"Godfather" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... turned out to be—as I dare say you have guessed—my fairy godfather. He went back to Buenos Ayres, taking me as servant. He is here now. I saw him but yesterday, and we are ...
— Our Home in the Silver West - A Story of Struggle and Adventure • Gordon Stables
... was free to marry Louisa. A plea along the same lines is being worked by the Count de Castellane now. Louis XII, having fallen in love with Anne of Brittany, suddenly discovered that his wife was his fourth cousin, that she was deformed, and that her father had been his godfather; and for this the Pope gave him a dispensation and his legitimate wife was sent away. The Pope did not thunder against Louis XIV for committing adultery with women like Louise de la Valliere and Madame de Montespan. It is certainly true that in the case of Philip Augustus of France ...
— A Short History of Women's Rights • Eugene A. Hecker
... and act for him only, but that he must think and act for his mother. And so it was, that on the very day after his father's funeral, when school-hours were over, instead of coming straight home, he walked boldly into Sir Richard Grenville's house, and asked to see his godfather. ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... ceremonies was one "Boston," a noted wag, and the occasion seemed to promise the greatest facetiousness. This ingenious satirist had spent two days in preparing a burlesque of the Church service, with pointed local allusions. The choir was properly trained, and Sandy Tipton was to stand godfather. But after the procession had marched to the grove with music and banners, and the child had been deposited before a mock altar, Stumpy stepped before the expectant crowd. "It ain't my style to spoil fun, ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... brimmed up with pride. Everybody praised William. It seemed he was going to get on rapidly. Mrs. Morel hoped, with his aid, to help her younger sons. Annie was now studying to be a teacher. Paul, also very clever, was getting on well, having lessons in French and German from his godfather, the clergyman who was still a friend to Mrs. Morel. Arthur, a spoilt and very good-looking boy, was at the Board school, but there was talk of his trying to get a scholarship for the ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence
... child's saliva which fell into the nurse's eye. And a still more extraordinary cause is assigned to it in a tradition from Lower Brittany, where it is said to be due to the sacred bond formed between the woman and a masculine elf when she became godmother and he godfather to the babe.[34] ...
— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland
... headed northeast, that I might regain the ground lost before I discovered the drift northwest. I had made a rough calculation of the time required to cover the seventy kilometres to R—— at the speed at which I was traveling. The rest I left to Chance, the godfather of all adventurers. ...
— High Adventure - A Narrative of Air Fighting in France • James Norman Hall
... moment there came strolling round the corner of the hedge a group of grown-ups—Sir Nevil Sinclair with Mrs Bradley, Lady Roscoe, Lady Despard and Roy's godfather, the ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... now to the time when I was about eighteen years old, and a constant visitor, for weeks and months at a time, in the house of my godfather, the archdeacon of a northern diocese. His grandson, then a young student at Oxford, of about my own age, must have been what we should now call a very good sensitive. It was with him that I sat at my first "table," more as a matter of amusement ...
— Seen and Unseen • E. Katharine Bates
... passive indomitableness and groping spirit of his mother, Foma, proud and rebellious, is repelled by the selfish, money-seeking environment into which he is born. Ignat, his father, and Mayakin, the godfather, and all the horde of successful merchants singing the paean of the strong and the praises of merciless, remorseless laissez faire, cannot entice him. Why? he demands. This is a nightmare, this life! ...
— Revolution and Other Essays • Jack London
... had had the privilege of watching this identical old priest baptize the child of one of the most ancient nobles here, the ceremony being performed not in a church, but at the nobleman's house. One godfather and one godmother are all that are required, the latter of whom holds the infant. On the godmother also a large share of duty devolves, there being certain gifts which she is bound by national custom to offer ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various
... chill. The boy believed in the cabals and things, believed in the peculiar line, believed, to be brief, in the Master. What happened a month or two later wasn't that he went up again at the expense of his godfather, but that a fortnight after he had got settled in Paris this ...
— Victorian Short Stories, - Stories Of Successful Marriages • Elizabeth Gaskell, et al.
... probable that Jane Austen's early knowledge of Bath was to a great extent owing to the visits paid to them in that place. Another family with whom the Austens were on cousinly terms were the Cookes. Samuel Cooke, Rector of Little Bookham in Surrey and godfather to Jane, had married a daughter of the Master of Balliol (Theophilus Leigh), and their three children, Theophilus, Mary, and George, belonged, like the Coopers, to an inner circle of relations on both ...
— Jane Austen, Her Life and Letters - A Family Record • William Austen-Leigh and Richard Arthur Austen-Leigh
... to the convent to get your things and say good bye to your friends," continued the Captain, without raising his head. "You will not return there. And in four or five days, when your clothes are ready we shall go to Malabon. —Your godfather, by the way, is not in San Diego at present. The priest whom you saw here last night, that young fellow, is now the priest in the town. He ...
— Friars and Filipinos - An Abridged Translation of Dr. Jose Rizal's Tagalog Novel, - 'Noli Me Tangere.' • Jose Rizal
... This was endured for a year or more, then she left him. For a while she lived with Wolfgang and Constance, and Mozart, true to his nature, gave her from his own scanty store and deprived himself for her benefit. He stood godfather to one of her children and was a true friend ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard
... "the fatal thing about our version is that it so often spoils a chapter in the Old Testament by making sheer nonsense out of one or two verses, and so throwing the reader out." He habitually used a Bible—a present from his godfather, John Keble—"where the numbers of the chapters are marked at the side and do not interpose a break between chapter and chapter; and where the divisions of the verses, being numbered in like manner at the side of the page, not in the body of the verse, and being numbered ...
— Matthew Arnold • G. W. E. Russell
... happened that Twirling-stick Mike held a christening, and he not only asked the Dwarf as a guest to the feast, but actually went so far as to invite the creature to stand godfather to his child. Klaus was mightily pleased with the honour, and behaved like a gentleman on the occasion. He made his godson a handsome present, and promised to do a good deal more for him, stipulating only that the child, being a boy, should be named Nicholas ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... his moustache. 'That won't help you. This is Foreign Office business, and my uncle would have nothing to do with it. Besides, you'd never convince him. No, I'll go one better. I'll write to the Permanent Secretary at the Foreign Office. He's my godfather, and one of the best going. ...
— The Thirty-nine Steps • John Buchan
... tapers every time she takes the sacrament. Have you forgotten the gift Ursula made to the church in gratitude to the cure for preparing her for her first communion? She spent all her money on it, and her godfather returned it to her doubled. You men! you don't pay attention to things. When I heard that, I said to myself, 'Farewell baskets, the vintage is done!' A rich uncle doesn't behave that way to a little brat picked up in the streets without some ...
— Ursula • Honore de Balzac
... my curiosity. Old men, like children, can conceal nothing from those they love, and who have obtained over them an influence they willingly submit to. Before I proceed to more important events, I would fain speak of persons with whom I lived before my elevation. My godfather, M. Billard du Monceau, was still living, as well as madame Lagarde, with whom I had resided as companion. My interview with the former is well known; and the authors of "Anecdotes of My Life," published thirteen years ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... to the embankment that leads to the foot-bridge. The emerald-green Reuss rushed beside them with a smooth rapidity which seemed to hush the tumult of its swift current far underneath the rippling surface. The old stone light-house—the town's traditionary godfather—stood sturdily for its rights out in mid-stream, and helped support the quaint zigzag of that most charming relic of the past, the longest wooden foot-bridge of Lucerne. A never-ending crowd of all ...
— A Woman's Will • Anne Warner
... You will readily suppose that I have heard with great satisfaction of the prosperity of your household, particularly of the good health of my little namesake and his mother. Godmothers of yore used to be fairies; and though only a godfather, I think of sending you, one day, a fairy gift—a little drama, namely, which, if the audience be indulgent, may be of use to him. Of course, you will stand godfather to it yourself: it is yet only in embryo—a ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... was a close friend, both politically and privately, of the Duke and Duchess of Bedford, and he promised them that he would be godfather to their next child; but he died before the child was born, whereupon his nephew, Lord Holland, took over the sponsorship, and named his godson "Charles James Fox." The child was born in 1807, and his birthplace was Dublin Castle.[*] The Duke of Bedford was then Viceroy of Ireland, ...
— Prime Ministers and Some Others - A Book of Reminiscences • George W. E. Russell
... sick, and have not long to live. My life has been a useless one. When you have read this letter, do not cry yourselves sick on my account. Let my brothers' wives rear and educate my two cousins. I wish to be known as godfather to one of them. I desire Chow He, my wife, to protect and assist you. When you both are dead, she may marry if she wishes. In this world I can do no more for you, father and mother. You must look to the next world for any future benefit to be ...
— Life at Puget Sound: With Sketches of Travel in Washington Territory, British Columbia, Oregon and California • Caroline C. Leighton
... house had given Francoise a few wedding presents, which made great talk in the city. These pretty trifles, together with the trousseau which Zephirine had been preparing for the past twelve months, the godfather's jewels, and the usual wedding gifts, consoled Francoise and roused the curiosity of some ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... dare say Sir Guy was no better than he should be. But since that they have always called some of the Pallisers Plantagenet. My husband's name is Plantagenet. The Duke is called George Plantagenet, and the king was his godfather. The queen is my godmother, I believe, but I don't know that I'm much the better for it. There's no use in godfathers and ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... cried Mary, indignantly. Then turning to the king: "These English grow arrogant, Your Majesty. What has the herald to say? Let him come forward. We have no secrets from our most gracious godfather, King Louis." ...
— Yolanda: Maid of Burgundy • Charles Major
... sent for, and, you may be sure, accepted immediately, thanking Mr. Vincent for the honour he did me, and hoping that Mrs. Vincent would be equally agreeable that I should be godfather, although so young. ...
