Friday

“ Saturday, moreover, is the day between Friday, the day of mourning, and Sunday, the day of joy—and the Holy Virgin is the mediatrix between God, Who is Eternal Beatitude, and man, who is subject to endless evils and miseries. Mary is the way to arrive at Jesus, and Saturday is a prelude to the solemnity of Sunday. Saturday is as a magnificent portal consecrated to the Mother of God, by which we enter the Sanctuary of God Himself. The Saints held this day in great esteem—on it they redoubled their pious exercises—and many begged, as a signal favour, that they might die on a Saturday. ”

“ Sneeze on a Sunday, your safety seek— The devil will have you the whole of the week. Monday's child is fair of face, Tuesday's child is full of grace, Wednesday's child is full of woe, Thursday's child has far to go, Friday's child is loving and giving, Saturday's child works hard for its living, And a child that's born on the Sabbath day Is fair and wise and good and gay. ”

“ Most things are reckoned as from Friday to Friday, which is market day, and the inhabitants put on their Friday faces and Friday clothes. When it isn't Friday the inhabitants delight in watching the clay-waggons pass their shops, or in dodging them in the narrow, crooked labyrinths called streets. ”

“ It is autumn, a pleasant season in this part of the country—really pleasanter perhaps, though one is reluctant to allow it, than the lovely, fascinating, capriciously joyous spring—and it is a Friday. Jacinth and Frances Mildmay are walking home from school, carrying their little bag of books. For Saturday is a whole holiday—no going to school that is to say—so, naturally, some lessons must be learnt at home for Monday. ”

“ In short, my mind being strongly fixed upon my design of going over with him to the Continent, I very plainly told him that we would both go and make a boat full as big, and more proportionable than that, wherein he might safely return to his own nation.
These words made Friday look so very pensive that I thought he would have fallen at my feet. It was some time before he could speak a word, which made me ask him, what was the matter with him? He replied in a very soft and moving tone, What has poor Friday done? why are you angry mad with poor servant? ”

“ Friday called out to me in English, as well as he could, “O master! you see English mans eat prisoners as well as savage mans.”—“Why,” said I, “Friday, do you think they are going to eat them then”—“Yes,” says Friday, “they will eat them.”—“No, no,” said I, “Friday; I am afraid they will murder them indeed; but you may be sure they will not eat them.” ”

“ Friday.—In the Prayer Book we find that Friday of each week is placed in the Table of Fasts to be observed in this Church throughout the year, and the rubric directs that it be announced to the congregation on the Sunday before. Friday as a Fast is intended to be the weekly memorial of the Crucifixion of our Lord just as Sunday is the weekly memorial of the Resurrection. ”

“ It is the most solemn and binding of all Fridays and should be observed as an absolute Fast in token of our sorrow for sin, and in preparation for the Easter Communion. All unnecessary work, all social engagements and pleasures are especially to be avoided by all those who reverence their Lord, and remember of what Good Friday is the solemn memorial. It is a day of Church-going, and it will be found that the Good Friday services are very {125} impressive, solemn and soul-stirring. The Proper Psalms are the 22d, 40th and 54th in Morning Prayer, and the 69th and 88th for Evening Prayer. ”

“ Pomegranates you may cut deep down the middle and see into, but not hearts,—so why should I try and speak?
Friday is best day because nearest, but Saturday is next best—it is next near, you know: if I get no note, therefore, Friday is my day. ”

“ Friday’s a day as’ll have his trick The fairest or foulest day o’ the wik (Shr.) , cp. ‘Selde is the Fryday al the wyke i-like,’ Chaucer, Knightes Tale, l. 681. It is very unlucky to start out on a journey; to remove from one house to another; to enter upon a new service; or to set a hen on a Friday, but specially unlucky is it to begin new undertakings on Good Friday. [Pg 222] If clothes are washed that day some member of the family will die before the year is out. A Yorkshire superstition holds that if clothes are hung out to dry that day they will be taken in spotted with blood. ”

“ This is Friday."
"Christmas Day," answered 'Bias, wheeling about.
"I can't help that. 'Tis Friday."
"An' next year 'twill be Saturday," retorted 'Bias with a sour grin; "it that'll content you, when it comes. None of us can't help it. ”

“ SPEAKING of Friday and the mystery of luck. Luck is supposed to shift in one direction or another on the sixth day of every week in the year. It is supposed to shift for everybody. A great many people are either too ignorant or too supercilious to acknowledge this vast and oppressive truth, however. They regard Friday as a plain, ordinary day, and go on being fatuously optimistic. ”

“ Why?”
“Because I allowed the Durande to return on Fridays.”
M. Jaquemin Hérode whispered in Caudray’s ear:
“This man is superstitious.”
He resumed, raising his voice, and in a didactic tone:
“Mess Lethierry, it is puerile to believe in Fridays. You ought not to put faith in fables. Friday is a day just like any other. It is very often a propitious day. ”

“ Friday is the sailor's pet aversion, as an unlucky day on which to sail or begin work. But this is not surprising, when we remember that Friday has everywhere more superstition and folk-lore attached to it than any other day in the week, originating, perhaps, as Mr. Thiselton-Dyer suggests, from the fact that it was the day on which Christ was crucified. Lord Byron had the superstitious aversion to Friday; and even among the Brahmins no business must be commenced on this day. In Lancashire a man will not 'go a-courting on Friday' ”

“ He who calls Friday his natal day shall be of a strong constitution, and perhaps addicted to the pleasures of love.
Saturday is another ill-omened day; most children born on this day will be of heavy, dull, and dogged disposition. ”

“ On the Monday we have an allegory as lively and ingenious as Lucian’s Auction of Lives; on the Tuesday an Eastern apologue, as richly coloured as the Tales of Scherezade; on the Wednesday, a character described with the skill of La Bruyere; on the Thursday, a scene from common life, equal to the best chapters in the Vicar of Wakefield; on the Friday, some sly Horatian pleasantry on fashionable follies, on hoops, patches, or puppet shows; and on the Saturday a religious meditation, which will bear a comparison with the finest passages in Massillon. ”

“ On Good Friday there is always a procession through the principal streets of the town, which, without any of the devotional accessories of the sepolcri—the time-worn churches, the subdued light, the hushed voices—cannot fail painfully to impress the English spectator who has not been inured to sights of this description. ”

“ Fric′tion-wheels, wheels that lessen friction. [Fr.,—L. frictionem—fricāre, frictum, to rub.]
Friday, frī′dā, n. the sixth day of the week.—Black Friday, Good Friday, from the black vestments of the clergy and altar in the Western Church: any Friday marked by a great calamity; Good Friday, the Friday before Easter, kept in commemoration of the Crucifixion; Holy Friday, Friday in an ember-week—also Golden Friday, sometimes put for Good Friday itself. [A.S. Frígedæg, day of (the goddess) Fríg—Latinised Frigga—wife of Odin.] ”

“ While contemplating the bride, and eyeing the cake of soap, he muttered between his teeth: “Tuesday. It was not Tuesday. Was it Tuesday? Perhaps it was Tuesday. Yes, it was Tuesday.”
No one has ever discovered to what this monologue referred.
Yes, perchance, this monologue had some connection with the last occasion on which he had dined, three days before, for it was now Friday. ”

“ To-morrow, as you know, is Friday and the next day is Saturday, days which, by reason of the viands that are used therein, [146] are somewhat irksome to most folk, more by token that Friday, considering that He who died for our life on that day suffered passion, is worthy of reverence; wherefore I hold it a just thing and a seemly that, in honour of the Divinity, we apply ourselves rather to orisons than to story-telling. As for Saturday, it is the usance of ladies on that day to wash their heads and do away all dust and all uncleanliness befallen them for the labours of the past week ”

“ Does Friday night come after twenty-four hours of that day are spent? You see how difficult God makes the way of transgressors. You may reply that you made a mistake. Will you allow me to tell you where your mistake commenced on this subject. If I am not very much mistaken it was when you gave up keeping the true seventh day, the only historical, chronological or biblical day of the week ever given to man. ”

“ Friday at Sea.
—I have heard a story respecting the superstition in which sailors hold Friday as a day of departure. To disabuse them of this superstition, a ship—so runs the tale—was laid down on Friday; launched on a Friday; commanded by a captain named Friday; sailed on a Friday; and—so runs the story—was never heard of afterwards!
Is there—I believe not—any truth in this tradition; and where may the earliest allusion to it be found.
? ”

“ Six days as well as Friday, companions brave and strong; it really seems they all deserve a tribute and a song. So here's to good Man Friday, and to his brothers six. There's always one to help me should I be in a fix. ”

“ Long Friday, meaning of.—C. Knight, in his Pictorial Shakspeare, explains Mrs. Quickly's phrase in Henry the Fourth—"'Tis a long loan for a poor lone woman to bear,"—by the synonym great: asserting that long is still used in the sense of great, in the north of England; and quoting the Scotch proverb, "Between you and the long day be it," where we talk of the great day of judgment. May not this be the meaning of the name Long Friday, which was almost invariably used by our Saxon forefathers for what we now call Good Friday? ”

“ Friday. Yes, my nation eat mans too; eat all up.
Master. Where do they carry them?
Friday. Go to other place, where they think.
Master. Do they come hither?
Friday. Yes, yes, they come hither; come other else place.
Master. Have you been here with them?
Friday. Yes, I been here. (Points to the N.W. side of the island, which, it seems, was their side.)
By this I understood that my man Friday had formerly been among the savages who used to come on shore on the farther part of the island, on the same man-eating occasions that he was now brought for ”

“ This craving for perpetual change is the curse of the country. Friday's a very nice day.
MER. So it is, but a Friday six months long — It gets monotonous.
JUP., AP., MARS. (rising) It's perfectly ridiculous.
THES. (calling them) Cymon.
CYM. (as Time, with the usual attributes) Sir.
THES. (Introducing him to the three gods) Allow me – Father Time – rather young at present, but even Time must have a beginning. In course of time, Time will grow older. Now then, Father Time, what's this about a wet Friday in November for the last six months?
CYM. Well, the fact is, I've been trying an experiment. ”

“ Most of them are so prejudiced against Friday, that they never settle any important business or conclude a bargain on this day; in some places they do not even dress their children. They object to visit on Thursdays, for it is a sign they will have troublesome guests all the week. ”

“ Friday evenings are devoted to an equally interesting and well-attended gathering of a more devotional character. The Sabbath-school teachers, who use the International Lessons, meet in one of the school-rooms for studying the next Sabbath’s lesson. It is one of the most enjoyable hours of the week. ”

“ Friday is the day of days on which to commence a new enterprise, as success is bound to follow. The hair should be washed once a month, if possible, but never on Monday, Friday, or Saturday. A good mother on sending her son into the monastery would see that the rite of cutting the hair did not fall upon Monday, Friday, or his birthday, and it limits the choice of days, as this latter event, the birthday, occurs once a week. ”

“ A superstitious dread still attaches in household matters to Friday as being an unlucky day, and many will not even so much as turn a bed for fear of some misfortune befalling them. Thus, in Northamptonshire, we are told the housewife allows the bed to remain unturned; and a Sussex saying admonishes persons "never to begin a piece of work on Friday, or they will never finish it." We may note here that one tradition assigns a very early origin to the unfortunate reputation of Friday, affirming that it was on this day that Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit. ”

“ Women have weekly at least one active and passive day of glory, the holy day, the Sunday. The higher ranks alone have more Sundays than workdays; as in great towns, you can celebrate your Sunday on Friday with the Turks, on Saturday with the Jews, and on Sunday with yourself. ”

“ Friday is also an unlucky day for commencing any important undertaking. Some people refuse to be bled or physicked on a Friday. In certain parts of the country, Friday is the usual day for young men and women being united in wedlock, but at other places it is supposed bad luck would cleave to them during the whole of their lives if they were married on that day. It is believed by old crones that children born on Friday are doomed to misfortune. ”

“ The marriage generally comes off on a Sunday. Who weds on Monday goes mad; Tuesday will bring a bad end; Wednesday is a day good for nothing; Thursday all manner of witches are abroad; Friday leads to early death ”

“ They do not think Friday a more unlucky day than the other six, yet avoid commencing important business on that day. There are a great number of omens and signs, many of them peculiar to the individual ”

“ Friday is still considered so unlucky that steamship companies hesitate to make sailing dates on Friday. Farmers still plant their potatoes in the moon, and men carry potatoes in their pockets to cure rheumatism. ”

“ As an evidence that vanity is not entirely absent, on Holy Thursday it is customary for men and women to turn out in good clothes and many of the ladies appear in handsome and elaborate gowns. Then on Good Friday everything is changed and the whole country mourns. ”