"Petticoat" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... hand of the petticoat-governed little man, and vowed eternal friendship from that hour. Hicks, who was all admiration and surprise, ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... men were formerly nude, and the women wore only a leaf petticoat, but I gather that they were a decent people; now both sexes are prudish. A man would never go nude before me—only once or twice has it happened to me, and then only when they were diving.... Amongst themselves they are, of course, much less particular, ...
— Sex and Society • William I. Thomas
... foot two, and Isabella quite six foot, and broad in proportion. They were dressed almost alike, and at a little distance, but for the lady's scanty petticoat, it would have been difficult ...
— Three Weeks • Elinor Glyn
... characteristic of another candidate appeared to be his liability to fits. Algy, "a dear boy and so good-looking," had spent a couple of months in Paris after leaving Eton a year or two back. This sounds terribly like petticoat influence; but resisting petticoat influence is, I can assure you, child's play compared to resisting Parliamentary influence. For good, straightforward, unblushing, shan't-take-no-for-an-answer jobbery, give me the M.P. They are sublime ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell
... sank Sidelong across a bench, bowing his head Between his hands ... Wept, I believe. Then, like a whip of steel, His lean black figure sprang erect again. "Marlowe!" he cried, "Kit Marlowe, killed for a punk, A taffeta petticoat! Killed by an apple-squire! Drunk! I was drunk; but I am sober now, Sober enough, by God! Poor Kit ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... was, in truth, very good, no one either at Manor Cross or in Brotherton or any of the parishes around ever doubted. She knew every poor woman on the estate, and had a finger in the making of almost every petticoat worn. She spent next to nothing on herself, giving away almost all her own little income. She went to church whatever was the weather. She was never idle and never wanted to be amused. The place in the carriage which would naturally have been ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... man was a jackanapes, or, as the saying goes, under petticoat government. Every thing his wife said was sacred. Had he obeyed the voice of his heart the poor old man might perhaps have said something, but now the hen had begun to crow in the house, and the rooster was of no consequence; yet, if he had thought of opposing them, ...
— Roumanian Fairy Tales • Various
... they assisted in dressing her the next morning, and set out along with her all their skill and dexterity were requisite to reduce her shape into some kind of symmetry; but, having at last pinned a small cushion under her petticoat on the right side, to counteract the untoward appearance the little infant occasioned by throwing itself on the left, they almost split their sides with laughter, assuring her at the same time that ...
— The Memoirs of Count Grammont, Complete • Anthony Hamilton
... Madame Terrier, and his brother-in-law took him away. They crossed Paris peaceably, and without any other adventure than an imprudence committed by Preveraud, who, seeing that the shaft-horse of a wagon had fallen down, threw aside his muff, lifted his veil and his petticoat, and if Terrier, in dire alarm, had not stopped him, he would have helped the carter to raise his horse. Had a sergent de ville been there, Preveraud would have been captured. Terrier hastened to thrust Preveraud into a carriage, and at nightfall they left for Brussels. ...
— The History of a Crime - The Testimony of an Eye-Witness • Victor Hugo
... went off to their work, Mrs. Torney and Geraldine fell upon the breakfast dishes, and Julia went upstairs. She found the little Anna dreaming by a sunny window, one stocking on, one leg still bare, and her little petticoat hanging unbuttoned. ...
— The Story Of Julia Page - Works of Kathleen Norris, Volume V. • Kathleen Norris
... box, brought thence her store, laid it on the other, took both up, closed her hands over them, shook them together, murmured over them, like an incantation, the words, "It's nae mair mine, an' it's nae mair thine, but belangs to a', whatever befa'," and put all in her pocket under her winsey petticoat. Thence, for a time, the invalids wanted, nothing—after the moderate ideas of need, that ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... out of him, the poor child! But I wisht it was home in his own house he was to be," she replied, raising her skirt, and stuffing the purse into a large pocket that hung round her waist over a red flannel petticoat; "han't he ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... lacking in virtue. Yet he has a passionate relish for radishes and honey. Once he also possessed a friend named Pelagea Antonovna. Do you know Pelagea Antonovna? She is the woman who always puts on her petticoat ...
— Poor Folk • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... before beginning, a foot tub, warm soft towels, warm water, castile soap, olive oil or vaselin, small squares of muslin or linen, dusting powder, a dressing for the navel and clothing, the latter consisting of a diaper, a flannel band, a shirt, long woolen stockings, a loose long sleeved flannel petticoat and a simple soft white outside garment, the two last, long enough to more than cover the feet. The infant should be wrapped in flannel and only the part which is being bathed at the moment should be exposed. The eyes are first bathed separately and with different cloths, ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... please you," says I, yet upon my knees and stooping to view them 'neath her petticoat, "though now I see I might better them by trimming and ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... your fellowmen that you can cure them of all the ills that flesh is heir to! But I'll tell you what I have noticed, old man, and what others beside me have noticed. We miss you up in town. You never come to the Club now. The men say you must be ill, or married, or breaking up, or under petticoat government—all stuff and nonsense, you know; but that is what ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... reached Mr. Ambrose's pretty old red brick house, when he found himself face to face with the vicar's wife. She presented an imposing appearance, as usual; her grey skirt, drawn up a little from the mud, revealed a bright red petticoat and those stout shoes which she regarded as so essential to health; she wore moreover a capacious sealskin jacket and a dark bonnet with certain jet flowers, which for many years had been regarded by the inhabitants of Billingsfield as the distinctive badge of ...
— A Tale of a Lonely Parish • F. Marion Crawford
... which was chastened very delicately by a certain hesitation in her looks when she spoke, being able to understand us but imperfectly. They were both exceedingly desirous to get me what I wanted to make me comfortable. I was to have a gown and petticoat of the mistress's; so they turned out her whole wardrobe upon the parlour floor, talking Erse to one another, and laughing all the time. It was long before they could decide which of the gowns I was to have; they chose at last, no doubt thinking that it was the best, a light-coloured ...
— Recollections of a Tour Made in Scotland A.D. 1803 • Dorothy Wordsworth
... have done with politics. Old Marlborough has at last published her Memoirs; they are digested by one Hooke, (494) who wrote a Roman history; but from her materials which are so womanish, that I am sure the man might sooner have made a gown and petticoat with them. There are some choice letters from Queen Anne, little inferior in the fulsome to those from King James to the ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... will upset the whole work to which I have devoted near twenty years," he muttered, "if I find not the means to quiet his half-wit tongue. Between priest and petticoat, it be all but ruined now. Well then, so much the sooner must I act, and I know not but that now be as good a time as any. If we come near enough to the King's men on this trip south, the gibbet shall have ...
— The Outlaw of Torn • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... basket-hilt sword. The action at the tilt-yard you may be sure won the fair lady, who was a maid of honour, and the greatest beauty of her time; here she stands the next picture. You see, sir, my great-great-great-grandmother has on the new-fashioned petticoat, except that the modern is gathered at the waist: my grandmother appears as if she stood in a large drum, whereas the ladies now walk as if they were in a go-cart. For all[69] this lady was bred at court, she became ...
— The De Coverley Papers - From 'The Spectator' • Joseph Addison and Others
... as well formed as a young person of seventeen; yet she had scarcely completed her fourteenth year. The snow of her complexion, her hair as dark as the raven's wing, her black eyes beaming with fire and innocence, her dress composed only of a chemise and a short petticoat which exposed a well-turned leg and the prettiest tiny foot, every detail I gathered in one instant presented to my looks the most original and the most perfect beauty I had ever beheld. I looked at her with the greatest pleasure, and her eyes ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... required of him. The offer was accepted, and Betty was forthwith installed as Biddy's help. Her costume when she made her appearance was not altogether suited to her new style of life, as it consisted of a man's old shirt and a piece of grass matting as a petticoat. ...
— The Young Berringtons - The Boy Explorers • W.H.G. Kingston
... him, and had got within his Britannic Majesty's town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, which, as it was well fortified, promised him protection for the time. Four months later, at Falkirk, a portion of another English army was thrown into a panic by the sight of "the wild petticoat-men," and made capital time in getting out of their way. Two regiments of cavalry rushed right over a body of infantry lying on the ground, bellowing, as they galloped, "Dear brethren, we shall all be massacred this ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 48, October, 1861 • Various
... more beautiful in her person than charming in her carriage, and by nature extremely silly; her amorous passion made her seem witty, serious, and agreeable only to him whom she was in love with, but she soon treated him as she did her petticoat, which to-day she took into her bed, and to-morrow cast into the fire out of ...
— The Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz, Complete • Jean Francois Paul de Gondi, Cardinal de Retz
... own at lessons, I trow; but he pretends to have such a horror of us wild Irish, and to wonder not to find us eating potatoes with our fingers, and that I don't wear a petticoat over my head instead of a bonnet, in what he calls ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... her gray linsey-woolsey petticoat, short enough to show her trim ankles in their black open-worked silk stockings. She stood with one hand resting on the open drawer of her bureau, and in the other the two soft bits of ribbon, that held the faint ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
... Gianettino has new reasons to hate me and lay snares against my life. Go—sound the fellows of thy trade; see if thou canst not smell out some plot on foot against me. Visit the brothels—Doria often frequents them. The secrets of the cabinet are sometimes lodged within the folds of a petticoat. Promise these ladies golden customers. Promise them thy master. Let nothing be too sacred to be used in gaining the ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... ragged doll-garments with a tiny bent flat-iron. Anna regarded her pitifully—the small shrunken figure and sunken chest, and the thin white face with its halo of red curls. But Kit was almost too absorbed with her endeavour to get the creases out of a doll's petticoat to heed her scrutiny. She only paused to nod at Malcolm in ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... his arms, and carried him through the last few ripples of shallow water, to set him reverently down upon his legs on dry land. But Laurella did not wait for him to wade back and fetch her. Gathering up her little petticoat, holding in one hand her wooden shoes and in the other her little bundle, with one splashing step or two she had reached the shore. "I have some time to stay at Capri," said the priest. "You need not wait—I may not perhaps return before to-morrow. When you ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: German • Various
... surrounded by his brilliant body-guard, galloped to and fro outside the entrenchments, expecting every moment a deputation to come forth, bearing the keys of the town. The Infanta too, magnificent in ruff and farthingale and brocaded petticoat, and attended by a cavalcade of ladies of honour in gorgeous attire, pranced impatiently about, awaiting the dramatic termination of a leaguer which was becoming wearisome to besieger and besieged. Not even on the famous second ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... soon see." And so they did: for Aunt Wee began to play; and presently Daisy was shouting with fun as she sat on an old saddle, with a hair-covered trunk for a horse, a big old-fashioned bonnet on her head, and a red silk petticoat for a habit. Then they went to sea in a great chest, and got wrecked on a desert island, where they built a fort with boxes and bags, hunted bears with rusty guns, and had to eat dried berries, herbs ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... made before the great discovery of some modern authors, that the best novels are those in which there is never a petticoat. ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang
... natural weakness of being taken with outside and appearance. Talk of a new-married couple, and you immediately hear whether they keep their coach and six, or eat in plate. Mention the name of an absent lady, and it is ten to one but you learn something of her gown and petticoat. A ball is a great help to discourse, and a birthday furnishes conversation for a twelvemonth after. A furbelow of precious stones, a hat buttoned with a diamond, a brocade waistcoat or petticoat, are standing topics. In short, they consider only the drapery of the species, and ...
— Essays and Tales • Joseph Addison
... Black Chest interested the family, and my wife was not angry. Immediately after its conclusion, the old chest was surrounded and opened, and among an infinite variety of rubbish were some articles of value, viz., of chemises (greatly needed), several pairs of stockings, 1 Marseilles petticoat, lace collars, several pretty baskets, 4 pair ladies' slippers (nearly new), and several books—one from my library, an octavo volume on Midwifery, 500 pages, placed there to prevent the children from seeing the illustrations, given me by the publisher ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... one hand, as he offered the other to the elder of the ladies—ladies was not the word—they had bonnets and shawls, and collars and ribbons, and the youngest showed a pretty little foot and boot under her modest grey gown, but his Highness of Fairoaks was courteous to every person who wore a petticoat whatever its texture was, and the humbler the wearer, only the more stately and polite in ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... hundred of them, both boys and girls, all of whom were clad in no other garments than their own glossy little black skins, except the maro, or strip of cloth round the loins of the boys, and a very short petticoat or kilt on the girls. They did not all play at the same game, but amused themselves in ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... at once, as if the very last possible moment of silence had passed, the conversation broke loudly and generally: "And did you notice that slimpsy thing she wore last night? Indecent, if you ask me, with not a petticoat under it, I'll be bound!... Always wears shoes twice too small for her ... What men can see in her ... How they can endure that perpetual smirk!..." They were at last discussing the Klondike woman, and whatever had befallen our guest of honour I knew that those ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... these are not like the dusky ghosts that wander through the pale-blue mists of Bloomsbury. Here comes a buxom water-carrier, in her orange petticoat and sage-green shawl, who has the two copper cans at the end of the long piece of wood poised on her shoulders, pretty nearly filled to the brim. Then a couple of the gayer gondoliers in white and blue, with ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... do so. Taro understands their language, which is much like that of Tahiti and his own country. The men are much tattooed, their only clothing being a piece of native cloth round their loins, but the women wear a petticoat and a mantle over the shoulder. This cloth is made of the fibre of a sort of mulberry tree—not woven, but beaten into a consistency of paper. When torn the rent is mended by beating on a fresh piece. It will bear washing only once. A garment thus lasts about six weeks. The women are ...
— The Cruise of the Mary Rose - Here and There in the Pacific • William H. G. Kingston
... sitting upon one of her feet and swinging the other, rose impulsively from the garden-seat and covered the lawn in a series of hops, until her shoe, which had become hopelessly entangled in the laces of her petticoat, released itself with a rending sound. Then she removed her hand from Peter's shoulder, upon which she had been supporting herself, and together they went into ...
— Peter and Jane - or The Missing Heir • S. (Sarah) Macnaughtan
... and a daisy smell like a violet. Thou canst make cowardice brave, avarice generous, pride humble, and cruelty tender-hearted. In short, thou turnest the heart of man inside out, as a juggler doth a petticoat, and bringest whatsoever pleaseth thee out from it. If there be any one who doubts all this, let him read ...
— Joseph Andrews Vol. 1 • Henry Fielding
... wrong me not, nor wrong yourself, To make a bondmaid and a slave of me; That I disdain; but for these other gawds, Unbind my hands, I'll pull them off myself, Yea, all my raiment, to my petticoat; Or what you will command me will I do, So well I know my ...
— The Taming of the Shrew • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]
... sarcastic apologue entitled the "History of a good Warm Watchcoat," which had "hung up many years in the parish vestry," and showing how this garment had so excited the cupidity of Trim, the sexton, that "nothing would serve him but he must take it home, to have it converted into a warm under-petticoat for his wife and a jerkin for himself against the winter." The symbolization of Dr. Topham's snug "patent place," which he wished to make hereditary, under the image of the good warm watchcoat, is of course plain enough; and there is some humour in the way in which the parson (the Archbishop) discovers ...
— Sterne • H.D. Traill
... robber, in blue velvet, with a red sash and silver buckles. His arm was passed round the waist of a very pretty girl in the costume of a Roman peasant; that is to say, an embroidered boddice, short bright-coloured petticoat, and red stockings. Her feet attracted my attention, they were so beautifully small. On one of her fingers I saw my diamond ring—a circumstance which, as well as the company in which I found her, gave me a very indifferent idea ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various
... have seemed frightful in the condition she was in, for all the dress she had on was a scanty old petticoat, with a night jacket of plain fustian, and turned back at the top of her head a yellow cap, which let her hair fall in disorder on her shoulders; and yet dressed even thus she shone with a thousand attractions, and all her person was most charming ...
— The Impostures of Scapin • Moliere (Poquelin)
... young man who has been kept too close to his mother's apron-strings for his own good—a girlish, hysterical kind of boy, who should be given spoon- victuals and put to bed early. Of course he wants to marry Trilby, for he is of that age when the swish of a petticoat makes us seasick. She is perfectly willing to become his mistress—although she had "repented" of her sins and been "forgiven" but a few days before. She has sense enough—despite Du Maurier's portraits ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... never did this up yourself. There's some one been at your arm already. Here's this band be off Matabel's petticoat. ...
— The Broom-Squire • S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould
... daughter's petticoat was longer than her frock, it shewed that her father loved her better than ...
— Folk Lore - Superstitious Beliefs in the West of Scotland within This Century • James Napier
... do you do, Nancy?" many and many a time in the week. 'Tis surprising the magnetic attraction which draws people together from ever so far. I blush as I think of poor Nancy now, in a red bodice and buxom purple cheeks and a canvas petticoat; and that I devised schemes, and set traps, and made speeches in my heart, which I seldom had courage to say when in presence of that humble enchantress, who knew nothing beyond milking a cow, and opened her ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... came up with a poor Irishwoman, trudging along with a bundle at her back. She had a gray shawl over her head, and a crimson madder petticoat; so you may be sure she came from Galway. [Footnote: Galway is a county in the western part of Ireland. The dress here described was the characteristic dress of the peasants of that county.] She had neither shoes nor stockings, and limped along as if she were tired and footsore; but she was ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V2 • Charles H. Sylvester
... and threw its penetrating chill to the very marrow of the bones. Often in mid-winter the scant-skirted French calico gowns were made with short elbow sleeves and round, low necks, and the throat and shoulders were lightly covered with thin lawn neckerchiefs or dimity tuckers. The flaunting hooped-petticoat of another decade was worn with a silk or brocade sacque. A thin cloth cape or mantle or spencer, lined with sarcenet silk, was frequently the only covering for the shoulders. In examining the treasured contents of old wardrobes, ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle
... said Priscilla; "and Patty wouldn't take one. Did you see Bonnie Connaught sitting on the back seat in biology this morning, hemming her doll's petticoat straight ...
— When Patty Went to College • Jean Webster
... of the drawer, is a black satin sash. It brings to my mind an entirely different kind of memory. It is one thing that I have left from the dress I wore at my grandfather's funeral. I remember all the tragedy of the occasion, lightened by one spot of comedy, my grandmother's losing her petticoat. ...
— The 1926 Tatler • Various
... great chair by the fire-corner; in her lap was a spaniel-dog that barked furiously; on a little table by her was her ladyship's snuff-box and her sugar-plum box. She wore a dress of black velvet, and a petticoat of flame-colored brocade. She had as many rings on her fingers as the old woman of Banbury Cross; and pretty small feet which she was fond of showing, with great gold clocks to her stockings, and white pantofles with red heels; and an odor of musk was shook out of her garments whenever she moved ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... rents; but not to men without encumbrances. Nearly every day she refused attractive tenants in pretty hats, or agreeable gentlemen who only wanted a room on condition that they might offer hospitality to a dashing petticoat. It was useless to proclaim aloud that her house was 'serious.' The ambition of the majority of these joyous persons was to live in a 'serious' house, because each was sure that at bottom he or she was a 'serious' person, ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... circumference. The hat would require to be fixed on the head with long pins, and standing, trencherwise, quite flat and unbending in its full proportions. The crown was low, and, like the cap, richly set off with feathers and flowers. The lower part of the dress consisted of a full petticoat generally flounced, short sleeves, and a very long train; but instead of a hoop there was a vast pad at the bottom of the waist behind, and a frame of wire in front to throw out the neckerchief, so as much as possible to resemble the ...
— The Fairchild Family • Mary Martha Sherwood
... a chicken's down. Many a cuff it got, and many a hard word, when its straying feet brought it into the way of the rough life up at the tavern. But still the scrap of food was tossed to it, and the worn-out petticoat roughly cobbled into a garment for its little body; for Bough ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... immediate source whence it was taken. It reads as follows:—"History of Female Dress. The sprightly Gauls set their little Wits to work again," (on resuming the war under Queen Anne,) "and invented a wonderful Machine call'd a Hoop Petticoat. In this fine Scheme they had more Views than one; they had compar'd their own Climate and Constitution with that of the British, and finding both warmer, they naturally enough concluded that would only be pleasantly cool to them, which would perhaps ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... yourself from being shocked by the victim. Grasp victim only by coat tails or dry clothes. Put rubber boots on your hands, or work through silk petticoat; or throw loop of rubber suspenders or of dry rope around him to pull him off wire, or pry ...
— The Home Medical Library, Volume I (of VI) • Various
... swabbed with tow and prepared for their rest as tenderly as infants. Dobbin is rescued from the (fence) stake to hie hill-ward with his master, cantering exultant or jogging grumly according to the result of the "event;" and the metropolis of Petticoat Gap—for such, in the vernacular and on the maps, is its unfortunate designation—relapses ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various
... hair, and the back has something of a woman's style of head-dress. Sometimes she also wears a hat; her bodice, laced behind, crosswise, is made something like our doublets, her chemise bulging out all round her petticoat, which she wears rather badly fastened and not over straight. She is always very much powdered, with a good deal of pomade, and almost never puts on gloves. She has, at the very least, as much swagger and haughtiness as the great Gustavus, her father, ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... me that she was going down a flight of steps, even when she was walking on level ground. She held herself erect with her arms folded tightly over her bosom. And whatever she was doing, whatever she undertook, if she were only threading a needle or ironing a petticoat—the effect was always beautiful and somehow—you may not believe it—touching. Her Christian name was Raissa, but we used to call her Black-lip: she had on her upper lip a birthmark; a little dark-bluish spot, ...
— Knock, Knock, Knock and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... mind his business, which is also my business? He has been witched, as if he were only twenty, by this lass of Adam Ferris's. And the more shame to him that has passed sixty without ever a chick or a child to hamper him, or a petticoat to drag him to ...
— Patsy • S. R. Crockett
... a loose gown or sacque open in front, to be worn over a handsome petticoat; and in spite of its name, was not only in high fashion for many years, but was worn for full dress. Abigail Adams, writing to Mrs. Storer, on January 20, 1785, says: "Trimming is reserved for full dress only, when very large hoops and negligees with trains three yards ...
— Diary of Anna Green Winslow - A Boston School Girl of 1771 • Anna Green Winslow
... 'zactly. I wore a blue worsted shirt, over a red underskirt, over a white linen petticoat wid tuckers at de hem, just a little long, to show good and white 'long wid de blue of de skirt and de red of de underskirt. Dese all come up to my waist and was held together by de string dat held my bustle in ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... Wentworth has written it out for me, in a terrifically distinct hand. There is no ambiguity on the subject; I know perfectly where I must go. Mr. Wentworth informs me that the carriage is always at my disposal, and Charlotte offers to go with me, in a pair of tight gloves and a very stiff petticoat. And yet for three days I have been putting it off. They must ...
— The Europeans • Henry James
... aspens. Watercress grew below it, and high above it were pines and junipers. It was a spot of surpassing loveliness, but Rhoda, tossing and panting, could not know it, Kut-le laid his burden on the ground and Molly drew off her tattered petticoat to lay beneath the feverish head. The young Apache stood looking down at the little figure, so graceful in its boyish abandonment of gesture, so pitiful in its broken unconsciousness. Molly bathed the burning face and hands in the pure cold water, muttering tender Apache phrases. Kut-le ...
— The Heart of the Desert - Kut-Le of the Desert • Honore Willsie Morrow
... lang, after I'd once got ma start in London, before I was appearing regularly in the East End halls. I was a great favorite there; the Jews, especially, seemed to like me fine. One Sunday I was down Petticoat Lane, in Whitechapel, to see the sichts. I never thocht anyone there wad recognize me, and I stood quietly watching a young Jew selling clothes from a coster's barrow. But all at once another Jew came up ...
— Between You and Me • Sir Harry Lauder
... which the American invention was to afford an antidote, provides Leech with material for a hundred humorous points of view. For it grew and grew in monstrousness and outrageous proportions until 1861, when it began to dwindle, and by such refuge as a "hooped petticoat" can afford saved its dignity as it made its welcome exit from ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... passing close to the row of elm trees, discovered under their branches a plaster figure of a woman. With two fingers she held wide her petticoat, with her knees bent and her head over her shoulder, as if she ...
— Bouvard and Pecuchet - A Tragi-comic Novel of Bourgeois Life • Gustave Flaubert
... said Maurice, twisting and untwisting a ragged handkerchief as he spoke, "the first beginning of all the mischief was, we had nothing to do, so we went to the ashes to make dirt pies; but Babet would go so close that she burnt her petticoat, and threw about all our ashes, and plagued us, and we whipped her. But all would not do, she would not be quiet; so to get out of her reach, we climbed up by this chair on the table to the top of the press, and ...
— Murad the Unlucky and Other Tales • Maria Edgeworth
... glimmer gleam across Voluptuous mouth, where even teeth are bare, And gild the broidery of her petticoat. . ...
— Silverpoints • John Gray
... necklace, while her husband pounded the kalo root on a board. His only clothing was the malo, a narrow strip of cloth wound round the loins, and passed between the legs. This was the only covering worn by men before the introduction of Christianity. Females wore the pau, a short petticoat made of tapa, which reached from the waist to the knees. To our eyes, the brown skin produces nearly ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... express; maids flew about the house at Roya-Neh, trying on, fussing with lace and ribbon, bodice and flowered pannier, altering, retrimming, adjusting. Their mistresses met in one another's bedrooms for mysterious confabs over head-dress and coiffure, lace scarf, and petticoat. ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... was tickled to death. Babies wasn't as common as blackberries in the woods o' Kaintucky. Mother come over an' washed him an' put a yaller flannel petticoat on him, an' cooked some dried berries with wild honey fur Nancy, an' slicked things up an' went home. An' that's all the nuss'n either ...
— The Story of Young Abraham Lincoln • Wayne Whipple
... present age without the assistance of a gold watch, he might surely have struggled along to the end on gun-metal. In any case, a man of his years should have been thinking of higher things than mere gauds and trinkets. A like criticism applied to Mrs. Coppin's demand for a silk petticoat, which struck Roland as simply indecent. Frank and Percy took theirs mostly in specie. It was Muriel who struck the worst blow by insisting on a ...
— A Man of Means • P. G. Wodehouse and C. H. Bovill
... wore the Tam o' Shanter-like cap of black stuff, common among these people, bound on with their long braids, and their coats were of the usual felt. Their skirts, homespun, were made with what we used to call a Spanish flounce. According to Baber, the Lolo petticoat is of great significance. No one may go among the independent Lolos safely save in the guardianship of a member of the tribe, and a woman is as good a guardian as a man. Before setting out she puts on an extra petticoat, and the traveller thus escorted is sacred. But if the guarantee ...
— A Wayfarer in China - Impressions of a trip across West China and Mongolia • Elizabeth Kendall
... quays there was a stir of life as great as that to be seen on the quays of Paris. Foreign sailors in outlandish garments and of harsh-sounding, outlandish speech, stalwart fishwives with baskets of herrings on their heads, voluminous of petticoat above bare legs and bare feet, calling their wares shrilly and almost inarticulately, watermen in woollen caps and loose trousers rolled to the knees, peasants in goatskin coats, their wooden shoes clattering on the round kidney-stones, shipwrights and labourers from the dockyards, bellows-menders, ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... raises her skirt and shows her lace petticoat, it is obvious that she dresses like a woman who is accustomed to be seen ...
— Note-Book of Anton Chekhov • Anton Pavlovich Chekhov
... face gladdening as the crescent moon of Sha'aban."[FN204] But when Al-Hayfa heard the words of the women she was glad and gave herself joy and sensed an oppression of pleasure, whilst her vitals palpitated and she perspired in her petticoat-trowsers.[FN205] Then she went down to the gateway which she bade be thrown open, and seeing Prince Yusuf she smiled in his face and welcomed him and greeted him. He returned her salam with sweetness of phrase and softness of words, ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... average height. The only clothing they then wore was the MARO, a cloth made by themselves of the acacia bark. This they pass between the legs, and once or twice round the loins. The WYHEENES - women - formerly wore nothing but a short petticoat or kilt of the same material. By persuasion of the missionaries they have exchanged this simple garment for a chemise of printed calico, with the waist immediately under the arms so as to conceal the contour of the figure. ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... apricot, with the bodice cut low and the skirt gathered in loops to show her white silk petticoat, which swelled from under a flowered stomacher so monstrously, that the tiny blue-heeled slipper upon the second stair seemed smaller than ever. Deep frills of lace fell from her short sleeves and a little lace cap was set on her ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates
... wit— he was equal to the best of them. Now one saw that he really might have luck with the women: there was no boasting or lying about it. The young actress with the hair like the lightest flax could not keep her eyes off him, although she evidently had all the others at her petticoat-tails; she made signs to her companions that they should admire the master's splendid big mustache. The master had forgotten his lame leg and thrown his stick away; he was on his knees, taking the actress's measure for a pair of high boots with patent tops and concertina-like folds in the legs. ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... ones with red eyes—to wish Mrs. Trevarthen good-bye. She answered them tremulously; but her mind, all the way down the street, ran on a hamper of chinaware, the cover of which she could not remember to have tied. Her left arm rested in Aunt Butson's (who carried the parrot's cage swathed in an old petticoat); on her right she bore a ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... by her three suitors, taking the arm of one, then of another, bridling up and carrying her head high. She would have been very glad to exhibit the fourth to the passers-by; but it seemed so ridiculous to be paraded thus in company by a petticoat, in everybody's sight, that he kept at a respectful distance, talking with Pere Leonard and finding a way to divert his thoughts and occupy his mind so that they did not seem to belong ...
— The Devil's Pool • George Sand
... hardly spoken when the skipper of the vessel, a heavy, sun-tanned-looking man in scarlet cap, high boots and petticoat, came ...
— The King's Esquires - The Jewel of France • George Manville Fenn
... of the State have taken the field in favor of a petticoat empire, with a zeal and energy which show that their hearts are in the cause, and that they are resolved no longer to submit to the tyrannical rule of the heartless "lords of creation," but have solemnly determined to demand their "natural and inalienable ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... wedding at Arlington who, as a young girl, paid long visits to Mary Custis, I heard this delicious story: "There being no telephones, when the girls at Arlington and at Tudor Place wanted to get together they had a series of signals. Hanging a red flannel petticoat out of the window meant 'come on over'. A white one had another meaning. This method was not popular with the owners of the two mansions, but persisted, nevertheless." To prove this, not long ago I went to Arlington with the person who told me the story. The room ...
— A Portrait of Old George Town • Grace Dunlop Ecker
... in proper order," observed Malone approvingly, as, with his fine face ruddy as the embers over which he bent, he assiduously turned the mutton chops. "You are not under petticoat government, like poor Sweeting, a man—whew! how the fat spits! it has burnt my hand—destined to be ruled by women. Now you and I, Moore—there's a fine brown one for you, and full of gravy—you and I will have no gray mares in our stables ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... the habit of a huntress became her admirably. She wore a beaver hat with blue feathers, a surtout of gray-pearl velvet, fastened with diamond clasps, and a petticoat of blue satin, embroidered with silver. On her left shoulder sparkled the diamond studs, on a bow of the same color as the plumes ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... her kneel, just as she was in her petticoat, in order to pass long, ringed fingers through the soft masses, and lift them up for the pleasure of letting them fall. When the golden veil, as Lella M'Barka called it, had been praised and admired over and over again, the order was given to braid it in two long plaits, leaving ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... green quilted petticoat. Overdress and bodice of dark green, flowered in old rose. Elbow sleeves. White ruffles of lace. White lawn fichu. ...
— Patriotic Plays and Pageants for Young People • Constance D'Arcy Mackay
... devils by a glance, it was his. It was a round face, not remarkable for beauty of outline, inasmuch as it bore a strong resemblance to that of the gentleman on the blue China plates, in two pigtails and a petticoat, who appears to pass a mild ornithological and botanical existence in studying intently certain fishy-looking birds, and a cannon-ball tree, which form the leading feature of the landscape in his vicinity. With regard to expression, however, Coleman had a decided advantage over ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... green lace skirt to the knee, all in ruffles, low-necked, of course, very low-necked and awfully tight-laced. Bright green petticoat, then brighter and brighter. Snow-white underclothes with ...
— Erdgeist (Earth-Spirit) - A Tragedy in Four Acts • Frank Wedekind
... the formula As secretive as they are sensitive Be politic and give her elbow-room for her natural angles Becoming air of appropriation that made it family history Constitutionally discontented Decency's a dirty petticoat in the Garden of Innocence England's the foremost country of the globe Enjoys his luxuries and is ashamed of his laziness Fires in the grates went through the ceremony of warming nobody Foist on you their idea of your idea at the moment ...
— Quotations from the Works of George Meredith • David Widger
... patent leather shoes, and the most beautifully embroidered linen. Dare gave him a little smile and nod of approbation. He had not thought of fine clothing for himself; but then for the handsome, elegant, Mexican youth it seemed precisely the right thing. And Isabel, in her scarlet satin petticoat, and white embroideries and satin slippers, looked his proper mate. Dare and Antonia, and even the doctor, watched their almost childlike devotion to ...
— Remember the Alamo • Amelia E. Barr
... selfish and incapable, always tied to the petticoat and caprices of some new mistress, and the unfortunate Nicholas II., well-intentioned, and almost fanatically religious, the affectionate father and the devoted husband, no comparison is possible, except as regards their limitations for the supreme ...
— Here, There And Everywhere • Lord Frederic Hamilton
... clustered about a delicately-coloured face and hazel eyes. Later in the harvest her cheeks would be ruddy—now they were peach-coloured. A white neck rose above a pink print jacket, called a wrapper; and the rest of her visible dress was a blue petticoat. She ended in pretty, brown bare feet. Robert liked her, and began to talk. If his imagination had not been already filled, he would have fallen in love with her, I dare say, at once; for, except Miss St. John, he had never seen anything ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... with me," said Mrs. Phillips, "but I wouldn't let him. I chipped him out of it. If he's going to write plays, as I told him, he will have to get over his fear of a petticoat." ...
— All Roads Lead to Calvary • Jerome K. Jerome
... Prague, and undoubtedly spotted a winner. This was not the only occasion either, for she did herself a good turn too by means of her supernatural power. As it happened, despite her possession of all the virtues, she had trouble with her subjects, who declared themselves weary of petticoat government and urged her to look round for a husband. She did, calling to aid her uncanny gift. The discussion with her subjects probably took place in the open, high up on Vy[vs]ehrad. Libu[vs]a, with that far-away gaze proper to all soothsaying, pointed out over the distant hills, saying, ...
— From a Terrace in Prague • Lieut.-Col. B. Granville Baker
... a coach, with no other clothing than a petticoat and a mantle, for they would not let me stay to take any thing else. My fright was so great, I expected to die that very night; but judge my surprise, when I was ushered into an apartment, decorated with all the elegance that taste, ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... harvest-field she was always the foremost in the band of reapers; dressed in her tight green-cloth boddice, clean white apron, red stuff petticoat, and neatly blacked shoes; her beautiful features shaded by her large, coarse, flat, straw hat, put knowingly to one side, more fully to display the luxuriant auburn tresses, of the sunniest hue, that waved profusely in rich natural ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie
... comparison more familiar to the British reader might be made to the philabeg or short petticoat ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 5 • Robert Kerr
... however, they are inducted into raiment which their deluded mothers fancy is European and stylish; but there is always something wrong. Either one little ruffled drawers leg sags down, or the petticoat is longer than the dress skirt, or the waistband is too tight, or mamma has failed to make allowance in the underclothing for the gauziness of the outer sheathing. As for the sashes with which the victims are finally bound, they fret ...
— A Woman's Impression of the Philippines • Mary Helen Fee
... when Juno entered the living-room, an exquisite bit of Venetian lace filled in the V at the back of the bodice; the softest white maline edged the front, and when, she raised her train a lace petticoat which any girl would have pronounced "too sweet for words" floated like ...
— Peggy Stewart at School • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... of the nineties the packers began to put women into departments that had always been staffed by men. So it was when girls began to wield the knife that the men workers first began to fear the competition of the "petticoat butchers." The idea of organizing the girls, were they painters or butchers, as a way of meeting this new menace, ...
— The Trade Union Woman • Alice Henry
... there a little over a week, preparing our traveling-dresses. Despite the admonitions of papa, we went to the fashionable modiste of the day, Madame Cinthelia Lefranc, and ordered for each a suit that cost one hundred and fifty dollars. The costume was composed of a petticoat of camayeu, very short, caught up in puffs on the side by a profusion of ribbons; and a very long-pointed black velvet jacket (casaquin), laced in the back with gold and trimmed on the front with several rows of gilt buttons. ...
— Strange True Stories of Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... doll. The one he selected was dressed like the Princess of Savoy on her arrival in France, on November 4th. The head was a mass of bows and ribbons; she wore a very stiff corsage, covered with gold filigrees, and a brocade petticoat with an overskirt caught up by ...
— The Merrie Tales Of Jacques Tournebroche - 1909 • Anatole France
... his notable experiments have called forth the exercise of highly inventive faculties in their very inception. Investigation and experiment have been a consuming passion, an impelling force from within, as it were, from his petticoat days when he collected goose-eggs and tried to hatch them out by sitting over them himself. One might be inclined to dismiss this trivial incident smilingly, as a mere childish, thoughtless prank, had not subsequent development as a child, boy, and man revealed a born investigator ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... already to make use of this conjunction to compass their filthy purposes. They tell the ladies forsooth, that it is only parting with a perishable commodity, hardly of so much value as a callico under-petticoat; since, like its mistress, it will be useless in the form it is now in. If the ladies have no regard to the dishonour and immorality of the action, I desire they will consider, that nature who never destroys her own productions, will exempt big-belly'd ...
— The Bickerstaff-Partridge Papers • Jonathan Swift
... no male came up for air. Then, the restaurant door swung back on its noiseless check and spring, and in walked Big Bill Petticoat. ...
— Ptomaine Street • Carolyn Wells
... much skill and grace by a pretty boy about our own age,—the son of a French dancing-master, who was passing through the city. After the fashion of dancers, he was dressed in a close vest of red silk, which, ending in a short hoop- petticoat, like a runner's apron, floated above the knee. We had given our meed of applause to this young artist with the whole public, when, I know not how, it occurred to me to make a moral reflection. I said to my companion, "How handsomely this boy was dressed, and how well he ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... itself to her, she penetrated his motive on the spot. Her face turned on him brightly, with a look which said, "I own you have pleased and flattered me." Never had she been so charming, in Vendale's eyes, as she was at that moment. Her winter dress—a petticoat of dark silk, with a bodice of black velvet rising to her neck, and enclosing it softly in a little circle of swansdown—heightened, by all the force of contrast, the dazzling fairness of her hair and ...
— No Thoroughfare • Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins
... disdainful port of natives of Old England; all contrasted with the rough aspect of one or two hack settlers, negotiating sales of timber, from forests where axe had never sounded. Sometimes a lady passed, swelling roundly forth in an embroidered petticoat, balancing her steps in high-heeled shoes, and courtesying, with lofty grace, to the punctilious obeisances of the gentlemen. The life of the town seemed to have its very centre not far from an old mansion, ...
— The White Old Maid (From "Twice Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... of art recently selected by Mrs. Church, in London. On her head was an immense puff of yellow gauze, whose satin foundation had a double wing in large plaits. The dress was of yellow satin, flowing over a white satin petticoat, and embellished about the neck with a large Italian gauze handkerchief, striped with white. Her hair was in ringlets and unpowdered. She was a very plate of fashion, but her brow ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... round of groaning had been completed—and it occupied probably half an hour—a young lad, perhaps of seventeen years, very handsome, and handsomely dressed in a puce-coloured cloak, or rather petticoat, with a purple hat on his head, in shape like an inverted flower-pot, slipped forth from near the tribune into the middle of the circle, and began to twirl. After about five or six minutes, two other younger boys, somewhat similarly dressed, ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... in her chamber, and she was middling old, Her petticoat was satin and her stomacher was gold. Backwards and forwards and sideways did she pass, Making up her mind to face the cruel looking-glass. The cruel looking-glass that will never show a lass As comely or as kindly or as ...
— Rewards and Fairies • Rudyard Kipling
... the walks a sign-post sort of daub, representing a Swiss peasant girl, holding in her hand a scroll, requesting that the roses might not be gathered. Unhappily for the artist, or for the proprietor, or for both, the petticoat of this figure was so short as to shew her ancles. The ladies saw, and shuddered; and it was formally intimated to the proprietor, that if he wished for the patronage of the ladies of Cincinnati, he must have ...
— Domestic Manners of the Americans • Fanny Trollope
... drawing-room, leaning on the arm of Captain Douglas, I will try describe her as nearly as possible:—A white satin robe with court train, bordered with the purest lace, festooned with pearls, over a blue satin petticoat, formed a lovely costume, with bodice of white satin, showing the faultless waist of the wearer; white satin slippers, ornamented with pearls, encased the tiny feet of Lady Rosamond. She was, indeed, worthy the name she bore—a type of her lovely but ...
— Lady Rosamond's Secret - A Romance of Fredericton • Rebecca Agatha Armour
... be praised," replied she, "for so great a mercy to me! But tell me, husband, what good have you got by your squireship? Have you brought a petticoat home for me, and shoes ...
— Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... I have more need of our Lord here than in Crigton,' she said. 'In Crigton there was the bus to be afraid of, and bicycles. Here I just cover my ears for wind, put on an extra flannel petticoat for frost, and sit in the coal-house for thunder. Not that I'm forgetting God. God with us, of course, coal-house ...
— Gone to Earth • Mary Webb
... life as well as literature, how often have we risen from those tables, to pursue together the not too swiftly flying petticoat, through the terrestrial firmament of shining streets, aglow with the midnight sun of pleasure, a-dazzle with eyes brighter far than the city lamps—passionate pilgrims of the morning star! Ah! we ...
— Vanishing Roads and Other Essays • Richard Le Gallienne
... article might be made out of the idea of an imaginary museum, containing such articles as Aaron's rod, the petticoat of General Harrison, the pistol with which Benton shot Jackson,—and then a diorama, consisting of political or other scenes, or done in wax-work. The idea to be wrought out and extended. Perhaps it might be the museum of ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 1 • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... They had broad chests and square shoulders, and well-made backs and legs, which showed the strength possessed by them. They were pleasant-looking people. The men wore a short kilt, with a poncho over their shoulders; the women, a petticoat of ...
— On the Banks of the Amazon • W.H.G. Kingston
... petticoat Like little mice stole in and out, As if they feared the light; But, oh, she dances such a way! No sun upon an Easter-day Is half so ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... It consisted of a long-bodied gown that had only half skirts; that is to say, instead of encompassing the whole person, the lower part of it came forward only as far as the hip bones, on each side, leaving the front of the petticoat exposed. This posterior part of the gown would, if left to fall to its full length, have formed a train behind them of at least two feet in length. It was pinned up, however, to a convenient length, and was not at all an ungraceful garment, if we except the sleeves, which went ...
— The Evil Eye; Or, The Black Spector - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... down with a load of colour, red earthenware pots forward, a copper-faced man amidship, in white jacket and indian-red kilt. He is paddling, behind him are green bananas, and in the stern a lady sits in pink petticoat and white jacket. The clothes of men and women are somewhat similar; the man's coloured "putsoe," or kilt, often of tartan, is tied in a knot in front of his waist, and comes down to the middle of his calf. The woman tucks her longer skirt or "tamaine," above her bosom, as you might hitch ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... little younger, and from her garb it was plain that she belonged to the peasant class. She wore a spotless bodice of white linen, which but indifferently concealed the ripening swell of her young breast. Her petticoat, of dark red homespun, stopped short above her bare brown ankles, and her little feet were naked. Her brown hair, long and abundant, was still fastened at the nape of her slim neck, but fell loose beyond that, having been disturbed, no doubt, in her scuffle with Rinolfo. ...
— The Strolling Saint • Raphael Sabatini
... bless me, ma'am, I wouldn't be a poor woman with two—no, with one incumbrance at my petticoat tails—for the biggest ship and cargo old Steve ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... with the effect that the gold rings in his ears danced, and then he went up the little ladder through the hatchway, to stand half out for a few minutes giving orders, while we had a good look at the lower part of his person, which was clothed in what would have been a stiff canvas petticoat, had it not been sewn up between his legs, so as to turn it into the fashion of a pair of trousers, worn over a pair of heavy ...
— Devon Boys - A Tale of the North Shore • George Manville Fenn
... her form her kirtle blue clings lovingly, and, white As snow, her loose sleeves only leave her small, round wrists in sight; Below, the modest petticoat can only half conceal The motion of the lightest foot that ever ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... Her cloth petticoat was richly decorated with ribbons, and her leggins and mocassins proved that she had spent much time and labor on the adorning of a person naturally well ...
— Dahcotah - Life and Legends of the Sioux Around Fort Snelling • Mary Eastman
... I have often wondered how they could bear it in so hot a climate. Again, on the other hand, many of the inferior sort during the heat of the Day, go almost naked, the women wearing nothing but the Petticoat aforementioned, and sometimes hardly that. The men wear a piece of Cloth like a Sack, which goes between their thighs, and brought up before and behind, and then wrapped round their waist. This every man wears always without exception, and it is no uncommon ...
— Captain Cook's Journal During the First Voyage Round the World • James Cook
... Grief of my Heart, and thou Pearl of my Eyes, D'on thy Flannel Petticoat quickly, and rise; And from thy resplendent Window discover A Face that wou'd mortify any young Lover: For I, like great Jove transformed, do wooe, And am amorous Owl, to wit to ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume IV. • Aphra Behn
... will, my boy; there's my hand. Now out with it. What did you go away for, since it wasn't a petticoat?" ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade
... in the crude and in coin, with beautiful steel axe heads, with machetes, "or long knives"; "but nothing would work on him." The pirates were beginning to despair, when one of them produced "a Sky-coloured Petticoat," and placed it about the person of the chief's favourite wife. How he had become possessed of such a thing, and whether it came from a Hilo beauty, and whether she gave it as a love token, on the ship's sailing, cannot now be known. It may ...
— On the Spanish Main - Or, Some English forays on the Isthmus of Darien. • John Masefield
... the gorge, copper-tinted in the morning light. It was the most wonderful world; yet Lady Turnour was cackling angrily. Was she afraid? Had she changed her mind? No, the saints be praised! She was only burning holes in her petticoat on the brazier supplied by the hotel! I turned away to hide a smile almost as wicked as a grin, and before I looked round again, the swift stream had swept the boat out of sight round a jutting corner of rock. We were safe. ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... also an advantage over the men, in that the petticoat can conceal many defects in their execution; even, if the indulgence due to that amiable sex, did not only make great allowances, but give to the least agreeable steps in them, ...
— A Treatise on the Art of Dancing • Giovanni-Andrea Gallini
... woollen gown, and white linen cap; her gray hair and wrinkled face reflecting the bright firelight; the long stocking growing under her busy needles, while she watched the youngling of the flock, in the cradle by her side. The goodwife, in linsey-woolsey short gown and red petticoat, steps lightly back and forth in calf pumps beside the great wheel, or poises gracefully to give a final twist to the long-drawn thread of wool or tow. The continuous buzz of the flax wheels, harmonizing with the spasmodic hum of the big ...
— The New England Magazine Volume 1, No. 3, March, 1886 - Bay State Monthly Volume 4, No. 3, March, 1886 • Various
... gun!" said Mrs. Gammit, appearing suddenly, a self-reliant figure, at the open door of the barn where Joe Barron sat mending his harness. She wore a short cotton homespun petticoat and a dingy waist; while a limp pink cotton sunbonnet, pushed far back from her perspiring forehead, released unmanageable tufts of ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts
... collar, which hid the back of his head, such as was then in use by country carriers; but the garment was much too short for him, and his bare arms came out a foot beyond the end of the sleeves. The rest of his costume was even more eccentric, being nothing more or less than a coarse flannel petticoat, and his bare feet rested on the mat in ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... gorgeous apparel, until she seemed to fairly overreach all the innocent young flowery beauties of the spring with one rich trill of colour, like a high note of a bird above a wide chorus of others. Mistress Mary that morning wore a tabby petticoat of a crimson colour, and a crimson satin bodice shining over her arms and shoulders like the plumage of a bird, and down her back streamed her curls, shining like gold under her gauze love-hood. I knew well how she had sat up late the night before fashioning that hood from ...
— The Heart's Highway - A Romance of Virginia in the Seventeeth Century • Mary E. Wilkins
... a red gown and petticoat, which she had received as a present from Marsden, that reverend gentleman having been obliged himself, in the first instance, to assist in decorating her with these novel articles of attire; and, holding in her hand a large horse-pistol, always ...
— John Rutherford, the White Chief • George Lillie Craik
... any more of this Epistle; but I presume the argument which the Right Hon. Doctor and his friends mean to deduce from it, is (in their usual convincing strain) that Romanists must be unworthy of Emancipation now, because they had a Petticoat Pope in the Ninth Century. Nothing can be more logically clear, and I find that Horace had exactly the same views ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... said Dr. O'Grady. "That's the best way I see out of the difficulty. Mrs. Gregg, you get the dress you want for her, privately, without saying a word about it. Agree with everything Mrs. Ford says, and let her order a red flannel petticoat if she likes." ...
— General John Regan - 1913 • George A. Birmingham
... old woman, dressed in a black petticoat, and a red, short gown that came a little below her waist. She wore a cap that fitted close to her head, made of some black cloth, innocent of bow or frill; from under it, locks of gray hung down about her face and neck. She ...
— Miss Ashton's New Pupil - A School Girl's Story • Mrs. S. S. Robbins
... colour, with wavy hair. The men, of large stature, well formed, and dressed with a degree of taste far in advance of any of the savages we had hitherto met with. Elaborate devices were tattooed upon the exposed parts of their bodies; a petticoat of finely-plaited cloth reached from waist to knee; beautiful necklets made from red and white coral hung round their necks; while their hair was frizzled like a mop upon their heads, powdered red or yellow. The women were similarly attired, save that their petticoats ...
— Adventures in Southern Seas - A Tale of the Sixteenth Century • George Forbes
... petticoats of cocoanut-fibre; for you must know I've often see'd mats made o' that stuff, an' splendid wear there's in it too, though it would be rather rough for the skin at first; but we'd get used to that in coorse o' time. Only fancy Mrs Jarwin in a cocoanut-fibre petticoat with a palm-leaf hat, or somethink o' that sort! An', after all, it wouldn't be half so rediklous as some o' the canvas she's used to ...
— Jarwin and Cuffy • R.M. Ballantyne
... The men refused to make them at that price, when other houses were paying as much as 15s. for them. The consequence of this was, the house discharged all the men, and got a Jew middle-man from the neighbourhood of Petticoat-lane, to agree to do them all at 7s. 6d. a piece. The Jew employed all the poor people who were at work for the slop warehouses in Houndsditch and its vicinity. This Jew makes on an average 500 paletots a week. The Jew gets 2s. 6d. profit out of each, and having no ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... her cuz, Hoping that he hath vinegar'd his senses, As he was bid, the Fairy queen dispenses, By me, this robe, the petticoat of fortune; Which that he straight put on, she doth importune. And though to fortune near be her petticoat, Yet nearer is her smock, the queen doth note: And therefore, ev'n of that a piece she hath sent Which, being a child, to wrap him in was rent; And prays ...
— The Alchemist • Ben Jonson
... "prithee, undo this button" of Lear, coming where it does and expressing what it does, is one of those touches of the pathetically sublime, of which only Shakespeare ever knew the secret. Herrick, too, has a charming poem on "Julia's petticoat," the charm being that he lifts the familiar and the low to the region of sentiment. In the passage from Sylvester, it is precisely the reverse, and the wig takes as much from the sentiment as it adds to a Lord Chancellor. So ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... Courtenvaux, related in its place), with anger or severity. Never was man so naturally polite, or of a politeness so measured, so graduated, so adapted to person, time, and place. Towards women his politeness was without parallel. Never did he pass the humblest petticoat without raising his hat; even to chamber- maids, that he knew to be such, as often happened at Marly. For ladies he took his hat off completely, but to a greater or less extent; for titled people, half off, holding ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... kind and much valued cousin, Miss Dolly Hervey, daughter of my aunt Hervey, I bequeath my watch and equipage, and my best Mechlin and Brussels head-dresses and ruffles; also my gown and petticoat of flowered silver of my own work; which having been made up but a few days before I was confined to my chamber, I ...
— Clarissa Harlowe, Volume 9 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... can," said Marian. "I'll take off my petticoat and put it on this ice-pile. We can see it from there, and when we get back here ...
— The Blue Envelope • Roy J. Snell
... way: she took off my clothes—just see; I have nothing on but this petticoat and ...
— The Nameless Castle • Maurus Jokai
... covered with a green cloth, on which are displayed a basket of bread, a jug of Nassau earthenware, and a stone pot into which she is pouring milk from a can. The figure, painted almost full length, stands out against the white wall and is dressed in a lemon-coloured jacket, a red-brown petticoat, a dark-blue apron turned back, and a white cap on the head. The light falls on the scene through a window to ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... return, a tall, strapping wench of eighteen or twenty, dressed, fantastically, in a sort of blue riding-jacket, with tarnished lace, her hair clubbed like that of a man, a Highland bonnet, and a bunch of broken feathers, a riding-skirt (or petticoat) of scarlet camlet, embroidered with tarnished flowers. Her features were coarse and masculine, yet at a little distance, by dint of very bright wild-looking black eyes, an aquiline nose, and a commanding profile, appeared rather handsome. She flourished the switch she held in her ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... laughter and strange cries came from it. Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch went towards the light, but stood still in the doorway without going in. There was tea on the table. In the middle of the room stood the old woman who was a relation of the landlord. She was bareheaded and was dressed in a petticoat and a hare-skin jacket, and her stockingless feet were thrust into slippers. In her arms she had an eighteen-months-old baby, with nothing on but its little shirt; with bare legs, flushed cheeks, and ruffled white hair. It had only just been taken out of the cradle. It seemed to have ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... of that shrine, Two ringed fingers placed in mine,— The stones were many carats fine, And of the purest water,— Then dropped a curtsy, far enough To fairly fill her cretonne puff And show the petticoat's rich stuff That ...
— Complete Poetical Works of Bret Harte • Bret Harte
... Tokaido and Nakasendo, of Lake Biwa and Hakone, it does not follow that either is inaccurate. But truly this is a new Japan to me, of which no books have given me any idea, and it is not fairyland. The men may be said to wear nothing. Few of the women wear anything but a short petticoat wound tightly round them, or blue cotton trousers very tight in the legs and baggy at the top, with a blue cotton garment open to the waist tucked into the band, and a blue cotton handkerchief knotted ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird
... All this tumbling and toiling, and bother and confusion that never ceases, has made me so old, that you would scarcely know me again. On the right side of my head the hair is all gray; my teeth break and fall out; I have got my face wrinkled like the falbalas of a petticoat; my back bent like a fiddle-bow; and spirit sad and downcast like a monk of La Trappe. I forewarn you of all this, lest, in case we should meet again in flesh and bone, you might feel yourself too violently shocked by my appearance. There remains to me nothing but the heart,—which ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... child," says he, "to see everything suitable. A fine gown and petticoat, a fine laced head, a fine face and neck, and no necklace, would not have made the object perfect. But why that blush, my dear?" says the prince. "My lord," said I, "all your gifts call for blushes, but, above all, I blush to receive what I am so ill able to merit, ...
— The Fortunate Mistress (Parts 1 and 2) • Daniel Defoe
... secretly made for the king. It consisted of fifteen folds of Italian taffeta, and was formed into an under waistcoat and a wide belt. Its impenetrability was tried, and it resisted all thrusts of the dagger, and several balls were turned aside by it. Madame Campan wore it for three days as an under petticoat before an opportunity could be found for the king to try it on unperceived. At length, one morning, in the queen's chamber, a moment's opportunity occurred, and he slipped it on, saying, at the same time, to Madame Campan, "It is to satisfy the queen that I submit to this inconvenience. ...
— Maria Antoinette - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... fighting for the rest of the day, he felt that he could never forgive her. She had violated the rule of battle and outraged the noble principle of fair play; and, worse and worse, had disgraced him in the eyes of the world by making him appear as a weakling seeking protection behind a despised petticoat. He reviled Kitty for that action in such overwhelming language that the poor girl fled in tears, and next day it was only with the greatest difficulty that she persuaded him to accept two pears and a blood-alley ...
— The Gold-Stealers - A Story of Waddy • Edward Dyson
... devotees, in true Irish fashion, made his offering accompanied by the following words: "To St. Columbkill—I offer up this button, a bit o' the waistband o' my own breeches, an' a taste o' my wife's petticoat, in remimbrance of us havin' made this holy station; an' may they rise up in glory to prove it for us in the last day."[221] I shall not attempt to account for the presence of the usual Irish humour ...
— Folklore as an Historical Science • George Laurence Gomme |
