"Virago" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... ground,' My father cried, 'where warlike steeds are found. Yet, since reclaim'd to chariots they submit, And bend to stubborn yokes, and champ the bit, Peace may succeed to war.' Our way we bend To Pallas, and the sacred hill ascend; There prostrate to the fierce virago pray, Whose temple was the landmark of our way. Each with a Phrygian mantle veil'd his head, And all commands of Helenus obey'd, And pious rites to Grecian Juno paid. These dues perform'd, we stretch our sails, and stand To sea, forsaking ...
— The Aeneid • Virgil
... Her vengeance wreaked, the virago rose and stalked triumphant as Minerva, back to some cryptic domestic retreat at the rear. The janitor got to his ...
— Whirligigs • O. Henry
... dem Panier? Why of Shakspeare, in his Taming of the Shrew, and elsewhere? Does it not stand on record that the English Queen Elizabeth, receiving a deputation of Eighteen Tailors, addressed them with a "Good morning, gentlemen both!" Did not the same virago boast that she had a Cavalry Regiment, whereof neither horse nor man could be injured; her Regiment, namely, of Tailors on Mares? Thus everywhere is the falsehood taken for granted, and acted-on as an ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... record, of putting a knife to his throat. Not once but several times his servants found him scratched and bruised. But the old man could not summon up the strength of mind to be quit of this succubine virago. ...
— She Stands Accused • Victor MacClure
... virago pass, Laidlaw proceeded to the court, where, to his great surprise, he found Tommy Splint sitting on a doorstep, not exactly in tears, but with disconsolation deeply impressed on ...
— The Garret and the Garden • R.M. Ballantyne
... noticeable feature of the gown is the sleeve, consisting of a double puff drawn in just above the elbow and confined by knots of ribbon; in one case with very narrow ribbon loops. Randle Holme says that a sleeve thus tied in at the elbow was called a virago sleeve. Madam Shrimpton's sleeve has also a falling frill of embroidery and lace and a ruffle around the armsize. The question of sleeves sorely vexed the colonial magistrates. Men and women were forbidden to have but ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle
... voice rose, not shrilly as with most women, but taking on a warm, hoarse note—her words seemed to be flung out hot as coals from a fire. Mr. Huxtable grimaced. "She's a virago," he thought to himself. He put up his hand suavely to induce silence, but ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith
... Why, man, he's a very devil; I have not seen such a virago. I had a pass with him, rapier, scabbard, and all, and he gives me the stuck-in with such a mortal motion that it is inevitable; and on the answer, he pays you as surely as your feet hit the ground they step on. They say he has been fencer ...
— Twelfth Night; or, What You Will • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... sir?' demanded the virago, dreadfully enraged—'how dare you interfere, you dirty, ragged, vagabond? Come, tramp out of this, both of you, this very instant, or I shall call in them as will ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... Infante's many rivals and would-be successors. Bitter quarrels and recriminations ensued, and the jealous ravings of Catarina's princely admirer were more than matched by the fierce sarcasms and shrill clamor of the beautiful virago. One day Don Ferdinand, justly suspecting her of gross unfaithfulness, assailed her with unusual fury, to which she replied by terming him a gobbo maladetto (accursed hunchback). On this the Prince, carried beyond all control, had her imprisoned on some ...
— Great Singers, First Series - Faustina Bordoni To Henrietta Sontag • George T. Ferris
... often only a matter of laying your hand, even in self-defence from a virago, on a woman—or brushing against her in the path. These accusations of adultery are, next to witchcraft, the great social danger to the West Coast native, and they are often made merely from motives of extortion or spite, and without an ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... line such as she had sometimes turned from with weary scorn in her careless perusal of the daily shameful chronicle of domestic infelicity. Then she had coldly wondered if there could be any such men and women. And now! The crowd fell back before her; even the virago was silenced as she looked at her face. The humorist's face was as white, but not as immobile, as he gasped, "Christ! if I don't believe she ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... they are far from complaining of their lot. On the contrary, they would despise their husbands should they stoop to any menial office, and would think it conveyed an imputation upon their own conduct. It is the worst insult one virago can cast upon another in a moment of altercation. "Infamous woman!" will she cry, "I have seen your husband carrying wood into his lodge to make the fire. Where was his squaw that he should be obliged to make a ...
— Journeys Through Bookland - Volume Four • Charles H. Sylvester
... wrath, rage, indignation, ire, frenzy; virago, termagant, shrew, vixen, beldame, Xantippe; agitation, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... me triumphantly. For my own part I must confess I was disappointed. A cat-and-dog squabble between a rustic Lothario and some local virago did not excite me so intensely as it seemed to ...
— The Green Eyes of Bast • Sax Rohmer
... "Nay, the virago volunteered," he explained, with a look that seemed to supplement speech in the suggestion that it were best to let Mistress Satchell have her own way. This was evidently Mistress Satchell's own view of ...
— The Lady of Loyalty House - A Novel • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... the beginning of the day as he went from the camp. [8]It is no fortune for a tender youth that falls on thee now.[8] We had thought that the honour under which he went, even the honour of Fergus, was not the honour of a dastard!" "What hath crazed the virago and wench?" cried Fergus. "Good lack, [W.1935.] is it fitting for the mongrel to seek the Hound of battle whom [1]the warriors and champions[1] of four of the five grand provinces of Erin dare not approach nor withstand? What, I myself was glad to ...
— The Ancient Irish Epic Tale Tain Bo Cualnge • Unknown
... dreaded than the wild bacchanals who surrounded us. We would fain have returned, but it was too late. Barney was already in the power of unseen hands, which had seized upon him in the darkness; an old virago had ordered us into the house; and when we had declined to partake of the relics of a feast which strewed the table, we were ignominiously consigned to a den of a lean-to opening upon the piazza. A "terribly-strange bed" indeed ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, September 1880 • Various
... runs entirely wild in "Barnaby Budge," where, with a corps de drame composed of one idiot, two madmen, a gentleman-fool who is also a villain, a shop-boy fool who is also a blackguard, a hangman, a shriveled virago, and a doll in ribbons—carrying this company through riot and fire, till he hangs the hangman, one of the madmen, his mother, and the idiot, runs the gentleman-fool through in a bloody duel, and burns and crushes the shop-boy fool into ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... then, and lay out the table, for the coach can't stay long," cried the virago, seizing a frying-pan from the wall, and preparing it for the reception of eggs and ham. "I must have the fire to myself. People can't come crowding here, when I have to fix breakfast for nine; particularly when there is a good ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... petty cruelties of the women, while, on the other hand, it had alone been the presence of the women that had saved her from worse treatment at the hands of some of the men—notably the brutal, black sergeant, Usanga. His own woman was of the party—a veritable giantess, a virago of the first magnitude—and she was evidently the only thing in the world of which Usanga stood in awe. Even though she was particularly cruel to the young woman, the latter believed that she was her sole protection from ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... the language, it appeared to Mr. Roscorla, of a virago; only, viragoes do not ordinarily have tears in their eyes, as was the case with Mabyn when she finished ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, April 1875, Vol. XV., No. 88 • Various
... the woman was transformed into a cursing and swearing virago. She followed him, making the little thoroughfare resound with her shrill abuse. Most people would, in such circumstances, have looked out for a policeman, or tried to get away somewhere, but this man turned round and stood still and regarded the woman. There was neither anger ...
— The Beautiful Wretch; The Pupil of Aurelius; and The Four Macnicols • William Black
... malrespekti. Violation malrespekto. Violence perforto. Violent perforta. Violet violo. Violet color violkoloro. Violin violono. Violinist violonisto. Violoncello violoncxelo. Violoncellist violoncxelisto. Viper vipero. Virago (fig.) drakino. Virgin virgulino. Virginal virga. Virginity virgeco. Virgin, The Blessed La Sankta Virgulino, Dipatrino. Virile vira. Virility vireco. Virtue virto. Virtuous virta. Virtuoso virtuozo. Virulent venena, malboniga. Virus veneno. Visage ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... Decidedly this was no place for a visitor from the South. He did not detect the faintest sign of hospitality. Men and women alike seemed to dislike him. A powerful virago hurled a stone at his head, which would have struck him senseless had it not missed, and a farmer standing by a fence had a shotgun cocked and ready to be fired as he passed, but Harry, snatching one of the useless pistols from his belt, hurled ...
— The Shades of the Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler
... A fat virago planted herself in the doorway, and commenced railing at them, with the cowardly courage which the fancied immunity of their sex gives to coarse women; but she was hastily shoved aside, and took shelter in ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... but he would not consent thereto: and when his daughter knew of this she was indignant and sent to me to say, amongst other things, 'An thou have wit, tarry not in this town; else wilt thou perish and thy sin shall be on shine own neck.[FN305]' For she is a virago of viragoes. Accordingly I left Bassorah, brokenhearted, and limned this likeness of her in books and scattered them abroad in various lands, so haply they might fall into the hands of a comely youth like thyself and he contrive access to her and peradventure ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton
... was when they considered the temper of the book. In the champion of her sex, who was described as endeavouring to invest them with all the rights of man, those whom curiosity prompted to seek the occasion of beholding her, expected to find a sturdy, muscular, raw-boned virago; and they were not a little surprised, when, instead of all this, they found a woman, lovely in her person, and, in the best and most engaging sense, feminine ...
— Memoirs of the Author of a Vindication of the Rights of Woman • William Godwin
... many unexpected menaces—the man Burrage that he might run against anywhere, Pancha, a jealous virago—nobody knew what a woman in that state mightn't do—and Chrystie herself. In the high tension of his nerves she was indescribably irritating, full of moods, preyed upon by gnawings of conscience. He had already given her an outline of his plan, tentatively suggested it—you ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner
... hands of one who was exigeante and had a will of her own. "By Gad," he said to his particular friend, Dick Ross, "I would almost sooner that my cousin Walter had the property than put it and myself into the hands of such a virago." ...
— Kept in the Dark • Anthony Trollope
... the virago, "Hyperphon the beggarly hunchback, the laughing-stock of Athens! O Mother Hera!—but I see the villain's aim. You are weary of me. Then divorce me like an honourable man. Send me back to Polus my dear brother. Ah, you sheep, you are silent! You think of the two-minae ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... an advanced post occupied by major Melville, and threw up intrenchments upon a hill opposite to the station of this officer, who had all along signalized himself by his uncommon intrepidity, vigilance, and conduct. At length the works of this virago were stormed by a regular detachment, which, after an obstinate and dangerous conflict, entered the intrenchment sword in hand, and burned the houses and plantations. Some of the enemy were killed, and a great number taken. Of the English detachment twelve soldiers ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... Quebec, in January, 1761, he sent one of his men to cut wood on the property of a certain habitant, the man himself consenting. But Madame, his wife, was not pleased. She abused Fraser, called him opprobrious names, and, in a war of words, remained, he admits, mistress of the field. The wrathful virago carried her appeal to Murray in Quebec, who, she said, had passed many officers under the rod and Fraser found himself called upon to explain the matter. In a petition he humbly begs that some "recompence" (of punishment of ...
— A Canadian Manor and Its Seigneurs - The Story of a Hundred Years, 1761-1861 • George M. Wrong
... her absolute lack of knowledge. Peg put up with that just as long as she could. Then one day she opened out on them and astonished them. They could not have been more amazed had a bomb exploded in their midst. The little, timid-looking, open-eyed, Titian-haired girl was a veritable virago. She attacked and belittled, and mimicked and berated them. They had talked of her BROGUE! They should listen to their own nasal utterances, that sounded as if they were speaking with their noses and not with their tongues! Even the teacher ...
— Peg O' My Heart • J. Hartley Manners
... not tell me what she should like to know, I did not tell her. I stood upon the defensive between the virago and my ...
— Down The River - Buck Bradford and His Tyrants • Oliver Optic
... spectators grew animated by the sight of actual outrage and resistance; the humpbacked tinker, whose unwholesome fancy one of the aggrieved tymbesteres had mightily warmed, hastened to the relief of his virago; and rendered furious by finding ten nails fastened suddenly on his face, he struck down the poor creature by a blow that stunned her, seized her in his arms,—for deformed and weakly as the tinker was, the old woman, now sense and spirit were gone, ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... succeeds in traversing the Land of Birds, the Land of Wild Beasts, the country of the Warlocks and the Enchanters, and the Land of the Jinn, and enters the islands of Wak—there to fall into the hands of that masterful virago, his wife's eldest sister. After a preliminary outburst against Hasan, this amiable creature pours, as is the wont of women, the full torrent of her wrath against her erring sister. From the tortures she inflicts, Hasan at length rescues his wife, with their two sons, by means of a cap of invisibility ...
— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland
... with its high-art lining, love for her mate and her own kitten, Thyme, dread of disturbance—all made her long to push this woman from the room; this woman with the skimpy figure, and eyes that, for all their patience, had in them something virago-like; this woman who carried about with her an atmosphere of sordid grief, of squalid menaces, and scandal. She longed all the more because it could well be seen from the seamstress's helpless attitude that she too would have liked an easy life. ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... Monsieur Siege, nearly scared out of his wits, darted from the inhospitable pocket up the chair-back, then leaped to the top of the window, where, feeling secure, he hung himself up to the curtain-rod by his tail, and proceeded to scold, like a perfect virago. ...
— All Aboard - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... those accustomed to the polite and grateful expression, with which in arriving at an English inn, you are received by the attentive host or hostess), was altogether singular. The landlady declared, with the voice and action of a virago, that at this time of night, the highest guests in the land should not enter her roof upon any terms. The landlord, on the contrary, behaved with great politeness, entreated not to take offence at his wife's uncommon appearance. "C'est seulement un tete chaud, Monsieur, mais faites ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison
... like one stupefied. At last he sprang up and fairly yelled, "In the fiend's name, explain this chicanery. Why are you here? Who is keeping me a prisoner, and wherefore? Is it you, you little virago?" ...
— Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter • Lawrence L. Lynch
... that I am not a respectable person, sir?" said a fierce-looking virago, rubbing her fist against Vanslyperken's ...
— Snarley-yow - or The Dog Fiend • Frederick Marryat
... retire. Some sort of a panic had taken place in the town, owing partly to the fact that the Boers were threatening it from another quarter, partly to the persistent shelling of "Long Tom," which, as some one described, was like a voluble virago, determined to have the last word! All efforts to silence the horrible weapon had failed, and for some three or four hours it had sent its eighty-four-pound shells shrieking into the town. There was no resource but to fall back, which was done to the appalling detonations of the Boer guns ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 2 (of 6) - From the Commencement of the War to the Battle of Colenso, - 15th Dec. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... Arthur, | and mother to Huncamunca, a woman intirely | Mrs MULLART. faultless, saving that she is a little given | to drink, a little too much a virago towards | her husband, and in love with Tom ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding
... have not seen such a virago] Virago cannot be properly used here, unless we suppose Sir Toby to mean, I never saw one that had so much the look of woman with the ...
— Johnson's Notes to Shakespeare Vol. I Comedies • Samuel Johnson
... tell you plainly, and without any mincing, what type of woman I think the most dangerous? It is not the virago, the wounds of a sharp tongue are hard enough to bear, but there is a balm for them. Mother may be overworked, or sister may be fretted; something is the matter with the digestion, often, when the one we love scolds and ...
— A String of Amber Beads • Martha Everts Holden
... Frau Hadebusch, virago that she could be when a dubious debtor failed to fulfil his obligations, stormed her way up the steps. The rent was long overdue, and uncanny councils were being held in the living room, in which an invalid ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... made no reply, but the anxiety of the crew to have these vital problems solved was so manifest that he turned his back on the virago and went towards the mate, who at that moment dipped hurriedly to escape a wet dish-clout. The two men regarded each ...
— Many Cargoes • W.W. Jacobs
... degradation from the caste. There was no disposition to overlook the offence of usury. Beggary was to be the portion of Yoemon, the destitution of the outcast. For some years the senile old man, the virago of a woman once the wife of Kondo[u] Rokuro[u]bei, were stationed at the Nio[u]mon, to attract and amuse the worshippers passing up to the great temple of the Asakusa Kwannon. Not for long could the woman hold her tongue. Abuse passed with the sun's ...
— The Yotsuya Kwaidan or O'Iwa Inari - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 1 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... peremptory words, interlarded with many oaths, what he wanted. His reply called down his unseen correspondent, who soon entered his workshop. It was the awful presence of Mrs Hatton; a tall, bearded virago, with a file in her hand, for that seemed the distinctive arm of the house, and eyes flashing with ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... frying over the hearth, a tall, muscularly built virago, to whose sinewy arms, dome-like breast, red shining cheeks, and burning eyes, the flickering flames gave a savage, uncanny look; her fine black locks are wound up in a large knot at the back of her head, her large eyebrows have grown together, and the upper ...
— The Day of Wrath • Maurus Jokai
... is published in modern editions by Virago and other publishers. Among these are: "Love", "The Enchanted April", "Caravaners", "Christopher and Columbus", "The Pastor's Wife", "Mr. Skeffington", "The Solitary Summer", and "Elizabeth's Adventures ...
— Elizabeth and her German Garden • "Elizabeth", AKA Marie Annette Beauchamp
... at such a moment, would have cowed even him. As a general rule, it is highly desirable that ladies should keep their temper: a woman when she storms always makes herself ugly, and usually ridiculous also. There is nothing so odious to man as a virago. Though Theseus loved an Amazon, he showed his love but roughly, and from the time of Theseus downward, no man ever wished to have his wife remarkable rather for forward prowess than retiring gentleness. A low voice "is an ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... I could worship, could adore them, only to procure myself a moment of your conversation! Have you not seen me pay my court to the gross Captain Mirvan, and the virago Madame Duval? Were it possible that a creature so horrid could be formed, as to partake of the worst qualities of all these characters,-a creature who should have the haughtiness of Mrs. Beaumont, the brutality of Captain Mirvan, ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney
... who in their lives had been servants of sin— Adulteress, Wench, Virago— And Murd'resses old that had pointed the knife Against a husband's or father's life, ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb
... done? Suppose the furrier refused the burden. But Henry's flight, she felt, had removed her even farther from the Elkman household. If she went to spy out the land, she would now have to face the virago in possession. But no! on second thoughts it was this other woman whom Henry's flight had changed to a stranger. What had the wretch to do with the children? She was a mere intruder in the house. Out with her, or at ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... doth display, With meadows green, with flowers profusely gay, Where Scota lies, unfortunately slain, And with her royal tomb gives honour to the plain. Mixed with the first the fair virago fought, Sustained the toil of arms and danger sought: From her the fruitful valley hath the name O Glean Scoith, and we may ...
— Bolougne-Sur-Mer - St. Patrick's Native Town • Reverend William Canon Fleming
... perceptibly. "There will never be anything problematical in her single-minded devotion. She has been well and discreetly brought up, and finished by the best society, while poor me!—I had to fly in the face of fate like a virago, and scramble up the best I could in Western wilds. Oh, well, Graydon, don't be alarmed. I'll be a good fellow if you'll take me out ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe
... ending in blind alleys, or issues unforeseen: with her sages discovered to be less sages than they seemed: with her Science turning superstitious, her Literature wallowing in the gutter, and her women descending from the pedestal of sex to play the virago in the contamination of the crowd: with so many other things, not here to be considered, to raise a doubt, whether this Liberty is taking her just where she wished to go, what wonder if even Europe should begin to meditate on ...
— Bubbles of the Foam • Unknown
... say Damn Cambridge. As it is, I blame my kittens. And now let me warn you. If youre going to be a charming healthy young English girl, you may coax me. If youre going to be an unsexed Cambridge Fabian virago, I'll treat you as my intellectual equal, as I would treat ...
— Fanny's First Play • George Bernard Shaw
... were published by Dickenson of Bond Street, about 1825-6, I fancy. I have tried to get them, and all but succeeded two years ago. I am afraid they would give you and Miss Bateman the impression that Pasta played the Virago: which was not so at all. Her scene with her Children was among the finest of all: and it was well known at the time how deeply she felt it. But I suppose the stronger Situations offered better opportunities for the pencil, ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald in Two Volumes - Vol. II • Edward FitzGerald
... [v]termagant wife, who would suddenly break in upon the tranquility of the assemblage, and call the members all to naught; nor was that august personage, Nicholas Vedder himself, sacred from the daring tongue of this terrible virago, who charged him with encouraging her husband ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... one who is even suspected to be so. To all this, when it was said to him by the Bishop in the kindest manner, Dr. Wortle replied that such suspicions were monstrous, unreasonable, and uncharitable. He declared that they originated with that abominable virago, Mrs. Stantiloup. "Look round the diocese," said the Bishop in reply to this, "and see if you can find a single clergyman acting in it, of the details of whose life for the last five years you know absolutely nothing." Thereupon the Doctor said ...
— Dr. Wortle's School • Anthony Trollope
... man, putting himself before the young virago, who was about to rush upon me, "my turn is first." Then, advancing to me in a menacing attitude, he said with a look of deep malignity, "'Afraid' ...
— Isopel Berners - The History of certain doings in a Staffordshire Dingle, July, 1825 • George Borrow
... Dame, but no applause ensu'd; 35 Belinda frown'd, Thalestris call'd her Prude. "To arms, to arms!" the fierce Virago cries, And swift as lightning to the combat flies. All side in parties, and begin th' attack; Fans clap, silks rustle, and tough whalebones crack; 40 Heroes' and Heroines' shouts confus'dly rise, And bass, and ...
— The Rape of the Lock and Other Poems • Alexander Pope
... calumnies and invectives, what would I not have given to have stopt it? how have I been troubled to see some of the finest features in the world grow pale and tremble with party rage. Camilla is one of the greatest beauties in the British nation, and yet values herself more upon being the virago of one party than upon being the toast of both. The dear creature about a week ago encountered the fierce and beautiful Penthesilea across a tea-table; but in the height of her anger, as her hand chanced to shake with ...
— The Age of Pope - (1700-1744) • John Dennis
... power over the bitterness of her anger. However little I oppose what she has taken into her head, I raise a terrible storm which lasts at least a week. She makes me tremble when she begins her outcries; I don't know where to hide myself. She is a perfect virago; and yet, in spite of her diabolical temper, I must call her my ...
— The Learned Women • Moliere (Poquelin)
... flock, sometimes with this one, sometimes with that, that the fresh night air was producing staggerings and serpentine courses among the men who had partaken too freely; some of the more careless women also were wandering in their gait—to wit, a dark virago, Car Darch, dubbed Queen of Spades, till lately a favourite of d'Urberville's; Nancy, her sister, nicknamed the Queen of Diamonds; and the young married woman who had already tumbled down. Yet however terrestrial and lumpy their ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... was a perfect virago—an "embodied storm." In her time she had cut off the hands and feet of some little Chippeway children, and strung them, and worn them for a necklace. And she feasted yet at the pleasant recollections this ...
— Dahcotah - Life and Legends of the Sioux Around Fort Snelling • Mary Eastman
... made in a practicable shape, James and his Government are obviously as responsible as he. They might, if they chose, have withdrawn his commission if he rejected those terms. Gondomar was a good Spaniard. He had a patriotic hatred for 'the old pirate bred under the English virago, and by her fleshed in Spanish blood and ruin.' His influence with James was boundless. He could 'pipe James asleep,' it was said, 'with facetious words and gestures.' They were the more diverting from their contrast with his lank, austere aspect. James ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... later years, indorsed Lamb's opinion of this portion of his contribution to "Joan of Arc." "I was really astonished," he said, "(1) at the schoolboy, wretched, allegoric machinery; (2) at the transmogrification of the fanatic virago into a modern novel-pawing proselyte of the "Age of Reason,"—a Tom Paine in petticoats; (3) at the utter want of all rhythm in the verse, the monotony and dead plumb-down of the pauses, and the absence of all bone, muscle, and sinew in the ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... she says. By the same token you must have been letting out any number of queer reminiscences just before I met you. 'Says that a man who would have behaved to a woman as you did to Mrs. Wessington ought to kill himself out of sheer pity for his kind. She's a hot- headed little virago, your mash. 'Will have it too that you were suffering from D. T. when that row on the Jakko road turned up. 'Says she'll die before she ever ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... entering stormily ten minutes later, found herself face to face with a strange Audrey, who, standing in the middle of the floor, raised her hand for silence in a gesture so commanding that the virago stayed her tirade, and ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... simply. It is supposed that he had laid his domestic concerns too open to animadversion in the neglect of his daughter; or that he was aware that he was standing before no friendly bar, at that moment being out of favour; whatever was the cause, our noble virago obtained a signal triumph, and "the oracle of law," with all his gravity, stood before the council-table hen-pecked. In June, 1616, Sir Edward appears to have yielded at discretion to his lady, for in an unpublished letter I find that "his curst heart hath been forced to yield to more ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... tore her hat from her head and threw it on the table. Her face was like the face of a virago, her eyes blazed, her cheeks were as pale as death save for one ...
— The Cinema Murder • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... in the deep water, lay her enemies in smoking ruins. The privateer, her foretop in flames, was dishevelled as a virago after a street fight; while great white clouds puffing out of the frigate's quarter-gallery ...
— The Gentleman - A Romance of the Sea • Alfred Ollivant
... own daughter, madam, to have a smooth cheek, a modest air, and a gentle feminine behavior, or to be—I won't say a whiskered prodigy, like this Bearded Lady of Kentucky—but a masculine wonder, a virago, a female personage of more than female strength, courage, wisdom? Some authors, who shall be nameless, are, I know, accused of depicting the most feeble, brainless, namby-pamby heroines, for ever whimpering tears and prattling commonplaces. YOU would have the heroine of your ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... eyes almost swimming in tears, and evidently alarmed for my safety. Again Giles Sheridan spoke up and said: "It can be no good that brought the fellow hither. He must have been begotten under an evil star, and nursed by a virago. The fellow has but to take good care of his invective; and if he adopt the ass instead of the madman, he may in time become an excellent critic." Here he paused, turned his head quickly, and frisked his ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... audience was coming in remarked that they had had rather a trying experience during the lecture of the week before. On Taylor's asking what it was, the chairman answered: "The lecturer was seized by a virago on the stage." He meant vertigo. Dana told good stories of old Dr. Osgood of Medford, whose hatred of Democracy was shown not only in his well-known reading of Governor Gerry's proclamation, but in his bitter sermon at the election ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White
... pathos, wherein Thackeray chiefly excels; yet the contrasts between weak and strong natures, the superiority of honesty and the moral sense over craftiness and unscrupulous cleverness, are now touched off with a lighter and surer hand. The unmitigated villain and the coarse-tongued hard-hearted virago have disappeared with other primitive stage properties; the human comedy is played by men and women of the upper world, with their virtues and frailties sufficiently set in relief, yet not exaggerated, for the purposes of the social drama. The book's ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... grandfather very probably, misgoverned Ireland, but never he himself. Why, just look at him now, his hand never out of his pocket relieving the shrill cries of Irish distress. There she stands, a poverty-stricken virago at his door, shaking her bony fist at him, Celtic porter in her eye, the most fearful apparition in history, his charwoman, shaming him before the neighbours and demanding payment for long past spring cleanings that he, ...
— The Crime Against Europe - A Possible Outcome of the War of 1914 • Roger Casement
... then that stopped at Dexter's Oak one Friday morning with her donkey-cart and a small piece of the neck of mutton in it. She was not an entirely bad woman, though a downright cunning virago, and perhaps some inkling of the nature of the blow that was about to fall on Miss Dexter's head caused her to come prepared by an acceptable present to somewhat mitigate ...
— Crowded Out! and Other Sketches • Susie F. Harrison
... of that interview he had but little reason to be satisfied. He felt disappointed, enraged, and humiliated. Edith had been perfectly free from all fear of him. The young girl had shown herself a virago. His insults she had returned with mocking sarcasms, his threats she had treated with utter contempt, and finally she had proved him to his own face to be a coward. Over the recollection of that scene he ...
— The Living Link • James De Mille
... that because Lizzie Eustace has said so. I don't know that she's a virago at all. I believe her to be a ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... new and terrible fagot-gun used in the French army is to be spoken of in the feminine gender—mitrailleuse instead of mitrailleur, as hitherto spelt by correspondents. That a virago is sometimes termed a "spit-fire" we all know, but that is hardly reason enough to excuse the French for such a lapse of gallantry as calling a thunderous and fatal implement of war by a soft feminine name. Let ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 23, September 3, 1870 • Various
... absence to quarrel with her tenderness!—'twas barbarous and unmanly!—I should be ashamed to see her now.—I'll wait till her just resentment is abated—and when I distress her so again, may I lose her for ever! and be linked instead to some antique virago, whose gnawing passions, and long hoarded spleen, shall make me curse my folly half the day and all the ...
— The Rivals - A Comedy • Richard Brinsley Sheridan
... said, her arm immediately flung up to the virago's akimbo and her foot sliding in ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... unlucky Rip was at length routed by his termagant wife, who would suddenly break in upon the tranquillity of the assemblage and call the members all to naught; nor was that august personage, Nicholas Vedder himself, sacred from the daring tongue of this terrible virago, who charged him outright with encouraging her husband ...
— The Short-story • William Patterson Atkinson
... emphatically. Another general, and far less equivocal laugh, at the expense of Desire, succeeded this blunt declaration Nothing intimidated by such a manifest assent to the opinion of the hardy seaman, the undaunted virago resumed,— ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... that she had lived with her, though she chose to appear in that capacity. And, besides, Hyacinth herself, Anne had, in a most superlative degree, enjoyed the house, her little authority, the way she stood between Hyacinth and all tedious little practical matters. Like many a woman who was a virago at heart, Anne had a perfect passion for domestic matters, for economy, for managing a house. Of course she had always known that the pretty heiress was sure to marry, but she hoped the evil day ...
— Love's Shadow • Ada Leverson
... masculine gender in general; some of them women who have been badly mated, whose own temper, or their husbands, has made life anything but agreeable to them, and they are therefore down upon the whole of the opposite sex; some, having so much of the virago in their disposition, that nature appears to have made a mistake in their gender—mannish women, like hens that crow; some of boundless vanity and egotism, who believe that they are superior in intellectual ability to "all ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... I please," said the virago. "I don't trouble the mayor, or bother his deputies. As for my customers, they adore me, and I talk to 'em as I choose. If they don't like it, they can ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac
... work of Kepler. Kepler was born in December, 1571, at Weil in Wuertemberg. Father an officer in the duke's army, mother something of a virago, both very poor. Kepler was utilized as a tavern pot-boy, but ultimately sent to a charity school, and thence to the University of Tuebingen. Health extremely delicate; he was liable to violent attacks all his life. Studied mathematics, and accepted an astronomical lectureship ...
— Pioneers of Science • Oliver Lodge
... mechanical operation; or discovering the infinite varieties of a curve, she might take occasion to deduce her husband's versatility. If she become as jealous of his books as other wives might be of his mistresses, she may act the virago even over his innocent papers. The wife of Bishop COOPER, while her husband was employed on his Lexicon, one day consigned the volume of many years to the flames, and obliged that scholar to begin a second siege ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... part of desdichado so as to keep our compassion. Lucy is a simpleton so utter and complete that it is difficult even to be sorry for her, especially as Ravenswood would have made a detestable husband. The mother is meant to be and is a repulsive virago, and the father a time-serving and almost vulgar intriguer. Moreover—and all this is not in the least surprising, since he was in agonies during most of the composition, and nearly died before its close[20]—the author has, contrary to his wont, provided very few subsidiary characters to support ...
— Sir Walter Scott - Famous Scots Series • George Saintsbury
... "You're a virago," said Chris, seating himself near his wife. "Tell me what you've been doing all day. Am I in for that dinner at Annie's to-night? I wish I could stay here and gossip with ...
— The Beloved Woman • Kathleen Norris
... grew quickly better; but I was dismissed before my cure was completed, because I could not afford to have my linen washed to appear decently, as the virago of a nurse said, when the gentlemen (the surgeons) came. I cannot give you an adequate idea of the wretchedness of an hospital; every thing is left to the care of people intent on gain. The attendants seem to have lost all feeling of compassion in the bustling discharge ...
— Posthumous Works - of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman • Mary Wollstonecraft
... too great moment in this quiet little world, not to turn it completely topsy-turvy. Labour is at a stand: the house has been a scene of confusion the whole evening. It has been beleagured by gipsy women, with their children on their backs, wailing and lamenting; while the old virago of a mother has cruised up and down the lawn in front, shaking her head, and muttering to herself, or now and then breaking into a paroxysm of rage, brandishing her fist at the Hall, and denouncing ill-luck upon Ready-Money Jack, and even upon ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... "Some time ago I crossed the Ohio River into the State of Illinois where I had some preaching engagements. On one of my tours I met a local preacher who was a small, good natured, pious and withal a useful preacher. He had a wife who was a noted virago. She was high tempered, overbearing and quarrelsome. She opposed her husband's preaching, and was unwilling he should ask a blessing at the table or conduct family prayers. If he persisted in his effort to pray she would run noisily about the rooms and overturn ...
— The Kentucky Ranger • Edward T. Curnick
... quite certain that during this time of trouble, Hibbert had found one more friend in Mrs. Trounce—the kind-hearted matron, who always tried to make the boys believe that she was a perfect virago with a heart of flint. Paul followed her on tiptoe to the bed and looked down on the sleeper. And as he looked, it seemed as though ice-cold fingers were clutching him by the heart-strings, so strangely still were the face and form ...
— The Hero of Garside School • J. Harwood Panting
... can go as you came!" exclaimed the virago. "My husband is not a wild animal on exhibition, and I am not going to let in every idle stranger that interferes with his work and cuts off my bread. God knows he gives me little enough, without lessening the pittance by wasting ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... given reluctantly, not forced from her as it were by violence. Now she could only remember the treatment she had received at his hands—the insult, the outrage, and his audacity in thus coming on her by surprise stung and roused all the virago in her. ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... fiendish-looking virago, upon whose face were the most hideous distortions of insanity I had ever witnessed, was none other than the once-powerful tyrannical autocrat, the Great ...
— The Great White Queen - A Tale of Treasure and Treason • William Le Queux
... pretty one! Here's a virago! Here's a termagant! If length and sharpness go for anything, You'll want no sword while ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... eloquence of a fish-wife or a lady of easy virtue in a pot-house quarrel. There was no human creature near her who had mind or heart enough to see the awfulness of her condition, or to strive to teach her to check her passions; and in the midst of these perilous surroundings the little virago grew handsomer and of finer carriage every hour, as if on the rank diet that fed her she throve ...
— A Lady of Quality • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... The virago lopped the genealogical tree, by demanding haughtily, "If a stream of rushing water acknowledged any relation with the portion withdrawn from it for the mean domestic uses of those who dwelt on ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... "Virago!" I nodded, "though she is handsome, I understand—in a strapping way—and I have it on very excellent authority that she is a black-browed goddess, a peach, and a ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol
... mystery is that this virago meekly permits the lazy cowbird to deposit an egg in its nest, and will patiently sit upon it, though it is as large as three of her own tiny eggs; and when the little interloper comes out from his shell the mother-bird will continue to give it the most devoted ...
— Bird Neighbors • Neltje Blanchan
... it seems, that if she once gets back to the colony free, she will not only make it too hot for poor Mr. Wood, but the police and courts of justice will scarce be a match for her! Sir Patrick Ross, no doubt, will take care how he intercedes farther for so formidable a virago! How can ...
— The History of Mary Prince - A West Indian Slave • Mary Prince
... hour they must come, whether all goes on well, and whether he is satisfied with those fools of parsons (calotins) and the aristocrats." Others consist of low women under the command of Theroigne de Mericourt, a virago courtesan, who assigns them their positions and gives them the signal for hooting or for applause. Publicly and in full session, on the occasion of the debate on the veto, "the deputies are applauded or insulted by the galleries according as they utter the word ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... —The fierce virago fought,— Outstrip'd the winds, in speed upon the plain, Flew o'er the fields, nor hurt the bearded grain: She swept the seas, and as she skim'd along, Her flying feet, unbath'd, ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753),Vol. V. • Theophilus Cibber
... endured great troubles sublimely like martyrs. But if a dusty shoe trod upon a freshly washed floor, or husband or child came tardily to the breakfast-table, or lingered outside the door after regulation hour for retiring—lo, the Angel became a virago, or a ...
— The Heart of the New Thought • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... their instinct for the poetry which, more specially in Gaelic-speaking regions, sits in rags by roadside and chimney corner. Irish poetry is not only the tragic voice of the keene; Gaelic had its comic muse as well, a robust virago, of the breed which produced Aristophanes and Rabelais—and Slipper with his gift for epic narrative is a camp-follower of ...
— Irish Books and Irish People • Stephen Gwynn
... a coarse-tongued virago, but even Anna, who had shrunk from her, felt a little mollified and touched as she saw how tenderly the rough hand rested on the child's curls. But Kit pushed it pettishly away. "Don't, Ma'am, you've been and gone ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... account of the unlooked-for death of his mare, Peg Nicholson, the successor of Jenny Geddes. She had suffered both in the employ of the joyous priest and the thoughtless poet. She acquired her name from that frantic virago who attempted to murder George ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... me all sorts of presents; indeed, the carpenter said he must make me a chest in which to stow them away. My mother felt leaving our kind friend, Mrs King, more than anything else. It was curious to see the interesting young woman, as she still was, embracing the tall, gaunt, weather-beaten virago, as ...
— Ben Burton - Born and Bred at Sea • W. H. G. Kingston
... said, roughly—"I will not have a scandal here in my studio! You'll bring my man-servant up in a moment with your stupid noise! I'm ashamed of you!—screaming and crying like a virago! If you make this ...
— Innocent - Her Fancy and His Fact • Marie Corelli
... jealousy. Wesley's care and kindness of the women who came under his ministrations set his wife wild with suspicion and anger. She could not believe that a man could be kind to a woman, even as a pastor, without having evil purpose in his heart. She had the temper of a virago; she stormed against her husband, she threatened him, she sometimes rushed at him and tore his hair; she repeatedly left his house, but was prevailed upon by him to return. At last after a fierce quarrel she flung out of the house, vowing that she would never come ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume II (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... a virago; easy-going people like you generally do, and you'll be henpecked all your life,' ...
— Sarah's School Friend • May Baldwin
... Nat, less patient, had made a rush upon the crowd, which had closed around and swallowed him from sight. By its violent swaying he was giving it something to digest. One of the two women shrank terrified by the base of the lamp-post. The other—a virago to look at, with eyes that glared from under the pent of her black bonnet—had pulled the grey-headed preacher down by his coat-tails, and, mounting in his room, clung with an arm around the ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... with whom I had become acquainted, I was stopped at the corner of a street by a crowd of people—a mob, as I have been taught to call it, since I came to England—who had gathered round a blind man, a little boy, and a virago of a woman, who stood upon the steps before a print-shop door. The woman accused the boy of being a thief. The boy protested that he was innocent, and his ingenuous countenance spoke strongly in his favour. He belonged to ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... remind you of an anecdote of the Earl of Derby; being once attacked in the House of Lords by the Duke of Argyle, the Earl in his reply said, "A certain navvy, who happened to be married to a very violent woman, a regular virago, was asked why he allowed his wife to abuse him, or use such intemperate language. 'Poor creature,' said the navvy, 'it amuses her, and does not hurt me.' So say I, the attack of the noble duke may amuse him but cannot ...
— Sketch of Handel and Beethoven • Thomas Hanly Ball
... Smallweed, Miss Mowcher, and the dwarfs and wax-work of Nell's caravan; and runs entirely wild in Barnaby Rudge, where, with a corps de drame composed of one idiot, two madmen, a gentleman fool who is also a villain, a shop-boy fool who is also a blackguard, a hangman, a shrivelled virago, and a doll in ribands—carrying this company through riot and fire, till he hangs the hangman, one of the madmen, his mother, and the idiot, runs the gentleman-fool through in a bloody duel, and burns and crushes the shop-boy fool into shapelessness, he cannot yet ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... him to come storming here, agin a lone widdy, so it is," said a virago, who seemed well able, like the widow herself, ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope
... the characteristics of Madame d'Abrantes. Balzac describes Mademoiselle des Touches as being past forty and un peu homme, which reminds one that the Countess Dash describes Madame d'Abrantes as being rather masculine, with an organe de rogome, and a virago when past forty. Calyste became enamored of Beatrix after having loved Mademoiselle des Touches, while Balzac became infatuated with Madame de Castries after having been in love with Madame d'Abrantes, in each case, the ...
— Women in the Life of Balzac • Juanita Helm Floyd
... is it so, indeed?" shrieked the virago; "then I am safe, for, little red Kaffir, I shall live to see you and your cowards beaten out of the country of the Endwandwe with whips ...
— Swallow • H. Rider Haggard
... were you I would set all my prisoners free and take away a cartload of their wives instead. I have only seen the backs of the men of Thrums, but, on my word, I very nearly ran away from the women. Hallo! I believe one of your police has caught our virago single-handed." ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie
... Quince's years came Mr. Greville's last good horse, Muscovite, whom he thought impossible to lose the Metropolitan, and backed him accordingly. He was much put out, however, by old John Day telling him he had no chance with his mare Virago. At first Mr. Greville was incredulous at what John told him, and made him acquainted with the form of Muscovite. This made not the slightest impression on the old man, who merely went on repeating Mr. Greville must back Virago for L500, and the value of the advice was proved by ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... misfortune follows him with disease; grievous plagues seize him, making days and nights one sleepless pain; and his wife, who should have been his stay and help, as most women are, became, instead of a solace and blessing, querulous, crying, like a virago, shrilly, "Curse God, and die!" Job opens with tragedy; Lear, and Julius Caesar, and Othello, and Macbeth, and Hamlet, close with tragedy. Job's ruin is swift and immediate. He has had no time to prepare him for the ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle
... of the preceding, commonly called Vermichel, as was the case with her husband; a mustached virago, a metre in width, and of two hundred and forty pounds weight, but active in spite of this; she ruled her ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe
... Catherine, frightened, and also a little conscience-stricken; and the virago sat suddenly down and burst into tears. Her daughter followed suit quietly, but without ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... you—you painted jackanapes! But now I have got you, and I'll turn you inside out, though I know there's nothing in you! But I'll try to get at your fine coats, and spurs, and trousers, your chains and pins, and make something of them before I've done with you, you jack-a-dandy!"—and the virago shook her fist at him, looking as though she had not yet uttered even half that was in ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren |
