"Effeminate" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of Illyria, who sought the love of Olivia, a rich countess; but Olivia gave no encouragement to his suit, and the duke moped and pined, leaving manly sports for music and other effeminate employments. Viola entered the duke's service as a page, and soon became a great favorite. When Olivia married Sebastian (Viola's brother), and the sex of Viola became known, the duke married her, and made her duchess of Illyria.—Shakespeare, ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... although I do not recognise him in any one of Charlotte's novels, and he certainly has no place among the three famous curates of Shirley. He would seem to have been the only man, other than her father and brother, whom Emily was known to tolerate. We know that the girls considered him effeminate, and they called him 'Celia Amelia,' under which name he frequently appears in Charlotte's letters to Ellen Nussey. That he was good-natured seems to be indisputable. There is one story of his walking to Bradford to post valentines ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... before galled with the yoke of foreign dominion, nor having ever had experience of that most miserable and detested condition of living in slavery; no long descent having as yet invested the Assyrian with a right, nor any other title being for him pretended than a strong hand; the foolish and effeminate son of a tyrannous and hated mother could very ill hold so many great princes and nations his vassals, with a power less mastering, and a mind less industrious, than his father and mother had ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse
... war, in blood, in death, in cruelty, And plague such peasants [204] as resist in [205] me The power of Heaven's eternal majesty.— Theridamas, Techelles, and Casane, [206] Ransack the tents and the pavilions Of these proud Turks, and take their concubines, Making them bury this effeminate brat; For not a common soldier shall defile His manly fingers with so faint a boy: Then bring those Turkish harlots to my tent, And I'll dispose them as it likes me best.— ...
— Tamburlaine the Great, Part II. • Christopher Marlowe
... "one of our conquerors"; and it will cost him some trouble to throw away his advantages. Before the war such a youth was the common butt of the Socialist orator. He was the typical "shirker" and "loafer," while other men worked; the parasite bred from the sweat of the poor; the soft, effeminate creature who had never faced the facts of life and never would. As to his soldiering—the common profession of so many of his kind—that was only another offence in the eyes of politicians like Mr. Keir Hardie. When the class war came, ...
— The War on All Fronts: England's Effort - Letters to an American Friend • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... of the thousand vagrant impulses that lent such varying colour to her character. Her humour was more subdued, her gaiety was restrained within the limits of an almost conventional decorum. She helped the men with a graciousness that was wholly effeminate, and the diggers ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson
... knew it. Sitting her own dancing chestnut, how her beautiful eyes glowed! She gloried in the ring of breathless witnesses to the prowess of her knight. Many a time did she scoff and scowl at the dandyisms which she deemed effeminate; this was one of the moments which showed the man as she desired him. Through those fine fingers, with the polished filbert nails, the shortened reins were drawn and held as by clamps of steel; so was the wild-eyed head ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... men were resting, each under his sheet after a rub-down, the true significance of the affair for Orde came out. Since the fight, Gerald's customary lassitude of manner seemed quite to have left him. His eye was bright, a colour mounted beneath the pale olive of his skin, the almost effeminate beauty of his countenance had animated. He looked across at Orde several times, hesitated, and at last decided ...
— The Riverman • Stewart Edward White
... nay, and even get new names, as you very well hint. Some of them I have heard calling to one another, as I have sat at White's and St. James's, by the names of Betty, Nelly, and so forth. You see them accost each other with effeminate airs: they have their signs and tokens like freemasons: they rail at women-kind; receive visits on their beds in gowns, and do a thousand other unintelligible prettinesses that I cannot tell what to make of. I therefore ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... festival of Spain. The rigid Britons have had their fling at it for many years. The effeminate badaud of Paris has declaimed against its barbarity. Even the aristocracy of Spain has begun to suspect it of vulgarity and to withdraw from the arena the light of its noble countenance. But ...
— Castilian Days • John Hay
... literally anybody, who comes from "the old place." It may not last, neither does a flash of lightning, but it is very real while it lasts. And what if foreigners exhibit their emotions in ways that may seem effeminate to our phlegmatic temperaments? Are we always right—ordained by Providence to set the fashion to all the world in everything? How often does Virgil make the brave Trojans and others "weep"? Nevertheless, it would look funny to see a row of stalwart Grenadiers, each one mopping ...
— The French Prisoners of Norman Cross - A Tale • Arthur Brown
... not prone to indulge in effeminate demonstration, but I am not ashamed to confess that when I gazed on the weather-beaten though ruddy countenance of my old companion, and observed the eager glance of his bright blue eyes, I was quite overcome, and rushed violently into his arms. ...
— The Gorilla Hunters • R.M. Ballantyne
... smiles indulgent and shrugs his shoulders. "For instance," says he, "this Gerald Webb seems to be one of those highly sensitive, delicately organized persons; somewhat effeminate in fact. He ...
— Shorty McCabe on the Job • Sewell Ford
... of debauchery or crime. But in this Corinthian congregation these awful hieroglyphics are everywhere. "Know ye not," Paul writes to them, "that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor extortioners shall inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you." Look at that tall, sallow-faced Greek: he has wallowed in the mire of Circe's swine-pens. ...
— The Life of St. Paul • James Stalker
... stirrups, and side-saddles. The table in the middle is piled up with heaps of dark-colored cloth and hats with green, brown, and blue veils. At one end is a life-size wooden horse, and presiding over this room is a blonde effeminate young man, whose business it is to offer his clasped hands as a mounting-stone to help the ladies to jump on to the back of the wooden steed, while the tailor arranges the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, October 1885 • Various
... situation, where a scanty subsistence could only be earned by a life of extreme temperance and toil, and where it was often to be sought, sword in hand, from an enemy far superior in numbers. Whatever may have been the vices of the Spaniards, they cannot have been those of effeminate sloth. Thus a sober, hardy, and independent race was gradually formed, prepared to assert their ancient inheritance, and to lay the foundations of far more liberal and equitable forms of government, than ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott
... the deliberate old gentleman who parades the Agora, discussing poetry or statecraft, has his chiton falling almost to a trailing length. Only occasionally short sleeves were added to this very simple garment; they are considered effeminate, and are not esteemed. If one's arms get cold, one can protect them by pulling up the skirt, and wrapping the arms ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis
... preference to the manly virtues that give dignity to human nature, a craving desire for luxurious enjoyment and sudden wealth, which renders those who seek them dependent on those who supply them; to substitute for republican simplicity and economical habits a sickly appetite for effeminate indulgence and an imitation of that reckless extravagance which impoverished and enslaved the industrious people of foreign lands, and at last to fix upon us, instead of those equal political rights the acquisition of which was alike the object and supposed reward of ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 3: Martin Van Buren • James D. Richardson
... Christ have done him far less than justice in insisting upon one aspect of his character disproportionately with another. They speak of him as the "Gentle Jesus, meek and mild "; they tend to describe him as almost or wholly effeminate; and the representations of him in art, with small, feminine and conspicuously un-Jewish features, with long feminine hair and the hands of a consumptive woman, join with sacred poetry in furthering ...
— Woman and Womanhood - A Search for Principles • C. W. Saleeby
... portion of Sunday morning. They might then be seen in groups, combing and brushing each other's hair, which hung down very long behind, and then tying up the tails with a bit of blue cotton tape. The captain was a young man, tall and slight, with a very effeminate air, and as unlike his first lieutenant as he well could be. Still his countenance was not bad, and he smiled in a pleasant way as he returned ...
— Paddy Finn • W. H. G. Kingston
... fancied that it was Die Vernon riding up the mountain side, gaily chatting as she went with the handsome cavalier who walked by her stirrup, and who might have been Frank Osbaldistone, only that he was too manly-looking for Scott's somewhat effeminate hero. How beautifully moulded was the form which her dark-green habit set off to such advantage; how fairy-like the foot that pressed the clumsy stirrup; how slender the fingers that grasped the rein! She had discarded the heavy riding-hat and senseless bonnet, those graceless inventions of ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... Emily than Eugenia. I was a great flirt among them, and would willingly have spent more time in their company; but my fate or fortune was to be accomplished, and I went on board the frigate, where I presented my introductory letters to the nobleman who commanded her. I expected to have seen an effeminate young man, much too refined to learn his business; but I was mistaken. Lord Edward was a sailor every inch of him: he knew a ship from stem to stern, understood the characters of seamen, and gained their confidence. He was, besides, a good mechanic—a carpenter, rope-maker, ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... about the head like unto an impudent harlot, with embroyderies, frizelings, and carcanets of pearles: he will no doubt deeme his owne love to be a man and no woman, if in his choice he differ from that effeminate shepheard of Phrygia. In this new kind of lesson he shall declare unto him, that the prize, the glorie, and height of true vertue, consisted in the facilitie, profit, and pleasure of his exercises: so ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various
... which still disappointed me, because from Raphael I asked and expected more. I wished to feel his hand on my soul with a stronger grasp; these were too passionless in their serenity, and almost effeminate in their tenderness. ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... tone cried out: "Well, if you make fun of me, I shall never beg pardon again!" Afterwards at school, at the Collge Henri IV, he was teased and made fun of by his fellows on account of his timidity, awkwardness and the effeminate elegance of his dress. This sort of experience, aided by his natural temperament, gradually led to the concealment of his feelings. Though his voluminous correspondence, published after his death, reveals a sensitive nature, his habitual attitude towards the emotions ultimately ...
— Quatre contes de Prosper Mrime • F. C. L. Van Steenderen
... a very homely, hard-featured lady, deaf, and extremely fat and heavy, one of the old uncultivated rustic gentry who had lagged far behind the general civilisation of the country, and regarded all refinements as effeminate French vanities. She believed, likewise, all that was said against Queen Mary, whom she looked on as barely restrained from plunging a dagger into Elizabeth's heart, and letting Parma's hell-hounds loose upon Tixall. To have such a ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Casaubon,[7] scurrilous satire, especially as a political weapon, was a recognizable subspecies in England at least to 1700. The anonymous author, for instance, of A Satyr Against Common-Wealths (1684) contended in his preface that it is "as disagreeable to see a Satyr Cloath'd in soft and effeminate Language, as to see a Woman scold and vent her self in Billingsgate Rhetorick in a gentile and advantageous Garb." But as Harte certainly realized, The Dunciad differed greatly from unvarnished abuse, and thus required different standards of ...
— An Essay on Satire, Particularly on the Dunciad • Walter Harte
... meal much accounted of. It was reckoned effeminate to require more than two meals a day, though, just as in the verdurer's lodge at home, there was a barrel of ale on tap with drinking horns beside it in the hall, and on a small round table in the window a loaf of bread, to which ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... leaving Yuen-nan Fu the cook we engaged at Paik-hoi had been a source of combined irritation and amusement. He was a lanky, effeminate gentleman who never before had ridden a horse, and who was physically and mentally unable to adapt himself to camp life. After five months in the field he appeared to be as helpless when the caravan camped for the night as when ...
— Camps and Trails in China - A Narrative of Exploration, Adventure, and Sport in Little-Known China • Roy Chapman Andrews and Yvette Borup Andrews
... saints seated, arrayed in pure pink, and blue and lilac, in an atmosphere of liquid gold, in glory. And thus Fra Angelico worked on, content with the dearly purchased science of his masters, placid, beatic, effeminate, in an aesthetical paradise of his own, a paradise of sloth and sweetness, a paradise for weak souls, weak hearts, and weak eyes; patiently repeating the same fleshless angels, the same boneless saints, the same bloodless virgins; happy in smoothing the unmixed, unshaded tints of the ...
— Euphorion - Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the - Renaissance - Vol. I • Vernon Lee
... suits of velvet, and had neither visit nor letter from my father, I was in tolerable bliss. Julia's kisses were showered on me for almost anything I said or did, but her admiration of heroism and daring was so fervent that I was in no greater danger of becoming effeminate than Achilles when he wore girl's clothes. She was seventeen, an age bewitching for boys to look up to and men to look down on. The puzzle of the school was how to account for her close relationship to old Rippenger. Such an apple ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... The Pombo, an effeminate, juvenile, handsome person, almost hysterical in manner, seemed a splendid subject for hypnotic experiments. I had a good reason to think this. As we shall see later, he had already often been under mesmeric influence. He ...
— An Explorer's Adventures in Tibet • A. Henry Savage Landor
... of men. Women, the fruitful source of half our joys, and perhaps of more than half our sorrows, give an elegance to our manner, and a relish to our pleasures. They soothe our afflictions, and soften our cares. Too much of their company will render us effeminate, and infallibly stamp upon us many signatures of the female nature. A rough and unpolished behavior, as well as slovenliness of person, will certainly be the consequence of an almost constant exclusion from it. By spending ...
— Sketches of the Fair Sex, in All Parts of the World • Anonymous
... gracefully formed, with effeminate features, small hands and feet, long fingers, intelligent minds, courteous and polished manners. Such are the Mpongwe of the Gaboon, the Angolese, the Fanti of the Gold Coast, and most probably the Haoussa of the Niger, a tribe with which I ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... not! But wherefore waste I precious hours with thee! Thou art her darling mischief, her chief engine, Antony's other fate. Go, tell thy queen, Ventidius is arrived, to end her charms. Let your Egyptian timbrels play alone, Nor mix effeminate sounds with Roman trumpets, You dare not fight for Antony; go pray And keep your cowards' holiday in temples. ...
— All for Love • John Dryden
... sip their chocolate, eat their macaroni, roll about in their carriages, and wind up their monotonous and useless day at their earthly paradise, the opera, where they gossiped and flirted to their hearts' content. In consequence of this manner of life, the men have become effeminate, and the women have little left of that characteristic grace and beauty that once so distinguished ...
— Fair Italy, the Riviera and Monte Carlo • W. Cope Devereux
... elsewhere; and yet it is this lawlessness which has come to be accepted as part and parcel of what is called "policy" in China because in the fifty years preceding the establishment of the Republic a weak and effeminate mandarinate consistently sought safety in surrenders. It is this lawlessness which must at all costs be suppressed if we are to have a happy future. The Chinese people have so far contented themselves by pacific retaliation ...
— The Fight For The Republic In China • B.L. Putnam Weale
... intended to disown him. Drake had no objection to being disowned, so he could teach the Spaniards to be more careful how they handled Englishmen. What came of it will be the subject of the next lecture. Father Parsons said the Protestant traders of England had grown effeminate and dared not fight. In the ashes of their own smoking cities the Spaniards had to learn that Father Parsons had misread his countrymen. If Drake had been given to heroics he might have left Virgil's lines inscribed above the broken arms ...
— English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century - Lectures Delivered at Oxford Easter Terms 1893-4 • James Anthony Froude
... particular, have always at the back of their minds a notion that there is something effeminate about the sense for beauty. That is reserved for decadent Southern nations. Tu regere imperio populos, Romane memento they would say, if they knew the tag; and translate it "Britain rules the waves"! But ...
— Appearances - Being Notes of Travel • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson
... grotesque and eccentric motives. It fancies that a little rhetoric will change the heart as well as the passing mood, and represents the claims of virtue as perceptible on the most superficial examination. The morality which requires such concessions becomes necessarily effeminate; it is unconsciously giving up its strongest position by implicitly admitting that the world in which virtue is possible is a very different one ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... year; and the soft, auburn ringlets, descending half-way down the shoulders; the rich and delicate bloom that exhibits at once the hardy health and the gentle fostering; the large deep-blue eyes; the flexile and almost effeminate contour of the harmonious features; altogether made such an ideal of childlike beauty as Lawrence had loved to paint or Chantrey model. And the daintiest cares of a mother, who, as yet, has her darling all to herself—her toy, her plaything—were visible in ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 1 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... you frankly, however, that I had no particular affection for her, though she seemed already to regard me as her victim. She seized every opportunity of pointing out to me the way in which we should have to steer, both in public and private life. When she wrote to me she never employed the effeminate style of the Kana,[42] but wrote, oh! so magnificently! The great interest which she took in me induced me to pay frequent visits to her; and, by making her my tutor, I learned how to compose ordinary ...
— Japanese Literature - Including Selections from Genji Monogatari and Classical - Poetry and Drama of Japan • Various
... residence of your captive wife, and there are so many charms and temptations in the way, I am afraid you will be led astray by them, and forget your errand. For the people whom you will see in that country do nothing but amuse themselves. They are very idle, gay, and effeminate, and I am fearful they will lead you astray. Your journey is beset with difficulties. I will mention one or two things, which you must be on your guard against. In the course of your journey, you will come ...
— The Myth of Hiawatha, and Other Oral Legends, Mythologic and Allegoric, of the North American Indians • Henry R. Schoolcraft
... beauty by a combination of taste with the infinite range modern fashion accords her. In the days of which we write, a man hardly could help looking his best, and while far more decorative than his descendant, was equally useful. And as all dressed in varying degrees of the same fashion, none seemed effeminate. As for Hamilton, his head never looked more massive, his glance more commanding, than when he was in full regalia; nor he more ready for a fight. All women know the psychological effect of being superlatively well dressed. In the days of our male ancestors' external ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... his two sons, were sold at public auction by order of Augustus. (Sueton. in August. c. 27.) The moderation of that artful usurper proves, that this example of severity was justified by the spirit of the times. Ammianus makes a distinction between the effeminate Italians and the hardy Gauls. (L. xv. c. 12.) Yet only 15 years afterwards, Valentinian, in a law addressed to the praefect of Gaul, is obliged to enact that these cowardly deserters shall be burnt alive. (Cod. Theod. l. vii. tit. xiii. leg. ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... upright; weak, it is true, and a little effeminate also, that is, lacking energy, letting himself be carried away by goodness and tenderness. This weakness made him commit a fault before his departure for America. I have kept it from you until ...
— Conscience, Complete • Hector Malot
... frivolous effeminacy was become the national character. Nothing could be more popular than that work. It was thought a great consolation to us, the light people of this country (who were and are light, but who were not and are not effeminate), that we had found the causes of our misfortunes in our vices. Pythagoras could not be more pleased with his leading discovery. But whilst in that splenetic mood we amused ourselves in a sour, critical ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... to recommend himself by this challenge, it must be remembered that red blood is a traditionary sign of courage: Thus Macbeth calls one of his frighted soldiers, a lilly liver'd Lown; again in this play, Cowards are said to have livers as white as milk; and an effeminate and timorous man ...
— Johnson's Notes to Shakespeare Vol. I Comedies • Samuel Johnson
... recognized. What a boon to humanity was the restoration of the Jews to their capital and country! We read of no oppression of the Jews by the Persian monarchs. Mordecai the Jew became the prime minister of such an effeminate monarch as Xerxes, while Daniel before him had been the ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IV • John Lord
... to tell that this mode of divination was hereditary among the Scythians, so how many centuries earlier it may have been practised one can hardly guess. He says that the 'enaries, or effeminate men, affirm that the art of divination was taught them by the goddess Venus,' a statement which will carry some significance to those who are familiar with the theories so boldly advocated by the author ...
— Storyology - Essays in Folk-Lore, Sea-Lore, and Plant-Lore • Benjamin Taylor
... |"If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for | |the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are." I Cor. 3:17. | | | |"Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolators, nor | |adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, | |nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor | |extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God." I Cor. 6:9, 10. ...
— Choice Readings for the Home Circle • Anonymous
... Heraclius could not have followed what we venture to believe the suggestions of his heart, in relation to his predecessor, because a policy had been established which made it dangerous to be merciful, and a state of public feeling which made it effeminate to pardon. First make it safe to permit a man's life, before you pronounce it ignoble to authorize his death. Strip mercy of ruin to its author, before you affirm upon a judicial punishment of death (as then it was) cruelty in the adviser or ignobility in the approver. Escaping ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... these small incidents with a purpose. There is a delicacy of feeling in Lanier's verse which might lead a reader to assume that the poet was effeminate, when in truth he was as manly as any Norse scald or Saxon scop who ever stood beside his chief in battle. Of the war he never sang; but we find some reflection of the girl who waited in the ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... King and husband, and in his discontent at seeing his orders disobeyed, he wrote to him, from the depths of Poland, April 4, 1807, this reproachful letter, which is a real reprimand: "Your quarrels with the Queen have become public. Show, then, in private life some of that paternal and effeminate character which you display in matters of government, and in business the same rigor you exercise in your household. You treat a young woman as we treat a regiment.... You have an excellent and most virtuous wife and you make her ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand
... tread on; but she ignored the water altogether, and walked straight through. The young ladies, knowing this, took an extra supply of stockings and shoes with them, but Lady Arthur despised such effeminate ways and drove home in the footgear she set out in. She was a woman of robust health, and having grown stout and elderly and red-faced, when out on the tramp and divested of externals she might very well have been taken for the eccentric landlady of a roadside inn or the mistress ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 17, - No. 97, January, 1876 • Various
... are effeminate would be incorrect. In some things, from our point of view, they undoubtedly are; in others they are ...
— Life and sport in China - Second Edition • Oliver G. Ready
... becomingly, and her two pretty daughters feigned to be deeply occupied with some drawn thread work. David Helmsley, noting everything that was going on from his coign of vantage, recognised at once the dissipated, effeminate-looking young man, who, stepping out of a private room which opened on a corridor apparently leading to the inner part of the house, sauntered lazily up to the bar and, resting his arm upon its oaken counter, smiled ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... complaining you squander, Freedom and joy on the sea flourish best; He never knoweth effeminate rest, Who on the billows delighteth to wander. When I am old, to the green growing land I too will cling, with the grass for my pillow; Now I will drink and will fight with free hand, Now I'll ...
— Fridthjof's Saga • Esaias Tegner
... yet you know the Rebu several times drove back their forces, and man for man are more than a match for their soldiers. Our people are taller than they by half a head. We have not so much luxury, nor did we want it. All this must make people effeminate." ...
— The Cat of Bubastes - A Tale of Ancient Egypt • G. A. Henty
... senses, with a perversive wryness and convulsion of the muscles, all which are great lets and impediments to the act of generation. Hence it is that Bacchus, the god of bibbers, tipplers, and drunkards, is most commonly painted beardless and clad in a woman's habit, as a person altogether effeminate, or like a libbed eunuch. Wine, nevertheless, taken moderately worketh quite contrary effects, as is implied by the old proverb, which saith,—That Venus taketh cold, when not accompanied by Ceres and Bacchus.[221] This opinion is of great antiquity as ...
— Aphrodisiacs and Anti-aphrodisiacs: Three Essays on the Powers of Reproduction • John Davenport
... your minds, O ye warlike men,[80] descendants of the Dragon? Can brass knocked against brass prevail so much with you? And the pipe with the bending horn, and these magical delusions? And shall the yells of women, and madness produced by wine, and troops of effeminate {wretches}, and empty tambourines[81] prevail over you, whom neither the warrior's sword nor the trumpet could affright, nor troops with weapons prepared {for fight}? Am I to wonder at you, old men, who, carried over distant seas, have fixed in these abodes a {new} Tyre, and your banished ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso
... ever excluded the idea of separate property in an equal degree, or inspired a greater contempt for the manners of other nations. The prohibition of money, commerce and almost every thing desirable to effeminate nations, excluded foreigners from Sparta; and while it inspired the people with contempt for strangers it made them agreeable to each other. By these means Lycurgus rendered the nation warlike; and to insure the duration ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow
... offer you a handsome suit of clothes: A woman's, true; but then there is a cause Why you should wear them."—"What, though my soul loathes The effeminate garb?"—thus, after a short pause, Sighed Juan, muttering also some slight oaths, "What the devil shall I do with all this gauze?" Thus he profanely termed the finest lace Which e'er set off ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... the country abounds with game and wildfowl, and every necessary article of provisions, but the air is not very good. Formerly the Armenian gentlemen were brave men and good soldiers, but are now become effeminate, and addicted to drinking and debauchery. The city of Giazza, on the Black Sea, has an excellent harbour, to which merchants resort from divers countries, even from Venice and Genoa, for several sorts of merchandize, especially for the different kinds of spices, and various other valuable ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 • Robert Kerr
... the table? I declare I think, of all the polite men of that age, Joshua Reynolds was the finest gentleman. And they were good, as well as witty and wise, those dear old friends of the past. Their minds were not debauched by excess, or effeminate with luxury. They toiled their noble day's labour: they rested, and took their kindly pleasure: they cheered their holiday meetings with generous wit and hearty interchange of thought: they were no prudes, but no blush need follow their conversation: they were merry, but no riot came out ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... gentlemanly countenance, tho' not like a military hero. Marmont, a dark haired, sharp-looking man of military stature. Duc de Dantzig,[70] very ugly and squinting. Berthier,[71] remarkably quiet and intelligent. Murat,[72] an effeminate coxcomb with no characteristic but that of self-satisfaction. Moncey, a respectable veteran. Massena,[73] the most military of all, dark hair and countenance, fine figure. Soult,[74] a stern soldier, vulgar but energetic; his mouth and ...
— Before and after Waterloo - Letters from Edward Stanley, sometime Bishop of Norwich (1802;1814;1814) • Edward Stanley
... to the side That rose, pass'd forth beyond. "Remember," next We heard, "those noblest creatures of the clouds, How they their twofold bosoms overgorg'd Oppos'd in fight to Theseus: call to mind The Hebrews, how effeminate they stoop'd To ease their thirst; whence Gideon's ranks were thinn'd, As he to ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... at once, glaringly, what would have been the result of giving all human affairs into female hands. Such an extraordinary and deplorable situation would have "feminized" the world. We should have all become "effeminate." ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... shel be sich ez they and the employers shel mutually agree; but that the negroes may not become luxurious and effeminate, wich two things is vices wich goes to sap the simplicity and strength uv a people, the sum shel never exceed $5 per month, but not less than enuff in all cases to buy him one soot uv close per annum, wich the employer ...
— "Swingin Round the Cirkle." • Petroleum V. Nasby
... some great change had taken place in me, and he was not sure what aspect it would have in regard to himself. He came back after he had seen Madame de Clerte to her coupe!—She has essence also now,—and his rather ridiculous, kindly, effeminate, little dark face ...
— Man and Maid • Elinor Glyn
... wise Solomon, too, delighted in this kind of fare; for we learn that, at his table, every day were served the wild ox, the roebuck, and the stag. Xenophon informs us, in his History, that Cyrus, king of Persia, ordered that venison should never be wanting at his repasts; and of the effeminate Greeks it was the delight. The Romans, also, were devoted admirers of the flesh of the deer; and our own kings and princes, from the Great Alfred down to the Prince Consort, have hunted, although, it must be confessed, under vastly different ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... saying that he wanted nothing better than to appear before the world with her as his wife, but that he really did not know what her father might do to him, she threw out a cutting sarcasm upon his effeminate appearance during the hours of light. She then told him of an unfortunate young woman in an old nursery tale who had unconsciously married a fiend that became a fine handsome man at night when no eye could see him, and utter ugliness ...
— Vikram and the Vampire • Sir Richard F. Burton
... intractable lot of natives I had ever seen, wearing only a girdle of leaves around their waists, and all armed with Snider carbines and short stabbing knives made from cutlasses broken in halves. But, although they bullied the weak and effeminate Strong's Islanders, they were yet very obedient to their white masters, to whom they were all more or less related through the native wives whom the traders had married. The women were very tall and handsome, and every ...
— Ridan The Devil And Other Stories - 1899 • Louis Becke
... Difference, that their Hearts must not be attach'd to these Things, and their grand Hope be in Futurity. This notable Proviso being once made, tho' in Words only, all is safe; and no Luxury or Epicurism are so barefac'd, no Ease is so effeminate, no Elegancy so vainly curious, and no Invention so operose or expensive, as to interfere with Religion or any Promises made of Renouncing the World; if they are warranted by Custom, and the Usage of others, who are their Equals in Estate ...
— A Letter to Dion • Bernard Mandeville
... for field sports. He had an exquisite ear, and performed skilfully on the flute. His earliest instructors had been French refugees, and they had awakened in him a strong passion for French literature and French society. Frederic William regarded these tastes as effeminate and contemptible, and, by abuse and persecution, made them still stronger. Things became worse when the Prince Royal attained that time of life at which the great revolution in the human mind and body takes place. He was guilty of some youthful indiscretions, ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... and performed all the other labours enjoined him by Euristheus, found himself a slave to the softnesses of the heart; and he, who wore a club and a lion's skin in the cause of virtue, condescended to the most effeminate employments to gratify a criminal weakness. Hannibal, who vanquished mighty nations, was himself overcome by the love of pleasure; and he who despised cold, and want, and danger, and death on the Alps, was conquered and undone by the dissolute ...
— Essays on Various Subjects - Principally Designed for Young Ladies • Hannah More
... were apparently imminent, but probably Amalasuentha felt that war, whether successful or unsuccessful, would be too dangerous for the dynasty, and sullen alienation took the place of the preparation of fleets and armies. In June, 531, five years after the accession of Athalaric, the elderly and effeminate Hilderic was deposed by his martial subjects who had long chafed under the rule of such a sovereign, and his cousin, the warlike Gelimer, ascended the throne. The deposition of Hilderic, followed for the present not by his death but ...
— Theodoric the Goth - Barbarian Champion of Civilisation • Thomas Hodgkin
... of excellent principles, thoroughly reliable, and held in high respect by all though not possessed of popular manners. On the other side was Lawrence Peabody, a young Boston clerk, who had spent several years behind a dry-goods counter. He was soft and effeminate, with no talent for "roughing it," and wholly unfitted for the hard work which he had undertaken. He was deeply disappointed in his first work at gold-hunting, having come out with the vague idea that he should pick up a big nugget within a short time that would make his fortune and ...
— The Young Miner - or Tom Nelson in California • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... lost everything—that the day was one of signal and disgraceful defeat. In any case that sequence of second prizes must have filled him with chagrin, but to be beaten thus repeatedly by such a fellow as Bruno Chilvers was humiliation intolerable. A fopling, a mincer of effeminate English, a rote-repeater of academic catchwords—bah! The by-examinations of the year had whispered presage, but Peak always felt that he was not putting forth his strength; when the serious trial came he would show what was really in him. Too late he recognised ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... Campan. Mistress of Charles Grandet before his father's death. Towards the close of 1819, a prey to suspicion, she must needs sacrifice her happiness for the time being, so she made a weary journey with her husband into Scotland. She made her lover effeminate and materialistic, advising with him about everything. He returned from the Indies in 1827, when she quickly brought about his engagement with ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe
... in war, in storm and in battle,—for heroism and prowess unsurpassed. He shrinks from no danger, he dreads no foe, he yields to no superior. No shoals are too dangerous, no seas too boisterous, no climate too rigorous for him. The burning sun of the tropic cannot make him effeminate, nor can the eternal winter of the polar seas paralyze his energies. ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... Shall a lousy Damascene trick me out of keeping my oath? You are in my safekeeping until you tread on British soil again, and my honour is concerned in it! No doubt that effeminate schemer of schemes would like to display you at the mejlis as his booty, but you are mine! Did you think you are ...
— Jimgrim and Allah's Peace • Talbot Mundy
... Ministerial candidates and the Opposition squire drink, bribe and are bribed with complete impartiality. A scene devoted to the political young lady of the day affords opportunity for a hit at the sickly and effeminate Lord 'Fanny' Hervey, that politician whom Pope described as a "mere white curd of Asse's milk," and of whom Lady Mary Wortley Montagu observed that "the world consisted of men, women, and Herveys." Pope had stigmatised Hervey as Lord Fanny, ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden
... good manners. He neither insists on these from any, nor does he anxiously force them on others whether at meetings or at entertainments, although he knows them well enough, should he choose to indulge in them; but he considers it effeminate and not becoming masculine dignity to waste a good part of one's time ...
— Erasmus and the Age of Reformation • Johan Huizinga
... form to great advantage. The star on his breast, and the crape which he wore on his arm, announced a prince of the royal house; his beautifully-formed and handsome features wore an expression of almost effeminate tenderness. The glance of his large blue eyes was so soft and mild, that those who observed him long, were involuntarily touched with an inexplicable feeling of pity for this noble-looking youth. His broad brow showed so much spirit and determination ...
— Frederick the Great and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... most cherished enjoyment of all is drinking: Men, women, and children indulge, the last two sparingly. In Manboland the fame of a banquet is in direct proportion to the number of those who became drunk, sobriety being considered effeminate, and a refusal to drink an affront to ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... Scribe, Mr. Vivian Grey!" and here Mr. Hargrave introduced Vivian to an effeminate-looking, perfumed young man, with a handsome, unmeaning face and very white hands; in short, as dapper a little diplomatist as ever tattled about the Congress of Verona, smirked at Lady Almack's supper after the Opera, or vowed "that Richmond Terrace was a most convenient ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... by his Hippolyta, for Miss EVELYN HOPE never began to look like a leader of Amazons. Miss CHRISTINE SILVER'S Titania had a certain domestic sweetness, but even a queen of fairies might be a little more queenly. Mr. DENNIS NEILSON-TERRY as Oberon was a curiously effeminate figure for those who recalled the manly bearing of his mother in the same part. Of the two bemused Athenian lovers, Mr. SWINLEY, as Lysander, bore himself as bravely as ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, February 18, 1914 • Various
... order to present his sons Helge and Halfdan to the people as his chosen successors. The young heirs were very coldly received on this occasion, for Helge was of a sombre and taciturn disposition, and inclined to the life of a priest, and Halfdan was of a weak, effeminate nature, and noted for his love of pleasure rather than of war and the chase. Frithiof, who was present, and stood beside them, was the object of many ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... exterior graces of his person were such, that nature perhaps never formed anything more complete: His face was extremely handsome; and yet it was a manly face, neither inanimate nor effeminate; each feature having its beauty and peculiar delicacy: He had a wonderful genius for every sort of exercise, an engaging aspect, and an air of grandeur: in a word, he possessed every personal advantage; but then he was ...
— The Memoirs of Count Grammont, Complete • Anthony Hamilton
... rather bald," he replied. "You see, few people really understand Bones. I thought, the first time I saw him, that he was a fool. I was wrong. Then I thought he was effeminate. I was wrong again, for he has played the man whenever he was called upon to do so. Bones is one of those rare creatures—a man with all the moral equipment of a ...
— The Keepers of the King's Peace • Edgar Wallace
... "I suppose the man who really and truly loved me. I would like to have him come, as the breeze comes, with the odor of flowers, as the spring comes, with music and song, with all sweet and gentle influences, with beauty and grace; but he must not be effeminate." ...
— Bart Ridgeley - A Story of Northern Ohio • A. G. Riddle
... this feeling that gives to us the palm above all Greek and Roman glory. What are the modern European nations, the English, French, Italians, Switzers, even Spanish and Portuguese, but the descendants of these warlike Teutonic tribes who swept away the effeminate Romans from the face of the earth? and do we not see the Teutonic policy and usages, defective and degenerated as they sometimes are, the best safeguard of liberty against the insidious interpretation of the Roman law, which is founded on the pretended superiority of one nation, ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye
... seem inadequate to the importance of his conquests. Two engagements, [481] the one near the Hellespont, the other in the narrow defiles of Cilicia, decided the fate of his Syrian competitor; and the troops of Europe asserted their usual ascendant over the effeminate natives of Asia. [49] The battle of Lyons, where one hundred and fifty thousand Romans [50] were engaged, was equally fatal to Albinus. The valor of the British army maintained, indeed, a sharp and doubtful contest, with the hardy ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... elated him to be no longer mistaken for a pupil and he writes home that "my manner of playing pleases the ladies so very much." Thismanner never lost its hold over female hearts, and the airs, caprices and little struttings of Frederic are to blame for the widely circulated legend of his effeminate ways. The legend soon absorbed his music, and so it has come to pass that this fiction, begotten of half fact and half mental indolence, has taken root, like the noxious weed it is. When Rubinstein, Tausig and ...
— Chopin: The Man and His Music • James Huneker
... often at her house in Mount Street, and frequently met Lord Drumone's fair-haired and rather effeminate son there, Peggy's mother never dreamed they were in love. Both were extremely careful to conceal it, and in their ...
— The Golden Face - A Great 'Crook' Romance • William Le Queux
... FRIBBLE. An effeminate fop; a name borrowed from a celebrated character of that kind, in the farce of Miss in her ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... hearts. The village priest especially derived great satisfaction from the society of so devout a companion. He entertained his good friends, the merry little man, by dressing up as a woman, a role his smooth face and effeminate features well fitted him to play. If business were alluded to, the merry gentleman railed at the delay and chicanery of lawyers; it was that alone that postponed the liquidation of the Duplessis inheritance; as soon as the lawyers could be got rid of, the purchase-money ...
— A Book of Remarkable Criminals • H. B. Irving
... coat in the picture and that my great-grandfather wore, and also by the way that the hair was thrown back from the high, narrow forehead, just as my great-grandfather's grey hairs were combed away from his brow. Children are great admirers of beauty too, especially, I think, of an effeminate style of good looks, and are very susceptible to the power of expression in faces. I had a romantic admiration for "the handsome man by the door," and his eyes haunted ...
— Six to Sixteen - A Story for Girls • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... that tried the paternal patience as well as his own. Wesley, however, had a large fund of the philosophy that comes from a high estimate of one's self. He was well favored in looks and build, though somewhat effeminate, with his small hands and carefully shod feet. He would have been called a "dude" had the word been known in its present significance; as it was, he was regarded as a coxcomb by the derisive group hostile to the father's social pretensions. ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... that effeminacy is not opposed to perseverance. For a gloss on 1 Cor. 6:9, 10, "Nor adulterers, nor the effeminate, nor liers with mankind," expounds the text thus: "Effeminate—i.e. obscene, given to unnatural vice." But this is opposed to chastity. Therefore effeminacy is not a ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... footstool and compose my countenance. I was trying not to grin. For the first time, attired in philosophic melancholy of black silk, Enrico looked a boor and a fool. His close-cropped, rather animal head was common above the effeminate doublet, his sturdy, ordinary figure looked ...
— Twilight in Italy • D.H. Lawrence
... prey, which he is not yet prepared to eat, quick to catch the first sound of movement. There is something truly terrible in this untamed nature. Man's struggle here gives him something to rejoice in; and I would not barter it for the effeminate life to which I should be destined at home, on any account whatever. Perhaps, if I should there be compelled absolutely to earn my daily bread, the case might be different, for enforced occupation is quite too sober an affair to give ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various
... name. Bru. Oh what disgrace can taunt this worthinesse, 120 Of which remaine such liuing monuments Ingrauen in the eyes and hearts of men. Although the oppression of distressed Rome And our owne ouerthrow, might well drawe forth, Distilling teares from faynting cowards eyes, Yet should no weake effeminate passion sease Vpon that man, the greatnesse of whose minde And not his Fortune made him term'd the Great. Pom. Oh I did neuer tast mine Honours sweete Nor now can iudge of this my sharpest sowre. 130 Fifty eight yeares in Fortunes sweete soft lap Haue I beene luld a sleepe with pleasant ioyes, ...
— The Tragedy Of Caesar's Revenge • Anonymous
... provided with women. Beautiful girls from all parts of Asia, black-eyed Armenians, dazzlingly fair maidens from the Caucasus, delicate girls from the shores of the Ganges, luxurious Babylonian women, golden-haired Persians and the effeminate daughters of the Median plains; indeed many of the noblest Achaemenidae had given ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... extravagantly vein'd, as to represent the shapes and images of beasts, birds, trees, and many other pretty resemblances. Lastly, of the whitest part of the old wood, found commonly in doating birches, is made the grounds of our effeminate farin'd gallants sweet powder; and of the quite consum'd and rotten (such as we find reduc'd to a kind of reddish earth in superannuated hollow-trees) is gotten the best mould for the raising of divers seedlings of the rarest plants and flowers; to say nothing here of the magisterial ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn
... Hervey had written a tract called "Sedition and Defamation displayed, in a Letter to the Author of the Craftsman;" and this led to a new outburst of passion on both sides. Pulteney stigmatized Hervey, on account of his effeminate appearance, as a thing that was half man, half woman, and a duel took place in which Hervey was wounded. Hervey was a remarkable man. His physical frame was as feeble as that of Voltaire. He suffered from epilepsy and a variety of other ailments. He had to live mainly on a dietary of ass's ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume I (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... hybrid type of Araucans, Pehu-enches, and Aucas. They were Ando-Peruvians, of an olive tint, of medium stature and massive form, with a low forehead, almost circular face, thin lips, high cheekbones, effeminate features, and cold expression. As a whole, they are about the least interesting of the Indians. However, it was their herds Glenarvan wanted, not themselves. As long as he could get beef and horses, he cared ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... states. The barbarians are no longer so much as vanquished competitors; they have ceased to compete at all. The military vices, too, of civilisation seem to decline just as its military strength augments. Somehow or other civilisation does not make men effeminate or unwarlike now as it once did. There is an improvement in our fibre—moral, if not physical. In ancient times city people could not be got to fight—seemingly could not fight; they lost their mental courage, perhaps their bodily nerve. But now-a-days in all countries the great cities could pour ...
— Physics and Politics, or, Thoughts on the application of the principles of "natural selection" and "inheritance" to political society • Walter Bagehot
... bronze the tables weight, Amber on pipes from Stamboul glows, And, joy of souls effeminate, Phials of crystal scents enclose. Combs of all sizes, files of steel, Scissors both straight and curved as well, Of thirty different sorts, lo! brushes Both for the nails and for the tushes. Rousseau, I would ...
— Eugene Oneguine [Onegin] - A Romance of Russian Life in Verse • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin
... a shade or two lighter than the rest of his face, and spoke of a moustache recently removed. The other man had also an outdoor look, but he had not been hardened by long service as his companion had. He was softer, more effeminate. He seemed to be not over twenty-one or two, was tall, a little too much inclined to plumpness, but with an open and ingenuous countenance, lighted by a pair of honest ...
— The Destroyer - A Tale of International Intrigue • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... life. And it happens that the less a man believes in the soul—that is to say in his conscious immortality, personal and concrete—the more he will exaggerate the worth of this poor transitory life. This is the source from which springs all that effeminate, sentimental ebullition against war. True, a man ought not to wish to die, but the death to be renounced is the death of the soul. "Whosoever will save his life shall lose it," says the Gospel; but it does not say "whosoever will save his soul," the immortal soul—or, at any rate, ...
— Tragic Sense Of Life • Miguel de Unamuno
... dead, for they remembered how steadfast a friend Kraterus had proved to them, and how he had often incurred the anger of Alexander by opposing his adoption of Persian habits, and standing by his countrymen when they were in danger of being neglected and despised by a corrupt and effeminate court. Kraterus accordingly sent Antipater into Cilicia, and himself with the greater part of the army marched with Neoptolemus to fight Eumenes, whom he imagined he should catch unawares, engaged in feasting and celebrating ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch
... lightness necessary to express the sentiment they desired to convey did not exist in the new feature;—in a round spire, on the other hand, they found that this distinction of light and shade was too little marked; it was vapid and effeminate, and quite without that delicious crispiness of effect which they at once obtained by cutting off the corners of the square spire, and reducing it to an octagon. With very rare exceptions, as in the southwest spire of Chartres Cathedral, this form was always used. Now it will ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 27, January, 1860 • Various
... her with undisguised astonishment. There was nothing at all Amazonian or horsey in her manners, nor was there even the robust physical contour that might have been developed through such experiences. On the contrary, she seemed to be lazily effeminate in body and mind. Heedless of his critical survey of her, she beckoned him to draw his chair nearer, and, looking into ...
— Snow-Bound at Eagle's • Bret Harte
... it? Had not churchmen pray'd, His thread of life had not so soon decay'd: None do you like but an effeminate prince, Whom, like a school-boy, ...
— King Henry VI, First Part • William Shakespeare [Aldus edition]
... the Cubo Sama then being, beholding the sceptre of Japan in the hands of a Dairy, who was cowardly and effeminate, revolted from him, and got possession of the regal dignity. His design was to have reduced the whole estate under his own dominion; but he was only able to make himself master of Meaco, where the emperor kept his court, and of the provinces depending on it. The governors of other provinces maintained ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume XVI. (of 18) - The Life of St. Francis Xavier • John Dryden |
