"Foster-mother" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... that city has lost its prime honour and boast, as a servant and soldier of the Truth. Once named the second school of the Church, second only to Paris, the foster-mother of St. Edmund, St. Richard, St. Thomas Cantilupe, the theatre of great intellects, of Scotus the subtle Doctor, of Hales the irrefragable, of Occam the special, of Bacon the admirable, of Middleton the solid, and of Bradwardine the profound, Oxford has now lapsed to that level of mere human ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... vivacious and peppery; Mr. Rake polished his wits quite as much as he polished the tops, and considered himself a philosopher. Of whose son he was he had not the remotest idea; his earliest recollections were of the tender mercies of the workhouse; but even that chill foster-mother, the parish, had not damaged the liveliness of his temper or the independence of his opinions, and as soon as he was fifteen Rake had run away and joined a circus; distinguishing himself there by his genius for standing on his head and tying his limbs ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... foster-mother with the grateful affection of his warm southern nature. Yet the very name Italy had for him a magical charm, and the sound of a hand-organ, or the sight of a dark-faced man with a broad-brimmed hat, made him thrill with a half joy that his own kith and kin were coming, and a half fear that he ...
— The Golden House • Mrs. Woods Baker
... Maud! With all the mother's love she has ever shown us, all I did was right in her eyes; and herein doubtless lies the difference between a true mother, who brought us with travail into the world, and a loving foster-mother, who fears to turn our hearts from her by harshness; but the true mother punishes her children wherein she deems it good, inasmuch as she is sure of their love. My cousin's love was great indeed, but her strictness towards me was too small. Out of sheer ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... cases of zoolatry in Greece.(1) The Thessalians revered storks, the Thebans weasels, and the myth ran that the weasel had in some way aided Alcmena when in labour with Heracles. In another form of the myth the weasel was the foster-mother of the hero.(2) Other Thessalians, the Myrmidons, claimed descent from the ant and revered ants. The religious respect paid to mice in the temple of Apollo Smintheus, in the Troad, Rhodes, Gela, Lesbos and Crete is well known, and a local tribe ...
— Myth, Ritual, and Religion, Vol. 1 • Andrew Lang
... temple. Next morning the Delphic priestess discovered the infant, and was so charmed by his engaging appearance that she adopted him as her own son. The young child was carefully tended and reared by his kind foster-mother, and was brought up in the service of the temple, where he was intrusted with some of the minor ...
— Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome • E.M. Berens
... disappointed at thus missing Harry, hurried down to the cottage with Peggy Brown, often looking in the direction of Texford in the hopes of seeing him coming along the road. Still the duty and affection she owed her kind foster-mother ...
— Won from the Waves • W.H.G. Kingston
... affection, works her into the strong confidence of being able to help the King. Thus the main point of her action is put into her mind incidentally by the speech of others. And she goes to Paris, with the full approval and blessing of her foster-mother, mainly with the view of securing to one whom she highly reveres the benefit of her father's skill. It is true, a still deeper and dearer hope underlies and supports her action; which hope however springs and grows, not ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... Baker writes that he has not found that there is any proof of the cuckoo trying to match its eggs with those of the intended foster-mother, or that it selects a foster-mother whose eggs shall match its own. He adds that not one of his correspondents has advanced this suggestion, and states that he has little doubt that convenience of site and propinquity ...
— Birds of the Indian Hills • Douglas Dewar
... quarries of Israelites and posted them along the Nile to halt the Egyptians, if they came to the river with Rachel. But we let them return to Memphis empty-handed, and thereafter searched the hills till sunset. The maiden's foster-mother, it seems, fled with her, but neither of them, nor any trace of them, was to ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... she could not quit the Danish land before she had once more seen her foster-mother, the affectionate Viking woman. Every beautiful recollection, every kind word, every tear that her foster-mother had wept for her, rose up in her memory, and in that moment she almost felt as if she loved the ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... to drink, none thought to eat; All from the table turned aside, And in their cradles wet with tears Starved babes in bitter anguish cried, For e'en the foster-mother stern To little lips ...
— The Hymns of Prudentius • Aurelius Clemens Prudentius
... gist of his teaching was that through selection the children of the aristocracy had come to be more highly developed representatives of the genus "Man." But the doctrine of heredity made him look upon the employment of a foster-mother with aversion; for might not, with the blood of the lower classes, certain conceptions, ideas and desires be introduced and propagated in the aristocratic nursling? He was therefore determined that his wife should nurse her baby herself, ...
— Married • August Strindberg
... children had been lying on the bench, listening lazily to the chatter up to this point; but when they heard the story of the crystal cradle which their foster-mother had always been fond of telling them, they sat upright and looked ...
— The Orange Fairy Book • Various
... duck. Young birds are easily reared from eggs hatched under a bantam; but to succeed it is indispensable not to place the eggs of both the wild and tame duck under the same hen, for in this case "the young wild ducks die off, leaving their more hardy brethren in undisturbed possession of their foster-mother's care. The difference of habit at the onset in the newly-hatched ducklings almost entails such a result to a certainty." The wild ducklings were from the first quite tame towards those who took care of them as long as they wore ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Vol. I. • Charles Darwin
... lived at Moirago, a town about seven miles from Milan, but here again ill fortune attended him. His body began to waste and his stomach to swell because the nurse who gave him suck was herself pregnant.[14] A third foster-mother was found for him, and he remained with her till he was ...
— Jerome Cardan - A Biographical Study • William George Waters
... to Alpheus and to her foster-mother, she was silent concerning her discovery, and it seemed the more sweet to her for being secret. Her thoughts made pilgrimages to the temple hidden by the laurels once set to adorn it, and the deserted God of Youth and Immortal Beauty drew from her an untaught ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various
... of the life of its banks; when the landing-stairs descending into its waters, caressed by its tides, appeared to me like the loving arms of the villages clinging to it; when Calcutta, with her up-tilted nose and stony stare, had not completely disowned her foster-mother, rural Bengal, and had not surrendered body and soul to her wealthy paramour, the spirit of the ledger, bound in ...
— Creative Unity • Rabindranath Tagore
... seems to me we have often more cause to be grateful to a foster-mother than to our ...
— John Gabriel Borkman • Henrik Ibsen
... Water; but was soon lost in the rapid Stream. O thou Monster! thou worst of Villains, cry'd Zadig! Didn't you promise, said the Hermit, to view my Conduct with Patience? Know then, that had that Boy liv'd but one Year longer, he would have murder'd his Foster-Mother. Who told you so, you barbarous Wretch, said Zadig? And when did you read that inhuman Event in your Black-Book of Fate? Who gave you Permission pray, to drown so innocent a Youth, that ...
— Zadig - Or, The Book of Fate • Voltaire
... Ferbaeth did not avoid it, he went that night to renounce his friendship with Cuchulainn, and Fiacha Mac Fir-Febe with him. Cuchulainn appealed to him by his foster-brotherhood, and Scathach, the foster-mother of them both. ...
— The Cattle-Raid of Cualnge (Tain Bo Cualnge) • Unknown
... between a red-covered round table and the fire, a flaxen haired cherub by her side—for so did his ingenuous inexperience picture domestic happiness—he required the dominating characteristic of angelic placidity. Perhaps his foster-mother and the comfort Ben Flint found in her mild and phlegmatic devotion had something to do ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke
... poured out for the puny baby boy. Babies are troublesome things, anyway, where folks are awful poor and where there are no servants and the mother is not so very strong. And so Mary became the baby's own little foster-mother, and she carried him about, and long before he could lisp a word she had told him all the hopes and secrets of her heart, and he cooed and laughed, and lying on the floor, kicked his heels in the air and treated hope and love ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 2 of 14 - Little Journeys To the Homes of Famous Women • Elbert Hubbard
... of the confession made to him several years ago by the lady whom he had always looked up to as his mother. She told him that she was only his foster-mother, and that in reality he was the son of the Austrian chamberlain and a famous countess. The latter turned him over into this lady's care when he was quite young, following her divorce from the chamberlain. She furnished him ...
— Studies in Forensic Psychiatry • Bernard Glueck
... were alike skilled in magic and alchemy, in deception, successful in combats with demons, the bringers of new strength and cleansing to the nation. He said farewell to power on the first of August, and his foster-mother had died on that day, so then it was he set his feast-day. The occasion was called "Lugnasad," "the bridal of Lugh" and the earth, whence the harvest should spring. It was celebrated by the offering of the first fruits of harvest, and by races and athletic sports. In Meath, Ireland, this continued ...
— The Book of Hallowe'en • Ruth Edna Kelley
... Ascanius' future seed, and their wars fought one by one. Likewise had he fashioned the she-wolf couched after the birth in the green cave of Mars; round her teats the twin boys hung playing, and fearlessly mouthed their foster-mother; she, with round neck bent back, stroked them by turns and shaped their bodies with her tongue. Thereto not far from this he had set Rome and the lawless rape of the Sabines in the concourse of the theatre ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil • Virgil
... they were all taken down to the dam, and soon found their way into the water, to the great distress of their foster-mother, who was obliged to stand upon the bank calling in vain till the little ones chose to come ashore. A hencoop was soon knocked together from an old box, and this was placed near the dam, and ere long the hens became accustomed to the fancy of their charges for ...
— On the Pampas • G. A. Henty
... and Hawthorne have one marked literary condition in common: each shows a double side. With Poe the antithesis is between poetry and criticism; Irving, having been brought up by Fiction as a foster-mother, is eventually turned over to his rightful guardian, History; and Hawthorne rests his hand from ideal design, in elaborating quiet pictures of reality. In each case there is more or less seeming irreconcilement between the two phases found in combination; ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop
... between him and them a foster relationship, which was as binding among the Egyptians and other Oriental peoples as one of blood. It was not even necessary for the establishment of this relation that the foster-mother's connexion with the Pharaoh's son should be durable or even effective: the woman had only to offer her breast to the child for a moment, and this symbol was quite enough to make her his nurse—his true monait. This fictitious fosterage was carried so far, that ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 5 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... foster-mother, arida nutrix, for such young lions as the Kinglake brood. Two hundred years before it had been a prosperous and famous place, its woollen and kersey trades, with the population they supported, ranking it as eighth in order among English ...
— Biographical Study of A. W. Kinglake • Rev. W. Tuckwell
... the next place, cleanliness may be said to be the foster-mother of love. Beauty, indeed, most commonly produces that passion in the mind, but cleanliness preserves it. An indifferent face and person, kept in perpetual neatness, hath won many a heart from a pretty slattern. Age itself is not unamiable, while it is preserved ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... This "foster-mother of philosophers" evidently wished to make sure of her own safety, however matters might turn out in the next world. She had a devotional vein, went to mass privately, had a seat at the Church of the Capucins, and an apartment for retreat in a convent. ...
— The Women of the French Salons • Amelia Gere Mason
... disposed to eat it; great care, however, being taken that they are not over-gorged. Regular and proper feeding, with occasional exercise, will constitute the best preparation for the actual training. If a foster-mother be required for the puppies, it should, if possible, be a greyhound; for it is not at all impossible that the bad qualities of the nurse may to a greater or less degree be communicated to the whelps. Bringing up by hand is far preferable to the introduction of any foster-mother. A glass or ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt
... horses went down the valley, but the tears fell fast down his cheeks; every tree and every cottage which he passed, every pathway winding from the highroad among the hills, reminded him of some sweet walk taken with Claude and his sons, or with his dear foster-mother. As the road passed under one of the cottages which stood on the brow of a hill, Henri heard the notes of one of those sweet hymns which Maria had been accustomed to sing to him when he was a very little boy, and which she had afterwards taught him to sing himself. ...
— The Fairchild Family • Mary Martha Sherwood
... he had overheard how conspicuous a character Josephine Delatour evidently was, he thought best to tell Sanda something more of his story than he had told her yet. He sketched the version, vindicating his foster-mother, which he had given to Billie Brookton and the Reeveses—a version which all the world at home would, he ...
— A Soldier of the Legion • C. N. Williamson
... wall, and pulled it to ground; the chamber's door he cast down, so that it burst in five; he found in the chamber the fairest of all maids; Helen she was named, of noble race; Howel's daughter, noble man of Britanny, Arthur's relative of most noble lineage. I was her foster-mother, and fair her fostered. There the giant took us forth with himself, fifteen miles, into this wild wood, hither to this same place; thus he us treated to-day a sen'night. So soon as he hither came, so he took the maid; he would have carnal intercourse with ...
— Brut • Layamon
... to this uncalled-for grief, Your separation will be very brief. To ascertain which is the King And which the other, To Barataria's Court I'll bring His foster-mother; Her former nurseling to declare She'll be delighted. That settled, let each happy pair ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... came one day to raid the den and kill the foster-mother, and found, amazed, a fearless, white-skinned thing with rosy cheeks and brave eyes, who fought for her life and bit them as did her fierce foster-brothers, and then cried human tears of rage and sorrow when she saw the bear who had been her mother lying bloody and dead. ...
— A Book of Myths • Jean Lang
... showing their usual enmity towards the cuckoo, had stripped off the feathers. The poor bird was only skin and bone, nearly dying from lack of food and persecution, and made no resistance when I brought him in to see if I could act the part of foster-mother. Finely-mixed raw meat and brown bread seemed to me the best substitute for his insect diet—but he was an awkward baby to feed—though sinking for want of nourishment he would not open his great beak, and every half-hour he had to be fed sorely against his will with many flapping ...
— Wild Nature Won By Kindness • Elizabeth Brightwen
... Africa and mothered by a Newfoundland dog. The old mother-dog thought just as much of the orphan that was placed among her brood as of her sure-enough children. The owner had never allowed the two animals to be separated, and when the lion had grown to be twice the size of his foster-mother there still existed between ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 4 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Painters • Elbert Hubbard
... Unfortunately, there is a proverb which says that 'red is either altogether good or altogether bad.' The proverb was but too correct as regarded Benedetto, and even in his infancy he manifested the worst disposition. It is true that the indulgence of his foster-mother encouraged him. This child, for whom my poor sister would go to the town, five or six leagues off, to purchase the earliest fruits and the most tempting sweetmeats, preferred to Palma grapes or Genoese preserves, the chestnuts stolen ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... on, and Elizabeth Morton grew in stature and in beauty, the pride of her protector, and the joy of her age. But the infirmities of years grew upon her foster-mother, and, disabling her from following her habits of industry, stern want entered her happy cottage. Still Elizabeth appeared only as a thing of joy, contentment, and gratitude; and often did her evening song beguile her aged friend's sigh ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Vol. XXIII. • Various
... they see than the palest of those countless hosts. Needing no aid from the light, they penetrate the depths of a loving soul that fills a loftier region with bliss ineffable. Glory to the queen of the world, to the great prophetess of holier worlds, to the foster-mother of blissful love! she sends thee to me, thou tenderly beloved, the gracious sun of the Night. Now am I awake, for now am I thine and mine. Thou hast made me know the Night, and brought her to me to be my life; thou hast made of me a man. Consume ...
— Rampolli • George MacDonald
... occurred on the great festivals, e.g. Lugnasad and Samhain, and were occasionally held at the great burial-places.[546] Thus the gathering at Taillti on Lugnasad was said to have been founded by Lug in memory of his foster-mother, Tailtiu, and the Leinstermen met at Carman on the same day to commemorate King Garman, or in a variant account, a woman called Carman. She and her sons had tried to blight the corn of the Tuatha De Danann, but the sons were driven off and she died of grief, begging that a fair should ...
— The Religion of the Ancient Celts • J. A. MacCulloch
... true economy for the Bulldog breeder to provide a foster-mother in readiness for the birth of the expected litter; especially is this so in the case of a first litter, when the qualifications for nursing by the mother are unknown. Where there are more than five puppies it is also desirable to obtain a foster-mother in order that full nourishment ...
— Dogs and All About Them • Robert Leighton
... bathed him and dressed him, taught him to walk, and kissed his bumps to make them well; she sewed for him and nursed him by day, and slept with him in her tired arms at night. And Tommy, with the inscrutable philosophy of childhood, accepted his little foster-mother and ...
— Lovey Mary • Alice Hegan Rice
... the general opinion upon the subject is," replied the other. "It seems his foster-mother was a midwife, and that she was called upon once, about the hour of midnight, to discharge the duties of her profession toward a fairyman's wife, and this she refused to do unless they conferred some gift either upon herself personally, or upon some one whom she should name. Young Shawn, ...
— The Evil Eye; Or, The Black Spector - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... mother were a schoolmaster's daughter, but she had not the name o' being fond o' larning, and was a'ways weak and ailing; thy dad, my mate Jack Simpson, was as true a mate as ever man had; but he were in no ways uncommon. The old 'ooman and I ha' reared ye; but, arter all, pups don't follow their foster-mother, for the best bull pup ain't noways injured by having a half-bred un, or for the matter o' that one wi' no breed at all, as a foster-mother; besides the old 'ooman and me has no points at all, 'cept on my part, such as are bad uns; so it beats me fairly. ...
— Facing Death - The Hero of the Vaughan Pit. A Tale of the Coal Mines • G. A. Henty
... and Edred had been sent to her garden to get a basket of peaches to take home with them, "because just when I had become entirely attached to you, you would have found out your real relations, and where would your poor foster-mother ...
— Harding's luck • E. [Edith] Nesbit
... we turn to the serious pieces, the better part of the volume. The Foster-Mother's Tale is in the best style of dramatic narrative. The Dungeon, and the Lines upon the Yew-tree Seat, are beautiful. The Tale of the Female Vagrant is written in the stanza, not the style, of Spenser. We extract a ...
— Early Reviews of English Poets • John Louis Haney
... succession to his estates, (he being himself unmarried), by executing a will in favour of an illegitimate child, an infant daughter, whom he drew from concealment and acknowledged as his offspring. This child, however, was soon removed, having being burned to death in the house of its foster-mother. But its decease effected little or no change in his feelings towards his brothers, who, pursuing the principles they had so early avowed, were among the first to take arms among the patriots of Virginia, and fell, as Roland had said, at Norfolk, leaving ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... convinced of the truth of the dream that he was encouraged to believe that he would live to see the resurrection of the dead, for Rachel was dead, and her return to earth was clearly indicated by the dream. He went astray there, for not Joseph's own mother was referred to, but his foster-mother Bilhah, ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... rarely nurse their children. When you ask why, you hear of nerves and anaemia, and are told that at any rate in cities women find it impossible. I have seen it stated in a popular book about Germany that mothers there are little more than "aunts" to their children; and the Steckkissen and the foster-mother were about equally blamed for this unnatural state of affairs. From our point of view there is not a word to be said in favour of the Steckkissen, but it really is impossible to believe that a bag lined with wadding can undermine a mother's affection for her child. Your German ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick
... with curvature of the spine, whom she boards with respectable people and keeps for many weeks out of each year in an expensive sanitarium that it may receive medical treatment. The mother of the child, an inmate of the house in which the ardent foster-mother herself lives, is quite indifferent to the child's welfare and also rather amused at such solicitude. The girl has persevered in her course for five years, never however allowing the little invalid to come to the house in which she and the mother live. The same sort of devotion ...
— A New Conscience And An Ancient Evil • Jane Addams
... and there make his home. In this he had not faltered, but it oppressed him. He loved this Italy, with her soft skies, her fair, smiling vineyards and bold mountain backgrounds, her romantic legends, and, above all, her art-treasures. He had taken her as his foster-mother. Her atmosphere stimulated him to work in those directions his heart loved best. How would it be when he should be back again in his native land? He had fought his battle; duty had told him to go there; and when she ...
— Barbara's Heritage - Young Americans Among the Old Italian Masters • Deristhe L. Hoyt
... boy, too, was hopelessly embarrassed. At last, Reuben let the gate fall and walked off, with downcast head, to where, in the sheep-pen, he had a few hours before bound an orphan lamb to a refractory foster-mother. The foster-mother's resistance had broken down, she was lying patiently and gently while the thin long-legged creature sucked; when it was frightened away by Reuben's approach she trotted bleating after it. In his disturbed state of feeling the parallel, or rather the contrast, between ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... The fairy instantly turned round and tore out her eye. "Thieves!" bawled another on a similar occasion, with the same result. In a Cornish tale a woman is entrusted in her own house with the care of an elf-child. The child brought remarkable prosperity to the house, and his foster-mother grew very fond of him. Finding that a certain water in which she was required to wash his face made it very bright, she determined to try it on her own, and splashed some of it into her eye. This conferred the gift of seeing the little people, who ...
— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland
... and continued, while Mr. Drayton smoked vigorously: "You have never heard of your mother from that hour to this; but one day you were told by the young girl whom circumstances had cast on your foster-mother's care, that among the mountains of Cumberland there lived another man who bore you the most extraordinary resemblance. That excited your curiosity. You had reasons for thinking that if your mother were alive she might be rich. Now, you yourself had the misfortune ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... the father at last, "give thanks to your foster-mother! She has earned them, for she has brought joy back to ...
— Cornelli • Johanna Spyri
... ever saw," said the lady, producing a steaming turkey from the warming oven. The girl danced in her glee and anticipation. "But first you must dress for dinner. We will go and see Santa Claus," smiled the foster-mother. She retired with a waif, and returned with a fairy, and they sat down ...
— Skookum Chuck Fables - Bits of History, Through the Microscope • Skookum Chuck (pseud for R.D. Cumming)
... there, tearful, but smiling, with Eliza, and Pauline, and Baby Lucien; so were Uncle Lucien the canon, and Aunt Manuccia, who had been their mother's housekeeper, with Nurse Saveria, and Nurse Ilaria, whom Napoleon called foster-mother, and even little Panoria, to whom Napoleon cried "Good-by, Giacommeta mia! I'll come back ...
— The Boy Life of Napoleon - Afterwards Emperor Of The French • Eugenie Foa
... have scarce chipped the egg-shell, and have, as yet, no means to make the pot boil, seeing that ye are poor orphans, and under age; and ye yet dare to listen to the nonsense of strange gallants, unbeknown to your foster-mother! Tell me, foolish young things, ought I not to take the rod to you? Take off the rings from your fingers, and give them to me. I will send them back; seeing that the betrothal is null and ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... of invention, she is the foster-mother of art, for the greatest actors that ever lived have drawn their early nourishment from her breast. We learn our profession by the mortifications we are compelled to go through in order to ...
— [19th Century Actor] Autobiographies • George Iles
... boys: They were in Emain until the time came for them to disperse. Each of them went to the house of his father and mother, of his foster-mother and foster-father. Then the little lad went on the trail of the party, till he reached the house of Culann the Smith. He began to shorten the way as he went with his play-things. [1]He threw his ball and threw his club after it, so that it hit the ball. The one throw ...
— The Ancient Irish Epic Tale Tain Bo Cualnge • Unknown
... perhaps, dramatic art, which of all is most dependent on a favourable economic condition, will gravitate towards America, which may well become in the next ten years not only the mother, but the foster-mother, of ...
— Another Sheaf • John Galsworthy
... so long in my employ that I feel almost like a foster-mother to you, having seen you grow up from the cradle to ...
— A Woman of the World - Her Counsel to Other People's Sons and Daughters • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... to myself at least, to account satisfactorily for the radical differences distinguishing Louis XVI. from his brothers and antecedents. Finding that, when a delicate infant, he had been sent to the country to nurse, I rushed to the conclusion that the royal infant had died, and that his foster-mother, fearful of the consequences, had substituted a child of her own in his place. The literature of the nursery is full of instances that seemed to suggest the probability ...
— A Versailles Christmas-Tide • Mary Stuart Boyd
... him. The lad has had his sage curiosity excited by seeing preparations in progress for some important ceremonial. That ceremonial is his own coronation, but he does not guess the secret. Nay, he has just touchingly asked his foster-mother, observed by him to be ...
— Classic French Course in English • William Cleaver Wilkinson
... dwelt in their humble cot: One was her own—the other only lent to her: HER OWN SHE SLIGHTED. Tempted by a lot Of gold and silver regularly sent to her, She ministered unto the little other In the capacity of foster-mother. ...
— More Bab Ballads • W. S. Gilbert
... know!" said he. "Why, the tale runs that, more than a hundred years ago, the baby heir of the Carmonas was ailing. If they lost him, the title would go to another branch of the family; but the Duchess had died within a few days of his birth, and no foster-mother could be found to give the child health. Then the Duke caused it to be known far and near that, if any woman could save his boy, she should have a pension for life, enough to keep her in comfort with all her family; and that ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... quarrel, which astonished the whole town. At the end of a terrible scene which took place in public, Ali drove the confidant of his crimes from the palace, overwhelming him with insults, and declaring that were Athanasius not the son of his children's foster-mother, he would have sent him to the gibbet. He enforced his words by the application of a stick, and Vaya, apparently overwhelmed by terror and affliction, went round to all the nobles of the town, vainly entreating them to intercede for him. The only favour which Mouktar ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... kind. "Fierce wars and faithful loves shall moralise my song," says Spenser, and it is with these well-worn but ever-fresh subjects that the story deals. The heiress of one of the old lairds of Rothes, being allowed to roam at will with her foster-mother, cast an eye of love on the son of the laird of Arndilly. As in ballad lore, the love seems to have been immediate, reciprocal, and unquenchable. The girl's father, hearing of the attachment, summarily forbade it, and commanded ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes
... eggs or leading about a brood of little pheasants. This gentleman was more sad than joyous, for he could not take his handkerchief from his pocket without bringing out the corpse of a baby pheasant with it—one that had been trodden to death by a too fussy foster-mother. I owe him a debt for having led me a charming walk by moonlight to see a dolmen—the largest and best preserved of all those I had already seen in Southern ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... stranger would persist in regarding as a lady born and bred, compelled by circumstances over which she had no control to fill an arduous but honorable position of middle-class society—a sort of foster-mother, to whom were due the thanks and gratitude of her promiscuous family; and this view of herself Mrs. Pennycherry now clung to with obstinate conviction. There were disadvantages attaching, but these Mrs. Pennycherry appeared prepared to suffer cheerfully. A lady born and bred ...
— Passing of the Third Floor Back • Jerome K. Jerome
... memory, how two years before, during the consulship of Cotta and Torquatus, in a like terrible night-storm, the fire from heaven had stricken down the highest turrets of the capitol, melted the brazen tables of the law, and scathed the gilded effigy of Romulus and Remus, sucking their shaggy foster-mother, which ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... would have told the maiden the story of his adventures in the wood, but Undine's foster-mother was already speaking, and her tones ...
— Undine • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque
... foster-mother of Mohammedanism and counts among her sons and daughters more of the followers of the Prophet of Mecca than are ...
— India, Its Life and Thought • John P. Jones
... my orders, my boy," said the veteran. "What! do you cry out against your foster-mother for a matter of fifteen francs? you that turn out an article as easily as I smoke a cigar. Fifteen francs! why, you will give a bowl of punch to your friends, or win an extra game of billiards, and there's ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... this expedition against Edward all the 'Buscarles' (boat-carles or seamen) of those southern ports, Hythe, Hastings, Dover, and Sandwich. His progress towards London was a triumphant one with his sons. 'All Kent—the foster-mother of the Saxons,' we are told, on this occasion 'sent forth the cry, "Life or ...
— Heroes of the Goodwin Sands • Thomas Stanley Treanor
... "Dear foster-mother, on whose ample breast The hungry still find food, the weary rest; The child of want that treads thy happy shore, Shall feel the grasp of poverty no more; His honest toil meet recompense can claim, And Freedom bless him with a ...
— Life in the Clearings versus the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... in a hole high up in the decaying trunk of an aspen tree calls loudly for his breakfast, redoubling his noise as his mother approaches with the first course. Sitting clumsily on a big stump, a big baby cowbird, well able to shift for himself, shamelessly takes food from his little field sparrow foster-mother, scarcely more than half his size. Soon he will leave her and join the flocks of his kindred in the oat-fields and the swamps. Young chewinks are being fed down among the ripening May-apples in the ...
— Some Summer Days in Iowa • Frederick John Lazell
... the nurse, her voice soft, yet full of emotion, while she gazed into the face of the child that lay in her lap. Her soul was already swayed by that mysterious bond of affection which never fails to develop itself in the heart of the foster-mother. It is a noble trait in human nature, that we love those on whom we can confer a kindness. Their whole life gradually becomes ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... the watchful keeper forestalled her. Whelps of the great gray timber wolf, born in captivity, and therefore likely to be docile, were rare and precious. The four little sprawlers, helpless and hungrily whimpering, were given into the care of a foster-mother, a sorrowing brown spaniel bitch who had just been robbed ...
— Kings in Exile • Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts
... up accustomed to bear with her aunt's haughty, ungracious manners and capricious temper. She scarcely knew that there was any thing to bear. She had been left to herself as long as she could remember any thing. A peasant—Teresa, her foster-mother—had come with her from Mantua, and from Teresa alone she received such affection as she had ever known. A mere animal affection, however, which lost its value as she ...
— The Italians • Frances Elliot
... cannot be overlooked. That very Church which, in its attempts to suppress heresy, first departed from divine arrangements, was soon involved in doctrinal error, and eventually became the great foster-mother of superstition and idolatry. ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... things, and experiences these and the like affections from both kinds of motions, the result is that the body if given up to motion when in a state of quiescence is overmastered and perishes; but if any one, in imitation of that which we call the foster-mother and nurse of the universe, will not allow the body ever to be inactive, but is always producing motions and agitations through its whole extent, which form the natural defence against other motions both internal and external, and by moderate exercise reduces to order according to their ...
— Timaeus • Plato
... her foster-mother everything about her acquaintance with the artist and Conrad Lagrange—from the time she first watched the painter, from the arbor in the rose garden, where she met the novelist; until that afternoon, when she had invited them to supper, ...
— The Eyes of the World • Harold Bell Wright
... though he desires to do so. And no doubt this view of the origin of Religion is perfectly correct. But it must be pointed out that it does not by any means exclude the view that religion derives also from an Animism by which man recognizes in general Nature his foster-mother and feels himself in closest touch with HER. Which may have come first, the Social affiliation or the Nature affiliation, I leave to the professors to determine. The term Animism may, as far as I can ...
— Pagan & Christian Creeds - Their Origin and Meaning • Edward Carpenter
... face came another look. It was always so, when he spoke of this foster-mother who had taken these two boys and seen them through the graded schools. This woman Dwight adored, and when he spoke of her he became ...
— Miss Lulu Bett • Zona Gale
... knew who was meant when a sentence was prefaced with "that rascal" or "that scoundrel,"—such were the epithets substituted for the name of Louis Napoleon. Believing the third Napoleon to be the worst enemy of his foster-mother, Italy, as well as of France, Landor bestowed upon him less love, if possible, than the majority of Englishmen. Having been personally acquainted with the Emperor when he lived in England as an exile, Landor, unlike many of Napoleon's enemies, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... preceding; born Blanche-Henriette de Lenoncourt, of the "house of Lenoncourt-Givry, fast becoming extinct," towards the first years of the Restoration; was born after the death of three brothers, and thus had a sorrowful childhood and youth; found a good foster-mother in her aunt, a Blamont-Chauvry; and when married found her chief pleasure in the care of her children. This feeling gave her the power to repress the love which she felt for Felix de Vandenesse, but the effort which this hard struggle caused her brought on a severe stomach disease of ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe
... truth nourished and fashioned beneath the earth within, and the armour upon them and their equipment put together; and when they were perfectly wrought out the earth even their mother put them forth. Now, therefore, it is their duty to think concerning the land in which they are as of a mother, or foster-mother, and to protect it if any foe come against it, and to think of their fellow-citizens as being their brothers, born of the earth as they. All ye in the city, therefore, are brothers, we shall say to them proceeding with our story; but God, when he ...
— Plato and Platonism • Walter Horatio Pater
... pardoned in the next ensuing summer; but they who had owned the island were exceedingly discontented at the prospect of his acquittal, and urged Angle either to give back the island or slay Grettir. Now Angle had a foster-mother, Thurid; she was old and cunning in witchcraft, which she had learnt in her youth; for though Christianity had now been established in the island, yet there remained still many traces of heathendom. Angle and she put out in a ten-oared boat to pick a quarrel with Grettir, ...
— The Book of Romance • Various
... the uterus of a Belgian hare, a rabbit which is short-haired and gray. The egg developed normally in the new body and produced an animal with all the characteristics, as far as could be seen, of the real mother, rather than the foster-mother. Its coat was long and white, and there was not the slightest trace of influence of the short, gray-haired doe in whose body it ...
— Applied Eugenics • Paul Popenoe and Roswell Hill Johnson
... were I you; it shall eat tasty enough if you'll but leave it to bake in the oven. It were a deal better so than for the lad to fetch home some fine town madam that should trouble herself with his mother and grandmother but as the cuckoo with the young hedge-sparrows in his foster-mother's nest. She's a downright good maid, Agnes, and she is bounden to your mother and yon, and so is her father: and though, if Selwick were to turn you forth, your home is at Minster Lovel, as my child here knows,"—and Aunt Joyce laid her hand lovingly on that of Edith—"yet ...
— It Might Have Been - The Story of the Gunpowder Plot • Emily Sarah Holt
... to be fed, when Rough happened to be sitting on her haunches close by, it occurred to him that Rough's milk might serve as well as a sheep's. The lamb was put to her and took very kindly to its canine foster-mother, wriggling its tail and pushing vigorously with its nose. Rough submitted patiently to the trial, and the result was that the lamb adopted the sheep-dog as its mother and sucked her milk several times every day, to the great admiration ...
— A Shepherd's Life • W. H. Hudson
... put the infant Michelangelo out to nurse in the village of Settignano, where the Buonarroti Simoni owned a farm. Most of the people of that district gained their livelihood in the stone-quarries around Settignano and Maiano on the hillside of Fiesole. Michelangelo's foster-mother was the daughter and the wife of stone-cutters. "George," said he in after-years to his friend Vasari, "if I possess anything of good in my mental constitution, it comes from my having been born in your keen climate of Arezzo; just as I drew the ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... distiller lost the annual income of three million five hundred thousand francs that his products procured for him. Father Agaric went into exile, abandoning his school into the hands of laymen, who soon allowed it to fall into decay. Separated from its foster-mother, the State, the Church of Penguinia ...
— Penguin Island • Anatole France
... duly brought by the foster-mother who was in the full costume of a prosperous peasant, with great gold cross and gay apron; but I was not better satisfied about the little on, though she had a cleaner face, cap, and frock. Unused ...
— Stray Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge |
