"Midwife" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... see, Grand Duke of Egypt! They are ethereal demons, every one of them. They are the pick of a thousand births. Do you think that I, old midwife that I am, don't know the squall of the demon child from that of the angel child, the very moment they are delivered? Ask a musician, how he knows, even in the dark, a note struck by Thalberg from one struck ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... their usages, with respect to births, baptisms, and burials, are also curious. When the mother feels the fulness of time at hand, the priestess of Lucina, the midwife, is duly summoned, and she comes bearing in her hand a tripod, better known as a three-legged stool, the uses of which are only revealed to the initiated. She is received by the matronly friends of the mother, and begins the mysteries by opening every lock and lid ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt
... able to secure the right conditions for her own life and that of the child she is bearing, is able to claim the assistance of the village authorities; she is entitled, without payment, to the attendance of a doctor and midwife and to one franc a day during her confinement. The measures adopted in this village have practically abolished both maternal and infantile mortality. A few years ago Dr. Samson Moore, the medical officer of health for Huddersfield, heard of this village, and Mr. Benjamin Broadbent, the Mayor ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... invisible wire which brought the soul of them and left the body by the way. Duff Lindsay, so eminently responsive and calculable, came running with open arms; in his rejoiceful eye-beam one saw almost a midwife to one's idea. But the comparison was irritating, and after a time she turned from it. She awoke once in the night, moreover, to declare to the stars that she was less worried by the consideration of Arnold's sex than she would have thought it possible to be—one ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)
... certain piece in the beef, called the mouse-piece, which given to the child, or party so affected to eat, doth certainly cure the thrush. From an experienced midwife. ...
— Miscellanies upon Various Subjects • John Aubrey
... wife's strength keeps up there is, at all events, no direct danger. But why didn't you call in the young midwife? I remember having recommended ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume I • Gerhart Hauptmann
... One of our favourite pleasures was to unmoor the patricians' gondolas, and to let them float at random along the canals, enjoying by anticipation all the curses that gondoliers would not fail to indulge in. We would rouse up hurriedly, in the middle of the night, an honest midwife, telling her to hasten to Madame So-and-so, who, not being even pregnant, was sure to tell her she was a fool when she called at the house. We did the same with physicians, whom we often sent half dressed to some nobleman who was enjoying excellent health. The priests ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... her case heard—the case all living things have against the Power that creates them without so much as asking leave. The riot she made being interpreted by both father and uncle as protest against Mrs. Twiggins, a midwife who made herself disagreeable—or, strictly speaking, more disagreeable; being normally unpleasant, and apt to snap when spoke to, however civil—it was thought desirable to call in the help of her Aunt M'riar, who ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... uncivilized nations acknowledge the superiority of Europeans in medicine, so did the Fairies resort in perplexing cases to man for aid. There is a class of tales which has reached our days in which the Fairy lady, who is about to become a mother, obtains from amongst men a midwife, whom she rewards with rich presents for her services. Variants of this story are found in many parts of Wales, and in many continental countries. I will relate a few ...
— Welsh Folk-Lore - a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales • Elias Owen
... remote? The book went forward; yet, more than once recently, Carteret had questioned whether his friend would ever get himself fairly delivered of the admirable volume were not he—Carteret—permanently at hand to act midwife. An unpleasant idea pursued him that Sir Charles went, in some strange fashion, in fear of Damaris, of her criticism, her judgment. Yet fear seemed a hatefully strong and ugly word to employ as between a father and daughter so straitly, heretofore, ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... cat's-meat warehouse; the renown of which establishments was duly heralded on their respective fronts. It was a little house, and this was the more convenient; for Mrs Gamp being, in her highest walk of art, a monthly nurse, or, as her sign-board boldly had it, 'Midwife,' and lodging in the first-floor front, was easily assailable at night by pebbles, walking-sticks, and fragments of tobacco-pipe; all much more efficacious than the street-door knocker, which was so constructed as to wake the street with ease, and even spread alarms of fire in ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... legal informality in these proceedings that Roaring Camp—a city of refuge—was indebted to his company. The crowd approved the choice, and Stumpy was wise enough to bow to the majority. The door closed on the extempore surgeon and midwife, and Roaring Camp sat down outside, smoked its pipe, and awaited ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... they lock the doors on them[FN399] and not one of them can pass about the bazar nor even look out of casement; nor knoweth any the cause of this calamity. But, O my son, to-night I will question my wife concerning the reason thereof, for she is a midwife and entereth the houses of the notables and knoweth all the city news. So Inshallah, do thou come to me to-morrow and I will tell thee what she shall have told me." With this Kamar al-Zaman pulled out a handful of gold and said to him, "O my father, take this gold and give it to thy wife, ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton
... all hard if he happens to be no bigger than you are!" Mashurina retorted with a self-satisfied smile. (She had quite recently passed her examination as a midwife. Coming from a poor aristocratic family, she had left her home in the south of Russia about two years before, and with about twelve shillings in her pocket had arrived in Moscow, where she had entered a lying-in institution and had worked very ...
— Virgin Soil • Ivan S. Turgenev
... wish to justify his ambitions by having an heir. This happy result of matrimony he considered doubtful, or he would not so long have postponed the step; however, finding himself still above ground in 1823, at the age of forty-three, a length of years which no doctor, astrologer, or midwife would have dared to promise him, he hoped to earn the reward of his sober life. And yet his choice showed such a lack of prudence in regard to his frail constitution, that the malicious wit of a country town could not help thinking it must be the ...
— Parisians in the Country - The Illustrious Gaudissart, and The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... branches filled with little, naked urchins, seemingly just ripened into life, and crying for succour: beneath, a woman holds up her apron, looking wistfully at the children, as if intreating them to jump into her lap. On inquiry, I found it to be the house of a sworn midwife, with this Dutch inscription prefixed to ...
— A Wanderer in Holland • E. V. Lucas
... is parcelled out into estates of villages.[3] The village communities are composed of those who hold and cultivate the land, the established village servants, priest, blacksmith, carpenter, accountant, washerman, basket-maker (whose wife is ex officio the midwife of the little village community), potter, watchman, barber, shoemaker, &c., &c.[4] To these may be added the little banker, or agricultural capitalist, the shopkeeper, the brazier, the confectioner, the ironmonger, the weaver, the dyer, the astronomer or astrologer, who points out to the people ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... her wheat by the million bushels, a hundred banks lend hundreds of millions of dollars in the year, and scores of factories turn out plow-gear and machinery by steam. Scores of daily papers do work which Hukm Chund and the barber and the midwife perform, with due regard for public opinion, in the village of Isser Jang. So far as manufactories go, the difference between Chicago on the lake, and Isser Jang on the Montgomery road, is one of degree only, and not of kind. As far as the understanding of the uses of life ...
— American Notes • Rudyard Kipling
... the Church, the midwife goeth foremost, carrying the childe, and the Godfathers and Godmothers follow into the midst of the Church, where there is a small table ready set, and on it an earthen pot ful of warme water, about the which the Godfathers and Godmothers, with the childe, settle themselues: ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, • Richard Hakluyt
... of my Missis and the children. My mother was a seamstress and had three younger seamsters under her, that she taught to sew. We made the clothes for all the house servants and fiel' hans. My mother made some of the clothes for my marster and missis. My mother was a midwife too, and useter go to all the birthings on our place. She had a bag she always carried and when she went to other plantations she had a horse and ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Georgia Narratives, Part 4 • Works Projects Administration
... uncommon merit and unmistakably in the great line—whose agonizing labours seem to have been eased somewhat by the comfortable ministrations of a black and grinning muse. Midwifery, to be sure, seems an odd occupation for a lady whom one pictures rather in the role of a flapper: but a midwife was what the poet needed, and in that capacity she has served him. Apparently it is only by adopting a demurely irreverent attitude, by being primly insolent, and by playing the devil with the instrument of Shakespeare and Milton that Mr. Eliot is able occasionally to deliver himself ...
— Since Cezanne • Clive Bell
... at that certainty in the matter, that I could venture to foretell what women would be affected with the disease, upon hearing by what midwife they were to be delivered, or by what nurse they were to be attended, during their lying-in; and, almost in every instance, my ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... only slanderous throats, but slanderous ears also; not only wicked inventions, which engender and brood lies, but wicked assents, which hatch and foster them. Not only the spiteful mother that conceiveth such spurious brats, but the midwife that helpeth to bring them forth, the nurse that feedeth them, the guardian that traineth them up to maturity, and setteth them forth to live in the world; as they do really contribute to their subsistence, so deservedly ...
— Sermons on Evil-Speaking • Isaac Barrow
... the distinction between the Greek and the Hebrew method is most marked. Socrates, for example, called himself the midwife of men's thoughts. His maxim was, "Know thyself." His cross-examination was designed to make men see for themselves. That is, he taught by reason. But the prophet's claim was, "Thus saith the Lord!" He spoke out of his personal and passionate ...
— The Chief End of Man • George S. Merriam
... decidedly a family match. Prince Francis Charles Augustus Albert Emmanuel of Saxe-Coburg—Gotha—for such was his full title—had been born just three months after his cousin Victoria, and the same midwife had assisted at the two births. The children's grandmother, the Dowager Duchess of Coburg, had from the first looked forward to their marriage, as they grew up, the Duke, the Duchess of Kent, and ...
— Queen Victoria • Lytton Strachey
... short discouse [Transcriber's Note: discourse] I have explained myself when I design to treat of it in the famous subject of the Art of Printing. It hath been the labour of several years past, and if now I shall have assistance to midwife it into the world, I shall be well satisfied for the sake of the curious. For these 10 years past I have spared no cost in collecting books on this subject, and likewise drafts of the effigies of our famous printers, with other designs ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... white towel. A cradle covered with white, rose-coloured and light-blue stuff. Baby clothes are spread out here and there. A green dress hangs on the right-hand wall. Four Sisters of Mercy are on their knees, facing the door at the back, dressed in the black and white of Augustinian nuns. The midwife, who is in black, is by the fireplace. The child's nurse wears a peasant's dress, of black and white, from Brittany. The MOTHER is standing listening by the door at the back. The STRANGER is sitting on a chair right and is trying to read a book. A ...
— The Road to Damascus - A Trilogy • August Strindberg
... consummation of the conflict in which he had played so prominent, and spirited, and successful a part, he still deserves to be remembered with gratitude and affection by the nation, now grown big, at whose birth he so nobly played the part of midwife. James Otis was born at Great Marshes, now known as West Barnstable, February 5, 1725 (old style, February 5, 1724). His ancestor, John Otis, came from England about the year 1657, and settled in the town of Hingham. The family was from the first distinguished by public spirit, and by ...
— The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, Bay State Monthly, Volume 4, No. 4, April, 1886 • Various
... Peregrine, in compliment to the memory of a deceased uncle. While the mother confined to her bed, and incapable of maintaining her own authority, Mrs. Grizzle took charge of the infant baby double claim, and superintended, with surprising vigilance, the nurse and midwife in all the particulars of their respective offices, which were performed by her express direction. But no sooner was Mrs. Pickle in a condition to reassume the management of her own affairs, when she thought proper to alter certain regulations concerning the child, which had obtained in ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... hemorrhage, afterpains, and the oedema of pregnancy. The causes of difficult labor, according to Gilbert, are malposition, dropsy, immoderate size and death of the fetus, debility of the uterus and obstruction of the maternal passages. Malpositions are to be corrected by the hand of the midwife (obstetrix). Adjuvant measures are hot baths, poultices, inunctions, fumigations and sternutatories, and the use of ...
— Gilbertus Anglicus - Medicine of the Thirteenth Century • Henry Ebenezer Handerson
... foot of the bed is the midwife, and a servant who has brought drink for St. Anne. The servant stops, seeing her so quiet; asking the midwife, Shall I give it her now? The midwife, her hands lifted under her robe, in the attitude of thanksgiving, (with Giotto ...
— Mornings in Florence • John Ruskin
... same village where my father and my mother dwelt, dwelt also a thin, upright, motherly, notable, good old body of a midwife, who with the help of a little plain good sense, and some years full employment in her business, in which she had all along trusted little to her own efforts, and a great deal to those of dame Nature,—had ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... how she had tried to find a midwife, and how they had demanded ten, fifteen, even twenty-five dollars, and that in cash. "And I had only a quarter," she said. "I have spent every cent of my money—all that I had in the bank; and I owe the doctor who ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... strength, that's true.... Well? How much does it come to? [Pays] Take your pound of flesh! Good-bye, children! Good-night and pleasant dreams! It's time I hurried off. I'm bringing my lady a midwife from the hospital.... She must be getting wet with waiting, poor thing.... [Runs ...
— Plays by Chekhov, Second Series • Anton Chekhov
... a midwife, of whom all we will say is that she was a friend of the mother, visited Louise, who remained in bed for a few days, and then got up paler and ...
— Camille (La Dame aux Camilias) • Alexandre Dumas, fils
... Was sickly; and a smile was seen to pass Across the midwife's cheek, when, holding up The feeble wretch, she to the father said, "A fine man-child!" What else could they expect? The father being, as I said ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - tailor in Dalkeith • D. M. Moir
... wrapped in a hand-woven christening blanket—a "bearing-cloth"—the unfortunate young Puritan was carried to church in the arms of the midwife, who was a person of vast importance and dignity as well as of service in early colonial days, when families of from fifteen to twenty children were quite the common quota. At the altar the baby was placed in his proud father's arms, and received his first cold and disheartening reception ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle
... screamed and laughed and clapped their hands, and trod on the wounded, but I got 'er goin' again. I got 'er to Poperinghe. Two soldiers died on the way, and a lunatic had fallen out somewhere, and a baby was born in the 'bus; and me with no conductor and no midwife. ...
