"To begin with ..."

Usage examples of firstly.

Firstly, the two who went -- Fathers Gomez and Domenecchi -- had to leave their missions and undertake a lengthy journey in the wilds.

The two which have interested us most are, firstly, the fact that with some seedling plants the uppermost part alone is sensitive to light, and transmits an influence to the lower part, causing it to bend.

In coming to a conclusion with respect to the effects of cauterising the tips of these radicles, we should bear in mind, firstly, that horizontally extended control radicles were always acted on by geotropism, and became somewhat bowed downwards in 8 or 9 h.

Firstly, he had some idea of what he was getting into, and secondly, when he finally got around to opening up a Vault, he was going to be backed up by a full company of fifty marines, ten battle espers, and twenty Wampyr.

These difficulties and objections may be classed under the following heads:- Firstly, why, if species have descended from other species by insensibly fine gradations, do we not everywhere see innumerable transitional forms?

Firstly, it was a place often frequented by Heralds, so the sight of a Companion in a loose-box would not go remarked, nor would the sight of Alberich entering the stable-yard.

His appearance, after visiting Mrs. Smallweed with one of these admonitions, is particularly impressive and not wholly prepossessing, firstly because the exertion generally twists his black skull-cap over one eye and gives him an air of goblin rakishness, secondly because he mutters violent imprecations against Mrs.

Firstly, we must establish the intelligence status of the pigmies, with a view to rinding out how much opposition they will offer colonists.

The alternative to two enemies seemed to be an alien autocrat whose brain could see a valid purpose in firstly making the effort to race off with Thoughtworld, then later - and also beforehand, come to that - crippling relatively unimportant parts of it.

To sum up, I believe that species come to be tolerably well-defined objects, and do not at any one period present an inextricable chaos of varying and intermediate links: firstly, because new varieties are very slowly formed, for variation is a very slow process, and natural selection can do nothing until favourable variations chance to occur, and until a place in the natural polity of the country can be better filled by some modification of some one or more of its inhabitants.

It was surrounded firstly by wide verandas and white fretwork eaves and then by five acres of lawns and flowering trees.

In all we should distinguish firstly a base and harmful section, then a mediocre section following established usage, and lastly, an active, progressive section to whom we turn naturally for developments leading towards the progressive world commonweal of our desires.

Ordinary circumnutation is converted into a nyctitropic movement, firstly by an increase in its amplitude, but not to so great a degree as in the case of climbing plants, and secondly by its being rendered periodic in relation to the alternations of day and night.

Firstly, select a steadfast counsellor, Of cool, ripe years, loved of the people, honoured Mid the boyars for birth and fame--even Shuisky.

On the other hand, what stood dead against young Smethick was, firstly, the question of the ring, and then the fact that he was seen in the immediate neighbourhood of Clevere, both at midnight and again at about two, when some men, who had been on the watch for the cattle-maimers, saw him walking away rapidly in the direction of Pakethorpe.