"Feminine" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... forbidden tree which tempted Eve is always popularly imagined to be an apple. One may perhaps refer in this connection to the fact that at Rome and elsewhere the testicles have been called apples. I may add that we find a curious proof of the recognition of the feminine love of apples in an old Portuguese ballad, "Donna Guimar," in which a damsel puts on armour and goes to the wars; her sex is suspected and as a test, she is taken into an orchard, but Donna Guimar is too wary to fall into the trap, ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 5 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... A despiser of feminine habits had Clorinda been from her childhood. She disdained to put her hand to the needle and the distaff. She renounced every soft indulgence, every timid retirement, thinking that virtue could be safe wherever it went in its own courageous heart; and so she armed her countenance ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt
... human nature both masculine and feminine, and a keen apprehension of a phase of our social conditions, the book is a piece ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... prosperous towns in Central India, but is now much decayed and governed by a wealthy, arbitrary, violent, generous, and cruel prince. His name is Rajah Maddan, a true Oriental potentate, delicate and barbarous, affable and sanguinary, combining feminine grace with pitiless ferocity. ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 1 (of 8) - Boule de Suif and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... the happiness of a woman, and almost as rarely increases her usefulness. The time and attention required to attain "celebrity," must, except under very peculiar circumstances, interfere with the faithful discharge of those feminine duties upon which the well-doing of society depends, and which shed so pure a halo around our English homes. Within these "homes" our heroes—statesmen—philosophers—men of letters—men of genius—receive their first impressions, and the impetus to a faithful ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... there was some cause for embarrassment which he could not divine, tried to get up the conversation, and he started various subjects, but his useless efforts gave rise to no ideas and did not bring out a word. The Countess, with feminine tact and obeying her instincts of a woman of the world, tried to answer him two or three times, but in vain. She could not find words, in the perplexity of her mind, and her own voice almost frightened her in the silence of the large room, where nothing else was ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... life has been solved, and the brotherhood of man is a reality. But is accomplished at the expense of the sisterhood of women. Why should you not make friends with your neighbour at the theatre or in the train, when you know and he knows that feminine criticism and feminine insight and feminine prejudice will never come between you? Though you become as David and Jonathan, you need never enter his home, nor he yours. All your lives you will meet under the open air, the only roof-tree ...
— Where Angels Fear to Tread • E. M. Forster
... often that, at the end of the second year, the Dead have no friends—only acquaintances who are far too busy amusing themselves up the hill to attend to old partners. The idea of using a Cemetery as a rendezvous is distinctly a feminine one. A man would have said simply "Let people talk. We'll go down the Mall." A woman is made differently, especially if she be such a woman as the Man's Wife. She and the Tertium Quid enjoyed each other's society ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... more useful as a private member than either as Speaker or a member in the Government. When Mrs. Irene Parlby was similarly successful in Lacombe, Alberta, she was not so modest when Premier Greenfield offered her a position without portfolio in the United Farmers' Cabinet. To those who have the feminine movement at heart, these instances will certainly be a source ...
— Canada • J. G. Bourinot
... her face as she took the crumpled bit of cambric from his fingers. In a moment she was smiling. The smile was not forced. It was the quick response to a feminine instinct of pleasure, and he was disappointed not to catch in her face a betrayal ...
— The Alaskan • James Oliver Curwood
... the entire colony assembled. It was tea-time and Sunday. Ten out of the seventeen who form the colony were present. A box-stove, such as we use in our pioneer shacks in Canada, was throwing out a glow of cheeriness. Candles had been lighted. Little knicknacks of feminine taste had been hung here and there to disguise the bareness of the walls. A bed, in one corner, was carefully disguised as a couch. Save for the fact that there was no glass in the window—glass being unobtainable in France at present—one ...
— Out To Win - The Story of America in France • Coningsby Dawson
... a little, blue-eyed, fluffy-haired, clinging, cuddly, ultra-feminine specimen who hung on to Raymonde like a limpet. Raymonde twisted her flaxen locks for her in curl rags, helped to thread baby ribbon through her under-bodices, hauled her out of bed in the mornings, ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil
... a feminine character, yet it was enough to perplex me. Simon, who had manifested the liveliest joy at my escape, would have had me treat it as I had treated the invitation to the Parvis of the Cathedral; ignore it altogether I mean. But I was of a different mind, and this for three reasons, among others: that ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... tall, spectacled creature, gender feminine, number singular, person first, case always possessive, that's the standard bearer; a broomstick from the top of which floats a petticoat, that's the standard. Under that standard march in the U.S. at least ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 2, No. 29, October 15, 1870 • Various
... begin," he said, calmly, "there are several things you ought to know and which I have not yet told you. The first concerns the feminine wearing apparel which Mr. ...
— In Search of the Unknown • Robert W. Chambers
... we no longer care for the selfish and narrow aims. We must cultivate the masculine aspect of unselfishness, the loyalty of the Greeks, the impulse to stand by and fight for others; and we must cultivate its more feminine side, the caritas of I Corinthians XIII, the love that suffereth long and is kind, the sympathy and tenderness infused into a rough and rugged world by Christianity. In this highest developed life ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... externally the greatest dissimilarity between these two young men. Henrik was remarkable for extraordinary, almost feminine beauty; his figure was noble but slender, and his glance glowing though somewhat dreamy. Stjernhoek, some years Henrik's senior, had become early a man. All with him was muscular, firm, and powerful; his ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... not aware that he found time to see a good deal of another young woman who had no claim of old friendship; but even if she had known, she would have understood and forgiven almost as one man understands and forgives another. For quaintly feminine as she was, Rose often said, and felt, that "before a woman can be a true lady she must be a gentleman." And, being a gentleman, she can learn to be a "good fellow"—an ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... her along, Jake. I'll make myself answerable." And young Benjamin, confirmed by a nod from his father, departed for the mysteriously feminine hencoop. ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... which now terminate in consonants ended anciently in e, as year, yeare; wildness, wildnesse; which e probably had the force of the French e feminine, and constituted a syllable with its associate consonant; for in old editions words are sometimes divided thus, clea-re, fel-le, knowled-ge. This e was perhaps for a time vocal or silent in poetry as convenience required; but it has been long wholly mute. Camden in his Remains ...
— A Grammar of the English Tongue • Samuel Johnson
... passage, betrays its later origin by its acquaintance with chapter xvii.; xviii. 29a (LXX) is continued at xix. 8. After Saul's spear-cast David takes flight for the first time, but at verse 11 he is still at home, and makes his escape the second time with the aid of feminine artifice, going to Samuel at Ramah, but to appear in chap. xx. at Gibeah as before. The king remarks his absence from table; Jonathan assures him of his father's favour, which, however, David doubts, though he has no distinct evidence to the contrary. ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen
... seen an example of her courage in a deed that had tried even his own nerve, and, withal, she was a bright, happy girl, earnest and true, possessing all the softer graces of his sisters, and that exquisite touch of feminine delicacy and refinement which appeals more to men than any ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey
... home-made desk. There was a rustle of papers and he closed the ledger in front of him with an air of relief. He clapped his hands smartly. Almost on the instant the curtain hanging in the doorway at the side of the desk was drawn aside and a small, brown feminine hand materialized. ...
— Where the Sun Swings North • Barrett Willoughby
... felt hat made up her costume. She was graceful, adorable; a young, healthy, beautiful creature in whom the blood surged quickly, strongly: the type of woman men are wont to classify as "ineffably feminine," though why we should differentiate is no small mystery unless there really is such a thing as one woman possessing an adorably feminine quality denied to her sisters. Be that as it may, there IS a distinction and men pride themselves on knowing ...
— The Hollow of Her Hand • George Barr McCutcheon
... sex. Anne had bloom, and features, and fine teeth, and, a charm that is so very common in America, a good mouth; but Bridget had all these added to expression. Nothing could be more soft, gentle and feminine, than Bridget Yardley's countenance, in its ordinary state of rest; or more spirited, laughing, buoyant or pitying than it became, as the different passions or feelings were excited in her young bosom. As Mark was often ...
— The Crater • James Fenimore Cooper
... astonishment Miss Smith had recourse to an essentially feminine exclamation. "Why, that does bring it close to home! Why, he is among the persons invited to my cousin's house to-morrow night. I remember seeing his name on the invitation list. That's why you asked me about her party a while ago. My cousin met him somewhere and liked him. I've never seen him, but ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... inspiration. Of course! Why had he not thought of that? He hurried into his sister's room to make a selection of a few necessities for the emergency—only to have his assurance desert him at the very threshold. The room was immaculate, with no feminine finery lying about. Cornelia Dunham's maid was well trained. The only article that seemed out of place was a hand-box on a chair near the door. It bore the name of a fashionable milliner, and across the lid was pencilled in Cornelia's large, angular ...
— The Mystery of Mary • Grace Livingston Hill
... old affection fought with new clarity of vision. Old loyalty quarreled with new understanding. Bit by bit she went over her thinking life, beginning with her first recollection of Charlie Jackson in the class in Civil Government, and all that was feminine and blind devotion in her fought desperately with all that education and her civic-minded forefathers ...
— Lydia of the Pines • Honore Willsie Morrow
... may be applied to a young child, or to other creatures masculine or feminine by nature, when they are not obviously distinguishable with regard to sex; as, "Which is the real friend to the child, the person who gives it the sweetmeats, or the person who, considering only its health, resists its importunities?"—Opis. ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... for us. Since you joined me it has been more brilliant. It may be that after all you are destined to bring me good luck!" He paced the floor for several minutes, then struck his hands together sharply. "All right!" he exclaimed. "It has never failed me! The light is mild, feminine, we shall say, gentle, persuasive, encouraging. It would be fatal to ...
— Blacksheep! Blacksheep! • Meredith Nicholson
... underhand; preventing them at every hazard from slackening in their determined hostility to Spain; discountenancing, without absolutely forbidding, their proposed absorption by France; intimating, without promising, an ultimate and effectual assistance from herself. Meantime, with something of feline and feminine duplicity, by which the sex of the great sovereign would so often manifest itself in the most momentous affairs, she would watch and wait, teasing the Provinces, dallying with the danger, not quite prepared as yet to abandon the prize to Henry or Philip, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... acknowledged the most beautiful type of feminine America. Stanlaws vies with Ziegfeld in glorifying beauty. His latest creation is a series entitled "Frivolous Flossie" who reflects Stanlaws' studies of society, stage and film beauties. "Frivolous Flossie" delights Evening ...
— What's in the New York Evening Journal - America's Greatest Evening Newspaper • New York Evening Journal
... Pasqualigo, "and has not her match in England; she is tall, fair, of a light complexion with a colour, and most affable and graceful"; he was warranted, he said, in describing her as "a nymph from heaven".[181] A more critical observer of feminine beauty thought her eyes and eyebrows too light,[182] but, as an Italian, he may have been biassed in favour of brunettes, and even he wound up by calling Mary "a Paradise". She was eighteen at the time; her marriage with a dotard like Louis had shocked public opinion;[183] and if, as ...
— Henry VIII. • A. F. Pollard
... had been the hero of the moment; now attention centred on our own hero. Ginx hurried off again, but as the crowd opened before him, he was met, and his mad career stayed, by a slight figure, feminine, draped in black to the feet, wearing a curiously framed white-winged hood above her pale face, and a large cross suspended from her girdle. He could not run ...
— Ginx's Baby • Edward Jenkins
... encourage Hercule. He at once attracted and repelled her. When he rent chains, and poised prodigious weights above his head, she thrilled at his prowess, but the next time he attitudinised in the tiger-skin she turned up her nose. She recognised something feminine in the giant. Instinct told her that by disposition the Strong Man was less manly than Little Flouflou, whom he could have swung ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick
... wickered flask. "And what is left of this," I added. She sat on a white chair in front of a wall covered with books, a brilliant, tragic, yet smiling figure of a beautiful woman, charming in the kindly coquetry of the moment. For that is how I interpreted her mood, that she divined my diffidence with feminine quickness and sought innocently enough to help me along. And I made up my mind to take the chance, should it appear, and warn her of what we had feared. She would take it from me, knowing of my diffidence. As she sat there, she filled one of my ideals; the ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... charming lilac silk gown, and under the hem in the most natural attitude peeped the little party slippers. A small lace and velvet bonnet with streamers was hung at the apex of the creation, and in her lap (for the time has come to use the feminine pronoun) he spread the gauzy fan. He hung over her tenderly, as an artist over his subject—each fold must be in place—the empty sleeves curved just so—one fancied a rounded chin beneath the velvet streamers, so artfully was it adjusted. ...
— Explorers of the Dawn • Mazo de la Roche
... listened to these meanderings of his fancy, and recalled old Vicar Richardson and the house full of children, thought of Mr. Pounce's remarks about feminine accuracy. ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... slowly transforming our schools, is strikingly seen in the church. Gulick holds that the reason why only some seven per cent of the young men of the country are in the churches, while most members and workers are women, is that the qualities demanded are the feminine ones of love, rest, prayer, trust, desire for fortitude to endure, a sense of atonement—traits not involving ideals that most stir young men. The church has not yet learned to appeal to the more virile qualities. Fielding Hall[14] asks ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... not perhaps have vexed me so much—for I never entertained a very high opinion of feminine conscientiousness or scrupulosity—had she, when accepting me, been frank enough to admit that, whilst she was willing to do so, she entertained no very ardent sentiment of regard for me. But what inflicted an incurable wound alike upon my pride and my love ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood
... every-day men were for his pencil. He did not so much excel in women. The bent of Sir Joshua's mind was to elevate, to dignify, to intellectualize. Enthusiasm, sentiment, purity, and all the varied poetry of feminine beauty, received their kindred hues and most exquisite expression under his hand. Whatever was dignified in man, or lovely in woman, was portrayed with its appropriate grace and strength. Sir Joshua ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various
... be, but when a woman's head is about to be cut off, it is natural she should ask—why?" so it appears to me, that when bullets are whizzing about our ears, and shells falling within a few yards of us, it ought to be considered extremely natural, and quite feminine, to inquire into the ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... which this was said, mixed as it was with a feminine allurement of more than ordinary subtlety, made Mr. Sutherland frown and Dr. Talbot look perplexed, but it did not embarrass Mr. Courtney, who made haste to respond in his ...
— Agatha Webb • Anna Katharine Green
... music—very much in evidence just now—and the two superfluous good fellows, whom he liked well enough in homoeopathic doses. Especially he liked Jack Meredith, cousin of the Desmonds;—a large and simple soul, gravely absorbed in pursuing balls and tent-pegs and 'pig'; impervious to feminine lures; equally impervious to the caustic wit of his diametrical opposite, Captain James Barnard, who eased his private envy by christening him 'Don Juan.' For Meredith fatally attracted women; and Barnard—cultured, cynical, Cambridge—was as fatally susceptible to them as a trout ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... remarkable attraction there could not have equaled our unparalleled success in Li-chiang. On the second excursion through the town we passed down a cross-street, and suddenly from a courtyard at the right we heard feminine voices speaking English. ...
— Camps and Trails in China - A Narrative of Exploration, Adventure, and Sport in Little-Known China • Roy Chapman Andrews and Yvette Borup Andrews
... vanity peeping out—the last moment's folly of a foolish tie, nailed up for a lifetime. Yet all the same, people should understand that the camera takes no note of newness, but much of the cut and fit. And a man should certainly not go and alter his outline into a feminine softness, by pouring oil on his troubled mane and plastering it down with a brush and comb. It ...
— Select Conversations with an Uncle • H. G. Wells
... still there, being composed purely of the excitement of meeting a young human creature apparently so akin to themselves, but different with that mysterious difference which nature sets between masculine and feminine attributes of mind ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... trunk of the tree were stuck many worn out blades, their points imbedded by the tree's growth from year to year. Thus they became tallies marking the past seasons of haying. Under the tree was the afternoon parlor of the family throughout the summer; there all the feminine industries went on, braiding straw, knitting and mending, or a letter was added to the sampler. Often some neighbor came bringing her work, for nobody could be idle for a moment. I do not know what they talked about, but I can guess. However the picture is faithful and ...
— Confessions of Boyhood • John Albee
... comedies of Shakespeare As You Like It is the one which has attracted to itself the most attention from actresses. No feminine star but what at one time or another has a desire to play Rosalind. Bernard Shaw says, "Who ever failed or could fail as Rosalind?" and I am inclined to think him right, though opinions differ. It would seem, however, that Rosalind is to the dramatic stage what Mimi in La Boheme ...
— The Merry-Go-Round • Carl Van Vechten
... school children, big and little, loved Miss Banks possessed no point of influence over their elders of the feminine persuasion. They turned up their Tinkletown noses and sniffed at her because she was a "vain creature," who thought more of "attractin' the men than she did of anything else on earth." And all this in spite of the fact that she was the intimate ...
— The Daughter of Anderson Crow • George Barr McCutcheon
... their feet and fingers armed with sharp claws. Spanheim, in his work, gives three representations of the harpies, taken from ancient coins and works of art; they have female heads, with the bodies and claws of birds of prey; the first has a coarse female face, the second a beautiful feminine head, and two breasts, and the third a visage ornamented with wreaths and a head-dress. There are various other representations of them, one of the most remarkable of which is a monster with a human head and the body of a ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects and Curiosities of Art (Vol. 3 of 3) • S. Spooner
... her vanity. Her success in attaching Madame de La Rochefoucauld to her person, her pleasure in counting MM. d'Aubusson, de Lafeuillade among her chamberlains, Madame d'Arbry, Madame de Sgur, and the wives of the marshals among the ladies of the palace, turned her head a little, but even this feminine joy did not lessen her usual graciousness; she always succeeded in maintaining her rank, even when most deferential to those men and women who lent it a new lustre by their brilliant names." She was very kind, extremely soft-hearted, and always overwhelming her companions ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand
... mother. Her features were regular, and her full, clear eyes had a brilliance of their own, looking at you always steadfastly and boldly, though very seldom pleasantly. Her mouth would have been beautiful had it not been too strong for feminine beauty. Her teeth were perfect,—too perfect,—looking like miniature walls of carved ivory. She knew the fault of this perfection, and shewed her teeth as little as she could. Her nose and chin were finely chiselled, and her head stood well upon her shoulders. But ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... that crown its summit. The water is a considerable distance from where the people sit, and minute by minute, as the time passes, it recedes farther and farther, until at last it is a long walk away. The gay hues of red-coated soldiers assist feminine attire in enlivening the scene with color. Children in great numbers are scampering about, and busying themselves, much as they do at home, with toy pails and spades; but if you take notice you will find ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various
... gold.' It is a feminine adjective. The substantive is omitted. I think the passage may mean—'The city of Rantideva is made ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... presentation of the Eternal Feminine, is throughout a profound study of a fascinating young American woman. It is frankly a modern ...
— The Turtles of Tasman • Jack London
... has deepened and taken a bluer tinge. The spiderweb, touched by a moonbeam, looks as if sifting silver dust. The PHEASANT-HEN comes from the tree and follows CHANTECLER with little short feminine steps.] ...
— Chantecler - Play in Four Acts • Edmond Rostand
... came a clear feminine voice, as Sira stepped out from the shelter of a buttress some dozen feet away, "—the girl took advantage of your preoccupation to relieve you of your neuros. As you see I have two of them in my hand. The rest of ...
— The Martian Cabal • Roman Frederick Starzl
... lady of whom Major Favraud had spoken so admiringly, and to whose kindness he had committed me, a group had gathered, chiefly of the young, not to be surpassed in any land for manly bearing, graceful feminine beauty, gayety, wit, ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... gathers up his forces and puts forth all his strength. What of her eyes? Well, her eyes were bright enough, large enough, well set in her head. They were clever eyes too—nay, honest eyes also, which is better. But they were not softly feminine eyes. They never hid themselves beneath their soft fringes when too curiously looked into, as a young girl at her window half hides herself behind her curtain. They were bold eyes, I was going to say, but the word would signify too much in their dispraise; daring eyes, I would ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... pitifully shabby gringo woman at that. To her mind, Mrs. Jerry was beautiful and perfect, even in her shapeless brown dress that was always clean. Teresita herself would never have worn that dress at all, yet it did not occur to her that Mrs. Jerry might have some very feminine quality of pride crowded down into some corner of her sweet nature. So Teresita was mightily offended at what she considered a slight from the only gringo woman she had ever known; and she was also bitterly disappointed over the abandonment ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower
... agreed, looking at him with strange eyes. "Oh dear," she added, with feminine inconsequentiality, "my hair's all down, and Lord knows where the ...
— The Air Trust • George Allan England
... to go. The houses of the miners—rough shanties hurriedly erected to supply immediate needs—were most of them congregated together, or at most stood at short distances from each other, the larger ones signifying the presence oL feminine members in a family and perhaps two or three juvenile pioneers—the smaller ones being occupied by younger miners, who lived in ...
— "Seth" • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... black hair might generally be seen wreathed with flowers, or, among the richer people, with strings of precious stones and pearls from the Gulf of California. They appear to have been treated with much consideration by their husbands; and passed their time in indolent tranquillity, or in such feminine occupations as spinning, embroidery, and the like; while their maidens beguiled the hours by the rehearsal ...
— The Antediluvian World • Ignatius Donnelly
... century woman read this list of feminine accomplishments without looking abashed upon her idle hands, and ceasing to wonder at the delicate heirlooms of lace and embroidery that have come ...
— Diary of Anna Green Winslow - A Boston School Girl of 1771 • Anna Green Winslow
... in their true condition of young and handsome girls without guardians, whilst in their male disguise not a shadow of suspicion or impropriety would interfere with them; the novelty of their condition, assuming each day some new attractions; the curiosity innate in the feminine breast to hear and see things outside her own circle; above all the hallucinations flung on the path of disguise by the fiend of evil, who thus intrigued for the final ruin of his unsuspecting victims, made them agree mutually to pass a short time in travelling around as naval cadets; ...
— Alvira: the Heroine of Vesuvius • A. J. O'Reilly
... this connection to such popular predilection as there may be for the dignified (leisurely) bearing and poly presence that are by vulgar tradition associated with opulence in mature men. These traits are in some measure accepted as elements of personal beauty. But there are certain elements of feminine beauty, on the other hand, which come in under this head, and which are of so concrete and specific a character as to admit of itemized appreciation. It is more or less a rule that in communities which are at the stage ...
— The Theory of the Leisure Class • Thorstein Veblen
... that she has neither anything to expect nor anything to fear from him, since indifference is the keynote of his attitude to her, she will all the more readily believe that he loves elsewhere, worthily or unworthily the same to her. A woman is not a noble object in such a situation. All trusting feminine instincts, all sweet emotions of hope, all sentiment, all passion even, retreat and fall away from her, leaving either a cold, bitter, heartless petrifaction, in a woman's clinging robe, or the Fury that is the twin sister of every little red-lipped, ...
— Crowded Out! and Other Sketches • Susie F. Harrison
... whether good can come of women's mixing in parliamentary elections at which they have no vote. Of course, with us a like interference would be taken jocosely, ironically; it would, at the bottom, be a good joke, amusing from the tendency of the feminine temperament to acts of circus in moments of high excitement; but whether the Englishmen regard it so, the English, alone know. They are much more serious than we, and perhaps they take it as a fit manifestation of the family principle which ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... she was a little girl, and of whom she had no recollection. Till he began to break, after they went abroad, he had his own way in everything; but as men grow old or infirm they fall into subjection to their womenkind; their rude wills yield in the suppler insistence of the feminine purpose; they take the colour of the feminine moods and emotions; the cycle of life completes itself where it began, in helpless dependence upon the sex; and Rufus Kilburn did not escape the common lot. He was often complaining and unlovely, as aged and ailing men must be; perhaps he was usually ...
— Annie Kilburn - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... me, that it was rather absurd to talk about a cash register living. I do not think that men have ever personified this machine. We talk of ships and engines by the names we give them and use personal pronouns, generally feminine, when we speak of them. But did any one ever call a cash register "Minnie" or talk ...
— Gossamer - 1915 • George A. Birmingham
... This somewhat perplexed the mate, as he always made his reckoning by rule of thumb, and could no more change his method than work out a problem in trigonometry. The third mate, on the other hand, was quite shy. I noticed what I had failed to note before, and that was the peculiar feminine tone of his voice and manner. He never swung his hands or lounged along the deck like a man used to the sea, and as the regulations call for at least two years' sea experience certified to by some reputable skipper ...
— Mr. Trunnell • T. Jenkins Hains
... for the life of me conceive why I thought this would be a suitable present for my husband, except that the face of Our Lady was so young, so sweet, so beautiful, and so exquisitely feminine that it seemed impossible that any man in the world should not love her. But however that might be I bought her, and carrying her home in a cab, I set her on my husband's desk without a word, and then stood by, like the mother of Moses, to ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... He spoke very gently. "I don't hate Vivian. Why should I? She merely exercised her feminine prerogative and changed her mind. Besides, one only hates big things. Vivian isn't big. She's very small, or she'd not have done this thing. If she'd asked me to release her, I'd have done it, and never have uttered a reproach. It's the heartlessness, the unnecessary ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes
... feminine temper of Francis leads him to attach more value to fanciful symbolism than would have been approved by St. Juan, or even by St. Teresa. And we miss in him that steady devotion to the Person of Christ, and to Him alone, which gives ...
— Christian Mysticism • William Ralph Inge
... was one of those women who are always loved more than they love. There are such women, not selfish, not seeking love, but softly feminine, kind, appealing and genuine. Men need, after all, but an altar on which to lay tribute. And the high, remote white altar that was Sara Lee had already received the love of two ...
— The Amazing Interlude • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... between her appearances Christophe and Grazia, left alone with the children, would resume the thread of their innocent conversation. They never spoke of the feelings that bound them together. Unrestrainedly they confided to each other their little daily happenings. Grazia, with feminine interest, inquired into Christophe's domestic affairs. They were in a very bad way: he was always having ruptures with his housekeepers; he was continually being cheated and robbed by his servants. She laughed heartily but very kindly, and with motherly compassion for the great child's ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland
... artist-girl; and I believe she would be sarcastic and witty if she weren't held down pretty well. I think she's a niece: the relationship leaves her free, as I suppose she feels, to express herself. If you like the type you may have it; but wit in a woman, or even humor, always makes me uncomfortable. The feminine idea of either is a ...
— Bertram Cope's Year • Henry Blake Fuller
... sixth a church. Various have been the conjectures as to the individuals intended by these statues. That holding the church is supposed to represent King Ethelbert, being a very ancient man with a long beard. The next figure appears more feminine, and may ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 380, July 11, 1829 • Various
... and periodicals of to-day are crowded with advice to women, and while much of it is found in magazines for women, written and edited by men, it is also true that a goodly quantity of it comes from feminine writers; it is all along the same lines, however, the burden of effort being to teach the weaker sex how to become more attractive and more lovable to the lords of creation. It is, of course, all intended for our good, for if we can only please the men, ...
— Threads of Grey and Gold • Myrtle Reed
... present on this occasion, and whom have myself seen moved even to tears by the glory of the gathering. She is one who has lately thrown additional light on the antiquities, manners, scenery, and beautiful traditions of Ireland—one, whose graceful and truly feminine works are known to us all, and whom we are proud to see among us—Mrs S. C. Hall. My lord, feebly and briefly as I have spoken of these great names, I must not trespass longer on your time, but beg to propose the health of "Moore and the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844 • Various
... from his visit to the underworld, the sun emerged from the washing of his left eye and the moon from the washing of his right. Japanese writers have sought to differentiate the two myths by pointing out that the sun is masculine in China and feminine in Japan, but such an objection is inadequate to impair the ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... pliability of youth, infinitely more had it bestowed on the beauty of his betrothed. He had left her a beautiful girl just blooming out of girlhood, he found her a mature, full-blown woman, with all the flush and flower of complete feminine perfection, before one charm has become too luxuriant, or one drop of the youthful dew exhaled from ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 3 September 1848 • Various
... of action; but among no class of human beings has nature so profusely distributed this principle of life and action as through the whole sensitive family of genius. It reaches even to a feminine susceptibility. The love of praise is instinctive in their nature. Praise with them is the evidence of the past and the pledge of the future. The generous qualities and the virtues of a man of genius are really produced by the applause conferred on him. "To him whom the world admires, the happiness ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... on the sympathy that had helped her before; but she had been unfortunate in the times for her visits. On the first occasion Mrs. Snow, with majestic demeanor and pursed lips, had kept guard; and on the second the whole feminine part of the family were engaged, in weird pinned-up garments, in the sacred rite of setting out the innumerable house-plants, with the help of a man hired semiannually, for the day, to set out the plants or to take ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 31, No. 1, May 1908 • Various
... interrupted Darrow, with unusual decision. "That is just what I am interested in—you as a human being, a delicious, beautiful, feminine, human being who could mean half the created ...
— The Sign at Six • Stewart Edward White
... their advice, and himself performed the rite,—kindling the incense, and keeping his mind fixed upon the memory of the Lady Li. Presently, within the thick blue smoke arising from the incense, the outline, of a feminine form became visible. It defined, took tints of life, slowly became luminous, and the Emperor recognized the form of his beloved At first the apparition was faint; but it soon became distinct as a living person, and seemed ...
— In Ghostly Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
... not flattered by Della Wharton's feminine blandishments. He was grimly amused—when he was not disgusted; though he continued to treat her with the utmost courtesy and gentleness, trying to keep her from divining ...
— The Trail Horde • Charles Alden Seltzer
... there is in all England no chance of subsistence but by teaching—that almost ineffectual teaching, which can never countervail the education of circumstances, and for which not one in a thousand is fit—or by being a superior Miss Nares—the feminine gender of the ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... discovers his error, and the innocence of his injured wife. In the transports of his repentance, he calls to mind all her feminine excellence; her gentle, uncomplaining, womanly ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... Italian, Spaniard, Greek—each and every one who has not had his eyes opened by travel and knowledge of the world believes, with no less sincerity of conviction than the American, that to him alone of all peoples has it been vouchsafed to know how duly to reverence the divine feminine. To the Englishman it seems that the German not seldom treats his wife much as if she were a cow; and he is sometimes distressed at the way in which, for all the pretty things he says to her, the Frenchman, not of the labouring ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson
... great men there, before you go. The tall man with the patriarchal beard is Michael Angelo, and that slim youth with the long neck and feminine features ...
— Historical Miniatures • August Strindberg
... courage the Major took this as permission; with feminine precision Mrs. Riddel walked about fifty yards and then stopped. "I told you I wasn't going far," she said sweetly, as she held out her ...
— Lady of the Barge and Others, Entire Collection • W.W. Jacobs
... to a chair, and then, with a peculiarly feminine movement, placed herself sideways upon the ottoman, half reclining on her elbow on a high cushion, her deep billowy flounces partly veiling the funereal velvet below. Her oval face was pale and melancholy, her eyes moist as if with recent tears; an expression as of troubled passion lurked ...
— Maruja • Bret Harte
... feminine. The ladies of America have taken the luncheon in hand and developed it into a splendid midday entertainment and means of hospitality. The gentlemen are of course welcome; but they are rarely present. It is usually among themselves that the ladies celebrate ...
— Book of Etiquette • Lillian Eichler
... as you see it in 1814, so shall you find it in 1840. Mutton cutlets and fillet of beef at Flicoteaux's represent black game and fillet of sturgeon at Very's; they are not on the regular bill of fare, that is, and must be ordered beforehand. Beef of the feminine gender there prevails; the young of the bovine species appears in all kinds of ingenious disguises. When the whiting and mackerel abound on our shores, they are likewise seen in large numbers at Flicoteaux's; his whole establishment, indeed, is directly affected ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... that the born duchess had left Wendell Phillips to work out his own salvation. It is hardly the sign of a strong character for a man to be guided in the choice of a profession by feminine counsel; but he was still young, tender-hearted, and susceptible, and if left to himself might have escaped the impending danger. It was a temptation at once to his ambition as an orator and the latent ...
— Sketches from Concord and Appledore • Frank Preston Stearns
... His knowledge of feminine psychology—it must have been theoretical, for he was not seventeen—implied a study and depth of research that was quite surprising; but I am bound to state that his estimate of the strength of character and principle inherent in the weaker sex was any thing ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... with the gender of the two words composing the metaphorical expression: we get a laughable result. Such is the well-known saying, also attributed to M. Prudhomme, "Tous les arts (masculine) sont soeurs (feminine)." "He is always running after a joke," was said in Boufflers' presence regarding a very conceited fellow. Had Boufflers replied, "He won't catch it," that would have been the beginning of a witty ...
— Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic • Henri Bergson
... of holy wedlock, and its essential features, as revealed to young ladies by feminine tradition, though not enumerated in the Book of Common Prayer writ by grim males, so entranced her, that time flew by unheeded, and Christopher Staines came back from her father. His step was heavy; he looked pale, and deeply distressed; ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... to gallantry, mostly were burdened with crushed articles of feminine finery, gaily trimmed hats, red or blue shawls, fancy satin bodices, corsets with ...
— The Fur Bringers - A Story of the Canadian Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... quicker than Lady Glencora. She might be very ignorant about the British Constitution, and, alas! very ignorant also as to the real elements of right and wrong in a woman's conduct, but she was no fool. She had an eye that could see, and an ear that could understand, and an abundance of that feminine instinct which teaches a woman to know her friend or her enemy at a glance, at a touch, at a word. In many things Lady Glencora was much quicker, much more clever, than her husband, though he was to be Chancellor of the Exchequer, and though she did know nothing ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... little trumpet to the distinguished poet's honour and glory. Hidden from view in his buhl cabinet, but none the less vivid to his sensitive egoism, were those tenderer trophies of his power, spoils of the chase, which the adoring feminine had offered up at his shrine: all his love-letters sorted in periods, neatly ribboned and snugly ensconced in various sandalwood niches—much as urns are ranged at the Crematorium, Woking—with locks of hair of many hues. He loved most to think of ...
— Prose Fancies • Richard Le Gallienne
... receives the name of Jesus. The singular effect of these names is heightened by the Spanish custom of using diminutives, formed by adding to the name the particle ito or ita, the former being the masculine, the latter the feminine. It may be readily imagined that a foreigner is not a little startled on hearing a young lady called Dona Jesusita. In some names the diminutive takes a form totally different from the full name; as, for example, Panchita ...
— Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests • J. J. von Tschudi
... could and did. He had rather a stricken moment, too. Of course, there might be nothing to it; but on the other hand, there very well might. And Livingstone was the sort to attract the feminine woman; he had gravity and responsibility. He was older too, and ...
— The Breaking Point • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... religious conception. He believed in a god who revealed himself in the sun, and whom he addressed as Baal or "Lord." By the side of Baal stood his colourless reflection, the goddess Baalath, who owed her existence partly to the feminine gender possessed by the Semitic languages, partly to the analogy of the human family. But the Baalim were as multitudinous as their worshippers and the high-places whereon they were adored; there was little difficulty, therefore, in identifying the gods and "spirits" ...
— Early Israel and the Surrounding Nations • Archibald Sayce
... fidelity to what he considered the obligations of friendship, as reminds me of young Edmund, in Johnny's favourite story of Asiauga's Knight. With a chivalrous daring, that could face the most appalling danger without a tremor, was united an almost feminine delicacy of character, ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer
... "Sura, in the feminine comprehends all sorts of intoxicating liquors, many kinds of which the Indians from the earliest times distilled and prepared from rice, sugar-cane, the palm tree, and various flowers and plants. Nothing ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... exhibited were for the use of the bride, and designed for the home, of the new couple; but there was a fine array of the little trinkets which so delight the feminine heart. ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Adventures on Strange Islands • Roger Thompson Finlay
... wise, however, all the priests, the world-weary, and those whose souls are of feminine and servile nature—oh, how hath their game all along ...
— Thus Spake Zarathustra - A Book for All and None • Friedrich Nietzsche
... displeasing. No woman is quite indifferent to a man who admires her in the hearty, wholesale way which De Burgh did not try to conceal. Katherine was much too feminine not to like the incense of his devotion, especially when he kept it within certain limits. She did not credit him with any deep feeling; but in spite of her strong conviction that he was attracted by ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander
... hospitality or in performing those little household offices which fall so gracefully on the young. Engrossed with her books and studies, pursuits noble and ennobling in themselves, but degraded from their high and holy purpose when cultivated to the exclusion of the lovely, feminine virtues, Mittie was almost a stranger beneath ...
— Helen and Arthur - or, Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel • Caroline Lee Hentz
... he felt a stirring in him at the sight of her taut fully-feminine figure. She poised on the edge of the raft and then her tanned body went slanting toward ...
— The Mighty Dead • William Campbell Gault
... which Roma had entered the room began to leave her, and in the awful wearer of the threefold crown she saw nothing but a simple, loving human being. A feminine sense crept over her, a sense of nursing, almost of motherhood, and at that first moment she felt as if she wanted to do something for the gentle old man. Then he began to speak. His voice had that tone which comes to the voice of a man who has the sense of sex strong in him, when a woman ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... but she had no mind to be left behind in the march of feminine fashion. She did not rush to extremes, but she had women's clubs in 1881. The chief of these were the Ladies' Literary Club and the Spinsters' Alliance. Both clubs tackled the same great themes of ethics and art, and allotted a winter ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VI. (of X.) • Various
... paper of the walls, was placed a small French table, on which were writing materials; and his toilet-table and his mantelpiece were profusely ornamented with rare flowers; on all sides were symptoms of female taste and feminine consideration. ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli
... comparative and superlative degree."—Murray's Gram., p. 33; Ingersoll's, 33; Lennie's, 6; Bullions's, 8; Fisk's, 53, and others. "When nouns naturally neuter are converted into masculine and feminine."—Murray's Gram., 8vo, p. 38. "This form of the perfect tense represents an action completely past, and often at no great distance, but not specified."—Ib., p. 74. "The Conjunction Copulative serves to connect or to continue ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... happiness—the taking of mutual love between him and his wife as something conceded once for all, not requiring exhibition or culture or protection or nourishment of any sort. In this mistake he was perhaps less blamable than are some, inasmuch as he was fettered by a great ignorance of feminine nature. From earliest boyhood, he had been Cicily's abject worshiper. That devotion had held him aloof from other women. In consequence, he had missed the variety of experiences through which many men pass, from which, perforce, they garner stores of wisdom, ...
— Making People Happy • Thompson Buchanan
... signifying—'The wives of those for whom I have been reduced to such a plight, shall on the fourteenth year hence be deprived of husbands, sons and relatives and dear ones and smeared all over with blood, with hair dishevelled and all in their feminine seasons enter Hastinapore having offered oblations of water (unto the manes of those they will have lost). And O Bharata, the learned Dhaumya with passions under full control, holding the kusa grass in his hand and pointing the ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... Cecelia Brooke, though his aloof attitude coupled with an intent but impersonal inspection of every feminine face within his radius of vision earned him more than one smile at once furtively ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... wild but that in them are quiet corners, green oases, all the greener for their surroundings, where life glides on in peaceful isolation from the tumult. Men and women love and work and weep and laugh, the gossips of Bethlehem talk over Naomi's return ('they said,' in verse 19, is feminine), Boaz stands among his corn, and no sounds of war disturb them. Thank God! the blackest times were not so dismal in reality as they look in history. There are clefts in the grim rock, and flowers blooming, sheltered in the ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... a feminine way at Frank Nelsen, a tall, lean guy of nineteen, butch-haircutted and snub featured. But he was the purposeful, studious kind, more an observer and a personal doer than a leader; he hadn't much time for the encouraging smiles of girls, and donning even an Archer Five now instead ...
— The Planet Strappers • Raymond Zinke Gallun
... kissed Aunt Daphne, and explained to her too, and I'm sure that she was relieved. After Rex had gone, the Dean took me into his study after dinner, and we had a long heart-to-heart talk. I want you all to understand that he thinks I'm a good specimen of the undeveloped feminine brain. ...
— Kit of Greenacre Farm • Izola Forrester
... all the carriages in the train would be besieged, without regard to class. By some chance, however, ours was neglected, and until the very last moment we seemed likely to escape. The guard's whistle was between his lips when I heard a shout, then one or two feminine screams, and a company of seven or eight persons came charging out of the booking-office. Every one of them was apparelled in black: they were, in fact, the people I had seen gaping at the ...
— The Delectable Duchy • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... been entirely without feminine companionship, however, during the half-century of his life as a man. Everybody knew something—and suspected a great deal more—of various friendships of his. Even the girls knew that Peter Pomeroy was not over- cautious in the management of his affairs, but they ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... it to be a lack of courtesy to dissent from praise of any woman whose chastity was beyond impeachment, as he held it to be an absence of propriety to unite in admiration of one who was wanting in the supremest of the feminine virtues. His code was an obvious one, and he had never seen cause to ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... whiteness; while for the same reason, the red upon her cheeks was of the deep tint of a damask rose. The tones of all, however, were in perfect harmony; and distributed over features of the finest mould produced a face in which soft feminine beauty vied with a sort of savage picturesqueness, making it ...
— The Free Lances - A Romance of the Mexican Valley • Mayne Reid
... remember that there'll be no publicity to make either of you look small. You can have Peace with Honour, whatever you decide. [Listening] There they are! Now, Mother, don't be logical! It's so feminine. ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... are snobs; his aristocracy and his clerks are cast in the same mould; his city young men are like artizans; and his brides are forbidding—models of virtue, no doubt, but lacking every outward feminine charm. These shortcomings, of course, are to a certain extent to be accounted for by his own nature. Living in the strictest economy and temperateness, he hated anything like ostentation. He despised "Society" and the whole fabric of fashion, and held the world ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... influence, as so many reach notoriety in our own simple society, by the distinction of having travelled; aided, somewhat, by her strong sense, great decision of character, perfect modesty and propriety of deportment, with a form which was singularly graceful and feminine, and a face that, while it could scarcely be called beautiful, was in the highest degree winning and attractive. No one thought of asking her family name; and she never appeared to deem it necessary to mention it. Ghita was sufficient; it was familiar to every one; and, although ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper |
