"Fair sex" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... is painted to us as having been in Paradise; and with similar inequality have the sexes subsisted in all ages and nations since. If it were possible to take from the fair sex its softness and attractive grace, and endow it instead with audacious, masculine and military qualities, there is scarcely any one that does not perceive, with whatever advantages it might be attended in other respects, that it ...
— Thoughts on Man - His Nature, Productions and Discoveries, Interspersed with - Some Particulars Respecting the Author • William Godwin
... heard of the fate of Don Juan, the famous libertine of Seville, who for his sins against the fair sex and other minor peccadilloes was hurried away to the infernal regions. His story has been illustrated in play, in pantomime, and farce, on every stage in Christendom; until at length it has been rendered the theme ...
— The Crayon Papers • Washington Irving
... "his calling our dramatic writers to this strict account had a very wholesome effect upon those who wrote after this time. They were now a great deal more upon their guard ... and, by degrees, the fair sex came again to fill the boxes on the first day of a new comedy, without fear of censure." For some time, it seems, the ladies had been afraid of venturing "bare-faced" to a new comedy, till they had been assured that they could do it without risk ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... penalties of war," replied the general, "that we are doomed to see little of the fair sex, and must be content with an occasional sip of their society. Should we winter near here, as now seems possible, I trust you will honour Mrs. Washington and myself with your company at headquarters. And one word ere we part, Mrs. Meredith. You must not think that we make free with ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... family, made a point of never interfering with her husband's whims or prejudices; and it is a compromise which we would heartily recommend to all managing matrons of our acquaintance; for it is surprising how much real power will be cheerfully resigned to the fair sex, for the pleasure of being allowed to ride one's hobby ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... found in beautiful women? Nobody will say that they are; yet both sexes are undoubtedly capable of beauty, and the female of the greatest; which advantage I believe will hardly be attributed to the superior exactness of proportion in the fair sex. Let us rest a moment on this point; and consider how much difference there is between the measures that prevail in many similar parts of the body, in the two sexes of this single species only. If you assign any determinate proportions to the limbs of a man, and if you limit ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... terrible bowman, Arjuna, now wearing braids and in the midst of women, my heart is stricken with woe. That high-souled hero who is master of all the celestial weapons, and who is the repository of all the sciences, now weareth ear-rings (like one of the fair sex). That youth whom kings of incomparable prowess could not overpower in fight, even as the waters of the mighty ocean cannot overleap the continents, is now the dancing-master of king Virata's daughters and waits upon them in disguise. ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... their games, and would offer me their cheeks to kiss through the back of a chair, or invite me to blow out a candle which they would lift suddenly above the range of my breath. But until that moment no person of the fair sex had ever subjected me to such a whimsical piece of familiarity as that of tickling my nose with my own feather pen. Happily I remembered the maxim of my late grandfather, who was accustomed to say that everything was permissible on the part of ...
— The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard • Anatole France
... notwithstanding that the French affected to treat him as a brigand, his courage and patriotism were admitted by the unprejudiced among all parties, and his bold and successful deeds had already procured him a degree of renown that was an additional recommendation of him to the fair sex. It may not, therefore, be deemed very surprising that, after the first few days of her captivity were passed, and she had become a little used to the novelty of her position, the lady began to consider the Empecinado with some degree of favour, and seemed not ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various
... and contradiction: they question him (see Troubles within Troubles), like a magistrate examining a criminal, reserving the spiteful enjoyment of crushing his denials by positive proof at a decisive moment. Generally, in this supreme scene of conjugal life, the fair sex is the executioner, while, in the contrary case, man is ...
— Petty Troubles of Married Life, Second Part • Honore de Balzac
... disagreeable as looking due south, becomes interesting after sunset. Here you may see the young bloods of Taranto leaning in rows against the railing with their backs to the sea—they are looking across the road whence, from balconies and windows, the fair sex are displaying their charms. Never a word is spoken. They merely gaze at each other like lovesick puppies; and after watching the performance for several evenings, I decided in favour of robuster methods—I decided that courtship, under conditions such as the Corso supplies, can only be pursued ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... dear Sir, and passably good looking. In fact there was a certain young widow, comely and amiable, who lived not far from Passy, who had on more than one occasion given me to understand that I was more than passably good looking. I had always been susceptible where the fair sex was concerned, and now . . . oh, now! I could pick and choose! The comely widow had a small fortune of her own, and there were ...
— Castles in the Air • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... were stationed at every door to keep out people whose presence would work more harm than good. All assistance from women was courteously refused. "This is solemn business," said the Governor, in response to a telephone from some of the fair sex, "and the introduction of the feminine element might throw about it a social atmosphere which would result in loss of time. And then some of the boys might feel called upon to put ...
— Lifted Masks - Stories • Susan Glaspell
... him a considerable share of their esteem, and take him into Favour upon Tick. Aurelian as he had good Credit, so he had a good Stock to support it, and his Person was a good promising Security for the payment of any Obligation he could lie under to the Fair Sex. Hippolito, who at this time was our Aurelian, did not at all lessen him in appearing for him: So that although Leonora was indeed mistaken, she could not be said to be much in the wrong. I could find in my Heart to beg the Reader's pardon for this Digression, if I thought he would be sensible ...
— Incognita - or, Love & Duty Reconcil'd. A Novel • William Congreve
... some of the fair sex, who, as well as the men, had been attracted by, and were listening to the dispute. "Que Monsieur l'Anglais est drole: et voyez Moustache, comme il a l'air content—vraiment ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... you are an oracle," said Riccabocca, laughing. "But I am not so sceptical you are. I honor the fair sex too much. There are a great many women who realize the ideal of men to ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... pampered fine lady is often incapable of bearing any, and is generally exhausted by two or three. Barrenness, so frequent among women of fashion, is very rare among those of inferior station. Luxury, in the fair sex, while it inflames, perhaps, the passion for enjoyment, seems always to weaken, and frequently to destroy ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... reversed her order with these birds—the females being universally brighter in plumage, larger in body, swifter of wing, stronger, and even fiercer than the males. It may be inferred, that in the social life of "eagle-dom" the fair sex have their "rights," and perhaps a little more. One thing is certain, and it seems to be a consequence of this (in compliment to the sex I say it) that nothing like polygamy is known amongst them. Woe to the eagle husband that would even dream ...
— The Boy Hunters • Captain Mayne Reid
... significations, according to the object of their exhibition, as well as the context. Panurge (Pantagruel, Book III, ch. xix) hits the truth upon this point, however ungallant in his application of it to the fair sex. He is desirous to consult a dumb man, but says it would be useless to apply to a woman, for "whatever it be that they see they do always represent unto their fancies, and imagine that it hath some relation to love. Whatever signs, shows, or gestures we shall make, or ...
— Sign Language Among North American Indians Compared With That Among Other Peoples And Deaf-Mutes • Garrick Mallery
... all the charming difficulty of fixing on the play. The dullest and dreariest of our country Rosciuses were uniformly for comedy; but the fair sex have a leaning to the tragic muse. We had one or two, who would have had no objection to be piquant in Lady Teazle, or petulant in Lady Townley; but we had half a dozen Desdemonas and Ophelias. The soul of an O'Neil was ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various
... the town is circulated, marriages concluded, and the secret intrigues of the parties are reciprocally detailed; in short, every thing which may be supposed to be brought on the tapis in an exclusive meeting of the fair sex. Nature is every where the same; and I presume, whether in a bath at Stamboul, a Parisian saloon, or a drawing-room in London, a similar love of gossip is their distinguishing characteristic. Almost ...
— Journal of a Visit to Constantinople and Some of the Greek Islands in the Spring and Summer of 1833 • John Auldjo
... and vanities of the Court of the Citizen-King had not spoiled the sometime druggist's kind heart; he wished to put his ex-commercial traveler in the way of renewing his wardrobe and replenishing his purse. So when Gaudissart, always an enthusiastic admirer of the fair sex, applied for the license of a bankrupt theatre, Popinot granted it on condition that Pons (a parasite of the Hotel Popinot) should be engaged as conductor of the orchestra; and at the same time, the Count was careful to send certain elderly amateurs ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac
... reasoning people awake o' nights, it was protested; and other inconveniences like the water—tributaries of the Styx—in the mines made the atmosphere, and the blankets sometimes, rather humid. These little discomforts, however, were felt only on one or two floors; and the fair sex in the main were grateful for the efforts made to make things cosy for everybody. Sanitation was of course the paramount difficulty; but altogether to their eternal credit must redound the indomitable energy and labours of the floor managers, the mine employees generally, and even the directors, ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... Jews are, I thought. And their God might choose more becoming expressions when he speaks of the fair sex. ...
— Venus in Furs • Leopold von Sacher-Masoch
... understand the female heart so well, I make no doubt you are a general favorite among the fair sex." "Any man," he replied, "that understands horses has a pretty considerable fair knowledge of women, for they are jist alike in temper, and require the very identical same treatment. Encourage the timid ones, be gentle and steady with the fractious, ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VIII (of X) • Various
... availed himself of the frankness of the moment to extract from Gosling some further information upon the subject of Anthony Foster, and the lady whom the mercer had seen in his mansion-house; but his inquiries only set the host upon a new theme of declamation against the wiles of the fair sex, in which he brought, at full length, the whole wisdom of Solomon to reinforce his own. Finally, he turned his admonitions, mixed with much objurgation, upon his tapsters and drawers, who were employed in removing the relics of the entertainment, and restoring order to the apartment; ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... tier above tier to the top of a woody bank, Trevoux affords a perfect idea of a little Tuscan town. The Hotel du Sauvage, and the Hotel de l'Europe, are equally well frequented; and, like Oxford pastry-cooks, take care to employ the fair sex as sign-posts to their good cheer. Each inn has its couple of waiting-maids stationed at the waterside, in the costume of shepherdesses at Sadler's Wells, full of petits soins and agremens, and loud in the praises of their respective hotels. By these pertinacious ...
— Itinerary of Provence and the Rhone - Made During the Year 1819 • John Hughes
... worth mentioning that in the industrial art school of the Purdue University there were 13 of the fair sex as students, besides one in the chemical school, and two going through the mechanical courses just detailed, showing that the scope of woman's industry is less limited in America than in England. The Iowa State Agricultural ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 446, July 19, 1884 • Various
... origin to this period. It is to Richard Coeur de Lion that we are indebted for the rise of chivalry in England. It was he who developed tilts and tournaments, and under his auspices these diversions assumed a military air, the genius of poetry flourished, and the fair sex was exalted in admiration. How delightful was it then, beneath the ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... an embodiment of simplicity and elegance. Both sexes wear a sort of loose dressing gown, sometimes of silk—mostly so in the case of the fair sex—crossed over the front of their bodies, allowing the knee perfect liberty to protrude itself, if it is so minded, and confined to the waist by a band. But it is more particularly of the dress of the ladies I wish to speak. The band circling the waist, and known as the "obe," is ...
— In Eastern Seas - The Commission of H.M.S. 'Iron Duke,' flag-ship in China, 1878-83 • J. J. Smith
... read them, and then send them on; by which means, as he hints to her, (as she observes in her letter XXX) he was no stranger to what she wrote. Thus every way was the poor virgin beset: And the whole will shew the base arts of designing men to gain their wicked ends; and how much it behoves the fair sex to stand upon their guard against artful contrivances, especially when riches and power conspire against innocence and a ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson
... to have had an admiration for the beauties of nature, particularly as developed in the fair sex; a habit of mind which has been rather improved upon than discontinued ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume II. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... resigned my commission to accept the post of traveling salesman for a famous motor-car company? If I have not, pardon me. You will now readily accept my recklessness of spirit as a matter of course.) I turned over another page; from this I learned that the fair sex was going back to puff-sleeves again. Many an old sleeve was going to ...
— Hearts and Masks • Harold MacGrath
... was boasting to the doctor (Gregory) that among his disciples he had the honour to reckon many of the fair sex. 'Now tell me,' said the doctor, 'whether, if you had a wife or a daughter, you would wish them to be your disciples? Think well before you answer me; for I assure you that whatever your answer is, I will not ...
— Beaux and Belles of England • Mary Robinson
... just the place then. None of the fair sex there, my boy. You can enjoy the privilege of doing up your own linen to the fullest extent. You won't have anybody to iron your collars ...
— The Blunders of a Bashful Man • Metta Victoria Fuller Victor
... which has been, is, and always will be particularly pleasing to the fair sex, I believe," observed Alfred, smiling rather grimly as he wound up ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey
... diverted the town almost a whole month at the expence of the country, it is now high time that you should give the country their revenge. Since your withdrawing from this place, the fair sex are run into great extravagancies. Their petticoats, which began to heave and swell before you left us, are now blown up into a most enormous concave, and rise every day more and more: In short, Sir, since our women know themselves to be out of the eye of the SPECTATOR, they will be kept within ...
— The Coverley Papers • Various
... discovered, on his return, one of Madame Bonaparte's women, lying in wait, and who had seen him through the window of a closet opening upon the corridor. The First Consul, after a vigorous outburst against the curiosity of the fair sex, sent me to the young scout from the enemy's camp to intimate to her his orders to hold her tongue, unless she wished to be discharged without hope of return. I do not know whether I added a milder argument to these threats to buy her silence; but, whether from fear or for ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... last we began to joke about it in the reception-room; outriders and footmen tossed it from one to another when a new guest entered: "Alone!" And we laughed and enjoyed ourselves. But M. Nicklauss, with his extended knowledge of society, considered that the almost universal abstention of the fair sex was by ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... human race, fair sex! I truly suffer at the sight of your anxiety for the fate of the daring resolution which the Poles are taking for the liberation of our country. Your tears which that anxiety draws forth from tender hearts penetrate the heart of your compatriot who is consecrating himself to ...
— Kosciuszko - A Biography • Monica Mary Gardner
... mortifying change of reception at the assembly, would be highly diverting if it gave me less pain to hear it. With all his amusing absurdities, and amongst them not the least, a predominant desire to be thought well of by the fair sex, he has an abundant share of good-nature, and is a man of honor. Notwithstanding all that has happened, Melesinda may do worse than take him yet. But did the women resent it ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... observation concerning the condition of the weather as he followed his hostess into the library. He realized that he was acting strangely for one who had reached the supposedly practical view of life where all sentiment is barred from social intercourse with the fair sex, but he also realized that he was powerless to check the surge of what he now felt within. With kaleidoscopic rapidity there flashed through his mind every occasion when he had been with Miss Fox, from the ...
— Captain Pott's Minister • Francis L. Cooper
... of Addison and Steele with which his contemporaries sought to associate him. There was nothing in him of the courtier-like grace employed in the good-humored reproof of unimportant vices, of the indulgent, condescending admonition to the "gentle reader," particularly of the fair sex. In Hazlitt's hands the essay was an instrument for the expression of serious thought and virile passion. He lacked indeed the temperamental balance of Lamb. His insight into human nature was intellectual rather than sympathetic. ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... "Who long declining wedlock and aspiring above her sex fought under her brother with arms and manly attire in a flagship against the French." As also of Mary Astell, her contemporary, who had written a spirited "Essay in Defence of the Fair Sex." So there had been a Suffrage Movement as far back as in the days ...
— All Roads Lead to Calvary • Jerome K. Jerome
... been in a moralizing mood, as I very frequently am about this hour in the morning, I have often felt surprised by what little, trivial, and insignificant circumstances our lot in life seems to be cast; I mean especially as regards the fair sex. You are prospering, as it were, to-day; to-morrow a new cut of your whiskers, a novel tie of your cravat, mars your destiny and spoils your future, varium et mutabile, as Horace has it. On the other ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... to suppose that the bilingual lady who composes the fashion columns of the Daily Horror is most anxious to know how the fair sex was accoutred at our dinner party that night, I hasten to inform her that Charlotte was gowned in an elegant confection of Puttoo of a simply indescribable nuance of creme de boue—the train, extremely decolletee at the lower ...
— A Holiday in the Happy Valley with Pen and Pencil • T. R. Swinburne
... please me now, Anselmo," cried Benedetto, laughing. "At length you have become sensible. But tell me, is the little one handsome? For it is natural that your reform has been brought about by a woman; you always were an admirer and connoisseur of the fair sex." ...
— The Son of Monte-Cristo, Volume II (of 2) • Alexandre Dumas pere
... or traces on his brain." He knew from what French woman this manner of curling the hair came, who invented hoops, and whose vanity to show her foot brought in short dresses. He is a woman-killer, sceptical about marriage; and at length he gives the fair sex ample satisfaction for his cruelty and egotism by marrying, unknown to his friends, a farmer's daughter, whose face and ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... stories by heart, and had convicted him of glaring discrepancies in his description of the havoc he and his brother officers had made among the big game. Windus Carr was a conceited presuming cad, who was always boring them with impossible accounts of his conquests among the fair sex; and that poor Harker was an unmitigated fool, whose brains had run into his billiard-cue. This was the report which John Saltram gave of his fellow-guests; and he left the shooting-party morning after ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... unit in a family is an ill-managing wife, or an indolent woman of any sort. The fair sex are sometimes very acute in what concerns themselves. They keep a tight hand over their dressmakers and milliners. They can tell to a thread when a flounce is too narrow or a tuck too deep. But if their knowledge only extends to their own dress, they are not help-meets, ...
— Thrift • Samuel Smiles
... of Bow Bells, Family Herald, Young Ladies' Journal fiction. But the romance was all in his well-groomed looks, as he was as commonplace a Saxon as could be met with in a day's march. Fond of sport, attentive to his duties as artillery captain, and devoted to what is romantically known as the fair sex, he sauntered easily through life, very well contented with himself and with his agreeable surroundings. He read fiction when he did read, and those weekly papers devoted to sport; troubled his head very little about politics, ...
— The Green Mummy • Fergus Hume
... Brogynin, in the parish of Llanbadarn Fawr, Cardiganshire, and was born about the year 1340. The bard was of illustrious lineage, and of handsome person. His poetical talent and personal beauty procured him the favourable notice of the fair sex; which, however, occasioned him much misfortune. His attachments were numerous, and one to Morvydd, the daughter of Madog Lawgam, of Niwbwrch, in Anglesea, a Welsh chieftain, caused the bard to be imprisoned. This lady was the subject of a great portion of the bard's ...
— The Poetry of Wales • John Jenkins
... young. But whether our poets borrowed from this prolific source or not, it is certain that about this time they became more ambitious, and produced regular tales of considerable length, in which the northern gallantry towards the fair sex was combined with extravagances resembling those of ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... operation, caused her own children to be inoculated. A great part of the kingdom followed her example, and since that time ten thousand children, at least, of persons of condition owe in this manner their lives to her Majesty and to the Lady Wortley Montague; and as many of the fair sex are obliged to them ...
— Letters on England • Voltaire
... gentlemen were disappointed, to whose eyes the beauty of Delia, however unrivalled, was familiar, the disappointment and envy of the fair sex upon the loss of Damon, whose external and natural recommendations had beside the grace of novelty, were inexpressible. The daughter of Mr. Griskin, an eminent butcher in Clare-market, who had indeed from nature, the grace ...
— Damon and Delia - A Tale • William Godwin
... a better footing. Parliament then took it up, and we have now the satisfaction of informing our readers that Hiram's Hospital will be immediately reopened under new auspices. Heretofore, provision was made for the maintenance of twelve old men. This will now be extended to the fair sex, and twelve elderly women, if any such can be found in Barchester, will be added to the establishment. There will be a matron; there will, it is hoped, be schools attached for the poorest of the children of the poor, and there will be a steward. ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... custom to bestow titles or honorific distinctions upon artists of the fair sex, yet, in lieu of these, to such an extent have presents been showered upon Adelina Patti, that the jewels which she has been presented with from time to time are said to be of the enormous value of L100,000. In the year 1885, when she appeared in New ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 8 (of 8) • Various
... were filled with members of the fair sex, the sidewalks of the old English town were closely packed by men ...
— The Hero of Ticonderoga - or Ethan Allen and his Green Mountain Boys • John de Morgan
... the plantons from certain essential and normal desires. On the contrary. The plantons probably realised that, in competition with the male world at large, their glass legs and tin hands and wooden eyes would not stand a Chinaman's chance of winning the affection and admiration of the fair sex. At any rate they were always on the alert for opportunities to triumph over the admiration and affection of les femmes at La Ferte, where their success was not endangered by competition. They had the bulge on everybody; and they used what ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings
... to the general order of occult bestialities, the dog belongs. It seems quite permissible to think that the spirits of ladies, with an absorbing mania for canine pets, should be eventually earth-bound in the form of dogs—a fate which many of the fair sex have assured me would be "absolutely divine," and far preferable to ...
— Byways of Ghost-Land • Elliott O'Donnell
... "It seems the fair sex is at the bottom of it," said the coachman, slapping the nine of trumps on the king of diamonds. "It seems he was fond of another man's wife and disliked his ...
— The Schoolmistress and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... walls of the fort for so long streamed out to meet and welcome us, overjoyed at being free at last. We presented, I am afraid, but a sorry appearance, as compared to the neatly-dressed ladies and the spick-and-span troops who greeted us, for one of the fair sex was overheard to remark, 'Was ever such a dirty-looking lot seen?' Our clothes were, indeed, worn and soiled, and our faces so bronzed that the white soldiers were hardly to be ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts
... the planked back yard, we sat on our steps, with a volume of "The Quiver" on our knees, in case Mrs. Handsomebody should invade our privacy, and played a rollicking game of pirates. And when any of the fair sex fell into our hands we were none ...
— Explorers of the Dawn • Mazo de la Roche
... may be utilized as occasion requires. I pass over such rudimentary formulas as "Ed, shake hands with Jim Taylor," or, "Boys, this is Pete, the new hand; Pete, get hold of the end of that cant-hook." In fact, we are speaking only of polite society as graced by the fair sex, the only kind that we ...
— The Hohenzollerns in America - With the Bolsheviks in Berlin and other impossibilities • Stephen Leacock
... society, his fine tact and the instinct of what was becoming told him that when the conversation ran into personalities the best plan was to be silent, and that he must not return personal remarks, since his opponent was one of the fair sex. He therefore remained silent, and so controlled himself as to join in the general laughter and to show himself heartily amused at the unfortunate ...
— The Empress Josephine • Louise Muhlbach
... the authenticity of which it is impossible to answer. They are all handsome, and remarkable for an almost nun-like shyness and sweetness of expression. She was certainly a woman of refined taste and cultivated mind, and at a time when female modesty was the only rare adornment of the fair sex in Avignon, her character was as stainless as the first snow-flake which fell on the summit of the Estrelles. The connection between Petrarch and Laura seems to our modern ideas a very ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... number of men carried in other ships, and a state of crowded discomfort must have been the result, especially in some crazy old vessel cruising in the tropics or rounding the Horn in winter. Of the relationship between the sea-rovers and the fair sex it would be best, perhaps, to draw a discreet veil. The pirates and the buccaneers looked upon women simply as the spoils of war, and were as profligate with these as with the rest of their plunder. I do not know if I am disclosing a secret when ...
— The Pirates' Who's Who - Giving Particulars Of The Lives and Deaths Of The Pirates And Buccaneers • Philip Gosse
... straight features, and comely and pleasing manners, which all would have allowed to the Emperor's daughter, even if she could not have been, with severe truth, said to have possessed them. She was placed upon a small bench, or sofa, the fair sex here not being permitted to recline, as was the fashion of the Roman ladies. A table before her was loaded with books, plants, herbs, and drawings. She sat on a slight elevation, and those who enjoyed ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... forgotten. Nay, I was told a few days since by an able Southern lawyer, who was long the mayor of one of the largest Southern cities, that in his opinion the practice of duelling—which is an epitome of war—owes its continued existence at the South to a sustaining public sentiment among the fair sex. ...
— Women and the Alphabet • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... they are married, and have no farther desire to please, or till they are somewhat passees, and find their faculties of pleasing impaired. What a death-blow does snuffing give to all that romance with which it is the interest of refined society to invest the fair sex! How vulgar the thought "that a sneeze should interrupt a sigh!"—How unpoetical is snuff! The most suitable verses which a lover could address to a snuff-taking mistress, would be imitations of Horace's lines to the Sorceress Canidia. ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... mind is beyond the comprehension of men's "arithmetical understanding." The Chinese ideogram denoting "the mysterious," "the unknowable," consists of two parts, one meaning "young" and the other "woman," because the physical charms and delicate thoughts of the fair sex are above the coarse mental calibre of ...
— Bushido, the Soul of Japan • Inazo Nitobe
... de fair sex am so captious 'bout us gemmen; but Vic is up dar, and you can ask her, she knows all 'bout de 'prieties. Smart gal, dat Vic, I tell you; loves Miss ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens
... that plank on the morning of Quasimodo, in the year of the Lord, 1467, appeared to excite to a high degree, the curiosity of the numerous group which had congregated about the wooden bed. The group was formed for the most part of the fair sex. Hardly any one was there except ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... intelligence is but the coldness of a winter moon, whose beams can produce no fruit, whose solar light is not its own, but borrowed from the great dispenser of effulgent beauty. We have no disposition in the world to flatter the fair sex, we would raise them above those dastardly principles which only exist in little souls, contracted hearts, and a distracted brain. Often does she unfold herself in all her fascinating loveliness, presenting the most captivating charms; yet we find man frequently ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... moments, confided to Cradell the secret of a second weaker passion for Amelia. "She is a fine girl,—a deuced fine girl!" Johnny Eames had said, using a style of language which he had learned since he left Guestwick and Allington. Mr Cradell, also, was an admirer of the fair sex; and, alas! that I should say so, Mrs Lupex, at the present moment, was the object of his admiration. Not that he entertained the slightest idea of wronging Mr Lupex,—a man who was a scene-painter, and knew the world. Mr Cradell admired Mrs Lupex as a connoisseur, not simply as ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... of stringed instrument players, and we must concede that no name of the first importance has been omitted. Germany is represented by 21 names, Italy by 13, France by 10, England by 4, Bohemia by 8, Belgium by 7, and the fair sex by seven well-known ladies, such as Teresina Tua, Therese and Marie Milanollo, Lady Halle, Marie Soldat, Gabrielle Wietrowetz, and Arma Senkrah. Altogether this is most agreeable reading to the numerous army of violinists, ...
— The Repairing & Restoration of Violins - 'The Strad' Library, No. XII. • Horace Petherick
... emissaries, with such conduct as would have done honour to the genius of a Caesar or a Turenne; but he has one weakness, which has proved fatal to all the heroes of his tribe, namely, an indiscreet devotion to the fair sex, and in all probability, he will be attacked on this ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... in deep widow's weeds rises as he enters, and makes him one of those profound courtesies which were considered appropriate for the fair sex to display to those in rank and honour in the good old days when George was king. Surely a young woman still, despite the fifteen years that have passed, with a young supple figure and a pleasant unlined face. Eighteen years and fifteen only make thirty-three, ...
— Stories by English Authors: England • Various
... society and with the fair sex?" I continued. "The dashing Arsene's love-affairs!... And the clue to your good actions? Those chapters in your life to which you have so often alluded under the names of The Wedding-ring, Shadowed by Death, and so on!... Why delay these confidences and confessions, my ...
— The Confessions of Arsene Lupin • Maurice Leblanc
... he said, "that I am unmarried, as I have always been a great admirer of the fair sex; but, the fact is, I had one strong affection, and that has lasted me all my life. The last time I was with her, she promised to be my wife, and we pledged ourselves to be eternally faithful to ...
— The Somnambulist and the Detective - The Murderer and the Fortune Teller • Allan Pinkerton
... developments. Buck Gowdy and Mrs. Mobley; Rowena and Magnus Thorkelson; Gowdy's calls on Rowena, or at least at her home; Rowena's going to live in his house as a hired girl; her warmth to me; her nervousness, or fright, at Gowdy; Gowdy's religious tendency in the midst of his entanglements with the fair sex; his seeming reconciliation with Virginia; his pulling of the wool over the eyes of Mrs. Thorndyke, and probably the elder's—. Out of this maze I came to a sudden resolution. I would go to Waterloo and get me a new outfit ...
— Vandemark's Folly • Herbert Quick
... was much the fashion for several ladies to have evening assemblies, where the fair sex might participate in conversation with literary and ingenious men, animated by a desire to please. These societies were denominated Blue-stocking Clubs, the origin of which title being little known, it may be worth while to relate ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... business of my life has always been to indulge my senses; I never knew anything of greater importance. I felt myself born for the fair sex, I have ever loved it dearly, and I have been loved by it as often and as much as I could. I have likewise always had a great weakness for good living, and I ever felt passionately fond of every object which excited ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... pedant, strong on letters, theology, science, and sapience, one of those dull wits cut by the square; a pin by profession. He is an honorable idler who lounges, who practises country jaunts, who cultivates the grisette, who pays court to the fair sex, who is at this very moment, perhaps, with my mistress. Let us save him. Death to Blondeau!' At that moment, Blondeau dipped his pen in, all black with erasures in the ink, cast his yellow eyes round the audience room, and repeated for the third time: 'Marius ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... and, had he come up earlier, he would have been successful in securing her. But he chose to regard it as a slight, and this naturally embittered him still more, partly against his cousin, but most of all against Gilbert, who, both in business and with the fair sex, seemed to ...
— Tom, The Bootblack - or, The Road to Success • Horatio Alger
... after an exceptionally good dinner. And, with her high sense of what was due to his rank, she fancied that it made him mildly ridiculous. Neither, it might be, had her earliest doubts been ever wholly laid to rest. But members of the fair sex, when they are practical, are apt ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various
... turned at the sound of the carriage-wheels, and sauntered forward to meet the visitors. He had black hair, and a very pink and white complexion. To say that he looked like a girl would be disparaging to the fair sex, but his face would at once have impressed a careful observer as being that of a very poor ...
— Soldiers of the Queen • Harold Avery
... "Laugh and be Fat." Another advertisement of about the same date contained, among the books for misses, "The Masqued Wedding," "The Elopement," "The Passionate Lovers," "Sketches of the History and Importance of the Fair Sex," "Original Love Letters," and "Six Dialogues of Young Misses Relating to Matrimony;" thus showing that love-stories were not abhorred by the descendants ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle
... The fair sex were dressed in Turkish-Greek costume; they wore silk trousers, gathered together round the ankles, and over these, long upper garments, embroidered with gold, the arms of which were tight as far ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer
... actually was haunted at that very time; but Queeker did not see any ghosts, although he afterwards freely confessed to having seen all the rooms in the house more or less haunted by fairy spirits of the fair sex, and masculine ghosts in buckskins and top-boots! The whole air and aspect of the neighbourhood was such that Queeker half expected to find a May-pole in the neighbouring village, sweet shepherdesses in straw hats, pink ...
— The Floating Light of the Goodwin Sands • R.M. Ballantyne
... one which has reposed for the twelvemonth previous, is at that time wheeled from its accustomed shed, and put in requisition for some of pleasure's votaries. Long lines of them continue to pass and repass in the principal street. Their inmates are almost universally of the fair sex, and of the best part of it, the young and beautiful. Cavaliers, with silken bags, containing bon-bons, slung on their left arm, stand at intervals, ready to discharge the harmless missiles, at those whom their taste approves worthy of the ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman
... I have remarked, mostly recognise the artistic truth that the animal-man is handsomer than woman and that "fair sex" is truly only of skin-colour. The same is the general-rule throughout creation, for instance the stallion compared with the mare, the cock with the hen; while there are sundry exceptions ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 4 • Richard F. Burton
... remarked, grinning amiably at the chaff of his friends. "You see, potatoes go to make up life for a big part of the human race; and we're after 'em, good and hard. And our girls are helping us out handsomely. We take off our hats to the fair sex. Paulding is all right, if a little ...
— Fred Fenton on the Track - or, The Athletes of Riverport School • Allen Chapman
... she sent no word to me that I would be welcome at her chariot, and my foolish pride kept me from making any advances. I verily believe that a man's way with women is in inverse ratio to his prowess among men. The weakling and the saphead have often great ability to charm the fair sex, while the fighting man who can face a thousand real dangers unafraid, sits hiding in the ...
— A Princess of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... a bachelor, three or four years older than Isabel. He lived in beautiful rooms overlooking the river, guarded by a faithful Scottish man-servant. And he had his friends among the fair sex—not lovers, friends. So long as he could avoid any danger of courtship or marriage, he adored a few good women with constant and unfailing homage, and he was chivalrously fond of quite a number. But if they seemed to encroach on him, ...
— England, My England • D.H. Lawrence
... so many of the fair sex to do his bidding, that he was relieved of the necessity of troubling himself about food. Frequently, as all manly men do (civilised as well as savage), he longed for the passion of the chase; and then he fished or harpooned turtle or hunted wallabies with spear and nulla-nulla, or cut "bees' ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... continued propensity to rove at liberty among the fair sex could not in the long run fail of some results of an unsatisfactory character. Coincident with the disappearance of Stephanie Platow, he launched upon a variety of episodes, the charming daughter of so worthy a man as Editor Haguenin, his sincerest and most sympathetic ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... little, and our Linguist was bidden to advise them to be Wise in Time, and surrender their Valuables, which they did. And so civil were our Sailors to them, that they offered to dress some Victuals for us when we got 'em aboard; which made us hope that the Fair Sex would be kind to us when we returned to England, for our discreet ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 3 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... decried as positively unwholesome. Yet we still use them, and no one has succeeded in leading a crusade against them at all comparable with the onslaughts on other stimulants, made in these temperance days. The fair sex raises its voice against tobacco and other masculine sedatives, but clings pertinaciously to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various
... greatly exalted by this triumph, and incontestable proof of his popularity with the fair sex, quickly grew convivial, not to say uproarious; volunteering more than one song of no inconsiderable length, and regaling the social circle between-whiles with recollections of divers splendid women who had been supposed to entertain a passion for himself, several of whom ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... comes the most remarkable passage in the history of these pirates—remarkable with any class of men, but doubly so among the Chinese, who entertain more than the general oriental opinion of the inferiority of the fair sex. On the death of Ching-yih, his legitimate wife had sufficient influence over the freebooters to induce them to recognize her authority in the place of her deceased husband's, and she appointed one Paou as her lieutenant and prime minister, and provided that she should ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms
... very flattering specimen of the fair sex," said my uncle, affecting a laugh, "but ugly as she now is, I remember her both young and handsome. What was the ...
— The Monctons: A Novel, Volume I • Susanna Moodie
... Conversation on the Road generally turned upon the Captain's Amours and the Intrigues he had been engaged in with the Fair Sex, but more particularly his affair with Miss Blandy. They expressed their surprize that he should make his addresses to a young Lady of her Character and Fortune, with a view of marrying her, when the Conjugal Obligations he was already under, ...
— Trial of Mary Blandy • William Roughead
... late a commissary in Germany. He is between sixty and seventy, but means to pass for about thirty; gallant, complaisant, obsequious, and humble to the fair sex, for whom he has an awful reverence; ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... of his standing in society could not long remain in single dormancy; he was therefore besieged by many of the fair sex. This was very pleasing and flattering to him, although he concealed his appreciation. Of course a palace such as his, without a wife, was like a garden of Eden without an Eve. He had no one to use the electric vacuum cleaner on his linoleums ...
— Skookum Chuck Fables - Bits of History, Through the Microscope • Skookum Chuck (pseud for R.D. Cumming)
... N. woman, she, her, female, petticoat. feminality^, muliebrity^; womanhood &c (adolescence) 131. womankind; the sex, the fair; fair sex, softer sex; weaker vessel. dame, madam, madame, mistress, Mrs. lady, donna belle [Sp.], matron, dowager, goody, gammer^; Frau [G.], frow^, Vrouw [Du.], rani; good woman, good wife; squaw; wife ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... said Peter. "By the unanimous consent of rhetoricians, there is but one sex the sex, the fair sex, the unfair sex, the gentle sex, the barbaric sex. We men do not form a sex, we do not even form a sect. We are your mere hangers-on, camp-followers, satellites—your things, your playthings—we are the mere shuttlecocks which you toss hither and thither ...
— The Cardinal's Snuff-Box • Henry Harland
... called uncle, except in fun. He was too near her age, the young lady frequently declaring that she had half a mind to throw aside all family ties and lay siege to the handsome young man, who really was very popular with the fair sex. During this discussion of Lottie, Anna had sat listlessly looking up and down the columns of an old Herald, which Dick, Eudora's pet dog, had ferreted out from the table and deposited at her feet. She evidently was not thinking of Lottie, nor ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes
... reserved for the highest nobility, where the Lord Mayor and his wife were seated on a throne. Dancing then commenced in due order of precedence, but only one couple at a time, just as on January 6, the King's birthday. There were raised benches on both sides of this room with four steps, where the fair sex chiefly prevailed. Nothing but minuets were danced in this saloon, but I could only remain for a quarter of an hour, first, because the heat of so many people assembled in such a narrow space was so oppressive, and, secondly, ...
— Haydn • J. Cuthbert Hadden
... with the inevitable bunch of juniper, the honor of decorating the entrance and justified an appellation one might have regarded as disrespectful to the fair sex. The original design had been repainted in dazzling colors by the artist charged with restoring the church. This alliance of the profane with the sacred had, it is true, scandalized the parish priest, but he did not dare say a word too much, ...
— Gerfaut, Complete • Charles de Bernard
... I have the greatest, the blindest confidence in your word; I know all its authority; but this concerns the fair sex, and you cannot understand the heart of woman as I understand it, you do not know what inexplicable caprices they are capable of; you do not know that what pleases them to-day displeases them to-morrow; and that ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue
... compelled to withhold, there was not a single female. Everybody in it was given up to contemplation and ascetic absorption; and it is well known that profound contemplation, for any length of time, and the presence of the fair sex, are incompatible. I was much troubled by this vacuous sensation, which I felt to be in the highest degree derogatory to my fifth principle, and the secret of which I discovered, during a trance-condition which lasted for several months, to arise from ...
— Fashionable Philosophy - and Other Sketches • Laurence Oliphant
... justified in pestering the committee for tickets. To say nothing of ladies! As the committee desired to be present themselves, nine-tenths of the applications for admission had to be refused, as is usual on these occasions. The committee agreed among themselves to exclude the fair sex altogether as the only way of disposing of their womankind, who were making speeches as long as Mr. Gladstone's. Each committeeman told his sisters, female cousins, and aunts, that the other committeemen had insisted ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... the employees of the pill factory were women—or, more properly, girls—in an era when it was not yet common-place for members of the fair sex to leave the shelter of their homes for paid employment. The wage rates during the 1870s, 1880s and 1890s were $3 to $5 a week for girls and $7 to $12 a week for men; the last-named amount was an acceptable rate at that time for a permanent and experienced adult man. The factory ...
— History of the Comstock Patent Medicine Business and Dr. Morse's Indian Root Pills • Robert B. Shaw
... Savka's menu, but his clothing, too, bore traces of feminine "pity." Thus I noticed that he had on, that evening, a new woven belt and a crimson ribbon on which a copper cross hung round his dirty neck. I knew of the weakness of the fair sex for Savka, and I knew that he did not like talking about it, and so I did not carry my inquiries any further. Besides there was not time to talk.... Kutka, who had been fidgeting about near us and patiently waiting for scraps, suddenly pricked up his ears and growled. We heard in the distance repeated ...
— The Witch and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... But if the fair sex in Lugano are diligent in frequenting the churches, they by no means scorn the cafes. After sunset the little tables that are all over the great square are surrounded by an entire population of men and women. How gay and amusing ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Vol VIII - Italy and Greece, Part Two • Various
... devoted admirer of the fair sex, and always imagining himself in love with some unattainable beauty, he had a passionate craze for music, and played upon the violin and flute with considerable taste and execution. The sound of a favourite melody operated upon the breathing automaton like magic, ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... the female on a similar occasion, he brought his gallant, one William Barton, a fortune of no less than fifteen pounds, which, even supposing it to have been the Scottish denomination of coin, was a very liberal endowment compared with his niggardly conduct towards the fair sex on such an occasion. Neither did he pass false coin on this occasion, but, on the contrary, generously gave Burton a merk, to keep the fifteen pounds whole. In observing on Satan's conduct in this matter, Master George Sinclair observes ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott
... man with an Agency, "may lack the literary quality; but what I wanted it to show is that the young lady remained true. She cared nothing for wealth in comparison with true affection. I admire and believe in the fair sex too much ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... days after there was a brilliant reunion at Princess Shadursky's. All the beauty and fashion of St. Petersburg were invited, and few who were invited failed to come. It happened that Prince Shadursky was an admirer of the fair sex, and also that he had had the pleasure of meeting the brilliant Baroness von Doring at Hamburg, and again in Paris. It was, therefore, to be expected that Baroness von Doring should be found in the midst of an admiring throng at Princess ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne
... fifteen to Constantinople, twenty to St Petersburg, and innumerable ones to Liverpool and through his exertions had amassed the large fortune which he was now enjoying. He was a merry-hearted man, with excellent sound sense on all points except one—that one being the fair sex, with which he was about as well acquainted as an alligator with a camera-obscure. The attentions paid to him by Arthurine seemed to please the old bachelor uncommonly. There was a mixture of kindness, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various
... of the room on our right and left. There are eight or ten men and two or three ladies; the ladies very handsomely dressed. Lower down are several young girls in light drapery, laughing, talking and smoking their hookahs. The fair sex look rather scared and shyly at the foreigners, but some of the men are evidently trying to reassure them. Order being at length restored, our cheroots lighted and our iced brandy-pawnee made ready, the performance recommences. The corps de ballet are not hired for the occasion, but form part ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 31. October, 1873. • Various
... of life. Health, the greatest of blessings, depends on industry—beauty, on health. If ladies, then, wish to be beautiful, they must be industrious; they must animate their countenances with that blooming health which comes from the SPINNING-WHEEL. The fair sex, when rightly and industriously employed, are justly termed the beauty of this lower creation. Beauty without virtue is contemptible. Merit only gains the heart. Idleness is disgraceful. Industry is the ornament of wealth, the support and consolation of poverty. ...
— The Olden Time Series: Vol. 2: The Days of the Spinning-Wheel in New England • Various
... nails, chissels, cloth, red feathers, beads, knives, scissars, looking-glasses, &c. articles which will ever be valuable here. I ought not to omit shirts as a very capital article in making presents; especially with those who have any connexion with the fair sex. A shirt here is full as necessary as a piece of gold in England. The ladies at Otaheite, after they had pretty well stripped their lovers of shirts, found a method of clothing themselves with their ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World, Volume 1 • James Cook
... As archbishop he behaved with great prudence, and was equally respectable as the guardian of the revenues of the see. Rumour whispered he retained the vices of his youth, and that a passion for the fair sex formed an item in the list of his weaknesses; but so far from being convicted by seventy witnesses, he does not appear to have been directly criminated by one. In short, I look upon these aspersions as the effects of mere malice. How is it possible a buccaneer should have ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron
... case, my Carlo!' said his friend, and shrugged, and spoke in a very worldly fashion of the fair sex. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... that at eight o'clock on the following evening, Captain Tiago's house was again full of guests, only that this time the men whom he had invited were either Spaniards or Chinamen, while the fair sex was represented by Spaniards born in the Peninsula ...
— Friars and Filipinos - An Abridged Translation of Dr. Jose Rizal's Tagalog Novel, - 'Noli Me Tangere.' • Jose Rizal
... presented her to the empress, who forgave him his weaknesses, on condition that he gave no one his political confidence, which up to that time he had confided to her alone. He was a devoted admirer of the fair sex, and it would be necessary to refer to the most shameful epochs of Roman history to find any emperor whose life was as scandalous as his own; his cabinet was found after his death to be filled with valuable stuffs, rings, fans, trinkets, and even ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... on his heart, "I always like to get the fair sex on my side whenever possible. If you can put the halter on her, you've only to name your ...
— The Top of the World • Ethel M. Dell
... I said, with an asperity I seldom use where the fair sex is concerned; but I began to see that this hysterical creature was going to be in the way during a research that called for coolness and calmness. I was sorry I had invited her to come. 'Nonsense, ...
— The Triumphs of Eugene Valmont • Robert Barr
... these bottles to our bosoms and then that excuse there has the crust to speak up and say, 'I forgot the corkscrew.' Can you beat it? Wilbur, you just get on the job and pull them out with your teeth. Get away, you big standup and fall down, I'll show you how to get them out. What do you think us fair sex wear hat pins for, hey, shover? Want some of this jig juice for your tire? Right-o! Ain't I the English scamp? Got her fixed all right? Climb in, folks, and we will journey homeward, for I am beginning to feel thirsty and you certainly ...
— The Sorrows of a Show Girl • Kenneth McGaffey
... across this sage chronicler of his dead wife, circulating testimonials to her excellences, to which no doubt he was oblivious in her lifetime. 'They had,' he writes, 'from their earliest years lived in the most intimate and unreserved friendship.' His love of the fair sex has been already mentioned (he had quoted the song of 'the Soapers' in our first chapter), and she was the constant yet prudent and delicate confidante of all his 'egarements du coeur et de l'esprit.' This we may doubt, and the gracefully allusive French quotation reminds us of Mr Pepys' use ...
— James Boswell - Famous Scots Series • William Keith Leask
... is but one person who can manage a fire, and that is yourself. Servants never did and never will learn the art, and, as I am writing for men, and the ladies are not supposed to read this article, I will state that the fair sex show a like deficiency in this line. The first thing a woman wants to do with a fire is to make the logs roost on the andirons, the next thing is to remove every speck of ashes from the hearth, and then she wonders why the ...
— Shelters, Shacks and Shanties • D.C. Beard
... assented. "The sly little puss," he continued, "not to mention a word of it even to me. But I suppose it is not considered by the fair sex quite the thing to speak to any one on so delicate a subject until after the gentleman has popped the question." Shortly after, he took his departure for his chambers at Lincoln's Inn, and it was noticed that Doctor Ashburnham and Mr. Tom Barton were seen more frequently together than ...
— Vellenaux - A Novel • Edmund William Forrest
... considered as a virtue, and to entitle us to the rewards bestowed upon it by the fair sex, who value it above all others, is so wholly out of our control, that when suffering under sickness or disease, it deserts us; nay, for the time being, a violent stomach-ache will turn a ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... motion, too, was as graceful as needs be; indeed nature had done well her part, lavishing on his person a goodly number of those endowments so necessary to a modern diplomatist, whose chief function is to ornament the drawing-room, and create a flutter among certain of the fair sex. You must understand that in Europe, as well as America, the corps diplomatic rules the roost of fashion, and, in addition to its enrolling within its precious precincts numbers of the legitimate aristocracy, creates a great fluttering ...
— The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth • Timothy Templeton
... attended with some emotion or affection, which is destroyed by the too frequent repetition. One can consider the clouds, and heavens, and trees, and stones, however frequently repeated, without ever feeling any aversion. But when the fair sex, or music, or good cheer, or any thing, that naturally ought to be agreeable, becomes indifferent, it easily ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume
... Beauchamp. The ladies were curious to see him. The gentlemen, not anticipating extreme amusement, were calm: for it is an axiom in the world of buckskins and billiard-cues, that one man is very like another; and so true is it with them, that they can in time teach it to the fair sex. Friends of Cecil Baskelett predominated, and the absence of so sprightly a fellow was regretted seriously; but he was shooting with his uncle at Holdesbury, and they did not expect him ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... to whom they are indebted for the introduction of ices, which all the fair sex are passionately fond of?—To Catherine de' Medici. Will not this fact cover a multitude of sins committed by the instigator of St. ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... its settled policy The Daily Giggle will appeal more especially to the fair sex. There is more than a touch of pathos in the signature "Orphan Boy," which will appear at the foot of his letter on the subject, "Are ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, July 29, 1914 • Various
... (the friend of Descartes and his literary executor), his son-in-law Rohault (who achieved that relationship through his Cartesianism), and others, opened their houses for readings to which the intellectual world of Paris—its learned professors not more than the courtiers and the fair sex,—flocked to hear the new doctrines explained, and possibly discuss their value. Grand seigneurs, like the prince of Cond, the duc de Nevers and the marquis de Vardes, were glad to vary the monotony of their feudal ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various
... we may judge from one occurrence deposed to, of personal attractions, may be said to have convulsed Lancashire from the Leven to the Mersey,—to have caused a sensation, the shock of which, after more than two centuries, has scarcely yet subsided, and to have actually given a new name to the fair sex. ...
— Discovery of Witches - The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster • Thomas Potts
... Above all things, he prided himself on being a ladies' man, and the fair sex (as he always called them) admired him without disguise. His manner towards them was gallant yet deferential, tender yet manly. He conceded everything to their weakness; yet no man in Troy could treat a ...
— The Mayor of Troy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... the fair sex," he added, as he and Percival were alone for a moment, "that enterprisin' lady we settled with is goin' to do one thing you'll ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson
... article on the Polar Seas sets out with the assertion of a fact of which I was profoundly ignorant, namely, that the Physical Constitution of the Globe is subject to constant changes and revolution. Of constant changes I never heard, except in one of Congreve's plays, in which the fair sex is accused of constant inconstancy; but suppose that for constant you read frequent. I should wish you, for my own particular information, to add in a note a few instances of the Physical Changes in the Constitution of the Globe, which have occurred since ...
— A Publisher and His Friends • Samuel Smiles
... the White House grounds thought it a very interesting sight to observe the President of the United States standing with one foot on the step of an automobile talking with a member of the fair sex. They got the impression from the animated character of the conversation that Mrs. Galt was disappointed because the President was not going to accompany her to Continental Hall, and that she was trying to persuade him to abandon his ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer
... only add to her beauty, but gave her a thousand little privileges, which otherwise would have been denied to women, though in a country of much freedom. Every day she appeared in the Tour, she failed not to make a conquest on some unguarded heart of the fair sex: not was it long ere she received billets-doux from many of the most accomplished who could speak and write French. This gave them a pleasure in the midst of her unlucky exile, and she failed not to boast ...
— Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister • Aphra Behn
... officer (and I was thankful he didn't belong to our country), took great pride in describing his conquests with the fair sex in the different quarters of the globe where he had ...
— The High Calling • Charles M. Sheldon
... of American walkers, Mr. Robert Cortes Holliday, the American Belloc, whose "Walking Stick Papers" has beckoned to the eye of a far-seeing publisher. Mr. Holliday it is who has bravely stated why so few of the fair sex are able ...
— Shandygaff • Christopher Morley
... entered at a side-door, leaving me in admiration of her beauty, and astonished with the over-frankness of her manners, which seemed the more extraordinary at a time when the dictates of politeness, flowing from the court of the Grand Monarque Louis XIV., prescribed to the fair sex an unusual severity of decorum. I was left awkwardly enough stationed in the centre of the court of the old hall, mounted on one horse, and holding another ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... quickness of eye and taste in externals formed a real ground of sympathy between her and Sir Christopher. Lady Cheverel's enthusiasm never rose above the temperate mark of calm satisfaction, and, having quite her share of the critical acumen which characterizes the mutual estimates of the fair sex, she had a more moderate opinion of Miss Assher's qualities. She suspected that the fair Beatrice had a sharp and imperious temper; and being herself, on principle and by habitual self-command, the most deferential of wives, she noticed with disapproval Miss Assher's occasional air ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... we found him in jail, and he thought his bones were broken, and he wanted to know what was the cause of his sudden popularity with the fair sex, and I told him it all came from his looking so confounded distinguished, and his flirting with women. He said he would swear he never looked at one of those women in a tone of voice that would deceive a Sunday school teacher, and he felt as though he ...
— Peck's Bad Boy Abroad • George W. Peck
... measured. The next house, and the next, and the next, were shut. And then another open house contained another veritable hag. Passing several other houses, tightly closed, we found a third old woman, and I saw that we were destined to secure nothing but decrepit hags, as representatives of the fair sex. At the next closed house, I stopped, and turning to an official, who spoke Spanish, said, "I am tired of these closed houses; who owns this house?" His name was given, and I wrote it down. "Very well," said I, ...
— In Indian Mexico (1908) • Frederick Starr
... which I do not intend to dilute with any additions of my own. My readers, more especially those of the fair sex, can picture to themselves at pleasure the future happiness of ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... he was conscious that he had been rather foolish with different admiring friends of the fair sex; and though he was no prig, and knew most men took kisses and caressess when offered, and would have thought it a needless throwing away of good things to refuse, he yet felt a little irritated with himself and the givers without quite ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page
... you," said the lady, laughing affectedly; "you should really have been a Catholic priest instead of a Presbyterian. What an invaluable father confessor have the fair sex lost in you, Mr. Cargill, and how dexterously you would have evaded any cross-examinations which might have committed ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... surrender of their identity to the Juggernaut car of public curiosity and criticism, and begin either anonymously or with a pseudonyme. A masculine nom de plume has of late been a favorite device with the fair sex, partly for the reason that it is supposed to confer an ampler ease, and partly from an idea that male writers command a readier hearing and higher prices than female. We see a great many Henris, Georges, and the like on the title-pages of books which are a flimsy veil to conceal ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, Old Series, Vol. 36—New Series, Vol. 10, July 1885 • Various
... inside the door, and an equally great heap of coarse, brownish salt lying in another. Then we advance farther, get out of the way of everybody, behind a pillar, and see a whole congregation of the fair sex screaming, talking, and—to their honour be it spoken—working at the same time, round a compact mass of pilchards which their nimble hands have already built up to a height of three feet, a breadth of more than four, ...
— Rambles Beyond Railways; - or, Notes in Cornwall taken A-foot • Wilkie Collins
... on female accomplishments, we have endeavoured to point out, that the enlargement of understanding in the fair sex, which must result from their increasing knowledge, will necessarily correct the feminine ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth
... contrast with Richardson. He was gentle-born, distinguished and fashionable in his connections: the son of younger sons, impecunious, generous, of strong often unregulated passions,—what the world calls a good fellow, a man's man—albeit his affairs with the fair sex were numerous. He knew high society when he choose to depict it: his education compared with Richardson's was liberal and he based his style of fiction upon models which the past supplied, whereas Richardson had no models, blazed his own trail. Fielding's literary ancestry looks back ...
— Masters of the English Novel - A Study Of Principles And Personalities • Richard Burton
... Princess is so ready at the voie de faits, the reader will understand how common is such energetic action among women of lower degree. The "fair sex" in Egypt has a horrible way of murdering men, especially husbands, by tying them down and tearing out the testicles. See Lane ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... of her heart she had also refrained from wearing her best frocks, fearing that Alice might feel herself overshadowed, and that is an act of consideration of which few of the fair sex are capable. ...
— Uncle Terry - A Story of the Maine Coast • Charles Clark Munn |
