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Mistress   Listen
noun
Mistress  n.  
1.
A woman having power, authority, or ownership; a woman who exercises authority, is chief, etc.; the female head of a family, a school, etc. "The late queen's gentlewoman! a knight's daughter! To be her mistress' mistress!"
2.
A woman well skilled in anything, or having the mastery over it. "A letter desires all young wives to make themselves mistresses of Wingate's Arithmetic."
3.
A woman regarded with love and devotion; she who has command over one's heart; a beloved object; a sweetheart. (Poetic)
4.
A woman filling the place, but without the rights, of a wife; a woman having an ongoing usually exclusive sexual relationship with a man, who may provide her with financial support in return; a concubine; a loose woman with whom one consorts habitually; as, both his wife and his mistress attended his funeral.
5.
A title of courtesy formerly prefixed to the name of a woman, married or unmarried, but now superseded by the contracted forms, Mrs., for a married, and Miss, for an unmarried, woman. "Now Mistress Gilpin (careful soul)."
6.
A married woman; a wife. (Scot.) "Several of the neighboring mistresses had assembled to witness the event of this memorable evening."
7.
The old name of the jack at bowls.
To be one's own mistress, to be exempt from control by another person.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Mistress" Quotes from Famous Books



... done so," Morris answered, "if you had not had so much the appearance of leaving your daughter at liberty. She seems to me quite her own mistress." ...
— Washington Square • Henry James

... was made King of Navarre, as may be seen in the book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Spain. And when all these things were done they departed each to his own home, and Gil Diaz remained, serving and doing honour to the bodies of his master the Cid and Doa Ximena his mistress. ...
— Chronicle Of The Cid • Various

... a coalheaver; but 'e was a mill-'and, an' I was a milliner's girl in a little shop in London w'en I married 'im, an' I 'adn't a farthing. An' look at the beautiful 'ouse I'm mistress o' now, an' look at the money 'e spends on you an' me both—never stints us for anythin'! I'm sure you ought to be grateful to 'im. I am, for I never expected to rise to this w'en I was a milliner's ...
— Sarah's School Friend • May Baldwin

... servant. Then she began to grow a little weary of it all. She had been accustomed, of course, to performing such offices as all Dutch ladies fulfil—the care of china, of linen, the dusting of rooms, and the like; but she had done them as a mistress, not as an underling. And that was not the worst; it was when it came to her pretty feet having to be thrust into klompen, and her having to take a pail and syringe and mop and clean the windows and the pathway ...
— Stories By English Authors: Germany • Various

... enough to enable her afterwards to report to some half-dozen particular friends, that her old master, Sir Henry, had been perilous angry, and almost fought with young Master Everard, because he had wellnigh carried away her young mistress.—"And what could he have done better?" said Phoebe, "seeing the old man had nothing left either for Mrs. Alice or himself; and as for Mr. Mark Everard and our young lady, oh! they had spoken such loving things to each other as are not to be found in the ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott

... mistress, who had follow'd fast, Cried, "Little rogue, you're caught at last; I'm fleeter, Sir, than you." Then straight the wanderer convey'd Where tangled shrubs, in branching shade, Protected ...
— London Lyrics • Frederick Locker

... and die; and to carry out her view she hit upon an ingenious plan. She gave the servant, who took the dinner to Father——, strict orders not to leave the house until he had dined; the reason to be given to him for this was, that her mistress wished her to bring back the things in which the dinner had been carried to him. That priest, I am glad to say, is still among us, and should these lines meet his eye, he will remember the circumstance, and the honest and true authority on which it ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke

... Evidently Sarah Emily had returned in no prodigal-son's frame of mind. Ordinarily the mistress would have sharply rebuked the girl's manner of speech, but now she bent to her work with an air of having washed her hands finally of ...
— 'Lizbeth of the Dale • Marian Keith

... garnished, and nothing remained but to take counsel with Heap the cook, and draw out a menu of a dinner which could most successfully combat the strain of waiting. The spinster's own appetite, though sparse, was fastidious, and Heap was a mistress of her art, so that between the two a dainty little meal was arranged, while Mason, not to be outdone, endeavoured to impart an extra polish to her already highly-burnished silver. In the seclusion of the pantry she hummed ...
— Flaming June • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... his mistress, but his silence was more significant than if he had written four pages about her; and, in these icy letters, Jeanne could perceive the influence of this unknown woman who was, by instinct, the ...
— The works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 5 (of 8) - Une Vie and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant 1850-1893

... Pegasus often came to drink. There stood the spirited steed. Bellerophon drew near. Pegasus spread his strong wings and was just about to fly when Bellerophon held out the bridle. Then the noble horse bent his head and walked up to the young man. He knew that the golden bridle came from his mistress. ...
— The Book of Stories for the Storyteller • Fanny E. Coe

... as Anne's sister—though, as Mr. J.L. T-LE observed, as she is younger than Anne, she cannot well be her Anne-sister—is as bright and lively as need be, considering her menial position, which is rather odd in her sister's house. Visit Mistress NANCE TERRY; you'll find her very much "at home" in the part. After which The Corsican Brothers revived, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, May 23, 1891 • Various

... with others, certainly he who has undertaken the duties of a scholar must not yield too readily to these amiable wishes. He, as a sworn soldier of Truth, stands sacredly bound to be as free from favor as from fear, and to follow steadily wherever the standards of his imperial mistress lead him on. And so performing his lawful service, he may bear in mind that at last the interests of Truth are those of every soul, be it of them that we number with the dead, or that are still reckoned among these that we greet as living. Let us not be petty in our kindness. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... Mr. Hyde. See her purring on the hearth-rug in front of the fire, and she seems the picture of innocence and guileless content. All a blind, my dear fellow, all a blind. Wait till night comes. Then where is demure Mistress Puss? Is she at home keeping vigil with the good dog Tray? No, the house may be in blazes or ransacked by burglars for all she cares. She is out on the tiles and in back gardens pursuing her unholy ritual—that strange ritual that seems so Oriental, so sinister, so full of devilish ...
— Pebbles on the Shore • Alpha of the Plough (Alfred George Gardiner)

... decease; and, as it was well understood that Mr. Wyatt had engaged passage for his wife, it became necessary that some person should personate her during the voyage. This the deceased lady's-maid was easily prevailed on to do. The extra state-room, originally engaged for this girl during her mistress' life, was now merely retained. In this state-room the pseudo-wife, slept, of course, every night. In the daytime she performed, to the best of her ability, the part of her mistress—whose person, it had ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... of the injunction of his preceptor took up his abode in the latter's house. And while Utanka was residing there, the females of his preceptor's house having assembled addressed him and said, 'O Utanka, thy mistress is in that season when connubial connection might be fruitful. The preceptor is absent; then stand thou in his place and do the needful.' And Utanka, thus addressed, said unto those women, 'It is not proper for me to do this at the bidding of women. I have not been enjoined ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa - Translated into English Prose - Adi Parva (First Parva, or First Book) • Kisari Mohan Ganguli (Translator)

... were certainly tophole and made their mistress so unreasonably comfortable that she greatly feared the risk of being spoilt. It is true they perplexed her not a little, since no single one of them bestrewed the house with fallen aspirates, sang while ...
— Men of Affairs • Roland Pertwee

... mistress of the sea was Phoenicia. The Phoenicians, oddly enough, were a Semitic people, a nomadic race with no traditions of the sea whatever. When, however, they migrated to the coast and settled, they found themselves in a narrow strip of coast between a range of mountains and the ...
— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott

... mustn't fret here,' interrupted she. 'I'm my own mistress, I suppose. However, I'll tell you this much, that I don't care a bit about him, and that's the truth of it—but I did not like your coming inside the bar so quietly, as if you had a right there, for I don't want ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat

... a tall thin old man with beard and hair as white as snow, who they thought was a Jew, approaching slowly, very slowly, towards the house. The servant girls stared mockingly through the window at him, and their mistress laughed unfeelingly at the "old Jew," and lifted the children up, one after the other, to get a sight of him as he neared the house. He came to the door, and entered the house boldly enough, and inquired after his parents. The mistress answered him in a ...
— Welsh Folk-Lore - a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales • Elias Owen

... the conclusion of the Revolutionary War; but over all the remainder of the Old Northwest, England was in control. Although she ceded the region by the treaty which closed the Revolution, she remained for many years the mistress of the Indians and the fur trade. When Lord Shelburne was upbraided in parliament for yielding the Northwest to the United States, the complaint was that he had clothed the Americans "in the warm covering of our fur trade," and his ...
— The Frontier in American History • Frederick Jackson Turner

... locked up Agatharchus the painter, and when he had painted his house let him go with a present. He boxed Taurea's ears because he was exhibiting shows in rivalry with him, and contending with him for the prize. And he even took one of the captive Melian women for his mistress, and brought up a child which he had by her. This was thought to show his good nature; but this term cannot be applied to the slaughter of all the males above puberty in the island of Melos, which was done in accordance with a decree promoted ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch

... word or glance; she locked herself into her pantry when she took down the breakfast-things, and avoided every encounter, even when she had begun to feel that it would have been more flattering had he made more efforts. At last, dire necessity obliged her to accept his aid in carrying her mistress's box down the stairs. He walked backwards, she forwards. She would not meet his eye, and he was too well-bred for one word on the stairs; but in the garden he exclaimed, 'Miss Arnold, what ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II) • Charlotte M. Yonge

... are: Chiefs with women chiefs; timaguas with those of that rank; and slaves with those of their own class. But sometimes these classes intermarry with one another. They considered one woman, whom they married, as the legitimate wife and the mistress of the house; and she was styled ynasaba. [147] Those whom they kept besides her they considered as friends. The children of the first were regarded as legitimate and whole heirs of their parents; the children of the others were ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVI, 1609 • H.E. Blair

... paint," and with the kindest disposition; full of life and "go," but without the smallest particle of vice. It was an even question which loved the other best, Bobs or Norah. No one ever rode him except his little mistress. The pair were hard to ...
— A Little Bush Maid • Mary Grant Bruce

... Clorinda, not perceiving her mistress on the veranda. "I neber seed nobody lose tings so; 'taint a month since she lost a di'mond ring, and all she said, when her maid missed it, was, 'It can't ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens

... delighted and half incredulous at the great change in her fortunes. The spacious and comfortable mansion of which she found herself the little mistress; the high rank of the veteran officer who claimed her as his ward and niece; the abundance, regularity and respectability of her new life; the leisure, the privacy, the attendance of servants, were all so different from ...
— Hidden Hand • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth

... philosophy; for the one supreme Godhead can unfold his inexhaustible essence in a variety of existences, which, while his creatures as to their origin, are parts of his essence as to their contents. This Monotheism does not yet exactly disclaim its Polytheistic origin. The Christian, Hermas, says to his Mistress (Vis. I 1. 7) [Greek: ou pantote se hos thean hegesamen], and the author of the Epistle of Diognetus writes (X. 6), [Greek: tauta tois epideomenois choregon], (i.e., the rich man) [Greek: theos ginetai ton lambanonton]. That the concept [Greek: ...
— History of Dogma, Volume 1 (of 7) • Adolph Harnack

... this indeed a bower, wherein a girl ought to be happy? the bird in the window thinks his blue and gold cage the finest house in the world, and sings as heartily and cheerily as if he had been in the wide green forest; but his mistress does not sing. She sits in the easy-chair, with a book upside-down in her lap, and frowns,—actually frowns, in a forget-me-not bower! There is not much the matter, really. Her head aches, that is ...
— Queen Hildegarde • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards

... any department of the Government, by which I mean only that she had no acknowledged position, rank, rights or duties, was not employed, paid, or compensated in any way, had authority over no one, and was subject to no one's orders. She was simply an American lady, mistress of herself and of no one else; free to stay at home, if she had a home, and equally free to go where she pleased, if she could procure passports and transportation, which was not always an easy matter. From many individual officers, ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett

... extreme weakness prevent me from speaking, here are in a few words my intentions and last wishes: 'May all the brethren love each other as I have loved them, and as I now love them. May they always cherish and adhere to poverty, which is my lady and my mistress; and never let them cease from being submissive and faithfully attached to the prelates and all the clergy. May the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost bless and protect ...
— The Life and Legends of Saint Francis of Assisi • Father Candide Chalippe

... climate, he protested, was "a grinding of him down." "He is a poor soft country fellow; and his master locks him up at night, in a basement room with iron bars to the window. Between which our servants poke wine in, at midnight. His master and mistress buy old boxes at the curiosity shops, and pass their lives in lining 'em with bits of parti-coloured velvet. A droll existence, is it not? We are lucky to have had the palace to ourselves until now, but it is so large that we never see or hear these people; ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster

... of the statement in Grundy's Reminiscences that Branwell declared he invented the plot and wrote the major part of "Wuthering Heights." Certain it is he possest transcending genius and that in this room that genius was slain. Here he received the message of renunciation from his depraved mistress which finally wrecked his life; the landlady, entering after the messenger had gone, found him in a fit on the floor. Emily Bronte's rescue of her dog, an incident recorded in "Shirley," ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors - Vol. II Great Britain And Ireland, Part Two • Francis W. Halsey

... kept discreetly to himself; he was not going to imperil his situation by telling such a story about his future master and mistress. All the same, the old father and mother began to grow very uneasy. Mrs. Alfred was too unwell to appear next day, nor would she see any one. She wanted brandy, however, to keep her system up. The following day the same legend was repeated. On the ...
— The Beautiful Wretch; The Pupil of Aurelius; and The Four Macnicols • William Black

... too passionate to be admitted within his mistress' house, stood at her window. This method of philandering, surely most conducive to the ideal, is variously known as comer hierro, to eat iron, and pelar la pava, to pluck the turkey. One imagines that the cold air of a winter's night must render the most ardent lover platonic. It is a significant ...
— The Land of The Blessed Virgin; Sketches and Impressions in Andalusia • William Somerset Maugham

... time since I saw him,' Adela replied simply, smiling in the joy of being so entirely mistress ...
— Demos • George Gissing

... any clear idea of Seth's character, or the exact standpoint from which he viewed life and his fellows. On the Virginian estate he had always led an isolated kind of existence, happier apparently in his own company than any other. His devotion to his mistress and her boy was known, and passed for one of his peculiarities, had occasionally indeed been cast in his teeth as a selfish device for winning favor. Barrington, as a boy, had made use of him, as ...
— The Light That Lures • Percy Brebner

... for the melancholy dinner that had to go on all the same, and in the midst all were startled by the arrival of a telegram, which Macrae, looking awestruck, actually delivered to Harry instead of to his mistress; but it was not from Ceylon. It was from Colonel Mohun, from Beechcroft: 'Coming 6.30. Going with ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge

... not treated with great indulgence, nor rewarded by many commendations; for the English are laconic and reserved towards their domestics; but an approving nod and kind word from master or mistress, goes as far here, as an excess of praise or indulgence elsewhere. Neither do servants exhibit any animated marks of affection to their employers; yet, though quiet, they are strong in their attachments; and the reciprocal regard ...
— Bracebridge Hall • Washington Irving

... The word rendered in our version 'damsel' means a female slave. Her name, which is a Gentile name, and her servile condition, make it probable that she was not a Jewess. If one might venture to indulge in a guess, it is not at all unlikely that her mistress, Mary, John Mark's mother, Barnabas' sister, a well-to-do woman of Jerusalem, who had a house large enough to take in the members of the Church in great numbers, and to keep up a considerable establishment, had brought this slave-girl from the island of Cyprus. At all events, she was a slave. ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren

... perhaps, difficult for us to imagine an Egyptian in love repeating madrigals to his mistress,* for we cannot easily realise that the hard and blackened bodies we see in our museums have once been men and women loving and ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 5 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... hinted, we were not surprised that Jenny should be willing to remain with us, and were as little prepared for her desertion as for any other change of our moral state. But one day in September she came to her nominal mistress with tears in her beautiful eyes and protestations of unexampled devotion upon her tongue, and said that she was afraid she must leave us. She liked the place, and she never had worked for any one that was more of a lady, but she had made up her mind to go into ...
— Suburban Sketches • W.D. Howells

... Isle, whose good humour and light-heartedness in the discomforts of a new Settlement had earned her the name of cheerful Ellen, hearing the tumult outside, and seeing Mr. Jardine rush out gun in hand, imagined also that they were about to have another attack. Seizing her mistress in her arms, with more kindness than ceremony, she bore her away to her own room, where, having deposited her burden, she turned the key on her, saying, "that was no place for her whilst fighting was going on." Nor was it until she was ...
— The Overland Expedition of The Messrs. Jardine • Frank Jardine and Alexander Jardine

... I shall relate all that history of the diamonds, which can now compromise nobody but an old queen, who need not be ashamed, after being the wife of a miserly creature like Mazarin, of having formerly been the mistress of a handsome nobleman like Buckingham. Mordioux! that is the thing, and this Monk shall not get the better of me. Eh? and besides I have ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... of Jacquelin and Josette now took place: it was gay; and they were the only two persons in Alencon who refuted the sinister prophecies relating to the marriage of their mistress. ...
— The Jealousies of a Country Town • Honore de Balzac

... Left alone with his mistress, Alain fell into a great embarrassment. Marguerite, for her part, felt a qualm of conscience, had he only known it. But her amour-propre was, none the less, extremely hurt by his cavalier treatment of her flowers. She was by no means in love with the saucy Scot, who ...
— St George's Cross • H. G. Keene

... wear their gloves, and prevent Robin and Wilfred from filling their pockets with nut shells, stones, frogs, or other unsuitable articles which were apt to stray out in class and call down the vials of the mistress's wrath upon their heads. She saw that they learnt their home lessons, did their sums, practised their due portions upon the piano: and it took up so much of her own time, that she had to work hard to get in even the moderate amount of preparation that was deemed necessary at Miss ...
— The Nicest Girl in the School - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil

... from the above. I was invited to spend the following Saturday and Sunday with a gentleman and his family. I was punctual to my appointment, and was driven by my carman up to the door of a new house in a very pretty situation. I was shown into the drawing-room, where I waited some time for the mistress of the house to make her appearance. She was a matronly person, with a bland smile on her countenance. Her dress was of a uniform grey, with trimmings of the same colour. We tried conversation, but somehow it failed. I fear my remarks were more meaningless than usual on such occasions. ...
— A Boy's Voyage Round the World • The Son of Samuel Smiles

... has given the English State practically everything which makes for internal peace, solidarity and national health. It has enabled the nation to exercise tolerance within, and develop splendour and power without, which in their turn have made Britannia the mistress of the world's waterways, and the British the first colonial nation in ...
— What Germany Thinks - The War as Germans see it • Thomas F. A. Smith

... doubt for a single second that his presence in 'Prince Polozov's' drawing-room was a fact perfectly well known to its mistress; the whole point of her entry had been the display of her hair, which was certainly beautiful. Sanin was inwardly delighted indeed at this freak on the part of Madame Polozov; if, he thought, she is anxious to impress me, to dazzle ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev

... the edge, for fear of falling. The wife minced a bit of meat, then crumbled some bread on a trencher, and placed it before me. I made her a low bow, took out my knife and fork, and fell to eat, which gave them exceeding delight. The mistress sent her maid for a small dram cup, which held about two gallons, and filled it with drink; I took up the vessel with much difficulty in both hands, and in a most respectful manner drank to her ladyship's health, ...
— The Children's Hour, v 5. Stories From Seven Old Favorites • Eva March Tappan

... the hall door in another minute, and the mistress of the house pulled the bell with numbed ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross

... all their endeavours, very heavily, the eldest took pity on my awkwardness, sat down to her instrument, of which she was a past mistress, and entertained me for a while with playing and singing, both in the Scots and in the Italian manners; this put me more at my ease, and being reminded of Alan's air that he had taught me in the hole near Carriden, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 11 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... were glad to be able to please their gentle mistress; they made no further inquiry, but seized the enormous stone. They were just raising it in their hands, and were already poising it over the fountain, when Bertalda came running up, and called out to them to stop, as it was from this fountain that the water ...
— Undine - I • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque

... words of passionate love, sped on. And when his passion lent wings to his feet and she heard him gaining on her as she fled, not as a lover did Daphne look on deathless Apollo, but as a hateful foe. More swiftly than she had ever run beside her mistress Diana, leaving the flying winds behind her as she sped, ran Daphne now. But ever did Apollo gain upon her, and almost had he grasped her when she reached the green banks of the river of which her father, ...
— A Book of Myths • Jean Lang

... upstairs to the charming room assigned to her. Every dainty convenience was within its walls. The pleasant maid's manner was all alacrity. It was safe to believe that she knew more than her mistress about Geraldine, and the attitude toward her of the young master of the house. The guest looked about her and recalled her room at the Carder farm, the patchwork quilt at the Upton Emporium, and her last shakedown under the eaves of the ...
— In Apple-Blossom Time - A Fairy-Tale to Date • Clara Louise Burnham

... be sure, some sceptical persons told the whole story very differently. According, to their account, Miss Sarah had been the mistress of M. de Kergrist, and, seeing him utterly ruined, had sent him off one fine morning. They stated, that, the evening before the accident, he had come to the house at the usual hour, and, finding it closed, had begged, and even wept, and finally threatened to kill ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau

... my dear old Nurse Who loved me without gains; I love my mistress even, Friend, Mother, what you will: But I could almost curse My Father for his pains; And sometimes at my prayer, Kneeling in sight of Heaven, I almost curse him still: Why did he set his snare To catch at unaware My Mother's foolish youth; Load me with shame that's hers, ...
— Poems • Christina G. Rossetti

... arms, she held a dripping clout. In front of her, on a half-dried space of clean, shining floor, stood Mrs. Lessways, her head wrapped in a flannel petticoat. Nearer to the child stretched a small semi-circle of liquid mud; to the rear was the untouched dirty floor. Florrie was looking up at her mistress with respectful, strained attention. She could not proceed with her work because Mrs. Lessways had chosen this moment to instruct her, with much snuffling, in the duties and responsibilities of ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett

... must be obeyed—had me in good training. I flung one hand to the mistress, the other to the maid in farewell, pitched headlong into the cab, and went whirling down Sixth Avenue and across to the theatre stage-door, then upstairs to the morsel of space called by ...
— [19th Century Actor] Autobiographies • George Iles

... fellow-servants were working for their own ends, while he alone was faithful to his bond. He, doubtless, had his dreams, conjured up by SAGACITY, of pouncing upon the unfaithful ones, denouncing them to his mistress, the State, and begging her to allow him to do their work as well as his own, till such time as the danger was past, and her desire for a more popular government could be fulfilled. But in so doing he would have deceived her, and he chose the truth. He knew that he had no right to substitute ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr

... maiden who the lady was. "Heaven knows," replied the maiden, "she may be said to be the fairest, and the most chaste, and the most liberal, and the wisest, and the most noble of women. And she is my mistress; and she is called the Countess of the Fountain, the wife of him whom thou didst slay yesterday." "Verily," said Owain, "she is the woman that I love best." "Verily," said the maiden, "she shall also love thee ...
— The Mabinogion • Lady Charlotte Guest

... a treat made by the earl of Westmoreland, while, not only himself, but king William, and other of his subjects were detained there by a violent storm, which he has no less humorously described, and has, among his poems, written also an ingenious copy of verses to his mistress on the same subject. Whether this mistress was the same person he calls his charming Penelope, in several of his love letters addressed to her, we know not, but we have been informed by an old officer ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. III • Theophilus Cibber

... marred the splendour of this appearance; a heap of books from the library strewed the back seat of the carriage, and showed that her habits were literary. Springing down from his station behind his mistress, the youth clad in the nether garments of red sammit discharged thunderclaps on the door of Mrs. Newcome's house, announcing to the whole Square that his mistress had returned to her abode. Since the fort saluted ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray

... during all this time occupied a villa called Lachine, about half a mile from the north camp. The house stands in its own grounds, but the west side of it is not more than thirty yards from the high-road. A coachman and two maids form the staff of servants. These with their master and mistress were the sole occupants of Lachine, for the Barclays had no children, nor was it usual for ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

... his household and waylaid the Count of Masino as he was returning, with his brother and eight or nine servants, late one night from supper. Both the brothers and the greater part of their suite were killed; but Don Pietro was caught. He revealed the atrocity of his mistress; and she was sent to prison. Incapable of proving her innocence, and prevented from escaping, in spite of fifteen thousand golden crowns with which she hoped to bribe her jailers, she was finally ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds

... he wondered, had she known he had dared to compare her, even in his own thoughts, with a king's mistress? He meant no insult—far from it! But would she have ...
— One Day - A sequel to 'Three Weeks' • Anonymous

... in Rome! I behold, and as it were, familiarly converse with the wonder of the world, sovereign mistress of the imagination, majestic and eternal survivor of millions of generations of extinct men. I endeavoured to quiet the sorrows of my aching heart, by even now taking an interest in what in my youth I had ardently longed to see. Every part of Rome is replete with relics of ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley

... a shed flower fallen, nor heard The ominous entry, nor saw the other love, The dark, the grave-eyed mistress who thus dared At such an hour to lay her claim, above A stricken wife, so sunk in oblivion, bowed With misery, ...
— New Poems • D. H. Lawrence

... and women are enjoying the promise of the morning, the fulfilment of the afternoon, the tranquillity of evening, we are still trying to discover a fitting epithet for the dew of dawn. For us Spring paves the woods with beautiful words rather than flowers, and when we look into the eyes of our mistress we see nothing but adjectives. Love is an occasion for songs; Death but the overburdened father of all our saddest phrases. We are of those who are born crying into the world because they cannot speak, and we end, like Stevenson, ...
— The Ghost Ship • Richard Middleton

... weather has been unfavorable, or the colony is quite weak, the young queen is sometimes not impregnated as early as usual, and an allowance of a few days must be made on this account. If the weather is favorable, and the colony a good one, the queen usually leaves, the day after she finds herself mistress of a family. In about two days more, she begins to lay her eggs. By waiting about a week before the examination is made, ample allowance, ...
— Langstroth on the Hive and the Honey-Bee - A Bee Keeper's Manual • L. L. Langstroth

... correctly Printed from those Editions. The First Volume contains, I. Venus and Adonis. II. The Rape of Lucrece. III. The Passionate Pilgrim. IV. Some Sonnets set to sundry Notes of Musick. The Second Volume contains One Hundred and Fifty Four Sonnets, all of them in Praise of his Mistress. II. A Lover's Complaint of his Angry Mistress. London: Printed for Bernard Lintott, at the Cross-Keys, between the Two Temple-Gates ...
— Catalogue of the Books Presented by Edward Capell to the Library of Trinity College in Cambridge • W. W. Greg

... home cooking may be downright poisonous to him. He may yearn for a son to pray at his tomb—and yet suffer acutely at the me reapproach of relatives-in-law. He may dream of a beautiful and complaisant mistress, less exigent and mercurial than any a bachelor may hope to discover—and stand aghast at admitting her to his bank-book, his family-tree and his secret ambitions. He may want company and not intimacy, ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken

... he should manage the escape of the queen, for it would be impossible to take her away in one of the royal carriages, with the arms of France painted upon it. On passing before the hotel of Madame de Guemenee, who passed for the mistress of Monsieur de Gondy, he perceived a coach standing at the door. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various

... I found that Peter was close behind. Apparently he had been struck by the singularity of his mistress' behaviour, and had followed to see that it did not meet with the reward which it deserved. I spoke ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh

... JEAN. The mistress of everything, the chief ornament of the house. With your looks—and your manners—oh, success will be assured! Enormous! You'll sit like a queen in the office and keep the slaves going by the touch of an electric button. The ...
— Plays by August Strindberg, Second series • August Strindberg

... afterwards for having accepted the hundred roubles and having even gone to thank Varvara Petrovna for them, instead of having returned the money with contempt, because it had come from his former despotic mistress. He lived in solitude on the outskirts of the town, and did not like any of us to go and see him. He used to turn up invariably at Stepan Trofimovitch's evenings, and borrowed newspapers and ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... has no money, but he's ready to marry her. Yes, ready to marry her! to abandon his betrothed, a rare beauty, Katerina Ivanovna, who's rich, and the daughter of a colonel, and to marry Grushenka, who has been the mistress of a dissolute old merchant, Samsonov, a coarse, uneducated, provincial mayor. Some murderous conflict may well come to pass from all this, and that's what your brother Ivan is waiting for. It would suit him down to the ground. He'll carry off Katerina Ivanovna, for whom he is languishing, ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... do so,—a perfect and most provoking dog in a manger. Her girl-associate would look behind every now and then to take observations, and I mentally hoped that the frisky Bucephalus would frisk his mistress out of the cart and break her ne—arm, or at least put her shoulder out of joint. If he did, I had fully determined in my own mind to hasten to her assistance, and shame her to death with delicate and assiduous kindness. ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton

... mistress in?" he asked. He could think of no other question, but it served his purpose as a test of ...
— The Masquerader • Katherine Cecil Thurston

... across the floor of the other when she heard a crash. The candle dropped from her hand, and all the blood in her body rushed to her heart. She could never have imagined it was so terrible to be frightened. She tried to pull herself together and be calm, but she was no longer mistress of her limbs. Her knees knocked together and her hands shook. "It was only the dogs," she feebly told herself, "I will call them"; but when she opened her mouth, she found her throat was paralysed—not a syllable would come. She knew, too, that she had lied, and that ...
— Scottish Ghost Stories • Elliott O'Donnell

... must be made without Isabel's knowledge. It must further be made to appear incidental to Mrs. Meredith herself—-or to Rowan. She arranged therefore with that tortuous and superfluous calculation of which hypocrisy is such a master—and mistress—that she would at breakfast, in Isabel's presence, order the carriage, and announce her intention of going out to the farm of Ambrose Webb. Ambrose Webb was a close neighbor of the Merediths. He owned a small estate, ...
— The Mettle of the Pasture • James Lane Allen

... will be caned when it is over. Indeed his Lordship became positively skittish, and Miss Arminster was obliged to squelch him a little, as that young lady, for excellent reasons of her own, had no more intention of becoming the mistress of Blanford than she had of wedding the author of "The Purple Kangaroo." On the other hand, she realised that it was one of the old gentleman's very rare treats, and she wanted him to have as good a time as possible; besides which, she had always longed to take a cruise on a steam-yacht, and now ...
— His Lordship's Leopard - A Truthful Narration of Some Impossible Facts • David Dwight Wells

... took her hand in mine and raised it to my lips, and said, 'Dear Mistress Grace, I have forgotten nothing, and honour you above all others: but of love I may not speak more to you—nor you to me, for we are no more boy and girl as in times past, but you a noble lady and I a broken wretch'; and with that I told how I had been ...
— Moonfleet • J. Meade Falkner

... to do with that, Frank Muller? The girl is her own mistress. I cannot dispose of her in marriage, even if I wished it, as though she were a colt or an ox. You must plead your own suit ...
— Jess • H. Rider Haggard

... not only thrown off the Brahmanical yoke themselves, but do much to oppose the influence of Brahmans among the agriculturists. The Brahmans represent them as descended from one Krishna Bhat, a Brahman who was outcasted for keeping a beautiful Mang woman as his mistress. His four sons were called the Mang-bhaos or Mang brothers." This is an excellent instance of the Brahman talent for pressing etymology into their service as an argument, in which respect they resemble the Jesuits. By asserting that the Manbhaos are ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell

... far as his halter would allow, held up his head, and said, "My name is Merrylegs. I am very handsome; I carry the young ladies on my back, and sometimes I take our mistress out in the low chair. They think a great deal of me, and so does James. Are you going to live next door to me in ...
— Black Beauty • Anna Sewell

... "offended the law of Dian," had to do penance before the whole congregation, and the sermon (unfortunately it is lost, probably it never was written out) was preached by Knox. A French apothecary of the Queen's, and his mistress, were hanged on a charge of murdering their child. {237a} On January 9, 1564-65, Randolph noted that one of the Queen's Maries, Mary Livingstone, is to marry John Sempill, son of Robert, third Lord Sempill, by an English wife. Knox assures us that "it ...
— John Knox and the Reformation • Andrew Lang

... said, Matthew Haygarth faded visibly. Mistress Rebecca came home from her love-feast, and nursed and tended her husband with considerable kindness, though, so far as I can make out, she was at the best a stern woman. He died three weeks after the event which I have described, and was buried in that vault close ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon

... you thus early, madam, but my mistress hath sent me to say your man is took very sick of an ague, and 'twill not be possible for you ...
— The Gold that Glitters - The Mistakes of Jenny Lavender • Emily Sarah Holt

... "you don't understand the laws of honor, as they are construed at the North. There, my dear fellow, every thing is regulated by law; and if a fellow treads on your corns, slanders you behind your back, or steals your mistress, the only remedy is 'an action for damages,' and, perhaps, a paragraph ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 5. May 1848 • Various

... noble endeavours to unfold a page anterior to the first page of the Bible; or rather, to discover what secrets are locked up in the first verse of it? But when, instead of being a faithful Servant, Natural Science affects the airs of an imperious Mistress,—what can she hope to incur at the hands of Theology, but displeasure and contempt? She forgets her proper place, and overlooks her lawful function. She prates about the laws of Nature in the presence of Him who, when He created the ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon

... lakes, and crossed miniature bridges guarded by mild stone lions, at which he smelled curiously; with me he sadly visited the Queen's bathing-place, and the pretty little dairy and farm, reminiscent of poor Marie Antoinette's beloved Trianon; and when we were joined by his mistress and the others he was ungrateful enough to pretend that I had not ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson

... a very great house, a very grand house, and there was to be a marvelous feast in it, and a prince and princess from over the seas were that night to honor the mistress of it by their presence. All this Rosa Indica had gathered from the chatter of the flowers, and when she came into the big palace she saw many signs of excitement and confusion: servants out of livery were running up against one another ...
— Bimbi • Louise de la Ramee

... affluence. Do you think I would leave your mother unprovided, unprotected? No! About a mile from this castle I have an estate called Weldendorf—there she shall live, and call her own whatever it produces. There she shall reign, and be sole mistress of the little paradise. There her past sufferings shall be changed to peace and tranquility. On a summer's morning, we, my son, will ride to visit her; pass a day, a week with her; and in this social intercourse ...
— Lover's Vows • Mrs. Inchbald

... herself; for she kept no servants. There she should continue to live; why need this purely personal compact between them two make any difference in her daily habits? She would go on with her school-work for the present, as usual. Oh, no, she certainly didn't intend to notify the head-mistress of the school or any one else, of her altered position. It was no alteration of position at all, so far as she was concerned; merely the addition to life of a new and very dear and natural friendship. Herminia took her own point of view so instinctively indeed,—lived ...
— The Woman Who Did • Grant Allen

... Mrs. Creighton and Mr. Ellsworth left Wyllys-Roof, Elinor set out to take a stroll in the field, with no other companion than her friend Bruno. The dog seemed aware that his mistress was absent and thoughtful, more indifferent than usual to his caresses and gambols; and, after having made this observation, the sagacious animal seemed determined not to annoy her, but walked soberly at her side, or occasionally trotting on before, he would stop, turn ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper

... not in the presence of his mistress; 'tis a greater neglect of her than himself; pray lend me your comb.... She comes, she comes; pray, your comb. (Snatches ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken

... Roumania would be permitted to annex the provinces occupied by their brethren in the Dual Monarchy and Servian expansion to the Adriatic would be assured. The Balkan States would almost inevitably fall under the controlling influence of Russia, who would become mistress of Constantinople and gain an unrestricted outlet to the Mediterranean through the Bosphorus, the Sea of Marmora, and ...
— The Balkan Wars: 1912-1913 - Third Edition • Jacob Gould Schurman

... said the little poet. "True as I stand here. You ask Jacob Hermann. It was he who told me about it. Jacob Hermann said to me one day: 'That Benjamin has a mistress for every fringe of his four-corners.' And how many is that, eh? I do not know why he should be allowed to slander me and I not be allowed to tell the truth about him. One day I will shoot him. You know he said that when ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill

... was Jack Hall and old mistress' name was Priscilla. Oh, yes'm, they was good to me—just as good to me as they could be. But ever' once in awhile they'd call me and say, 'Senia.' I'd say, 'What you want?' They say, 'Wasn't you out there doin' so and so?' I'd say, ...
— Slave Narratives: Arkansas Narratives - Arkansas Narratives, Part 6 • Works Projects Administration

... master and mistress were in debt, and that a creditor had a claim which could be discharged only by the sale of the child. "Then it was," said the slave mother, "I took him and left my home ...
— History of American Literature • Reuben Post Halleck

... she?" said Mr. Mathieson; and he stepped in with so little ceremony that the mistress of the house gave way before him. He looked round ...
— The Carpenter's Daughter • Anna Bartlett Warner

... until the termination of the week or month when his dear good Jane would visit the office to behold a vacated seat, or be assailed by the customary proposal. Irishmen were not likely to be far behind curates in besieging an heiress. For that matter, Jane was her own mistress and could very well take care of herself; he ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... marriage. His power extended even to the reinstatement of women expelled from the caste, whom he could subsequently make over to any one who would pay for them. At the end of his life he lost his authority among the people by keeping a Dhimar woman as a mistress, and he had no successor. A Panwar widow must not marry again until the expiry of six months after her husband's death. The stool on which a widow sits for her second marriage is afterwards stolen by her husband's friends. After the wedding when she reaches the boundary of ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell

... immortality. The latter interpretation makes the poet enlarge and glorify his subject; the former makes him belittle it, and bring the god of love to the audit of age and the ravage of wrinkles. This is the last sonnet of the first series; with the next begins the series relating to his mistress. Reading it literally, considering it as addressed to his friend, it is sparkling and poetic, a final word, loving, admonitory, in perfect line and keeping with the central thought of all that came before. From this Sonnet, interpreted as I indicate, I shall try to ...
— Testimony of the Sonnets as to the Authorship of the Shakespearean Plays and Poems • Jesse Johnson

... of this smote him, and made him sit down among them. And after the meeting was ended, and the Friends departed to their several homes, addressing himself to Mary Penington, as the mistress of the house, he could not enough magnify the bravery and courage of the Friends, nor sufficiently debase himself. He told her how long he had been a professor, what pains he had taken, what hazards he had run, in his youthful days, to get to meetings; how, when the ...
— The History of Thomas Ellwood Written by Himself • Thomas Ellwood

... They believed they would be doing their Emperor a great favor by destroying the canal. They were insane on the subject. They believed that Japan could never become mistress of the Pacific with the canal in operation and the fleets of the ...
— Boy Scouts in the Canal Zone - The Plot Against Uncle Sam • G. Harvey Ralphson

... village,' he answered, without looking from the book; 'first to buy gloves, then to see Miss Trip, the dancing mistress, who is ill, then to Hurst Park to tea, whence I am to fetch her ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 3 No 3, March 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... he had always felt a fascination, tempted him to write "Ivanoff," and also a dramatic sketch in one act entitled "The Swan Song," though he often declared that he had no ambition to become a dramatist. "The Novel," he wrote, "is a lawful wife, but the Stage is a noisy, flashy, and insolent mistress." He has put his opinion of the stage of his day in the mouth of Treplieff, in "The Sea-Gull," and he often refers to it in his letters as "an evil disease of the towns" and "the gallows ...
— Swan Song • Anton Checkov

... sumptuously every day, while Lazarus lay at the gate. One day a poor beggar, who had been harshly repulsed from the door, touched the heart of a servant by his manifest misery, and was received into the stables, where he died the same night. The dead man must needs be buried; so the servant went to the mistress, confessed his fault, received some violent language and notice of dismissal, but at the same time procured a sheet to serve as a shroud for the corpse. At dinner-time the lady perceived the very sheet, which she had given ...
— The Quarterly Review, Volume 162, No. 324, April, 1886 • Various

... Robert Machin eloped with Anne d'Arfet from Bristol (c. 1370), was driven from the coast of France by a north-east wind, and after thirteen days sighted an island, Madeira, where he landed. His ship was swept away by the storm, his mistress died of terror and exhaustion, and five days after Machin was laid beside her by his men, who had saved the ship's boat and now ran her upon the African coast. They were enslaved, like other Christian captives of the Barbary corsairs, but in 1416 a fellow-prisoner, ...
— Prince Henry the Navigator, the Hero of Portugal and of Modern Discovery, 1394-1460 A.D. • C. Raymond Beazley

... the Lord Chamberlain; How say you, my lord Shandois? I pray you, my Lord, says the Boy, give me the Figs you promised me; No, quoth the Lord, thou shalt be whipt, if thou come any more to the Lady Elizabeth or the Lord Courtenay. The Boy answered, I will bring my Lady and Mistress more flowers, whereupon the Child's Father was commanded to permit the Boy to come no more up into the chambers. The next Day, as her Grace was walking in the Garden, the Child peeping in at a Hole in the Door, cried unto her, Mistress, I can bring no more flowers: Whereat she smiled, but said ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote

... Entirely sympathising with her husband, labouring with zeal to advance his views, and living perpetually in the world, all these qualities came to light. During her first season she had been very quiet, not less observant, making herself mistress of the ground. It was prepared for her next campaign. When she evinced a disposition to take a lead, although found faultless the first year, it was suddenly remembered that she was a manufacturer's daughter; and she was once described by a great lady as 'that person ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli

... established themselves in the house in the Close on their return from their wedding tour, and Brooke at once put himself into intimate relations with the Messrs. Croppers, taking his fair share of the bank work. Dorothy was absolutely installed as mistress in her aunt's house with many wonderful ceremonies, with the unlocking of cupboards, the outpouring of stores, the giving up of keys, and with many speeches made to Martha. This was all very painful to Dorothy, who could not bring herself to suppose it possible that she should be ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope

... Leonardo says, "is the mistress of the higher intelligences"; and Goethe, in his most oracular utterances, recalls us to the same truth. What imagination does, and what the personal vision of the individual artist does, is to deal successfully and masterfully with this "given," this basic element. And this ...
— One Hundred Best Books • John Cowper Powys

... bring me quite through Lancaster's large county, Which I well know is fifty miles at large, And he defrayed all the cost and charge. This unlooked pleasure, was to me such pleasure, That I can ne'er express my thanks with measure. So Mistress Saracoal, hostess kind, And Manchester with thanks I left behind. The Wednesday being July's twenty nine, My journey I to Preston did confine, All the day long it rained but one shower, Which from the morning to the evening ...
— The Pennyles Pilgrimage - Or The Money-lesse Perambulation of John Taylor • John Taylor

... easily imposed on, and he had notions about women, despite all his philosophical reading and such like, that a little more mingling in society might have caused him to alter. Frank Lavender confessed to himself that Sheila was either a miracle of ingenuousness or a thorough mistress of the art of assuming it. On the one hand, he considered it almost impossible for a woman to be so disingenuous; on the other hand, how could this girl have taught herself, in the solitude of a savage island, a species of histrionicism ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Volume 11, No. 26, May, 1873 • Various

... joyously. At times Cucumbra interrupted by bounding in, as if impatient of the attention his little mistress was giving her tutor. Frequently the inquisitive Cantar-las-horas stalked through the room, displaying a most dignified and laudable interest in the proceedings. Late in the afternoon, when the sun was low, Bosendo ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking

... I gave my anxious mistress an exact account of all the conversation. She was very impatient for my coming, and wept tears of joy when I repeated her father's words of forgiveness; but when I told her that nobody knew of Steffani having entered her chamber, she fell on her knees and thanked God. I then repeated ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... lady's maid kept hinting that her mistress ought to have confided her necessities ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola

... 'come on;' and, whoever have well observed the movements of servants, must know what a prodigious difference there is in the effect of the words, go and come. A very good rule would be, to have nothing to eat, in a farmer's or tradesman's house, that the mistress did not know how to prepare and to cook; no pudding, tart, pie or cake, that she did not know how to make. Never fear the toil to her: exercise is good for health; and without health there is no beauty; a sick beauty may excite pity, but pity is a short-lived passion. Besides, ...
— Advice to Young Men • William Cobbett

... chair and began to cry hysterically. He had dealt with her in that state before, and Amanda had lived in Bleecker Street for many years. She was growing bored with the excessive respectability of her place, and was delighted to find that her mistress was human. Cold water, sal volatile, and hartshorn soon restored Madeleine's composure. She handed her hat to the woman and ...
— Sleeping Fires • Gertrude Atherton

... call God to witness that if Augustus, ruler of the world, should think me worthy the honor of marriage, and settle the whole globe on me to rule forever, it would seem dearer and prouder to me to be called your mistress ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner

... patriarch, when a feast was prepared for their entertainment. These different reunions were naturally productive of great pleasure, and tended to cement the friendship and love of those who otherwise might seldom see each other. The life led by the people when at home was exceedingly tame. The mistress of the house, who moved about but little, issued orders to slaves or Hottentot females concerning the work of the household. If the weather was chilly or damp, she rested her feet on a little box filled with live coals, while beside her stood a coffee-kettle never empty. ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 1 (of 6) - From the Foundation of Cape Colony to the Boer Ultimatum - of 9th Oct. 1899 • Louis Creswicke

... wonted passport through the gates of fame: It bribes the partial reader into praise, And throws a glory round the shelter'd lays: The dazzled judgment fewer faults can see, And gives applause to Blackmore, or to me. But you decline the mistress we pursue; Others are fond of fame, but fame of you. Instructive satire, true to virtue's cause! Thou shining supplement of public laws! When flatter'd crimes of a licentious age Reproach our silence, and demand our rage; When ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young

... vessel whatsoever that had cleared from a British port was to be excluded from all harbours of the French Republic. Thus all commercial nations were compelled, slowly but inevitably, to side with the master of the land or the mistress of ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose

... country is characteristic. The Russian language is full of diminutives expressive of affection. The peasant addresses his superior as Batushka, the affectionate diminutive of the word which means father; he addresses the mistress of the house as Matushka, which is the affectionate diminutive of the Russian word for mother. To his favorite drink, brandy, he has given the name which is the affectionate diminutive of the word voda, water—namely, vodka, which really means "dear little water.'' ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White

... have never been married, and only the married man knows anything of women. The Frenchmen are wrong. It is not the mistress who informs, it is the loving wife. For me the sex remains mysterious, like the heroine of ...
— The Woman With The Fan • Robert Hichens

... cavalier, and his long sojourning with my late master the Count Ugo at his palace of Casalabriva above the Taravo, and the love there was between him and my young mistress that is now the Queen Emilia. Lovers they were for all eyes to see but the old Count's. Mbe! we all gossiped of it, we servants and clansmen of the Colonne—even I, that kept the goats over Bicchivano, on the road leading ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine

... thrall," the dwarf replied. "We, on our road, encountered yesterday A knight, who seized and bore away the bride." Jealousy, upon this, took up the play, And, cold as asp, embraced the king: her guide Pursued his tale, relating how the train, Their mistress taken, by ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto

... cook, preparing a new dish? Is he a nursery maid soothing a refractory child? Is he a woman's dressmaker taking her mistress's orders? ...
— To-morrow? • Victoria Cross

... hard morning's work, took a long nap, only waking in time for his dinner. The next day he was put into a warm box, carried to the station, and after a three days' journey arrived in Milwaukee, happy, well, and delighted with his new master, apparently quite forgetting his little mistress whom he left ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf; a Practical Plan of Character Building, Volume I (of 17) - Fun and Thought for Little Folk • Various

... non-residence. She detested bread-sauce, which, as she said, looked like a poultice and tasted like soap; she objected to the consumption of beer by her maid-servants; and she affirmed that the British laundress (Mrs. Touchett was very particular about the appearance of her linen) was not a mistress of her art. At fixed intervals she paid a visit to her own country; but this last had been longer than ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James

... religious emotion, the outcome of the vehement impulse of the soul towards communion with the Life of its life. Speaking reverently, prayer and praise are like a lover's protestations, which are not an act of adulation at the shrine of his mistress, but an irresistible unburdening of the greatness of the emotion that fills his heart. But no lover could speak from his soul in a public place, in the sight or hearing of other men. Solitude, silence, "the element in which everything truly great is made," ...
— Morality as a Religion - An exposition of some first principles • W. R. Washington Sullivan

... guilty of one of his inaccuracies here. Lesbia was the lady to whom the poems of Catullus (87-47 B.C.?) were addressed, while Delia, who is mentioned below in connexion with Catullus, was in reality the mistress of ...
— La Legende des Siecles • Victor Hugo

... lit, my grog is mixed, My curtains drawn and all is snug; Old Puss is in her elbow chair, And Tray is sitting on the rug. Last night I had a curious dream, Miss Susan Bates was Mistress Mogg— What d'ye think of that, my cat? What d'ye think of that, ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton

... this. The girl looked at him pleasantly, calling him by his name as she answered him, as though she too desired to show him that he had again been taken into favor—into her favor as well as that of her mistress. ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope

... Stowe received into her family as a servant a colored girl from Kentucky. By the laws of Ohio she was free, having been brought into the State and left there by her mistress. In spite of this, Professor Stowe received word, after she had lived with them some months, that the girl's master was in the city looking for her, and that if she were not careful she would be seized and conveyed back into slavery. Finding that this ...
— The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe • Charles Edward Stowe

... be convicted of a crime under the degree of a capital offence, in the supreme court, or the court of oyer and terminer, and general gaol delivery, or a court of general sessions of the peace within this State, it shall and may be lawful to and for the master or mistress to cause such slave to be transported out of this State," etc. Laws of New York, 1789-96 (ed. 1886), ...
— The Suppression of the African Slave Trade to the United States of America - 1638-1870 • W. E. B. Du Bois

... of their old mistress' delight filled the waiting-maids and married women with high glee as well; and each hurried with vehemence to execute her respective errand. Those that were to be invited were invited, and those that had ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin

... hour of abscence seemed as a gap in life. But other bonds have held me. O! I have played the boy; dropping my counters in the stream, and reaching to redeem them, have lost Myself. Why wilt Thou follow misery? Or if thou wilt, go to thy mistress—She has no guilt to sting her, and ...
— The Gamester (1753) • Edward Moore

... may justly be said; but, in order the shew the extent of a penetration which can go to the bottom of any subject, delight to say or to write all that can be said or written, or even thought, on the particular occasion; and this partly perhaps from being desirous [pardon me, my dear!] to be thought mistress of a sagacity that is aforehand with events. But who would wish to drain off or dry up a refreshing current, because it now-and-then puts us to some little inconvenience by its over-flowings? In other words, who would not allow for the liveliness of a spirit which for one ...
— Clarissa, Volume 2 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson

... because he still hoped the miller's wife would once more come to the window; but at last he was forced to shut up, and go home, where he passed but a very uncomfortable night. He arose betimes in the morning, and ran to his shop, in hopes to see his mistress; but he was no happier than the day before, for the miller's wife did not appear at the window above a minute in the course of the day, but that minute made the tailor the most amorous man that ever lived. The third day he had more ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous

... Cottage, Westhamble, February 11, 1802. A most unexpected, and, to me, severe event, draws from me now an account I had hoped to have reserved for a far happier communication, but which I must beg you to endeavour to seek some leisure moment for making known, with the utmost humility, to my royal mistress. . ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay

... eighty years of age, exceedingly meagre, who had drunk nothing but ardent spirits for several years. She was sitting in her elbow-chair, while her waiting-maid went out of the room for a few moments. On her return, seeing her mistress on fire, she immediately gave an alarm; and some people coming to her assistance, one of them endeavored to extinguish the flames with his hands, but they adhered to them as if they had been dipped in brandy or oil on fire. Water was brought and thrown on the body in abundance, yet the fire ...
— Select Temperance Tracts • American Tract Society

... myself a mind sufficiently serene and healthful for duties that need the concentration of thought and desire. Such a state of mind I cannot secure. I have striven for it; I am baffled. It is said that politics are a jealous mistress—that they require the whole man. The saying is not invariably true in the application it commonly receives—that is, a politician may have some other employment of intellect, which rather enlarges his powers than distracts their political uses. Successful ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... apartment at the back—the boudoir, its mistress called it—and was left there amid a din of singing canaries, while Miss Dickinson carried off Brother ...
— Brother Copas • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... with nature's own hand painted, Hast thou, the master mistress of my passion; A woman's gentle heart, but not acquainted With shifting change, as is false women's fashion: An eye more bright than theirs, less false in rolling, Gilding the object whereupon it gazeth; A ...
— Shakespeare's Sonnets • William Shakespeare

... on earth is fashion more completely mistress of all the tastes and usages of society, than in France. Though the common French Bible still retains the form of the second person singular, which in that language is shorter and perhaps smoother than the plural; yet even that sacred ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... from a lady who owes to him the happiness of her life. This, briefly, is his story. Some years ago he loved a young Russian lady of moderate fortune, and having amassed a considerable sum in prize-money, the father of the girl consented to the match. He saw his mistress once before the destined ceremony; but she was bathed in tears, and throwing herself at his feet, entreated him to spare her, confessing at the same time that she loved another, but that he was poor, and that ...
— Frankenstein - or The Modern Prometheus • Mary Wollstonecraft (Godwin) Shelley

... round the carriage. Sam's remark produced a loud guffaw laugh from among them, and a variety of observations came rattling down on him, such as "Go it, young Touch-my-hat; the nob will pay you—he's a nigger with a white face. I wonder where he was raised? His mother was a dancing mistress—little doubt of that." ...
— The Gilpins and their Fortunes - A Story of Early Days in Australia • William H. G. Kingston

... such are the advantages and so great the charms of history, that, on every subject, and whatever dress it wears, it always pleases and finds readers. So instructive it is, that it is styled by Cicero, "The mistress of life,"[1] and is called by others, "Moral philosophy exemplified in the lives and actions of mankind."[2] But, of all the parts of history, biography, which describes the lives of great men, seems both the most entertaining, and the most instructive and improving. By a judicious ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler

... heard of my arrival, have come to invite me to dinner. Of course I am delighted, and they are equally pleased to entertain one about whose adventures they have recently been reading. Their ayah saw me ride in, and went and told her mistress of seeing a "wonderful Sahib on wheels," and already the report has spread that I have come down from ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens

... shock less vehement than the former. I started, but gave no audible token of alarm. I was so much mistress of my feelings as to continue listening to what should be said. The whisper was distinct, hoarse, and uttered so as to show that the speaker was desirous of being heard by some one near, but, at the same time, studious to avoid ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne

... harmonium came, played by the school-mistress or some other village performer. No wonder the clerk was indignant. His musical autocracy had been overthrown. At one church—Swanscombe, Kent—when, in 1854, the change had taken place, and a kind lady, Miss F——, had consented to play the new harmonium, the clerk, village cobbler and ...
— The Parish Clerk (1907) • Peter Hampson Ditchfield

... horse, The Dutchman, with Lauzanne the Despised. All was content after the turmoil of endeavor. And of the horses, Lauzanne, who would gallop for no one but Allis, would be brought back to Ringwood, to be petted and spoiled of his young mistress for the good he had done. Lucretia, when convalescent, would also come to the farm to rest and ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser

... penetrated as it is with mind and thought, represents a solved problem, a balance struck between aspiration and executive capacity, the sovereignty of a grace which is always mistress of itself, marvelous harmony and perfect unity. His quartet describes a day in one of those Attic souls who pre-figure on earth the serenity of Elysium. The first scene is a pleasant conversation, like that of Socrates on the banks of the Ilissus; its chief mark is ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... London, to my wife's old home, and learnt that the family no longer lived there. Where had they gone to? The maid who opened the door could not tell me—she did not know. At my request she went for her mistress. The lady of the house came down to me, a tall slender woman, indifferent, but well-bred enough to be polite. She had taken the house from the Bruntons, she said. It was too large for them after their daughter's marriage. It was dusk, ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees



Words linked to "Mistress" :   paramour, courtesan, schoolteacher, woman, schoolma'am, fancy woman, doxy, adult female, school teacher, kept woman, Eva Braun, schoolmarm, Delilah, schoolmistress, Braun, toast mistress, employer



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