"Effeminacy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... childhood in one who must bear the fatigues of a grown-up man. The fable says that, to render her son invulnerable, Thetis plunged him into the Styx. This allegory is beautiful and clear. The cruel mothers of whom I am speaking do far otherwise; by plunging their children into effeminacy they open their pores to ills of every kind, to which, when grown up, they fall a ...
— Emile - or, Concerning Education; Extracts • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... latter stood but little chance in the competition, but were almost entirely deserted. To this result the comfortable cabins of the coasters, designed for passengers (spacious and satisfactory for those times, however the refined effeminacy of the present generation might sneer at them), and the good fare they furnished, not a little contributed. The Calypso was one of the finest of the line of packets to which she belonged, and provided with every convenience that could be desired. ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... attracted a little attention from those observers who were able to observe anything except the heat. The coat was shaped delicately; it outlined the wearer, and, fitting him as women's clothes fit women, suggested an effeminacy not an attribute of the tall Corliss. The effeminacy belonged all to the tailor, an artist plying far from Corliss Street, for the coat would have encountered a hundred of its fellows at Trouville or Ostende this very day. Corliss Street ...
— The Flirt • Booth Tarkington
... already, perhaps, past the possibility of reform. The enormous extent of the ill-regulated empire tempted the ambition of chiefs who might have plausibly hoped, that as the Persian masters had now degenerated to the effeminacy of the Assyrians they had supplanted, so the enterprise of a second Cyrus might be ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... With all his effeminacy, he was beyond the least doubt desperately determined to possess himself of Cornelia. His passion was purely animal and unrefined, but none could doubt it. Cornelia feared to have him near her, and knew peace neither day nor night. He assumed all a master's rights over the slaves ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... Pensin, who gave lessons in politeness to youths just entering society, be engaged to cultivate and so polish his manners as to render him an acceptable member of the Union Club, under the patronage of which institution, (generally supposed to have been established for the cultivation of effeminacy and other vices, common to the Dutch of New York,) he was sure to become a lion. Monsieur Pensin had figured in New York; was an exile of unquestionable nobility; and if we can trust the Tribune, a journal in high favor with foreign counts, ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... passions on a supposition that they have something great and exalted in them," and that he wanted "a due mixture of gravity and mildness, which are the chief political virtues and the fruits of reason and education." "He never dreamed that such obstinacy is rather the effect of the weakness and effeminacy of a distempered mind, which breaks out in violent passions like so many tumors." Nor apparently did Shakespeare ever dream of it either, altho he had Plutarch's sage observations before him. It is a pity that the great dramatist did not select from Plutarch's works some hero who ...
— Tolstoy on Shakespeare - A Critical Essay on Shakespeare • Leo Tolstoy
... eyes are generally more indicative of weakness and effeminacy than brown or black. Certainly there are many powerful men with blue eyes, but I find more ...
— The World's Greatest Books - Volume 15 - Science • Various
... conversant with French society at that epoch could have been ignorant of Henri's character and vicious life. No one could have pretended that his employment of the kingdom's wealth to enrich unworthy favorites was anything but dishonorable, or have maintained that his flagrant effeminacy was beneficial to society. The fantastic superstition which the king indulged alternately with sensual extravagances, must have been odious to one whose spiritual mistress was divine Sophia, and whose religion ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... French; but though I understood him perfectly, I dared not trust myself to reply to him in that language. Then he tried German, speaking it with a kind of soft lisp that I thought charming. But, before the end of the evening, I became a little tired of the affected softness and effeminacy of his manners, and the exaggerated compliments he paid me, which had the effect of making all the company turn round and look at me. Madame Rupprecht was, however, pleased with the precise thing that displeased me. She liked either Sophie or me to create a sensation; of course she ...
— Curious, if True - Strange Tales • Elizabeth Gaskell
... his primitive and severe life, and made himself ridiculous by wearing a long unfashionable beard—either in imitation of the Gauls, or of the ancient philosophers. It is probable that he persisted in this habit to discountenance the effeminacy of the times. He says that soon after he entered Constantinople, he had occasion to send for a barber. An officer, magnificently dressed, presented himself. "It is a barber," said the prince, "that I want, and not ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... rule which secured rest for the country during these years of national union told on the growth of material prosperity. Commerce sprang into a wider life. Its extension is seen in the complaint that men learned fierceness from the Saxon of Germany, effeminacy from the Fleming, and drunkenness from the Dane. The laws of AEthelred which provide for the protection and regulation of foreign trade only recognize a state of things which grew up under Eadgar. "Men of the Empire," traders of Lower Lorraine and the ...
— History of the English People, Volume I (of 8) - Early England, 449-1071; Foreign Kings, 1071-1204; The Charter, 1204-1216 • John Richard Green
... a man makes my acquaintance, and opens the door to let me in, there enter unseen by my side Arrogance, Folly, Vainglory, Effeminacy, Insolence, Deceit, and a goodly company more. These possess his soul; he begins to admire mean things, pursues what he should abhor, reveres me amid my bodyguard of the insinuating vices which I have begotten, and would consent to anything sooner ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... further, that a number of reverend and right reverend drones, who worked not; who preached, perhaps, but once a year, and then not the gospel of Jesus Christ, but the divine right of tithes, the dignity of their office as ambassadors of Christ, ... suppose such men as these, spending their lives in effeminacy, luxury, and idleness; ... suppose this should be the case, ... would not everybody be astonished at such insolence, injustice, and impiety?" [Footnote: "Discourse concerning Unlimited Submission," Jonathan Mayhew. Thornton's ...
— The Emancipation of Massachusetts • Brooks Adams
... begins to disturb the conscience, a lofty and rigorous nobleness and self-responsibility almost offends, and awakens distrust, "the lamb," and still more "the sheep," wins respect. There is a point of diseased mellowness and effeminacy in the history of society, at which society itself takes the part of him who injures it, the part of the CRIMINAL, and does so, in fact, seriously and honestly. To punish, appears to it to be somehow unfair—it is certain ...
— Beyond Good and Evil • Friedrich Nietzsche
... dislikes more than do I the ambition, avarice and effeminacy of the priests, not only because these vices are hateful in themselves but because they are especially unbecoming to men who have vowed a life dependent upon God. . . . Nevertheless, my employment with several popes has forced me to desire their greatness ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... ruler of the race of Mayura, which reigned 318 years, was Raja-pal. He reigned 25 years, but giving himself up to effeminacy, his country was invaded by Shakaditya, a king from the highlands of Kumaon. Vikramaditya, in the fourteenth year of his reign, pretended to espouse the cause of Raja-pal, attacked and destroyed Shakaditya, and ascended ...
— Vikram and the Vampire • Sir Richard F. Burton
... disfigured with false thoughts. The English had not in his time attained the art of correct writing. But his serious compositions exhibit a strength and vigour which could not have been expected from the softness and effeminacy of his other pieces. He wrote an elegy on Oliver Cromwell, which, with all its faults, is nevertheless looked upon as a masterpiece. To understand this copy of verses you are to know that the day Oliver died was remarkable for a great ...
— Letters on England • Voltaire
... to perform the ordinary functions of one able-bodied servant in the West. The services which a Hindu will demand from his menials are far greater than those of a healthy Westerner. His languid nature and general effeminacy make him entirely dependent upon his servant for most of the activities and amenities of life. Recently the writer heard a Hindu companion in a railway car call his servant at night from an adjoining car to come and turn the shade over the compartment lamp that he might have a nap! A ...
— India, Its Life and Thought • John P. Jones
... or how poverty-stricken his condition might be. Napoleon alone was able to employ young men as he chose, without being restrained by any consideration. After the overthrow of that mighty will, vigor deserted power. Now the period when effeminacy succeeds to vigor presents a contrast that is far more dangerous in France than in other countries. As a general thing, ministers who were old before they entered office have proved second or third rate, while those who were ...
— Bureaucracy • Honore de Balzac
... cultured the inverse phenomenon is produced. With the intention of making his family happy and distinguished, the father brings it up in luxury and idleness, and this produces a very harmful result. The increasing refinement of modern life and its pleasures leads to effeminacy. It bears upon the whole of society and degenerates into an artificial desire for brilliancy and show, which makes it increasingly difficult to obtain a simple and sober education for the family. Men and women, especially the latter, do their best to eclipse ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel
... threatened with effeminacy and softness, needs to re-open the pages of history and to linger long upon the portraits of our heroic leaders. Theirs was the greatest war that ever shook the earth. A million Northern men, and over ...
— The Battle of Principles - A Study of the Heroism and Eloquence of the Anti-Slavery Conflict • Newell Dwight Hillis
... Walpole took no care of his health, as far as out-door exercise was concerned. His friends beheld him with horror go out on a dewy day: he would even step out in his slippers. In his own grounds he never wore a hat: he used to say, that on his first visit to Paris he was ashamed of his effeminacy, when he saw every meagre little Frenchman whom he could have knocked down in a breath walking without a hat, which he could not do without a certainty of taking the disease which the Germans say is endemical in England, and which they call to catch cold. The first trial, he used to ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton
... thorn in his flesh, oppressed by the feeling of loneliness in the very midst of a noisy, fraudulent activity, and filled with an ever-increasing detestation of the superfluity and consequent effeminacy of his daily existence, he had created out of the figure of his son a picture of ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... and the conversation was carried on in French. He informed me that he was the Comte de Chavannes. But I must describe him. He was rather small in stature, but elegantly made; his features were, if anything, effeminate, but very handsome; they would have been handsome in a woman. The effeminacy, was, however, relieved by a pair of moustaches, soft, silky, and curling. His manners were peculiarly fascinating, and his conversation lively and full of point. I was much pleased with him during the half hour that we were together, during which we had kept ...
— Valerie • Frederick Marryat
... gentlemen," warmly and quickly retorted Sir Everard, who, with all his dandyism and effeminacy of manner, was of a high and resolute spirit. "Do either of you fancy that I want courage to face a positive danger, because I may not happen to have any particular vulgar predilection for ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... sufficient in themselves to establish it. And there is no doubt that the principles of human nature, which appear in those illustrations, can be set in such order as to prove the thesis beyond a question. The softness of Southern climates produces, in the long run, gentleness, effeminacy, and indolence, or passionate rather than persevering effort. It produces, again, the palliatives or disguises of these traits which are found in formal religions, and in institutions of caste or slavery. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 76, February, 1864 • Various
... great annual Meeting upon their Frontiers. I find the Name of a Minister of State in one Part of their History, who was fined for appearing too frequently in clean Linnen; and of a certain great General who was turned out of his Post for Effeminacy, it having been proved upon him by several credible Witnesses that he washed his Face every Morning. If any Member of the Commonwealth had a soft Voice, a smooth Face, or a supple Behaviour, he was banished into the Commonwealth of Females, where ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... sticking out all over them, and so might naturally draw together. But there is a still more natural antagonism between them, of the thoroughbred for the mongrel. For young Farnham, in spite of his effeminacy, has the instincts of his ancestors; and Randall, in spite of a magnificent physique, carries round with him something that says to David, "Don't trust him!" What makes personality? I declare I cannot put my finger on the thing that makes me sure that Randall is yellow; ...
— At Plattsburg • Allen French
... de kai systelletai pros ton katepeigonta kairon. [Footnote: "Are opened and shut as need requires."] For a man to carry one was considered a mark of effeminacy, as appears from the ...
— Umbrellas and their History • William Sangster
... to impose its decrees and mighty to avenge its disregarded sanctions—who, brought near to the city, was worshiped as Jupiter Capitolinus, majestic as the conservator of civil and social order. The charms of art, the graces of song, the effeminacy of festal pleasures were little recked of by the Roman of the Roman period—he who used his ancestral speech in the meanings imposed upon its terms by his fathers. Phoebus Apollo and Pallas Athene were not so much revered by him ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 15, No. 89, May, 1875 • Various
... three-and-twenty then, rather tall, but very slightly built; his eyes long, sleepy, of a violet blue; features small and delicately cut, with a complexion so soft and bright that his silky, chestnut mustache hardly saved the face from effeminacy; his hands and feet would have satisfied the Pacha of Tebelen at once as to his purity of race; indeed, though Charley was not disposed to undervalue any of his own bodily advantages, I imagine he considered his extremities as his strong point. His manner was ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... man would seem to be inconstant who fails to persevere in what he has proposed to do. Now this is a mark of "incontinency" in pleasurable matters, and of "effeminacy" or "squeamishness" in unpleasant matters, according to Ethic. vii, 1. Therefore inconstancy ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... (though they must not be immature) from 16 or 17 to about 25. The type which physically appeals to him most, and to which he appeals, is fair, smooth-skinned, gentle, rather girlish and effeminate, with the effeminacy of the ingenue, not the cocotte. His favorite to attract him must be submissive and womanly; he likes to be the man and the master. On this point he adds: "The great passion of my life is an exception, ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... you know where you will end, sir? Extermination, sir—extermination! On the north side of the North Pole there is another world peopled by giants; ten thousand millions at the very least; every giant of them a hundred feet high. Now about the time you have reduced your universe to complete effeminacy some fool with a pick-axe will break through the thin partition—the mere ice curtain—separating these giants from us, and then they will sweep through and swoop down and swallow you, sir, and the likes of you, with your topsy-turvy ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson
... only six predecessors. Not only is it a simple matter to group around him historical pictures of unique interest, brilliancy, variety, and suggestiveness, but, as the historians present him to us, he is as made for the stage. His cruelty, profligacy, effeminacy, cowardice, and artistic vanity are traits which invite dramatic illustration, and for each one of them the pages of Suetonius afford incidents which accept a dramatic dress none the less willingly because they are facts of historical ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... every class there is Good; in every man, Good. That in the highest and most tempted, as well as in the lowest, there is often a higher nobility than of rank. Pericles and Alexander had great, but different virtues, and although the refinement of the one may have resulted in effeminacy, and the hardihood of the other in brutality, we ought to pause ere we condemn where we should all ...
— Friends and Neighbors - or Two Ways of Living in the World • Anonymous
... upon. It was, not to attack the Friars Minor openly, but to have recourse to artifice; to induce them to receive into their society nobles, learned men, and youths. Nobles, in order by their means to introduce effeminacy in which they had been brought up; learned men, who, proud of their learning, should have a contempt for humility; and youths, who, being weak and delicate, would greatly ...
— The Life and Legends of Saint Francis of Assisi • Father Candide Chalippe
... full of these infamous foreigners, and to note the already changed aspect of her population. The men of Rome had begun, filled with new hopes, to develop unknown energy,—they walked quick, their eyes sparkled, they delighted in duty, in responsibility; in a year of such life their effeminacy would have been vanquished. Now, dejectedly, unemployed, they lounge along the streets, feeling that all the implements of labor, all the ensigns of hope, have been snatched from them. Their hands fall slack, their eyes rove aimless, the beggars ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... confusion; and had we been on foot, we might have been trampled down by these fierce Jedburghians, who charged like so many troopers. We were spectators of the combat from an eminence, but peace was soon after restored, which made the older warriors regret the effeminacy of the age, as, regularly, it ought to have lasted till night. Two lives were lost, I mean of horses; indeed, had you seen them, you would rather have wondered that they were able to bear their masters to the ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... advance of the country in all the arts of life, and only the more magnificent castles and abbeys, which the boys had never seen, possessed the amount of comforts to be found in the dwellings of the superior class of Londoners. Stephen was inclined to look with contempt upon the effeminacy ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... mouth of a cannon. If I were writing to an Italian as well as into Italy, one might string concetti for an hour, and describe how heroes are frozen on their horses till they become their own statues. But seriously, does not all this rigour of warfare throw back an air of effeminacy on the Duke of Marlborough and the brave of ancient days, who only went to fight as one goes out of town in spring, and who came back to London with the first frost'@ Our generals are not yet arrived, though the Duke de Broglio's last ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... system, various administrative organs were created in accordance with Tang models, and a polity at once imposing and elaborate came into existence. But when the capital was overtaken by an era of literary effeminacy and luxurious abandonment, the Imperial exchequer fell into such a state of exhaustion that administrative posts began to be treated as State assets and bought and sold like commercial chattels, the discharge of the functions connected ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... greater than forty of these leathern tumbrels! Then, the name of coach was heathen Greek. Who ever saw, but upon extraordinary occasions, Sir Philip Sidney and Sir Francis Drake ride in a coach? They made small use of coaches; there were but few in those times; and they were deadly foes to sloth and effeminacy. It is in the memory of many when, in the whole kingdom, there was not one! It is a doubtful question whether the devil brought tobacco into England in a coach, for both appeared at the same time." According to Stow, ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... conversation must have been equally instructing and entertaining; but he was also a good man, a man of virtue and humanity. There is no character without some speck, some imperfection; and I think the greatest defect in his was an affectation in delicacy, or rather effeminacy, and a visible fastidiousness, or contempt and disdain of his inferiours in science. He also had, in some degree, that weakness which disgusted Voltaire so much in Mr. Congreve: though he seemed to value others chiefly according to the progress that they had made in knowledge, yet ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... two several ways, to resist the one without relenting, and to be shook and subjected by the other. It may be true that to suffer a man's heart to be totally subdued by compassion may be imputed to facility, effeminacy, and over-tenderness; whence it comes to pass that the weaker natures, as of women, children, and the common sort of people, are the most subject to it but after having resisted and disdained the power ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... as the relaxation, they are most culpable as the business, of the young, for they then become the gulf of time and the poison of the mind; they weaken the manly powers; they sink the native vigour of youth into contemptible effeminacy. ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various
... taylor's trade having an appearance of effeminacy, has always been, among the rugged English, liable to ...
— Johnson's Notes to Shakespeare Vol. I Comedies • Samuel Johnson
... stupendous ass of an old woman—for so he had characterized her—during the process of selection and installation. The present room, although far more luxurious than any that Phineas McPhail had slept in for years, formed a striking contrast with that remembered nest of effeminacy. ...
— The Rough Road • William John Locke
... he rode, as estafette or orderly, a splendid sorrel stallion, also his property; and this stallion, "Garryowen" by name, was the pride and delight of our hearts, the pet of our camp. The major had a poodle dog too, distinct from the Begum's. It was generosity rather than effeminacy on his part to have this dog, for he bought it to save its life: the former owners were about to eat it when the major came to the rescue. The dog was white, and our Indian warrior used to spend much time washing it on the eve of a fight. The dog would ride stretched across its master's feet on ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 28. July, 1873. • Various
... of Philip. I had done better if I had stayed to give more consistency to my Persian and Grecian Empires, instead of attempting new conquests and at such a distance so soon. Yet even this war was of use to hinder my troops from being corrupted by the effeminacy of Asia, and to keep up that universal awe of my name which in those countries was the great support ...
— Dialogues of the Dead • Lord Lyttelton
... theatres, the opera; he saw with the eyes of an ascetic and a soldier, and wondered why the Western conception of the worth of life differed so little from the Far-Eastern conception of folly and of effeminacy. He saw fashionable balls, and exposures de rigueur intolerable to the Far-Eastern sense of modesty, —artistically calculated to suggest what would cause a Japanese woman to die of shame; and he wondered at criticisms he had heard about the natural, modest, healthy half-nudity ...
— Kokoro - Japanese Inner Life Hints • Lafcadio Hearn
... is grave and serious, but lacks strength and determination. Indeed, there is something about the whole countenance that is a little womanish, though his character certainly presents no appearance of effeminacy. He died after a reign of fifty-four years, according to his own reckoning, having practically exercised the sovereign power for about thirty-two of the fifty-four. His age at his death must have ...
— Ancient Egypt • George Rawlinson
... other day tell me that this Lord Anglesey hath said, within few days, that he would willingly give L10,000 of his estate that he was well secured of the rest, such apprehensions he hath of the sequel of things, as giving all over for lost. He tells me, speaking of the horrid effeminacy of the King, that the King hath taken ten times more care and pains in making friends between my Lady Castlemayne and Mrs. Stewart, when they have fallen out, than ever he did to save his kingdom; nay, that upon any falling out between my Lady Castlemayne's ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... "harrow up the soul," in order that the soul be no longer harrowed? Moralists and preachers do not deal after this tender fashion with moral, or even physical consequences, resulting from other evils. Why should they spare these? Why refuse to look their own effeminacy in the face,—their own gaudy and overweening encouragement of what they dare not contemplate in its results? Is a murder in the streets worth attending to,—a single wounded man worth carrying to the hospital,—and are all the murders, and massacres, and fields of wounded, and the madness, ...
— Captain Sword and Captain Pen - A Poem • Leigh Hunt
... town, inhabited principally by the Spaniards engaged in public affairs; its aspect is dull and monotonous; all the streets, perfectly straight, are bordered by wide granite footpaths. In general, the highways are macadamised, and kept in good condition. Such is the effeminacy of the people, they could not endure the noise of carriages upon pavement. The houses—large and spacious, palaces in appearance—are built in a particular manner, calculated to withstand the earthquakes and hurricanes so frequent in ...
— Adventures in the Philippine Islands • Paul P. de La Gironiere
... desirable that man should act a manly and generous part, not "mannish," so let woman be urged to exercise a dignified and womanly bearing, not womanish. Let her cultivate all the graces and proper accomplishments of her sex, but let not these degenerate into a kind of effeminacy, in which she is satisfied to be the mere plaything or toy of society, content with her outward adornings, and the flattery and fulsome adulation ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... something of the simplicity of the grand style. A breadth of light and colour, the general ideas of the drapery, an uninterrupted flow of outline, all conspire to this effect. Next him (perhaps equal to him) Parmegiano has dignified the genteelness of modern effeminacy by uniting it with the simplicity of the ancients and the grandeur and severity of Michael Angelo. It must be confessed, however, that these two extraordinary men, by endeavouring to give the utmost degree of grace, ...
— Seven Discourses on Art • Joshua Reynolds
... coldly, "when my hunger bids me, and I carry this one robe upon my person till it is worn out and needs replacement. The grossness of excessive banqueting, and the effeminacy of many clothes are attainments that never met my fancy. But I think we have talked here over long, and there seems little chance of our finding agreement. You have changed, Tatho, with the years, and perhaps I have changed also. These alterations creep imperceptibly into one's being as time advances. ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
... the Convention, according to reports of the time, was an appalling mixture of grandeur and effeminacy with respect to its architectural lines. Surrounding that portion where the legislators actually sat was the great amphitheatre which for three years was occupied by a curious, vociferous public, more demonstrative, even, than ...
— Royal Palaces and Parks of France • Milburg Francisco Mansfield
... smooth, gallish-looking creatur'" he addressed was a well-built young fellow of seventeen, with no more effeminacy in his appearance than is visible in a lad balanced by nature just on that edge of life where we rest for a short space uneasily, bidding good-bye to boyhood so eagerly, before stepping boldly forward, and with flushed face and flashing eyes feeling our muscles ...
— Menhardoc • George Manville Fenn
... the conscript armies as Cromwell's Ironsides were to the mercenaries of their time. The whole nation from prince to beggar would by this means be transformed, labour would cease to be despised or riches to be worshipped, the reproach of effeminacy would be removed, the horrors of peace mitigated, and the moral equivalent of war discovered. For the first time a true comradeship between class and class would arise, for, as Goethe said, work makes the comrade, and democracy might have a chance of becoming a reality instead of a party phrase. ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson
... manner of pronunciation, they soften and smooth the words, whereas the speech of the men is more grave and serious. The French, by chiefly frequenting the women, contracted their manner of speaking, which was ridiculed as an effeminacy by the women, as well as the ...
— History of Louisisana • Le Page Du Pratz
... happiness that can be given by a single sunbeam, a flower, a sup of water from an earthen cup, or the summer time, would recognize in Tolstoy his faithful disciple, the only one, perhaps, who survives in this barbaric silence, where American comfort, a mixture of effeminacy and indigence, has made one forget the real purpose ...
— Contemporary Russian Novelists • Serge Persky
... pretending and somewhat extravagant; the composition is lax and unprecise, as I have before said; and the doctrines are occasionally very bold, incautiously stated, and too hardy and high- toned for the nervous effeminacy of many modern moralists. But Walking Stewart was a man who thought nobly of human nature: he wrote therefore at times in the spirit and with the indignation of an ancient prophet against the oppressors ...
— The Notebook of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas de Quincey
... often quoting from some one who said that "the adornment of a vain and foolish world, would feed a starving one." He opposed extravagant fashions and all luxury of habit and life, as calculated to produce effeminacy and degrading sensuality, and as a bestowal of idolatrous attention upon that body which he would often say "was here ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... commencement of 1670, the splendour and corruption of the French Court had reached their acme. The seraglio of the great King recalled to mind that of Solomon, whilst his brother, enslaved by effeminacy and debauchery, had only to hold up his finger and the most important personages of the state were suitably provided with mistresses to such an extent that at length it became necessary to transfer occasionally ...
— Political Women, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... and obviously rose in his guide's opinion by showing that he did not fear wetting his feet. Indeed he was anxious, so far as he could without affectation, to remove the opinion which Evan seemed to entertain of the effeminacy of the Lowlanders, and particularly ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... hearty, and merriment found added expression in the doubling up of his body and the shaking of his hand. His hands were small, with sensitive, tapering fingers, and when playing the fingers acted as if endowed with separate life and intelligence. There was no effeminacy connected with his lovable nature; he was quick to resent meanness or deceit, or wrong-doing of any kind. His anger was exceedingly sharp, and his manner of expressing contempt an astonishing revelation to those who had failed to grasp his character ...
— Story-Lives of Great Musicians • Francis Jameson Rowbotham
... remark the results attained by these qualities,— Rome, the mistress of the world, with an empire stretching to the ends of the earth. Then note the causes of her fall,—greediness, wealth, luxury, effeminacy, satiety, corrupt morals,—and bring the lesson home to your own nation, and to your own selves. Says Mr. Ruskin, "It is of little consequence how many positions of cities a woman knows, or how many dates of events, or how many names of celebrated persons—it is not the object of education to turn ...
— Hold Up Your Heads, Girls! • Annie H. Ryder
... humanity, and felt our griefs and passions. Within, where the cross-lights fell through the wide columned space behind the high altar, was her withdrawing room, where the decorator and builder thought only of pleasing her. The very faults of the architecture and effeminacy of taste witness the artists' object. If the glassworkers had thought of themselves or of the public or even of the priests, they would have strained for effects, strong masses of colour, and striking subjects to impress the imagination. Nothing of the sort is even suggested. The great, awe-inspiring ...
— Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres • Henry Adams
... only points in which our city is worthy of admiration. We cultivate refinement without extravagance and knowledge without effeminacy; wealth we employ more for use than for show, and place the real disgrace of poverty not in owning to the fact but in declining the struggle against it. Our public men have, besides politics, their private affairs to attend to, and our ordinary citizens, ...
— The History of the Peloponnesian War • Thucydides
... reins slack, and sitting with the careless air of a sailor. He had a noble broad brow, clear blue eyes, and thick, clustering, brown curls, his countenance being thoroughly bronzed by southern suns and sea air. His features were well formed and refined, without any approach to effeminacy. ...
— Won from the Waves • W.H.G. Kingston
... neighboring city to Crotona, was as celebrated for luxury and effeminacy as Crotona for the reverse. The name has become proverbial. J. R. Lowell uses it in this sense in his charming ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... uncultured often mistake politeness for effeminacy, sensibility for weakness. Shad was a rough and tumble artist of a high proficiency, and he had a reputation for strength and combativeness. He was going to make short ...
— The Vagrant Duke • George Gibbs
... effeminacy and want of courage in battle seems to be considered as better founded. Plutarch admits it fully. His foppery is matter of ridicule to AEschines, who, at the same time, in rather a remarkable passage in his speech on the Crown, gives us some clue to the ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... magnificence of the Spanish nobles found but little favor in the eyes of the sovereigns. They saw that it caused a competition in expense ruinous to cavaliers of moderate fortune; and they feared that a softness and effeminacy might thus be introduced, incompatible with the stern nature of the war. They signified their disapprobation to several of the principal noblemen, and recommended a more sober and soldier-like ...
— Washington Irving • Charles Dudley Warner
... for Owen. There was something about the little man that invited it. He was little, and manly despite his bodily defects. But there was a suggestion of effeminacy mingling with the manliness of him that aroused the protective ...
— Square Deal Sanderson • Charles Alden Seltzer
... feminine assaults, Tongue-batteries, she surceas'd not day nor night To storm me over-watch't, and wearied out. At times when men seek most repose and rest, I yielded, and unlock'd her all my heart, Who with a grain of manhood well resolv'd Might easily have shook off all her snares: But foul effeminacy held me yok't 410 Her Bond-slave; O indignity, O blot To Honour and Religion! servil mind Rewarded well with servil punishment! The base degree to which I now am fall'n, These rags, this grinding, is not yet so base As was my ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... Hazlitt shared the popular conception of Keats as an effeminate poet. He concludes the essay "On Effeminacy of Character" in "Table Talk" with a reference to Keats: "I cannot help thinking that the fault of Mr. Keats's poems was a deficiency in masculine energy of style. He had beauty, tenderness, delicacy, in an uncommon ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... note of grief and despair. He perceived, too, the debasing effects of slavery upon master and slave alike, crushing all semblance of manhood in the one, and in the other substituting passion for judgment, caprice for justice, and indolence and effeminacy for the more virile virtues of freemen. Doubtless the gentle hand of time will some time spread the veil of silence over this painful past; but, while we are still gathering its evil aftermath, it is well enough that we do not ...
— Frederick Douglass - A Biography • Charles Waddell Chesnutt
... these fellows dress like fools, and look like fools, depend on't, they are not the fools you take them for: they are aware, that nothing so effectually throws off their guard and disarms the great, as a well-carried affectation of gentlemanly effeminacy, and "a still small voice, like a woman's." We happen to know that some of these people, for this very delicacy of air and manner picked out of the dirt, and carried into high places, who are au naturel, as we may say, when they go home, and have laid aside the wigs, silk waistcoats, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... penknife, which he carried about him for that purpose; and commanded them, by way of penance for their sins, to cut all the rest in the same manner: if any of them refused to comply with his command he reproached them for their effeminacy, and denounced the most dreadful judgments against them. Such, however, was the value of their hair in these days, that many rather submitted to his censures than part with it; and such was the folly of the church, ...
— Sketches of the Fair Sex, in All Parts of the World • Anonymous
... his hand, and felt it strongly pressed, whilst Chilvers gazed into his face with a smiling wistfulness which could only be answered with a grin of discomfort. The Rev. Bruno had grown very tall, and seemed to be in perfect health; but the effeminacy of his brilliant youth still declared itself in his attitudes, gestures, and attire. He was dressed with marked avoidance of the professional pattern. A hat of soft felt but not clerical, fashionable collar and tie, a sweeping ulster, and beneath it a frock-coat, which was doubtless ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... endless vexation and misery in the house, and of waste and ruin on the farm; that the youth of the country are growing up with a contempt of steady industry as a low and servile thing, which contempt induces idleness and all its attendant effeminacy, vice, and worthlessness; that the waste of the products of the land, nay, of the land itself, is bringing poverty on all its inhabitants; that this poverty and the sparseness of population either prevent the institution of schools throughout the country, or keep them in a most languid ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... the community, Mrs. Cox, for the businesslike way in which you suppressed this diabolical gang. Your method is in pleasing contrast with the ridiculous effeminacy of the previous witnesses. I have no doubt you would treat an adult bushranger in exactly the ...
— The Gold-Stealers - A Story of Waddy • Edward Dyson
... moral paradox, but what an unquestionable fact, is the wayward irritability of some of the finest geniuses, which is often weak to effeminacy, and capricious to childishness! while minds of a less delicate texture are not frayed and fretted by casual frictions; and plain sense with a coarser grain, is sufficient to keep down these aberrations of their feelings. How mortifying ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... these differences were all merely superficial. Penetrate a little deeper, and it will be found that in reality they were thoroughly kindred spirits. On the one side, Cowper's apparent effeminacy was all on the surface; his mind, when it was not unstrung, was of an essentially masculine and vigorous type. All his writings, including his delightful letters as well as his poetry, are remarkably free from mawkishness and mere sentimentality. On the other side, ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... capacity of the priest exceeds all imaginable limits. He takes whatever he can get and asks for more. He has, by his own showing, scarcely one estimable trait. Avarice, cupidity, sensuality, gluttony, love of finery, effeminacy, meanness, and pride—everything charged against him by the Buddhist—are his most marked characteristics. He appears, however, to be worse than he always was. For nothing is plainer, from this very epic, than that the priests, ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins
... himself not lacking in effeminacy, was greatly taken by the wondrous raiment, the studied lisp and the hundred affectations of this peerless gallant. Had he not been overburdened at the time by the Papal business that impended, he might there and then have cemented the intimacy which was later to spring up between ...
— The Shame of Motley • Raphael Sabatini
... Americain, Lat. Americanus, from Lat. America, a continent noted for the effeminacy and voluptuousness of its inhabitants.] A person ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various
... furniture is neat and select; his books, rather for use than show, are disposed around him. He has a harpsichord in the room. In the corner of one of the apartments is a trunk containing his deceased mother's dresses, carefully folded up and preserved. His fastidiousness, bordering upon effeminacy, is visible in his gait and manner—in his handsome features and small, well-dressed person, especially when he walks abroad and sinks the author and hard student in "the gentleman who sometimes writes for his amusement." He writes always with a crow-quill, speaks slowly ...
— Select Poems of Thomas Gray • Thomas Gray
... this Lord Anglesy hath said within few days, that he would willingly give 10,000l. of his estate that he was well secured of the rest, such apprehensions he hath of the sequel of things, as giving all over for lost.) He tells me, (speaking of the horrid effeminacy of the King,) that the King hath taken ten times more care and pains in making friends between my Lady Castlemaine and Mrs. Stewart, when they have fallen out, than ever he did to save his kingdom; nay, that upon any falling out between my Lady Castlemaine's nurse and her women, my Lady hath ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... bolder fancy early remonstrated against this chilling confinement of the noblest, the most aspiring, and most expansive of all the Arts. . . . It was not till the commotion of Europe broke the chain of indolence and insipid effeminacy that the stronger passions of readers required again to be stimulated and exercised and soothed, and that the minor charms of correctness were sacrificed to the ardent efforts of uncontrolled and unfearing genius. The authors of this class began to look back for their materials ...
— The Book-Hunter in London - Historical and Other Studies of Collectors and Collecting • William Roberts
... the solitude of her loved chamber window, and reads of Aristides the Just, of Themistocles with his Spartan virtues, of Brutus, and of the mother of the Gracchi. Greece and Rome rise before her in all their ancient renown. She despises the frivolity of Paris, the effeminacy of the moderns, and her youthful bosom throbs with the desire of being noble in spirit and of achieving great exploits. Thus, when other children of her age were playing with their dolls, she was dreaming of the prostration of nobles and of the overthrow of thrones—of ...
— Madame Roland, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott
... torn up, and the woods cleared by fire and sword, I do not choose to call them pests; but surely the present system of war, has little connection with virtue of any denomination, being rather the school of FINESSE and effeminacy, than ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]
... sire, he cannot be said to have a clear and indefeasible right to it, because the question of his accession has yet to be decided by the electing voice of the Senabawdee, in whose judgment he may be ineligible, by reason of certain physical, mental, or moral disabilities,—as extreme youth, effeminacy, imbecility, intemperance, profligacy. Nevertheless, the election is popularly expected to result in the choice of the eldest son of the queen, though an interregnum or a regency is a contingency by ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... abilities, qualities and conduct of Europeans of birth and station. In the first place, nature has made them very much as she makes other people; and the only physical difference there is proceeds from habit and education. Then, as to the enervating effects of aristocracy, and noble effeminacy, I have seen ten times as much of it among your counter-jumpers and dealers in bob binet, as I have seen in the sons of dukes and princes; and, in my later days, circumstances have brought me much in contact with many of these last. Manliness of character is far more likely to be the ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper
... far less barbarous age) by the tenderness of Christian sentiment, turned a deaf ear and a repulsive aspect to such beautiful traits of domestic feeling; to Homer himself the whole circumstance would have been one of pure effeminacy. Now, we recommend it to the reader's reflection—and let him weigh well the condition under which that poetry moves that cannot indulge a tender sentiment without being justly suspected of adulterous commerce with some ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey—Vol. 1 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... name, and phrase, were novelties of Milton's own. His English masters were Spenser, Fletcher, and Sylvester, the translator of Du Bartas's La Sepmaine, but nothing of Spenser's prolixity, or Fletcher's effeminacy, or Sylvester's quaintness is found in Milton's pure, energetic diction. He inherited their beauties, but his taste had been tempered to a finer edge by his studies in Greek and Hebrew poetry. He was the last of the ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... gods grant me to lie at rest by the Appian Way, before I require such feet!" Then, as his sharp eyes noted the flush upon Sergius' face, he added: "Fever, wounds, and death may pardon effeminacy; and, truly, I would beg you to accompany me as you came, were it not that a climb up the Palatine should bring new health to one who could run ten miles with a broken shoulder. Believe me, my friend, the dictator thought better of you than he spoke, and would have regretted ...
— The Lion's Brood • Duffield Osborne
... the element of savage energy in Browning. His associates tell us of his sudden fits of indignation, "which were like thunder-storms"; of his "brutal scorn" for effeminacy, of the "vibration of his loud voice, and his hard fist upon the table," which made short work of cobwebs.[94] The impact of hard resisting things, the jostlings of stubborn matter bent on going its own way, ...
— Robert Browning • C. H. Herford
... the pole of the velarium. This velarium was an awning that was stretched above the heads of the spectators to protect them from the sun. In earlier times the Romans had scouted at this innovation, which they called a piece of Campanian effeminacy. But little by little, increasing luxury reduced the Puritans of Rome to silence, and they willingly accepted a velarium of silk—an homage of Caesar. Nero, who carried everything to excess, went further: ...
— The Wonders of Pompeii • Marc Monnier
... practices is that of male concubinage. A Kadiak mother will select her handsomest and most promising boy, and dress and rear him as a girl, teaching him only domestic duties, keeping him at women s work, associating him with women and girls, in order to render his effeminacy complete. Arriving at the age of ten or fifteen years, he is married to some wealthy man who regards such a companion as a great acquisition. These male concubines are called Achnutschik or Schopans" (the authorities quoted being Holmberg, Langsdorff, Billing, ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... lithe figure and eager, boyish features. His clear, pensive gray eyes, and quick, delicate expression, spoke of a nature which had unfolded far from the boisterous joys and sorrows of the world. Yet there was a set of the mouth and a prominence of the chin which relieved him of any trace of effeminacy. Impulsive he might be, enthusiastic, sensitive, with something sympathetic and adaptive in his disposition; but an observer of nature's tokens would have confidently pledged himself that there was native firmness and strength underlying ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... expected York and Scott to shake hands after the sermon, he was disappointed. But he did not relax his purpose. With that quiet fearlessness and determination which had won for him the respect of men who were too apt to regard piety as synonymous with effeminacy, he attacked Scott in his own house. What he said has not been recorded, but it is to be feared that it was part of his sermon. When he had concluded, Scott looked at him, not unkindly, over the ...
— Mrs. Skaggs's Husbands and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... looking at things,' and he remembers how in his fifth year he had declared that guns were not 'dreadful things.' They were good if put to the proper uses. I do not think that there was ever much real 'effeminacy' to be knocked out of him. It is too harsh a word for the slowness with which a massive and not very flexible character rouses itself to action. His health was good, except for a trifling ailment which made him for some time pass for a delicate ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... is no wonder that such a typical Roman as M. Porcius Cato should look with disdain upon the fine arts in all their forms, and should regard a love for the beautiful, whether in literature or art, as synonymous with effeminacy. Mummius, also, who destroyed Corinth, is said to have been so little aware of the value of the artistic treasures which he carried away, as to stipulate with the carriers who undertook to transport them to Rome, that if any of the ...
— Architecture - Classic and Early Christian • Thomas Roger Smith
... as placed at a distance from them in the ranks of existence, and naturally look on those whom they find trifling with long beards, with contempt and indignation, like that which women feel at the effeminacy of men. If dotards will contend with boys in those performances in which boys must always excel them, if they will dress crippled limbs in embroidery, endeavour at gayety with faltering voices, ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. II • Francis Augustus Cox
... bearing, his expression, speak of confidence and contentment; health shines in his countenance, his firm step speaks of strength; his colour, delicate but not sickly, has nothing of softness or effeminacy. Sun and wind have already set the honourable stamp of manhood on his countenance; his rounded muscles already begin to show some signs of growing individuality; his eyes, as yet unlighted by the flame of feeling, have at least all their native calm; ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... backyard, springs to the top of the fence with one easy bound, drops lightly down on the other side, trots across the right-of-way to a vacant allotment, and skips to the roof of an empty shed. As he goes, he throws off the effeminacy of civilisation; his gait becomes lithe and pantherlike; he looks quickly and keenly from side to side, and moves noiselessly, for he has so many enemies—dogs, cabmen with whips, ...
— Three Elephant Power • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
... public in which the kindness and providence of God have been set forth by more striking examples, or the machinations of priestcraft been more truly and lucidly exposed, or the dangers which result to a nation when it abandons itself to effeminacy, and a rage for what is novel and fashionable, than ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow
... fasting in the morning chill and concluded, likewise fasting, in the noonday heat. Still, it would scarcely have distressed those sturdy limbs, well developed and preserved by Roman training, never permitted by him to degenerate into effeminacy. And as his fine countenance and well- knit frame testified, Marcus AEmilius Victorinus inherited no small share of genuine Roman blood. His noble name might be derived through clientela, and his lineage had a Gallic intermixture; ...
— More Bywords • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Shakspeare has admirably shown why so formidable a revolt against an unpopular and really an illegitimate prince was not attended with success: Glendower's superstitious fancies respecting himself, the effeminacy of the young Mortimer, the ungovernable disposition of Percy, who will listen to no prudent counsel, the irresolution of his older friends, the want of unity of plan and motive, are all characterized by delicate but unmistakable traits. After Percy has ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... mood of bearing his misfortune, Quentin felt himself more able to receive and reply to the jests of the Count of Crevecoeur, who passed several on his alleged effeminacy and incapacity of undergoing fatigue. The young Scot accommodated himself so good humouredly to the Count's raillery, and replied at once so happily and so respectfully, that the change of his tone and manner made obviously a more favourable impression on the Count than he had entertained ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... possessed self-denial enough to look the argument in the face, and abstained from procuring themselves pleasure at the expense of a needless infliction. The charge is not answered by the favorite retorts about effeminacy, God's providence, neighbors' faults, and doing "no worse." They are simple beggings of the question. I am not aware that anglers, or sportsmen in general, are braver than the ordinary run of mankind. Sure I am that a great fuss is made ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... or effeminate. The mass of men incline to both weaknesses. He that deliberately pursues excessive pleasures, or other pleasures in an excessive way, is said to be abandoned. The intemperate are worse than the incontinent. Sport, in its excess, is effeminacy, as being relaxation from toil. There are two kinds of incontinence: the one proceeding from precipitancy, where a man acts without deliberating at all; the other from feebleness,—where he deliberates, but where the result of deliberation is too weak to countervail ...
— Moral Science; A Compendium of Ethics • Alexander Bain |
