"Red-letter" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... reddish silk, which looks as if it had been dyed in Bullock's blood; here are some whose cocoons are finished. There is plenty of everything, from the egg to the larva whose period of activity is over. I mark the 2nd of September as a red-letter day; it has given me the final key to a riddle which has kept me in suspense ...
— More Hunting Wasps • J. Henri Fabre
... are also supposed to have the benefit of the exertions of certain small boys, who shake money-boxes before some mysterious little buildings like rural turnpikes, which (usually shut up close) fly open on Red-letter days, and disclose an ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... the seventh red-letter day of that kind on the calendar. These are only the beginning of such days, our own peculiar days when we keep tryst with ourselves, because in one way or another these days celebrate some trial or triumph, some ...
— The Hills of Hingham • Dallas Lore Sharp
... prevalence of "Royal Stewart" and the number of eagles' feathers, we were a high-born company. I threw forward the Scottish flank of my own ancestry, and passed muster as a clansman with applause. There was, indeed, but one small cloud on this red-letter day. I had laid in a large supply of the national beverage in the shape of the "Rob Roy MacGregor O' Blend, Warranted Old and Vatted"; and this must certainly have been a generous spirit, for I had some anxious work between ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... lent my humble aid to this labour of light. I was put to teach physical and natural science. I had faith and was not sparing of work, with the result that I rarely faced a more attentive or interested audience. The days on which the lessons fell were red-letter days, especially when the lesson was botany and the table disappeared from view under the ...
— The Mason-bees • J. Henri Fabre
... make!" he cried with enthusiasm. Certainly this was a red-letter day in his calendar. This adventure almost equalled the other, and, besides, in this instance, his skin was dry; he could enjoy it more thoroughly. Who could this unknown be? "If only you understood the mystery with which you ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... Last night was a red-letter day, for two plum puddings arrived from Rostrevor House, and also the refill for my battery before the old one ran out, so I am quite happy as to that point now. I have also written to Aunt B——. Many thanks for ...
— Letters of Lt.-Col. George Brenton Laurie • George Brenton Laurie
... established Custom, the Man, in some way, in private print— —for the Relative, for the Friend, for the Stranger too— quietly Celebrates the various Red-Letter Days, of the Dear Lady Here, On the Banks of Wolf Run—his Mother! Her full Restoration, to her usual Good Health, is a Source of much Joy, and the cause of much Gratitude. The many Prayers made for her ...
— A Spray of Kentucky Pine • George Douglass Sherley
... the expected guests. It was indeed a red-letter day for Lottie Lawson when Phillip announced his intention ...
— Marguerite Verne • Agatha Armour
... crowned by the gold Cock of Beaugard, all grimy with the fire, but jaunty as of yore. The cheerfulness of the workmen, who sang gaily an old chanson of mill- life as they tugged at the timbers and stones, gave a fillip to the spirits of Jean Jacques, to whom had come a red-letter day. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... seat behind, joined in with some heat. A more ardent supporter could not have been found, although his repetition of the phrase "May and December" revealed a want of tact of which the skipper had not thought him capable. What had promised to be a red-letter day in his existence was spoiled, and he went to bed that night with the full conviction that he had better abandon a ...
— Short Cruises • W.W. Jacobs
... too, must become rather a red-letter diversion than a regular feature of our existence, if it has been so. Whatever enthusiasm we may possess for the opera, an occasional visit, with its midnight return, will soon come to satisfy us. Our pet lectures, club life, ...
— The Complete Home • Various
... to the end between these two leaders of thought—free as their intercourse was from any smallest trace of self-seeking or jealousy. When in 1874 I spent some time with Lyell in his Forfarshire home, a communication from Darwin was always an event which made a "red-letter day," as Lyell used to say; and he gave me many indications in his conversation of how strongly he relied upon the opinion of Darwin—more indeed than on the judgment of any other man—this confidence not being confined to questions ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... (influence) 175; value &c. (goodness) 648; usefulness &c. 644. gravity, seriousness, solemnity; no joke, no laughing matter; pressure, urgency, stress; matter of life and death. memorabilia, notabilia[obs3], great doings; red-letter day. great thing, great point; main chance, "the be all and the end all " [Macbeth]; cardinal point; substance, gist &c. (essence) 5; sum and substance, gravamen, head and front; important part, principal part, prominent part, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... a fall of snow, was an Event; and it seemed to do him good, somehow or other—it would have been hard to say in what respect though, Toby! So wind and frost and snow, and perhaps a good stiff storm of hail, were Toby Veck's red-letter days. ...
— The Chimes • Charles Dickens
... post-office from the control of the imperial authorities to the Colonial government, was effected April 6th, 1851. Mr. Stayner then resigned, and the office was filled by the Hon. James Morris, who was the first Postmaster-General. This may be termed the red-letter year of the Canadian post-office. In the first place, the postage, which had hitherto been according to distance and had averaged 15 cents on each letter, was reduced to a uniform rate of 5 cents per half ounce. The newspaper charge was also considerably reduced. ...
— The Stamps of Canada • Bertram Poole
... day Lady Thesiger had arranged to come to Crown Anstey with Agatha, for the purpose of choosing from some very choice engravings that had been sent to me from London. I asked Sir John to accompany them and stay at lunch. It was always a red-letter day to me when my darling came to my house, and I remember this one—ah, me!—so well. It was fine, clear and frosty; the sky was blue; the sun shone with that clear gold gleam it has in winter; the hoar frost sparkled on the leafless trees and hedges; the ground was hard and seemed to ring ...
— Coralie • Charlotte M. Braeme
... February was a red-letter day. At Tenino I had the satisfaction of helping to dedicate the first monument erected to mark the old trail. The stores were closed, and the school children in a body came over to the dedication. The monument was donated by the Tenino Quarry Company; it is ...
— Ox-Team Days on the Oregon Trail • Ezra Meeker
... Many red-letter days are set down in the history of Ranelagh during the sixty years of its existence, but its historians are agreed that the most famous of the entertainments given there was the Venetian Masquerade in honour of the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle on April 26th, 1749. ...
— Inns and Taverns of Old London • Henry C. Shelley
... of frizzling fat, where fried plaice brown and odorous may be had for three halfpence, and a handful of sliced potatoes for a penny; where for fourpence succulent stewed eels may be discussed; vinegar ad lib.; or for sevenpence—but these are red-letter evenings—half a sheep's head may be indulged in, which is a supper fit for any king, who happened ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... atmosphere of the Underground Railway, too, was injuring lungs that had never breathed anything but the purest country air, and at last Mr. Gregory noticed his altered appearance, and invited him to drive into the City in the dog-cart with himself every morning. That was indeed a red-letter day,—almost as good as driving to Dr. Mayson's at Riversdale: better, in fact, Bertie began to think later on, for the bustle and confusion, the eager, hurrying, restless life of the City began to have a strange charm for him, ...
— Little Folks (Septemeber 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... this worlde sholde be holden in al monasteryes, the daye after the fest Halowen (All Hallows even); the wyche thynge was approved after all holye Chyrche.” {157} This is the old Christian black-letter festival of “All Souls,” generally, as distinguished from the red-letter, “All Saints day.” Such are some of the old traditions which hang, like evergreen garlands, round our sacred places. Children may once have “passed through fire to Molech” where now the heaving turf shrouds the skeleton ...
— Records of Woodhall Spa and Neighbourhood - Historical, Anecdotal, Physiographical, and Archaeological, with Other Matter • J. Conway Walter
... enthusiasm, or the modest though dignified recognition of the reverence with which I approached him, that made this grave man unbend; but it is certain that the few times when I was permitted to enter the rudely built studio at Barbizon have remained red-letter days in my life, and on each occasion I left Millet with an impression so strong and vital that now, after a lapse of twenty years, the work which he showed me, and the words which he uttered, are as present as though ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. VI., No. 6, May, 1896 • Various
... with awe to tales of him; and the red-letter days of her childhood's calendar were the days upon which her father would take her down to the docks, past great windowless warehouses of concrete and sheet-iron, where big glossy horses stood harnessed to high-piled ...
— The Gun-Brand • James B. Hendryx
... fashion—with their own sons. But at last a red-letter day dawned for me. An English artist came to stay at the sheep-farm, and discovered that I also was among the prophets. He was a bachelor, and he took an uncommon fancy to me; it ended in his adopting me and bringing me ...
— The Farringdons • Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler
... a red-letter day for me when Simon Newcomb met me at the door of the Cosmos Club, of which he was then president, and presented me as his guest to one and another of the select company of men who formed its membership. He moved among them as unostentatious ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer
... division of the British army covered itself with glory and once more demonstrated the value to the British empire of the "lion's whelps." On one notable occasion, destined to be recorded in history as a red-letter day for Canadian arms, the gallant fellows from the great Dominion "saved the situation," to quote from the report of Field Marshal French, by a splendid charge, during which they recaptured from the Germans four of their field guns that had been ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell
... was a red-letter three weeks for the three Wellington girls. Jane found New York a vastly different city when peopled by those dear to her. During her brief shopping trip there the previous winter she had not liked New York. Now she discovered that it ...
— Jane Allen: Right Guard • Edith Bancroft
... van Dyke had come all the way from New York to give an address. Sir William Archibald, chairman of the Royal National Mission to Deep-Sea Fishermen, had travelled from England to bring a blessing from the old home country; and the merchants and friends in St. John's did their best to make it a red-letter day. Sir Edward Morris, the Prime Minister, and other politicians, the Mayor and civic functionaries were all good enough to come and add their quota to the launching of the new ship. There were still pessimistic and croaking individuals, however, as well as joyful hearts, when ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... autumn of that red-letter year which brought a short respite of peace to war-ridden Europe—a fine, but rather tumultuous day round Scarthey—the light-keeper, having completed the morning's menial task in the light-turret (during a temporary absence of his factotum) ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... business and office business in general have increased so; I don't mean I am there every night, but I must expect a great deal of it. I never leave till four, and do not keep a holiday now once in ten times, where I used to keep all red-letter days and some five days besides, which I used to dub nature's holidays.... I had formerly little to do.... Hard work and thinking about it taints even the leisure hours—stains ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... draw attention to the antique style, quaintness, and typographical excellence of the work, its red-letter "initials" and black letter type, and old-fashioned paragraphic arrangement of pages. The antique paper, uncut edges, and illustrations are in accord with the other features of ...
— The Stolen Bacillus and Other Incidents • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... shadow over the girl's heart during these red-letter days of life—the fear of what her father would do to her lover's people. Ben had asked her whether he must speak to him. When she said "No, not yet," he forgot that such a man lived. As for his politics, he knew ...
— The Clansman - An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan • Thomas Dixon
... pretty, rather poetical; but as she makes herself manifest by the persons of such beasts, I loathe and detest her as the scarlet what-do-you-call-her of Babylon. I thought, after abridging us of all our red-letter days, they had done their worst; but I was deceived in the length to which heads of offices, those true liberty-haters, can go. They are the tyrants; not Ferdinand, nor Nero. By a decree passed this week they have abridged us of the immemorially-observed custom of going at one o'clock of a Saturday, ...
— A Letter Book - Selected with an Introduction on the History and Art of Letter-Writing • George Saintsbury
... that," she cried, laughing a little. "I only meant that this was a red-letter night for us. We are basking in the light ...
— Grace Harlowe's Senior Year at High School - or The Parting of the Ways • Jessie Graham Flower
... A red-letter day it will be for us when we realize that exuberance represents for every one the income from his fund of vitality; that when one's exuberance is all gone, his income is temporarily exhausted; and that he cannot go on living at the same rate without touching ...
— The Joyful Heart • Robert Haven Schauffler
... Valley calendar many red-letter days beside the regularly recurring national holidays, but lilac time, or Lilac Sunday, is Green Valley's very own glad day. It is in the spring what Thanksgiving is in the fall and wanderers who can not get home for Thanksgiving and Christmas ...
— Green Valley • Katharine Reynolds
... of Mr. Henry Rogers in the village—in La Citadelle, that is—was a red-letter day. This, however, seems a thin description of its glory. For a more adequate description a well-worn phrase must be borrowed from the poems of Montmorency Minks—a 'Day of Festival,' for which 'coronal' invariably lay ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood
... It was a red-letter day for Bob when, once, Miss Elton happened to come along just where he was at work. He saw her coming some time before she recognized him, but when she stopped to speak to him he was so excited that he scarcely ...
— Willie the Waif • Minie Herbert
... many red-letter days when I was entertained by friends; but I am afraid I only squeaked when they expected roars—to be lionized was too unusual not to have stage ...
— "Over There" with the Australians • R. Hugh Knyvett
... went swiftly and pleasantly enough; but his red-letter day was the Saturday afternoon that brought him to his darling. And she, buried among her dry-as-dust school-books and classic lore—how she looked forward to the weekly day of grace no words of mine ...
— The Baronet's Bride • May Agnes Fleming
... into the philosophy class was a red-letter day; he sported his first tall hat and smoked his first non-surreptitious cigarettes. He possessed a certain brilliancy of mind and a keen wit that amused his companions, whose superior he ...
— The Aspirations of Jean Servien • Anatole France
... had been staked off. Throwing our outlaws into the corral, and leaving the remuda in charge of two vaqueros, we galloped into Shepherd's with the gathering crowd. From all indications this would be a red-letter day at the ferry, for the attendance drained a section of country fully a hundred miles in diameter. On the north from Campbellton on the Atascosa to San Patricio on the home river to the south, ...
— A Texas Matchmaker • Andy Adams
... trees. But the fields, now bare of crops, were lifeless, and the scattered hamlets mostly fast asleep. About fifteen miles out we reached the big village of Soraon—almost a small township—in which there seemed equally little to suggest that this was the red-letter day in the history of modern India that was to initiate her people into the great art of self-government. Still the small court-house, we found, had been swept and garnished for use as a polling station. Two small groups of people stood listlessly outside the building, the candidates' ...
— India, Old and New • Sir Valentine Chirol
... the cow, again on her legs, is restless, and evidently frightened. Oh! reader, even if you have the soul of a Shikaree, I despair of being able to convey in words a tithe of the sensations of that solitary vigil: a night like that is to be enjoyed but seldom—a red-letter day ...
— Thrilling Adventures by Land and Sea • James O. Brayman
... after that sixteenth anniversary I received a letter, which informed me that Aronffy had on that red-letter day killed ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai
... had been made after him. People had missed their doctor, it seemed, and wanted him back. It was a real red-letter day when he could snap to the catches of his gloves again, and mount the step ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... To-day was a red-letter day for the sturdy beggars, for the news flew fast that an ovation of some popular kind was to be given to the Bourgeois Philibert. The habitans came trooping up the rough mountain-road that leads from the Basse Ville to the Upper Town; ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... each past "red-letter day"! Forget not all the sunshine of the way By which the Lord hath led thee; answered prayers, And joys unasked, strange blessings, lifted cares, Grand promise-echoes! Thus thy life shall be One record of His love ...
— Daily Strength for Daily Needs • Mary W. Tileston
... Fete, Or Show, but in pursuit express Of my predestinated mate; And thus to me, who had in sight The happy chance upon the cards, Each beauty blossom'd in the light Of tender personal regards; And, in the records of my breast, Red-letter'd, eminently fair, Stood sixteen, who, beyond the rest, By turns till then had been my care: At Berlin three, one at St. Cloud, At Chatteris, near Cambridge, one, At Ely four, in London two, Two at Bowness, in Paris none, ...
— The Angel in the House • Coventry Patmore
... and industrious woman, who did not often leave her home, or allow her children to run wild. Once a year, however, there was a big dramatic performance at Kucheng, and then Everlasting Pearl, dressed in her best, was taken to the theatre. These were red-letter days in her life. Chinese plays are mostly very stupid. Often immoral, and almost invariably connected with idolatry, they are a snare to some of the people when they want to break with everything idolatrous. But to the little country girl the ...
— Everlasting Pearl - One of China's Women • Anna Magdalena Johannsen
... to say which day of all his life had been the most thoroughly enjoyable, he would probably have answered that the seventh of his voyage from New York to Liverpool was the red-letter day of his life. The sea was as calm as it was possible for a sea to be. The sun shone bright and warm. Towards the latter part of the day they saw the mountains of Wales, which, from the steamer's deck, seemed but a low range of hills. It did not detract from Morris's enjoyment to know that ...
— In a Steamer Chair And Other Stories • Robert Barr
... week she gave to him, and arriving late, he usually stayed for dinner and for music afterward. Those were his red-letter days. The atmosphere of the house, in such contrast with that in which he lived, and the mere nearness to her, sent him forth each time with a firmer grip on his resolve to climb the heights. In spite of the beauty in him, and the ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... so young as to expose myself to being called forward—an imputation and a word I had always loathed; as well as a hinted reminder that people usually got over their early extravagance. "I assure you that for me this is a red-letter day," I added. ...
— The Author of Beltraffio • Henry James
... roaming over the broad acres, with the happy thought in our hearts that this was to be our home, will ever be a red-letter day ...
— The Romance and Tragedy • William Ingraham Russell
... horrid!" laughed Merle. "You can't expect Cupid to know the difference! He's sent me some nice things. Aren't there any more saints in the calendar who bring presents? What's the next red-letter day?" ...
— Monitress Merle • Angela Brazil
... The Dollar Magazine it made a great noise in the world and a red-letter day in the life ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard
... them. But what other woman could have done it! She led superbly. If an Irishman was present, she kept him from overflooding, managed to extract just the flavour of him, the smack of salt. She did even, at Whitmonby's table, on a red-letter Sunday evening, in concert with him and the Dean, bring down that cataract, the Bodleian, to the levels of interchanging dialogue by seasonable touches, inimitably done, and never done before. Sullivan Smith, unbridled ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... day was a very memorable day for Jack. The day after a falling in love is always a red-letter day; but the day after the ...
— The Rejuvenation of Aunt Mary • Anne Warner
... Deans' bell at exactly half past seven o'clock. Her blue eyes were sparkling with joyous light, and her usually grave mouth broke into little curves of happiness. It was to be a red-letter ...
— Marjorie Dean High School Freshman • Pauline Lester
... taken it as he did his wages every Saturday night. Right conduct in this case was obvious; but he never had any spending of his money, and he was suffering from candy hunger. He was ravenous for the sweets that only on red-letter days he had ever tasted ...
— When God Laughs and Other Stories • Jack London
... he rode Pilldarlick to the new school marked another red-letter day in the life of Panhandle Smith, cowboy. There were many boys and a few girls who had come to attend the school, only a few of whom had horses to ride. Pan was the proud cynosure of all eyes as he rode Pilldarlick ...
— Valley of Wild Horses • Zane Grey
... at length enough of the diversions and interests which lay close at our own doors. But these delights pale by the side of those red-letter days when we went far afield to keep a holiday among the mountains. We shall not see the like of those days again! On such mornings, the hotel steps and the esplanade would be dotted with anxious groups waiting for breakfast, and observing the omens of the sky. If these are favourable, a ...
— Uppingham by the Sea - a Narrative of the Year at Borth • John Henry Skrine
... train. Stewart, lowering a window, bought from a boy on the platform beer and sausages and a bag of pretzels. As the train resumed its clanking progress they ate luncheon, drinking the beer from the bottles and slicing the sausage with a penknife. It was a joyous trip, a red-letter day in the girl's rather sordid if not uneventful life. The Herr Doktor was pleased with her. He liked her hat, and when she flushed with pleasure demanded proof that she was not rouged. Proof was forthcoming. She rubbed her cheeks vigorously ...
— The Street of Seven Stars • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... superiority &c 33; notability &c (repute) 873; weight &c (influence) 175; value &c (goodness) 648; usefulness &c 644. gravity, seriousness, solemnity; no joke, no laughing matter; pressure, urgency, stress; matter of life and death. memorabilia, notabilia^, great doings; red-letter day. great thing, great point; main chance, the be all and the end all [Macbeth]; cardinal point; substance, gist &c (essence) 5; sum and substance, gravamen, head and front; important part, principal part, prominent part, essential part; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... are scarcely calculated to prove equally epochal to the man himself. In a community where next to no note is ever taken of the anniversary of his birth, some doubt as to the special significance of that red-letter day may not unnaturally creep into his own mind. While in regard to his death, although it may be highly flattering for him to know that he will certainly become somebody when he shall have ceased, practically, to be anybody, such tardy recognition is scarcely timely enough to be properly appreciated. ...
— The Soul of the Far East • Percival Lowell
... "It was a red-letter day when I put Number One in the great glass case and took out the skeleton that I had bought from the dealer to occupy its place until it was ready. The substitute was no longer needed and I accordingly dismantled ...
— The Uttermost Farthing - A Savant's Vendetta • R. Austin Freeman
... Yet another red-letter time on the calendar is the laying season of the terns. Then the fancies of the blacks lightly turn to thoughts of "Tan-goorah" (bonito) and other strong-flavoured fish. So that the young shall not lack, nor suffer hunger, the hatching is coincident with the appearance of immense shoals of young ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... foregather at some village in the Alps, Lattery coming from a Government Office in Whitehall, Chayne now from some garrison town in England, now from Malta or from Alexandria, and sometimes from a still farther dependency. Usually they had climbed together for six weeks, although there were red-letter years when the six weeks were extended to eight, six weeks during which they lived for the most part on the high level of the glaciers, sleeping in huts, or mountain inns, or beneath the stars, and coming down only for a few hours now and then into ...
— Running Water • A. E. W. Mason
... was a red-letter day with the garrison, who made a sortie under the impression that Methuen was not far off, and that they were assisting his operations. The attack was made upon one of the Boer positions by a force consisting of a detachment of the ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... life in dingy Brixton, this afternoon was a red-letter day. The soft, clean air which blew in her face was different from the stagnant air of the Brixton streets; the scent of flowers was grateful after the odours of the City, and the vision, now and then, of the flashing river was ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes
... a red-letter day, when Dodgson of the Record wired for a special article, which probably meant two guineas on the morrow. On those occasions Lalage always went down to the office with Jimmy to hand in the copy because, as Jimmy declared, ...
— People of Position • Stanley Portal Hyatt
... be duped by this clumsy stratagem. In those happy days when the discovery of a nest marked a red-letter day, I never saw my Sparrows or Greenfinches refuse a Locust because he was not moving, or a Fly because she was dead. Any mouthful that does not kick is eagerly accepted, provided that it be fresh and pleasant ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre
... ran,—"Send me a hundredweight, in separate pounds, of heat, cold, wet, dry, murder, fire, dreadful robbery, atrocious outrage, fearful calamity, and alarming explosion." But nothing could daunt or stop Walter. One eccentricity of the Daily Register was that on red-letter days the title was printed in red ink, and the character of the day stated under the date-line. For instance, on Friday, August 11, 1786, there is a red heading, and ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... hard, but his own enthusiasm was so contagious that he soon had them as eager as he was, and the afternoon when they kept the 'varsity from scoring during two twelve-minute periods was a red-letter day, and supper that evening was almost like a banquet. Fortunately the 'varsity table and the second team table were separated by the width of the hall. Otherwise the 'varsity fellows might have taken exception ...
— Left Tackle Thayer • Ralph Henry Barbour
... May 7.—A big red-letter day; viz., the Lord Mayor's reception. The whole house upset. I had to get dressed at half-past six, as Carrie wanted the room to herself. Mrs. James had come up from Sutton to help Carrie; so I could not help thinking it unreasonable that she should require the entire attention of Sarah, ...
— The Diary of a Nobody • George Grossmith and Weedon Grossmith
... Mr. Andersen took her hands in a fervent clasp. "Do you know this is going to be a red-letter day in my life,—one of the happiest of days? Your mother sent me up here on a venture. First, I found Miss Underhill, and now you. And one might go all over the world and miss one's best friends. ...
— A Little Girl of Long Ago • Amanda Millie Douglas
... over them in Mijamid; the whole population is assembled en masse before the chapar-khana. The combination of the bicycle, three Ferenghis, and, above all, two Ferenghi ladies, is an event that will form a red-letter mark in the history of Mijamid for generations of unborn Persian ryots to talk about and ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... whole, old Deschamps, a French-Canadian, who murdered the disabled even when they cried for quarter, drew forth as he detailed his valorous actions to Alexander Macdonell, the exclamation, "What a fine, vigorous old man he is!" On the evening of this Red-letter day of the visit to the Indian encampment and to Seven Oaks, a wild and heathenish orgy took place. The Bois-brules bedecked their naked bodies with Indian trinkets and executed the dance of victory, as had done their savage ...
— The Romantic Settlement of Lord Selkirk's Colonists - The Pioneers of Manitoba • George Bryce
... It was a red-letter day for the pressed man. A single stroke of the official pen had raised him from starvation to opulence, and thenceforward, when food was cheap and the purchasing power of the penny high, he regaled himself daily, as at Limerick in 1814, on such abundant fare as a pound ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... Siberia and Japan, of Ireland even! There was no difficulty anywhere; no apparent concealment of views and opinions. But there was also no carelessness and no indiscretion. I came away feeling that I had seen a remarkable man, on one of the red-letter days of his life; revolving, too, an old Greek tag which ...
— Fields of Victory • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... here upon a most auspicious day, a red-letter day for me and my poor house, when all are welcome. Suffer me, with all delicacy, to inquire if you are not in ...
— The Plays of W. E. Henley and R. L. Stevenson
... seventies, in the simplicity which is given to the understanding of a child, caught a notion of imperishable heroism when they were told that brave men had lost their lives that the slaves might be free. At any moment the conversation of our elders might turn upon these heroic events; there were red-letter days, when a certain general came to see my father, and again when Governor Oglesby, whom all Illinois children called "Uncle Dick," spent a Sunday under the pine trees in our front yard. We felt on those days a connection with the great world so much more ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams
... Biddell went round and took up a collection. The men arranged a football match for our benefit, to show their gratitude, and played so well and were so picturesque that Sir John and other ardent sportsmen pressed more money upon them. It was altogether a red-letter day for the camel-boys, quite apart from the fact that they would get rid of their noble benefactors to-morrow; and by way of a climax they had what we supposed to be a ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... left La Pierriere what can well be looked back to as a red-letter day was spent in sports and a full programme of entertainments, including the Divisional 'Frolics,' who were prevailed on to perform in a farmyard. Jimmy Kirk also brought his coaching party of clowns—who on this occasion avoided a conflict ...
— The Story of the 2/4th Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry • G. K. Rose
... Now this was his red-letter day. Harry was in luck. Therefore it was not one of the many servants of the establishment, or any straggling acquaintance that had joined in the search. Luckily, it was not one of these, or the cross Betty, ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 5, No. 6, June, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... good time, for one more communion. With what pleasure I recall those few hours. How happy we were! How social and loving and dear we were to one another! In the many years passed since then, there is no red-letter day like that one. We were about twenty in number. There were fourteen of us between the ages of fifteen and twenty-one years. The remainder were older. We filled a table in the reading room. Little we cared if we sat crowded close together, ...
— Brook Farm • John Thomas Codman
... He owned 3,000 sheep, which he ran on two sections of leased land and many thousands of acres neither leased nor owned. Three or four times a year some one who spoke his language would ride up to his gate and exchange a few bald ideas with him. Those were red-letter days to old man Ellison. Then in what illuminated, embossed, and gorgeously decorated capitals must have been written the day on which a troubadour—a troubadour who, according to the encyclopaedia, should have flourished between the eleventh and the thirteenth centuries—drew ...
— Sixes and Sevens • O. Henry
... pleased, I'm sure,' he said, 'to give the echo to Mr Palmer's kind words. I should have been the first to render expression to them but for the face not being familiar to me, Mr Humphreys. May your residence among us be marked as a red-letter day, sir.' 'Thank you very much, Mr Cooper,' said Humphreys, 'for your good wishes, and Mr Palmer also. I do hope very much that this change of—er—tenancy—which you must all regret, I am sure—will not be to the detriment of those with whom I shall be brought ...
— Ghost Stories of an Antiquary - Part 2: More Ghost Stories • Montague Rhodes James
... Thanksgiving! The nose of Memory—why shouldn't Memory have a nose?—dilates with pleasure over the rich perfume of Miss Abigail's forty mince-pies, each one more delightful than the other, like the Sultan's forty wives. Christmas was another red-letter day, though it was not so generally observed in New England as ...
— The Story of a Bad Boy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... rather sorry crew that embarked the following morning, April 15. But it turned out a red-letter day. The day before, we had come across cuttings, a year old, which were probably but not certainly made by pioneer rubbermen. But on this day—during which we made twenty-five kilometres—after running two hours and a half we found on the left bank a board on a post, with the initials J. A., ...
— Through the Brazilian Wilderness • Theodore Roosevelt
... 1906, is a red-letter day in the history of aviation, for it was then that Santos Dumont made his first little flight in an aeroplane. This took place at Bagatelle, ...
— The Mastery of the Air • William J. Claxton
... Father asked him every manner of question. He was full of enthusiasm for the great things our Father Ramoni has done. He is the greatest man in Rome to-day, is Ramoni. He will be honored by the Holy See. The Pope showed it plainly. This is a red-letter day for our Community." The little priest paused for breath, then hastened on. "Rome knows that our Father Ramoni has come back," he cried, "and Rome has ...
— The City and the World and Other Stories • Francis Clement Kelley
... sitting around the fire in the front room when Graham made the announcement, and forthwith it was unanimously decided that the closing day of the boys' visit must be a red-letter occasion in the annals of the summer. Enough suggestions were offered to provide a week's entertainment for people who object to taking their pleasures strenuously. In addition to outlining plans for the morrow, it had been tacitly agreed to make the most of the present, and this had resulted ...
— Peggy Raymond's Vacation - or Friendly Terrace Transplanted • Harriet L. (Harriet Lummis) Smith
... photographers incessantly employed in producing sun-pictures of all the treasures and curiosities in his possession. One complete copy of the collection of the photographs is to be presented to the Mechanics' Institution of Carlisle, mounted on the finest cardboard, with ostentatious red-letter inscriptions underneath, "Madonna and Child by Raphael. In the possession of Frederick Fairlie, Esquire." "Copper coin of the period of Tiglath Pileser. In the possession of Frederick Fairlie, Esquire." "Unique Rembrandt etching. Known all over Europe as THE SMUDGE, from a ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins
... civilization which enable us in our day to see that the only true way to observe Thanksgiving is to shut up the churches and revel in the spiritual glories of the flying wedge and the triumphant touchdown. [Laughter.] Their calendar had three great red-letter days of celebration: Commencement day, which expressed and emphasized the foremost place they gave to education in their civil and religious polity; Training or Muster day, which illustrated the spirit and the skill that gave them victory over the Indians and made them stand undaunted on Bunker ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... a red-letter day to Jim. He kept his visitor until the last possible moment, and stood at the window looking after him till the straight little figure in khaki swung around a corner and was gone. Then with a long happy breath he turned to Laura and said, half apologetically, half appealingly, "You see ...
— The Torch Bearer - A Camp Fire Girls' Story • I. T. Thurston
... called, after the close of business, upon General and Mrs. Grant, whom he had met before, and who had expressed a desire to see his collection. It can readily be imagined what a red-letter day it made in the boy's life to have General Grant say: "It might be better for us all to go down to dinner first and see the collection afterward." Edward had purposely killed time between five and seven o'clock, thinking that ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok (1863-1930)
... special reports of our new member's speeches. Indeed, the interest and excitement at these political gatherings was often feverish in its intensity, and for many years Mr. Bright's visits to Birmingham were red-letter days in ...
— A Tale of One City: The New Birmingham - Papers Reprinted from the "Midland Counties Herald" • Thomas Anderton
... for The Burlington Hawkeye and told stories superbly, on his first visit to New York was spirited to a notable club, where he told stories leisurely until half the hearers ached with laughter, and the other half were threatened with apoplexy. Everyone present declared it the red-letter night of the club, and members who had missed it came around and demanded the stories at secondhand. Some efforts were made to oblige them, but without avail, for the tellers had twisted their recollections of the stories ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume I. (of X.) • Various
... no more company after that evening, for which she was not sorry; but that had been a red-letter day to her—not soon, perhaps never, ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... criminals, notably of Troppman. Troppman was before my time, monsieur, but the day that his seven victims were publicly exposed there—" he pointed with his thumb to the inconspicuous door through which he had just wheeled Number 4—"ah, that was a red-letter day for the Morgue! Eighteen thousand people came to gaze on those seven bodies. And it was lucky, monsieur, that in those days we were open to the public, for it was the landlord of their hotel who recognised ...
— The End of Her Honeymoon • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... was found to be their home, and a nest has been found in Alaska and several others in Labrador. My only sight of these birds was of a pair perched in an elm tree in East Orange, New Jersey; but I will never forget it, and will never cease to hope for another such red-letter day. ...
— The Log of the Sun - A Chronicle of Nature's Year • William Beebe
... kitchen, fared better. She was not dazed nor exhausted. Wednesdays and Saturdays came to be, indeed, red-letter days to her. ...
— Pollyanna • Eleanor H. Porter
... little boy just half-past seven who had just read "Huckleberry Finn" and "Tom Sawyer." He said: "If there are any more books like them in the world, send them to me quick." I had to humbly confess to him that if there were any others I had not the good fortune to know of them. What a red-letter-day it is to a boy, the day he first opens "Tom Sawyer." I would rather sail on the raft down the Missouri again with "Huck" Finn and Jim than go down the Nile in December or see Venice from a gondola in May. Certainly Mark Twain is much better when he writes of his Missouri boys ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather
... begin to know the different types; he would learn to distinguish between the patrons of The Dancing Times and of The Vote, The Era and The Athenaeum. Delightful surprises would overwhelm him at intervals; as when—a red-letter day in all the great stations—a gentleman in a check waistcoat makes the double purchase of Homer's Penny Stories and The Spectator. On those occasions, and they would be very rare, his faith in human nature would begin to ooze ...
— Not that it Matters • A. A. Milne
... alive who remember the name of George Dawson. There used to be thousands who recognized it with veneration and affection. He was my first chief, editor of the Birmingham Morning News, and had been my idol for years. My red-letter nights were when he came over to my native town of West Bromwich to lecture for the Young Men's Christian Association there on Tennyson, 'Vanity Fair,' Oliver Goldsmith, ...
— The Making Of A Novelist - An Experiment In Autobiography • David Christie Murray
... influences of this red-letter day had been humanizing, and when Evan Blount remembered the preservation of the old "Circle-Bar" ranch-house, and the motive which had prompted it, he told his brief love-tale, hiding nothing—not ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde
... day was a red-letter one in Albert's history. In the morning he followed Uncle Terry around the circuit of his lobster traps in the "Gypsy's" boat, with Telly as a companion, and watched the old man hauling and rebaiting those elongated coops and taking out his hideous prizes. ...
— Uncle Terry - A Story of the Maine Coast • Charles Clark Munn
... Friday, 16th February.—A red-letter day, and all quiet in camp. Fitted rollers under my gun trails. News came that General French had relieved Kimberley, and there was ...
— With the Naval Brigade in Natal (1899-1900) - Journal of Active Service • Charles Richard Newdigate Burne
... the chief match of the season, and might in years to come have always looked back with pleasure on this twenty-fourth of July. Unfortunately another event of a sadly different character was destined to make it a red-letter day in his career at Ronleigh. The feeling of respect and good-will which his prowess in the field had awakened in the minds of his former friends afforded him a splendid opportunity for reassociating himself with all that was worthy ...
— The Triple Alliance • Harold Avery
... opened the envelope, and forgot the crack of muskets in the document it contained. This was the first constitution for New Zealand, and he was instructed to introduce the same. He didn't; only that is a very red-letter tale. It should be told simply, as Sir George Grey ...
— The Romance of a Pro-Consul - Being The Personal Life And Memoirs Of The Right Hon. Sir - George Grey, K.C.B. • James Milne
... mostly the occasion for as much fraternisation as their fragmentary knowledge of each other's speech allows; the Frenchman is proud to show his line, the Britisher is proud to take it over; there are laughter and eager good will; on the whole, it is a red-letter day. But sometimes there strikes in a note "too deep for tears." Here is a fragment from an account of a "taking over," ...
— Towards The Goal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... bits of history or legends which explained names or some natural phenomenon. The boom of the surf announced the end of the journey. As the Mountaineers left the canoes on the beach at Taholah, it was agreed that the trip down the Quiniault marked the red-letter day ...
— The Beauties of the State of Washington - A Book for Tourists • Harry F. Giles
... in time became the typical one of the South, where it was the red-letter day of the year, the most joyous of all holidays. The churches were lovingly and tastefully decorated with boughs of green and flowers by the ladies themselves and conscientiously attended by both old and young. In the South there was never any of the somberness that attended ...
— Yule-Tide in Many Lands • Mary P. Pringle and Clara A. Urann
... But you must promise me this, that, when I live in Vienna, you will often visit me. Of course, no one need know anything about it, if you do not care that they should. But you may believe me—every day on which I may be allowed to see you will be a red-letter day for me and that, in all the world, there is nobody who loves you in such a true and life-long manner ...
— Bertha Garlan • Arthur Schnitzler
... at its height in those red-letter days when a high state of culture had been attained, and great personalities produced masterpieces in art, music, and literature. The progress of the sciences and of man's natural activity has directed the spirit of the age towards material progress; the ideals of mankind tend to ...
— Rudolph Eucken • Abel J. Jones
... go to bed; but I know I can not sleep. To-morrow is to be, beyond all question, a red-letter day in the matter of the captain's murder. And once again, against my will, I am down to play a ...
— The Agony Column • Earl Derr Biggers
... on January 24, and in the Speech from the Throne a Reform Bill was promised. It was brought forward by Lord John Russell on March 1—the twenty-ninth anniversary of a red-letter day in his life, the introduction of the first Reform Bill. He proposed to reduce the county franchise to 10l. qualification, and the borough to 6l.; one member was to be taken from each borough with a population ...
— Lord John Russell • Stuart J. Reid
... pleasure to resort to the gatherings of their people, where religion, business, and amusement are very happily combined, and where there is so much to interest, exhilarate, and gratify them. These times are to them the red-letter days of the year, without which life would be intolerably dull. Resort to these gatherings no doubt involves them in toil, in expense, and sometimes in great suffering; but they do not shrink from the cost, as they anticipate ...
— Life and Work in Benares and Kumaon, 1839-1877 • James Kennedy |
