"Helpmate" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... return. They accordingly listened to his remonstrances, and marched homewards in triumph, leaving the gardener in the embraces of his mother earth, from which he had not power to move when he was found by his disconsolate helpmate and some friends whom she had assembled for his assistance. Among these was a blacksmith and farrier, who took cognizance of his carcase, every limb of which having examined, he declared there was no bone broken, and taking out his fleam, blooded ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... himself a helpmate, and as far as mere housekeeping was concerned, one would judge, on looking around the decent, tidy apartment in which he sat and of which he had the sole care, that he did not particularly need one. He washed, scoured, baked, brewed, swept and dusted as deftly ...
— Adele Dubois - A Story of the Lovely Miramichi Valley in New Brunswick • Mrs. William T. Savage
... his wife having died when Kate was only four years of age. She was now nineteen, and had been her father's constant companion and helpmate ever since the death of her mother. Fraser, who to all appearance was only the ordinary type of working miner common to all Australasian gold-fields, was in reality a highly-educated man, who had been not only a successful barrister, but a judge of the District ...
— Tom Gerrard - 1904 • Louis Becke
... accustomed," but in the style necessary for her to perform the duties of homemaker and mother. Those marriages are the happiest where a wife can also enter into sympathy with her husband's business ambitions in particular and ideals of life in general. Here she is peculiarly his helpmate. He can hire a housekeeper, but not a companion of ...
— Practical Suggestions for Mother and Housewife • Marion Mills Miller
... Balfour, had no less powerful an individuality; in beauty of person, in grace of manner, in the brilliance of a quick and flashing feminine intelligence—that was deep as well as bright—she was a fitting helpmate for her husband, and the very mother to sympathise with and encourage a son whose genius showed itself in quaint sayings, in dainty ways, and in chivalrous thoughts almost from ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson • Margaret Moyes Black
... sort who can be stolidly happy with any kind of wife; he had cheerfully put up with his grandmother all his life, so was not likely to fret and fume over anything that might befall him in the way of a helpmate. ...
— Beasts and Super-Beasts • Saki
... children, Mrs. Ridgely and Mrs. Hardie, who lived to womanhood, but both of whom have passed away. My second wife, Julia Fisher, was the sister of my first wife. No better or truer woman ever lived. She was a devoted helpmate to me during all the years that I have occupied high public office and needed the support and help of a woman. She did her full part and filled her place on every occasion with dignity and propriety. It seems that her death ...
— Fifty Years of Public Service • Shelby M. Cullom
... do," he said; "I have had all that from the three of them for the last two days. She is a Socialist, and a Suffragist, and all the rest of it, and my ideal helpmate. She is well off, and that will enable me to devote all my time to putting the world to rights without bothering about anything else. Our home will be the nursery of advanced ideas. We shall share together the ...
— Malvina of Brittany • Jerome K. Jerome
... and could you go with me My helpmate in the woods to be, Our shed at night to rear; Or run, my own adopted bride, A sylvan huntress at my side, 95 ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. II. • William Wordsworth
... of shame to share his throne (527), a high office she did not discredit; scandal, busy enough with her early years, has no word to say against her subsequent career as empress; the poor and unfortunate of her own sex were her special care; remained to the last the faithful helpmate of her husband (508-548). ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... teach the gayest and to make the gravest smile than just John Bunyan's sketch of By-ends' great-grandfather, the founder of the egoistical family of Fairspeech, who was, to begin with, but a waterman who always looked one way and rowed another? By-ends' wife also is a true helpmate to her husband. She was my Lady Feigning's favourite daughter, under whose nurture and example the young lady had early come to a quite extraordinary pitch of good breeding; and now that she was a married woman, she and her husband had, so their ...
— Bunyan Characters - First Series • Alexander Whyte
... witness the death of a relative. Oh, how sad is that spectacle for me! Or perhaps the time is come for my own death, for I shall never be able to abandon cruelly one of my own as long as I myself am alive. Thou art my helpmate in all good deeds, self-denying and always affectionate unto me as a mother. The gods have given thee to me as a true friend and thou art ever my prime stay. Thou hast, by my parents, been made the participator in my domestic ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa - Translated into English Prose - Adi Parva (First Parva, or First Book) • Kisari Mohan Ganguli (Translator)
... be possible for him to talk over Miss Baker, but such triumph would be but barren. Miss Baker with a transferred allegiance—transferred from the old gentleman to him—would be but a very indifferent helpmate. He learnt, however, from Littlebath that she was still away, and would probably not return. Then he went back in fancied security, and found himself the centre of all those amatory ovations which Miss Todd and Miss Gauntlet ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... never repeated in the whole course of history since. God Himself, before presenting her to Adam, attired and adorned Eve as a bride. Yea, He appealed to the angels, saying: "Come, let us perform services of friendship for Adam and his helpmate, for the world rests upon friendly services, and they are more pleasing in My sight than the sacrifices Israel will offer upon the altar." The angels accordingly surrounded the marriage canopy, and God pronounced the blessings upon the bridal couple, ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... reinforced with divers prosecutions for corrupt practices, which had lain dormant until some person of courage and influence should take the lead against Justice Gobble, who was the more dreaded, as he acted under the patronage of Lord Sharpington. By this time fear had deprived the justice and his helpmate of the faculty of speech. They were indeed almost petrified with dismay, and made no effort to speak, when Mr. Fillet, in the rear of the knight, as he retired with his company, took his leave of them in these words: ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... also, with a map in his hand, and pointing occasionally to another large map which hung against the wall, went into the geography of the matter. "We might have found that out from our atlases, I think, without coming all the way to Barchester," said that unsympathizing helpmate, Mrs. Harold, very cruelly—most illogically too, for there be so many things which we could find out ourselves by search, but which we never do find out unless they be specially told us; and why should not the latitude and longitude of Labuan be ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... one from among your tribe. Not a young, giddy-pated girl, that will think of nothing but flaunting and finery, but a sober, discreet, hard-working squaw; one that will share my lot without flinching, however hard it may be; that can take care of my lodge, and be a companion and a helpmate to me in the wilderness." Kowsoter promised to look round among the females of his tribe, and procure such a one as he desired. Two days were requisite for the search. At the expiration of these, Kowsoter, ...
— The Adventures of Captain Bonneville - Digested From His Journal • Washington Irving
... were. Her husband's trust In Jenny knew no bound, And Jenny kept her pure and just, Till even malice found No sin or sign of ill to be In one who walked so decently The duteous helpmate's round. ...
— Wessex Poems and Other Verses • Thomas Hardy
... and then adds with unconscious irony, "Great is the glory of that woman who is least talked of by men, either in the way of praise or blame." Such were the barren honours granted to the legal wife. The hetairae were the only educated women in Athens. It was only the free-companion who was a fit helpmate for Pericles, or capable of sustaining a conversation with Socrates. We know that Socrates visited Theodota[280] and the brilliant Diotima of Mantinea, of whom he speaks "as his teacher in love."[281] ...
— The Truth About Woman • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... had gone to him, hat in hand, a month ago, he'd have done you any favor," said his helpmate sourly. "But it is different now. He's over his fancy; and ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... about your tired old knees, as the winter evenings draw in, and in the cosy fire-light you smile across the curly heads of these children's children at the dear wrinkled white-haired face of your beloved and time-tested helpmate, and are satisfied, all in all, with your life, and know that, by and large, Heaven has been rather undeservedly kind to you," says Manuel, sighing. "Yes, Freydis, yes, you may believe me that such are the real joys of life; and that such pleasures ...
— Figures of Earth • James Branch Cabell
... more independent helpmate. "It isn't right that this boy should use up the property that we have scraped ...
— The Telegraph Boy • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... source of consolation—broken only for a season when his eldest daughter was raised, by her marriage with the Duke, to a position which Clarendon knew well involved danger, both for her and for himself. His wife had proved an affectionate helpmate, and it is to her credit that in these Court circles which jealousy had rendered vigilant of any trace of scandal, and keen to note any assumption of arrogance, the wife of the Chancellor provoked the attacks of no enemies, and managed to elude the wrangles and bickerings of the ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik
... no light yet shone; and trudged on, a few paces in front, as though—the way being dirty—to give his wife the benefit of treading in his heavy footprints. They went on, in profound silence; every now and then, Mr. Bumble relaxed his pace, and turned his head as if to make sure that his helpmate was following; then, discovering that she was close at his heels, he mended his rate of walking, and proceeded, at a considerable increase of speed, towards their ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... no time was the American wife content to be merely ornamental. Throughout the political career of her husband she was his helpmate, and as an officer of the Primrose League, as an editor of the Anglo-Saxon Review, as, for many hot, weary months in Durban Harbor, the head of the hospital ship Maine, she has shown an acute mind and real executive power. ...
— Real Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis
... he had been in Africa he married Mary Moffat, the missionary's daughter. She was a true helpmate, and in the trials and difficulties which beset him his way was made clearer and brighter by this good ...
— Beneath the Banner • F. J. Cross
... Death, I feel, And how should I, when by the side Of Satyavan? In woe and weal To be a helpmate swears the bride. This is my place; by solemn oath Wherever thou conductest him I too must go, to keep my troth; And if the eye at times should brim, 'Tis human weakness, give me strength My work appointed to fulfil, That I may gain the ...
— Ancient Ballads and Legends of Hindustan • Toru Dutt
... then the lord's, and that which seemed, was. The child, young lady, was not then mortgaged in the cradle, and, mark ye, the bride, when she kneeled at the altar, gave not herself up, body and soul, to be the bondswoman of the Jew, but to be the helpmate of the spouse." "The Jew!" I exclaimed in surprise, for then I understood not the allusion. "Ay, young lady! the Jew," was the rejoinder. "'Tis plain ye know not who rules. 'Tis all hollow yonder! all hollow, all hollow! ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various
... Uncle Peter's ways and that it was useless to attempt to hurry him or force him to explain, until he was quite ready to do so. Aunt Hannah bided her time. Peter was a thoughtful man, and he was doubtless thinking. His wife was not only a clever helpmate but was noted for her consideration of ...
— Mary Louise Solves a Mystery • L. Frank Baum
... fiction as "The Caxtons" refreshes and invigorates the mind by its perusal; and virtue becomes beautiful for its own sake. You love the gentle humanity of the single-hearted philosopher, the charming simplicity of his loving helpmate, and scarcely know which to admire the most—Catherine in her conjugal or maternal character—the noble but mistaken pride of the fine old veteran Roland, the real hero of the tale—or the excellent ...
— Life in the Clearings versus the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... lookin' kind o' het and worried. After a few words, Miss Jaynes took a paper out of her pocket, and says she to your ma, 'Miss Bugbee,' says she, 'I'm a just startin' forth on the Lord's business, and I come to you as the helpmate and pardner of one of his richest stewards in this vineyard.'—'What is it now?' says your ma, lookin' out of one eye at the brass kittle, and speakin' more impatient than I ever heard her speak to a minister's wife before. Well, I can't spend time to tell all that Miss Jaynes said in answer, but ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... might, do. She gathered herbs and vegetables in the garden again, and a messenger came from Mrs. Jersey with a basket of strawberries; Dolly wrote a note to go back with the basket, and altogether had a busy morning of it. For bread had also to be made; and her small helpmate was good for only the simplest details of scrubbing and sweeping and washing dishes. It was with the greatest difficulty after all that Dolly coaxed her mother to come down to dinner; Nelly being left to keep watch the while and ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner
... son of Prince Kelyddon, desired a wife as a helpmate, and the wife that he chose was Goleudid, the daughter of Prince Anlawd. And after their union the people put up prayers that they might have an heir. And they had a son through the prayers of the people; and ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... imprudent marriage. But Job himself thought very differently, and amidst all the cares and vicissitudes that attended several years of his wedded life, he never passed a day without breathing a prayer of thankfulness to Heaven for having blessed him with so excellent a helpmate. But though rich in domestic comforts, all the rest of Job's affairs, for a long time, went on unprosperously. He certainly acquired sufficient practice in the course of a few years to occupy a great portion of his time, by night as well as by day, but then it was ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... enough, dear." And when, on the eighteenth, his approach goes through the second-story window of the club-house, she should say, "Dear, I wonder if you didn't hit that too hard?" Such a wife is a true helpmate, and not merely a pretty ornament on which a silly husband can hang expensive clothes, and if he is the right sort of man, he will appreciate this, and refrain from striking her with a niblick after ...
— Perfect Behavior - A Guide for Ladies and Gentlemen in all Social Crises • Donald Ogden Stewart
... once, among the Children of Israel, a man of the worthiest, who was strenuous in the service of his Lord and abstained from things worldly and drave them away from his heart. He had a wife who was a helpmate meet for him and who was at all times obedient to him. They earned their living by making trays[FN474] and fans, whereat they wrought all through the light hours; and, at nightfall, the man went out into the streets and highways seeking a buyer ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... among those who have died for Her, he will be saved, and she will find him standing in the pure radiance of the realms above, with open arms, overflowing with fervent love and gratitude, to welcome the faithful helpmate who will have purged his soul. Yes, now I quite understand; and from this day forth I will aid and second her; the hardest task shall not be too hard, the best shall not be too good, if only we may open the gates of Heaven to my poor ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... rare tact and tenderness, and spoke much of his loneliness and his need of a helpmate. Eddie resolved to ask her to marry him as soon as he could ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... not, on the whole, a model of suavity in the domestic fold. The first blow that had fallen upon him seemed to have affected his temper; and his helpmate knew from experience that whenever he called her "Nance" his ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... nightshirt and dries it out well beyond its time into a nice bunch of wrinkles) "What is woman? Woman was created by God because Dear Friends God saw how lonely man was and how lonesome and so out of man's ribs God created woman to be man's company and helpmate...." ...
— Working With the Working Woman • Cornelia Stratton Parker
... water; then the cedarn press She opened, and took forth her funeral dress And rich adornment. So she stood arrayed Before the Hearth-Fire of her home, and prayed: "Mother, since I must vanish from the day, This last, last time I kneel to thee and pray; Be mother to my two children! Find some dear Helpmate for him, some gentle lord for her. And let not them, like me, before their hour Die; let them live in happiness, in our Old home, till life be full and age content." To every household altar then she went And made for ...
— Alcestis • Euripides
... misprised or distrusted; too much and too generally the feeling has been that it is at best superfluous, at worst pernicious, most often dangerous. Once poetry was, as she should be, the lesser sister and helpmate of the Church; the minister to the mind, as the Church to the soul. But poetry sinned, poetry fell; and, in place of lovingly reclaiming her, Catholicism cast her from the door to follow the feet of her pagan seducer. The separation has been ill for poetry; it has not been ...
— Shelley - An Essay • Francis Thompson
... German intellect, and his last, an incisive and liberal contribution to Bible criticism (Studie zur Bibelkritik, 1874), published in the Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenlaendischen Gesellschaft in Leipsic. From that time on, when the death of his beloved wife, Adelheid Zunz, a most faithful helpmate, friend, counsellor, and support, occurred, ...
— Jewish Literature and Other Essays • Gustav Karpeles
... that we must judge sexual hypocrisy, and if I have laid special stress on its good points, it is in view of marriage, where it assists the education of noble and elevated sentiments even in the hypocrite. By praising the virtues of his helpmate with a little exaggeration, these are made to appear more noble. If the time is spent in saying disagreeable truths, love is soon stifled and killed. On the contrary, if each conjoint attributes to the other as fine qualities as possible, each is finally persuaded that ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel
... a clean, healthy, vigorous life, he cannot have experienced the feelings and problems of a drunkard and dope-fiend slowly submerging in dissipation and vice. If he married young and has known the joy of entire devotion to a loyal and loving helpmate, he cannot have had the experience of a profligate who has been divorced four times and is about to take another chance with a dashing grass-widow. Hundreds and thousands of situations that other human beings ...
— Heart and Soul • Victor Mapes (AKA Maveric Post)
... times a sensation as though he could not swallow attacked him. Had he been right to yield to his overmastering hunger of the night before, and break down the resistance which he had suffered now too long from this woman who was his lawful and solemnly constituted helpmate? ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... palled before, more than once. She was so amiable, so well-finished,—with her smooth flaxen hair, her neat nose, her buttonhole of a mouth, and her trim shape,—that she appealed to the opposite sex quite generally and irresistibly as a worthy helpmate. The only trouble was that she began to bore her suitors somewhat too early in the game, and they never got far enough to propose marriage. Flaws in her apparent perfection appeared from day to day and chilled the growth of the various young loves that had budded so auspiciously. ...
— The Story Of Waitstill Baxter • By Kate Douglas Wiggin
... charming picture, I believe. I am sure I should make an excellent wife for the husband I loved. If you must leave France, as they tell me you must, I will follow you—I will be your brave and faithful helpmate. Pardon me, one word more, Monsieur de Camors. My proposition would be immodest if it concealed any afterthought. It conceals none. I am poor. I have but fifteen hundred francs' income. If you are richer than I, consider I have said ...
— Monsieur de Camors, Complete • Octave Feuillet
... ways, had in him the makings of a sturdy, useful member of society. Taylor's Flat was a good selection, and even if it did not descend to Tony, there was plenty more good land in the colony, and Ailleen was versed enough in the methods of the bush to prove a useful helpmate to ...
— Colonial Born - A tale of the Queensland bush • G. Firth Scott
... willing enough to come out and work, though the muddy soil and the swollen river made our labour still harder, and our profits less. The best service was done us by an honest Paisley weaver, who had left his helpmate and two children at San Francisco, in hopes of taking back, quite full, a strong chest, of some two hundredweight capacity, which he had brought with infinite pains to the diggings. He enlivened our wet leisure by repeating whole volumes of Burns and Scott. ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 444 - Volume 18, New Series, July 3, 1852 • Various
... their having dared to compliment her on her own good looks: by which act she succeeded, of course, in making Mr. Bowie understand that other people still thought her pretty, if he did not; and also in arousing in him that jealousy which is often the best helpmate of sweet love. So Mr. Bowie went forth in his might that very evening, and finding two of the Oxford men, informed them in plain Scotch, that, "Gin he caught them, or any ither such skellums, philandering after ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume II. • Charles Kingsley
... belong to them. His presentation of myself was simply masterful; it would have moved one of his own trolley cars; I didn't wonder a bit that he objected to me as a son-in-law. In fact, I told him that had I known all these things I should have sought a fitting helpmate from the State Reformatory, but that I could not withdraw—my ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble
... of men must be transferred to the loves of women before we can attach any serious meaning to his words. Had he lived in our times he would have made the transposition himself. But seeing in his own age the impossibility of woman being the intellectual helpmate or friend of man (except in the rare instances of a Diotima or an Aspasia), seeing that, even as to personal beauty, her place was taken by young mankind instead of womankind, he tries to work out the problem of love without ...
— Phaedrus • Plato
... no composition in life, and for want of all savor must have palled every taste; nature or fortune, or both of them, took care to provide a proper quantity of acid in the materials that formed the wife, and to render her a perfect helpmate for so tranquil a husband. She abounded in whatsoever he was defective; that is to say, in almost everything. She was indeed as vinegar to oil, or a brisk wind to a standing-pool, and preserved all from stagnation ...
— Journal of A Voyage to Lisbon • Henry Fielding
... twenty-one. But you want to make a good choice. There's Abby Wilson, now. She's got the muscle of a man, and ain't afraid of anything. And her father has a fine property—a growin' property. Abby'll make a man a good, vigorous helpmate, and she'll bring him money in time. You'd better shine ...
— A Budget of Christmas Tales by Charles Dickens and Others • Various
... of "Sandford and Merton," and creator of the immortal Mr. Barlow, Robert Maitland had conceived the hope that he might have a girl educated up to his own intellectual standard, and made, or "ready-made," a helpmate meet for him. He was, in a more or less formal way, the guardian of Margaret Shields, and the ward might be expected (by anyone who did not know human nature any better) ...
— The Mark Of Cain • Andrew Lang
... starry heavens, Always with her face turned to him. Still she watched the lonely tepee, And her heart was touched with pity For the lonely man within it, So she made a lovely woman, Gave her constancy, and sent her On a moonbeam to his tepee, As his helpmate and companion. Man then multiplied, and flourished, Building villages and lording ...
— The Legends of San Francisco • George W. Caldwell
... matrimonial duet. Having much more confidence in his wife's good intentions than her prudence, he lost no time in pushing into the parlour, to take the matter into his own hands. Here he found his helpmate at the head of the whole militia of the sick lady's apartment, that is, wet nurse, and sick nurse, and girl of all work, engaged in violent dispute with two strangers. The one was a dark-featured elderly man, with an eye of much sharpness and severity ...
— The Surgeon's Daughter • Sir Walter Scott
... the decade thus closed, form a marked contrast worthy of particular portraiture. The Duke of Rutland, a dashing profligate, was sent over, it was thought, to ruin public liberty by undermining private virtue, a task in which he found a willing helpmate in his beautiful but dissipated Duchess. During his three years' reign were sown the seeds of that reckless private expenditure, and general corruption of manners, which drove so many bankrupt lords and gentlemen into the market overt, where Lord Castlereagh ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... complain of him to Mrs. Nettleby. This lady's answers were now filled with a reciprocity of conjugal abuse; she had found, to her cost, that it is the most desperate imprudence to marry a fool, in the hopes of governing him. All her powers of tormenting were lost upon her blessed helpmate. He was not to be moved by wit or sarcasm, eloquence or noise, tears or caresses, reason, jealousy, or the opinion of ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth
... 23rd, 1846, after having spoken at Keelby in Lincolnshire, he returned with his wife, who was in every respect a devoted helpmate for such a work, to the home of the gentleman and lady with whom they were stopping. While chatting on various subjects, Mrs Evans turned to her husband, who was comfortably seated in a large arm-chair, and said, "My dear, I have had such a strange presentiment—that we ...
— By Canoe and Dog-Train • Egerton Ryerson Young
... his accustom'd situation in the large arm-chair by the chimney-hearth, his ancient helpmate had retired to rest. With the simplicity of their times, the bed stood in the same room where the three had been seated during the last few hours; and now the remaining two talk'd together about the singular events ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... a lonely man. The wife of his early years died long, long ago, before success had come, and she was deeply mourned, for she had loyally helped him through a time that held much of struggle and hardship. He married again; and this wife was his loyal helpmate for many years. In a time of special stress, when a defalcation of sixty-five thousand dollars threatened to crush Temple College just when it was getting on its feet, for both Temple Church and Temple College had in those early days buoyantly assumed heavy indebtedness, ...
— Acres of Diamonds • Russell H. Conwell
... mine is nothing but a dead weight upon me. In short, I do not know any greater misfortune can happen to a plain hard-working tradesman, as I am, than to be joined to such a woman, who is rather a clog than a helpmate to him. ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... lies, with fresh water to allay the burning thirst of purgatory, is prevalent throughout the south of Ireland. The writer can vouch for a case in which a respectable and wealthy farmer, on the borders of Tipperary, in tenderness to the corns of his departed helpmate, enclosed in her coffin two pair of brogues, a light and a heavy, the one for dry, the other for sloppy weather; seeking thus to mitigate the fatigues of her inevitable perambulations in procuring ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 4 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... 1849 was unhappy and resulted in a separation. Three years after his wife's death, which occurred in 1861, he married a congenial helpmate and went to live in Flint Cottage, near Burford Bridge, Surrey, where most of his remaining years ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck
... eventually permeated and coloured her whole constitution. Bathsheba, though she had too much understanding to be entirely governed by her womanliness, had too much womanliness to use her understanding to the best advantage. Perhaps in no minor point does woman astonish her helpmate more than in the strange power she possesses of believing cajoleries that she knows to be false—except, indeed, in that of being utterly sceptical on strictures that she knows ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy
... HELPMATE. The dictionaries suggest that this word is a corruption of help and meet, as we find these words used in Gen. ii, 18, "I will make him a help meet for him," and that the proper word is helpmeet. ...
— The Verbalist • Thomas Embly Osmun, (AKA Alfred Ayres)
... allowed to go forth without coming directly under his recognition. The stern realities of military life through which he had passed, had in nowise interfered with those social qualities which so endeared our hero to the hearts of all. In Lady Douglas, Sir Howard found a faithful helpmate, a loving wife and deeply affectionate and pious mother. Lady Douglas never wearied in watching and caring for the welfare of her children. No mother could be more amply rewarded in seeing her family grow up loved and honoured; her sons true types of gentlemanly honour; her daughters ...
— Lady Rosamond's Secret - A Romance of Fredericton • Rebecca Agatha Armour
... well," said Sancho, "and let me tell you she can fling a crowbar as well as the lustiest lad in all the town. Giver of all good! but she is a brave lass, and a right and stout one, and fit to be helpmate to any knight-errant that is or is to be, who may make her his lady: the whoreson wench, what sting she has and what a voice! I can tell you one day she posted herself on the top of the belfry of the village to call some labourers of theirs that were in a ploughed field of her ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... when in the prime of manhood, I was a minded to take unto me a wife, a woman winsome and comely to look upon, that we might live together in mutual love and double blessedness. But Allah Almighty willed not that a model helpmate become mine; nay, Destiny wedded me to grief and the direst misery. I married a maid who in outward form and features was a model of beauty and loveliness without, however, one single gracious gift of mind or soul; and on the very ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... rearing of her children a constitution unenfeebled by premature overwork and energies unsapped by its monotonous grind. Again, her understanding of industrial problems would make her a more intelligent as well as a more sympathetic helpmate. Hand in hand, husband and wife would more hopefully tackle fresh industrial difficulties as these arose, and they would do so with some slight sense of the familiarity that is the best armor in ...
— The Trade Union Woman • Alice Henry
... exercise and develop each part of his nature. He exercised his mind in naming the animals and in some way the tree of good and evil was destined to be for his blessing. His soul had fellowship with Eve his helpmate and God his creator. This garden also had in it a life-giving tree that gave them the possibility of enjoying an endless life should they remain near it and ...
— The Bible Period by Period - A Manual for the Study of the Bible by Periods • Josiah Blake Tidwell
... again, a quiet question made clear some point involved by her own incoherency; and from the bottom of his heart he pitied the girl who was beginning to realize that though she might be the wife of the man she loved, she would never be his real companion and helpmate until she could attain something nearer to the high standard of perfection ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes
... contractor for buildings and roads, as well as a tanner. When he reached the age of sixty, having secured a comfortable competence, he retired from active business. In his declining years he removed to Covington, Ky., near Cincinnati. Mrs. Grant was a true helpmate, a woman of refinement of nature, of controlling religious faith, being from her youth an active member of the Methodist Church, of strong wifely and maternal instincts. Her life was centred in her home and family. Both these parents lived to rejoice in the high achievement and ...
— Ulysses S. Grant • Walter Allen
... her for love when he was young, poor, and unknown, and together they had gone through years of hardship. She was not quite on his intellectual level and the difference did not diminish with advancing years, but Clerambault loved and respected his helpmate, and she strove, without much success, to keep step with her great man of whom she was so proud. He was extraordinarily indulgent to her. His was not a critical nature—which was a great help to him in life in spite of innumerable ...
— Clerambault - The Story Of An Independent Spirit During The War • Rolland, Romain
... be your helpmate forever," he said. She turned and looked at him, slightly disconcerted, and then said: "I was wrong. The women of to-day need no help ...
— The King's Men - A Tale of To-morrow • Robert Grant, John Boyle O'Reilly, J. S. Dale, and John T.
... well; and therefore it would be better for her to have a helpmate ever at her side, who would remind her of her holy calling," returned Jonathan, earnestly. "Next week she will be eighteen years of age, and will then be numbered among the marriageable sisters. It would certainly be the best thing for her to have a husband; therefore seek one ...
— Sister Carmen • M. Corvus
... had been Mary Stotts; her mother a friend of Jane Clemens's girlhood. She proved a faithful helpmate to Orion; but in those early days of marriage she may have found life with him rather trying, and it was her homesickness that brought them to Keokuk. Brother Sam came up from St. Louis, by and by, to ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... direct your attention now to another point which I never think of without feelings which words would altogether fail to express. You hear constantly that woman, the helpmate of man, who adorns, dignifies, and blesses our lives, that woman in this country is cheap; that vast numbers whose names ought to be synonyms for purity and virtue are plunged into profligacy and infamy. But do you not know that you sent 40,000 ...
— Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy 1738-1914 • Edgar Jones
... where love is unreturned, where a husband is a tyrant, where self-sacrifice is unappreciated, where faithful and prudent industry is accepted as a labor of duty, and not as a labor of love, where she is simply regarded as his housekeeper, and not as his devoted helpmate, where his presence alone is sufficient to cast gloom and fear over the entire household. Woman was made to bless mankind, but also to be blessed in return; to make society better for forming a part thereof, but also to receive some recognition ...
— The Jericho Road • W. Bion Adkins
... rudely broken; it was a day when sap did not run. For a high-strung, temperamental being, hasty and quick tempered, I think he showed wonderful patience, a patience that does him great credit. And yet in many ways Mother was an invaluable helpmate, she was a balance wheel that kept their world moving steadily, and I am sure saved Father from ...
— My Boyhood • John Burroughs
... appear that among the Semites and other nomadic peoples woman was regarded as the helpmate rather than the companion and equal of man. The birth of a son was hailed with joy; it was "miserable to have a daughter", as a Hindu sage reflected; in various countries it was the custom to expose female children after birth and leave them to die. A wife had ...
— Myths of Babylonia and Assyria • Donald A. Mackenzie
... an idle fancy, and I'll not yield to it. I shall become a burden, rather than a helpmate, if you cannot stir from home without me. Nay," adds she, when he would override this objection, "you must not tempt me to be weak, but rather aid me to do that ...
— A Set of Rogues • Frank Barrett
... that, after all, women are only dabblers in diplomacy. Their very physique prevents them from playing the final game. You have brains, of course, but there are other things—experience, courage, resource. You would be a wonderful helpmate, Miss Van Teyl, even if your individual and unaided efforts have not been ...
— The Pawns Count • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... latter history of David, and at what it might have been. One can conceive so noble a personage under such woman's influence as, thank God, is common now, going down into an honoured old age, and living together with a helpmate worthy of him in godly love and honesty to his life's end; seeing his children Christianly and virtuously brought up, to the praise and ...
— David • Charles Kingsley
... water, I tried to make the prostrate man swallow some of it, and I even smeared him with the blood of an opossum which my thoughtful helpmate had brought back with her. But for a long time all my efforts were in vain, and then, dragging him to the foot of a grass-tree, I propped him up slightly against it, wetted his shirt with water and wound it round his ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont
... criminality behind our tragedy, Mrs. Stoneleigh's mother would probably be cited as the guilty one. The way of least resistance is usually pretty easy- going, and keeps within the valley of indulgence. Therefore, Mrs. Stoneleigh worked none, was a true helpmate to her husband, at the table, and like him, grew fat, and from mid-life waddled on, with her hundred and eighty pounds. She was superstitiously very religious, with the kind of religion that shudders at the thought ...
— Our Nervous Friends - Illustrating the Mastery of Nervousness • Robert S. Carroll
... fool—can't you even spell?) "Many a time, falling on his knees at my feet, he has rapturously exclaimed, his accents broken by manly emotion, 'Oh, that I were more worthy of such a pearl among women! With such a helpmate, I am indeed to be envied!'" That ought to do the trick. If I don't romp in after that!—(Observing that Mrs. M.-J.'s shoulders are convulsed.) What the dooce are you giggling ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., February 7, 1891 • Various
... me a spoon and I saw her wipe it with her finger. So that, thought I, is their cleanliness! I lived with them for a year and went away. Perhaps I ought to have married a town girl"—he went on after a silence. "They say a wife is a helpmate to her husband. What do I want with a helpmate? I can look after myself. But you talk to me sensibly and soberly, without giggling all the while. He—he—he! What is life ...
— The House with the Mezzanine and Other Stories • Anton Tchekoff
... forty without a husband, and her tongue goes like a dog-vane in a calm, first one way and then another. But here is her dictionary. Now own, Griff, in spite of your college learning and sentimentals, that a woman of ingenuity and cleverness is a very good sort of a helpmate." ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... bring with her any fortune, so to speak, in the way of gold or acres; but she brought something far better into my father's home,—a sweetness of disposition, and a large measure of common sense, which made her, in all respects, the devoted helpmate of her husband. Her happy cheerful temperament, and her constant industry and attention, shed an influence upon all around her. By her example she inbred in her children the love of truth, excellence, and goodness. That was indeed the ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth
... the devious banks of the Liffey, where, saturnine and alone, he filled his basket. It was his helpmate's rule, whenever she did not know to a certainty precisely what Irons was doing, to take it for granted that he was about some mischief. Her lodger, Captain Devereux, was her great resource on these occasions, ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... irresolute and self-involved. Animal courage both possessed. Their differences were so extreme that they met where they differed. It struck him specially now that she would be like Day to his spirit in continued intercourse. Young as he was he had wisdom to know the right meaning of the word "helpmate." It was as if the head had dealt the heart a blow, saying, "See here the lady thou art to serve." But the heart was a surly rebel. Lady Charlotte was fully justified in retorting upon his last ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... you from among all other men, and loved you, and joyfully accepted as my lot in life to be your devoted wife and helpmate, was that I believed you superior in all manly things to other men. Without such a belief I could love ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy
... says the biographer, “I cannot allow myself full utterance about her whom I loved as perfect mother and ‘very woman of very woman’—‘such a wife’ and true helpmate she proved herself. It was she who became my father’s adviser in literary matters; ‘I am proud of her intellect,’ he wrote. With her he always discussed what he was working at; she transcribed his poems: to her and to no one else he referred for a final criticism before publishing. She, with ...
— Old Familiar Faces • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... applied himself so assiduously to Champagne-cup that his sober-minded helpmate (the only person who took much notice of his proceedings) was filled with an uncomfortable wonder. At last, during a pause in the general conversation, he addressed Royston abruptly—there was a strange huskiness in his voice, and his lower lip ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... with them, and spoke of comfortable beds and breakfast as early as they liked; but Bertie had become entirely responsible. Billy was helped in, Silas was liberally thanked, and they drove away beneath the stars, leaving behind them golden opinions, and a host who decided not to disturb his helpmate by retiring to rest in their ...
— Philosophy 4 - A Story of Harvard University • Owen Wister
... my fair daughter," answered the old man. "A fit helpmate indeed thou hast shown thyself for so brave a soldier. By your leave, your Excellency. You will indulge an old man's desire to bless the marriage of the son as he did that of the mother? No obstacle, I take it, now exists to prevent this most ...
— Sir Henry Morgan, Buccaneer - A Romance of the Spanish Main • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... have said, went the length of choosing a helpmate for themselves. One day a young man's friends would see him mending the washing-tub of a maiden's mother. They kept the joke until Saturday night, and then he learned from them what he had been after. It dazed ...
— Stories by English Authors: Scotland • Various
... metaphors thickened and the superb phrases lost themselves in hyperbole, one would have thought the lady in question was about to fly back to her native stars on a pair of resplendent wings. Colonel Perez furnished an equally elaborate delineation of his own fair helpmate. As for the wife of Lorenzo, nobody knew what she was like, and the panegyric from the lips of her faithful lord rolled on in safety and success. But the personage called by Perez "his Theresa" was a female whom anybody who had passed through the small shopkeeping ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 11, - No. 22, January, 1873 • Various
... not think it fitting that 170 Adam, the keeper of Paradise and shepherd of the new creation, should be alone any longer: so the supreme King, Ruler Almighty, made a companion for him— created Woman, and gave this helpmate to his cherished 175 Man as the first and fruitful light of his life. He took his material from Adam's body and skilfully removed a rib from his side: the latter was deep in repose and slumbered peacefully; he felt no pain, ...
— Genesis A - Translated from the Old English • Anonymous
... think it far more probable that he has accidentally tumbled over the side!" In this belief, it may be added, the stewardess shared, bewailing her loss accordingly, although she was not quite so much overwhelmed with sorrow as might have been imagined to be proper on the loss of a helpmate by those unacquainted with the domestic relations of ...
— The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson
... have chosen her for him; as I grew older, I continued to love it as a Jewish man loves his wife, not because of real affection, but because she is the only one he knows; now that I am old, I still love her, as an elderly Jew loves his helpmate: he is aware that she lacks many of the accomplishments of which more educated women can boast, but, for all that, remembering her faithfulness in the past, he loves her also in the present, and loves ...
— The Haskalah Movement in Russia • Jacob S. Raisin
... since she (T'au Ch'un) has now got this idea into her mind, we must cooperate with her. For if we can afford each other a helping hand, I too won't be single-handed and alone. And as far as every right principle, eternal principle, and honesty of purpose go, we shall with such a person as a helpmate, be able to save ourselves considerable anxiety, and Madame Wang's interests will, on the other hand, derive every advantage. But, as far as unfairness and bad faith go, I've run the show with too malicious a hand, and I must turn tail and draw back from ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... farmer's girl from the plains, who had come up there to teach the Frost Creek school. She failed as a teacher. She was born for the kitchen and farm. Andrew Malden saw it. She would make him as good a helpmate as any, better than the Chinese women and half-breeds with whom some of his ...
— The Transformation of Job - A Tale of the High Sierras • Frederick Vining Fisher
... father, for my destruction? Look upon me; give me one look, one kiss, that this memorial of thee at least I, dying, may possess, if thou wilt not be persuaded by my words. Brother, thou art but a little helpmate to those dear, yet weep with me, beseech thy sire that thy sister die not. Even in babes there is wont to be some sense of evil. Behold, O father, he silently implores thee. But respect my prayer, and have ...
— The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I. • Euripides
... privacy, and endeavor to reason why a minister of the gospel should be expected to do things which were unnatural and against the direct teachings of God, as we find in Gen. 21:18 that our Creator said: "It is not good that man should be alone, I will make a helpmate for him," but whenever I would undertake to study and try to convince myself of the erroneousness of the Catholic doctrines, her teachings would loom up and blind my intelligent conception of things, as I had been taught that I should not question a single mandate that the Pope of Rome should ...
— Thirty Years In Hell - Or, From Darkness to Light • Bernard Fresenborg
... living here, Doctor," he went on. "Forty years—and t' last ten I've been all alone. Not a living soul have I had t' chance to save all these long years, though God knows I've kept as good a lookout as one watch could. Then Neighbor Blake lost his helpmate like I had mine, and he let me share up with him, and have Nellie. He wanted his boys to help him get food and things for t' rest, so a girl was what he gave me. And I couldn't have had a boy, Doctor, anyhow. Willy's place will never be filled for me, till he comes himself and ...
— Labrador Days - Tales of the Sea Toilers • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... guarantee that he would perform his promise. All this was told in a few words, and John now introduced me to his devoted wife; and as I heard of some of the many trials and dangers they had gone through, and how calmly she had endured them, I felt how admirably she was fitted to be the helpmate of a missionary. The captain of the frigate was, I discovered, an old family friend—one who, convinced of the importance of missionary labour, was zealous in aiding and supporting missionaries of the gospel wherever he met them engaged ...
— The Cruise of the Mary Rose - Here and There in the Pacific • William H. G. Kingston
... less perfect in detail, is highly prized and commended in America. But it does not embrace every avenue of delight. The Frenchman who seems never to go home, who seldom has a large family, whose wife is often his business partner and helpmate, and whose servants are friendly allies rather than automatic menials, enjoys life also, and with some degree of intelligence. He may be pardoned for resenting the attitude of English exiles, who, driven from their own country by the ...
— Americans and Others • Agnes Repplier
... she had read it, by which she came to know that Kate and her darling son were trysted, and that this was not the first love-letter which had passed between them. Mr. Lorimore promptly declined her ladyship's proposal, as he was engaged to be married to his present worthy helpmate. Although her ladyship was so overcome with passion, she would not part with Kate, nor allow her ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IV. • Editors: Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... an overdose of the creature. The growling voice of this Amazon, which rivalled in harshness the crashing music of her own bolts and bars, soon dispersed in every direction the little varlets who had thronged around her threshold, and she next addressed her amiable helpmate:— ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... he spoke, and he looked at the woman who was his brave helpmate and said again: "Mother and I don't like to think about that!" The tears ran down over his cheeks and "Mother's" too, ...
— Flash-lights from the Seven Seas • William L. Stidger
... himself not only in song but in orchestral music. His first effort was the beautiful B flat major Symphony, which, with the songs of that time seems to embody all the happiness he enjoyed in winning his Clara. She proved a most admirable helpmate, trying to shield him from interruptions and annoyance of every sort, so he should have his time undisturbed for his work. Thus many of his best compositions came into being in the early years ...
— The World's Great Men of Music - Story-Lives of Master Musicians • Harriette Brower
... pretty, and she is good tempered, and that is all. My only scruple in advising the match was on his account, as being beneath his deserts, and a bad connexion for him. I felt that, as to fortune, in all probability he might do much better; and that as to a rational companion or useful helpmate, he could not do worse. But I could not reason so to a man in love, and was willing to trust to there being no harm in her, to her having that sort of disposition, which, in good hands, like his, ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... world was in its tender infancy, there was a child named Epimetheus, who never had either father or mother; and, that he might not be lonely, another child, fatherless and motherless like himself, was sent from a far country to live with him and be his playfellow and helpmate. Her name was Pandora. ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... to the bar; and then returned to Sandgate and opened an office. Alice, three years his junior, had been sent to a boarding-school for two years, where she devoted most of her time to music, then came home again as mother's helpmate. ...
— Uncle Terry - A Story of the Maine Coast • Charles Clark Munn |
