"Mother-in-law" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... her ornaments, and clad herself in barks and cloths dyed in red. And by her services and virtues, her tenderness and self-denial, and by her agreeable offices unto all, she pleased everybody. And she gratified her mother-in-law by attending to her person and by covering her with robes and ornaments. And she gratified her father-in-law by worshipping him as a god and controlling her speech. And she pleased her husband ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... seeking the bird that had flown," twitted Radisson's mother-in-law. "Faugh—faugh—to have had the bird in his hand and to let it go! But—ta-ta!" she laughed, tapping my arm with her fan, "some one else is here who keeps asking and asking for Master Stanhope. Boy," she ordered, "tell thy master's guest ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut
... Parliament, radical and very wide awake and interesting, quite like an American in his energy and curiosity and interest. We visited and learned a lot about things here and there and then he took us to lunch at his mother-in-law's house. They have a beautiful house in Japanese style, with a foreign style addition, like most of the houses of the rich, the Japanese part having no resemblance whatever to the foreign, which is so much less beautiful. In carpets ...
— Letters from China and Japan • John Dewey
... A mother-in-law may not be a popular member of the family, but your wife's folks will do to visit when ...
— Oklahoma Sunshine • Freeman E. (Freeman Edwin) Miller
... captain's compliment, or appear fully to reciprocate his good opinion, but she applied herself to the consolation of Kitty, and of Kitty's mother-in-law that was to have been next Monday week, and soon restored the parlour to a ...
— A Message from the Sea • Charles Dickens
... trace of clan or totemic grouping among the Bagobo. Blood relationship is traced as far as the second cousin and is a bar to marriage. The suggestion that a man might marry his mother-in-law was received with horror, but whether this was due to local mother-in-law stories or to an idea of relationship could not be ascertained. However, a man may marry ...
— The Wild Tribes of Davao District, Mindanao - The R. F. Cummings Philippine Expedition • Fay-Cooper Cole
... was gloomy and discontented even when the honeymoon had scarce waned, what was the young man's condition in poverty, when they had no love along with a silent dinner of herbs; when his mother-in-law grudged each morsel which his poor old father ate—when a vulgar, coarse-minded woman—as Mrs. Mackenzie was—pursued with brutal sarcasm one of the tenderest and noblest gentlemen in the world; when an ailing ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... and two pair of piller-cases done up with 'em I made myself. I want you to use that bed in your own room, Mis' De-Mond (I started to hear that name applied to myself), and for the sake of the good Lord who sent salvation to me through your blessed mother-in-law, in prayer for yourself don't never forget me. I've said all the hateful ...
— The Harvest of Years • Martha Lewis Beckwith Ewell
... The mother-in-law of Kwei-li was an old-time conservative Chinese lady, the woman who cannot adapt herself to the changing conditions, who resents change of methods, new interpretations and fresh expressions of life. She sees in the new ideas that her sons bring from the foreign schools ...
— My Lady of the Chinese Courtyard • Elizabeth Cooper
... and not the accomplice. The leathern fragments now produced by Mr. Shapira were, as he alleges, obtained by him from certain Arabs near Dibon, the neighborhood where the Moabite stone was discovered. The agent employed by him in their purchase was an Arab "who would steal his mother-in-law for a few piastres," and who would probably be even less scrupulous about a few blackened slips of ancient or modern sheepskin. The value placed by Mr. Shapira on the fragments is, however, a cool million sterling, and at this price they are offered to the British ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 401, September 8, 1883 • Various
... to detect, called digitalline, the essential principle of our common foxglove; she died unconscious of his deception, loving him to the last, and he claimed the 515,000 francs at the insurance office. He was suspected, accused, and tried. The old suspicions relative to his mother-in-law were revived; the bodies were exhumed and examined; upon evidence entirely circumstantial and technical, he was convicted, and sentenced to be guillotined. His learning and standing made the trial ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... him. They went accordingly, and the younger De Jarnac, entering a room where the Dauphin, La Chataigneraie, and several courtiers were present, exclaimed aloud, "That whoever had asserted, that he maintained a criminal connexion with his mother-in-law, was a liar and a coward!" Every eye was turned to the Dauphin and La Chataigneraie, when the latter stood forward, and asserted, that De Jarnac had himself avowed that such was the fact, and he would extort ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... to stay on the borders of the lake. These two brothers were Simon, surnamed Cephas or Peter, and Andrew. Born at Bethsaida,[1] they were established at Capernaum when Jesus commenced his public life. Peter was married and had children; his mother-in-law lived with him.[2] Jesus loved this house and dwelt there habitually.[3] Andrew appears to have been a disciple of John the Baptist, and Jesus had perhaps known him on the banks of the Jordan.[4] The two brothers continued always, even at the period in which ...
— The Life of Jesus • Ernest Renan
... good fortune are both alike propitious!" exclaimed Ju-hai. "After the death of my wife, my mother-in-law, whose residence is in the capital, was so very solicitous on my daughter's account, for having no one to depend upon, that she despatched, at an early period, boats with men and women servants to come and fetch her. But my child was at the time not quite over her illness, ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... in his ear, as he returned with Madame de Rochefide, "are you to have that for a mother-in-law, and the little ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... a forest neare the sea, upon the south-east coast of the countie of Dorset, and in the Isle of Purbecke, came neare unto a fair and stronge castell, seated on a little river called Corfe, wherein his mother-in-law, Elfrida, with her sonne Ethelred, then lived: the King, ever beareing a kinde affection to them, beeing soe neare, would needs make knowne soe much by his personall visitation; which haveing resolved, and beeing ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 484 - Vol. 17, No. 484, Saturday, April 9, 1831 • Various
... find the house, Mr. Meeson?" said Lady Holmhurst, at last. "Miss Smithers gave you no address, and there are two Lady Holmhursts—my mother-in-law and myself." ...
— Mr. Meeson's Will • H. Rider Haggard
... lawful love,) and were not my mind engrossed by public affairs, I indulge as far as I can your passion. Your mistress, while under my protection, has received as much respect as under the roof of her own parents, your father-in-law and mother-in-law. She has been kept in perfect safety for you, that she might be presented to you pure, a gift worthy of me and of you. This only reward I bargain for in return for the service I have rendered you, that you would be a friend to the ...
— The History of Rome; Books Nine to Twenty-Six • Titus Livius
... hour after the ceremony, as appears from the marriage register, the news arrived of Cardinal Montalto's election to the Papacy, Vittoria lost no time in paying her respects to Camilla, sister of the new Pope, her former mother-in-law. The Duke visited Sixtus V. in state to compliment him on his elevation. But the reception which both received proved that Rome was no safe place for them to live in. They consequently made ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... discipline of living with one's mother-in-law, and of the loss to the children of grandmother's petting, but at least physical content and mental satisfaction have increased. Has selfishness also? Who shall say? And anyway it is a part of the progress of the age, and what are ...
— The Cost of Shelter • Ellen H. Richards
... may guess at their grief and great sorrow. One morning after the child's funeral, her husband being abroad, about eleven in the forenoon, Mrs. Leckie the younger goes up into her chamber to dress her head, and as she was looking into the glass she spies her mother-in-law, the old beldam, looking over her shoulder. This cast her into a great horror; but recollecting her affrighted spirits, and recovering the exercise of her reason, faith, and hope, having cast up a short and silent prayer to God, ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott
... of my poor father and of Anita's that the ancient friendship between the families should be cemented by a marriage between Anita and me. For me Senora Sepulvida would be a marvelous mother-in-law, because she's my kind of people and we understand each other. Really, I feel tremendously complimented because, even before the oil strike saved the family from financial ruin, Anita did not lack opportunities for many ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... like a stone upon Clym. That same morning, when Eustacia had arranged to go and see her grandfather, Clym had expressed a wish that she would drive down to Blooms-End and inquire for her mother-in-law, or adopt any other means she might think fit to bring about a reconciliation. She had set out gaily; and he had ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... gentleman, who started out to visit his wife when she was staying with her mother and failed to find her after three days' search, excuses himself on the ground that he had forgotten her maiden name. He puts it down to absence of mind; and his mother-in-law is inclined to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 150, February 2, 1916 • Various
... against accepting all that her mother-in-law wants to give her. There is but one thing that the old lady wishes to keep for herself; it is a little tin box with a withered flower, and it lies with her Bible and hymn-book, as sacred to ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various
... home under the veranda, where his first act was to kiss the hand of the woman of the house. He greeted Timar with friendly condescension, made a polite bow to Euthemio and Timea, and then opened the flood-gates of his eloquence. "Good-evening, dear mother-in-law! Your obedient servant, captain! Sir and mademoiselle, you are welcome. My name is Theodor Krisstyan; I am chevalier and captain, the future son-in-law of this worthy lady. Our fathers were bosom friends, ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai
... after five that same evening. They passed an hour in projecting a family compact that will regulate the destiny of Europe to latest posterity: and then, the Fates so willing it, the British Prince departed for Richmond, and the Danish potentate repaired to the widowed mansion of his royal mother-in-law, where he poured forth the fulness of his heart in praises on the lovely bride she had bestowed on him, from whom nothing but the benefit of his subjects could ever have torn him. And here let Calumny blush, ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... and had an intricate navigation to go through, we were in haste to set out from Mooa. When I took leave of Poulaho, he pressed me much to stay till the next day, to be present at a funeral ceremony. The wife of Mareewagee, who was mother-in-law to the king, had lately died, and her corpse had, on account of the Natche, been carried on board a canoe that lay in the lagoon. Poulaho told me, that, as soon as he had paid the last offices to ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 15 (of 18) • Robert Kerr
... therefore, healthy, from the first, and, seeing the difference in the appearance of the children, a few Spanish women have followed suit; but it requires a good deal of courage to break away from old traditions and set one's face against the sacred superstitions of ages—and the mother-in-law! ...
— Spanish Life in Town and Country • L. Higgin and Eugene E. Street
... perfections of mind and body; she had been educated in the Court of France, and had imbibed all the politeness of it; she was by nature so well formed to shine in everything that was polite, that notwithstanding her youth, none surpassed her in the most refined accomplishments. The Queen, her mother-in-law, and the King's sister, were also extreme lovers of music, plays and poetry; for the taste which Francis the First had for the Belles Lettres was not yet extinguished in France; and as his son was addicted to exercises, no kind of pleasure ...
— The Princess of Cleves • Madame de La Fayette
... is her way with handsome sleepers. The sensible Rutilianus lost no time, but sent for the maiden at once, celebrated the nuptials, a sexagenarian bridegroom, and lived with her, propitiating his divine mother-in-law with whole hecatombs, and reckoning himself now one of ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... bitterly opposed to the instruction of women. When a man decides to have his wife taught to read, the usual plan is to hire a blind Mohammedan Sheikh, who knows the Koran by heart. He sits at one side of the room, and she at the other, some elderly woman, either her mother or her mother-in-law, being present. The blind Sheikhs have remarkable memories and sharp ears, and can detect the slightest error in pronunciation or rendering, so they are employed in the most of the Moslem-schools. The mass of the Mohammedans are nervously afraid of entrusting the knowledge of reading ...
— The Women of the Arabs • Henry Harris Jessup
... of the bamboo and of the banana plant; and the wind-spirit said, "They have no branches because human beings are always offending against custom; they often utter the names of their father-in-law and mother-in-law, and sometimes they walk before them in going through the jungle; that is why the bamboo and the banana ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall
... my mother-in-law, whose religious feelings are opposed to divorce. The Comtesse d'Origny would only ...
— The Confessions of Arsene Lupin • Maurice Leblanc
... aside his professional tone and manner, he said with a satisfied air: "Well, now, that's done. Believe me, that is the best thing to do." The two hands, joined for a moment, separated immediately. Julien, not daring to kiss Jeanne, kissed his mother-in-law on the forehead, turned on his heel, took the arm of the baron, who acquiesced, happy at heart that the thing had been settled thus, and they went out together ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... to make quince jelly stiffen—jell was the word used in the receipt book of the late Mrs. Ponsonby—with the modicum of sugar prescribed, till in despair she had resorted to a pinch of gelatine, and felt that the shade of her mother-in-law was ticking the word incompetent from the clock in the hall—when suddenly the watchword was drowned in the stertorous breathing of the machine at the gate, and Polly whisked in without ringing and met Deena ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various
... from animals, fish, trees, and fruit; many are called Peti, the Malay name for a steel trunk sold by traders. A person must not give his own name nor call by the name of his father, mother, father-in-law, mother-in-law, grandfather or grandmother, whether they are alive or dead. If one of these names is given there will be no luck, for instance, in fishing ...
— Through Central Borneo: - An Account of Two Years' Travel in the Land of Head-Hunters - Between the Years 1913 and 1917 • Carl Lumholtz
... other things too. His old mother chafed his suspicions by carrying to him the ugly gossip and even the lies of the servants about his wife. By dint of patience and mildness and attentions, Monnica ended by disarming her mother-in-law and making it clear that her conduct was perfect. The old woman flew into a rage with the servants who had lied to her, and denounced them to her son. Patricius, like a good head of a household, had them whipped to teach them not to lie any ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand
... 'em that because Mother Schmidt made them for me so that I could steal a march on my mother-in-law, and she's a Catholic and knew how to do it. Talking of Catholics and what Washington calls the 'Peskypalians,' who ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, Old Series, Vol. 36—New Series, Vol. 10, July 1885 • Various
... fanned herself in a statuesque way. Hay paid her great attention, and Paul knew very well that he intended to marry the silent woman for her money. It would be hardly earned he thought, with such a firm-looking mother-in-law as Mrs. Krill would ...
— The Opal Serpent • Fergus Hume
... Mother-in-law WILL be pleased cried Carter. In some alarm as to what the newspapers might say on the morrow, he ordered that in the morning a copy of each be sent to his room. That night in his dreams he saw clouds of dust-covered jackets and horses ...
— The Man Who Could Not Lose • Richard Harding Davis
... descent was long, she liked the splendid vitality of the girl, and Hunsdon had riches of his own. But, far cleverer than Mrs. Nunn, she suspected depths which might have little in common with her son, and a will which might make a mother-in-law hate her. Lady Hunsdon loved peace, and wondered that anyone should question her rigid rules for enforcing it. But of Anne as a valuable coadjutor in the present instance there could be no doubt, ...
— The Gorgeous Isle - A Romance; Scene: Nevis, B.W.I. 1842 • Gertrude Atherton
... said her future mother-in-law, "what you say is undoubtedly true. There is no absolute necessity for hurrying. It is not an affair of life and death. But you and Harry have been engaged quite long enough now, and I really don't see why you ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope
... fag Armine was. He became a sharer of her attentions and the amusements she provided. She received letters of grateful thanks from his mother, who was, like herself, a widow, but was prevented from coming to him by close attendance on her mother-in-law, who was in a lingering state of decay when every day might ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... have come to send peace on the earth. I have not come to send peace, but a sword. [10:35]I have come to set a man at variance against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a bride against her mother-in-law; [10:36]and a man's enemies shall be those of his own house. [10:37]He that loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and he that loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; [10:38]and he that does not take up his cross and follow me is not worthy of ...
— The New Testament • Various
... defeated by sixteen on Stanley's motion about Irish Registration.[2] O'Connell made a most blackguard speech, alluding with wretched ribaldry to the deathbed of Stanley's mother-in-law, from which he had come to urge his motion, out of deference to those whom he had brought up for it. One of the worst of those disgraceful and stupid brutalities, which will obliterate (if possible) the fame of the great things O'Connell has done ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... humorous publications, which I scarcely need point out are edited by men. Hardly could our comic weeklies manage to come out if the jokes about the things which women wear were denied to them as fountain-sources of inspiration. To the vaudeville monologist his jokes about his wife and his mother-in-law and to the comic sketch artist his pictures setting forth the torments of the stock husband trying to button the stock gown of a stock wife up her stock back—these are dependable ...
— 'Oh, Well, You Know How Women Are!' AND 'Isn't That Just Like a Man!' • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... cold, impassive face. In the mean time, nothing could be more irreproachable than the demeanor of the two brothers. Dr. Alphege was known to be a man of great skill, a graduate of the medical schools of Paris and always interested in the practice of his profession. He devoted himself to his mother-in-law now with unfailing assiduity, and when her disease—which he pronounced to be a dangerous gastric affection—baffled his utmost efforts, he sent for advice and assistance even to New Orleans; which, thirty years ago in South-western ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, November, 1878 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... only presumption in us to attempt giving in any other than the beautifully simple words of Scripture the story of Ruth and her mother-in-law. The narration is inimitable, and needs nothing to make it stand out like a picture before the mind. Suffice it then that we now attend only to the lessons which may be gathered from it, and endeavor to profit by them through all our coming lives. Nor let any think the lessons ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various
... dirty-faced man with a clay pipe, the very red-faced man behind a cigar, and the man with a black eye, who slowly filled a large Dutch pipe with most capacious bowl. Tupman and Snodgrass were of the company and smoked cigars. Sam Weller's father smoked his pipe philosophically. If Sam's "mother-in-law" "flies in a passion, and breaks his pipe, he steps out and gets another. Then she screams wery loud, and falls into 'sterics; and he smokes wery comfortably 'till she comes to agin." What better example could there be of pipe-engendered philosophy? When Mr. Pickwick and Sam look in ...
— The Social History of Smoking • G. L. Apperson
... and mutter: "Capitalism, my boy, capitalism! 'Ecrasez l'infame!'" He had one unfailing remedy for all the evils of this world, and he preached it to every one; no matter whether the person's trouble was failure in business, or dyspepsia, or a quarrelsome mother-in-law, a twinkle would come into his eyes and he would say, "You know what to do about ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... the stage and settled down. Her mother-in-law, being an invalid confined to her room, prevented any interference in her household affairs, and she was free from suggestions as to what she should give, and what she shouldn't give her son, who had been named Hugh ...
— The Further Adventures of Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks • Charles Felton Pidgin
... returned to their homes, she grew very unhappy, and when her mother-in-law commanded her to cook she had to feel her way around, for she would not uncover her face. Finally she became so sad that she determined to run away. One night when all were asleep, she used magical power and changed herself into oil. [23] Then she slid through ...
— Philippine Folk Tales • Mabel Cook Cole
... new humor." Joseph Zabara was a "new" humorist. He has the quaint subtlety of the author of the "Ingoldsby Legends," and revelled in the exaggeration of trifles that is the stock-in-trade of the modern funny man. Woman plays the part with the former that the mother-in-law played a generation ago with the latter. In Zabara, again, there is a good deal of mere rudeness, which the author seems to mistake for cutting repartee. This, I take it, is another characteristic ...
— The Book of Delight and Other Papers • Israel Abrahams
... men begin to shuffle their feet and talk about other things; the old mother-in-law proposes betel all round, and hands us some grimy-looking leaves with a pressing invitation to partake. The various onlookers make remarks, and the girl devotes herself to her baby. But she is thinking; ...
— Things as They Are - Mission Work in Southern India • Amy Wilson-Carmichael
... matter. I only wanted to send my mother-in-law, knowing that the house must take fire some night. However, I'll read the play to her instead; if she survives ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 2, April 9, 1870 • Various
... was under a room which was used occasionally as a barn and apple-chamber, into which the fowls sometimes found their way; and, in scratching among the chaff, scattered the dust on the pans of milk below, to the great annoyance of my mother-in-law. In this a favourite cock of hers was the chief transgressor. One day in harvest she went into the dairy, followed by the little dog, and finding dust again on her milk-pans, she exclaimed, 'I wish that cock were dead!' Not long after, she being with us in the ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... to the seat of his government, he was obliged, on account of a severe wound received during the fight, to halt on the frontier of Dembea. From his camp he informed his mother-in-law of his condition, and requested that she would send him a cow—the fee required by the Abyssinian doctor. Waizero Menen, who had always hated Kassa, now took advantage of his fallen condition to humble his pride still more; she sent him, instead of the cow, a ...
— A Narrative of Captivity in Abyssinia - With Some Account of the Late Emperor Theodore, - His Country and People • Henry Blanc
... ways as the necessary consequence, for they will never arrive at that devoutly-to-be-wished consummation till they learn to look at us as we are and not as they suppose us to be. Dear old long-estranged mother-in-law, it is a great many years since we parted. Since 1660, when you married again, you have been a step-mother to us. Put on your spectacles, dear madam. Yes, we have grown, and changed likewise. You would not let us darken your doors, if you ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various
... about the old lady, though she was more chinny than the young one. She just seemed like she was a-practisin' the mother-in-law, so as to do it without stumblin' ...
— The Bread-winners - A Social Study • John Hay
... relatives of both families assemble, each one bringing a small quantity of water in a vessel. The two mothers pound up roots of the yucca, used as soap, and prepare two bowls of foaming suds. The young man kneels before the bowl prepared by his future mother-in-law, and the bride before the bowl of the young man's mother, and their heads are thoroughly washed and the relatives take part by pouring handsful of suds over the bowed heads of the couple. While this ceremonial ... goes on ... a great deal of ...
— The Unwritten Literature of the Hopi • Hattie Greene Lockett
... so; yet she is my mother-in-law, being dear Herman's mother; and though I am frightened at the thought of meeting her, still I love her; I do, indeed, Hannah! and my heart longs for her love! Therefore I must not begin by disregarding her requests. I will go! But oh, Hannah! what can she want with me? Do you ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... hastily. 'But if a nice man wants you to marry him, Catherine? Your father would have liked him—oh, I know your father would have liked him! And his manners to me are so pretty, I shouldn't mind being his mother-in-law. And the girls have no brother, you know, dear. Your father was always so sorry ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... were engraven, preceded her and bore her cushion; then came her gentlewoman; a little pack of spaniels barking and frisking about preceded the austere huntress—then, behold, the viscountess herself "dropping odours". Esmond recollected from his childhood that rich aroma of musk which his mother-in-law (for she may be called so) exhaled. As the sky grows redder and redder towards sunset, so, in the decline of her years, the cheeks of my lady dowager blushed more deeply. Her face was illuminated with vermilion, which appeared the brighter from the white paint employed to set it ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... have treated them exactly as we did if they had come without any message from John; so I do not know why we should lay any stress on that, or even speak of it. The simple fact is that we have opened our house to two strangers in distress. Your husband," continued Mr. Hale's mother-in-law, "does not require to know more. As to the letter and package, we will keep that for further consideration. It cannot be of much importance, or they would have spoken of it before; it is probably some trifling present as a return for your hospitality. ...
— Snow-Bound at Eagle's • Bret Harte
... steam-tugs, dragging after them four or five barges each; they look like some fine young intellectual trying to run away while a plebeian wife, mother-in-law, sister-in-law, and wife's grandmother hold on ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov
... dead body, by which its interment was interdicted till the termination of the suit. In vain the rich merchant had kidnapped the bridegroom in his carriage at dead of night, the boy was pursued and recaptured, to lead a life of constant quarrel with his mother-in-law, and exchange flying crockery at meal-times; to take refuge in distant tutorships, and in the course of years, after begetting several children, to drift further and further, and finally disappear ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... man and wife, and gree better than some others that are sae," retorted the mother-in-law; "forbye, Peter Puncheon, that's cooper the Queen's stores, is dead, and the place is ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... face with the strawberry marmalade's shameless certificate of purity. Bright among withdrawn blessings now appeared to him the ghosts of pot roasts and the salad with tan polish dressing. His home was dismantled. A quinzied mother-in-law had knocked his lares and penates sky-high. After his solitary meal John sat at ...
— The Trimmed Lamp • O. Henry
... pathetic. Two superb figures—the lay preacher Hans Nilsen and Skipper Worse—surpass all that the author had hitherto produced in depth of conception and brilliancy of execution. The marriage of that delightful, profane old sea-dog, Jacob Worse, with the pious Sara Torvestad, and the attempts of his mother-in-law to convert him, are described not with the merely superficial drollery to which the subject invites, but with a sweet and delicate humor which trembles on the verge of pathos.—From ...
— Skipper Worse • Alexander Lange Kielland
... the morning to be shot!" said Aunt Olive. "Injuns don't do that way here. When I started for Injiany I was told of a mother-in-law who was so good that all her daughters' husbands asked her to come and live with them. They said she moved to Injiany. Now, I have traveled about this State to all the camp-meetin's, and I never found her anywhere. Stands to reason that no such story as that is true. You'll ...
— In The Boyhood of Lincoln - A Tale of the Tunker Schoolmaster and the Times of Black Hawk • Hezekiah Butterworth
... this by an example whose pertinence is not lessened by a dash of humor. A physician, who numbered among his patients his own father and his wife's mother, was asked why his treatment in the former case had been more successful than in the latter. His reply was that his mother-in-law had not as much confidence in him as his father had, and therefore had failed to receive as much benefit. Similarly, if a verbal charm is to cure a physical ailment, the patient must first form a mental conception of the cure, and believe in the charm's efficacy. But faith in healing-spells ...
— Primitive Psycho-Therapy and Quackery • Robert Means Lawrence
... in, and Miss Field was extremely busy, and Ward, helping her officially, was busy, too. She had indeed offered her place to Isabelle, but Isabelle, spurred by her mother-in-law's criticism, would not have disturbed her ...
— Harriet and the Piper - (Norris Volume XI) • Kathleen Norris
... been made on the fact that Balzac wrote his sister his wife's hands were too badly swollen from rheumatism to write and yet she wrote to her daughter, but there is a difference between a mother's letter to her only child, and one to a mother-in-law as hostile as she knew hers to be. She probably did not care to write, and Balzac, to smooth matters for her, ...
— Women in the Life of Balzac • Juanita Helm Floyd
... the four weeks' old doll, a fine young woman tinkling with Arab silver, left her carpet-weaving to grind the coffee, while her withered mother-in-law brightened with brushwood the smouldering fire of camel-dung. The women worked silently, humbly, though they would have been chattering if the great Sidi stranger had not been there; but two or three little children in orange and scarlet rags played giggling among the rubbish outside the tent—a ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... on, "the Prince was out hunting with his foster-brother. The Princess in her bed at home complained to her mother-in-law, 'Mother, my feet are cold. Bring me another rug to wrap them in.' The Queen did so, but as she covered the Princess's feet she saw the red mark left by the ankle ring, and knew that her son's wife was no true Princess, ...
— The Ship of Stars • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... amusedly exclaimed—"cara mia, what a name! She's treated, rather, say, as my ornament and my glory. And it's so remarkable a case for a mother-in-law that you surely can't ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James
... name was Clematius of Alexandria, and his only crime was a refusal to gratify the desires of his mother-in-law; who solicited his death, because she had been disappointed of his love. Ammian. ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... I b'lieve, sir,' replied Mr. Weller. 'My father's wery much in that line now. If my mother-in-law blows him up, he whistles. She flies in a passion, and breaks his pipe; he steps out, and gets another. Then she screams wery loud, and falls into 'sterics; and he smokes wery comfortably till she comes to agin. That's ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... learned, Wicked Maid! now at last! that thou hast a mistress?" And seizing her roughly by the hair, drew her into the presence of Venus. And when Venus saw her, she cried out, saying, "Thou hast deigned then to make thy salutations to thy mother-in-law. Now will I in turn treat thee as becometh a ...
— Marius the Epicurean, Volume One • Walter Horatio Pater
... of Meyer Cohen, a Jewish stockbroker, but at his marriage in 1823, having previously become a Christian, assumed his mother-in-law's name of Palgrave. He studied law, and was called to the Bar in 1827. From 1838 until his death in 1861 he was Deputy Keeper of the Records, and in that capacity arranged a vast mass of hitherto inaccessible documents, ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin
... gallant out-pensioner of Greenwich Hospital. Should the wedding take place, the bridegroom will be given away by Mr. Levy, the great toll-contractor; while the blushing bride will be attended to the altar by her mother-in-law, the well-known laundress of Tash-street. The trousseau, consisting of a selection from a bankrupt's stock of damaged de laines, has been purchased at Lambeth House; and a parasol carefully chosen from a lot of 500, all at one-and-ninepence, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... giant till the crystal chandelier tinkled like a million little bells and the portrait of his mother-in-law fell off the wall with a dreadful crash, "I never heard anything so funny before," and he picked up the portrait and laughed again, only this time even louder, for his mother-in-law's picture was all smashed ...
— The Iceberg Express • David Magie Cory
... countess then Helena returned. She had accomplished the purport of her journey, she had preserved the life of the king, and she had wedded her heart's dear lord, the Count Rousillon; but she returned back a dejected lady to her noble mother-in-law, and as soon as she entered the house she received a letter from Bertram ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... who put away his wife was Spurius Carvilius, nothing of the kind having happened in Rome for two hundred and thirty years from its foundation; and that the wife of Pinarius, Thalaea by name, was the first to quarrel with her mother-in-law Gegania in the reign of Tarquinius Superbus—so well and orderly were ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... "If you can induce the saints in your church to give the devil half as much trouble to catch them as you have given me, why they will be saved all right. Really a person who didn't know would have thought that your mother-in-law had died and that you were hurrying to make arrangements for her ...
— The Hindered Hand - or, The Reign of the Repressionist • Sutton E. Griggs
... such thing as pay you," said Madam Black-and-White in a surprisingly clear, resolute, authoritative voice. "If you haven't any shame for yourself, Robert Chapman, you've got a mother-in-law who can be ashamed for you. No strangers shall be charged for food or lodging in any house where Mrs. Matilda Pitman lives. Remember that I've come down in the world, but I haven't forgot all decency for all that. I knew you was a skinflint when Amelia married you and you've made her as bad as yourself. ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1909 to 1922 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... from her leading-strings; and she kept him by her side to nurse the baby and administer posset to the gossips. Many a laugh poor Beatrix had had about Frank's uxoriousness: his mother would have gone to Clotilda when her time was coming, but that the mother-in-law was already in possession, and the negotiations for poor Beatrix's marriage were begun. A few months after the horrid catastrophe in Hyde Park, my mistress and her daughter retired to Castlewood, where my lord, it was ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... decay, could stand being a widow, would not repine at being left alone in her old age (whenever she should become old), and could patiently submit to the sharper than a serpent's thanks of having a toothless child generally. But to be a mother-in-law! No, no; that was a plane of degradation to which she positively would not descend. So she employed me to cut her throat. It was the toughest throat I ever cut in all ...
— Cobwebs From an Empty Skull • Ambrose Bierce (AKA: Dod Grile)
... a woman to kill herself for her children, but I don't think it's so much the fashion now. As you say, a mother has no business to die; it's the part of intelligence to live. So you just have a set-to with your old-fashioned mother-in-law if it's necessary." ...
— The Precipice • Elia Wilkinson Peattie
... or mother-in-law for an hour or so, as soon as the crowd thins a little, the debutante or bride may be ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... stammering monosyllables, it was with great gravity that she realized that motherhood was approaching her again, that at Thanksgiving she would have a second child. She was wretchedly languid and ill during the entire spring, and found her mother-in-law's and Alice Valentine's calm acceptance of the situation ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... as best man at the wedding of Miss H. R. F., another daughter of S. F., to L. G. B. of ........ His wife, who was in the carriage with him and was to have been matron at the wedding, was severely injured. Her mother-in-law, Mrs. Frank A. B., died some months later."[1] I suppose the marriage has since been consummated. If a father is permitted to marry his deceased son's wife, in fairness a son should be allowed to marry ...
— America Through the Spectacles of an Oriental Diplomat • Wu Tingfang
... past two, and then I slept half-an-hour from mere exhaustion. Went in the evening to the play, and saw that good old thing, an English tragedy, well got up. It was Venice Preserved. Mrs. H. Siddons played Belvidera with much truth, feeling, and tenderness, though short of her mother-in-law's uncommon majesty, which is a thing never to be forgotten. Mr. Young played Pierre very well, and a good Jaffier was supplied by a Mr. Vandenhoff. And so the day glided by; only three pages written, which, however, is ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... said), I am the victim of the most absurd and annoying mistake. I have been arrested for Schirmer, the betting man who murdered his mother-in-law and escaped from Paris yesterday. They will not let me communicate with any one till tomorrow morning and I have had great trouble in getting this line to you. For heaven's sake bring Schreiermeyer and anybody else you can find, to identify me, as soon as possible. I am locked ...
— Fair Margaret - A Portrait • Francis Marion Crawford
... fortune did not altogether favor the widow; it is true that she interested a Russian of great wealth and political sway, but when the time came for his co-operation to be active, he played her a wicked trick. He attracted her elder daughter to him and married her. Not liking to have a mother-in-law in his mansion, he pensioned her off, with the proviso that her presence should never clash immediately with his own in any country. It is regrettable to add that Wanda, Madame Godaloff, agreed to this arrangement, ...
— The Son of Clemenceau • Alexandre (fils) Dumas
... misery that day. Now I realize that the meeting between Tom's mother and his wife was a mutual misery. I was crude. No doubt, to her, I seemed even common. With every one except Tom I seemed awkward and stupid. Poor mother-in-law! ...
— The Log-Cabin Lady, An Anonymous Autobiography • Unknown
... mean time the health of the queen-mother rapidly declined. She was fast sinking into the arms of death. The young queen, Maria Theresa, having recovered, was unwilling to leave her suffering mother-in-law even for ...
— Louis XIV., Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott
... fierce as Mrs. Zelotes Brewster's, though it was not so well sustained, and she would then and there have refused to marry Andrew had she not loved him with all her passionate and ill-regulated heart. But she never forgave her mother-in-law for the slight she had put upon her that day, and the slights which she put upon her later. She would have refused to live next door to Mrs. Zelotes had not Andrew owned the land and been in a measure forced to build there. Every time she had flaunted out of her new ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... stay alone in the village,' said she. And her mother-in-law left off her work to come and scold her, and to tell her that she would kill herself if she did such foolish things. But the girl would not listen and sat down ...
— The Orange Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... the dialogue between Pete-Rosenheim & Larose-Bettina, though it contained the cheese joke, the mother-in-law joke, and the joke about the wife ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis |
