"Handmaiden" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... within the last hour,—for here she is messenger, porter, and commissionnaire, as well as housemaid and cook,—but that she is always a phenomenon to the American stranger, accustomed to be abused in his own country by his foreign Irish handmaiden. Her presence is as refreshing and grateful as the morning light, and as inevitable and regular. When I add that with the novelty of being well served is combined the satisfaction of knowing that you have in ...
— The Twins of Table Mountain and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... will break my arm," answered the terrified handmaiden. "I am sure I know no harm of Miss Mowbray; only, my lady spoke as if she was no better than she ought to be.—Lord, sir, there is some one listening at the door!"—and making a spring out of his grasp, she hastened back to the room in which the ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... Christian legend—about the lapwing, or peewit: The lapwing was at one time a handmaiden of the Virgin Mary, and stole her mistress's scissors, for which she was transformed into a bird, and condemned to wear a forked tail resembling scissors. Moreover, the lapwing was doomed forever and ever to fly from tussock to tussock, uttering over and ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... Well, if I didn't, at any rate, I always tell her not to knock. She is the stupidest girl. She will knock!" Her mother doesn't press the point. There is no bad blood anywhere. Did not Sally wish the handmaiden ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... beautiful woodland, until we came out upon Bennet's Pond, on whose shore stands the pleasant farmhouse where we intended to pass the night. The owner and his family were absent, but we found a smiling little handmaiden, who brought us a cooling draught, and an antique whaler, who offered to show us the way to Lake Placid ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No. 6, December 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... her handmaiden, and offered her her hand. She was willing to face the thing alone, but it was a comfort to have the stolid dependable Cora at her side. Moreover, Cora was an admirable cook and packer. Colina was not enamored ...
— The Fur Bringers - A Story of the Canadian Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... death. A mediaeval knight, or a modern gentleman, not to speak of a modern lover, would have saved her at the risk of his own life, reward or no reward. The difference is further emphasized by the attitude of the girl, who exclaims to her deliverer, "Take me, O stranger, for thine handmaiden, or wife, or slave." Professor Murray, who cites this line in his History of Greek Literature, remarks with comic naivete: "The love-note in this pure and happy sense Euripides had never struck before." But what is there so remarkably ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... child had been tasked beyond her strength during the past four days. Through all, she had been her mother's willing little handmaiden, soothing, helping, and cheering the half-widowed woman by day and watching and praying beside her all the long night. She knew that something terrible and mysterious was taking place at this moment, something that had been too terrible and mysterious for even kind, good ...
— Hans Brinker - or The Silver Skates • Mary Mapes Dodge
... Barry and her small niece lived together, with a tall and gaunt handmaiden Norman French, and a broad Yorkshire gardener. Miss Barry was the old cream of Yerbury. Here her family had lived since the Huguenot persecution, and dwindled finally to two. Louis Barry was a dissipated spendthrift. He married, and tormented his wife into an early grave, and might have worn out ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... myself," explained the handmaiden, with a note of triumph in her voice, "about that there cat. 'Ere's where I buried 'im, and 'ere's where there ain't no signs of 'is dead body. 'E's come back to 'aunt us, that's wot 'e 'as, and your uncle'll ...
— At the Sign of the Jack O'Lantern • Myrtle Reed
... much as his alive as one man. As soon as Abigail saw David she descended from her ass, and fell down tofore David, upon her visage and worshipped him on the earth, and fell down to his feet and said: In me, said she, my lord, be this wickedness, I beseech thee that I thine handmaiden may speak to thine ears, and that thou wilt hear the words of me thy servant. I pray and require thee my lord, let not thy heart be set against this wicked man Nabal, for according to his name he is a fool, and folly is with him. I ...
— Bible Stories and Religious Classics • Philip P. Wells
... was devised, and with it its handmaiden—ancilla theologiae—scholastic philosophy, and this handmaiden turned against her mistress. Scholasticism, a magnificent cathedral, in which all the problems of architectonic mechanism were resolved ...
— Tragic Sense Of Life • Miguel de Unamuno
... consciousness with it to its own wonderful plane. In Bengal, however, the words have always asserted themselves so, that our provincial song has failed to develop her full musical capabilities, and has remained content as the handmaiden of her sister art of poetry. From the old Vaishnava songs down to those of Nidhu Babu she has displayed her charms from the background. But as in our country the wife rules her husband through acknowledging her dependence, so ...
— My Reminiscences • Rabindranath Tagore
... had paid her, with but few interruptions, since the day of her death. Rome was illuminated that night; the fiery cupola of St. Peter, and the sound of innumerable bells, told the neighbouring plains and hills that "God had regarded the lowliness of His handmaiden," and that, in her measure, all generations were ...
— The Life of St. Frances of Rome, and Others • Georgiana Fullerton
... submit yourself to your husband, as the Church submits itself to Jesus. Remember that you must leave everything to follow him, like a faithful handmaiden. You must give up father and mother, you must cleave only to your husband, and you must obey him that you may obey God also. And your yoke will be a yoke of love and peace. Be his comfort, his happiness, the perfume of ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola
... vespers. Spread out upon the table they would have made a donkey smile, even if he were being gutted alive; so lovely, so splendid, were those brave noble young piles. The good advocate, however, had prepared this view for no ass, for the little handmaiden look longingly at the golden heap, and muttered a prayer at the sight of them. Seeing which, the husband whispered in her ear his golden words, "These ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 1 • Honore de Balzac
... a little plea for the liberty of the subject; it was in vain that I said I should prefer to go to Whitehaven. I was told that there was "nothing to see there"—that weary, hackneyed, old falsehood; and at last, as the handmaiden began to look really concerned, I gave way, as men always do in such circumstances, and agreed that I was to leave for Keswick by a ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... clamor for a universal language. We once had it, in our learned world, in the Latin, in which books were locked up for the scholars and dead to the world. Language is the handmaiden of thought, and to be useful must be obedient to its changes as well as its elemental characteristics. For the English of three hundred years ago we need a glossary, and to carry down his immortal thoughts ...
— Se-Quo-Yah; from Harper's New Monthly, V. 41, 1870 • Unknown
... find that Eve, in the hands of barbarians, is not thy Eve. It will now become my turn to become a handmaiden, and to perform for others offices a thousand times more humiliating than any thou hast ever ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... of achievement for the Negro is first within the lines of his own race, but, all things being equal; genius being the handmaiden of no particular race or clime, he is not to be hindered by the law of the land, the prejudice of sections or individuals, from seeking ...
— History of the American Negro in the Great World War • W. Allison Sweeney
... fair summer sky, fidgetted, grumbled, found nothing well done, and was never two minutes in the same mind. After donning the selected dress, she declared it a fright, tried two others, abused each roundly, dismissed her almost weeping handmaiden abruptly, and again put on the first. Sitting down to the mirror, she spent a full hour over the arrangement of her hair, looking attentively at her image, sometimes with the beginning of doubtful approval, ...
— The Two Vanrevels • Booth Tarkington
... said Front-de-Boeuf, as if surprised. "By heavens! Isaac, I would I had known of this; I gave the black-browed girl to be a handmaiden to Sir Brian de Bois-Guilbert, to do as it might please him with her. My word is passed to my comrade in arms; nor would I break it for ten Jews and ...
— The Junior Classics, V5 • Edited by William Patten
... the happy girl. "As a mother whom I trust and revere—as a sister to whom I may confide my girlish secrets—as a guardian angel whose blessing I shall implore. But in the world, and when I bear your train, I will forget that I am aught but the lowliest handmaiden of her royal highness, Elizabeth-Charlotte, ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... the handmaiden of Christianity, but may more appropriately be designated its loyal helpmeet. Whatever synagogue or other melodies may have first served to voice the sentiments kindled by the Gospel of Glad Tidings it was inevitable that the new ...
— For Every Music Lover - A Series of Practical Essays on Music • Aubertine Woodward Moore
... any inconvenience"—Ronald began, misunderstanding the form of address Miss Schenectady used to her handmaiden. ...
— An American Politician • F. Marion Crawford
... pencil, and died with grief and love of such perfection, which he never could hope to obtain. The picture was sent to the vile minister, who reserved it for himself, and wrote the name of this pearl beyond price, under that of another, unworthy to unloose her zone as her handmaiden. The committee of taste did, however, select that picture among the hundred to be placed in the Hall of Delight, not because the picture was beautiful, but because the fame of her beauty had reached the court, ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Captain Frederick Marryat
... the first time, Ayesha spoke to him, and her first words were a lie. "She has gone from hence upon a visit," she said; "and, behold, in her place am I here as thine handmaiden." ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard
... instead of the reflection of our own; or, as in the spells of Hallowe'en, which we learned in childhood some unknown form may be seen peeping over our shoulder. In short, when I am in a ghost-seeing humour, I make my handmaiden draw the green curtains over the mirror, before I go into the room, so that she may have the first shock of the apparition, if there be any to be seen. But, to tell you the truth, this dislike to look into a mirror in particular ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... of horror ran through the assembly, as Black Claus related this fearful story. All eyes were turned upon the handmaiden of Satan. For a moment she had raised her head, horror-struck at this interpretation of the interview she had in Gottlob's chamber with the stranger—for a moment she seemed to have a desire to speak. But then, clasping her hands before her face, she ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 348 • Various
... instinct of sport spoke up clearly in Dickie. The boy—such is youthful masculine human nature—believed he understood at last why the world was made! At dressing-time he had his sacred fish carried on a plate up to his room to show Clara; and, but for strong remonstrance on the part of that devoted handmaiden, would have kept it by his bedside all night, so as to assure himself at intervals, by sense of touch—let alone that of smell—of the adorable fact of ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... he gives her the sacrament. The young rapture of chastity grows lyrical at times, and Judas Thomas breaks out: "Purity is the athlete who is not overcome. Purity is the truth that blencheth not. Purity is worthy before God of being to Him a familiar handmaiden. Purity is the messenger of concord which ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... as we advanced, but Lylda dispersed them with a gentle though firm, command. As we approached the sort of castle I have mentioned, the reason for Lylda's authoritative manner dawned upon me. She was, I soon learned, daughter of one of the most learned men of the nation and was—handmaiden, do you call ...
— The Girl in the Golden Atom • Raymond King Cummings
... thy large brown eyes, Philip, my king! Round whom the enshadowing purple lies Of babyhood's royal dignities. Lay on my neck thy tiny hand With love's invisible scepter laden; I am thine Esther to command Till thou shalt find a queen-handmaiden, ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 1 (of 4) • Various
... relationship of marriage a means of personal gain and safety by betraying his own wife. Now it is the Martian's turn to inquire of the Hebrew whether the latter had ever read this story to his own daughter? Or, the story of Abraham's affair with Hagar, his handmaiden? Was the Hebrew's young daughter aware that Isaac, son of Abraham, was as ready and willing to prostitute his wife for protection for himself as ...
— The Necessity of Atheism • Dr. D.M. Brooks
... Foreign Office to touch, comprising everything from the launching of personal attacks in obscure blackmailing sheets against inconvenient politicians to the escorting of unpleasantly truthful foreign correspondents to the frontier. It is the obedient handmaiden of the Intelligence Department of both War Office and Admiralty in Germany, and renders faithful service to the espionage which is constantly maintained on officials, politicians, the clergy and the general public in ...
— The Man with the Clubfoot • Valentine Williams
... It was another half-hour before Beatrice made her appearance; and Bruno noticed that the unexpected presence of a third person evoked no expression of surprise on her part. The preparations for supper were made by Beatrice and her attendant handmaiden Sabina; and after the meal was over, Bruno discreetly went off, with the interesting observation that he was about to visit a sick person at the furthest part of the parish. Sir John had taken his seat on the extreme end of a form, and Beatrice came and sat with her embroidery at the other ...
— Earl Hubert's Daughter - The Polishing of the Pearl - A Tale of the 13th Century • Emily Sarah Holt
... cried and said, "Where were you, O my God, that they should punish me with such blows, and that this suffering should come over us; over me and over Eve, Your handmaiden?" ...
— First Book of Adam and Eve • Rutherford Platt
... marvel every day that GOD should reveal both the Divine Nature and Temporal and Eternal Nature for the first time to such a simple and unlearned man as I am. But what am I to resist what GOD will do? What am I to say but, Behold the son of thine handmaiden! I have often besought Him to take these too high and too deep matters away from off me, and to commit them to men of more learning and of a better style of speech. But He always put my prayer away from Him and continued to kindle His fire in my bones. ...
— Jacob Behmen - an appreciation • Alexander Whyte
... this out, and do a good turn, if I could, to Gwenny, who had done me many a good one, I begged my Lorna to say not a word of this matter to the handmaiden, until I had further searched it out. And to carry out this resolve, I went again to the place of business where they were grinding gold as freely as an apothecary ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... now, and played as securely as a child might with a dog-rose of whose thorns he had been made aware. But of late, his haggard features, and the start with which he would wake into life when a guest haply plucked a flower from the bouquets on the table, or when the handmaiden came round to him with a dish of leguminous vegetables, could readily have been traced by a clairvoyant to associations connected with the ghastly belladonna and with the deadly bean of St. Ignatius the Martyr. For Mr. Arcubus had now arrived at the investigation ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... graiciously inclined you on this day last year to notice an afflicted Strainger providentially cast in your way far from any Earthly friend? . . . Methinks I shall hear him say unto you, "Inasmuch as ye shewed kindness to my afflicted handmaiden, ye ...
— Records of a Family of Engineers • Robert Louis Stevenson
... gave out a wholesome fragrance, and when she opened trunks whose lids creaked on their rusty hinges, dried rosemary, lavender, and sweet clover filled the room with that long-stored sweetness which is the gracious handmaiden ...
— Lavender and Old Lace • Myrtle Reed
... what I should like better than all? You are so amiable, and so good, and so—so very pretty; nay, don't blush—there is no one by to hear me—you are so charming altogether, that I should like you to come and live with me. You shall be my handmaiden if ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... me much. If you will tell me where to find your husband, in Newmarket, and allow me to light my pipe, I'll not trouble you any more." These benevolences the pale woman did not withhold, but she saw me depart with a wintry smile, and I heard her distinctly mutter to a handmaiden—fearfully arid and adust—who peered over her mistress' shoulder, "There's another on 'em, ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... higher functioning was when I followed Larry O'Keefe and Lakla, the Handmaiden, out to what we believed soul-destroying death in a place almost as strange as this *; another was now. Deliberately, detachedly, I studied the angrily ...
— The Metal Monster • A. Merritt
... and with Pitichinaccio; at last Signor Pasquale and Signor Splendiano came to the resolution that they really would take Marianna to this theatre to-morrow. Pitichinaccio, it was resolved, should accompany them in the disguise of a handmaiden, to which he only gave his consent on condition that Signor Pasquale would make him a present, not only of the plush waistcoat, but also of a wig, and at night would, alternately with the Pyramid Doctor, carry him home. That bargain they finally made; and so the curious leash will ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... family servant—an indoor domestic, and handmaiden to a white mistress. This in the days of youth—the halcyon days of her girlhood, in "Ole Varginny"—before she was transported west, sold to Ephraim Darke, and by him degraded to the lot of an ordinary outdoor slave. But her original owner taught her to read, ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... cities,' he continued, 'and Flattery is its handmaiden. Vanity, flattery and Deceit are the three disgraces. I like a man to be what he is—out and out. If he's ashamed of himself it won't be long before his friends'll be ashamed of him. There's the trouble with this town. ...
— Eben Holden - A Tale of the North Country • Irving Bacheller
... shrubbery clusters along the base of the stone wall, and takes away the hardness of its outline; and in due time, as the upshot of these apparently aimless or sportive touches, we recognize that the beneficent Creator of all things, working through his handmaiden whom we call Nature, has deigned to mingle a charm of divine gracefulness even with so earthly an institution as a boundary fence. The clown who wrought at it little ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Countess of Exeter, and pointing out Gillian to her, inquired in a low tone, and in a few words, to which, however, his looks imparted significance, whether she would take the pretty damsel into her service as tire-woman or handmaiden. The Countess seemed surprised at the request, and, after glancing at the Beauty of Tottenham, was about to refuse it, when Lord Roos urged in a whisper, "'T is for De Gondomar I ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 1 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... The ubiquitous handmaiden promptly appeared, and Archer heard Madame Olenska say, in an Italian that she seemed to pronounce with intentional deliberateness in order that he might follow it: "Here—throw this into the dustbin!" and then, as Nastasia stared protestingly: "But no—it's not the fault of ...
— The Age of Innocence • Edith Wharton
... not in his first lustre, but he was an ardent admirer of the sex, and in an absent-minded way he passed his arm round the handmaiden's waist, and sustained a buffet ...
— At Sunwich Port, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... handmaiden, "Take this dish of henna, go to that traveller dressed like a Fakir, and sprinkle scent on him ...
— Indian Fairy Tales • Collected by Joseph Jacobs
... fact that one of that damsel's parents had officiated as cook at a Southern hospital where the chaplain happened to be on duty in the war-days). Her mother lives with his people to this hour, and she has grown up under my eyes and been my handmaiden, and the nurse of all my children, and never a word has any one ever breathed against her until you came; and you ...
— 'Laramie;' - or, The Queen of Bedlam. • Charles King
... in a clumsy mahogany chair, which stood near a plain deal table, and stared at the handmaiden. "I never told you about my father," ...
— The Opal Serpent • Fergus Hume
... be treated as the handmaiden of protection. Our first duty is to see that the protection granted by the tariff in every case where it is needed is maintained, and that reciprocity be sought for so far as it can safely be done without injury to our home industries. Just how far this is must be determined according to the ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... prized in Europe, and many of which are magnificent specimens of decorative art, are not, in one sense, characteristically Japanese. The Japanese has always, if I may so express it, used art as the handmaiden of utilitarianism. Every article intended for the Japanese home had to be not merely a thing of beauty but a thing for use. It never entered the minds of the Japanese to hang beautiful specimens of their porcelain ware on ...
— The Empire of the East • H. B. Montgomery
... tremor and excitement seized her when, one afternoon, as she sat waiting for her tea, a coach from the Blue Lion dashed—or, at least, almost dashed—up to the front door, a young lady got out, and the next minute the handmaiden, Mary Anne, threw open the door of the parlor, announcing, ...
— A Fair Barbarian • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... offices in the material line were confined to supplying her with nice bread and butter and fruit and milk, with many varieties beside. But in that day or two of rheumatic pains, when Molly had been waited upon by the dainty little handmaiden who came in spotless frocks and trim little black shoes to make her fire and prepare her tea, Daisy's tenderness and care had completely won Molly's heart. She was a real angel in that poor house; no vision of one. Molly welcomed ...
— Melbourne House • Elizabeth Wetherell
... honeysuckle that lay yet unwithered in the window. On the floor lay scattered a few papers, written in a notable poetic hand, and addressed—as I could not but read—"To one who bade the poet give o'er his singing," or "To the fair moon, handmaiden to the glorious sun," or in such wise. On a chair was another paper half written, and beside it a pen: "Humphrey," it said, in Jeannette's loved hand—"Humphrey, come over and help—" Here the pen had hastily ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed
... desire that his handmaiden should be blunt? Well, I know that there is no truth in what ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - LA CONSTANTIN—1660 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... those petitions for him whose dead body was even then being tossed hither and thither by the restless waves, his murderers, came at last to be more than even she could bear. She gave command to her handmaiden Iris to go to the palace of Somnus, god of Sleep and brother of Death, and to bid him send to Halcyone a vision, in the form of Ceyx, to tell her that all her weary waiting ...
— A Book of Myths • Jean Lang
... in a voice that made my flesh creep, "not into your bed, neither into your bosom, Thomas. Be civil to the young woman, but remember what your best friend Adversity told you, and never let her be more than your handmaiden again; free to come, free to go, but never more to be your mistress." I screw myself about, and twist, and turn in great perplexity—Hard enough all this, and I am half inclined to try to ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... she would really come, albeit I did let her know the day according to promise—or rather to her command," said her handmaiden, hurrying after her as if by instinct. The little figure in its sables and strangely-fashioned velvet bonnet turned at the sound of the quick footfall; and there stood the old lady scanning the whole party with her bead-like eyes, and giving little nods to this one and the ...
— The Sign Of The Red Cross • Evelyn Everett-Green
... kills those who differ from him, he blasphemes. When, in the name of God, he opposes the equal rights of all, he blasphemes. When, in the name of God, he preaches content to the poor and oppressed, flatters the rich and powerful, and makes religious tyranny the handmaiden of political privilege, he blasphemes. And when he takes the Bible in his hand, and says it was written by the inspiration of God, ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (First Series) • George W. Foote
... in the life of the heart, I can exist on your mind, your sentiments; they please me, and I will always be what I am, your friend. Yours is a noble moral nature; I have recognized it, I have appreciated it, and that suffices me. In that is all my future. Do not laugh at a young and pretty handmaiden who shrinks not from the thought of being some day the old companion of a poet,—a sort of mother perhaps, or a housekeeper; the guide of his judgment and a source of his wealth. This handmaiden—so devoted, ...
— Modeste Mignon • Honore de Balzac
... alter our original insistence that in our realm as preachers, unlike the scientist's realm of the theologians, thought is the handmaid, not the mistress. Our great plea, then, for doctrinal preaching is that by intellectual grappling with the final and speculative problems of religion we do not supersede but feed the emotional life and do not diminish but focus and steady it. ...
— Preaching and Paganism • Albert Parker Fitch
... that he could never fall—he who was the object of such unwonted favors, who dwelt so supremely in the smile of Heaven. But lo, and behold the end of him who had received so many graces, who chose wisdom as his handmaid that he might be guided aright! Behold that youthful figure, so full of promise and goodly hope, praying to God that he might never deviate from the ways of grace; and then see the gray-haired apostate tottering to the grave, borne down by the weight of his sins and of his ...
— The Shepherd Of My Soul • Rev. Charles J. Callan
... propensity for mischief that characterizes sailors on shore, he immediately formed, and proceeded to put in execution, a plan for the torment and vexation of his antagonist of the yard-stick. He promised the sable handmaid of his Mary a half dollar, if she would personate her mistress for a few minutes, which he imagined easily enough done in the dark, and instructing her "to behave prim and lady-like," went in quest of the boy Jim, whom he stationed in the entry to open the door for Mr. ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... blest, Hath laid her Babe to rest. Time is our tedious Song should here have ending, Heav'ns youngest teemed Star, Hath fixt her polisht Car, Her sleeping Lord with Handmaid Lamp attending: And all about the Courtly Stable, Bright-harnest Angels ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... his most grievous woes. O listen to me, luckless Oedipus, Come home! The whole Cadmeian people claim With right to have thee back, I most of all, For most of all (else were I vile indeed) I mourn for thy misfortunes, seeing thee An aged outcast, wandering on and on, A beggar with one handmaid for thy stay. Ah! who had e'er imagined she could fall To such a depth of misery as this, To tend in penury thy stricken frame, A virgin ripe for wedlock, but unwed, A prey for any wanton ravisher? Seems it not cruel this reproach I cast On thee and ...
— The Oedipus Trilogy • Sophocles
... his tales to those who crowd around him? Doth he think of me, whose thoughts are all of him? Or have I angered him over-deeply?—for never have I seen him since that day I said him nay. Ah, Nicanor, was it love that said thee nay? This hour might I have been lying in his arms, Love's happy handmaid—so happy! What if I had yielded? I so want his love! What would God care? Mary, Mother, keep me from these thoughts! I would that I could see him now—this same moon doth shine upon him somewhere. Thou old moon, how many maids hast thou looked down on ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor
... line is our still stupendous war debt. In any modern campaign the dollars are the shock troops. With a depleted treasury in the rear, no army can maintain itself in the field. A country loaded with debt is a country devoid of the first line of defense. Economy is the handmaid of preparedness. If we wish to be able to defend ourselves to the full extent of our power in the future, we shall discharge as soon as possible the financial burden of the last war. Otherwise we would face a crisis with a part of our capital ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Calvin Coolidge • Calvin Coolidge
... majestic dome of St. Peter's,—which work, however, he did not live to see completed.] The mediaeval artists devoted themselves to painting instead of sculpture, for the reason that it best expresses the ideas and sentiments of Christianity. The art that would be the handmaid of the Church needed to be able to represent faith and hope, ecstasy and suffering,—none of which things can well be expressed by sculpture, which is ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers
... committed myself in favor of it. They all agreed that the scheme was good; and although neither of them entered personally into it, all fully sanctioned it, bidding me God-speed in my new adventure, as a powerful handmaid to their efforts in contending for our rights ...
— Official Report of the Niger Valley Exploring Party • Martin Robinson Delany
... begins to think that there is no probability of her becoming a mother. Ten years had elapsed, and no child was born. Reflecting on her advanced period of life, and incapable of an implicit reliance upon the power of God, she requested Abraham to take Hagar, her Egyptian handmaid, in order that she might obtain children by her. It is scarcely possible to imagine a proposal more calculated to subvert the comfort of her family, or more illustrative of an unbelieving spirit. She ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox
... upon as a handmaid to a thorough reconstruction, and its general character and aim were determined by the Northern teachers. Each convention framed a more or less complicated school system and undertook to provide for its support. The Negroes in the conventions ...
— The Sequel of Appomattox - A Chronicle of the Reunion of the States, Volume 32 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Walter Lynwood Fleming
... often turned by the reports of great fortunes suddenly acquired, so the ambition seizes upon many a young wife to cut a figure in "society." Instead of "the household—motions light and free" that Wordsworth describes, the handmaid of fashion leads the hollow life of "keeping up appearances." If nothing worse than the slavery of debt is incurred, home life becomes a counterfeit of happiness; but any one who watches the daily papers will ...
— Recollections of a Long Life - An Autobiography • Theodore Ledyard Cuyler
... ledger Still my patient pen I drive, Thinking what a feast awaits me In my happy home at five; In my small one-storeyed Eden, Where my wife awaits my coming, And our solitary handmaid Mutton-chops ...
— The Bon Gaultier Ballads • William Edmonstoune Aytoun
... If M'sieu' should die—it needed all her will to prevent herself from going over and taking things in her own hands, being his nurse, his handmaid, his slave. Duty—to the government, to her father? Her heart cried out that her duty lay where all her life was eddying to one centre. What would the world say? She was not concerned for that, save for him. What, then, would M'sieu' say? That gave her pause. The Seigneur's ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... has the Church dealt with the war?" cries the pacifist who has now risen, his eyes ablaze with denunciation of the minister. "The Christian Church—established or unestablished—is nothing but the handmaid of the politician and the State, the servile echo of capitalists and diplomatists. You talk of Divine guidance and the sanctification of life. How do you respect life and the teaching of Jesus Christ? Jesus said, 'Love your enemies, bless them that curse ...
— Mountain Meditations - and some subjects of the day and the war • L. Lind-af-Hageby
... who arose from the rite, similarly it was the ritual connected with the worship of the god which gave birth to his representation in sculpture. Art, she says, is not, as is commonly supposed, the "handmaid of religion." "She springs straight out of the rite, and her first outward leap is the image of the god." Miss Harrison gives two examples to substantiate her contention. In the first place, she states at some length ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring
... days, rest in their slumbers, And cheerfulness the handmaid of their toil. Nor yet too many nor too few their numbers; Corruption could not make their hearts her soil; The lust which stings, the splendor which encumbers, With the free foresters divide no spoil; Serene, not sullen, were the solitudes Of this ...
— Life & Times of Col. Daniel Boone • Cecil B. Harley
... liked to dash round the house alone, without thinking what somebody else was doing or ought to be doing. In short, she liked to have her out of the way for a while. Furthermore, it did not please her that Mr. Van Brunt and her little handmaid were, as she expressed it, "so thick." His first thought, and his last thought, she said, she believed, were for Ellen, whether she came in or went out; and Miss Fortune was accustomed to be chief, not only in her own house, but in the regards of all who came to it. ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell
... is not only wasted by bad cooking; but much of it is thrown away which French women would convert into something savoury and digestible. Health, morals, and family enjoyments, are all connected with the question of cookery. Above all, it is the handmaid of Thrift. It makes the most and the best of the bounties of God. It wastes nothing, but turns everything to account. Every Englishwoman, whether gentle or simple, ought to be accomplished in an art which confers so much comfort, health, ...
— Thrift • Samuel Smiles
... shell, all silver'd, used she, And branch'd with blushing coral to the knee; Where sparrows perch'd, of hollow pearl and gold, Such as the world would wonder to behold: Those with sweet water oft her handmaid fills, Which, as she went, would cherup through the bills. Some say, for her the fairest Cupid pin'd, And, looking in her face, was strooken blind. But this is true; so like was one the other, As he imagin'd ...
— Hero and Leander and Other Poems • Christopher Marlowe and George Chapman
... Instruction, to be useful, must show that the discoveries of science are, as is really the case, evidences of religion. It must show the harmony that exists between history and philosophy and the truths of faith. Secular knowledge should be the handmaid of religion; but no religion, no knowledge of God, is permitted to ...
— Public School Education • Michael Mueller
... war. Should this dreaded alternative, however, come to pass, not only would British trade again miss the market, the loss of which had already caused widespread suffering, but, in common with it, British navigation, British shipping, the chief handmaid of commerce, would be exposed in a remote quarter, most difficult to guard, to the privateering activity of a people whose aptitude for such occupation had been demonstrated in the fight for independence and the old French wars. Half a century before, in the ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 1 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... young ladies in the Chia family who are simply perfection itself. The eldest is a daughter of Mr. Cheng, Yuan Ch'un by name, who, on account of her excellence, filial piety, talents, and virtue, has been selected as a governess in the palace. The second is the daughter of Mr. She's handmaid, and is called Ying Ch'un; the third is T'an Ch'un, the child of Mr. Cheng's handmaid; while the fourth is the uterine sister of Mr. Chen of the Ning Mansion. Her name is Hsi Ch'un. As dowager lady Shih is so fondly attached to her granddaughters, they come, for the most part, over ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... cultivated; most persons of rank and position had their nativity or horoscope cast, and the belief in the ruling of the planets, and their influence on human and terrestrial affairs, was through long usage firmly established in the public mind. Indeed, at this time, astronomy was regarded as a handmaid to astrology; for, with the aid of astronomical calculation, the professors of this occult science were enabled to predict the positions of the planets, and by this means practised their art with an ...
— The Astronomy of Milton's 'Paradise Lost' • Thomas Orchard
... fancy with the splendors of the Greek ritual. "The choir goes on singing, and the pope takes one crown and makes the bridegroom kiss it, then places it on his head and says, 'I crown thee as servant of God and husband of this handmaid of the Lord.' Then he takes the other crown, gives it to the bride to kiss, and says to her, 'I crown thee as handmaid of the Lord, and wife of this servant of God.' The deacon begins to pray for the young pair, and meanwhile the priest ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai
... to dispel the shadow that brooded over me with the same instinctive skill that some women will show with the trouble of a child. She made herself my glad and pretty slave and handmaid; she forced me at last to rejoice in her. Yet at the back of it all Marion remained, stupid and tearful and infinitely distressful, so that I was almost intolerably unhappy for her—for her and the dead body of ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... handmaid of Sarah, was given as a slave to Abraham, by her father, Pharaoh, king of Egypt, who said: "My daughter had better be a slave in the house of Abraham than mistress in any other house." Her son Ishmael, it is said, took unto himself a wife of the daughters ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston
... realm. But so dear thou hast been to me; and so fair and clear, and so kind withal do thine eyes shine on me from under the grey war-helm, that I will beseech thee not to cast me out utterly, but suffer me to be thy servant and handmaid for ...
— The Wood Beyond the World • William Morris
... gloomy outside being once passed, the house looked wonderfully bright and clean; the walls and doors newly-painted and delicately stencilled:—("Master did all that himself," observed the proud little handmaid, Jenny—Jem Watkins's sweetheart. I had begged the place for her myself of Mistress Ursula.) Though only a few rooms were furnished, and that very simply, almost poorly, all was done with taste and care; the colours well mingled, the wood-work ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... learning is not the least remarkable instance, had produced an effect which they had never contemplated. Ignorance was the talisman on which their power depended; and that talisman they had themselves broken. They had called in Knowledge as a handmaid to decorate Superstition, and their error produced its natural effect. I need not tell you what a part the votaries of classical learning, and especially the votaries of Greek learning, the Humanists, as they were then called, bore in the great movement against spiritual tyranny. They formed, ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... cities, the temples or the palaces were the home of this industry; but quantities of stuff were served out under bond to private establishments to be worked up and returned or paid for. The work on these industries constituted the amat sarruti, or obligation to serve as "king's handmaid." It lay also upon slaves. It is doubtful whether the obligation included domestic service. From the second Babylonian Empire we have a host of tablets relating to these weaving accounts. They will be found fully discussed by Dr. Zehnpfund in ...
— Babylonian and Assyrian Laws, Contracts and Letters • C. H. W. Johns
... ponder long with anxious thought To banish rats that haunt our vault: Nor have you grumbled, reverend Dean, To keep our poultry sweet and clean; To sweep the mansion-house they dwell in, And cure the rank unsavoury smelling. Now enter as the dairy handmaid: Such charming butter [14] never man made. Let others with fanatic face Talk of their milk for babes of grace; From tubs their snuffling nonsense utter; Thy milk shall make us tubs of butter. The bishop with his foot may burn it,[15] But with his hand ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... be but little to call for the great self-denials of Christian workers in the field and many Christian givers in the country at large. It is this thought that has ever been held up before it—the thought that the church and the school go together, and that the school is simply the handmaid of the church. We recognize the fact that in Congregationalism especially, out of all forms of religious belief, we cannot hope to make men earnest, effective Christians, caring for themselves, managing their own affairs independently, and having ...
— American Missionary, Volume 43, No. 12, December, 1889 • Various
... their arms; and as one marked as a leader by his plume and bearing, covered with the dust and blood of battle, steps forward, she bends over the battlements to ask, "Art thou Joab?" "I am he," is the reply. "Then hear the words of thy handmaid," she cries; "I am one of them that are peaceable and faithful in Israel: thou seekest to destroy a city and a mother in Israel!" He solemnly repudiates the charge. "Far be it from me," he answers, "that I ...
— The Angels' Song • Thomas Guthrie
... no longer equal among themselves on the score of actuality, nor in fitness for the work in hand. The trivial, the accidental, the unmeaning, are rejected, and there will be no stopping short of the end; for art, being the handmaid of truth, can employ no other than the method of all reason, wherefore idealism is to it what abstraction is to logic and induction to natural science,—the breath of its rational being. Those who hold to realism in its extreme form, as a representation of the actual only, behave as if one should ...
— Heart of Man • George Edward Woodberry
... such," she answered without hesitation, "be his guilt and misfortune, he has eyes, and a nose, and hands, and feet. These are his own, and these he may deserve to forfeit by his personal offences. But let my lord be pleased to spare what his little handmaid presumes to claim as her ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... this little Maiden, this handmaid of the Lord, the deception might have been all natural and perhaps shared by herself. Were her first triumphs accidents merely, were her "voices" delusions, had she been given up by Heaven, of which she had called herself the servant? It was a stupor which quenched every ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant
... years of the century their adornment was begun. A host of sculptors was employed, the number and scale of statues required being great. There was a danger that the sculpture might have become a mere handmaid of the architecture to which it was subordinated. But this was not the case; the sculptors preserved a freedom in adapting their figures to the existing architectural lines, and it is precisely in the statuary applied to completed buildings that we can trace the most interesting transitions ...
— Donatello • David Lindsay, Earl of Crawford
... streets. When he had passed through the great city and was come to the Skaian gates, whereby he was minded to issue upon the plain, then came his dear-won wife, running to meet him, even Andromache daughter of great-hearted Eetion. So she met him now, and with her went the handmaid bearing in her bosom the tender boy, the little child, Hector's loved son, like unto a beautiful star. Him Hector called Skamandrios, but all the folk Astyanax [Astyanax "City King."]; for only Hector guarded ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer (Lang, Leaf, Myers trans.)
... twentieth century will vigorously dispute the field against electrical storage; and its success in the struggle—so far as regards its own particular province—will be enhanced owing to the fact that, in some respects, it will be able to command the services of electricity as its handmaid. Gas-engines are already very largely used as the actuators of electric lighting machinery. But in the developments which are now foreshadowed by the advent of acetylene gas the relation will be reversed. ...
— Twentieth Century Inventions - A Forecast • George Sutherland
... their number be Whether by seavens, or eighths, or fives, or nines, They round each fixed lamp; Infinity Will be redoubled thus by many times. Besides each greater Planet th' attendance finds Of lesser. Our Earths handmaid is the Moon, Which to her darkned side right duly shines, And Jove hath foure, as hath been said aboven, And Saturn more then foure if the plain truth ...
— Democritus Platonissans • Henry More
... see, the Virgin blest Hath laid her babe to rest: Time is our tedious song should here have ending; Heaven's youngest-teemed star[131] Hath fixed her polished car, Her sleeping Lord with handmaid lamp attending; And all about the courtly stable Bright-harnessed[132] angels sit, in ...
— England's Antiphon • George MacDonald
... illness; but instead of gratitude, I find it difficult to forgive you for what you have done. You fanned into a flame the spark of life that was smouldering and expiring, and baffled the disease that came to me as the handmaid of Mercy. Death, transformed into an angel of pity, kindly opened the door of escape from the woe and weariness of this sin-cursed world, into the calmness and dreamless rest of the vast shoreless Beyond; and just when I was passing through, you snatched me back to my burdens and my bitter lot. ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... undertakes to deliver a more certain and more genuine Method of curing Feavers and Agues, than has obtained hitherto: And it being premised, First, that a Fever is Natures Engine, she brings into the field, to remove her enemy; or her handmaid, either for evacuating the impurities of the blood, or for reducing it into a New State: Secondly, that the true and genuine cure of this sickness consists in such a tempering of the Commotion of the Blood, that it may neither ...
— Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society - Vol 1 - 1666 • Various
... the earth, Thou art exalted in strength like the earth. As for thee, a just path be graciously granted to thee When thou enterest the house of man. A hyena on the hunt for a young lamb art thou, A restless lion art thou. A destructive handmaid, the beauty of heaven, A handmaid is Ishtar, the beauty of heaven, Who causest all being to emanate, O beauty of heaven, Associate (?) of the sun, O ...
— The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria • Morris Jastrow
... I come forth. My tongue is like unto that of Ptah and my throne is like unto that of the goddess Hathor, and I make mention of the words of Tem, my father, with my mouth. He it is who constraineth the handmaid, the wife of Seb, and before him are bowed [all] heads, and there is fear of him. Hymns of praise are repeated for [me] by reason of [my] mighty acts, and I am decreed to be the divine Heir of Seb, the lord of the earth ...
— Egyptian Literature
... enchanting fiction which has illuminated, with the genius of Walter Scott, the stirring scenes of the Porteous riots, and has lent an air of heroic dignity and beauty to the obscure smuggler, George Robertson. It is the happy privilege of the true romancer to find history his handmaid, and to make obscure events immortal, whether they be the scuffles of Greeks and barbarians outside a small town in Asia Minor, or the lynching of a dissolute adventurer by an Edinburgh ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume II (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... maid, Heart against mine,— Take me, lord governor, Who am all thine! Thou that hast blessed me With a new light, Ah, is thy handmaid ...
— Miscellany of Poetry - 1919 • Various
... dismissed. Presently arrives Prometheus, who informs Epops of the desperate straits to which the gods are by this time reduced, and advises him to push his claims and demand the hand of Basileia (Dominion), the handmaid of Zeus. Next an embassy from the Olympians appears on the scene, consisting of Heracles, Posidon and a god from the savage regions of the Triballians. After some disputation, it is agreed that all reasonable ...
— The Birds • Aristophanes
... sitting-room without previously knocking at the door, and so beheld a gentleman with his arm clasping his young mistress's waist, sitting very lovingly by her side on a sofa, while Arabella and her pretty handmaid feigned to be absorbed in looking out of a window at the other end of the room. At sight of which phenomenon the fat boy uttered an interjection, the ladies a scream, and the gentleman ...
— The Inns and Taverns of "Pickwick" - With Some Observations on their Other Associations • B.W. Matz
... she hasted, and lighted off the ass, and fell before David on her face, and bowed herself to the ground, and fell at his feet, and said, Upon me, my lord, let this iniquity be: and let thine handmaid, I pray thee, speak in thine audience, and hear the words of thine handmaid. Let not my lord, I pray thee, regard this man of Belial, even Nabal: for as his name is, so is he; Nabal is his name, and folly is with him; but I, thine handmaid, saw not the young men of my lord, whom thou ...
— True Words for Brave Men • Charles Kingsley
... splendor for the enjoyment of the world. Hilda's faculty of genuine admiration is one of the rarest to be found in human nature; and let us try to recompense her in kind by admiring her generous self-surrender, and her brave, humble magnanimity in choosing to be the handmaid of those old magicians, instead of a minor enchantress within a circle ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume I. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... of the young officers as a present, it being supposed that possibly, without a lady to preside over their mess, it might be sometimes deficient in these delicacies. Mrs. Twiggs was so fortunate as to have well-trained servants to do for her that which, thanks to my little dark handmaid, always fell ...
— Wau-bun - The Early Day in the Northwest • Juliette Augusta Magill Kinzie
... remarkable good luck which waited upon Wordsworth through his whole life. In our view it is only another illustration of that scripture which describes the righteous as never forsaken. Good luck is the willing handmaid of upright, energetic character, and conscientious observance of duty. Wordsworth owed his nomination to the friendly exertions of the Earl of Lonsdale, who desired to atone as far as might be for the injustice of the first Earl, and who respected the honesty ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... MY aunt's handmaid, as I supposed she was from what she had said, put her rice in a little basket and walked out of the shop; telling me that I could follow her, if I wanted to know where Miss Trotwood lived. I needed ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... Greeks "song" was an all-embracing term. It included the crooning of the nurse to the child... the half-sung chant of the mower or sailor... the formal ode sung by the poet. In all Greek lyrics, even in the choral odes, music was the handmaid of verse.... The poet himself composed the accompaniment. Euripides was censured because Iophon had assisted him in the musical setting of some of his dramas.' Here is pictured a type of Greek work which survives in American vaudeville, where every line may be two-thirds spoken ...
— The Congo and Other Poems • Vachel Lindsay
... I say to thee, thou scorne of Nature, Blacke spot of sinne, vylde lure of lecherie, Injurious blame to everie faemale creature, Wronger of time, broker of trecherie, Trap of greene youth, false womens witcherie, Handmaid of pride, highway to wickednesse, Yet pathway to ...
— The Affectionate Shepherd • Richard Barnfield
... piecemeal in many galleries of Europe, in Parma has a fulness, largeness, and mastery that can nowhere else be found. In Parma alone Correggio challenges comparison with Raphael, with Tintoret, with all the supreme decorative painters who have deigned to make their art the handmaid of architecture. Yet even in the cathedral and the church of S. Giovanni, where Correggio's frescoes cover cupola and chapel wall, we could scarcely comprehend his greatness now—so cruelly have time and neglect dealt with those delicate dream-shadows of celestial ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... spiritually, producing Him externally by a pure and Christian life. Like her you should be ready to accomplish the will of God in your own regard, saying, as she did, with sentiments of obedience and profound humility: "Behold the handmaid of the Lord, be it done unto me according to Thy word;" abandoning your soul with perfect docility to the operation of the Holy Ghost, following Him wherever He desires to lead you. Let your soul glorify God, and rejoice in Him on account of the great ...
— Serious Hours of a Young Lady • Charles Sainte-Foi
... Geraint had longing in him evermore To stoop and kiss the tender little thumb, That crost the trencher as she laid it down: But after all had eaten, then Geraint, For now the wine made summer in his veins, Let his eye rove in following, or rest On Enid at her lowly handmaid-work, Now here, now there, about the dusky hall; Then ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester
... the immortal prize, And urged the rest by equal steps to rise. Just precepts thus from great examples given, She drew from them what they derived from Heaven. The generous critic fann'd the poet's fire, 100 And taught the world with reason to admire. Then Criticism the Muse's handmaid proved, To dress her charms, and make her more beloved: But following wits from that intention stray'd, Who could not win the mistress, woo'd the maid; Against the poets their own arms they turn'd, Sure to hate most the men from whom they learn'd. So modern 'pothecaries, taught ...
— The Poetical Works Of Alexander Pope, Vol. 1 • Alexander Pope et al
... the blessed man gave ear unto the woman's counsels, and bade his handmaid go unto his bed, according as his wife had counselled him. And the maiden conceived by Abraham, and her heart grew arrogant. She stubbornly began to vex her mistress, was insolent, insulting, evil-hearted, and would not willingly ...
— Codex Junius 11 • Unknown
... the prettiest, and the most industrious girl in the village, and was a general favourite with young and old. She helped her mother in the house, bound shoes for her father, and attended to all the wants of her dear old grandfather, Saunders Burns, who was so much attached to his little handmaid, that he was never happy ...
— Life in the Clearings versus the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... virtue of the Regent, well known in the kingdom, saved her from suspicion, since she was supposed to be as impregnable as the Chateau de Peronne. At curfew, when everything was shut, both ears and eyes, and the castle silent, Madame de Beaujeu sent away her handmaid, and called for her squire. The squire came. Then the lady and the adventurer sat side by side upon a velvet couch, in the shadow of a lofty fireplace, and the curious Regent, with a tender voice, asked of Jacques "Are you bruised? It was very wrong of me to make a knight, ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... for that without all these requisites whereof I bespake thee I may not visit him. Moreover set before me a dozen slave-girls unique in beauty and dight with the most magnificent dresses, that they wend with my mother to the royal palace; and let every handmaid be robed in raiment that befitteth Queen's wearing." The Slave replied, "To hear is to obey;" and, disappearing for an eye-twinkling, brought all he was bidden bring and led by hand a stallion whose ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... doubt whether pity and love are so near a-kin as poets feign, for I have seldom seen much compassion excited by the helplessness of females, unless they were fair; then, perhaps, pity was the soft handmaid of love, or the ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]
... studied an art, and had hopes and aspirations, who now, in his age, was come to serve the revels of a set of drunken sailors, in a disreputable tavern, where they danced with prostitutes. I don't know why, but from the first he drew my attention; and I left my handmaid to count her charms neglected, while I sat and watched him, speculating about him in a melancholy way, with a sort ...
— Grey Roses • Henry Harland
... For the neat handmaid who attended on the doctor's wants had tapped at the door, and receiving no answer from her master, whose voice she could hear declaiming loudly, opened the door and walked ...
— The Ocean Cat's Paw - The Story of a Strange Cruise • George Manville Fenn
... these seven days, because I know that I have done wrong in worshipping dumb idols, and in speaking scornfully against Joseph. But, Lord, I did it in ignorance; save me, and above all watch over Joseph, whom I love more than my own life. Keep him, Lord, in safety, and let me be his handmaid and his slave, if Thou wilt, so that I may minister to him all the days I have ...
— Old Testament Legends - being stories out of some of the less-known apochryphal - books of the old testament • M. R. James
... Church of St. Mary Magdalen in Florence, 1449. Another on the same subject, called 'Abraham and Sarah,' 'containing the good life of their son Isaac, and the bad conduct of Ishmael, the son of his handmaid, and how they were turned out of the house,' was printed in 1556; 'Abel e Caino,' and 'Samson,' 1554; 'The Prodigal Son,' 1565; and 'La Commedia Spirituale dell' Anima' ('The Spiritual Comedy of the Soul'), printed at Siena, without date, in which there are near thirty personifications, besides ...
— The Standard Oratorios - Their Stories, Their Music, And Their Composers • George P. Upton
... formula prescribed by religion, but statues as objects of art, on which the sculptor exhibited all his genius and taste, were unquestionably executed in the pure and uncolored marble alone. In the chryselephantine, or ivory statues of Jove and Minerva, by Phidias, art was made a handmaid to religion. Phidias himself would have preferred to have executed ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... I have dismissed, with the fee of an orange, the little orphan who serves me as a handmaid. I am sitting alone on the hearth. This morning, the village school opened. I had twenty scholars. But three of the number can read: none write or cipher. Several knit, and a few sew a little. They speak with the broadest accent of ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... body—and a sound mind in it: a perfectly healthy mind in it, no doubt (be cause you cannot have a really sound and beautiful body without a sound healthy mind)—was the ideal they sought and saw. Very well, so far; but, you see, Art has ceased to be sacred, and the handmaid of the Mysteries; it bothers itself no longer with the other ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... the Great, but because it is the name of the river. The bastards afterwards murder their father, which is a warning to any bridegroom among the audience to be careful not to mistake another lady for his bride upon the wedding night. And thus Romance becomes the handmaid of Morality. ...
— Diversions in Sicily • H. Festing Jones
... the mountains, like a strong wild bull, it lieth down. 3 Its horn like the brilliance of the sun is bright. 4 Like the star of heaven[2] it is a prophet and is filled with sheen. 5 O mighty mother of Beltis, daughter of Bit-Esir: splendor of Bit-kurra,[3] appointment of Bit-Gigune, handmaid of Bit-Cigusurra![4] .....[5] ...
— Babylonian and Assyrian Literature • Anonymous
... goodly company,' said Grania, and ordered her lady to bring her the golden goblet chased with jewels. When it was brought she filled it up with the drink of nine times nine men, then bade her handmaid carry it to Fionn and say that she had sent it to him, and that he was to drink from it. Fionn took the goblet with joy, but no sooner had he drunk than he fell down into a deep slumber; and the same thing befel also Cormac, and Cormac's ...
— The Book of Romance • Various
... are in our power, since life is for us only a time of trial, and the longer and harder the trial the greater our recompense in a better world. Whatever befalls us, our answer should be that of the Virgin Mary to the angel who announced the mystery of the Incarnation: 'Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... the deepest humiliation holy Providence had seen fit to send her; and though the sentence would have crushed her happiness for ever, till the day of death, that she could still look up and say, "Be it to thine handmaid even as ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... her. It was followed by a feeling colder and very determined. The long day was before her. She was in a very perfect isolation with this man. She was a woman who had for years made it her business to understand men. By understanding them—for what is beauty without any handmaid of brains?—she had gained fortunes, and squandered them. By understanding them, when a critical moment had come in her life, she had secured for herself a husband. It was absurd that a man, who was at least half child—she thought ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... is," I answered easily. "A Roman master buys a young and comely Greek handmaid. In due course she has a daughter, legally also a slave and nominally a Greek, yet half Roman. When she is grown, if she happens to be comely and the property of a master like most masters, she has a daughter, a slave and spoken of as a Greek, yet ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... sister but thy slave. I bought her in thy name whilst thou wast yet in the cradle; so call her no more sister from this day forth." Quoth Ni'amah, "If that be so, I will take her to wife." Then he went to his mother and told her of this, and she said to him, "O my son, she is thy handmaid." So he wedded and went in unto Naomi and loved her; and two[FN4] years passed over them whilst in this condition, nor was there in all Cufa a fairer girl than Naomi, or a sweeter or a more graceful. As she grew up she learnt the Koran and read ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 4 • Richard F. Burton
... This to the handmaiden, who was making tea at the gipsy table in front of the fire—the table at which Vixen and Rorie had drunk tea so merrily ...
— Vixen, Volume I. • M. E. Braddon |