— The Romance of Lust - A classic Victorian erotic novel • Anonymous
... indignant Delarey,[64] provoked by English blundering, said ominously that 'blood must flow', Rhodes replied, 'No, give me my breakfast, and then we can talk about blood'. He stayed with Delarey a week, came to terms on the points at issue, and even became godfather to Delarey's grandchild. He was never the man to resort to force when persuasion could be employed, and he usually won his ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore
... Don Fernando rose and thanked him, and all were eager for an opportunity to show him their goodwill. Don Fernando begged the stranger to allow him to provide for his comfort, and offered to take him to his brother, the Marquis, who, he said, would be most eager to act as Zoraida's godfather at her baptism. But the stranger declined graciously all the offers that ...
— The Story of Don Quixote • Arvid Paulson, Clayton Edwards, and Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... once took place at a baptism. The service proceeded with due decorum and regularity till my father demanded of the godfather the child's name. The answer was so indistinctly given that he had to repeat the question more than once, and even then the name remained a mystery. All he could make out was something which sounded like "Harmun," the ...
— The Parish Clerk (1907) • Peter Hampson Ditchfield
... Quarry Hill, and new target I had made there. And he taught me then how to ride bright Winnie, who was grown since I had seen her, but remembered me most kindly. After making much of Annie, who had a wondrous liking for him—and he said he was her godfather, but God knows how he could have been, unless they confirmed him precociously—away he went, and young Winnie's sides shone like ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... be for every male child to be baptized two Godfathers and one Godmother; and for every female, one Godfather and two Godmothers. ...
— The Book of Common Prayer - and The Scottish Liturgy • Church of England
... and to her mother's house; when Mrs. O'Dowd, receiving a peremptory summons from her Colonel, had been forced to quit her patient. To see Dobbin holding the infant, and to hear Amelia's laugh of triumph as she watched him, would have done any man good who had a sense of humour. William was the godfather of the child, and exerted his ingenuity in the purchase of cups, spoons, pap-boats, and corals for ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... (LAURENS) (1836- ). British artist, was born on the 8th of .fanuary 1836, at Dronrijp, a Frisian village near Leeuwarden, the son of Pieter Tadema, a notary, who died when he was four years old. Alma was the name of his godfather. His mother (d. 1863) was his father's second wife, and was left with a large family. It was designed that the boy should follow his father's profession; but he had so great a leaning towards art that he was eventually sent to Antwerp, where ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... comfortable rooms in Paris and the conditions of existence there of which Septimus was an integral part. She had got used to them, to his forced association with the intimate details of her life, to his bending over the child like a grotesque fairy godfather and making astonishing suggestions for its upbringing. She had regarded him less as a stranger to be treated with feminine reserve than the doctor. Now it was different. She was about to take up her own life again, with new responsibilities, and the dearly loved creature ...
— Septimus • William J. Locke
... course, next day the things came in a great packing-case. No one ever knew who sent them, but Mr. and Mrs. Pilkings thought it was Ethel's godfather in India. And, curiously enough, these things did not vanish away, but were eaten and enjoyed and played with as long as they lasted. Ethel has one of the dolls still, though now she is ...
— Oswald Bastable and Others • Edith Nesbit
... far otherwise. The laddies who went because of me called me their godfather, many of them! Many's the letter I have had from them; many the one who has greeted me, as I was passing through a hospital, or, long afterward, when I made my first tour in France, behind the front line trenches. Many letters, did I say? I have had hundreds—thousands! And not so much as a word ...
— A Minstrel In France • Harry Lauder
... is a silly kind of a foreign name. His mother is called Julia: I suppose that is how it comes. No Sandal was ever called such a name before, but the young man mustn't be blamed for his godfather's foolishness, Alice. Eh?" ...
— The Squire of Sandal-Side - A Pastoral Romance • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... Dinah de la Baudraye. He got transferred to Paris when she returned there, and became successively the substitute for the general prosecutor, attorney-general and finally attorney-general to the Court of Cassation. He watched over and protected the misguided woman, consenting to act as godfather to the child she had by Lousteau. [The Muse ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe
... sisters-in-law had been pleased to suppose, and before the year was out, she had passed away from all her ambitious hopes, leaving a little daughter. The Earl took a brief leave of absence to visit his lady in her affliction at Chatsworth, and to stand godfather to the ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Mr. Gryll was the godfather of his niece, and to please him, she had been called Morgana. He had had some thoughts of calling her Circe, but acquiesced in the name of a sister enchantress, who had worked out her own idea of a beautiful garden, and exercised ...
— Gryll Grange • Thomas Love Peacock
... a Barry fit to marry with any lord of England? and was it not always said that a woman was to restore the fortunes of the Barry family? If my mother fancied that SHE was to be that woman, I think it was a perfectly justifiable notion on her part; for the Earl (my godfather) was always most attentive to her: I never knew how deeply this notion of advancing my interests in the world had taken possession of mamma's mind, until his Lordship's marriage in the year '57 with Miss Goldmore, the Indian nabob's ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... he acquired the estate of Canons-Ashby, by marriage with Elizabeth, daughter and heiress of Sir John Cope of that county. Wood says, that John Dryden was by profession a schoolmaster, and honoured with the friendship of the great Erasmus, who stood godfather to one of his sons.[15] He appears, from some passages in his will, to have entertained the puritanical principles, which, we shall presently find, descended to his family.[16] Erasmus Driden, his eldest son, succeeded to the estate of Canons-Ashby, was high-sheriff of Northamptonshire in ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott
... many people who have a personal acquaintance with me,' said his visitor. 'You have an advantage—I am your godfather.' ...
— Melchior's Dream and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... drifted in within the next few moments,—the Bishop, Julian's godfather, a curious blend of the fashionable and the devout, the anchorite and the man of the people; Lord and Lady Shervinton, elderly connections of the nondescript variety; Mr. Hannaway Wells, reserved yet, urbane, a wonderful type of the ...
— The Devil's Paw • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... husband's letter. First and foremost—Yes. We shall be going to Chantepleurs about the end of April. To me it will be a piling up of pleasure to travel, to see you, and to be the godmother of your first child. I must, please, have Macumer for godfather. To take part in a ceremony of the Church with another as my partner would be hateful to me. Ah! if you could see the look he gave me as I said this, you would know what store this sweetest of lovers sets on ...
— Letters of Two Brides • Honore de Balzac
... of his parents' authority, abandoned himself to idle pleasures. All we have from his pen at this period are two short letters. In one, written from Milan and dated April 19, 1476, he asks the Cardinal of Novara to stand godfather to the illegitimate son whom his mistress, Lucia Marliani, Countess of Melzi, had borne him, and who was to be baptized at Pavia. The other is an affectionate letter addressed from Vigevano a year later to Lucia herself, rejoicing to hear of her well-being, ...
— Beatrice d'Este, Duchess of Milan, 1475-1497 • Julia Mary Cartwright
... something more worthy of attention than the councils of living Florentine men. And now the expulsion of the Medici meant little more for her than the extinction of her best hope about her father's library. The times, she knew, were unpleasant for friends of the Medici, like her godfather and Tito: superstitious shopkeepers and the stupid rabble were full of suspicions; but her new keen interest in public events, in the outbreak of war, in the issue of the French king's visit, in the changes that were likely ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... the site of a Benedictine nunnery, granted at the Dissolution, with all its appurtenances, to his father, Richard Williams, who had assumed the name of Cromwell, and whose grandson, Sir Oliver, was the uncle and godfather of the Protector. The knight, who was renowned for, his hospitality, had the honour of entertaining King James at Hinchinbroke, but, getting into pecuniary difficulties, was obliged to sell his estates, which ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... narrative of Therese. He was a chemist in Lisieux, and it was there his daughter Jeanne Guerin married Dr. La Neele and his younger child Marie entered the Carmel. Our foreign missionaries had a warm friend in the uncle of Therese—for his charities he was made godfather to an African King; and to the Catholic Press—that home missionary—he was ever most devoted. Founder, at Lisieux, of the Nocturnal Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, and a zealous member of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, he was called to his abundant reward on September 28, 1909. Verily ...
— The Story of a Soul (L'Histoire d'une Ame): The Autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux • Therese Martin (of Lisieux)
... a corrupt age, and in a capital where it was fashionable to be immoral. When he left College, he was introduced by his own godfather, the Abbe de Chateauneuf, to the notorious Ninon de l'Enclos, who, at her death, left him by will two thousand livres to purchase books. In estimating the character of Voltaire, a due consideration must be had for the period in which he lived, and of the nature ...
— Ancient and Modern Celebrated Freethinkers - Reprinted From an English Work, Entitled "Half-Hours With - The Freethinkers." • Charles Bradlaugh, A. Collins, and J. Watts
... daughters joined her husband in prison, Lafayette's son, and Washington's godson, came to America; an arrival of which the godfather wrote that, "to express all the sensibility, which has been excited in my breast by the receipt of young Lafayette's letter, from the recollection of his father's merits, services, and sufferings, from my friendship for him, and from my wishes to become a friend and father to his son is ...
— The True George Washington [10th Ed.] • Paul Leicester Ford
... had been very quiet. Madam Wetherill had been godmother, and the godfather was a distant relative who resided in New York. Good Parson Duche had been asked to keep the matter private. And so, if the meeting came to know, Philemon Henry must be the accuser. It was his duty, of course, but he put it off month after month. The babe grew ...
— A Little Girl in Old Philadelphia • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... boy then took a small black book out of his pocket. The book was called "The Crofton Boys" and Timmy had chosen it because the name of the new tenant of The Trellis House was Mrs. Crofton, a friend, as he was aware, of his godfather, Godfrey Radmore. He wondered if she ...
— What Timmy Did • Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes
... that they were more than ever wonderfully alike, I heard a woman whisper behind me that the gentleman the beautiful Mrs. Bradley and her picturesque little daughter were smiling at was the child's godfather, an old friend—all his money left to her and his namesake, her brother. Before the whisper had ended Margarita the woman had turned her eyes toward her husband—they could not leave him long that day—but ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell
... a stout old party I met last night—your godfather, I should think he is—told me where he was, and said I should get your address from him. So I looked him up this morning, in that dog-hole in Westminster where he lives. He ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... He was proverbially celebrated there for clear and acute reasoning; but he so much involved himself in the Romish Controversy with John Fisher, a Jesuit, as to become a convert, and enter the College at Douay. His re-conversion was brought about by his godfather, Archbishop Laud, in 1631, when he returned to England; and in 1638, he wrote his famous work called "The Religion of Protestants a safe Way to Salvation." Fol. He was zealously attached to the Royal cause, and served at the Siege of Gloucester: but being taken prisoner, he was ...
— Lives of John Donne, Henry Wotton, Rich'd Hooker, George Herbert, - &C, Volume Two • Izaak Walton
... with Billings. Mrs. Hayes, some time before her execution, confidently averred that he was the son both of Mr. Hayes and of herself, that his father not liking him, he was put out to relations of hers and took the name of Billings from his godfather. But Mr. Hayes's relations confidently denying all this, and he himself saying he knew nothing more than that he called his father a shoemaker in the country, who some time since was dead. He was put apprentice to a tailor with whom he served his time, and then came up to ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... entered into the family of the world's Church. His spiritual guide and confessor was Professor, afterwards Cardinal, Ostini; and the poet Zacharias Werner, of Konigsberg, as a fellow-countryman from the shores of the northern sea, acted as godfather at the ceremony. The poet, in writing at the time to the Prince Primate of Dalberg, said that he recognised in the young painter 'a true ...
— Overbeck • J. Beavington Atkinson
... he went by. They heard his bowmen follow. And all would pass and perhaps they would see none. But upon occasions he came. He came to the christening of the eldest son of Rodriguez and Serafina, for whom he was godfather. He came again to see the boy shoot for the first time with a bow. And later he came to give little presents, small treasures of the forest, to Rodriguez' daughters; who treated him always, not as sole lord of that forest that travellers dreaded, but as a friend of their very own that ...
— Don Rodriguez - Chronicles of Shadow Valley • Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, Baron, Dunsany
... blindness frequently laid me on the sofa for days together, and then my fond father would bring home with him, after the afternoon service of the cathedral, of which he was also a canon, a party of the young choristers. My godfather would seat himself at the harpsichord; the boys, led by my father, performed the vocal parts; and such feasts of sacred music were served up to me, that I have breathed to my brother in an ecstatic whisper the confession, ...
— Personal Recollections • Charlotte Elizabeth
... brother dosed him freely with cholagogue whenever he came down into the malarial country. I came up from Romancoke Sunday morning, arriving in time to be present at the christening of my nephew, which ceremony was decided on rather hurriedly in order that the grandfather might stand as godfather. After returning from the morning service at St. Peter's, where we all went, it was decided that the mother and child should go to the mountains with my father. As there were some preparations for the summer to be made, his daughter and her baby went to Petersburg ...
— Recollections and Letters of General Robert E. Lee • Captain Robert E. Lee, His Son
... 1758, in the parsonage-house of Burnham Thorpe, a village in the county of Norfolk, of which his father was rector. His mother was a daughter of Dr. Suckling, prebendary of Westminster, whose grandmother was sister of Sir Robert Walpole, and this child was named after his godfather, the first Lord Walpole. Mrs. Nelson died in 1767, leaving eight out of eleven children. Her brother, Captain Maurice Suckling, of the navy visited the widower upon this event, and promised to take care of one of the boys. Three years afterwards, ...
— The Life of Horatio Lord Nelson • Robert Southey
... go to Novotcherkassk in a week, and not in a fortnight," he said, thinking aloud. "In shoes like these I shall not be ashamed to show myself to my godfather. I was not going away from here just because I hadn't any decent clothes. ...
— The Bishop and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... David. "When I marry Chandud-Chanum you shall be godfather! Now, Godfather Gorgis, who ...
— Armenian Literature • Anonymous
... After this time his health declined; his spirits were depressed. He left London for Bath. His only surviving son, Eugene, born while the 'Spectator' was being issued, and to whom Prince Eugene had stood godfather, died at the age of eleven or twelve in November, 1723. The younger also of his two daughters was marked for death by consumption. He was broken in health and fortune when, in 1726, he had an attack of palsy which was the prelude ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... colleague, of course, who is now busy finishing his report—of Monsieur Lecoq." Quite unintentionally, the worthy fellow had certainly become the young police agent's godfather. From that day forward, for his enemies as well as for his friends, he was and he ...
— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau
... of the play, the prince paid attention to no one but myself. I was presented to the king, who gave me a most gracious reception; he asked me for my parents, and especially for my mother. The starost came to announce that the prince had concluded to stand godfather to his daughter, and that he had chosen me for godmother.... I will then hold the child at the baptismal font with the prince, and then I shall be of the same rank with himself. The will of God be done! The ceremony will take place with great solemnity ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 5, November, 1863 • Various
... know so much about the very things of which I was ignorant; and I took the earliest opportunity of parading it at our Society to show that I, too, had a tail like the other foxes. To my great satisfaction, the term took; and when the Spectator had stood godfather to it, any suspicion in the minds of respectable people that a knowledge of its parentage might have awakened ...
— Thomas Henry Huxley - A Character Sketch • Leonard Huxley
... has retired, and that Professor Kelland is dead. No man's education is complete or truly liberal who knew not Kelland. There were unutterable lessons in the mere sight of that frail old clerical gentleman, lively as a boy, kind like a fairy godfather, and keeping perfect order in his class by the spell of that very kindness. I have heard him drift into reminiscences in class time, though not for long, and give us glimpses of old-world life in out-of-the-way English parishes when he was young; ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... After the banner, the monks themselves followed, in two lines. And what was the motto of their banner?—"Justitia et Misericordia!" Then followed the culprits, to the number of three hundred, each with his godfather by his side, and his large wax candle lighted in his hand. Those whose offences have been most venial walk first; all are bareheaded and barefooted. After this portion; who wore only the dress of black and white serge, came those who carried the Sanbenitos; then those who ...
— The Phantom Ship • Frederick Marryat
... the why and wherefore of its coming to pass my dear that we called him Jemmy, being after the Major his own godfather with Lirriper for a surname being after myself, and never was a dear child such a brightening thing in a Lodgings or such a playmate to his grandmother as Jemmy to this house and me, and always good and minding what he was told (upon the whole) and soothing for the temper ...
— Mrs. Lirriper's Lodgings • Charles Dickens
... later, on Sunday, the 7th of September, between three and four in the afternoon, Queen Anne gave birth to a daughter at Greenwich.[843] The child was christened on the following Wednesday by Stokesley, Bishop of London, and Cranmer stood godfather. Chapuys scarcely considered the matter worth mention. The King's amie had given birth to a bastard, a detail of little importance to any one, and least of all to a monarch like Charles V.[844] (p. 301) Yet the "bastard" was ...
— Henry VIII. • A. F. Pollard
... Four Masters say, when writing of the act of treachery mentioned above: "They all yearned to act treacherously towards Felim, although he was the gossip of the Lord Justice."—Annals, vol. iii. p. 285. He was sponsor or godfather ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... Uncle George was William's godfather, and he was intensely interested in William's upbringing. It was an interest with which William would gladly have dispensed. Uncle George's annual visit was to William a purgatory only to be endured by a resolutely ...
— More William • Richmal Crompton
... Walt Mason and Ella Wheeler Wilcox. Now Mr. Urwick I thought that I would name the next one after you, seeing you have done so much for literature Robert if a boy or Roberta if a girl with Urwick for a middle name thus making you a godfather in a manner of speaking. I was wondering whether you would not feel like making a little godfathers gift for this innocent babe now about to come into the world and to bare your name. Say twenty dollars, but not a check ...
— Mince Pie • Christopher Darlington Morley
... suspected it," replied the lawyer. "For that reason I readily agreed to be little Polydore's godfather, and he is registered as the son of the Baron and Baronne de la Baudraye; if you have the feelings of a father, you ought to rejoice in knowing that the child is heir to one of the finest entailed estates ...
— Parisians in the Country - The Illustrious Gaudissart, and The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... brother, and Dahlia as Archie's wife; and then with a sudden inspiration presented Thomas grandly as "le beau-pere du petit fils de mes amis Monsieur et Madame Mannering." Thomas seemed more assured of his place as Peter's godfather than as the brother ...
— The Sunny Side • A. A. Milne
... Papa," said Case. "'Tain't you that's to marry her. I guess you're not her godfather and godmother. I guess Mr. Wiltshire's ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 17 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... confirmation. There is a certain custom here, that when a slave has done anything for which he expects to be punished, he endeavours to fly to some friend of his owner, and obtain a note, asking for the remission of his punishment. The writer of such a letter has the title of godfather bestowed on him, and it would be accounted an act of the greatest impoliteness not to grant the godfather's request. In this way, I myself was fortunate enough to ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer
... appearance) went so far as to pooh-pooh what I said. I don't bear him any ill-will. Gus was always a bit of a courtier, and got his head turned for good, when the Japanese Prince CHI IKAH invited him to stay a week at his country house, and to act as godfather to the infant prince, KA CHOOKAH, the necessary ceremony haying been postponed for six months in order to allow GUS to get there in time. That, as I say, was the ruin of GUS, and since that time he has had an offensive way of ...
— Punch, Or the London Charivari, Volume 101, November 21, 1891 • Various
... earlier god-sib, related in God, a sponsor, soon developed the subsidiary meanings of boon companion, crony, tippler, babbler, etc., all of which are represented in Shakespeare. The case of Fr. compere and commere, godfather and godmother, is similar. Cotgrave explains commerage as "gossiping; the acquaintance, affinity, or league that growes betweene women by christning a child together, or one for another." Ger. Gevatter, godfather, has also acquired the sense of Fr. bonhomme (p. ...
— The Romance of Words (4th ed.) • Ernest Weekley
... vessel and his pay as captain, my father was well to do. Mr. Masterman, who had a very high opinion of my father, and gained much money by his exertions and good management, was present at the marriage, and when I was born, about a year afterwards, he stood for me as godfather. Every one considered that this was a most advantageous circumstance for me, and congratulated my father and mother; for Mr. Masterman was a bachelor, of nearly sixty years, without any near relations. It is true, that he was very fond of money; but that, they said, was all the better, as he could ...
— Masterman Ready • Captain Marryat
... joy to me to take part in your joy, and I thank you very cordially for having thought first of me as godfather to your child. I accept that office very willingly, and make sincere wishes that this son may be worthy of his father, and may help to increase the honor of our name. Alas! it has been only too much neglected ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 1, "From Paris to Rome: - Years of Travel as a Virtuoso" • Franz Liszt; Letters assembled by La Mara and translated
... Alfred was godfather to Guthrun the Dane, when baptized after his defeat at Ethandune ...
— The Visions of England - Lyrics on leading men and events in English History • Francis T. Palgrave
... of Tito's treasons, which purchases safety and advancement for himself by the betrayal and death of her noble old godfather, her last living link to the past, the burden of her life becomes beyond her bearing, and again she attempts to lay it down by fleeing. There is no Savonarola now to meet and turn her back. Savonarola has lost the power, has ...
— The Ethics of George Eliot's Works • John Crombie Brown
... of the Royal Engineers, a bluff, slightly grey man of fifty, who was answerable as father and godfather for the rather formidable names of the three bright, sun-burned, manly lads of fifteen to seventeen—names which the boys had shortened into "Man", "Tim," and ...
— The Dingo Boys - The Squatters of Wallaby Range • G. Manville Fenn
... together. I had good reason to hope and believe that all of them embraced the truth and accepted the Lord Jesus as their Saviour. The three boys were baptized by Bishop Fauquier at St. Luke's Church, Sault Ste. Marie, on the 27th of October; the Bishop took a great fancy to Ningwinnena, became his godfather, and gave him his own name, Frederick. Everyone indeed loved the Neepigon boy; he was so gentle in his ways, so quiet and polite in his manner, and made such quaint efforts to converse in English. He seemed so pleased too at ...
— Missionary Work Among The Ojebway Indians • Edward Francis Wilson
... Fairies, who was, it is to be presumed, the godfather of King Auberon, must have been very favourable on this particular day to his fantastic godchild, for with the entrance of the guard of the Provost of Notting Hill there was a certain more or less inexplicable addition to his delight. The wretched navvies and sandwich-men who carried ...
— The Napoleon of Notting Hill • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... might splutter from the Bench." His jarring laugh hurt her. "The Man in the Street, and the Woman of the Street, for that matter—pardon me if I offend your ears, but the truth must be told—were my godfather and my godmother, and they gave me that name between them. You are trembling, Miss Mildare. Sit down upon that balk, and I ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... large hall in the castle of the Holy Trinity; arms and armor hang upon the walls, with various Gothic ornaments. The Man; women, children, some old men, and nobles are kneeling at his feet. The Godfather stands in the centre of the hall, and crowds of men ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No. 6, December 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... others to a corporation of porters who worked for different houses, but T. O. Schroeter's was the house they liked best. For more than one generation the head of this particular firm had enjoyed their highest consideration, and stood godfather to all ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... people are slower in making Christians of their children than we poor ones, and little Lord Poynings was not christened until the month of June. A duke was one godfather, and Mr. Edmund Preston, the State Secretary, another; and that kind Lady Jane Preston, whom I have before spoken of, was the godmother to her nephew. She had not long been made acquainted with my wife's history; and both she and her sister loved her heartily and were very ...
— The History of Samuel Titmarsh - and the Great Hoggarty Diamond • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Duke was to be desired to be one of the godfathers; and it being objected that that would not be proper, there being no peer of the land to be joyned with him, the lady replied, "Why, let him choose; and if he will not be a godfather without a peer, then let him even stay till he hath made a pier of his own." He tells me, too, that he hath lately been observed to tack about at Court, and to endeavour to strike in with the persons that are against the Chancellor; but this he says of him, that he do not say nor do anything ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... you to stand by them in all this, Sydney," she said, in conclusion, "and play fairy godfather for Jonesy henceforth and for ever. One night, when Keith came up to confess some mischief he had been into during the day, ...
— Two Little Knights of Kentucky • Annie Fellows Johnston
... his book ag'in, an' holdin' up his right hand to'ards Sonny, settin' on top o' the bean-arbor in the rain, he commenced to read the service o' baptism, an' we stood proxies—which is a sort o' a dummy substitutes—for whatever godfather an' mother Sonny see fit to choose ...
— Sonny, A Christmas Guest • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... smelling-bottle, and a vinaigrette; and she offers him, en revanche, a cane, buttons, or a pin—in short, some present. The corbeilles given to godmothers are often very expensive, being suited to the rank of the parties; so that in Paris the compliment of being selected as a godfather entails no trifling expense on the chosen. The great prices given for wedding trousseaux in France, even by those who are not ...
— The Idler in France • Marguerite Gardiner
... always a loyal son of the Church. His father, AEthelwulf, sent him to Rome when he was quite a little boy, and Pope Leo IV was godfather to him at his Confirmation, and, on hearing the report of AEthelwulf's death, consecrated him as king, as he had been asked to do. But AEthelwulf did not die for a little time after, and took Alfred for a second visit to Rome. Each ...
— Our Catholic Heritage in English Literature of Pre-Conquest Days • Emily Hickey
... well to state here that Vincent Holroyd was as guiltless as Mark himself of any intention to portray Mr. Humpage in the pages of 'Illusion'; he had indeed heard of him from the Langtons, but the resemblances in the imaginary solicitor to Dolly's godfather were few and trivial enough, and, like most of such half-unconscious reminiscences, required the aid of a malicious dulness to pass as anything more ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... named Pierre Simon Paul (they were going to call him Paul) and at the end of August he was christened, the baron being godfather, and Aunt Lison godmother. At the beginning of September Aunt Lison went away, and her absence was as unnoticed as her ...
— The works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 5 (of 8) - Une Vie and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant 1850-1893
... she has been with us. Then, for baby, there is Dr. Bates's bill of forty-five guineas, two guineas for christening, twenty for a grand christening supper and ball (rich uncle John mortally offended because he was made godfather, and had to give baby a silver cup: he has struck Thomas out of his will: and old Mr. Firkin quite as much hurt because he was NOT asked: he will not speak to me or Thomas in consequence) twenty guineas for flannels, laces, little gowns, ...
— The Fatal Boots • William Makepeace Thackeray
... which, so long as it interested him and gave him definite occupation. To keep him idling about between Lorne and the Brabazon town house in Audley Square was the worst thing in the world for him. Privately she determined to approach her godfather on the subject at the very next opportunity, though she could make a very good, guess at the reason for his refusal. It was a purely selfish one. He liked to have the boy with him. Bully him and browbeat him as he might, Tony was in reality the apple of ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... Spenser was still the dominant influence in English poetry. "He hath confessed to me," said Dryden, "that Spenser was his original,"—an incredible statement unless we understand "original" in the sense of his earliest admiration, his poetic godfather who first won him to poetry. He read Shakespeare and Jonson in the first editions. He read Sylvester's translation of Du Bartas, His Divine Weekes and Workes; and perhaps thence conceived the first vague idea of a poem on a kindred subject. It is necessary to insist on ...
— Milton • Sir Walter Alexander Raleigh
... I too, your Godfather, have known what the enjoyments and advantages of this life are, and what the more refined pleasures which learning and intellectual power can bestow; and with all the experience that more than threescore years can give, I now, on ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge
... Llwddythlw had also heard the story of what the Prince had said that he expected, and he scratched his head again with vexation. It had been reported that the Prince had declared that he had hoped to be asked to be godfather long ago. Lady Amaldina had probably heard some other version of the story. "What I mean is that everybody was surprised that it should be so long postponed, but that they now begin to think it ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope
... moment indignantly throw up his brief. With respect to the mysterious child, whose unfortunate mother may, most probably, now be no more, it is only certain that Lady Hamilton was induced to receive her, at a very tender age, as his lordship's adopted daughter. They had been godfather, and godmother, in the baptismal ceremony; and her ladyship, at Lord Nelsons request, kindly undertook the care of Miss Horatia's education: as she had already done, for some years, that of the present highly accomplished ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. II (of 2) • James Harrison
... twenty-two and a painter, a fine youth filled with confidence because of the success he had just achieved at the last Salon; of a distant cousin, the family counsellor, a tyrannical landlord and self-centered bachelor, Adhemar Meydieux, and the child of whom he was godfather, and around whom all this particular little ...
— The Idol of Paris • Sarah Bernhardt
... precisely that was, is nothing to the purpose, 'tis enough to say he remembers what he then saw and heard a good deal better than what happened a week ago—it came to pass that he was spending a pleasant week of his holidays with his benign uncle and godfather, the curate of Chapelizod. On the second day of his, or rather my sojourn (I take leave to return to the first person), there was a notable funeral of an old lady. Her name was Darby, and her journey to her last home was very considerable, being made in a hearse, by easy stages, from her ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... land on both sides of the creek, and to our right a small sunny opening appeared, the landing place to the native dwellings. The water was deep close to the bank, and a clean pathway ascended from the shady port to the buildings, which were about a furlong distant. My friend Cardozo was godfather to a grandchild of Pedro-uassu, whose daughter had married an Indian settled in Ega. He had sent word to the old man that he intended to visit ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates
... been a kind of a godfather to you yonder. I have promised and vowed some things in your name which I think ...
— The Comedies of William Congreve - Volume 1 [of 2] • William Congreve |
