"Virginity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... nothing, then, Without the sweet society of men. Wilt thou live single still? one shalt thou be, Though never singling Hymen couple thee. Wild savages, that drink of running springs, Think water far excels all earthly things; But they, that daily taste neat wine, despise it: Virginity, albeit some highly prize it, Compar'd with marriage, had you tried them both, Differs as much as wine and water doth. Base bullion for the stamp's sake we allow: Even so for men's impression do we you; By which alone, our reverend fathers say, Women receive perfection ...
— Hero and Leander and Other Poems • Christopher Marlowe and George Chapman
... so. The gentle quiver of Nature under the kiss of Springtime, the intense perfume of the flower that is the emblem of virginity, had transfigured that madcap singer, that adventuress of a career so checkered, who had been violently thrust into her first experience of passion, and now for the first time felt the blush of modesty in the arms ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... Christ, arrayed in priestly robes, above the Church of St. Dominic. She is inspired by a longing to imitate the life of the Fathers of the desert, and begins to practise many penances. At the age of seven she makes the vow of virginity. She is drawn to the Order of St. Dominic by the zeal of its founder for the ...
— Letters of Catherine Benincasa • Catherine Benincasa
... supplications can cause no effect. In vain were the silver ornaments and fine clothes displayed before her; she refused to take food and wept bitterly, not with the conventional tears of the Chinese girl bewailing her virginity and begging that she may not be torn from the shelter of her maiden home, but with a real horror of the ...
— The Fulfilment of a Dream of Pastor Hsi's - The Story of the Work in Hwochow • A. Mildred Cable
... girl-face was adamant, its expression a proud virginity; an ascetic sternness moulded the small, delicate lips. Letty's countenance could never ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... by Mrs. Lawrence, "Woman in England," p. 49, from one of Adhelme's Latin poems. Adhelme, Bishop of Sherborne, died in 709, having been thirty years a bishop. He wrote Latin poems, of which the most important, in praise of virginity, is in the Lambeth Library, No. 200. The MS. contains his portrait. See Strutt's "English Dresses," ...
— Needlework As Art • Marian Alford
... the young fellow who brings the midday post really is fond of me, and has, as a matter fact—" It had always seemed to her the most hideous corner of old age, yet she might be driven into it herself by the mere pressure of virginity. ...
— Howards End • E. M. Forster
... in virginity! Now may'st thou sing for aye before the throne, Following the Lamb celestial," quoth she, 130 "Of which the great Evangelist, Saint John, In Patmos wrote, who saith of them that go Before the Lamb singing continually, That never ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. II. • William Wordsworth
... She is a nonconformist in a close stomacher and ruff of Geneva print,[55] and her purity consists much in her linnen. She has heard of the rag of Rome, and thinks it a very sluttish religion, and rails at the whore of Babylon for a very naughty woman. She has left her virginity as a relick of popery, and marries in her tribe without a ring. Her devotion at the church is much in the turning up of her eye; and turning down the leaf in her book, when she hears named chapter and verse. When she comes home, she commends ...
— Microcosmography - or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters • John Earle
... stars; and delicate With filmy nets of foam that come and go? It is more cruel and more compassionate Than harried earth. It takes with unconcern And quick forgetting, rapture of the rain And agony of thunder, the moon's white Soft-garmented virginity, and then The insatiable ardor of the sun. And me it took. But there is one more strong, Love, that came laughing from the elder seas, The Cyprian, the mother of the world; She gave me love who only asked for death— I who had seen much sorrow in men's eyes And in my ...
— Rivers to the Sea • Sara Teasdale
... after thou wert wounded." Concerning this journey to Poictiers I knew nothing, but I was more concerned to hear what the Maid had said about Elliot and me. For seeing that the Maid herself was vowed (as men deemed) to virginity, it passed into my mind that she might think holy matrimony but a low estate, and might try to set my mistress's heart on following her own example. And then, I thought, but foolishly, Elliot's love for me might be weaker than her ...
— A Monk of Fife • Andrew Lang
... she, "virginity I never will lay down For gold, nor yet for silver, for castle, nor for town; But I will be your leman for the heads of certain peers— And I ask but ...
— Mediaeval Tales • Various
... read the gospels the instant impression would be rather that they were full of dark riddles which only historic Christianity has clarified. The Eunuchs of the heavenly Kingdom would be an idea dark and terrible but for the historic beauty of Catholic virginity. The ideal of man and woman "in one flesh" inseparable and sanctified by a sacrament became clear in the lives of the great married saints of Christendom. The apparent idealisation of idleness above service in the story of Mary and Martha was lit up by the sight of Catherine and Clare and ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... it was that souls might go to hell, and yet that it was good that they should go; how it was that our Saviour was born of His blessed Mother without any breaking of her virginity; how it is that all things subsist in God; in what manner it is that God comes into the species of the bread. But he could not tell me how these things were so, nor what it was that was shewed him.... [There follow a few confused remarks on ...
— The History of Richard Raynal, Solitary • Robert Hugh Benson
... and piously congratulated them, recommending themselves to their prayers; and so, with hearts lingering on the earth, went away to the palace. But the other two, fixing their heart on heaven, remained in the cottage. And both had affianced brides, who when they heard hereof, also dedicated their virginity unto God. ...
— The Confessions of Saint Augustine • Saint Augustine
... that is proper to religious, and it is more correctly called virginity. This is the natural state of spirits who have no bodies; cultivated in the frail flesh of children of Adam, it is the most delicate flower imaginable. Considering the incessant struggle it supposes in those who take such a vow against the spirit within us that is so strong, ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton
... first that in our age and in these so evil days devoted himself to the labour and exercise of the arms of knight-errantry, righting wrongs, succouring widows, and protecting damsels of that sort that used to ride about, whip in hand, on their palfreys, with all their virginity about them, from mountain to mountain and valley to valley—for, if it were not for some ruffian, or boor with a hood and hatchet, or monstrous giant, that forced them, there were in days of yore damsels that at the end of eighty years, in all which time they had never ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... for God had not caused it to rain upon the earth. I believe that the serpent (if we shall literally understand it), from his proper form and figure, made his motion on his belly, before the curse. I find the trial of the pucelage and virginity of women, which God ordained the Jews, is very fallible. Experience and history informs me that, not only many particular women, but likewise whole nations, have escaped the curse of childbirth, which God seems to pronounce upon the whole ...
— Religio Medici, Hydriotaphia, and the Letter to a Friend • Sir Thomas Browne
... back in his chair, and went on with his meditation. Was there anything in the suspicion? There could be nothing, surely. Nothing is done by a clever man without a motive, and what conceivable motive could Manston have for such abnormal conduct? Corinthian that he might be, who had preyed on virginity like St. George's dragon, he would never have been absurd enough to venture on such a course for the possession alone of the woman—there was no reason for it—she was inferior to Cytherea in every ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... writes a treatise on Virgins, i. 412; and another on the Perpetual Virginity of the Mother of God, ib.; his chastisement of an erring ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... herself for the virginity withdrawn from her sacrifices, and she tormented Salammbo with possessions, all the stronger for being vague, which were spread through this belief and ...
