"Winsome" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... broke the silence was not the sweet, winsome one we were listening for, but it instantly arrested the attention of the company. It was the grave, manly voice of one used to speaking, and accustomed to be listened to with deference. This was the first time that the company as a whole had heard it, for the speaker was the new-comer who ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... what was what fu' brawlie, There was a winsome wench and walie, That night enlisted in the core, (Lang after kenn'd on Carrick shore! For monie a beast to dead she shot, And perish'd monie a bonnie boat, And shook baith meikle corn and bear, And kept the country side in fear). Her ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... looked upon me, as I lay there in that innocent slumber, with the winsome mouth slightly ajar and the playful limbs cast wildly about, while a merry smile now and then flitted across the regular features, would have said that no heart could be so hard as to harbor ill for one so guileless ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... adjoining country there is a larger sense of colour—a fuller pulse of life. This is the region of delightful dogs and horses and domestic animals of all sorts; of crimson-faced hosts and buxom ale-wives; of the most winsome and black-eyed milkmaids and the most devoted lovers and their lasses; of the most headlong and horn-blowing huntsmen—a land where Madam Blaize forgathers with the impeccable worthy who caused the death of the Mad Dog; where John ...
— De Libris: Prose and Verse • Austin Dobson
... while in silence then speaks jeeringly. DIONYSUS remains gentle and unafraid.] Marry, a fair shape for a woman's eye, Sir stranger! And thou seek'st no more, I ween! Long curls, withal! That shows thou ne'er hast been A wrestler!—down both cheeks so softly tossed And winsome! And a white skin! It hath cost Thee pains, to please thy damsels with this white And red of cheeks that never face the light! [DIONYSUS is silent.] Speak, sirrah; tell me ...
— Hippolytus/The Bacchae • Euripides
... any one who had known the secret of Laura's birth and had seen her during these passing years, say at the happy age of twelve or thirteen, would have fancied that he knew the reason why she was more winsome than ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 1. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... little dark-eyed lady at the end of our table?" said a winsome-faced girl at Tabitha's right, who answered to the name of Jessie Wayne. "She is Madame DuBois, the French teacher, who is in charge of our floor. Your room is across from ...
— Tabitha at Ivy Hall • Ruth Alberta Brown
... lady should suggest, ideally, a girl (or a woman) who keeps herself physically fit, her thinking on a high plane, and her manners gentle and winsome. ...
— Manners And Conduct In School And Out • Anonymous
... When a fellow is 24 and a girl is 22 and unusually pretty and winsome, his heart must be adamant to withstand that little trick of snuggling up. Alexander gasped, but with the gasp gained sense enough to see he couldn't tell her ...
— The Mermaid of Druid Lake and Other Stories • Charles Weathers Bump
... always a purpose in his writings, and this time he has undertaken to show how very near an innocent boy can come to the guilty edge and yet be able by fortunate circumstances to rid himself of all suspicion of evil. There is something winsome about the hero; but he has a singular way of falling into bad luck, although the careful reader will never feel the least disposed to doubt his honesty.... It is the pain and perplexity which impart to the story its ...
— Seek and Find - or The Adventures of a Smart Boy • Oliver Optic
... &c. (good) 648. refreshing; comfortable; cordial; genial; glad, gladsome; sweet, delectable, nice, dainty; delicate, delicious; dulcet; luscious &c. 396; palatable &c. 394; luxurious, voluptuous; sensual &c. 377. [of people] attractive &c. 615; inviting, prepossessing, engaging; winning, winsome; taking, fascinating, captivating, killing; seducing, seductive; heart-robbing, alluring, enticing; appetizing &c. (exciting) 824; cheering &c. 836; bewitching; enchanting, entrancing, enravishing[obs3]. charming; delightful, felicitous, exquisite; lovely &c. (beautiful) 845; ravishing, rapturous; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... pale. The real Charlotte had a wealth of chestnut hair which fell about her face and neck in glorious abundance. Her great gray eyes spoke eloquently of truth and courage. Her mouth was firm yet winsome, and her form combined both strength and grace. Such is the girl who, on reaching Paris, wrote ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... this or that interpretation of child-life: Greuze with his sentimentalism, the Dutch painters with their stolidity. In Velasquez every child is the scion of some Royal House, in Murillo they are all beggars. They are too often stupid in Michelozzo: in Andrea della Robbia they are always sweet and winsome; Pigalle's children know too much. Donatello alone grasped the whole psychology. He watched the coming generation, and foresaw all that it might portend: tragedy and comedy, labour and sorrow, work and play—plenty of play; and every problem of life is reflected and made younger ...
— Donatello • David Lindsay, Earl of Crawford
... indeed any relish! But my wife and children bind me to the bit, and I am well pleased with the fetters. Walter is now a tall and very handsome {p.xxv} boy of nearly eleven years; Charlotte a very winsome gypsy of nine,—both intelligent in the extreme, and both, notwithstanding all possible spoiling, as simple, natural and unselfish as if they had been bred on a hillside and in a family of twelve. ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... the leaf-strewn ground, O Daphnis, resting thy weary limbs, and the stakes of thy nets are newly fastened on the hills. But Pan is on thy track, and Priapus, with the golden ivy wreath twined round his winsome head,—both are leaping at one bound into thy cavern. Nay, flee them, flee, shake off thy slumber, shake off the heavy sleep that is ...
— Theocritus, Bion and Moschus rendered into English Prose • Andrew Lang
... views, gay and winsome though she was, it was not long before Mary was at issue with her dour Protestant subjects and their spokesman, John Knox. It was hoped by her brother, James Stuart (Murray), and Secretary Lethington that a modus vivendi might be found by persuading ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various
... within the gardens had that been the object of this strange attack. I think, My Lord, that presently we shall hear from some bold adventurer who holds the little Prince for ransom. God give that such may be the case, for of all the winsome and affectionate little fellows I have ever seen, not even excepting mine own dear son, the little Richard was the most to be beloved. Would that I might get my hands upon the foul devil who has done ...
— The Outlaw of Torn • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... came down to dinner dressed in it on the night of the ball, she looked very winsome, and smiled up at Dan in shy expectation of a word of approval; but none came. In the early days of their acquaintance he had remarked that she was much more easily depressed than elated about herself, and would be the better of a little more confidence—not ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... my Meaeker's greaece Led me to teaeke a higher pleaece, An' lighten'd up my mind wi' lore, An' bless'd me wi' a worldly store; But still noo winsome feaece or vaice, Had ever been my wedded chaice; An' then I thought, why do I mwope Alwone without a jay or hope? Would she still think me low? Or scorn a meaete, in my feaeir steaete, In here 'ithin a pillar'd geaete, A happy ...
— Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect • William Barnes
... true," replied the old lady, softly. "I have her own words for it. There may be some mistake, as you say," she said, soothingly, noting the death-like despair that settled over the noble face. "She is a pretty, fair, winsome little creature, blue-eyed, and curling golden hair, and lives at Allendale. She is certainly married. I will call her. She shall tell you so herself. Daisy—Mrs. Stanwick—come here, ...
— Daisy Brooks - A Perilous Love • Laura Jean Libbey
... Asylum," a haven for the desolate and miserable. The front door was closed, but upon the broad granite steps, where the sunlight lay warm and tempting, sat a trio of the inmates. In the foreground was a slight fairy form, "a wee winsome thing," with coral lips, and large, soft blue eyes, set in a frame of short, clustering golden curls. She looked about six years old, and was clad, like her companions, in canary-colored flannel dress and blue- check apron. Lillian was the pet of the asylum, and now her rosy cheek ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans
... were thundered out every minute or two—they were the only words that I could understand Listening to the priest's sonorous incantation reverberating through the building that morning, one little dreamt that within less than two years' time the winsome princess—her photograph was to be seen everywhere in the Petrograd streets and she seemed to be especially popular—whose day we were engaged in celebrating, would have been foully done to death by miscreants in some remote eastern ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell
... a shadowy place, And a light touch and a winsome grace, And a thrilling tender voice that says: 'Safe from waters that seek the sea— Cold waters by rugged ways— ...
— Goblin Market, The Prince's Progress, and Other Poems • Christina Rossetti
... with nothing to roast, and a large stone table, with nothing on it but broken dishes and empty mugs. So the firelight shone on an uncouth set of long hungry faces. Whether there was among them 'ae winsome wench and wawlie,' is more than I can say; but most probably there was, or the bogle would scarcely have been so zealous in the cause. Still he was late on his quest. The friars of a still nourishing abbey were making preparations for a festal day, and had despatched a man with a cart to the nearest ...
— Gryll Grange • Thomas Love Peacock
... be half as pretty as Sukey Yates," she often thought, little dreaming that Sukey, although a very pretty girl, was plain compared with her own winsome self. ...
— A Forest Hearth: A Romance of Indiana in the Thirties • Charles Major
... dreadful powerlessness to conquer the cruel fate that seemed hanging over them. The men he cared little for, since these perils were but a part of the life they chose; but the master he loved, the good woman who had been so kind to him, the sweet girl whose winsome presence had made the long voyage so pleasant for them all—if he could only save these dear and innocent creatures from a cruel death, he felt that he could willingly give his ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... and hurried down the steps, but at the bottom paused and looked back. Debby stood upon the threshold with sunshine dancing on her winsome face, and kind words trembling on her lips; for the moment it seemed impossible to part, and, with an impetuous ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... warm-hearted, impulsive Hal, and the winsome, pretty Juanita, prisoners in the hands of the cruel and merciless Apaches, who were never known to surrender a captive alive. Then, as I thought of a worse fate than death, that was in store for the bright, beautiful girl, I thanked God that her old father was spared ...
— The Young Trail Hunters • Samuel Woodworth Cozzens
... at Harfield, within easy distance, and a splendid looking fellow like Regie was invaluable to Victoria, whenever she wanted anything to go off well. Well, in those days I had a ward, my mother's great niece, Maude Conway. A pretty winsome creature it was, and an heiress in a moderate sort of way, and poor old Redge, after all his little affairs, and he had had his share of them, was evidently in for it at last. Victoria thought, as well as myself, it was the best thing for them both. ...
— The Two Sides of the Shield • Charlotte M. Yonge
... A winsome pair they were, these two "sweet girl graduates" of the June gone by, while the regiment was stirring up the Sioux on the way to the Big Horn and Yellowstone. Everybody had lavish welcome for them, and to Miriam Arnold the month ...
— Lanier of the Cavalry - or, A Week's Arrest • Charles King
... than all things heard, Hand of harper, tone of bird, Sound of woods at sundawn stirr'd, Welling water's winsome ward, Wind ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck
... dreamed of in the old days, and I think there was substantial happiness there too. Trunion himself was a wholesome man, a man full of honest affection, hearty laughter, and hard work—a breezy, companionable, energetic man. There was something boyish, unaffected, and winsome in his manners; and I can easily understand why Judge Addison Tomlinson, in his old age, insisted on astonishing his family and his guests by exclaiming: "Where's Trunion?" Certainly he was a man to think about and ...
— Free Joe and Other Georgian Sketches • Joel Chandler Harris
... had twa braw sons, My story to begin; The tane was Light Haldane the strong, The tither was winsome Finn. ...
— Historical Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... as before a judge. She turned quickly, with a sudden, winsome vivacity, the glow of a great satisfaction in her eyes and smiling a comradeship which made her old attitude over the wall a thing of dross and yet far more intimate. Her hand ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... now very feeble, stood in the middle of the road, and his face, once so hard, was softened into a winsome tenderness. ...
— Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush • Ian Maclaren
... supported. Mr. Grey stood somewhat apart from the others, and gazed idly at the shadows cast by the dimly-burning lamp, as they swayed backwards and forwards, up and down, with each slow movement of the water; yet he did not actually see anything. He was thinking of the winsome wee pair whom he had come upon a few days before sitting on a tree-stump in Copsley Wood—of their trusting eyes, their sweet voices, their artless prattle, their firm faith in the protecting power ...
— Two Little Travellers - A Story for Girls • Frances Browne Arthur
... expressive Indian names of Minnehaha and Wenonah had been given to the two bright, winsome little girls in the household, while the wee brother was called by the old Scottish ...
— Winter Adventures of Three Boys • Egerton R. Young
... stopped and tugged at his mustachios, his eyes regarding her sombrely. He was close beside her now, where he had halted, and he set his hand gently upon her shoulder, looked down into that winsome little oval ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini
... earth's furrowed face. She gave me tokens three:— A look, a word of her winsome mouth, And ...
— Modern British Poetry • Various
... our poets see largely through the medium of English literature and invest with borrowed charms, is the violet. The violet is a much more winsome and poetic flower in England than it is in this country, for the reason that it comes very early and is sweet-scented; our common violet is not among the earliest flowers, and it is odorless. It affects sunny slopes, like the English flower; yet Shakespeare never could have made the allusion ...
— The Writings of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... Isabel. She was ever held as a dame of good family and descent, though a stranger in these parts. Then she was passing fair, so that both squire and gentleman, as they looked on her, were nigh devoured with love. They say, too, her conditions were gentle and winsome as a child; and"— ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... upon her face. These features gave her, when she stared at you, an aspect vivid and startling, bold, with a touch of defiance. But when she smiled, the red lips would curve into gentler lines, and the grey eyes would become wistful, and seemingly darker in colour. Winsome indeed, but not simple, ...
— King Coal - A Novel • Upton Sinclair
... hand in dogskin, the grey tweed skirt, and one shoe, with a tip on it, that peeped out below her frock. Critics might have hinted that her shoulders were too square, and that her figure wanted somewhat in softness of outline; but it seemed to Carmichael that he had never seen so winsome or high-bred a woman; and so it has also seemed to many who have gone farther afield in the world than the young ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren
... of old earthmen's beginnings, That Father Almighty earth had created, 40 The winsome wold that the water encircleth, Set exultingly the sun's and the moon's beams To lavish their lustre on land-folk and races, And earth He embellished in all her regions With limbs and leaves; life He bestowed too 45 On all the kindreds ...
— Beowulf - An Anglo-Saxon Epic Poem • The Heyne-Socin
... sir," he said, with a winsome smile, "but I'm sure the maist of us hae been pleadin' hard afore a higher court than this. A' I want to tell ye is this—there hasna been wound or bruise upon yir relation to yir people. An' there's but ae hairt amongst us, an' we're giein' ye anither call this ...
— St. Cuthbert's • Robert E. Knowles
... sitting beside the liquid pool. Except for the same waviness of outline and phosphorescent glow, she had quite the normal aspect of a human being of our own world. She was beautiful, according to our own standards of beauty; her long braided hair a glowing black, her face, delicate of feature and winsome in expression. Her lips were a deep red, although I felt ...
— The Girl in the Golden Atom • Raymond King Cummings
... winsome lass, I want no tricky wine, But amber nectar bring to me, Whose rich bouquet will cling to me, Whose spirit voice will sing to me From out the mug divine So, here's your toll—a kiss—away, You Hebe of the Rhine! No goblet's gold means cheer to me, Let no cut glass get near to me— Go, Gretchen, ...
— Arms and the Woman • Harold MacGrath
... made, and, having failed, found it pleasant to look back upon as an experience not altogether to be regretted. We none of us knew until much later that it was more than a mere fancy for a woman who was altogether so sweet and winsome that no man needed an excuse for loving her. When by and by I also came to love a good woman, I used to try myself by the measure of this man's lack of self-love, and wonder how he could have seen with good-will the woman he cared for come ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XVII, No. 102. June, 1876. • Various
... eyes fringed by deep and eloquent lashes. This unknown was taller than little Lois certainly—she had a maturer figure and altogether a better carriage; but the characteristics of her nationality were as sure—and the boy fell to wondering whether she was also capable of that winsome sentiment and jealous frenzy which dictated many of the seemingly inconsequent acts of the little heroine of Thrawl Street. This he imagined to be quite possible. "They are great as a nation," he thought, "but most of them are mad. I will tell Lois to-morrow that I have seen her ...
— Aladdin of London - or Lodestar • Sir Max Pemberton
... at Sulpice with her winsome, sidelong glance, curling her lovely pink lips that he ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... beloved fere? I love a lovely youth whose face excels * Sunlight, and passes moon when clearest clear: The fawn, that sees his glance, is fain to cry * 'I am his thrall' and own himself no peer: Beauty hath written, on his winsome cheek, * Rare lines of pregnant sense for every seer; Who sights the light of love his soul is saved; * Who strays is Infidel to Hell anear: An thou in mercy show his sight, O rare![FN69] * Thou shalt have every wish, the dearest dear, Of rubies and what likest are to them ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... spent their time struggling to keep Miss Amberson's face turned toward them. She turned it most often, observers said, toward two: one excelling in the general struggle by his sparkle, and the other by that winning if not winsome old trait, persistence. The sparkling gentleman "led germans" with her, and sent sonnets to her with his bouquets—sonnets lacking neither music nor wit. He was generous, poor, well-dressed, and his amazing persuasiveness ...
— The Magnificent Ambersons • Booth Tarkington
... fared at the fated moment, sturdy Scyld to the shelter of God. Then they bore him over to ocean's billow, loving clansmen, as late he charged them, while wielded words the winsome Scyld, the leader beloved who long had ruled.... In the roadstead rocked a ring-dight vessel, ice-flecked, outbound, atheling's barge: there laid they down their darling lord on the breast of the boat, the breaker-of-rings, {0b} by the mast the mighty one. Many a treasure ...
— Beowulf • Anonymous
... this Nancy Carey must be!" thought the American Consul. "This is such a jolly, confidential, gossipy, winsome little letter! Her first 'business letter' she calls it! Alas! when she learns how, a few years later, there will be no charming little confidences; no details of family income and expenditures; no tell-tale glimpses of ...
— Mother Carey's Chickens • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... the Abbess had him instructed, and he left the life in the world for the religious life. We are told by St Bede that he made much beautiful verse, being taught much holy lore and making songs so winsome to hear that his teachers themselves learned ...
— Our Catholic Heritage in English Literature of Pre-Conquest Days • Emily Hickey
... a bowl of flowers of all fair hues and shapes. She herself was like a bright, strong, winsome flower. "To make your room look bonny!" she said, and placed the bowl upon the table. To do so she pushed aside the books. "What a withered, snuff-brown lot! Won't you be glad when you are back in the keep with ...
— Foes • Mary Johnston
... the tools of her trade lay at hand. A momentous problem confronted her. The child must be won back. He must be convinced of her worth. Therefore she must be beautiful. He thought her pretty. She would be pretty. But how impress him? By what appeal? The pathetic? the tenderly winsome? the gay? She would be gay. Marvellous lies occurred to her—a multitude of them: there was no end to her fertility in deception. And she would excite his jealousy. Upon that feeling she would play. She would blow hot; she would blow cold. She ...
— The Mother • Norman Duncan
... up into the comely face of Bridget, his young wife, for Agnes Carpenter lay asleep beneath St. Peter's Church in old Leyden town. But her sister Juliana had come with her husband, George Morton, and their five children, Patience already a winsome lass of fifteen, soon to marry John Faunce and become mother of the last ruling ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... she'd love me, Winsome, tinsome Caroline, Unto such excess 'twould move me, Teazing, pleasing, cousin mine! That she might the live-long day Undermine the snuffer-tray, Tickle still my hooked nose, Startle me from calm repose With her pretty persecution; Throw the tongs ...
— The Bon Gaultier Ballads • William Edmonstoune Aytoun
... me in the eyes. And beside her winsome face I saw, in my mind's eye, the Princess's, too—but only for an instant. Then I took her hand again. She smiled sweetly, almost as sweetly as Dehra ...
— The Colonel of the Red Huzzars • John Reed Scott
... and rich in beauty, with thy mother's winsome eye! Art thou slain, my gallant warrior, and thy father was ...
— Maha-bharata - The Epic of Ancient India Condensed into English Verse • Anonymous
... hoary, And combs her long hair, tress by tress; The Monk he quakes, but on the glory Looks wistful of her loveliness; Now becks with hand that winsome creature, And now she noddeth with her head, Then sudden, like a fallen meteor, She plunges in ...
— The Talisman • George Borrow
... had had the slightest glimpse of what was actually passing through the winsome and supposedly silly little head behind him, there is no reliable telling into what change of opinion he might have been jostled. But this is certain, that if he had known, he could have saved ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... off the main road to Ferentino. They are peasant proprietors, more wealthy and civilised than those others, but lacking their terrestrial pathos. They live among their own vines and fruit-trees on the hillside. The female parent, a massive matron, would certainly never send those winsome children into the Pontine Marshes, not for a single day, not for their weight in gold. The father is quite an uncommon creature. I look at him and ask myself; where have I seen that face before, so classic and sinewy and ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas
... failed to show how dainty and small she was. He saw now that she was considerably below the usual height, but so perfectly proportioned that one utterly lost perspective. Even her thick, coarse dress could not conceal the exquisite mould in which she was cast. But her chief charm lay in a certain winsome vivacity, a willful waywardness, an ever- changing expression which showed her keenly alive and appreciative. Even now pure mischief looked out of ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach
... spring wanes, then fades the bloom of peach as well as plum! Who ever can like a pot of the olea be winsome! With ice thy purity will vie, vain their envy will be! In vain a laughing-stock people will try to make ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... even then began to write verse. At ten years of age his father had the lad's portrait painted by that rare and thrifty Dutchman, Cornelius Jansen. We have this picture now, and it reveals the pale, grave, winsome face with the flowing curls ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... going to leave you to the undisturbed enjoyment of your feast," she said, in her most winsome manner. "But—won't it taste the sweeter if your antepast is the delight of forgiveness? Say you are not angry with ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... in that state of ardent expectancy. The days and weeks and months were but one hour, the hour preceding his last approach to her. Every moment, in her delusion, she expected him to end that hour by coming to her as young as ever, to find her as winsome as before. In consequence, time vanished from her thought. And in vanishing from her thought, time lost its ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... That winsome face, all rosy red,— I turned towards me,—gone was dread! She came as birdlings to their nest At eventide; so was I blest By that one ...
— Poems • Sophia M. Almon
... sure, Heidi is a book that in its field can hardly be overpraised. The winsome, kind-hearted little heroine in her mountain background is a figure to be remembered from childhood to old age. Nevertheless, Madame Spyri has shown here but one ...
— Cornelli • Johanna Spyri
... which Sherriff had uttered concerning Peter, he found his doubts increasing. Peter might, as the Press-agent had stated, be a great scout, but was his little Garden of Eden on the fifth floor of the Cosmopolis Hotel likely to be improved by the advent of even the most amiable and winsome of serpents? However— ...
— Indiscretions of Archie • P. G. Wodehouse
... her neck a carcanet and said, 'I want one such;' and, as I looked upon it, I knew that there was nothing like it in my store, and that all I had by me of collars and jewels and other goods were not worth a single grain of that carcanet. So I said to her, 'O Winsome of Eyes, this is a thing whereto none of this time can avail save it be with the Commander of the Faithful or with his Wazir Ja'afar bin Yahya the Barmaki.' Quoth she, 'Wilt thou buy it of me?' and quoth I, 'I have no power to its price,' when she ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... to his proud breast his first-born child, the little Arthur, he deemed his happiness complete. The boy was like his father, both in character and beauty; and as he grew in "winsome ways," he became the pride and pet not only of the household, but of friends and visitors. So much indulgence, and openly expressed admiration, did not fail to foster the boy's inherent spirit of pride, and he soon learned to demand concessions and indulgences ...
— The Brother Clerks - A Tale of New-Orleans • Xariffa
... an appeal to Mr. Lyndsay reach him now, think you? Might not Effie go to him herself? Surely, the sight of such a winsome creature would touch his ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... battalion of 200 winsome young girls and matrons, and let me tell them what to do and how to do it, and I will be responsible for shining results. If I could mass them on the stage in front of the audience and instruct them there, I could ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Oakland," said the winsome queen; "A city proud thou'lt be! Thy beauteous lake, thy hills so green, Thy slopes that rise and fall, I crown, ...
— Within the Golden Gate - A Souvenir of San Fransisco Bay • Laura Young Pinney
... 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 ...
— Wild Life on the Rockies • Enos A. Mills
... Molly: such a lovely Molly!—such a naughty unrepentant, winsome Molly, with the daintiest and widest of straw hats, twined with wild flowers, thrown somewhat recklessly toward the ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... us all, sir, once," said Fanny, "and may God send that it shall be so again. A winsome thing like her is made to be loved. You'll come and see her, Mr. Fenwick, some day?" Mr. Fenwick promised that he would, and Fanny ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope
... way everywhere, springing from the hands of woman. When the dwelling is cramped, the purse limited, the table modest, a woman who has the gift finds a way to make order and puts care and art into everything in her house, puts a soul into the inanimate, and gives those subtle and winsome touches to which the most brutish of human beings is sensible. But in China woman does nothing of this. Her life is unaesthetic to the last degree. No happy improvisations or touches of the stamp of personality enter her home; one cannot trace the touches of ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle
... sunshine in the shades. And all things fair and graceful in the woods I loved with liberal heart; the violets Were dear for her dear eyes, the quiring birds That caught the musical tremble of her voice. O happy twilights in the leafy glooms! When in the glowing dusk the winsome arts And maiden graces that all day had kept Us twain and separate melted away In blushing silence, and my love was mine Utterly, utterly, with clinging arms And quick, caressing fingers, warm red lips, Where ...
— Pike County Ballads and Other Poems • John Hay
... letters. She was a charming woman, feminine from her soul to her finger-tips, the incarnation of das Ewigweibliche. Her intimate friends were mostly what were then known as strong-minded women—I suppose to-day they would seem like timid, shy violets. She was modest, gentle, winsome, irresistible: profoundly learned, with the ...
— Robert Browning: How To Know Him • William Lyon Phelps
... into the winsome face, and turning to Brereton, held out his hand. "You have secured an able pleader," he said, "and I cannot find it in my heart to give her nay at any such time. Indeed," he added, as Jack eagerly took the ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... from the way you played up to the Seebrook girl that you were far too susceptible to be trusted with women. The error is mine; not yours, Archie; I don't blame you a particle. Indeed the incident warms my heart to you. Sally is a winsome lass; she has a ...
— Blacksheep! Blacksheep! • Meredith Nicholson
... playing together, one throwing up his left arm as if to balance himself. Beyond the candelabrum is one whose parted hair and coquettish pose of the head give a feminine look to the figure. The sprite in the centre of the balustrade is the most winsome of the company. His bright eyes have spied out some one in the congregation, and stooping, he points directly at the person. His expression is very roguish. The little fellow with the flambeau is at the left, and last is one whose face ...
— Correggio - A Collection Of Fifteen Pictures And A Portrait Of The - Painter With Introduction And Interpretation • Estelle M. Hurll
... understanding, of which for a while Statira affected to take no heed; for having formed a resolution to maintain a strict reserve towards every inmate of the parsonage, she was not disposed to break it so soon, even in favor of Laura, whose winsome overtures she found it ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... a secret for me?' she pursued, kneeling down by me, and lifting her winsome eyes to my face with that sort of look which turns off bad temper, even when one has all the right in ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte
... their stroll, Miss Forrest, with a shawl hugged woman-fashion around her shapely form, was taking a constitutional up and down the upper gallery. She came to the railing and bent down, beaming, smiling, and kissing her hand to them,—and a winsome smile she had,—then, as they passed out along the walk by the old ordnance storehouse, she stood for a time ...
— 'Laramie;' - or, The Queen of Bedlam. • Charles King
... become the highest / to love the winsome maid, Keen knights did long to win her, / and none but homage paid. Beauty without measure, / that in sooth had she, And virtues wherewith many / ladies else adorned ...
— The Nibelungenlied - Translated into Rhymed English Verse in the Metre of the Original • trans. by George Henry Needler
... this kind of thing I would wax rather bitter. Love, I said, was not a lasting thing; but knowledge told me that it was for those of beauty and winsome ways, and not for me. I was ever to be a lonely-hearted waif from end to end of the world of love—an ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... only more winsome," was the answer, and the half-blind eyes looked proudly at the beautiful girl bending over the ...
— Maggie Miller • Mary J. Holmes
... Winter Time. She was tall and pale. She dressed chiefly in white wool trimmed with wonderful lacework. She was much admired by some, but others considered her very cold and distant. And most agreed that she was the least winsome of ...
— Woodland Tales • Ernest Seton-Thompson
... conceit, Fair Lady, winsome Poesy Her soul, an offering at thy feet, Presents in sonnets unto thee. If thou my homage wilt not scorn, Thy fortune, watched by envious eyes, On wings of poesy upborne Shall be ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... characters for money, wrecked homes, committed literary murders, played unfeelingly on the tenderest sensibilities, and boasted openly that the only angels were those made by a stroke of the pen and retailed at department store book-counters? And while thus reasoning Phyllis came to me, so winsome in her girlish beauty, so radiant in the happiness I had infused into her life, so joyous in the pleasures of the present, that I laughed at my own doubts, reproached myself for my own unworthy suspicions, and straightway forgot both Bunsey and his ...
— The Romance of an Old Fool • Roswell Field
... poet nerved and strung Up to the singing pitch you know, And this since melody first was young Has evermore been the pitch of woe: She was a wistful, winsome thing, Guileless as Eve before her fall, And as I drew her 'neath my wing— Wilmur ...
— The Harvest of Years • Martha Lewis Beckwith Ewell
... Roosevelt, by Miss Cecilia Beaux, seemed to me to be one of the happiest of her creations. Nothing could exceed the skill and daintiness with which the costume is painted, and the characterization of the head is more sympathetic than usual, offering a most winsome type of beautiful, good womanhood. A little child has been added to the picture—an afterthought, I understand, and scarcely a fortunate one; at least in the manner of its presentment. The figure is cleverly merged in half shadow, ...
— Women in the fine arts, from the Seventh Century B.C. to the Twentieth Century A.D. • Clara Erskine Clement
... great pleasure, my sister," he answered. A smile, winsome in its radiance, parted his lips, and he gazed across the valley at the distant hills. At the hills? Or did he see instead a pair of blue eyes swimming in tears through which divinest pity shone? Did he see a saucy, piquant face framed in ringlets ...
— Peggy Owen and Liberty • Lucy Foster Madison
... regimental muster was being held, in Tryon county, in the colony of New York, at which William Johnson was present. Among the throng of those who were out to see the sights was Molly Brant, Joseph's elder sister, a lively, winsome girl of sixteen years. During the manoeuvres a field-officer rode by, mounted on a spirited steed. As he passed, Molly asked if she might get up behind. The officer, thinking it a bit of banter, said she might. ...
— The War Chief of the Six Nations - A Chronicle of Joseph Brant - Volume 16 (of 32) in the series Chronicles of Canada • Louis Aubrey Wood
... that!" cried Tad Munson. "That's John Winsome's red calf. See! He's sunk clear to his backbone ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Cowboy Jack's • Laura Lee Hope
... a young man's smile as I thought of it. Experience was writing some items on the credit side of my new account with life. I had met a winsome lady of title and she had kissed me. Margaret, behind my back and to a third party, had called me an "incomparable" something. What, I knew not,—"servant" probably, but ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... bold pranks and merry ways. He was, I verily believe, the loveliest child that God's sun has ever looked down upon. When it pleased Him to take my wife away from me after seven happy years, I strove not to murmur; for I had still the child, and every day that passed made him more winsome, more loving, more mettlesome and bold. Even the master would draw rein as he passed my door to have a word with the boy; and little Mistress Joan gave me many a silver groat to buy him a fairing with, and keep him always dressed in the smartest little suit of forester's green. ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green
... dressed in the tunic and long white stola, or outer robe, is of matronly presence and pleasant face. And, as they talk together in low and earnest tones, they watch with loving eyes, from the cool shadows of the high area walls, the motions of the dark-eyed little Annia, a winsome Roman maiden of thirteen, as, perched upon a cage of pet pigeons, she gleefully teases with a swaying peacock plume now the fluttering pigeons and now the wary-eyed Dido, ...
— Historic Boys - Their Endeavours, Their Achievements, and Their Times • Elbridge Streeter Brooks
... out that morning the personification of hope, who now stood before her the picture of black despair, and she must have thought, "It was all for me." Suddenly she took the lapels of his torn coat in either hand. She had to reach up to do it, this winsome little Virginia lady. With her big calm blue eyes looking straight into ...
— Friday, the Thirteenth • Thomas W. Lawson
... grandmother herself. I know nothing of her ancestry and am not at all sure that she was royally bred, for she came, one chill night, a little wanderer to the door. But a shred of blue ribbon was clinging to her neck, and she was so pretty, and silky, and winsome that we children at once called her Beauty, and fancied she had strayed from some elegant home where she had been the pet of the household, lapping her milk from finest china and sleeping on a cushion of down. When we had warmed, ...
— Concerning Cats - My Own and Some Others • Helen M. Winslow
... yourselves to seats," hospitably urged their winsome hostess. "Excuse me for a moment while I call the girls. They are just finishing the washing of the supper dishes and getting things in shape for breakfast. We get everything ready the night before so as ...
— Jane Allen: Right Guard • Edith Bancroft
... in the best and most literal sense of the word, by his pretty mother and his gallant old grandfather. No wonder Queen Charlotte, driving in Windsor Park, stopped her carriage and got down to kiss the winsome little boy. ...
— Pot-Boilers • Clive Bell
... wonner, as I say, that ye lea' the worms to come an' luik efter him. I doobt—I doobt it winna be to you he'll gang at the lang last. There winna be room for him aside ye in Awbrahawm's boasom. And syne to behave sae ill to that winsome wife o' his! I dinna wonner 'at ye maun be up! Eh na! But, sir, sin ye are up, I wish ye wad speyk to John Thamson no to tak aff the day 'at I was awa' last ook, for 'deed I was verra unweel, and bude ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... understanding not, stood doubtfully At a loss for answer; but the knight went on: "How came it in your hands, and who hath tuned your voice to follow it." "I am unskilled, Good father, but my mother smote its strings To music rare." Diverted from one theme, Pleased with the winsome candor of the boy, The knight encouraged him to confidence; Then his own gift of minstrelsy revealed, And told bright tales of his first wanderings, When in lords' castles and kings' palaces Men still made place for him, for in ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. I (of II.), Narrative, Lyric, and Dramatic • Emma Lazarus
... at him squarely. "With no woman, I swear. I have no more to do with women. What woman is as fair as philosophy, as winsome as wisdom?" ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... the wolf, with a winsome air, "Your capers I can't admire." "Go to!" quoth the lamb. (Though he said not where, He showed what he meant by his brazen stare And the ...
— Fables for the Frivolous • Guy Whitmore Carryl
... all the Squamish, and he ruled the coastal waters— And he warred upon her people in the distant Charlotte Isles; She, a winsome basket weaver, daintiest of Haida daughters, Made him captive to her singing ...
— Flint and Feather • E. Pauline Johnson
... black bodice laced across her young body, a shorter skirt than grown girls wear now, and a scarlet ribbon twisted among the long, dark braids that hung down her shoulders. She had travelled much in older countries than her own and to her eyes this girl had the air of a winsome little peasant that knew her simple station and ...
— In the Border Country • Josephine Daskam Bacon
... this? Surely a more winsome lad had never been seen. He was even then tall, and in his riding coat and breeches looked strangely slender, in contrast to the broad-shouldered physique which she had lately known so well. But the eyes were just the same—direct, frank, eager eyes, which ...
— A Manifest Destiny • Julia Magruder
... eighteen or nineteen years old, was possessed of such well-assured grace and of such excellent understanding that he would have been chosen from a thousand to hold a public office. It is true that this excellence of understanding was accompanied by such rare and winsome beauty that none could look at him without pleasure. And if his comeliness was of the choicest, it was so hard pressed by his speech that one knew not whether to give the greatest honour to his grace, his beauty, or the excellence ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. II. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... the farmer's daughters, with bare arms and gowns tucked up, are wringing out the clothes. Do you remember what happened to Ralph Peden in The Lilac Sunbonnet when he came on a scene like this? He tumbled at once into love with Winsome Charteris,—and ...
— Little Rivers - A Book Of Essays In Profitable Idleness • Henry van Dyke
... writers not as dead worthies but as companionable men and women, and to present their living subject as a living thing, winsome as a smile on a human face,—such was the author's purpose ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... returned Sir Gideon, "and the winsome laird o' Harden shall boast less vauntingly, and rue that he had broke his jeers upon an auld man. Touch me, sir, ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton
... but the laugh on her face, the laugh in her voice, her girlish presence, her winsome manner had done a great deal to soften the hardest heart. Indeed, many believed that she had kept thousands from angry words, and perhaps from ...
— The Day of Judgment • Joseph Hocking
... came about that on the last day of February, 1920, the coast-guard cutter Negros, 150 tons and 150 feet over all—with a crew of sixty men, Captain A. B. Galvez commanding, and having on board the Lovely Lady, who accompanies me on all my travels; the Winsome Widow, who joined us in Seattle; the Doctor, who is an officer of the United States Health Service stationed at Manila; John L. Hawkinson, the efficient and imperturbable man behind the camera; three friends of the Governor-General, who went along for the ride; and myself—steamed ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell
... promise, he called early for his old chum, and accompanied her and Patricia to school, showing only the merry, winsome side of his nature, and making Polly proud to own him for ...
— Polly of Lady Gay Cottage • Emma C. Dowd
... his head. Yet looking back on it, and the few times she had been in the store when we had spoken together, I kind of felt she liked me, and she had certainly never been in any hurry to leave; with this much to go on, and the fact that she always smiled at me most winsome the few times we passed each other on the street, I couldn't help thinking I had made a start without my knowing it, and that if I followed it up hard this dream of her and me might be made to ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne
... titles. This may have been true in some cases, but other causes than such sordid motives must be looked for. It is the attractiveness and the beauty of the American girls which enable them to capture so many foreign husbands. Their pleasant manners and winsome nature predispose a person in their favor, and with their well-grounded education and ready fund of knowledge, they easily win any gentleman with marital propensities. Had I been single when I first visited America I too ...
— America Through the Spectacles of an Oriental Diplomat • Wu Tingfang
... out-of-the-way parts of Paris. One evening, as I returned home to the Rue des Cordiers from the Place de l'Estrapade, I saw a girl of fourteen playing with a battledore at the corner of the Rue de Cluny, her winsome ways and laughter amused the neighbors. September was not yet over; it was warm and fine, so that women sat chatting before their doors as if it were a fete-day in some country town. At first I watched the charming expression of the girl's face and her ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... O holy wave, In days and days of yore? And wept the words: "O winsome wave, This earth is not thy shore!" Ever — ever ...
— Poems: Patriotic, Religious, Miscellaneous • Abram J. Ryan, (Father Ryan)
... more or less pondered on his duty to his cousin Thomasin. He could not help feeling that it would be a pitiful waste of sweet material if the tender-natured thing should be doomed from this early stage of her life onwards to dribble away her winsome qualities on lonely gorse and fern. But he felt this as an economist merely, and not as a lover. His passion for Eustacia had been a sort of conserve of his whole life, and he had nothing more of that supreme quality left to bestow. So far the obvious thing was not to entertain any idea ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... trouble and her crossness together, in her aggrieved, girlish way, till the light went out of her wistful eyes, and little sharp bones began to show at her wrists. She used to turn them about and pity them. They were once so round and winsome! ...
— Men, Women, and Ghosts • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... near her companions, lost in thought, gazing far away into the distance was, in very truth, as fair a specimen of winsome Irish girlhood as one could wish to see. She was pronounced beautiful by all who knew her though, as folks often said, she was more a Giltrap than a MacDowell. Her figure was slight and graceful, inclining even to fragility but those iron jelloids she had been taking of late had done her ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... story of Helen Chambers as told in a special dispatch from Kansas City, Missouri, to the Republican of Joliet, Illinois, and published in that newspaper August 5, 1909. Drink, drugs and debauchery hurried this winsome and respected girl to her coffin before nineteen years had passed over her head. She is one of thousands who perish similarly every year in this beautiful land ...
— Fighting the Traffic in Young Girls - War on the White Slave Trade • Various
... hardly more than points; but when the queen turned with horror to ask her lady what it meant, the change in her was hardly less wondrous, for, though the old countess was ignorant of it, fifty years had been swept from her, and she was straight and winsome as ...
— The Red Romance Book • Various
... new young wife Koh-pe may make the son of his father brave for all that," and Saeh-pah who was not young and not winsome, watched Yahn, and felt content when she saw the Apache eyes grow narrow and the teeth set. "A wife with many robes and many strings of shells and blue stones, makes a man strong to fight for them. Ka-yemo will ...
— The Flute of the Gods • Marah Ellis Ryan
... disconcerting to anyone unaccustomed to the Celtic disposition; but they never lasted long, and Janie soon found out that her friend rarely meant what she then said, and was generally particularly lovable after an outburst, with a winsome look on her face and a beguiling, endearing tone in her voice that would have ...
— The New Girl at St. Chad's - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... round Toyland that "Winsome Winnie" was Usher's girl. The male "assistants" did no worse than call her by her Christian name (they must have caught it from Sadie), and that was no cause of offence to girl from man in a department store. Every girl in a ...
— Winnie Childs - The Shop Girl • C. N. Williamson
... eyes; and you, Henrietta, with your splendid black hair; and you, Nelly, with your hair so brightly, beautifully golden; and you, Mollie, with your cheeks so downy; and you, Betsy, with your wine-red lips— far more delicious, though, than any wine I ever tasted—and you, Maria, with your winsome voice; and you, Susan, with your—with your—that is to say, Susan, with your—and the other thirteen of you, each so good and beautiful, will come to me in sweet dreams, ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 3 • Charles Farrar Browne
... at home. Belonging to an exellent family, he was outwardly a man whom any father would be proud to have his daughter associate with. With dimples on his chin and cheeks, a childish smile on his lips, frank, beautiful, pale violet-blue eyes, he had a most winsome countenance. But behind the angelic front was hidden a very demon. Jackson was a monstrosity if you will, a whited sepulchre, and one of the unaccountable freaks of nature. To those not knowing his habits, a handsome, affable, pleasing man of fine form and features; to those who knew him truly, ...
— The Mysterious Murder of Pearl Bryan - or: the Headless Horror. • Unknown
... few stanzas to the Milkmaid who stood in her wagon near the lawn, rattling out milk-punches to the boys. A winsome lass she was, fresh in her sororiation, with fair blue eyes, a celestial flow of auburn hair, and cheeks that suggested the milk and cherry in the glass she rattled out to me. I was reading aloud ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... sunny face has nature's grace, Thy form is winsome fair; But when for long thou'st heard that sang, O! wherefore hear ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19. No. 575 - 10 Nov 1832 • Various
... Borrow was a good man, a most winsome and a most charming companion, an English gentleman, straightforward, honest, and brave as the very best examplars of that ...
— Immortal Memories • Clement Shorter
... coat. When Old Mother Nature found that Mr. Jay had passed along his bad habits to his children, she passed along his handsome blue coat, too, and so it has been from that long-ago day right down to this. Sammy Jay's fine coat isn't a reward for goodness, as is Winsome Bluebird's, but is to help the other little people of the Green Forest and the Green Meadows to protect themselves, and keep track of Sammy when he is sneaking and snooping around looking for mischief. Now what do ...
— Mother West Wind 'Why' Stories • Thornton W. Burgess
... must see her. It was impossible to wait another day. When was it he had seen her last? Patty, dark-eyed, elfish, winsome, merry! Oh, yes, he must see her at once, this very afternoon. He could no longer repress the tide of his love, which surged at the flood-gates of his heart with mighty pressure. ...
— Half a Rogue • Harold MacGrath |
