"Winsome" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... there was a reverence for bleeding, at this time there was no search for what came. That which was winsome was unwinding and a clutter a single clutter showed the black white. It was so cautious and the reason why was that it was clear there had been here. All this was mightily stirring and littleness any littleness was engaged in spilling. Was there enough there ...
— Matisse Picasso and Gertrude Stein - With Two Shorter Stories • Gertrude Stein
... winsome lass, a bonny lass was she, As ever climbed the mountain-side, or tripped aboon the lea; She wore nae gold, nae jewels bright, nor silk nor satin rare, But just the plaidie that a queen might well ...
— Man Size • William MacLeod Raine
... tutor in Greek and Latin at nine years of age, and even then began to write verse. At ten years of age his father had the lad's portrait painted by that rare and thrifty Dutchman, Cornelius Jansen. We have this picture now, and it reveals the pale, grave, winsome face with the flowing curls that we so ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... that Walter would sometime marry; but she put the time far off as an evil day, and kept the subject under ban. None of her neighbors who had pretty daughters were encouraged to visit her on intimate terms. She almost frowned upon every winsome face that crossed her threshold when Walter was at home. So absorbing was this feeling, that she was not aware of its existence, but watched her son by a sort of instinct. Her conduct was not the result of cool calculation, and, if it could have been properly ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various
... time spring wanes, then fades the bloom of peach as well as plum! Who ever can like a pot of the olea be winsome! With ice thy purity will vie, vain their envy will be! In vain a laughing-stock people will try to make ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... little one back to its crib, place it in the bed and smilingly walk out of the room. After a transient outburst of crying, within a very few minutes you can return to find a perfect little angel, winsome and smiling, happy and satisfied, presenting an entirely different picture from the little culprit so recently incarcerated as a ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler
... this kind of thing I would wax rather bitter. Love, I said, was not a lasting thing; but knowledge told me that it was for those of beauty and winsome ways, and not for me. I was ever to be a lonely-hearted waif from end to end of the world of love—an ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... what was what fu' brawlie, There was a winsome wench and walie, That night enlisted in the core, (Lang after kenn'd on Carrick shore! For monie a beast to dead she shot, And perish'd monie a bonnie boat, And shook baith meikle corn and bear, And kept the country side in fear). Her ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... robe, is of matronly presence and pleasant face. And, as they talk together in low and earnest tones, they watch with loving eyes, from the cool shadows of the high area walls, the motions of the dark-eyed little Annia, a winsome Roman maiden of thirteen, as, perched upon a cage of pet pigeons, she gleefully teases with a swaying peacock plume now the fluttering pigeons and now the wary-eyed Dido, her ...
— Historic Boys - Their Endeavours, Their Achievements, and Their Times • Elbridge Streeter Brooks
... fire, with nothing to roast, and a large stone table, with nothing on it but broken dishes and empty mugs. So the firelight shone on an uncouth set of long hungry faces. Whether there was among them 'ae winsome wench and wawlie,' is more than I can say; but most probably there was, or the bogle would scarcely have been so zealous in the cause. Still he was late on his quest. The friars of a still nourishing ...
— Gryll Grange • Thomas Love Peacock
... shorter skirt than grown girls wear now, and a scarlet ribbon twisted among the long, dark braids that hung down her shoulders. She had travelled much in older countries than her own and to her eyes this girl had the air of a winsome little peasant that knew her simple station and was happy ...
— In the Border Country • Josephine Daskam Bacon
... they saw, For every sound they heard, The boy had noisy laugh or shout, The girl had winsome word— He questioned, never satisfied, ...
— On the Tree Top • Clara Doty Bates
... siller; dinna think it—na, lad, na! Oh, fine! I ken there's mony a supper for the bairns and me in yon bits metal; but I canna feel your siller as I feel your winsome smile—the drop in your young een—an' the sweet words ye gied me, in the sweet music o' your Soothern tongue, Gude bless ye!" (Where was her ice by this time?) "Gude bless ye! and I ...
— Christie Johnstone • Charles Reade
... we, Mrs. Davies?" But Mira was watching the Minneconjou maiden, forgetful even of the adulation in the eyes of the little five-year-old girl now licking the syrup off her slab of soldier bread and gazing adoringly up into the shrinking donor's face. Miss Minneconjou had caught sight of her own winsome face in a mirror that hung in a stained-wood frame opposite Mira's seat, and with no little shy giggling was revelling in the study of her charms even while busily munching the big biscuit in her slender brown hand. ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... behold The flowing tresses of the woman! Minerva, Pallas, what you will— A winsome creature, Greek ...
— The Golden Treasury of American Songs and Lyrics • Various
... is me for the merry life I led beyond the Bar, And a treble woe for my winsome wife That ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... evening's purple tinge, In winsome helplessness she lies; Two rose leaves, with a silken fringe, Shut softly on ...
— Lives of the Three Mrs. Judsons • Arabella W. Stuart
... might at once have made my escape; but at length I had friends, and could not think of leaving them. They were so charming, so full of winsome ways, that I must see more of them! I must know them better! "To-morrow," I said to myself with delight, "I shall see them again!" But from the moment there was silence in the huts until I fell asleep, I heard them whispering all about me, and knew ...
— Lilith • George MacDonald
... of the pioneer settlement and its people; while the heroine, Daffodil, is a winsome lass who develops into ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... or who would finally be victor, was undecided still, when suddenly the wild mocking laugh of madness sounded in the very ear of Nigel, and a voice shouted aloud, "Fight on, my bonny lord; see, see, how I care for your winsome bride," and the maniac form of Jean Roy rushed by through the thickest ranks of the men, swift, swift as the lightning track. A veil of silver tissue floated from her shoulder, and she seemed to be bearing something in her arms, but what, the ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar
... young wife, for Agnes Carpenter lay asleep beneath St. Peter's Church in old Leyden town. But her sister Juliana had come with her husband, George Morton, and their five children, Patience already a winsome lass of fifteen, soon to marry John Faunce and become mother of the last ruling Elder of ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... people? He means to be kind of course; but his words carry no comfort—how should they? Looking at him as he stands before her, she cannot but own that, if his face is proud and a trifle cold in its repose, there is something true and winsome in it. The keen eyes meet hers unflinchingly, the firm lips under the heavy moustache have not a harsh curve about them; it is a face with power in it, and some tenderness and passion too, under all its ...
— Only an Irish Girl • Mrs. Hungerford
... look after little Dino and to give him such care as he needed. True to their coarse nature and instincts, they began, as soon as their father had left, to send Dino out with his violin to earn not only his own bread but theirs; for they knew that his attractive little face and winsome manners would win for them more pennies than they could for themselves. This was true, but sometimes the pennies failed, and the days were dull, and people did not care for Dino's music; and then the brothers beat him and ill-treated him ...
— The Little Gold Miners of the Sierras and Other Stories • Various
... about that!" cried Tad Munson. "That's John Winsome's red calf. See! He's sunk clear to his backbone ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Cowboy Jack's • Laura Lee Hope
... that she was considerably below the usual height, but so perfectly proportioned that one utterly lost perspective. Even her thick, coarse dress could not conceal the exquisite mould in which she was cast. But her chief charm lay in a certain winsome vivacity, a willful waywardness, an ever- changing expression which showed her keenly alive and appreciative. Even now pure mischief looked out of ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach
... that a rarer young man would have been attracted by; indeed the delicacy of a young man may be tested by the sympathy he may feel for women when age has drawn a veil over, and put sexual promptings aside. Her bright teeth and eyes, the winsome little face, so glad, would have at once charmed and led any young man not so brutally young as Frank Escott. It would have pleased another to watch her, to wait on her, to listen to her rambling stories all so full of laughter and the sunshine of kindness and homely wit; it would have pleased ...
— Spring Days • George Moore
... and Blawenburgh, New Jersey, and in Brooklyn, Greenbush, and Chittenango, New York. He received the degree of Doctor of Divinity from Rutgers College, New Jersey, in 1864. John Van Nest gave his life to China. Goyn, a most winsome man and eloquent preacher, ministered with marked success to the churches of Niskayuna, Green Point, Rhinebeck, and Port Jervis, New York, and Paramus, New Jersey. He was for five years the Corresponding Secretary of the Board ...
— Forty Years in South China - The Life of Rev. John Van Nest Talmage, D.D. • Rev. John Gerardus Fagg
... eyes, and when they were finished to send them spinning across the wide garden, many of them to her favorite sister who lived far, far away, over beyond the hedge. You shall find in her all that is winsome, strange, fanciful, fantastic and irresistible in the eastern character and characteristic. She is first and best in lightsomeness of temper, for the eastern is known as essentially a tragic genius. She is perhaps the ...
— Adventures in the Arts - Informal Chapters on Painters, Vaudeville, and Poets • Marsden Hartley
... but the man who had gone out that morning the personification of hope, who now stood before her the picture of black despair, and she must have thought, "It was all for me." Suddenly she took the lapels of his torn coat in either hand. She had to reach up to do it, this winsome little Virginia lady. With her big calm blue eyes looking straight into ...
— Friday, the Thirteenth • Thomas W. Lawson
... hoped "I should do it justice," thereby meaning that I should eulogise it as a masterpiece. It is a gigantic effort, of a kind; so is the sustained throe of a wrestling Titan. That the poem contains much which is beautiful is undeniable, also that it is surcharged with winsome and profound thoughts and a multitude of will-o'-the-wisp-like fancies which all ...
— Life of Robert Browning • William Sharp
... in Foxe), 'laboursome' (Shakespeare), 'friendsome', 'longsome' (Bacon), 'quietsome', 'mirksome' (both in Spenser), 'toothsome' (Beaumont and Fletcher), 'gleesome', 'joysome' (both in Browne's Pastorals), 'gaysome' (Mirror for Magistrates), 'roomsome', 'bigsome', 'awesome', 'timersome', 'winsome', 'viewsome', 'dosome' (prosperous), 'flaysome' (fearful), 'auntersome' (adventurous), 'clamorsome' (all these still surviving in the North), 'playsome' (employed by the historian Hume), 'lissome'{158}, have nearly or quite disappeared from our English speech. ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench
... war Against Monsalvat and the holy knights. He gave himself to dark and evil life And learned the witchery of magic arts To work the ruin of the Holy Grail. Fair gardens he created by his art, Through all the deserts, and therein he placed Maidens of winsome witchery and power, Who bloomed like flowers in beauty and in grace. And in these subtle snares full many a knight Was caught by magic wiles and lured and lost, And no one knew where they had gone or why. Then holy Titurel, grown old in years, Gave up the kingdom to his only son, The brave Amfortas. ...
— Parsifal - A Drama by Wagner • Retold by Oliver Huckel
... the warm-hearted, impulsive Hal, and the winsome, pretty Juanita, prisoners in the hands of the cruel and merciless Apaches, who were never known to surrender a captive alive. Then, as I thought of a worse fate than death, that was in store for the bright, beautiful girl, I thanked God that her old father was spared the ...
— The Young Trail Hunters • Samuel Woodworth Cozzens
... in beauty, with thy mother's winsome eye! Art thou slain, my gallant warrior, and thy ...
— Maha-bharata - The Epic of Ancient India Condensed into English Verse • Anonymous
... was seated near her companions, lost in thought, gazing far away into the distance was, in very truth, as fair a specimen of winsome Irish girlhood as one could wish to see. She was pronounced beautiful by all who knew her though, as folks often said, she was more a Giltrap than a MacDowell. Her figure was slight and graceful, inclining even to fragility but those iron jelloids she had been taking of late ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... daughters of Louis d'Amours were married at Port Royal while very young. Perhaps they possessed their mother's winsome manners, perhaps, also the scarcity of marriageable girls in Acadia may have had something to do with the matter; at any rate Charlotte d'Amours was but seventeen years of age when she married the young baron, Anselm de St. Castin. Their wedding took place at ...
— Glimpses of the Past - History of the River St. John, A.D. 1604-1784 • W. O. Raymond
... these writers not as dead worthies but as companionable men and women, and to present their living subject as a living thing, winsome as a smile on a human face,—such was the author's purpose ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... loved with liberal heart; the violets Were dear for her dear eyes, the quiring birds That caught the musical tremble of her voice. O happy twilights in the leafy glooms! When in the glowing dusk the winsome arts And maiden graces that all day had kept Us twain and separate melted away In blushing silence, and my love was mine Utterly, utterly, with clinging arms And quick, caressing fingers, warm red lips, Where vows, half uttered, ...
— Pike County Ballads and Other Poems • John Hay
... from the outset upon the plain fact that there was nothing uncanny about her. In spite of her singular faculty of insight, which sometimes seemed to illogical people almost weird or eerie, she was in the main a bright, well-educated, sensible, winsome, lawn-tennis-playing English girl. Her vivacious spirits rose superior to her surroundings, which were often sad enough. But she was above all things wholesome, unaffected, and sparkling—a gleam of sunshine. She laid no claim to supernatural ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... garden; and I stood In Helen's room, where she had thrown herself Upon a couch, and lay, a winsome elf, Pouting and smiling, cheek upon her arm, Not in the least a portrait of alarm. "Now sweet!" I coaxed, and knelt by her, "be good! Go curl your hair; and please your own Maurine, By putting on that lovely grenadine. Not wolf, nor ogre, neither Caliban, Nor Mephistopheles, you'll meet to-night, ...
— Maurine and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... charming woman, feminine from her soul to her finger-tips, the incarnation of das Ewigweibliche. Her intimate friends were mostly what were then known as strong-minded women—I suppose to-day they would seem like timid, shy violets. She was modest, gentle, winsome, irresistible: profoundly learned, with the eager heart of ...
— Robert Browning: How To Know Him • William Lyon Phelps
... a disappointment. It was a surprise that we should find such a winsome little hill-town, and such a very excellent hotel as was the Grand Hotel du Parc, which takes its name from a tiny hanging garden at the rear; but we were disappointed in that for a mortal half-hour we tried to make our usually willing automobile climb up on to the plateau upon which the town sits. ...
— The Automobilist Abroad • M. F. (Milburg Francisco) Mansfield
... into his pocket, and slipped his memoranda of the case into an envelope. Just then a bright, winsome face, as frank and jolly as a boy's, appeared in the doorway, ...
— Whirligigs • O. Henry
... notice her wonderful budding beauty. Surely, he thought, such a winsome creature was never born. He had begun to ask himself in a whispered, startled way: "Why may I not possess this mountain flower? True, I am much her senior, but I will nourish, protect and defend her against the world, as no younger man ...
— A Waif of the Mountains • Edward S. Ellis
... admirer of beauty in her own sex, and she could scarcely take her eyes from the winsome fair face of Julia. It was a very fair face, very lovely. After luncheon, at Mr. Cecil Burleigh's request, she sang a new song that was lying on the piano; and they talked of old songs which he professed to like better, which she said she had forgotten. Mr. Gardiner had not come ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr
... early history of the country, to the pioneer times, to the South and the West, and was, on the whole, one of the most winsome, interesting, and picturesque characters that have ...
— John James Audubon • John Burroughs
... for a life long livelihood so that he might pass his days like a Grandee of the land in ease and joyance and delight. I—their only child—had nor care nor trouble about any matter until one day of the days, when in the prime of manhood, I was a minded to take unto me a wife, a woman winsome and comely to look upon, that we might live together in mutual love and double blessedness. But Allah Almighty willed not that a model helpmate become mine; nay, Destiny wedded me to grief and the direst misery. I married a maid who in outward form and features was a model ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... we peep over the wild mask of revolutionary metaphysics, and we see the winsome face of the child. Perhaps none of his poems is more purely and typically Shelleian than The Cloud, and it is interesting to note how essentially it springs from the faculty of make-believe. The same thing is conspicuous, though less ...
— A Study of Poetry • Bliss Perry
... the act of a whole family of witches whom he had unfortunately offended during a visit down East. It was rumored that the offence consisted in breaking off a matrimonial engagement with the youngest member of the family,—a sorceress, perhaps, in more than one sense of the word, like that "winsome wench and walie" in Tam O'Shanter's witch-dance at Kirk Alloway. His only hope was that he should outlive his persecutors; and it is said that at the very hour in which the event took place he exultingly assured his friends that the spell was forever broken, ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... way, O holy wave, In days and days of yore? And wept the words: "O winsome wave, This earth is not thy shore!" ...
— Poems: Patriotic, Religious, Miscellaneous • Abram J. Ryan, (Father Ryan)
... cruel fate that seemed hanging over them. The men he cared little for, since these perils were but a part of the life they chose; but the master he loved, the good woman who had been so kind to him, the sweet girl whose winsome presence had made the long voyage so pleasant for them all—if he could only save these dear and innocent creatures from a cruel death, he felt that he could willingly give ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... passion of comradeship in my youth I experienced toward the son of a cousin, a boy four or five years old, or about half my own age. One spring his mother and he were visiting at our house eight or ten days. The child was very winsome and we soon became inseparable companions. He was like a visitor from another sphere. I frequently carried him on my back, and my heart opened to him more and more each day. One day we started to come down a rather steep pair of stairs from the hog-pen chamber; ...
— My Boyhood • John Burroughs
... him,—irrespective of anything else, the figure itself is a grand sight. The path he has chosen lies through the thorny shrubs of endurance, afflictions, necessities, distresses, stripes, imprisonments, tumults, labors, watchings, and fastings. No soft or winsome meadow-way this, nor one that any would choose, except he were under some strong conviction,—whether true or false,—that will surely be admitted. For men have at rare times suffered much even in the cause of error; but never for that which they themselves knew ...
— Old Groans and New Songs - Being Meditations on the Book of Ecclesiastes • F. C. Jennings
... old earthmen's beginnings, That Father Almighty earth had created, 40 The winsome wold that the water encircleth, Set exultingly the sun's and the moon's beams To lavish their lustre on land-folk and races, And earth He embellished in all her regions With limbs and leaves; life He bestowed too 45 On all the kindreds that live ...
— Beowulf - An Anglo-Saxon Epic Poem • The Heyne-Socin
... here, I say, greatly tempted am I to dwell and enlarge upon these swift-flying, halcyon days whose memory Time cannot wither; I would paint you her changing moods, her sweet gravity, her tender seriousness, her pretty rogueries, her demureness, her thousand winsome tricks of gesture and expression, the vital ring of her sweet voice, her long-lashed eyes, the dimple in her chin, and all the constant charm and wonder of her. But what pen could do the sweet soul justice, ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol
... feathered your nest—humoring that old blind fool and making love to his granddaughter. A pretty reward opened to you by your treachery that night in Frisco—a fortune and a sweetheart to boot! Hey, my winsome fancy man! A fine chance you've had for your billing and cooing; but now by Heaven, you'll pay ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer
... no heart, nor for having of the rings, Nor in woman is his weal, in the world he's no delight, Nor in anything whatever save the tossing o'er the waves! Oh, forever he has longing who is urged towards the sea. Trees rebloom with blossoms, burghs are fair again, Winsome are the wide plains, and the world is gay— All doth only challenge the impassioned heart Of his courage to the voyage, whosoever thus bethinks him, O'er the ocean billows, far away to go. Every cuckoo calls a warning, with his chant of sorrow! Sings the summer's watchman, sorrow is he boding, ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... in the valley—the home where he was born, and where had come to him the heart grief which had made him the strange, eccentric being he was. Thoughts of the dead were with him, too, to-night, and with his face buried in his broad, rough hands, he thought of, her, whose winsome smile and gentle ways had woven around his heart a mighty and undying love, such as few men ever felt. Of Dora, too, he thought—Dora, whom he had never seen—and his heart yearned towards her with a deep tenderness, because his ...
— Dora Deane • Mary J. Holmes
... Tom Burke sing at the Hippodrome. His voice is better than it's ever been and he sang exceedingly good stuff. Poor John MacCormack with his winsome Irish ballads. ...
— Terribly Intimate Portraits • Noel Coward
... friends up and down the river, Sewall's nephew, Will Dow, was possibly the one who had the rarest qualities of intellect and spirit. He had a poise and a winsome lovableness that was not often found in that wild bit of country combined with such ruggedness of character. He had a droll and altogether original sense of humor, and an imagination which struck Roosevelt as extraordinary ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn
... affections. The love of nature, so prominent a characteristic of Mr. Thompson, is reflected throughout and the thunderstorm and following gleam of sun, the country garden and southern lake are each in turn invested with a personality that wins our instant sympathy. Rosalynde Banderet is winsome and artless, her lovers are human and manly, and her final happiness is ours. Mr. Peirson's many pictures ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... of the happiest of her creations. Nothing could exceed the skill and daintiness with which the costume is painted, and the characterization of the head is more sympathetic than usual, offering a most winsome type of beautiful, good womanhood. A little child has been added to the picture—an afterthought, I understand, and scarcely a fortunate one; at least in the manner of its presentment. The figure is cleverly merged in half shadow, but the treatment of the face is brusque, ...
— Women in the fine arts, from the Seventh Century B.C. to the Twentieth Century A.D. • Clara Erskine Clement
... looked upon me, as I lay there in that innocent slumber, with the winsome mouth slightly ajar and the playful limbs cast wildly about, while a merry smile now and then flitted across the regular features, would have said that no heart could be so hard as to harbor ill for one ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... charmed Mrs. Henry Franklin Foster: they spent their time struggling to keep Miss Amberson's face turned toward them. She turned it most often, observers said, toward two: one excelling in the general struggle by his sparkle, and the other by that winning if not winsome old trait, persistence. The sparkling gentleman "led germans" with her, and sent sonnets to her with his bouquets—sonnets lacking neither music nor wit. He was generous, poor, well-dressed, and his amazing persuasiveness was one reason why he was always in ...
— The Magnificent Ambersons • Booth Tarkington
... to the man who attends them; but more precious gift still is their summoning him to the gladness of June, to the joy of the beautiful months; for events in which bees take part happen only when skies are pure, at the winsome hours of the year when flowers keep holiday. They are the soul of the summer, the clock whose dial records the moments of plenty; they are the untiring wing on which delicate perfumes float; the guide of the quivering light-ray, the song of ...
— The Life of the Bee • Maurice Maeterlinck
... those men who speak upon a level pitch, in a gentle and winsome monotony. His voice was never broken by impulse, never shaken by feeling. He was courteous without ostentation, treating everybody kindly without exactly seeming to intend it. He let fall pleasant remarks ...
— The Mystery of Metropolisville • Edward Eggleston
... pretended instead to be bored by his importunities, choosing to rub it in. To her who longed for his friendly notice,—a little throaty bark, a lift of the paw, perhaps a winsome laying of his head along her lap,—I affected indifference to his infatuation for me. I pretended always to have been a perfect devil of a fellow among the dogs, and professed loftily not to have divined the secret of ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... him a sweet lady, his young niece, and her brother. They arranged for a tour to the Great Lakes, and I was chosen to go with them in command of the boatmen. It appeared as if a great chance had come to me, and so said the factor at Lachine on the morning we set forth. The girl was as winsome as you can think; not of such wonderful beauty, but with a face that would be finer old than young; and a dainty trick of humour had she as well. The governor was a testy man; he could not bear to ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... Bertha, whose housewifely care And womanly habits call forth praises rare; Small, winsome maiden, whose large, tender heart, To blame makes thee timid, ...
— Poems - A Message of Hope • Mary Alice Walton
... a few stanzas to the Milkmaid who stood in her wagon near the lawn, rattling out milk-punches to the boys. A winsome lass she was, fresh in her sororiation, with fair blue eyes, a celestial flow of auburn hair, and cheeks that suggested the milk and cherry in the glass she rattled out to me. I was reading aloud the stanzas which she inspired, when Khalid, who was not listening, pointed ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... proved a better scheme than he wist, and after some years, he wrote, "I would have died without the helpmeet God sent me—my wife, who never opposed me in anything." John Knox was married when thirty- eight to the winsome Marjorie Bowes, aged seventeen, the fifth child of Mary Bowes, whom he had ardently wooed in his youth. His boast to the mother that "Providence planned that you should reject me in order that I might do better," was an indelicate slant ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 9 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers • Elbert Hubbard
... braced himself in the aperture, and sang the one verse that he knew of the song again and again—his voice rough and unmusical as that of a crow, echoing and re-echoing in the narrow space—bent over at last, touched his bearded lips softly to the winsome, motionless brown face, climbed, an irresistible catch in his breath, silently to the surface, sent one swift glance sweeping the bare earth around him, and returned to ...
— Where the Trail Divides • Will Lillibridge
... catechism as to what he had done to vex her. Then, perhaps, just when he had nerved himself almost to the point of asking her what was the trouble, there would come another change, bringing back to him the old Billy, joyous, winsome, and devoted, plainly caring nothing for anybody or anything but himself. Scarcely, however, would he become sure that it was his Billy back again before she was off once more, quite beyond his reach, singing with Arkwright and Alice Greggory, playing with Tommy Dunn, plunging into some ...
— Miss Billy Married • Eleanor H. Porter
... by in that afflicted household, it really seemed as if they had lost their engaging, winsome little Peace for all time, so changed did the invalid grow. Nothing suited her, everything annoyed. The girls talked too much or were too silent; the servants were too noisy or too obviously quiet; the President's shoes clumped and his slippers squeaked; ...
— Heart of Gold • Ruth Alberta Brown
... dream he dropt from heaven: but my belief In all this matter—so ye care to learn— Sir, for ye know that in King Uther's time The prince and warrior Gorlois, he that held Tintagil castle by the Cornish sea, Was wedded with a winsome wife, Ygerne: And daughters had she borne him—one whereof, Lot's wife, the Queen of Orkney, Bellicent, Hath ever like a loyal sister cleaved To Arthur—but a son she had not borne. And Uther cast upon her eyes of love: But she, a stainless wife to Gorlois, So loathed the ...
— Myths and Legends of All Nations • Various
... dying in Portugal whither he had gone on a vain quest for health, and his companionable qualities whether as man or author, can but make him a more winsome figure to us than proper little Mr. Richardson; and possibly this feeling has affected the comparative estimates of the two writers. One responds readily to the sentiment of Austin Dobson's fine ...
— Masters of the English Novel - A Study Of Principles And Personalities • Richard Burton
... like my wretchedness— Beyond all language. (To HAROLD.) You—you see her there! Only fifteen when first you came on her, And then the sweetest flower of all the wolds, So lovely in the promise of her May, So winsome in her grace and gaiety, So loved by all the village people here, So happy in ...
— Becket and other plays • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... first impressed him was the frankness of a winsome personality. He listened with keen attention to her voice. There was no simper, no affectation, no posing. She was just herself. He found himself analyzing her character. Refined—yes. Intelligent—beyond a doubt. ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon
... orders with as good grace as we obey the Little Mother's what models we'd be," was Jean Paul's jerky comment as he struggled into an overcoat, his eyes still fixed upon Rosalie's winsome face. ...
— Peggy Stewart at School • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... His course required a self-reliance of the highest order; it required an innate cohesion and homogeneity, a firmness and consistency of individual outline, that few men have. It would seem to be much easier to face the poet's problem in the old, well-worn forms—forms that are so winsome and authoritative in themselves—than, to stand upon a basis so individual and intrinsic as Whitman chose to stand upon. His course goes to the quick at once. How much of a man are you? How vital and fundamental is your poetic gift? Can it go ...
— Whitman - A Study • John Burroughs
... mechanism of my machine; I twirl the pedals and show them how perfect are the bearings of the rear wheel; I pinch the rubber tire to show them that it is neither iron nor wood, and call their attention to the brake, fully expecting in this usually winsome manner to fill them with gratitude and admiration, and make them forget all about my baggage and clothes. But these fellows seem to differ from those of their countrymen I left but a short time ago; my other effects interest them far more than the wheel does, and one of them, ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... one who is more sure than most authors of his time to win that little span of life which writing men call "immortality." But if there is need for the world to be told further that George Borrow was a good man, that he was a most winsome and a most charming companion, that he was an English gentleman, straightforward, honest, and brave as the very best exemplars of that fine old type, the world is now told so—told so by two of the few living men who can speak of ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... the eulogies which Sherriff had uttered concerning Peter, he found his doubts increasing. Peter might, as the Press-agent had stated, be a great scout, but was his little Garden of Eden on the fifth floor of the Cosmopolis Hotel likely to be improved by the advent of even the most amiable and winsome of ...
— Indiscretions of Archie • P. G. Wodehouse
... floor, and her fingers were playing with a bit of ribbon, and she was so nice and winsome, and well dressed, you couldn't have helped giving her a kiss. She never raised her eyes to his face, but I think she just looked as high as his boots, which were stained and dusty. The silly man was waiting for her to say something; but ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale
... look at Helen, Howard grave and stubborn. Everything was in a state of confusion which Sanchia was quick to mark, while Howard saw nothing of it. He saw only Helen looking a far-off princess, cold and unapproachable. And only a few minutes ago she had been just a winsome girl who leaned toward him, whom he dared to hope he could gather up into ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory
... substantial happiness there too. Trunion himself was a wholesome man, a man full of honest affection, hearty laughter, and hard work—a breezy, companionable, energetic man. There was something boyish, unaffected, and winsome in his manners; and I can easily understand why Judge Addison Tomlinson, in his old age, insisted on astonishing his family and his guests by exclaiming: "Where's Trunion?" Certainly he was a man to ...
— Free Joe and Other Georgian Sketches • Joel Chandler Harris
... when Jesus found himself followed by multitudes from all parts of the land that he selected twelve of his disciples "that they might be with him and that he might send them forth to preach," and addressed to them in the hearing of the multitudes the exacting, although unspeakably winsome teaching of the sermon on the mount. This condition of things continued even after Herod had killed John the Baptist, for when Jesus, having heard of John's fate, sought retirement with his disciples across ...
— The Life of Jesus of Nazareth • Rush Rhees
... word lady should suggest, ideally, a girl (or a woman) who keeps herself physically fit, her thinking on a high plane, and her manners gentle and winsome. ...
— Manners And Conduct In School And Out • Anonymous
... She had a winsome face when her hair was loose. He loved her to grumble at him in this manner. He looked at her again, and went, without any sort of leave-taking. He never took more than two slices of bread and butter to eat in the pit, so an apple or an orange was a treat to him. He always liked it when she put ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence
... unreasonableness were rather disconcerting to anyone unaccustomed to the Celtic disposition; but they never lasted long, and Janie soon found out that her friend rarely meant what she then said, and was generally particularly lovable after an outburst, with a winsome look on her face and a beguiling, endearing tone in her voice that would have ...
— The New Girl at St. Chad's - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... but looking younger from her fragile form and the extreme delicacy of her complexion. The reader knows how winsome and playful her manners were; how she was loved and cherished by her brother, and it seemed hard that a creature like her, so innocent and winsome, should have even a knowledge of the secret which oppressed Elizabeth. It seemed to prove more depth of character ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens
... his lute; nor do we hear the agonizing cries of doubt, remorse, or despair. There is nothing turbulent and nothing truculent; he has made no contribution to the literature of revolt. Yet many of his poems make an irresistible appeal to our more reflective moods; and once or twice, his fancy, always winsome and wistful, rises to a height of pure imagination, as in The Listeners—which I find myself returning to muse ...
— The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century • William Lyon Phelps
... and lovely lady; Oh, the sweet and winsome lady; With a smile of gentle goodness Like the lovely Laughing Water. Oh, the day the lovely lady Went to ride upon a tiger. Came the tiger, back returning, Homeward through the dusky twilight; Ever slower, slower, slower, Walked the tiger ...
— The Re-echo Club • Carolyn Wells
... deeds find him oot in this lower warld o' ours. If ever I heard the voice o' naitural affection speaking in my ain breast," pursued Mr. Bishopriggs, with his eye fixed in uneasy expectation on Blanche, "it joost spak' trumpet-tongued when that winsome creature first lookit at me. Will it be she now that told ye of the wee bit sairvice I rendered to her in the time when I was ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins
... reply was so very pretty, both blushing and winsome, that the corners of his mouth ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume II • Susan Warner
... the tailor, with winsome softness, "we are very busy, crushed, ecrases with commands! Give us time, don't ...
— Behind the Beyond - and Other Contributions to Human Knowledge • Stephen Leacock
... an after Sunday, When cloud there was not ane, This selfsame winsome lassie (We chanced to meet in the lane), Said, "Laddie, Why dinna ye wear your plaidie? Wha kens but it ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... might seriously interfere with the shape of her elder sister's nose. But as no prophets were present, only a fogey like Mr Armstrong and an inexperienced boy like Roger, no one concerned themselves about the future, but voted the little lady of ten a winsome child. ...
— Roger Ingleton, Minor • Talbot Baines Reed
... pale. The real Charlotte had a wealth of chestnut hair which fell about her face and neck in glorious abundance. Her great gray eyes spoke eloquently of truth and courage. Her mouth was firm yet winsome, and her form combined both strength and grace. Such is the girl who, on reaching Paris, wrote to Marat ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... hesitated. He fought the battle in this way: Should he not stand a better chance if he let her go? He had his leave of absence for three weeks (this was true; "ordered to Naples," he had called it to Mae). Three weeks away from his world, near this winsome, strange, magnetic little being, with the bay of Naples, and moonlight, and his own glories and her loveliness! He couldn't give up this chance. No, no. He would surely see her in a few hours after her troubles began, and comfort her. So ...
— Mae Madden • Mary Murdoch Mason
... I must tell you, and I ask your forgiveness for not doing so before." And then, in her odd, winsome way, resting her cheek against his shoulder and holding her left hand before his face for a moment, she continued: ...
— Pocket Island - A Story of Country Life in New England • Charles Clark Munn
... cordial; genial; glad, gladsome; sweet, delectable, nice, dainty; delicate, delicious; dulcet; luscious &c 396; palatable &c 394; luxurious, voluptuous; sensual &c 377. [of people] attractive &c 615; inviting, prepossessing, engaging; winning, winsome; taking, fascinating, captivating, killing; seducing, seductive; heart-robbing, alluring, enticing; appetizing &c (exciting) 824; cheering &c 836; bewitching; enchanting, entrancing, enravishing^. charming; delightful, felicitous, exquisite; lovely &c (beautiful) ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... confession that she really knows nothing about it can be turned by a smile into a prelude to the most engaging conversation, and into an implied flattery of the neatest kind to the favored being whose superiority is acknowledged. Ignorance, in fact, of this winsome order is one of the stock weapons of the ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous
... Silent falls the winsome maiden, Frightened by her own surmise, Little hands, so white and dimpled, Pressing ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... moving yonder In a faint and phantom blue; Through the dusk I lean, and wonder If their winsome shapes are true; But in veiling indecision Come my questions back again— Which is real? The fleeting vision? Or ...
— Alcyone • Archibald Lampman
... he said, with a winsome smile, "but I'm sure the maist of us hae been pleadin' hard afore a higher court than this. A' I want to tell ye is this—there hasna been wound or bruise upon yir relation to yir people. An' there's but ae hairt amongst us, an' we're ...
— St. Cuthbert's • Robert E. Knowles
... Driscoll had had the slightest glimpse of what was actually passing through the winsome and supposedly silly little head behind him, there is no reliable telling into what change of opinion he might have been jostled. But this is certain, that if he had known, he could have saved himself some rare ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... faintly upturned at the corners, as in archaic Greek art; she had, in the slightest and most gracious degree, what Logan, describing her once, called 'the AEginetan grin.' This gave her an air peculiarly gay and winsome, brilliant, joyous, and alert. In brief, to ...
— The Disentanglers • Andrew Lang
... love with our handsome, amiable Boston governess, Miss Davidson, and married her when I was ten years of age. She comforted my mother for her loss by sending for her younger sister, who was even prettier than herself, and had such winsome ways that Mr. John Morton, Cousin Frank's bachelor brother, married her at the end of her first ...
— When Grandmamma Was New - The Story of a Virginia Childhood • Marion Harland
... only child of Sir Brooke Boothby, and, as we may well believe from her winsome face, the darling of the household. Her home was a fine mansion buried among trees in the beautiful English country. She was, we fancy, a quiet little girl, preferring a corner with her dolls to any boisterous ...
— Sir Joshua Reynolds - A Collection of Fifteen Pictures and a Portrait of the - Painter with Introduction and Interpretation • Estelle M. Hurll
... career, like that of Maretzek, fell in the period when Barnumism was at its zenith, and Ullmann was utterly unconscionable in the methods to which he resorted for the purpose of exploiting his artists. It was under his operatic consulship that the winsome Piccolomini came to New York—an artist of insignificant caliber, lovely to look upon and fascinating as an actress in soubrette parts. "A Columbine," said Chorley about her when she effected her dbut ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... Cuculain, too, the war-loving son of Sualtam, shall rise again,—in whom one part of our national genius finds its perfect flower. We shall hear the thunder of his chariot, at the Battle of the Headland of the Kings, when Meave the winsome and crafty queen of Connacht comes against him, holding in silken chains of her tresses the valiant spirit of Fergus. The whole life of that heroic epoch, still writ large upon the face of the land, ...
— Ireland, Historic and Picturesque • Charles Johnston
... for sugar. Commissary-bills ran high that winter, and cut loaf-sugar was an item of untold expenditure. He had found a new ally and friend,—a little girl with eyes as deep and dark as and browner than his own, a winsome little maid of three, whose golden, sunshiny hair floated about her bonny head and sweet serious face like a halo of light from another world. Van "took to her" from the very first. He courted the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various
... care and nursing began. The Union colonel had left a good supply of coffee, sugar, and coarse rations for the wounded men, and Suwanee did her best to supplement these, accomplishing even more by her kindness, cheerfulness, and winsome ways than by any other means. She became, in many respects, a hospital nurse, and visited the wounded men, carrying delicacies to all alike. She wrote letters for the Confederates and read the Bible to ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... never could resist her, Since the day that she was born; For we loved that winsome sister As ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... scientific method to the history of Christian doctrine have shown us how the dogma of the Deity of Jesus grew up. It was a comparatively late development in Christianity, and its practical implications never have been accepted, although at one time there was a danger that the winsome figure of Jesus would be removed altogether from the field of human interest and regard. The Jesus of Michael Angelo's "Last Judgment" is a terrifying figure without a trace of the lowly Nazarene about Him, and yet this ...
— The New Theology • R. J. Campbell
... having failed, found it pleasant to look back upon as an experience not altogether to be regretted. We none of us knew until much later that it was more than a mere fancy for a woman who was altogether so sweet and winsome that no man needed an excuse for loving her. When by and by I also came to love a good woman, I used to try myself by the measure of this man's lack of self-love, and wonder how he could have seen with good-will the woman he cared for come to like another man better. This ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XVII, No. 102. June, 1876. • Various
... with so much purpose into the life of their adopted town that they had become persons of note there till Philemon's health began to fail, when Agatha quit all outside work and devoted herself exclusively to him. Of her character and winsome personality we can gather some idea from the various conversations carried on that day from Portchester Green to the ...
— Agatha Webb • Anna Katharine Green
... the hardy Highland wight, "I'll go, my chief—I'm ready; It is not for your silver bright, But for your winsome lady: ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester
... metaphor, sheds the world rosewise in little kisses; but if you did not so shed it, the world would shed itself in tears. Your smiles and laughter are the last lights that play around the white hairs of an aged duke; your winsome tendernesses are the dreams of a young man who writes "pars" about you on Friday, and dines with you on Sunday; you are an ideal in many lives which without you would certainly be ideal-less.' Deuced good that; I wish ...
— Mike Fletcher - A Novel • George (George Augustus) Moore
... thankfulness for service done: How brightly twinkled then his shrewd grey eyes, And shone the roundness where his honest cheeks Played to the rippling gladness of his mouth! In childhood rambles, it was mostly he She chose for partner, spite of blandishment; And to her winsome ways he would forego His pompous surveillance of wine and plate, To guard her, lilting, where the summer lay On honeyed murmuring limes, and under elms, August with knotted centuries of strength And rooks sonorous in their shadowy heights. By thymy ...
— My Beautiful Lady. Nelly Dale • Thomas Woolner |
