Mother superior

“ Her good mother, becoming at once an object of political jealousy, removed herself from the old close companionship, though retaining in her heart the old tender solicitude—perhaps feeling herself more than ever necessary to her daughter. Mothers are so conceited. ”

“ Although a disobedient daughter, she has proved herself a true wife till shamefully deserted, and a self-denying and tender-hearted mother, who, though giving herself up to shame for their sake, kept her children from every breath of even scandalous report, and placed them as well-educated and respectable members of society. ”

“ But how seldom do mothers teach their children the difference between the two? The smiling mother gives her innocent daughter to a hoary head and a seared heart if there is but a golden covering to them. A ‘splendid match’—from a worldly view—is all that is needed. ”

“ These are the mothers, who, never having invited the confidence of those young hearts, live to see it bestowed anywhere and everywhere but in accordance with their wishes. Is it, can it be enough to a mother worthy the name, to be satisfied that her daughter's physical wants are cared for? What of that yearning, hungry soul, that is casting about, here and there, for something to satisfy its questionings? ”

“ A brave mother makes a braver daughter. Guard well your child, and honour her as she deserves to be honoured. A maid who will risk her life for her mother's protection is one to grow up the pride and glory of her house.—-Mistress Mary, I salute you. Farewell; I could almost wish that you had been born a boy, that I might have numbered you among my own picked soldiers! ”

“ My mother, yielding to an aberration of maternal love, hastens to the wife of this orphan's guardian, and it is decided that, on the arrival of the heiress, an inexperienced child of sixteen, weak and defenceless, and ignorant of the ways of the world, she shall be so surrounded and influenced that her choice is almost certain to fall upon me. ”

“ Of force, I know ’tis not every maid hath such a father and mother as we—thank God for the same!—but I do think, nevertheless, there be few mothers that be good women at all, which should not be willing to have their daughters bring their sorrows and joys to them, rather than pour them into the ear of the first man that will flatter them. ”

“ Her defence of my character, whenever it is attacked, almost touches my heart; but her mother, her intrusive mother, that would-be paragon of her sex, rises before me and continually urges me on; she shall learn, to her cost, that her carefully-trained children are not better than others. ”

“ Strangers to her have been kind to her; but her own father—Mr Frank, I am her nurse, and I love her, and I tend her, and I would do anything for her that I could. Her mother's heart beats as hers beats; and, if she suffers a pain, her mother trembles all over. If she is happy, it is her mother that smiles and is glad. If she is growing stronger, her mother is healthy: if she dwindles, her mother languishes. ”

“ The tenderness of a father who knew the world, might be great; but could it equal that of a mother—of a mother, labouring under a portion of the misery, which the constitution of society seems to have entailed on all her kind? It is, my child, my dearest daughter, only such a mother, who will dare to break through all restraint to provide for your happiness—who will voluntarily brave censure herself, to ward off sorrow from your bosom. ”

“ What my father alluded to, about my firm conduct when my child was born, was this. My mother having always nursed her own children, I was bred up with the notion that it ought to be so, and I still entertained the greatest antipathy to my offspring sucking any other woman but its mother. ”

“ But most of these mothers carelessly let them go without obeying their instructions. If they did not, we should see other children, other men than now throng our streets. The boy could not invariably disappoint the mother, the man the wife, who steadily demanded of him such a career. ”

“ Not dissimilar in disposition, as she was not unlike in form, to her mother, she was by that mother carefully endowed with those gentler attributes of goodness, which, taking root within a soil so eminently disposed to their reception, could not fail to render her in after life a model of excellence, both as a mother and a wife. ”

“ The mother is not the material woman who gives to the material light, a material being, fruit of a moment's pleasure, and then flings it out into the street, or on to the knees of the perfidious seducer who has made it be born! ”

“ I have seen a young and beautiful mother, herself like a brilliant and graceful flower. Nothing could divide her from her infant. It was to her as a twin-soul. She had loved society, for there she had been as an idol. But what was the fleeting delight of adulation, to the deep love that took possession of her whole being? ”

“ A prudent and pious woman in the capacity of wife and mother, is a greater character than any hero or philosopher, of either ancient, or modern times. The first impressions which children receive in the nursery, under the mother's immediate care, are seldom obliterated. ”

“ My earliest recollections were of my old black mammy, who used to croon to me, in a voice that was always soothing. I was taught to believe that the world was at my command; a mother’s care I never knew, for my advent into this world cost her her life. Ah, sir, I have often longed for a real mother, one to whom I could go and tell all my little secrets, one who could feel the love for me which my nature seems to crave.
[105]
“My father was a most indulgent parent, but I fear that in his great goodness he failed to conceive the emotions of a girl’s heart. ”

“ In these days when she was so racked and weak the son’s wife did all well and everything she knew to do for her husband’s mother’s sake, nor was she lacking in any small duty. The blind maid strove to do her poor best too for her mother, but she was slow and could not see a need in time, and often the son’s wife pushed the maid aside and said, “Do you sit down somewhere, good sister, and out of my way, for I swear you are the most help so!” ”

“ It is quite different, however, if the cautious mother finds a husband for her daughter: they come to terms, and the obedient daughter exchanges the hero of her dreams for a common, every-day bourgeois, and is happy that she has escaped the preposterous fate of an old maid. ”

“ I am the mother that bore you, and your sorrow is my agony; and if you don't hate her, I do."
"Then, mother, you make me love her more. She is unjustly treated by you, and I must make the balance even. ”

“ And if the sterner nature of man, is thus readily softened, how much more must the pliancy of woman be modified, through the melting affections of the mother.
Our authority over our children passes away with their period of tutelage. But their influence over us, increases with time. The mother, associating her daughters with herself, becomes gradually guided by the judgment which she had assisted to form. ”

“ The mother is the first influence in his life, the first to cultivate his conceit and self-importance. Sisters and wives follow in the mother's footsteps, not to mention mistresses, who complete the work begun by the mother. Woman is naturally perverse, I argued ”

“ You embrace a being, whose developements may yet astonish you; who may perhaps sway the destiny of others; whose gatherings of knowledge you can neither foresee or limit; and whose chequered lot of sorrow or of joy, are known only to the Omnipotence which fashioned him. Still, if this were all, the office of a mother would lose its crowning dignity. ”

“ Perhaps I have not been so fortunate as to make my ideas fully understood; for—although I still think that, as a wife, woman should place herself, instead of running the risk of being placed, in a secondary position—as a mother, I do not see how it is possible for her to be too dignified, or to be treated with too much respect. ”

“ Thus did the mother lie steadfastly and well, and the old woman believed the tale heartily and cried out often of her son and how rich he would be, and the mother kept her face calm and smooth and she did not weep as women do when their men run away and shame them. ”

“ The desolate situation of the mother, devoted to her daughter only, and that daughter fairer than imagination could paint, young, gentle, blameless, knowing nothing beyond obedience to her parent, and untaught in the guile of mankind. ”

“ The mother, a staid and reasonable woman, bore the loss of her husband and all her fortune with a wise composure; in her need she refused, out of noble pride, all help from the charitable sympathy of her relations and friends; considering it as shameful alms, so long as she believed, that in her own activity she might find a living by the labour of her hands. ”

“ And what Mother can fill the sphere ordained for her sex, if she be not a devoted parent? Possessed of this trait, no woman can fail of honor and usefulness. She who looks on her race with a maternal interest, who feels that God hath made of one blood all the children of the earth, and who lives not for herself but her neighbor, she is of the genuine female nobility. ”

“ Had she lived she would have brought the greatest blessings to the house it would have been her lot to enter, as wife, mother, and mistress of a household. She would have created round herself an atmosphere of peace and content which only those who can love unselfishly are able to evoke. Your mother--of far greater beauty, exceptionally distinguished in person, manner, and intellect--had a less easy disposition. Being more brilliantly gifted, she also expected more from life. ”

“ Picture a sleeping babe and its mother for sale at auction! To you, gentle mothers of darling babes, I am now addressing my simple words. If the heart of man should be cast of iron, or carved out of granite, a loving mother’s heart is soft, like pure melted wax, and always susceptible to every impression of goodness and of compassion. She alone can tell how great is the pain to see her darling babe suffer. She alone can understand the sufferings of other unfortunate mothers. ”

“ It is Mother, and again Mother who is called upon, if we need help, if we need support. The honour of motherhood lies in this, in the calling of her name in deep, sorrowful hours. Why do we not call upon our father—why just our mother? Because we feel from childhood, instinctively that Mother, means a world of love and devotion. ”

“ You see a mother denying herself for her children, foregoing every comfort, enduring every hardship, till at last, worn out by her labor and her privation, she folds her hands upon her breast. May it not be said truly that she gives her life for the life of her children? ”

“ One might reverse the sentiment in the case of Madame Mère. Of her the dowagers with daughters to marry sing in chorus, "I'll visit her for her son." Civility to the mother is access to the son. A sharp tactician sees her advantage, and works the precious relationship for her own private ends. ”

“ Always I hurry faster when my happy brave little fellow cries 'Wait, mother,' for the sweet feel of that dragging at my mother-skirt—
More often my Child is the little girl six years old of the shy eyes and the sun-kissed hair and the firm child-mouth, full of high temper and strong will. All over her is need and demand of her mother to guard and adore and cherish her every moment of her life. ”

“ How beautiful, then, in its adaptation to the situation in which she is placed, and the duties she has to perform, is that instinct of maternal love, which, from its intensity and depth, its all-pervading and inextinguishable vitality, so lives and breathes through every act, thought, word, and look of the fond mother, that sooner would her infant doubt its own existence, than question that of her untiring love! ”

“ All mothers love their children more or less, but only a few mothers possess that superb loyalty which is able to rise above human sympathy and maternal love, which qualifies the mother to stand smilingly by the side of the crib and watch her little one in a fit of anger—yelling at the top of its voice—and yet never touch the child, allow the little fellow to come to himself, to wake up to the fact that all his yelling, his emotion, his anger, and his resentment are absolutely powerless to move his mother. ”

“ But I have seen a mother's love, endure every test unharmed, and come forth from the refiner's furnace, purged from that dross of selfishness, which the heart is wont to find among its purest gold. A widow expended on her only son, all the fullness of her affection, and the little gains of her industry. ”

“ All so desert before me lie: 'tis the wife that is wanting."
Thereupon spoke the good mother, and thus with intelligence answered:
"Son, not greater thy wish to bring thee a bride to thy chamber,
That thou mayst find thy nights a beautiful part of existence,
And that the work of the day may gain independence and freedom,
Than is thy father's wish too, and thy mother's. We always have
counselled,—
Yea, we have even insisted,—that thou shouldst elect thee a maiden. ”

“ Were I writing a book for the benefit of men instead of women, I might here enlarge upon the domestic calamities to which many have subjected themselves in consequence of making this kind of choice. I must confess that to me the spectacle of a silly mother, surrounded by a family of children whom she has neither the skill to influence, nor the dignity to control, has always presented one of the most melancholy aspects of human life. ”

“ Is it a wonder and grief to a mother that her girls become giddy, frivolous, and unsteady, and perhaps cause her shame? Do you want them to be quiet, to stay at home, and be neat, modest, unselfish girls? ”

“ But with a low or evil-natured mother we seldom see a Sweet Seventeen worth the trouble of writing about: which shows at least one thing—the importance of the womanly influence at such a time, and how so much that we blame in our modern girls lies to the account of their mothers. ”