"Schoolmistress" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... at a strange language, taking the frosty sentences piecemeal. He begged her to be firm in her resolution, give up Alvan and obey her parents! This man of high intelligence and cultivation wrote like a provincial schoolmistress moralizing. Though he knew the depth of her passion for Alvan, and had within the month received her lark-song of her betrothal, he, this man—if living man he could be thought—counselled her to endeavour to deserve the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... sigh, said "he had been deceived in her; he had thought her endowed with many precious gifts, he feared they were mere tinsel; he thought she had been a right-thinking person, he feared she had merely made religion an amusement—she certainly had quite lost her temper to the schoolmistress, and beat Polly Rucker's knuckles cruelly." Belinda flew to his arms, there was no question about the grave or the veil any more. He tenderly embraced her on the forehead. "There is none like thee, my Belinda," he said, throwing ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... office, I was not encouraged to follow in their steps. When I was quite a little girl I thought it would be nice to be an actress. I had once acted, at my boarding-school, in a little play, on St. Nicholas' Day. I thought it no end of a lark. The schoolmistress said I didn't act well, but that was because Mamma owed her for a whole term. From the time I was fifteen I began to think seriously about going on the stage. I entered the Conservatoire, I worked, I worked very hard. It's a back-breaking trade. But ...
— A Mummer's Tale • Anatole France
... he was then too young to send to school, let him have his liberty to play about their yard, but instead of playing, he found out a school of his own accord near home, and went to the schoolmistress, and entreated her to teach him to read; and so he went some time to school without the knowledge of his parents, and made a very strange progress in his learning, and was able to read distinctly before most children ...
— Stories of Boys and Girls Who Loved the Saviour - A Token for Children • John Wesley
... disarmed those who would assail her; and being, as she was, of the lowest rank in the school, there could be no contest with the others as to precedence. Her mildness, humility, and sweetness of temper soon won upon both the schoolmistress and the scholars; eventually the Miss Tippets took Virginia under their protection, and this magnanimity on their part silenced all opposition. My mother had desired my sister to take lessons in dancing. At first the girls would not stand up with her; but, when ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... to tell in the marquee that night, where everybody collected to hear the wonderful experience, those who had already gone to their tents donning dressing-gowns and coming to join the interested audience. Miss Gibbs seemed divided between a sense of her duty as a schoolmistress to scold her pupils for undertaking such an extremely wild proceeding, and a glow of pride that her girls had actually succeeded in effecting the capture of an escaped enemy. On the whole, pride and patriotism prevailed, and the ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil
... Miss Lethbridge," said she, "since Graylees Castle will be overrun with workmen for some time to come. I didn't know but you might feel it would be best, after all, for us to put her again in charge of her old schoolmistress for ...
— Set in Silver • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... Audrey tapped her foot. Musa creaked in the basket chair. He avoided her eyes, but occasionally she glared at him like a schoolmistress. Then her gaze softened—he looked so ill, so helpless, so hopeless. She wanted to light a cigarette for him, but she was somehow bound to the sofa. She wanted him to go—she hated the prospect of his going. He ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... speech caused Amelia to philosophize, or that it armed her in any way with a calmness, the result of argument; but it was intolerably dull, and having the fear of her schoolmistress greatly before her eyes, Miss Sedley did not venture, in her presence, to give way to any ablutions of private grief. A seed cake and a bottle of wine were produced in the drawing room, as on the solemn occasions of the visits of parents; and these refreshments being partaken of, Miss Sedley ...
— Eighth Reader • James Baldwin
... the mutineers, "that we have deserted our banners just as an attempt was making by the archduke to relieve Grave, we can only reply that the assertion proves how impossible it is to practise arithmetic with disturbed brains. Passion is a bad schoolmistress for the memory, but, as good friends, we will recal to the recollection of your Highness that it was not your Highness, but the Admiral of Arragon, that commanded the relieving ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... made, so perfectly finished in every detail, that Miss Polehampton never looked at it without an uneasy feeling that she was too well-dressed for a schoolgirl. Others wore muslin dresses of apparently the same cut and texture; but what the casual eye might fail to observe, the schoolmistress was perfectly well aware of, namely, that the tiny frills at neck and wrists were of the costliest Mechlin lace, that the hem of the dress was bordered with the same material, as if it had been the commonest of things; ...
— A True Friend - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... dawn. One delicate Medusa is sliding across the pool, by slow pantings of its crystal bell; and on it the eyes of the whole group are fixed,—for it seems to be the subject of some story which the village schoolmistress is finishing in a ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... school, and the bribes never succeeded in attracting more than thirty pupils, even when money was paid to the parents. This institution was reopened by the Italian army after the War, and presumably it is the one which the American visited. I do not know whether the schoolmistress, forewarned of his visit, had told the children in Serbo-Croat that a gentleman would come and say something in Italian, whereupon they ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 2 • Henry Baerlein
... in the evening, ignorant of the first elements of his part, she took him in hand, as a middle-aged schoolmistress might have taken in hand a backward little boy. The few attempts he made to vary the sternly practical nature of the evening's occupation by slipping in compliments sidelong she put away from her with the contemptuous self-possession of a woman of twice her age. She literally ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... comparative charms of the maids of the harbor. There were so many maids in the world! Dang it, it was confusing! There was Peggy Lacey. She was adorable. Nobody could deny it. Had she worn roses in her cheeks she would have been irresistible altogether. And there was the new schoolmistress from Grace Harbor. That superior maid had her points, too. She did not lack attractions. They were more intellectual than anything else. Still, they had a positive appeal. There were snares for the heart in brilliant conversation and a traveled knowledge of the world. Dang it, anyhow, a man might ...
— Harbor Tales Down North - With an Appreciation by Wilfred T. Grenfell, M.D. • Norman Duncan
... gratifying her. He frequently gave Mademoiselle d'Avaux tickets for the play and the opera, that the young Louisa might have somebody to accompany her; but as Miss Melvyn did not think it proper at her age to go often with only her schoolmistress, or, according to the language of schools, her governess, Miss Mancel frequently declined being of the party, rather than leave her amiable ...
— A Description of Millenium Hall • Sarah Scott
... might never satisfy. She'd read books, all sorts of books, but one of the plains she loved. In it a somewhat saturnine horseman, a son of the sage-brush, unlettered but tutored much by life, had wooed and won a prim little schoolmistress from the East. Whether she went with the hope of emulation in her heart or not none can venture to say. Maybe it was in search of manhood, a ...
— Winner Take All • Larry Evans
... conversation might be. His habit of wandering away by himself had no doubt been noticed, and once it was noticed it would become a topic of conversation. 'And what they do be saying now is, "That he has never been the same man since he preached against the schoolmistress, for what should he be doing by the lake if he wasn't afraid that she made away with herself?" And perhaps they are right,' he said, and walked up the shore, hoping that as soon as he was out of sight the women would forget to tell when they returned home that they had seen him walking ...
— The Lake • George Moore
... Mehetabel, carrying her babe, revisited the schoolmistress, at an early hour, before the ...
— The Broom-Squire • S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould
... She made me seven shirts, and some other linen, of as fine cloth as could be got, which indeed was coarser than sackcloth; and these she constantly washed for me with her own hands. She was likewise my schoolmistress, to teach me the language: when I pointed to anything, she told me the name of it in her own tongue; so that in a few days I was able to call for whatever I had a mind to. She was very good-natured, and not above ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume III (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland I • Francis W. Halsey
... door of a church, it pleased Providence that she should address herself to a very pious and charitable lady, who kept a school at Chateau-Fort, and who was under the direction of a holy religious named the Father de Bray. At the first sight of the young and modest beggar, the virtuous schoolmistress felt moved, and discerning in her something which did not accord with her apparent state of life, ventured to ask her whether it was from sickness that she was reduced to that condition. Jane Margaret only replied that she believed herself to be fulfilling the will of God; which answer increased ...
— The Life of St. Frances of Rome, and Others • Georgiana Fullerton
... I love you dearly?" In answer to this Grace kissed the withered hand she held in hers, while the warm tears trickled upon Miss Prettyman's knuckles. "I love you as though you were my own," exclaimed the schoolmistress; "and will you not trust me, that I know ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... boys were considerably astonished and scared at seeing the schoolmistress walking quickly toward the creek. The chairman of the new committee was fully equal to the occasion. Mounting a rock, ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... went on the schoolmistress. "I tried to pack 'em, but—but I couldn't. I couldn't bear to do it alone. Maybe you or Imogene will help me by and by. Oh, my ...
— Thankful's Inheritance • Joseph C. Lincoln
... avoided. There is a rustick Cockneyism, as little pleasing as ours of London. Transplant Arcadia to Helpstone. The true rustic style, the Arcadian English, I think is to be found in Shenstone. Would his Schoolmistress, the prettiest of poems, have been better, if he had used quite the Goody's own language? Now and then a home rusticism is fresh and startling, but where nothing is gained in expression, it is out of tenor. It may make folks smile and stare, ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... the effects of a serious wound received in the trenches, was completely dominated by his old schoolmistress, who had gone out to nurse him, and the struggle between her fierce maternal hunger to hold him at her side and his desire for freedom from her obsessing influence, makes a story of singular strength and interest, with an unusual climax of dramatic intensity. ...
— Bones in London • Edgar Wallace
... didn't I tell you? My mother came to school at Brenthill. It was her old schoolmistress we remembered lived here when we had your letter. So we wrote to her, and the old dear not only promised me some pupils, but it is settled that Judith is to go and teach there every day. Judith thinks we ought to stick to ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various
... teach Oliver Goldsmith his letters was a woman, who afterwards became village schoolmistress, named Elizabeth Delap. She did not form a very flattering opinion of her young pupil. 'Never was so dull a boy,' she was wont to declare; 'he seemed impenetrably stupid.' From this kind but undiscriminating teacher Oliver ...
— The Curse of Education • Harold E. Gorst
... perceptibly as he said it. Janet, seeing him now in a state of mild propitiation, became suddenly aware of the schoolmistress tone in which she had made him own up; and as he considered what way to answer, she was more at a ...
— The Wrong Woman • Charles D. Stewart
... appealed to Meg and Elsie, and, rather to the astonishment of the girls, the boys also took it up with enthusiasm, and volunteered their assistance. They enlisted the help of the village schoolmistress, and some of the most tuneful among her pupils, and all on the spur of the moment ...
— A harum-scarum schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... if I hadn't known that your step-mother was a schoolmistress, I should have guessed it," he declared. "Externally, her influence upon you has almost blotted out your mother's. I'm thankful you didn't stay with her long enough for it to go deeper, excellent woman as I know her to be. As it is, your speech and manner conceal rather than reveal your ...
— Elsie Marley, Honey • Joslyn Gray
... next Thursday. I tell Esther that it will be as little of a wedding, and as much of a marriage, as possible. Her father and her good friend the schoolmistress alone are to be present.—My secret oppresses me considerably; but I have resolved to keep it for the honeymoon, when it may take care of itself. I am harassed with a dismal apprehension, that, if Esther were to discover it ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... who presided last year over another Guest House far away. But we were not to sleep at the Chateau, which was already full of guests. Arrangements had been made for us at a cottage in the village near, belonging to the village schoolmistress; the motor took us there immediately, and after changing our travel-stained dresses, we went back to the Chateau for dinner. Many guests—all of them of course of the male sex, and much talk! Some of the guests—members of Parliament, and foreign correspondents—had been over the Somme battlefield ...
— Towards The Goal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... for her patients, the third that there were five more deaths, one being Mrs. Gadley, of the 'Three Pigeons,' from diphtheria, and fourteen more cases of fever were reported. Julius had already been with the schoolmistress, who was not expected to live through the day. He had found that Mrs. Duncombe had been up all night with one of the most miserable families, and only when her unpractised hands had cared for a little corpse, had been forced home by good Miss Slater for a little rest. He ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge
... don't think that the qualities, half savage and half freethinking, expressed in 'Jane Eyre' are likely to suit a model governess or schoolmistress; and it amuses me to consider them in that particular relation. Your account falls like dew upon the parched curiosity of some of our friends here, to whom (as mere gossip, which did not leave you responsible) I couldn't resist the temptation of ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... schoolmistress guards you like nuns, but I must see you and Squibs somehow. Can you manage to peep over the wall, right-hand side of gate? I'll walk up and down the road for half an hour, on the ...
— A Patriotic Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... let him play pranks through the whole four acts, let him eat a great deal after his work—and that will be enough for him to conquer the audience with. Pyotr, I repeat, is good. Most likely you don't even suspect how good he is. Tatyana, too, is a finished figure, only (a) she ought really to be a schoolmistress, ought to be teaching children, ought to come home from school, ought to be taken up with her pupils and exercise-books, and (b) it ought to be mentioned in the first or second act that she has attempted to poison ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov
... waters of the Fiord. I looked on Bergen with the liveliest interest, because its name was familiar to me when a child, and I used to lisp the word before I could walk steadily; for in those young days of waywardness my old schoolmistress, whose peaked nose and malicious heart are still a vivid truth, would threaten to give me to the fishermen at Bergen who, she said, would take and toss me into the Maelstrom. With an eagerness akin to that of a schoolboy at Christmas, gazing on the green curtain of a theatre, the moment ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... except the whistle of the axes, as they cleaved the air, and the coarse jokes of the workmen,—then had come days when even odd jobs had been hailed with delight, and he had sat at the feet of the grim schoolmistress Necessity and learned how little man really needs to have to live. And then the Steel Works had opened again and he had forged his way up through the different departments to the responsible position he now held. His promotion had been rapid. The foreman ...
— A Beautiful Possibility • Edith Ferguson Black
... premature. During the two years she had been at school, Pamela had thought very little of Arthur Chicksands. She was absorbed in one of those devotions to a woman—her schoolmistress—very common among girls of strong character, and sometimes disastrous. In her case it had worked well. And now the period of extravagant devotion was over, and the girl's mind and heart set free. She thought ...
— Elizabeth's Campaign • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... shame for; of the days that followed when, an orphan and without a home, he had sailed away from New Orleans to the Cape. How the mind of the mathematician, which he had inherited from the Boston schoolmistress, had been swayed by the spirit of the soldier, which he had inherited from his father, and which led him from the mines of South Africa to little wars in Madagascar, Egypt, and Algiers. It had been a life as restless as the seaweed on a rock. But as he looked back to its poor beginnings ...
— Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis |
