Female figure

“ We have seen it carried to inimitable perfection, in the most delicate raillery on female foibles:—it remained to be tried, if it might not also aspire to delineate the more engaging features of female excellence. ”

“ Whether as the frivolous widow or the daring coquette, as the practical woman of business or the unprotected female, as the flirt in her wildest extravagance or the wife in her most melting moods, she aimed at no artistic unity beyond the general unity of sex. She remained simply woman, and all this prodigious versatility was, as the audience observed, "so charmingly natural," just because it is woman's life. ”

“ To write feuilletons, romances, and poetry, is all very well; but to preside over a drawing-room, like the women of the eighteenth century, has also its merit. But we must not blame [Pg 382] the female sex alone for the loss of that supremacy which once belonged to French society. ”

“ I cannot better conclude than with the hope that these examples of what may be done may excite a noble emulation in their own sex, and in ours such a conviction of the value of the female mind, as shall overcome our long-cherished prejudices, and induce us to give our earnest endeavors to the promotion of women's best interests. ”

“ The inherent narrowness of the feminine nature, its unswerving devotion to the traditional dogmas of womanliness, now expressed itself in every line of her face and figure.
“I don't think any woman has any call to talk as you are doing,” she said with grave reproof. ”

“ The picture of woman's life, as it has been developed from the times of the earliest traditions to the present date, is here displayed in vivid and impressive colors, and with a living sympathy which could only flow from a feminine pen. A judicious selection from the writings of women who have obtained distinction in the walks of literature is presented, affording an opportunity for comparing the noblest productions of the female mind, and embracing many exquisite gems of fancy and feeling. ”

“ And some of the youngsters made very pretty women. The art of the female sex, in dressing as they do, was borne in upon me when I saw how quite plain young men could be made to look most attractive girls. ”

“ Tall and fairly-proportioned, with a countenance in which almost feminine softness of expression was blended, with an aspect of the eye and lip, which proved the vicinity of bolder and more manly qualities, slumbering but not extinct, he seemed at the first glance a man most eminently qualified to win a female heart. ”

“ We will not speak of the enthusiasm excited by actresses, improvisatrici, female singers,—for here mingles the charm of beauty and grace,—but female authors, even learned women, if not insufferably ugly and slovenly, from the Italian professor's daughter who taught behind the curtain, down to Mrs. ”

“ It will be allowed, I think, that women have reason to be satisfied with the rank they hold in modern poetry; and that the homage which has been addressed to them, either directly and individually, or paid indirectly and generally, in the beautiful characters and portraits drawn of them, ought to satisfy equally female sentiment and female vanity. ”

“ The changes that are made in the opinions of our sex as to female beauty, according to the different situations in which women are placed, and the different qualities on which we fix the idea of their excellence, are curious and striking. ”

“ To us there appears something so repulsive in the exhibition of boys, or men, personating female characters, that one cannot conceive how they could ever have been tolerated as a substitute for the spontaneous grace, the melting voice, and the soothing looks of a female. ”

“ As yet, no title has been found for the female of this class, —bold, dashing, loud-talking and loud-laughing, ignorant, vain, and so coarse that she supposes fine clothes and assuming manners are all that is necessary to elevate her to the rank of a lady. Perhaps you wonder how so numerous a race of these beings has come to exist ”

“ If from the unbridled drollery and serious moral of the drama we endeavor to reach conclusions regarding the Woman Question, they will be found to be about as follows. There were at this time certain prominent women who were endeavoring to have the natural capabilities of the female sex more justly esteemed, and energetic voices were being raised against the humble status of woman in society and in public affairs. ”

“ For instance, wives and daughters of Science, Literature, and Art; actresses of high repute; eminent female physicians; great female philanthropists; poetesses, paintresses, authoresses, sculptoresses, and what not: worse than all, ladies whose only claim to distinction lay in their good looks and pretty manners. ”

“ What is there in some women’s look, some women’s touch that more than all beauty goes to the heart and subdues it. As she stood there before me in her dark worsted dress and coarse shawl, with her locks simply braided and her whole person undignified by art and ungraced by ornament, she seemed just by the power of her expression and the witchery of her manner, the loveliest woman I had ever beheld. ”

“ Here, the female principle exists, and as you predicted, most of the women are therefore entirely different from ours. The term used in this language is "femininity." It is a devastatingly attractive thing—but almost impossible to explain. I will make an attempt.
Senseless, reasonless, even foolish motions of the body and the hands, the expressions of the eyes and the mouth, the way the head is moved and tilted are a part of it. So are unusual tones of the voice and special ways in which things are said. ”

“ The conception of character which rests on the broad basis of a common humanity falls into the background, and there is substituted for it a dual theory, with distinctly different forms of male and female excellence. Persons who take this view are naturally governed by it in their conceptions of what women ought to be. ”

“ Tall in figure, commanding in gesture, scarcely developed into the full wealth of womanhood, with an eye of piercing blackness, yet changing with every gradation of passion, profuse black tresses, and a voice whose intonations swayed the audience to every mood of feeling, SHE for the first time appeared to me. ”

“ For him to have so thoroughly understood the feminine mind and temperament, to have given to this subtle chameleon its various hues, to have portrayed woman with her many charms and caprices, and to have described woman in her various classes and at all ages, he must have observed her, or rather, he must have known her. ”

“ You will readily believe, that the appearance of so many handsome women would be particularly interesting to a community which had never before beheld a female within their walls.—This indeed was sufficiently evident, in spite of the gravity and mortified looks of the Fathers. ”

“ Put her in any drawing-room in the world, and she would at once be recognised as a highborn Englishwoman. She has in her, in embryo, all those excellent qualities that go to make a great lady: the icy stare, the haughty movement of the shoulder, the disdainful arch of the lip ”

“ And there are women of the world, of consummate elegance, slender and lightly built figures, with small hands and feet, an even pallor, almond-shaped eyes catching every light, moist shining lips of a tender grace, bearing witness to a love of pleasure refined by artifice. ”

“ Authors who take the advice of blue-stockings will always be ill-advised; gallants who consult them about their clothes will always be absurdly dressed. I shall presently have an opportunity of speaking of the real talents of the female sex, the way to cultivate these talents, and the matters in regard to which their decisions should receive attention. ”

“ She was a woman, and a painter of women—a painter of women from the woman's point of view that desires the world only to think of woman in her pose as woman, reticent, careful to screen the impulsive, most of all the vexatious, the violent, and the irregular moods of femininity's temperament from the eyes of the passer-by; always eager to show woman dressed for the part, and well dressed. ”

“ To see a woman in that place was not so strange; but such a woman! Even in the first casual glance I gave her, I at once acknowledged to myself her extraordinary power. Not the slightness of her form, the palor of her countenance, or the fairness of the locks of golden red hair that fell in two long braids over her bosom, could for a moment counteract the effect of her dark glance or the vivid almost unearthly force of her expression. ”

“ The intellect was keen, comprehensive, and discriminating. In these hollow times, the female world teems with fantastic puppets of affectation and vanity, but here we have no creature of carnality, but an intelligent woman, with large reflective powers. A refined ideality was early developed, and carefully cultivated by the thorough mastering of our best literature, and especially of our best poetry. ”

“ Step by step we propose to trace the career of this wonderful woman, who, dowered with singular beauty and genius, and placed amid all the temptations of a profession in which so few of her sex remain pure, has shown an example of unswerving rectitude and religious fervour, unusual in any walk of life, keeping her to the last a “great simple being,” direct and truthful, noble and industrious. ”

“ She possessed all that soft delicacy of appearance that reminds the sterner sex how frail and dependent is woman, while she bore in her face that sweet and winning expression of intellect, that, in other climes more favored by civilization, and where cultivation adds so much to the charms of her sex, would alone have marked her as beautiful. ”

“ It is the society of a charming woman, who is feminine in even her thoughts and modes of expression—who is often strangely, bewilderingly beautiful in this changing light. When we pass under the shadow of a tree her eyes shine like stars ”

“ There are certain words, suggestive rather than descriptive, the value of which lies in their very vagueness and elasticity of interpretation, by which each mind can write its own commentary, each imagination sketch out its own illustration. And one of these is Womanliness; a word infinitely more subtle in meaning, with more possibilities of definition, more light and shade, more facets, more phases, than the corresponding word manliness. This indeed must necessarily be so, since the character of women is so much more varied in colour and more delicate in its many shades than that of men. ”

“ Other girls were ladylike and soft-spoken. Was there a streak of commonness in her that made possible such a scene as she had just gone through? In her heart she longed to be a lady—gentle, refined, sweet of spirit. ”

“ Yet to us, who are in the secret of her sex, all the proprieties, all the inward harmonies, of her character are exquisitely preserved; and the essential grace of womanhood seems to irradiate and consecrate the dress in which she is disguised. ”

“ The shy, awkward, hard-featured girl was grown into a woman whose face made such declaration of intellect and character that, after the first moment, one became indifferent to its lack of feminine beauty. ”

“ Looking and listening, "Here," thought I, "is another jewel in the crown of womanhood, to radiate and glorify the lives of all." I have such an intense pride of sex that the triumphs of woman in art, literature, oratory, science, or song rouse my enthusiasm as nothing else can. ”

“ Sometimes I’ve an idea she’s like a painter who, when they asked him what his canvas was going to be, said, ‘Oh, as it may happen.’ But whatever nature’s intentions, women do work. I’m not thinking about an unimportant little class of women [183] who spend their time in dressing and simpering at one another. I’m thinking of women—the race of women. ”

“ She was of that species of women whom you commend rather for good qualities than beauty, and who are generally called, by their own sex, very good sort of women—as good a sort of woman, madam, as you would wish to know. ”

“ If that is true, shall we not then expect a future more largely influenced by women to have more of the hard, matter-of-fact quality, the splendid realism characteristic of woman "when she is herself"? ”

“ She looked up, and said, "What was I made for? When I go home I shall live in a circle of fashion and folly. I was not made for embroidery and dancing; I was made a woman; but I can not be a true woman, a full-grown woman, in America." ”

“ Once only she bursts forth with, "In truth I am not a little annoyed at being a woman. I ought either to have had another sex, another soul, or another country. I ought to have been a Spartan or a Roman woman, or at least a Frenchman. ”

“ The enchantment of many a feminine hand is easily felt. The surrender, the softness, the concession, the refinement and honesty of many a woman is so clear and open that it streams out, so to speak, and is perceivable by the senses. ”

“ I always like the word woman, for God made women; ladies are a society product, and are somewhat like artificial flowers, painted and produced to order. There are to be sure real ladies, but first of all they must be true women, and as I have always preferred flowers of nature’s own making, so I have a preference for a real woman, yet I will have to admit that even the best of us may be deceived by appearances. ”

“ Though woman is called the weaker sex, here, in one example, is represented the strongest passion and the strongest principle, admirably supported. It is an episode in this work-day world, most interesting, and touched with a daring and delicate hand. The execution of the painting is as perfect as the conception. ”

“ We hear men speak so frequently of womanly women, ending their praises with, 'she is essentially womanly.' I knew one of these womanly women, whose voice was like liquid music, whose ways were gentle, whose eyes filled with tears at the recital of some tale of woe, and always about her was an air of gentle, womanly sweetness and dainty femininity. ”

“ but we ourselves throw the whole drudgery of creation on one sex, and then imply that no female of any womanliness or delicacy would initiate any effort in that direction. ”