"Virago" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and in her anger deals him a violent blow on the head with the family Bible, ejaculating, "That's for asking him to stay a' nicht." The husband, from an inner room, exclaims, "Eh, woman, ye have felled the minister!" On which the virago says to her victim, "My dear, ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... manufacturer, named Tching-whang, who owned extensive porcelain-factories at the North, and was besides a considerable tobacco-planter; that her father was very kind to her, but that the old woman, who was not her own mother, treated her very cruelly; that her father married this ancient virago for her wealth, and now repented the rash step, but found it impossible to retrace it, as the law of China allows no divorces excepting when the wife has parents living to receive and shelter her; and the obnoxious woman being nearly a hundred years old herself, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 20, June, 1859 • Various
... reflect on the [Greek text] of animals, the more I am astonished at its effects. Nor is the violence of this affection more wonderful than the shortness of its duration. Thus every hen is in her turn the virago of the yard, in proportion to the helplessness of her brood, and will fly in the face of a dog or a sow in defence of those chickens, which in a few weeks she will drive ...
— The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 1 • Gilbert White
... furious with anger. 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 ...
— The Shades of the Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler
... 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 ...
— A Lady of Quality • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... not only a child, but somebody's child. I was grander on my mother's knee than a king upon his throne. But my triumph was short. I dropped off to sleep and waked in the morning to find my mother gone, and myself again at the mercy of the virago ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume III (of 6) - Orators and Reformers • Various
... he is not the same as other men. He is not at all like other men. He is so weak that he cannot walk without a stick to lean upon. No doubt she was a virago, a woman who could not control her temper for a moment! No doubt she had led him a terrible life! I have often pitied him with all my heart. But, nevertheless, she was useful to him. I suppose she was useful to him. I can hardly believe that Mrs Proudie is dead. Had he gone, it ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... an axe; the small eyes almost disappeared beneath the puffed cheeks, and the broad breast as well as the thick, red arms and claw-like hands were repulsive in the extreme. Bushy hair of a dirty yellow color hung in a confused mass over the shoulders of the virago, and her blue cloth jacket and woollen dress were ...
— The Son of Monte-Cristo, Volume II (of 2) • Alexandre Dumas pere
... 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 knew nothin' ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... mind as well as body participated. But, the slightest disregard of her commands—and sometimes even the neglect to anticipate her wishes, on the part of the servants; was sufficient to awake her. The inanimate and delicate beauty then changed into a stormy virago. Her black eyes flawed and sparkled with a snaky fierceness, her full lips compressed, and her brows bent and darkened. Her very voice, soft and sweet when speaking to her husband, and exquisitely fine and melodious, when accompanying ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... thorn," Madge added, laughing, while under Mr. Muir's eye her face paled 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 ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe
... Eustace has said so. I don't know that she's a virago at all. I believe her to be a very ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... 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 ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner
... 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 ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... 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 she might fall in ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton
... 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 care long after ...
— Bird Neighbors • Neltje Blanchan
... to let the 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 his dirty ...
— The Garret and the Garden • R.M. Ballantyne
... spoke the dame, but no applause ensued; Belinda frowned, Thalestris called her Prude. "To arms, to arms!" the fierce virago cries, And swift as lightning to the combat flies. All side in parties, and begin the attack; Fans clap, silks rustle, and tough whalebones crack; Heroes' and heroines' shouts confusedly rise, And bass and treble voices ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... 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 course) may be made to the woman for "the insolent expressions ...
— A Canadian Manor and Its Seigneurs - The Story of a Hundred Years, 1761-1861 • George M. Wrong
... stronghold the 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 ...
— The Short-story • William Patterson Atkinson
... widows, and 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 droning mosquito ...
— The Heart of the New Thought • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... always a simple, bluff, good-hearted fellow. His father if you like, his 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 ...
— The Crime Against Europe - A Possible Outcome of the War of 1914 • Roger Casement
... Grecian Dame—they say she was the wife Of Socrates, and history shows she led him a life! They say she was a virago, a vixen and a shrew, Who scolded poor old Socrates until the ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume V. (of X.) • Various
... Scott, who declared that her reading of Taylor's translation of Buerger's 'Lenore' had inspired him to write poetry. She met Dr. Johnson too, who, though he railed at her after his fashion, calling her Deborah and Virago Barbauld, did sometimes betray a sincere admiration for her character and accomplishments. Miss Edgeworth and Hannah More were dear ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... to nothing worse than the 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
... her folk thus spake the virgin brave, Thereby behold forth passed a Christian band Toward the camp, that herds of cattle drave, For they that morn had forayed all the land; The fierce virago would that booty save, Whom their commander singled hand for hand, A mighty man at arms, who Guardo hight, But far too weak to ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... cried, under her breath, and actually made a passionate half-start toward her. "You violent-natured virago! The very look on your face is ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... he married Mary Lum, a servant girl of great beauty, and something of a virago as well. The union was an unhappy one, as the husband and wife were utterly unsuited to each other. Seven years after her marriage, Mrs. Girard showed symptoms of insanity, which became so decided that ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... the moment; prouder, on my mother's knee, than a king upon his throne. But my triumph was short. I dropped off to sleep, and waked in the morning only to find my mother gone, and myself left at the mercy of the sable virago, dominant in my old master's kitchen, whose fiery wrath ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass
... 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, such a ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald in Two Volumes - Vol. II • Edward FitzGerald
... town, as I was returning from a visit to an emigrant, 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 the ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... 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 ...
— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland
... 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
... 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 ...
— Pioneers of Science • Oliver Lodge
... one! Here's a virago! Here's a termagant! If length and sharpness go for anything, You'll want no sword while you ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... character was generally held, in the most respectable circles in England. Even in distant Venice his baleful light was not under a bushel, and the scandals of his life extended far and wide,—especially that in reference to Margherita Cogni, an illiterate virago who could neither read nor write, and whom he was finally compelled to discard on account of the violence of her temper, after living with her in ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord
... 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 ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... 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 one ...
— The History of Mary Prince - A West Indian Slave • Mary Prince
... caravan; and 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 shapelessness, he cannot yet be content without shooting ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... little woman, who looked meek enough to warrant the best of tempers; she had a soft voice and manner that deceived you, and a vague rambling sort of talk that landed you nowhere; but if ever woman could be a mild virago Mrs. Drabble was that woman. She worshipped her master, and never allowed any one to find fault with him; but with Mr. Tudor, or the maid, or any one who interfered with her, she could be a flaxen-haired termagant; she ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... seemed less to be 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 was the old four-poster, which swayed and shrieked at the slightest ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, September 1880 • Various
... 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
... and dogs and horses and slaves, by the side of the demi-god Sigurd, whom she has loved and killed, lest the door of Valhalla, swinging after him, should shut her out from his presence; of her there remains in the German mediaeval poem only a virago (more like the giantesses of the Amadis romances) enraged at having been defeated and grotesquely and grossly pummelled into wedlock by a man not her husband, and then slanged like a fishwife ...
— Euphorion - Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the - Renaissance - Vol. II • Vernon Lee
... she went up to the bedroom. Mistress Deborah, 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 ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... fonte satur, tot Appollinis artes Aurea vaticina fundis quasi flumina lingua. Nil nostri inuenere dies, nil prisca vetustas Prodidit, in linguis peragunt commercia nullis Christiadvm gentes, quas te, diuina virago, Iustius Aoniae possint iactare sorores. Audijt haec inundus, cunctisque in finibus ardet Imperio parere tuo: et quae forte recusat Miratur vires regio tamen. Hinc tua sceptra Incurua Mahometigenae ceruice salutant: Hinc tua pugnaces properant ad foedera Galli: Dumque ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation, Vol. XII., America, Part I. • Richard Hakluyt
... Smith versus James Smith" (no relations). His client was the female. She had been violently assaulted. He mistook the initial—pleaded warmly for the opposing Smith, and glowingly described the disgraceful conduct of the veriest virago a legal adviser ever had the pain of speaking of. The verdict was, as he thought, on his side. The lady favoured him with a living evidence of all the attributes he was pleased to invent for her benefit, and left him with a proof impression of her nails ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... her cousin must have known well that the real worth of their work lies in 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
... 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 from the Wasp's Nest ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... struggling for breath, 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 hectic spot ...
— The Cinema Murder • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... threaten'd from this foreign 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 that ...
— The Aeneid • Virgil
... boy," he began telling him, assuming a scared expression. "We were a party of three, and we pooled three roubles on Frisky. And, thanks to that Frisky, we got thirty-two roubles each for our rouble. I can't get on without the races, my boy. It's a gentlemanly diversion. My virago always gives me a dressing over the races, but I go. I love it, and that's all ...
— The Chorus Girl and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... author, as it 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
... 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 ...
— Posthumous Works - of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman • Mary Wollstonecraft
... result 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 could only gnash his teeth in fruitless ...
— The Living Link • James De Mille
... appearance and touching in manner and story as to give rise, when transmitted through the poet's brain, to the most perfect of love ideals) really ultimately became the fiery-tempered worldly-minded virago that Mary Shelley indulges herself in depicting, after first, in spite of altering some relations and circumstances, clearly showing whom the character was intended for. It is true that Shelley himself, after investing her with divinity ...
— Mrs. Shelley • Lucy M. Rossetti
... gone mad, and the youth, Erestus, is converted into an old man by day and a bear by night. The aged-looking Erestus is regarded throughout the countryside as a soothsayer. His neighbour, Lampriscus, cursed by two daughters, one of whom is frightfully ugly while the other is a virago, consults him about their marriages. By his advice they take their pitchers to a magic well, where, by a coincidence, each finds a husband. She of the hideous face easily satisfies Huanebango, while the ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne
... James, and London would not accept her as Lola Montez. She left England and appeared upon the Continent as a beautiful virago, making a sensation—as the French would say, a succes de scandale—by boxing the ears of people who offended her, and even on one occasion horsewhipping a policeman who was in attendance on the King of Prussia. In Paris she tried ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... crying, "There—the prayers of this congregation are requested for Harrington Vizard, saddled with a virago." ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... 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 an upper room, where she stood screaming ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... Mrs. Claxon. She was a virago. But the grave and important face that I put on when I asked if a Mrs. Miller did not once live in her house, subdued her. After some little hesitation, ...
— Finger Posts on the Way of Life • T. S. Arthur
... Vintner vinvendisto. Violate 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 vizagxo. Vis-a-vis ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... 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
... extravagances, while it did not prevent her from being gracious to the 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 legal pretext, ...
— Great Singers, First Series - Faustina Bordoni To Henrietta Sontag • George T. Ferris
... a matchmaker, for when he learned how matters stood he urged the composer to take the sister, who was only three years older. The gentle Haydn was unable to withstand the pressure brought to bear, and consented. After his bride was his he found he had won a virago, one who cared nothing for art or for her husband's ideals, if only she could ...
— The World's Great Men of Music - Story-Lives of Master Musicians • Harriette Brower
... enemy, a message came from Sir George White to 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 ...
— 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
... which must have sounded very harsh in the ears of a Frenchman. We stopped for a refreshment at a little town called Joigne-ville, where (by the bye) I was scandalously imposed upon, and even abused by a virago of a landlady; then proceeding to the next stage, I was given to understand we could not be supplied with fresh horses. Here I perceived at the door of the inn, the same person whom I had reproached at Sens. He came up to the coach, and told me, that notwithstanding what the guides had ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... how many a specious diagram fails when brought into its 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 of Troy in a second Lexicon. The wife of WHITELOCKE ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... following anecdote: "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 chairs. If unable to ...
— The Kentucky Ranger • Edward T. Curnick
... said brother Michael, "not like a virago or a hoyden, or one that would crack a serving-man's head for spilling gravy on her ruff, but with such womanly grace and temperate self-command as if those manly exercises belonged to her only, and were become for ...
— Maid Marian • Thomas Love Peacock
... little 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
... a rending East in flaws The young green leaflet's harrier, sworn To strew the garden, strip the shaws, And show our Spring with banner torn. Was ever such virago morn? The wind has teeth, the wind has claws. All the wind's wolves through woods are loose, The wild wind's falconry aloft. Shrill underfoot the grassblade shrews, At gallop, clumped, and down the croft Bestrid by shadows, beaten, tossed; ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... house was burning, the women boasted they had warned them, and would do it again. One virago-looking Secesh asseverated, in a voice of unearthly screechiness, that they had lots of "Southern ...
— Incidents of the War: Humorous, Pathetic, and Descriptive • Alf Burnett
... come in vain from the mouth of 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 that he would make inquiry of Mr. ...
— Dr. Wortle's School • Anthony Trollope
... fever from the first breath of contagion that blew toward him. He forgot that there are men who go their ways unscathed amidst legions of lovely and generous women, to succumb at last before some harsh-featured virago, who knows the secret of that only philter which can intoxicate and bewitch him. He had forgot that there are certain Jacks who go through life without meeting the Jill appointed for them by Nemesis, and die old bachelors, perhaps, with poor Jill pining an old maid ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon
... 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 ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... for him to come storming here, agin a lone widdy, so it is," said a virago, who seemed well able, like the widow herself, to take ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope
... She must love the inhabitants of her good city." She replied "that she had always felt so toward them; she had loved them while at Versailles; she should continue to love them at Paris." "Ah," interrupted a virago, hardier than her companions, "but on the 14th of July you would have besieged and bombarded the city; and on the 6th of October you wanted to flee to the frontier." She answered, in the gentlest tone, that "these were ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... to king 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 ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding
... bosom 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 trust ...
— Bolougne-Sur-Mer - St. Patrick's Native Town • Reverend William Canon Fleming
... : parohxestro; vikario vice : (prefix), vie-, victim : viktimo, oferajxo. victory : venko, triumfo, sukceso. view : vidajxo; perspektivo. vigilant : vigla. vine : vinberujo. violate : malrespekti, malvirtigi. violence : perforto. violet : violo. violin : violono. viper : vipero, kolubro. virago : megero. virgin : virgulino, virga. virile : vira. virtue : virto. virus : veneno, viruso. viscid : glueca. vision : vizio, vidado. visit : viziti. vocabulary : vortaro. voice : vocxo. void : eljxeti, nuligi. volcano : vulkano. volley : salvo. volume : volumo; volumeno, amplekso. voluntary ...
— The Esperanto Teacher - A Simple Course for Non-Grammarians • Helen Fryer
... Herbert Philipson astonished even his own companions by a crowning act of folly. There was then a young woman in Bristol, of good parentage, but an unmitigated virago; her family were thoroughly ashamed of her temper and her exploits. They allowed her to have her own way, simply for fear that, through contradiction, she might plunge herself into even worse courses than those she now habitually followed. ...
— Willis the Pilot • Paul Adrien
... did not tell me what she should like to know, I did not tell her. I stood upon the defensive between the virago and my sister's chair. ...
— Down The River - Buck Bradford and His Tyrants • Oliver Optic
... absent-minded manner and presently walk right on to a beautifully embroidered and belaced nightdress or other dainty garment spread out to dry on the sward or rock, and, standing on it, calmly proceed to take out and light a cigarette. Instantly the black virago would be on her feet confronting him and pouring out a torrent of her foulest expressions and deadliest curses. He, in a pretended rage, would reply in even worse language. That would put her on her mettle; for now all her friends and foes scattered ...
— Far Away and Long Ago • W. H. Hudson
... fiery temper, crooked temper, irritable &c. adj. temper; genus irritabile[Lat], hot blood. ill humor &c. (sullenness) 901a; asperity &c., churlishness &c. (discourtesy) 895. huff &c. (resentment) 900; a word and a blow. Sir Fretful Plagiary; brabbler[obs3], Tartar; shrew, vixen, virago, termagant, dragon, scold, Xantippe; porcupine; spitfire; fire eater &c. (blusterer) 887; fury &c. (violent person) 173. V. be irascible &c. adj.; have a temper &c. n., have a devil in one; fire up &c. (be angry) 900. Adj. irascible; bad-tempered, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... of this and stop your interferin'!" shouted the virago. "This here child belongs to me and I'll do what I like with her. If you are one of them social settlers coming around into poor people's places and meddlin' with their business, you'd better git back where you belong or ...
— Madge Morton's Victory • Amy D.V. Chalmers
... the Soosoo dialect, we attempted no oral argument about the propriety of her conduct; but, taking a pencil and paper, and making signs that she should go to the Mongo, who would write an order for the raiment, I led her quietly to the door. The wrath of the virago was instantly kindled, while her horrid face gleamed with that devilish ferocity, which, in some degree is lost by Africans who dwell on our continent. During the reign of my predecessors, it seems that she had ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... 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 ...
— Sketch of Handel and Beethoven • Thomas Hanly Ball
... sloppy bar at which their altercation took place against a bench by the wall, where she sat down pale and gasping, to the indignation of a slatternly woman nursing her child, and the concern of an honest coalheaver, who had a virago of a wife ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... figure in the Norse tales as hopping dwarfs, half magical {158}. The Norse discoverers of America recognized the Skraellings in the Esquimaux, and fled from them in panic terror; till that furious virago Freydisa, Thorvard's wife, and Eirek the Red's daughter, caught up a dead man's sword, and put to flight, single-handed, the legion of ...
— The Roman and the Teuton - A Series of Lectures delivered before the University of Cambridge • Charles Kingsley
... the 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 the world and the rest of mankind," and delight to see their ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... Mr. Partridge (1891), Mr. Everard Hopkins made his appearance with one of two drawings sent in. The accepted one was an admirable travesty of the denouement of Ibsen's "Doll's House," representing a buxom middle-aged virago leaving the house of her diminutive hen-pecked husband, whose "birdie" she declines any longer to be. Numerous drawings of a graceful kind have since come from him, until he is in the way of being regarded as ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... the royal virago made an imperious motion for her attendant sprites in gossamer white to precede her, and turned with her accustomed stately step to follow. The music immediately changed from its doleful dirge to a spirited measure, and the whole company ...
— The Midnight Queen • May Agnes Fleming
... 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 ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac
... volubility grew, her 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 the ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith
... Mabel. "Would you have me go scolding and gesticulating at every foreign fellow I meet with, and become notorious throughout Elvas as the British virago?" ...
— The Actress in High Life - An Episode in Winter Quarters • Sue Petigru Bowen
... 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
... white hat, was braced back on the driving seat, with one hand on the reins while she used the whip. There was a patch of bright color in her face, her eyes flashed, and the rigidity of her figure gave her an air of savage resolution. She looked a handsome virago as she battled with the powerful horses, which plunged and kicked while the wagon rocked among the ruts. Helen watched the struggle with somewhat mixed feelings. This was the girl for whom Bob had given ...
— The Girl From Keller's - Sadie's Conquest • Harold Bindloss
... Marcie, a lady with a bad temper and many jewels, to whom little Alice, with her rosy cheeks and bright eyes and willing disposition to work in order to live, became a person upon whom this fashionable virago of a demi-mondaine vented the worst that was in her—and there was much of this—until Alice went out into the world again. She next found employment at a baker's, where she was obliged to get up at four in the morning, winter and summer, and deliver the long loaves ...
— The Real Latin Quarter • F. Berkeley Smith
... 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 ...
— The Rivals - A Comedy • Richard Brinsley Sheridan
... so sure. She was ready to throw me out of the kitchen to-night. She is really a virago. Do you know what one of the men said about her?" Jasper laughed and imitated the gentle Western drawl. "Jane's plumb movin' to me. She's about halfway between 'You go to hell' and 'You take me ...
— The Branding Iron • Katharine Newlin Burt
... beauty is the absolutest. There is not a single instance of a very beautiful head left by the highest school of Greek art. On coins, there is even no approximately beautiful one. The Juno of Argos is a virago; the Athena of Athens grotesque, the Athena of Corinth is insipid; and of Thurium, sensual. The Siren Ligeia, and fountain of Arethusa, on the coins of Terina and Syracuse, are prettier, but totally without expression, and chiefly set off by their well-curled hair. You might have expected ...
— The Queen of the Air • John Ruskin
... with "Ireland's Sacred Right to Home Rule," by the same lecturer; "Wagner and the New Music," by Mr. James Whalley, with a paper on "Some Really New Books," by the same; and a paper-on "Good Taste in Dress," by Miss Jenny Talbot—the virago! ...
— The Romance of Zion Chapel [3d ed.] • Richard Le Gallienne
... bed but his rest was broken in trying to picture the probable conduct of two persons he had never seen. In his dreams, old Hulls and his threatening gun was a commonplace figure. But back of him, and in command, was the garish image of a black-haired, copper-complexioned virago, whose imperious death-dealing edicts recalled his early readings of Sir Walter and his vivid picturings of Helen, wife of Rob Roy, in her judgments of the fate of a common enemy. He was glad that daylight came to dispel ...
— David Lannarck, Midget - An Adventure Story • George S. Harney
... 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
... rejoined the virago, setting her arms akimbo, "that my man and my sons are to gae to the sea in weather like yestreen and the daysic a sea as it's yet outbyand get naething for their fish, and be misca'd into the bargain, Monkbarns? It's no fish ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... no applause ensued; 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 the attack; Fans clap, silks rustle, and tough whalebones crack; 40 Heroes' and heroines' shouts confusedly rise, And bass and treble voices strike the skies. No common weapons in their hands are found, Like gods ...
— The Poetical Works Of Alexander Pope, Vol. 1 • Alexander Pope et al
... perennially attractive 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, ...
— Sir Walter Scott - Famous Scots Series • George Saintsbury
... sufferings," Emmy continued; "her horrid banker broken and run away; her husband—wicked wretch—having deserted her and taken her child away from her" (here she doubled her two little fists and held them in a most menacing attitude before her, so that the Major was charmed to see such a dauntless virago) "the poor dear thing! quite alone and absolutely forced to give lessons in singing to get her bread—and not ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... 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
... some time without saying a word, both reflecting on the scheme of murder and pillage which they now premeditated. At this moment the tent flap was raised, and a figure appeared in the entrance. It was a woman of masculine mien—a true virago—robust and hale; but whose countenance betrayed the ravage of evil passions rather than time. Her coarse hair clubbed around her head, and held in its place by a large tortoiseshell comb with gold pendants, showed no sign of advanced age. It was black as ebony. Around her neck were hung numerous ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid
... him out into the night and the storm, they cannot help feeling that it is she, not he, who has ruined the home, and that the drunken vagabond, who has just made his endearments the cover of deception, is really the victim of a virago. And when he returns, old and decrepit, and, we might hope, purged of that fatal appetite which has worked all the woe, it is his old victim, the woman whose youth his evil habits ruined, and who, in consequence ...
— From the Easy Chair, vol. 1 • George William Curtis
... may be questioned whether, without the sympathetic ear and heart of Mehetabel into which to pour her troubles and to which to confide her hopes, the woman would not have deteriorated into a hard-hearted virago. ...
— The Broom-Squire • S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould
... 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 ...
— The Hero of Garside School • J. Harwood Panting
... wife, or the careful matron, are much more serviceable in life, than petticoated philosophers, blustering heroines, or virago queens. She who makes her husband and her children happy, who reclaims the one from vice, and trains up the other to virtue, is a much greater character than ladies described in romance, whose whole occupation is to ...
— Many Thoughts of Many Minds - A Treasury of Quotations from the Literature of Every Land and Every Age • Various
... presence of mind, and the most versatile readiness in changing from one subject to another. Had I not myself been, somewhat alert, I might have paid the penalty of a false step in your Majesty's service, by being flung into my own cascade by the virago whom ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... only 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 and ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... that the whole thing was a puff, got up by Fitz. himself, who was only going to have a day's partridge-shooting; others hinting that it was a blind to escape the vigilance of Mrs. Fitzgerald —a well-known virago in the regiment—while Fitz. enjoyed himself; and a third party, pretending to sympathise with the doctor, suggested that a hundred pounds would be the least he could possibly be offered for such services as his ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Vol. 2 • Charles James Lever
... Indian women, they are far from complaining of their lot. On the contrary, they would despise their husbands could 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 ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... the early thirteenth century has been well described by Luchaire in his scholarly study of French Society in the time of Philip Augustus. She was, he tells us, as indeed she had been in the preceding feudal centuries, often what we should nowadays call a virago, of violent temperament, with vivid passions, broken in from childhood to all physical exercises, sharing the pleasures and dangers of the knights around her. Feudal life, fertile in surprises and in risks, demanded even in women a vigorous temper of soul and body, ...
— Little Essays of Love and Virtue • Havelock Ellis
... all cast aside! Pheugh! GARNER, in his cage, would open wide His listening ears, did Jacko of the forest So "slate" a foeman when his head was sorest. Strange that to rave and rant, like scullion storm, Like low virago scold, should seem "good form" To our Society Simians, when one name Makes vulgar spite oblivious of its shame! "Voluntary and deliberate," their speech, "Articulate too"—those Apes! Then could they ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, October 1, 1892 • Various
... at his present position, and endeavoring in vain to shake off the grasp of the virago, slipped his hand into his girdle, and drew forth a short knife. So menacing was his look, so brightly gleamed the blade, that Stratonice, who was used only to that fashion of battle which we moderns call the ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... Liberty, something wrong. With her Utopias 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 means of emancipation, ...
— Bubbles of the Foam • Unknown
... platform, and wishing to entertain him with edifying conversation while the 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 ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White
... month;" but the parish registers have been examined for confirmation with "fruitless solicitude." Cunningham gives December as the month of his birth; this is a mistake; so also is his notice of the painter's introduction of the Virago into his picture of the "Modern Midnight Conversation." No female figure appears in this subject. It is in the third plate of the "Rake's Progress" the woman alluded to is introduced. A small critic might here find a fit subject ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... have a spirit, then, I should judge, if she defies such a virago as you describe this woman ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... and visiters; some maintaining, as I was told, that Mrs Beaufort, if she would keep herself sober, was not only a finer woman, but more of a lady, and a better actress, than Miss Scarborough, while others considered her as a vulgar regimental virago. ...
— The Provost • John Galt
... among them, having many fine beads and some strung on elephant's hair: she has a good deal of spirit too, for on being liberated she went into the old man's house and took her basket and calabash. A virago of a wife shut the door and tried to prevent her, as well as to cut off the beads from her person, but she resisted like a good one, and my men thrust the door open and let her out, but minus her slave. The other wife—for old officious had two—joined her sister in a furious tirade of abuse, the ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume I (of 2), 1866-1868 • David Livingstone
... 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 would be put off, and somehow it annoyed her to such an acute extent because Hyacinth was so particularly ...
— Love's Shadow • Ada Leverson
... 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
... bright 365 Than burnish'd armour of her Knight: A bold virago, stout and tall, As JOAN of FRANCE, or English MALL. Thro' perils both of wind and limb, Thro' thick and thin, she follow'd him, 370 In ev'ry adventure h' undertook, And never him or it forsook. At breach of wall, or hedge surprize, She shar'd i' ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... one could have been less masculine, less of a virago, than Mdlle. Cardoville. She was essentially womanly, but as a woman, she knew how to exercise great empire over herself, the moment that the least mark of weakness on her part would have rejoiced ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... 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 husband absolutely. ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe
... 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 ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... 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 ...
— Peg O' My Heart • J. Hartley Manners
... 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 ...
— The Great White Queen - A Tale of Treasure and Treason • William Le Queux
... was on hand and as cross as ever. She went around like a virago and scolded nearly every one in ...
— For Gold or Soul? - The Story of a Great Department Store • Lurana W. Sheldon
... her not to meddle with me again," said the virago, shaking a stick at the child. "I got to that barrel of cinders on the sidewalk, first, and had put my stick in it, to see if I could get anything out worth saving; of course, if I came first, I had the first right to what ...
— Little Ferns For Fanny's Little Friends • Fanny Fern
... impudence to me. —— your —— eyes, what do you mean by telling me that? You know what you ha' done, and now you are going to the Salvation Army. I'll let them know you, you dirty rascal." The man shifted his pipe. "What's the matter?" "Matter!" screamed the virago hoarsely." —— yer life, don't you know what's the matter? I'll matter ye, you —— hound. By God! I will, as sure as I'm alive. Matter! you know what's the matter." And so she went on, the men standing silently smoking until at last she took herself off her mouth full of oaths and ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth
... the fashion with biographers to speak bitterly of this poor woman, and to pity More for his cruel fate in being united to a termagant. No one has any compassion for her. Sir Thomas is the victim; Mistress Alice the shrill virago. In those days, when every historic reprobate finds an apologist, is there no one to say a word in behalf of the Widow Middleton, whose lot in life and death seems to this writer very pitiable? She was quick in temper, ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... Beatrice with an indescribable charm of mischievous sweetness. The silver arrows of her pungent wit have no barb, for evidently she does not mean that they shall really wound. Her appearance and carriage are beautiful, and her tones melt into music. There is no hint of the virago here, and even the tone of sarcasm is superficial. It is archness playing over kindness that is presented here." On her Ophelia, Mr. Winter remarks: "Ophelia is an image, or personification of innocent, delirious, feminine youth and ...
— [19th Century Actor] Autobiographies • George Iles
... to increase in size; but her piercing black eyes lost none of their fire, while her tongue wagged more abusively when her temper was roused. John Quincy Adams described her as going about "like a virago-errant in enchanted armor, redeeming herself from the cramps of indigence by the notoriety of her eccentricities and the forced currency they gave ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... 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 least ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... acquaintance when that person supposed himself or herself to be absolutely alone, we should be astonished and often horrified at the unconscious revelations we would receive. The woman with the Madonna face may unmask and show the lineaments of a common shrew in her chamber. And the virago may soften into the gentleness of a saint as she gives way to the penitence of her own thoughts. The dignified man with the air of virtue and authority might show himself as a nimble-motioned rascal, timid and furtive, ...
— The Co-Citizens • Corra Harris
... sooner stept between those menacing antagonists, than Tom Clarke very quietly resumed his clothes, and Mr. Ferret resigned the gridiron without further question. The doctor did not find it quite so easy to release the throat of Captain Crowe from the masculine grasp of the virago Dolly, whose fingers could not be disengaged until the honest seaman was almost at the last gasp. After some pause, during which he panted for breath, and untied his neckcloth, "D—n thee, for a brimstone ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... and it is an event of 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
... harmlessly over Joan's erect head; Thomasin's small shot did not miss the mark. She was furious; her husband stood dumb; her virago tongue hissed the truth; and Joan, listening, knew ...
— Lying Prophets • Eden Phillpotts
... Peter watched the old virago close the door and then sat down to his breakfast. His anger presently died away, and he sat wondering what could have happened to Rose Hobbett that had corroded her whole existence. Did she enjoy her vituperation, her continual malice? He tried to imagine ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling
... virago heard the request. She was not given to curbing her temper, and leaning back in the chair, her body rigid, she beat a tattoo with her high-heeled shoes and clenched her fists till ...
— Madame Flirt - A Romance of 'The Beggar's Opera' • Charles E. Pearce
... viri. Te quoque splendidior fecit natura puellam, Te probitas fecit nomen habere viri. Te mutare decet sed solum nomina sexus, Tu regina potens rexque trophea parans. Iam nec Caesareos tantum mirere triumphos, Caesare splendidior virgo virago, vale. ...
— Chronicles (1 of 6): The Historie of England (6 of 8) - The Sixt Booke of the Historie of England • Raphael Holinshed
... 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 speaks ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... 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
... whose exploits in Flanders the popular ballad was written. The line in the text is from "Hudibras," Part I, c. 2, 367, where she is compared with Trulla: "A bold virago, stout and tall, As Joan of France, or English Mall." The ballad is preserved in Percy's "Reliques of English Poetry," vol. ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... lay helpless there in the hands of those wretches; and to think that her lover lay helpless here in the supervision of this vile virago! ...
— Dead Men Tell No Tales • E. W. Hornung
... bitterness, and her 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 back. Wesley's ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume II (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... she be a-comin' in an' a-robbin' us of our pay?" muttered a coarse, red-faced virago, her hair in a frowse about her head, her slatternly dress open at the throat. "Oi'll be one to go an' pull her off the dock and jump on her. What's she a-doin', any-how, puttin' down prices! Ef her ole man had a leg to walk ...
— Tom Grogan • F. Hopkinson Smith |
