"Motherly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... in the direction of the south-west. "That hill, sir," said the beggar, "is called Moel Vamagh; I ought to know something about it as I was born at its foot." "Moel," said I, "a bald hill; Vamagh, maternal or motherly. Moel Vamagh, the Mother Moel." "Just so, sir," said the beggar; "I see you are a Welshman, like myself, though I suppose you come from the South—Moel Vamagh is the Mother Moel, and is called so because ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow
... and writing materials Nora returned to the guest chamber, which was her temporary abode. The motherly Kate was waiting with an appetizing lunch on a neat tray. What a good friend she had been. She would be genuinely sorry to part with Kate. She must ask her to give her some address that would always reach her. Who knew, years ...
— The Land of Promise • D. Torbett
... The former was twelve years old, when he adopted her, a child of Protestant parents, while Jean had been taken, when a mere babe, after his parents had been killed and scalped by Indians. Madame Roussillon, a professed invalid, whose appetite never failed and whose motherly kindness expressed itself most often through strains of monotonous falsetto scolding, was a woman of little education and no refinement; while her husband clung tenaciously to his love of books, especially to the romances most in vogue when he took ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... I say, was, she'd had too many; She couldn't sleep, and she called it virtue, Motherly foresight, affection, any Name you may call it that will not hurt you, So it was late ere she tucked her head in, And she slept so late it was almost ...
— At the Back of the North Wind • George MacDonald
... to give in those days, took two notes of a thousand francs each out of his desk, and gave them to her. I saw that fine countess going down the staircase where she couldn't see me. She was laughing with a satisfaction that certainly wasn't motherly, so I slipped after her to the peristyle where I heard her say to the coachman, 'To Leroy's.' I ran round quickly to Leroy's, and there, sure enough, was the poor mother. I got there in time to see her order and pay for a fifteen-hundred-franc dress; you understand ...
— Unconscious Comedians • Honore de Balzac
... longer thought of withdrawing themselves from the licentious looks of the spectators who were crowding at the entrance to the booth. Their eyes brooded with motherly terror upon the two veiled children, while the matron, bound to the post, her eyes glittering and her teeth set in impotent fury, raised her chained arms to heaven as if to call down the punishments of the gods upon ...
— The Brass Bell - or, The Chariot of Death • Eugene Sue
... Bessie had come to spend the night! And, quickly drying her tears and forgetting her heartache, Emily rushed out to greet her friend and to find that the whole Black family were there—Tom, the motherly Mrs. Black, and Bessie. ...
— The Gaunt Gray Wolf - A Tale of Adventure With Ungava Bob • Dillon Wallace
... danced and vaulted before the king, shewing many strange tumbling tricks, some of these being men and others women. After all these followed sometimes two hundred or even three hundred women, all carrying presents of some kind; only that every ten were headed by an old motherly woman empty handed, to keep them in order like so many soldiers. These presents were commonly rice and cashes[129] on frames of split canes, curiously laid out for show, and adorned with gilt paper, but the present itself seldom ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. VIII. • Robert Kerr
... 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 ...
— Psychology and Social Sanity • Hugo Muensterberg
... in a tone of motherly pity, "here's a pie for you. Don't you think now you can go ...
— Little Grandmother • Sophie May
... it should be a cold fall, with nobody to look after 'em; but maybe I can take 'em home to my shed an' lend Mr. Kimball another hen." (Amanda's tone was motherly.) "I never like to break up a hen's nest, somehow; it seems as if they must have feelin's like ...
— Ladies-In-Waiting • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... up in surprise, the tones were such tired, sad ones. She noticed for the first time the dark rings under Faith's eyes, and the eyes themselves looked suspiciously red. Her motherly heart went out to the "poor ...
— Divers Women • Pansy and Mrs. C.M. Livingston
... no response to that, she added, with a motherly cadence, that he had been through a great deal lately; that she had felt very sorry about the ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... assistance; but finding that she was ill in bed, he had sent his wife to offer her services. Mrs. Harvey had watched over poor Zillah in her grief, and had soothed her too. Mathilde would have been but a poor nurse for one in such a situation, and Mrs. Harvey's motherly care and sweet words of consolation had something, at least, ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... at the hotel. Men and women whom we had never seen came and joyfully shook us by the hands, and had much to say in congratulation. The news of Hattie's arrival and her interest in Buchan had spread over the camp, and many were the motherly old women who came to say sympathetic things and invite her to their homes, so great was their admiration for her loyalty and sacrifice for ...
— Where Strongest Tide Winds Blew • Robert McReynolds
... 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
... Coldfield, a handsome motherly woman, "you have had the impudence to let five years pass without darkening my doors. What excuse ...
— A Splendid Hazard • Harold MacGrath
... from that time. He had thenceforth to recover under his aunt's motherly care, while talking endlessly over the home that she loved almost as well as he did. He was well more quickly than she had ventured to hope, and nothing could check his impatience to reach his home, not even the hopes of having his aunt for a companion. ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... gifts as a preceptor, and prays us to receive him cordially, with all parental tenderness, into our family. We shall soon see whether he be deserving of such hearty sympathy. For my part, I must confess that my motherly tenderness for him is as yet ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... entered the town of Artenay, on the main road from Paris to Orleans, coming down upon it from the north side. Here they entered a quiet inn. The landlord was a jovial, pleasant-faced man of some sixty years of age; and his wife a kind, motherly-looking woman. As usual, the travellers signed the names they had agreed upon in the book kept for the purpose, Patsey retaining her own name, and ...
— No Surrender! - A Tale of the Rising in La Vendee • G. A. Henty
... enthusiastic boy may cling to the wise and tender matron, who, amid the turmoil of the world, and the pride of beauty, and the cares of wifehood, bends down to with counsel and encouragement—earth knows no fairer bonds than these, save wedded love itself. And that second relation, motherly rather than sisterly, had bound Philammon with a golden chain to the wondrous ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... with the knowledge of Henderson's accumulating millions, lent an interest and a certain charm to whatever she said and did. The Eschelle house became more attractive than ever before, so much so that Mrs. Eschelle declared that she longed for the quiet of Paris. To her motherly apprehension there was no result in this whirl of gayety, no serious intention discoverable in any of the train that followed Carmen. "You act, child," she said, "as ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... had so happy an evening since he had been a boy at Odiham. He was indeed feeble and dizzy at times, but with a far from painful languor; and the Princess, enjoying the permission to follow the dictates of her own heart, was kind to him with a motherly or sisterly kindness, could not bear to receive from him his wonted attendance, but made him lie upon the cushions at her feet, and when out of hearing of every one, talked of the faithful Isabel, and of "pretty Bessee," on whom she ...
— The Prince and the Page • Charlotte M. Yonge
... rattled on, she had been fussing around the room getting out Patty's clothes to wear that day, and acting in such a generally motherly manner that Patty felt sure she must be missing Nan, and she couldn't help feeling very sorry for her, and ...
— Patty's Summer Days • Carolyn Wells
... 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 bear ...
— Frederick the Great and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... lowly folk in elder lands, where relaxing oppressions have lifted the restraints of fear between master and servant, without disturbing the familiarity of their relation. She advised freely with us upon all household matters, and took a motherly interest in whatever concerned us. She could be flattered or caressed into almost any service, but no threat or command could move her. When she erred, she never acknowledged her wrong in words, but handsomely expressed ...
— Suburban Sketches • W.D. Howells
... 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 period), and passionately ...
— The Evolution of Love • Emil Lucka
... who was in the village came forward and released the children, as Nakpa gave a low whinny and stopped. Tenderly Zeezeewin nursed them at her own motherly bosom, assisted by another young mother ...
— Old Indian Days • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... Then Eve, near whom Monseigneur Martha had remained, smiling, in her turn had to say farewell. In this she evinced touching bravery; her determination to remain beautiful and charming until the very end lent her sufficient strength to show herself both gay and motherly. ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... as fast as she could, eager to dilate on the subject of the embarrassed Orlando's virtues, flattered in her motherly old heart by the praise of his sermons, and yet, all the time, while her peaked chin worked excitedly, thinking about the roasted young pig that waited for her to attend to ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow
... fell to work without delay. She had told Mrs. MacFayden her intention, and had enlisted the warm interest of that motherly Scotswoman. She had offered Doctor Craig's young guest the use of her own sitting-room, with that of the sewing-machine which stood there, and here presently Georgiana unrolled her breadths of silk and laid upon them the pattern ...
— Under the Country Sky • Grace S. Richmond
... faint at the cruelty of drivers to over-loaded horses. I was timid and did not dare speak to them. Very often, I ran home and flung myself in my mother's arms with a burst of tears, and asked her if nothing could be done to help the poor animals. With mistaken, motherly kindness, she tried to put the subject out of my thoughts. I was carefully guarded from seeing or hearing of any instances of cruelty. But the animals went on suffering just the same, and when I became ...
— Beautiful Joe • Marshall Saunders
... trod its marble halls, I could not but repeat to myself: "Behold, the grocer's dream!" But I could make no criticism of my reception by Mrs. Grossensteck and Teresa, whom I found at home and delighted to see me. Mrs. Grossensteck was a stout, jolly, motherly woman, common, of course,—but, if you can understand what I mean,—common in a nice way, and honest and unpretentious and likable. Teresa, whom I had scarcely noticed on the night of the accident, ...
— Love, The Fiddler • Lloyd Osbourne
... send her to college and you thought you would come over and let me give her a little motherly counsel while you borrowed the money of Tom Adams to pay her college bills. Is that ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson
... columns, and here in a few minutes some three or four hundred persons were gathered, mostly women and their girls, white and blue-eyed with long wet golden hair hanging down their backs. Finding a vacant place on the bench, I sat down next to a large motherly-looking woman with a robust or dumpy blue-eyed girl about four or five years old on her lap. Most of the people were standing about in groups waiting for the storm to blow over, and presently I noticed my two wild-haired ...
— Afoot in England • W.H. Hudson
... set aside struck him to his heart's core. Wallmoden's words to his sister, "We do not know him. Must I repeat that again?" incited his whole being to revolt. He felt keenly the sentence which lay in them. And Aunt Regine, too, the woman who had once shown an almost motherly affection for him, she turned her back on him as if ashamed of her first impulse to speak to him. ...
— The Northern Light • E. Werner
... then, like all of us, I come face to face with something that thrills me. I saw how this little, red-bearded pedlar was like a cake of yeast in the big, heavy dough of humanity: how he travelled about trying to fulfil in his own way his ideals of beauty. I felt almost motherly toward him: I wanted to tell him that I understood him. And in a way I felt ashamed of having run away from my own homely tasks, my kitchen and my hen yard and dear old, hot-tempered, absent-minded Andrew. I fell into a sober mood. ...
— Parnassus on Wheels • Christopher Morley
... Maddy's was a singular type of beauty—a beauty untarnished by any selfish, uncharitable, or suspicious feeling. Clear and truthful as a mirror, her brown eyes looked into Mrs. Noah's, while her low courtesy—so full of deference, found its way straight to that motherly heart. ...
— Aikenside • Mary J. Holmes
... inspiring morning light all are so fresh and rosy-looking that they seem new-born; as if, like the quick-growing crimson snowplants of the California woods, they had just sprung up, hatched by the warm, brooding, motherly weather. ...
— Steep Trails • John Muir
... met a motherly old hen, who was busy in scratching up food for her chickens; and White-paw asked, "Please, ma'am, are you a mouse?" "We don't mind what folks call us," said the old hen, giving them a ...
— Friends in Feathers and Fur, and Other Neighbors - For Young Folks • James Johonnot
... 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
... Jesus made answer, 'Amen, I say to thee, This day thou shalt be with me in Paradise.' Magdalen, Mary of Cleophas, and John stood near the Cross of our Lord and looked at him, while the Blessed Virgin, filled with intense feelings of motherly love, entreated her Son to permit her to die with him; but he, casting a look of ineffable tenderness upon her, turned to John and said, 'Woman, behold thy son;' then he said to John, 'Behold thy mother.' John looked at his dying Redeemer, and saluted ...
— The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ • Anna Catherine Emmerich
... the neighbours came on an appointed day to help to raise it and put it in position. This was a great day for Mrs. Garfield, who received the congratulations of her neighbours, and listened with motherly pride to the words of praise they bestowed upon the son who had made this provision for his mother. Nailing on the boards next gave James work thoroughly to his mind. Boys are always fond of driving nails, and James was ...
— The Story of Garfield - Farm-boy, Soldier, and President • William G. Rutherford
... with advancing years, had continued to "wax fat," and now it was about as much as she could do, with many grunts, to get up and down stairs. Since her double bereavement of her "Hebe" and her "Lapwing," her kind, motherly countenance had lost somewhat of its comfortable jollity, and her hearty mellow laugh was seldom heard. Still, good Henrietta was passably happy, as the world goes, for she had the lucky foundation of a happy temper and temperament—she enjoyed the world, her friends and her creature ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... Fraser, retreating in alarm. "I never had no measles." But Chakawana went on cuddling the infant in a motherly fashion while ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach
... you are properly engaged to him you may ask him round here on Sunday afternoons, and have tea with him in the kitchen;" for my Euphemia has a motherly conception of her duty towards her maid-servants. And presently the amethystine ring was being worn about the house, even with ostentation, and Jane developed a new way of bringing in the joint so that this gage was evident. The elder ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... who was lying motionless and with closed eyes, sprang to her feet in an instant, and as Lynn Taps laid his burden on the blankets, the woman, her every dull feature softened and lighted with motherly tenderness, threw her arms about the astonished Yankee, and then fell ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... Harkutt, sympathizing and cheerfully ready for any affliction, still holding a dust-cloth in her hand, took her seat by the window, with Phemie breathless and sparkling at one side of her, while Clementina, all faultless profile and repose, sat on the other. To Mrs. Harkutt's motherly concern at John Milton's absence, it was pointed out that he was wanted at the store,—was a mere boy anyhow, and could not be trusted. Mr. Harkutt, a little ruddier from weather, excitement, and the unusual fortification of a glass of liquor, a little more rugged in ...
— A First Family of Tasajara • Bret Harte
... Fatherly, motherly Feelings had changed: Love, by harsh evidence, Thrown from its eminence; Even God's providence ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... before him, gathering flowers in the fields; coy Dots, half shrinking from, half yielding to, the pleading of his own rough image; newly-married Dots, alighting at the door, and taking wondering possession of the household keys; motherly little Dots, attended by fictitious Slowboys, bearing babies to be christened; matronly Dots, still young and blooming, watching Dots of daughters, as they danced at rustic balls; fat Dots, encircled and beset by troops of rosy grandchildren; withered Dots, who leaned on sticks, ...
— The Cricket on the Hearth • Charles Dickens
... forget that in the sight of God and her own soul, she is his wife, and that she owes to him the wife's loyalty; that to work for his redemption is her highest social obligation, and that to teach her children to do the same is her first motherly duty. Legal divorce may be necessary for personal and family protection; if so, let every woman obtain it. This, God helping me, is what I would certainly do, for under no circumstances will I ever give my consent to be subjected to the will of another, in any relation, for God ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... incapable of the love which a white mother feels for her children even after they have ceased to depend upon her care. This, I think, is wrong. I have seen many instances of elderly Native women who have cherished their grown up children to the last with every sign of motherly affection. ...
— The Black Man's Place in South Africa • Peter Nielsen
... made 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
... was hidden in her motherly embrace. I could not speak for some moments, and I thought my heart had stopped ...
— The Late Miss Hollingford • Rosa Mulholland
... miserable, after all, and how family love goes along with them. Soon the boat arrived at the pier, and we all went on board; and as I sat in the cabin, looking up through a broken pane in the skylight, I saw the woman's thin face, with its anxious, motherly aspect; and the youngest child in her arms, shrinking from the chill wind, but yet not impatiently; and the eldest of the girls standing close by with her expression of childish endurance, but yet so bright and intelligent that it would evidently take but a few days to ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... lovely as a queen,' she murmured with motherly pride,' indeed there's no queen like her in ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev
... for, suddenly, with the new respect for him the knowledge of his trained and ready muscles gave her, arose a new consideration for him, almost motherly. He would be breasting dreadful peril in the passage of the flames—peril to his eyes and face and clinging, tight-clasped hands especially. And round her limbs there was the means of saving ...
— In Old Kentucky • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey
... metallic manufactory, first in London and then in Paris. In a letter informing his parents of this good-fortune, were enclosed the whole of the savings from his salary. 'Master Jordan shook his head at this passage, and cried out, deeply moved, yet as though vexed, while a tear of motherly tenderness stole down Martha's cheek: "No! no! by no means! What is the fool thinking of? He'll want the money himself—a simpleton. Let him wait till he comes to the master-piece. What pleases me most in the story, is his contentment and his humility. He is not ashamed of his old silver ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 436 - Volume 17, New Series, May 8, 1852 • Various
... know well enough what you like, and how to praise it to your better liking. I could talk to you about moonlight, and twilight, and spring flowers, and autumn leaves, and the Madonnas of Raphael—how motherly! and the Sibyls of Michael Angelo—how majestic! and the Saints of Angelico—how pious! and the Cherubs of Correggio—how delicious! Old as I am, I could play you a tune on the harp yet, that you would dance to. ...
— Sesame and Lilies • John Ruskin
... devising a way to gratify the longings of their motherly and patriotic hearts, and instantly set about carrying it into action. They resolved to beg wheat of the neighboring farmers, and convert it into money. Sometimes on foot, and sometimes with a team, amid the snows and mud of early spring, they canvassed the country for ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... one night, and astonished the housekeeper, a motherly dame who sat up with him, by his talk ...
— Dr. Jolliffe's Boys • Lewis Hough
... habit of bringing the child down to the mill office, to which he added a playroom that connected with his private office. Hence, prior to his second birthday, Bryce divined that his father was closer to him than motherly Mrs. Tully or the half-breed girl, albeit the housekeeper sang to him the lullabys that mothers know while the Digger girl, improvising blank verse paeans of praise and prophecy, crooned them to her charge in the unmusical monotone of her tribal tongue. His ...
— The Valley of the Giants • Peter B. Kyne
... Raydon, beginning to walk up and down the room, while I felt in such a whirl of excitement, as I saw Mrs John's beautiful, motherly eyes fixed lovingly on mine, and felt Mr John snatch my hand and press it, and then give vent to his delight at the clearing up by slapping me heavily on the shoulder, that I could not see Mr Raydon's puckered brow. What I did ...
— To The West • George Manville Fenn
... 18, 1778, to his father. Mozart was making the journey from Mannheim to Munich in the carriage of a prelate. The parting with his Mannheim friends, especially with Frau Cannabich, his motherly friend, was hard. "For me, who never made a more painful parting than this, the journey was only half pleasant—it would even have been a bore, if from childhood I had not been accustomed to ...
— Mozart: The Man and the Artist, as Revealed in his own Words • Friedrich Kerst and Henry Edward Krehbiel
... Trapes, you have a motherly heart, I know, and I am a very lonely being who needs one like you to—to cook and care for his bodily needs and to look after the good of his solitary soul. Were I to search New York I couldn't find another motherly heart so suited to my crying needs ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol
... happy years I lived under that friendly roof. I was between fifteen and sixteen years of age, when the fatal inheritance from my mother cast its first shadow on my life. One miserable day the wife's motherly love for me changed in an instant to the jealous hatred that never forgives. Can you guess the reason? The husband ...
— The New Magdalen • Wilkie Collins
... the look of misery on the young man's face, his pale cheeks, his otherwise vigorous frame obviously attenuated by fear, the motherly instinct present in every good woman's heart caused her to go up to him and to address him timidly, offering such humble solace as her simple ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy
... cheek red, and her bust full,—there had certainly been no falling off there; nor will I say that her lip had lost its freshness. But the bloom of her charms had passed away, and she was now a solid, stout, motherly woman, not bright in converse, but by no means deficient in mother-wit, recognizing well the duties which she owed to others, but recognizing equally well those which others owed to her. All the charms of her youth—had they not been given to him, and also all her solicitude, all her anxious fighting ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... Dora was born just about the time that it was supposed my father must have perished, and a year later my poor mother died, broken-hearted at the loss of a husband that she positively idolised. Thus, we two—Dora and I—were left orphans at a very early age, and were forthwith taken into the motherly care of Aunt Sophie, who had no children of her own. Poor Aunt Sophie! I am afraid I led her a terrible life; for I was, almost from my birth, a big, strong, high-spirited boy, impatient of control, ...
— The Log of a Privateersman • Harry Collingwood
... motherly woman. She had light hair and blue eyes and had not talked long before Bob discovered that she had a deep interest in her husband's business, for the questions she asked were such that he knew the banker must have ...
— Hidden Treasure • John Thomas Simpson
... extremely fond of Lady Jane, who told such beautiful stories with the children clustered about her knees. Naturally, after having his first glimpse of happy home life and his first taste of genuine motherly affection, it was a sad day to little Rawdon when he was obliged to return to Curzon Street. But there was an unexpected pleasure awaiting him on his return. Lord Steyne, though he wasted no affection upon the boy, yet for reasons of his own concerning only himself ...
— Boys and girls from Thackeray • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... her up with a motherly hug, and "My dear little Thekla!" There was not time for more than a hurried glance and embrace of the three on the steps of the stair, in their sailor hats and blue serge; but when in ten minutes more, the whole party, twenty in number, were seated round the dining ...
— Modern Broods • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... brought up at college," said Mrs. B., looking at your mother, who, she probably thought, would understand her motherly anticipations about her boy so ...
— Bertha and Her Baptism • Nehemiah Adams
... his Sketches of Paris, observes:—"The motherly virtues of our women, so eulogised by foreigners, is not entitled to unqualified praise. There is no country in which maternal care is so assiduous; but also there is none in which examples of injudicious tenderness are so frequent." This I believe to be true; not ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... 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
... quickly. Then recollecting the tastes of his comrades, he added, half apologetically, half cautiously, "Ef she could, now and then, throw herself into a lemming pie or a pot of doughnuts, jest in a motherly kind o' way, ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... the country, quite a retired life, and appeared to be more the motherly woman, and the domestic wife, than the ambitious Court lady, or royal sycophant. She was easy of access, and elegantly plain in ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... salon stood the mother. He went towards her to receive her motherly congratulations. She rushed forward to meet him, as all good mothers-in-law should, and, throwing herself ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... Worcester, they had removed to Chicopee, where recently Mr. Howard had died. Their only source of maintenance was thus cut off, and now they were reduced to the utmost poverty. Since we last saw them a sickly baby had been added to their number. With motherly care little Mary each day washed and dressed it, and then hour after hour carried it in her arms, trying to still its feeble moans, which fell so sadly on the ear of her ...
— The English Orphans • Mary Jane Holmes
... and kept the best table in town, and she'd do for us (washing included) for eighteen shillings per week; she generally took the first week in advance. We asked him to have a beer—for the want of somebody else to ask—and after that he said that Mrs Jones was a kind, motherly body, and understood young fellows; and that we'd be even more comfortable than in our own home; that we'd be allowed to do as we liked—she wasn't particular; she wouldn't mind it a bit if we came home late once in a way—she was used to that, in fact; she liked ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson
... found a better place. Mr. and Mrs. Lanham were quiet people, who gave them an excellent room and a fine supper. Mrs. Lanham showed a motherly solicitude, and when she heard that they were going to the Curtis ball on the following night she demanded that their spare and best uniforms be turned over ...
— The Shades of the Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler
... ten years of age she was a scholar of Mrs. Chatterton, his mother, where she was taught plain work, and remained with her until she was near twenty years of age; that she slept with her, and found her kind and motherly, insomuch that there were many things which in moments of affliction Mrs. C. communicated to her, that she would not have wished to have been generally known; and among others, she often repeated how happy ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... becoming seriously attached to Miss Forrest. She had indulged the major in one very plain and startling dissertation on the subject of that young woman, from the effects of which he was still suffering; but, worst of all, her motherly heart longed to acquire, through Nellie's words, looks, or actions, some idea as to whether she really cared for her pet among all the lieutenants. Of course Nellie liked—but did she love him? Of McLean's deep-rooted regard for the shy and sensitive little ...
— 'Laramie;' - or, The Queen of Bedlam. • Charles King
... affecting an obedience that Firkin said "my poor Missus du take her physic like a lamb." She prescribed the drive in the carriage or the ride in the chair, and, in a word, ground down the old lady in her convalescence in such a way as only belongs to your proper-managing, motherly moral woman. If ever the patient faintly resisted, and pleaded for a little bit more dinner or a little drop less medicine, the nurse threatened her with instantaneous death, when Miss Crawley instantly gave in. "She's ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... cold," she said, rising and drawing a steamer rug up over me; then laying the open magazine across my shoulders while giving the pillow a motherly pull, she added, ...
— The Hills of Hingham • Dallas Lore Sharp
... yourself again," said Rose, greeting her with a motherly caress, as they met in the lower hall. "How nice it is to have you at ...
— Elsie's Girlhood • Martha Finley
... tiny French cap on the back of her head, as she made these motherly demonstrations, and its graceful lightness threw her into a ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... him at once the services of the principal physician in Peterborough. Clare had also an excellent and warm-hearted friend in Mrs. Marsh, wife of the Bishop of Peterborough, who corresponded with him frequently, in a familiar and almost motherly manner, from 1821 to 1837. When Clare complained of indisposition, a messenger would be dispatched from "The Palace," with medicines or plaisters, camphor lozenges, or "a pound of our own tea," with sensible ...
— Life and Remains of John Clare - "The Northamptonshire Peasant Poet" • J. L. Cherry
... cottages that I wanted to kneel to; and I'm sure this feeling wasn't due to the vine growing over the porch or the roses nodding in the yard. Knock at the door of such a house, and the chances are in favor of your being met by a quiet, motherly woman—one who will instantly make you think of your own mother. Some very well constructed houses look surly, and some shabby ones look kind, somehow. If you have ever been a book agent or a tramp, how you will revel in this seeming digression! God grant that no man in need may ever look wistfully ...
— The River and I • John G. Neihardt
... the "tap" at the door, which was the beginning of the end. She has attained the crown of her woman's existence, and she can bear no resentment towards him whose cruelty embittered, and whose vengeance has cut it short. The motherly heart in her goes out to the wicked husband who was also once a child, and strives to palliate what he has done. "He was sinned against as well as sinning. Her poor parents were blind and unjust in their mode of retaliating upon him. She was blind and foolish in doing nothing to heal the breach. ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... forget to speak of Mrs. Poor. The big, raw-boned woman's hard-favored countenance was lit up with motherly solicitude, as she lifted, rather than assisted, Zadkiel, down ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy
... there but a short time when the motherly sympathy of Mrs. Miller was aroused on account of his extreme ignorance on many subjects, and she did not grow weary in explaining the meaning of new words and in doing all else that she knew to ...
— The Poorhouse Waif and His Divine Teacher • Isabel C. Byrum
... was so drawn to the pure, sweet-faced, motherly lady that he could not refuse her request to tell her about himself. He talked more freely than was his wont, and said many things he would not have said in the presence of others. She penetrated the nobility of the youth, who could read and write well, whose mind ...
— Deerfoot in The Mountains • Edward S. Ellis
... A motherly old Shanghai Hen flew up beside Mrs. Dorking. "We are very sorry for you," she said. "I know how I should have felt if I had broken my two-yolked egg just as it ...
— Among the Farmyard People • Clara Dillingham Pierson
... throat, with its single string of pearls. The onlooker suggested she be snapped with a little black "Pom," who had found his way into the room and was now an interested spectator, on his vantage ground, a big sofa. So little "Joy" was gathered up and held in affectionate, motherly arms, close against his mistress' face. It was all very human and natural, and gave another side to the singer's character from the side ...
— Vocal Mastery - Talks with Master Singers and Teachers • Harriette Brower
... pinched. How they were clad will ever be a mystery, save to the poor woman who strung the limp rags together and Him who watched the noble patience and sacrifice of a daily heroism. Of her own unsatisfied cravings, and the dense motherly horrors that sometimes brooded over her while she nursed these infants, let me refrain from speaking, since if as vividly depicted as they were real, you, Madam, could not endure to read of them. Her poor, unintelligent ...
— Ginx's Baby • Edward Jenkins
... the Widow Schmidt's modest little cottage with the green blinds and the neatly scrubbed doorstep. George and Bob, feeling very sick, trailed sadly along after him; they hated to think of the look that would come into the Widow Schmidt's motherly face. Joe was all she ...
— Sure Pop and the Safety Scouts • Roy Rutherford Bailey
... ever refused to listen to you, my son?" and a softer and more motherly expression came ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... with a kind of desperate calmness, 'I must tell you plainly that I cannot do with this. I like your company, because I am alone here, and your conversation pleases me more than that of any other person; but if you cannot be content to regard me as a friend—a plain, cold, motherly, or sisterly friend—I must beg you to leave me now, and let me alone hereafter: in fact, we must be ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... as soft as the creamy plash Of the milky wave With its musical lave That gushed through the holes of her patent churn-dash;— And the excellent woman loved Philiper so, She could cry sometimes when he stumped his toe,— And she stroked his hair With such motherly care When the dear ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley
... two friends on Mars; a young woman who watched over me with motherly solicitude, and a dumb brute which, as I later came to know, held in its poor ugly carcass more love, more loyalty, more gratitude than could have been found in the entire five million green Martians who rove the deserted cities and dead sea bottoms ...
— A Princess of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... them all a hot supper, and hurried them off to bed with motherly authority. For the first time in her life, Hannah found herself between linen sheets. She tried to call her sister's attention to this astonishing magnificence, but fell asleep in the middle of the sentence, and did not wake until late the next morning. Ann Mary had been awake for some time, but ...
— Hillsboro People • Dorothy Canfield
... Mary Harmer came softly downstairs from the sick man's side, and divining in a moment who the stranger was, took her into a warm, motherly embrace, and thanked her again and again for ...
— The Sign Of The Red Cross • Evelyn Everett-Green
... best sort of therapy for a pot-holed mind like mine, with as many gray ruts and curves and gaps as its cerebrum, that can't remember one single thing before this last year in the dressing room and that can't ever push its shaking body out of that same motherly fatherly room, except to stand in the wings for a scene or two and watch the play until the fear gets too great and the urge to take just one peek at the audience gets too strong ... and I remember what happened the two times I did peek, and I ...
— No Great Magic • Fritz Reuter Leiber |
