"Handmaid" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... aegrotat. They need medicine, not only to assuage the disease, but to awake the sense. And if it be said that the cure of men's minds belongeth to sacred divinity, it is most true; but yet moral philosophy may be preferred unto her as a wise servant and humble handmaid. For as the Psalm saith, "That the eyes of the handmaid look perpetually towards the mistress," and yet no doubt many things are left to the discretion of the handmaid to discern of the mistress' will; so ought moral philosophy to give a constant attention ...
— The Advancement of Learning • Francis Bacon
... was thy dead chief's handmaid, Friends. Twelve months agone, I was with him Upon the battle-field alone. The Sioux were all around us; their Faces war-red painted; their cries Of vengeance filling all the air. He to his saddle caught me up. The Great Spirit strengthened his ...
— Indian Legends of Minnesota • Various
... cases barbarian sub-vassals of their own, were themselves, if not vassals to, at all events under the predominant influence of, one or the other of the four great powers. Thus Lu was at first nearly always a handmaid of Ts'i, but later fell under the influence of Tsin, Ts'u, and Wu; Cheng always coquetted between Tsin and Ts'u, not out of love for either, but in order to protect her own independence; and so on with the rest. If we ...
— Ancient China Simplified • Edward Harper Parker
... this and all this, or a far higher and profounder philosophy is (I think) contained in the Teutonick's writings. And if there be any friendly medium which can possibly reconcile these ancient differences between the nobler wisdom which hath fixt her Palace in Holy Writ and her stubborn handmaid, Naturall Reason: this happy marriage of the Spirit and Soul, this wonderful consent of discords in one harmony, we owe in great ...
— Spiritual Reformers in the 16th & 17th Centuries • Rufus M. Jones
... sacramental character, so deep was the feeling, in more serious minds, of a moral or spiritual profit in physical health, beyond the obvious bodily advantages one had of it; the body becoming truly, in that case, but a quiet handmaid of the soul. The priesthood or "family" of Aesculapius, a vast college, believed to be in possession of certain precious medical secrets, came nearest perhaps, of all the institutions of the pagan world, to the Christian priesthood; the temples ...
— Marius the Epicurean, Volume One • Walter Horatio Pater
... heaven-sent words were so inflamed With sacred love's own virtue did they burn They truly seemed to fall from God above. With holy joy her beating heart was full: "Behold," she said, "the handmaid of the Lord, Be it to ...
— Fra Angelico • J. B. Supino
... lest I should offend the angels, for I knew the room was full of them,—as for me, I only write here with a faltering heart, lest I should offend those prayers, for I know heaven is full of them, and I know that for every time my name arose to the throne of God on that beatified handmaid's hopes and cries, I have been forgiven seventy ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 105, July 1866 • Various
... the grape ran the juice of his veins. The Prophet had said, "O Faithful, drink not!" Abu Midjan drank till his heart was hot; Yea, he sang a song in praise of wine, He called it good names—a joy divine, The giver of might, the opener of eyes, Love's handmaid, the water of Paradise! Therefore Saad his chief spake words of blame, And set him in irons—a fettered flame; But he sings of the wine as he sits in his chains, For the blood of the grape runs the juice ...
— Poetical Works of George MacDonald, Vol. 2 • George MacDonald
... membership, no matter what their theories regarding his personality, plans and powers. Truth should be sought assiduously, and welcomed wherever found. We should not attempt to make it fit a preconceived theory, but to make the theory conform to it. Science should be the handmaid of the church, philosophy its helpful brother; but its ecumenical council, its court of last resort, should be the religious instinct inherent in man—that perception so fine, so subtle, that all attempts to weave it into words to clothe ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... Then, in Franklin's confession, it was stated that 'the toothless maid, trusty Margaret, was acquainted with the poisoning; so was Mrs Turner's man, Stephen; so also was Mrs Home, the countess's own handmaid;' and several other subordinate persons are alluded to in a ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 442 - Volume 17, New Series, June 19, 1852 • Various
... see, the Virgin blest Hath laid her babe to rest: Time is our tedious song should here have ending; Heaven's youngest-teemed star[131] Hath fixed her polished car, Her sleeping Lord with handmaid lamp attending; And all about the courtly stable Bright-harnessed[132] angels sit, in ...
— England's Antiphon • George MacDonald
... afterwards a stone was found with the inscription Ursula et Undecimilla Virgines, which was incorrectly translated into 'Ursula and her Eleven Thousand Virgins.' Some later critic pointed out that a missing comma after Undecimilla, the name of a handmaid, made all the difference, assuming that two young ladies were a more reasonable and probable number than eleven thousand. But what legend ever cared for a comma, or reached a full stop? If you go to Cologne, the verger of the Church of St. Ursula will show you the ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... a gentleman entered whom the duke had sent to Olivia, and he said, "So please you, my lord, I might not be admitted to the lady, but by her handmaid she returned you this answer: Until seven years hence, the element itself shall not behold her face; but like a cloistress she will walk veiled, watering her chamber with her tears for the sad remembrance of her dead brother." ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... the humble handmaid of Mary, and the lamp of Repentigny will burn all the brighter trimmed by a daughter of her ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... studied an art, and had hopes and aspirations, who now, in his age, was come to serve the revels of a set of drunken sailors, in a disreputable tavern, where they danced with prostitutes. I don't know why, but from the first he drew my attention; and I left my handmaid to count her charms neglected, while I sat and watched him, speculating about him in a melancholy way, with ...
— Grey Roses • Henry Harland
... dull and uninteresting study, abounding with dry details of small general interest, which, when not pompously pretentious, were, in the other extreme, of trifling insignificance, has, by a better acquaintance with its true position as the handmaid of history, become so popular that most English counties have societies especially devoted to its district claims, and our large cities have their archaeological institutes also. This is due to the good sense which has divested the study of its drier details, or has had the tact to hide them ...
— Rambles of an Archaeologist Among Old Books and in Old Places • Frederick William Fairholt
... forgot nothing and never her whom he thus happened on, glorified her as the Virgin Mary on the knees of Saint Anne. The indefinite smile, the innocent consciousness, the tender maiden ways! Wife, mother, handmaid of high God, he thought of her as of Molly in apotheosis; dutiful for love's sake, yet incurably a child, made ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... gloomily upon a side verandah, uncertain which to anathematize, the flies that had broken in upon his slumbers, or the ones that evidently were studiously refraining from awakening his sister and her handmaid. ...
— In the Mist of the Mountains • Ethel Turner
... company,' said Grania, and ordered her lady to bring her the golden goblet chased with jewels. When it was brought she filled it up with the drink of nine times nine men, then bade her handmaid carry it to Fionn and say that she had sent it to him, and that he was to drink from it. Fionn took the goblet with joy, but no sooner had he drunk than he fell down into a deep slumber; and the same thing befel also ...
— The Book of Romance • Various
... this popular success, if good do not accrue, no great evil need be anticipated. Hypotheses are most hurtful when accredited by an irreversible authority—when erected into a tribunal without appeal, they become the arbitrary dictator in lieu of the handmaid of science. Discussion and invention, in place of being stimulated, are then fettered by them; the human mind is enslaved, as Europe was for centuries by the Physics of ARISTOTLE, and still continues to be in some of the ancient retreats and conservatories of exploded errors. ...
— An Expository Outline of the "Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation" • Anonymous
... memory of the Duke of Hereward as the wronged husband who had slain my betrothed in a duel, all set me to thinking deeply, very deeply thinking. I did not express my thoughts unnecessarily. Silence is, with our order, a duty—the handmaid of devotion; but I set secret inquiries on foot, through agencies that our orders possess for finding out facts, and means that we can use, superior to those of the most accomplished detectives living. Through such agencies, and by such means, I learned not ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth
... ballads and songs reflect most accurately the manners and customs, and not a little of the history of the people; while, as indicating the progress of intellectual culture, the successive changes in language, and the steady advance of the science of music, and of its handmaid, poetry, they possess ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860 • Various
... our still stupendous war debt. In any modern campaign the dollars are the shock troops. With a depleted treasury in the rear, no army can maintain itself in the field. A country loaded with debt is a country devoid of the first line of defense. Economy is the handmaid of preparedness. If we wish to be able to defend ourselves to the full extent of our power in the future, we shall discharge as soon as possible the financial burden of the last war. Otherwise we would face a crisis with a part of our ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... dull ache of rebellion; and Memory, that capricious handmaid of the brain, unearthed from the rubbish-heap of things forgotten, an incident of ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... happiest day of my life. We celebrated our betrothal in the Rectory of Veilbye. My future father-in-law spoke to the text, "I gave my handmaid into thy bosom" (Genesis xvi, 5). His words touched my heart. I had not believed that this serious and sometimes brusque man could talk so sweetly. When the solemnity was over, I received the first kiss from my sweet betrothed, and the assurance of ...
— The Continental Classics, Volume XVIII., Mystery Tales • Various
... please my Lord, I might not be admitted, But from her handmaid do returne this answer: The Element it selfe, till seuen yeares heate, Shall not behold her face at ample view: But like a Cloystresse she will vailed walke, And water once a day her Chamber round With eye-offending brine: all this to season A brothers dead loue, which she would keepe fresh ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... call always at very uncomfortable times; but I suppose everybody 's got to have a cross, 'n' ours 's him. Anyway, he wanted to know about if it 'd be agreeable to the family to have Mrs. White discoursed on 's a faithful handmaid, 'cause he did n't want to have to alter her after he 'd got her all copied. He said there was the choice o' a bondwoman o' the Lord 'n' a light in Israel, too. We had to go 'n' holler the deacon a long time, 'n' finally we found him out settin' a hen. I did n't think 's he 'd ought to 'a' ...
— Susan Clegg and Her Neighbors' Affairs • Anne Warner
... art that we have hitherto seen has been almost exclusively the handmaid of religion or the State. At the Ducal Palace we found the great painters exalting the Doges and the Republic; even the other picture in Venice which I associate with this for its pure beauty—Tintoretto's "Bacchus and Ariadne"—was probably an allegory of Venetian success. In the churches ...
— A Wanderer in Venice • E.V. Lucas
... sake of Alla, Lord Admiral Guarinos Be thou a Moslem, and much love shall ever rest between us. Two daughters have I—all the day thy handmaid one shall be, The other (and the fairer far) by night ...
— Mediaeval Tales • Various
... uneven ground and came to the famous Porch of the Caryatides, jutting out from the little Ionic temple which is the handmaid of the Parthenon. Not far from the Porch, and immediately before it, was a wooden bench. Already Rosamund and Dion had spent many hours here, sometimes sitting on the bench, more often resting on the warm ground in the sunshine, among the fragments of ruin and the ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... has deceived us, O Lord, but we forgive him freely. Forgive Thou also his trespasses, so that at the last he escape hell-fire. Count not Thy handmaid for a daughter of Belial, wherever she is this day. May it be good for her to be cut off from the body of the righteous. Grant that she feel this mercy in her carnal body before her eternal soul be called to everlasting ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... design Mary the Virgin is found obedient, saying, 'Behold the handmaid of the Lord, be it unto me according to Thy ...
— The Lost Gospel and Its Contents - Or, The Author of "Supernatural Religion" Refuted by Himself • Michael F. Sadler
... be remembered, it professed to be the humble handmaid of the existing churches; its professed object was the evangelization of the masses. It repudiated the idea of building up a separate religious body, and it denounced the practice of gathering together ...
— Evolution and Ethics and Other Essays • Thomas H. Huxley
... sinking into sleep. Beyond any power of thought, or even fancy, with only a dreamy succession of images flitting across her mind, the hours passed, she knew not how; that they did pass, she knew from her handmaid in the long curls, who was every now and then coming in to look at her, and give her fresh water; it needed no ice. Her handmaid told her that the cars were gone by that it was near noon then, that it was past noon. There was no help for it; she could only lie still ...
— Queechy, Volume II • Elizabeth Wetherell
... is too agitated to allow me to describe the scene. The office of handmaid to the victim, which, in our young simplicity, we had fondly thought one of us would perform for the other, was gracefully sustained by ...
— The Ayrshire Legatees • John Galt
... them, so that he took all their Kings prisoners and he opened [FN32] the coast [FN33] cities by His leave. Now it fortuned one day after this, that a man came to me and sought of me a slave-girl for Al-Malik al-Nasir. Having a handsome handmaid I showed her to him and he bought her of me for an hundred dinars and gave me ninety thereof, leaving ten still due me, for that there was no more found in the royal treasury that day, because he had expended all his monies in waging war against the Franks. Accordingly they took counsel ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton
... this question, Mr Swiveller summoned the handmaid and ascertained that Miss Sophy Wackles had indeed left the letter with her own hands; and that she had come accompanied, for decorum's sake no doubt, by a younger Miss Wackles; and that on learning that Mr Swiveller was at home and being requested to walk upstairs, she ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... the chance to lead our lives on a somewhat higher level, with a broader spirit of brotherly good-will one for another. Peace is generally good in itself, but it is never the highest good unless it comes as the handmaid of righteousness; and it becomes a very evil thing if it serves merely as a mask for cowardice and sloth, or as an instrument to further the ends of despotism or anarchy. We despise and abhor the bully, the brawler, the oppressor, whether in private or ...
— African and European Addresses • Theodore Roosevelt
... is my handmaid's slave, and she shall look That these abuses flow not from [203] her tongue.— Chide ...
— Tamburlaine the Great, Part I. • Christopher Marlowe
... observance of which the undertaker will find the establishment unproductive and injurious to his interest. Purity cannot exist without cleanliness. Cleanliness in the human system will destroy an obstinate itch, of consequence, it is the active handmaid of health and comfort, and without which, decency ...
— The Practical Distiller • Samuel McHarry
... duty accomplished, the reaction consequent on his still weak physical condition threw him back upon himself and his memory. He had resolutely refused to think of Miss Sally; he had been able to withstand the suggestions of her in the presence of her handmaid—supposed to be potent in nursing and herb-lore—whom she had detached to wait upon him, and he had returned politely formal acknowledgments to her inquiries. He had determined to continue this personal avoidance as ...
— Sally Dows and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... person who had grasped the system, and would serve as an index or key to the things they represented. Language thus became a branch of philosophy as the men of the time conceived it, or at all events a useful handmaid. Thus arose the ...
— International Language - Past, Present and Future: With Specimens of Esperanto and Grammar • Walter J. Clark
... since then he has thrust me aside, saying that I weary him, and courts a handmaid of mine own, and therefore I demand the life of ...
— The People Of The Mist • H. Rider Haggard
... out to meet the will of God half-way. It is as though she had been holding herself ready, expectant, in the certainty of the coming of some message, and now she offers herself without the shadow of hesitation, as to a purpose which was a welcome vocation: "Behold the Handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word." How wonderful is ...
— Our Lady Saint Mary • J. G. H. Barry
... her in thy name whilst thou wast yet in the cradle; so call her no more sister from this day forth." Quoth Ni'amah, "If that be so, I will take her to wife." Then he went to his mother and told her of this, and she said to him, "O my son, she is thy handmaid." So he wedded and went in unto Naomi and loved her; and two[FN4] years passed over them whilst in this condition, nor was there in all Cufa a fairer girl than Naomi, or a sweeter or a more graceful. As she grew up she learnt the Koran and read works of science and excelled in ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 4 • Richard F. Burton
... now had completed some thirty campaigns, And for new generations was hammering chains; When whetting those terrible weapons, her eyes, To Jenny, her handmaid, in anger she cries, "Careless creature! did mortal e'er see such a glass! Who that saw me in this, could e'er guess what I was! Much you mind what I say! pray how oft have I bid you Provide me a new one? how oft have I chid you?" "Lord, Madam!" cried Jane, "you're so hard to ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole
... taxation, the control of foreign residents and visitors, and, perhaps most extraordinary of all, with vital statistics. Equally admirable was the solicitude displayed for agriculture, then, as now, the greatest of Indian industries, and for its handmaid, irrigation. The people themselves, if we may believe Megasthenes, were a model people well worthy of a model government, though if he does not exaggerate, one is driven to wonder at the necessity for such fearful penalties as were inflicted ...
— India, Old and New • Sir Valentine Chirol
... the kingdom, saved her from suspicion, since she was supposed to be as impregnable as the Chateau de Peronne. At curfew, when everything was shut, both ears and eyes, and the castle silent, Madame de Beaujeu sent away her handmaid, and called for her squire. The squire came. Then the lady and the adventurer sat side by side upon a velvet couch, in the shadow of a lofty fireplace, and the curious Regent, with a tender voice, asked of Jacques "Are ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 2 • Honore de Balzac
... not a thought of my cold bed Bechill thy warm heart beating red, And thy new ardours dim; But if, good hap, you rove where I Beneath the twinkling moss then lie, Be glad to see me decked so gay, (Spring's the best handmaid without pay,) I like things new, In season too, And fain must smile to ...
— Path Flower and Other Verses • Olive T. Dargan
... that I was writing for readers well acquainted in the waywardness of this most mischievous deity. The morning after the wedding, therefore, while Lady Lillycraft was making preparations for her departure, an audience was requested by her immaculate handmaid, Mrs. Hannah, who, with much priming of the mouth, and many maidenly hesitations, requested leave to stay behind, and that Lady Lillycraft would supply her place with some other servant. Her ladyship was astonished: "What! ...
— Bracebridge Hall • Washington Irving
... sport. Wherever this habit spreads, in any class of society, from the highest to the lowest, its effect is invariable; it undermines integrity, it hardens the heart and debases taste, and is the willing handmaid of other vices. Moral degradation is its inseparable companion. Therefore, if you mix in it, or share in it, or give any adhesion or countenance to it, which helps, as men say, to make it respectable, and so to spread its influence, you are debasing ...
— Sermons at Rugby • John Percival
... sober maids cannot choose but avail much,) labour and exercise, strict diet, rigour and threats may more opportunely be used, and are able of themselves to qualify and divert an ill-disposed temperament. For seldom should you see an hired servant, a poor handmaid, though ancient, that is kept hard to her work, and bodily labour, a coarse country wench troubled in this kind, but noble virgins, nice gentlewomen, such as are solitary and idle, live at ease, lead a life out of action and employment, that fare well, in ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... New England have preserved the memory of an incident which deserves mention as showing how the historian's life was saved by a quickwitted handmaid, more than a hundred years before he was born. On the 29th of August, 1708, the French and Indians from Canada made an attack upon the town of Haverhill, in Massachusetts. Thirty or forty persons were slaughtered, and many others were ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... response. I wrote her some verses in the vernacular; she read them. 'They're no bad for a beginner,' said she. The landlord's daughter, Miss Stewart, was present in oil colour; so I wrote her a declaration in verse, and sent it by the handmaid. She (Miss S.) was present on the stair to witness our departure, in a warm, suffused condition. Damn it, Gosse, you needn't suppose that you're the only ...
— The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... taught that the happiness of the race was forfeited through the fault of a Woman, and showed its thought of what sort of regard Man owed her, by making him accuse her on the first question to his God,—who gave her to the patriarch as a handmaid, and, by the Mosaical law, bound her to allegiance like a serf,—even they greeted, with solemn rapture, all great and holy women as heroines, prophetesses, judges in Israel; and, if they made Eve listen to the serpent, gave Mary as a bride to the Holy Spirit. In other nations it has ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... looked with delight at the fineness of his linen, at the brilliancy of his shirt-studs, at his elegant cambric pocket-handkerchief and white gloves, and at the jetty brightness of his charming boots. The Prince had appeared and subjugated the poor little handmaid. His image traversed constantly her restless slumbers; the tone of his voice, the blue light of his eyes, the generous look, half love, half pity,—the manly protecting smile, the frank, winning laughter,—all these were repeated in the girl's fond memory. ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... ten minutes later he was on his way to his uncle's house in Mornington Crescent, where he found dinner waiting for him, and though it was only cold, it was made pleasant by the handmaid's smile. ...
— The Vast Abyss - The Story of Tom Blount, his Uncles and his Cousin Sam • George Manville Fenn
... The whole Cadmeian people claim With right to have thee back, I most of all, For most of all (else were I vile indeed) I mourn for thy misfortunes, seeing thee An aged outcast, wandering on and on, A beggar with one handmaid for thy stay. Ah! who had e'er imagined she could fall To such a depth of misery as this, To tend in penury thy stricken frame, A virgin ripe for wedlock, but unwed, A prey for any wanton ravisher? Seems it not cruel this reproach I cast On thee and on myself and all the ...
— The Oedipus Trilogy • Sophocles
... the farthest point on Tahiti from Papeete I had reached, and wishing to see more of the island, I set out on foot with Tatini, my handmaid. We bade good-bye to Tetuanui and Haamoura and all the family after the dawn breakfast. Mama Tetuanui cried a few moments from the pangs of separation, and the chief wrung my hand sorrowfully, though I was to be back in ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... unite upon strictly local heroes such as the famous fire marshal who had lived for many years in our neighborhood— but why prolong this description which demonstrates once more that art, if not always the handmaid of religion, yet insists upon serving those deeper sentiments for which we unexpectedly find ourselves ready to fight. When we were all fatigued and hopeless of compromise, we took refuge in a series of landscapes connected with our two heroes ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams
... if thou art content with thine handmaid, who worships thee and prays to thee with a love that is equal to her devotion, who strives not to wander from thy sacred paths, who would gladly die as thy Son died to glorify thy name, who desires to live in the shadow ...
— Ursula • Honore de Balzac
... beauty, and even now, at fifty-five, she was a handsome woman. Her dress was always perfect: she never dressed but once in the day, and never appeared till between three and four; but when she did appear, she appeared at her best. Whether the toil rested partly with her, or wholly with her handmaid, it is not for such a one as the author even to imagine. The structure of her attire was always elaborate and yet never over-laboured. She was rich in apparel but not bedizened with finery; her ornaments ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... as Thy most blessed Mother, the glorious Virgin Mary, received and desired Thee, when she humbly and devoutly answered the Angel who brought unto her the glad tidings of the mystery of the Incarnation. Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me ...
— The Imitation of Christ • Thomas a Kempis
... virtues in your soul, that one day you may give Him birth spiritually, producing Him externally by a pure and Christian life. Like her you should be ready to accomplish the will of God in your own regard, saying, as she did, with sentiments of obedience and profound humility: "Behold the handmaid of the Lord, be it done unto me according to Thy word;" abandoning your soul with perfect docility to the operation of the Holy Ghost, following Him wherever He desires to lead you. Let your soul glorify God, and rejoice in Him on account of the great things He has done in ...
— Serious Hours of a Young Lady • Charles Sainte-Foi
... for which they would be called upon to legislate. He thought those feelings could not be learned more correctly than from the language of Dr. Doyle, who thus described the church of Ireland:—"She is looked up to, not as the spouse of the Redeemer, but as the handmaid of the ascendancy. The latter, whenever she becomes insolent or forgets her rank, if rank it may be called, rebuke her into a deportment more becoming her situation. They extend their protection to her for their own advantage only; and she, working alternately ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... men with human feelings love their country. Not the highborn or wealthy man alone, Who looks upon his children, each one led By its gay handmaid, from the high alcove, And hears them once a day: not only he Who hath forgotten, when his guest inquires The name of some far village all his own; Whose rivers bound the province, and whose hills Touch the last ...
— Count Julian • Walter Savage Landor
... a good, clean, wholesome-looking countryman's cart stops opposite my door.—Do I want any huckleberries?—If I do not, there are those that do. Thereupon my soft-voiced handmaid bears out a large tin pan, and then the wholesome countryman, heaping the peck-measure, spreads his broad hands around its lower arc to confine the wild and frisky berries, and so they run nimbly along the narrowing channel until they tumble rustling down in a black ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... and the handmaid Hagar, cast out of Abraham's household at 15; he became skilful with the bow, and founded a great nation, the Arabs; for the offering of Isaac on Moriah the Arabs substitute the offering of Ishmael on Arafat, near Mecca; Mahomet claimed descent from him; he gives name in modern ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... Bridie watching behind the big screen with the crack in it?" said the handmaid. "She come back to me, and she says, 'They're all ate,' says she: ''tis the way ye had not enough made,' she says. I didn't know if 'twas on me head or me heels I was!" She bent a look of adoration upon ...
— Captain Jim • Mary Grant Bruce
... art of embroidery, in its highest form the handmaid of architecture, is full of suggestion, and may assist us greatly in the search which culminates in the text of "In ...
— Needlework As Art • Marian Alford
... proportion; and so in the eighteenth century English and French philosophers were able to take up an attitude of direct hostility; until, finally, under Frederick the Great, Kant appeared, and took away from religious belief the support it had previously enjoyed from philosophy: he emancipated the handmaid of theology, and in attacking the question with German thoroughness and patience, gave it an earnest instead of a frivolous tone. The consequence of this is that we see Christianity undermined in the nineteenth century, a serious faith in it almost completely gone; ...
— The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; Religion, A Dialogue, Etc. • Arthur Schopenhauer
... on being her handmaid first, and lingered over her toilet till she literally escaped from my hands and drew behind the lace curtains like a star behind a cloud. Our dresses were alike, as the generous Edith had willed. They were of the most ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... of thought. Love, all fulfilling, and various modes of power, are alone expressed; the Virgin never shows the complacency or petty watchfulness of maternity; she sits serene, supporting the child whom she ever looks upon, as a stranger among strangers; "Behold the handmaid of the Lord" ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... they arose and were glad, and it was to them as if the sun of the early summer had arisen for nought save to shine on their happy day. And they went about from place to place whereas tidings had befallen Birdalone; and she served them one and all as if she were their handmaid, and they loved her and caressed her, and had been fain to do all her will did they but ...
— The Water of the Wondrous Isles • William Morris
... the thing made. She holds that as it was the god who arose from the rite, similarly it was the ritual connected with the worship of the god which gave birth to his representation in sculpture. Art, she says, is not, as is commonly supposed, the "handmaid of religion." "She springs straight out of the rite, and her first outward leap is the image of the god." Miss Harrison gives two examples to substantiate her contention. In the first place, she states at some length arguments of irrefutable validity to show that the Panathenaic ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring
... again, "By the Lord God, an thou dost keep me here to sully my good name, and that of thy father and mother, who have been to me even as my own flesh and blood, I will never live with thee again as man with wife, but will go forth into the New World to live and to die with thy handmaid dishonor!" ...
— A Brother To Dragons and Other Old-time Tales • Amelie Rives
... great pains in honor of the most blessed Stephen, the first martyr, by Demetria, a woman of pristine piety; of which the Bibliothecarius, in his account of Pope Leo the First, thus makes mention: 'In these days, Demetria, the handmaid of God, made the Basilica of St. Stephen on the Latin Way, at the third mile-stone, on her estate:... which afterward, being decayed and near to ruin through the long course of years, was restored by Pope Leo the Third.' Of this ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various
... the good man, "why have you not given a part to God's handmaid? Cut the fish in two pieces, and give her one, ...
— Good Stories For Great Holidays - Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the - Children's Own Reading • Frances Jenkins Olcott
... duties. De Quincey speaks of this appointment as an instance of the remarkable good luck which waited upon Wordsworth through his whole life. In our view it is only another illustration of that scripture which describes the righteous as never forsaken. Good luck is the willing handmaid of upright, energetic character, and conscientious observance of duty. Wordsworth owed his nomination to the friendly exertions of the Earl of Lonsdale, who desired to atone as far as might be for the injustice of the first Earl, and who respected the honesty of the ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell
... constituted by Nature? To be free, to be noble, to be modest (for what other living thing is capable of blushing, or of feeling the impression of shame?) and to subordinate pleasure to the ends for which Nature designed us, as a handmaid and a minister, in order to call forth our activity; in order to keep us constant to ...
— The Golden Sayings of Epictetus • Epictetus
... favour of dark purple, because of its association with mourning, but the glaring colour schemes now in vogue were to be deprecated as prejudicial to solemnity. It pained him to see music reduced to the menial position of the handmaid ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, January 28, 1914 • Various
... recoiled before the logical and radical conclusions that the modern scientific revolution was destined to establish in the social domain—the most important domain of all if science was to become the handmaid of life, instead of contenting itself with that barren formula, science for the sake ...
— Socialism and Modern Science (Darwin, Spencer, Marx) • Enrico Ferri
... her! She that lifts up the manhood of the poor, She of the open soul and open door, With room about her hearth for all mankind! The fire is dreadful in her eyes no more; From her bold front the helm she doth unbind, Sends all her handmaid armies back to spin, And bids her navies, that so lately hurled Their crashing battle, hold their thunders in, Swimming like birds of calm along the unharmful shore. 400 No challenge sends she to ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... service they shall be required to render. Judges are lawyers. They ought to be trained practitioners and learned in the profession of the law before they ascend the Bench, and generally they are. Therefore, our courts, as they are now conducted, and our profession, which is the handmaid of justice, are necessarily so bound together in our judicial system that an attack upon the courts is an attack upon our profession, and an attack upon our profession is equally ...
— Ethics in Service • William Howard Taft
... in once; and a second quarrel so generally happens before a first is made up; that it is hard to guess what event our loves will be attended with. But perseverance is my glory, and patience my handmaid, when I have in view an object worthy of my attempts. What is there in an easy conquest? Hudibras ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... canvas, but even on our domestic China-ware, and our mahogany furniture, and our wall-papers and hangings and carpets, and on our richest apparel for holiday occasions and our simplest garments for daily wear. Even human Beauty, the Queen of all loveliness on earth, engages Flora as her handmaid at the toilet, in spite of the dictum of the poet of 'The Seasons,' that "Beauty when unadorned is ...
— Flowers and Flower-Gardens • David Lester Richardson
... am fearful; I dare not tell a lie; you that were born Daughters and Sisters unto Kings, may nourish Great thoughts, which I, that am your humble handmaid Must ...
— The False One • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... Johila, the barber's daughter, at first sight; and she, 'nothing loath', yielded to his caresses. Some say that she actually pretended to be Queen herself; and that his Majesty was no further in fault than in mistaking the humble handmaid for her noble mistress; but, be that as it may, her Majesty no sooner heard of the good understanding between them, than she rushed forward, and with one foot sent the Son rolling back to the east whence he came, and with the other kicked little Johila sprawling after ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... youthful indignation, the other enveloped in a cloud of sullen resistance. Just then there came a soft knock at the door, and Sarah peeped in with a coquettish air, which at no other time in her existence had been visible in the sedate demeanour of Mrs Hadwin's favourite handmaid. The stranger lodger was "a gentleman," notwithstanding his shabbiness, and he was a very civil-spoken gentleman, without a bit of pride; and Sarah was still a woman, though she was plain and a housemaid. "Please, sir, I've brought you your coffee," said Sarah, and she carried ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... the reports of great fortunes suddenly acquired, so the ambition seizes upon many a young wife to cut a figure in "society." Instead of "the household—motions light and free" that Wordsworth describes, the handmaid of fashion leads the hollow life of "keeping up appearances." If nothing worse than the slavery of debt is incurred, home life becomes a counterfeit of happiness; but any one who watches the daily papers will sometimes see obituaries ...
— Recollections of a Long Life - An Autobiography • Theodore Ledyard Cuyler
... bell," said Coralie, smiling to herself at Camusot's want of spirit.—"Berenice," she said, when the Norman handmaid appeared, "just bring me a button-hook, for I must put on these confounded boots again. Don't forget to bring them to my ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... two sets of duties were in one hand, and, inasmuch as they were making a start with the General Staff at Headquarters and bearing in mind former tendencies, they may have been right. They, moreover, hardly realized perhaps that intelligence must always be the handmaid of operations, and that it is in the interest of both that they should be kept quite distinct. It was natural that the first Chief of the General Staff to be appointed, Sir N. Lyttelton, should have hesitated to overset an organization which had been so recently laid down and ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell
... your grace, an' I had room for such a thundergust within mine ancient bowels, 'tis not in reason I coulde discharge ye same and live to thank God for yt He did choose handmaid so humble whereby to shew his power. Nay, 'tis not I yt have broughte forth this rich o'ermastering fog, this fragrant gloom, so pray you ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... consulted one of the family; but being told that the best means for a wife to keep her husband out of harm's way was to provide him with a domestic occupation for his leisure hours at home, than which nothing could be better than a handmaid under the same roof, she made a merit of necessity and submitted ever after to retain the Comtesse Diane, as she had been prudently advised. The Comtesse Diane, in consequence, remained in the family even up to the 17th October, ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 4 • Madame du Hausset, and of an Unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe
... all the world was white with flowers, And Summer, in her sun-built towers, Stood smiling 'mid her handmaid Hours, Who robed her limbs for bridal; Somewhere between the golden sands And purple hills of Folly's lands, Love, with a laugh, let go our hands, And left our sides ...
— Weeds by the Wall - Verses • Madison J. Cawein
... great self-denials of Christian workers in the field and many Christian givers in the country at large. It is this thought that has ever been held up before it—the thought that the church and the school go together, and that the school is simply the handmaid of the church. We recognize the fact that in Congregationalism especially, out of all forms of religious belief, we cannot hope to make men earnest, effective Christians, caring for themselves, managing their own affairs independently, and having in them the heart to go out and work, unless we ...
— American Missionary, Volume 43, No. 12, December, 1889 • Various
... domain] of Ra, and the width of the earth four times. I come forth. My tongue is like unto that of Ptah and my throne is like unto that of the goddess Hathor, and I make mention of the words of Tem, my father, with my mouth. He it is who constraineth the handmaid, the wife of Seb, and before him are bowed [all] heads, and there is fear of him. Hymns of praise are repeated for [me] by reason of [my] mighty acts, and I am decreed to be the divine Heir of Seb, the lord of the earth and to be the ...
— Egyptian Literature
... Heart against mine,— Take me, lord governor, Who am all thine! Thou that hast blessed me With a new light, Ah, is thy handmaid Fair in ...
— Miscellany of Poetry - 1919 • Various
... brought him on his way in the morning in more kindly manner than Elisha's convoy, noticed this one—wider-eyed in reverence than the rest; drew her to him, questioned her, and was sweetly answered: That she would fain be Christ's handmaid. And he hung round her neck a small copper coin, marked with the cross. Thencefoward Genevieve held herself as "separated from ...
— Our Fathers Have Told Us - Part I. The Bible of Amiens • John Ruskin
... for refuge will I fly, And pour my tale of suffering in thine ear; And thou shalt teach me all that I must do. Like some meek handmaid will I follow thee, Will pace before the loom from early morn, Nay, set my hand to all those lowly tasks Which maids of noble blood would scorn to touch In Colchis, as but fit for toiling serfs, Yet ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... from labour and to spread ease and even elegance over our altered mode of life. We still had some attendants spared by disease, and warmly attached to us. But Clara was jealous of their services; she would be sole handmaid of Idris, sole minister to the wants of her little cousins; nothing gave her so much pleasure as our employing her in this way; she went beyond our desires, earnest, ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... setting her to work; she liked to dash round the house alone, without thinking what somebody else was doing or ought to be doing. In short, she liked to have her out of the way for a while. Furthermore, it did not please her that Mr. Van Brunt and her little handmaid were, as she expressed it, "so thick." His first thought, and his last thought, she said, she believed, were for Ellen, whether she came in or went out; and Miss Fortune was accustomed to be chief, not only in her own house, but in the regards of all who came to it. At any ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell
... and Hannah and Huldah with thy Spirit, and didst not disdain to suffer thine only-begotten Son to be born of a woman; who also in the tabernacle and temple didst appoint woman-keepers of thine holy gates, look down now upon this thine handmaid, who is designated to the office of deaconess, and cleanse her from all filthiness of the flesh and of the spirit, that she may worthily execute the work intrusted to her to thine honor, and to the praise of thine Anointed, to whom, with thee and the Holy Ghost, be honor and adoration ...
— Deaconesses in Europe - and their Lessons for America • Jane M. Bancroft
... at home, and promised to take good care of Thorward's ship, which was left behind. Astrid was one of the five women who went with this expedition; the other four were Gunhild, Thora, Sigrid, and Bertha. Gunhild and Sigrid were wives to two of Biarne's men. Thora was handmaiden to Gudrid; Bertha handmaid to Freydissa. Of all the women Bertha was the sweetest and most beautiful, and she was also very modest and good-tempered, which was a fortunate circumstance, because her mistress Freydissa had temper enough, as Biarne used to remark, for a dozen women. Biarne was fond of teasing Freydissa; but ...
— The Norsemen in the West • R.M. Ballantyne
... was not only an artist—he was a court painter; and pictures other than portraits were of comparatively little importance to Philip IV. and his circle. Art borrowed most of her importance in sixteenth and seventeenth century Spain from the fact that she was the handmaid of Holy Mother Church. Velazquez was a court official who chanced to be a clever portrait-painter, and his promotion tended ever to take him further away from his art. With the increase of state duties the claims ...
— Velazquez • S. L. Bensusan
... true Christians, although not in need of it for themselves, nevertheless render cheerful obedience to this government, through love for the others who need it. A Christian himself may wield the sword when called upon to maintain peace among men and to punish wrong. This authority, which is God's handmaid, as St. Paul says, is as necessary and good as other worldly callings. God therefore instituted two regimens, or governments-the spiritual, which, through the Holy Ghost under Christ, makes Christians and pious people, and the worldly ...
— Luther Examined and Reexamined - A Review of Catholic Criticism and a Plea for Revaluation • W. H. T. Dau
... "the smoke still curls from the rooftop! I heard he had come back. Old Madge, his handmaid, has bought cimnel-cakes of me the last week or so; nothing less than the finest wheat serves him now, I trow. ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... regarding herself for the time as the handmaid of Chadband, whom she knows to be endowed with the gift of holding forth for four hours at a stretch, prepares the little drawing-room for tea. All the furniture is shaken and dusted, the portraits of Mr. and Mrs. Snagsby ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... sound all right, but I don't believe handmaidens ought to wear trailing gowns. How could they handmaid?" ...
— Marjorie's New Friend • Carolyn Wells
... But her handmaid at the window sees a man riding in armour. He rides a grey horse, his face is pale and streaked with blood. She speaks to herself, and then to ...
— Gudrid the Fair - A Tale of the Discovery of America • Maurice Hewlett
... ruling over a Nation in Arms. No doubt he sought, as was natural enough in his day, to construct the State from without rather than to guide and encourage its evolution from within. It seemed to him that, in such an ocean of corruption, Force was a remedy and Fraud no sluttish handmaid. 'Vice n'est-ce pas,' writes Montaigne, of such violent acts of Government, 'car il a quitte sa raison a une plus universelle et puissante raison.' Even so the Prince and the people could only be justified by results. But the public life is of larger ...
— Machiavelli, Volume I - The Art of War; and The Prince • Niccolo Machiavelli
... can. Show him his mistakes with the utmost deliberation and kindliness of manner; and induce him to repeat his performances in your hearing after the correction has been suggested. Cultivate the imitative tendency in him; it is the handmaid to the formation of facile habits of action. In arranging the children's games, see that he gets the very active parts, even though he be backward and hesitating about assuming them. Make him as far as possible a leader, ...
— The Story of the Mind • James Mark Baldwin
... course) fully committed myself in favor of it. They all agreed that the scheme was good; and although neither of them entered personally into it, all fully sanctioned it, bidding me God-speed in my new adventure, as a powerful handmaid to their efforts in contending for ...
— Official Report of the Niger Valley Exploring Party • Martin Robinson Delany
... but for the same reason it can realize the existence of a Law by which the as yet unmanifested circumstances may be brought into manifestation. Thus used in its right order, the intellect becomes the handmaid of that more interior power within us which manipulates the unseen substance of all things, and which we may ...
— The Edinburgh Lectures on Mental Science • Thomas Troward
... betimes, I went about the house, Then, with my hands and feet well cleansed I went To bring respectful greeting to my lord, And taking comb and mirror, unguents, soap, I dressed and groomed him as a handmaid might. I boiled the rice, I washed the pots and pans; And as a mother on her only child, So did I minister to my good man. For me, who with toil infinite then worked, And rendered service with a humble mind, Rose early, ever diligent and good, ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson
... which spiritual religion was all but extinct, had sold herself as a bondslave to the governing classes. Rank and wealth and territorial ascendency were divorced from public duty, and even learning had become the handmaid of tyranny. The sacred name of justice was prostituted to sanction a system of legal murder. Commercial enterprise was paralyzed by prohibitive legislation; public credit was shaken to its base; the prime necessaries of life were ruinously dear. The pangs of poverty were aggravated by the concurrent ...
— The Grand Old Man • Richard B. Cook
... the lame walk at her bidding; pestilence and madness and fits and wounds and possession itself disappear before the power with which Almighty God has endued her; and she walks this earth of ours dispensing blessings, as the faithful handmaid of Him who went about ...
— The Life of St. Frances of Rome, and Others • Georgiana Fullerton
... every crime. The nation as such abolished slavery as a legal institution; but ignorance is slavery, and no matter what is written in your constitutions and your laws, slavery will continue until intelligence, handmaid of liberty, shall have illuminated the whole land with ...
— Black and White - Land, Labor, and Politics in the South • Timothy Thomas Fortune
... all-embracing term. It included the crooning of the nurse to the child... the half-sung chant of the mower or sailor... the formal ode sung by the poet. In all Greek lyrics, even in the choral odes, music was the handmaid of verse.... The poet himself composed the accompaniment. Euripides was censured because Iophon had assisted him in the musical setting of some of his dramas.' Here is pictured a type of Greek work which survives in American ...
— The Congo and Other Poems • Vachel Lindsay
... ventured upon a call, thinking her intimacy with the family would excuse any unseemly haste, and thinking, too, it may be, that possibly Mrs. Richard Markham would be glad to know there was someone in Olney more like the people to whom she had been accustomed than Mrs. Markham, senior, and her handmaid, Eunice Plympton. Melinda's toilet had been made with direct reference to what Mrs. Ethelyn would think of it, and she was looking very well indeed in her gray dress and sack, with plain straw hat and green ribbons, which harmonized well ...
— Ethelyn's Mistake • Mary Jane Holmes
... Queen, and handmaid lowly! Whose skill can speed the day with lively cares, And banish melancholy By all that mind invents or hand prepares; * * * * * Who that hath seen thy beauty could content His ...
— What Great Men Have Said About Women - Ten Cent Pocket Series No. 77 • Various
... it that we do, when we call off our minds from pleasure, that is to say, from our attention to the body, from the managing our domestic estate, which is a sort of handmaid and servant of the body, or from duties of a public nature, or from all other serious business whatever? What else is it, I say, that we do, but invite the soul to reflect on itself? oblige it to converse with itself, and, as far as possible, break off its acquaintance with the body? Now to separate ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... over the military authority; economy in the public expense, that labor may be lightly burthened; the honest payment of our debts and sacred preservation of the public faith; encouragement of agriculture, and of commerce as its handmaid; the diffusion of information and arraignment of all abuses at the bar of the public reason; freedom of religion; freedom of the press, and freedom of person under the protection of the habeas corpus, and trial by juries impartially selected. ...
— United States Presidents' Inaugural Speeches - From Washington to George W. Bush • Various
... the Princess where she sat High in the hall: above her drooped a lamp, And made the single jewel on her brow Burn like the mystic fire on a mast-head, Prophet of storm: a handmaid on each side Bowed toward her, combing out her long black hair Damp from the river; and close behind her stood Eight daughters of the plough, stronger than men, Huge women blowzed with health, and wind, and rain, And labour. Each was like a Druid rock; Or like a spire of land that ...
— The Princess • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... she felt the completeness of a nature clothed in armour that rendered it impregnable. It was a strange thing that man should have the power to put the finishing touch to God's work, that religion should stoop to be a handmaid to faith in a human being, but she did not think it strange. Everything in life seemed to her to be in perfect accord because her heart was in perfect accord ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... comes but once a year Good protections against temptations; but the surest is cowardice Goody-goody puerilities and dreary moralities Habit of assimilating incredibilities Human pride is not worth while Hunger is the handmaid of genius If the man doesn't believe as we do, we say he is a crank Inherited prejudices in favor of hoary ignorances It is easier to stay out than get out Man is the only animal that blushes—or needs to Meddling philanthropists Melt a brass door-knob ...
— Quotes and Images From The Works of Mark Twain • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)
... great numbers of gazettes are each time printed, which makes them the most universal intelligencers; but I'll suppose mine their first handmaid, because it goes (tho' not so thick, yet) to most parts. It's also lasting, to be put into volumes with indexes; and particularly there shall be an index of all the advertisements, whereby, for ages ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 70, March 1, 1851 • Various
... to some that the decay of religious faith should be an impulse to the birth of art. We are accustomed to talk rather vaguely of art "as the handmaid of religion"; we think of art as "inspired by" religion. But the decay of religious faith of which we now speak is not the decay of faith in a god, or even the decay of some high spiritual emotion; it is the ...
— Ancient Art and Ritual • Jane Ellen Harrison
... natural pages. Faith, friend De Foe, thou art quite at home! Not one of thy great offspring thou dost lack, From pirate Singleton to pilfering Jack. Here Flandrian Moll her brazen incest brags; Vice-stript Roxana, penitent in rags, There points to Amy, treading equal chimes, The faithful handmaid to ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb
... the Middle Ages learning was the handmaid of theology. Even Roger Bacon with his strong appeal for a new method accepted the dominant mediaeval conviction—that all the sciences did but minister to their queen, Theology. A new spirit entered man's ...
— The Evolution of Modern Medicine • William Osler
... slumbered through the day, Shenac made herself busy with household matters; for, what with the milk and the wool and the harvest-people, Shenac Dhu had more than she could well do, even with the help of her handmaid Maggie, and her sister strove to lighten the labour. But the care of her brother was the work that fell to her now, and at night she never left him. She slept by snatches in the great chair when he slept, and whiled away the ...
— Shenac's Work at Home • Margaret Murray Robertson
... evermore To stoop and kiss the tender little thumb, That crost the trencher as she laid it down: But after all had eaten, then Geraint, For now the wine made summer in his veins, Let his eye rove in following, or rest On Enid at her lowly handmaid-work, Now here, now there, about the dusky hall; Then suddenly addrest ...
— Idylls of the King • Alfred, Lord Tennyson
... so, which reverberates through the soul. This Yes, this suppleness, renders the heart agreeable to the heart of the Spouse. It was thus with Mary, the mother of our Lord, when the angel messenger came to her, she replied, "Behold, the handmaid of the Lord, be it unto me according to thy word." It was thus with the child-like soul of Samuel, when he said, "Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth." It was thus with our divine Lord, "Lo, I come to do ...
— Letters of Madam Guyon • P. L. Upham
... approached for the advent of the bridegroom, great excitement prevailed in the quiet household. Madame C. and her handmaid, dear old Marie, cackled and bustled like a pair of important hens. Madame F., the widow, lived at the milliner's, so to speak, and had several dress rehearsals for her own satisfaction. Gaston mounted guard over his sister, lest some enamoured man should rend her from them ere ...
— Shawl-Straps - A Second Series of Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott
... first, in citron colour, is natural affection, which, given us to procure our good, is sometime called Storge; and as every one is nearest to himself, so this handmaid of reason, allowable Self-love, as it is without harm, so are none without it: her place in the court of Perfection was to quicken minds in the pursuit of honour. Her device is a perpendicular level, upon a cube or square; the word, "se suo modulo"; ...
— Cynthia's Revels • Ben Jonson
... woman, lent herself to this worship with a sly good-nature which did not cure Bettina. But what was the end of it all? The young ecstatic married a man who was younger and handsomer than Goethe. Now, between ourselves, let us admit that a young girl who should make herself the handmaid of a man of genius, his equal through comprehension, and should piously worship him till death, like one of those divine figures sketched by the masters on the shutters of their mystic shrines, and who, when Germany lost him, should have retired to some solitude away from men, ...
— Modeste Mignon • Honore de Balzac
... wherefore also the holy thing which is begotten shall be called the Son of God. 36 And behold, Elisabeth thy kinswoman, she also hath conceived a son in her old age; and this is the sixth month with her that was called barren. 37 For no word from God shall be void of power. 38 And Mary said, Behold, the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word. And ...
— The Gospel of Luke, An Exposition • Charles R. Erdman
... nothing, for those to whom Christianity brings no revelation, for those who see no eternity in time, no infinity in life, for those to whom opportunity is but the handmaid of selfishness, to whom smallness is informed by no greatness, for whom the lowly is never lifted up by indwelling love to the heights of divine performance,—for them, indeed, each hurrying year may well be a King of Terrors. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... privileges, knowing that the glory of all these are due only to the divine Author and Bestower of them. In submission, therefore, to God's will, without any further inquiries, she expresses her assent in these humble but powerful words: Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it done to me according to thy word. What faith and confidence does her answer express! What profound humility and perfect obedience! She was saluted mother of God, yet uses no word of dignity, but styles ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler |
