"First of May" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... injurious insects in the Northern States have scarcely begun their work of destruction, as the buds do not unfold before the first of May. We give an account, however, of some of the beneficial insects which are now to be found in grass-lands and in gardens. The farmer should know his true insect friends as well as his insect foes. We introduce to our readers a ...
— Our Common Insects - A Popular Account of the Insects of Our Fields, Forests, - Gardens and Houses • Alpheus Spring Packard
... It is the first of May, and the lilacs in the Luxembourg Gardens are in blossom. It has just struck four o'clock. The bright sun and the pure sky have rendered more odious than ever the captivity of the office to Amedee, and he departs before the end ...
— A Romance of Youth, Complete • Francois Coppee
... beasts, for the ground was dry and frost bound, wherefore men could not get them fresh grass to feed the cattle. For this cause some poor men brake up the roofs of their houses and gave of the thatch to the beasts: and this lack of grass endured until the first of May. ...
— The Chronicle of the Canons Regular of Mount St. Agnes • Thomas a Kempis
... once, when a group of little children in front of Judge Custis's house began to whisper and titter, and one, bolder than the rest, the Judge's daughter, gravely walked up to the unsocial man; it was the first of May, and he was in his ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... Benedick, "and I have no need for glasses. She is like the last day of December compared with the first of May if you set her beside her cousin. Unfortunately, the ...
— Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare • E. Nesbit
... saint. We saw a heap of horsehair and cows' tails lying on one of the altars. These are annually sold for the profit of the church, and the proceeds amount to a considerable sum. Our guide gravely assured us that on the first of May, day of the Pardon of St. Herbot, the cows "d'elles memes" walk three times round ...
— Brittany & Its Byways • Fanny Bury Palliser
... schoolmate, Alma Cutting, of New York, invites a small party of ladies and gentlemen to accompany her in a cruise through the Levant, on her father's new and elegant steam yacht 'Cleopatra'. I have pressing letters from Alma and Mr. Cutting, kindly urging me to join them in New York by the first of May, at which time they expect to start on a preliminary cruise through the North and Baltic seas; drifting southward so as to reach Sicily and Malta as soon as cool weather permits. Do you wonder that so charming and picturesque a tour ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... consequence, had got only dregs of tea and the last faint strawberry. But the Major and Captain Puffin used the tram so often, that they had fallen into the degrading habit of dislocating their clocks and watches on the first of May, and dislocating them again in the autumn, when they were forced into uniformity with properly-minded people. Irene was flippant on the subject, and said that any old time would do for her. The Poppits followed convention, and Mrs. Poppit, in naming ...
— Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson
... and the military world thus deprived of a complete lesson, except for the fact that, whether or not the contest finally resulted in the fall of Atlanta, the rebellion in that part of the South would have been practically as far from an end as it was the first of May! Johnston would have been there in front of Sherman, all the same, and at least one more campaign would have been required before the march to the sea ...
— Forty-Six Years in the Army • John M. Schofield
... on the first of May, 1700, closed a period of no small significance in the history of English literature. His faults were many, both as a man and as a poet, but he belongs to the race of the giants, and the impress of greatness is stamped upon his works. No student of Dryden can fail to mark the force and ...
— The Age of Pope - (1700-1744) • John Dennis
... village. But there was one day in the year when this quiet kingdom was strangely invaded, when its inhabitants fled to their most retired corners and peeped out with terrified eyes upon a very altered scene—and this was the first of May. Then everything was changed for a little while. Instead of the notes of the birds there were human voices calling to each other, laughing, singing, shouting, and the music of a band; instead of great silent ...
— White Lilac; or the Queen of the May • Amy Walton
... be marketing them within a few days; the interest falls due the first of May. I am not so rich that I can let five thousand dollars go without a move to get it back. I shall telegraph ...
— The Four Pools Mystery • Jean Webster
... case," said Moscione, "you deserve to be the king of the custom-house, and you should be chosen for standard-bearer on the first of May. But I should like to see a proof ...
— Stories from Pentamerone • Giambattista Basile
... man of honor; he procured the signature; Tremblay and Louviere resigned their appointments; I have paid every year twenty-five thousand francs to these two gentlemen; on the thirty-first of May, every year, M. d'Herblay himself comes to the Bastile, and brings me five thousand pistoles to ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... Wednesday dawned; an ideal First of May: Garth was in the garden before breakfast. Jane heard him singing, as he passed ...
— The Rosary • Florence L. Barclay
... latter end of February that the Arthurs made their last voyage together. David was to sail as captain, in a fine merchant-ship, the first of May; and everything had been arranged for our marriage, which was to take place the tenth of April; and I was to make a bridal tour to London with my husband in the new ship. I was wild with anticipation and delight, and would let my work drop from my hands twenty times a-day, while building ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie
... the first of May; but May was in an April mood,—half cloudy, half shiny,—and belied her name. Sprinkles of silvery rain dotted the way-side dust; flashes of sun caught the drops as they fell, and turned each into a tiny mirror fit for fairy faces. The trees were raining too, showers of willow-catkins ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... 'Twas the thirty-first of May. On that memorable day, Flitting like a restless ghost Somewhere off the Danish coast, His destroyer, all agog, Butted through the clinging fog, When for just a space the gray Mists of morning rolled away. Ah! but how their pulses beat When they saw the High ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, June 18, 1919 • Various
... repeated, as if the place had only a dim existence in her remotest consciousness. "Oh! The ice isn't near out of the lake yet. You can't count on it before the first of May." ...
— Indian Summer • William D. Howells
... of the United States to engage in war with the Wabash Indians, no doubt now remained of their warlike intentions. Every savage town from the Vermilion Piankeshaws to ancient Kekionga, was under British control. On the first of May, 1790, Governor Arthur St. Clair transmitted to the war department a part of the report of Antoine Gamelin, written from Tippecanoe, and observed as follows: "By this letter, you will perceive that everything seems to be referred to ...
— The Land of the Miamis • Elmore Barce
... looked as if it ought to do in June. I did not say, "My love, it is the Spring;" I rubbed my chilblains in a cheerful way And asked if there was some warm woollen thing My wife had bought me for the first of May; And, just to keep the ancient customs green, We said we 'd give the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, May 14, 1919 • Various
... a good deal of unoccupied time on my hands between the first of October and the first of May, and having learned to read (in the old-fashioned way, by wrestling with the alphabet and plain spelling), at the age of about five years, I was willing enough to give some of my juvenile leisure to books and try to find out what ...
— Days Off - And Other Digressions • Henry Van Dyke
... this same boy's mother, on the first of May, 1810, when he asked her to lend him one hundred dollars to buy a boat, having imbibed a strong liking for the sea; "on the twenty-seventh of this month you will be sixteen years old. If, by that time, you will plow, harrow, and plant with corn the eight-acre ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden
... prison bounds, were anxious to join in the defence of the city, but were apprehensive of exposing their sureties. On this being represented to the legislature, an act was passed, extending the prison bounds, until the first of May following, so ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... away to a house party, and moved out to Sunnyside the first of May. The roads were bad, but the trees were in leaf, and there were still tulips in the borders around the house. The arbutus was fragrant in the woods under the dead leaves, and on the way from the station, a short mile, while the car ...
— The Circular Staircase • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... that his campaign was ruined, he grew earnest in trying to meet Grant's expectations and orders, requiring him to be on the Mississippi by the first of May. For ten days he had been waiting at Grand Ecore, only to see the last of the fleet pass down in safety. Meanwhile he had entrenched his position, thrown a pontoon bridge across the river, placed a strong detachment from Smith's command on the north bank, and sent urgent ...
— History of the Nineteenth Army Corps • Richard Biddle Irwin
... next cautiously sailed; for all the coast swarmed with the armed galleys of Pisa, the staunch supporter of the discrowned Otho. With many a tack and many a turn the galleys headed north, while the watchful look-outs scanned the horizon for hostile prows. On the first of May, the peril of Pisa was past, and Genoa's gates were opened to receive him. Genoa was called the "door" to his empire, but foes and hardships lay in wait for him behind the friendly door. On the fifteenth of July, the boy and ...
— Historic Boys - Their Endeavours, Their Achievements, and Their Times • Elbridge Streeter Brooks
... together. The first of May is moving day. The seats are houses. One player is chosen to be "It" and he walks up and down the street between the two rows. At a signal, the residents along the street change houses before and behind him and he tries ...
— Games and Play for School Morale - A Course of Graded Games for School and Community Recreation • Various
... becoming obsolete, or passing into mere popular customs of the country, which the peasantry observe without thinking of their origin. About 1769, when Mr. Pennant made his tour, the ceremony of the Baaltein, Beltane, or First of May, though varying in different districts of the Highlands, was yet in strict observance, and the cake, which was then baken with scrupulous attention to certain rites and forms, was divided into fragments, which were formally dedicated to birds or beasts of prey that they, or rather the being ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott
... the connection had attended the dedication ceremonies of the previous autumn, and nearly all talked of going to the formal opening, appointed for the first of May; among them Grandma Elsie, her father and his wife, Captain Raymond and his wife and family. The captain's plan was to go by water—in his yacht—up along the coast to the Gulf of St. Lawrence, through that up the river of the same name, through the Welland Canal and round Michigan ...
— Elsie at the World's Fair • Martha Finley
... doors and windows were duly wreathed with garlands; and every village in the suburbs had its May-pole, which stood in its place all the year. On that happy day labour rested; ceorl and theowe had alike a holiday to dance, and tumble round the May-pole; and thus, on the first of May—Youth, and Mirth, and Music, ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... On the first of May, Maroney announced his intention of going North on a visit. He was with Porter at Patterson's at the time and seemed to have suddenly formed the resolution. He said he had consulted with his counsel and they had informed him that he might ...
— The Expressman and the Detective • Allan Pinkerton
... since he had not demanded a trial, but he thought it best, under all the circumstances of the case, that Suffolk should leave the country. He therefore issued a decree of banishment against him for five years. He was required to leave England before the first of May, and not to put his foot upon any English soil until the ...
— Margaret of Anjou - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... had found them. Nay, they might truthfully have said to the Moses of England what their ancestors had said to the Moses of Egypt, "Since thou didst come to Pharaoh, the hardness of our lot has increased." From the first of May (1844) they were not allowed to continue to earn the pittance necessary to maintain life, as, for instance, by the slavish labor of breaking stones on the highways, with which three hundred families had barely earned dry bread.[45] The ...
— The Haskalah Movement in Russia • Jacob S. Raisin
... sea and at the Hogue, sixteen hundred ninety two, Did the English fight the French,—woe to France! And, the thirty-first of May, helter-skelter thro' the blue. Like a crowd of frightened porpoises a shoal of sharks pursue, Came crowding ship on ship to St. Malo on the Rance, deg. deg.5 With the English fleet ...
— Browning's Shorter Poems • Robert Browning
... taxes for the same to Chicago. It is very apt to be the case that the rate of taxation is higher in large cities than in villages; and accordingly it often happens that wealthy inhabitants of cities, who own houses in some country town, move into them before the first of May, and otherwise comport themselves as legal residents of the country town, in order that their personal property may be assessed there rather than in ...
— Civil Government in the United States Considered with - Some Reference to Its Origins • John Fiske
... too, will make her visit, and go away again, if you delay your ramble in the woods till the first of May. The blossom of the Blood Root is a very delicate white. Hundreds of exotic flowers are cultivated in our gardens, and very much admired, that are not half so pretty as this. The leaves that appear before the plant is in blossom, ...
— Wreaths of Friendship - A Gift for the Young • T. S. Arthur and F. C. Woodworth
... or Constantius Chlorus, reigned one year, from the first of May, 305, to July 25th, 306, when he died at Eboracum, now York. During the whole of this period he remained in Gaul and Britain. The 7 coins of this emperor are all of the same mintage. An exact facsimile of them is given on page 262 of ...
— The Coinages of the Channel Islands • B. Lowsley
... us. Then, wishing to know more of their grievances, real or supposed, and upon their invitation, I appointed several meetings; for I was requested to hear their whole story, and to help them. I therefore appointed the twenty-first of May, 1833, to attend a council to be called by my brethren. In the mean while I went to Falmouth, nine miles distant, where I held forth upon the civil and religious rights of the Indians. Some, who apparently thought that charity was due to themselves, but not to the red men, did not relish the discourse; ...
— Indian Nullification of the Unconstitutional Laws of Massachusetts - Relative to the Marshpee Tribe: or, The Pretended Riot Explained • William Apes
... give the story of her devotion to her aged parent, but none of them seem to have been aware that she is destined to remain with him till the day of doom, whilst Gwyn ap Nudd, the king of the fairies, and Gwythyr op Greidiol, fight for her every first of May, and whichever of them may be fortunate enough to be the conqueror at that time will obtain her as a bride.] the daughter of Lludd, the constant maiden, and Ewaedah, the daughter of Kynvelyn, [Footnote: The Welsh have a fable on the subject ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... ready for delivery to Members who have paid their Annual Subscription of 1l., due on the first of May last.— ...
— Notes and Queries, No. 2, November 10 1849 • Various
... doubted, but the Parliament of England would give a kind reception to the articles of the Union as passed in Scotland, when they were laid before that House, as was evident from the quick dispatch in approving of and ratifying the same; and so the Union commenced on the first of May 1707, a day never to be forgot by Scotland; a day in which the Scots were stripped of what their predecessors had gallantly maintained for many hundred years, I mean the independency and soveraignty of the kingdom, both which the Earl of Seafield so little valued, that when he, as Chancellor, ...
— The Jacobite Rebellions (1689-1746) - (Bell's Scottish History Source Books.) • James Pringle Thomson
... of May is so called in many places in the North of England. It was a custom in the days of Druidism to light large fires on the tops of hills on the evening of the first of May, in honour of Bel or the Sun, and hence that day is still called in Irish, La Bheltine, or the day of Bel's fire, from La, a day, Bel, the god Bel, and teine, fire. The same ceremony was practised in Britain, being a Druidical rite, and the name (Beltin ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 12, Issue 346, December 13, 1828 • Various
... On the first of May, 1846, I left Vienna, and, with the exception of slight stoppages at Prague, Dresden, and Leipsic, proceeded directly to Hamburgh, there to embark for the Brazils. In Prague I had the pleasure of meeting Count Berchthold, who had accompanied me during a portion of my journey in the East. He informed ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer
... little besides. Even Dolly spoke more than he that day, and with great pains drew out John Morely to tell how his prospects were brightening, and how since the first of May he had been foreman among his fellow-workmen, and how if things went moderately well with him he should have a better home than the little log-house for his wife and children ...
— Stephen Grattan's Faith - A Canadian Story • Margaret M. Robertson
... on the hill tops they lit the fire on the end of May, the Beltane." And again, in his remarks on Peblis to the Play, (p. 315,) he says:—"The play was not the name for a stage play, but indicated the sports and festivals which took place at Peebles annually at Beltane, the second of May, not the first of May, as is usually supposed. These had in all probability come in place of the ancient British practice of lighting fires on the hill tops in honour of Baal, the sun god, hence the name Baaltein, Beltane, i.e. Baal's ...
— Folk Lore - Superstitious Beliefs in the West of Scotland within This Century • James Napier
... first of May, 1781, General Washington commenced a military journal. The following is a brief statement of the situation of the army at that time. "I begin at this epoch, a concise journal of military transactions, &c. I lament not having attempted it from the commencement of ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 3 (of 5) • John Marshall
... the chief festivals of ancient times and also in more modern times. The Romans held the "Floralia" or festivals in honor of Flora, the Goddess of Flowers, from April 28th to the First of May. The Celts and English used to celebrate May Day extensively. But time makes many changes and as the years increase this custom has decreased, so that in some parts of the country the present generation know May first only as moving day instead of a ...
— Games For All Occasions • Mary E. Blain
... Fleet-Captain Bell on shore with two howitzers manned by sailors and a battalion of two hundred and fifty marines and took possession of the city. Meanwhile the forts had surrendered to Porter of the mortar fleet, and General Butler, arriving on the first of May, relieved Farragut of further responsibility as ...
— The Bay State Monthly - Volume 1, Issue 4 - April, 1884 • Various
... weight in walking. "But it has its science. Over in the Ritualistic burial-yard, I tap the wall of a vault with my trowel-handle, and if the sound is hollow I say to myself: 'Not full yet.' Say it's the First of May, and I tap a coffin, and don't hear anything more in it, I say: 'Either you're not a woman in there, or, if you are, you never kept house.'—Because, you see, if it was a woman that ever kept house, it would take but the least thing in the world to make her insist upon ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 13, June 25, 1870 • Various
... it is a month that I have let the above lie by, because I got into a strain of emotion in it that I dreaded to return to. Well, so it shall be no longer. In about five weeks Mr. Stowe and myself start for New England. He sails the first of May. I am going with him to Boston, New York, and other places, and shall stop finally at Hartford, whence, as soon as he is gone, it is my ...
— The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe • Charles Edward Stowe
... The first of May proved, instead, a true April day, of the most fickle and changeable type. Gusts of rain and wind alternated with flashes of bright sunshine. The second battalion of the Third Regiment arrived, and the work of completing the cantonments went on. The ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V1 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... The first of May is ever a day of uncertainty and unrest in the world of labour. It is a time for readjustment, for the fixing of wage scales, for the assertion of labour rights and the ventilating of labour wrongs. It is a time favourable to upheaval, ...
— To Him That Hath - A Novel Of The West Of Today • Ralph Connor
... blowing straight in from the sea, and the river was frozen tight. A month before, the ice had begun to break and he had thought the cold was over, and that the all too short Alaskan summer was at hand. Now it was the first of May, and just as he had begun to think of summer pleasures, lo! a storm had come which seemed to freeze the very marrow of his bones. However, our little Alaskan cousin was used to cold and trained to it, and would not dream of fussing over ...
— Kalitan, Our Little Alaskan Cousin • Mary F. Nixon-Roulet
... my feudal castle at Pludun-Herlouet, near Saint Jacut-de-la-Mer, which I bought two years ago, and in which I have not yet set foot? Very well, then! The day after to-morrow, which is the first of May, we will have ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume III (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... first of May has just come to hand. I commenced writing you a letter three or four days ago but was interrupted so often that I did not finish it. I wrote one to Mary which no doubt was duly received, but do not remember whether it ...
— Letters of Ulysses S. Grant to His Father and His Youngest Sister, - 1857-78 • Ulysses S. Grant
... the homeward trip, and the first of May Mother and Aunt Charlotte will be at the Stone House, and we are to join them a week later. Already Mother has written to Mrs. Marvin, and we are to be excused for the last two weeks at Glenmore, and away we'll speed ...
— Dorothy Dainty at Glenmore • Amy Brooks
... on the first of May, in the year 1769, that I resigned my domestic happiness for a time, and left my family and peaceable habitation on the Yadkin River, in North-Carolina, to wander through the wilderness of America, in ...
— The Adventures of Colonel Daniel Boone • John Filson
... first of May. The Easter bells had rung in the resurrection of spring a few days before, and she had come eager and joyful. She came, as the German ballad says, light-hearted as the young lover who is going to plant a maypole ...
— Bohemians of the Latin Quarter • Henry Murger
... localities to this remarkably long-legged and long and slender-necked creature, which is to be found in temperate North America, and, in winter, as far south as Cuba and Jamaica. In north-eastern Illinois the Avocet generally occurs in small parties the last of April and the first of May, and during September and the early part of October, when it frequents the borders of marshy pools. The bird combines the characteristics of the Curlew and the ...
— Birds, Illustrated by Color Photography [July 1897] - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various
... morning of the first of May, Into the close I went to pluck a flower; And there I found a bird of woodland gay, Who whiled with songs of love the silent hour. O bird, who fliest from fair Florence, how Dear love begins, I prithee teach me now!— ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... Mrs. Stanley, "it must be done. Perhaps I can assist you in making up the quarrel. Next Thursday, you know, is the first of May. You shall have a little party, and Jessie shall be Queen of May. That will be certain ...
— Aunt Fanny's Story-Book for Little Boys and Girls • Frances Elizabeth Barrow
... while he separated and made sail on a wind to the south, intending to draw the frigates after him, as he was confident that the Peacock, a very fast vessel, could outsail them. [Footnote: Letter of Capt. Warrington, May 4, 1814.] The plan succeeded perfectly, the brig reaching Savannah on the first of May, and the ship three days afterward. The Epervier was purchased for the U.S. navy, under the same name and rate. The Peacock sailed again on June 4th, [Footnote: Letter of Capt. Warrington, Oct. 30, 1814.] going first northward to ...
— The Naval War of 1812 • Theodore Roosevelt
... a considerable number of the Tickets are already engaged, we expect to draw said Lottery by the first of May next. Prizes not demanded within six months after drawing will be deemed as generously given towards finishing said House. The time and place of drawing will be notified—a List of the Prizes will be immediately ...
— The Olden Time Series, Vol. 1: Curiosities of the Old Lottery • Henry M. Brooks
... twenty-fourth. I do not mean that they should in any wise hasten actual marriage; but only that they should hold it a point of honor to have the right to marry. In every year there should be two festivals, one on the first of May, and one at the feast of harvest home in each district, at which festivals their permissions to marry should be given publicly to the maidens and youths who had won them in that half-year; and they should be crowned, the maids by the old French title of Rosieres, ...
— Time and Tide by Weare and Tyne - Twenty-five Letters to a Working Man of Sunderland on the Laws of Work • John Ruskin
... elected by municipal bodies, universities, churches and so forth, and partly appointed by the Imperial Government. The Viceroy and his cabinet are appointed by the Emperor in his capacity of the sovereign of the Reichsland. Until the thirty-first of May, 1911, the Reichsland had no constitution of its own, the form of its government being regulated by the Reichstag and Federal Council (Bundesrat) in about the same way as the territories of the United States are ruled by Congress and the President. In 1911, Alsace-Lorraine received ...
— My Four Years in Germany • James W. Gerard
... and I were busily engaged in making preparations to start for Bent's Fort, as soon as Carson should get back with the horses. On his return he informed us that he would not leave the park until about the first of May, which was a surprise and disappointment to us both, as we had made all calculations on getting started the following day. We asked what was up that we were to ...
— Thirty-One Years on the Plains and In the Mountains • William F. Drannan
... On the first of May of the following year, which happened to fall on a Sunday, a long procession of carriages drove along the road from Harburg to Friesenmoor. They stopped at the entrance to the estate. Before them rose a triumphal arch composed of branches of fir garlanded ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau
... first of May, 1837, the day of deliverance came. I was to be my own master and make my own living! A fortune gilded with hope was before me. I was to go in the stage thirty-six miles to Zanesville, and thence by stage-route down the Muskingum River, twenty-eight miles to McConnelsville. When the ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... them; also by Sheriff Barkley and fifty other respectable men of that county. I brought the cattle to Kansas that fall and remained in St. Clair county until February. I then went to Arkansas and returned to St. Clair county about the first of May. I went to Kansas, where our cattle were, in Woodson county, at Col. Ridge's. During the summer I was either in St. Clair, Jackson or Kansas, but as there was no robbery committed that summer it makes no ...
— The Story of Cole Younger, by Himself • Cole Younger
... to visit, or rather to revisit, Europe. I was not able, however, to make the necessary arrangements to do so until the Summer of 1848. On the first of May of that year, I dissolved partnership with my brother, and in June started for Europe. In the following December, while at Galignani's News Room in Paris, I read in the New York Herald the message of President ...
— Personal Reminiscences of Early Days in California with Other Sketches; To Which Is Added the Story of His Attempted Assassination by a Former Associate on the Supreme Bench of the State • Stephen Field; George C. Gorham
... were uncommonly forward about learning our letters, and wished very much to go to school and finish our education; but were told that the "committee men" would not let us in till we were four years old. My birthday came the first of May, and very proud was I when mother led me up to a lady visitor, and said, "My little girl is four years old to-day." I thought the people "up street" would ring bells and fire cannons, but they forgot it. I looked ...
— Aunt Madge's Story • Sophie May
... first of May, which was the Festival of the Blessed Apostles Philip and James. The year was the 1,349th ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... known wet summers before and since. I have learnt by many bitter experiences the danger and foolishness of leaving the shelter of London any time between the first of May and the thirty-first of October. Indeed, the country is always associate in my mind with recollections of long, weary days passed in the pitiless rain, and sad evenings spent in other people's clothes. But never have I known, and never, ...
— Novel Notes • Jerome K. Jerome
... and Observation of David Copperfield the Younger, of Blunderstone Rookery, which he never meant to be published on any account." And the letter which told me that with this name it was finally to be launched on the first of May, told me also (19th April) the difficulties that still beset him at the opening. "My hand is out in the matter of Copperfield. To-day and yesterday I have done nothing. Though I know what I want to do, I am lumbering on like a stage-waggon. I can't even dine at the Temple ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... thee, we can review each day A hundred scenes, though thousand miles away, A single thought, amidst much happiness, May call up others which give sore distress. At other times, reverse of this is true, Most pleasing things are placed before our view. But to return; the first of May appears— A day for fond embrace and shedding tears! Some few go with the friends to see them off, Nor seek to hide their tears, though fools may scoff. They take the boat; the signal's made to start; The "Water-Witch" shoots forward like a dart; Some ...
— The Emigrant Mechanic and Other Tales In Verse - Together With Numerous Songs Upon Canadian Subjects • Thomas Cowherd
... issued on the first of May, 1662. It confirmed the popular constitution of the colony, and contained more liberal provisions than any yet issued by royal hands. It defined the boundaries so as to include New Haven colony and a part of Rhode Island on the east, and westward to the Pacific Ocean. ...
— The Real America in Romance, Volume 6; A Century Too Soon (A Story - of Bacon's Rebellion) • John R. Musick
... whose interests were so closely bound up with the waterways running southward. It was essential that no effort should be spared to bring the loyal States of the West into control of the line of the Mississippi. More than twelve months was still required after the capture of New Orleans on the first of May, 1862, before the surrender of Vicksburg to Grant and of Port Hudson to Banks removed the final barriers to the Federal control of the great river. The occupation of the river by the Federals was of ...
— Abraham Lincoln • George Haven Putnam
... Constantinople to Athens. The wind, favourable to him, blew so strongly in shore, that we were unable, as we had at first intended, to meet him on his watery road. The watchtower of Athens was besieged by inquirers, each sail eagerly looked out for; till on the first of May the gallant frigate bore in sight, freighted with treasure more invaluable than the wealth which, piloted from Mexico, the vexed Pacific swallowed, or that was conveyed over its tranquil bosom to enrich the crown of Spain. ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... season now set in with unusual violence, and the struggles and hardships endured by this little band cannot be easily imagined. However, so great was their persevering industry, that before the first of May several dwelling-houses had been rendered habitable, with a small frame-house for the Agent; and a storehouse sufficient for their purposes had been constructed of ...
— A Voyage Round the World, Vol. I (of ?) • James Holman
... columns and batteries had to be moved forward over corduroy roads, (artificial roads made of logs.) All the accumulation of information and preparations necessary for breaking through the enemy's line had been quietly and secretly accomplished. On the first of May in the afternoon the artillery began its fire on the Russian positions. These in some five months had been perfected according to all the rules of the art of fortification. In stories they lay one over the other along the steep heights, ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... homeward on the day following their re-meeting, Canning had meant to return at once to New York; for his long furlough had now run out, and he had felt a man's call of duty upon him. Moreover, it was already arranged that he should come again for a real betrothal visit, sometime before the first of May. Yet he lingered on for four days now, a man magnetized beyond his own control. ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... of farm work, he had cast wistful glances at the outward-bound ships that passed his home. Occasionally, too, he had alarmed his mother by threatening to run away and go to sea. His preference, however, was to become a boatman of New York harbor. On the first of May, 1810,—an important day in his history,—he made known his wishes to his mother, and asked her to advance him a hundred dollars for the purchase of a ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... that was not it. Aggie sat down opposite me and took off her bonnet. Although it was only the first of May, the weather, as I have said, was ...
— More Tish • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... Strafford's doom. In plotting for his release, the plotters had marked him out as a life which was the main danger to the new state of things. Strafford still hoped in his master; he had a pledge from Charles that his life should be saved; and on the first of May the king in a formal message to the Parliament had refused his assent to the Bill of Attainder. But the Queen had no mind that her husband should suffer for a minister whom she hated, and before her pressure the ...
— History of the English People, Volume V (of 8) - Puritan England, 1603-1660 • John Richard Green
... the ground becomes moistened, the grass, and other hardy vegetation, springs up, and by the middle of December the landscape is arrayed in a robe of fresh verdure. The grasses grow through the entire winter, and most of them mature by the first of May. The season for sowing wheat commences as soon as the ground is sufficiently softened by moisture to admit of ploughing, and ...
— What I Saw in California • Edwin Bryant
... whales once only before we reached the Sandwich Islands, which we made on the first of May early in the morning. When drawing in with the Island of Hawaii about four in the afternoon, the man at the mast head gave notice that he saw a shoal of black fish on the lee bow; which we soon found to be canoes on their way ...
— A Narrative of the Mutiny, on Board the Ship Globe, of Nantucket, in the Pacific Ocean, Jan. 1824 • William Lay
... calculate another cool hundred on cod, haak, etc. I think we shall pay back the Board's loan in three years, besides paying handsome dividends to our shareholders. The boat is in the hands of a Belfast firm. She will be ready by the first of May. On that day she will be christened the 'Star of the Sea,' and will make her first run to ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
... The first of May, 1863, the Army of the Potomac under Hooker met the Army of Northern Virginia under Lee and Jackson, near Chancellorsville, Virginia. It was here that Jackson executed his brilliant and successful flank movement around the Union right, ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... declining years: poor old grandmother, too, shall find it a welcome refuge while she lives. I have never felt that I could see the home of my birth pass to other hands; my heart still clings to it, and its hallowed associations, with all the tenacity of former days. The first of May will, in future, have special charms for me, for from this day, 1878, dates my claim to that spot of earth which to me is dearer ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... of the first of May, which is the traditional feast of this church, the poor of the neighbourhood assembled within. The windows of the palace gallery were then thrown open and a great number of fat fowls were thrown alive to the crowd, turkeys, ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 1 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... man of honor; he procured the signature; Tremblay and Louviere resigned their appointments, I have paid every year twenty-five thousand francs to these two gentlemen; on the thirty-first of May every year, M. d'Herblay himself comes to the Bastile, and brings me five thousand pistoles to distribute between ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... maid who, the first of May, Goes to the fields at break of day And washes in dew from the hawthorn tree ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan
... than he was last year[1193], sent by me to my Lord Marchmont a present of those volumes of his Lives of the Poets which were at this time published, with a request to have permission to wait on him; and his Lordship, who had called on him twice, obligingly appointed Saturday, the first of May, for receiving us. ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... afternoon in late April, as the two stood on the steps of the Hall waiting for Helen, Leila and Vera, who had gone to the garage for Leila's car. The five girls were going to Hamilton on a shopping expedition. The first of May at hand, the Lookouts and their intimates were going to follow the old custom of hanging May baskets. Leila had proposed it. The others had ...
— Marjorie Dean, College Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... to forsake this life of hotels and lodgings, and become either Irish landlords or tenants, or both, with a view to the better understanding of one burning Irish question. We heard of a charming house in County Down, which could be secured by renting it the first of May for the season; but as we could occupy it only for a month at most we were obliged ...
— Penelope's Irish Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... first of May, when there was a Celtic festival in honor of the sun. Beltane Beal-tein, or the fire of Beal, a Gaelic name for the sun. It was celebrated by kindling fires on the hill-tops at night, and other ceremonies, followed by dances, and merry-making. ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... '"The Opp Eagle" has organized a club called the B.B.B. Club, meaning the Busy Bottle-Breakers Club. A handsome prize of a valued nature will be awarded the boy or girl which breaks the largest number of whisky and beer bottles before the first of May.' The boats to Coreyville run different ...
— Mr. Opp • Alice Hegan Rice
... died the first of May 1701, and was interred in Westminster Abby. On the 19th of April he had been very bad with the gout, and erisipelas in one leg; but he was then somewhat recovered, and designed to go abroad; on the Friday following he eat a partridge for his supper, ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. III • Theophilus Cibber
... sun drop behind St. Peter's on the first day of May, before bonfires begin to blaze from all the country towns on the mountain-sides, showing like great beacons. This is a custom founded in great antiquity, and common to the North and South. The first of May is the Festival of the Holy Apostles in Italy; but in Germany, and still farther north, in Sweden and Norway, it is Walpurgisnacht,—when goblins, witches, hags, and devils hold high holiday, mounting on their brooms for the Brocken. And it was on this night that Mephistopheles carried ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 31, May, 1860 • Various
... Boccaccio's youths and maidens met that Tuesday morning in the year of the great plague; nor far, again, from where the solitary woman, beautiful beyond belief, conversed with Machiavelli on the morning of the first of May in 1527.[125] We who can call to mind the scenes that picture has looked down upon—we who have studied the rise and decadence of painting throughout Italy from this beginning even to the last work of the latest Bolognese—may do well to visit it with reverence, and to ponder on the race ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds
... writes himself Mat Meager, complains, that whereas he constantly used to Breakfast with his Mistress upon Chocolate, going to wait upon her the first of May he found his usual Treat very much changed for the worse, and has been forced to feed ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... the first of May, there came to us, with other spring flowers, our little fair-haired, blue-eyed daughter. How rich I felt when I heard Ernest's voice, as he replied to a question asked at the door, proclaim, "Mother and children all well." To think that we, who thought ...
— Stepping Heavenward • Mrs. E. Prentiss
... St. Mark's Gospel will have passed through the press. The two remaining Gospels will be printed before the arrival of Christmas, and by the first of May the entire New Testament, in the Mandchou language, will have been published. I wish this intelligence to be communicated to the public, who are at liberty, provided the Lord does not visit me with some heavy affliction, ...
— Letters of George Borrow - to the British and Foreign Bible Society • George Borrow
... she returned generously. "But after the first of May—Well, he is a young man of decisiveness and believes in quick action." She made a whiff, accompanied by an outward and forward motion of the hands. She was wafting Amy Leffingwell out of her own house into the new home ...
— Bertram Cope's Year • Henry Blake Fuller
... of the year, the first of May, the blacks are putting in some of their one hundred working days while the single breech-loader rusts in the chimney corner. Surely the few birds that have escaped the foray of the "gang," lived through the hungry days, and survived their burned ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday
... sultry day. T'is more like June than the first of May." The post said never a word. "I've just dropped over from Lincolnshire. My home is in the Cathedral Spire— The air is cooler and purer the higher You get—as ...
— Pepper & Salt - or, Seasoning for Young Folk • Howard Pyle
... try and get [some furniture he required] from that joiner and send it to me on the first of May, or even sooner. ... Come and stay with me in May. I will give you something to busy yourself with, and to keep you in health. You must send some money to Stanislas [her son, who was staying with Kosciuszko], and enjoin upon him to manage ...
— Kosciuszko - A Biography • Monica Mary Gardner
... the squire and Mrs Dale that the removal from the Small House to Guestwick was not to take place till the first of May. When he had been made to understand that Dr Crofts had thought it injudicious that Lily should be taken out of their present house in March, he had used all the eloquence of which he was master to induce Mrs Dale to consent to abandon her project. He had told her that he had always considered ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... the first of May, the mare gave birth to a pretty little colt. Yet no one ever saw, or could ever tell what became of any one, or all of the colts. Each and all, and one by one, they disappeared. Nobody knew where they were, or went, or ...
— Welsh Fairy Tales • William Elliot Griffis
... Bishop of Arras awaited him with arduous work, and the Emperor did not allow himself a moment's rest while his sister was using the beautiful first of May to ride and hunt. Charles missed her, and still more the faithful man who had served him as a page, and whom he had been accustomed since to have in close attendance ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... depth of his saddle; but Essex stood on the opposite bank. After half an hour's conference, where Tyrone behaved with great submission to the lord lieutenant, a cessation of arms was concluded to the first of May, renewable from six weeks to six weeks; but which might be broken off by either party upon a fortnight's warning.[**] Essex also received from Tyrone proposals for a peace, in which that rebel had inserted many unreasonable and exorbitant ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume
... on the 7th of March, that is, the 17th of that month, new style. [Footnote: See ante, page 4, note.] They left the harbor of the great bay, where they had remained for fifteen days on the 6th of May, which makes their arrival there to have been on the 21st of April, or first of May, N. S. They were thus during the months of March and April, engaged in coasting from the landfall to the great bay in latitude 41 Degrees 40', during which period the observations relating to the intermediate country, consequently, ...
— The Voyage of Verrazzano • Henry C. Murphy
... the morning, upon the first of May, And Dewey was the admiral, down in Manila Bay; And dewy were the Regent's eyes, them royal orbs of blue, And do we feel discouraged? We do ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... on the first of May. The number of works of art, consisting of paintings, sculptures, models, proof engravings and drawings, generally exhibited, are upwards of one thousand; and are usually visited by all the gaiety and fashion of the Metropolis, ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... but Rostov knew him too well not to detect that (while hiding it from others) at heart he feared a court-martial and was worried over the affair, which was evidently taking a bad turn. Every day, letters of inquiry and notices from the court arrived, and on the first of May, Denisov was ordered to hand the squadron over to the next in seniority and appear before the staff of his division to explain his violence at the commissariat office. On the previous day Platov reconnoitered with two Cossack regiments ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... were carried free until the first of May. Patrick Calhoun was trying to convert the cable roads into electric lines in spite of the objection of the improvement clubs. He was negotiating with the Supervisors for a blanket franchise to electrize all of ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... was fully foughten on the first of May, and ere a half month was fully worn the Barons' League sent a herald to Longshaw praying for peace; but Sir Godrick straightway sent back answer that he would grant the Barons peace when they had delivered up all their ...
— The Sundering Flood • William Morris
... unable to agree upon any policy. The Emperor had already gone home, and the various armies were much reduced in strength. Cleary had been ordered to return by his newspaper, and had taken passage in a passenger steamer for the first of May. ...
— Captain Jinks, Hero • Ernest Crosby
... the day when your highness was arrested you received a letter from M. de Guise, and replied to it verbally, through me, that they were to come to Paris from the thirty-first of May to the second of June. It is now the thirty-first of May, and if your highness has forgotten them, they ...
— Chicot the Jester - [An abridged translation of "La dame de Monsoreau"] • Alexandre Dumas
... Melcher, and John W. Trull, who were directed to ascertain where a suitable lot of land could be procured on which to erect a house of worship. After examining several lots, the one was selected on which the church now stands, in School street, and it was accordingly bought about the first of May following. ...
— Our Gift • Teachers of the School Street Universalist Sunday School, Boston
... On the first of May and the two following days solemn justs were held before the queen at Westminster; in which the challengers were the earl of Oxford, Charles Howard, sir Henry Lee and sir Christopher Hatton,—all four deserving of ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... compared one performed by the fishermen of Weymouth, who on the first of May put out to sea for the purpose of scattering garlands of flowers on the waves, as a propitiatory offering to obtain food for the hungry. "This link," according to Miss Lambert, "is but another link in the chain that connects ...
— The Folk-lore of Plants • T. F. Thiselton-Dyer
... employer in Chicago whose attention he could secure if there were any work, and the answer was "No, sir!" This took him till about the first of May. He had no influence. He had no friend who had influence, nor any chance to get one. His watch, rings, and scarf-pin gradually went to the landlady. His shot-gun, field-glass and clothes were carried to the pawnbrokers. For his musket ...
— The Golden Censer - The duties of to-day, the hopes of the future • John McGovern
... place on the first of May, and was long cited in tradition as the grand moving. The anniversary of it was piously observed among the "sons of the pilgrims of Communipaw," by turning their houses topsy-turvy, and carrying all the furniture through the streets, in emblem of the swarming of the parent hive; and this is the ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... Madeleine carried her temerity in this matter still farther. Here is a portion of the certificate of an ecclesiastic, for whose uprightness and truthfulness Montgeron vouches in strong terms, and who relates what he alleges he saw on the thirty-first of May, 1744. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 76, February, 1864 • Various
... It was the first of May. The young nobleman was thinking of the May days when he was a boy—of how the common near his early home was yellow with gorse, and the hedges were white with hawthorn. He strolled sadly along the sea-shore, thinking of the sunniest May he had known since ...
— Wife in Name Only • Charlotte M. Braeme (Bertha M. Clay)
... made by Gaspar Gil Polo'. Epistle dedicatory from the author to 'Doa Maria de Austria y fuentes', dated, Valencia, Feb. 9, 1564. Text of the five books. At the end is the note 'All these three Partes were finished the first of May 1583. Boto el amor en Yugo', followed ...
— Catalogue of the Books Presented by Edward Capell to the Library of Trinity College in Cambridge • W. W. Greg
... the plains and lower slopes of the foothills in the neighborhood of the mouth of the Gardiner and we saw several hundred—probably a thousand all told—of these antelope. Major Pitcher informed me that all the prong-horns in the Park wintered in this neighborhood. Toward the end of April or the first of May they migrate back to their summering homes in the open valleys along the Yellowstone and in the plains south of the Golden Gate. While migrating they go over the mountains and through forests if occasion demands. ...
— American Big Game in Its Haunts • Various
... Mather's Church, and one of the Special Court to try the witches. Its Session was to commence in the first week, probably on Thursday, the second day of June. The letter, dated on Tuesday, the thirty-first of May, is addressed to John Richards alone; and commences with a strong expression of regret that quite a severe indisposition will prevent his accompanying him to the trials. "Excuse me," he says, "from waiting upon you, with the utmost of my little skill ...
— Salem Witchcraft and Cotton Mather - A Reply • Charles W. Upham
... there generally is; and the city fathers decided to accept the terms, and make Flora worthy of the honor by placing her among their minor deities, of which there were no less than thirty thousand. She took her place as Goddess of Flowers, with a celebration about the first of May, to be called ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, May, 1878, No. 7. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various |
