“
Ego Tripping
I was born in the congo
I walked to the fertile crescent and built
the sphinx
I designed a pyramid so tough that a star
that only glows every one hundred years falls
into the center giving divine perfect light
I am bad
I sat on the throne
drinking nectar with allah
I got hot and sent an ice age to europe
to cool my thirst
My oldest daughter is nefertiti
the tears from my birth pains
created the nile
I am a beautiful woman
I gazed on the forest and burned
out the sahara desert
with a packet of goat's meat
and a change of clothes
I crossed it in two hours
I am a gazelle so swift
so swift you can't catch me
For a birthday present when he was three
I gave my son hannibal an elephant
He gave me rome for mother's day
My strength flows ever on
My son noah built new/ark and
I stood proudly at the helm
as we sailed on a soft summer day
I turned myself into myself and was
jesus
men intone my loving name
All praises All praises
I am the one who would save
I sowed diamonds in my back yard
My bowels deliver uranium
the filings from my fingernails are
semi-precious jewels
On a trip north
I caught a cold and blew
My nose giving oil to the arab world
I am so hip even my errors are correct
I sailed west to reach east and had to round off
the earth as I went
The hair from my head thinned and gold was laid
across three continents
I am so perfect so divine so ethereal so surreal
I cannot be comprehended except by my permission
I mean...I...can fly
like a bird in the sky...
”
”
Nikki Giovanni
“
Excuse me, Princess.” For a moment, my heart leaped at the soft, deep voice. The voice that could either be Rowan’s or Ash’s, they sounded so much alike. Bracing myself, I turned, but it wasn’t Ash standing there. Thankfully, it wasn’t Rowan, either. It was the other brother, the oldest of the three. Sage. Dammit, he’s gorgeous also. What was with this family, that all the sons were so freaking handsome it hurt to look at them?
”
”
Julie Kagawa (The Iron Daughter (The Iron Fey, #2))
“
It had been June, the bright hot summer of 1937, and with the curtains thrown back the bedroom had been full of sunlight, sunlight and her and Will's children, their grandchildren, their nieces and nephews- Cecy's blue eyed boys, tall and handsome, and Gideon and Sophie's two girls- and those who were as close as family: Charlotte, white- haired and upright, and the Fairchild sons and daughters with their curling red hair like Henry's had once been.
The children had spoken fondly of the way he had always loved their mother, fiercely and devotedly, the way he had never had eyes for anyone else, and how their parents had set the model for the sort of love they hoped to find in their own lives. They spoke of his regard for books, and how he had taught them all to love them too, to respect the printed page and cherish the stories that those pages held. They spoke of the way he still cursed in Welsh when he dropped something, though he rarely used the language otherwise, and of the fact that though his prose was excellent- he had written several histories of the Shadowhunters when he's retired that had been very well respected- his poetry had always been awful, though that never stopped him from reciting it.
Their oldest child, James, had spoken laughingly about Will's unrelenting fear of ducks and his continual battle to keep them out of the pond at the family home in Yorkshire.
Their grandchildren had reminded him of the song about demon pox he had taught them- when they were much too young, Tessa had always thought- and that they had all memorized. They sang it all together and out of tune, scandalizing Sophie.
With tears running down her face, Cecily had reminded him of the moment at her wedding to Gabriel when he had delivered a beautiful speech praising the groom, at the end of which he had announced, "Dear God, I thought she was marrying Gideon. I take it all back," thus vexing not only Cecily and Gabriel but Sophie as well- and Will, though too tired to laugh, had smiled at his sister and squeezed her hand.
They had all laughed about his habit of taking Tessa on romantic "holidays" to places from Gothic novels, including the hideous moor where someone had died, a drafty castle with a ghost in it, and of course the square in Paris in which he had decided Sydney Carton had been guillotined, where Will had horrified passerby by shouting "I can see the blood on the cobblestones!" in French.
”
”
Cassandra Clare (Clockwork Princess (The Infernal Devices, #3))
“
The first is that everyone—including Mom and Dad—has to do a hard thing. A hard thing is something that requires daily deliberate practice. I’ve told my kids that psychological research is my hard thing, but I also practice yoga. Dad tries to get better and better at being a real estate developer; he does the same with running. My oldest daughter, Amanda, has chosen playing the piano as her hard thing. She did ballet for years, but later quit. So did Lucy.
”
”
Angela Duckworth (Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance)
“
Grigorii spared a single glance in his brother’s direction. If looks were daggers, that one would’ve
sliced straight through the volhv’s heart. “Here it comes. ‘My oldest son . . .’”
“Is a doctor,” Evdokia finished in a singsong voice. “And my daughter is an attorney.”
Vasiliy raised his chin. “Jealousy is bad for you. Poisons the heart.”
“Aha!” Evdokia slapped the table. “How about your youngest, the musician? How is he doing?”
“Yes, what is Vyacheslav doing lately?” Grigorii asked. “Didn’t I see him with a black eye yesterday?
Did he whistle a tree onto himself?”
Oh boy.
Curran opened his mouth. Next to him Jim shook his head. His expression looked suspiciously like
fear.
“He is young,” Vasiliy said.
“He is spoiled rotten,” Evdokia barked. “He spends all his time trying to kill my cat. One child is a
doctor, the other is an attorney, the third is a serial killer in training.
”
”
Ilona Andrews (Magic Slays (Kate Daniels, #5))
“
Why would Shinyun be after Tessa?” Magnus said.
Jem looked at him in surprise. “Well—because she’s an eldest curse, of course. Like you.”
Magnus blinked. “You mean, because she’s the daughter of a Prince of Hell? Like me?”
“No. It’s more than that. Tessa went to the Labyrinth not just to hide but to research. Eldest curses are not just children of Princes of Hell. They’re the oldest living children of those princes. There can only be nine of them alive at any one time, and I know of only two. And I’m talking to one of them and married to the other.
”
”
Cassandra Clare (The Lost Book of the White (The Eldest Curses, #2))
“
Arin took the basket from her. "Coming or going?"
"I've a errand here, and won't be home until late."
"Shall I guess what brings you to town?"
"You can try."
He peeked in the basket. Bread, still warm from the oven. A bottle of liquor. Long, flat, pieces of wood. Rolls of gauze. "A picnic...with a wounded soldier? Sarsine," he teased, "is it true love? What's the wood for? Wait, don't tell me. I'm not sure I want to know."
She swatted him. "The cartwright's oldest daughter has a broken arm.
”
”
Marie Rutkoski (The Winner's Kiss (The Winner's Trilogy, #3))
“
Implicit [in the psychiatric literature] is a set of normative assumptions regarding the father's prerogatives and the mother's obligations within the family, The father, like the children, is presumed to be entitled to the mother's love, nurturance, and care. In fact, his dependent needs actually supersede those of the children, for if a mother falls to provide the accustomed intentions, it is taken for granted that some other female must be found to take her place. The oldest daughter is a frequent choice... The father's wish, indeed his right, to continue to receive female nurturance, whatever the circumstances, is accepted without question.
”
”
Judith Lewis Herman (Father-Daughter Incest (with a new Afterword))
“
In our family, we live by the Hard Thing Rule. It has three parts. The first is that everyone—including Mom and Dad—has to do a hard thing. A hard thing is something that requires daily deliberate practice. I’ve told my kids that psychological research is my hard thing, but I also practice yoga. Dad tries to get better and better at being a real estate developer; he does the same with running. My oldest daughter, Amanda, has chosen playing the piano as her hard thing. She did ballet for years, but later quit. So did Lucy.
”
”
Angela Duckworth (Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance)
“
Listen to me Igraine,' said the Merlin. 'I fathered you, though that gives me no rights; it is the blood of the Lady which confers royalty, and you are of the oldest royal blood, descended from daughter to daughter of the Holy Isle.
”
”
Marion Zimmer Bradley (The Mists of Avalon (Avalon, #1))
“
This world has emptied me of all but the oldest purpose: tomorrow’s life. I live now for my young Duke and the daughter yet to be. She
”
”
Frank Herbert (Dune (Dune, #1))
“
JULIA: Oldest daughter of Julia and Agrippa. Owner of the smallest dwarf in Rome. Exiled in AD 8.
”
”
Tom Holland (Dynasty: The Rise and Fall of the House of Caesar)
“
His Grace regarded his oldest daughter and the way Ben Portmaine hovered around the girl, clucking and fussing like a mother hen—or a particularly smitten rooster.
”
”
Grace Burrowes (Lady Maggie's Secret Scandal (The Duke's Daughters, #2; Windham, #5))
“
strawberries. The girl his daughter might have spoken of on occasion. The girl who five years ago stood huddled with her mother and sister, as he presented her, the oldest child, with a medal
”
”
Suzanne Collins (The Hunger Games (The Hunger Games, #1))
“
I deserved a holiday, and I deserved to dispense with the laces and trusses expected of a clergyman’s daughter. I wore my oldest frock, which looked remarkably like a potato sack, and I wore very little beneath. I should never have imagined how lovely that feels. It’s most freeing, and it gives you the delicious sense you’re on your way to moral degeneracy. I shall soon be painting my lips and drinking gin.
”
”
Franny Billingsley (Chime)
“
There is George Therault, and Roger’s oldest daughter, and Isabelle’s two sons, and the next time Addie comes, they will all be dead, the last of her old life—her first life—buried in the same ten-meter plot.
”
”
Victoria E. Schwab (The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue)
“
when I think about chess, I don’t think about Archie, or about the other women.” She smiles through her tears. “When I think about chess, I think about my brilliant oldest daughter, doing what she loves, and kicking ass while she’s at it.
”
”
Ali Hazelwood (Check & Mate)
“
Horror is a woman’s genre, and it has been all the way back to the oldest horror novel still widely read today: Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, daughter of pioneering feminist author Mary Wollstonecraft. Ann Radcliffe’s gothic novels (The Mysteries of Udolpho, The Italian) made her the highest-paid writer of the late eighteenth century. In the nineteenth century, Mary Elizabeth Braddon and Charlotte Riddell were book-writing machines, turning out sensation novels and ghost stories by the pound. Edith Wharton wrote ghost stories before becoming a novelist of manners, and Vernon Lee (real name Violet Paget) wrote elegant tales of the uncanny that rival anything by Henry James. Three of Daphne du Maurier’s stories became Hitchcock films (Jamaica Inn, Rebecca, The Birds), and Shirley Jackson’s singular horror novel The Haunting of Hill House made her one of the highest-regarded American writers of the twentieth century.
”
”
Grady Hendrix (Paperbacks from Hell: The Twisted History of '70s and '80s Horror Fiction)
“
It was better for Pat if I stayed away. I couldn’t help the fact that Patrick somehow tied together in his brain the birth of his oldest son and the death of his oldest daughter. He hated Pat for being born right after that death. Patrick never got over the loss of that baby girl. It was something I couldn’t help.
”
”
Ann Napolitano (Within Arm's Reach)
“
Being the eldest child is a sacred position. Be grateful to the Heavens for entrusting you with it.
”
”
Naïde Pavelly Obiang (Live Your Life Regardless: Inspirational and motivational truths on faith, purpose, and self-empowerment for the african woman)
“
Be careful what you say about my friend, little boy. You may think you are safe here because it is customary to respect the Elders, but do not forget that my sire is the oldest of all. And while I may bow to his wishes at times…” She dropped Lorenzo a few feet before grabbing him again. “… in general, I am a very disrespectful daughter.”
Hunter, Elizabeth (2013-12-31). The Elemental Mysteries: Complete Series (Kindle Locations 11951-11953). E. Hunter. Kindle Edition.
”
”
Hunter Elizabeth
“
Why would Shinyun be after Tessa?” Magnus said. Jem looked at him in surprise. “Well—because she’s an eldest curse, of course. Like you.” Magnus blinked. “You mean, because she’s the daughter of a Prince of Hell? Like me?” “No. It’s more than that. Tessa went to the Labyrinth not just to hide but to research. Eldest curses are not just children of Princes of Hell. They’re the oldest living children of those princes. There can only be nine of them alive at any one time, and I know of only two. And I’m talking to one of them and married to the other.
”
”
Cassandra Clare (The Lost Book of the White (The Eldest Curses, #2))
“
It’s just another party,” Clearsight said, laughing. “The queen seems to have one every other night. There’s a full moon, let’s celebrate! A second full moon, celebrate again! Her oldest son’s hatching day, time for a party! One of her daughters sneezed, someone alert the chefs we need a cake! It’s kind of exhausting.
”
”
Tui T. Sutherland (Darkstalker (Wings of Fire: Legends, #1))
“
Phoebe was relieved to discover she would be accompanied by Westcliff's oldest son, Lord Foxhall, whom she had known her entire life. He was a big, boldly handsome man in his twenties, an avid sportsman like his father. As the earl's heir, he had been accorded a viscountcy, but he and Phoebe were far too familiar to stand on ceremony.
"Fox," she exclaimed, a wide smile crossing her face.
"Cousin Phoebe." He leaned down to kiss her cheek, his dark eyes snapping with lively humor. "It seems I'm your escort. Bad luck for you."
"To me it's good luck- how could it be otherwise?"
"With all the eligible men present, you should be with one who doesn't remember you as a little girl in pigtails, sliding down one of the banisters at Stony Cross Manor.
”
”
Lisa Kleypas (Devil's Daughter (The Ravenels, #5))
“
Why can’t Masha see them?” Irina couldn’t help asking. “Masha’s the oldest—” “Because Masha was born to live Masha’s life,” Yaga cut in firmly, “and you were each born to live yours. Some days this will be a blessing. Some days it will be a curse. But every day you are my daughters,” she promised them, “and you are each other’s sisters, and these will be the truths that will always come first.
”
”
Olivie Blake (One for My Enemy)
“
The storyteller has always been a valuable member of society. Even in prehistoric times when men hunted wild beasts and lived in caves they sat around the campfire at night and listened to stories. Your profession is one of the oldest in the world and one of the most useful... And we need stories more than ever now. We need stories to entertain us, to help us to forget our troubles, to fill our lives with colour.
”
”
D.E. Stevenson (Anna and Her Daughters)
“
The Rothschilds have been closely involved with the global elite since the inception of this group. The oldest known Rothschild went by the name of Uri Feibesch who lived in the early sixteenth century. His great great great grandson was Moses Bauer, who lived in the early eighteenth century. A well-known ancestor of this banking family was Mayer Amschel Bauer, an asset manager in Frankfurt am Main. Among other things he represented the money and assets of sovereign Wilhelm von Hessen. He became very rich, because he attended to the conveyance of the capital that belonged to this sovereign during the French Revolution. Mayer Amschel Bauer chose, without exception, women from very influential families that belonged to the global elite, for his sons. In the same way, his daughters married prominent bankers who also belonged to the global elite. All these families acted in the same way as the royal families: they married amongst themselves. Bauer’s sons were known as the “five Frankfurter”: they became bankers of five European countries.
”
”
Robin de Ruiter (Worldwide Evil and Misery - The Legacy of the 13 Satanic Bloodlines)
“
Telling you all this, Camilo, the stab of pain that sliced through my chest that day comes back in full force; it’s a recurring pain that ambushes me out of nowhere. There can’t be a pain worse than that one, so great it has no name. I know, I know, who am I to complain? My daughter’s death wasn’t a punishment. I’m just a statistic, this is the oldest and most common suffering in human history. Before, no one even expected children to survive, so many died in childhood, and it’s still that way in a large part of the world, but that does nothing to lessen the horror when you’re the mother. I felt like I’d been emptied out from the inside, I was a bloody cavity, I couldn’t breathe, my bones were made of wax, my soul had taken flight. And the world still turned as if nothing had happened: I stand up, take one step then another, find my voice and respond, I haven’t lost my mind, I drink water, my mouth full of sand, my eyes burning, and my little girl stiff, frozen, sculpted in alabaster—my daughter who will never again call me Mom, who left a tremendous imprint in her passage through my life, the memory of her laughter, her grace, her rebelliousness, her suffering.
”
”
Isabel Allende (Violeta)
“
[The eighteenth century] was the century, as we are frequently told, of women - the intellectual life of women in salons, women wielding unseen influence, women as members of academies, theatrical productions whose success depended on the power of actresses to charm; in the economic sphere, financiers amassing great fortunes in order to marry their daughters into the aristocracy, and women ruling over whole peoples and empires: Maria Theresa, Catherine the Great, Queen Elisabeth Farnese of Spain, as well as the likes of Mme du Pompadour and Mme du Barry. It was as if some residual matriarchy - the oldest culture of the Mediterranean - was struggling to emerge from the blood and the collective unconscious; as if the time would one day return when, in every tribe, it was the women who possessed wealth and power and the men who 'married out', moving into the wife's extended family, where they became gentle, pampered, more or less superfluous drones. [...] In the century of women, it was inevitable that these erotic legends should attach themselves to the outstanding female figures of the time [...] and all this applied even more strongly in France. It was there that women reached the greatest positions of power, and there that this erotic momentum was at its strongest, by virtue of the traditions and nature of the French people.
”
”
Antal Szerb (The Queen's Necklace)
“
Maybe she should meet other women, more of her own. But more of her own what? Death, the greatest democracy of them all. The world’s oldest complaint. Happens to us all. Rich and poor. Fat and thin. Fathers and daughters. Mothers and sons. She feels a pang, a return. Dear Mother, this is just to say that I have arrived safely, the first began. And then at the end he was writing, Mama, this place is a nothing place, take all the places and give me nothing instead. Oh. Oh. Read all the letters of the world, love letters or hate letters or joy letters, and stack them up against the single one hundred and thirty-seven that my son wrote to me, place them end to end, Whitman and Wilde and Wittgenstein and whoever else, it doesn’t matter—there’s no comparison. All the things he used to say! All the things he could remember! All that he put his finger upon!
”
”
Colum McCann (Let the Great World Spin)
“
I daresay he is not happy that his daughter is now unchaperoned. A gentleman would bid his adieu."
"You can't leave!"
The words hung in the air.Sophia hid a wince and said again, in a more measured tone, "I'm sorry. I'm distraught over my father."
MacLean gave her a devastatingly sexy half-smile. "You misunderstood me; I said, a gentleman would bid his adieu." His voice, low and soft, rolled over her senses like liguid silk. "Fortunately for us both, I am not a gentleman."
"No?" She flicked a finger at the lace on his wrist. "You dress like one."
"I dress like a dandy. Or,as my oldest brother, Alexander, often says, like a 'damned dandy.'"
Her lips quirked. "Your brother sounds a bit harsh."
"You have no idea." He smiled. "As I was saying, dressing fashionably does not make me a gentleman."
"Fine.You are not a gentleman, and I am far from a child," she returned with a lofty wave of her hand. "I don't need my father's presence for protection."
"But perhaps I do."
She had to smile. "You don't need protection from me, Lord MacLean. I don't bite-though if I don't get something to eat soon, I may change my mind."
His eyes sparkled with laughter. "By all means, then, let us eat." He led the way to the dining room, standing aside to allow her to enter.
As she brushed past him, a hot sensation told her that his gaze was lingering on her posterior. She glanced back and found that she was correct. "Lord MacLean!"
He reluctantly lifted hia gaze. "Yes?"
"Is something wrong with my gown?"
"No.There's absolutely nothing wrong with your gown. Or what's in it."
She should have been shocked by his impropriety but instead was pleased he'd noticed. "Thank you. I must say..." She allowed her gaze to travel across him. "You fill your clothes well, too.
”
”
Karen Hawkins (To Catch a Highlander (MacLean Curse, #3))
“
Aphrodite is still outside the ranks of the Olympian deities, and continued to be so, as far as this story is concerned, even after she was received amongst them. One reason why she remained aloof from Olympus was her great sphere of dominion elsewhere: as, for the same reason, did Hekate, to whom she becomes closely similar when she is found, under the name of Aphrodite Zerynthia on the Thracian coast, or of Genetyllis on the Attic coast, receiving sacrifices of dogs. For the Athenians she was “the oldest Moira”.{162} Elsewhere, too, she was thought to resemble the Moirai and the Erinyes, in being, like them, a daughter of Kronos.{163} On the other hand, the tale of her being directly begotten by Ouranos connected our great love-goddess for all time with the sea. For us she was the Anadyomene, the goddess who “emerges” from the salt waves; and she also had the additional name of Pelagia, “she of the sea”.
”
”
Karl Kerényi (The Gods of The Greeks)
“
Korie: Jase lives right across the street from us, and he and his wife, Missy, have three kids: Reed, Cole, and Mia. Jase and Missy like to joke that our oldest son, John Luke, is like Kramer from Seinfeld. On nights when we’re not cooking at our house, John Luke busts through their front door as soon as he sees the dining room light go on to join them for dinner. He seems to know exactly when Missy pulls the rolls out of the oven. Our baby girl, Bella, and their daughter, Mia, are great friends. We say Mia is like the ghost of our house. She appears in our house at all times. You’ll turn around in your recliner, and she’ll be standing there. As soon as we pull in the driveway, she’s in our house, waiting to play with Bella. Our entire neighborhood is actually family. My parents are next door, along with four aunts and uncles and two grandparents. That’s the absolute best thing about where we live. It’s all about family.
”
”
Willie Robertson (The Duck Commander Family)
“
The dumpkeeper had spawned nine daughters and named them out of an old medical dictionary gleaned from the rubbish he picked. These gangling progeny with black hair hanging from their armpits now sat idle and wide-eyed day after day in chairs and crates about the little yard cleared out of the tips while their harried dam called them one by one to help with chores and one by one they shrugged or blinked their sluggard lids. Uretha, Cerebella, Hernia Sue. They moved like cats and like cats in heat attracted surrounding swains to their midden until the old man used to go out at night and fire a shotgun at random just to clear the air. He couldn't tell which was the oldest or what age and he didn’t know whether they should go out with boys or not. Like cats they sensed his lack of resolution. They were coming and going all hours in all manner of degenerate cars, a dissolute carousel of rotting sedans and niggerized convertibles with bluedot taillamps and chrome horns and foxtails and giant dice or dashboard demons of spurious fur. All patched up out of parts and lowslung and bumping over the ruts. Filled with old lanky country boys with long cocks and big feet.
”
”
Cormac McCarthy (Child of God)
“
Lilith’s story is the story of the first woman, our most ancient mother. Until a few years ago, this story was almost lost to us. Along with the ways of the ancient mothers, Lilith had been cast out of our memories. In the oldest of Old Testaments, Lilith was the first woman, created in her own right. Not from a rib of Adam. She knew the name of God and could choose her own path. When Adam tried to force her to lie under him for sex, she left the Garden of Eden. Next came Eve, more compliant yet still disobedient enough to listen to the serpent. Some say that it was Lilith who returned in the form of the serpent, offering Eve a choice: To live in the Garden of the Father God in ignorance of her true identity as a daughter of the Goddess, or to remember her birthright and find her way back. Eve chose to take a bite of the apple, and woman was cursed by the Father God for Eve’s disobedience. The curse condemned women to bear their children in pain and to live under their husband’s rule (the Father God claiming dominion over women’s business). As daughters of Eve, we are now faced with a choice: Do we continue to live under this ancient curse? Or do we call to Lilith and find out where She has been all this time?
”
”
Kaalii Cargill (Don't Take It Lying Down: Life According to the Goddess)
“
They entered the summer parlor, where the Ravenels chatted amiably with his sisters, Phoebe and Seraphina.
Phoebe, the oldest of the Challon siblings, had inherited their mother's warm and deeply loving nature, and their father's acerbic wit. Five years ago she had married her childhood sweetheart, Henry, Lord Clare, who had suffered from a chronic illness for most of his life. The worsening symptoms had gradually reduced him to a shadow of the man he'd once been, and he'd finally succumbed while Phoebe was pregnant with their second child. Although the first year of mourning was over, Phoebe hadn't yet returned to her former self. She went outdoors so seldom that her freckles had vanished, and she looked wan and thin. The ghost of grief still lingered in her gaze.
Their younger sister, Seraphina, an effervescent eighteen-year-old with strawberry-blonde hair, was talking to Cassandra. Although Seraphina was old enough to have come out in society by now, the duke and duchess had persuaded her to wait another year. A girl with her sweet nature, her beauty, and her mammoth dowry would be targeted by every eligible man in Europe and beyond. For Seraphina, the London Season would be a gauntlet, and the more prepared she was, the better.
”
”
Lisa Kleypas (Devil in Spring (The Ravenels, #3))
“
You break her heart, and you’ll have to deal with me and her three brothers, and if you survive that, Her Grace will ensure your social ruin unto the nineteenth generation. I remind you, all of my boys are crack shots and more than competent with a sword.” “It is not my intention to break her heart.” “Oh, it’s never our intention.” His Grace’s brows drew down in thought, and he was once again the affable paterfamilias. “Maggie is different. I hope that’s from being the oldest daughter, but her unfortunate origins are too obvious a factor to be dismissed. She’s in want of… dreams, I think. My other girls have dreams. Sophie dreamed of her own family, Jenny loves to paint, Louisa has her literary scribbling, and Evie must racket about the property as her brothers used to, but Maggie has never been a dreamer. Not about her first pony nor her first waltz nor her first… beau.” Nor her first lover. The words hung unspoken in the air while the fire crackled and hissed and a log fell amid a shower of sparks. It wasn’t what Ben would have expected any papa to say of his daughter, but then, marrying into a family meant details like this would be shared—Esther Windham misplaced her everyday jewels, and Percy thought his daughters should be entitled to dream. In a different way, it felt as if Ben were still lurking in doorways and climbing through windows, but this window was called marriage, and Maggie was trying to lock it shut with Ben on the outside. “I’m not sure Maggie wants to marry me.” It was as close as he’d come to touching on the circumstances of the betrothal. His Grace regarded him for a long moment. “I’m her papa, but I was a young man once, Hazelton. Maggie is only a bit younger than Devlin and a few months older than Bart would have been. When I married, I had no idea either of my two oldest progeny existed. I’d no sooner started filling my nursery when—before my heir was out of dresses—both women came forward, hurling accusations and threats. If my marriage can survive that onslaught, surely you can overcome a little stubbornness in my daughter?” It was, again, an insight into the Windham family Ben gained only because he was engaged to marry Maggie. Such confidences prompted a rare inclination toward direct speech. “I think Maggie’s dream is to be left alone. If she jilts me, she’ll have one more excuse to retire from life, to hide and tell herself she’s content.” “Content.” His Grace spat the word. “Bother content. Content is milk toast and pap when life is supposed to be a banquet. Make Maggie’s dreams come true, young Hazelton, and show her contentment is shoddy goods compared to happiness.” “You make it sound simple.” “We’re speaking of women and that particular subspecies of the genre referred to as wives. It is simple—devote yourself to her happiness, and you will be rewarded tenfold. I do not, however, say the undertaking will ever be easy.
”
”
Grace Burrowes (Lady Maggie's Secret Scandal (The Duke's Daughters, #2; Windham, #5))
“
Nothing,” said Margaret. “So there once was an Indian chief with three daughters, or squaws. All the braves in the tribe wanted to marry them, so he decided to hold a contest—all the braves would go out hunting, and the three who brought back the best hides would get to marry his squaws.” “Everyone knows this one,” said Lauren, rolling her eyes. “I don’t,” said Mom. I didn’t either. “Then I’ll keep going,” said Margaret, smiling, “and don’t you dare give it away. So anyway, all the braves went out, and after a long time they started to come back with wolf hides and rabbit hides and things like that. The chief was unimpressed. Then one day, a brave came back with a hide from a grizzly bear, which is pretty amazing, so the chief let him marry his youngest daughter. Then the next guy came back with a hide from a polar bear, which is even more amazing, so the chief let him marry his middle daughter. They waited and waited, and finally the last brave came back with the hide from a hippopotamus.” “A hippopotamus?” asked Mom. “I thought this was in North America.” “It is,” said Margaret, “that’s why a hippopotamus hide was so great. It was the most amazing hide the tribe had ever seen, and the chief let that brave marry his oldest and most beautiful daughter.” “She’s two minutes older than I am,” said Mom, glancing at me with a mock sneer. “Never lets me forget it.” “Stop interrupting,” said Margaret, “this is the best part. The squaws and the braves got married, and a year later they all had children—the youngest squaw had one son, the middle squaw had one son, and the oldest squaw had two sons.” She paused dramatically, and we stared at her for a moment, waiting. Lauren laughed. “Is there a punchline?” I asked. Lauren and Margaret said it in unison: “The sons of the squaw of the hippopotamus are equal to the sons of the squaws of the other two hides.
”
”
Dan Wells (I Am Not a Serial Killer (John Cleaver, #1))
“
Baron, Baroness
Originally, the term baron signified a person who owned land as a direct gift from the monarchy or as a descendant of a baron. Now it is an honorary title. The wife of a baron is a baroness.
Duke, Duchess, Duchy, Dukedom
Originally, a man could become a duke in one of two ways. He could be recognized for owning a lot of land. Or he could be a victorious military commander. Now a man can become a duke simply by being appointed by a monarch. Queen Elizabeth II appointed her husband Philip the Duke of Edinburgh and her son Charles the Duke of Wales. A duchess is the wife or widow of a duke. The territory ruled by a duke is a duchy or a dukedom.
Earl, Earldom
Earl is the oldest title in the English nobility. It originally signified a chieftan or leader of a tribe. Each earl is identified with a certain area called an earldom. Today the monarchy sometimes confers an earldom on a retiring prime minister. For example, former Prime Minister Harold Macmillan is the Earl of Stockton.
King
A king is a ruling monarch. He inherits this position and retains it until he abdicates or dies. Formerly, a king was an absolute ruler. Today the role of King of England is largely symbolic. The wife of a king is a queen.
Knight
Originally a knight was a man who performed devoted military service. The title is not hereditary. A king or queen may award a citizen with knighthood. The criterion for the award is devoted service to the country.
Lady
One may use Lady to refer to the wife of a knight, baron, count, or viscount. It may also be used for the daughter of a duke, marquis, or earl.
Marquis, also spelled Marquess.
A marquis ranks above an earl and below a duke. Originally marquis signified military men who stood guard on the border of a territory. Now it is a hereditary title.
Lord
Lord is a general term denoting nobility. It may be used to address any peer (see below) except a duke. The House of Lords is the upper house of the British Parliament. It is a nonelective body with limited powers. The presiding officer for the House of Lords is the Lord Chancellor or Lord High Chancellor. Sometimes a mayor is called lord, such as the Lord Mayor of London. The term lord may also be used informally to show respect.
Peer, Peerage
A peer is a titled member of the British nobility who may sit in the House of Lords, the upper house of Parliament. Peers are ranked in order of their importance. A duke is most important; the others follow in this order: marquis, earl, viscount, baron. A group of peers is called a peerage.
Prince, Princess
Princes and princesses are sons and daughters of a reigning king and queen. The first-born son of a royal family is first in line for the throne, the second born son is second in line. A princess may become a queen if there is no prince at the time of abdication or death of a king. The wife of a prince is also called a princess.
Queen
A queen may be the ruler of a monarchy, the wife—or widow—of a king.
Viscount, Viscountess
The title Viscount originally meant deputy to a count. It has been used most recently to honor British soldiers in World War II. Field Marshall Bernard Montgomery was named a viscount. The title may also be hereditary. The wife of a viscount is a viscountess. (In pronunciation the initial s is silent.)
House of Windsor
The British royal family has been called the House of Windsor since 1917. Before then, the royal family name was Wettin, a German name derived from Queen Victoria’s husband. In 1917, England was at war with Germany. King George V announced that the royal family name would become the House of Windsor, a name derived from Windsor Castle, a royal residence. The House of Windsor has included Kings George V, Edward VII, George VI, and Queen Elizabeth II.
”
”
Nancy Whitelaw (Lady Diana Spencer: Princess of Wales)
“
She's my mother. How do you say no to family?"
Marie gets a dark look on her face. "There's a difference between relatives and family. You can be related to someone; that is an accident of genetics. Relatives are pure biology. But family is action. Family is attitude. That woman..." Marie's voice drips with venom. "Is NOT your family. WE are your family. That woman is just your relative."
Hedy's mouth drops, and Caroline's eyes fly open so wide I think they might get stuck.
"Don't hold back there, Marie," Hedy says, finding her voice.
"I'm sorry, but..." Marie's eyes fill with tears.
"Oh no!" Caroline leans over and takes Marie's hand.
Marie shakes it off. "I hate her. I hate that she had the best daughter on the planet and never appreciated her and wasn't ever there for her and never once did anything for her. You guys don't know. She was the most self-absorbed narcissistic cold person..."
"She gave me Joe."
"But..." she says.
I raise my hand. "She. Gave. Me. JOE. Whatever other bullshit happened, the most important thing in my life growing up was Joe. He made me who I am, he helped me find my calling, he was a gift, and everything else is just beyond my ability to get upset about."
"You could get a little upset," Caroline says.
"It takes nothing away from Joe, and how important he was to you, to acknowledge that your mother failed you in almost every way," Hedy says.
"I think you should tell her to go fuck herself," Marie says, leaning back in her chair and crossing her arms like a petulant child. I don't know that I've ever seen her so furious. "You guys don't get it, I was THERE. I MET HER. Wanna know how she screws in a lightbulb? Holds it up in the air and lets the universe just revolve around her."
This makes the three of us bust out laughing. "Oh, Marie, I love you. Thank you for being so on my side." It does mean the world to me that my oldest friend is so protective.
”
”
Stacey Ballis (Recipe for Disaster)
“
In Classical mythology, righteous wrath was the province of old women. Three very specific old women, in fact: the Furies (or the Erinyes, in Greek). Fragments of myth featuring the Furies are found in the earliest records of ancient Greek culture. These sisters were much more ancient than any of the Olympian deities, indicating the persistence of an older, female-dominated tradition which endured here and there even when later, more patriarchal, mythologies set in. The role of the Furies was to preside over complaints brought to them by humans about behavior that was thought to be intolerable: from lesser misdemeanors such as the insolence of the young to the aged, of children to parents, of hosts to guests — to crimes that were very much worse. It was their role to punish such crimes by relentlessly hounding their perpetrators. The Greek poet Hesiod names the three sisters as Alecto — “unceasing in anger,” the punisher of moral crimes; Megaera — “jealous one,” the punisher of infidelity, oath-breaking, and theft; and Tisiphone — “avenger of murder.” They were, he said, the daughters of Gaea (the goddess who personified the Earth), who conceived them from the blood of her spouse, Uranus, after he had been castrated by his son, Cronos. They lived in the Underworld, and like other chthonic deities, like seeds that lie buried beneath the Earth, they were also identified with its fertility. The wrath of the Furies manifested itself in a number of ways: a tormenting madness would be inflicted on the perpetrator of a patricide or matricide; murderers usually suffered a dire disease, and nations which harbored such criminals could be stricken with famine and plague. The Furies could only be placated with ritual purification, and the completion of a task specifically assigned by them for atonement. It’s important to understand that although the Furies were feared, they were also respected and perceived to be necessary: they represented justice, and were seen to be defenders of moral and legal order. The Furies were portrayed as the foul-smelling, decidedly haggish possessors of bat-like wings, with black snakes adorning their hair, arms, and waists, and blood dripping from their eyes. And they carried brass-studded scourges in their hands. In my menopausal years, I certainly had days when I could have gone with that look. I’m happy to admit that the existence of seriously not-to-be-messed-with elder women like the Furies in our oldest European mythology gives me great pleasure. And it’s difficult not to see them as the perfect menopausal role models, because sudden upwellings of (mostly righteous) anger are a feature of many women’s experience of menopause
”
”
Sharon Blackie (Hagitude: Reimagining the Second Half of Life)
“
To my second-oldest daughter, Megan, for her strength of spirit, her leadership ability and her constancy. Meg, you’re a light to everyone who knows you, someone capable of great things because at twelve years old you’ve already learned the power of self-discipline. I can always depend on you to choose the right and stay the course, and that has been an incredible blessing. If you forget everything else I’ve ever taught you, remember this: my love is everlasting.
”
”
Brenda Novak (A Baby of Her Own (Dundee, Idaho, #1))
“
Al-Azhar mosque in El Hussein Square. One of Cairo’s oldest houses of worship, it once doubled as a university, renowned in Europe and throughout the Arab world for its scholarship. Standing on the footpath, Alex took a moment to admire the structure, named after Fatima al-Zahra, daughter of the Prophet Muhammad. Five minarets stretched toward the sky, each with balconies and intricately carved columns. There were six entrances. The main one now before him was built in the eighteenth century and known as Bab El Muzayini, the barber’s gate. Students had once been shaved there. The mosque was a potpourri of architectural styles, built piecemeal over its thousand-year history. But the overall effect was quite beautiful.
”
”
Dan Eaton (The Secret Gospel)
“
No Shows
I woke up this morning but there were some no shows.
My wife, Darcy, died of pancreatic cancer at 31;
one day she came from a routine checkup
and the next month she was gone.
My oldest daughter, Jenna, was 9 at the time,
and 9 years later she OD’d on something;
I asked the coroner not to tell me ‘what’ but ‘why’?
My youngest daughter, Sylvia, hasn’t talk to me
since, so I guess that counts as a no show.
My parents are long gone, my brothers and sisters,
dispersed over the world, rarely email.
My cousins, uncles, aunts, are all distant or deceased.
So when I woke up this morning,
I counted the no shows
like sheep
and fell back
into a welcome sleep
where everyone still showed up.
”
”
Beryl Dov
“
The Bible promises trials for followers of Christ, so we’re wise to prepare for battle now. A soldier doesn’t begin his training after he’s called into battle; he’s been sacrificing and preparing for months and years before his boots hit the battlefield. So, how do we put on our armor for a spiritual battle? By studying and memorizing God’s Word. It forms a protective shield over our souls, warding off enemy attacks. Many times this past year, I’ve had to cling to the Bible. From sad incidences like pit bulls killing our favorite family dog; to therapies not quite working to allow my youngest son to eat solid foods; to my oldest heading to Iraq again; to dangerous stalkers disrupting our lives; to parents’ health issues; to getting canned from one job and not knowing what was next; to a daughter’s long-awaited happy wedding that didn’t happen; to biopsy results positive for cancer; to all the messed-up political and national security issues I cover in my work; to . . . well, a whole lot more. It’s been a heck of a year, and I couldn’t get through it without God’s promises for a brighter day. SWEET FREEDOM IN Action Memorizing Scripture is a tool to get us through to the other side. Write verses on Post-It Notes and stick them on mirrors, the fridge, the TV. Commit to memorizing new Scripture every month so that when trials come your way, you’ll be locked and loaded and ready for spiritual battle!
”
”
Sarah Palin (Sweet Freedom: A Devotional)
“
Jehovah will be with us,” he said. “He’ll have to be,” Joshua said grimly. He gazed down again at the camp. “Does it seem strange to you that we are the oldest ones who will enter the Promised Land?” “Yes, I suppose it does. But God commanded that the old generation would have to die off in the wilderness. Only those who were twenty or younger when we came over the Red Sea are left now.” “Except for you and me. We’re the old men.” “I’m as strong as I was when I was twenty, and so are you.” “Well, you don’t lack confidence.” Joshua dropped his face and studied the ground for a long moment, then said, “I miss those who are gone.” “So do I, but I love the new Israel. The men are strong and lean. They’re ready for a battle. It’s not like it was when you and I first brought back the news of the land that is to become ours.
”
”
Gilbert Morris (Daughter of Deliverance (Lions of Judah Book #6))
“
Be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted…. —Ephesians 4:32 (ASV) Jamie, our oldest daughter, spent the night with us. She had one request: to watch her favorite show, a popular TV dating program. I’ve caught a few snippets but I’ve never watched an entire show. Such silliness! I made homemade lasagna, one of Jamie’s favorites, and picked up some chocolate ice cream, but I planned to finagle a way out of watching the program with her. After supper, she helped me clear the table and load the dishwasher. Then her show started. Her daddy stretched out in his recliner, and Jamie sat on the sofa near him. “I’m going to take my bath, ya’ll,” I announced. “Be back in a little while.” I knew I’d bailed on her, but was it really that important? Sinking into my warm bubbles, I overheard Jamie and her dad discussing which one special woman might be chosen for a date with “the prince.” Rick wasn’t poking fun at the far-fetched island drama. I knew he’d rather be watching sports, but he made interesting comments and listened to Jamie’s observations—to his daughter’s heart, really. Something I’d ignored. After my bath, I put on my pajamas and crept back into the den. Only the last few minutes of the show remained. As I sat beside Jamie, a lump rose in my throat. “Sorry I didn’t watch the whole thing with you. I should have.” “It’s no big deal, Mom.” “Yes it is. This program’s important to you. Let’s do dinner again next week and we’ll watch it together. I promise.” Lord, little things matter so much. Help me listen with my heart and be kind—just like You. —Julie Garmon Digging Deeper: Prv 31:26; Phil 2:4;1 Pt 3:8
”
”
Guideposts (Daily Guideposts 2014)
“
Now there was a day when his sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in their oldest brother's house; and a messenger came to Job and said..." (Job 1:13-19)
”
”
Val Waldeck (His Eye Is On The Sparrow. 365-Day Devotional)
“
STUART SCOTT: I can’t be that concerned with how I’m perceived. I care about how my mother and father think about me and how my friends and how my loved ones think about me. I care about how my ex-wife thinks about me; she and I are still good friends and we do a good job raising our kids. It matters to me. But it doesn’t matter to me what people who are writing a blog on the Internet think. I can’t think about that. Being a father. That’s it. That’s the answer. That’s my answer. I’m convinced of that. I remember there was a day—my oldest daughter, who is fourteen now, but when she was about two or three, there was a show called Gullah Gullah Island, a Disney show, that was her favorite TV show. I was doing the late-night SportsCenter that aired all morning long. So there was one morning and I’d done the show the night before, and I got up and I said, “Taylor, do you want to watch Daddy on TV?” And she said—and it’s not just what she said but how she said it—“No, I want to watch Gullah Gullah Island.” And I remembered thinking that day, if it’s not a big deal to her, and she was my life, then it can’t be that big of a deal.
”
”
James Andrew Miller (Those Guys Have All the Fun: Inside the World of ESPN)
“
I told Benny that I had plans to go to Belarus and Lithuania t see the places where our European relatives had lived and died. Halfway through the week, Benny decided to join me on what he called the 'roots trip,' and by the end of the week Shimon and his oldest son, Amir, and Benny's son Rotem had signed on too. I enlisted my daughter Emily, who speaks Russian. In the middle of May 2011, the six of us met at a small wooden inn deep in the lush green Belarusian countryside. Together we visited Rakov and Volozhin; we walked through the crumbling hall of the Volozhin yeshiva, which has survived two world wars and the death of its students and teachers; we scouted out the street near Rakov's brick Catholic church where Sonia, Doba, and Etl grew up. We traveled to Vilna - now Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania - and searched out the two apartment buildings where Doba and Shepseleh lived and raised their sons. We drove out to Ponar to say kaddish at the cratered pit where Shepseleh and tens of thousands of Lithuanian Jews lay buried. We walked to a hillside at the edge of Volozhin and said kaddish over the pit where Chaim's brother Yishayahu may have been shot. We said kaddish in the small grassy clearing where the Rakov synagogue burned with Etl and her children inside.
”
”
David Laskin (The Family: Three Journeys into the Heart of the Twentieth Century)
“
Back home, Laban received the news happily and ran out to the well. He kissed and embraced Jacob and brought him back home, I guess with all the sheep, and Jacob updated everyone on all the family news back home, omitting how he stole Esau’s firstborn birthright and special blessing. Hearing it, Laban gushed, “You really are my flesh and blood!” And just like that it was settled. Jacob moved into Laban’s house and began working for him. After a while, Laban said to him, “I know we’re family, but I don’t expect you to work for free, so how much shall I pay you?” Laban had two daughters. Leah, the oldest, had lovely eyes, but she was—well, let’s be honest—she was a pig; but his youngest daughter Rachel was a complete piece of ass and Jacob was madly in love with her. So he replied, “How about I work for you for seven years and then I marry Rachel?” “Well, better you than some Hittite piece of shit,” Laban laughed, slapping Jacob on the back. “It’s a deal.
”
”
Steve Ebling (Holy Bible - Best God Damned Version - The Books of Moses: For atheists, agnostics, and fans of religious stupidity)
“
Angelus Rosedale Cemetery. The answers you need start here. Located across the street from the all-boys Loyola High School, Rosedale is one of the oldest, creepiest cemeteries in Los Angeles, with large tombstones shaped like pyramids and giant Celtic crosses. Famous people are buried beneath those stones—“Hurricane Hank” Armstrong, Hattie McDaniel, Rasputin’s daughter Maria, and Anna May Wong, just to name a few. Old Los Angeles is also buried here. Southern California streets, high schools, and cities have been named after the Slausons, Burbanks, and Fremonts now interred at Rosedale.
”
”
Rachel Howzell Hall (These Toxic Things)
“
In the wake of the Great Famine of 1847, nearly one million immigrants fled Ireland for the United States. Among them was a farmer from Wexford County, Patrick Kehoe. Leaving his wife and seven children behind until he could establish himself in the New World, he first settled in Howard County, Maryland, where he found work as a stonemason. In 1850, he sent for his oldest son, Philip, a strapping seventeen-year-old. The rest of the family followed in 1851. By then, Michigan Fever—as the great surge of settlers during the 1830s came to be known—had subsided. Still, there was plenty of cheap and attractive land to be had for pioneering immigrants from the East. In 1855, Philip Kehoe, then twenty-two, left his family in Maryland and journeyed westward, settling in Lenawee County, roughly one hundred miles southeast of Bath. For two years, he worked as a hired hand, saving enough money to purchase 80 acres of timberland. That land became the basis of what would eventually expand into a flourishing 490-acre farm.1 In late 1858, he wed his first wife, twenty-six-year-old Mary Mellon, an Irish orphan raised by her uncle, a Catholic priest, who brought her to America when she was twenty. She died just two and a half years after her marriage, leaving Philip with their two young daughters, Lydia and a newborn girl named after her mother.2 Philip married again roughly three years later, in 1864. His second wife, twenty-nine at the time of their wedding, was the former Mary McGovern, a native New Yorker who had immigrated to Michigan with her parents when she was five. By the time of her death in 1890, at the age of fifty-five, she had borne Philip nine children: six girls and three boys. From the few extant documents that shed light on Philip Kehoe’s life during the twenty-six years of his second marriage, a picture emerges of a shrewd, industrious, civic-minded family man, an epitome of the immigrant success story.
”
”
Harold Schechter (Maniac: The Bath School Disaster and the Birth of the Modern Mass Killer)
“
But Eddie wanted to follow as man and dog retreated. The sense of loss that enveloped him, stiffening his shoulders, he’d felt nothing like it. Not even when Jaz had packed up her shit, taken their oldest daughter when she was still an infant, and moved in with her mother that one time.
”
”
Avril Ashton (Remember Me (Dread+Terrible #2))
“
You know a lot, Ash. You’ve outlived everyone who remembers your time... You even defeated the mage who could turn illusions into reality... You are the strongest and the oldest of the Immortals… You could easily become a god and ascend to the Seventh Heaven if you wanted to, but... you still live in the mortal world. Why?” The wizard shrugged, “I like it when the stars are above my head, not under my feet. Besides, mortal girls are more compliant than goddesses.” “Come on! That’s no excuse! You managed to get with the Goddess of Love, and her daughter…. at the same time!” “In my defense, I didn’t know they were related.
”
”
Kirill Klevanski (Path to the Glory (Dragon Heart, #12))
Andrew Mayne (Angel Killer (Jessica Blackwood, #1))
“
Julia entered the room and asked Angélica if she could collect our plates. As usual, she only spoke to her. It was odd how Julia asked Angélica’s permission for Every Single Thing. I knew Angélica was the oldest, but it appeared as if she was purposely ignoring Catalina.
”
”
Lorena Hughes (The Spanish Daughter)
“
My daughter-in-law,” Lan said. “She has betrayed her duties. She left my oldest son, her husband, for another man. A Cambodian man no less. Claims that she’s in love. Foolish girl.” Lan uttered tut-tuts of heavy disapproval.
”
”
Carolyn Huynh (The Fortunes of Jaded Women)
“
Did you tell her I’ve been in meetings all morning?” Priscilla asked in a robotic voice, her oldest-Asian-daughter instincts taking over despite how much she had fought against them her whole life.
”
”
Carolyn Huynh (The Fortunes of Jaded Women)
“
The history of Lebanon’s Shia community is said to stretch back to the early days of Islam, the oldest community outside Medina, where, after the prophet Muhammad died, some had chosen Ali, cousin of the prophet and husband of his daughter Fatima, as the rightful heir. They were known hence as the partisans of Ali, shi’at Ali.
”
”
Kim Ghattas (Black Wave: Saudi Arabia, Iran and the Rivalry That Unravelled the Middle East)
“
The Lowcountry is a two-hundred-mile stretch of land that spans the Georgia and South Carolina coasts, along with the Sea Islands.9 It is believed that over half of the 388,000 Africans brought to the lands that became the United States first arrived in the Lowcountry.10 According to the International African American Museum, 80 percent of African Americans can trace an ancestor who set foot onto a Charleston dock first.11 Despite this rich history, I had heard of Gullah people only twice in my life—on Nickelodeon’s 1990s children’s television show Gullah Gullah Island and from a close friend whose late grandmother was Gullah. The Gullah Geechee people are the oldest sub-ethnic group of African Americans.
”
”
Morgan Jerkins (Wandering in Strange Lands: A Daughter of the Great Migration Reclaims Her Roots)
“
THE PEOPLE OF ICE PLANET BARBARIANS As of the end of BARBARIAN’S TOUCH (suggested pronunciations in parenthesis) AT THE MAIN TRIBAL CAVE CAVE 1 Vektal (Vehk-tall) - The chief of the sa-khui. Mated to Georgie. Georgie – Human woman (and unofficial leader of the human females). Has taken on a dual-leadership role with her mate. Talie (Tah-lee) – Their baby daughter. CAVE 2 Maylak (May-lack) – Tribe Healer. Mated to Kashrem and currently pregnant with child. Kashrem (Cash-rehm) - Her mate, also a leather-worker. Esha (Esh-uh) – Their young daughter. CAVE 3 Sevvah (Sev-uh) – Tribe elder, mother to Aehako, Rokan, and Sessah Oshen (Aw-shen) – Tribe elder, her mate Sessah (Ses-uh) - Their youngest son CAVE 4 Warrek (War-ehk) – Tribal hunter. Eklan (Ehk-lan) – His father. Elder. CAVE 5 Ereven (Air-uh-ven) Hunter, mated to Claire Claire – mated to Ereven, currently pregnant CAVE 6 Liz – Raahosh’s mate and huntress. Currently pregnant for a second time. Raahosh (Rah-hosh) – Her mate. A hunter and brother to Rukh. Raashel (Rah-shel) – Their daughter. CAVE 7 Stacy – Mated to Pashov. Mother to Pacy, a baby boy. Pashov (Pah-showv) – son of Kemli and Borran, brother to Farli and Salukh. Mate of Stacy, father to Pacy. Pacy – Their infant son. CAVE 8 Nora – Mate to Dagesh, mother to twins Anna and Elsa. Dagesh (Dah-zzhesh) (the g sound is swallowed) – Her mate. A hunter. Anna & Elsa – Their infant twin daughters. CAVE 9 Harlow – Mate to Rukh. ‘Mechanic’ to the Elders’ Cave. Spends 75% of her time there with her family. Rukh (Rookh) – Former exile and loner. Original name Maarukh. (Mah-rookh). Brother to Raahosh. Mate to Harlow. Rukhar (Roo-car) – Their infant son. CAVE 10 Megan – Mate to Cashol. Mother to newborn Holvek. Cashol – (Cash-awl) – Mate to Megan. Hunter. Father to newborn Holvek. Holvek – (Haul-vehk) – Wee blue baby boy! CAVE 11 Marlene (Mar-lenn) – Human mate to Zennek. Has unnamed child. French. Zennek – (Zehn-eck) – Mate to Marlene. Has unnamed child. CAVE 12 Ariana – Human female. Mate to Zolaya. Mother to Analay. Zolaya (Zoh-lay-uh) – Hunter and mate to Ariana. Father to Analay. Analay – (Ah-nuh-lay) – Their infant son. CAVE 13 Tiffany – Human female. Mated to Salukh and newly pregnant. Salukh - Salukh (Sah-luke) – Hunter. Son of Kemli and Borran, brother to Farli and Pashov. CAVE 14 Aehako – (Eye-ha-koh) – Acting leader of the South cave. Mate to Kira, father to Kae. Son of Sevvah and Oshen, brother to Rokan and Sessah. Kira – Human woman, mate to Aehako, mother of Kae. Was the first to be abducted by aliens and wore an ear-translator for a long time. Kae (Ki –rhymes with ‘fly’) – Their newborn daughter. CAVE 15 Kemli – (Kemm-lee) Female elder, mother to Salukh, Pashov and Farli Borran – (Bore-awn) Her mate, elder Farli – (Far-lee) Their teenage daughter. Her brothers are Salukh and Pashov. She has a pet dvisti named Chahm-pee (Chompy). CAVE 16 Drayan (Dry-ann) – Elder. Drenol (Dree-nowl) – Elder. CAVE 17 Vadren (Vaw-dren) – Elder. Vaza (Vaw-zhuh) – Widower and elder. Loves to creep on the ladies. CAVE 18 Asha (Ah-shuh) – Separated from Hemalo. No living child. Maddie – Lila’s sister. Found in second crash. CAVE 19 Bek – (BEHK) – Hunter. Hassen (Hass-en) – Hunter. Harrec (Hair-ek) – Hunter. Taushen (Tow –rhymes with cow- shen) – Hunter. Hemalo (Hee-mah-lo) – Separated from Asha. CAVE 20 Josie – Human woman. Mated to Haeden and newly pregnant. Haeden (Hi-den) – Hunter. Previously resonated to Zalah but she died (along with his khui) in the khui-sickness before resonance could be completed. Now mated to Josie. CAVE 21 (formerly a storage cave) Rokan (Row-can) – Oldest son to Sevvah and Oshen. Brother to Aehako and Sessah. Adult male hunter. Now mated to Lila. Has ‘sixth’ sense. Lila – Maddie’s sister. Hearing impaired. Resonated to Rokan.
”
”
Ruby Dixon (Barbarian's Touch (Ice Planet Barbarians, #7))
“
THE PEOPLE of ICE PLANET BARBARIANS As of the start of BARBARIAN’S PRIZE (suggested pronunciations in parenthesis) AT THE MAIN TRIBAL CAVE CAVE 1 VEKTAL (Vehk-tall) - The chief of the sa-khui GEORGIE – His mate TALIE (Tah-lee) – Their baby daughter CAVE 2 Maylak (May-lack) – Tribe Healer Kashrem (Cash-rehm) - Her mate Esha (Esh-uh) – Their daughter CAVE 3 Sevvah (Sev-uh) – Tribe elder, mother to Aehako, Rokan, and Sessah Oshen (Aw-shen) – Tribe elder, her mate Sessah – (Ses-uh) - Their youngest son Rokan – (Row-can) – Their oldest son. Adult male hunter. CAVE 4 Warrek – Tribal hunter. Eklan – His father. Elder. CAVE 5 Ereven (Air-uh-ven) Hunter, mated to Claire Claire – mated to Ereven, currently pregnant CAVE 6 Liz – Raahosh’s mate and huntress. Raahosh (Rah-hosh) – Her mate. A hunter and brother to Rukh. Raashel (Rah-shel) – Their daughter. CAVE 7 Stacy – Mated to Pashov. Has an unnamed child as of book 5. Pashov (Pah-showv) – son of Kemli and Borran, brother to Farli and Salukh. Mate of Stacy, and has an unnamed child. CAVE 8 Nora – Mate to Dagesh, mother to twins Anna and Elsa. Dagesh (Dah-zzhesh) (the g sound is swallowed) – Her mate. A hunter. Anna & Elsa – Their infant twin daughters. CAVE 9 Harlow – Mate to Rukh. ‘Mechanic’ to the Elders’ Cave. Rukh (Rookh) – Former exile and loner. Original name Maarukh. (Mah-rookh). Brother to Raahosh. Mate to Harlow. Rukhar (Roo-car) – Their infant son. CAVE 10 Megan – Mate to Cashol. Extremely pregnant. Cashol – (Cash-awl) – Mate to Megan. Hunter. CAVE 11 Marlene (Mar-lenn) – Mate to Zennek. Has unnamed child. Zennek – (Zehn-eck) – Mate to Marlene. Has unnamed child. CAVE 12 Ariana – Mate to Zolaya. Unnamed child. Zolaya (Zoh-lay-uh) – Hunter and mate to Ariana. Unnamed child. AT THE SOUTH CAVES SOUTH CAVE 1 Aehako – (Eye-ha-koh) – Acting leader of the South cave. Mate to Kira, father to Kae. Son of Sevvah and Oshen, brother to Rokan and Sessah. Kira – Mate to Aehako, mother of Kae. Kae (Ki –rhymes with ‘fly’) – Their newborn daughter. SOUTH CAVE 2 Kemli – (Kemm-lee) Female elder, mother to Salukh, Pashov and Farli Borran – (Bore-awn) Her mate, elder Farli – (Far-lee) Their teenage daughter. Her brothers are Salukh and Pashov. SOUTH CAVE 3 Drayan – Elder. Drenol – Elder. SOUTH CAVE 4 Vadren (Vaw-dren) – Elder. Vaza (Vaw-zhuh) – Widower and elder. SOUTH CAVE 5 Asha (Ah-shuh) – Mated to Hemalo. No living child. Hemalo (Hee-mah-lo) – Mated to Asha. SOUTH CAVE 6 Tiffany – Currently unmated. Human female. Josie -- Currently unmated. Human female. SOUTH CAVE 7 Bek – (BEHK) – Hunter. Hassen (Hass-en) – Hunter. Harrec (Hair-ek) – Hunter. SOUTH CAVE 8 Haeden (Hi-den) – Hunter. Taushen (Tow –rhymes with cow- shen) – Hunter. Salukh (Sah-luke) – Hunter. Son of Kemli and Borran, brother to Farli, Pashov and Dagesh.
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Ruby Dixon (Barbarian's Prize (Ice Planet Barbarians, #5))
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The People of Ice Planet Barbarians As of the end of Barbarian’s Mate (suggested pronunciations in parenthesis) AT THE MAIN TRIBAL CAVE CAVE 1 VEKTAL (Vehk-tall) - The chief of the sa-khui. Mated to Georgie. GEORGIE – Human woman (and unofficial leader of the human females). Has taken on a dual-leadership role with her mate. TALIE (Tah-lee) – Their baby daughter. CAVE 2 Maylak (May-lack) – Tribe Healer. Mated to Kashrem and currently pregnant with child. Kashrem (Cash-rehm) - Her mate, also a leather-worker. Esha (Esh-uh) – Their young daughter. CAVE 3 Sevvah (Sev-uh) – Tribe elder, mother to Aehako, Rokan, and Sessah Oshen (Aw-shen) – Tribe elder, her mate Sessah – (Ses-uh) - Their youngest son Rokan – (Row-can) – Their oldest son. Adult male hunter. CAVE 4 Warrek (War-ehk) – Tribal hunter. Eklan (Ehk-lan) – His father. Elder. CAVE 5 Ereven (Air-uh-ven) Hunter, mated to Claire Claire – mated to Ereven, currently pregnant CAVE 6 Liz – Raahosh’s mate and huntress. Raahosh (Rah-hosh) – Her mate. A hunter and brother to Rukh. Raashel (Rah-shel) – Their daughter. CAVE 7 Stacy – Mated to Pashov. Has an unnamed child. Pashov (Pah-showv) – son of Kemli and Borran, brother to Farli and Salukh. Mate of Stacy, and has an unnamed child. CAVE 8 Nora – Mate to Dagesh, mother to twins Anna and Elsa. Dagesh (Dah-zzhesh) (the g sound is swallowed) – Her mate. A hunter. Anna & Elsa – Their infant twin daughters. CAVE 9 Harlow – Mate to Rukh. ‘Mechanic’ to the Elders’ Cave. Spends 75% of her time there with her family. Rukh (Rookh) – Former exile and loner. Original name Maarukh. (Mah-rookh). Brother to Raahosh. Mate to Harlow. Rukhar (Roo-car) – Their infant son. CAVE 10 Megan – Mate to Cashol. Extremely pregnant. Cashol – (Cash-awl) – Mate to Megan. Hunter. CAVE 11 Marlene (Mar-lenn) – Human mate to Zennek. Has unnamed child. French. Zennek – (Zehn-eck) – Mate to Marlene. Has unnamed child. CAVE 12 Ariana – Human female. Mate to Zolaya. Unnamed child. Zolaya (Zoh-lay-uh) – Hunter and mate to Ariana. Unnamed child. CAVE 13 Tiffany – Human female. Mated to Salukh and newly pregnant. Salukh - Salukh (Sah-luke) – Hunter. Son of Kemli and Borran, brother to Farli, Pashov and Dagesh. CAVE 14 Aehako – (Eye-ha-koh) – Acting leader of the South cave. Mate to Kira, father to Kae. Son of Sevvah and Oshen, brother to Rokan and Sessah. Kira – Human woman, mate to Aehako, mother of Kae. Was the first to be abducted by aliens and wore an ear-translator for a long time. Kae (Ki –rhymes with ‘fly’) – Their newborn daughter. CAVE 15 Kemli – (Kemm-lee) Female elder, mother to Salukh, Pashov and Farli Borran – (Bore-awn) Her mate, elder Farli – (Far-lee) Their teenage daughter. Her brothers are Salukh and Pashov. She has a pet dvisti named Chahm-pee (Chompy). CAVE 16 Drayan (Dry-ann) – Elder. Drenol (Dree-nowl) – Elder. CAVE 17 Vadren (Vaw-dren) – Elder. Vaza (Vaw-zhuh) – Widower and elder. Loves to creep on the ladies. CAVE 18 Asha (Ah-shuh) – Mated to Hemalo. No living child. Hemalo (Hee-mah-lo) – Mated to Asha. CAVE 19 Bek – (BEHK) – Hunter. Hassen (Hass-en) – Hunter. Harrec (Hair-ek) – Hunter. Taushen (Tow –rhymes with cow- shen) – Hunter. CAVE 20 Josie – Human woman and last one to resonate. Haeden (Hi-den) – Hunter. Previously resonated to Zalah but she died (along with his khui) in the khui-sickness before resonance could be completed. Now mated to Josie
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Ruby Dixon (Barbarian's Mate (Ice Planet Barbarians, #6))
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Abbas, did I mention I have four daughters? The oldest will be ready for marriage soon. The rest will follow. Yes? How will I be able to afford their dowries unless I’m sitting behind this desk, adding up the numbers Mr. Singh wants me to?
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Alka Joshi (The Secret Keeper of Jaipur (The Jaipur Trilogy, #2))
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She was Alasdair Conn’s oldest daughter, the Princess of the Jacob’s Ladder. She was both fierce and beautiful, and why she’d chosen him, he’d never know.
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Elizabeth Bear (Chill (Jacob's Ladder, #2))
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were crying with laughter and it warmed Catherine’s heart to see her oldest daughter enjoying such
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Angela Marsons (Dear Mother)
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Thomas hitched his pants to keep the ironing crisp, and sat. Rose put creases in his shirtsleeves, too. Used starch. Even in dull clay-green work clothes, he looked respectable. His collar never flopped. But he wanted to flop. The chair was padded, comfortable. Too comfortable. Thomas opened his thermos. It was a top-of-the-line Stanley, a gift from his oldest daughters. They had given him this thermos to celebrate his salaried position. He poured a measure of black coffee into the steel cover that was also a cup. The warm metal, the gentle ridges, the rounded feminine base of the cap, were pleasant to hold. He allowed his eyelids a long and luxurious blink each time he drank. Nearly slipped over the edge. Jerked awake. Fiercely commanded the dregs in the cup to do their work
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Louise Erdrich (The Night Watchman)
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The gardens were indeed spectacular: lush, green and blazing with summer color. Anna particularly loved the path to the stables, which was lined with ancient oak trees, their foliage creating a tunnel of green shade through which to walk.
'Rosa Mundi,' said Ed, pausing at a bush heavy with candy-striped bright pink-and-white blooms. 'One of the oldest roses, introduced to Britain before William the Conqueror.'
Anna was once again reminded of how extraordinarily long some plants had been around for, blooming, dying and blooming again across the centuries, seeds scattered on the wind, seedlings divided and shared, sold and replanted in foreign soil.
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Kayte Nunn (The Botanist's Daughter)
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My wife reads all my books first and is my biggest fan, hands down. We have two daughters: thirteen and nine.” Lyra’s response comes after she’s taken a sip of her wine, the glass fogged over with steam from the hot tub’s heat. “Our oldest is just starting to read my books, but she prefers Colleen Hoover.” She snorts.
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Kiersten Modglin (A Quiet Retreat)
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To Naomi, my oldest daughter, who loved to hear my story ideas and encouraged me to write them down and then in typical teenager fashion rolled her eyes and said I’d probably not even mention her in the acknowledgments—I showed you, you salty bitch.
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Abby Jimenez (The Friend Zone (The Friend Zone, #1))
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When the Queens Ride, it’s to carry sacrifices to the Heart of Faerie. They used to go down the oldest and longest roads once every seven years, and come back with their company reduced by one, until fair Titania grew jealous of her sister, and asked her oldest daughter to find a way to break the Ride. So she did, and Maeve was lost to us, and the sacrifices stopped. When my brother Rode, it was intentional mockery of the Queens, to spite Titania for having failed to control her children, to shame our mother for being unwilling to help him. There are other Rides, but in the end, a Ride, a true Ride, is always a sacrifice.” She looked at me levelly. “Someone always pays.
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Seanan McGuire (Sleep No More (October Daye, #17))
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Rate of myelination in different brain areas The various brain areas begin and end myelination at different ages. For example, visual areas finish myelinating by six months. At that age an infant can see an object moving through space as a homogeneous object; before that, it’s just a collection of disconnected colors and edges. Watch babies wave a toy back and forth in front of their eyes. This rehearsal wires up the visual areas so they can begin to recognize and track objects. Over and over, the same groups of neurons fire together, forming visual functional groups that eventually work together well enough to let the baby recognize familiar objects. Babies’ other senses work along with sight to help form a mental image of objects. Here’s one study that continues to astonish me every time I think about it: Newborns, still in the hospital, were given pacifiers to suck. There were several different shapes: square, round, pointed. Large models of all the different-shaped pacifiers were hung above their cribs. The babies stared longest at the pacifier that matched the one that had been in their mouth. These infants appeared able to relate the mental image created with touch — what was in their mouths — with the one created with vision — what was dangling above their heads. I remember the first time our oldest daughter saw a book. She was about three months old — barely able to sit up — and we put a cardboard book with very simple pictures of toys in front of her. Instantly she put her face right above the book, and she inspected every square inch of the page from about an inch away. Then she sat back up and slapped the pages all over. We could almost see her brain working: “What is this? It’s flat but it reminds me a lot of the things I see around me.” She combined the senses of touch and sight together to examine a new phenomenon in her world. Speech begins with babbling at around six months of age. I remember our youngest daughter beginning speech by mimicking the up and down flow of the sentence before she began to make individual sounds. The flow of speech is supported by language centers in the right hemisphere; the details of speech are supported by language centers in the left hemisphere. Our daughter was practicing how to talk, using the brain areas that were currently available. Her right hemisphere appeared to mature before her left hemisphere. As the speech areas develop and these groups become more extensively coordinated, the child’s speech becomes clearer and connected. The auditory areas finish myelinating by two years. The child now has the brain foundation for speech production. She can distinguish the individual sounds that make up words, and can begin to string words together into phrases and sentences. The motor system is myelinated by four years. Before that, children are very slow to respond. Have you ever played catch with a three-year-old? He holds out his arms, the ball hits his chest, it falls on the ground — and then he closes his arms. It takes so long for the message to move from his eyes to his brain, from his brain to the spinal cord, and finally from his spinal cord to his arms, that he misses the ball. You can practice with him all you like, but his reactions won’t speed up until his motor system myelinates.
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Frederick Travis Ph.D. (Your Brain Is a River, Not a Rock)
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Get up, girl!” Mrs. Bennet swatted at her oldest daughter causing Jane’s eyes to bulge. Jane was used to her mother’s tantrums, but they had usually been focused on Elizabeth or Mary, and on occasion, Kitty. To have her own arm swatted was startling. She hurried from the bed.
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Leah Page (Trust and Honesty: A Pride and Prejudice Variation)
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In his most eloquent and moving tribute to the classics, the chapter on “Reading” in Walden, he tried again to explain: The oldest Egyptian or Hindoo philosopher raised a corner of the veil from the statue of the divinity; and still the trembling robe remains raised, and I gaze upon as fresh a glory as he did, since it was I in him that was then so bold, and it is he in me that now reviews the vision. If we can see as much and as well as they saw, we can also hope to write as well as they wrote. If, as Thoreau notes in his journal in mid-February of 1838, each of the sons of Greece “created a new heaven and a new earth for Greece,” there was no compelling reason why each of the sons and daughters of Concord should not be able to do the same.4
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Robert D. Richardson Jr. (Henry Thoreau: A Life of the Mind)
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You do know who I am, don’t you, Trip? You understand how serious I am about protecting my clients while paving their way into history. Can you really be that stupid to think I would take you at your word? I protect my investments…even from themselves.” “I have a wife, daughters.” “You should have thought of them before you hired two sex workers in less than twenty-four hours.” He was visibly shaking now. “I warned you what would happen if you crossed me,” I reminded him. “I didn’t cross you. This isn’t what it looks like,” he sputtered. “The girl you hired this morning? She turned eighteen last week. Your oldest daughter is what? Sixteen?” I asked. “I-It’s a sex addiction. I’ll get help,” Trip decided. “We’ll keep it quiet, I’ll get treatment, and everything will be fine.” I shook my head. “I see it’s not sinking in yet. You’re finished. There’s no way for you to throw yourself on the mercy of the court of public opinion, because they’ll eat you alive. Especially seeing as how you missed the vote on veterans benefits because you were paying to have your cock sucked.” Little beads of sweat dotted his forehead. “You threw it all away because you couldn’t keep your dick in your pants. Your career, your future. Your family. Your wife will leave you. Your daughters are old enough that they’ll hear every salacious detail of Daddy’s extracurricular sex life. They’ll never look at you the same again.” I nodded at the open folder in his lap. “I’ve already had a press release drafted about how my firm was forced to sever ties with you after learning about your sexual exploits.” He closed his eyes, and I had to turn away when his lip began to tremble. “Please. Don’t do this. I’ll do anything,” he begged. He was yet another weak, pathetic addition to the long list of men who risked everything just to get off. “I’ll give you a choice. You’ll resign from Congress immediately. You’ll go home and tell your wife and daughters that you had an epiphany and that your time together is precious. You don’t want to work a job that keeps you away from them so much anymore. You’ll go to fucking therapy. Or you won’t. You’ll save your marriage or you won’t. One thing you won’t do is ever cheat on your wife again. Because if you do, I’ll deliver copies of every photo and every video to your wife, your parents, your church, and every member of the media between here and fucking Atlanta.” Trip put his head in his hands and let out a broken moan. I almost wished he’d put up more of a fight, then smothered that feeling. “Get out. Go home, and don’t ever give me a reason to share the information I’ve collected.” “I can be better. I can do better,” he said, rising from the chair like a puppet on strings. “I don’t give a fuck,” I said, leading the way to the door. He was weak. No one could build a foundation on weakness.
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Lucy Score (Things We Left Behind (Knockemout, #3))
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Parts of medieval Cheyneygates survive today, notably two splendid rooms over the entrance to the cloisters—sufficient, despite wartime bombing and heavy restoration, to show that the Queen and her daughters were luxuriously housed while in sanctuary—and the sumptuous Jerusalem Chamber, the abbot’s principal apartment, then hung with rich tapestries, which was one of the rooms assigned to Elizabeth Wydeville. All date from the fourteenth century, making Cheyneygates the oldest surviving medieval house in London. The rest of the house, which now comprises the Deanery, has been rebuilt.
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Alison Weir (Elizabeth of York: A Tudor Queen and Her World)
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Angry tears stung her eyes. Tension built and boiled inside her. Her cheeks grew hot with suppressed anger, her movements became jerky and abrupt. She shoved an errant strand of hair out of her face, stormed to the washstand — And collided with her husband. He had been coming toward her with a piece of wet linen and a bowl half-filled with water. As he and Juliet bounced off each other, some of the water spilled onto the carpet, the rest down the front of his waistcoat. Ignoring it, Gareth held out the damp rag like a truce offering. "Here." "What's that for?" "She needs washing, doesn't she?" "What do you know about babies?" "Come now, Juliet. I am not entirely lacking in common sense." "I wonder," she muttered, spitefully. He summoned a polite though confused smile — and that only stoked Juliet's temper all the more. She did not want him to be such a gentleman, damn it! She wanted a good, out-and-out row with him. She wanted to tell him just what she thought of him, of his reckless spending, of his carefree attitude toward serious matters. Oh, why hadn't she married someone like Charles — someone capable, competent, and mature? "What is wrong, Juliet?" "Everything!" she fumed. She plunged the linen in the bowl of water and began swabbing Charlotte's bottom. "I think Perry was right. We should go straight back to your brother, the duke." "You should not listen to Perry." "Why not? He's got more sense than you and the rest of your friends combined. We haven't even been married a day, and already it's obvious that you're hopelessly out of your element. You have no idea what to do with a wife and daughter. You have no idea where to go, how to support us — nothing. Yet you had to come charging after us, the noble rescuer who just had to save the day. I'll bet you didn't give any thought at all to what to do with us afterward, did you? Oh! Do you always act before thinking? Do you?" He looked at her for a moment, brows raised, stunned by the force of her attack. Then he said dryly, "My dear, if you'll recall, that particular character defect saved your life. Not to mention the lives of the other people on that stagecoach." "So it did, but it's not going to feed us or find us a place to live!" She lifted Charlotte's bottom, pinned a clean napkin around the baby's hips, and soaped and rinsed her hands. "I still cannot believe how much money you tossed away on a marriage license, no, a bribe, this morning, nor how annoyed you still seem to be that we didn't waste God-knows-how-much on a hotel tonight. You seem to have no concept of money's value, and at the rate you're going, we're going to have to throw ourselves on the mercy of the local parish or go begging in the street just to put food in our bellies!" "Don't be ridiculous. That would never happen." "Why wouldn't it?" "Juliet, my brother is the Duke of Blackheath. My family is one of the oldest and richest in all of England. We are not going to starve, I can assure you." "What do you plan to do, then, work for a living? Get those pampered, lily-white hands of yours dirty and calloused?
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Danelle Harmon (The Wild One (The de Montforte Brothers, #1))
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You didn’t worry every time you got up with Kit in the middle of the night?” “How did you know we were awake?” He shot her a peculiar look from across the kitchen then went back to hanging towels. “You have a pretty voice, Sophie.” It made no sense, but his compliment had her blushing. She’d received compliments before, on her attire, her mare, her embroidery, but her voice wasn’t something she’d purchased or made, it was part of her. “My mother thought we should all learn an instrument,” she said. “I tried piano, but my next oldest brother is so astoundingly good at it, I put him to use as my accompanist from time to time. My whole family likes to sing, except my father. He cannot, as they say, carry a tune in a bucket.” She
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Grace Burrowes (Lady Sophie's Christmas Wish (The Duke's Daughters, #1; Windham, #4))
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As he forced himself to retreat from the world of his sketch, Elijah realized the boys were trying to start a squabble over some lower order of card—a three? “I-unts” became increasingly vocal, interspersed with “It’s not your turn,” until Elijah had to set his drawing aside and scoop William up in his arms. “What you want,” he informed the child, “is a stout tickling.” He scratched lightly at the boy’s round tummy, provoking peals of merriment. William’s laughter, surprisingly hearty coming from so small a body, sounded to Elijah exactly as Prudholm’s had when that worthy was still small enough to tease and tickle like this. “Elijah…” Jenny’s tone bore patience and a warning. Don’t get the little ones all wound up, Elijah. You’re the oldest, and they look to you for an example of proper decorum. He lifted the happy little fellow up over his head and slowly lowered him. “Enough, my lad. Time to go with nurse and have some bread and jam. You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Or maybe some of your mama’s delicious stollen. Mmmm.” “I want some of Mama’s Christmas bread too,” Kit announced. “Come along, Aunt Jen. We’ll share.” Elijah stood, passed Sweet William off to his nurse, and took Aunt Jen by the hand. “I’m sure your aunt longs to accompany you, Kit, but she must stay here and help me clean up this awful mess.” Kit’s gaze darted to the scattering of cards on the rug. To a small child, a deck held thousands of cards, none of which little hands found easy to stack. Such a pity, that. “I’ll save you a piece of stollen, Aunt Jen.” Kit took his nurse’s hand and towed her toward the door. “’Bye, Aunt, ’bye, Mr. Harrison.” “Au revoir,” Elijah murmured.