— Salammbo • Gustave Flaubert
... that there would always be sinners enough in the world to avoid that disaster, and that out of their evil work, good would be brought. Saint Jerome offers us the pregnant reflection that though it may be marriage that fills the earth, it is virginity that ...
— Woman and the New Race • Margaret Sanger
... proved no such thing, and that she was only in Harwich-road; and they recollected that an hour after four happens twice in twenty-four hours, and the letter did not specify which of the twices it was. Well! the bridemaids whipped on their virginity; the new road and the parks were thronged; the guns were choking with impatience to go off; and Sir James Lowther, who was to pledge his Majesty was actually married to Lady Mary Stuart.(182) Five, six, seven, eight o'clock came, and no Queen—She lay at Witham ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... pure, and most holy Mother of God," the priest cried from the golden partition which divided part of the church from the rest, and the choir began solemnly to sing that it was very right to glorify the Virgin Mary, who had borne Christ without losing her virginity, and was therefore worthy of greater honour than some kind of cherubim, and greater glory than some kind of seraphim. After this the transformation was considered accomplished, and the priest having taken the napkin off the saucer, cut ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy
... this wreckage had not touched her. There was no stain, no crumpled leaf. She was a fresh wonder, even after this, out of a chrysalis. It was this amazing newness, this virginity of blossom from ...
— The Sleuth of St. James's Square • Melville Davisson Post
... accompaniments of vice and depravity; the same thoughts, low and terrible, hovered before the devotees of Moloch and Cybele, when Carthage sent her innocent boys to the furnace, a sacrifice to the king of gods, and Asia Minor offered up the virginity of her fairest daughters to the first-comer at the altars of the earth-mother. Purified and ennobled by long centuries of development and unfolding, the blossoming of such conceptions is seen in the great sacrifice which the Son of Man made for the children ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... Cheaters perceaue that he esteemeth no bruised ware, but is enamored with virginity, they haue a fine cast within an houres warning, to make Ione Siluerpin as good a maide as if she had neuer come to the stewes: but to let these things passe, for offending of chast eares, whose displeasure I would not incurre, for all the cheates these gamesters get ...
— The Art of Iugling or Legerdemaine • Samuel Rid
... interested in what they saw. Never had naturalist a finer field for observation. Here was nature presented to the eye in its most normal condition. Here could be observed the tropical forest in all its primeval virginity, unbroken by the axe of the lumberer, and in many places untrodden even by the foot of the hunter. Here its denizens—quadrupeds, quadrumana, birds, reptiles, and insects—might be seen following out their various habits of life, obedient ...
— Bruin - The Grand Bear Hunt • Mayne Reid
... who know neither sin nor virtue in extremes, who live somewhere about the level of a passable rectitude, and neither sink nor soar far from it—easy for them to dismiss this bitter truth for a mere sentimentalism; but there is a virginity of the soul which evil custom cannot deflower. Woe to him who knows it, the chaste in wish and the unchaste in act, the rogue who values honour, the poltroon who would fain be brave! Ah, the goat-hoofed Satyr dancing there, drunk and leering, goatish ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... of the Virgin Mary, but is altogether silent as to any religious honour of any kind being due to her. In the Oration of the Emperor Constantine (as it is recorded by Eusebius), direct mention is made of the "chaste virginity," and of the maid who was mother {293} of God, and yet remained a virgin. But the object present to the author's mind was so exclusively God manifest in the flesh, that he does not throughout even mention the name of Mary, or allude to any honour paid or due to her. [Cantab. 1720. Sec. 11. ...
— Primitive Christian Worship • James Endell Tyler
... to put into her life those interests which make the Woman, and finding herself forced to be still unmarried, she fortified her virtue by stern religious practices. She had recourse to religion, the great consoler of oppressed virginity. A confessor had, for the last three years, directed Mademoiselle Cormon rather stupidly in the path of maceration; he advised the use of scourging, which, if modern medical science is to be believed, produces an effect quite the contrary to that expected by the worthy priest, whose ...
— The Jealousies of a Country Town • Honore de Balzac
... the Fallen,' here used from Fish's translation, was greatly admired by Fenelon, who calls it a masterpiece. It was occasioned by a nun's breaking a vow of perpetual virginity. ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... to its proper dignity as the best estate for man, its praises were {508} sounded highly. The church, indeed, remained true to her preference for celibacy, but the Inquisition found much business in suppressing the then common opinion that marriage was better than virginity. To the Reformers marriage was not only the necessary condition of happiness to mankind, but the typically holy estate in which God's service could best be done. From all sides paeans arose celebrating matrimony as the true remedy for sin and also as the happiest estate. The delights ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... certain Tapestry for presentation to Kaiser Heinrich on his entry into Cologne after his last campaign on the turbaned Danube. The subject was again her beloved Siegfried slaying the Dragon on Drachenfels. Whenever Aunt Lisbeth indulged in any bitter virginity, and was overmatched by Margarita's frank maidenhood, she hung out this tapestry as a flag of truce. They were working it in bits, not having contrivances to do it in a piece. Margarita took Siegfried and Aunt Lisbeth the Dragon. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Pa. Virginity is rather a greater Burthen. I will be your King, and you shall be my Queen, and we'll govern the Family according to our Pleasure: And do you think that ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus
... women, to preach abstract doctrines rather than grapple with hideous concrete problems—this has been the tendency of the religious spirit in all ages, a tendency of which positive asceticism, with its mortification of the body, and its ideal of virginity, and marriage regarded as more or less a concession to the flesh, ...
— The Power of Womanhood, or Mothers and Sons - A Book For Parents, And Those In Loco Parentis • Ellice Hopkins
... temple of Vesta is the king's hearth, situated, as one would expect, in close proximity to the regia. The fire is kept continually blazing except on the 1st of March of every year, when it is allowed to go out and is ceremonially renewed. The Vestal virgins, sworn to perpetual virginity and charged with the preservation of the sacred flame, are 'the king's daughters,' living in a kind of convent (atrium Vestae) and under the charge of the king's representative, the pontifex maximus. It is their duty ...
— The Religion of Ancient Rome • Cyril Bailey
... Jew-like, they will blind their eyes and shut their ears to the evidences and voice of fulfilled prophecy. The entire career of our Lord Jesus Christ was foretold and mapped out by the Old Testament writers. Moses declared His family; Micah the place of His birth; Isaiah the virginity of His mother; Zechariah His triumphant entry into Jerusalem; David His life, resurrection, and ascension, with many other kinds of evidence of a detailed and general character; yet the Jews, who claimed to be well versed in the Old Testament, ...
— The Lost Ten Tribes, and 1882 • Joseph Wild
... escape, preserving himself for the woman whom he might fall in love with some day. A fortunate opportunity had never come to him, so that, what with bashfulness, limited means, obstinacy, the force of custom, at fifty-two years, and in spite of his residence in the capital, he still possessed his virginity. ...
— Bouvard and Pecuchet - A Tragi-comic Novel of Bourgeois Life • Gustave Flaubert
... permanent tyro, and treat her with ill-concealed disdain, and deride the very virtue which lies at the bottom of her experiential penury. There would seem to be, indeed, but small respect among women for virginity per se. They are against the woman who has got rid of hers outside marriage, not because they think she has lost anything intrinsically valuable, but because she has made a bad bargain, and one that materially diminishes the sentimental respect for virtue held ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken
... settlements (it is late seventeenth or early eighteenth century throughout), and of course fall in love with each other. But Atala's mother, a Christian, has, in the tumult of her early misfortunes, vowed her daughter's virginity or death; and when, just before the crucial moment, a missionary opportunely or inopportunely occurs, Atala has already taken poison, with the object, it would appear, not so much of preventing as of avenging, of her own free will, a breach of the vow. The rest ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... kind of candour in this woman. You could see she was still in the virginity of vice. Her firm walk, her supple figure, her rosy, open nostrils, her large eyes, slightly tinged with blue, indicated one of those ardent natures which shed around them a sort of voluptuous perfume, like Eastern vials, which, close ...
— Camille (La Dame aux Camilias) • Alexandre Dumas, fils
... quite the same light that shines in all men's eyes when the desire of love is upon them. He did not dream how ardent and masculine his gaze was, nor that the warm flame of it was affecting the alchemy of her spirit. Her penetrative virginity exalted and disguised his own emotions, elevating his thoughts to a star-cool chastity, and he would have been startled to learn that there was that shining out of his eyes, like warm waves, that flowed through her and kindled a kindred warmth. She was subtly perturbed by it, and more than ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... were called into action. The day selected was that sacred to St. Ambrosius. The chapel was decorated with flowers. Mass was celebrated, candles flamed upon the altar surrounding a figure of the Infant Jesus, incense was burning around the baby, sisters and novices knelt in serried rows of virginity ...
— Ginx's Baby • Edward Jenkins
... emotion which revealed the perfect spotlessness of a pure mind, the instinctive recoil of virginity, that childlike innocence, that blush of modesty, delighted me above everything as a presage of happiness. It seemed to me as if I were unworthy of her; I was almost ashamed of bringing her, and of putting into her small, saint-like hands the remains of a damaged heart, ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... longest and loudest is the applause over the new touches—those portions that have been written in to please the court and the Queen. To remodel a play written for a marriage celebration so that it shall seem to praise the virginity of the Queen were surely no slight task, but it has ...
— Shakespeare's Christmas Gift to Queen Bess • Anna Benneson McMahan
... of them a great nation, the artificer of the progress of humanity, present as the first intellectual food of this people now awakening to new life, whose whole strength lies in their good instincts and virginity of intellect, a theory the ultimate consequences of which are to establish egotism upon ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various
... are fawn'd upon, imbrac'd and kist, receiving all manner of friendship! It is no wonder that all womankind are so desirous of marriage, and no sooner lose their first husbands, but they think immediately how to get a second? Oh, saith she, what a fulness of joy there is in the married estate, by Virginity! I resolve therefore to think also upon my Bridemaids, and to recommend them where ...
— The Ten Pleasures of Marriage and The Confession of the New-married Couple (1682) • A. Marsh
... if it is essential to a moral virtue to observe the mean, it follows that a moral virtue is not perfected, but the contrary corrupted, through tending to something extreme. Now some moral virtues are perfected by tending to something extreme; thus virginity, which abstains from all sexual pleasure, observes the extreme, and is the most perfect chastity: and to give all to the poor is the most perfect mercy or liberality. Therefore it seems that it is not essential to moral virtue that it ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... invisible when an alarm was raised. It was also said that many persons found large heaps of gold in their houses without knowing from whence they came. All Paris was in alarm. No man thought himself secure of his goods, no maiden of her virginity, or wife of her chastity, while these Rosicrucians were abroad. In the midst of the commotion, a second placard was ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... dominates the society of ancient times. In that society, all is simple, all is epic. Poetry is religion, religion is law. The virginity of the earlier age is succeeded by the chastity of the later. A sort of solemn gravity is everywhere noticeable, in private manners no less than in public. The nations have retained nothing of the wandering life of the earlier time, ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... peeping through the canvas did full duty. Mining tools formed a large and conspicuous part of the supplies of the incoming prospectors, for they were to exploit a certain rich section of country still in its virginity, and there ...
— The Trail of a Sourdough - Life in Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan
... this young man. Perhaps they would have been different, if he had had a little less of what Newman describes as his 'high severe idea of the intrinsic excellence of Virginity'; but it ...
— Eminent Victorians • Lytton Strachey
... flowers that below Now as fresh as morning blow; And of all the virgin rose That as bright Aurora shows; How they all unleaved die, Losing their virginity! Like unto a summer shade, But now born, and now they fade. Every thing doth pass away; There is danger in delay: Come, come, gather then the rose, Gather it, or it you lose! All the sand of Tagus' shore Into my bosom casts his ore: All the valleys' swimming corn To my house is yearly borne: ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various
... Mary's—stretching forth its yellow hands Of beach, beneath the bluff where it commands In vision only; for the fields are green Above the pilgrims. Pleasant is the place; No ruin mars its immemorial face. As young as in virginity renewed, Its widow's sorrows gone without a trace, And tempting man ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend
... who six times out of seven delay to marry them for three or four years after they should. Ay, ay indeed, doubtless they were well advised to tarry so long! Christ's faith! I should know the truth of what I swear; there is never a woman in my neighbourhood whose husband had her virginity; and well I know how many and what manner of tricks our married dames play their husbands; and yet this booby would fain teach me to know women as if I ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio
... her family. "They," says she, "call me Rebeka; my father was Bethuel, but he is dead; and Laban is my brother; and, together with my mother, takes care of all our family affairs, and is the guardian of my virginity." When the servant heard this, he was very glad at what had happened, and at what was told him, as perceiving that God had thus plainly directed his journey; and producing his bracelets, and some other ornaments which ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... Anna, a prophetess, a daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher; she was far advanced in years, having lived with a husband seven years from her virginity; [2:37]and she had been a widow eighty-four years, and departed not from the temple, serving God night and day with fastings and prayers. [2:38]And she coming by at that time, praised God, and spoke of him [the child] to all ...
— The New Testament • Various
... Worse Reason plead the causes of the old and new education in person. Cleon and Brasidas are the pestles with which War proposes to bray Greece in a mortar; the triremes of Athens in council assembled declare that they will rot in the docks sooner than yield their virginity to musty, fusty Hyperbolus. The fair cities of Greece stand about waiting for the recovery of Peace from her Well, with dreadful black eyes, poor things; Armisticia and Harvest-Home tread the stage in the flesh, and Nincompoop and Defraudation are ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... say, no evil thing that walks by night, Blue meagre hag, or stubborn, unlaid ghost That breaks his magic chains at curfew time, No goblin, or swart faery of the mine, Hath hurtful power o'er true virginity." ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop
... chief seat of sexual sense in the female. At the lower part is the opening to the vagina, which in the virgin is usually partially guarded by a thin membrane, the hymen. This is not always a reliable test of virginity, however, as commonly regarded, since it may be destroyed by disease or accident, and may exist even after the ...
— Plain Facts for Old and Young • John Harvey Kellogg
... well under control, and with a constant succession of adventures, culminating in the greatest of all, the Quest of the Graal or Sangreal itself. Although there are passages of great beauty, the excessive mysticism, the straggling conduct of the story, and the extravagant praise of virginity in and for itself, in the early Graal history, have offended some readers. In the Merlin proper the incompleteness, the disproportionate space given to mere kite-and-crow fighting, and the defect of love-interest, undoubtedly ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury
... Violent perforta. Violet violo. Violet color violkoloro. Violin violono. Violinist violonisto. Violoncello violoncxelo. Violoncellist violoncxelisto. Viper vipero. Virago (fig.) drakino. Virgin virgulino. Virginal virga. Virginity virgeco. Virgin, The Blessed La Sankta Virgulino, Dipatrino. Virile vira. Virility vireco. Virtue virto. Virtuous virta. Virtuoso virtuozo. Virulent venena, malboniga. Virus veneno. Visage vizagxo. Vis-a-vis kontrauxulo. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... twenty-two. She submitted to his decision in silence, as humbly as if God had spoken. He soon changed his opinion, however, being convinced by her submission that God was operating great things in her soul, and permitted her to follow her inclination by consecrating her virginity to Jesus, which she did with fervor on the Feast of St. Thomas the Apostle, December 21st, 1643, being in her twenty-third year. Shortly after she added the a vow of poverty, and from that time her career ...
— The Life of Venerable Sister Margaret Bourgeois • Anon.
... had to contrive honourable life for her, and the one to whom she had yearly prayed must remain in his own place, veiled by the smoke of the red fires, a survival and a link like the remembrance of her virginity. ...
— Moor Fires • E. H. (Emily Hilda) Young
... and the Pricke of Conscience, 1340, in verse; metrical renderings of the Psalter, the Pater Noster, the Creed, and the Ten Commandments, the Gospels for the Day, such as the Ormulum, or Book of Orm, 1205; legends and miracles of saints; poems in praise of virginity, on the contempt of the world, on the five joys of the Virgin, the five wounds of Christ, the eleven pains of hell, the seven deadly sins, the fifteen tokens of the coming judgment, and dialogues ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... Low,—ye Vulgar and ye Peers! Ye youthful Dames, and you of riper Years! Ye longing Maids, who heave the midnight sigh Beneath the burthen of Virginity! Or you, ye stray'd ones, who, unblushing, boast Your Virtue sullied, and your Honour lost! Ye Pidgeons, who hold forth the Golden Plume For Knaves to pluck, and Harlots to consume! Ye wedded Fair, who, splenetic at home, ...
— The First of April - Or, The Triumphs of Folly: A Poem Dedicated to a Celebrated - Duchess. By the author of The Diaboliad. • William Combe
... Under the maternal conditions, nothing is more certain than the equality of women with men in all questions of sexual morality. In proof of this it is necessary only to recall the facts we have noted. We find little or no importance attached to virginity, which in itself indicates the absence of any conception of the woman as property. Thus no bride-price is claimed from the husband, who renders service in proof of his fitness as a lover, not to gain possession of the bride. The girl is frequently the wooer, and, in certain ...
— The Position of Woman in Primitive Society - A Study of the Matriarchy • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... saw you pale and careworn, your fingers hooked with coin-counting, and heard how you would like to run away, if only you could get the chance. It was monstrous, then, that you should be kept in a bronze or iron chamber, like a Danae condemned to virginity, and brought up by those stern unscrupulous tutors, ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... Critchlow she happened to be an illusion. He had cast eyes on her and had seen youth, innocence, virginity. During eight years the moth Charles had flitted round the lamp of her brilliance, and was now singed past escape. He might treat her with what casualness he chose; he might ignore her in public; he might ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... thrilling. Let me move farther from the rush and bewilderment of traffic. Let me flee to some more secluded scene, where my sight, unsoiled hitherto by motor-car, may for ever preserve most excellent virginity. I have since made inquiries, and have been assured that the nerve-shocking juggernaut of the opposite beach is palsied—liable, indeed, to dissolution at any moment. When the collapse occurs I propose to venture across to inspect the remains ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... little bone button, coloured black and practically invisible, and thus the bell-pull had been converted into an electric bell-push. In this way visitors could make their advent known without violent exertion, the mermaid lost no visible whit of her Elizabethan virginity, and the spirit of Shakespeare wandering in his garden would not notice any anachronism. He could not in fact, for ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... She paid the same compliment to many - most of her friends; and the friends (as is their wont) confided in one another. Poor thing! her case was a sad one. Whose case is not? She was, by her own account, in the forty- second year of her virginity; and it may be added, parenthetically, an honest fourteen ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... we should be companioned still merrily, happy as brides may, the livelong night, Kissing youth by, we are forced to lie single.... But leave for a moment our pitiful plight, It hurts even more to behold the poor maidens helpless wrinkling in staler virginity. ...
— Lysistrata • Aristophanes
... resemblances may find certain analogies between these adepts of "virginal virginity," or of "the great garden of the Tsar"—for both these names were applied to them—and the adamites or aryanists; for eager minds seeking supreme salvation are apt to meet upon the great ...
— Modern Saints and Seers • Jean Finot
... particularly were they complicated by the identification of the man Jesus with the theological Christ, by materialistic expectations of his second coming, by materialistic inventions about his "miraculous" begetting, and by the morbid speculations about virginity and the like that arose out of such grossness. They were still further complicated by the idea of the textual inspiration of the scriptures, which presently swamped thought in textual interpretation. That swamping came very early in the development of Christianity. ...
— God The Invisible King • Herbert George Wells
... a sense of responsibility. And that very morning he had been ordered to pick the melon, which was to be shown next day at the county fair, and to bring it in for Mr. Lenman to gaze on its blonde virginity. But in picking it, what had the damned scoundrelly Jesuit done but drop it—drop it crash on the sharp spout of a watering-pot, so that it received a deep gash in its firm pale rotundity, and was henceforth but a bruised, ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 1 (of 10) • Edith Wharton
... or vows exchanged; but a silence for two long minutes; and, when these were passed, the sweet, pure lips had lost their virginity. ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... of a widow is the same as that of a maid except that she cannot wear white or orange blossoms, which are emblems of virginity, nor does she have bridesmaids. Usually a widow chooses a very quiet wedding, but there is no reason why she should not have a "big wedding" if she cares to, except that somber ushers and a bride in traveling dress, or at best a light afternoon ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... is petter that friends is the sword, and end it: and there is also another deuice in my praine, which peraduenture prings goot discretions with it. There is Anne Page, which is daughter to Master Thomas Page, which is pretty virginity ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... followed Myles, the centre of all observation. He was clad in a novitiate dress, arranged under Lord George's personal supervision. It had been made somewhat differently from the fashion usual at such times, and was intended to indicate in a manner the candidate's extreme youthfulness and virginity in arms. The outer garment was a tabard robe of white wool, embroidered at the hem with fine lines of silver, and gathered loosely at the waist with a belt of lavender leather stitched with thread of silver. Beneath he was clad in armor (a present from the Earl), new ...
— Men of Iron • Ernie Howard Pyle
... liberty. He felt scorn of the maxim, "The Bible and the Bible only is the religion of Protestants;" and he gloried in accepting Tradition as a main instrument of religious teaching. He had a high severe idea of the intrinsic excellence of virginity; and he considered the Blessed Virgin its great pattern. He delighted in thinking of the saints; he had a keen appreciation of the idea of sanctity, its possibility and its heights; and he was more than inclined to believe a large amount of miraculous interference as occurring in ...
— Apologia pro Vita Sua • John Henry Newman
... [Footnote: "Nameless city."—The true name of Rome it was a point of religion to conceal; and, in fact, it was never revealed.] city was a man produced— capable of taming her indomitable nature, and of forcing her to immolate her wild virginity to the state best fitted for the destined "Mother of empires." Peace, then, rhetoricians, false threnodists of false liberty! hollow chanters over the ashes of a hollow republic! Without Caesar, we affirm a thousand times that ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... like him that ne'er it likes] Parolles, in answer to the question, how one shall lose virginity to her own liking? plays upon the word liking, and says, she must do ill, for virginity, to be so lost, must like him that ...
— Johnson's Notes to Shakespeare Vol. I Comedies • Samuel Johnson
... all know, by the bloody papist bitch (one must be vernacular when on French ground) Queen Mary, of red-hot memory. I would rather she had burned a score more of bishops. If she had kept it, her sister Bess would sooner have parted with her virginity. Charles I. had no temptation to part with it—it might, indeed, have been shuffled out of our hands during the Civil wars, but Noll would have as soon let monsieur draw one of his grinders; then Charles II. would hardly have dared to sell ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... other errors, the Thomists denied the virginity of our blessed lady[422]: They rejected the use of images: they believed the souls of the just did not enjoy the beatific presence of God till after the general judgment: they allowed only of three sacraments, baptism, ordination and ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VI - Early English Voyages Of Discovery To America • Robert Kerr
... silently consent to all she does, and says. You are to consider in her the scorn of you is not humour, but opinion. There were some years since a set of these ladies who were of quality, and gave out, that virginity was to be their state of life during this mortal condition, and therefore resolved to join their fortunes, and erect a nunnery. The place of residence was pitched upon; and a pretty situation, full of natural falls and ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... Fall were stealing long bars of bright silvery light from the level sun. Soon the silver would mellow to gold as the daily marvel of the sunset was accomplished, but Ringfield was beyond such matters now. Nature could do no more for him in this crisis than it had done for Edmund Crabbe, and the virginity, the silence and fragrance of the noble wood, brought him no solace. Yet as he sped he could not choose but breathe and the air filled his breast and then fed his mind so that presently coming upon a glade or opening in which was a large slab of grey lichened ...
— Ringfield - A Novel • Susie Frances Harrison
... during the feast, had now awakened, shrieking their hunger aloud. These had to be fed, and the mothers merrily seated themselves together under the trees and gave them the breast in all serenity. Therein lay the royal beauty of woman, wife and mother; fruitful maternity triumphed over virginity by which life is slain. Ah! might manners and customs change, might the idea of morality and the idea of beauty be altered, and the world recast, based on the triumphant beauty of the mother suckling her ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola
... looked at the returned envelope, I felt like standing uncovered, as in the presence of genius, a genius before which Mediums One, Two and Three paled. Nothing could excel the unsullied virginity of the seals, or of the gummed spaces between them. I felt that I must proceed with the utmost caution. With a very sharp penknife I then began to cut the edge of the envelope at one end. Scarcely had the knife been drawn very slowly more than the half of an inch before it ...
— Preliminary Report of the Commission Appointed by the University • The Seybert Commission
... looks upon him, and, with heaving sighs, she says, "Neither am I a Goddess, nor do thou honour a human being with the tribute of the holy frankincense. And, that thou mayst not err in ignorance, life eternal and without end was offered me, had my virginity but yielded to Phoebus, in love {with me}. But while he was hoping for this, while he was desiring to bribe me beforehand with gifts, he said: 'Maiden of Cumae, choose whatever thou mayst wish, thou shalt gain thy wish.' I, ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso
... incapable of fatigue, of perplexity, or of fear Converting beneficent commerce into baleful gambling Gigantic vices are proudly pointed to as the noblest No generation is long-lived enough to reap the harvest Proclaiming the virginity of the Virgin's mother Steeped to the lips in sloth which imagined itself to be pride To shirk labour, infinite ...
— Quotations From John Lothrop Motley • David Widger
... Bishop of Trinitontis, in Egypt,[461] had a daughter named Irene, who lived in virginity till her death. After her decease, a person came to Spiridion and asked him for a deposit which he had confided to Irene unknown to her father. They sought in every part of the house, but could find nothing. At last Spiridion went to his daughter's ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet
... water to the King to wash his hands withal, the false Arderi said to the King: "Take thou no water from this evil man, sir King: for he is more worthy of death than of life, whereas he hath taken from the Queen's Daughter the flower of her virginity." But when Amile heard this, he fell adown all astonied, and might say never a word; but the benign King lifted him up again, and said to him: "Rise up, Amile, and have no fear, and defend thee of this blame." So he lifted ...
— Old French Romances • William Morris
... with them for ever; and there, in the secrecy of her own heart, and before the alter of our Holy Mother, she made promises that shared in the merits of vows. When free, she would give herself to the love of God and the preparation for eternity in some secluded retreat of religion and virginity. ...
— Alvira: the Heroine of Vesuvius • A. J. O'Reilly
... virginity, like you are ... I really don't care if I never see Major Armstrong again ... though he certainly is rather a darling ... very good-looking ... and, d'you know, he's almost a Pro-Boer, though the Boers ambushed him.... Says this ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... date of his last novel,[5] "it is extraordinary how hourly and how violently change the feelings of an unexperienced young man." And this mobility is a special talent entrusted to his care; a sort of indestructible virginity; a magic armour, with which he can pass unhurt through great dangers and come unbedaubed out of the miriest passages. Let him voyage, speculate, see all that he can, do all that he may; his soul ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... causes prevailed, had the Countess been wise enough, she had no occasion to fear the consequences of a scrutiny; for if I am rightly informed, a jury of old women can no more judge accurately whether a woman has yielded her virginity, than they can by examining a dead body, know of what distemper the deceased died; but be that as it may, the whole affair is unfavourable to her modesty; it shews her a woman of irregular passions, which poor Sir Thomas Overbury dearly experienced; for even after ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume I. • Theophilus Cibber
... tresses, crimpings, rolls, corkscrews, curls, everything found there a place. Nothing false; no towers, no chignons, no shams! These head were not enfeebled by cuttings nor thinned by fallings-off, but were forests in all their native virginity! Fragoso, however, was not above adding a few natural flowers, two or three long fish-bones, and some fine bone or copper ornaments, which were brought him by the dandies of the district. Assuredly, the exquisites of the Directory would have envied the arrangement of ...
— Eight Hundred Leagues on the Amazon • Jules Verne
... from him, a slim thing, her white scarf held tight, actually, to his quickened sense, as if she kept the veil of her virginity wrapped about her sternly. For the moment he did not feel the despair of his greater age, of his tawdry past or his fettered present. He was young and the night air was as innocently sweet to him as if he had never loved a woman and been repulsed by her and dwelt for years in the ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown
... set in her majesty, which her highness not acknowledging of shaked her head, bit her lips and her fingers, and sometimes broke forth into passion and these words; 'Non est veritas, et utinam'—On his praising virginity, she said to the orator, 'God's blessing of thy heart, there continue.' After that he showed what joy the university had of her presence" &c. "When he had done she commended him, and much marvelled that his ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... the average world, and the majority conspires to do it reverence. Genius, if such a thing there is, may be appreciated by school-boys; the average grown world count it as of no value. If a man has a brilliant intellect, let him bewail it on the mountains, as the daughter of Jephtha did her virginity. If he has wit, let him ...
— Bart Ridgeley - A Story of Northern Ohio • A. G. Riddle
... beauteos Face, A gentile Air, and as genteel a Grace; On her some am'rous Beau soon casts his Eyes, And to obtain the much admired Prize; He fashionably dresses, struts, looks big, Like John of Gaunt, and in a pond'rous Wig; A subtle, sly, and cunning Ambuscade, For her Virginity is quickly laid; Of Love he tells a Thousand Fictious Tales, Till over her Discretion Lust prevails, But modest Maids, whose young and tender Hearts Unwounded yet, have the scap'd fatal Darts; Let the sad Fates of wanton Strumpets move, And learn by them to shun unlawful Love: ...
— The Fifteen Comforts of Matrimony: Responses From Women • Various
... conjugal approaches are ordinarily accompanied by slight flooding, a loss of blood does not always occur. Its absence proves nothing. The appearance of blood was formerly regarded as a test of virginity. The Israelites, Arabs, and others carefully preserved and triumphantly exhibited the evidence of it as an infallible sign of the virtue of the bride. They were in error. Its presence is as destitute of signification ...
— The Physical Life of Woman: - Advice to the Maiden, Wife and Mother • Dr. George H Napheys
... terrifies; who knows which? It stays the pulse. Innocence is higher than virtue. Innocence is holy ignorance. They slept. They were in peace. They were warm. The nakedness of their bodies, embraced each in each, amalgamated with the virginity of their souls. They were there as in the nest ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... the virginity of Mary was hidden from the Prince of this World, and her bringing forth, and likewise the death of the Lord; three mysteries of shouting, which were wrought in silence of God. How, then, was He manifested to the world? A star shone forth from heaven above all other stars, and ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.
... his works far too promptly to discover that far from gainsaying the Catholic instinct which prefers virginity to marriage" (not a strictly accurate statement) he makes virginity a condition of the idealized marriage-relation, and finds its realization in her who was at once matron and virgin. Following the fragmentary hints to be found here and there in patristic and mystical ...
— The Faith of the Millions (2nd series) • George Tyrrell
... the prey of the rum-inflamed passions of brutes old enough to he their grandsires; where old roues, many of whose names are a power "on 'change," bid against each other for half-developed maids whose virginity is certified to by a physician; where green gawks from the country are made drunk with cheap wines sold to them at fancy prices by courtesans, plucked and turned over to a subsidized police if they protest; where hundreds of pure girls are entrapped, drugged ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... injuries" of the French government; to give up our claim for plundered millions; and I ask what reparation or atonement they can expect to obtain in hours of future dalliance, after they shall have made a tender of their person to this great deflowerer of the virginity of republics. We have, by our own wise (I will not say wiseacre) measures, so increased the trade and wealth of Montreal and Quebec, that at last we begin to cast a wistful eye at Canada. Having done so much toward its improvement, by the exercise of "our restrictive energies," ...
— American Eloquence, Volume I. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various
... and evidently had produced some embarrassment on the limbs of four visitors who had just been ushered into its glories. After hesitating before one or two gorgeous fawn-colored brocaded easy-chairs of appalling and spotless virginity, one of them seated himself despairingly on a tete-a-tete sofa in marked and painful isolation, while another sat uncomfortably upright on a sofa. The two others remained standing, vaguely gazing at the ceiling, and exchanging ostentatiously ...
— A Ward of the Golden Gate • Bret Harte
... the only one which could concentrate and perpetuate the affections. I have seen the most pure and austere conduct unfold in a man the most inexhaustible tenderness. I have seen him preserve even to old age, a virginity of soul, which the passions and their criminal effects would necessarily have withered. Undoubtedly repentance is a fine thing, and I have more need than any person to believe in its efficacy; but repeated repentance ...
— Corinne, Volume 1 (of 2) - Or Italy • Mme de Stael
... are two views as to the nature of the sacrifice of Jephthah's daughter. Some think she was vowed to perpetual virginity, while others consider that she was ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 6 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... long time left the province a prey to unspeakable and incredible miseries; so plundered and enslaved by tax-farmers and usurers, that private people were compelled to sell their sons in the flower of their youth, and their daughters in their virginity, and the States publicly to sell their consecrated gifts, pictures, and statues. In the end their lot was to yield themselves up slaves to their creditors, but before this, worse troubles befell them, tortures, inflicted with ropes and by horses, standing abroad to be scorched when ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... words embodied his devoutest aspirations. He had frequent interviews with doctors of divinity on the subject, and instructed many bishops to urge upon the pope the necessity of proclaiming the virginity of the Virgin's mother. Could he secure this darling object of his ambition, he professed himself ready to make a pilgrimage on foot to Rome. The pilgrimage was never made, for it may well be imagined that Lerma would forbid any such adventurous scheme. Meantime, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... me.—Oh—Ah-r-r-re!" as struggling and wriggling to resist me, her motions actually helped to accomplish the rape, for thrusting fiercely just as she heaved a little to throw me off, the hymen was broken, and my Cock triumphed over that stubbornly contested virginity. ...
— Forbidden Fruit • Anonymous
... explicit voice the father then said, "By the authority I have received from the Church, I declare you absolved from the vow of virginity, and free you from every obligation you may thereby have contracted. Beseech the Lord again for those graces you once besought to make you a holy wife; and rely on it, He will bestow them upon ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VI. • Various
... made twin crescents of foaming silver, twin bubbles of white fire, twin films of fairy gossamer, twin vials that held the very essence of poetry. Somehow he had always connected her with the moon. Indeed, in her whiteness, her coldness, her aloofness, she seemed the very sublimation of virginity. His first secret names for her were Diana and Cynthia. But there was another quality in her that those names did not include—intellectuality. His favorite heroes were Julius Caesar and Edwin Booth—a quaint pair, taken in combination. In the long imaginary conversations ...
— Angel Island • Inez Haynes Gillmore
... find, at last, the Mother Lode, the virginity of the essence of creation, the beginning and the end. The curve of the circle which is unchanging, insoluble, omniscient; which shall return to that which created it; which is all; which ...
— Down the Mother Lode • Vivia Hemphill
... could never serve our turn, Declared 'twas better far to wed than burn. There's danger in assembling fire and tow; 30 I grant 'em that; and what it means you know. The same apostle, too, has elsewhere own'd No precept for virginity he found: 'Tis but a counsel—and we women still Take which we like, ...
— Poetical Works of Pope, Vol. II • Alexander Pope
... be stung by a snake till I am dead before I give my virginity to a snake." Said Princess Catalina, "I may be beaten to death with sticks, but I will not give my virginity to a snake." Said Princess Maria, "Father, so you be but well, I care not what becomes of me. If a snake can cure you, I am ...
— Philippine Folk-Tales • Clara Kern Bayliss, Berton L. Maxfield, W. H. Millington,
... Master, the other denominations, by His example, to Catholic clergy bind with very rare souls aiming at themselves to a life of exceptions, marry. And perfection, the state perpetual chastity. The far from inculcating of perpetual virginity. inmates of our convents the Apostolic counsel St. Paul also exhorts of men and women of celibacy to any of the Corinthians by voluntarily consecrate their flock, they more counsel and his own their virginity to God. than insinuate that the example to the same ...
— The Faith of Our Fathers • James Cardinal Gibbons
... ranged on their carved sedilia—his Britomart trim and debonnair; his willowy Carita; his wimpled matron in clean white who masquerades as I know not what branch of theology; his pretty girlish Geometry of coiled and braided hair and the yet unloosed girdle of demure virginity; his maid Musica crowned with roses, and Logica, the bold-eyed and open-throated wench, hand to hip—is this the man for sententiousness? Out, out! Could any one save a humourist of high order ...
— Earthwork Out Of Tuscany • Maurice Hewlett
... reigned Ascanius, the son of AEneas, and his descendants for three hundred years were the Latin tribes. After eleven generations of kings, Amulius usurps the throne, which belonged to Numitor, the elder brother, and dooms his only daughter, Silvia, to perpetual virginity as a Vestal. Silvia, visited by a god, gives birth to twins, Romulus and Remus. The twins, exposed by the order of Amulius, are suckled by a she-wolf, and brought up by one of the king's herdsmen. They ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord
... my informant, may confuse the two names. The difference between the versions is that between tragedy and comedy. If they, the pursued and her pursuer, rose in the same place it can hardly be that he did not catch her. If he rose somewhere else, then she may still preserve her everlasting virginity and they will neither of them ever reach the age when experience teaches both men and women to regret. She will be ever flying, he ever pursuing, like the maiden and the lover on that Grecian Urn which an eminent authority, ...
— Castellinaria - and Other Sicilian Diversions • Henry Festing Jones
... have forbidden, only that he feared worse consequences, an enthusiastic youth cannot but infer that it is a higher state of perfection not to desire a wife, and therefore aspires to "the crown of virginity." Here at once is full-grown monkery. Hence that debasement of the imagination, which is directed perpetually to the lowest, instead of the highest side of the female nature. Hence the disgusting admiration and invocation of Mary's perpetual ...
— Phases of Faith - Passages from the History of My Creed • Francis William Newman
... the air-ship sped on, high in air, its inmates viewing the various and varying landmarks beneath and beyond them, all marvelling at the fact that such an immense scope of country should for so long be left in its native virginity, especially where all ...
— The Lost City • Joseph E. Badger, Jr.
... any other writer of his time to establish certain latent tendencies as characteristics of the Catholic spirit. His pleading in favour of ascetic life and of virginity, that entirely Christian virtue, was very influential. He lauds the virgin above the wife, and, indeed, he goes so far as to tell parents that they can obtain pardon of their sins by offering their daughters to God. His teaching in ...
— A Mere Accident • George Moore
... sister!—since that tawny shell, Stained by thy tears and hollowed by thy sighs, Recalls thee still to mind—dost thou regard, From some tumultuous covert of this woodland, Thy whilom sphere and palace? Nun of the skies, In coy virginity of pulse, thy hands Repelled me when I sought to win thy lair, Fraternal, with no thoughts but humorous ones; And in thy chill revulsion, through thy skies, At my advance thy crystal home would fade, A ghost, a shadow, a film, a papery dream. Thou and thy moon were one. What is ...
— Hypolympia - Or, The Gods in the Island, an Ironic Fantasy • Edmund Gosse
... the mother commands her daughter to give a "Virgin Feast." The accused cooks some rice, and invites all the maidens of the band to come and partake. They appear, each with a red spot painted on each cheek, as an emblem of virginity. They seat themselves in a semi-circle on the prairie, and the hostess supplies each of them with a bowl of rice which is set before her. A boulder, painted red, is placed in front of them, about ten feet distant, and a large knife is thrust into ...
— The History of Minnesota and Tales of the Frontier • Charles E. Flandrau
... devoted to the continuance of the race, mourns over the violation of her laws by man, unburdens herself of all her scientific lore in a confession to her chaplain Genius, and sends him forth to encourage the lover's party with a bold discourse against the crime of virginity. The triumph of ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden
... tender accents the revolutionary hymn, there with wreaths of myrtle, and oak, and poplar, and vine, and olive and cypress, and ivy, with violets and roses and daffodils and dandelions in our hands, we will swear respect to childhood and manhood, and old age, and virginity, and womanhood, and widowhood; but above all to the Supreme Being. There we will decree and sanction the immortality of the soul, there pillars and obelisks, and arches, and pyramids will awaken the love of glory and of our country. There painters and statuaries ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... the celebrated 'Ladies'—viz. Lady Eleanor Butler and the Honourable Miss Ponsonby, who having been one or both crossed in love, forswore all dreams of matrimony in the heyday of youth, beauty, and fashion, and selected this charming spot for the repose of their now time-honoured virginity. It was many a day, however, before they could get implicit credit for being the innocent friends they really were, among the people of the neighbourhood; for their elopement from Ireland had been performed under suspicious circumstances; ...
— The "Ladies of Llangollen" • John Hicklin
... virgin in great state, "hieroglyphically attired" in a robe of white satin, richly adorned with precious stones, fringed and embroidered with gold, signifying the graceful blushes of virginity; on her head a long dishevelled hair of flaxen colour, decked with pearls and precious gems, on which is a coronet of gold beset with emeralds, diamonds, sapphires, and other precious jewels of inestimable value. Her buskins ...
— Memorials of Old London - Volume I • Various
... I need not have disquieted myself; I am in very good time. When I open the drawing-room door, and make my entrance in the borrowed splendor of Barbara's broad blue-sash tails, and the white virginity of my own muslin frock, I find that neither of my parents have as yet made their appearance. Sir Roger has the hearth-rug to himself; at least he only shares it with Vick, and she is asleep; sitting very upright, it is true, with her thin tail round her toes, like a cat's, her head and ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... had hitherto not vainly struggled. "Oh, man!" she exclaimed, with passion, "does thy deceit give me the right to deceive another? I—I wed!—I—I—vow at the altar—a love dead, dead forever—dead as my own heart! Why dost thou mock me with the hollow phrase, 'Thou art pure and stainless?' Is the virginity of the soul still left? Do the tears I have shed for thee; doth the thrill of my heart when I heard thy voice; doth the plighted kiss that burns, burns now into my brow, and on my lips,—do these, these leave ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... no thought for the morrow, as is said in the Gospel, but only not to take too much thought for it; one cannot give away all to the poor, but one must give away a certain definite part; one need not aim at virginity, but one must avoid debauchery; one need not forsake wife and children, but one must not give too great a place to them in ...
— The Kingdom of God is within you • Leo Tolstoy
... Duchess, intrusted the matter to some matrons, who declared Jeanne to be a maid; a favorable declaration which turned against her by giving rise to another superstitious notion; to wit, that her virginity constituted her strength, her power, and that to deprive her of it was to disarm her, was to break the charm, and lower her to the level ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... of that young idealism: after forty, the nebulous became a need for sensuous reality. Certain phases of Mina, as well, were utterly those of a child—she had the eluding sweetness, the flower-like indifference, of Helena, of a temperamental virginity so absolute that it was incapable of understanding or communicating an emotional fever. But, in the degree of her genius, she was above, superior to, experience; it was not, for her, necessary; she was not changed by it, but changed it into herself, into the validity of whatever ...
— Cytherea • Joseph Hergesheimer
... that certain holy virtuous virgins, in time of persecution, being pursued by God's enemies the infidels to be deflowered by force, ran into a water and drowned themselves rather than be bereaved of their virginity. And, albeit that he thinketh it is not lawful for any other maid to follow their example, but that she should suffer another to do her any manner of violence by force and commit sin of his own upon her against her will, rather than willingly and thereby sinfully ...
— Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation - With Modifications To Obsolete Language By Monica Stevens • Thomas More
... virginity? Ah, why Did immortality the Sire bestow, And grudge a mortal's privilege—to die? Else, sure this moment could I end my woe, And with my hapless brother pass below. Immortal I? What joy hath aught beside, Thou, Turnus, dead? Gape, Earth, and let me go, A ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... of Law, nor Music, nor Divinity;— He was obstetrick;—but, the fact is, He didn't in Lucina's turnpike practise; He took bye-roads,—reducing Ladies' shapes, Who had secure'd themselves from leading apes, But kept the reputation of virginity. ...
— Broad Grins • George Colman, the Younger
... sword-point behind a potting-shed near the Petit Trianon. Rumour whispered that it was on account of a woman that he fought and lost, but this last blow of Providence's hatchet was spared his girl bride, innocent, secure in her supreme purity and innate virginity. If evil tongues had even mentioned the word "woman" to her, she would not ...
— Terribly Intimate Portraits • Noel Coward
... sin. I speak here of such as these, and not of any others. Hence, we must exclude from this class all little children, who died before they could be responsible for their deeds; for, though they all died virgins, their virginity, which was a gift of nature, does not deserve a "crown of justice." Wherefore, in this place we shall consider the excellent glory of those only, who, having grown to the age of discretion, led a life of purity, and died virgins. Evidently these alone have purchased ...
— The Happiness of Heaven - By a Father of the Society of Jesus • F. J. Boudreaux
... "Who is a whale to virginity and devours up all the fry it finds."—'All's Well that Ends ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... exists),—to seduce man in order to possess him. Imagine courses of instruction for women and feminine science without men,—that is, learned women, and men not KNOWING them as learned. Oh, no! No education, no instruction can change woman as long as her highest ideal shall be marriage and not virginity, freedom from sensuality. Until that time she will remain a serf. One need only imagine, forgetting the universality of the case, the conditions in which our young girls are brought up, to avoid astonishment at the debauchery ...
— The Kreutzer Sonata and Other Stories • Leo Tolstoy
... certainly written by George Sand. The seventh is one of these, and also the twelfth. The latter was written with a view to drawing the attention of the public to the wretched lot of the women and girls of the lower classes, who were reduced to prostitution by the lowness of their wages. Their virginity is an object of traffic," we are told, "quoted on the exchange of infamy." The sixteenth Bulletin was simply an appeal for revolt. George Sand was looking ahead to what ought to take place, in case the elections ...
— George Sand, Some Aspects of Her Life and Writings • Rene Doumic
... never quite cast off the old man that had splashed through all the pagan uncleannesses. Some of his words are painfully broad for chaste ears. The influence of African conditions does not altogether account for this. It is only too plain that the son of Patricius had never known entire virginity ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand
... men. She would delay and hesitate for a becoming while; but at length, with a blush and a smile, would indicate a date too distant for the lover's impatience, yet as near as a respect for the convenances of wealthy virginity could permit. And now, all preliminaries being settled, the preparations would go forward ...
— Archibald Malmaison • Julian Hawthorne
... for a new married couple is adorned with a small white flag. The bridegroom wears around his brows a bandage of the same colour; whether it be his first or fifth marriage, he is always decorated with this mark of virginity, be his age what it may. The day of the marriage ceremony, he causes a camel to be slain for the entertainment of his guests. The women and children, without any distinction, assemble round the ...
— Perils and Captivity • Charlotte-Adelaide [nee Picard] Dard
... head of An Old Maid. [Takes the head.] This is called antiquated virginity; it is a period when elderly unmarried ladies are supposed to be bearing apes about in leading-strings, as a punishment, because, when those elderly unmarried ladies were young and beautiful, they made monkies of ...
— A Lecture On Heads • Geo. Alex. Stevens
... The physical ills that this contrivance must cause are necessarily without number, as the instrument is not as lightly constructed as our modern stem pessaries; but to the Oriental who can replace a woman at any time and who prizes the virginity, continence, and chastity of his slaves, even if enforced, more than their health or their lives, these are matters of secondary importance. In the Soudan there are no divorce courts, hence the probable ...
— History of Circumcision from the Earliest Times to the Present - Moral and Physical Reasons for its Performance • Peter Charles Remondino
... translate your words into deeds; away with your sentimental generalizations, and come down to the practical details of your duty as men and Christians. What avail your abstract theories, your hopeless virginity of democracy, sacred from the violence of meanings? A democracy which professes to hold, as by divine right, the doctrine of human equality in its special keeping, and which at the same time gives its direct countenance ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... bore the evident marks of inward satisfaction and holy veneration. The nuns, who before had been standing round the chapel, each holding a burning taper, now tenderly embraced their intended sister, and placed the crown of virginity upon her temples, when an anathema, was with great solemnity, pronounced against all who should attempt to make her break her vows. The impressive ceremony which thus excludes youth and beauty in a cloister, closes with ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 10, No. 270, Saturday, August 25, 1827. • Various |
