"Maidenly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... her best silk dress, with her mother's cameo brooch at her throat, and with the full, maidenly ripeness of twenty-nine years upon her brow, with her hair demurely parted on said brow, where there was the faintest hint of a wrinkle coming—which Miss Morton attributed to a person she called "the dratted Calvin kid,"—the eldest Miss Morton, ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... has lost his youngest daughter. I never saw a girl more cheerful, more lovable, more worthy of long life—nay, of immortality. She had not yet completed her fourteenth year, and she had already the prudence of an old woman, the gravity of a matron, and still, with all maidenly modesty, the sweetness of a girl. How she would cling to her father's neck! how affectionately and discreetly she would greet us, her father's friends! how she loved her nurses, her attendants, her teachers,—everyone according to his service. How earnestly, how intelligently, ...
— A Handbook for Latin Clubs • Various
... liked you, Sir Cuthbert," the girl said frankly, "better than any one else next to my father, and gladly submit myself to his will. My own inclinations indeed, so far as is maidenly, go with his. These are troubled times," she said anxiously, "and our holy mother tells me that you fear some danger ...
— Winning His Spurs - A Tale of the Crusades • George Alfred Henty
... could have answered: she did not analyze. Each day was full and joyous. She was being carried forward on a shining tide of happiness, and yet its motion was so even, quiet, and strong that there was nothing to disturb her maidenly serenity. If Webb had been any one but Webb, and if she had been in the habit of regarding all men as possible admirers, she would have understood herself long before this. If she had been brought up with brothers in ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... continued reserve toward him. She had begun, it is true, by touching his foot with hers and stimulating his passion with the mischievous pleasure of a woman who is free and in love; but she had suddenly enveloped herself in maidenly modesty, after she had heard Sarrasine relate an incident which illustrated the extreme violence of his temper. When the supper became a debauch, the guests began to sing, inspired by the Peralta and the Pedro-Ximenes. ...
— Sarrasine • Honore de Balzac
... galaxy.[32] The only child of a wealthy Venetian at the end of the sixteenth century, she was indulged in her love of study, and afforded every opportunity to advance in the arts and sciences. "She revelled in the realm of beauty, and crystallized her enthusiasm in graceful, sweet, maidenly verses. Young, lovely, of generous impulses and keen intellectual powers, her ambition set upon lofty attainments, a favorite of the muses, Sara Copia charmed ...
— Jewish Literature and Other Essays • Gustav Karpeles
... la, sir, my hand, and so may you." She held it out and made an impudent little curtsy. "I protest the gentleman is all maidenly. That is why he and I make so good ...
— The Highwayman • H.C. Bailey
... shut her door, and sat down to breathe. "Suppose he should ask you to let him show you the Mississippi, or the Pacific?" And the hot flush rushed over her and she hid her face, as if even from herself. "He will not. But what if he should?" Mrs. Starling had raised the question. Diana, in very maidenly shame, tried to beat it down and stamp the life out of it. But that was ...
— Diana • Susan Warner
... trying moment, but Genevieve was too simple, genuine, and grateful to pause in selfish embarrassment. Had she toyed with Gilbert's affection, she could not have met his father with such maidenly modesty, and sweet sympathy and respect in her blushing cheek ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... he went upstairs again he was smiling broadly. With his lawyer's caution, he waited a moment outside his wife's room, where he heard Lydia's voice, to see if her mother had hit upon some happy inspiration to quiet the girl's exaggerated maidenly shyness. He had the tenderest indulgence to his daughter's confusion, but he was not without a humorous, middle-aged realization of the extremely transitory nature of this phase of youth. He had lived long enough to see so many blushing girls transformed into matter-of-fact ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield
... made plain, arose And curtsey'd to the Spaniard. Ah, methinks I yet behold her, gracious, innocent, And flaxen-haired, and blushing maidenly, When turning she retired, and his black eyes, That hunger'd after her, did follow on; And I bethought me, 'Thou shalt see no more, Thou goodly ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Jean Ingelow
... and secrete, against whome he often bitterly invayeth. Underfonge, undermyne, and deceive by false suggestion." The immoral flippancy of the remarkable dialogue between the disreputable Parolles and the otherwise sweet and maidenly Helena, in Act I. Scene i. of All's Well that Ends Well, has often been noticed by critics as a peculiar lapse in dramatic congruity on the part of Shakespeare. This is evidently one of several such instances in his plays where he sacrificed his objective dramatic ...
— Shakespeare's Lost Years in London, 1586-1592 • Arthur Acheson
... crumpet, and blinked at Lady Enid, who was airily sipping her tea with a slightly detached air of calm and maidenly dignity. ...
— The Prophet of Berkeley Square • Robert Hichens
... promulgating a new theory of love; I know that in Olive Rothesay I dare to paint a woman full of all maidenly virtues, who has yet given her heart away unrequited—given it to a man who knows not of the treasure he has never sought to win. The case, I grant, is rare. I believe that a woman seldom bestows her love save in return for other love—be it ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)
... of maidens, A beam without haze, No murkiness saddens, No disk-spot bewrays. The swan-down to feeling, The snow of the gaillin,[134] Thy limbs all excelling, Unite to amaze. The queen, I would name thee, Of maidenly muster; Thy stem is so seemly, So rich is its cluster Of members complete, Adroit at each feat, And thy temper so sweet, Without banning or bluster. My grief has press'd on Since the vision of Morag, As the heavy millstone On the cross-tree ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... with our needles working the same flower, both on the same sampler wrought; growing up together in fashion of a double cherry, scarcely seeming parted? Hermia, it is not friendly in you, it is not maidenly, to join with men in scorning ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... Madame Carthame's dwelling, and Rose herself, with her hair done up in curl papers, opened the door for them, When she recognized the three visitors and perceived that the Count was in custody, and at the same moment remembered her curl papers, on her face the gaze of astonishment and the blush of maidenly modesty contended for ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various
... friend and playfellow, Kit Smallbones. Her childish freedom of manner had given way to grave discretion, not to say primness, in her behaviour to her father's guests, and even the apprentices. It was, of course, the unconscious reaction of the maidenly spirit, aware that she had nothing but her own modesty to protect her. She was on a small scale, with no pretensions to beauty, but with a fresh, honest, sensible young face, a clear skin, and dark eyes that could be very merry when she would let ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge
... because she was handsome and desirable. However, he tried to persuade himself that, for him, her charm was a spiritual, not a physical one, this being, as he thought, a nobler, finer definition, though it was precisely this maidenly purity and innocence of hers which fired his blood and aroused desire. Ever since the evening when he first met her, he had felt a vague yet vehement longing to sully her innocence, a longing indeed that the presence of any ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef
... of Hilland's impetuous wooing was, as we have seen, to destroy her sense of maidenly security, and to bring her face to face with her destiny. Then his openly avowed siege speedily compelled her to withdraw her thoughts from man in the abstract to himself. She could not brush him aside by a quiet negative, ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe
... your scheme of life had not been precisely that of an anchorite. Pray understand that I have never supposed it was so, and that I rather honour your attempt to indicate the fact to me without outraging my maidenly—old maidish, if you will—susceptibilities"? ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... had grown to feel much interest in the girl, and had been especially pleased by all absence of the flighty tendencies with which too many girls in public service tempt men to their own destruction. She had seemed to me to bear herself with a maidenly self-respect that spoke of no little grace of breeding. She had two very strong claims on one's regard. She was evidently a woman, in the deep, tragic sense of that word, and a lady in the only true sense of that. The ...
— The Book-Bills of Narcissus - An Account Rendered by Richard Le Gallienne • Le Gallienne, Richard
... begging to see the manuscript, teasing Theodora about her secretiveness, and congratulating her again and again. It was an attractive group, Theodora in the midst, a tall, handsome girl in the full ripeness of her maidenly beauty, her arm linked in that of her twin brother, while pretty Hope stood facing them, with ...
— Teddy: Her Book - A Story of Sweet Sixteen • Anna Chapin Ray
... dusk would fall, its coming hastened by the mist, now settling into a steady drizzle of rain precursor of a dark and early night. To hunt any longer would be useless. She must give it up. Yet her maidenly pride, her sense of what is seemly and becoming, revolted from exposing herself to Timothy Proud's coarse leering glances or even—should he by luck be her waterman—to Jennifer's more respectful curiosity, dishevelled and but half-dressed as she was. And then the actual distance to be ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... otherwise. He left Vere House in a fever of unrest; he went everywhere he could think of to distract his thoughts. But the fair face with its sweet, maidenly expression, the tender blue eyes with their rich poetic depths, the sweet, sensitive lips were ever present. Look where he would he saw them. He went to the opera, and they seemed to smile at him from the stage; he walked home in the starlight—they were smiling at him from ...
— Wife in Name Only • Charlotte M. Braeme (Bertha M. Clay)
... it mayn't be so with you always, that's all," Tetchen had said. But Linda had no vestige of such hope at her heart. The journey to Augsburg had been to her the cause of too much agony, had filled her with too real a sense of maidenly shame, to enable her to look forward with hope to any adventure in which Ludovic should have to take a part. To escape from Peter Steinmarc, whether by death, or illness, or flight, or sullen refusal,—but to escape from him let the cost to herself be what it might,—that ...
— Linda Tressel • Anthony Trollope
... delicately, one deems it all a veil donned for the tree's nuptials with the spring. For nothing could more completely personify the spirit of the spring-time. You can almost fancy it some dryad decked for her bridal, in maidenly day-dreaming too lovely to last. For like the plum the cherry fails in its fruit to fulfil ...
— The Soul of the Far East • Percival Lowell
... no suspicion of the real reason of Sophy Viner's departure, had thought it "extremely suitable" of the young girl to withdraw to the shelter of her old friends' roof in the hour of bridal preparation. This maidenly retreat had in fact impressed Madame de Chantelle so favourably that she was disposed for the first time to talk over Owen's projects; and as every human event translated itself for her into terms of social and domestic detail, Anna had perforce to travel the same round again. ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton
... maiden is like the opening of some lovely flower-bud. As life unfolds, the tender smile and blush of childhood mingle with the grace of maidenly repose; the upturned, radiant eye gathers new depths of thought and emotion; the delicate features, the wavy, pliant form, begin to reveal their wealth ...
— Adele Dubois - A Story of the Lovely Miramichi Valley in New Brunswick • Mrs. William T. Savage
... door-step his keen eyes sought in Maria's for something that he might carry into the depth of the green woods whither he was bent; but they found no message. In her maidenly simplicity she feared to show herself too bold, and very resolutely she kept her glance lowered, like the young girls with richer parents who return from the convents in Chicoutimi trained to look on the world with ...
— Maria Chapdelaine - A Tale of the Lake St. John Country • Louis Hemon
... satisfying habits was to evoke from the realm of the future a proper hero, shining with zeal and virtue like Sir Galahad, in whose arms she would picture herself living happily ever after a sweet courtship, punctuated by due maidenly hesitation. This fondness for letting her fancy run riot and evolve visions splendid with happenings for her own advancement and gladness was not confined to matrimonial day-dreams. On the morning when she entered the school-house door for the first time the eyes ...
— The Law-Breakers and Other Stories • Robert Grant
... shy star goes forth in heaven All maidenly, disconsolate, Hear you amid the drowsy even One who is singing by your gate. His song is softer than the dew And he is come ...
— Chamber Music • James Joyce
... erect, with her short clustering hair and fearless eyes of blue, you would have been tempted to suppose her a boy in disguise. Yet if you looked a moment longer, the woman in her shone out in every step and gesture. Her cheeks glowed with health and maidenly modesty; and her eyes, that flashed on you one moment almost defiantly, dropped the next in coyness ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed
... feel it to be condescension now," replied Laura, with almost the frank simplicity of a child. "I cannot help feeling sympathy for you, even though you are too proud to receive it." Then she added, with a trace of dignity and maidenly pride, "Perhaps when you have realized your hopes, and have become rich or famous, I may not choose to speak to you. But it is not my nature to turn from any one in misfortune, much less any one whom I ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... had left their mark upon the young face, yet it was fresh and smooth in its delicate pallor, and almost maidenly in its gentle smile. Silvia had blue eyes, and hair of the chestnut hue; a simple, white fillet lay above her forehead; her robe was of pale russet, adorned with the usual purple stripes and edged with embroidery; on each hand ...
— Veranilda • George Gissing
... unspecified, pretended (the minx!) to be keen on the Suffrage movement, which he wasn't, and concealed a wife; the second was a Being too perfect to endure beyond Chapter 10, where he expires eloquently of heart-failure, leaving Alan, the third, to bear the white man's burden and clasp Frieda to his maidenly heart. This sentimental progress is, I suppose, what is implied by the title and the symbolic staircase (if it is a staircase?) on the wrapper. But my trouble was that I could never discern in the sweet girl-graduate ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, April 23, 1919 • Various
... elevator, I was painfully conscious of two ideas. One was that Marguerite had been quite correct with her information about the free women who found it profitable to play the role of maidenly innocence. The other was that Dr. Zimmern's precious geography was in the hands of the artful, child-eyed hypocrite who had so cleverly beguiled me with her role of heroic virtue. Clearly, I was trapped, and to judge better with what I had to deal I decided to go at once to the Place of ...
— City of Endless Night • Milo Hastings
... flowers flourished in abundance and ran riot over the moss-covered poles. Jess stooped, picked a wild rose, and inhaled its sweet fragrance. John, watching, thought he had never beheld a more perfect picture of beauty, grace and maidenly charm. His soul thrilled within him, and moving impulsively forward, he took the rose from her hand, and placed it gently in her hair. He smiled as he stepped back to view ...
— Jess of the Rebel Trail • H. A. Cody
... pernicious theories of his youth, "not one woman worthy of respect! Even this young girl, apparently so modest and pure, unworthy the confidence I reposed in her." The recollection of the chaste and maidenly appearance of Aminta soon put such ideas to flight, and Maulear thenceforth had but one idea, but one desire. He sought to clear up the strange mystery of his nocturnal vision, and extricate ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... which, given an opportunity, might bridge over greater gaps than that of intellect and learning. How was that opportunity to be gained? She might be willing to sacrifice much to attain it, but there was one thing that could never be thrown on one side—her natural maidenly pride and dignity! Not even for Ron's sake could she bring herself to make advances to a man who, so far from exhibiting any desire for her company, had gone markedly out of ...
— Big Game - A Story for Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... soft black and old yellow lace, stood in the doorway. Then before she could answer a second one appeared at her side, and I had a vision of two slender maidenly figures, who reminded me, meek heads, drooping faces, and creamy lace caps, of the wallflowers in the border outside blooming in a patch of sunshine close against the old grey house. At first there seemed to me to be no visible difference between ...
— The Romance of a Plain Man • Ellen Glasgow
... gathered up the reins, and it was not until they were well on their way along the Trumansburg road that the boy turned to her. How beautiful she looked, her shoulders completely covered with dusky-dark curls and her head bowed in maidenly shyness! All his doubts as to the expediency of his act were set at rest. She was deeply essential to his happiness, to his progress. To know she was his wife, married to him, so that none could separate them, would make his absences from Tessibel much easier to bear. He had in ...
— The Secret of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... without fear. A queen seeking a consort among princes always begins the courting. A rich girl willing to marry a poor man lets him see she will not be offended if he offers to add himself to her possessions. Yes, it would be quite consistent with sex- custom, with maidenly modesty, for a Severence to make the first open move toward ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips
... razor and twice a week, trembling and apprehensive, drew it across his maidenly cheek. He slashed himself fearfully but he did not mind that. He wore his scars proudly, a warning to all that adolescence was on him, as the young Heidelberg ...
— Skippy Bedelle - His Sentimental Progress From the Urchin to the Complete - Man of the World • Owen Johnson
... knew what her pose ought to be. Not prim stiffness, not suspicious maidenly dignity, but just smiling civility, a recognition of past slight acquaintance. This would do for the beginning. This must surely show him that the tactics Ena credited him with were ...
— Winnie Childs - The Shop Girl • C. N. Williamson
... kept there till he was well again. The night of his arrival, Louison, the sister, stood with a brother on either hand—Octave and Florian—and received him with a courtesy more stately than usual, an expression of the reserve and modesty of her single state. This maidenly dignity was at all times shielded by the five brothers, who treated her with a constant and reverential courtesy. There was something signally suggestive in their homage, and Medallion concluded at last that it was paid not only to the sister, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... sensibilities of the woman begin to give a timid dignity to the liveliness of the girl. The open and rather ardent expression of her happy countenance was sweetly repressed and tempered by the pure veil of maidenly modesty; yet her graceful and commanding stature, the fire of her bright blue eye, and her free and stately step and gesture, told that the spirit of her fathers dwelt strong in the bosom of their lovely daughter. The heart of Allan Cameron bounded and fluttered in his breast, as he advanced ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume VI • Various
... air of modesty, dropping a courtesy so very humbly, and yet with a blending of maidenly dignity, that I felt instinctively to bow to the womanhood before me, quaint and picturesque as it was in its black dress, white sleeves, and ...
— Scenes in Switzerland • American Tract Society
... too weary, too weak from the revulsion of feeling that had come on learning that her lover instead of being a dastardly spy was a wonderful hero, to make even a pretense at maidenly modesty. She wanted to see Frederic too much to care ...
— The Apartment Next Door • William Andrew Johnston
... and virtues lost nothing, fell into the hands of Madame d'Hymbercourt, and thus came under the eyes of Princess Mary. That fair little lady also built in her heart an altar to an unknown god, if hints in Hymbercourt's letters were to be trusted. Her maidenly emotions were probably far more passive than Max's, though I have been told that a woman's heart will go to great lengths for the sake of an ideal. Many a man, doubtless, would fall short in the estimation of his lady-love were it not for those ...
— Yolanda: Maid of Burgundy • Charles Major
... of seeing life on the amusing side aided, of course, her maidenly severity against trouble of sense and sentiment. This she had from her father, a man of quips and jokes on the surface of his seriousness. As she grew older, it threatened a decline of intimacy between her ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing
... nuptial ceremony, and during its performance, Undine had shown a modest gentleness and maidenly reserve; but it now seemed as if all the wayward freaks that effervesced within her burst forth with an extravagance only the more bold and unrestrained. She teased her bridegroom, her foster-parents, and even the priest, whom she ...
— Undine - I • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque
... very simply in white, with a blue band across her hair, and a blue scarf and sash around throat and waist. Her face, though showing signs of quiet strength, and of a self-confidence which was the flower of maidenly modesty and innocence, was not beautiful according to any recognized standard. Bressant, from his intuitive perception of form and proportion, was aware of this. The forehead was too high, the nose irregular, the mouth lacked the perfect curve, and the teeth, though white and ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne
... be, was chiefly hindered by the consideration that, in that case, the cost of supporting them would probably be transferred from the grim Doctor's shoulders to those of the community. Nevertheless, they did what they could. Maidenly ladies, prim and starched, in one or two instances called upon the Doctor—the two children meanwhile being in the graveyard at play—to give him Christian advice as to the management of his charge. But, to confess the truth, the Doctor's reception ...
— Doctor Grimshawe's Secret - A Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... blooming gay plants lay the maidenly form raised upon cushions, pale, in a white robe, her lovely slender hands folded and holding a crucifix, her eyes closed, dark black tresses hanging full and heavy round her head, on which a wreath of roses and cypress and ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck
... street running down to the Bridge, beyond which dwelt Sally, told of in a book of a friend of mine, was of old a house inhabited by three maidens. They left no near kinsfolk, I believe; whether they did or not, I have no ill to speak of them; for they lived and died in all good report and maidenly credit. The house they lived in was of the small, gambrel-roofed cottage pattern, after the shape of Esquires' houses, but after the size of the dwellings of handicraftsmen. The lower story was fitted up as a shop. Specially was ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)
... cannot bear to see any creature whatsoever suffer, not even the meanest. (Looking at her critically, but with dignity.) And for you, my child, I am sincerely sorry; I may say that much, after you have so far fought down your maidenly pride as to wait for me here. But please, Miss Coeurne, do take into account the life I have to lead. Just think of the mere question of time! At least two hundred, may be as many as three hundred charmingly attractive young girls of your age saw me on the stage yesterday in the ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various
... kitchen-pantry,—a trick which had nearly cost her the loss of a beloved mother,—and finding she could not captivate the handsome Colonel Malcome with checkered aprons and broad lace, began, like a dutiful child, to receive the advances of the mild Theophilus more graciously, and had, after much maidenly confusion, consented to become his wife, when, as we have seen, the uncompromising colonel called, and distracted her with fear lest she had been too precipitate in accepting Theophilus, when a higher prize might be on the point of falling into her arms. But her apprehensions were ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... As she looked, she wondered, vaguely, if she, like Aunt Jane, would grow to a loveless old age. It seemed probable, for, at twenty-five, The Prince had not appeared. She had her work and was happy; yet unceasingly, behind those dark eyes, Ruth's soul kept maidenly ...
— Lavender and Old Lace • Myrtle Reed
... failed to observe the furtive look of anxiety with which he advanced to meet her; his demeanour was as different from the ordinary eagerness of a newly-accepted lover as could well be imagined. Nor did she betray these signs of maidenly shyness and trembling joy which in the circumstances she might ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... shall pray For thee when I am far away; For never saw I mien or face In which more plainly I could trace Benignity and home-bred sense Ripening in perfect innocence. Here scatter'd like a random seed, Remote from men, Thou dost not need The embarrass'd look of shy distress, And maidenly shamefacedness: Thou wear'st upon thy forehead clear The freedom of a mountaineer: A face with gladness overspread, Soft smiles, by human kindness bred; And seemliness complete, that sways Thy courtesies, about thee plays; With no restraint, but such ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... one of the loveliest girls in the room as he led Maud down the floor of the vestry of the church. Her cheeks were glowing, and her eyes shining with maidenly delight as they took seats at the table to sip a little coffee and nibble a ...
— Other Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... beating. Nevertheless, the feeling existed that she wished one of the others had stayed instead of him. It was born, no doubt, partly of the wave of shyness running through her, but partly too of instinctive maidenly resistance to something in his look, in the assurance of his manner, that seemed to claim too much. Last night he had taken her by storm and at advantage. Something of shame stirred in her that he had found her so easy a conquest, something too of a new vague fear of herself. She resented ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine
... and the Wali; but as regards the matter of the girl Sitt al-Husn, when she went forth the prison in the dress of a Shalabi, a dainty youth, she ceased not wending till she reached her paternal home. Here she repaired to a place which was private and having doffed her man's dress garbed her in maidenly garments, then retiring secretly to her own room lay her down and her heart was heartened and trouble and turmoil and travail of mind fell from her. Now at that time her mother was lamenting like a funeral mourner and buffeting her face and her breast and kept crying out, "Oh ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... The cold and eager hunter Silvio contrasts with tender and romantic Mirtillo. Corisca's meretricious arts and systematized profligacy enhance the pure affection of Amarilli. Dorinda presents another type of love, so impulsive that it conquers maidenly modesty. The Satyr is a creature of rude lust, foiled in its brutal appetite by the courtesan Corisca's wiliness. Carino brings the corruption of towns into comparison with ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... not answer me?" pleaded Gustave, in nowise alarmed by Diana's silence, which seemed to him only the natural expression of a maidenly emotion. "Tell me that you will give me measure for measure; that you will love me as my mother loved my father—with a love that trouble and poverty could never lessen; with a love that was strongest when fate was darkest—a star which the dreary night of sorrow could not ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... flowers, and she, busied with her broidering needle, would question him of his doings, and betimes her breast would heave and her dexterous hand tremble and falter to hear of dangers past; or, talking of the future, her gracious head would droop with cheeks that flushed most maidenly, until Beltane, kneeling to her loveliness, would clasp her in his arms, while she, soft-voiced, would bid him beware ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol
... would have understood that a girl who loves never addresses such a question; but the feminine heart was a book in which he was a very poor speller. He imagined that Reine was only asking him as a matter of form, and that it was from a feeling of maidenly reserve that she adopted this passive method of escaping from openly declaring her wishes. She no doubt desired his friendly aid in the matter, and he felt as if he ought ...
— A Woodland Queen, Complete • Andre Theuriet
... too fatuously enamoured to dream that she could be struggling for strength to dismiss him. Her obvious timidity was ascribed to natural maidenly bashfulness, which made her appear wonderfully enticing. She clasped her hands more tightly together and turned her head this way and that, glancing at the windows, at the door, as if she longed to run away and make her escape ...
— Enter Bridget • Thomas Cobb
... your pardon, dear Madam, and your patience with me on such an occasion as this. If I did not speak with earnestness upon it, I should be supposed to have only maidenly objections against a man I never ...
— Clarissa, Volume 1 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... Catharine, whose senses were beginning to be more collected, heard the old man give orders that she was to be fed and cared for. Gladly did she escape from the presence of those pitiless men, from whose gaze she shrunk with maidenly modesty. And now when alone with the women she hesitated not to make use of that natural language which requires not the aid of speech to make itself understood; clasping her hands imploringly, she knelt at the feet ...
— Canadian Crusoes - A Tale of The Rice Lake Plains • Catharine Parr Traill
... touch her. They looked at one another however and each knew how it stood with the other. He had again the look which he had revealed once in the morning, a presuming look, confident of victory, such a look as if he would say, 'I know well enough how such a maidenly scorn is to be interpreted.' But her eyes said, 'I am too proud to love you.' She went slowly into the darkness of her room as if she would give him time yet to say something or to long after her. He was however too slow for that and ...
— Sleep Walking and Moon Walking - A Medico-Literary Study • Isidor Isaak Sadger
... Mary Louise would have felt that Josie had deliberately insulted her. As it was, she blamed her friend for inexcusable affectation. "I'm not sure," she reflected, "that a girl can be a detective—a regular detective—without spoiling her disposition or losing to some an extent her maidenly modesty. Of course, Josie has been brought up in an atmosphere of mystery and can't be blamed for her peculiarities, but—-I'm glad ...
— Mary Louise and the Liberty Girls • Edith Van Dyne (AKA L. Frank Baum)
... Chu Chu. SHE certainly looked beautiful in her glittering accoutrements, set off by her jet-black shining coat. With an air of demure abstraction she permitted me to mount her, and even for a hundred yards or so indulged in a mincing maidenly amble that was not without a touch of coquetry. Encouraged by this, I addressed a few terms of endearment to her, and in the exuberance of my youthful enthusiasm I even confided to her my love for Consuelo, and begged ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... her: 'To look on her was enchantment; her eyes called you to love her; her smile was like heaven; if you heard her speak, you were conquered. Her whole person was a miracle of beauty, and her deportment had a certain maidenly pride, springing from a pure heart and ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 433 - Volume 17, New Series, April 17, 1852 • Various
... her will. And that there never came gold or stone upon her head, till her sister forced her to lay off her former soberness, and bear her company in her glittering gayness. And then she so wore it, as every man might see that her body carried that which her heart misliked. I am sure that her maidenly apparel which she used in king Edward's time, made the noblemen's daughters and wives to be ashamed to be dressed and painted like peacocks; being more moved with her most virtuous example than with all that ever Paul or Peter wrote touching that matter. Yea, this I know, that a great man's daughter ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... a wedding as Edie had pictured to herself in her first sweet maidenly fancies; but still, when they drove away alone in the landau from the side-door of the Red Lion to Calcombe Road Station, she felt a quiet pride and security in her heart from the fact that she was now the wedded wife of a man she loved ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... his duty to the Fatherland, and he was brought up not to think. But if monarchy falls in Germany, and a republic, socialistic or merely democratic, rises on the ruins, then it is more than likely that the superfluous women will be encouraged to transfer themselves and their maidenly dreams to the great dumping-ground ...
— The Living Present • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... she hither? What had her fair, unclouded brow, her innocent face, her maidenly bearing in common with the vain, voluptuous, and corrupt women around, who were so lost to shame as not only to do homage to the king's mistresses, but to envy them the infamous distinction ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... the Princess Etheldrida would be there also, for beside the king was Ecgfrith the atheling; but she was not. They say that she had some maidenly fear of meeting this husband of hers, who was to be, in the ...
— A King's Comrade - A Story of Old Hereford • Charles Whistler
... hand in mine, in all maidenly devotion, "let us keep apart no longer. It is but for me to say that I can live contented upon such means as you have, and I well know you are happy. I say so from my heart. Strive no more alone; let us strive together. My dear Michael, it is not ...
— Some Christmas Stories • Charles Dickens
... One of the most pathetic letters is that in which Pliny writes of the death of the younger daughter of his friend Fundanus, a girl in her fifteenth year, who had already "the prudence of age, the gravity of a matron, and all the maidenly modesty and sweetness of a girl." Pliny tells us how it cut him to the quick to hear her father give directions that the money he had meant to lay out on dresses and pearls and jewels for her betrothal should ...
— The Letters of the Younger Pliny - Title: The Letters of Pliny the Younger - - Series 1, Volume 1 • Pliny the Younger
... the Story Girl crazy? Or had she forgotten that Betty Sherman was Mr. Campbell's own great-grandmother, and that her method of winning a husband was not exactly in accordance with maidenly traditions. ...
— The Story Girl • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... did not allow her maidenly reserve to stand in the way of her frank denouncement of the injustice of human and social laws. Very quietly and logically she stated the case while Dalton with arms folded on his breast, listened, ashamed for himself ...
— Banked Fires • E. W. (Ethel Winifred) Savi
... hesitated and displayed a maidenly coyness far in excess of the needs of the situation. Then she stepped across, and five seconds later the two matrons, with consternation writ large upon their faces, appeared at their doors again and, exchanging glances across the alley, met in ...
— At Sunwich Port, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... away, and stay with us until evening, Miss Theodora," she fluttered in wild, old-maidenly excitement. "Do stay, Miss Theodora, and I will show you how to do the octagon-stitch, as I promised the last time you were here. You remember how you admired it in that antimacassar I was making ...
— Theo - A Sprightly Love Story • Mrs. Frances Hodgson Burnett
... social inferiority, his lack of warrant in offering her marriage. But his great, rugged manhood wanted her, the woman, with an imperious, savage need which took all the training of civilisation to repress. Viviette alone in her maidenly splendour, he could have fought it down. But the vision of another man entering, light-hearted and debonair, into those precincts maddened him, let loose primitive instincts of hatred and revenge, and robbed ...
— Viviette • William J. Locke
... foul livers; sepulchres, fresh colours but rotten bones; women, fair faces but false hearts. Remember, Alexander, thou hast a camp to govern, not a chamber; fall not from the armour of Mars to the arms of Venus, from the fiery assaults of war to the maidenly skirmishes of love, from displaying the eagle in thine ensign to set down the sparrow. I sigh, Alexander, that, where fortune could not ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne
... last only two or three men were left smoking and chatting near the top of the companion ladder; while at the stern of the ship Muriel Ellis looked over toward the retreating island, and talked with a certain timid maidenly frankness to Felix Thurstan. ...
— The Great Taboo • Grant Allen
... was full of timid, maidenly objections. 'Was it right?' she asked, 'was it not a thwarting of the will of the gods? If the great Osiris had wished that our years should be so long, would he not himself ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... that suggested by her father for wishing to lead Mr. Goulden to commit himself, for as far as she could love any one beyond herself she loved him, and she also realized fully that he could continue to her all that her elegant and expensive tastes craved. Notwithstanding her show of maidenly pride and reserve, she was ready enough to do as she had been bidden. Mr. Allen guessed as much. Indeed, as was quite natural, his wife was the type of the average woman to his mind, only he believed that she was a little cleverer ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... tried to read her every feature—her pale cheeks—her lips proud, nay, almost sullen—her eyes, from which the softness so lately visible had changed into inquietude and trouble. There was in her all maidenly innocence—no one could doubt that; but nothing could be more unlike the shy tenderness of a bride, loving, and married ...
— Agatha's Husband - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)
... her with surprise and delight. Thus had he not expected to find her, so childishly cheerful, so charmingly innocent, and yet at the same time with so much maidenly reserve, so much natural dignity. Now she laughed like a child, now was her face serious and proud, now again tender and timid. She was at once a timid child and a glowing woman; she was innocent as an angel, and yet so full of ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... pretty Norman girl, rather stout, with fair hair of a golden tint, an animated face lighted by intelligent eyes, and distinguished by a finely curved thoroughbred nose, with a maidenly air in spite of a certain swaying Spanish manner of carrying herself, possessed all the points that a young girl born just above the level of the masses is likely to acquire from whatever close companionship a mistress is willing to allow her. Always suitably dressed, with modest bearing and ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... have no effect upon the professor's pure astonishment, but Marjory looked at her mother suddenly. However, she said no word, exhibiting again that strange and, inscrutable countenance which masked even the tiniest of her maidenly emotions. ...
— Active Service • Stephen Crane
... Magnetise magnetizi. Magnetism magnetismo. Magnificent belega. Magnify pligrandigi. Magnitude grandeco. Magpie pigo. Mahogany mahagono. Mahomet Mahometo. Mahometan Mahometano. Maid frauxlino. Maiden virgulino. Maidenly virga. Maid-servant servistino. Mail posxto. Mail (armour) masxo. Maim vundegi. Mainly cxefe. Maintain subteni. Maintain (assert) pretendi. Maintenance subtenado. Maize maizo. Majestic majesta. Majesty majesto. Major ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... her cousins were watching her, and this prevented her from ever meeting him in thorough comfort at Mr. Lyddell's; and even when at Lord Marchmont's, her maidenly reserve had been so far awakened as to make her shrink back from the full freedom of their former intercourse. This, however, was more in her feeling than in her manners, which, if they differed at all ...
— The Two Guardians • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... face as he stood hat in hand, awoke regret and perhaps a trifle of girlish gratification. She had been sorry herself to miss that half hour among the roses but she was still too young and too happy to know how few are such hours, how irrevocable such losses. Also, it had seemed good to her maidenly pride that Dr. Callandar should know—well, that he should see—just exactly what he should know and see she did not formulate. But underneath her temporary disappointment she felt as light and glad as ...
— Up the Hill and Over • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... her hands and arms to the elbow free for her occupations. But most of all I loved her simplicity and her quietness and her discretion. Her father bade her expressly to shew me all the house; or she would not have done it, for she was very maidenly and modest; but as soon as he said that, she did it without affectation. She shewed me the parlour too, with the hangings upon the walls, and the chapel of the Grail, with the Grail itself upon an altar within, flanked by two candlesticks, that was represented over the fire-place. ...
— Oddsfish! • Robert Hugh Benson
... had been her guide, her dearest friend, her hero. From the time when as a child she had learned to look up to him as the paragon of all perfection, until now, as a girl on the verge of womanhood, she had offered up to him a very pure and maidenly worship. There was no one else whom she could love as much; for her dumb and deaf father she loved in quite a different manner—with more of pity and compassion than of admiration. Roland too had sometimes talked with her, especially while she was a child, about God and Christ; and she had ...
— Cobwebs and Cables • Hesba Stretton
... the male contingent of the procession. No sooner had she seen them safely advancing up the box avenue than she murmured something about preparing for the meal, and, desiring a dismissal from her father, disappeared into the women's apartments, while the old man smiled at her pretty maidenly modesty. ...
— More Bywords • Charlotte M. Yonge
... a low, lounging chair with a big ostrich feather fan in her hand, and she looked up expectantly into her lover's face. There was nothing else for it, and he took the plunge valiantly—and with precisely the correct amount of maidenly hesitancy, Lady Ethel named a day for their marriage. And then—somehow there seemed nothing more to ...
— If Only etc. • Francis Clement Philips and Augustus Harris
... her face to the pillow and repeated in low soft tones the simple words she had used from childhood on such occasions. Owen's name was mentioned without faltering, but in the other case, maidenly shyness was too strong even for religion, and that when supported by excellent intentions. At the name of Edward she stammered, and her voice sank to the faintest whisper in spite ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... her. It was not obstinacy, she know; and that bit of injustice hindered her from seeing that it was really wilful recklessness. She was elated with Ernest's foolish school-boy account of her, which a more maidenly little girl would not have relished; she was strengthened in her notion that she was ill-used, by hearing that the De la Poers pitied her; and because she found that Aunt Barbara was considered to be a little wrong, she did not consider that she herself had ...
— Countess Kate • Charlotte M. Yonge
... down at her with eyes whose glow made her eyelids fall in maidenly defence. "I am capable of anything you ask," he ...
— The Light of the Star - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... separated, the marriage must take place at once. A consumptive hastens his wedding, a wounded tree is quick to bear, and the fright we had experienced taught me how slight was the thread on which my happiness hung; but Manmat'ha was calm with a maidenly content with little, which in my hasty resentment at even a suspicion of opposition to my plan, I was ready ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 10 • Various
... rejoined, admiration unbounded in his eyes for the picture she was of maidenly charm and womanly beauty, "I should say that goodness was a more wonderful thing. But power is the most common ambition, and only a handful of the hundreds of millions get it in any large way. I used to feel it tremendously when I first heard the stamps pounding ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... fair young creatures, ready with their oaths. They are asked to fix all time to the moment, and they do so. If there is hesitation at the immense undertaking, it is but maidenly. She conceives as little mental doubt of the sanity of the act as he. Over them hangs a cool young curate in his raiment of office. Behind are two apparently lucid people, distinguished from each other ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... been lost, had Sempland been as wise as he was brave. Perhaps he wasn't quite master of himself on account of his experience in war, and his lack of it in women, for he instantly conceived that her hesitation was due to some other cause than maidenly incertitude, and that Harry Lacy, of whom he had grown mightily jealous, was at the bottom ...
— A Little Traitor to the South - A War Time Comedy With a Tragic Interlude • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... Rick denied. "You know all the right answers. And why? Because the Megabuck Mob is behind you. The Megabuck Moose is going through the cards, and the Megabuck Mole is feeding the answers into the Megabuck Memory Machine, and the Megabuck Moll in maidenly modesty mumbles madly—" ...
— The Electronic Mind Reader • John Blaine
... sweet glimpses of heaven, Her life is that heaven brought down; Oh, never to mortal was given So rare and bejewelled a crown! I'll wear it as saints wear the glory That radiantly clasps them above— Oh, dower most fair! Oh, diadem rare! Bright crown of her maidenly love. ...
— Hesperus - and Other Poems and Lyrics • Charles Sangster
... interrupt me. I shall not reproach you. You are the master of your own actions. You have one daughter who is twelve years old; in a short time she will be a marriageable girl. I have not come to this house to make a scene, nor do I wish to preach about morality, or religion, or God, or maidenly innocence, subjects which great men and grand gentlemen simply sneer at as the stock-in-trade of hypocrites. I will therefore tell you in a couple of words why I have come. All I ask is that you deliver over to me your youngest daughter. I will engage to bring her up honourably ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai
... and face In which full plainly I can trace Benignity, and home-bred sense, Ripening in perfect innocence. Here scattered, like a random seed, Remote from men, thou dost not need The embarrassed look of shy distress And maidenly shamefacedness. Thou wear'st upon thy forehead clear The freedom of a mountaineer. A face with gladness overspread, Soft smiles, by human kindness bred, And seemliness complete, that sways Thy courtesies, about thee plays. With no restraint, save such ...
— Sanitary and Social Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... is a little inn across the river, well known to the wilder blades of Plassenburg. There they go to be outside the authority of the city magistrates, to make rendezvous with maids more complaisant than maidenly, to fight their duels, and generally to do those things without remark which otherwise bring them under the eye of the Miller's Son, as they one and all call (behind his back) the reigning ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... Sarah Ann, whose love, gettin' the upper hand of maidenly reeserve, has sent her projectin' 'round in search of ...
— Faro Nell and Her Friends - Wolfville Stories • Alfred Henry Lewis
... this taste of theirs; but they are mistaken, for it shows itself in many ways, and betrays them. Attitudes, looks, careless words, and a morbid or foolishly romantic view of certain things, show plainly that the maidenly instincts are blunted, and harm done that ...
— A Garland for Girls • Louisa May Alcott
... while to see this race in the forest. As the doe leaps, scarcely touching the ground, ran Lightfoot. As the wolf or hound runs, less swift for the moment, but tireless, ran the man behind her. Yet of all the men in the cave region, this flying girl wanted most this man to take her! It was the maidenly force-dreading instinct alone ...
— The Story of Ab - A Tale of the Time of the Cave Man • Stanley Waterloo
... had told her that; and even if her station had been the same as his, she must not be "unequally yoked with an unbeliever." And thus the very hopelessness of her love became its food and strength; the feeling which she would have checked with maidenly modesty, had it been connected even remotely with marriage, was allowed to take immediate and entire dominion; and she held herself permitted to keep him next her heart of hearts, because she could do nothing for him but pray for ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley |
