"Helpmeet" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the Friends their place of burial keep, And century-rooted mosses o'er it creep, The Nurnberg scholar and his helpmeet sleep. ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... too, that Lord Illingworth regards woman simply as a toy. Now, I have never regarded woman as a toy. Woman is the intellectual helpmeet of man in public as in private life. Without her we should forget the true ideals. ...
— A Woman of No Importance • Oscar Wilde
... searching eyes upon her, and wondering within himself whether such a small, slight gossamer thing of beauty, brilliant as a tropical humming-bird, soft and caressable as a dove, could possibly be expected to have the sweet yet austere fortitude and firmness needed to be a true "helpmeet" to him in the work he had undertaken, and the life he had determined to lead. He noted all the dainty trifles of her toilette half doubtingly, half admiringly,—the knot of rich old lace that fastened her sables,— the solitary star-like ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... succeeded in evading service in the army by skulking abroad. A recruiting officer might have "conscripted" nearly a brigade of the swaggering blusterers. Captain Dick and I parted with mutual regret; and I sincerely hope, if Providence has been pleased to remove the old fellow's helpmeet to a better sphere, that he has found consolation in a virtuous union with one of those "mighty pretty yaller gals" he so much admired; and that Napoleon Bonaparte may rise to the highest dignities in that particolored community of ...
— The Narrative of a Blockade-Runner • John Wilkinson
... is, the helpmeet of my heart, That shall not from me till my days be sped, That walks beside me in sunshine and in shade, And hath in all my fortunes equal part. At first I feared it, and would often start Aghast to ...
— Artemis to Actaeon and Other Worlds • Edith Wharton
... endurance; and on a still larger, kill whether they be on the right side or the wrong. Nature, as I said in "Life and Habit," hates that any principle should breed hermaphroditically, but will give to each an helpmeet for it which shall cross it and be the undoing of it; and in the undoing, do; and in the doing, undo, and so ad infinitum. Cross-fertilisation is just as necessary for continued fertility of ideas as for that of organic life, and the attempt to frown this or that down merely ...
— Luck or Cunning? • Samuel Butler
... Benjamin Doolittle's colloquialisms, though once he had declared them amusing, racy, of the soil, and had rebuked Genevieve's fastidious criticisms of them on an occasion when she had interpreted her role of helpmeet to include that of hostess to Mr. and Mrs. Doolittle—oh, not in her own home, of course!—at luncheon, at the ...
— The Sturdy Oak - A Composite Novel of American Politics by Fourteen American Authors • Samuel Merwin, et al.
... and saw that Adam got her. The ideal marriage might have been the ideal solution. If the Lord had intended that, he should have kept the match- making in His own hands: not have left it to man. Somewhere in Athens there must have been the helpmeet God had made for Socrates. When they met, it was Xanthippe ...
— All Roads Lead to Calvary • Jerome K. Jerome
... Custis estate, while he was drawing only the meager pay of a second lieutenant. But such was her pride and confidence in him, that she turned her back on money and decided to live on her husband's income. It was harsh training for a time, but it fitted her to become a real helpmeet for him; and in the rigorous days of the Civil War she was glad that she had ...
— Boys' Book of Famous Soldiers • J. Walker McSpadden
... sighed his wife, who was gradually working herself into a tearful state. "I know I ain't been the helpmeet you expected me to be, Jase Day." Uncle Jason snorted. "I know my failin's"—in a tone that admitted they were very few—"and I long ago seen ye didn't trust me, Jase. I never know nothin' about your business. ...
— The Mission of Janice Day • Helen Beecher Long
... let me go, and I went forth thinking that here was a helpmeet for a soldier in such times as these, and how I gloried in her because she held her love as one with glory. Round to the stable for my horse I stole, and it was very dark, with a soft smother of darkness ...
— The Heart's Highway - A Romance of Virginia in the Seventeeth Century • Mary E. Wilkins
... kind affectionate letter, in which you have rated mine so highly that I really blush to read my own praises. Pray that God would enable me to deserve all the kindness you manifest towards me, and to act consistently with the good opinion you entertain of me—then I shall indeed be a helpmeet for you, and to be this shall at all times be the care and study of my future life. We have had to-day a large party of the Bradford folks—the Rands, Fawcets, Dobsons, etc. My thoughts often strayed from the company, and I would have gladly left ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... desolation of the Lady Sybil, thus deprived of the helpmeet on whom she had leaned so long and loved so well. They buried him in the vaults of the Castle Chapel, which his lady had founded. There his friends and retainers followed him, with tears, to ...
— The House of Walderne - A Tale of the Cloister and the Forest in the Days of the Barons' Wars • A. D. Crake
... wifely submission appear today, the book leaves a strong impression of good sense and of respect as well as love for her. The Menagier does not want his wife to be on a pedestal, like the troubadour's lady, nor licking his shoes like Griselda; he wants a helpmeet, for, as Chaucer said, 'If that wommen were nat goode and hir conseils goode and profitable, oure Lord God of hevene wolde never han wroght hem, ne called hem "help" of man, but rather confusioun of man.'[23] Ecclesiastical ...
— Medieval People • Eileen Edna Power
... nervous, remembering the diabolic uproar about Faith, Hope, and Charity. Mr. Haile was a mild-mannered little man of the saved-sheep type, with box-plaited teeth and a bleating voice. His wife had the worried face and the anxious eyes of the minister's helpmeet, and the painfully ready smile for newcomers who might, or might ...
— A Woman Named Smith • Marie Conway Oemler
... after the regular hours of public school work was over. Since her marriage, Mrs. Dunbar has resided in Washington, and has done some of her best work in short story writing, as well as acting as secretary and general helpmeet for her husband. ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... that former wedding, the work of worldly conventionality, with the present. In the first, an unformed, undeveloped lad, unable to understand his own true feelings and affections had been passively linked to a shallow, frivolous, ill- trained creature, utterly incapable of growing into a helpmeet for him; whereas the love and trust of the stately-looking pair, in the fresh bloom of manhood and womanhood, had been proved in the furnace of trial, so that the troth they plighted had deep foundation for the past, and bright hope for ...
— A Reputed Changeling • Charlotte M. Yonge
... a portfolio, it was to be Home Secretary in the coalition cabinet of Lord Aberdeen (1852-55). He had become the warm friend and admirer of Lord Shaftesbury, whose mother-in-law, Lady Cowper, was now Lady Palmerston, the most gracious and skilful helpmeet that any statesman could wish to have. His inclination and his position enabled him to put through much legislation suggested by the philanthropic peer for the welfare of the working- classes. His knowledge of foreign ...
— Ten Englishmen of the Nineteenth Century • James Richard Joy
... hands the money which he was holding for an authoritative demand. He accepted without open reproach the handsome fee which the elder Hinkle gave him for his services, and even went so far as to say, "If your son should ever be blest with a return to health, he has got a helpmeet such as there are very few of." He then admonished the young couple, in whatever trials life should have in store for them, to be resigned, and always to be prepared for the worst. When he came later to ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... not greatly advanced in years, he had nevertheless endangered his reason through evil courses—his only sign of decent human feeling being his love for his son. The latter was said to resemble his dead mother as one pea may resemble another. What recollections, therefore, of the kind helpmeet of former days may not have moved the breast of the poor broken old man to this boundless affection for the boy? Of naught else could the father ever speak but of his son, and never did he fail to visit him twice a week. To come oftener ...
— Poor Folk • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... of the two words helpmeet and helpmate, meaning exactly the same thing, is a comedy of errors. God's promise to Adam, as rendered in the King James version of the Bible, was to give him an help meet for him (that is, a helper fit for ...
— First Book of Adam and Eve • Rutherford Platt
... old boy, I wish you luck. 'Pon my word, I do. Fancy you engaged! Best thing in the world for you. Never knew what happiness was till I married. A man wants a helpmeet—" ...
— Love Among the Chickens - A Story of the Haps and Mishaps on an English Chicken Farm • P. G. Wodehouse
... Robert Moffat had pursued his course alone. No loving helpmeet had cheered him in his efforts, or with womanly tenderness ministered to his wants. But though far away, he was fondly remembered and earnestly prayed for, especially by one noble Christian lady, over whose ...
— Robert Moffat - The Missionary Hero of Kuruman • David J. Deane
... tub in which the names of the girls are placed. With hands tied behind them the young folks endeavor to extricate the apples with their teeth, and it is alleged that the name appearing upon the slip fastened to the apple is the patronymic of the future helpmeet of the one securing the fruit from ...
— Games For All Occasions • Mary E. Blain
... guests with yet more food, and Platon was given up to yawning. Only in Chichikov was a spice of animation visible. "Yes," he reflected, "some day I, too, will become lord of such a country place." And before his mind's eye there arose also a helpmeet and some ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... Certain it was that no sooner had Andrew McDermot set eyes upon Gabrielle Davenant—sister to that Annabel whom Lord St. John had loved and married—than straightway the visions of his youth, in which he had pictured some staid and modest-seeming Scotswoman as his helpmeet, were swept away by an overwhelming Celtic passion of love and romance of which he had not dreamed ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... as JOE TROTT says, "a helpmeet fine will make"— She never failed to help herself most handsomely to steak; The pudding holds out better now that she is gone away— And it's consolation precious that I've not her ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 15, July 9, 1870 • Various
... morals—they treated woman as a chattel, and said that because she was created after man, she was created solely for man. Too many still are Jews who never called Abraham "Father," while the Jews themselves have long acknowledged woman as man's proper helpmeet. In those days women had few lawful claims and no one to urge them. True, there were Miriam and Esther, but they sang and sacrificed for their people, not for ...
— Pulpit and Press • Mary Baker Eddy
... to his writing, and left everything else to his wife, or to me, or to Scatcherd. She was really a mother to him, as well as a passionately loving and devoted helpmeet. ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... Heaven pre-eminently, and upon earth among men whose right it is to honour me; (38) as a beloved fellow-worker of all craftsmen; a faithful guardian of house and lands, whom the owners bless; a kindly helpmeet of servants; (39) a brave assistant in the labours of peace; an unflinching ally in the deeds of war; a sharer in all friendships indispensable. To my friends is given an enjoyment of meats and drinks, which is sweet in itself and devoid ...
— The Memorabilia - Recollections of Socrates • Xenophon
... there lived an old man who had lost almost the whole of his hair, partly from age, and partly from the friction of his fur cap, which he never laid aside, either by day or night. He had a helpmeet as ancient as himself, but who differed from him in having a hump. Our story, however, does not relate to them, but to a son of theirs, called Timoney, who was a sharp lad enough, but who had learnt nothing but ...
— The Story of Tim • Anonymous
... reason and free will; after his likeness, because of the likeness of virtue, in its degree, to God. Him he endowed with free will and immortality and appointed sovran over everything upon earth; and from man he made woman, to be an helpmeet of ...
— Barlaam and Ioasaph • St. John of Damascus
... been spent, I wish to record the fact that all that I have and all that I have earned in the way both of money and reputation in later years I owe not to myself, but to Mrs. Anson. She has been to me a helpmeet in the truest and best sense of the word, rejoicing with me in the days of my success and sympathizing with me in the ...
— A Ball Player's Career - Being the Personal Experiences and Reminiscensces of Adrian C. Anson • Adrian C. Anson
... the old appeal of the man to the helpmeet God had created for him, and the woman in ...
— One Day - A sequel to 'Three Weeks' • Anonymous
... she went on. "So long as you thought I had lost that precious possession, a lover; had lost the divine privilege of—what is the kind of thing they say? merging my life in another's, becoming the meek and gentle helpmeet of my God-given lord and master—you were very sorry. I could not make it out; it was so unlike what I expected from you. It was so human, so kind, so— yes, so womanlike. But the moment you find it is not a man, but ...
— Geoffrey Strong • Laura E. Richards
... all. But it is not merely disguised by separable clothings, as in Rabelais wholly and in parts of others, or accompanied, as in Swift and others still, by companions not invariably acceptable. It is to a certain extent adulterated, sophisticated, made not so much the helpmeet, or the willing handmaid, of Art as its thrall, almost its butt. I do not know how early criticism, which now seems to have got hold of the fact, noticed the strong connection-contrast between Dickens and Meredith: but it must ...
— The English Novel • George Saintsbury
... broken it over the back of any of the paupers, have you?" asked her husband, who, knowing his helpmeet's infirmity of temper, thought it possible she might have ...
— Paul Prescott's Charge • Horatio Alger
... whom it was thought my lord occasionally cast the eye of partiality, whilst Arthur himself got on very well with her ladyship, who was heard to pronounce him to be, as he was, 'one of the most lively, agreeable fellows.' Out of these materials the Major and his helpmeet concocted a double plot—namely, to make the lord jealous of the steward, and the lady jealous of the governess, and to cause both lord and lady respectively to believe that the steward was deeply engaged both ...
— In the Name of the Bodleian and Other Essays • Augustine Birrell
... possible—from friendship, alliance, or whatever it might be, with Orlando. She knew the law: one wife to one husband; and the wife to look neither to the right nor to the left, to the east nor to the west, to the north nor to the south, but to remain, and be constant in remaining, the helpmeet, the housewife, the sole property of her husband, no matter what that husband might be— vinous, vicious, vagrant, vengeful or any other things, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... So far as little Elsie was concerned, however, he seemed utterly indifferent to her having any cultivation: having imbibed no modern ideas respecting feminine capacities and privileges, but regarding woman, whether in the bud or in the blossom, as the plaything of man's idler moments, and the helpmeet—but in a humble capacity—of his daily life. He sometimes bade her go to the kitchen and take lessons of crusty Hannah in bread- making, sweeping, dusting, washing, the coarser needlework, and such other things as she would require to know when ...
— Doctor Grimshawe's Secret - A Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... After his marriage with this lady Bernardo and his bride retired to a villa which he had purchased at Sorrento, where he enjoyed for several years an exceptional share of domestic felicity, his wife having proved a most devoted helpmeet to him. ...
— Roman Mosaics - Or, Studies in Rome and Its Neighbourhood • Hugh Macmillan
... was a representative citizen. He had "killed his man"—not in his own quarrel, it is true, but in defence of a stranger unfairly beset by numbers. He had kept a sumptuous saloon. He had been the proprietor of a dashing helpmeet whom he could have discarded without the formality of a divorce. He had held a high position in the fire department and been a very Warwick in politics. When he died there was great lamentation throughout the town, but especially in the ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... his wife is with him at the fishing-station. They have also an "olive-branch," which has been left at the other wigwamery—a daughter, who, if she grow up with but the least resemblance to her mother, will be anything but a beauty, Jemmy's "helpmeet" being as ugly as can well be imagined. Withal, she is of a kindly gentle disposition, quite as generous as Ocushlu, and does her best to entertain ...
— The Land of Fire - A Tale of Adventure • Mayne Reid
... female convicts assigned to settlers; nominally as servants, but actually as mates on hire—suppose we call them. One need not say much of this unhappy class; it is only mentioned to show that Thornton could have found no woman to take the place of the beautiful and devoted helpmeet whose constancy to him had survived every trial. No wonder he was ill at ease with the idea of her adventuring back to England alone. But it took a mind as wicked as his to conceive and execute the means by which he prevented it. It seems to have been suggested by ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan |
