Eldest son

“ The eldest is fair-haired and good-looking; there is something weak and patient in his expression, and very gentle. His laugh is not infectious; but when he cries, I can hardly refrain from crying, too. Every one says he is like my eldest brother. ”

“ It is not only ability, but idiocy, criminality and many other abnormalities which specially tend to appear in the first-born. The eldest-born represents the point of greatest variation in the family, and the variation thus yielded may be in either direction, useful or useless, good or bad. See, e.g., Havelock Ellis, A Study of British Genius, pp. ”

“ Nevertheless it would be wrong to suppose that, amongst aristocratic nations, the privileges of the eldest son are advantageous to himself alone, or that they excite nothing but envy and hatred in those around him. The eldest son commonly endeavors to procure wealth and power for his brothers, because the general splendor of the house is reflected back on him who represents it; the younger sons seek to back the elder brother in all his undertakings, because the greatness and power of the head of the family better enable him to provide for all its branches. ”

“ Never can such a bereavement come without leaving a feeling of double orphanage, for parents in losing their offspring lose at once an instructor as well as a pupil; and surely the eldest born of a family, however young, is spiritually father or mother of much that is best in the parent’s heart. ”

“ In the case of eldest sons, this problem has a way of solving itself. In childhood, however, the actual heirship is apt to work on the principle of the “Borough-English” of our happier ancestors, and in most cases of inheritance it is the youngest that succeeds. ”

“ The father, who never rallied from the hour of her death, and took little interest in the world, soon followed her, and the children were left orphans when the eldest was but four years of age, and his sister but three. ”

“ O good my Lord lets visite him, cause I knowe his brother.
Hip. Know his brother, nay then Count doe not denie him.
Goos. Pray my Lord whether was eldest, he or his elder brother?
Mom. O! the younger brother eldest while you live, sir Gyles.
Goos. I say so still my Lord, but I am so borne downe with truth, as never any Knight ith world was I thinke.
Ta. A man wood thinke he speakes simply now; but indeed it is in the will of the parents, to make which child they will youngest, or eldest: For often we see the youngest inherite, wherein he is eldest. ”

“ But even granting, for the sake of argument, that there is a Firedrake, your majesty is well aware that there is no kind of use in sending me. It is always the eldest son who goes out first, and comes to grief on these occasions, and it is always the third son that succeeds. Send Alphonso” (this was the youngest brother) , “and he will do the trick at once. At least, if he fails, it will be most unusual, and Enrico can try his luck.”
Then he went back to his arithmetic and his slate, and the king had to send for Prince Alphonso and Prince Enrico. They both came in very warm ”

“ An ancient lady, being asked how old she was, to avoid a direct answer, said: “I have 9 children, and there are 3 years between the birth of each of them; the eldest was born when I was 19 years old, which is now exactly the age of the youngest.” ”

“ The elder is married, which is unfortunate; and the younger an only son. The wife and father have just come in time to receive their last sighs; and it is their lamentations that you hear. 'Unhappy boy,' cries the fond parent over the still breathing body of his son, 'how often have I conjured thee to renounce this dreadful vice!—how often have I warned thee it would one day cost thee thy life. ”

“ And the man who had been the child saw his daughter, newly lost to him, a celestial creature among those three, and he said, "My daughter's head is on my sister's bosom, and her arm is round my mother's neck, and at her feet there is the baby of old time, and I can bear the parting from her, God be praised!"
And the star was shining.
Thus the child came to be an old man, and his once smooth face was wrinkled, and his steps were slow and feeble, and his back was bent. ”

“ The young are growing up to maturity, the old dropping into their graves; but the infant of her affections ever remains an infant—her charge in middle life, when all her other children have left her and gone out into the world, and, amid the weakness of decay and decrepitude, the child of her old age. ”

“ If we had waited till Pau Amma had gone out of Pusat Tasek and come home, the water would have carried us there by itself.’
‘You are lazy,’ said the Eldest Magician. ‘So your children shall be lazy. They shall be the laziest people in the world. They shall be called the Malazy—the lazy people;’ and he held up his finger to the Moon and said, ‘O Fisherman, here is the Man too lazy to row home. Pull his canoe home with your line, Fisherman.’
‘No,’ said the Man. ‘If I am to be lazy all my days, let the Sea work for me twice a day for ever. ”

“ And let no father or mother in their old age indulge childish fancies, and encourage these whinings of their children; but be as courageous as the old hen, who, after scratching for her brood until they are able to scratch for themselves, sends them forth to get their own living. ”

“ I could not easily forget the face of the younger man when he said he had sons for the old school, nor the face of the elder taking that tribute of filial loyalty. In the gap of years lay the grave of the Headmaster's wife, and he was not destined to train up another generation; the Old Boy was a strong and useful man of the world, come into his inheritance of all that a boy of the right sort grows up for. ”

“ All the life within me rises up to reject it. I would live to a good old age. He, my son—my own dear son—should watch the gray hair stealing over my head, and love me all the better for them. It must be pleasant to grow old in the sight of one's child. ”

“ Stop, stop, stop, children! You’ll make your old mother vainer than ever! No, no, no! Mercy! I won’t say “old.” Your young mother. Of course I’m young with you all around me. Still it’s a different sort of young, you know. ”

“ And now, when weighed down by the pains and aches of old age, when the head inclines to the feet, when the beginning and ending of human existence meet, and helpless infancy and painful old age combine together at this time, this most needful time, the time for the exercise of that tenderness and affection which children only can exercise toward a declining parent my poor old grandmother, the devoted mother of twelve children, is left all alone, in yonder little hut, before a few dim embers. ”

“ The father quotes the opinion of his sons with pride, and is perhaps governed by it, even when it differs from his own. This influence of the younger over the elder, naturally gains strength, as one comes forth with new vigour and energy, and the other, passing into the vale of years, learns to love repose. ”

“ Let your son grow, without too much anxiety, like a beautiful tree: the child he was once, the child he was but now, the child he is at present, you will not lose them, O insatiable heart! They will escort you toward old age, like a beloved multitude that increases every day and cannot die. ”

“ On these two temperate lives old age will descend lightly, gradually, gently, and late—and late upon these evergreen hearts, because they are not tuned to some selfish, isolated key; these hearts beat and ring with the young hearts of their dear children, and years hence papa and mamma will begin life hopefully, wishfully, warmly again with each loved novice in turn. ”

“ No doubt you say to yourself: ‘I am young, I am of the period, it is for me to act as interpreter between the parent, who is of another generation, and the youth, who belongs to mine.’ But if I read your thought correctly, my child—and I have no doubt that I do—it is an arrogant one, and altogether unworthy of you. ”

“ The kind of boy who would have been saved by the devotion of a mother who understood him, he had been left doubly an orphan at an age so early that he had but a confused memory even of his mother's face. ”

“ In one sense, all young beings are unloving; in another, they are as vessels filled, brimming over with love seeking an outlet. This girl would watch her mother about a room, walk behind her in the streets—adoringly. Such intense worship of their parents is more common in children than we imagine. A boy of five years was asked what he thought the most beautiful thing in the world. “Velvet,” he replied, with dreamy eyes, evidently thinking of his mother in a velvet gown. His parents are the greatest and wisest, the most powerful, and the best people within the narrow range of the child’s world. ”

“ But the Old Man's Idyl which closes the book belongs by kinship to another work of the poet's, more beloved and more precious to the inmost heart, if not more eminent for strength and cunning of hand, than any of these. In 'the voice of a child a year old' there is the same welling and bubbling melody which flows and laughs and murmurs and glitters through the adorable verses of L'Art d'être Grand-père, making dim with love and delight the reader's or the hearer's eyes. ”

“ But the relation of children to each other promises to last far longer, may create between the elder and younger a relation parental as well as filial, and for good or ill it must in some way continue as long as life itself. How essential, then, that a tie so enduring should be rightly regarded, and that in childhood, youth and maturity, it should keep its benignant hold over the family! ”

“ You have been very many years from home, and must be aware that though your son when you saw him last was a little boy, he must now be a grown man; your wife, too, would be an old woman. Have you ever thought of the hardships and trials to which she would probably have been exposed, left all alone to struggle with the hard world, and still having to go through them? ”

“ Thus you see, the child is gradually but surely gaining on the parent, and as he certainly continues to come nearer and nearer, in time he must overtake him. The question therefore is, suppose it was possible for them to live long enough, how old would the father be when the child overtook him and became of the same age? ”

“ There is nothing more appealing to me than neglected age. To see an old father or mother sitting in loneliness and poverty dreaming of an absent son who never comes, of a daughter who never writes, is to me more moving than Hamlet or Othello. ”

“ To such as survive, parents aging or aged and children maturing or mature, this ofttimes becomes the period most beauteous of all when children at last have ceased to make demands and are bent chiefly upon crowning the aging brows of parents with the wreath of loving-tenderness. ”

“ What charms and momentous interests surround the cradle of infancy! When the first wailing of dependence reaches the listening ear, what new-born sympathies spring up in the parent’s bosom! What a thrill of rapture the first soft smile of her babe sends to the mother’s heart! It is this, the parents’ likeness unsullied by their faults and cares; it is this, their living love in personal being,—their love breathing and smiling before them, lisping their names ”

“ I have just been speaking of things that transpired in 1816, and, as it is true that one thing leads to another, my mind is called to think of my beloved parents, and the early trainings they gave their children; the beloved words of our Saviour is, "train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it." ”

“ And that no consolation may be wanting in the overflowing cup of my old age, I see before my eyes a sort of bodily immortality in the persons of my descendants. When I come home I see before me, not one or two, but eleven grandchildren, between the ages of two and eighteen, all from the same father and mother, all healthy, and, so far as can already be judged, all gifted with the talent and disposition for learning and a good life. ”

“ That preliminary over, and the usual answer 'Ask papa' obtained, then came the question, how was the old boy to be managed?—for men with marriageable daughters are to all intents and purposes 'old boys,' be their ages what they may. ”

“ You can depend upon mother, as of yore. She is no older, herself; she is the same. Mother never changes. You are no older, yourself; you are the same. Let the other boys call you “man” and say “sir”; let sun and rain and snow, and pond and wood and path, deny you their one-time hospitality. ”

“ For those of us who are of mature years the gap is bridged by the tender associations of our childhood and the memory of parents, for whom no such gap existed, and whose faith and character have left indelible impressions on our lives. ”

“ The elder, who was about fifteen, seemed older than he was, not only from his height, but from the darkness of his complexion, and a certain proud, nay, imperious, expression upon features that, without having the soft and fluent graces of childhood, were yet regular and striking. ”