"Effeminacy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... about him, and yet retain all proper manliness as a part of his literary character. Surely it was from the mistaken impression that this could not be, and that an admission of extreme sensitiveness to criticism exposed Keats to a charge of effeminacy that Lord Houghton attempted to prove, against the evidence of all immediate friends, against the publisher's note to Hyperion, against the | poet's self-chosen epitaph, and against all but one ...
— Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti - 1883 • T. Hall Caine
... mercantile class, it fought not for a dream of dominion, or to beat back encroaching barbarism, but to exterminate a commercial rival. The latter, which it was hard to recruit on account of the growing effeminacy of the city, it was harder still to keep under discipline. It was followed by trains of cooks, and actors, and the viler appendages of oriental luxury, and was learning to be satisfied with such victories as were won by the assassination ...
— The Gracchi Marius and Sulla - Epochs Of Ancient History • A.H. Beesley
... itself by this age, in its character of censor morum, that effeminacy in a practical sense lies either amongst its full-blown faults, or amongst its lurking tendencies. A rich, a polished, a refined age, may, by mere necessity of inference, be presumed to be a luxurious ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... matter for astonishment, therefore, that under these conditions effeminacy should take possession of a soul that has become the sport of all the weaknesses that are born of a ...
— Poise: How to Attain It • D. Starke
... at the effeminacy engendered by provincial life. His old Bouvard was turning into a blockhead; in short, "he was no longer in it ...
— Bouvard and Pecuchet - A Tragi-comic Novel of Bourgeois Life • Gustave Flaubert
... voluptatum parsimonia: lenitati ac magnificentiae et aliquando luxui indulgebat." This does not appear to be at all applicable to the character of any conspicuous personage belonging to the Roman Empire in the first century, when Romans were warriors still, preserving, amid some effeminacy, much of the hardy vigour of their Republican predecessors, ever and anon throwing aside the toga for the sagum, and rushing from the Forum to the field, to battle with ferocious and demi-nude savages, ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross
... a man makes my acquaintance, and opens the door to let me in, there enter unseen by my side Arrogance, Folly, Vainglory, Effeminacy, Insolence, Deceit, and a goodly company more. These possess his soul; he begins to admire mean things, pursues what he should abhor, reveres me amid my bodyguard of the insinuating vices which I have begotten, and would consent to anything sooner than ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... of Rome was due not to luxury, effeminacy or corruption, not to Nero's or Caligula's wickedness, nor to the futility of Constantine's descendants. It began at Philippi, where the spirit of domination overcame the spirit of freedom. It was forecast still earlier in the rise of consuls and triumvirs incident to the ...
— Popular Science Monthly Volume 86
... did the Persian spear prevail against the Assyrian. Two centuries revolved, seven or eight generations, when Alexander found himself in the same position as Cyrus for building a third monarchy, and aided by the selfsame vices of luxurious effeminacy in his enemy, confronted with the self-same virtues of enterprise and hardihood in his compatriot soldiers. The native Persians, in the earliest and very limited import of that name, were a poor and hardy race of mountaineers. So were the men of ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... disfigured with false thoughts. The English had not at this time attained the art of correct writing; but his serious compositions exhibit a strength and vigour, which could not have been expected from the softness and effeminacy ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume II • Theophilus Cibber
... specious cowardice; modesty, the disguise of effeminacy; and being wise in everything, to be good ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 197, August 6, 1853 • Various
... nor night To storm me over-watch't, and wearied out. At times when men seek most repose and rest, I yielded, and unlock'd her all my heart, Who with a grain of manhood well resolv'd Might easily have shook off all her snares: But foul effeminacy held me yok't 410 Her Bond-slave; O indignity, O blot To Honour and Religion! servil mind Rewarded well with servil punishment! The base degree to which I now am fall'n, These rags, this grinding, is not ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... engaging manners of blooming manhood. His habit was that of a cupbearer. His robes were of azure silk, and floated in graceful folds as he passed along. The beauty of his person was worthy of the synod of the Gods. His features had all the softness of woman without effeminacy; and in his eye there sat a lambent fire which bespoke the man, without roughness, and without ferocity. In one hand he bore a crystal goblet full of every potent enchantment, and which rendered him who drank for ever a slave to the most menial offices ...
— Imogen - A Pastoral Romance • William Godwin
... advantages. Lewis XIV., endowed with every quality which could enchant the people, possessed many which merit the approbation of the wise. The masculine beauty of his person was embellished with a noble air: the dignity of his behavior was tempered with affability and politeness: elegant without effeminacy, addicted to pleasure without neglecting business, decent in his very vices, and beloved in the midst of arbitrary power, he surpassed all contemporary monarchs, as in grandeur, so likewise in ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part F. - From Charles II. to James II. • David Hume
... inequalities of man. She retires to the solitude of her loved chamber window, and reads of Aristides the Just, of Themistocles with his Spartan virtues, of Brutus, and of the mother of the Gracchi. Greece and Rome rise before her in all their ancient renown. She despises the frivolity of Paris, the effeminacy of the moderns, and her youthful bosom throbs with the desire of being noble in spirit and of achieving great exploits. Thus, when other children of her age were playing with their dolls, she was dreaming of the prostration ...
— Madame Roland, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott
... gallery is still seen the ring that held the pole of the velarium. This velarium was an awning that was stretched above the heads of the spectators to protect them from the sun. In earlier times the Romans had scouted at this innovation, which they called a piece of Campanian effeminacy. But little by little, increasing luxury reduced the Puritans of Rome to silence, and they willingly accepted a velarium of silk—an homage of Caesar. Nero, who carried everything to excess, went further: he caused a velarium of purple to be embroidered with gold. Caligula frequently ...
— The Wonders of Pompeii • Marc Monnier
... The luxurious monarch of Assyria Juvenal is here imitated, who uses his name for an instance of effeminacy. Sat. ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... mind and body so much enervated, that he could not bear the least fatiguing exertions. His mother, who was as weak as himself, begged of her husband not to tease their darling, and he was at last obliged to give way to her importunities, when Antony again sunk into his former destructive effeminacy. The strength of his body declined, in proportion as his mind was degraded ...
— The Looking-Glass for the Mind - or Intellectual Mirror • M. Berquin
... which accompanied the king to the field. The confident defiance of Don Roderick increased his surprise. When the herald had retired, he turned an eye of suspicion on Count Julian. 'Thou hast represented thy countrymen,' said he, 'as sunk in effeminacy and lost to all generous impulse: yet I find them fighting with the courage and the strength of lions. Thou hast represented thy king as detested by his subjects, and surrounded by secret treason, but I behold ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, May 1844 - Volume 23, Number 5 • Various
... Parliament had at this time passed the age of twenty-one, and the latter was of extremely youthful appearance. Small of stature and slight in frame, his delicate aspect was redeemed from effeminacy by a head of classic contour, a penetrating and melodious voice, an address which always won attention. His superior social endowments were fully recognized by the companions of his leisure; nor was his influence lessened by the fact, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various
... and of waste and ruin on the farm; that the youth of the country are growing up with a contempt of steady industry as a low and servile thing, which contempt induces idleness and all its attendant effeminacy, vice, and worthlessness; that the waste of the products of the land, nay, of the land itself, is bringing poverty on all its inhabitants; that this poverty and the sparseness of population either ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... necessary to "harrow up the soul," in order that the soul be no longer harrowed? Moralists and preachers do not deal after this tender fashion with moral, or even physical consequences, resulting from other evils. Why should they spare these? Why refuse to look their own effeminacy in the face,—their own gaudy and overweening encouragement of what they dare not contemplate in its results? Is a murder in the streets worth attending to,—a single wounded man worth carrying to the hospital,—and are all the murders, and massacres, and fields of wounded, ...
— Captain Sword and Captain Pen - A Poem • Leigh Hunt
... house, and deftly introducing this "article" between the sheets. Or was it only for the old people: or in chilly weather merely? On these points we must be unsatisfied. The practice, however, points to a certain effeminacy—the average person of our day would not care to have his bed so treated—with invalids the "Hot Water Bottle" has "usurped its place." We find this superannuated instrument in the "antique" dealers' shops, at a good figure—a quaint old world thing, of a ...
— Pickwickian Manners and Customs • Percy Fitzgerald
... this operation for them, and that these would be himself and Valerius Flaccus; for with him as a colleague he imagined that he might make some progress in the work of destroying, by knife and cautery, the hydra of luxury and effeminacy. Of the other candidates he said that he saw that each one was eager to get the office and fill it badly, because he was afraid of those who could fill it well. The Roman people on this occasion showed ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long
... Selvagee prove it. But with all the intrepid effeminacy of your true dandy, he still continued his Cologne-water baths, and sported his lace-bordered handkerchiefs in the very teeth of a tempest. Alas, Selvagee! there was no getting the lavender ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... man; an ancient and common saying, originating from the effeminacy of their employment; or, as some have it, from nine taylors having been robbed by one man; according to others, from the speech of a woollendraper, meaning that the custom of nine, taylors would make or enrich one man—A London taylor, rated to furnish half a man to the Trained ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... ever offered to the public in which the kindness and providence of God have been set forth by more striking examples, or the machinations of priestcraft been more truly and lucidly exposed, or the dangers which result to a nation when it abandons itself to effeminacy, and a rage for what is novel ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow
... care of his health, as far as out-door exercise was concerned. His friends beheld him with horror go out on a dewy day: he would even step out in his slippers. In his own grounds he never wore a hat: he used to say, that on his first visit to Paris he was ashamed of his effeminacy, when he saw every meagre little Frenchman whom he could have knocked down in a breath walking without a hat, which he could not do without a certainty of taking the disease which the Germans say is endemical in England, and which they call to catch cold. The first trial, ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton
... security for his good behavior. These were not the only occasions of ill-will against Marius; some haughty speeches, uttered with great arrogance and contempt, gave great offense to the nobility; as, for example, his saying that he had carried off the consulship as a spoil from the effeminacy of the wealthy and high-born citizens, and telling the people that he gloried in wounds he had himself received for them, as much as others did in the monuments of dead men and images of their ancestors. Often speaking of the commanders that had been unfortunate in Africa, naming Bestia, for example, ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... penguins. The hair seal appears to frequent the sheltered beaches, points, and rocks; whilst the rocks and rocky points exposed to the buffettings of the waves are preferred by the handsomer and superior species, which never condescends to the effeminacy of a beach. A point or island will not be greatly resorted to by these animals, unless it slope gradually to the water, and the shore be, as we term it, steep to. This is the case with the islet lying off Cape Barren, and with Cone Point; with parts of the Passage Isles, and ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis • Matthew Flinders
... commencement of 1670, the splendour and corruption of the French Court had reached their acme. The seraglio of the great King recalled to mind that of Solomon, whilst his brother, enslaved by effeminacy and debauchery, had only to hold up his finger and the most important personages of the state were suitably provided with mistresses to such an extent that at length it became necessary to transfer occasionally ...
— Political Women, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... suspected some snare. They burst into loud lamentations, and were described by some children, who observed them, to be 'greeting and roaring like women.' This incident the lady of Drumakiln (who was a person of some capacity) afterwards told her neighbours as a strange instance of effeminacy ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume II. • Mrs. Thomson
... trying to analyze the elusive quality of their regard. They were unlike any eyes that he had met with. It were folly to count their possessor a negligible quantity. Nevertheless, it was difficult, because of the fellow's scented effeminacy, to believe that women could find him attractive. But Harley, wise in worldly lore, perceived that the mystery surrounding Ormuz Khan must make a strong appeal to a certain type of female mind. He was forced to admit that some women, indeed many, ...
— Fire-Tongue • Sax Rohmer
... the softer soul, but the master had the kinder. Friendship is both a virtue and a passion essentially; love is passion only in its nature, and is not a virtue but by accident: good-nature makes friendship, but effeminacy love. Shakspeare had an universal mind, which comprehended all characters and passions; Fletcher, a more confined and limited: for though he treated love in perfection, yet honour, ambition, revenge, and generally all the stronger passions, he either touched not, or not masterly. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 57, No. 352, February 1845 • Various
... system, various administrative organs were created in accordance with Tang models, and a polity at once imposing and elaborate came into existence. But when the capital was overtaken by an era of literary effeminacy and luxurious abandonment, the Imperial exchequer fell into such a state of exhaustion that administrative posts began to be treated as State assets and bought and sold like commercial chattels, the discharge of the functions connected with them becoming illusory, ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... infancy I had an instinctive dislike of the maudlin way of looking at things,' and he remembers how in his fifth year he had declared that guns were not 'dreadful things.' They were good if put to the proper uses. I do not think that there was ever much real 'effeminacy' to be knocked out of him. It is too harsh a word for the slowness with which a massive and not very flexible character rouses itself to action. His health was good, except for a trifling ailment which made him for some time pass for a delicate child. But the delicacy soon passed off and for the ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... [Excess of fear.] Cowardice. — N. cowardice, pusillanimity; cowardliness &c. adj.; timidity, effeminacy. poltroonery, baseness; dastardness[obs3], dastardy[obs3]; abject fear, funk; Dutch courage; fear &c. 860; white feather, faint heart; cold feet * [U. S.], yellow streak*. coward, poltroon, dastard, sneak, recreant; shy cock, dunghill cock; coistril[obs3], milksop, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... qualities, which causd him to be admird by the people, and acceptable to the souldiers, because he was a warlike man, enduring all kind of travell and paines, despising all delicate food, and all kinde of effeminacy, which gaind him the love of all the armies: neverthelesse his fiercenesse and cruelty were such, and so hideous, having upon many particular occasions put to death a great part of the people of Rome, and all those of Alexandria, ...
— Machiavelli, Volume I - The Art of War; and The Prince • Niccolo Machiavelli
... elementary nature; hence it was his nightly custom, when released from the toils of the day, to proceed upstairs to his room and, slipping his braces from his shoulders, allow his nether garments to drop to the floor and, without further preparation, roll into bed. Of the effeminacy of a night robe Webster knew nothing except by somewhat hazy rumour. Once under the patchwork quilt he was safe for the night, for, heaving himself into the middle of the bed, he sank into solid and stertorous slumber, from which all Cameron's prods and kicks ...
— Corporal Cameron • Ralph Connor
... the rich." Those exercises were, in the system of the Greeks, . . . considered as absolutely indispensable to a liberal education. That of Demosthenes was certainly neglected by his guardians, and the probability is that the effeminacy with which he was reproached meant nothing more than that he had not frequented in youth the palestra and the gymnasium, and that his bodily training had been ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... recur to their sea bowlegs and red-stubble chins, might take to their tarpaulins again; they might renew their manhood on the capture of cod; headed by Harald and Hardiknut, they might roll surges to whelm a Dominant Jew clean gone to the fleshpots and effeminacy. Aldermen of our ancient conception, they may teach him that he has been backsliding once more, and must repent in ashes, as those who are for jewels, titles, essences, banquets, for wallowing in slimy spawn of lucre, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... heartless, and an object of pity to the wise. Mr. Povy, whose office as a member of the Tangier Commission brought him into continual contact with the court, and whose love of gossip made him observant of all that passed around him, in telling of "the horrid effeminacy of the king," said that "upon any falling out between my Lady Castlemaine's nurse and her woman, my lady hath often said she would make the king make them friends, and they would be friends and be quiet—which the king had been fain to do." ...
— Royalty Restored - or, London under Charles II. • J. Fitzgerald Molloy
... ancestors defeated their enemies in so decisive a manner that they never fought again. We also would assuredly have saved the fatherland, for we have, we believe, marrow in our bones, and remain uncorrupted by modern luxury and effeminacy. But no one can escape the decrees of Providence. Oh, farewell, then, our father and king! Heaven grant you more faithful generals and more sagacious ministers for the remainder of your states! You are not omniscient, and you were sometimes obliged to follow them into ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
... would seem to be inconstant who fails to persevere in what he has proposed to do. Now this is a mark of "incontinency" in pleasurable matters, and of "effeminacy" or "squeamishness" in unpleasant matters, according to Ethic. vii, 1. Therefore inconstancy ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... characterize those habits as bad which relate only to our convenience or our enjoyment. They are often not blamable in themselves, but there lies in them a hidden danger that they may allure us into luxury or effeminacy. But it is a false and mechanical way of looking at the affair if we suppose that a habit which has been formed by a certain number of repetitions can be broken by an equal number of denials. We can never renounce a habit utterly except through a clearness ...
— Pedagogics as a System • Karl Rosenkranz
... the principle, that on an expedition attended by so many difficulties and privations, it was deemed justifiable to attempt to inure the constitution to the noxious influences of the climate, and to look down with contempt upon any act which had the least tendency to effeminacy, or a scrupulous attention to personal comfort. The constitution of Clapperton was well known to have been of an iron nature; it had already withstood the pestilential climate of some parts of Soudan, in ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... entering society, be engaged to cultivate and so polish his manners as to render him an acceptable member of the Union Club, under the patronage of which institution, (generally supposed to have been established for the cultivation of effeminacy and other vices, common to the Dutch of New York,) he was sure to become a lion. Monsieur Pensin had figured in New York; was an exile of unquestionable nobility; and if we can trust the Tribune, a journal in high favor with foreign counts, a hero ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... indeed, be initiated, as far superior to the conscript armies as Cromwell's Ironsides were to the mercenaries of their time. The whole nation from prince to beggar would by this means be transformed, labour would cease to be despised or riches to be worshipped, the reproach of effeminacy would be removed, the horrors of peace mitigated, and the moral equivalent of war discovered. For the first time a true comradeship between class and class would arise, for, as Goethe said, work makes the comrade, and democracy might ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson
... head of the house was then exhorted by his women folk to "change his feet" if he had happened to walk through a burn on his way home, and was pestered generally with sanitary precautions. It is right to add that the gudeman treated such advice with contempt, regarding it as suitable for the effeminacy of towns, but not seriously intended for Drumtochty. Sandy Stewart "napped" stones on the road in his shirt-sleeves, wet or fair, summer and winter, till he was persuaded to retire from active duty at eighty-five, and he spent ten years more in regretting his hastiness and criticising his successor. ...
— Stories by English Authors: Scotland • Various
... the "Orphan of Chaou," translated by Pere Premare; and the second, entitled an "Heir in Old Age," by the author of the present version. "The Sorrows of Han" is historical, and relates to one of the most interesting periods of the Chinese annals, when the growing effeminacy of the court, and consequent weakness of the government, emboldened the Tartars in their aggressions, and first gave rise to the temporizing and impolitic system of propitiating those barbarians by tribute, which long after produced the downfall of the empire and the ...
— Chinese Literature • Anonymous
... a mind not yet all destroyed by effeminacy and indulgence of the emotions. Something of the iron of his own brain got into the brain of the young man, who came to his feet trembling a little, and said: "I don't mind it so much, if you ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... had put forth an opinion which it had been decided should be acted upon. It was, not to attack the Friars Minor openly, but to have recourse to artifice; to induce them to receive into their society nobles, learned men, and youths. Nobles, in order by their means to introduce effeminacy in which they had been brought up; learned men, who, proud of their learning, should have a contempt for humility; and youths, who, being weak and delicate, would greatly relax ...
— The Life and Legends of Saint Francis of Assisi • Father Candide Chalippe
... misfortunes, have I applauded myself for the education I have given him; for having taught him the principal modern languages; for having accustomed him to wait on himself; to despise all kinds of effeminacy; to sleep habitually on a wooden bed, with no covering but a mat; to expose himself to heat, cold, and rain; to accustom himself to fatigue by daily and violent exercise, by walking ten or fifteen miles with ...
— Louis Philippe - Makers of History Series • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... says: "It is difficult to conceive of sympathy, and sympathy only, as the continuous, or even the originally efficient cause of the avoidance." Mr Crawley had called attention to the fact that savages fear womanly characteristics, that is, effeminacy, which is identified with weakness. While noting with great psychological insight the presence of other factors, such as the dislike of the different, he had gone so far as to express the opinion that the fear of ...
— Taboo and Genetics • Melvin Moses Knight, Iva Lowther Peters, and Phyllis Mary Blanchard
... as a bond to-day will be equally serviceable to-morrow; so that apparently their dissolution cannot come from themselves. It is true, a barbarous people, possessed of a beautiful country, may be relaxed in luxury and effeminacy; but such degeneracy has no obvious tendency to weaken their faith in the objects in which their political unity consists, though it may render them defenceless against external attacks. And here indeed lies their real peril at all times; they are ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman
... we have recommended, would questionless in less than half an age, produce of wonders, by introduction, if not of quite different, yet of better kinds, and such variety for pulchritude and sweetness; that when by some princely example, our late pride, effeminacy, and luxury, (which has to our vast charges, excluded all the ornaments of timber, &c. to give place to hangings, embroideries, and foreign leather) shall be put out of countenance, we may hope to see a new face of things, for the encouragement of planters (the more immediate ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn
... as he had lived alone he had never felt as if his art, or perhaps rather his method of giving himself to it, had any trait of effeminacy. It had seemed quite natural to him to be shut up in his own "diggings," isolated, with only a couple of devoted servants, and golden-haired Fan in the distance, being as natural as he was. It had never occurred to him that his ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... a twist! If I had had my way, I should have been at Argaum two months later. But, good Lard!—they wouldn't let me out of Hospital." The old soldier, roused by the recollection of a fifty-year-old grievance, still rankling, launched into a denunciation of the effeminacy and timidity of Authorities and Seniors, of all sorts and conditions. His youth was back upon him with its memories, and he had forgotten that he too was now a Senior. His torrent of thinly disguised execrations was of service to Lady Gwen; as the original subject of the conversation, just shot, ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... deserved; and she even reproached herself for her lack of common gratitude, for in her high spirits at the prospect of escape, she caught herself more than once smiling at the recollection of "Little Dudleigh's" little ways, his primness, and effeminacy. ...
— The Living Link • James De Mille
... condemned by God, and is in open rebellion against Him. The centreing of the corrupt heart upon its own corruption. Opposition to the pure will of God. Pride, falseness, unscrupulous ambition. Self-seeking, regardless of the means by which its object is obtained. Luxury, effeminacy, and sensuality. The lusts and fleshly passions. Malice, cruelty, and envy. The greed of gain. The love and thraldom of the world. There it is—the running sore of a suffering race. The outflow of the carnal mind, which is ...
— Our Master • Bramwell Booth
... laughter was ringing and hearty, and merriment found added expression in the doubling up of his body and the shaking of his hand. His hands were small, with sensitive, tapering fingers, and when playing the fingers acted as if endowed with separate life and intelligence. There was no effeminacy connected with his lovable nature; he was quick to resent meanness or deceit, or wrong-doing of any kind. His anger was exceedingly sharp, and his manner of expressing contempt an astonishing revelation to those ...
— Story-Lives of Great Musicians • Francis Jameson Rowbotham
... were destitute of what is called (with dainty vagueness) personal effects; and it was earnestly mooted, on the other side, whether we had not time to call upon the way and pack a satchel? But the Stennis boys exclaimed upon our effeminacy. They had come from London, it appeared, a week before with nothing but greatcoats and tooth-brushes. No baggage—there was the secret of existence. It was expensive, to be sure; for every time you had to comb your hair, a barber must be paid, and every time you changed your linen, ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... closely allied to an evil character." While it is true that the basis for this argument has been modified by our abandonment of the Greek aesthetic theories of "inspiration" and "imitation," Plato's moralistic objection to lyric effeminacy and lyric naturalism is widely shared by many of our contemporaries. They do not find the "New Poetry," lovely as it often is, altogether "manly." They find on the contrary that some of it is what Plato calls "dissolute," i.e. dissolving or relaxing the fibres ...
— A Study of Poetry • Bliss Perry
... therein we observe these great souls assaulted and tried by these two several ways, to resist the one without relenting, and to be shook and subjected by the other. It may be true that to suffer a man's heart to be totally subdued by compassion may be imputed to facility, effeminacy, and over-tenderness; whence it comes to pass that the weaker natures, as of women, children, and the common sort of people, are the most subject to it but after having resisted and disdained the power of groans and tears, to yield to the sole reverence of the sacred image of ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... philosophers, poets, men of letters, and all their works, without particular apprehension on the side of the drama. Hence its reasoning is much less interesting than its panegyric on the simplicity, robust courage, and manliness of the Genevese, and its invective against the effeminacy and frivolity of the Parisian. One of the most significant episodes in the discussion is the lengthy criticism on the immortal Misanthrope of Moliere. Rousseau admits it for the masterpiece of the comic muse, though with characteristic perversity he insists ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... character of the idolaters. Where Moloch was worshipped, the people would naturally be found cruel; where the Paphian Venus, it could not be expected that they should escape the taint of a voluptuous effeminacy. ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v1 • Thomas de Quincey
... splendid blue-green eyes, fearless, and yet shy as a lad's eyes often are—at that moment of development when a good-looking lad, in spite of his height and muscles, has something of the bloom and purity of a girl, without in the least suggesting effeminacy. So, many tall athletic girls, for a brief period, suggest boys—without there being the least danger of mistake as to their ...
— Pieces of Eight • Richard le Gallienne
... of childhood in one who must bear the fatigues of a grown-up man. The fable says that, to render her son invulnerable, Thetis plunged him into the Styx. This allegory is beautiful and clear. The cruel mothers of whom I am speaking do far otherwise; by plunging their children into effeminacy they open their pores to ills of every kind, to which, when grown up, they ...
— Emile - or, Concerning Education; Extracts • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... him went, mounted on camels, a band, arrayed as trumpeters and lictors, the lictors' rods having purses suspended to them, and the axes in their midst being crowned with the bleeding heads of Romans. In the rear followed a train of Seloucian music-girls, who sang songs derisive of the effeminacy and cowardice of the proconsul. After this pretended parade of his prisoner through the streets of the town, Surenas called a meeting of the Seleucian senate, and indignantly denounced to them the indecency of the literature which he had found in the Roman ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 6. (of 7): Parthia • George Rawlinson
... and I do not believe there will be ten out of the hundred who will not become precisely to that degree clownish. I am not battling for the luxuries of life, but I am for its decencies. I would not turn boys into Sybarites, but neither would I let them riot into Satyrs. The effeminacy of a false aristocracy is no nearer the heights of true manhood than the clumsiness of the clod, but I think it is just as near. I would have college rooms, college entrances, and all college domains cleanly and attractive. I would, in the first place, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... hair is silky and soft, and, if not always smooth, susceptible of smoothness. A man's hair is shag. If he tries to make it anything else, he does not mend the matter. Ceasing to be shag, it does not become beauty, but foppishness, effeminacy, Miss Nancy-ism. A man is a brute by the law of his nature. Let him ape a woman, and he does not cease to be brutal, though he does become ridiculous. The only thing for him to do is to be the best kind of ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... Dunning out of his joke. I perceive," he said, rising and taking up his hat; "and, indeed, I don't know that I can blame a hardy woodsman for laughing at the idea of one of our in-door and tender professional men, like myself, sleeping on floors and benches. I am afraid we deserve it for our effeminacy. Yes, yes, a good joke, truly! and a good laughter-moving joke is an excellent thing to go to bed upon, they say," he added, as with a merry, gleeful look, he bowed himself ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... Effeminacy was the chief cause of the ruin of the Roman legions: those formidable soldiers, who had borne the casque, buckler, and cuirass in the times of the Scipios under the burning sun of Africa, found them too heavy in the cool climates ...
— The Art of War • Baron Henri de Jomini
... assailing or denouncing them. He is a friend of religious toleration, and that, not only because his philosophy has taught him to look on all forms of faith with an impartial eye, but also from the gentleness and effeminacy of feeling, which is the attendant ...
— Journeys Through Bookland - Volume Four • Charles H. Sylvester
... placed on a level with the Christian virtues. The fine gentlemen of the Chesterfield era speak of fox-hunting pretty much as we speak of prize-fighting and bull-baiting. When all manly exercises had an inseparable taint of coarseness, delicate people naturally mistook effeminacy for refinement. When you can only join in male society on pain of drinking yourself under the table, the safest plan is to retire to tea-tables and small talk. For many years, Walpole's greatest pleasure seems to have been drinking tea with Lady Suffolk, and ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... "mannish," so let woman be urged to exercise a dignified and womanly bearing, not womanish. Let her cultivate all the graces and proper accomplishments of her sex, but let not these degenerate into a kind of effeminacy, in which she is satisfied to be the mere plaything or toy of society, content with her outward adornings, and the flattery and fulsome adulation too often ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... effeminate. The mass of men incline to both weaknesses. He that deliberately pursues excessive pleasures, or other pleasures in an excessive way, is said to be abandoned. The intemperate are worse than the incontinent. Sport, in its excess, is effeminacy, as being relaxation from toil. There are two kinds of incontinence: the one proceeding from precipitancy, where a man acts without deliberating at all; the other from feebleness,—where he deliberates, but where the result of deliberation is too weak to countervail his appetite (VII.). Intemperance ...
— Moral Science; A Compendium of Ethics • Alexander Bain
... gorgeous magnificence of the Spanish nobles found but little favor in the eyes of the sovereigns. They saw that it caused a competition in expense ruinous to cavaliers of moderate fortune; and they feared that a softness and effeminacy might thus be introduced, incompatible with the stern nature of the war. They signified their disapprobation to several of the principal noblemen, and recommended a more sober and soldier-like display while in ...
— Washington Irving • Charles Dudley Warner
... capital. Then Chopin first began to enjoy an artistic atmosphere, to live less parochially. His home life, sweet and tranquil as it was, could not fail to hurt him as artist; he was flattered and coddled and doubtless the touch of effeminacy in his person was fostered. In Vienna the life was gayer, freer and infinitely more artistic than in Warsaw. He met every one worth knowing in the artistic world and his letters at that period are positively brimming over with gossip and pen pictures of ...
— Chopin: The Man and His Music • James Huneker
... several wives has usually a weakly offspring, principally males. Nature attempts to check polygamy by reducing the number of females, and failing in this, by enervating the whole stock. The Mormons of Utah would soon sink into a state of Asiatic effeminacy were they ...
— The Physical Life of Woman: - Advice to the Maiden, Wife and Mother • Dr. George H Napheys
... are so termed in Europe) in attending to their nurture, from which they derive the most superlative of all enjoyments, the heart-felt satisfaction of having done their duty to their God and country, in giving robust, healthy and virtuous citizens to the State. The effeminacy of exotic fashion has not at present extended its pernicious influence so far as to induce them to commit the rearing of their children to mercenary nurses, who are sometimes the very dregs of a people; and whose vicious habits of taking a drop of the good ...
— The Olden Time Series, Vol. 6: Literary Curiosities - Gleanings Chiefly from Old Newspapers of Boston and Salem, Massachusetts • Henry M. Brooks
... kingdom, occupied, rather than governed it, for thirty-seven years. The career of his life is said to have been cruel in the beginning, wretched in the middle, and disgraceful in the end. Thus, in the murder to which he gave his concurrence he was cruel, base in his flight and effeminacy, miserable in ...
— Alfgar the Dane or the Second Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... of a higher, namely, of the spiritual element is essential to its perfection. The high and divine beauty which can be loved without effeminacy, is that which is found in combination with the human will. Beauty is the mark God sets upon virtue. Every natural action is graceful. Every heroic act is also decent, and causes the place and the bystanders to shine. We are taught by great actions that the universe is the property of every individual ...
— Nature • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... bolder fancy early remonstrated against this chilling confinement of the noblest, the most aspiring, and most expansive of all the Arts. . . . It was not till the commotion of Europe broke the chain of indolence and insipid effeminacy that the stronger passions of readers required again to be stimulated and exercised and soothed, and that the minor charms of correctness were sacrificed to the ardent efforts of uncontrolled and unfearing genius. The authors of this class began to ...
— The Book-Hunter in London - Historical and Other Studies of Collectors and Collecting • William Roberts
... without any compunction to the most godless and foul? Would he not be worse than Eriphyle, who sold her husband's life for a necklace? And intemperance is the letting loose of the multiform monster, and pride and sullenness are the growth and increase of the lion and serpent element, while luxury and effeminacy are caused by a too great relaxation of spirit. Flattery and meanness again arise when the spirited element is subjected to avarice, and the lion is habituated to become a monkey. The real disgrace of handicraft arts is, that those who are engaged in ...
— The Republic • Plato
... understood him perfectly, I dared not trust myself to reply to him in that language. Then he tried German, speaking it with a kind of soft lisp that I thought charming. But, before the end of the evening, I became a little tired of the affected softness and effeminacy of his manners, and the exaggerated compliments he paid me, which had the effect of making all the company turn round and look at me. Madame Rupprecht was, however, pleased with the precise thing that displeased me. She liked either Sophie or me to create a sensation; of course ...
— Curious, if True - Strange Tales • Elizabeth Gaskell
... unsoldierlike. It was said, that "he walked about in the gymnasium in a cloak and slippers, and that he gave his time to light books and the palaestra. That his whole staff were enjoying the delights which Syracuse afforded, with the same indolence and effeminacy. That Carthage and Hannibal had dropped out of his memory; that the whole army, corrupted by indulgence, like that at Sucro in Spain, or that now at Locri, was more to be feared by its ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius
... the house, as usual, turned the conversation upon the subject of politics. She inveighed with much warmth against the effeminacy and depravity of the modern times. We were slaves, and we deserved to be so. In almost every country there now appeared a king, that puppet pageant, that monster in creation, miserable itself, a combination of every vice, and invented for the curse of human kind. ...
— Damon and Delia - A Tale • William Godwin
... half legendary—differently told by different authors. Herodotus has one tale, Xenophon another. The first, at least, had ample means of information. Astyages is the old shah of the Median Empire, then at the height of its seeming might and splendour and effeminacy. He has married his daughter, the princess Mandane, to Cambyses, seemingly a vassal-king or prince of the pure Persian blood. One night the old man is troubled with a dream. He sees a vine spring from his daughter, which overshadows ...
— Lectures Delivered in America in 1874 • Charles Kingsley
... at least since the more southern races had yielded to the enervating influences of their settled life. Some of these had indeed been tamed, but more had been degraded. The English were degenerating into clownishness, the Franks into effeminacy; and though Christianity continually raised up most brilliant lights—now on the throne, now in the cathedral, now in the cloister—yet the mass of the people lay sluggish, dull, inert, ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... gentle, even to womanliness. Indeed, he was like a receptive, lovable old woman, the kind he celebrates so often. He never smoked, his only drink was water. I doubt if he ever drank spirits. His old friends say "No," although he is a terrible rake in print. Without suggesting effeminacy, he gave me the impression of a feminine soul in a masculine envelope. When President Lincoln first saw him he said: "Well, he looks like a man!" Perhaps Lincoln knew, for his remark has other connotations than the speech of Napoleon when he met Goethe: "Voila un homme!" ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker
... upon the same theme. Though Cowper is for brief spaces playful or simply satirical, he always falls back into his habitual vein of meditation. For the ferocious personalities of Churchill, the coarse-fibred friend of his youth, we have a sad strain of lamentation over the growing luxury and effeminacy of the age. It is a continued anticipation of the lines in the 'Task,' which seem to express his most serious ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... appeal that he does not know his business. Such aid as this Arthur Agar had sought. He had, as Dora suspected, written to his mother, with full particulars of the conversation beneath the Hurlingham trees. He had laid before her many arguments, which, by reason of their effeminacy, appealed to her illogical mind, proving that Dora could not do better than marry him. The arrangement, he argued, was satisfactory from whatever point of view it might be taken; and, finally, he begged his mother to try and succeed where he had failed. He did not propose that Mrs. Agar should ...
— From One Generation to Another • Henry Seton Merriman
... and sensual our tastes have become. The saying of Burke (so unworthy of a great man), that vice loses half its evil by losing all its grossness, is practically acted upon, and voluptuous and seductive figures, recommended only by a soft effeminacy, swarm our shop-windows and defile our drawing-rooms. It is impossible to over-state the extent to which they minister to, and increase the foul sins of, a corrupt and luxurious age. A school of ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various
... the intention of making his family happy and distinguished, the father brings it up in luxury and idleness, and this produces a very harmful result. The increasing refinement of modern life and its pleasures leads to effeminacy. It bears upon the whole of society and degenerates into an artificial desire for brilliancy and show, which makes it increasingly difficult to obtain a simple and sober education for the family. Men ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel
... society, but as a principle; often quoting from some one who said that "the adornment of a vain and foolish world, would feed a starving one." He opposed extravagant fashions and all luxury of habit and life, as calculated to produce effeminacy and degrading sensuality, and as a bestowal of idolatrous attention upon that body which he would often say "was here ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... not sure that he had any kind of shame whatever, except possibly when detected with a coat that bore any appearance of newness, or if overpersuaded to wear gloves, which he ever considered as a special effeminacy. ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... length, in 1170, the struggle for supremacy was terminated by Saladin the Great, who killed the Caliph of Cairo with his mace, and rendered the Caliph of Bagdad undisputed chief of all Moslems; and, from that time, the Abassides, though sunk in effeminacy, and much given to sensual indulgences, continued to exercise their vague privileges and their ...
— The Boy Crusaders - A Story of the Days of Louis IX. • John G. Edgar
... honor. It honors the Worker, the Toiler; him who produces and not alone consumes; him who puts forth his hand to add to the treasury of human comforts, and not alone to take away. It honors him who goes forth amid the struggling elements to fight his battle, and who shrinks not, with cowardly effeminacy, behind pillows of ease. It honors the strong muscle, and the manly nerve, and the resolute and brave heart, the sweating brow, and the toiling brain. It honors the great and beautiful offices of humanity, manhood's toil and woman's task; paternal industry and maternal watching and weariness; ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... lacking in effeminacy, was greatly taken by the wondrous raiment, the studied lisp and the hundred affectations of this peerless gallant. Had he not been overburdened at the time by the Papal business that impended, he might ...
— The Shame of Motley • Raphael Sabatini
... look on.'" Mr. Petalengro goes on to say: "It would seem to us that the more rude energy a man has in his composition the more a woman will be made to take her position as helpmate. It is always a mark of great civilisation and the effeminacy of a people when women obtain the undue mastery of men." And he farther goes on to say: "We were just having a romp with Esmeralda and her two brothers as we were packing up our things, and a merry laugh, when some men appeared at the fence near our camping-ground. We little think," ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... eo usque allevandum est, ut quasi normalem illum angulum faciat." Quint., lib. xii., ca. x., "ne hirta toga sit;" don't let the toga be rumpled; "non serica:" the silk here interdicted was the silk of effeminacy, not that silk of authority of which our barristers are proud. "Ne intonsum caput; non in gradus atque annulos comptum." It would take too much space were I to give here all the lessons taught by this professor of deportment as to the wearing of ...
— Life of Cicero - Volume One • Anthony Trollope
... passions on a supposition that they have something great and exalted in them," and that he wanted "a due mixture of gravity and mildness, which are the chief political virtues and the fruits of reason and education." "He never dreamed that such obstinacy is rather the effect of the weakness and effeminacy of a distempered mind, which breaks out in violent passions like so many tumors." Nor apparently did Shakespeare ever dream of it either, altho he had Plutarch's sage observations before him. It is a pity that the great dramatist ...
— Tolstoy on Shakespeare - A Critical Essay on Shakespeare • Leo Tolstoy
... Stories of the effeminacy of Sardanapalus had been collected by Ctesias of Cnidus; they soon grew under the hands of historians in the time of Alexander, and were passed on by them to writers of the Roman and ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 8 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... never should act, it ought to be put out of all doubt. As an example, when a bull shows the head of a female and a want of masculine character, he should be rejected. Masculine character in the bull is of the greatest importance to the success of the breeder—effeminacy in the male must be shunned as the most deadly poison. On the other hand, let that female be rejected by the judge in the show-yard, and by the breeder in his selection, that looks as much like a male as a female. However long she may have been kept ...
— Cattle and Cattle-breeders • William M'Combie
... assailing or denouncing them. He is a friend of religious toleration, and that, not only because his philosophy has taught him to look on all forms of faith with an impartial eye, but also from the gentleness and effeminacy of feeling which is the attendant ...
— The Glory of English Prose - Letters to My Grandson • Stephen Coleridge
... capital of the whole world. With this idea always before him, it is no wonder that such a typical Roman as M. Porcius Cato should look with disdain upon the fine arts in all their forms, and should regard a love for the beautiful, whether in literature or art, as synonymous with effeminacy. Mummius, also, who destroyed Corinth, is said to have been so little aware of the value of the artistic treasures which he carried away, as to stipulate with the carriers who undertook to transport them to Rome, that if any of the works of art were lost they ...
— Architecture - Classic and Early Christian • Thomas Roger Smith
... doubted, that the plunder of so many vessels, together with the silver which they seized at Nombre de Dios, must amount to a very large sum, though the part that was allotted to Drake was not sufficient to lull him in effeminacy, or to repress his natural ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson
... distinction for the body of the natives in Syria, and especially in Egypt, the use of their ancient dialects, by secluding them from the commerce of mankind, checked the improvements of those barbarians. [42] The slothful effeminacy of the former exposed them to the contempt, the sullen ferociousness of the latter excited the aversion, of the conquerors. [43] Those nations had submitted to the Roman power, but they seldom desired or deserved the freedom of the city: and it was remarked, that ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... itself in the veins on the hands and temples, the occasional quiver of the upper lip! His was the frame above all others the most alive to pleasure—deep-chested, compact, sinewy, but thin to leanness—delicate in its texture and extremities, almost to effeminacy. The indifference of the posture, the very habit of the dress—not slovenly, indeed, but easy, loose, careless—seemed to speak of the man's manner of thought and life—his ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... elsewhere intimated that Alan Fairford inherited from his mother a delicate constitution, with a tendency to consumption; and, being an only child, with such a cause for apprehension, care, to the verge of effeminacy, was taken to preserve him from damp beds, wet feet, and those various emergencies to which the Caledonian boys of much higher birth, but more active habits, are generally accustomed. In man, the spirit sustains the constitutional weakness, as in the winged tribes the feathers ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... delivered as his defence before the judges. Socrates read it; but after having praised the eloquence and animation of the whole, rejected it, as neither manly nor expressive of fortitude; and comparing it to Sicyonian shoes, which though fitting, were proofs of effeminacy, he observed that a philosopher ought to be conspicuous for magnanimity, and for firmness of soul. In his defence he spoke with great animation, and confessed that while others boasted they knew ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 4, April 1810 • Various
... process of selection and installation. The present room, although far more luxurious than any that Phineas McPhail had slept in for years, formed a striking contrast with that remembered nest of effeminacy. ...
— The Rough Road • William John Locke
... his appraisement, with a touch of scorn, the clean-shaven face and general neatness of the other, but as against this effeminacy he offset the steady-eyed fearlessness of gaze and the smooth power of shoulders and torso that he ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... certainty I could descry the tall figure of Agnes, her gipsy hat, and even the peculiar elegance of her walk. Often I went so far as to laugh at myself, and even to tax my recent fears with unmanliness and effeminacy, on recollecting the audible throbbings of my heart, and the nervous palpitations which had besieged me; but these symptoms, whether effeminate or not, began to come back tumultuously under the gloomy doubts that succeeded ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... Anglesey hath said, within few days, that he would willingly give L10,000 of his estate that he was well secured of the rest, such apprehensions he hath of the sequel of things, as giving all over for lost. He tells me, speaking of the horrid effeminacy of the King, that the King hath taken ten times more care and pains in making friends between my Lady Castlemayne and Mrs. Stewart, when they have fallen out, than ever he did to save his kingdom; nay, that upon any ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... their choice wording, their originality in epithet, name, and phrase, were novelties of Milton's own. His English masters were Spenser, Fletcher, and Sylvester, the translator of Du Bartas's La Sepmaine, but nothing of Spenser's prolixity, or Fletcher's effeminacy, or Sylvester's quaintness is found in Milton's pure, energetic diction. He inherited their beauties, but his taste had been tempered to a finer edge by his studies in Greek and Hebrew poetry. He was the last of the Elisabethans, and {154} his style was at once the crown of the old and a ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... every man, Good. That in the highest and most tempted, as well as in the lowest, there is often a higher nobility than of rank. Pericles and Alexander had great, but different virtues, and although the refinement of the one may have resulted in effeminacy, and the hardihood of the other in brutality, we ought to pause ere we condemn where we should all ...
— Friends and Neighbors - or Two Ways of Living in the World • Anonymous
... pleasing manner.—Any one can be civil and polite if he sets himself to be so. Some suppose that it is unworthy of a robust character to be gentle in demeanor, that it indicates a certain amount of effeminacy, and that strength and gruffness go together. We hear men spoken of sometimes approvingly as "rough diamonds." But history tells us that the noblest and strongest have been the most tender and courteous. King Robert the Bruce was "brave as a lion, tender-hearted as a woman." "Sir Walter ...
— Life and Conduct • J. Cameron Lees
... length equally absurd and cruel; for they punished with great severity a famous poet and musician, for adding three strings to the harp; grounding their sentence upon a principle universally assented to among them, that the softness of musical sounds produced effeminacy among the people. Of the truth of their proposition in the abstract, there can be little doubt; it is in the rigid application and extreme extension of it the fault lies. Music has certainly a powerful influence on the passions, and ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 5, May 1810 • Various
... of bearing his misfortune, Quentin felt himself more able to receive and reply to the jests of the Count of Crevecoeur, who passed several on his alleged effeminacy and incapacity of undergoing fatigue. The young Scot accommodated himself so good humouredly to the Count's raillery, and replied at once so happily and so respectfully, that the change of his tone and manner made obviously a ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... same time warned the Princes who remained at Issessara to hold themselves in readiness against the day on which he should come to complete his revenge, and to free the State from a tyrant who was sunk in effeminacy. ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various
... little tenacious on this point. He often rails against the universal use of carriages, and quotes the words of honest Nashe to that effect. "It was thought," says Nashe, in his Quaternio, "a kind of solecism, and to savour of effeminacy, for a young gentleman in the flourishing time of his age to creep into a coach, and to shroud himself from wind and weather: our great delight was to outbrave the blustering Boreas upon a great horse; to arm and prepare ourselves to go with Mars and Bellona into the field, was ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... frame was not in the least affected by the cold, scolded me, as if my shivering had been a paltry effeminacy, saying, 'Why do you shiver?' Sir William Scott,[1360] of the Commons, told me, that when he complained of a headach in the post-chaise, as they were travelling together to Scotland, Johnson treated him in the same manner: 'At ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... person, he is described to be of middle stature; his body strong set and fleshy; his hair black; his eyes large; his countenance amiable, and very pleasant, especially when he was merry. He was temperate in meat and drink, and a hater of effeminacy, a vice or folly much complained of in his time, especially that circumstance of long artificial hair, which he forbade upon severe penalties. His three principal virtues were prudence, valour, and eloquence. These were counterbalanced ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift
... creatur'" he addressed was a well-built young fellow of seventeen, with no more effeminacy in his appearance than is visible in a lad balanced by nature just on that edge of life where we rest for a short space uneasily, bidding good-bye to boyhood so eagerly, before stepping boldly forward, and with flushed face and ...
— Menhardoc • George Manville Fenn
... sir—extermination! On the north side of the North Pole there is another world peopled by giants; ten thousand millions at the very least; every giant of them a hundred feet high. Now about the time you have reduced your universe to complete effeminacy some fool with a pick-axe will break through the thin partition—the mere ice curtain—separating these giants from us, and then they will sweep through and swoop down and swallow you, sir, and the likes of you, with your topsy-turvy civilization, your boasted ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson
... mind of France, that the people appeared to have lost all sense of their own dignity, in contemplating that of their Grand Monarch; and the whole reign of Louis XV., remarkable only for weakness and effeminacy, made no other alteration than that of spreading a sort of lethargy over the nation, from which it showed no ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... natives of India, Hindus (pagans) and Hindis (Moslems), unlike Europeans, accustom themselves to evacuate twice a day, evening as well as morning. This may, perhaps, partly account for their mildness and effeminacy; for:— ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... fallacy. Man, in the midst of all his effeminacy, is still male and nothing but male. And woman, though she harangue in Parliament or patrol the streets with a helmet on her head, is still completely female. They are only playing each other's roles, because the poles have swung into reversion. The compass is reversed. But that doesn't mean that ...
— Fantasia of the Unconscious • D. H. Lawrence
... conquest and settlement of South America by the Spaniards, were wanting. Gold and silver to tempt cupidity were not to be found, and the stern, though not inhospitable character of the Northern tribes was very different from the imbecile effeminacy of the Southern races. The opposition likely to be encountered was more formidable, and the prize to be won hardly proportioned to the hazard to be incurred. While, therefore, the atrocious Spaniards were enslaving the ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams
... drinking must render the frame feeble and unfit to encounter hard labour or severe weather, while, as I have shown, it deducts from the means of replenishing the belly and covering the back. Hence succeeds a softness, an effeminacy, a seeking for the fireside, a lurking in the bed, and, in short, all the characteristics of idleness for which, in his case, real want of strength furnishes an apology. The tea drinking fills the public-house, makes the frequenting of it habitual, corrupts boys ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas
... divide it with him, of having first discovered to how much smoothness and harmony the English language could be softened. He has speeches, perhaps sometimes scenes, which have all the delicacy of Rowe, without his effeminacy. He endeavours indeed commonly to strike by the force and vigour of his dialogue, but he never executes his purpose better, than when he ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith
... breathless voice, expressed a high opinion of their merits. She praised the effective disposition of the rockery, and in the bedroom, of which Somerset had vainly endeavoured to defend the entry, she fairly broke forth in admiration. 'How simple and manly!' she cried: 'none of that effeminacy of neatness, which is so detestable in a man!' Hard upon this, telling him, before he had time to reply, that she very well knew her way, and would trouble him no further, she took her leave with an engaging smile, and ascended the ...
— The Dynamiter • Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Stevenson
... shared the popular conception of Keats as an effeminate poet. He concludes the essay "On Effeminacy of Character" in "Table Talk" with a reference to Keats: "I cannot help thinking that the fault of Mr. Keats's poems was a deficiency in masculine energy of style. He had beauty, tenderness, delicacy, in an uncommon degree, but there ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... were, etc. Scott says here: "Hardihood was in every respect so essential to the character of a Highlander, that the reproach of effeminacy was the most bitter which could be thrown upon him. Yet it was sometimes hazarded on what we might presume to think slight grounds. It is reported of old Sir Ewen Cameron of Lochiel, when upwards of seventy, that he was surprised by night on a hunting or military expedition. He wrapped him in ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... other countries not very different in climate from the southern parts of the United States, the inhabitants are distinguished for a softness and inoffensiveness of manners, degenerating almost to effeminacy; it is here then, only, that we are exempt from the general influence of climate: here only that, in spite of it, we are cruel and ferocious! ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... assumption of "welt-politik." Every refining trait was subordinated to the exigencies of the gospel of force. Not only the plebeian mass, but the exclusive aristocracy, revelled in the brutish impulse that associated all appeals to reason with effeminacy and invested the sword-slash on the student's cheek with the honor ordinarily ...
— The Sequel - What the Great War will mean to Australia • George A. Taylor
... is." No, rather sit alone in a warm place, and wait till your nurse comes to feed you. If Hercules had sat loitering at home, what would he have been? You are not Hercules, to extirpate the evils of others. Extirpate your own, then. Expel grief, fear, desire, envy, malevolence, avarice, effeminacy, intemperance, from ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... the years went on,—one, two, three, four,—and Dandy Steve had become one of the most popular and best-known guides in the Adirondack country. His seeming effeminacy of attire had been long proved to mark no effeminacy of nature, no lack of strength. There was not a better shot, a stronger rower, on the list of summer guides; nor a better cook and provider. Every party ...
— Between Whiles • Helen Hunt Jackson
... blood and tears. Our task, instead of being bloody and barbarous, would have been holy, perfect, artistic, and surely success would have crowned our efforts. But no intelligence would support me, I encountered fear or effeminacy among the enlightened classes, selfishness among the rich, simplicity among the youth, and only in the mountains, in the waste places, among the outcasts, have I found my men. But no matter now! If we can't ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... earnestness and whole-souled loyalty to truth are not in good form. Wealth and social position become the chief ends of men's efforts, and, to buy these, unselfishness and truth and self-respect are bartered away. Luxury, enervation, and effeminacy are rife, and snobbery follows close behind them. The ancestral vigor, the insight to recognize great moral principles, and the power to gladly hazard all in their defence have disappeared in a mist of indifference, which beclouds the eyes ...
— The Whence and the Whither of Man • John Mason Tyler
... at our second rule. What, after all, constitutes a "good moral"? We say that no book has a good moral which teaches a child that goodness and effeminacy, laziness and virtue, are convertible terms; no book is good that is "goody," no book is moral that moralizes. The intention may be good, but the teaching is not. Have as much as you will of poetical justice, but beware of making your books mere vehicles for conveying maxims of propriety. You ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various
... producing some evils; and we can hardly be surprised to find that the Imperial capital became a sort of centre of comparative luxury and idleness. Society lost sight, to a great extent, of true morality, and the effeminacy of the people constituted the chief feature of the age. Men were ever ready to carry on sentimental adventures whenever they found opportunities, and the ladies of the time were not disposed to disencourage them altogether. The Court was the focus of society, and the utmost ...
— Japanese Literature - Including Selections from Genji Monogatari and Classical - Poetry and Drama of Japan • Various
... intoxication. His general simplicity of life was changed; he perfumed his apartments by burning the wood of the most aromatick fir, and commanded his helmet to be ornamented with beautiful rows of the teeth of the raindeer. Indolence and effeminacy stole upon him by pleasing and imperceptible gradations, relaxed the sinews of his resolution, and extinguished ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... seemed to be a year or two older than myself, and caught my eye immediately by his remarkable beauty, and by the depth of the mourning which he wore. His features were exquisitely cut, and, in a child, one was not disposed to complain of their effeminacy. His long fair hair was combed—in royal fashion—down his back, a style at that time most unusual; his tightly-fitting jacket and breeches were black, bordered with deep crape; not even a white collar relieved his ...
— A Flat Iron for a Farthing - or Some Passages in the Life of an only Son • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... he has not such a thing to his name." Kirsty's tone betrayed her thankfulness that her brother was free from the effeminacy of a night-shirt; but noting the dismay and confusion on Mrs. Murray's face, she suggested, hesitatingly, "He might have one of my own, but I am thinking it will be small ...
— The Man From Glengarry - A Tale Of The Ottawa • Ralph Connor
... more preserve a man from a certain residue of savage violence and harshness than graceful beauty can secure him against a certain degree of effeminacy and weakness. As it is the effect of the energetic beauty to elevate the mind in a physical and moral point of view and to augment its momentum, it only too often happens that the resistance of the temperament and of the character diminishes the aptitude to receive impressions, ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various
... to establish himself at Kyoto amid the atmosphere of effeminacy which surrounded the court. After his official visit, during which every honor and rank which could be bestowed by the emperor were showered upon his head and all his family and friends, he returned to his own chosen seat at Kamakura. Here he busied himself in perfecting ...
— Japan • David Murray
... violences upon the inhabitants. These mercenaries had attained to such a height of luxury, according to the old English writers, that they combed their hair once a day, bathed themselves once a week, changed their clothes frequently; and by all these arts of effeminacy, as well as by their military character, had rendered themselves so agreeable to the fair sex that they debauched the wives and daughters of the English and dishonored many families. But what most provoked the inhabitants was that, instead of defending them against invaders, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 5 • Various
... is not forthcoming they are lost men; yourself especially—you shall die. I have had enough of you: you have the heart of a woman; you are slack and sluggish. You shall die—you shall pay for your cowardice, your effeminacy. Stay; it makes but very small difference whether you go down now, or whether I keep you here. This is Sunday: right loudly would the folk yonder laugh to see you dangling your legs from ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet
... but in character and appearance they were widely different. Beverly was, in countenance and manner, curiously like his sister, except that the features were bolder and more strongly marked. Arthur, on the contrary, was delicate in feature almost to effeminacy. His brow was pale and lofty, and above the auburn locks were massed like a golden coronet. His eyes were very large and blue, with a peculiar softness and sadness that suited well the expression of thoughtfulness and repose about ...
— Fort Lafayette or, Love and Secession • Benjamin Wood
... the simplicity of the grand style. A breadth of light and colour, the general ideas of the drapery, an uninterrupted flow of outline, all conspire to this effect. Next him (perhaps equal to him) Parmegiano has dignified the genteelness of modern effeminacy by uniting it with the simplicity of the ancients and the grandeur and severity of Michael Angelo. It must be confessed, however, that these two extraordinary men, by endeavouring to give the utmost degree of grace, have sometimes, perhaps, exceeded its boundaries, and ...
— Seven Discourses on Art • Joshua Reynolds
... civilizations, fluctuations of opinions, of morals, and of literary style have been accompanied by more or less significant exhibitions of costumes. He will note in the Precieux of France and the Euphuist of England a corresponding effeminacy in dress; in the frank paganism of the French Revolution the affectation of Greek and Roman apparel, passing into the Directoire style in the Citizen and the Citizeness; in the Calvinistic cut of the Puritan ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... when probed by foreign war, but had combined the popular energy arising from a rough republican simplicity, and something even of republican freedom, with the artificial energy for war of a despotism lodged in a few hands. Of all oriental races, the Affghans had best resisted the effeminacy of oriental usages, and in some respects we may say—of Mahometan institutions. Their strength lay in their manly character; their weakness in their inveterate disunion. But this, though quite incapable of permanent remedy under Mahometan ideas, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... paradox, but what an unquestionable fact, is the wayward irritability of some of the finest geniuses, which is often weak to effeminacy, and capricious to childishness! while minds of a less delicate texture are not frayed and fretted by casual frictions; and plain sense with a coarser grain, is sufficient to keep down these aberrations of their feelings. How mortifying ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... Mr. Daws expected York and Scott to shake hands after the sermon, he was disappointed. But he did not relax his purpose. With that quiet fearlessness and determination which had won for him the respect of men who were too apt to regard piety as synonymous with effeminacy, he attacked Scott in his own house. What he said has not been recorded, but it is to be feared that it was part of his sermon. When he had concluded, Scott looked at him, not unkindly, over the glasses of his bar, and said, less irreverently ...
— Mrs. Skaggs's Husbands and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... to pay the penalty of the abortion, but what is left of the organism suffers sadly. When this sort of arrest of development occurs in a man, it takes the element of masculineness out of him, and replaces it with adipose effeminacy. When it occurs in a woman, it not only substitutes in her case a wiry and perhaps thin bearded masculineness for distinctive feminine traits and power, making her an epicene, but it entails a variety of prolonged weaknesses, ...
— Sex in Education - or, A Fair Chance for Girls • Edward H. Clarke |
