"Gentlewoman" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... comes from an unwonted sense of impotence, and ends in tolerance, the intermediate step being admiration. It is the primeval curse that a woman's choice is to her husband; and it is an important part of the teaching of a British gentlewoman, knit in the very fibres of her being by the remorseless etiquette of a thousand years, that she be true to him. The man who has in his person the necessary powers or graces to evoke admiration in his wife, even for a passing moment, has a stronghold ...
— The Man • Bram Stoker
... the humility with which he made his suit, the obvious intensity of his devotion, began at last to wear away that gentlewoman's opposition, as dripping water wears away a stone. Yet she could not bring herself to forget that he was Sir Oliver's brother—the brother of the man she had loved, and the brother of the man who had killed her own brother. Between them stood, then, two ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
... which I trust to reach, all the sins of my youth and the errors of my age notwithstanding, it is told us there is no marrying and giving in marriage; and this is well, for I do not know how my wives, Montezuma's daughter and the sweet English gentlewoman, would ...
— Montezuma's Daughter • H. Rider Haggard
... was a distressed gentlewoman. The death of her husband, a warehouse clerk, by acute alcoholic poisoning, seems to have given her her first chance of displaying those strong qualities which ultimately became her chief characteristic. And she was of those to whom ...
— Once Aboard The Lugger • Arthur Stuart-Menteth Hutchinson
... that time should play the treacherous knave thus! Why, he was the only friend I had in Spain, sir, I knew your Mother too, a handsome Gentlewoman, She was married very young: I married 'em: I do remember now the Maskes and Sports then, The Fire-works, and the fine delights; good faith, sir, Now I look in your face, whose eyes are those, Diego? Nay, if he be not just ...
— The Spanish Curate - A Comedy • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... the theater, looking pretty and conscious of it, were standing by the clavichord, happy and smiling. Vera was playing chess with Shinshin in the drawing room. The old countess, waiting for the return of her husband and son, sat playing patience with the old gentlewoman who lived in their house. Denisov, with sparkling eyes and ruffled hair, sat at the clavichord striking chords with his short fingers, his legs thrown back and his eyes rolling as he sang, with his small, husky, but true voice, ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... there was nothing of the frivolous about her. In the frequent informal social gatherings she was always the life of the occasion, but never did her merriment get down to the level of silliness. Without a suspicion of prudishness there was always with her the natural dignity of the true-born gentlewoman. ...
— The Romance and Tragedy • William Ingraham Russell
... old gentlewoman makes Sir Launcelot welcome] Now there was no lord of that manor, but only an old gentlewoman of very good breeding and address. She made Sir Launcelot right welcome and gave such cheer as she could, setting before him a very good supper, hot and savory, and a great beaker ...
— The Story of the Champions of the Round Table • Howard Pyle
... daughter of Joachim Frederick, margrave of Brandenburg. The queen died fourteen years later, after bearing Christian six children. Four years after her death the king privately wedded a handsome young gentlewoman, Christina Munk, by whom he had twelve children,—a connexion which was to be ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various
... be at your book," she said, and turned her back. To some papists in the antechamber he remarked, "Why should the pleasing face of a gentlewoman affray me? I have looked in the faces of many angry men, and yet have not ...
— John Knox and the Reformation • Andrew Lang
... behalf; my mother, in the words of the princess, was very intimate with persons of high position, upon whom her fortunes and her children's fortunes depended, as she had some very important business in hand. 'I address myself to you,' she wrote, 'as one gentlewoman to another gentlewoman, and for that reason am glad to avail myself of the opportunity.' Concluding, she begged my mother's permission to call upon her. I found my mother in an unpleasant state of indecision; my father was not at ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev
... was younger," said Miss Spight—she didn't say when she was "young," mark you—"no young gentlewoman's education would have been thought complete without a course of the best poets, such ...
— She and I, Volume 1 • John Conroy Hutcheson
... Neck, taking care that it does not struggle, so as to make the Feathers bloody, for that will spoil them: and 'tis to be noted, the Feathers of a full grown Goose are worth four Pence to be sold in the Country; this I had from a Gentlewoman in Surrey. In Holland they slit Geese down the Back, and salt them with Salt-Petre, and other Salt, and then dry them like Bacon; they eat very well, if they are ...
— The Country Housewife and Lady's Director - In the Management of a House, and the Delights and Profits of a Farm • Richard Bradley
... Margaret turned upon her with eyes of fire. "Cousin Sophronia, I cannot listen to this; I will not listen! I am a gentlewoman, and must be spoken to as a gentlewoman. I am eighteen years old, and am accountable to no one except Uncle John for my behaviour. Let me pass, please! I want to ...
— Margaret Montfort • Laura E. Richards
... and shoulders white as ivory, arms so rounded and white it was a treat to see them. She was of the queenly type—tall, with the promise of a grand womanhood; her white throat was firm, her arms rounded and strong; she was the ideal of an English gentlewoman; her pure, proud face, clear eyes, and sweet lips were beautiful beyond words. When she was dressed that evening for the princess' concert she looked most charming. Lady Cambrey had said truly that among the dark-eyed daughters of Italy she would shine white and fair ...
— A Mad Love • Bertha M. Clay
... have asked Mr. Carey, and said to them If it is true, let me go? I will not make ridicule of your theatre. But they are so kind to me; and Mrs. Grey also; she says that I have not as much cheek as Miss Burgoyne, but that Grace Mainwaring should remember that she is a gentlewoman, and it is not necessary to make her a laughing waitress, although she is in comedy-opera. I cannot please every one, Leo; but if you were here I should not care so much for the briccone who lies, who lies, ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... and freedom from money-care had changed her greatly, and with her black silk frock, her lace kerchief and cap, she seemed quite like some old gentlewoman. I tried, knowing the inadequacy of words, even while speaking, to thank her for my wonderful child, when she ...
— Nancy Stair - A Novel • Elinor Macartney Lane
... between rich and poor, notorious and obscure, nor was he a lad of perceptions; yet he knew at once that this was a very unusual sort of lady for Green's Ferry. If he had been a man of the social world he would have known that she was a gentlewoman of notably high-bred appearance. She glanced, not without dismay, about the shabby work-room, as if she felt herself where she had no business to be. Nevertheless, she came forward frankly, and asked in the friendly way of one ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 9 • Various
... going, and rested not till she came to Florence. She put up at the house of a poor widow; and the next day, seeing her husband pass by on horseback, she asked who he was. The widow told her this, and also that he was marvellously in love with a neighbour of hers, a gentlewoman who was poor, but of right honest life and report, and dwelt with her mother, a wise and honest lady. After hearing this, she was not long in deciding what to do. Going secretly to the house, and getting ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... he is tender of age, Of my wine-cellar shall he be, And when he cometh to man's estate, Better preferred shall he be. And, William, bring me your wife," said the Queen, "Me longeth her sore to see; She shall be my chief gentlewoman, ...
— A Bundle of Ballads • Various
... artist, with the best tastes of both. His mother was a sensitive, musical woman, evidently very lovely in character, the daughter of a German shipowner and merchant who had settled in Scotland. She was of Celtic descent, and Carlyle describes her as the true type of a Scottish gentlewoman. From his neck down, Browning was the typical Briton,—short, stocky, large-chested, robust; but even in the lifeless portrait his face changes as we view it from different angles. Now it is like an English business ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... interfering and dragging her off forcibly, "dinna deave the gentlewoman wi' your testimony! ye hae preached eneugh for sax days. Ye preached us out o' our canny free-house and gude kale-yard, and out o' this new city o' refuge afore our hinder end was weel hafted in it; and ye hae preached Mr Harry awa to the prison; and ye ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... whose conversation and morals were exactly such as parents of delicacy and refinement would wish a daughter to copy. Among the teachers at Madame Du Pont's school, was Mademoiselle La Rue, who added to a pleasing person and insinuating address, a liberal education and the manners of a gentlewoman. She was recommended to the school by a lady whose humanity overstepped the bounds of discretion: for though she knew Miss La Rue had eloped from a convent with a young officer, and, on coming to England, had lived with several different men in open defiance of all moral and religious duties; ...
— Charlotte Temple • Susanna Rowson
... front door is so strongly fastened that it is said not to have been opened for years. Massive bars of iron protect the windows, and the solitary servant visible is a species of shepherd or odd man, who comes slinking round the corner. No stranger gentlewoman's dwelling could be found in the three kingdoms. The spot reeks with a dungeon-like atmosphere. It is, according to the present state of life in Mayo, simply a "strong place," duly fortified and garrisoned against ...
— Disturbed Ireland - Being the Letters Written During the Winter of 1880-81. • Bernard H. Becker
... quite charming and graceful. In the church of Santa Maria la Mayor was a Saint Catherine in rich habiliments of red brocade, with a white mantilla arranged as only a Spanish woman could arrange it. She might have been a young gentlewoman of fifty years back when costume was gayer than nowadays, arrayed for a fashionable wedding or for a bull-fight. And in another church I saw a youthful Saint in priest's robes, a cassock of black silk and a short surplice of exquisite lace; he held a bunch of lilies in his hand and looked very ...
— The Land of The Blessed Virgin; Sketches and Impressions in Andalusia • William Somerset Maugham
... man but a hard student, shows best in his dramas. In his occasional poems, strongly influenced by Donne, he is best at panegyric, worst at burlesque and epigram. In "On a Gentlewoman's Silk Hood" and some other pieces he may challenge comparison with the most futile of the metaphysicals; but no one who has read his noble elegy on Sir Bevil Grenvil, unequal as it is, will think lightly of Cartwright. ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... received not one farthing of assistance from anybody, was hardly asked to sit down at the two sisters' houses, nor offered to eat or drink at two more near relations'. The fifth, an ancient gentlewoman, aunt-in-law to my husband, a widow, and the least able also of any of the rest, did, indeed, ask me to sit down, gave me a dinner, and refreshed me with a kinder treatment than any of the rest, but added the melancholy part, viz., that she would have helped me, but ...
— The Fortunate Mistress (Parts 1 and 2) • Daniel Defoe
... went to a place they call Holy Ground. Now I counted this was a place where folks go to meeting; so I put my hymn-book in my pocket, and walked softly and grave as a minister; and when I came there, the dogs a bit of a meeting-house could I see. At last I spied a young gentlewoman standing by one of the seats which they have here at the doors. I took her to be the deacon's daughter, and she looked so kind, and so obliging, that I thought I would go and ask her the way to lecture, and—would you ...
— The Contrast • Royall Tyler
... to Leonato. Beatrice, niece to Leonato. Margaret, gentlewoman attending on Hero. Ursula, gentlewoman ...
— Much Ado About Nothing • William Shakespeare [Knight edition]
... do I, yet did she call me so; And this fair gentlewoman, her sister here, Did call me brother.—What I told you then, I hope I shall have leisure to make good; If this be not a ...
— The Comedy of Errors • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... asked Lefevre of the policeman. He used the word "lady" advisedly, for though the dress was that of a hospital nurse or probationer, the unconscious face was that of an educated gentlewoman. "Why, bless my soul!" he cried, upon more particular scrutiny of her features—"it seems to me I know her! Surely I do! Where did ...
— Master of His Fate • J. Mclaren Cobban
... leader, with a pike in his hand, set his back against the gate, and swore that, if he was to die for it the next minute, he would have the life of the first man who should open that gate or set enemy's foot withinside of that place. He said the housekeeper, who was left in it, was a good gentlewoman, and had done him a service, though she did not know him, nor he her. He had never seen her face, but she had, the year before, lent his wife, when in distress, sixteen shillings, the rent of flax-ground, and he would ...
— Richard Lovell Edgeworth - A Selection From His Memoir • Richard Lovell Edgeworth
... their judgment of a situation; and therefore, in the drama, a moment of surprise should be carefully led up to by anticipatory suggestion. Before Lady Macbeth is disclosed walking in her sleep, her doctor and her waiting-gentlewoman are sent on to tell the audience of her "slumbery agitation." This is excellent art in the theatre; but it would be bad art in the pages of a novel. In a story written to be read, surprise is most ...
— A Manual of the Art of Fiction • Clayton Hamilton
... he was a seaman under misfortunes, had met with the mayor, as he was going to dinner at Captain Colloway's, of Upton, and his honour had sent him to her, giving him orders to receive his snuff-coloured suit of clothes from her; which the good natured gentlewoman hearing, without the least scruple, quickly brought him the coat, waistcoat, and breeches. Thus our hero, by turning his natural ingenuity to account, procured a handsome suit of clothes, while, at the same time, he was revenging himself ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Bampfylde Moore Carew • Unknown
... stared involuntarily at the other's head. They had shared so many things that this new possibility sounded like a discovery. Pleasing pictures flitted before their eyes—the country cousin received (on a Box and Cox basis) by a Parisian old gentlewoman sans peur and sans reproche; a day of seclusion for each alternating with a day ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... the year when the gold and brown of our Ozark Hills is overlaid with a filmy veil of delicate blue haze and the world is hushed with the solemn sweetness of the passing of the summer. And as the old gentlewoman stood there in the open door of that rustic temple of learning, with the deep-shadowed, wooded hillside in the background, and, in front, the rude clearing with its crooked rail fence along which the scarlet sumac flamed, I thought,—as I still think, after all these years,—that I had never ...
— The Re-Creation of Brian Kent • Harold Bell Wright
... the very personification of an old-fashioned English gentlewoman," he said once to Cedric; "but she is hardly modern enough in her ideas. She takes things too seriously, ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... excess of self-respect, I must in candour admit that, if ever a person had excuse for an extraordinary portion of it, she has; as, in all her thoughts, words, and deeds, she is the most decorous woman that ever existed, and must appear, what few I fancy could, a perfectly refined gentlewoman, even to her ...
— Lady Byron Vindicated • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... future, but somehow she mysteriously wove her own personality into those plans, and he was ever seeing the pleading in her eyes, and listening to the soft Southern accent of her voice. Of late years he had been unaccustomed to association with women of high type, and there was that touch of the gentlewoman about this girl which had awakened deep interest. Of course he knew that in her case it was merely an inheritance of her past, and could not truly represent the present Christie Maclaire of the music halls. However fascinating ...
— Keith of the Border • Randall Parrish
... his attendants. In this situation, an indignant feeling of contempt and impatience at the supineness of their Greek friends seized the engineer, and he proceeded to vent this feeling to Lord Byron in no very measured terms, pronouncing Prince Mavrocordato to be "an old gentlewoman," and concluding, according to his own statement, with the following words:—"If I were in their place, I should be in a fever at the thought of my own incapacity and ignorance, and should burn with impatience to attempt the destruction ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... the aunties may feel perfectly safe for another reason. The earnest, ambitious young gentlewoman you are watching over is not often attractive to the "masher." The clever and promising artist, Miss G——, is not his style. He is not looking for brains, "don't yer know." He fancies No. 3 in the ...
— Stage Confidences • Clara Morris
... going to tell me who sent you here," he went on harshly, "and why you came. I never suspected you. I thought you were one of those strange creatures one meets in England, a gentlewoman who prefers working for her living to the more simple business of getting married. And all the time ...
— The Clue of the Twisted Candle • Edgar Wallace
... but for the poor wench; she must now cry vale to Lobster pies, hartichokes, and all such meats of mortality; poor gentlewoman, the sign must not be in virgo any longer with her, and that me grieves ...
— The Merry Devil • William Shakespeare
... roll of canvas as a queen on her throne. There was not a man of the gang who did not respect her. She was a living exponent of universal brotherhood. There was no man among them who needed her exquisite face or dainty clothing to teach him that the deference due a gentlewoman should be paid her. That the spirit of good fellowship she radiated levied an especial tribute of its own, and it became their delight to ...
— Freckles • Gene Stratton-Porter
... gentlewoman thought herself wiser than both, for she lived with no servant but a maid, and saved her money. The others were indeed sufficiently frugal; but the squire could not live without dogs and horses, and the sailor never suffered the day to pass but over a bowl of punch, ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... it came about that when George Brand was ushered into the scented little drawing-room—so anxious to make the most of the invaluable minutes—he found himself introduced first of all to Madame Potecki, a voluble, energetic little Polish gentlewoman, whose husband had been killed in the Warsaw disturbances of '61, and who now supported herself in London by teaching music. She was eager to know all about the man Kirski, and hoped that he was not wholly a maniac, and trusted that ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... contemptuous carriage as these? I have myself seen a little female thing which they have called "my lady," of no greater dignity in the order of beings than a cat, and of no more use in society than a butterfly; whose mien would not give even the idea of a gentlewoman, and whose face would cool the loosest libertine; with a mind as empty of ideas as an opera, and a body fuller of diseases than an hospital—I have seen this thing express contempt to a woman who was an honour to her sex and an ornament to ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding
... therein. He had in his time sipped of the Fountain of Hellicon, but drank deeper Draughts of Sack, that Helliconian Liquor, whereby he beggar'd his Purse to enrich his Fancy; writing much against Viciousness, but too vicious in his Life. He had to his Wife a Virtuous Gentlewoman, whom yet he forsook, and betook himself to a high course of Living; to maintain which, he made his Pen mercenary, making his Name very famous for several Books which he wrote, very much taking in his time, and in indifferent repute amongst the vulgar at this present; ...
— The Lives of the Most Famous English Poets (1687) • William Winstanley
... ignorant. But we will consider here only such superior Ranks of Persons, in reference to whom what has already been said, has been spoken: And to begin with the Female Sex, who certainly ought to be Christians; how many of these, comparatively, may it be presum'd that there are, from the meanest Gentlewoman to the greatest Ladies, that can give any such account of the Christian Religion, as would inform an inquisitive Stranger what it consisted in; and what are the grounds of believing it? Such Women as understand something of the distinguishing Opinions of that Denomination they have been bred ...
— Occasional Thoughts in Reference to a Vertuous or Christian life • Lady Damaris Masham
... may, on the other hand, be the contribution of his predecessor. A fairly common situation, for example, appears in John Capgrave's Life of St. Augustine, produced, as its author says, in answer to the request of a gentlewoman that he should "translate her truly out of Latin the life of St. Augustine, great doctor of the church." Of the work, its editor, Mr. Munro, says, "It looks at first sight as though Capgrave had merely translated an older Latin text, as he did in ...
— Early Theories of Translation • Flora Ross Amos
... little impressed with the honour done her, but recognizing that she was in the presence of a gentlewoman. She took the laird's seat at his invitation, and, leaning forward, gazed ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... filled with a look of constant patience too great perhaps for one woman's share, with a certain weariness in it also at times, yet cheerful too, and even almost merry at times—the face of one more thoughtful of others than herself, and, despite toil and sordid cares, a gentlewoman, as was plain to see. The shaft of light from the window in which she sat broadened into the room, and faded to shadow in far corners among chairs with claw toes and shining mahogany tables—the furniture of that day, with a certain ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XVII, No. 102. June, 1876. • Various
... reduced gentlewoman who, compelled by poverty to cry fresh eggs through the streets, added after every call, "I hope nobody hears me;" so I, finding it convenient, for a not very dissimilar reason, to write books, keep my authorship as quietly to myself as need be, and comfort ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... as with the world, so with the stage. In the middle class are found the truer gentlewomen. Women of the drama must of necessity be gentlewomen, the refinement must be innate, or they would fail utterly. An actress who is a gentlewoman can with her art stoop to portray sin, but an actress who is a common woman cannot rise to portray a refinement of which her coarse nature has no conception. Mrs. Kendal a woman who is as the wife of Caesar, can become a "Second Mrs. Tanguery" ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... a daughter). Mrs. Apperthwaite herself, in her youth, might have sat to an illustrator of Scott or Bulwer. Even now you could see she had come as near being romantically beautiful as was consistently proper for such a timid, gentle little gentlewoman as she was. Reduced, by her husband's insolvency (coincident with his demise) to "keeping boarders," she did it gracefully, as if the urgency thereto were only a spirit of quiet hospitality. It should be added in haste that she set ...
— Beasley's Christmas Party • Booth Tarkington
... a bairn: A very pretty bairn! A boy or a child, I wonder? A pretty one; a very pretty one: sure, some scape: though I am not bookish, yet I can read waiting-gentlewoman in the scape. This has been some stair-work, some trunk-work, some behind-door-work; they were warmer that got this than the poor thing is here. I'll take it up for pity: yet I'll tarry till my son comes; he hallaed but ...
— The Winter's Tale - [Collins Edition] • William Shakespeare
... long she would marry, of course; but it had occurred to him that meanwhile it might be well if a companion could be found who would be a safe friend for a girl of Ourieda's position and religion. Did Colonel DeLisle know of any young gentlewoman, English or French, who would be willing to come to Djazerta? She must be educated and accomplished, but above all trustworthy; one who would not try to make Ourieda wish for a life that could never be hers: ...
— A Soldier of the Legion • C. N. Williamson
... Quere from the Presbytery of Edinburgh, touching the marriage of a young Gentlewoman minor without consent of her ...
— The Acts Of The General Assemblies of the Church of Scotland
... could not make her husband see it so. Yet—and she looked up at him with a sudden passion of love in that gaze—it was this big, sanguine, restless, masterful spirit in him that had won her. From the narrow, restricted conditions of a provincial gentlewoman's life, she had looked out into a bigger world for living, through the eyes of this masterful yeoman, his heart big with desire to conquer and ambition to achieve. Was her faith in his capacity to know and seize the essential in his venturing, less now than then? ...
— A Warwickshire Lad - The Story of the Boyhood of William Shakespeare • George Madden Martin
... of his private ejaculations, offering to pull down the cap, he espied a gentlewoman at a window nigh, kissed his hand, said 'Your servant, Mistress.'... His cap being pulled down he gave the sign and the executioner turned ...
— State Trials, Political and Social - Volume 1 (of 2) • Various
... ROYAL BLOOD.—"Among the many persons of color whom I visited at Philadelphia, was a woman of singular intelligence and good breeding. A friend was with me. She received us with the courtesy and easy manners of a gentlewoman. She appeared to be between thirty and forty years of age—of pure African descent, with a handsome expressive countenance and a graceful person. Her mother, who had been stolen from her native land at an early age, ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 3, 1918 • Various
... tell her I'll make her the best husband in the world, and Lady O'Trigger into the bargain!—But we must get the old gentlewoman's consent—and do ...
— The Rivals - A Comedy • Richard Brinsley Sheridan
... to the gentlewoman in Aroostook, Maine, who put out a fire the other day, first by pouring water on it, then all her milk and cream, and finally all the pickle in her meat-barrels. 'Twas only applying wholesale an old woman's cure for burns; but the point of the matter ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 14, July 2, 1870 • Various
... out the poltroonery of the Roman troops, and says that all would have been lost "but for our gentlemen," we must feel detestation for them. Juliet's nurse is not the only disloyal servant. Shylock's servant, Launcelot Gobbo, helps Jessica to deceive her father, and Margaret, the Lady Hero's gentlewoman, brings about the disgrace of her mistress by fraud. Olivia's waiting-woman in "Twelfth Night" is honest enough, but she is none too modest in her language, but in this respect Dame Quickly in "Henry IV." can easily rival her. Peter Thump, when forced to a judicial ...
— Tolstoy on Shakespeare - A Critical Essay on Shakespeare • Leo Tolstoy
... boy, of course I have!" (She wiped away a few tears with a gentlewoman handkerchief of lace and thin linen. Carl crossed the room and kissed her pale-veined, silvery old hand. Abashed, he subsided on the couch, and, trying to look as though he ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... and they had mutually taken to each other. Greta had been charmed with Mrs. Broderick's cheerfulness and quaint speeches, and Aunt Madge, in her turn, had declared herself fascinated by Greta's gentleness. "She is exactly my idea of a young English gentlewoman," she had said after her first visit. "I thought the article had gone out of fashion. Oh," as Olivia looked shocked at this, "I grant you there are hundreds and thousands of good, honest girls, I'm ...
— Doctor Luttrell's First Patient • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... great Expedition set on foot to go and find out Mrs. Fielding; and to be dismally penitent to that excellent gentlewoman; and to bring her back, by force, if needful, to be happy and forgiving. And when the Expedition first discovered her, she would listen to no terms at all, but said, an unspeakable number of times, that ever she should have lived to see the day! and couldn't be ...
— The Cricket on the Hearth • Charles Dickens
... loved the lady Portia's fair waiting gentlewoman Nerissa, and that she had promised to be his wife, if her lady married Bassanio. Portia asked Nerissa if this was true. Nerissa replied: 'Madam, it is so, if you approve of it.' Portia willingly consenting, Bassanio pleasantly said: 'Then our wedding-feast ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... of strangers. The most precious contribution to our literature from such a, source is The Bard of the Dimbovitza, an English translation of folk-songs and ballads peculiar to a certain district of Roumania. They were gathered by a native gentlewoman from among the peasants on her father's estate. "She was forced," writes Carmen Sylva, Queen of Roumania, one of the two translators, "to affect a desire to learn spinning, that she might join the girls at their spinning parties, and so overhear their songs more easily; she hid in the tall maize ...
— Ballad Book • Katherine Lee Bates (ed.)
... rate, my dear," she said that evening, as she paused, candle in hand, by her bedroom door, "at any rate I hope you'll do nothing that is unbecoming to a gentlewoman." ...
— Septimus • William J. Locke
... that she was a gentlewoman, the daughter of a poor clergyman, left penniless, to fight a hard world alone. Had her own home been happier, she would gladly have asked her to join them sometimes; but the weight of Basil's illness, and her own usual condition of weariness, had ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page
... descended from the Family of the Honesti, who by the death of his Father, and an Unckle of his, was left extraordinarily abounding in riches, and growing to yeares fitting for marriage, (as young Gallants are easily apt enough to do) he became enamored of a very bountifull Gentlewoman, who was Daughter to Signior Paulo Traversario, one of the most ancient and noble Families in all the Countrey. Nor made he any doubt, but by his meanes and industrious endeavour, to derive affection from her againe; for he carried ...
— Ravenna, A Study • Edward Hutton
... before; and in a short time, partly with grief, and partly with good liquor, fell into a consumption, and died.—Nay, I can tell you more still: there was another, a young woman, and the handsomest in all this neighbourhood, whom he enticed up to London, promising to make her a gentlewoman to one of your women of quality; but, instead of keeping his word, we have since heard, after having a child by her himself, she became a common whore; then kept a coffeehouse in Covent Garden; and a little after died of the French distemper in a gaol.—I could ...
— Joseph Andrews, Vol. 2 • Henry Fielding
... differed in any appreciable degree from the voice, expression, manner, and dress of five hundred thousand other single ladies of her age and position in the world. If you had asked her to describe herself, she would have answered, "I am a gentlewoman"; and if you had further inquired which of her numerous accomplishments took highest rank in her own esteem, she would have replied, "My powers of conversation." For the rest, she was Miss Pink, of South Morden; and, when that has been said, all has ...
— My Lady's Money • Wilkie Collins
... "Poor Gentlewoman!" replied the Friar; "I told her the sad news, and offered her spiritual comfort. I reminded her of the transitory condition of mortality, and advised her to take the veil: I quoted the example of the holy ...
— The Castle of Otranto • Horace Walpole
... into laughter, and promised herself, not without some compunction, to hand over the gold to McDougall, if any should materialize. Next she flew to her dressing-room and made herself look as much like a gentlewoman's housekeeper as she could in the few minutes at her disposal. Then she danced through a long, dark passageway, and whisked down a narrow winding stair, and stood at last in the door of the Great Tower in the sunlight. And when she heard the stranger's ...
— The Spread Eagle and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... a bitter speech for one so young, and argued an all too intimate acquaintance with those who did not bear the mark patent of "gentlewoman." ...
— Caps and Capers - A Story of Boarding-School Life • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... books are made up with pages cut out of obsolete works, such as the "Choice Manual of Secrets," the "True Gentlewoman's Delight," &c. of as much use, in this age of refinement, as the following curious passage from "The Accomplished Lady's Rich Closet of Rarities, or Ingenious Gentlewoman's Delightful Companion," 12mo. London, 1653, chapter 7, page ...
— The Cook's Oracle; and Housekeeper's Manual • William Kitchiner
... top of a box for the seat. That used to make me laugh!—but I had to do it—into myself. As for walking, I can carry any sized bundle on my head, and grandmamma says she has nothing further to teach me in that respect, and that I have mastered the fact that a gentlewoman should give the impression that the ground is hardly good enough to tread on. She has also made me go through all kinds of exercises to insure suppleness, and to move from the hips. And the day she told me she was pleased I shall ...
— The Reflections of Ambrosine - A Novel • Elinor Glyn
... family. Indeed I well remember the celebration of the half-century service completed. There were rich scenes with Sandy and his mistress. Let me recall you both to memory. Let me think of you, the kind, generous, warm-hearted mistress; a gentlewoman by descent and by feeling; a true friend, a sincere Christian. And let me think, too, of you, Sandy, an honest, faithful, and attached member of the family. For you were in that house rather as a humble friend than a servant. But out of this fifty years of ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... extremity the poor young woman was reduced; how her mistress was starved to death, and died on board that unhappy ship we met at sea, and how the whole ship's company was reduced to the last extremity. The gentlewoman, and her son, and this maid, were first hardly used as to provisions, and at last totally neglected and starved—that is to say, brought to the last extremity of hunger. One day, being discoursing with her on the extremities they suffered, I asked ...
— The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... 'twas not mine, this is the Gentlewoman, fie, do not blush, go roundly to the matter, the man is ...
— Wit Without Money - The Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher • Francis Beaumont
... humour and indignation: "And as I heard it spoken of divers, he made, by craft of necromancy, graven imagery to bear upon him; wherewith he bewitched the king's mind—and made the king to doat upon him, more than he ever did on any lady or gentlewoman: so that now the king's grace followed him, as he before followed the king. And then what he said, that was wisdom; what he praised, that was honourable only." Practise of Popishe Prelates, p. 368. At p. 369, he calls him "Porter of Heaven." "There ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... to du wi' his death," said an ancient gentlewoman with solemnity. "They maun ken little wha ne'er heard the bod-word of the family." And she repeated in Gaelic words to ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... Burnett of Leys, was one of the class of Scottish ladies I have referred to;—thoroughly a good woman and a gentlewoman, but in dialect quite Scottish. For example, being shocked at the sharp Aberdonian pronunciation adopted by her children, instead of the broader Forfarshire model in which she had been brought up, she thus adverted to their manner of calling the floor of the ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... me hear no more about that old gentlewoman, and that civil-spoken young lady. Fair words cost nothing; and I've a notion that's the cause they are so plenty with the young lady. Neither o' them, I take it, by what they've ordered since their coming into the house, are such grand folk, that one need ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth
... be called subordinate will be found, and it is probable that some of these characters will afford much more interest to the reader than those styled the principal. The favourites with the writer are a brave old soldier and his helpmate, an ancient gentlewoman who sold apples, and a strange kind of ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... once employed to discover the hidden treasures. After all had been given, if the sum seemed too little, the proprietors were brutally punished for their poverty or their supposed dissimulation. A gentlewoman, named Fabry, with her aged mother and other females of the family, had taken refuge in the cellar of her mansion. As the day was drawing to a close, a band of plunderers entered, who, after ransacking the house, descended to the cellarage. Finding ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various
... attempts a public career must expect to be treated as public property: what would be an intrusion on a domiciled gentlewoman is a tribute to me. You cannot have celebrity and sex-privilege both.' Thus Ethelberta laughed off the awkward conjuncture, inwardly deploring the unconscionable maternal meddling which had led to this, though not resentfully, for she had too much staunchness of heart to decry ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... used to this decoy, had her cue perfect, made me a kind of half curtsy, and asked me to walk up with her; and accordingly showed me a neat room, two pair of stairs backwards, in which there was a handsome bed, where Martha told me I was to lie with a young gentlewoman, a cousin of my mistress, who she was sure would be vastly good to me. Then she ran out into such affected encomiums on her good mistress! her sweet mistress! and how happy I was to light upon ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland
... himself as he wished, indoors or walking abroad, or "passing the time with good discourse." At eight o'clock there was more singing to the organ, followed by prayers, and then the children, after asking the "old gentlewoman's" blessing, ...
— Little Gidding and its inmates in the Time of King Charles I. - with an account of the Harmonies • J. E. Acland
... slender little woman in black, well past middle age. Her face and dress spoke of years of economy, even of privation, but her manner was plainly that of a woman of gentle breeding and former luxury. She was precisely of the type of decayed gentlewoman that one meets often in the city, especially at some ...
— The Ear in the Wall • Arthur B. Reeve
... moment. There came back to him a picture of those English gentlewomen from among whom he had selected his wife, quiet-voiced, hard-riding, high-colored girls, who could hunt all day and dance all night. Elinor was a pale little thing. Besides, every gentlewoman should ride. ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... a respectable gentlewoman like personage of about fifty-four, of a grave, authoritative and somewhat severe aspect; but with the remains of very extraordinary personal beauty which she had once possessed in an eminent degree. She was somewhat above the middle size, of ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... his fourth book de Vita Apollonii, hath a memorable instance in this kind, which I may not omit, of one Menippus Lycius, a young man twenty-five years of age, that going betwixt Cenchreas and Corinth, met such a phantasm in the habit of a fair gentlewoman, which taking him by the hand, carried him home to her house, in the suburbs of Corinth, and told him she was a Phoenician by birth, and if he would tarry with her, he should hear her sing and play, and ...
— Keats: Poems Published in 1820 • John Keats
... bishop of Winchester: but howsoeuer the matter stood, or whether he was or not, sure it is, that shortlie after he was absolued of his vowes by authoritie of pope Leo, and then maried a proper gentlewoman named Osburga, which was his butlers daughter. He was of nature courteous, and rather desirous to liue in quiet rest, than to be troubled with the gouernment of [Sidenote: Wil. Malm.] manie countries, so that contenting himselfe with the ...
— Chronicles (1 of 6): The Historie of England (6 of 8) - The Sixt Booke of the Historie of England • Raphael Holinshed
... which does not contain Mrs. Timorous and her coterie of gossips, Mrs. Bats-eyes, Mrs. Inconsiderate, Mrs. Lightmind, and Mrs. Knownothing, "all as merry as the maids," with that pretty fellow Mr. Lechery at the house of Madam Wanton, that "admirably well-bred gentlewoman"? Where shall we find more lifelike portraits than those of Madam Bubble, a "tall, comely dame, somewhat of a swarthy complexion, speaking very smoothly with a smile at the end of each sentence, wearing a great ...
— The Life of John Bunyan • Edmund Venables
... hardness of women to each other! Oh, the humiliation if men only knew some of us as we really are! What could I do? I couldn't defend myself against mere imputations; and I couldn't remain in my situation after a slur had been cast on me. My pride (Heaven help me, I was brought up like a gentlewoman, and I have sensibilities that are not blunted even yet!)—my pride got the better of me, and I left my place. Don't let it distress you, Mr. Midwinter! There's a bright side to the picture. The ladies in the neighborhood have ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... and sat by the crib, watching the infant go back to sleep. I was glad to be alone, to have a chance to get myself together. But suddenly I heard a rustle of skirts in the doorway behind me, and turned and saw a white-clad figure; an elderly gentlewoman, slender and fragile, grey-haired and rather pale, wearing a soft ...
— Sylvia's Marriage • Upton Sinclair
... not light enough to see her distinctly. But this unknown visitant going to the chimney, took the poker, and stirred up the fire; by the flaming light whereof, he could discern the appearance of a young gentlewoman more distinctly; but whether it was flesh and blood, or an airy phantom, he knew not. This appearance having stood some time before the fire, as if to warm itself, at last walked two or three times about the room, ...
— Apparitions; or, The Mystery of Ghosts, Hobgoblins, and Haunted Houses Developed • Joseph Taylor
... she had a broad, curious face. Her clothes were much too good to throw away. You would have enjoyed giving them to a decayed gentlewoman. ...
— Living Alone • Stella Benson
... and looked so friendly, that I could not but be convinced it was the best course I could take; so I accordingly prepared letters to the gentlewoman with whom I had left my money, and a procuration to the Portuguese captain, ...
— Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... see anything extraordinary about a clergyman's wife offering to exchange a canary bird for six months' subscription to Punch; or the widow of an officer earnestly desiring an idiot lady to board with her; or a decayed gentlewoman inviting the public to give her five pounds; but we, being American, do," replied Sally. "Why, I'd rather read the advertisements in some of your morning papers and ladies' ...
— Lady Betty Across the Water • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... pride, not love, gets them a pardon. His last refuge is the Low-countries,[17] where rags and lice are no scandal, where he lives a poor gentleman of a company, and dies without a shirt. The only thing that may better his fortunes is an art he has to make a gentlewoman, wherewith he baits now and then some rich widow that is hungry after his blood. He is commonly discontented and desperate, and the form of his exclamation is, that churl my brother. He loves not his country ...
— Microcosmography - or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters • John Earle
... alarmed; and the noise of swords is made to draw only two poor women thither, who were most certain to run away from it. Upon Lucia and Marcia's coming in, Lucia appears in all the symptoms of an hysterical gentlewoman:— ...
— Lives of the Poets: Addison, Savage, and Swift • Samuel Johnson
... in great haste, intimated to them that their little friend had received an intimation from a gentlewoman of his acquaintance, who spoke to him from the window, while he stood on the bulk-head, that they would find a safe retreat in his landlord's; and desiring them to attend to two or three deep though distant huzzas, made them aware that the rabble ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... it possible that it is formed entirely of humming birds' skins, with the heads and long, slender bills? Perhaps a thousand of the tiny birds were sacrificed that some woman might have a beautiful cape. Does it seem possible that any gentlewoman could wear this cape, who had any realization of the tragedies that had to take place in humming-bird life in order that it might be made? Could she wear this cape if she knew of the forsaken nests and the hundreds of dying young ones waiting for ...
— Conservation Reader • Harold W. Fairbanks
... enthusiasm; but Zelma, replying to his interruption only by a slight blush, went on to say, that she had been taught that poetry, art, and romances were all idle pastimes and perilous lures, unbecoming and unwholesome to a young English gentlewoman, whose manifest destiny it was to tread the dull, beaten track of domestic duty, with spirit chastened and conformed. She had had, she would acknowledge, some aspirations and rebellious repinings, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various
... inconsistent, isn't there, in educating a girl in high thinking and fine ideals, if she is willing to live in a room that for uncleanliness many a woman in some crowded quarter of a city would consider a disgrace? Such contradiction in mind and surrounding is out of harmony with all one's ideal for a gentlewoman. ...
— A Girl's Student Days and After • Jeannette Marks
... her son, "I consider your expression of the least ceremonious: Miss Home I should certainly have said, in venturing to speak of the gentlewoman to ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... the city is highly picturesque, a word which can apply to none other American towns; and although the place is certainly pervaded with an air of decay, 'tis a genteel infirmity, as might be that of a distressed elderly gentlewoman. It has none of the smug mercantile primness of the northern cities, but a look of state, as of quondam wealth and importance, a little gone down in the world, yet remembering still its former dignity. The northern ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... a dispiriting first month of hunting lodgings in the crowded city. She had to roost in a hall-room in a moldy mansion conducted by an indignant decayed gentlewoman, and leave Hugh to the care of a doubtful nurse. But ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... desirable things in her eyes, and she liked to associate with those who possessed them, often mistaking the false for the true, and admiring what was not admirable. Never forgetting that by birth she was a gentlewoman, she cultivated her aristocratic tastes and feelings, so that when the opportunity came she might be ready to take the place from which poverty ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... Mrs Smith; 'but Miss Jerningham is quite the lady.' And in that opinion we all coincided, supposing our hostess by the word lady to have meant gentlewoman. ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 420, New Series, Jan. 17, 1852 • Various
... also stood there, in her turn interrogating him. Was she there to-day? Everything spoke mutely of her, the wall-paper she had prized for its ancient quaintness, the furniture in the lines of grace she loved. At that desk she had sat, slender figure of the gentlewoman of a time older than her own. Was her presence so etched in impalpable tracery on the air that he ought to feel it? Was she aching with defeated hopes because she might almost be expecting him, not only to remember but even to hear and see? No death could ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... sister now appearing, to announce that tea was ready, he threw his arm round her neck and kissed her. Juliet had arranged her hair and trimmed up her dress. She looked very pretty, and she had now the air of a gentlewoman,—something of Randal's own refinement in her ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... elegance.—Here is an elegant dressed lady without riches; for riches can no more give grace than they can beget understanding. A multiplicity of ornaments may load the wearer, but can never distinguish the gentlewoman. [Gives off the delicate lady.] This is a representation of those misled ladies whose families having gained great fortunes by trade, begin to be ashamed of the industry of their ancestors, {46}and turn up their nose at every thing mechanical, and call it wulgar. They are continually thrusting ...
— A Lecture On Heads • Geo. Alex. Stevens
... ago (she may still be so) there was a gentlewoman the parish clerk of some church in London; perhaps some of your readers may be able to say where: a deputy officiated, excepting occasionally. But many ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 211, November 12, 1853 • Various
... humouring of a poor silly girl by a young gentleman of quality, it had been very well. But to proceed. We shall make it appear that after three or four weeks the prisoner became contracted to a young gentlewoman of that country, one suitable every way to his own condition, and such an arrangement was on foot that seemed to promise him a happy and a reputable living. But within no very long time it seems that this young ...
— Ghost Stories of an Antiquary - Part 2: More Ghost Stories • Montague Rhodes James
... Mary's mind was strongly made up. No wealth, no mere worldly advantage could make any one her superior. If she were born a gentlewoman, then was she fit to match with any gentleman. Let the most wealthy man in Europe pour all his wealth at her feet, she could, if so inclined, give him back at any rate more than that. That offered at her feet she knew she would never tempt her to yield up the fortress ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... her vehemence; and Barbara might be thankful not to understand it. All her native gentleness, all her reticence of feeling, as a wife and a gentlewoman, had been goaded out of her. The process had been going on for some time, but this last revelation was the crowning point; and Alice, Lady Levison, turned round upon the world in her helpless resentment, as any poor wife, working in a garret, might have done. There are certain ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... is Henry Esmond, sure enough, my lady," says Mrs. Worksop the housekeeper (an old tyrant whom Henry Esmond plagued more than he hated), and the old gentlewoman looked significantly towards the late lord's picture, as it now is in the family, noble and severe-looking, with his hand on his sword, and his order on his cloak, which he had from the emperor during the war on the Danube against ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... was a strict economist, which she said, enabled her to be liberal; out of her little income of about L300 a year she bestowed at least a third in well-chosen charities, and with the rest, lived like a gentlewoman, and even with hospitality more general than seemed to suit her age; yet I could never prevail on her to accept of any assistance. You cannot conceive how affecting it was to me to see the little preparations of presents which she had assorted for the New Year, for she was a great observer ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... now. The soldiers were lingering politely about with their tin cups in hand—not too expectantly, so as to assure the ladies that if by any chance there was no coffee they would not be disappointed. The gentlewoman in attendance had recently come from a canteen near the front where soup is made and often eight thousand bowls of it served in a day. The skin of her arms and hands is, I fear, permanently unlovely from the steam of the great kettles—or perhaps ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy
... Temperance, that let any Gentleman send for Ten Pottles of Wine in her House, he shall have but Ten Quarts; and if he want it that way, let him pay for't and take it out in Stew'd flesh. She has an Excellent Art in Transforming Persons, and can easily turn a Sempstress into a Waiting-Gentlewoman: But there is a kind of Infection that attends it, for it brings them to the falling Sickness. The Justices Clerk is her very good Friend, and often makes her Peace with the Justice of Quorum; for which ...
— The London-Bawd: With Her Character and Life - Discovering the Various and Subtle Intrigues of Lewd Women • Anonymous
... prepossess the Members of the House of Commons with strange, and false prejudices and assertions drawn from irrational, and groundless suppositions, making us the greatest Tyrants in the World, inferring ridiculously that a Lady, or Charitable Gentlewoman (for in that believing Sex they have gain'd a great deal of ground by their falsities) might not give the Poor a Cordial, &c. without being questioned by the College; whereas they know in their Consciences, that the College hath power enough by their first Charter to act ...
— A Short View of the Frauds and Abuses Committed by Apothecaries • Christopher Merrett
... half of the door was open, and, on my rapping at it, a young person in black made her appearance and admitted me; she was not a menial, but remarkably genteel (an American characteristic) for an English girl, and was probably the daughter of the old gentlewoman who takes care of the house. This lower room has a pavement of gray slabs of stone, which may have been rudely squared when the house was new, but are now all cracked, broken, and disarranged in a most unaccountable way. One does not see how any ordinary usage, for whatever length of time, should ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... man old Dr. Heidegger once invited four venerable friends to meet him in his study. There were three white-bearded gentlemen—Mr. Medbourne, Colonel Killigrew and Mr. Gascoigne—and a withered gentlewoman whose name was the widow Wycherly. They were all melancholy old creatures who had been unfortunate in life, and whose greatest misfortune it was that they were not long ago in their graves. Mr. Medbourne, in the vigor of his age, had been a prosperous merchant, but had ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... the choicest specimens of old Brussels are shown in the now discarded "lappets," which when a lace head-piece and lappets were part of every gentlewoman's costume, were actually regulated by Sumptuary Laws as to length. The longer the lappets the ...
— Chats on Old Lace and Needlework • Emily Leigh Lowes
... associations. Disposing amongst the boys the few shillings I had left in my pocket, I jumped on board the packet-ship Europe, without cross or coin, saving only a couple of luck-pennies, the one an American gold eagle, the present of an amiable gentlewoman; the other a crooked sixpence, suspended by a crimson ribbon, the offering of a fair "maid of the inn," given to me on the very eve of sailing-day with many kind wishes, all ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power
... stepmother that she might be a partner in my joys. It is remarkable to me now, and a disconcerting proof of my still almost infantile innocence, that, having induced her to settle to her knitting, I began, without hesitation, to read Marlowe's voluptuous poem aloud to that blameless Christian gentlewoman. We got on very well in the opening, but at the episode of Cupid's pining, my stepmother's needles began nervously to clash, and when we launched on the description of Leander's person, she interrupted me by saying, rather sharply, ...
— Father and Son • Edmund Gosse
... it wont do for me to push again. Countess?—where are you, aunt countess? Do come, and make me fine company! Oh lord! I'll try this door (door in the back scene) and I should be half afraid she kept out of the way because she was asham'd of me, only I know aunt has no pride—not a bit of the gentlewoman about her. ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 6, June 1810 • Various
... trial to her shy nature to find herself the mouth-piece of the family; and this same shyness made it still more difficult to break through the stiff barriers which seemed to rise up between her, a gentlewoman well on in years, and this coarse working girl. She felt, as she often complained, that with the-kindest intentions, she did not quite know ...
— Mistress and Maid • Dinah Craik (aka: Miss Mulock)
... time. For all that, her spirit is just wonderful, and she is a real lady, every inch of her. And you, Miss Janet, you are a thorough lady; anybody can see that, and her ladyship will see it as soon as anybody. She will like you none the worse for being a gentlewoman. But here am I preaching away like any old gadabout, and you not as much as taken your bonnet off yet. Get your things off, dearie, and I'll have a cup of tea ready in no time, and you'll feel ever so much better ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 4, April, 1891 • Various
... thousands of dollars than you have fingers and toes, little Cinderella!" cried Frederick. "You can afford to wear glass slippers for the rest of your life! It is all your godmother's doings, and she was a fine old English gentlewoman, who acted wisely and for the benefit of posterity. Never say ...
— Our Young Folks—Vol. I, No. II, February 1865 - An Illustrated Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... unlucky prisoners. He divorced one wife to marry another, and was eager to have a third in the lifetime of the second, making proposals at the same time to the deputy for the hand of his sister, and again and again petitioning the queen to provide him with some "English gentlewoman of noble blood, meet for my vocation, so that by her good civility and bringing up the country would become civil." In spite however of these and a few other lapses from the received modern code of morals and decorum, Shane the Proud is an attractive figure ...
— The Story Of Ireland • Emily Lawless
... ever had heard of her death at all. He spoke of our cousins' kindness to this forlorn soul, and that, learning her desolation and her piteous history (and being the more pitiful because of her shattered mind), when she had last wandered to their door, they had cared for the old gentlewoman to the end of her days—"for I do not think she can be living yet," said my father, with a merry twinkle in his eyes: "she must have been nearly a hundred years old when you saw her. She belonged to a fine old family which had gone to wreck and ruin. She strayed about ...
— An Arrow in a Sunbeam - and Other Tales • Various
... to induce her to write that note. "You may leave Lize Wetherford out of the count, my dear," he had said. "There is nothing of her discernible in the girl. Virginia is a lady. I don't know where she got it, but she's a gentlewoman ...
— Cavanaugh: Forest Ranger - A Romance of the Mountain West • Hamlin Garland
... windows and dripping from the eaves—sixteen hours of rain, not merely audible, but visible for seven days in the week—would be enough to exhaust the patience of Job or Grizzel; especially if Job were a farmer, and Grizzel a country gentlewoman. Never was known such a season! Hay swimming, cattle drowning, fruit rotting, corn spoiling! and that naughty river, the Loddon, who never can take Puff's advice, and 'keep between its banks,' running about the country, fields, roads, gardens, and houses, like mad! ...
— Our Village • Mary Russell Mitford
... devout in his attentions upon this old lady. He walked by the side of her pony, up the avenue; and, while she was receiving the salutations of the rest of the family, he took occasion to notice the fat coachman; to pat the sleek carriage horses, and, above all, to say a civil word to my lady's gentlewoman, the prim, ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... embarked with her for Tunis, where on their arrival they were honourably received in the house of one of her kinswomen. Carapresa, who had attended her, being sent to discover what she might touching Martuccio, brought back word that he was alive, and high in honour and place. The gentlewoman was minded that none but herself should apprise Martuccio of the arrival of his Gostanza: wherefore she hied her one day to Martuccio, and said:—"Martuccio, there is come to my house a servant of thine from Lipari, who would fain speak with thee here ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio
... exquisitely dressed, maintaining as a reason that if the human body be the temple of Christ, then it must be the bounden duty of the Christian owner not only to keep it wholesome, but also to adorn it, making it fair without, to match the fairness within. Not only in her own person did this dainty gentlewoman carry out her theory, but she looked for it in the persons of her visitors. Theo invariably respected her wishes by appearing ...
— The Captain's Bunk - A Story for Boys • M. B. Manwell
... learning to smile, moving pins and making gestures and putting themselves in attitudes. There was many a vain creature there, who did not know how to open her lips to speak, or to eat, nor, from sheer pride, to look under her feet; and many a ragged shrew, who would insist that she was as good a gentlewoman as the best in the street; and many an ambling fop, who could winnow beans with the ...
— The Sleeping Bard - or, Visions of the World, Death, and Hell • Ellis Wynne
... confronted by Diana and her mother. He denied that Diana had any claim on him, and spoke of her as though her life was spent in the gutter. But she asked him what sort of gentlewoman it was to whom he gave, as to her he gave, the ring of his ancestors now missing ...
— Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare • E. Nesbit
... middle classes were in her eyes wholly unworthy. If Anna had proposed to take washerwomen into her home, and required the princess's help in brightening their lives, it would have been given in the full measure, pressed down and running over, that befits a Christian gentlewoman; but for the Buergerlichen, those belonging to the class more immediately below her own, the princess's feeling was only Christian so long as they kept a great way off. There was so much good sense in the objections she made that Anna, who did her best to keep an open mind and listen attentively ...
— The Benefactress • Elizabeth Beauchamp
... thought it would best answer all the ends of the commission with which you honoured me, to engage, in the desired scrutiny, the wife of a 'particular friend,' who liveth almost over-against the house where she lodgeth, and who is a gentlewoman of 'character,' and 'sobriety,' a 'mother of children,' and one who ...
— Clarissa, Or The History Of A Young Lady, Volume 8 • Samuel Richardson
... police to be obtained for money; and, by and by, a grateful machine will make him mayor, or send him to the Legislature, very likely to Congress, where he will misrepresent the honest State of Iowa. Then he will bloom out in a social way, and marry a gentlewoman, and they will snub the old people who are ...
— Stories of a Western Town • Octave Thanet
... suitable to the lustre of his actions nor the grandeur of his life; for Marion de Lorme, one of his mistresses, was little better than a common prostitute. Another of his concubines was Madame de Fruges, that old gentlewoman who was so often seen sauntering in the enclosure. The first used to come to his apartment in the daytime, and he went by night to visit the other, who was but the pitiful cast-off of Buckingham and Epienne. ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... as a boy might be to his master in the first year of his apprenticeship.... But as I was to take a part the next year in the oratorios, I had, for a whole twelvemonth, two lessons per week from Miss Fleming, the celebrated dancing-mistress, to drill me for a gentlewoman (God knows how she succeeded). So we lived on without interruption. My brother Alex. was absent from Bath for some months every summer, but when at home he took much pleasure in executing some turning or clockmaker's ...
— Pioneers of Science • Oliver Lodge
... the prince first named, the Lord Edmund, [Marginal note: The lord Edmond was the prince his brother.] and the lord Iohn Voisie, And doe you also faithfully loue your Lord and prince? Who answered both, Yea vndoubtedly. Then sayth he, take you away this gentlewoman and lady (meaning his wife) and let her not see her lord and husband, till such time as I will you thereunto. Whereupon they tooke her from the princes presence, crying out, and wringing her hands. Then sayd they vnto her, Be you contented good Lady and ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries - of the English Nation. v. 8 - Asia, Part I. • Richard Hakluyt
... it possible," I asked myself, "that this gentlewoman, warm with her rich blooded beauty, alive with ripe youth, born to delight the soul of man and fire his heart, should content herself to be a head nurse in a hospital; to wander in an unsightly disguise among dismal sick-beds; ...
— The House of Martha • Frank R. Stockton
... I mean," said the old gentlewoman with great dignity, "but if she will answer it to ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... I forget the consternation, the blank dismay of his countenance, when, one fine, sunshiny morning, I announced to him my intention of installing in the mansion some respectable middle-aged gentlewoman as my housekeeper. It was some time before he could ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... Madam," says she, "you catch us very unfit for company; but so kind a heart needs no excuse, and I will be candid with you. We are of birth and breeding like yourself." ('Twas a skilful compliment and the lady simpered.) "And therefore, as a gentlewoman of quality, you shall understand my grief when I present myself as my Lord Viscount Mayo's daughter, and add that I have not the wherewithal to clothe or feed these innocents! You are yourself too young to be a mother, Madam" (again the lady ...
— The Ladies - A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty • E. Barrington
... so pressing, my best services to you—a very companionable sort of old gentlewoman this (aside); I protest, madam, I feel myself interested for this unfortunate under your protection; there was a wild and melancholy sweetness in her eye that touched me at our first exchange of looks with awe and pity; ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter
... takes her down to the yaird and cutts at the root of a tree, making signs that it would fall and kill her. That not being understood by her or any of them, she takes the journey—the dumb lass holding her to stay. When the young gentlewoman is there at Hamilton, a few days after, her sister and she goes forth to walk in the park, and in their walking they both come under a tree. In that very instant they come under it, they hear it shaking and coming down. The sister-in-law flees to the right, and she herself ...
— Folk Lore - Superstitious Beliefs in the West of Scotland within This Century • James Napier
... mad To see him shine so brisk, and smell so sweet, And talk so like a waiting gentlewoman, And that it was great pity, so it was, That villanous saltpetre should be digged Out of the bowels of the harmless earth, Which many a good tall fellow had destroyed. K. Henry IV., Pt. ...
— The World's Best Poetry — Volume 10 • Various
... that Mrs. Glegg was a bit of game worth running down, and longed to be at the sport; "we'll stay out upo' the gravel here,—Mumps and me will. Mumps knows his company,—he does. I might hish at him by th' hour together, before he'd fly at a real gentlewoman like you. It's wonderful how he knows which is the good-looking ladies; and's partic'lar fond of 'em when they've good shapes. Lors!" added Bob, laying down his pack on the gravel, "it's a thousand pities such a lady ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... to keep school?" This dread was beginning to haunt Miss Ailie, and the pages between which the blotting-paper lay revealed that she had written to the editor of the Mentor asking up to what age he thought a needy gentlewoman had a right to teach. The answer was not given, but her comment on it told everything. "I asked him to be severely truthful, so that I cannot resent his reply. But if I take his advice, how am I to live? And if I do not take it, I fear I am but a stumbling-block in ...
— Sentimental Tommy - The Story of His Boyhood • J. M. Barrie
... gentlewoman, a substantial citizen's wife, was, if the story be true, murdered by one of these creatures in Aldersgate Street, or that way. He was going along the street, raving mad, to be sure, and singing. The people only said he was drunk; but he himself ...
— History of the Plague in London • Daniel Defoe
... was also borne by a sister of David (2 Sam. xvii. 25; 1 Chron. ii. 16 f.). From the former (self-styled "handmaid'' 1 Sam. xxv. 25 f.) is derived the colloquial use of the term for a waiting-woman (cf. Abigail, the "waiting gentlewoman,'' in Beaumont ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... his other business Earl Geoffrey bethought him in a while of the dead King's daughter, and he gave her in charge to a gentlewoman, somewhat stricken in years, a widow of high lineage, but not over wealthy. She dwelt in her own house in a fair valley some twenty miles from Meadhamstead: thereabode Goldilind till a year and a half was worn, and had due observance, ...
— Child Christopher • William Morris
... minister at Durham in 1662, a graduate at the University at Cambridge, England; from John Ham, of Dover; from the emigrant John Heard, and others of like vigorous stock. It was his ancestress, Elizabeth (Hull) Heard, whom the old historians call a "brave gentlewoman," who held her garrison house, the frontier fort in Dover in the Indian wars, and successfully defended it in the massacre of 1689. The father of the subject of this sketch was a man of sterling qualities, strong in mind and will, ...
— The Bay State Monthly - Volume 2, Issue 3, December, 1884 • Various
... Betty bought a Bible, and on the flyleaf of it she wrote in her fine, round, gentlewoman's writing—"John Broom. With good wishes for his welfare, temporal and eternal. From a sincere friend!" And when the inscription was dry the Bible was wrapped in brown paper, and put by in Thomasina's trunk till John Broom should ...
— Tales from Many Sources - Vol. V • Various
... surprised and offended. "On my soul," he said, "Clara, this is behaving very ill. I indulge you in every freak upon ordinary occasions, but you might surely on this day, of all others, have condescended to appear something like my sister, and a gentlewoman receiving company in her ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott |
