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Courtship   Listen
noun
Courtship  n.  
1.
The act of paying court, with the intent to solicit a favor.
2.
The act of wooing in love; solicitation of woman to marriage. "This method of courtship, (by which) both sides are prepared for all the matrimonial adventures that are to follow."
3.
Courtliness; elegance of manners; courtesy. (Obs.) "Trim gallants, full of courtship and of state."
4.
Court policy; the character of a courtier; artifice of a court; court-craft; finesse. (Obs.) "She (the Queen) being composed of courtship and Popery."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Courtship" Quotes from Famous Books



... contemplated the possibility of his ever ceasing to do so. He did not come regularly—the wisdom of that was tacitly understood between them; since there was to be no marriage, there could necessarily be no courtship. There was never any sitting up together in the north parlor, after the fashion of village lovers. Jerome merely spent an hour or two in the sitting-room with the Squire and his wife and Lucina. Sometimes he and ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... true Shakspearian scene contrasted with Dryden's vulgar alteration of it, in which a mere ludicrous psychological experiment, as it were, is tried—displaying nothing but indelicacy without passion. Prospero's interruption of the courtship has often seemed to me to have no sufficient ...
— Literary Remains, Vol. 2 • Coleridge

... a century. Besides the plainest germs of "The Bells" and "The Haunted Palace" it contains a few lines somewhat suggestive of the opening and close of The Raven. As to the rhythm of our poem, a comparison of dates indicates that this was influenced by the rhythm of "Lady Geraldine's Courtship." Poe was one of the first to honor Miss Barrett's genius; he inscribed his collected poems to her as "the noblest of her sex," and was in sympathy with her lyrical method. ...
— The Raven • Edgar Allan Poe

... the home of his mistress, one, two, three, or more miles distant, there signal her to the door, and then the pair would seat themselves in the barn for an hour or two's conversation." Burns practiced this mode of courtship, which was the only one open to him, and among the only women whom he knew at Tarbolton. "He made no distinction between the farmer's own daughters and those who acted as his servants, the fact after all being that the servants were often themselves the daughters of farmers, and only sent to ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various

... to take rank in the district as a bit of an oddity: it was not much to be wondered at from the first, for he was always full of notions, and kept calling the plainest common-sense in question; but what most raised the report upon him was the odd circumstance of his courtship ...
— The Merry Men - and Other Tales and Fables • Robert Louis Stevenson

... upon the April night floated "Money Musk!" All the furniture was pushed aside, the polished floor gave back the lights. From the walls men and women of the past smiled upon a stage they no longer trod, and between garlands of roses the shepherds and shepherdesses pursued their long, long courtship. The night was mild, the windows partly open, the young girls dancing in gowns of summery stuff. Their very wide skirts were printed over with pale flowers, their bodices were cut low, with a fall of lace against the white bosom. ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston

... drowning. I believe that, now, because I had time to think of everything while that furry gentleman took a dozen steps. I thought of all the things he and my cousins had ever done to disgust me with him during his "courtship." I asked myself whether his arrival here was a coincidence, or whether he'd been tracking me all along, step by step, while I'd been chuckling to myself over my lucky escape. I thought of what he would do when he recognized ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson

... sight of a certain young woman caused him to fall in love. He says the love was mutual and after a courtship of three weeks they were married. The girl's mother told Charles that she had always been very frail, but he did not know that she had consumption. Within three days after they were married she died and her death caused ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - From Interviews with Former Slaves - Florida Narratives • Works Projects Administration

... his Autobiography the writer continues, "Now came one of the most important occurrences in my life." The important event in question was his acquaintance with Richarda Smith, the lady who afterwards became his wife. The courtship was a long one, and in the Autobiography there are various passages relating to it, all written in the most natural and unaffected manner, but of somewhat too private a nature for publication. It will therefore ...
— Autobiography of Sir George Biddell Airy • George Biddell Airy

... interrupted her. For the first time in years he did not call her "mother," but used the pet name of their courtship. The long years of their parenthood had vanished. They had gone back to the days when each had made up all the world to the other. "I know, Matey," he said. "I met young Warner out in the road and give the pattern to him, and I come right back, and see you sitting ...
— Hillsboro People • Dorothy Canfield

... the race, and has, if a colloquialism may be allowed here, done yeoman service ever since. Even in modern days, notwithstanding the invention of the telephone and the motor car, we are still dependent upon art for the beginning of our courtships. To-day the courtship begins by the man and the woman sending each other books. Before books were invented music served the purpose of the lover. For when man ceased to capture woman, he went to the river's edge and cut a reed and made it into a flute and played it for her pleasure; and ...
— Memoirs of My Dead Life • George Moore

... wall of the landlord's office, off the main hall, I had seen a guitar hanging. It belonged to his son, a romantic-looking young fellow, whose sympathetic soul delighted in lending the national aid to courtship, without asking ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... much to confirm the faith and piety of its inmates. The two brothers became useful local preachers, and remained faithful unto death; and with Mary commenced an intimacy, which, notwithstanding considerable difference of age and circumstances, was ultimately consummated in marriage. The story of the courtship is amusing and characteristic. Mary was fair to look upon, and having moreover the prospect of a handsome fortune, commanded many admirers. One day when several of these aspirants for her hand were present, Mr. B. stepped in, and, ...
— Religion in Earnest - A Memorial of Mrs. Mary Lyth, of York • John Lyth

... in passing that much of the early romance associated with Anne Hathaway's cottage is spurious, and the worthy people who tell of the poet's courtship there overlook the fact that his relations with his wife were clandestine and his marriage almost a secret union. But the cottage itself is beautiful enough to account for the enthusiastic departure from the path of truth, ...
— William Shakespeare - His Homes and Haunts • Samuel Levy Bensusan

... books, was the product of a subsequent tour for health. If such were his recreations, what must have been his labors? Miller's domestic life did much to cheer an over-worked system. He gives, in the 'Schools and Schoolmasters,' a pleasing allusion to the fascination of his courtship; and his subsequent life was graced by one whoso appearance, as I remember her, was singularly lovely and interesting. In his home circle, Miller was truly a happy man. I may remark, in passing, that this is a feature in Scottish genius. While Shelley, Byron, Bulwer, Dickens, and other English ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I., No. IV., April, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... momentary, each going its own way as soon as its hunger is satisfied. The males always live alone by choice, save in the rutting season, when they seek the females. Then two or three may come together in the course of their pursuit and rough courtship of the female; and if the rivals are well matched, savage battles follow, so that many of the old males have their heads seamed with scars made by their fellows' teeth. At such times they are evil tempered and prone to attack man ...
— Hunting the Grisly and Other Sketches • Theodore Roosevelt

... dignity. He preferred the young girls in their costume of the fourteenth dynasty. Progress, he thought, had tended only to complicate life and render it less enjoyable. All the essentials of happiness—love, courtship, marriage, the home, children, friendship, social intercourse, and play, were independent of it; had always been ...
— All Roads Lead to Calvary • Jerome K. Jerome

... Cicely, shaking off the dumb spell which Adderley's 'suggestion' had for a moment cast upon her mind—"We ought to be, of course,—for a real good opera. But we're only just beginning courtship. Mr. Adderley has recited some lines of his own composition, and I have improvised some music. You shall hear the result ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli

... equal degree by her sisters, so that a disproportionate share of every burthen attendant upon the situation, fell to her lot. On the other hand, they could scarcely perhaps be perfectly easy, in observing the superior degree of deference and courtship, which her merit extorted from almost every one that knew her. Her kindness for them was not diminished, but she resolved that the mode of its exertion in future should be different, tending to their benefit, without intrenching upon her ...
— Memoirs of the Author of a Vindication of the Rights of Woman • William Godwin

... bravely the arme and the audaci imprese; less confidently the amori and the cortesie. He could sympathise with the knight-errant's high sense of honour and his love of bold emprise; not so well with his service of dames. Mediaeval courtship or "love-drurye," the trembling self-abasement of the lover before his lady, the fantastic refinements and excesses of gallantry, were alien to Scott's manly and eminently practical turn of mind. It is hardly possible to fancy him reading the "Roman de la Rose" with ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers

... courtship there was little of romance and chivalry. Women did not care for the formalities and petty courtesies of the gallant suitor. Alsop, in describing the maids of Maryland, whose social life was quite similar to that of their sisters ...
— Patrician and Plebeian - Or The Origin and Development of the Social Classes of the Old Dominion • Thomas J. Wertenbaker

... fancy free, he felled her with a club, caught her tight by the hair of her head, and dragged her off in triumph to his cave or his rock-shelter. (Marriage by capture, the learned call this simple mode of primeval courtship.) When he found some Strephon or Damoetas rival him in the affections of the dusky sex, he and that rival fought the matter out like two bulls in a field; and the victor and his Phyllis supped that evening off the roasted remains of the vanquished ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen

... the chief justice would to one of law, and refers the decision to a packed jury of her relatives, who rarely recommend you to mercy. Love and fighting, too, are so intimately united in Ireland, that a courtship rarely progresses without at least one exchange of shots between some of the parties concerned. My first twenty-four hours in Dublin is so pleasantly characteristic of this that I may as well relate ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)

... for fools, or fools' mates. I have no sympathy with a woman weak or wicked enough to wed a fool. In the honeymoon, then, study your husband's temper; for the best of men—and women too—carry (it may be unconsciously) a mask during the days of courtship, which, if not taken off, wears off, and you must strive to know him as he really is; remembering that though lovers may be angels, husbands are only mortals. Looking within at the imperfection of our own nature, we learn to make allowance for ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall

... made—to be recalled by dreams alone; another worship had filled her heart, and Austen Vane had become—for her—the fulness and the very meaning of life itself; one to be admired of all men, to be desired of all women. Visions of Austen's courtship had at times risen in her mind, although Euphrasia would not have called it a courtship. When the time came, Austen would confer; and so sure of his judgment was Euphrasia that she was prepared to take the recipient of the priceless gift into her arms. And now! Was it possible ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... must have been very soon aware that in his courtship Mr. Underwood was his sole partisan, but he bore himself with a confidence and assurance which would brook no thought of defeat. Mrs. Dean, knowing her brother as she did, was quick to understand the situation, and silently showed her disapproval; but Walcott politely ignored ...
— At the Time Appointed • A. Maynard Barbour

... passed till Endrid was thirty-one. He had been steadily adding to his father's wealth and to his own experience and independence; but had never made the smallest attempt at courtship; had not looked at a girl, either in their own district or elsewhere. And now his parents were beginning to fear that he had given up thoughts of it altogether. But this ...
— The Bridal March; One Day • Bjornstjerne Bjornson

... resorted to that could lend novelty to the scenes; in Carlo Noci's Cintia (1594) the heroine returns home disguised as a boy to find her lover courting another nymph; in Francesco Contarini's Finta Fiammetta (1610), on the other hand, the plot turns on the courtship of Delfide by her lover Celindo in girl's attire; while in Orazio Serono's Fida Armilla (1610) we have the annual human sacrifice to a monstrous serpent—all of which later became familiar themes in pastoral drama and romance. Two plays only call for closer ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg

... This desultory courtship of a young girl which had been brought about by her mother's contrivance was interrupted by the appearance of Somers and his wife and family on the Budmouth Esplanade. Alfred Somers, once the youthful, picturesque as his own paintings, was now a middle-aged ...
— The Well-Beloved • Thomas Hardy

... out. After some weeks the female appeared; he had literally drummed up a mate; his urgent and oft-repeated advertisement was answered. Still the drumming did not cease, but was quite as fervent as before. If a mate could be won by drumming she could be kept and entertained by more drumming; courtship should not end with marriage. If the bird felt musical before, of course he felt much more so now. Besides that, the gentle deities needed propitiating in behalf of the nest and young as well as in behalf of the mate. After a time a second female came, when there was war between ...
— Birds and Bees, Sharp Eyes and, Other Papers • John Burroughs

... heed to the course of true love. Poor Phil was teased by him now and again for his "offishness;" but Janice carefully managed that their interviews were not held in the presence of her parents, and so the elders did not come to a realising sense of the condition, but really believed that the courtship was advancing with due progress to the ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford

... contemporary of John Linde, aforesaid, and resided in the same county! Both these conjectures are absurd and unsupported by any collateral evidence. To have given them the remotest air of probability, the critics should have proved some acquaintance or connection between the parties respectively, —some courtship, or contiguity of residence, which might have brought the young people within the ordinary sphere of attraction. Wrong as they were in their conclusions, the search of these commentators was in the right direction. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various

... whom this strange rumour about Bosinney and Mrs. Soames reached, James was the most affected. He had long forgotten how he had hovered, lanky and pale, in side whiskers of chestnut hue, round Emily, in the days of his own courtship. He had long forgotten the small house in the purlieus of Mayfair, where he had spent the early days of his married life, or rather, he had long forgotten the early days, not the small house,—a Forsyte ...
— Quotes and Images From The Works of John Galsworthy • John Galsworthy

... him were never brutal to their wives and daughters, sisters, mothers, as the mountaineers too often are; she was certain that they did not craze themselves with whisky and terrify and beat their families; she was sure that when one loved a girl the courtship must be all sweet gentleness and happiness and joy, not like the quick succession of mad love-making and fierce quarrels which had characterized the heart-affairs that she had watched, ...
— In Old Kentucky • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey

... which compromised himself seriously, as quietly and neatly, and securely as he had ever entrapped any victim, he was now entrapping himself in his own very meshes. Very coldly and mechanically indeed, he had planned his courtship with Honor Edgeworth, a thing, in his intentions to be a pure calculating process, a speculation, and now unknown to himself, almost unfelt by himself, his low ambition had led him into a snare; he began to grow uncomfortable under the calm, steady gaze of this dignified girl, ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera

... man,—if only he would get married; all of which statement on her ladyship's part was a lie. When the same friend hinted the same thing to Lizzie herself, Lizzie resolved that she would have her revenge upon that friend. At any rate the courtship went on. ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope

... sex-serving traits undoubtedly survived because of their usefulness in external adornment for attracting attention in courtship, in the metabolic requirements of sex combat and the sex act, and in the necessities of caring for the young, until well-grown. The rooster's comb and spurs, the male frog's claspers, the stag's antlers, ...
— The Glands Regulating Personality • Louis Berman, M.D.

... troubles in other directions were fated to increase. That evening three men called formally—formally, that is to say, in so far as dressing in their best was concerned and putting on their "company manners." But Beth and courtship were their objects, a fact that developed, somewhat crudely with the smallest ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels

... with the colonial period—or any other period, for that matter—closes with a marriage and a hint that they lived happily ever afterwards. Did they indeed? To satisfy our curiosity about this point let us examine those early customs that dealt with courtship, marriage, punishment for offenses against the marriage law, and the general status of woman ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday

... genuine cowboys, just as they really exist. Spirited action, a range feud between two families, and a Romeo and Juliet courtship make this a bright, jolly, entertaining ...
— The Uphill Climb • B. M. Bower

... of migrant birds, the male is the first to arrive; and he does not seem to be particularly interested in house-hunting until the arrival of the female, when the courtship begins without delay, and the delicate purling song with the refrain, "Dear, dear, think of it, think of it," and the low, two-syllabled answer of the female is heard in every orchard. The building of the nest is not an important ...
— Ohio Arbor Day 1913: Arbor and Bird Day Manual - Issued for the Benefit of the Schools of our State • Various

... circumstances of the life have seldom been of more importance to the letter than in the case of "Lady Mary"—Pierrepont as she was born. When she was a girl she held an unusual place in the house of her widowed father the Duke of Kingston. Her courtship by, or with, or of (one doubts as to the preposition) Edward Wortley-Montagu, a descendant of Pepys's Lord Sandwich, had peculiarities, and her marriage with him more. She was a sort of pet at George the First's court; she went with her husband to Constantinople as Ambassadress; ...
— A Letter Book - Selected with an Introduction on the History and Art of Letter-Writing • George Saintsbury

... a hard nut to crack—Broussard threw the stump of his cigar into the fire and thought all fathers of adorable daughters highly undesirable persons. After long and hard thinking Broussard concluded to begin at once an earnest and devoted courtship of Colonel Fortescue as the best way ...
— Betty at Fort Blizzard • Molly Elliot Seawell

... and a speedy termination to an old courtship, of which I know something. This is real mountain dew, Lundie, and it warms the heart like a gleam of bonnie Scotland. As for the men you've just mentioned, they could have had but one wife a piece; ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper

... pouncing upon and eating whatever came her way, without interfering with her neighbours. But this period of concord was of brief duration. The bellies of the insects grew fuller: the eggs ripened in their ovaries: the time of courtship and the laying season was approaching. Then a kind of jealous rage seized the females, although no male was present to arouse such feminine rivalry. The swelling of the ovaries perverted my flock, and infected ...
— Social Life in the Insect World • J. H. Fabre

... with the belles of the neighbouring village of Mauchline. Among all these Jean Armour, the daughter of a respectable master-mason in that village, had the chief place in his affections. All through 1785 their courtship had continued, but early in 1786 a secret and irregular marriage, with (p. 027) a written acknowledgment of it had to be effected. Then followed the father's indignation that his daughter should be married to so wild and worthless a man as Burns; compulsion of his daughter ...
— Robert Burns • Principal Shairp

... of Vulp's eventful life were in many respects similar to the year that began with his courtship of the sleek young vixen in the white wilderness of the winter fields. His fear of men and hounds increased, while his cunning became greater with every passing day. He never slept on a straight trail, but cast about, ...
— Creatures of the Night - A Book of Wild Life in Western Britain • Alfred W. Rees

... minds of the young pair were finally made up, their further courtship did not last very long. They ...
— Jasmin: Barber, Poet, Philanthropist • Samuel Smiles

... of her father's yacht, a hireling, had just paid the same insulting courtship to Alma Marston that a sailor would proffer to an ogling girl ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day

... him could not hide from her for ever the fact that his love manifested itself almost wholly as a parade of ownership and a desire, without kindliness, without any self-forgetfulness. All his devotion, his self-abjection, had been the mere qualms of a craving, the flush of eager courtship. Do as she would to overcome these realizations, forces within her stronger than herself, primordial forces with the welfare of all life in their keeping, cried out upon the meanness of his face, the ugly pointed nose and the thin compressed ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells

... death of the lady; as for himself—being a god, he was denied the comfortable convenience of suicide. Daphne, as every one knows, took to a tree to escape his attentions; and Coronis, as so many another woman, was soon blase of divine courtship, and, for variety, turned her eyes elsewhere. She was punished with death indeed; but her son was Aesculapius. Which explains the medicinal value music has ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1 • Rupert Hughes

... stone has been found up in the woods above Raemen which yet shows under its coating of moss the initials of E. T. and A. M. It requires but little imagination to fill out the story of the brief and happy courtship; and two cantos in "Frithjof's Saga" ("Frithof's Wooing" and "Frithjof's Happiness") supply an abundance of hints which have ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen

... Ulysses, going hence to Ilium, left, But smirch'd and sullied by the breath of fire. This weightier reason (thou shalt also say) Jove taught me; lest, intoxicate with wine, Ye should assault each other in your brawls, Shaming both feast and courtship; for the view Itself of arms incites to their abuse. Yet leave two faulchions for ourselves alone, Two spears, two bucklers, which with sudden force 350 Impetuous we will seize, and Jove all-wise Their valour shall, and Pallas, steal away. This word store also in remembrance deep— If ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer

... these resources consisted on the part of Charles Edward in the old, old consoler, the flask of Cyprus or bottle of brandy, in the even grosser pleasures of excessive eating, the indefatigable, assiduous courtship of his young wife, and the occasional rows with his servants and acquaintances. The Count and Countess of Albany appear to have inhabited the Casino Corsini until 1777, when they sent for the greater part of the furniture of their Roman house, and established themselves in a palace, ...
— The Countess of Albany • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)

... girls, and the like—a favorite abode of hers when she was at liberty for recreation. But her life was busy and earnest; she was helpmate, not in name only, to an ever-busy man. They were married young, a marriage of love withal. Young Friedrich Wilhelm's courtship, wedding in Holland; the honest trustful walk and conversation of the two Sovereign Spouses, their journeyings together, their mutual hopes, fears, and manifold vicissitudes, till Death, with stern beauty, shut it in: all is human, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson

... them—each one—over again, as carefully as if it had been the first time. They were not many and those not long; but ah, they were sweet!—those tender, quaint love-letters that had passed between his parents in their brief courtship and married life. His father's so manly so strong—like the letters of a soldier. His mother's so modest, so tender. They did not stir his pulses so wildly now as they did upon his first reading of them, when a little lad at old Stoke-Newington—but ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard

... POSTERN GATE The story of a seven day courtship, in which the discrepancy in ages vanished into insignificance before the ...
— Mistress Anne • Temple Bailey

... pattern and who do not have imagination enough to admire anything about a riotous crazy quilt. She is in love with Clifton Gray, has been since she wound her brown braids about her head, and is piecing strips of him into her life-fabric by the very sanest love—courtship—marriage design. ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess

... were several which rank among her best work, 'The Cry of the Children,' 'Wine of Cyprus,' 'The Dead Pan,' 'Bertha in the Lane,' 'Crowned and Buried,' 'The Mourning Mother,' and 'The Sleep,' together with such popular favourites as 'Lady Geraldine's Courtship,' 'The Romaunt of the Page,' and 'The Rhyme of the Duchess May.' Since the publication of 'The Seraphim' volume, the new era of poetry had developed itself to a notable extent. Tennyson had published the best of his earlier verse, 'Locksley ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon

... days came a renewed promise, which, however, had to be confirmed a third time; and four days after that, she again repeated her confirmation, and begged to be excused from it. Upon this I gave her up, and this time all my counsellors were of one opinion." This was the longest courtship in the list, having lasted three whole months; and, quite disheartened by its bad success, Kepler's next attempt was of a more timid complexion. His advances to No. 9 were made by confiding to her the whole story of his recent disappointment, prudently determining to be guided in his behaviour, ...
— The Martyrs of Science, or, The lives of Galileo, Tycho Brahe, and Kepler • David Brewster

... what she saw in his eyes. It was beating into hers with the power of an overwhelming masculine passion and a maturity of intellect as his egoism admitted a comrade to its throne. Such is ever the way of the man in the forties when the clock strikes for him. But who could know better the craft of courtship than one of Westerling's experience? He was fighting for victory; ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer

... poetical genius, and an engaging sprightliness peculiar to her, she had many wooers, some of whom seriously addressed her, while others meant no more than the common gallantries of young people. After the usual ceremony of a courtship, she became the wife of Mr. Matthew Pilkington, a gentleman in holy orders, and well known in the poetical world by his volume of Miscellanies, revised by dean Swift. As we have few materials for Mrs. Pilkington's life, beside ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753),Vol. V. • Theophilus Cibber

... its origin "in the sounds made by the half-human progenitors of man during the season of courtship" seems for many reasons to be inadequate and untenable. A much more plausible explanation, it seems to me, is to be found in the theory of Theophrastus, in which the origin of music is attributed to the whole range of ...
— Critical & Historical Essays - Lectures delivered at Columbia University • Edward MacDowell

... fulfil, even apart from its effectiveness as a contraceptive, in order to be satisfactory. Most of these conditions may be summed up in one: the most satisfactory method is that which least interferes with the normal process of the act of intercourse. Every sexual act is, or should be, a miniature courtship, however long marriage may have lasted.[11] No outside mental tension or nervous apprehension must be allowed to intrude. Any contraceptive proceeding which hastily enters the atmosphere of love immediately before or immediately after the moment of union is unsatisfactory and may be injurious. ...
— Essays in War-Time - Further Studies In The Task Of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis

... more or less marked by great assemblages in the protracted or "camp-meetings." They were, to the devout, seasons of religious devotion, but to the young and thoughtless, opportunities for courtship and social enjoyment. ...
— School History of North Carolina • John W. Moore

... man resembles what we find in the sphere of vision, for neither the sexual organs of man nor of woman are usually beautiful in the eyes of the opposite sex, and their exhibition is not among us regarded as a necessary stage in courtship. The odor of the body, like its beauty, in so far as it can be regarded as a possible sexual allurement, has in the course of development been transferred to the upper parts. The careful concealment of the sexual region has ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... the wedding, and seeing him draw his pistols the night before, took this opportunity to go into his chamber and charge them. Upon their return from the garden, they went into that room, and, after a little fond raillery on the subject of their courtship, the lover took up a pistol, which he knew he had unloaded the night before, and, presenting it to her, said, with the most graceful air, whilst she looked pleased at his agreeable flattery, "Now, madam, repent of all those cruelties you have been guilty of to ...
— Isaac Bickerstaff • Richard Steele

... must come free and spontaneous? or not at all. Never was I the woman to advance one step towards any feller in the way of courtship—havin' no occasion for it, bein' one that had more offers than I knew what to do with, as I often tell my husband, Josiah Allen, now, in our little differences of opinion. 'Time and agin,' as I tell him, 'I might have married, but held back.' And never would I have married, never, had not ...
— Sweet Cicely - Or Josiah Allen as a Politician • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)

... not marry until he was about forty. His wife was scarcely twenty. Of his courtship we know nothing, but sure it is Socrates did not go and sue for the lady's hand in the conventional way, nor seek to gain the consent of her parents by proving his worldly prospects. His apparel was costly ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard

... did our young friend wait for an answer that made him happier than he had ever been in his life—happy in the first thrilling consciousness of love deeply and fervently reciprocated. To both of them, there was a degree of romance about this brief courtship that fully accorded with their views of love truly so called. The ordinary cold matter-of-fact way of coming together, including a cautious and even at times a suspicious investigation of character, they despised as a mere mockery of the high, spontaneous confidence which those who ...
— Home Lights and Shadows • T. S. Arthur

... him that his dear friend Antonio is in great danger of being cut to pieces through the wickedness of a fellow that he had borrowed money from. And the money had been borrowed for Bassanio, to set him up for his courtship so no wonder he ...
— Melbourne House • Elizabeth Wetherell

... morning we propose to illustrate A course of maiden courtship, from the start To ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan

... these kneeling Christians? The drum taps, the ney pipes, the mandolin twangs, her arms are extended—the castanets clink, a foot is thrust out, the bosom heaves, the waist trembles. What shall it be—the old serpent dance of the Nile, or the posturing of decorous courtship when the olives are purple in the time of the grape harvest? Her head, wreathed with coils of black hair, a red rose behind the left ear, is thrown back. The eyes flash, there is a snakelike movement of the limbs, the music hastens slowly in unison with the quickening ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... love you," said Duv Laca. "We shall have a notable year of courtship and joy. And let us go now," she continued, "for I am impatient to be ...
— Irish Fairy Tales • James Stephens

... lasted for three nights, but the incidents which occurred upon the last evening are not fit for reproduction here. The whaleman, being more or less of a celebrity, had attracted the bright glances of several Tchuktchi maidens. But even when he found his affinity poor Billy's courtship was of short duration, for his ladylove, when embraced for the first time upon the lips, indignantly thrust him away and screamed for help. According to Tchuktchi customs, she had suffered an irreparable insult, the only recognised mode of kissing here being to rub noses while murmuring "Oo" ...
— From Paris to New York by Land • Harry de Windt

... when the country was plunged in feuds and chieftains lived on plunder. A few traditions lingered about it: among them that of a chief who had carried off, by force, the daughter of his bitterest enemy, in revenge for some deed of treachery. He had tortured her with insolent courtship, and then starved her to death in a garret in the tower, while her father and his followers assaulted its thick ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird

... circumstances gave him hopes of accomplishing them. But all the glittering expectations he could lay before me, joined by my private terrors of poverty itself, could not for some months prevail upon me; yet, however I hated his intention, I still had a secret satisfaction in his courtship, and always exposed myself to his solicitations. See here the bane of our sex! Let the flattery be never so apparent, the flatterer never so ill thought of, his praises are still agreeable and we contribute to our own deceit. I was therefore ever fond ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken

... John Alden spake, and related the wondrous adventure From beginning to end, minutely, just as it happened; How he had seen Priscilla, and how he had sped in his courtship, 405 Only smoothing a little, and softening down her refusal. But when he came at length to the words Priscilla had spoken, Words so tender and cruel, "Why don't you speak for yourself, John?" Up leaped the Captain ...
— Narrative and Lyric Poems (first series) for use in the Lower School • O. J. Stevenson

... himself with the aborigines,—he evinced no faculty of dealing with inferior races, as they are called, except through a process of extermination. Here in Massachusetts this was so from the outset. Nearly every one here has read Longfellow's poem, "The Courtship of Miles Standish," and calls to mind the short, sharp conflict between the Plymouth captain and the Indian chief, Pecksuot, and how those God-fearing Pilgrims ruthlessly put to death by stabbing and hanging a sufficient number ...
— "Imperialism" and "The Tracks of Our Forefathers" • Charles Francis Adams

... passed by. Old Karka was actually accused of sending presents of food, carefully cooked by her own hands, to the house of this same corporal, Abdullah, thus appealing to his stomach, which is the direct road to the heart, in African courtship. The younger girls and the boys of the establishment exclaimed, "Mashallah! Old Karka! who would have ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker

... in her volumes of 1844 Elizabeth Barrett mentioned Browning, among other poets, with generous praise. This led to a correspondence between the two, and soon to a courtship, in which Browning's earnestness finally overcame Miss Barrett's scrupulous hesitation to lay upon him (as she felt) the burden of her invalidism. Indeed her invalidism at last helped to turn the scales in Browning's favor, for the physicians had declared that ...
— A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher

... round, and the crown prince to play butler. Flemish freedom followed upon Flemish excess; and a funny dog, a handsome fellow, gaily dressed, and with a full turban of frizzed hair, delighted the company with a humorous courtship of a lady in a manner not to be described. It was our diversion, in this time of waiting, to observe the gathering of the guards. They have European arms, European uniforms, and (to their sorrow) European shoes. We saw one warrior (like Mars) in the article of being armed; two men and a stalwart ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... Eugene Field The Duel Eugene Field Holy Thursday William Blake A Story for a Child Bayard Taylor The Spider and the Fly Mary Howitt The Captain's Daughter James Thomas Fields The Nightingale and the Glow-Worm William Cowper Sir Lark and King Sun: A Parable George Macdonald The Courtship, Merry Marriage, and Picnic Dinner of Cock Robin and Jenny Wren Unknown The Babes in the Wood Unknown God's Judgment on a Wicked Bishop Robert Southey The Pied Piper of ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various

... wits together the divvle scratches his head. It's an old sayin', lad, an' don't ye go out an' cut the rope. Keep yer head cool an' yer heart warm and go right on with yer business. I like the whole plan o' this remarkable courtship o' yours." ...
— The Light in the Clearing • Irving Bacheller

... Toward young folks, indeed, he assumed a good-naturedly paternal air, as if they were but as shy-faced children to be humored. Were not their love-affairs a pretty spectacle? As for himself, he was far beyond all that. The illusions of love-making, the devotion and ambition and dreams of courtship, were no longer possible to him, but did they not constitute on the whole a beautiful and charming study, that had about it at times some little touches of pathos? At odd moments, when he saw Sheila and Lavender ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Volume 11, No. 26, May, 1873 • Various

... for some good hard-working youth who might marry Margalida. Many young men of the island were already chasing after her, and as soon as they returned the season for the festeigs, the traditional courtship, would begin, so that she could choose a husband. Pepet was destined for a higher calling; he would become a priest and after singing his first mass he would join a regiment or embark for America, as had done many other Ivizans who made much money and sent it home to their fathers with which to ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... out between the sisters concerning the proper division of rule and authority in the house; and Morland, whose partner's claim perhaps was the weaker, took refuge in lodgings in Great Portland Street. His passion for late hours and low company, restrained through courtship and the honey-moon, now broke out with the violence of a stream which had been dammed, rather than dried up. It was in vain that his wife entreated and remonstrated—his old propensities prevailed, and the post-boy, the pawnbroker, ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects, and Curiosities of Art, (Vol. 2 of 3) • Shearjashub Spooner

... that she possessed an ample share of the dexterity, the vivacity, and the tenderness of her sex. Temple soon became, in the phrase of that time, her servant, and she returned his regard. But difficulties, as great as ever expanded a novel to the fifth volume, opposed their wishes. When the courtship commenced, the father of the hero was sitting in the Long Parliament; the father of the heroine was commanding in Guernsey for King Charles. Even when the war ended, and Sir Peter Osborne returned to his seat at Chicksands, the prospects of ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... account we have of a Jewish courtship. The Women seem quite as resigned to the custom of "being taken" as the men "to take." Outside parties could no doubt in most cases make more judicious selections of partners, than young folks themselves under the glamour of their ideals. ...
— The Woman's Bible. • Elizabeth Cady Stanton

... her in her courtship, when her husband loved her and they looked forward to marriage and he was tender and she ...
— Roving East and Roving West • E.V. Lucas

... He could not understand this confidence. But then he knew nothing of the memories which lay back of it. Not to him could this grievously humiliated and disappointed man reveal the secrets of a courtship which had fixed his heart on this one woman, and aroused in him such trust that even this uncalled-for outrage to his pride and affection had not been able to shake it. Such secrets are sacred; but the reflection of his trust was ...
— The Chief Legatee • Anna Katharine Green

... prelude to life, an overture in which the theme of the impending work is exquisitely hinted at, but which remains nevertheless only a symbol and a promise. What is to follow, if all goes well, begins presently to appear. Passion settles down into possession, courtship into partnership, pleasure into habit. A child, half mystery and half plaything, comes to show us what we have done and to make its consequences perpetual. We see that by indulging our inclinations we have woven about us a net ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana

... of unskilled hands. From such a home, with such a mistress, no sirens will seduce a man, even though the hair grow gray, and the merely physical charms of early days gradually pass away. The enchantment that was about her person alone in the days of courtship seems in the course of years to have interfused and penetrated the home which she has created, and which in every detail is only an expression of her personality. Her thoughts, her plans, her provident care, are everywhere; and the home attracts ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various

... own society, flattered himself that he had turned a rejected lover to a good account, and entered his library and sat down in the cold, that he might not, by his presence, mar the harmonious progress of the courtship upon which so much depended, in ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton

... of means for even a hand-to-mouth daily existence, and so on. Seeing an ambulance coming in through the front gate, and in order not to lose the chance for my rejoinder, I interrupted. "Lieutenant, she will not allow it! She will make him wait a proper time before he may as much as begin a courtship, and then he will have to begin at the beginning. She's not going to let Ned Ferry narrow or lower her life or his—no, neither of them is going to let the other do it—because a piece of luck has laid the way wide open!" I ended with a pomp of prophecy, yet I could hear ...
— The Cavalier • George Washington Cable

... render himself acceptable by the grace and beauty of the soul, that of his body being long since faded and decayed, hoping by this mental society to establish a more firm and lasting contract. When this courtship came to effect in due season (for that which they do not require in the lover, namely, leisure and discretion in his pursuit, they strictly require in the person loved, forasmuch as he is to judge of an internal ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne

... well-behaved wife. I don't think a man troubles himself much about a woman's heart after he's put his wedding ring on her finger; and though I know, of course, that thar's a lot of nonsense spoken in courtship, it seems to me they mostly take it out in talking. The wives that I've seen are generally as anxious about thar setting hens as they are about thar husband's hearts, and I reckon things are mighty near the ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow

... member for Truro. He died in June, 1742, at Stowe, the seat of Lord Cobham, in his thirty.second year. Miss Dashwood long survived him, and died unmarried in 1779. " The character," says Johnson, "which her lover gave her was, indeed, not likely to attract courtship."] ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole

... McKinstry, who was sixteen years old, had been one of the pupils he had found at the school when he first came. But as he had also found that she was there in the extraordinary attitude of being "engaged" to one Seth Davis, a fellow-pupil of nineteen, and as most of the courtship was carried on freely and unceremoniously during school-hours with the full permission of the master's predecessor, the master had been obliged to point out to the parents of the devoted couple the embarrassing effects ...
— Cressy • Bret Harte

... saying, 'Keep this or throw it into the water, as you prefer.' The old men pick up the flowers, placing them behind their ears. In the evening all the boys of the village come and dance with the girls, with intervals for courtship, half the total number of couples dancing and sitting out alternately. This goes on all night, and in the morning any couples who have come to an understanding run away together for a day or two. The ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell

... to myself Lord Westborough's compliment?" said the young nobleman, advancing towards Lady Flora; and drawing his seat near her, he entered into that whispered conversation so significant of courtship. But there was little in Lady Flora's manner by which an experienced eye would have detected the bride elect: no sudden blush, no downcast, yet sidelong look, no trembling of the hand, no indistinct confusion ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... to lay a hand upon the head of one of the placid queys [Footnote: Young—cows.] that had watched the courtship with full, dewy eyes of bovine unconcern. Instantly the colt charged into the still group with a wild flourish of hoofs and viciously snapping teeth, scattering the black-polled Galloways like smoke. Then, as if to ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett

... else could be the meaning of your little sister's running out to you, and saying "He thought I did not see him!" when I had followed you into the other room? Is it a joke upon me that I make free with you? Or is not the joke against HER sister, unless you make my courtship of you a jest to the whole house? Indeed I do not well see how you can come and stay with me as you do, by the hour together, and day after day, as openly as you do, unless you give it some such turn with your family. Or do you deceive them ...
— Liber Amoris, or, The New Pygmalion • William Hazlitt

... embraces of the rattling gale. The storm is not slow to meet this rude invitation; while, if the ropes, sails, and masts, be all wet, as they generally are in such a breeze, it is difficult to conceive any tones more gruff and unsentimental than the sounds of this boisterous courtship. ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall

... Ikey's visit was clandestine. I knew that, except on special occasions, it was the rule for Pennington doors to be closed at ten o'clock, while it was now past midnight. Probably Ikey, who had the reputation of being a woman-hater, did not care for his courtship to be known, for I knew that he did not like being laughed at or joked in ...
— The Birthright • Joseph Hocking

... and Virginia, and his opinion of "calf-love," as the English call an early attachment, and something about the right of every girl to know a suitor long before she consents to marry him. He said he thought that the days of courtship must be the most delightful in the life of a woman, and that a man who wished to cut them short was a fellow without delicacy ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... promenading Puritan sweethearts. A Boston gallant must choose well his marmalet-madam, must proceed cautiously in his love-making in the gloaming, obtaining first the formal permission of parents or guardians ere he take any step in courtship. Fines, imprisonment, or the whipping-post awaited him, did he "inveigle the affections of any maide or maide servant" by making love to her without proper authority. Numberless examples might be given to prove that this law was no dead letter. In ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle

... this week was appointed for the visit of the London surgeon, Sir Matthew Fleet, and the expectation caused Dr. May to talk much to Margaret of old times, and the days of is courtship, when it had been his favourite project that his friend and fellow- student should marry Flora Mackenzie, and there had been a promising degree of liking, but "Mat" had been obliged to be prudent, and had ended by never ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge

... said the ass-headed clown, not much regarding the fairy queen's courtship, but very proud of ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb

... bride; so reasoned the town, which presently took note of my infatuation. But, then, it laughed, there was time enough. I was fifteen and she was not thirteen. There was time enough, oh, yes! Only I did not think so. My courtship proceeded at a tumultuous pace, which first made the town laugh, then put it out of patience and made some staid matrons express the desire to box my ears soundly. It must be owned that if courting were ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis

... as you know very well, but a very awkward lover myself, yet as I have some opportunities of observing the conduct of others who are much better skilled in the affair of courtship than I am, I often think it is owing to lucky chance more than to good management, that there are not more unhappy ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham

... know what you may be guilty of. But you sat on the stairs with your simpering inamorata—and your courtship quarrels and your tender reconciliations were plain enough to—to ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers

... people was almost entirely confined to hymn-tunes. The new Moody and Sankey Song Book was in every home. Tell Me the Old Old Story did not refer to courtship but to salvation, and Hold the Fort for I am Coming was no longer a signal from Sherman, but a Message from Jesus. We often spent a joyous evening singing O, Bear Me Away on Your Snowy Wings, although we had no real desire to be taken "to our ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland

... the real respect towards them which the less polite Anglo-Saxon entertains towards his feminine world. Nor does this too artificial barrier conduce to any rigid condition of morality. It rather tends to encourage clandestine courtship ...
— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock

... Pleasant the snaffle of Courtship, improving the manners and carriage; But the colt who is wise will abstain from the terrible ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling

... away in one delicious flow of happiness. Philip has been delightfully devoted to me. His fervent courtship, far exceeding any similar attentions which he may once have paid to Eunice, has shown such variety and such steadfastness of worship, that I despair of describing it. My enjoyment of my new life is to be ...
— The Legacy of Cain • Wilkie Collins

... Margery was sufficiently beautiful to attract attention, even in a town; and more than one fierce-looking warrior had betrayed his admiration that very day, though it was in a very Indian-like fashion. Rhapsody, and gallant speeches, and sonnets, form no part of Indian courtship; but the language of admiration is so very universal, through the eyes, that it is sufficiently easy of comprehension. It was possible that some chief, whose band was too formidable to be opposed, might take it into his head to wish to see a pale-face squaw in his wigwam; ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper

... without a touch of bitterness, describe his occupation. Even the patents hung fire at first. There was no salary to rely on; children were coming and growing up; the prospect was often anxious. In the days of his courtship, Fleeming had written to Miss Austin a dissuasive picture of the trials of poverty, assuring her these were no figments but truly bitter to support; he told her this, he wrote beforehand, so that when the pinch came and she suffered, she should not be disappointed ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson

... left to their uninterrupted enjoyment. Putney amused himself by saying that she was the fiercest apostle of labour that never did a stroke of work; but no one cared half so much for all that as for the question whether her affair with Dr. Morrell was a friendship or a courtship. They saw an activity of attention on his part which would justify the most devout belief in the latter, and yet they were confronted with the fact that it so long remained eventless. The two theories, one that she was amusing herself ...
— Annie Kilburn - A Novel • W. D. Howells

... one of the "Four Kings" she was to be asked by? A Swedish Officer, with some skill in palmistry, many years ago, looked into her innocent little hand, and prophesied, "She was to be in terms of courtship, engagement or as good as engagement, with Four Kings, and to wed none of them." Wilhelmina counts them in her mature days. The FIRST will surprise everybody,—Charles XII. of Sweden;—who never can have been much of a suitor, ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. VI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... bright marigolds, that deck the skies, Phoebus' celestial flowers, that, contrary To his flowers here, ope when he shuts his eye, And shuts when he doth open, crown your sports: Now Love in Night, and Night in Love exhorts Courtship and dances: all your parts employ, And suit Night's rich expansure with your joy. 470 Love paints his longings in sweet virgins' eyes: Rise, youths! Love's rite claims more than ...
— The Works of Christopher Marlowe, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Christopher Marlowe

... His courtship had been formal and elaborate, but his declaration was signally simple and to the point. Selma noticed that the cup in his hand trembled. While she kept her eyes lowered, as women are supposed to do at such moments, she was wondering whether she loved him as much as ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant

... it had been love at first sight. His short and ardent courtship had, unbeknown to him, required not so much to win her heart, as to overcome her maidenly resistance, rendered stubborn by the consciousness that her heart had already ranged itself on the side ...
— The White Ladies of Worcester - A Romance of the Twelfth Century • Florence L. Barclay

... then,' said I, 'or you will not have me for your bridesmaid. I give you just three weeks for the courtship, for I shan't remain single one day longer to cook the ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie

... point should be previously adjusted, as well as the recent loss of Eveline's father, gave an air of privacy to De Lacy's courtship, and prevented its being signalized by tournaments and feats of military skill, in which he would have been otherwise desirous to display his address in the eyes of his mistress. The rules of the convent prevented his giving entertainments of dancing, music, or other more ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott

... Amiens Cathedral, great sirens among voiceless things, subjugate and draw our souls. The friendships in question are sober and deliberate, founded on reasonable recognition of some trait of dignity or grace; and matured by conscious courtship on our part, retracing of steps day by day, and watching the friend's varying moods at noon or under low lights. During that week in the grim Scottish ancestral house, it was the kitchen-garden, as I began by saying, which comforted me. In another place, where I was ill and ...
— Hortus Vitae - Essays on the Gardening of Life • Violet Paget, AKA Vernon Lee

... had been lazily watching for an opportunity for prosecuting his courtship of the Coulterneb girl, found presently that his chances of getting her to himself for ten minutes even were non-existent. If the girl was ever alone he never was. His hostess had changed suddenly, as far as he was concerned, from the desirable type that lets ...
— Beasts and Super-Beasts • Saki

... virgins, the women keep it constantly lighted, and carry it about with them in firesticks when they travel: should it happen to go out, they procure a fresh supply from a neighboring encampment. Then their manners are so atrociously savage. Their mode of courtship is one which I fancy would not become popular among English ladies. If a chief, or any other individual, be in love, with a damsel of a different tribe, he endeavors to waylay her; and if she be surprised in ...
— The World of Waters - A Peaceful Progress o'er the Unpathed Sea • Mrs. David Osborne

... a way of courtship peculiarly his own. He made it apparent from the first how deeply he had been stirred by Florence's beauty and how ready he was to offer her his hand; but as a matter of fact he never did so in set terms, and treated her more as a comrade than a divinity. He talked of his own devotion to her as ...
— Love, The Fiddler • Lloyd Osbourne

... steaming with expectation,—with the deadly aroma of a courtship going stale. I can't stand it! I can't ...
— Bertram Cope's Year • Henry Blake Fuller

... needless to say much of their courtship. Their engagement was not made public, therefore it was not necessary to make a parade of their affection before indifferent acquaintance, Miriam's love, like that of all proud, reserved natures, was ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... said Mrs. Frost, slyly, and as she met Mrs. Ponsonby's eyes full of uneasy inquiry. 'You don't mean that you have not observed at least his elder lordship's most decided courtship? Don't be too innocent, ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge

... darling, fair, and delicate; So deep in love, he thought her mew The sweetest voice he ever knew. By prayers, and tears, and magic art, The man got Fate to take his part; And, lo! one morning at his side His cat, transform'd, became his bride. In wedded state our man was seen The fool in courtship he had been. No lover e'er was so bewitch'd By any maiden's charms As was this husband, so enrich'd By hers within his arms. He praised her beauties, this and that, And saw there nothing of the cat. In short, by passion's aid, he ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine

... manner my life passed like a continual triumph amidst acclamations, and envy, and courtship, and caresses: to please Melissa was the general ambition, and every stratagem of artful flattery was practised upon me. To be flattered is grateful, even when we know that our praises are not believed by those who ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore

... rather as beholders than partakers of human nature; as Beings looking upon good and evil, impassive and at leisure; as Epicurean deities making remarks on the actions of men and the vicissitudes of life without interest and without emotion. Their courtship was void of fondness, and their lamentation of sorrow. Their wish was only to say what they hoped ...
— English literary criticism • Various

... characteristic which has its adaptations like other characteristics, it has one peculiarity—its increase is always opposed by lethal selection. The chances of life are reduced by reproducing, inasmuch as more danger is entailed by the extra activities of courtship, and later, in bearing and caring for the young, since these duties reduce the normal wariness of individual life. The reproductive rate, therefore, always remains at the lowest point which will suffice for the reproductive needs of the ...
— Applied Eugenics • Paul Popenoe and Roswell Hill Johnson

... German had, by this time, made good his escape, the ranchman consented to being pushed toward his house, talking all the time about giving a beating to the Romantica and another to the China for not having informed him of the courtship. He had surprised his daughter and the Gringo holding hands and exchanging kisses in ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... how me an' the ol' woman got spliced,' said Belden, concluding the exciting tale of his courtship. '"Here we be, Dad," sez she. "An' may yeh be damned," sez he to her, an' then to me, "Jim, yeh—yeh git outen them good duds o' yourn; I want a right peart slice o' thet forty acre plowed 'fore dinner." An' then he sort o' sniffled an' kissed her. An' I was thet happy—but he seen me an' roars ...
— The Son of the Wolf • Jack London

... Milly, who had met Archibald Toovey at the Fletchers', and converted his patronizing courtship into imbecile raptures. ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods

... back late, flushed with her long walk, her face all sparkle and mystery, as he had seen it in the first days of their courtship; and the look somehow revived his irritated sense of having been intentionally left ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton

... reason of their shy nature and retiring habits, not to mention their rarity and the impossibility, so far as most people are concerned, of visiting their native haunts. In suitable large aviaries, however, their nesting habits, courtship, display, incubation, moult and so forth can be accurately observed and recorded. The keeping of birds in aviaries is therefore a practice worthy of every encouragement, so long as the aviaries are of sufficient size and suitable design to allow of the ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various

... The courtship of Edward McLaren and Alice Albertson was not of the usual character. In this instance love did run smoothly. It was such a union of souls as needed no rapturous expressions. It was made up of esteem, appreciation, and confidence, resulting in simple, sincere affection that ...
— The Mystery of Monastery Farm • H. R. Naylor

... for the pride of his soaring eagle heart, Here for his great hand searching the skies for food, Here for his courtship of Heaven's high stars he shall smart, Nebuchadnezzar shall fall, ...
— Country Sentiment • Robert Graves

... plural, does not signify merely the abstract feeling of love, the application of which is as various as are the objects which inspire it; for example, the divine love, the parental, the filial, and the sexual. Amores signifies courtship, flirtation, interchange of sentiments between two lovers; and yet we find this word, at every turn, in the prayers ...
— Roman Catholicism in Spain • Anonymous

... could attach to an infatuation as doting as it was blamable. The pitiful inadequacy of the temptation to the ruin it caused invests with a kind of prophecy the words he had written to his betrothed in the heyday of courtship: "These I trust will ever be my sentiments; if they are not, I do verily believe it will be my ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan

... yet found out fully how nice it was to be rich, but she was learning fast. To be able to attract the attentions of agreeable young men like Carlos Merelda was another of the virtues of her magic lamp that she had never thought of before. Although she had no idea of taking Carlos's courtship seriously, she thought all the better of herself for this extra magnetism which her money gave her person. The kindliness of the Mereldas and their Mexican circle to the little American was due largely to her being a good friend ...
— Clark's Field • Robert Herrick

... is the behaviour of the modern young man. His courtship can hardly be called a courtship at all. His methods are those of Sir W. S. ...
— Three Men and a Maid • P. G. Wodehouse

... of the morrow or the convenances, or Society; but please do not imagine this rather primitive gentleman a chartered libertine. He would have married her as soon as not, but he had neither the genius nor the inclination for the courtship that leads by slow degrees up to the question, "Will ...
— The Ghost Girl • H. De Vere Stacpoole

... On the date I fixed old Captain Hisgins himself came up to see me. He told me a great many new details about the horse story; though naturally I had always known the main points and understood that if the first child were a girl, that girl would be haunted by the Horse during her courtship. ...
— Carnacki, The Ghost Finder • William Hope Hodgson

... sound is made by the Canadian partridge (a species of the grouse) during its season of courtship. The cock-bird perches himself on the top of a large hollow log, or fallen tree, and with his wings produces a vibratory sound, like the distant roll of a drum, which, in still weather, can easily be heard at the distance of ...
— Twenty-Seven Years in Canada West - The Experience of an Early Settler (Volume I) • Samuel Strickland

... memory. "Why don't you learn a regular proposal that nobody can find any fault with an' say it right off like sayin' a piece?" he asked. "Pegleg Brierly used to have a book in his dunnage that had all kinds of proposals printed in it. 'Guide to Courtship and Matrimony' was the name of it. Pegleg said he didn't have any notion of fallin' in love, but if he should happen to, he didn't cal'late to be caught nappin'. He's livin' down on the back road now, and he's still an old bach. If he's kept ...
— Cape Cod and All the Pilgrim Land, June 1922, Volume 6, Number 4 • Various

... was a strange and gloomy contrast to see the piles of dead besides the effervescing awakening life of spring. In every pool wild ducks of different kinds floated about; in the high grass the cranes performed their weird dance of courtship; on the lakes great flocks of swans and geese were swimming; through the swampy places like spots of light moved the brilliantly colored pairs of the Mongolian sacred bird, the turpan or "Lama goose"; on the higher dry places flocks of wild turkey gamboled and fought as they ...
— Beasts, Men and Gods • Ferdinand Ossendowski

... him, and, having danced him through a whole summer's courtship, at the end their engagement was made known. The fall of the year was at hand, Dave had to be back for the winter's work on Mammon Creek, and Flush of Gold refused to be married right away. Dave put Dusky Burns in charge of the Mammon Creek claim, and himself lingered on ...
— Lost Face • Jack London

... housebuilding into his head. Bob is somewhat fastidious, difficult to please, fond of domesticities and individualities; and such a man never can fit himself into a house built by another, and accordingly housebuilding has always been his favorite mental recreation. During all his courtship, as much time was taken up in planning a future house as if he had money to build one; and all Marianne's patterns, and the backs of half their letters, were scrawled with ground-plans and elevations. But latterly this chronic disposition has been quickened into an acute form by the ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... panel and shelf which kept me on the right track. Miles had searched the shelf for the marriage certificate which he could not know Nita had already burned. Probably, too, he had written her a few letters during their short courtship——" ...
— Murder at Bridge • Anne Austin

... dead hole, saying "Let me place it here for the moment and I will see to it later." The status of the State can be likened to marriage between man and woman. The greatest care should be taken during courtship. The lady should then exercise care to see that the man whom she is taking to be a life companion is worthy of her. During this period it is the duty of her relatives and friends to point out to her any danger or misunderstanding even to the extent ...
— The Fight For The Republic in China • Bertram Lenox Putnam Weale



Words linked to "Courtship" :   prayer, wooing, courting, entreaty, appeal, suit, bundling



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