Miss

“ Why, miss, that would have been a match of the devil's making; but when both are young that's a match of God's making.
Miss searching her pockets for a thimble, brings out a nutmeg.
Neverout. O, miss, have a care; for if you carry a nutmeg in your pocket, you'll certainly be married to an old man.
Miss. Well, and if I ever be married, it shall be to an old man; they always make the best husbands; and it is better to be an old man's darling, than a young man's warling.
Neverout. Faith, miss, if you speak as you think, I'll give you my mother for a maid.
Lady Smart rings the bell. ”

“ Fortunately, the twentieth century girl is less of a butterfly than the tight-laced, hoop-skirted young miss of the latter part of the nineteenth century. Perhaps the war had something to do with it. Perhaps it is because so many new occupations have been opened up to her. Perhaps it is evolution. But the young miss of to-day is certainly more thrilled with life and its possibilities than her sister of two or three decades ago ever was. ”

“ Some slight omission of ceremonial will offend its pride, some sordid repulse will check its ambition; it will flame with anger at the breaking of a jar, or pine with jealousy at the like frailty in a mistress. ”

“ Steptoe colored, frostily. “She’s not missus ’ere yet; and if she ever comes, there’ll be stormy weather for all of us. New missuses don’t generally get on with old servants like us—that’s been in the family 46 for so many years—but when they don’t, it ain’t them as gets notice.” ”

“ And how does you find yourself, Miss? And how does your ma git along wid de servants now? You know she always was a great hand to be pertickler, Miss; we hadn't sich another young lady in our family, to be pertickler, as your ma, Miss,—'specially 'bout de pleetin' and clare-starchin'. ”

“ 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." ”

“ How glorious to be introduced in a drawing-room to a Lady who reads Novels, with “Mr. So-and-so—Miss So-and-so; Miss So-and-so, this is Mr. So-and-so, who fell off a precipice and was half-drowned.” Now I refer to you, whether I should lose so fine an opportunity of making my fortune. No romance lady could resist me—none. ”

“ The housemaid, who was engaged to be married to the evening postman, gave way to clamorous grief.
"Remember that your mistress has a headache," said J. P. Huddle. (Miss Huddle's headache was worse.) ”

“ Why am I for ever made the companion of Miss Smythe or Miss Anybody-else? You know and see that my whole object in life is, to remain beside yourself. Every look, word, and action tells you as plainly as language can speak, that I love you to distraction, that my attachment has not been hastily formed, to be as hastily laid aside, and now my only apprehension is, that by too openly disclosing my feelings the confession may separate us for ever, yet it can no longer be delayed, for I must know at once now, whether I am to be happy or miserable for life? ”

“ For hunger of this woman yet unseen,
Whose presence felt is seared upon my brain,
My heart pervaded by her scent is fain
To beat no more for women who have been,
Or are, but only for her. Who is she? ”

“ You've had a magnificent day—a brimming cup of triumph, and you're more beautiful and fresh, after it all, and at an hour when fatigue would be almost positively graceful, than you were even this morning, when you met me as a daughter of the dawn. That's the sort of sense," I laughed, "that must sustain a woman!" ”

“ The time I've lost in wooing, In watching and pursuing The light that lies In woman's eyes, Has been my heart's undoing. Though Wisdom oft has sought me, I scorn'd the lore she brought me, My only books Were woman's looks, And folly's all they've taught me. ”

“ And you, you the woman, deeper, more vitally sexed, more complete in your memory of the past, more true in your record of it, less a sport, more a true seeker and knower of life—you, the embodiment of it all, memory, instinct, fear, passion, tenderness, hate—cunning, strong, wise, far-seeing, and altogether mistress of the whole brute world, mistress of everything in life and destiny save death. ”

“ That music hath a far more pleasing sound:
I grant I never saw a goddess go,—
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:
And yet by heaven, I think my love as rare, As any she belied with false compare. ”

“ Nothing, my dear young lady, only that you have, in common with the rest of the world, two natures, warring against one another, in your heart. I will confess that in your case I thought I saw a flash of something deeper, more tragic, than one usually finds in the face of a young girl, just a bad dream perhaps, or perhaps a real trouble. ”

“ The change seems to take place in a day, even in an hour: some incident, trifling perchance in itself, has awoke the spirit, and the lately shy and timid girl has become a woman in spirit as in name; losing none of the happy loveliness of her earlier years, she has acquired a dignity and nameless, indefinable grace, which completes her beauty and robs us of our hearts. ”

“ Let fall two sparlding tears, as one who fears;
Draw forth a curling braid of woman's hair,
Lay it across his lips with swift caressing.
His love confessing: "My sweet beyond compare,
Whose fault we love to-day and hate to-morrow?" ”

“ To fall at the feet of an imperious mistress, obey her mandates, or implore pardon, were for me the most exquisite enjoyments, and the more my blood was inflamed by the efforts of a lively imagination the more I acquired the appearance of a whining lover. ”

“ Taken by surprise, I stammered and uttered some faint disclaimer; but seeing by his steady look and firm-set jaw that he meant to know, and detecting as I also thought in his general manner and subdued tones the promise of an unexpected forbearance, I added impulsively:
"Let the wayward girl tell you herself; perhaps in the telling she will grow ashamed of her caprice." ”

“ Soothly a merry life hast thou had as a child, and merry now would be thy life, save for thine hatred of me. Into a lovely lily-lass hast thou grown. That I tell thee now, though my wont has been to gird at thee for the fashion of thy body; that was but the word of the mistress to the thrall. And now what awaiteth thee? For thou mayst say: I am lonely here, and there is no man to look on me. Of what avail, therefore, is my goodliness and shapeliness? ”

“ 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. ”

“ Here, like a great fool as I was, I wait till midnight for a deceitful mistress; sleep, however, overcomes me while meditating love; and disagreeable dreams make me ashamed of myself and every thing about me. ”

“ Subjected to an absolutely new experience, stirred as her heart had never been before by any man—a fact which at once irritated and pleased her—she was following the law of her own nature, while she was still her own mistress, to ponder these things and to bring her reason to the guidance of her feeling. ”

“ There was once, they say, a maiden, exceedingly beautiful, and modest as she was beautiful. To her the admiration of men was a sorrow from morning to night, and her life was made weary with the importunities of her lovers. ”

“ Should some shadow have settled upon any one of these homes—some shadow of drunkenness, or love of play, or shattered brain, or worse—the woman bore the sorrow in gentleness and patience and still loved on and suffered and loved and suffered again, hoping against hope. ”

“ I said to all my profane mistresses,
Beauty of pity, foulness only is
A sign of rigour ; so I say to thee,
To wicked spirits are horrid shapes assign'd;
This beauteous form assures a piteous mind. ”

“ And then, again, to do the wooer entire justice, the dark little girl, so much mistress of herself, so evidently spirited, with such an air of distinction, began to separate herself in his mind as a good goer against the field, and he had a real desire to win her affection. ”

“ And always, in her mental vision, stood that distracted woman, with the gray face and beseeching eyes, and white lips moving with words that no wife should have spoken, and no other woman should have heard. ”

“ But is it just or generous thus to think
⁠The world is naught but frailty and deceit,
Because one hand hath rudely broke the link
⁠That bound thy love to him in fetters sweet?
My gentle sister, thou should be too true
⁠To let distrust darken thy sunny way;
For still some hand around thy feet will strew
⁠Such flowers of love as fade not in a day. ”

“ Open the lock where all my love doth lie?
i'll seal them up within their lids for ever,
So thoughts and words and looks shall die together.
3
How shall I then gaze on my mistress' eyes?
My thoughts must have some vent, else heart will break.
My tongue would rust as in my mouth it lies,
If eyes and thoughts were free and that not speak.
Speak then, and tell the passions of desire,
Which turns mine eyes to floods, my thoughts to fire.
Unquiet Thoughts
(Upload an image to replace this placeholder.)
(Upload an image to replace this placeholder.) ”

“ Unless she was crazed why did she so cleverly seek to appear so? What maid stands out before a man, stranger though he be, and poses to him in the light of an insane woman? If she were not mad, then why was she striving to make him believe her so? ”

“ On the pale cheek of each other they read the traces of sorrow, the tears of separation, the characters of sleeplessness and grief, of fear and of jealousy. Entrancing is the blooming loveliness of an adored mistress ”

“ Subjugated but never unmanned I surrendered my being to that passion which various and great like life itself had also its periods of wonderful serenity which even a fickle mistress can give sometimes on her soothed breast, full of wiles, full of fury, and yet capable of an enchanting sweetness. ”

“ Can a mother see her babe's ugliness, or a lover his mistress's shortcomings, though they stare everybody else in the face? Can we see ourselves as others see us? No; habit, prepossession changes all. ”

“ What would the right word be but that nature, in these lights, was no single one of the horrid things I have named, but was, instead of them all, that quite other happy and charming thing, feminine?—feminine from head to foot, in expression, tone and touch, mistress throughout of the feminine attitude and effect. ”

“ There you can strum and hum all day to your heart’s content, and your poor bored mistresses must listen to all your magniloquent nonsense, without a yawn—besides being quite sure that you don’t mean a single word of it. ”

“ By the mere force of imagination, and the eloquence of their own metaphysical sonnets, they became persuaded that their mistresses were possessed of every accomplishment of face and mind, and that themselves were dying for love. ”

“ They delight in sorrowful lamentations and sentimental regrets put into rhyme; and one of the funniest things in the world is to see a girl dancing with the merriest in the evening, and to hear her talking broken-hearted pessimism in the morning. It is merely an example of the old proverb about the meeting of extremes; vacuity leading to the same results as experience. ”

“ Yes—yes—we must surround our sovereign with all our love, all our affection, all our devotion—for bitter, bitter are the moments of solitary meditation experienced at intervals by our adored mistress. ”

“ And when, later in the book, the light suddenly falls on the face of one of his old mistresses, and he realizes that to any eyes but his own she must seem no more than a middle-aged woman, the passing of time is given its sharpest expression. ”

“ Why, if you could hear those boys of fourteen, who blush before mothers and sneak off in silence in the presence of their daughters, talking among each other, it would be the woman’s turn to blush then. ”

“ She mists my glance with pains.
She back from olden times yet
Within mine eye remains.
She had many glittering sisters
Who all have taken flight,
With my torments and my gladnesses
Dissolved they in wind and night. ”

“ The arms of the unloved girl close about the formless air and more real than her loneliness and her sorrow is the imagined embrace, the awaited warm, close pressure of the hands, the fancied gaze. What does it mean? ”

“ You have a dozen girls at a time in that indefinite state when three words to any one of them would engage you to her, and she would think you had deliberately led up to it; whereas all the [Pg 109] past had been idle admiration on your part, and it was a rose in her hair or a moment in the conservatory that upset you, and there you are. ”

“ Give such a girl any true work that will make her active in the dawn, and weary at night, with the consciousness that her fellow-creatures have indeed been the better for her day, and the powerless sorrow of her enthusiasm will transform itself into a majesty of radiant and beneficent peace. ”

“ Perhaps the maiden lady preserves more than any other this sensitiveness, inborn in women, to the approach of the critical moment in the affairs of the heart. The day may some time be past when she—is sensitive for herself—philosophers say otherwise—but she is easily put in a flutter by the affair of another. ”