Papa

“ Look at my papa here; he’s been dead all these years, and yet he is more real to me than almost anybody else. He never goes out of my life. I talk to him and consult him all the time. The older I grow, the better I know him and the more I understand him.’
She asked me whether I had learned to like big cities. ”

“ Papa is almost always with us in our sunny little nest. I see him still,--ah, how plainly!--leaning back in his rocking-chair, fair, with a rather haughty but yet kindly smile, his eyes sparkling with good-humoured raillery. He is smoking a cigarette, and reading the paper, apparently with nothing in the world to do but to enjoy life; all the light in the little room seems to come from him. ”

“ Papa’s young Paradise,—the theme of many a thrice-told nursery tale.
The horses, too, “smell their fun,” as they plunge through the open gateway, and, halting under an elm-tree’s shade, bend their glistening necks to seek the sweet morsels at their feet.
Papa looks almost a “boy again,” as with bright, glistening eyes he unpacks and deposits on the soft turf the “two girls, two nurses, three boys, and two dolls.” ”

“ I waited five days for the answer which I hoped would contain an enclosure, during which time I remained indoors not speaking to a person except my maid. I fed my soul on the anticipation that I should be able to live down the unearned shame which had fallen upon me. I knew, of course, when papa understood my position he would be liberal, and that after all, the pitiless neighbors must apologize to me, for I was as good as any of them. The reply came. Oh, joy of heaven and earth! how I kissed the envelope on which was the well known chirography of my dear old papa. ”

“ By degrees the child shares your tastes, your habits, your ways. He assumes a deep voice to be like papa, asks for your braces, sighs before your boots, and sits down with admiration on your hat. He protects his mamma when he goes out with her, and scolds the dog, although he is very much afraid of him; all to be like papa. Have you caught him at meals with his large observant eyes fixed on you, studying your face with open mouth and spoon in hand, and imitating his model with an expression of astonishment and respect. ”

“ Papa — poor der Papa is so coarse and crude sometimes in his attempts to be witty — Papa says it would be a fine idea to lead the man who talked to us into a boiled cabbage foundry and then watch him die of the noise. ”

“ The struggle was past.
"Papa," she said, raising an earnest, tearful little face to his, and speaking in tones tremulous with emotion, "dear, dear papa, I do love you so very, very much, and I do want to be to you a good, obedient child; but, papa, Jesus says, 'He that loveth father or mother more than me, is not worthy of me,' and I must love Jesus best, and keep his commandments always. But you bid me say that I am sorry I refused to break them; and that I will yield implicit obedience to you, even though you should command me to disobey him. ”

“ Papa, you know, is not like other people. He forgets things; and is always thinking, thinking, thinking of his great misfortunes. Poor papa! My heart bleeds so when I remember all his sorrows, that I hate myself for thinking about myself. ”

“ Now, nothing irritates papa so much as the discovery of mama's exaggerated influence over him.
"Put things into my head! Put things into my head, indeed! I will not permit you to say that your mother puts things into my head. I can judge men at a glance. The duke (papa was a prefect under the Empire) used always to say: 'Givernay—he is my hand and eye.' Do you know that, little one?" I should think I know the saying of the duke. At the age of three I had already heard it told so often in the family that I never said "papa" without immediately adding "hand," "eye." ”

“ Well, I am sure papa is glad that his little sunbeam is to have a pretty plant to tend; and if she smiles as sweetly at it as she does at her papa, it will be a very naughty plant indeed if it does not soon have a great many beautiful flowers."
"Do you know, papa," said Mrs. Ashton, "that your little daughter has learned another hymn to sing for you, and she would like to sing it to you before you return to the store, if it will not detain you too long." ”

“ The Pope is papa, kind father, in Italian. How his name ever came to be twisted into the ugly sound we hear in English is a problem, for the difference on the feelings between the sounds of Pope, and papa, kind father, cannot well be exaggerated. The kind father of a good man occupies an enviable place in that man's thoughts. It is no passing admiration; that father is no hero of to-day no study of to-morrow, no dim recollection when the future shall have come—but an active exemplar, an honored memory, a potent spur and stay combined—a spur to urge to all a man should do ”

“ Dear Lord Jesus, I am a great sinner, just as papa has said, and oh, I am afraid I don’t want to be any better, but please make me want to, and to love to belong to thee even more than I do to be papa’s very own. ”

“ Papa is really a dear, good man. He has not only the love but also the pity of a devoted daughter, for he does have such a hard time with mamma. While he understands perfectly all about making money, and just lots of it, too, yet, papa does not shine in mamma's fashionable circle. He is a slave to her slightest whim—and she is full of them. ”

“ Nothing is more solid than the Chamblard bank; it's honest, it's venerable. Papa isn't fair to me, but I'm fair to him. When you have a father in business, it's a good thing when you go out not to be exposed to meet eyes which seem to say to you, 'My dear fellow, your father has swindled me.' Papa has but one passion: from five to seven every day he plays piquet at his club, at ten sous a point, and as he is an excellent player, he wins seven times out of ten. ”

“ Had insidiously sent, by a tall Irish groom,
Two priest-ridden ponies just landed from Rome,
And so full, little rogues, of pontifical tricks
That the dome of St. Paul was scarce safe from their kicks.
Off at once to Papa in a flurry he flies—
For Papa always does what these statesmen advise
On condition that they'll be in turn so polite
As in no case whate'er to advise him too right—
"Pretty doings are here, Sir (he angrily cries,
While by dint of dark eyebrows he strives to look wise) —
"'Tis a scheme of the Romanists, so help me God! ”

“ Papa is up and off, after a hasty breakfast, and drives all day in his business, putting into it all there is in him, letting it drink up brain and nerve and body and soul, and coming home jaded and exhausted, so that he cannot bear the cry of the baby, and the frolics and pattering of the nursery seem horrid and needless confusion. ”

“ So poor papa is to be dragged out from his cosy arm-chair, jogged and tumbled across these wintry moors, and stuck up solemn in a corner of the drawing-room—being kept carefully out of the card-room because he happens to be a clergyman. And all the while he will wear his politest and most immovable of smiles, just as if he liked it. Oh, why cannot people say what they mean and do as they wish! Why must they hold themselves tied and bound with horrible chains of etiquette even at the age of seventy! ”

“ But I promise you, papa, that if you will let me go, I will be no trouble. Don't have a stranger, and leave me out. Dear papa! if Mr. Bell cannot come, I shall go. I won't urge my wish against your will, if he does. ”

“ How to do it, with no clue but an amber rosary? But do it he did, stationing himself against a pillar in that identical church and watching the worshippers, and not having long to wait before in she came, with little Asian behind. Papa isn't in the least romantic; he is one of those great fertilizing temperaments, golden hair and beard, and hazel eyes, if you will. He's a splendid old fellow! It's absurd to delight in one's father,—so bread-and-buttery,—but I can't help it. He's far stronger than I; none of the little weak Italian traits that streak me, like water in thick, syrupy wine. ”

“ He has told me of that better world, and though I can't understand all he says, I know it must be very beautiful. Papa is a good man. I love him more than any other man--and I love you, mamma, better than any other woman. Papa is a good man, is he not, mamma?'
"'Yes, my child,' said my lady, 'your father is a good and a just man.'
"My heart leapt into my throat as I heard her speak these words of her husband. Was it possible that this dreadful estrangement was to end, and that my master and his wife would at length be reconciled, after all these weary years? ”

“ I see now in my mind’s eye the out-thrust chins and long, bare necks of a clump of enthusiastic Zouaves shouting with all their hearts under the Pope’s carriage windows in divers tongues. But the English ‘Long live the Pope King,’ though given with a will, did not travel as far as the open ‘Viva il Papa Rè’ or ‘Vive le Pape Roi.’ I put in my British ‘Hurrah!’ as did Papa, splendidly, just as three old and very fat cardinals had painfully got down from His Holiness’s high coach and he himself had begun to emerge. ”

“ Loseby!—I—do not know that I have quarrelled with my father——’
‘Don’t be so stern, my dear child. Call him papa. After all he is your papa, Anne. Who was so fond of you when you were a tiny creature? I remember you a baby in his arms, poor man! when he lost his first wife, before he married again. Your mother died so young, and broke his life in two. That is terribly hard upon a man. ”

“ I used to admire papa’s uncompromising way of looking at life, and the way I thought he’d tell the truth and shame the devil at any price, and his cold, unreasoning, settled certainty about heaven and hell—and the way I thought that he took his flinty goodness down town with him, and did right, when one knows that ever so many business men don’t. ”

“ Papa, you are such a good man, and so noble, and kind, and you always have a way of saying things that is so pleasant, could n't you go all round and try to persuade people to do right about this? When I am dead, papa, then you will think of me, and do it for my sake. ”

“ Enter Lord Bleshugh and Verbena.
Verb. Yes, Papa is forty to-day; (innocently) fancy living to that age! The tenants have presented him with a handsome jar of mixed pickles, with an appropriate inscription. Papa is loved and respected by every one. ”

“ Give me that letter, if you please;" and she stretched out her hand and took it from him. "He has been doing his best to serve papa, doing more than any of papa's friends could do; and yet, because he is the chaplain of a bishop whom you don't like, you speak of him as though he had no right to the usage of a gentleman."
"He has done nothing for your father." ”

“ How much less gentle is nurse’s touch than hers; how much sooner she wearies of answering little curious questions, and getting bits of string and toys for restless fingers to play with; how much longer seems the time now, before papa comes home to dinner and tea,—poor papa—who, 233with an iron hand, crushes down his own great sorrow and tries and fails to speak to them in her soft, sweet, winning way; and tries and fails to soothe their little insect griefs, though he would die to save them a heart-pang. ”

“ She was rather struck by his unusual silence.
'Have you heard from Miss Eyre, papa? How are they all? And this fever that is about? Do you know, papa, I don't think you are looking well? You want me at home to take care of you. ”

“ How much more so must it be to papa, though he likes you, and when you are near him would perhaps, in a fit of unworldliness, be almost as reckless as the creature he calls madcap and would rather call countess. ”

“ I always feel with papa, so glad to shake off the big house and the footmen and the feeling that the great human world is surging round without touching you, and to get back to my tiny room where I can almost water the plants in my window without coming in at the door, and to the farm and my pensioners that I take tracts to. ”

“ On Sundays, for some unknown reason, papa always seems to feel our numbers pressing more heavily upon him than any other day, and so to speak throws our existences in our faces as a fact of which we ought to be deeply and abidingly ashamed, although what finger we had in the pie, and why our presence in this life should be set down to our own determined and unaided obstinacy and vice, is rather more than we can understand. ”

“ I say, lowering my voice cautiously, for in our family we all firmly believe that papa has not only eyes but ears in the back of his head, "that perhaps something most delightful is going to happen to me? ”

“ The weary child that slowly draws its little tender feet, one after the other, in endeavours to keep up with “dear papa,” who has taken it out for a long walk, looks up in his face with brightening eyes, as he says, “Never mind, we shall soon be home now.” ”

“ Panuche, f. (thieves’) , showily dressed woman, or “burerk;” prostitute who lives in a brothel, a “dress-lodger.” See Gadoue.
Papa, m. (popular) , à la ——, in a quiet, sedate manner; in negligent or slovenly style.
Deux infectes petites salles éclairées par une demi-douzaine de quinquets, tenues à la papa.—Richepin, Le Pavé.
Pape, m. (popular) , stupid fellow, a “flat.” (Students’) Un ——, a glass of bitters.
Au Quartier Latin, l’absinthe s’appelle une purée, l’eau-de-vie un pétrole, le bock un cercueil, le bitter un pape.—Mémoires de Monsieur Claude. ”

“ Mamma’s voice is as sweet as a robin’s, so papa says. Papa is a great big man, so big that nobody could ever hurt me, or mamma. Papa wants to see you too. Won’t you write me a letter, a little letter all to myself? I’ve got a box made of rosewood, with a lock and key on it, where I’d hide it from Uncle Jack, (that would tease him!) Uncle Jack wants to see you too, but I hope you never will let him, for he’s such a terrible tease, he’d plague you dreadfully. I guess our baby would send his love to you if he only knew you. ”

“ Poor papa is so good—too good in fact. His change in politics was due to his devotion to my Uncle Armand, his brother, who is now general of division. He was only a captain then, and had had no promotion for ages. He was not in favor because papa refused to set foot in the Tuileries in spite of the many advances made to him. So at last papa, who adored Uncle Armand, accepted an invitation and promised to present mama. That was a veritable triumph for the Empire, for there is no bluer blood in France than that of mama's family. ”