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Grace Burrowes (Lady Jenny's Christmas Portrait (The Duke's Daughters, #5; Windham, #8))
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TRACKING GAMES Hold an object in front of the baby. When you’re sure she’s seen it, let it drop out of your hand. At five or six months, most babies won’t follow the object down. But starting at about seven months, they’ll begin to anticipate where things are going to land. When your baby has more or less mastered this skill, add an additional complication: drop a few objects and let her track them down. Then hold a helium balloon in front of her and let it go. She’ll look down and be rather stunned that the balloon never lands. She’ll also give you a priceless look of betrayal—as though you cheated by defying the laws of physics. Let her hold the string of the balloon and experiment. Another great game involves your baby’s newly developed abilities to track moving objects even when they’re out of sight part of the time. Put your baby in a high chair and sit down at a table facing her. Slowly move a toy horizontally in front of her a few times. Then put a cereal box between you and the baby and move the ball along the same trajectory but have it go behind the box for a second or two. Most six-month-olds will look ahead to the other side of the box, anticipating where the ball will emerge. If your baby’s still having fun, try it again, but this time, instead of keeping the ball on the same path, make a 90-degree turn and bring the ball out from the top of the box. You can do the same kind of thing during games of peek-a-boo. Step behind a door so the baby can’t see you. Then open the door a little and poke your head out. Do that in the same place a few times and then higher or lower than where she was expecting to see you. Most babies find this endlessly amusing. Again, if your baby doesn’t respond to some, or any, of these activities, don’t worry. Babies develop at very different rates, and what’s “normal” for your baby may be advanced—or delayed—for your neighbor’s. And keep in mind that you don’t need to spend a lot of money on fancy toys. When my oldest daughter was about this age, one of her favorite toys was a plastic dish-scrubbing pad. And I remember taking her to FAO Schwartz in New York—zillions of fantastic toys everywhere—and thinking that she was going to want to play with everything. But all she wanted to do was play with the price tags. (She’s a teenager now, and I look back at that experience as a warning—she still spends an awful lot of time looking at price tags …) Give the Kid a Break Don’t feel that you have to entertain your baby all the time. Sure it’s fun, but letting her have some time to play by herself is almost as important to her development as playing with her yourself. And don’t worry; letting her play alone—as long as you’re close enough to hear what she’s doing and to respond quickly if she needs you—doesn’t mean you’re being neglectful. Quite the opposite, in fact. By giving her the opportunity to make up her own games or to practice on her own the things she does with you, you’re helping her learn that she’s capable of satisfying at least some of her needs by herself. You’re also helping her build her sense of self-confidence by allowing her to decide for herself what she’ll play with and for how long.
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Armin A. Brott (The New Father: A Dad's Guide to the First Year (New Father Series Book 2))
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Appalled by what he saw, he instead prepared a private, two-room apartment for her in the basement of Scotchtown. Each room had a window, providing light, air circulation, and a pleasant view of the grounds. The apartment also had a fireplace, which provided good heat in the winter, and a comfortable bed to sleep in." After placing Sarah there for “treatment” for a short time, at the urging of his personal physician Thomas Hinde, Henry vowed to take her back home and care for her himself. Thus, Henry moved her to Scotchtown plantation back in Hanover County. His oldest daughter, Patsy, also moved there with her husband, and together the family created a small, comfortable apartment in the basement of the home where Sarah could live and be supervised. To his credit, Henry remained devoted to her and cared for her himself when he was at home. When he was away, as he often was, Patsy and the other children, or a female slave, saw to her needs and kept her from harming herself or anyone else.
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Charles River Editors (Patrick Henry: The Life and Legacy of the Founding Father and Virginia’s First Governor)
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A person, Bobby would tell his oldest daughter Kathleen, could be judged by the enemies he made.
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Larry Tye (Bobby Kennedy: The Making of a Liberal Icon)
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At this point, Job may have been thinking, at least I still have my family. But while the sole-surviving servant from the camel attack was still speaking, another servant rushed in and told Job: “Your sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in their oldest brother’s house, and behold, a great wind came across the wilderness and struck the four corners of the house, and it fell upon the young people, and they are dead, and I alone have escaped to tell you.” (Job 1:18-19) How would you handle that? Here’s how Job responded: “Then Job arose and tore his robe and shaved his head and fell on the ground and worshiped” (Job 1:20). This is a primary difference between secular manhood and biblical manhood. As Job loses all his wealth and provision and then contemplates burying all ten of his children, there’s no indication that he just stuffs his emotions and tries to act tough. Instead, he tears his robes as a sign of contrition, shaves his head to symbolize the glory departing from his life, and then falls on the ground...and worships.
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Randy Stinson (A Guide To Biblical Manhood)
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another Muslim woman took office alongside her. Rashida Tlaib, representative for Michigan’s 13th Congressional District, was the other first Muslim woman in Congress. Rashida boasted yet another first: She was first in her family to graduate from high school. The daughter of Palestinian immigrants, a single mother of two boys, and the oldest of fourteen children, Rashida had blasted through other people’s expectations of what it meant to be a Palestinian American woman. And at every step, she was taking all of her heritage with her, proudly representing Michigan and Palestine. At her congressional swearing-in ceremony, Rashida wore a floor-length, long-sleeved black and red thobe, the quintessentially Palestinian dress, which is typically hand-embroidered by women from Palestinian villages. The stitching and styles vary across Palestine, but thobes with lavish designs are worn to mark special occasions, such as puberty, motherhood, and now entry of a Palestinian American woman into the United States Congress. Rashida posted a close-up of her thobe on Instagram.
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Seema Yasmin (Muslim Women Are Everything: Stereotype-Shattering Stories of Courage, Inspiration, and Adventure)
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She lifts a hand, showing off her perfect French manicure. “Eight girls to do your nails for you? Seriously? We’re not your servants, Rachel.” She rolls her eyes. You would know, I think to myself. Of everyone at DB, Mina’s the most likely to have servants. She’s the eldest daughter of one of Korea’s oldest and most powerful chaebol families,
”
”
Jessica Jung (Shine (Shine, #1))
“
He glimpsed Sarsine as he walked through the city. She had a laden basket--it dragged at her arm, making its weight known even from far away. Her faintly harried expression softened at the sight of him.
Arin took the basket from her. “Coming or going?”
“I’ve an errand here, and won’t be home until late.”
“Shall I guess what brings you to town?”
“You can try.”
He peeked in the basket. Bread, still warm from the oven. A bottle of liquor. Long, flat pieces of wood. Rolls of gauze. “A picnic…with a wounded soldier? Sarsine,” he teased, “is it true love? What’s the wood for? Wait, don’t tell me. I’m not sure I want to know.”
She swatted him. “The cartwright’s oldest daughter has a broken arm.
”
”
Marie Rutkoski (The Winner's Kiss (The Winner's Trilogy, #3))
“
This is a disaster.” “Don’t clench your teeth, dearest.” Jenny’s pencil paused in its movement across the page. “What is a disaster?” Louisa stomped into Jenny’s drawing room—it really was a drawing room, not a withdrawing room—and tossed herself onto the sofa beside her sister. “I’m to be married tomorrow. What is the worst, most indelicate, inconvenient thing that could befall a woman as her wedding night approaches?” Maggie, arrived to Town for the wedding, took a pair of reading glasses off her elegant nose. “Somebody put stewed prunes on the menu for the wedding breakfast?” Louisa couldn’t help but smile at her oldest sister’s question. Since childhood, stewed prunes had had a predictable effect on Louisa’s digestion. “Eve made sure that wasn’t the case.” “We’re to have chocolate,” Eve said, “lots and lots of chocolate. I put everybody’s favorites on the menu too, and Her Grace didn’t argue with any of them.” She was on a hassock near the windows, embroidering some piece of white silk. Maggie had the rocking chair near the fireplace, where a cheery blaze was throwing out enough heat to keep the small room cozy. “It’s your monthly, isn’t it?” Sophie leaned forward from the hearth rug and lifted the teapot. “The same thing happened to me after the baby was born. Sindal looked like he wanted to cry when I told him. I was finally healed up after the birth, and the dear man had such plans for the evening.” An admission like that from prim, proper Sophie could not go unremarked. “You told him?” Louisa accepted the cup of tea and studied her sister’s slight smile. “Have the last cake.” Maggie pushed the tray closer to Louisa. “If you don’t tell him, then it becomes a matter of your lady’s maid telling his gentleman’s gentleman that you’re indisposed, and then your husband comes nosing about, making sure you’re not truly ill, and you have to tell him anyway.” Louisa looked from Maggie to Sophie. Maggie was the tallest of the five sisters, and the oldest, with flame-red hair and a dignity that suited the Countess of Hazelton well. Sophie was a curvy brunette who nonetheless carried a certain reserve with her everywhere, as befit the Baroness Sindal. They were married, and they spoke to their husbands about… things. “Why can’t a husband just understand that indisposed is one thing and ill is another?” Louisa thought her question perfectly logical. Sophie
”
”
Grace Burrowes (Lady Louisa's Christmas Knight (The Duke's Daughters, #3; Windham, #6))
“
Part 1- If I can do it, so can you.
I was born and lived in one of the most oldest and most oldest and most beautiful cities in Albania. I lived under the communist regime where everybody was poor, there was no rich people visited the Elite group who dictate the country. Since I was little girl I dreamed of fairy tale life. But for some reason no one was supportive of my dreams. It looked like they were enjoying watching us living in poverty and keep our heads down. for instance when I was in 5th grade I told my literature teacher "when I get older I want to be a beautician" with a smire on the face she said "You are going to be just like your mother, keep having kids in a row" I did not understood what she meant, but I did not expected that answer from an "educated" person either, especially your teacher. As I got older I started to isolated myself from all the negative people, until one day I asked my uncle to help me get in a beauty college, because he knew people in town, I did not wanted to believe he respond. Even today I can hear his word whisper in my ears, telling me "Beauty college is not for you because you are poor, education is only for rich kids" But that did not stopped me either, I told myself "they can't tell me what I can and can't do" They just pushed me to do better in life, I had to prove it to them, that even children can go to college. I have to prove them wrong by letting them know I can do anything I put my mind into it. So I decided to make a very big move in my that would either end it my life or could change my life for ever. On Sep 2, 1990 I had it enough of the communist regime and all the negative people telling me what I can and can't do. So I decided to leave everyone behind me and move forward in life, I decided to escape and followed my dreams. I excaped from army who was chasing to kill us. but God was with me. can you believe it I made it on the local news saying "Two young girls were killed today by army forces escaping the borders" I made it alive to Yugoslavia, I spend almost seven months in concentration camp,but I thought of bright site. There I meet the love of my life. we dated for five months, his visa was approved to come in US two months before mine, I come to state on March of 1991. New place, new chapter in my life, two weeks later got united with my boyfriend. neither of us spoke English, it was very hard to find jobs, we manage to get a job in a local restaurant as a dishwasher and me as a bustable. at that time I was very I found a happy, so I did it with smile on my face, at that time we were living at my husband's cousins unfinished basement? Yes we were sharing a single /twin size bed, we saved little money and we got our 1st apartment, we had nothing insite site. I remember when the manager showed us the appartment, it was green shaggy carpet and I told my husband. "Honey the carpet is thick enough, we don't need mattress to sleep on it we can sleep on the carpet" A co-worker give us some household stuff to start our life with, later that year our 1st child our daughter was born, two months later we get married in a local Albania church. Life was way better than living under the communist regime. we have two more children. So we decided to bring my parents here so they can help us, and I can get back to work. On April 1, 1998 my father come, we picked him at airport, with tears on his eye he was looking the street lights outside of the car window and said, "America is beautiful country, is land of dreams,....when I die please bury me here and not in Albania?" By that time have I learning enough English to my education education. I went to beauty school. two years later I graduated and got the state license. Yahhhh my dreams start coming true, I found a job in a local salon, couple months later i promoted to a salon manager.
”
”
Zybejta (Beta) Metani' Marashi
“
Part 1. My Life Story.
- If I can do it, so can you-
I was born and lived in one of the most oldest and most beautiful cities in Albania. for 23 years I lived under the communist regime, where everyone was poor, there was no rich people beside the Elite group who dictate the country. Since I was little girl I dreamed of fairy tale life. But for some reason no one was supportive of my dreams. It looked like they were enjoying watching us living in poverty and keep our heads down, for instance I remember when I was in 5th grade I told my literature teacher "When I get older I want to be a beautician." With a smire on her face she said "You are going to be just like your mother, keep having kids in a row" At that time I did not understood what she meant, but I did not expected that answer from an "educated" person, especially your teacher. As I got older I started to isolate myself from all the negative people until one day I asked my uncle to help me to get in a beauty college, he knew people in town that's why, I did not wanted to believe he respond. Even today I can hear his words whisper in my ears, telling me "Beauty college is not for poor children, education is only for rich kids" But that did not stopped me either, I told myself "No one can tell me what I can and can't do" They just motivated me to prove them wrong. Poor children can go to college. So I decided to make a very big move my that would either end it my life or could change my life for ever. Sep 2, 1990 I had it enough of that hell place, communist regime and all the negative people.I decided to leave everyone behind me and move forward in life, I decided to escape the communist and followed my dreams. I was also escaped from army who was chasing to kill us, but mighty God was with us. We made the local news saying "Two young girls were killed today by army forces escaping the borders" but I made it alive to Yugoslavia, I spend almost seven months there in concentration camp. There I meet the love of my life also, we dated for five months, until his visa was approved to come in US, two months later I come to state on March of 1991. New place, new chapter in my life, two weeks later got united, neither of us spoke English, it was very hard to find jobs, we manage to get a job in a local restaurant as a dishwasher and me as a bustable, at that time I was very I found a happy, so I did it with smile on my face. We were living at my husband's cousins unfinished basement. Yes we were sharing a single / twin size bed, we had to saved money so we can get our own apartment, we had nothing insite site. I remember when the manager showed us the appartment, it was green shaggy carpet, I told my husband. "Honey the carpet is thick enough, we don't need mattress to sleep on it, we can sleep on the carpet" later on a co-worker give us some household stuff to start our life with. Later that year our 1st child /daughter was born, two months later we get married in a local Albania church. Life was getting way better than living under the communist regime, later on we have two more children. We decided to bring my parents here so they can help us, I can get back to work or go to school . On April 1, 1998 my father come, we picked him at airport, with tears on his eye he was looking the street lights outside of the car window and said, "America is beautiful country, is land of dreams,....when I die please bury me here and not in Albania" By that time have I learning enough English to continued my education. I went to beauty school. two years later I graduated and got the state license. Yahhhh my dreams start coming true, remember I told you I always wanted to be a beautician. I found a job in a local salon, couple months later I was promoted to a salon manager. I did it for me and not for them who did not believed on me, As I said " I never cared
”
”
Zybejta (Beta) Metani' Marashi
“
Part 1. My Life Story.
- If I can do it, so can you-
I was born and lived in one of the most oldest and most beautiful cities in Albania. for 23 years I lived under the communist regime, where everyone was poor, there was no rich people beside the Elite group who dictate the country. Since I was little girl I dreamed of fairy tale life. But for some reason no one was supportive of my dreams. It looked like they were enjoying watching us living in poverty and keep our heads down, for instance I remember when I was in 5th grade I told my literature teacher "When I get older I want to be a beautician." With a smire on her face she said "You are going to be just like your mother, keep having kids in a row" At that time I did not understood what she meant, but I did not expected that answer from an "educated" person, especially your teacher. As I got older I started to isolate myself from all the negative people until one day I asked my uncle to help me to get in a beauty college, he knew people in town that's why, I did not wanted to believe he respond. Even today I can hear his words whisper in my ears, telling me "Beauty college is not for poor children, education is only for rich kids" But that did not stopped me either, I told myself "No one can tell me what I can and can't do" They just motivated me to prove them wrong. Poor children can go to college. So I decided to make a very big move my that would either end it my life or could change my life for ever. Sep 2, 1990 I had it enough of that hell place, communist regime and all the negative people.I decided to leave everyone behind me and move forward in life, I decided to escape the communist and followed my dreams. I was also escaped from army who was chasing to kill us, but mighty God was with us. We made the local news saying "Two young girls were killed today by army forces escaping the borders" but I made it alive to Yugoslavia, I spend almost seven months there in concentration camp. There I meet the love of my life also, we dated for five months, until his visa was approved to come in US, two months later I come to state on March of 1991. New place, new chapter in my life, two weeks later got united, neither of us spoke English, it was very hard to find jobs, we manage to get a job in a local restaurant as a dishwasher and me as a bustable, at that time I was very I found a happy, so I did it with smile on my face. We were living at my husband's cousins unfinished basement. Yes we were sharing a single / twin size bed, we had to saved money so we can get our own apartment, we had nothing insite site. I remember when the manager showed us the appartment, it was green shaggy carpet, I told my husband. "Honey the carpet is thick enough, we don't need mattress to sleep on it, we can sleep on the carpet" later on a co-worker give us some household stuff to start our life with. Later that year our 1st child /daughter was born, two months later we get married in a local Albania church. Life was getting way better than living under the communist regime, later on we have two more children. We decided to bring my parents here so they can help us, I can get back to work or go to school . On April 1, 1998 my father come, we picked him at airport, with tears on his eye he was looking the street lights outside of the car window and said, "America is beautiful country, is land of dreams,....when I die please bury me here and not in Albania" By that time have I learning enough English to continued my education. I went to beauty school. two years later I graduated and got the state license. Yahhhh my dreams start coming true, remember I told you I always wanted to be a beautician. I found a job in a local salon, couple months later I was promoted to a salon manager. I did it for me and not for them who did not believed on me, As I said " I never cared
”
”
Zybejta (Beta) Metani' Marashi
“
I wanna hear about yer brothers," Mira said. "Are they all like Lucien?" Charles made a noise of amusement. "Thank God, no. I'm the second oldest, and then there's Gareth. He's the black sheep of the family and leads a group of ne'er do wells who've styled themselves after the Hellfire Club and call themselves the Den of Debauchery. Gareth is irresponsible and dissolute, and Lucien despairs of him ever making anything of himself besides a general public nuisance — but I have rather more faith in him than that." "And what do the villagers call him?" "The Wild One." "He sounds fun," Mira said. "Is he betrothed?" Charles laughed. "No mama in her right mind would want their daughter married to Gareth. His reputation is not undeserved." He leaned back, his elbows sinking into the sand, the sun warming his upturned face. "And then of course there's Andrew, my youngest brother, who aspires to be an inventor and is, according to the last letter I received from him, hoping to construct a flying machine." "A flying machine?" cried both girls in unison. "Yes. A preposterous notion, isn't it? However, I suppose that if anyone can do it, Andrew can. He has a clever brain, and did very well at Oxford." "What's his nickname?" "The Defiant One." "Why?" "Because he is fiery and independent, and is ever at odds with Lucien." There was long silence. And then, softly, Amy said, "And what did the villagers call you, Charles?" Everything stilled inside him. He sat up, feeling a sudden rush of self-loathing and loss. "The Beloved One," he said quietly. Head bent, he picked up a handful of sand, letting it trickle out through his fingers. "Because I always did everything right, always lived up to what everyone expected of me, always succeeded at whatever I put my mind to — and never let anyone down." He turned his face toward the salty breeze. "Until now." Even
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”
Danelle Harmon (The Beloved One (The De Montforte Brothers, #2))
“
My oldest daughter was four pounds at birth, and her appearance flooded the earth with an infinite number of horrors and perils, a demonic surge of catastrophic possibilities out of all proportion to the tiny mass in my arms. Love unlids Pandora's box.
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Karen Russell (Orange World and Other Stories)
“
Tell me about his sisters,” she heard Devon say. “There are three, as I recall. All unmarried?”
“Yes, my lord.”
The oldest Ravenel daughter, Helen, was one-and-twenty. The twins, Cassandra and Pandora, were nineteen. Neither Theo nor his father had made arrangements for the girls in their wills. It was no easy task for a blue-blooded young woman with no dowry to attract an appropriate suitor. And the new earl had no legal obligation to provide for them at all.
“Have any of the girls been out in society?” he asked.
Kathleen shook her head. “They’ve been in more or less constant mourning for four years. Their mother was the first to pass, and then the earl. This was their year to come out, but now…” Her voice faded.
Devon paused beside a flower bed, obliging her to stop beside him. “Three unmarried gentlewomen with no income and no dowries,” he said, “unfit for employment, and too elevated to marry commoners. And after spending years secluded in the country, they’re probably as dull as porridge.
”
”
Lisa Kleypas (Cold-Hearted Rake (The Ravenels, #1))
“
When there was nothing left to do, but say goodbye, I hugged my dad, thanked him for the hospitality, and we both agreed it had been a good visit. Tears welled up in his eyes, and I realized at that moment, it doesn't matter how old our children or parents are, it doesn't get any easier to say good by. I had lost my younger daughter; my oldest will have moved out by the time I returned home, and dad was saying goodby to his oldest daughter. The circle of life connected us. How many times over the last forty-plus years had my dad reluctantly, with tears in his eyes, said goodbye to me? It made my own situation with my daughters more poignant.
”
”
Debi Tolbert Duggar (Riding Soul-O)
“
Having taken possession of one of Christendom’s greatest and oldest basilicas—nearly a thousand years old at the time of its capture—the invaders “engaged in every kind of vileness within it, making of it a public brothel.”154 On “its holy altars” they enacted “perversions with our women, virgins, and children,”155 including “the Grand Duke’s daughter who was quite beautiful.” She was forced to “lie on the great altar of Hagia Sophia with a crucifix under her head and then raped.
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Raymond Ibrahim (Sword and Scimitar: Fourteen Centuries of War between Islam and the West)
“
Only years later did I realize that I had a choice. I didn’t have to sacrifice myself; there was no point waiting for someone to change who had no intention of changing because he had never questioned his own opinions.Today I enjoy being able to really talk with people, my husband, Mark, above all, and some good friends. Unfortunately, the divorce was not the end of the story of my marriage. It repeated itself in my relationship with my oldest daughter Carla.With her I kept on relapsing into that old childhood pattern, those constant feelings of inadequacy, guilt, helplessness. Luckily I have managed to establish an affectionate relationship with my two younger daughters.With them I feel relatively free. And I know of many cases where very close contact with the children has been possible despite divorce.
”
”
Alice Miller (Paths of Life: Six Case Histories)
“
In our family, we live by the Hard Thing Rule. It has three parts. The first is that everyone—including Mom and Dad—has to do a hard thing. A hard thing is something that requires daily deliberate practice. I’ve told my kids that psychological research is my hard thing, but I also practice yoga. Dad tries to get better and better at being a real estate developer; he does the same with running. My oldest daughter, Amanda, has chosen playing the piano as her hard thing. She did ballet for years, but later quit. So did Lucy. This brings me to the second part of the Hard Thing Rule: You can quit. But you can’t quit until the season is over, the tuition payment is up, or some other “natural” stopping point has arrived. You must, at least for the interval to which you’ve committed yourself, finish whatever you begin. In other words, you can’t quit on a day when your teacher yells at you, or you lose a race, or you have to miss a sleepover because of a recital the next morning. You can’t quit on a bad day. And, finally, the Hard Thing Rule states that you get to pick your hard thing. Nobody picks it for you because, after all, it would make no sense to do a hard thing you’re not even vaguely interested in. Even the decision to try ballet came after a discussion of various other classes my daughters could have chosen instead. Lucy, in fact, cycled through a half-dozen hard things. She started each with enthusiasm but eventually discovered that she didn’t want to keep going with ballet, gymnastics, track, handicrafts, or piano. In the end, she landed on viola. She’s been at it for three years, during which time her interest has waxed rather than waned. Last year, she joined the school and all-city orchestras, and when I asked her recently if she wanted to switch her hard thing to something else, she looked at me like I was crazy. Next year, Amanda will be in high school. Her sister will follow the year after. At that point, the Hard Thing Rule will change. A fourth requirement will be added: each girl must commit to at least one activity, either something new or the piano and viola they’ve already started, for at least two years. Tyrannical? I don’t believe it is. And if Lucy’s and Amanda’s recent comments on the topic aren’t disguised apple-polishing, neither do my daughters. They’d like to grow grittier as they get older, and, like any skill, they know grit takes practice. They know they’re fortunate to have the opportunity to do so. For parents who would like to encourage grit without obliterating their children’s capacity to choose their own path, I recommend the Hard Thing Rule.
”
”
Angela Duckworth (Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance)
“
It is far more likely Mary found a new position and simply decided to leave us. I suspect we'll get a letter from her in the mail eventually asking for her back wages."
"Which you won't pay."
"Which Papa won't pay. He won't be happy about this at all. I cannot think of a way to conceal what has happened from him. He'll be sure to blame me in some fashion."
"It is hardly your fault if one of the maids decides to change employment, Lucy," Anna said robustly. "You'll just have to stand up for yourself."
Lucy bit back her hasty reply. It was easy for Anna to suggest she should be more forthright with their father when she was his favorite child, and not the oldest daughter of the house whose duty had been laid out for her from the cradle. Even now, when she knew her father's air of authority hid only his appalling selfishness, she still hadn't found a way to break free of his oft-expressed expectations. What had once been unquestioning obedience had slowly turned into a bitter and unexpressed resentment she had to conceal to avoid telling him her true feelings.
”
”
Catherine Lloyd (Death Comes to the Village (Kurland St. Mary Mystery, #1))
“
The sea-goddesses were also oracular goddesses. The oldest of them, Tethys, had an oracular shrine amongst the Etruscans. Her granddaughters, the daughters of Nereus, could often—or so it was believed—rescue seamen in danger of shipwreck. It was they, too, who revealed to men the mysteries of Dionysos and of Persephone.
”
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Karl Kerényi (The Gods of The Greeks)