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Swaddling   Listen
noun
Swaddling  n.  A. & n. from Swaddle, v.
Swaddling band, Swaddling cloth, or Swaddling clout, a band or cloth wrapped round an infant, especially round a newborn infant. "Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Swaddling" Quotes from Famous Books



... it to the intellectual whoredom of 'spiritualism.' What is really wanted is the lifting power of an ideal element in human life. But the free play of this power must be preceded by its release from the practical materialism of the present, as well as from the torn swaddling bands of the past. It is now in danger of being stupefied by the one, or strangled by the other. I look, however, forward to a time when the strength, insight, and elevation which now visit us in mere hints and glimpses, during moments 'of clearness ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall

... Saviour-Child with the Mater Dolorosa becomes universal,—finding its counterpart in the Assyrian Venus with babe in arm, in Isis suckling the child Horus, and even in the Scandinavian Disa at Upsal accompanied by an infant. It is from swaddling-clothes, as the nursling of our Lady, and out of the sorrowful discipline of earth, that the child grows to be the Saviour, both for our Lady ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various

... or doll, was given to the creature in this stage, because long ago people thought the way in which insects are thus enclosed was somewhat like the way in which the babies used to be wrapped round in bandages or "swaddling clothes": it is also called a "chrysalis," because sometimes dotted with gold or pearly spots. But the wonder of it is that inside that narrow shell lies an insect quite unlike the caterpillar which lay down to rest; a creature with legs and wings ...
— Twilight And Dawn • Caroline Pridham

... brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in ...
— Our Lady Saint Mary • J. G. H. Barry

... himself upon a strenuous period, or upon interests with which his character little fitted him to deal. The last of the name had reigned, therefore, before the Kingdom of England got out of its national and religious swaddling clothes; before the reign of Henry VIII. had freed it from connection with Rome, or that of Elizabeth had founded the maritime and commercial empire which, in time, was to create the mighty realm over which the new Edward ...
— The Life of King Edward VII - with a sketch of the career of King George V • J. Castell Hopkins

... from a notion they had that epileptic and weakly children faint and waste away upon their being thus bathed, while, on the contrary, those of a strong and vigorous habit acquire firmness and get a temper by it, like steel. There was much care and art, too, used by the nurses; they had no swaddling bands; the children grew up free and unconstrained in limb and form, and not dainty and fanciful about their food; not afraid in the dark, or of being left alone; without any peevishness or ill humor or crying. Upon this account, Spartan nurses were often bought ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough

... long permitted to enjoy her haven of refuge. Being still tormented by her enemy, the young mother was once more obliged to fly; she therefore resigned the charge of her new-born babe to the goddess Themis, who carefully wrapped the helpless infant in swaddling-clothes, and fed him with nectar and ambrosia; but he had no sooner partaken of the heavenly food than, to the amazement of the goddess, he burst asunder the bands which confined his infant limbs, and springing to his feet, appeared before ...
— Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome • E.M. Berens

... hundred years, the attitude of awe of Jeans and Eddington towards the vastness of our universe will be held in some similar position to which Jeans and Eddington now hold the misguided conception of Halley's comet in the year 1456. The mind of man is just beginning to emerge from its swaddling clothes and we cannot assume to judge what its broadest capabilities may be. Certain great modern minds, therefore, when they contemplate this vastness of astrophysics are apt to dwell a bit too literally on the "music of ...
— The Necessity of Atheism • Dr. D.M. Brooks

... exile, and Tolstoy the length of his in ploughing fields. For such a strange disharmony in the lives of Russian men of letters, the government is largely responsible. An autocracy which feels itself called to wrap literature tightly in swaddling-clothes, and establishes a censorship which does not shrink even from making verbal changes in the works of the artist to improve his style, can accomplish little more than the shortening of literary lives. For literature is a flower which can only wither at the touch of unhallowed hands, and ...
— Lectures on Russian Literature - Pushkin, Gogol, Turgenef, Tolstoy • Ivan Panin

... Mr. Webster, in pursuit of a Presidential nomination, executed his famous tour through the Great West, at that time embracing only the States of Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. The first infant railway of the continent being yet in swaddling-clothes, the journey was accomplished by private conveyance, and the bumps and bruises stoically endured in probing bottomless pits of prairie-mud, diversified by joltings over rude log-ways and intrusive stumps, were but a part of the cruel price paid for a glittering prize which in ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, August, 1885 • Various

... of swaddling children? From an unnatural custom. Since the time when mothers, despising their first duty, no longer wish to nurse their own children at the breast, it has been necessary to intrust the little ones to hired women. These, finding themselves in this ...
— Emile - or, Concerning Education; Extracts • Jean Jacques Rousseau

... was Ottocar; and in swaddling-clothes Far better he than bearded Winceslaus His son, who feeds in ...
— Dante's Purgatory • Dante

... the window, and removed a layer of swaddling clothes very gently. And there, revealed, lay Don, Jr. His face was still rather red, and his nose pudgy; but when he opened his eyes Frances saw Don's eyes. It gave ...
— The Wall Street Girl • Frederick Orin Bartlett

... humility and joyfulness; but an infinitely greater one was behind in the event itself, to which he directed the shepherds, in that birth itself of the Holy Child Jesus. This he intimated in these words: "Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger." Doubtless, when they heard the Lord's Christ was born into the world, they would look for Him in kings' palaces. They would not be able to fancy that He had become one of themselves, or that they might approach Him; therefore ...
— Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VIII (of 8) • John Henry Newman

... scarlet and orange-coloured kerchiefs, their skinny fingers fumbling on the rosary, and their mute lips moving in prayer. The younger women have great listless eyes and large limbs used to labor. Some of them carry babies trussed up in tight swaddling-clothes. One kneels beside a dark-browed shepherd, on whose shoulder falls his shaggy hair; and little children play about, half hushed, half heedless of the place, among old men whose life has dwindled down into a ceaseless round of prayers. We wonder ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds

... From the swaddling clothes of the risen grannom, cast thus upon the surface of the water by the insect made perfect, Halford turned to the artificial imitations then in use. They were of importance in those days, for the grannom was an institution much regarded, and the grannom season ...
— Lines in Pleasant Places - Being the Aftermath of an Old Angler • William Senior

... squadrons having taken in their return cargoes, rendezvoused at Havana, and sailed from thence to Europe. Such was the stinted, fettered and restricted commerce which subsisted between Spain and her possessions in America for more than two centuries and a half, and such were the swaddling clothes which bound the youthful limbs of the Spanish colonies, retarding their growth and keeping them in a condition of abject dependence. The effect was most injurious to Spain as well as to the colonies. The naval superiority of the English ...
— The Land We Live In - The Story of Our Country • Henry Mann

... the swaddling-bands of your imperfections, conform your lives to the highest ideals of uprightness and truth. Exercise your voice, your articulation and your gestures. If need be, like Demosthenes, place pebbles in your mouth; repair ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various

... a Medici never survives his swaddling-clothes. Into the tiny graves are huddled a million destinies. The sexton's shovel smothers up a Renaissance; soon the daisies will blow above History. Those eyebrows are lifted, that lip curls, and two fair homes go down ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates

... Goddess of Love holding a round object which is admittedly meant for the Golden Apple. The favourite legends are Venus Victrix, Venus Felix, and Venus Genetrix, and of phallic import; and in one instance the Goddess of Love holds an infant wrapped in swaddling clothes as well ...
— The Non-Christian Cross - An Enquiry Into the Origin and History of the Symbol Eventually Adopted as That of Our Religion • John Denham Parsons

... simply says that certain "shepherds" of the same country, who kept watch over their flock by night, were visited by "the angel of the Lord," and told that they would find the Savior, Christ the Lord, just born at Bethlehem, the City of David, "wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger." Luke does not, as is generally supposed, represent Mary as confined in a stable because Joseph was too poor to pay for decent accommodation, but because "there was no room for them in the inn." It is perfectly ...
— Arrows of Freethought • George W. Foote

... become a hissing among the nations. I don't deny there's some reason for it. We are big, with big opportunities for corruption, and the tradition of sharp practice is of long standing. We bribed, intimidated, and filibustered in swaddling clothes, and stole a governorship as early as 1791. The tricks of to-day have all gone stale with handling, for the patriots we honor were ...
— The Henchman • Mark Lee Luther

... of that? If they had but been men it would have been another matter—but they were babes in swaddling clothes, and shrivelled old nurses that kept the flies from them, and dried-up stove-squatters who could not crawl to the door—patients whining for the doctor, who, with his stately gravity, was marching to the sport. ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... off the coral reef of Samana Cay, and thrilled the Old World by announcing the discovery of the New. Elizabeth, the virgin Queen of England, was a proud, haughty girl just entering her teens, all unmindful of her eventful future. Mary Queen of the Scots was a tiny infant in swaddling clothes. The labors of Rafael Sanzio were still fresh in the memory of his surviving pupils. Michael Angelo was in the zenith of his fame, bending his energies to the beautifying of the great cathedral. Martin Luther was in the sere old age of his life, waiting for the command of ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 810, July 11, 1891 • Various

... the bed-clothes now met her ear, and, turning down the blankets, she discovered two red-faced, bald-headed babies, wrapped in swaddling-clothes. ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton

... grace of person were lost in the clumsy swaddling of her makeshift costume, she seemed to be comfortable enough; and the rushing air, keen with the chill of that great altitude, moulded her wind-veil precisely to the exquisite contours of her face and stung her firm cheeks until they glowed with a rare fire that even ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance

... been supposed to have died in foreign countries, and whose funeral rites had been performed in an honorary manner by their own relatives, if it turned out that they were not dead, and they returned to their own country, were considered impure, and were only purified by being dressed in swaddling clothes, and treated like new-born infants. We shall, then, be hardly surprised at Juno considering Halcyone to be polluted by the death of her husband Ceyx, although at a distance, and as yet unknown ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso

... in the rear, some musicians, costumed as Brahmins, with spectacles on their noses, the better to decipher their score, fingered their brass instruments with a weary air, rocking them like infants in swaddling clothes. Actors in the garb of Indians, with painted cheeks, and legs encased in chocolate-colored bandages, were yawning, weary and flabby, and stretching themselves while awaiting the time for them to present themselves upon the stage. Others, dressed like soldiers, were sleeping ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie

... remarkable crisis Mary was detained by the full accomplishment of the time for her delivery; "and she brought forth her first born Son, and wrapped him in swaddling-clothes, and laid him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn." Here then were fulfilled the prophetic descriptions of the place and circumstances of the Redeemer's incarnation. A virgin produces a son—a son who, by the exclusion ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. II • Francis Augustus Cox

... the wind-wreath, find thee lone? Put on meek age's hood? Feel but the frost within the dawn? Wrap courage in a swaddling mood? His bare throat flings All-powered nay; The world, his vast, unfingered lyre, Stirs in her thousand strings; Lit with redemptive flame Burns miracle desire, And dedicated day ...
— Path Flower and Other Verses • Olive T. Dargan

... plays upon his harp, on the right sits Solomon deeply meditating. Above Jesse we have in one carving an amalgamated representation of the birth of Christ and the visit of the Wise Men. On the left hand sits the Virgin Mary with her Child, fully clothed in a long garment, not wrapped in swaddling clothes, standing in her lap; behind her stands a man, probably Joseph; and before her kneels one of the Wise Men offering his gift of gold in the form of a plain tankard; on the right behind him stand his two fellows, one carrying a pot of ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: Wimborne Minster and Christchurch Priory • Thomas Perkins

... span wide. It was resorted to by the childless husband or the barren wife. There are those among them who imagine that in some way or other their children come from the Makadistati; and marks of contusion on an infant, arising from tight swaddling or other causes, are gravely attributed to kicks received from his former comrades when he was ejected from his subterranean home" ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain

... are naively expressed: "One day I was told that a baby was born [this was when he was three years and a half old], and upon going into mamma's bedroom I saw a red baby lying in an arm-chair wrapped in swaddling-clothes. It puzzled me very much to think how he came into the world: it was mysterious, very, and I cannot make it out now. My first thought was, that he must have had airy wings, and after he had come ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XXVI., December, 1880. • Various

... ordinary laborers, have a few savings, "living on the herbage, and on a few goats which devour everything." Often again, these, by order of Parliament, are killed by the game-keepers. A woman, with two children in swaddling clothes, having no milk, "and without an inch of ground," whose two goats, her sole resource, had thus been slain, and another, with one goat slain in the same way, and who begs along with her boy, present themselves at the gate of the chateau; ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine

... which I had all the pains in the world in persuading its mother not to put a cap upon it. I bribed her finally, by the promise of a pair of socks instead, with which I undertook to endow her child, and, moreover, actually prevailed upon her to forego the usual swaddling and swathing process, and let her poor baby be dressed at its first entrance into life as I assured her both ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble

... spurt from open veins a juice Like unto milk; even as a woman now Is filled, at child-bearing, with the sweet milk, Because all that swift stream of aliment Is thither turned unto the mother-breasts. There earth would furnish to the children food; Warmth was their swaddling cloth, the grass their bed Abounding in soft down. Earth's newness then Would rouse no dour spells of the bitter cold, Nor extreme heats nor winds of mighty powers— For all things grow and gather strength through ...
— Of The Nature of Things • [Titus Lucretius Carus] Lucretius

... the children were to be killed, being under much fear, took the child, and wrapped him up in swaddling clothes, and laid him in an ox-manger, because there was no room for them ...
— The Forbidden Gospels and Epistles, Complete • Archbishop Wake

... joy her virgin breast; She hid it not, she bared the breast, Which suckled that divinest babe! Blessed, blessed were the breasts Which the Saviour infant kiss'd; And blessed, blessed was the mother Who wrapp'd his limbs in swaddling clothes, Singing placed him on her lap, Hung o'er him with her looks of love, And sooth'd him with a lulling motion. Blessed; for she shelter'd him From the damp and chilling air; Blessed, blessed! for she lay ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... lord of the nine sleeps and prince of the seven madnesses, comes ashore. An incredible company followed. But with him came his wife Gisele and their little child Demetrios, thus named for the old Count of Arnaye: and it was this boy that, they say, when yet in swaddling-bands, was appointed to be the slayer of his own ...
— Figures of Earth • James Branch Cabell

... was born a poet: a poet by instinct and by vocation. From his earliest childhood, "the brain hardly released from the swaddling-bands of unconsciousness," the things of the outer world left a profound and living impression. As far back as he can remember, while still quite a child, "a little monkey of six, still dressed in a little baize frock," or just "wearing his first braces," ...
— Fabre, Poet of Science • Dr. G.V. (C.V.) Legros

... out as the moments rolled, Still o'er its bier the joy-bells rang: 'Twas mourning an instant, merriment then, And the ghastly shroud where the old year lay— How like is the humour of bells and men— Became swaddling-clothes for the New ...
— The Death of Saul and other Eisteddfod Prize Poems and Miscellaneous Verses • J. C. Manning

... attained to in England. Not that we wish to decry England; on the contrary, we would like to return there. But for a visit, merely. Here is our home, now. The young country that is growing out of its swaddling clothes, and that we hope, and we know, will one day be a Brighter Britain in deed ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay

... There is neither for nor against which will appeal to the materialist, or which would weigh in a court of justice; but I aver this in favor of the argument,—that no man having once seriously considered it can go back to the formal theories of the sceptics. It is like putting on swaddling-clothes again. ...
— Light On The Path and Through the Gates of Gold • Mabel Collins

... as yet, I am glad to say, very far from being persuaded that the adoption of such a policy would be wise—the most advanced thinkers in some Protectionist states are beginning to turn their eyes towards the possibility and desirability of casting aside those swaddling-clothes which were originally assumed in order to foster their budding industries. Many of the most competent German economists, whilst advocating Protection as a temporary measure, have for many years fully recognised that, when once a country has firmly established its industrial ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring

... in the world with men, beasts and birds, serpents and insects. Something resembling this love prevails also in the vegetable and mineral kingdoms; in the vegetable, in that seeds are guarded by shells or husks as by swaddling clothes, and moreover are in the fruit as in a house, and are nourished with juice as with milk; that there is something similar in minerals, is plain from the matrixes and external covering, in which noble gems and metals are ...
— The Delights of Wisdom Pertaining to Conjugial Love • Emanuel Swedenborg

... and spoke. Linus, Orpheus, Homer, have taught me harmony and rhythm. I do not look about me with Love's bandage blindfolding my eyes. I judge of all things coolly. The passions of youth never influence my admiration, and when I am as withered, decrepit, wrinkled, as Tithonus in his swaddling bands, my opinion will be still the same. But I forgive your incredulity and want of sympathy. In order to understand me fully, it is necessary that you should see Nyssia in the radiant brilliancy of her shining whiteness, free from jealous ...
— King Candaules • Theophile Gautier

... not so thoughtful, for "the brooms and the chick-peas rustled and crackled, and the flax bristled up." According to another old legend we are informed that by the fountain where the Virgin Mary washed the swaddling-clothes of her sacred infant, beautiful bushes sprang up in memory of the event. Among the many further legends connected with the Virgin may be mentioned the following connected with her death:—The story runs that she was extremely ...
— The Folk-lore of Plants • T. F. Thiselton-Dyer

... their hungry, receptive minds are filled with stories about the pursuit and slaughter of unoffending animals, of war and of murder, and of those questionable practices whereby a hero is enriched and others are impoverished. Before he is out of his swaddling-cloth the modern youngster is convinced that the one noble purpose in life is to get, get, get, and keep on getting of worldly material. The fairy tale is tabooed because, as the sordid parent alleges, ...
— The Love Affairs of a Bibliomaniac • Eugene Field

... whir of Lisbeth's busy wheel. Veit Stoss stood motionless, while Peter's eyes never stirred from the table before them. There, carved in the fair white wood, rested the divine Babe, as on that blessed Christmas night when his Mother "wrapped him up in swaddling-clothes and laid him in a manger." The lovely little head nestled on its rough pillow as though on Mary's bosom; the tiny limbs were relaxed in sleep; the whole figure breathed at once the dignity of the Godhead ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book II - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various

... Zabastes with an accent of ironic surprise.. "To be sure! ... Is he a baby in swaddling-clothes that he cannot be trusted out alone to take care of himself? In safety?—aye! I warrant you he is safe enough, and silly enough, and lazy enough to please any one of his idiot flatterers, . . moreover my 'master!"—and he emphasized this word with indescribable bitterness—"hath slept ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli

... the purple of the Universe, To strut and strut, and thy great part rehearse; Ever the slave of every proud desire; Come now a little down where sports thy sire; Choose thy small better from thy abounding worse; Prove thou thy lordship who hadst dust for nurse, And for thy swaddling the primeval mire!" ...
— Collected Poems 1901-1918 in Two Volumes - Volume I. • Walter de la Mare

... had been of the old-style no objection to this would have been made. The woman's bathing suit of the olden days were a cumbrous swaddling garment, high-necked, long-sleeved, full-skirted, bloomer-breeched ...
— Nonsenseorship • G. G. Putnam

... was the asylum for foundlings, whither they were brought not only from Paris, but from distant towns, and whence they were sent out to be nursed in the country. They were brought to Paris done up tightly in their swaddling clothes, little crying bundles, packed three at a time into wadded boxes, carried on men's backs. The habit of dressing children loosely, recommended by Rousseau, had not yet reached the poor; as the habit of having babies nursed by their ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell

... phrases, which follow me upon my journey as the Furies Orestes. I know that 'Werther' has become the favorite of the reading public; he has opened all the tear-ducts and made all lovers of moonlight as soft as a swaddling-cloth. I could punish ...
— Old Fritz and the New Era • Louise Muhlbach

... swaddling bands, And in His manger laid, The Hope and Glory of all lands Is come to the world's aid: No peaceful home upon his cradle smiled, Guests rudely went and came, where ...
— The Christian Year • Rev. John Keble

... land The dreaded infant's hand; The rays of Bethlehem blind his dusky eyn; Nor all the gods beside Longer dare abide, Nor Typhon huge ending in snaky twine: Our Babe, to shew his Godhead true, Can in his swaddling bands control ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various

... forth with cumbersome pieces of furnishing, my lady lay in a gloomy, canopied bed, with her new-born child at her side, but not looking at or touching it, seeming rather to have withdrawn herself from the pillow on which it lay in its swaddling-clothes. ...
— A Lady of Quality • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... strength, and leaving us nothing but wrinkles and the ails of old age. Gilbert, my son, that is now a corpulent man, and a Glasgow merchant, when I take up my pen to record the memorables of this Ann. Dom., seems to me yet but a suckling in swaddling clothes, mewing and peevish in the arms of his mother, that has been long laid in the cold kirkyard, beside her predecessor, in Abraham's bosom. It is not, however, my design to speak much anent my own affairs, which would be a very improper and uncomely thing, but only of what happened in the ...
— The Annals of the Parish • John Galt

... unquestioning reliance on public spirit, public control, and public honesty—a time in which it was believed that the public would spontaneously do everything necessary for the common weal, if it were only freed from the administrative swaddling-clothes in which it had been hitherto bound. Still smarting from the severe regime of Nicholas, men thought more about protecting the rights of the individual than about preserving public order, and under the influence of the socialistic ideas in vogue malefactors were regarded ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace

... the story of the Holy Night. The mother and father had traveled a long way; and when they came to Bethlehem every place was taken so they found a bed in a cave. In the night a baby boy came to the mother, and she "wrapped Him in swaddling clothes, and laid Him in a manger, because there was no room for them in an inn. And there was in the same country shepherds abiding in the fields, keeping watch over their flocks by night. And, lo, the angel of the ...
— The Children's Book of Celebrated Pictures • Lorinda Munson Bryant

... kings, when he was born, Had not so much for outward ease; By Him such dressings were not worn, Nor such like swaddling-clothes as these. Sweet baby, then forbear to weep; Be still, my babe; sweet ...
— Pastoral Poems by Nicholas Breton, - Selected Poetry by George Wither, and - Pastoral Poetry by William Browne (of Tavistock) • Nicholas Breton, George Wither, William Browne (of Tavistock)

... this is Spring. It precedes the green and flowery spring, as mythology precedes regular poetry. I know of nothing more purgative of winter fumes and indigestions. It convinces me that Earth is still in her swaddling-clothes, and stretches forth baby fingers on every side. Fresh curls spring from the baldest brow. There is nothing inorganic. These foliaceous heaps lie along the bank like the slag of a furnace, showing that Nature is "in full blast" within. The earth is not a mere fragment ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau

... it is being done. Here and there we find superintendents, principals, and teachers who are shuddering away from the question-and-answer method both in the recitation and in the examination. They have outgrown the swaddling-clothes and have risen to the estate of broad-minded, intelligent manhood and womanhood. They have enlarged their concept of education and have become too generous in their impulses to subject ...
— The Vitalized School • Francis B. Pearson

... as it was developed chiefly in the North, but they have that venerable air which is not always to be found in the stately and majestic. The low tympanum is crowded with figures belonging to the period when the statuary's art was still swathed in the swaddling clothes of its new infancy, and what with their own uncouthness, and the wear and tear of time, it is no easy matter now to trace in them all the purpose ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker

... equality, though they are born to it. Their parents have a sort of rule and jurisdiction over them, when they come into the world, and for some time after; but it is but a temporary one. The bonds of this subjection are like the swaddling clothes they art wrapt up in, and supported by, in the weakness of their infancy: age and reason as they grow up, loosen them, till at length they drop quite off, and leave a man at his own free disposal. Sec. 56. Adam was created a ...
— Two Treatises of Government • John Locke

... week. After losing weight during the first three days, like all new-born children, he was now growing and filling out like a strong, healthy human plant. They could already picture him walking, sturdy and handsome. His mother, sitting up in bed, wrapped his swaddling clothes around him with her deft, nimble hands, jesting the while and answering each ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola

... bid adieu to these mountains for long—I hope for ever. I am very glad to quit Asia, the cradle of mankind, in which the understanding has remained till now in its swaddling-clothes. Astonishing is the immobility of Asiatic life, in the course of so many centuries. Against Asia all attempts of improvement and civilization have broken like waves; it seems not to belong ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various

... from that of the vital power. Things are not either wholly alive, or wholly dead. They are less or more alive. Take the nearest, most easily examined instance—the life of a flower. Notice what a different degree and kind of life there is in the calyx and the corolla. The calyx is nothing but the swaddling clothes of the flower; the child-blossom is bound up in it, hand and foot; guarded in it, restrained by it, till the time of birth. The shell is hardly more subordinate to the germ in the egg, than the calyx to the blossom. It bursts at last; ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin

... wonder they fall into the gutter when they grow up," thought Bobbie. "They're sitting in it from the time they get out of their swaddling rags." ...
— Traffic in Souls - A Novel of Crime and Its Cure • Eustace Hale Ball

... worn iron shoes, burned on the funeral pile, or skulked behind a mask in a harem, yet, though cradled in liberty, with the same keen sense of justice and equality that man has, she is still bound by law in the swaddling bands of an old barbarism. Though the world has been steadily advancing in political science, and step by step recognizing the rights of new classes, yet we stand to-day talking of precedents, authorities, laws, and constitutions, as ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... him, and how he could not perform it, and lamented his misfortune. "Don't let thy hair grow grey about that," said the stork, "I will help thee out of thy difficulty. For a long time now, I have carried the children in swaddling-clothes into the town, so for once in a way I can fetch a little prince out of the well. Go home and be easy. In nine days from this time repair to the royal palace, and there will I come." The little tailor went home, and at the appointed time was at ...
— Household Tales by Brothers Grimm • Grimm Brothers

... night when they were buried, she Restored the embalmers' ruining, and shook The light out of the funeral lamps, to be A mimic day within that deathy nook; And she unwound the woven imagery 605 Of second childhood's swaddling bands, and took The coffin, its last cradle, from its niche, And threw it with contempt ...
— The Witch of Atlas • Percy Bysshe Shelley

... And the angel said unto them, Be not afraid; for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which shall be to all the people: for there is born to you this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. And this is the sign unto you; ye shall find a babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, and lying in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various

... says he [he is now putting words into the mouth of the heretic], with that eternal plaguy taxing of Caesar, and the scanty inn, and the squalid swaddling clothes, and the hard stable. We do not care a jot for that multitude of the heavenly host which praised their Lord at night. Let the shepherds take better care of their flock ... Spare also the babe from circumcision, that He may escape the pains thereof; nor let Him be brought into ...
— The Lost Gospel and Its Contents - Or, The Author of "Supernatural Religion" Refuted by Himself • Michael F. Sadler

... swaddling bands, eh, Infanta?" said Lord Fordham, while Armine hastily sketched in pen and ink, Babie, with her hair flying and swaddling bands off, executing a war-dance. She ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge

... Mexican nation was still in its swaddling clothes. Its birth had hardly cost a pang; but its infancy, its childhood, and its youth, were to be attended with a series of convulsions, the fruits of the vicious seeds sown in the conception of the new State. By the pronunciamiento of a part of a regiment of the King's Creole troops ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson

... ghosts; but my mother told me better, and I didn't fear them any more. And the Baby, the dear little Baby—we all love a baby." There was a quick, dry sob; it was from Nelson. "I used to peek through under to see the little one in the straw, and wonder what things swaddling clothes were. Oh, it was so real and so beautiful!" He paused, and I could ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Campfire Stories • Various

... of the bourgeois class, the old insane customs prevail, and it is not surprising to hear that the death-rate among infants is extraordinarily high. From its birth the poor child is tightly wrapped in swaddling clothes, confining all its limbs, so that it presents the appearance of a mummy, swathed in coarse yellow flannel, only its head appearing. So stiffly are they rolled up that I have seen an infant only a few weeks old propped up on end against the wall, or in a corner, while the mother ...
— Spanish Life in Town and Country • L. Higgin and Eugene E. Street

... in swaddling clothes. What useful trouble Bishop Tillotson gives himself, thundering against excessive drinking. What an odious draught of wind! And then my stove is old. It allows puffs of smoke to escape enough to give you trichiasis. One has the inconvenience of cold, and the inconvenience ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo

... earth beneath smiled, and forth leaped the babe to light, and all the Goddesses raised a cry. Then, great Phoebus, the Goddesses washed thee in fair water, holy and purely, and wound thee in white swaddling bands, delicate, new woven, with a golden girdle round thee. Nor did his mother suckle Apollo the golden-sworded, but Themis with immortal hands first touched his lips with nectar and sweet ambrosia, while Leto rejoiced, ...
— The Homeric Hymns - A New Prose Translation; and Essays, Literary and Mythological • Andrew Lang

... is the proper verdict. But one is not indignant at the worship of their emperor by the Japanese: he is a real ruler, has power, and stands firmly upon divine right. The Japanese are yet children politically; but the English should be out of their swaddling-clothes, surely. ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie

... sea with doors, When it brake forth as issuing from the womb? When I made the clouds its garment, And thick darkness for its swaddling-band. ...
— The Sceptics of the Old Testament: Job - Koheleth - Agur • Emile Joseph Dillon

... flegmy winter now doth lye In swaddling Clouts, like new born Infancy Bound up with frosts, and furr'd with hail & snows, And like an Infant, still it taller grows; December is my first, and now the Sun To th' Southward Tropick, his swift race doth run: This moneth he's hous'd in horned Capricorn, From thence he 'gins ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell

... they say of me in the club? What would people say of me, if they met me in the street with a woman on my arm, or if they found me at home, just about to feed a child in swaddling clothes? I—to have children? To worry about them? To live in eternal fear that they might fall sick or die? Augustias, believe me, as true as there is a God above us, I am absolutely unfit for it! I should behave in such a way that ...
— First Love (Little Blue Book #1195) - And Other Fascinating Stories of Spanish Life • Various

... of parks and fish-ponds; I wonder how you that are a man that knows the world, can talk with that simple fellow. He has been my bubble these twenty years, and to my certain knowledge, understands no more of his own affairs than a child in swaddling clothes. I know he has got a sort of a pragmatical silly jade of a wife, that pretends to take him out of my hands; but you and she both will find yourselves mistaken; I'll find those that shall manage her; and for him, he dares as well be hanged as make one step in his affairs without my consent. ...
— The History of John Bull • John Arbuthnot

... the grave-clothes garb and swaddling barret (Why purse up mouth and beak in a pet so, You bald old saturnine poll-clawed parrot?) Not a poor glimmering Crucifixion, Where in the foreground kneels the donor? If such remain, as is my conviction, The hoarding it does you ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson

... appreciate. Yet something his heart felt, and something his soul perceived; his pale and vacant face was illumined; and at the close of the reading he rose up. The coarse wrappings of his body fell away; and the muffling ignorance, the swaddling dulness, wherein that divine infant, the bright immortal spirit, was confined, seemed also to fall off. He lifted up his hands, spreading them as if dispensing blessings; and his countenance had a vague, smiling wonder in it, almost beautiful, ...
— Atlantic Monthly,Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... the door, and rushed out in the direction of the noise, and he could not see the cause of the tumult, because of the darkness of the night; but he rushed after it and followed it. Then he remembered that he had left the door open, and he returned. And at the door behold there was an infant boy in swaddling clothes, wrapped around in a mantle of satin. And he took up the boy, and behold he was very strong for the age that he ...
— The Mabinogion Vol. 3 (of 3) • Owen M. Edwards

... you are regent, and have to hold the reins of government in the name of the illustrious imperial squaller, your son, since his imperial grace still remains in his swaddling-clothes, and has much less to do with state affairs than with many other ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach

... a chest of drawers, and unwrapping it from swaddling-clothes, she withdrew what at best had been a sorry sort of fiddle. Cracked of back and solitary of string it was as if her trembling arms, raising it above her head, would make of themselves and her swaying body ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various

... freedom of thought? At present, genius every where finds trammels; superstition invariably opposes itself to its course; man, straitened with bandages, scarcely enjoys the free use of any one of his faculties; his mind itself is cramped; it appears continually wrapped up in the swaddling clothes of infancy. The civil power, leagued with spiritual domination, appears only disposed to rule over brutalized slaves, shut up in a dark prison, where they reciprocally goad each other with the efferverscence of their mutual ill humour. Sovereigns, in general, detest ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 2 • Baron D'Holbach

... fifty-six, when he was assassinated, fifty pitched battles, had taken by assault above a thousand towns, and slain near 1,200,000 men; I suppose exclusive of those who fell on his own side in slaying them. Are not you and I, Jack, innocent men, and babes in swaddling-clothes, compared to Caesar, and to his predecessor in heroism, Alexander, dubbed, for ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson

... already up, only the children were still sleeping. The moonshining woman with bulging eyes was carefully removing her coat from under them. The rioter was drying near the oven some rags which served for swaddling cloths, while the child, in the hands of the blue-eyed Theodosia, was crying at the top of its lungs, the woman lulling it in a gentle voice. The consumptive, seizing her breast, coughed violently, and, sighing at intervals, almost screamed. The red-headed woman lay prone on her back ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy

... His swaddling-bands, And in His manger laid, The hope and glory of all lands Is come to the world's aid: No peaceful home upon His cradle smiled, Guests rudely went and came where ...
— In The Yule-Log Glow, Vol. IV (of IV) • Harrison S. Morris

... my little man! If crying was to do the business, we might look for heroes in swaddling-clothes. We'll just take you with us a bit, and see what ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends; Scandinavian • Various

... admit that English women have a talent for this department. True, they look upon the child only from the point of view of material well-being; but where this is concerned, their arrangements are admirable. My children must always be bare-legged and wear woollen socks. There shall be no swaddling nor bandages; on the other hand, they shall never be left alone. The helplessness of the French infant in its swaddling-bands means the liberty of the nurse—that is the whole explanation. A mother, who is really ...
— Letters of Two Brides • Honore de Balzac

... and, faith, it was not difficult,—such open, palpable, undisguised rascals never were heard of. I thought I knew a thing or two myself, when I landed; but, Lord love you! I was a babe, I was an infant in swaddling clothes, compared with them; and they humbugged me,—ay, me!—till I began to suspect that I was only walking ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever

... in his swaddling clothes — so says the "Breviarium Romanum" —gave promise of extraordinary virtue and holiness; for, though he sucked freely on other days, on Wednesdays and Fridays he applied to the breast only once, and that ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer

... before impartial men, To his poor one I dare adventure ten, That they will take my meaning in these lines Far better than his lies in silver shrines. Come, truth, although in swaddling clouts, I find, Informs the judgement, rectifies the mind; Pleases the understanding, makes the will Submit; the memory too it doth fill With what doth our imaginations please; Likewise it ...
— The Pilgrim's Progress - From this world to that which is to come. • John Bunyan

... It has taught men to turn to these holy books and accept unquestioningly all therein recorded as authoritative on our thought and life. It has barred all research which even seemed to contradict its history or science, and has held Europe in mental swaddling-bands, preventing normal growth. It has taught Most Christian Kings to war with easy consciences, after the fashion of the Israelites in Canaan, and priests to sing solemn Te Deums over battle-fields ...
— The Right and Wrong Uses of the Bible • R. Heber Newton

... knew that her own absence from home would be suspicious, and with many grumblings submitted; but first she took the child from Eustacie's reluctant arms, promising to restore her in a few moments, after finishing dressing her in the lace-edged swaddling bands so carefully preserved ever since Eustacie's own baby hood. In these moments she had taken them all by surprise by, without asking any questions, sprinkling the babe with water, and baptizing her by the ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge

... Conception of the Holy Virgin. An old man lies on a cloud, whence he darts out a vast beam, which passes through a dove hovering just below; at the end of a beam appears a large transparent egg, in which egg is seen a child in swaddling clothes with a glory round it. Mary sits leaning in an arm chair, and opens her mouth to ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli

... with sugar in it, and the two women fed her with it in spoonfuls,—then they took a good drink of it themselves. All three at once felt the better for it. Yollande spent the night in these hastily-made swaddling clothes between two foot-warmers which threw out a gentle and continuous heat and kept away the catarrh with which the poor Cochin-China was threatened. The great question which arose now was how they were to protect ...
— The Curly-Haired Hen • Auguste Vimar

... stir of preparation for the departure of Sir John and his ward, the latter into wedlock, the former into unknown seas. In the turret chamber a dozen sempstresses were at work upon the bridal outfit under the directions of that Sally Pentreath who had been no less assiduous in the preparation of swaddling clothes and the like on the eve of Rosamund's ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini

... heal'd The wounds whereof fair Italy hath died, So that by others she revives but slowly, He, who with kindly visage comforts him, Sway'd in that country, where the water springs, That Moldaw's river to the Elbe, and Elbe Rolls to the ocean: Ottocar his name: Who in his swaddling clothes was of more worth Than Winceslaus his son, a bearded man, Pamper'd with rank luxuriousness and ease. And that one with the nose depress, who close In counsel seems with him of gentle look, Flying expir'd, with'ring the lily's flower. Look there how he doth knock against his breast! The ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante

... stage the child is "to move freely, and be active, to grasp and hold with his own hands." He is to stand "when he can sit erect and draw himself up," not to walk till he "can creep, rise freely, maintain his balance and proceed by his own effort." He is not to be hindered by swaddling bands—such as are in use in Continental countries—nor, later on, to be "spoiled by too much assistance," words which every mother and teacher should write upon her phylacteries. But as soon as he can move himself the surroundings speak to the child, ...
— The Child Under Eight • E.R. Murray and Henrietta Brown Smith

... and storm. Man's life is fashioned for battle with frost and storm. His very fire and roof he makes by his battling. I know. For three years, once, I knew never roof nor fire. I was sixteen, and a man, ere ever I wore woven cloth on my body. I was birthed in storm, after battle, and my swaddling cloth was a wolfskin. Look at me and see what manner of man ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London

... of fresh bread, a pasty, and a stoup of wine into a basket, and sent it by her husband, Gervas, after their master; and then eagerly assisted her mistress in coaxing the infant to swallow food, and in removing the soaked swaddling clothes which the captain and his crew had not dared ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge

... face, were sitting near the lamp, sewing; Yegoritch would be making a rasping sound with his file. And the hot, still smouldering embers in the stove filled the room with heat and fumes; the heavy air smelt of cabbage soup, swaddling-clothes, and Yegoritch. It was poor and stuffy, but the working-class faces, the children's little drawers hung up along by the stove, Yegoritch's bits of iron had yet an air of peace, friendliness, content. . . . In the corridor outside the children ...
— The Cook's Wedding and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling-clothes, lying in ...
— Light On the Child's Path • William Allen Bixler

... her duties towards society, to manage her household, to devote herself to fashion, as well as to the wishes of her husband, whom she loves, and, at the same time, to rear children. She then avers that, after the example of Cato, who wished to see how the nurse changed the swaddling bands of the infant Pompey, she would never leave to others the least of the services required in shaping the susceptible minds and tender bodies of these little creatures whose education begins in the cradle. You understand, sir, that my conjugal diplomacy would not be of much service ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac

... of twin Phalansteriens! The lady of M. Jules Gondou, redacteur de l'Univers, of a horrid little Fourierist! The nursery of M. de Falloux in red pinafores, squalling out Soc.-de-moc. canticles! Never before such danger in swaddling clothes!" ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various

... an eagle perched upon the altar with its wings spread out over the child—it was a little girl, quite newly born—to protect it. They guessed that it was the eagle that had brought the child, but, of course, they could not tell whose it was. It was wrapped in swaddling-clothes, and these Potipherah's wife kept carefully by her; for she thought the time might come when they might be recognised by the parents of the little child; and indeed, years afterwards, this proved ...
— Old Testament Legends - being stories out of some of the less-known apochryphal - books of the old testament • M. R. James



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