"Unwomanly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... than as a guardian upon his ward. The awakening pained me greatly, especially as I was obliged to disappoint him deeply; yet I seek to retain his friendship, for my memory of his long kindness must ever abide. I am sure you will understand, and not consider me unwomanly in thus ...
— My Lady of the North • Randall Parrish
... thought it a duty to uphold at any and all times. He colored under the girl's satiric sally. If she had been a man he would have bid her to battle on the spot. Her sly fun and gentle malice he resented as insulting, coarse, and unwomanly. He flashed a look of piteous, surprised reproach at her as she flecked the flies from the neck of her horse. He rode along moodily—too angry, too wretched to trust himself to speak, for he felt sure he must say something ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... you were tempted to be one. My conscience does not reproach me because I helped you, but I think that it would give me grievous hurt had I not done so. I am not fitted to be the judge of anybody, Miss Catherwood, least of all of you. It would never occur to me to think you unwomanly." ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... education that has been proposed for girls, whether coeducational or not, we have always heard the same fears expressed. Such education would make the girl unwomanly, it would unfit her for her true functions, a man could not wish to marry her, and so on. The first women teachers and doctors had indeed a hard time. After being admitted to the profession only at the point of the sword, so to speak, ...
— The Trade Union Woman • Alice Henry
... to be so bold," he began again. "You were delicate to an exquisite fault. I would never have believed that you would have done anything unwomanly. What ...
— Daisy in the Field • Elizabeth Wetherell
... Christie, as the girls went trooping out of the bath-house, where this pleasing chatter had been carried on regardless of listeners. She called them "mercenary, worldly, unwomanly flirts," and felt herself much their superior. Yet the memory of their gossip haunted her, and had its influence upon her decision, though she thought she came to it through her ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott
... people in the neighbourhood have left us severely alone, whirling past our gates to pay assiduous calls on General Underwood. He is the local hero, and we are the hard-hearted strangers who did Something—nobody knows precisely what—but Something mean, and underhand, and altogether unwomanly about a lease, and so forced the poor dear General to endure draughts and cold rooms, and seriously retarded his progress towards health! It's no use pretending that I am not sorry about it, for I am; but all the same, they have been happy ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... the primary prompting and the ultimate outcome are the same. The ardent longing after ideal purity in womanhood, which in the one gave birth to a conception whereof the very sorrow is but excess of joy found expression in the other through a vivid presentment of the nameless misery of unwomanly dishonour:— ...
— Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti - 1883 • T. Hall Caine
... and worn, With eyelids heavy and red, A woman sat, in unwomanly rags, Plying her needle and thread,— Stitch! stitch! stitch! In poverty, hunger, and dirt; And still with a voice of dolorous pitch She sang ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... of manner. If we are truly courteous, we shall stoop to lift up struggling womanhood when she really needs our help—when it is life and death to her whether she has it or not. And then to cant about it being unwomanly to work in the higher professions. It is womanly enough to starve, but unwomanly to use the brains which God has given them. Is ...
— Beyond the City • Arthur Conan Doyle
... calumny that had been spun out of her replies then first must have been apparent to her, and though silent for the most part, she quickly contradicted some statements, and pointed out the fallacy of others. Reproached for her unwomanly behaviour, she replied at once, "As for woman's work, there are plenty of other women who can do that"; and asserted that before fighting at all, she had made every effort to obtain her wishes peacefully. She even recited the short prayer it was her custom ...
— The Story of Rouen • Sir Theodore Andrea Cook
... you could not, of course, give any other answer. But, in your heart of hearts, you probably consider my conduct both unwomanly and unbecoming, for it is true that we hardly know each other. Over in England, and certainly in your German fatherland quite as well, such casual meetings as ours have been could not possibly give me the right to treat you as a friend, and I do not really know how ...
— The Coming Conquest of England • August Niemann
... definite, and she seems to have been of real service, and to have won what she sought. She says, "Up to 1850 I had not taken position for suffrage, although I had shown the absurdity of regarding it as unwomanly." She appears to have done a great deal of clever as well as earnest and spirited talking in the West, after she had "taken position for suffrage," and she reports that, when she removed to Kansas, her claims were for "equal educational ...
— Woman and the Republic • Helen Kendrick Johnson
... you, if you'll promise to be more dutiful for the future: Come, come, added the wretch, this may be all made up by to-morrow morning, if you are not a fool.—Begone, hideous woman! said I, and let not my affliction be added to by thy inexorable cruelty, and unwomanly wickedness. ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson
... the Lord Jesus," she imagined that either friends had borne it away, or foes had robbed the tomb. In surprise, disappointment and anxiety, her first impulse was to make it known—to whom else than to him who had sorrowed with her at the stone-closed door? So she "ran"—not with unwomanly haste, but with the quickened step of woman's love—"to Simon Peter and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved." They were both loved, but not in the fuller sense elsewhere applied to John. Astonished at her early call, startled at the wildness of her grief, ...
— A Life of St. John for the Young • George Ludington Weed
... drake, gander, dog, boar, stag, hart, buck, horse, entire horse, stallion; gibcat^, tomcat; he goat, Billy goat; ram, tup; bull, bullock; capon, ox, gelding, steer, stot^. androgen. homosexual, gay, queen [Slang]. V. masculinize Adj. male, he-, masculine; manly, virile; unwomanly, unfeminine. Pron. he, him, his. Phr. hominem pagina nostra sapit [Lat.] [Martial]; homo homini aut deus aut lupus [Lat.] [Erasmus]; homo vitae commodatus ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... of spectators in the hall leaped Fate in a green silk skirt, under the nom de guerre of "Liz." Her eyes were hard and blacker than jet. She did not scream or waver. Most unwomanly, she cried out one oath—the Kid's own favorite oath—and in his own deep voice; and then while the Small Hours Social Club went frantically to pieces, she made good her boast to Tommy, the waiter—made good as far as the length of her knife blade ...
— The Trimmed Lamp • O. Henry
... know," Mildred continued, "if you chose, that you cannot charge me with one unwomanly act, but your look and manner toward me are both unwomanly and unchristian. You insult me in my poverty and misfortune. Without the shadow of right or reason, you cruelly wound one who was wounded already;" and she was ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... fact and what is fol-de-rol. They ought to distinguish between the really noble and the simply physical, not to say faulty. If men do not, it is women's duty to help them. I think, if women would only not be quite so afraid of being thought unwomanly, they would be a great deal more womanly than they are. To be brave, and single-minded, and discriminating, and judicious, and clear-sighted, and self-reliant, and decisive, that is pure womanly. To be womanish is not to ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... extent that discussion really became more like axioms chanted in unison; but when it came to woman suffrage society silently but exactly split. There were those who would stick at nothing, even casting a vote. There were those who said casting a vote was unwomanly, and you couldn't possibly leave the baby long enough to do it. Others among the antis were reconciled to its coming, if it came slowly enough not to agitate us. "Of course," said one of these, a Melvin who managed her ample ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown
... thought they were saying to each other across the top of the gate, "Never mind; he'll catch it soon enough." But, as I said, I did not catch it that day; and I could not have caught it that day; it was too lovely a day to catch any hurt even from that most hurtful of all beings under the sun, an unwomanly woman. ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald
... her head humbly under this tirade. She had nothing more to say, no defense to utter. By her unwomanly persistence she had very clearly lost whatever admiration and respect Willie Jones might once have felt for her. But—but—but she was in for half the profits! . . . Women are so prone nowadays to prefer some petty material gain to the ...
— A Little Question in Ladies' Rights • Parker Fillmore
... jackets are wadded, and a Chinaman will speak of "a three, four or six coat cold day." A man's robe is generally longer than that of a woman. Petticoats are worn by ladies on ceremonial occasions and the long robe is removed when in the house. "It is considered very unwomanly not to wear trousers, and very indelicate for a man not to have skirts to his coat." No Chinese woman ever bares any part of her body in public—even the hands are concealed in the large sleeves—and the evening dress of European ladies is ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various
... teaching no, nor any lesson whatever from the teaching of any Aylmer in existence. And as for the world's rules, she would fit herself to them as best she could; but no such fitting should drive her to the unwomanly cruelty of deserting this woman whom she had known and loved and whom she now loved with a fervour which she had ...
— The Belton Estate • Anthony Trollope
... gaunt grey nightmare in the furthest smoke, The hag that gave these three abortions birth, Unmotherly mother and unwomanly Woman, that near turns motherhood to shame, Womanliness to loathing: no one word, No gesture to curb cruelty a whit More than the she-pard thwarts her playsome whelps Trying their milk-teeth on the soft o' the throat O' ...
— Studies in Literature • John Morley
... at Ernest. 'I can't speak much plainer than that,' she thought to herself, 'and really he must be stupider than the Algies and the Monties themselves if he doesn't see I want him to propose to me. I suppose all women would say it's awfully unwomanly of me to lead up to his cards in this way—throwing myself at his head they'd call it; but what does that matter? I WON'T marry a fool, and I WILL marry a man of some originality. That's the only thing in the world worth troubling one's head about. Why on earth doesn't he take my hand, I wonder? ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... German woman caring for her reputation, hoping for a husband, would have dared to ride a bicycle: to-day they spin about the country in their thousands. The old folks shake their heads at them; but the young men, I notice, overtake them and ride beside them. Not long ago it was considered unwomanly in Germany for a lady to be able to do the outside edge. Her proper skating attitude was thought to be that of clinging limpness to some male relative. Now she practises eights in a corner by herself, until some young man comes along to help her. She ...
— Three Men on the Bummel • Jerome K. Jerome
... admire you for it. Do not think that for one moment I have failed in paying you that tribute. I often wish," pursued Miss Marty, somewhat incoherently, "that I had been born a man. I trust the aspiration is not unwomanly. I see you going about as if nothing were happening or likely to happen, and me all the while half dead in my bed, and hearing the clock strike and expecting it every moment. As if the French weren't bad enough! And the Vicar may say what he likes, but when I hear you ordering ...
— The Mayor of Troy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... fingers weary and worn, With eyelids heavy and red, A woman sat in unwomanly rags, Plying ...
— The Age of Invention - A Chronicle of Mechanical Conquest, Book, 37 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Holland Thompson
... listener', at the long symposia held by her husband and Byron in Switzerland (June 1816), and how the pondering over 'German horrors', and a common resolve to perpetrate ghost stories of their own, led her to imagine that most unwomanly of all feminine romances, Frankenstein. The paradoxical effort was paradoxically successful, and, as publishers' lists aver to this day, Frankenstein's monster has turned out to be the hardest-lived specimen of the ...
— Proserpine and Midas • Mary Shelley
... fingers weary and worn, With eyelids heavy and red, A woman sat in unwomanly rags Plying her needle and thread— Stitch! Stitch! Stitch! In poverty, hunger and dirt; And still with a voice of dolorous pitch She sang the "song ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester
... word,—my oath,—dearest lady," replied the supplicant, "that I will act by the agency of others, and do not myself design to mingle in any enterprise in which my appearance might be either perilous or unwomanly." ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... conspiracy; and declared that now he had borne enough of such contumelious conduct; he should soon bring me into subjection. He represented himself to me, as an injured and long-suffering man; and me, to myself, as an unkind, undutiful, and most unwomanly woman. He told me, what was true, that I need not expect people to believe such a 'cock and bull story;' and used every possible means of intimidation, except actual corporeal punishment. That he threatened long after; ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor
... going about with her hair down; after her experiences in the boat it seemed absurd to quibble over a thing like this and she tried to argue with herself without avail. It seemed to her that if she went about in neglige like that she would lower herself. How? There was nothing unwomanly in flowing hair, there was nothing indelicate. No, but women of her class never appeared before men in that fashion, ...
— The Beach of Dreams • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... rather than permit others to rival him in her affections. I think, M. P., that you should endeavour to discover the true state of your fiance's feelings. I do not, of course, advocate anything in the shape of unwomanly behaviour, of which I am sure, my dear young lady, you are incapable; but I think that you should certainly try to pique your fiance, to test him. At your next ball, for instance, refuse him a certain number of ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... best singers of the classes, ready to lead the chorus in the songs which had been written for the occasion to the music of popular tunes. These were supposed to take the place of "yells," and cheers, both proscribed as verging upon the unwomanly. By rule the opposing factions sang in turn, but occasionally, quite by accident, both started at once, with deafening discords that rocked the gallery, and caused the musical head of the German Department to ...
— Betty Wales Freshman • Edith K. Dunton
... And it is beautiful to see her affection, her reverence, for Libbie Marsh. Her dead mother could hardly have cared for her more tenderly than does the hard-hearted washerwoman, not long ago so fierce and unwomanly. Libbie, herself, has such peace shining on her countenance, as almost makes it beautiful, as she tenders the services of a daughter to Franky's mother, no longer the desolate lonely orphan, a stranger ...
— The Grey Woman and other Tales • Mrs. (Elizabeth) Gaskell
... I help it? Have I been unwomanly? I think I scarcely know what I have done. I could very easily have told what was right in the old days; but—but surely you understand—this was not to be decided by those rules. I was no longer free. Do you mean that you blame me for what ...
— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish
... so, made such by your unmanliness. Unwomanly! Were you more manly, I had never shocked ...
— Macaria • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... she does? What astonishes me most is that a woman should be so unwomanly as to fight for a man in such a way as that. It is the sort of thing that men used to do. 'You must give up your claim to that lady, or else you must fight me.' Now she comes forward and says that she will ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... her duty to lecture Kalliope severely. No well-conducted lady's-maid ought to attack strange sailors with oars and knock out their front teeth. Kalliope must be made to understand that such conduct was not only undesirable in a maid but was actually unwomanly. The lecture was, necessarily, delivered for the most part in pantomime, by means of frowns, nods, and shakings of the head. Up to a certain point the Queen succeeded very well. Kalliope easily understood that ...
— The Island Mystery • George A. Birmingham
... her hands and decided that there could be no doubt whatever of the villainy of Dick. To justify herself, she began, unwomanly, to weigh the evidence. There was a boy, and he had said he loved her. And he kissed her,—kissed her on the cheek,—by a yellow sea-poppy that nodded its head exactly like the maddening dry rose in the garden. Then there was an interval, and men had ...
— The Light That Failed • Rudyard Kipling
... Dawn began to tell her story. She told it to Beresford as an apology for having ridden forty miles with Onistah to save his life. It was, if he chose so to accept it, an explanation of how she came to do so unwomanly a thing. ...
— Man Size • William MacLeod Raine
... putting themselves forward just now on any subject which happens to attract their attention is quite deplorable, I think; and pushing themselves into the professions, too, and entering into rivalry with men generally; you must confess that all that is unwomanly." ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... demanded Leslie in a fierce, low tone. "Do you think I'm wicked—unwomanly? Or do you think I'm just ...
— Anne's House of Dreams • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... you have spoken in that way," she confessed. "I shall never feel quite so much alone in the world again, and I shall see these matters from a different viewpoint. Is it wrong—unwomanly, I mean—for me ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... appear to you that I had been unwomanly. My own conscience is clear, for my purpose exonerates me, but this you might fail to understand unless I made fuller explanation than is now possible. I have a duty ...
— My Lady of Doubt • Randall Parrish
... full share of the responsibilities connected with the election of members of your state councils, just the same as we have; but surely there are other and proper means of obtaining their rights and privileges without resorting to such childish and unwomanly tactics as chaining themselves up, pestering high officers of state, and forcing their way ...
— To Mars via The Moon - An Astronomical Story • Mark Wicks
... skirt; when she sees you comin' she'll p'r'aps upset a kid or two assoomin' a decorous attitood. That's feeminine, and as such is approved by the ladies, but"—and here Leander put his head on one side and gave a grotesque impression of outraged decorum—"pants is considered unwomanly." ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning
... the surroundings are so dull and unwomanly, and that Helena can have no suitable friend ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens
... Shakespeare to have been about the only artist, except Nature, who could make women wise without turning them into men. And it is well worth the noting that, honourable as the issue of her course at the trial would be to a man, Portia shows no unwomanly craving to be in the scene of her triumph: as she goes there prompted by the feelings and duties of a wife, and for the saving of her husband's honour and peace of mind,—being resolved that "never shall he lie by Portia's side with an unquiet soul"; so she gladly leaves when ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... said to me. "You think defiance unwomanly, and so do I; but it was for once only, and I felt that my brother had no right to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 62, December, 1862 • Various
... in such an injured architecture Room for new love to live in. Are you laughing? No? Well, you are not crying, as you should be. Tears, even if they told only gratitude For your escape, and had no other story, Were surely more becoming than a smile For my unwomanly straightforwardness In seeing for you, through my close gate of years Your forty ways to freedom. Why do you smile? And while I'm trembling at my faith in you In giving you to read this book of danger That only one man living ...
— The Three Taverns • Edwin Arlington Robinson
... notice, and ambitious of marrying him for his fortune. They sneered at the idea that we should study Hebrew with Mr. Hammond, and declared it a mere trap to catch Mr. Leigh. Now, Mrs. Murray, you know that I never had such a thought, and the bare mention of a motive so sordid, contemptible, and unwomanly surprised and disgusted me; but I resolved to study Hebrew by myself, and to avoid meeting Mr. Leigh at the parsonage; for if his sister's friends entertain such an opinion of me, I know not what other people, and even Mrs. Inge, may think. Those two ladies added some other things ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... uttered them, kept returning to her as pertinaciously as her own did when she said in look, if not in words, "I shall marry for money." It troubled her to remember that now, she wished she could take it back, it sounded so unwomanly. She didn't want Laurie to think her a heartless, worldly creature. She didn't care to be a queen of society now half so much as she did to be a lovable woman. She was so glad he didn't hate her for the dreadful things she said, but took them so beautifully and was kinder ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... she was not talking to give herself courage, that her words were literally true. This made him admire her, and fear her, too. There must be something wild and unwomanly in her nature. "I guess she inherits it from her mother—and perhaps her father, whoever he was." Probably she was simply doing a little early what she'd have been sure to do sooner or later, no matter what had happened. On the whole, it was just as ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... worn, with eyelids heavy and red, A woman sat, in unwomanly rags, plying her needle and thread: Stitch! stitch! stitch! in poverty, hunger, and dirt; And still with a voice of dolorous pitch, she sang the 'Song ...
— Little Folks (October 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... maiden, tall and very fair. The fashion of her dress was strange, half masculine, yet not unwomanly. A fine fur tunic, reaching but little below the knee, was all the skirt she wore; below were the cross-bound shoes and leggings that a hunter wears. A white fur cap was set low upon the brows, and from its edge strips of fur fell ...
— The Were-Wolf • Clemence Housman
... the contents of her desk with quick, nervous fingers. "I'll. get the Twentieth Century," she said, over her shoulder. "Don't argue, please. If it's no work for a woman then I suppose it follows that I'm unwomanly. For ten years I traveled this country selling T. A. Buck's Featherloom Petticoats. My first trip on the road I was in the twenties—and pretty, too. I'm a woman of thirty-seven now. I'll never forget that first trip—the heartbreaks, ...
— Roast Beef, Medium • Edna Ferber
... Dear One, Thine house of intrigue. Deep, dark intrigue and plotting. Thy wife has lent herself to a most unwomanly thing, and doubtless thou wilt tell her so, but Mah-li begged so prettily, I could refuse her nothing. I told thee in my last letter that thine Honourable Mother had been regarding the family of Sheng Ta-jen ...
— My Lady of the Chinese Courtyard • Elizabeth Cooper
... to her proposal on the part of those who were still supposed to be her guardians would only be founded on an objection to it as something unwomanly, venturous, and revolutionary, and not by any means the result of any grief for her going away. Ever since her mother's death and her father's second marriage she had only chafed at existence, and found those around her disagreeable, and no doubt made herself disagreeable to them. She ...
— The Galaxy, Volume 23, No. 2, February, 1877 • Various
... must have loved her earliest girlish hours with excessive delight, and perhaps it is the garish contrast of the youth of the young women of this time, energetic and, from the mid-Victorian standpoint certainly, so unwomanly, that prompts this gentle and refined woman to people her gracious solitudes of spirit with those still more gracious lady-like beings which she employs. For her pictures, that is her most typical ones, contain always these groupings of figures in crinoline-like gowns with perhaps ...
— Adventures in the Arts - Informal Chapters on Painters, Vaudeville, and Poets • Marsden Hartley
... possibilities of the situation. Such a representative of the decaying sexual instinct would have needed the stimulus of courtship, at the least of some hint of preference displayed by the suitor. Ruled by the conventions which hold her sex in bondage, she would have deemed it unwomanly to make advances by any means other than innuendo, the subtle suggestions which are the instruments of her sex, but which are often too delicate to pierce the understanding of the obtuse and ...
— The Wonder • J. D. Beresford
... Sir Everard—yes, all the way from Yorkshire in this disguise. Ah! it seems very bold and unwomanly, does it not? But my uncle was such a tyrant, and I had no appeal. I am an orphan, Sir Everard. My father and mother have been dead since my earliest recollection, and this uncle, my sole earthly relative, has been my guardian and tormentor. I can not tell you how cruelly he has ...
— The Baronet's Bride • May Agnes Fleming
... played on the lute, and had even given instruction in music; she had a skilful hand; on personal acquaintance she made the impression of goodness and mildness. But yet there was something in her eyes that could even rouse fear; her voice, which could be heard at a great distance, told of something unwomanly in her. She was a good speaker in public; never did she show a trace of timidity in danger. The troubles she had experienced from her youth, her constant antagonism to the authority under which she lived, had especially hardened in her the self-will which is recognisable in all the Tudors. ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke
... in a paroxysm of distress. She reproached herself for her imprudence, her temerity, her unwomanly conduct, in having given away her heart to a man who she again began to torment herself by believing had never desired it. She remembered that her weakness, not her sincerity, had betrayed this humiliating secret to Sir ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... situation, a situation that puzzled Lord Montague and enraged Mrs. Mavick. Evelyn maintained as much indifference to the domestic as to the worldly situation. Her mother thought her lifeless and insensible; she even went so far as to call her unwomanly in her indifference to what any other woman would regard as an ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... you refuse to write a reply, I shall call upon all the gods; I shall announce to them this unwomanly act, and I shall ...
— Kokoro - Japanese Inner Life Hints • Lafcadio Hearn
... father as of her mother; she alleged herself as proof of the fact that a girl was often a great deal more her father's daughter, and she argued that if Maxwell made Salome quite in his own spiritual image, no one would dream of criticising her as unwomanly. Then he asked if he need only make Atland in her spiritual image to have him the manliest sort of fellow. She said that was not what she meant, and, in any case, a man could have feminine traits, and be all the nicer for them, but, if a woman had masculine ...
— The Story of a Play - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... bear it?" said poor Anne to herself sometimes; "it is so wrong, so unwomanly! So selfish, too, when I think of my children. How much I have to be thankful for—why should I ruin my life by crying for the one thing that is not for me? It is worse, far worse than if he had died; had I known ...
— Four Ghost Stories • Mrs. Molesworth
... could you confess to aught so unwomanly!" There was a warmth in Amelie's tone that was less noticed by herself ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... such cases. Mrs Reardon had never anything of the kind to fear. It was impossible for a man such as her husband to behave harshly. Her conduct was cowardly, faithless, unwomanly!' ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... female detectives has been the subject of some adverse criticism by persons who think that women should not engage in such a dangerous calling. It has been claimed that the work is unwomanly; that it is only performed by abandoned women; and that no respectable woman who becomes a detective can remain virtuous. To these theories, which I regret to say are quite prevalent, I enter a positive denial. My experience of twenty ...
— The Somnambulist and the Detective - The Murderer and the Fortune Teller • Allan Pinkerton
... prisoner for no other reason than that he is loved by a woman. I have tried to teach you many things; the language of my people, their ways and thoughts, but I have failed to civilize you. I cannot make you understand that it is unwomanly—do not turn away. I am not indifferent. I have learned to care for you. Your beauty and tenderness have made ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey
... know before that to be Southern made a woman unwomanly,' I said. 'Where I came from I don't believe there's a girl would say a cruel thing like that or refuse a drink of cold water to soldiers doing their duty, friends or enemies. We've slept on the ground nine nights and ...
— The Militants - Stories of Some Parsons, Soldiers, and Other Fighters in the World • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... believe her motive, her purpose, to be unwomanly. Should the opportunity offer, she did not intend to win Graydon by angling for him, by arts, blandishments, or one unmaidenly advance. She would try to be so admirable that he would admire her, so true that he would trust ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe
... was cut short, for, quick as lightning, the ungovernable Infanta raised her hand, and let it fall upon his face with such vigour and good will, that the minister, unprepared for so unwomanly an assault, staggered backwards, and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various
... have Edgar's good opinion. Indeed, that was only proper gratitude to a friend, not unwomanly submission to the great young man of the place. He was invariably kind to her, and he had done much to make her cheerless life less dreary. He had lent her books to read, and had shown her pretty places in the district which she would never have seen but for him: ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various
... forever, or even I some day might be tempted to make a fool of myself. Your excellent counsels, my dearest cousin, will be invaluable to me, should my lagging footsteps falter by the way. Edith! where have you learned to be so hard, so worldly, so—if you will pardon me—so unwomanly?" ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming
... read a paragraph again from this paper, the temperance organ of your State. The writer is still Gen. Carey. (The extract intimated that Miss Brown, supported and urged on by several others, made an unwomanly entrance into the Convention, and upon the platform itself, which was reserved for officers, and as it would imply, already filled). There were only the two other persons I mentioned who went with me to that Convention, but they took their seats back among the ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... and she is never weary of them. Of middle height, she has the grace of a taller woman, and the ease in motion which comes only from natural, healthy, elastic strength, not weakened by enforced idleness, not overdeveloped by abominable and unwomanly gymnastic exercises. ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford
... and laughed, and Claudia laughed too, the moment after she had spoken. The fear of Ideala doing anything unwomanly was absurd, ...
— Ideala • Sarah Grand
... she, with her education and accomplishments, her social position and natural gifts, acting on no higher plane, influenced by no worthier motives and no loftier ambition? Was the ignorant girl justified in quoting her example in extenuation of a course that to a plain and equally ignorant man seemed unwomanly ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... dreaded falling in his esteem. She dared all, risked all, because without him life must have been to her, as it is to so many, a blank and a mistake. But supposing he put on the cold, grave face, assumed the conventional tone she knew so well, told her he could not pardon such unladylike, such unwomanly proceedings, or that he did not desire to intrude on confidences so long withheld; or, worse than all, that they did very well as they were, got on—he had hinted as much once before—better than ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... new thing in literature—"romantic love on the higher side." For my part I cannot see in this description—in which no essential trait is omitted—anything different from what we have found in Homer, in Sappho, and in Euripides. The unwomanly lack of coyness which Medea displays when she practically proposes to Jason, expecting him to marry her out of gratitude, is copied after the Nausicaea of the Odyssey. The flaming cheeks, dim eyes, loss of consciousness, and paralysis are copied from Sappho; while the ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... flat and making use of all that chivalrous service she surely knew was at her disposal. This self-reliance, this direct dealing with the world, seemed to him, even in the height of his concern, unwomanly, a deeper injury to his own abandoned assumptions than any he had contemplated. He felt it needed explanation, and he hurried to secure an elbowed unsavoury corner in the back of the court in order ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... aware of every glance fastened upon her—not in the mass, but every glance individually. For example, she sees clearly, even through her eyelids, the still, cold smile of a girl in Pew 8 R—a girl who once made an unwomanly attempt upon the bridegroom's affections, and was routed and put to flight by superior strategy. And her ears are open, too: she hears every "How sweet!" and "Oh, lovely!" and "Ain't she pale!" from the latitude ...
— A Book of Burlesques • H. L. Mencken
... light up when he comes, and she is listless when he goes. She always spends a longer time over her toilet, when we expect him home to dinner," she added, with a touch of nave femininity. "But— if it be love, then that love is strange and unwomanly; it is a love that will ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... Do you want me to be honest and straightforward as a woman is not supposed to be?—to tell you things that will hurt you?—to make confessions that ought to shame me? to behave in what many men would think was an unwomanly manner?" ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... Unhealthy. She was Unlovely, Ungentle, Uncivil, Unsociable, Untameable, and altogether Unendurable. She was Unkind, Unfeeling, Unloving, Unthankful, Ungrateful, Unwilling, Unruly, Unreasonable, Unwomanly, Unworthy, Unmotherly, Undutious, Unmerciful, Untruthful, Unfair, Unjust and Unprincipled. She was Unpunctual, Unthrifty, Unskilful, Unready, Unsafe, Unfit, and totally Unprofitable. She was Unknown, Unnoticed, Unheeded, Unobeyed, Unloved, Unfriended, Unemployed, Unvalued, Unpopular, and ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole
... their defiance to these dishevelled greens with hair-pins, they propose to provoke the recalcitrant to recognition of their right to pin their names to seats in the House of Commons. It is all so sweetly feminine, that the stranger is astonished to hear such women dubbed unwomanly. Pray, what could be more womanly in England, than to pin a protest to a golf-green with ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... rudeness, to show him that she does not desire his nearer acquaintance, he has no right to force himself or his love upon her. He has no right to make sure of any woman's love before he has asked her for it, unless, of course, she has {26} betrayed herself by an unwomanly want of reticence. It is both foolish and ill-bred for him to play the part of dog-in-the-manger and to object to her receiving attentions from any one else. Until he has declared himself he can assume no control over the disposal of her favours, still less should he stoop ...
— The Etiquette of Engagement and Marriage • G. R. M. Devereux
... her closely during her successive chance meetings with young men and women of her acquaintance, he would have seen hard lines, coarse lines, ugly lines, in her face; yet when in repose the same face was neither unwomanly nor without an occasional suggestion of soul. It was a face like many others that one may see on the streets,—entirely human, yet entirely under the control of whatever influence might be about it for ...
— All He Knew - A Story • John Habberton
... have to be pulled through by an "I told you so!" It is fine to see a girl play ball or tennis; to see her row or ride, or climb a tree when there is need. But all this climbing, and striding, and shouting, womanly enough at times, become most unwomanly under certain circumstances, ...
— Hold Up Your Heads, Girls! • Annie H. Ryder
... He was ever in my mind, and I came here to Jamaica—he was here—for what else? Salem could have been restored by Darius Boland or others, or I could have sold it. I came to Jamaica to find him here—unwomanly, perhaps, you will say." ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... Perhaps the unwomanly nature of the science made her instinctively wish to conceal her love of it. But the more profound reason was that in her mind mathematics were directly opposed to literature. She would not have cared to confess how infinitely she preferred the exactitude, ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... of your conduct. It grieves me that any young man should have to speak to me of the behaviour of my own grand-daughter. He says you have been flirting with him. Sybylla, I scarcely thought you would be so immodest and unwomanly." ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin |
