"Helpmeet" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of speculation and going ahead. Charles Norman held a government situation, with a small but yearly increasing salary; his residence was at Pentonville; and his domestic circle comprised, besides his good, meek helpmeet, two little children, and an only sister, some years Charles's junior: indeed, Bab Norman had not very long quitted the boarding-school. Bab and Charles were orphans, and had no near relatives in the world; therefore Bab came home to live ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 441 - Volume 17, New Series, June 12, 1852 • Various
... clay. He sends his swift-winged messenger forth to summon before his throne every fowl of the air and every beast of the field. Down through the gates of the garden they come, countless thousands, and pass before their king. "But for Adam there was not found a helpmeet for him." Sick at heart he turns away. The sunset has lost its glory, the spheres their music, life its sweetness. The beams of the moon chill his blood and Arcturus leads forth his shining sons but to mock his barrenness. The ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... the youthful couple lived. Sheridan had entered himself a student of the Middle Temple shortly before his marriage. Though their income was small, he would not allow his wife to accept several proffered professional engagements; he did not wish his helpmeet to become a servant of the public. This action incited some discussion, and much acrimonious comment, in her family and among their friends. Johnson upheld his course. Sheridan, in this instance, understood himself and understood the times. He knew of the flippant attitude of the young ...
— Some Old Time Beauties - After Portraits by the English Masters, with Embellishment and Comment • Thomson Willing
... 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 because of ...
— The Heart's Highway - A Romance of Virginia in the Seventeeth Century • Mary E. Wilkins
... which occurred during the period of my literary labors. I married a young woman of Rhodes, and gave her a very considerable establishment, which I was able to do, for Andronicus paid me much better than Herodotus had done; but she did not prove a very suitable helpmeet, and I believe she married me simply because I was in fairly good circumstances. She soon showed that she preferred a young man to an elderly student, the greater part of whose time was occupied with books ...
— The Vizier of the Two-Horned Alexander • Frank R. Stockton
... portion of my life has 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 days of ...
— A Ball Player's Career - Being the Personal Experiences and Reminiscensces of Adrian C. Anson • Adrian C. Anson
... conducting classes in manual training and kindergarten 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
... 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, ...
— The House of Walderne - A Tale of the Cloister and the Forest in the Days of the Barons' Wars • A. D. Crake
... cultivated woman readily recognises the fitness of things, and accords a due deference to the tastes of others. She has her club and her friends, as do the gentlemen of her acquaintance, but her children are not neglected from the fact that she sometimes thinks of other things. She is a helpmeet to her husband, and not a plaything, or a slave. If duty calls her to the kitchen, she goes cheerfully, and, moreover, the cook will not dread to see her coming; or if that important person be absent, the table will ...
— Threads of Grey and Gold • Myrtle Reed
... from him; no, drifting, since he made no real effort to hold her. And why had he made no real effort? Sometimes he thought he could answer this question, and then again he knew that he could not. Ah, if he only loved her! What a helpmeet: cheerful, resourceful, full of good humor and practical philosophy, a brilliant wit, with all the finished graces of a goddess. Ah, if indeed he only loved her! This thought kept running through his mind persistently; it had done so for days; ...
— Half a Rogue • Harold MacGrath
... after his ordination as a minister of the German Evangelical Church, at the age of twenty-four, he had spent thirty-five years at his task. His wife Amalia, selected for him by the Missionary Society, was sent out under invoice five years after his arrival. She had thus been his helpmeet, and a faithful one, for thirty years. Although childless, she was of a placid and contented disposition; so much so that her smile became rather wearisome from its ...
— Kafir Stories - Seven Short Stories • William Charles Scully
... 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 him). In the 17th century ...
— First Book of Adam and Eve • Rutherford Platt
... irritated by Agg, were instantaneously salved and soothed. Her tones, her scarcely perceptible gesture of succour, produced the assuaging miracle. She fulfilled her role to perfection. She was a talented and competent designer, but as the helpmeet of a man she had genius. His mind dwelt ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett
... marriage—that is, I think it the most sensible and respectable arrangement for the replenishing of a nation which has yet been suggested. But marriage is a solemn issue of life. I was as suited for matrimony as any of the sex, but only with an exceptional helpmeet—and Harold was not he. My latent womanliness arose and pointed this out so plainly that I seized my ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... of Wimperfield was only a return to the home of his childhood. To his lowly-born little helpmeet it was the beginning of a new life. It was a new sensation to Fanny Palliser to live in large rooms, to walk about a house in which the long corridors, the wide staircase, the echoing stone hall, the plenitude of light and space, seemed to her to belong to a public institution rather ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... family by right of descent from a Gouverneur forbear. Charles F. Hoffman married Miss Eleanor Louisa Vail, a daughter of David M. Vail of New Brunswick, New Jersey, who in every way proved herself an able helpmeet to him. Mrs. Hoffman was educated at Miss Hannah Hoyt's school in New Brunswick, a fashionable institution of the day, and at a reunion of the scholars held in recent years, she was mentioned in the following appropriate manner: "Nearly half a century ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur
... disappointed in you," said he. "I fancied that when I—when I——" It was in his mind to say that he had selected her out of a large number of candidates to be his helpmeet, but he pulled himself up in time, and the pause that he made seemed purely emotional. "When I loved you and got your promise to love me in return, you would share with me all the glory, the persecution, the work incidental to this crusade on ...
— Phyllis of Philistia • Frank Frankfort Moore
... name, his fortune, and position,—not perhaps exactly in the way he had expected,—and he had stilled the wanton, foolish cravings of his passionate nature in the calm, virginal love of an honest, handsome girl who would make him a practical helpmeet, and a comfortable, trustworthy wife. He ought to be very happy. He had never known such perfect health before; he had lost his reckless habits; his handsome, nervous face had grown more placid and contented; his long curls had been conventionally clipped; he had gained flesh ...
— A Protegee of Jack Hamlin's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... lived in the same town with Aunt Marcia, and was confidently recommended by her to Lovell's parents as one who would be likely to make him a wise and suitable helpmeet, and was, indeed, an uncommonly fair and wholesome looking individual. She had a mind, too, whose clear, practical common sense had never been obscured by the idle theories of romance. She was pure and hearty and substantial. She was neither diffident, nor ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... to do experimenting, makes it harder to bear than if he had been at the head of his old regiment, and gone at the imperative call of duty. However—nothing matters so long as he comes home safely. And now you—you, Sir Deryck—must help me to become a real helpmeet to Michael. Tell me how you helped—oh, very well, we will not mention names. But give me wise advice. Give me hope; give me courage. ...
— The Mistress of Shenstone • Florence L. Barclay
... 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 ...
— Games For All Occasions • Mary E. Blain
... grumbled Bunker pacing up and down and avoiding his helpmeet's eye, but at last he ripped out a smothered oath and racked off down the street to his stable. This was an al fresco affair, consisting of a big stone corral within the walls of what had once been the dancehall, and as he saddled ...
— Silver and Gold - A Story of Luck and Love in a Western Mining Camp • Dane Coolidge
... 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 indulged ...
— Paul Prescott's Charge • Horatio Alger
... 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 learned early ...
— Boys' Book of Famous Soldiers • J. Walker McSpadden
... very sorry!" 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 only the aspiration of a lifetime, the same aspiration that in you is right ...
— Geoffrey Strong • Laura E. Richards
... shipping, his contract, or his clients. Why should the husband be expected to manage his part of the business upon sound and correct business principles—system, responsibility, economy—while his helpmeet is letting hers go at loose ends, with a shiftlessness which if he should emulate would ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... marriage of Bach was certainly a compliment to the memory of his first wife, who was a most amiable helpmeet and friend. No soft sentiment disturbed the deep immersement of this man in his work. He was as businesslike a man as Ralph Waldo Emerson, who arranged his second marriage by correspondence, and then drove over in a buggy one afternoon to bring home the promised bride, making ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard
... us. They were a bit 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 ...
— A Woman Named Smith • Marie Conway Oemler
... asked. "Yes, I do, most sincerely." "Then I love you for that," replied the new Othello to his Desdemona; and so well did the wooing go that the dark-eyed Catharine presently became his wife, the Kate of a forty-five years' marriage. Loving, devoted, docile, she learned to be helpmeet and companion. Never, on the one side, murmuring at the narrow fortunes, nor, on the other, losing faith in the greatness to which she had bound herself, she not only ordered well her small household, but drew herself ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 78, April, 1864 • Various
... 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 ...
— A Reputed Changeling • Charlotte M. Yonge
... sprung up that rapidly ripened into love. The enterprising young journeyman, so enamoured of his calling that he consented to inter dumb creatures in his leisure time, had evidently discerned in Cook, with her wealth of funeral lore, a helpmeet worthy of himself; while Cook on her side, conquered by his diligence and discretion, considered she had secured a respectable settlement for life, with the prospect of obsequies of the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, January 21st, 1920 • Various
... their little nests. As daughter, woman sacrificed herself for her father, as wife for her husband, and as mother for her son. Thus from earliest youth she was taught to deny herself. Her life was not one of independence, but of dependent service. Man's helpmeet, if her presence is helpful she stays on the stage with him: if it hinders his work, she retires behind the curtain. Not infrequently does it happen that a youth becomes enamored of a maiden who returns his love with equal ardor, but, when ...
— Bushido, the Soul of Japan • Inazo Nitobe
... summer long? And would you plant some tall elm trees, Around your house, your bride to please; And have a little garden, too, Where fruit, and herbs, and flowers might grow? And would you rear a mulberry grove, That I might thus a helpmeet prove? Although I suffer no distress From fears of "single blessedness," I'd not disdain your rustic dress, If generous feelings fill your breast; That would not bar you from my door, For costly clothing makes us ...
— The Snow-Drop • Sarah S. Mower
... in the "Society", it is curtly stated that she was "ill-mannered, and obstructing everything." Soon after her arrival it was suggested that she marry Peter Rose, but the lot forbade and he found a much better helpmeet in the widow of Friedrich Riedel. Waschke thought he would like to marry Juliana, but she refused, even though Bishop Nitschmann, Mr. and Mrs. Toeltschig pled with her. Her preference was for George ...
— The Moravians in Georgia - 1735-1740 • Adelaide L. Fries
... yet frightened the loving heart of a devoted woman, and Miss Horsley loved William Darling. Therefore she cared very little where her home might be, if only she could share it with him. To be his comforter and helpmeet, to cheer him when the days were dark, and to enjoy his companionship, and brighten his home, were pleasures enough to tempt her. So one bright afternoon, when William was not needed in his lighthouse-tower, but was able to walk with her about her father's meadows, ...
— Grace Darling - Heroine of the Farne Islands • Eva Hope
... confessed good work of parting those whom nothing holds together but this of God's joining, falsely supposed against the express end of his own ordinance.... 'It is not good,' said He, 'that man should be alone; I will make him a helpmeet for him.' From which words, so plain, less cannot be concluded, nor is by any learned interpreter, than that in God's intention a meet and happy conversation is the chiefest and noblest end of marriage.... Again, where the mind is unsatisfied, the solitariness ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... where thy thoughts are tending. If the Spirit is with thee, do not deny it for our sakes, I pray thee. The Lord did not give thee thy wife and children to hang as a millstone round thy neck. I am thy helpmeet, to strengthen thee in his service. I am thankful that I have my health this spring better than usual, and Dorothy is a wonderful help. Her spirit was sent to sustain me in thy long absences. Go, dear, and serve our Master, who has called thee in these bitter strivings! Dorothy ...
— Stories by American Authors (Volume 4) • Constance Fenimore Woolson
... would ask, as an especial piece of mercy to "your handmaiden," that you will grant her some favors at the outset of our somewhat tangled fate. Please let me be your sister. It is for your well-being the world should know me as your wife, and, the Lord helping me, I will be a willing, faithful helpmeet to you, caring most for your comfort and happiness, spending and being spent in your service; never demanding or desiring your attention, except so much as is due me in outward seeming; interfering with none of your pleasures or pursuits, or thrusting my needs or feelings never before you. I have ...
— Not Pretty, But Precious • John Hay, et al.
... together was the grindstone—attaching one end of the wire to shaft and crank, the others being fastened to the wall of the barn. And here, as in most things great and small in this world, woman furnished the motor power. The strong arm of the good helpmeet, Mrs. Glidden, turned the grindstone that twisted the first wire that made the first Glidden barb fence that kept stock at bay in Illinois or the world. Then followed a device for twisting and barbing, ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 1, January 5, 1884. - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... 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 fair head scarce ...
— Robert Moffat - The Missionary Hero of Kuruman • David J. Deane
... 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 ...
— Pulpit and Press • Mary Baker Eddy
... Fliedner learned to know Caroline Bertheau, of Hamburg, a descendant of an old Huguenot family that was driven from France by the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. He led her home as his wife in May, 1843, and she became to him a true helpmeet for his children, his home, and his institution. She is still living, having survived her husband over twenty-five years, and in an advanced age still retains a place on the ...
— Deaconesses in Europe - and their Lessons for America • Jane M. Bancroft
... through the whole of this conversation—the way in which the new-married Lady Ellerton was spoken of, as aiding, encouraging, originating—a helpmeet, if not an oracular guide, for her husband—in all these noble plans. She had already acquainted herself with every woman on the estate; she was the dispenser, not merely of alms—for those seemed a disagreeable necessity, from which Lord Ellerton was anxious to escape ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... stiff corpse of a man dead within; he had betrayed her woman's right, her best, dearest, truest right, her call to love and be loved. Another might have wooed her as he had wooed Alice Boswell; to another she might have been the first, the only one! she knew now why she was no helpmeet, no friend for him; why his hand did not raise her to his eminence, his soul's breath did not blow upon hers, and create vigour, goodness, and grace to match his own. Deep had not cried unto deep: heart had not spoken to heart: the dry bones, the vacant form, ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... certain village 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 to play on ...
— The Story of Tim • Anonymous
... young men, which was very well known in society, consisted chiefly, it appears, in Walter Hatherell being the willing companion and helpmeet of John Ashley in his mad and extravagant pranks. But to-night the latter, apparently tardily sobered by his terrible and heavy losses, allowed himself to be led away by his friend from the scene of his disasters. It was then about twenty minutes ...
— The Old Man in the Corner • Baroness Orczy
... Dr. Clatworthy, having notions of his own upon matrimony, and money to carry them out, had picked out a pretty child and adopted her, and set her to school with a Miss St. Maur of Saltash, to be trained up in his principles, till of an age to make him 'a perfect helpmeet,' as he called it. ...
— Merry-Garden and Other Stories • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... is quite clear that Lady Mary was in the wrong, but the whole affair was utterly contemptible on both sides. The ladies dragged their respective liege-lords into the dispute, and each of the latter espoused the side of his helpmeet. Sir Peregrine necessarily got the better of his adversary, whom he never forgave. It is impossible to say how far this unseemly women's wrangle contributed to the humiliation which Judge Willis was subsequently compelled to endure, ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... honored town was Rev. Samuel Whiting, a native of Hartford, and trained in the "Hooker School." For a helpmeet he had secured a lineal descendant of that noble and revered puritan, Gov. Wm. Bradford. The labors of this worthy pair were largely blessed to their people. At one period, in a population of hundreds, it is said "the town did not contain a ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith
... temptation is not another's, that the temptation to be real must appeal to the one tested. The crafty serpent is not represented as speaking to the man; he would probably have turned away in loathing. His wife, she who had already sinned, the one whom Jehovah had given him as a helpmeet, herself appeals to the sense of chivalry within him. Hence the conflict rages in his soul between love and obligation to Jehovah and his natural affection and apparent duty to his wife. Thus in all temptation the diviner impulses struggle with those which are not in themselves necessarily ...
— The Origin & Permanent Value of the Old Testament • Charles Foster Kent
... had observed with singular pleasure the intelligent behaviour of Robber, who, as though conscious of the danger, silently kept close to our side, and entirely dispelled my fear that he would give trouble during our dangerous passage. At last our trusted helpmeet reappeared, and was so delighted that he hugged us all in his arms. Then, placing us once more in his carriage, he drove us to the inn of the Prussian frontier village, where my friend Moller, positively ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... because of 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 ...
— Barlaam and Ioasaph • St. John of Damascus
... 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 ...
— The Land of Fire - A Tale of Adventure • Mayne Reid
... 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 spongers ...
— The Narrative of a Blockade-Runner • John Wilkinson
... the time he had come to a pause, it was radiant. Indeed, now, for the first time in many dreary weeks, Cicily felt that she was truly a wife in all senses of the word. Here, at last, she was become a helpmeet to her husband. That bete noire business was no longer the thing apart from her. She was made the confidante of her husband's affairs abroad. She was made the recipient of the most vital explanations. She was asked to share his worries, to counsel him. Thus, in her usual ...
— Making People Happy • Thompson Buchanan
... no secret of Senator Hanway's Presidential prospects, and if he did not talk them over with his helpmeet, he listened while she talked them over with him. Mrs. Hanway-Harley, who insisted more vigorously than ever upon the hyphenation, would of necessity preside over the White House. She saw and said this herself. The Harley ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... to his better nature to concede to woman her equal power in the state, and ashamed to blankly refuse that which he finds no reason for longer withholding, man avoids the dilemma by a pretended elevation of his helpmeet to a higher sphere, where, as an angel, she has certain gauzy ethereal resources and superior functions, occupations, and attributes which render the possession of mere earthly every-day powers and privileges non-essential to woman, however mere ...
— Debate On Woman Suffrage In The Senate Of The United States, - 2d Session, 49th Congress, December 8, 1886, And January 25, 1887 • Henry W. Blair, J.E. Brown, J.N. Dolph, G.G. Vest, Geo. F. Hoar.
... French chops annoyed the lord and master of the house. He pointed out to his patient helpmeet that times were ripe for economy and that French chops are economical only in respect to their nutritive content. With the tannery closed down, an era of corned beef and cabbage was strongly indicated—especially, she would understand, as ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston
... so the name on the label caught her eye, she could not help reading it; and then drew in her breath with a sharp exclamation of surprise. The next instant she hurried softly but quickly down the stairs, took her astonished helpmeet by the arm, and dragged him into the orchard, closing the kitchen door ...
— The Village by the River • H. Louisa Bedford
... the husband, moved by the desire to confide in his loving helpmeet all his troubles, informed her that their whole fortune was lost. They would have to give up their carriage, their box at the theatre, balls, parties, even Paris itself; perhaps, by living on their estate in the country a year or two, they might retrieve all! Appealing to the imagination ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part II. • Honore de Balzac
... down to your table with your head a vacuum, You can say unto your helpmeet, "Has that quart of ideas come That we ordered served here daily from that plot-man down the street?" And you'll find that I've been early my engagement ...
— Cobwebs from a Library Corner • John Kendrick Bangs
... really goes back to first conditions, and lies upon the fact that first conditions may come back any day,—do come back, here and there, continually. Put man and woman together on the primitive earth, and it is the man that has got to subdue it; the woman is what Scripture calls her,—the helpmeet. And my notion is that if everything was right, a woman never should have to 'knock round alone.' It isn't the real order of Providence. I think Providence has been very much ...
— The Other Girls • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... honest penny. If a steamer drops in with a cargo of Batangas oranges, she invests twenty or thirty pesos, and has her servants about carrying the trays of fruit for sale. According to her lights, which are not hygienic, she is a good housekeeper and a genuine helpmeet. She keeps every ounce of food under lock and key, and measures each crumb that is used in cooking. She keeps the housekeeping accounts, handles the money, never pries into her husband's affairs, bears him a child every year, and is content, in return ...
— A Woman's Impression of the Philippines • Mary Helen Fee
... ....It did not seem good to the Lord of heaven that Adam should longer be alone as warden and keeper of this new Paradise. Wherefore the King, Almighty God, wrought him an helpmeet; the Author of life made woman and brought her unto the man whom He loved. He took the stuff of Adam's body, and secretly drew forth a rib from his side. He was fast asleep in peaceful slumber; he knew no pain nor any pang; there came no blood from ...
— Codex Junius 11 • Unknown
... courage, and on every favorable opportunity he hastened to take more than ample vengeance. Admitting all the wrongs he suffered, it still remains true that many of his acts of brutality were past excuse. His wife was a worthy helpmeet. Once, in his absence, a tory horse-thief was brought to their home, and after some discussion the captors, Cleavland's sons, turned to their mother, who was placidly going on with her ordinary domestic ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Two - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1777-1783 • Theodore Roosevelt
... just within the parlor door at the moment, blushing over the praises lavished on her by the chaplain's impulsive helpmeet and trying hard to say civil and appropriate things to her guests. The officers, one and all, had edged into the hall-way in eagerness ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... Deacon's wife, was a little less than fifty years of age. She was a comely, bright-faced, bright-eyed, and energetic woman, who had been both a loving wife and a valued helpmeet to her husband. Their only living child was a daughter named Huldah Ann, about nineteen years of age, and considered by many to be the prettiest and smartest girl in Mason's Corner. The only other resident in Deacon Mason's house was Hiram Maxwell, a young man about thirty years of age. He had ...
— Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks - A Picture of New England Home Life • Charles Felton Pidgin
... this boyish enthusiasm. He was fond of his sister, though he knew her to be full of faults. "Yes, I envy her," he said. "She has found a worthy helpmeet for life's journey, I do believe. And though they chafe at the long engagement, it is a blessing in disguise. They learn to know each other thoroughly ...
— The Longest Journey • E. M. Forster
... was given to be a helpmeet, and as the bride, the Church to her Bridegroom? Look high enough, Gillian, and the popular chatter will not confuse your mind. You own that you ...
— The Long Vacation • Charlotte M. Yonge
... less an assistant than a partner, less a paid servant on the stage than a helpmeet in his daily life. Looking at the traditions of their environment and at the enforced intimacy of their vagabondage, one sees the inevitability of this linking of their fortunes. That there was any furious love about the affair I have very grave doubts. ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke
... teachings of Mormonism and Mohammedanism with regard to woman also degrade her and rob her of the beautiful crown which her Maker has put upon her head; and hence it is that such peoples are not virile and progressive like the nations where woman is looked upon as man's helpmeet, where she stands upon his right hand as a queen. The Mormons are better in many respects than their faith; and if the first generation was hardy and aggressive and brave in subduing the desert and changing Rocky Mountain ...
— By the Golden Gate • Joseph Carey
... do it against Godiva of Coventry, against the blessed Katharine or against Caesar's helpmeet in those days,' Katharine said. 'Margot here can match all thy witnesses from the city of London—men that never were ...
— Privy Seal - His Last Venture • Ford Madox Ford
... England clergy had no sentimental affectation of sanctity that segregated them from wholesome human relations; and consequently our good Doctor had always resolved, in a grave and thoughtful spirit, at a suitable time in his worldly affairs, to choose unto himself a helpmeet. Love, as treated of in romances, he held to be a foolish and profane matter, unworthy the attention of a serious and reasonable creature. All the language of poetry on this subject was to him an ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 3, No. 16, February, 1859 • Various
... are more than merely talkative—who are positively scolds; while sometimes the conventional helpmeet is as active with her fists as with her tongue—as in the case of the lady whose picture, her husband thought, would soon 'strike' him, it was ...
— By-ways in Book-land - Short Essays on Literary Subjects • William Davenport Adams
... the cup of this beauteous body. When you are tired and satiated with this wine, you can go to work or play; and when I grow old I will accept humbly and gratefully whatever corner is left for me. Would it please your heroic soul if the playmate of the night aspired to be the helpmeet of the day, if the left arm learnt to share the burden of ...
— Chitra - A Play in One Act • Rabindranath Tagore
... of woman's civil rights is not a deep one, for it is a natural one, and closely follows her mission in this world. She was not created anything else than a helpmeet to man, and where to limit that assistance there is no rule in nature, except her physical functions; there is a limit in law, but whether the law has the right to place her where she is, is the question. It must be conceded that the law has drawn too great ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... person, who had throughout endeavoured to prove complicity on Axel's part. Fool, idiot of a man—what did he know of life in the wilds, when he could see that the child was just what Axel had counted on to keep the woman, his helpmeet, ...
— Growth of the Soil • Knut Hamsun
... and barn, and provided the necessary stock and materials, Nathaniel Ingersoll went upon his farm when about nineteen years of age. Soon after, probably, he married Hannah Collins of Lynn, who, during their long lives, proved a worthy helpmeet. His house was on a larger scale than was usual at that time. One of its rooms is spoken of as very large; and the uses to which his establishment was put, from time to time, prove that it must have had capacious apartments. Its site is shown on the map. ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... 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 he did not dare, for the ...
— Poor Folk • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... family, small means, musical, devoted to parish work, wishes to correspond with clergyman with view to being 'an helpmeet for ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, July 28th, 1920 • Various
... the larger life of their husbands. But as James A. Garfield grew in the public esteem, and honors crowded upon him, step by step his wife kept pace with him, and was at all times a fitting and sympathetic companion and helpmeet. ...
— From Canal Boy to President - Or The Boyhood and Manhood of James A. Garfield • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... strictly adhered to. The one disappointment of his life was the lack of those sturdy sons and daughters who, to his mind, should have surrounded the virtuous man in his old age. They had not come into the world. His wife, a good woman and energetic helpmeet, had brought him but the ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall
... was feeble, but it is a very, very delicate business to interfere between husband and wife, and moreover the blame seemed fairly evenly divided. The Vicar had undoubtedly made a mistake in marrying a young girl for her beauty and charm, without considering if she were a true helpmeet for his life's work. Delphine had undoubtedly made a mistake in "never thinking" of her future as a clergyman's wife; and now he was blindly expecting a miraculous transformation of the butterfly into a drone, while the butterfly was poising her wings, impatient ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... I said, "why can't you leave me alone? You see I'm busy and yet you insist on staying here and interrupting me. Do you call that being a helpmeet?" ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, January 5, 1916 • Various
... oppose woman suffrage as tending to destroy the home and family, the true basis of political safety, and express the hope that the helpmeet and guardian of the family sanctuary may not be dragged from the modest purity of self-imposed seclusion to be thrown unwillingly into the ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... the glistening shallows in the road. "Well," said Wingate, buttoning up his coat in slow dejection, "I reckon I oughter be travelin' to help the old woman do the chores before supper." He had just recognized the light in his own dining-room, and knew by that sign that his long-waiting helpmeet had finally done ...
— A First Family of Tasajara • Bret Harte
... had made her so admirable as a soldier's helpmeet, upheld her through tedious hardships and continued perils on her lonely way to the settlement. Once there, it was necessary for her to wait till she could recover her exhausted strength. Her triumph over the severe tasking of all those bitter days in the wilderness, without chronic ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... sure that he has any wishes on the subject," said Katherine, her color rising. "He thinks I am too ungodly to be eligible for the helpmeet of a true believer. Ah, indeed I am not half good enough for ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander
... 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 Jeremiahs were often wont to use the characteristically medieval ...
— Medieval People • Eileen Edna Power
... passed away. Yet no new world had come when over the hill dyke their hands met. They said no word. There is no form of greeting for such. Eve did not greet Adam in polite phrase when he awoke to find her in the dawn of one Eden day, a helpmeet meet for him. Neither did Eve reply that "it was a fine morn ing." It is always a fine morning in Eden. They were silent, and so were these two. Their hands lay within one another a single instant. Then, with a sense of something wanting, Ralph sprang lightly ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett
... at Uncle Tom's Cabin had been protracted to a very late hour, and Tom and his worthy helpmeet were not yet asleep, when between twelve and one there was a light ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... Woodstock for thirteen years. In the meantime he had married, at the Hague, Marie Anne Testart, a refugee from Saint-Quentin. Jean Rou describes her as a true helpmeet for him, young, beautiful, rich, and withal virtuous, and of the most pleasing and gentle temper in the world. Her riches, however, were not great. She had merely, like Rapin, rescued some portion of her heritage from the devouring claws of her persecutors. ...
— The Huguenots in France • Samuel Smiles
... He had drunk freely of the pleasures of single blessedness, under the most favorable conditions; was now becoming somewhat jaded with them; and looked with approval upon the prospect of a little nest, or indeed one not so little, duly equipped with the usual faithful helpmeet who should share his sorrows, joys, etc. The nest he could feather decently enough himself; the sole problem, a critical one in its way, was to decide upon the helpmeet. West was neither college boy nor sailor. His heart was no harem of beautiful ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... lady looks at me kind o' queer. 'Phrony ain't satisfied,' she says. 'She thinks the Lord designs her to be a helpmeet, and that He's manifestin' Himself at present, or liable so ...
— The Wooing of Calvin Parks • Laura E. Richards
... achievement of the millennium, I trust, will be in uniting these two elements, which have ever been contending. There was great significance in the old Greek fable which represented Venus as the divinely-appointed helpmeet of Vulcan, and yet always ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe
... the very thing to appeal to her—the very thing to capture her? A challenge—a demand that she should submit—that she should come down from those serene heights of independence and yield herself a willing and gracious helpmeet and companion for life to this daring suitor; might not that have secured for him this wondrous prize? If she had any regard for him at all, she might have been startled into confession. A couple of words—there by the side of the Aivron—might have been enough. ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... service." Every one regards the request as a sign of an unsettled mind. After much argument he prevails on his betrothed bride's parents to permit the marriage (he cannot be ordained until he is married), and hopes to find a helpmeet in her. The rest of the story deals with his experiences in the unenviable position of a village priest, where he has to contend not only with the displeasure of his young wife, but with the avarice of his church staff, the defects ...
— A Survey of Russian Literature, with Selections • Isabel Florence Hapgood
... virtue, yet it is clear enough, both from Plutarch's Life of him (e.g. ch. xxiv.) and from fragments of his own writings, that his view of the conjugal relation was a coarse one,—that he looked on the wife rather as a necessary agent for providing the State with children than as a helpmeet to be tended and revered. And this being so, we are not surprised to find that men are already beginning to dislike and avoid marriage; a most dangerous symptom, with which a century later Augustus found it impossible to cope. In the year 131, just after Tiberius ...
— Social life at Rome in the Age of Cicero • W. Warde Fowler
... 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. I never know what ye aim to do ...
— The Mission of Janice Day • Helen Beecher Long
... quite evident that she possessed a refinement that must have appealed forcibly to a man brought up in such genteel surroundings and as sensitive as Mendelssohn. Such a woman must have been, after all, better suited to his delicate genius than a wife of unusual gifts would have been. For it is a helpmeet, not another genius, that a man of genius really needs most. The woman who, without being prosy or commonplace and without allowing herself to retrograde in looks or in personal care, can run a household in a systematic, orderly fashion is the greatest blessing that ...
— The Loves of Great Composers • Gustav Kobb
... than England for the dear convalescent—Madeira, Algeria, Malta—or some other equally remote quarter of the globe. It was impossible that Mr. or Mrs. Sheldon could take so long a journey; Mr. Sheldon being bound hand and foot to the mill-wheel of City life, Mrs. Sheldon being the slave and helpmeet of her husband. Nor could dear Charlotte go to Malta alone, or attended only by faithful Diana Paget. In short, there was no course so obvious or so prudent as a hasty marriage, which would enable the invalid to ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... husband this noble name. Her Father, so to speak, gave her away under this noble name. And of all the sweet and noble names that a woman bears, there is none so rich, so sweet, so lasting, and so fruitful as just her first Divine name of a helpmeet. And how favoured of God is that man to be accounted whose life still continues to draw meet help out of his wife's fulness of help, till all her and his days together he is able to say, I have of God a helpmeet indeed! For in how many sloughs ...
— Bunyan Characters - First Series • Alexander Whyte
... an indefatigable helpmeet. She wrote all his European correspondence, but resented the interference of the French, and could be curt and energetic when ...
— France in the Nineteenth Century • Elizabeth Latimer
... (tangled) rows. He opened up and cleared The tamarisk trees and the stave trees. He hewed and thinned The mountain mulberry trees. God having brought about the removal thither of this intelligent ruler, The Kwan hordes fled away[2]. Heaven had raised up a helpmeet for him, And the appointment he had received ...
— The Shih King • James Legge
... on the amount of blame due to the father is not a matter which so nearly concerns us as to learn the lesson of true womanhood taught us by the daughter. Hers was no blind obedience; her reason for sacrificing herself gives us the true position of a woman as a helpmeet, and as a helpmeet in the performance of public duty. "If thou hast opened thy mouth unto the Lord"—her father must do his duty at all costs, and she will help him to do it, even at the cost of her ...
— Stray Thoughts for Girls • Lucy H. M. Soulsby
... Holland, the Tupper of our American literature, thanks his Creator that woman has no specialty. She was called into being for man's happiness and interest—his helpmeet—to wait and watch his movements, to second his endeavors, to fight the hard battle of life behind him whose brain may be dizzy with excess, whose limbs may be paralyzed, or if sound in body, may be without aim ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... pause it is to be said that the son of Jahdai was wifeless. The young woman whom he had taken as helpmeet in dying had left him a girl baby who, at the time of our writing, was about thirteen years old. Under the necessity thus imposed, he found a venerable daughter of Jerusalem to serve him as housekeeper, and charge herself with care of the child. ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... a capitalist basis, his future assured because it depended upon the signal vice of his class, it one day occurred to Daniel that he ought to take to himself a helpmeet, a partner of his joys and sorrows. He had thought of it from time to time during the past year, but only in a vague way; he had even directed his eyes to the woman who might perchance be the one most suitable, ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... a name to the organ producing it. We can easily imagine it. One of these early pagans comes home of an evening, heated from the chase, and squats himself on the damp clay floor of a country-seat imperfectly guarded against draughts. The next morning he says to his helpmeet, "Mrs. Barbar, I have a dreadful cold in my—hrac! hrac!" Here he is interrupted by a violent fit of coughing, and resorts to semeiology by pointing to his throat. Similar incidents carrying apprehension (as Lord Macaulay would say) to the breezy interiors of a thousand shanties ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various
... very good one it is, Parson. But don't you think that a godly woman for helpmeet would make the work more effectooal? Miss Meacham is a pattern of a person in the Sunday school. The women of the parish would rather like to find the doors of the parsonage openin' ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... and 1818 her four sisters died. The last to go was Martha, Hannah's trusty helpmeet and lieutenant in all her benevolent schemes, and her tender consoler in many a season of sickness. Soon after this event Miss More's long illness of seven years occurred. Unable to give proper supervision to her servants, she was victimised ...
— Excellent Women • Various
... endow a man with his insight into the other sex, but that enable him to bestow a certain feminine supervision upon his own affairs when no actual female has them in charge. If he marries, this inner helpmeet behaves in unlike ways toward the newly reigning usurper; sometimes giving up peaceably, at others remaining her life-long critic—reluctant but irremovable. If many a wife did but realize that she is perpetually observed not ...
— The Choir Invisible • James Lane Allen
... helpmeet in her husband," said Madison sternly, "and it's neither seemly nor Christian in you, Arthur, to repeat the idle, profane gossip of the Bar. I knew her before her marriage, and if she was not a professing Christian, she was, and is, a pure, good ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... and with a kindred desire, this volume was written. For good or ill, for better or worse, the book is sent forth in the hope that it may recall attention to the Divine IDEAL for Woman, and aid in inducing man, to prize her as the first gift of God to him, designed "as a helpmeet ...
— The True Woman • Justin D. Fulton
... dismay. It was of little avail to upbraid him as to the unseemliness of attachment to a girl who, however civilised, was of inferior race and despised colour. He frankly confessed that he wanted a wife as a companion and helpmeet; that he could not hope, in consideration of his own lowly birth and slender means and uphill task, to induce a white girl to halve his loneliness. He had studied Soosie, and was sure that she was his superior except in matter ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... war-trumpet summons to the field of battle; but Wisdom crieth without, 'Whosoever is of a willing heart, let him bring an offering.' Shall woman refuse her response to the call? Was she created to be a helpmeet for man—his sorrows to divide, his joys to share, and all his toils to lighten by her willing aid, and shall she refuse to aid him with her prayers, her labors, and her counsels too, at such a time, in ...
— The Grimke Sisters - Sarah and Angelina Grimke: The First American Women Advocates of - Abolition and Woman's Rights • Catherine H. Birney
... if I'd tag after her without some substantial hope," Henley opined, wisely. "Life is long and life is earnest, and beauty is only skin deep, anyways. It seems to me—now, at least—that if I was out on the hunt for a helpmeet I'd look to the solid qualities in a woman just as I would in a man I wanted to work with. I'd study her character, her pluck under trying circumstances, her industry, and her all-round good-nature. The shape and face ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben
... of the relation she assumes to him, the entireness of his trust in the spotless purity of her whole nature. And in him we have presented all those essential and fundamental elements of nature which give assurance that, Dorothea by his side, he shall be no unfitting helpmeet to her, no drag or hindrance on her higher life; that he shall rise to the elevation and purity of her self-consecration, and shall stand by her side sustaining, guiding, expanding that life of ever-growing fulness and human helpfulness ...
— The Ethics of George Eliot's Works • John Crombie Brown |
