"Slattern" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... He was on the same mountain road, but in the midst of the company-village. In the distance he saw the great building of the breaker, and heard the incessant roar of machinery and falling coal. He marched past a double lane of company houses and shanties, where slattern women in doorways and dirty children digging in the dust of the roadside paused and grinned at him—for he limped as he walked, and it was evident enough what ...
— King Coal - A Novel • Upton Sinclair
... the wife, a coarse ill-dressed slattern, came out to see what could bring strangers to such an out-o'-the-way place at that late hour. "Puir Jeanie! I can weel imagine the fluttering o' her heart when she spier'd of the woman for ane Willie Robertson, and asked if he ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... had not married a farm at all. He had married a woman—a thin-jawed, elderly slattern, whose sole beauty was her farm. How her jaws worked! The processions and congregations of words that fell and dribbled and slid out of them! Those jaws were never quiet, and in spite of all he did not say anything. There ...
— Here are Ladies • James Stephens
... go as far in teaching you a knowledge, not much less necessary than the other, I mean the knowledge of the world. Between these two necessary studies, that of books in the morning, and that of the world in the evening, you see that you will not have one minute to squander or slattern away. Nobody ever lent themselves more than I did, when I was young, to the pleasures and dissipation of good company. I even did it too much. But then, I can assure you, that I always found time for serious studies; and, when I could find it no other way, I took it out of my sleep, for I resolved ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... people, Irish people, Welsh people, and Scotch people there; all with their little store of coarse food and shabby clothes; and nearly all with their families of children. There were children of all ages; from the baby at the breast, to the slattern-girl who was as much a grown woman as her mother. Every kind of domestic suffering that is bred in poverty, illness, banishment, sorrow, and long travel in bad weather, was crammed into the little space; and ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... keeping with the general dismal effect. La Cibot heard a heavy footstep, and the asthmatic wheezing of a virago within, and Mme. Sauvage presently showed herself. Adrien Brauwer might have painted just such a hag for his picture of Witches starting for the Sabbath; a stout, unwholesome slattern, five feet six inches in height, with a grenadier countenance and a beard which far surpassed La Cibot's own; she wore a cheap, hideously ugly cotton gown, a bandana handkerchief knotted over hair which she still continued to put in curl papers (using for that ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... or Catherine Hall, was a slattern and a minx, Mrs. Score was a far superior shrew; and for the seven years of her apprenticeship the girl was completely at her mistress's mercy. Yet though wondrously stingy, jealous, and violent, while her maid was idle and extravagant, and her husband seemed to abet the ...
— Catherine: A Story • William Makepeace Thackeray
... ain't got anything particular against the girl," said Sarah, "but it's my bounden belief that she'll turn out a slattern. Thar's something moonstruck about her—you can tell it by that shiftin' skeered-rabbit look in her eyes. She's just the sort to sweep all the trash under the bed an' think ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow
... spindle-shanks. And just look at that fool Akoulina. Wasn't the girl a regular untidy slattern, and just look at her now! Where has it all come from? Yes, he has fitted her out. She's grown so smart, so puffed up, just like a bubble that's ready to burst. And, though she's a fool, she's got it into her head. "I'm the mistress," she says; "the house ...
— Redemption and Two Other Plays • Leo Tolstoy et al
... washing, or that there are finger-smears on the doors, and "fluff" in the corners. But with the blessed mother-gift of patience, point out to her, again and again, the seemingly small details, the "hall-marks" of housewifery, which, heeded, make the thrifty, neat housekeeper, and, when neglected, the slattern. As she grows older, let her straighten the parlors every morning, make the cake on Saturdays, and show her that you regard her as your right-hand woman in all matters pertaining to domestic affairs. Give her early to understand that it is to her interest to keep her father's ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... and flies, And in his fly's mind has a brave appearance; And then your spider gets him in her net, And eats him out, and hangs him up to dry. That's Nature, the kind mother of us all. And then your slattern housemaid swings her broom, And where's your spider? And that's Nature, also. It's Nature, and it's Nothing. It's all Nothing. It's all a world where bugs and emperors Go singularly back to the same dust, Each in his time; and ...
— The Man Against the Sky • Edwin Arlington Robinson
... standstill. He had thought it all out beforehand, and so arranged it that it should lead up, in a shrewd, dignified way, to the matter itself. But now it was all in a muddle like a slattern's pocket-handkerchief, and the farmer did not look as if he had understood a single word of it. He lay there, taking a cake now and then, and looking ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... first time in her life the flabby, foolish woman had to do with a person of firm will and bright intelligence; not being vicious of temper, she necessarily felt herself submitting to domination, and darkly surmised that the rule might in some way be for her good. All the sluggard and the slattern in her, all the obstinacy of lifelong habits, hung back from the new things which Miss Rodney was forcing upon her acceptance, but she was no longer moved by active resentment. To be told that she cooked badly had long ceased to be an insult, and was becoming merely ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing
... she was a slattern, with dishevelled hair and a soiled dress and apron, and she looked miserable ...
— Roving East and Roving West • E.V. Lucas
... told young Gordon I wouldn't sanction, "The Woman spouting politics, the Man returning to a slattern's home." ...
— The Master of Mrs. Chilvers • Jerome K. Jerome
... to natural vanity, on the score of beauty, she was a good deal troubled with purse-pride, which, with a foolish susceptibility of flattery, was a leading feature in her disposition. In addition to this, she was an inveterate and incurable slattern, though a gay and lively one; and we need scarcely say that whatever she did in the shape of benevolence or charity, in most instances owed its origin to the influences of the weaknesses she was known ...
— The Emigrants Of Ahadarra - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... the eyes that I bring ye, O brave in your jewels, and dainty. But a draggle-tail, dirty-foot slattern Would dub me ill-favoured and sallow. Nay, many a maiden has loved me, Thou may of the glittering armlet: For I've tricks of the tongue to beguile them And ...
— The Life and Death of Cormac the Skald • Unknown
... to write; they will give the judicious patron pain to read; therefore we are quits. I think, as I look over their slattern paragraphs, of that most tragic hour—it falls about 4 P.M. in the office of an evening newspaper—when the unhappy compiler tries to round up the broodings of the day and still get home in time ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... faded ribbons, awry upon her unkempt hair; eyes hookless, holes buttonless, upon her shabby gown; a boot-lace trailing on the ground. When we clergy visit Mrs. Dowdy's home, or the residence of her sister, Mrs. Slattern, and find that, though it is towards evening, they have not tidied either self or house, we know why the children are unhealthy and untaught, and why the husband prefers the warmth and cleanliness of "The Manor Arms" to his ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... think I have depicted a remarkable slattern, reader. Not at all. Hortense Moore (she was Mr. Moore's sister) was a very orderly, economical person. The petticoat, camisole, and curl-papers were her morning costume, in which, of forenoons, she had always been accustomed to "go her household ways" ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... a beauty, you know, a little on the wane, and wanting to be elaborately made up and curled and powdered and painted, and all that. She's a little of a slattern underneath the surface, you know, and doesn't bear to be taken unawares—mustn't be seen for at least an hour or two after she has got out of bed. All the more ...
— The Galaxy, Volume 23, No. 2, February, 1877 • Various
... make me so," said Margaret, "or I should let you alone, and leave you a slattern. We should both hate it so! No, don't make me your mistress, Ethel dear—let me be your sister and play-fellow still, as well as ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... with a roar of laughter and approval, and a number of slattern women showing the effects of strong ale in their faces stepped boldly forward as competitors ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... looked at Billy. She was very fat, and the red of her face deepened to purple unevenly about the sides of her nose. Her eyes were bright and black. She had opened a button or two at the top of her dress, and her general appearance, from her grey hair to her slattern heels, was disordered. Her cap had fallen off on to the ground, and Mr. Blee noticed that her parting was as a broad turnpike road much tramped upon by Time. The room smelt stuffy beyond its wont ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... has brought untold blessings of progressiveness to the other farms around Ballygurteen; she has lost the appreciation of her husband. She whom we loved for a personality as winning as that of an Emma or a Tess is now a drudge, almost a slattern, gray-haired, hopeless, almost hated by a brutal husband. The loveless marriage has proved a curse. Upon the woman of his dreams so dethroned comes Brian Connor, now a successful novelist, and, finding how things ...
— Irish Plays and Playwrights • Cornelius Weygandt
... under the shaded lamp G.J. could study the marvellous articulation of the arms at the bare shoulders. The close atmosphere was drenched with femininity. The two women, one so stylish and the other by contrast piquantly a heavy slattern, hid nothing whatever from him, bestowing on him with perfect tranquillity the right to be there and to watch at his ease every mysterious transaction.... The most convincing proof that Christine was authentically young! And G.J. had the ...
— The Pretty Lady • Arnold E. Bennett
... and daughter, they make the pair. It's a nice thing to go to church just to leer at the men. Dare to say it isn't true, little slattern! I'll dress you in a sack, just to disgust you, you and your priests. I don't want you to be taught anything worse than you know already. Mon Dieu! Just listen to me, ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... was put to nurse with Mrs. Cudlip next door, and when, at the end of the week, President went off to work somewhere in a mining town in West Virginia, my father and I were left alone, except for the spasmodic appearances of the red-haired slattern. Gradually the dust began to settle and thicken on the dried cat-tails in the china vases upon the mantel; the "prize" red geranium dropped its blossoms and withered upon the sill; the soaking dish-cloths lay in a sloppy ...
— The Romance of a Plain Man • Ellen Glasgow
... John," murmured Priscilla as the young man returned to the fire to gather up the bullets and moulds, and if it must be confessed to seize the chance of one more word with Priscilla; "best bring up two or three buckets of sand from the beach, and when yon slattern hath done her best, spill you the sand over all, ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... not, had listened to the brawl, his chickens come home to roost at last. The first Mrs. Kilquhanity had sworn, with an oath that took no account of the Cure's presence, that not a stick nor a stone nor a rag nor a penny should that Irish slattern ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... rapping at the black doors of the ash-bud, and the scent of the gean-tree flourish hung round the road by the river, vague, sweet, haunting, like a recollection of the magic and forgotten gardens of youth. Over the high and numerous hills, mountains of deer and antique forest, went the mist, a slattern, trailing a ragged gown. The river sucked below the banks and clamoured on the cascades, drawn unwillingly to the sea, the old gluttonous sea that must ever be robbing the glens of their gathered waters. And the birds were at ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro
... [Lat.]; Bedlam, all hell broke loose; bull in a china shop; all the fat in the fire, diable a' quatre [Fr.], Devil to pay; pretty kettle of fish; pretty piece of work [Fr.], pretty piece of business [Fr.]. [legal terms] disorderly person; disorderly persons offence; misdemeanor. [moral disorder] slattern, slut (libertine) 962. V. be disorderly &c adj.; ferment, play at cross-purposes. put out of order; derange &c 61; ravel &c 219; ruffle, rumple. Adj. disorderly, orderless; out of order, out of place, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... kept his resolve had there been nothing more to contend with than the ordinary verbal persecution. But late in the afternoon, when he had grown weary from the strain of the day, his special tormentor, a burly Irishman, took occasion, in passing, to push him rudely against a pert and slattern girl, who also was foremost in the tacit league of petty annoyance. She acted as if the contact of Haldane's person was a purposed insult, and resented it by a sharp ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... lane after dark with that gawky country sweetheart has given her the fever that her betters have been having since the Avon come over bank. A wet autumn is more to be feared than Gammer's witches. Poor luck it is the lubberfolk aren't after the girl in truth; a slattern maid she is, her hearth unswept and house-door always open and the cream ever a-chill. The brownie-folk, I promise you, Will, pinch black and ...
— A Warwickshire Lad - The Story of the Boyhood of William Shakespeare • George Madden Martin
... administration of every dollar devoted to housekeeping. She studied cooking in the best schools the city afforded. She meant to show her Knight a thing or two in this line when the time came. His wife would not be an ignorant slattern, the victim of incompetent servants. No servant could fool her. She would know the business of the house down to its ...
— The Foolish Virgin • Thomas Dixon
... the living-room, combing her hair, for she had something of the slattern in her nature, and there was no ...
— Where Angels Fear to Tread • E. M. Forster
... him," Lady Anne said graciously. She did not object to the honest pride in Walter Gray. He was probably a superior man for his station, being Mary's father. As for that poor slattern, Lady Anne had lived too long in the world to be amazed by the marriages men made, either in her own exalted circle or ...
— Mary Gray • Katharine Tynan
... made so merry with the Nine; With thy far bolder Muse, Oh, shelter mine! When she is style'd a slattern, and a trollop;— Force stubborn Gravity to doff his gloom; Point to thy Caelia, and thy Dressing-Room, Thy Nymph at bed-time, ...
— Broad Grins • George Colman, the Younger
... tickling me. You don't shave half as often as you used to, do you? No, nowadays you think you have me safe and don't have to bother about being attractive. If I had a music-box I could put your face into it and play all sorts of tunes, only I prefer to look at it. You are a slattern and a jay-bird and a joy forever. And besides, the first Stapleton seems to have blundered somehow into the House of Burgesses, so that entitles me to be a Colonial Dame on my father's side, too, ...
— The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck - A Comedy of Limitations • James Branch Cabell
... a crying shame! here's an interesting case for professors of moral hygiene! An apt, intelligent little man, with an empty mind, and a by-no-means overloaded stomach, I'll engage,—with a pride-paralyzed father, and a beer-bewitched slattern of a mother,—with his living to get, in San Francisco, too, and the world to make friends with,—who has never enjoyed the peculiar advantages to be derived from the society of little dirty boys, never been admitted to the felicity ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various
... handsome pampered slattern, well fed and in the prime of life. She has nothing to carry, and has a stout stick to help ...
— Androcles and the Lion • George Bernard Shaw
... one-eyed Cyclops halted long In tattered cloak of army pattern, And Galatea joined the throng,— A blowsy, apple-vending slattern; While old Silenus staggered out From some new-fangled lunch-house handy, And bade the piper, with a shout, To strike up ...
— The Golden Treasury of American Songs and Lyrics • Various
... it closer and rocked it against her shrunken breast a second and older woman appeared in the doorway, a witch-faced slattern who ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... that she will get all the love and consideration she can long for. But in three- quarters of the cases of marriage the woman degenerates into a whining bundle of thought-less FEELINGS done up in a slattern's dress and smelling like a drug-shop. Her husband in despair gives up trying to understand her, ...
— Happiness and Marriage • Elizabeth (Jones) Towne
... left their inspiration in Boston. In one sense the place that has known them shall know them no more forever; but in another sense it has never ceased to know them. I can't say how it is, exactly, but though you don't see them in Boston, you feel them. But here in New York—our dear, immense, slattern mother—who feels anything of the character of her great children? Who remembers in these streets Bryant or Poe or Hallock or Curtis or Stoddard or Stedman, or the other poets who once dwelt in them? Who remembers even such great editors as Greeley or James Gordon Bennett or Godkin or Dana? What ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells
... arrogantly had to these denied: And may I not have leave impartially To search and censure Dryden's works, and try If those gross faults, his choice pen doth commit, Proceed from want of judgment, or of wit? Or if his lumpish fancy doth refuse Spirit and grace to his loose slattern muse? Five hundred verses, every morning writ, Prove him no more a poet ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Volume 4 (of 18) - Almanzor And Almahide, Marriage-a-la-Mode, The Assignation • John Dryden
... spider-thin legs above her low leather boots was playing with some sort of shimmery crystals, spilling them out into patterns and scooping them up again from the uneven stones of the floor. One of the women was a fat, creased slattern, whose jewels and dyed furs did not ...
— The Door Through Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... upward at the stars than downward at the mud. The "naturalistic" writers are deceived in thinking that they represent life as it really is. If their thesis were true, the human race would have dwindled to extinction long ago. Surely a photograph of a slattern in the gutter is no more natural than a picture of Rosalind in the Forest of Arden; and no accuracy of imitated actuality can make it more significant ...
— A Manual of the Art of Fiction • Clayton Hamilton
... gave them way kindly enough; but certain dull-eyed, frowzy-headed women seemed to push purposely against her grandfather, and one of them swore at Lydia for taking up all the sidewalk with her bundles. There were such dull eyes and slattern heads at the open windows of the shabby houses; and there were gaunt, bold-faced young girls who strolled up and down the pavements, bonnetless and hatless, and chatted into the windows, and joked with other such girls ...
— The Lady of the Aroostook • W. D. Howells
... A woman, who worships, than God, more her dress, Would be if she heard or e'en thought Mrs. Grundy Would sneer at the set of a bonnet or tress; Or say that she thought Miss Freelove's new pattern Of laces, or collars, or yard flowing sleeves, Looked more like the dress of a real Miss Slattern And not "so becoming"'s the first ...
— Nothing to Eat • Horatio Alger [supposed]
... his luggage, and as soon as she had had a few hours' sleep, he would take her to different shops. She clung on to his arm. Paris seemed very cold and cheerless, and she did not like the tall, haggard houses, nor the slattern waiter arranging chairs in front of an early cafe, nor the humble servant clattering down the pavement in wooden shoes. She saw these things with tired eyes, and she was dimly aware of a decrepit carriage drawn by ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore
... appears at the window]. He was once so brilliant and strong; Warred with the world to win his mistress; passed For Custom's doughtiest iconoclast; And pored forth love in paeans of glad song—! Look at him now! In solemn robes and wraps, A two-legged drama on his own collapse! And she, the limp-skirt slattern, with the shoes Heel-trodden, that squeak and clatter in her traces, This is the winged maid who was his Muse And escort to the kingdom of the graces! Of all that fire this puff of smoke's the end! ...
— Love's Comedy • Henrik Ibsen
... could help, for I did not know what villainy he might let me in for. Moreover, I carried Zeeta with me, being ashamed to leave her at the mercy of the old bully. Japp went up to the huts and hired a slattern to mind his house, and then drank heavily for three days to ...
— Prester John • John Buchan
... bosom half open, a child in her arms, and two more at her heels. I stared for a moment as if doubting my eyes. I could not be mistaken; in the fat, beer-blown landlord of the ale-house I recognized my old rival Harlequin, and in his slattern spouse, the ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... eating utensils on the tables. Nevertheless Buck Daniels was not dismayed. He selected a corner-table by instinct and smote upon the surface with the flat of his hand. It made a report like the spat of a forty-five; heavy footsteps approached, a door flung open, and a cross-eyed slattern stood in the opening. At the sight of Buck Daniels sitting with his hands on his hips and his sombrero pushed back to a good-natured distance on his head the lady ...
— The Night Horseman • Max Brand
... Kind of Women were formed out of those Ingredients which compose a Swine. A Woman of this Make is a Slut in her House and a Glutton at her Table. She is uncleanly in her Person, a Slattern in her Dress, and her Family is ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... liana and bajuca vines smothered it in death-like embrace. Coil upon coil of these serpent-like jungle creepers, ignoring or circumventing the smudge platform halfway up the trunk, ascended to the tree's very crest, only to return, dangling and swinging like the ragged draperies of a slattern, reaching out tenacious arms ...
— The Adventures of Piang the Moro Jungle Boy - A Book for Young and Old • Florence Partello Stuart
... bore divers physical evidences of the ill nurture—it would be unjust to call it neglect—which he had received. At one time he was indeed put in charge of a good nurse, but he had to be withdrawn from her care almost immediately through her husband's jealousy, and he was next sent to a slattern, who fed him with old milk, and not enough of that; or more often with chewed bread. His body was swollen and unhealthy, he suffered greatly from an attack of fever, which ultimately left him deaf in one ear. He gave early evidence of a fine taste in music, ...
— Jerome Cardan - A Biographical Study • William George Waters
... Miss Scatcherd wrote in conspicuous characters on a piece of pasteboard the word "Slattern," and bound it like a phylactery round Helen's large, mild, intelligent, and benign-looking forehead. She wore it till evening, patient, unresentful, regarding it as a deserved punishment. The moment Miss Scatcherd withdrew after afternoon school, I ran to Helen, tore it off, and thrust it ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... denied? And may not I have leave impartially To search and censure Dryden's works, and try If those gross faults his choice pen doth commit, Proceed from want of judgment, or of wit? Or if his lumpish fancy does refuse Spirit and grace, to his loose slattern muse? Five hundred verses every morning writ, Prove him no more a ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott
... Cyclops halted long In tattered cloak of army pattern, And Galatea joined the throng,— A blowsy apple-vending slattern; While old Silenus staggered out From some new-fangled lunch-house handy, And bade the piper, with a shout, To strike up Yankee ...
— Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools - Edited With Notes, Study Helps, And Reading Lists • Various
... the woman, tartly. I recall her dimly, a slattern creature in a loose gown and bare feet, wife of the storekeeper and wagoner, with a swarm of urchins about her. They were all very natural to me thus. And I remember a battle with one of these urchins in the briers, an affair which did ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... Self-Confidence The Slattern Following the Fashions Gaudy Attraction The Business Suit The Business Dress and Coat An Appeal ...
— Book of Etiquette • Lillian Eichler
... care a great deal about books, and the pernickety little player was chary about lending his splendidly bound rarities to his quondam preceptor. Our sympathies in this matter are entirely with Garrick; Johnson was one of the best men that ever lived, but not to lend books to. Like Lady Slattern, he had a 'most observant thumb.' But Garrick had no real cause for complaint. Johnson may have soiled his folios and sneered at his trade, but in life Johnson loved Garrick, and in death embalmed his memory ...
— Obiter Dicta - Second Series • Augustine Birrell
... to the kitchen for a slattern as thou art, and wash thee and busk [dress] thee ere thou open the door to any again!" said a rather shrill, yet not unpleasant, voice behind Deb; and that damsel disappeared with prompt celerity. "The maid is enough ...
— Robin Tremain - A Story of the Marian Persecution • Emily Sarah Holt
... a purse out of a sow's ear. Fan will sag right down after marriage. Mark my words. She's a slattern in her blood, and before the honeymoon is over she'll be slouching around in old slippers and her nightgown. That is plain talk, Mr. Lester, but I can't let you go into this trap ...
— They of the High Trails • Hamlin Garland
... dim passage a neglected child directed us to the fourth floor. On the fourth floor a slattern, who replied at last to our persistent tapping, told us shortly that mademoiselle was out. I realised that we had committed the error of being before our time; and the woman, evidently unprepared for our ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick
... opportunity, and she painted Dan Hewlett and his household in no flattering colours. Molly was a slattern, and Dan was a thief, and the children ate up Judith's dainties, and they all preyed upon her. It was a perfectly horrid life for a good, well-trained, high-principled person to lead. In fact, she poured out all the ...
— The Carbonels • Charlotte M. Yonge |
