"Womanly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... girl's heart near him; the springtime grace of a girl's sweet youth in its contrast with the voluptuous summer of Rhaetian types of beauty; the warm rose that spread upwards from a girl's childlike dimples to the womanly arch of her brows; all these charms and more which rendered one girl a hundred times adorable, took hold of him, and made him not an Emperor, but a ...
— The Princess Virginia • C. N. Williamson
... least attractive feature in Madame WADDINGTON'S new book, My First Years as a Frenchwoman (SMITH, ELDER), is the revelation, undesignedly made, of a keen-sighted, vivacious, exceedingly womanly woman. During her residence in France as the wife of a highly placed Minister she had rare opportunity of watching the progress of historic events from a favoured standpoint behind the scenes. When she married ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, May 20, 1914 • Various
... crossed the room and leaned upon the table. In the glimmer of the candles her face was soft and tender. He thought he had never seen a sweeter or more womanly expression. ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... subject; the best of them have a condensed energy of expression and a depth of tragic feeling which is more potent than the melancholy grace of the Spanish. Women take a more active part in the former, the Christians of the Peninsula having caught from their Saracen foes a prejudice in favour of womanly seclusion and retirement. There is also a wilder imagination in Northern balladry; a much larger element of the mythological and supernatural. Ghosts, demons, fairies, enchanters are rare in the Spanish ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... tabita; ewe, cow; lioness, tigress; vixen. gynecaeum^. estrogen, oestrogen. consanguinity &c 166 [Female relatives], paternity &c 11. lesbian, dyke [Slang]. V. feminize. Adj. female, she-; feminine, womanly, ladylike, matronly, maidenly, wifely; womanish, effeminate, unmanly; gynecic^, gynaecic^. Pron. she, her, hers.' Phr. a perfect woman nobly planned [Wordsworth]; a lovely lady garmented in white [Shelley]; das Ewig-Weibliche zieht ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... In womanly beauty the excellences expected and looked for are faultless symmetry of form and feature and a complexion varying in hue as the mind is affected by internal emotion, but with an expression of purity, ...
— The Handy Cyclopedia of Things Worth Knowing - A Manual of Ready Reference • Joseph Triemens
... illustrious House, that derived from both the royal lines of Valois and Bourbon, was a man in the prime of life, of a fine height, still retaining something of the willowy slenderness that had been his in youth, and of a gentle, almost womanly beauty of countenance. ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini
... but her whole being was surrounded with such a charm, goodness, and grace, that the rules of beauty were forgotten. Josephine's beauty was believed in, and the heart was ravished by the spell of such a gracious, womanly apparition. Goethe's words, which the Princess Eleonore utters in reference to Antonio, were not applicable ...
— The Empress Josephine • Louise Muhlbach
... fear chilled the joyous blood in her veins. Then she argued: "He will be less angry with me, a woman, and His vengeance will fall less heavily on me than on the man to whom His command was given;" and lo! Reason rose like a star on the waves of life, and shoulder to shoulder womanly devotion and heroism that fears neither God nor death in defense of its loved ones entered her soul, and she instructed Adam to say: "The woman tempted me," and deception trembled on her lips when she cried: "The serpent did ...
— Fair to Look Upon • Mary Belle Freeley
... much too severe; in the first place, there is no necessity that we should reconcile ourselves to him. In this consists a part of the wonderful beauty of the character of Helena—a part of its womanly truth, which Johnson, who accuses Bertram, and those who so plausibly defend him, did not understand. If it never happened in real life, that a woman, richly endued with heaven's best gifts, loved with all her heart, and soul, and strength, a man unequal to or unworthy ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... of Moses was a severe test of Asenath's strength, but she stood the trial nobly, performing all the duties required by her position with such sweet composure that many of the older female Friends remarked to Abigail, "How womanly Asenath has grown!" Eli Mitchenor noted, with peculiar satisfaction, that the eyes of the young Friends—some of them of great promise in the sect, and well endowed with worldly goods—followed her admiringly. "It will not be long," he ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... continued, as she concluded this recital, "do you think that I will allow you to conquer me? You have been guilty of a dastardly act. Mrs. Montague has shown herself to be lacking in humanity, honor, and every womanly sentiment; but I will not be crushed; even though you have sought to compromise me in this dreadful way I will not yield to you. Your wife I am not, and no writing me as such upon steamer and hotel registers can ever make me so. You may proclaim ...
— True Love's Reward • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... asserting herself also and is building for herself a character that rests upon a foundation of personal purity. This she is doing not only for herself, but for others. The building up of pure homes is her chief concern and in them she reigns with womanly queenliness. ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... dutifully borne him many children, and sat on the ground for such as died. Her figure refused the Jewess's tradition of opulency, and remained slender as though repressed. Her work was manifold and unceasing, for besides her domestic and shop-womanly duties she was necessarily a philanthropist, fettered with Jewish charities as the Gabbai's wife, tangled with Christian charities as the consort of the Town Councillor. In speech she was literally his echo, catching up his mistakes, indeed, ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... life, took hold upon her thoughts, as the mere words and emblems of religion had not done in her first girlhood. She read for the first time the Imitation of Christ and some of the meditations of Saint Bernard. The true young soul, suddenly and tragically severed from the anticipation of womanly happiness, turned gladly to visions of saintly joy—simply and without affectation of form or show—purely and without earthly regret—humbly and without touch of taint from spiritual pride. She had no burden to cast from her conscience, and she ...
— Taquisara • F. Marion Crawford
... generally been unhappy in their loves. Either they could not raise the spirit, or it proved unmanageable; either their affection was not returned, or its object was unfaithful at last. In the single case where they put their science and their philtres aside, and were womanly, and natural, and sincere; where, to gain or to keep their treasure, they would gladly have broken their wand, they failed utterly, and found they were only half omnipotent. The justice was retributive, but it was very complete. Be ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... bereavement, because I knew that the girls had written to you, and because I instinctively shrunk from making a form of what was so real. You knew what a loving and faithful remembrance I always had of your mother as a part of my youth—no more capable of restoration than my youth itself. All the womanly goodness, grace, and beauty of my drama went out with her. To the last I never could hear her voice without emotion. I think of her as of a beautiful part of my own youth, and this dream that we are ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 2 (of 3), 1857-1870 • Charles Dickens
... her hair. The nervous sensibility of her profession had awakened her face, and now the brown eyes laughed with the spiritual maliciousness with which we willingly endow the features of a good fairy. The hips were womanly, the ankle was only a touch of stocking, and the whole house rose to a man and roared when coquettishly lifting the skirt, ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore
... thoughts. At length, after a pause, she found words to say: "Sir, I am a Christian, and would rather go back to my own friends." At the same tune, it was remarked by every one that she had not lost the feelings of womanly modesty; even after having lived so long among naked blacks, she seemed acutely to feel the singularity of her position, dressed only in a couple of shirts, in the midst of a ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 432 - Volume 17, New Series, April 10, 1852 • Various
... Girlish bust, but womanly air; Smooth, square forehead, with uprolled hair; Lips that lover has never kissed; Taper fingers and slender wrist; Hanging sleeves of stiff brocade; So they painted the ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 20, July, 1891 • Various
... heare sayth he seighing & sobbing like a child Then she like a wise woman sayde. Is it not more honesty for me to lamente my dolours here in a secret place, then to make wondering and on oute crye in the strete, as other women do. At so wyfely and womanly a saing his hart melted, promysynge her faythfullye and truelie that he woulde neuer laye stroke on her afterwarde, nor neuer did. Xantippa. No more wil mine god thanke my selfe. Eulalya. But then ye are alwaies ...
— A Merry Dialogue Declaringe the Properties of Shrowde Shrews and Honest Wives • Desiderius Erasmus
... hand pushed him on to a divan, and untied the handkerchief for him. Henri saw Paquita before him, but Paquita in all her womanly and voluptuous glory. The section of the boudoir in which Henri found himself described a circular line, softly gracious, which was faced opposite by the other perfectly square half, in the midst of which a chimney-piece ...
— The Girl with the Golden Eyes • Honore de Balzac
... that April morning when little Mary stood in front of my desk with her pretty eyes looking down bashfully and her soft hair falling over her face. One day I look up, and six years have gone by—as they go by in dreams—and among the scholars is a tall girl of sixteen, with serious, womanly eyes which I cannot trust myself to look upon. The old life has come to an end. The child has become a woman and can teach the master now. So help me Heaven, I did n't know that I loved ...
— Quite So • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... directness and the protuberance of her bust in conclusion, by way of reasserting her satisfaction with the results of her action, there was a touch of plaintiveness in her confession which suggested the womanly author of "Hints on Culture and Hygiene," rather than the man-hater. This was lost on Selma, who was fain to sympathize purely ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... that like a raven to the slaughter, the Lady Mortimer came as near the battle-field as her care for her dainty person would allow; and there was one whom she brought with her. And, gentle dame, what doth she do but carry her sister-in-law a sweet and womanly gift? What thinkst thou it ...
— The Prince and the Page • Charlotte M. Yonge
... in tents or slept in ambulance wagons, for months together; they fell sick of fevers themselves, and after long illness, returned to the old business of hospital and field service. They carried into their work their womanly tenderness, their copious sympathies, their great-hearted devotion—and had to face and contend with the cold routine, the semi-savage professional indifference, which by the necessities of the case, makes ordinary medical supervision, in time of actual war, ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... had an instant's womanly fright: she had fled from Lochleven Castle in the Douglas livery, and without either the leisure or the opportunity for taking women's clothes with her. But she could not remain attired as a man; so she explained her uneasiness to Mary Seyton, who responded ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... rose in her white face as she spoke. After that there was silence for some time; but presently the Queen began to fan Beatrix again, and mechanically smoothed the coverlet. There are certain things which a womanly woman would do for her worst enemy almost unconsciously, and Eleanor was far from hating her rival. Strong and unthwarted from her childhood, and disappointed in her marriage, she had grown to look upon ...
— Via Crucis • F. Marion Crawford
... the surface of the social tide. It would with the same word appeal to the minds and hearts of those women who are satisfied to remain slaves to the exactions of an unscrupulous society, at the sacrifice of their most womanly impulses, and their noblest energies; and would also remind some reckless sons of Ottawa, of how miserably they are contributing towards the future prosperity of their country, by adopting, as the only aim of their lives, the paltry ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera
... fallen in love with the son of my old enemy, that you want to marry him—you ask me to help you, to—to forego my just revenge, to use my hold over him as a lever, to induce him, force him—Good God! have you no sense of right or wrong, are you utterly devoid of—of modesty, of womanly pride!" ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice
... good sense and womanly experience to approve of long engagements, and she did not like the chance of Annie's going to Africa—still she would fulfil what Mrs. Millar considered the highest and happiest destiny for a woman, that of becoming the wife of a worthy man. As to Africa, the little Doctor, a ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler
... eyes of the many began following the eyes of the few, until a brief lull settled down on the dissonance, and everyone was staring at the girl who stood inside the door, dressed as a man, but holding their gaze with the lodestone of her womanly beauty. ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck
... natural costume—costume which permitted the waist to be the normal size, and allowed the drapery to fall in natural folds—costume which knew nothing of pleats and flounces, stays and "improvers"—costume which was very symbolization and embodiment of womanly grace ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 415, December 15, 1883 • Various
... broader halls and lofty towers. But superstition, prejudice, bitter pride, inexperience of life, conjoined their shoulders and barred the way. As Diego Estenega had discerned, under the thick Old-World shell of inherited impressions was a plastic being of all womanly possibilities. But so little did she know of herself, so futile was her struggle in the dark with only sudden flashes to blind her and distort all she saw, that with nothing to shape that moulding kernel it would shrink and wither, and in a few ...
— The Doomswoman - An Historical Romance of Old California • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... time Madame Desvarennes was really in the zenith of womanly splendor. She seemed taller, her figure had straightened, vigorous and powerful. Her gray hair gave her face a majestic appearance. Always surrounded by a court of clients and friends, she seemed like a sovereign. The fortune ...
— Serge Panine, Complete • Georges Ohnet
... Francisco Civic Center, where its masterful simplicity will be more impressive than in this colorful colonnade. It is a true addition to noteworthy American works of art and fully expresses the spirit of this courageous motherhood, tender but strong, adventurous but womanly, enduring but not humble. It has escaped every pitfall of mawkishness, stubbornly refused to descend to mere prettiness, and lived up to the noblest possibilities of its theme. The strong guiding hands, the firmly set feet, the clear, broad brow of the Mother and the uncompromisingly simple, ...
— The Sculpture and Mural Decorations of the Exposition • Stella G. S. Perry
... anticipate the more keenly the freedom which one man would bring her. She frankly admitted the strength of her nature, she almost had admitted it to him; should she always be able to control the strong womanly vanity which would give him something more than a passing glimpse of the woman, making him forget the girl? If she did anything so reprehensible, it would be the last glimpse he would take of her, she reflected with a ...
— Senator North • Gertrude Atherton
... glad enough must they have been when they received their dismission. The heralds, some twelve or fourteen, in black velvet, looked finely. The queen walked like a queen, and bore herself nobly and womanly. She is a small figure, fair face, light hair, large, full, blue eyes, plump cheek, and remarkably fine neck and bust. She leaned upon her husband's right arm, holding in her hand the Prince of Wales, while Prince Albert led the princess royal. I was sadly disappointed in the appearance of the ...
— Young Americans Abroad - Vacation in Europe: Travels in England, France, Holland, - Belgium, Prussia and Switzerland • Various
... delightful to have a girl visitor! The worst of Arthur's visits was that he was always running away on some unsociable masculine pursuit, fishing, shooting, and the like, instead of staying at home like a sensible fellow and amusing his sister. But Eunice would be different, for she was the most womanly of womanly women. No shooting-boots for her, no divided skirts, nor hard felt hats! She was a remnant of that good old type of which our mothers and grand mothers were made, timid and nervous in everyday affairs, yet with an unexpected store of courage which showed itself when danger ...
— More About Peggy • Mrs G. de Horne Vaizey
... fragrant flowers, the music sweet as lover's sighs and the sapphire sea, the sunset sky and Zephyrus' musky wing are dreams; the blistered lips and poor bruised bosom, the womanly pride humbled in the dust and wifely honor wounded unto death—these alone are real! With an involuntary cry of rage and shame, a cry that is half a prayer and half a curse—a cry that rings and reverberates through the great sleepy ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... surrounded by men, helpless in the grasp of strangers, with no womanly touch or glance to sustain her, served to intensify her misery; and wrenching herself free, she struggled into a sitting posture, then staggered to her feet. The heavy coil of hair loosened when they bore her from the court-room, now released itself from restraining ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... back to the matter in hand with womanly swiftness. "But the mine: you had a right to ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde
... weeks and months went by. Two years had passed. Angelique was now fourteen years of age and quite womanly. When she read the "Golden Legend," she would have a humming in her ears, the blood circulated quickly through the blue veins near her temples, and she felt a deep tenderness towards all ...
— The Dream • Emile Zola
... such tender happy care! Not her first work, which won high praise in the school in Paris, not the prize-winning plan for the library, now gracing Orchardina's prettiest square, was as dear to her as this most womanly task—the making of ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... near the close of a beautiful day in early June that Joyce Crawford was once more standing by the gate, looking down the road. It is nearly two years since we saw her last. She has grown taller, more womanly, even more beautiful, if that were possible. The sound of war had ceased in the land. No longer was the fierce raider abroad; yet Joyce Crawford stood looking down that road as intently as she did that eventful evening when Calhoun Pennington ...
— Raiding with Morgan • Byron A. Dunn
... for months lived alone, at inns, wearing a blue surtout, a buff waistcoat, and grey- -" Here horror chokes the utterance of Miss Twinkleton. "Then she was in the vault in ANOTHER disguise, not more womanly, at that awful scene when poor Mr. Jasper was driven mad, so that he confessed all sorts of nonsense, for, my dear, all the Close believes that it WAS nonsense, and that Mr. Jasper was reduced to insanity by persecution. And Mr. Crisparkle, ...
— The Puzzle of Dickens's Last Plot • Andrew Lang
... never so high in saddle, But I shall make his brain addle, And here with my pot ladle, With him will I fight. I shall lay on him as though I wode[268] were, With this same womanly gear; There shall no man stir, Whether that he be ...
— Everyman and Other Old Religious Plays, with an Introduction • Anonymous
... hard and cold and metallic enough. Because it has too much womanly sweetness in it ...
— Golden Stories - A Selection of the Best Fiction by the Foremost Writers • Various
... he had always thought it of her to wish to stop and fondle little children, often wee beggars, stuffing little grimy fists with pennies, not avoiding to touch soiled little cheeks with her clean gloves. He had attributed this propensity to a simple womanly talent for motherliness. ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... knight, That serveth you with will, and heart, and might, And ever hath, since first time ye him knew, That ye shall of your grace upon him rue*, *take pity And take him for your husband and your lord: Lend me your hand, for this is our accord. *Let see* now of your womanly pity. *make display* He is a kinge's brother's son, pardie*. *by God And though he were a poore bachelere, Since he hath served you so many a year, And had for you so great adversity, It muste be considered, ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... brother of Chrysale (2 syl.), not a savant, but a practical tradesman. He sympathizes with Henriette, his womanly niece, against his sister-in-law Philaminte (3 syl.) and her daughter Armande (2 syl.), who femmes savantes.—Moliere, Les Femmes ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... flitted about her as she worked, wandering in and out, now and then sitting down for a few moments, and reading aloud, by fits and starts, or occasionally taking up a needle and making futile efforts to busy herself with the womanly implement, but always restless, and generally abandoning her attempt after a brief trial; for Bertha frankly confessed that she admired industry in her cousin without being able to practise it ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... book shows wide reading, study, painstaking discrimination, enthusiastic zeal, and, above all, the never-failing impulse of an individual idea. It reveals on every page a healthy, well-poised womanly nature, and the opinions advanced are a part of the conscience and moral being as well as of the intellect. The author has fed her mind and heart with high dreams and lofty ideals, and it is not only a pleasure to her to disclose them, but a sacred ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, September, 1885 • Various
... whence you, in your little Geneva coat, embarked on the steamer; and then I thought of Geneva. * * * Countess Thun unfortunately left on Sunday for Tetschen, to spend three months with her father-in-law. She is a kindly lady, womanly and devout (Catholic, very), attributes which do not grace the women here in general; her husband gambles and flirts, I believe, more so than is agreeable to her. I hardly believe that you will like her, but she is one of the better specimens of ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... have made nearer. The next day my beautiful boy ended his brief life of ten days, and died in my arms. My own illness caused him to perish; the fatal cold in the cave was the last straw that broke down strength. The colonel's sweet wife has come, and I do not lack now for womanly companionship. She says that with such a prenatal experience perhaps death was the best for him. I try to think so, and to be glad that H. has not been ill, though I see the effects. This book is exhausted, and I wonder ...
— Famous Adventures And Prison Escapes of the Civil War • Various
... queen," answered the Count de Vaudreuil, who was sitting at the piano and practising a new piece of music. "The queen is the womanly Orestes: the Furies are the three royal aunts; and the serpents—pardon me, ladies—are, with the exception of yourselves, most ...
— Marie Antoinette And Her Son • Louise Muhlbach
... If I could but give some faint idea of their varying moods, their steely hardness, their feminine softness, their power of command, their penetrating intensity suddenly melting away into an expression of womanly weakness—but I am speaking now ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... that will; that with base, premeditated contrivance she had stolen that property; stolen it and kept it from that day to this;—through all these long years? And then he thought of her pure life, of her womanly, dignified repose, of her devotion to her son,—such devotion indeed!—of her sweet pale face and soft voice! He thought of all this, and of his own love and friendship for her,—of Edith's love ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... Lady Hamilton, after the lofty deeds and stirring dramatic scenes of St. Vincent, to beg him, as Lady Nelson did, "to leave boarding to captains." Sympathy, not good taste, would have withheld her. In Lady Nelson's letters there is evidence enough of a somewhat colorless womanly affection, but not a thrill of response to the greatness of her husband's daring, even when surrounded herself by the acclamations ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... and bought her a car of her own to drive round in, never occurred to her as factors in her home-town social success. Like most girls she had been brought up on the warm milk prepared by Annie Fellows Johnston and on novels in which the female was beloved because of certain mysterious womanly qualities ...
— Flappers and Philosophers • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... Had not others, notably Decius Magius, been forced unwillingly to admit the possible efficiency of her plan? Yet now, when the gods had shown her favour beyond all anticipation—had brought the chosen quarry into her net—she had thrown all aside and yielded to her womanly weakness, her instinct of modesty, her sense of personal repulsion. What right had she to think of herself as a woman! He, for whose love her sex had been dear to her, was gone—a pallid shade who could ...
— The Lion's Brood • Duffield Osborne
... and from a distance she had seen that cruel thing done; and had galloped to the place and sent for a priest, and now she was holding the head of her dying enemy in her lap, and easing him to his death with comforting soft words, just as his sister might have done; and the womanly tears running down her ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... at the girl's pale face, which looked even paler under the loose twists of her soft auburn hair. Madge looked older and more womanly than she had the day the captain first saw her. There was a deeper meaning to the upper curves of her full, red lips and a gentler sweep to the downward droop of her heavy, black lashes. She was fulfilling the promise of the great beauty that was to be hers. It was easy to see that she ...
— Madge Morton's Victory • Amy D.V. Chalmers
... Chesnel," said the lady, as she returned, and with womanly tact she explained away and softened the Marquis' harshness. And yet beneath that harshness Chesnel saw a great affection. The Marquis' attachment for his old servant was something of the same order as a man's ...
— The Jealousies of a Country Town • Honore de Balzac
... Cherry Court School in keeping me at Girton, where I shall attend the University lectures at Cambridge, and learn as much as a man learns. It is wonderful to think of it. Mother is rather vexed; she says that I shall be put out of my sphere and cease to be womanly, but I don't think I could ever be that. You see that it is very important for me to win the Scholarship, and I mean to ...
— A Bunch of Cherries - A Story of Cherry Court School • L. T. Meade
... his gesture almost womanly in its gentleness as he rose to meet me, and anxiously held ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... as they swept o'er the dial of gold Seemed to point to the girl below. And lo! she had changed;—in a few short hours, Her bouquet had become a garland of flowers, That she held in her outstretched hands, and flung This way and that, as she, dancing, swung In the fullness of grace and womanly pride, That told me she soon was to be a bride; Yet then, when expecting her happiest day, In the same sweet voice I heard her say, "Passing ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard
... tears with the little wisp of lace, annoyed with herself at betraying her indignation in that womanly way. She knew him, alas! too well. She mistrusted him, for she was well aware of how cleverly he had once conspired with Lady Heyburn, and with what ingenuity she herself had been drawn into the disgraceful ...
— The House of Whispers • William Le Queux
... is it since you have seen Elinor—'Pappoose,' as your sister calls her," asked Mrs. Hal, following the train of womanly thought then drifting through her head, as she set before her visitor a brimming goblet ...
— Warrior Gap - A Story of the Sioux Outbreak of '68. • Charles King
... when she was kneeling at the altar and when the Lady of VII Dolours had miraculously granted to her pardon and peace. He was part of the miracle. She had a duty to him, and her duty was to brighten his destiny, to give him joy, not to let him go without a charming memory of her soft womanly acquiescences. At the same time her temperament was aroused by his personality; and she did not forget she had a living to earn; but still her chief concern was his satisfaction, not her own, and her overmastering sentiment one of dutiful, nay religious, surrender. French gratitude of the English ...
— The Pretty Lady • Arnold E. Bennett
... the deep blight has not fallen, and who day by day restore themselves to the grand perfection of manly and womanly estate; happy again to "feel one's self ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 109, November, 1866 • Various
... Carrington," the rafters rang to the thunderous cheer, while once more I wondered that Grace should ever have listened to me. Whether it was born in her, an hereditary dowry, or was the result of her father's influence and company, I do not know, but Grace, who could at other times be only womanly, spoke to the riders of Carrington with the air of a sovereign. And yet it appeared perfectly seemly that she should do so, for whether mirthful, commanding, or pitiful, Grace was in all things natural. Neither is this prejudice in her favor on my part, for it is well known on the ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss
... prosperous with all her rich cargo of truth and freedom on the voyage over the sea of Time,—if no sound of the news-boy's cry must mix with the echoes of solemn courts, and no reflection of wasting fires in which life and treasure melt can flash through their windows, and no deeds of manly heroism or womanly patriotism are to have applause before God and Christ in the temple,—if nothing but some preexisting scheme of salvation, distinct from all living activity, must absorb the mind,—then I totally misunderstand and am quite out ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various
... Venice Preserved, and Lady Betty entered in an early scene. Truly a fine woman—not so lovely as Anne Oldfield, not so superb as Sarah Siddons; but with a frank, fair, womanly presence—bright, genial, quick, passionate through the distress of Belvidera, the repudiated daughter and ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... only be herself and was without tolerance for those who were different; he had at no time in his life the least desire to make other persons like himself, but if they were not like Grizel she rocked her arms and cried, "Why, why, why?" which is the mark of the "womanly" woman. But his tendency to be anyone he was interested in implied enormous sympathy (for the time being), and though Grizel spurned his overtures, this only fired his pride of conquest. We can all get whatever we want if we are quite determined ...
— Sentimental Tommy - The Story of His Boyhood • J. M. Barrie
... to make, the ladies have generally resolved to hold a fancy bazaar, and to devote the proceeds to this admirable purpose; and I learn with no less pleasure that her Majesty the Queen, in a graceful and womanly sense of the excellence of this design, has consented that the bazaar shall be held under her royal patronage. I can only say, that if you do not find something very noble in your books after this, you are much duller students than ...
— Speeches: Literary and Social • Charles Dickens
... evident confusion and leaped to instant comprehension. So this was the cause of Noel's reticence! She shook hands with Max with a very decided sense of disappointment, resenting his intrusion on Noel's behalf, and with womanly criticism marvelling that this thick-set unromantic Englishman could ever have held the girl's fancy when Noel, the handsomest officer in the district, had been so obviously ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... fascinated by. She was the sister of my father's man of business; and she and her brother were visiting at my home. She really looked well in the morning, "toned down" by a fresh, summer muslin, and all womanly anxiety to relieve my father of the trouble of making ...
— A Flat Iron for a Farthing - or Some Passages in the Life of an only Son • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... not, my dear,' returned her mother, 'for you have a fine brave spirit. And your sister Cecilia has a fine brave spirit of another kind, a spirit of pure devotion, a beau-ti-ful spirit! The self-sacrifice of Cecilia reveals a pure and womanly character, very seldom equalled, never surpassed. I have now in my pocket a letter from your sister Cecilia, received this morning—received three months after her marriage, poor child!—in which she tells me that her husband must unexpectedly shelter under their roof his ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... soul," says one who witnessed it, "for the dear Prodigy of a Son and the comrade who had come with him; for whom the good Mother never could do enough! Never have I seen a better maternal heart, a more excellent, more domestic, more womanly woman." ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle
... irresponsible way of the young girl so attractive to men? It does not make for domestic happiness; and why, Oh why, do some of our best men marry such odd little sticks of pin-head women, with a brain similar in caliber to a second-rate butterfly, while the most intelligent, unselfish, and womanly women are left unmated? I am going to ask about this the first morning I am in heaven, if so be we are allowed to ask about the things which troubled us while on our mortal journey. I have never been able to find ...
— In Times Like These • Nellie L. McClung
... the country. I can see the swains for miles around polishing their manners and taking astonishing pains with their Sunday's best, to make a good impression. They, too, are baring their hearts to your melting glances, completely enchanted under the spell of your womanly graces. But ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent
... so small a craft, producing a deep impression on her; still a lingering of her most inveterate affectation was to be found in her air and language, which presented a strange medley of besetting weakness, and strong, natural, womanly affection. ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 1 January 1848 • Various
... suitably express, if she met anybody to whom the cause of the challenge was likely to have spread, the bewildering emotion which the unwilling cause of it must feel. There must be a wistful wonder, there must be a certain pride, there must be the remains of romantic excitement, and there must be deep womanly anxiety. The carriage of the head "did" the pride, the wide-open eyes "did" the wistful wonder and the romance, the deep womanly anxiety lurked in the tremulous smile, and a violent rubbing of the cheeks produced ...
— Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson
... those dangerous subjects whom anger always makes pale. My eyes were decidedly blue, everything else that may be said to the contrary notwithstanding. The whole expression of my countenance was very feminine, but not soft. It was always the seat of some sentiment or passion, and in its womanly refinement gave to me an appearance of constitutional delicacy and effeminacy, that I certainly did not possess. I was decidedly a very beautiful child, and a child that seemed formed to kindle and return a mother's love, yet the ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... dearest; there are none," she returned with the same calm, level voice. "It is true that I have at times tried to do something real and womanly, and not, you know, merely to complicate a—a"—her voice faltered—"theatrical situation—but I couldn't! Something impelled me otherwise. Now you know why I became an actress! But even there I fail! THEY are allowed reasoning power off the stage—I have none at any time! I laugh in the wrong place—I ...
— New Burlesques • Bret Harte
... take her place in the Virginia reel, watched the dance begin, watched her full, womanly figure, in its soft white draperies, glide between the lines, with her head held high, her hand in George Bolingbroke's, her white slippers skimming the polished floor. Then turning away, I walked slowly down the length of the two drawing-rooms, and said "Good-night" to Miss Mitty and Miss ...
— The Romance of a Plain Man • Ellen Glasgow
... her subjects with eyes which drove them wild with adoration, but which said nothing but that which she chose to convey. Nor did her features betray one single thought that might chance to be passing in the brain behind. She wore an impenetrable mask of reserve while she watched the effect of the womanly power she wielded. ...
— In the Brooding Wild • Ridgwell Cullum
... latter passages in her sister's letter Angela's eye ran with a scornful carelessness. Her womanly pride revolted at such petty schooling—that she should be bidden to accept this young man gratefully, because he was her only suitor. No one else had ever cared for her pale insignificance. She looked at her clouded image in the oblong glass that hung on the panel ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... ushered him into the drawing-room. Two ladies rose to greet him. One he recognized as the donor of his New Year's gift, and the other, could it be—his own brown-eyed Blanche? Guly felt a wild thrill of joy sweep through his heart, as Blanche, grown, it was true, more womanly than when he saw her last, came forward with her white hand extended to greet him. Oh, how annihilated did all the past, in that one wild moment, become! and as he bent his lips to that loved hand, and his brown hair swept forward over his ...
— The Brother Clerks - A Tale of New-Orleans • Xariffa
... eastern school, which, for those three years, had been Kitty's home, Helen Wakefield and the girl from Arizona had been close and intimate friends. Indeed, Helen, with her strong womanly character and that rare gift of helpful sympathy and understanding, had been to the girl fresh from the cattle ranges more than a friend; she had been counsellor and companion, and, in many ways, a wise guardian ...
— When A Man's A Man • Harold Bell Wright
... peoples of eastern Mindano certain individuals who are known by a special name and who are reputed to be incapable of sexual intercourse. The individuals whom I saw were most feminine in their ways, preferring to keep the company of women and to indulge in womanly work rather than to ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... quite unexpectedly had disarranged her plans and made her physically unable to keep her usual guard over her companion. In fact, Elizabeth's own love-affairs that eventful Saturday demanded all her womanly diplomacy ...
— A Singer from the Sea • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... science, law and reason, are virile things, and they come before imagination, feeling, reverie, and fancy. When one reflects that Catholic superstition is maintained by women, one feels how needful it is not to hand over the reins to the "Eternal Womanly." ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Jews, and quaintly setting forth the writer's belief that Jesus was God or else His Son. She had been present, also, when the charge was made against Ahulah, and had comforted that unfortunate in womanly ways. "Surely," she had said, "if the Master who does not love you can forgive, how much more readily must your husband who does!" Whereupon Ahulah had become her slave, tending her thereafter ...
— Mary Magdalen • Edgar Saltus
... and looked indifferent. But, with the womanly and courtierlike quickness and tact habitual to her, Anna Pavlovna wished both to rebuke him (for daring to speak he had done of a man recommended to the Empress) and at the same time to console him, ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... voice told her it was some sweet prelude of love. Nevertheless, despite the quick rush of her Creole blood, and the sudden quivering that rose from her heart to her cheeks, she succeeded in concealing her thoughts under that mask of womanly serenity which the eye of man is not ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid
... matters are mended. Her complexion has cleared; her countenance has developed itself; her figure has shot up into height and lightness, and a sort of rustic grace; her bright, acute eye is softened and sweetened by a womanly wish to please; her hair is trimmed and curled and brushed with exquisite neatness; and her whole dress arranged with that nice attention to the becoming which would be called the highest degree of coquetry if it did not deserve the better name of propriety. The lass ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VI. • Various
... were offered to M'liss when her conversion became known, the master had preferred that of Mrs. Morpher, a womanly and kind-hearted specimen of Southwestern efflorescence, known in her maidenhood as the "Per-ra-rie Rose." By a steady system of struggle and self-sacrifice, she had at last subjugated her naturally careless disposition to principles of "order," which ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... There was a certain womanly coquetry, mingled with a profound love of the soil where her martyred mother reposed, in the desire which Marsa Laszlo had to be called the Tzigana, instead of by her own name. The Tzigana! This name, as clear cut, resonant and expressive ...
— Prince Zilah, Complete • Jules Claretie
... no ordinary person. Seldom have I seen so graceful a figure, so womanly a presence, and so beautiful a face. She was a blonde, golden-haired, blue-eyed, and would no doubt have had the perfect complexion which goes with such colouring, had not her recent experience left her drawn and haggard. Her sufferings were physical as well as mental, ...
— Victorian Short Stories of Troubled Marriages • Rudyard Kipling, Ella D'Arcy, Arthur Morrison, Arthur Conan Doyle,
... of debt he dragged after him, constantly adding to its weight by some fresh extravagance, had affected his mind on this one point. Marriage with poverty he could not conceive; and, as he was intensely affectionate, he longed for a home and womanly companionship. "Is there no woman in the world for me?" he cried despairingly; but in this, as in everything else, he required so much, that it was difficult to find any one who would, in his eyes, be worthy to become Madame Honore ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars
... complexion, her smile revealed teeth of pearly whiteness, while her large black eyes sparkled with an uncommon brightness that was softened by the most attractive sweetness. She possessed a strong and melodious voice, and, in short, had all the charms of womanly beauty. ...
— Historic Tales, vol 10 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... housekeeping so dear to the Dutch matron. The care of the dairy, the poultry, the spinning, the baking, the brewing, the immaculate cleanliness of the Dutch, were not so much duties as sacred household rites."[49] So much for womanly education in New Amsterdam. A thorough training in domestic science, enough arithmetic for keeping accurate accounts of expenses, and previous little reading—these were considered ample to set the young woman on the right path for her vocation as ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday
... faith in Heaven will be more useful to you," sneered the countess. "I have womanly pity enough to warn you not to let your hopes rest on this. I prophesy that Lord Chandos will have utterly forgotten you by next June, and that he does not ...
— A Mad Love • Bertha M. Clay
... there was a singing at her heart, a certainty of joys undreamt of hitherto, the tenderest, sweetest, most womanly joys—her own house, her own husband, her own children—perhaps; it all lay ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... and laughed to the children, who interested her. She was quite simple and womanly, as some women, it is to be hoped, may succeed in continuing until the end of time. She was always pleased to see children; was glad, it seemed, that they should have congregated on the steps to watch ...
— Barlasch of the Guard • H. S. Merriman
... distressed princess. And she rewarded him with a delicate kindliness, and a perfectly trustful, childlike dependence upon his strength, wisdom, and resource. All her bearing towards him was marked by an inexpressible charm, half-playful, wholly gracious and womanly. The lady of the manor was gone, and in her place moved the Patricia Verney of the enchanted ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston
... vessel engaged in carrying coals to Ipswich. Shrewdly suspecting one of his apprentices, a clever, active lad, to be other than what he seemed, he taxed him with the deception. Taken unawares, the lad burst into womanly tears and confessed himself to be the runaway daughter of a north-country widow. Disgrace had driven her to sea. [Footnote: Naval Chronicle, vol. ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... just beginning to quiver with reanimation, was curved in the curl of flowers in bud, and sweet and kind as the animate soul of a rose. A womanly chin turned, none could say where, into the matchless sweep and curve of the throat and breast, a glimpse of which he had had vouchsafed in ...
— Trusia - A Princess of Krovitch • Davis Brinton
... firm cheek, a dark eye, a motherly fulness of form, spoke the being made to receive and enjoy the things of earth, the warm-hearted wife, the indulgent mother, the hospitable mistress of the mansion. It is true that the smile on the lip had something of earthly pride blended with womanly sweetness,—the pride of one who has as yet known only prosperity and success, to whom no mischance has yet shown the frail basis on which human hopes are built. Her foot had as yet trod only the high places of life, but she walked there with a natural grace ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... Miss Morgan, as she surveyed the debris of Henry's Sunday clothes, and her womanly wrath for the destroyer of them began to boil, "Henry, now tell me honestly, is this little boy telling the truth? Now, don't ...
— The Court of Boyville • William Allen White
... her down at once for a lady, in the sweet old-fashioned meaning of the word—womanly, refined, good and true; and had not her letters confirmed this? But this dark-haired, quick-speaking little person by her side—was she, after all, a friend? And had I committed a faux pas in refusing to deliver up the ...
— Against Odds - A Detective Story • Lawrence L. Lynch
... excellent beaute, Benygne[163] of port, most womanly of chere, There issued out, empresses thre; There here displaied, as Phebus in his[164] spere, With crownettys of gold and stones clere; At whos out comyng thei gaf swyche a light, That the beholders ...
— A Chronicle of London from 1089 to 1483 • Anonymous
... complaints. The force of gravitation is a mutual thing; and just as the great sun himself cannot but bend a little in turn to the smallest orb that wheels around him, so the august Princess of Este could not but have regarded with womanly interest a devoted admirer, however humble. The poetical gallantry of the day will account for all Tasso's lyrical effusions in praise of Leonora. They were in most instances simply the tributes that were expected from the laureate of a court, especially a laureate who was accused, ...
— Roman Mosaics - Or, Studies in Rome and Its Neighbourhood • Hugh Macmillan
... The laugh shook you. You saw all that he could never see: inside the room the great ladies and latest American countesses, eager to help, forgetful of self, full of wonderful, womanly sympathy; and outside, the Place de la Concorde, the gardens of the Tuileries, the trees of the Champs-Elysees, the sun setting behind the gilded dome of the Invalides. All these were lost to him, ...
— With the French in France and Salonika • Richard Harding Davis
... fourth child of a family of seven. His mother possessed a singularly sweet and beautiful disposition; his father, much given to hobbies, was stern and unbending, and he himself combined an almost womanly gentleness with a quiet determination that unflinchingly faced all obstacles. With a high sense of personal honour, unassuming and even-tempered, he was only roused to anger by acts of oppression or wanton cruelty. Then his indignation, though ...
— The Naturalist in Nicaragua • Thomas Belt
... by no shadow of any earthly interest, killed by ennui, all at once Lord Massey had fallen passionately in love with a fair young countrywoman, well connected, but bringing him no fortune (I report only from hearsay), and endowing him simply with the priceless blessing of her own womanly charms, her delightful society, and her sweet, Irish style of innocent gayety. No transformation that ever legends or romances had reported was more memorable. Lapse of time (for Lord Massey had now been married three or four years), and deep seclusion from general society, ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... his anxiety, would be left unopened in London; and Fritz might be expected to arrive (if he traveled without stopping) in the course of the next day or two. I put this reasonable view of the matter to Minna, and received a thoroughly irrational and womanly reply. ...
— Jezebel • Wilkie Collins
... that sweet naturalness, depth and constancy of affection, purity and refinement which an age that had not yet lost the ideals of chivalry accepted as the normal qualities of a good woman. The mothers, wives, and daughters of that day would appear to have been before all things womanly, in an unaffected, instinctive way. Isaac (in the Chester Miracle Play), thinking, in the hour of death, of his mother's grief at home, says, 'Father, tell my mother for no thinge.' When Mary is married ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne
... condescending whereas, as a matter of fact, she merely asked to be let alone. Of course, it was only people whose opinions were worthless that criticized her. All who were admitted to her intimacy knew that there was no friend more loyal, no woman more womanly and charming. ...
— The Mask - A Story of Love and Adventure • Arthur Hornblow
... word, Lady Augusta and Miss Helen Temple are both of them very fine girls, and very highly accomplished, and vastly well educated, as I understand. I really cannot tell which to prefer. Lady Augusta, to be sure, is rather the taller of the two, and her manners are certainly more womanly and fashioned than Miss Helen's; but then, Miss Helen Temple has something of simplicity about her that some people think very engaging. For my part, I don't pretend to judge—girls alter so; there's no telling at twelve years old what ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... in an appearance just here. She was neatly dressed in street costume. Her eyes were very bright, and there was a grateful smile on her womanly face as she grasped ...
— Andy the Acrobat • Peter T. Harkness
... three years Marian attended this school she held aloof from the other pupils, was grave and womanly in her deportment. She acquired Miss Rebecca Franklin's slow and precise method of speaking, and to her diligent training owed her life-long habit of giving a finished completeness to all her sentences. It seems that her imagination was alive at this time, and being slowly cultivated. She ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke
... As midsummer flower, Gentle as falcon Or hawk of the tower: With solace and gladness, Much mirth and no madness, All good and no badness; So joyously, So maidenly, So womanly Her demeaning In every thing, Far, far passing That I can indite, Or suffice to write Of Merry Margaret As midsummer flower, Gentle as falcon Or hawk of the tower. As patient and still And as full of good will As fair Isaphill, Coliander, Sweet pomander, Good Cassander; Steadfast ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... had no faith on which to lean, nothing to bring healing and hope to a broken heart. Her death was a loss to the community as well as to her family. Her writings in the "Somerville Journal" had made a decided impression, while her sweet womanly qualities had endeared her to a wide circle of friends. Noting her death, a writer in one ...
— Russell H. Conwell • Agnes Rush Burr
... we not all the better for this pleasantry? so womanly, so genial, so rich, and so without a sting,—such a true diversion, with none of the sin of effort or of mere cleverness; and how it takes us into the midst of the strong-brained and strong-hearted men and women of that time! what an atmosphere of sense and good-breeding ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown |
