"Prudish" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... all he said or did. All Tully's rules and all Quintilian's too He by the light of listening faces knew, And his rapt audience all unconscious lent Their own roused force to make him eloquent; Persuasion fondled in his look and tone; Our speech (with strangers prudish) he could bring To find new charm in accents not her own; 160 Her coy constraints and icy hindrances Melted upon his lips to natural ease, As a brook's fetters swell the dance of spring. Nor yet all ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... this time decided, by the powers that had influence (and by public opinion also, at least in the middle-class sense), that certain verbal limits must be set to such literature. The novel must be what some would call pure and others would call prudish; but what is not, properly considered, either one or the other: it is rather a more or less business proposal (right or wrong) that every writer shall draw the line at literal physical description of things socially concealed. It was originally merely verbal; ...
— The Victorian Age in Literature • G. K. Chesterton
... Morally it was a society not altogether above reproach. Its opposition to religion was a by-word. An affection of the susceptible youth for a woman unhappily married brought him to the verge of despair. It was an affection which his passing pride as romanticist would have made him think it prudish to discard, while the deep, underlying elements of his nature made it inconceivable that he should indulge. Only in later years did he heal his wound ...
— Edward Caldwell Moore - Outline of the History of Christian Thought Since Kant • Edward Moore
... image a sudden resemblance struck me: the gown gave the Virgin a curiously conical look that somehow made me think of that conical black stone, the Bona Dea, that the Romans brought from Asia Minor. Here again was a good goddess, a bountiful one, more mother than virgin, despite her prudish frills.... But the man was ushering ...
— Rosinante to the Road Again • John Dos Passos
... as the Emperor was wont! One of our Camillas,(795) but in a freer style, I hear, he saw (I fancy just before your arrival); and he must have wondered at the familiarity of the dame, and the nincompoophood of her Prince. Sir William Hamilton is arrived— his Nymph of the Attitudes!(796) was too prudish ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... Pylades and Patroclus as the lover of Achilles. In this taste, the Gods set the example for mortals, and the abduction of Ganymede for the service of the master of thunder, was not the least cause for annoyance given the chaste but over-prudish Juno. Lastly, Hercules was not content with the loves of Omphale and Dejanira, he also loved the beautiful Hylas, who was brought ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... been gay enough. In those days it was far from prudish and Mozart was always of unusual fascination for women. He loved frivolity and went about much, but he seems by no means to have deserved the reputation given him by the gossip of that time and this, that he was a confirmed rake. It is impossible for any one ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1 • Rupert Hughes
... captivating, whereupon the stout Madame Deschars gives utterance to a remark somewhat equivocal for her, usually so stern, prudish and devout. ...
— Petty Troubles of Married Life, Part First • Honore de Balzac
... trifle impatiently, "don't be prudish. He's ever so far off, and I've never had an opportunity ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss
... joined them, some one would say, "Now, little Cupid, say a little verse, or sing a pretty song." And the little fellow would hardly wait to be asked, but spring up on the table and recite what he had learned; and the ladies would blush to the very roots of their hair; some would laugh, but the more prudish would go away. And then the Lady Idalia would take the little rascal in her lap and reward him with kisses. But now all this was over. Since Father Peter had become his tutor, the little Cupid knew no more wanton songs. On ...
— Peter the Priest • Mr Jkai
... when I was serving the champagne and punch about; and, having a remarkably fine eyesight and a great natural aptitude, I was speedily able to give my dear uncle much assistance against his opponents at the green table. Some prudish persons may affect indignation at the frankness of these confessions, but Heaven pity them! Do you suppose that any man who has lost or won a hundred thousand pounds at play will not take the advantages which his neighbour enjoys? They ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Chatelet, "Mme. d'Espard is the more prudish and particular because she herself is separated from her husband, nobody knows why. The Navarreins, the Lenoncourts, the Blamont-Chauvrys, and the rest of the relations have all rallied round her; the most strait-laced women are seen at her house, and receive ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... interpolation was made, or the causes by which it was dictated, little or nothing can now be confidently affirmed; but the agreement of the manuscripts and the early editions in giving it, render it impossible to discard it peremptorily as a declaration of prudish or of interested regret, with which Chaucer himself had ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... old folks about their consent; before, in short, it has become an "understood thing" all over town—there are such moments, when the lady throws off all reserve, and by a look, a smile, a blush, a half-articulate word, repays her lover for months, if he is fool enough to court so long, of prudish and affected shyness, past or future. These moments occur but seldom, even in the most patriarchal courtships, and it is well that it is so. Love is a fiery steed, and should always be ridden with a curb bridle, both before and after ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... of such circumstances was that the simple fact they arose from could—with perfect taste—only be treated simply. It was a mere fact; therefore, why be prudish and affected ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... I don't like leaving girls alone with their lovers; but, with a prince, it would be so ill-bred to be prudish. [Exit. ...
— The Lady of Lyons - or Love and Pride • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... together, devoutly crossing themselves, while two or three of the most enthusiastic were half-minded to go forward and kneel to Philammon for his blessing; but hesitated, their Gothic lovers being heathenishly stupid and prudish on ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... repulsion in union; a delirium to any lover impelled to trample on weak defences. But the evident pain he inflicted moved his pity, which helped to restore his conception of the beauty of her character. She stood so nobly meek. And she was never prudish, only self-respecting. Although the great news he imparted had roused an ardent thirst for holiday and a dash out of harness, and he could hardly check it, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... too, that triumphant Jew with his insolent good humor. It is an absurd thing, after all, to be prudish and to thrust away the dish that is offered you. To be rich is, in fact, quite as good as to be powerful! Money remains! That is the only real thing in the world! It would be a fine sight to see a man refuse the opportunity to make a fortune, ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... means. The sacred authors, the Fathers of the Church, who present their thoughts in living words, and ecclesiastical authors have not felt that silence was best. I have followed their example, and shall exclaim, with St. Augustine, 'If what I have written scandalizes any prudish persons, let them rather accuse the turpitude of their own thoughts than the words I have been obliged ...
— History of Circumcision from the Earliest Times to the Present - Moral and Physical Reasons for its Performance • Peter Charles Remondino
... perhaps, they had had no opportunity of giving decided proof of any higher qualities they may have possessed, but they were both right-minded, religious girls. Some of the officers pronounced them far too strict, others considered them haughty, and one or two even ventured to pronounce them prudish, because they showed no taste for the frivolous amusements in which the ordinary run of young ladies indulge; not that they objected to dance, or to join in a pleasant pic-nic; indeed, the few who did find fault ...
— The Voyages of the Ranger and Crusader - And what befell their Passengers and Crews. • W.H.G. Kingston
... to the Rue du Perron. Madame de Watteville, devout as a girl, became even more so after her marriage. She is one of the queens of the saintly brotherhood which gives the upper circles of Besancon a solemn air and prudish manners in harmony with the character ...
— Albert Savarus • Honore de Balzac
... she had not even the looks of a gentlewoman: a third warranted she was no better than she should be; and, turning to the lady who had related the story in the coach, said, "Did you ever hear, madam, anything so prudish as her remarks? Well, deliver me from the censoriousness of such a prude." The fourth added, "O madam! all these creatures are censorious; but for my part, I wonder where the wretch was bred; indeed, I must own I have ...
— Joseph Andrews Vol. 1 • Henry Fielding
... service truly warm, He was in sin most uniform. Injurious Satire! own at least One snivelling virtue in the priest, One snivelling virtue, which is placed, They say, in or about the waist, Call'd Chastity; the prudish dame Knows it at large by Virtue's name. To this his wife (and in these days Wives seldom without reason praise) 240 Bears evidence—then calls her child, And swears that Tom[144] was vastly wild. Ripen'd by a long course of years, He great and perfect now appears. In shape scarce of the human ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... soothing. "Somebody has kissed him, sir, and the chaste boy can't get over it." This absurd suggestion did more to appease the baronet than if Adrian had given a veritable reasonable key to Richard's conduct. It set him thinking that it might be a prudish strain in the young man's mind, due to the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... certain set Helen Traynor was not popular. Some people thought her old fashioned, strait-laced, prudish. They resented her having no taste for their frivolous, decadent amusements. They called her proud and condescending whereas, as a matter of fact, she merely asked to be let alone. Of course, it was only people whose opinions were worthless that criticized her. All who were ...
— The Mask - A Story of Love and Adventure • Arthur Hornblow
... the lady, in no way discomposed by this snub, "don't be so severe upon me. I have no designs upon your friend, and you need not be prudish with me. Surely ladies of our rank have no need to be particular ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau
... All I could see was her gingham shirtwaist suit with its prudish white linen cuffs and collar, and her rough ...
— Elizabeth Hobart at Exeter Hall • Jean K. Baird
... catches good humour as easily as if it were cold. Shall we stroll on?—my Clelia is on the other side of the Exchange.—You were speaking of the play-writers: what a pity that our Ethereges and Wycherleys should be so frank in their gallantry that the prudish public already begins to look shy on them. They ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... strangest part of it is that the introductory and intermediate passages are no less interesting, under Trollope's treatment, than are the murders and forgeries. Not only does he never offend the modesty of nature,—he encourages her to be prudish, and trains her to such evenness and severity of demeanor that we never know when we have had enough of her. His touch is eminently civilizing; everything, from the episodes to the sentences, moves without hitch or creak: ...
— Confessions and Criticisms • Julian Hawthorne
... was all for those innocent pastimes which do away with conventional formality and reserve, now proposed a game at "Hunt the Slipper," which was welcomed by the whole party, except the Pole and the Vicomte; though Mademoiselle Adele looked prudish, and observed to the epicier, "that Monsieur Lofe was so droll, but she should not have liked her ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Makeway's parties! I wasn't asked last night to her big ball!—not that I care. I am sure that beast of a husband of mine will never be able to prove his nasty charges against us, and that I shall win the case. Then there'll be no excuse for Mrs. Makeway and her prudish set, and I promise you they shall eat "humble pie," if there's any left in the world after all my dear friends have made me devour. Tom has been making overtures to my maid through a detective, but Lena is faithful to us, and I've promised her double any sum they offer her. When my position is ...
— The Smart Set - Correspondence & Conversations • Clyde Fitch
... regarding probable consequences, is it just to blame him if he infects his wife? It is certain no man would willingly subject his bride to the risk of infection, with all its horrible consequences. These conditions exist as a result of the prudish attitude of society in the past toward all questions affecting sex hygiene. We have not told all the truth to the boy. Whatever knowledge he may have had was gained from companions, or from individuals who knew the garbled ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Vol 2 (of 4) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague
... I don't know what you refer to." Mrs. Sand's tone was prudish and offended. "She hasn't said a word to me—she's a great one for keeping things to herself—but if Mr. Lindsay ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)
... now considers herself as my wife-elect. The unsaddened heart, no longer prudish, will not now, I hope, give the sable turn to every address of the man she dislikes not. And yet she must keep up so much reserve, as will justify past inflexibilities. 'Many and many a pretty soul would yield, were she not afraid ...
— Clarissa, Volume 5 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... a false, or a prudish, refinement are these questions kept in the background, but more particularly are they diminished in view in order to confine the contents of this book to a resume of the facts which are the most agreeable. Even in those localities where there is little else but crime and ignorance, ...
— Dickens' London • Francis Miltoun
... know what to make of Miss Fanny," he said to his sister. "Is she solemn? Is she queer? Is she prudish? I can hardly get her to speak. I never was so long in company with a girl in my life, trying to entertain her, and succeeded so ill! Never met with a girl who ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol. I • Various
... in Crowne's City Politics (1683), and many another beside. As for the cavilling crew who carped at her during her life Mrs. Behn has answered them and she was thoroughly competent so to do. Indeed, as she somewhat tartly remarked to Otway on the occasion of certain prudish dames pleasing to take offence at The Soldier's Fortune, she wondered at the impudence of any of her sex that would pretend to understand the thing called bawdy. A clique were shocked at her; it was not her salaciousness they objected ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn
... Mrs. Monte Irvin, in which at this time three distinct groups of investigators became interested—namely, those of Whitehall, Scotland Yard, and Fleet Street—was of a character to have horrified the prudish, but to have excited the compassion of ...
— Dope • Sax Rohmer
... low iron patent-pump, near a rustic seat, the Ritualistic organist, in his vast linen coat and imposing straw hat, looks not unlike an eccentric garden statue, upon which some prudish slave of modern conventionalities has placed the summer attire of a western editor. The great heat of the sun upon his back makes him irritable, and when Miss POTTS sharply smites with her fan the knuckles of the hand which he has affably extended to take ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 26, September 24, 1870 • Various
... pictured as a naked babe. Men together will examine a baby—if they must—with a bashful diffidence that pulls down the clothes each time the infant kicks; women dote upon each inch of its chubby person. And so with love. Men will discuss their love— if they must—with the most prudish ...
— Once Aboard The Lugger • Arthur Stuart-Menteth Hutchinson
... exquisitely. Those graceful, fragile Petunias (what a family of sisters!), in their delicate glaze silks (ratherish decollete!), and the Superbia, Empress 'Gladiolus,' in brocade of such daring hues, may call the Asters 'stiff and prudish' in their quilled muslins; but, what say the Asters in return? Ah! ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 1 January 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... evidently startled as she met the Baron's astonished eye, and she responded with a prudish ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... gold, the names of those soldiers are recorded who have distinguished themselves for their achievements in the late war. As we were contemplating a painting upon a very large scale, in which, amongst other figures, is an uncovered whole length of a warrior, a prudish-looking lady, who seemed to have touched the age of desperation, after having very attentively beheld it with her glass for some time, observed to her party, that there was a great deal of indecorum in the picture. Madame S—— very shrewdly whispered in my ear, that the indecorum ...
— The Stranger in France • John Carr
... prudish notions, you will perceive, about a flirtation—provided it was carried on with the airs and graces of the Hotel Rambouillet. She merely, therefore, interposed a word here and there, to show that she was present. Daphne, who scarcely said a word to Hector, took good care ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - April 1843 • Various
... lightning made audible. Here you have freedom in love and in morality mocking exquisitely at slavery to them, and interesting you, attracting you, tempting you, inexplicably forcing you to range the hero with his enemy the statue on a transcendant plane, leaving the prudish daughter and her priggish lover on a crockery shelf below ...
— Man And Superman • George Bernard Shaw
... disgusting in any well-regulated convict establishment. His gallantry is rarely "honourable." Scaliger used to burn a copy of Martial, once a year, on the altar of Catullus, who himself was far from prudish. But Martial, somehow, kept his heart undepraved, and his taste in books was excellent. How often he writes verses for the bibliophile, delighting in the details of purple and gold, the illustrations and ornaments for his new volume! These pieces are for the few—for amateurs, but we may all ...
— Letters on Literature • Andrew Lang
... she was saying. "How graceful! On her lips the utterances of treachery sound like witticism; an act of infidelity seems the prompting of reason, a sacrifice to propriety; while she is never reckless, she is always lovable; she is seldom tender and never sincere; amorous by nature, prudish on principle; sprightly, prudent, dexterous though utterly thoughtless, varied as Proteus in her moods, but charming as the Graces in her manner; she attracts but she eludes. What a number of parts I have seen her play! Entre nous, what ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... courtesans, all in eager quest of pleasure or conquest or gain. The Bath season was England's carnival, when cares and ceremonial alike were thrown to the winds, when the pleasure of the moment was the only ambition worth pursuing, and when even the prudish found a fearful joy in ...
— Love Romances of the Aristocracy • Thornton Hall
... appears decidedly consolable; Ennasuite is a haughty damsel, disdainful of poor folk, and Nomerfide is a pure madcap, a Catherine Seyton of the generation before Catherine herself, the feminine Dioneo of the party, and, if a little too free-spoken for prudish modern taste, a ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. I. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... reminded me that I would have to write something about myself, or seem to be prudish. I left that until to-night, and I have just finished it. I had to get in two pages about Miss Priscilla and the Colonel before I began on myself. I defended her for not marrying him unless she wants to, and I moralized five sentences on a ...
— Phyllis • Maria Thompson Daviess
... well-to-do shopkeeper, some part of the professional, and the capitalist class on the voters' list. Workmen of the faubourg St. Antoine signed a petition to be allowed to pay taxes so as to obtain a vote. Robespierre, a narrow, prudish, jealous, puritanical but able lawyer from Arras, with journalists like Desmoulins and Loustallot, inveighed against what they described as iniquitous class legislation that would have excluded from the councils of ...
— The French Revolution - A Short History • R. M. Johnston
... been engaged for the guest of honour. But it took more than this to keep her in the background. While the speeches were in full swing, she forced her way into the banquet-hall, and won over the prudish burghers by jumping on the table ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... sudden gust of passion seized her and she turned on me, denouncing me fiercely, in terms she took no care to measure, for a prudish virtue that for good or evil was not mine, and for a narrowness of which my reason was not guilty. I stood defenceless in the storm, crying at the end no more than, "I don't think thus ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope
... of the subject by a concise description of the anatomy of reproduction. In this portion of the work especial pains has been taken to avoid anything like indelicacy of expression, yet it has not been deemed advisable to sacrifice perspicuity of ideas to any prudish notions of modesty. It is hoped that the reader will bear in mind that the language of science is always chaste in itself, and that it is only through a corrupt imagination that it becomes invested with impurity. The ...
— Plain Facts for Old and Young • John Harvey Kellogg
... "If Esther turns prudish, just let me know," said Carlos. "Nucingen must give her a carriage and horses; she will have to choose and buy everything herself. Go to the horse-dealer and the coachmaker who are employed by the job-master where Paccard finds work. ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... feelings into accord with yours. One thing, above all, I would beg of you. Spare me the annoyances to which the strangeness of our mutual position might give rise to our relations with others. I am neither whimsical nor prudish, and should be sorry to get that reputation; but I feel sure that I can trust to your honor when I ask you to keep up the outward appearance ...
— Letters of Two Brides • Honore de Balzac
... ALICIA. Prudish and coarse to the last. Now hush indeed! The stream kisses the lake. We near the shrine. Stir no snapped twig. Let your foot - even yours ...
— Household Gods • Aleister Crowley
... the past has been both prudish and Pharisaic, the public opinion of the world is frankly cynical. Roughly speaking, the world expects the majority of women to be pure, acquiesces in the prostitution of the remainder, and treats masculine immorality ...
— Religious Reality • A.E.J. Rawlinson
... the heady Pramnian at the tavern, he roved away with Cimon and others to serenade beneath the lattice of a lady—none too prudish—in the Ceramicus quarter. But the fair one was cruel that night, and her slaves repelled the minstrels with pails of hot water from an upper window. Democrates thereupon quitted the party. His head was very befogged, but he could not expel one idea from it—that ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... fair as a lily, with blue eyes and rich auburn hair. But she had a good deal more than her beauty to recommend her. She was sweet-tempered, gentle, and high principled. Mrs Brigadier Bomanjoy declared that she was puritanical and prudish; but she was in reality truly religious and modest, without a particle of nonsense in her composition. Captain Hawkesford, generally supposed to be indifferent to female charms,—at least, to those of his own countrywomen,—paid her more attention than he did to any one else, although she evidently ...
— The Young Rajah • W.H.G. Kingston
... must there be any at all? And Puritanism isn't a sufficient explanation. The English Puritans of the really Puritan time had freedom of conversation which would horrify us of to-day. We become more and more prudish as what we call civilization advances. It is a hateful fact that, from the domestic point of view, there exists no difference between some of the noblest things in art and poetry, and the obscenities which are prosecuted; the one is as ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing
... the professors of the academies. They will further add that after the accession of the Stuarts the building art gradually declined, with only a few flashes of brilliant light in the works of Inigo Jones and Wren. The Commonwealth was prudish in art as in manners, and the Restoration was a reign of revel and wild license. The social worlds of William and Mary and of Queen Anne, stiff, starched, and formal, left their impress upon the buildings of their day, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various
... perfect equality in the sexes—yet he recognised that sudden changes were prejudicial before sufficient progress had been accomplished. "To destroy, you must replace." Justice he considered the sole guide, reason and duty the only law. His morality was not that of pharasaical tartuffes, nor of prudish knickerbockers, who with wide phylacteries, sit in the high places to be seen of men. He only combatted evil principles and fought hard ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley as a Philosopher and Reformer • Charles Sotheran
... I think a prudish one, of being thought too attentive to please your sex, they have acquired a certain distant manner to men, which borders on ill-breeding: they take great pains to veil, under an affected appearance of disdain, that ...
— The History of Emily Montague • Frances Brooke
... more ludicrous when we reflect that shift, i.e. change of raiment, is itself an early euphemism for smock; cf. Ital. mutande, "thinne under-breeches" (Florio), from a country and century not usually regarded as prudish. The fact is that, just as the low word, when once accepted, loses its primitive vigour (see pluck, p. 83), the euphemism is, by inevitable association, doomed from its ...
— The Romance of Words (4th ed.) • Ernest Weekley
... reaction either, to speak of, no gloomy disgust. She was physically acceptable to him. He could always talk to her in a genial, teasing way, even tender, for she did not offend his intellectuality with prudish or conventional notions. Loving and foolish as she was in some ways, she would stand blunt reproof or correction. She could suggest in a nebulous, blundering way things that would be good for them to do. Most of all ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... Scout, by Theodore Baughman, Chicago, 1886; Midnight and Noonday, by G. D. Freeman, Caldwell, Kansas, 1892; biographies of Wild Bill Hickok, town marshal; Stuart N. Lake's biography of Wyatt Earp, another noted marshal; Hard Knocks, by Harry Young, Chicago, 1915, not too prudish to notice dance hall girls but too Victorian to say much. Many Texas trail drivers had trouble as well as fun in the cow towns. Life and Adventures of Ben Thompson, by W. M. Walton, 1884, reprinted at Bandera, Texas, 1926, ...
— Guide to Life and Literature of the Southwest • J. Frank Dobie
... which in later life has placed them at the head of their professions. These years of camaraderie—of a life free from all conventionalities, in daily touch with everything about them, and untrammeled by public censure or the petty views of prudish or narrow minds, have left them free to cut a straight swath merrily toward the goal of their ideals, surrounded all the while by an atmosphere of art and good-fellowship that permeates the very ...
— The Real Latin Quarter • F. Berkeley Smith
... lived their bachelor life; they have been over head and ears in pleasure, and make the most adorable wives that could be wished; they have nothing to learn, they are formed, they are not in the least prudish; they are well broken in, and indulgent. So I strongly recommend everybody to take the "remains of a racer." I am the most fortunate man ...
— A Prince of Bohemia • Honore de Balzac
... peacock-wise, in the churches and public places, even as do the laity with their apparel; and like as with the sweep-net the fisher goeth about to take many fishes in the river at one cast, even so these, wrapping themselves about with the amplest of skirts, study to entangle therein great store of prudish maids and widows and many other silly women and men, and this is their chief concern over any other exercise; wherefore, to speak more plainly, they have not the friar's gown, but ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... now moving so fast it is hard to keep up with them. Pat Valdo is dressed as a prudish old lady with an enormous bustle. Escorted by the clown policeman and the two amateurs, Pat sets out, fanning himself demurely. Hullo! the bustle has detached itself from the old lady, but she proceeds, unconscious. The audience shouts with glee. Finally the cop sees ...
— Pipefuls • Christopher Morley
... his marriage, had thickened and grown prudish, as the Van Osburgh husbands were apt to do; but his wife, to his surprise and discomfiture, had developed an earth-shaking fastness of gait which left him trailing breathlessly ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... to get a firm hold upon life, and to feel that it is a finer thing than any little presentment of it. I want you to feel and enjoy for yourselves, and to live freely and generously. Bad things happen to all of us, of course; but we mustn't mind that—not to be petty or quarrelsome, or hidebound or prudish or over-particular, that's the point. To leave other people alone, except on the rare occasions when they are not letting other people alone; to be peaceable, and yet not to be afraid; not to be hurt and vexed; to practise forgetting; not to want to pouch things! ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson
... of Torres Strait, Haddon states, "the men were formerly nude, and the women wore only a leaf petticoat, but I gather that they were a decent people; now both sexes are prudish. A man would never go nude before me. The women would never voluntarily expose their breasts to white men's gaze; this applies to quite young girls, less so to old women. Amongst themselves they are, of course, much less particular, but I believe they are ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... one day, on his way to dinner, he went and looked at the outside of the house which was to be her home, and its aspect did not please him. It stood in a gloomy street: it was prim, straight, narrow, and altogether hideous. A tiny bit of arid garden in front gave it a prudish air of withdrawing from the life and traffic of the thoroughfare. The door opened as Percival looked, and a woman came out, frigid, thin-lipped and sandy-haired. She paused on the step and gave an order to the servant: evidently ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, November, 1878 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... doors as I have hundreds of times," he answered. "The night and I are brothers; the stars are my little cousins; and the moon"—he giggled in his boyish way—"is my maiden aunt. She's so prudish and so kind and friendly, as you say. She's like an aunt I had—Aunt Samantha. She was my father's sister. I used to love her to visit my mother. She always brought me things, and she gave them to me as if they were on silver dishes—like a ceremony. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... transferred as perfectly as may be, and this end is attained by preserving its archaisms and quaintness of phrase, its repetitions and inherent crudities and even, without suppression or attenuation, the grossness of speech of our less prudish ancestors, which is also a mark of certain primitive habits of life but which an over-fastidious translator through delicacy of feeling might wish to omit. These side-lights on the semi-barbaric setting of the Old Irish sagas ...
— The Ancient Irish Epic Tale Tain Bo Cualnge • Unknown
... not perfectly beautiful. That's the plain truth. I may lie about it myself to him pretty soon. I might as well. He only thinks I'm being flirty when I deny it. Oh, I know I've changed! Sometimes it seems to me now as if I used to be—well, almost prudish." ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson
... said, a question of standards. By his, she was narrow, uncharitable, even bigoted; tried by the code of more orthodox circles she was simply high-minded, true and noble in her devotion to principle. She was neither bigoted nor prudish, however the alien circumstances in which she was placed made her appear so. To her it was a vital question of right and purity of which Arthur disposed with such contemptuous lightness. True as the sunlight herself, no pang could be more bitter than the knowledge that ...
— The Pagans • Arlo Bates
... and twelve every child should learn from a parent or other adult confidant some general facts regarding their approaching puberty. This is especially important in the case of girls, for many a girl has been physically and mentally injured because a prudish mother has procrastinated too long the giving of information regarding the first menstrual period. The facts in the first thirty pages of W.S. Hall's "Life Problems" should be known by many girls of eleven and by the great majority ...
— Sex-education - A series of lectures concerning knowledge of sex in its - relation to human life • Maurice Alpheus Bigelow
... never seem to sink lower. There are always fresh finds being made—seizures made officially by an officer or two with a few files of men so that there may be some reasonable excuse to offer to those who persist in remaining mulishly prudish. These new finds are, of course, called treasures-trove. They are good words. Looting has officially ceased; is, indeed, forbidden under the most severe penalties. That is why it is being systematised and made open and respectable. It is in the blood. You cannot escape ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... separating him from the other kindergarten children, and trying the Montessori method of a private rug and no nervous distraction. I was flattering myself that it was working well; his vocabulary of late has become almost prudish. ...
— Dear Enemy • Jean Webster
... me 'How shall I woo her?' Miss Harz?" a little embarrassed, I perceived, by my manner. "I have a fancy for the title, nevertheless, not having heard any more, and should be glad to hear the whole poem. But you are prudish to-day, I fancy." ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... before I could arrive at this, and could see marriage as the physical prototype in this physical world of the spiritual union with Himself in the spiritual world. And this was arrived at, not by prudish questionings and criticisms, but by remembering that this relationship between men and women is His thought, His plan, not ours. We are responsible for our part in it only in so far as to keep the bond of it pure and clean and sweet, and submit ourselves ...
— The Golden Fountain - or, The Soul's Love for God. Being some Thoughts and - Confessions of One of His Lovers • Lilian Staveley
... intercourse spoilt for her. There are no dangers for men, but on the contrary there is very great help for men, in the society of girls who will meet them in a spontaneous, natural, and friendly way. It is when the girls who should be their natural companions are found to be prudish and stiff that men are all too apt to look for other girls who will at least be friendly and often much more than friendly. All that I want girls to know is that there are dangers on the horizon of this part of life, and to ask them to use their ...
— Men, Women, and God • A. Herbert Gray
... don't let us play the prudish or sentimental!" cried Madeleine, in a burst of impatience. "Of course, it isn't pleasant. Do you think I should "—"bother with you," was on her tongue. She checked herself, and substituted—"trouble you about it, if it were? But Maurice was once a friend of ours—you don't deny it, I ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... some great misfortune, and baptized the soil with the blood it had spilt? Certes, this plan presented itself bristling with difficulties: but the greatest of all was Mademoiselle de Montalais herself. Capricious, variable, close, giddy, free, prudish, a virgin armed with claws, Erigone stained with grapes, she sometimes overturned, with a single dash of her white fingers, or with a single puff from her laughing lips, the edifice which had exhausted ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... that we have made away with her husband is here," she whispered. "You had better knock at the door, and then walk straight in. She will not be pleased—perhaps she will scream—English people are so prudish when they are in bed! But never mind what she says or does: there is no reason why her room should not be searched as well ...
— The End of Her Honeymoon • Marie Belloc Lowndes |
