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Helpmate

noun
1.
A helpful partner.  Synonym: helpmeet.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Helpmate" Quotes from Famous Books



... tenderness, but he spurned it; then by tears and entreaties, but he derided them. As a last effort, she tried to pique him by coldness—this pleased him best, for it relieved him from her presence. He made no attempt to conceal his dislike and contempt for his unhappy helpmate, or to throw a veil over his irregularities and dissipation. He had been much disappointed in the discovery that he could not obtain possession of any of the capital of his wife's fortune; and the sale of his commission, which was soon arranged, proved far from sufficient ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847. • Various

... Stevenson, his wife, Margaret Balfour, had no less powerful an individuality; in beauty of person, in grace of manner, in the brilliance of a quick and flashing feminine intelligence—that was deep as well as bright—she was a fitting helpmate for her husband, and the very mother to sympathise with and encourage a son whose genius showed itself in quaint sayings, in dainty ways, and in chivalrous thoughts almost from ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson • Margaret Moyes Black

... incompetent to take care of her own interests and shape her own life so long as she does not look higher, so long as she consents to the superiority of man and believes that her lot is simply that of serving and pleasing man in bed and home, instead of being his true helpmate and companion, for the progress and felicity ...
— The Woman and the Right to Vote • Rafael Palma

... her now, he was gazing ahead with his blue eyes filled with light, and she saw that there was something far beyond the physical magnetism which drew her to him, and a pride and joy filled her. She would indeed be his helpmate in all his undertakings and striving for noble ends. They talked for some time of these things and their plans to aid in their fulfilment, and then they gradually spoke of Verisschenzko and Amaryllis asked what was the latest news—he was in Russia, ...
— The Price of Things • Elinor Glyn

... the decade thus closed, form a marked contrast worthy of particular portraiture. The Duke of Rutland, a dashing profligate, was sent over, it was thought, to ruin public liberty by undermining private virtue, a task in which he found a willing helpmate in his beautiful but dissipated Duchess. During his three years' reign were sown the seeds of that reckless private expenditure, and general corruption of manners, which drove so many bankrupt lords and gentlemen into the market overt, where Lord Castlereagh and Secretary Cooke, a dozen ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee

... conjures it, works it out. Unlike the Cassandra of old, who awaited mournfully the future she foresaw so well, this woman herself creates the future. Even more than Circe, than Medea, does she bear in her hand the rod of natural miracle, with Nature herself as sister and helpmate. Already she wears the features of a modern Prometheus. With her industry begins, especially that queen-like industry which heals and restores mankind. As the Sibyl seemed to gaze upon the morning, so she, contrariwise, looks towards the west; but it is just that gloomy west, which long ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet

... to express himself not only in song but in orchestral music. His first effort was the beautiful B flat major Symphony, which, with the songs of that time seems to embody all the happiness he enjoyed in winning his Clara. She proved a most admirable helpmate, trying to shield him from interruptions and annoyance of every sort, so he should have his time undisturbed for his work. Thus many of his best compositions came into being in the early ...
— The World's Great Men of Music - Story-Lives of Master Musicians • Harriette Brower

... distant sail appearing, her cradle hymn the ceaseless sound of the everlasting deep, there lived a little child whose name was Grace Darling. Her father was the keeper of the light-house; and here Grace lived and grew up to the age of twenty-two, her mother's constant helpmate in all domestic duties. She had a fair and healthy countenance, which wore a kind and cheerful smile, proceeding from a heart at peace with others, and happy in the consciousness of endeavoring ...
— Thrilling Stories Of The Ocean • Marmaduke Park

... that a widower was to be her future helpmate, for her fingers went into the sandy saucer ...
— Ethel Morton's Holidays • Mabell S. C. Smith

... tempered, and that is all. My only scruple in advising the match was on his account, as being beneath his deserts, and a bad connexion for him. I felt that, as to fortune, in all probability he might do much better; and that as to a rational companion or useful helpmate, he could not do worse. But I could not reason so to a man in love, and was willing to trust to there being no harm in her, to her having that sort of disposition, which, in good hands, like his, might be easily led aright and turn out very well. The advantage ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen

... dotard,' replied his gentle helpmate, her wrath, which had hitherto wandered abroad over the whole assembly, being at once and violently impelled into its natural channel, 'YE stand there hammering dog-heads for fules that will never snap them ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott

... poor man really can be a helpmate, but the wife of a rich man is so often only asked to be a mistress who can bear her husband legitimate children. Everything which a woman can do, a rich woman pays other women to do for her, while she graces the results ...
— Over the Fireside with Silent Friends • Richard King

... famous "Book of Consolation and Counsel," which comprehends in a slight narrative framework a long discussion between the unfortunate Meliboeus, whom the wrongs and sufferings inflicted upon him and his have brought to the verge of despair, and his wise helpmate, Dame Prudence. By means of a long argumentation propped up by quotations (not invariably assigned with conscientious accuracy to their actual source) from "The Book," Seneca, "Tullius," and other authors, she at last persuades ...
— Chaucer • Adolphus William Ward

... new-fledged secretary was married and wrote poetry on the sly. He had four children. He would make an ideal helpmate, worshipping his employer with that rare quality of being interested in his ideas and aims beyond the mere earning of a salary; seeing, too, in that employer more than he, the latter, supposed. For, while he wrote verses ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood

... thousandth time he took heart. After all, Dorothe might become a helpmate. She was so beautiful and so cheerful in her pleasanter moods that he thought her a treasure. When he took his baby on his knee and felt her soft, warm cheek against his own, he realized that life might be ...
— The Real America in Romance, Volume 6; A Century Too Soon (A Story - of Bacon's Rebellion) • John R. Musick

... that will keep us from complaining; if the like continue for a month or two, we begin to repent; and then adieu to all our anticipated delights. We discover, when it is too late, that we have not got a helpmate, but a burden; and, the fire of love being damped, the unfortunately educated creature, whose parents are more to blame than she is, unless she resolve to learn her duty, is doomed to lead a life very nearly approaching to that of misery; for, however ...
— The Young Man's Guide • William A. Alcott

... failure to lead society up to the point to which you have the power to educate it. By your office as the natural leaders and educators of society; by your mission as the friends and helpers of all who suffer; by your high privilege as the ordained helpmate of man in the work, under God and His truth, of evangelizing the world, and lifting it out of its sin and sorrow; by your obligations to the glorious principles of Christian republicanism; and by your hopes of complete ultimate enfranchisement, I adjure you. The world has need of you, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... being of a timorous disposition, truckled to the insolence of a termagant. Mr Sowerby, who was of a temper neither to be moved by fits, nor driven by menaces, had the fortune to be fitted with a helpmate, who assailed him with the weapons of irony and satire; sometimes sneering in the way of compliment; sometimes throwing out sarcastic comparisons, implying reproaches upon his want of taste, spirit, and generosity: by which means she stimulated ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett

... a traveller who asked whether the Sabbath was kept. Otherwise they might lead easy lives. Each had his hut and his Maori wife, to whom he was sometimes legally married. Many had gardens, and families of half-caste children, whose strength and beauty were noted by all who saw them. The whaler's helpmate had to keep herself and children clean, and the home tidy. Cleanliness and neatness were insisted on by her master, partly through the seaman's instinct for tidiness and partly out of a pride and desire to show a contrast to the reeking hovels of the Maori. As a rule she did ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves

... collegiate education. He had graduated with honors; read law; been admitted to the bar; and then returned to Sandgate and opened an office. Alice, three years his junior, had been sent to a boarding-school for two years, where she devoted most of her time to music, then came home again as mother's helpmate. ...
— Uncle Terry - A Story of the Maine Coast • Charles Clark Munn

... named Epimetheus, who never had either father or mother; and, that he might not be lonely, another child, fatherless and motherless like himself, was sent from a far country to live with him and be his playfellow and helpmate. ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry

... masterful; it would have moved one of his own trolley cars; I didn't wonder a bit that he objected to me as a son-in-law. In fact, I told him that had I known all these things I should have sought a fitting helpmate from the State Reformatory, but that I could not withdraw—my ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble

... made no composition in life, and for want of all savor must have palled every taste; nature or fortune, or both of them, took care to provide a proper quantity of acid in the materials that formed the wife, and to render her a perfect helpmate for so tranquil a husband. She abounded in whatsoever he was defective; that is to say, in almost everything. She was indeed as vinegar to oil, or a brisk wind to a standing-pool, and preserved all ...
— Journal of A Voyage to Lisbon • Henry Fielding

... smile than just John Bunyan's sketch of By-ends' great-grandfather, the founder of the egoistical family of Fairspeech, who was, to begin with, but a waterman who always looked one way and rowed another? By-ends' wife also is a true helpmate to her husband. She was my Lady Feigning's favourite daughter, under whose nurture and example the young lady had early come to a quite extraordinary pitch of good breeding; and now that she was a married woman, she and her husband had, ...
— Bunyan Characters - First Series • Alexander Whyte

... Mr Pawkie had been through life regarded by his helpmate, we must confess that her eulogium on the merits of his work did not impress us with the most profound persuasion that it was really deserving of much attention. Politeness, however, obliged us to express an earnest desire to see the volume, which, after some little hesitation, ...
— The Provost • John Galt

... Lord Chancellor has at last given his consent to your marriage with his beautiful ward, Phyllis? STREPH. Not he, indeed. To all my tearful prayers he answers me, "A shepherd lad is no fit helpmate for a Ward of Chancery." I stood in court, and there I sang him songs of Arcadee, with flageolet accompaniment—in vain. At first he seemed amused, so did the Bar; but quickly wearying of my song and ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan

... life in seclusion and loneliness, while he basked in the favour of royalty, and found the high position that had so long been denied him. It is usually claimed by Wagner's most rabid partisans that she was unable to hold her place in the new surroundings, and that his genius needed a helpmate more in sympathy with his high ideals. Admitting the truth of these assertions, the fair-minded critic must accept them as an explanation, at least, of his conjugal ingratitude, but Minna's faithful performance of duty ...
— Woman's Work in Music • Arthur Elson

... annihilating the mischief-maker: he could not rob man of his dearest spiritual possession; had he thought of consigning the Devil to the antediluvian period of our moral and social formation, he never could have succeeded in his reform. The Devil, in fact, was his strongest helpmate; he could describe the ritual of the Romish Church as the work of the Evil Spirit, produced to delude mankind. The Devil had his Romish prayers, his processions, his worship of relics, his remission of sins, ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies

... no time was the American wife content to be merely ornamental. Throughout the political career of her husband she was his helpmate, and as an officer of the Primrose League, as an editor of the Anglo-Saxon Review, as, for many hot, weary months in Durban Harbor, the head of the hospital ship Maine, she has shown an acute mind and real executive power. At the polls many votes that ...
— Real Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis

... with rare tact and tenderness, and spoke much of his loneliness and his need of a helpmate. Eddie resolved to ask her to marry him as soon as he could ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes

... married, and took his young bride home.... They began their life together.... Dunyasha turned out to be a poor housewife, a poor helpmate to her husband. She took no interest in anything, was melancholy and depressed unless some officer sitting by the big samovar noticed her and paid her compliments; she was often absent, sometimes in the town shopping, sometimes ...
— Knock, Knock, Knock and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev

... in being particular; but at intervals between the drowning showers, we were willing enough to come out and work, though the muddy soil and the swollen river made our labour still harder, and our profits less. The best service was done us by an honest Paisley weaver, who had left his helpmate and two children at San Francisco, in hopes of taking back, quite full, a strong chest, of some two hundredweight capacity, which he had brought with infinite pains to the diggings. He enlivened our wet leisure by repeating whole volumes of Burns and Scott. Bill also returned to ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 444 - Volume 18, New Series, July 3, 1852 • Various

... mob, and I to watch those secret burrowings more dangerous to thrones than open revolt. It is a sacred mission, my Joan! They who named you were wiser than they knew. You were christened a King's helpmate, while I, Felix Poluski, am fated to be the most amazing product of modern civilization,—an anarchist ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy

... unequalled he is! There is nothing he fears except shame. Oh! how sad it will be for him to find no woman in his class to understand him and be his helpmate!' ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... your labor with energy of mind and body. She should have a heart to sympathize not only with her husband, but his charge. I tell you, David, a man's success and popularity in his ministry depends very much on the woman that he has chosen to be his helpmate. Had your mother been other than she is, I truly think I should have sunk under the many trials during the ...
— The Rector of St. Mark's • Mary J. Holmes

... you from among all other men, and loved you, and joyfully accepted as my lot in life to be your devoted wife and helpmate, was that I believed you superior in all manly things to other men. Without such a belief I could ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy

... parental roof, and frequent converse with the most attractive scones of youth. But to compensate for these things he can feel that the labor of the pioneer, aside from its pecuniary advantage to himself, is of service to the state, and a helpmate ...
— Minnesota and Dacotah • C.C. Andrews

... I have said, went the length of choosing a helpmate for themselves. One day a young man's friends would see him mending the washing tub of a maiden's mother. They kept the joke until Saturday night, and then he learned from them what he had been after. It dazed him for a time, but in a year or so he grew accustomed ...
— Auld Licht Idylls • J. M. Barrie

... Spouse and helpmate of Adam Kadmon: Heva, naked Eve. She had no navel. Gaze. Belly without blemish, bulging big, a buckler of taut vellum, no, whiteheaped corn, orient and immortal, standing from everlasting to everlasting. ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce

... fair daughter," answered the old man. "A fit helpmate indeed thou hast shown thyself for so brave a soldier. By your leave, your Excellency. You will indulge an old man's desire to bless the marriage of the son as he did that of the mother? No obstacle, I take it, now exists to prevent this ...
— Sir Henry Morgan, Buccaneer - A Romance of the Spanish Main • Cyrus Townsend Brady

... after having spoken at Keelby in Lincolnshire, he returned with his wife, who was in every respect a devoted helpmate for such a work, to the home of the gentleman and lady with whom they were stopping. While chatting on various subjects, Mrs Evans turned to her husband, who was comfortably seated in a large arm-chair, and said, "My dear, I have had such a strange presentiment—that ...
— By Canoe and Dog-Train • Egerton Ryerson Young

... to the utmost. Bertie's preferences did not greatly matter; he was of the sort who can be stolidly happy with any kind of wife; he had cheerfully put up with his grandmother all his life, so was not likely to fret and fume over anything that might befall him in the way of a helpmate. ...
— Beasts and Super-Beasts • Saki

... without coming directly under his recognition. The stern realities of military life through which he had passed, had in nowise interfered with those social qualities which so endeared our hero to the hearts of all. In Lady Douglas, Sir Howard found a faithful helpmate, a loving wife and deeply affectionate and pious mother. Lady Douglas never wearied in watching and caring for the welfare of her children. No mother could be more amply rewarded in seeing her family grow up loved and honoured; her sons true types of gentlemanly honour; her daughters having all ...
— Lady Rosamond's Secret - A Romance of Fredericton • Rebecca Agatha Armour

... criminality behind our tragedy, Mrs. Stoneleigh's mother would probably be cited as the guilty one. The way of least resistance is usually pretty easy- going, and keeps within the valley of indulgence. Therefore, Mrs. Stoneleigh worked none, was a true helpmate to her husband, at the table, and like him, grew fat, and from mid-life waddled on, with her hundred and eighty pounds. She was superstitiously very religious, with the kind of religion that shudders at the thought of missing Sunday morning service or failing ...
— Our Nervous Friends - Illustrating the Mastery of Nervousness • Robert S. Carroll

... of Holy Writ that should be engraven upon the heart and mind of every youth and maiden. Robert Moffat's desire was for the glory of God and the extension of the Redeemer's kingdom, and God was not only opening the way for His servant, but was preparing a faithful and devoted helpmate for him in his various spheres of labour ...
— Robert Moffat - The Missionary Hero of Kuruman • David J. Deane

... was—or of what he wasn't—this truer estimate, this partial disillusionment, merely served to deepen and intensify the feeling he had aroused in her; to heighten, likewise, the sense of her own value by confirming a belief in her possession of certain qualities, of a kind of fibre he needed in a helpmate. She dwelt with a woman's fascination upon the prospect of exercising a creative influence—even while she acknowledged the fearful possibility of his power in unguarded moments to overwhelm and destroy her. Here was another ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... Fort-Augustus, he had recommended himself to the affections of Miss Macvicar, by his elegant tastes and accomplished manners, and he now became the successful suitor for her hand. They were married in 1779, and Mrs Grant, to approve herself a useful helpmate to her husband, began assiduously to acquaint herself with the manners and habits of the humbler classes of the people. The inquiries instituted at this period were turned to an account more extensive than originally ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel , Volume I. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various

... trifling worries and difficulties."—(Two f's in difficulties, you little fool—can't you even spell?) "Many a time, falling on his knees at my feet, he has rapturously exclaimed, his accents broken by manly emotion, 'Oh, that I were more worthy of such a pearl among women! With such a helpmate, I am indeed to be envied!'" That ought to do the trick. If I don't romp in after that!—(Observing that Mrs. M.-J.'s shoulders are convulsed.) What the dooce ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., February 7, 1891 • Various

... history of David, and at what it might have been. One can conceive so noble a personage under such woman's influence as, thank God, is common now, going down into an honoured old age, and living together with a helpmate worthy of him in godly love and honesty to his life's end; seeing his children Christianly and virtuously brought up, to the praise and honour ...
— David • Charles Kingsley

... life very distinctly, now; that of the former Mrs. Digbys—that of cheerful squiress and wise helpmate. And, charmed though she was with her lover, Althea was not charmed with that prospect. She promised herself that things should turn out rather differently. What was uncomfortable already was to find that ...
— Franklin Kane • Anne Douglas Sedgwick

... Tucson, where, after being awarded one child, I had domestic trouble which ended in the courts. My wife finally returned to Phoenix and, being free again, married a man named Murphy. After this experience I determined to take no further chances with matrimony. However, I needed a helpmate, so I solved the difficulty by marrying Paola Ortega by contract for five years. Contract marriages were universally recognized and indulged in in the West of the early days. My relations with Paola were eminently satisfactory until the expiration of the contract, when she ...
— Arizona's Yesterday - Being the Narrative of John H. Cady, Pioneer • John H. Cady

... time, to have turned my back on women forever. But I think I was a monomaniac on the subject of matrimony. My first wife had so misused me that it was always in my mind that some reparation was due me, and that I was fairly entitled to a good helpmate. The ill-success of my efforts, hitherto, to secure one, and my consequent sufferings were all lost upon me—experience, bitter experience, ...
— Seven Wives and Seven Prisons • L.A. Abbott

... a case in which a respectable and wealthy farmer, on the borders of Tipperary, in tenderness to the corns of his departed helpmate, enclosed in her coffin two pair of brogues, a light and a heavy, the one for dry, the other for sloppy weather; seeking thus to mitigate the fatigues of her inevitable perambulations in procuring water ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume I. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

... breakfast. She knew Uncle Peter's ways and that it was useless to attempt to hurry him or force him to explain, until he was quite ready to do so. Aunt Hannah bided her time. Peter was a thoughtful man, and he was doubtless thinking. His wife was not only a clever helpmate but was noted for her ...
— Mary Louise Solves a Mystery • L. Frank Baum

... overestimate the boon a man like Dr. Russel is to a district. Trust is a plant of slow growth with the natives, but they have learned to trust him entirely, and go to him in all their troubles as children go to a father. And he has a very real helpmate in his wife. I never saw such a busy woman. If she isn't in the hospital helping at operations (she has a medical degree), she is teaching girls to sew, or women to read, and yet the children are beautifully cared for, and the house excellently managed. I suppose ...
— Olivia in India • O. Douglas

... and make love to them, as it is called. It's wonderful enough—yes, there are many wonderful things. Something has come over me, or into me,—something has changed in the mill-work. It seems as if the one half, the father, had altered, and had received a better temper and a more affectionate helpmate—so young and good, and yet the same, only more gentle and good through the course of time. What was bitter has passed away, and the whole ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen

... attacked him. Had he been right to yield to his overmastering hunger of the night before, and break down the resistance which he had suffered now too long from this woman who was his lawful and solemnly constituted helpmate? ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... their humor, yet it is only in exchange for titillation and pleasure, which indeed are but other names for Folly; as none can deny, who consider how a man must dandle, and kittle, and play a hundred little tricks for his helpmate. ...
— Little Journeys To The Homes Of Great Teachers • Elbert Hubbard

... crescent,—into a shadow. Surely, however broad the view we take of the universe, a real woe, a veritable experience of suffering, amidst this boundless benificence, reaching as deep as the heart's core, is this old and common sorrow;—the sorrow of woman for her babes, and of man for his helpmate, and of age for its prop, and of the son for the mother that bore him, and of the heart for the hearts that once beat in sympathy, and of the eyes that hide vacancies with tears. When these old stakes are wrenched from their sockets, and these intimate cords are ...
— The Crown of Thorns - A Token for the Sorrowing • E. H. Chapin

... Cezanne, for Manet—the only son of a judge—was almost wealthy. Moreover, Manet married very happily, and in no wise led the pitiful existence which in the novel is ascribed to Claude Lantier and his helpmate, Christine. The original of the latter was a poor woman who for many years shared the life of the engraver to whom I have alluded; and, in that connection, it as well to mention that what may be called the Bennecourt episode of the novel ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola

... he, bowing, "that if the Lady Gyda had been born a man, England would have had another all-seeing and all-daring statesman, and Earl Godwin a rival, instead of a helpmate. Now I believe ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley

... place in the coming spring. After that—things were not quite settled, but something was to be arranged for him meanwhile—he would have to begin his work in the world; and then—he supposed it would be time for him to find a helpmate. Marrying was like dying, he believed; when a family once began to go off there was ...
— Faith Gartney's Girlhood • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney

... successor might be call'd upon to pay. We ventured, however, over all these difficulties, and I took her to wife, September 1st, 1730. None of the inconveniences happened that we had apprehended, she proved a good and faithful helpmate, assisted me much by attending the shop; we throve together, and have ever mutually endeavored to make each other happy. Thus I corrected that great erratum as well ...
— The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin

... enamoured with the duties of a country life, and cheered the strange joylessness of her honeymoon. Failing in this attempt, she, with a covert sigh, half-pain, half-pleasure, resumed the old oversight of larder and dairy. Such care was then the delight of many an unsophisticated laird's helpmate; and, to the contented Lady of Staneholme, it had quite made up for the partial deprivation of social intercourse to which her infirmity had subjected her. Joan, Madge, and Mysie, wearied of haughty Nelly after they had grown accustomed to the grand ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler

... strong reasons why this should not be so. He has not thought it wise as yet to speak to his father-in-law on the subject, for he knows how foolishly indulgent is Mr Harding in everything that concerns his daughter; but he has discussed the matter with his all-trusted helpmate, within that sacred recess formed by the clerical ...
— The Warden • Anthony Trollope

... poor fool, no helpmate for any man," Immelan declared. "Yet it is not his cause I plead, but mine. I, too, can minister to your ambitions. Be my wife, and I swear to you that before five years have passed I will be President of the German Republic. Germany is no strange country to you," he went on passionately. ...
— The Great Prince Shan • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... not been passed in singleness. His Helpmate was a comely matron, old— Though younger than himself full twenty years. 80 She was a woman of a stirring life, Whose heart was in her house: two wheels she had Of antique form; this large, for spinning wool; That small, for flax; and if one wheel had rest, It was because the other was at ...
— Selections from Wordsworth and Tennyson • William Wordsworth and Alfred Lord Tennyson

... that fill men at once with gratitude and wonder his choosing was directed well. Or are we to say that, by a man's choice in marriage, as by a crucial merit, he deserves his fortune? One thing at least reason may discern: that a man but partly chooses, he also partly forms, his helpmate; and he must in part deserve her, or the treasure is but won for a moment to be lost. Fleeming chanced, if you will (and indeed all these opportunities are as "random as blind-man's-buff"), upon a wife who was worthy of him; but he had the wit to know it, the courage to wait and labour for his ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson

... daughter's situation. A father must not allow himself to dilate on such a subject: of course I feel confident that you will have no reason to repent the irrevocable step you have taken, but from the manner in which Richarda has been brought up, you will find such a helpmate in her as a man of sense and affection would wish to have, and that she is well prepared to meet the duties and trials (for such must be met with) of domestic life with a firm and cultivated mind, and the warm feelings of a kind heart. Her habits are ...
— Autobiography of Sir George Biddell Airy • George Biddell Airy

... his honored name and slurring suggestion of the taint put upon it by his second wife demonstrated the marquis was not above the foibles of his kind, overlooking his own light conduct and dwelling on that of his noble helpmate. It was the final taunt, and, as the lady had long since been laid in God's Acre, where there is only silence divine, it received no answer, and the world was welcome to digest and gorge it and make the most ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham

... Eabani a sense of dignity which made him superior to the animals. The word translated 'companion'[884] may be appropriately applied to Ukhat. Eabani clings to her, as Adam does to Eve after she 'is brought'[885] to him. Ukhat becomes Eabani's 'companion,' just as Eve becomes the 'helpmate' of Adam. ...
— The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria • Morris Jastrow

... with Lessing's own embarrassments, prevented their being married till October, 1776. Eva Koenig was every way worthy of him. Clever, womanly, discreet, with just enough coyness of the will to be charming when it is joined with sweetness and good sense, she was the true helpmate of such a man,—the serious companion of his mind and the playfellow of his affections. There is something infinitely refreshing to me in the love-letters of these two persons. Without wanting sentiment, there is such a bracing ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell

... own domestic life seems to have been very happy. Philippa appears to have been to him a bold and faithful helpmate in his journey through this world; and we believe that, could we trace closely her household influence, we should find that she first began to work the golden thread of religion into his life; for, notwithstanding that great coarseness which unluckily makes ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne

... four-armed Vasudeva, that ancient rishi. That high-souled one of expansive eyes, Krishna, having lightened the burthen of the Earth and cast off his (human) body, has attained to his own high seat. By thee also, O foremost of men, with Bhima for thy helpmate and the twins, O mighty-armed hero, has the great work of the gods been accomplished. O foremost one of Kurus race, I regard thee and thy brothers as crowned with success, for ye have accomplished the great ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... bread. The females are called by the males "Loubras," and the males are designated "Coolies." There is not promiscuous cohabitation. When a Coolie reaches the age of twenty-one, he is allowed to choose his own "Loubra." Every male who then takes unto himself a helpmate, loses a front tooth, which is knocked out of him. The natives generally tattoo their arms and breasts, but not their faces; many carry a long white wooden pin, or a feather, pierced through the thin part of the nose; and they all twist kangaroo teeth and the bones ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various

... has had stiddy practice for 20 years, begin right. Let your affections be firm as adamant, cling closely to Duty's apron-strings, but do not too blindly copy after your groom. Try to stand up on your own feet, and be a helpmate to him, not a dead weight for him to carry. Do branch right out, and tell what part of the fowl, or of life, you want, if it hain't nothin' but the gizzard or neck; and then try to get it. If you don't have any self- reliance, if you don't try to help yourself ...
— Sweet Cicely - Or Josiah Allen as a Politician • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)

... truest thing about the King. He needs you at his side. For all his friends, he is at heart a lonely man, throned upon sorrows. I dare to tell you that, knowing you. He needs not a mere wife, but a mate, a helpmate, to strive with him, her hand in his. Every man needs the helpmate, as I read the world. For it cannot but be that a man falls below himself when he comes home always to ...
— Clementina • A.E.W. Mason

... vegetables; later on the mincing was assigned to him. At the end of six weeks, though still forbidden to touch the sauces, he watched over them with wooden spoon in hand. Rosalie had fairly made him her helpmate, and would sometimes burst out laughing as she saw him, with his red trousers and yellow collar, working busily before the fire with a dishcloth over his arm, ...
— A Love Episode • Emile Zola

... had noted the signs of the approaching snowstorm. The husband directed his wife to make her preparations few and simple, and to waste no time. It was idle to bewail the necessity which compelled them to leave so many precious articles behind. Life was dearer than all, and the courageous helpmate proved herself equal to the occasion. She gathered the articles of clothing they were likely to need, filled several bags with the provisions in the house, and ...
— The Young Ranchers - or Fighting the Sioux • Edward S. Ellis

... I fear when I fall into strait and fare * Abroad, no comrade in thee to gain: I fear when lain on my couch and long * My sickness, thou prove thee nor fond nor fain: I fear me that time groweth scant my good * And my hand be strait thou shalt work me bane: A helpmate I want shall do what do I * And bear patient the pasture ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton

... brighten the hearts of three old maids, and a young face will be a cheery sight in our quiet cottage home. She will have a thorough education, and we shall endeavour to bring her up so that she may be a fitting helpmate to her mother on her return home." Dr. Latimer showed the letter to his wife, who read it thankfully. "Your sister is a noble woman, John," she said brokenly; "let us accept her offer, and may ...
— Aunt Judith - The Story of a Loving Life • Grace Beaumont

... dead, and if only the Church will rank him among those who have died for Her, he will be saved, and she will find him standing in the pure radiance of the realms above, with open arms, overflowing with fervent love and gratitude, to welcome the faithful helpmate who will have purged his soul. Yes, now I quite understand; and from this day forth I will aid and second her; the hardest task shall not be too hard, the best shall not be too good, if only we may open the gates of Heaven to my poor father's ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... the word, woman was created to be man's comforter, a joyous helpmate in hours of sunshine, a soother, when the clouds darken and the tempests howl around his head; then, indeed, we perceive the divinely beautiful arrangement which marriage enforces. Man in his wisdom, his rare mental endowments, is ...
— The Wedding Guest • T.S. Arthur

... sign of the confusion of ranks which the great rebellion had produced, that some damsels of noble families had bestowed themselves on divines. [81] A waiting woman was generally considered as the most suitable helpmate for a parson. Queen Elizabeth, as head of the Church, had given what seemed to be a formal sanction to this prejudice, by issuing special orders that no clergyman should presume to espouse a servant ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... so repugnant to all our ideas of social improvement, as well as to the command of our Creator, who presented woman to man as a helpmate, because it was not good that he should live alone, and demanded of them to "be fruitful and multiply," will find no advocates except among the disappointed, the ignorant, and the abandoned. "The love of woman" is a feeling too deeply rooted in the breast of man, and the reality of ...
— Sketches of the Fair Sex, in All Parts of the World • Anonymous

... fellow, mate, ally, colleague, confederate, friend, partner, chum, companion, consort, helpmate, peer. ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald

... not how it is, but your very clever man never seems to care so much as your less gifted mortals for cleverness in his helpmate. Your scholars, and poets, and ministers of state, are more often than not found assorted with exceedingly humdrum good sort of women, and apparently like them all the better for their deficiencies. Just see how ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various

... we arrived at a house occupied by a person who attends one of the many locks on the canal; and by the ready aid of this worthy and his pretty young helpmate, our horses and ourselves were well supplied with vivres, and otherwise ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power

... most comical of the clerical claims is this—that Christianity has promoted chivalry and respect for womanhood. In ancient Greece and Rome the woman was the equal and helpmate of man; we read in Tacitus about the splendid women of the Germans, who took part in public councils, and even fought in battles. Two thousand years before the Christian era we are told by Maspero that the Egyptian woman was the mistress of her house; she could inherit equally with her brothers, ...
— The Profits of Religion, Fifth Edition • Upton Sinclair

... inevitable endless woe. That shaft that seemed his life to burn—like serpent venom, thus drawn out, I, taking up his fallen urn—t' his father's dwelling took my route. There miserable, blind, and old—of their sole helpmate thus forlorn, His parents did these eyes behold—like two sad birds with pinions shorn. Of him in fond discourse they sate—lone, thinking only of their son, For his return so long, so late—impatient, oh by me ...
— Nala and Damayanti and Other Poems • Henry Hart Milman

... every day. But I have learned to disregard hard words. I am my own master in my private life as well as in my public life, and if you will only consent to be my wife I shall tackle the difficult European problems with renewed vigour, well knowing that I have at least one sympathiser and helpmate—my wife." ...
— The White Lie • William Le Queux

... to be a widower, but such bereavement is no necessary preliminary to becoming a "dweller in retirement." Sometimes a man enters the inkyo state while he still has with him the helpmate of his youth, and the two go together to this aftermath of life. Surely a pretty return, this, of the honeymoon! Darby and Joan starting once more hand in hand, alone in this Indian summer of their love, as they did years ...
— Noto, An Unexplored Corner of Japan • Percival Lowell

... dimmed once, its radiance was no longer unquenchable: "Destiny has turned against me," he said, "and in her I have lost my most valuable helpmate." ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy

... the owner in a dull voice, his eyes almost as full of distress as those of his injured helpmate. 'An' Jimmy were the best donkey as ...
— The Wolf Patrol - A Tale of Baden-Powell's Boy Scouts • John Finnemore

... jewel of the Dutch type, potherb gardens, training-schools for young girls, and the like, a favorite abode of hers when she was at liberty for recreation. But her life was busy and earnest; she was helpmate, not in name only, to an ever busy man. They were married young; a marriage of love withal. Young Friedrich Wilhelm's courtship; wedding in Holland; the honest, trustful walk and conversation of the two sovereign spouses, their journeyings together, their mutual hopes, fears, ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin

... preliminary steps to matrimony. Even those authors who endeavour to idealise peasant life have rarely ventured to make their story turn on a sentimental love affair. Certainly in real life the wife is taken as a helpmate, or in plain language a worker, rather than as a companion, and the mother-in-law leaves her very little time to indulge in ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace

... majority, while it would have been lost by two hundred if men only had voted. The contest was between the WET and DRY mayors. Where women have the ballot, even in municipal affairs, no state has resubmitted or brought back the saloon. God said: "It is not good for man to be alone. I will make him a helpmate, a partner, a companion, a guardian." When man elevates a woman he elevates himself. A degraded woman means many degraded men. Free men must be the sons of free women. This land cannot be the land of the free ...
— The Use and Need of the Life of Carry A. Nation • Carry A. Nation

... return'd to his accustom'd situation in the large arm-chair by the chimney-hearth, his ancient helpmate had retired to rest. With the simplicity of their times, the bed stood in the same room where the three had been seated during the last few hours; and now the remaining two talk'd together about the singular events of the evening. As the time wore on, Gills show'd no disposition to ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman

... broth might, do. She gathered herbs and vegetables in the garden again, and a messenger came from Mrs. Jersey with a basket of strawberries; Dolly wrote a note to go back with the basket, and altogether had a busy morning of it. For bread had also to be made; and her small helpmate was good for only the simplest details of scrubbing and sweeping and washing dishes. It was with the greatest difficulty after all that Dolly coaxed her mother to come down to dinner; Nelly being left to keep watch ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner

... a helpmate indeed. A true type of Southern women. Not a duty was neglected. She looked well to the ways of her household and the well-being of the negroes committed to her care. The spinning and weaving of cloth for the almost naked soldiers ...
— Memories - A Record of Personal Experience and Adventure During Four Years of War • Fannie A. (Mrs.) Beers

... who concocted the diabolical scheme to one day get possession of your inheritance. He coerced my poor mother into acquiescense, and she became his wretched tool instead of an honoured wife and helpmate. One night, when you were three weeks old, the house in which we lived was burned to the ground, the inmates narrowly escaping. So narrow was the escape, in fact, that you were said to have been left behind in the confusion, and the world was told, the next ...
— The Daughter of Anderson Crow • George Barr McCutcheon

... over the dainty chair as he did so. He tried to straighten out the pinky rug and set the chair properly upon it. Then he squared off his shoulders and dutifully stooped to kiss his economical little helpmate. ...
— The Gorgeous Girl • Nalbro Bartley

... consumer, and be sartin; two such as us make dreadful inroads in the stock, sargeant. But ye're a sober, discrate man, Mister Hollister, and would be a helpmate indeed." ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper

... himself a helpmate, and as far as mere housekeeping was concerned, one would judge, on looking around the decent, tidy apartment in which he sat and of which he had the sole care, that he did not particularly need one. He washed, scoured, ...
— Adele Dubois - A Story of the Lovely Miramichi Valley in New Brunswick • Mrs. William T. Savage

... out of our united poverty a very charming picture, I believe. I am sure I should make an excellent wife for the husband I loved. If you must leave France, as they tell me you must, I will follow you—I will be your brave and faithful helpmate. Pardon me, one word more, Monsieur de Camors. My proposition would be immodest if it concealed any afterthought. It conceals none. I am poor. I have but fifteen hundred francs' income. If you are richer than I, consider I have said nothing; for nothing ...
— Monsieur de Camors, Complete • Octave Feuillet

... But Job himself thought very differently, and amidst all the cares and vicissitudes that attended several years of his wedded life, he never passed a day without breathing a prayer of thankfulness to Heaven for having blessed him with so excellent a helpmate. But though rich in domestic comforts, all the rest of Job's affairs, for a long time, went on unprosperously. He certainly acquired sufficient practice in the course of a few years to occupy a great portion of his time, by night as well as by day, but ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various

... could see that at once! She understood men. She knew that grave problems frequently confronted them, and that such minor things as fern gathering expeditions would necessarily have to step aside and be forgotten. She was one of the bright, cheerful, always smiling kind; one who would make a sunshiny helpmate for any man, and never object to anything ...
— The Early Bird - A Business Man's Love Story • George Randolph Chester

... trout-rod and the devious banks of the Liffey, where, saturnine and alone, he filled his basket. It was his helpmate's rule, whenever she did not know to a certainty precisely what Irons was doing, to take it for granted that he was about some mischief. Her lodger, Captain Devereux, was her great resource on these occasions, and few things pleased him better than a stormy visit from his ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... a regiment of duchesses would fail to shake. He thought of her many abilities, and admitted to himself that after all was said and done, if he had only been able to gratify her wishes (and they did not seem so extravagant now) she would have been a perfect helpmate for him. His mind went back to the weird honeymoon at Pike's pub., to the little earthen-floored dining-room, with walls of sacking and a slab table, over which Peggy presided with such force of character. He thought of the two bushmen ...
— An Outback Marriage • Andrew Barton Paterson

... You have been writing your letters with pressed lips for a month past: and I have been a mere toy-thing, and no helpmate to you at all at all. Oh, why will she not love me? I know I am lovable except to a very hard heart, and hers is not: it is only like yours, reserved in its expression. It is strange what pain her prejudice has been able to drop into my cup of happiness; ...
— An Englishwoman's Love-Letters • Anonymous

... the two words helpmeet and helpmate, meaning exactly the same thing, is a comedy of errors. God's promise to Adam, as rendered in the King James version of the Bible, was to give him an help meet for him (that is, a helper fit for him). In the 17th century the two words help and meet in this passage were ...
— First Book of Adam and Eve • Rutherford Platt

... intellect, and his last, an incisive and liberal contribution to Bible criticism (Studie zur Bibelkritik, 1874), published in the Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenlaendischen Gesellschaft in Leipsic. From that time on, when the death of his beloved wife, Adelheid Zunz, a most faithful helpmate, friend, counsellor, and support, occurred, ...
— Jewish Literature and Other Essays • Gustav Karpeles

... again upon Milly, and the two friends plunged into feminine details of dress and domestic contrivance. Eleanor Kemp, who had a gift lying unused of being a capable manager, a poor man's helpmate, tried her best to interest Milly in the little methods of economizing and doing by which dollars are pushed to their utmost usefulness. Milly listened politely, but she felt sure that "all that would work out right in time." She could not believe ...
— One Woman's Life • Robert Herrick

... felt the strain. His mind had an undying contempt for appearances; his heart and soul had looked to one woman for satisfaction, and could not be appeased with anything but her. Among all the things he had accepted, he accepted most of all the fact that she was perfect. Too perfect to be the helpmate of his imperfection. He shuddered at the years that were in store for him. Always to do without her, always to be tortured by the fairness of her presence and the sweetness of her voice; always to sit up ...
— The Helpmate • May Sinclair

... then hear what I said. But the time is now come when thou art to witness the death of a relative. Oh, how sad is that spectacle for me! Or perhaps the time is come for my own death, for I shall never be able to abandon cruelly one of my own as long as I myself am alive. Thou art my helpmate in all good deeds, self-denying and always affectionate unto me as a mother. The gods have given thee to me as a true friend and thou art ever my prime stay. Thou hast, by my parents, been made the participator in my domestic concerns. Thou art of pure lineage and good disposition, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa - Translated into English Prose - Adi Parva (First Parva, or First Book) • Kisari Mohan Ganguli (Translator)

... raised her from a life of shame to share his throne (527), a high office she did not discredit; scandal, busy enough with her early years, has no word to say against her subsequent career as empress; the poor and unfortunate of her own sex were her special care; remained to the last the faithful helpmate ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... initials, Carved upon its smoother side, By a helpmate of his trials, Is now split and sunder'd wide; And when comes the Easter Sunday, There is neither friend nor kin To bestow green leaves or nosegay On the ...
— The Poetry of Wales • John Jenkins

... find that mine is nothing but a dead weight upon me. In short, I do not know any greater misfortune can happen to a plain hard-working tradesman, as I am, than to be joined to such a woman, who is rather a clog than a helpmate ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson

... overdose of the creature. The growling voice of this Amazon, which rivalled in harshness the crashing music of her own bolts and bars, soon dispersed in every direction the little varlets who had thronged around her threshold, and she next addressed her amiable helpmate:— ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott

... incentive to diligence in studying the rugged features of our celestial helpmate has been the idea of probable or actual variation in them. A change always seems to the inquisitive intellect of man like a breach in the defences of Nature's secrets, through which it may hope to make its way to the citadel. What is desirable easily ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke

... choice of a wife. She ought to be ten years younger than himself, of noble birth, but not of a very rich or powerful family; Lionardo must not expect her to be too handsome, since he is no miracle of manly beauty; the great thing is to obtain a good, useful, and obedient helpmate, who will not try to get the upper hand in the house, and who will be grateful for an honourable settlement in life. The following passages may be selected, as specimens of Michelangelo's advice: "You ought not to look for a dower, but ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds

... was. The child, young lady, was not then mortgaged in the cradle, and, mark ye, the bride, when she kneeled at the altar, gave not herself up, body and soul, to be the bondswoman of the Jew, but to be the helpmate of the spouse." "The Jew!" I exclaimed in surprise, for then I understood not the allusion. "Ay, young lady! the Jew," was the rejoinder. "'Tis plain ye know not who rules. 'Tis all hollow yonder! all hollow, all hollow! to the very glitter of the side-board, all false! all false! ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various

... Catholics either misprised or distrusted; too much and too generally the feeling has been that it is at best superfluous, at worst pernicious, most often dangerous. Once poetry was, as she should be, the lesser sister and helpmate of the Church; the minister to the mind, as the Church to the soul. But poetry sinned, poetry fell; and, in place of lovingly reclaiming her, Catholicism cast her from the door to follow the feet of her pagan ...
— Shelley - An Essay • Francis Thompson

... home where the wife is equal to her duties, and doubly blessed is the home where the husband, being a true helpmate, is anxious to carry as much of the burden as possible. For then the home, even though it be small and its floors brick, becomes in all truth "a sweetly solemn place." It becomes a good training ground ...
— London's Underworld • Thomas Holmes

... led a clean, healthy, vigorous life, he cannot have experienced the feelings and problems of a drunkard and dope-fiend slowly submerging in dissipation and vice. If he married young and has known the joy of entire devotion to a loyal and loving helpmate, he cannot have had the experience of a profligate who has been divorced four times and is about to take another chance with a dashing grass-widow. Hundreds and thousands of situations that other human beings are called ...
— Heart and Soul • Victor Mapes (AKA Maveric Post)

... like all the rest of his kind, and as no other girls except Mina and Lina had come in his way, and as Lina attended to his admonitions far more docilely than her sister, he determined to make her his helpmate. He was ignorant as to how such matters ought to be conducted, and felt a little shy and awkward. He had got no further in his wooing than pressing his lady-love's foot under the table, and whenever he had done so he was always much more confused than Lina, whose ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various

... bold, And near upon thirty years old, He needs a wooing would go, To get him a helpmate, you know. So, gaining young Dolly's consent, Next to be married they went; And to make himself noble appear, He mounted the old padded mare; He chose her because she was blood, And the prime of his old daddy's stud. She was ...
— Ancient Poems, Ballads and Songs of England • Robert Bell

... consisted of Aunt Sally, his wife, and an only son and daughter; the former, at the time our story begins, was at a neighboring literary institution. Aunt Sally was precisely as clever, as easy to be entreated, and kindly in externals, as her helpmate was the reverse. She was one of those respectable, pleasant old ladies whom you might often have met on the way to church on a Sunday, equipped with a great fan and a psalm book, and carrying some dried orange ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... most foolish of all errors respecting her who was made to be the helpmate of man. As if he could be helped effectively by a shadow, ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various

... you might be well assured," answered this meek helpmate, "that he was proper society. As to this Ravenswood, he only meets with the treatment which, to my certain knowledge, he gave to a much-valued friend of mine, who had the misfortune to be his guest some time since. But take your resolution; for, if Ravenswood ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott

... was unhappy and resulted in a separation. Three years after his wife's death, which occurred in 1861, he married a congenial helpmate and went to live in Flint Cottage, near Burford Bridge, Surrey, where most of his remaining ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck

... school and dispensary off "Ma's" hands, and looking after the babies with the same pitying sympathy. The girls became quite at home with her, in the long nights she would sing to them, recalling the times in the bush when Mr. Ovens used to entertain them. "She is a right sisterly helpmate," wrote Mary, "and a real help and comfort in every way. Things go as smoothly as on a summer's day, and I don't know how I got on alone. It seems ...
— Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary • W. P. Livingstone

... have a spirit like mine, that scorns fear; and, for that reason, Nina, in all Rome you are my only confidant. It was not only to glad me with thy beauty, but to cheer me with thy counsel, to support me with thy valour, that Heaven gave me thee as a helpmate." ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... "survival of the fittest." With the introduction of the family relation, the principle of the "division of labor" was utilized, the female doing the hard and menial work, while the male devoted himself to hunting and fishing, or subsisting on the results of his helpmate's industry. As men's wants increased and they became more industrious in supplying them, this division of labor was extended. The man most skilful in fishing neglected the use of the bow and spear, and his surplus of fish he exchanged with his neighbor ...
— Monopolies and the People • Charles Whiting Baker

... personality and of the kindest heart; easily moved by any tale of oppression or injustice, and of wide-armed (albeit sometimes in judicious) generosity; more apt, in the affairs of everyday life, to be governed by his heart than by his head, and as simple as a child in many matters. His wife was an ideal helpmate to him, and their family ...
— Three Comedies • Bjornstjerne M. Bjornson

... according to their individual ideas of right and wrong. It is supposed that every young Dyak woman will eventually suit herself with a husband, and it is considered no disgrace to be on terms of intimacy with the youth of her fancy till she has the opportunity of selecting a suitable helpmate; and as the unmarried ladies attach much importance to bravery, they are always desirous of securing the affections of a renowned warrior. Lax, however, as this code may appear before marriage, it would seem to ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck

... with unconscious irony, "Great is the glory of that woman who is least talked of by men, either in the way of praise or blame." Such were the barren honours granted to the legal wife. The hetairae were the only educated women in Athens. It was only the free-companion who was a fit helpmate for Pericles, or capable of sustaining a conversation with Socrates. We know that Socrates visited Theodota[280] and the brilliant Diotima of Mantinea, of whom he speaks "as his teacher in love."[281] Thargalia, ...
— The Truth About Woman • C. Gasquoine Hartley

... just tell her so?" suggested her helpmate from his customary entrenched position in an armchair behind the newspaper. "It would be a good deal cheaper than breaking ...
— To Love • Margaret Peterson

... there. For another thing she did not like Mrs. Hegner, the pretty English girl Manfred Hegner had married five years before; she thought her a very frivolous, silly little woman, not at all what the wife of a big commercial man should be. Anna's Louisa would have been a perfect helpmate for Manfred Hegner, and there had been a time, a certain three months, when Anna had thought the already prosperous widower was considering Louisa. His marriage to pretty Polly Brown had ...
— Good Old Anna • Marie Belloc Lowndes

... of Joseph Sturge, of Birmingham, the President of the British Complete Suffrage Association, died in the 6th month, 1845. She was the colleague, counsellor, and ever-ready helpmate of her brother in all his vast designs of beneficence. The Birmingham Pilot says of her: "Never, perhaps, were the active and passive virtues of the human character more harmoniously and beautifully blended than in this ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... truly simple life. These doubts, however, she suppressed, only dropping a word of caution here and there, which Jeannette took kindly, being eager to prove herself practical, and undoubtedly sincere in her longing to bring to James Stuart the helpmate he needed. ...
— Under the Country Sky • Grace S. Richmond

... (here Irma bangs down on a helpless nightshirt and dries it out well beyond its time into a nice bunch of wrinkles) "What is woman? Woman was created by God because Dear Friends God saw how lonely man was and how lonesome and so out of man's ribs God created woman to be man's company and helpmate...." ...
— Working With the Working Woman • Cornelia Stratton Parker

... motherhood had lifted her status—in her own eyes at least—did she venture to speak intimately with Nevil on this vital matter. Though debarred from sharing of sacred ceremonies, she could still aspire to be true Sahardamini—'spiritual helpmate.' But to that end he also must co-operate; he ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver

... first two children, Mrs. Ridgely and Mrs. Hardie, who lived to womanhood, but both of whom have passed away. My second wife, Julia Fisher, was the sister of my first wife. No better or truer woman ever lived. She was a devoted helpmate to me during all the years that I have occupied high public office and needed the support and help of a woman. She did her full part and filled her place on every occasion with dignity and propriety. It seems that her death is the last great sorrow ...
— Fifty Years of Public Service • Shelby M. Cullom

... himself to a stiff tumbler of brandy and water, made on the liberal half-and-half principle, allowing for the dissolution of the sugar; and his amiable helpmate mixed Nicholas the ghost of a small glassful of the same compound. This done, Mr and Mrs Squeers drew close up to the fire, and sitting with their feet on the fender, talked confidentially in whispers; while Nicholas, taking up the tutor's assistant, read the interesting ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens

... women, and bringing their children in turn to cluster about your tired old knees, as the winter evenings draw in, and in the cosy fire-light you smile across the curly heads of these children's children at the dear wrinkled white-haired face of your beloved and time-tested helpmate, and are satisfied, all in all, with your life, and know that, by and large, Heaven has been rather undeservedly kind to you," says Manuel, sighing. "Yes, Freydis, yes, you may believe me that such are the real joys of life; and that such pleasures are more profitably pursued than ...
— Figures of Earth • James Branch Cabell

... convalescence passed pleasantly enough. Everything was furnished me that could contribute to my comfort or recovery. Ices, delicious drinks, flowers, rare and costly fruits, were constantly supplied to me. For my dishes I was indebted to the skill of Scipio's helpmate, Chloe, and through her I became acquainted with the Creole delicacies of "gumbo", "fish chowder," fricasseed frogs, hot "waffles," stewed tomatoes, and many other dainties of the Louisiana cuisine. From the hands of Scipio himself I did not refuse ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid

... did not bring with her any fortune, so to speak, in the way of gold or acres; but she brought something far better into my father's home,—a sweetness of disposition, and a large measure of common sense, which made her, in all respects, the devoted helpmate of her husband. Her happy cheerful temperament, and her constant industry and attention, shed an influence upon all around her. By her example she inbred in her children the love of truth, excellence, and goodness. That was indeed the best fortune she could ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth

... he remarked to his helpmate behind the counter. "See dis chay from de backvoods across der street coming! Maype ve could sell him some odder t'ings to go vit dot coat, ain'd it? Come right in, mein frient; dis is der blace you vas looking for," this last to the drifter, with a detaining finger ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde

... bargain at once, declaring that if he had not courage enough to add this treasure to their possessions she would not hesitate to do it. Tom showed no disposition to check her. If she got the money he would try to get a share of it, and if the devil took away his helpmate—well, there were things that he had made his mind to endure, when he had to. True enough, the woman started for the wood before sundown, with her spoons in her apron. When Tom discovered that the spoons were gone he, too, set off, for he wanted those back, anyway; but he did not overtake ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner

... love, his vegetarianism, his hatred of religious intolerance and tyranny—are blent together and concentrated in the glowing cantos of this wonderful romance. The hero, Laon, is himself idealized, the self which he imagined when he undertook his Irish campaign. The heroine, Cythna, is the helpmate he had always dreamed, the woman exquisitely feminine, yet capable of being fired with male enthusiasms, and of grappling the real problems of our nature with a man's firm grasp. In the first edition of the poem he made Laon and Cythna brother and sister, not because he believed in the desirability ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley • John Addington Symonds

... young, giddy-pated girl, that will think of nothing but flaunting and finery, but a sober, discreet, hard-working squaw; one that will share my lot without flinching, however hard it may be; that can take care of my lodge, and be a companion and a helpmate to me in the wilderness." Kowsoter promised to look round among the females of his tribe, and procure such a one as he desired. Two days were requisite for the search. At the expiration of these, Kowsoter, called at his lodge, and informed him that he would bring his bride to him ...
— The Adventures of Captain Bonneville - Digested From His Journal • Washington Irving

... a pupil to Miss Marlett's. Like Mr. Day, the accomplished author of "Sandford and Merton," and creator of the immortal Mr. Barlow, Robert Maitland had conceived the hope that he might have a girl educated up to his own intellectual standard, and made, or "ready-made," a helpmate meet for him. He was, in a more or less formal way, the guardian of Margaret Shields, and the ward might be expected (by anyone who did not know human nature any better) to blossom ...
— The Mark Of Cain • Andrew Lang

... defeat openly and honestly, and for this the unreconstructed Major had never fully forgiven him. It was an added proof that there was no redeeming drop of the sang azure in the Gordon veins—and Major Caspar was as scrupulously polite to Caleb Gordon's wife as he would have been, and was, to the helpmate of Tike Bryerson, mountaineer ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde

... the dragger-down, the destroyer of his usefulness; to be not the helpmate, but the clog; not the inspiring sky, but the cloud! And because of a scruple which she could not understand! She had no anger with that unintelligible scruple; but her fatalism, and her sympathy had followed it out into his future. Things being so, it ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... that was to take the lieutenant away, but when he heard at headquarters, from his fellow-countrymen, the janitor and the guard, that such a countermand had been issued in the shape of an arrest, he swore with wrath. A good Catholic was Dennis, and many a job had been given to him and his lusty helpmate at the gray sisters, and a warm friend had they in the lady superior, to whom he presently bore the note and the tale of his hero's unjustifiable treatment. Then went he on his way, and came in upon Loring just in time to hear the closing words of what had been probably ...
— A Wounded Name • Charles King

... of whom Liso stood in awe was her aunt, a rich old lady with distinct views of her own, and a vigorous method of expressing them. Now, one of the old lady's peculiar ideas—at least peculiar in Liso's estimation—was that woman was made to be man's helpmate, and that married women should think of their husbands first, their children next, and themselves last—an order of consideration which Liso thought was exactly the reverse of what it ...
— Werwolves • Elliott O'Donnell

... I feel, And how should I, when by the side Of Satyavan? In woe and weal To be a helpmate swears the bride. This is my place; by solemn oath Wherever thou conductest him I too must go, to keep my troth; And if the eye at times should brim, 'Tis human weakness, give me strength My work appointed ...
— Ancient Ballads and Legends of Hindustan • Toru Dutt

... however, applied himself so assiduously to Champagne-cup that his sober-minded helpmate (the only person who took much notice of his proceedings) was filled with an uncomfortable wonder. At last, during a pause in the general conversation, he addressed Royston abruptly—there was a strange huskiness in his voice, and his ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence

... her casting the blame upon Satan, whom she unwittingly obeyed, and thus man became dead to the knowledge of the good; and so he blamed his Creator for giving him the woman, who was pronounced his helpmate for good. To fulfil the attribute of justice, Christ took upon himself that blame, and assumed his humanity, to suffer on the cross for it, that he might justly bring the cross upon Satan, and rid him from the earth, and then ...
— The Book of Religions • John Hayward

... is a tyrant, where self-sacrifice is unappreciated, where faithful and prudent industry is accepted as a labor of duty, and not as a labor of love, where she is simply regarded as his housekeeper, and not as his devoted helpmate, where his presence alone is sufficient to cast gloom and fear over the entire household. Woman was made to bless mankind, but also to be blessed in return; to make society better for forming a part thereof, but also to receive some ...
— The Jericho Road • W. Bion Adkins

... them, and spoke of comfortable beds and breakfast as early as they liked; but Bertie had become entirely responsible. Billy was helped in, Silas was liberally thanked, and they drove away beneath the stars, leaving behind them golden opinions, and a host who decided not to disturb his helpmate by retiring to rest in ...
— Philosophy 4 - A Story of Harvard University • Owen Wister

... and I was his, and I belonged to him for ever. He was going out on a great errand in the service of humanity. Couldn't I go to be his partner and helpmate? And if there had been sin, if the law of God had been broken, wouldn't that, ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine

... because his parents have chosen her for him; as I grew older, I continued to love it as a Jewish man loves his wife, not because of real affection, but because she is the only one he knows; now that I am old, I still love her, as an elderly Jew loves his helpmate: he is aware that she lacks many of the accomplishments of which more educated women can boast, but, for all that, remembering her faithfulness in the past, he loves her also in the present, and ...
— The Haskalah Movement in Russia • Jacob S. Raisin

... guests has shelter lent, While you with pen were seated. In silent quest they came and went, You saw them not, nor greeted. But when now they Were gone away, Your babe without a mother lay, And you had lost your helpmate. ...
— Poems and Songs • Bjornstjerne Bjornson

... window—but in the midst of all which he grew up with a vigorous constitution, a strong arm, and a determined spirit. He is resolved that his children shall encounter no such hardships, and that himself and his excellent helpmate shall suffer no such inconvenience as his own parents had done, who now perhaps, are enjoying a strong and serene old age, in their old-fashioned, yet to them not uncomfortable tenement. He therefore determines ...
— Rural Architecture - Being a Complete Description of Farm Houses, Cottages, and Out Buildings • Lewis Falley Allen

... shall be in one flesh. Wherefore they are no more two, but one flesh."(538) Our Lord recalls marriage to its primitive institution as it was ordained by Almighty God. (Gen. ii.) Now, marriage in its primitive ordinance was the union of one man with one woman, for Jehovah created but one helpmate to Adam. He would have created more, if His design had been to establish polygamy. The Scripture says that "man shall adhere to his wife,"—not his wives. It does not declare that they shall be three or more, but that "they shall be two ...
— The Faith of Our Fathers • James Cardinal Gibbons



Words linked to "Helpmate" :   spouse, partner, mate, married person, better half



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