"Bluebeard" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... looking away to the vibrating horizon, still as hot as an oven, as yearningly as if at any moment a knight might ride over the rim of the desert to rescue her, or as if a brother were coming to put an end to the existence of a Bluebeard who, obviously, did ...
— Children of the Desert • Louis Dodge
... his time was to be his current, lead where it might. He put psychology under lock and key; he insisted on maintaining his absolute standards; on aiming at ultimate Unity. The mania for handling all the sides of every question, looking into every window, and opening every door, was, as Bluebeard judiciously pointed out to his wives, fatal to their practical usefulness in society. One could not stop to chase doubts as though they were rabbits. One had no time to paint and putty the surface of Law, even though it were cracked and rotten. For the young men whose lives were cast in the generation ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... know as well as I do that we all like that kind of play, whether we admit it or not—something along in between "Bluebeard, Jr.," and "Cymbeline" ...
— Strictly Business • O. Henry
... existed as by accident. The "Parent's Assistant," "Rob Roy," "Waverley," and "Guy Mannering," the "Voyages of Captain Woods Rogers," Fuller's and Bunyan's "Holy Wars," "The Reflections of Robinson Crusoe," "The Female Bluebeard," G. Sand's "Mare au Diable"—(how came it in that grave assembly!), Ainsworth's "Tower of London," and four old volumes of Punch—these were the chief exceptions. In these latter, which made for years the chief of my diet, I very early fell ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... cant that was prevalent there; the Fashion, and its thousand follies and extravagances. Robert Macaire had all these to exploiter. Of all the empire, through all the ranks, professions, the lies, crimes, and absurdities of men, he may make sport at will; of all except of a certain class. Like Bluebeard's wife, he may see everything, but is bidden TO BEWARE OF THE BLUE CHAMBER. Robert is more wise than Bluebeard's wife, and knows that it would cost him his head to enter it. Robert, therefore, keeps aloof for the moment. Would there be any use in his martyrdom? Bluebeard cannot live ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... kind. The spirit of his work is, as it should be, intensely serious, yet the conceits which are showered upon it exactly harmonise with the mood of most of the stories that have attracted his pencil. Grimm's "Household Stories," as he pictured them, are a lasting joy. The "Bluebeard" and "Jack and the Beanstalk" toy books, the "Princess Belle Etoile," and a dozen others are nursery classics, and classics also of the other nursery where children of a ...
— Children's Books and Their Illustrators • Gleeson White
... answer. The books and newspapers talk about women's curiosity. It's nothing to a man's curiosity when it is aroused. Oh, I know the story of Bluebeard very well. But if Mrs. Bluebeard had been a strong minded woman, and had killed her seven husbands, I wonder if the eighth would not have taken a peep. He would not have waited for the key but would have broken ...
— Laicus - The experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish • Lyman Abbott
... all over the world," he answered, "only not to Japan. That is their Bluebeard's cupboard; and into that ...
— Kimono • John Paris
... the fifty-seven varieties of which he was a firm believer. He told me that his astral colors were red and blue, and that a phrenologist had told him that a bump on the back of his head indicated that he ought never to buy mining stock. With the same instinct that undid Bluebeard's and Lot's wives he had tried it, and is once more back at his job of gardening with ...
— The Smiling Hill-Top - And Other California Sketches • Julia M. Sloane
... BLUEBEARD, a wealthy seigneur, the owner of a castle; marries a beautiful woman, and leaves her in charge of the keys of the apartments in his absence, with injunctions not to unlock any of the doors, an injunction which she fails to respect, and finds to her horror the remains of his former wives ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... was a priest who belonged to a sacerdotal caste, and who ought not "to merge himself in the body of the nation." To him the Reformation was an infamous crime, and Henry VIII. was worse than the Bluebeard of the nursery. His hero was Thomas a Becket. He wrote a sketch of his life and career, which he did not live to finish. His friends ill-advisedly published it after his death. His ideal ecclesiastical ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... reason; even my own fails sometimes to deal with all its delicate shades; but I think I must have run away chiefly to taste the pleasure of being pursued and brought back. If it is necessary to your happiness that you should explore all the Bluebeard chambers of my being, I will confess further that it has taken you nearly three weeks to accomplish what I supposed you would ...
— The Diary of a Goose Girl • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... shown me your note, and it has impressed me with the horrible determination to become a new kind of Bluebeard, and lay an awful injunction of secrecy on you ...
— A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land • William R. Hughes
... she resumed, "he'd better watch his reputation, for he was beginning to be regarded as the local Bluebeard. Oh, I was as frank as George Washington. And I told him also that there isn't a man inside the U.S.A. that would treat a black as he treats his wife. I think that surprised him some, for he began ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... this for Zenobia's sake," she continued. "She is a pretty little creature, and will make as soft and gentle a wife as the veriest Bluebeard could desire. Pity that she must fade so soon! These delicate and puny maidens always do. Ten years hence, let Hollingsworth look at my face and Priscilla's, and then choose betwixt them. Or, if he pleases, let him ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... of cutting off her head. Here he married his sixth wife, Lady Catherine Parr, widow of Neville, Lord Latimer, and sister of the Marquis of Northampton. This lady, who had the hardihood to marry this royal Bluebeard, after he had divorced two wives and chopped off the heads of two others, narrowly escaped the fate she so rashly hazarded. The very warrant for her committal to the Tower, whence she was only to be brought forth to be burned at the ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume I. - Great Britain and Ireland • Various
... beautiful girl selected by the Catholics to play the same part for them that Anne Boleyn had played for the Lutherans, and who did so more exactly than her backers intended. Like her predecessor she was beheaded for adultery on February 13, 1542. On July 12, 1543, Bluebeard concluded his matrimonial adventures by taking Catharine Parr, a lady who, like Sieyes after the Terror, must have congratulated herself on ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... Lang's article was written, Sir F.C. Burnand's burlesque, "Bluebeard" was produced at the Gaiety Theatre. In those days a certain type of young man, since known by many names, including the present day "nut," was called a "masher"; and Burnand's burlesque included a duet with ...
— The Social History of Smoking • G. L. Apperson
... as a capital, which paid him many dividends of one kind or another, among them being a dividend in wives. How many wives he had had no one knew; and Jabe's own account was incredible. It would have eclipsed Henry VIII and Bluebeard. But making all due allowance for his arithmetic, he must have run these worthies a close second. He had not been a specially good "hand" before the war, and was generally on unfriendly terms with the overseers. They used to say that he was a "slick-tongued loafer," and "the ...
— Old Jabe's Marital Experiments - 1908 • Thomas Nelson Page
... needless to say that forbidden doors and rooms form a lieu-commun in Fairie: they are found in the Hindu Katha Sarit Sagara and became familiar to our childhood by "Bluebeard." ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... his noble spouse. Pausing about as long as it would have taken a lady to adjust a curl, he peeped into a Dutch cabinet of ebony and mother-of-pearl and was studying a charming creature painted on ivory, whose head like that of Bluebeard's wife was subsequently separated from her lovely shoulders, when a light footstep behind him interrupted his scrutiny. Turning, he greeted the young girl, and, with stately gallantry, presented ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... before. At half past twelve the Allans and Miss Stacy came. Everything was going well but Anne was beginning to feel nervous. It was surely time for Priscilla and Mrs. Morgan to arrive. She made frequent trips to the gate and looked as anxiously down the lane as ever her namesake in the Bluebeard story ...
— Anne Of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... dress woven on supernatural looms and blazing with unearthly brilliance; but she must be back when the clock strikes twelve. The king may invite fairies to the christening, but he must invite all the fairies or frightful results will follow. Bluebeard's wife may open all doors but one. A promise is broken to a cat, and the whole world goes wrong. A promise is broken to a yellow dwarf, and the whole world goes wrong. A girl may be the bride of the God of Love himself if she never tries to see him; she sees him, and he vanishes away. ...
— All Things Considered • G. K. Chesterton
... me "Sir Launcelot Greaves." Papa read "Anne of Geierstein."—I prepared Julian for acting Bluebeard; and Ellen Emerson lent me the gear. We worked hard all day.—We received the photographs of Una and myself. Mine of course uncomely.—Mr. Ticknor came to dine; and Mr. Burchmore [son of Stephen Burchmore, whose tales ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... an ingrained curiosity. And this feminine weakness, which dates from Eve, is a common motive in the stories of our oldest literature and Folk-lore. What made Fatima so anxious to know the contents of the room forbidden her by Bluebeard? It was positively nothing to her, and its contents caused not the slightest annoyance to anybody. That story has a bad moral, and it would, in many ways, have been more satisfactory had the heroine been left to take her place in the blood-stained chamber, ...
— Enemies of Books • William Blades
... "At your Bluebeard's chamber again, Kate?" she cried, in mock reproval. Then she raised a warning finger. "One of these days—mind, one of these days, I surely will have a duplicate key made and get a peek into that drawer, which you never open in my presence. I believe you're carrying on an intrigue with some man. ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum
... wrong," replied Helen. "No superman ever said 'I want,' because 'I want' must lead to the question, 'Who am I?' and so to Pity and to Justice. He only says 'want.' 'Want Europe,' if he's Napoleon; 'want wives,' if he's Bluebeard; 'want Botticelli,' if he's Pierpont Morgan. Never the 'I'; and if you could pierce through him, you'd find panic ...
— Howards End • E. M. Forster
... call him 'Sister Anne.' You know she was the lady in Bluebeard's yarn that kept looking out the window. He is always sticking his head out of the trenches, to see what he can see. He's going to ...
— Shelled by an Unseen Foe • James Fiske
... you there! He has dead men's legs and hands. Sam says he's seen them through the window! He's a Bluebeard; he always keeps the room locked, and doesn't let any one in. And if he takes you in there to-morrow afternoon, you'll ...
— Odd • Amy Le Feuvre
... Room—for I had a great love for it. But I had got no further than the steps when Mrs. Montressor came sweeping down the hall in haste and, catching me by the arm, pulled me back as roughly as if it had been Bluebeard's chamber itself into ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1896 to 1901 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... St. Thomas while the Diana put off hundreds of barrels of cement; but what with the gayly painted boats and their dark-skinned crews, the naked brown boys diving and swimming for pennies and dimes in the harbor, a walk to Bluebeard's Tower and Blackbeard's Castle, we were well amused. Particularly so was Dorothea, who disappeared from my side for a half-hour while I chatted with the captain, rejoining me in the tiny palm-bordered park ...
— Ladies-In-Waiting • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... Blue Man'?" Left helpless, Oscar (to my disgust) took refuge in a lie—and, worse still, a clumsy lie. He declared that he had got his nick-name in the nursery, at the time of Lucilla's absence in London, by one day painting his face in the character of Bluebeard to amuse the children! If Lucilla had felt the faintest suspicion of the truth, blind as she was, she must now have discovered it. As things were, Oscar annoyed and irritated her. I could see that it cost her a struggle to suppress something like a feeling ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins
... to Tavistock, and with the property came to Sir John's daughter, Lady Howard, round whose name many tales have gathered. In Mrs Bray's time Lady Howard was regarded as 'a female Bluebeard,' but a later verdict is more charitable, and it is now thought that the unhappy lady has been much maligned. Being a great heiress, her hand was disposed of when she was only twelve years old, and she was married to Sir Alan Percy, who died three ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote
... been overruled for good by that Providence which takes the wise in their own craftiness, the revolution of 1688, in itself considered, affords just as little cause for self-congratulation on the part of Protestants as the substitution of the supremacy of the crowned Bluebeard, Henry VIII., for that of the Pope, in the English Church. It had little in common with the revolution of 1642. The field of its action was the closet of selfish intrigue,—the stalls of discontented prelates,—the chambers ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... the evening we ride out on horseback through vineyards and yellow-berry gardens to Mr. Binns' country residence, a place that formerly belonged to an old pasha, a veritable Bluebeard, who built the house and placed the windows of his harem, even closely latticed as they always are, in a position that would not command so much as a glimpse of passers-by on the road, hundreds of yards away. He planted trees and gardens, ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... taste. But this Oriental notion was not indulged by the French king, who had more taste and delicacy; and Henry remained without a wife for more than two years, the princesses of Europe not being very eager to put themselves in the power of this royal Bluebeard. At last, at the suggestion of Cromwell, he was affianced to Anne, daughter of the Duke of Cleves, whose home was on the banks of the Rhine, in the city ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... not actually consumed. Now was not this characteristic?—the ruling passions of Pope are nothing to it. Whilst the poor distracted manager was bewailing the loss of a building only worth 300,000 l., together with some twenty thousand pounds of rags and tinsel in the tiring rooms, Bluebeard's elephants, and all that—in comes a note from a scorching author, requiring at his hands two acts and ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. I. (of VI.) - With his Letters and Journals. • Thomas Moore
... made on the floor of the House of Lords, at the time of our greatest national triumph and exertion, that closed his public life. Further up the stream, we come to old Windsor Castle, to be reminded of bluff Bluebeard, bigamous, wicked, king Hal; higher still, we are at Oxford, the nursery of our Church, the 'alma mater' of our learning. Lower down, at Whitehall stairs, we are face to face again with Roundheads, and regicides, and gunpowder plots; lower still, and we ...
— She and I, Volume 1 • John Conroy Hutcheson
... coverte[Fr]; squaw, lady; matron, matronage, matronhood[obs3]; man and wife; wedded pair, Darby and Joan; spiritual wife. monogamy, bigamy, digamy[obs3], deuterogamy[obs3], trigamy[obs3], polygamy; mormonism; levirate[obs3]; spiritual wifery[obs3], spiritual wifeism[obs3]; polyandrism[obs3]; Turk, bluebeard[obs3]. unlawful marriage, left-handed marriage, morganatic marriage, ill- assorted marriage; mesalliance; mariage de convenance[Fr]. marriage broker; matrimonial agency, matrimonial agent, matrimonial bureau, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... were of daily, sometimes hourly, occurrence,—a bell, the rope of which descended into the hall, brought the whole of the turnkeys to their assistance. A narrow passage at the north of the Stone Hall led to the Bluebeard's room of this enchanted castle, a place shunned even by the reckless crew who were compelled to pass it. It was a sort of cooking-room, with an immense fire-place flanked by a couple of cauldrons, and was called Jack Ketch's Kitchen, because the quarters of persons executed ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... soul's pretty clean-swept, I think, save for one Bluebeard chamber in it that's been kep' locked ever so many years. It's nice and dirty by this time, I expect,' he says. Then the grin comes on his mouth again. 'I'll open it some day,' he says, 'and look. ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes
... felt that way too. So I simply asked him what he was doing and he made some silly remark about Bluebeard's chamber. He means to keep his old secret, too, 'cause he put the key on his key-ring when he didn't know ...
— Ralestone Luck • Andre Norton
... seas I 'ave two or three wives on the rates, For I'm free wi' my fancy an' fly wi' my picks, And I've promised 'em plenty, an' given 'em nix, But have left ev'ry one in a 'ell of a fix! 'Ooever said Bluebeard was brother to ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy
... as you call it. I am going to see into it, and why they hide it. I declare,' and she examined the door critically, 'it looks like the entrance to Bluebeard's chamber. Look at these queer marks, these dents and stains, as if there had been a struggle. It is our duty to investigate;' and her voice grew impressive. 'Perhaps we have been brought here for that very purpose, and, Jane, if there is ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XI, No. 27, June, 1873 • Various
... girl," said Bluebeard, "remember you can go anywhere in the house but the pantry. That is locked up, and the key will be placed under the mat. ...
— Best Short Stories • Various
... see nothing 'but the sun which makes a dust and the grass which looks green?' I believe you like Bluebeard, too." ...
— The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard
... Jim got into his Bluebeard dreams, or his fairyland of love, the deeper I got into my hobby, political economy, and to thinking of the wide difference ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent
... declare I should be ashamed of myself if I did not; and I am sure that none of us, who are good for anything, have altogether lost that old belief; and when we look back at those days of young romance, and remember the thrill with which we read of Bluebeard's punishment, and Beauty's reward, we feel that it would be better for us if they had more of that old childlike faith. And so I encourage my youngsters to read and listen to, over and over again, the same old stories that, ...
— Our Young Folks, Vol 1, No. 1 - An Illustrated Magazine • Various
... gallantry," said Dan with all a brother's ruthlessness, "until I told them it was merely a habit of mind with you; then Sis called you a Bluebeard." ...
— The Iron Trail • Rex Beach
... better not go down," began Polly, when a stern voice from below called, like Bluebeard, "Are you ...
— An Old-fashioned Girl • Louisa May Alcott
... nagging warder, who has sought out a cruel profession for the sake of its cruelty. But it is the genuine routineer who is the bulwark of the practice, because, though you can excite public fury against a Sade, a Bluebeard, or a Nero, you cannot rouse any feeling against dull Mr. Smith doing his duty: that is, doing the usual thing. He is so obviously no better and no worse than anyone else that it is difficult to conceive that the ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma: Preface on Doctors • George Bernard Shaw
... bank refused. A Russian who stood beside me was desperate. He spoke execrable French, and cried excitedly: "Comment donc! je ne puis pas quitter le pays et j'ai une famille et trois femmes!" Poor Bluebeard! his "trois femmes" (wife and daughters) looked terrified and miserable. Our position is incredible and most serious. Still, one cannot but admire the glorious spirit of sacrifice and patriotism which animates all classes of the German people. Just what it was in the war ...
— A War-time Journal, Germany 1914 and German Travel Notes • Harriet Julia Jephson
... to her if that had been the case he would have enlisted in the Navy. He talked like a man who had spent many years on the water; but in labour or in pleasure, he made it most difficult for her to tell. Of his people, of his past, not Bluebeard's closet was more firmly shut. Still with a little smile she recalled that eventually a woman had opened that closet door, and hadn't had ...
— The Pagan Madonna • Harold MacGrath
... said." The most gifted of them coldly devoted themselves to working contrariwise. The process was childishly simple: they pitched on some beautiful legend or fairy-story, and turned it upside down. Thus, Bluebeard was beaten by his wives, or Polyphemus was kind enough to pluck out his eye by way of sacrificing himself to the happiness of Acis and Galatea. And they thought of nothing but form. And once more it seemed to Christophe (though he was not a good judge) that these masters of form were rather coxcombs ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland
... of Bluebeard fame, gazed anxiously around and listened with all the intensity born of her desperate state; but there was nothing to be seen or heard. Only Bruin had risen again and was coming slowly towards the hut. A bright ...
— The Rising of the Red Man - A Romance of the Louis Riel Rebellion • John Mackie
... mingle grotesquely with the throng of beautiful princesses, queens in glittering raiment, fairies and elves. Without these ugly figures, folk-tales would soon lose their power to charm. All tale tellers know that fear is a potent spell. The curiosity which drove Bluebeard's wife to explore the hidden chamber lures us on to know the worst, and as we listen to horrid stories, we snatch a fearful joy. Human nature desires not only to be amused and entertained, but moved to pity and fear. All can sympathise ...
— The Tale of Terror • Edith Birkhead
... graceful gayety to all his motions,—I saw the brimming measure of the father's love. Could it be but his morbidly repellant pride, his jealous guarding of the domestic privacies, his vigilant pacing up and down forever before the close-drawn curtain of the heart?—was there no Bluebeard's chamber there? No! Pride was all the matter,—pride was the Spartan fox that tore the vitals of Pintal, while he but bit his ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various
... the other in a single battle. If only somebody or something would tell them whether they were for war or peace! The oracles were dumb, and all summer long they looked anxiously out, like Sister Anne from her tower, for the hero who should rescue unhappy Columbia from the Republican Bluebeard. Did they see a cloud of dust in the direction of Richmond or Atlanta? Perhaps Grant might be the man, after all, or even Sherman would answer at a pinch. When at last no great man would come along, ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell
... the tan jacket twisted around to view the pilgrims on the last seat. The other passengers she had absorbed; the seat behind her was her Bluebeard's chamber. ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry
... was a hated, dishonoured man in his own land. They were married in Buda Pesth. All Europe pitied her at the time; there was but one form of prophecy as to her future. There were those who went so far as to say that her father had delivered her into the hands of a latter-day Bluebeard, who whisked her off into the highlands many leagues ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... of Pierre's urgent insistence that the view was even more beautiful than the one from the hill, we refused to exchange our first experiences of the beauty of the prospect for a second which would be certain to invite criticism; for it is ever the critic in us that plays the part of Bluebeard to our many-wived illusions. ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... frocks all hung in a row like Bluebeard's wives, in the cedar wardrobe, and I was left alone with them at last, my first thought was to plunge my imprisoned roses in water; my second, to do the same ...
— Lady Betty Across the Water • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... the criminal law courts continually give us fresh examples. Some sadists assassinate children, others men, when their perversion is complicated with pederasty or sexual inversion. (The story of Bluebeard is probably based on the ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel
... As everything about the place was misnamed, the alley itself included, so was he. His real name was Michael, but the children called him Barney, and the name stuck. When they were at odds, as they usually were, they shouted "Barney Bluebeard!" after him, and ran away and hid in trembling delight as he shook his key-ring at them, and showed his teeth with the evil leer which he reserved specially for them. It was reported in the alley that he was ...
— The Battle with the Slum • Jacob A. Riis
... Starr also, were charmed with everything, especially the dark, secretive loft, as full of suspended fishing nets as Bluebeard's closet was of wives. They had never seen such a distracting place as Marken, or such kind and pretty people. It was nearly an hour before it occurred to them that they had better say good-by, and by that time they knew the whole ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... sounded her relative on the subject, and was laughingly informed that she might go anywhere about the place she pleased, saving to one spot, namely, "Bluebeard's Chamber"; and there she could certainly never succeed in poking her nose, as its locality was known only to three people, all of whom were pledged never to reveal it. At the commencement of her tour of inspection, Mrs. Gibbons was disappointed—she was disappointed in the Tower. ...
— Scottish Ghost Stories • Elliott O'Donnell
... Whether well or ill, Lois did not know; but in any case, how many doors, in literature and in life, stood open to them; which were closed and locked doors to her! And we all know, that ever since Bluebeard's time—I might go back further, and say, ever since Eve's time—Eve's daughters have been unable to stand before a closed door without the wish to open it. The impulse, partly for good, partly for evil, is incontestable. Lois ...
— Nobody • Susan Warner
... as she looked around her, "that I should ever find myself inside this house. It has always seemed to me like one great bluebeard's chamber. If ever my father spoke of it at all, it was as of a place which he intended to convert into ...
— The Evil Shepherd • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... absurd to doubt, and worse to ask; and, what's more, he would not stand it. If I did but know! I'm not so far gone yet, but that I could leave the field to him, if that would do him any good. Heigh ho! it would be en regle to begin to hate him, and be as jealous as Bluebeard; but there! I don't know which it is to be about, and one can't be jealous for two ladies at once, luckily, for it would be immensely troublesome, unless a good, hearty quarrel would be wholesome to revive his spirits. ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the hands of a person who has the torturing instinct, I can only solemnly pronounce the words that justice utters over its doomed victims, "The Lord have mercy on your soul!"' There, it is true, the key in question unlocks the delicate instrument of the nervous system, and not necessarily a Bluebeard's chamber of guilt; but where the latter is also the case to some extent the remark by no means loses in significance, and if any man had the torturing instinct to perfection, Caffyn might be said to be that individual. There was nothing he ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... he explained. "Sir Thomas More with his head under his arm, bloody old Bluebeard, grim Queen Bess, snarling old Swift, Pope, Addison, Carlyle—the whole grisly crowd of them! I could see you holding your own against them all, explaining things to them, ...
— All Roads Lead to Calvary • Jerome K. Jerome
... this that the Sir Richard Baker in question was twice married, and that a monumental erection of the costly and honourable description mentioned by F.L. was allowed to be placed to his memory in the chancel of the church of the parish in which such Bluebeard atrocities are said to have been committed, and abundant grounds will thence appear for rejecting the truth of the legend in the absence of all evidence. The unfortunately red colour of the gloves most likely gave rise to the story. Nor is this a solitary instance of such a legend having ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 46, Saturday, September 14, 1850 • Various
... man of fortune, she would have great ground to complain. So thinking, he did not probably declare to himself that a divorce should be obtained, and that, in such event, he would marry the lady,—but ideas came across his mind in that direction. Trevelyan was a cruel Bluebeard; Emily,—as he was studious to call Mrs. Trevelyan,—was a dear injured saint. And as for himself, though he acknowledged to himself that the lumbago pinched him now and again, so that he could not rise from his chair with all the alacrity of youth, yet, when he walked along Pall Mall with his ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... direct—are of immeasurably greater interest in the House of Commons than the health, the taxation, and the education, of a whole people. I will not penetrate into the mysteries of that secret chamber in which the Bluebeard of Party keeps his strangled public questions, and with regard to which, when he gives the key to his wife, the new comer, he strictly charges her on no account to open the door. I will merely put it to the experience of everybody here, whether the House ...
— Speeches: Literary and Social • Charles Dickens
... refuse food and a draught of cold water, the greatest boon, in our ardent climate, that he could offer, to a wearied child? Oh, there was much poetry in the poor fellow! And here, had they not that most melodramatic (as you choose to word it) of thieves, Blackbeard, before whom Bluebeard must for ever hide his diminished head? Why, Bluebeard had only one wife at a time, although he murdered five of them, whereas Blackbeard had seldom fewer than a dozen, and he was never known to murder ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... more to say upon the subject—I have said you were to go. You act as if I were sending you to some place where you might catch the scarlet fever or the mumps. You amuse me; upon my word you do. Rex is not dangerous, neither is he a Bluebeard; his only fault is being alarmingly handsome. The best advice I can give you is, don't admire him too much. He should be ...
— Daisy Brooks - A Perilous Love • Laura Jean Libbey
... now all sitting above the arena round which the lions' dens were placed. The black Arab keeper was told to stir up the great beast, Bluebeard. A firework was accordingly dropped into the den, whose door had been opened . . . they all waited breathless, with beating hearts . ...
— Browning's Heroines • Ethel Colburn Mayne
... Bowlsby; there was Lucille, "a daughter of the gods, divinely tall," linked forever to the dwarf Perrywinkle; there was my friend Porphyro, the poet, with his delicate genius shrivelled in the glare of the youngest Miss Lucifer's eyes; there they were, Beauty and the Beast, Pride and Humility, Bluebeard and Fatima, Prose and Poetry, Riches and Poverty, Youth and Crabbed Age— Oh, sorrowful procession! All so wretched, when perhaps all might have been so happy if they had only paired differently! I halted a moment to let the weird shapes drift by. ...
— A Midnight Fantasy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... abuses on right lines. But now and again he said and did things which perturbed her. It was as if she had gradually become complete mistress of a house, and then had suddenly discovered a new room into which she peeped for a minute before it was lost to her again and the door shut. It was no Bluebeard's chamber into which she looked; it was much more that she had a suspicion that the room contained a live mistress who might come out one day and dispute her own title. She could tell how Peter would act nine times out of ten; she knew by instinct, a great deal better ...
— Simon Called Peter • Robert Keable
... varied, the most erroneous opinions have been expressed with regard to the famous individual commonly known as Bluebeard. None, perhaps, was less tenable than that which made of this gentleman a personification of the Sun. For this is what a certain school of comparative mythology set itself to do, some forty years ago. It informed the world that the seven wives of Bluebeard ...
— The Seven Wives Of Bluebeard - 1920 • Anatole France
... actually able to buy it back with the compound interest that has been accumulating. In that case nothing will be left but a heap of ruins. One could shriek and tear one's hair because the German does not see that in his basement there is an awful Bluebeard's chamber. And not for women alone. He has no inkling of what an arsenal of clerical instruments of torture lie there ready for use—clerical, because they lie ready for the infliction of horrible ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... when half Monkshaven believes him to be a villain of the deepest dye, hiding from justice—or, possibly, a Bluebeard with an unhappy wife imprisoned somewhere in that ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler
... pompadour. Last week when they have tableaux, Patty has borrowed it and has dyed it with blueing to make a beard for Bluebeard. But being yellow to start, it has become green, and the color will not wash out. The sweetch is ruin—entirely ruin—and Patty is desolate. She has apologize. She thought it would wash, but since it will not wash, she has suggest to Mae that she ...
— Just Patty • Jean Webster
... might be under a worthless despot sanctified by the Church, or, like Spain, be trampled under the feet of priests. The statutes of Henry VIII. were the title- deeds of the English Church. Henry established the supremacy of the State by letters patent, praemunire, and conge d'elire. The old bluebeard Henry, who spent his whole time in murdering his wives, was a nursery toy. The real Henry put two wives to death by lawful means on definite and substantial charges of which death was the penalty. His ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul
... would not talk to him of the Rockingham party.' GOLDSMITH. 'But, Sir, when people live together who have something as to which they disagree, and which they want to shun, they will be in the situation mentioned in the story of Bluebeard: "You may look into all the chambers but one." But we should have the greatest inclination to look into that chamber, to talk of that subject.' JOHNSON. (with a loud voice,) 'Sir, I am not saying that YOU could live ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... had been as wide awake as a weasel from the very start, began asking such a string of questions as seemed likely to have no end. After a droll jumbling of Washington with Jack the Giant-killer, old Lord Fairfax with Bluebeard, poor old Hobby, the wooden-legged schoolmaster, with the Roving Red Robber, he at last so far got the better of his sleepy senses as to know what he would be driving at; when he said, "Uncle Juvinell, did his father let him keep his little ...
— The Farmer Boy, and How He Became Commander-In-Chief • Morrison Heady
... apoplexy in his bath at Trichinopoly in 1826. In addition to Palestine he wrote Europe, a poem having reference specially to the Peninsular War, and left various fragments, including an Oriental romance based on the story of Bluebeard. H.'s reputation now rests mainly on his hymns, of which several, e.g., From Greenland's Icy Mountains, Brightest and Best of the Sons of the Morning, and Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, are sung wherever the English language is known. He also wrote a Life of Jeremy ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin
... man in Bluebeard says and sings. I wrote to you upon matters at length, some days ago; the letter, or letters, you will receive with this. We are desirous to hear more of the Loan; and it is some time since I have had any letters (at least of an interesting description) from England, excepting one of 4th ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... had been said about it, and he had agreed. Are you going to tell me that he won't go out with you, and yet dislikes your going out without him? Is he such a Bluebeard as that?" ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... kitchens we passed into the second court of the Seraglio, beyond which is death. The Guide-book only hints at the dangers which would befall a stranger caught prying in the mysterious FIRST court of the palace. I have read "Bluebeard," and don't care for peeping into forbidden doors; so that the second court was quite enough for me; the pleasure of beholding it being heightened, as it were, by the notion of the invisible danger sitting next door, with ...
— Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo • William Makepeace Thackeray
... harlequinade after the pantomime at the church—for what is a modern smart wedding but a second-rate pantomime?—put them into a good humour, and made them feel that, after all, they had got something for their presents. And so the happy pair passed through a dreary rain of rice to the mysteries of that Bluebeard's Chamber, ...
— The Folly Of Eustace - 1896 • Robert S. Hichens
... trick!" exclaimed Tom with a laugh. "Koku, just pull up a few trees, and look as fierce as Bluebeard, and I guess we won't be troubled with curiosity seekers. You can guard the airship, Koku, ...
— Tom Swift and his Great Searchlight • Victor Appleton
... for Mister Bluebeard, I'm sorry to cause him pain; But a terrible spree there's sure to be When he comes ...
— This is "Part II" of Soldiers Three, we don't have "Part I" • Rudyard Kipling
... preachers, however, small boys occupy them, dangling string, dropping pebbles, or launching wads of paper for a cruise. With their sharp eye for eccentricity, they were inclined to think Mr. Ambrose awful; but the quickest witted cried "Bluebeard!" as he passed. In case they should proceed to tease his wife, Mr. Ambrose flourished his stick at them, upon which they decided that he was grotesque merely, and four instead of one cried "Bluebeard!" ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf
... when he opened it to speak, or to put in a morsel of food. Then, indeed, you suddenly became aware of a cave hidden behind the impervious and darksome shrubbery. There could be no doubt who this gentleman and lady were. Any child would have recognized them at a glance. It was Bluebeard and a new wife (the loveliest of the series, but with already a mysterious gloom overshadowing her fair young brow) travelling in their honeymoon, and dining, among other distinguished strangers, at ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... great king. There are, as Chesterton points out, two great things that intruded into his reign: the one was the difficulty of his marriages, the other was the question of the monasteries. If Henry was a Bluebeard, he was such because his wives were not a fortunate selection. 'He was almost as unlucky in his wives as they were in their husband.' But the one thing that Chesterton feels broke Henry's honour was the question of his divorce. In doing this he mistook the friendship ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Patrick Braybrooke
... thousand flowers; of the bridges and shining fountains and rivers wherein the castle windows reflect their festive gleams, when the halls are filled with happy feasters, and over the darkling woods comes the sound of music;—always, I say, when I think of Castle Bluebeard:—it is to think of that dark little closet, which I know is there, and which the lordly owner opens shuddering—after midnight—when he is sleepless and must go unlock it, when the palace is hushed, when beauties are sleeping around him unconscious, and ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... life was in some way connected with it, died. The wife then anointed her sisters with a life-giving salve, and all three returned to their father's house, and afterward married three handsome princes. The third story, from the Tyrol (Schneller, No. 31, "The Devil's Wife"), is connected with the Bluebeard story which will be mentioned later. A king and queen had an only daughter, who was very pretty and fond of dress. One day she found a louse; and as she did not know what kind of an animal it was, ...
— Italian Popular Tales • Thomas Frederick Crane
... flaring candle—furtive explorations of the storeroom. And when we came to a door that was locked—Aha! Here was a puzzle and a problem! We tried every key in the house, right side up and upside down. Bluebeard's wife, poor creature,—if I read the tale aright,—was merely seeking her Christmas presents around the house before ...
— Chimney-Pot Papers • Charles S. Brooks
... me feel as if I'd like to tell you the truth whenever I can: and the truth is, that for reasons you may understand some day—though I hope to Heaven you'll never have to!—my association with those men is one of the things I long to turn the key upon. I know that that sounds like Bluebeard to Fatima, but it isn't as bad as that. To me, it doesn't seem bad at all. And I swear that whatever mystery—if you call it 'mystery'—there is about me, it sha'n't hurt you. Will you believe this—and trust me for ...
— The Second Latchkey • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... at you," Dorry protested, merrily. "But it was so funny to hear you putting the English queens into the pots and pans; that was all. Here, let me help a little. Come, Jamie, sit on Dotty's lap, and she'll tell you all about Bluebeard." ...
— Donald and Dorothy • Mary Mapes Dodge
... ghosts and eternal gods. The word Kalou is applied to all supernal beings, and mystic or magical things alike. It seems to answer to mana in New Zealand and Melanesia, to wakan in North America, and to fee in old French, as when Perrault says, about Bluebeard's key, 'now the key was fee.' All Gods are Kalou, but all things that are Kalou are not Gods. Gods are Kalou vu; deified ghosts are Kalou yalo. The former are eternal, without beginning of days or end of years; the latter are subject to infirmity ...
— The Making of Religion • Andrew Lang
... irony. The following is from Thackeray: "So was Helen of Greece innocent. She never ran away with Paris, the dangerous young Trojan. Menelaus, her husband, ill-used her; and there never was any siege of Troy at all. So was Bluebeard's wife innocent. She never peeped into the closet where the other wives were with their heads off. She never dropped the key, or stained it with blood; and her brothers were quite right in finishing Bluebeard, ...
— Elementary Guide to Literary Criticism • F. V. N. Painter
... excellent fancy of the ancients to make woman the incarnation of original sin,—the tempter and the temptation in one,—a combination of the apple and the serpent. King David, Herod, and even the terrible Bluebeard, might have behaved well in a world without women. It is proverbial that there is no quarrel without a ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866 • Various
... resolute wife finally defies Bluebeard and rescues his wives; but they refuse to forsake their ...
— The Atlantic Book of Modern Plays • Various
... like Bluebeard's wife," began Rudolf, but Peter—as was his way—paid no attention to either of them. He put the box down on the hearth-rug, and got on his hands and knees to open it. Then, of course, the other two thought they might as well see what there was to see, and all three heads bent over the ...
— The Wonderful Bed • Gertrude Knevels
... weaker in the town than in the country. In a London home there is nothing to fascinate the eye. The contemplation of the mews and the chimney-pots through the back-windows of the nursery will not elevate even the most impressible child. There is no mystery, no dreamland, no Enchanted Palace, no Bluebeard's Chamber, in a stucco mansion built by Cubitt, or a palace of terra-cotta on the Cadogan estate. There can be no traditions of the past, no inspiring memories of virtuous ancestry, in a house which your father bought five years ago and of which ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell
... Felix de Vandenesse was undergoing those violent palpitations which a woman feels at the certainty of doing wrong, and stepping on forbidden ground,—emotions that are not without charm, and which awaken various dormant faculties. Women are fond of using Bluebeard's bloody key, that fine mythological idea for which we ...
— A Daughter of Eve • Honore de Balzac
... in little girls more hateful than another, it is curiosity," answered Chirper, with her mouth half-full of nails. "Curiosity has been the bane of many of our sex. Witness Bluebeard's unhappy wife. If you want to know more, you must ask Mrs. Whitehead. I have my instructions ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 1, January, 1891 • Various
... Dinner was established ostensibly for the discussion and determining of the "big cut," and the function became as exclusive and esoteric as a Masonic initiation. From that day to this it has, with few exceptions, been held januis clausis; and beside it the Literary Ladies' Dinner and Bluebeard's Chamber are as open to the world and free from mystery as ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... about the most inquisitive person under the sun. Bluebeard's wife was a baby to him. Why, your A C would have pulled the Blue Chamber all to bits, and the key too, so as to see what they were made of. He is always taking something to pieces. For instance, quite ...
— Cormorant Crag - A Tale of the Smuggling Days • George Manville Fenn
... of Fat[)i]ma (the seventh and last wife of Bluebeard). Fatima, being condemned to death by her tyrannical husband, requested sister Anne to ascend to the highest tower of the castle to watch for her brothers, who were momentarily expected. Bluebeard kept roaring below stairs for Fatima to be quick; Fatima was constantly ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... stole another quick look at him. This mastery of a fellow creature was by far the most engrossing pastime life had offered her. There was something about him, a suggestion of depths hidden and shut away from her that filled her with the venturesome curiosity of Fatima opening the cupboards in Bluebeard's castle. ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... a wonder it was male, and not lady-like curiosity that trespassed on Bluebeard's chamber. But, however, to soften your resentment, know that Miss Cameron has brought you a purchaser for Burleigh. Now, then, we can test the sincerity of your wish to part with it. I assure you, meanwhile, ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... in the course of our early German studies, lighted, as I can well remember, upon the Phantasus of Ludwig Tieck. I attribute your loss of the first prize in the Moral Philosophy class to the enthusiasm with which you threw yourself into his glorious Bluebeard and Fortunatus. In truth it was like hearing the tales of childhood told anew, only with a manlier tone, and a clearer and more dignified purpose. How lucidly the early, half-forgotten images were restored under ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various
... to whichever suited best of the thousand airs that are always floating in German brains. Sometimes, if the ballad was a favourite one, the others would take part in any verses that contained a dialogue. This was generally the case with some verses in the pet ballad of Bluebeard, at that exciting point where Sister Anne is looking from the castle window. First the Maerchen-Frau read ...
— Melchior's Dream and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... and tiptoed out into the living-room. There might be more notes there. Her spirits had gone up, and she was laughing to herself a little—it felt like exploring Bluebeard's castle. She investigated the book case, shaking out every book. She ran up to the toy balcony and even pushed out the couch there, noticing for the first time that the balcony had curtains which could be drawn. But there was nothing behind couch or curtains. She put ...
— I've Married Marjorie • Margaret Widdemer
... the book, and went to her closet for another; but it was as good (or as bad) as Bluebeard's closet, for there hung the pretty crimson merino, with delicate lace at the throat and round the short sleeves, in which Miss Lizzy Griswold once intended to electrify Mr. John Boynton this very evening. True it is that short sleeves are not the most sensible ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various
... unconscious had its manipulation become; lo and behold, it was now an astral body for Golo. And as soon as the dinner-bell rang I would run down to the dining-room, where the big hanging lamp, ignorant of Golo and Bluebeard but well acquainted with my family and the dish of stewed beef, shed the same light as on every other evening; and I would fall into the arms of my mother, whom the misfortunes of Genevieve de Brabant had made all the dearer to me, just as the crimes ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... the first two marriages of Henry VIII. is of such vital importance, affecting as they did the whole course of religion in England, from the first whisperings of the divorce down to the present day, that it is not to be wondered at if the royal Bluebeard's subsequent matrimonial alliances have been considered negligible quantities. And yet, at least one of them was of extreme political, and even religious, importance, and was fraught with so much mystery that ...
— Studies from Court and Cloister • J.M. Stone
... Drew, and it seemed to him that it was John Bard he looked upon. Their names differed, but long pain had touched them with a common greyness. And it seemed to Anthony that it was only a moment ago that the key turned in the lock of John Bard's secret room, the hidden chamber which he kept like Bluebeard for himself, where he went like Bluebeard to see his past; only an instant before he had turned the key in that lock, the door opened, and this was the scene which met his eyes—the grave, the blurred tombstone, and ...
— Trailin'! • Max Brand
... two and several moues behind his back, she accepted him. A brilliant marriage ceremony followed, conducted by a Bishop and an Archdeacon. And then Arbella was carried off to live in a Bluebeard's Castle he possessed on ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... and distinct hook for each and every one of my most obscure garments. I tried to spread them out. I used two hooks to every petticoat, and three for my kimono, and when I had finished there were rows of hooks to spare. Tiers of shelves yawned for hat-boxes which I possessed not. Bluebeard's wives could have held a family reunion in that closet and invited all of Solomon's spouses. Finally, in desperation, I gathered all my poor garments together and hung them in a sociable bunch on the hooks nearest the door. How I should have loved to have shown that closet to a select circle ...
— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber
... know every inch of this palace. It was left to the Fairy Berylune by Bluebeard.... Let us make the most of our last minute of liberty, while the children and Light pay their visit to the Fairy's little daughter.... I have brought you here in order to discuss the position in which we are placed.... ...
— The Blue Bird: A Fairy Play in Six Acts • Maurice Maeterlinck
... writings it would seem to be extremely doubtful whether he ever saw Anne of Cleves at all, and we suspect him here of being no more than a slavish echo of the common voice, which attributed Cromwell's downfall to the ugliness of this bride he procured for his Bluebeard master. To the common voice from the brush of Holbein, which permits us to form our own opinions and shows us a lady who is certainly very far from deserving his lordship's harsh stricture. Similarly, I like ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
... cool her burning heart now and then. [In Memoirs of Sophia Dorothea (London, 1845), ii. 385, 393, are certain fractions of this Correspondence, "edited" in an amazing manner.] A dark tragedy of Sophie's, this; the Bluebeard Chamber of her mind, into which no eye but her ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Volume V. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... master, was a much married man, consigned his third wife to these uninviting quarters, and kept her under lock and key, with a chaplain for her only attendant. The lady, however, not only survived this knightly Bluebeard, but had the courage to contract a second marriage. The general arrangements of the castle are not very obvious to the casual observer. It seems to have consisted of a gatehouse and an outer and inner court. The inner enclosure was flanked by four cylindrical towers, ...
— Somerset • G.W. Wade and J.H. Wade
... her vexation and dismay, Albinia could not help thinking of Bluebeard's closet. Her inclination was to stay where she was, and take her chance of losing her head, yet she felt as if she could not bear to be found invading a sanctuary of past recollections, and was relieved to find that it was a false alarm, though not relieved by the announcement that Admiral and ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Curiosity will bring you. Remember this will be your last chance of seeing the Bluebeard ...
— Vixen, Volume III. • M. E. Braddon
... and mixes the grog for my sailormen. And I still think that with better spelling it would be an excellent title for musical comedy. But it was naught for a pirate play. Its anemia would soften the vigor of my lines. One could as well call the tale of Bluebeard by the ...
— Wappin' Wharf - A Frightful Comedy of Pirates • Charles S. Brooks
... gone long enough to reach the camp and return. "Sister Ann" on the watch-tower of Bluebeard's castle could not have gazed more earnestly than did they for his reappearance upon the bank above them. Their anxious vigil was at length rewarded. Near the hour of noon their ears were greeted by shouts, and shortly after they ...
— The Giraffe Hunters • Mayne Reid
... dust arising far ahead along the road wrought up his hopes to a Bluebeard pitch, as regularly to fall. First came a cast-off soldier from the war in the Netherlands, rakishly forlorn, his breastplate full of rusty dents, his wild hair worn by his steel cap, swaggering along on a sorry hack with an old belt ...
— Master Skylark • John Bennett
... keys and peering into Bluebeard's closet," said Dicky gayly, as he closed and locked the door ...
— Revelations of a Wife - The Story of a Honeymoon • Adele Garrison
... evidence of derivation from the earliest, common sources of all folk-lore and myth; parallels to the fairy tales and legends of other lands and other ages. There is a version of the Bluebeard theme in Imarasugssuaq, "who, it is said, was wont to eat his wives." Instances of friendship and affection between human beings and animals are found, as in the tale of the Foster-mother and the Bear. Various ...
— Eskimo Folktales • Unknown
... goodwife. feme [Fr.], feme coverte [Fr.]; squaw, lady; matron, matronage, matronhood^; man and wife; wedded pair, Darby and Joan; spiritual wife. monogamy, bigamy, digamy^, deuterogamy^, trigamy^, polygamy; mormonism; levirate^; spiritual wifery^, spiritual wifeism^; polyandrism^; Turk, bluebeard^. unlawful marriage, left-handed marriage, morganatic marriage, ill- assorted marriage; mesalliance; mariage de convenance [Fr.]. marriage broker; matrimonial agency, matrimonial agent, matrimonial bureau, matchmaker; schatchen [G.]. V. marry, wive, take to oneself a wife; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... reference to that beautiful lady. But I must not talk in this frivolous strain, monsieur. There is serious business to be considered, and I assure you I looked forward to your coming, monsieur, with the eagerness of Sister Anne in the tower of Bluebeard.' ...
— The Triumphs of Eugene Valmont • Robert Barr
... again, the old, old stories, the very best; dear Cinderella, wicked old Bluebeard, tiny Thumbling, beautiful Beauty and the ugly Beast, and a host of others. But the old stories, I may tell you, are always new, and always must be so, because there are new children to read them every day, and ...
— My Book of Favorite Fairy Tales • Edric Vredenburg
... actually consumed. Now was not this characteristic?—the ruling passions of Pope are nothing to it. Whilst the poor distracted manager was bewailing the loss of a building only worth L300,000., together with some twenty thousand pounds of rags and tinsel in the tiring rooms, Bluebeard's elephants, [6] and all that—in comes a note from a scorching author, requiring at his hands two acts and odd scenes ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero
... Last week, now, didn't he tell Mrs. Cat that you served her right in the last beating matter? and weren't they coming to knives, just as in your case? By my faith, they were. Ay, and at the "Braund's Head," when some fellow said that you were a bloody Bluebeard, and would murder your wife, stab me if Tom wasn't up in an instant and knocked the fellow down ...
— Catherine: A Story • William Makepeace Thackeray
... sort of clothing, from shoes to hats, from gloves to parasols; and in the room beyond this, and beyond that, and again beyond that, row after row of high wooden cabinets stretching the width of the room, and forming innumerable aisles. All of Bluebeard's wives could have been tucked away in one corner of the remotest and least of these, and no one the wiser. All grimly shut and locked, they are, with the key in Josie's pocket. But when, at the behest of McCabe, or sometimes even Sid Hahn himself, ...
— Cheerful—By Request • Edna Ferber
... literature's idol, one might even venture to question which receives honor by the comparison, Shakespeare or the folk-tales? It might be rather a pleasant task to discover who is the Cordelia, the Othello, the Rosalind, and the Portia of the folk-tales; or who the Beauty, the Bluebeard, the Cinderella, the Puss-in-Boots, and ...
— A Study of Fairy Tales • Laura F. Kready
... found a solid stone labyrinth in Crete, like that associated with the Minataur, which was conceived as being as cloudy a fable as the Chimera. To most people this would have seemed quite as frantic as finding the roots of Jack's Beanstalk or the skeletons in Bluebeard's cupboard, yet it is simply the fact. Finally, a truth is to be remembered which scarcely ever is remembered in estimating the past. It is the paradox that the past is always present: yet it is not what was, but whatever seems to have been; for all the past ...
— A Short History of England • G. K. Chesterton
... of our plan, a few preliminary words will present the historic features of that age. In the year 1547, Henry VIII., the royal Bluebeard, sank, full of crimes and beset with deathbed horrors, into a dishonorable grave.[24] A poor, weak youth, his son, Edward VI., seemed sent by special providence on a short mission of six years, to foster the reformed ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... was something to be hidden in those dark mahogany presses. Is there an inner apartment that I have not seen? The way in which the house is built might admit of it. As I thought it over, I at once imagined a Bluebeard's chamber. Suppose, for instance, that the narrow bookshelves to the right are really only a masked door, such as we remember leading to the private study of one of our most distinguished townsmen, who loved to steal away from his stately ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... theatre loosened her tongue, as she describes it, and gave opportunity and expression to a faculty which became the ruling passion of her life. At home, as a child, she took part in an operetta founded upon the story of "Bluebeard," and played Selim, the lover, with great applause, in a large attic chamber of her father's house before an enthusiastic ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 8 (of 8) • Various
... "I tried to get her interested yesterday in the number of his wives—I thought the Bluebeard aspect of it might move her—but she only said: 'What does it matter when they're all dead?' I felt so blank that I couldn't ...
— For the Sake of the School • Angela Brazil
... sharp like knives, Glances strike and glare, Fingers tangle, Bluebeard's wives Dangle by ...
— Nets to Catch the Wind • Elinor Wylie
... of the Parisian "Bluebeard," has been granted a divorce. We gather that there is something or other about her husband which made their ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, May 12, 1920 • Various
... marking the gauge upon the thermometer of civilization, and by raising man as he raises her. In short, let him provisionally stand upon such a platform as might be constructed by a committee of which Legree was chairman and Bluebeard the rest of it, and if he does not accept "Absolute Science," he will at least be patient in reading what may be said in its behalf. But if, in justice to ourselves, we present the obvious objections of the general reader, in justice to Mr. Frothingham, we are bound to confess that they shrivel ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various
... in a hurry to get settled, so you will probably find out all about him for yourselves before many weeks are over. It's no use asking questions. He was willing to pay down the money, and that was all that Braithwaite cared about. He may be a bachelor or a second Bluebeard, for all I know; but I suppose in either case he will ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... transacted there that morning. The table was strewn with breadths of gay broche silk; an unfinished gauzy-looking dress hung over a chair; the door of the wardrobe was open, and a row of dark-looking shapes—like Bluebeard's decapitated wives—were dimly revealed to view. A sort of lay figure, draped in calico, was in one corner. As Nan observed to Phillis afterwards, "There was not a tidy corner in the ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... the new incumbent, that the tabooed ci-devant functionary 'seems disturbed because he was not suffered to kill the 'Brother Jonathan' as he had killed every journal in which he was permitted to pour out his vapid balderdash. He is a perfect BLUEBEARD among newspapers. He no sooner slaughters one, than he manages to get hold of another, and butcher that with the same remorseless indifference.' The editor adds: 'He once enjoyed the honor of some connection ...
— Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, March 1844 - Volume 23, Number 3 • Various
... priceless manuscript of "Bluebeard" for production in French at the Metropolitan, and in English at the Century Opera House; meantime Mr. Hammerstein is so impressed with its originality, audacity, and tragic power that he is laying the corner-stone for a magnificent new building and will open and close it with "Bluebeard" ...
— Bluebeard • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... feet and becomes twelve feet high, and hands his twelve feet on to his son, who is full-grown at eighteen feet, and so on. In a thousand years you would all be three or four miles high. At that rate your ancestors Bilge and Bluebeard, whom you call giants, must have been about quarter ...
— Back to Methuselah • George Bernard Shaw
... is that in childhood I classed the name of Mauprat with those of Cartouche and Bluebeard; and in the course of horrible dreams I often used to mix up the ancient legends of the Ogre and the Bogey with the quite recent events which in our province had given such a sinister lustre to ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... to fetch the penny ice. Malheureux! The chair sinks down with you—sinks, and sinks, and sinks—a large wet flannel suddenly envelopes your face and throttles you. Need we say any more? After Northumberland Street, what is improbable? Surely there is no difficulty in crediting Bluebeard. I withdraw my last month's opinions about ogres. Ogres? Why not? I protest I have seldom contemplated anything more terribly ludicrous than this "agent" in the dingy splendor of his den, surrounded by dusty ormolu ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... not be taken away from its pretty theatre, it sha'n't!" said she, pettingly; "and it shall not be asked to go away with any great ugly Bluebeard, and be shut ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... these favourites of God were not admirable characters, and that therefore the Bible cannot be a divine revelation. As for animus: I do not believe any of these men ever existed. I regard them as myths. Should one be angry with a myth? I should as soon think of being angry with Bluebeard, or the ...
— God and my Neighbour • Robert Blatchford
... more attractive than the good and stodgy. Even among fairy-tales we may select. "Beauty and the Beast" and "The Sleeping Beauty" and "Snow-white and Rose-red" are distinctly preferable to "Jack the Giant Killer" or "Puss in Boots," while "Bluebeard" cannot be told. It seems to me that children can often safely read for themselves stories the adult cannot well tell. The child's notion of justice is crude, bad is bad, and whether embodied in an ogre or in Pharaoh of Egypt, it must be got rid of, put out of the story. No child is ...
— The Child Under Eight • E.R. Murray and Henrietta Brown Smith
... few days after our arrival, my time was agreeably spent in receiving the visits of the nobility and gentry who came to pay their respects to the noble new-married couple, and, like Bluebeard's wife in the fairy tale, in inspecting the treasures, the furniture, and the numerous chambers of the castle. It is a huge old place, built as far back as Henry V.'s time, besieged and battered by the Cromwellians in the Revolution, and altered ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... effusive, but the woodpecker was a veritable Bluebeard. The Cardinal longed to pull the feathers from his back until it was as red as his head, for the woodpecker had dressed his suit in finest style, and with dulcet tones and melting tenderness had gone acourting. Sweet as the dove's had been his ...
— The Song of the Cardinal • Gene Stratton-Porter
... amused myself with tracing a certain similitude between the story of Caleb Williams and the tale of Bluebeard, than derived any hints from that admirable specimen of the terrific. Falkland was my Bluebeard, who had perpetrated atrocious crimes, which, if discovered, he might expect to have all the world roused to revenge ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin |
