"Unfeminine" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and stood viewing me over with a bold, unwavering gaze that it seemed nothing might abash; and though her eyes were large and well-shaped, yet I remember thinking them excessively unfeminine, the eyes rather of an ill-natured, pugnacious boy; and now, because of the hard coldness of her look, the unmaidenly, calculating intensity of her regard, I grew very conscious of my disfiguring garments and felt myself ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... around it is a good thing we are going off on our fishing expedition. I don't want my friend turned down by my sister, and I don't want my friend calling my sister a new type and unfeminine." ...
— Our Next-Door Neighbors • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... most part the female cried, "Chack! chack!" but occasionally she tried to screech like her ebon consort, her voice breaking ludicrously in the unfeminine effort. The evening before, I had flushed a youngster about which a great hubbub was being made, but on the day of my long vigil in the meadow, I could not, by the most careful search, find a single bantling, either in or out of a nest. It is odd how effectually the ...
— Birds of the Rockies • Leander Sylvester Keyser
... it over with Papum, and I should LOVE it. I'd do it, not because I would have to do it, but because it would interest me. Condy, you know that I'm not a bit strong-minded, and that I hate a masculine, unfeminine girl as ...
— Blix • Frank Norris
... stallion; gibcat[obs3], tomcat; he goat, Billy goat; ram, tup; bull, bullock; capon, ox, gelding, steer, stot[obs3]. androgen. homosexual, gay, queen[slang]. V. masculinize Adj. male, he-, masculine; manly, virile; unwomanly, unfeminine. Pron. he, him, his. Phr. hominem pagina nostra sapit [Lat][Mar.]; homo homini aut deus aut lupus [Lat][Erasmus]; homo vitae commodatus ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... adorable fury." Yet the Furies themselves could be appeased by purifications and expiations: but Emilia's heart is inaccessible to the softening influences of benevolence and generosity; the adoration of so unfeminine a creature is hardly pardonable even in a lover. Hence she has no better adorers than Cinna and Maximus, two great villains, whose repentance comes too late to be ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... Comstock. Second, in a desperate controversy as to how the marbles were to be divided. Third, in a compromise, which necessitated that a complete count be made of every marble in the box—and the Madigans' unfeminine skill made this a question of handling hundreds of them, of suspiciously watching one another, of losing and of finding; and it all took time. Fourth, a decision as to handicaps. Fifth, a heated discussion of the relative values of puries, pottries, agates, crystals, and 'dobies. ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson
... up brightly at a tall Maryland lady, who was congratulating her, and said, "I feel as tall as you." These two ladies looked just like other women and had developed no horns or hoofs or other unamiable and unfeminine characteristics in consequence of their having obtained the right to vote.... The Southern women have distinguished themselves in the national suffrage conventions during the last few years. This year, on "presidents' ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... had confided to Mrs. McLane that his wife was inclined to be a bas bleu and he wanted her broken of an unfeminine love of books. Mrs. McLane, who knew that a reputation for bookishness would be fatal in a community that regarded "Lucile" as a great poem and read little but the few novels that drifted their way (or the continued stories in Godey's ...
— Sleeping Fires • Gertrude Atherton
... of which we can ascertain the nature and discern the limits. Could Philip be ill? Could he—No, he could not be inconstant. Ought she to write to him again? But to this question her parents answered "No. It would be unfeminine, unladylike, undignified. If Mr. Hayforth were ill, he would doubtless write as soon as he was able; and if he were well, his conduct was inexcusable, and on Emily's part rendered any advance impossible." Poor Emily ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... Emily, with the conscious ignorance of eighteen, believed, and was the sort of gentle creature who could easily be daunted by the terror that her generous impulses to share the shame and namelessness were unfeminine and wrong. The utter silence had been the consequence of her mother assuring her, with authority, that the true kindness was to betray no token of feeling that could cherish hope where all was hopeless, ...
— Lady Hester, or Ursula's Narrative • Charlotte M. Yonge
... comes to the worst, you can denounce 'em." Mrs. Purchase untied her bonnet strings, and then slowly crossed her legs—an unfeminine habit of hers. "Tis like a story out of a book," she pursued. "This very morning as we was moored a little above Deptford in the Virtuous Lady— that's my husband's ship—and me making the coffee for breakfast as usual, comes off a boy with a telegram, saying, 'Meet me and Miss Myra by the ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... never found him attractive, she had grown to accept the general estimate of his character and ability. A man so gifted ought not to be judged as severely as poorer or less actively intelligent mortals; and as long as other men did not judge him, she felt no inclination to usurp so unfeminine a prerogative. He had always been kind to her, and she understood now from his manner that he meant to be still kinder. It occurred to her at once that he knew of George's infatuation for Florrie, and that ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... like dashing along across the country—it is excitement; and I like, too, to have a horse obeying me—'tis so delicious to rule! To think that Madame Blandin should consider riding unfeminine, and that I should have missed that pleasure for so many years! But I am my own mistress now. By the way," she added, carelessly, "I wanted to have a few words with you, Miss Rothesay." She had rarely called her Olive ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)
... nearest analogue in William Blake; but this "nearest" is far from identity. While tenderly feminine in her sympathy for suffering, her love of nature, her loyalty to her friends, she is in expression the most unfeminine of poets. The usual feminine impulsiveness and full expression of emotion is replaced in her by an extraordinary condensation of phrase and feeling. In her letters we find the eternal womanly in her yearning love for her friends, her brooding anxiety and ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead
... were allowed a good deal of liberty—but I'd really no idea they went as far as this! I should be sorry indeed to see any girl of mine (here the glances instructively at three dumpy and dough-faced Daughters) acting in that forward and most unfeminine manner. (Reassuringly.) But I'm very sure there's no fear ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, July 9, 1892 • Various
... elevated them. They could not contradict him on that point. He declined to believe, without a particle of evidence, that any science could elevate the higher sex and degrade the lower. What evidence we had ran against it. Nurses are not, as a class, unfeminine, yet all that is most appalling, disgusting, horrible, and unsexing in the art of healing is monopolized by them., Women see worse things than doctors. Women nurse all the patients of both sexes, ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... since you have discovered her weakness, it is right that you should know also her virtue; it is right that you should learn that it was not in her the fantasy or passion of a moment, but a long and secreted love; that you should learn that it was her pity, and no unfeminine disregard to opinion, which betrayed her into imprudence; and that she is, at this moment, innocent of everything but the folly of ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... one's child cry was bad enough, but to see her cry when that child's whole creed of honour and conduct for years past had precluded this relief as unfeminine, was worse than disconcerting. ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... the female sex. To say of such or such a young woman, She is a bold and powerful reasoner—would it not be a little uncommon? Would it be received as a compliment? Would it not be regarded as a little out of the way—and, to coin a term, as rather unfeminine? ...
— The Young Woman's Guide • William A. Alcott
... themselves. And as for me, though I must plead guilty to the charge of being more healthy, more active, and perhaps more energetic, than young ladies are usually expected to be, still I never was considered unfeminine; and the only peculiarity resulting from this constant companionship with one of the superior sex, was to give me a high sense of that superiority, with a habit of deference to man's judgment and submission to man's authority, which I am quite sure ...
— Personal Recollections • Charlotte Elizabeth
... feminine fodder? And here is the still more perplexing part of it. Unless all analysis of the female heart is a delusion, and all history false, what women like most of all things in this world is a Man, virile, forceful, compelling, a solid rock of dependence, a substantial unfeminine being, whom it is some satisfaction and glory and interest to govern and rule in the right way, and twist round the feminine finger. If women should succeed in reducing or raising—of course raising—men ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... cried Mary. "Betty, how can you propose anything so impossible, so unfeminine! Are not men our natural protectors?" and she threw a languishing glance at the cattle-breeder. "Shall we usurp ...
— Tales from Many Sources - Vol. V • Various
... which would make it dreadful to her ever to have to admit that she had been personally wrong,—some mixture of pride and principle, which was strong enough to keep her stedfast in her promised obedience. She would do nothing that could be thrown in her teeth; nothing that could be called unfeminine, indelicate, or undutiful. But she had high ideas of what was due to herself, and conceived that she would be wronged by her father, should her father take advantage of her sense of duty to crush her heart. She had her own rights and her own privileges, ...
— Sir Harry Hotspur of Humblethwaite • Anthony Trollope
... His hand was promptly extended to assist the progress of his fair companion—a service which was singularly unnecessary in the case of one to whom daily rambles, over hill and through forest, had imparted a most unfeminine degree of vigor. Now he broke the branch away from before her path; and now, stooping suddenly, he gathered for her the pale ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... be written to Vronsky. "I have told my husband," she wrote, and she sat a long while unable to write more. It was so coarse, so unfeminine. "And what more am I to write to him?" she said to herself. Again a flush of shame spread over her face; she recalled his composure, and a feeling of anger against him impelled her to tear the sheet with the phrase she had written into tiny bits. "No need of anything," she said to herself, and ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... while the grief and distraction of the poor woman, on seeing him in a dying state, was agonising; and she gave vent to her feelings in uttering the most hearty curses against the country, and the persons who by their unkindness had been the cause of his sickness. The young man seemed shocked at the unfeminine conduct of his mother, and begged me to excuse the rude manner in which she answered me; 'for,' says he, 'she is ignorant and beside herself, and does not know what ...
— Life in the Clearings versus the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... immediately reply. She nervously unfastened a bag she carried, and taking out a singularly unfeminine-looking handkerchief—a large cambric square almost masculine in its proportions, and guiltless of lace or perfume—held it to her face for a moment. But Crewe noticed that her eyes were dry when ...
— The Hampstead Mystery • John R. Watson
... fond of knitting?" asked her aunt, making room for her on the sofa, and much relieved to find that her niece was not of the unfeminine ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... with such instances of female piety and fortitude, not, indeed, as they would be made to appear in the unfeminine violence of political turmoil, in which a truly pious female would not embroil herself; but in the quiet recesses of domestic life—in the hard struggles against poverty, and in those cruel visitations, where the godly mother is forced to see her innocent son corrupted by the ...
— Fardorougha, The Miser - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... quite abominable how women thrust themselves into every profession," she remarked, in her masculine voice. "It is so unfeminine, so unseemly." ...
— Stories By English Authors: Germany • Various
... retorted Edgeworth Bess, with a very unfeminine imprecation, "I shan't stand any more of that nonsense. What do you mean by calling me wretch, Madam!" she added marching up to Mrs. Sheppard, and regarding her with ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... at times so completely absorbed her faculties as to deprive her of every power, either mental or corporeal. Thus, daily and hourly, her superior acquirements, her enlightened understanding, yielded to the intemperance of her ruling infatuation, and every power of reflection seemed absorbed in the unfeminine propensity. ...
— A Walk from London to Fulham • Thomas Crofton Croker
... one of the simplest things in the world. When an elector's mind is made up, there is less difficulty in expressing it through the ballot-box than in matching a ribbon, and the one act is not considered more unfeminine than the other. Our freedom has not developed a class of political women, we have no "shrieking sisterhood," but we know and use our power. We can do a great deal toward securing members of good character in the Parliament and influencing their ...
— Political Equality Series, Vol. 1, No. 6. Equal Suffrage in Australia • Various
... regard the world as an arena in which she must fight a battle by her own strength with such weapons as God had given to her. God had, indeed, given to her many weapons, but she knew but of one. She did know that God had made her very beautiful. But she regarded her beauty after an unfeminine fashion,—as a thing of value, but as a chattel of which she could not bring herself to be proud. Might it be possible that she should win for herself by her beauty some position in the world less burdensome, more joyous than that of ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... home; we shall soon be thousands of miles away. You know how little we really care for the opinions of the people here: it is only our own pride and opinion that we need consult. I see nothing lowering or unfeminine in the work. I shall scarcely touch a thing myself, merely direct; for surely among all in your employ there must be one or two pairs of hands not so utterly awkward but that they can follow plain instructions. My taste shall do it all. ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
... in from the country with immense burdens of vegetables and other products of the farms, are a very striking, if not a very pleasing feature in the markets. Owing to the hard labor imposed upon them, they are exceedingly rough and brawny, and have a hard, dreary, and unfeminine expression of countenance, rather inconsistent with one's notions of the delicacy and tenderness of woman. Few of them are even passably well-looking. All the natural playfulness of the gentler sex seems to be crushed ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... exhausted frames to the labours of the day. Even female labour could not be dispensed with; the strong as well as the weak, the delicate and sickly, and (shame to their oppressors) even the pregnant, barefooted and scantily clothed, were obliged to join in those rugged, unfeminine labours. In one instance I saw the husband quarrying stones, and the wife and children dragging them along in an old cart to the building. Such were the building scenes of that period. The poor people ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller
... countenance had most eloquently aided her words,—by turns soft, frank, fierce,—and at the last question she inclined her head humbly, and stood, as in fear of his reply, before him. The stern, brave, wild spirit, in which what seemed unfeminine was yet, if I may so say, still womanly, did not recoil, it rather captivated Glyndon. He answered ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... could not but feel that in Agrippina he had chosen a wife even more intolerable than Messalina herself. Messalina had not interfered with the friends he loved, had not robbed him of the insignia of empire, had not filled his palace with a hard and unfeminine tyranny, and had of course watched with a mother's interest over the lives and fortunes of his children. Narcissus would not be likely to leave him long in ignorance that, in addition to her other plots and crimes, Agrippina had been as little true to him as his former unhappy wife. The information ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar
... changed that mien! How changed these timid looks have been, Since years of guilt and of disguise Have steeled her brow, and armed her eyes! No more of virgin terror speaks The blood that mantles in her cheeks: Fierce and unfeminine, are there, Frenzy for joy, for grief despair: And I the cause—for whom were given Her peace on earth, her hopes in heaven! Would," thought he, as the picture grows, "I on its stalk had left the rose! Oh, why should ...
— Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field • Walter Scott
... their "last infirmity," and is stimulated by the access which fame gives to all objects of ambition, including even the favour of women; while to women themselves all these objects are closed, and the desire of fame itself considered daring and unfeminine. Besides, how could it be that a woman's interests should not be all concentrated upon the impressions made on those who come into her daily life, when society has ordained that all her duties should be to them, and has contrived that all her comforts should depend on them? The natural desire ...
— The Subjection of Women • John Stuart Mill
... had proposed to lay before her lover, seemed at once to have vanished from her recollection, and left only a painful chaos of ideas, with which was mingled a fear that she had degraded herself in the eyes of Morton by a step which might appear precipitate and unfeminine. She hung motionless and almost powerless upon the arm of her attendant, who in vain endeavoured to reassure and inspire her with courage, by whispering, "We are in now, madam, and we maun mak the best o' our time; for, doubtless, the ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... "It is only the unpicturesque result of an unfeminine knowledge of the law. And I was thinking how one is limited—and yet how things are simplified ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... themselves superior, they are as accessible to this appeal. On the contrary, they never feel interested in one who seems disposed rather to offer than to ask assistance. There is, indeed, something unfeminine in independence. It is contrary to nature and, therefore, it offends. We do not like to see a woman affecting tremors, but still less do we like to see her acting the Amazon. A really sensible woman feels her dependence; she does what she can, but ...
— The Ladies' Vase - Polite Manual for Young Ladies • An American Lady
... do understand"; it struck a false note. Henry could not bear to be understood. She also crossed out, "It is everything or nothing. "Henry would resent so strong a grasp of the situation. She must not comment; comment is unfeminine. ...
— Howards End • E. M. Forster
... was fair; and her figure, though small, well-proportioned. In more advanced life Boswell, who with Dr. Johnson visited her, characterized her person and deportment as "genteel." There was nothing unfeminine, either in her form or in her manners, to detract from the charm of her great natural vivacity, or give a tone of hardness to her strong good sense, calm judgment, and power of decision. Her voice was sweet ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume III. • Mrs. Thomson
... been very much with which I must reproach myself. I know that I have behaved badly. Sometimes I have to undergo the doubly bitter self-accusation of having behaved in a manner which the world will call unfeminine. You must understand that I have not passed through this unscathed, and I must beg you to allow me some time for a cure. A perfect cure I may never expect, but I think that in twelve months from this ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... aloud, and asked me if I could not leap over the barrier that impeded my progress, drawing the rope still higher while they spoke. I answered, though I trembled at being exposed to their rude mirth, and still more rude gaze, "That I felt sure Frenchmen would not compel me to such an unfeminine exertion, or give me cause to tell my compatriots when I returned to England that deference to women no ...
— The Idler in France • Marguerite Gardiner
... strange, O my brother, that I thus venture to introduce myself into the hidden chambers of your life. I will never suffer myself to be frightened from the carrying out of any thought which promises to be of use to a fellow-mortal by a fear lest it should be considered "unfeminine." I can bear to be considered unfeminine, but I cannot endure to think of myself as inhuman. Can ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... me as it would have a few weeks before, for I had come to learn that Gwen was liable at any time to suddenly evince a very unfeminine depth of observation and firmness of ...
— The Darrow Enigma • Melvin L. Severy
... the summer months and seven in the winter. They work all day at the severest agricultural labor, wielding a heavy, clumsy hoe, digging potatoes, grubbing up stones from the soil, stooping on the ground in weeding, and compelled even to the unfeminine and offensive employment of spreading manure. For a day's work at what men alone should be required to do, they receive but a shilling! Then, worn out with fatigue, having eaten little more than the crust they brought with them,—for what more can be afforded by one who earns only a shilling ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... course the sequel shows She had some qualities of disposition, To which, in general, her sex are foes,— As strange proclivities to erudition, And lore unfeminine, reserved for those Who now-a-days descant on "Woman's Mission," Or tread instead that "primrose path" to knowledge, That ...
— Collected Poems - In Two Volumes, Vol. II • Austin Dobson
... having once approached the tiger, and quietly surveyed him, as he writhed and growled, expecting the attack, turned suddenly round and trotted awkwardly off to the yard gate, where he capsized a palankeen which was carrying away a lady fatigued with the sight of these unfeminine sports. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 19, - Issue 549 (Supplementary issue) • Various
... something in his mental attitude that was not unfeminine, direct and assertive as he was. He had what is generally known as feminine intuition, a quality perhaps even rarer in women ...
— Love at Second Sight • Ada Leverson
... of their minds—if they have any—are bent upon the acquirement of a thorough knowledge of the latest foreign fashion, heedless whether they ruin father or husband or not. So there are—those especially who are taught to think it very "unfeminine" to be "strong-minded" enough to be independent, who deem it a fearful thing to bend mind or body to work for their own living, asserting, with an unwitting sarcasm, that "papa" or "husband" is the ...
— Woman: Man's Equal • Thomas Webster
... her seat, looking, black as she was, so much older than her wont, with something about her of that unworldly serious thoughtfulness which a mourning garb always gives. And yet her words were so worldly, so unfeminine! ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope
... been for those pathetic lines and shadows, Dayton would have turned on his heel then and there, disgusted with what seemed to him unfeminine shrewdness. As it was, he said: "Well, then, why not let me be your broker? I'm on the street half the time, and I could attend to your business a great deal better ...
— Peak and Prairie - From a Colorado Sketch-book • Anna Fuller
... unfeminine and coarse, as viewed from a nineteenth century standard, and there is nothing in them to recommend the two girls to the particular favour of the audience. Yet, in the case of Leonora, they are given with ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... his Leicester, or his Beatrix, will be dishonoured in the estimation of all readers by his or her vices. Let a woman be drawn clever, beautiful, attractive,—so as to make men love her, and women almost envy her,—and let her be made also heartless, unfeminine, and ambitious of evil grandeur, as was Beatrix, what a danger is there not in such a character! To the novelist who shall handle it, what peril of doing harm! But if at last it have been so handled that every girl ...
— Autobiography of Anthony Trollope • Anthony Trollope
... indomitable desire to serve in person the victims of wounds and sickness, a few hundred women, impelled by instincts which assured them of their ability to endure the hardship, overcome the obstacles, and adjust themselves to the unusual and unfeminine circumstances in which they would be placed—made their way through all obstructions at home, and at the seat of war, or in the hospitals, to the bed-sides of the sick and wounded men. Many of these women scandalized their friends at home by what seemed their Quixotic resolution; or, they ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... in years to come, when little voices in the firelight (that's a pretty touch—who says the Army has made us unfeminine?) beseech me, "Tell us again how you won the War, Great-grandma," I shall retain sufficient perspective to reply, "Granny didn't do it all alone, darlings; there were a lot of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Jan. 1, 1919 • Various
... and sympathy for the vehement Electra by contrasting her with the weak and selfish Chrysothemis. Her very bitterness against her mother is made to assume the guise of a solemn duty to her father. Her unfeminine qualities rise into courage and magnanimity—she glories in the unkindness and persecution she meets with from Clytemnestra and Aegisthus—they are proofs of her reverence to the dead. Woman as ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... "And this indelicate and unfeminine rhapsody, Captain Ludlow has seen proper to ascribe to me!" she said, while her voice trembled ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... matter—that is to say the logical deliverance of our general scheme of life upon the point in question—says that the woman should be represented in the body politic and before the law, not immediately in her own person, but through the mediation of the head of the household to which she belongs. It is unfeminine in her to aspire to a self-directing, self-centered life; and our common sense tells us that her direct participation in the affairs of the community, civil or industrial, is a menace to that social order which expresses our habits of thought as they have been formed under the guidance of ...
— The Theory of the Leisure Class • Thorstein Veblen
... composition with unexpected breadth and dignity of phrasing. Serviss listened with growing amazement. Her hands were not large, but they had ample spread and were under perfect control. There was power in the poise of her head and in the rhythmic swaying of her body, but her playing was curiously unfeminine. There was no touch of girlish grace, of sentiment, in her performance, and with a sudden enlightenment Serviss inwardly exclaimed: "Aha! A clerical Svengali! This musical preacher has trained his pupil till she plays as he would play if he had the digital ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland
... I had called Miss Brett—was standing in front of me with a big revolver in her hand and a broad grin on her face. Miss James was still leaning against the door, but had fallen into an attitude so totally new, and so totally unfeminine, that it gave one a shock. She was kicking her heels, with her hands in her pockets and her cap on one side. She was a man. I mean he was a wo—no, that is I saw that instead of being a woman she—he, I mean—that is, ...
— The Club of Queer Trades • G. K. Chesterton
... the thread of romance inwoven with the composition of Mirpah Madgin was a very slender one. In so far she belied her own beauty. For a young woman she was strangely practical, and that in a curiously unfeminine way. She was her father's managing clerk and alter ego. The housewifely acts of sewing and cooking she held in utter distaste. For domestic management in any of its forms she had no faculty, unless it were for that portion of it which necessitated a watchful eye upon the purse-strings. Such ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 6, June, 1891 • Various
... "I never came to Washington as a widow on purpose to set my cap for the first candidate for the Presidency, and I never made a public spectacle of my indecent eagerness in the very galleries of the Senate; and Mrs. Lee ought to be ashamed of herself. She is a cold-blooded, heartless, unfeminine cat." ...
— Democracy An American Novel • Henry Adams
... jackets, down the back of which their luxuriant black hair dangles in two tresses; but the crowning masterpiece of their costume is that wonderful garment which is neither petticoat nor pantaloons, and which can be most properly described as "indescribable," which tends to give the wearer rather an unfeminine appearance, and is not to be compared with the really sensible and not unpicturesque nether garment of a Turkish lady. The male companions of these Greek women are not a bit behind them in the matter of gay colors and startling surprises of the Levantine clothier's art, ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... during that time so endeared herself to all as to become the prominent object of attention and love. Her case is one of the most extraordinary the history of the world has presented, in which the very highest degree of heroism is combined with the most resistless charms of feminine loveliness. An unfeminine woman can never be loved by men. She may be respected for her talents, she may be honored for her philanthropy, but she can not win the warmer emotions of the heart. But Madame Roland, with an energy of will, an infallibility of purpose, a firmness of stoical endurance ...
— Madame Roland, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott
... headway in this region. I remember one instance in which an Eskimo woman had a difference of opinion with her husband, and proved her right to independence by blackening the old man's eye; but I am afraid that the more conservative members of the tribe attributed this unfeminine behavior to the corrupting ...
— The North Pole - Its Discovery in 1909 under the auspices of the Peary Arctic Club • Robert E. Peary
... is large, though not unfeminine, and the magnificent wealth of tawny-colored hair reminds one of Guercino's Holy Magdalen. She has pretty, modest ways of looking down under those pale, drooping lids with her calm, confiding eyes, and if the mouth is somewhat large, the teeth are white and even, and the lips are ...
— The Story of a Summer - Or, Journal Leaves from Chappaqua • Cecilia Cleveland
... never-to-be-forgotten lingo grande (in which, by the bye, I purpose ere long to compose a second epistle), thought proper one day to call my daughter a great horsemangander, thinking, I suppose, that that appellation contained as much unfeminine meaning as could be put into any decent compound. From this substantive the verb has been formed to denote an operation performed by the said daughter upon the said aunt, of which I was an astonished spectator. The ...
— A Letter Book - Selected with an Introduction on the History and Art of Letter-Writing • George Saintsbury
... opinion which fire could not melt out of me. In spite of Messieurs les Connaisseurs, and Michel Angelo's fame, I would die in it at the stake: for instance, here is the Blessed Virgin, not the "Vergine Santa, d'ogni grazia piena," but a Virgin, whose brick-dust coloured face, harsh unfeminine features, and muscular, masculine arms, give me the idea of a washerwoman, (con rispetto parlando!) an infant Saviour with the proportions of a giant: and what shall we say of the nudity of the figures in the back-ground; profaning the subject and shocking at once good taste ...
— The Diary of an Ennuyee • Anna Brownell Jameson
... her veil, and that movement displayed for an instant the seductive grace of her youthful figure, clad in the simplest of mourning. In the transparent shadow the hat rim threw on her face her grey eyes had an enticing lustre. Her voice, with its unfeminine yet exquisite timbre, was steady, and she spoke quickly, frank, unembarrassed. As she justified her action by the mental state of her mother, a spasm of pain marred the generously confiding harmony of her features. I perceived that with his downcast eyes he had the air of a man ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... the necessary absence of her husband on the war-path and hunting excursions. She followed the occupation of a woman, tilled the fields, dressed the meats and skins, and gathered the fuel for the winter's fire, and although this seems to the whites as unfeminine labor, it was performed at their leisure, and occupied very ...
— Legends, Traditions, and Laws of the Iroquois, or Six Nations, and History of the Tuscarora Indians • Elias Johnson
... hour to herself. And yet she too had a heart of her own, and had told herself in so many words, that she herself would have loved the man,—had it been fitting that she should burden him with such a love. She had rejected the idea as unfitting, impossible, and almost unfeminine. There was nothing in her to attract the man. The idea had sprung up but for a moment, and had been cast out as being monstrous. There was Ada, the very queen of beauty. And the gallant hero was languishing ...
— The Landleaguers • Anthony Trollope
... as checking for a moment her exultation would be the natural womanly horror at the sight of blood and physical suffering, the expression of which seems to me not only natural to her, as of the "feminine gender," but not altogether superfluous to reconcile an English audience to so unfeminine a proceeding as stabbing a man. To conciliate all this I adopted the course of immediately dropping the arm that held the dagger, and with the other veiling my eyes with the drapery of my dress, which answered better my own idea of the situation, and seemed to produce a great effect. ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... Lanley, rather to his own surprise, found that he was insisting on giving Mrs. Wayne his arm; he was not so angry at her as he had supposed. He did not think her offensive or unfeminine or half baked or socialistic or any of the things he had been saying to himself at lengthening intervals for ...
— The Happiest Time of Their Lives • Alice Duer Miller
... the use of drawers was almost unknown among women half a century ago, and was considered immodest and unfeminine. Tilt, a distinguished gynecologist of that period, advocated such garments, made of fine calico, and not to descend below the knee, on hygienic grounds. "Thus understood," he added, "the adoption of drawers will doubtless become more general ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... to see you, Captain Stride," she said, shaking hands with unfeminine heartiness. "Have you been to see mother? I have just ...
— Charlie to the Rescue • R.M. Ballantyne
... either mental or corporeal. Thus, daily and hourly, her superior acquirements, her enlightened understanding, yielded to the intemperance of her ruling infatuation, and every power of reflection seemed lost in the unfeminine propensity. ...
— Beaux and Belles of England • Mary Robinson
... King's Bench in the most cutting terms. [66] His daughter had inherited his abilities and his impudence. Personal charms she had none, with the exception of two brilliant eyes, the lustre of which, to men of delicate taste, seemed fierce and unfeminine. Her form was lean, her countenance haggard. Charles, though he liked her conversation, laughed at her ugliness, and said that the priests must have recommended her to his brother by way of penance. She well knew that she was not handsome, and jested freely on her own homeliness. Yet, ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... to help laughing at the funny conflict between Laurie's chivalrous reluctance to speak ill of womankind, and his very natural dislike of the unfeminine folly of which fashionable society showed him many samples. Jo knew that 'young Laurence' was regarded as a most eligible parti by worldly mamas, was much smiled upon by their daughters, and flattered enough by ladies of all ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... reached his home during his absence;—and here was Lady Carbury's letter. He knew her writing well, and was aware that here was the confirmation of his fate. It had not been expected, as she had given herself another day for her answer,—but here it was, beneath his hand. Surely this was almost unfeminine haste. He chucked the letter, unopened, a little from him, and endeavoured to fix his attention on some printed slip that was ready for him. For some ten minutes his eyes went rapidly down the lines, but he found that his mind did not follow what he was reading. ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... would come again to the wagon in which he rode, but now she seemed to avoid him—to be impelled, as it were, by a sense of shyness or a fear that she might be thought unfeminine. Thus he found scant opportunity during the day to talk to her or even to see her, as she remained nearly all the time in the rear of the column ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... power does indeed render her cool, collected, and firm, but never a whit unfeminine: her smooth command both of herself and of the matter she goes about rather heightens our sense of her modesty than otherwise: so that the impression we take from her is, that these high mental prerogatives are of no ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... much as the brown of a crisping autumn leaf. He remembered, though, that she was poorly dressed—and utterly unconscious, or careless, of being so. And she had been amused, undoubtedly amused, at his annoyance. A most unfeminine girl! And that at least was fortunate—for he was very, very weary ...
— The Window-Gazer • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... Pole, carrying on a spiritless conversation, and coldly listened to the praises the former liberally bestowed on the German dancer. The rapid movements and strong excitement that were natural to the Polish girls made Lenore wild, and, Anton regretted to see, unfeminine; and his glance wandered away from her to the rough walls, the dusty stove, in which an immense fagot was burning, and the ceiling, from which long ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... for the purpose of ascertaining whether my accusation of selfishness is or is not well founded, and afterwards, for the purpose of seeking to eradicate from your character every taint of so unlovely, and, for the credit of the sex, I may add, so unfeminine a failing. ...
— The Young Lady's Mentor - A Guide to the Formation of Character. In a Series of Letters to Her Unknown Friends • A Lady
... the same thing may be said of the women in the harem of an Oriental They do not complain.... They think our women insufferably unfeminine." —Mill. ...
— Men, Women, and Gods - And Other Lectures • Helen H. Gardener
... her face. Her features were small but sharply cut; the square chin and firm mouth had the lines of courage and violent emotions, her piercing intelligent eyes interpreted a terrible power of love and hate. But if her face was so strong as to be almost unfeminine, it was frank ...
— The Splendid Idle Forties - Stories of Old California • Gertrude Atherton
... affection of the Lover. He regretted Rosario, the fond, the gentle, and submissive: He grieved that Matilda preferred the virtues of his sex to those of her own; and when He thought of her expressions respecting the devoted Nun, He could not help blaming them as cruel and unfeminine. Pity is a sentiment so natural, so appropriate to the female character, that it is scarcely a merit for a Woman to possess it, but to be without it is a grievous crime. Ambrosio could not easily forgive his Mistress for being deficient in this amiable quality. However, ...
— The Monk; a romance • M. G. Lewis
... was possessed of the unfeminine attribute of holding her tongue and reserving her comments. She refrained from comment now, rocking gently backward and forward on her heels—a habit associated with ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull
... herself, became ashamed, and shame in her unfeminine nature meant rage. She showed the door to the imprudent orderly, and shut it behind him with a blow. Then she took several turns around the room, wringing the whip in her nervous hands. At last, planting herself before Sisa, she said to her in ...
— An Eagle Flight - A Filipino Novel Adapted from Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... of food now?" Polly Beale, the tall, sturdy girl with an almost masculine bob and a quite masculine tweed suit, demanded brusquely. Her voice had an unfeminine lack of modulation, but when Dundee saw her glance toward Clive Hammond he realized that she was wholly feminine where ...
— Murder at Bridge • Anne Austin
... first breaking the silence that ensued, said, "'Tis such a pity that Katrine will always so let her wit run away with her—it brings her so continually into——for my part, in all humility I must confess, I can't help thinking that, what with its being unfeminine and altogether so incompatible with what in general is thought amiable —I cannot but consider wit in a woman as a real misfortune. What say the gentlemen? they must decide, gentlemen being always ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... already sodden kerchief. Stripped of her heavier clothing, she looked even tinier to Brion. But the thin cloth tunic—reaching barely halfway to her knees—concealed very little. Small she may have appeared to him: unfeminine she was not. Her breasts were full and high, her waist tiny enough to offset the outward ...
— Planet of the Damned • Harry Harrison
... Sophronia would have loved her adorer at all, but for the circumstance that first dooms them both to a shocking death, and then sends them, with perfect warrant, from the stake to the altar. Clorinda is an Amazon, the idea of whom, as such, it is impossible for us to separate from very repulsive and unfeminine images; yet, under the circumstances of the story, we call to mind in her behalf the possibility of a Joan of Arc's having loved and been beloved; and her death is a surprising and most affecting variation ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt
... intimate such a thought to her; indeed, from a long habit of veneration and respect, he was in the position of a subject before a queen who feels a partiality towards him; he dared not give vent to his thoughts, and it remained for her to have the unfeminine task of intimating to him that he might venture. But, although to outward appearance there was nothing but respect and feelings of gratitude on his part, and condescension and amiability on hers, there was a rapid adhesion going on within. Their interviews were more restrained, ...
— The Poacher - Joseph Rushbrook • Frederick Marryat
... notwithstanding the lateness of the hour, and when Verus entered the presence of his patroness, he found her in the greatest excitement. She was not reclining as usual on her pillows but was pacing her room with strides of very unfeminine length. ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... usually the prime minister and controlling agent in their governments? The affairs of nations require in those who guide them a practical acquaintance with business transactions, and a familiar knowledge of pursuits and interests with which woman is not ordinarily conversant. And how unfeminine were it in her to raise her gentle voice amid the storm of debate, or to rush into the heat and strife of partizan politics! Let such scenes never be coveted save by the Wolstonecrafts and the Wrights who have ...
— The Young Maiden • A. B. (Artemas Bowers) Muzzey
... and so completely hide and spoil the wearer's generally fine figure. Then came a short overskirt, extending a little below the knees, and beneath which appeared the fair senora or senorita's most unfeminine pantaloons, which, being carefully tied above the ankle in a frill, were allowed to fully display that treasure of treasures, that most valued of charms, the beautiful little foot and ankle. In addition to ...
— The Aldine, Vol. 5, No. 1., January, 1872 - A Typographic Art Journal • Various |
