Female protagonist

“ I understand by this passion the union of desire, friendship, and tenderness, which is inflamed by a single female, which prefers her to the rest of her sex, and which seeks her possession as the supreme or the sole happiness of our being. ”

“ It is difficult to prove such a statement as this, for the sentiments upon which individual opinion of the subject is based hardly admit of exact statement, but that there is an accepted standard of female excellence, and that the women who realize it are not rare exceptions, can, I think, be shown by the study of female character as depicted by dramatists, novelists, and poets. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Our intention, in short, is to introduce our heroine with the utmost solemnity in our power, with an elevation of stile, and all other circumstances proper to raise the veneration of our reader.—Indeed we would, for certain causes, advise those of our male readers who have any hearts, to read no farther, were we not well assured, that how amiable soever the picture of our heroine will appear, as it is really a copy from nature, many of our fair countrywomen will be found worthy to satisfy any passion, and to answer any idea of female perfection which our pencil will be able to raise. ”

“ “You must create a female for me with whom I can live in the interchange of those sympathies necessary for my being. ”

“ Female forms of exquisite grace and beauty began to mingle in his mental adventures; nor was he long without looking abroad to compare the creatures of his own imagination with the females of actual life. ”

“ 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. ”

“ her person pleasing, and, when in good looks, pretty—and her mind about as ignorant and uninformed as the female mind at seventeen usually is. ”

“ Like most girls she had been brought up on the warm milk prepared by Annie Fellows Johnston and on novels in which the female was beloved because of certain mysterious womanly qualities, always mentioned but never displayed. ”

“ though I am far from accusing you of cruelty at present, because I know it to be the established custom of your sex to reject a man on the first application, and perhaps you have even now said as much to encourage my suit as would be consistent with the true delicacy of the female character." ”

“ Was it not, on the contrary, a serious pursuit of the secret of a woman's character?—Oh, a woman and her character! Ordinary women and their characters might set to work to get what relationship and likeness they could. ”

“ She stands before us, not the ideal creation of the mediæval romancer, but a real woman, with her virtues and failings, her joys and sorrows, real by very reason of this union of contrasts, a woman trying to grapple with difficulties forced upon her by her position, and by an age when intrigue and cunning were as freely resorted to, and as deftly handled, as the sword and the lance. ”

“ The task she had undertaken was a prodigious one, for the sisters she had to rear were, you must understand, vexed with sex instincts of the type of the modern novel, and so in a large measure she failed, even though she sacrificed strength, happiness and even her own love-story in the effort to keep them straight. The tale is set out with every circumstance of sordid misery, in which the spiritual beauty of the heroine is meant to shine, and undeniably does shine with real strength and purity. ”

“ The women hide their faces with powder and patches, lace themselves until they are ready to faint, walk with a mincing air, and live chiefly upon scandal; but they are women, after all, and every woman has a spice of romance in her nature, and such an adventure as yours is the very thing to excite their admiration. ”

“ The great fault, in my opinion, both of the writer and of the poet, is to idealize woman too much, and especially the young girl.
On the stage just as in the novel, the heroines are placed on a sort of pedestal where they receive haughtily the incense and homage of poor mankind.
They are perfect beings, of superior essence, gifted with all the beauties and all the virtues, whose white robes of innocence never receive, amidst all the impurities, of our social state, the slightest splash. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Who is there, indeed, to understand the heart of womanhood? The woman, sitting in the dark before the window in that room so full of the memories of her childhood, held close in her arms an ancient doll whose face had been washed so many times by its little mother that it was but a smudge of paint. ”

“ 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. ”

“ She believed she had lived through the dreams and fancies of a girl to become a woman of the world. And she had gone on as before, a part of the glittering show, but no longer blind to the truth—that there was nothing in her luxurious life to make it significant. ”

“ As heroines, for example, you chose ladies like Emma, and Elizabeth, and Catherine: women remarkable neither for the brilliance nor for the degradation of their birth; women wrapped up in their own and the parish’s concerns, ignorant of evil, as it seems, and unacquainted with vain yearnings and interesting doubts. Who can engage his fancy with their match-makings and the conduct of their affections, when so many daring and dazzling heroines approach and solicit his regard? ”

“ 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. ”

“ A popular lady novelist in a novel written many years ago represents her hero, a robust soldier, imploring the lady of his love, in a moment of passionate exaltation, to trample on him, certainly without any wish to suggest sexual perversion. ”

“ And she accepts him, not with the silly innocence of a child, not with the ignorance of girlhood, not with the ungoverned passion of a mistress, not with the condescending forbearance of the “superior woman,” not with the brotherly affection of the manly woman,—we have had ample opportunity of seeing and benefiting by such representations as those in every theatre, and in every tongue, since first we began to see and to think. They include every type of womanhood as understood and represented by actresses great and small. ”

“ She has generally 12 before her mind some favourite heroine in a girl's novel, who goes through much painful discipline and comes out all the brighter for it in the end; and she makes noble resolves of living as worthily as her model. ”

“ The new-fashioned heroine is a libel on her sex. As a husband and a father, I solemnly deny that she is in any single respect a natural woman. Am I no judge? I have a wife, and I made her an offer. Did she receive it as the Man-Haters receive offers? Can I ever forget the mixture of modest confusion and perfect politeness with which that admirable woman heard me utter the most absolute nonsense that ever issued from my lips? Perhaps she is not fit for a heroine. ”

“ She wanted what most women want, but she wanted it much more fiercely and passionately. ”

“ She has acquired knowledge, “read up” literature, and to some extent digested philosophy; but she applies her powers, her culture, and her training—from practice and association with professional writers—to the amplification and rounding off of woman’s art. She established domestic realism by the expression of feminine insight. She is content to leave other things to other pens. The appearance of generalisations not influenced by her sex is misleading. It is only a modern form of the old story. Her heart, and her genius, are those of a woman, womanly. ”

“ I observed that most men generally liked in women what was most opposite to their own characters; ”

“ It is difficult to comprehend the attitude of the dramatists of the golden age toward women. They have left many fine and powerful types ; they have created heroines of singular moral grandeur and a superb quality of courage that led them to face death or the bitterest fate as serenely as if they were composing themselves to pleasant dreams ; but there was no insult or injustice too great to be heaped upon their sex. ”

“ Let us dwell a little on the lady, and on her character. There is always something to interest, something to instruct, in the character of a woman. It is like many a problem in Euclid, which seems at first sight as plain and simple as the broad sunshine ”

“ This delicate young girl, surrounded by worldly and profligate friends, and drawn in spite of herself into the errors of her time, redeemed her character by her romantic heroism, her unselfish devotion, and her final revolt against what seemed to be an inexorable fate. ”

“ The heart of true womanhood knows where its own sphere is, and never seeks to stray beyond it!" ”

“ Women derive a pleasure, incomprehensible to the other sex, from the delicate toil of the needle. ”

“ But when women have fairly learned to use their wings, they will shape their flight for themselves, discover their own truths, draw their own conclusions, conceive their own ideals,—a proposition which I consider proven by the history of the English feminine novel, which, beginning with the gross masculine imitations of Mrs. ”

“ Perhaps I'll make a lady's-maid of her, though it doesn't seem quite the right thing to do.”
“No, it doesn't. Don't go and spoil what you have done by any such folly as that.”
“Do you want me to make a lady of her—or what?”
“A lady? Well that is a difficult question to answer; but I have heard that sometimes ladies, like poets, are born, not made. At all events, it would not be right, I fancy, to keep the girl here. It might give rise to disagreeable complications, as you always have a parcel of fellows hanging about you.” ”

“ These ladies deliver lectures to one another with discontented eloquence and rouse their auditresses to feministic frenzy by reminding them that for ages woman has walked in the shadow of man and that the time has come for the worm [the woman] to turn on the shadow or to crawl out of it. ”

“ A lady's imagination is very rapid; it jumps from admiration to love, from love to matrimony, in a moment. ”

“ A woman at the beginning — The first love-story — Different versions — 'Cherchez la femme' — The influence of woman on national characteristics.
If we look back into the dawn of the world, we see that, from her first appearance, woman has always been a great power. Indeed, she had the leading part in the first great drama of which the literature of the world gives any account. A snake and a poor weak man had the minor parts, the snake playing the villain and the poor man the fool. I have never read that story without feeling ashamed of the first representative of my sex. ”

“ I profess not to know how women’s hearts are wooed and won. To me they have always been matters of riddle and admiration. ”

“ Few men do understand the nature of a woman's heart, till years have robbed such understanding of its value. ”

“ After the dark I shall live again, and there will be women. The future holds the little women for me in the lives I am yet to live. And though the stars drift, and the heavens lie, ever remains woman, resplendent, eternal, the one woman, as I, under all my masquerades and misadventures, am the one man, her mate. ”

“ They throw away lovers, and husbands, and fortunes, and everything else, on the slightest provocation; it is a matter of course—it is the correct thing in novels. But in real life girls are fond of all nice things—at least, that is my experience—and they don't feel like throwing them away. ”

“ It simply means that a girl can read all the objectionable passages of the ancient poets without the need of a translation. I have hope of Woman because she is frequently so intensely feminine.”
“Maybe you never heard tell of how the Widdy MacDermott’s cabin came to be a ruin,” said the Third.
“Feeling and femininity will, shall I say, transform woman into our ideal?” said Harold.
“Transform is too strong a word,” said Edmund. “And as for our ideal, well, every woman is the ideal of some man for a time.” ”

“ "She behaves as if she was beautiful. Most American women do. It is the secret of their charm." ”

“ "My dear boy, no woman is a genius. Women are a decorative sex. They never have anything to say, but they say it charmingly. Women represent the triumph of matter over mind, just as men represent the triumph of mind over morals." ”

“ All in the waning light she stood,
The star of perfect womanhood. ”