"Womanish" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... style of Tolstoy. I have cut out parts, polished it up, and the result is a legend of no great value, indeed, but light, and it may be read with interest. The other story is illiterate, clumsy, and womanish in structure, but there is a story and a certain raciness. I have cut it down to half as you see. ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov
... I've been a bit lonely and blue this afternoon, for the day has reminded me of the past. I won't be weak and womanish any more. I think some political questions interest a great many women deeply. It must be so. We don't dote on scrambling politicians; but a man as a true statesman ...
— A Day Of Fate • E. P. Roe
... her.... She played at Pharaoh two or three times at Princess Craon's, where she cheats horse and foot. She is really entertaining: I have been reading her works, which she lends out in manuscript; but they are too womanish: I like few of ...
— Lady Mary Wortley Montague - Her Life and Letters (1689-1762) • Lewis Melville
... lesser celebration on Christmas Eve when we hung our stockings. There were six of them, from mother's long one to father's short one. Ours, although built on womanish lines, lacked the greater length and they were, consequently, inferior for the purpose of our greed; but father's were woefully short, as if fashioned to the measure of his small expectancy. Even ...
— Chimney-Pot Papers • Charles S. Brooks
... made up of inconsistencies. He has boundless ambition, unquestioned courage, admirable sagacity. Yet I have frequently observed in him a womanish weakness at the sight of pain. I remember that once one of his slaves was taken ill while carrying his litter. He alighted, put the fellow in his place and walked home in a fall of snow. I wonder that you could be so ill-advised as to talk to him of massacre, and pillage, and conflagration. ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Contibutions to Knight's Quarterly Magazine] • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... were not, they abutted on each side, courting the cold. Even this difficulty I finally conquered by gymnastic subtleties. Warmth and comfort produced their natural effect. My brain was busy for a few minutes. Thoughts of my wife and the few I loved best made me womanish, but a recollection of the malignant judge hardened me and I clenched my teeth. Then Nature asserted her sway. Weary eyelids drooped over weary eyes, and through a phantasmagoria of the trial I gradually sank ...
— Prisoner for Blasphemy • G. W. [George William] Foote
... fervour: "I believe!" At best she could only assert that she did not disbelieve—and was she so sure even of that? No! Belief had been denied to her; and to dream of consolation from religion was sentimentally womanish; even in her indifference she preferred straightforward, honest damnation to the soft self-deceptions of feminine religiosity. Ah! If she could have been a Roman Catholic, genuine and convinced—with what ardour would she have cast herself down before the confessional, ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... that it do not suffer for the sins of its fathers; or to manage its temper so judiciously that the child will not have, as it grows up, to throw off all that its mother, its first instructor, directly or indirectly taught, and unless the mind have uncommon vigour, womanish follies will stick to the character throughout life. The weakness of the mother will be visited on the children! And whilst women are educated to rely on their husbands for judgment, this must ever be the consequence, for there ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]
... very well written, this poetry of labour, but the pluck of the sentiment redeemed what was weak or wordy in the expression. The martial and the patriotic pieces, on the other hand, were tearful, womanish productions one and all. The poet had passed under the Caudine Forks; he sang for an army visiting the tomb of its old renown, with arms reversed; and sang not of victory, but of death. There was a number in the hawker's collection called "Conscrits Francais," ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... like what I should do if I were they, I couldn't and wouldn't have them flogged for it. Well, of course, there was an end of plantation discipline; and Alf and I came to about the same point that I and my respected father did, years before. So he told me that I was a womanish sentimentalist, and would never do for business life; and advised me to take the bank-stock and the New Orleans family mansion, and go to writing poetry, and let him manage the plantation. So we parted, ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... it had him cowed, because in his long life he had known it to be the only reality in the world of men. And in that world he had known the only reality to be that if you didn't cut the other fellow's throat first he would cut yours. There wasn't any other reality. He had heard impractical, womanish men say there was, and try to prove it, only to have their economic throats cut considerably more promptly than any others. He had done his little indirect share of the throat-cutting always. He was not denying the need to do it. Only he had never found it a very cheerful atmosphere in which ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... that some men be so womanish, as to let the young master the old! But, you, old Esther, should know better than to think such will ever be the nature of things in the ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... have passion's cling and such like decency, so that they can incite with ticklings, I do not say boys, but bearded ones whose stiffened limbs amort lack pliancy in movement. You, because of many thousand kisses you have read, think me womanish. I will ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus
... truly felt and represented the character, is but a softened reflection of that of her husband Brutus: in him we see an excess of natural sensibility, an almost womanish tenderness of heart, repressed by the tenets of his austere philosophy: a stoic by profession, and in reality the reverse—acting deeds against his nature by the strong force of principle and will. In Portia there is the same profound ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... man, a few years older than myself; tall and slender,—we might have been twins as far as height and build went, but there the resemblance ceased. He was fair, with such delicate colouring that he might have looked womanish but for the dark fiery blue of his eyes, and his little curled moustache. He looked the way you fancy a prince looking, Melody, when Auntie Joy tells you a fairy story, though he was ...
— Rosin the Beau • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
... France, Spain, or Holland. No; we are at war on the defensive to protect what is left, or more truly to stave off, for a year perhaps, a peace that must proclaim our nakedness and impotence. I would not willingly recur to that womanish vision of something may turn up in our favour! That something must be a naval victory that will annihilate at once all the squadrons of Europe—must wipe off forty millions of new debt—reconcile the affections of America, that for six years we have laboured ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... the origin and cause of the Amazonian invasion of Attica, which would seem to have been no slight or womanish enterprise. For it is impossible that they should have placed their camp in the very city, and joined battle close by the Pnyx and the hill called Museum, unless, having first conquered the country round about, they had thus with impunity ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch
... the voice and the woman's gaze came back to the chamber. "That I know not. Travelling the ways of the world and plucking roadside fruits, for he is no home-bred and womanish stripling. Wearing his lusty youth on the maids, I fear. Nay, I forget. He is about to wed the girl of Avesnes and is already choosing his bridal train. It seems he loves her. He writes me she has a skin of snow and eyes of ...
— The Path of the King • John Buchan
... at last broke into a hearty laugh,—"I was too great a coward, John, to wear them with becoming dignity. If that was wearing the breeches, I am sure I disgraced them with my worse than womanish fears. I will ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie
... I have no doubt, think it extremely womanish and unreasonable on my part to have proposed writing a paper on such a much-discussed subject as Mr. Mill's book, without indicating the manner in which I should treat it; but my object was, first, to know whether it was open, and if you would be ...
— Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Henry Reeve, C.B., D.C.L. - In Two Volumes. VOL. II. • John Knox Laughton
... the fob of his watch flashed a diamond; another sparkled in his cravat. His dark hair was sleek and well brushed; his bristly little moustache was clipped in the latest fashion. He was not large. His hands, as he made a gesture toward Quade, were of womanish whiteness. Casually, on the street or in a Pullman, Aldous would have taken him for a gentleman. Now, as he stared through the narrow slit between the bottom of the curtain and the sill, he knew that he was looking upon one of the ...
— The Hunted Woman • James Oliver Curwood
... rheum. [Aside. Turning dispiteous torture out of door! I must be brief; lest resolution drop Out at mine eyes, in tender womanish tears. Can you not read it? is ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard
... letter in her hand. All pretence of incredulity was gone. She began to walk stormily up and down. Doris sank back in her chair, watching her, conscious of the most strangely mingled feelings, a touch of womanish triumph indeed, a pleasing sense of retribution, but, welling up through it, something profound and tender. If he should ever write such a letter to a stranger, while ...
— A Great Success • Mrs Humphry Ward
... sounded sadly over the sea. Even to the mere spectator it was a tragic moment when the tribe was thus orphaned of its best men, and one could not help being revolted by the whole proceeding. It was not womanish pity for the men who were taken off to work, but regret for the consequent disappearance of immemorial forms of tribal life. Next day the beach was empty. Old men and women crossed over to the yam-fields, the little children played as usual, but the gay shouts were silent, ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser
... man was small and out of keeping with his height, his breadth, and his fleshy face: his smiles, his eyes, his buttons, his tiny cap, which would hardly keep on his big, closely-cropped head. When he talked and smiled there was something womanish, timid, and meek about his puffy, shaven face and his ...
— The Witch and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... bise was still blowing, and Julie, shivering, drew her wrap closer round her. Her heart pined for Como and the south; perhaps for the little Duchess, who spoiled and petted her in the common, womanish ways. ...
— Lady Rose's Daughter • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... day the Athenians celebrate, was then first instituted by Theseus. For he took not with him the full number of virgins which by lot were to be carried away, but selected two youths of his acquaintance, of fair and womanish faces, but of a manly and forward spirit, and having, by frequent baths, and avoiding the heat and scorching of the sun, with a constant use of all the ointments and washes and dresses that serve to the adorning of the head or smoothing the skin or improving the complexion, ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... after the other with his eyes, and found no welcome in any, the smile on his own face flickering and fading and perishing, meanwhile; then he dropped his gaze, the muscles of his face began to twitch, and he put up his hand to cover this womanish sign ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... virtuous Man so many Enemies of the contrary Party. I am obliged to conceal all I know of Tom the Bounteous, who lends at the ordinary Interest, to give Men of less Fortune Opportunities of making greater Advantages. He conceals, under a rough Air and distant Behaviour, a bleeding Compassion and womanish Tenderness. This is governed by the most exact Circumspection, that there is no Industry wanting in the Person whom he is to serve, and that he is guilty of no improper Expences. This I know of Tom, but who dare say it of so known a Tory? The same Care I was forced to use some time ago ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... manner? you will say. Why, as a master has over his slave, a general over his army, a father over his son. If that part of the soul which I have called soft behaves disgracefully, if it gives itself up to lamentations and womanish tears, then let it be restrained, and committed to the care of friends and relations, for we often see those persons brought to order by shame, whom no reasons can influence. Therefore, we should confine those feelings, like our servants, in safe custody, and almost ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... was even surprised that it had not occurred to him before. Her sisters were neither ugly nor proud (Tishy, indeed, was almost touchingly delicate and timid, with exceedingly pretty points, yet with a little appealing, old-womanish look, as if, small—very small—as she was, she was afraid she shouldn't grow any more); but her mother, like the mother in the fairy-tale, was a femme forte. Madame de Brives could do nothing for Dora, not absolutely because she was too plain, but because she would never lend herself, and that ...
— A London Life; The Patagonia; The Liar; Mrs. Temperly • Henry James
... of Isabella; but Sir Thomas, aware of danger on this head, early impressed them with some notion of consanguinity, and intimated the impossibility of their union. This prohibition, settling on a womanish fancy, might naturally have been expected to operate in a manner the reverse of his intention. Yet we do not find from history that Isabella ever cherished for him any other sentiments than those arising from a ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... Tis our Kings motion, and we shall not seeme To worst eies womanish, though we change thus soone Never so great grudge for ...
— Bussy D'Ambois and The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois • George Chapman
... steps under the watchful side glance. It worked. One of Pete's slim, womanish hands fluttered up in a ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... bite, set for shame and shawing and warning and example before the congregation, and I wad say to the minister, 'Lift voice against them and spare not!' And I wad be there the day and in my seat, though my heart o' flesh was like to break!" His hand fell again heavily upon the board. "Sae weak and womanish is thae time we live in!" He flashed at his great-nephew. "Sae poetical! It wasna sae when the Malignants drove us and we fled to the hills and were fed on the muirs with the word of the Lord! It wasna sae in the time when Gawin ...
— Foes • Mary Johnston
... are more blamable than those which are committed through anger. For he who is excited by anger seems to turn away from reason with a certain pain and unconscious contraction; but he who offends through desire, being overpowered by pleasure, seems to be in a manner more intemperate and more womanish in his offences. Rightly, then, and in a way worthy of philosophy, he said that the offence which is committed with pleasure is more blamable than that which is committed with pain; and on the whole the one ...
— Thoughts of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus • Marcus Aurelius Antoninus
... laugh at all our womanish fears upon the occasion of the storm, telling me it was nothing but what was very ordinary in those seas, but that they had harbours on every coast so near that they were seldom in danger of being lost indeed. "For," says he, "if they cannot fetch one ...
— The Fortunate Mistress (Parts 1 and 2) • Daniel Defoe
... the vision of him that night, as, leaning from her window, she looked out beyond the pines: the little lonely ship amid the waste of waters; his beautiful, almost womanish, face, and the gentle dreamy eyes with their haunting suggestion ...
— All Roads Lead to Calvary • Jerome K. Jerome
... boys at work down there on the new church," he went on. His handsome boyish face was flushing. The delicate, smooth, whiskerless skin was almost womanish in its texture, and betrayed almost every emotion stirring behind it. "Allan Dy came along with my mail. When I'd read it I felt I had to come and tell you the news right away. You see, I had to tell someone, and wanted you—two to be the first ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum
... indeed good cause to smile. By the standards of his day Jesse did not look like a man at all. He was small and very slender and womanish of body and, true to the traditions of young ministers, wore a long black coat and a narrow black string tie. The neighbors were amused when they saw him, after the years away, and they were even more amused when they saw the woman he had married in ...
— Winesburg, Ohio • Sherwood Anderson
... hundred had not come. And, do you know, there is one thing that puzzles me. It came by post from New York in a hair-pin box, and done up in about a thousand papers-at least there were six—so I suppose Russell sent to some one in the city to do it for him; but the whole thing was awfully womanish. The address was in the most correct, copy-book-y handwriting, every point turned just so, every loop according to rule. But it came just in the nick of time, and saved me and your money. Bless your heart, how are ...
— Bessie Bradford's Prize • Joanna H. Mathews
... how it is in these matters, Miles—somehow, I scarce know why myself, but somehow I feel bloody womanish this evening." ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper
... contrary, 'twas in proper form, and in meet and seemly sort, that Gisippus gave her to Titus. And others, peradventure, will say that 'twas by one to whom such office belonged not that she was bestowed in marriage. Nay, but this is but vain and womanish querulousness, and comes of scant consideration. Know we not, then, that Fortune varies according to circumstances her methods and her means of disposing events to their predetermined ends? What matters ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio
... first little daughter, Elizabeth. Eight months after, as he told a friend, she already said good-bye to him, to go to Christ, through death to life; and he was forced to marvel how sick at heart, nay, almost womanish, he felt at her departure. In May 1529 he was comforted to some extent by the birth of a little Magdalene or Lenchen (Lena). Then followed the boys: Martin in 1531, and Paul in 1533. The former was born ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin
... I recognized Dr. Harlowe, the excellent and beloved physician. When I called him by name, as he stood by the bed, counting my languid pulse, the good man turned aside his head to hide the womanish tears that moistened his cheeks. Then looking down on me with a benignant smile, he said, smoothing my hair on my forehead, as if I were ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... it be this, that I sometimes had the idea in a rough womanish sort of way and then you polished it up till it ...
— What Every Woman Knows • James M. Barrie
... Wellesley, with a forced smile, "she may have had a womanish feeling of revenge, knowing that Wallingford and myself had—well, both paid a good deal of attention to Mrs. Saumarez. But there were other reasons—Mrs. Mallett has few friends in the town; I was her medical attendant, and ...
— In the Mayor's Parlour • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher
... Derrick, "it's a woman's word; but I am in a womanish sort of humor. I am going to be—I suppose, ...
— That Lass O' Lowrie's - 1877 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... me now for my writing. There are no idlers in the neighborhood of Casa Grande. The days are becoming incredibly long, but they still seem over-short for all there is to do. The men are much too busy on the land to give material thought to any thing so womanish as a kitchen-garden. So I have my own garden to see to. And sometimes I work there until I'm almost ready to drop. On a couple of nights, recently, when it came watering-time, even these endless evenings had slipped into such darkness that ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer
... he said, also mimicking a fussy, womanish manner. "But I never get into the spirit of the thing until near Christmas Day. Then I run round and try to do ...
— Patty's Success • Carolyn Wells
... The next time I want to see where anybody is buried I will just go out to the cemetery instead of coming across that dreadful ocean. Oh, just to have one adventure before I go home!" she continued with a long sigh, "a real adventure with a real man in it—not a horrid, womanish Frenchman or a stolid, conceited Britisher, but a ...
— Golden Stories - A Selection of the Best Fiction by the Foremost Writers • Various
... would only be womanish vanity in me to pretend to be cold and scornful. No! Never! You deserve to find me as sincere as yourself. I do love you still, Tellheim, I love you still; ...
— Minna von Barnhelm • Gotthold Ephraim Lessing
... eyes but casting side glances at the newcomers, had turned her cup upside down and placed a nibbled bit of sugar beside it, and sat quietly in her armchair, though hoping to be offered another cup of tea. Ivanushka, sipping out of her saucer, looked with sly womanish eyes from under her brows ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... not heroes lying On sick-bed in a sickly sleep to dream: Witches before thee flying Of Trogach's fiery Plain the dwellers seem: They have beat down thy strength, Made thee captive at length, And in womanish folly away ...
— Heroic Romances of Ireland Volumes 1 and 2 Combined • A. H. Leahy
... heavy, leaden sleep, and immediately realising all that had happened on the previous day, I was positively amazed at my last night's SENTIMENTALITY with Liza, at all those "outcries of horror and pity." "To think of having such an attack of womanish hysteria, pah!" I concluded. And what did I thrust my address upon her for? What if she comes? Let her come, though; it doesn't matter.... But OBVIOUSLY, that was not now the chief and the most important ...
— Notes from the Underground • Feodor Dostoevsky
... purposes of decency."[1477] The Acholi, in Uganda, think it beneath masculine dignity to wear anything.[1478] The Vanyoro men are generally clothed in skins. The women, until marriage, wear nothing; after marriage, bark cloth. The Bari men never wear anything. They think it womanish to do so. The unmarried women wear a pendant of fringe behind and five or six iron bars six inches long, the whole three and a half inches broad, in front. Married women wear a fringe in front and ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... deplore the misfortune of the university as well as of the whole of Christendom, in that sophists had usurped the place of theologians, and slanderers the seat of Christian doctors. As for the silly letter prefixed to the decree, the reformer wrote, it is a feeble production full of womanish fury: "He pretends to the sole possession of wisdom. He contemns us. He is a Manichaean, a Montanist; he is mad. Let him be compelled by fire and flame." Who could refrain from derisive laughter at the unmanly and truly monkish weakness ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... upon the other, you hesitate, relying, I presume, on the protection of the Immortals, who have so many times preserved this republic in its greatest dangers. The aid of the Gods is not gained by prayers or womanish supplication. To those who watch, who act, who take counsel, wisely, all things turn out successful. Yield yourselves up to idleness and sloth, and in vain you shall implore the Gods—they are ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 2 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... naturally watched for any peculiar symptoms of genius in his children which might designate one of the various paths to wealth and fame, by which it would be most easy for the individual to ascend. Now it did occur that when Nicholas was yet in womanish attire, he showed a great partiality to a burning-glass, with which he contrived to do much mischief. He would burn the dog's nose as he slept in the sun before the door. His mother's gown showed proofs of his genius by ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat
... womanish character, a stubborn character, bestial, childish, animal, stupid, counterfeit, ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar
... showing his rubies and cat's-eyes to a party of Eurasian, or half-caste clerks, that are taking advantage of their master's absence from the godown to come out into the court to smoke a Manila cigarette and gossip. The mottled tortoise-shell comb in the vender's black hair, and his womanish draperies, ...
— Tales of the Malayan Coast - From Penang to the Philippines • Rounsevelle Wildman
... answered Mershone, slowly, "I do not care a continental what they do to me, for my life will be a blank without Louise. But I really see no reason to despair, despite your womanish croakings. All seems to be going nicely and just ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces in Society • Edith Van Dyne
... slight shrug of contempt at such womanish weakness, ran to his assistance. He straightened the Easterner out and placed his folded coat under his head. "He'll come around in a minute," he muttered. He glanced toward the gulch and then back ...
— The Claim Jumpers • Stewart Edward White
... with whom she had lived one whole season—the youth with soft down gleaming on his bare breast, with skin browned by the sun's rays, with every limb full of vibrating life? At this present hour he seemed fleshless; his hair had fallen away from him, and all his virility had withered within that womanish gown, ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola
... need not have feared that their work of defence would be impeded by her waitings and tears. There was not a cry; there was not a tear. Those who dared to look in her face saw that the fires of vengeance were consuming all that was womanish in Deesha's nature. She was the soldier to whom, under Dessalines, the successful defence of Le Zephyr was mainly owing. Dessalines gave the orders, and superintended the arrangements, which she, with a frantic courage, executed. From that hour to the ...
— The Hour and the Man - An Historical Romance • Harriet Martineau
... told you that secret. I was with Teague the Smith when he discovered it. . . . But he discovered it too late; and, besides, he was a dreamer, and used it only to make crosses and charms and womanish ornaments." ...
— News from the Duchy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... showed little of womanish weakness. To the jargon of a dozen voices—a jargon that sounded like the yelping and barking of a pack of dogs—she opposed a cold and dignified silence. A dozen hands reached out to touch her, as they ...
— The Lion's Brood • Duffield Osborne
... nose and thin lips, his face indicated weakness. His dark-gray eyes had in them either a great deal of worry or undisguised fear. As he took the chair pointed out to him, he was being catalogued by Bristow as showing too much uncertainty, even a womanish timidity. Bristow noticed also that his thick, soft blond hair was carefully parted and brushed, and that his fingers were ...
— The Winning Clue • James Hay, Jr.
... roused the rest of the party, and no doubt scared the cougar, for his womanish screech was not repeated. Then Jones got up and gatherered his blankets ...
— The Last of the Plainsmen • Zane Grey
... and see me again, she promised, and then I shall talk with her more. I couldn't get at her through the people yesterday. She is very nice, gentle-looking, cheerful, respectable sort of—single-womanish person (decidedly single) of the olden type; very small, slim, quiet, with the nearest approach to a poky bonnet possible in this sinful generation. I, in my confusion, did not glance at her petticoats, but, judging a priori, I should ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... the report keep fresh As long as flowers on graves." "We are only like dead walls or vaulted graves, That, ruined, yield no echo. O this gloomy world! In what a shadow or deep pit of darkness Doth womanish ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... a long silence: very strained. At last the Free Trader pulled out a pipe and filled it at leisure, with a light sort of womanish tobacco, and just as he struck a match the Protectionist shouted out, "No you don't! This ain't a smoking compartment. I object!" The Free Trader said, "O! that's how it is, is it?" The Protectionist answered in a lower voice and surly, ...
— On Nothing & Kindred Subjects • Hilaire Belloc
... have warned ladies against this essentially womanish tendency to the sentimental. "It is an odious onion, dear lady," he would say, holding both her hands in his. If men in his presence talked sentimentally to ladies he was so irritated that he soon found a pretext for leaving the room. "Yet let it not be thought," ...
— Tommy and Grizel • J.M. Barrie
... Midas, as a punishment for his affront to the god Pan. For I am now in a humour to act awhile the sophist, yet not of that sort who undertake the drudgery of tyrannizing over school boys, and teach a more than womanish knack of brawling; but in imitation of those ancient ones, who to avoid the scandalous epithet of wise, preferred this title of sophists; the task of these was to celebrate the worth of gods and heroes. Prepare therefore to be entertained with a panegyrick, yet not upon Hercules, ...
— In Praise of Folly - Illustrated with Many Curious Cuts • Desiderius Erasmus
... them all!" she burst out. "There isn't one I don't despise for his sickening, foppish, womanish airs." ...
— Tales of Trail and Town • Bret Harte
... raising the offer as he saw the frown on the brow of the Doctor deepen. "Yes, sir, I will even say the latter sum, which possibly will not be too much for your trouble and care; and we will forget the womanish plan of poor Betsey in relation to the two scholarships and the charity. Five thousand pounds down, Doctor, for yourself, and the subject of ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... of Lady Macbeth evidently is to wish that no womanish tenderness, or conscientious remorse, may hinder her purpose from proceeding to effect; but neither this, nor indeed any other sense, is expressed by the present reading, and, therefore, it cannot be doubted that ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... skull, above the temple; from this the brain protruded in bosses, dropping off in flakes and strings. I had not previously known one could get on, even in this unsatisfactory fashion, with so little brain. One of my men, whom I knew for a womanish fellow, asked if he should put his bayonet through him. Inexpressibly shocked by the cold-blooded proposal, I told him I thought not; it was unusual, and ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce
... Madonna young man—a phrase it appears he'd picked up from Lord Cromer, who used to apply it to every new arrival from the Foreign Office—Armstrong was once his military secretary. I was surprised to hear he thought you womanish—I spoke of your fencing, riding,—was just going to add 'hockey,' and 'croquet': then remembered they might be thought feminine pastimes, so referred to your swimming. Military men always respect a good swimmer; I fancy because many of ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... wanting of them. They looked very womanish. I'm a deal more purpose-like without them. Then I went to a first-class tailor-man and he fit me out with the suit I'm wearing. He said it was 'the correct thing for land or water.' What dost thou ...
— An Orkney Maid • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... not very womanish," said the colonel, as she gave him his task. "Or is this yours? It is not like that of those verses on Malvern hills that you copied out for me, the only ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... stood still, evidently puzzled. She called to him to encourage him, but he dropped his tail and returned to his shed, where he curled himself up in a comfortable corner, like a dog that was not going to be troubled by womanish fancies. The woman went round the cabin, and the pig-stye, and the patch of meagre gooseberry-bushes, throwing the uncertain torch-light on every dark hole or corner; but no one was to be seen. She was none ...
— A Loose End and Other Stories • S. Elizabeth Hall
... felt again the little form and face of the wailing child; thought of the frightful struggle against the wind and snow; of the touch of the little hands and feet; of her pretty prattle and gleeful laughter; then of her helpful and oddly-womanish ways as she grew older; of the fresh, clear voice calling him "pap" and ordering him about with a roguish air; of her beauty now, when for the first time he had begun to hope that she might be something ...
— A Little Norsk; Or, Ol' Pap's Flaxen • Hamlin Garland
... art of the author is very observable in his conduct of the subalterns. They discover many passages essential to the story, which could not be well brought to light but by their naivete and simplicity. In particular, the womanish terror and foibles of Bianca, in the last chapter, conduce essentially towards advancing ...
— The Castle of Otranto • Horace Walpole
... were very frequent during the witch-trials. How would it rejoice me if, upon contemplating this present age, I could exclaim with my whole heart, "What progression—infinite progression—in manners and humanity!" But, alas! our modern laws, with their womanish feebleness, and sentimental whimperings, sin quite as much against a lofty and noble justice as those of earlier times by their tyrannical and cannibal ferocity. And yet now, as then, conscience is appealed to as the excuse for all. O conscience, conscience! how ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... bowed head from his hands, his soft, dark, womanish eyes lighting up and his sallow young face flushing. "God bless her,—no!" he said. "Her life has not been free from thorns, even so far, and she has not often cried ...
— Vagabondia - 1884 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... possible ways even before they surround him, and fortify him against them. Intentionally to expose him to temptation in order to prove his strength, is devilish; and, on the other hand, to guard him against the chance of dangerous temptation, to wrap him in cotton (as the proverb says), is womanish, ridiculous, fruitless, and much more dangerous; for temptation comes not alone from without, but quite as often from within, and secret inclination seeks and creates for itself the opportunity for its gratification, often perhaps an unnatural one. The truly preventive activity ...
— Pedagogics as a System • Karl Rosenkranz
... about three or four and thirty years of age, in whom Adrian instantly recognised Walter de Montreal. This celebrated knight was scarcely of the personal appearance which might have corresponded with the terror his name generally excited. His face was handsome, almost to the extreme of womanish delicacy. His fair hair waved long and freely over a white and unwrinkled forehead: the life of a camp and the suns of Italy had but little embrowned his clear and healthful complexion, which retained much of the bloom of youth. His features were aquiline ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... and the decrees of the Fathers. There are now not a few persons who preach and read about Christ with the object of moving the human affections to sympathise with Christ, to indignation against the Jews, and other childish and womanish ...
— Concerning Christian Liberty - With Letter Of Martin Luther To Pope Leo X. • Martin Luther
... Duchess by the deathbed of the Duke, her husband. Her attendance here is necessary, but it contributes little to the development of her character. We have learned to know her, and expect neither womanish tears nor signs of affection at a crisis which touches her heart less than her self-love. Webster, among his other excellent qualities, knew how to support character by reticence. Vittoria's silence in this ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... who understood the value of that art. Edwin could see that Dr Heve's life was a series of little habits which would never allow themselves to be interfered with by any large interest, and he despised the man's womanish smile. Nevertheless his new respect for him did not weaken; he decided that he was a very decent fellow in his way, and he was more impressed than he would admit by the amount of work that the doctor had for years been ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... dropped, "and you can believe, Maria Otway, that if I had it to do over again, the purple frock would have gone in the fire before she should ever have worn it. Poor little darling, the girls made fun of it because it was so ugly and old-womanish. I could have spared her feelings and I didn't. I have that purple frock now," she went on. "I kept it to remind me not to hurt the feelings of one of His little ones when there was no need to." The tears were running down Mrs. Hunt's cheeks by ...
— Little Maid Marian • Amy E. Blanchard
... oath of the parties to the suit, and the presiding judges shall not permit either of them to use an oath for the sake of persuading, nor to call down curses on himself and his race, nor to use unseemly supplications or womanish laments. But they shall ever be teaching and learning what is just in auspicious words; and he who does otherwise shall be supposed to speak beside the point, and the judges shall again bring him back to the question ...
— Laws • Plato
... him up from his cradle. Yet deep in his surly old heart there lurked a certain grudging affection for him notwithstanding. The boy had a winning way with him, and but for his hatred of Victor, who was soft and womanish, but extremely tenacious, Marshall would have liked to have had a hand in his upbringing. As it was, he could only look on from afar and condemn the vagaries of "that dratted boy," prophesying disaster whenever he saw him and hoping ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell
... imagined himself to have said. A croaking sound in his throat, which was all he could do by way of speech, brought the step to his bedside. A young face, lightly bearded, and gaunt almost as his own, bent over him. Large, black eyes rested on his; a hand with womanish nails placed its fingers ...
— The Desert and The Sown • Mary Hallock Foote
... nothing of it; before his mental vision loomed—exclusively—the figure of a slim and strangely handsome young man, having jet black hair, lustreless, a face of uniform ivory hue, long dark eyes wherein lurked lambent fires, and a womanish grace expressed in his whole bearing and emphasised by his long white hands. Upon a finger of the left hand gleamed a ...
— Brood of the Witch-Queen • Sax Rohmer
... and saw that her resolution was the fruit of no transient womanish enthusiasm which would give way under the iron hand of difficulty. Her beautiful features, naturally statuesque in their noble outlines, seemed transformed into marble by the rigidity of her expression. The face in which he looked was ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon
... advance that Christianity is the "corn of wheat" which has been dead for 1800 years, but at length will bear fruit; and that Mahometanism is the manly religion, and existing Christianity the womanish. ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... and wisdom; for this world in itself is but a painful and uneasy place of residence, and lasting happiness, at least to the self-conscious, comes only from within. Now Thoreau's content and ecstasy in living was, we may say, like a plant that he had watered and tended with womanish solicitude; for there is apt to be something unmanly, something almost dastardly, in a life that does not move with dash and freedom, and that fears the bracing contact of the world. In one word, Thoreau was a skulker. He did not wish virtue to go out of him among his fellow-men, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... He is not ill-looking; he has hair of a ruddy gold, which naturally curls, and his eyes are dark, a combination which I always regard as the mark of some congenital deficiency, physical or moral; his features are irregular, but pleasing; the nose perhaps a little short, and the mouth a little womanish; his address is excellent, and he can express himself with point. But to pierce below these externals is to come on a vacuity of any sterling quality, a deliquescence of the moral nature, a frivolity and inconsequence of purpose that mark the nearly perfect fruit ...
— Prince Otto • Robert Louis Stevenson
... which he inevitably will do. Your Lucien is not a poet, he has the poetic temper; he dreams, he does not think; he spends himself in emotion, he does not create. He is, in fact—permit me to say it —a womanish creature that loves to shine, the Frenchman's great failing. Lucien will always sacrifice his best friend for the pleasure of displaying his own wit. He would not hesitate to sign a pact with the Devil to-morrow if so he might secure a few ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... She played at pharaoh two or three times at Princess Craon's, where she cheats horse and foot. She is really entertaining: I have been reading her works, which she lends out in manuscript, but they are too womanish: I like few of her performances. I forgot to tell you a good answer of Lady Pomfret to Mr. ——, who asked her if she did not approve Platonic love? "Lord, sir," says she, "I am sure any one that knows me never heard that I had any love ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole
... story, rightly looked at; on the Italian side rugged adventure, strong passion, blasphemy, vice, penitence, pure ice, holy snow, soaring direct at heaven. On the Dutch side, all on a humble scale and womanish, but ever green. And as a pathway parts the ice towers of Grindelwald, aspiring to the sky, from its little sunny braes, so here is ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... deliberations of midwives. Washington was harassed of course by all this, but he did not stay his purpose, and as soon as he knew that Clinton actually had marched, he broke camp at Valley Forge and started in pursuit. There were more councils of an old-womanish character, but finally Washington took the matter into his own hands, and ordered forth a strong detachment to attack the British rear-guard. They set out on the 25th, and as Lee, to whom the command belonged, did not care to go, ...
— George Washington, Vol. I • Henry Cabot Lodge
... but it's hard to get into new ways." They said this, each with an indulgent smile at her weakness, in Lady Markland's absence. The lawyer had a great respect for her, and the butler venerated his mistress who was very capable in her own house, but they smiled at her womanish exaggeration, all ...
— A Country Gentleman and his Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... Cato say this: The help of the gods is not obtained by idle vows and womanish complaints; 'tis by vigilance, labour, and repeated endeavours that all things succeed according to our wishes and designs. If a man in time of need and danger is negligent, heartless, and lazy, in vain he implores ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... anxiety of the lady's spirits occasioned such an effervescence of blood, as threw her into, so violent a fever, that her life was despaired of, till a letter came from Mr. Dryden, reproving her for her womanish credulity, and assuring her, that her child was well, which recovered her spirits, and in six weeks after she received an ecclaircissement-of the whole affair. Mr. Dryden, either thro' fear of being reckoned superstitious, ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. III • Theophilus Cibber
... note, and now I am wondering to myself whether you will think me very childish or womanish, or silly enough to be both together (I know your thoughts upon certain parallel subjects), if I go on to do my begging fully. I hear that you are going to Mr. Wordsworth's—to Rydal Mount—and I want you to ask for yourself, ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... although the soft-voiced man with the small, womanish hands spoke to him often, and always kindly. Jim never forgot that he had called him friend. The memory of it stayed with him, like the kiss of a first love that lingers long after love is dead. Most of the men were afraid ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 23, October, 1891 • Various
... and gentlemen, I have to propose the everlasting health and welfare of our host, who should have been our honoured guest but for that persistent pertinacity he exhibited in the matter, and which he does himself the injustice to call womanish. But I am sure, ladies and gentlemen, no one but himself ever accused our esteemed host of being womanish, and when we look upon the high standing he has achieved in our University, the honour he confers on his Alma Mater by his scholarly attainments and the gentlemanly character he has won ...
— Laura Secord, the heroine of 1812. - A Drama. And Other Poems. • Sarah Anne Curzon
... collapse in which Weldon had struggled back into camp. The battle, the half-dressed wounds, the nerve-racking journey, the watching the slow approach of death and the accepting the fact of the loss of a valued friend: all these were enough to wreck the vitality of a man. With an almost womanish tenderness, Carew had brought his friend back to the tent, and made him over to the care of Paddy who gave up all things else, for the sake of his little Canuck. All that afternoon and night, Weldon lay passive, inert, while Paddy bathed him, fed him, ...
— On the Firing Line • Anna Chapin Ray and Hamilton Brock Fuller
... prodigy, if they stammer, or repeat even a syllable in the Canon of the Mass,[16] though this may be a natural defect of the tongue, or an accident, and is not a sin. Again, there is no priest who does not confess that he was distracted, or failed to read his Preparatoria, or other old-womanish trifles of the kind. There was one who, even when he was at the altar celebrating, called a priest three times and confessed that something had happened. Indeed, I have seen these endless jests of the devil taken by many so seriously that they almost lost their minds. And yet the fact that they ...
— Works of Martin Luther - With Introductions and Notes (Volume I) • Martin Luther
... the matters which I engaged to prove in IV:xviii., whereby it is plain that the law against the slaughtering of animals is founded rather on vain superstition and womanish pity than on sound reason. The rational quest of what is useful to us further teaches us the necessity of associating ourselves with our fellow men, but - not with beasts, or things, whose nature is different from our own; we have the ...
— Ethica Ordine Geometrico Demonstrata - Part I: Concerning God • Benedict de Spinoza
... benefactress silenced me gratitude would not allow me to persevere for the moment. But from what I had already seen of Her Majesty the Queen, I was too much interested to lose sight of my object,—not, let me be believed, from idle womanish curiosity, but from that real, strong, personal interest which I, in common with all who ever had the honour of being in her presence, felt for that much-injured, most ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 3 • Madame du Hausset, and of an Unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe
... Let it be who it is; for Romans now 80 Have thews and limbs like to their ancestors; But, woe the while! our fathers' minds are dead, And we are govern'd with our mothers' spirits; Our yoke and sufferance show us womanish. ...
— The New Hudson Shakespeare: Julius Caesar • William Shakespeare
... streets, but far away from either road or path, on the rocky slopes of Libanus. It was dedicated to a shameful goddess, the goddess Aphrodite. A school of wickedness was this place for all such profligate persons as had ruined their bodies by excessive luxury. The men there were soft and womanish—men no longer; the dignity of their sex they rejected; with impure lust they thought to honour the deity. Criminal intercourse with women, secret pollutions, disgraceful and nameless deeds, were practised in the temple, where ...
— History of Phoenicia • George Rawlinson
... he not regard himself as a Brahmana? This, however, surpriseth me greatly that though thou leadest the Pandavas away from the path of the wise, they yet regard thee as honest. Or, perhaps, this is scarcely a matter of surprise in respect of those that have thee, O Bharata, womanish in disposition and bent down with age, for ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Part 2 • Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa
... now, to account for her kindness to Mr. Williams in her visit to him; which was only to get out of him what she could. Why, Mrs. Jewkes, said I, is all this fishing about for something, where there is nothing, if there be an end of your watchments, as you call them? Nothing, said she, but womanish curiosity, I'll assure you; for one is naturally led to find out matters, where there is such privacy intended. Well, said I, pray let me know what he has said; and then I'll give you an answer to ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson
... day is this! what a day is this!" said the poor mother, her womanish affliction already exhausted by sobs and tears, and now almost lost in terror for the state in which she beheld her husband"O, what an hour is this! and naebody to help a poor lone womanO, gudemither, could ye but speak a word to him!wad ye ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... bathing here from boats with steps, like those at Malta, is sensible enough. Fine bold swimmers struck out well beside me in the water while I had my morning dip from the yawl. As for the epicene bathing—masculine women and womanish males who partake of "sea-bathing by machinery"—separate machines, but that is ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor
... who took an instant dislike to this softly smiling fellow with the womanish voice and gentle ways. ...
— Frank Merriwell Down South • Burt L. Standish
... enough,—being naturally a poor, weak, womanish sort of man. "Yes, yes, I know," says he. "You have come to tell me that your wonderfully clever man, who has bored holes in my second-floor partition, has made a mistake, and is off the scent of the scoundrel who has stolen ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 6, April, 1858 • Various
... feeling I had first had in respect to it never came back again in its first force; and when I looked at it with the refreshment of rest in my own heart, and the brightness of the clean-washed earth and heaven about it and above it, I could afford to smile at the womanish foreboding and chill ...
— In Direst Peril • David Christie Murray
... always what I said about hens. They are such pesky womanish things that it's beneath the dignity of a man to bother with 'em. I haven't had one on the place for twenty years. We'll just turn this rooster loose with them and we can go on home in peace," said Uncle Cradd as he peered around the side of the coach while father's mild face appeared ...
— The Golden Bird • Maria Thompson Daviess
... come about the gas bill," she said at length, with an old-womanish air, "but it's no use. Father is out, and I have only sixpence. It's my own, but you can have it if you promise to take ...
— The Empire Annual for Girls, 1911 • Various
... against me these ten years has certainly the best parts, and the most knowledge. He is a scoundrel, but he is a scoundrel of a higher class than Chesterfield. Chesterfield is a little, tea-table scoundrel, that tells little womanish lies to make quarrels in families: and tries to make women lose their reputations, and make their husbands beat them, without any object but to give himself airs; as if anybody could believe a woman could like a ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... present at many, sir," said I—"some bad enough, too; and, I confess, I have been less womanish and weak beholding them than I felt this morning, witnessing your kindness to those ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844 • Various
... or any of the other womanish adjectives." Eugene pauses, for Marcia comes to meet them and Mr. Wilmarth ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... friends. Boris has been orderly to my husband for a very long time. We do not share any of his too-modern ideas, and there were many discussions on the duty of soldiers at the time of the massacres. I reproached him with being as womanish as we were in going down on his knees to the general behind Natacha and me, when it became necessary to kill all those poor moujiks of Presnia. It was not his role. A soldier is a soldier. My husband raised him roughly and ordered him, for his pains, to march ...
— The Secret of the Night • Gaston Leroux
... nodded. "You peel like a fighting man, you've a tidy arm an' a goodish spread o' shoulder, likewise your legs is clean an' straight, but your skin's womanish, Barnabas, womanish, an' your muscles soft wi' books. So, lad!—are ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... the industry of M. Manas recovered, relates to this daughter of Marcus, executed by Caracalla. Her name, as appears from Fronto, as well as from Dion, was Cornificia. When commanded to choose the kind of death she was to suffer, she burst into womanish tears; but remembering her father Marcus, she thus spoke:—"O my hapless soul, (... animula,) now imprisoned in the body, burst forth! be free! show them, however reluctant to believe it, that thou art the ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... even then she might have electrified that woman's club by making the revelation which she had won to-night and reading this same selection from her own book. He had not read Martha Wallingford's Hearts Astray. He thought that the title was enough for him. He knew that it must be one of the womanish, hysterical, sentimental type of things which he despised. But Margaret had been so modest that she had held back from the turning on the search-light of her own greater glory. She had made the effort which had resulted so disastrously to obtain a lesser one, and he had condemned ...
— The Butterfly House • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... confidential views on the questions in which he took so deep an interest. One final remark must be hazarded about the most remarkable point after all in General Gordon's personality. I refer to his voice. It was singularly sweet, and for a man modulated in a very low tone, but there was nothing womanish about it, as was the case with his able contemporary Sir Bartle Frere, whose voice was distinctly feminine in its timbre. I know of no other way to describe it than to say that it seemed to me to express ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume I • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... her mind. The game—in those profounder, rarer aspects which alone dignify it—is not for women. I believe that the game of cards to teach them philosophy under defeat, respect for the inevitable and a cheerful manipulation of such trifling good fortune as may befall—instead of that wild, womanish demand for all or nothing—has yet to be invented. I predict of this game, moreover, if ever it be found, that it will be a game at which two, at least, must play. Rarely have I known a woman, however rigid her integrity otherwise, ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... its arduous study, and its growing fame, and Guy, with the delicious task of educating his supple intellect to my ideas, and penetrating his nature with my personality. Only the loftiness of my ideal saved it from making womanish shipwreck on this episode in its austere ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 2 • Various
... died before it attained to man's estate. Number two was very intelligent and endowed with every talent, but even as a boy exhibited perverse tendencies. He was very handsome, had soft, dark hair, and a delicate, womanish complexion. His mother dressed him in velvet, and idolized him. He never did anything useful, but went about in fine company and spent large sums of money. In his fortieth year he died suddenly, a physical and moral wreck. The announcement of the death gave a stroke ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... womanish presentiments," replied Spada, "and count firmly upon another volume; I see a variety of reasons why my life should be prolonged to within a few pages of the end; indeed, I permit myself to expect resurrection in a sequel, or second part. You will scarce suggest that there can be any ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... years old, and began to look a little womanish, for I was mighty grave and humble, very mannerly, and as I had often heard the ladies say I was pretty, and would be a very handsome woman, so you may be sure that hearing them say so made me not a little proud. However, that pride had no ill effect upon ...
— The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders &c. • Daniel Defoe
... the King of the world shall raise us up, who have died for his laws, unto everlasting life." So in succession bear testimony the seven sons of one mother, herself the bravest of them all. "She exhorted every one of them in her own language, filled with courageous spirit; and stirring up her womanish thoughts with a manly courage, she said unto them: 'I cannot tell how ye came into my womb: for I neither gave you breath nor life, neither was it I that formed the members of every one of you. But doubtless the Creator of the world who ...
— The Chief End of Man • George S. Merriam
... soldier whom I did not stay to see. He has been rehabilitated, however, by an age which does not fear the imputation of paradox, and a marble statue of him ornaments the street in front of his house. To interpret him according to this image—a womanish figure in a long robe and a turban, with big bare arms and a dramatic pose—would be to think of him as a kind of truculent sultana. He wore the dress of his period, but his spirit was very modern; he was a Vanderbilt or a Rothschild ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James
... her. But at Haggart it had been an impulse of temper, and he had taken it seriously. How the wound had rankled, all the afternoon, while she was chattering to the Royalties! And as she jumped on the pedestal, and saw his face of horror, there was the typical womanish triumph that she had made him feel—would ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... held, to suit the sound to European capacity,—showing that in this, likewise, he possessed a genuine American element of character. Lafayette thought much of him, used his pen freely, and listened to his advice. The Marquis, warm-hearted, honest, but endowed with little judgment and a womanish vanity, was trying to make himself the Washington of a French federative republic, and felt happy in having secured the experienced services of Mr. Paine. He wrote to his great master,—"'Common Sense' is writing a book for you, and there you will see a part of my adventures. Liberty is ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... dull out of love for the other, else they cannot unite to form a point. Let the love of two be the untroubled unity of the man and of the woman of purest essence, so that the man shall admit nothing womanish, and the woman nothing mannish into her being; else they will become a puzzling ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... possible, not to go out, and to put off the meeting of the Senate; but if he paid no regard to her dreams, she urged him to inquire by other modes of divination and by sacrifices about the future. Caesar also, as it seems, had some suspicion and fear; for he had never before detected in Calpurnia any womanish superstition, and now he saw that she was much disturbed. And when the seers also after sacrificing many victims reported to him that the omens were unfavourable, he determined to send ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch
... was the origin of the war with the Amazons; and it seems to have been carried on in no feeble or womanish spirit, for they never could have encamped in the city nor have fought a battle close to the Pnyx and the Museum unless they had conquered the rest of the country, so as to be able to approach the city safely. It is hard to believe, as Hellanikus relates, that they crossed the Cimmerian ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch |
