Woman

“ A woman! Jane Sage a woman! Yes, there was the woman’s look in her thoughtful eyes, the woman’s mold of chin and cheek and temple, the graceful curves of a woman’s body, the round throat and the firm, shapely breast of glorious womanhood. ”

“ It grew more and more dense until it assumed the form of a woman—a mist-woman, shadowy, faint, yet luminous with a soft, unearthly glow, and beautiful as an angel with spiritual face, and slender, beckoning hands. ”

“ Imagine a woman of your own world, a lady of refinement and of education, who waits to be spoken to before she opens her lips, who stands aside to let you pass if you open a door, who, if you beg her to take precedence, walks before you with bowed head and folded hands as though you were her gaoler. ”

“ 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! ”

“ 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. ”

“ That womanhood is proved the best
By golden brooch and glossy vest
The mincing ladies wear;
Yet is it proved, and was of old,
Anear as well, I dare to hold,
By truth, or by despair."
He smiled no more, he wept no more,
But passionate he spake—
"Oh, womanly she prayed in tent,
When none beside did wake!
Oh, womanly she paled in fight,
For one belovëd's sake!—
And her little hand, defiled with blood,
Her tender tears of womanhood
Most woman-pure did make!" ”

“ To take the imperfect and undeveloped creature and, with a kiss upon her lips and a ring upon her finger, to make of her a woman, perfect and complete—surely a prerogative almost divine in its magnificence, most admirable, most enviable! ”

“ What those dim eyes had seen of history in the making, what those old ears had heard and what that clear brain had conceived and carried out only her close associates knew. She was the incarnate figure of tender, delicate, eternally
determined womanhood, arrived and triumphant. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Why have you the form of a woman? the lips of a woman? the wonderful hair of a woman? And I am going to answer: because you are a woman—though the woman in you is asleep—and that some day the woman will wake up. ”

“ 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! ”

“ About the other state of affairs—wherein the woman's appurtenances of all kinds, as well as the woman herself, are significant—is a delicate and subtle aura of the higher refinement—the long refinement of the spirit through many generations—which, to an eye accustomed to look for gradations of moral beauty, possesses a peach-blow iridescence of its own. ”

“ Yes, sir, there are women, pure and virtuous and noble as yourself, spending every day of all the years of their existence in the most intimate association with infamous men, kept so by that monstrous and unnatural artifice, baptized by the sacred name of marriage. I might take you through many, many phases of woman's life, into those sacred relations of which we speak not in our conventions, where woman feels her deepest wrongs, where in blank despair she drags out days, and weeks, and months, and years of silent agony. ”

“ 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. ”

“ And well may I address thee in the feminine gender, thou dispenser of heartfelt mirth! 'Tis WOMAN'S smile enlivens the feast—'tis WOMAN'S handy care that has so well provided it—'tis WOMAN'S kind encouragement that adds a charm to all you see around you. ”

“ Late hours, children's parties, sensational novels, 'flashy' papers, love stories, the drama, the ball-room, talk of beaux, love, and marriage,—that atmosphere of riper years which is so often and so injudiciously thrown around childhood,—all hasten the event which transforms the girl into the woman. ”

“ 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. ”

“ A woman, who was no better than her reputation came into view, a woman with paint daubed on her cheeks, and that was the signal for a full venting of nasty speech which the woman met by a bold glance and a muttered, filthy curse. ”

“ 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. ”

“ I could understand many strange things about the character of this singular woman, her whims, her unaccountable moods, her seeming carelessness, yet, withal, her dignity and sweetness and air of breeding—above all her mysteriousness. Let others judge her for themselves. ”

“ But let her first the harder reason guess,
Why she is form'd no blinder, and no less?
Ask of her mother, Earth, why oaks are made
Taller, or stronger, than the weeds they shade?
Woman respecting, what most wrong we call. ”

“ Whether she and her lover carried on a squally conversation on the bench in the hall or whether she wandered along the narrow, brambly paths in a sort of ferocious abandon, or whether she came to me and threw her thorny crown at my feet with a radiant gesture, she was Woman as men have described her, as they have wanted her. ”

“ "Where I was raised a woman's word was law. I ain't quite outgrowed that yet." ”

“ The education of the present race of females is not very favorable to domestic happiness. For my own part I call education, not that which smothers a woman with accomplishments, but that which tends to consolidate a firm and regular system of character; that which tends to form a friend, a companion, and a wife. ”

“ She is an ornament, like the shepherdess on the mantelpiece or the Spanish lady in the picture frame that hangs in the hallway. But the other woman—the pretty and the useful woman—oh, but she is a sight to make old eyes grow young. ”

“ The woman you loved, and wooed as wife, in danger of an arrest, your distraction of mind, Levy’s counsels, your hope to pay off the debt, so incurred to the usurer, from the fortune you would shortly receive with the marchesa. Speak to your mother,—she is a woman; women have a common interest in forgiving all faults that arise from the source of their power over us men,—I mean love. ”

“ Every class of woman was represented there, the gently- born, the educated, and the tenderly-nurtured, as well as the humbly-born, the uneducated, and the heavily-burdened, the woman with the delicate, spiritual face, as well as the woman with the face hardened by toil. ”

“ 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. ”

“ She, above all, the most tender, the most sensitive of beings, the most keenly alive to wrong, to insult, to oppression, to aught that bruises her womanly nature, can she give a careful eye to the disposal of those important questions which touch the very core of her heart? ”

“ Of showers and sunshine, as of their desires;
As much eternal springs and cloudless skies,
As woman, ever temperate, calm, and wise.
If plagues and earth quakes heav'ns design fulfill,
Why should not man o'er woman have his will? ”

“ Madame, the more I listen to you, the more determined I am that you shall become my wife. I admire the versatility of your mind, the coolness of your logic. Not one woman in a thousand could talk to so much effect, when imprisonment or death ... ”

“ There never was—to my way of thinking—a brainless, silly woman who was beautiful. It takes the light of intellect, the splendor of sweet womanliness, the glory of kindness, unselfishness and goodness to complete a perfect picture of "the woman beautiful." ”

“ For a while the world centered in that tiny cradle, and the hand which rocked that cradle had rather perform this gentle office than rule the world. It will ever be thus. With the true woman, dearer than wealth or fame is the touch of baby hands, sweeter than the applause of multitudes is the ripple of a baby's laughter. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Why should the Female ever have the power,
To tyrannize o'er Man, and to devour?
Why should the wife, the learned, and the fool,
The brave, the rich.... submit to Woman's rule?
Ask of the learn'd the cause, the learn'd are blind,
This bids us seek, that shun all Womankind;
Some place the bliss in serving one alone,
Some by a single Passion are undone.
Some, sunk to beasts, find pleasure end in pain. ”

“ She’s otherwise, I’ll keep my stables where
I lodge my wife; I’ll go in couples with her;
Than when I feel and see her no further trust her.
For every inch of woman in the world,
Ay, every dram of woman’s flesh, is false,
If she be. ”

“ You will never see her, like the woman of the citizen class, pulling up a refractory shoulder-strap, or pushing down a rebellious whalebone, or looking whether her tucker is doing its office of faithful guardian to two treasures of dazzling whiteness, or glancing in the mirrors to see if her head-dress is keeping its place. ”

“ 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 ”

“ O, woman! pure, noble, holy, superlatively fine, and exquisitely superior woman, your bounden duty is to give generously of your labor and lucre, that we men of God may carry on our work amidst the heathen at home, and the pagans abroad. Set to work dear sisters as we men direct. ”

“ Have you still the dear fiction that there are wondrous things beyond the west? I am sure that long since you have forgot the very name of Woman. She is a domestic instrument between you and the dark; to escape thither you must pass her. She fends you from the eventual evil ”

“ "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." ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The stories of which it is composed have been mainly written with the end of creating for woman, in the various life-trials through which she has to pass, sympathy and true consideration, as well in her own sex as in ours. ”

“ I had contrived--God knows how--to pass with him as a great discerner of feminine spirits, and was fond of introducing into my generalisations the word "Woman," which has always a mystical charm for youths of our age. ”

“ The more woman has been spoken about, you might say, the less she has been revealed. She has been hidden under a plethora of words. The supreme vision rising up out of these pages is as luminous as a heavenly revelation. From the author's tone, so simple and penetrating, you perceive that women feel differently about the things that we men see and proudly proclaim. ”

“ To-day I am a woman whose eyes are swollen and corroded with salt tears, whose features are sharpened, whose shoulders stoop, whose black dress bags on her reduced figure, whose eyes are turned inward, whose house is untidy and whose evenings drop into darkness without the lamplight. ”