"Effeminate" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... nearly every one had the skin worn off the knuckle of his middle finger from resting it on the ground when he shot. You could use a knuckle-dabster of fur or cloth to rest your hand on, but is was considered effeminate, and in the excitement you were apt to forget it, anyway. Marbles were always very exciting, and were played with a clamor as incessant as that of a blackbird roost. A great many points were always coming up: whether ...
— Boy Life - Stories and Readings Selected From The Works of William Dean Howells • William Dean Howells
... I should be ashamed if I had such a son; so effeminate, and so given to drinking; tying up his hair in a ribbon, indeed! and spending most of his time among mad women, himself as much a woman as any of them; dancing to flute and drum and cymbal! He resembles any ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... Would I could not! But wherefore waste I precious hours with thee! Thou art her darling mischief, her chief engine, Antony's other fate. Go, tell thy queen, Ventidius is arrived, to end her charms. Let your Egyptian timbrels play alone, Nor mix effeminate sounds with Roman trumpets, You dare not fight for Antony; go pray And keep your cowards' holiday in temples. [Exeunt ...
— All for Love • John Dryden
... looked into the far distance, while his face lost its changing expressions of cynicism, severity, gracious courtesy and keen scrutiny, and showed a nobility which Jean had never seen before. She noticed how it invested his somewhat effeminate beauty with ...
— Graham of Claverhouse • Ian Maclaren
... the court, the King, either out of a religious nobleness because he was a convert, or upon some private acquaintance, did him the honor to be godfather to his child, and named him Peter. But afterward, proving a dainty and effeminate youth, he was commonly called by the diminutive of his name, Peterkin or Perkin. For as for the name of Warbeck, it was given him when they did but guess at it, before examinations had been taken. But yet he had been so much ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson
... your hair adjusted," his wife continued sarcastically. "The women are all in love with that blond hair. And it is so effective in the pulpit. If you were not six feet four it might be effeminate, but I assure you it is the secret of your strength. I trust you will ...
— The One Woman • Thomas Dixon
... the person who at last freed the world from this tyrant. Besides the motives which he had in common with other men, he had received repeated insults from Calig'ula, who took all occasions of turning him into ridicule, and impeaching him with cowardice, merely because he happened to have an effeminate voice. Whenever Cher'ea came to demand the watch-word from the emperor, according to custom, he always gave him either Venus, Adonis, or some such, implying softness ...
— Pinnock's Improved Edition of Dr. Goldsmith's History of Rome • Oliver Goldsmith
... no place among the three famous curates of Shirley. He would seem to have been the only man, other than her father and brother, whom Emily was known to tolerate. We know that the girls considered him effeminate, and they called him 'Celia Amelia,' under which name he frequently appears in Charlotte's letters to Ellen Nussey. That he was good-natured seems to be indisputable. There is one story of his walking to Bradford to post valentines to the incumbent's daughters, when he found they ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... above-stairs. There were at least a dozen others present, some also at play, others merely lounging. Of the latter was his Grace of Wharton. He was a slender, graceful gentleman, whose face, if slightly effeminate and markedly dissipated, was nevertheless of considerable beauty. He was very splendid in a suit of green camlett and silver lace, and he wore a flaxen periwig ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini
... at her; he gazes at the fire instead, and talks with the hurry of a nervous man. The handsome face is a very effeminate face, and not even the light, carefully trained, carefully waxed mustache can hide the weak, irresolute mouth, the delicate, characterless chin. While he talks carelessly and quickly, while his slim white fingers loop and unloop ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming
... generations of art. Spite of its complications, many an offshoot can be followed up directly to the parent stock. Taking, for example, the mediaeval architecture of Spain, the brilliant 'Moresco,' we find it to be a combination of the vigorous Gothic of the North with the beautiful though effeminate Saracenic—the exotic of the South. And of these latter, each is traceable, though by different lines, to the same great prototype, the Roman. For when Rome was divided, the Dome fell to the inheritance of the Eastern Empire, and the Basilica (which was only a Greek temple turned inside ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various
... weight, Amber on pipes from Stamboul glows, And, joy of souls effeminate, Phials of crystal scents enclose. Combs of all sizes, files of steel, Scissors both straight and curved as well, Of thirty different sorts, lo! brushes Both for the nails and for the tushes. Rousseau, I would remark in passing,(12) Could not conceive how serious Grimm Dared calmly cleanse ...
— Eugene Oneguine [Onegin] - A Romance of Russian Life in Verse • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin
... there is little sign of it. Since the beginning of the nineteenth century painting and sculpture have passed through several phases, representatives of each naturally surviving after the next had appeared. Romanticism, half lurid, half effeminate, yielded to a brutal pursuit of material truth, and a pious preference for modern and humble sentiment. This realism had a romantic vein in it, and studied vice and crime, tedium and despair, with a very genuine horrified sympathy. ...
— Winds Of Doctrine - Studies in Contemporary Opinion • George Santayana
... Effects of Tea are not all the Mischiefs it occasions. Did it cause none of them, but were it entirely wholesome, as Balm or Mint, it were yet Mischief enough to have our whole Populace used to sip warm Water in a mincing, effeminate Manner, once or twice every Day; which hot Water must be supped out of a nice Tea-Cup, sweatened with Sugar, biting a Bit of nice thin Bread and Butter between Whiles. This mocks the strong Appetite, relaxes the Stomach, satiates it with trifling light Nick-Nacks ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... strange about the perversity with which the church has emphasized the least attractive aspects of its master's person. The preachers have scolded men for not coming to church, and when they did come they offered them pictures of an emaciated, effeminate being for their adoration. With them the painters have conspired to set on canvas and in church window representations from the reality of which we would turn with repulsion or on which we ...
— Levels of Living - Essays on Everyday Ideals • Henry Frederick Cope
... disown him. Drake had no objection to being disowned, so he could teach the Spaniards to be more careful how they handled Englishmen. What came of it will be the subject of the next lecture. Father Parsons said the Protestant traders of England had grown effeminate and dared not fight. In the ashes of their own smoking cities the Spaniards had to learn that Father Parsons had misread his countrymen. If Drake had been given to heroics he might have left Virgil's ...
— English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century - Lectures Delivered at Oxford Easter Terms 1893-4 • James Anthony Froude
... the reedy voice, a pale, fat, and effeminate face, and an insidious and cowardly expression, was dressed in a singular manner. He had on his head a red handkerchief, which allowed two locks of white hair to be seen plastered on his temples; the ends of the handkerchief formed a bow over his forehead; he wore, ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue
... with his army to reduce them by force of arms. The name of the Promaucians, which signifies free-dancers[56], had been given them on account of their fondness for every kind of amusement, and their peculiar attachment to dancing; yet the love of pleasure had not rendered them effeminate. With the assistance of their allies, they drew together a formidable army and fought the Peruvians with such heroic valour as to defeat them in a battle, which, according to Garcilasso, was continued during ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 5 • Robert Kerr
... carrying on war against the weak, effeminate, and disorganized Italians required many modifications when directed against the great military power of Russia. Moreover, the combinations of Eylau and Friedland were inapplicable to the contest with the maddened guerrillas of Minos, animated by the combined passions of hatred, patriotism, ...
— Elements of Military Art and Science • Henry Wager Halleck
... individual lyricism has been tinged with morbidity. Moral greatness consists in feeling much and controlling much, in being sober in words and chaste in thought, in not making a parade of it, in making a look speak and speak profoundly, without childish exaggeration or effeminate effusiveness, to those who can grasp the half-spoken thought, to men. Modern music, which is so loquaciously introspective, dragging in indiscreet confidences at every turn, is immodest and lacking ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland
... terms, In war, in blood, in death, in cruelty, And plague such peasants [204] as resist in [205] me The power of Heaven's eternal majesty.— Theridamas, Techelles, and Casane, [206] Ransack the tents and the pavilions Of these proud Turks, and take their concubines, Making them bury this effeminate brat; For not a common soldier shall defile His manly fingers with so faint a boy: Then bring those Turkish harlots to my tent, And I'll dispose them as it likes me ...
— Tamburlaine the Great, Part II. • Christopher Marlowe
... include several plays, for one of which, Appius and Virginia (1709), he invented a new kind of thunder. He wrote a curious Essay on the Operas after the Italian Manner (1706), maintaining that opera was the outgrowth of effeminate manners, and should, as such, be suppressed. His Works were published in 1702, Select Works ... (2 vols.) in 1718, and Miscellaneous Tracts, the first volume only of which appeared, in 1727. For accounts of Dennis see Cibber's Lives of the Poets, vol. iv.; Isaac ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various
... review of them once, and gave the idea of a very puerile, ridiculous, apron-stringy attempt at poetry. Whoever wrote that notice ought to be shot, for the books are charming pure and homely and householdy, yet not effeminate. Critics may sneer as much as they choose: it is such love as Vaughan's that Honorias value. Because a woman's nature is not proof against deterioration, because a large and long-continued infusion of gross blood, and perhaps even the monotonous pressure of rough, pitiless, degrading circumstances, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... as a cold-blooded, highly schooled person, absolutely devoid of sentiment. His face was stony, his eyes were cool, even his linen partook of his own unruffled calm. He seemed by no means effeminate, yet he was one of those immaculate beings upon whom one can scarcely imagine a speck of dust or a bead of perspiration. His hair—what was left of it—was parted to a nicety, his clothes were faultless, and he had an ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach
... my distance; And if to the front I again should go, 'Twon't be with his assistance. He deems me a troublesome GRANDY, oh' In political harness not handy, oh! I am out of a job, while BALFOUR is a nob, That lank and effeminate dandy, oh! Well, a prodigal son may be "sandy." oh! I am off for a soda-and-brandy, oh! And a "tub" at my Club, where I'm sure of a snub From the foes ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, January 16, 1892 • Various
... subject with due gravity and decorum. Iamblichus is not so unexceptionable on these points; and Achilles Tatius is still worse, in his eight books of Clitophon and Leucippe, the very diction of which is soft and effeminate, as if intended to relax the vigour of the reader's mind." This last denunciation of the patriarch, however, is somewhat too sweeping and indiscriminate, since, though some passages are certainly indefensible, they appear rather as interpolations, and are in ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various
... battle,—for heroism and prowess unsurpassed. He shrinks from no danger, he dreads no foe, he yields to no superior. No shoals are too dangerous, no seas too boisterous, no climate too rigorous for him. The burning sun of the tropic cannot make him effeminate, nor can the eternal winter of the polar seas paralyze his ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... grew up, he had no idea how much the charm of her grace and beauty had influenced even him, and failed utterly to estimate their effect upon others. He said to himself that Mr. Percy was a mere selfish fop, who, tired of the amusements of Europe and too effeminate for the hardier enjoyments of a new country, was driven by mere emptiness of head to occupy himself with the pursuit of the prettiest woman he ...
— A Canadian Heroine, Volume 1 - A Novel • Mrs. Harry Coghill
... it was rather bald," he replied. "You see, few people really understand Bones. I thought, the first time I saw him, that he was a fool. I was wrong. Then I thought he was effeminate. I was wrong again, for he has played the man whenever he was called upon to do so. Bones is one of those rare creatures—a man with all the moral equipment of a ...
— The Keepers of the King's Peace • Edgar Wallace
... Laestrigons. Hercules, after he had cleansed the Augean stable, and performed all the other labours enjoined him by Euristheus, found himself a slave to the softnesses of the heart; and he, who wore a club and a lion's skin in the cause of virtue, condescended to the most effeminate employments to gratify a criminal weakness. Hannibal, who vanquished mighty nations, was himself overcome by the love of pleasure; and he who despised cold, and want, and danger, and death on the Alps, was conquered and undone by the dissolute ...
— Essays on Various Subjects - Principally Designed for Young Ladies • Hannah More
... betray in every page, which they stuff full of Marquess and My Lady, that their own manners are as gross as they make it their boast to show their morals. Hence, some two or three pegs higher, and not more, are such very very fine scoundrels as the Pelhams, &c.; shallow, watery-brained, ill-taught, effeminate dandies—animals destitute apparently of one touch of real manhood, or of real passion—cold, systematic, deliberate debauchees, withal—seducers, God wot! and duellists, and, above all, philosophers! How could any human being be gulled by such ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 397, Saturday, November 7, 1829. • Various
... fellow was really extraordinary. Luxurious as he was to the root, and effeminate; hating as he did cold water, cold food, the cold shoulder; one and all of these shuddering things he had schooled himself to bear without a blink. He grew even to take a stern pleasure in the bitterness they cost him, as he turned them to his uses and reckoned up his balance at ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... was not able to see their presence. Shaping stood behind him, and breathed thoughts into his soul, so that his music became ten times lovelier, and people listening on that shore went mad with sick delight. 'Can any strains be nobler?' demanded Shaping. Krag grinned and said, 'You are naturally effeminate. Now let me try.' Then he stood behind Swaylone, and shot ugly discords fast into his head. His instrument was so cracked, that never since has it played right. From that time forth Swaylone could utter only distorted music; yet it called to folk more ...
— A Voyage to Arcturus • David Lindsay
... muttered softly, as he threw off the robes and sat up. "I've run across country, played quarter three seasons hand-running, and hardened myself in all manner of ways; and then I pilgrim it into this God-forsaken land and find myself an effeminate Athenian without the simplest rudiments of manhood!" He hunched up to the fire and rolled a cigarette. "Oh, I'm not whining. I can take my medicine all right, all right; but I'm just decently ashamed of myself, that's all. Here I am, on top of a dirty thirty miles, ...
— The God of His Fathers • Jack London
... warmer recollections of the pretty little playful torment, who through the vista of years assumed the air of a tricksy elf rather than the little vixen he used to think her. His curiosity had been further stimulated by the sight of his rival, Narcisse, whose effeminate ornaments, small stature, and seat on horseback filled Sir Marmaduke's pupil with inquisitive disdain as to the woman who ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... sweeter is manhood, though rough, than the smoothest effeminate charms To the old sea-king strain in our blood in the season of shocks and alarms, When the winds and the waves and the rocks make a chaos of danger and strife; And the need of the moment is pluck, and the ...
— Punch, Or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, Feb. 13, 1892 • Various
... Emperor Charles IV., King of Bohemia, was now emperor. It will be remembered that by marrying Mary, the eldest daughter of Louis, King of Hungary and Poland, he received Hungary as the dower of his bride. By intrigue he also succeeded in deposing his effeminate and dissolute brother, Wenceslaus, from the throne of Bohemia, and succeeded, by a new election, in placing the crown upon his own brow. Thus Sigismond wielded a three-fold scepter. He was Emperor of Germany, and King ...
— The Empire of Austria; Its Rise and Present Power • John S. C. Abbott
... beautiful Annette—compelled Charles to think seriously; with her perfumed hand among his curls, she talked to him of his future position; as she rearranged his locks, she taught him lessons of worldly prudence; she made him effeminate and materialized him,—a double corruption, but a delicate and elegant corruption, in ...
— Eugenie Grandet • Honore de Balzac
... which still disappointed me, because from Raphael I asked and expected more. I wished to feel his hand on my soul with a stronger grasp; these were too passionless in their serenity, and almost effeminate ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... side, was conscious of one point of superiority. Beside this rather dismal, rather effeminate man, who recoiled from a worm, who grew giddy on the castle wall, who bore so helplessly the weight of his misfortunes, she felt herself a head and shoulders taller in cheerful and sterling courage. She could walk head in air along the ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson
... more dangerous than the latter. Also, because his conduct is more difficult to uncover and because he is more difficult to conquer than the liar. Dishonesty is, however, a specially feminine characteristic, and in men occurs only when they are effeminate. Real manliness and dishonesty are concepts which can not be united. Hence, the popular proverb says, "Women always tell the truth, but not the whole truth.'' And this is more accurate than the accusation of many writers, that women lie. I do not believe that the criminal courts can ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... sustain'd, Hung, pendant by a silken ribbon loop From button of the coat of well-dress'd beau. 'Tis well for manhood that the use has ceased! For what to woman might be well allow'd, As suited to the softness of her sex, Would seem effeminate and wrong in man." ...
— Notes and Queries, No. 181, April 16, 1853 • Various
... one of signal and disgraceful defeat. In any case that sequence of second prizes must have filled him with chagrin, but to be beaten thus repeatedly by such a fellow as Bruno Chilvers was humiliation intolerable. A fopling, a mincer of effeminate English, a rote-repeater of academic catchwords—bah! The by-examinations of the year had whispered presage, but Peak always felt that he was not putting forth his strength; when the serious trial came he would show what was really in him. ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... genuineness is warmly championed by French critics as against the similar picture in the National Gallery stoutly defended as the original by English authorities. Professor Legros with impartial judgment assures us that both are copies of a lost original; 1597, a doubtful attribution, is a rather effeminate John the Baptist, by some critics believed to be a second Gioconda portrait; 1600, the supposed portrait of Lucrezia Crivelli, mistress of Ludovico il Moro, is also ascribed by the official catalogue ...
— The Story of Paris • Thomas Okey
... Bengalis, unlike the rest of the Hindus, do not paint sectarian signs on their foreheads. The only trinket they do not completely despise is an expensive necklace; but even this is not common. Contrary to all expectations, the Mahrattis, with all their little effeminate ways, are the bravest tribe of India, gallant and experienced soldiers, a fact which has been demonstrated by centuries of fighting; but Bengal has never as yet produced a single soldier out of its sixty-five million inhabitants. ...
— From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan • Helena Pretrovna Blavatsky
... as to the standards of action, feeling, and demeanor to which boys and girls are respectively trained and to which they are expected to conform. If a boy should not live up to this training and expectation, he may be marked out as "effeminate." If a girl does not conform, she is defined as a "hoyden" or ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman
... might see it a store-house and shop both, of a vast treasury of natural parts. His temper exceeding fiery, as I have known, but the flame of it kept down for the most part or soon allayed with those moral endowments he had. He was naturally compassionate towards objects in distress, even to an effeminate measure; though God had made him a heart wherein was left little room for any fear but what was due to himself, of which there was a large proportion, yet did he exceed in tenderness toward sufferers. A larger ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... fashionable friends there, I bade good-by for ever to my dear old father. I had begged my husband to take me by way of Heidelberg to his old castle in the Vosges; but I found an amount of determination, under that effeminate appearance and manner, for which I was not prepared, and he refused my first request so decidedly that I dared not urge it. 'Henceforth, Anna,' said he, 'you will move in a different sphere of life; and though it is possible that ...
— Curious, if True - Strange Tales • Elizabeth Gaskell
... was created for the Englishman andhe for it; but on all other occasions the well-dressed American leads him—leads the world, for that matter. When a Frenchman attires himself in his fanciest regalia he merely succeeds in looking effeminate; whereas a German, under similar circumstances, bears a wadded-in, bulged-out, stuffed-up appearance. I never saw a German in Germany whose hat was not too small for him—just as I never saw a Japanese in Occidental garb whose hat was not too large for him—if it was a derby hat. If a German ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... passed into the room. The prelate had evidently been engaged in prayer, for, as the other stepped within, the priest was arising from his knees. His face seemed in strange contrast to the garb he had donned; the delicate, almost effeminate features of the man were little in keeping with the gay attire ...
— The Fifth of November - A Romance of the Stuarts • Charles S. Bentley
... avoiding her gaze. There could be no doubt that the two faces thus confronting one another belonged to brother and sister, yet of the two his was the more effeminate, and its very beauty (he was an excessively handsome lad, albeit diminutively built) seemed to oppose itself to hers and caricature it, being so like yet so infinitely ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... like an image, destitute of life or motion. It must further be observed, that they had not the privilege to eat at home, and so to come without appetite to the public repast: they made a point of it to observe any one that did not eat and drink with them, and to reproach him as an intemperate and effeminate person that was sick of the ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various
... vanquished city, discovered, however, some regard for the laws of humanity and religion. He encouraged his troops boldly to seize the rewards of valor, and to enrich themselves with the spoils of a wealthy and effeminate people; but he exhorted them at the same time to spare the lives of the unresisting citizens, and to respect the churches of the apostles St. Peter and St. Paul as holy and inviolable sanctuaries. Amidst the horrors of a nocturnal tumult, ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IV (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland II • Various
... "Five or six of the men you met to-night were loath to come. When I pinned them down to their reason, it was I thought: they regard you as an effeminate being, a sissy." ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok (1863-1930)
... not effect, nor the arguments of sound and deliberate reason accomplish, was achieved in a moment by the administration of a small quantity of spirituous liquid, giving bravery to the coward, and daring to the effeminate. ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... life with a boy's fervour, regarding it always as an opportunity for winning success. The difficulties of work, like the difficulties of a mathematical problem called out the athletic qualities of an otherwise shy and almost effeminate nature. He loved to pit his brains against other men, rejoiced to discover obstacles in his path, never despaired when things went against him, and infinitely preferred the battle for success to the success itself. In this, too, he was a boy; he ...
— The Mirrors of Downing Street - Some Political Reflections by a Gentleman with a Duster • Harold Begbie
... year 1526 there appeared a new lecturer on the platform at the University at Basel—a small, beardless, effeminate-looking person—who had already inflamed all Christendom with his peculiar philosophy, his revolutionary methods of treating diseases, and his unparalleled success in curing them. A man who was to be remembered in after-time by some as the father of modern chemistry and the founder ...
— A History of Science, Volume 2(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... that there were excuses for the old contempt of the study of Natural History. I have said, too, it may be hoped, enough to show that contempt to be now ill-founded. But still, there are those who regard it as a mere amusement, and that as a somewhat effeminate one; and think that it can at best help to while away a leisure hour harmlessly, and perhaps usefully, as a substitute for coarser sports, or for the reading of novels. Those, however, who have followed it out, especially on the sea- shore, know better. They can tell from experience, ...
— Glaucus; or The Wonders of the Shore • Charles Kingsley
... your decision," she replied. "Indeed, I do think it too effeminate for men, persons of high honour except, or them that are sick ...
— It Might Have Been - The Story of the Gunpowder Plot • Emily Sarah Holt
... the decadent poets with their effeminate rhythms and their absurdities of speech.[238] He can mock the archaizer who goes to Accius and Pacuvius for his inspiration.[239] He can give an admirable summary of the ...
— Post-Augustan Poetry - From Seneca to Juvenal • H.E. Butler
... reliable, and held in high respect by all though not possessed of popular manners. On the other side was Lawrence Peabody, a young Boston clerk, who had spent several years behind a dry-goods counter. He was soft and effeminate, with no talent for "roughing it," and wholly unfitted for the hard work which he had undertaken. He was deeply disappointed in his first work at gold-hunting, having come out with the vague idea that he should pick up ...
— The Young Miner - or Tom Nelson in California • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... strange adventures with him on the grand tour and elsewhere;—but does not much practise writing, when it can be helped. His children, I have heard, he expressly did not teach to read or write, seeing no benefit in that effeminate art, but left them to pick it up as they could. His Princess, all rightly ennobled now,—whom he would not but marry, though sent on the grand tour to avoid it,—was the daughter of one Fos an Apothecary at Dessau; and is still ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Volume IV. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Friedrich's Apprenticeship, First Stage—1713-1728 • Thomas Carlyle
... his person according to the fashion, if it be one that is not troublesome and uneasy for men of heroic exercises and actions. He is neat and cleanly; which makes him to be somewhat long in dressing, though not so long as many effeminate persons are. He shifts ordinarily once a day, and every time when he uses exercise, or his temper is ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... a word of the Langrois dialect, signifying a puny, sickly, effeminate being. In the mouth of Madame Sejournant, this picturesque expression acquired a significant amount of ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... a leap, when a chair happening to pass, he laid hold on the opportunity, and by an exertion of his muscles, pitched upon the top of the carriage, which was immediately overturned in the kennel, to the grievous annoyance of the fare, which happened to be a certain effeminate beau, in full dress, on his way to a ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... particular contemplation is largely absent from modern religious life, and I know the nature of the recoil in which our present impoverishment began. "Let us hear less about the mansions of the blest and more about the housing of the poor!" Men revolted against an effeminate contemplation, which had run to seed, in favor of an active philanthropy which sought the enrichment of the common life. But, my brethren, pulling a plant up is not the only way of saving it from running to seed. You can accomplish by a ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Volume 10 (of 10) • Various
... and there in that mysterious depth grows on to the spirit of a just man made perfect! Could I for a moment doubt this, the grass would become black beneath my feet, and this earthly frame a charnel-house. I never knew any man so illustrate the difference between the feminine and the effeminate. ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge
... compliments to—' The dragoons charged down upon us again. We were all borne backwards, fighting desperately, and when we could look round the Baronet was gone for ever. We heard afterwards that the King's troops found upon the field a body which they mistook for that of Monmouth, on account of the effeminate grace of the features and the richness of the attire. No doubt it was that of our undaunted friend, Sir Gervas Jerome, a name which shall ever be dear to my heart. When, ten years afterwards, we ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... was. In the evening Ingjald sat down to a luxurious meal with Swerting's sons; and his wife did all she could to appease Starkad, who was also present. But Starkad could not forget the insult he had suffered, and became more and more angry with the effeminate way of living that Ingjald and his wife had introduced from Germany. In burning words, which are reproduced in the Ingjald lay, he condemned Ingjald's neglect of duty, his luxurious mode of life, ...
— The Relation of the Hrolfs Saga Kraka and the Bjarkarimur to Beowulf • Oscar Ludvig Olson
... Our commerce with South America is scarcely beyond the point it had reached before our week-end tiff with Spain. Yet there are those who prate of national honor and of war as insuring prosperity. From the leader of a newborn national party we hear that without a periodic war America would become effeminate and weak, her aggressive commercial life timid and corrupt, and within a few brief years the great Republic would sink to a fourth-rate power. Up, brave Americans, and man the guns! Awake, sons of freedom, and ...
— Prize Orations of the Intercollegiate Peace Association • Intercollegiate Peace Association
... prosperity of the Kurus. (Surfeited with libations at the sacrifice of king Swetaketu), Agni will derive great gratification from the fat of all creatures dwelling in the Khandava woods (to be burnt down) by the might of this one's arms. This mighty hero, vanquishing all the effeminate monarchs of the earth, will, with his brothers perform three great sacrifices. In prowess, O Kunti, he will be even as Jamadagnya or Vishnu. The foremost of all men endued with prowess, he will achieve great fame. He will gratify in battle (by his heroism) Sankara, the ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... of the piece. Occasionally the entire composition is morbid and unsatisfactory to a degree. These belong to the later period of his life, when he was in poor health. He is a woman's composer. In his strongest moments there is always an effeminate element. In this respect he is exactly opposite to Schumann and Beethoven, whose works, however delicate and refined, have always a manly strength. Chopin made the most important modifications in the ...
— A Popular History of the Art of Music - From the Earliest Times Until the Present • W. S. B. Mathews
... of that most miserable and detested condition of living in slavery; no long descent having as yet invested the Assyrian with a right, nor any other title being for him pretended than a strong hand; the foolish and effeminate son of a tyrannous and hated mother could very ill hold so many great princes and nations his vassals, with a power less mastering, and a mind less industrious, than his father and mother had used ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse
... and the exterior graces of his person were such, that nature perhaps never formed anything more complete: His face was extremely handsome; and yet it was a manly face, neither inanimate nor effeminate; each feature having its beauty and peculiar delicacy: He had a wonderful genius for every sort of exercise, an engaging aspect, and an air of grandeur: in a word, he possessed every personal advantage; but then he was greatly deficient in mental accomplishments. He ...
— The Memoirs of Count Grammont, Complete • Anthony Hamilton
... fire-arms, not one Boer has ever attempted to settle in Caffreland, or even face them as an enemy in the field. The Boers have generally manifested a marked antipathy to any thing but "long-shot" warfare, and, sidling away in their emigrations toward the more effeminate Bechuanas, have left their quarrels with the Caffres to be settled by the English, and their wars to be paid ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... "wi' reverence be it spoken, but I would beg to say that ye are wrang. Folk that ance get a liking for dainties tak ill wi' plainer fare again; and, moreover, sir, in a' my experience, I never kenned dainty bits and hardihood to go hand in hand; but, on the contrary, luxuries mak men effeminate, and ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton
... women than of men that they conceive affability as a concession. At any rate, it is not unusual to find a hostess busying herself with attempts to agree with all that is said, with the idea that she is thereby doing homage to the effeminate categorical imperative of etiquette, when in reality nothing becomes more quickly tiresome than incessant affirmatives, no matter how pleasantly they are modulated. Nor can one avoid one of two conclusions when one's talk is thus negligently agreed to: either the speaker is ...
— Conversation - What to Say and How to Say it • Mary Greer Conklin
... asked herself that same question when the caller first came, but now she was beginning to be ashamed of her suspicions and to think them unfounded. Mr. Hungerford was agreeable; there was no doubt of that. Also he was good-looking, in an effeminate sort of way, and his conversation was fluent and cultured. He led Serena into speaking of the Chapter and her work there, and he displayed a knowledge of and an interest in that Chapter and its members which was ...
— Cap'n Dan's Daughter • Joseph C. Lincoln
... magnetic eyes, the handsome, clear-cut features, above all, that slow and alluring smile, appealed to the husband of the wilful Pat rather as evidences of Oriental, half-effeminate devilry than as passports to decent society. Oxford had veneered him, but scratch the veneer and one found the sandal-wood of the East, perfumed, seductive, appealing, but something to be ...
— Tales of Chinatown • Sax Rohmer
... sand together, and to take care not to leave an impression of the person for their lovers. And no boy used in those days to anoint himself below the navel; so that their bodies wore the appearance of blooming health. Nor used he to go to his lover, having made up his voice in an effeminate tone, prostituting himself with his eyes. Nor used it to be allowed when one was dining to take the head of the radish, or to snatch from their seniors dill or parsley, or to eat fish, or to giggle, or ...
— The Clouds • Aristophanes
... Assyria; led a luxurious, effeminate life, but surprised when at his ease by a large army of invaders he suddenly developed into a hero, till hard pressed at length and shut up in Nineveh, and after two years' defence finding resistance hopeless, he reared a funeral ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... took a measured pace or two right and left, and gave a furtive glance at his handsome, effeminate face and slight form in the glass. ...
— In Honour's Cause - A Tale of the Days of George the First • George Manville Fenn
... couched, are preferred by men of letters for books and for correspondence, while highly polished modern plate papers, with surfaces much more glossy than any preparation of vellum, are now rejected by them as finical and effeminate. ...
— Forty Centuries of Ink • David N. Carvalho
... the cure, "that there are good works, good authors. However, if it were only those persons of different sexes united in a bewitching apartment, decorated rouge, those lights, those effeminate voices, all this must, in the long-run, engender a certain mental libertinage, give rise to immodest thoughts and impure temptations. Such, at any rate, is the opinion of all the Fathers. Finally," he added, suddenly assuming ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert
... curtains. Undine noticed the delicacy and finish of her companion's features as his head detached itself against the red silk walls. The hand with which he stroked his small moustache was finely-finished too, but sinewy and not effeminate. She had always associated finish and refinement entirely with her own sex, but she began to think they might be even more agreeable in a man. Marvell's eyes were grey, like her own, with chestnut eyebrows and darker lashes; and his skin was as clear as a woman's, but pleasantly ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... effected in a situation, where a scanty subsistence could only be earned by a life of extreme temperance and toil, and where it was often to be sought, sword in hand, from an enemy far superior in numbers. Whatever may have been the vices of the Spaniards, they cannot have been those of effeminate sloth. Thus a sober, hardy, and independent race was gradually formed, prepared to assert their ancient inheritance, and to lay the foundations of far more liberal and equitable forms of government, than were known to ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott
... Anglo-Saxons in particular, have always at the back of their minds a notion that there is something effeminate about the sense for beauty. That is reserved for decadent Southern nations. Tu regere imperio populos, Romane memento they would say, if they knew the tag; and translate it "Britain rules the waves"! But history gives the lie to this complacent theory. No nations were ever more virile than the ...
— Appearances - Being Notes of Travel • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson
... was, at times, amazingly peculiar. But he was her Henry. In any other man than her Henry a hesitation to take charge of his wife's financial affairs would have been ridiculous; it would have been effeminate. But Henry was Henry. She was gradually learning that truth. He was adorable; but he was Henry. With magnificent strength of mind ...
— Buried Alive: A Tale of These Days • Arnold Bennett
... little unity of feeling. The lordly planters of the lower country regarded their Western fellow-citizens as provincial or plebeian; the farmers of the upper country had some contempt for the planters as effeminate, aristocratic, and Tory. The Revolution abased the pride, lessened the wealth, and improved the politics of the planters; a revised Constitution, in 1790, gave preponderance to the up-country farmers in the popular branch of the Legislature; and ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... entered a year after him at Cambridge as a pensioner of Peterhouse, and the two students went through their terms together, though the poet at the time took no degree. There was probably little enough in common between the shy, fastidious, slightly effeminate pensioner of Peterhouse, and a scholar of Jesus, whose chief friend and comrade was a man like Hall; and no close intimacy between the two men, if they had come across each other, would have been very likely to arise. But it does not appear that they ...
— Sterne • H.D. Traill
... have dreamed myself back to the days of the M'Gregor, and fancied that it was Die Vernon riding up the mountain side, gaily chatting as she went with the handsome cavalier who walked by her stirrup, and who might have been Frank Osbaldistone, only that he was too manly-looking for Scott's somewhat effeminate hero. How beautifully moulded was the form which her dark-green habit set off to such advantage; how fairy-like the foot that pressed the clumsy stirrup; how slender the fingers that grasped the rein! She had discarded the heavy riding-hat and senseless bonnet, those graceless inventions of ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... Romulus should not remain in Alba, and that he should be abandoned at his birth, in order that he should become King of Rome and founder of the fatherland. It was necessary that Cyrus should find the Persians discontented with the government of the Medes, and the Medes soft and effeminate through their long peace. Theseus could not have shown his ability had he not found the Athenians dispersed. These opportunities, therefore, made those men fortunate, and their high ability enabled them to recognize ...
— The Prince • Niccolo Machiavelli
... own apartments, lay the queen-mother, dying, but listening eagerly for the rush of footsteps overhead, hoping and praying that Henri—the hitherto effeminate Henri who played with his sword as he would with a battledore, and who painted himself like a woman, and put rings in his ears—would not prejudice himself at this time in the eyes of Rome by slaying the leader of ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 4 (of 10) • Various
... own very limited notions and possessions. The Dame was a very homely, hard-featured lady, deaf, and extremely fat and heavy, one of the old uncultivated rustic gentry who had lagged far behind the general civilisation of the country, and regarded all refinements as effeminate French vanities. She believed, likewise, all that was said against Queen Mary, whom she looked on as barely restrained from plunging a dagger into Elizabeth's heart, and letting Parma's hell-hounds loose upon Tixall. To have such a guest imposed on her was no small grievance, and nothing ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... sacrifices, lustrations, and public processions, as must have employed the people almost constantly from one end of the year to the other. This continual dissipation must have been a great enemy to industry; and the people must have been idle and effeminate. I think it would be no difficult matter to prove, that there is very little difference, in point of character, between the antient and modern inhabitants of Rome; and that the great figure which this empire made of old, was not so much owing to the intrinsic virtue of its citizens, as to the barbarism, ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... fie upon this weak, effeminate age, fit for nothing but to ponder over the deeds of former times, and torture the heroes of antiquity with commentaries, or mangle them in tragedies. The vigor of its loins is dried up, and the propagation of the ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... [transcriber's note: the text appears to read "sins" but it is unclear] and excesses of their parents, especially their fathers, whilst the great majority are reaping the fruits of their own immorality in a dwarfed and ill-formed body, and effeminate appearance, ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols
... you I came to see your picture? I think the face and bearing of the Bucephalus-tamer very noble, his flesh too effeminate or painty.... I had small time to pick out praise or blame, for two lord-like Bucks came in, upon whose strictures my presence seemed to impose restraint; ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... honte and distaste for her position, and trifles with the ring, which she has strung upon her handkerchief, while a brisk and well-built young lawyer, who trims a pen, bends towards her with a whispered compliment. Meantime the Viscount—a frail, effeminate-looking figure, holding an open snuff-box, from which he affectedly lifts a pinch—turns from his fiancee with a smirk of complacent foppery towards a pier-glass at his side. His wide-cuffed coat is light blue, his vest is loaded with embroidery. He wears an enormous solitaire, ...
— Great Pictures, As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Esther Singleton
... into that fatal conversation? I hardly remember. We talked first of the neighbourhood, then swayed away to books, then to people. Yes, that was how it came about. The Professor was speaking of a man whom we both knew in town, a curiously effeminate man, whose every thought and feeling seemed that of a woman. I said I disliked him, and condemned him for his woman's demeanour, his woman's mind; but the Professor thereupon joined issue ...
— The Return Of The Soul - 1896 • Robert S. Hichens
... side, her hand clasped in his. If Dick had been told a week earlier that he would ever go to sleep clinging to his mother's hand, he would have scouted the idea with indignation and scorn; and he remembered the act later with a blush as something shamefully effeminate or infantile, betraying a weakness in his character hitherto ...
— The Gold-Stealers - A Story of Waddy • Edward Dyson
... lope. In the olden days the glory of the young man was his strength; now it is his chrysanthemum and his collar. And it is going from bad to worse in a ratio of geometrical progression; for how can effeminate men—a canesucking, primping, mincing, affected conglomeration of masculine inanity and asininity beget world-compellers. How can women who care much what is on the outside and little what is on the inside ...
— Volume 12 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... a tall slim fellow, about 5 Feet 7 inches high, wears a blue Surtout Coat with metal Buttons, and his Hat commonly flopt before, and an old laced Waistcoat, has short curled black Hair; when he speaks he seems jaw-fallen and very effeminate, is about 35 Years of Age, walks much like a Foot-pad, and has a comely Woman with him whom he calls his Wife.——John Cassady, a middling siz'd Fellow much pock-broken, square-shoulder'd, wears a Wig upon ...
— The Olden Time Series, Vol. 5: Some Strange and Curious Punishments • Henry M. Brooks
... over cheap pathos, or laugh at secondhand humour, or shudder at sham cynicism any longer—desperate escapes and rescues moved her not, and she had wearied of beautiful wicked fiends and effeminate golden-haired guardsmen, who hold a Titanic strength in reserve as their one practical joke, but the liberty she had enjoyed had done her no particular harm, even if many mothers might have thought it their duty to restrict it, which Mrs. Langton was too languid or had ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... bridge which spanned the moat where a carriage road connected the domain of Wyndfell Hall with the outside world, and, as he stood there in the gathering twilight, he looked a romantic figure. Tall and well-built, he took, perhaps, an almost excessive care over his dress. Yet there was nothing effeminate ...
— From Out the Vasty Deep • Mrs. Belloc Lowndes
... watches the birds, upset and overthrow it with levers, turning every thing upside down; and commit his crowns to the winds and storms; for doing this, I shall gnaw him most. And some of you going along the city, track out this effeminate stranger, who brings this new disease upon women, and pollutes our beds. And if you catch him, convey him hither bound; that meeting with a judgment of stoning he may die, having seen a bitter revelry ...
— The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I. • Euripides
... slender in figure and of middling height. Their features are strongly marked, their complexions fair and pale, and their hair is of the darkest black. The men are feeble and look prematurely old. Their countenances, though not devoid of dignity, have a sort of sensual expression. They are effeminate, and disinclined to any kind of active exertion. If they ride the distance of ten miles, they think they have performed a feat of heroism worthy to be recorded in the state archives. If the white Creoles are inferior to the Spaniards in physical ...
— Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests • J. J. von Tschudi
... A very conceited, effeminate, and absurd man coming into a room where she was one evening, and beginning to comb his hair, she exclaimed, "La! what's that! ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... is, from necessity, industrious, the upper classes, particularly the nobles, are effeminate, indolent, decadent, and servile. Their amusements are cock-fighting, dancing, shadow plays, and gambling, and they lead an utterly worthless existence which the Dutch do nothing to discourage. Their Mohammedanism ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell
... was far from being effeminate. He was found of aesthetics and anaesthetics, and his chief interests in life were beauty ...
— Ptomaine Street • Carolyn Wells
... Church of England, or to Protestantism, would not be more extravagant than the attempt to fasten upon an oriental prince the charge of debauchery and a dissolute life. The very viciousness of Asiatic institutions protects him from such reproaches. The effeminate delicacy of easterns, and the morbid principle of seclusion on which they build their domestic honour, will for ever secure both Hindoo Pagans and Mussulmans from blame of this kind, until they pass under ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... save in those tragic portraits of himself and of his wife, of which there are three here in the Pitti (188, 280, 1176). He has been called the faultless painter, and indeed he seems to be incapable of fault, to be really a little effeminate, a little vague, bewildered by the sculpture of Michelangelo, the confusion of art in Florence, the advent of the colourists, of whom here in Tuscany he is perhaps the chief. It is no intellectual passion you find in that soft, troubled work, ...
— Florence and Northern Tuscany with Genoa • Edward Hutton
... anyone would fail to guess which is the skull of the wicked betrayer and which the skull of the innocent betrayed. And who is unacquainted with the statement in Herodotus that it was possible on the field of battle to distinguish the skulls of the effeminate Medes from the skulls of the manly Persians? Each nation, indeed, has ...
— The World's Greatest Books - Volume 15 - Science • Various
... a picture, without either life or motion. Nor were they allowed to take food at home first, and then attend the public tables, for every one had an eye upon those who did not eat and drink like the rest, and reproached them with being dainty and effeminate. ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... comes from the hotel, in his overcoat, his throat wrapped in a shawl. He is a slim young man of 23, physically still a stripling, and pretty, though not effeminate. He has turquoise blue eyes, and a trick of looking you straight in the face with them, which, combined with a frank smile, is very engaging. Although he is all nerves, and very observant and quick of apprehension, he is not in the least shy. He is younger than Jennifer; but ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • George Bernard Shaw
... any possibility be construed as mincing, foppish or effeminate are not recommended; but a gentleman who says "Good morning" to his employees and who invariably treats all women as "ladies," does not half so much flatter their vanity as win their respect for himself as a gentleman. Again, good manners ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... he called, in a high, almost falsetto voice. "I thought you would have eight or nine. Blessed hot, isn't it?" He had a smart though somewhat effeminate manner, and Cowperwood at once wrote him down as an ass. Berenice took the mail with an engaging smile. She sauntered past him reading, without so much as a glance. Presently he heard her ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... particular affection for her, though she seemed already to regard me as her victim. She seized every opportunity of pointing out to me the way in which we should have to steer, both in public and private life. When she wrote to me she never employed the effeminate style of the Kana,[42] but wrote, oh! so magnificently! The great interest which she took in me induced me to pay frequent visits to her; and, by making her my tutor, I learned how to compose ordinary Chinese poems. However, ...
— Japanese Literature - Including Selections from Genji Monogatari and Classical - Poetry and Drama of Japan • Various
... The countenance of this extraordinary man was handsome and youthful, but wild and somewhat haggard, as if from much recent suffering. His eye was black and piercing, his nose aquiline, and his forehead broad, but his mouth was effeminate, his chin small and beardless, his neck long, his shoulders narrow and sloping, and his black hair hung in long straight locks over his shoulders. A short sword, somewhat resembling that of the ancient Roman, lay on the sward beside him, ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne
... Count, and noted with sarcastic amusement the other's appearance—so foppish, so effeminate to English eyes; particularly did he gaze with scorn at the Count's yellow silk socks, which matched his lemon-coloured tie and silk pocket handkerchief. Fancy starting for a long night journey in such a "get-up." Well! Perhaps women liked that sort of thing, but he would never have thought ...
— The Chink in the Armour • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... with a race whose religion was one of blood, and whose beatitude was to be in proportion to the slaughter they made while on earth. The Northman hated Christianity as a rival religion, and despised it as an effeminate one. He was the soldier of Odin, the elect of Valhalla; and he felt that the offering most acceptable to his sanguinary gods was the blood of those religionists who denied their existence and execrated their revelation. The ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee |
