"Maidenly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... bore it in mind. He might praise, glorify, extol her to the uttermost, and be rewarded by her sweetest smiles; but for the pretty follies of amatory transport she had no taste. Harvey ran small risk of erring in this direction; he admired and reverenced her maidenly aloofness; her dignity he found an unfailing charm, the great support of his own self-respect. A caress was not at all times forbidden, but he asserted the privilege with trembling diffidence. It pleased her, when he entered ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... the alternating beads of a necklace. A youth leads off the dance: his active steps are such as will hereafter be of use to him on the field of battle: a maiden follows, with the modest movements that befit her sex; manly vigour, maidenly reserve,—these are the beads of the necklace. Similarly, their Gymnopaedia is but another ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... looking towards the glass front of the counting-house, and seeing two figures approaching, she cried with infinite relish, 'Papa! Hush, Arthur, for Mercy's sake!' and tottered back to her chair with an amazing imitation of being in danger of swooning, in the dread surprise and maidenly flutter of ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... was indeed a lovely woman, and as pure and good as she was lovely. Nor could John long remain in ignorance of her liking for himself. He was not a vain man—very much the reverse, indeed—but neither was he a fool. And it must be said that, though Bessie never overstepped the bounds of maidenly reserve, neither did she take particular pains to hide her preference. Indeed, it was too strong to permit her so to do. Not that she was animated by the half-divine, soul-searing breath of passion, such as animated her sister, which is a very rare thing, and, take ...
— Jess • H. Rider Haggard
... from one to another. "You see, I never dared say anything at all about love before Grandma or Heppie, but it is talked about so much in books, I thought I might mention it in company. I'm sorry if I've not been maidenly, which Miss Hepburn is always ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... deems it all a veil donned for the tree's nuptials with the spring. For nothing could more completely personify the spirit of the spring-time. You can almost fancy it some dryad decked for her bridal, in maidenly day-dreaming too lovely to last. For like the plum the cherry fails in its fruit to fulfil the ...
— The Soul of the Far East • Percival Lowell
... Her maidenly modesty seemed first to tell her to banish his image from her heart, and his name from her lips. To accomplish this she threw herself with renewed diligence into the duties incident to her simple yet laborious life, and by her ...
— Oowikapun - How the Gospel Reached the Nelson River Indians • Egerton Ryerson Young
... I, my small-witted Monsieur Silverfine,' answered Sweetflower. 'Know, therefore, that this sweet and lovely to behold brute of a girl, is now beginning to suffer the castigation due to her innumerable offences. Swanhilda has sinned against all maidenly modesty, has borne herself proud and overbearing towards honourable gentlemen, and, besides, has most ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various
... it might appease Chu Chu. SHE certainly looked beautiful in her glittering accoutrements, set off by her jet-black shining coat. With an air of demure abstraction she permitted me to mount her, and even for a hundred yards or so indulged in a mincing maidenly amble that was not without a touch of coquetry. Encouraged by this, I addressed a few terms of endearment to her, and in the exuberance of my youthful enthusiasm I even confided to her my love for Consuelo, and begged her to be "good" and not disgrace herself and me before my Dulcinea. ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... gracefully, and made a low obeisance to the aged Croesus. His eyes rested long on the maidenly and lovely countenance, and the longer he gazed the kindlier became his gaze. For a moment he seemed to grow young again in the visions conjured up by memory, and involuntarily he went up to the young girl, kissed her affectionately ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... suspicion of the real reason of Sophy Viner's departure, had thought it "extremely suitable" of the young girl to withdraw to the shelter of her old friends' roof in the hour of bridal preparation. This maidenly retreat had in fact impressed Madame de Chantelle so favourably that she was disposed for the first time to talk over Owen's projects; and as every human event translated itself for her into terms of social and ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton
... there was no special reason, as they had the afternoon before them, why they should not have taken some of the by-paths that the girl perceived to lead out from the subject into breathless wonder. She had ways, which were maidenly and good, of opening up to Peter comfortable little garden plots of existence which, though they lay far this side of the House and the Lovely Lady, had in the monotony of the long climb up the scale of Siegel Brothers, ...
— The Lovely Lady • Mary Austin
... lines will find you the same," and there stopped. She ascribed the difficulty to her own mental and clerical defects, but I think it lay quite as much in the nature of the relation. How was she to express confidence when she distrusted? how express distrust when her maidenly promptings told her it was an indelicate solicitation? She could say Brindle had gone dry and the blind mare had foaled, or that crops were good; but what was that to say when her heart was thirsting ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 31. October, 1873. • Various
... extraordinary than it had appeared to the Zampta. She rated its devotion and generosity as highly as he appreciated its extravagance and folly; and if he counted me a madman, she was disposed to elevate me into a hero or a demi-god. The tones and looks of a maiden in such a temper, however perfect her maidenly reserve, would, I fancy, be very agreeable to men older than I was, either in constitution or even in experience. I doubt whether any man under fifty would have been more anxious than myself to cut ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg
... played a prominent part. Tall and fully developed, but no looks. Clever, masculine brain, and strong physically. Skillfully concealed her passionate nature, which, however, was long in developing and was long kept in check by maidenly modesty. ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... me thus; and yet I could not say him nay, and I longed to hear the words spoken that should bind us to each other. But I dare not tell my father! I trow both he and my mother would chide full sternly. In truth, I fear me it were scarce a maidenly act. But, O Cuthbert, love is so strong—so hard a task master. Where he drives, it seems that one needs must go;" and she looked up at him with such arch appeal that he felt those glances would go far to soften the ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... believe is his duty to the Fatherland, and he was brought up not to think. But if monarchy falls in Germany, and a republic, socialistic or merely democratic, rises on the ruins, then it is more than likely that the superfluous women will be encouraged to transfer themselves and their maidenly dreams to the great ...
— The Living Present • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... you run, then?" she asked him coolly, standing slim and straight before him, all in white and very maidenly save in her unnatural composure. "I am pressed," she informed him. "So you will forgive me ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... He left Vere House in a fever of unrest; he went everywhere he could think of to distract his thoughts. But the fair face with its sweet, maidenly expression, the tender blue eyes with their rich poetic depths, the sweet, sensitive lips were ever present. Look where he would he saw them. He went to the opera, and they seemed to smile at him from the stage; he walked home in ...
— Wife in Name Only • Charlotte M. Braeme (Bertha M. Clay)
... invincibly good-humored than Uncle Ben, but none of these things marred his fatuous felicity. It is even probable that in his gratuitous belief that his timid attentions had been too marked and impulsive, he attributed Cressy's flight to a maidenly coyness that pleasurably increased his admiration for her and his confidence in himself. In his abstraction of enjoyment and in the gathering darkness he ran against a fir-tree very much as he had done while walking with her, and he confusedly apologized to it as he had to her, and by her own ...
— Cressy • Bret Harte
... one stem, So with two seeming bodies, but one heart, Two of the first life coats in Heraldry, Due but to one and crowned with one crest. And will you rent our ancient loue asunder, To ioyne with men in scorning your poore friend? It is not friendly, 'tis not maidenly. Our sexe as well as I, may chide you for it, Though I alone doe feele ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... would have understood that a girl who loves never addresses such a question; but the feminine heart was a book in which he was a very poor speller. He imagined that Reine was only asking him as a matter of form, and that it was from a feeling of maidenly reserve that she adopted this passive method of escaping from openly declaring her wishes. She no doubt desired his friendly aid in the matter, and he felt as if he ought to ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... in his every look and intonation. The girl met the attack with banter and raillery and adroit shiftings of the conversation whenever his ardent inferences became too obvious. Yet her evasion and her teasing could not always mask her maidenly pleasure over his adoration of her loveliness, and an occasional blush betrayed to him that his wooing was ...
— Out of the Depths - A Romance of Reclamation • Robert Ames Bennet
... Cleopatra in the zenith of her beauty; and he before whose power the whole world was kneeling, prostrated himself before a pretty woman. The following is the account of her first introduction to Caesar, as given by the historian. It shows that she had no maidenly scruples as to the ...
— Sketches of the Fair Sex, in All Parts of the World • Anonymous
... another, yet she yielded to the entreaties and tears of her mother, and became the wife of this laconic, timid young man, whose meagre, unpretending appearance resembled so little the ideal which her maidenly heart had pictured ...
— The Empress Josephine • Louise Muhlbach
... all made plain, arose And curtsey'd to the Spaniard. Ah, methinks I yet behold her, gracious, innocent, And flaxen-haired, and blushing maidenly, When turning she retired, and his black eyes, That hunger'd after her, did follow on; And I bethought me, 'Thou shalt see no more, Thou goodly enemy, my one ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Jean Ingelow
... one, will you not answer me?" pleaded Gustave, in nowise alarmed by Diana's silence, which seemed to him only the natural expression of a maidenly emotion. "Tell me that you will give me measure for measure; that you will love me as my mother loved my father—with a love that trouble and poverty could never lessen; with a love that was strongest when fate ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... How often, Hermia, have we two, sitting on one cushion, both singing one song, with our needles working the same flower, both on the same sampler wrought; growing up together in fashion of a double cherry, scarcely seeming parted? Hermia, it is not friendly in you, it is not maidenly, to join with men ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... she mentioned was also a forfeit play, with the difference that the kiss was more certain, being taken of mere choice—though delivered, of course, with due maidenly reluctance and a show of resisting—whenever the girl facing one could be caught over the line. All the young people played it; all the elders deprecated it. At the bottom of Judith's heart lay one reason for making a play-party and bidding Creed Bonbright to it; and now ...
— Judith of the Cumberlands • Alice MacGowan
... on the march, and was well aware that an enemy might, if he chose, deliver battle, his habit was to lead his troops in compact battle order ready to confront emergencies, with soft, slow step, advancing, as it were, with maidenly demureness, (8) for in such procedure, as he believed, lay the secret of true calm, engendering a dauntless self-assurance, imperturbable, unerring, impervious to treacherous assault. Therefore by such behaviour he was ...
— Agesilaus • Xenophon
... a low, lounging chair with a big ostrich feather fan in her hand, and she looked up expectantly into her lover's face. There was nothing else for it, and he took the plunge valiantly—and with precisely the correct amount of maidenly hesitancy, Lady Ethel named a day for their marriage. And then—somehow there seemed nothing more to be said; ...
— If Only etc. • Francis Clement Philips and Augustus Harris
... coarse. Possibly, also, his princess had recovered from her disappointment. Maybe she had been married off to some nobody of Portugal, or France, or Austria, for state reasons, and had entered on the usual loveless life of royalty. Or she may have beguiled her maidenly solitude by drinking much wine of Oporto, Madeira, and Xeres with her dinner, thereby acquiring that amplitude of girth, that ruddiness of countenance, and that polish of nose, which add so little to romance. At all events, we hear ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner
... been more maidenly had I been tearful and trembling; but, to my shame then, must I admit that I was neither—only curious to know who had been so desperate as to commit an act that would bring the whole of England down upon him. Had I but guessed the long weeks which were to pass and the sore trials ...
— Beatrix of Clare • John Reed Scott
... from the sentimental seclusion of Woburn Abbey, a song replete with all the grace and imagination of his "Ionian Hours."—Charles Lamb, the "deep-thoughted Elia," introducing us to the maidenly residence of his cousin Bridget; delighted with delighting; his fancy expatiating on a copious medley of subjects between the stiff Mandarins on the old fashioned china, and that Beaumont and Fletcher, the purchase of his rigid economy, ere his talents had brought him fame ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 396, Saturday, October 31, 1829. • Various
... and Maryland Joe to cut down the body of a man hanged by the Vigilance Committee a few hours before on the regular trail, and to remonstrate with the committee on the incompatibility of such exhibitions with a maidenly worship of nature. ...
— Devil's Ford • Bret Harte
... the manuscript, teasing Theodora about her secretiveness, and congratulating her again and again. It was an attractive group, Theodora in the midst, a tall, handsome girl in the full ripeness of her maidenly beauty, her arm linked in that of her twin brother, while pretty Hope stood facing them, ...
— Teddy: Her Book - A Story of Sweet Sixteen • Anna Chapin Ray
... It was not obstinacy, she know; and that bit of injustice hindered her from seeing that it was really wilful recklessness. She was elated with Ernest's foolish school-boy account of her, which a more maidenly little girl would not have relished; she was strengthened in her notion that she was ill-used, by hearing that the De la Poers pitied her; and because she found that Aunt Barbara was considered to be a ...
— Countess Kate • Charlotte M. Yonge
... finger beseechingly on his nose. 'You will not spoil my play, you will get me a maidenly Ophelia? I and you are the only two men in New York who understand how to ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... maidenly interrogation, and he felt ashamed of himself for finding it singularly childish. No doubt she simply echoed what was said for her; but she was nearing her twenty-second birthday, and he wondered at what age "nice" women began to speak ...
— The Age of Innocence • Edith Wharton
... deceiver; but to a mind like Amy's, filled, too, as it was with the image of Herbert Lyddiard, his attentions were intolerable. The open encouragement he now received from the father, however, emboldened him to persevere, and he professed to look upon her marked disapproval as nothing but maidenly diffidence, and proceeded to address her as though a positive engagement ...
— Tales for Young and Old • Various
... rejoined, admiration unbounded in his eyes for the picture she was of maidenly charm and womanly beauty, "I should say that goodness was a more wonderful thing. But power is the most common ambition, and only a handful of the hundreds of millions get it in any large way. I used to feel it tremendously when I first heard the stamps pounding the quartz in the ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... is nothing but true tact under all conditions of life, her mother was the exact counterpart of what Master Wacht was with respect to his distinguishing qualities as man. Perhaps the daughter was less serious and firm than her mother, but on the other hand she was the perfection of maidenly sweetness; and the only fault that could be found with her was that her womanly tenderness of feeling and a sensitiveness which, as a consequence of her weakened organisation, was easily provoked to a tearful and unhealthy degree, ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... place at once. A consumptive hastens his wedding, a wounded tree is quick to bear, and the fright we had experienced taught me how slight was the thread on which my happiness hung; but Manmat'ha was calm with a maidenly content with little, which in my hasty resentment at even a suspicion of opposition to my plan, I was ready to ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 10 • Various
... Sir Richard may have compared her with the woman by whom my lord desired so impatiently to supplant her. She was tall and beautifully shaped, despite an almost maidenly slenderness. Her countenance was gentle and adorable, with its soft grey eyes and light brown ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini
... came to conquer her sudden agitation, which she hoped he had not perceived. Of course she could answer, and answer the right thing; and it was poor and despicable of her to shrink from hearing any speech, as if she had not power to put an end to it with her high maidenly dignity. ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... entrance into a penitentiary. Wild thoughts of running away to be an actress, in spite of Klesmer, came to her with the lure of freedom; but his words still hung heavily on her soul; they had alarmed her pride and even her maidenly dignity: dimly she conceived herself getting amongst vulgar people who would treat her with rude familiarity—odious men, whose grins and smirks would not be seen through the strong grating of polite society. Gwendolen's daring was not in the least that of the adventuress; the demand ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... the elevator, I was painfully conscious of two ideas. One was that Marguerite had been quite correct with her information about the free women who found it profitable to play the role of maidenly innocence. The other was that Dr. Zimmern's precious geography was in the hands of the artful, child-eyed hypocrite who had so cleverly beguiled me with her role of heroic virtue. Clearly, I was trapped, and ...
— City of Endless Night • Milo Hastings
... time. Here you would see a stout warrior polishing his spear with a bit of old tappa, or adjusting the folds of the girdle about his waist; and there you might descry a young damsel decorating herself with flowers, as if having in her eye some maidenly conquest; while, as in all cases of hurry and confusion in every part of the world, a number of individuals kept hurrying to and fro, with amazing vigour and perseverance, doing nothing ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... was not "a Christian." That five minutes on the shore had told her that; and even if her station had been the same as his, she must not be "unequally yoked with an unbeliever." And thus the very hopelessness of her love became its food and strength; the feeling which she would have checked with maidenly modesty, had it been connected even remotely with marriage, was allowed to take immediate and entire dominion; and she held herself permitted to keep him next her heart of hearts, because she could do nothing for him but ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... very quiet as he gathered up the reins, and it was not until they were well on their way along the Trumansburg road that the boy turned to her. How beautiful she looked, her shoulders completely covered with dusky-dark curls and her head bowed in maidenly shyness! All his doubts as to the expediency of his act were set at rest. She was deeply essential to his happiness, to his progress. To know she was his wife, married to him, so that none could separate them, would make his absences from Tessibel ...
— The Secret of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... than the second century B.C. However this may be, the statue is justly one of the most famous in the world. It represents an ideal of purity and sweetness. There is not a trace of coarseness or immodesty in the half-naked woman who stands perfect in the maidenly dignity of her own conquering fairness. Her serious yet smiling face, her graceful form, the delicacy of feeling in attitude and gaze, the tender moulding of breast and limbs, make it a worthy companion of the Hermes or Praxiteles. It seems scarcely possible that it should not have sprung ...
— TITLE • AUTHOR
... there were not as yet; Lawrence and Lowell. Pittsburg, and the great industrial New York towns, were still in the womb of the future. In almost every household throughout the land the old-fashioned spinning- wheel was humming under the pressure of matronly and maidenly feet, by which the homespun garments of the time were made. While the less well- to-do and laboring classes were content with clothing spun and knitted at their own firesides, the wealthier people arrayed themselves with far more ostentation than ...
— The Nation in a Nutshell • George Makepeace Towle
... retired to the uneasy solitude of their own state-rooms. At last only two or three men were left smoking and chatting near the top of the companion ladder; while at the stern of the ship Muriel Ellis looked over toward the retreating island, and talked with a certain timid maidenly frankness to ...
— The Great Taboo • Grant Allen
... influences that were strongest with her. She loved John Harrington with all her heart, and she hated Vancouver with all her strength. It is true that her hatred was the only acknowledged passion, for her maidenly nature was not able yet to comprehend her love; and the mere thought that she cared for a man who did not care for her brought the hot blush to her cheek. But the love was in her heart all the same, strong and enduring, so that Vancouver found ...
— An American Politician • F. Marion Crawford
... hand in mine, to compel her to speak more than she wished; all these nothings were great events for me. Eyes and voice and gestures were freighted with mysterious messages of love in hours of ecstasy like these, and this was the only language permitted me by the quiet maidenly reserve of the young girl before me. Her manner towards me underwent no change; with me she was always as a sister with a brother; yet, as my passion grew, and the contrast between her glances and mine, her words and my utterance, ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac
... a child to have company and quite innocent of what is called maidenly reserve; and Wunpost dug down into his pack and gave her a bag of candy, at the same ...
— Wunpost • Dane Coolidge
... his cousins, stimulated her curiosity about him, and intensified her interest in him. Brian's merits were a subject which the Wendover children always shirked, or passed over so lightly that Ida was no wiser for her questioning; and maidenly reserve forbade her ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... his reason was stronger than his impetuosity, and curbed his increasing rage. Then the smith approached the girl with open shamelessness, and cast himself in her lap, offering the hair of his head to be combed out by her maidenly hands. ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... thou heard of the golden age? Full many a story Poets have sung in its praise, simply and touchingly sung— Of the time when the holy still wandered over life's pathways,— When with a maidenly shame every sensation was veiled,— When the mighty law that governs the sun in his orbit, And that, concealed in the bud, teaches the point how to move, When necessity's silent law, the steadfast, the changeless, Stirred up billows more ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... handful of men gathered round the helpless girl in her prison, bringing the stake in all its horror before the eyes of the judges as before her own. No other thing could have been suggested by that piteous prayer. The stake, the scaffold, the fire—and the shrinking figure all maidenly, helpless, exposed to every evil gaze, must have showed themselves at least for a moment against that dark background of prison wall. It was enough that it should be long—to hide her as much as was possible from those dreadful ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant
... to the pillow and repeated in low soft tones the simple words she had used from childhood on such occasions. Owen's name was mentioned without faltering, but in the other case, maidenly shyness was too strong even for religion, and that when supported by excellent intentions. At the name of Edward she stammered, and her voice sank to the faintest ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... my fond heart is gushing With thoughts that no language can ever reveal; With the sweetest affection this warm cheek is blushing, And hopes to my maidenly bosom will steal, Of a time when our souls, with united expression, Shall mingle with harmony more than divine; And the priest—be he Greek, or of any profession— Shall bless this poor hand ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens
... her exquisite lips moving softly as she repeats the De Profundis of her last appeal to God. Let the axe not fall. Let her stand there for ever in the spotless purity that cost her life on earth and set her name for ever among the high constellated stars of maidenly romance. ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 1 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... were legion,—and he was sincerely sorry to see that even gentle and pretty Susie Prescott had taken to a new mode of doing her hair, which, though elaborate, did not suit her at all, and gave an almost bold look to an otherwise sweet and maidenly countenance. ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... doing, in bodily presence, but through the golden mist of a lover's description; in the midst of which she tried to see a common-place rustic beauty, but could not quite succeed; and half against her will began to yield to the illusion (if illusion it was) which presented to her a queenly yet maidenly vision, a brilliant flower which might be worth transplanting from the woods even to the stately shelter of Hunsdon. It was clear enough that this girl, whatever she might be, had too firm a hold upon Maurice's heart to be easily displaced; and his cousin, not ...
— A Canadian Heroine, Volume 2 - A Novel • Mrs. Harry Coghill
... released the petticoat, were clenched at her sides. Her cheeks were crimson, and her dark eyes, peering out from the shade of the close-fitting hood of her black bonnet, smouldered with wrath,—and, if he could have read them better, a very decided trace of maidenly dismay. ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon
... another two or three of these tete-a-tetes were brought about every day. Thurstane wanted them all the time; would have been glad to make life one long dialogue with Miss Van Diemen; found an aching void in every moment spent away from her. Clara, too, in spite of maidenly struggles with herself, began to be of this way of feeling. Wonderful place the Great American Desert for falling ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... the sweet side o' the Nith's winding river, Are lovers as faithful, and maidens as fair: To equal young Jessie seek Scotland all over; To equal young Jessie you seek it in vain, Grace, beauty, and elegance, fetter her lover, And maidenly ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... is like the opening of some lovely flower-bud. As life unfolds, the tender smile and blush of childhood mingle with the grace of maidenly repose; the upturned, radiant eye gathers new depths of thought and emotion; the delicate features, the wavy, pliant form, begin to reveal their wealth ...
— Adele Dubois - A Story of the Lovely Miramichi Valley in New Brunswick • Mrs. William T. Savage
... attended a series of matinees. At these matinees Jane first saw her hero, brave in doublet and hose, and braver still in melody and romance. She and her mates looked and listened and worshiped from afar, as is the habit of maidenly youth under such circumstances. There is no particular danger in such worship provided the worshiper remains always at a safely remote distance from the idol. But in Jane's case this safety-bar was removed by Fate. The wife ...
— The Portygee • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... Ide? Or that if Luna had paused about wooing her beautiful Sleeper, Jealous Aurora's approach would not have startled the boy? Hero had glanced on Leander but once at the Festival—instant Plunges the passionate youth into the night-mantled wave. Rhea in maidenly glee caroll'd down with her urn to the Tiber— But in a moment she sank mute on the breast of the God: Hence the illustrious Twins that were nursed in the den of the She-wolf; Worthy of Mars were the boys:—Rome was ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... serene, gray eyes. She was dressed very simply in white, with a blue band across her hair, and a blue scarf and sash around throat and waist. Her face, though showing signs of quiet strength, and of a self-confidence which was the flower of maidenly modesty and innocence, was not beautiful according to any recognized standard. Bressant, from his intuitive perception of form and proportion, was aware of this. The forehead was too high, the nose irregular, the mouth lacked the perfect curve, and the teeth, ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne
... cannot, with exactness, say that I did. It would be difficult, indeed, for me to describe the manner in which we arrived at this most satisfactory conclusion. Miss Raybold is a mistress of expression, and, without moving a hair's-breadth beyond the lines of maidenly reserve which always environ her, she made me aware, not only that I desired to propose marriage to her, but that it would be well for me to do so. There were objections to this course, which, as an honest man, I could not refrain from laying before her, and with ...
— The Associate Hermits • Frank R. Stockton
... of being made love to. I'm going," she said, "to fling off all maidenly reserve and ...
— The Creators - A Comedy • May Sinclair
... no isolated example. One of the most pathetic letters is that in which Pliny writes of the death of the younger daughter of his friend Fundanus, a girl in her fifteenth year, who had already "the prudence of age, the gravity of a matron, and all the maidenly modesty and sweetness of a girl." Pliny tells us how it cut him to the quick to hear her father give directions that the money he had meant to lay out on dresses and pearls and jewels for her betrothal should ...
— The Letters of the Younger Pliny - Title: The Letters of Pliny the Younger - - Series 1, Volume 1 • Pliny the Younger
... of maidens, A beam without haze, No murkiness saddens, No disk-spot bewrays. The swan-down to feeling, The snow of the gaillin,[134] Thy limbs all excelling, Unite to amaze. The queen, I would name thee, Of maidenly muster; Thy stem is so seemly, So rich is its cluster Of members complete, Adroit at each feat, And thy temper so sweet, Without banning or bluster. My grief has press'd on Since the vision of Morag, As the heavy millstone On the cross-tree that bore it. In vain the ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... of summer's ease (Sweet breath, whereof the violet's life is made!) Through lips moist-warm, as thou hadst lately stayed 'Mong rosebuds, wooing to the cheeks of these Loth blushes faint and maidenly:—rich breeze, Still doth thy honeyed blowing bring a shade Of sad foreboding. In thy hand is laid The power to build or blight the fruit of trees, The deep, cool grass, ...
— Dreams and Days: Poems • George Parsons Lathrop
... chiefly thinking of was the singular calm and self-possession of this young girl. When she spoke, her dark, soft eyes regarded him without fear. Her manner was simple and natural to the last degree; perhaps with the least touch added of maidenly reserve. He was forced even to admire the simplicity of her dress—cream or canary white it was, with a bit of white fur round the neck and round the tight wrists. The only strong color was that of the scarlet geraniums which she wore in her bosom, and in ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... maidenly face, with rich curls falling around it, and in the costume of the last ten years of the preceding century, was now unveiled. A good breakfast, like that of yesterday, stood on the table. With a moistened eye, and turning to the portrait, he said: 'Therese, to thy memory!' ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 443 - Volume 17, New Series, June 26, 1852 • Various
... arms to the elbow free for her occupations. But most of all I loved her simplicity and her quietness and her discretion. Her father bade her expressly to shew me all the house; or she would not have done it, for she was very maidenly and modest; but as soon as he said that, she did it without affectation. She shewed me the parlour too, with the hangings upon the walls, and the chapel of the Grail, with the Grail itself upon an altar within, flanked by two candlesticks, that was represented ...
— Oddsfish! • Robert Hugh Benson
... liked you, Sir Cuthbert," the girl said frankly, "better than any one else next to my father, and gladly submit myself to his will. My own inclinations indeed, so far as is maidenly, go with his. These are troubled times," she said anxiously, "and our holy mother tells me that you fear some danger ...
— The Boy Knight • G.A. Henty
... cork-bottomed shuttle-cock, which they are fond of striking to and fro, to make one another glow in the frosty weather of a single-state; but which, when a man comes in between the pretended inseparables, is given up, like their music and other maidenly amusements; which, nevertheless, may be necessary to keep the pretty rogues out of active mischief. They then, in short, having caught the ...
— Clarissa, Volume 6 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... was the first letter she had received from him; what would it say to her? No doubt it was to tell her why he had not been able to meet her that morning, to ask her to meet him later in the day. With a blush of maidenly shame she lifted the envelope to her lips and ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice
... heart, "and these things are above love, above everything. I do not—I can not understand. I can not comprehend. You have rejected me—I have offered myself to you a second time—after the refusal of last night. Where is my Spanish pride? Where is my maidenly modesty? That reserve that should be the better part of woman is gone. I know not honor—duty—I only know that though you reject me, I am yours. I, too, am a slave. I love you. Nay, I can not marry Don Felipe de Tobar. 'Twere to make ...
— Sir Henry Morgan, Buccaneer - A Romance of the Spanish Main • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... escape for Hypatia; pride forbade her to follow her own maidenly instinct, and to recoil among the crowd behind her; and in another moment the Amal had lifted Pelagia from her mule, and the rival beauties of Alexandria stood, for the first time in their lives, face ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... know all the right answers. And why? Because the Megabuck Mob is behind you. The Megabuck Moose is going through the cards, and the Megabuck Mole is feeding the answers into the Megabuck Memory Machine, and the Megabuck Moll in maidenly ...
— The Electronic Mind Reader • John Blaine
... joy at having two lovers would have had no alloy save her grief that there were not four of them. But it was one of the misfortunes of her solitary and peculiar education that she had conscience and maidenly modesty. Wherefore it was a source of bitter distress and embarrassment to her that, at the end of a long letter from a neighbor who had taken a notion after years of silence to write her all the gossip of ...
— Duffels • Edward Eggleston
... Bridge, beyond which dwelt Sally, told of in a book of a friend of mine, was of old a house inhabited by three maidens. They left no near kinsfolk, I believe; whether they did or not, I have no ill to speak of them; for they lived and died in all good report and maidenly credit. The house they lived in was of the small, gambrel-roofed cottage pattern, after the shape of Esquires' houses, but after the size of the dwellings of handicraftsmen. The lower story was fitted up as a shop. ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)
... proceed to bind her feet; she resists, thinking it meant as an insult; on a word of explanation, she submits with cheerful apology. As the last act, all being now ready, they take the neckerchief from her neck, a blush of maidenly shame overspreads her fair face and neck; the cheeks were still tinged with it when the executioner lifted the severed head, to show it to the people. "It is most true," says Forster, "that he struck the cheek insultingly; for I saw it with my eyes; the ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Vol. V (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland III • Various
... have ended in a manner pleasant to Moriarty and interesting to the pig. The attraction of the occult would in all probability have overcome Mary Ellen's maidenly suspicions. She might not have sat upon the wall. She would have almost certainly have yielded her sticky hand if a sudden sound had not startled Moriarty. A motor-car hooted at the far end of the village street. Moriarty jumped ...
— General John Regan - 1913 • George A. Birmingham
... is also a picture of the year 1512, the Virgin holding the naked Child in her arms. She has a veil over her head and blue drapery. Her face is of the form usual with Albert Duerer, but of a soft and maidenly character; the Child is beautiful—the countenance particularly so. It is painted with exceeding delicacy ...
— Six Centuries of Painting • Randall Davies
... anticipates being kissed or embraced by her lover, she places in the way such difficulties as are in her power; she gets behind tables and chairs, runs from him, compels him to pursue, and expects him to. In her maidenly heart she may want to be kissed, but she cannot help resisting. She obeys the same instinct that impelled this wild girl to spring from the outstretched arms of the boy and go screaming out of the cave and down the beach in simulated terror—an instinct inherited from the ...
— "Where Angels Fear to Tread" and Other Stories of the Sea • Morgan Robertson
... possessed an imaginative temperament, and one of her favorite and most satisfying habits was to evoke from the realm of the future a proper hero, shining with zeal and virtue like Sir Galahad, in whose arms she would picture herself living happily ever after a sweet courtship, punctuated by due maidenly hesitation. This fondness for letting her fancy run riot and evolve visions splendid with happenings for her own advancement and gladness was not confined to matrimonial day-dreams. On the morning when she entered the school-house door for the first ...
— The Law-Breakers and Other Stories • Robert Grant
... Lylda found me sleeping by the river's edge, she had made almost a daily pilgrimage to that vicinity. A maidenly premonition, a feeling that had first come to her several years before, told her of my coming, and her father's knowledge and scientific beliefs had led her to the outer surface of the world as the direction in which to look. A curious circumstance, ...
— The Girl in the Golden Atom • Raymond King Cummings
... is throbbing as he steps quickly to her side. Well, indeed, she knows his foot-fall; knows he is coming; almost knows why he comes. She is burning with a sense of humiliation, wounded pride, maidenly wrath, and displeasure. All day long everything has gone agley. Could she but flee to her room and hide her flaming cheeks and cry her heart out, it would be relief inexpressible, but her retreat is cut off. She cannot escape. She cannot face those keen-eyed watchers in the hall-ways. Oh! ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King
... without moving her feet, in the style of a Nautch girl. She was waiting for some one, since to right and left she swung with a delicate hand curved behind her ear. Suddenly she started, as if she heard an approaching footstep, and in maidenly confusion glided to a distance, where she stood with her hands across her bosom, the very picture of a surprised nymph. Mentally, the dance translated itself to Lambert somewhat after ...
— Red Money • Fergus Hume
... morning, in bed, at board, dressing for the thronged city, spinning with Constance and Miranda up Love Street across Piety and Desire and on into the town's centre, Anna, outwardly all peace, planned that war's defensive strategy. Splendidly maidenly it should be, harrowingly arduous to the proud invader, and long drawn out. Constance should see what a man can be put through. But oh, but oh, if, after all, the invasion ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... to reach the required standard. A terrible atmosphere of gloomy convention pervaded the school. Miss Beasley was anxious for her pupils to appear at their very best before her scholarly brother, whose ideal of maidenly propriety was almost mediaeval, and she kept a keen eye on their behaviour. Nobody dared to speak at meal-times, except a whispered request for such necessary articles as salt and butter; laughter was out of the question, and even a smile was felt to be inappropriate. ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil
... side of the shield; there is a reverse side, at least equally prominent and alarming. The second side upholds maidenly claims, finds nothing good enough to match with them, and is tempted to scout and flout, laugh and mock at the rival claims of the lover upon trial. This is true even in the most innocent of dove-cots, where satire is still as playful ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler
... of old, as he would greet a little sister of whom he was fond, and she accepted his frank, old-time brotherliness in the same spirit, gayly and happily, revealing but little of herself, and holding a slight reserve in her manner which seemed to him quite delightful and maidenly. Then, all too suddenly, he was gone again, but in his heart he carried a memory of her that made a continual ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine
... admit; but still it appeared as if the extreme intimacy of childhood had been broken off, and that it was necessary that a renewed intimacy under another aspect should take place, to restore us to our former relations. Here it was for me to make the first overtures; not for her, as maidenly reserve would not permit it. Bramble seemed to be most anxious that such should be the case—indeed, considered it as a matter of course: perhaps Bessy thought so too in her own bosom; and the continual raillery of Bramble did more harm ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... nothing could be more dissimilar or incomparable than these two beauties. Elizabeth's was wholly earthly, voluptuous, glowing with youth and love, but Eleonore's was chaste and sublime, pure and maidenly. Elizabeth allured to love, Eleonore ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... Von Gleichen, goes on to say that Saint-Germain offered to conduct the intrigue at the Hague. As Louis XV. certainly allowed that maidenly captain of dragoons, d'Eon, to manage his hidden policy in London, it is not at all improbable that he really entrusted this fresh cabal in Holland to Saint-Germain, whom he admitted to great intimacy. To the Hague went Saint-Germain, diamonds, rubies, ...
— Historical Mysteries • Andrew Lang
... without any sense of emotion, although nothing could have been so novel—a number of groups of young Manchu women, some clothed in beautiful robes, some in an undress which was hardly maidenly. They were sitting and standing scattered round a large courtyard, and hidden somewhere above them in the yellow tiled roofs were more of those cooing doves with that strong accent of Marseilles: "Roucoulement, roucoulement, roucoulement," they said very gently this time, ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... herself, with her hair done up in curl papers, opened the door for them, When she recognized the three visitors and perceived that the Count was in custody, and at the same moment remembered her curl papers, on her face the gaze of astonishment and the blush of maidenly modesty contended ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various
... On that most blissful evening, the sweetest prelude ever played by a Parisienne to what the world calls "a slip"; in spite of all her affectations of a coyness which she did not feel, the General saw all maidenly beauty in her. He had some excuse for believing that so many storms of caprice had been but clouds covering a heavenly soul; that these must be lifted one by one like the veils that hid her divine loveliness. The ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... were watching her, and this prevented her from ever meeting him in thorough comfort at Mr. Lyddell's; and even when at Lord Marchmont's, her maidenly reserve had been so far awakened as to make her shrink back from the full freedom of their former intercourse. This, however, was more in her feeling than in her manners, which, if they differed at all from what they were formerly, only seemed to be what ...
— The Two Guardians • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... era of prosperity which would be unexampled in the annals of the country. Among other powers, he quoted the father of Honora's schoolmate, Mr. James Wing, as authority for this prophecy. He sat next to Susan, who maintained her usual maidenly silence, but Honora, from time to time, and as though by accident, caught his eye. Even Mr. Holt, when not munching his dried bread, was tempted to make some inquiries about ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... a good listener when she chose, and could, therefore, be a delightful companion. Her color came and went under words and compliments that at times were rather ardent and pronounced. He soon observed, however, that she led the way promptly from delicate ground. This might result from maidenly reserve or from the fact that she was not quite ready for decisive words. He still believed that he had all needed encouragement—that the expression of her eyes often answered his, and he knew well what his meant. When, in response to his invitation, she promised to drive with him ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe
... softly. It was impossible that she should misunderstand; McNulty and Hill and the rest of them had just been in her own thoughts, on her own tongue. "I shall be responsible, after all," she said within herself. Then she gave Virgilia a slight frown of disapproval: it was not precisely a maidenly part that her niece had chosen to play; neither did it show the degree of deference due to an elder, a chaperon and—if you came right at it—to a stock-holder. "If this thing must be engineered," thought Eudoxia, "I think I should ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... her best silk dress, with her mother's cameo brooch at her throat, and with the full, maidenly ripeness of twenty-nine years upon her brow, with her hair demurely parted on said brow, where there was the faintest hint of a wrinkle coming—which Miss Morton attributed to a person she called "the dratted Calvin kid,"—the eldest ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... unfortunately so constituted that I simply cannot bear to see any creature whatsoever suffer, not even the meanest. (Looking at her critically, but with dignity.) And for you, my child, I am sincerely sorry; I may say that much, after you have so far fought down your maidenly pride as to wait for me here. But please, Miss Coeurne, do take into account the life I have to lead. Just think of the mere question of time! At least two hundred, may be as many as three hundred charmingly ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various
... with sly looks, knowing nods, and rippling bursts of laughter. Listened to with, first, disdainful silence; then, growing interest; last, spasmodic giggles, apropos ejaculations, and much blushing and maidenly confusion. ...
— Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter • Lawrence L. Lynch
... In which full plainly I can trace Benignity and home-bred sense, Ripening in perfect innocence. Here scattered, like a random seed, Remote from men, thou dost not need The embarrassed look of shy distress And maidenly shamefacedness. Thou wear'st upon thy forehead clear The freedom of a mountaineer. A face with gladness overspread, Soft smiles, by human kindness bred, And seemliness complete, that sways Thy courtesies, about thee plays. With no restraint, ...
— Health and Education • Charles Kingsley
... father's approach, but both the young people looked up at her instinctively, and saw her little start, the falling of her knitting-needles, the little flutter of colour which surprise brought to her maidenly, middle-aged cheek. How they both divined it I cannot tell, but it certainly was no surprise to either of them when a tall embarrassed figure, following the portly one of Mr Wodehouse, stepped suddenly from the noisy gravel ...
— The Rector • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... the foundation of an old-fashioned and limited education. Only the polite, simpler, and more maidenly arts had been taught her in the little New Jersey school her father had kept. And her education ceased when she married Greensleeve, the ex-"professor" of penmanship, a kind, gentle, unimaginative man, unusually dull even for a teacher. And he was a ...
— Athalie • Robert W. Chambers
... cushion, both singing one song, with our needles working the same flower, both on the same sampler wrought; growing up together in fashion of a double cherry, scarcely seeming parted! Hermia, it is not friendly in you, it is not maidenly to join with men in scorning ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb
... in having to leave her parents and her own home to go to strangers. Every now and again the mother joined in the wailing, and the relatives stood round them crying, trying in vain to comfort them. After dinner the bride was again urged to get up, but maidenly modesty and her dutifulness to her parents still forbade her to obey. No one should have any reason to say that she was anxious to go. She wanted to show how loath she was to leave her parents, and every one was praising her, and saying that such a dutiful ...
— Everlasting Pearl - One of China's Women • Anna Magdalena Johannsen
... which murmurs against the lies and the deceptions of many lives that defile the land, and takes so many more to itself that they may persist no longer in their evil doing. And perhaps it was her vision of the sea that swept from Lily any desire to be a coquette, or to be maidenly,—that is, false. She looked from the sea into ...
— Tongues of Conscience • Robert Smythe Hichens
... mastery of the subjects with which he deals.... Captain King has few rivals in his domain.... The general tone of Captain King's stories is highly commendable. The heroes are simple, frank, and soldierly; the heroines are dignified and maidenly in the most ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... a trying moment, but Genevieve was too simple, genuine, and grateful to pause in selfish embarrassment. Had she toyed with Gilbert's affection, she could not have met his father with such maidenly modesty, and sweet sympathy and respect in her blushing cheek and downcast, ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... me this cruel pain I feel!—You do not know the world; it is malignantly spiteful. People will perhaps say that your husband sent you back to your parents. Children brought up as you were, on your mother's lap, remain artless; maidenly passion like yours for Wenceslas, unfortunately, makes no allowances; it acts on every impulse. The little heart is moved, the head follows suit. You would burn down Paris to be revenged, with no thought ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... artifice, lost in her perfect naturalness: a healthy, perfect soundness, a primitive simplicity beneath the artifice of usual life. She had a beautiful hand, long, warm, and firm, and the fingers, when they clasped, seemed to possess and inclose your own—the tenderness of the maidenly, the protectiveness of the maternal. She carried with her a wholesome fragrance and beauty as of an orchard, and while she sat there I thought of the ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... upon anything, and to leave the matter with the "Master" for the present. With this pious resolve she climbed into her maidenly bed; and, before falling asleep, she groaned: "If the rascal had only broken his neck, like the high priest Eli, ...
— Walter Pieterse - A Story of Holland • Multatuli
... right. It wasna maidenly. If that's what you want to be saying to me, Neal Ward. The other lassie wouldna have done it. Maybe not. But a' the lads I knew well were turning out and going to the fight, and what was to hinder a poor, ...
— The Northern Iron - 1907 • George A. Birmingham
... it was all very familiar, sounded very old, and was ludicrously wide of the mark. She had not been careless, she had not suffered from the dangerous stupidity of ultra-maidenly blindness, she knew quite well how Quisante felt. Accordingly she would not acquiesce in Mrs. Baxter's diplomatic ignoring of the only material point—how she felt herself. Of course if all Mrs. Baxter meant to convey was her own disapproval of the idea,—well, she conveyed ...
— Quisante • Anthony Hope
... to London, I was honoured by this admirable woman with an early visit. As soon as she arrived I guessed everything, and as soon as she told me that darling Ruth had been in her house nearly a month I had my question ready. "What in the name of maidenly modesty is she staying ...
— The Coxon Fund • Henry James
... also a prim expression with which her photographer had been struggling for some time in vain, obeyed these directions to the letter. Her lips in lines of order and discretion, her skirts hanging in perfect folds, she advanced up the straggling path, the picture of maidenly composure. The nearer she drew to the rosebush the more fixed became the look of meeting a serious obstacle and overcoming it by ...
— Mrs. Red Pepper • Grace S. Richmond
... at the summons, and little they spoke, The gear of a lady she placed on his head; She cover'd his limbs with a womanly cloak, And painted his cheeks of a maidenly red. "One kiss, my dear lord, and begone!—and beware! Walk softly—I follow!" Oh guide them, and save, From the open assault, from the intricate snare, Thou, Providence, friend of the good and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various |
