Ladies' man

“ 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.” ”

“ Lady lecturers and authors often tell us of the higher moral plane from which the gentle sex surveys the world's affairs, but for honest old-world delight in sheer physical force and muscular prowess, can a woman be equalled? ”

“ Men, some to business, some to pleasure take; But every woman is at heart a rake: Men, some to quiet, some to public strife; But every lady would be queen for life. ”

“ Resolved, That the same amount of virtue, delicacy, and refinement of behavior that is required of woman in the social state, should also be required of man, and the same transgressions should be visited with equal severity on both man and woman. ”

“ And slowly she lifted her glance to mine; and never before had I felt the full glory of those eyes, the full melody of that deep voice.
And so, I end as I began, as life begins and ends—with a woman. In a woman's arms we enter life; in a woman's arms we get the courage and strength to bear it; in a woman's arms we leave it. And as for the span between—the business, profession, career—how colorless, how meaningless it would be but for her! ”

“ Even now I am returning from a series of meetings in England, which I attended as a delegate from New York, and mixing with these noble-minded women has completely cured me of that false modesty that so [335] handicaps our sex. I believe now that it is a woman’s privilege, just as much as a man’s, to declare her affection. ”

“ And now—oh, when I think that I made of a man like you my ideal! the ideal of my life!
sir robert chiltern. There was your mistake. There was your error. The error all women commit. Why can’t you women love us, faults and all? ”

“ All the delicate psychology another man naturally seeks in a woman, the curiosity of form, windows on other lives, love and passion, I seek in my work and not elsewhere.—Form would perhaps be thickened by child-bearing; it would perhaps be damaged by harlotry.—Why should sex still be active? ”

“ The gentle, diffident girl expanded into a glorious woman, conscious of her powers, and proud and happy that she was fulfilling the highest function of womanhood, that of loving and aiding with her love a noble man. ”

“ Unless all analysis of the female heart is a delusion, and all history false, what women like most of all things in this world is a Man, virile, forceful, compelling, a solid rock of dependence, a substantial unfeminine being, whom it is some satisfaction and glory and interest to govern and rule in the right way, and twist round the feminine finger. ”

“ They lead men, as of yore, but not so much through the fancy or the senses as through the legitimate consciousness of the man that in following woman's guidance he is tending to higher purposes. We are generalising of course to a certain extent. The variable extent of women's influence is now, as it has been throughout the ages past, the point on which most of the dramas of the human race depend. ”

“ "I want my daughters to be beautiful, accomplished, and good; to be admired, loved, and respected; to have a happy youth, to be well and wisely married, and to lead useful, pleasant lives, with as little care and sorrow to try them as God sees fit to send. To be loved and chosen by a good man is the best and sweetest thing which can happen to a woman; and I sincerely hope my girls may know this beautiful experience. ”

“ Anyhow, with their extraordinary gift for, and experience in, affairs of the heart—from the double point of view, both of the man and of the woman—it is not difficult to see that these people have a special work to do as reconcilers and interpreters of the two sexes to each other. ”

“ As their gay and glittering processions pass along the streets, acclamations greet their progress, and enthusiastic ladies shower flowers upon their heads. They are generous, courageous, and ever ready in the hour of danger. ”

“ 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. ”

“ These heads of dream-women are, after all, not to be laughed at; they show the yearning for womanly influences and womanly society which follows the young man in his enforced monastic seclusion from all family life and family atmosphere. ”

“ “She would make a man of me. She puts strength and courage into me as no one else can. She is unlike any girl I ever saw; there’s no sentimentality about her; she is wise, and kind, and sweet. She says what she means, looks you straight in the eye, and is as true as steel. ”

“ Let all the wives with bruised shoulders, and arms, and backs, and eyes, (bruised hearts are too common to talk about!) emigrate forthwith to this enlightened State. Here's a man who is just to a woman. ”

“ 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. ”

“ THE woman's question—woman as she is, woman as she will be! That is my subject; and I want, at the outset, to get away from woman as the individual, more or less pleasing, more or less aggravating, more or less useful. I want to study woman in the abstract: the great woman-principle in life, in thought, and in action. ”

“ They gesticulated, they expressed surprise, interest, amusement, above all, they expressed the emotions excited in their minds by the ladies about them with astonishing frankness. Even at the first glance it was evident that women were in a great majority. ”

“ Many other well-dressed groups of men were known to us as being prepared, and it was for the ladies only I felt any fear of a lame conclusion. But what will not the ingenuity of woman effect when inclination prompts and pleasure leads the way! ”

“ Why, the whole world is strewn with snares, traps, gins and pitfalls for the capture of men by women. ”

“ talk to every woman as if you loved her, and to every man as if he bored you, and at the end of your first season you will have the reputation of possessing the most perfect social tact. ”

“ If the lady by whom, as the executor of her inimitable friend, I am thus honoured, has failings, never were failings so lovely in woman!—How much more lovely, indeed, than the virtues of many of her sex! ”

“ What fathers, husbands, brothers, lovers can be thinking about, to be willing that the women they respect and love, should appear in public, looking like women whom they despise, is a marvel to me. Why they do not say this to them, and shame them into a decent appearance—if their glasses cannot effect it—I do not know. Oh, the relief it is to meet a lady, instead of a ballet-girl! Oh, the relief it is to see a healthy, firm-stepping, rosy, broad-chested, bright-eyed woman, clad simply and free from bunches and tags! ”

“ 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. ”

“ But what you've got to learn—how to be a wife, how to live on a modest income, how to take care of me, and help me in my career, how to be a woman instead of, largely, a dressmaker's or a dancing-master's expression for lady-likeness—to learn all that is going to take time. ”

“ Woman—for example, look at her case! She turns tantalizing inviting glances on you. You seize her. No sooner does she feel herself in your grasp than she closes her eyes. It is the sign of her mission, the sign by which she says to man: "Blind yourself, for I am blind." ”

“ These are they who fill our asylums, and make night hideous with their cries and groans.
The women who are called masculine, who are brave, courageous, self-reliant and independent, are they who in the face of adverse winds have kept one steady course upward and onward in the paths of virtue and peace—they who have taken their gauge of womanhood from their own native strength and dignity—they who have learned for themselves the will of God concerning them. This is our type of womanhood. ”

“ But in the larger sense, "charm"—which means the power to effect work without employing brute force—is indispensable to women. Charm is a woman's strength just as strength is a man's charm. ”

“ Whether your ladyship should go constantly in the melancholy dress of a widow, or flourish once more among the ladies; whether you should spend the rest of your days cheerfully or in sadness, in health or in sickness, are questions which need not much consideration to decide them. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Women are told from their infancy, and taught by the example of their mothers, that a little knowledge of human weakness, justly termed cunning, softness of temper, OUTWARD obedience, and a scrupulous attention to a puerile kind of propriety, will obtain for them the protection of man; and should they be beautiful, every thing else is needless, for at least twenty years of their lives. ”

“ Whenever I hear a man talking of the advantages of our ill-used sex, I look upon it as the prelude to some new act of authority." ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is true, I am but a woman—a poor, weak woman, as the lords of the creation style our sex;—but I possess the heart to aid you—the spirit to defend you—and the courage to dare every peril in your behalf! ”

“ What have I done, or tried, or said
In thanks to that dear woman dead?
Men triumph over women still,
Men trample women’s rights at will,
And man’s lust roves the world untamed. ”

“ Never were seen ladies so proper and handsome, so miniard and dainty, less forward, or more ready with their hand, and with their needle, in every honest and free action belonging to that sex, than were there. ”

“ In them, let our young ladies contemplate profound and various learning chastised by true Christian humility. In them, let them venerate acquirements which would have been distinguished in a university, meekly, softened, and beautifully shaded by the gentle exertion of every domestic virtue, the unaffected exercise of every feminine employment. ”

“ But, thank God, most of the women are the real thing—true as steel and brave. And it is those women that the men worship. It is a masculine trait to want to be a sort of hero in the eyes of the woman you love. ”

“ The hearts of women are like little pieces of furniture wherein things are secreted, full of drawers fitted into each other; ”

“ but she was unhappy, as one out of her class; for women belong to no caste, no race; their grace, their beauty, and their charm serving them in the place of birth and family. Their inborn finesse, their instinctive elegance, their suppleness of wit are their only aristocracy, making some daughters of the people the equal of great ladies. ”

“ Seek the society of other women. You will find so many superior to me, in all respects! Do not fear to give me pain by any change in your feelings. I love you with that disinterested love, which would rejoice in your best happiness, though it should lead you away from me. ”

“ There was in this woman's being—in her eyes, her face, her every movement—that combination of nonchalance and dignity which comes to beautiful and bright-minded girls when they are beginning to leave girlhood behind them. ”

“ A woman’s true tenderness, like the true virility of man, is expressed in action of a conquering kind. ”