"Prudish" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... ludicrous when we reflect that shift, i.e. change of raiment, is itself an early euphemism for smock; cf. Ital. mutande, "thinne under-breeches" (Florio), from a country and century not usually regarded as prudish. The fact is that, just as the low word, when once accepted, loses its primitive vigour (see pluck, p. 83), the euphemism is, by inevitable association, doomed from ...
— The Romance of Words (4th ed.) • Ernest Weekley
... before him. The Hollisters are not a marrying family, said society. But six or seven years after his return to England Lord Hartfield married Lady Florence Ilmington, a beauty in her first season, and a very sweet but somewhat prudish young person. The marriage resulted in the birth of an heir, whose appearance upon this mortal stage was followed within a year by his father's exit. Hence the Hartfield property, always a fine estate, had been nursed and fattened ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... remark is the aversion shown to such conversations by women who are enjoying some illicit happiness; they maintain before the eyes of the world a reserved, prudish, and even timid countenance; they seem to ask silence on the subject, or some condonation of their pleasure from society. When, on the contrary, a woman talks freely of such catastrophes, and seems to take ...
— A Daughter of Eve • Honore de Balzac
... herself before—more particular—no, not exactly that—but more something or other—not exactly expressible in words, in his approaches to her, than was consistent with his situation. But then she had been very guarded; not stiff or prudish, indeed, but frank and cold enough with him, ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... exasperatingly so; and the strangest part of it is that the introductory and intermediate passages are no less interesting, under Trollope's treatment, than are the murders and forgeries. Not only does he never offend the modesty of nature,—he encourages her to be prudish, and trains her to such evenness and severity of demeanor that we never know when we have had enough of her. His touch is eminently civilizing; everything, from the episodes to the sentences, moves without hitch or creak: we never have to read a paragraph twice, and we are seldom ...
— Confessions and Criticisms • Julian Hawthorne
... Valentine laughed wildly, and Constance put on a prudish air, Morange, in whose voice tears were again rising, spoke these words, fraught with supreme regret: ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola
... prude is placed side by side with the vinaigrette of some jolie danseuse who was any thing but prudish. How shocked would the original owner of the flacon feel at the friction! The fan of some grande dame de la cour touches the diamond-mounted etui of the wife of some financier, who would have given half her diamonds ...
— The Idler in France • Marguerite Gardiner
... Keene came home from the Cercle. He knew the room, or guessed who the shadow belonged to; and as he moved away, after pausing a minute or two, he waved his hand toward it, with a gesture so unwarrantably like a salute that, were silhouettes sensitive or prudish, it might have proved an ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... are captivating, whereupon the stout Madame Deschars gives utterance to a remark somewhat equivocal for her, usually so stern, prudish and devout. ...
— Petty Troubles of Married Life, Part First • Honore de Balzac
... not natural, unnatural; self-conscious; maniere; artificial; overwrought, overdone, overacted; euphuist &c 577. stiff, starch, formal, prim, smug, demure, tire a quatre epingles, quakerish, puritanical, prudish, pragmatical, priggish, conceited, coxcomical, foppish, dandified; finical, finikin; mincing, simpering, namby-pamby, sentimental. Phr. conceit in weakest bodies ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... some time before I could arrive at this, and could see marriage as the physical prototype in this physical world of the spiritual union with Himself in the spiritual world. And this was arrived at, not by prudish questionings and criticisms, but by remembering that this relationship between men and women is His thought, His plan, not ours. We are responsible for our part in it only in so far as to keep the bond of it pure and clean and sweet, and submit ourselves in all things as completely and ...
— The Golden Fountain - or, The Soul's Love for God. Being some Thoughts and - Confessions of One of His Lovers • Lilian Staveley
... seems indeed that the English rely too much upon the cleansing power of innocence in their woman. And it is curious how public opinion among this prudish nation will permit exhibitions of unabashed flirtation which would be publicly tolerated in probably no other part of Europe and certainly not in Asia or Africa. In the light, graceful little boat I glided over the sparkling river amid the tender summer's bloom which clothed everything with ...
— The Bride of Dreams • Frederik van Eeden
... the suspicion in her suddenly hardening face, but the quick anger in it pleased him. He had not expected her to be prudish, but it was clear that the situation ...
— Vane of the Timberlands • Harold Bindloss
... theirs that were in a ploughed field of her father's, and though they were better than half a league off they heard her as well as if they were at the foot of the tower; and the best of her is that she is not a bit prudish, for she has plenty of affability, and jokes with everybody, and has a grin and a jest for everything. So, Sir Knight of the Rueful Countenance, I say you not only may and ought to do mad freaks for her sake, but you have a good right to give way to despair and hang yourself; and no one who ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... racial characteristics of humor, we should pay tribute to the Spanish in the person of Cervantes, for Don Quixote is a mine of drollery. But the bulk of the humor among all the Latin races is of a sort that our more prudish standards cannot approve. On the other hand, German humor often displays a characteristic spirit of investigation. Thus, the little boy watching the pupils of a girls' school promenading two by two, graded ...
— Jokes For All Occasions - Selected and Edited by One of America's Foremost Public Speakers • Anonymous
... necessary to them; and this varies according to climate and custom. The Hottentot has them both in his strip of cloth; the Esquimau, in his double case of skins over all except face and fingers;—the most elegant Parisian, the most prudish Shakeress, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... ball!—not that I care. I am sure that beast of a husband of mine will never be able to prove his nasty charges against us, and that I shall win the case. Then there'll be no excuse for Mrs. Makeway and her prudish set, and I promise you they shall eat "humble pie," if there's any left in the world after all my dear friends have made me devour. Tom has been making overtures to my maid through a detective, but Lena is faithful to us, and I've promised her double any sum they offer her. ...
— The Smart Set - Correspondence & Conversations • Clyde Fitch
... Yet it is an undoubted fact that all the great religions except Hinduism, though they may admit a Goddess of Mercy—Kuan-yin or the Madonna—agree in rejecting essentially sexual deities. Modern Europe is probably prudish to excess, but the general practice of mankind testifies that words and acts too nearly connected with sexual things cannot be safely permitted in the temple. This remark would indeed be superfluous were it not that many millions ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, Vol I. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... can to bring my feelings into accord with yours. One thing, above all, I would beg of you. Spare me the annoyances to which the strangeness of our mutual position might give rise to our relations with others. I am neither whimsical nor prudish, and should be sorry to get that reputation; but I feel sure that I can trust to your honor when I ask you to keep up the outward appearance ...
— Letters of Two Brides • Honore de Balzac
... had thickened and grown prudish, as the Van Osburgh husbands were apt to do; but his wife, to his surprise and discomfiture, had developed an earth-shaking fastness of gait which left him trailing breathlessly ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... been gay enough. In those days it was far from prudish and Mozart was always of unusual fascination for women. He loved frivolity and went about much, but he seems by no means to have deserved the reputation given him by the gossip of that time and this, that he was a confirmed rake. It is impossible for any one acquainted ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1 • Rupert Hughes
... atmosphere; one catches good humour as easily as if it were cold. Shall we stroll on?—my Clelia is on the other side of the Exchange.—You were speaking of the play-writers: what a pity that our Ethereges and Wycherleys should be so frank in their gallantry that the prudish public already begins to look shy on them. They have a world ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... and without half the broad spaces and great buildings of the London of to-day, still more sparkling and gayer in its effect because life was less hidden. The 'sixties were not squeamish, though they were prudish; a man's own womenfolk were less noticeable than to-day, not only in such minor detail as the exclusion of them from the tops of omnibuses; but they, after all, were but a fraction of what went to make up spectacular life. Those were ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... against being found out. Had you rallied me by word of mouth in the manner you do, it might have been more in character; especially, if your friend's distresses had been surmounted, and if she had affected prudish airs in revolving the subject: but to sit down to write it, as methinks I see you, with a gladdened eye, and with all the archness of exultation—indeed, my dear, (and I take notice of it, rather for the sake of your own generosity, than for my sake, for, as I have said, I love your raillery,) it ...
— Clarissa, Volume 1 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... hear, he saw (I fancy just before your arrival); and he must have wondered at the familiarity of the dame, and the nincompoophood of her Prince. Sir William Hamilton is arrived— his Nymph of the Attitudes!(796) was too prudish to ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... graceful! On her lips the utterances of treachery sound like witticism; an act of infidelity seems the prompting of reason, a sacrifice to propriety; while she is never reckless, she is always lovable; she is seldom tender and never sincere; amorous by nature, prudish on principle; sprightly, prudent, dexterous though utterly thoughtless, varied as Proteus in her moods, but charming as the Graces in her manner; she attracts but she eludes. What a number of parts I have seen her play! Entre nous, ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... contrast to early spring and late autumn, when the rain was wont to transform it into a swirling torrent, which often, so historians tell us, rose so high that it overflowed its banks and caused much alarm to the inhabitants of Esher proper. We do not use the expression "Esher proper" from any prudish reason, but merely because Little Esher, a mile down the road, might in the reader's mind become a factor to promote muddle if we did not take care to indicate ...
— Terribly Intimate Portraits • Noel Coward
... goes where statues are, we'll do our best to hide them, Since to prudes all things are prudish, lest his modesty take hurt. Though some one else, perhaps, may write, and say he can't abide them, When Apollo stands in trousers, or ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, April 9th, 1892 • Various
... receive him any more," replied Madame Schontz, with a prudish little air. "Now that we have come to an understanding, my Fabien, you must go; it ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... later. After the heady Pramnian at the tavern, he roved away with Cimon and others to serenade beneath the lattice of a lady—none too prudish—in the Ceramicus quarter. But the fair one was cruel that night, and her slaves repelled the minstrels with pails of hot water from an upper window. Democrates thereupon quitted the party. His head was very befogged, but he could not expel one idea from it—that Themistocles ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... ascendancy of the House of Austria! Austria herself was no longer sound; the old faith lingered only in St. Petersburg and Berlin; but how weak and ineffective it had become! There was no talk now of interference, there would not be another campaign of Waterloo or of Valmy; there was only a prudish reserve; they could not, they did not dare, refuse diplomatic dealings with the new Emperor, but they were determined there should be no cordiality: the virgin purity of the Prussian Court should not be deflowered by intimacy with ...
— Bismarck and the Foundation of the German Empire • James Wycliffe Headlam
... of British women, with their knuckled hands, their splayed feet. Their abominable dressing, too, a bust and a brooch and a hooped skirt—their grocers' conventions, prudish, almost obscene, avoiding of the natural in word, deed, or thought.... He wanted Fenzile, with her eyes, vert de mer, her full childish face, her slim hands with the orange-tinted finger nails, her silken trousers, her little slippers of silver and blue.... Her soft arms, her back-thrown ...
— The Wind Bloweth • Brian Oswald Donn-Byrne
... innocent as a babe; transparent as truth itself; limpid as afresh bubbling spring. But the ponderous and learned lie of our moderns has to keep its true character draped and veiled. And if there is discovered anywhere the least little peep-hole of deception, the reader turns away with a prudish disgust, and the ...
— The Hungry Stones And Other Stories • Rabindranath Tagore
... humanity in the new works, and would cover it with the conventional fig-leaves prescribed in the homilies of Vignola. Laymen, accustomed to the cold architectural proprieties of the old Renaissance, and habituated to the formalities of the five orders, the prudish decorum of Italian window-dressings and pediments and pilasters and scrolls, are apt to be surprised at such strange dispositions of unprecedented and heretical features, that the intention of the building in which they occur is at ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 45, July, 1861 • Various
... came to the point at once. He trusted this handsome woman. His strength and his youth called to hers, expecting no prudish response. "It's very odd. It is that I'm Rickie's brother. I've just found out. I've ...
— The Longest Journey • E. M. Forster
... vexed with herself for her prudish weakness. An opportunity that might never be repeated was offered her, and she could not muster the courage to seize it. Blake, however, did ...
— The Intriguers • Harold Bindloss
... it put on its youth a dress like that of the world, but scant and ashen-colored; it substituted for the tonsure closely-cut hair and shaven beard, and it often went beyond the obedience of the monks in its expression of pining humility and prudish composure. Education within such a circle could not well recognize nature and history as manifestations of God, but it must consider them to be limitations to their union with God, from which death can first then completely release them. The soul which knew that its home could ...
— Pedagogics as a System • Karl Rosenkranz
... the character of being the most prudish of nations; we are celebrated as having Bowdlerized for our babes and sucklings even the immortal William Shakespeare; but we shall infallibly lose this our character should the Kamashastra Society flourish. Captain Burton ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... character, properly termed finesse; and a polish of manners that injures the substance, by hunting sincerity out of society. And, modesty, the fairest garb of virtue has been more grossly insulted in France than even in England, till their women have treated as PRUDISH that attention to decency which brutes ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]
... a background to my sermon, to show you that I have no prim, precise, prudish, or cast-iron theories on the subject of human apparel; but the goddess of fashion has set up her throne in this country and at the sound of the timbrels we are all expected to fall down and worship. Her altars smoke with the sacrifice ...
— The Wedding Ring - A Series of Discourses for Husbands and Wives and Those - Contemplating Matrimony • T. De Witt Talmage
... and among the letters he handed me was one from Roger! Imagine my feelings! I was so frightened when I had the letter in my hand that I dared not read it; not because I was too honorable, but too prudish; I dreaded being embarrassed by reading facts stated in that free and easy style peculiar to young men when writing to each other. The only concession I could obtain from my delicacy was to glance at the three last lines: "I am not angry with her, I am only vexed with myself," wrote ...
— The Cross of Berny • Emile de Girardin
... the laity with their apparel; and like as with the sweep-net the fisher goeth about to take many fishes in the river at one cast, even so these, wrapping themselves about with the amplest of skirts, study to entangle therein great store of prudish maids and widows and many other silly women and men, and this is their chief concern over any other exercise; wherefore, to speak more plainly, they have not the friar's gown, ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... read a book that had such a character!—yet, laughable and prudish as it may seem to you, I could not bring myself to accept the half-offer, or make any other reply than to exclaim against the injudiciousness ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay
... remarked that in the theatre a crowd exacts from the hero of the piece exaggerated virtues, and it is a commonplace observation that an assembly, even though composed of inferior elements, shows itself as a rule very prudish. The debauchee, the souteneur, the rough often break out into murmurs at a slightly risky scene or expression, though they be very harmless in ...
— The Crowd • Gustave le Bon
... this charitable work were to be done for the sake of damsels in confinement or charity-girls, a man might expose himself to some hardships; but to bear it for the sake of stripping beards off duennas! Devil take it! I'd sooner see them all bearded, from the highest to the lowest, and from the most prudish to ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... he recognised that sudden changes were prejudicial before sufficient progress had been accomplished. "To destroy, you must replace." Justice he considered the sole guide, reason and duty the only law. His morality was not that of pharasaical tartuffes, nor of prudish knickerbockers, who with wide phylacteries, sit in the high places to be seen of men. He only combatted evil principles and fought hard ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley as a Philosopher and Reformer • Charles Sotheran
... and this end is attained by preserving its archaisms and quaintness of phrase, its repetitions and inherent crudities and even, without suppression or attenuation, the grossness of speech of our less prudish ancestors, which is also a mark of certain primitive habits of life but which an over-fastidious translator through delicacy of feeling might wish to omit. These side-lights on the semi-barbaric setting of the Old Irish sagas are ...
— The Ancient Irish Epic Tale Tain Bo Cualnge • Unknown
... sexes yielded to the charm. And what was worse, the emperor's own daughter, whom he had forced to stay at home carding wool, to wear only such garments as were spun in the palace, to affect an almost prudish delicacy, the proud and lovely Julia, had been detected in such profligacy as poured bitter satire on the old monarch's moral discipline, and bore speaking witness to the power of an inherited tendency to vice. The emperor's ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... mortal by anything which could look like the least violation of either decency or good manners;" but—and it is an important "but"—he cannot promise to "mutilate everything" in Tristram "down to the prudish humour of every particular" (individual), though he will do his best; but, in any case, "laugh, my Lord, I will, and as loudly as I can." And laugh he did, and in such Rabelaisian fashion that the Bishop (somewhat inconsistently ...
— Sterne • H.D. Traill
... as mere flesh and blood characteristics. So also Ariosto's ladies: the charming, bright women, coquettish or Amazonian, are frail and fickle to the degree which was permissible to a court lady, who should be neither prudish nor coquettish; doing unchaste things and listening to unchaste words simply, gracefully, without prurience or horror; perfectly well-bred, gentili, as Ariosto calls them; prudent also, according to the notions of the day, in limiting their imprudence. ...
— Euphorion - Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the - Renaissance - Vol. I • Vernon Lee
... story that has gladdened and softened the hearts of thousands,—a story that has drawn welcome smiles and purifying tears from all who can appreciate its deftly-mingled humour and pathos,—a story that has been a boon to humanity—might have been sacrificed to the shallow ruling of a prudish 'young-lady' proof-reader, and a narrow-minded, ...
— The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 • Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe
... that it is preposterous to speak as if their repression really cost very much. I think with bitterness of that age-long repression, of its unmeasured cost; of the gibe contained in the phrase "old maid," with all its implication of a narrowed life, a prudish mind, an acrid tongue, an embittered disposition. I think of the imbecilities in which the repressed instinct has sought its pitiful baffled release, of the adulation lavished on a parrot, a cat, a lap-dog; or of the emotional "religion," the parson-worship, on which every ...
— Sex And Common-Sense • A. Maude Royden
... her to see us; I want her to know I think it's a compliment if you talk to me by the roadside. That's all. No, it isn't all," he went on. "I want you to decide something, and now it'll be easier for you to decide, because they did see us. I'm in earnest; I don't want any prudish weights on this conversation. If they think there's something wrong, so much the better. But the very first thing I want to say to you is, that I've been a pup. I want to be a man with you—as much of a man as you were a noble girl by coming over to Arden ...
— Sunlight Patch • Credo Fitch Harris
... chronicled. The literary diversions and poetic ideals of this circle, too, gave a certain color to the charge of affectation, among people of less refined instincts, who found its esprit incomprehensible, its manners prudish, and its virtue a tacit reproach; but the dignified and serious character of many of its constant habitues should be a sufficient guarantee that it did not greatly pass the limits of good taste and good sense. ...
— The Women of the French Salons • Amelia Gere Mason
... no means. The sacred authors, the Fathers of the Church, who present their thoughts in living words, and ecclesiastical authors have not felt that silence was best. I have followed their example, and shall exclaim, with St. Augustine, 'If what I have written scandalizes any prudish persons, let them rather accuse the turpitude of their own thoughts than the words I have been obliged ...
— History of Circumcision from the Earliest Times to the Present - Moral and Physical Reasons for its Performance • Peter Charles Remondino
... of the Rupts, with an immense garden stretching to the Rue du Perron. Madame de Watteville, devout as a girl, became even more so after her marriage. She is one of the queens of the saintly brotherhood which gives the upper circles of Besancon a solemn air and prudish manners in harmony with the character of ...
— Albert Savarus • Honore de Balzac
... atmosphere of Harvard College, through whose precincts, in the dim, almost forgotten past, we are urged to believe that the good and the great trod musingly in their beautiful prime. He emerged with a perhaps almost prudish distaste for the ugly, the vulgar, and the unclean,—and with distinct delusions of grandeur. He was still in that state not badly described by the old saw—"You can always tell a Harvard man,—but you can't ...
— By Advice of Counsel • Arthur Train
... consequences, is it just to blame him if he infects his wife? It is certain no man would willingly subject his bride to the risk of infection, with all its horrible consequences. These conditions exist as a result of the prudish attitude of society in the past toward all questions affecting sex hygiene. We have not told all the truth to the boy. Whatever knowledge he may have had was gained from companions, or from individuals who knew the garbled facts ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Vol 2 (of 4) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague
... "Don't be so prudish. You know that your eyes are beautiful, and you are not really offended when I tell you so. Such eyes are the books in which I like to read—I can understand them better than Browning, or the old Persian soak. It's not unpleasant to get ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick
... three dogs composed the spectacle, of which the masculine part, the human and the canine, proceeded to swim the stream and fraternize with the strangers. The women rested on the bank like river-nymphs: their costume was somewhat less prudish than that of the men, the coat of rocoa being confined to their faces, which were further decorated with joints of reed thrust through the nose and ears. A glance of curiosity darted across the water by the colonel was surprised in its flight by the ambassadors, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various
... herself coloring. Though not prudish there were words she couldn't get used to. Besides which she had never thought that Steptoe.... But Miss Towell pursued ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King
... varies much, from better than two hundred a year to near a thousand. They also come forward by precedency on the list; and have, besides a handsome income, a life of complete leisure. A life of literary leisure with a decent competency, is the summit of my wishes. It would be the prudish affectation of silly pride in me to say that I do not need, or would not be indebted to a political friend; at the same time, Sir, I by no means lay my affairs before you thus, to hook my dependent situation ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... me. There is nothing any longer for me to do in Tunis, and I shall withdraw myself from the place altogether as soon as possible. There is only one town, one country in the world, and that is Paris—Paris welcoming, hospitable, not prudish, where every intelligent man may find space to do great things. And I, now, do you see, de Gery, I want to do great things. I have had enough of mercantile life. For twenty years I have worked for money; to-day I am ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... with golden eye Mirroring the golden sun; to be her champion, And war with fiends for her; that were a 'quest'; That were true chivalry; to bring my Judge This jewel for His crown; this noble soul, Worth thousand prudish clods of barren clay, Who mope for heaven because earth's grapes are sour— Her, full of youth, flushed with the heart's rich first-fruits, Tangled in earthly pomp—and earthly love. Wife? Saint ...
— The Saint's Tragedy • Charles Kingsley
... with strange views of their own is to have odd experiences and peculiar adventures now and again; a man without human passions is not the type necessary for an adventurous life, such as I myself have had. But even a man of passions and experiences can, when he respects a woman, be shocked—even prudish—where his own opinion of her is concerned. Such must bring to her guarding any generosity which he has, and any self-restraint also. Even should she place herself in a doubtful position, her honour ...
— The Lady of the Shroud • Bram Stoker
... avoided any semblance of dogging her footsteps, he could not know how she was being persecuted by de la Vere, Vavasour, and one or two other men of like habit. That knowledge was yet to come. Consequently he deemed her altogether too prudish, and was so out of patience with her that he and Stampa went off for a two days' climb by way of the Muretto Pass to Chiareggio and back to Sils-Maria ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... reached her aunt Maria's nothing was said to her about it. Aunt Maria was too prudish and too indignant. Uncle Henry's wife, Aunt Eunice, was away all summer, taking care of a sister who was ill with consumption in New Hampshire; so Aunt Maria kept the whole house, and she and Maria and Uncle Henry had their meals together. Maria loved her uncle Henry. He was a ...
— By the Light of the Soul - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... is no quarrel, there is sure to be a bit of scandal afloat. Though Russian provincial society is not at all prudish, and leans rather to the side of extreme leniency, it cannot entirely overlook les convenances. Madame C. has always a large number of male admirers, and to this there can be no reasonable objection so ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... would not be comforted. Her purist's pride was wounded; her prudish maiden's modesty was outraged—that her own father should believe it of her! And she must not open the subject or try to alter his opinion, for fear of the ridicule ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson
... the correspondence of this remarkable group a tone of frankness and sincerity which, combined with the absence of malice and a strong element of fun, distinguishes it from the half-veiled disapproval and prudish reserve of later days. 'When you next write so eloquently and well against law and lawyers,' says Coleridge to Godwin, 'be so good as to leave a larger place for your wafer, as by neglect of this a part of your last was obliterated.' Again, ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... as if with the fear that I may do them mischief. Such persons hold out civil finger-tips which they permit you to touch, and in the moment of contract they retreat, and inwardly you hope that you will not be called upon again to take that hand of "dormouse valour." It betokens a prudish mind, ungracious pride, and not seldom mistrust. It is the antipode to the hand of those who have ...
— The World I Live In • Helen Keller
... that triumphant Jew with his insolent good humor. It is an absurd thing, after all, to be prudish and to thrust away the dish that is offered you. To be rich is, in fact, quite as good as to be powerful! Money remains! That is the only real thing in the world! It would be a fine sight to see a man refuse the opportunity to make a fortune, and to refuse it—why? For a silly, conscientious ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... Country people are prudish and they cover with a strict reserve all discussion of the moral relations of men and women. Yet in the same communities there is loose private conversation and coarse references are common. The strict ...
— The Evolution of the Country Community - A Study in Religious Sociology • Warren H. Wilson
... regarded as the "good friend" of Pylades and Patroclus as the lover of Achilles. In this taste, the Gods set the example for mortals, and the abduction of Ganymede for the service of the master of thunder, was not the least cause for annoyance given the chaste but over-prudish Juno. Lastly, Hercules was not content with the loves of Omphale and Dejanira, he also loved the beautiful Hylas, who was brought up ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... it came into your possession. No one will believe you, but my name, at least, will live. You will treat it brutally, I know you will. Some of it must go; the public are fools and prudish fools. I was their servant once. But do your mangling gently—very gently. It is a great work, and I have paid for it ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... now moving so fast it is hard to keep up with them. Pat Valdo is dressed as a prudish old lady with an enormous bustle. Escorted by the clown policeman and the two amateurs, Pat sets out, fanning himself demurely. Hullo! the bustle has detached itself from the old lady, but she proceeds, unconscious. The audience ...
— Pipefuls • Christopher Morley
... good many people in Paris, and he and his bride received a very enthusiastic welcome from these old friends, who pronounced that Miladi Jocelyn was charmante and la belle des belles; and that Sir Jocelyn was the most fortunate of men in having discovered this gay, lighthearted girl amongst the prudish and pragmatical meess ...
— Henry Dunbar - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... may have possessed, but they were both right-minded, religious girls. Some of the officers pronounced them far too strict, others considered them haughty, and one or two even ventured to pronounce them prudish, because they showed no taste for the frivolous amusements in which the ordinary run of young ladies indulge; not that they objected to dance, or to join in a pleasant pic-nic; indeed, the few who did find fault with them complained ...
— The Voyages of the Ranger and Crusader - And what befell their Passengers and Crews. • W.H.G. Kingston
... was dictated, little or nothing can now be confidently affirmed; but the agreement of the manuscripts and the early editions in giving it, render it impossible to discard it peremptorily as a declaration of prudish or of interested regret, with which Chaucer himself had ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... another affirmed she had not even the looks of a gentlewoman: a third warranted she was no better than she should be; and, turning to the lady who had related the story in the coach, said, "Did you ever hear, madam, anything so prudish as her remarks? Well, deliver me from the censoriousness of such a prude." The fourth added, "O madam! all these creatures are censorious; but for my part, I wonder where the wretch was bred; indeed, I must own I have ...
— Joseph Andrews Vol. 1 • Henry Fielding
... mortal horns had caused some great misfortune, and baptized the soil with the blood it had spilt? Certes, this plan presented itself bristling with difficulties: but the greatest of all was Mademoiselle de Montalais herself. Capricious, variable, close, giddy, free, prudish, a virgin armed with claws, Erigone stained with grapes, she sometimes overturned, with a single dash of her white fingers, or with a single puff from her laughing lips, the edifice which had exhausted ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... conscience. He had done no harm, after all; indeed, never seriously meant any. She was making a ridiculous fuss about nothing. It was all part and parcel of her methodistical cant. He dared say that she was not as prudish with the methodist parson. And at that base thought he paused; for a flush of rage, and a strong desire on such hypothesis to slay the said methodist parson, or any one else who dared even to look sweet on Grace, showed him ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... flashing eye, one moment filled with tenderness, the next sparkling with laughter. Then Mrs. Maroney had a freedom of manners that placed him at once at his ease, while Miss Johnson was rather prudish, quite sarcastic, and somehow he felt that he always made a fool of himself in her presence. Besides, Miss Johnson was marriageable, and much as De Forest loved the sex, he loved his freedom more. His morals were on a par with those of Sheridan's son, who wittily asked ...
— The Expressman and the Detective • Allan Pinkerton
... peace and warmth. He felt straightway content with himself. "Come," she continued, smiling. "I will make you a cool drink. Mamma has gone to town and Ruby is off somewhere in the pony cart." When she had left him on the veranda he laughed at his prudish fancies that had pestered him a fortnight ago. This June morning she had exactly the necessary amount of animation and health. All was well with her, and ...
— The Man Who Wins • Robert Herrick
... seventeenth century. At this day foreigners, who dare not print a word reflecting on the government under which they live, are at a loss to understand how it happens that the freest press in Europe is the most prudish. ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... was not prudish when a direct appeal was made to her common sense, answered with ready candour: 'Yes, from the point of view of domestic politics, that undoubtedly is the case. But I hope I am not so calculating as to risk happiness in order to round off ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... stare upon his newly-discovered son. It was not the sort of look a proud and happy father-in-law-to-be ought to have directed at a prospective relative. It was not, as a matter of fact, the sort of look which anyone ought to have directed at anybody, except possibly an exceptionally prudish judge at a criminal in the dock, convicted of a more than usually atrocious murder. Billie, not being in the actual line of fire, only caught the tail end of it, but it was ...
— The Girl on the Boat • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... certain that it si due to you and to the confession that you have made of your feelings, that I should in turn confess that I am deeply—what shall I say—INTERESTED in you? No; that is too prim and prudish a term. There is in you for me more than a mere attraction; I feel for you something deeper than even warm friendship. That you would make such a husband as I should cherish and honor, of whom I should be proud, and whose strong, kindly arms would be my secure support and protection ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy
... town—there are such moments, when the lady throws off all reserve, and by a look, a smile, a blush, a half-articulate word, repays her lover for months, if he is fool enough to court so long, of prudish and affected shyness, past or future. These moments occur but seldom, even in the most patriarchal courtships, and it is well that it is so. Love is a fiery steed, and should always be ridden with a curb bridle, both before and after marriage. (I am sorry that I cannot ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... rigid on New York ferry-boats. Without fuss or delay she proceeded to make their acquaintance—to Katie's concern, for she could never get used to Genevieve's short way with strangers. The quiet life she had led had made her almost prudish, and there were times when Genevieve's conduct shocked her. Of course, she knew there was no harm in Genevieve. As the latter herself had once put it, 'The feller that tries to get gay with me is going to get a call-down ...
— The Man with Two Left Feet - and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... are simians we have done well, considering: but if we are something else—fallen angels—we have indeed fallen far. Not being modest by instinct we invent artificial ideals, which are doubtless well-meaning but are inherently of course second-rate, so that even at our best we smell prudish. And as for our worst, when .we as we say let ourselves go, we dirty the life-force unspeakably, with chuckles and leers. But a race so indecent by nature as the simians are would naturally have a hard time behaving as though they were ...
— This Simian World • Clarence Day Jr.
... must—with a bashful diffidence that pulls down the clothes each time the infant kicks; women dote upon each inch of its chubby person. And so with love. Men will discuss their love— if they must—with the most prudish decorum; women ...
— Once Aboard The Lugger • Arthur Stuart-Menteth Hutchinson
... is a little rough in spots, but you know what Percy MacKaye is when he gets loose on a folk-opera. It is good, clean Rabelaisian fun, such as was in "Washington, the Man Who Made Us." I always felt that it was very prudish of the police to stop that play just as it was commencing its run. Or maybe it wasn't the police that stopped it. Something ...
— Love Conquers All • Robert C. Benchley
... abominable. Some of the singers are mere animated beer casks, too lazy and conceited to practise the self-control and physical training that is expected as a matter of course from an acrobat, a jockey or a pugilist. The women's dresses are prudish and absurd. It is true that Kundry no longer wears an early Victorian ball dress with "ruchings," and that Fresh has been provided with a quaintly modish copy of the flowered gown of Spring in Botticelli's ...
— The Perfect Wagnerite - A Commentary on the Niblung's Ring • George Bernard Shaw
... turns prudish, just let me know," said Carlos. "Nucingen must give her a carriage and horses; she will have to choose and buy everything herself. Go to the horse-dealer and the coachmaker who are employed by the job-master where ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... culture will make allowance for such a strait, will not be so very frightened at an amount of plain-speaking, neither in itself immoral, nor, on the whole, impertinent. Had he docked his work of everything condemned by prudish theories, he might have made it more conventionally decent; but Michelet would have been puzzled to recognize himself in the poor maimed cripple that would then ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet
... if there has been no love beforehand, it follows that the grave will remain empty. No, my friends, if I am bound by marriage ties, I authorize you both to hunt on my ground, and it will give me pleasure if you score a success. Who knows? The countess is, perhaps, less prudish than ...
— The Son of Monte-Cristo, Volume II (of 2) • Alexandre Dumas pere
... There was a check to the gayety of the evening. Frank Miller, bold and bad as he was looked crestfallen and uneasy. Some who appeared to be more careful of the manners of society than its morals, said that I was very rude. Others said that I was too prudish, and would be an old maid, that I was looking for perfection in young men, and would not find it. That young men sow their wild oats, and that I was more nice than wise, and that I would frighten the gentlemen away from me. I told them if the young men were so easily frightened, that I did not ...
— Trial and Triumph • Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
... to the debaucheries of the court,—from cropped heads and dark cloaks to plumes and velvet, gold lace and embroidery,—to the varied fashions of every kind for which Paris has always been renowned, and which Charles brought back with him from his exile;—from prudish morals to indiscriminate debauchery; from the exercisings of brewers' clerks, the expounding of tailors, the catechizing of watermen, to the stage, which was now loudly petitioned to supply amusement and novelty. Macaulay justly says: "The restraints of that gloomy time were such ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... the traces of Roman roads, in laughing a good deal, and even in dancing, for there were many people visiting the abbey, and especially talking over dresses." Near Sarrebuis, the canonesses of Loutre dine with the officers and are anything but prudish.[2177] Numbers of convents serve as agreeable and respectable asylums for widowed ladies, for young women whose husbands are in the army, and for young ladies of rank, while the superior, generally some noble damsel, ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... things he could never hope for more delicious human contact. There was no reaction either, to speak of, no gloomy disgust. She was physically acceptable to him. He could always talk to her in a genial, teasing way, even tender, for she did not offend his intellectuality with prudish or conventional notions. Loving and foolish as she was in some ways, she would stand blunt reproof or correction. She could suggest in a nebulous, blundering way things that would be good for them to do. Most of all at present their thoughts centered upon Chicago society, ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... general social intercourse spoilt for her. There are no dangers for men, but on the contrary there is very great help for men, in the society of girls who will meet them in a spontaneous, natural, and friendly way. It is when the girls who should be their natural companions are found to be prudish and stiff that men are all too apt to look for other girls who will at least be friendly and often much more than friendly. All that I want girls to know is that there are dangers on the horizon of this part of life, and to ask them to use their wisdom and their common sense. What ...
— Men, Women, and God • A. Herbert Gray
... about that time, I remember John Marjoribanks, a smart recruiting officer in the village of Kelso, the Weekly Chronicle of which he filled with his love verses. His Delia was a Miss Dickson, daughter of a shopkeeper in the same village—his Gloriana a certain prudish old maiden lady, benempt Miss Goldie; I think I see her still, with her thin arms sheathed in scarlet gloves, and crossed like two lobsters in a fishmonger's stand. Poor Delia was a very beautiful girl, and not more conceited than a be-rhymed miss ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... coarse but pungent, seemed a drunken echo of the laughter of Moliere. The clown exerted his low talent, throwing out at each moment some low jest, some immodest pun, to which his master, simulating a prudish indignation, responded by thumps on the head. But the adroit clown excelled in the art of receiving affronts. He knew to perfection how to bend his body like a bow under the impulse of a kick, and having received on one cheek a full-armed blow, he stuffed his tongue at once in that cheek ...
— Ten Tales • Francois Coppee
... creature can always produce a sensation by breaking the taboo. But women are learning how to undo this error of theirs now. The word 'damn,' for instance, is, I hear, being admitted freely into the boudoir and feminine conversation; it is even considered a rather prudish thing to object to this word. Now, men, especially feeble men, hate doing things that women do. As a consequence, men who go about saying 'damn' are now regarded by their fellow-men as only a shade less effeminate than those who go about saying 'nasty' and 'horrid.' The subtler sex ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells
... was three years ago!" replied Crevel. "Well, you are handsomer now than ever I saw you!" he went on, taking the Baroness' arm and pressing it to his heart. "You have a good memory, my dear, by Jove!—And now you see how wrong you were to be so prudish, for those three hundred thousand francs that you refused so magnanimously are in another woman's pocket. I loved you then, I love you still; but just look back ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... 'It's prudish,' said Phinny, disregarding this sentiment,— 'that's what it is. Do you suppose it's that old wretch of a guardian keeps her in leading strings? Now she talks of not ...
— Wych Hazel • Susan and Anna Warner
... contemplate receiving Mr. Van Brandt again, even if his lawful wife had died in the interval. It was wrong of her to return my letter of introduction, after I had given myself the trouble of altering it to suit her capricious fancy. It was wrong of her to take an absurdly prudish view of a stolen kiss and a tender declaration, and to fly from me as if I were as great a scoundrel as Mr. Van Brandt himself. And last, and more than all, it was wrong of her to sign her Christian name in initial only. Here I was, passionately in love with a woman, and ...
— The Two Destinies • Wilkie Collins
... naturally to him, and fancies that he must lay it aside at night, as people do false teeth. It is an easy bird to take flying; for, on seeing you, it peaks its wings downward in a manner indescribably prim and prudish, and scales past, turning its stubby neck, and inspecting you with an air of comical, muddy gravity and curiosity. My comrade, Ph——, got two dozen to my eight; but I was consoled with a large Arctic falcon, which had been dining at fashionable hours on a full-grown puffin, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various
... morality mocking exquisitely at slavery to them, and interesting you, attracting you, tempting you, inexplicably forcing you to range the hero with his enemy the statue on a transcendant plane, leaving the prudish daughter and her priggish lover on a crockery shelf below to live piously ...
— Man And Superman • George Bernard Shaw
... to do?" asks one. "If she is prudish she won't get any attention. She has to allow a certain innocent freedom, or young men ...
— What a Young Woman Ought to Know • Mary Wood-Allen
... citizens, become, through the financial undertakings and interests of these very same citizens, often the worst enemies of their own city. The German cities are spared also the confusion, which is injected into our politics by a fortunately small class of reformers, with the prudish peculiarities of morbid vestals; men who cannot work with other men, and who bring the virile virtues, the sound charities, and wholesome morality ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... was ever so manageable. My diplomatist is getting liker and liker to him every day. Leaner, of course, and does not habitually straddle. Whiskers and morals, I mean. We must be silent before our prudish sister. Not a prude? We talk diplomacy, dearest. He complains of the exclusiveness of the port of Oporto, and would have strict alliance between Portugal and England, with mutual privileges. I wish the alliance, and think it better to maintain the exclusiveness. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Quintilian's too He by the light of listening faces knew, And his rapt audience all unconscious lent Their own roused force to make him eloquent; Persuasion fondled in his look and tone; Our speech (with strangers prudish) he could bring To find new charm in accents not her own; 160 Her coy constraints and icy hindrances Melted upon his lips to natural ease, As a brook's fetters swell the dance of spring. Nor yet all sweetness: not in vain he ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... Chatelet, "Mme. d'Espard is the more prudish and particular because she herself is separated from her husband, nobody knows why. The Navarreins, the Lenoncourts, the Blamont-Chauvrys, and the rest of the relations have all rallied round her; the most strait-laced women are seen at her house, and ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac
... that was a stork!" said Madam Johnsen. She reached for her boots, alarmed. "I won't stay here any longer now. One never knows what may happen." She hastily laced up her boots, with a prudish expression on her face. Pelle laughed until the tears stood ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... stocks never seem to sink lower. There are always fresh finds being made—seizures made officially by an officer or two with a few files of men so that there may be some reasonable excuse to offer to those who persist in remaining mulishly prudish. These new finds are, of course, called treasures-trove. They are good words. Looting has officially ceased; is, indeed, forbidden under the most severe penalties. That is why it is being systematised and made open and respectable. It is ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... aware that the propriety of drawing from the oblivion of forgotten literature such a story will be questioned. The decay of the chivalrous spirit of the middle ages, and the prudish, puritanical code of morality that has superseded the simple manners of our forefathers, render it hazardous to cast into the hands of the present generation the thrilling records of sin and repentance such as they were seen and recorded in days gone ...
— Alvira: the Heroine of Vesuvius • A. J. O'Reilly
... with a rueful grin. "I don't give a whoop how much fun they have; but you know as well as I do just how prudish public sentiment is. And Project Theta Orionis is squarely in the middle ...
— Masters of Space • Edward Elmer Smith
... rock-ribbed no when certain well-understood questionable matters come up, she must have power. If society young people are to remain in the world, and yet not be swayed by its spirit: on one side not prudish, nor fanatical, nor extreme, but cheery, and radiant, and full-lived, and yet free of those compromising entanglements that are common to society everywhere, they must ...
— Quiet Talks on Power • S.D. Gordon
... the warbling of sacred phrases, and variations on the summoning trumpet, and imitated angelic praise, and the unfelt expressions of musical repentance, and unfearing despondency of guilt in recitative, are any thing but congenial to a mind properly attuned. I hope I am neither prudish, nor squeamish, nor splenetic, but speak only what many feel, and few care to express. Now, the cure in future for all this would be very simple: Why not have some lay oratorios? Protestants have appropriated the madrigal, and listen, delighted with ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... readers may be a little prudish, or exacting of character, and as we are peculiarly sensitive of the reputation some of the characters embodied in this history should bear to the very end, we deem it prudent here not to disclose the nature of the little forgery which was perpetrated ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... had been sulky as a bear at the idea of coming, but something in the quaintly pathetic refinement of the poor and splendid old house pleased him, and the aroma of untouched early-Victorian prudish grace which the ancient ladies threw around them appealed to his imagination, as any complete bit of art or nature always did. He found himself seated between Miss La Sarthe and Halcyone and quite enjoying himself. Everything ...
— Halcyone • Elinor Glyn
... she repeated. "Love you," she continued, bowing her brown head over her hanging arms and clasped hands. "What then has brought me to this? Oh," she said suddenly, again seizing him by his two arms, and holding him from her with a half-prudish, half-passionate gesture, "why could you not have left things as they were; why could we not have met in the same old way we used to meet, when I was so foolish and so happy? Why could you spoil that one dream ...
— The Argonauts of North Liberty • Bret Harte
... with prudish Looks, Turns up her Eyes, and rails at naughty Folks; But in a private Room, turns up her lech'rous Tail, And kisses till she's ...
— The Merry-Thought: or the Glass-Window and Bog-House Miscellany. Part 1 • Samuel Johnson [AKA Hurlo Thrumbo]
... his deepest philosophy, but let an obscene word appear in it, and that word will draw every reader's attention. Thus Shakespeare used to be considered an obscene writer, in need of expurgation, and may be so considered still, though his obscene passages even to our prudish modern ears are so few that they could surely be collected on a single page. Thus also it is that even the Bible, the God-inspired book of Christendom, has been judicially declared to be obscene. It may have been a reasonable decision, for judicial decision ...
— Impressions And Comments • Havelock Ellis
... architect went on, "there's no doubt we've become absurdly prudish in this country. We're afflicted with shame of the body which, in itself, is unhealthy. If art can help us to get back to a more normal attitude it will do a big service. All the more reason then why it ...
— The City of Domes • John D. Barry
... the awakening had come,—early, if we would be prudish; not too early, if we would ...
— The Uncalled - A Novel • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... quite an expert at flattery. Every girl he meets, if she is at all attractive, is considered the most charming lady that he ever knew. He is sure she isn't prudish enough to refuse him a kiss, and if she is, she wins not only his admiration, but that which ...
— Threads of Grey and Gold • Myrtle Reed
... debauch!" declared Helen, laughing. "Now, don't be prim and prudish about it, Ruthie. I won't have it in here ...
— Ruth Fielding at Briarwood Hall - or Solving the Campus Mystery • Alice B. Emerson
... I don't know what you refer to." Mrs. Sand's tone was prudish and offended. "She hasn't said a word to me—she's a great one for keeping things to herself—but if Mr. Lindsay don't mean ...
— Hilda - A Story of Calcutta • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... characteristic which, in some other countries, is expressed by the term English prudery, the accusation implied being part of the general charge of hypocrisy. It is said by observers among ourselves that the prudish habit of mind is dying out, and this is looked upon as a satisfactory thing, as a sign of healthy emancipation. If by prude be meant a secretly vicious person who affects an excessive decorum, by all means let the prude disappear, even at the cost of some shamelessness. If, on ...
— The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft • George Gissing
... a low iron patent-pump, near a rustic seat, the Ritualistic organist, in his vast linen coat and imposing straw hat, looks not unlike an eccentric garden statue, upon which some prudish slave of modern conventionalities has placed the summer attire of a western editor. The great heat of the sun upon his back makes him irritable, and when Miss POTTS sharply smites with her fan the knuckles of the hand which he has affably extended ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 26, September 24, 1870 • Various
... horsemanship of the rider. The young man's face was of that pale, fair-complexioned, insular type, which is almost girlish in the softness and delicacy of its color and texture. He was tall, thin, and fair-haired, dressed with the extreme and elaborate neatness characteristic of a man of fashion in prudish England. Any one might have thought that bashfulness rather than pleasure at the sight of the Countess had called up that flush into his face. Once only Julie raised her eyes and looked at the ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Honore de Balzac
... prudish notions, you will perceive, about a flirtation—provided it was carried on with the airs and graces of the Hotel Rambouillet. She merely, therefore, interposed a word here and there, to show that she was present. Daphne, who scarcely said a word to Hector, took good care to answer ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - April 1843 • Various
... appreciative surprise at its singular merit. Finally she folded the sheet of paper with a delicate carefulness unusual to her, and placed it in her skirt pocket; then she went downstairs and out into the back yard. Her next action was straightforward and anything but prudish; she climbed the high wooden fences, one after the other, until she came to a pause at the top of that whereon the two journalists had lately made themselves so ...
— Gentle Julia • Booth Tarkington
... the powers that had influence (and by public opinion also, at least in the middle-class sense), that certain verbal limits must be set to such literature. The novel must be what some would call pure and others would call prudish; but what is not, properly considered, either one or the other: it is rather a more or less business proposal (right or wrong) that every writer shall draw the line at literal physical description of things socially concealed. It was originally merely verbal; it had not, primarily, any dream ...
— The Victorian Age in Literature • G. K. Chesterton
... men!" she said to herself, half in prudish dismay at his effrontery, and yet pleased that he did not sheepishly seek to conceal his preference. And although the men (there were but two or three and not half the province, as her horror of this publicity would seem to ...
— The Frontiersmen • Charles Egbert Craddock
... de Polignac had a much better education, and considerably more natural capacity, than her sister-in-law, the Duchess, and the Queen merely disliked her for her prudish affectation. The Comtesse d'Artois grew jealous of the Count's intimacy with the Comtesse Diane. While she considered herself as the only one of the Royal Family likely to be mother of a future sovereign, she was silent, or perhaps too much engrossed by her ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 4 • Madame du Hausset, and of an Unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe
... know I shall not be trifled with. Once more let me remind you that a noise here would hardly be heard outside. But you are not serious. The prize for you is too great. Police? How could you marry the lady then? Do you think my proud, prudish little Myra would take you, knowing me to be alive? Stop, will you?" he cried with a savage growl like that of a wild beast, "or, by all that's holy—Here, what are you going to ...
— Witness to the Deed • George Manville Fenn
... laurel for Apollo; myrtle for Aphrodite (and is not the Love-Goddess the favorite?). To have a social gathering without garlands, in short, is impossible. The flower girls of Athens are beautiful, impudent, and not at all prudish. Around their booths press bold-tongued youths, and not too discreet sires; and the girls can call everybody familiarly by name. Very possibly along with the sale of the garlands they make arrangements ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis
... more talked about than any woman in Orange County, yet, who could report anything of her beyond that she was a universal favorite, and danced, walked, possibly flirted with a dozen different cavaliers every day of her life? There were some few among her accusers, demure and most proper—even prudish—women, of whom, were the truth to be told, so little ...
— Found in the Philippines - The Story of a Woman's Letters • Charles King
... not so positive about that, Aunty. Let us not be prudish. If he saw me, he made no sign, and therefore he is a gentleman." She looked out of the window and smiled again. ...
— 'Firebrand' Trevison • Charles Alden Seltzer
... evidently startled as she met the Baron's astonished eye, and she responded with a prudish dropping of ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... he has himself observed,[39] 'which genius impresses on its works, it shows also in its private life and manners. It is bashful, for nature is ever so; but it is not prudish, for only corruption is prudish. It is clear-sighted, for nature can never be the contrary; but it is not cunning, for this only art can be. It is faithful to its character and inclinations; but not so much because it is directed by principles, ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle
... friends, enemies and teachers. For instance, one boy is conditioned to distrust his ability and another to have confidence in his powers by the attitude of the parents. Similarly, the daughter whose mother is abnormally prudish about sexual functions will surely be conditioned to react in the same manner towards her own sexual functions, unless conditioned to react differently by the influence of another person.[5] Through the everyday associations in the social milieu, therefore, the erotic impulse of an individual may ...
— Taboo and Genetics • Melvin Moses Knight, Iva Lowther Peters, and Phyllis Mary Blanchard |
