"Duchess" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... them after the manner of sovereigns, enriching their city with art, and beautifying it in many ways, besides doing works of private charity and beneficence. Her daughter by a second marriage, the Countess Sanvitali, still lives in Parma; and in one of the halls of the Academy of Fine Arts the Duchess herself survives in the marble of Canova. It was she who caused the two great pictures of Correggio, the St. Jerome and the Madonna della Scodella, to be placed alone in separate apartments hung with silk, in which the painter's initial A is endlessly interwoven. "The Night," ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells
... sending out sovereign messages from Linz: Letters to Vienna;—one letter addressed "To the Arch-duchess Maria Theresa;" which came back unopened, "No such person known here." October 2d, he is getting homaged at Linz, by the STANDE of the Province,—on summons sent some time before,—many of whom attend, with ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... B. Cooke stood high in his estimation, particularly in his View of Edinburgh from Calton Hill, and Brightling Observatory in Rose Hill—Le Keux, in his Monument, also partook of his encomiums—T. Woolroth's Portraits, particularly that of the Duchess of Kent, claimed attention, and was deservedly admired, as well as a smaller one of Mr. Shalis by the same artist; indeed, the whole appeared to be selected, combined and arranged under the direction of a master, and calculated at once ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... before. They had experienced persecutions through their whole history, and especially after the Reformation; but, on the whole, the two last Dukes of Savoy, and also Christine, daughter of Henry IV. of France, and Duchess-Regent through the minority of her son, the present Duke, had protected them in their privileges, even while extirpating Protestantism in the rest of the Piedmontese dominions. Latterly, however, there had been a passion at Turin and ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... private life have often as bad an influence as miscarriages in which the public is more immediately concerned. Another incident happened this year, which infused a general displeasure, and still greater apprehensions, into all men. The duchess of York died; and in her last sickness, she made open profession of the Romish religion, and finished her life in that communion. This put an end to that thin disguise which the duke had hitherto worn and ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part F. - From Charles II. to James II. • David Hume
... been such as might cause a pang to any generous European heart.... At the present moment the greatest duchess or marchioness in the land is still her husband's drudge. She fetches and carries for him, bows down humbly in the hall when my lord sallies forth on his walks abroad, waits upon him at meals, may be divorced ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... follow them closely, though at the expense of much quaintness and occasional uncouthness of expression. They tell us how Duke William's own ship was the first of the Norman fleet. "It was called the Mora, and was the gift of his duchess, Matilda. On the head of the ship in the front, which mariners call the prow, there was a brazen child bearing an arrow with a bended bow. His face was turned towards England, and thither he looked, as though he was ...
— The Fifteen Decisive Battles of The World From Marathon to Waterloo • Sir Edward Creasy, M.A.
... to hear. But I've not met one of the rarest of women without recognising her, without making my reflexion that, charm for charm, such a maniere d'etre is more 'fetching' even than the worst of Theresa's songs sung by a dissipated duchess. Wit for wit, I think mine carries me further." It was easy indeed to perceive that, as became a grand seigneur, M. de Mauves had a stock of social principles. He wouldn't especially have desired perhaps that his wife should compete in amateur operettas with the duchesses ...
— Madame de Mauves • Henry James
... a young rake in Paris, tonsured for the sake of the family benefices, who had for mistress no less a lady than the Duchess de Rohan-Montbazon. One day, returning from the country after a week's absence and letting himself into the house by a private key, he rushed upstairs in a lover's haste, burst open the door, and found himself in a chamber hung with black and lit with many candles. His mistress ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... How often had he declared to himself and others that that should be his motto through life. And might not he be as much a man, and would not his metal be as pure, with Polly Neefit for his wife as though he were to marry a duchess? As for love, he thought he could love Polly dearly. He knew that he had done some wrong in regard to poor Clary; but he by no means knew how much wrong he had done. A single word of love,—which had been so very much to her in her ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... Strand—are even more appreciated by our Gallic neighbours than by ourselves. We have been in society where the attention and admiration of a gallant French gentleman was ludicrously divided between the attractions of a lady's face and her satin-stone necklace. Some years since, the Duchess de Berri, it is said, purchased various ornaments of this description and material, to a considerable amount, which she wore, either upon, or immediately subsequent to, her marriage. On the fatal night of the Duke de Berri's assassination, the Duchess happened (so goes ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, No. 577 - Volume 20, Number 577, Saturday, November 24, 1832 • Various
... like the mythical duchess in England who could not believe that the poor were starving when sponge-cakes were ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton
... friendship, in meekly dextrous omnificence, in latent tutorship; the lovingly availablest of valets,—the mentally and personally bonniest of bonnes. But in no capacity shy of you! Though you be the Duke or Duchess of Montaltissimo, you will not find them abashed at your altitude. They will speak 'up' to you, ...
— Our Fathers Have Told Us - Part I. The Bible of Amiens • John Ruskin
... were a Russian princess, an English countess, and a Bavarian duchess—all well dressed, upon the whole. But their dresses showed off their dresses; the Klosking's showed off herself. And there was a native dignity, and, above all, a wonderful seemliness, about the Klosking that inspired respect. Dress and deportment ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... The late Miss Mitford, whose writings breathe so freshly of the nature that she loved so dearly, realized for herself a similar desire. It is said that she had the cottage of a peasant with the garden of a Duchess. Cowley is not contented with expressing in plain prose his appreciation of garden enjoyments. He repeatedly alludes to ...
— Flowers and Flower-Gardens • David Lester Richardson
... (1722-1771).—Poet, s. of the steward to Lord Vane, was b. at Shipbourne, Kent, and by the bounty of the Duchess of Cleveland sent to Camb. Here his ill-balanced mind showed itself in wild folly. Leaving the Univ. he came to London and maintained himself by conducting and writing for periodicals. His Poems on Several Occasions, which contained "The Hop Garden," was issued in 1752, and The Hilliad ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin
... Vicomtesse de Gontaut-Biron had been his governess, and she now resigned her charge into the hands of the Baron de Damas, who had lately been Minister of Foreign Affairs. Madame de Gontaut was raised to the rank of Duchess on the occasion. The boy himself is said to have passed from the hands of the one party to those of the other, in presence of the whole court, absolutely naked. Some such absurdity was observed at the ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper
... known. We know that his parents were opposed to his marrying her. Perhaps, too, she may not have been as much in love as he was. But, for whatever reason, they parted. Then he fell in love with beautiful Katherine Lowther, a sister to the Earl of Lonsdale and afterwards Duchess of Bolton. ...
— The Winning of Canada: A Chronicle of Wolf • William Wood
... consists of fifteen minutes of plain, practical instruction, unembellished by rhetoric, to the congregation. The church, it is true, is four miles distant, but Gabrielle's aristocratic ponies, Lady Alice and The Duchess, fairly fly over the ground—up or down hill, it is immaterial to them—and consequently, I find myself, when my religious duties are over, with many idle ...
— The Story of a Summer - Or, Journal Leaves from Chappaqua • Cecilia Cleveland
... more destructive to the energies of action than intemperance as to drink. Women everywhere alike are temperate as to eating; and the only females memorable for ill-health from luxurious eating have been Frenchwomen or Belgians—witness the Duchess of Portsmouth, and many others of the two last centuries whom we could name. But men everywhere commit excesses in this respect, if they have it in their power. With the Roman nobles it was almost a necessity ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. II (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... Maiyo met that morning for the first time in several days. They were both guests of the Duchess of Devenham at a large luncheon party at the Savoy Restaurant. Penelope felt a little shiver when she saw him coming down the stairs. Somehow or other, she had dreaded this meeting, yet when it came, she knew that it was a relief. ...
— The Illustrious Prince • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... temper, they find utterance in a noble amiability and ease of manner; if both are coarse in the grain, they blend in a naive freedom always sure of itself, the freedom of Sancho spreading himself in the duchess's boudoir. Between these two extremes there intervene a hundred compromises by which minds and bodies less equally yoked contrive to muffle the discordant notes ...
— Apologia Diffidentis • W. Compton Leith
... a smile which the inward thought has stayed. It was like one of the Titian women—like a Titian that hangs on the wall of the Gallery at Munich. The head and neck, the whole personality, had an air of distinction and destiny. The drawing had been done by a wandering duchess who had seen the girl sketching in the foothills when on a visit to that "Wild West" which has such power to refine and inspire minds not superior to Nature. Its replica was carried to a castle in Scotland. It had been the ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker
... Davies Street; but there is no record of their being acquainted, though the house, which Byron occupied (13, Piccadilly Terrace) during his brief married life, was in the occupation of Lord Yarmouth before Byron took it from the Duchess of Devonshire.] ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... friend Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe would write a great novel in favor of Slavery, we would make her a Duchess; and if Mr. Kirke, instead of such stories as Among the Pines, would give us the Bible view of Slavery, and reconcile whipping and branding slaves to the doctrine 'do unto others,' &e., he should be made an Earl. ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... and increase their natural hatred and suspicion of the Spaniards. The people were forced to house Spanish soldiers whose insolence drove them nearly to desperation. A half-sister of the king, the duchess of Parma, who did not even know their language, was given to them as their regent. Philip put his trust in a group of upstarts rather than in the nobility of the provinces, who naturally felt that they should be given some part in the direction ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
... much gold and silver plate. . . . The next morning Mr. Bancroft breakfasted with Dr. Holland to meet the Marquis of Lansdowne alone. [Thursday] he went down to Windsor to dine with the Queen. He took out to dinner the Queen's mother, the Duchess of Kent, the Queen going with the Prince of Saxe-Weimar, who was paying a visit at the Castle. He talked German to the Duchess during dinner, which I suspect she liked, for the Queen spoke of it to him afterwards, ...
— Letters from England 1846-1849 • Elizabeth Davis Bancroft (Mrs. George Bancroft)
... This lady's granddaughters, her son's daughters—the duchess of Somerset, Queen of Beauty in the celebrated Eglinton Tournament; the countess Gifford, mother, by her first husband, of Lord Dufferin, viceroy of Canada; and the Honorable Mrs. Norton, the well-known authoress—were famous ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 28. July, 1873. • Various
... "Dramatic Tales." This work proved unsuccessful. In 1813 he had dedicated his "Forest Minstrel" to the Countess of Dalkeith; and this amiable and excellent woman, afterwards better known as Harriet, Duchess of Buccleuch, had acknowledged the compliment by a gift of a hundred guineas, and several other donations. The Shepherd was, however, desirous of procuring the means of comfortable self-support, independently of his literary exertions; ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... the beloved head, Youth, Middle Age and Old Age all bearin' their different garlands and seemin' to feel real bad, even the mighty angel who guarded the open door of the tomb had his head bowed in sorrow. Way up above wuz the face of the beautiful Arch Duchess carved in marble, with angels and cherubs surroundin' her. Josiah said if he wuz able he would love to rare such a one up for Tirzah Ann. Sez he, "She could enjoy it durin' her life and if she should pass away before us it would come handy." He ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley
... barefooted when I go to see you. I am quite of your opinion that your feet are only too delicious. The costume rather disgusted me than otherwise, without, however, producing any effect upon me. To-morrow I shall pay the Duchess de Grano a visit, and since it seems to put you out, shall not return again ...
— The Romance of Lust - A classic Victorian erotic novel • Anonymous
... how confounded the boy was by this momentary displeasure, explained to him who the other persons he had seen were—Jaqueline, the runaway Countess of Hainault in her own right, and Duchess of Brabant by marriage; Humfrey, duke of Gloucester, the King's young, brilliant brother; the grave, melancholy Duke of Orleans, who had been taken captive at Agincourt, and was at present quartered at Pontefract; the handsome, ...
— The Caged Lion • Charlotte M. Yonge
... beast!—Duchess a beast? Why she is a perfect beauty!—Beauty and the beast! Ha, ha, ha! I gave two guineas for her last night." (I thought of the old adage.) "Mrs. Moodie, your sister is no ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... of the courts of Charles the First and of Charles the Second are indistinguishable; that the court poets, and probably the actors also, of the early part of Charles the Second's reign had many of them belonged to the court of Charles the First, as did Davenant, the Duke and Duchess of Newcastle, Fanshaw, and Shirley himself; that the common notion of a 'new manner' having been introduced from France after the Restoration, or indeed having come in at all, is not founded on fact, the only ...
— Plays and Puritans - from "Plays and Puritans and Other Historical Essays" • Charles Kingsley
... better pleased. We like very much what we have seen of it. The town is small and not superfluously clean, but, of course, the respectable houses are not a part of the town. Ours is one which the Grand Duchess Helena had, not at all grand, but extremely comfortable and cheerful, with a splendid sea view in front, and pleasant green, hills and trees behind. The drawing-room's four windows all look to the sea, and I am never tired of looking out of them. I was doing so, with ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... was a good deal astonished when the first applicant presented herself. She was a tall, genteel-looking, well-dressed girl. Up to yesterday she had been head housemaid at Lady Stanton's, and before that she had been under-cook for two years to the Duchess ...
— The Idler, Volume III., Issue XIII., February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly. Edited By Jerome K. Jerome & Robert Barr • Various
... see her." Nick showed on this easy amusement, reminding her she had talked to him while she sat for her portrait in quite the opposite sense, most helpfully and inspiringly; and Nash explained that she was studying the part of a political duchess and wished to take observations for it, to work herself into the character. The girl might in fact have been a political duchess as she sat, her head erect and her gloved hands folded, smiling with aristocratic dimness at Nick. She shook her head with stately sadness; she might have been trying ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... Browning's earlier poems, there is one to my mind almost peerless for sweet sonority of verse-music, and simplicity of strength. If it chance that any reader of mine has not admired "The Rhyme of the Duchess May," this page, at least, has not been written in vain. My saddle-bags held no volume other than a note-book, but that ballad in manuscript was nearly the last gift bestowed on me in Baltimore. Never was mortal ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... agent in advance was completely nonplussed. The spectre of the great Douglas Trial loomed large in the eyes of the pamphleteer and the hero of the riot. He had reason, he says, to fear hostile reprisals on the part of the Duchess, who had been Duchess of Hamilton and mother of the rival claimant, before she had become the wife of John, fifth Duke of Argyll. It is from this scene and from the Stratford Jubilee fiasco that the general reader draws ...
— James Boswell - Famous Scots Series • William Keith Leask
... with a quite authentic ghost: which was that of a fair maiden who had been decoyed thither to become the victim of royal passion, and who, strangely enough, poisoned herself in her despair, instead of getting herself made a duchess and founding the honours of a noble ...
— The Mummy and Miss Nitocris - A Phantasy of the Fourth Dimension • George Griffith
... cabin-boy on board an Indiaman, till now, when I'm fifty year old, pretty nigh, them women have always been my ruin. Why, it was one of 'em, and with such black eyes and jewels on her neck, and sattens and ermine like a duchess, I tell you—it was one of 'em at Paris that swept off the best part of the thousand pound as I went off. Didn't I ever tell you of it? Well, I don't mind. At first I was very cautious, and having such a lot of money kep ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... going to be a sea-captain, and so is Jim Beck, and poor dear Becky can sing like a bird when she feels good-natured. Why, papa, dear, I do believe that there is one person in Tideshead of every kind in the world. And Aunt Barbara is a duchess!" ...
— Betty Leicester - A Story For Girls • Sarah Orne Jewett
... "like the Belgians do with regrettable occurrences in the Congo. But I would go further than that. I would stimulate the waning enthusiasm for Christianity in this country by labelling it as the exclusive possession of a privileged few. If one could induce the Duchess of Pelm, for instance, to assert that the Kingdom of Heaven, as far as the British Isles are concerned, is strictly limited to herself, two of the under-gardeners at Pelmby, and, possibly, but not certainly, ...
— The Unbearable Bassington • Saki
... DUCHESS. True, Master Doctor; and, since I find you so kind, I will make known unto you what my heart desires to have; and, were it now summer, as it is January, a dead time of the winter, I would request no better meat than a dish ...
— Dr. Faustus • Christopher Marlowe
... Louise-Margaret of Prussia, the daughter of Prince Frederick-Charles of Prussia and Princess Marie-Anne of Anhalt. He has three children; Margaret, the oldest, is the Crown Princess of Sweden; Prince Arthur is married to his cousin, Princess Alexandra, Duchess of Fife, and Princess Victoria-Patricia, ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller
... to Messer Leonardo. "I spent six months at the court in Milan," said the fair man. "I painted the Duke and the Duchess and two great courtiers. Messer Leonardo was away. He returned, and I visited him and found a master. Since that time I study light and shadow and small things and seek ...
— 1492 • Mary Johnston
... kings, and not for her merits as a temporary administratrix of a power which she might not, and in fact did not, herself ever exercise. She was adopted for one reason, and for one only,—because, says the act, "the most excellent Princess Sophia, Electress and Duchess Dowager of Hanover, is daughter of the most excellent Princess Elizabeth, late Queen of Bohemia, daughter of our late sovereign lord King James the First, of happy memory, and is hereby declared to be the next in succession in the Protestant line," &c., &c.; "and the ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... have had the courage to allow her to remain plain. On Page 237 she puts on a black lace dress and red roses, and the combination brings out unexpected tawny lights in her hair, and olive tints in her cheeks, and there she is, the same old beautiful heroine. Even in the "Duchess " books one finds the simple Irish girl, on donning a green corduroy gown cut square at the neck, transformed into a wild-rose beauty, at sight of whom a ball-room is hushed into admiring awe. There's the case of Jane Eyre, too. She is constantly ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... not know,' answered Summertrees. 'I am not like to be tempted with another opportunity—[An old gentleman of the author's name was engaged in the affair of 1715, and with some difficulty was saved from the gallows by the intercession of the Duchess of Buccleugh and Monmouth. Her Grace, who maintained a good deal of authority over her clan, sent for the object of her intercession, and warning him of the risk which he had run, and the trouble she had taken on his account, wound up her lecture by intimating that ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... a Continental duchess aboard, whom I pitied. She was oldish and homely, and couldn't forget her rank. She had a woman companion, an honorable lady, a maid, and a courier, but she sat all day knitting or reading poor novels. She had nothing to do with the other passengers, eating with her companion at an ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... "Good evening, Duchess; so good of you to look in. Ah, Earl, charmed to meet you; you'll find some sandwiches in the billiard-room. Beltravers, show the Earl some sandwiches. How-do-you-do, Professor? Delighted you could come. Won't you ...
— Once a Week • Alan Alexander Milne
... if they are people of rank or condition, have occasioned much talk in the world; and therefore, ridiculous as this incident is, yet as we have long known one of the Ladies, and often admired both, I could not let either one or the other pass me unnoticed, on a road too, where even an English Duchess (if she would own the truth) would feel a secret delight in ...
— A Year's Journey through France and Part of Spain, Volume II (of 2) • Philip Thicknesse
... languages will readily and with justice give our English wit the preference; and Sir Charles is not to learn to copy Nature from the French." This comedy, which was played by his Majesty's servants at the Theatre Royal, 1688, is dedicated to the Duchess of Richmond and Lennox, a lady who has "'scap'd (prefaces) very well hitherto," but, says Sir Charles, "Madam, your time is come, and you must bear it patiently. All the favour I can show you is that of a good executioner, ...
— The School for Husbands • Moliere
... the Earl to find that the mother of his heir had a beautiful young face and looked as much like a lady as if she had been a duchess; and in one way it did not displease him to know that she was popular and beloved by the poor. And yet he was often conscious of a hard, jealous pang when he saw how she filled her child's heart and how the boy clung to her as his best beloved. The old man would have desired to stand ...
— Little Lord Fauntleroy • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... game of bluff," said Terwilliger. "I suppose, though, if you were the shade of a duchess, you could simply ...
— The Water Ghost and Others • John Kendrick Bangs
... No doubt she was looking like an Arcadian; but I—as from under the trees I saw two gentlemen on the other side of the little stream, and jumped up to come to her defence—I must have looked more like a displeased if not draggle-tailed duchess, for there was an immediate disconcerted begging of our pardons, and a ...
— Lady Hester, or Ursula's Narrative • Charlotte M. Yonge
... letters to Miss Seward: that of the Lord Seaford, in entrusting me with those addressed to his late cousin, George Ellis, Esq.: and the kind readiness with which whatever papers in their possession could be serviceable to my undertaking were supplied by the Duke and Duchess of Buccleuch, and the Lord Montagu;—the Duchess-Countess of Sutherland, and the Lord Francis Egerton;—the Lord Viscount Sidmouth,—the Lord Bishop of Llandaff,—the Right Hon. Sir Robert Peel, Bart.,—the Lady Louisa Stuart,—the Hon. Mrs. ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... I first of all examined the exterior of the wall at my leisure. After that, leaving my hat at a wine shop round the corner, I called at the Marchioness d'Arlange's house, pretending to be the servant of a neighbouring duchess, who was in despair at having lost a favourite, and, if I may so speak, an eloquent parrot. I was very kindly given permission to explore the garden; and, as I spoke as disrespectfully as possible of my pretended mistress they, no doubt, took ...
— The Widow Lerouge - The Lerouge Case • Emile Gaboriau
... in great waters, the next instant might engulf her. "It's so curiously unlike you," she faltered. "If she had been a duchess—a very exquisite person, or somebody very ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)
... table, here the old-fashioned writing-desk, here the armoire with practicable doors, here the window. Soh! Who is on? Ah, the young lady of the sick nose, 'Marion.' She is discovered—knitting. And then the duchess—later. That's you Mademoiselle Dearborn. You interrupt—you remember. But then you, ah, you always are right. If they were all like you. Very ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris
... seen Esterhazy, who has asked me to his country place, about three hours' drive from Vienna.... Besides the people I have named, I have seen others, to whom I get access through Count Senfft, among whom is the Dowager Duchess of Anhalt-Coethen, a natural sister of the King of Prussia, ...
— Memoirs of James Robert Hope-Scott, Volume 2 • Robert Ornsby
... exclaimed: 'Poor man! why do you act so? I am sure that nobody could have compelled you to it against your will.' 'Eh! monsieur, qui est-ce qui vous y obligeait?' The jest is 'old as the hills'—it was old before Dumas was born. So, too, with the amusing bit of naivete attributed to an English duchess, who, to express her deeply-seated religious prejudices, declared that she would sooner have a dozen Protestant husbands than one Catholic. The same point is expressed as follows, in a very witty but extremely wicked collection of ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3 No 2, February 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... bleaching of the London fogs, by the improved methods of consuming smoke, must be a very fine thing for the dwellers in that overgrown city. We hear, however, of one old lady, a duchess, who thinks the fog now to be very vulgarly pale; and regrets the good old days of what she thought ...
— 1931: A Glance at the Twentieth Century • Henry Hartshorne
... easy-acting bell-pulls; gigantic candelabrums; porcelain vases of classic shape; neat waiters in white aprons; luxurious lounges; and, to crown them all with the very height of your pride,—the elegant Laura, the mistress, and the guardian of your soul, moving amid the scene like a new Duchess of Valliere! ...
— Dream Life - A Fable Of The Seasons • Donald G. Mitchell
... natures which resent rules and laws on principle as attempts to interfere with the rights of the citizen. As the Duchess in the play said of her son, who had had unpleasantness with the authorities at Eton because they had been trying to teach him things, "Silwood is a sweet boy, but he will not stand the bearing-rein". Dunstable was also a sweet boy, but he, too, objected ...
— The White Feather • P. G. Wodehouse
... one's really gone to pieces, Duchess. It was a flimsy sort of thing, anyway. And the Persian one she's only had on twice. When we were talking about it Monday she said she'd ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris
... character as it was, and delicately sound its stops, suited one so curious in observation, curious in invention. So he painted the portraits of Ludovico's mistresses, Lucretia Crivelli and Cecilia Galerani the poetess, of Ludovico himself, and the Duchess Beatrice. The portrait of Cecilia Galerani is lost, but that of Lucretia Crivelli has been identified with La Belle Ferronniere of the Louvre, and Ludovico's pale, anxious face still remains in the Ambrosian. Opposite is ...
— Great Pictures, As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Esther Singleton
... always know two things,—what he is, and where he is. Mr. Russell seems habitually to have forgotten both. Even Montaigne, the most garrulous of writers, becomes discreet in speaking of other people. If we learn from him that the Duke of Florence mixed a great deal of water with his wine and the Duchess hardly any at all. we learn it, without any connivance of his, from his diary, and that a hundred and fifty ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 65, March, 1863 • Various
... by his quatre-foiled tomb, And a Duke and his Duchess near; And one Sir Edmund in columned gloom, And a Saxon king by the presbytery chamber; And shapes unknown in ...
— Moments of Vision • Thomas Hardy
... offices of public trust. But in the changes of parties at Court he soon found a reason for marking his separation from the opposite extreme, and facing the other way. Under the influence of the moderate Tories, Marlborough, Godolphin, and their invaluable ally, the Duchess, the Queen was gradually losing faith in the violent Tories. According to Swift, she began to dislike her bosom friend, Mrs. Freeman, from the moment of her accession, but though she may have chafed under the yoke of her favourite, she could not at once shake ...
— Daniel Defoe • William Minto
... back. At last, one fine day, H.M. frigate Aurora anchored in the bay, and Jack and Gascoigne, who were at a party at the Duke of Pentaro's, met with the captain of the Aurora, who was also invited. The duchess introduced them to Captain Tartar, who, imagining them, from their being in plain clothes, to be young Englishmen of fortune on their travels, was very gracious and condescending. Jack was so pleased with his urbanity that he requested ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Captain Frederick Marryat
... your aunt. And if they did know, there's nobody, I should hope, could object. I don't know why anyone should be ashamed of me. They can lay my whole life bare, I have nothing to blush for. And there's many a Duchess can't say as much. As for forsaking the lad for fear of doing him a hurt, well, the notion is just what I expected of you, Servien; you've always been a bit simple-minded. I mean to stay all my life with Jean. No, little lad, you'll never drive your old aunt ...
— The Aspirations of Jean Servien • Anatole France
... at Sadler's Wells, Bath, and Cheltenham, but water? the Brighton people, too, not content with the sea, have even found it necessary to superadd to their fashionable follies, artificial mineral waters, with whose fount the grossest duchess may in a few days recover from the repletion of a whole season; and the minister, after the jading of a session, soon resume his wonted complacency and good humour.[2] Our aquatic taste is even carried into all our public amusements; ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 332, September 20, 1828 • Various
... the reigning Grand Duchess of Tuscany, who sat to him for it. The bust is that of a noble-looking lady; and Powers remarked that royal personages have a certain look that distinguishes them from other people, and is seen in individuals of no lower rank. They all have it; the Queen of England and Prince Albert have it; and ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... 24. p. 383).—"The Duchess of Bolton (natural daughter of the Duke of Monmouth) used to divert George I. by affecting to make blunders. Once when she had been at the play of Love's last Shift, she called it 'La ...
— Notes & Queries No. 29, Saturday, May 18, 1850 • Various
... expenses of the burial, and settled upon the widow an income sufficient to enable her to live in comfort and respectability. With the full consent of the unloving mother, who was but too willing to be relieved of her incumbrance, the young Duchess of Hereward adopted little Marie Perdue; "perdue" no longer, but the cherished pet of a ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth
... loin were the materials that invariably formed his diet. The cook, who had an audience with him daily, received her instructions in silent awe, quite overpowered by his manner, for had he been addressing a duchess he could scarcely have spoken with more deference. He would couch his request in such terms as these: 'Owing to dyspepsia affecting my system, and the possibility of any additional disarrangement of ...
— The Opium Habit • Horace B. Day
... Mayor, insisting that the poor Fleming was son to the Duke of Clarence, demanded that the Lord Deputy should declare him King. Failing in this a number of Cork merchants sent him to France, where they duped the King, and induced the Duchess of Burgundy to give them armament and money. They then sailed for Kent, and having landed there, proclaimed their foundling "Richard the Fourth, King of England and Lord of Ireland." But the sequel of all this bravura behaviour was not so happy, as ...
— The Sunny Side of Ireland - How to see it by the Great Southern and Western Railway • John O'Mahony and R. Lloyd Praeger
... Some that I have named are scarcely worth the space, and will soon be forgotten. In my next revision, I expect to drop not a few of them. It should be our constant aim to shorten our catalogues of fruits rather than lengthen them, to the bewilderment and loss of all save the plant grower. The Duchess, for instance, is a first-class early berry. All others having the same general characteristics and adapted to the same soils, but which are inferior to it, should be discarded. What is the use of raising second, third, and fourth rate berries ...
— Success With Small Fruits • E. P. Roe
... presiding genius. I gave her, in my inmost heart, all the reverence and the filial affection of a son; but it was the implied understanding between my love and my vanity, that in joining herself to me as a mother, she was to bestow upon me a duchess at least; though I should not have thought myself over-well used had it been a princess. And here were all these glorious anticipations merged, sunk, destroyed, in the person of a boarding-school mistress of about twenty boys, ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... feasted and invited to all the court parties. At these he sometimes met the old Duchess of Bourbon, who, being a chess player of about his force, they very generally played together. Happening once to put her king into prize, the Doctor took it. 'Ah,' says she, 'we do not take kings so.' 'We do in America,' said ...
— Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin
... duke, glancing over a little roll which he held; "Lady Castlemaine's, for poisoning the Duchess of Sutherland." ...
— The Midnight Queen • May Agnes Fleming
... an explanation which I seek, than one which I have to give," rejoined Manuel, in a cold but resolute manner. "In a word, my business with thee is touching the diamonds of the Duchess ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... the regiment was at Paris, there was, on the night of the 14th of June, 1837, during the illuminations at the wedding festival of the Duke and Duchess of Orleans, one of those frightful crushes that sometimes occur in an ill-regulated crowd, when there is some obstruction in the way, and there is nothing but a horrible blind struggling and trampling, violent and fatal because of its very helplessness and ...
— A Book of Golden Deeds • Charlotte M. Yonge
... I have other Company too—Don Quixote—the 4th Part: where those Snobs, the Duke and Duchess—(how vulgar Great Folks then, as now!) make a Fool and Butt of him. Cervantes should have had more respect for his own Creation: but, I suppose, finding that all the Great Snobs could only laugh at the earlier part, he thought he had better humour them. This ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald in Two Volumes - Vol. II • Edward FitzGerald
... his neighbours, who occupied the corresponding suite just across the passageway; but his man James, who had been formally introduced to their servants, insisted upon telling him all about them. They were, James said, the Duchess of Windthorst and her daughter, the Princess Wilhelmina, who were returning from Canada, where they had been visiting the Duke of Connaught ...
— L. P. M. - The End of the Great War • J. Stewart Barney
... at the library and reading-room at noon, when the papers came in; at the theatre, or at private parties, in the evening; Mr. Fox and Mrs. Armstead were always to be seen together. The Duke of Bedford was then recently married to his present Duchess. Mr. Fox and his lady were frequently of the Duke's party; in fact, they were as one family. Cheltenham was then very full of gay company; amongst whom a great deal of dissipation and intrigue were going on. It ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 2 • Henry Hunt
... gardens are intersected by little canals, upon which several persons were amusing themselves with the diversion of canoe racing. The whole was illuminated by large patent reflecting lamps, which shed a lustre almost as brilliant as the day. A few english were present, amongst them were the duchess of Cumberland, and a few other ladies. These gardens, previous to the revolution, were the property of a wealthy minister of France, who, it is said, expended near one hundred thousand pounds sterling, in bringing them to perfection, which he just saw accomplished, when he closed his eyes upon ...
— The Stranger in France • John Carr
... neighbours round, For of all the 'tarnal set thet clutches Their dollars firm, he wus the boss; An' yet he went and byed a "Duchess." I never will forget the day He druv her from the city market; I guess thar warn't more'n two Thet stayed to hum ...
— Old Spookses' Pass • Isabella Valancy Crawford
... Mansion, with new furniture and carpets, enabled her to give it a more creditable appearance. It was said that she did the honors of the establishment "with the artlessness of a rustic belle and the grace of a duchess." ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... head-dress derives its name from the beautiful sister-in-law of the Emperor of Russia, the Grand Duchess Helen, who introduced this style of ...
— The Lady's Album of Fancy Work for 1850 • Unknown
... my Lady to line a grotto with, and she wants them all sorted out. 'Tell her she must make herself of use if she wants to be forgiven,' says my Lady, for she is in a mighty hurry for them now she has heard of the Duchess of Portland's grotto; though she has let them lie here unpacked for this half year and more. So if they are all done by night, maybe may Lady will be pleased to let you have a bit ...
— Love and Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... want you to!" she broke in. "We all think it's just awfully good of you to bother with us when you must have so many friends who want you to take them—English people in your own set. By the way, do you know the Duchess of Carborough?" ...
— My Friend the Chauffeur • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... The Dashing Duchess,—the impulsive, ebullient beauty whose smile swayed ministers, and for whose favor princes were beggars! A loveliness of manner, as of feature, such seductive color,—glowing carnations,—and such golden-brown hair, with a fine figure, made ...
— Some Old Time Beauties - After Portraits by the English Masters, with Embellishment and Comment • Thomson Willing
... its details, is one of singular advantage to the inhabitants. Set on the verge of Urbino's towering eminence, it fronts a wave-tossed sea of vales and mountain summits toward the rising and the setting sun. There is nothing but illimitable air between the terraces and loggias of the Duchess's apartments and the spreading pyramid ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... poor old woman in a ragged woollen dress, a torn hufa on her head, torn skin shoes on her feet, and with rheumatism playing visible havoc all over her body, refused a kroner with the dignity, grave look, stiffened lips, and proud head that would have become a duchess. But the Manxman's independence almost reaches a vice. He is so unwilling to owe anything to any man that he is apt to become self-centred and cold, and to lose one of the sweetest joys of life—that of receiving great favours from those we ...
— The Little Manx Nation - 1891 • Hall Caine
... the House of St. Damian, where dwell the poor ladies of Our Lord. She who will welcome you is Clare, and indeed she is a clear mirror of purity; the same is the Duchess of Poverty." ...
— The Well of Saint Clare • Anatole France
... gradually dying out, and people everywhere are more careful of what they say even in private, for nowadays the walls literally have ears. To give you an example, I will connect you at once with the home of the Duchess whom you met, if you remember, in your journey through Wonderland and you may judge for yourself of how useful this Municipaphone is to us in ascertaining the ...
— Alice in Blunderland - An Iridescent Dream • John Kendrick Bangs
... looks a high-bred wench. Odd it is, Beauchamp, to see a lady's-maid now and then catch the style of my lady. No, by Jove! I've known one or two—you couldn't tell the difference! Not till you were intimate. I know one would walk a minuet with a duchess. Of course—all the worse for her. If you see that uncle of Miss Denham's—upon my honour, I should advise him: I mean, counsel him not to trust her with any ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... my house, where there met him, at dinner, the Duchess of Douglas, Sir Adolphus Oughton, Lord Chief Baron, Sir William Forbes, Principal Robertson, Mr Cullen, advocate. Before dinner, he told us of a curious conversation between the famous George Faulkner and him. George said that England had drained ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell
... but have seen her eight years ago, slight and wiry, with the golden skin of an Andalusian, as they say, black hair as shiny as satin, an eye that flashed lightning under long brown lashes, the style of a duchess in every movement, the modesty of a dependent, decent grace, and the pretty ways of a wild fawn. And by that Hulot's doing all this charm and purity has been degraded to a man-trap, a money-box for five-franc pieces! The girl is the Queen of Trollops; ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... literary society, and sold my compositions for correspondingly higher prices. Social standing in English literature is of equal consequence with genius. The poor Irish governess cannot find a publisher, but Lady Morgan takes both critics and readers by storm. A duchess's name on the title-page protects the fool in the letter-press; irreverent republicanism is not yet so great a respecter of persons. I was often invited out to dinner, and went to the expense of a dress-coat and kids, without which one passes the genteel ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... him a step in the peerage, creating him Duke of Somerset. His wife Margaret was, when he married her, widow of Oliver St John, and it is thought that after the death of her second husband in 1444 she married again. This John and Margaret, Duke and Duchess of Somerset, are famous on account of their daughter the Lady Margaret, so well-known for her educational endowments and for the fact that after her marriage with Edmund Tudor, the Earl of Richmond, she became the mother of that Henry Tudor who overthrew Richard III. at Bosworth, and ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: Wimborne Minster and Christchurch Priory • Thomas Perkins
... because she might bring disgrace and ridicule on them by marrying beneath her, or by a liaison which was known and avenged by her husband. The assassination of the husband in such cases was only a trifling necessity which might be called for.[2274] A physician having married a widowed duchess, born a princess of Aragon, her brothers murdered her and her children and caused the physician to be assassinated by hired bravos.[2275] In the comedies marriage was derided and marital honor treated with ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... crossing-sweepers, and Olive was not wholly unembarrassed. Yet Rosina escaped the vulgarity of some who might be called her betters as the world goes by being simply natural. When she was amused she laughed aloud, when she was tired she yawned as openly and flagrantly as any duchess. In manners extremes meet, and the giggle and the sneer are the disastrous half measures of the ill-bred, the social greasers. Rosina had never been sly in her life; she was ever as simply without ...
— Olive in Italy • Moray Dalton
... Poker Flat to the outskirts of the settlement. Besides Mr. Oakhurst, who was known to be a coolly desperate man, and for whose intimidation the armed escort was intended, the expatriated party consisted of a young woman familiarly known as the "Duchess"; another, who had won the title of "Mother Shipton"; and "Uncle Billy," a suspected sluice-robber and confirmed drunkard. The cavalcade provoked no comments from the spectators, nor was any word uttered ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... before the throne placed for him. She had been compelled to bend her head backward in order to see his face, for his figure, seven feet in height, towered like a statue of Roland above all who surrounded him. But when, after the Austrian duchess, his daughter-in-law, who was scarcely beyond childhood, and the Burgrave von Zollern, his sister, had graciously greeted her, and Eva with modest thanks had also bowed low before the Emperor Rudolph, a smile, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... absurd capers, to show what he would be at if provoked; but the world has grown too wise to be terrified by such exhibitions, and quietly settled down to the opinion that there is nothing to fear from him. Now, how very differently might all this have been if the Duchess of S. were Ambassador at Paris, and the Countess of C. at St Petersburg, and Lady N. at Vienna! There would have been no bluster, no rudeness, no bullying—none of that blundering about declining a Congress to-day because a Congress "ought to ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever
... Sixteenth? For which of the vices of that pattern of benevolence, of piety, and of all the virtues, did they put her to death? For which of her vices did they put to death the mildest of all human creatures, the duchess of Biron? What were the crimes of those crowds of matrons and virgins of condition, whom they massacred, with their juries of blood, in prisons and on scaffolds? What were the enormities of the infant king, whom they caused, ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... great benefit to the young man. The close contact with cultured minds, and the encouragement he received, spurred his spirit to increased endeavor. It was here that he began that exquisite statue of a Cupid that passed for an antique, and found its way into the cabinet of the Duchess of Mantua. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 4 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Painters • Elbert Hubbard
... curious incident occurred long before I was born. A sister of mine, the late Duchess of Buccleuch, was so frail and delicate at her birth that it was thought that she could not possibly survive. She was accordingly baptised privately two days after her birth. She rallied, and grew into a big sturdy girl. When she was four years old, my father ...
— Here, There And Everywhere • Lord Frederic Hamilton
... swift anger; not at Felix's information, but the patent fact that Mary Callear was wearing a hat which was the exact replica of the hat on Vera's own head. And Mary Callear was seated like a duchess in the car, while Vera stood on the gravel. And two of Vera's new servants were there to see that Vera was wearing a hat precisely equivalent to the hat of ...
— The Grim Smile of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... with the duchess, bent upon the same errand as ourselves, and seeing us, he had come to ask M. Jubinal to give them his opinion upon the value of a possible purchase. After discussing the subject, which was all-engrossing for the moment, the duchess turned to me and politely drew me into ...
— Maximilian in Mexico - A Woman's Reminiscences of the French Intervention 1862-1867 • Sara Yorke Stevenson
... very grand—she was like the picture of the Duchess in her old Alice in Wonderland, only much more regal. It seemed to her that the entire Westley family should bow their heads to the floor—instead Mrs. Westley was embracing the purple and ermine in the most ...
— Highacres • Jane Abbott
... imagination may set it before us again in all its rich vitality. It is well also as we read to insist on seeing the picture as well as the words. It is as easy to see the bloodless duke before the portrait of "My Last Duchess," in Browning's little masterpiece, to take in all the accessories and carry away with us a vivid and lasting impression, as it is to follow with the eye the succession of words. In this way we possess the poem, and make it serve ...
— Books and Culture • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... Maria Antonia, daughter of the Emperor Charles VII., and pupil of such famous men as Porpora and Hasse. Her musical aspirations took the form of operas, of which two, "Il Trionfo della Fedelta" and "Talestri," have been published recently. Amalia Anna, Duchess of Saxe-Weimar, composed the incidental music for Goethe's melodrama, "Erwin and Elmira," and won flattering notices, though part of their praise may have been due to her rank. Maria Charlotte Amalie, Duchess of Saxe-Gotha, published several songs, and wrote a symphony for ...
— Woman's Work in Music • Arthur Elson
... Italy, where no strong government had ever been constituted. Caesar Borgia recognised the opportunity as soon as the French were at Milan; the Pope was growing old and was clay in his terrible hands. His sister just then became Duchess of Ferrara, on the border of the defenceless region which he coveted; and the dominions of the King of France, his patron and ally, extended to the Adda and the Po. Never had such advantages been united in such a man. For Caesar's talents were of the imperial kind. ...
— Lectures on Modern history • Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton
... eruditioun, althowght it excell nott, yit for his zeill, and diligent plainess in doctrin, is he to this day worthy of praise, and remanes a fruitfull member within the Church of Scotland. After him cam that notable man, JOHNE WILLOK,[633] as one that had some commissioun to the Quein Regent, from the Duchess of Emden. Butt his principall purpose was to assay what God wald wirk by him in his native countrey. These two did sometymes, in severall cumpanyes, assemble the brethrein, who by thare exhortationis begane ...
— The Works of John Knox, Vol. 1 (of 6) • John Knox |
