"Zenana" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... really the points that we shall lay stress upon at the meeting. The free and complete opening of the professions, the final abolition of the zenana I call it, and the franchise to all women who pay Queen's taxes above a certain sum. Surely there is nothing unreasonable in that. Nothing which could offend your principles. We shall have medicine, law, and the church all rallying that night for the protection of woman. Is the navy ...
— Beyond the City • Arthur Conan Doyle
... surfeited his pangs of hunger; she may not make the briefest outdoor excursion without permission, and then solely in a covered palkee, or the hermetically sealed interior of a blinded carriage. (Cries of 'Shame.') In the Zenana, she is restricted to the occupation of puerile gossipings, or listening to apocryphal fairy tales of so scandalising an impropriety that I shrink to pollute my ears by the repetition even of the ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey
... and would prefer passing her life in his women's apartments to leaving this country. At which, Abdel Faza, for such was his name, felt very amorous. He put his hand to his forehead, salaamed, and told Gascoigne that his zenana, and all that were in it, were hers, as well as his house and himself. After an hour's conversation, in which Azar, his daughter, did not join, the old Moor asked Gascoigne to descend into the women's apartment; and observing his daughter's silence, ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Frederick Marryat
... as a general thing, and you'd have thought that in her juvenile days, before she got power, they'd have married her to some one about the town, whether she liked it or not. But it seems they didn't, because she said she'd certainly poison any man if they sent her into his zenana. And later on, when she came to be boss, she still kept to spinsterhood. Guess there wasn't any man about the place white ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne
... May 10th to October 10th, six thousand women and children, with a few men, having found a refuge there during the siege. A feature of the Public Audience Room is a grille in the back wall, through which the Sultanas or members of the Zenana could watch the proceedings below; and in the centre of the hall is a raised alcove of white marble, richly decorated ...
— Travels in the Far East • Ellen Mary Hayes Peck
... danger whatever in box-pictures [snapshot-photographs]. Anyone submitted to them is in all respects as he was before. Nothing is taken out of his spirit. I, myself, Mother, have submitted myself to many box-pictures, both mounted and standing beside my horse. If at any time again the Zenana Doctor Sahiba desires to make a box-picture of him do not snatch the child away but send the picture to me. I cannot see him in my dreams because at his age he changes with each month. When I went away he was still on all fours. Now you tell ...
— The Eyes of Asia • Rudyard Kipling
... caskets, filled every corner of this awkward treasury. What of all its baubles pleased me most was a large coffer of some precious wood, containing enamelled flasks of oriental essences, enough to perfume a zenana, and so fragrant that I thought the Mogul himself a Dutchman, for lavishing them upon this inelegant nation. If disagreeable fumes, as I mentioned before, dissolve enchantments, such aromatic oils have doubtless the power of raising them; for, whilst I scented their fragrance, scarcely could anything ...
— Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents • William Beckford
... connection with Queen Victoria's Jubilee. The Maharanee, the daughter of a very ancient Bengal family, was then quite young. She had only emerged "from behind the curtain," as natives of India say, for six months. In other words, she had just emancipated herself from the seclusion of the Zenana, where she had lived since her marriage. She had then very delicate features, and most lovely eyes, with exquisitely moulded hands and arms. Very wisely she had not adopted European fashions in their entirety, but had retained the becoming saree of gold or silver tissue or brocade, ...
— Here, There And Everywhere • Lord Frederic Hamilton
... once hid any glimpse of the beauty of the king's palace were stiff with gold. Closer investigation showed that the entire fabric was everywhere rubbed and discoloured by time and wear; but even thus it was sufficiently gorgeous to deserve housing on the threshold of a royal zenana. I found no fault with it, except that it was in my stable. Then, trying to lift it by the silver-shod shoulder- pole, I laughed. The road from Dearsley's pay-shed to the cantonment was a narrow and uneven one, and, traversed by three very inexperienced palanquin-bearers, one of whom was ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling
... becoming to these few among the million children of the Dark Star Erlik—to everyone, from the child that fretted in its mother's arms under the hot wind near Trebizond, to a deposed Sultan, cowering behind the ivory screen in his zenana, weeping tears that rolled like oil over his fat jowl to which still adhered the powdered sugar of ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... there was a sense of music, of things that sparkled, of pearly lustres, of shimmering jewels, of softness, of delight, of luxury. Bhopal looked over the ragged valley like a sultan from the window of his zenana regarding afar off an unkempt hermit in his solitude. My companion had arranged for permission to enter the town, and it was not long ere we were installed in the house of a friend of Bhima Gandharva's, whose guests we remained during our ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. XVII, No. 99, March, 1876 • Various
... single Englishman, and their ignorance even of the system of government under which they live is profound. Not the least ominous symptom is that this spirit of revolt seems to have obtained a firm hold of the zenana; and the Hindu woman behind the purdah often exercises a greater influence upon her husband and her sons than the Englishwoman who moves freely about the world. Absolute evidence in such matters is difficult to obtain, but there was a very significant and quite authentic ...
— Indian Unrest • Valentine Chirol
... results will hardly be achieved. Hence the god-like ruler and the enlightened monarch are content to play a humble part in furthering their country's cause [lit., kneel down to push the chariot wheel]." This means that "in matters lying outside the zenana, the decision of the military commander must be absolute." Chang Yu also quote the saying: "Decrees from the Son of Heaven do not penetrate the walls of a camp."] 24. The general who advances without coveting fame ...
— The Art of War • Sun Tzu
... gesture. "Yes; I'm coming. Hold the wire." Mr. Spence rose and plunged into the adjoining "office," where a telephone and a Remington divided the attention of a young lady in spectacles who was preparing for Zenana work in ...
— Tales Of Men And Ghosts • Edith Wharton
... In the Zenana of the Shah of Persia I found my home. "How escape his eye?" I said; and, fortunately, I remembered that in my reticule I carried one box of F. Kidder's indelible ink. Instantly I applied the liquid in the large bottle to one ...
— The Brick Moon, et. al. • Edward Everett Hale
... of the sex in the past? Look down the revolving cycles and note. In ancient Egypt, woman in the upper classes was almost the equal of man, and although, like Cleopatra, she could wield the sceptre, yet in the lower her condition was wretched; in Asia, a mere slave and object of Zenana lust; in savagedom, a beast of burthen. In Rome and Greece, Shelley ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley as a Philosopher and Reformer • Charles Sotheran
... Birmingham and Shrewsbury district, and the amounts gathered in 1882 totalled L4,829 10s. 3d. To the Society for promoting Christianity among the Jews, the Birmingham Auxiliaries in 1883 sent L323. There are also Auxiliaries of the Church of England Zenana, of the South American, and of one or two other Missionary Societies. The Rev. J.B. Barradale, who died in China, early in 1879, while relieving sufferers from famine, was educated at Spring Hill College. He was sent out by the London Missionary Society, ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell
... the Zouave Zemindaress of Zululand, was no Zany, but rode on a Zanzibar Zebra, resided in a Zing-Zag Zenana, Zealously studied Zanyism, Zealotism, Zoology, Zoonomy, Zoophytology, Zoolatry, Zymology, Zincography And many other 'isms, 'ologies, 'olatries, 'ographies, etc., out of the works she bought at ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole
... he went to his garden, to cull A bunch of zenana or sprig of bul-bul, And offered the bouquet, in exquisite bloom, To BACKSHEESH, the daughter of ...
— More Bab Ballads • W. S. Gilbert
... My uncle had two sons, of nearly my own age, and several daughters. With the former I rode, played chess, and engaged in such sports as are not forbidden to my profession; but my female cousins I seldom saw, as they rarely left their Zenana, into which I was not permitted to enter. I was of an age to be desirous of becoming better acquainted with my female cousins, especially after I learnt that they then had as guests, a lady and her daughter, who had come to pass some weeks here ...
— A Voyage to the Moon • George Tucker
... a sort of shock," continued Cairn. "It made me think, harder than ever, of the thing he had thrown in the fire. Then, in his photographic zenana, was a picture of a girl whom I am almost sure was the one I had met at the bottom of the stair. Another ...
— Brood of the Witch-Queen • Sax Rohmer
... or at least the most signal, mark which Mahomedan ascendancy has left upon Hinduism has been to accentuate the inferiority of woman by her close confinement—of which there are few traces in earlier times—within the zenana, possibly in the first instance a precautionary measure for her protection against the lust of the Mahomedan conquerors. Her seclusion still constitutes one of the greatest obstacles to Indian social and religious reform. ...
— India, Old and New • Sir Valentine Chirol
... at once recalls the harem, the zenana, but nothing of that kind would do. The wives would have to live separately, as the Mormons do, each in her own home, with her own circle of interests and duties, her own lifework. No one ought to live in idleness, ...
— Modern marriage and how to bear it • Maud Churton Braby
... requested to write something about the Zenana Mission. He assured the readers of the paper that among the many scenes of missionary labor, none had of late attracted more attention than the Zenana Mission, and assuredly none was more deserving of this ...
— Toasts - and Forms of Public Address for Those Who Wish to Say - the Right Thing in the Right Way • William Pittenger
... understood. But the possible danger of a thirteenth was removed by their being two tables of six each. James had suddenly ordered this variation of practice—he did not say why—and so it was to be. Crewdson, the invaluable butler-valet of the house, who presided over a zenana of maids, and seemed to carry his whiskers into the fray like an oriflamme, was visibly perturbed at this new notion. "Mr. Macartney has his reason, we know. But how is one gentleman's servant to split himself ...
— Love and Lucy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... profile, an outline bulbous and Armenian, the smooth creamy mask of a Jewess, while here and there glimmered something more opulent and inviting still, which proclaimed, if it did not confess, the remote motherhood of the zenana and the origin of the sun. An audience of fluttering fans and wrinkled shirt collars—the evening was warm under the gas-lights—sensuous, indolent, already amused with itself. Not an old woman in it from ...
— Hilda - A Story of Calcutta • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... dissensions, chastisement, conciliation, gifts, incantations, medicine and magic)? Examinest thou also, after a survey of thy own strength and weakness, the fourteen possessions of thy foes? These are the country, forts, cars, elephants, cavalry, foot-soldiers, the principal officials of state, the zenana, food supply, computations of the army and income, the religious treatises in force, the accounts of state, the revenue, wine-shops and other secret enemies. Attendest thou to the eight occupations (of agriculture, trade, &c), having examined, O thou foremost of victorious monarchs, thy own ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... represent compulsory conversions effected between the thirteenth and seventeenth centuries. Eight hundred years of close contact have abated religious hatred; and occasional outbursts are due to priestly instigation. Hindus borrowed the Zenana system from their conquerors, who imitated them in discouraging widow-remarriages. Caste digs a gulf between followers of the rival creeds, but Mr. Banerjea's tales prove that a good understanding is possible. It is now imperilled by the ...
— Tales of Bengal • S. B. Banerjea |
