"Family history" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... afterwards Admiral and a K.C.B., opens a chapter of family history with which this volume will be mainly concerned; and the navy rather than the law or politics henceforth becomes the chief interest of the story in its public aspect. Sir Joseph, indeed, may be looked upon as a sort of second founder of the family. Although Wimpole in Cambridgeshire, ...
— Charles Philip Yorke, Fourth Earl of Hardwicke, Vice-Admiral R.N. - A Memoir • Lady Biddulph of Ledbury
... Then, there's his poor widow left childless, and divil a rap to buy paraters wid—bad luck to the eye that wouldn't drap a tear to his mimory, and cowld be the heart that refuses to comfort his widow!" Here poor Barney could no longer restrain his feelings, and having concluded the family history, blubbered outright. It was a strange mixture of the ludicrous and the sorrowful; but told with such an artless simplicity and genuine traits of feeling, that I would have defied the most 27volatile to ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... a family history, as Chateau-Renaud told you the other day," observed Maximilian. "This humble picture would have but little interest for you, accustomed as you are to behold the pleasures and the misfortunes ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... received due and courteous thanks from the nurse personally, and also on behalf of Miss Corblay and the patient. To her apparently irrelevant and impersonal queries, regarding the identity of the wounded man, his personal and family history, Mrs. Pennycook received equally irrelevant and impersonal replies, and when she suggested at length that she "would dearly love to see him for a moment—only a moment, mind you—to thank him for ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... had undertaken to soften American angularities, it was merely a commodious building, ample enough for a dozen Hitchcocks to loll about in. Decoratively, it might be described as a museum of survivals from the various stages of family history. At each advance in prosperity, in social ideals, some of the former possessions had been swept out of the lower rooms to the upper stories, in turn to be ousted by their more modern neighbors. Thus one might begin with the rear rooms of the third story to study the successive deposits. There ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... Walrond was ill at ease about this marriage, why she did not know. Something in her heart seemed to tell her that her dear daughter's happiness would not be of long continuance. Bearing in mind his family history, she feared for Anthony's health; indeed, she feared a hundred things that she was quite unable to define. However, at the little breakfast which followed she seemed quite to recover her spirits and laughed as merrily as anyone at the ...
— Smith and the Pharaohs, and Other Tales • Henry Rider Haggard
... who has just gone to bed is to be the hero of the following pages, we had best begin our account of him with his family history, which luckily is not ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Lyndon, Viscountess Bullingdon in England, Baroness Castle Lyndon of the kingdom of Ireland, was so well known to the great world in her day, that I have little need to enter into her family history; which is to be had in any peerage that the reader may lay his hand on. She was, as I need not say, a countess, viscountess, and baroness in her own right. Her estates in Devon and Cornwall were among the most extensive in those parts; her Irish possessions not less magnificent; and they have been ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... proves that it really came from many sources, under the same conditions of life and art; showing also that a pattern is a thing that, like a flower, must grow, if the culture of the race be equal. I do not believe this. We can nearly always trace the family history of a pattern to its original motive; and in the very few cases where we are unable to do so, it is hardly necessary to cover our ignorance by stretching the fashionable theory of development over the few instances that ...
— Needlework As Art • Marian Alford
... concerned with the genealogy and family history of the books, or in other words with their press relationships, the personal history attaching to them—habent sua fata libelli—is not without interest. The Zeno MS. and the Philo, printed on vellum, are the dedication copies, not merely ...
— Catalogue of the William Loring Andrews Collection of Early Books in the Library of Yale University • Anonymous
... ministers; and there proved to be a historian among the Bowdens, who gave some fine anecdotes of the family history; and then appeared a poetess, whom Mrs. Todd regarded with wistful compassion and indulgence, and when the long faded garland of verses came to an appealing end, she turned to me with ...
— The Country of the Pointed Firs • Sarah Orne Jewett
... far, plain sailing. Bolingbroke Square, too, helps one along. Historical reminiscences, Pimlico in time of Romans, ditto Normans, ditto when ELIZABETH was Queen. All this can be worked up comfortably and conveniently in the Reading Room of the British Museum. Then the PODGERS' family history should give a good third. Father made a fortune in blacking, so daresay he recollects his grandfather. No doubt latter settled in London with the employment of junior office-sweeper, and the capital of an eleemosynary half-crown. Need not ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., Dec. 20, 1890 • Various
... The insectivorous and omnivorous rollers, motmots and bee-eaters have a pair of large caeca, whilst in passerine birds of similar habit the caeca are vestigial glandular nipples. It is impossible to doubt that family history dominates in this matter. Certain families tend to retain the caeca, others to lose them, and direct adaptation to diet appears only to accelerate or retard these inherited tendencies. So also in mammals, no more than a general ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... we found such a good opening that we forgot about our feelings, and entered in rejoicing. There were some little children playing at the entrance to the village, and they led us straight to their own house, making friends in the most charming way as they trotted along beside us. They told us their family history, and we told them as much of ours as was necessary, and they introduced us to their mothers as old acquaintances. The mothers were indulgent, and let us have a room all to ourselves in the inner courtyard, where a dozen or more children gathered and listened ...
— Things as They Are - Mission Work in Southern India • Amy Wilson-Carmichael
... Simpson (191. Piccadilly) will sell, on Monday next and four following days, a selection of valuable Books, including old poetry, plays, chap-books, and drolleries, and some important MSS. connected with English County and Family History. ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 74, March 29, 1851 • Various
... understood, is an important event in Finnish family history, a festival equivalent to our birthday rejoicings; and in the case of the father or mother, the children generally all assemble on their parent's name-day. The richer folk have a dinner or a dance, or something of that kind—the poor a feast; but all decorate ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... in detail his family history, his education, and his experience as a teacher and ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, December 1930 • Various
... counter-part in Father Giansanti; Honorine is Germinie, before the fall; Nachette and Gautruche might be brothers. The procedure, too, is almost invariable. The antecedents of each personage are given with abundant detail. We have minute information as to the family history of the Mauperins, the Villacourts, Germinie, Couturat, and the rest; and the mention of Father Sibilla involves a brief account of the order of Barefooted Trinitarians from January, 1198, to the spring of 1853! There is a frequent repetition of the ...
— Rene Mauperin • Edmond de Goncourt and Jules de Goncourt
... connected with the family history of great landowners in England form one of the most interesting classes of public relief. They date chiefly from ante-Reformation times, and often embody a hidden symbolism into which none save the antiquary now cares to inquire. It is a mistake to suppose that all the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 87, March, 1875 • Various
... and Lord Glenallan briefly narrated his unhappy family historyhis concealed marriagethe horrible invention by which his mother had designed to render impossible that union which had already taken place. He detailed the arts by which the Countess, having all the documents relative to Miss Neville's birth in ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... and traditions of his family, left the President without definite knowledge of his origin and that of his fathers. The deprivation he keenly felt. I heard him say on more than one occasion that when he laid down his official life he would endeavor to trace out his genealogy and family history. He had a vague impression that his family had emigrated from England to Pennsylvania and thence to Virginia; but, as he remarked in my presence to Mr. Ashmun of Massachusetts, and afterward to Governor Andrew, ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various
... named Otto, and was an educated and cultured gentleman. Your great-grandmother was named Mary Beyer and was one of four sisters. Your grandfather, also named Otto, was the second son of the forest-master. So you see that your family history is also mine, and the same blood runs in our veins, although we do not bear the same name. The old people of Odenwald have told me what their ancestors have told them of the forest-master, ...
— Pixy's Holiday Journey • George Lang
... plentifully of festival fare. He warned me repeatedly against sleeping on the ground, and advised me to find bark or withered branches to lie upon if I would not seek shelter with man. The increasing storm did not seem to impress him in the slightest. He was all agog to tell me his family history and to compare the state of agriculture in England with that in Russia. Only when his sons came home and the heavy rain spots had begun to shower down upon him did he finally shake my hand, wish me well, cross himself, and stump off back ...
— A Tramp's Sketches • Stephen Graham
... was practically impossible for him to part with his money, he was nevertheless a fool. So he sat him down to think. As the result of his cogitations—long-drawn-out—he turned over a leaf in the Van Winkle family history. ...
— Her Weight in Gold • George Barr McCutcheon
... but ill-prepared to die,—not that I feared death, but I feared what must be my condition after death. I had lived a reckless, lawless life, without fear of God or man; all the religious feelings which had been instilled into me by my good tutor (you know my family history, and I need say no more) during my youth, had been gradually sapped away by the loose companionship which I had held since the time that I quitted my father's house; and when I heard that I was to die, my mind was in ...
— The Privateer's-Man - One hundred Years Ago • Frederick Marryat
... sparkled with gold when a ray of autumn sunshine touched it for a moment, and a skin of amazing beauty. The students' eyes went to her with little smiles. They did not often see a pretty girl in these dingy rooms. The elder woman gave the family history, father and mother had died of phthisis, a brother and a sister, these two were the only ones left. The girl had been coughing lately and losing weight. She took off her blouse and the skin of her neck was like milk. ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... Isaac and his wife gave their consent and they were married. Still they felt hurt at being discussed in this way by the villagers, so that when Ierat was offered a place as shepherd at a distance from home, where his family history was not known, he was glad to take it and his wife to go with him, about a month ...
— A Shepherd's Life • W. H. Hudson
... not usually fail to remember the little details of the one life or the other. The parson at Rusticum, with his wife and his wife's mother, and all his belongings; and our old friend, the Squire, with his family history; and Farmer Mudge, who has been cross with us, because we rode so unnecessarily over his barley; and that rascally poacher, once a gamekeeper, who now traps all the foxes; and pretty Mary Cann, whose marriage with the wheelwright we did something to expedite;—though we are alive to ...
— Autobiography of Anthony Trollope • Anthony Trollope
... anticipated by CHARLES STUART, and the scene especially of those strange and unholy proceedings in which the "Lancashire witches" rendered themselves so famous—it may readily be imagined that a number of interesting legends, anecdotes, and scraps of family history, are floating about, hitherto preserved chiefly in the shape of oral tradition. The antiquary, in most instances, rejects the information that does not present itself in the form of an authentic and well-attested fact; and legendary lore, in particular, ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... years I have often explained Wilde to myself by his family history. His father, was a friend or acquaintance of my father's father and among my family traditions there is an old Dublin riddle: 'Why are Sir William Wilde's nails so black?' Answer, 'Because he has scratched himself.' And there is an old story still current in Dublin of Lady Wilde saying ...
— Four Years • William Butler Yeats
... she, smiling at this most incomprehensible piece of family history, "I hope you don't intend to imitate the example or to share the fate of so ...
— The Tithe-Proctor - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... Laurel," he addressed her, "I want you to go right on home. I've got to stop around and see an old friend who has been sick." She left obediently, but paused once to gaze back incredulously at the bulky shape of her grandfather moving toward Barzil Dunsack's. That quarrel was part of their family history, she had been aware of it as long as she had of the solemn clock in the second hall; and not very far back, perhaps when she was eight, it had taken a fresh activity of discussion around the person of her Uncle Gerrit, who, it was feared, might now be drowned at sea. What it had all been ...
— Java Head • Joseph Hergesheimer
... gentleman, now in the twenty-fifth year of his age, was the second son of James sixth lord Montjoy of the ancient Norman name of Le Blonde, corruptly written Blount. The family history might serve as a commentary on the reigning follies of the English court during two or three generations. His grandfather, a splendid courtier, consumed his resources on the ostentatious equipage with which he attended to the French wars his master ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... certain facts in your family history. When your Uncle Alaric died, he had just set down his cordial glass, which had contained peach brandy. An odd coincidence, wasn't it, that both of these men died with the odor of peaches about them, an odor which incidentally you had provided in both cases, for it was you who suggested ...
— The Crevice • William John Burns and Isabel Ostrander
... exclaimed Miss Moss as she seated herself, "you know all my family history and I don't even know your name. I've been guessing. It ought to be either Isabel or Hildegarde. Is it? Oh, I do wish it were, they're both so sort of stately and princess-like that they'd ...
— Elsie Marley, Honey • Joslyn Gray
... eighty years of age and a chronic invalid, had retired to his room for his afternoon sleep. The younger Clinton and I had gone out for a stroll round the grounds, and since we returned our conversation had run upon the family history till it arrived at the legend of the family curse. Presently, the door of the library was slowly opened, and Sir Henry, in his black velvet coat, which formed such a striking contrast to his snowy white beard and ...
— A Master of Mysteries • L. T. Meade
... and is of the greatest interest importance and value to the Citizens of the United States of America inasmuch as it is one of the earliest records of their national History and contains much valuable information in regard to the original Settlers in the States their family history and antecedents and that therefore you earnestly desired to acquire possession of the same for and on behalf of the President and Citizens of the said United States of America AND WHEREIN you have also alleged that you are informed ...
— Bradford's History of 'Plimoth Plantation' • William Bradford
... man of inferior birth, and died abroad, leaving but one child, who is also dead. Still Lionel does suspect,—my very injunctions of secrecy must make him more than suspect, that the Loselys are somehow or other mixed up With Darrell's family history. Hush! I ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Peerage. There is hardly a single title in the Upper House, with the exception of course of the uninteresting titles assumed by the law lords, which does not appear in Shakespeare along with many details of family history, creditable and discreditable. Indeed if it be really necessary that the School Board children should know all about the Wars of the Roses, they could learn their lessons just as well out of Shakespeare as out of shilling primers, and learn them, I need ...
— Intentions • Oscar Wilde
... often tried, and sometimes seductively enough for a chapter or two; but the writer still has to hark back, and to begin again from the beginning,—not always very comfortably after the abnormal brightness of his few opening pages; and the reader who is then involved in some ancient family history, or long local explanation, feels himself to have been defrauded. It is as though one were asked to eat boiled mutton after woodcocks, caviare, or maccaroni cheese. I hold that it is better to have the boiled mutton first, if ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... hammer, which deprives him of consciousness, and in a short time, by means of numerous hands, and a well-managed caldron system, he is cut up ready for pickling. The day on which a pig is killed in England constitutes an era in the family history of the year, and squeals of a terrific description announce the event to the neighbourhood. There is not time or opportunity for such a process at Porkopolis, and the first notification which the inhabitants receive of the massacre is the thousand barrels of pork ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... something which bears upon it. I do not know if you are sufficiently aware of my family history to know that this one of my ancestors, I wish I could say worthy ancestors, committed suicide, and was buried in ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... supposed that you knew something of our family history, Mr. Jenison." He looked sufficiently blank. "My father and mother lead absolutely separate lives. It happened four years ago. Perhaps you ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon
... his god-mother had confided to him these little facts of family history. He remembered how intensely eager the dowager had been for Alain's marriage, years before, that there might be an heir; and he remembered, in part, the cause—her detestation of a female relative whose son would inherit the ...
— The Bondwoman • Marah Ellis Ryan
... Chesney Wold in these altered days, as there is upon a portion of the family history. The story goes that Sir Leicester paid some who could have spoken out to hold their peace; but it is a lame story, feebly whispering and creeping about, and any brighter spark of life it shows soon dies away. It is known for certain that the handsome ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... made him entertaining. The old neglected billiard—room was soon put in order, and Dick, who was a magnificent player, had a series of games with his uncle, in which, singularly enough, he was beaten, though his antagonist had been out of play for years. He evinced a profound interest in the family history, insisted on having the details of its early alliances, and professed a great pride in it, which he had inherited from his father, who, though he had allied himself with the daughter of an alien race, had yet chosen ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... you mustn't do that, Mr. Pim. It was really Dinah's fault for inflicting all our family history on you. ...
— Second Plays • A. A. Milne
... to know that he had met in him a power of resistance equal to his own. He also knew what Peter Junior did not know, that his grandfather's removal to this country was an act of rebellion against the wishes of his father. It was a matter of family history he had thought best not ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine
... the disturbance of the elements, people forgot the frightful family history that had just been enacted in the two castles. A few days later, relatives of the Likovay family found the body of Lord Grazian in the agent's quarters of the castle. The swollen flood had not forced its way there; but not one stone upon ...
— Peter the Priest • Mr Jkai
... to mention Mary's English relations, but it was. As long as people are weighed and measured according to what they come from rather than what they are it is at times necessary to state a few facts of family history. Stock rises or falls according to reports. Some mouths have to be treated and the sort of salve one uses depends upon the sores. Not yet can a person be taken at face value. Ancestor-worship isn't all Chinese. An ill-bred gentleman-born is still welcomed ...
— Miss Gibbie Gault • Kate Langley Bosher
... aside the papers, and, with his head thrown back and his eyes closed, sat in the gathering darkness thinking, with neither continuity nor result, of that strange life—current which, the family history claimed, connected him backward to the song-making minstrels of the time of Charlemagne; to the gallant lovers in the time of the Stuarts; to the self-indulgent and ...
— Katrine • Elinor Macartney Lane
... representing events in public or family history, were embroidered in crewels on sampler linen. The largest and funniest one I have ever seen was the boarding-school climax of glory of Miss Hannah Otis, sister of the patriot James Otis. It is a view of the Hancock House, Boston Common, and vicinity, as they appeared from ...
— Home Life in Colonial Days • Alice Morse Earle
... it?" Recklessly she went on: "Well, blame it on me if you want to, but don't hold it up against Howard. He didn't know it when he married me. He never would have known it but for the detectives employed by you to dig up my family history, and the newspapers did the rest. God! what they didn't say! I never realized I was of so much importance. They printed it in scare-head lines. It made a fine sensation for the public, but it destroyed my peace ...
— The Third Degree - A Narrative of Metropolitan Life • Charles Klein and Arthur Hornblow
... passes over to the Chorus: at first they have mistaken her cries for the ordinary lamentations of captives (and borne their part in the dialogue in the ordinary 'blank verse'); then their emotions are roused (and their speech falls into lyrics) as they recognize the old woes of the family history and remember Cassandra's prophetic fame; as she passes to the deed going on at the moment they feel a thrill of horror, but only half understand and take her words for prophecy of distant events, which they connect with their ...
— Story of Orestes - A Condensation of the Trilogy • Richard G. Moulton
... for so much baseness in high places? Our royal Diarist offers none, but her family history is ...
— Secret Memoirs: The Story of Louise, Crown Princess • Henry W. Fischer
... as to early family history[19] may be useful here. John Dickens, who is represented as "a fine portly man," was a Navy pay-clerk, and Elizabeth his wife (nee Barrow), who is described as "a dear good mother and a fine woman," the parents of the future genius, resided in the beginning of this century at ...
— A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land • William R. Hughes
... slave in the matter of mere personal treatment, it is the chattel relation that robs him of his manhood, and transfers his ownership in himself to another. It is this that transfers the proprietorship of his wife and children to another. It is this that throws his family history into utter confusion, and leaves him without a single record to which he may appeal in vindication of his character, or honour. And has a man no sense of honour because he was born a slave? Has he no ...
— The Fugitive Blacksmith - or, Events in the History of James W. C. Pennington • James W. C. Pennington
... in reply, as she took a message from a lady, who had only a few words to send, but found it necessary to ask about fifteen questions, and relate all her recent family history, concluding with the birth of twins, before being satisfied her message would go all right,—a proceeding that made Quimby stare, and ...
— Wired Love - A Romance of Dots and Dashes • Ella Cheever Thayer
... in commission again. Never say die, Joe! Where there's a will there's a lawsuit or a heartache—particularly if the estate makes it worth while. Now then, Joe, you must realize that it's the fashion nowadays, when a fellow has to consult a specialist, to give his personal and family history for three generations back before receiving treatment. So if I am to diagnose Joey's case I'll have to have a history of Joey. Now then! He graduated from college at the age of twenty-two did ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... appreciate such conduct. You would like me, perhaps, to sign the order for that box of ancient—cartularies—is not that the proper word for them? And it might be as well to state why they happen to be wanted—for purposes of family history." ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... hair and the head of an Antinous. He smiled at Jurgis confidingly, and then started talking again, with his blissful insouciance. This time he talked for ten minutes at a stretch, and in the course of the speech he told Jurgis all of his family history. His big brother Charlie was in love with the guileless maiden who played the part of "Little Bright-Eyes" in "The Kaliph of Kamskatka." He had been on the verge of marrying her once, only "the guv'ner" had sworn to disinherit him, and had presented him with a sum that ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... give an analysis of her character or of his, nor to give a narrative of their family history, that I write this tale. It is only one episode of their life that I shall try to reproduce here, and I do it because I believe that its lesson is of ...
— Saxe Holm's Stories • Helen Hunt Jackson
... niece in spite of her own distress. Perhaps Vera, too, knew the story. While he had been manoeuvring to give another turn to the gossip about Vera's relations to himself and Tushin, he had lighted by chance on a forgotten but vivid page of his family history, on another drama no less dangerous to those who took part in it, and found that his whole soul was moved by this record of what had ...
— The Precipice • Ivan Goncharov
... amazing quantity of personal and family history, admirable arrangement of details, and accuracy of information, this genealogical and heraldic dictionary is without a rival. It is now the standard and acknowledged book of reference upon all questions touching pedigree, and direct or collateral affinity with the titled aristocracy. ...
— Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, Volume 2 (of 2) - From the Original Family Documents • The Duke of Buckingham
... interested by the views of life thrown out, and where to show a racy enjoyment of the little humoristic bits of description which the other was rather proud of his skill in deploying; and as Atlee always appeared so conversant with the family history of the people they were discussing, Walpole spoke with unbounded freedom ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... passions other nature—the jungle passions—she had no others—saluted him with enthusiasm. His head and neck and bearing, stature and figure, family and family history, house and lands—she inventoried them all once more and discovered no lack. When he had rung the bell, she leaned back; in her chair and ...
— The Mettle of the Pasture • James Lane Allen
... and melancholy lad, who had behind him a terrible family history of violence, and to his bastard brother, Gianevangelista, the duke accorded the most gracious welcome. Indeed, so amiable did Astorre find the duke that, although the terms of surrender afforded him perfect liberty to go whither he listed, he chose ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini
... could, Adrea!" he answered. His voice was so gentle, and yet his face was so stern. "But no, I cannot. It is a secret. It is only a blotted page of our family history made clear to ...
— A Monk of Cruta • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... purple or crimson, here or there, across the dark, roomy spaces. The heart, the heart of youth at least, sank, as one entered, stepping warily out of the sunshine over the sepulchral stones which formed the entire pavement of the church, a great blazonry of family history from age to age for indefatigable eyes. An abundance of almost life-sized sculpture clung to the pillars, lurked in the angles, seemed, with those symbolical gestures, and mystic faces [6] ready to speak ...
— Gaston de Latour: an unfinished romance • Walter Horatio Pater
... thousand pities that so many details of family history have been lost, and to my mind it is incumbent on one member of every reasonably old family in this generation to collect and set down what should be remembered about their ancestors for the ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey
... before this, taken stock of those twenty holdover Senators. Machine agents unquestionably know what the holdover members owe and to whom indebted; know their family history; know the church to which they belong, their lodges, their likes, their dislikes and their prejudices; know how they can be "reached" if vulnerable; know how they can be "kept in line" if already tarred with ...
— Story of the Session of the California Legislature of 1909 • Franklin Hichborn
... to tell our family history to a personal officer that writes down all about you on a card and what kind of work you done before so if the General or somebody tears their pants they won't have to chase all over the camp and page a taylor because they can look ...
— Treat 'em Rough - Letters from Jack the Kaiser Killer • Ring W. Lardner
... translate for him such facts in the O'Donnel family history as I could unravel from the tangled web. The mystery of Angele de la Mole's Spanish-speaking Irish friends (which she must have refrained from explaining in order to play a joke upon Dick) was solved in a sentence. An O'Donnel grandfather had ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... street with the bishop, she frankly related the family history and the part Mr. Meredith and the surplice ...
— Amarilly of Clothes-line Alley • Belle K. Maniates
... ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation?" But this fact suggests another analogy between our social relationships with men and angels,—viz., that as earthly friends who have been acquainted with ourselves and our family history during the forgotten days of infancy, are met by us, in after-years, not as strangers, but with feelings of sympathy and intimacy akin to those awakened by old kindred; even so will the saint, on reaching heaven, find God's angels to be, not strangers, ...
— Parish Papers • Norman Macleod
... the majority of the Maugerville grantees appear in the account books kept by Simonds and White at their store at Portland Point and a lot of interesting family history might be gleaned from the old faded pages. There are other items of interest in the records of the old County ...
— Glimpses of the Past - History of the River St. John, A.D. 1604-1784 • W. O. Raymond
... was coolly, serviceably brave; and in the hospital wards—well, as tender as—well, as you would have been. I wondered, Leila, why he did not marry again. The first was a mistake, but I suppose he knew that for him to marry would have been wrong, with that sad family history. Probably life ...
— Westways • S. Weir Mitchell
... their duty to the Empire; and somebody must marry the poor things," Margot declared, still stifling yawns, but roused to a sleepy interest in Lizzie and her sisters. She foresaw that Mrs Macalister would need but the slightest encouragement to divulge her entire family history, and wondered whether time would prove her to be more of a solace or a bore. As a rule, she herself preferred to monopolise the larger share of a conversation, but to-night she was too tired to do more than offer the necessary ...
— Big Game - A Story for Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... of it?" he said, "I am afraid I have been too sudden. Kate tells us you were in love with my first wife, and sacrificed a most eligible match for her. Would it be too late to open fresh negotiations with your cousin? You see I know all your family history." ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... and on occasion will dodge the camera, but the Eskimo likes to be photographed. Young and old, they press to our side like friendly boys and girls round a "chummy" teacher, volunteering information of age, sex, and previous condition, with all sorts of covetable bits of intimate family history. You love the Eskimo because he is kind to his dogs and gentle to little children. His entire willingness to take you on credit is contagious, trust begets trust ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron
... Larger, blonder, heavier-featured, she yet had glances and movements that disturbingly suggested what was freshest and most engaging in the girl; and as she stretched her bare plump arm across the bed she seemed to be pulling back the veil from dingy distances of family history. ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton
... Intent on picking up such an outlet, I go thirty yards or so down the road. Hear shouts coming from a clump of bananas on my left. Know they are directed at me, but it does not do to attend to shouts always. Expect it is only some native with an awful knowledge of English, anxious to get up my family history—therefore accelerate pace. More shouts, and louder, of "Madame Gacon! Madame Gacon!" and out of the banana clump comes a big, plump, pleasant-looking gentleman, clad in a singlet and a divided skirt. White people ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... than possible—It is true. I happen to be aware of the facts. That thrice fortunate young man came into our lives at a moment when, by the merest chance, I was able to acquire some knowledge of his family history. His uncle, the twenty-sixth baronet, I believe, sustained an accident in childhood which unhappily made him a cripple and a hunchback. He grew up a misanthrope. He hated his only brother because he was tall and strong as befitted one of the race, and his hatred became a mania ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy
... episode in one's family history does give one some trouble. I am unhappy,—very unhappy; but not too much so to thank you for your most unusual kindness to my poor mother." And then, having been so far encouraged by her speaking to him, he accompanied her round the ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... amused himself while waiting by noting the various antiques about the parlor, heirlooms of former family greatness, arranged with an eye to tasteful effect. On the shelves in the corner some articles connected with family history were intermingled with curiosities brought from the East. A pair of brass-bound pattens hinged in the middle, once worn instead of overshoes by some colonial ancestress, sat alongside a pair of oriental sandals. Millard thought nothing could be more in ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston
... an undergraduate, he and I had a sudden and overwhelming interest in family history and genealogy. We went up to Yorkshire for a few days one winter, stayed at Pateley Bridge, Ripon, Bolton Abbey, Ripley, and finally York. At Pateley Bridge we found the parish registers very ancient and complete, and by the aid of them, together with the printed register of Fountains ...
— Hugh - Memoirs of a Brother • Arthur Christopher Benson
... expense of setting the Type afresh for each Edition; and secondly, that by being thus kept standing, it may be rendered constantly and uniformly correct, a point of the greatest importance in a work containing so large a mass of family history, the value of which so much depends on the accuracy of ...
— The Author's Printing and Publishing Assistant • Frederick Saunders
... of an institution the name and address of which I have here." Ellsworth thrust his finger into the loose pile of documents before him. Avoiding his caller's eyes he continued: "You can't very well ignore such a family history, Dave. I've never traced it back beyond the last generation, but you probably could if ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach
... they are variants, many of them badly mutilated in the rhymes, that are familiar, under other names, farther south. They gather about the family history and the family trees of the great houses—the Gordons for choice—planted by Dee and Don and Ythan, where Gadie runs at the 'back o' Benachie,' and in the Bog o' Gicht; and they tell of love adventures and mischances that have befallen the Lords of Huntly ...
— The Balladists - Famous Scots Series • John Geddie
... understanding that had always existed between him and Lois. He hated fuss; and his other sisters were tiresomely fussy and maddeningly disingenuous. In half an hour Lois had learned all she cared to know of the family history. She merely dipped into the bin, brought up a handful of wheat, blew away the chaff, eyed the remaining kernels with a sophisticated eye, and tossed them over ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... family history, Judith, and she, now aged twenty-one, was possibly the sole member of the house of Talbot-Lowry for whom a successful future might confidently be anticipated. Judith, a buccaneer by nature and by practice, was habitually engaged in swash-bucklering it on a round of visits. ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... if so desired, might be concealed, for uniformity or completeness of appearance, by filling them with sham or dummy book-backs, the titles of which may be made an occasion for witticism or joking allusion to local and family history. ...
— The Private Library - What We Do Know, What We Don't Know, What We Ought to Know - About Our Books • Arthur L. Humphreys
... well aware, is a common symptom of incipient decay of the brain—and I believe that I should be less disquieted than I am if I had any suspicion that this was the cause. I have none—none whatever, nor is there anything in my family history to give colour to such an idea. Work, diligent work, and a punctual attention to the duties which fall to me is my best remedy, and I have little doubt that ...
— Ghost Stories of an Antiquary - Part 2: More Ghost Stories • Montague Rhodes James
... was announced a few weeks ago of a lady whose name will awaken a train of recollection in the minds of all who take an interest in English family history. This was Miss Tylney-Long, sister ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - April, 1873, Vol. XI, No. 25. • Various
... extent of his wealth; and in order that no detail should be omitted, he relates all that he did, or he gives the representation of it upon the wall. In a long account of two hundred and twenty-two lines, he gives a resume of his family history, introducing extracts from his archives, to show the favours received by his ancestors from the hands of their sovereigns. Amoni and Khiti, who were, it appears, the warriors of their race, have everywhere recounted the episodes of their military career, the movements of their troops, ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 2 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... not once allowing his personal interest to manifest itself. It was but a question of time until Mrs. Cable's suspense and anxiety would bring her to him, one way or another. Every word that fell from the lips of his son regarding the Cables held his attention, and it was not long before he saw the family history as clearly as though it were an open book—and he knew far more than the ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... should issue marriage certificates, after consideration of confidential medical reports upon the health, physical condition, and family history of the parties to a ...
— The Fertility of the Unfit • William Allan Chapple
... The meadows and fields of stubble and patches of ploughed land, were like pieces of a new world to the long housed child. Norton told her to whom these fields belonged, which increased the effect, and gave bits of family history, as he knew it, connected with the names. These meadows belonged to such a gentleman; his acres counted so many; were good for so much; taken capital care of. Here were the fields and woods of such-a-one's farm; he kept cows and sent ...
— Opportunities • Susan Warner
... of the FAMILY HISTORY OF ENGLAND has been to unite objects which in such undertakings are not always found to coincide; namely, to render the study of English History not merely instructive, but interesting and amusing. For this purpose, the greatest care has been taken to seize upon all those ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson
... of the Advertising Barrister will have been passed in comparative obscurity. The merchant who relieved the monotony of a large and profitable wholesale business by treating him as a son, impressed upon him at an early age the necessity of making the family history illustrious by soaring beyond commerce to professional distinction and a fixed income. In furtherance of this scheme the son was sent to pick up a precarious education at a neighbouring day-school, where he astonished his companions by his ease in mastering the polite literature ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, 19 April 1890 • Various
... too, did much to educate him. In the Rochdale factory there was no marked separation as at Manchester between rich and poor. Master and men lived side by side, knew one another's family history and fortunes, and fraternized over their joys and sorrows. Even in those days of backward education 'Old Jacob' made himself responsible for the schooling of his workmen's children; his son, too, made personal friends among those working under him ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore
... and for many months after the date of this letter, first illness,—then a voyage to Auckland,—then work on "The Ebb-Tide," on a new tale called "St. Ives," which was begun during an attack of influenza, and on his projected book of family history,—prevented his making any continuous progress with "Weir." In August 1893 he says he has been recasting the beginning. A year later, still only the first four or five chapters had been drafted. Then, in the last weeks of his life, he attacked the task again, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XIX (of 25) - The Ebb-Tide; Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... outrageous immorality or a Bolshevist revolution. That Lackaday, to whom the British Peerage, in the ordinary way, was as closed a book as the Talmud, realized her high estate I was perfectly aware. Dear and garrulous Lady Verity-Stewart had given him at dinner the whole family history—she herself was a Dayne—from the time of Henry I. I was sitting on the other side of her and heard and amused myself by scanning the expressionless face of Lackaday who listened as a strayed aviator might listen to the social ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke
... previous circumstances, than can well be given by any one but myself. This is partly because I recognise the importance of the influence exerted upon him; and partly, I will admit, for another reason. My brother took a great interest, and, I may add, an interest not unmixed with pride, in our little family history. I confess that I share his feelings, and think, at any rate, that two or three of the persons of whom I have spoken deserve a fuller notice than has as yet been made public. What I have said may, I hope, serve ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... coincide with morbidity and disease. A disturbance of the corporeal organs, which especially influence this portion of the brain, naturally tends to the development of insanity or imbecility. Morel has traced, through four generations, the family history of a youth who was admitted to the asylum at Rouen while in a state of stupidity and semi-idiocy. The following summary of his investigations illustrates the natural course of degeneracy as it extends through successive generations: immorality, depravity, alcoholic excess, and moral degradation, ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... restlessly most of the night, while she wondered why Belle and Wilhelm were so cruel to her, and what the secret was to which Belle had referred; she had not, until then, been aware that there was anything mysterious connected with their family history. ...
— His Heart's Queen • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... replied Birney, "who, were she tractable as to the past as she is communicative of the future, could furnish you more details of family history and hereditary scandal than any one else I can think of just now. Some of her predictions—for she is ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... you wish to, Middleton," Dominey invited. "Mr. Mangan and his father and grandfather have been solicitors to the estate for a great many years. They know all our family history." ...
— The Great Impersonation • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... talking to Katie in the most absorbed way. Lady Dacre comprehended the reason of Bulchester's present bitterness. But neither imagined that it was the conversation, and not the talker, that was interesting Edmonson. The girl was telling him bits of family history which he professed with truth to find fascinating. He was watching her, listening, smiling with his brightest look, speaking a word or two occasionally to draw forth more information, and Katie, sure that she was telling nothing too personal, went on, growing more animated ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1 • Various
... Lapiths were always an unadventurous, respectable crew," said Priscilla, with a note of scorn in her voice. "If I were to write my family history now! Why, it would be one long continuous blot from beginning to end." She laughed jovially, and helped herself to another ...
— Crome Yellow • Aldous Huxley
... pounds. For general constitutional and pathological facts, see Sheets 2 to 7, inclusive, attached hereto. Subject well educated, having achieved distinction in linguistic, philological and literary studies in his university. (See Sheet 1, attached.) Neurologically considered, family history of subject (see Sheets 8 and 10) shows nothing abnormal, except that his father, a chemist, wrote an essay opposing the atomic theory, and a cousin is an epileptic. I regard these facts as significant. Volitional ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick
... some glimmerings of perception, was holding tight on to Mrs. Scudder's gown, detailing to her a most capital receipt for mending broken china, the history of which she traced regularly through all the families in which she had ever worked, varying the details with small items of family history, and little incidents as to the births, marriages, and deaths of different people for whom it had been employed, with all the particulars of how, where, and when, so that James's time for conversation was by this ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... Wycherly," said the judge, with a gravity that at once caught the attention of the other. "You know something of the family history, and I need do no more than allude to it. Our ancestors were the knightly possessors of Wychecombe, centuries before King James established the rank of baronet. When our great-grandfather, Sir Wycherly, accepted the patent of 1611, he scarcely did himself honour; for, ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... in wonder at the manner of the man, and that the probability of his daughter's having had a reserve as to her family history, should be so far out ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... colonial days, we are at once met by the fact, that although families were then often larger than is now common, yet this phenomenon was by no means universal, and was balanced by a good many childless homes. Of this any one can satisfy himself by looking over any family history; and he can also satisfy himself of the fact,—first pointed out, I believe, by Mrs. Ball,—that third and fourth marriages were then obviously and unquestionably more common than now. The inference would seem to be, that there is a little illusion ...
— Women and the Alphabet • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... truth, I did not know much about my family history in those early days. I knew that my name was Mary Emily Marshall, commonly called Sissy, and I knew that my papa was "the gentleman that makes all the sick people well,"—"or tries to," Jane would add. I never did. Of course, if my papa tried to ...
— My Young Days • Anonymous
... of family history seldom presented itself to Ursula Winwood. It did not do so this mellow and contented afternoon. Starlings mindful of a second brood chattered in the old walnut trees far away on the lawn; thrushes sang their deep-throated bugle-calls; finches twittered. ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... lord of the wood left us at our porch. Free-flowing was his talk at such hours, and far more quiet and gentle than in the day-time and before numbers. He would then forget politics and discussion, and would dwell on the past times of his house, on his family history, on himself and his own feelings—subjects each and all invested with a peculiar zest, for they were each and all unique. One glorious night in June, after I had been taunting him about his ideal bride and asking him when she ...
— The Professor • (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell
... crook in our Campbell tongue in one breath," said he, "and in the next you would make yourself a Campbell more sib to the chief than I am myself. Don't you think we might put off our little affairs of family history till we find a lady and ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... laid down my pen and taken a long breath after writing this family history. I have also considered whether there are any more children, and I don't think there are. If I should remember two or three others presently, I will mention them ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 2 (of 3), 1857-1870 • Charles Dickens
... he is," she said. "No one sees much of him. You see he's a stranger: although he's a Greyle, he's not a Scarhaven man. Of course, I know all his family history—I'm Scarhaven born and bred. In my time there have been three generations of Greyles. The first one I knew was this Squire's grandfather, old Mr. Stephen Greyle: he died when I was a girl in my 'teens. He had three sons and no daughters. The ...
— Scarhaven Keep • J. S. Fletcher
... quickly breathing at his ease. He discovered that the entire ordeal consisted of giving his family history, ...
— Dick Prescott's First Year at West Point • H. Irving Hancock
... woman seemed to find it adequate and went on with her family history. Five years ago in Washington her father had seen his old friend, Marcus Whitman, and since then had been restless with the longing to move West. His health demanded the change. His labors as a ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... disconnected many of Martin's notes might appear, they possessed a good deal of interest, and the coherence which results from a particular object being kept more or less continuously in view. Besides endless genealogies and bits of family history extracted from books, there were recorded all kinds of personal impressions and experiences, which Martin had met with in his journeyings. But in all his researches and expeditions he professed to have but one object—the discovery of his father's name; though what record he ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... but I know the family history, and they are a curious race with great capabilities for good or evil. It all depends upon how they are led, because nobody could drive a Thurston. It is rather, I must confess, an instinctive prejudice against the woman beside him. I do not like, and would ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... in despair. She felt that she had lost. By dragging up Anne's unfortunate family history, Miriam had produced a bad impression that she was powerless ...
— Grace Harlowe's Sophomore Year at High School • Jessie Graham Flower
... of papers, which he left unopened at a lawyer's. The young man made a fortune in India, returned to Scotland, and took a shooting in Dumfriesshire, near bormont, his ancestral home. He lodged at a small inn hard by, and the landlady, struck by his name, began to gossip with him about his family history. He knew nothing of the facts which the landlady disclosed, but, impressed by her story, sent for and examined his neglected packet of papers. Then he sought legal opinion, and was advised, by President Blair, that he had a claim worth presenting on the estate ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... gauge the period of any uninscribed examples. Although few of us are likely to possess treasures of the XIIIth century, signed and dated pieces of our great-grandmothers' embroideries are interesting personal landmarks in family history, so for this reason, amongst others, unostentatious marks of identification are by no means out of place. Descriptive names or verses are also a means of amplifying the story and so enlivening ...
— Embroidery and Tapestry Weaving • Grace Christie
... affords us numerous illustrations of the problems we have to consider. Does he, or does he not, give us in the first act sufficient insight into his story? I am inclined to answer the question in the negative. The first act puts us in possession of the current version of the Bernick-Toennesen family history, but it gives us no clear indication that this version is an elaborate tissue of falsehoods. It is true that Bernick's evident uneasiness and embarrassment at the mere idea of the reappearance of Lona and Johan may lead us to suspect that all is not as it seems; but ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer
... the name alone might with perfect security be taken as a proof of kinship. On account of their nomadic habits, due to their continual movement from place to place during two hundred years, he found it difficult to make out a complete family history. He was not, nor have his relatives and later investigators been, able to find material for the study of the Laniers in their original home. At one time he expressed a wish that President Hayes would appoint him ...
— Sidney Lanier • Edwin Mims
... couple of newspapers, and as many letters, on the table—but before we proceed to open either, we will favor the reader with another peep into our family history. ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 5, July 29, 1850 • Various |
