"Confidante" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... She was a woman of more than fifty years of age, of portly form and demeanour. She moved with difficulty, for her breath was short, from her extreme fatness, and she always spoke in a falsetto voice. She was discretion itself, a sealed book. The count and Amalia had never had any other confidante. Nobody else in the world was acquainted with their love affair, and she had served them wonderfully through its course. Acting as sentinel, she had often saved them from discovery, for she had constituted herself their guardian angel. She was not ...
— The Grandee • Armando Palacio Valds
... those two young girls he ought certainly to be captivated, if he is not already. Twice walking with the English Annex, I met him, and they were so deeply absorbed in conversation they hardly noticed me. He has been talking over the matter with Number Five, who is just the kind of person for a confidante. ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... a squeeze. Hers was one of those natures which cannot bear to suffer alone. Whatever was the matter, Georgie instinctively reached out for sympathy to the nearest source from which it could be had. Gertrude, her natural confidante, was away; and Candace, her sweet face full of pity and concern, was close at hand. Her touch felt warm and comforting; her tender voice was irresistible to Georgie's desolate mood. She turned her wet face with a sudden burst of gratitude and trust toward ...
— A Little Country Girl • Susan Coolidge
... retired into her boudoir, ordering Abricotina to follow her and make fast the door; but they could not keep out Leander, who was there as soon as they. However, the princess, believing herself alone with her confidante: ...
— The Little Lame Prince - And: The Invisible Prince; Prince Cherry; The Prince With The Nose - The Frog-Prince; Clever Alice • Miss Mulock—Pseudonym of Maria Dinah Craik
... between them, even that sweet visionary offer of friendship he had made to her. No; she could not submit to be talked about by him, and the woman he loves! Oh, the bitter pang it costs her to say these words to herself! That he now loves Dora seems to her mind beyond dispute. Is she not his confidante, the one in whom he chooses to repose all ...
— The Haunted Chamber - A Novel • "The Duchess"
... brain whirling with a new plan, which she meant to put into execution at once, while Daisy strolled on through the grounds, choosing the less frequented paths. She wanted to be all alone by herself to have a good cry. Somehow she felt so much better for having made a partial confidante ...
— Daisy Brooks - A Perilous Love • Laura Jean Libbey
... asked no more, for tell-tale colour had arisen in Magdalen's cheeks; and she had been the confidante of an engagement with a certain Henry Merrifield, who had been employed in the bank at Filsted when Magdalen was a very young girl. His father had come down suddenly, had found debt and dissipation, had broken all off decidedly, and no more had been heard of the ...
— Modern Broods • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... Government department. The poor fellow had a good handwriting —this, indeed, deteriorated later. Through his parents' influence, it was thought he might ultimately attain a moderate competency. Perhaps Laure, the favourite sister and early confidante of the novelist, may have used persuasion at this juncture with her father and mother. At any rate, as the issue of a great deal of lively discussion, the parents agreed to let Honore make a two years' experiment as a free lance in the ranks of the book-writing ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton
... wellwisher. favorer, fautor[obs3], patron, Mecaenas; tutelary saint, good genius, advocate, partisan, sympathizer; ally; friend in need &c. (auxiliary) 711. comrade, mate, companion, familiar, confrere, comrade, camarade[obs3], confidante, intimate; old crony, crony; chum; pal; buddy, bosom buddy; playfellow, playmate, childhood friend; bedfellow, bedmate; chamber fellow. associate, colleague, compeer. schoolmate, schoolfellow[obs3]; classfellow[obs3], classman[obs3], classmate; roommate; fellow-man, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... affectionate, and much of analogy to the temper of a people in which the imagination predominates, and which still preserves many traits of the knightly spirit of its progenitors. Mary is, in the estimation of Spaniards, a tender mother, the confidante of all their woes, and the support of all their hopes. In their prayers to her, they are prodigal of the most expressive epithets of endearment and admiration. They call her the spouse of the Holy Spirit, the door of heaven, the star of the morning, the tower of David, the tower ...
— Roman Catholicism in Spain • Anonymous
... been a sudden blaze of golden light, then a rift, through which she caught a brief flash of heaven. Her vague longings suddenly cohered. She was to be solitary no longer. She was to have a companion, a friend,—perhaps a confidante, a person to whom she might speak out her inmost soul. She had never thought that she should wish to open her reserve to anyone, but in ...
— The Californians • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... stared for some time. Then he remembered his letter. He drew it from his pocket and opened it. It was very thick; and when he pulled it out of the envelope the first thing he saw was the smiling face of his sister Jessie, his twin sister, his playmate and comrade, his confidante from the cradle. The loss of her ever-willing sympathy had been almost more to him than all the ...
— Good Cheer Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... thy pardon, Ta-meri. What right had I to weight thee with my cares! It was selfish, and yet—thou art so inviting a confidante, that it is not wholly my fault if I come to seek of thee, my oldest and sweetest friend, the woman comfort that was bereft me with my ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... thing," said he. "But it's the proper course for dearest friends to adopt toward each other. For the maintenance of a firm friendship between any two persons, only one should confide; the other should be strictly the confidante. By the way, I wonder what is the average duration of the dearest friendship ...
— Phyllis of Philistia • Frank Frankfort Moore
... ability, efficiency and flashes of common sense. Then she became enamored of a younger woman, a class-mate—her heart was empty and hungry for the love which means so much to woman's life. Unhappily, she overheard her unfaithful loved one comment to a confidante: "It makes me sick to be kissed by Clara Denny." Another damaging shock, followed by another series of bad attacks—the old spells, chills and internal revolutions had returned. She rapidly became useless and a burden. The school-doctor sent ...
— Our Nervous Friends - Illustrating the Mastery of Nervousness • Robert S. Carroll
... possessed one of the softest and most impressionable hearts which ever fell to the lot of a mature maiden of forty-five. She had suffered from no less than six different attachments during her life (she made me her confidante), and most unfortunately they had never been to the right individual, for they were not returned. But poor Miss Jess cherished no malice; she freely forgave them their insensibility. Indeed, she had not the heart to kill a fly. Every beggar imposed on her, ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... that it was a very comical idea for a woman who was his elder, with whom for a decade and a half he had lived on terms of wholly unobjectionable friendship, and whom he had often unhesitatingly made the confidante of his love-affairs, suddenly to wish him to marry her. To return after the lapse of fifteen years to a dish which he had once tasted with the eagerness of a greedy boy! This was not to be expected. Love permits ...
— How Women Love - (Soul Analysis) • Max Simon Nordau
... thy charmer e'er an aunt? Then learn the rules of woman's cant, And forge a tale, and swear you read it, Such as, save woman, none would credit Win o'er her confidante and pages By gold, for this a golden age is; And should it be her wayward fate, To be encumbered with a mate, A dull, old dotard should he be, That dulness claims thy courtesy. ...
— The Memoirs of Count Grammont, Complete • Anthony Hamilton
... courtly grace and deference in which he was an adept, and her princely fortune was absolutely his. "There was much cause for gratitude on both sides," said O'Connell. And there is no doubt that Disraeli's wife proved the firmest friend he ever had. For many years she was his sole confidante and best adviser. She attended him everywhere and relieved him of many burdens. That true incident of her fingers being crushed by the careless slamming of the carriage-door, and her hiding the bleeding members in her muff, and ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... larger than herself; and as she was no less pert than she was pretty, she may be said to have given rather better than she took. I cannot tell why (unless it were for the sake of her saucy eyes), but I made her my confidante, told her I was attached to a young lady in Scotland, and received the encouragement of her sympathy, mingled and connected with a fair amount of rustic wit. While I slept the down-mail stopped for supper; it chanced that one of the passengers ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... very glad to be informed of a right method, or whether there is such a thing alone, but am afraid to ask the question. It may be reasonably called presumption in a girl to have her thoughts that way. You are the only creature that I have made my confidante in that case: I'll assure you, I call it the greatest secret of my life. Adieu, my dear, the post stays, ...
— Lady Mary Wortley Montague - Her Life and Letters (1689-1762) • Lewis Melville
... whom she did not love, and who apparently used her with brutal harshness. The Lady Warriston accused her husband of having struck her several blows, besides biting her in the arm; and conspired with her nurse, Janet Murdo, to murder him. The confidante, inspired by that half-savage attachment which in those days animated the connexion between the foster-child and the nurse, entered into all the injuries of which her dalt (i.e. foster daughter) complained, encouraged her in her fatal purpose, and promised ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, No. - 482, March 26, 1831 • Various
... therefore, for Clarissa, her confidante, for the purpose of sending it to the Rue Laffitte. But, instead of Clarissa, one of the housemaids ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau
... been more sympathetic than she. She was the virtual mother of the family, who loved children, and she was not—she could not be—a husband-hunter; a sensible man in domestic difficulties could not have sought a wiser confidante. Yet he resisted stubbornly all her gentle invitations to confide. In the first place, he did not want to go with her in the pony-carriage, while Deb and Dalzell rode. He did not like to see it taken for granted, as it seemed to be by all, that a sailor on horseback ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... she did not care much for any of these preparations, which were to hurry her through the happy hours; she cared least of all for the money amount of dowry and of substance. It jarred on her to be made the confidante of occasional slight repinings of Michael's, as one by one his future father-in-law set aside a beast or a pig for Susan's portion, which were not always the best animals of their kind upon the farm. But he also complained of his own father's stinginess, which somewhat, though ...
— Half a Life-Time Ago • Elizabeth Gaskell
... labor was new to him; but he never shirked nor complained. Moreover he was treated kindly, he had plenty to eat, and he shared in whatever diversions the family could afford. Then, too, he had his mother to comfort him, to cheer him, to sympathize with him, and to be, ever more and more, his confidante and companion. ...
— The Flag • Homer Greene
... small, bright-eyed lady of indefatigable activity in sacrificing herself for the good of others.... In her trig person she embodied the several functions of housekeeper, nurse, confidante, missionary, parish-clerk, queen of the poultry-yard, and genealogist."—Constance Cary Harrison, ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... intervals of domestic drudgery, began to write a drama, which she finished after she went to London. It was of high-sounding title, for it was called, "Antiochus the Great; or, the Fatal Relapse." Who relapsed so fatally—whether Antiochus with his confidant, or his wife with her confidante, or Ptolemy Pater with his confidant, or Epiphanes with his confidant—is more than I can tell. Indeed, I am not sure that I know which Antiochus was honored by Mrs. Wiseman's Muse. Whether it was ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various
... gentleman had been always friendly. He had been my father's physician, and had been his friend and frequent guest; he knew my history, and sympathized with my fortunes. He now know the history of Julia's affections. She had made him her confidante so far, and he brought me a letter from her. She was sick, as I expected. This letter was ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms
... know how many men will be made wretched when I get married," said the languishing coquette to her most intimate confidante. ...
— Jokes For All Occasions - Selected and Edited by One of America's Foremost Public Speakers • Anonymous
... in all their lives in which the half-savage, half-childish, altogether shrewd and competent negress had not figured after some fashion or other: as foster parent, as unofficial but none the less capable guardian, as confidante, as overseer, as dictator, as tirewoman who never tired of well-doing, as arbiter of big things and little—all these roles, and more, too, she had played to them, not ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... where the old King and Queen remain, while Calaf proceeds to China, where he engages in an intellectual contest with Princess Tourandocte (Turandot, i.e. Turandokht or Turan's daughter). When Turandot is on the point of defeat, she sends her confidante, a captive princess, to Calaf, to worm out his secret (his own name). The confidante, who is herself in love with Calaf, horrifies him with the invention that Turandot intends to have him secretly assassinated; but although he drops his name in his consternation, ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... now did Julian pour his thoughts that way; if only hoping to forget murder in another strong excitement. Julian listened to his mother's counsels; and that silly, cheated woman playfully would lean upon his arm, like a huge, coy confidante, and fill his greedy ears (that heard her gladly for very holiday's sake from fearful apprehensions), with lover's hopes, lover's themes, his Emily's perfection. Delighted mother—how proud and pleased was she! quite in her own element, fanning dear Julian's most sentimental flame, ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... and could rough it. It was she herself whose loss would be irreparable. She sighed; he would soon forget her. He vowed undying remembrance by all his gods. Some beautiful creature of the theatre would carry him off. He laughed at such an absurdity. Jane would always be his confidante, his intimate. Even though they lived under different roofs, they would meet and have their long happy jaunts together. Jane said dolefully that it could only be on Sundays, as their respective working hours ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... their hearts will have many mysteries to which we can never have the key. But, in more than the ordinary sense of the word, Caroline Montfort never had been a woman uncomprehended. Nor even in her own sex did she possess one confidante. Only the outward leaves of that beautiful flower opened to the sunlight. The leaves round the core were gathered fold upon fold closely as when life itself was in ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... news for me! I need a girl friend very badly, Count; these proposals lose half their fun with only Ri to tell them to. I intend to make a confidante of ...
— Count Bunker • J. Storer Clouston
... to Jack Delancy that he should have such a clever woman as Carmen for his confidante, a man so powerful as Henderson as his backer, and a person so omniscient as Mavick for his friend. No combination could be more desirable for a young man who proposed to himself a career of getting money by adroit management and spending it in pure and simple self-indulgence. There are plenty ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... she grew older, had developed her mother's craving for a confidante, and Madame de Trezac had succeeded in that capacity to Mabel ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... grisly story. To the rest, these poor bones might indeed bear mute witness to a tragedy, but a tragedy lacking outlines, vague, impersonal, without poignancy. To me, they told with dreadful clearness the last sad chapter of the tale of Peter, Peter who had made me so intimately his confidante, whose love and hopes and solitary strivings I knew all about. Struck down in the moment of his triumph by a great stupid lump of soulless stone, by a blind, relentless mechanism which had been at work from the beginning, timing that rock to fall—just then. Not the moment before, not ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon
... Captain Broome knew of Jim's exact whereabouts. He was certainly not a confidante in regard to his plans and had no direct means of knowing that James was on his way West. The explanation is simple enough. The news of the train robbery or rather the attempt at it was telegraphed to San Francisco and printed in ...
— Frontier Boys in Frisco • Wyn Roosevelt
... peeped in to see her sleeping peacefully when the hard hour was over, and been the first to greet her with a tap on the window-pane as she woke full of new hope in the morning. It seemed to know all her moods and troubles, to be her friend and confidante, and now came with help like a fairy godmother when our Cinderella wanted to be ...
— A Garland for Girls • Louisa May Alcott
... eyes, set my hands shaking, and made my heart leap as at the sound of a cry of sharp agony. In the pages which he had written during the night—the writing showed how deeply he was moved—the husband, hitherto so self-restrained, acknowledged to his sister, his kind and faithful confidante, that he was jealous. He was jealous, and of whom? Of that very man who was destined to fill his place at our fireside, to give a new name to her who had been Madame Cornelis; of the man with cat-like ways, with pale eyes, whom my childish instinct had taught me to regard with so precocious ...
— Stories of Modern French Novels • Julian Hawthorne
... inaccurate," the Prince objected, with a sudden flash of his white teeth. "The beauty which is not for him has been many a man's undoing. But seriously, my quarrel with Naida is one of prejudice only. She is the confidante and the inspiration of Matinsky, and though one realises, of course, that so long as there is a Russian Republic there must be a Russian President, I suppose I should scarcely be human if I did ...
— The Great Prince Shan • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... during the summer Winthrop gallantly rowed from the quay, with the naive and blithe Beatrice in her jaunty yachting suit, but no coquetry shone from the depths of her azure eyes. Little Less, their jocund confidante and courier (and who was as sagacious as a spaniel), always attended them on these occasions, and whene'er they rambled through the woodland paths. While the band played strains from Beethoven Mendelssohn, Bach and others, they promenaded the long ...
— 1001 Questions and Answers on Orthography and Reading • B. A. Hathaway
... the rank due to my husband. The world need suspect nothing. There is no obligation to make it your confidante. If any one were wronged by the usurpation of the name you took it would be otherwise, but as it is you will lose nothing in the eyes of men; Society will not flatter you the less. The world will only believe that we are tired of one another, like so many. The blame ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... now have given for a mother, a reliable, faithful confidante! But she had none; and Wolf, on whose unselfish love she could depend, was the last person whom she could initiate into ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... dizzily, she saw the two arise. She saw the man she loved clasp Lucille's other hand. She saw the girl who had been her friend and confidante since childhood draw herself away from him with a lingering withdrawal that could mean—ah, what could it not mean? Polly fled to ...
— The Perils of Pauline • Charles Goddard
... when once regarded as a belonging—a necessity, not a choice; for it was quite true that there was no harm in him, and a great deal of good nature. His constant kindness, and evident liking for Margaret, stood him in good stead; he made her a sort of confidante, bestowing on her his immeasurable appreciation of Flora's perfections, and telling her how well he was getting on with "the old gentleman"—a name under which she failed to recognise ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... moment—till I fancied the admiral was opening his mouth; like a fish in despair, to make his confession. He had not even dared to make a confidante of his wife in such an awful dilemma. Then I pretended to have dropped my table-napkin behind my chair, and rising to seek it, stole round behind my uncle, ...
— Stephen Archer and Other Tales • George MacDonald
... As a confidante aunt Helen was the pink of perfection—tactful and sympathetic. My feather-brained chatter must often have bored her, but she apparently was ever interested ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... disturbance; had seen the people applaud the officers of the municipal government, and insult the representatives of royal authority. He described the scene in his letter to his father. The Marquis, at the solicitation of Dolores, read her Philip's letter and made her the confidante of his fears. She understood now why Philip's return had been postponed. After this, she took a deep interest in the progress of events not so much on account of their gravity, which she did not comprehend as clearly as her adopted ...
— Which? - or, Between Two Women • Ernest Daudet
... indisposed fair-one. Dorcas made officious excuses for her. I cursed the wench in her hearing for her impertinence; and stamped and made a clutter; which was improved into an apprehension to the lady that I would have flung her faithful confidante from the top of ...
— Clarissa, Volume 6 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... been the walk with Laura Wykoff, Constance would not have hesitated a moment, but her heart almost ached with suspense to know from Theodore the result of his interview with her father. He had promised to leave a note for her with Laura, who was their mutual confidante. The mother, of course, noticed an air of regret at her disappointment, ...
— The Lights and Shadows of Real Life • T.S. Arthur
... trying to restrict every unnecessary expense, it was sometimes difficult to find work for three women. Many and many a time Ruth turned over in her mind every possible chance of obtaining employment for her leisure hours, and nowhere could she find it. Now and then Sally, who was her confidante in this wish, procured her some needlework, but it was of a coarse and common kind, soon done, lightly paid for. But whatever it was, Ruth took it, and was thankful, although it added but a few pence to the household purse. I do not mean that ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... a bad girl," asserted Mrs. Blackwell vehemently. "She was a good girl. I don't believe there was much, in fact anything important, on which she did not make me her confidante. Yes, she was ambitious. So am I. I have always hoped that Betty would bring our family—her younger sister—back to the station where we were before the panic wiped out our fortune and killed ...
— The Ear in the Wall • Arthur B. Reeve
... own native softness and elegance, but are at once the cause and the excuse of her subsequent conduct. She trembles before her stern mother and her violent father: but, like a petted child, alternately cajoles and commands her nurse. It is her old foster-mother who is the confidante of her love. It is the woman who cherished her infancy, who aids and abets her in her clandestine marriage. Do we not perceive how immediately our impression of Juliet's character would have been lowered, if Shakspeare had placed ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... Lady Ogram had held private colloquy with her guest from the brilliant world, a conversation more intimate on her part than any that had ever passed between them. Such expansion was absolutely necessary to the agitated old lady, and she deemed it good fortune that a confidante in whom she put so much trust chanced to be near her. Speaking of Lashmar, she mentioned his acquaintance with Lord Dymchurch, and inquired whether Mrs. Toplady knew that ...
— Our Friend the Charlatan • George Gissing
... blacken every action, and to add to the weight of every misdeed, and all for the sake of detailing her discoveries in exchange for similar information with Mrs. Appleton, or some equally suitable confidante.' ...
— Scenes and Characters • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the backslidings of her vicious life, and exhorted her to reformation and repentance. This continual triumph lasted for many months, till at length, a quarrel happening between the mother and the gossip at whose house she used to give the rendezvous to her admirers, that incensed confidante, in the precipitation of her anger, promulgated the history of those secret meetings; and, among the rest, her interviews with Fathom ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... lace; she wore diamonds in her hair, and carried a bouquet of white lilies in her hand. She was the belle of the ball, and it was Mrs. Chester who introduced Lord Chandos to her. She was quite innocent of any intrigue, but had she been the chosen confidante of Lady Lanswell, she could not have done more to further her views. She had been dancing with Lord Chandos herself, and began to speak to ...
— A Mad Love • Bertha M. Clay
... evade every allusion to the past; and the poor girl, beginning to overcome her fears, ended at length in making her her friend, her confidante. She told her everything, and was fully ...
— Tales for Young and Old • Various
... least as much impression on his work as Gibbon's equally famous connection with the Hampshire Militia on his. His friendships continued and multiplied; and he began with the sisters of some of his friends, especially Miss Cranstoun (his chief confidante in the 'Green Mantle' business) and Miss Erskine, the first, or the first known to us, of those interesting correspondences with ladies which show him perhaps at his very best. For in them he plays neither jack-pudding, ...
— Sir Walter Scott - Famous Scots Series • George Saintsbury
... expect otherwise," said he, "with Louis the Fourteenth for king and Louvois for his minister, and Pere la Chaise for his confessor, and Madame de Maintenon for his confidante and adviser? A storm is gathering overhead, but never mind—there is a heaven higher than all." These words checked us; but youthful spirits soon rise, and the impression did not last long. I now seemed walking on air, for I loved and was ...
— Jacques Bonneval • Anne Manning
... had breakfasted and walked out in the fields, before Delia appeared. She had scarcely begun her morning repast, ere Miss Fletcher, the favourite companion and confidante of Delia, entered the room. "My dearest creature," cried the visitor, "how do you do? Had not we not a most charming evening? I vow I was fatigued to death: and then, lord Martin, I think he never appeared to so much advantage. Why ...
— Damon and Delia - A Tale • William Godwin
... could have made any one a full confidante such might have been Flora, but to do so was not in her nature. She could trust without stint. Distrust, as we know, was intolerable to her. She could not doubt her friends, but neither could she unveil her soul. Nevertheless, more than once, as the two exchanged—in a purely academical ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... treating her as a confidante, as a devoted daughter, one of the family, to whom she could tell everything. She began by questioning her; she wished to know if Dr. Ramond had come that morning. He had come, but they had talked only about indifferent matters. This put her in despair, ...
— Doctor Pascal • Emile Zola
... circumstances. Welcome, Vikings and Norsemen! Blow, northern blasts, the invaders' keels to Scotland's shore! Randolph and other heroes will be on the beach to give the foemen a welcome! His lordship has no sooner disappeared behind the trees of the forest, but Lady Randolph begins to explain to her confidante the circumstances of her early life. The fact was, she had made a private marriage, and what would the confidante say, if, in early youth, she, Lady Randolph, had lost a husband? In the cold bosom of the earth was lodged the husband of her youth, and in some cavern ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... burden of her years, and an aged person's need of tranquillity, could never endure the constant noise and movement of a child. And then, the little girl's presence in the house would cause idle gossip and set the whole street agog: people would say she was her child. Germinie made a confidante of her mistress. Mademoiselle de Varandeuil knew the whole story. She knew that she had taken charge of her niece, although she had pretended not to know it; she had chosen to see nothing in order to permit ...
— Germinie Lacerteux • Edmond and Jules de Goncourt
... said Miss Laniston. "Why don't you make me your confidante? In that case, I might decide whether or not it would be proper to give you ...
— The House of Martha • Frank R. Stockton
... John, smiling; but seeing that a mirthful even though a loving answer was not what she wanted, he gravely said, 'I do understand, dearest, that you have had to be too much of an authority to be altogether the companion and confidante that Geraldine is free to be, but perhaps I feel that this renders you more ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... not at all disposed to make a confidante of any of her pupils, particularly of a girl who was not yet sixteen, and much preferred to preserve business-like relations and confine her conversation to school topics, than to give any details of her private life. She made ...
— Monitress Merle • Angela Brazil
... in her? Oh! Eros, I beseech thee, have mercy and make her share my couch. Words cannot express the tortures I am suffering. Oh! my adored one, I adjure you, open your door for me and press me to your heart; 'tis for you that I am suffering. Oh! my jewel, my idol, you child of Aphrodit, the confidante of the Muses, the sister of the Graces, you living picture of Voluptuousness, oh! open for me, press me to your heart, 'tis for you that I ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... not so far from his own, just across a green meadow by way of a footpath and stile and through the firs beyond it. How often he had traversed that path in the old days, knowing that Joyce would be waiting at the end of it among the firs—Joyce, the playmate of childhood, the sweet confidante and companion of youth! They had never been avowed lovers, but he had loved her then, as a boy loves, although he had never said a word of love to her. Joyce alone knew of his longings and his ambitions and his dreams; he had told them all to her freely, sure of the understanding and sympathy ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1905 to 1906 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... that his majesty wished things to remain just as they were, and desired that until a new order of things nothing should be altered. "I am sorry for it, monsieur le marechal," I replied. "Whilst I am in this precarious situation, whilst I remain in a corner of the stage as a confidante of tragedy, I can do nothing for my friends, particularly for you, monsieur le marechal." "On the contrary, madame," he replied, "the king will be more disposed to listen to you whilst he will suppose that your influence is unknown." ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... words he wished to speak rose to his lips, for the longing to make her his confidante over the Jacobite difficulty was intense. But somehow at the critical moments he either shrank from fear of causing her trouble and anxiety, or else felt that he ought not to run the risk of bringing Andrew into trouble after what had ...
— In Honour's Cause - A Tale of the Days of George the First • George Manville Fenn
... which met at Clichy, on the outskirts of Paris. That their intrigues aimed at the restoration of the Bourbons had recently been proved. The French agents in Venice seized the Comte d'Entraigues, the confidante of the soi-disant Louis XVIII.; and his papers, when opened by Bonaparte, Clarke, and Berthier at Montebello, proved that there was a conspiracy in France for the recall of the Bourbons. With characteristic skill, Bonaparte held back these papers from the Directory ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... Max, "I am about to tell you a long story. It may not be as interesting to you as it is to me; but you are not to interrupt me. And, dear mother," he said, turning to her with a loving look, "you must not feel hurt that I did not make you my confidante, long ere this, of the events I am about to detail; I did not really know myself how they were going to end—I never knew ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly
... her most dearly beloved friend during those happy college days, her confidante and model, said to one who recalled Margaret Lee and spoke of her as "a great disappointment, ...
— Holiday Stories for Young People • Various
... The confidante of the young PRINCESS calls forth three dancers under the name of pantomimists; that is, men who express all sorts of things by their movements. The PRINCESS sees them dance, and receives them into ...
— The Magnificent Lovers (Les Amants magnifiques) • Moliere
... face lighted up with joy at the compliment. For some time she had felt, without knowing what it was that she felt, the need of a confidante—some one with a fellow-feeling to whom ...
— The Hindered Hand - or, The Reign of the Repressionist • Sutton E. Griggs
... also our confidante. I hate to think of the number of things Carrie knows. Prowling into our lines while we are talking, as she does, in search of connections to take down, she overhears enough gossip to turn Homeburg into a hotbed ...
— Homeburg Memories • George Helgesen Fitch
... and children looked remarkably well, she relapsed into gloomy silence, scarcely listening to Marianne, who thanked her for having come. Thereupon it occurred to Mathieu to leave her with his wife. To him it seemed that she must have something on her mind, and perhaps she wished to make a confidante ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola
... he had made a friend and confidante, made the greatest difficulties over accepting any gift ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... eternal rehearsal, Isabelle invented an absorbing game. She rewrote the play, in innumerable ways, with the plot revolving around Mary as the central figure. Mary was now the friend and adviser of Mrs. Horton, now the trusted confidante of Mr. Horton. But whichever she was, she was a noble, sublimated creature—no possible relation to Mary, the automatic servant. She had long, beautiful speeches, interesting and unusual stage business; she wore a striking maid's costume, ...
— The Cricket • Marjorie Cooke
... stories, without caring in the slightest degree whether a woman's ear is within reach of their voices. Yesterday, on the beach, I was forced to leave the place where I was sitting in order not to be any longer the involuntary confidante of an obscene anecdote, told in such immodest language that I felt just as humiliated as indignant at having heard it. Would not the most elementary good-breeding teach them to speak in a lower tone about such matters when we are near at hand. Etretat ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... not, make a confidante even of her mother in this matter, but Mrs. Fellowes had a remarkable faculty for striking human averages, and she got near the ...
— Bulldog And Butterfly - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray
... Strange confidante had I chosen for my secret! Strange ear into which I had poured the tale of my love! Oh that I had not made my confession! What suffering had I caused this ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid
... profane the term. Yes, my Angelina, you are right—every fibre of my frame, every energy of my intellect, tells me so. I read your letter by moonlight! The air balmy and pure as my Angelina's thoughts! The river silently meandering!—The rocks!—The woods!—Nature in all her majesty. Sublime confidante! Sympathizing with my supreme felicity. And shall I confess to you, friend of my soul! that I could not refuse myself the pleasure of reading to my Orlando some of those passages in your last, which evince so powerfully the superiority of that understanding, which, ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... in any one; if I could find a friend and guide in the princess! But my attachment to her is too respectful to be tender and confiding; then she says, perhaps by chance, words which destroy my desire to make a confidante of her. She blames the prince's character, and pities the woman who would bind herself to him.... The palatine gives me no assistance; he doubtless believes my virtue is strong enough to suffice ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol IV, Issue VI, December 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... and was leaving no stone unturned in order to achieve that object. A marriage with Arthyn would give him the hold he wanted upon a very large estate. But indifferent as he was to the feelings of the lady, he was wise enough to see that whilst she remained in her present mood, and was the confidante and friend of the princesses, he should not gain the king's consent to prosecuting his nuptials by force, as he would gladly have done. Whereupon a new scheme had entered his busy brain, as a second string to his bow, and with the ...
— The Lord of Dynevor • Evelyn Everett-Green
... taken our seats, when through another door came Mistress Jean and Mistress Nancy Nicholson, her bosom friend and confidante, with their arms around each other's ...
— The Tory Maid • Herbert Baird Stimpson
... passionate attachment to her scamp of a lover, and her wild imprudences, and her mad artifices, and her insane fidelity, and her furious jealousy regarding her husband (though she loathed and cheated him), and her prodigious falsehoods; and the confidante, of course, into whose hands the letters are slipped; and there is Lothario, finally, than whom, as I have said, one can't imagine a more handsome, ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... is to be my nearest confidante!" exclaimed Donna Yioletta, after studying the artful and demure countenance of the girl, a moment, with a dislike she did ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper
... very speedily discovered her son's secret; for he had taken little pains to conceal his feelings from the indulgent mother who had been his confidante ever since his first boyish loves at a Clapham seminary, within whose sacred walls he had been admitted on Tuesdays and Fridays to learn dancing in the delightful ...
— Henry Dunbar - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... observed that her features, although not what would be called handsome, were of a decidedly intellectual cast. Her eyes were very attractive, being dark blue, and filled with fire. She had a broad, honest face, which would cause one in distress instinctively to select her as a confidante, in whom to confide in time of sorrow, or from whom to seek consolation. She seemed possessed of the masculine attributes of firmness and decision, but to have brought all her faculties under ...
— The Expressman and the Detective • Allan Pinkerton
... situation she was sometimes obliged to do, though trembling at what she knew she was to undergo, the Prince always stepped up to her, and whispered some very harsh reproach in her ear. Mrs. Howard was the intimate friend of Miss Bellenden; had been the confidante of the Prince's passion; and, on Mrs. Campbell's eclipse, succeeded to her friend's post of favourite, ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... in 1710 it had become obvious that the Whig Ministry of Sidney Godolphin was unable or unwilling to negotiate an end to the long, expensive, and consequently, unpopular war with France. The quarrel between Queen Anne and her confidante, the Duchess of Marlborough, smouldered until, on 6 April 1710, the breach between them became final. The Queen's confidence in the Duke of Marlborough began to erode as early as May 1709 when he sought to be appointed ...
— Atalantis Major • Daniel Defoe
... comfortable when Archie is in it," Susie would grumble to her favorite confidante, Grace. "Every one is obliged to be on their best behavior; and yet mother finds fault from morning to night. Dottie is crying now because she has been scolded for coming down to tea in ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... how he had come to make a confidante of Miss Cavendish. Helen and he had met her when they first arrived in London, and as she had acted for a season in the United States, she adopted the two Americans—and told Helen where to go for boots and hats, and advised Carroll about placing his plays. Helen soon made other friends, and deserted ...
— The Exiles and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... undaunted Fanny, "I have heard that love is blind, but I did not know that it was true of maternal love. Mr. Dinks's mother is not his confidante, then, ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis
... independent as she was, she had received that sound training in the conventions from which the mind never wholly recovers. She registered a vow then and there that she would become his friend of friends, the woman to whom he came for all his pleasant hours, in time his confidante. She would devote her thought to the making of herself into the companion he most needed and desired; and she would conceal her love lest he conceive it his duty to avoid her. She wondered if she had ...
— Senator North • Gertrude Atherton
... shall all be surprised a good many times yet?" Then he moved a little closer to the small person, who was becoming everybody's confidante. "Do you mind telling me something—if you know it?" he said, lowering ...
— Helena • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... expressed with so much fervour, and one almost immediately gratified. Probably no one ever gave a more spirited version of Buerger's ballad than Scott has given; but the use to which Miss Cranstoun, a friend and confidante of his love for Miss Stuart Belches, strove to turn it, by getting it printed, blazoned, and richly bound, and presenting it to the young lady as a proof of her admirer's abilities, was perhaps hardly very sagacious. It is quite possible, at least, ...
— Sir Walter Scott - (English Men of Letters Series) • Richard H. Hutton
... little speech with peculiar precision, as though she had learned it by heart; then she turned to Arkady. It appeared that her mother had known Arkady's mother, and had even been her confidante in her love for Nikolai Petrovitch. Arkady began talking with great warmth of his dead mother; while Bazarov fell to turning over albums. 'What a tame cat I'm getting!' he was ...
— Fathers and Children • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... to ride beside Cousin Marguerite to-morrow, for I will get in first," whispered a younger lad to his confidante— Jennie. ...
— Marguerite Verne • Agatha Armour
... schoolmates. When one day he went home with this friend, he met Mrs. Stanard, a lovely, gentle, and gracious woman, was thrilled by the tenderness of her tones and her sympathetic manner toward him, and immediately made her his boyhood friend and confidante. To his great grief, however, she died not very long afterward. When she was gone he visited her grave time after time, and in after years when he was unhappy he often thought ...
— Four Famous American Writers: Washington Irving, Edgar Allan Poe, • Sherwin Cody
... but just to say, was due to his higher qualities and superior character. The term favorite, as a definition of relationship between a despot and a dependent, is historically cloudy; wherefore it is in this instance of unfair application. Intimate or confidante is much more exactly descriptive. But be that as it may, the good understanding between the Emperor and his Grand Chamberlain was amply sufficient to provoke the jealousy of many of the latter's colleagues, of whom Duke Notaras, Grand Admiral, and ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... Antonona made herself the confidante of Pepita; and Pepita found great consolation in unburdening her heart to one who, though she might be cross and vulgar in the frankness with which she expressed her sentiments, was not so either in the sentiments or ...
— Pepita Ximenez • Juan Valera
... but not too vivacious. He approved deeply the delicacy with which she ignored that last wild interview. She was sister, she was friend—and she had the rare merit of seeming to forget that she had been confidante. ...
— The Incomplete Amorist • E. Nesbit
... her friends when she had asserted that her uncle had known all Trenholme's affairs. She had not the slightest doubt now, looking back, that he had known—a thousand small things testified to it; but he had not made a confidante of her, his niece, and she knew that that would be the inference drawn from her assertion. She knew, too, that the reason her uncle, who had died soon after, had not told her was that he never dreamed that then or afterwards she would come into intimate relationship with his protege. ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... it is Mrs Newing's cooking,' said Camilla to her confidante, Bessie. 'At home we could always get some nice little thing; mother is so clever in that way, with father having been so long ill. But here it would be impossible to try to ...
— Robin Redbreast - A Story for Girls • Mary Louisa Molesworth
... responded tersely. "He is to be congratulated on his fortunate choice of a confidante. When he told you of our visit to the empty house, close ...
— The Fifth Ace • Douglas Grant
... highest bidder, mix cheek by jowl, and apparently unrebuked, with the modest maidens, the virtuous matrons, the faithful lovers of the piece. Shakespere never does this. Mrs. Quickly is indeed at one time the confidante of Anne Fenton, and at another the complaisant hostess of Doll Tear-sheet, but not in the same play. We do not find Marina's master and mistress rewarded, as they would very likely have been by Fletcher or Middleton, with comfortable ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... guessed— Raised from the toilet to the table, where Her wondering betters wait behind her chair. With eye unmoved and forehead unabashed, She dines from off the plate she lately washed: Quick with the tale, and ready with the lie, The genial confidante and general spy,— Who could, ye gods! her next employment guess,— An only infant's earliest governess! What had she made the pupil of her art None knows; but that high soul secured the heart, And panted for the truth it could not hear With ...
— Lady Byron Vindicated • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... interrupted, and when Miss Cox went home the drummer escorted her. Emeline had left the parental roof some two years before; she was rooming, now, with a mild and virtuous girl named Regina Lynch, in Howard Street. Regina was the sort of girl frequently selected by a girl of Emeline's type for confidante and companion: timid, conventional, always ready to laugh and admire. Regina consented to go to dinner with Emeline and Mr. Page, and as she later refused to go to the theatre, Emeline would not go either; they ...
— The Story Of Julia Page - Works of Kathleen Norris, Volume V. • Kathleen Norris
... she generally found them unsympathetic, and incapable of the finest type of intimacy. They did not seem to know what the word devotion meant. Men did, especially young men, though the older ones talked more about it. Estelle had already seen herself after marriage as a confidante to Winn's young brother officers. She would help them as only a good woman can. (She foresaw particularly how she would help to extricate them from the influences of bad women. It was extraordinary how many women who influenced men at all were bad!) Estelle never had ...
— The Dark Tower • Phyllis Bottome
... I ventured to make my beloved sister the confidante of my joy, and then only after she had promised not to tell any one of my soul secret. When our dear mother came home a fortnight later, I was the first to meet her at the door, and to tell her I had such glad news to give. I can almost feel that dear mother's arms around my neck, as she pressed ...
— A Retrospect • James Hudson Taylor
... babyhood she had been her father's companion and confidante, driving about the country with him, interested in all that concerned his large practice. A warm-hearted, impulsive man, open handed to the point of extravagance, Dr. Fair had had few enemies and many friends; and loving his work, life had been full ...
— Mr. Pat's Little Girl - A Story of the Arden Foresters • Mary F. Leonard
... sadness, your joys, I have not the right to know them." She turned toward him a glance almost harsh. "You do not think that I shall take you for a confidante, do you?" ...
— The Red Lily, Complete • Anatole France
... circumstances warranted her in recognizing in him the possible lover of some waiting fair one, and it was notorious that she reprobated as worse than useless—positively demoralizing, in fact—such friendships between young persons of opposite sexes as held out no earnest of prospective betrothal, she was confidante-general to half the girls in the county, and a standing advisory committee of one upon all points relative to their associations with the beaux of the region. The latter, on their side, paid their court to the worthy and influential widow as punctiliously, if not so heartily, ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... that night not to tell Billie, her intimate confidante, what the Japanese had said to her. The walls were too thin, she thought. Besides, she was curious to know if Yoritomo would be on the bridge the next afternoon. Just how she intended to find this out, she ...
— The Motor Maids in Fair Japan • Katherine Stokes
... and in revenge killed Hamilton in a duel. He fled the Ohio River country and made active preparations to carry out some kind of a scheme. He probably intended to proceed against the Spanish possessions in the Southwest and Mexico, and set himself up as a ruler. He was betrayed by his confidante, Wilkinson, and was tried for treason and acquitted in ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XII. - Modern History • Arthur Mee
... middle of each cheek. She drew a long breath, as if to draw in courage. Then Clara had really seen! That smooth, blindish look of hers, last night, had seen everything! And here she was owning up to it, and affably offering herself as a confidante; and for what reason under the sun unless to find out what it was that had so startled Kerr? Flora felt like crying out, "If you only knew what that thing may be, you would never want to ...
— The Coast of Chance • Esther Chamberlain
... described as engagements, but that, none the less, invest their heroines with an atmosphere of respect, and provide hostesses with subjects of anxiety and interest. At an early age, Christian was promoted by her elder sister to the position of confidante, and justified the promotion by the happy mixture of sympathy and cynicism with which she received the confidences. She was now well versed in the brief passions that, beginning at the second or third dance of a regimental ball, would, like some night-flowering tropic ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... was any hope of a better day coming," he said to Aimee, who, through being the family sage, was, of course, the family confidante, "if there was only something real to look forward to, but we are just where we were three years ago, and this sort of thing cannot go on forever. What right have I to hold her to her word when other men might make ...
— Vagabondia - 1884 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... no one to ask, for Aunt Maria had not come until later, and even then, she did not talk to the children very much, so he had grown accustomed to thinking of these things just to himself. Tabitha was too young to be made his confidante in such matters; indeed, he could never tell her some things. They would only make her hate the austere father more than ever. So he sighed. This was the fifth time they had moved from one town to another since the ...
— Tabitha at Ivy Hall • Ruth Alberta Brown
... and appreciated each other. One kept nothing secret from the other, and they told each other their inmost thoughts. Leuillet now loved his wife with a calm trustful affection; he loved her as a tender, devoted partner, who is an equal and a confidante. But there still lingered in his soul a singular and unaccountable grudge against the deceased Souris, who had been the first to possess this woman, who had had the flower of her youth and of her soul, and who had even robbed her of ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant
... sorrow, I knew when I was a schoolboy. His mother had been deserted by a gentleman in the neighbourhood, she herself being a gentlewoman by birth. The circumstances of her story were told me by my dear old dame, Ann Tyson, who was her confidante. The lady died broken-hearted. In the woods of Alfoxden I used to take great delight in noticing the habits, tricks, and physiognomy of asses; and I have no doubt that I was thus put upon writing the poem out of liking for the creature that is often so dreadfully abused. The crescent moon, which ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. II. • William Wordsworth
... and he looked at her almost imploringly. A young man of his age is usually very ready to make a confidante of a married woman older than himself, yet young enough to sympathize with him in affairs of the heart. Houghton instinctively felt that the case might not be utterly hopeless if he could secure an ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe
... one night, in "The Gamester." On our return from the theater, as I was slowly and in considerable exhaustion following my father up the hotel stairs, as we reached the landing by our sitting-room, a door immediately opposite to it flew open, and a lady dressed like Tilburina's Confidante, all in white muslin, rushed out of it, and fell upon my father's breast, sobbing out hysterically, "Oh, Mr. Kembel, my deare, deare Mr. Kembel!" This was Madame Malibran, under the effect of my father's ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble |
