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Handmaid

noun
1.
In a subordinate position.  Synonyms: handmaiden, servant.  "The state cannot be a servant of the church"
2.
A personal maid or female attendant.  Synonym: handmaiden.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Handmaid" Quotes from Famous Books



... reverberates through the soul. This Yes, this suppleness, renders the heart agreeable to the heart of the Spouse. It was thus with Mary, the mother of our Lord, when the angel messenger came to her, she replied, "Behold, the handmaid of the Lord, be it unto me according to thy word." It was thus with the child-like soul of Samuel, when he said, "Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth." It was thus with our divine Lord, "Lo, I come ...
— Letters of Madam Guyon • P. L. Upham

... and the general average status of the peoples can be improved and raised to a higher level only by a more complete exploitation of the forces of nature. This process requires, in the present state of civilization, capital, intelligence, and manual labor—the handmaid of intelligence. War is bound to destroy an enormous amount of capital, and a great number of the ablest workers. It is evident, therefore, that every war must reduce the general well-being of the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor

... Shahrazad had borne the King three boy children; so, when she had made an end of the story of Ma'aruf, she rose to her feet and kissing ground before him, said, "O King of the time and unique one of the age and the tide, I am thine handmaid, and these thousand nights and a night have I entertained thee with stories of folk gone before and admonitory instances of the men of yore. May I then make bold to crave a boon of thy highness?" ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner

... our fellow citizens in business and in pleasure, socially and politically, but religiously—never. Our charity we can offer in its fullest measure, but charity that lends itself to error, loses its sacred character and becomes the handmaid of evil, ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton

... every smiling land. Thy handmaid, Nature, meekly walks abroad, Scattering thy bounties with unsparing hand, While flowers and fruits spring up along her road. How can thy creatures their weak voices raise To tell thy deeds in their ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie

... God, bore him a daughter, and since Angus was a friend of Mananan and much beloved by him, the child of the Sea God was sent to Brugh na Boyna, the noble dwelling-place of Angus, to be fostered and brought up, as the custom was. And Ethne became the handmaid of the young princess of ...
— The High Deeds of Finn and other Bardic Romances of Ancient Ireland • T. W. Rolleston

... 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 ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume II (of 4) • Justin McCarthy

... astray! Twin-born, of equal stature, kindred soul Are we; like dowed with strength. Yon stars that roll Their course above, down-looking on my face, See yours as fair; in neither aught that's base. Thy wife, not handmaid I, yet thou dost say, 'I first in Eden rule.' Thou, then, hast sway. Must I, my Adam, mutely follow thee? Run at thy bidding, crouch beside thy knee? Lift up (when thou dost bid me) timid eyes? Not ...
— Lilith - The Legend of the First Woman • Ada Langworthy Collier

... or Thomas Aquinas, not that which flatters the desires of the heart, is true, but that only which is demonstrated to my own understanding with convincing force. Philosophy is no longer willing to be the handmaid of theology, but must set up a house of her own. The watchword now becomes freedom and independent thought, deliverance from every form of constraint, alike from the bondage of ecclesiastical decrees and the inner servitude of prejudice and cherished inclinations. But the adoption ...
— History Of Modern Philosophy - From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time • Richard Falckenberg

... England have preserved the memory of an incident which deserves mention as showing how the historian's life was saved by a quickwitted handmaid, more than a hundred years before he was born. On the 29th of August, 1708, the French and Indians from Canada made an attack upon the town of Haverhill, in Massachusetts. Thirty or forty persons were slaughtered, and many others were carried ...
— Memoir of John Lothrop Motley, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... all the domestic labour; then a maid, of the species known as 'general,' presented herself, and none too soon, for that same night there was born to the Rymers a third daughter. But troubles were by no means over. While Mrs. Rymer was ill—very ill indeed—the new handmaid exhibited a character so eccentric that, after nearly setting fire to the house while in a state of intoxication, she had to be got rid of as speedily as possible. Miss Shepperson resolved that, ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing

... All men with human feelings love their country. Not the highborn or wealthy man alone, Who looks upon his children, each one led By its gay handmaid, from the high alcove, And hears them once a day: not only he Who hath forgotten, when his guest inquires The name of some far village all his own; Whose rivers bound the province, and whose hills Touch the last cloud upon the level sky: ...
— Count Julian • Walter Savage Landor

... equally great American Baptist Union when Judson and his colleague became Baptists, and the former was sent by Carey to Burma. The Religious Tract Society (1799), and the British and Foreign Bible Society (1804)—each a handmaid of the missionary agencies—sprang as really though less directly from Carey's action. Such organised efforts to bring in heathen and Mohammedan peoples led in 1809 to the at first catholic work begun by the ...
— The Life of William Carey • George Smith

... sceptred mistress reign Who heeds her meanest subject's call, Sovereign of all their vast domain, The queen, the handmaid ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... do you say so?" says her handmaid, suddenly depressed. "Well, of course, miss, you—who are so much with London gentlemen—ought to know. And don't they mean what they ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton

... and softens those Gifts of Art and Nature, which otherwise would be rather distasteful than agreeable. Without it, Valour would degenerate into Brutality, Learning into Pedantry, and the genteelest Demeanour into Affectation. Even Religion its self, unless Decency be the Handmaid which waits upon her, is apt to make People appear guilty of Sourness and ill Humour: But this shews Virtue in her first original Form, adds a Comeliness to Religion, and gives its Professors the justest Title to the Beauty of Holiness. A Man fully instructed in this Art, may assume a ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... exaggerations as the well-known and oft-quoted proverb, "Speech is silver, but silence is golden." Articulate speech, the chiefest triumph and highest single accomplishment of the human species, the handmaid of thought and the instrument of progress, is actually rated below silence, the attribute of the clod and of the dumb brute, the easy refuge of cowardice and ...
— Preventable Diseases • Woods Hutchinson

... 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

... Not-Self, the divine Matter, the manifested Nature. Regarded as One, She is the Fourth, making possible the activity of the Three, the Field of Their operations by virtue of Her infinite divisibility, at once the "Handmaid of the Lord,"[270] and also His Mother, yielding of Her substance to form His Body, the universe, when overshadowed by His power.[271] Regarded carefully She is seen to be triple also, existing in three inseparable ...
— Esoteric Christianity, or The Lesser Mysteries • Annie Besant

... of Thorward's ship, which was left behind. Astrid was one of the five women who went with this expedition; the other four were Gunhild, Thora, Sigrid, and Bertha. Gunhild and Sigrid were wives to two of Biarne's men. Thora was handmaiden to Gudrid; Bertha handmaid to Freydissa. Of all the women Bertha was the sweetest and most beautiful, and she was also very modest and good-tempered, which was a fortunate circumstance, because her mistress Freydissa had temper enough, as Biarne used to remark, ...
— The Norsemen in the West • R.M. Ballantyne

... gentleman entered whom the duke had sent to Olivia, and he said, "So please you, my lord, I might not be admitted to the lady, but by her handmaid she returned you this answer: Until seven years hence, the element itself shall not behold her face; but like a cloistress she will walk veiled, watering her chamber with her tears for the sad remembrance of her dead brother." On hearing this, the duke exclaimed, ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb

... matter what their theories regarding his personality, plans and powers. Truth should be sought assiduously, and welcomed wherever found. We should not attempt to make it fit a preconceived theory, but to make the theory conform to it. Science should be the handmaid of the church, philosophy its helpful brother; but its ecumenical council, its court of last resort, should be the religious instinct inherent in man—that perception so fine, so subtle, that all attempts to weave it into ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann

... 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 exceed, nor be too languide: ...
— Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society - Vol 1 - 1666 • Various

... was thy dead chief's handmaid, Friends. Twelve months agone, I was with him Upon the battle-field alone. The Sioux were all around us; their Faces war-red painted; their cries Of vengeance filling all the air. He to his saddle caught me up. The Great Spirit ...
— Indian Legends of Minnesota • Various

... went away with the maidens of the Arabs, and the Caliph said to Ja'afar, "There is no help for it but I take her to wife." So Ja'afar repaired to her father and said to him, "The Commander of the Faithful hath a mind to thy daughter." He replied, "With love and goodwill, she is a gift as a handmaid to His Highness our Lord the Commander of the Faithful." So he equipped her and carried her to the Caliph, who took her to wife and went in to her, and she became of the dearest of his women to him. Furthermore, he bestowed on her father largesse such as succoured him ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 7 • Richard F. Burton

... their 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 ...
— The First White Man of the West • Timothy Flint

... 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, wounded by one on my ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 2 • Honore de Balzac

... embroidery, in its highest form the handmaid of architecture, is full of suggestion, and may assist us greatly in the search which culminates in the text ...
— Needlework As Art • Marian Alford

... "I declare myself a hundred times more indebted to phrenology than to all the metaphysical works that I ever read. . . . I look upon phrenology as the guide to philosophy and the handmaid of Christianity. Whoever disseminates true ...
— To Infidelity and Back • Henry F. Lutz

... birth 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 ...
— Serious Hours of a Young Lady • Charles Sainte-Foi

... her eyelids as he spoke—scalding tears; and she looked at him, and her heart re-opened to its lord, all love and worship; and Armida said, "Behold thy handmaid; dispose of her ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt

... to call her Mistress evermore: Save thou delude thyself, then shall there shine High miracles before thee, so divine That thou shalt say, O Love, when I adore, True Lord, behold the handmaid of the Lord, Be it unto me according to ...
— The Banquet (Il Convito) • Dante Alighieri

... your grace, an' I had room for such a thundergust within mine ancient bowels, 'tis not in reason I coulde discharge ye same and live to thank God for yt He did choose handmaid so humble whereby to shew his power. Nay, 'tis not I yt have broughte forth this rich o'ermastering fog, this fragrant gloom, so ...
— 1601 - Conversation as it was by the Social Fireside in the Time of the Tudors • Mark Twain

... was of no use to worry our minds on the subject, and we soon forgot, in the ancient wonders of the Tower, the probable eccentricities of our modern handmaid. ...
— The Rudder Grangers Abroad and Other Stories • Frank R. Stockton

... yet have any knowledge through the medium of the outward senses; but for the same reason it can realize the existence of a Law by which the as yet unmanifested circumstances may be brought into manifestation. Thus used in its right order, the intellect becomes the handmaid of that more interior power within us which manipulates the unseen substance of all things, and which we may ...
— The Edinburgh Lectures on Mental Science • Thomas Troward

... 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 rival was not amongst ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton

... to which he possesses, at least, analogies in accredited experience, than for a fact (say telepathic crystal-gazing) to which he knows, in experience, nothing analogous. Thus, for the mythical German handmaid, he has the analogy of languages learned in childhood, or passages got up by rote, being forgotten and brought back to ordinary conscious memory, or delirious memory, during an illness, or shortly before death. ...
— The Making of Religion • Andrew Lang

... has deceived us, O Lord, but we forgive him freely. Forgive Thou also his trespasses, so that at the last he escape hell-fire. Count not Thy handmaid for a daughter of Belial, wherever she is this day. May it be good for her to be cut off from the body of the righteous. Grant that she feel this mercy in her carnal body before her eternal soul be called to everlasting ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine

... 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 ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor

... an instance of the 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 of the man more than he appreciated ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell

... and carefully you nursed and watched over me, during my 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, ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson

... Lord, I might not be admitted, But from her handmaid do returne this answer: The Element it selfe, till seuen yeares heate, Shall not behold her face at ample view: But like a Cloystresse she will vailed walke, And water once a day her Chamber round With eye-offending brine: all this to season A brothers dead loue, which she would ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare

... sat over him till he died at the day-dawning; and then she looked, and behold, there came many ships sailing to the land: then she spake to the handmaid...
— The Story of the Volsungs, (Volsunga Saga) - With Excerpts from the Poetic Edda • Anonymous

... the assistance of air photography to reconnaissance, the war gave it great impetus as the handmaid of survey and mapping. It was, in fact, the only means of mapping or correcting the maps of country held by the enemy, which in certain cases, as at Gallipoli and in Palestine, ...
— Aviation in Peace and War • Sir Frederick Hugh Sykes

... alone. Shint[o] knows next to nothing of art,[6] and indeed one might almost say that it knows little of civilization. It is like ultra-Puritanic Protestantism and Iconoclasm. Buddhism, on the contrary, is the mother of art, and art is her ever-busy child and handmaid. The temples of the Kami were bald and bare. The Kojiki told nothing of life hereafter, and kept silence on a hundred points at which human curiosity is sure to be active, and at which the Yoga system was voluble. Buddhism came with a set of visible symbols ...
— The Religions of Japan - From the Dawn of History to the Era of Meiji • William Elliot Griffis

... ferociously. From the age of two or thereabouts he valiantly essays the conquest of articulate speech, using it first to identify his father or his mother amid the common herd of Gentiles; next, to demand a more liberal and varied dietary; anon, as handmaid of his imperious will to learn. This desire, still in the nursery, climbs—like dissolution in Wordsworth's sonnet—from low to high: from a craving to discover experimentally what the stomach will ...
— On The Art of Reading • Arthur Quiller-Couch

... all the world was white with flowers, And Summer, in her sun-built towers, Stood smiling 'mid her handmaid Hours, Who robed her limbs for bridal; Somewhere between the golden sands And purple hills of Folly's lands, Love, with a laugh, let go our hands, And ...
— Weeds by the Wall - Verses • Madison J. Cawein

... was bound to discover the true equipoise. No intervention could really affect the inevitable outcome. It could only hinder and disturb."[57] The Church, whose pride it had been in remoter ages to be the Handmaid of the Poor, was bidden to leave the Social Problem severely alone; and so ten years rolled by, while the social pressure on labour became daily more grievous to be borne. But meanwhile the change was proceeding underground, or at least out of sight. Forces were working side by side which knew nothing ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell

... Juno bid her handmaid forth, Two arches parallel, and trick'd alike, Span the thin cloud, the outer taking birth From that within (in manner of that voice Whom love did melt away, as sun the mist), And they who gaze, presageful call to mind The compact, made with Noah, of the world ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri

... to make people understand that music instead of being the handmaid of poetry, whose function is merely to reflect the ideas of our spoken language, has a language of its own, which can convey ideas in itself, and that there are subtilties that can be expressed in this manner, which evade one when we come ...
— Beethoven • George Alexander Fischer

... among themselves the people talked of the probability of his not coming at all. She could not remain alone at Double Dykes, they all admitted, but where, then, should she go? No fine lady in need of a handmaid seemed to think a painted lady's child would suit; indeed, Grizel at first sight had not the manner that attracts philanthropists. Once only did the problem approach solution; a woman in the Den-head was willing to take the child ...
— Sentimental Tommy - The Story of His Boyhood • J. M. Barrie

... became the burghers within, 160 When they heard how the Holy Maid spoke Over the high wall. The warriors rejoiced; To the gate of the fortress the folk then hastened, Wives with their husbands, in hordes and in bands, In crowds and in companies; they crushed and thronged 165 Towards the handmaid of God by hundreds and thousands, Old ones and young ones. All of the men In the goodly city were glad in their hearts At the joyous news that Judith was come Again to her home, and hastily then 170 With humble hearts ...
— Old English Poems - Translated into the Original Meter Together with Short Selections from Old English Prose • Various

... requisite, without a strict observance of which the undertaker will find the establishment unproductive and injurious to his interest. Purity cannot exist without cleanliness. Cleanliness in the human system will destroy an obstinate itch, of consequence, it is the active handmaid of health and comfort, and without ...
— The Practical Distiller • Samuel McHarry

... acquainted in the waywardness of this most mischievous deity. The morning after the wedding, therefore, while Lady Lillycraft was making preparations for her departure, an audience was requested by her immaculate handmaid, Mrs. Hannah, who, with much priming of the mouth, and many maidenly hesitations, requested leave to stay behind, and that Lady Lillycraft would supply her place with some other servant. Her ladyship was astonished: "What! ...
— Bracebridge Hall • Washington Irving

... a good, clean, wholesome-looking countryman's cart stops opposite my door.—Do I want any huckleberries?—If I do not, there are those that do. Thereupon my soft-voiced handmaid bears out a large tin pan, and then the wholesome countryman, heaping the peck-measure, spreads his broad hands around its lower arc to confine the wild and frisky berries, and so they run nimbly along the narrowing channel until they tumble rustling down in a black cascade and tinkle on ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes

... of the girl she got warmer and warmer, and tried to inflame her 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 ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai

... mind, the elevation of thought, the deepened sense of the beautiful, which a really intellectual study of the same works would impart or increase. I do not wish to depreciate the good offices of the memory; it is very valuable as a handmaid to the higher powers of the intellect. I have, however, generally observed that where much attention has been devoted to the recollection of names, facts, dates, &c., the higher species of intellectual ...
— The Young Lady's Mentor - A Guide to the Formation of Character. In a Series of Letters to Her Unknown Friends • A Lady

... and uninteresting study, abounding with dry details of small general interest, which, when not pompously pretentious, were, in the other extreme, of trifling insignificance, has, by a better acquaintance with its true position as the handmaid of history, become so popular that most English counties have societies especially devoted to its district claims, and our large cities have their archaeological institutes also. This is due to the good sense which has divested the study of its drier details, or has had the tact to hide them ...
— Rambles of an Archaeologist Among Old Books and in Old Places • Frederick William Fairholt

... Queen of woods, Latonia, virgin fair! To thee my daughter I devote this day, Thy handmaid. See, thus early through the air She bears thy weapons. Make her thine, I pray, And safely through the doubtful air convey.' So prayed the sire, and nerved him for the throw, Then aimed, and launched the missile on its way. The babe forlorn, while roars the stream below, Link'd ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil

... was sure and just, if a little more disposed towards that which is sensuous than towards that which is spiritual. And in all its many forms she appreciated luxury, even entertaining a kindness for that necessary handmaid of luxury—waste. Appreciated these the more ardently, that, with birth-pangs at the beginning of each human life, death-pangs and the corruption of the inevitable grave at the close of each, all this lapping, meanwhile, of the doomed flesh in exaggerations ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet

... some messenger, he could only suppose. Some confidante, at need. A handmaid? The whisper of her silks, the remembered gleam of jewels in the henna hair flouted that thought, and not troubling his ingenuity with alternatives he was content to follow ...
— The Fortieth Door • Mary Hastings Bradley

... for refuge will I fly, And pour my tale of suffering in thine ear; And thou shalt teach me all that I must do. Like some meek handmaid will I follow thee, Will pace before the loom from early morn, Nay, set my hand to all those lowly tasks Which maids of noble blood would scorn to touch In Colchis, as but fit for toiling serfs, Yet ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... my father drove away by treason; and full of sorrow my womanhood, for thy treacherous father and for thee; and full of sorrow my old age will be (for I see my fate in dreams), when the sons of the Swan shall carry me captive to the hollow vale of Eurotas, till I sail across the seas a slave, the handmaid of the pest of Greece. Yet shall I be avenged, when the golden-haired heroes sail against Troy, and sack the palaces of Ilium; then my son shall set me free from thralldom, and I shall hear the tale of Theseus's fame. Yet beyond that I see new sorrows; but I can ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes

... many a friend on the spot, I've quitted the comforts of town In order to keep open house for the lot In a chamber provided by Brown. They shall come to my bedroom; I'll give them good cheer; I'll ring for a handmaid and tell her To serve us at once with a dinner up here, Including the pick ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, February 4, 1914 • Various

... the Greek, broke down in practice. 'Where the Middle Ages failed', says the Master of Balliol, continuing a passage already quoted, 'was in attempting ... to make politics the handmaid of religion, to give the Church the organization and form of a political State, that is, to turn religion from an indwelling spirit into an ecclesiastical machinery.' In other words, the mediaeval attempt ...
— Progress and History • Various

... 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 fairyland—were ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds

... glory of Heaven, the Virgin kneels before the throne of the Creator; she is clad in regal attire of purple and crimson and gold; and she bends her fair crowned head, and folds her hands upon her bosom with an expression of meek yet dignified resignation—"Behold the handmaid of the Lord!"—accepting, as woman, that highest glory, as mother, that extremest grief, to which the Divine will, as spoken by the prophets of old, had called her. Below, on the earth and to the right hand, stand David and Solomon, as prophets and kingly ancestors: on the left hand, St. ...
— Legends of the Madonna • Mrs. Jameson

... handmaid bubbled over with willing talk. Oh, yes, there was a meeting up Manx Road, and her Ladyship had gone with Lord Naseby, and Lady Madeleine, and Mr. Everard, the inspector, and, she thought, one or two besides. She expected the ladies back about ten, and they ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... different channel. Nothing was deemed worthy of serious attention, except what led to some practical object in life. Education was considered by their founders as merely a step to making money. Science became a trade—a mere handmaid to art. Mammon was all in all. Their instruction was entirely utilitarian. Mechanics and Medicine, Hydraulics and Chemistry, Pneumatics and Hydrostatics, Anatomy and Physiology, constituted the grand staples of their education. What they taught ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various

... is quite as much the handmaid of science as science can be said to be the handmaid of religion. She breathes far more household laws for her devotees, if she does not veil her "sacred fires" more modestly from the sight of men. She is certainly less dogmatic, less dictatorial, less abounding in positive ...
— Life: Its True Genesis • R. W. Wright

... maiden, and forced a smile. "It is well," said he, "I doubt not of your zeal. You are a true handmaid of the church, and she will love and reward you for it as a mother! It is ...
— Henry VIII And His Court • Louise Muhlbach

... simple and as inexpensive as it was at the time when all her income consisted of three shillings and sixpence, or at most five shillings per week. There was not the least difference as to her lodging, dress, manner of life, etc. She remained in every way the poor handmaid of the Lord, as to all outward appearance. 4. But that which is as lovely as the rest, she continued working at her needle all this time. She earned her two shillings-sixpence, or three shillings, or a little more, a week, by her work, as before; whilst she gave away the money ...
— The Life of Trust: Being a Narrative of the Lord's Dealings With George Mueller • George Mueller

... as were beyond correction: and now in his banishment from heaven he finds but cold entertainment here on earth, nay, is denied all admittance into the court of princes, where notwithstanding my handmaid Flattery finds a most encouraging welcome: but this petulant monitor being thrust out of doors, the gods can now more freely rant and revel, and take ...
— In Praise of Folly - Illustrated with Many Curious Cuts • Desiderius Erasmus

... she would have been called a handmaid—answered, and dexterously piled the pillows and bolsters as rests for the back; after which they sat upon the side of the divan, while water was brought fresh from the lake, and their feet bathed and dried ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace

... idea was: 'Behold the handmaid of the Lord: be it unto me even as thou wilt,' and a perfect confidence that all would be well, that all WAS well. The creative life was flowing into me every instant, and I felt myself allied with the Infinite, in harmony, and full ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James

... that which Horace calls a handmaid, if you know how to use it; a mistress, if you do not—money! It is—success, the thing which wrecks more lives than cyclones, fires and floods! We were happy enough before this came, weren't ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham

... width of the earth four times. 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 and to be the protector therein. The god Seb refresheth me, ...
— Egyptian Literature

... 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 Ilios. So now he smiled and gazed at his boy silently, and ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer (Lang, Leaf, Myers trans.)

... The handmaid coming out to open the gate for him, he quietly pulls off his hat as a parting salute, and goes away with no greater show of agitation than is visible in the effigy of Mr. Sapsea's father opposite. ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens

... powerful: and it is to these pleasures of the touch that the natural concupiscences, such as those of food, sexual union, and the like, are ordained. If, however, we consider the pleasures of sight, inasmuch sight is the handmaid of the mind, then the pleasures of sight are greater, forasmuch as intellectual pleasures ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas

... artist—he was a court painter; and pictures other than portraits were of comparatively little importance to Philip IV. and his circle. Art borrowed most of her importance in sixteenth and seventeenth century Spain from the fact that she was the handmaid of Holy Mother Church. Velazquez was a court official who chanced to be a clever portrait-painter, and his promotion tended ever to take him further away from his art. With the increase of state duties the claims upon his time grew more and more difficult to meet, and, when he ...
— Velazquez • S. L. Bensusan

... obedience to a 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 ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy

... of Christ resisted. Since the reign of Henry VIII., the Episcopal Church has acknowledged the reigning sovereign as supreme in her government. In this position the ruler can use the Church as an arm of his government, a handmaid in his administration, an instrument in carrying out his designs, an ally in supporting whatsoever may originate in ...
— Sketches of the Covenanters • J. C. McFeeters

... 15. If the author of the Christian Science textbook call on this Board for household help or a handmaid, the Board shall immediately appoint a proper member of this Church therefor, and the appointee shall go immediately in obedience to the call. "He that loveth father or mother more than me is not ...
— Manual of the Mother Church - The First Church of Christ Scientist in Boston, Massachusetts • Mary Baker Eddy

... great offspring thou dost lack, From pirate Singleton to pilfering Jack. Here Flandrian Moll her brazen incest brags; Vice-stript Roxana, penitent in rags, There points to Amy, treading equal chimes, The faithful handmaid to her ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb

... consulted, he would have no desire to return to the condition of his ancestors. In fact, the most hopeful symptom in the condition of the English peasant is his discontent. For, as skepticism is in one sense the handmaid of truth, discontent is the mother of progress. The man is comparatively of little use in the ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... that presumption which is usually found to be the handmaid of ignorance, halted, and sat down again to watch the progress of events. Fatal self-confidence! They little knew the deep duplicity ...
— The Buffalo Runners - A Tale of the Red River Plains • R.M. Ballantyne

... The Lady her handmaid to questioning took: "Why dost thou so sickly and colourless look?" But sorrow gnaws ...
— Signelil - a Tale from the Cornish, and Other Ballads • Anonymous

... seem 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 ...
— The Shepherd Of My Soul • Rev. Charles J. Callan

... was a handsome woman. Her dress was always perfect: she never dressed but once in the day, and never appeared till between three and four; but when she did appear, she appeared at her best. Whether the toil rested partly with her, or wholly with her handmaid, it is not for such a one as the author even to imagine. The structure of her attire was always elaborate and yet never over-laboured. She was rich in apparel but not bedizened with finery; her ornaments were costly, ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope

... original cause. One person's child may be made the child of another person by adoption, as among the Romans, or by the ancient Jewish mode of a wife having children born to her upon her knees, by her handmaid. But these were children in a different sense from that of nature. It was clearly understood that they were not of the blood of their nominal parents. So in literary children, an authour may give the ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill

... the temptations of extravagant living. As the heads of young men are 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

... with three shepherds on virtue, love, and travelling, till the nymph Hercynia appeared and shewed him the source of the Silesian stream. One of the shepherds, Buchner, was particularly enthusiastic about water: 'Kind Nature, handmaid of the Highest, has shewn her best handiwork ...
— The Development of the Feeling for Nature in the Middle Ages and - Modern Times • Alfred Biese

... and handmaid lowly! Whose skill can speed the day with lively cares, And banish melancholy By all that mind invents or hand prepares; * * * * * Who that hath seen thy beauty could content His soul ...
— What Great Men Have Said About Women - Ten Cent Pocket Series No. 77 • Various

... strong claims on his gratitude that refusal was impossible. Gulshaher, however, was a heroine, and willingly sacrificed her own feelings for the good of Saiawush, saying she would rather condescend to be the very handmaid of Ferangis than that the happiness and prosperity of her lord should be compromised. The second marriage accordingly took place, and Afrasiyab was so pleased with the match that he bestowed on the bride and her husband the sovereignty of Khoten, together with countless ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous

... African descent, of course) fully 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

... souls and say, "Behold the handmaid of the Lord!" Let us lift up our hearts and ask, "Lord, what wouldst thou have me to do?" Then light from the opened heaven shall stream on our daily task, revealing the grains of gold, where yesterday all seemed dust; a hand ...
— Daily Strength for Daily Needs • Mary W. Tileston

... But her handmaid at the window sees a man riding in armour. He rides a grey horse, his face is pale and streaked with blood. She speaks to herself, and then to ...
— Gudrid the Fair - A Tale of the Discovery of America • Maurice Hewlett

... pride of a boy will frequently divert him to the path where lie his subtlest powers. Richard gave up his companions, servile or antagonistic: he relinquished the material world to young Ralph, and retired into himself, where he was growing to be lord of kingdoms where Beauty was his handmaid, and History his minister and Time his ancient harper, and sweet Romance his bride; where he walked in a realm vaster and more gorgeous than the great Orient, peopled with the heroes that have been. For there is no princely wealth, and no loftiest heritage, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... Lu, CHENG, and Wei, whilst having orthodox and in some cases barbarian sub-vassals of their own, were themselves, if not vassals to, at all events under the predominant influence of, one or the other of the four great powers. Thus Lu was at first nearly always a handmaid of Ts'i, but later fell under the influence of Tsin, Ts'u, and Wu; Cheng always coquetted between Tsin and Ts'u, not out of love for either, but in order to protect her own independence; and so on with the rest. ...
— Ancient China Simplified • Edward Harper Parker

... HANDMAID. An old denomination for a tender; thus, in Drake's expedition to Cadiz, two of Her Majesty's pinnaces were appointed to ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth

... down the passage with a dignity and majesty of demeanor which impressed Miss Sherrard's neat handmaid considerably. The next instant she was ...
— Wild Kitty • L. T. Meade

... since then he has thrust me aside, saying that I weary him, and courts a handmaid of mine own, and therefore I demand the ...
— The People Of The Mist • H. Rider Haggard

... along the trance towards an open room, and on entering it they met a fair damsel in the garb of a handmaid, to whom the knight spoke in familiarity, and kittling her under the chin, made her giggle in a wanton manner. By her he was informed that the Archbishop was in the inner chamber at dinner with her mistress, upon which he desired my grandfather ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt

... realized! Thou art a being that I am doomed never to meet with in the world below." "Peace:" whispered an unknown voice; "injure not thy species by such a remark: the object before thee is called by a name that is familiar to thee—it is 'CANDOUR.' She is the handmaid of Truth, the sister of Virtue, and ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin

... kinswoman? Dost thou not receive at my hands honour, position, everything that places thee above the common herd of humanity? Were I not the Caesar, where wouldst thou be? Not in this palace surely, not the virtual queen of Rome, but, mayhap, a handmaid to another Caesar's wife, an attendant on his daughter.... Thou dost seem to have ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy

... handmaid fair To draw her curled gold hair Through rings of gold that bear Her whole hair's weight; She hath no maids to stand Gold-clothed on either hand; In all that great green ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various

... now would this poor, sorry, beggarly creature think? What would she say? or how would she frame an answer? When king David sent to Abigail upon this account, and though she was a rich woman, yet she said, "Behold, let thine handmaid be a servant to wash the feet of the servants of my lord" (1 Sam 25:40,41). She was confounded, she could not well tell what to say, the offer was so great, beyond what ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... spiritual and moral welfare of society. Art is purely the creation of man. It receives no inspiration from Heaven; and yet the principles on which it is based are eternal and unchangeable, and when it is made to be the handmaid of virtue, it is capable of exciting the loftiest sentiments. So pure, so exalted, and so wrapt are the feelings which arise from the contemplation of a great picture or statue, that we sometimes ascribe a religious force to the art itself, ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord

... 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, ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin

... as this Martin passed a happy hour, then went to the first lecture he attended, in the schools attached to the friary, where the great works of Augustine and Aquinas formed the text books; no Creek as yet. He passed from Latin to Logic, as the handmaid of theology. The great thinker Aristotle supplied the method, not the language or matter, and became the ally of Christianity, under the rendering of ...
— The House of Walderne - A Tale of the Cloister and the Forest in the Days of the Barons' Wars • A. D. Crake

... but uncertain ministrations of the South-Sea Islander, and have been proudly disregarded by the American aborigine, only in due time to meet the fate of my countrymen at the hands of Bridget the Celt,—what wonder that I gladly seize this opportunity to sing the praises of my German handmaid! Honor to thee, Lenchen, wherever thou goest! Heaven bless thee in thy walks abroad! whether with that tightly-booted cavalryman in thy Sunday gown and best, or in blue polka-dotted apron and bare head as thou trottest ...
— The Twins of Table Mountain and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... citron colour, is natural affection, which, given us to procure our good, is sometime called Storge; and as every one is nearest to himself, so this handmaid of reason, allowable Self-love, as it is without harm, so are none without it: her place in the court of Perfection was to quicken minds in the pursuit of honour. Her device is a perpendicular level, upon a cube or square; the word, "se suo modulo"; alluding to that true measure of one's ...
— Cynthia's Revels • Ben Jonson

... facts being 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 ...
— Heart of Man • George Edward Woodberry

... this part of the subject we oppose the Epicureans, an effeminate and dreamy sect who philosophize in their own paradise, amongst whom virtue is the handmaid of pleasures, obeys them, is subject to them, and regards them as superior to itself. You say, "there is no pleasure without virtue." But wherefore is it superior to virtue? Do you imagine that the matter in dispute between ...
— L. Annaeus Seneca On Benefits • Seneca

... is the justification of fiction. The novelist has a high vocation, if he could only see it; he can inculcate submission to authority, hope, charity, obedience—in fact, all the higher virtues; he can become a handmaid of the Church. And now, when irreligion, and immorality, and scepticism are rampant, we must not despise ...
— The Hero • William Somerset Maugham

... evening. 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 ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte

... is none to whom I so much desire to commend myself as you. To me honour will ever be the sole test of advantage. Justice, like a handmaid, will wait upon my actions; and the power, which I have not myself bought from our virtuous Sovereign, I in my turn shall sell to no man. You have heard, noble Sirs, the panegyrics[714] passed upon me at my entrance into office. ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)

... great store of goods. But the daughter of my uncle (this gazelle) had learned gramarye and egromancy and clerkly craft[FN46] from her childhood; so she bewitched that son of mine to a calf, and my handmaid (his mother) to a heifer, and made them over to the herdsman's care. Now when I returned after a long time from my journey and asked for my son and his mother, she answered me, saying "Thy slave girl is dead, and thy son ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton

... 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

... winter many visits were exchanged between Uplands and Chericoke, and once, on a mild February morning, Mrs. Lightfoot drove over in her old coach, with her knitting and her handmaid Mitty, to spend the day. She took Betty back with her, and the girl stayed a week in the queer old house, where the elm boughs tapped upon her window as she slept, and the shadows on the crooked staircase ...
— The Battle Ground • Ellen Glasgow

... of your visit we shall, D.V., find ample employment. A four-poster bed now (a thing utterly out of our regular monastic system) will rear its head for you and Madame in the chambers immediately below my own; and your handmaid may safely rest her bones in a small inner chamber. Should Sheepshanks return, we can stuff him into a lumber room of the observatory; but of this there is no fear as I have written to him on the subject, and he has no immediate intention of returning. You will of course drive to the great gate of ...
— Personal Recollections, from Early Life to Old Age, of Mary Somerville • Mary Somerville

... people, property is sometimes pillaged and sometimes flattered, and even virtue is degraded by lowering its field and making subservience appear to be patience and loyalty, and religion is not unfrequently made the handmaid of oppression. Taxes fall heavily on the poor for the benefit of the rich, and the only check proceeds from the fear of rebellion. When, on the other hand, the majority extinguishes the minority, the evil effects are not so apparent. The body oppressed is smaller and generally wealthier, ...
— An Autobiography • Catherine Helen Spence

... war be recognized in its brutality and fiendishness and hellish horrors? When shall patriotism separate itself from a proud ambition and a cruel revenge, and become the loving handmaid of a pure philanthropy? When shall Christian nations become capable of a Christian transaction? Must ...
— National Character - A Thanksgiving Discourse Delivered November 15th, 1855, - in the Franklin Street Presbyterian Church • N. C. Burt



Words linked to "Handmaid" :   subordinateness, maidservant, maid, housemaid, subsidiarity, amah



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