— Waiting for Daylight • Henry Major Tomlinson
... my poor Bouilhet, I lost my midwife, it was he who saw into my thought more clearly than I did myself. His death has left a void that I notice more each day. What is the use of making concessions? Why force oneself? I am quite resolved, on the contrary, to write in future for my personal satisfaction, ...
— The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters • George Sand, Gustave Flaubert
... woman who carries around a Pomeranian dog, if she should ever have a child inadvertently, would give the midwife $500 ...
— The American Credo - A Contribution Toward the Interpretation of the National Mind • George Jean Nathan
... signified the grand constellation called Draco, or the Dragon. And the figure is sublime. It is still more sublime in the Douai translation. "His obstetric hand hath brought forth the Winding Serpent." This is certainly a grand imagination—the hand of God, like the hand of a midwife, bringing forth a constellation out of the womb of the eternal night. But in the revised version, which is exact, we have only "His hand hath pierced the Swift Serpent!" ...
— Books and Habits from the Lectures of Lafcadio Hearn • Lafcadio Hearn
... in appearance (as they say) older than his years. A great pity seized her for Corona, and in the rush of pity all her oddities and grown-up tricks of speech (Americanisms apart) explained themselves. She was an old father's child. Nurse Branscome was midwife enough to know what freakishness and frailty belong to children begotten by old age. Yet Corona, albeit gaunt with growing, was lithe and well-formed, and of a healthy complexion and a clear, ...
— Brother Copas • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... child-bearing came upon her, before she could make any provision for her delivery, but providence interposed on their behalf at this time also: While she travailed in the night-season, and the good man knew not where to apply for a midwife, a gentlewoman came early in the morning riding to the door, and having sent her servant back with the horse, with orders when to return. She went in, and asked the maid of the house, How her mistress was, and desired access to her, which she obtained; she first ordered a ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... "Aeneid," and taught me no more from it, but spent his hours for the most part in meditation, often with a Bible open on his knee—although his eyes could not read it. Sally, our cook, told me one day that when the foolish midwife came and laid the child in his arms, not telling him that it was dead, he felt it over and broke forth in a terrible cry— ...
— Poison Island • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... is an Archimedes and an Archimagus and a Tycho Brahe and a Copernicus; and thou art the darling of the Nine, and midwife to their wandering babe also! We take tea with that learned poet and critic on Tuesday night, at half-past five, in his neat library; the repast will be light and Attic, with criticism. If thou couldst contrive to wheel up thy dear carcase on the Monday, and after dining with us on tripe, calves' ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... been so unjustly laughed out of countenance, that I must distinctly give my reasons for believing it to be true, and alleging it here as the fulfilling of this ancient prophecy before us.—1st. The man-midwife, Mr. Howard of Godalmin in Surrey, a person of very great honesty, skill and reputation in his profession, attested it.—It was believed by King George to be real; and it was also believed by my old friends the ...
— A Poetical Review of the Literary and Moral Character of the late Samuel Johnson (1786) • John Courtenay
... no harm shall befall her during his absence. The queen is delivered at one birth of seven lovely children, six boys and one girl, each of whom has a silver chain around its neck.[FN426] The king's mother plots with the midwife to do away with the babes and place seven little dogs in bed beside the poor queen. She gives the children to one of her squires, charging him either to slay them or cast them into the river. But when the squire enters the forest his heart relents and laying the infants ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... is infinitely the most dangerous company. A French woman is as great an adept at laughing an English-woman into all contempt of fidelity to her husband, as married English-women are in general, in preparing them during their first pregnancy, for the touch of a man-midwife,—and both from the same motive; i.e. to do, as they have done, and bring all ...
— A Year's Journey through France and Part of Spain, Volume II (of 2) • Philip Thicknesse
... the law of Lycurgus, which forbade a child, male or female, to be brought up without the approbation of public officers appointed ad hoc. One of the curses of the 19th century is the increased skill of the midwife and the physician, who are now able to preserve worthless lives and to bring up semi-abortions whose only effect upon the breed is increased degeneracy." [534] He thought with Edward FitzGerald and many ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... families then than they have now. Ma name Emmaline Thompson. Pa name Sam Adair. I can't tell you about him. I heard em say his pa was a white man. He was light skinned. Old folks didn't talk much foe children so I don't know well nough to tell you bout him. Ma was a cook and a licensed midwife in Alabama. She waited on both black and white. Ma never staid at home much. She worked out. I come to Mississippi after I married and had one child. Ma and all come. Ma went to Tom McGehee's to cook after freedom. She married old man named Lewis Chase and ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... the midwife is carried out in the filthiest parts of the city among the lowest of the city's population, both day and night, in sun and rain ... A patient whose 'address' was registered at the Triplicane Centre was searched for by a ...
— Lighted to Lighten: The Hope of India • Alice B. Van Doren
... doctors within its precincts. In 1671 a decree was published commanding the arms of France to be removed from all the places of worship belonging to the pretended Reformers. In 1680 a proclamation from the king closed the profession of midwife to women of the Reformed faith. In 1681 those who renounced the Protestant religion were exempted for two years from all contributions towards the support of soldiers sent to their town, and were for the same ...
— Massacres Of The South (1551-1815) - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... morning before dawn Uncle Jase Burrell and a neighbour woman, versed in the homely practises of the midwife, came to the room where Parish Thornton sat with tightly clenched hands before ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... come back to Mrs. Smith. She went away from the indignant adamant doctor. But she was determined not to give birth to another child. She confided her trouble to a neighbor, who sent her to a midwife. The midwife was neither very expert, nor very clean. Mrs. Smith had to go to her two or three times. After bleeding for about ten days she developed blood poisoning, from which she died a few days later, at the early age of twenty-nine, ...
— Woman - Her Sex and Love Life • William J. Robinson
... "A midwife—is that what you want to be, girl?" Peer couldn't help laughing. So this was what she had been planning in these days—since he had offered to help her ...
— The Great Hunger • Johan Bojer
... Thus in Rhenish Bavaria the navel-string is kept for a while wrapt up in a piece of old linen, and then cut or pricked to pieces according as the child is a boy or a girl, in order that he or she may grow up to be a skilful workman or a good sempstress. In Berlin the midwife commonly delivers the dried navel-string to the father with a strict injunction to preserve it carefully, for so long as it is kept the child will live and thrive and be free from sickness. In Beauce and Perche the people are ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... of this meeting, yet I thank him therefor. For who is this goodly and gracious young man save the King's son of Oakenrealm, Christopher that was; and that to my certain knowledge; for he is my fosterling and my milk-child, and I took him from the hands of the midwife in the High House of Oakenham a twenty-one years ago; and they took him from Oakenham, and me with him to the house of Lord Richard the Lean, at Longholms, and there we dwelt; but in a little while they took him away from Longholms to ...
— Child Christopher • William Morris
... grasping, vulturish. Hooked, caught. Hool, the outer case, the sheath. Hoolie, softly. Hoord, hoard. Hoordet, hoarded. Horn, a horn spoon; a comb of horn. Hornie, the Devil. Host, v. hoast. Hotch'd, jerked. Houghmagandie, fornication. Houlet, v. howlet. Houpe, hope. Hove, swell. Howdie, howdy, a midwife. Howe, hollow. Howk, to dig. Howlet, the owl. Hoyse, a hoist. Hoy't, urged (R. B.). Hoyte, to amble crazily (R. B.). Hughoc, dim. of Hugh. Hullions, slovens. Hunder, a hundred. Hunkers, hams. Hurcheon, the hedgehog. Hurchin, urchin. Hurdies, ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... the first rain for many weeks, and foreign visitors, accustomed to think of Nepenthe as a rainless land, were almost as interested in the watery shower as in that of the ashes. Mud, such mud as the oldest midwife could not remember, encumbered the roofs, the fields, the roadways. It looked as if the whole island were plastered over with a coating of liquid chocolate. Now, if the shower ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... own sex. Indeed, so strong was the prejudice on this point that women were known to die of abdominal tumors rather than allow male physicians to examine them. The admission of men to the profession of midwife marked a ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... fully satisfied him, so that he ordered his gentleman to dismiss the old woman the same day; and without any difficulty I sent my maid Amy to Calais, and thence to Dover, where she got an English midwife and an English nurse to come over on purpose to attend an English lady of quality, as they styled me, for four ...
— The Fortunate Mistress (Parts 1 and 2) • Daniel Defoe
... extreme delight and ease. It happened that [my wife] the wazir's daughter, became pregnant; when the seventh and eighth months had passed, and she entered her full time, the pains came on; the nurse and midwife came, and a dead child was brought forth; its poison infected the mother, and she also died. I became frantic with grief, and exclaimed, what a dreadful calamity has burst upon me! I was seated at the head of the bed, and weeping; all at ...
— Bagh O Bahar, Or Tales of the Four Darweshes • Mir Amman of Dihli
... appeared in Court was the midwife who had assisted at the birth of Salome. She testified to the existence of certain peculiar marks upon the body of the child, which were found, exactly as described, by the surgeons who were appointed by the Court to make an ...
— Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom • William and Ellen Craft
... engaged in the Assembly with the work of splicing this Constitution, of discussing and voting, Cavaignac, on the outside, maintained the state of siege of Paris. The state of siege of Paris was the midwife of the constitutional assembly, during its republican pains of travail. When the Constitution is later on swept off the earth by the bayonet, it should not be forgotten that it was by the bayonet, likewise—and the bayonet turned against the people, at that—that it had ...
— The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte • Karl Marx
... names ther hes bein mistakes both on the Ministers hand and the holder ups. Mr. James Vood was baptizing a man at St. Androws, and instead that he sould have baptized James, he called it John. The father, a litle bumbaized at this, after the barne is baptized and that he hes given it back to the midwife, he stands up and looks the Minister as griveously in the face and sayes, Sir, what sal I do wt 2 Johns, we have a John at home else, Sir? Whow would ye called then, Robin? quo' the Minister. James, Sir. James be the name of ...
— Publications of the Scottish History Society, Vol. 36 • Sir John Lauder
... Having at length exhausted his fancy in fabricating, shaping and denying particular charges, hardly one of which ever existed, he ranges up his whole artillery of vengeance;—the battle becomes general:—And the famous Doctor Slop, the man midwife, did not pour a more copious and continued shower of curses upon Obadiah, who had tied his bag of instruments with hard knots, than is thus suddenly let fly upon the devoted head of the Editor of the Saratoga Journal. "Really" said the Frenchman to an old woman who had been storming ...
— A Review and Exposition, of the Falsehoods and Misrepresentations, of a Pamphlet Addressed to the Republicans of the County of Saratoga, Signed, "A Citizen" • An Elector
... "Grandma was a midwife and doctored all the babies on the place. She said they had a big room where they was and a old woman kept them. They et milk for breakfast and buttermilk and clabber for supper. They always had bread. For dinner they had meat boiled and one other thing like ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Arkansas Narratives Part 3 • Works Projects Administration
... Virtue meet with a personage called Intelligence, who furnishes them with a detailed account of current scandal calculated to still further depress the dejected Virtue. The trio are soon joined by Mrs. Nightwork, a midwife, who never breaks an oath of secrecy unless it be to her interest, and the character of whose contributions to the general fund of gossip may be easily imagined. This semi-allegorical method of narration is kept up during the first ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman
... when nine months were fulfilled to Anna, she brought forth, and said to the midwife, What have ...
— The Forbidden Gospels and Epistles, Complete • Archbishop Wake
... emperor expressed great joy, which was communicated to all the court, and spread throughout the empire of Persia. Upon this news the two sisters came to pay their compliments, and proffered their service to deliver her, desiring her, if not provided with a midwife, to ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... rabbits. All the people mentioned were connected with this case. Nathaniel St. Andre was the surgeon and anatomist to the King, and Cyriacus Ahlers the King's private surgeon; John Howard was the apothecary. The imposture was finally brought to light before Sir Richard Manningham (the famous man-midwife who probably influenced Sterne) and Dr. James Douglas. Among the many contemporary pamphlets on this subject is one ...
— A Learned Dissertation on Dumpling (1726) • Anonymous
... had been absolutely neglected by the adherents of the new dogmas. That other phase was the driving power of instinct, a power uncontrolled and unnoticed. The great fundamental instinct of sex was expressing itself in these ever-growing broods, in the prosperity of the slum midwife and her colleague the slum undertaker. In spite of all my sympathy with the dream of liberated Labor, I was driven to ask whether this urging power of sex, this deep instinct, was not at least partially responsible, along with industrial ...
— The Pivot of Civilization • Margaret Sanger
... made some clothes for the preservation of her child (a circumstance which was in her favour), and she hired a bed-room in an adjacent street, to be ready to receive a woman in labour at a moment's notice. Her scheme was, when taken in labour, to have run out to that house, to be delivered by a midwife, who was to have been brought to her. She was to have gone home presently after, and to have made the best excuse she could for being out. She had heard of soldiers wives being delivered behind a hedge, and following the husband ...
— On the uncertainty of the signs of murder in the case of bastard children • William Hunter
... faint meaning make pretense, But Shadwell never deviates into sense. . . . The midwife laid her hand on his thick skull With ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... come. 'Sbud, a man had as good be a professed midwife as a professed whoremaster, at this rate; to be knocked up and raised at all hours, and in all places. Pox on 'em, I won't come. D'ye hear, tell 'em I won't come. Let 'em snivel ...
— The Way of the World • William Congreve
... one of his Dialogues tells us, that Socrates, who was the Son of a Midwife, used to say, that as his Mother, tho she was very skilful in her Profession, could not deliver a Woman, unless she was first with Child; so neither could he himself raise Knowledge out of a Mind, where Nature had ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... at Goa, of Canarin parents, a hairy monster like a monkey, having a round head and only one eye in the forehead, over which it had horns, and its ears were like those of a kid. When received by the midwife, it cried with a loud voice, and stood up on its feet. The father put it into a hencoop, whence it got out and flew upon its mother; on which the father killed it by pouring scalding water on its head, and could scarcely cut off the head ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VI - Early English Voyages Of Discovery To America • Robert Kerr
... them, whose "professional" services were generally brought into request when the pills proved inoperative. This was the secret of Madame Restell's reputation and immense accumulated fortune. Her occupation was that of a midwife, and in that assumed capacity she advertised her "Female Pills." As all the world knows now, her real vocation was the ante-natal destruction of unwelcome babies. To her gorgeous palace at the corner of Fifth avenue ...
— Danger! A True History of a Great City's Wiles and Temptations • William Howe
... trained nurse?" asked Mrs. Bracher, who was that, as well as a motor cyclist and a woman of property, a certificated midwife, and a veterinarian. ...
— Young Hilda at the Wars • Arthur Gleason
... Hovenden Walker. The "man midwife" was Sir Chamberlen Walker, his younger brother. The "secret expedition" against Quebec conveyed upwards of 5000 soldiers, under the command of General John Hill (see Letter 10, note 2), but owing to the want of due preparations and the ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... of an unguent wherewith she anointed her body, her condition remained unsuspected by even the women at the baths, which at that time were taken in common. And when her confinement drew nigh she went down to her cavern, and there, with no midwife, alone, she gave birth to two sons, as a lioness throws off her cubs. She nourished her twins with her milk, she nursed them through childhood; and for nine years she stood by her husband in the gloom and ...
— Wisdom and Destiny • Maurice Maeterlinck
... him!'—'And as to what concerns your secret mission and your discovered conspiracy,' said I to the Austrian ambassador, 'I am sorry that you cannot here give birth to the dear children of your inventive head; go with them to our midwife, Minister Golopkin, and hasten a little, for I see in your face that you are already ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... witnesses met, and there the Sanhedrin examined them. And they made great feasts for them, that they might come often. At first they did not stir from thence all day.(297) Rabban Gamaliel the elder ordained, that they might go 2,000 cubits on every side. And not only they, but the midwife going to a birth; and they who go to rescue from fire, or from enemies, or from inundation, or from fallen buildings. These are as inhabitants of the place, and they have 2,000 ...
— Hebrew Literature
... certainty, the carriage door was opened, the two women alighted, and after having once more raised their eyes to a strip of wood, some six or eight feet long by two broad, which was nailed above the windows of the second storey, and bore the inscription, "Madame Voison, midwife," stole quickly into a passage, the door of which was unfastened, and in which there was just so much light as enabled persons passing in or out to find their way along the narrow winding stair that led from the ground ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE GANGES—1657 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... of Fairefeild testifyeth vpon oath, that goodwife Whitlock, goodwife Staplyes and herselfe, were at the graue and desired to see ye markes of the witch that was hanged, they looked but found them not at first, then the midwife came & shewed them, goodwife Staplyes said she neuer saw such, and she beleeved no honest ...
— The Witchcraft Delusion In Colonial Connecticut (1647-1697) • John M. Taylor
... expected to be delivered, he begged her to try a change of air and remove to his house, where she would recover her health more quickly than at home. Thither she went with but a very small following, and found there a midwife who had been summoned as for her brother's wife, and who one night, without recognising her, delivered her of a fine little girl. The gentleman gave the child to a nurse, and caused it to be cared ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. III. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... no attraction in publishing at headlong speed. I would willingly, with pleasure, with feeling, in a leisurely way, describe the whole of my hero, describe the state of his mind while his wife was in labour, his trial, the horrid feeling he has after he is acquitted; I would describe the midwife and the doctors having tea in the middle of the night, I would describe the rain.... It would give me nothing but pleasure because I like to rummage about and dawdle. But what am I to do? I begin a story on September 10th with the thought that I must finish ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov
... corner of the Rue de Marbeuf he read on a board in big letters: "Private Lying-in-Hospital, kept by Madame Alessandri, first-class midwife, ex-pupil of the Maternity, author of various works, etc." Then, in the centre of the street, over the door—a little side-door—there was another signboard: "Private Hospital of Madame Alessandri," with ...
— Sentimental Education, Volume II - The History of a Young Man • Gustave Flaubert
... are informed by divers persons of repute and godliness, that Mrs. Jane Preswick hath, through the blessing of God, been very successful within Dublin and parts about, through the carefull and skillfull discharge of her midwife's duty, and instrumental to helpe sundry poore women who needed her helpe, which bathe abounded to the comfourte and preservation of many English women, who (being come into a strange country) had otherwise ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin
... pieces, all of which he declared to be transcripts from manuscripts in Canynge's chest, and the work of Thomas Rowley, a secular priest of Bristol, who flourished about 1460. Catcott was a local book-collector and the partner of Mr. Burgum. He was subsequently nicknamed "Rowley's midwife." ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... "I was a midwife myself, to black and white, after freedom. De Thomson doctors all liked me and tole people to 'git Nancy.' I used 'tansy tea'—heap o' little root—made black pepper tea, fotch de pains on 'em. When ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: Volume IV, Georgia Narratives, Part 1 • Works Projects Administration
... personal knowledge of Elizabeth. A little wine was mulled; the girl could not swallow it, emaciated as she was. Her condition need not be described in detail, but she was very near her death, as the medical evidence, and that of a midwife (who consoled Mrs. Canning on one point), proves ...
— Historical Mysteries • Andrew Lang
... fortune to be born of a German princess; but a man-midwife, pulling my head off in delivering my mother, put a speedy end to ...
— From This World to the Next • Henry Fielding
... selected serves the child through life as a patron saint and protector. Frequently the village barber acts in the place of a priest and puts on the sacred thread. A similar thread placed around the neck of a child, and often around its waist by the midwife immediately after birth, is intended as an amulet or charm to protect from disease and danger. It is usually a strand of silk which has been blessed by some holy man or sanctified by being placed around the neck of an idol ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis
... the scene of which is laid near Beddgelert, runs, as translated by Professor Rhys, in this way:—"Once on a time, when a midwife from Nanhwynan had newly got to the Hafodydd Brithion to pursue her calling, a gentleman came to the door on a fine grey steed and bade her come with him at once. Such was the authority with which he spoke, that the poor midwife durst not refuse to go, however much ...
— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland
... nothing. Mr. Secretary frets at their tediousness, but hopes great things from it, though he owns four or five princes are in the secret; and, for that reason, I fear it is no secret to France. There are eight regiments; and the Admiral(3) is your Walker's brother the midwife. ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... celebration of the nuptials between Captain Blifil and Miss Bridget Allworthy, a young lady of great beauty, merit, and fortune, was Miss Bridget, by reason of a fright, delivered of a fine boy. The child was indeed to all appearances perfect; but the midwife discovered it was born a ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... is, that these devout unfortunates found a revenue in their devotion. It is everywhere the same tale; on the side of the soft-hearted ladies, substantial acts of help; on the side of the correspondents, affection, italics, texts, ecstasies, and imperfect spelling. When a midwife is recommended, not at all for proficiency in her important art, but because she has 'a sister whom I [the correspondent] esteem and respect, and [who] is a spiritual daughter of my Hond Father in the Gosple,' ...
— Records of a Family of Engineers • Robert Louis Stevenson
... protestants are too numerous to detail; but the treatment of Philip de Deux will give an idea of the rest. After the miscreants had slain this martyr in his bed, they went to his wife, who was then attended by the midwife, expecting every moment to be delivered. The midwife entreated them to stay the murder, at least till the child, which was the twentieth, should be born. Notwithstanding this, they thrust a dagger up to the hilt into the poor woman. Anxious to be delivered, ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... son of Sophroniscus, a statuary, and Phaenarete, a midwife, was born B.C. 468. He lived all his life at Athens, serving indeed as a soldier at Potidaea, Amphipolis, and in the battle of Delium; but with these exceptions he never left the city; where he lived as a teacher of philosophy; not, however, founding a school or giving lectures, ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... to this warning wenches now, That Lady Adhan giues vnto you all, Were you not better marriage to allow, Then in a manner for a Midwife call: I thinke you were if I might iudge the cause, How say you Susan, speake ...
— The Bride • Samuel Rowlands et al
... Socrates was a stonecutter and his mother a midwife, so very naturally the son had a beautiful contempt for pedigree. Socrates once said to Plato, "Anybody can trace to Codrus—by paying enough to the man who makes the family-tree." This seems to show that genealogy ...
— Little Journeys To The Homes Of Great Teachers • Elbert Hubbard |
