"Wifely" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the Princess followed him; Being so bold in wifely purity, So holy by her love; and so ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb
... eager to gratify my lightest wish, she left no wifely duty unfulfilled. Always near me, if I breathed her name, but vanishing when I grew silent, as if her task were done. Always smiling a cheerful farewell when I went, a quiet welcome when I came. I missed the April face that once watched me go, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... picture of her in a tweed skirt and spats and golf-boots, on the brick steps of a Sussex country-house, with the jaw of a bull-dog resting across her knee. It was signed and dated and in a silver frame and every time I'd found myself polishing that oblong of silver I'd done so with a wifely ruffle ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer
... Fausalya, who when they reached a suitable age married by the ceremony of 'choice,' daughters of a branch of the royal family. When the brides arrived at their husbands' family and were disciplined in their wifely duties, King Lobenba, who was growing old, thought the time had arrived for him to make over the royal burden to younger shoulders, and to adopt a hermit's life preliminary to death. So in consultation with the royal fetish-man, a day was appointed ...
— The Great White Queen - A Tale of Treasure and Treason • William Le Queux
... at an unnatural pitch, all day long she exerted herself, as she had not done for weeks and months, to entertain and keep her husband at her side, and all day long her pretty wifely triumph was bright and unbroken. The very servants took a delight in ministering to it, and Madame was not missed in a single item of the household routine. But about midnight there was a great and sudden change. Bells were frantically rung, ...
— A Knight of the Nets • Amelia E. Barr
... company, and scarcely knew if they were Christian or heathen, savage or civilized. And there is the affectation of the maternal passion with women who are never by any chance seen with their children, but who speak of them as if they were never out of their sight; the affectation of wifely adoration with women who are to be met about the world with every man of their acquaintance rather than with their lawful husbands; the affectation of asceticism in women who lead a thoroughly self-enjoying life from end to end; and the affectation of political fervor in those who ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous
... been but one opinion: that when deprived of a rather superior and high-minded wife and the steadying influence of home and children, he would go completely "to the dogs," whither he seemed to be hurrying when Susanna's wifely courage failed. That he had done precisely the opposite and the unexpected thing, shows us perhaps that men are not on the whole as capable of estimating the forces of their fellow men as is God the maker of ...
— Homespun Tales • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... virtues. These last were pronounced. He was thoroughly domesticated. Neither his spiritual, nor his mental, nor his physical needs were of the kind to take him much abroad. He found at home the ease of his body and the peace of his conscience, together with Mrs Verloc's wifely attentions and ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad
... minute, and tease her; she loves her daughter-in-law almost as much as she does her son, and she is happy because he bids fair to be an immortal painter, and, above all, a gentleman; and she, a wifely wife, a motherly mother, and, above ...
— Christie Johnstone • Charles Reade
... into the house, leaving Trenby rather taken aback by her sudden submission. But it pleased him, nevertheless. He liked a woman to be malleable. It seemed, to him a truly womanly quality—certainly a wifely one! Moreover, almost any man experiences a pleasant feeling of complacency when he thinks he has dominated a woman, even over so small a matter as to whether she shall wear an extra coat or not—although he generally fails to guess the origin of that attractive surrender ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... from her dignity and self-respect as a wife. Still, she had restrained herself, and stopped just short of the confidence. He was gone, and she would probably not see him again for years. That was endurable. Indeed, a recognition of the contrary would not have seemed to her consistent with wifely virtue. What brought the tears to her eyes was the vision of continued wedlock, until death intervened, with a husband who could not understand. Could she bear this? Must she endure it? There was but one answer: She must. At the thought she bit her lip with the intensity and sternness of a martyr. ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... possesses strong traits of feminine virtue and wifely fidelity. Philippo has little distinctiveness except in his extreme susceptibility to jealousy—a fault which was exaggerated by the author to set off the opposite qualities of Philomela. The story has no little merit in regard ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman
... in the kitchen was done, Mrs. Sanford came in and sat awhile by the fire with the children, looking very wifely in her dark dress and white apron, her round, smiling face glowing with love and pride-the gloating look of a mother seeing her children in the arms ...
— Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... unsolicited complaints of wives And mothers all unsatisfied with life, While crowned with every blessing earth can give Longing for God knows what to bring content, And openly or with appealing look Asking for sympathy. (The first blind step That leads from wifely honour down to shame, Is ofttimes hid with ...
— Poems of Purpose • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... Steno. She was persuaded, as was entire Rome, that Maud knew of her husband's infidelities, and that she tolerated them by one of those heroic sacrifices which maternity justifies. How many women have immolated thus their wifely pride to maintain the domestic relation which the father shall at least not desert officially! All Rome was mistaken, and Lydia Maitland was to have an unexpected proof. Not a suspicion that such an ...
— Cosmopolis, Complete • Paul Bourget
... political convictions alone which had turned Crystal away from him: he felt that he could have won her love through her submission once she was his wife, now he found that he would have to win her love first and her wifely submission would only ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy
... goat, Nanny goat, tabita; ewe, cow; lioness, tigress; vixen. gynecaeum^. estrogen, oestrogen. consanguinity &c 166 [Female relatives], paternity &c 11. lesbian, dyke [Slang]. V. feminize. Adj. female, she-; feminine, womanly, ladylike, matronly, maidenly, wifely; womanish, effeminate, unmanly; gynecic^, gynaecic^. Pron. she, her, hers.' Phr. a perfect woman nobly planned [Wordsworth]; a lovely lady garmented in white [Shelley]; das Ewig-Weibliche zieht uns hinan ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... demeanour towards Sally to arouse a hint of jealousy; at least there would not have been had Althea been his wife. But she was not yet his wife, and he treated her—this was the fact that the week was driving home—as though she were, and as though with wifely tolerance she perfectly understood his admiring pretty young women who looked like muses and played the violin. She was not yet his wife; this was the fact, she repeated it over her hidden misery, ...
— Franklin Kane • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... worse than ever, and appeared to be in imminent peril of extending his torn mouth into the region of his ear. Diane listened to the horrible suggestion without misgiving, merely remarking in true wifely fashion— ...
— The Night Riders - A Romance of Early Montana • Ridgwell Cullum
... with herself as a wife, and she knew that her husband was pleased with her. Moreover, she had not the slightest intention of permitting anything to interfere with her wifely duties as ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... welcome, in fact, was warm only if he stayed out too late, and then the later the warmer. His relationship to his wife was prosaic, respectful. In his heart of hearts he occasionally thought of her as exceedingly unattractive. In a word Mrs. Tutt performed her wifely functions in a purely matter-of-fact way. Anything else would have seemed to her unseemly. She dressed in a manner that would have been regarded as conservative even on Beacon Hill. She had no intention of making an old fool of herself or of letting him ...
— Tutt and Mr. Tutt • Arthur Train
... ritual of her church; but, all the same, my heart was sore. The glamour of calling her my very own was somewhat obscured by the bridal adornment being shorn. But it made no difference in her sweetness to me. Together we went along the path through the wood, she keeping equal step with me in wifely way. ...
— The Lady of the Shroud • Bram Stoker
... found out that Mrs. Morton never disputed her husband's will, even in trifles; that he ordered the plan of her life as well as his own; that her passionate love for her children was restrained in order that her wifely and social duties should be carried out; that she was so perfectly obedient to him, not from fear, but from an excess of womanly devotion, that she seldom even contested an opinion. My fate was very nearly sealed at that moment, but a hasty impulse prompted me to speak. ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII, No. 355, October 16, 1886 • Various
... having been somewhat put about. "My dear Belviso," I said, "Virginia is liable to impulse, it may be admitted; but she is never likely to forget what wifely duty involves. I was not a cruel husband to her, and left her through no fault of my own. I will answer for her that she will ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett
... utter exclusion of everything and everybody else. Day and night she brooded over them with tireless devotion and anxiety, leaving John to the tender mercies of the help, for an Irish lady now presided over the kitchen department. Being a domestic man, John decidedly missed the wifely attentions he had been accustomed to receive, but as he adored his babies, he cheerfully relinquished his comfort for a time, supposing with masculine ignorance that peace would soon be restored. But three months passed, and there ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... little afraid of her; he had also seen her flushed cheeks at the theatre, and Emmy had grown in his eyes suddenly younger. He could not have imagined her so cordial, so youthful, so interested in everything that met her gaze. Finally, he found her quieter, more amenable, more truly wifely than her sister. It was an important point in Alf's eyes. You had to take into account—if you were a man of common sense—relative circumstances. Devil was all very well in courtship; but mischief in a girl became contrariness in a domestic termagant. ...
— Nocturne • Frank Swinnerton
... of it. You are the very one. You have all the domestic virtues. You are quiet, dignified, obedient. If you have any thoughts or impulses which do not fit into the frame of wifely domesticity, you know how to ...
— King Arthur's Socks and Other Village Plays • Floyd Dell
... the subject, the more vehement Dr. Eben grew, and the feebler grew Hetty's opposition. She could not gainsay his arguments. She had nothing to oppose to them, except her wifely instinct that the old bond and ceremony were by implication desecrated in assuming a second: "But what right have I to fall back on that old bond," thought poor Hetty, wringing her hands as the burden of her long, sad ten ...
— Hetty's Strange History • Anonymous
... Restore the abused thing to its own at once. You will need it when the end of this letter is reached. I have left Kentucky after nine years of stay-at-home happiness, and once again I am on my way to Japan—this time in wifely disobedience to ...
— The Lady and Sada San - A Sequel to The Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little
... life has been a wretched failure. He neglected his children to amass the ways of iniquity, and their coldness and indifference pierce him like poisoned arrows. Marriage has brought him money, but not the sweet, tender ministrations of loving wifely care, and so he lives on starving in the midst of plenty; dying of thirst, with life's ...
— Sowing and Reaping • Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
... said, had no conception of wifely duties and affection. He had a great deal to say on the subject of wifely duty. It was part of her duty as a wife to be entirely satisfied with his society, and to be completely happy in the pleasure it afforded her. It was ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... knight of chivalry Has won his way to your most wifely heart By boasting of his prowess! By my sword! That is a knightly ...
— Under King Constantine • Katrina Trask
... had consented to marry me after a reasonable time should have elapsed since the death of her husband. Part of her dementia was that she had never cared for me, when the truth of the matter was nothing but her wifely loyalty kept her from running away with me, even ...
— Mary Louise and Josie O'Gorman • Emma Speed Sampson
... said he, "methinks thine is the harder part this day. God strengthen thy wifely heart, for God, methinks, shall yet bring him to thine embrace!" So saying, Sir Benedict mounted and rode to the head of his lances, where flew his banner. "Unbar the gates!" he cried. And presently the great gates of Belsaye town swung wide, the portcullis clanked ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol
... dream. In the girl's mind floats a cloud of literary ideals. He is like a "Greek god," a "Galahad," a "Knight of old." He is in some mystic way a Hero, a Master, a Protector. She pictures herself as fulfilling exquisite ideals of wifely devotion, "all in all" to him, and ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... treasures of affection and happiness, for ever behind her, and going forward, in loving hope and trust, no doubt, yet still in uncertainty of what the hidden future held in store for her of weal and woe, to meet her wifely destiny. As she came down into her great hall she was welcomed with fervent acclamations, but for once she was absorbed in herself, and the usual frank, gracious response was not accorded to the tribute. Her eyes were fixed on the ground; "a hurried glance round, ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler
... stronger," said the wife with wifely pride, "Toil I shall not feel nor languor when my lord ...
— Maha-bharata - The Epic of Ancient India Condensed into English Verse • Anonymous
... speech. The rules of the Hunt require one to look up at one's wife—chiefly to find out what she is after and to wonder how long she will inflict herself. And when one is hearing afar the cry of the pack, no true sportsman is diverted from the chase by ruddy, wifely cheeks, and beaming, wifely eyes, and an eager, wifely heart. So when Laura his wife came into the office of the young Judge she found his heart out with the Primrose Hunt and only his handsome figure and his judicial mind accessible to her. "Oh, Tom," she ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... ever so modern, and his wife ever so unruly, is in the nature of things more or less a master, whereas, she realised with a flash of very miserable amusement, she would, if displeased with him, feel less inclined to use wifely diplomacy than to box his ears. Emphatically, she had hopelessly outgrown him. ...
— The Halo • Bettina von Hutten
... then," was the unhesitating response. Not made with interest or feeling; but promptly, as the dictate of wifely duty. ...
— The Hand But Not the Heart - or, The Life-Trials of Jessie Loring • T. S. Arthur
... love one face from out the thousands 100 (Were she Jethro's daughter, white and wifely, Were she but the Ethiopian bondslave), He would envy yon dumb patient camel, Keeping a reserve of scanty water Meant to save his own life in the desert; 105 Ready in the desert to deliver (Kneeling down to let his breast be opened) Hoard and life ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... his claim toward the payment—a transaction which made Flaxen laugh for joy, for she had not felt certain before that he would remain in St. Peter. She was getting about the house now, looking very wifely in her long, warm wraps, her slow motions contrasting strongly with the old restless, springing steps Anson remembered ...
— A Little Norsk; Or, Ol' Pap's Flaxen • Hamlin Garland
... attractions, she understood the art of dressing herself; her gowns always fitted her to perfection. She was always attired suitably, and though vanity and self-consciousness were not her natural foibles, she had a feminine love of pretty things, and considered it a wifely duty to please the eyes of her lord ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... the duty of being married in one's own parish-church. She told me at the time that she entirely agreed with me, but that her husband had such a strong wish for a visit to London, that she did not know how she could oppose him consistently with her wifely duty. I advised her to repeat to him my reasons for thinking that they would be ill-advised to have the marriage in town; but I am afraid she has been overruled. That was her one great fault when she lived with us; she was always ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... like these, or as bravely busy herself to fix them up. She knows that the stay is indefinite, that it may be for six months, or possibly six years, but that matters not. It is her army home—Brass Button's home—and however discouraging its condition may be, for his sake she pluckily, and with wifely pride, performs miracles, always making ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... eying Rachael hopefully for a wifely denial. As this was not forthcoming, she went on briskly: "However, my dear, Clarence isn't the only one! They say Fred Bowditch is actually"—her voice sank to a discreet undertone as she added the word—"violent; and poor Lucy Pickering needed a rest cure the moment she got her divorce, she ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... "but Mr. Piper—" and "Must you really, dear?" said Mrs. Severance in the softest tones of conventional wifely reproach. ...
— Young People's Pride • Stephen Vincent Benet
... take measure by his back of my apparel as appoint what wife I shall have by his mind.' He prefers in a wife 'beauty before riches, and virtue before blood.' He holds to the radical English doctrine of wifely submission; there is no swerving from the position that the man is the woman's 'earthly master,'[2] but in taming a wife no violence is to be employed. Wives are to be subdued with kindness. 'If their husbands ...
— The Bibliotaph - and Other People • Leon H. Vincent
... aback, gained time for a reply by pouring Sansome another drink, "He's more sense left than I thought," he said to himself; and aloud: "All you want is to get her out to Jake's. She'll go simply as a matter of wifely duty, and all that. Don't worry. Once she's there, it's your affair; and unless I mistake my man, I believe you'll know how to manage the situation"—he winked slyly—"she's really mad about you, but, like most women, she's hemmed in by convention. Boldly break through the convention, ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White
... of Deacon Palmer that fell on Tom's ear, and which he now heard for the hundredth time. Year in and out, at morning and night, the good man had sung this, his favorite song,—bachelor though he was, with silver-streaked hair,—as if his heart yearned for the wifely waiting, and the sweet home-joys it pictured. Why were they not his? Do all have their longings for something brighter and better than the present brings? something for which they must wait and wait, and perchance ...
— The Cabin on the Prairie • C. H. (Charles Henry) Pearson
... you know you are wrong, Gottley," Mr. Caldwell chimed in, and then he proceeded to argue the question. The old doctor, being in a hurry, said little in reply, and when he had gone Mrs. Caldwell exclaimed, with wifely tact— ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... them. But he did not desire that she should go on despising them, any more than he desired that her indifference should survive the marriage ceremony. He pictured with satisfaction her gradual yielding to the modest luxury he had to offer her, just as he pictured the exquisite delaying dawn of her wifely ardour. ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... Orphic myth, for though the alloy only serves to heighten the sheen of Eurydice's virtue, there is yet a grossness in the story of Aristaeus's unlicensed passion which led to her death, that strongly differentiates it from the modern tale of wifely love and devotion. Beethoven was no ascetic, but he was as sincere and severe a moralist in life as he was in art. In that most melancholy of human documents, written at Heiligenstadt in October, 1802, commonly known ...
— A Book of Operas - Their Histories, Their Plots, and Their Music • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... brilliant," returned Mrs. Bradley, indifferently, and with more than even conventionally polite wifely deprecation; "I ...
— A Phyllis of the Sierras • Bret Harte
... flowers, and make a parade of happiness in a countenance wan with secret torture. And with this sense of responsibility for the honor of both, with the magnificent immolation of self, the young Marquise unconsciously acquired a wifely dignity, a consciousness of virtue which became her ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Honore de Balzac
... these masked approaches. She did not see them, in fact. She thought him sympathetic—the first expressively sympathetic person she had ever met. She was so innocent that she could not understand the fury of the German woman. For, as you may imagine, the wifely penetration was not to be deceived for any great length of time—the more so that the wife was older than the husband. The man with the peculiar cowardice of respectability never said a word in Flora's defence. He stood by and heard her reviled in the most abusive terms, only nodding and ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... had seemed to begin by bracing herself to stand against him, now seemed to have braced herself to stand with him—perhaps a more commendable wifely attitude. I mean that the discipline incident to a life of success which was not without its rigors had become to her almost a second nature. The order of the day was cooeperation, team-work; in the grand advance she was no straggler, ...
— On the Stairs • Henry B. Fuller
... that she is neglectful of the cares and insensible to the loveliness of domestic life; and as I remembered her, I felt as I ever feel, that there is not a woman who, as a representative of my own sex, I would sooner show to the world as the embodiment of all domestic beauty and wifely care and motherly fidelity. I only wish that they and you might know her as I know her. I only wish that you might see in her, as I see in her, the very best possible illustration of the power of guiding and ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... of paradise lost, clings about the home. Its purity, its innocence, its virtue, are there, untainted by sin, unclouded by guile. There woman shines, scarcely dimmed by the fall, reflecting the loveliness of Eden's first wife and mother; the grace, the beauty, the sweetness of the wifely relation, the tenderness of maternal affection, the graciousness of manner which once charmed angel guests, ...
— Gov. Bob. Taylor's Tales • Robert L. Taylor
... rather aesthetic attire, but it is becoming, and she is brimful of delight, though she wishes Floyd were here to see. She has a misgiving that he does not mean to rate Jasper Wilmarth very highly, and her wifely devotion resents it, for she is devoted. Jasper Wilmarth is both pleased and interested in the puppet he can move hither and thither to his liking, and occasionally to his service. He is gratified to see her party a success, though somewhat annoyed at ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... shook her head. She even forced a stiff smile. "No," she lied with an effort of fulfilment for her first wifely duty. "It was just what Mary thought. A message about my marriage. I must ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... fame," as he himself wrote General Washington. Though Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Morris differed so widely respecting the Marquis's genius, Mr. Morris still clung to his opinion, so that Madame de Lafayette, with wifely jealousy and feminine intuition, perceiving something of his mental attitude toward her husband, received him but coldly when he called with Calvert to pay his respects at the hotel on the Quai du Louvre. So marked was the disapproval of her manner, that Mr. Morris, being both amused and annoyed, ...
— Calvert of Strathore • Carter Goodloe
... gentle title so long as he does gentle deeds. Respect the man that defines nobility in a new way, which you cannot understand. With him nobility is not a series of descents from father to son; he laughs at pedigrees, in which no account is taken of the impure blood introduced by wifely infidelities; he defines a nobleman as one who does noble deeds, who neither lies nor cheats, who prefers his honour ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... this house-wifely ambition. She flounced and muttered when other hands than her own were laid upon her icebox. She turned on rushing faucets, rattled dishes in her pan. Yet Mrs. Salisbury felt that she must personally superintend these matters, because Lizzie was so wasteful. The girl had not been three months ...
— The Treasure • Kathleen Norris
... for that matter. No sooner was her beloved Chester out of sight over the hill a mile away, than Mrs. Kate dried her wifely tears and laid hold of her scepter with a firmness that amused Ford exceedingly. She ordered Dick up to work in the depressed-looking area before the house, which she called her flower garden, a task which Dick seemed perfectly willing to perform, by the way—although ...
— The Uphill Climb • B. M. Bower
... period were effeminate and emotional, the women seem to have sunk to a lower stage of morals than in any other era, and sexual morality and wifely fidelity to have been abnormally bad and lightly esteemed. The story of Ariwara Narihira, prince, poet, painter and Don Juan, and of Taka and her rise to power (see p. 238) has already been told; and it ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... is still something troubling your mind, Lamberto. See, I already take the wifely privilege you have given me to wish to share all that annoys you. What is it? Come and sit by me here on the sofa, and tell ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... enemy might be, Mr. Johnstone was the phylactery. She herself could give no grounds for her conviction beyond his wife's anxiety for his health and well-being. I myself never observed it in a woman, and if I had, should have set it down to ordinary wifely concern. But Kirstie assures me, first, that it was not ordinary, and, secondly, that it was not at all wifely—that Mrs. Johnstone's care of her husband had less of the ministering unselfishness of a woman in love than of the eager concern of a ...
— Two Sides of the Face - Midwinter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... disgusting. It is so disgraceful for a women to be anything more than just simply a wife to this sort of Adolphe, that a certain Caroline had long ago insisted upon the suppression of the modern thee and thou and all other insignia of the wifely dignity. Society had been for five or six years accustomed to this sort of thing, and supposed Madame and Monsieur completely separated, and all the more so as it had noticed the accession of ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... a poet's wife is to inspire him. When she ceases to do that—but that is a consideration which need not occupy us in this unsophisticated story. We have already seen that Angelica in this respect early began her wifely duties towards Henry; and that little song he read in chapter twenty-five was but one of many he had written to her in his capacity of ...
— Young Lives • Richard Le Gallienne
... Roman history the matron was celebrated for her virtues—fidelity to her husband, love for her children, and queenly guardianship of the sacred precincts of the home. The name of the Roman matron became a synonym of all that is noble, wifely, and motherly in the home. Without doubt the character had sadly deteriorated at the period of which we write, but there still remained with many the lofty ideals which had been fostered in ...
— History of Education • Levi Seeley
... she had left his matrimonial future largely to his father. Frequently her conscience smote her for her neglect of old Hector, but she smoothed it by promising herself to devote more time to him, more study to his masculine needs for wifely devotion, as soon as Elizabeth and Jane should ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne
... their rhymed octosyllabic verse—the special dramatic form—at times borders upon prose. One drama, and only one, of the fourteenth century, chooses another heroine than our Lady—the Histoire de Griselidis, which presents, with pathos and intermingling mirth, those marvels of wifely patience celebrated for other lands by Boccaccio, ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden
... down even as heavily as they listed. There were times when I loathed myself. What had I to do? Nought but to endure terror and scorn and bring forth daughters into the world. My daughters! God forgive me if I have had no mother's heart towards them. My wifely duties were as serfdom to me; how then could I love my daughters? Oh, how different with my son! He was the child of my very soul. He was the one thing that brought to mind the time when I was a woman and nought but a woman—and him they had taken from me! ...
— Henrik Ibsen's Prose Dramas Vol III. • Henrik Ibsen
... balcony. A cigar smouldered in his stumpy red fingers. She had slipped a hand under his arm, as she would always do the moment they came near each other. She never looked more wasted and old-maidish than when thus affirming her wifely rights. But her ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... only suppose that she rose to eminence through local conditions unknown to us. The most interesting point about her is that she came to be the representative of the respectable Greek matron, jealous of her wifely rights, holding herself aloof from love affairs, a home person, entitled to respect for the decency of her life, but without ...
— Introduction to the History of Religions - Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IV • Crawford Howell Toy
... or whether thou hast come for accomplishing the object of some other king (that is hostile to me). One should never appear deceitfully before a king; nor before a Brahmana; nor before one's wife when that wife is possessed of every wifely virtue. Those who appear in deceitful guise before these three very soon meet with destruction. The power of kings consists in their sovereignty. The power of Brahmanas conversant with the Vedas is in the Vedas. Women wield a high power in consequence ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... It was wifely but not right in Catherine to repeat this strict confidence in strictest confidence to her neighbor, Mrs. Bainbridge, over the fence next morning before breakfast. At breakfast Mrs. Bainbridge spoke of ...
— The Jimmyjohn Boss and Other Stories • Owen Wister
... such a terrible experience! You have been ill, too, have you not, my dearest one? Oh, how thin and pale you are, but just as handsome as ever!" and she clasped him close in a warm embrace, and showered fond, wifely kisses on ...
— Dainty's Cruel Rivals - The Fatal Birthday • Mrs. Alex McVeigh Miller
... was neither surprised nor insulted. On the contrary, the smile on his face was as though he had received a compliment. These wifely animadversions, probably oft-heard, by no means interfered with ...
— Best Russian Short Stories • Various
... deserve a better fate than is assigned to them by Hindu and Mohammadan custom. They are kept in leading-strings from the cradle to the grave; their intellect is rarely cultivated, their affections suffer atrophy from constant repression. Yet Mr. Banerjea draws more than one picture of wifely devotion, and the instinctive good sense which is one of the secrets of feminine influence. Women seldom fail to rise to the occasion when opportunity is vouchsafed them. The late Maharani Surnomoyi of Cossimbazar ...
— Tales of Bengal • S. B. Banerjea
... curls, shake out her rumpled draperies, and rise from an instant's searching of the Scriptures with features expressive of the very acme of Christian peace and benediction. "Mrs. General" was a pet-name the lady had won from a wifely and lovable trait that prompted her to aggrandize her placid lord above his deserts. Him she ever addressed (in public), and of him she ever spoke, as "the general," irrespective of the fact that the rank was one he never had or never would attain, even by brevet, ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... opulence of womanly character or such splendor of womanly manners or multitudinous instances of wifely, motherly, daughterly, sisterly devotion, as it owns to-day. I have not words to express my admiration for good womanhood. Woman is not only man's equal, but in affectional and religious nature, which is the best part of ...
— The Wedding Ring - A Series of Discourses for Husbands and Wives and Those - Contemplating Matrimony • T. De Witt Talmage
... 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 station of ...
— Ulysses S. Grant • Walter Allen
... placed here, sir?" Count Lenkenstein inquired of Wilfrid. But Wilfrid's attention was frozen by the sight of Vittoria's lover. A wifely call of "Adalbert" from above quieted ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... seeking the love of a man, not the care of a child. She had the wifely passion, but not the mother's love. He was silent; ...
— Other Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... it has always been comical, even when I didn't feel well myself, to see the husbands come into the club after a big night; each wearing upon his face, as plainly as if they had been physical scratches, the marks of the wifely tears which he had been forced to witness, and of the reproaches which he had been forced to hear, and yet each trying to look as if he was the master of his own house and his own destiny. No well-born ...
— We Three • Gouverneur Morris
... never expressed her feelings with any vivacity. She was kind and generous, simple and astute at the same time; her gayety was gentle, her wit without malice. Though well-informed, she made no parade of her acquirements, fearing to be accused of pedantry. Her wifely devotion had won the Emperor's affection, and her unfailing gentleness had attracted all his friends. In this estimate I am confirmed by my recollections, and I am not inspired by any partiality, by what has happened, or by any present ...
— The Happy Days of the Empress Marie Louise • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... Parthenia is sister of Agnei'a (3 syl.), or wifely chastity, the spouse of Encra't[^e]s, or temperance. Her attendant is Er'ythre, or modesty. (Greek, parth[)e]nia, "maidenhood.")—Phineas Fletcher, The ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... have none, or a great name, or a high position. You had none of these things. So I came to the rescue.' And that there might be no mistake about it, that he might not attribute what she said only to the exasperation of a woman wounded and humiliated in her wifely pride and her blind maternal devotion, she recalled the details of his election, and reminded him of his famous remark about Madame Astier's veils that smelt of tobacco, though he never smoked, 'a remark, my dear, that has done more to make you notorious than ...
— The Immortal - Or, One Of The "Forty." (L'immortel) - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... him she showed him with no reservation or affectation of feminine delicacy. She despised such false sentiments. The consequence is, that her letters contain the unreserved expression of her feelings. Those written before she had cause to doubt her lover are full of wifely devotion and tenderness; those written from the time she was forced to question his sincerity, through the gradual realization of his faithlessness, until the bitter end, are the most pathetic and heart-rending that have ever been given ...
— Mary Wollstonecraft • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... longed for? During all these seven years have I not been bewailing my bachelorhood, and wishing for an Ethel to cheer my solitary fireside with her gracious presence, to be interested in my work and hopes, to interest me in her wifely and maternal ways and aspirations? And when at last all these things were offered me, why did I shrink back ...
— David Poindexter's Disappearance and Other Tales • Julian Hawthorne
... contracted as you may deem said camp to be, Wolfville itse'f offers plenty proof on this head. Thar's Dave Tutt: Whatever is Dave, I'd like for to inquire, prior to Tucson Jennie runnin' her wifely brand on to him an' redoocin' him to domesticity? No, thar's nothin' so evil about Dave neither, an' yet he has his little ways. For one thing, Dave's about as extemporaneous a prop'sition as ever sets in a saddle, an' thar's times when you give Dave licker an' convince ...
— Wolfville Nights • Alfred Lewis
... old to feel charmed and touched by the compliment. And he was not a thoughtless or churlish husband; he knew how to repay such a wifely compliment, and it was a pleasant sight to see the aged companions standing hand in hand before the handsome suits which Dolores had spread out for her ...
— Remember the Alamo • Amelia E. Barr
... Eleanor Owen is at liberty to follow her own inclinations as she may see fit; she is to remain free of any and all responsibilities and restrictions such as customarily attach to the supervision of a household, excepting as she may elect to exercise her wifely prerogatives; being absolutely free to pursue whatsoever occupation or devices she may desire or choose, the same as if she were ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... distinctly from another picture of her, not asleep. In that one a prince of England has sent to ask her in marriage: and her father, little liking to part with her, sends for her to his room to ask her what she would do. He sits, moody and sorrowful; she, standing before him in a plain house-wifely dress, talks quietly, going on with her needlework all ...
— Great Pictures, As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Esther Singleton
... circumspect and eager, or at least thought he was, those around the pair were soon well informed; that is, with the exception of the most interested—O'Iwa and Kwaiba. The marked neglect which now ensued O'Iwa took in wifely fashion; and attributing it to some passing attraction of Shinjuku Nakacho[u], she did not take it to heart as she would have done if a concubine had been at issue. As for Kwaiba, the usually astute and prying old man was so immersed in his go as to be struck blind, deaf, and dumb. ...
— The Yotsuya Kwaidan or O'Iwa Inari - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 1 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... of course he won't until he's had enough of your beauty. That's all he wants, your beauty—and you'll be fool enough to let him have it FOR NOTHING. I'm sure I wish you joy with the selfish wretch and with your new- fangled ideas of wifely devotion. This will kill Peter. You'll have his death on your conscience. Think that over, now that you're so fond of thinking. Ten thousand dollars right now would save his life. Think that over, too, when your own father is dead ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach
... be your first wifely undertaking to cure me?" he said, laughing.—"It takes time to put thoughts into action," said Faith, blushing.—"Not ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner
... old-fashioned expression of wifely pride and womanly tenderness in the fine old lady, who forgot her own gifts, and felt only humility and gratitude to the man who had found in her a comrade in intellectual pursuits, as well as a helpmeet at home and a gentle ...
— A Garland for Girls • Louisa May Alcott
... girl next takes the word, addressing himself mostly to the bride. Now that she is united to the man of her choice, she should always comply with her wifely duties. She must make blankets for her husband, and be industrious, make tesvino and iskiate, pinole, tortillas, gather herbs, etc., that her husband may always have something to eat and not go hungry. He names all the herbs singly. She must also help him, in her way, with the ploughing ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz
... openly over Trampy. She acted to perfection the part of the little lady who takes up the bike again just for fun—as in the time of her "French governess"—or rather of a dear little thing wholly wrapped up now in her wifely duty: her poor husband ill, she herself needing exercise, just ...
— The Bill-Toppers • Andre Castaigne
... man was in some great trouble, unknown to her, and she longed to be able to comfort him. Into the maiden's tender and ardent affection stole the wifely wish to console and the motherly impulse to protect her dear one from pain, which are strong elements ...
— An Ambitious Man • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... PLAPPER, as her husband is out. She has taken me in! Charming rooms—not actually facing the sea, but with capital view of it round corner from bow-window. PLAPPER is an optician—wonder whether it is weak eyes, or wifely duty, that makes Mrs. P. wear blue spectacles? Everything arranged—terms most reasonable—now to recover luggage. Stop; better ask address—or I might never be able to find my optician again—like Mrs. Barrett Browning and her lost Bower! ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 93, September 3, 1887 • Various
... full dress. Far pleasanter to imagine Jane Welsh, coming home from a rout, slipping a gay dressing-gown over a satin petticoat, and gossiping till the fire burnt low. What is more, before she had the privilege of "doing for" a great man with a Scotch sense of economy and a peasant's notion of wifely duties, she may often have so gossiped. The fact is, Carlyle, in his most playful moments, kept one eye on "the eternities," and Jane, in her most solemn, never lost sight of the ...
— Pot-Boilers • Clive Bell
... making a fair copy for the printer. Borrow's subsequent remark that the manuscript "was written by a country amanuensis and probably contains many ridiculous errata," was scarcely gracious to the wife, who seems to have comprehended so well the first principle of wifely duty to an illustrious and, it must be admitted, autocratic ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins
... not Ministers and ex-M.P.'s, A Knight, a Baronet, a Brigadier? Is it not wonderful to be with these, To watch, and after in the wifely ear Whisper, "This morning I exchanged some words With old Sir Somebody, who thought of Tanks; I saw the Chairman of the Board of Birds; I said, 'How are you?' and ...
— Punch, Volume 156, January 22, 1919. • Various
... a table, mending, the image of tranquillity and soft resignation. A pile of children's garments lay by her side, but the article in her busy hands appeared to be an under-shirt of his own. None but she ever reinforced the buttons on his linen. Such was her wifely rule, and he considered that there was no sense in it. She was working by the light of a single lamp on the table, the splendid chandelier being out of action. Her economy in the use of electricity was incurable, and he considered that there was ...
— The Regent • E. Arnold Bennett
... from Dorothy. With a wifely experience of many years to guide her, she did not ask Mr. Harley why he had gone to furious war with Storri. Mrs. Hanway-Harley would not put the query for two reasons: Mr. Harley would prevaricate; besides, Mrs. Hanway-Harley ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... period—obedience to him who would so gladly have obeyed her smallest wish had she but expressed it! She never knew that Philip had any painful association with the particular point on the sea-shore that she instinctively avoided, both from a consciousness of wifely duty, and also because the sight of it brought up so ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. III • Elizabeth Gaskell
... an heap of stones (Although they were the wonder of that age) A worthless grave, wherein to rest the bones Of her dear lord, but with bold courage She drank his heart, and made her lovely breast His tomb, and failed not of wifely faith, Of promis'd love and of her bound behest, Until she ended had her days by death. Ulysses' wife (such was her steadfastness) Abode his slow return whole twenty years: And spent her youthful days in pensiveness, Bathing her widow's bed with ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VII (4th edition) • Various
... way she manged that Rollins affair was proof poz of her ability. Her cool assumption of wifely dignity—her actually bringing them up to see me without announcing their coming to me, and never letting them have one bout at me, was beyond anything! It's like a dip in the sea to recall it all. Her breezy ...
— Not Pretty, But Precious • John Hay, et al.
... are all summed up in the eloquent tribute to motherhood in the words of King Lemuel in the last chapter of the Book of Proverbs. It must be remembered, however, that such ideals did not belong to the Jews alone, that Plutarch shows many pictures of maternal fidelity and wifely devotion, that Greek and Roman history have their ...
— Religious Education in the Family • Henry F. Cope
... defensive armour on in a twinkling. "Of course, you two men will be against me. When did two men ever disagree upon the subject of wifely duties? However, I shall read in spite of you. Do you know, Mr. North, that when I married I made a special agreement with Captain Frere that I was not to be asked to ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... with Hester Santlow leaping into the affections of the actor, and finally marrying him according to the law of the land. She loved the great man tenderly, ministered to his wants with a wifely devotion which would hardly suit the "New Woman," and when he was wont to eat too much (for he had given up the flowing bowl[A] and must cultivate some other species of gluttony), the ex-dancer ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... henceforward into the young woman's dull life there came a little change. It did not seem a little change to her, but a great one, though to others it would have seemed slight indeed. She was an affectionate, house-wifely creature, who would have made the best of wives and mothers if it had been so ordained by Fortune, and something of her natural instincts found outlet in the furtive service she paid her sister, who became the empress ...
— A Lady of Quality • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... bearded Dublin tourist on her left was but little behind her in the ardour of giving information. His wife, a beautifully dressed lady with cotton-wool in her ears, remained abstracted, whether from toothache, or exclusiveness, or mere wifely boredom, we cannot say. Among the swift shuttles of Irish speech the ponderous questions and pronouncements of an English fisherman drove their way. The talk was, we gathered, of sport and game laws ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross
... toilful scholar life was his tender friendship with the gifted English woman, A. Mary F. Robinson. Attracted by her lovely verse, the intellectual companionship ripened into love, and for his half-dozen final years he enjoyed her wifely aid and sympathy in what seems to have been an ideal union. The end, when it came, was quick and painless. Always of a frail constitution, stunted in body from childhood, he died in harness, October 19th, ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... with a proper touch of wifely irritation at his levity. "I've had a bit o' company an' it's chirked me up summat. That little lass o' th' owd Parson has been ...
— That Lass O' Lowrie's - 1877 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... in passion, one to be chosen for a sister rather than a wife. Something in us—instinct or tradition—will have it that the well-developed woman is richest in the purely womanly qualities—the wifely and maternal feelings. The luxuriant types that abound most in Devonshire are not ...
— Afoot in England • W.H. Hudson
... keep all dainty bits for himself, leaving the scraps for his devoted mate, who would wait meekly to eat what he chose to leave. She made up for this wifely self-abnegation by frequenting the hen houses. She would watch patiently by the side of a hen on her nest, and as soon as an egg was deposited, would remove it for her luncheon. She liked raw eggs, and ...
— Adopting An Abandoned Farm • Kate Sanborn
... her present ideal of wifely submission to husband in all matters that concerned his "career," but she let him plainly perceive that in saying this she was merely putting the responsibility of their lives wholly upon his shoulders, as ...
— One Woman's Life • Robert Herrick
... bearings, Lady Harman," he said, speaking with much intensity in a low earnest voice. "You don't seem to be remembering where you are. You come and you tell me you're going to do this and that. Don't you know, Lady Harman, that it's your wifely duty to obey, to do as I say, to behave as I wish?" He brought out a lean index finger to emphasize his remarks. "And I am going to make you do it!" ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... repute." Autobiography of Sir John Bramston, p. 29. To whom the report was nominally addressed is not clear, but it was intended indirectly for the enlightenment of Prince George of Denmark, consort of Queen Anne, whose wifely partiality had in May of this year raised him to the office of Lord High Admiral. As such, he nominally presided over the High Court of Admiralty; finding the need of having its activities supplemented by additional ...
— Privateering and Piracy in the Colonial Period - Illustrative Documents • Various
... wifely chastity, sister of Parthen'ia or maiden chastity. Agneia is the spouse of Encra'tes or temperance. Fully described in canto x. of The Purple Island, by Phineas Fletcher ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... time Mr. Gladstone had got to the Bill, he had exhausted a good deal of his stock of voice, and yet he seemed to be less dependent than usual on the mysterious compound which Mrs. Gladstone mixes with her own wifely hand for those solemn occasions. It appeared that both she and her husband had somewhat dreaded the ordeal. The bottle which Mr. Gladstone usually brings with him is about the size of those small, stunted little jars in which, in the ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor
... by night, and the dead king, from the golden urn on the very summit of the altar, holding his court with the same pomp and parade as during his life. A more affecting ceremony is the coming at noon and eve of the crowds of beautiful women, not yet absolved from their wifely vows, to converse with their loved and lamented lord, and the depositing of letters and petitions in the great golden basket at the foot of the mausoleum, with the confident expectation that these loving ...
— Lippincott's Magazine. Vol. XII, No. 33. December, 1873. • Various
... requisitions are all the false efforts of a mind accustomed only hitherto to the shadows of the imagination, vivid enough to throw the every-day substances of life into shadow, but never as yet brought into direct contact with their own correspondent realities. She evinces no womanly life, no wifely joy, at the return of her husband, no pleased terror at the thought of his past dangers, whilst Macbeth bursts ...
— Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher • S. T. Coleridge
... Parvati is given in marriage.—While Parvati departs to inform her father of what has happened, Shiva summons the seven sages, who are to make the formal proposal of marriage to the bride's parents. The seven sages appear, flying through the air, and with them Arundhati, the heavenly model of wifely faith and devotion. On seeing her, Shiva feels his eagerness for marriage increase, ...
— Translations of Shakuntala and Other Works • Kaalidaasa
... understood, in her own case, as prompted by her unconquerable wifely love. It is this which points ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson
... developments, and the tendency to view a woman less as a self-disposing individual than as an object of barter belonging to her father, the consequent rigidity of the marriage bond and the stern insistence on wifely fidelity—all these conditions of developing civilisation, while still leaving courtship possible, diminished its significance and even abolished its necessity. Moreover, on the basis of the social, economic, and legal developments thus established, new moral, ...
— Little Essays of Love and Virtue • Havelock Ellis
... BRUNHILDA (q. v.), who could only be won by one who surpassed her in three trials of skill and strength; by the help of Siegfried, who veiled himself in a cloak of darkness, he succeeded not only in winning her hand, but in reducing her to wifely subjection after she ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... to consider their husbands as their lords, in the feudal meaning of the term—it was held a moral obligation to perform jigai, by way of protest, against disgraceful behaviour upon the part of a husband who would not listen to advice or reproof. The ideal of wifely duty which impelled such sacrifice still survives; and more than one recent example might be cited of a generous life thus laid down in rebuke of some moral wrong. Perhaps the most touching instance occurred in 1892, at the time of the district elections ...
— Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation • Lafcadio Hearn
... knew him well enough; knew him incapable of love apart from passion, and that to him there was no sacredness in maiden chastity or wifely vows. So he but gained his end he cared no whit what followed after; ruin, broken hearts, lost souls, a man slain now and then to keep the scale from tipping—all were as one to him, or to the Francis Falconnet ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... and through the window at the trees just shimmering into green and the skyey intervals over them. This was the pictured landscape she had worked on, framed by these wide, low windows, for all the years she had lived here, doing her wifely duties soberly, and her motherly ones with a ...
— Country Neighbors • Alice Brown
... that persons prouder and more reticent might properly avoid; besides, the domestic habits of the south admit of very close relationship between the mistress and her servants, unknown to other regions even of our own country. I could only smile an answer to this wifely enthusiasm, but it seemed to me genuine and so sincere, that all my sympathy went with it. As for the maid, she lay perfectly still, listening, and apparently half asleep, for she had gathered the bed clothes around ...
— Mabel's Mistake • Ann S. Stephens
... bachelor, and extremely untidy, his den, as he called it, was in a state of pleasing muddle, which oftentimes drew forth rebukes from Lucy. She was resolved to train her Harry into better ways when she had the wifely right to correct him, but, as she frequently remarked, it would be the thirteenth labour of Hercules to cleanse ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... that she should feel a little wifely jealousy at having his sister forced in, even to their closest confidence; her face was overclouded for an instant, but she subdued the ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens
... moral sense was uppermost. He was governed by impulse and she by fixed moral and religious principles. He drank and she abhorred the habit. She tried first moral suasion to induce him to abandon the habit, and once, in a moment of wifely and motherly indignation, she broke up one of his drinking parties in her house by trying the efficacy of a little physical suasion. She turned the company out of doors and smashed the bottles of liquor. This was not the kind of woman whom Abijah cared to live with as a wife. ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke
... kiss her husband—a sisterly rather than a wifely kiss. And she said, in a sweet, ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett
... Edith that her husband was nervous and irritable, and with wifely protective instinct she attributed his condition to overwork. She did not take up the challenge which he in a manner flung down. She seldom argued with him now; she cast about in her mind for a safe topic of conversation, and, by ill-luck, hit ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates
... reminded of the way in which, in our frequent absence from home and children, wifely letters have cheered and interested us, depicting with motherly tenderness the gifts the children had brought her on her birthday, or other occasion, with a fulness of detail that showed alike the pleasure of the writer and her consciousness of the enjoyment with which the account would be read. ...
— Separation and Service - or Thoughts on Numbers VI, VII. • James Hudson Taylor
... fragrant memories of those memorable days. The dramatic framework of "Fidelio" is weak, its construction faulty. Only one ethical idea is presented in it with real vividness, but it is an idea which is peculiarly dear to the German heart—the saving power of woman's love. "Fidelio" is a tale of wifely devotion, and Beethoven bent all his energies to a glorification of his heroine's love and fidelity. To represent the character faithfully has been the highest ambition of German singers for a century. ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... Bride. The sweet girl was bewitching, gentle, and innocent, bright, and very young, and that chivalrous and tender soul that honoured her with his devotion a prematurely bent and aged man of more than forty summers. Her wifely affections were early destined for another heart. From the beginning, come what may, she could never be Oliver Goldsmith's wife. The Jessamy Bride was a pure and lovely spirit. No poet was ever moved in reverence for a fairer personification of ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • E. S. Lang Buckland
... the case of most of them amounts merely to the liberty to groan in print and to cry aloud in women's convocations. If the yoke is easier upon the wifely neck in 1896 than it was in 1846, it is because women know more of business methods, and are more competent to the management of money than they knew fifty years ago, and some husbands, appreciating the change for the better, are willing to commit funds to their keeping. The ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... exciting occasions, oaths were not spared. The two immediate grandmothers were, in the best sense, superior women. The maternal one (Amy Williams before marriage) was a Friend, or Quakeress, of sweet, sensible character, house-wifely proclivities, and deeply intuitive and spiritual. The other (Hannah Brush,) was an equally noble, perhaps stronger character, lived to be very old, had quite a family of sons, was a natural lady, was in early life a school-mistress, and had great solidity of mind. W. ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... character, and on that milkiness of nature, which she fears "may impede him from the golden round," there is no indication of female scorn: there is exceeding pride, but no egotism in the sentiment or the expression;—no want of wifely and womanly respect and love for him, but on the contrary, a sort of unconsciousness of her own mental superiority, which she betrays rather than asserts, as interesting in itself as it is most admirably ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... of the week, or humility had shown more prominently among her mother's virtues, the kirk would have been saved a painful scandal, and Sandy Whamond might have retained his eldership. Yet it was a foolish but wifely pride in her husband's official position that turned Bell Dundas' head—a wild ambition to beat ...
— Auld Licht Idyls • J.M. Barrie
... "sit," but to us, who are wont to call that a "well-developed form" which would seem to adapt its owner to do something in life, rather than to sit an existence through, their physiques would indicate more vigorous health than those of the "grave Turk's wifely crowd," which Dr. Clarke wished he could marry to the "brain-culture" of our women. Their faces were still "rich with the blood and sun of the East," and I should pity the American who could find a loss in the exchange of the "unintelligent, sensuous ...
— The Education of American Girls • Anna Callender Brackett |
