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Housewifery   Listen
noun
Housewifery  n.  The business of the mistress of a family; female management of domestic concerns.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Housewifery" Quotes from Famous Books



... June sun. We needed not to be told that we were in Germany, for we saw it plainly enough in the nicely-washed floor of the apartment into which we were shown, in the neat cupboard with the old prayer-book lying upon it, and in the general appearance of housewifery; to say nothing of the evidence we had in the beer and tobacco-smoke of the travelers' room, and the guttural dialect and quiet ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume VI • Various

... The feelings of the father mastered David on this occasion. He pressed Butler to spend the evening with him—He produced, most unusual at his meals, one, nay, two bottles of aged strong ale.—He spoke of his daughter—of her merits—her housewifery—her thrift—her affection. He led Butler so decidedly up to a declaration of his feelings towards Jeanie, that, before nightfall, it was distinctly understood she was to be the bride of Reuben Butler; and if they thought it indelicate ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... advertisement for a wife. He was thin, and shy, and emaciated—a breathing skeleton, in the receipt of some hundred and twenty pounds a-year; a martyr to the rheumatism, and a radical. He required but little; a moderate fortune; tolerable person; good education; perfect housewifery; implicit obedience; and, finally, wound up the list of requisites from mere lack of breath, and modestly intimated that youth would not be considered an objection, provided that great prudence and rigid economy accompanied it. He was the veriest ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 265, July 21, 1827 • Various

... as they could; at least, she thought so, and you may be sure, he also, whose love increased with his possession. But Sylvia longs for liberty, and those necessary gallantries, which every day diminished; she loved rich clothes, gay coaches, and to be lavish; and now she was stinted to good housewifery, a penury ...
— Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister • Aphra Behn

... dower or her personal fortune. Although the Romans gave their daughters an education relatively advanced, they never forgot to inculcate in them the idea that it was the duty of a woman, especially if she was nobly born, to know all the arts of good housewifery, and especially, as most important, spinning and weaving. The reason for this lay in the fact that for the aristocratic families, who were in possession of vast lands and many flocks, it was easy to ...
— The Women of the Caesars • Guglielmo Ferrero

... and I did let him apprehend it, so as that the poor man wept, though he did make it well appear to me that he could not have saved a farthing of it. I did tell him how things stand with us, and did shew my distrust of Pall, both for her good nature and housewifery, which he was sorry for, telling me that indeed she carries herself very well and carefully, which I am glad to hear, though I doubt it was but his doting and not being able to find her miscarriages so well nowadays as he could heretofore have done. We resolve upon sending for Will ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys

... violence or lust; he cannot send them to Northern schools, where prejudice would brand them, and it is proposed to open an asylum near them, where they may be brought, emancipated, educated and taught housewifery as well as science, and thus be prepared to become teachers among their own ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 5, 1920 • Various

... The instant her guests had departed, Mother Mabel took the opportunity to read a long practical lecture to Trudchen upon the folly of reading romances, whereby the flaunting ladies of the Court were grown so bold and venturous, that, instead of applying to learn some honest housewifery, they must ride, forsooth, a-damsel erranting through the country, with no better attendant than some idle squire, debauched page, or rake belly archer from foreign parts, to the great danger of their ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott

... the charter that he was in England in 1556, but he certainly was so in the following year, for there is a Sarum Missal of that date with his imprint, besides several other books, including Thomas Tusser's Hundred Points of Good Husserye (i.e. Housewifery); William Bullein's Government of Health, and sundry proclamations. But it was not until 1559 that his books began to show that excellence of workmanship that laid the foundation of his fame. In that year he issued in folio ...
— A Short History of English Printing, 1476-1898 • Henry R. Plomer

... of most women, of the vast majority, the clatter and clash of housewifery prelude and postlude the spring song of their years. And the rattle of dishes, of busy knives and forks, the quick tapping of Maud's attendant feet, the sound of young and ravenous jaws at work: these sounds were in Joan's bewildered ears, and ...
— The Branding Iron • Katharine Newlin Burt

... unsuccessfully, which did not, however, prevent his undertaking to instruct others. This he does with much shrewdness and point in his Hundreth Goode Pointes of Husbandrie (1557), expressed in rude but lively verse; thereafter he added Hundreth Goode Pointes of Husserie (Housewifery). The two joined, and with many additions, were repeatedly reprinted as Five Hundredth Pointes of Goode Husbandrie united to as many of Goode Huswifery. Many proverbs may be traced back to the writings of T., who, in spite of all his shrewdness ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin

... Mistress Celinda here—But, Faith, Sir, you're mistaken, her Fortune shall not go to the Maintenance of your Misses; which being once sure of, she, poor Soul, is sent down to the Country-house, to learn Housewifery, and live without Mankind, unless she can serve her self with the handsom Steward, or so—whilst you tear it away in Town, and live like Man and Wife with your Jilt, and are every Day seen in the Glass Coach, whilst your own natural ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. III • Aphra Behn

... curtains, dingying them to an unpleasant gray; it lay on the window-sills and it dimmed the glass panes; it covered the walls, covered the ceiling, and was smeared darker and thicker in all corners. Yet here was no fault of housewifery; the curse could not be lifted, as the ingrained smudges permanent on the once white woodwork proved. The grime was perpetually renewed; ...
— Alice Adams • Booth Tarkington

... useful and honourable knowledge and employment for the mother of a family is the science of good housewifery. I see some that are covetous indeed, but very few that are good managers. 'Tis the supreme quality of a woman, which a man ought to seek before any other, as the only dowry that must ruin or preserve our houses. Let men say what they will, according to the experience ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne

... arrived, Owen found himself ready to set out for Tubber Derg. The tailor had not disappointed him; and Kathleen, to do her justice, took care that the proofs of her good housewifery should be apparent in the whiteness of his linen. After breakfast, he dressed himself in all his finery; and it would be difficult to say whether the harmless vanity that peeped out occasionally from his simplicity of character, or the open ...
— Phelim O'toole's Courtship and Other Stories • William Carleton

... style and method of life are quite changed, as well as the language, since the days of our ancestors, simple and plain as they were, courting their wives for their modesty, frugality, keeping at home, good housewifery, and other economical virtues then in reputation. And when the young damsels were taught all these at home in the country at their parents' houses; the portion they brought being more in virtue than money, she being a richer match than any one who could ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson

... for knowledge, especially for the wisdom that cometh from above. She improved, too, rapidly enough to satisfy a less partial teacher. In the varied arts of housewifery, and in the more intricate use of the needle, she had also become quite expert, and, to use Mrs. Lee's own words, "was quite a treasure in every part ...
— Live to be Useful - or, The Story of Annie Lee and her Irish Nurse • Anonymous

... She could understand that; and Villon's famous verses, "Ou sont les neiges d'antan?" were as familiar to her as Herrick's "Come, my Corinna, let us go a-maying." But, on the whole, she was strangely and poorly equipped for the battle of life. Her knowledge of baking, brewing, and general housewifery would have stood her in good stead on some Colonial settlement,—but she had scarcely heard of these far-away refuges for the destitute, as she so seldom read the newspapers. Old Hugo Jocelyn looked upon the cheap daily press as "the ...
— Innocent - Her Fancy and His Fact • Marie Corelli

... affection. Intellectually awakened women were attracted possibly as much by Richter's knowledge of their feelings as by the fascination of his personality. Hesperus lays bare many little wiles dear to feminine hearts, and contains some keenly sympathetic satire on German housewifery. ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... parsonage of Muirden was but a chapel of ease, yielding an income under one hundred pounds per annum. Yet, with this limited benefice, the Rev. William Douglas was enabled, by the frugal housewifery of the mistress, to maintain a decent, and, in his sphere, even a hospitable household, and to discharge the petty obligations to friends which he had incurred while "out of bread," and preparing to cross the deep to a foreign ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume VI • Various

... Darrah, in a whirl of domestic excitement incident to the preparing of a hamper for the midnight lunch out on the ridge, which she had entreated Mrs. Matilda to leave entirely to her newly-acquired housewifery, stepped into the middle of the pool political and never knew it, in the innocence of her old-fashioned ...
— Andrew the Glad • Maria Thompson Daviess

... the water and watched it flowing. Some fishes were sporting briskly in the clear stream and occasionally made a little bound and caught the flies flying on the surface. He stopped crying in order to watch them, for their housewifery interested him vastly. But, at intervals, as in the changes of a tempest, altering suddenly from tremendous gusts of wind, which snap off the trees and then lose themselves in the horizon, this thought would return to him with ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume IV (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant

... admiration of him, no matter who they were, that she welcomed Louise's attentions. Kernaghan was wrong. Mazarine had not forbidden Louise to enter Orlando's room. That was the contradictory nature of the man. His innate savagery made him brood wickedly over her natural housewifery attentions to the man who had probably saved his own life, and certainly had saved him six thousand dollars; yet it was as though he must see the worst that might happen, must even encourage a danger which he dreaded. When the Methodist minister from Askatoon came to offer ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... got back Sue was making a pretence of doing some housewifery as if she lived there. But she seemed timid at his approach, and compunction wrought on ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy

... the home. I mean the poor woman who has to do all her own work, or nearly all; I mean her somewhat more fortunate sister who has a maid with whom she wrestles to do her share,—who relieves her somewhat but not sufficiently to remove the major part of housewifery. After all, only one woman in ten has ...
— The Nervous Housewife • Abraham Myerson

... the housewifery of Proserpina, since we are to call the juice of fruit, Nectar, its substance will be as naturally and easily called Ambrosia; and I have no doubt that this, with the other names defined in this chapter, will not only be found practically more convenient ...
— Proserpina, Volume 1 - Studies Of Wayside Flowers • John Ruskin

... Cromwell's puritanical tastes did not make him averse to the luxury he found there, and, when Evelyn visited Whitehall after a long interval in 1656, he found it "very glorious and well furnished." But the Protectress could not give up her habits of nimble housewifery, and "employed a surveyor to make her some little labyrinths and trap-stairs, by which she might, at all times, unseen, pass to and fro, and come unawares upon her servants, and keep them vigilant in their ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume I. - Great Britain and Ireland • Various

... of her cottage opened, and a loud voice was heard, calling upon some one within, by a strange and uncouth name, which I have forgotten. The terrified cottager ejaculated a prayer, which, we may suppose, insured her personal safety; while the enchanted implement of housewifery, tumbling from the bed-stead, departed by the window with no small noise and precipitation. In a humorous fugitive tract, the late Dr Johnson is introduced as disputing the authenticity of an apparition, merely because the spirit assumed the shape of a tea-pot, and of a shoulder of ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, Vol. II (of 3) • Walter Scott

... alarm). If she followed the flocks to the fields, it must have been, she says, in her childhood, and she has no recollection of it. Hers was a more sheltered and safer lot. The girls were brought up by their mother indoors in all the labours of housewifery, but also in the delicate art of needlework, so much more exquisite in those days than now. Perhaps Isabeau, the mistress of the house, was of convent training, perhaps some ancient privilege in respect to the manufacture of ornaments for the altar, and church vestments, was still retained by ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant

... malady that had seized on the beautiful, dainty, lovely woman, so like a princess in her bearing, so notable in her housewifery, so neighborly, so maternal, swept over her in a hot ...
— Holiday Stories for Young People • Various

... Dutch housewifery was always extreme. Everything had to submit to scrubbing and scouring; dirt in no form could be endured by them, and dear as water was in the city, where it was generally sold, still it was in perpetual requisition. It ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.

... doubt in my mind that American house-keeping is the best in the world. In comfort, in the smooth running of the household machinery, in good food and drink, perhaps in too lavish and too luxurious hospitality, we are nowadays almost in a class by ourselves in matters of housewifery. ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier

... of rural economy, it may not be improper to mention a pretty implement of housewifery that we have seen nowhere else; that is, little neat besoms which our foresters make from the stalks of the polytricum commune, or great golden maidenhair, which they call silk- wood, and find plenty in the bogs. When this moss is ...
— The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 2 • Gilbert White

... thread made from the hairs of the plant, and formerly used among Scandinavian nations. This was likewise employed by Scotch weavers in the seventeenth century. Westmacott, the historian, says, "Scotch cloth is only the [384] housewifery of the Nettle." And the poet Campbell writes in one of his letters, "I have slept in Nettle sheets, and dined off a Nettle table cloth: and I have heard my mother say she thought Nettle cloth more durable than any other linen." Goldsmith has recorded the "rubbing of a cock's ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie

... Mrs. Abington's, with some fashionable people whom he named; and he seemed much pleased with having made one in so elegant a circle. Nor did he omit to pique his MISTRESS a little with jealousy of her housewifery; for he said, (with a smile,) 'Mrs. Abington's jelly, my dear lady, ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell

... than barely reading and writing; this small farm was all the patrimony my father left me, certain debts and the want of meadows kept me rather low in the beginning of my life; my wife brought me nothing in money, all her riches consisted in her good temper and great knowledge of housewifery. I scarcely know how to trace my steps in the botanical career; they appear to me now like unto a dream: but thee mayest rely on what I shall relate, though I know that some of our friends have laughed at it." I am not one of those people, Mr. Bertram, ...
— Letters from an American Farmer • Hector St. John de Crevecoeur

... them, amused and pleased at Mis' Mayor Uppers's flushed anxiety over the sweet potatoes, at Libbie Liberty furiously basting the turkey, and at Miss Lucy exclaiming with delight as she unwrapped the rosebuds from their moss. But I think that Mis' Holcomb pleased me most, for with the utensils of housewifery in her hands she seemed utterly to have forgotten that there is no use in anything at all. This was not wonderful in the presence of such a feathery cream of mashed potatoes and such aromatic coffee as she made. There was something to ...
— Friendship Village • Zona Gale

... room was all in darkness, and on opening the opposite door into the sitting-room, we found the female part of the family extinguishing the fire for the night. Mrs. Pugwash had a broom in her hand, and was in the act (the last act of female housewifery) of sweeping the hearth. The strong flickering light of the fire, as it fell upon her tall fine figure and beautiful face, revealed a creature ...
— The Clockmaker • Thomas Chandler Haliburton

... treated on terms of equality, a field was to be brought into cultivation as soon as any labour could be had. Minna was looking infinitely better already, and Averil and Cora were full of designs for rival housewifery, Averil taking lessons meantime in ironing, dusting, and the arts of the kitchen, and trusting that in the two years' time, the skeletons would have given place—if not indeed to houses, to well-kept fields. Such ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge

... been fixed for the following Tuesday should it prove fine. Alick and Fred had been over at Mill Bank Farm, and the younger Fords had agreed to meet them at the ravine, with their contribution of milk and cream, and various other things which Mrs. Ford's zealous housewifery would not be prevented from sending, though Fred assured her that ...
— Lucy Raymond - Or, The Children's Watchword • Agnes Maule Machar

... but a little piece." A singular testimony this was to the respect and esteem Mrs. Vawse had from everybody. Miss Fortune very, very seldom was known to take a bit from her own comforts to add to those of another. The ruling passion of this lady was thrift; her next, good housewifery. First, to gather to herself and heap up of what the world most esteems; after that, to be known as the most thorough housekeeper and the smartest ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner

... safely commend to English housewifery this cookery book. It tells plainly what plain folks wish to know, and points out how an excellent dinner may ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 191, June 25, 1853 • Various

... housewifery at Combe Walwyn, but a strenuous endeavour on Lady Thistlewood's part to marry her stepson to a Dorset king's daughter, together with the tidings of the renewed war in France, spurred Philip into writing permission from his father to join the King ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge

... miscellaneous work on the subject of cookery, comprising as far as practicable whatever is most useful in its various departments; and particularly adapted to the domestic economy of her own country. Designing it as a manual of American housewifery, she has avoided the insertion of any dishes whose ingredients cannot be procured on our side of the Atlantic, and which require for their preparation utensils that are rarely found except in Europe. Also, she has omitted every thing which may not, by the generality of tastes, ...
— Directions for Cookery, in its Various Branches • Eliza Leslie

... know who told it me; but it has always seemed to me very characteristic of the good side of cottage life, whether one thinks of the eager rivalry itself in the gardens, where the white clothes flapped, or of the long record implied in it of careful housewifery and quiet needlework. This spirit of joy in proficiency must have sweetened many of the cottage duties, and may well have run through them all. When a woman treated her friends to home-made wine at Christmas, ...
— Change in the Village • (AKA George Bourne) George Sturt

... perhaps next time, in place of making his breakfast, to run away with him to the dire place of four letters. All her peculiarities were now virtues—nay, the very things which had appeared to him the most indefensible took on the aspect of angelic endowments. While her careful housewifery was all intended for his bodily health and comfort, her perseverance in adhering to the one chapter and the one psalm was due to that love of iteration which inspires those who are never weary of well-doing. And what was more extraordinary, one verse of the psalm—that ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Vol. XXIII. • Various

... Pastorum. Here we present a fleece To make a piece Of cloth; Nor, fair, must you be both Your finger to apply To housewifery. Then, then begin To spin: And, sweetling, mark you, what a web will come Into your chests, drawn ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick

... brothers, then welcomed Imogen to their cave with many kind expressions, saying they would love her (or, as they said, him) as a brother; and they entered the cave, where (they having killed venison when they were hunting) Imogen delighted them with her neat housewifery, assisting them in preparing their supper; for though it is not the custom now for young women of high birth to understand cookery, it was then, and Imogen excelled in this useful art; and, as her brothers prettily expressed it, ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb

... four spinsters of Irish descent who kept this small inn, and all that good housewifery could do to make it comfortable was done. The table was heaped with such dainties as could be concocted from the homely products of the island; large red cranberries cooked in syrup gave colour to the repast. Soon a broiled chicken was set before Caius, and steaming ...
— The Mermaid - A Love Tale • Lily Dougall

... went to bed at all if Vassily Ivanovitch had so much as a headache; she had never read a single book except Alexis or the Cottage in the Forest; she wrote one, or at the most two letters in a year, but was great in housewifery, preserving, and jam-making, though with her own hands she never touched a thing, and was generally disinclined to move from her place. Arina Vlasyevna was very kindhearted, and in her way not at all stupid. She knew that the world is divided into masters whose duty it is to command, and simple ...
— Fathers and Children • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev

... the long grace at meat happy, and said she was minded of the wife of the good Mr. Ames, who prided herself on her skill in housewifery and cookery; and on one occasion, seeing a nice pair of roasted fowls growing cold under her husband's long grace, was fain to jog his elbow, telling him that if he did not stop soon, she feared they would have small occasion for ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... part. It is not usual, too, to see such stocky, robust frames as these fisher-boys presented; and in all three, in the father and his two sons, was one general, pervading idea of cleanliness and housewifery. And then, to notice the physiognomy again, each small face, though modest as that of no girl which I could recall at the moment, had its own tale of hardihood to tell; there was a something that recalled the open sea, written in either countenance; courage ...
— Acadia - or, A Month with the Blue Noses • Frederic S. Cozzens

... clown of the orchard, growing twisted and writhing, as though hating a straight line. Notwithstanding, its fruit, and the uses thereof, set the hall mark of housewifery. Especially in the matter of jelly-making and marmalade. Further a quince pudding is in the nature of an experience—so few have ever heard of it, so much fewer made or tasted it. The making requires ...
— Dishes & Beverages of the Old South • Martha McCulloch Williams

... cut off the king of Morocco's head. Among several other figures, he was very well pleased to see the statesman Cecil upon his knees; and concluding them all to be great men, was conducted to the figure which represents that martyr to good housewifery, who died by the prick of a needle. Upon our interpreter's telling us that she was a maid of honour to queen Elizabeth, the Knight was very inquisitive into her name and family; and after having regarded her finger for some time, 'I wonder,' says he, ...
— The Coverley Papers • Various

... to equanimity in the face of the fact (which might have frenzied Alexander Hamilton) that Columbia University, through its Teachers College, is offering courses in Elementary Cookery, in Shirt-waists, in Domestic Laundering, and in Housewifery. ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine

... left Joan, his wife, his sole executrix; and that, by his inventory his estate—a great part of it being in books—came to L1,092 9s. 2d., which was much more than he thought himself worth; and which was not got by his care, much less by the good housewifery of his wife, but saved by his trusty servant, Thomas Lane, that was wiser than his master in getting money for him, and more frugal than his mistress in keeping of it. Of which Will of Mr. Hooker's I shall say no more, but that his dear friend Thomas, the father ...
— Lives of John Donne, Henry Wotton, Rich'd Hooker, George Herbert, - &C, Volume Two • Izaak Walton

... girlish ripple that he did not know. He had never heard Sophy laugh before. Nor, when he entered, had he ever seen her so animated. She was helping Chloe set the table, to that lady's intense delight at "Missy's" girlish housewifery. She was picking the berries fresh from the garden, buttering the Sally Lunn, making the tea, and arranging the details of the repast with apparently no trace of her former discontent and unhappiness in either face or manner. He dropped quietly into a chair ...
— A Protegee of Jack Hamlin's and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... confined to learning to read and write, and in acquiring a thorough knowledge of housewifery. In 1782 she married John Hall, a member of the Hall family of the Eighth district, and the newly wedded pair came to reside in the house near Rowlandville, formerly owned by the late Commodore Conner, and now occupied by his ...
— The Poets and Poetry of Cecil County, Maryland • Various

... Selvyn for giving his daughter an education to which her fortune was so little suited, and thought he would have done better to have bred her up to housewifery and qualified her for the wife of an honest tradesman; for part of what he had was known to be a life income; a small sinecure having been procured him by his friends in town before he ...
— A Description of Millenium Hall • Sarah Scott

... that sometimes grows therefrom,—not a trace of the narrowness of mind that over-attention to such pursuits is too apt to bring;—on every important occasion aunt Miriam would come out free and unshackled from all the cobweb entanglements of housewifery; she would have tossed housewifery to the winds if need were (but it never was, for in a new sense she always contrived to make both ends meet). It was only in the unbroken everyday course of affairs that aunt Miriam's face shewed any tokens of that incessant ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner

... the fountain to wash their household linen. I can affirm having seen the daughters of a prince who was able to bring an army into the field much larger than the whole Greek confederacy, making bread with their own hands and otherwise employed in the ordinary business of domestic housewifery. I have seen one of the most powerful chiefs of the Empire, after a day of action, assisting in kindling a fire to keep himself warm during the night, and sitting on the ground on a spread saddle-cloth dictating ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell

... inches, the remains of the straw-bed upon which the family had lain, largely mixed with the smaller bones of the human frame, ribs and vertebrae, and hand and feet bones; occasionally, too, with fragments of unglazed pottery, and various other implements of a rude housewifery. The minister found for me, under one family heap, the pieces of a half-burned, unglazed earthen jar, with a narrow mouth, that, like the sepulchral urns of our ancient tumuli, had been moulded by the hand, without the assistance of the potter's ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller

... a well-provided establishment for what she could not but see was an extreme hazard. It showed an eagerness for adventure, a readiness for the hand-to-mouth, which the care she took of her home and her love of good housewifery made not a little remarkable. She must be a woman of complicated character, and there was something dramatic in the contrast of that with her ...
— The Moon and Sixpence • W. Somerset Maugham

... only at loving and being loved, and the observant neighbors thought her a backward girl; they forgot, like most people, that service is not necessarily a handicraft. Tommy discovered what they were saying, and to shield Elspeth he took to housewifery with the blind down; but Aaron, entering the kitchen unexpectedly, took the ...
— Sentimental Tommy - The Story of His Boyhood • J. M. Barrie

... with the leading facts of geography and history, and with the general principles of natural philosophy and chemistry. I ventured to suggest, that the great objection to female boarding-schools, the neglect of the arts of housewifery might be obviated, by causing two of the pupils, of a certain age, to assist in the management of the store-room and kitchen for a week in rotation, during which they should fill up the items of the house-keeper's account-book, and make purchases ...
— A Morning's Walk from London to Kew • Richard Phillips

... manner, observance. dealing, transaction &c (action) 680; business &c 625. tactics, game, game plan, policy, polity; generalship, statesmanship, seamanship; strategy, strategics^; plan &c 626. management; husbandry; housekeeping, housewifery; stewardship; menage; regime; economy, economics; political economy; government &c (direction) 693. execution, manipulation, treatment, campaign, career, life, course, walk, race, record. course of conduct, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... entertaining her lover with music, not voluntarily, however, but at her father's request, for she herself considered music a wearisome and superfluous accomplishment. But the head forester had insisted that his daughter should show she was not educated in housewifery alone, but had learned something at boarding-school as well. He was walking to and fro on the terrace with his sister-in-law now; they had come there to listen to the music, and discuss for the hundredth time the happiness and prospects of their children. They had, as usual, soon drifted ...
— The Northern Light • E. Werner

... housewife, madam my cousin. He would be pleased indeed to have me learn of you. Beside," she added with a most charming blush, "I dare say that I shall have a house of my own to look after some day; so 'tis quite time that I knew something of housewifery." ...
— Peggy Owen and Liberty • Lucy Foster Madison

... on, come on; you're pictures out of doors, Bells in your parlours, wild cats in your kitchens, Saints in your injuries, devils being offended, Players in your housewifery, and housewives in ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris

... on which Mrs Julaper had her Bible, her Whole Duty of Man, and her Pilgrim's Progress; and, in a file beside them, her books of housewifery, and among them volumes of MS. recipes, cookery-books, and some too on surgery and medicine, as practised by the Ladies Bountiful of the Elizabethan age, for which an antiquarian would nowadays give ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 3 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

... and eggs to set before Royalty! This disgrace to her housewifery affected Mrs. Macdonald almost as feelingly as the danger they were in. The idea, too, of sitting down at supper with her lawful sovereign caused the simple lady the greatest embarrassment. However, she was prevailed upon to take the seat at the Prince's left hand, while Miss Macdonald ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang

... In her zeal for housewifery, Alma saw much to admire and to imitate in Mrs. Langland. She liked the good-humoured modesty with which the elder lady always spoke of herself, and was not displeased at observing an air of deference when the conversation turned on such high matters as literature ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing

... she chanced to pause in the midst of work, and meditate what was to be done next, one might imagine that the entire care of the household had suddenly devolved upon her shoulders. In the matter of housewifery little Grace was almost equal to big Grace, her respected mother; in downright honesty and truthfulness she ...
— Deep Down, a Tale of the Cornish Mines • R.M. Ballantyne

... choose the subject which seems most vital to the immediate needs of the community. In many cases she may be able to give an increased number of lessons. Practice and drill in all of the processes involved in housewifery are essential to ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Household Science in Rural Schools • Ministry of Education Ontario

... the afternoon she spent wholly in exhorting Mrs Harrel to shew more fortitude, and conjuring her to study nothing while abroad but oeconomy, prudence and housewifery: a lesson how hard for the thoughtless and negligent Priscilla! she heard the advice with repugnance, and only answered it with helpless complaints that she knew not how to spend less money than ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)

... one anecdote told by Quintus (Fam. xvi. 26), who says that she used to seal the wine jars when they were emptied, so that none might be drained without her knowing it—a testimony to her economy and careful housewifery. His father had weak health and resided almost entirely in his villa at Arpinum, which he had considerably enlarged, much devoted to study and literature (de Leg. ii. 1). But though he apparently possessed considerable property, giving him equestrian rank, and though ...
— The Letters of Cicero, Volume 1 - The Whole Extant Correspodence in Chronological Order • Marcus Tullius Cicero

... so wildly that you have made your hand black. We always use kettle-holders; didn't you learn housewifery as far as that, Mr. Dewy? Well, never mind the soot on your hand. Come here. I am going to ...
— Under the Greenwood Tree • Thomas Hardy

... the book is not unique; rather is it typical. The gradual social settlement after the Civil War, destined to develop into stagnation under the first Georges, caused didactic works, guides to manners, housewifery and sport, society handbooks, to proliferate. The Ten Pleasures mentions some standard works, which every good housewife would probably possess—Nicholas Culpepper's medical handbooks, for instance, and The Complete Cook, which indeed, as part of The Queen's Closet ...
— The Ten Pleasures of Marriage and The Confession of the New-married Couple (1682) • A. Marsh

... her mind from the apathy of grief to obey and support her father. She found she could instruct the ignorant; and though no longer able to furnish materials for clothing the naked, she could cut out garments and sew them for those who were too ill-informed to be expert in female housewifery. Isabel and she gathered herbs; Mrs. Mellicent superintended their distillation, and again consulted "The Family Physician," in forming ointments and compounding cordials; Dr. Beaumont went from house to house, trying ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West

... he locked the doors and saw that the shutters were fastened. She attended to a few closing details of housewifery, and a few minutes later ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy

... found themselves destitute of many articles which even in those days of primitive housewifery and husbandry, were considered of prime necessity. Accordingly, the husband started on foot for a small trading-post on the Connecticut River, about ten miles distant, at which point he expected to find ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler

... have {276} the cold side next the head; and then lie down again; and the chances are that she will now fall asleep. If during the day she have the "fidgets," a ride in an open carriage; or a stroll in the garden, or in the fields; or a little housewifery, will do her good, and there is nothing like fresh air, exercise, and occupation to drive away ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis

... less than a day's play on every such occasion. In a word, it is not to be told how the second Mrs Balwhidder, my wife, showed the value of flying time, even to the concerns of this world, and was the mean of giving a life and energy to the housewifery of the parish, that has made many a one beek his shins in comfort, that would otherwise have had but a cold coal to blow at. Indeed, Mr, Kibbock, her father, was a man beyond the common, and had an insight of things, ...
— The Annals of the Parish • John Galt

... opinion of a woman, don't tell him what one did then, tell him what one can do now.—[To Tom FASHION.] I hope your honour will excuse my mis-manners to whisper before you. It was only to give some orders about the family. Fash. Oh, everything, madam, is to give way to business; besides, good housewifery is a very commendable quality in a young lady. Miss Hoyd. Pray, sir, are young ladies good housewives at London-town? Do they darn their own linen? Fash. Oh no, they study how to spend money, not to ...
— Scarborough and the Critic • Sheridan

... into pictures, and even into motion pictures. The fly as a carrier of disease is now shown in all its busy and disgusting activity. The lesson of awakened attention by such means is being learned, and soon lessons in botany, in gardening, in housewifery, will be given through the eye, to be the better followed ...
— Euthenics, the science of controllable environment • Ellen H. Richards

... necessary then to show it to the Duke of York's Commissioners; who read, examined, and approved of it, so as to cause it to be put into form, and signed it, and gave it to the Duke. Now the end of the Chancellor was, for fear that his daughter's ill housewifery should be condemned. He tells me that the other day, upon this ill news of the Dutch being upon us, White Hall was shut up, and the Council called and sat close; (and, by the way he do assure me, ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys

... reckless, so as to have no devotion for the august prizes and incorruptible pleasures of existence; if she is an unappeasable termagant, or a petty worrier, so taken up with trifling annoyances, that, wherever she looks, "the blue rotunda of the universe shrinks into a housewifery room;" if the presence of each acts as a morbid irritant on the nerves of the other, to the destruction of comfort, and the lowering of self respect, and the draining away of peace and strength, their companionship must infallibly ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger

... as to make a strong impression in her favor upon the minds of my father and mother, prejudiced as they were against her, from the circumstances I have mentioned. We shall be your neighbors in the New Town, and intend to live very quietly; Charlotte will need many lessons from Miss R. in housewifery. Pray show this letter to Miss R. with my very best compliments. Nothing can now stand in the way except Lord Downshire, who may not think the match a prudent one for Miss C.; but he will surely think her entitled ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart

... the table cleared away the men took to their pipes and discussed their crops, and the women discoursed of carding, and spinning, and housewifery in general. Then there was a dance around the apple-basket, and a dance in which every man kissed every other man's vrow, and in which the Dominie joined, and was as jolly as any of his flock. And they danced to the music of a fiddle, played by Lame George, who lived up in the mountain. ...
— The Von Toodleburgs - Or, The History of a Very Distinguished Family • F. Colburn Adams

... that you would have supposed she had a cook and housemaid at least, and nothing to do but order them about, she had a world of trouble with the preparations; more, indeed, than she, being of a delicate and genteel constitution, could have sustained, had not the pride of housewifery upheld her. At last, however, all the things that had to be got together were got together, and all the things that had to be got out of the way were got out of the way, and everything was ready, and the collector himself having ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens

... for that, you shall add to it at Home by good Housewifery, and that is not without good Reason said to be a great Revenue, and I'll increase it ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus

... To these subjects the Department attaches great importance. In the industrial life of manufacturing towns I am persuaded that far too little thought has been given to this element of industrial efficiency. From a purely economic point of view a saving in the worker's income due to superior housewifery is equivalent to an increase in his earnings; but, morally, the superior thrift is, of course, immensely more important. "Without economy," says Dr. Johnson, "none can be rich, and with it few can be poor," and the education which only increases the productiveness of labour ...
— Ireland In The New Century • Horace Plunkett

... respect for housewifery could have written that line. When in the same play Jaques sees the pair of rural lovers, Touchstone and Audrey, approaching, he cries: "There is, sure, another flood, and these couples are coming to the ark! Here come a pair ...
— Tolstoy on Shakespeare - A Critical Essay on Shakespeare • Leo Tolstoy



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