Grande dame

“ She greeted him with less eagerness, if less patronage, than her other protégé, but graciously offered him tea and permitted a cigarette.
Lady Everard went in for being at once grande dame and Bohemian. She was truly good-natured and kind, except to rivals in her own sphere, but when jealous she was rather redoubtable.
'I'm pleased to see you, my dear Willie,' she said; 'all the more because I hear Mrs Mitchell has taken Wednesdays now. Not quite a nice thing to do, I think; although, after all, I suppose we could hardly really clash. ”

“ Is it strange that this innocent girl, little more than a child in years and experience, with many to flatter and criticise, but none to counsel or protect, should have fallen into the trap that was laid for her unwary feet? From her quiet village home she was suddenly, as Madame's dame d'honneur, introduced to a new world, in which the King, young, handsome, and possessed of all the graces and accomplishments of his age, was the central figure. ”

“ Madam, honour is inborn with you, for your lineage is such that no title, whether of queen or empress, could be an increase of nobility; yet your beauty, grace, and virtue are well deserving of pleasure, and she who robs you of what is yours does a greater wrong to herself than to you, seeing that for a glory which is turned to her shame, she loses as much pleasure as you or any lady in the realm could enjoy. ”

“ To her who surpasses all, and whom my heart fears and worships Lady, the flower of all of high degree, very renowned and revered princess, the desire of my heart, and the joy of my eyes, who art exalted above the consideration of the lowly, my much loved and coveted lady, deign, for pity's sake, to hearken unto and to accept the sad plaint of your servant, who, since he is under restraint, is like to one who is nigh unto death, and who takes perilous remedies in order that he may either end his days or live. ”

“ Beneath the sky is there a lovelier Queen than mine, be she maid, lady or demoiselle?"
So all the lords made haste to praise the Queen, and to cry and affirm that in all the world was neither maid nor wife so dainty, fresh and fair. Not a single voice but bragged of her beauty, save only that of Graelent. He smiled at their folly, for his heart remembered his friend, and he held in pity all those who so greatly rejoiced in the Queen. ”

“ Queen. 'Tis a fit name for one so fair; and thy country, maiden?
Ione. With the princess, my kind mistress, have I dwelt for many happy years; and honored by her choice now offer my poor services to thee.
Queen. What canst thou do, Ione? Thou art too fair and delicate to bear the heavy water-urn or gather fruit.
Ione. I can weave garlands, lady; touch the harp, and sing sweet songs; can bear thee wine, and tend thy flowers. I can be true and faithful, and no task will be too hard for thy grateful slave, Ione.
Queen. Thou shalt find a happy home with me, and never grieve for thy kind mistress. ”

“ Now this Queen was of surpassing beauty and loveliness, the fairest of all his wives and the dearest to him as she was the nearest: and to boot a woman of excellent wit and passing judgement. She found the King dejected and sorrowful, tearful-eyed and heavy-hearted; so she kissed ground between his hands and said, “O King, may my life ransom thy life! may Time never prove thy foe, nor the shifts of Fortune prevail over thee; may Allah grant thee every joy and ward off from thee all annoy! ”

“ My Lady, I have heard certain rumours touching your conduct which grieve me from the bottom of my heart because of the fear I have of the ruin of your good name, to the which, as it seems to me, they tend, for it is right and fitting for every princess and high-born lady, since she is exalted in honour and estate above others, to exceed all others in goodness, wisdom, manners, disposition, and behaviour, to the end that she may be an ensample by the which other dames, and even all womankind, should regulate their conduct. ”

“ COSTARD.
Which is the greatest lady, the highest?
PRINCESS.
The thickest and the tallest.
COSTARD.
The thickest and the tallest. It is so, truth is truth.
An your waist, mistress, were as slender as my wit,
One o’ these maids’ girdles for your waist should be fit.
Are not you the chief woman? You are the thickest here.
PRINCESS.
What’s your will, sir? What’s your will?
COSTARD.
I have a letter from Monsieur Berowne to one Lady Rosaline.
PRINCESS.
O, thy letter, thy letter! He’s a good friend of mine.
Stand aside, good bearer. Boyet, you can carve. ”

“ That I am, your majesty, and with a good grace. I am Queen of France without your help, and care not so much as one penny for the honor. It is greater to be a princess of England. As for this love you avow, I would make so bold as to suggest that you have a good, true wife to whom you would do well to give it all. To me it is nothing, even were you a thousand times the king you are. My heart is another's, and I have my brother's permission to marry him. ”

“ She was the type of the woman à la mode, elegant, coquettish, absolute, always on show, insatiable for praise and success, thirsting for dignities, pleasures, and money; playing not merely the great lady, but the sovereign, having her courtiers, her creatures, her poets, reigning alike over the King and the kingdom. ”

“ What an example does this dear lady set to all who see her, know her, and who hear of her; how happy they who have the grace to follow it! What a public blessing would such a mind as hers be, could it be vested with the robes of royalty, and adorn the sovereign dignity! But what are the princes of the earth, look at them in every nation, and what they have been for ages past, compared to this lady? who acts from the impulses of her own heart, unaided in most cases, by any human example. ”

“ So all men stared upon them, and praised their great beauty, saying that if the maid was so fair, what then must be the loveliness of the dame. When, therefore, the demoiselle came in her turn, the King's household stood upon their feet to give her greeting. Never did woman show so queenly to men's sight as did this lady riding to the hall. ”

“ And yet the Gloriana of the Faery Queen, the Empress of all nobleness,—Belphœbe, the Princess of all sweetness and beauty,—Britomart, the armed votaress of all purity,—Mercilla, the lady of all compassion and grace,—were but the reflections of the language in which it was then agreed upon by some of the greatest of Englishmen to speak, and to be supposed to think, of the Queen. ”

“ Woman, or goddess, of the order of the nobles of the time of Louis XIII., was a work of art, rare and perfect; and to tremble for her safety was but natural!
It happened that La Grande Mademoiselle came to the age to profit by instruction just when polite circles were discussing the education of girls. The governess whose duty it had been to guide her mind was caught between two opposing forces: the defendants of the ancient ignorance and the first partisans of the idea of "enlightenment for all." ”

“ Thus, the queen wishes to be able to love God and the king, and to live in peace; the duchess, to have all the enjoyments and pleasures of wealth; the countess, to have a husband who was loyal and brave; the knight’s lady, to hunt the stag in the green woods; the damoiselle, or lady of gentle blood, also loved hunting, and wished for a husband valiant in war; and the chamber-maiden took pleasure in walking in the fair fields by the river-side; while the bourgeoise loved above all things a soft bed at night, with a good pillow, and clean white sheets. ”

“ The Queen is not a saint, but very woman. Marriage she hath ever contemned and hated; men she hath desired to keep her faithful and impassioned servitors. So does power blind us. And the braver the man, the more she would have him in her service, at her feet, the centre of the world.”
“I had served her in a crisis, an hour of peril. ”

“ Now, my brave lady, my bold lady, my victorious lady! Satan has many great queens in his court, many princesses in his court, many high-blooded beauties in his court; I saw them all last night, sweeping with their long velvet robes the burning pavement of it: thou wilt have no mean mates to keep thee company, and thou wilt match with the best of them too; there is both wit and wickedness in thee to perfection. ”

“ Whether as the ruler of a nation or the ruler of a cottage, a woman’s mind rules in its own inimitable way. In the realm of heart, woman is the queen and in that realm there can rule no king. Of our many great American heroes and statesmen, only one has been honored in having had accorded to him the heart of woman—all Americans worship at his shrine. ”

“ But, valuing all that constitutes a lady, believing that these gentle graces are necessary to every girl, I believe the ladylike is but a part of true womanliness,—that infinitely precious, indescribable something in woman that makes her royal by birth, queen of herself, and fit to occupy the throne that is placed beside the king's throne,— not higher, not lower, but beside it; not his, but like his; her own, from which, with equal though with differing eye, she looks in blessing on the world. ”

“ This princess was courted by many of the principal nobility of the land, who all eagerly sought an alliance with the royal family, not only for the additional honour and power which it conferred on them and their posterity, but for the personal charms of the lady, which were of that high eminence, that no man could look on her without admiration. ”

“ Queen: And all on the head of yourself!
Princess: I am sorry, and very sorry, for that.
Queen: He is loth to say it to you, but he is
tired and wore out waiting for you to settle with
some match. See what a troubled look he has on
his face.
Princess: (To King.) Is it that you want me
to leave you? (He gives a sob.) (To Dall Glic.)
Is it the Queen urged him to this?
Dall Glic: If she did, it was surely for your good.
Nurse: Oh, my child and my darling, let you
strive to take a liking to some good man that will
come! ”

“ The sex, the youth, the accomplishments, the graces, the past misfortunes of the princess, all served to heighten the interest with which she was beheld: the age of chivalry had not yet expired; and in spite of the late unfortunate experience of a female reign, the romantic image of a maiden queen dazzled all eyes, subdued all hearts, inflamed the imaginations of the brave and courtly youth with visions of love and glory, exalted into a passionate homage the principle of loyalty, and urged adulation to the very brink of idolatry. ”

“ Not so the true lovers of our most lovely Lady: they would praise her everywhere, and see her loved by all the world; and therefore in public and in private, wherever it is in their power, they endeavor to kindle in the hearts of all, those blessed flames of love with which theirs are burning for their beloved queen. ”

“ As the Lady Contemplation in the play of that name, as the Lady Chastity of the ‘Matrimonial Trouble,’ and in a score other characters, the duchess is recognisable. Not seldom the speeches assigned the characters in her plays are as scholastic and as voluminous as her letters or her philosophical opinions. She does not hesitate to introduce wanton characters and to employ language which goes beyond coarseness. Her philosophy is the dead weight which drags her to the ground. ”

“ It is a controversy to-day between woman aristocratic and woman democratic (applause) ; and I claim that what it is right for an aristocratic woman to do—what it is right for a duchess, or a queen, or an empress to do—it is right for the simplest and plainest of my countrywomen to do, that has no title, and no credentials, except the fact that God made her a woman. All that I claim for the proudest aristocrat I claim for all other women. ”

“ As the White Lady, gliding between rows of armed and spectral figures on either hand, and startling the Princess and her companion by her sudden apparition in a gleam of moonlight across the floor, she was once more the representative of all that is most poetical and romantic in physical beauty. ”

“ Is there a woman in all England to be compared with you, my queen, my darling? What matters your being an actress to me? It is you, not the actress, whom I beg for a wife; and if you would see in what way I should ask you for so great a blessing—here at your feet I kneel, you an empress, and I your slave. ”

“ The steady flow of the twentieth-century progress has not swept away woman’s influence, nor has it crushed out her womanliness. She lives in the hearts of men, a queen as royal as in the days of chivalry, and men shall do and dare for her dear sake as long as time shall last. ”

“ I shall be a lady for ever," v. 7. She looked upon the patent of her honour to be not merely during the pleasure of the sovereign Lord, the fountain of honour, or during her own good behaviour, but to be perpetual to the present generation and their heirs and successors for ever. She was not only proud that she was a lady, but confident that she should be a lady for ever. ”

“ The poor girl has no knowledge of life, and is utterly helpless. Reared in the seclusion of the court under the care of the late queen—a most noble and saintly lady—she is still but a child in experience. She was my beloved king’s favorite—a beautiful, pure girl, a noble princess. ”

“ The great lady—"of exalted rank and inaccessible,"—who cultivates the mind of the youthful page—a mother, a sister, a guardian angel, and yet of such high degree, that she seems (in the austerity of her counsels, and the difficulties to be overcome, ere her favour can be gained) too great even to receive the adoration of him whose service costs so many sighs. Till in the end, as the accomplished knight is produced, the incarnation of merit and grace all fades away before the powerful god. ”