"Ladylike" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... in a Royal fringe and a tight bodice with short sleeves, who had once been a celebrity, though no-one remembered for what. Miss Myra Mooney, formerly a beauty, had known her days of success. She had been the supreme performer of ladylike parts. She had been known as the very quintessence of refinement. It was assumed when she first came out that a duke would go to the devil for her in her youth, and that in her late maturity she would tour the provinces ...
— Tenterhooks • Ada Leverson
... in "Nicholas Nickleby" never appealed to me. It was necessary to skip that. When the people were gentlemanly and ladylike, they became great bores. But what young reader of Dickens can forget the hostile attitude of Mr. Lillyvick, great-uncle of the little Miss Kenwigses, when Nicholas attempted to teach them French? As one grows older, even Mr. Squeers and 'Tilda give ...
— Confessions of a Book-Lover • Maurice Francis Egan
... of making it clear in his language whether he is referring to an animate or inanimate thing, has landed me in many a dilemma, and his foolishness in not having a male and female gender in his languages amounts to a nuisance. For example, I am a most ladylike old person and yet get constantly called "Sir." The other day, circumstances having got beyond my control during the afternoon, I arrived in the evening in a saturated condition at a white settlement, and wishing to get accommodation ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... these shades of distress. The major has a numerous acquaintance of both sexes; among others, a first cousin of good fortune, who, with her daughters, often cheer our solitude; she is a very sensible ladylike gentlewoman, and the young ladies have a certain degagee air, that plainly shows they have seen the best company. Besides, I will venture to recommend Mrs. Minikin as a woman of tolerable breeding and capacity, who, I hope, will not be found altogether deficient ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... would have an idea or two," and Jet uttered aloud a dozen or so crackling syllables that sounded as though they could have been ladylike profanity. Whatever they were, Byuk jumped, too, and tuned ...
— The Galaxy Primes • Edward Elmer Smith
... snub her once, in your most ladylike way, it would settle her. As for me, I am satisfied to think we are paying much less, and we are twice as comfortable as we were at the hotel; and we get such good things to eat that our skeletons are filling out, and once more ...
— As Seen By Me • Lilian Bell
... done by a young lady who remembers eighteen months ago with so much regret that she has lost so much of her high spirits—might argue that her spirits were before tremendous; and yet they were not. That other Sarah was ladylike, I am sure, in her wildest moments, but there is something hurried and boisterous in this one's tricks that reminds me of some one who is making a merit of being jolly under depressing circumstances. No! that is not a nice Sarah now, ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... certainly brought to view some power of discrimination and an unbiassed original judgment; at the same time her manner retained the delicate quiet which characterised all that belonged to her. She held her own over against Mr. Eberstein, but she held it with an exquisite poise of ladylike good breeding; and Mr. Eberstein was charmed with her. The talk lasted until it was broken up by Mrs. Eberstein, who declared Dolly ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner
... looked "simply stunning" when seated on her horse and dressed in that garb with her long slim feet and graceful calves encased in a pair of riding boots that looked as if they must have cost "something fierce." But was it really "ladylike"? Hadn't Jane made a mistake and adopted a costume worn only by the fashionables among the demi-mondaines of whom Martha had read and had heard such ...
— The Conflict • David Graham Phillips
... and that her great glazed red cheeks—that is what she called them—were insufferably vulgar; she wouldn't like anybody to hear that such a creature was her grand-daughter. She wanted Hatty to take a lot of castor oil or some such horrid stuff, to bring down her red cheeks and make her slender and ladylike; she was ever so much too fat, Grandmamma said, and she thought it so vulgar to be fat. She wanted to pinch her in with stays, too, but it was all of no use. Hatty would not be pinched, and she would not take castor oil, and she would eat and drink—like a plough-boy, Grandmamma said—so ...
— Out in the Forty-Five - Duncan Keith's Vow • Emily Sarah Holt
... Europe, and pretend to receive letters and remittances from them. The majority of these women are adventuresses, and they make their living in a way they do not care to have known. They conduct themselves with the utmost outward propriety in the house, and disarm even the suspicious landlady by their ladylike deportment. They are ripe for an intrigue with any man in the house, and as their object is simply to make money, they care little for an exposure if ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... addition to which the old lady was sure she had observed "that little Celie Stubbs" glance over at her handsome Edward in a way that—well, when she was young! And here the old lady bridled and tossed her head, and the words which her lips formed themselves to utter (though she was too ladylike to speak them) were obviously "The Minx!" Hence it was clear to the most simple and unprejudiced that a greater distance had better be put between the Waverley loft and the Squire's pew—and that ...
— Red Cap Tales - Stolen from the Treasure Chest of the Wizard of the North • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... Mrs. Morton, the widow of a horse-dealing farmer in the late Mr. Marshall's parish. On discovering the identity of the English governess with the little girl who had admired the foals, lambs, and chickens in past times, Mrs. Morton gave invitations to tea. She was ladylike, the sons unexceptionable, and no objection could reasonably be made by the Misses Lang, though the acquaintance was ...
— That Stick • Charlotte M. Yonge
... away and lost, snatched from the real thing, the one real thing, which is my lover. Oh, I expect I'm shameless, and I don't care. Ought I to simper, and pretend I don't feel particularly much? Be ladylike, and hide how I adore him? Telegraph to me—telegraph your blessing. I must be blessed by you. Till I have been, it's like not having had my crown put on, and standing waiting, all ready in my beautiful clothes of happiness except for that. ...
— Christine • Alice Cholmondeley
... be heard." Then there was a protest. Mrs. Davis said she wished it understood that "ladies did not come there to screech; they came to behave like ladies and to speak like ladies." Miss Anthony held her ground, declaring that the question of being ladylike had nothing to do with it; the business of any one who read a paper was to be heard. Mr. May, always the peacemaker, said Miss Anthony was right; there was not a woman that had spoken in the convention who if she had been in her own home ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... her, and in the shelter of their opinions and ideals. She did not contemn or exclude the people who were unlike her, but she had never had any more contact with them than she now had with the weather of the streets, as she sat, filling her large arm-chair full of her ladylike correctness, in the library of the handsome house her father had left her. The irruption of her brother's son and daughter into its cloistered quiet had scarcely broken its invulnerable order. It was right and fit they should be there after his death, and it was not strange that in the course of ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... never be so wicked as that, papa. They have always seemed to like me—not very much, you know, because they thought I wasn't quiet and ladylike enough. Still I don't think they really ...
— One of the 28th • G. A. Henty
... any longer. He seemed to think that a very unnecessary remark, and I realized he liked Elizabeth's kind better. She would never have dreamed of telling him his business needed attention. Elizabeth is the Admired and Honored type of Womanhood which does not think it is ladylike to have knowledge ...
— Kitty Canary • Kate Langley Bosher
... sentimentalizing over a flower-basket; a pair of water-colour drawings represented a handsome church and comfortable parsonage; and the domestic gallery was completed by two prints—one of a middle-aged county-member, the other one of Chalon's ladylike matrons in watered-silk aprons. With some difficulty Rachel read on the one the autograph, J. T. Beauchamp, and on the other the inscription, the Lady Alison Beauchamp. The table-cover was of tasteful silk patchwork, the vase in the centre was of red earthenware, but was encircled with ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... rapidly down the walk from the hotel, and knew she was coming for the old man. As she came nearer, Bob saw she had tawny yellow hair, with slate-coloured eyes and a pious mouth. Her carriage was very erect, very ladylike, and patently she ...
— The Desert Fiddler • William H. Hamby
... oh, so ladylike "companion" goes to the Savoy in answer to a "with a view to matrimony" advertisement, what more natural than that the party of the first part should prove to be—not a genteel widower in the haberdashery business, but a handsome super-burglar of immense wealth and all the more ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Sept. 19, 1917 • Various
... have no environment less critical and more congenial than that in which it had pleased her mother to place her. It was right and fitting that the wife of the reigning Talbot-Lowry of Mount Music, should inevitably lead the way at local dinner-parties; should, with ladylike inaudibleness, declare that "this Bazaar" or "Village Hall" was open. It was no more than the duty of Major Talbot-Lowry (D.L., and J.P.) to humanity, that his race should multiply and replenish the earth, and Lady Isabel had unrepiningly obliged humanity to the extent ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... great things, they say-ladylike, but frightened. Her voice is lovely, and as to her looks-people rave about them. Tell me, she is ...
— The Long Vacation • Charlotte M. Yonge
... de Weller was called, and in ladylike tones She described all the injury suffered from Jones, How he called her at first "Angelina," and this Soon cooled to "Miss Weller," ...
— Briefless Ballads and Legal Lyrics - Second Series • James Williams
... foreshortened as she sat, and her drapery did not come to the edge of the stool: as my neighbour Miss Fitzhugh whispered, "Bad effect." However and nevertheless, the better half of her looked perfectly ladylike and queenlike; her head finely shaped, and well held on her shoulders with her likeness of a kingly crown, that diadem of diamonds. Beautifully fair the neck and arms; and the arms moved gracefully, and never too much. I could not at that distance judge ...
— The Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... ball, will courteously accost and chat with their friends, and take care that the ladies are furnished with seats, and that those who wish to dance are provided with partners. A gentle hint from the hostess, conveyed in a quiet ladylike manner, that certain ladies have remained unengaged during several dances, is sure not to be neglected by any gentleman. Thus will be studied the comfort and enjoyment of the guests, and no lady, in leaving ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... this very attentively, and then continued: "Your brother wants you to go back to your Family. His last words to me about it were that if you could manage to be ladylike for three years or the duration of War, at the end of that time he and you would go and live by your two selves in New Zealand, and if you liked you need wear no skirts at all there, but riding breeches all ...
— This Is the End • Stella Benson
... we were! Ruth won't let me 'hoo-hoo' from the window to Neale for him to come and take my books. Says it isn't ladylike, and that I am too old for such tomboy tricks. So," and the roguish beauty whispered this, "I am under the necessity of climbing the back fence into Mr. Con Murphy's yard to get at Neale," and she ran off to put this threat into ...
— The Corner House Girls Growing Up - What Happened First, What Came Next. And How It Ended • Grace Brooks Hill
... America, where all the girls, whether daughters of the upper-ten-dom, the mediocrity, the cottage, or the kennel, aim at one standard of dress and deportment, seldom accomplishing a perfectly triumphant hit or an utterly absurd failure. Those words, "genteel" and "ladylike," are terrible ones and do us infinite mischief, but it is because (at least, I hope so) we are in a transition state, and shall emerge into a higher mode of simplicity than has ever been known to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... "Yes. It wasn't a ladylike thing to do in polite society. But there wasn't time to ask your permission or tell you why it was necessary. Well, after that little incident, Tracker and the horses and I got so mixed up with each other that we haven't hardly got untangled since. There was one time there when I wasn't quite certain ...
— The High Calling • Charles M. Sheldon
... house of our friends, Law and Duncanson, where I make my home. Miss Duncanson, who is mistress of the house, is a very sprightly, sensible, ladylike woman. My remarks on this city are reserved ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... Mr. Quilty, looking him sternly in the eye, "I hope th' dirty blagyards is caught red-handed and soaked hard for th' shameless and di'bolical atrocity they have perpetuated. For such abandoned miscreants hangin' is too dom ladylike a punishment. I want yez to understand me official sintimints in me official capacity clearly. Yez may quote me exact words ...
— Desert Conquest - or, Precious Waters • A. M. Chisholm
... was the niece of an earl. She was wealthy. She might be an excellent friend to Elizabeth; and she could be, when she liked, both commandingly and bewitchingly ladylike. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... my part I liked it, and am free to own that I entered into all the fun, and oddities the young ones proposed to themselves in living for six weeks al fresco. Madame had great misgivings about the matter. She did not think lessons would prosper; the cultivation of ladylike behaviour would be very difficult—manners would be at a very low ebb—music would be utterly abolished, and she was fast approaching a declaration on Schillie's side, when Serena, by a master-stroke of policy, brought her round. "We will speak any language you like, Madame," ...
— Yr Ynys Unyg - The Lonely Island • Julia de Winton
... Priscilla, at last finding her voice. She is bent on delivering a calm rebuke; but inwardly (as any one can see) she is quaking. "And I have frequently told you before that the expression 'I wish to goodness,' which you used just now, is anything but ladylike. It is not nice; it ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown
... tender passion. In this deduction, however, they would have manufactured a stentorian cry from an extreme paucity of wool; the actual fact being that, although percipient of the well-proportionate symmetry of her person and the ladylike liveliness of her deportment, I did never regard her except with eyes of strictly platonic ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey
... but if I had had the very lovely lorgnette that has descended to me from my Great Grandmamma, the wife of the old Flanders grandsire, I would have settled the matter with very little trouble in an entirely ladylike manner. As it was, I did not know what to do but stand and then stand longer. Just at the moment when I began to feel that I would either be forced to forget that I was a gentleman or to faint as a lady, a very nice man touched me on ...
— The Daredevil • Maria Thompson Daviess
... answer for the moment. Looking in she was taken by surprise. Two people appeared before her. For one, instead of the drabbish woman she had expected, Mrs. Hall saw a pale, dark-eyed, ladylike creature, whose personality ruled her attire rather than was ruled by it. She was in a new and handsome gown, of course, and an old bonnet. She was standing up, agitated; her hand was held by her companion—none else than Sally's affianced, Farmer Charles ...
— Wessex Tales • Thomas Hardy
... in his thoughts by the violent cackling of a hen that had just laid an egg, was led to express his appreciation of a kind Providence by which a fish while laying a million eggs to a hen's one, does so in a perfectly quiet and ladylike manner. ...
— Jokes For All Occasions - Selected and Edited by One of America's Foremost Public Speakers • Anonymous
... about that. I don't like any of them—as far as I've gone. Except you. Out where I come from—at Rose Ranch—there are plenty of Mexican girls and Indian girls who are much more ladylike than this crowd. Why! ...
— Nan Sherwood at Rose Ranch • Annie Roe Carr
... of Lorn was a chestnut mare, a broken down racer, thorough-bred as Beeswing, but less fortunate in her life, and I fear not so happy occasione mortis: unlike the Duchess, her body was greater and finer than her soul; still she was a ladylike creature, sleek, slim, nervous, meek, willing, and fleet. She had been thrown down by some brutal half-drunk Forfarshire laird, when he put her wildly and with her wind gone, at the last hurdle on the North Inch at the Perth races. She ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... the foreigner treated the women with courteous contempt, as if they were pleasing animals. Brangwen's girl had put on a ladylike manner, but her voice betrayed her. She wanted to win back her man. When dessert came on, however, the little foreigner turned round from his table and calmly surveyed the room, like one unoccupied. Brangwen marvelled over the cold, ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... street still existing in Greenwich, and indeed still a general thoroughfare. Here, in due time, she was brought to bed of a daughter, whom she christened by the name of Virginia; not so much out of respect to her last mistress, who bore that name, as because she considered it peculiarly ladylike and genteel. ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... to the unclassed. She was not ladylike, nor smart, nor assertive. One could not tell whether she were of independent means or a worker. One thing was obvious about her: ...
— The Trespasser • D.H. Lawrence
... ladies, however, still possess one thing which they cannot yet destroy—the good constitution and the rosy look derived from ancestors whose days were spent in the field under the glorious sunshine and the dews of heaven. They worry themselves about it in secret and wish they could appear more ladylike—i.e. thin and white. Nor can they feel quite so languid and indifferent, and blase as they desire. Thank Heaven they cannot! But they have succeeded in obliterating the faintest trace of character, and in suppressing the slightest approach to animation. They have ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies
... ladylike, was I?" smiled Gertrude. "But if I had been of the ladylike kind,—well, Roma would have had Burke in as mayor now. And Bailey, I believe Burke is deep in that Boulevard business. How ...
— A Woman for Mayor - A Novel of To-day • Helen M. Winslow
... markswoman—and how she can hit right and left, and bring down both birds flying. When she drinks wine she holds the stem of the glass between her first two fingers, hollows her underlip, and tosses it off, throwing her head well back—she would disdain the ladylike sip or the closer gesture of ordinary women. She is great in cheese and bitter beer, in claret cup and still champagne, but she despises the puerilities of sweets or of effervescing wines. She rounds her elbows and turns her wrist outward, ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous
... at me! that Dobbins, is it, With whom I used to jar? but can he trace me Thro' five years' absence, and my change of name, The tan of southern summers and the beard? I may as well avoid him. Ladylike! Lilylike in her stateliness and sweetness! How came she by it?—a daughter of the fields, This Dora! She gave her hand, unask'd, at the farm-gate; I almost think she half return'd the pressure Of mine. What, I that held the orange blossom Dark ...
— Becket and other plays • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... You mean the one they call the faith-doctor? She's such a sweet, ladylike person! She's been here to see the doctor. And you want ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston
... a quick temper, and Kitty's manner was most exasperating. Under ordinary circumstances the ladylike Nora would have hated climbing trees, but now all was forgotten in her fierce desire to lay hold of the daring, exasperating little Kitty and to force her secret out of her. How dared Annie Forest snub Nora and then confide in a baby ...
— Red Rose and Tiger Lily - or, In a Wider World • L. T. Meade
... supported by a few "male Betties." The New York Sun spoke of Susan's "ungainly form rigged out in the bloomer costume and provoking the thoughtless to laughter and ridicule by her very motions on the platform."[38] Untruth was piled upon untruth until dignified ladylike Susan with her earnest pleasing appearance was caricatured into everything a woman should not be. Less courageous temperance women now began to wonder whether they ought to associate with such a strong-minded woman ...
— Susan B. Anthony - Rebel, Crusader, Humanitarian • Alma Lutz
... Caroline," he said precisely, "that you will not continue to call your daughter by such an absurd abbreviation. That sort of thing was all very well in the wilds of Ireland, but here we must have something rational, ladylike, and recognised." ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... while and I still possess her letters somewhere; I see in memory that large and bold handwriting, often only two words to a line, on the high-class slate-coloured paper. The sums she spent on writing materials! It was one of her many ladylike traits. ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas
... this naive debut he showed tact. Mr. Dean wished to know if anything could be done towards advancing the interesting guest in his 'profession'—not trade. We talk of an English school-master, but a mulatto or a negro becomes a 'professor.' Niger whispered 'No,' which, ladylike, meant a distinct 'Yes.' He ended by graciously accepting an introduction to a Manchester firm, and soon relieved ...
— To The Gold Coast for Gold, Vol. II - A Personal Narrative • Richard Francis Burton and Verney Lovett Cameron
... subject. She took the pose naturally and scarcely breathed during the weary sittings. He recalled the early gossip and sought to evoke her as a professional model. But he gave up in despair. She was hopelessly "ladylike," and to interpret her adequately, only the decorative patterns of earlier men—Mignard, Van Loo, Nattier, Largilliere—would translate her ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... as, quite an amount, quite a number, quite a fortune. Quite, according to good modern usage, may qualify an adjective, but not a noun. "She is quite the lady," is a vile phrase, meaning, "She is very or quite ladylike." ...
— The Verbalist • Thomas Embly Osmun, (AKA Alfred Ayres)
... the third—a clergyman in a sadly heathen part of the Black Country—that, engaged as he is in the Church militant, he is as much a fighter as the rest of them." Having thus in the mildest, most ladylike manner, established her social supremacy, Mrs. Jennings was doubly gracious to the visitor. They made such progress in their acquaintance by means of the Manchester Ironsides and other members of ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler
... the roof of a town hall and behaving as a wild cat would think shame to, skirling at Mr. Asquith through a skylight and throwing slates at the polis that came to fetch her. Aw, verra nice, verra ladylike, ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... shiver, and then, though paler and evidently agitated, composed her tattered and dusty outer garments in a deft, ladylike way, and leaned back against the mountain side, He saw her also glance at his loosened shirt front and hanging neckerchief, and with a heightened color he quickly re-knotted it around his throat. They moved from the ledge toward the ...
