“ Wife, let your fine weather be your husband's smiles.—Toilers of the Sea.
No one knows like a woman how to say things which are at once gentle and deep. Gentleness and depth,—in these things the whole of woman is contained, and it is heaven.—Les Misérables.
Beauty heightened by simplicity is ineffable, and nothing is so adorable as a beauteous, innocent maiden, who walks along unconsciously, holding in her hand the key of Paradise.—Les Misérables.
She had the prettiest little hands in the world, and little feet to match them. Sweetness and goodness reigned throughout her person ”

“ To behold her is to live; she is the Aurora with a human face. She has no need to do more than simply to be, she makes an Eden of the house; Paradise breathes from her: and she communicates this delight to all, without taking any greater trouble than that of existing beside them. Is it not a thing divine to have a smile which, none know how, has the power to lighten the weight of that enormous chain which all the living, in common, drag behind them?—Toilers of the Sea. ”

“ She is never out of temper; I don't think she is very wise; but she is uncommonly pretty, and her beauty grows on you.... I look at her like a little wild-flower in a field,—like a little child at play, sir. Pretty little tender nursling. If I see her passing in the street I feel as if I would like some fellow to be rude to her that I might have the pleasure of knocking him down. She is like a little songbird, sir,—a tremulous, fluttering little linnet that you would take into your hand, and smooth its little plumes, and let it perch on your finger and sing.—The Newcomes. ”

“ Every woman would rather be beautiful, than be anything else in the world,—ever so rich, or ever so good, or have all the gifts of the fairies.—The Virginians.
If a man is in grief, who cheers him; in trouble, who consoles him; in wrath, who soothes him; in joy, who makes him doubly happy; in prosperity, who rejoices; in disgrace, who backs him against the world, and dresses with gentle unguents and warm poultices the rankling wounds made by the stings and arrows of outrageous Fortune? Who but woman, if you please? ”

“ I can fancy nothing more cruel than to have to sit day after day with a dull handsome woman opposite; to answer her speeches about the weather, housekeeping, and what not.... Women go through this simpering and smiling life and bear it quite easily. Theirs is a life of hypocrisy. What good woman does not laugh at her husband's or father's jokes and stories time after time and would not laugh at breakfast, lunch, and dinner if he told them? Flattery is their nature,—to coax, flatter, and sweetly befool some one is every woman's business. She is none, if she declines this office.—The Newcomes. ”

“ The glance of a woman resembles certain wheels which are apparently gentle but are formidable.... You come, you go, you dream, you speak, you laugh, and all in a minute you feel yourself caught, and it is all over with you. The wheel holds you, the glance has caught you.—Les Misérables. ”

“ That fine blush which is her pretty symbol of youth, modesty, and beauty.... I never saw such a beautiful violet as that of her eyes. Her complexion is of the pink of the blush-rose.—The Newcomes.
He thought and wondered at the way in which women play with men, and coax them and win them and drop them.—Pendennis.
It was this lady's disposition to think kindnesses, and devise silent bounties and to scheme benevolence, for those about her. We take such goodness, for the most part, as if it were our due; the Marys who bring ointment for our feet get but little thanks. ”

“ There is in the world no function more important than that of being charming.... To shed joy around, to radiate happiness, to cast light upon dark days, to be the golden thread of our destiny, and the very spirit of grace and harmony, is not this to render a service?—Toilers of the Sea. ”

“ Every graceful and generous quality of womanhood harmoniously blended in her nature.—Life of Schiller.
She is a fair vision, the beau idéal of a poet's first mistress.—Life of Schiller.
Heaven, though severe, is not unkind; Heaven is kind, as a noble mother; as that Spartan mother, saying while she gave her son his shield, "With it, my son, or upon it!"—Complain not; the very Spartans did not complain.—Past and Present.
VICTOR HUGO.
All her face, all her person, breathed an ineffable love and kindness. ”

“ A man gets his own experience about women, and will take nobody's hearsay; nor, indeed, is the young fellow worth a fig that would.—Henry Esmond.
Stupid! Why not? Some women ought to be stupid. What you call dullness I call repose. Give me a calm woman, a slow woman,—a lazy, majestic woman. Show me a gracious virgin bearing a lily; not a leering giggler frisking a rattle. A lively woman would be the death of me.... Why shouldn't the Sherrick be stupid, I say? About great beauty there should always reign a silence. ”

“ But there is no greater crime than for a woman who is ill used and unhappy to show that she is so. The world is quite relentless about bidding her to keep a cheerful face.—Henry Esmond.
O, what a mercy it is that these women do not exercise their powers oftener. We can't resist them if they do. Let them show ever so little inclination and men go down on their knees at once; old or ugly it is all the same, and this I set down as a positive truth. A woman with fair opportunities, and without an absolute hump, may marry whom she likes. ”

“ And yet, with all these qualities to excite respect, she was seldom mentioned in the terms of love or affection. Interest,—the interest of her family, if not her own—seemed too obviously the motive of her actions: and when this is the case, the sharp-judging and malignant public are not easily imposed upon by outward show.—The Bride of Lammermoor.
Reasoning—like a woman, to whom external appearance is scarcely in any circumstance a matter of unimportance, and like a beauty who has confidence in her own charms.—Kenilworth. ”

“ In whom else do you see so much grace, and so much virtue; so much faith, and so much tenderness; with such a perfect refinement and chastity? And by high-bred ladies I don't mean duchesses and countesses. Be they ever so high in station, they can be but ladies, and no more. But almost every man who lives in the world has the happiness, let us hope, of counting a few such persons amongst his circle of acquaintance,—women, in whose angelical natures there is something awful, as well as beautiful, to contemplate ”

“ With a smile on her lips, and a tear in her eye.
Marmion, Canto 5.
Her very soul is in home, and in the discharge of all those quiet virtues of which home is the centre. Her husband will be to her the object of all her care, solicitude, and affection. She will see nothing, but by him, and through him. If he is a man of sense and virtue, she will sympathize in his sorrows, divert his fatigue, and share his pleasures. If she becomes the property of a churlish or negligent husband, she will suit his taste also, for she will not long survive his unkindness.—Waverley. ”

“ What kind-hearted woman, young or old, does not love match-making?—The Newcomes.
Who does not know how ruthlessly women will tyrannize when they are let to domineer? And who does not know how useless advice is?... ”

“ She is, as it were, a thread of gold interwoven with your sombre thoughts; you feel almost grateful to her for her kindness in not making herself invisible, when it would be so easy for her to be even impalpable; for the beautiful is a necessity of life. ”

“ A young woman fair to look upon.
Life of Schiller.
My dear mother, with the trustfulness of a mother's heart, ministered to all my woes, outward and inward, and even against hope kept prophesying good.—Reminiscences.
Women are born worshippers; in their good little hearts lies the most craving relish for greatness; it is even said, each chooses her husband on the hypothesis of his being a great man—in his way. The good creatures, yet the foolish!—Essay on Goethe's Works.
She is of that light unreflecting class, of that light unreflecting sex: varium semper et mutabile. ”

“ Men living about town are aware of these awful truths. You hear how pitilessly many ladies of seeming rank and wealth are excluded from this "Society." The frantic efforts which they make to enter this circle, the meannesses to which they submit, the insults which they undergo, are matters of wonder to those who take human or woman kind for a study ”

“ Nature is very kind to all children, and to all mothers that are true to her.—Frederick the Great.
She is of stately figure;—of beautiful still countenance.—A completeness, a decision is in this fair female figure; by energy she means the spirit that will prompt one to sacrifice himself for his country.—French Revolution.
A clever, high-mannered, massive-minded old lady; admirable as a finished piece of social art, but hardly otherwise much.—Reminiscences.
Who can account for the taste of females?—The Diamond Necklace.
A Beauty, but over light-headed: a Booby who had fine legs. ”

“ There are ladies, who may be called men's women, being welcomed entirely by all the gentlemen, and cut or slighted by all their wives.... But while simple folks who are out of the world, or country people with a taste for the genteel, behold these ladies in their seeming glory in public places, or envy them from afar off, persons who are better instructed could inform them that these envied ladies have no more chance of establishing themselves in "Society," than the benighted squire's wife in Somersetshire, who reads of their doings in the Morning Post. ”

“ No other but a woman's reason;
I think him so, because I think him so.
Two Gentlemen of Verona, A. 1, S. 2.
The hand that hath made you fair hath made you good: the goodness that is cheap in beauty makes beauty brief in goodness; but grace being the soul of your complexion, should keep the body of it ever fair.
Measure for Measure, A. 3, S. 1.
If ladies be but young and fair,
They have the gift to know it. ”

“ Even the most simple and unsuspicious of the female sex have (God bless them!) an instinctive sharpness of perception in love matters, which sometimes goes the length of observing partialities that never existed, but rarely misses to detect such as pass actually under their observation.—Waverley. ”

“ She seemed a vision scarcely embodied; ... in her fairness, which amounted almost to serenity of her look; ... in the sacred innocence of her smile, she was almost an angel, and yet just a woman.—By Order of the King.
The girl becomes a maiden, fresh and joyous as the lark. Noting her movements, we feel as if it were good of her not to fly away. The dear familiar companion moves at her own sweet will about the house; flits from branch to branch, or rather from room to room; goes to and fro; approaches and retires.... She asks a question and is answered ”

“ She was highly accomplished; yet she had not learned to substitute the gloss of politeness for the reality of feeling.—Waverley.
A deep-thinking and impassioned woman, ready to make exertions alike, and sacrifices, with all that vain devotion to a favorite object of affection, which is often so basely rewarded.—The Fortunes of Nigel.
The spotless virgin fears not the raging lion.—The Talisman. ”

“ The woman was weak, but the mother found strength.—Ninety-Three.
Woman feels and speaks with the infallibility which is the tender instinct of the heart.—Les Misérables.
What is a husband but the pilot in the voyage of matrimony? ”

“ Rivall'd the blush of rising day.
Rokeby, Canto 4.
What woman knows not her own road to victory?—The Talisman.
She had been beautiful, and was stately and majestic in her appearance. Endowed by nature with strong powers and violent passions, experience had taught her to employ the one, and to conceal, if not to moderate, the other. She was a severe and strict observer of the external forms, at least, of devotion ”

“ She sung with great taste and feeling, and with a respect to the sense of what she uttered, that might be proposed in example to ladies of much superior musical talent. Her natural good sense taught her, that if, as we are assured, "music must be married to immortal verse," they are very often divorced by the performer in a most shameful manner. ”

“ Or blush at least ...
... Who'd stoop to blame
This sort of trifling?
My Last Duchess.
W. M. THACKERAY.
To be doing good for some one else, is the life of most good women. They are exuberant of kindness, as it were, and must impart it to some one.—Henry Esmond.
Who ever accused women of being just? They are always sacrificing themselves or somebody for somebody else's sake.—Pendennis. ”