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Helpmeet   Listen
noun
Helpmeet  n.  A wife; a helpmate. "The Lord God created Adam,... and afterwards, on his finding the want of a helpmeet, caused him to sleep, and took one of his ribs and thence made woman."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Helpmeet" Quotes from Famous Books



... diabolic uproar about Faith, Hope, and Charity. Mr. Haile was a mild-mannered little man of the saved-sheep type, with box-plaited teeth and a bleating voice. His wife had the worried face and the anxious eyes of the minister's helpmeet, and the painfully ready smile for newcomers who might, or ...
— A Woman Named Smith • Marie Conway Oemler

... dwelling in the Bonngasse, clad in the fashionable red cloak of the time. Thus, too, he was quite magnificently depicted by the court painter, Radoux, wearing a tasselled cap, and holding a sheet of music-paper in his hand. His wife—the Frau Kapellmeisterinn—born Josepha Poll—was not a helpmeet for him, being addicted to strong drink, and therefore, during her last years, placed in a ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 7, May, 1858 • Various

... may imagine the desolation of the Lady Sybil, thus deprived of the helpmeet on whom she had leaned so long and loved so well. They buried him in the vaults of the Castle Chapel, which his lady had founded. There his friends and retainers followed him, with tears, ...
— The House of Walderne - A Tale of the Cloister and the Forest in the Days of the Barons' Wars • A. D. Crake

... Mrs. C., all the ladies of the church, in fact, would remark it at once,—would sit in judgment upon it like a quilt committee at an industrial fair, and would unanimously decide, either that you were a close-fisted brute to deny such a sweet little helpmeet the very necessaries of life, or that your legal practice was falling off so materially you could no longer support your family? O no, Tom, your wife must not venture out to church in her last season's ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various

... stop your singing, blessed dear," spoke the fishmonger, indulging in a rare outburst of sarcasm against his formidable helpmeet, "but we play a game with Fate to-night a little too even to allow unfair chances. Bias will watch you until I return, and then I can discover, philotata, whether your love for Athens is so great you must go to the Archon to denounce ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis

... and going ahead. Charles Norman held a government situation, with a small but yearly increasing salary; his residence was at Pentonville; and his domestic circle comprised, besides his good, meek helpmeet, two little children, and an only sister, some years Charles's junior: indeed, Bab Norman had not very long quitted the boarding-school. Bab and Charles were orphans, and had no near relatives in the world; therefore Bab came home to live with her dear brother ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 441 - Volume 17, New Series, June 12, 1852 • Various

... still the Friends their place of burial keep, And century-rooted mosses o'er it creep, The Nurnberg scholar and his helpmeet sleep. ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... love was like, if this tranquil half pity was all. Madame de Champlain was like a child to her husband, the women emigrants thus far had not been of a high order, and the marriages had been mostly for the sake of a helpmeet and possible children. The Governor had really encouraged the mixed marriages, where the Indian women were of the better sort. A few of them were taking kindly to religion, and had many really useful arts in the way of making garments out of dressed deerskins. He chose rather some ...
— A Little Girl in Old Quebec • Amanda Millie Douglas

... artistic productions their form and being. Like a poet-printer of our own day, Mr. William Morris, Blake insisted that each page of text, all his delicate illustrations, every cover even, should pass through his own fingers, or through those of his careful and submissive helpmeet. The expense of their paper was the chief one to the light purse of the queerly ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various

... service." Every one regards the request as a sign of an unsettled mind. After much argument he prevails on his betrothed bride's parents to permit the marriage (he cannot be ordained until he is married), and hopes to find a helpmeet in her. The rest of the story deals with his experiences in the unenviable position of a village priest, where he has to contend not only with the displeasure of his young wife, but with the avarice of his church staff, the defects of the peasants, the excess of attention of the local gentlewoman, ...
— A Survey of Russian Literature, with Selections • Isabel Florence Hapgood

... go!" grumbled Bunker pacing up and down and avoiding his helpmeet's eye, but at last he ripped out a smothered oath and racked off down the street to his stable. This was an al fresco affair, consisting of a big stone corral within the walls of what had once been the dancehall, and as he saddled up his horse and rode ...
— Silver and Gold - A Story of Luck and Love in a Western Mining Camp • Dane Coolidge

... nevertheless endangered his reason through evil courses—his only sign of decent human feeling being his love for his son. The latter was said to resemble his dead mother as one pea may resemble another. What recollections, therefore, of the kind helpmeet of former days may not have moved the breast of the poor broken old man to this boundless affection for the boy? Of naught else could the father ever speak but of his son, and never did he fail to visit him twice a week. To come oftener he did not dare, for the ...
— Poor Folk • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... liberty. This is a great moral work in which they are engaged. No war-trumpet summons to the field of battle; but Wisdom crieth without, 'Whosoever is of a willing heart, let him bring an offering.' Shall woman refuse her response to the call? Was she created to be a helpmeet for man—his sorrows to divide, his joys to share, and all his toils to lighten by her willing aid, and shall she refuse to aid him with her prayers, her labors, and her counsels too, at such a time, in such a cause ...
— The Grimke Sisters - Sarah and Angelina Grimke: The First American Women Advocates of - Abolition and Woman's Rights • Catherine H. Birney

... who taught Rabbi Jose the deep meaning hidden in the Scriptural passage in which woman is designated as the helpmeet of man. By means of examples he demonstrated to the Rabbi how indispensable woman is ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME IV BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG

... Uncle Tom's had, in the order of hymn-singing, been protracted to a very late hour; and, as Uncle Tom had indulged himself in a few lengthy solos afterwards, the consequence was, that, although it was now between twelve and one o'clock, he and his worthy helpmeet were not ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... wife, Gertrude, closed her eyes. She had gone out with him from home and kin to a hard and heathen land, and she had been his loyal helpmeet in all his trials. Now it was all over. That winter scurvy laid him upon a bed of pain and, lying there, his heart turned to the old home. His son had come from Copenhagen to help, happily yet while his mother lived. To him he would give over the work. In Denmark he could do more ...
— Hero Tales of the Far North • Jacob A. Riis

... it over the back of any of the paupers, have you?" asked her husband, who, knowing his helpmeet's infirmity of temper, thought it possible she might have indulged in ...
— Paul Prescott's Charge • Horatio Alger

... means for twisting the two wires together was the grindstone—attaching one end of the wire to shaft and crank, the others being fastened to the wall of the barn. And here, as in most things great and small in this world, woman furnished the motor power. The strong arm of the good helpmeet, Mrs. Glidden, turned the grindstone that twisted the first wire that made the first Glidden barb fence that kept stock at bay in Illinois or the world. Then followed a device for twisting and barbing, and the application of horse power. Business expanded, and steam took the place of the horse, ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 1, January 5, 1884. - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various

... conservators of the world's morals—they treated woman as a chattel, and said that because she was created after man, she was created solely for man. Too many still are Jews who never called Abraham "Father," while the Jews themselves have long acknowledged woman as man's proper helpmeet. In those days women had few lawful claims and no one to urge them. True, there were Miriam and Esther, but they sang and sacrificed for their people, not for ...
— Pulpit and Press • Mary Baker Eddy

... him: his wife, the feminine counterpart of himself. Seeing them side by side one felt tempted to believe that for his special benefit original methods had been reverted to, and she fashioned, as his particular helpmeet, out of one of his own ribs. His furniture was solid, meant for use, not decoration. His pictures, following the rule laid down for dress, graced without drawing attention to his walls. He ever said the correct ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome

... this Lensmand Heyerdahl was evidently a narrow-minded person, who had throughout endeavoured to prove complicity on Axel's part. Fool, idiot of a man—what did he know of life in the wilds, when he could see that the child was just what Axel had counted on to keep the woman, his helpmeet, on the place! ...
— Growth of the Soil • Knut Hamsun

... really blush to read my own praises. Pray that God would enable me to deserve all the kindness you manifest towards me, and to act consistently with the good opinion you entertain of me—then I shall indeed be a helpmeet for you, and to be this shall at all times be the care and study of my future life. We have had to-day a large party of the Bradford folks—the Rands, Fawcets, Dobsons, etc. My thoughts often strayed from the company, and I would have gladly left them to follow my present employment. ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter

... as servants, but actually as mates on hire—suppose we call them. One need not say much of this unhappy class; it is only mentioned to show that Thornton could have found no woman to take the place of the beautiful and devoted helpmeet whose constancy to him had survived every trial. No wonder he was ill at ease with the idea of her adventuring back to England alone. But it took a mind as wicked as his to conceive and execute the means by which he prevented it. It seems to have been suggested by the fact ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan

... the image and likeness of God: after his image, because of reason and free will; after his likeness, because of the likeness of virtue, in its degree, to God. Him he endowed with free will and immortality and appointed sovran over everything upon earth; and from man he made woman, to be an helpmeet ...
— Barlaam and Ioasaph • St. John of Damascus

... very briefly the standing of each one in the "Society", it is curtly stated that she was "ill-mannered, and obstructing everything." Soon after her arrival it was suggested that she marry Peter Rose, but the lot forbade and he found a much better helpmeet in the widow of Friedrich Riedel. Waschke thought he would like to marry Juliana, but she refused, even though Bishop Nitschmann, Mr. and Mrs. Toeltschig pled with her. Her preference was for George Haberland, ...
— The Moravians in Georgia - 1735-1740 • Adelaide L. Fries

... wearily through his hair. He felt called upon to say something. 'I have the highest respect for Mrs. Moore,' he began. 'I know her to be a most devoted helpmeet to the vicar, and a truly good woman. At the same time'—he coughed—'at the same time, I should wish to say distinctly that after being niggardly in her domestic affairs, which is unfortunately the case, I do not think it adds to her stock of Christian virtues to give the ...
— A Dozen Ways Of Love • Lily Dougall

... colloquialisms, though once he had declared them amusing, racy, of the soil, and had rebuked Genevieve's fastidious criticisms of them on an occasion when she had interpreted her role of helpmeet to include that of hostess to Mr. and Mrs. Doolittle—oh, not in her own home, of course!—at luncheon, at ...
— The Sturdy Oak - A Composite Novel of American Politics by Fourteen American Authors • Samuel Merwin, et al.

... and whose time is as interrupted as are Mr. Conwell's work and time. On her husband's lecture tours she looks well after his comfort, seeing to those things which a busy and earnest man is almost sure to overlook and neglect. In all things he finds her his helpmeet and caretaker." ...
— Russell H. Conwell • Agnes Rush Burr

... said, in his faint, tremulous way, "you have come with me to the very brink of the river. I thank God for all your cheering words and ways. I thank God for giving you to be a helpmeet to my son. Farewell, now," he added, in a low, firm voice, "I feel the bottom, ...
— Stepping Heavenward • Mrs. E. Prentiss

... Maitland on a question of rank and precedence. In this quarrel it is quite clear that Lady Mary was in the wrong, but the whole affair was utterly contemptible on both sides. The ladies dragged their respective liege-lords into the dispute, and each of the latter espoused the side of his helpmeet. Sir Peregrine necessarily got the better of his adversary, whom he never forgave. It is impossible to say how far this unseemly women's wrangle contributed to the humiliation which Judge Willis was ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent

... to. The one disappointment of his life was the lack of those sturdy sons and daughters who, to his mind, should have surrounded the virtuous man in his old age. They had not come into the world. His wife, a good woman and energetic helpmeet, had brought him but ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall

... Robert Moffat had pursued his course alone. No loving helpmeet had cheered him in his efforts, or with womanly tenderness ministered to his wants. But though far away, he was fondly remembered and earnestly prayed for, especially by one noble Christian lady, over whose fair head scarce twenty-three summers had passed, and whose heart had been ...
— Robert Moffat - The Missionary Hero of Kuruman • David J. Deane

... from him; no, drifting, since he made no real effort to hold her. And why had he made no real effort? Sometimes he thought he could answer this question, and then again he knew that he could not. Ah, if he only loved her! What a helpmeet: cheerful, resourceful, full of good humor and practical philosophy, a brilliant wit, with all the finished graces of a goddess. Ah, if indeed he only loved her! This thought kept running through his mind persistently; it had done so for days; but it had always led ...
— Half a Rogue • Harold MacGrath

... up entirely to his writing, and left everything else to his wife, or to me, or to Scatcherd. She was really a mother to him, as well as a passionately loving and devoted helpmeet. ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier

... volunteered into all this danger, merely to do experimenting, makes it harder to bear than if he had been at the head of his old regiment, and gone at the imperative call of duty. However—nothing matters so long as he comes home safely. And now you—you, Sir Deryck—must help me to become a real helpmeet to Michael. Tell me how you helped—oh, very well, we will not mention names. But give me wise advice. Give me hope; give ...
— The Mistress of Shenstone • Florence L. Barclay

... greater portion of my life has been spent, I wish to record the fact that all that I have and all that I have earned in the way both of money and reputation in later years I owe not to myself, but to Mrs. Anson. She has been to me a helpmeet in the truest and best sense of the word, rejoicing with me in the days of my success and sympathizing with me in ...
— A Ball Player's Career - Being the Personal Experiences and Reminiscensces of Adrian C. Anson • Adrian C. Anson

... a careful helpmeet in her husband," said Madison sternly, "and it's neither seemly nor Christian in you, Arthur, to repeat the idle, profane gossip of the Bar. I knew her before her marriage, and if she was not a ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... his holy calling; he put his arm round her waist, and said: "I could not spare you this at a time when I purpose making a solemn appeal to you. Caroline Nuessler, will you, knowing the gravity of the step you take, enter the holy estate of matrimony with me, and become my Christian helpmeet?" Lina was so frightened and distressed at his whole conduct that she could neither speak nor think; she could ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various

... was just engaged to be married, and therefore had an additional interest in looking for a sphere of labour which would suit me, and also the partner of my choice, who was in every respect likely to be an effectual helpmeet This was soon found and we agreed together to give ourselves to the Lord's work (as we ...
— From Death into Life - or, twenty years of my ministry • William Haslam

... at all. But it is not merely disguised by separable clothings, as in Rabelais wholly and in parts of others, or accompanied, as in Swift and others still, by companions not invariably acceptable. It is to a certain extent adulterated, sophisticated, made not so much the helpmeet, or the willing handmaid, of Art as its thrall, almost its butt. I do not know how early criticism, which now seems to have got hold of the fact, noticed the strong connection-contrast between Dickens and Meredith: but it must always have been ...
— The English Novel • George Saintsbury

... pleasure, or shock to the extreme of endurance; and on a still larger, kill whether they be on the right side or the wrong. Nature, as I said in "Life and Habit," hates that any principle should breed hermaphroditically, but will give to each an helpmeet for it which shall cross it and be the undoing of it; and in the undoing, do; and in the doing, undo, and so ad infinitum. Cross-fertilisation is just as necessary for continued fertility of ideas as for that of organic life, and the attempt to ...
— Luck or Cunning? • Samuel Butler

... segregated them from wholesome human relations; and consequently our good Doctor had always resolved, in a grave and thoughtful spirit, at a suitable time in his worldly affairs, to choose unto himself a helpmeet. Love, as treated of in romances, he held to be a foolish and profane matter, unworthy the attention of a serious and reasonable creature. All the language of poetry on this subject was to him an unknown tongue. He contemplated the entrance on married life somewhat in ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 3, No. 16, February, 1859 • Various

... Africa under the American Board, and is not only declared by the Secretaries to be one of its best missionaries, but has shown such business capacity that he has been chosen treasurer of his mission. His wife, a worthy helpmeet, is also a graduate of this institution. Fisk has high ideals—few institutions in the South have higher ones, or come nearer ...
— The American Missionary, Volume 43, No. 11, November, 1889 • Various

... just within the parlor door at the moment, blushing over the praises lavished on her by the chaplain's impulsive helpmeet and trying hard to say civil and appropriate things to her guests. The officers, one and all, had edged into the hall-way in eagerness to hear ...
— Under Fire • Charles King

... an indefatigable helpmeet. She wrote all his European correspondence, but resented the interference of the French, and could be curt and energetic when ...
— France in the Nineteenth Century • Elizabeth Latimer

... the helpmeet fair, Her true-love's rarest treasure, When 'neath the clouds the sun has fled, And hope is dead and pleasure, When all the friends of daylight flee, Most faithfully she clingeth, And through the night of pain and wrong, Her sweetest ...
— Welsh Lyrics of the Nineteenth Century • Edmund O. Jones

... "you are a fitting helpmeet for the Rev. Mr. Barnes, of Hayfield Centre. By Jove, you do ...
— Paul the Peddler - The Fortunes of a Young Street Merchant • Horatio Alger, Jr.

... relation she assumes to him, the entireness of his trust in the spotless purity of her whole nature. And in him we have presented all those essential and fundamental elements of nature which give assurance that, Dorothea by his side, he shall be no unfitting helpmeet to her, no drag or hindrance on her higher life; that he shall rise to the elevation and purity of her self-consecration, and shall stand by her side sustaining, guiding, expanding that life of ever-growing fulness and human helpfulness ...
— The Ethics of George Eliot's Works • John Crombie Brown

... he has any wishes on the subject," said Katherine, her color rising. "He thinks I am too ungodly to be eligible for the helpmeet of a true believer. Ah, indeed I am not half good enough for ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander

... became less an assistant than a partner, less a paid servant on the stage than a helpmeet in his daily life. Looking at the traditions of their environment and at the enforced intimacy of their vagabondage, one sees the inevitability of this linking of their fortunes. That there was any furious love about the affair I have very grave doubts. Andrew in his secret soul still hankered ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke

... when Mr. Jaynes was absent came over to Belfield to try his hand at preaching, perceived, by sly and stealthy glances at Laura over the rim of his blue spectacles, how exceeding comely the damsel was, and firmly resolved to win her for a helpmeet. And even Mr. Elam Hunt (for that was the pious student's name) seemed scarcely more substantial than a ghost, so very pale and bloodless was his meagre face, and so lean and spare his stooping, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various

... thrown with, in factory and office, was repugnant to her. But, if this was true, the outlook was a different one. Not for a moment did she imagine that it was a place wherein a woman might live in idleness and comparative luxury. No! Such a man would require a helpmeet, one who would do the work of his house, one who would take care of the home while he toiled outside. What a happy life! What a wondrous change from all that she had experienced! There were happy women in the world, glorying in maternity, watching eagerly for the home-coming ...
— The Peace of Roaring River • George van Schaick

... so the name on the label caught her eye, she could not help reading it; and then drew in her breath with a sharp exclamation of surprise. The next instant she hurried softly but quickly down the stairs, took her astonished helpmeet by the arm, and dragged him into the orchard, closing the ...
— The Village by the River • H. Louisa Bedford

... this boyish enthusiasm. He was fond of his sister, though he knew her to be full of faults. "Yes, I envy her," he said. "She has found a worthy helpmeet for life's journey, I do believe. And though they chafe at the long engagement, it is a blessing in disguise. They learn to know each other thoroughly before ...
— The Longest Journey • E. M. Forster

... German Evangelical Church, at the age of twenty-four, he had spent thirty-five years at his task. His wife Amalia, selected for him by the Missionary Society, was sent out under invoice five years after his arrival. She had thus been his helpmeet, and a faithful one, for thirty years. Although childless, she was of a placid and contented disposition; so much so that her smile became rather wearisome from ...
— Kafir Stories - Seven Short Stories • William Charles Scully

... young men, which was very well known in society, consisted chiefly, it appears, in Walter Hatherell being the willing companion and helpmeet of John Ashley in his mad and extravagant pranks. But to-night the latter, apparently tardily sobered by his terrible and heavy losses, allowed himself to be led away by his friend from the scene of his disasters. It was then about twenty ...
— The Old Man in the Corner • Baroness Orczy

... Lawrence thought, she would be an inconvenient helpmeet for him. He was very much in love; but certainly he would not wish his wife to take up a crusade against society. Perhaps Dolly would learn better; he hoped so. Yet the little girl had some reason, too; for her father gave her trouble, Lawrence knew. "I'm sorry," he thought, "deuced sorry! ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner

... colonial societies, is the disproportion of the female element; and thus, in the sparseness of homes and families, we have that hardness of social feature, which illustrates how much better is the one sex with the "helpmeet" provided in the other. Early Port Phillip was no exception to this rule. Ladies and children were comparatively rare objects. From Tasmania and elsewhere there were a good many "choice spirits" in more than one meaning of the words. There ...
— Personal Recollections of Early Melbourne & Victoria • William Westgarth

... his modest helpmeet discovered that there was something she desired to "spring" upon the meeting. The others present were all of the infantry; and when Captain Rayner simply glanced in, spoke hurried good-evenings, and went as hurriedly out again, Gregg was sure of it, ...
— The Deserter • Charles King

... given up to yawning. Only in Chichikov was a spice of animation visible. "Yes," he reflected, "some day I, too, will become lord of such a country place." And before his mind's eye there arose also a helpmeet and some ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol

... and regulated The bushy clumps and the (tangled) rows. He opened up and cleared The tamarisk trees and the stave trees. He hewed and thinned The mountain mulberry trees. God having brought about the removal thither of this intelligent ruler, The Kwan hordes fled away[2]. Heaven had raised up a helpmeet for him, And the appointment he ...
— The Shih King • James Legge

... labors. I married a young woman of Rhodes, and gave her a very considerable establishment, which I was able to do, for Andronicus paid me much better than Herodotus had done; but she did not prove a very suitable helpmeet, and I believe she married me simply because I was in fairly good circumstances. She soon showed that she preferred a young man to an elderly student, the greater part of whose time was occupied with books and manuscripts, and we had not been married a year when ...
— The Vizier of the Two-Horned Alexander • Frank R. Stockton

... fitness of things, and accords a due deference to the tastes of others. She has her club and her friends, as do the gentlemen of her acquaintance, but her children are not neglected from the fact that she sometimes thinks of other things. She is a helpmeet to her husband, and not a plaything, or a slave. If duty calls her to the kitchen, she goes cheerfully, and, moreover, the cook will not dread to see her coming; or if that important person be absent, the table will be supplied with just as good bread, and just as delicate pastry, as if the ...
— Threads of Grey and Gold • Myrtle Reed

... father is not a matter which so nearly concerns us as to learn the lesson of true womanhood taught us by the daughter. Hers was no blind obedience; her reason for sacrificing herself gives us the true position of a woman as a helpmeet, and as a helpmeet in the performance of public duty. "If thou hast opened thy mouth unto the Lord"—her father must do his duty at all costs, and she will help him to do it, even at the cost of her own life. The place of every woman is to make duty possible and imperative ...
— Stray Thoughts for Girls • Lucy H. M. Soulsby

... disappointed in you," said he. "I fancied that when I—when I——" It was in his mind to say that he had selected her out of a large number of candidates to be his helpmeet, but he pulled himself up in time, and the pause that he made seemed purely emotional. "When I loved you and got your promise to love me in return, you would share with me all the glory, the persecution, the work incidental to this crusade on behalf of ...
— Phyllis of Philistia • Frank Frankfort Moore

... he said again to himself as she passed out of his sight. "A very—gifted young woman! Ah, Dick, my friend, she'd make a rare politician's wife." And then another thought struck him and he began to laugh. "And she'll be equally charming as the helpmeet of the village schoolmaster. Egad, we can't have everything, but I think ...
— The Obstacle Race • Ethel M. Dell

... was not good that man, a social being, should live alone, and therefore He gave him a helpmeet for him. For the same reason our Lord sent forth His disciples, two and two. Had I searched the three kingdoms I could not have found one brother willing to share gratis my weal, woe, and labours, and complaisant enough to unite his fortunes ...
— Fletcher of Madeley • Brigadier Margaret Allen

... Dorothy and her forbidden lover, and had succeeded in some degree in keeping them apart. He might, however, have spared himself the trouble, for, although he prevented their meeting on some occasions, yet love was conqueror in the end, and with Lettice as a trusty helpmeet, the two lovers found ways and means by which to see each other of which ...
— Heiress of Haddon • William E. Doubleday

... said, it is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helpmeet for him. And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam, and he slept, and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; and the rib which the Lord God had taken from man, made he a ...
— The Dore Gallery of Bible Illustrations, Complete • Anonymous

... her four sisters died. The last to go was Martha, Hannah's trusty helpmeet and lieutenant in all her benevolent schemes, and her tender consoler in many a season of sickness. Soon after this event Miss More's long illness of seven years occurred. Unable to give proper supervision ...
— Excellent Women • Various

... then did man get the authority that he now claims over one-half of humanity? From what power the vested right to place woman—his partner, his companion, his helpmeet in life—in an inferior position? Came it from nature? Nature made woman his superior when she made her his mother; his equal when she fitted her to hold the sacred position of wife. Does he draw his authority from ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... and from fragments of his own writings, that his view of the conjugal relation was a coarse one,—that he looked on the wife rather as a necessary agent for providing the State with children than as a helpmeet to be tended and revered. And this being so, we are not surprised to find that men are already beginning to dislike and avoid marriage; a most dangerous symptom, with which a century later Augustus found it impossible to cope. ...
— Social life at Rome in the Age of Cicero • W. Warde Fowler

... chose; but he despises such people too much to condescend to make them his slaves. Let us now watch him in their midst, as he enters into society, not to claim the first place, but to acquaint himself with it and to seek a helpmeet worthy of himself. ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau

... neighbour, Dan, was casting sheep's eyes in Soosie's direction, and to her evident dismay. It was of little avail to upbraid him as to the unseemliness of attachment to a girl who, however civilised, was of inferior race and despised colour. He frankly confessed that he wanted a wife as a companion and helpmeet; that he could not hope, in consideration of his own lowly birth and slender means and uphill task, to induce a white girl to halve his loneliness. He had studied Soosie, and was sure that she was his superior except in matter of colour. She was far better schooled and had been ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield

... Tom's Cabin had been protracted to a very late hour, and Tom and his worthy helpmeet were not yet asleep, when between twelve and one there was a light tap on ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.

... it is, Parson. But don't you think that a godly woman for helpmeet would make the work more effectooal? Miss Meacham is a pattern of a person in the Sunday school. The women of the parish would rather like to find the doors of the parsonage openin' ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various

... Mason, the Deacon's wife, was a little less than fifty years of age. She was a comely, bright-faced, bright-eyed, and energetic woman, who had been both a loving wife and a valued helpmeet to her husband. Their only living child was a daughter named Huldah Ann, about nineteen years of age, and considered by many to be the prettiest and smartest girl in Mason's Corner. The only other resident in Deacon Mason's house ...
— Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks - A Picture of New England Home Life • Charles Felton Pidgin

... heightened the splendor of blossom, and shrub, and vine, which were pouring their incense upon the air, he felt that he was indeed entering the Garden of Eden—the Garden of Eden with no French serpents to tempt from him the woman that had been created his helpmeet. ...
— One Day - A sequel to 'Three Weeks' • Anonymous

... man, has greatly embittered and poisoned public opinion on this subject. Women are taught, almost from the moment they come into the world, that their chief end in existence is to be, in some way or other, a "helpmeet" for man. I remember, in the early days of the Suffrage struggle, hearing people, and women quite as often as men—more often I think—urging certain rights and principles for women, on the ground that they were meant to be the helpmeets of man. They used to quote ...
— Sex And Common-Sense • A. Maude Royden

... to your table with your head a vacuum, You can say unto your helpmeet, "Has that quart of ideas come That we ordered served here daily from that plot-man down the street?" And you'll find that I've been early my engagement ...
— Cobwebs from a Library Corner • John Kendrick Bangs

... let me go, and I went forth thinking that here was a helpmeet for a soldier in such times as these, and how I gloried in her because she held her love as one with glory. Round to the stable for my horse I stole, and it was very dark, with a soft smother of darkness because of a heavy mist, and the moon not up, and I had backed my ...
— The Heart's Highway - A Romance of Virginia in the Seventeeth Century • Mary E. Wilkins

... are, to all intents and purposes, a precis of a charter of release to the inhabitants of the twentieth century Christian Inferno which was drawn up by Dora Russell the day before she yielded to Ernshaw's year-long wooing, and consented to be his helpmeet ...
— The Missionary • George Griffith

... partner, and is as much, to blame as if her husband were to neglect his stock, his shipping, his contract, or his clients. Why should the husband be expected to manage his part of the business upon sound and correct business principles—system, responsibility, economy—while his helpmeet is letting hers go at loose ends, with a shiftlessness which if he should emulate would ruin him ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... this honored town was Rev. Samuel Whiting, a native of Hartford, and trained in the "Hooker School." For a helpmeet he had secured a lineal descendant of that noble and revered puritan, Gov. Wm. Bradford. The labors of this worthy pair were largely blessed to their people. At one period, in a population of hundreds, it is said "the town did not contain a ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith

... forced him to supply a reason for her coldness in the existence of some more absorbing passion. He believed her ambitious and calculating: she was neither. He believed she might have made him an admirable copartner and practical helpmeet: he was wrong. ...
— The Crusade of the Excelsior • Bret Harte

... soul in Flanders, that of love. He met and wooed there a fair lady, Torfrida by name, who became his wife. A faithful helpmeet she proved, his good comrade in his wanderings, his wise counseller in warfare, and ever a softening influence in the fierce warrior's life. Hitherto the sword had been his mistress, his temper ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 4 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... Othello to his Desdemona; and so well did the wooing go that the dark-eyed Catharine presently became his wife, the Kate of a forty-five years' marriage. Loving, devoted, docile, she learned to be helpmeet and companion. Never, on the one side, murmuring at the narrow fortunes, nor, on the other, losing faith in the greatness to which she had bound herself, she not only ordered well her small household, but drew herself up within ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 78, April, 1864 • Various

... Palliser the inheritance of Wimperfield was only a return to the home of his childhood. To his lowly-born little helpmeet it was the beginning of a new life. It was a new sensation to Fanny Palliser to live in large rooms, to walk about a house in which the long corridors, the wide staircase, the echoing stone hall, the plenitude of light and space, seemed to her to belong to a public institution ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon

... gossamer thing of beauty, brilliant as a tropical humming-bird, soft and caressable as a dove, could possibly be expected to have the sweet yet austere fortitude and firmness needed to be a true "helpmeet" to him in the work he had undertaken, and the life he had determined to lead. He noted all the dainty trifles of her toilette half doubtingly, half admiringly,—the knot of rich old lace that fastened her sables,— the solitary star-like ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli

... marriage; but, in the company, he saw, for the first time, a young woman who he felt was his destined wife. Walking across the room, he addressed her with the utmost simplicity, telling her that an inward monitor advised him that she, of all womankind, was his predestined helpmeet. She blushed, was confused, but presently confessed that she had experienced the same conviction on first beholding him. They married, and the most curious part of the tale remains to tell,—it is, that they proved ...
— The Physical Life of Woman: - Advice to the Maiden, Wife and Mother • Dr. George H Napheys

... me through the whole of this conversation—the way in which the new-married Lady Ellerton was spoken of, as aiding, encouraging, originating—a helpmeet, if not an oracular guide, for her husband—in all these noble plans. She had already acquainted herself with every woman on the estate; she was the dispenser, not merely of alms—for those seemed a disagreeable necessity, from which Lord Ellerton was anxious to escape ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al

... basis, his future assured because it depended upon the signal vice of his class, it one day occurred to Daniel that he ought to take to himself a helpmeet, a partner of his joys and sorrows. He had thought of it from time to time during the past year, but only in a vague way; he had even directed his eyes to the woman who might perchance be the one most suitable, ...
— Demos • George Gissing

... expression of wifely pride and womanly tenderness in the fine old lady, who forgot her own gifts, and felt only humility and gratitude to the man who had found in her a comrade in intellectual pursuits, as well as a helpmeet at home and a gentle prop for ...
— A Garland for Girls • Louisa May Alcott

... make up society in general. The one who, like the foolish virgins, have never learned the first important duty of cultivating their own individual powers, using the talents given to them, and keeping their own lamps trimmed and burning. The idea of being a helpmeet to somebody else has been so sedulously drilled into most women that an individual life, aim, purpose and ambition are never taken into consideration. They oftimes do so much in other directions that they neglect the most vital duties ...
— The Woman's Bible. • Elizabeth Cady Stanton

... fought with words and craft, not with swords. The wives of the two great earls were as different as their lords. The Lady Gytha, Godwin's wife, of the royal Danish race, was fierce and haughty, a fit helpmeet for the ambitious earl who was to undermine the strength of England by his efforts to win kingly power for his children. But the Lady Godiva, Leofric's beloved wife, was a gentle, pious, loving woman, who had already won an almost saintly reputation for sympathy and pity ...
— Hero-Myths & Legends of the British Race • Maud Isabel Ebbutt

... famous Franklin Library, one of the prominent institutions of Philadelphia. In 1730, at the age of twenty-four, he married Deborah Reid, a pretty, kind-hearted, and frugal woman, with whom he lived happily for forty-four years. She was a true helpmeet, who stitched his pamphlets, folded his newspapers, waited on customers at the shop, and nursed and tended his ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XI • John Lord

... the two words helpmeet and helpmate, meaning exactly the same thing, is a comedy of errors. God's promise to Adam, as rendered in the King James version of the Bible, was to give him an help meet for him (that is, a helper fit for him). In the 17th century the two words help and meet in this passage ...
— First Book of Adam and Eve • Rutherford Platt

... utterly indifferent to her having any cultivation: having imbibed no modern ideas respecting feminine capacities and privileges, but regarding woman, whether in the bud or in the blossom, as the plaything of man's idler moments, and the helpmeet—but in a humble capacity—of his daily life. He sometimes bade her go to the kitchen and take lessons of crusty Hannah in bread- making, sweeping, dusting, washing, the coarser needlework, and such other things as she would require to know when she came to be a woman; but carelessly ...
— Doctor Grimshawe's Secret - A Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... to my husband's relatives, especially as the Doctor was connected with the family by right of descent from a Gouverneur forbear. Charles F. Hoffman married Miss Eleanor Louisa Vail, a daughter of David M. Vail of New Brunswick, New Jersey, who in every way proved herself an able helpmeet to him. Mrs. Hoffman was educated at Miss Hannah Hoyt's school in New Brunswick, a fashionable institution of the day, and at a reunion of the scholars held in recent years, she was mentioned in the following appropriate manner: "Nearly half a century ago, in the well-known ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur

... looks at me kind o' queer. 'Phrony ain't satisfied,' she says. 'She thinks the Lord designs her to be a helpmeet, and that He's manifestin' Himself at present, or liable ...
— The Wooing of Calvin Parks • Laura E. Richards

... who love the true nobility of humanity. We will draw aside the curtain only for a passing glance at the domestic circle, of which his beautiful and lovely wife was at once the pride and the ornament. Surrounded by this devoted helpmeet and two manly sons, there was not a happier home in old Virginia. Warmed by the love of his big and generous heart, it was the abode of contentment and peace. The dread messenger was never more unwelcome than when he entered the portals of Ravensworth and made ...
— Memorial Addresses on the Life and Character of William H. F. Lee (A Representative from Virginia) • Various

... had begun, so he continued, and at the age of twenty-three he was worth about $9,000. In 1817 he became captain of the first steam boat that ever run between New York and New Brunswick, New Jersey, at a salary of $1,000 per year. His wife proved to be a helpmeet in the truest sense of the word, she at this time keeping hotel at New Brunswick and making no small amount herself. Seven years passed and Vanderbilt was made superintendent of the company of which he had been an employe. If a man has ability and ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis

... we mourn the loss of the great and the true, drop we also tears of sympathy with her who was his helpmeet—the noble woman who, while her husband was in the field leading the army of the Confederacy, though an invalid herself, passed the time in knitting socks for the marching soldiers! A woman fit to be the mother of heroes; and heroes are descended ...
— A Life of Gen. Robert E. Lee • John Esten Cooke

... the force of animal passion. Were it not so, the tendencies to licentiousness in many sons would be stronger than they are. In the vast majority of cases suggestion is never made except by the husband, and it is a matter of deepest gratitude and consideration, that the true wife may become a real helpmeet in restraining ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols

... save in his own strength and courage, and on every favorable opportunity he hastened to take more than ample vengeance. Admitting all the wrongs he suffered, it still remains true that many of his acts of brutality were past excuse. His wife was a worthy helpmeet. Once, in his absence, a tory horse-thief was brought to their home, and after some discussion the captors, Cleavland's sons, turned to their mother, who was placidly going on with her ordinary domestic avocations, to know what they should do with the prisoner. Taking from her mouth the corn-cob ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Two - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1777-1783 • Theodore Roosevelt

... his helpmeet, drawing herself up, and giving him an austere glance over her spectacles; "how often must I tell you that there is subjects which shouldn't be ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... her Maker to her husband this noble name. Her Father, so to speak, gave her away under this noble name. And of all the sweet and noble names that a woman bears, there is none so rich, so sweet, so lasting, and so fruitful as just her first Divine name of a helpmeet. And how favoured of God is that man to be accounted whose life still continues to draw meet help out of his wife's fulness of help, till all her and his days together he is able to say, I have of God a helpmeet indeed! For in how ...
— Bunyan Characters - First Series • Alexander Whyte

... life of their husbands. But as James A. Garfield grew in the public esteem, and honors crowded upon him, step by step his wife kept pace with him, and was at all times a fitting and sympathetic companion and helpmeet. ...
— From Canal Boy to President - Or The Boyhood and Manhood of James A. Garfield • Horatio Alger, Jr.

... and barn, and provided the necessary stock and materials, Nathaniel Ingersoll went upon his farm when about nineteen years of age. Soon after, probably, he married Hannah Collins of Lynn, who, during their long lives, proved a worthy helpmeet. His house was on a larger scale than was usual at that time. One of its rooms is spoken of as very large; and the uses to which his establishment was put, from time to time, prove that it must have had capacious apartments. ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham

... urgings crudely, as for the sake of Scott, her son. Rather than that, she held them up to Catie coyly, as glimpses of opportunity and power which waited for her at the gateway of maturity: opportunity given only to the helpmeet of a man in the commanding position offered by his ministerial profession, power given to that helpmeet by reason of her position by ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray

... who are more than merely talkative—who are positively scolds; while sometimes the conventional helpmeet is as active with her fists as with her tongue—as in the case of the lady whose picture, her husband thought, would soon 'strike' him, it was ...
— By-ways in Book-land - Short Essays on Literary Subjects • William Davenport Adams

... with the first decently sensible woman he finds in his own street, and makes the best of his bargain. Besides, there was the power of use and wont to be considered. Ellen had no vice of temper, no meanness, and it was not improbable that she would be just as good a helpmeet for me in time as I had a right to ask. Living together, we should mould one another, and at last like one another. Marrying her, I should be relieved from the insufferable solitude which was depressing me to death, and should have ...
— The Autobiography of Mark Rutherford • Mark Rutherford

... reading that second chapter that God tried to palm off on Adam a beast as his helpmeet. Everybody talks about the Bible and nobody reads it; that is the reason it is so generally believed. I am probably the only man in the United States who has read the Bible through this year. I have wasted ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll, Volume I • Robert Green Ingersoll

... precipitate in such a matter. But I have consulted my own heart, and have laid it before the Throne, knowing no earthly adviser. Dear Mr. Gold, it shall be as you wish, and I trust God may help me to be a worthy helpmeet. So no more till ...
— Aunt Rachel • David Christie Murray

... Madame de Maintenon, but women whose names it were a shame to couple with hers, must have smiled at, while they hated, the saint who attempted to dispense not only with them, but with the ideal queen who should have been the helpmeet ...
— The Ancien Regime • Charles Kingsley

... without suffering charity to step in and do a confessed good work of parting those whom nothing holds together but this of God's joining, falsely supposed against the express end of his own ordinance.... 'It is not good,' said He, 'that man should be alone; I will make him a helpmeet for him.' From which words, so plain, less cannot be concluded, nor is by any learned interpreter, than that in God's intention a meet and happy conversation is the chiefest and noblest end of marriage.... Again, where the mind ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon

... and with a kindred desire, this volume was written. For good or ill, for better or worse, the book is sent forth in the hope that it may recall attention to the Divine IDEAL for Woman, and aid in inducing man, to prize her as the first gift of God to him, designed "as a helpmeet ...
— The True Woman • Justin D. Fulton

... for this home in Berlin that Fliedner learned to know Caroline Bertheau, of Hamburg, a descendant of an old Huguenot family that was driven from France by the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. He led her home as his wife in May, 1843, and she became to him a true helpmeet for his children, his home, and his institution. She is still living, having survived her husband over twenty-five years, and in an advanced age still retains a place on the Board of ...
— Deaconesses in Europe - and their Lessons for America • Jane M. Bancroft

... 'There is room in the house for only one presence just now.Are you going to be a true helpmeet to Dane, Hazel, ...
— The Gold of Chickaree • Susan Warner

... with mingled joy and self-reproach, what a daughter might be to her father; and Polly, thinking of feeble, selfish Mrs. Shaw, asleep up stairs, saw with sudden clearness what a wife should be to her husband, a helpmeet, not a burden. Touched by these unusual demonstrations, Maud crept quietly to her father's knee, and whispered, with a great tear shining on her little pug nose, "Papa, we don't mind it much, and I 'm going to help Fan keep house for you; I 'd like ...
— An Old-fashioned Girl • Louisa May Alcott

... a work he must needs have a helpmeet, and he was to find her when she was still physically as weak and unlikely for the great task as he was, and as entirely severed from all existing organisations. Catherine Mumford, like himself, innocent of any unkind feeling towards her Church, had been excluded from it, simply ...
— The Authoritative Life of General William Booth • George Scott Railton

... over them beans we had yesterday," answered his helpmeet, "and there's two sausages besides. I don't want any. You'd ought to make a ...
— Five Hundred Dollars - or, Jacob Marlowe's Secret • Horatio Alger

... what was considered in those days a large fortune. After his marriage with this lady Bernardo and his bride retired to a villa which he had purchased at Sorrento, where he enjoyed for several years an exceptional share of domestic felicity, his wife having proved a most devoted helpmeet to him. ...
— Roman Mosaics - Or, Studies in Rome and Its Neighbourhood • Hugh Macmillan

... saw into the vat of ideas in which Parisian art was fermenting, the more strongly he was impressed by the supremacy of women in that cosmopolitan community. They had an absurdly disproportionate importance. It was not enough for woman to be the helpmeet of man. It was not even enough for her to be his equal. Her pleasure must be law both for herself and for man. And man truckled to it. When a nation is growing old, it renounces its will, its faith, the whole essence of its being, in favor of the giver of pleasure. ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland

... been many weeks Mrs. Edson, before she discovered the man she had taken for "better or worse" till death should separate them, was no helpmeet for her. They had not a thought or sympathy in common. He hired servants to execute her commands; bought her fine clothes, and fine books too, when he found these latter most delighted her; but he never wished to hear her read from them, and ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton

... yet frightened the loving heart of a devoted woman, and Miss Horsley loved William Darling. Therefore she cared very little where her home might be, if only she could share it with him. To be his comforter and helpmeet, to cheer him when the days were dark, and to enjoy his companionship, and brighten his home, were pleasures enough to tempt her. So one bright afternoon, when William was not needed in his lighthouse-tower, ...
— Grace Darling - Heroine of the Farne Islands • Eva Hope



Words linked to "Helpmeet" :   better half, spouse, married person, helpmate, partner, mate



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