"Housewife" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... that girl will have everything quietly tucked away in just the right place; not a word said. She is a born housewife; it's in her, as much as it is in a pointer to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... But now the housewife saw, dismayed, The waste so many mice had made, And did a trap procure. "And if I catch a mouse," said she, "No mercy shall it find from me; From ...
— Surprising Stories about the Mouse and Her Sons, and the Funny Pigs. - With Laughable Colored Engravings • Unknown
... for one thing, they have more state to spend on. A man may continue to make money in America, and not change his manner of living till he chooses, and he may never change it. Such a thing could not happen to an Englishwoman as happened to the elderly American housewife who walked through the magnificent house which her husband had bought to surprise her, and sighed out at last, "Well, now I suppose I shall have to keep a girl!" The girl would have been kept from the beginning of her husband's prosperity, and multiplied, till ...
— Seven English Cities • W. D. Howells
... the maiden of bashful fifteen, Now to the widow of fifty; Here's to the flaunting extravagant quean, And here's to the housewife that's thrifty: Let the toast pass, Drink to the lass— I warrant she'll prove ...
— Old Ballads • Various
... formerly, she visited the poor more than ever, and above all the young couples; and took a warm interest in their household matters, and gave them muslin articles of her own making, and sometimes sniffed the soup in a young housewife's pot, and took a fancy to it, and, if invited to taste it, paid her the compliment of eating a good plateful of it, and said it was much better soup than the chateau produced, and, what is stranger, thought so: and, whenever some peevish little brat set up a yell in its cradle ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade
... off her bonnet and shawl and began to look about the room. She stepped to the bed and examined the sheets and pillow-case as a good French housewife should. Would she throw back the curtain? If so—what would happen next? Then it would become necessary to take the new nurse into confidence, otherwise——Fanny did not put the remainder of this sentence into words. It remained a terror: ...
— Blind Love • Wilkie Collins
... a shop that he broods over with a housewife's solicitous eyes, watchful and jealous, lest some one walks over him. With my eye I ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... to be of inestimable benefit to the human race. We can picture the day when our dooryards, our roadsides, our fields and hills shall be shaded by grand nut trees, showering sustenance and wealth on our descendants, and all people, and bearing the names of their originators; when the housewife of the future shall send her wireless call to the grocer for a kilo of Hales' Papershells, the Rush, the Jones, the Pomeroy Persian walnuts, the Black Ben Deming butternut, the Craig Corean chestnut, the Morris Hybrid hickory, the Close black-walnut ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Second Annual Meeting - Ithaca, New York, December 14 and 15, 1911 • Northern Nut Growers Association
... are a matter of course; and so are the horses, and the pigs. But there are other things, quite as indicative of household abundance, and domestic enjoyment. The pigeons, and the poultry of all kinds, and perhaps the rabbit warren, which are chiefly in charge of the good housewife, and her daughters, and the younger boys, show out the domestic feeling and benevolence of character in the family, not to be mistaken. It is a sign of enjoyment, of domestic contentment, and of mental cultivation, even, that will lead to something higher, and more valuable in ...
— Rural Architecture - Being a Complete Description of Farm Houses, Cottages, and Out Buildings • Lewis Falley Allen
... stones, on the outside of buildings, where such pictures would be little costly to the people; and in a more popular manner still, by Robbia ware and Palissy ware, and inlaid majolica, which would differ from the housewife's present favorite decoration of plates above her kitchen dresser, by being every piece of it ...
— Aratra Pentelici, Seven Lectures on the Elements of Sculpture - Given before the University of Oxford in Michaelmas Term, 1870 • John Ruskin
... don't study French. I'd study everything if I were you. My wife has read the Hebrew Bible through. She is a scholar as well as a good housewife. It needn't ...
— Miss Prudence - A Story of Two Girls' Lives. • Jennie Maria (Drinkwater) Conklin
... the whole earth swings— The thin milk stream that in the keeler sings; The thin green blade that from the cornfield springs; That thin grey thread the housewife's ...
— A Celtic Psaltery • Alfred Perceval Graves
... people generally are after they have built a house—having spent more than they could afford on the building itself, and yet feeling themselves under the necessity of getting some furniture. "Now," says the housewife, "I must at least have a parlor-carpet. We must get that to begin with, and other things as we go on." She goes to a store to look at carpets. The clerks are smiling and obliging, and sweetly complacent. The ...
— The American Woman's Home • Catherine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe
... the long, long summer hours, The golden light should lie, And thick young herbs and groups of flowers Stand in their beauty by. The oriole should build and tell His love-tale, close beside my cell; The idle butterfly Should rest him there, and there be heard The housewife-bee and ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... bitterly in his breast the 'deep damnation of his taking off.' Mill operatives, clerks, workers, school children, all came home, the faltering voice of the teacher telling the wondering children to 'go home, there will be no school to-day.' The housewife looked up amazed to see husband and children coming home so soon. The father's face frightened her and she cried, 'What is wrong, husband?' He could not speak the news, but the wee girl with the school-books said, 'Mamma, they've killed the President.' ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... promising them a reward in heaven, for I had none to give on earth. When service was over, having taken another draught of milk, and renewed my conversation with the people, I lay down on a mat to repose for the night. Sometimes a kind housewife would hang a bamboos, a wooden vessel filled with milk, on a forked stick near my head, that I might, if ...
— Robert Moffat - The Missionary Hero of Kuruman • David J. Deane
... brown hair, the colonel, and Jeff with the shining spade like a new sort of war weapon, going forth to spade "up". Evidently Anne intended to have no spading at random in a fair green orchard. She was one of the conservers of the earth, a thrifty housewife who would have all things well done. They looked happily intent, the three, going out to their breaking ground. Lydia felt the tempest in her going down, and she wished she were with them. But her temper shut her out. ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown
... Mother and Dora left early this morning. Mother has never gone away from us before for long at a time, so I cried a lot and so did she. Dora cried too, but I know on whose account. Father and I are alone now. At dinner he said to me: "My little housewife." It was so lovely. But it's frightfully quiet in the house, for 2 people don't talk so much as 4. It made me feel quite uncomfortable. To-day I talked several things over with Resi. What I think worst ...
— A Young Girl's Diary • An Anonymous Young Girl
... born to be bourgeoise) and the Duchess assumes the leading part. Unfortunate "Mrs. Morley"![B] You have a weary time of it, trying to act up to royalty when you would be so much happier as a middle-class housewife, and, perhaps, you have never been more bored than you are to-day in viewing "Sir Courtly Nice." Nor can the performance be as delightful as it might otherwise prove to her of Marlborough; 'tis but a few months since her son, the Marquis ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... whispering walkt along, and learned to speak "The tenderest feelings in the purest Greek; "Ah! then how little did we think or hope, "Dearest of men, that I should e'er be Pope![1] "That I, the humble Joan, whose housewife art "Seemed just enough to keep thy house and heart, "(And those, alas! at sixes and at sevens,) "Should soon keep all the ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... people of one Book. Wherever they are, the Bible is. Queen Victoria has it near by when the messenger from the Orient appears, and lays her hand upon it to say that this is the foundation of the prosperity of England. But the poor housewife in the cottage, with only a crust for food, stays her soul with it. The Puritan creeps into hiding with the Book, while his brother sails away to the new land with the Book. The settler may have his Shakespeare; he will surely have his Bible. As the long wagon-train ...
— The Greatest English Classic A Study of the King James Version of • Cleland Boyd McAfee
... were most cautious as day came. They hid for a time, then decided to go to some homely cottage and see what manner of folk they would find. Stealthily approaching a simple home, they waited until they caught sight of the housewife who was outside it, ...
— The Brighton Boys with the Flying Corps • James R. Driscoll
... superstitious monarch, Louis XI. of France, that he would never do any business on that day, and of our own Edward IV. that his coronation was postponed, because the date originally fixed was Childermas. In Cornwall no housewife would scour or scrub on Childermas, and in Northamptonshire it was considered very unlucky to begin any undertaking or even to do washing throughout the year on the day of the week on which the feast fell. Childermas was there called Dyzemas and a saying ran: "What is begun on Dyzemas Day will never ...
— Christmas in Ritual and Tradition, Christian and Pagan • Clement A. Miles
... the jingle of the bells on the baker's cart as it begins its rounds. From innumerable chimneys the curdled smoke gives evidence that the thrifty housewife—or, what is rarer in Stillwater, the hired girl—has lighted the ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... of the general of the republic, had no brilliant reception, they gathered in the drawing- room, where Josephine, with all the affability of a lady from the great world, received her guests, and with all the modesty and grace of a simple housewife served herself ...
— The Empress Josephine • Louise Muhlbach
... blood, plenty of pride, and right great scarcity of ducats, I warrant thee.—Well, gossip," he said to his companion, "go before us, and tell them to have some breakfast ready yonder at the Mulberry grove; for this youth will do as much honour to it as a starved mouse to a housewife's cheese. And for the Bohemian—hark in ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... always thinking in terms of the greatest good to the greatest number. He aims to place his inventions within reach of the great mass of the people. As with his touring-car, so with his tractor engine, he has had the same end in view. Nor does he forget the housewife. He has plans afoot for bringing power into every household that will greatly lighten the ...
— Under the Maples • John Burroughs
... equally full of gratitude. "Celia, too, before I left Providence, gave me a nice little housewife, wherewith I shall mend all our things when they want repairing, besides which, she made ma a present of quite a little library ...
— Fritz and Eric - The Brother Crusoes • John Conroy Hutcheson
... that much, "For when I bring home a goose," quoth he, "it is not out of the poulterer's shop, where folk find them with their feathers ready plucked and see which is the fattest, and yet for sixpence buy and choose the best; but out of the housewife's house, at first hand, which can supply them somewhat cheaper, you know, than the poulterer can. Nor yet can I be suffered to see them plucked, and stand and choose them by day, but am fain by night to take one at adventure. And when I come ...
— Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation - With Modifications To Obsolete Language By Monica Stevens • Thomas More
... have you a family estate, sir? And a house? So you have abundance, then? And a housewife? And your old parents, are ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... shuddering. "Those heights! Only to think of them makes everything spin round me. Only one who is free from such giddiness dare to occupy such a place. Every one must desire to do what he can do best. I could be a good housewife to Diodoros, but I should be a bad empress. I was not born to greatness. And, besides—what is happiness? I only felt happy when I did what was my duty, in peace and quiet. Were I empress, fear would never ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... and cigarettes must be banished outright; and he limited himself to one pipe and one "peg" a-day. Stores of all kinds were ruthlessly cut down; and only the Anglo-Indian housewife knows what it means to be flung almost entirely upon the tender mercies of the Bazaar. Informal dinner-parties, for which the Desmonds were famous, became rare events; and nights at Mess—a favourite and justifiable luxury—were reduced ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... with oaten cakes, And their plain home-made cheese. Yet when the [12] meal Was ended, Luke (for so the Son was named) And his old Father both betook themselves To such convenient work as might employ 105 Their hands by the fire-side; perhaps to card Wool for the Housewife's spindle, or repair Some injury done to sickle, flail, or scythe, Or other implement of house ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. II. • William Wordsworth
... “Thou’st forc’d my housewife, and hast brought Distress and shame upon our head; But know one thing, my gracious King, Thy life to ...
— Marsk Stig - a ballad - - - Translator: George Borrow • Thomas J. Wise
... and small towns where many houses adjoin, it is a common practice to paint or dye young chickens as soon as they are hatched, so that each housewife may know her own. One woman will colour hers a bright red, another will use blue, another green, and so on, the appearance of these strikingly-coloured little creatures intermingled in the streets being exceedingly droll and ...
— Life and sport in China - Second Edition • Oliver G. Ready
... and ate it. In the ice-cream had previously been hidden a dime, a ring, a thimble, a button, and a nutmeg. Whoever chanced to get the ring was destined to be married first. Whoever took the dime was destined to become very wealthy. The thimble denoted a thrifty housewife; the button, a life of single blessedness; and the nutmeg, ...
— Marjorie's Busy Days • Carolyn Wells
... before sunset, to get a sandwich at a farmhouse, though he was looked upon with suspicion by the housewife who gave him the food. Phil offered to do something to pay for the slender meal, but the woman refused and bade ...
— The Circus Boys In Dixie Land • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... godless, foul-tempered and surly, and no man could abide him, Thorhall's wife least of all. So time wore on till Christmas-eve, when Glam called for his meat, but was told that no Christian man would eat meat on that day. He insisted; and the housewife gave it, though prophesying evil would come of it. Glam took the food and ...
— The Book of Romance • Various
... her mother, both parents must have retained their youth. The portrait of Helena van der Schalcke is that of a quaint Dutch child standing; a serious little body carrying a basket on her right arm like a good housewife. It is a capital Ter Borch. Two beautiful Albert Cuyps are painted on the two sides of a copper panel. On one side two merchants stand at a wharf; on the other two men sit sampling wine in a cellar. ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... know our agreement, sir. You allow me the morning to receive and pay visits, and to dress in my own manner; and in the evening I put on my housewife's ...
— She Stoops to Conquer - or, The Mistakes of a Night. A Comedy. • Oliver Goldsmith
... to believe that Martha Washington was helpful to her husband in many ways. At home she was a good housewife and when Washington was in public life she played her part well. No brilliant sallies of wit spoken by her on any occasion have come down to us, but we know that at Valley Forge she worked day and night knitting socks, patching ...
— George Washington: Farmer • Paul Leland Haworth
... fairy glen, with graceful birch or alder breaking the expanse of dimpled green; there a spinny of larch or of Scotch fir cresting a verdant monticule; now we come upon a little Arcadian home nestled on the hill-side, the spinning-wheel hushed whilst the housewife turns her hay or cuts her patch of rye or wheat growing just outside her door. Now we follow the musical little river Vologne as it tosses over its stony bed amid banks golden with yellow loosestrife, ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... "Home, housewife—home!" exclaimed her husband, the old huntsman, who was weary of this public exhibition of his domestic termagant —"home, or I will give you a taste of my dog lash—Here are both the confessor and Wilkin Flammock wondering ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... with a door leading to a cosily, though comparatively expensively furnished bedroom. By the side of the doctor's bed was a round pillar, which looked for all the world like one of those conventional and useless articles of furniture which the suburban housewife employs ...
— The Secret House • Edgar Wallace
... blazing hearth shall burn, Or busy housewife ply her evening care; No children run to lisp their sire's return, Or climb his knees ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... husband, confident of the nature and imperfections of his wife, desired that the dinner should be served under the vine arbor, thinking that he would be able to shout at her if she did not hurry quickly enough from the table to the pantry. The good housewife set to work with a will. The plates were clean enough to see one's face in, the mustard was fresh and well made, the dinner beautifully cooked, as appetising as stolen fruit; the glasses were clear, the wine was cool, and everything so nice, so clean and white, ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 2 • Honore de Balzac
... an arm-chair, letting her placid glance stray across the room. There is a little touch of weariness in her manner, as if she were glad to sit down for a few moments' rest. She is a busy housewife and mother, with many domestic duties on her mind. In her strong, capable way she has long borne the family burdens. The face is full of motherly sweetness; the expression is patient and serene, as of one well schooled in the lessons of life. This is indeed the "virtuous woman" whose ...
— Van Dyck - A Collection Of Fifteen Pictures And A Portrait Of The - Painter With Introduction And Interpretation • Estelle M. Hurll
... fellow's lunacy became less harmless as he grew older. It developed into a kind of kleptomania. Should a housewife have a family wash hanging on her clothes-lines, it was not infrequently the case that many of the articles would mysteriously disappear. The most extraordinary objects would vanish from the houses—chimney ornaments, cups, spoons, flatirons, ...
— Up in Ardmuirland • Michael Barrett
... no need for me to dwell upon our dealings with the owner of the hacienda, and therefore it will suffice for me to say, before ten days more had passed the purchase-money had been paid, we had taken up our abode there, and installed Joyful Star as housewife, with faithful servants chosen by myself from among the Children of the Blood. Djama, who had been strangely silent and reserved with all of us since the lesson I had taught him in the Hall of Gold, had taken possession of the chamber which was devoted to his uses, and had put all his apparatus ...
— The Romance of Golden Star ... • George Chetwynd Griffith
... No book is worth anything which is not worth much; nor is it serviceable, until it has been read, and reread, and loved, and loved again; and marked, so that you can refer to the passages you want in it as a soldier can seize the weapon he needs in an armory, or a housewife bring the spice she needs from her store. Bread of flour is good: but there is bread, sweet as honey, if we would eat it, in a good book; and the family must be poor indeed which, once in their lives, cannot, for such multipliable barley-loaves, pay their baker's bill. We call ourselves a rich ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... of a feminine expedient to mend matters, and persuaded the angry father that to substitute other dreams for these would be an easier way. Isabeau most probably knew the village lad who would fain have had her child, so good a housewife, so industrious a workwoman, and always so friendly and so helpful, for his wife. At all events there was such a one, too willing to exert himself, not discouraged by any refusal, who could be egged up to the very strong point of appearing ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant
... beau, Who leaps, the luscious tribute to bestow. Various the sport, as are the wits and brains Of well-pleased lasses and contending swains; Till the vast mound of corn is swept away, And he that gets the last ear wins the day. Meanwhile the housewife urges all her care, The well-earned feast to hasten and prepare. The sifted meal already waits her hand, The milk is strained, the bowls in order stand, The fire flames high; and as a pool (that takes The headlong stream that o'er the mill-dam breaks) Foams, roars, and rages ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... now the housewife and daughter of these hard-working pioneers, and a cheery and capable one she had become. No one had ever turned up with a better claim to her, and so she had grown up with Ans and Bert, going to school when she could ...
— A Little Norsk; Or, Ol' Pap's Flaxen • Hamlin Garland
... year after year, speaking poetry without knowing it, as Moliere's Monsieur Jourdain found he had been speaking prose all his life without knowing it. But the conception of the sun as God's flat-iron, smoothing out and warming the moist earth, as a housewife smooths and warms the yet damp shirts, stockings, and bed-linen brought into the house from the clothes-lines in the yard, is an astounding illustration of that "familiar grasp of things divine," which obtains ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... Maine is the uncertain weather at harvest time. Despite our shrewdest inspection of the weather signs, the wheat as well as the other grain would often get wet in the field, and sometimes it would lie wet so long as to sprout. Sprouted wheat flour makes a kind of bread which drives the housewife to despair. ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens
... the good housewife was not, in fact to be shaken; so, after exhausting all the motives and arguments with which she could urge the accomplishments of her design, the strange woman, having again put the bottle into her bosom, ...
— Phil Purcel, The Pig-Driver; The Geography Of An Irish Oath; The Lianhan Shee • William Carleton
... her," said Madame Massin. "And besides, uncle," added the good housewife, trying to hide her real motive under a mask of economy, "they tell us the dear girl has such talent for the forte that we are very anxious to hear her. Madame Cremiere and I are inclined to take her music-master for our children. If there ...
— Ursula • Honore de Balzac
... a cook whose dinner has been sent back untasted? The best available ingredients were put into that confection and if it did not issue from the oven with those savory whiffs that compel appetite, my stove is at fault. Perhaps some good old literary housewife will tell me, disconsolate among my pots and pans, how long an idea must be boiled to be tender and how best to garnish a thought to an editor's taste? And yet, sir, your manners are excellent. ...
— Journeys to Bagdad • Charles S. Brooks
... likely to settle to any other. My pretensions to genius and my literary qualifications were of no advantage to me, either with my uncle or my aunt; the one being only a good farmer, and the other only a good housewife. They contented themselves with asking me, coolly, what I had ever made by being an author? And when I was forced to answer nothing, they smiled upon me in scorn. My pride was roused, and I boasted that I expected ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... extensive and varied. Though they were busy with household duties such as churning butter, making soap, pouring candles, quilting, and weaving cloth for the family's clothing, it was not uncommon for the women to join the men in the field at harvesttime. The domesticity of the American housewife may be one impact on American life made by ...
— The Fair Play Settlers of the West Branch Valley, 1769-1784 - A Study of Frontier Ethnography • George D. Wolf
... in the meaning of a noun may be partly due to frequent association with disparaging adjectives. Thus hussy, i.e. housewife, quean,[59] woman, wench, child, have absorbed such adjectives as impudent, idle, light, saucy, etc. Shakespeare uses quean only three times, and these three include "cozening quean" (Merry Wives, iv. 2) and "scolding quean" (All's Well, ii. ...
— The Romance of Words (4th ed.) • Ernest Weekley
... button loose!" cried Florence Hissop, the careful housewife. "Where's some black ...
— Just Patty • Jean Webster
... to have an excellent housewife of me; I am abed still, and slept so soundly, nothing but your letter could have waked me. You shall hear from me as soon as we have dined. Farewell; can you endure that word? No, out ...
— The Love Letters of Dorothy Osborne to Sir William Temple, 1652-54 • Edward Abbott Parry
... horn of the musk-ox they make also very good spoons much like ours in shape; and I must not omit to mention their marrow spoons (pattēkniuk, from pāttĕk, marrow), made out of long, narrow, hollowed pieces of bone, of which every housewife has a bunch of half a dozen or more tied together, and ...
— Journal of the Third Voyage for the Discovery of a North-West Passage • William Edward Parry
... to me are home, mother and wife— Or, rather, wife, mother and home. Once I thought Men cared for the women who found home the spot Next to heaven for happiness; women who knew No ambition beyond being loyal and true, And who loved all the tasks of the housewife. I learn, Instead, that from women of that kind men turn, With a yawn, unto those who are useless; who live For the poor hollow world and for what it can give, And who make home the spot where, when other joys cease, One sleeps ...
— Three Women • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... way, and made herself so useful at home, that Dame Annora only wondered how it had been possible to spare her so long, and always wound up her praises by saying, that Berenger would learn in time how lucky he had been to lose the French puppet, and win the good English housewife. ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... inspection, and the O.C. in charge of details had audited and found it correct by entering up a memorandum to that effect in each man's pay-book. Though how the O.C. completes his inventory of a whole draft, and certifies that nothing from a housewife to thirty pairs of laces per man is missing, is one of those things that no one has ever been able to understand. Perhaps he has radiographic eyes, and sees through the opaque integument of a ground-sheet at one ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan
... The good housewife was already up, and anxiously awaiting the return of her husband and his brother. A cheery fire crackled on the hearth, and the coffee-pot was simmering beside it. When Gilbert had been partially revived by the warmth, the men conducted him into an adjoining bed-room, undressed him, and rubbed ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor
... corn-granary, which held ten harvests, spacious cellars for the wine-vats and corresponding wine-presses; now the master keeps flocks of peacocks, and causes his doors to be inlaid with African cypress-wood.—Formerly the housewife turned the spindle with the hand and kept at the same time the pot on the hearth in her eye, that the pottage might not be singed; now," it is said in another satire, "the daughter begs her father ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... are subject to much abuse. Water is allowed to stand in the jardiniere, the plant is kept in dark corners and hallways, the air is dry, and scale is allowed to infest the leaves. If the plant begins to fail, the housewife is likely to repot it or to give it more water, both of which may be wrong. The addition of bone-meal or other fertilizer may be better than repotting. Keep the plant in good light (but not in direct sunlight) as much ...
— Manual of Gardening (Second Edition) • L. H. Bailey
... housewife at Frida, was envious and covetous of these precious goods, and received Thorgunna into her home in hopes, by some means, to possess herself of them, especially the embroidered hangings of a bed; but Thorgunna refused to ...
— Needlework As Art • Marian Alford
... She knew the law: one wife to one husband; and the wife to look neither to the right nor to the left, to the east nor to the west, to the north nor to the south, but to remain, and be constant in remaining, the helpmeet, the housewife, the sole property of her husband, no matter what that husband might be— vinous, vicious, vagrant, vengeful or any other things, good ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... places. Wooden trenchers (taking the place of plates), trays, "noggins" (jug or pitcher-like cups), cups, and "lossets" (flat dishes like the bread-plates of to day), were of course part of every housewife's providings. Some few of Pilgrim origin possibly still exist. As neither coffee, tea, nor china had come into use, the cups and saucers which another century brought in—to delight their owners in that day and the ceramic hunter in this—were not among the "breakables" of the "good-wife" ...
— The Mayflower and Her Log, Complete • Azel Ames
... by Vasari and other writers. She was handsome, accomplished in music, distinguished for her knowledge of science, and withal a good and orderly housewife. "Well calculated to awaken the envy, not of women only, but also of men." Canova ardently admired the work of Properzia that remained in his day, and esteemed her early death as one of the chief misfortunes to the advance of the ...
— Women in the fine arts, from the Seventh Century B.C. to the Twentieth Century A.D. • Clara Erskine Clement
... of yours seem handy enough, Daddy;—for a vagrant, as one may say." Daddy Darwin was smoking over his garden wall, and Mrs. Shaw, from the neighboring farm, had paused in her walk for a chat. She was a notable housewife, and there was just a touch of envy in her sense of the improved appearance of the doorsteps and other visible points of the Dovecot. Daddy Darwin took his pipe out of his mouth to make way for the ...
— Jackanapes, Daddy Darwin's Dovecot and Other Stories • Juliana Horatio Ewing
... Mabel, who was in many ways a model woman, was preeminently a model housewife. "Crawshaws" was spotlessly kept and perfectly administered. Four living rooms, apart from the domestic offices, were on the ground floor. One was the morning room, in which they principally lived; one the dining room and one the drawing-room. They were entered by enormously ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson
... if hunger can be partly satisfied on them, and it is true that a thick slice of bread and a bowl of soup will content the hungriest stomach, less meat will be required, and consequently less expense incurred. This is an excellent reason why the housewife should not spend the bulk of her market money on a large roast of beef, or a leg of mutton, but should rather divide the amount among the different dishes of soup, fish, a ragout, or stew of some cheap cut of meat, and a few vegetables; and now and then indulge in a plain pudding, or a little ...
— The Cooking Manual of Practical Directions for Economical Every-Day Cookery • Juliet Corson
... point when, in the cases of such old maids, we presuppose only feminine qualities and overlook the very virile additions. We may add to these qualities the intrinsic productivity of old maids. Benneke, in his "Pragmatische Psychologie,'' compares the activity of a very busy housewife with that of an unmarried virgin, and thinks the worth of the former to be higher, while the latter accomplishes more by way of "erotic fancies, intrigues, inheritances, winnings in the lottery, and hypochondriac complaints.'' ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... his senora were delighted to see us, and while he discoursed on politics and what the coming of the cable meant to the people of Mindanao, the good housewife bustled about and brought forth the greatest delicacies her larder afforded, laying them out with proud humility on the marble topped table of the sala. There were peaches and pears, canned in Japan, and served right from the tin; there were little pink frosted cakes made in times prehistoric, ...
— A Woman's Journey through the Philippines - On a Cable Ship that Linked Together the Strange Lands Seen En Route • Florence Kimball Russel
... and to sleep. The next day she was a perfect model of a young housewife. She helped the children with their little lessons, filled all the vases, trained some vines, and then with some needlework went out on the veranda. At the table she listened and responded interestedly to ...
— Penny of Top Hill Trail • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... neck, and might very well be taken with an apoplexy. I wish above all things then, to see her safely married before I go—to some solid man who will care for her. There is a plenty of Protestants about here that would have her; for she is a wonderful housewife, and ...
— Oddsfish! • Robert Hugh Benson
... the doctor, again "and make them yourself, if you are a good housewife. Come, Lucy," said he, taking her hand, "do you know how the wild fowl do on the Chesapeake? duck and swim under water till they can show their heads with safety. 'T wont spoil your eyes to see by a ...
— Queechy, Volume I • Elizabeth Wetherell
... fact. Gabriel, with a chivalrous and imaginative soul, might perhaps retain his ideal unbroken till his death; but in the young bronze-worker's practical mind ideals had no place, and his bride would slip naturally into the post of housewife, from whom nothing more exalted would be demanded than thrifty habits and a ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book II - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various
... "CASSELL'S BOOK OF THE HOUSEHOLD is another book, of a class of which many have been issued, and good books too; but this one, by the thoroughness and comprehensiveness of its arrangement, will go far to render the housewife who possesses it independent of all the rest.... Many a housewife will find the articles interesting enough to be taken up at ...
— Cassell's Vegetarian Cookery - A Manual Of Cheap And Wholesome Diet • A. G. Payne
... And in it presides The chaste gentle housewife, The mother of children; And ruleth metely The ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: German • Various
... days now the course in nursing had been abandoned, not for lack of enthusiasm but because each housewife had more than she could attend to at home. The chateau was not the only place where refugees halted, and all the villagers had done their best to make the travelers comfortable. From where I stood overlooking the two valleys, I could see the ...
— My Home In The Field of Honor • Frances Wilson Huard
... has a leaning toward art, for his walls are well papered with chromos and posters; and as he sold a cabbage to a good housewife he nipped off a leaf for a pen of rabbits that stood in the doorway, and talked to me glibly of Reynolds and Gainsborough. The grocer considers Gainsborough the greater artist, and surely his fame is wide, like unto the hat—hated by theater-goers—that his name has rendered ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 4 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Painters • Elbert Hubbard
... one; my wife so fond of me, that she is even now thinking of appointing a successor? (I don't mean you precisely, Mr. Barry; you are only taking your chance with a score of others whom I could mention.) Isn't it a comfort to see her, like a prudent housewife, getting everything ready for her ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... one thing, Cecilia, which often occasions me great trouble? It is that I am not a clever housewife; that I can neither take pleasure in all the little cares and details which the well-being of a house really requires, nor that I have memory for these things; more especially is the daily caring for dinner irksome to me. I myself have but little appetite; and it is so unpleasing ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... that demand is usually answered, with a whole drawerful of skeins peeping from their blue papers —such skeins as in my youth a thrifty maiden would draw into the nicely-stitched compartments of that silken repository, a housewife, or fold into a congeries of graduated thread-papers, "fine by degrees, and beautifully less." The very literature of Hazelby is doled out at the pastry cook's, in a little one-windowed shop kept by Matthew Wise. Tarts occupy one end of the counter, and reviews the other; whilst the shelves are parcelled ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, No. - 288, Supplementary Number • Various
... Hesperus had called for his breeches, and, having well rubbed his drowsy eyes, prepared to dress himself for all night; by whose example his brother rakes on earth likewise leave those beds in which they had slept away the day. Now Thetis, the good housewife, began to put on the pot, in order to regale the good man Phoebus after his daily labours were over. In vulgar language, it was in the evening when Joseph attended his ...
— Joseph Andrews Vol. 1 • Henry Fielding
... memories of those who knew its mistress bear witness to the truth of these glowing words. They testify that she was not only brilliant, accomplished, exquisite in manner, but good to every one, kind to the poor, and devoted to her husband and children. She was a faultless housewife, as well as a fearless horsewoman, and she was strong in body as she was active in mind. "She could leap a five-rail fence, walk ten miles at a stretch, and ride with the boldest dragoon. Robed in scarlet broadcloth, ...
— Stories Of Ohio - 1897 • William Dean Howells
... Angelico's Gospel histories at St. Mark's—they are illustrations to the book which every one is reading, things to be framed in the chamber of every burgher or mechanic, to be slipped into the prayer-book of every housewife, to be conned over during the long afternoons, by the children near the big stove or among the gooseberry bushes of the garden. And they are, therefore, much more than the Giottesque inventions, the expression of the individual artist's ...
— Renaissance Fancies and Studies - Being a Sequel to Euphorion • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)
... content, he betook himself back to Paris, where he married a beautiful and virtuous young woman, and a good housewife, by whom he had several children, and with whom he lived for fourteen or fifteen years. But at last rumour, which can keep nothing hid, advised him that his wife was not dead, but was still dwelling with the ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. V. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... down the stairs and performed the duty he had undertaken with the punctilious care of a neat housewife. ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... kitchen, whether there be a sink in the butler's pantry or not. My grandmother (and my mother, too) never suffered a servant to wash the fine porcelain or the cut glass; that responsible task was always reserved for the housewife herself, and the result was that no porcelain was chipped and no cut glass cracked. They sent me an old willow teapot from Biddeford, and it had n't been with us three weeks before our Celtic cook marred its symmetry by chipping off ...
— The House - An Episode in the Lives of Reuben Baker, Astronomer, and of His Wife, Alice • Eugene Field
... a son of Mr. Pagett's to see me, with whom I drank, but could not stay, and so by coach with cozen Roger (who before his going did acquaint me in private with an offer made of his marrying of Mrs. Elizabeth Wiles, whom I know; a kinswoman of Mr. Honiwood's, an ugly old maid, but a good housewife; and is said to have L2500 to her portion; but if I can find that she hath but L2000, which he prays me to examine, he says he will have her, she being one he hath long known intimately, and a good housewife, and discreet woman; though I am against it in my heart, ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... which, being thrown up, showed a heavy iron mould, heated quite hot, and just now smoking furiously from a fresh application of kerosene-oil, with which the mould is coated before each period of service, much as the housewife butters her griddle before each plateful of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various
... particularly at Brough, where I have witnessed it many times, the good people kill a great many pigs about a week or two previous to Lent, which have been carefully fattened up for the occasion. The good housewife is busily occupied in salting the flitches and hams to hang up in the "pantry," and in cutting the fattest parts of the pig for collops on this day. The most luscious cuts are baked in a pot in an oven, and the fat poured out ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 358 - Vol. XIII, No. 358., Saturday, February 28, 1829 • Various
... comfortable here," said Charlotte, with something of a housewife's pride. "She can have the large northeast room. And the French bedstead," Charlotte added, with a constant sense ...
— The Europeans • Henry James
... our several apartments till Nine, except Miss Theky, who was the Housewife of the Family. At that hour we met over a Pot of Coffee, which was not quite strong enough to give us the Palsy. After Breakfast the Colo. and I left the Ladys to their Domestick Affairs, and took a turn in the Garden, which has nothing beautiful but 3 Terrace Walks that ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... the ease, the luxury of her former station to toil with him through the cares and toils of poverty. It was gall and wormwood to his soul to see that splendid, highly- accomplished woman, once so courted and admired, transformed into an active managing housewife, with hands and head continually occupied with household labours and household economy. The very willingness with which she performed these duties, the cheerfulness with which she bore her reverses, and the kindness which withheld her from imputing ...
— Agnes Grey • Anne Bronte
... notable housewife, said to me one day, "Now, my dear, we shall soon have plenty of eggs, for I have been buying a lot of young chickens." There they were, each one with as many feathers as a grasshopper, and a chirp not louder. Of course, we looked forward with pleasant hopes to the period when the first cackle ...
— Little Masterpieces of American Wit and Humor - Volume I • Various
... down to the particular whistle and cry which in France tells so much to those of a trade. At this blacksmith's, as at most other solitary houses far away from a town, there was not only a store of men's clothes laid by as wanting mending when the housewife could afford time, but there was a natural craving after news from a distance, such news as a wandering tailor is bound to furnish. The early November afternoon was closing into evening, as we sat down, she cross-legged on the great table in the blacksmith's kitchen, drawn close ...
— The Grey Woman and other Tales • Mrs. (Elizabeth) Gaskell
... already had occasion to observe that Mrs. Chirrup is an incomparable housewife. In all the arts of domestic arrangement and management, in all the mysteries of confectionery-making, pickling, and preserving, never was such a thorough adept as that nice little body. She is, besides, a cunning worker in muslin and fine linen, and a special hand at ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... a good little housewife," said he; "I wish we were there, and sitting down at the table—if there is ...
— The Girl at Cobhurst • Frank Richard Stockton
... in circulation, but most of these disappear as soon as issued. You would scarcely imagine that this copper is deemed worthy to be hoarded; yet such is the people's aversion from the paper, and such their mistrust of the government, that not an housewife will part with one of these pieces while she has an assignat in her possession; and those who are rich enough to keep a few livres by them, amass and bury this copper treasure with the utmost solicitude ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... system of strenuous living, our unsanitary environment, our business activity, our method of pursuing pleasure, take no account of, and resent the time devoted to cultivating, as a hygienic necessity, this toilet requirement. This imperative call of nature is pushed aside by the child at play, by the housewife for a duty which could wait, by the merchant for an engagement. It is particularly an American disease, and it is uniquely an American woman's affliction. It is a curious commentary on the intelligence of ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Vol 2 (of 4) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague
... quiet gray eyes. She just missed being beautiful, and in missing it was not even pretty. But when Stroeve spoke of Chardin it was not without reason, and she reminded me curiously of that pleasant housewife in her mob-cap and apron whom the great painter has immortalised. I could imagine her sedately busy among her pots and pans, making a ritual of her household duties, so that they acquired a moral significance; I did not suppose that she was clever or could ever be amusing, ...
— The Moon and Sixpence • W. Somerset Maugham
... complexions And cheeks of every grain will serve to ply The sampler, and to teaze the housewife's wool; What need a vermeil, tinctured lip for that, Love-darting eyes, and tresses like ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 20, Issue 561, August 11, 1832 • Various
... we find included a course of which the special text-book is Spencer's "Data of Ethics." One can imagine also that the course on the elements of general economics, with its study of wealth and value and price, the laws of production and distribution, may bring into being a kind of housewife who, whether or not eligible for Parliament, would certainly be a much more desirable member thereof than nine-tenths of the prosperous gentlemen who daily record their opinions there upon matters they know not of. All who care at all for womanhood or for England must rejoice in the beginnings ...
— Woman and Womanhood - A Search for Principles • C. W. Saleeby
... is missing!" the housewife shouted in her sister's ear, "and the foolishness thou singeth ...
— The Coming of the King • Bernie Babcock
... their temper. Unless I am mistaken, this Ospakar wishes above all to have Gudruda in marriage, for, now that everything is his, this alone is left for him to ask—the fairest woman in Iceland as a housewife. Think then, with Ospakar for a son-in-law, who is there that can stand ...
— Eric Brighteyes • H. Rider Haggard
... marching feet could be heard and the Hun came down from the bedroom looking as pale as death. He opened the door and stood there listening. The insolent crunch, crunch, crunch of heavy nail-studded service boots came nearer, and a khaki column appeared on the winding road. The housewife, whose aching eyes had searched the road for Boudru all day, ...
— War and the Weird • Forbes Phillips
... good deal for a book,' he said. 'It would keep me quiet.' He began to look round; there were a few volumes at one end of the shovel-board. 'Fifth volume of Matthew Henry's Commentary,' said he, reading their titles aloud. 'Housewife's complete Manual; Berridge on Prayer; L'Inferno—Dante!' in great surprise. 'Why, who ...
— Cousin Phillis • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... holding back some of the muslin and ribbons with one hand, whilst with the other he held out a forelock of his black curls, and she cut it off with the scissors out of the sailor's housewife which she had made for him. I turned my back ...
— We and the World, Part II. (of II.) - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... advertisement for a wife appeared a few years since, in a New York paper:—"Wanted immediately, a young lady, of the following description, (as a wife,) with about 2,000 dollars as a patrimony, sweet temper, spend little, be a good housewife, and born in America; and as I am not more than twenty-five years of age, I hope it will not be difficult to find a good wife. N.B. I take my dwelling in South Second Street, No. 273. Any lady that answers the above description will please to leave ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 544, April 28, 1832 • Various
... threats to withdraw her subsidies frequent. "Owning neither the East nor the West Indies," she said, "we are unable to supply the constant demands upon us; and although we have the reputation of being a good housewife, it does not follow that we can be a housewife for all the world." She was persistently warning the king of an attack upon Dieppe, and rebuking him for occupying himself with petty enterprises to the neglect of vital points. She expressed her surprise that after the departure ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... The housewife is advised to procure the cooked patty cases at the baker's shops, ready to be heated and filled with the following ragout. For a dozen patties remove the bones and skin from a pint bowlful of the white meat ...
— Breakfasts and Teas - Novel Suggestions for Social Occasions • Paul Pierce
... it was no less; had it been vastly greater, she would only have thought, "This will aid him the more." The little place was very clean, very sweet, ordered, quiet, and lovable. She was a trained housewife as well as the princess of his story, and she made the man she loved believe in Paradise. Each afternoon when he left the jargon and wrangling of the courtroom his mind turned at once to his home and its genius. All the ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston
... Jerome Pichon, is a collection of counsels addressed by a husband to his young wife, as to her conduct in society, in the world, and in the management of her household. The first part is devoted to developing the mind of the young housewife; and the second relates to the arrangements necessary for the welfare of her house. It must be remembered that the comparatively trifling duties relating to the comforts of private life, which devolved on the wife, were not ...
— Manners, Custom and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period • Paul Lacroix
... anything so altogether superfine, so utterly magnificent in my life," cried the king; "stewed peacocks' tongues from the Baltic, are not to be compared with it! Call out the housewife immediately!" ...
— The Pot of Gold - And Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins
... three-cornered closet, and found a little kettle just like Polly's, standing there, she felt that a good time was coming for her and fell to dusting furniture, washing cups, and making toast, the happiest, fussiest little housewife in the city. For Maud inherited the notable gifts of her grandmother, and would have made a capital farmer's daughter, in spite of ...
— An Old-fashioned Girl • Louisa May Alcott
... sat, and twisted string, bent his bow, and arrow-shafts prepared; but the housewife looked on her arms, smoothed her veil, and her ...
— The Elder Eddas of Saemund Sigfusson; and the Younger Eddas of Snorre Sturleson • Saemund Sigfusson and Snorre Sturleson
... them no more the blazing hearth shall burn, Nor busy housewife ply her evening care; No children run to lisp their sire's return, Or climb his knees the ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 69, February 22, 1851 • Various
... There they lighted twelve small fires and one large one[2], and forming a circle round the huge bonfire, they raised a shout, which was answered from all the neighbouring fields and villages. At home the busy housewife was preparing a hearty supper for the men. After supper they adjourned to the ox-stalls, and the master stood in front of the finest of the oxen and pledged him in a curious toast; the company followed his example with all the other oxen, and then they returned ...
— Old English Sports • Peter Hampson Ditchfield
... because of its secondary, feather-like leaflets, belongs to the umbelliferous plants, and is cultivated in our gardens; but its aromatic seeds chiefly come from Germany. The careful housewife will do well always to have a [25] supply of this most useful Simple closely bottled in her store cupboard. The herb is a variety of the Burnet Saxifrage, and yields an essential oil of a fine blue colour. To make the essence of Aniseed one part ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie
... William, where she resides, and found her seated by her fireside, with a favorite cat perched upon her shoulder and purring in her ear. Nanny Smith is a large, good-looking woman, a specimen of the old-fashioned country housewife, combining antiquated notions and prejudices, and very limited information, with natural good sense. She loves to gossip about the Abbey and Lord Byron, and was soon drawn into a course of anecdotes, though mostly of an humble kind, ...
— Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey • Washington Irving
... others an instant confidence. Her arduous literary labours never impaired her vigorous powers of mind or body, and she often wrote till late into the night without appearing to suffer in either health or spirits. She is described as a careful and energetic housewife; indeed, her husband was accustomed to say that he would challenge any woman who never wrote a line, to match his own good woman in the ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... leaps and bounds, and they dared to build a navy to defend and even to extend it. Delenda est Carthago! From that day the doom of "German militarism" was sealed; and England, democratic England, lay down with the Czar in the same bed to which the French housewife had already transferred her ...
— The Crime Against Europe - A Possible Outcome of the War of 1914 • Roger Casement
... man, though, I could glean nothing, till finally, a good housewife, overhearing her man and myself conversing, cried out, 'Eh! but by my surely, there's that Red Tom o' the "Fisherman's Rest," nigh to Saltburn, that's new come there, who features him you speak of; but he's nowt but a "fondy," oaf-rocked, they say he is; why, Moll who hawks t' fish about ...
— Border Ghost Stories • Howard Pease
... in New England, a kind of sentiment not provoked by other rooms. Here the farmer drops in to spend a few minutes when he comes back from the barn or field on an errand. Here, in the great, clean, sweet, comfortable place, the busy housewife lives, sometimes rocking the cradle, sometimes opening and shutting the oven door, sometimes stirring the pot, darning stockings, paring vegetables, or mixing goodies in a yellow bowl. The children sit on the steps, stringing beans, shelling peas, or hulling berries; the cat sleeps on the floor ...
— Homespun Tales • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... now began to flame The star of love; while o'er the northern sky That, which has oft raised Juno's jealousy, Pour'd forth its beauteous scintillating beam: Beside her kindled hearth the housewife dame, Half-dress'd, and slipshod, 'gan her distaff ply: And now the wonted hour of woe drew nigh, That wakes to tears the lover from his dream: When my sweet hope unto my mind appear'd, Not in the custom'd ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch
... cut out for a seamstress or a housewife, Paul. Tell Ruth not to try to force those things on her. Turn her loose out of doors; give her good books, and leave her alone. You won't be disappointed ...
— Laddie • Gene Stratton Porter
... help get supper. Do you think you can be content, instead of figs, pineapples, and all the other delicacies of Adam's supper-table, with tea and toast, and a certain modest supply of ham and tongue, which, with the instinct of a housewife, I brought hither in a basket? And there shall be bread and milk, too, if the innocence of your ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... his father, and how his grandmother, in '61, had put a Bible into one pocket and a housewife into another, and had sent him off to war. Had the fiber of our women weakened since then? But he knew it had not. All day, in the new plant, women were working with high-explosives quite calmly. And there were Audrey and the Haverford women, ...
— Dangerous Days • Mary Roberts Rinehart |
