"Motherly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... house at Lime was for two or three months overrun with visitors and vivacity. Fathers and mothers made fatherly and motherly stays, with the hottest of air-tights put up for their benefit in the front room; sisters and sisters-in-law brought the fashions and got up tableaux; cousins came on the jump; Miss Jones, Pauline Dallas, and I were invited in turn, and the children ...
— Men, Women, and Ghosts • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... sleep again in the fifteenth century with the voice of old Agnes Paston sounding in my ears. Dead half a thousand years, yet across the gulf of time I hear the painful scratching of her quill as she sends "Goddis blyssyng" to her son in London, and tells him all her motherly gossip and makes the rough life of far-off Tudor England live for ever. Dear old Agnes! She little thought as she struggled with her spelling and her pen that she was writing something that was immortal. If she had known, I don't ...
— Pebbles on the Shore • Alpha of the Plough (Alfred George Gardiner)
... temple, through the quiet of her motherly dreams, Hannah heard a voice. Hannah didn't have to say, 'If you are a spirit, rap so many times.' No: she knew the voice. God prepares the listenin' soul His own self. 'They know my voice,' ...
— Sweet Cicely - Or Josiah Allen as a Politician • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)
... which Ellen shuddered sympathetically; a dose which was always followed by two marshmallows, out of a tin box, by way of consolation. But further than this she dared not go, except in the matter of mugs of milk, gingerbread, saucer-pies, and motherly kisses for any ...
— The Rich Mrs. Burgoyne • Kathleen Norris
... sometimes induced by his imaginative fancy to make indifferent verses. Listen, therefore, ladies and gentlemen, and judge between us. But that no one may imagine that I am reading any thing else, and substituting the tender thoughts of a lover for the fond words of motherly affection, Madame Morien shall look at the paper I am reading, and ...
— Frederick the Great and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... Elizabeth being, as I have explained, strange old-fashioned young people, full of nineteenth-century ideas, hated these convenient creches exceedingly and at last took their little daughter to one with extreme reluctance. They were received by a motherly person in a uniform who was very brisk and prompt in her manner until Elizabeth wept at the mention of parting from her child. The motherly person, after a brief astonishment at this unusual emotion, changed suddenly into a creature of hope and comfort, and so ...
— Tales of Space and Time • Herbert George Wells
... why the attitude of an issuing house, to a borrowing State, should be paternal or even grand-motherly, as compared with the purely business-like attitude of a banker to a local borrower. If the bank makes a bad debt, it has to make it good to its depositors at the expense of its shareholders. It diminishes the amount that can be paid in dividends and so the bank is actually ...
— International Finance • Hartley Withers
... subject of much discussion amongst the young ladies, for she was very pretty, and her blue cloth suit was cut after the newest city fashion, and the one young man seemed in danger of presenting himself, and begging to be allowed to fetch and carry for her also. Several of the older women, with motherly hearts, had spoken to her, but she had continued to sit aloof, discouraging all advances. It was not because she was of an unsociable nature, but the struggle to keep back the tears of homesickness took all her attention. There was no place on ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith
... might be seen putting off for the town just at the time of the commencement of the levee. The party in the piazza consisted chiefly of women. Madame L'Ouverture was there—like, and yet unlike, the Margot of former years—employed, as usual—busy with her needle, and motherly, complacent, tenderly vigilant as of old; but with a matronly grace and dignity which evidently arose from a gratified mind, and not from external state. Her daughters were beside her, both wonderfully improved in beauty, though Genifrede still preserved the superiority there. She ...
— The Hour and the Man - An Historical Romance • Harriet Martineau
... Fatherly, motherly Feelings had changed,— Love, by harsh evidence, Thrown from its eminence; Even God's ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... anxiety when his mate was out of his sight did not, however, compare with her unrest in his absence, for her affection seemed to be of the motherly or protecting sort. Before they became familiar with the room, and learned that, though unseen, the partner was not lost, the moment he disappeared from view she began running around the cage excitedly, looking everywhere, and calling ...
— In Nesting Time • Olive Thorne Miller
... spirit of restfulness. There was something so motherly in Aunt Linda's manner that it seemed to recall the bright, sunshiny days when she used to nestle in Mam Liza's arms, in her own happy home. The conversation was full of army reminiscences and recollections of the days of slavery. ...
— Iola Leroy - Shadows Uplifted • Frances E.W. Harper
... to put her's on, and, surveying her with a smile of gratified motherly pride, told her she looked very well in it, and that she hoped she would ...
— Elsie at Nantucket • Martha Finley
... ran away on his errand, nurse addressed herself to Marten in a kind motherly manner, for nurse was not a young woman, and she was also a pious one. "Master Marten," she said, "I am sure you will be kind to the little one—you always are—for I must say you are one of the very best brothers I know, and that is saying a deal for you—for ...
— Brotherly Love - Shewing That As Merely Human It May Not Always Be Depended Upon • Mrs. Sherwood
... with her, but evidently feeling that all depended on her labors. The meeting of the mother and daughter at the close of that important day is touching indeed. The joy with which the aged Naomi greets her only solace, and the kind and motherly care with which she brings the remains of her own scanty meal, which she had laid aside, her eager questions, and Ruth's cheerful replies as she lays down her burden and relates the pleasant events of ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various
... grand-children, and has been Queen of England for more than forty years, she is still a comely matron, with every appearance of health and vigour. Long may she remain so! Long may she continue to be, as now, the kindly, sympathetic, motherly head of a contented, loyal, ...
— Personal Recollections of Birmingham and Birmingham Men • E. Edwards
... Tonet's attendance on his brother's household was still more assiduous. He was turning the motherly advice he got there to good account. And to avoid any chance of gossip, he showed himself day after day with the Rector up at the boat-yard, watching the progress of the big frame which was now receiving its planking and was gradually taking ...
— Mayflower (Flor de mayo) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... her that each age had its beauty. "See this mild grey eye," said he, "that hath looked motherly love upon so many of us, all that love hath left its shadow, and that shadow is a beauty which defieth Time. See this delicate lip, these pure white teeth. See this well-shaped brow, where comliness Just passeth into reverence. Art beautiful in ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... every sound the shadows of forms, feelings, and events of the happy but irrevocable past. When we entered our old night nursery, all my childish fears lurked once more in the darkness of the corners and doorway. When we passed into the drawing-room, I could feel the old calm motherly love diffusing itself from every object in the apartment. In the breakfast-room, the noisy, careless merriment of childhood seemed merely to be waiting to wake to life again. In the divannaia (whither Foka first conducted ...
— Youth • Leo Tolstoy
... neat, motherly old woman, beloved by everybody. She lived a number of years after her husband's death, and I seem to see her now, sitting at one side of the old fire-place knitting. She was always knitting, and turning out scores of thick warm socks and ...
— Life in Canada Fifty Years Ago • Canniff Haight
... showed it negatively, by his discretions and abstentions. I have an idea that Mabel was less disposed to deride him, might even have been induced to softer sentiments; but I doubt if Dredge even noticed the change. As for his ex-goddess, he seemed to regard her as a motherly household divinity, the guardian genius of the darning needle; but on Professor Lanfear he looked with a deepening reverence. If the rest of the family had diminished in his eyes, its head ...
— Tales Of Men And Ghosts • Edith Wharton
... azure smoke betrays the lurking town; With eager footsteps I advance and reach 25 The cottage threshold where my journey closed. Glad welcome had I, with some tears, perhaps, From my old Dame, so kind and motherly, [G] While she perused me with a parent's pride. The thoughts of gratitude shall fall like dew 30 Upon thy grave, good creature! While my heart Can beat never will I forget thy name. Heaven's blessing be upon ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth
... other things led him to neglect his child? Phil needed a mother. This dear, thoughtful woman, whom nature had made for motherhood, had seen things about his child, that he, the child's father, had not perceived. To a mind like Colonel French's, this juxtaposition of a motherly heart and a motherless child ...
— The Colonel's Dream • Charles W. Chesnutt
... nothing else to do, with Gray Billy Batch lost in Rattle Water, and now decently stowed away by the Reverend John Fairmeadow. It was lonely in Gray Billy Batch's cabin, now, of course; it was sometimes almost intolerably so—and ghostly, too, with echoes of long-past footsteps and memories of soft motherly words. Pattie Batch, however, a practical little person, knew in her own mind, you must be informed, exactly how to still the haunting echoes and transform the memories into blessed companions of her busy, gentle solitude; but she had not as ...
— Christmas Eve at Swamp's End • Norman Duncan
... goes on to catalogue and explain the following instincts which he considered of basic importance in any study of economics: (1) gregariousness; (2) parental bent, motherly behavior, kindliness; (3) curiosity, manipulation, workmanship; (4) acquisition, collecting, ownership; (5) fear and flight; (6) mental activity, thought; (7) the housing or settling instinct; (8) migration, homing; (9) hunting ...
— An American Idyll - The Life of Carleton H. Parker • Cornelia Stratton Parker
... post, Robin?" asked his cousin Madge that evening as she nursed the adventurous boy on her knee—and Madge was a very motherly nurse, although a full ...
— The Battery and the Boiler - Adventures in Laying of Submarine Electric Cables • R.M. Ballantyne
... after you," said motherly Mrs. Brown. "Come along, Bunny and Sue. Mrs. Newton will be at our house by ...
— Bunny Brown and his Sister Sue Giving a Show • Laura Lee Hope
... does not suffice a very motherly woman. Such a woman was Mrs. Batch. Had she been blest with a dozen children, she must yet have regarded herself as also a mother to whatever two young gentlemen were lodging under her roof. Childless ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm
... of the house was opened by a motherly looking colored woman, and Abe, taking Calhoun once more in his arms, carried him into the house. Aunt Liza, as the wife of Abe was called, seeing Calhoun looking so pale and thin, put her fat, black hand on his forehead, and said, "Po' chile, po' chile, ...
— Raiding with Morgan • Byron A. Dunn
... motherly, dumpy little woman in a large shawl, a wrapping gown, a clean, trim nightcap, and shod with ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... long day alone in the cottage parlour, chiefly meditating; though more than once friendly Mrs. Tod broke in upon my solitude. She treated me in a motherly, free-and-easy way: not half so deferentially as she ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... great leader of men, patient and motherly woman, we bow our hearts to do you honor! Your tribe is fast disappearing from the land of your fathers. May we, the daughters of an alien race who slew your people and usurped your country, learn the lessons of calm endurance, of patient persistence and unfaltering courage ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper
... pounds. This was the first instance in which I experienced the serious consequences of sporting liberal opinions. But it was not the only instance in which this good lady (who was always called mother by her family and friends, from her very motherly habits) had an opportunity of doing me a good turn in the same way. Another elderly lady, Mrs. Watts, of Lavington, who had voluntarily made her will, and left me property and estates, as being her nearest and only relation, upon being taken ill desired that I should be ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt
... himself up to such Dreamers; and sitting up with Tennyson conning over the Morte d'Arthur, Lord of Burleigh, and other things which helped to make up the two volumes of 1842. So I always associate that Arthur Idyll with Basanthwaite Lake, under Skiddaw. Mrs. Spedding was a sensible, motherly Lady, with whom I used to play Chess of a Night. And there was an old Friend of hers, Miss Bristowe, who always reminded me of Miss La Creevy if you know of such ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald in Two Volumes - Vol. II • Edward FitzGerald
... never failed any one was stricken down with a bad case of influenza and was unable to leave his bed. This of course made Margery also practically hors de combat. The little folks spent most of their time across the street in motherly Mrs. Lambert's care. Upon Ned Holiday's children rested the chief burden ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper
... without touching him. Her left arm was hanging down, and her bare hand knocked against the back of the hand in which he held his hat. She felt as if at that moment she touched a furnace, and she saw him shiver slightly, as over-fatigued men sometimes shiver in daylight. An extraordinary, almost motherly, sensation of pity for him came over her. She did not know why. The intense heat of his hand, the shiver that ran over his body, his attitude as he shrank with a kind of timid, yet ferocious, politeness against the white wall, the expression in his eyes when their hands touched—a ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... reminiscences of the stately home of our childhood,—for we are all of us poets and geniuses in our youth, while earth is all new to us, and the chalice of every buttercup is brimming with the wine of poesy,—and we all remember the beautiful, motherly countenance which nature bent over us there. But somehow we all get stolen away thence; life becomes to us a sooty taskmaster, and we crawl through dark passages without end—till suddenly the word of some poet redeems us, makes us know who ...
— The Function Of The Poet And Other Essays • James Russell Lowell
... thanks which ought to have made them offices of affection as well as duty; while the poor little boys would indeed have fared ill if their half-sister Mary, though only twelve years old, had not been one of those girls who are endowed from the first with tender, motherly instincts. ...
— Two Penniless Princesses • Charlotte M. Yonge
... have known it," Prudence thought, with sorrow. But her motherly pride vanished before her motherly solicitude, and Connie was soon quieted by ...
— Prudence Says So • Ethel Hueston
... me very welcome as had ever been her way. She was an eccentric, but embarrassingly straightforward old lady; and if I had heeded her simple motherly counsel in the past ...
— The Green Eyes of Bast • Sax Rohmer
... your kind nursing," I said to Barbara. "Truly, I know not what I should do without your motherly comforting at times." ...
— Margaret Tudor - A Romance of Old St. Augustine • Annie T. Colcock
... Desire, in the chimney corner, sobbing and wringing her hands, and rocking her body to and fro. She wouldn't eat, though good, kind, motherly Mrs. Moore, baked, on purpose for her, some of her most tempting cakes; she wouldn't drink, though Mrs. Moore handed her a nice hot cup of tea. She did nothing but cry fit to break her heart; while sensible little Mitty whispered to her mother to know "if she hadn't better ...
— Little Ferns For Fanny's Little Friends • Fanny Fern
... carefully and fed with such regularity that mademoiselle and Jacquelin both hoped to use her for ten years longer. This beast was the subject of perpetual talk and occupation; it seemed as if poor Mademoiselle Cormon, having no children on whom her repressed motherly feelings could expend themselves, had turned those sentiments wholly ...
— The Jealousies of a Country Town • Honore de Balzac
... more of his time than ever and seemed to cling to him with almost a motherly apprehension. Robinson noticed it and felt it very, very much, and his joy at getting out of prison oozed away more and more as the ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... last volume by saying that I had taken lodgings in Norfolk Street, Strand, for the convenience of being near King's College. It was at the house of a Mrs. Nichols, tall, powerfully built, masculine, but a kind and motherly looking widow of fifty-two—an attentive and bustling landlady, looking herself to the better cooking, and having a plain cook, who was also a general servant, to help her downstairs, and two nieces to do the waiting and attendance on her lodgers upstairs. The younger was there alone when I entered ...
— The Romance of Lust - A classic Victorian erotic novel • Anonymous
... with Alaric's wife. And he was right in his thoughts. The world would now have called Linda the more lovely of the two, and certainly the more feminine in the ladylike sense of the word. If, however, devotion be feminine, and truth to one selected life's companion, if motherly care be so, and an indomitable sense of the duties due to one's own household, then Gertrude was not ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... the plump, motherly woman, upsetting a pan of apples in her surprise. "What are you young ...
— At the Little Brown House • Ruth Alberta Brown
... Masses, prayers, alms-deeds, and such like good works." Then he disappeared, and his mother, instead of any longer wasting her strength by foolish grief, began henceforth to give her son proofs of a true Christian and motherly love, by complying with his request. (L. ...
— Purgatory • Mary Anne Madden Sadlier
... some members of the House, who claimed to represent the sentiments of a considerable number of people. It was proposed to grant L30,000 and an annuity of L6,000. The Premier stated that the Queen in marrying her daughter to one of her own subjects, had followed her womanly and motherly instincts. He dwelt upon the political importance of supporting the dignity of the crown in a suitable manner; upon the value of a stable dynasty; and the unwisdom of making minute pecuniary calculations upon such occasions. It ...
— The Grand Old Man • Richard B. Cook
... multitudes of hearty, joyous, healthily constituted men, who subsist upon daily newspapers, and find the world a most comfortable place to live in. As to Olivia, she was in the warm noon of life, and a picture of vitality and enjoyment. A plump, firm cheek, a dark eye, a motherly fulness of form, spoke the being made to receive and enjoy the things of earth, the warm-hearted wife, the indulgent mother, the hospitable mistress of the mansion. It is true that the smile on the lip had something of earthly pride ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... prevalence, in mild Provence, of the Iberian vice, and hardly know whether it makes the custom more respectable that at Nmes and Arles the thing is shabbily and imperfectly done. The bulls are rarely killed, and indeed often are bulls only in the Irish sense of the term— being domestic and motherly cows. Such an entertainment of course does not supply to the arena that element of the exquisite which I spoke of ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... heard the news, and she could scarcely speak, but she folded the young girl, her dear pet lamb, in her arms, and rocking herself to and fro she sobbed and eased her aching, motherly heart. ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... Epiphanes. He began his speech, "Ye men of Macedonia," as this mixed body of Greeks and Jews was always called. He wiped his eyes in well-feigned grief, and showed them the new king, who had been trusted, he said, by his father, to the motherly care of Agathoclea and to their loyalty. He then accused Tlepolemus of aiming at the throne, and brought forward a creature of his own to prove the truth of the charge. But his voice was soon drowned in the loud ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 10 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... instantly beat a hurried retreat. They only stopped to explain that all the world knows the object of Protestant worship is the devil, and they dare not stay within hearing of the sacrilegious rites. In spite of multiform discouragements like these, the evangelist and his wife, a motherly woman of much quiet strength, whose gentleness made sweet a very homely face, talked of their work and prospects with a matter-of-course hopefulness which it was not easy to share. Nothing in their habits, they told us, had more amazed their Roman Catholic ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XVII, No. 102. June, 1876. • Various
... to watch the doll open and shut its eyes, and to try to unbutton and button its coat and dress; and then the railroad track had to be set up and the train started off on its rounds. Ellen Robinson really looked almost motherly while she watched her happy children; and Julia Cloud relaxed, and let the smile come around her ...
— Cloudy Jewel • Grace Livingston Hill
... Mrs. Culpeper crossed the floor hastily and put her arms about her son's shoulders. Her face was very motherly and there was a compassionate light in her eyes, "My dear, dear boy," she murmured in the soothing tone that one uses to the ill or the mentally unbalanced. "My dear boy, you must really go and dress. Julia will never forgive ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow
... had set up for himself in an inn, and that a widowed sister of his, named Susan Rodney, who also had been in the Torques' service, was keeping house for him. She was a really good sort, he declared, although she was Peacey's sister, and very motherly; indeed, she had been terribly upset by the loss of her only child, a little boy of nine, so she would doubtless welcome the charge of Roger. At any rate, there would be no harm in letting the child go to her for a three ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... growing very tall and thin, his chaft-blades being lank and white, and his eyes of a hollow drumliness, as if he got no refreshment from the slumbers of the night. Beholding all this work of destruction going on in silence, I spoke to his friend Mrs Grassie about him, and she was so motherly as to offer to have a glass of port-wine, stirred with best jesuit's barks, ready for him every forenoon at twelve o'clock; for really nobody could be but interested in the laddie, he was so gentle and modest, making ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir
... How absurd! Florence, this is just another of your motherly, oldmaidish ways—dressing dolls for poor children, making bonnets and knitting socks for all the little dirty babies in the region round about. I do believe you have made more calls in those two vile, ill-smelling alleys back of our house, than ever ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... is requested to order several pairs of good linen drawers for Carl. I intrust Carl to her kindness, and entirely rely on her motherly care. ...
— Beethoven's Letters 1790-1826, Volume 1 of 2 • Lady Wallace
... voice was harsh, but with an undertone of great tenderness. She was scrupulously careful in her attire, which was rather above her station. Altogether, she had much the bearing of a gentle-woman. Her devotion to me was quite motherly. Never having had any family of her own, although she had been the wife of one of my father's shepherds, she expended the whole maternity of her nature upon me. She was always my first resource in any perplexity, for I was sure of all the help she could give me. And as she had much influence ...
— The Portent & Other Stories • George MacDonald
... devotion of Arria to her husband, and the pathos with which he describes the conduct of Fannia, who concealed the death of her dearly loved son from her sick husband Paetus, telling him the boy was well and resting quietly, and controlling her motherly tears until she could keep them back no longer, and rushed from the room to give them free course. Then, "Satiata siccis oculis composito vultu redibat, tanquam orbitatem foris reliquisset." No one could have written that beautiful sentence ...
— The Letters of the Younger Pliny - Title: The Letters of Pliny the Younger - - Series 1, Volume 1 • Pliny the Younger
... Morley, who respectively represented the interests of Britain and America, were tremendous friends. Miss Rodgers was fair and rather plump and rosy-faced and calm, with a manner that parents described as "motherly," and a leaning towards mathematics as the basis of a sound education. Miss Morley, on the contrary, was thin and dark and excitable, and taught the English literature and the general knowledge classes, and was rumored—though this no doubt was libel—to ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... takes care of her little children has to go through a thousand tiresome actions which would be intolerable if they were meaningless, but which compose a beautiful life if they are held together by the aim which the motherly love sees before it. Whatever work a human being may perform, force on his mind the treacherous suggestion that it is meaningless, that it is slavery, that others seize the profit, and he must hate it and feel ...
— Psychology and Social Sanity • Hugo Muensterberg
... later years, one of the founders of Winton, on the Western River. Mrs. Lynett lately died in Winton at the ripe age of 84, her husband, Tom Lynett, having pre-deceased her some years. Like most of the women who pioneered, she had a grand heart, and I learnt how the diggers appreciated her motherly kindness. ...
— Reminiscences of Queensland - 1862-1869 • William Henry Corfield
... great demonstrations of affection, was greeting her son-in-law and daughter, M. and Mme. Davarande, who had just arrived. She felt obliged on this occasion to make a display of family feeling and to exhibit her motherly love. ...
— Rene Mauperin • Edmond de Goncourt and Jules de Goncourt
... wearisome and uninteresting. On the other hand, the little Morleys were full of life and eagerness. The fault in them was that they wouldn't take petting; and what's the good of a child that won't be petted? They lacked that something which makes a woman feel motherly. ...
— The Vicar's Daughter • George MacDonald
... was a consciousness of the blessed sympathy that welled up from her motherly heart that relaxed his features into a half smile, and moved him to a half glad, half sad emotion; perhaps the memory of as dear a face that once beamed upon him with the same holy tenderness, stirred the long-time quiet depths within ...
— The Elm Tree Tales • F. Irene Burge Smith
... from Flat Creek this morning, and I brought you a little angel who has got out of heaven, and needs some of your motherly care." ...
— The Hoosier Schoolmaster - A Story of Backwoods Life in Indiana • Edward Eggleston
... These motherly words gave Psyche heart, and she reverently took leave of the goddess and set out for the temple of Venus. Most humbly she offered up her prayer, but Venus could not look at her earthly beauty ...
— Good Stories For Great Holidays - Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the - Children's Own Reading • Frances Jenkins Olcott
... wouldn't let ennythin' in shape ev a human creetur go perishin' past aour fire sech weather's this," replied the woman, as she took the baby, which recognized the motherly hand at its ...
— Ramona • Helen Hunt Jackson
... at her almost perfect features with the bloom of health upon them, into her dark eyes with their depths of motherly pride and joy, at her snowy neck and ivory arms bare to the summer heat, and longest at the wavy silver of her hair, that crowned her beauty ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe
... the house Mary found the door standing open, and a motherly-looking woman waiting ...
— The Day of Judgment • Joseph Hocking
... my new boy? I am glad to see you, my dear, and hope you'll be happy here," said the lady, drawing him to her, and stroking back the hair from his forehead with a kind hand and a motherly look, which made Nat's lonely little ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... of the mystic. The enigmatical figure of Kundry is not the impersonation of one woman, she is woman herself. The incarnation of everything female, she embodies the sensuous, seductive and destructive element together with the contempt of the man who falls under her spell, as well as the motherly, and finally the humbly-administrative principle, which so far had not yet become a part of the erotic ideal. She is both positive and negative, a blind tool of the element of evil which prompts man to forget his higher mission (reminiscent of the second mediaeval ...
— The Evolution of Love • Emil Lucka
... all doubts of my social position at rest: and I knew how far this would go with her. We soon became fast friends. She seemed to rest on me much for sympathy and comfort, and soon grew to regard me with a sort of motherly fondness that of itself brightened her life. I paid her all the attention which a devoted son might pay—humoured her whims, soothed her pains; but insensibly I led her mind out from itself—first in kindness to me, and then ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 424, New Series, February 14, 1852 • Various
... of Barton Swift, lived with his father and a motherly housekeeper, Mrs. Baggert, in a large house on the outskirts of the town of Shopton, in New York State. Mr. Swift had acquired considerable wealth from his many inventions and patents, but he did not give up working ...
— Tom Swift and his Motor-boat - or, The Rivals of Lake Carlopa • Victor Appleton
... your own baby?" said I, struck with the absence of motherly tenderness in spite of the woman's compassionate ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... neighbor; but she failed to find either of the sisters. She had to content herself with urging Mrs. Morrell, the wife of the doctor, to join her in a second attempt upon their privacy; but Mrs. Morrell had formed a notion of Suzette's character and temper adverse to the motherly impulse of pity which she would have felt for any one else in the girl's position. Mrs. Gerrish, the wife of the leading merchant in Hatboro', who distinguished himself by coming up from Boston with Northwick, on the very day of the directors' meeting, would have joined Mrs. Munger, ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... the dean and Mrs. Greystock would think so;—Lady Fawn was very sure of that. Lady Fawn was one of the best women breathing,—unselfish, motherly, affectionate, appreciative, and never happy unless she was doing good to somebody. It was her nature to be soft, and kind, and beneficent. But she knew very well that if she had had a son,—a second son,—situated as was Frank Greystock, she would not wish him to ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... the last time that evening Grandmamma again wiped her eyes—though these tears were of thankfulness and motherly pride in the thought of the sweet and pretty children upstairs, who at that moment were kneeling in their little white nightgowns, one on each side of old Nurse, as they solemnly repeated after her the Lord's Prayer, and after that their own evening petitions that "God would bless ...
— "Us" - An Old Fashioned Story • Mary Louisa S. Molesworth
... look, that rather startled Kitty, Jack vanished, to return presently with a comfortable cup of tea and a motherly old lady to help repair damages and soothe her by the foolish little purrings and pattings so grateful to female nerves after ...
— Kitty's Class Day And Other Stories • Louisa M. Alcott
... road with alert and curious eyes and presented himself at the white cottage. He found a grave and kindly welcome from Mrs. Jebb—a stout, middle-aged, motherly person—and from the Rev. Josiah Jebb, D.D., M.A., etc., pastor of the Methodist Church and his principal to ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton
... the lake—with beautiful marble statuettes adorning the walls; and on the table she placed a vase of flowers, and the whole room was most prettily furnished, so that Rico stood still on the threshold when, at Mrs. Menotti's request, Stineli led him up there. And when the kind, motherly woman took his hand and led him to the window, and he looked down in the shimmering lake, and over at the purple mountains in the distance, his heart filled to overflowing with thankfulness, and he could ...
— Rico And Wiseli - Rico And Stineli, And How Wiseli Was Provided For • Johanna Spyri
... house, which was presided over by the motherly Mrs. Baggert, was large, it was almost lost now amid the many buildings surrounding it, from balloon and airship hangars, to shops where varied work was carried on. For Tom did most of his labor himself, of course with ...
— Tom Swift and his Giant Cannon - or, The Longest Shots on Record • Victor Appleton
... Her motherly ambitions for Franz knew no bounds. One of the few diversions she allowed herself was a visit to the theatre—when Franz had tickets given to him; when one of her favourite operas was performed; or on the anniversary of her husband's death—and, on such occasions, she pointed ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... house—mild, and cheerful, and sunny, diffusing content every evening over the little circle around her hearth—wins Adele to a new cheer. Yet it is a cheer that is tempered by many sad thoughts of her own loneliness, and of her alienation from any motherly smiles and greetings that ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various
... without number, greeted Bernardine with motherly tenderness, and interspersed all her remarks with frantic cries of "Liza, Fritz, ...
— Ships That Pass In The Night • Beatrice Harraden
... hand upon his head and passed her cool, white fingers through his hair. The gentle, motherly gesture soothed him: her words brought him back to his senses. Gradually his sobs were stilled; he made a great effort to become quite calm, and with a handkerchief wiped the tears and ...
— A Bride of the Plains • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... children and their father settled once more in their old home, with Adam, Var-Vara, and Alexis; and life flowing on very much as it had always done, except for the absence of the gentle, motherly, Anna Olsheffsky. ...
— Soap-Bubble Stories - For Children • Fanny Barry
... hurried up the little gravelled path, and reaching the door, found herself folded in Aunt Debby's motherly embrace, with Aunt Debby's arms round her, and Aunt Debby's round, rosy face pressed ...
— Aunt Judith - The Story of a Loving Life • Grace Beaumont
... had never seen her child other than deliberate, calm, judicial, in all his movements. In a sudden spasm of motherly love she bent to pick ...
— The Wonder • J. D. Beresford
... moments the porch, which was none too commodious, though it was very substantial, was occupied by the entire Hightower family, which included Grandsir Hightower, a white-haired old man, whose serenity seemed to be borrowed from another world. Mrs. Hightower herself was a stout, motherly-looking woman, whose whole appearance betokened contentment, if not happiness. Abe shaded his eyes with his broad hand, and looked toward ...
— Free Joe and Other Georgian Sketches • Joel Chandler Harris
... say myself, sir. She WILL do it! There's a motherly feeling in Mrs. William's breast that ...
— The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargin • Charles Dickens
... Flower Spirits' home." Then from the mother's breast, where it still lay hid, Into the fading bud the dew-drop gently slid; Stronger grew the little form, and happy tears fell, As the dew did its silent work, and the bud grew well, While the gentle rose leaned, with motherly pride, O'er the fair little ones that bloomed at ...
— Flower Fables • Louisa May Alcott
... I don't know. I was so dreadfully sorry for him all that time before, and I felt so very friendly towards him, so very—oh, Gerald, so motherly. And I wanted to be wanted so badly, and you didn't seem to want me in that way. That was why, when he had gone, I went right away from you, and asked you not to write to me; I wanted to think it ...
— First Plays • A. A. Milne
... must be very quiet. Your shoulder has been set. It is all right now. Heaven be praised that we did not kill you as we fell!" she added aside, and her sweet motherly face showed the sympathy ...
— Idle Hour Stories • Eugenia Dunlap Potts
... good heart, if he is so head-strong," whispered the motherly woman, as she wiped a tear from her eyes, and gazed with pride upon the manly-looking young fellow, and — invited us in ...
— Voyage of The Paper Canoe • N. H. Bishop
... that the boys had been rescued in a dying condition and were still very low, and so there was great sorrow over there, even so much that it was said that two sweet young ladies refused to be comforted. When Mrs Ross heard this her motherly heart was touched, and so, as the wind had changed and the cold north wind had again made the ice safe for experienced Indian drivers, two carioles were dispatched to the mission for the aforesaid young ladies to come and spend a week or two at Sagasta-weekee. ...
— Winter Adventures of Three Boys • Egerton R. Young
... the habit of addressing me in a sort of motherly way, as if she had the deepest interest in my welfare, happiness, and reputation. And thus, in every compliment, in every seeming mark of respect, she maintained the superior dignity of one who takes ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... after death, they are taken into heaven and confided to angel women who in the life of the body tenderly loved little children and at the same time loved God. Because these during their life in the world loved all children with a kind of motherly tenderness, they receive them as their own; while the children, from an implanted instinct, love them as their own mothers. There are as many children in each one's care as she desires from a spiritual parental affection. ...
— Heaven and its Wonders and Hell • Emanuel Swedenborg |
