"Midwife" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... may be 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
... original cat's-meat warehouse; the renown of 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 ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... come 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 early age of twenty-nine, leaving a disconsolate father, who ...
— Woman - Her Sex and Love Life • William J. Robinson
... I thought, for a man who had been routed out of sleep. I tried to meet his mood. "Dr. Perrin, Mrs. van Tuiver tells me that you object to amateur physicians. But perhaps you won't mind regarding me as a midwife. I have three children of my own, and I've had to help bring others into ...
— Sylvia's Marriage • Upton Sinclair
... From old Acasto's loins: the midwife put A cheat upon my mother; and, instead Of a true brother, in the cradle by me Plac'd some coarse peasant's cub, and thou ...
— The Orphan - or, The Unhappy Marriage • Thomas Otway
... nine months were fulfilled to Anna, she brought forth, and said to the midwife, 'What have I brought forth?' And ...
— Giotto and his works in Padua • John Ruskin
... fallen unexpectedly ill, and the servant, who was ordered to ride to Jedburgh for the sage-femme, showing no great alertness in setting out, the familiar spirit slipped on the greatcoat of the lingering domestic, rode to the town on the laird's best horse, and returned with the midwife en croupe. During the short space of his absence, the Tweed, which they must necessarily ford, rose to a dangerous height. Brownie, who transported his charge with all the rapidity of the ghostly ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends - Scotland • Anonymous
... de atternoon she would ax 'em to show her how to read a little book what she carried 'round in her bosom all de time, and to tell her de other things dey had larn't in school dat day. Dey larned her how to read and write, and atter de War was over Mammy teached school and was a granny 'oman (midwife) too. ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... 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 April, the feast of the glorious ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XII, 1601-1604 • Edited by Blair and Robertson
... 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 ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... is Antichrist. The devil is the head; the synagogue of Satan is the body; the wicked spirit of iniquity is the soul. The devil made use of the church [the clergy] to midwife this monster into the world. He had plums in his dragon's mouth, and so came in by flatteries. He metamorphosed himself into a beast, a man, or woman; and the inhabitants of the world loved the woman dearly, became her sons, and took up helmet and shield to defend her. ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... 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 first distinguished ...
— The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, Bay State Monthly, Volume 4, No. 4, April, 1886 • Various
... Naturally, 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 fetal head presented the ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... perhaps, out of fear of sooner losing their charms, and then forfeiting their standing with either husband or male friends, incur such criminal acts, and, for hard cash, find ready medical and midwife support. ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel
... 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)
... have taken 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 you ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 110, December, 1866 - A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics • Various
... daily throughout life. The deity selected serves the child through life as a patron saint and protector. Frequently the village barber acts in the place of a priest and puts on the sacred thread. A similar thread placed around the neck of a child, and often around its waist by the midwife immediately after birth, is intended as an amulet or charm to protect from disease and danger. It is usually a strand of silk which has been blessed by some holy man or sanctified by being placed around the neck of an ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis
... neglected by the adherents of the new dogmas. That other phase was the driving power of instinct, a power uncontrolled and unnoticed. The great fundamental instinct of sex was expressing itself in these ever-growing broods, in the prosperity of the slum midwife and her colleague the slum undertaker. In spite of all my sympathy with the dream of liberated Labor, I was driven to ask whether this urging power of sex, this deep instinct, was not at least partially responsible, along ...
— The Pivot of Civilization • Margaret Sanger
... 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 ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden
... an air of important indignation. With the confidence of a lifetime of obstetrical experience, she drew from her pocket a brown string, coarse and dirty, and tied up the newcomer's navel. It was little the nurses were allowed to help. Though a trained and certificated midwife, Mrs. Bracher was edged out of the ministration by the small, determined grandmother, who looked anger and scorn out of her little black eyes upon the three. She resented their coming. Antiseptic gauze ...
— Young Hilda at the Wars • Arthur Gleason
... it too 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 subtly 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 ...
— Hilda - A Story of Calcutta • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... 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 ...
— The Private Diary of Dr. John Dee - And the Catalog of His Library of Manuscripts • John Dee
... died of joy because of the suddenness of this meeting, yet I thank him therefor. For who is this goodly and gracious young man save the King's son of Oakenrealm, Christopher that was; and that to my certain knowledge; for he is my fosterling and my milk-child, and I took him from the hands of the midwife in the High House of Oakenham a twenty-one years ago; and they took him from Oakenham, and me with him to the house of Lord Richard the Lean, at Longholms, and there we dwelt; but in a little while they took him away ...
— Child Christopher • William Morris
... 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
... There is an order, dated June 6th, 1372, to lodge two pipes of good wine in Kenilworth Priory, and to hasten with all speed Dame Ilote, the midwife, to the Queen Constance at Hertford on horse or in carriage as should be best for her ease. The same person attended the late ...
— Henry of Monmouth, Volume 1 - Memoirs of Henry the Fifth • J. Endell Tyler
... and an Archimagus, and a Tycho Brahe, and a Copernicus; and thou art the darling of the Nine, and midwife to their wandering babe also! We take tea with that learned poet and critic on Tuesday night, at half-past five, in his neat library; the repast will be light and Attic, with criticism. If thou couldst contrive to wheel up thy dear carcase ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... that 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 ...
— The Chief End of Man • George S. Merriam
... 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 ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]
... Nathaniel St. Andre was the surgeon and anatomist to the King, and Cyriacus Ahlers the King's private surgeon; John Howard was the apothecary. The imposture was finally brought to light before Sir Richard Manningham (the famous man-midwife who probably influenced Sterne) and Dr. James Douglas. Among the many contemporary pamphlets on this subject ...
— A Learned Dissertation on Dumpling (1726) • Anonymous
... lying-in, travail, labor, childbearing. Associated Words: tocology, midwife, midwifery, parturient, maieutic, layette, obstetrics, obstetrician, celation, puerperal, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... 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 ...
— The Comedies of William Congreve - Volume 1 [of 2] • William Congreve
... sense Can do it with a small expense. There your dear spouse and you together May breathe your bellies full of ether, When Lady Luna[1] is your neighbour, She'll help your wife when she's in labour, Well skill'd in midwife artifices, For she herself oft falls in pieces. There you shall see a raree show Will make you scorn this world below, When you behold the milky-way, As white as snow, as bright as day; The glittering constellations roll About the grinding ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... 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, ...
— The Life and Romances of Mrs. Eliza Haywood • George Frisbie Whicher
... One 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 who was enjoying excellent ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... the two women alighted, and after having once more raised their eyes to a strip of wood, some six or eight feet long by two broad, which was nailed above the windows of the second storey, and bore the inscription, "Madame Voison, midwife," stole quickly into a passage, the door of which was unfastened, and in which there was just so much light as enabled persons passing in or out to find their way along the narrow winding stair that led from the ground ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE GANGES—1657 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... astrologers managed subsequently to reckon very auspicious for me, may have been the causes of my preservation; for, through the unskilfulness of the midwife, I came into the world as dead; and only after various efforts was I enabled to see the light. This event, which had put our household into sore straits, turned to the advantage of my fellow-citizens, inasmuch as my grandfather, the /Schultheiss/ [Footnote: A chief judge ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... like ice. He was one of those who by nature are fitted for cold and ruthless action in time of stress. Most of his money had been made across the dissecting table of enterprises, and not at their birth. He was a financial surgeon, but no midwife, and had only been magnetized into his past support by the hypnotic personality of Clark. He was grimly mindful that Marsham, after waiting for years for his opening, had got more than even. Birch's cold mind now wondered for the first time whether, after all, ...
— The Rapids • Alan Sullivan
... neglected state. But such is far from being the case. Astraea and Virtue meet with a personage called Intelligence, who furnishes them with a detailed account of current scandal calculated to still further depress the dejected Virtue. The trio are soon joined by Mrs. Nightwork, a midwife, who never breaks an oath of secrecy unless it be to her interest, and the character of whose contributions to the general fund of gossip may be easily imagined. This semi-allegorical method of narration is kept ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman
... ground, or any 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
... Geordie Lorimer 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
... call me father? better burn it now, Than curse it then. But, be it; let it live:— It shall not neither.—[To ANTIGONUS.] You, sir, come you hither: You that have been so tenderly officious With Lady Margery, your midwife, there, To save this bastard's life,—for 'tis a bastard, So sure as this beard's grey,—what will you adventure To save this ...
— The Winter's Tale - [Collins Edition] • William Shakespeare
... see what progress we are making; and we produce as a sample a boy who repeats some blackguard doggerel of George Colman's, about a fat gentleman who was put to bed over an oven, and about a man-midwife who was called out of his bed by a drunken man at night. Our disciple tries to hiccup, and tumbles and staggers about in imitation of the tipsy English sailors whom he has seen at the punch houses. Really, if we can find nothing better worth reciting than this trash, we had better ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... pregnancy to the care of his mother, who undertakes that no harm shall befall her during his absence. The queen is delivered at one birth of seven lovely children, six boys and one girl, each of whom has a silver chain around its neck.[FN426] The king's mother plots with the midwife to do away with the babes and place seven little dogs in bed beside the poor queen. She gives the children to one of her squires, charging him either to slay them or cast them into the river. But when the squire enters the forest his ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... she anointed her body, her condition remained unsuspected by even the women at the baths, which at that time were taken in common. And when her confinement drew nigh she went down to her cavern, and there, with no midwife, alone, she gave birth to two sons, as a lioness throws off her cubs. She nourished her twins with her milk, she nursed them through childhood; and for nine years she stood by her husband in the gloom ...
— Wisdom and Destiny • Maurice Maeterlinck
... 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 ...
— The Works of Christopher Marlowe, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Christopher Marlowe
... by divers persons of repute and godliness, that Mrs. Jane Preswick hath, through the blessing of God, been very successful within Dublin and parts about, through the carefull and skillfull discharge of her midwife's duty, and instrumental to helpe sundry poore women who needed her helpe, which bathe abounded to the comfourte and preservation of many English women, who (being come into a strange country) had otherwise been destitute of due ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin
... 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' portrait ...
— Albert Durer • T. Sturge Moore
... 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 ...
— The Lady Of Blossholme • H. Rider Haggard
... She was a witch from her very birth. Her father sold her to Satan before she was born, that he might prosper in houses and lands. She has the witch's mark—a snake—on her breast, just over her heart. I know it, because goodwife Bartley, the midwife, told me so three years ago last March. Midwife Bartley is dead; but have a jury of women examine her, and you will see that ...
— Dulcibel - A Tale of Old Salem • Henry Peterson
... see Queen Mab hath been with you! She is the fairies' midwife, and she comes In shape no bigger than an agate-stone On the fore-finger of an alderman, Drawn with a team of little atomies Athwart men's noses as they ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett
... you another story. {56b} An ancient man, one of mine acquaintance, a man of good credit in our Countrey, had a Mother that was a Midwife: who was mostly imployed in laying great persons. To this womans house, upon a time, comes a brave young Gallant on horseback, to fetch her to lay a young Lady. So she addresses herself to go with him; wherefore, he ...
— The Life and Death of Mr. Badman • John Bunyan
... the less, brutally disturbed on one occasion in this same year. Like a fruit hidden among its leaves, which has grown and ripened unobserved by man, until it falls of its own accord, there came upon us one night the kitchen-maid's confinement. Her pains were unbearable, and, as there was no midwife in Combray, Francoise had to set off before dawn to fetch one from Thiberzy. My aunt was unable to 'rest,' owing to the cries of the girl, and as Francoise, though the distance was nothing, was very late in returning, her services were greatly ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... known where such a mistake has 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 ...
— Folk Lore - Superstitious Beliefs in the West of Scotland within This Century • James Napier
... set forth in condensed form the mass of knowledge of the tribes of Borneo acquired by Dr. Hose in the course of a quarter of a century's intimate study of, and sympathetic companionship with, the people of the interior. My own part in its production has been merely that of a midwife, though I may perhaps claim to have helped in the washing and dressing of the infant as well as in its delivery, and even to have offered some useful advice during the long years of pregnancy. And, since it is more difficult to present a brief and popular account ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall
... new green clothes and bangles in the seventh month; they then put her into a swing and sing songs. While she is pregnant she is made to work in the house so as not to be inactive. After the birth of a child the mother remains impure for twelve days. A woman of the Mang or Mahar caste acts as midwife, and always breaks her bangles and puts on new ones after she has assisted at a birth. If delivery is prolonged the woman is given hot water and sugar or camphor wrapped in a betel-leaf, or they put a few grains of gram ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... India is parcelled out into estates of villages.[3] The village communities are composed of those who hold and cultivate the land, the established village servants, priest, blacksmith, carpenter, accountant, washerman, basket-maker (whose wife is ex officio the midwife of the little village community), potter, watchman, barber, shoemaker, &c., &c.[4] To these may be added the little banker, or agricultural capitalist, the shopkeeper, the brazier, the confectioner, the ironmonger, the weaver, the dyer, the astronomer ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... secret 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 ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald
... of printing. In this short discouse [Transcriber's Note: discourse] I have explained myself when I design to treat of it in the famous subject of the Art of Printing. It hath been the labour of several years past, and if now I shall have assistance to midwife it into the world, I shall be well satisfied for the sake of the curious. For these 10 years past I have spared no cost in collecting books on this subject, and likewise drafts of the effigies of our famous ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... where a rude shrine of Satvai (the Sixth Mother) has been prepared. "For," whispers our guide, "Chandrabai died without worshipping Satvai and her spirit must perforce fulfil those rites." Close to the shrine sits a midwife keeping guard over a new gauze cloth, a sari and a bodice, purchased for the spirit of Chandrabai; and on a plate close at hand are vermilion for her brow, antimony for her eyes, a nose-ring, a comb, bangles and sweetmeats, such as she liked ...
— By-Ways of Bombay • S. M. Edwardes, C.V.O.
... omissions. PEIRESC was employed all his life on a history of Provence; but, observes Gassendi, "He could not mature the birth of his literary offspring, or lick it into any shape of elegant form; he was therefore content to take the midwife's part, by helping the happier ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... not be unfit to say something here of their births and burials, which make up so much of the pomp of too many called Christians. For births, the parents name their own children; which is usually some days after they are born, in the presence of the midwife, if she can be there, and those that were at the birth, who afterwards sign a certificate for that purpose prepared, of the birth and name of the child or children; which is recorded in a proper book, in the monthly-meeting to which the parents belong; ...
— A Brief Account of the Rise and Progress of the People Called Quakers • William Penn
... burial, and in others were persons in their last agonies. In one room might be heard dying groans, in an other the ravings of delirium, and not far off relations and friends bewailing both their loss and the dismal prospect of their own sudden departure. Death was the sure midwife to all children, and infants passed immediately from the womb to the grave. Some of the infected run about staggering like drunken men, and fall and expire in the streets; whilst others lie half dead and comatose, but never ...
— Royalty Restored - or, London under Charles II. • J. Fitzgerald Molloy
... one 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, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... decidedly a family match. Prince Francis Charles Augustus Albert Emmanuel of Saxe-Coburg—Gotha—for such was his full title—had been born just three months after his cousin Victoria, and the same midwife had assisted at the two births. The children's grandmother, the Dowager Duchess of Coburg, had from the first looked forward to their marriage, as they grew up, the Duke, the Duchess of Kent, and King Leopold came ...
— Queen Victoria • Lytton Strachey
... progeny Birth and 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 anomalies ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... they have now. Ma name Emmaline Thompson. Pa name Sam Adair. I can't tell you about him. I heard em say his pa was a white man. He was light skinned. Old folks didn't talk much foe children so I don't know well nough to tell you bout him. Ma was a cook and a licensed midwife in Alabama. She waited on both black and white. Ma never staid at home much. She worked out. I come to Mississippi after I married and had one child. Ma and all come. Ma went to Tom McGehee's to cook after freedom. She ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... 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 said ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir
... certain piece in the beef, called the mouse-piece, which given to the child, or party so affected to eat, doth certainly cure the thrush. From an experienced midwife. ...
— Miscellanies upon Various Subjects • John Aubrey
... 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 day after its birth, when ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... fine 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 ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle
... taken notice of by the soul, but is not resisted nor striven against, only the soul lifts up its eyes upon it, and sees that there is present a motion to sin, a motion of sin presented to the soul, that the soul might midwife it from the ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... 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
... yer think of 'er, doctor?' said Mrs. Hodges, bustling forwards authoritatively in her position of midwife and sick-nurse. ...
— Liza of Lambeth • W. Somerset Maugham
... fully satisfied him, so that he ordered his gentleman to dismiss the old woman the same day; and without any difficulty I sent my maid Amy to Calais, and thence to Dover, where she got an English midwife and an English nurse to come over on purpose to attend an English lady of quality, as they styled me, for ...
— The Fortunate Mistress (Parts 1 and 2) • Daniel Defoe
... authors of any notorious falsehoods. How many white foreheads 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
... a stonecutter and his mother a midwife, so very naturally the son had a beautiful contempt for pedigree. Socrates once said to Plato, "Anybody can trace to Codrus—by paying enough to the man who makes the family-tree." This seems to show that genealogy was a matter ...
— Little Journeys To The Homes Of Great Teachers • Elbert Hubbard
... watchman declared he believed her to be a common strumpet. She pleaded in her defence (as was really the truth) that she was a servant, and was sent by her mistress, who was a little shopkeeper and upon the point of delivery, to fetch a midwife; which she offered to prove by several of the neighbours, if she was allowed to send for them. The justice asked her why she had not done it before? to which she answered, she had no money, and could get no messenger. The justice then called her several scurrilous names, and, declaring ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding
... of 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, ...
— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland
... line—whose agonizing labours seem to have been eased somewhat by the comfortable ministrations of a black and grinning muse. Midwifery, to be sure, seems an odd occupation for a lady whom one pictures rather in the role of a flapper: but a midwife was what the poet needed, and in that capacity she has served him. Apparently it is only by adopting a demurely irreverent attitude, by being primly insolent, and by playing the devil with the instrument of Shakespeare and Milton that Mr. Eliot is able ...
— Since Cezanne • Clive Bell
... help her save her honour. This he did, and, a few days before the time when she expected to be delivered, he begged her to try a change of air and remove to his house, where she would recover her health more quickly than at home. Thither she went with but a very small following, and found there a midwife who had been summoned as for her brother's wife, and who one night, without recognising her, delivered her of a fine little girl. The gentleman gave the child to a nurse, and caused it to be ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. III. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... sardonic humour, fall into long silences, become inaccessible again and remote? The book went forward; yet, more than once recently, Carteret had questioned whether his friend would ever get himself fairly delivered of the admirable volume were not he—Carteret—permanently at hand to act midwife. An unpleasant idea pursued him that Sir Charles went, in some strange fashion, in fear of Damaris, of her criticism, her judgment. Yet fear seemed a hatefully strong and ugly word to employ as between a father and daughter so straitly, heretofore, ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... to enter, Kalle put his head in at a door that led from the kitchen to the cowshed. "Hi, Maria! You must put your best foot foremost!" he called in a low voice. "The midwife's here!" ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... The precentor was assassinated last night in the library of Saint Christopher's Chapel, and only a week ago, old Ulmet Elias, the sacrificer, was similarly murdered in the Rue des Juifs. Some days before that Christina Haas, the old midwife, was also killed, as well as the agate dealer Seligmann of the Rue Durlach. So look out for yourself, dear Kasper, and see that ...
— The Dean's Watch - 1897 • Erckmann-Chatrian
... "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 ...
— The Great Hunger • Johan Bojer
... more unaccountable. They believe that women, when they are delivered of children, are frequently at the same time delivered of a young crocodile, as a twin to the infant: They believe that these creatures are received most carefully by the midwife, and immediately carried down to the river, and put into the water. The family in which such a birth is supposed to have happened constantly put victuals into the river for their amphibious relation, and especially the twin, who, as long as he lives, gets down to the river at stated seasons, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr
... Not too young, however, to make her case heard—the case all living things have against the Power that creates them without so much as asking leave. The riot she made being interpreted by both father and uncle as protest against Mrs. Twiggins, a midwife who made herself disagreeable—or, strictly speaking, more disagreeable; being normally unpleasant, and apt to snap when spoke to, however civil—it was thought desirable to call in the help of her Aunt M'riar, who was living with her family at Ealing as a widow without ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... 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 once; or I'll ...
— Ditte: Girl Alive! • Martin Andersen Nexo
... 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, ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young
... interest, except what results from a less felicitous choice of situation. 'Roxana,' 'Singleton,' 'Moll Flanders,' 'Colonel Jack,' are all genuine offsprings of the same father. They bear the veritable impress of Defoe. Even an unpractised midwife would swear to the nose, lip, forehead, and eye of every one of them. They are, in their way, as full of incident, and some of them every bit as romantic; only they want the uninhabited island, and ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume II (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... 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 the ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple
... conscientiousness, self-knowledge and 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, but she incarnates ...
— Historical Miniatures • August Strindberg
... 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
... kept 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 ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... still-born, the midwife places a Chinese dish close to its ear, and strikes against it several times with a lead sinker. If this fails to gain a response, the body is wrapped in a cloth, and is soon buried beneath the house. There is no belief here, as is common in many other parts of the Philippines, that the spirits ...
— The Tinguian - Social, Religious, and Economic Life of a Philippine Tribe • Fay-Cooper Cole |