— From Sand Hill to Pine • Bret Harte
... night when my sleep was too much disturbed, but they were never offended. Presents of fruit, fish, mouse-traps, and other articles which they thought I might like, were constantly offered me. The women, free and easy in their manners, were ladylike to a surprising degree. In spite of having had ten teeth of the upper jaw filed down and the remainder coloured black by the constant chewing of betel, they are literally to ...
— Through Central Borneo: - An Account of Two Years' Travel in the Land of Head-Hunters - Between the Years 1913 and 1917 • Carl Lumholtz
... and on this matter perhaps alone, Sir Louis and Lady Scatcherd were in accord. There was much to recommend Mary to the baronet; not only did he see her to be beautiful, and perceive her to be attractive and ladylike; but she was also the niece of the man who, for the present, held the purse-strings of his wealth. Mary, it is true, had no fortune. But Sir Louis knew that she was acknowledged to be a lady; and ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... are almost as scarce as real boys. Too many girls begin at a very early age to attempt to imitate the pride and vanity manifested by older girls and young ladies. It is by many supposed that to be ladylike should be the height of the ambition of girls as soon as they are old enough to be taught respecting propriety of behavior, which is understood to mean that they must appear as unnatural as possible ...
— Plain Facts for Old and Young • John Harvey Kellogg
... though pleasing and irresistibly winsome, she was not in the least affectionate, and always maintained a dignified, ladylike reserve. But with the appearance of spring she showed signs of lonesomeness. With none of her kind to love, she turned to Rex and on him lavished all of her affection. When Rex was admitted to the house of a morning, she ran to meet him with ...
— Wild Life on the Rockies • Enos A. Mills
... that part of the business!" decided Raymonde easily. "We'll stand in the background, and just look ladylike and well-mannered, and all the ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil
... that silly novels by lady novelists rarely introduce us into any other than very lofty and fashionable society. We had imagined that destitute women turned novelists, as they turned governesses, because they had no other "ladylike" means of getting their bread. On this supposition, vacillating syntax, and improbable incident had a certain pathos for us, like the extremely supererogatory pincushions and ill-devised nightcaps ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot
... his wife and children. In the meantime, our jolly pedlar, having caught a glimpse of Mrs. Temple at the parlor window, presented himself, and begged to know if she were inclined to make any purchases. She nodded him a gentle and ladylike refusal, upon which he changed his ground, and said, "Maybe, ma'am, if you're not disposed to buy, that you'd have something you'd like to part wid. If you have, ma'am, bad cess to the purtier purchaser you'd meet wid—shawls or trinkets, or anything that way—I mane, ma'am," ...
— The Tithe-Proctor - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... would sit and watch her by the hour, noting how soft and white her hands were, and how ladylike her manners. She said to herself that she must be a perfect lady, and ...
— Kidnapped at the Altar - or, The Romance of that Saucy Jessie Bain • Laura Jean Libbey
... of the insect race. The very names selected for them by entomologists would testify the perfection of their attributes; their titles ranging from that of Anax imperator, indicative of imperial sway, to epithets expressive of feminine delicacy and ladylike grace, such as virgo, puella, demoiselle, and damsel-fly, which are appropriated to the sylph-like forms that many of them exhibit. In their habits, however, they by no means deserve the gentle appellations bestowed upon them. They ...
— Country Walks of a Naturalist with His Children • W. Houghton
... understood the elegancies of life, passing as an example and ideal of an elegant woman, of which her husband was very proud. He lauded his original and crafty idea of devoting his money to such a satisfactory purchase as a sensible and ladylike wife, although the union was not a happy one, and, in the proper acceptation of the word, ...
— Old Fritz and the New Era • Louise Muhlbach
... realising that in the old house these latter were nowhere parallel. But her chief occupation was to prevent the children crossing their legs when they sat down, or pulling their dresses lower, with a whispered, 'You must not cross your legs like that; it isn't ladylike, dear.' ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood
... not going to take your precious babe away from you," he turned in half-boyish pettishness away. Nevertheless he came back again shortly to the bedside, and gazed upon them both. She certainly did look altogether more ladylike, and less aggressive, lying there so still: sickness, that cheap refining process of some natures, was not unbecoming to her. But this bundle! A boyish curiosity, stronger than even his strong objection to the whole episode, was steadily impelling him to ...
— The Twins of Table Mountain and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... is too humiliating to write!—I felt my cheeks get crimson at the mention of Lord Robert's name. What could she have thought? Can anything be so young-ladylike and ridiculous! ...
— Red Hair • Elinor Glyn
... in rainy weather, when the fat gentleman has got to-day's "Times," and means to read all through the advertisement-column before he gives up the leaders, and you have to spend your time turning over thick and shiny snap-shot journals with a surfeit of pictures in them; or the Real Lady, or the Ladylike Lady, or the Titled Lady, the portraits of whom—one or other of them—sweep in curves about their folio pages; and, while they fascinate you, make you feel that you would falter on the threshold of matrimony if only because they couldn't possibly take nourishment. Would not the discomfort ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... minister's family until they end up 's socks on the thirteenth baby. A joke's a joke, 'n' I c'n see the p'int o' a good joke 's quick 's any one, but I mus' say I fail to see any fun in such a remark. 'S far 's my observation's 'xtended, there ain't nothin' ladylike in the minister's wearin' my stockin's, nor yet in Mr. Kimball's entertainin' the whole c'mmunity with 'em. A'cordin' to my manner o' thinkin', a woman as 'll give away four pair o' brand-new hand-knit stockin's for no better reason 'n 't the heels shrunk ...
— Susan Clegg and Her Friend Mrs. Lathrop • Anne Warner
... pretty, generally speaking, and certainly rather ladylike in their manners, but not very accomplished, but there is one thing very formidable in their structure, which is tremendous hoofs, so that a kick from one of them would make you keep your bed for a week. ...
— Charles Philip Yorke, Fourth Earl of Hardwicke, Vice-Admiral R.N. - A Memoir • Lady Biddulph of Ledbury
... less well-bred, I think she would have bridled. As it was, she really did smirk a little, in a ladylike way. ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... the poor girl," said Brodie. "Now that this other blow has come it will quite crush her. So gentle and ladylike she is too!" ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... like a hundred-weight of wildcats. I went through the water like a hell-diver, and without quite knowing what I was doing I got hold of him and tried to garrote him. I don't remember what I said, but I have a hazy idea it was not the most ladylike of language. He stared at me, as I tore Dinkie away from him, stared at me with a hard and slightly incredulous eye. For I'm afraid I was ready to fight with my teeth and nails, if need be, and I suppose my expression ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer
... guess you're all right. I don't usually go out with strange gentlemen, though. It ain't quite ladylike. When should you want to ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry
... said, "you have known more women than ever I spoke to—for all my frosty poll—and can you say on your conscience that there was ever a one of them more charming, sweeter, or more ladylike than your niece ...
— Patsy • S. R. Crockett
... she had never ceased to be the Northwold standard of the 'real lady,' too mild and gracious to be regarded as proud and poor, and yet too dignified for any liberty to be attempted, her only fault, that touch of pride, so ladylike and refined that it was kept out of sight, and never offended, and everything else so sweet and winning that there was scarcely a being who did not love, as well as honour her, for the cheerfulness ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... talked about, thank you, Ewen!" His wife gave an angry dig to the word "my." "Everybody says what a nice ladylike girl Alice is. But Nora often gives me a deal of trouble—and if she takes to imitating Connie, and wanting to go about without a chaperon, I don't know what I shall do. My dear Ewen, do you know ...
— Lady Connie • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... opportunity seemed offered to him. As he was coming home and ascending the long hilly street, his eye was taken by a tall graceful figure just preceding him. It was she. He had never before seen her in the street, and was now struck with her ladylike bearing and the grave superiority of her perfectly simple attire. In a thoroughfare haunted by handsome women and striking toilettes, the refined grace of her mourning costume, and a certain stateliness that gave ...
— The Heritage of Dedlow Marsh and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... well—even the least imaginative woman is always acutely conscious of such a fact—that, had she not been a prudent and a ladylike as well as (of course) a very good woman, this clever, agreeable, interesting young man would have made love to her. As it was, he (of course) did nothing of the kind. He did not even try to flirt with her, as our innocent ...
— Studies in love and in terror • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... liked New York, only that was noisy, too, though Mrs. Moore did not seem to mind it. Mrs. Moore liked Coney Island, too, but Miss Flora much preferred Grant's Tomb, she said. It was so much more quiet and ladylike. She thought some things at Coney Island were really not nice at all, and she was surprised that Mrs. Moore ...
— Oh, Money! Money! • Eleanor Hodgman Porter
... ladylike in their manner, declaring that the Salvation Army did not deserve a gift and should have nothing from them. The elevator man's suspicions were aroused. The ladies were attired in long automobile cloaks, and close caps with large veils, and he studied them carefully as he carried ...
— The War Romance of the Salvation Army • Evangeline Booth and Grace Livingston Hill
... brass plate and set them in parallel lines. I gave up then for the day, but, as they looked well and were certainly in firmly, I did not consider that I had made an entire failure. I thought it nice ladylike work to manage such slight threads and turn such delicate screws; but fine as are the hairs of one's head, I shall seek something finer, for I can see how clumsy they will appear when I get on the eyepiece ...
— Maria Mitchell: Life, Letters, and Journals • Maria Mitchell
... looked at me in a way that I could not misunderstand; it was plain, unvarnished scorn, and a ladylike anger, and a ...
— The Range Dwellers • B. M. Bower
... her passion and answered with a provoking pleasantry: "You feel too, too, too furiously, Denasia. It is not ladylike. Your emotions will wear away ...
— A Singer from the Sea • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... word first. "Pretty," she said, "but not in a ministerial way, if you know what I mean. I wouldn't call her ladylike." ...
— Penny Plain • Anna Buchan (writing as O. Douglas)
... you, and had just been seeing you for the first time, I should have said to myself: 'What a fine, good-looking, beautifully dressed, refined, and ladylike woman that is! Wish t' I might make her acquaintance.' And what would you have said, if you'd seen me, never ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... ought to do you good," said Georgy, almost querulously. She thought this bright blooming creature had no right to be ill. The headaches, and little weaknesses and languors and ladylike ailments, were things for which she (Georgy) had taken out a patent; and this indisposition of her daughter's was an infringement ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... dare to neglect Mary Bonner, and to stay in London while she lived at the villa. He was almost sorry that he had ever heard of Mary Bonner, in spite of her beauty, and although he had as yet been able to find in her no cause of complaint. She was ladylike and quiet;—but yet he was afraid of her. When she came down into the drawing-room with her hand clasped in that of Clarissa, he was still more afraid of her. She was dressed all in black, with the utmost simplicity,—with nothing on her by way of ornament beyond a few large black beads; but ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... will be a chaperon, of course, she will permit the young ladies to entertain their friends in a quiet and ladylike manner until the porter starts cleaning up the bar in the morning. The inmates will of course be allowed to sign checks, but from visitors only ...
— The Sorrows of a Show Girl • Kenneth McGaffey
... a plain blouse and skirt, exhibited no trace of nervousness in the presence of her aristocratic and fashionable caller. Indeed, Mollie afterwards declared that "she was quite a ladylike person. But rather tin ...
— Dope • Sax Rohmer
... full-length portrait of that delightful Countess d'Aulnois, to whom we all owe our earliest and most brilliant glimpses of fairy-land; something of her gravely-pleasant countenance, plain, but refined and ladylike, with that kindly mystery in her side-long glance and uplifted finger, which indicated the approaching climax of ...
— J.S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 5 • J.S. Le Fanu
... hadn't been for that McFee woman. If he were the Governor, he would put a poll tax of a hundred ounces a quarter upon her and her kind and all gospel sharks and sky pilots. And certainly Freda had behaved very ladylike, held her own with Mrs. Eppingwell besides. Never gave the girl credit for the grit. He looked lingeringly over her, coming back now and again to the eyes, behind the deep earnestness of which he could not guess lay concealed a deeper ...
— The God of His Fathers • Jack London
... eyes he caught the girl's glance, and something infinitely appealing in it stayed him again. "Mademoiselle," he said, with visible irritation, "there is nothing to say that I have not said many times already. Your drawing is still ladylike, your color is still pretty, and, sapristi! you have worked with me a year! Still," he added, recollecting himself—Lucien never lost a student by over-candor—"considering your difficult place the shoulders are ...
— A Daughter of To-Day • Sara Jeannette Duncan (aka Mrs. Everard Cotes)
... She was perfectly ladylike in her manner, but a little bit drunk. It is singular how drunken people will come hundreds of miles to converse with me. I have often been alluded to as the "drunkard's friend." Men have been known to get intoxicated and come a long distance to talk with me on some subject, and ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... gentle and ladylike in her mode of reception that her visitor was somewhat daunted; and it became impossible to utter the speech, so easy of arrangement with no one to address it to. Margaret's low rich voice was softer ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... often regretted that the colour element of vice is so oddly lacking in our life of to-day. We appear, one and all, to have been born at an advanced age and with ladylike manners, and we reach our years of indiscretion very slowly; and meanwhile we learn, too late, that prolonged adherence to morality trivialises the mind as hopelessly as a prolonged vice trivialises the countenance. I fear this has been said by someone else, my too impetuous Jill, and I ...
— The Cords of Vanity • James Branch Cabell et al
... no condition to answer Miss Owen's question, even yet, simple though it was. If the sight of her had brought back the past, what thronging memories crowded upon him at the sound of her voice—wooing, wilful, joyously insistent! But that she was so womanly and ladylike, and that he knew she was "only the sec'tary," he would have been ready to advance upon her with outstretched hands, and ask her if she had quite forgotten Tommy Dudgeon—her old friend, Tommy? As it was, he stood staring like one bewitched. ...
— The Golden Shoemaker - or 'Cobbler' Horn • J. W. Keyworth
... amusing: but he is terribly monotonous. I do not mind a visit to the 'oyster-bearing shores' now and then, but I do not want to live in Lampsacus. After all, even in a pagan Pantheon, there are other divinities besides a cleverly palliated Priapus and a comparatively ladylike Cotytto. Seven volumes of however delicately veiled 'sculduddery' are nearly as bad as a whole evening's golf-talk in a St. Andrews hotel, or a long men's dinner, where everybody but yourself is a member of an Amateur Dramatic Society." The present writer ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... tell you in my last that she was sick crossing the Channel (though it was as smooth as if it had been ironed, and only a few wrinkles left in), but apparently she considers it good form for a female to be slightly ill in a ladylike way on boats; so, of course, she is. And as I was decent to her, she decided to like me better than she thought she would at first. For some reason they both seemed prejudiced against me (I mean against Ellaline) to begin with. I can't think why; and slowly, with ...
— Set in Silver • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... respect towards others, so agreeable and so refining in all circles. Marguerite de Valois wrote, "Gentleness, cheerfulness, and urbanity are the Three Graces of manners." I believe they bear a close relation to ladylike deportment. ...
— Hold Up Your Heads, Girls! • Annie H. Ryder
... and from their past knowledge of his character expected to see a loudly-attired Melbourne or Sydney barmaid with peroxided hair, and person profusely adorned with obtrusive jewelry. Instead of this they beheld a tall, ladylike girl with a cold, refined face, and an equally ...
— Rodman The Boatsteerer And Other Stories - 1898 • Louis Becke
... smooth-haired, thin-lipped, perpetually fresh, must have regarded her crumpled and dishevelled visitor as an equivocal joke; she herself so the opposite of a Rossetti, she herself a Reynolds or a Lawrence, with no more far-fetched note in her composition than a cold ladylike candour and a well-starched ...
— The Author of Beltraffio • Henry James
... and ladylike enough to be an American," thought Frances approvingly and with a sudden stab ...
— The Spanish Chest • Edna A. Brown
... be brought to England, or whether it could be possible to send his mother out to him, when the problem was solved by his falling in with a gentleman whose wife was a confirmed invalid, and who was ready to give almost any salary to a motherly, ladylike woman, beyond danger of marrying, who would take care of her and attend to the household. He would even endure the son, and lodge him in one of the dependencies of his house, which had large grounds looking into beautiful Sydney Bay, provided he could secure such ...
— My Young Alcides - A Faded Photograph • Charlotte M. Yonge
... library and conversed, with every conventional flourish, until Amelia set the pace of retirement by a ladylike yawn. But she had a word to say before parting, reserved perhaps to the last because she found herself doubtful of Raven's response. If she had to be snubbed she could simply keep on her ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... thought has ever left a trace. Once and once only did she fail to keep up to the high (p. 154) level of deportment which she ordinarily maintained. On one occasion "her little foot moved" in spite of the fact that "she had been carefully taught, too, that a ladylike manner required that even this beautiful portion of the female frame should be quiet and unobtrusive." Something, however, must always be pardoned to human nature; and Cooper doubtless felt that it ...
— James Fenimore Cooper - American Men of Letters • Thomas R. Lounsbury
... shawl, plentifully pinned, a white straw bonnet trimmed with red ribbons, a small necklace, a large pair of bracelets, Denmark satin shoes, and open-worked stockings; white cotton gloves on her fingers, and a cambric pocket-handkerchief, carefully folded up, in her hand—all quite genteel and ladylike. And away went Miss J'mima Ivins and Mr. Samuel Wilkins, and a dress-cane, with a gilt knob at the top, to the admiration and envy of the street in general, and to the high gratification of Mrs. Ivins, and the two youngest Miss Ivinses in particular. They had no sooner ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... 4. LADYLIKE ETIQUETTE.—No woman can afford to treat men rudely. A lady must have a high intellectual and moral ideal and hold herself above reproach. She must remember that the art of pleasing and entertaining gentlemen is infinitely more ornamental than laces, ribbons or diamonds. Dress and glitter may ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis
... rights of capital, and we have kept wondering if possibly a little something could not be done before long, possibly next year, in behalf of the huge, battered, helpless Public, that dear amorphous old ladylike Person doddering along the Main Street of the World, now being knocked down by one side and now by the other. It has almost looked, some days, as if both sides in the quarrel—Capital and Labour, really thought that the Public ought not to ...
— Crowds - A Moving-Picture of Democracy • Gerald Stanley Lee
... circumstances would have conducted itself. He broke into a jerky gallop, attended by his self-appointed associates; and, considering that the young man was so stout, that the messenger boy considered it unprofessional to hurry, that the shop girl had doubts as to whether sprinting was quite ladylike, and that the two Bohemians were moving at a quicker gait than a shuffle for the first occasion in eleven years, the cavalcade made good time. The cab was still stationary when they arrived ...
— A Damsel in Distress • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... Rothsay, "I never need thy help, man; and tell me now, how look I, thus disposed on the couch—languishing and ladylike, ha?" ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... I were ladylike and proper, I should protest that I like you immensely; that there is no one in the world, my mother excepted, whom I like better. But I never was particularly proper or polite, Captain Winstanley, and I must confess there are very few people I ...
— Vixen, Volume I. • M. E. Braddon
... know, I don't believe in it. Now I am a reasonable man and I have stood by you all the way up to now, but I object to this. It isn't ladylike, and it will do the cause more harm than good. You women lay yourselves open ...
— Jailed for Freedom • Doris Stevens
... child, I am not so sure. Mr. Anthony is a great concern to me. He was orphaned, to be sure, at ten years old; and ever since he has been only as it were his sister's son. Dorothy did everything for him: more indeed than I thought quite ladylike, but I suppose I begin to be old-fashioned. See how she worked and slaved - yes, slaved! - for him: teaching him herself, with what pains and patience she only could reveal, and learning that she might be able; and see what he is now: a gentleman, of course, but, to be frank, ...
— The Plays of W. E. Henley and R. L. Stevenson
... idea of a lady—flying about in the air, and throwing gravel at people. It ain't what I been accustomed to consider ladylike, whether or no." ...
— The War in the Air • Herbert George Wells
... the letter was signed 'Billy.' They took her for a boy, naturally, and after something of a struggle they agreed to let 'him' come. For his particular delectation they fixed up a room next to Bertram with guns and fishing rods, and such ladylike specialties; and William went to the station to meet ...
— Miss Billy's Decision • Eleanor H. Porter |
