"Harem" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... opinions and sentiments on the East, expressed in a series of rich cantos and stanzas full of sweetness and spirit, and all this as enchanting as a harem emitting the most delicious and rare perfumes, and blooming with exquisitely-lovely nymphs with eyebrows painted black, eyes piercing as those of the antelope, arms white as alabaster, and of the most graceful and perfectly-formed ...
— The Poems of Goethe • Goethe
... after themselves, I suppose, and the ladies of your harem don't trouble you overmuch. Do ...
— The Great Hunger • Johan Bojer
... him again, but in vain. From other sources I afterwards learned that the only kind of opera Count Kuscelew recognised was Adam's. As for the operatic company to be engaged to suit his taste, what he really wanted was more a small harem than a company ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... Tabor's phrases, Harriet recognized. She moved easily about the room, picking up other handsome, superbly illustrated volumes: "An American Woman in the Sultan's Harem," "A ...
— Harriet and the Piper - (Norris Volume XI) • Kathleen Norris
... time; no doubt he went to mosque; he surrounded himself with Hindu singing and dancing girls; he became more or less Hinduized. Akbar sent an officer named Adham Khan to conquer Malwa. Adham Khan had no difficulty. Baz Bahadur abandoned his treasures and harem and fled. Adham Khan distributed part of the spoil to the Padishah. Akbar could not brook such disobedience. Notwithstanding the distance he hurried to Malwa. He received his rightful share of the plunder; he professed to accept the excuses of the defaulter. When he returned to Agra ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various
... poem, "The Light of the Harem," speaks of that luminous pulsation which precedes ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... only in the families of the gods. The female singers consecrated to Amon and other deities, owed obedience to several superiors, of whom the principal (generally the widow of a king or high priest) was called chief-superior of the ladies of the harem of Amon. Besides these wives, there were concubines, slaves purchased or born in the house, prisoners of war, Egyptians of inferior class, who were the chattels of the man and of whom he could dispose as he wished. ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 1 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... rebel!" cried the old woman with a shrill voice. "Why, what right has the pacha to drag me from my poor hovel; and what can he want with an old woman like me? It's not for his harem, I presume." ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat
... on the supernatural character of the Pharaohs in general, but tell us little of the individual disposition of any king in particular, or of their everyday life. The royal family was very numerous. At least one of the many women of the harem received the title of "great spouse," or queen. Her union with the god-king rendered her a goddess. Children swarmed in the palace, as in the houses of private citizens, and they were constantly jealous of each other, having no bond of union except common hatred of the son whom the chances ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XI. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... prince was sixteen he was married to the beautiful Yasodhara, daughter of the King of Koli, and 40,000 other princesses also became the inmates of his harem. ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... acting Governor, Holwell, were brought before the tyrant, insulted and reproached by him, and detained in custody in wretched sheds and fed upon grain and water. An Englishwoman who was one of the survivors, was placed in the Nawab's harem. The details of this terrible tragedy and of the sufferings which the survivors subsequently underwent, are given in a letter from Mr. Holwell, from which it appears that his eventual release was ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... universal, and that it was customary for the women to use an artificial penis and other abnormal methods of sexual gratification. Among the Balinese, according to Jacobs (as quoted by Ploss and Bartels), masturbation is general; in the boudoir of many a Bali beauty, he adds, and certainly in every harem, may be found a wax penis to which many hours of solitude are devoted. Throughout the East, as Eram, speaking from a long medical experience, has declared, masturbation is very prevalent, especially among young ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... seemed on the point of joining him. Suddenly a rooster, that had strolled around from the barnyard and flown up to a cool location on the top of the garden fence, and under the shade of one of the cherry-trees (at which elevation no doubt his numerous harem in the yard regarded him with the same reverent respect paid to the Prophet Brigham, when at a distance, by his fifty-six wives and a fraction)—suddenly this rooster, forgetting the proprieties of the place and the hour, lazily ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... snatched from their country, their parents, their lovers perhaps; yet they smiled through their tears, for the power of beauty is boundless, strangeness gives birth to caprice, and perhaps the royal favour awaited some of these barbaric captives in the secret depths of the harem. Soldiers accompanied them and kept the multitude from ...
— The Works of Theophile Gautier, Volume 5 - The Romance of a Mummy and Egypt • Theophile Gautier
... have answered, but a look from Biddy enjoined silence. And so we were in touch with the "Ship's Mystery" again! I took the envelope, which was addressed to Miss Gilder in a distinctively American handwriting, strange to see coming from an Egyptian harem. ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... "friend," and the office of head of the cabinet, in which position he acquitted himself with credit. Alone, without other help than that of a subordinate scribe, he transacted all the business and drew up all the documents connected with the harem and the privy council. He obtained an ample reward for his services. Pharaoh granted to him, as a proof of his complete satisfaction, the furniture of a tomb in choice white limestone; one of the officials of the necropolis was sent ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 2 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... in his company. Still, she says a good deal about Sir Stratford Canning, the British Ambassador, by whom, she declares, she was given a letter to the Chief Eunuch, admitting her to the Sultan's harem. But this, like many of her other statements, must be taken with a ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... flagrant, when the church was polluted by the Iscariot Dubois, the court disgraced by the orgies of Canillac, and the nation sacrificed to the juggles of Law, if he had lived to see a dynasty of harlots, an empty treasury and a crowded harem, an army formidable only to those whom it should have protected, a priesthood just religious enough to be intolerant, he might possibly, like every man of genius in France, have imbibed extravagant prejudices ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... to British law. Reference is made to Chinese gentlemen; I believe that not one of them has his 'house' in Hong Kong; the wife (small-footed) is kept at the family home in China. Each of them has his harem only in Hong Kong. There may be an exception to this rule, but I have never heard of any such exception. (I know of only one, of a Chinese gentleman, who, for certain reasons, was afraid to return to China.) ... I have not known a single case of adoption by a Chinaman in Hong Kong. They may ...
— Heathen Slaves and Christian Rulers • Elizabeth Wheeler Andrew and Katharine Caroline Bushnell
... wherewith a king strove to perpetuate the memory of his warlike exploits were travestied by satirists, who reproduced the scenes upon papyrus as combats between cats and rats. The amorous follies of the monarch were held up to derision by sketches of a harem interior, where the kingly wooer was represented by a lion, and his favourites of the softer sex by gazelles. Even in serious scenes depicting the trial of souls in the next world, the sense of humour breaks out, where the bad man, transformed into a pig or a monkey, walks off with a comical air ...
— Ancient Egypt • George Rawlinson
... realize a fact that has been evident enough for ages: that the current of civilization can never rise higher than the springs of motherhood. Given the ignorant, debased mothers of the Turkish harem, and the inevitable result is a nation destitute of truth, honor or political position. All the power of the Roman legions, all the wealth of the imperial empire, could not save the throne of the Csars when the Roman matron ...
— The Bay State Monthly - Volume 2, Issue 3, December, 1884 • Various
... foreign shores, or the miners in their pits, forced by the deadly "damps" from all visible connection with human life, or the child of a superior race held captive by savages, or the beautiful white girl sold into the harem of a barbarous sultan, or any or all other of such expressions of destiny in the isolated lives of men are but pioneering the way of the race to complete homogeneousness and unquestioned ownership ...
— Insights and Heresies Pertaining to the Evolution of the Soul • Anna Bishop Scofield
... the east side of which are the stables and out-houses, and on the west side the metal stores. On the north of this court, though not approached directly from it, was the Seraglio (not to be confounded with the Harem), the grand entrance to which was from a second large court, access to which was obtained from a roadway sloping up from the city. The portals to this portion of the palace were also adorned with human-headed bulls. From the second court a vaulted passage gave access ...
— Architecture - Classic and Early Christian • Thomas Roger Smith
... and harem did not come to water. Cash done the regular hike after them. His thumb don't hurt him for hazing donkeys. Bill and harem come in after Cash left. They must of saw him go. Cash was out four hours and come ...
— Cabin Fever • B. M. Bower
... ignara loquor;' these are Nugae, 'quarum Pars parva fui,' but still art and part. Now I could much more easily sketch a harem, A battle, wreck, or history of the heart, Than these things; and besides, I wish to spare 'em, For reasons which I choose to keep apart. 'Vetabo Cereris sacrum qui vulgarit—' Which means that vulgar people must not ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... happiness if you cannot thereby achieve happiness? Not inapposite in this connection is that terrible story that Diderot tells of a eunuch who desired to take lessons in esthetics from a native of Marseilles in order that he might be better qualified to select the slaves destined for the harem of the Sultan, his master. At the end of the first lesson, a physiological lesson, brutally and carnally physiological, the eunuch exclaimed bitterly, "It is evident that I shall never know esthetics!" Even so, ...
— Tragic Sense Of Life • Miguel de Unamuno
... enough of heroines and all such ideal folly. He cannot understand why Faust is still dissatisfied with life. Surely he has seen enough of its pleasures. He advises him, if he is weary of court life, to build himself a Sultan's palace and harem and live in retirement—as Tiberius did on the island of Capri. 'Not so,' answers Faust. 'This world of earthly soil Still gives me room for greater action. I feel new strength for nobler toil—Toil that at length shall bring ...
— The Faust-Legend and Goethe's 'Faust' • H. B. Cotterill
... Davison had gone to the East originally as agent for some big firm, and had spent there nearly twenty years. He was an accomplished Persian and Arabic scholar, and gossip related that he had run off with a fair Persian from a Constantinople harem and lived with her in Persia until her death. But ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods
... home. His well-beloved Amelia lived in another house half a block distant; another favorite, just across the street; Emmeline, on the same block; and not far away the latest acquisition to his harem. ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... married, she must obey her husband; 1 中庸, xx. 2. 2 Ana. XV. x. 3 Mencius, III. Pt. I. iv. 8. 4 男子者, 任天道而長萬物者也; 女子者, 男子之道, 而長其理者也. when her husband is dead, she must obey her son. She may not think of marrying a second time. No instructions or orders must issue from the harem. Woman's business is simply the preparation and supplying of drink and food. Beyond the threshold of her apartments she should not be known for evil or for good. She may not cross the boundaries of the State to attend a funeral. She may take no step on her own motion, and may ...
— THE CHINESE CLASSICS (PROLEGOMENA) Unicode Version • James Legge
... receptacle, and," Miss CHENNELLS grimly adds, "then and there bastinadoed." Incidentally, in connection with the English Governess's struggle for supremacy in the City of the Pharaohs, we get pictures of life in the Harem, and glimpses of the lavish magnificence of the Khedieval Court, with its French embroidery on Eastern robes. It was with the object of describing these scenes, viewed from a rare vantage point, that the story was written. But not the least interesting ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, April 15, 1893 • Various
... you I've had a hard day an' no one need n't ever say Woman's Rights to me never again. I'm too full of Women's Wrongs for my own comfort from now on, an' the way I've been treated this day makes me willin' to be a turkey in a harem before I'd ever be a delegate to nothin' run ...
— Susan Clegg and a Man in the House • Anne Warner
... wild, hilarious laugh. "Moll," she continued, "I was the gayest mad-cap there. The sex were wild for me. I knew their weak points of attack, lass. If I had been seeking a mate, I could have made my market of them all and started a harem." ...
— Mistress Nell - A Merry Tale of a Merry Time • George C. Hazelton, Jr.
... being informed that there were two or three very charming English ladies at Dacca, was strongly tempted to adorn his harem ...
— Three Frenchmen in Bengal - The Commercial Ruin of the French Settlements in 1757 • S.C. Hill
... though she has every comfort, and is deeply attached to her lord, grows restless in her luxurious solitude; she pines for the excitement and triumphs of singing and dancing before an assembly. So, in the Nawab's absence, she takes professional disguise, and sings with a lute in the harem before his wife. To those who would like to see a Mohammedan lady of high rank in full dress, the following description of costume ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... are simple enough," replied the host. "It seems the fellow had been caught wandering nearer to the harem of the Bey of Tunis than etiquette permits to one of his color, and he was condemned by the bey to have his tongue cut out, and his hand and head cut off; the tongue the first day, the hand the second, and the head ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... approach. The audacity of their methods is illustrated by the raid on Fundi in 1534, when Barbarossa swooped down on that town simply to seize Giulia Gonzaga—reputed the loveliest woman in Italy—for the Sultan's harem: the fair Duchess of Trajetto hardly escaped ...
— Knights of Malta, 1523-1798 • R. Cohen
... were to beat her she would continue to admire him and think it lovely of him. Lily had, in fact, the soul of an Oriental woman in the midst of New England. She would have figured admirably in a harem. George, being Occidental to his heart's core, felt an exasperation the worse because it was needfully dumb, on account of this adoration. He thought less of himself because his wife thought he could do no wrong. The power of doing wrong is, after all, a power, and George had a feeling of having ...
— By the Light of the Soul - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... this disappointment, combined with his love of power and his impatience under the restraints of an ascetic life, quickly disabused him of his imaginary godhead, and drove him back to his palace and his harem. The king of Siam "is venerated equally with a divinity. His subjects ought not to look him in the face; they prostrate themselves before him when he passes, and appear before him on their knees, their elbows resting on the ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... horror, four headmen with their servants came at daybreak to her house with a royal veil. This is a rudely embroidered cloth which the king of Coromantien sends to any lady whom he has a mind to make his wife. After she is covered with it, the maid is secured for the king's otan, or harem, and it is death ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol. I • Various
... blood"—he sneered the words—"come along and think nobody else can't do anything right but you. You fetch along cat-meat with feathers on it"—he pointed at the vanquished P.T.—"and expect it to stand any show with a real fighter." Now he pointed to the Widow Pike's rooster sauntering away with his harem about him. "He ain't rid' around with a circus nor followed the sportin' life, and he's al'ays lived in the country and minded his own business, but he's good for a whole crateful of your sportin' blooders—and ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... moreover, the tendency towards temperance of the born athlete. Besides all this, his main interests were man-interests. But women would not let him alone. He had but to look and the thing was done. Wreaths hung on every balcony for Honey Smith and, always at his approach, the door of the harem swung wide. He was a little lazy, almost discourteously uninterested in his attitude towards, the individual female; for he had never had ...
— Angel Island • Inez Haynes Gillmore
... we had noticed a long facade among the cypresses and fruit-trees of Eldjid. This was Bou-Jeloud, the old summer-palace of the Sultan's harem, now the house of the Resident-General, where lodgings had ...
— In Morocco • Edith Wharton
... myself, I went off to the wars as a private in 1813. Well, to go back to the time I returned to Greece; you wouldn't believe with what joy old Ali Tebelen received the grandson of Czerni-Georges. Here, of course, I call myself simply Georges. The pacha gave me a harem—" ...
— A Start in Life • Honore de Balzac
... They recalled their doings with devout gusto and a sort of rational pride. Schoolboys, after their first drunkenness, are not more boastful; a cock does not plume himself with a more unmingled satisfaction as he paces forth among his harem; and yet these were grown men, and by no means short of wit. It was hard to suppose they were very eager about the Second Coming: it seemed as if some elementary notions of temperance for the men and seemliness for the women would have gone nearer the mark. And ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... have to content themselves with tallow candles stuck into scooped-out turnips and placed in a circle, and the lights throwing the shadows up, make the long legs of the cadets look like ever so many great goblin black spiders, hopping harem-scarem over each other; but ...
— The Fairy Nightcaps • Frances Elizabeth Barrow
... the habits of a country. Gladstone is as unoriental as any man well can be, yet his calling on Lacaita to recite was really just the same thing that every Pasha does after dinner, when he orders his tale-teller to repeat a story. The ladies meanwhile were packed off to the harem for the night, Lady Bowen acting as their interpreter. My L.H.C., his two secretaries, his three aide-de-camps, Captains Blomfield and Clanricarde, and the vice-consul, all slept in the same room, and that not a large one, and we were packed tight on the floor, under quilts of Brusa silk ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... say he had the appearance of a janissary in clerical garb. He took into his service an Albanian bandit, through whom he terrorized the diocese. At one time he had the young wife of a man who was away in Roumania brought into his harem. The husband returned, asked for his wife and succeeded in obtaining her, but after two months he was assassinated, and the widow thought she might as well allow the bishop to console her. The outcry was enormous; no one doubted that it was ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 1 • Henry Baerlein
... bosom of the sun, Under the roses dappled and dun. I thought of the Sultan Gingerbeer, In his palace beside the Bendemeer, With his Afghan guards and his eunuchs blind, And the harem that stretched for a league behind. The tulips bent i' the summer breeze, Under the broad chrysanthemum-trees, And the minstrel, playing his culverin, Made for mine ears a merry din, If I were the Sultan, and he were I, Here i' the grass he should loafing lie, And I should bestride ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... business," and he sends his daughter to keep a harem of fast girls, just as he would send her to keep a ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... might say. I don't believe I could git on real well with Doc if he had kept on bein' Shakespeare. I'd always have felt like he was 'bout three hundred years older than me. But there's jist one thing I dread more than anything else. If Doc should take up with the Mormon religion and start a harem, I believe I'd coax him to be Shakespeare again. It's bad enough to have a double husband, but, land's sakes, I'd rather that than be ...
— Kilo - Being the Love Story of Eliph' Hewlitt Book Agent • Ellis Parker Butler
... as the next page shows the youth's education was complete in his twelfth year. But as all three texts agree, I do not venture upon changing the number to six or seven, the age at which royal education outside the Harem ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton
... same. He will survive you for rather more than forty years; in the full enjoyment of your harem, your wardrobe, and ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... evening that Mr. Ben Timmins' reign was uncontested. The flashy young fellows of his caught-up friendships then lurked around Magdal's Pharmacy where Timmins dispensed complimentary drinks and lorded over his fluctuating harem of unemployed "soubrettes" and light-headed shop girls ...
— The Midnight Passenger • Richard Henry Savage
... from the cows, and well apart, forming a regular ring through which any cow wishing to desert her pup or leave the rookery before the proper time has very little chance of passing, as one of these grips her firmly with his powerful flipper and stays her progress. The lord of the harem, in the meantime, hastens to the scene of the disturbance, ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... face and arms with soot. Then put some of these dishes on your head; you may be taken for a servant belonging to the eating house, and they will let you pass. If they happen to ask you where the master of the house is, answer, without any hesitation, that he is within." "Alas! madam," answered Harem, concerned for himself than for Fetnah, "you only take care of me, what will become of you?" "Let not that trouble you," replied Fetnah, "it is my part to look to that. As for what you leave in this house, I will take care of it, and I hope it will be one day faithfully restored to you, when ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 1 • Anon.
... a real woman, she is in greater danger than ever in the hands of Turkish ruffians. To them a woman is in any case no more than a sheep; and if they cannot bring her to the harem of the Sultan, they may deem it the next wisest step to kill her. In that way, too, they might find a better chance of escape. Once rid of her the party could separate, and there might be a chance of some of them finding escape as individuals that would not exist for a party. But even if ...
— The Lady of the Shroud • Bram Stoker
... the reply. "His Eastern servant 'phoned for me one night last week; and I found Ferrara lying unconscious in a room like a pasha's harem. He looked simply ghastly, but the man would give me no account of what had caused the attack. It looked to me like sheer nervous exhaustion. He gave me quite an anxious five minutes. Incidentally, the room was blazing hot, ...
— Brood of the Witch-Queen • Sax Rohmer
... been said of the Royal harem or seraglio, which, however, as a feature of the Court always important, and ultimately preponderating over all others, claims a share of our attention. In the early times, it would appear that the Persian kings ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 5. (of 7): Persia • George Rawlinson
... break down the great waterways and enter dry-shod into the vast and immemorial temples and palaces. The tragedy, the human quality of the design, is summed up by the agitated groups in the foreground; the king, surrounded by his harem, makes a gesture of despair; the women, with loose-flowing draperies, surround him like frightened swans. A high priest raises his hand to the stormy heavens, upon which he is evidently invoking as stormy maledictions. A warrior swings his blade; to his neck clings a fair helpless one, ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... light down the pearly brine, And he loves to gather in glory there, The choicest things of the earth and air. In his deep saloons with coral crowned, Where gems are sparkling above and around, He gathers his harem of love and grace, And beauty he takes to his cold embrace. The winds and the waves are his messengers true. And lost is the wanderer whom they pursue. They sweep the shore, they plunder the wreck, ...
— Poems • Sam G. Goodrich
... "I can see that this is going to be one tight knit organization. Six men in love with the one dame ... ah, that is, lady. Kind of a reverse harem deal. Oh, this is going to lead to ...
— Border, Breed Nor Birth • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... the occasion Cowperwood had hung, not only the important pictures which he had purchased abroad, but a new one—a particularly brilliant Gerome, then in the heyday of his exotic popularity—a picture of nude odalisques of the harem, idling beside the highly colored stone marquetry of an oriental bath. It was more or less "loose" art for Chicago, shocking to the uninitiated, though harmless enough to the illuminati; but it gave a touch of color to the art-gallery which the latter needed. There was also, ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... benefit of his exchequer, and the same object appears in his horse traffic (1Kings ix. 19), his Ophir trade (1Kings x. 11), and his cession of territory to Hiram (1Kings ix. 11). His passions were architecture, a gorgeous court, and the harem, in which he sought to rival other Oriental kings, as for example his Egyptian father-in-law. For this he required copious means-forced labour, tribute in kind, and money. He had especially at heart the extension and improvement of Jerusalem ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen
... Scott, the sealer, who had taken up is abode on the island with his harem, three Tasmanian ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale
... turn. Sometimes Lulu would come in, with a bird on each hand, and sit at our feet. She then never mingled in the conversation, but just smoothed the birds' plumage, or fed them with crumbs from her own lips, like a child, or a princess trifling in the harem. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various
... enough place you and your man have," he commented. "Or is it that this is a free-love town or a harem spot, or just a military post?" He checked her before she could answer. "But let's not be talking about such things now. Soon enough I'll be scared to death for both of us. Best enjoy the kick of meeting, which is always good ...
— The Moon is Green • Fritz Reuter Leiber
... board, they were fifty to twenty; the men would have been massacred, and I should have finished my days in a harem." ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore
... last, a considerable force of cavalry, then mules and barbarous carriages with the harem, all the riders and inmates enveloped in what appeared to be winding-sheets, white and shapeless; about them eunuchs and servants. The staff of the pachas followed, preceding the grandees who closed the march, mounted on ...
— Lothair • Benjamin Disraeli
... the seat of royalty was transferred from Rome to Constantinople, was visible in the jewellery afterwards usually worn; nor was the taste by any means confined to the fair sex, the men in the East being still as fond of jewellery as the ladies of the harem. The poorest persons eagerly wear what their limited means allow, and load themselves with cheap ornaments, although a pound weight of them would ...
— Rambles of an Archaeologist Among Old Books and in Old Places • Frederick William Fairholt
... his Mr. Dougherty repaired each night when the hour was so late as to promise no further diversion in the arch domains of sport. By that time the occupant of the monogamistic harem would be in dreamland, the bulbul silenced and the hour propitious ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry
... vista, with here and there bright spots and deep shadows—the effect of the sun's rays struggling to penetrate the leafy roof of nature's aisle. Deep in the solitude of the woods see now the dappled herd, and watch the handsome buck as he roams here and there in the midst of his harem, or, browsing amongst the bushes, exhibits his graceful antlers to the lurking foe, who by patient woodcraft has succeeded in approaching his unsuspecting victim; observe how proudly he holds himself, ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... into more hideous relief by the cruel custom of suttee, or widow-burning. It is only within half a generation past that British interference has succeeded in putting a stop to these horrible immolations. When, in 1843, Suchet Singh, uncle of the present maharajah, Ranbir Singh, died, his home harem of a hundred and fifty wives were burned with his body at Ramnagar, and the same execution was inflicted on his branch establishment of twenty-five at Jummoo. Seven years after the beginning of British sway the thirty-two widows of a cousin of the maharajah were burned. This scene ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 • Various
... desire to win his approbation and with her industry and intellect, so different from the indolence and idleness of the Persian women in his harem. His wonder and satisfaction increased when, after recommending her to obey the orders of Boges, the eunuch, who was head over the house of women, she reminded him that she was a king's daughter, bound to obey the commands ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IV. • Editors: Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... had many friends at Bet-il-Mtoni, which is rarely to be met with in an Arab harem. She had the most unshaken and firmest trust in God. When I was about five years old, I remember a fire breaking out in the stables close by, one night while my father was at his city residence. A false alarm spread ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... intruder with a vindictive glare; he fluttered around him with uneasy vigilance,—he frowned, he groaned, when profane hands dislodged his idols from their niches. If it were one of the favourite sultanas of his wizard harem that attracted you, and the price named were not sufficiently enormous, he would not unfrequently double the sum. Demur, and in brisk delight he snatched the venerable charmer from your hands; accede, and he became the picture of despair,—nor unfrequently, at the dead of night, would he knock ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... "Adam had it. So did Solomon, only he had it in so many places he got so he didn't mind it. Think of them guys that have harems. Think of Brigham Young. Why, kid, you don't know the first thing about love pains. Think of the guy with the harem and his guesswork! He's got something to worry about, he has. It's awful when you've got to love a couple of hundred of 'em at once, and them all hatin' you like poison. And old Brigham—think of him settin' ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon
... enough for him; at times he will watch for the whole night, without showing the least trace of fatigue on the following day. He eats little, and water is his only beverage. According to Mohammedan custom, he keeps several wives. In 1844 he had three, of which his favorite (Pearl of the Harem, as she was called) was an ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... stare at me, and I feel as if they nudged one another when I'm not looking. I can feel them standing there. And they won't let me get on about the baby this morning. Just their cussedness. I felt they encouraged me like a harem ...
— Fantasia of the Unconscious • D. H. Lawrence
... square shape, surrounded by high and massive walls, and defended by fifty pieces of cannon, and some mortars, so placed as equally to awe the city and country. The apartments set apart for the habitation of the Dey and the ladies of his harem, are described as extremely magnificent, and abundantly supplied with marble pillars, fountains, mirrors, carpets, ottomans, cushions, and other articles of oriental luxury; but there are others no less valuable and curious, such as ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms
... by a king of Oudh for the ladies of his harem. It takes its name from the gilt umbrella (Chatta) with which it is adorned. ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts
... several occupations and he looked towards the Chamberlain and the rest of the attendants and said, "Begone!" Then the Eunuchs came to him and calling down on him length of life and continuance of weal, walked in attendance upon him and raised the curtain, and he entered the pavilion of the Harem, where he found candles lighted and lamps burning and singing-women smiting on instruments, and ten slave-girls, high- bosomed maids. When he saw this, he was confounded in his wit and said to himself, "By Allah, I am in ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... sits enthroned, with room for a fair admirer on either side of him—the clerical sultan of a platonic harem. His persuasive ministry is felt as well as heard: he has an innocent habit of fondling young persons. One of his arms is even long enough to embrace the circumference of Miss Plym—while the other clasps the rigid silken waist of ...
— I Say No • Wilkie Collins
... palace floor. Here the soldiers were agreeable enough; they had reason to be. Umballa gave them new minted rupees for their work, many rupees. For they knew secrets. Before the door of a dungeon Umballa paused and listened. There was no sound. He returned upstairs and sought a chamber near the harem. This he entered, and stood with folded arms near ...
— The Adventures of Kathlyn • Harold MacGrath
... indebted, had a good reputation for integrity. He was a Persian subject, then governor of Salmas, and also chief of a branch of the Hakary tribe. He had married a sister of the Emir, and given him one of his own in return, and another was in the harem of the Shah. He assured his missionary guest of the Emir's personal friendship, and interested ...
— History Of The Missions Of The American Board Of Commissioners For Foreign Missions To The Oriental Churches, Volume I. • Rufus Anderson
... talk about suicide the day before bank holiday. Why, my only Somali warrior has vamoosed with his full make-up, and the Magnetic Girl too, and I never thought of suicide—only whether to turn my old woman into a Veiled Beauty of the Harem or a Hairy Lama ...
— The Mirror of Kong Ho • Ernest Bramah
... natural daughter of Anne Bequs, who was supported by M. Dumonceau, a rich banker at Paris. The child was put into a convent, and, after passing through different phases of life, she was finally placed in a house of pleasure, where she captivated the Comte du Barry, at whose harem she became the favorite. The count, who had once before tried to supply the king with a mistress, now planned for his favorite. The king ordered the brother of Du Barry, Guillaume, to hasten to Paris to marry a lady of the king's ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme
... knights petted by her in secret, joys around her comparable to none others. But in the end the knight of Bueil, having killed Geoffroy de la Roche-Pozay, became lord and master of this young murderess, and placed her in a convent, or harem, according to the Saracen custom. About this time one used to see her and hear her chattering as entertainment many foreign dialects, such as the Greek or the Latin empire, Moorish, and, above all, French better than any of those who knew the language of France best in the Christian host, from which ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... of my history since Monday has been unadulterated David Balfour. In season and out of season, night and day, David and his innocent harem—let me be just, he never has more than the two—are on my mind. Think of David Balfour with a pair of fair ladies—very nice ones too—hanging round him. I really believe David is as good a character ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... a ghost, and she stepped light with a terrified tread. Bertram could see at a glance she was profoundly agitated. For a moment he could hardly imagine the reason why: then he remembered all at once the strict harem rules by which married women in England are hemmed in and circumvented. To visit an unmarried man alone by night is contrary to tribal usage. He rose, and advanced towards his visitor with outstretched arms. "Why, Frida," he cried,—"Mrs. Monteith—no, Frida—what's ...
— The British Barbarians • Grant Allen
... greatness showed itself less in the field than in the council chamber. His outer bearing like his inner temper stood in marked contrast to that of his father. Well read, accomplished, easy and fluent of speech, the lord of a harem of mistresses, the centre of a gay court where poet and jongleur found a home, Henry remained cool, self-possessed, clear-sighted, hard, methodical, loveless himself, and neither seeking nor desiring his people's love, but wringing from them their gratitude and regard by sheer ...
— History of the English People, Volume I (of 8) - Early England, 449-1071; Foreign Kings, 1071-1204; The Charter, 1204-1216 • John Richard Green
... most earnest persuasion, and even the intervention of the viceroy of Naples, to induce Alexis to return to Russia. The miserable man had a harem of abandoned women with him, with whom he set out on his return. They arrived in Moscow the 13th of February, 1718, and on that very day Peter had an interview with his son. No one knows what passed in that interview. The rumor of the arrival of Alexis spread rapidly through the city, ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott
... were ours To test his lamp's supernal powers. We reached the barn with merry din, And roused the prisoned brutes within. The old horse thrust his long head out, And grave with wonder gazed about; The cock his lusty greeting said, And forth his speckled harem led; The oxen lashed their tails, and hooked, And mild reproach of hunger looked; The horned patriarch of the sheep, Like Egypt's Amun roused from sleep, Shook his sage head with gesture mute, And emphasized with stamp ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... seats, And all gave answer with one voice: "O crown of the ladies of the earth! Maiden pre-eminent amongst the pre-eminent! Whose praise is spread abroad from Hindustan to China; The resplendent ring in the circle of the harem; Whose stature surpasseth every cypress in the garden; Whose cheek rivalleth the lustre of the Pleiades; Whose picture is sent by the ruler of Kanuj Even to the distant monarchs of the West— Have you ceased to be modest in your own eyes? Have you lost all reverence for your ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb
... change of light, and when mine had done so I perceived that the interior of this particular hut was divided by wattle partitions into apparently three apartments, two in the front half and the other—which I surmised to be sacred to the king's emposeni, or harem—occupying the rear half. The apartment which we first entered was probably the king's sitting-room, for it contained nothing but a low divan-like arrangement running all round the walls and covered with rich ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... times; Lamb; Landor; and De Quincey;—a list, of course, that may easily be swelled, as dependent on individual caprice. Many men are as tender and irritable as lovers in reference to these predilections. Indeed, a man's library is a sort of harem, and I observe that tender readers have a great prudencey in showing ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... worth of gifts; her wedding dress was a $5000 creation. At Greenwich he built a country estate where the stables were framed of choice mahogany. Sweeny hobnobbed with Jim Fiske of the Erie, the Tweed of Wall Street, who went about town dressed in loud checks and lived with his harem in his Opera House ...
— The Boss and the Machine • Samuel P. Orth
... of glance, a small something which is noticeable enough in Southern Europe, though we should hardly observe it in England, for it means education. In the matter of learning, be it noted in passing, the ladies of the Peninsula are not so very far above their duskier sisters of the harem farther east. ...
— The Grey Lady • Henry Seton Merriman
... response to his summons an old woman came and ushered us into a large, cool room, well furnished and with beautiful Kurdish rugs. There we found four young girls, who, it was explained to me, formed the Turkish general's "field harem." He had left in too much of a hurry to take them with him. They were Kurds and Circassians, or Georgians—and the general had shown no lack of taste in his selection! True to the tradition of the Garden of Eden, ...
— War in the Garden of Eden • Kermit Roosevelt
... these trifles had applied their energies to the task of contenting the people, would they not have preserved the scepter in their family?" He then ordered that this building should be razed to the ground. Nor did this action stand alone. He reduced the size of the harem maintained by all the Chinese as well as the Mongol rulers, and he instituted a rigid economy in all matters of state ceremonial. Changtu, the Xanadu of Coleridge, the famous summer palace of Kublai, had been destroyed ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... man of the world? She smiled internally at the mere thought. Whatever this stranger might be she felt that he was as far from being a man of the world as she was from being a Cockney sempstress or a veiled favourite in a harem. She could not, she found, imagine him easily at home with any type of human being with which she was acquainted. Yet no doubt, like all men, he had somewhere friends, relations, possibly even a ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... said the girl, "as I am of Usanga and his people. He and his men were all attached to a German native regiment. They brought me along with them when they deserted, either with the intention of holding me ransom or selling me into the harem of one of the black sultans of the north. Usanga is much more to be feared than Numabo for he has had the advantage of European military training and is armed with more or less ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... never missed his aim. He challenged competition at table also—he arranged banqueting matches and carried off in person the prizes proposed for the most substantial eater and the hardest drinker—and not less so in the pleasures of the harem, as was shown among other things by the licentious letters of his Greek mistresses, which were found among his papers. His intellectual wants he satisfied by the wildest superstition—the interpretation ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... East, some years ago, it was my fortune to be summoned as a physician into a harem. With curious and not unwilling step I obeyed the summons. While examining the patient, nearly a dozen Syrian girls—a grave Turk's wifely crowd, a result and illustration of Mohammedan female education—pressed around the divan with eyes and ears intent to see and hear a Western ...
— Sex in Education - or, A Fair Chance for Girls • Edward H. Clarke
... provide for in a pleasant way, And, maybe, to avoid their chat and worry, He shuts up in a harem night and day— With them contriving all his cares to bury— A point of policy which, I should say, Sweetens the dose to men about to marry; For, though a wife's a charming thing enough, Yet, like all other ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... considerably. My words seemed to have an unusual effect on her. Then I could see that she was not only the kind of fish that lose their heads at auctions, but the terrible kind that believe everything the auctioneer says. You know, they believe that the Oriental rugs really came from the harem of the caliph and that the antique bed really was the one in which DuBarry slept and that the Elizabethan tablecloth really was an Elizabethan tablecloth. They are kind of goofily romantic and they fall hard for everything and they spend their last penny on a lot ...
— A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago • Ben Hecht
... condemnation, awful punishment, merciless dismissal! Women are cruel critics in cases such as that in which poor Fanny was implicated; and we like them to be so: for, besides the guard which a man places round his own harem, and the defenses which a woman has in her heart, her faith, and honor, hasn't she all her own friends of her own sex to keep watch that she does not go astray, and to tear her to pieces if she is found erring? When our Mahmouds or Selims of Baker-street or Belgrave-square ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray |
