"The revelation made by the patient to the physician is believed as sacred as the confession of a penitent to his priest?" Robert asked gravely.
    "Quite as sacred."
    "A solemn confidence, to be violated under no circumstances?"
    "Most certainly."

— Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Lady Audley’s Secret, p.368

All under the stars, and beneath the green tree,
All over the sward, and along the cold lea,
    A little blue flame a-fluttering came;
It came from the churchyard for you or for me.

I sit by the cradle, my baby's asleep,

— Sabine Baring-Gould, "The Little Blue Flame", The Book of Folklore, n.d., p.22

One is not idle because one is absorbed. There is both visible and invisible labour.

— Victor Hugo, Les Misérables, 1862, p.1212

intimacy with a baby was a matter of some interest: its helpless and hopeless defects of size and weight, its curious piteous mask

— Algernon Swinburne, Lesbia Brandon, 1860's

Mary and Elizabeth were the two girls whom Ruth had in charge; they resembled Jemima more than their brother in character. The household rules were occasionally a little relaxed in their favour, for Mary, the elder, was nearly eight years younger than Jemima, and three intermediate children had died.

— Elizabeth Gaskell, Ruth, p.177

And rocking the cradle, I wonder and weep.
     O little blue light in the dead of the night,
O prithee, O prithee, no nearer to creep.

Why follow the church-path, why steal you this way?
Why halt in your journey, on threshold why stay?

— from Sabina Baring-Gould,“The Little Blue Flame,” The Book of Folklore, p.22

        Quickly they submitted to the happy fate of "atrophy," "inanition," "consumption;"—going to a happier inheritance than was reserved for the future children of the same mother.

— Joseph Stapleton, The Great Crime of 1860, p.24

      its look of vegetable rather than animal life, its quaint motions and soft red overflow of irregular outlines touched and melted him in a singular way: he grew visibly fond of the red and ridiculous lump, and it put out impossible arms and fatuous fingers when he came in sight.

— Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Lady Audley’s Secret, p.199, p.22