"Harem" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... chain of; they don't mind stooping to conquer; they don't mind playing upon the weaker, baser sides of men's natures; they don't mind appealing, for their own ends, to the pity and generosity of others; they don't mind swallowing indignity and smiling abjectly, like any woman of the harem at her lord, so that they gain their object. That is the sort of 'woman's nature' that our conditions are busy selecting. Let us cultivate it. We live in a scientific age; the fittest survive. Let ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... duly equipped with the usual faithful helpmeet who should share his sorrows, joys, etc. The nest he could feather decently enough himself; the sole problem, a critical one in its way, was to decide upon the helpmeet. West was neither college boy nor sailor. His heart was no harem of beautiful faces. Long since, he had faced the knowledge that there were but two girls in the world for him. Since, however, the church and the law allowed him but one, he must more drastically monogamize his heart and this he found enormously difficult. ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... by a king of Oudh for the ladies of his harem. It takes its name from the gilt umbrella (Chatta) with which it is adorned. ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts
... and Stewart, in their turn. Sometimes Lulu would come in, with a bird on each hand, and sit at our feet. She then never mingled in the conversation, but just smoothed the birds' plumage, or fed them with crumbs from her own lips, like a child, or a princess trifling in the harem. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various
... of the seraglio in Don Juan is also only probably correct, and may have been drawn in several particulars from an inspection of some of the palaces, but the descriptions of the imperial harem are entirely fanciful. I am persuaded, by different circumstances, that Byron could not have been in those sacred chambers of any of the seraglios. At the time I was in Constantinople, only one of the imperial residences was accessible to strangers, ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt
... In the meanwhile, it was evident that his Highness old Duke Barnim was greatly struck by her beauty, and wished to get near her upon the carpet; for his Grace was well known to be a great follower of the sex, and many stories are whispered about a harem of young girls he kept at St. Mary's—but these things are allowable ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V1 • William Mienhold
... Taou-Kwang, we find that his education was more Tatar than Chinese. He was one of the numerous grandchildren of the imperial house of Keelung, but without any expectation of filling the throne, as both his mother and paternal grandmother were inferior members of the imperial harem. The discipline under which the royal family was trained, was of the strictest kind. Each of the male children, on completing his sixth year, was placed with the rest under a course of education superintended ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 433 - Volume 17, New Series, April 17, 1852 • Various
... Despite the failure of the researches made by Kariades, she remained persuaded that Zoe was in Cairo, and hoped that the echoes of her magnificent voice might at length go as messengers into the depths of every harem, and make known her presence. The whole city was by turns rendered happy by the Silver-Voice; but as it was heard now in the Citadel, now near the Bisket-el-Fil, anon at the Bab Zuweileh, men began to think strange things. It was curious, indeed, to hear the speculations of the ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... a young Greek girl reclined, And fairer form the harem's walls had ne'er before enshrined; 'Mid all the young and lovely ones who round her clustered there, With glowing cheeks and sparkling eyes, ...
— The Poetical Works of Mrs. Leprohon (Mrs. R.E. Mullins) • Rosanna Eleanor Leprohon
... so expand her mind and mature her judgment, as to rescue her from the dangers of these fatal extremes. A refined intellect will not consent, with the women of Persia, to dwell in the harem; nor subscribe to the Hindoo doctrine, that "the female who can read or write, is disqualified for domestic life, and is the heir of misfortunes." Neither will such a one aspire to the baubles of office, pant to join in harangues to the crowd, ...
— The Young Maiden • A. B. (Artemas Bowers) Muzzey
... despair, left all to myself, I went off to the wars as a private in 1813. Well, to go back to the time I returned to Greece; you wouldn't believe with what joy old Ali Tebelen received the grandson of Czerni-Georges. Here, of course, I call myself simply Georges. The pacha gave me a harem—" ...
— A Start in Life • Honore de Balzac
... the side of the most beautiful and richly dressed, were Coptic and Jewish faces, with strange head-dresses, impossible costumes, a howling of colours,—no one could deliberately have invented worse. The women of the harem could not be seen. They were in the first three boxes on the right, in the second gallery. Thick white muslin hid ...
— Operas Every Child Should Know - Descriptions of the Text and Music of Some of the Most Famous Masterpieces • Mary Schell Hoke Bacon
... splendor, and enervated by luxury, Solomon forgot his higher duties, and yielded to the fascination of oriental courts. In his harem were 700 wives, princesses, and 300 concubines, who turned his heart to idolatry. In punishment for his apostasy, God declared that his kingdom should be divided, and that his son should reign only over the ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord
... his own wives. These were his oarswomen; one that caught a crab, he slew incontinently with the tiller; thus disciplined, they pulled him by night to the scene of his vengeance, which he would then execute alone and return well-pleased with his connubial crew. The inmates of the harem held a station hard for us to conceive. Beasts of draught, and driven by the fear of death, they were yet implicitly trusted with their sovereign's life; they were still wives and queens, and it was supposed that no man should behold their faces. They killed by the sight like basilisks; a chance ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... caricature. The grand sculptures wherewith a king strove to perpetuate the memory of his warlike exploits were travestied by satirists, who reproduced the scenes upon papyrus as combats between cats and rats. The amorous follies of the monarch were held up to derision by sketches of a harem interior, where the kingly wooer was represented by a lion, and his favourites of the softer sex by gazelles. Even in serious scenes depicting the trial of souls in the next world, the sense of humour breaks out, where the bad man, transformed into a ...
— Ancient Egypt • George Rawlinson
... hardly blame 'em. Them back-number costumes of hers looked odd enough mixed in with all the harem effects and wired-neck ruffs that the others wore down to work. But when it come to doin' her hair Ruby was in a class by herself. No spit curls or French rolls for her! She sticks to the plain double braid, wound around her head ...
— Torchy, Private Sec. • Sewell Ford
... among themselves. The life of the Turkish empire was composed of bloody insurrections at home, and still more bloody wars abroad. Mahomet IV. was now sultan. He was but twenty years of age. A quarrel for ascendency among the beauties of his harem had involved the empire in a civil war. The sultan, after a long conflict, crushed the insurrection with a blood-red hand. Having restored internal tranquillity, he prepared as usual for foreign war. By intrigue and the force of arms they ...
— The Empire of Austria; Its Rise and Present Power • John S. C. Abbott
... enslaved for centuries to kings and popes, and orders of nobility, who, in the progress of civilization, have reached complete equality. And did we not also see the great changes in woman's condition, the marvelous transformation in her character, from a toy in the Turkish harem, or a drudge in the German fields, to a leader of thought in the literary circles of France, ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... the telescope, there peeped out of the general mass a score of pleasant episodes of Eastern life—there were cottages with quaint roofs; silent cool kiosks, where the chief of the eunuchs brings down the ladies of the harem. I saw Hassan, the fisherman, getting his nets; and Ali Baba going off with his donkey to the great forest for wood. Smith looked at these wonders quite unmoved; and I was surprised at his apathy; but he had been at Smyrna ...
— Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo • William Makepeace Thackeray
... The fair Circassians and Georgians reside in the houses of the merchants, to whom many of them are regularly consigned by their friends, and of these it is impossible for a Frank to obtain a glimpse, for the usual privacy of the harem is granted to them. The chief depot of the blacks is in a large court-yard attached to the Mosque of Suleyman. In a street immediately outside the wall was a row of coffee-houses, where opium, was also to be procured for smoking, which is ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... denial of divine authority to any of them. If Hamlet, and the Sermon on the Mount, and the Koran, are all of a like divine authority, or all alike without any, it is merely a matter of taste whether I worship at Niblo's or the Tabernacle, or keep a harem in my house or a prayer-meeting. Most men, however, find it hard to believe that Christ and Mohammed taught exactly the same religion, or that the church and the theater are precisely equal and alike in their ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... install me as queen of your harem, I suppose," interrupted Ruth acidly. "Have you informed the other ladies you mentioned ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer
... and don't mean to fence out any human interests from the private grounds of my intelligence. Then, again, there is a subject, perhaps I may say there is more than one, that I want to exhaust, to know to the very bottom. And besides, of course I must have my literary harem, my pare aux cerfs, where my favorites await my moments of leisure and pleasure,—my scarce and precious editions, my luxurious typographical masterpieces; my Delilahs, that take my head in their lap: the pleasant story-tellers and the like; the ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... his sincere alienation from Christianity by keeping a couple of wives. He affected the same sort of reserve in mentioning them as is generally shown by Orientals. He invited me, indeed, to see his harem, but he made both his wives bundle out before I was admitted. He felt, as it seemed to me, that neither of them would bear criticism, and I think that this idea, rather than any motive of sincere ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake
... harem, and quaffing date syrup mixed with ginger out of the silver cups looted from the church of the Christians. But that imposing figure had only to show itself for the tongue ...
— Eminent Victorians • Lytton Strachey
... sensuality and the glow of imagination which struck light from its rottenness. But still, unsocial in his pleasures as in his graver pursuits, and brooking neither superior nor equal, he admitted few to his companionship, save the willing slaves of his profligacy. He was the solitary lord of a crowded harem; but, with all, he felt condemned to that satiety which is the constant curse of men whose intellect is above their pursuits, and that which once had been the impulse of passion froze down to the ordinance of custom. From ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... little of the "rights" of women, and then in a brief, blunt fashion that would have exasperated the fast-emerging sex most terribly, he nevertheless respected the rights of every human creature most scrupulously. Though he had the private appreciation of the unmistakable good points of the harem-seclusion shared by every healthy male, he would never have shut Margarita into a New York house or a honeymoon-island against her will, and I think he was too proud to reason with her on the only lines open to him. I think, too, that his quiet refusal to ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell
... the most notable, if not the only, purely Egyptian dancer of our time in the Alme or Ghowazee. The former name is derived from the original calling of this class—that of reciting poetry to the inmates of the harem, the latter they acquired by dancing at the festivals of the Ghors, or Memlooks. Reasonably modest at first, the dancing of the Alme became, in the course of time, so conspicuously indelicate that great numbers of the softer ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce
... dear soul, are you awake?" was her greeting, as she perched herself on the foot of the bed. "I've just had the very sweetest note from Hunt-Goring accompanied by a box of the most exquisite Eastern cigarettes—'Companions of the Harem,' he says they are called. And how are you feeling now, you poor wan thing? What interesting shadows you have developed! I wish I could make my eyes look like that. The revered Max suffered agonies about you last night, and nearly slew ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... solicitude to its guardians. Many a Moslem eye was on those girls, as the results of a religious education appeared in their manners, their dress, and personal beauty. In one instance, an officer of government attempted to take one of them to his harem, but God thwarted his purpose through the interference of the English consul. Similar dangers threatened from other sources, and eternity alone will reveal the burden of care and watchfulness they involved. If only ...
— Woman And Her Saviour In Persia • A Returned Missionary
... as he was in that hour of reverse, Boabdil felt no grief: such balm has Love for our sorrows, when its wings are borrowed from the dove! And although the laws of the Eastern life confined to the narrow walls of a harem the sphere of Amine's gentle influence; although, even in romance, THE NATURAL compels us to portray her vivid and rich colours only in a faint and hasty sketch, yet still are left to the outline the loveliest and the noblest features ...
— Leila, Complete - The Siege of Granada • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... was obliged to save himself and the rest by flight. He did not stop till he reached Tepelen, where he had a warm reception from Kamco, whose thirst for vengeance had been disappointed by his defeat. "Go!" said she, "go, coward! go spin with the women in the harem! The distaff is a better weapon for you than the scimitar!" The young man answered not a word, but, deeply wounded by these reproaches, retired to hide his humiliation in the bosom of his old friend the mountain. The popular legend, always ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... studying the glowing tip of his cigarette, his face wearing the curiously withdrawn expression of a conscious memory recall. "Fifty years ago; the time that gang kidnaped some girls from Second Level Triplanetary Empire Sector and sold them into the harem of some ...
— Time Crime • H. Beam Piper
... It furnished a half hour's amusement to the soldiers of France. On either side of the high altar are the oratories of the royal family, and above them are the kneeling effigies of Charles, with his wife, daughter, and sisters, and Philip with his successive harem of wives. One of the few luxuries this fierce bigot allowed himself was that of a new widowhood every few years. There are forty other altars with pictures good and bad. The best are by the wonderful deaf-mute, ...
— Castilian Days • John Hay
... were! Besides the Vekeel only three of their magnates were present, and those men whom no one knew. Even the Kadi was nowhere to be seen; and he must have forbidden the Moslem women to come, for not a single veiled beauty of the harem was visible. Not one Egyptian woman would have failed to appear if the plague had not kept so many imprisoned in their houses. Such a thing would never be seen again; this day's doings would be a tale to tell ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... instead of being condemned, as in Turkey, to waste their youth in the seclusion of the harem, were intrusted to the care of learned men, to be instructed in the duties befitting their station. They were encouraged to visit the academies, which were particularly celebrated in Cordova, where they mingled in disputation, and ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott
... the pacha, "my library and my harem. I am old, women would only shorten my life but good wine will prolong it, or at least, make ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... adultery being punished with death; but a man may have more than one wife, though usually that number is not exceeded. However, a man was pointed out to us, who maintains in his desire for issue, but without avail, a regular harem, having no fewer than fifteen wives in different villages, he ...
— The Head Hunters of Northern Luzon From Ifugao to Kalinga • Cornelis De Witt Willcox
... conceive to myself Narses, living till his grey hairs in the effeminate intrigues of the harem, and then springing forth a general; the Warrior Eunuch; the misanthrope avenging his great wrong upon all mankind in bloody battle-fields; dark of counsel, and terrible of execution; him to whom ...
— The Roman and the Teuton - A Series of Lectures delivered before the University of Cambridge • Charles Kingsley
... then, belong the passion and the delirium of passion, the long brown hair, the harem, the amorous divinities, the splendor, the poetry of love and the monuments of love.— To the West, the liberty of wives, the sovereignty of their blond locks, gallantry, the fairy life of love, the secrecy of passion, the profound ecstasy ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... whips, a withered old merchant of Batavia left his country-house to come to the town. Lolling in his palanquin, he received, with languid indolence, the sad caresses of two of those girls, whom he had bought, to people his harem, from parents too poor to give them food. The palanquin, which held this little old man, and the girls, was carried by twelve young and robust men. There are here, you see, mothers who in their misery sell their own daughters—slaves ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... their servants came at daybreak to her house with a royal veil. This is a rudely embroidered cloth which the king of Coromantien sends to any lady whom he has a mind to make his wife. After she is covered with it, the maid is secured for the king's otan, or harem, and it is death to ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol. I • Various
... a Mohammed and his Hegira. May have been only his harem. Astonishing sensation: afloat in space with ten million wives around one. Anyway, it would seem that we have considerable advantage here, inasmuch as seeds are not in season in April—but the pulling back to earth, the bedraggling ...
— The Book of the Damned • Charles Fort
... building, of a square shape, surrounded by high and massive walls, and defended by fifty pieces of cannon, and some mortars, so placed as equally to awe the city and country. The apartments set apart for the habitation of the Dey and the ladies of his harem, are described as extremely magnificent, and abundantly supplied with marble pillars, fountains, mirrors, carpets, ottomans, cushions, and other articles of oriental luxury; but there are others no less valuable and curious, ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms
... to do better than this. There is much ability displayed in her "Court of France"; and she has written a very clever story, entitled "The Romance of the Harem." But this book is thoroughly feeble and commonplace. The customary rich and whimsical nabob, whom we all know so well, has returned to England, and is deliberating upon the claims to his wealth of his several relations. His decision is soon formed, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... alter your opinion after the first week in a harem," said Herbert. And then there was a burst of laughter, in which Aunt Letty herself joined. "I would sooner go there than go to confession," she whispered to Mary, as they all walked off ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... Mickiewicz A biographical sketch by Edna Worthley Underwood The Ackerman Steppe Becalmed Mountains from the Keslov Steppe Baktschi Serai Baktschi Serai by Night The Grave of Countess Potocka The Graves of the Harem Baydary Alushta by Day Alushta by Night Tschatir Dagh (Mirza) Tschatir Dagh (The Pilgrim) The Pass Across the Abyss in the Tschufut-Kale (Mirza) The Ruins of Balaclava ...
— Sonnets from the Crimea • Adam Mickiewicz
... wainscoted in Moorish mosaics and lined by broad divans covered with silken rugs. Small tables stand about holding trays of cigarettes and sweets. Over against a window overlooking a garden lounges a group of women—some young, some old, one or two of them black as coal. It is the harem of the Pasha, the father of Mahmoud, Prince of the Rising Sun, Chosen of the Faithful, Governor of a province, and of forty other things beside—most ...
— The Veiled Lady - and Other Men and Women • F. Hopkinson Smith
... that you maintain a harem, denotes that you are wasting your best energies on low pleasures. Life holds fair promises, if your ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller
... carry them to Ala al-Din's home." So they conducted her to the house and showed her into the pavilion, whilst the Caliph sat in the hall of audience till the dose of day, when the Divan broke up and he retired to his harem. Such was his case; but as regards Kut al-Kulub, when she had taken up her lodging in Ala al-Din's mansion, she and her women, forty in all, besides the eunuchry, she called two of these caponised slaves ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 4 • Richard F. Burton
... toes; after which they were carried off and thrown into gaol. Then the Caliph largessed lieutenant Hasan; and, appointing him on the spot Chief of Police, dismissed the watch to their barracks. And when the street was cleared the old woman returning to the Harem said to her son-in-law, laughing the while, "There be none in this world to fellow thee as the Prince of Robbers! The Wali dreadeth thee and the Kazi dreadeth thee and all dread thee, whilst I gird my loins in thy service and ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... relations as best you can. They may turn you out, and you may roast on a gridiron hereafter, but that's your business. Personally, I think the only wicked thing I've ever heard of you doing was permitting your husband to board and lodge at your house while he carried on with that—woman. A harem divided against itself will ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... completely restored by his repose. He ate more than his share of the eggs and bacon, and drank five cups of tea. Then he stretched himself, lit a clay pipe, and offered us his tobacco box, from which the Reverend filled his briar. I remained true to my packet of "Queen of the Harem." I shall think twice before chucking up cig. smoking as long as "Queen of the Harem" don't ...
— Not George Washington - An Autobiographical Novel • P. G. Wodehouse
... survive you for rather more than forty years; in the full enjoyment of your harem, ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... divorced—and to provide for the emergency, his courtiers suggested that he should collect in his harem all the beautiful virgins of the land, and choose him a wife. Among these was Hadassah, the adopted daughter of Mordecai. He urged her to enter her name among the rivals for kingly favor. It was not ambition merely that moved Mordecai. He had been meditating upon the unfolding ...
— Half Hours in Bible Lands, Volume 2 - Patriarchs, Kings, and Kingdoms • Rev. P. C. Headley
... forgotten and the things of nature for amusement and fun. "If we drop out now," she told her daughter, "all is lost." And so they made their plans. The daughter was not an adept in learning the rapid succession of combination dances wherein orientalism, the harem, the submerged tenth, and the various beasts of the field and fowls of the barnyard figured, so the first step was to secure a teacher who would correct her errors and give her skill in the performances which had robbed ...
— The Girl and Her Religion • Margaret Slattery
... "Leila", hanging in the next room? I think not. Mr. Dicksee probably thought that having painted what the critics would call "somewhat sad subjects" last year, it would be well if he painted something distinctly gay this year. A girl in a harem struck him as a subject that would please every one, especially if he gave her a pretty face, a pretty dress, and posed her in a graceful attitude. A nice bright crimson was just the colour for the dress, the feet he might leave bare, and it would be well to draw ...
— Modern Painting • George Moore
... his harem, and day after day passed over a Lu unlighted by his countenance. Government was at a standstill; the great Minister of Crime could get nothing done. The Annual Sacrifice was at hand; a solemnity Confucius hoped would remind ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... years of weeks, Anna said—when we received a letter containing the joyful intelligence that Edgar Elliott, his aristocratic sister Jane, his unaristocratic sister little Fanny, and Herbert Allen—a young lieutenant, by the way, and, by the way, the red-hot flame of my harem-scarem sister—would all four honor Dough-nut Hall, the name we had playfully given our old homestead, with a speedy and ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848 • Various
... though she has every comfort, and is deeply attached to her lord, grows restless in her luxurious solitude; she pines for the excitement and triumphs of singing and dancing before an assembly. So, in the Nawab's absence, she takes professional disguise, and sings with a lute in the harem before his wife. To those who would like to see a Mohammedan lady of high rank in full dress, the following description of ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... showed a disposition to fall in love. The Flying Corps were of course in evidence and the squadron stationed behind us turned out en masse, including their energetic juggler. There were young ladies, old ladies, ladies of the harem and of the ballet; there were all races and colours. Pipers played the reels, an orchestra of eight from the Divisional band, with Pte. Williams at the piano, the other dance music. A well-stocked buffet did a roaring trade. And we all thought ...
— The Fifth Battalion Highland Light Infantry in the War 1914-1918 • F.L. Morrison
... history since Monday has been unadulterated David Balfour. In season and out of season, night and day, David and his innocent harem—let me be just, he never has more than the two—are on my mind. Think of David Balfour with a pair of fair ladies—very nice ones too—hanging round him. I really believe David is as good a character as anybody has a right to ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... and therefore righteous, and to be gratified; all are brethren in Christ, all promptings of the inner spirit are holy; incest, even, is no sin. They repudiate marriage, and justify their abominations by the Biblical legends of Lot's daughters, Solomon's harem, and the like."[141] ...
— Religion & Sex - Studies in the Pathology of Religious Development • Chapman Cohen
... convinced that an enterprise of such tremendous aspect was safe and easy in the execution. He was informed by his spies of the weakness and anarchy of Hindustan: the subahs of the provinces had erected the standard of rebellion; and the perpetual infancy of Sultan Mahmud was despised even in the harem of Delhi. The Mongol army moved in three great divisions, and Timur observes with pleasure that the ninety-two squadrons of a thousand horse most fortunately corresponded with the ninety-two names or ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... Besides all this, his main interests were man-interests. But women would not let him alone. He had but to look and the thing was done. Wreaths hung on every balcony for Honey Smith and, always at his approach, the door of the harem swung wide. He was a little lazy, almost discourteously uninterested in his attitude towards, the individual female; for he had ...
— Angel Island • Inez Haynes Gillmore
... kept her until she was sufficiently old, and then—for I was at the time quite poor—disposed of her to a dealer at Antioch, who was planning to take a slave caravan to Seleucia. My good friend probably will find his daughter in some Parthian harem, unless—" ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... grieved Alexander, as he thereby lost a great opportunity of displaying his magnanimity: nevertheless he granted her a magnificent funeral. We are told that one of the eunuchs attached to the royal harem, named Teireus, who had been captured with the ladies, made his escape shortly after the queen's death, rode straight to Darius, and informed him of what had happened. Darius, at this, beat his face and wept aloud, saying, "Alas for the fortune of Persia! that the wife and sister of the ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch
... monk— (What vineyards have those priests!) And Gobbo to quack-salver sunk, To leech vile murrained beasts; And lazy Andre, blown off shore, Was picked up by the Turk, And in some harem, you be sure, Is forced at ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... yet, as the next page shows the youth's education was complete in his twelfth year. But as all three texts agree, I do not venture upon changing the number to six or seven, the age at which royal education outside the Harem ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton
... sudden approach. The audacity of their methods is illustrated by the raid on Fundi in 1534, when Barbarossa swooped down on that town simply to seize Giulia Gonzaga—reputed the loveliest woman in Italy—for the Sultan's harem: the fair Duchess of Trajetto hardly escaped in ...
— Knights of Malta, 1523-1798 • R. Cohen
... of good fortune which I believe has fallen to the lot of few men. Often as I passed by the garden walls of some rich Pacha, I felt, as every one who visits Constantinople feels, no small desire to penetrate, into that mysterious region—his harem—and see something more than the mere exterior of Turkish life. "The traveler landing at Stamboul complains," I used to say to myself, "of the contrast between its external aspect and the interior of the city; but the real interior, that is the inside ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... promissory notes to Uncle Sam so that his wives may be properly supplied with filigree hair pins and divided skirts. They say he recently bought the entire stock of an insolvent dry goods store for his harem, and it only went ...
— Said the Observer • Louis J. Stellman
... spoke the last words, and a look in his bold eyes that many trained coquettes would have shrunk from—a look that I should be sorry and angry to see turned on any woman in whom I felt an interest—a look such as Selim Pasha might wear as the Arnauts defile into his harem-court, ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... now, depend upon it," replied Marat, with his sardonic laugh. "King Louis the well beloved has given this palace to his wife, in order that she may establish there a larger harem than Trianon; that miserable, worthless little mouse-nest, where virtue, honor, and worth get hectored to death, is not large enough for her. Yes, yes, that fine, great palace of the French kings, the noble ...
— Marie Antoinette And Her Son • Louise Muhlbach
... advertised. "Leda and the Swan," "The Birth of Venus," "The Rape of the Sabines," "Cupid and Psyche" were some of the classic themes treated as having taken place in a warm climate. "Susannah and the Elders" and "Salome Dancing" gave the Biblical flavour. The "Bath of the Harem" finished the collection. No canvas was of less size than seven by ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White
... his frame remained stout enough, he had exhausted his whole supply of nerve-force; and this was due not to length of years, but to the pace at which he had lived them. He thought: "That is what has whacked me out—the rate I've gone. If I'd been some rich swell treating himself to a harem of women, horse-racing, gambling at cards; or if I'd been one of these City gentlemen floating companies, speculating on the Stock Exchange, and so on; or if I'd been a Parliament man spouting all night, going round at elections all day, people would have said: 'Oh, what a ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... a considerable force of cavalry, then mules and barbarous carriages with the harem, all the riders and inmates enveloped in what appeared to be winding-sheets, white and shapeless; about them eunuchs and servants. The staff of the pachas followed, preceding the grandees who closed the march, ...
— Lothair • Benjamin Disraeli
... indulged their latest fancy in the open air and in the light of day. Doubtless the Naiads used to dance in daylight, when they made merry, but modern terpsichorean figures are suitable only for the evening. The spectacle of a red-faced, harem-skirted matron wabbling through a one-step, her billowing amplitude restrained only by a boneless six-inch corset, is even less classic than the antics of ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach
... expectation would have lasted for Iris, but for Arnold's conversation with his cousin, which persuaded him to speak and bring matters to a final issue. To this girl, living as secluded as if she was in an Oriental harem, who had never thought of love as a thing possible for herself, the consciousness that Arnold loved her was bewildering and astonishing, and she waited, knowing that sooner or later something would be said, but trembling for fear that it should ...
— In Luck at Last • Walter Besant
... rigid tenacity of the orthodox Mohammedan, disdainful of the French jurisdiction under which he was compelled to live, and occupied solely with the affairs of the tribe and his beautiful and adored wife who reigned alone in his harem, despite the fact that she had given him no child; the younger in total contrast to his brother, a dashing ultra-modern young Arab as deeply imbued with French tendencies as the conservative Omar was opposed to them. The wealthy and powerful old Sheik, whose friendship had been ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull
... applause). You may go to church, and you will find her facing men of all classes—ignorant and wise, saints and sinners. I do not know anywhere that woman is not. It is too late now to say that she can not go to the ballot-box. Go back to Turkey, and shut her up in a harem; go back to Greece, and shut her up in the private apartments of women; go back to the old Oriental phases of civilization, that never allowed woman's eyes to light a man's pathway, unless he owned ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... between the Harem and the Woolsack, it will be necessary to draw the line!"—when they too caught sight of the ...
— The Coryston Family • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... which he is presented to us in the Highlands? How would Sir Peter Laurie look if he had been taken long ago by Algerine pirates, and torn, with all his civic honours thick upon him, from the magisterial chair, and made hairdresser to the ladies of the harem—threatened with the bastinado for awkwardness in combing, as he now commits other unfortunate fellows to the treadmill for crimes scarcely more enormous? Paul de Kock derives none of his interest from odd juxtapositions. He knows ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various
... the prepared food was passed out to the men, the wheel being so arranged that men and women could not see each other, though they might hear each other speak. To all intents and purposes the system was oriental and the women were shut up in a harem. The use of the dumb-waiter survived the revolution in manners under the Renascence, and the wheel itself remains as a curiosity of past times in more than one Roman dwelling today. It had its uses and was not a piece of senseless tyranny. In order to keep up an armed ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 1 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... were few. Again and again the ordinary Hindu householder, lacking the desperate courage of the Rajput, stood by helpless, like the Armenian of to-day, while his wife and daughter were carried off from before his eyes, to increase the harem of his ruler. Small wonder that seclusion became the order of the day—a woman would better spend her life behind the purdah of her own home than be added to the zenana of her conqueror. Later when the ...
— Lighted to Lighten: The Hope of India • Alice B. Van Doren
... effeminate pleasures, he paid little attention to the internal administration of his empire or to the welfare of his people. Yet he was not insensible to martial fame; and he accordingly showed no indisposition to forsake his harem for the field. After quelling two inconsiderable rebellions, he prepared to punish the audacity of Alfonso of Castile, who made destructive inroads into Andalusia. Much as the world had been astounded at the preparations of his grandfather Yussef, they were not surpassed ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 5 • Various
... his manner cannot be considered as merely an innocent result of his great personal beauty, because his lustful disposition is well proved, and sensuality was always his greatest vice. Symonds makes the statement that within the sacred walls of the Vatican he maintained a harem in truly Oriental fashion; and here were doubtless sent, from all parts of the papal states, those daughters of Venus who were willing to minister to the joys of His Holiness. To cap the climax, imagine the effrontery of a pope who dared, ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger
... why it will not do to exaggerate the outbursts of Patricius, which his son mentions discreetly. Although he may not have been very faithful to his wife, that was in those days, more than in ours, a venial sin in the eyes of the world. At heart the African has always longed for a harem in his house; he inclines naturally to the polygamy of Muslemism. In Carthage, and elsewhere, public opinion was full of indulgence for the husband who allowed himself liberties with the serving-women. People ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand
... skin stretched over it; on the edge there are generally thin round plates of metal, which also make some noise when this instrument is held up in one hand and struck with the fingers of the other hand. Probably no musical instrument is so common in Turkey as this; for when the women dance in the harem the time is always beat on this instrument. We find the same instrument on all the monuments in the hands of the Bacchante. It is also common among the negroes of the Gold Coast and Slave Coast." ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 2 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell
... The black soldier shrugged his shoulders. "Mefeesh!" said he. "One of them is old, and in any case there are plenty more women if we get back to Egypt. These will not come to any hurt, but they will be placed in the harem of the Khalifa." ...
— The Tragedy of The Korosko • Arthur Conan Doyle
... consideration and gallantry, and with the determination to secure, under all circumstances, the convenience and comfort of the fair sex, is really, in its appearance and its consequences, anything but European, and produces a scene which rather reminds one of the harem of a sultan than a hall of chivalry. To judge from the countenances of the favoured fair, they are not themselves particularly pleased; and when their repast is over they necessarily return to empty halls, and are deprived of the dance at the very moment ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli
... habit—acknowledged even by the author of the "Dhammapada" of adding commentaries, notes, etc., to original teachings. Not only was this common among Buddhist writers, but even more surprising liberties were taken with the narrative. For example: The legend describing Buddha's leave-taking of his harem is clearly borrowed from an earlier story of Yasa, a wealthy young householder of Benares, who, becoming disgusted with his harem, left his sleeping dancing girls and fled to the Buddha for instruction. Davids and Oldenberg, in translating this legend from the "Mahavagga," say ...
— Oriental Religions and Christianity • Frank F. Ellinwood
... hung, not only the important pictures which he had purchased abroad, but a new one—a particularly brilliant Gerome, then in the heyday of his exotic popularity—a picture of nude odalisques of the harem, idling beside the highly colored stone marquetry of an oriental bath. It was more or less "loose" art for Chicago, shocking to the uninitiated, though harmless enough to the illuminati; but it gave a touch of color to ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... honor any Chinese woman who claimed the right to her feet and powers of locomotion; the Hindoo widows who refused to ascend the funeral pyre of their husbands; the Turkish women who threw off their masks and veils and left the harem; the Mormon women who abjured their faith and demanded monogamic relations. Why not equally honor the intelligent minority of American women who protest against the artificial disabilities by which their freedom is limited and their development ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... country estate where the stables were framed of choice mahogany. Sweeny hobnobbed with Jim Fiske of the Erie, the Tweed of Wall Street, who went about town dressed in loud checks and lived with his harem in his Opera House on ...
— The Boss and the Machine • Samuel P. Orth
... on reading, "declares that the Dardanelles are impregnable and that the city is perfectly quiet, but the Sultan and half of his harem have moved ...
— L. P. M. - The End of the Great War • J. Stewart Barney
... sequel. Kimera, suddenly risen to eminence, grew proud and headstrong—formed a strong clan around him, whom he appointed to be his Wakunga, or officers—rewarded well, punished severely, and soon became magnificent. Nothing short of the grandest palace, a throne to sit upon, the largest harem, the smartest officers, the best dressed people, even a menagerie for pleasure—in fact, only the best of everything—would content him. Fleets of boats, not canoes, were built for war, and armies formed, that the glory of the king might never ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... us in his memoirs that he had seen the Empress early that year, surrounded by the brilliant throng of "ladies in waiting, ladies of the court and palace, accompanied by the train of 'readers,' which composed the harem of our sultan, and enabled him for a time to endure the painted old age of the former sultana." The truth which underlies this is notorious, and the scene over the divorce before the Emperor's departure for the campaign just concluded bears ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... "Le petit Sheik has a broken collar-bone. It is nothing. A few days' holiday to be petted in his harem, et voila!" ...
— The Sheik - A Novel • E. M. Hull
... of the emerald turf its crystal dominion began. My position enabled me to include in a single view both the eastern and western extremities of the islet, and I observed a singularly-marked difference in their aspects. The latter was all one radiant harem of garden beauties. It glowed and blushed beneath the eye of the slant sunlight, and fairly laughed with flowers. The grass was short, springy, sweet-scented, and Asphodel-interspersed. The trees were lithe, mirthful, erect, bright, slender, and graceful, of eastern figure ...
— Edgar Allan Poe's Complete Poetical Works • Edgar Allan Poe
... with room for a fair admirer on either side of him—the clerical sultan of a platonic harem. His persuasive ministry is felt as well as heard: he has an innocent habit of fondling young persons. One of his arms is even long enough to embrace the circumference of Miss Plym—while the other clasps the ...
— I Say No • Wilkie Collins
... woman bear his children and then kicks her to death,—the savage in high life is the man who equally kills the mother of his children, but in another way, namely, by neglect and infidelity, while he treats his numerous mistresses just as the Turk treats the creatures of his harem— merely as so many pretty soft animals, requiring to be fed with sweets and ornamented with jewels, and then to be cast aside when done with. All pure savagery! But we are slowly evolving from it into something better. A few of us there are, who honour womanhood,- ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... however, it must be observed, that they swathed their person in the folds of a robe or shawl. Up to the time of Solomon, this practice obtained through all ranks; and so long the universal household dress of a Hebrew lady in her harem, was the tunic as here described; and in this she dressed herself the very moment that she rose from bed. Indeed, so long as the Hebrew women were content with a single tunic, it flowed loose in liberal folds about the body; and was fastened by a belt or a clasp, just as we find it at this day ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v2 • Thomas de Quincey
... with Dicky at luncheon. I had insisted before my marriage that I must either do most of the housework, or keep up some of my old work to add to our income. To have a maid, while I did nothing to justify my existence save keep myself pretty and entertain Dicky, savored too much to me of the harem favorite. ...
— Revelations of a Wife - The Story of a Honeymoon • Adele Garrison
... the evening that Mr. Ben Timmins' reign was uncontested. The flashy young fellows of his caught-up friendships then lurked around Magdal's Pharmacy where Timmins dispensed complimentary drinks and lorded over his fluctuating harem of unemployed "soubrettes" and light-headed shop girls freed from ...
— The Midnight Passenger • Richard Henry Savage
... perceived that the interior of this particular hut was divided by wattle partitions into apparently three apartments, two in the front half and the other—which I surmised to be sacred to the king's emposeni, or harem—occupying the rear half. The apartment which we first entered was probably the king's sitting-room, for it contained nothing but a low divan-like arrangement running all round the walls and covered with rich karosses, while through the doorway leading to the other apartment I caught ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... murdered a wife, a sister, a brother, and a nephew. He had also imprisoned his mother, and was equally merciless to his sons, his daughters, and his concubines. At his death, it is said, a paper was found in which he had foredoomed his most trusted servants, and he slew all the inmates of his harem in order to hinder them from ...
— The Gracchi Marius and Sulla - Epochs Of Ancient History • A.H. Beesley
... in the least impair the effect of the tragic tale. The Dervise, of course, appears; the galleys, of course, are fired; and Seyd, of course, retreats. A change in the scenery gives us the blazing Harem, the rescue of its inmates, the deliverance of ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield |
