"Motherly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... station. She felt as if her will power had deserted her, and she was dumbly obeying the behests of some unseen relentless force. She looked at the strange faces about her, hopelessly. Perhaps it was not too late—-perhaps some kind motherly woman would tell her if she were doing right. But they all looked so strange and forbidding, and while she turned the question over and over in her mind, the car stopped, the brakeman called the station ...
— 'Way Down East - A Romance of New England Life • Joseph R. Grismer
... Stephens? How absurd, Florence! This is just another of your motherly, old-maidish ways; dressing dolls for poor children, making bonnets, and knitting socks for all the little dirty babies in the neighborhood. I do believe you have made more calls in those two vile, ill-smelling alleys behind our house than ever you have in Chestnut Street, though you know everybody ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... domain. [F] Yon azure smoke betrays the lurking town; With eager footsteps I advance and reach 25 The cottage threshold where my journey closed. Glad welcome had I, with some tears, perhaps, From my old Dame, so kind and motherly, [G] While she perused me with a parent's pride. The thoughts of gratitude shall fall like dew 30 Upon thy grave, good creature! While my heart Can beat never will I forget thy name. Heaven's blessing be upon thee ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth
... agreeable, motherly, comfortable as she might be, wasn't his affair; that child with the mop of black hair who combined so magically the charm of mouse and butterfly and flitting bird, who was daintier than a flower and ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells
... we can!" said a Jewish girl with broad hips, great motherly breasts, and fine, soft, brown eyes, who appeared to be a leader and spokesman among the strikers. "We walk up and down here and try to get a word with the strikebreakers the boss has brought in from other towns, when they go ...
— Windy McPherson's Son • Sherwood Anderson
... flash! "And is he coming here?" she asked in an accent the most pleased and motherly. A flush came over her cheeks and her eyes grew and danced. It was as if some rare new thought had come to her, a sentiment of poetry, the sound of a forgotten strain of once ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro
... judges of age, thank heaven. Women are. I will have it that your friend is nineteen. I should be too silly to take an interest in him, were he less, if it were not motherly; and that wouldn't be entertaining. You ...
— The Princess Passes • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... a whole lot of persons not conspicuous for conversational powers: men who have lived much out-of-doors, with gun or rod; shy country neighbours, cross old scholars, simple motherly little housewives; and, if one get at their reality, peasants and even servants. For we have within ourselves memories and fancies; and it depends on our companion, on a word, a glance, a gesture, that only the ...
— Hortus Vitae - Essays on the Gardening of Life • Violet Paget, AKA Vernon Lee
... unlucky" said the woman, her motherly sympathies aroused; "I'm rilly concerned for ye. Solomon!" she called from the window. "I say Sol, is that ar man going to ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... fishing ever since they could handle a rod. They are supposed to empty the free water by Little Deeping Village every spring. So I limit them to three fish a day," said Mrs. Dangerfield; and there was a ring of motherly pride in her voice which ...
— The Terrible Twins • Edgar Jepson
... as far beyond the mental range of those who retained their blessings as souls that have passed are out of sight of men and women who still walk the earth. For this very reason she called out in Mrs. Wappinger that motherly good-nature which was only partially warped by the ambition for social success. On more than one of her "off-days" she had lured Diane out of her refuge in University Place, treating her with all the kindness she could bestow without causing disparaging comment upon herself. On the present ...
— The Inner Shrine • Basil King
... teaching. At first, the wayward little Indian seemed likely to form no accession to the quiet household, but he soon became its brightest ornament and pride. Everything was in his favor at the pleasant home of Mrs. Trevor. He was treated with motherly kindness and tenderness, yet firmly checked when he went wrong. From the first he had a well-spring of strength, against temptation, in the long letters which every mail brought from his parents; and all his childish ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar
... Harry's mother, who had already very frequently discounted the good things which were to fall to Harry's lot. She was a dear, good, motherly woman, all whose geese were certainly counted to be swans. And of all swans Harry was the whitest; whereas, in purity of plumage, Mary, the eldest daughter, who had won the affections of the young Buntingford brewer, was the next. That Harry's allowance should be stopped would be almost ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope
... the tiny, white-robed maiden, in quite a motherly manner. "Has you got a pain, Darby? or was you dreamin' about somefin' werry nice? You does look awful ...
— Two Little Travellers - A Story for Girls • Frances Browne Arthur
... now have called Linda the more lovely of the two, and certainly the more feminine in the ladylike sense of the word. If, however, devotion be feminine, and truth to one selected life's companion, if motherly care be so, and an indomitable sense of the duties due to one's own household, then Gertrude was ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... was the night the frost came the first time. I know Mrs. Dennison covered up some flowers she had in the front yard, anyhow. I remember looking out and seeing an old green plaid shawl of hers over the verbena bed. There was a fire in my little wood-stove. Mrs. Bird made it, I know. She was a real motherly sort of woman; she always seemed to be the happiest when she was doing something to make other folks happy and comfortable. Mrs. Dennison told me she had always been so. She said she had coddled her husband within an inch of his life. ...
— The Wind in the Rose-bush and Other Stories of the Supernatural • Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman
... was on her arm; her eyes were raised to her nurse's face wonderingly but complacently, and, though quite conscious, Mistress Fiddy involuntarily sighed out "mother." Very motherly was the elder woman's assurance: "Yes, my dear, I'll serve as madam your mother in her absence, till madam herself comes; and she'll laugh at our confusion and ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... my Loo there, too," said Mrs Marrot with a motherly smile, as she opened the door to let her visitors out. "You'll excuse me not goin' hout. I dursn't leave that baby for a minute. He'd be over the— ...
— The Iron Horse • R.M. Ballantyne
... the children and their father settled once more in their old home, with Adam, Var-Vara, and Alexis; and life flowing on very much as it had always done, except for the absence of the gentle, motherly, Anna Olsheffsky. ...
— Soap-Bubble Stories - For Children • Fanny Barry
... anger overcame her. Her motherly love gained the mastery, and in the silence of the room she roared ...
— Serge Panine, Complete • Georges Ohnet
... Iberian vice, and hardly know whether it makes the custom more respectable that at Nimes and Arles the thing is shabbily and imperfectly done. The bulls are rarely killed, and indeed often are bulls only in the Irish sense of the term— being domestic and motherly cows. Such an entertainment of course does not supply to the arena that element of the exquisite which I spoke ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... for children under her stern exterior why did she keep a stock of so many things dear to the childish heart, from paper soldiers (purchased by the yard) to sleds and shot? Perhaps that fantastic stock of hers was her curious expression of the Eternal Motherly. After she died, every year on the 30th of May the "Vet'rans," as they marched two by two in annually dwindling lines about the cemetery, placed a fresh print flag and a basket of geraniums on her grave, because she had sent ...
— Penguin Persons & Peppermints • Walter Prichard Eaton
... Which motherly comfort served to lighten the heavy heart, but brought not the faintest shadow of a smile to the steadfast eyes. For even the vision of watercress, shrimps and tea on the verandah at Shepherds will not force a light to the windows of the soul when ...
— Desert Love • Joan Conquest
... yet another reason why the attitude of an issuing house, to a borrowing State, should be paternal or even grand-motherly, as compared with the purely business-like attitude of a banker to a local borrower. If the bank makes a bad debt, it has to make it good to its depositors at the expense of its shareholders. It diminishes the amount that can be paid in dividends and so the bank is actually ...
— International Finance • Hartley Withers
... pain of State affairs; and that since God had blessed her with a fair and hopeful son, she was desirous to ensure to him, even while she yet lived, his succession to the crown, which was his by right of hereditary descent. "Wherefore," the instrument proceeded, "we, of the motherly affection we bear to our said son, have renounced and demitted, and by these our letters of free good-will, renounce and demit, the Crown, government, and guiding of the realm of Scotland, in favour of our said son, that he may succeed to us as native Prince thereof, as much as if ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... could be made to realise, by means of this madman's outpourings, the secret thoughts which no man will dare to tell them, to understand the mute and almost shamefaced appeal to their poor human kindliness, to their simple and motherly compassion. ...
— The Forerunners • Romain Rolland
... tone reminded Anne that her friend had long been motherless, and she slipped her arm affectionately around Laura's waist as she answered, "She is the most motherly woman I ever met. She seems to have room in her big, warm heart for every girl that wants mothering, no matter who or what she is." They were back at the camp now, and she added, "But we must get to bed quickly—there's the curfew," as a bugle ...
— The Torch Bearer - A Camp Fire Girls' Story • I. T. Thurston
... was born just about the time that it was supposed my father must have perished, and a year later my poor mother died, broken-hearted at the loss of a husband that she positively idolised. Thus, we two—Dora and I—were left orphans at a very early age, and were forthwith taken into the motherly care of Aunt Sophie, who had no children of her own. Poor Aunt Sophie! I am afraid I led her a terrible life; for I was, almost from my birth, a big, strong, high-spirited boy, impatient of control, and resolute to ...
— The Log of a Privateersman • Harry Collingwood
... objecting to everything and everybody on principle. Knowing that I was an orphan he sometimes took me aside and gave me sound fatherly advice which I have since remembered, and am now beginning to appreciate. His wife, too, was a kindly motherly woman who, because being practically homeless I was often compelled to spend my holidays at school, seemed better disposed towards me than to the majority of ...
— The Great White Queen - A Tale of Treasure and Treason • William Le Queux
... the hot sling, and afterward felt better, so that he sat up and gazed about him. It was the same room he had visited earlier in the evening, but the picture of home comfort was not the same, on account of the absence of the comfortable form and motherly face of Mrs. Bordine, who had retired long ...
— Five Thousand Dollars Reward • Frank Pinkerton
... words with emphasis and a look of half-motherly pride that caused great contentment to poor Harry; and he professed himself charmed to find ...
— New Arabian Nights • Robert Louis Stevenson
... son of Jack and Hannah Armstrong. The father was dead, but Hannah, who had been very motherly and helpful to Lincoln during his life at New Salem, was still living, and asked Lincoln to defend him. Young Armstrong had been a wild lad, and was often ...
— Lincoln's Yarns and Stories • Alexander K. McClure
... her!" Mary Wright, the eldest, stupidest, and most motherly girl in the school, exclaimed. "How can you drink without putting your nose in your ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... Beavers in crash summer coats and straw hats, rustic Beavers in shirt sleeves and frayed suspenders; but whatever his caste-symbols, every Beaver was distinguished by an enormous shrimp-colored ribbon lettered in silver, "Sir Knight and Brother, U. F. O. B., Annual State Convention." On the motherly shirtwaist of each of their wives was a badge "Sir Knight's Lady." The Duluth delegation had brought their famous Beaver amateur band, in Zouave costumes of green velvet jacket, blue trousers, and scarlet fez. The strange thing was that beneath their scarlet pride the Zouaves' faces remained ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... broad humanity has vitalized modern literature. It is the penetrating spirit of our century, which has been aptly called the Woman's Century. We do not find it in the great literatures of the past. The Greek poets give us types of tragic passions, of heroic virtues, of motherly and wifely devotion, but woman is not recognized as a profound spiritual force. This masculine literature, so perfect in form and plastic beauty, so vigorous, so statuesque, so calm, and withal so cold, shines ...
— The Women of the French Salons • Amelia Gere Mason
... settee, and arranged her head comfortably on its pillows. Then, giving her a motherly kiss, she said, "Rest, darling, while Tulee and I ...
— A Romance of the Republic • Lydia Maria Francis Child
... stopping for a time in Worcester, they had removed to Chicopee, where recently Mr. Howard had died. Their only source of maintenance was thus cut off, and now they were reduced to the utmost poverty. Since we last saw them a sickly baby had been added to their number. With motherly care little Mary each day washed and dressed it, and then hour after hour carried it in her arms, trying to still its feeble moans, which fell so sadly on the ear of ...
— The English Orphans • Mary Jane Holmes
... great city. When his story was known by Mrs. Balfour—a quiet, motherly woman—and she was fully informed of her husband's plans concerning him, she received him with a cordiality and tenderness which won his heart and made him entirely at home. The wonders of the shops, the wonders ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... from multitudes of hearty, joyous, healthily constituted men, who subsist upon daily newspapers, and find the world a most comfortable place to live in. As to Olivia, she was in the warm noon of life, and a picture of vitality and enjoyment. A plump, firm cheek, a dark eye, a motherly fulness of form, spoke the being made to receive and enjoy the things of earth, the warm-hearted wife, the indulgent mother, the hospitable mistress of the mansion. It is true that the smile on the lip had something of earthly ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... come, Mr. Merefleet," she said in a motherly tone. "It'll be a degree more lively than mooning ...
— The Odds - And Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... of civilization, great leader of men, patient and motherly woman, we bow our hearts to do you honor! Your tribe is fast disappearing from the land of your fathers. May we, the daughters of an alien race who slew your people and usurped your country, learn the lessons of calm ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper
... King of Navarre was to assist her in the capacity of lieutenant-general of the kingdom. Twenty-five members specially designated were to form the king's privy council. [Histoire des Etats generaux, by M. Picot, t. ii. p. 73.] And in the privacy of her motherly correspondence Catherine wrote to the Queen of Spain, her daughter Elizabeth, wife of Philip II., "Madame, my dear daughter, all I shall tell you is, not to be the least anxious, and to rest assured that I shall spare no pains to so conduct ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... Flo', with her industry and skill in 'translating' old boots and shoes, her motherly instincts and efforts to keep her young brother Dick, the crossing-sweeper, honest, because mother had made them promise to be so when she died; the good-natured, agreeable, clever young thief Jenks, the ...
— The Girls of St. Olave's • Mabel Mackintosh
... that Sue's selfishness was more a selfishness of words, perhaps, than of thoughts or feelings. "You needn't have anything to do with it. I can tell them you were not very well, and didn't feel exactly like coming. They will understand." She was used to making excuses for Suzette, and a motherly fib like this ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... the child he had picked up—which was no other than the young Count Fabian de Mediana— did not cease for an instant, but seemed rather to increase with time. It was a singular and touching spectacle to witness the care, almost motherly, which this rude nurse lavished upon the child, and the constant ruses to which he had recourse to procure a supplement to his rations for its nourishment. The sailor had to fight for his own living; but he often ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid
... young Ptolemy, afterwards called Epiphanes. He began his speech, "Ye men of Macedonia," as this mixed body of Greeks and Jews was always called. He wiped his eyes in well-feigned grief, and showed them the new king, who had been trusted, he said, by his father, to the motherly care of Agathoclea and to their loyalty. He then accused Tlepolemus of aiming at the throne, and brought forward a creature of his own to prove the truth of the charge. But his voice was soon drowned in the loud murmurs of the citizens; they had smarted ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 10 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... abundance and violence of her requests. It came to pass that in the excitement the old couple quite forgot Marjory. It was not until Mrs. Wainwright, then feeling splendidly, was dressed for dinner, that she thought to open Marjory's door and go to render a usual motherly supervision of the ...
— Active Service • Stephen Crane
... her pipe the old woman continued to gaze with almost motherly affection at the figure in the corner. To say the truth, whether it were chance, or skill, or downright witchcraft, there was something wonderfully human in this ridiculous shape, bedizened with its tattered finery; ...
— Mosses from an Old Manse and Other Stories • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... done since their last Thanksgiving Day at home. Such generous cups of coffee, enriched with cream almost too thick to flow from the capacious pitchers, and sweetened not only with snow-white sugar, but also with the smiles of some gracious woman, perhaps motherly in appearance, perhaps so fair and young that hearts beat faster under ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe
... in the lane below. The elder, who had spoken in that small, anxious voice, had a pale little face with pointed chin; her hair, the color of over-ripe corn, hung fluffy on her thin shoulders, her flower-like eyes, with something motherly in them already, were the same hue as her pale-blue, almost clean, overall. She had her smaller, chubbier sister by the hand, and, having delivered her message, stood still, gazing up at Tod, as one might at God. Tod ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... Desire, in the chimney corner, sobbing and wringing her hands, and rocking her body to and fro. She wouldn't eat, though good, kind, motherly Mrs. Moore, baked, on purpose for her, some of her most tempting cakes; she wouldn't drink, though Mrs. Moore handed her a nice hot cup of tea. She did nothing but cry fit to break her heart; while sensible little Mitty whispered to her mother to know "if she hadn't better go out of the ...
— Little Ferns For Fanny's Little Friends • Fanny Fern
... have a Chinaman and a Biddy to help her," he said quickly. Then recollecting the tastes of his comrades, he added, half apologetically, half cautiously, "Ef she could, now and then, throw herself into a lemming pie or a pot of doughnuts, jest in a motherly kind o' way, it would ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... interest and a certain charm to whatever she said and did. The Eschelle house became more attractive than ever before, so much so that Mrs. Eschelle declared that she longed for the quiet of Paris. To her motherly apprehension there was no result in this whirl of gayety, no serious intention discoverable in any of the train that followed Carmen. "You act, child," she said, "as if youth would ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... Mr. Checkynshaw married his second wife, who treated little Marguerite well enough, though she felt no deep and motherly interest in her, especially after Elinora, her own daughter, was born. Mr. Checkynshaw called himself a banker now. He had taken Mr. Hart and another gentleman into the concern as partners, and the banking-house of Checkynshaw, Hart, & ...
— Make or Break - or, The Rich Man's Daughter • Oliver Optic
... it out. It was an ordinary, kind, motherly epistle, such as thousands of schoolboys get every week of the school year. All about home, and what is going on, how the dogs are, where sister Mary has been to, how the boiler burst last week, which apple-tree bore most, and so on; ...
— The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's - A School Story • Talbot Baines Reed
... with half-grown grandchildren when their magnificent home was finally broken up, you can imagine the change to Mary of living with newly married people, engaged in their first struggle with the world. But ours was just the problem which appealed to the motherly heart of our spinster Mary, for she yearned over us with an exceeding great yearning, and of her value to us you yourselves shall be ...
— At Home with the Jardines • Lilian Bell
... frank settlement of the heart-question which came up on the day of her flight, had promised at once to return to his house,—where, for the brief remainder of our story, she is to be found. Let us wish her joy,—and the kind, motherly aunt, also. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 20, June, 1859 • Various
... are dark, some light, but all are feathery in effect; and altogether The Moorings, with its gables, and porches, and bow windows, and balconies and wide verandahs, gives the effect of a huge, ruffly and motherly grey bird with her wings spread wide to ...
— Lady Betty Across the Water • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... heard as he was. But then I never heard as he was livin', neither. When his wife went, poor thing—an' it was a chill on the liver, they said; it took her very sudden—he says to me, "Mrs. Peckover," he says, "I know you for a motherly woman"—just like that—see?—"I know you for a motherly woman," he says, "an' the idea I have in my 'ed is as I should like to leave Janey in your care, 'cause," he says, "I've got work in Birmingham, an' I don't see how I'm to take her with me. Understand me?" he says. "Oh!" I says—not feelin' ...
— The Nether World • George Gissing
... with which he describes the conduct of Fannia, who concealed the death of her dearly loved son from her sick husband Paetus, telling him the boy was well and resting quietly, and controlling her motherly tears until she could keep them back no longer, and rushed from the room to give them free course. Then, "Satiata siccis oculis composito vultu redibat, tanquam orbitatem foris reliquisset." No one could have written ...
— The Letters of the Younger Pliny - Title: The Letters of Pliny the Younger - - Series 1, Volume 1 • Pliny the Younger
... be. The Virgin, modestly and beautifully draped; St John, girt about the loins, not only in accord with his well-known prophetic costume, but also as partaking of sinful humanity, and therefore needing such cincture: the Child Redeemer, with a slight cincture, just to suggest motherly care, but not over the part usually concealed, as indeed it never ought to be, seeing that in Him was no sin, and that it is this spotless purity which is ever the leading idea in representations ...
— The Old Masters and Their Pictures - For the Use of Schools and Learners in Art • Sarah Tytler
... flinging out of the kitchen, when Mrs. Creddle caught her up and put a motherly arm about her. "Good-bye, my lass. You think nobody's felt like you before about a young ...
— The Privet Hedge • J. E. Buckrose
... Benson," said Philip, as the door opened and a comely, motherly young face appeared; "if you please, Mrs Benson, we lost our way in the wood—and—and—and—and oh, dear! oh, dear; what shall I do!" sobbed poor Philip, now out of his peril but thoroughly beaten, "what shall I do?" and then he sobbed and cried ...
— Hollowdell Grange - Holiday Hours in a Country Home • George Manville Fenn
... Barbara, by Jan, is repeated in the Bruges Museum The Donateur or Donor is a repetition of the original at Bruges. The Adoration of the Lamb is a copy of the original at Ghent. There is tender beauty in Jan's St. Barbara, and infinite motherly love expressed in his Holy Virgin. Hugo van der Goes's portrait of Thomas Portunari is a marvel of characterisation. Terburg has a mandolin player and Hobbema a mill scene. The Van Orleys are interesting, and also the Van Veens. Gerard David, a painter of ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... noiseless entrance of a motherly little lady in gray, with kindly eyes and a touch of silver in the fair hair drawn ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde
... You are so kind and thoughtful." Miss Carson's voice shook a little. The contrast between the day's selfish indifference of Mrs. Lowe, and the evening's motherly consideration of Mrs. Grant, touched her. "I will lie down here for a short time. Perhaps I shall feel better after getting some warm tea. ...
— All's for the Best • T. S. Arthur
... members of the Christian community, and had attained some eminence in it. A Rufus is mentioned in the salutations in Paul's Epistle to the Romans, as being 'elect in the Lord,' that is to say, 'eminent,' and his mother is associated in the greeting, and commended as having been motherly to Paul as well as to Rufus. Now, if we remember that Mark's Gospel was probably written in Rome, and for Roman Christians, the conjecture seems a very reasonable one that the Rufus here was the Rufus of the Epistle to the Romans. If so, it would ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren
... Ben now found himself in a well-lighted room, and the change made him blink about him. Instead of the motherly old lady in a frilled cap, whom he had expected to see, he found himself in the company of a half-dozen coatless young men and under-dressed women, lounging in questionable attitudes on chairs and sofas. At his advent they all looked up. A sallow youth who had been operating the piano ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge
... of her little children has to go through a thousand tiresome actions which would be intolerable if they were meaningless, but which compose a beautiful life if they are held together by the aim which the motherly love sees before it. Whatever work a human being may perform, force on his mind the treacherous suggestion that it is meaningless, that it is slavery, that others seize the profit, and he must hate it and feel it an unbearable hardship. It has often been observed that the most bitter ...
— Psychology and Social Sanity • Hugo Muensterberg
... then," Richard rejoined, "but 'tis not then I dread. 'Tis now, the next twenty-five years, during which I shall be slowly decaying, while you will be ripening into a matured, motherly beauty, dearer to your husband than all your girlish loveliness. 'Tis then that I dread the contrast in you; not when both are old; and, Edith, remember this, you can never be old to me, inasmuch as I can never see you. ...
— Darkness and Daylight • Mary J. Holmes
... the temple of toys which we frequent thinks I want them for a little boy and calls him "the precious" and "the lamb," the while Porthos is standing gravely by my side. She is a motherly soul, ...
— The Little White Bird - or Adventures In Kensington Gardens • J. M. Barrie
... Benjamin," cries a stout, motherly woman in a red cloak, as they enter the field, "be that you? Well, I never! You do look purely. And how's the Squire, ...
— Tom Brown's Schooldays • Thomas Hughes
... face and looked up at her. There could be no question but that she was full of sincere sympathy and concern for him. Her eyes shone upon him with all the motherly tenderness that any good woman, however young, has in her ...
— Out of the Depths - A Romance of Reclamation • Robert Ames Bennet
... deviation, there was a country store which I could pass on the last day, where I expected to buy some presents for my mother and sisters. But I was in a pickle as to what to give Esther, and on consulting Miss Jean, I found that motherly elder sister had everything thought out in advance. There was an old Mexican woman, a pure Aztec Indian, at a ranchita belonging to Las Palomas, who was an expert in Mexican drawn work. The mistress ...
— A Texas Matchmaker • Andy Adams
... No doubt, I could not have enjoyed it so exquisitely, except that there must be still latent in us Western wanderers (even after an absence of two centuries and more), an adaptation to the English climate which makes us sensible of a motherly kindness in its scantiest sunshine, and overflows us with delight at its ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... round-faced child of fourteen went her way to the end of her page. Then Miriam had ventured to interrupt and to ask her about the hanging arrangements, and the child had risen and speaking soft South German had suggested and poked tip-toeing about amongst the thickly-hung garments and shown a motherly solicitude over the disposal of Miriam's things. Miriam noted the easy range of the child's voice, how smoothly it slid from birdlike queries and chirpings, to the consoling tones of the lower register. It seemed to leave undisturbed the softly-rounded, ...
— Pointed Roofs - Pilgrimage, Volume 1 • Dorothy Richardson
... washed, and starched, that our party dresses were equal to those which Mrs. C. and Mrs. D. provided for their girls, and that our bonnets were fashionable enough for Fourth Street? Could she find time for anything more? Yes,—on our bodily ailments she always found time to bestow motherly care, watchfulness, and sympathy; of our mental ills ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various
... when the minister must seek refuge and counsel with his wife. He went to her as a troubled child goes to its mother, and she heard the confession of his strange experience with the motherly sympathy which performs the comforting office of perfect intelligence. If she did not grasp its whole significance, she seized what was perhaps the main point, and she put herself in antagonism to the cause of his morbid condition, ...
— A Pair of Patient Lovers • William Dean Howells
... to say friend, but he could not, for Mrs Shackle had thrown her arms about his neck in a big, motherly hug, from which the young officer escaped ...
— Cutlass and Cudgel • George Manville Fenn
... tall and thin, his chaft-blades being lank and white, and his eyes of a hollow drumliness, as if he got no refreshment from the slumbers of the night. Beholding all this work of destruction going on in silence, I spoke to his friend Mrs Grassie about him, and she was so motherly as to offer to have a glass of port-wine, stirred with best jesuit's barks, ready for him every forenoon at twelve o'clock; for really nobody could be but interested in the laddie, he was so gentle and modest, making never a word of complaint, though ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir
... no use; when she thought of all it meant, and of what the delicate girl was to her, all the coldness went out of her voice and the deepest motherly sympathy took its place. The answer came after a short pause in which the question was ...
— The White Sister • F. Marion Crawford
... other, as my dear Dora. Now bestir yourself, Mr. Haverley, and make Miriam look at this thing as she ought to. I don't pretend to deny that I have spoken to you very much for Dora's sake, for whom I have an almost motherly feeling; but you should act for your sister's sake. And please don't forget what I have said, young man, and give Miriam my ...
— The Girl at Cobhurst • Frank Richard Stockton
... a very popular indoor recreation of today, but we most earnestly urge that if dancing must be done, it be done under proper chaperonage, and if young people must meet in public dance halls let them be municipal dance halls, where motherly matrons are in charge. Many of the social dances which bring the participants into such close physical contact are to be discouraged and stricken off the list; and while dancing is a splendid form of exercise—let us add that it is ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler
... of Mrs. Plume, both the major and the post surgeon had requested of Mrs. Graham that she should come over for a while and "see what she could do," and, leaving her own sturdy bairnies, the good, motherly soul had come and presided over this diplomatic interview, proposing various plans for Natzie's disposition for the night. And other ladies hovering about had been sympathetically suggestive, but the Indian girl had turned deaf ear to ...
— An Apache Princess - A Tale of the Indian Frontier • Charles King
... from Flat Creek this morning, and I brought you a little angel who has got out of heaven, and needs some of your motherly care." ...
— The Hoosier Schoolmaster - A Story of Backwoods Life in Indiana • Edward Eggleston
... sent to be nursed in the country, and left to the care of strangers. An Arab mother, on the other hand, looks continually after her children. She watches and nurses them with the greatest affection, and never leaves them as long as they may stand in need of her motherly care, for which she is rewarded ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... her out often," replied motherly Mrs. Evans. "I can imagine how glad I should be to have some one take a little notice of Dorothy if she were ...
— A Dear Little Girl • Amy E. Blanchard
... photographs, however, show me that, although she has twenty-seven grand-children, and has been Queen of England for more than forty years, she is still a comely matron, with every appearance of health and vigour. Long may she remain so! Long may she continue to be, as now, the kindly, sympathetic, motherly head of a contented, ...
— Personal Recollections of Birmingham and Birmingham Men • E. Edwards
... answered: "No letters, Madame—dear." Rosalie timidly added the dear, for there was something so great-hearted in Mrs. Flynn that she longed to clasp her round the neck, longed as she had never done in her life to lay her head upon some motherly breast and pour out her heart. But it was not to be now. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... for which Venner was profoundly grateful. They came at length to the little house in Poplar, where Fenwick was smuggled in, and a certain part of the story confided to a seafaring man and his comfortable, motherly wife, who professed themselves ready and willing to do anything that Venner ...
— The Mystery of the Four Fingers • Fred M. White
... remembered quite well the year that Jackanapes began to walk, for it was the year that the speckled hen for the first time in all her motherly life got out of patience when she was sitting. She had been rather proud of the eggs,—they were unusually large,—but she never felt quite comfortable on them, and whether it was because she used to get cramp and go off the nest, or because the season was bad, ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... the nice clean motherly women who were put through their paces for Miss Granger's glorification, and were fain to confess that their housekeeping had been all a delusion and a snare till that young lady taught them domestic economy! How she pitied ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... male infants with her maternal serenity touched with mirth. There were nearly always those two elements in Peggy's look—a motherly sympathy and desire to cheer and soothe, and a glint from some rich and ...
— The Lee Shore • Rose Macaulay
... house, cover one hundred years and five years more. Here the thirteen children of Jonas Clark were born, and all lived to be old men and women. When you call there I hope you will be treated with the same gentle courtesy that I met. If you delay not your visit too long, you will see a fine, motherly woman, with white "sausage curls" and a high back-comb, wearing a check dress and felt slippers, and she will tell you that she is over eighty, and that when her mother was a little girl she once sat ...
— Little Journeys To the Homes of the Great, Volume 3 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... half-averted face and was suddenly confronted by the realization that this grey, motherly woman must have been young once, like Alix, and pretty. As it is with the young, he could not think of her except as old. He had always thought of his mother as old; it was impossible to think of her as having once been young and gay like ...
— Quill's Window • George Barr McCutcheon
... the crime, but to reveal the criminal. If we succeed, other things being equal, in adducing a number of feminine characteristics with one of which the cruelty of the crime may be connected and explained, we have a clew to the criminal. The instances mentioned,—the motherly care of house and family, frugality, miserliness, hardness to servants, cruelty to aged parents,—seem rare and not altogether rational, yet they occur frequently and give the right clew to the criminal. There are still other similar combinations. Everybody ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... before Sunday-school. Her mother had dressed her all in white muslin like a fairy, but she had stepped on the edge of a puddle, and some of the muddy water had bespattered her frock. A circle of children had surrounded her, and some of the motherly little girls were on their knees rubbing at the spots anxiously, while one of them wiped away the tears that were running down her pretty cheeks. I looked! It was fatal! I did not look again, but I was smitten to the very heart! ...
— The Diary of a Goose Girl • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... a right motherly body. The meal over, she recommended a nap; and upon our waking much refreshed, she led us to the doorway, and pointed down among the trees; through which we saw the gleam of water. Taking the hint, we repaired thither; and finding a deep shaded pool, bathed, and returned to the house. Our hostess ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... his youth, shoulder to shoulder with Pestalozzi, he had striven to rear growing boys in a motherly fashion to be worthy men, he now wished to turn to account, for the benefit of the whole wide circle of younger children, the trait of maternal solicitude which exists in every woman. Women were to be trained for teachers, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... mistress!" And the maid, Grown motherly with household care And loving service, and arrayed In homely neatness, took the pair Of small gloved hands held out, ...
— The Mistress of the Manse • J. G. Holland
... a bad little thing, au fond, when you get to know her. It is society that has spoilt her. She would have made a nice, helpful, motherly body if she'd married ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... and to fellowship with the congregation of Millyard. I was admitted to honorary membership in the church, and the listening to the two dry-as-dust sermons was compensated for by the cordial friendship of the pastor, an invitation to dinner every Saturday, and the motherly interest of his wife and daughters. My childhood's faith and my mother's creed still hung so closely to me that the observances of our ancient church were to me sacred, and the Sabbath day at Millyard still held me to the simple ways of home. In that secluded ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James
... stopped before it, and to a motherly-looking woman who came out, Betty and the girls quickly explained what ...
— The Outdoor Girls in a Motor Car - The Haunted Mansion of Shadow Valley • Laura Lee Hope
... water and counted it reward enough if they only received a smile from little Alma. Many a man was glad enough, too, to render such service for a meal or lunch of hot coffee and doughnuts, especially such good, big, motherly ones as Mary made, and there was no lack of men helpers. How the coffee steamed, the hot bread and meats smoked, and the soup odors tantalized the olfactories of hundreds of "tenderfeet" with their lusty Alaska appetites, which were increased by an open air life such ...
— A Woman who went to Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan
... Earth is silent about all the rest,—has silently turned all the rest to some benefit too, and makes no complaint about it! So everywhere in Nature! She is true and not a lie; and yet so great, and just, and motherly in her truth. She requires of a thing only that it be genuine of heart; she will protect it if so; will not, if not so. There is a soul of truth in all the things she ever gave harbour to. Alas, is not this the history of all highest ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... who was clinging in honest bigotry to the old forms, while Argemone was wandering forth over the chaos of the strange new age,- -a poor homeless Noah's dove, seeking rest for the sole of her foot and finding none. And now all motherly influence and sympathy had vanished, and Mrs. Lavington, in fear and wonder, let her daughter go her own way. She could not have done better, perhaps; for Providence had found for Argemone a better guide than her mother could have done, and her new pupil ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley
... prolonging the case, and the prosecution was nervous. The way that old black woman took the court and its officers into her bosom was enough to disconcert any ordinary tribunal. She patronised the judge openly before the hearing began and insisted upon holding a gentle motherly conversation with ...
— The heart of happy hollow - A collection of stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... goat. There was not room for the police inquisitor and the goat too, and the former had to wait till the animal had come off his perch. Mrs. Shallock is a widow. A load of anxiety and concern overspread her motherly countenance when she ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis
... his luck. Like a dutiful son, he rushes to the arms of his maternal parent and deposits in her capacious lap the dainty prize. Visions of a luscious supper float through the mind of the female piperess, as she bestows her motherly benediction upon her thoughtful son, and proceeds to put into execution the well-conned lesson of cooking a ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 2, No. 27, October 1, 1870 • Various
... to killed you," said Mrs. Bailey. "If I'd 'a' knew the boys was up to this . . . and him just a boy! Jim Bailey, you ought to be ashamed of yourself!" Ma Bailey wiped Pete's face with her apron and put her motherly arm beneath his head. "If he was my ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... open shed near the kitchen, in order to please La Teuse he went into ecstasies over the washing; he even had to dip his fingers into it and feel it. This so pleased the old woman that her attentions became quite motherly. She no longer scolded, but ran to fetch a clothes-brush, saying: 'You surely are not going out with yesterday's mud on your cassock! If you had left it out on the banister, it would be clean now—it's still a good one. But do lift it ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola
... they'll die if it should be a cold fall, with nobody to look after 'em; but maybe I can take 'em home to my shed an' lend Mr. Kimball another hen." (Amanda's tone was motherly.) "I never like to break up a hen's nest, somehow; it seems as if they must have ...
— Ladies-In-Waiting • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... heedless impulses of inexperienced youth, which may effectually blight her future in its bud. A parent or guardian does a girl incalculable injury in allowing her to enter upon society life without chaperonage, and the unremitting watch-care and control which only a discreet, motherly woman can give to girlhood. Men respect the chaperoned girl. Honorable men respect her as something that is worth taking care of; men who are not honorable respect her as something with which they dare not be unduly familiar—though they ...
— Etiquette • Agnes H. Morton
... hot cheek on her arm, Debby's eye fell on the quaint little cap made by the motherly hands that never were tired of working for her. She touched it tenderly, and love's simple magic swept the gathering shadows from her face, and left it clear again, as her thoughts flew home like birds into the shelter ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... I remember," replied the Countess, in a matter-of-fact tone; but her motherly eye was sharp, and already it began to look on the highly eligible Rudolph with more ...
— The Lunatic at Large • J. Storer Clouston
... cheeriness of her heart, that she was in good truth the youngest person in the house, so that her own daughters were sometimes quite shocked at her levity of behaviour, and treated her with gentle, motherly restraint. She was tall and thin, like her husband, and he, at least, considered her every whit as beautiful as she had been a score of years before. Her hair was dark and curly; she had deep-set grey eyes, and a pretty fresh complexion. ...
— About Peggy Saville • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey
... but not very practical!" Mrs. Salisbury said, with her indulgent, motherly smile. "Oh, dear me, for the good old days of black servants, and plenty of them!" she sighed. For though Mrs. Salisbury had been born some years after the days of plenty known to her mother on her grandfather's plantation, ...
— The Treasure • Kathleen Norris
... was a large-framed girl with even blacker hair than Helen's—straight as an Indian's—and with flashing eyes. She was expensively dressed, although her torn frock and coat were not in very good taste. She showed plainly a lack of that motherly ...
— Ruth Fielding on Cliff Island - The Old Hunter's Treasure Box • Alice Emerson
... the velvet lawns, the flower gardens, the stately parks, scattered at graceful intervals by the decorous hand of art, the frequent deer, and the peaceful herd of cattle that make picture of the plain, all suggest more of the masterly mind of man, than the prodigal, but careless, motherly love of nature. Especially is this true of the Rock river country. The river flows sometimes through these parks and lawns, then betwixt high bluffs, whose grassy ridges are covered with fine trees, or broken with ...
— Summer on the Lakes, in 1843 • S.M. Fuller
... of Mrs. Child in Wayland is of a gentle face leaning from the old stage window, smiling kindly down on the childish figures beneath her; and from that moment her gracious motherly presence has been closely associated with the charm of rural beauty in that village, which until very lately has been quite apart from the line of travel, and unspoiled by the rush and worry of our modern steam-car ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... dispensed various teas to Winifred and Marion Thorold. I have met their father several times at the Manners' flat, and have likewise—low be it spoken—received two evening calls from him in my own domain. He says it is such a comfort to find a kind, motherly woman with whom to talk over his difficulties! He hesitates to trouble Mrs Manners, who is already overworked. Winifred holds one shoulder a little higher than the other. Does that mean anything wrong with the spine? Ought she to lie down flat? Billie, the curly two-year-old, is always ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... her mother, which led that worthy person to become responsible for the young officer's recovery, no one ever knew except the two women themselves, but in addition to being a motherly-hearted woman, Mrs. Allenthorne was a soldier's daughter as well as a soldier's wife, so perhaps it was not necessary to explain so many things to her as it would have ...
— Anting-Anting Stories - And other Strange Tales of the Filipinos • Sargent Kayme
... motionless and with closed eyes, sprang to her feet in an instant, and as Lynn Taps laid his burden on the blankets, the woman, her every dull feature softened and lighted with motherly tenderness, threw her arms about the astonished Yankee, and then fell ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... all that stands between many households and actual want. The machines here are not run by steam, but by foot power. I noticed weary limbs that were beating time to work! work! work! Mrs. Binns, a kind motherly woman, spoke earnestly of the industry, trustworthiness, self-denial, loyal affection for parents, and general kindliness that characterized the ...
— The Letters of "Norah" on her Tour Through Ireland • Margaret Dixon McDougall
... principal physician in Peterborough. Clare had also an excellent and warm-hearted friend in Mrs. Marsh, wife of the Bishop of Peterborough, who corresponded with him frequently, in a familiar and almost motherly manner, from 1821 to 1837. When Clare complained of indisposition, a messenger would be dispatched from "The Palace," with medicines or plaisters, camphor lozenges, or "a pound of our own tea," with sensible advice as to personal habits ...
— Life and Remains of John Clare - "The Northamptonshire Peasant Poet" • J. L. Cherry
... alone. For sympathy and amusement they only had each other to look to; and never were brother and sisters more devoted. Maria, the eldest, took care of them all—she was an old-fashioned, motherly little girl; frail and small in appearance, with thoughtful, tender ways. She was very careful of her five little ones, this seven-year-old mother of theirs, and never seems to have exerted the somewhat tyrannic authority usually wielded by such youthful guardians. Indeed, ...
— Emily Bront • A. Mary F. (Agnes Mary Frances) Robinson
... antagonist, and sent out of the melee badly punished, so that he bellowed like a bull-calf, as he mounted on a dusty whirlwind to Olympus. Over his misadventures while playing his own favorite game certainly there were no tears to be shed; but when, prompted by motherly tenderness, Aphrodite, the soft power of love,—she of the Paphian boudoir, whose recesses were glowing with the breath of Sabaean frankincense fumed by a hundred altars,—she at whose approach the winds became hushed, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various
... a bottle and made a good profit. None of her other guests drank wine, and some of them did not even drink beer. Neither did she wish to lose Fraulein Cacilie, whose parents were in business in South America and paid well for the Frau Professor's motherly care; and she knew that if she wrote to the girl's uncle, who lived in Berlin, he would immediately take her away. The Frau Professor contented herself with giving them both severe looks at table and, though she dared not be rude to the Chinaman, got a certain satisfaction ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... idea of such a possibility as his becoming seriously attached to Miss Forrest. She had indulged the major in one very plain and startling dissertation on the subject of that young woman, from the effects of which he was still suffering; but, worst of all, her motherly heart longed to acquire, through Nellie's words, looks, or actions, some idea as to whether she really cared for her pet among all the lieutenants. Of course Nellie liked—but did she love him? Of McLean's deep-rooted regard for the shy and sensitive little maiden, Mrs. Miller ...
— 'Laramie;' - or, The Queen of Bedlam. • Charles King
... post had brought a more than usually depressing letter from Curzon Street. Lady Claraway was at her motherly wits' ends, and was really quite touching in her distraction. A dressmaker was entering a suit. The thing would get into ...
— Emily Fox-Seton - Being The Making of a Marchioness and The Methods of Lady Walderhurst • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... bade Tom good-night, and he went back to Mr. Hallam, and they, feeling very cold and sleepy and drenched, were glad enough to be taken care of, and put to bed like babies, after Mrs. Fisher's good, motherly fashion. ...
— Gypsy Breynton • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... and substantial—was driving the wild looking team. Beside him sat a motherly woman and ...
— When A Man's A Man • Harold Bell Wright
... of Boston, I would tremble and grow faint at the cruelty of drivers to over-loaded horses. I was timid and did not dare speak to them. Very often, I ran home and flung myself in my mother's arms with a burst of tears, and asked her if nothing could be done to help the poor animals. With mistaken, motherly kindness, she tried to put the subject out of my thoughts. I was carefully guarded from seeing or hearing of any instances of cruelty. But the animals went on suffering just the same, and when I became a woman, I saw my cowardice. I agitated the matter among my friends, ...
— Beautiful Joe • Marshall Saunders |
