbott
... dear daughter Cecilie,—Let me, on behalf of my wife and my whole House, heartily welcome you as a member of my House and my family circle. You have come to us like a Queen of Spring amid roses and garlands, and under endless acclamations of the people such as my Residence city has not known for long. A circle of noble guests has assembled to celebrate this high and joyful ...
— William of Germany • Stanley Shaw
... were the evenings we spent in the family circle! We read, talked, played, and Frau Pauline Schmidt was a ready listener when ever I felt disposed to communicate to any one what ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... had her own ideas on the matter, having a quick eye for expressions, and she knew that the news of Lois' engagement had been a shock both to Nicholson and to the Carmichaels. Travers was one of those men whom the world receives with open arms in society, but repudiates at the entrance to the family circle; and of this fact Travers himself was bitterly conscious. And, on the other hand, there was Nicholson, the accepted and cherished friend, to whom the world looked with unreserved respect and deserved admiration. It was not altogether surprising that the two men had little in common, and on Travers' ...
— The Native Born - or, The Rajah's People • I. A. R. Wylie
... clung to the Widow Hiler and asserted itself in her three children, one of whom was consistently posthumous. Prematurely old and prematurely disappointed, she had all the inexperience of girlhood with the cares of maternity, and kept in her family circle the freshness of an old maid's misogynistic antipathies with a certain guilty and remorseful consciousness of widowhood. She supported the meagre household to which her husband had contributed only the extra mouths to feed with reproachful astonishment ...
— By Shore and Sedge • Bret Harte
... are supplemented by a vast number of trance utterances, and by the verbal messages of spirits, given through the lips of mediums. Sometimes it has even come by direct voices, as in the numerous cases detailed by Admiral Usborne Moore in his book The Voices. Occasionally it has come through the family circle and table-tilting, as, for example, in the two cases I have previously detailed within my own experience. Sometimes, as in a case recorded by Mrs. de Morgan, it has come through ...
— The New Revelation • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the conclusion that the agreement I made with Leopold, to dissimulate my real feelings, was the sanest decision I ever formed, for, while lettres de cachet are a dead measure as far as ordinary mortals go, kings still wield that awful and mysterious abuse of power in the family circle. ...
— Secret Memoirs: The Story of Louise, Crown Princess • Henry W. Fischer
... associated with words constitute their emotional and intellectual connotation, as distinct from their logical meaning, or denotation. The word "home," for example, denotes simply one's place of residence, but it connotes all the thoughts and feelings associated with one's own house and family circle. Such a word is said to have a rich emotional connotation because it arouses strong feeling. It also has a rich intellectual connotation since it calls up many associated images. Words and phrases that are peculiar to ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer
... while it amuses the family circle, will make its members acquainted with so many beautiful passages from our poets as are here assembled, must find a welcome in many a home at the present season. The publisher of the Oracles has availed ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 62, January 4, 1851 • Various
... noted that away from the University or his family circle, and in the society of ladies, the Average Undergraduate is shy. The wit that flashed so brilliantly in the College Debating Club is extinguished, the stream of humour that flowed amidst shouts of laughter in the Essay Society is frozen at its source, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., Nov. 1, 1890 • Various
... a terrible ordeal for the bride. Her life until that day has been guarded from every contact with the outer world, and she has never spoken with a man outside the family circle. Her arrival at her mother-in-law's home is the signal for a wild rush of rough men to surround her chair. The curtain is lifted, insolent faces stare, her personal appearance is commented upon in vile terms, her feet ...
— The Fulfilment of a Dream of Pastor Hsi's - The Story of the Work in Hwochow • A. Mildred Cable
... The family circle being completed by Gwendolen's arrival, it was decreed that the official mourning should now begin; that it should begin at six o'clock every evening, (the dinner hour,) ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... it appears to me that of all the commandments, that one which says 'Honor thy father and thy mother, that it may be well with thee,' is the one taken under the especial protection of Providence. I have ever noticed that dutiful children are honored by the world, and honored in their own family circle, and that, on the other hand, it is ill ...
— Holidays at the Grange or A Week's Delight - Games and Stories for Parlor and Fireside • Emily Mayer Higgins
... one they do not approve. The pains that have been taken to inculcate sober habits, to destroy mutual confidence, and render every man reserved and suspicious of his neighbour, could not fail to put an end to social intercourse. No meetings were held, even for convivial purposes, beyond the family circle, and these only at the festival of new year. Those kind of turbulent assemblies, where real or imagined grievances are discussed with all the rancour and violence that malicious insinuations against government, added to the effects of intoxicating ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... opened again while I was still studying the two brothers, without, I honestly confess, being very favorably impressed by either of them. A new member of the family circle, who instantly attracted ...
— The Dead Alive • Wilkie Collins
... for the first time, sleep refused to come, late as was the hour when the family circle broke up. It could not have been the excitement of Ham's and Miranda's return. He'd have gotten over that by this time. No more could it have been the fire, though the smell of the smoldering hay came in pretty ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, September 1878, No. 11 • Various
... him. There! I have said it,—and my lips are not blistered by the unwomanly confession, and you still permit my head to rest in your lap. I expected you would be indignant and insulted, and gladly send such a lunatic from your family circle,—or that you would dismiss me coolly, with lofty contempt; but only a woman can properly pity a woman's weakness, and you are crying over me. Ah, if your tears were falling on my ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... merely out for a walk, and feeling it a neighborly thing to call. He had on a silver collar, engraved with his name and surname, which offered itself for introduction like a visiting-card. He was too polite to ask himself to the table at once, but after he had been welcomed to the family circle, he formed the habit of finding himself with us at breakfast and supper, when he sauntered in like one who should say, "Did I smell fish?" but would not go further in ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... their sons, live according to God's holy ordinances, and each, secure and happy in the exclusive love of the father of her children, sheds the warm light of true womanhood, unperverted and unpolluted, upon all within her pure and wholesome family circle. ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... followed, and, except that the "good-nights" exchanged on parting were tenderer, more heartfelt than usual, there were no indications that this was their last night together as a family circle. ...
— At the Time Appointed • A. Maynard Barbour
... seems to be as natural for them to be polite and formal as it is for them to breathe. Their religion teaches the fundamental tenets of true politeness, in that it inculcates the reverence to parents as one of the highest virtues. The family circle fosters the germs of the great national trait of ceremonious politeness. Deference to age is universal with the young. The respect paid to parents does not cease when the children are mature men and women. It is considered a privilege as well as an evidence of filial ...
— The Empire of the East • H. B. Montgomery
... but read them thoroughly. What excitement and discussion attended the monthly instalments of Dickens' novels in All the Year Round; how eagerly they were looked for. Lucky he or she who had heard the great master read himself in public. His books were read in our homes, often aloud to the family circle by paterfamilias, and moved us to laughter or tears. I never now see our young people, or their elders either, affected by an author as we were then by the power of Dickens. He was a new force and his pages kindled in our hearts ...
— Fifty Years of Railway Life in England, Scotland and Ireland • Joseph Tatlow
... Ailsa Mowbray's house was more than half over when Murray appeared. He bustled into the little family circle, radiating good humor and friendliness. There could be no ...
— The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum
... represent members of the family who died a natural death at home; they are never, as in Ansoes and Waropen, images of persons who have been murdered or slain in battle. Hence they form a kind of Penates, who are supposed to lead an invisible life in the family circle. The natives of the Negen Negorijen, for example, believe that these wooden images (karwar), which are both male and female, contain the souls of their ancestors, who protect the house and household and are honoured at festivals by having portions of food set beside ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... yet to elapse before the time came for taking up seriously the cause of prisons. These years were crowded with events of various kinds, both in the great world and in the little world of her own family circle. These events caused delays which we must suppose were needed for preparing more perfectly the instrument to be used in the great work. Every interval of time, amidst these years of busy and disturbed life, was occupied ...
— Excellent Women • Various
... more appalling greatness than Thor or Odin in his battles; when a Kiawaqu', or Jotun, rises to the clouds to oppose him, Glooskap's head touches the stars, and scorning to slay so mean a foe like an equal, he kills him contemptuously with a light tap of his bow. But in the family circle he is the most benevolent of gentle heroes, and has his oft-repeated little standard jokes. Yet he never, like the Manobozho-Hiawatha of the Chippewas, becomes silly, cruel, or fantastic. He has his roaring ...
— The Algonquin Legends of New England • Charles Godfrey Leland
... said my uncle Roland, rousing himself from a revery into which he had fallen, after the Sixth Book in this history had been read to our family circle. ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... presided over the gathering with awful severity. Every one truckled to her shamefully, receiving her lightest remarks as if they were to be inscribed on tablets of bronze. Leander, his eyes bright with excitement at being received in the family circle on an equal footing, balanced perilously on the edge of his ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning
... an old cashier, Kailash by name, who was like one of the family. He was a great wit, and would be constantly cracking jokes with everybody, old and young; recently married sons-in-law, new comers into the family circle, being his special butts. There was room for the suspicion that his humour had not deserted him even after death. Once my elders were engaged in an attempt to start a postal service with the other world by means of a planchette. At one of the sittings the pencil scrawled out the name of Kailash. ...
— My Reminiscences • Rabindranath Tagore |
