"Midwife" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... villages.[3] The village communities are composed of those who hold and cultivate the land, the established village servants, priest, blacksmith, carpenter, accountant, washerman, basket-maker (whose wife is ex officio the midwife of the little village community), potter, watchman, barber, shoemaker, &c., &c.[4] To these may be added the little banker, or agricultural capitalist, the shopkeeper, the brazier, the confectioner, the ironmonger, the weaver, the dyer, the astronomer or astrologer, who points out to the people ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... to share in the consummation of the conflict in which he had played so prominent, and spirited, and successful a part, he still deserves to be remembered with gratitude and affection by the nation, now grown big, at whose birth he so nobly played the part of midwife. James Otis was born at Great Marshes, now known as West Barnstable, February 5, 1725 (old style, February 5, 1724). His ancestor, John Otis, came from England about the year 1657, and settled in the town ...
— The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, Bay State Monthly, Volume 4, No. 4, April, 1886 • Various
... women (our understanding concludes) there are little dugs, and the embryos have small mouths by which they receive their nutriment. The Stoics, that by the secundines and navel they partake of aliment, and therefore the midwife instantly after their birth ties the navel, and opens the infant's mouth, that it may receive another sort of aliment. Alcmaeon, that they receive their nourishment from every part of the body; as a sponge ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... the sway, ere heaven was form'd, or earth, Ere fruitful Thought conceived Creation's birth, Or midwife Word gave aid, and ...
— The Poetical Works Of Alexander Pope, Vol. 1 • Alexander Pope et al
... baby was a girl instead of a boy, the old woman flew into a rage and would have gone at once to get hold of the baby and put it to death. Her lameness, however, made her move slowly, and she could not find her crutch; for the midwife, who knew the bad temper of the grandmother, had purposely hid it. The old woman was angry, because she did not want any more females in the big house, where she thought there were already too many mouths to fill. Food was hard to get, and there were not enough war men to defend the ...
— Dutch Fairy Tales for Young Folks • William Elliot Griffis
... the seal of virginal purity. Yet sometimes the seal is broken without loss of virginity. For Augustine says (De Civ. Dei i, 18) that "those organs may be injured through being wounded by mischance. Physicians, too, sometimes do for the sake of health that which makes one shudder to see: and a midwife has been known to destroy by touch the proof of virginity that she sought." And he adds: "Nobody, I think, would be so foolish as to deem this maiden to have forfeited even bodily sanctity, though she lost the integrity of that organ." Therefore virginity does not ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... distinction between the Greek and the Hebrew method is most marked. Socrates, for example, called himself the midwife of men's thoughts. His maxim was, "Know thyself." His cross-examination was designed to make men see for themselves. That is, he taught by reason. But the prophet's claim was, "Thus saith the Lord!" He spoke out of ...
— The Chief End of Man • George S. Merriam
... auxiliary; recruit; assistant; adjuvant, adjutant; ayudante[obs3], coaid[obs3]; adjunct; help, helper, help mate, helping hand; midwife; colleague, partner, mate, confrere, cooperator; coadjutor, coadjutrix[obs3]; collaborator. ally; friend &c. 890, confidant, fidus Achates[Lat][obs3], pal, buddy, alter ego. [criminal law] confederate; accomplice; complice; accessory, accessory after the fact; particeps ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... a common strumpet. She pleaded in her defence (as was really the truth) that she was a servant, and was sent by her mistress, who was a little shopkeeper and upon the point of delivery, to fetch a midwife; which she offered to prove by several of the neighbours, if she was allowed to send for them. The justice asked her why she had not done it before? to which she answered, she had no money, and could get no messenger. The justice then called her several scurrilous names, and, declaring she was guilty ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding
... see Queen Mab hath been with you! She is the fairies' midwife, and she comes In shape no bigger than an agate-stone On the fore-finger of an alderman, Drawn with a team of little atomies Athwart men's noses as ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett
... thought, for a man who had been routed out of sleep. I tried to meet his mood. "Dr. Perrin, Mrs. van Tuiver tells me that you object to amateur physicians. But perhaps you won't mind regarding me as a midwife. I have three children of my own, and I've had to help bring ...
— Sylvia's Marriage • Upton Sinclair
... of pregnancy, of child-birth and of nursing, perhaps, out of fear of sooner losing their charms, and then forfeiting their standing with either husband or male friends, incur such criminal acts, and, for hard cash, find ready medical and midwife support. ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel
... The voice of Birch was like ice. He was one of those who by nature are fitted for cold and ruthless action in time of stress. Most of his money had been made across the dissecting table of enterprises, and not at their birth. He was a financial surgeon, but no midwife, and had only been magnetized into his past support by the hypnotic personality of Clark. He was grimly mindful that Marsham, after waiting for years for his opening, had got more than even. Birch's cold mind now wondered for the first time whether, after all, the cut ...
— The Rapids • Alan Sullivan
... to this warning wenches now, That Lady Adhan giues vnto you all, Were you not better marriage to allow, Then in a manner for a Midwife call: I thinke you were if I might iudge the cause, How say you Susan, ...
— The Bride • Samuel Rowlands et al
... afterpains, and the oedema of pregnancy. The causes of difficult labor, according to Gilbert, are malposition, dropsy, immoderate size and death of the fetus, debility of the uterus and obstruction of the maternal passages. Malpositions are to be corrected by the hand of the midwife (obstetrix). Adjuvant measures are hot baths, poultices, inunctions, fumigations and sternutatories, and the use of ...
— Gilbertus Anglicus - Medicine of the Thirteenth Century • Henry Ebenezer Handerson
... shall have ended. For there is nothing so joysome to record as the brightening story of a soul coming to its real birth from the travail of its sin and struggle. For perchance time itself is God's great midwife, and man's writhing agony is to the end that he may soon ...
— St. Cuthbert's • Robert E. Knowles
... winnows her wheat by the million bushels, a hundred banks lend hundreds of millions of dollars in the year, and scores of factories turn out plow-gear and machinery by steam. Scores of daily papers do work which Hukm Chund and the barber and the midwife perform, with due regard for public opinion, in the village of Isser Jang. So far as manufactories go, the difference between Chicago on the lake, and Isser Jang on the Montgomery road, is one of degree only, and not of kind. As far as the understanding ...
— American Notes • Rudyard Kipling
... be said to have a historic interest, has been popularly designated the "Midwife's Curse." It appears that Colonel Stephen Payne, who took a foremost part in striving to uphold the tottering fortunes of the Stuarts, had wooed and won a fair wife amid the battles of the Rebellion. The Duke of York promised to stand as godfather to the first child if it should prove ...
— Strange Pages from Family Papers • T. F. Thiselton Dyer
... fine linen and wrapped in a hand-woven christening blanket—a "bearing-cloth"—the unfortunate young Puritan was carried to church in the arms of the midwife, who was a person of vast importance and dignity as well as of service in early colonial days, when families of from fifteen to twenty children were quite the common quota. At the altar the baby was placed in his proud father's arms, and received his first cold and disheartening ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle
... carried over a medium, an invisible wire which brought the soul of them and left the body by the way. Duff Lindsay, so eminently responsive and calculable, came running with open arms; in his rejoiceful eye-beam one saw almost a midwife to one's idea. But the comparison was subtly irritating, and after a time she turned from it. She awoke once in the night, moreover, to declare to the stars that she was less worried by the consideration of Arnold's sex than she would have thought it possible to be—one hardly paused ...
— Hilda - A Story of Calcutta • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... interests are much more agricultural than political.] With regard to their multiplication, by the way, it is related in this centenary book, among much curious information, that when another Franzfelder comes into the world it is usual to present certain largesse to the midwife, namely, one gulden (this was written in Austrian times), a loaf of bread, a little jar of lard and a few kilograms of white flour. In the old military period this personage was also, like the doctor and the schoolmaster, ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 1 • Henry Baerlein
... on the east side of this lane, looking into Fleur-de-Lys Court, that (in 1767) Elizabeth Brownrigge, midwife to the St. Dunstan's workhouse and wife of a house-painter, cruelly ill-used her two female apprentices. Mary Jones, one of these unfortunate children, after being often beaten, ran back to the Foundling, from whence she had been taken. On the remaining one, Mary ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... then the noble plot is fit for birth; And labouring France cries out for midwife hands. We missed surprising of the king at Blois, When last the states were held: 'twas oversight; Beware we make ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden
... Next day a midwife, of whom all we will say is that she was a friend of the mother, visited Louise, who remained in bed for a few days, and then got up paler ...
— Camille (La Dame aux Camilias) • Alexandre Dumas, fils
... property called Madywattons, at Shrawley, to his son George, with remainder to his daughter Annis, and L20 to his son Thomas. He left legacies to his brothers Nicolas and Thomas and his Aunt Ley, the midwife. His wife's name was Eleanor. His goods were prised at L8 6s. 8d. by Thomas and William Shaxper, among others. The will of Richard Shakespere, of Rowington, November 13, 1613, which caused so much heartburning, showed that his son William had a son John, and that his son Richard ...
— Shakespeare's Family • Mrs. C. C. Stopes
... my conscientious opinion, founded on long 163:9 observation and reflection, that if there were not a single physician, surgeon, apothecary, man-midwife, chemist, druggist, or drug on the face of the earth, there would be 163:12 less ...
— Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy
... of Distribution According to Merit Vital Distribution Equal Distribution The Captain and the Cabin Boy The Political and Biological Objections to Inequality Jesus as Economist Jesus as Biologist Money the Midwife of Scientific Communism Judge Not Limits to Free Will Jesus on Marriage and the Family Why Jesus did not Marry Inconsistency of the Sex Instinct For Better for Worse The Remedy The Case for Marriage Celibacy no Remedy After the Crucifixion The Vindictive Miracles and the Stoning ...
— Preface to Androcles and the Lion - On the Prospects of Christianity • George Bernard Shaw
... Pleasant and Delightful History of Gillian of Croydon: Containing, Her Birth and Parentage: Her first Amour, with the sudden Death of her Sweetheart: Her leaving her Father's House In Disguise, and becoming Deputy to a Country Midwife; with a very odd and humoursome Adventure before a Justice of the Peace, for screening a Child under her Hoop-petticoat: Her discovery of a Love-Intrigue between her Mistress's Daughter, and a perjur'd, false-hearted Young-man, which she relates in the tragical History of William and ...
— The Life and Romances of Mrs. Eliza Haywood • George Frisbie Whicher
... new green clothes and bangles in the seventh month; they then put her into a swing and sing songs. While she is pregnant she is made to work in the house so as not to be inactive. After the birth of a child the mother remains impure for twelve days. A woman of the Mang or Mahar caste acts as midwife, and always breaks her bangles and puts on new ones after she has assisted at a birth. If delivery is prolonged the woman is given hot water and sugar or camphor wrapped in a betel-leaf, or they put a few ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... wish to justify his ambitions by having an heir. This happy result of matrimony he considered doubtful, or he would not so long have postponed the step; however, finding himself still above ground in 1823, at the age of forty-three, a length of years which no doctor, astrologer, or midwife would have dared to promise him, he hoped to earn the reward of his sober life. And yet his choice showed such a lack of prudence in regard to his frail constitution, that the malicious wit of a country town could not help thinking ...
— Parisians in the Country - The Illustrious Gaudissart, and The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... varies his Sports his whole Life is a Feast, He thinks him that is soberest is most like a Beast: All Houses of Pleasure, breaks Windows and Doors, Kicks Bullies and Cullies, then lies with their Whores: Rare work for the Surgeon and Midwife he makes, What Life can Compare with ...
— Wit and Mirth: or Pills to Purge Melancholy, Vol. 5 of 6 • Various
... And they made great feasts for them, that they might come often. At first they did not stir from thence all day.(297) Rabban Gamaliel the elder ordained, that they might go 2,000 cubits on every side. And not only they, but the midwife going to a birth; and they who go to rescue from fire, or from enemies, or from inundation, or from fallen buildings. These are as inhabitants of the place, and they have 2,000 cubits on ...
— Hebrew Literature
... foot of the bed is the midwife, and a servant who has brought drink for St. Anne. The servant stops, seeing her so quiet; asking the midwife, Shall I give it her now? The midwife, her hands lifted under her robe, in the attitude of thanksgiving, (with Giotto distinguishable ...
— Mornings in Florence • John Ruskin
... knock in the chest that he fell. She was turned out for her rudeness. It was useless to look for another situation, for the time of her confinement was drawing near, so she went to the house of a village midwife, who also sold wine. The confinement was easy; but the midwife, who had a case of fever in the village, infected Katusha, and her baby boy had to be sent to the foundlings' hospital, where, according to the words of the old woman who took ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy
... the Pieterses were going to give a party. Juffrouw Laps had been invited, also the Juffrouw living over the dairy, whose husband was employed at the "bourse." Further Mrs. Stotter, who had been a midwife for so long and was still merely "very respectable." Then the widow Zipperman, whose daughter had married some fellow in the insurance business, or something of the kind. Also the baker's wife. That was unavoidable: it was impossible to buy all kinds of pastry and cakes without her finding out ...
— Walter Pieterse - A Story of Holland • Multatuli
... sixteenth-century house. Built by the Darells it passed to the Pophams, one of whom was a leader of the Parliamentarians. A gruesome and probably true story is told of the last of the Darells—"Wild Dayrell." A midwife deposed that she had been fetched blindfold to attend a lady at dead of night. When her offices were over, a wild-looking man seized the infant and hurled it in a blazing fire. Afterwards apprehended, Darell by some trick ...
— Wanderings in Wessex - An Exploration of the Southern Realm from Itchen to Otter • Edric Holmes
... the steps from Leahy's terrace prudently, Frauenzimmer: and down the shelving shore flabbily, their splayed feet sinking in the silted sand. Like me, like Algy, coming down to our mighty mother. Number one swung lourdily her midwife's bag, the other's gamp poked in the beach. From the liberties, out for the day. Mrs Florence MacCabe, relict of the late Patk MacCabe, deeply lamented, of Bride Street. One of her sisterhood lugged me squealing ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... of his Dialogues tells us, that Socrates, who was the Son of a Midwife, used to say, that as his Mother, tho she was very skilful in her Profession, could not deliver a Woman, unless she was first with Child; so neither could he himself raise Knowledge out of a Mind, where Nature ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... THE MOTHER. A bawd. Mother abbess: the same. Mother midnight; a midwife. Mother in law's bit; a small piece, mothers in law being supposed not apt to overload the stomachs of ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... reverence be it spoken, and the Parallel kept at due distance, there is something of equality in the Proportion which they bear in reference to one another, with that betwen Comedy and Tragedy; but the Drama is the long extracted from Romance and History: 'tis the Midwife to Industry, and brings forth alive the Conceptions of the Brain. Minerva walks upon the Stage before us, and we are more assured of the real presence of Wit when ...
— Incognita - or, Love & Duty Reconcil'd. A Novel • William Congreve |
