"Virile" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... be supposed, in saying this, to be leaving out of sight the virile exercise of logical and rational faculties; but that is another side of education; and the grave deficiency which I detect in the old theory was that practically all the powers and devices of education were devoted to what was called ...
— Cambridge Essays on Education • Various
... avoided. Literature that leaves the mind so feverish that the pupil loses interest in other subjects is worse than no literature. The easiest way to prevent a taste for this injurious kind, is to give the pupil an acquaintance with works descriptive of noble deeds and virile character. An interest in epic poetry or the historical novel may be developed from the child's instinctive interest in action. Tennyson's Passing of Arthur, Arnold's Sohrab and Rustum, Longfellow's Evangeline and King Robert ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Literature • Ontario Ministry of Education
... possibilities that lie in the wake of solid character, intelligent industry, and material acquisition. He has tried, with all earnestness, to hold up the future of the American Negro in its most attractive aspect, and to emphasize the virile philosophy that there is a positive dignity in working with the hands, when that labor is fortified by a developed ...
— Tuskegee & Its People: Their Ideals and Achievements • Various
... and you will find the like of that in few places in America. It was a fine house for its time, for any time, and not new when John Templeton was born. A great, solid, square structure, such as they built when the Puritan spirit was virile in New England, with an almost Greek beauty of measured lines. It has a fanlight over the front door, windows exquisitely proportion, and in the center a vast brick chimney. Even now, though weathered and unpainted, it stands ...
— Great Possessions • David Grayson
... of the French character must come as a revelation to those who have in the past regarded the French as a volatile, frivolous, impulsive people, virile, yet lacking the accredited determination and persistency of the Teuton. This impression has been a great mistake. The faces of the men and women of France alike show no sign of vacillation. The French ...
— A Journey Through France in War Time • Joseph G. Butler, Jr.
... conceived some entertaining characters, and some very unconventional situations. Her people were virile; her hero was strong if not always grammatical; her heroine did and said things not common in real life, and yet that were quite reasonable when her peculiar nature and environment ...
— A Black Adonis • Linn Boyd Porter
... him as a handsome untamed young barbarian, but it was impossible for her to deny a certain amount of regard for any virile man who admired her. The Westerner had not let his eyes rest often upon her, but the subtle instinct of her sex had told her that he was very much taken with her. Since Joyce Seldon was the center and circumference ...
— The Highgrader • William MacLeod Raine
... ports of Asiatic Russia. For, rising on the world-horizon, are these two World-empires, Russia and the United States. The dictators of these two countries will soon become the dictators of the human race. They are brave and virile nations, with untold reserves of power! As these two giants gird themselves for World-dominion, who but God shall gird the armor on, direct the onward course ...
— The Warriors • Lindsay, Anna Robertson Brown
... Beethoven, middle-aged; Mozart, senile. What, instead, is the health of these three composers? Have you a gayer, blither, more youthful scapegrace writing today than Mozart? Is there a man among the moderns more virile, more passionately earnest or noble than Beethoven? Bach, of the three, seems the oldest; yet his C-sharp major Prelude belies his years. On the contrary, the Well-tempered Clavichord grows younger with time. It is the Book of Eternal Wisdom. ...
— Old Fogy - His Musical Opinions and Grotesques • James Huneker
... the type of Englishman that one likes best to associate with the noblest monuments of historic achievement upon a thousand victorious battlefields—a strong, virile man—mentally, morally, and physically. ...
— Tarzan of the Apes • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... opulent, With virile manhood, and emotions keen, And wonderful with God's creative fire. At noon he stands, with Love's large fortune spent In petty traffic, unproductive, mean - A pauper, ...
— The Englishman and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... A virile old friend of mine—who lived in Texas, though he went there from Rhode Island—used to declare with sententious emphasis that war is the state of man. "Sir," he was wont to observe, addressing me as if I were personally accountable, "you ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson
... virile Teutonic spirit does not suffer things to reach this ultimate pass without stubborn resistance, and this is one reason why shyness is often so conspicuous, seeming deliberately to court an avoidable confusion. Over and over again ...
— Apologia Diffidentis • W. Compton Leith
... licked, milled it to a finish with Jimmy Botts, Jean Choyinsky, and the rest of the lads that went out over the world to glory and cash a few years later, a generation of prizefighters that only San Francisco, raw and virile and yeasty and ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London
... Spanish galleon days. We went suddenly back to a savage life. We went down to bathe stark naked, with the sunset glowing orange on our sunburnt limbs. Here it was that Hawk proved himself a wonderfully good swimmer. He was lithe and supple and well-made—an extraordinary specimen of virile manhood—and he spent his fiftieth birthday ...
— At Suvla Bay • John Hargrave
... not understand him, the impetuous disposition, which is one of his strongest characteristics, is apt to throw into shadow the indomitable courage, tireless energy, marvellous perspicuity and quick virile brain-power which are the main features of Winston ...
— 1914 • John French, Viscount of Ypres
... said laconically. He was a young man—I took him to be under thirty—with a sort of agile strength in every movement. Lean, virile, his skin sunburnt and firm. He wore a flannel shirt open at the throat, buckskin chaps, a plainsman's boots, and his sombrero was worn at an angle. He made no attempt to be picturesque as did many of the ...
— Land of the Burnt Thigh • Edith Eudora Kohl
... likely to become the faithful friend. Permanent peace between nations will probably never be ensured, but the only basis on which such a situation can conceivably be established is the basis of sane Nationalism—an understanding between the patriotic and virile elements in every country which, because they value their own liberties and revere their own traditions, are able to respect those of other nations. Internationalism is an understanding between the decadent elements in each country—the conscientious objectors, the drawing-room Socialists, ...
— Secret Societies And Subversive Movements • Nesta H. Webster
... Like Monsieur de Turenne, he had only a slight moustache, and a chin-tuft; his cheeks had a bluish look; but whatever may have been said of him, this good gentleman was by no means disfigured thereby, nor did he inspire any fear on that account. He only looked the more virile, and if it made him look a little fierce, it had not the effect of making the women dislike him. Bernard de Montragoux was a very fine man, tall, broad across the shoulders, moderately stout, and well favoured; albeit of a rustic habit, smacking of the woods rather than of drawing-rooms ...
— The Seven Wives Of Bluebeard - 1920 • Anatole France
... literally; above all, if they are liable to confront us in propria persona between Free Mason's Hall and Duke Street, or between Duke Street and Avenue Road, then the sooner we can arrange our reconciliation with the one Church which has consistently and invariably taught the one full-grown, virile doctrine of devils, and has the bona-fide recipes for knowing, avoiding, and at need of exorcising them, why the better will it be, more especially if we have had previously any leanings towards the conception of an universal order ...
— Devil-Worship in France - or The Question of Lucifer • Arthur Edward Waite
... Dickinson of New York. Mr. Webster peremptorily called for all the papers relating to the negotiation of 1842, and on the sixth and seventh of April (1846), he made the elaborate speech in defence of the Ashburton treaty, which is included in his collected works. It is one of the strongest and most virile speeches he ever delivered. He was profoundly indignant, and he had the completest mastery of his subject. In fact, he was so deeply angered by the charges made against him, that he departed from his almost invariable practice, and indulged ...
— Daniel Webster • Henry Cabot Lodge
... improving the feminine strain of the race also," he told her, but almost as though he spoke to himself, "but I realized that it mattered little the stature of the mothers of the race as long as the fathers were made virile. But if all women were like yourself, Miss Estabrook, the race would not require the improvement it is now my duty to bestow ...
— The Mind Master • Arthur J. Burks
... Roosevelt's career as a soldier. The experience introduced to the public those virile qualities of his with which his friends were familiar. He had not endured the hardships of ranching and hunting in vain. If life on the Plains democratized him, life with the Rough Riders did also; indeed, without the former there would have been no Rough Riders ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer
... dishes, and forks were being thrust into these dishes, and each was eating according to his ability and condition. No matter how poverty-stricken the household, the housewife was serving her poor best to the goodman. For with luncheon so long past, all the really virile men of Philistia were famished, and stood ready to eat the moment, they ...
— Taboo - A Legend Retold from the Dirghic of Saevius Nicanor, with - Prolegomena, Notes, and a Preliminary Memoir • James Branch Cabell
... brightest in the youth of Athens. His relation to his young disciples was that of a lover and a friend; and the stimulus given by his dialectics to their keen and eager minds was supplemented and reinforced by the appeal to their admiration and love of his sweet and virile personality. ...
— The Greek View of Life • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson
... villa is in the best manner of Florentine sculpture. On the mountain side, diminished in scale, is a group of elders, burying the body of S. John. These are massed together and robed in the style of Masaccio, and have his virile dignity of form and action. Indeed this interesting wall-painting furnishes an epitome of Florentine art, in its intentions and achievements, during the first half of the fifteenth century. The colour is strong and brilliant, and ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... Christianity was a religion of wrath and blood, and would point to the Inquisition, and to the religious wars which have at one time or another swept over the civilized world. But by the time the reader's blood was up, he would come across some virile atheist's proclamation of the feeble, mattoid character of the religion in question, as illustrated by its quietist saints, the Quakers, the Tolstoyans, and non-resisters in general. When he had cooled down, he would run into a denunciation ...
— G. K. Chesterton, A Critical Study • Julius West
... scanned his features with the eye of a detective. He was of great stature, seemingly blonde as a Viking, his hair clustering round his head in frowsy curls, and two enormous whiskers, like the tusks of some strange animal, jutting from his cheeks. With these virile appendages and the defiant attitude in which he stood, the expression of his face only imperfectly harmonised. It was wild, heroic, and womanish-looking; and I felt I was prepared to hear he was a sentimentalist, and to ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... terata, by their intense interest to the natural bent of the curious mind, have always elicited much discussion. To many of these cases have been attributed exaggerated function, notwithstanding the fact that modern observation almost invariably shows that the virile power diminishes in exact proportion to the extent of duplication. Taylor quotes a description of a monster, exhibited in London, with two distinct penises, but with only one distinct testicle on either side. He could exercise ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... state of mind for judging him at all. At the same time, though he held in general that a man of sense has always warrant enough in his sense for doing the particular thing he prefers, he could scarcely help asking himself whether, in the exercise of a virile freedom, it had been absolutely indispensable Nick should work such domestic woe. He admitted indeed that that was an anomalous figure for Nick, the worker of domestic woe. Then he saw that his aunt's grievance—there ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... courage, stamina of the race? After a time do we just live, or try to live, on literature warmed over, on pretty coloring and drawing instead of painting that stirs the soul to the heroic facts and tragedies of life? Where did this virile, blood-full, throbbing Russian literature come from; this Russian painting of Verestchagin, that smites us like a sword with the consciousness of the tremendous meaning of existence? Is there a barbaric force left in the world that we have been ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... duty now you know! If one would sing with grace and glow Songs of Society, One must not dream of fire, or length, Or vivid touch, or virile ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, September 10, 1892 • Various
... own way and try to get it; who, in short, are mostly what the author wishes them to appear—'the men out of books that we meet every day.' Of little men, in the physical sense, there are only two of any importance, but even these are virile and masterful. A general aim of the stories would seem to be to show the sexes what each chiefly admires in the other. It is first a sort of apotheosis of the mens sana in corpore sano, and after that an illustration of ...
— Australian Writers • Desmond Byrne
... did not shake, nor did the breath come any quicker from his broad chest. Yet deep down behind the wide brow, behind those same overshadowed eyes, a keen observer would of a surety have detected the signs of a latent volcano of passions, all the more strong and virile as they were kept in perfect control. It was he who presently broke the silence, and his voice was quite steady when he spoke, though perhaps a trifle more toneless, more ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy
... to make up John Adams; but their enumeration does not furnish a complete picture of him, or reveal the virile, choleric, masterful man. And he was far more lovable and far more popular than his equally great son, also a typical Adams, from the same cause which produced some of his worst blunders and misfortunes,—a generous impulsiveness of feeling which made it impossible for him to hold his tongue at ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... Her pose was unconsciously graceful; her tall figure and plain gray dress harmonized with the background of straight trunks and rocks. Her head was slightly tilted back as she breathed the resin-scented air. Jim thought she looked strangely virile ...
— Partners of the Out-Trail • Harold Bindloss
... chasm, filled with wreckage, between us and the fathers of the church. Above all we have enshrined our beliefs in a marvellous liturgy, which is ever old and ever new, and which had the good fortune to be put into English at a day when the force of expression in our Mother tongue was peculiarly virile, yet peculiarly lovely. I know of nothing in the whole range of English literature that will compare with the collects as contained in our Book of Common Prayer, for beauty, for form, for condensation and for force. They are a string of pearls. And indeed, ...
— A Librarian's Open Shelf • Arthur E. Bostwick
... to where the twin rails converged, and for a moment the rhythmic beat of the wheels over the joints held sway. Rather surprised, Phil stole a glance at the virile face that was turned so steadfastly away and recalled an item of gossip he had once overheard somewhere—that Mrs. Waring was the real reason Benjamin Wade was still a bachelor. He wondered if there could be any truth in ...
— Every Man for Himself • Hopkins Moorhouse
... cher petit bebe—our dear little baby was born a week ago. Almost I died, knowing you were far away, and perhaps forgetting the fruit of our perfect love. But the child comforted me. He has the smiling eyes and virile air of his English father. I pray to the Mother of Jesus to send me the dear father of my child, that I may see him with my child in his arms, and that we may be united in holy family love. Ah, my Alfred, can I tell you how I miss you, how I weep for you? ...
— Wintry Peacock - From "The New Decameron", Volume III. • D. H. Lawrence
... he shambled when he walked. Only moderately tall, clothed in ill-cut garments which he wore as uneasily as possible, his immature young figure was not one to call out much admiration on the score of its virility. Indeed, the one really virile thing about Scott Brenton was his hair, which sprang out strongly from his scalp, fine, but thick and just a little wavy where it lay across his crown. His head was well-shaped, only that it was a bit too high above ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... eyes were glowing with new hope beneath the beetling white brows, as he lifted his gaze to the mountain peaks. For the first time, he felt a thrill of jubilation over the young man whom he had rejected, whom now he accepted—jubilation for the fresh, virile, strength of the lad, for the resourcefulness that this message so plainly declared. The old man's lips moved in vague, mute phrases, which were the clumsy expressions of emotions, of gratitude to Providence for the blessing of another's energy, on which to lean in this time of trial. There ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily
... whether so named or designated by the more distinguishing appellation, rabbis, were repeatedly denounced by Jesus, because of the dead literalism of their teachings, and the absence of the spirit of righteousness and virile morality therefrom; and in such denunciations the Pharisees are often coupled with the scribes. The judgment of the Christ upon them is sufficiently expressed by His withering imprecation: "Woe unto ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... a fair and serious experiment, in which he took his part loyally, at founding in France the 'Conservative Republic' of M. Thiers, he thought that outlook for the future completely and hopelessly closed; and as it was neither in the traditions of Netherlandish liberty nor in his own virile and courageous temper to acquiesce in the domination of a political oligarchy ready, like Carrier and the Jacobins of 1792, to 'make France one vast cemetery rather than not regenerate it after their own minds!' M. Cornelis ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... in figure, and every inch of him forceful. She had never seen such a man, one so virile and, at the same time, so wilful and so masterful. Before he was out of her sight, she got an instance ...
— Mavericks • William MacLeod Raine
... of Italian painting will refuse the Caracci that tribute of respect which is due to virile effort. They were in vital sympathy with the critical and analytical spirit of their age—an age mournfully conscious ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... why it is a merit that women should be forced to work, a merit that every one should be forced to work! It is just as good for women as for men that they should have to use body and mind, that they should not be idlers. As she puts it, "Active mothers insure a virile race. The peaceful nation, if its women fall victims to the luxury which rapidly increasing wealth brings, will decay." "Man power must give itself unreservedly at the front. Woman power must show not only eagerness but fitness to substitute ...
— Mobilizing Woman-Power • Harriot Stanton Blatch
... sixty-three years old. In front of him was a flat board, on which lay two freshly rolled cigarettes and several cigarette ends. Now and then he took his flute from his lips, replaced it with a lighted cigarette, smoked for a moment, then swiftly renewed his strange love-song, playing with a virile vigor as well as with airy daintiness and elaborate grace. Of his companions, one played a violin, held upright by the left hand, with its end resting on his stockinged foot; the second a species of large guitar; the third a derbouka; and the fourth a tarah, or native tambourine, ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... heart, these words would seem to have aroused in it a faint stirring of ambition, so much so that, if it was not fortitude which shone in his eyes, at all events it was something virile, and ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... Little Lady, which will discuss "The Highest Type of Man," the editor of The Brain Pan will throw open his columns to all those with views on "The Most Attractive Girl." For the start he has secured the services of "Virile Englishman," who will put aside her knitting to take up the pen in obedience to his commands. The Perfect Little Lady's first letter will be contributed by "Sweet Seventeen," who has studied her subject by diligent attendance at all the best boxing matches ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, July 29, 1914 • Various
... completely as the classic poets. Bentleys will always exist who will assure us with civility that Pope's Homer, though "very pretty," bears little relation to the Greek, and that Dryden's Vergil, though vigorous and virile, is a poor representation of its original. The truth remains that for a reader who knows no ancient languages either of those translations will probably give a better idea of their originals than any other rendering in English that we possess. The foundation of their method has been ...
— English Literature: Modern - Home University Library Of Modern Knowledge • G. H. Mair
... the hill, and entered upon the levels of the great table-land at the head of which Brockhurst House stands. Here was the open, the fresh breeze, the long-drawn, sighing song of the fir forest—a song more austere, more courageous, more virile, than ever sung by the trees of the wood which drop their leaves for fear of the sharp-toothed winter, and only put them forth again beneath the kisses of soft-lipped spring. Covering all the western sky were lines of softly-rounded, broken cloud, rank behind rank, in endless ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... the part for which he had cast himself. He had expected to condescend upon an elderly inept and give him sharp instructions; instead he found himself faced with a jovial, virile figure which certainly did not suggest incompetence. It has been mentioned already that he had always great difficulty in looking any one in the face, and this difficulty was intensified when he found himself confronted with ...
— Huntingtower • John Buchan
... grand and dazzling for his thirty years of intimate triumphs and mundane glories. His adventures followed him like a procession. He had captivated three generations of women, and had left in the heart of all those whom he had loved an imperishable memory. His virile grace, his quiet elegance, and his habit of pleasing had prolonged his youth far beyond the ordinary term of years. He noticed particularly the young Countess Martin. The homage of this expert flattered ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... as a tramp—in his own account of himself he used the word "tramp" with a shocking lack of pride—led him inevitably into the far Northwest. Men were doing things up there. The country fairly seethed with the activity of live, virile men who were taking the first staunch grip upon the tricky wheel of fortune and were turning it to their own account. Every man was building; no man complained of conditions, for conditions were so new and so ready to hand that he who found fault was merely ...
— Mr. Bingle • George Barr McCutcheon
... alive. The famous policy which bears his name held Italy suspended for a golden time in false tranquillity and independence. The princes who shared his culture and his love of art were gradually passing into modern noblemen, abandoning the savage feuds and passions of more virile centuries, yielding to luxury and scholarly enjoyments. The castles were becoming courts, and despotisms won by ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... these areas had deep significance for the native races is shown by the results, both in biology and culture. The presence or absence of useful minerals, plants and animals rendered some congenial, others unfriendly; some areas were the patrons of virile occupations, others of ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... Judging from Wilson's virile virtue-voice, Whose whisper hushed Earth's Hum, were we not proud To have him cross the sea to speak aloud And, with a finger raised, hush battle noise, And lift all lands to Justice's equipoise? Oh, such his truth to God,—so oft avowed,— ...
— Freedom, Truth and Beauty • Edward Doyle
... a few paces from him, glancing with a satisfied smile at the strong form of her lover. They were both silent and busy with their several thoughts. He was peering into the distance, and she followed the movements of his virile, bearded face. ...
— Creatures That Once Were Men • Maxim Gorky
... of virile arrogance invaded the soul of Febrer. He was rejoiced at his own assurance. That bully could easily see that he had come to seek him in the solitude of the mountain, at his own house; he must be convinced that he was ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... however, that there was nothing odd or eccentric about Laurence. What she was and what she did was masked, as it were, by a feminine and even fragile appearance. Her heart was full of extreme sensibility, though her head contained a stoical firmness and the virile gift of resolution. Her clear-seeing eyes knew not how to weep; but no one would have imagined that the delicate white wrist with its tracery of blue veins could defy that of the boldest horseman. Her hand, so noble, ...
— An Historical Mystery • Honore de Balzac
... woman in grace and beauty, as well as in devotion and tenderness, Marie-Anne was capable of a virile bravery. Her energy and her coolness during those trying days had been the admiration and the astonishment ...
— The Honor of the Name • Emile Gaboriau
... relation to that of Fig. 14 as did the clearly outlined projectile of Fig. 10 to the indeterminate cloud of Fig. 8. We could hardly have a more marked contrast than that between the inchoate flaccidity of the nebulosity in Fig. 14 and the virile vigour of the splendid spire of highly developed devotion which leaps into being before us in Fig. 15. This is no uncertain half-formed sentiment; it is the outrush into manifestation of a grand emotion rooted ...
— Thought-Forms • Annie Besant
... trunk of Magog there is a huge cavity into which a child could creep and be perfectly concealed; but Gog is as sound as a bell. Any one who has seen two brothers grow up side by side—the one sturdy, masculine, virile, and full of health; the other, puny, delicate, fragile, and threatened with disease—knows how I feel whenever I pass between these two sentries at the gate. I am full of admiration for the glorious strength of Gog; I am touched to tenderness by the comparative frailty ...
— Mushrooms on the Moor • Frank Boreham
... getting on, and to talk over plans for Christmas. She wore a brown holland habit over the most beautifully moulded form, and, entering the house, tossed aside a shady hat from the most beautiful face that ever delighted eyes of man and virile heart of three-and-twenty. It is in such plain terms that one must describe this noble creature; words in half-tones are unworthy of the theme. Being introduced by Alice Urquhart, Guthrie Carey, in a sense, expanded on the spot into a fresh stage, a larger scope of being, with his unleaping ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... entire annals of British diplomacy there is scarcely a more picturesque or virile figure than that of Lord Stratford de Redcliffe. Capacity for public affairs ran in the blood of the Cannings, as the three statues which to-day stand side by side in Westminster Abbey proudly attest. Those marble memorials represent George Canning, the great Foreign ...
— Lord John Russell • Stuart J. Reid
... Banneker could imagine one of these females straying into Mr. Gaines's editorial ken, and that gentleman's bland greeting as to his own sprightly second maid arrayed and perfumed, unexpectedly encountered at a charity bazar. Too rarefied for Banneker's healthy and virile young tastes, the atmosphere in which The New Era lived and moved and had its consistently successful editorial being! He preferred a freer air to the mild scents of lavender and rose-ash, even though it might blow roughly ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... clever newspaper man and I'll show you a failure. There is nothing in it but the glory—and little of that. We contrive and scheme and run about all day getting a story. And then we write it at fever heat, searching our souls for words that are cleancut and virile. And then we turn it in, and what is it? What have we to show for our day's work? An ephemeral thing, lacking the first breath of life; a thing that is dead before it is born. Why, any cub reporter, if he were to put into some other profession the same ...
— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber
... is not shared, as he intimated, by the majority of South Africans and this includes many Dutchmen. An illuminating analysis of the Nationalist point of view was made for me by Sir Thomas Smartt, the leader of the Unionist Party and a virile force in South African politics. He brought the situation strikingly home ...
— An African Adventure • Isaac F. Marcosson
... sweeping before it all the barriers in its way. The population of Ireland is diminishing in numbers; but the race to which they belong increases steadily: a race of clean life, of unimpaired vital power, unspoiled by wealth or luxury, the most virile ...
— Ireland, Historic and Picturesque • Charles Johnston
... avoid a crushing blow; then his long thin arms twisted about the form of his bulky antagonist as a snake winds about his prey. So close and tenacious, so wonderfully tense was the grip, that Fenwick fairly gasped for breath. He had not expected a virile force like this in one so slender. A bony leg was pressed into the small of his back—he tottered backward and lay upon the mossy turf with Zary with one bony hand at his throat, on the top of him. It was all so sudden and so utterly ...
— The Mystery of the Four Fingers • Fred M. White
... But I noticed the curious mingling of yearning and happiness in his eyes, and the strength of the impression touched my curiosity. Something in his face held my gaze for a second, something to do with its intensity. That so timid, so gentle a personality should conceal so virile a passion ...
— Three More John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... immortals themselves taking a share in mortal contests. On such pretext he will tell a new story, or bring to its last perfection by his manner of telling it, his pregnancy and studied beauty of expression, an old one. The tale of Castor and Polydeukes, the appropriate patrons of virginal yet virile youth, starred and mounted, he tells in ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... was, he stood there like a rock, head up, revolver ready, every muscle tense and ready for whatsoever might befall. And through the girl flashed a thrill of admiration for this virile, indomitable man, coping with every difficulty, facing ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... friend William's prose;) and let us therefore premise that we shall notice the unmentionable trews, femoralia, or periscelemata—as the Greeks would probably have called them, only they wore them not, but like Highland laddies preferred their own hides—of the virile portion of the community only. As for those tantalizing appendages of the better portion of her Majesty's subjects, we leave them in their proper concealment. We could easily write a volume or two to show that the custom came on Ormus, or Ind, or Araby the Blest; but criticism would not be ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various
... apparently finding an average enjoyment equal to her own. She liked them all the better for this, since, to her mind, it proved that that the knightly impulses of the past were unspent,—that, latent in the breasts of those who had seemed mere society fellows, dwelt the old virile forces. ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... and conscience to the undivided care of one who had no other refuge in life save that offered by his devotion? The horror of this self-probing was still upon him as he followed Hazen's slight and virile figure across the rocks, but it fled as he felt the spray of the tossing waters dash its chilling reminder in ...
— The Chief Legatee • Anna Katharine Green
... appropriate than Ariosto, the court poet of Ferrara? But this dreamy reserve, this intensity of suppressed feeling is characteristic of all Giorgione's male portraits, and is nowhere more splendidly expressed than in this lovely figure. Where can the like be found in Palma, or even Titian? Titian is more virile in his conception, less lyrical, less fanciful, Palma infinitely less subtle in characterisation. Both are below the level of Giorgione in refinement; neither ever made of a portrait such a thing of sheer beauty as this. If ...
— Giorgione • Herbert Cook
... mingle their vitality in the New World. So when the Arab culture joined with the Persian, a new civilization rose and flourished.[382] The Arab influence came not from its purity, but from its intermingling with an influence more cultured if less virile. ...
— The Hindu-Arabic Numerals • David Eugene Smith
... flow of words with delight and fear. It was this virile eagerness, this force of personality, which had before charmed her thought into passiveness, and made her senses its subject; but a stronger motive of resistance actuated her now. In her humility she could not deem the instant gain of herself to be an equivalent ...
— A Life's Morning • George Gissing
... the worshipper of the lip of flower, of dust upon the moth wing, of the throat of young girl, or brow of young boy, of the sudden flight of bird, the soft going of light clouds in a windless sky. These were the gentle stimulants to his most virile expression. Nor did his pictures ever contain more; they never struggled beyond the quality of legend, at least as I know them. He knew the loveliness in a profile, he saw always the evanescences of light upon light and purposeless things. The action or ...
— Adventures in the Arts - Informal Chapters on Painters, Vaudeville, and Poets • Marsden Hartley
... flowers—strong, sweet, and enticing, though with a drug-like savour, as if rather an artificial addition than a provision of Nature. During December the perfume hangs heavily about the trees, being specially virile in the cool of evening and morning. Being confined to the tropical coast, away from the centres of population, and flowering at a season when visitors avoid the north, the scented Ixora has so far remained uncommended. Those who are familiar with it in its native scene dwell on its unique excellence, ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... full of the smell of tobacco, of a smoldering coal fire, of old warm leather and damp walls, and of the heavy, virile odor ...
— The Three Sisters • May Sinclair
... clad, drove the foremost machine. The fine modeling of his lean, muscular figure was effectively displayed; his uncovered arms and face were the color of the soil. Seated behind the big horses, he looked wonderfully virile. The man seemed filled with primitive vigor; he was a type that was new ...
— Prescott of Saskatchewan • Harold Bindloss
... Painters" we read: "All her pictures are softly tender and full of fresh light. But the execution is downright and virile. It is only in little touches, in fine and delicate traits of observation which would probably have escaped a man, that these paintings are recognized as the ...
— Women in the fine arts, from the Seventh Century B.C. to the Twentieth Century A.D. • Clara Erskine Clement
... physically weaker; indeed, so much so that she was fain, even in her embarrassment, to assist him back to the bench from which he had ceremoniously risen. But she was so struck with the change in his face and manner, a change so virile and masterful, in spite of its gentle sadness of manner, that she recoiled with a slight timidity as if he had been a stranger, although she was also conscious that he seemed to be more at his ease than she ...
— A Sappho of Green Springs • Bret Harte
... side of the river, but the road ran between. His face was more anxiously earnest than is commonly the face of a French peasant, as though he had suffered more than do ordinarily that very prosperous, very virile, and very self-governing race of men. He had also about him what many men show who have come sharply against the great realities, that is, a sort of diffidence in talking of ordinary things. I could see ...
— On Nothing & Kindred Subjects • Hilaire Belloc
... she had been an actress; not unlikely, for actresses possessed an especial appeal to Austrian royalty. The cruel Hapsburgs rendered dull witted and inefficient by generations of inbreeding, were fascinated by the bright and handsome women of the stage. At any rate, Sophie Chotek belonged to that virile, practical race Bohemians, (also called Czechs) that gave to the world John Huss, who lighted the fires of religious and civil liberty in Central Europe, giving advent later to the ...
— History of the American Negro in the Great World War • W. Allison Sweeney
... They are personally hurt by such surrenders of principle. In the strongest terms they censure the abdication of the Swiss soul at the time when Belgium was being invaded, noting with pain the absence of any national and public protest. But now there is a change of spirit. "We have a young and virile movement, the movement of those who are not satisfied with the mere existence of Switzerland, but who desire that Switzerland should prove herself worthy to exist, by her moral greatness and by helping to bring salvation to other peoples" (Schmidhauser). "The ...
— The Forerunners • Romain Rolland
... and redeem them,—to sacrifice his life, if need be, in the work of enlightenment. They seem to have thought even of women and children as hardly partaking of Reason; their ideally good man was virtuous in a strictly virile way,[801] and it never occurred to them that training in goodness must begin from the earliest years, and be gradually developed with infinite sympathy and tenderness. If a man is to learn that there is something within him which partakes of God, and which should ...
— The Religious Experience of the Roman People - From the Earliest Times to the Age of Augustus • W. Warde Fowler
... many miles away from the Station, post-haste to save her child, and for that she was thankful. All memory of the doctor's bad manners was forgotten when she saw him enter the tent with her husband, a strong virile being, from his keen eyes and locked lips to his brisk tread;—God's own agent to cure her babe; a blessed healer of the sick, to whom the mysteries of the human frame were revealed; ...
— Banked Fires • E. W. (Ethel Winifred) Savi
... creative energy. It would also make marriage and children a great and hopeless burden. Abortion and sex vice both directly and indirectly lessened population, by undermining the power of reproduction, while their effect to destroy all virile virtues could not fail to be exerted.[139] It was another symptom of disease in the mores that the number of males in the Roman empire greatly exceeded the number of females.[140] The Roman system ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... The rank and file know little of the technical organization of industrial life which their written constitution demands. They listen eagerly to the appeal for the 'solidarity' of their class. In the dignifying of vagabondage through their crude but virile song and verse, in the bitter vilification of the jail turnkey and county sheriff, in their condemnation of the church and its formal social work, they find the vindication of their hobo status which they desire. They cannot ...
— An American Idyll - The Life of Carleton H. Parker • Cornelia Stratton Parker
... evil has taken, the ruinous effects on family life and national health, are before us. The old policy must therefore be wrong. Let us try with all our might the reform, however disgusting its first appearance may be. This surely is the virile argument of men who know what they are aiming at. And yet it is based on fundamental psychological misapprehensions. It is a great confusion of causes and effects. The misery has this distressing form not on account of the policy of silence, but in spite of it, or rather it took ...
— Psychology and Social Sanity • Hugo Muensterberg
... very moment we were leaving Belgium, the King recalled to us his trip to the United States and the vivid and strong impression your powerful and virile civilization left upon his mind. Our faith in your fairness, our confidence in your justice, in your spirit of generosity and sympathy, all these have dictated our ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller
... another repulsive. For instance take a passage in history. Treated by one historian it is like a desiccated mummy, dry, dull, disgusting, while under the spell of another it is, as it were, galvanized into a virile living thing which not only pleases but captivates ...
— How to Speak and Write Correctly • Joseph Devlin
... general health fairly, though strange fits of depression had consumed him of late, and the old strong spring and resilience seemed going, if not gone, from his mind and body. He was not that powerful virile animal of the day when he caught Al'mah in his arms and carried her off the stage at Covent Garden. He was vaguely conscious of the great change in him, and Barry Whalen, who, with all his faults, would have gone to the gallows for him, was ever vividly conscious of it, and helplessly resented ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... which, circling in the deeper sky, had seen him when he moved; he, too, had seen the hawk. All about him was a lustily masculine phase of the world, giant trees dominating giant slopes, rugged boulders upheaved, iron cliffs defying time and battling the years; he, like them, was virile, his sex clothing him magnificently. He had not shaved for three days and yet, instead of looking untidy, was but clothed in the greater vitality. While his eyes sped swiftly hither and thither, now busied with wide ...
— The Everlasting Whisper • Jackson Gregory
... charm in his manner. Nature had endowed him liberally with virile fascination. My hard uncongenial life had rendered me weak. He was drawing me to him; he was irresistible. Yes; I would be his wife. I grew dizzy, and turned my head sharply backwards and took a long gasping breath, another ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... that he is simply a backward eddy in the tide, and significant only as a temporary reaction against ultra civilization—like Thoreau, though in a different way. But with all his mistakes in art there is a healthy, virile, tumultuous pulse of life in his lyric utterance and a great sweep of imagination in his panoramic view of times and countries. One likes to read him because he feels so good, enjoys so fully the ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... contains some of the best American figure paintings in the building. The finest group is that by Cecilia Beaux on wall D, which well displays that remarkable artist's brilliant technique and "flair." It is notable how many of the really virile paintings here are by women -many of them of the younger groups. From Marion Pooke's polished but free "Silhouettes," and Alice Kent Stoddard's appealing "Sisters," to M. Jean McLane's joyously brilliant canvases ...
— An Art-Lovers guide to the Exposition • Shelden Cheney
... decay before his manhood was well begun. Where was the old buoyant spirit he had brought with him into the fight? Gone forever, and in its place he found his maimed and trembling hands, and limbs weakened by starvation as by long fever. His virile youth was wasted in the slow struggle, his energy was sapped drop by drop; and at the last he saw himself burned out like the battle-fields, where the armies had closed and opened, leaving an impoverished ...
— The Battle Ground • Ellen Glasgow
... weaknesses and dangers of early life he had been shielded with loving vigilance. His mind and taste had been fostered with untiring care, and yet every new development praised as unstintedly as if all were of native growth. Fortunately he abounded in virile force and good sense, and so gradually passed from self-complacency and conceit to the self-reliance and courage of a strong man, who, while aware of his ability and vantage-ground, also recognizes the fact that nothing can ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... default because it is growing richer. Many a shot has rung out in the silent night, many a constable has hurled himself through a crashing door, from under which there crawled a crimson stain, in order that there might be a page somewhere for Mr. Kenrick's virile and logical exposition of the principles of Distributism. Many an imperial jewel has vanished from its golden setting, many a detective crawled about on the carpet for clues, before some of those little printers' bills could be settled which enabled the ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... "smart" atmosphere, the suspension points and the seasonal epidemics of such words as "gripping," "virile," "intrigue," "gesture," etc. ...
— More Toasts • Marion Dix Mosher |
