"Spinster" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... breast With verse, let him, fit votarist, implore Their inspiration. He perchance the gifts Of young Lyaeus, and the dread exploits, May sing in aptest numbers; he the fate 310 Of sober Pentheus, [FF] he the Paphian rites, And naked Mars with Cytherea chain'd, And strong Alcides in the spinster's robes, May celebrate, applauded. But with you, O Naiads, far from that unhallow'd rout, Must dwell the man whoe'er to praised themes Invokes the immortal Muse. The immortal Muse To your calm habitations, to the cave Corycian[GG] or the Delphic mount, [HH] will ...
— Poetical Works of Akenside - [Edited by George Gilfillan] • Mark Akenside
... "Clever Betsy" was a boat—named for the unyielding spinster whom the captain hoped to marry. Through the two Betsys a clever group of people are ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child
... an old man named Poiret and a man of forty or thereabouts, the wearer of a black wig and dyed whiskers, who gave out that he was a retired merchant, and was addressed as M. Vautrin. Two of the four rooms on the third floor were also let—one to an elderly spinster, a Mlle. Michonneau, and the other to a retired manufacturer of vermicelli, Italian paste and starch, who allowed the others to address him as "Father Goriot." The remaining rooms were allotted to various birds of passage, to impecunious ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac
... audible gasp of shock from a spinster-appearing female sunning herself hard by and angularly in the sand in a swimming suit monstrously unbeautiful, Lee Barton was aware of an involuntary and almost perceptible stiffening on the part ...
— On the Makaloa Mat/Island Tales • Jack London
... elements of the population were not neglected. For the older married man, there was a blow directly between the eyes: "Do You Want Your Widow to Be Half-Safe?" And, for the spinster without immediate hopes, "I Dreamt I Was Caught Dead Without ...
— And All the Earth a Grave • Carroll M. Capps (AKA C.C. MacApp)
... and humorous creases, and her pale blue eyes would kindle with humour and with joy as her doctor burst into his hearty laugh. And the good Anna full of the coquetry of pleasing would bridle with her angular, thin, spinster body, straining her stories and ...
— Three Lives - Stories of The Good Anna, Melanctha and The Gentle Lena • Gertrude Stein
... go to the house for instructions, and guided by the under-butler found Lady Homartyn hiding away in the walled Dutch garden behind the dairy. She had been giving away the prizes of the flower-show, and she was resting in a deck chair while a spinster relation presided over the tea. Mrs. Britling had fled the outer festival earlier, and was sitting by the tea-things. Lady Meade and two or three visitors had motored out from Hartleytree to assist, and Manning had come in with his tremendous confirmation ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... probable, marry within his lifetime, he could then make what settlements he pleased, even to the changing of the tenor of his will, should he think fit to change it. Should he die and leave her still a spinster, he would trust to her in everything. Not being a man of mystery, he told his wife and his daughter what he had done,—and what he still thought that he possibly might do; and being also a man to whom any suspicion of injustice was odious, he desired his attorney to make known to George Hotspur ...
— Sir Harry Hotspur of Humblethwaite • Anthony Trollope
... neatly gloved hand her silk skirt was held primly; in the other she carried a little white silk flag, on which the staring gold letters were lost in the rippling folds. With her eyes on the sky and her feet in the dust, she marched, a prim, ladylike figure, an inspired spinster, oblivious alike of the hooting small boys and the half-compassionate, half-scoffing ...
— The Romance of a Plain Man • Ellen Glasgow
... of how a middle-aged spinster lost her mind, deserted her domestic gods in the city, took a furnished house for the summer out of town, and found herself involved in one of those mysterious crimes that keep our newspapers and detective agencies happy and prosperous. For twenty years ...
— The Circular Staircase • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... moment is engaged in conversation with little Miss Haight immediately behind him. Immediately there is a terrific uproar, in which through the delighted yells of the crowd, the crashing of the overturned chairs, and the general confusion could be heard the shrieks of the little spinster and weird Scotch oaths from McTavish. After the noise had somewhat subsided and when the confusion had been reduced to a semblance of order, McTavish was discovered with his hand upon the collar of the dazed ...
— The Major • Ralph Connor
... upon tick. — Quoth HUDIBRAS, 795 Thou offer'st nobly, valiant lass, And I shall take thee at thy word. First let me rise and take my sword. That sword which has so oft this day Through squadrons of my foes made way, 800 And some to other worlds dispatch'd, Now with a feeble spinster match'd, Will blush with blood ignoble stain'd, By which no honour's to be gain'd. But if thou'lt take m' advice in this, 805 Consider whilst thou may'st, what 'tis To interrupt a victor's course, B' opposing ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... ocean twice, and was a wiser, sadder woman for it. At eight she turned in, and ten minutes later Amanda came aboard with a flock of gay friends. But no temptations of the flesh could lure the wary spinster from her den; for the night was rough and cold, and the steamer a ...
— Shawl-Straps - A Second Series of Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott
... grim, angular spinster who looked like the last person in the world to whom a love affair might be confided. But never were appearances more deceptive than in this case. Behind her unprepossessing exterior Miss Susan had a warm, sympathetic heart filled to the brim with kindly affection for her ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1907 to 1908 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... spinster pulled her door to with a slam, That sounded like a wooden d—n; For so some moral people, strictly loth To swear in words, however up, Will crash a curse in setting down a cup, Or through a door-post vent a banging oath,— In ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... this week except Thursday," wrote Miss Perry, and this was not the first invitation by any means. Were all Miss Perry's weeks blank with the exception of Thursday, and was her only desire to see her old friend's son? Time is issued to spinster ladies of wealth in long white ribbons. These they wind round and round, round and round, assisted by five female servants, a butler, a fine Mexican parrot, regular meals, Mudie's library, and friends dropping in. A little hurt she was already ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... memory, three wondrously beautiful damsels, attired in white, visited, with every evening, the village spinning-room. They brought along with them ever new songs and tunes, and new pretty tales and games. Moreover, their distaffs and spindles had something peculiar, and no spinster might so finely and nimbly spin the thread. But upon the stroke of eleven, they arose; packed up their spinning gear, and for no prayers might be moved to delay for an instant more. None wist whence they came, nor whither they went. Only they called ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various
... the house is plain now. It was once the residence of a country squire, whose family, probably dwindling down to mere spinster-hood, got merged in the more territorial name of Donnithorne. It was once the Hall; it is now the Hall Farm. Like the life in some coast town that was once a watering-place, and is now a port, where the genteel streets are silent and grass-grown, and the docks and warehouses busy and resonant, the ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VI (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland IV • Various
... almost uncontrollable desire to laugh possessed him; but, restraining himself, he took the first chance he had to make his presence known, at which Aunt Eliza groaned, "Oh, my!" and Mary Jane instinctively grasped her yelling children, and the prim spinster curtsied and asked if he used tobacco. At Job's surprised look and negative reply, she said, "Very well. I never employ a male being who permeates his environment with the noxious weed. As you do not, I will offer you proper ...
— The Transformation of Job - A Tale of the High Sierras • Frederick Vining Fisher
... a virgin spinster), felt herself out of it because she had no son at the Front to talk about. I gathered that it was not so much a case of unsatisfied yearning for motherhood, as that she wanted to hold her own with the other charwomen who were represented in the trenches. So she assumed ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, April 18, 1917 • Various
... as well to state, however, that he left the Minister of War with the undoubted impression that Miss Sara Lee Kennedy was a spinster of ...
— The Amazing Interlude • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... the leading spinster of Plainton. In companies where there were married ladies she was sometimes obliged to take a second place, but never among maidens, old or young. There were very few subjects upon which Miss Shott had not an opinion; and whatever this opinion might be, she considered ...
— Mrs. Cliff's Yacht • Frank R. Stockton
... Cherry-lips close at my heels. I strained every nerve and sinew—it was a matter of life and death to me—and I have no doubt but I should have won the race in fine style, if I had not, unfortunately, in my blind haste, run against Miss Patty Hanson, the primest and worst tempered spinster in Hallswell. ...
— The Fatal Glove • Clara Augusta Jones Trask
... braw beginnings of the ringbone!" And there was so much glee at the mention of deformity in the thick voice, and so much patience in the movement of the mare's long unshapely head, that the incident was as unpleasing as if it had been an ill-favoured spinster who had been insulted. Yaverland was roused suddenly by the tiniest sound of a whimper ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... thee to her and enquire an she be married or virginal; and, if she be unwedded, do thou ask her an she be willing to wive with me."[FN94] So Ja'afar fared to her and questioned her, whereat she answered, "A spinster." Quoth he, "The Youth who sent the dinar to thee desireth to mate with thee;" and quoth she, "An he can pay me my dower and my money down,[FN95] I will become his bride." Hereat Ja'afar said in his thought, "whence ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... has been loaded for a year or more. John never had occasion to use it, and I hope you won't. If any robber should come," added the kind-hearted spinster, "perhaps you had better only shoot him in the ...
— Only An Irish Boy - Andy Burke's Fortunes • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... time," he explained; "and Russell's Wagon 's another nasty thing to hit in the dark. We're on the main road, you know." Before refixing the lamp beside him, he held it up for a good stare at me, and grinned. "Well, you're a nice guest for a spinster at this hour, I must say! But ...
— The Adventures of Harry Revel • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... alphabet, words in three letters, the multiplication table, the points of the compass, the chicken pox, whooping cough, measles, and scarlet fever. All these unhappy incidents of childhood left but little impression on my mind. I have, however, most pleasant memories of the good spinster, Maria Yost, who patiently taught three generations of children the rudiments of the English language, and introduced us to the pictures in "Murray's Spelling-book," where Old Father Time, with his scythe, and ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... standardizing child-care, must undertake the practical duties involved and leave both parents free to change marital relationship at will before or after the birth of children and maintain their separate bachelor or spinster freedom. ...
— The Family and it's Members • Anna Garlin Spencer
... She is thin, thirty, colourless, bosomless. I should say she was passionless—a predestined spinster. She has never drunk hot tea or lived in the sun or laughed a hearty laugh. I remember once, at my wit's end for talk, telling her the old story of Theodore Hook accosting a pompous stranger on the street with the polite request that he might know whether he was anybody in particular. ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... fellow-actors at her palaces on the banks of the Thames. When Shakespeare was penning his new play of A Midsummer Night's Dream next year, he could not forbear to make a passing obeisance of gallantry (in that vein for which the old spinster queen was always thirsting) to "a fair vestal throned by the West," who passed her life ...
— Shakespeare and the Modern Stage - with Other Essays • Sir Sidney Lee
... young woman to dream she marries a vicar, foretells that she will fail to awake reciprocal affection in the man she desires, and will live a spinster, or marry ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller
... inventing the spinning jenny, a mob and a flight from Lancashire, a wrecked machine and a sacked house! To Crompton, inventing the spinning-mule (which, in simulating, surpassed the delicate pulling motion of the spinster's arm)—to Crompton, poverty so complete that the mule, patient bearer of innumerable fortunes to investors, was surrendered to them unpatented, while its maker retired to his "Hall-in-the-Wood" ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... marriage certificate, an old and faded piece of paper which ran—"This is to certify that I, Thomas Nettleship, duly ordained clergyman of the Church of England, have this day solemnized a marriage between William Grant, Bachelor, and Margaret Donohoe, Spinster." ...
— An Outback Marriage • Andrew Barton Paterson
... devout abhorrence, mingled with awe, for this ancient spinster. He told me the other day, in a whisper, that she was a cursed brimstone—in fact, he added another epithet, which I would not repeat for the world. I have remarked, however, that he is always extremely civil to her when ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... disdaining the customary twaddling topics of the rhymesters. Such an amazing allegory as "On Raiding the Ice Box," which deals, of course, with the experience of a man who attempts to explore the mind of an elderly Boston spinster, marks this powerful poet as a man of ...
— Mince Pie • Christopher Darlington Morley
... at the station, and wished to talk with them. Miss Davis remembered that she had not fed the chickens, and hurried away to perform that humane duty, gallantly escorted by Captain Perez. The Captain, by the way, was apparently much taken with the plump spinster and, although usually rather bashful where ladies were concerned, had managed to keep up a sort of side conversation with Miss Patience while the storytelling was going on. But Ralph and Elsie and Mrs. Snow were ...
— Cap'n Eri • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... was a damoiseau, whence the name given to his wife. The word damoiselle is frequently employed in the Heptameron, and though sometimes it merely signifies an attendant on a lady, the reference is more frequently to a woman of gentle birth, whether she be spinster, wife or widow. Only women of high nobility and of the blood royal were at that ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. III. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... with his spinster sister, Anna Ivanovna, to whom Tatiana Markovna was much attached. Tatiana Markovna was delighted when she came to town. There was no one with whom she liked more to drink coffee, no one to whom she gave her confidence in the same degree; they shared the same liking ...
— The Precipice • Ivan Goncharov
... sister of the spinster pair who cherish (respectively) a secret attachment for Mr. Dermer. Miss Deborah is an admirable cook, and an affectionate aunt and considers that in religion a woman ought to think just as her husband does.—Margaret Deland, John Ward, ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... most concerned did not say so, everybody could see from the outset the pity of its ever having come about at all. The pious and stiffly respectable priest's sister had been harmless enough as a spinster. It made the heart ache to contemplate her as a wife. Incredibly narrow-minded, ignorant, suspicious, vain, and sour-tempered, she must have driven a less equable and well-rooted man than Jeremiah Madden to drink or flight. He may have had his temptations, but ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic
... about to happen If you were as good a churchgoer as one could wish, you would have been in your pew yesterday morning, when the banns were read out (for the first time of asking) "between George Goodman, bachelor, and Emily Parsons, spinster, both of this parish," though this would not have conveyed to you the appalling fact that your man is marrying my entire staff all at once. I doubt, however, if you will be able to find cause ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152. January 17, 1917 • Various
... widowed mother, who lived alone in a Dorsetshire village, asking her advice about the girl. Gladys was disturbed in her solitude by Miss Peck, who came to the door in rather an excited and officious manner. She was a little, wiry spinster, past middle life, eccentric, but kind-hearted. She had bestowed a great deal of gratuitous and genuine kindness on her lodgers, though knowing very well that she would not likely get any return but gratitude for it; but times were hard with her likewise, ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... The gaping of this garment revealed a breast to be likened only to that of an old peasant woman who cares nothing about her personal ugliness. The fleshless arm was like a stick on which a bit of stuff was hung. Seen at her window, this spinster seemed tall from the length and angularity of her face, which recalled the exaggerated proportions of certain Swiss heads. The character of their countenance—the features being marked by a total want of harmony—was that of hardness in the lines, ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... them all; some of them—always the same ones—set him to thinking and excited his imagination; he knew no other diversions. When the time came to teach him languages and music, Glafira Petrovna hired, for a paltry sum, an elderly spinster, a Swede, with frightened, hare-like eyes, who spoke French and German indifferently, played the piano after a fashion, and, in addition, knew how to salt cucumbers in first-class style. In the society of this instructress, of his aunt, and of an old chambermaid, ...
— A Nobleman's Nest • Ivan Turgenieff
... Sir Peter Lely's portrait of Cowley—next on Hogarth's Sarah Malcolm, the murderess of her mistress; then—and doubtless, the spinster ladies are in fault here for the delay,—on Mrs. Damer's model of two kittens, pets, though, of Horace Walpole's—for he who loved few human beings was, after the fashion of bachelors, fond ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton
... all, a little parable which Waldo Gillespie read to a certain doubting Thomas, on the very evening of the day which changed Gladys Edgecombe, spinster, into Mrs. Bruno Gillespie, may better serve ...
— The Lost City • Joseph E. Badger, Jr.
... spinster was already opening her bag and preparing to make herself comfortable for ...
— Patty Fairfield • Carolyn Wells
... an account from a bookmaker showing a small debit balance. There were other miscellaneous bills, a plaintive epistle from a lady signing herself Flora, and begging for the loan of a fiver for a week, and an invitation to tea from a spinster who called herself Poppy. Amongst all this mass of miscellaneous documents there were only three which Wrayson laid on one side for further consideration. One of these was a note, dated from the Adelphi a few days before the tragedy, ...
— The Avenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... visitor. Petka read and reread the letter with breathless curiosity. In the letter which was also a small snap-shot picture of the girl. Petka looked at the picture and did not know what to say. To judge from her photograph, she was a frail spinster, with high cheekbones, a long neck and a nose like a frozen potato. But the trimming of her hair, her city hat with flowers, and her whole American bearing made her interesting enough to the ambitious tailor. For a long time he was gazing at the ...
— Defenders of Democracy • The Militia of Mercy
... of remarks was the following sly observation of one of the sisterhood. At a well-known tea-table in a country town in Forfarshire, the events of the day, grave and gay, had been fully discussed by the assembled sisterhood. The occasion was improved by an elderly spinster, as follows:—"Weel, weel, sirs, these are solemn events—death and marriage—but ye ken they're what we must a' come till." "Eh, Miss Jeany! ye have been lang spared," was the arch reply of a ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... the spinster Sneerall, "I think he is a linen-draper in disguise; for I heard him talk to his ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... know, either," wailed the spinster. "There's one of 'em in the settin'-room balancin' a plug-hat on his knees and sayin', 'Lo! the bridegroom cometh'; and there's two on the front steps kickin' the dog ev'ry time he comes at 'em; and there's one in the ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... woman who looked as if she might be a spinster of the type generally known as "old maid" was doing her best to silence the bird while she fished wildly in her bag ...
— Billie Bradley on Lighthouse Island - The Mystery of the Wreck • Janet D. Wheeler
... dwindled in her estimation. It was picturesque, but lamentably narrow. The life was barren, the "New England spirit" prevailed in all its severity; and this spirit seemed to her a veritable cult, a sort of religion, wherein the Old Maid was the priestess, the Spinster the officiating devotee, the thing worshipped the Great Unbeautiful, and the ritual unremitting, unrelenting Housework. She ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris
... people who possesses to the full the supreme gift of silence. Finally I mentioned the report of a case of measles in the village, and Ev'leen Ann responded in kind with the news that her Aunt Emma had bought a potato-planter. Ev'leen Ann is an orphan, brought up by a well-to-do spinster aunt, who is strong-minded and runs her own farm. After a time we glided by way of similar transitions to ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... months. Should they fail to do so, they are served with three warning notices at successive intervals of two months, before any step is taken in the way of coercive measures. Every bachelor and every spinster is bound to furnish a written explanation of their irregular condition, and the only reasons admitted as valid are serious ill-health ...
— The Red Conspiracy • Joseph J. Mereto
... tried, and directed my attention to a middle-aged, angular-looking woman, whose strong, sharp-featured face betokened a prim spinster, probably at the head of a girls' school, or engaged in some clerical work. However, as I passed her on my way to leave the train I noticed a wedding-ring on her hand, and heard her say to her companion, "No; I think a woman's sphere is in her own kitchen and nursery. ...
— The Gold Bag • Carolyn Wells
... better, she reflected, far better, that she should go into the dull and dreary exile of an English village, with the unexciting companionship of Aunt Emily, an ascetic spinster of the mid-Victorian era, and make pretence of pique with Walter, than to reveal to him the shameful truth. He would at least in those circumstances retain of her a recollection fond and tender. He would not ...
— The House of Whispers • William Le Queux
... genuine papers with only a suppression of the names, it is probable that the dates assigned to the indictments noted—the 34th and 35th years of Elizabeth—are the true ones, and that the initials given, "S. B. de C. in comit. H. vidua," "Marg' L. de A. in com' E. Spinster," and "Sara B. de C. in comitatu Eb. vidua," are those of the actual culprits and of their residences. Yorkshire is clearly one of the counties meant. It was, moreover, West's ...
— A History of Witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718 • Wallace Notestein
... helped her brother in his cooking when she had no other job, and knew every sort of fat, mysterious Italian dish such as the workmen of Castagneto, who crowded the restaurant at midday, and the inhabitants of Mezzago when they came over on Sundays, loved to eat. She was a fleshless spinster of fifty, grey-haired, nimble, rich of speech, and thought Lady Caroline more beautiful than anyone she had ever seen; and so did Domenico; and so did the boy Giuseppe who helped Domenico and was, besides, his nephew; ...
— The Enchanted April • Elizabeth von Arnim
... of MANCHESTER there is a shortage of curates. A spinster writes to say that she is not surprised, considering how quickly they get ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 156, April 9, 1919 • Various
... above martyrdoms, Catharine Hut, of Bocking, widow; Joan Horns, spinster, of Billericay; Elizabeth Thackwel, spinster, of Great Burstead; suffered ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... a man ..." began the spinster, putting down her work, and raising her head with the air they all knew so well, denoting a long rigmarole about some exceedingly uninteresting person, and Diana immediately chimed in with, "Shall you wear a knickerbocker suit, aunty, or just a ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page
... a sigh of relief that Sara, in obedience to the warning raucously intoned by a hurrying porter, vacated her seat in the railway compartment in which she had travelled from Fallowdene. Her companions on the journey had been an elderly spinster and her maid, and as the former had insisted upon the exclusion of every breath of outside air, Sara felt half-suffocated by the time they ran into Oldhampton Junction. The Monkshaven train was already standing in the ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler
... working-room meant little more than an idiosyncratic passion for the anomalous, but those who were near to him knew what a connecting link they were between him and the little children of whom he wrote, and how each trumpet and drum, each "spinster doll," each little toy dog, each little tin soldier, played its part in the poems he sent out into the world. No writer ever made more persistent and consistent use of the material by which he was surrounded, or put a higher literary value on the little things which go to ...
— A Little Book of Western Verse • Eugene Field
... hear them, whether you want to or not," continued the indomitable spinster, "and I don't see any use in palavering the truth. Master Hightower and Mr. Arthur knows it by this time, and there's no harm in talking before them. Helen's an uncommon child. She's no more like other children, than my ...
— Helen and Arthur - or, Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel • Caroline Lee Hentz
... told him who he rightly is. He claims cousinship. But it has not dawned on him that Colland was to have been The McTavish, that he is The McTavish, that I am merely Miss Ellen Alice Douglas Cameron Dundee Campbell McGregor Breadalbane Blair McTavish, houseless, homeless spinster, wi' but a drap o' gude blood to her heritage. I have not told him, Mr. Traquair. He does not know. What's to be done? What would you do—if you knew that he was he, and that you ...
— The Spread Eagle and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... hell, in season—if hell's made o' wind an' sea, as I'm inclined t' think—an' the ease of a bachelor man, between whiles, in his cottage at Rickity Tickle, where he lived all alone like a spick-an'-span spinster. 'Twas not o' the sea he was scared. 'Twas o' want in an unkind world; an' t'was jus' that an' no more that drove un t' hard sailin' an' contempt o' death—sheer fear o' want in the wolf's world that he'd made this world out t' be in his ...
— Harbor Tales Down North - With an Appreciation by Wilfred T. Grenfell, M.D. • Norman Duncan
... in—er—climbing this height, and the—er—alacrity of his departure must be in exact ratio to his gravitation. Good idea. Ged! say it to schoolma'am. Wonder what she's like? Humph! the usual thin, weazened, hatchet-faced Yankee spinster, with an indecent familiarity with Webster's Dictionary! And this is the woman, Star, you're expected to discover, and bring back to affluence and plenty. This is the new fanaticism of Mr. Alexander Morton, sen. Ged! not satisfied with dragging his prodigal son ...
— Two Men of Sandy Bar - A Drama • Bret Harte
... from Aunt Deborah, the storm of whose vituperation seemed ringing in his ears so long as he continued within sight of her dwelling. One would think the clack of the mill and the prattle of his pretty cousin Cicely might have drowned it, but it did not. Nothing short of leaving the spinster fifty miles behind, and setting the great city between him and her, could ...
— Aunt Deborah • Mary Russell Mitford
... she herself felt considerably exhausted. Miss Payne had gone out to dine with one of her former girls, now the wife of a rackety horsy man, whose conduct made her often look back with a sigh of regret to the tranquil days passed under the guardianship of the prudent spinster; so having partaken of tea at their usual dinner-time she sat and mused awhile on the one subject from which she could derive comfort—Errington and his wonderful kindness to her. If he took the matter in hand she thought herself safe. Her confidence in him was ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander
... sight of the promontory of Sunium, where the Greek Muse, in an awful vision, came to me, and said in a patronising way, "Why, my dear" (she always, the old spinster, adopts this high and mighty tone)—"Why, my dear, are you not charmed to be in this famous neighbourhood, in this land of poets and heroes, of whose history your classical education ought to have made you a master? if it did not, you have wofully neglected ...
— Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the very same mind," said a very prim spinster. "But what a pity the former governor isn't ...
— An Eagle Flight - A Filipino Novel Adapted from Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... sisters looked at each other. "Oh, I know—the lady in black we saw in church the day the revolution began—a strange little shrivelled spinster-thing who lives in that house by the post-office. She quarrelled mortally with the Rector last year, because she ill-treated a little servant girl of hers, and ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... lot of things happened, and they happened fast! Miss Cymantha Jones, a nervous spinster, was walking home from Widow Markham's house—rather late, but she'd been caring for the widow through a sick spell. And Miss Cymantha saw that calf jumping around among the tombstones and thought it was a ghost! She let out such screams that it brought Charley, ...
— Keineth • Jane D. Abbott
... 1535, and afterward twice made mayor of the town. John Eyrick or Heyricke—he spelled his name recklessly—had five sons, the second of which sought a career in London, where he became a goldsmith, and in December, 1582, married Julian Stone, spinster, of Bedfordshire, a sister to Anne, Lady Soame, the wife of Sir Stephen Soame. One of the many children of this ...
— Ponkapog Papers • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... States, and knocked one morning at the door of an old lady whose orchard he had often robbed. The introduction appears insufficient; but Nares knew what he was doing. The sight of her old neighbourly depredator shivering at the door in tatters, the very oddity of his appeal, touched a soft spot in the spinster's heart. "I always had a fancy for the old lady," Nares said, "even when she used to stampede me out of the orchard, and shake her thimble and her old curls at me out of the window as I was going by; I always thought she was a kind of pleasant old girl. ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... was doubtless used in India before the conquests of Alexander. Then we have the spinning-wheel, which differs in no important respect from that of England in the thirteenth century, and is similar to, but ruder than, that used by our great-grandmothers, when "spinster" meant something, and a girl brought to the home of her choice a goodly array of linen. This was before cotton was king, and before factories were known either for cotton, flax or wool. Was it a better day than the present, or no? Things work round, and the roller-gin ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... loathe the sight, so common alas! in England, of the affluent spinster, "growing pointlessly rotund on rich food at one of the smug hotels or boarding-houses for parasitic nonentities, which are distributed so plentifully all over the land," while thousands of promising young men ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici
... acted as servant to Mrs Villiers, was rather an oddity in her way. She had been Madame's nurse, and had followed her up to Ballarat, with the determination of never leaving her. Selina was a spinster, as her hand had never been sought in marriage, and her personal appearance was certainly not very fascinating. Tall and gaunt, she was like a problem from Euclid, all angles, and the small quantity of grey hair she possessed was screwed into a hard lump at the back of her ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume
... forced to acknowledge that she did not, and under a hot volley of questions from Donna admitted further that not a soul in San Pasqual had even hinted to her of such a contingency. Too late the spinster realized that she had, figuratively speaking, placed all of her eggs in one bucket and ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... 14, late of Burgh cum Girsby, spinster, com. Nov. 22, 1817, charged with twice administering a quantity of vitrol or verdigrease powder, or other deadly poison, with intent to murder Susanna, the infant daughter of George Barnes of Burgh cum ...
— The Reminiscences Of Sir Henry Hawkins (Baron Brampton) • Henry Hawkins Brampton
... know—something dreadful, I am sure!" gasped the affrighted spinster. "It felt like an earthquake. It shook the whole town. It ...
— The Boys of Bellwood School • Frank V. Webster
... however, sometimes "gang aft agley." One day I received a letter, evidently written in great consternation, from an elderly spinster of singularly aristocratic connections and an irreproachableness of life which was almost painful. The name sent to her by one of our skippers as a correspondent who needed help and encouragement was one of those which would be characterized ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... marry. I don't know as I do at my time of life," responded the spinster. "I rather guess my day for chances is ...
— Humorous Masterpieces from American Literature • Various
... schooling, which morally is of great importance. But the argument fails also on other grounds: it assumes that all men have children equally; it asserts that the married man with his five children has no more responsibility than the elderly spinster who lives next door; it supposes that the parents have not a special interest in their children, distinct from that which can be felt by any other person whatever. It may be further urged, that if a man pays for ...
— The Quarterly Review, Volume 162, No. 324, April, 1886 • Various
... there is a very strict law intended to eliminate the spinster from the social horizon. It is a law born of craft and inspired by foresight. The daughters of a household must be married off in the order of their nativity. The younger sister dare not contemplate matrimony until the elder ...
— The Slim Princess • George Ade
... a certified copy of the following entry: "August 1, 1856. Philip Caresfoot, bachelor, gentleman, to Hilda von Holtzhausen, spinster (by license). Signed J. Few, curate; as witness, Fred. Natt, ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... his way through the door, which, however, was a work of time, and not yet a quarter accomplished. The place had been a fowl-house, and, at the bottom of the door, there was a small hatch for the ingress and egress of these bipeds, the original invention of some thrifty spinster, to prevent the maids from stealing eggs. But this hatch was closed, or Snarleyyow would have escaped through it. Smallbones took up his quarters in another outhouse, that he might not be observed, and commenced ...
— Snarleyyow • Captain Frederick Marryat
... a female, Katydid I know it by the trill That quivers through thy piercing notes, So petulant and shrill; I think there is a knot of you Beneath the hollow tree,— A knot of spinster ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... vacation and get toughened (the process was obviously succeeding); they made Nimrod apologise for keeping his coat on during dinner; the three brothers who owned the ranch, and the wife of one of them; several children; a prim and proper spinster from Washington—how she got there, who can tell?—and Miss Belle ...
— A Woman Tenderfoot • Grace Gallatin Seton-Thompson
... content to live and die in the Bush,—nothing like it, if women were not so scarce. To think of the redundant spinster population at home, and not a spinster here to be seen within thirty miles,—save Bet Goggins, indeed, and she has only one eye! But to return to Vivian: why should it be our object, more than his, to get back to England as soon ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... which the wives of Simek and Okiok, and the mothers of Arbalik and Ippegoo with the spinster Sigokow arrived, the southern Eskimos resumed their route northward, and the pursuers continued their journey to the south—the former in their sledges over the still unmelted ice-foot along the shore; the latter, in ...
— Red Rooney - The Last of the Crew • R.M. Ballantyne
... be an honest man. A blush at the psychological moment and a wink from the lawyer is quite enough to lead the jury to believe that, if they acquit the defendant, they will "make the young lady happy," whereas if he is convicted she will remain for aye a heart-broken spinster. Like enough she may be ...
— Courts and Criminals • Arthur Train
... Mr. Edward Middleton Encounters the Emir Achmed Ben Daoud The Adventure of the Virtuous Spinster What Befell Mr. Middleton Because of the Second Gift of the Emir The Adventure of William Hicks What Befell Mr. Middleton Because of the Third Gift of the Emir The Adventure of Norah Sullivan and the Student of Heredity What Befell Mr. Middleton Because of the Fourth ...
— The Strange Adventures of Mr. Middleton • Wardon Allan Curtis
... me. I was the sturdy oak, Frederic the tender ivy. I poured out my heart's blood for him, poured it into his music. He was a mere girl, I tell you—a sensitive, slender, shrinking, peevish girl, a born prudish spinster, and would shiver if any one looked at him. Liszt always frightened him and he hated Mendelssohn. He called Beethoven a sour old Dutchman, and swore that he did not write piano music. For the man who first brought his name before ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker
... gone very far as yet," replied Val, enjoying Johnny's discomfort, "but it promises well. Johnny and I called upon a wealthy spinster, away upon Riverside Drive, this morning, ...
— Five Thousand an Hour - How Johnny Gamble Won the Heiress • George Randolph Chester
... way dependent upon her aunt. Living with her was a matter of personal choice. Mercy Lascelles was her only relative for one thing, and the elder woman being a lonely spinster, it seemed only right that Joan should make her home under her scarcely hospitable roof. Then, too, there was another reason which influenced the girl. It was a purely sentimental reason, such as at her age might well appeal to her. A whisper ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum
... want Dublin Bay herrings, or boot-laces either, so you can go away.—The crankiness of that man is more than tongue can tell. As Miss Carty says, I shouldn't stand it for an hour—Come in, can't you—and well she may say it, and she a spinster without a worry under heaven but her suspicious nature and her hair falling out. And then to be treated the way I am by that girl! It'd make a saint waxy so it would.—Good heavens! can't you come ...
— Here are Ladies • James Stephens
... disposition. It curled and uncurled and strayed all about her brow and neck like an explosion of spun lava. For the rest, had she really been a little girl of twelve, one would feel free to describe her as fat and roly-poly; but in the case of a young spinster of somewhere in her third decade, well-gowned and stayed and otherwise in physical subjection to the modiste, and singing of love like a diva, what can one say? No more than this, perhaps, that the fortunate man who carries ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick
... come to the motor by this time—the rich, the noble motor, as Mr Pepys would have described it—and there was poor Miss Lyall hung with parcels, and wearing a faint sycophantic smile. This miserable spinster, of age so obvious as to be called not the least uncertain, was Lady Ambermere's companion, and shared with her the glories of The Hall, which had been left to Lady Ambermere for life. She was provided with ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... blessedness; bachelorhood, bachelorship^; misogamy^, misogyny. virginity, pucelage^; maidenhood, maidenhead. unmarried man, bachelor, Coelebs, agamist^, old bachelor; misogamist^, misogynist; monogamist; monk. unmarried woman, spinster; maid, maiden, virgin, feme sole [Fr.], old maid; bachelor girl, girl-bachelor; nun. V. live single, live alone. Adj. unmarried, unwed, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... since they had known Dr. Spencer's opinion; and yet he only believed that they were grateful for good advice, and went about among them, easy, good-natured, and utterly unconscious that for him sparkled Mrs. Ledwich's bugles, and for him waved every spinster's ribbon, from Miss Rich down to ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... his handkerchief, and Aunt Hester, who was a spinster, cast down her eyes and fidgeted with some papers which she had taken ...
— Spring Days • George Moore
... feel that my days are numbered, and that their number is scant. To all the world my life seems to have been successful beyond the wishes of mortal man, but to me it is a dismal failure, in that I die bachelor Archbishop of Cologne, and you are the spinster Countess von Sayn.'" ...
— The Sword Maker • Robert Barr
... medicinal articles of attire were obtained from Aunt Anne, without a word of speech on the part of that pale spinster. The deferential hostility between the two women acknowledged an intervening chasm. Aunt Anne produced a bundle, and placed the hat on it, upon which she had neatly pinned a tract, "The Drunkard's Awakening!" Mrs. Boulby glanced her eye in wrath across this superscription, thinking ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... a pretty game, and we must go on singing "Tipperary," and saying what fun it is. A young friend of mine at home gave me a pamphlet (price 2d.) written by a spinster friend of hers who had never left England, proving what a good thing this war was for us all. When I said I saw another aspect of it, the kind, soothing suggestion was that I ...
— My War Experiences in Two Continents • Sarah Macnaughtan
... in Geneva. If you had ever travelled through Europe with a charming spinster who never sat down at a Continental table d'hote without being asked by an American vis-a-vis whether she were one of the P.'s of Salem, Massachusetts, you would understand why I call my friend Salemina. She doesn't mind it. She knows that I am simply ...
— Penelope's Postscripts • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... cousin, who had died. She possessed about six hundred a year of her own. She was two years older than her sister, Miss Ebag, a spinster. Miss Ebag was two years younger than Mrs Ebag. No further information as to their respective ages ever leaked out. Miss Ebag had a little money of her own from her deceased mother, and Caiaphas had the wreck of his riches. The total income of the household was not far short of a thousand ...
— The Matador of the Five Towns and Other Stories • Arnold Bennett
... 1867, her mother's sister, Miss Harriet Tewksbury, a spinster of fifty or thereabouts, who, for the lack of something substantial to interest her, had been halting between woman's rights and Spiritualism, suddenly discovered that Helen's cause was the real woman's cause; whereupon ...
— Free Joe and Other Georgian Sketches • Joel Chandler Harris
... long-haired, devoted woman's admiration. He had never even thought whether he was worthy of being loved. He was indeed more worthy of love than many to whom it is freely given; but he knew no more about it, I say, than a chicken in the shell knows of the blue sky. The shabby spinster, living with her cousin the baker in the house opposite, knew a hundred times better than he what the word love meant: she had a history, he ...
— There & Back • George MacDonald
... Haverhill last night, Doctor Clark accompanying us, he having business in Newbury. When we came up to the door, Effie met us with a shy look, and told her mistress that Mrs. Prudence (uncle's spinster cousin) had got a braw auld wooer in the east room; and surely enough we found our ancient kinswoman and Deacon Dole, a widower of three years' standing, sitting at the supper-table. We did take note that the Deacon had on a stiff new coat; ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... and the school-children stared in reverentially, and wondered why old Madam Hyde's eyes followed them as far as they could see. Visitors came now and then to the kitchen-door, and usurped Keery's flag-bottomed chair, while they gossiped with her about village affairs; now and then a friendly spinster with a budget of good advice called Hitty away from her post, and, after an hour's vain effort to get any news worth retailing about the Judge from those pale lips, retired full of disappointed curiosity to tell how stiff that Mehitable Hyde was, and how hard it was to make her speak a word ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... wet winter won't wash away. Theer 's the lines. They 'm a fact, same as the sun in heaven 's a fact. God A'mighty's Self couldn't undo it wi'out some violent invention; an' for that matter I doan't see tu clear how even Him be gwaine to magic a married woman into a spinster again; any more than He could turn a spinster into a married woman, onless some ordinary human man came forrard. You must faace it braave an' strong. But that imp o' Satan—that damn Blanchard bwoy! Theer! I caan't say what I think 'bout him. Arter all that's been done: the guests invited, ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... boy was standing with his back to the obese woman. He was busily engaged, endeavouring to count the stars, when that most worthy spinster backed against him and sent him sprawling. She did not even feel the rencontre; it was like an iron-clad coming in ...
— The Silver Lining - A Guernsey Story • John Roussel
... of Newton bounded at this intelligence, as he knew that it must be Isabel who was still a spinster. This was shortly after corroborated by an English gentleman who came on board. Their stay at Madras was intended to be short, and Newton resolved to ask immediate leave on shore. Apologising to Captain Oughton for making such an unusual ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... is a cousin of yours? Yes." And he jotted down a note of any facts that Mavis could supply. "Still a spinster. About your own age, and living abroad. Thank you. That is all you can tell me? There seems to be doubt as to her whereabouts. Your aunt—Mrs. John Edward Petherick—does not know her address. But she will no doubt present herself in ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... divine inspiration. Incidentally, the Lord had given her a plump figure, and a knack of apparel which had long appealed to Widower Yarnell's eye. And the Lord approved; in truth He said "Yes!" so audibly that Miss Spinster ...
— Our Nervous Friends - Illustrating the Mastery of Nervousness • Robert S. Carroll
... Stephen says his Humour is heavy (Qy is not his Tragedy?), and wonders how Miss Austen could admire him as it appears she did; and you discern a relation between her and him. I find plenty of grave humour in this Book: in the Spinster, the Bachelor, the Widow, etc. All which I pointed out (in the still-born) to L. S. . . . He says too that Crabbe is 'incapable of Epigram,' which also you do not agree in; Epigrams more of Humour than Wit; sometimes only hinted, as ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald in Two Volumes - Vol. II • Edward FitzGerald
... only too susceptible spinster, with all her experience of the villany of man, had never conceived the wretch to be so thoroughly beyond the reach of redemption as when Dr. Riccabocca took his leave, and once more interred himself amidst ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... was not daunted by the Lottchen, but, as my uncle maintained, sang his part, spectacles on nose, in the finest falsetto that ever proceeded forth from a human breast. Now there was amongst us (I mean in the town) a spinster named Meibel, aged about fifty-five, who subsisted upon the scanty pension which she received as a retired court singer of the metropolis, and my uncle was rightly of opinion that Miss Meibel might still do something for her ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... I was sent to a primary-school. It was kept by an old spinster, Susanna by name, of tall and masculine stature, with friendly blue eyes, which shone forth like candles from out a pale grayish face. We children were planted around the walls of the spacious chamber which served as school-room, and ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various
... 'Speranza'!" she cooed, "dear Lady Wilde!" I noticed that her glance went towards Willie, who was standing on the other side of his mother, talking to a tall, handsome girl. Willie's friend seemed amused at the lyrical outburst of the green spinster, for smiling a ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 1 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... shoes of a portly red faced man whose berth was in the forward end of the car, I placed by the berth of a tall and slim western yankee at the other end of the car, while a number 7 and a number 9 shoe were placed decorously by the berth of a sour spinster from New York. This naturally caused a good sized rumpus the next morning. And sundry blessings were heaped on the head of yours truly. Nearly all the passengers were mad and the tips were conspicuous by their absence. That made me mad and thoroughly disgusted with ...
— The Life and Adventures of Nat Love - Better Known in the Cattle Country as "Deadwood Dick" • Nat Love
... Microscope made Easy, says, "A silkworm's web being examined, appeared perfectly smooth and shining, every where equal, and much finer than any thread the best spinster in the world can make, as the smallest twine is finer than the thickest cable. A pod of this silk being wound off, was found to contain 930 yards; but it is proper to take notice, that as two threads are glewed together ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 381 Saturday, July 18, 1829 • Various
... gloomy meaning. 'But there have been worse. I know what I know. See Collins's Peerage, volume 4, page 242: "Married firstly Sarah, widow of Colonel John Clark, of Exeter, in the county of Devon"—all a hum, Tommy! If they had said spinster, of Bridewell, in the county of Middlesex, 'twould have been as true! I ...
— The Castle Inn • Stanley John Weyman
... borne in mind also that Mr. Pickwick was almost invariably drawn into his more serious scrapes and embarrassments by this devotion to the sex. The night in the boarding school garden—the affair with the spinster lady—his interview with Arabella from the top of the wall—his devotion to Mrs. Pott and Mrs. Dowler—and much more that we do not hear of, show that he was a gallant elderly gentleman. Oh, he was a "sly dog, ...
— Bardell v. Pickwick • Percy Fitzgerald
... mere shame-faced, sister-hating, commonplace creature that the collective boy thinks it due to himself to be in society,' said Ethel, 'and me from an enjoying sister, into an elderly, care-taking, despised spinster—a burden to ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... occasion. Practically the entire village was present, a good half of them in new frocks manufactured by themselves in honour of the great event. It was now four years and seven months since there had been a wedding in the village. The local type of damsel was a pre-natal spinster, and the few village boys went otherwhere in search of wives. Brides there had been, of course; but they had been of the ready-made variety. Other communities had had the glory of the weddings. It was not every day, by any means, that the ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... husband; for no man, however wealthy, so he were of low condition, seemed to her worthy to have a gentlewoman to wife; and seeing that for all his wealth he was fit for nothing better than to devise a blend, set up a warp, or higgle about yarn with a spinster, she determined to dispense with his embraces, save so far as she might find it impossible to refuse them; and to find her satisfaction elsewhere with one that seemed to her more meet to afford it than her artificer of woollens. In ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio |
