"Christening" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the ring of lodges announcing in singsong fashion the christening, and inviting everybody to a feast in honor of the event. A real American christening is always a gala occasion, when much savage wealth is distributed among the poor and old people. Winona has only ...
— Indian Child Life • Charles A. Eastman
... business gentleman, who boasted to me that he had never been sold before by any one—will show faintly how clever the Gipsy women are at lying, deception, and cheating:—Three pretty, well-dressed Gipsy women went into his shop one day last summer, and said that they had arranged to have a christening on the morrow, and as beer got into the heads of their men, and made them wild, which they did not like to see on such occasions, they had decided to have a quiet, little, respectable affair, and in place of beer they were going to have ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... boy. Mehetabel's family want him named Elkanah Elkins, after her grandfather; I want him named Andrew Jackson. We compromise by christening him Elkanah Elkins Andrew Jackson Jaffrey. Rather a long name for such a short little fellow," said ...
— Miss Mehetabel's Son • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... peculiarities. He would look at a stranger for some time, and then, without warning or explanation, would give him a name. And the name stuck. No regimental penalties could break Wee Willie Winkie of this habit. He lost his good-conduct badge for christening the Commissioner's wife "Pobs"; but nothing that the Colonel could do made the Station forego the nickname, and Mrs. Collen remained Mrs. "Pobs" till the end of her stay. So Brandis was christened "Coppy," and rose, therefore, in the estimation of ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... evening of the christening party, a band of musicians and jugglers happened to pass through the village, and the inhabitants showed themselves liberal. Pierre asked questions, and found that the leader of the band was a Spaniard. He ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... and Allemaine. "A noble captive is in my train. She hath hearkened to sermon and homily, And a true believer in Christ will be; Baptize her so that her soul have grace." They say, "Let ladies of noble race, At her christening, be her sponsors vowed." And so there gathered a mighty crowd. At the baths of Aix was the wondrous scene— There baptized they the Spanish queen; Julienne they have named her name. In faith and truth unto ...
— The Harvard Classics, Volume 49, Epic and Saga - With Introductions And Notes • Various
... both handes alike. Right-hand, or left-hand as Peeres with mutuall paritie, without disparagement may be please your Honors to joyne hand in hand, an so jointly to lende an eare (and lende it I beseech you) to a poore man, that invites your Honors to a christening, that I and my poore studies, like Philemon and Baucis, may in so lowe a cottage entertaine so high, if not deities, yet dignities; of whom the ...
— Shakespeare's Lost Years in London, 1586-1592 • Arthur Acheson
... was married in the year 1677. He appears to have left Cremona for Mantua soon after the year 1698. He visited Cremona about the period when his father died; in which year he appears to have acted as god-father at the christening of his brother Joseph's son Bartolommeo. Pietro returned to Mantua, and later went to Venice, where he is said to have ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart
... they passed the line. This was a day of great merriment and disorder among the crew: it was the ceremony which the English sailors call the "christening." No one is spared; and the officers are generally more roughly handled than any one else. The Admiral, who had previously amused himself by giving an alarming description of this ceremony, now very courteously exempted his guests from the inconvenience ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... who lived once upon a time, build a castle of steel, defended by moats and sentinels innumerable, in which they place their darling only child, the Prince or Princess, whose birth has blessed them after so many years of marriage, and whose christening feast has been interrupted by the cantankerous humour of that notorious old fairy who always persists in coming, although she has not received any invitation to the baptismal ceremony: when Prince Prettyman is locked up in the steel tower, ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... replied Michael quietly; 'but it is rather a serious fainting fit, and I must ask you to leave her to me, Mr. O'Brien. There is my card. I shall be at Rutherford, and will try to see you to-morrow—no, not to-morrow, there is the christening—but the next day. I will come over to Vineyard Cottage; there, we are stopping. Please send a porter to me.' And then Michael turned again ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... was now about to turn. The Government in Paris sent a far stronger force into the Bocage, and desolated it in a cruel manner. Clisson was burnt to the ground with the very fireworks which had been prepared for the christening of its master's eldest child, and which had not been used because of the sorrowful days when she was born. M. de Lescure had long expected its destruction, but had not chosen to remove the furniture, ...
— A Book of Golden Deeds • Charlotte M. Yonge
... to a clergyman in England is very often in opposition to his duty. To eke out a scanty remuneration, he sets up a school or takes in pupils. Now if the duties of a clergyman consisted in merely reading the services on a Sunday, and christening, burying, and marrying, he might well do so; but the real duties of a clergyman are much more important. His duty is to watch over the lives and conduct of his parishioners, to exhort, persuade, and threaten, if necessary; to ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... railway across British territory to the Pacific has been claimed by many. To my mind, all valuable credit attaches to those who have completed the work. The christening of "La Chine"—the town seven miles from Montreal, where the canals which go round the rapids end, and the St. Lawrence and the Ottawa rivers join their differently coloured streams—contained the prophecy of a future great high road to the then mysterious East, to China, to Japan, to Australia; ...
— Canada and the States • Edward William Watkin
... little one of all—poor child! She had cost that dear and precious life. Once Sir Arthur spoke my lady's name, When the baby's gloomy christening came, And he ...
— Legends and Lyrics: Second Series • Adelaide Anne Procter
... youngest;—arrived in a procession, tailing one behind another up the path. Caliban was absent, but he had been chary of his friendly visits since the row; and with that exception, the whole family was gathered together as for a marriage or a christening. Strong was sitting at work, in the shade of the dwarf madronas near the forge; and they planted themselves about him in a circle, one on a stone, another on the waggon rails, a third on a piece of plank. Gradually the children stole away up the canyon to where there was ...
— The Silverado Squatters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... churches, he buries, he follows with pious offices his fellow creature from the cradle to the grave; for what immense income! what riches to reward these inestimable services? (Do not depend on the penury of the laity, let his own order value his deserts.) L50 a year! L50! for praying, for christening, for marrying, for churching, for burying, for following with Christian offices his fellow-creature from cradle to grave; so frugal a thing is devotion, so cheap religion, so easy the terms on which man may worship ...
— Thomas Davis, Selections from his Prose and Poetry • Thomas Davis
... bands of lace all down it, as long as that; and a white christening cloak sewn with white ...
— Life and Death of Harriett Frean • May Sinclair
... a hotch-potch of religion made up of Popery and Paganism and calculated to leave the latter rather worse than they found it, binding the faith of Christ and the philosophy or morals of Confucius together, and formally christening them by the name of religion; by which means the politick interest of the mission was preserved; and yet Satan lost not one inch of ground with the Chineses, no, not by the planting the Gospel it self, such as it was, ...
— The History of the Devil - As Well Ancient as Modern: In Two Parts • Daniel Defoe
... to stand godmother to the child of Alvarado and of her friend Dona Martina, his wife. She arrived the morning before the christening, and no one thought to tell her that Estenega was to be godfather. The house was full of girls, relatives of the young mother, gathered for the ceremony and subsequent week of festivities. Benicia, my little one, was at the rancho with Ysabel ...
— The Doomswoman - An Historical Romance of Old California • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... Princess was a bonnie, precocious little girl. At her christening it was said, greatly to his embarrassment, she kissed the ascetic bishop who held her at the font; this was taken as an omen of her success in the service of Prince Cupid! Brought up with her two sisters and her brothers, ...
— The Tragedies of the Medici • Edgcumbe Staley
... can I get funny when I'm already funny? I was born funny—they had fun with me at the christening, and I expect they'll have the divil's own time with ...
— Snow on the Headlight - A Story of the Great Burlington Strike • Cy Warman
... grand christening and the highest in the land were among the assembled guests. There was more than one Royal Personage present, and many lords and ladies and ambassadors and plenipotentiaries and all manner of dignified and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Feb. 26, 1919 • Various
... seriously of pinning a green stripe to a yellow polka-dotted weave which had once formed part of Mrs. Macy's mother's christening-robe, when Susan opened her lips and addressed her. The attack was so sudden that the proprietor of the crazy-work started violently and dropped the piece of the christening-robe; but the slight accident had no ...
— Susan Clegg and Her Friend Mrs. Lathrop • Anne Warner
... you little Edgar's christening robe for Harold,' she said. 'I never could bear to part with it before but I don't mind his having it. Open my wardrobe, Charlotte, and you will find it folded away in a blue paper, in ...
— How It All Came Round • L. T. Meade
... attention. She was still absorbed with the twins, who, Mandy Ann told her, had worn her white frock at their christening. Mandy Ann had not yet heard of the finding of the marriage certificate, and when Jake told her she ...
— The Cromptons • Mary J. Holmes
... the last fragment, they smeared it with the pitch and tar and rosin they had brought, and sprinkled it with turpentine. To all the woodwork round the prison doors they did the like, leaving not a joist or beam untouched. This infernal christening performed, they fired the pile with lighted matches and with blazing tow, and then stood ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... very well that there is something false and vulgar in it; and that the work which cannot be truly priced in money cannot be truly paid in money. He can, of course, say that the priest takes money for reading the marriage service, for christening the new-born babe, and for saying the last office for the dead; that the physician sells healing; that justice itself is paid for; and that he is merely a party to the thing that is and must be. He can say that, as the thing is, unless he sells his art he cannot live, that ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... for the ceremony a village church on the Dixmude road. They put all the little necessary bundles of baby life into Hilda's ambulance—a packet of little shawls, and intimate clothing, a basket of things to eat, a great christening cake, frosted by Dunkirk's leading confectioner, a can of chocolate and of cream, candy baskets of sweets. It was Sunday—a cloudless, innocent day. They dodged through Furnes, the ruined, and came at length to the village of their quest. They entered the convent, and found ...
— Young Hilda at the Wars • Arthur Gleason
... had shut every door and window, and stuffed up every keyhole that they might not be overheard, they talked the affair over, and decided that every fairy for a thousand leagues round should be invited to the christening of the Princess, and that the time of the ceremony should be kept a profound secret, in case the Fairy Carabosse should take it into ...
— The Red Fairy Book • Various
... exclamation on hearing of the event. 'Then she will never be of any more use.' In fact, she said, it was much to him like having a curate disabled, and she believed he could only be consoled by the hopes of a pattern christening, and of a nursery for his school-girls; but there Winifred shook her head, Fairmead had a prior claim, and Albinia had long had her eye upon a scholar ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the overhappy parents examined the letters; and these, as well as the clothes, convinced them that this second Crescentia was their child, the twin sister of her that died, whom at her christening they had named Cecilia. In the morning the father fetcht the lovely pale girl from the convent; and she felt as though in heaven at belonging to such noble parents, and at having again found a youth who adored her, and to whom on ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck
... through the crevice between them, and then he began to disengage from his watch-chain the golden nugget, shaped to a rude sphere, which hung there. This done, he asked if he might put it on the little necklace—a christening gift from Mrs. Halleck—which the baby had on, to see how it looked. It looked very well, like an old Roman bolla, though neither Kinney nor Marcia knew it. "Guess we'll let it stay there," he ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... the cottage was stained with wet, and the eavesdroppings flapped against the wall. Yet never was commiseration for the shepherd more misplaced. For that cheerful rustic was entertaining a large party in glorification of the christening of his ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various
... rang the glad acclaim! The Captain stooped and picked it up, 'Be then the Olive Branch her name,' Cried she who flung the christening cup. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... not take this as a serious suggestion; nevertheless, Julia told Mr. Frazer on the platform at Marbridge that she and Violet had been having a christening, and that she was now Julia Snooks. Mr. Ponsonby said it was ridiculous, ...
— The Good Comrade • Una L. Silberrad
... bishop to settle this difficulty. The Lord Almighty alone can make Pulpit and Pew what they ought to be. You both need to be baptized over again!" Then, taking up a silver bowl that stood on the communion table, half full of the water yesterday used at a babe's christening, I stood between the belligerents, and sprinkled Pew and Pulpit with a Christian baptism, in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost. And when I got through, I could not tell whether Pew or Pulpit said ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage
... is a reasonable cause, just as there is for a funeral luncheon, or a christening dinner. There has been in each instance a trying ordeal to be gone through in a public church. It is quite right that there should be eating and drinking, and a certain amount of jollification afterwards amongst the unoffending guests who have been dragged in as spectators on the occasion. ...
— Vera Nevill - Poor Wisdom's Chance • Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron
... in another scene, Stella long dead, but first the Dean, May fortune and her coffee get her Companions that will please her better! Whole afternoons will sit beside her, Nor for neglects or blunders chide her. A goodly set as can be found Of hearty gossips prating round; Fresh from a wedding or a christening, To teach her ears the art of listening, And please her more to hear them tattle, Than the Dean storm, or Stella rattle. Late be her death, one gentle nod, When Hermes,[3] waiting with his rod, Shall to Elysian fields invite her, Where there will be no ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... and quivering green, and blue; And in the shade beyond the further door, Its sober squares of black and white were hid Beneath a restless, shuffling, wide-eyed mob Of lackeys and retainers come to view The Christening. A sudden blare of trumpets, and the throng About the entrance parted as the guests Filed singly in with rare and precious gifts. Our eager fancies noted all they brought, The glorious, unattainable delights! But always there was one unbidden guest ...
— A Dome of Many-Coloured Glass • Amy Lowell
... and truth and feeling, but none of it must bear too direct, says you—on the parties present or the occasion, be it wedding or funeral, or christening, or a mere social affair like the Harvest Home yonder. I see how it is with you; you can't always help it, for you can't always control your thoughts and likewise your words, not having ...
— Ringfield - A Novel • Susie Frances Harrison
... "Morning Post" does of a noble family from the Continent, and could tell their whereabouts twice as accurately. But his talents took a wider range than field sports afford, and he was the faithful chronicler of every wake, station, wedding, or christening for miles round; and as I took no small pleasure in those very national pastimes, the information was of great value to me. To conclude this brief sketch, Mike was a devout Catholic in the same sense that he was enthusiastic about anything,—that ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... tiny articles,—linen, stockings, a rattle with the distinct impress of its nationality, and several neatly folded dresses, among which a long, white, elaborately embroidered one, marked by a slip of paper as "Baby's Christening Robe." ...
— Ilka on the Hill-Top and Other Stories • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... we ask to be allowed to join your guests, and attend the christening. The baptism of a first-born child is a ceremony which touches my heart, and yours, also, does it not?" said the stranger to ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... which stood a church, easily distinguished by its walls and tower. When I had arranged matters for the night, I passed through the doorway of this little church, under whose vault the same human story that begins with the christening, receives a new impetus from marriage, and is brought to an end by the funeral, had been repeated by so many sons after their fathers. The air was heavy with the fragrance of roses from the Lady Chapel, where a little lamp gleamed on the ground beside ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... of the public festivals I saw here, was the christening of the imperial princess, which took place on the 15th of November, in the Imperial Chapel, which ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer
... HARCOURT, "is too susceptible in his paternal feelings. We know now who is the father of the progeny. Arranged that BALFOUR shall bring it in for christening ceremony; shall dandle it in his arms, and dilate on its excellences; but everyone can tell from the excited manner, the eager interruption, the restless hovering round the cradle, that JOKIM ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, April 5, 1890 • Various
... she heard that Mrs. Redmond Wrandall and Vivian were to be in Scotland in October, for somebody-or-other's christening, and that Leslie had been doing some really ...
— The Hollow of Her Hand • George Barr McCutcheon
... Florian, men say that at your christening some fiend took on him the likeness of a priest and strove to baptize you in the Devil's name, but God had mercy on you so that the fiend could not choose but baptize you in the name of the most holy Trinity: and yet men say that you hardly believe any doctrine ...
— The Hollow Land • William Morris
... distinction, had determined that her children should have names such as no others had ever had. (It was a mercy—she felt now—that she had just not named Imogen Thisbe.) But it was to George Forsyte, always a wag, that Val's christening was due. It so happened that Dartie, dining with him a week after the birth of his son and heir, had ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... the word of yon scum, you have judged. By the glint o' hate, as you looked into my eyes, I know—for one does not so welcome a stranger beyond the outposts. But, since you have asked, I will tell you; my name is MacNair—Robert MacNair, by my christening—Bob MacNair, in the speech ...
— The Gun-Brand • James B. Hendryx
... Second Empire, and again at the overthrow of the Commune, these alterations wept on, it is seen that the puzzle offered to Paris people in general, and to Paris postmen in particular, must be anything but amusing. Should the Third Republic perish to-morrow, a new christening of streets would have to be made; but the event only would determine whether the new names should celebrate Imperialism, or Communism, or Bourbonism, or Orleanism, or each in its turn. It is rather strange ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - April, 1873, Vol. XI, No. 25. • Various
... taken of their profityng, by seuen examinations, which ware made vpon seuen seueralle daies in the Lente, and so ware thei Baptissed vpon Easter euen, and Whitesondaie euen. Vpon whiche daies, thei ware accustomed to hallowe the christening watre, in euery Paroche. But because this specially of all other, is chiefly necessarie vnto euerlasting saluation: leasse any bodie should die without it, thei decreed that assone as the childe was borne, godfathers ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries - Vol. II • Richard Hakluyt
... Large assortment of best london, hard-metal and common pewter dishes, plates, basons, porringers, quart-pots, tankards, soup-kettles, communion flaggons and cups, christening basons, tea-pots and spoons, bed and close stool ...
— The Olden Time Series, Vol. 4: Quaint and Curious Advertisements • Henry M. Brooks
... these prolific fish there are full as many species as of dogs. But by the German naturalists Muller and Henle, who, in christening the sharks, have bestowed upon them the most heathenish names, they are classed under one family; which family, according to Muller, king-at-arms, is an undoubted branch of the ancient and famous ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... This christening of the Astrarium was turning into a triumph for her; and there was the evening to come ... the evening! It made her forget Trampy, Jimmy, Glass-Eye, everybody. And ... the next day ... her Pa, her Ma, the New Trickers would ...
— The Bill-Toppers • Andre Castaigne
... now their very existence is barely known to the governmental authorities; and the church has ignored them as completely as the state. When they wish to get married they have to spend several months getting down to and back from Manaos or some smaller city; and usually the first christening and the marriage ceremony are held at the same time. They have merely squatter's right to the land, and are always in danger of being ousted by unscrupulous big men who come in late, but with a title technically straight. The land laws ...
— Through the Brazilian Wilderness • Theodore Roosevelt
... to the landing-place. The whole village had congregated there, and with it the full band of music. Tailor Schneck's son, he who had been one of, the cuirassiers at the christening of the crown prince, had arranged and was now conducting the parting ceremonies. Schneck, who was scraping his bass-viol, was the first to see Hansei, and called out in the midst of ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... nothing new in this family," said Josiah Franklin, the father. "This is the fifteenth. Let me take it over to the church and have it christened this very day. There should be no time lost in christening. What say you, friends all? It is a likely boy, and it is best to start him right ...
— True to His Home - A Tale of the Boyhood of Franklin • Hezekiah Butterworth
... of sweet-scented, at ten shillings the hundredweight; for marriage by banns, five shillings; for the preaching of a funeral sermon, forty shillings; for christening'"—began Darden for the Bishop's information. Audrey took her pen and wrote; but before the list of the minister's perquisites had come to an end the door flew open, and a woman with the face of a vixen came hurriedly into the room. With ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... dolorous pride; "it's the only mark o' respect as I can show my sovering. Every time Her Gracious Majesty gets a new grandchild or great-grandchild, Canon, he cooms an' says, 'Margaret, have you any more chickens as wants names?' An' soomtimes the one christening 'ull do for a whole brood; they royal childer has sich ...
— North, South and Over the Sea • M.E. Francis (Mrs. Francis Blundell)
... fresh green branches and coloured flowers. In the poorest village church the floor is strewed with flowers, and before the service begins fresh nosegays are brought in and arranged upon the altar. The baby at its christening, the bride at the altar, the dead body in its bier, are all adorned with flowers. We are told that in the days of Cortes a bouquet of rare flowers was the most valuable gift presented to the ambassadors who visited the court of Montezuma, and it presents a strange ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... Olive-branches in your right hands bearing; Bid ye for me that Charlemagne, the King, In his God's name to shew me his mercy; Ere this new moon wanes, I shall be with him; One thousand men shall be my following; I will receive the rite of christening, Will be his man, my love and faith swearing; Hostages too, he'll have, if so he will." Says Blancandrins: "Much good will come ...
— The Song of Roland • Anonymous
... words will now be devoted to the subject of the numerous names which have belonged to tobacco; many persons conceiving the title of any thing, to be of equal importance with the christening of a person; and surely where the etymology of a name of either person or thing can throw any light upon their respective histories, the time employed thereon can hardly be looked upon as either ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... the first-mentioned rite to which he had been subjected. I thought it great carelessness on the part of the missionary to have omitted the second, and certainly more important, ceremony which I have always understood precedes christening both in the case of infants and of adult converts; and when I thought of the risks we were both incurring I determined that there should be no further delay. Fortunately it was not yet twelve o'clock, so I baptized him at once from one of the ...
— Erewhon • Samuel Butler
... voluptuary is sometimes a poet and the worldling often an honest man, they both lack reason so entirely that reflection revolts equally against the life of both. Vanity, vanity, is their common epitaph. Now, at the soul's christening and initiation into the Life of Reason, the first vow must always be to "renounce the pomps and vanities of this wicked world." A person to whom this means nothing is one to whom, in the end, nothing has meaning. He has not conceived a highest good, ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... Napoleon, while reviving the lace-making of Alencon, specially admired fine old Brussels, and at the birth of his only son, the little "King of Rome," ordered a christening garment covered with the Napoleonic "N's," crowns and cherubs. This was sold in 1903 at Christie's for L120. At the same sale a Court ...
— Chats on Old Lace and Needlework • Emily Leigh Lowes
... small room apart. The poker table, supplemented with a box, was covered with a handsome altar cloth flanked by huge silver candlesticks and vases which had been carried across the plains. Every individual in the community came to church and stayed afterward for the christening. At least twenty men expressed a wish to be god-father to the baby and the proud mother accepted all offers. When the christening was over, William Duncan lurched to his feet, his high-bred face full of tenderness, his long-fingered, ...
— Down the Mother Lode • Vivia Hemphill
... was a rich West Indian merchant, a governor of the Bank of England, a Member of Parliament, who drove into town every day from his country scat in a coach and four, and was content with nothing short of a bishop for the christening of his children. Little Henry, like the rest, had his bishop; but he was obliged to wait for him—for as long as eighteen months. In those days, and even a generation later, as Keble bears witness, there was great laxity in regard to ...
— Eminent Victorians • Lytton Strachey
... to tell the young chaps that they were not on no account to put their hats in the christening font during service." ...
— Under the Greenwood Tree • Thomas Hardy
... let us know what kind of a creature a whig was in that year of our Lord. I would readily assist nomenclators of this costive imagination, and therefore I propose to others of the same size in thinking, that, when they are at a loss about christening a country-seat, instead of straining their invention, they would call it Booby-borough, Fool-brook, Puppy-ford, Coxcomb-hall, Mount-loggerhead, Dunce-hill; which are innocent appellations, proper to express the talents of the owners. But I cannot reconcile myself ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift
... superstition, or what you like, but to him it was a reality. One of the many amusing instances of his devotion to religious rites was the occasion when he and Lady Hamilton stood as godfather and godmother at the christening of their daughter, Horatia Nelson Thompson,[7] by which name she was baptized. To the puritanic, orthodox mind (keeping in view all the circumstances of parentage) this will be looked upon as an act of abominable hypocrisy and sacrilege, but to him ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman
... Voltaire was born at Paris on the 21st of November, 1694. "My dear father," said a letter from a relative to his family in Poitou, "our cousins have another son, born three days ago; Madame Arouet will give me some of the christening sugar-plums for you. She has been very ill, but it is hoped that she is going on better; the infant is not much to look at, having suffered from a fall which his mother had." M. Arouet, the father, of a good middle-class family, had been a notary at the Chatelet, and in ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... a set of silver apostle spoons, so-called because the handle of each represented one of the apostles, and another spoon of beryl ornamented with gold; but none of them seemed to suit the customers, who were looking for a suitable christening gift. ...
— The White Lady of Hazelwood - A Tale of the Fourteenth Century • Emily Sarah Holt
... real holidays, when there was a marriage, a christening, or a funeral in the tenement, particularly when a baby died whose father belonged to one of the many benefit societies. A brass band was the proper thing then, and the whole block took a vacation to follow ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis
... of relaxation, would ever dream of choosing the drawing-up of a testamentary disposition of property? Yet this was the form taken by Harold's latest craze; and in justice this much had to be said for him, that in the christening of his amusement he had gone right to the heart of the matter. The words "will" and "testament" have various meanings and uses; but about the signification of "death-letter" there can be no manner of doubt. I smoothed out the crumpled paper and read. In actual form ...
— Dream Days • Kenneth Grahame
... really obliged to him for the sherry, for a frock-coat which he let him have in prison, and for his kindness to Morgiana. The tailor loved the little boy with all his soul; he attended his mother to her churching, and the child to the font; and, as a present to his little godson on his christening, he sent two yards of the finest white kerseymere in his shop, to make him a cloak. The Duke had had a pair of inexpressibles off that ...
— Men's Wives • William Makepeace Thackeray
... had a daughter. There was a very fine christening; and the Princess had for her godmothers all the fairies they could find in the whole kingdom (there were seven of them), so that every one of them might confer a gift upon her, as was the custom of fairies in those ...
— The Tales of Mother Goose - As First Collected by Charles Perrault in 1696 • Charles Perrault
... with countless other ideas set down in this same holy book—the motives of jealousy and vanity attributed to the all-wise Ruler—His insistence upon formalities in the manner of worship and baptism and christening—His threats concerning other alleged gods and unbelievers, who dare to dispute His sovereignty. All such ideas, when subjected to the acid test of scientifically enlightened reason, are shown in the colors of absurdity ...
— Heart and Soul • Victor Mapes (AKA Maveric Post)
... of property as a ready means of raising a credit for purposes of trade. Thus, he says, "I can both in England and Wales register my wedding, my burial, and my christening, and a poor parish clerk is entrusted with the keeping of the book; and that which is registered there is held good by our law. But I cannot register my lands, to be honest, to pay every man his ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles
... an exception to the jealously-guarded places in most parts of England, but its avenues, rather formal though very magnificent, are approached by lodges. The Wrexham avenue leads to a farmhouse called Belgrave, and here is the christening-point of the new, fashionable London of society, of novelists and of contractors. Another like avenue leads to Pulford, where there is another lodge: a third leads from Grosvenor Bridge to the deer-park, and a fourth to the village of Aldford. The hall is ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various
... was the technical magnificent woman, I need not reiterate. I wish I knew some name gorgeous enough in sound and association for that given her at christening; but I don't. It is my opinion that she was born Mrs. Laudersdale, that her coral-and-bell was marked Mrs. Laudersdale, and that her name stands golden-lettered on the recording angel's leaf simply as Mrs. Laudersdale. It is naturally to be inferred, then, that there was a ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various
... short for Doddridge, and the full appellation given to the youth at his christening, when he was two months old, was Doddridge Watts Weaver, a name which the officiating clergyman pronounced with great unction, and in the prayer after baptism made mention of again, asking heaven to grant that the mantle ...
— The Evolution of Dodd • William Hawley Smith
... last when she and the Old Senior Surgeon could laugh—a little foolishly, perhaps—over the child-story; and then, just because they could laugh at it and feel happy, they told it together all over again. They made much of Thumbkin's christening feast, and the ...
— The Primrose Ring • Ruth Sawyer
... beloved James, the best, the most honorable of men. When her oldest son was born, and given his father's name, she saw, in her husband's willingness to further plans for the baptism, definite cause for hope. Another son was born, there was another christening; it was the father's own hand that gave the third baby lay-baptism only a few moments before the tiny life slipped back into the eternity from which ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... heir whose legitimacy the nation had agreed to accept. Te Deums were sung in all the churches; again the river decked itself in splendour; again all London steeples were musical with bells. A font of gold was presented for the christening. Francis, in compensation for his backslidings, had consented to be godfather; and the infant, who was soon to find her country so rude a stepmother, was received with all the outward signs of exulting ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... twenty minutes, poor Jim. 'A was born as might be at night; and 'a didn't last as might be till the morning. No, 'a didn't last. Mother called en Jim on the day that would ha' been his christening day if he had lived; and she's always thinking about en. You see he died so ...
— Under the Greenwood Tree • Thomas Hardy
... history we find that fairies give their remarkable gifts to prince or princess, or any child of sufficient importance in their eyes, always at the christening. Now this we can understand, because it is an ancient custom amongst human beings as well; and it is not hard to explain why wicked fairies should choose the same time to do unkind things; but it is difficult to understand how they ...
— At the Back of the North Wind • George MacDonald
... Indiana shore, which, though a small town on a low-lying bottom, is neat and apparently prosperous. Vevay was settled in 1803, by John James Dufour and several associates, from the District of Vevay, in Switzerland, who purchased from Congress four square miles hereabout, and, christening it New Switzerland, sought to establish extensive vineyards in the heart of this middle West. The Swiss prospered. The colony has had sufficient vitality to preserve many of its original characteristics unto the present day. Much of the land in the neighborhood is still owned by the descendants ...
— Afloat on the Ohio - An Historical Pilgrimage of a Thousand Miles in a Skiff, from Redstone to Cairo • Reuben Gold Thwaites
... home of the language of the Slavic Bible was to be sought among the Pannonic or Carantano-Slavi, the Slovenzi or Vindes of the present times.[6] The adoption of a number of German (not Greek) words for Christian ideas, as tzerkwa Kirch, post fast, chrestiti christening, etc., can only be explained, he asserts, by German neighbourhood and German influence. These Pannonian Slavi were Methodius' own diocesans; for their instruction the Scriptures were first translated, and only carried by the two brethren, at a ...
— Historical View of the Languages and Literature of the Slavic - Nations • Therese Albertine Louise von Jacob Robinson
... the widow called the boy Andrew again, whenever she felt careless about her spiritual condition, and the youth behaved himself, but used the name of Sapphira's husband when the lad vexed her, or the obligations of the christening came strongly back to her superstitious mind. The two names became equally familiar to young Offitt, and always afterward he was liable to lapses of memory when called on suddenly to give his prenomen; and he frequently caused hateful merriment among his ...
— The Bread-winners - A Social Study • John Hay
... The christening took place in the school-house at Wallsend, the old parish church being at the time in so dilapidated a condition from the "creeping" or subsidence of the ground, consequent upon the excavation of the coal, that ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles
... pretentious house, and came out now and then to the farm. There were five children, and the second girl was named after the great-aunt, who dowered her with a hundred dollars, to be put in the bank, and a handsome christening robe, then took no ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... America it has been these four hundred years and America it is doubtless always to be. And it is particularly gratifying to one who has come to care so much for France to find that the name of his own land—a name most euphonious and delectable to his ears—came of the christening at the font of the River Meurthe, the beautiful French dame of St. Die standing by as godmother, and that that name was first whispered to the world by the trees of the forests of the Vosges, whose wood may even have ...
— The French in the Heart of America • John Finley
... waves of occupation or discovery, as in the old villages where the neighborhoods are not built but grow. Here you have the Spanish Californian in Cero Gordo and pinon; Symmes and Shepherd, pioneers both; Tunawai, probably Shoshone; Oak Creek, Kearsarge,—easy to fix the date of that christening,—Tinpah, Paiute that; Mist Canon and Paddy Jack's. The streets of the west Sierras sloping toward the San Joaquin are long and winding, but from the east, my country, a day's ride carries one to the lake regions. The next day reaches the passes of the high ...
— The Land Of Little Rain • Mary Hunter Austin
... or botterhex, is butterfly, instead of schmetterling. It is a common superstition in the North of Germany, that one ought to mark the first butterfly one sees in spring. A white one betokens mourning, a yellow one a christening, a variegated one a wedding. Bregen or brehm is used instead of the High-German gehirn; it is the English brain. People say of a very foolish person, that his brain is frozen, de brehm is em verfrorn. The ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... be Douglasses doughty, New christening towns far and near; Abjuring their democrat doings, By kissin' the-o' a Peer: And there will be folk frae Saint Mary's A house o' great merit and note; The deil ane but honours them highly— The deil ane will gie ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... Cradle, with what belongs to it; and heaven knows what more, which have been so long neglected with the care that was taking to get a Midwife and a Nurse. Then again there wants new Hangings, a Down-bed, a Christening-cloath, silver candle sticks, a Caudle-cup, &c. that of necessity must be bought & used at the lying-in, & Gossips feast; so that the good man need not fear that his mony will grow mouldy for want of being turned too ...
— The Ten Pleasures of Marriage and The Confession of the New-married Couple (1682) • A. Marsh
... Botha's visit having been made to serve at the same time as a christening, there were quiet, sacred rejoicings when the minister, who had in the meantime arrived, ...
— The Petticoat Commando - Boer Women in Secret Service • Johanna Brandt
... Marescotti family undertook his rescue at the peril of their lives, and raised him to the Signory of Bologna. In 1445 the Canetoli, powerful nobles, who hated the popular dynasty, invited Annibale and all his clan to a christening feast, where they exterminated every member of the reigning house. Not one Bentivoglio was left alive. In revenge for this massacre, the Marescotti, aided by the populace, hunted down the Canetoli for three whole days in Bologna, and ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds
... both as to the sum and as to the Venice sequins, forasmuch as that Herdegen, to the end that he might know it rightly, had told him that they should be ducats such as he had three in a red stuff wrapper, and Kunz and I likewise each two, in our money-boxes as christening-gifts. ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... nautical feat of "Crossing the Line," and, as I was on deck at the time, interviewing Pat Doolan in order to coax some coffee out of him, the Irish cook had a joke or two at my expense, under the plea of christening me on my entrance into Neptune's rightful "territory"—if that term be not a Hibernian bull, considering the said territory is supposed to lie below ...
— On Board the Esmeralda - Martin Leigh's Log - A Sea Story • John Conroy Hutcheson
... Making tools. Capturing yaks and training them. The three previous expeditions, and what they discovered. The mysterious occurrences. The fourth voyage of discovery. Losing sight of the strange animals. The forest. Discovering orang-outans. Capturing a young orang. Christening the "Baby." Its strange and restless actions. A shot. A wild animal. The wildcat. Enemy of the orang-outan. Distances deceptive, and why. Peculiar sensations at altitudes. Tableland. The fifth day. Discovery of a broad river. ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Exploring the Island • Roger Thompson Finlay
... false philosophy and infidelity, that they will shortly be at a loss to understand it themselves. What sort of names they give their ships, for instance, now they have beheaded their king and denounced their God! Who ever heard of christening a craft, as you tell me this lugger is named, the 'Few-Folly'? I believe I've ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... looking up from the gilt frames in Mrs. Swan's parlor, "the changes that have been going on in Waveland do beat everything. Only think of it! Why, the town hasn't been so lively for years before. There used to be only an occasional wedding or christening, or funeral; and now, strange faces that no one knows anything about, meet ...
— Clemence - The Schoolmistress of Waveland • Retta Babcock
... in May, 1857, and though, when first rumoured, it had been coldly looked on by the English public, now it was accepted with great cordiality. The Prince was openly associated with the royal family; he and his future bride appeared as sponsors at the christening of our youngest Princess, Beatrice; he rode with the Prince Consort beside the Queen when she made the first distribution of the Victoria Cross, and was a prominent and heartily welcomed member of the royal group ...
— Great Britain and Her Queen • Anne E. Keeling
... revulsion of feeling came over me. I seemed to stand outside myself and to look at myself incredulously. Maud Brewster! Humphrey Van Weyden, "the cold-blooded fish," the "emotionless monster," the "analytical demon," of Charley Furuseth's christening, in love! And then, without rhyme or reason, all sceptical, my mind flew back to a small biographical note in the red-bound Who's Who, and I said to myself, "She was born in Cambridge, and she is twenty-seven years old." And then I said, "Twenty-seven ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London
... one of the influences that hastened the Stotts' departure from Stoke. He was so indiscreet. After the christening he would talk. His attitude is quite comprehensible. He, the lawgiver of Stoke, had been thwarted. He had to find apology for the private baptism he had denied to many a sickly infant. Moreover, the Stotts had broken another of his ordinances, ...
— The Wonder • J. D. Beresford
... madam, if Popish christening is worth calling such, and has seen Indians christened too in the Cathedral Church at Quito, the inside whereof I know well enough, and too well, for I sat there three mortal hours in a San Benito, to hear a friar preach his false ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... when he related to her all that had passed between himself and his master, the old king, she clasped her hands together, and began to weep and wail for sorrow, "because," as she said, "it was a very bad time to be 'out of work,' and an evil omen for the child. However, we'll have a real nice christening, Martin dear, and invite all the good fairies. And next week you will go on with your gardening again, you know, just as ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... the family. Born during that most dangerous and anxious of the early years, when the mother fretted and the father took his chance, he was an ill-nourished baby, and grew meagerly, only lengthwise, through a feeble childhood. At his christening he was committed for life to "Bibbs" mainly through lack of imagination on his mother's part, for though it was her maiden name, she had no strong affection for it; but it was "her turn" to name the baby, and, as she explained ...
— The Turmoil - A Novel • Booth Tarkington
... effectual method of locking the wheels of time consisted in sitting idly down to watch and count their revolutions; consequently, she hastened upstairs and betook herself vigorously to the work of embroidering a parterre of flowers on the front breadth of an infant's christening dress which her employer had promised should be completed before ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... not forgotten. Who has not eaten the "child's cheese," and been forbidden to depart from the infantile home before drinking the young one's health, on every occasion the nursery was entered before the christening. Maidens dream, as often as they have the chance, on "children's cheese" and brides' cakes, in order to obtain glimpses in their slumbers of future ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... the young woman with the child in her arms?—But may be you did not mind Kate, and she's nothing now to look at, quite faded and gone, though she's only one month past nineteen years of age. I am sure I ought to know, for I was at her christening, and nursed her mother. She's of very good parentage, that is, of a farmer's family, that has, as well as his neighbours, that lives a great way off, quite on the other side of the country. And not a year, at least not ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... the christening robe for the Massey grandson, Mrs. Procter," she said; "and I think 'tis a fine idea—sort of community dress made by those ...
— Suzanna Stirs the Fire • Emily Calvin Blake
... calumnious reports to my ears in a prerupt and unseemly manner, and without due respect either to the language which she made use of, or the person to whom she spoke,—treating affairs in which I was so intimately concerned as if they were proper subjects for jest among gossips at a christening, where the womankind claim the privilege of worshipping the Bona Dea according ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... cobweb. He stares at me, wondering how I come there, and I stare at him, wondering how he comes there. Through a screen of wood and glass, I peep into the dim church. About twenty people are discernible, waiting to begin. Christening would seem to have faded out of this church long ago, for the font has the dust of desuetude thick upon it, and its wooden cover (shaped like an old-fashioned tureen-cover) looks as if it wouldn't come off, upon requirement. I perceive the altar to be rickety and the Commandments damp. ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... talk about her, and to tease her about her lover. They asked her whether he was tall, handsome and rich. When was the wedding to be, and the christening? And often she ran away, to cry by herself, for these questions seemed to hurt her, like the prick of a pin, and in order to forget their jokes, she began to work still more energetically, and still thinking of her child, she sought for the means of saving ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... named after one grandmother; when the next girl came Mrs Murchison, to make an end of the matter, named it Abigail, after the other. She thought both names outlandish and acted under protest, but hoped that now everybody would be satisfied. Lorne came after Advena, at the period of a naive fashion of christening the young sons of Canada in the name of her Governor-General. It was a simple way of attesting a loyal spirit, but with Mrs Murchison more particular motives operated. The Marquis of Lorne was not only the deputy of the throne, he was the son-in-law of a good woman of whom Mrs Murchison thought ...
— The Imperialist • (a.k.a. Mrs. Everard Cotes) Sara Jeannette Duncan
... acknowledge that my name is Mr. Peace; but that my name is False-Peace I utterly deny. If your honours shall please to send for any that do intimately know me, or for the midwife that laid my mother of me, or for the gossips that were at my christening, they will, any or all of them, prove that my name is not False-Peace, but Peace. Wherefore I cannot plead to this indictment, forasmuch as my name is not inserted therein; and as is my true name, so are also my conditions. I was always a man that ...
— The Holy War • John Bunyan
... wringing their hands distractedly. Lady Speldhurst was a personage of some consequence; she was a distant cousin, and had been for years on cool terms with us all, on account of some fancied affront or slight when she had paid her LAST visit, about the time of my christening. She was seventy years old; she was infirm, rich, and testy; moreover, she was my godmother, though I had forgotten the fact; but it seems that though I had formed no expectations of a legacy in my favor, my aunts had done so for me. Aunt Margaret ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... not look forward to with equanimity. It had been agreed upon between us, that, though by the interference of our good friend the Advocate, we had been married in the old private chapel attached to the Deanery, we should defer the christening of Duncan the Second till "the Doctor" could perform the office—there being, of course, but one "Doctor" for all Eden Valley people—Doctor Gillespie, erstwhile Moderator of the Kirk ...
— The Dew of Their Youth • S. R. Crockett
... made by Mr. John Boyd Thacher, commissioner from New York to the World's Fair, that a tribute be paid to the memory of Amerigo Vespucci by opening the Fair May 5, 1893, that being the anniversary of America's christening day. Mr. Thacher's suggestion is based upon the fact that May 5, 1507, there was published at the College of Saint-Die, in Lorraine, the "Cosmographic Introductio," by Waldseemuller, in which the name of America "for the fourth part of the ...
— Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various
... far less than that which the Parliament drew from the city of London alone. He relied, indeed, chiefly, for pecuniary aid on the munificence of his opulent adherents. Many of these mortgaged their land, pawned their jewels, and broke up their silver chargers and christening-bowls in order to assist him. But experience has fully proved that the voluntary liberality of individuals, even in times of the greatest excitement, is a poor financial resource when compared with severe and ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various
... the believers, who saw in it only another manifestation of Pigott's divinity, and proclaimed it as "an earnest of the total redemption of man.'' The child was registered as "Glory,'' and, at the christening service in the chapel of the Abode, hymns were sung in its honour as it lay in a jewelled cradle in the chancel. Another child by Miss Preece, christened "Power,'' was born on the 20th of August 1908. The publicity given to this event renewed the scandal, and in November an attempt to "tar ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... pale and pinched-up faces hovered about the windows where was tempting food, hungry eyes wandered over the profusion guarded by one thin sheet of brittle glass—an iron wall to them; half-naked shivering figures stopped to gaze at Chinese shawls and golden stuffs of India. There was a christening party at the largest coffin-maker's and a funeral hatchment had stopped some great improvements in the bravest mansion. Life and death went hand in hand; wealth and poverty stood side by side; repletion and ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... engraved "To Mrs. Lirriper a mark of grateful respect for her honourable conduct" gave me a turn which was too much for my feelings, till Mr. Betley which at that time had the parlours and loved his joke says "Cheer up Mrs. Lirriper, you should feel as if it was only your christening and they were your godfathers and godmothers which did promise for you." And it brought me round, and I don't mind confessing to you my dear that I then put a sandwich and a drop of sherry in a little basket and went down ...
— Mrs. Lirriper's Lodgings • Charles Dickens
... think I do. My friend, young Paudeen O'Rafferty, the son of the old forest-keeper, has just returned from Ireland, where he was carried by the fairies at his christening, and has been kept ever since until now, trying to get through the rent made by Mr. O'Connell in the pockets of his relatives. He's as tight an Irish lad as your majesty ever saw; and as for his honesty, I'll endorse it with both hands. ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 4 October 1848 • Various
... The christening was attended by members of the Royal Family, and a dinner was held to celebrate the happy event. The Duke and Duchess removed soon afterward to Devonshire, and they were both much pleased with the beautiful surroundings of their new home. The Duke wrote at this time of his ...
— Queen Victoria • E. Gordon Browne
... a story about jumping at conclusions. It was told to me by Bram Stoker, and it concerns a christening. There was a little clergyman who was prone to jump at conclusions sometimes. One day he was invited to officiate at a christening. He went. There sat the relatives—intelligent-looking relatives they were. The little clergyman's instinct ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... know the pond in which all the little children lie waiting till the storks come to take them to their parents," says the mother stork in Andersen's story. "The stork has visited the house," people say to each other when a child is born; and if you go to a christening party you will find that the stork has come too: in sugar on a cake, perhaps, or to be handed round in the form of ice cream. Most of the kindly intimate little jests about babies have a stork in them, and a stranger might easily blunder by presenting an emblem of the bird where it ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick
... the corner while he shifts the scenes. There, too, in the dim background, a weird shape is ever delving. Sometimes he leans upon his mattock, and gazes, as a coach whirls by, bearing the newly married on their wedding jaunt, or glances carelessly at a babe brought home from christening. Suddenly (for the scene grows larger and larger as we look) a bony hand snatches back a performer in the midst of his part, and him, whom yesterday two infinities (past and future) would not suffice, a handful ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell |
