Headmistress

“ My mistress exceeds in goodness the hugeness of your unworthy thinking. I dare you to this match: here's my ring. PHILARIO. I will have it no lay. IACHIMO. By the gods, it is one. If I bring you no sufficient testimony that I have enjoy'd the dearest bodily part of your mistress, my ten thousand ducats are yours; so is your diamond too. If I come off, and leave her in such honour as you have trust in, she your jewel, this your jewel, and my gold are yours- provided I have your commendation for my more free entertainment. ”

“ When my mistress heard this, she exclaimed, “The mercy of God the Most High be upon her! Indeed, she hath delivered thee from me, for I had it in mind to do thee a mischief, but now I will not hurt thee nor trouble thee.” I wondered at this and said to her, “What then didst thou purpose to do with me, and we lovers?” Quoth she, “Thou art infatuated with me; for thou art young and witless; thy heart is free from guile and thou knowest not our perfidy and malice. Were she yet alive, she would protect thee, for she is the cause of thy preservation and hath delivered thee from destruction. ”

“ Drink Bumpers to the Health of your Mistress, and of the Gentleman with whom she is obliged to sleep; but I do not insist on your being extremely sincere on this Occasion: for you may heartily wish him hanged at the same Time, if you please.
When the Company rises to go away, there is always a Confusion in the Room, of which you may take Advantage. You may then creep close up to your Mistress, may perhaps palm her, and gently tread on her Toes.
Whenever you have an Opportunity of speaking to her privately, be not bashful like a Country Boobily Squire. ”

“ O Mistress, Mistress, Reptile mistress, Your eye is very dark, very bright, And it never softens Although you watch. She knows, She knows well enough to come for food, Yet she sees me not; Her bright eye sees, but not me, not anything, Sightful, sightless, seeing and visionless, Reptile mistress. Taking bread in her curved, gaping, toothless mouth, She has no qualm when she catches my finger in her steel overlapping gums, But she hangs on, and my shout and my shrinking are nothing to her, She does not even know she is nipping me with her curved beak. ”

“ When a lady enters the harem, the mistress rises, takes her hand, presses it to her bosom, kisses, and makes her sit down by her side; a slave hastens to take her black mantle; she is entreated to be at ease, quits her veil, and discovers a floating robe tied round her waist with a sash, which perfectly displays her shape. She then receives compliments according to their manner: “Why, my mother, or my sister, have you been so long absent? We sighed to see you! Your presence is an honor to our house! It is the happiness of our lives!” ”

“ Head mistress.There seems to be a great difference between the kind of influence and control exercised by a Head Master, and a Head Mistress. The government of a boys’ school approaches more nearly to a republic, of a girls’ school to a constitutional monarchy; whilst classes and teachers change for the child each year, the head mistress is permanent, and follows each through all the classes, knowing her in all her phases. She reads marks, gives encouragement and admonition, and is in immediate relation with the other controlling influences, parents and teachers. ”

“ I found that a wife is treated with indifference, a mistress with a strong passion; a wife is looked upon as but an upper servant, a mistress is a sovereign; a wife must give up all she has, have every reserve she makes for herself be thought hard of, and be upbraided with her very pin-money, whereas a mistress makes the saying true, that what a man has is hers, and what she has is her own; the wife bears a thousand insults and is forced to sit still and bear it or part and be undone, a mistress insulted helps herself immediately and takes another. ”

“ MISTRESS FORD.
Mistress Page is come with me, sweetheart.
FALSTAFF.
Divide me like a bribed buck, each a haunch. I will keep my sides to myself, my shoulders for the fellow of this walk, and my horns I bequeath your husbands. Am I a woodman, ha? Speak I like Herne the hunter? Why, now is Cupid a child of conscience; he makes restitution. As I am a true spirit, welcome! ”

“ The horse's head came in. "Mistress, mistress, give me some supper!" "You are not a great man, get it yourself." The head got it. "Mistress, mistress, make me up a bed and put me to sleep." "You are not a great man, do it yourself." ”

“ The master is dead: the mistress is an old woman, hardened and repulsive, the embodiment of all that is evil, who is counting coppers in a room filled with bush, skulls, sacrifices, and charms. A number of half-starved cowed women and girls covered with dirt and sores are quarrelling over a pipe. The shrill voice and long arms of the mistress settle the matter, and make them fly helter- skelter. They call on Mary to speak, and after many interruptions she subdues and controls them, and leaves them, for the moment, impressed. ”

“ Right might kick at being called upon to shoulder the encumbrances of others, she had snatched the special license from her young mistress, torn it into bits, flung it into the foxy face and blazed into a big-hearted, big-minded, all-understanding little tweeny maid of a woman. ”

“ Though so far apart, a kindred chord was struck between mistress and maid. The high spirit that smouldered in these two never crossed; but with the smallest tangible demonstration they were fast friends. The girl's horizon now bordered a triune interest;—the church, the mistress, and the parlor floor. Gaunt and spare, she trod her beat. Shy of manner, with eyes looking nowhere, she seemed a human machine of the broom. A woman without kith or kin, without a history, and apparently without a memory. ”

“ Mistress, attended by such bright
Souls as thy shining self, shall come,
And in her first ranks make thee room;
Where, ’mongst her snowy family,
Immortal welcomes wait for thee.
O what delight, when she shall stand
And teach thy lips heaven, with her hand,
On which thou now may’st to thy wishes
Heap up thy consecrated kisses!
What joy shall seize thy soul, when she,
Bending her blessèd eyes on thee,
Those second smiles of heaven, shall dart
Her mild rays through thy melting heart!
Angels, thy old friends, there shall greet thee.
Glad at their own home now to meet thee. ”

“ In a minute the mistress comes out from the inner room. She is a kind smiling young woman, with a fresh face and a pleasant manner. She takes me in, and I see a dozen more girls in lilac pinafores reading round a deal table. They look mostly about thirteen or fourteen years old. I ask if this is all the school.
“No, not all,” the mistress says, counting, “some are in the laundry, and some are not at home. When they are old enough, they go out into the neighbourhood to help to wash, or cook, or what not. ”

“ My heart clung to her and I rose and followed in her track; but as I went along, a slave-girl accosted me, saying. ‘O my lord, my mistress would speak with thee.’ At this I was astonished, and said, ‘There is no one who knows me here.’ ‘O my lord,’ answered the slave, ‘how quickly thou hast forgotten her! My mistress is she who was to-day at the shop of the merchant Bedreddin.’ So I followed her to the money-changer’s, where I found the lady, who drew me to her side and said to me, ‘O my beloved, thou hast made prize of my heart, and love of thee has conquered my soul. ”

“ If we bring before our mind's eye the picture of an English home, we see that the household work is divided between the mistress and the servants. Where there are grown-up daughters, they sometimes help the mistress in her work, or the servants in theirs, but they have no distinct functions of their own. It appears, then, that in an inquiry relating to the upper and middle classes, the only home duties special to women which can come under review, are those of the mistress of the household. ”

“ For the end and reward of my service I ask but one thing, namely, that you will be so faithful a mistress to me, as never to take your favour from me, and that you will suffer me to continue as I now am, trusting in me more than in any other, and accepting from me the assurance that if for your honour’s sake, or for aught concerning you, you ever have need of a gentleman’s life, I will gladly place mine at your disposal. ”

“ There is many a house mistress who looks as if she could use her fists when annoyed, who is absolutely afraid of her servants; and the maid is always the mistress when the one is fibre and the other pulp. ”

“ Many of the little fellows carry bunches of flowers to the mistresses. The mistresses are dressed in summer garments also, of cheerful tints all except the "little nun," who is always in black; and the mistress with the red feather still has her red feather, and a knot of red ribbon at her neck, all tumbled with the little hands of her scholars, who always make her laugh and then run. ”

“ It is after all a difference of environment that makes the difference between mistress and maid, between master and man. The human being is as plastic as clay—is clay in the hands of circumstance. If his support of wife and children depended upon obsequiousness of bearing, the master might, like the butler, approximate Uriah Heep. If the mistress’s love of delicacy and color had not been cultivated by association with taste from childhood, her finery might be as vulgar as the maid’s which provokes her satire. ”

“ PIP. Mistress, I can tell ye one thing, my master's wench
Will come home to-day to dinner.
Enter JUSTICE REASON, and his man HUGH.
MRS ART. She shall be welcome, if she be his guest.
But here's some of our guests are come already:
A chair for Justice Reason, sirrah!
JUS. Good morrow, Mistress Arthur! you are like a good housewife:
At your request I am come home. What, a chair!
Thus age seeks ease. Where is your husband, mistress?
What, a cushion, too!
PIP. I pray you, ease your tail, sir.
JUS. Marry, and will, good fellow; twenty thanks.
[HUGH and PIPKIN converse apart.] ”

“ But no sooner did he put out his arms to embrace her whom he believed to be his mistress, than the poor girl, believing him entirely her own, had her arms round his neck, speaking to him the while in such loving words and with so beautiful a countenance, that there is not a hermit so holy but he would have forgotten his beads for love of her. ”

“ Now, I want to know if there are not hundreds of white women who would jump at such a situation as Phædra's?"
"Quite likely."
"Why, where could the fool be better off, or freer, if that's her whim? She is mistress of the house—absolutely to all intents and purposes, mistress of the house. All the money for domestic expenses passes through her hands; she carries the keys, governs the maids, and arranges everything to suit herself."
"And her master, too, let us hope, sir." ”

“ A mistress is always ready to teach her young maid these things, and while she is learning them she is earning a character for herself too, that is of more value than anything else, if she only does her work faithfully and truly, as God's servant, as well as a household servant. ”

“ Our mistress, being a widow, hath small comfort:
And I heard our nurse speak of an husband to-day,
Ready for our mistress; a rich man and a gay.
And we shall go in our French hoods every day:
In our silk cassocks (I warrant you) fresh and gay; [92]
In our trick ferdegews and billiments of gold;
Brave in our suits of change, seven double fold.
Then shall ye see Tibet, sirs, tread the moss so trim;
Nay, why said I tread? ye shall see her glide and swim;
Not lumperdy-clumperdy, like our spaniel Rig.
Truepenny. Marry, then, prick-me-dainty; come, toast me a fig. ”

“ The mistress requires a solemn promise that the servant will come on a certain day, and as often as not the day arrives without her. Our young lady has been round to a number of mistresses and 'priced' their places; she will not wilfully put you in a quandary, but if, after having engaged herself to you, she hears of another situation where there is less work or more wages, she takes it in preference, and leaves you to manage as best you can. ”

“ If she sees her mistress raise her hand as though to pretend to strike her, she knows that it is the symbol her mistress invariably attaches to the idea of sending her away, and as such she accepts it. ”

“ It is not very easy to know the head-mistress; the girls know her up to a certain point, but personal friendship as between one woman and another cannot quite exist between a little girl and her head-mistress. ”

“ If the mistress smiles at their ideal advances, the maid will laugh outright; she will throw water over you, get her sister to listen, send her sweetheart to ask you what you mean, will set the village or the house upon your back ”

“ Enter Mistress Mulligrub, and Lionel with a goblet.
Mistress Mul. Nay, I pray you, stay and drink; and how does your mistress? I know her very well—I have been inward with her, and so has many more. She was ever a good, patient creature, i’faith! With all my heart, I’ll remember your master, an honest man. He knew me before I was married! An honest man he is, and a crafty. He comes forward in the world well, I warrant him; and his wife is a proper woman, that she is. Well, she has been as proper a woman as any in Cheap. ”

“ A mistress at my coat-tails would be more troublesome than a wife; she would be an obstacle to the numerous pleasant adventures I encounter at every town. For example, if I had a mistress I should not be able to take the charming Irene to the ball to-morrow. ”

“ And in some perfumes is there more delight Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks. I love to hear her speak,—yet well I know That music hath a far more pleasing sound; I grant I never saw a goddess go,— My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground: And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare As any she belied with false compare. CXLVI Poor soul, the centre of my sinful earth, Pressed by these rebel powers that thee array, Why dost thou pine within and suffer dearth, Painting thy outward walls so costly gay? ”