"Handmaiden" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... on her handmaiden, and offered her her hand. She was willing to face the thing alone, but it was a comfort to have the stolid dependable Cora at her side. Moreover, Cora was an admirable cook and packer. Colina was not enamored ...
— The Fur Bringers - A Story of the Canadian Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... instinct of sport spoke up clearly in Dickie. The boy—such is youthful masculine human nature—believed he understood at last why the world was made! At dressing-time he had his sacred fish carried on a plate up to his room to show Clara; and, but for strong remonstrance on the part of that devoted handmaiden, would have kept it by his bedside all night, so as to assure himself at intervals, by sense of touch—let alone that of smell—of the adorable fact of ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... was not in his first lustre, but he was an ardent admirer of the sex, and in an absent-minded way he passed his arm round the handmaiden's waist, and sustained a buffet ...
— At Sunwich Port, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... it as much as I would a penny," declared our faithful handmaiden. "And I'm sure you've earnt that twenty-five thousand if anyone ever did. You've had as much care and worry about them brats as you would if ...
— Our Next-Door Neighbors • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... there also, and Susan Quick. The Captain is at home. The two latter are on a visit—a social tea-party. Little Netta White, having deposited Baby White in the mud at the lowest corner of the Court for greater security, is waiting upon them—a temporary handmaiden, relieving, by means of variety, the cares of permanent nursehood. Mrs White is up to the elbows in soap-suds, taking at least ocular and vocal charge of the babe in the mud, and her husband is—"drunk, as usual?" No—there is a change there. Good of some kind has been somewhere at ...
— Rivers of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... everything from the launching of personal attacks in obscure blackmailing sheets against inconvenient politicians to the escorting of unpleasantly truthful foreign correspondents to the frontier. It is the obedient handmaiden of the Intelligence Department of both War Office and Admiralty in Germany, and renders faithful service to the espionage which is constantly maintained on officials, politicians, the clergy and the general public in that ...
— The Man with the Clubfoot • Valentine Williams
... when the melodic form is allowed to develop freely, and carry our consciousness with it to its own wonderful plane. In Bengal, however, the words have always asserted themselves so, that our provincial song has failed to develop her full musical capabilities, and has remained content as the handmaiden of her sister art of poetry. From the old Vaishnava songs down to those of Nidhu Babu she has displayed her charms from the background. But as in our country the wife rules her husband through acknowledging her dependence, ...
— My Reminiscences • Rabindranath Tagore
... every drop of the moisture in the teapot, so that when she shook it and shook it, and then tried to pour something from it, there was no slightest dribble at the spout. But they lingered, talking and laughing, and perhaps they might never have left the place if the hard handmaiden who had brought the tea-tray had not first tried putting her head in at the swing-door from the kitchen, and then, later, come boldly in and taken the ...
— Between The Dark And The Daylight • William Dean Howells
... feeble light is a black spot in the radiance of real fine art. When you can give no other reason for liking what you like than that Mistress Fashion approves, beware! beware!—trust her not. The time will come when you will wish even the modest handmaiden Economy had blessed it. And if a thing is really beautiful, what difference whether it was introduced by Mrs. Shoddy last spring, or by Mrs. Noah, before her husband launched his fairy boat? Nor is fine art unattainable, even in the ...
— Homes And How To Make Them • Eugene Gardner
... to explain the unfortunate occurrence, but Berenike admonished him to lose no time. The soldier withdrew, and the lady Berenike ordered her handmaiden to call the housekeeper and other serving-women. Then she repaired quickly to the room she had destined for the wounded man and his brother. But neither Melissa nor the other women could succeed ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... pronounced for the boat, which was a big flat-bottomed punt, as reliable in appearance as pictures of John Bull. I fetched her rugs from the car. She was helped into the boat, and then, as my fate remained to be settled, I asked her in a voice soft as silk what were her wishes in regard to her handmaiden. ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... chastity grows lyrical at times, and Judas Thomas breaks out: "Purity is the athlete who is not overcome. Purity is the truth that blencheth not. Purity is worthy before God of being to Him a familiar handmaiden. Purity is the messenger of concord which ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... treated as the handmaiden of protection. Our first duty is to see that the protection granted by the tariff in every case where it is needed is maintained, and that reciprocity be sought for so far as it can safely be done without injury to our ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... clamor for a universal language. We once had it, in our learned world, in the Latin, in which books were locked up for the scholars and dead to the world. Language is the handmaiden of thought, and to be useful must be obedient to its changes as well as its elemental characteristics. For the English of three hundred years ago we need a glossary, and to carry down his immortal thoughts in their pristine vigor, ...
— Se-Quo-Yah; from Harper's New Monthly, V. 41, 1870 • Unknown
... put up a little plea for the liberty of the subject; it was in vain that I said I should prefer to go to Whitehaven. I was told that there was "nothing to see there"—that weary, hackneyed, old falsehood; and at last, as the handmaiden began to look really concerned, I gave way, as men always do in such circumstances, and agreed that I was to leave for Keswick by a ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... forced to purchase ships to augment her fleet, these were always found in Germany. When the Czar despatched his squadrons to the Far East, they were coaled practically throughout the long journey from German colliers. And in other helpful ways Germany officiated as the handmaiden ...
— East of Suez - Ceylon, India, China and Japan • Frederic Courtland Penfield
... closed. Another door in the smaller apartment opened to the passage, but this, she remembered, was habitually locked on the inside. It couldn't be Puckers, therefore, who thus disturbed her mistress's reflections, unless that handmaiden had come down the chimney, ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... and died with grief and love of such perfection which he never could hope to obtain. The picture was sent to the vile minister, who reserved it for himself, and wrote the name of this pearl beyond price under that of another, unworthy to unloose her zone as her handmaiden. The committee of taste did, however, select that picture among the hundred to be placed in the hall of delight, not because the picture was beautiful, but because the fame of her beauty had reached the court, and they thought it right that the emperor should see ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat
... Calidore conducts Pastorella to the castle of Belgard, whose master and mistress are passing sad because they lost their only child in infancy. Wondering how such a loss could have befallen them, Calidore learns that knight and lady, being secretly married, entrusted their child to a handmaiden, ordering her to provide for its safety in some way, as it was impossible they should acknowledge its existence then. The maid, having ascertained that the babe bore on her breast a certain birth-mark, basely abandoned her in the forest, where she was found ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... will break my arm," answered the terrified handmaiden. "I am sure I know no harm of Miss Mowbray; only, my lady spoke as if she was no better than she ought to be.—Lord, sir, there is some one listening at the door!"—and making a spring out of his grasp, she hastened back to the room in ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... after he had read it, quite unaware of the humble presence of the maid who stood asking, Please was she to bring up dinner? When he came to himself, the awful "No!" with which he answered that alarmed handmaiden almost drove her into hysterics as she escaped down-stairs. However, Mr Wentworth immediately put his head out at the door and called after her, "I can't wait for dinner, Sarah; I am suddenly called out, and ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... the first time, Ayesha spoke to him, and her first words were a lie. "She has gone from hence upon a visit," she said; "and, behold, in her place am I here as thine handmaiden." ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard
... be, in fact, but that it is so pathetic. No land with an unvarying climate can be very beautiful. The tropics are not, for all the sentiment that is wasted on them. They seem beautiful at first, but sameness impairs the charm by and by. Change is the handmaiden Nature requires to do her miracles with. The land that has four well-defined seasons, cannot lack beauty, or pall with monotony. Each season brings a world of enjoyment and interest in the watching of its unfolding, its gradual, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... effort and rescue her, and with their help drags her out and brings her back in triumph to earth. The play concludes with the restoration of the goddess to her ancient honours, the festivities of the rustic population and the nuptials of Trygaeus with Opora (Harvest), handmaiden of Peace, ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... future will not be merely a handmaiden to care for the sick body by deftly carrying out the doctor's orders. She will do this almost automatically as a matter of course, and skilfully; but it will be the merest beginning of her mission. That mission itself will be to eliminate the causes ...
— Applied Psychology for Nurses • Mary F. Porter
... the Divine Nature and Temporal and Eternal Nature for the first time to such a simple and unlearned man as I am. But what am I to resist what GOD will do? What am I to say but, Behold the son of thine handmaiden! I have often besought Him to take these too high and too deep matters away from off me, and to commit them to men of more learning and of a better style of speech. But He always put my prayer away from Him and continued to kindle His fire in my bones. And with all my striving ...
— Jacob Behmen - an appreciation • Alexander Whyte
... me; I do not know any way of earning my living and I am accustomed to living well. Poverty inspires me with greater fear than death. You will be able to maintain me; I will accept of you whatever you wish to give me; I will be your handmaiden. On a boat they must need the care and well-ordered supervision of a woman.... Life locks its doors against me; ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... is the handmaiden of the Great Mother. May the sowing prosper and the reaping be good this year!" Ashe said finally, ignoring Lal, who ...
— The Time Traders • Andre Norton
... think of your subject and its requirements, not of yourself, and do not try to make a great display. Let your tone, look and gestures be all in harmony—be deliberate, yet earnest and natural; let nature be the mistress with art for her handmaiden. ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard
... resolutely the herring-bone walk through the tiny garden. The April wind was filling the pine trees with its roundelay, and the grove was alive with robins—great, plump, saucy fellows, strutting along the paths. The girls rang rather timidly, and were admitted by a grim and ancient handmaiden. The door opened directly into a large living-room, where by a cheery little fire sat two other ladies, both of whom were also grim and ancient. Except that one looked to be about seventy and the other fifty, there seemed little difference between them. Each had ...
— Anne Of The Island • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... King,' she answered, looking up in his face, 'I am the Emperor of China's handmaiden, and as I wandered about in the pleasure-grounds of his palace I lost my way. I know not how far I have come since, but now I must surely die, for I ...
— Tales Of The Punjab • Flora Annie Steel
... The ubiquitous handmaiden promptly appeared, and Archer heard Madame Olenska say, in an Italian that she seemed to pronounce with intentional deliberateness in order that he might follow it: "Here—throw this into the dustbin!" and then, as Nastasia stared protestingly: ...
— The Age of Innocence • Edith Wharton
... had three workmen in his stall, To serve him well upon; The first of them were Peter and Paul, The third of them was John. Mary, God's handmaiden, Bring us to ...
— In The Yule-Log Glow—Book 3 - Christmas Poems from 'round the World • Various
... the handmaiden of Christianity, but may more appropriately be designated its loyal helpmeet. Whatever synagogue or other melodies may have first served to voice the sentiments kindled by the Gospel of Glad Tidings it was inevitable that the ...
— For Every Music Lover - A Series of Practical Essays on Music • Aubertine Woodward Moore
... small niece lived together, with a tall and gaunt handmaiden Norman French, and a broad Yorkshire gardener. Miss Barry was the old cream of Yerbury. Here her family had lived since the Huguenot persecution, and dwindled finally to two. Louis Barry was a dissipated spendthrift. He married, and tormented his wife into an early grave, and might have ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... heard the sound of voices, of steps, the rustle of dresses, and I looked round, supposing these things to denote the return of Mrs. Nettlepoint and her handmaiden with the refection prepared for her son. What I saw however was two other female forms, visitors apparently just admitted, and now ushered into the room. They were not announced—the servant turned her back on them and rambled off to our hostess. They advanced ...
— The Patagonia • Henry James
... with a gentle though firm, command. As we approached the sort of castle I have mentioned, the reason for Lylda's authoritative manner dawned upon me. She was, I soon learned, daughter of one of the most learned men of the nation and was—handmaiden, do you call it?—to ...
— The Girl in the Golden Atom • Raymond King Cummings
... tasked beyond her strength during the past four days. Through all, she had been her mother's willing little handmaiden, soothing, helping, and cheering the half-widowed woman by day and watching and praying beside her all the long night. She knew that something terrible and mysterious was taking place at this moment, something that had been too ...
— Hans Brinker - or The Silver Skates • Mary Mapes Dodge
... down in a clumsy mahogany chair, which stood near a plain deal table, and stared at the handmaiden. "I never told you about my father," ...
— The Opal Serpent • Fergus Hume
... her father's cottage. She remains in a turret of the castle, but not as a handmaiden of the duchess; her existence is not supposed to be known, though the childless wife of Duke Robert weeps in secret, ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... the base of the stone wall, and takes away the hardness of its outline; and in due time, as the upshot of these apparently aimless or sportive touches, we recognize that the beneficent Creator of all things, working through his handmaiden whom we call Nature, has deigned to mingle a charm of divine gracefulness even with so earthly an institution as a boundary fence. The clown who wrought at it little ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... young Greek guest, Anna," Hadassah. "Bear to him some of this ripe, cooling fruit, and tell him of the triumphs of Judas. Though Lycidas be but a heathen," she added, as her handmaiden quitted the apartment to do her bidding, "he has a soul to admire, if he cannot emulate, the ...
— Hebrew Heroes - A Tale Founded on Jewish History • AKA A.L.O.E. A.L.O.E., Charlotte Maria Tucker
... Halliday," answered the handmaiden, "came in just five minutes after Lord Evandale; and when he heard his lordship was in the Castle, he swore (the profane loon!) he would be d—d ere he would make the report, as he ca'd it, of his news to Major Bellenden, since there was an officer of his ain regiment in the garrison. ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... a lodging-house slavey once—a real one, we mean. She was the handmaiden at a house in Bloomsbury where we once hung out. She was untidy in her dress, it is true, but she had not quite that castaway and gone-to-sleep-in-a-dust-bin appearance that we, an earnest student of the drama, felt she ought to present, and we questioned ...
— Stage-Land • Jerome K. Jerome
... Crozier came. Out of her star as he was, she still felt near to him, and as though she understood him and he comprehended her. He had almost at once become to her an admired mystery, which, however, at first she did not dare wish to solve. She had been content to be a kind of handmaiden to a generous and adored master. She knew that where he had been she could in one sense never go, and yet she wanted to be near him just the same. This was intensified after the Logan Trial and the shooting of the ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... trust and revere—as a sister to whom I may confide my girlish secrets—as a guardian angel whose blessing I shall implore. But in the world, and when I bear your train, I will forget that I am aught but the lowliest handmaiden of her royal ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... tale. The god Indra and the King of Dhara gave the kingdom to Bhartari-hari, another son of Gandhar-ba-Sena, by a handmaiden. For some time, the brothers lived together; but presently they quarrelled. Vikram being dismissed from court, wandered from place to place in abject poverty, and at one time hired himself as a servant to a merchant living in Guzerat. At length, Bhartari-hari, disgusted ...
— Vikram and the Vampire • Sir Richard F. Burton
... the extremity of your grief!" she cried, scornfully. "And now that the first torrent of your tears has dwindled to a little stream, you have time to remember me! I thank my lord for the notice he deigns to give his handmaiden, but—I need it not. ...
— Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster • F. Marion Crawford
... 'It was not what he said, papa; it was his look. His duty compelled him, though he loves music. He had the look of a Patriarch putting his handmaiden ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... know better things. And it is my work to arouse their dreams, to inspire their visions, to make them yearn for better living. I am trying to teach them to use and to love beautiful things, that they may be restless among ugly things. I think beauty only serves God as the handmaiden of discontent! And, father, way down deep in my heart—I know—I know surely that I must do this—that it is my reason for being—now that life has taken the greater joy of home from me. So," she concludes solemnly; "these people whom I ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... their house plans, about one in a hundred keeps the genuine article. All the rest keep a waitress or a 'second girl.' Sometimes the cook, waitress, butler, chambermaid, valet and housekeeper are all combined in one tough and versatile handmaiden." ...
— The House that Jill Built - after Jack's had proved a failure • E. C. Gardner
... letters furnish, in a pre-eminent degree, conclusive evidence of the high estimation in which His servant and handmaiden were held by ministers, elders, and Sabbath-school ...
— Gathering Jewels - The Secret of a Beautiful Life: In Memoriam of Mr. & Mrs. James Knowles. Selected from Their Diaries. • James Knowles and Matilda Darroch Knowles
... of many strange things, and of a double life so wild that Trejago today sometimes wonders if it were not all a dream. Bisesa or her old handmaiden who had thrown the object-letter had detached the heavy grating from the brick-work of the wall; so that the window slid inside, leaving only a square of raw masonry, into which an active man ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... suppose I must admit that Mr. B-'s sentiment was of a higher order. Each of us, of course, was extremely anxious about the good appearance of the beloved object; and, though I was the one to glean compliments ashore, B- had the more intimate pride of feeling, resembling that of a devoted handmaiden. And that sort of faithful and proud devotion went so far as to make him go about flicking the dust off the varnished teak-wood rail of the little craft with a silk pocket-handkerchief—a present from Mrs. B-, ...
— The Mirror of the Sea • Joseph Conrad
... called her handmaid and said, 'Bring me from my room the jewelled drinking horn.' And the handmaiden brought it and Grania filled it to the brim and said, 'Take it to Finn, and say that I would have him drink ...
— Celtic Tales - Told to the Children • Louey Chisholm
... trouble of bringing him to a fit and proper state of subjection, the task became a labour of love for the energetic Susan. In spite of everything, however, he stuck to his guns, and the indignant Chrissie, who was in almost hourly communication with Metcalfe through the medium of her faithful handmaiden, was rapidly becoming desperate. ...
— Many Cargoes • W.W. Jacobs
... smaller apartments could only be got through the saloon; and this circumstance once gave rise to a ludicrous incident, when Shelley, having lost his clothes out bathing, had to cross, in puris naturalibus, not undetected, though covered in his retreat by the clever Italian handmaiden, through a luncheon party assembled in the dining-room. The horror of the ladies at the poet's unexpected apparition and his innocent self-defence are well described by Trelawny. Life in the villa was of the simplest description. ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley • John Addington Symonds
... Ha-Shahar we arrive at the end of the task we have set ourselves, of following up a phase of literary evolution. Modern Hebrew literature, for a century the handmaiden of one preponderating idea, the humanist idea in all its various applications, henceforth enters upon a new phase of its development. Led back by Smolenskin to its national source, stripped of every religious element, and imposed by the force of circumstances upon the masses and the educated ...
— The Renascence of Hebrew Literature (1743-1885) • Nahum Slouschz
... clerical duty. His object, so far from that, is the inculcation of general, not peculiar, principles—principles which neither affect nor offend any creed, but which are claimed and valued by all. In this way, by making amusement the handmaiden of instruction, the author believes it possible to let into the cabin, the farm-house, and even the landlord's drawing-room, a light by which each and all of them may read many beneficial lessons—lessons that will, it is hoped, abide with them, settle down in their hearts, and by giving ...
— Phelim O'toole's Courtship and Other Stories • William Carleton
... the sense of vision is neglected and relegated to be the handmaiden of other senses, it is no wonder that in the average adult it is in such a shocking state of neglect. I feel convinced that with the great majority of people vision is seldom if ever consulted for itself, but only to minister ...
— The Practice and Science Of Drawing • Harold Speed
... heard the innocent shouts of his little playmates. I was now suffering a dreadful thirst, and might perish unless the same Providence directed me to the well, or the encampment, as guided the wretched handmaiden of Sarah. ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... yielded to the advice of his wife, and bade the handmaiden go to his couch as a bride.[29] 2235 Her spirit exalted itself, when she had become pregnant with a man-child by Abraham; stiff-necked in scorn she began to despise her mistress, showed insolence, was overweening, and was ...
— Genesis A - Translated from the Old English • Anonymous
... the angel of the Lord For he hath regarded the descended from heaven, and lowliness of his handmaiden: came and rolled back the stone for behold, from henceforth all from the door, and sat upon it. generations shall call ...
— The Prayer Book Explained • Percival Jackson
... had a languid romp with her spaniels, and finally sauntered into the porch, and leaning her white arms upon the railing, looked towards the dazzling blue waters of the Chesapeake. Presently an idea came to her. She went swiftly into the hall, and called for Darkeih. When that handmaiden appeared:— ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston
... maid, with the smiling alacrity due to a frequent and favoured visitor, and by her conducted to the drawing-room, where sat a young lady engaged in a transparent pretence of being absorbed in a novel. The pretence vanished as the door closed behind the handmaiden, and the young lady jumped up and ran forward to meet him, with such a glad welcome in her face as answered the appeal in his own. It does not need that we should look at her with Philip's eyes to pronounce her charmingly pretty, or to admire the ...
— Young Mr. Barter's Repentance - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray
... best what laughs last," said Aunt Mary's handmaiden. She turned away, and then returned to give Joshua a look that proved that the peppery mistress had inculcated some cayenne into the souls of those about her. "You mark my words—them laughs best what laughs last, an' there'll be little grinnin' ...
— The Rejuvenation of Aunt Mary • Anne Warner
... said George Heriot, "will humbly pray of Lady Mansel, that she will lend some of her handmaiden's apparel to this giddy-brained girl; for I shall forfeit my reputation if I walk up Tower Hill with her in that mad guise—and yet the silly lassie looks not ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... been a family servant—an indoor domestic, and handmaiden to a white mistress. This in the days of youth—the halcyon days of her girlhood, in "Ole Varginny"—before she was transported west, sold to Ephraim Darke, and by him degraded to the lot of an ordinary outdoor slave. But her original owner taught ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... the house was really in London, the effect was quite that of the country. Standing in the porch, and looking extremely pretty in its flickering light and shade, stood Poppy Jenkins, in the neatest of handmaiden's attire, and as the girls all came into the shade of the cool porch, Noel himself, looking somewhat pale, and with a curious agitation in his manner, ...
— The Palace Beautiful - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade
... sister, submit yourself to your husband, as the Church submits itself to Jesus. Remember that you must leave everything to follow him, like a faithful handmaiden. You must give up father and mother, you must cleave only to your husband, and you must obey him that you may obey God also. And your yoke will be a yoke of love and peace. Be his comfort, his happiness, the perfume of ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola
... Angel who is making haste To come towards us; lo, returning is From service of the day the sixth handmaiden. ...
— Dante's Purgatory • Dante
... at the task assigned to me, Am summoned from my labour suddenly: The King recalls his handmaiden; and she Submissively herself anoints, ...
— My Beautiful Lady. Nelly Dale • Thomas Woolner
... my Spion a dozen times within the last hour,—for here she is messenger, porter, and commissionnaire, as well as housemaid and cook,—but that she is always a phenomenon to the American stranger, accustomed to be abused in his own country by his foreign Irish handmaiden. Her presence is as refreshing and grateful as the morning light, and as inevitable and regular. When I add that with the novelty of being well served is combined the satisfaction of knowing that you have in your household an intelligent being who reads ...
— The Twins of Table Mountain and Other Stories • Bret Harte |
