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Bedfellow   Listen
noun
Bedfellow  n.  One who lies with another in the same bed; a person who shares one's couch.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Bedfellow" Quotes from Famous Books



... last, and I quickly lighted the candle and conducted my cousin upstairs. He was always my bedfellow on the occasions of his visits to Brandon, and never spared to keep me awake as long as it pleased him to talk ...
— Athelstane Ford • Allen Upward

... after putting a hundred yards between himself and his bedfellow, plunged into the first dark entry which presented itself. Hurriedly, and with a frowning face, he cut off his left sleeve from shoulder to wrist; and this act, by disclosing his linen, put him in possession ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman

... to any of those atrocious falsehoods with which their columns are constantly filled, yet the baseness and cowardice of their intentions are not the less disgraceful on that account. To proceed, my bedfellow, whose name was Scott, when he arose one morning, discovered that, during the night, his Breeches had been removed from under his pillow, and his purse, which contained a guinea and two or three shillings, had been taken out of the pocket, ransacked of ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt

... lie there upon his pillow Being so troublesome a bedfellow? O polished perturbation! golden care! That keep'st the ports of slumber open wide To many a watchful night!—Sleep with it now, Yet not so sound and half so deeply sweet As he whose brow with homely biggin bound Snores ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris

... then give they ware waking. I cannot forget on drollery. 2 gentlemen fell to lodge to gither at one innes, the one began to plead for a bed by himselfe, since the other would find him a wery ill bedfellow, for he was so much given to hunting, that in the night he used to rise and cry up and doune the chambre hobois, hobois, as on his dog; the other thought Il'e sy if I can put you from that, wheiron he feigned he was iust of that ...
— Publications of the Scottish History Society, Vol. 36 • Sir John Lauder

... and the soothsayers told him to beware of that day, using so direct a form of speech as this: "The gates of the victim's liver are shut." After this he went out through some door, paying no heed to the fact that the lion, which he was wont to call "Rapier," and had for a table companion and bedfellow, knocked him down as he went out, and, moreover, tore some of his clothing. He kept many other lions besides and always had some of them around him, but this one he would often caress even publicly. It was thus ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol VI. • Cassius Dio

... might insure myself an eternal reward in a future state. The saint was a good-natured man, and never gave me an ill word but once, which was occasioned by my neglecting to place Aristophanes, which was his constant bedfellow, on his pillow. He was, indeed, extremely fond of that Greek poet, and frequently made me read his comedies to him. When I came to any of the loose passages he would smile, and say, 'It was pity his ...
— From This World to the Next • Henry Fielding

... passed—were they omens, or accidents which popular superstition interprets into omens? Was the malignant influence which Geraldine exerted over the maiden supernatural possession, or the fascination of terror and repugnance? Did she really utter the words of a charm, or did her sweet bedfellow dream them? And once more, what was that upon her breast—"that bosom old—that bosom cold"? Was it a wound, or the mark of a serpent, or some foul and hideous disfigurement—or was it only the shadows cast by the ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers

... down to the pool, I had to break him off going after the fish when I did not want them taken, and this I accomplished. No one who had not witnessed it, could imagine the affection and docility of this animal, and the love I had for him. He was my companion and playmate during the day, and my bedfellow ...
— The Little Savage • Captain Marryat

... for them. The family of this Malek carried their hospitality towards me to a very extraordinary length for people professing Islam. I was offered, by the mother and mistress of the house, my choice of two of her daughters for a bedfellow. They were both young, and the handsomest women I have seen in Berber, but married to husbands whose houses were at the other end of the town. When I understood this circumstance, I told the mother, that a genuine Mussulman ought ...
— A Narrative of the Expedition to Dongola and Sennaar • George Bethune English

... hesitate: for being perfectly well acquainted with my grandfather's disposition, he knew it would be to no purpose to attempt him by prayers and entreaties. So without any further application, he betook himself with his disconsolate bedfellow to a farmhouse, where an old servant of his mother dwelt. In this ill-adapted situation they remained for some time, until my mother, hoping that her tears and condition would move my grandfather to compassion, went, in disguise, to ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.

... me on another account, upon our first coming to bed together. But whether he did it with design or not, I know not, but his elder brother took care to make him very much fuddled before he went to bed, so that I had the satisfaction of a drunken bedfellow the first night. How he did it I know not, but I concluded that he certainly contrived it, that his brother might be able to make no judgment of the difference between a maid and a married woman; nor did he ever entertain any notions ...
— The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders &c. • Daniel Defoe

... Louises. He was court chaplain when Ridley and Latimer were burned. He was Charles IX.'s private secretary at the time of the St. Bartholomew affair, and Robespierre's right-hand man in the days of Terror. He was Benedict Arnold's counsellor, Jefferson Davis's bedfellow, and John Wilkes ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various

... salt-marshes live the lepers; they have houses of wattled reeds, and none may come nigh them. The beggars wander through the cities, and eat their food with the dogs. Canst thou make these things not to be? Wilt thou take the leper for thy bedfellow, and set the beggar at thy board? Shall the lion do thy bidding, and the wild boar obey thee? Is not He who made misery wiser than thou art? Wherefore I praise thee not for this that thou hast done, but I bid thee ride back to the Palace and make thy face glad, and put on the raiment that beseemeth ...
— Selected Prose of Oscar Wilde - with a Preface by Robert Ross • Oscar Wilde

... than the plump little goodwoman Hall, but that was no matter, and the Prioress had barely space to get in a word of thanks before she went on: "I will keep her and tend her as the apple of mine eye. She shall pray with me at all the holy shrines for the good of her soul and mine. She shall be my bedfellow wherever we halt, and sit next me, and be cherished as though she were mine own daughter—ladybird as she is— till I can give her into the hands of the good Lady Countess. Oh yes—you may trust Joan Hall, dame reverend ...
— Grisly Grisell • Charlotte M. Yonge

... me," Dalaber says, "that I forgot to make clean my hose and shoes, and to shift me into another gown; and all bedirted as I was, I went to the said prior's chamber." The prior asked him where he had slept that night. At Alban's Hall, he answered, with his old bedfellow, Fitzjames. The prior said he did not believe him, and asked if Garret had been at his rooms the day before. He replied that he had. Whither had he gone, then? the prior inquired; and where was he at that ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude

... so powerful as Love, in my opinion; 'slife, Sister, thou art beautiful, and hast a Fortune too, which before I wou'd lay out upon so shameful a purchase as such a Bedfellow for life as Octavio, I wou'd turn errant keeping Curtezan, and buy my ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. II • Aphra Behn

... answered Sir Mortimer. "Your thought was kindly, and I thank you for it. Once these doors opened wide to all who knocked, but it is not so now. Ride on to the town below the hill, and take your rest in the inn! Your bedfellow may be Iscariot, but if you know him not, and as yet he knows himself but slenderly, you may sleep ...
— Sir Mortimer • Mary Johnston

... stolen, or my fishing-rod smashed; and I made a regular fool of myself in the morning of the eventful day by getting up first at two a.m., then at three, then at four, and four or five times more, to take observations out of the window, till at last my bedfellow declared he would stand it no longer, and that since I was up, ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed

... maybe the puppy in my bed or maybe God. I'll come out there and say 'em so you won't wake the puppy, because he's goned back to sleep," he added in a voice that was hushed to a tone of extreme consideration for the slumber of his young bedfellow. ...
— Rose of Old Harpeth • Maria Thompson Daviess

... 1850, the King became enamoured of one of his mother's waiting-maids, and demanded her in marriage. See was his mother's favourite bedfellow, and she would not part with her. The King became angry, and to soothe him his mother told him that it was purely out of regard for him and his children that she refused to part with this young woman; that she had a "sampun," ...
— A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II • William Sleeman

... a cowboy or a horse-thief, whom we have just met, and who has volunteered to post it—my men are watching him with anything but friendly eyes, as they think he is going to try to steal our ponies. (To guard against this possibility he is to sleep between my foreman and myself—delectable bedfellow he'll prove, doubtless.) ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn

... I used to be my grandmother's bedfellow. The dinner hour being as early as two o'clock, she had a regular supper, which was served up in her own sleeping-room; and immediately after finishing it, she went to bed. Of her supper I was not permitted to partake, nor was the privation ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner

... borrowed ten sous from his bedfellow, again asked and obtained permission to leave the barracks for several hours. When he set off with Jean on their Sunday walk his manner was very queer, quite restless, and quite changed. Kerderen did not understand, but he vaguely suspected ...
— Selected Writings of Guy de Maupassant • Guy de Maupassant

... night Wanted a spell to cast me into slumber; Yet when the weight of my own thoughts grew heavy For my tear dropping eyes, and drew these curtains, My dreams were still of thee—forgive my blushes— And in imagination thou wert then My harmless bedfellow. ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg

... America can do most anything,—hang up on a pin if it be necessary to accommodate, but don't just like the moon for a bedfellow.' ...
— The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth • Timothy Templeton

... breed gray hairs and a premature longing for death. It is pitiful, if you are the home-keeping mother of an impoverished family, to drop in your traces helpless at night, and awake unstrengthened in the early morning. The haunting consciousness of rooted poverty is an improper bedfellow for a woman who still bears. It has been known to induce physical and spiritual malformations in the babies ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin

... you, I am really very much obliged to you, I am indeed. I wouldn't ask it if I was not sure your money is safe. Good-bye, old fellow, and get rid of that bedfellow of yours," and again ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope

... thy forehead (clad in gray hairs) twenty years sooner than on a merry milk-maid's. Thou sleepest worse than if a mouse should be forced to take up her lodging in a cat's ear: a little infant that breeds its teeth, should it lie with thee, would cry out, as if thou wert the more unquiet bedfellow. ...
— The Duchess of Malfi • John Webster

... madam, you may depend," says Amy, "he expects to have you for his bedfellow to-night. I saw it plainly in his management all day; and at last he told you so too, as plain, I think, as he could." "Well, well, Amy," said I, "I don't know what to say; if he will he must, I think; I don't know how to resist such a man, that has done so much for me." "I don't ...
— The Fortunate Mistress (Parts 1 and 2) • Daniel Defoe

... on the veld,' he said,' it is not the time to remember a promise to a girl. It is easier to find a bedfellow than a blanket sometimes. And then, I am to be considered, and I cannot suffer ...
— Vrouw Grobelaar and Her Leading Cases - Seventeen Short Stories • Perceval Gibbon

... filthy bedfellow kept them motionless, silent, abstracted with anguish. Laurent, at times, thought of taking Therese violently in his arms; but he dared not move. He said to himself that he could not extend his hand, without getting ...
— Therese Raquin • Emile Zola

... no more. The phosphorescent light died out, the mirror darkened, and on sinking back on his pillow, he realized with the wildest delight he was once again alone—his bedfellow had gone! ...
— Animal Ghosts - Or, Animal Hauntings and the Hereafter • Elliott O'Donnell

... I asked, at length, rousing myself, and shaking off the embrace of Rover, who was loth to lose his bedfellow. ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various

... that the case was not one which had occurred in life, but had been made up. The truculent landlord creeping in and finding that everything was as he wished it; and the moneyless man going off in the dark, leaving his dead bedfellow behind him—as the landlord had intended that he should—form all the incidents of a stock piece for rehearsal rather than the occurrence of a true murder. The same may be said of other examples adduced, here as afterward, by Quintilian. They are well-known cases, ...
— The Life of Cicero - Volume II. • Anthony Trollope

... we received tickets for lodgings. Mine was for the old printer Jarcisse, who knew Mr. Goulden and Aunt Gredel, and who made me dine at his table with my new comrade and bedfellow, Jean Buche, the son of a wood-cutter of Harberg, who had never eaten anything but potatoes before he was conscripted. He devoured everything, even to the bones that they set before us. But I was so melancholy, that to hear ...
— Waterloo - A sequel to The Conscript of 1813 • Emile Erckmann

... palpable, and doats upon the occult and intangible; he loves to speculate on the doings of those in the dogstar, to discuss on immortal essences, to dispute with the disbeliever on gnomes—a paradox will be the darling of his bosom for a month, and a good chimera be his bedfellow by night and theme by day for a year. He is fickle, and casts off his menial mistress at an hour's notice—his mind never weds any of the strange, fantastic idealities, which he woos for a time so passionately—deep disgust ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 10, No. 272, Saturday, September 8, 1827 • Various

... come to the Door, when another hath been within with his Wife, there being no way to escape, the Woman has took a pan of hot ashes, and as she opened the Door, her Husband being entring, cast them in his Eyes, and so she and her Bedfellow ...
— An Historical Relation Of The Island Ceylon In The East Indies • Robert Knox

... the quarrels and hatred which arise between married people come in my mind from the husband's rage and revolt at discovering that his slave and bedfellow, who is to minister to all his wishes, and is church-sworn to honor and obey him—is his superior; and that HE, and not she, ought to be the subordinate of the twain; and in these controversies, I think, lay the cause of my lord's anger against his lady. When ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray

... from the beautiful sleepers, I thought, each on her "dim, straight" silver couch, to lie alone with such a bedfellow! I had refused a lovely privilege: I was given over to an awful duty! Beneath the sad, slow-setting moon, I lay with the dead, and watched for ...
— Lilith • George MacDonald

... harpooneer, whom I have not yet seen, you persist in telling me the most mystifying and exasperating stories, tending to beget in me an uncomfortable feeling towards the man whom .. you design for my bedfellow —a sort of connexion, landlord, which is an intimate and confidential one in the highest degree. I now demand of you to speak out and tell me who and what this harpooneer is, and whether I shall be in all respects safe to spend the night with him. And in the first place, you will be so ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville

... Heywoode, in his "Nine Books of Various History concerning Women," published at London in 1624. A certain sinless maiden, called Bona, "who lived a retired life in a house of religious Nunnes, had a bedfellow, unto whom, above all others, she was tied, lying on her death-bed, and no help to be devised for her recovery." This Bona, being herself in perfect health, besought the Almighty, that she might not ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger

... I found, was a small room at the right-hand corner of the barracks—so small that I foresaw our nights would not be comfortable. There were five truckle beds ranged against the wall; 'twas clear that each of us would have a bedfellow. The bedding consisted of a hard straw mattress and a single woollen coverlet which, judging by its tenuity, had already seen service with generations of sleepers. Luckily it was early autumn; we should not need to dread the winter cold for some time to come; and I was young ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang

... directions, and mistaking the room, he entered the chamber where lay the body of poor Jemmy Robbin. In closing the door the light was blown out. He found there was what seemed to be some other person in the bed, and, supposing him a live bedfellow, quietly lay down, covered himself with a ...
— ZigZag Journeys in Northern Lands; - The Rhine to the Arctic • Hezekiah Butterworth

... clapping his hand on my shoulder. "Sleep where ye will, that corner is as good as another. See, there stands my tuck, a Spanish blade of notable good temper, it hath been a true friend to me many a time ere now and should be a trusty bedfellow. As for me, I'm for a feather-bed. And, Martin," says he, pausing to pinch his chin and view me sideways, "if aught should chance to me—at any time—the chart and treasure will be yours. So good-night, comrade, and sleep sound, for 'tis ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol

... clarisoning leads on the envious Lady of Morn. Be thou accursed, most envious of birds, who drivest me from my home to the endless chattering of the young men. Thou growest old, Tithonus; else why dost thou chase Dawn thy bedfellow out of her couch while ...
— Select Epigrams from the Greek Anthology • J. W. Mackail

... the village behind me, I faced it. I think this was a lucky exchange for your humble servant; the Royal Italian left eight hundred men on the field of battle, my company was cut to pieces, and my own comrade and bedfellow killed by a cannon-ball. The glory with which my late regiment covered itself so much delighted Marlborough, that he made me an ensign on the field of battle. With such a protector I ought to have ...
— The Regent's Daughter • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)

... morning after his first night away from home, he saw the other boys dressing, and was much disturbed. He whispered to his bedfellow (for all schoolboys slept at least two in a bed in those days), 'Master George, can you put on your shirt? ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various

... where the girls finally stayed their weary feet, was quite modern and unromantic, though well aired and fairly comfortable. Ingred, whom the fates had placed to sleep with Nora, had a trying night, for her obstreperous bedfellow had a habit of flinging out her arms, and of appropriating the larger half of the clothes, leaving poor Ingred to wake shivering. Also, the bed sloped towards the middle, so that both girls had to poise themselves on a kind of hillside, and were constantly rolling ...
— A Popular Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil

... struggled, 'Misero Astorre che more come poltrone!' Simonetto, who lay that night with a lad called Paolo he greatly loved, flew to arms, exclaiming to his brother, 'Non dubitare Gismondo, mio fratello!' He too was soon despatched, together with his bedfellow. Filippo da Braccio, after killing him, tore from a great wound in his side the still quivering heart, into which he drove his teeth with savage fury. Old Guido died groaning, 'Ora e gionto il ponto mio;' and Gismondo's throat was cut while he lay holding back his face that he might be spared ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds

... proceeded: "On the night of March 14th, you decided you were tired of your wife. Thought you'd like a change of bedfellow. You left your coat and stick about a quarter-mile down the left bank of the Seine from Neuilly bridge, so that people would think you dead. You cut a knife-slit in the ribs of your coat to make a neater story of it. Then, as I guessed you would, you went honeymooning ...
— Swirling Waters • Max Rittenberg

... kneeling, put up a most cautious groping hand, the bed being in the darkest part of the room; someone there: and swiftly as a dolphin twists to dart and snap, his knife was in a breast and instantly ready to strike its expected bedfellow. ...
— The Lord of the Sea • M. P. Shiel

... days went on. It is wonderful what endurance there is in a young heart,—for how long a time it can beat off suffering all day by unceasing labor, and lie awake all night with that same suffering for a bedfellow, and still make no sign that a careless eye can see I look at that time now with wonder. How did I bear that constant occupation by day, alternated only with those sleepless nights, without breaking down entirely? The crisis came at last,—a sort ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 76, February, 1864 • Various

... inexpressibly wild, beautiful look. She keeps her place till I am within two paces of her, when she flutters away as at first. In the brief interval the remaining egg has hatched, and the two little nestling lift their heads without being jostled or overreached by any strange bedfellow. A week afterward and they were flown away,—so brief is the infancy of birds. And the wonder is that they escape, even for this short time, the skunks and minks and muskrats that abound here, and that have a decided partiality for ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs

... be raised or we must be lowered. It is for the death of manliness we women mourn. We marry, and find we have taken upon ourselves misery, and lifelong widowhood of the mind and moral nature. Do you wonder that some of us ask: Why should we keep ourselves pure if impurity is to be our bedfellow? You make us breathe corruption, and wonder that ...
— Ideala • Sarah Grand

... thought his ministry in that place was not without fruit, though he stayed but short time there. Being a young man unmarried, he boarded himself in the house of one Mitchelhill, and took a young boy of his to be his bedfellow, who to his dying day retained both a respect to Mr. Welch and his ministry, from the impressions Mr. Welch's behaviour made upon his apprehension, though but a child. His custom was when he went to bed at night, to lay a ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie

... Whitewood I have made a master's mate, and he behaves well. Charrington is become boatswain, and Jack Wood is now my coxswain. Trim, like his master, is becoming grey; he is at present fat and frisky, and takes meat from our forks with his former dexterity. He is commonly my bedfellow. The master we have in poor Thistle's place* (* John Aken.) is an easy, good-natured man." In another letter to his wife* (* Flinders' Papers.) he tells her: "Thou wouldst have been situated as comfortably here as I hoped and told thee. Two better or more agreeable women ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott

... beaten path, thou canst not miss it. 'Tis a wide causeway that conducteth thither, An easy track, and down-hill all the way. But if the black prince will not send her quickly, But still detain her for his bedfellow, Tell him I'll drag him from his iron chair By the steel tresses, and then sew him fast With the three furies in a leathern bag, And thus will drown them in the ocean. He pours the jack ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various

... brought an inconvenience upon yourself, as you observe, by your refusal of Miss Partington for your bedfellow. Pity you had not admitted her! watchful as you are, what could have happened? If violence were intended, he would not stay for the night. You might have sat up after her, or not gone to bed. Mrs. Sinclair pressed it too ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson

... itching that you may feel in your body. Thus, if the eye or the nose itches, it is a sign you will be shortly vexed; if the foot itches, you will tread upon strange ground; and if the elbow itches, you will change your bedfellow. Itching of the right hand prognosticates that you will soon have a sum of money; and, of the left, that you will be ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay

... the cabin, taming my seal, who now was quite fond of me; and one night, as I was going to bed, he crawled into my bed-place, and from that time he was my bedfellow. At the end of a week I went over to the other side of the island, and contrived to carry up the two skins to the summit. It was a hard day's work. The day afterwards I conveyed them to the cabin, and, as they were quite dry, I put them into my bed-place to lie down upon, as I ...
— The Little Savage • Captain Frederick Marryat

... lest Elizabeth should think her better and holier than she was. The little girl was soon asleep, her fears forgotten; and Ruth, worn out by passionate emotion, and obliged to be still for fear of awaking her bedfellow, went off into a short slumber, through the depths of which the echoes of her ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... itch, that which appears between the fingers, and under the joints of the knees and elbows; and that which seldom is seen in these places, but all over the other parts of the body. The latter is seldom thought to be the itch, as it does not easily infect even a bedfellow, and resists the usual means of cure ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin

... face was hard and alert, and his lips moved ceaselessly one upon another. All those serving people wondered to see his head so high, for already it was known that the King had turned sick at the sight of his bedfellow that should be. And indeed the palace was only awake at that late hour because of that astounding news, dignitaries lingering in each other's quarters to talk of it, whilst in the passages their waiting ...
— The Fifth Queen • Ford Madox Ford

... lay softly down by the child's side, and there, until dawn, listened to the low breathing of his innocent little bedfellow. Though he could not sleep, it was joy, rather than any painful excitement, that kept him wakeful. A great and loathsome burden had fallen from him, and in the same moment he had rescued his boy out of an atmosphere of hated impurity. At length he could respect ...
— In the Year of Jubilee • George Gissing

... a pleasanter bedfellow; but here am I on the sofa with a cough, and a very disagreeable associate I find it. Old Moore, I think, died all but his voice, and my voice is nearly dead before me; in other respects, I am much as I was when you saw me, and this weather is in my favour.... I have promised Murray ...
— A Publisher and His Friends • Samuel Smiles

... questions, and the example of his new friend, for whom he was beginning to feel a warm attachment, had considerable effect upon him. When, therefore, Fosdick asked again if he should teach him a prayer, Dick consented, and his young bedfellow did so. Dick was not naturally irreligious. If he had lived without a knowledge of God and of religious things, it was scarcely to be wondered at in a lad who, from an early age, had been thrown upon his own exertions for the means of living, with no one to care for him or ...
— Ragged Dick - Or, Street Life in New York with the Boot-Blacks • Horatio Alger

... she wouldn't. 'Twas like that. The bad one! She's not much use, but still she's company, Though I'm not. She goes everywhere with me. So Alton I must reach to-night somehow: I'll get no shakedown with that bedfellow From farmers. Many a man sleeps worse to-night Than I shall." "In the trenches." "Yes, that's right. But they'll be out of that—I hope they be— This weather, marching after the enemy." "And so I hope. Good luck." And there I nodded "Good-night. ...
— Last Poems • Edward Thomas

... we examine what the Achilles of Homer means by the fine phrase "every man loves his bedfellow as I love mine," we come across a grotesque parody even of sensual infatuation, not to speak of romantic love. If Achilles had been animated by the strong individual preference which sometimes results even from animal passion, he would not have told Agamemnon, "take ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck

... do you say to dividing the crew and passengers into two watches, all well armed and ready for the worst? One watch on deck, the other below, just lying down in our clothes with a rifle for a bedfellow, ready to run up at ...
— Old Gold - The Cruise of the "Jason" Brig • George Manville Fenn

... my soul it all amounts to the same thing. Where's the soul in a man that hasn't got a bedfellow—eh?—answer me that! Can't be done you know. Might as well ask a virgin chicken to lay you ...
— Aaron's Rod • D. H. Lawrence

... eyes began to close at last, she was yet, at the end of half an hour, awake, when Lucy stirred softly beside her and sat up in bed. After a moment the younger girl slipped out to the floor, using such care that Evelyn thought her making unusual and kindly effort not to disturb her bedfellow. ...
— The Second Violin • Grace S. Richmond

... being naked; but, from the waist downwards, they have a pintado, or a silken wrapper, trailing on the ground. They manage their women quite differently from the Moluccans; for, while these will hardly let them be seen by a stranger, the Javans will very civilly offer a female bedfellow to a traveller. Besides being thus civil and hospitable to strangers, they are good humoured and sociable among themselves; for in every village they have a public-house, where the inhabitants meet together, each bringing their shares of provisions, and joining the whole in one social feast for ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr

... as well object to family prayer, and say that they try to live in a spirit of prayer all day. Why do they have special seasons for retirement, if they walk with God? Why do they hardly feel that they have prayed if company, or a bedfellow, on a journey, keeps them from using oral prayer? It is a bitter grief, also, when no funeral solemnities lead the way to the grave with a beloved object; yet, where in the word of God are they commanded? ...
— Bertha and Her Baptism • Nehemiah Adams

... teacher, is worse than an open fanatic and by his hypocrisy does greater damage than a heretic. Nor can he be trusted. He is a wolf and a fox, a hireling and a servant of his belly, and ready to despise and to sacrifice doctrine, Word, faith, Sacrament, churches, and schools. He is either a secret bedfellow of the enemies or a skeptic and a weathervane, waiting to see whether Christ or the devil will prove victorious; or he has no convictions of his own whatever, and is not worthy to be called a pupil, let alone a teacher; nor does he want to offend anybody, or ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente

... beautifull ladie, and of vertuous conditions, who was a professed nunne in a religious house, to the end she might auoid the stormes of the world, and lead hir life in more securitie after hir fathers deceasse. This gentlewoman, notwithstanding hir vow, was thought to be a meet bedfellow for the king: wherefore he sent ambassadors to hir brother Edgar, requesting that he might haue hir in mariage. But she refusing superstitiouslie at the first to breake hir professed vow, would not heare of ...
— Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland (2 of 6): England (3 of 12) - Henrie I. • Raphael Holinshed

... express my gratitude; but the language I used seemed so different from his that I was disconcerted and pained at my awkwardness without being able to realize why. To crown my misery, a movement that I made caused the knife which I had taken as bedfellow to fall at M. de Mauprat's feet. He picked it up, looked at it, and then at myself with extreme surprise. I turned as red as fire and stammered out I know not what. I expected he would reprove me for this insult to his hospitality. However, he was too polite to insist upon ...
— Mauprat • George Sand

... grant the lady, but as to her being "priceless," I should think for my own poor particular, that when I bartered my liberty for a comely bedfellow, I was paying full value for my goods, besides a swinging overcharge for the fashion of ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter

... thither he frequently distributed alms, paused to recite a prayer at every church and wayside shrine, and, meeting a leper, ate, drank, and even slept with him in a village inn. When Rodrigo awoke in the middle of the night, he found his bedfellow gone, but was favored by a vision of St. Lazarus, who praised his charity, and promised him great temporal prosperity ...
— Legends of the Middle Ages - Narrated with Special Reference to Literature and Art • H.A. Guerber

... to wake this dear bedfellow merely because he himself could not sleep. He clasped his hands behind his head, and by a prolonged effort of will remained motionless. But insomnia was exciting every nerve in his body; each memory seemed to light up the entire labyrinth of his brain; each sense-message ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell

... to see if they would enable me to meet the demands upon me. The next thing was to do the same thing over again; and the next, to do it over again a third time. All this was accompanied with long and deep-drawn sighs, which were listened to by a fond and wakeful bedfellow, who silently sympathized with me in all my trials, and who was as restless and anxious as myself. Sometimes I moaned, and sometimes I prayed; and when I was wearied out with my fruitless labors, I fell asleep. It would have been better, if I could have done it, to have "given to the ...
— Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again - A Life Story • Joseph Barker

... can jeer at me. I'm a man among men! I take my stroll bareheaded and owe no man a copper cent. I never had a summons in my life and no one ever said to me, in the forum, pay me what you owe me. I've bought a few acres and saved up a few dollars and I feed twenty bellies and a dog. I ransomed my bedfellow so no one could wipe his hands on her bosom; a thousand dinars it cost me, too. I was chosen priest of Augustus without paying the fee, and I hope that I won't need to blush in my grave after I'm dead. But you're so busy that you can't look behind you; you can spot a louse on someone else, ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter

... then she went off and left him; for he was not lustful, nor an agreeable bedfellow to spend the night with. Now a woman delights in being wantonly treated. But you are an old dotard. For (to Phidippides) consider, O youth, all that attaches to modesty, and of how many pleasures you are about to be deprived—of women, of games at cottabus, of dainties, of drinking-bouts, ...
— The Clouds • Aristophanes

... supposed to be so distracted as not to remember where she had slept the night before, or even whether she had slept anywhere, surely Beatrice has her wits about her! And when an arrangement was made, by which she was to lose, for one night, her twelve-months' bedfellow, is it conceivable that she didn't know where Hero passed the night? ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry

... minute." Rick hurried to the shed and got two short hand spears. He handed one to Scotty. "Here. Have a bedfellow." ...
— The Wailing Octopus • Harold Leland Goodwin

... motley crew. First, the unwashed peddler who had wished to be my companion's bedfellow the night before; then our luggage sleigh; and, finally, my friend and self, who brought up the rear, with a careful eye upon our effects, as the people in that part of the country were said to have some difficulty in distinguishing between meum ...
— Russia - As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Various

... again, and the bed of hemlock boughs salved my spirits. A cold spring run came down off the mountain, and beside it, underneath birches and hemlocks, I improvised my hearthstone. In sleeping on the ground it is a great advantage to have a back-log; it braces and supports you, and it is a bedfellow that will not grumble when, in the middle of the night, you crowd sharply up against it. It serves to keep in the warmth, also. A heavy stone or other point DE RÉSISTANCE at your feet is also a help. Or, better still, scoop out a little ...
— The Writings of John Burroughs • John Burroughs

... utmost limit in the south and, from afar, lowered upon Great Britain and all the Northern land, and when it was much warmer in the kitchen of Glyn Cywarch {43a} than at the top of Cader Idris, and better in a cosy room with a warm bedfellow than in a shroud in the lychgate, I was meditating upon a talk I had had by the fireside with a neighbour concerning the brevity of human life, and how certain it was that death would come to all, and yet how uncertain its coming. Thus engaged, I ...
— The Visions of the Sleeping Bard • Ellis Wynne

... and the two gentlemen who had been her guides from Vaucouleurs. The treasurer's wife was one of the most virtuous city dames in Orleans, and from this night forth her daughter Charlotte had Joan for her bedfellow. A splendid supper had been prepared for her; but she would merely dip some slices of bread in wine and water. Neither her enthusiasm nor her success, the two greatest tempters to pride in mankind, made any change ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume III. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... calm kiss on mine eyes, All night inspiring thy divine pure breath, I shall awake as into godhood born, And with a fresh, undaunted soul arise, Clear as the blue convolvulus at morn. —Dear bedfellow, deals thus ...
— Ride to the Lady • Helen Gray Cone



Words linked to "Bedfellow" :   individual, someone, mortal, soul



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