"Flounce" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... long London season closed, there was a rush of rank and fashion to the English watering-places, quite unparalleled in the 'recollection of the oldest inhabitants.' There were blooming widows in every stage of grief and woe, from the becoming cap to the fashionable corset and ball flounce—widows who would never forget the dear deceased, or think of any other man—unless he had at least five thousand a year. Lovely girls, who didn't care a farthing if the man was 'only handsome'; and smiling mammas 'egging them on,' who would look very different when they came to the horrid ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... rustle of silk by the door—Mrs. Polkington did not wear silk skirts, only a silk flounce somewhere, but she got more creak and rustle out of it than the average woman does out of two skirts. An imposing woman she was, with an eye that had once been described as "eagle," though, for that, it was a little inquiring ...
— The Good Comrade • Una L. Silberrad
... trying to eat with little success. Mr. Waverton's hat upon one chair, his whip upon another, and his cloak tumbled inelegantly over a third proved that he was not himself. For he was born to treat his clothes with respect. Mr. Waverton would be jumping up to look out of the window, flounce down again in his chair to drink wine and stare with profound meaning at the table, start up and stride to the hearth and glower down at its emptiness—and repeat the motions in a different order. He must be ...
— The Highwayman • H.C. Bailey
... and realized I was still clutching my basket, though all the mushrooms had fallen out, and my foot was through a torn flounce, and my hat hanging on my neck. My mouth was dry. For a moment I couldn't get a word off my tongue; and then, "He fell, he fell!" I said, ...
— The Other Side of the Door • Lucia Chamberlain
... said, with elegantly severe authority, "I will not have this talking over the work. Miss Toppings, this whole skirt is an unmitigated muddle. Head-tucks half an inch too near the bottom! No room for your flounce. If you can't keep to your measures, you'd better not undertake piece-work. Take that last welt out, and put it in over the top. And make no more blunders, if you please, unless you want to ...
— The Other Girls • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... One of our town, but later by an hour Here than ourselves, spoke with me on the shore; While you were running down the sands, and made The dimpled flounce of the sea-furbelow flap, Good man, to please the child. She brought strange news. Why were you silent when I spoke to-night? I had set my heart on your forgiving him Before you knew. We MUST forgive ...
— Enoch Arden, &c. • Alfred Tennyson
... loveliest aspects. The island of sand no longer seemed a dreary waste. Brighter rolled the blue waves of ocean beneath the golden beam; and sweeter murmured the billows on their sandy beach. My heart rejoiced with the playful fishes, as they leaped high wantoning in the air, or, with sudden flounce, returned again, wild darting through their lucid element. Our work went on in joy. The palmetto trees were brought to us by the blacks, in large rafts, of which we constructed, for our fort, an immense pen, two hundred feet long, and sixteen feet wide, filled with sand to stop the ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems
... nimble as her fingers. She used them both lightly. Would tear the flounce off her too lacy petticoat to bind up a messenger boy's cut finger, and no scarf-pin that came within three feet of her was immune from her quick touch. The only hour that ever struck for her was sex o'clock. The unmentionable lay mentioned in her discourse ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... went out and walked up and down the street. Here was a rude flounce into the pellucid sentimentality of his sad attachment to Sue. Though Arabella's word was absolutely untrustworthy, he thought there might be some truth in her implication that she had not wished to disturb him, and had really supposed him dead. However, there was only ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... should in these days, often in my greatest agonies, even flounce towards the promise (as the horses do towards sound ground, that yet stick in the mire); concluding (though as one almost bereft of his wits through fear) on this I will rest and stay, and leave the fulfilling of it to the God of heaven that made it. Oh! many a pull ...
— Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners • John Bunyan
... ride away, and then flounced, oh, men do flounce at times, in spirit, if not in deed; and there would be no lack of the deed if only they wore skirts that could rustle indignantly in sympathy with the wearer—to his room. Plainly, Hank did not swallow the excuse any more ...
— The Lure of the Dim Trails • by (AKA B. M. Sinclair) B. M. Bower
... For animals, too, have their tools, and man, in his visible flounces, has feathers enough to make even a peacock gape. Both my Philosophers have hit wide of the mark this time. And Man, to my way of thinking, is a flounce-wearing Spirit. Indeed, flounces alone, the invisible ones in particular, distinguish us from the beasts. For like ourselves they have their fashions in clothes; their peculiar speech; their own hidden means of intellection, and, to some extent, ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... a great deal of money," he said one morning in his condemnatory manner. Rosalie looked up from the lace flounce which had just been delivered and gave the little nervous laugh, which was ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... comfort. One room with dove-gray walls dotted with white, and all other furniture of white enamel, had mahogany chairs of severe simplicity of design, with backs and seats covered with rose-strewn cretonne which extended in a box-plaited flounce to the floor. This was the only touch of color, save a water color or two, in a room overflowing with restfulness and that "charm which lulls to sleep." Willow chairs are pretty and appropriate, too. The screen, with its panels draped in harmony with other hangings, ...
— The Complete Home • Various
... certainly the most magnificent specimen of old lace which I had seen in Italy. A large and deep flounce of the pointe du roi; that lace which was made solely for the Grand Monarque, and subsequently sold at immense prices, a great portion of it coming into the possession of the cardinals. It was in a most perfect ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... Lady Coleville," whispered Elsin, gently touching my sleeve; "is she not sweet as a bride with Sir Peter? And oh, that gown! with the lilac ribbons and flounce of five rows of lace. Carus, she has forty diamond buttons upon her petticoat, and her ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers
... a fashionable woman, how low, how vulgar! With her the cut of a collar, the depth of a flounce, the style of a ribbon, is of more importance than the strength of a virtue, the form of a mind, or the style of a life. She consults the fashion-plate oftener than her Bible; she visits the dry-goods shop and the milliner oftener than the church. She speaks ...
— Aims and Aids for Girls and Young Women • George Sumner Weaver
... author of his troubles was rapidly drawing nearer to the mill, and soon, to her inexpressible delight, she saw Bob coming to meet her. She had heard the flounce, and, feeling more secure from her pursuer, had dropped her pace to a quick walk. No sooner did she reach Bob than, overcome by the excitement of the moment, she flung herself into his arms. Bob instantly enclosed her in an embrace so very thorough that there was no possible ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy
... Well, I must only ingratiate myself all the more with her; and find out, too, whether she has his secret as well as I. What I am most afraid of is my having told him plainly that he was in my power; it's apt to make sprats of his size flounce desperately, in the mere hope of proving themselves whales after all, if it's only to their miserable selves. Never mind; he can't break my tackle; and besides, that gripe of the hand seemed to indicate that ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... Kincaid of Kincaid's Battery (the latter at Mobile with new guns), all July and August he had been of those who looked down from such windows; looked down often and long, yet never descried one rippling fold of one gossamer flounce of a single specimen of those far-compassionated "ladies of New Orleans," one of whom, all that same time, was Anna Callender. No proved spy, she, no incarcerated prisoner, yet the most gravely warned, though gentlest, suspect ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... are 400 people employed at this establishment, which has even a telegraph office on the premises, where a clerk is for ever flashing dollars and cents along the trembling wires. There were lace collars 40 guineas each, and flounces of Valenciennes lace, half a yard deep, at 120 guineas a flounce. The damasks and brocades for curtains and chairs were at almost fabulous prices. Few gentlemen, the clerk observed, give less than 3l. per yard for these articles. The most costly are purchased by the hotels. I saw some brocade embroidered ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... this is kind. I am delighted to see you. Do you remember dear Ems, and the dear Kursaal? Ah, me! Well, do take some tea now, Lady Longspade. What, Miss Finesse—well—well—well. I was thinking of Ostend only the other day. You'll find Flounce there with coffee and cake and all that. You remember my woman, Flounce, don't you? Mrs. Fuzzybell, you really make me proud. But is not Mr. Fuzzybell to be here? Oh, he's behind is he? well—I'm so glad. Ha! ha! ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... changing, mem," said Miss Chickie. with brilliant sarcasm. "Our ladies is led in their fashions by a Nevada young person. We're improving most rapid—more rapid than I'd ever have dared to hope. Do you prefer a frill, or a flounce, mem?" ...
— A Fair Barbarian • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... thoughtful countenance, always beautiful—if such a term can be allowed in speaking of a brown, rosy, plump, and well-conditioned girl, of good stature, whose form had not been squeezed into shape, nor her linsey woolsey flourished into flounce and farthingale. Her hair hung in bright clusters on her brow; fresh from Nature's toilet, their wild untutored elegance was singular and bewitching. Indeed, Katherine, or "Kattern," as she was more generally ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... and see what was the state of her feelings, and endeavor to persuade her to play out her part. He entered the room with some apprehension; but seeing her so composed, came close as she stood before her dressing-glass and said, as he gazed down at the flounce ...
— Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter • Lawrence L. Lynch
... no longer a child-nation, irresponsible in its nonage and incapable of comprehending or assuming the responsibilities of its acts. A child that breaks a pane of glass or sets fire to a house may indeed escape. Are we to plead the baby act, and claim that we can flounce around the world, breaking international china and burning property, and yet repudiate the bill because we have not come of age? Who dare say that a self-respecting Power could have sailed away from Manila and repudiated the responsibilities of its victorious belligerency? After going into a war ...
— Problems of Expansion - As Considered In Papers and Addresses • Whitelaw Reid
... with acrimony, but with grave severity. Rebecca Ann Glynn gasped by way of assent. She sat in a wide flounce of black silk in the corner of the sofa, and rolled terrified eyes from her sister Caroline to her sister Mrs. Stephen Brigham, who had been Emma Glynn, the one beauty of the family. The latter was beautiful still, with a large, splendid, full-blown beauty, ...
— Famous Modern Ghost Stories • Various
... went away, too. We didn't flounce any to speak of. I guess a "sneak" would come nearer to telling how we quit. I see the cap'n heading for the stairs and I fell into his wake. Nobody said good-night, and we didn't wait to ...
— Cape Cod Stories - The Old Home House • Joseph C. Lincoln
... tunic when in the house. The libertinae, or simple citizens' wives and daughters, wore this robe short and coming scarcely to the knee, so as to leave in sight the rich bracelets that they wore around their legs. But the matrons lengthened the ordinary tunic by means of a plaited furbelow or flounce (instita), edged, sometimes, with golden or purple thread. In such case, it took the name of stola, and descended to their feet. They knotted it at the waist, by means of a girdle artistically hidden under a fold of the tucked-up garment. Below the tunic, the women when on ...
— The Wonders of Pompeii • Marc Monnier
... never!" she said. "That flounce of your mother's out of the room was certainly as much like old times as if the thing had ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 110, December, 1866 - A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics • Various
... her parents, treated in fact like a young lady since she had become the subject of a miracle, one of the elect, whom the priests of the district flocked to see. She wore a straw hat with pink ribbons, and a grey woollen dress trimmed with a flounce. Her round face although not pretty was a very pleasant one, with a beautifully fresh complexion and clear, intelligent eyes which lent her a smiling, ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... thought of disputing those rights. She looked up to pretty, wayward, impulsive Bessie Raeburn as to a superior being,—an angelic deliverer. In her half-adoring gratitude and love, she could have "kissed the hem of her garment," or the lower flounce of her pretty organdie dress. She would often say, "O, where would I have been now, if it had not been for you, dear Bessie? In a pauper's grave,—or worse, in prison,—or worse still, on the streets, a wicked, ...
— Stories of Many Lands • Grace Greenwood
... Still, I can imagine it a little, imagine what it must be, to an out-door man like him, to be shut up in that one room, packed in with all the frilly duds Mrs. Opdyke has stuffed in around him. Really, I'd feel exactly like a mutton chop in a tissue-paper flounce, myself. The frills add to the ignominy. Why can't she let him have the good of all the bare, empty space he can get, even if it ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... what is Atlantic City? It is a refuge thrown up by the continent-building sea. Fashion took a caprice, and shook it out of a fold of her flounce. A railroad laid a wager to find the shortest distance from Penn's treaty-elm to the Atlantic Ocean: it dashed into the water, and a City emerged from its freight-cars as a consequence of the manoeuvre. Almost any kind of a parent-age ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XI, No. 27, June, 1873 • Various
... sumptuous in the tonneau - she had spread every available frill and flounce, but there was still plenty of unoccupied space on the ...
— The Motor Girls on a Tour • Margaret Penrose
... will take my chance; I would not write. Katie dear, I have torn all the flounce off my black and white dinner dress; you are so much more clever with your needle than I am, would you sew it ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander |
