"Midwife" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... produced real anxiety and regret in the minds of the parents. We have seen that it was not until after baptism that the child was allowed out of the room in which it was born, except under the skilful guardianship of a relative or the midwife; but, further than this, it was not considered safe or proper to carry it into any neighbour's house until the mother took it herself, and this it was unlucky even for her to do until she had been to church. Indeed, few mothers would enter any house until they had been to ...
— Folk Lore - Superstitious Beliefs in the West of Scotland within This Century • James Napier
... day was drawing nigh. I had brought a midwife from Grenoble who never moved from the farm. My uncle was in a dreadful fright; he understood nothing about such things; he went so far as to tell me that he had done wrong in taking holy orders, and that he was very sorry he was not ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various
... volume, and indeed are, as I may call them, whole volumes of themselves, viz.: 1. The life of her governess, as she calls her, who had run through, it seems, in a few years, all the eminent degrees of a gentlewoman, a whore, and a bawd; a midwife and a midwife-keeper, as they are called; a pawnbroker, a childtaker, a receiver of thieves, and of thieves' purchase, that is to say, of stolen goods; and in a word, herself a thief, a breeder up of thieves and the like, and ...
— The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders &c. • Daniel Defoe
... pregnancy taboos Taboos to be observed by the husband Taboos to be observed by the wife Taboos to be observed by both husband and wife Taboos enjoined on visitors Abortion Artificial abortion Involuntary abortion The approach of parturition The midwife Prenatal magic aids Prenatal religious aids Accouchement and ensuing events Postnatal customs Taboos The birth ceremony The naming and care of the child Birth ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... if I have managed to give you any news this time, or whether the usual damn hangs over my letter? 'The midwife whispered, Be thou dull!' or at least inexplicit. Anyway I have tried my best, am exhausted with the effort, and fall back into the land of generalities. I cannot tell you how often we have planned our arrival at the Monument: ...
— Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 2 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... that certainty in the matter, that I could venture to foretell what women would be affected with the disease, upon hearing by what midwife they were to be delivered, or by what nurse they were to be attended, during their lying-in; and, almost in every instance, my prediction ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... bringing in the eggs is the under-under-nurse who is at the fire warming a towel. In the foreground we have the regulation midwife holding the regulation baby (who, by the way, was an astonishingly fine child for only five minutes old). Then comes the under-nurse—a good buxom creature, who, as usual, is feeling the water in the bath to see that it is of the right temperature. Next to her is the head-nurse, who is arranging ...
— Essays on Life, Art and Science • Samuel Butler
... a suspicion as to her virtue came into her husband's mind, but when he considered that she had never left her bed for fifteen months he thought the pregnancy impossible. Still the wife insisted that she was pregnant and was confirmed in the belief by a midwife. The belly continued to increase, and about eleven months after the cessation of the menses she had the pains of labor. Three doctors and an accoucheur were present, and when they claimed that the ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... then Apollo happened—"Heigh-ho! A sonnet to have made?" Oh, dear me, no!—upon Miss Io (Such is the tale I heard from Clio) The midwife to have played. The boy, as if stamped out of wax, Might Zeus as ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... starting on some shirts, she became quite pale. She was obliged to leave the work-shop, and cross the street doubled in two, holding on to the walls. One of the workwomen offered to accompany her; she declined, but begged her to go instead for the midwife, close by, in the Rue de la Charbonniere. This was only a false alarm; there was no need to make a fuss. She would be like that no doubt all through the night. It was not going to prevent her getting Coupeau's dinner ready as soon as she was indoors; then she might perhaps lie ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... part of it, against the new and abler physicians who must come with the growth of the country. You'll not be wanted by your best friends when it comes to a case of life and death. You'll become only a kind of licensed midwife rushing about from one accouchement to another, and, even for this, you must finesse and intrigue in the manner which has made the incompetents of your sex in medicine the bete ...
— The Lady Doc • Caroline Lockhart
... Pleasant and Delightful History of Gillian of Croydon: Containing, Her Birth and Parentage: Her first Amour, with the sudden Death of her Sweetheart: Her leaving her Father's House In Disguise, and becoming Deputy to a Country Midwife; with a very odd and humoursome Adventure before a Justice of the Peace, for screening a Child under her Hoop-petticoat: Her discovery of a Love-Intrigue between her Mistress's Daughter, and a perjur'd, false-hearted ...
— The Life and Romances of Mrs. Eliza Haywood • George Frisbie Whicher
... cam to Trebona and my Lady. March 24th, Mr. K. put the glas in dung. March 26th, my Lord sent one of his secretaries with answer to my letter, and with offer and promys of all where he can pleasure me, circa 5 post meridiem. March 29th, my Lord and Lady from Trebon toward Crumlow. The midwife's husbond's name of Newhowse is David Peregrinus, perhaps of the familie of Petrus Peregrinus, otherwise called Peter of ...
— The Private Diary of Dr. John Dee - And the Catalog of His Library of Manuscripts • John Dee
... threats to him after she had looked into the bowl of water; of all the dreadful things that had been seen and done at Blossholme, which no doubt these witches had brought about—here he was right—though how he knew not. He told of the death of the midwife and of the appearance which she presented afterwards—a tale that caused his audience to shudder; and, lastly, he told of the vision of the ghost of Sir John Foterell holding converse with the two accused in the chapel of the Nunnery, ...
— The Lady Of Blossholme • H. Rider Haggard
... supposing that the carbon will heal the cut, and make it fast to the babe by a "binder" or swathe round the body, as a preventative to "pot-belly." But throughout the East there are more observances. In India, on the birth of the babe, the midwife demands something shining, as a rupee or piece of silver, and having touched the navel-string therewith she divides it and appropriates the glittering substance, under the pretence that the absence of the illuminating power of some ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... the steps from Leahy's terrace prudently, Frauenzimmer: and down the shelving shore flabbily, their splayed feet sinking in the silted sand. Like me, like Algy, coming down to our mighty mother. Number one swung lourdily her midwife's bag, the other's gamp poked in the beach. From the liberties, out for the day. Mrs Florence MacCabe, relict of the late Patk MacCabe, deeply lamented, of Bride Street. One of her sisterhood lugged me squealing into life. Creation from nothing. What has she in the bag? A misbirth with a trailing ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... Was sickly; and a smile was seen to pass Across the midwife's cheek, when, holding up The feeble wretch, she to the father said, "A fine man-child!" What else could they expect? The father being, as I ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - tailor in Dalkeith • D. M. Moir
... noting her piquancy and elegancy and beauty and brilliancy and size and symmetry, his vitals fluttered and he was seized with yearning sorrow for her fate; and he named her Al-Hayfa[FN180] for her seemlihead. Then he gifted the midwife'"—And Shahrazad was surprised by the dawn of day and ceased to say her permitted say. Then quoth her sister Dunyazad, "How sweet is thy story, O sister mine and how enjoyable and delectable!" Quoth she, "And where is this compared with that I would relate to you on the coming ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... signified the grand constellation called Draco, or the Dragon. And the figure is sublime. It is still more sublime in the Douai translation. "His obstetric hand hath brought forth the Winding Serpent." This is certainly a grand imagination—the hand of God, like the hand of a midwife, bringing forth a constellation out of the womb of the eternal night. But in the revised version, which is exact, we have only "His hand hath pierced the Swift Serpent!" All the ...
— Books and Habits from the Lectures of Lafcadio Hearn • Lafcadio Hearn
... present. There was some delay in bringing the image, so that the father reached the sick woman first; and after he had confessed her the image arrived. The poor woman was much exhausted, and, according to the midwife, in extreme danger. The infant was dead, and as it lay obliquely in the womb, the mother could not obtain relief by expelling it. The father exhorted her to have confidence in our Lord, and placing the image before her, left her calling loudly to heaven in her anguish. ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, - Volume XIII., 1604-1605 • Ed. by Blair and Robertson
... Betty, or Oyster Moll serve for a Change: As he varies his Sports his whole Life is a Feast, He thinks him that is soberest is most like a Beast: All Houses of Pleasure, breaks Windows and Doors, Kicks Bullies and Cullies, then lies with their Whores: Rare work for the Surgeon and Midwife he makes, What Life can Compare ...
— Wit and Mirth: or Pills to Purge Melancholy, Vol. 5 of 6 • Various
... exceeded all bounds and limits. Two years passed in extreme delight and ease. It happened that [my wife] the wazir's daughter, became pregnant; when the seventh and eighth months had passed, and she entered her full time, the pains came on; the nurse and midwife came, and a dead child was brought forth; its poison infected the mother, and she also died. I became frantic with grief, and exclaimed, what a dreadful calamity has burst upon me! I was seated at the head of the bed, and weeping; all at once ...
— Bagh O Bahar, Or Tales of the Four Darweshes • Mir Amman of Dihli
... fantastic?—of words carried over a medium, an invisible wire which brought the soul of them and left the body by the way. Duff Lindsay, so eminently responsive and calculable, came running with open arms; in his rejoiceful eye-beam one saw almost a midwife to one's idea. But the comparison was irritating, and after a time she turned from it. She awoke once in the night, moreover, to declare to the stars that she was less worried by the consideration of Arnold's sex than she would have thought ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)
... before these short and simple annals shall have ended. For there is nothing so joysome to record as the brightening story of a soul coming to its real birth from the travail of its sin and struggle. For perchance time itself is God's great midwife, and man's writhing agony is to the end that he may ...
— St. Cuthbert's • Robert E. Knowles
... Mettle fervoro, kuragxo. Mew katbleki. Miasma miasmo. Mica glimo. Microbe mikrobo. Microscope mikroskopo. Midday tagmezo. Middle centro. Middle meza. Midnight noktomezo. Midsummer duonjaro, somermezo. Midwife akusxistino. Mien mieno. Might potenco. Mighty potenca. Mignonette resedo. Migrate migri. Milch laktodona. Mild dolcxa. Mildew sximo. Mildness dolcxeco. Mile mejlo. Militant milita. Military milita. Military man militisto. Militia militantaro. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... in what degree these ideas were felt or made themselves felt through the Romanism and Lutheranism of the Renascence period. Perhaps we English shall best recognise the presence of these ideas, the working of this leaven—this docility, the necessary midwife of 'genius, who transforms the difficult tasks which the human reason sets herself into labours of love—in an Englishman; so my first example shall be taken from Erasmus' ...
— Albert Durer • T. Sturge Moore
... you will see, Grand Duke of Egypt! They are ethereal demons, every one of them. They are the pick of a thousand births. Do you think that I, old midwife that I am, don't know the squall of the demon child from that of the angel child, the very moment they are delivered? Ask a musician, how he knows, even in the dark, a note struck by Thalberg from ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... of our favourite pleasures was to unmoor the patricians' gondolas, and to let them float at random along the canals, enjoying by anticipation all the curses that gondoliers would not fail to indulge in. We would rouse up hurriedly, in the middle of the night, an honest midwife, telling her to hasten to Madame So-and-so, who, not being even pregnant, was sure to tell her she was a fool when she called at the house. We did the same with physicians, whom we often sent half dressed to some nobleman ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... my girl with Dr. Tom Brown. Dr. Brown had us to marry in his yard in the grove, and over 200 persons was there to see it. The next day, he give us a big 'infair' with all kinds of good things to eat, presents and dances. We never had any children. After we moved to town, my wife was a nurse or midwife among some of the white ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves • Works Projects Administration
... then the noble plot is fit for birth; And labouring France cries out for midwife hands. We missed surprising of the king at Blois, When last the states were held: 'twas oversight; Beware we make not such ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden
... marriage. There also she became, in the absence of her husband, the mother of Malcolm. But the marquis of the time, jealous for the succession of his daughter, and fearing his brother might yet marry the mother of his child, contrived, with the assistance of the midwife, to remove the infant and persuade the mother that he was dead, and also to persuade his brother of the death of both mother and child; after which, imagining herself wilfully deserted by her husband, yet determined to endure ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald
... said to have a historic interest, has been popularly designated the "Midwife's Curse." It appears that Colonel Stephen Payne, who took a foremost part in striving to uphold the tottering fortunes of the Stuarts, had wooed and won a fair wife amid the battles of the Rebellion. The Duke of York promised to stand as godfather to the first child if it should prove a boy; ...
— Strange Pages from Family Papers • T. F. Thiselton Dyer
... lying and groaning, her travail coming on; a Wolf came running to her aid, and, offering his assistance, said that he could perform the duties of midwife. She, however, understanding the treachery of the wicked animal, rejected the suspicious services of the evil-doer, and said: "If you keep at a greater distance ...
— The Fables of Phdrus - Literally translated into English prose with notes • Phaedrus
... do you know? Or were you my mother's midwife, perhaps, that you venture to speak with such assurance ...
— Amphitryo, Asinaria, Aulularia, Bacchides, Captivi • Plautus Titus Maccius
... branches filled with little, naked urchins, seemingly just ripened into life, and crying for succour: beneath, a woman holds up her apron, looking wistfully at the children, as if intreating them to jump into her lap. On inquiry, I found it to be the house of a sworn midwife, with this Dutch inscription prefixed ...
— A Wanderer in Holland • E. V. Lucas
... more often submitted to the physician by prospective mothers than this, "Can you tell me if my baby will be a boy or a girl?" He cannot. Many rules, to be sure, have been advocated as safe guides toward reaching the correct answer; every midwife possesses her individual formula which she has "never known to fail." But the boastful success depends upon the application of some such method as the following, which I have heard my teacher, Dr. J. Whitridge ...
— The Prospective Mother - A Handbook for Women During Pregnancy • J. Morris Slemons
... back to Mrs. Smith. She went away from the indignant adamant doctor. But she was determined not to give birth to another child. She confided her trouble to a neighbor, who sent her to a midwife. The midwife was neither very expert, nor very clean. Mrs. Smith had to go to her two or three times. After bleeding for about ten days she developed blood poisoning, from which she died a few days later, at the ...
— Woman - Her Sex and Love Life • William J. Robinson
... black beach, for it was in the dead hour of the morning; of the three persons who are said to have met him on his way to Mary's, two were so tardy with their claims that a doubt has been cast on them. I do believe, tho, that Mother Polly Freeman, the west-end midwife, saw him and spoke with him in the light thrown from the drug-store window (where, had I only known enough to be awake, I might have looked down on them from my bed-room and got some fame of ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... Wednesday, and the Pieterses were going to give a party. Juffrouw Laps had been invited, also the Juffrouw living over the dairy, whose husband was employed at the "bourse." Further Mrs. Stotter, who had been a midwife for so long and was still merely "very respectable." Then the widow Zipperman, whose daughter had married some fellow in the insurance business, or something of the kind. Also the baker's wife. That was unavoidable: it was impossible to buy all kinds of pastry and cakes without ...
— Walter Pieterse - A Story of Holland • Multatuli
... Tompson of Fairefeild testifyeth vpon oath, that goodwife Whitlock, goodwife Staplyes and herselfe, were at the graue and desired to see ye markes of the witch that was hanged, they looked but found them not at first, then the midwife came & shewed them, goodwife Staplyes said she neuer saw such, and she beleeved no ...
— The Witchcraft Delusion In Colonial Connecticut (1647-1697) • John M. Taylor
... a wolf's yet unborn whelp, Till the best midwife, Nature, gave it help To issue: it could kill as soon as go. Abel, as white and mild as his sheep were, (Who, in that trade, of church and kingdoms there Was the first type,) was still infested so With this wolf, that it bred his loss and woe; And yet his bitch, his sentinel, attends ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... degree supplied, by a most characteristic speech from Hogg himself, in which he related how the inspiration of the muse came upon him, in consequence of his being born, like Burns, on the 25th of January; how, on the evening of his birth, a man and horse were dispatched for the midwife, but the night being wild, and Ettrick deep in flood, the rider was lost; nevertheless, the familiar spirit called Brownie—the Lubber-Fiend of Milton—supplied his place, and brought the marvelling midwife in time to achieve the adventure of the future poet of Kilmeny. All this, and much more ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XIX. No. 532. Saturday, February 4, 1832 • Various
... an hour had barely passed ere the sky grew cloudy. Moist drops began to fall. It was the first rain for many weeks, and foreign visitors, accustomed to think of Nepenthe as a rainless land, were almost as interested in the watery shower as in that of the ashes. Mud, such mud as the oldest midwife could not remember, encumbered the roofs, the fields, the roadways. It looked as if the whole island were plastered over with a coating of liquid chocolate. Now, if the shower would ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... aged man but a broken-down one, and in appearance (as they say) older than his years. A great pity seized her for Corona, and in the rush of pity all her oddities and grown-up tricks of speech (Americanisms apart) explained themselves. She was an old father's child. Nurse Branscome was midwife enough to know what freakishness and frailty belong to children begotten by old age. Yet Corona, albeit gaunt with growing, was lithe and well-formed, and of a healthy complexion and a clear, though it inclined ...
— Brother Copas • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... of his Dialogues tells us, that Socrates, who was the Son of a Midwife, used to say, that as his Mother, tho she was very skilful in her Profession, could not deliver a Woman, unless she was first with Child; so neither could he himself raise Knowledge out of a Mind, where Nature ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... hard if he happens to be no bigger than you are!" Mashurina retorted with a self-satisfied smile. (She had quite recently passed her examination as a midwife. Coming from a poor aristocratic family, she had left her home in the south of Russia about two years before, and with about twelve shillings in her pocket had arrived in Moscow, where she had entered a lying-in institution and had worked very hard to gain the ...
— Virgin Soil • Ivan S. Turgenev
... but slanderous ears also; not only wicked inventions, which engender and brood lies, but wicked assents, which hatch and foster them. Not only the spiteful mother that conceiveth such spurious brats, but the midwife that helpeth to bring them forth, the nurse that feedeth them, the guardian that traineth them up to maturity, and setteth them forth to live in the world; as they do really contribute to their subsistence, so deservedly they partake in the blame due to them, and must be responsible ...
— Sermons on Evil-Speaking • Isaac Barrow
... told the pagan grandmother that the new baby was a girl instead of a boy, the old woman flew into a rage and would have gone at once to get hold of the baby and put it to death. Her lameness, however, made her move slowly, and she could not find her crutch; for the midwife, who knew the bad temper of the grandmother, had purposely hid it. The old woman was angry, because she did not want any more females in the big house, where she thought there were already too many mouths to fill. Food was hard to get, and there were not enough war men to defend the ...
— Dutch Fairy Tales for Young Folks • William Elliot Griffis
... strongly recommended our going from Malta in an English steamboat to Egypt. They related an incident which had taken place a few days previously, and caused them much uneasiness. A Hebrew woman was delivered of a daughter by a Christian midwife, who immediately baptized the child, and the authorities refused to restore her to the mother. At Leghorn, just before Passover, a woman had lost a child, and accused the Jews of stealing it, but the Governor put her in prison, saying she should remain there till the child was ...
— Diaries of Sir Moses and Lady Montefiore, Volume I • Sir Moses Montefiore
... communicated to all the court, and spread throughout the empire of Persia. Upon this news the two sisters came to pay their compliments, and proffered their service to deliver her, desiring her, if not provided with a midwife, to ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... Ellice group, only two children were allowed to a couple; on Nukufelau, only one. Any violation of this unique sumptuary law was punished by a fine.[1008] On the congested Gilbert atolls, a woman rarely had more than two children, never more than three. Abortion, produced by a regular midwife, disposed of any subsequent offspring. Affection for children was very strong here, and infanticide of the living was unknown.[1009] In Samoa, also, Turner found the practice restricted to the period before birth; but in Tahiti and elsewhere it was enforced by ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple
... identified with violence; and I will not be so hypocritical and base as to deny that violence must be one of our means of action. Force is the midwife of society; and never has radical change been accomplished without it. What came by the sword by the sword must be destroyed: and only through violence can violence come to an end. Nay, I will go further and confess, since here if anywhere ...
— A Modern Symposium • G. Lowes Dickinson
... the distinction between the Greek and the Hebrew method is most marked. Socrates, for example, called himself the midwife of men's thoughts. His maxim was, "Know thyself." His cross-examination was designed to make men see for themselves. That is, he taught by reason. But the prophet's claim was, "Thus saith the Lord!" He spoke out of his personal and passionate conviction, for which he believed he ...
— The Chief End of Man • George S. Merriam
... dawn Uncle Jase Burrell and a neighbour woman, versed in the homely practises of the midwife, came to the room where Parish Thornton sat with tightly clenched hands before the ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... existence. He was put to death for it, though only at the conclusion of a long promenade during which he delivered Athenian youths of their intelligence. Facility in the operation may have been inherited. Socrates was the son of a midwife. His own progeny consisted in a complete transfiguration of Athenian thought. He told of an Intelligence, supreme, ethical, just, seeing all, hearing all, governing all; a creator made not after the image of man but of the soul, and visible only in the conscience. It was for that he died. ...
— The Lords of the Ghostland - A History of the Ideal • Edgar Saltus
... and rapidly during the nineteenth century, that it seemed to trouble no one that countless lives of mothers and babies were lost during the perils of child-birth; it remained the only civilised country of Europe where a woman could practise as a midwife without any training ...
— Women Workers in Seven Professions • Edith J. Morley
... or natural coward, shall have guidance Of a free people's destiny, should fall out In the mere lottery of a reckless nature, 310 Where few the prizes and the blanks are countless? Or haply that a nation's fate should hang On the bald accident of a midwife's handling The unclosed sutures of an ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... them. Having at length exhausted his fancy in fabricating, shaping and denying particular charges, hardly one of which ever existed, he ranges up his whole artillery of vengeance;—the battle becomes general:—And the famous Doctor Slop, the man midwife, did not pour a more copious and continued shower of curses upon Obadiah, who had tied his bag of instruments with hard knots, than is thus suddenly let fly upon the devoted head of the Editor of the Saratoga Journal. "Really" said the Frenchman ...
— A Review and Exposition, of the Falsehoods and Misrepresentations, of a Pamphlet Addressed to the Republicans of the County of Saratoga, Signed, "A Citizen" • An Elector
... the door for you, and will ask you for the midwife. You'll tell him, 'Yes, from the boss.' Nothing else. He'll understand ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky
... a biographic sketch of Socrates in a chronological and systematic order. He was born in the year 469 B. C. His father was Sophroniscus, a sculptor, and his mother Phaenarete, a midwife. He followed his father's vocation and it is believed that he showed poor skill in the profession. We know nothing of his early intellectual and moral development. Since he was bred in Athens, he most probably received ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10
... surely you would not condemn them all to suckle fools, and chronicle small beer! No. Women might certainly study the art of healing, and be physicians as well as nurses. And midwifery, decency seems to allot to them, though I am afraid the word midwife, in our dictionaries, will soon give place to accoucheur, and one proof of the former delicacy of the sex be effaced ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]
... yesterday, about having in the house a midwife, to be at hand, at a moment's warning. I said I feared the sight of such a person would terrify her: and so he instantly started an expedient, of which her mother, Mrs. Jervis, and myself, approved, and have put into practice; ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... her increasing weakness, called in an old woman who had been midwife and doctor of the county for half a century. She came, a bent and bony woman who must have been majestic in her youth. Her front teeth were gone, her face was stained with dark splashes like the imprint of a pre-natal hand. Over her head she wore a black shawl; and she looked enough ...
— The Splendid Idle Forties - Stories of Old California • Gertrude Atherton
... to be introduced to me! Indeed! I would see him, as he has been midwife to Masters; but he is so dull that he would only be troublesome—and besides, you know I shun authors, and would never have been one myself, if it obliged me to keep such bad company. They are always in earnest, and think ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... the table in a roar of laughter, by declaring it was his opinion there was a kind of puppyism in pigs that they should wear tails—calling a great coat, a spencer folio edition with tail-pieces—Hercules, a man-midwife in a small way of business, because he had but twelve labours—assured them he had seen a woman that morning who had swallowed an almanac, which he explained by adding, that her features were so carbuncled, that the red lettered days were visible on ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... her first labor. Well, well! she shall come. —Observe how earnest the old gossip is, (Coming forward) Because this Lesbia is her pot-companion. —Oh grant my mistress, Heav'n, a safe delivery, And let the midwife trespass any where Rather than here!—But what is it I see? Pamphilus all disorder'd: How I fear The cause! I'll wait a while, that I may know If this commotion ...
— The Comedies of Terence • Publius Terentius Afer
... to some faint meaning make pretense, But Shadwell never deviates into sense. . . . The midwife laid her hand on his thick skull With this prophetic blessing—Be ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... lawyer,[537] and the fortune-teller, The school-master, the midwife,[538] and the bawd, The conjurer, the buyer and the seller Of painting which with breathing will be thaw'd, Doth practise physic; and his credit grows, As doth the ballad-singer's auditory, Which hath at Temple-Bar his standing chose, And to the vulgar sings an ale-house story: First ...
— The Works of Christopher Marlowe, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Christopher Marlowe
... midwife was hereditary in the family of the basket-maker. It belonged to his wife. She might not be competent, but the office was hers, anyway. Her pay was not high—25 cents for a boy, and half as much for a girl. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... a midwife, the child born lying in a manger betwixt an ox and an ass, and the angel ...
— Everyman and Other Old Religious Plays, with an Introduction • Anonymous
... not evoke Jupiter to save him, the same as the people of some other countries did, but he, or some of his friends present, said Deiseal. When an infant was born, the midwife encircled it three times right about with a burning candle. These customs were no doubt commenced by the Highlanders in honour of the sun, which they once worshipped; but in later times people did as their forefathers and foremothers ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... peace can be so utter. It is the silence of a broody God, and out of that frozen pause, in a house tucked up to the sills and down to the eaves, Sara Turkletaub was prematurely taken with the pangs of childbirth, and in the thin dawn, without even benefit of midwife, ...
— The Vertical City • Fannie Hurst
... vocation; and this fact enables them successfully, if they like, to dare these parties to treat them any other than respectfully. There is a skeleton in every house, a secret in every family; and too often the doctor, midwife, and accoucheur have to be treated publicly, socially, and pecuniarily in accordance with this fact. It is such men as these who, by their nefarious practices, have been enabled to accumulate a large amount of money, that are the proprietors ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... in a house on the east side of this lane, looking into Fleur-de-Lys Court, that (in 1767) Elizabeth Brownrigge, midwife to the St. Dunstan's workhouse and wife of a house-painter, cruelly ill-used her two female apprentices. Mary Jones, one of these unfortunate children, after being often beaten, ran back to the Foundling, from whence she had been taken. On the remaining one, Mary Mitchell, the wrath of the avaricious ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... should we see disfigured! How many fine gentlemen would be forced to wear their wigs as low as their eye-brows, were this law in practice with us! I should go on to tell you many other parts of justice, but I must send for my midwife. ...
— Letters of the Right Honourable Lady M—y W—y M—e • Lady Mary Wortley Montague
... "I was a midwife myself, to black and white, after freedom. De Thomson doctors all liked me and tole people to 'git Nancy.' I used 'tansy tea'—heap o' little root—made black pepper tea, fotch de pains on 'em. When I would git ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: Volume IV, Georgia Narratives, Part 1 • Works Projects Administration
... philosopher Thales of Miletus agreed in regarding water as the primal element, the original of all existences, and their theory has supporters among many primitive peoples. At the baptism festivals of their children, the ancient Mexicans recognized the goddess of the waters. At sunrise the midwife addressed the child, saying, among other things: "Be cleansed with thy mother, Chalchihuitlicue, the goddess of water." Then, placing her dripping finger upon the child's lips, she continued: "Take this, for on it thou must live, grow, become strong, and flourish. Through it we receive ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... the immediate and instigating cause of the lady's journey to Garnock being the alarming intelligence which she had that day received of Mr. Craig's servant-damsel Betty having, by the style and title of Mrs. Craig, sent for Nanse Swaddle, the midwife, to come to her in her own case, which seemed to Mrs. Glibbans nothing short of a miracle, Betty having, the very Sunday before, helped the kettle when she drank tea with Mr. Craig, and sat at the room door, on ...
— The Ayrshire Legatees • John Galt
... women to be attended in childbirth only by midwives of their own sex. Indeed, so strong was the prejudice on this point that women were known to die of abdominal tumors rather than allow male physicians to examine them. The admission of men to the profession of midwife marked ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... and the holder ups. Mr. James Vood was baptizing a man at St. Androws, and instead that he sould have baptized James, he called it John. The father, a litle bumbaized at this, after the barne is baptized and that he hes given it back to the midwife, he stands up and looks the Minister as griveously in the face and sayes, Sir, what sal I do wt 2 Johns, we have a John at home else, Sir? Whow would ye called then, Robin? quo' the Minister. James, Sir. James be ...
— Publications of the Scottish History Society, Vol. 36 • Sir John Lauder
... children. I had two sisters and eight half-brothers and three half-sisters. Some died so young they never was named. My stepfather was mean to her and beat her, caused some of their deaths. She was a midwife in her later years. She made us a living till I married. She was gone with Dr. Harrison a lot. He'd come take her off and bring her home in the buggy. I married and immigrated to Dell, Arkansas. We lived there a year and ...
— Slave Narratives: Arkansas Narratives - Arkansas Narratives, Part 6 • Works Projects Administration
... near us the lunatics screamed and laughed and clapped their hands, and trod on the wounded, but I got 'er goin' again. I got 'er to Poperinghe. Two soldiers died on the way, and a lunatic had fallen out somewhere, and a baby was born in the 'bus; and me with no conductor and no midwife. ...
— Waiting for Daylight • Henry Major Tomlinson
... of advertising the person who sold them, whose "professional" services were generally brought into request when the pills proved inoperative. This was the secret of Madame Restell's reputation and immense accumulated fortune. Her occupation was that of a midwife, and in that assumed capacity she advertised her "Female Pills." As all the world knows now, her real vocation was the ante-natal destruction of unwelcome babies. To her gorgeous palace at the corner of Fifth avenue and Fifty-second street went for years some of the most wealthy ...
— Danger! A True History of a Great City's Wiles and Temptations • William Howe
... mother was a seamstress and had three younger seamsters under her, that she taught to sew. We made the clothes for all the house servants and fiel' hans. My mother made some of the clothes for my marster and missis. My mother was a midwife too, and useter go to all the birthings on our place. She had a bag she always carried and when she went to other plantations she had a horse and buggy ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Georgia Narratives, Part 4 • Works Projects Administration
... enter with us, stood at the corner of the rue de la Tixeranderie and the rue Deux-Portes. There was nothing in the exterior of it to distinguish it from any other, unless perhaps two brass plates, one of which bore the words MARIE LEROUX-CONSTANTIN, WIDOW, CERTIFIED MIDWIFE, and the other CLAUDE PERREGAUD, SURGEON. These plates were affixed to the blank wall in the rue de la Tixeranderie, the windows of the rooms on that side looking into the courtyard. The house door, which opened directly on the first steps of ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - LA CONSTANTIN—1660 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... begin with the earliest days of infancy. After the first bath the new-born child was put into swaddling-clothes, a custom not permitted by the rougher habits of Sparta. On the fifth or seventh day the infant had to go through the ceremony of purification; the midwife, holding him in her arms, walked several times round the burning altar. A festive meal on this day was given to the family, the doors being decorated with an olive crown for a boy, with wool for a girl. On the tenth ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... are they, whom, as I write, Naked and whimpering, in her arms receives The midwife! They those longed-for days may hope To see, when, after careful studies we Shall know, and every nursling shall imbibe That knowledge with the milk of the dear nurse, How many hundred-weight of salt, and how Much flesh, how many bushels, too, of flour, His ...
— The Poems of Giacomo Leopardi • Giacomo Leopardi
... love, nor fear. Indeed, 't is true that Henry told me of; For I have often heard my mother say I came into the world with my legs forward. Had I not reason, think ye, to make haste And seek their ruin that usurp'd our right? The midwife wonder'd; and the women cried 'O, Jesus bless us, he is born with teeth!' And so I was, which plainly signified That I should snarl and bite and play the dog. Then, since the heavens have shap'd my body ...
— King Henry VI, Third Part • William Shakespeare [Rolfe edition]
... going for a parson, girl, the forerunner of a midwife, some nine months hence. Well, I find dissembling to our sex is as natural as swimming to a negro; we may depend upon our skill to save us at a plunge, though till then, we never make the experiment. But how hast ...
— The Comedies of William Congreve - Volume 1 [of 2] • William Congreve
... lessons in deportment with his primal pap; and in India all good little boys, who hope to go to heaven when they die, keep their noses clean, and never romp or whistle. As to girls it matters less; the midwife gets only half price for consummating that sort of blunder; for when you are dead only a son can carry you out and bury you dacent,—no daughter, though she pray with the power and perseverance of the Seven Penitents, can procure ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 110, December, 1866 - A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics • Various
... founded Santissimo Nombre de Jesus, and placed the image in a church of their order erected in the city. There it remains in highest veneration, and has wrought many miracles, particularly in childbirths, whence it is both facetiously and piously called El Partero ["man-midwife"]. Each year it is borne in solemn procession from the church of St. Augustine to the spot in which it was found, where a chapel has since been erected. The procession takes place upon the same day when the discovery was made—namely, on the twenty-ninth of ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XII, 1601-1604 • Edited by Blair and Robertson
... the University of Tuebingen, and then lived for some time as a private tutor in Bern, but he was soon attracted to Bodmer, at Zurich, who, like Gleim at a later date in North Germany, might be called the midwife of genius in South Germany. There he gave himself over entirely to the joy that arises from youth's self-creation, when talents develop under friendly guidance without being hampered by the higher requirements of criticism. Soon, however, he outgrew ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... That word which the Holy Ghost, by Moses, useth for the ark, is common to all kind of boats, thebah; and is the same word that Moses useth for the boat that he was exposed in, that his mother laid him in an ark of bulrushes. But we are sure that Eve had no midwife when she was delivered of Cain, therefore she might well say, Possedi virum a Domino, I have gotten a man from the Lord,[354] wholly, entirely from the Lord; it is the Lord that enabled me to conceive, ...
— Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions - Together with Death's Duel • John Donne
... to most of her contemporaries. This idea was not gained entirely from my own observation, but also from a knowledge of the high regard in which she was held by other women. Aside from her native talent and ingenuity, she was endowed with a truly wonderful memory. No other midwife in her day and tribe could compete with her in skill and judgment. Her observations in practice were all preserved in her mind for reference, as systematically as if they had been written upon the pages of ...
— Indian Boyhood • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... which establishments was duly heralded on their respective fronts. It was a little house, and this was the more convenient; for Mrs Gamp being, in her highest walk of art, a monthly nurse, or, as her sign-board boldly had it, 'Midwife,' and lodging in the first-floor front, was easily assailable at night by pebbles, walking-sticks, and fragments of tobacco-pipe; all much more efficacious than the street-door knocker, which was so constructed as to wake the street with ease, and even spread ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... into the world two months too soon, I was in such a hurry. My mother was alone and had no help. When the midwife came I had arrived already. I was so feeble that the first few years great care had to be taken of me to keep me alive. I was well made enough, but not strong, and this was the source of many vexations to ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes
... not Mary Bogdanovna be sent for?" said one of the maids who was present. (Mary Bogdanovna was a midwife from the neighboring town, who had been at Bald Hills for the ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... can Daniel be?" cried Philippina, "where can Daniel be with his damned Eleanore?" She sat in the corner with her hands folded, her hair tangled and knotted, her face distorted with the grimaces of madness. The midwife was still busy with Gertrude; the new-born child was ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... linen and wrapped in a hand-woven christening blanket—a "bearing-cloth"—the unfortunate young Puritan was carried to church in the arms of the midwife, who was a person of vast importance and dignity as well as of service in early colonial days, when families of from fifteen to twenty children were quite the common quota. At the altar the baby was placed in his proud father's arms, and received his first cold and disheartening ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle
... fours, like the so-called "lower animals." Amongst the Moslems of Waday, etc., a cord is hung from the top of the hut, and the woman in labour holds on to it standing with her legs apart, till the midwife receives the child. ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... nurse?" asked Mrs. Bracher, who was that, as well as a motor cyclist and a woman of property, a certificated midwife, and a veterinarian. ...
— Young Hilda at the Wars • Arthur Gleason
... had himself heard moans from the hut; he was beside himself with anger and flung a pebble at her. "Confound you, are you deaf too, that you cannot hear what that sound means?" shouted he. "See and get hold of a midwife—and that at ...
— Ditte: Girl Alive! • Martin Andersen Nexo
... virginity. For Augustine says (De Civ. Dei i, 18) that "those organs may be injured through being wounded by mischance. Physicians, too, sometimes do for the sake of health that which makes one shudder to see: and a midwife has been known to destroy by touch the proof of virginity that she sought." And he adds: "Nobody, I think, would be so foolish as to deem this maiden to have forfeited even bodily sanctity, though she lost the integrity ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... which is laid near Beddgelert, runs, as translated by Professor Rhys, in this way:—"Once on a time, when a midwife from Nanhwynan had newly got to the Hafodydd Brithion to pursue her calling, a gentleman came to the door on a fine grey steed and bade her come with him at once. Such was the authority with which he spoke, that the ...
— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland
... A cradle covered with white, rose-coloured and light-blue stuff. Baby clothes are spread out here and there. A green dress hangs on the right-hand wall. Four Sisters of Mercy are on their knees, facing the door at the back, dressed in the black and white of Augustinian nuns. The midwife, who is in black, is by the fireplace. The child's nurse wears a peasant's dress, of black and white, from Brittany. The MOTHER is standing listening by the door at the back. The STRANGER is sitting on a chair right and is trying to read a book. A hat and a brown ...
— The Road to Damascus - A Trilogy • August Strindberg
... after the celebration of the nuptials between Captain Blifil and Miss Bridget Allworthy, a young lady of great beauty, merit, and fortune, was Miss Bridget, by reason of a fright, delivered of a fine boy. The child was indeed to all appearances perfect; but the midwife discovered it was born a ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... my father and my mother dwelt, dwelt also a thin, upright, motherly, notable, good old body of a midwife, who with the help of a little plain good sense, and some years full employment in her business, in which she had all along trusted little to her own efforts, and a great deal to those of dame Nature,—had acquired, in her way, no small degree of reputation in the world:—by ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... foresight; Aspasia is prudent, for she is silent when wise men speak. But Aspasia can also cause wise men to speak wisely by listening to them; for she helps them to produce thoughts, not like Socrates' midwife, who only brings corporeal births to pass, ...
— Historical Miniatures • August Strindberg
... a feast to celebrate the event. And this is Pepys' frank record of the occasion: "By invitation to my uncle Fenner's, where I found his new wife, a pitiful, old, ugly, ill-bred woman, in a hatt, a midwife. Here were many of his, and as many of her relatives, sorry, mean people; and after choosing our gloves, we all went over to the Three Cranes taverne, and (although the best room of the house) in such a narrow dogg-hole we were crammed, (and I believe we were near forty) that it made me ...
— Inns and Taverns of Old London • Henry C. Shelley
... consummation of the conflict in which he had played so prominent, and spirited, and successful a part, he still deserves to be remembered with gratitude and affection by the nation, now grown big, at whose birth he so nobly played the part of midwife. James Otis was born at Great Marshes, now known as West Barnstable, February 5, 1725 (old style, February 5, 1724). His ancestor, John Otis, came from England about the year 1657, and settled in the town of Hingham. The family was from the ...
— The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, Bay State Monthly, Volume 4, No. 4, April, 1886 • Various
... he was a duke, or knight, An orator, a lawyer, or a priest, A nabob, a man-midwife;[539] but the wight[hk] Mysterious changed his countenance at least As oft as they their minds: though in full sight He stood, the puzzle only was increased; The man was a phantasmagoria in Himself—he ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... I come. 'Sbud, a man had as good be a professed midwife as a professed whoremaster, at this rate; to be knocked up and raised at all hours, and in all places. Pox on 'em, I won't come. D'ye hear, tell 'em I won't come. Let 'em snivel and ...
— The Way of the World • William Congreve
... there was another sickening journey to what proved to be a tenement in West Fifty-third Street. The newel post to the entrance was defaced with obscene handwriting, the hallways were like cellars, and there was a sign in the window, "Madam Landman, Midwife." ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... but deceitful man, an amoral person whose heredity was strongly tainted with mental disease, had strong sexual instincts partly inverted. He was attracted rather more by men than by women, but committed excesses with both sexes. He married a virtuous and intelligent midwife. At long intervals he had three attacks of acute mania, but was cured after each attack and procreated two boys and a girl. When he was sane he spent his time in deceitful occupations and speculation and never worked honestly to earn ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel
... she said; "call a cab quick. It was Rue de la Huchette where you said your midwife lives, wasn't it? opposite a copper planer's? Haven't you a pen ...
— Germinie Lacerteux • Edmond and Jules de Goncourt
... swiftness ne'er applaud your pen. Leave to the jockeys that Newmarket praise, Slow runs the Pegasus that wins the bays. Much time for immortality to pay, Is just and wise; for less is thrown away. Time only can mature the labouring brain; Time is the father, and the midwife pain: The same good sense that makes a man excel, Still makes him doubt he ne'er has written well. Downright impossibilities they seek; What man can be immortal in a week? Excuse no fault; though beautiful, 'twill harm; One fault shocks more ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young
... left his property called Madywattons, at Shrawley, to his son George, with remainder to his daughter Annis, and L20 to his son Thomas. He left legacies to his brothers Nicolas and Thomas and his Aunt Ley, the midwife. His wife's name was Eleanor. His goods were prised at L8 6s. 8d. by Thomas and William Shaxper, among others. The will of Richard Shakespere, of Rowington, November 13, 1613, which caused so much heartburning, showed that his son William had a son John, ...
— Shakespeare's Family • Mrs. C. C. Stopes
... "A midwife—is that what you want to be, girl?" Peer couldn't help laughing. So this was what she had been planning in these days—since he had offered to help her on in ...
— The Great Hunger • Johan Bojer |
