"Matronly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... misty and cold. I had half a mind to spend it by my study fire, instead of wading through heath and mud to Wuthering Heights. On coming up from dinner, however, (N.B.—I dine between twelve and one o'clock; the housekeeper, a matronly lady, taken as a fixture along with the house, could not, or would not, comprehend my request that I might be served at five)—on mounting the stairs with this lazy intention, and stepping into the room, ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte
... features are exceedingly regular and pleasing. The women are so renowned that a description of their charms is scarcely necessary. Beautiful as are the Viennese ladies in their early youth, they cannot rival their fellow-subjects of Hungary. The Austrian woman grows fat, matronly and rather coarse as she matures: the Hungarian lady of forty is still as willowy, graceful and capricious as she was at twenty. The peasant-women, poor things! are ugly, because they work from morning till night in the vineyards, toiling until their backs are broken. The wine which the beauties ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December 1878 • Various
... belie its nick-name, and it is said that the matronly ladies, all over forty, who cook for the rotund priests, are the cordons bleus of Italy. The restaurant of the Hotel Brun is the one where the passing Anglo-Saxon generally takes his meals and a chat with the proprietor, who is generally addressed as Frank, ...
— The Gourmet's Guide to Europe • Algernon Bastard
... years of age, has just returned from boarding-school to pursue her studies at home. Among other things, she must learn domestic affairs, of which she knows nothing. If you will accept the position of housekeeper and matronly companion of my daughter, I will make the terms such as shall reconcile you to the change. We shall also do all that we can to make you happy. Traverse will explain to you the details. Take time to think of it, but if possible let us have your answer by Traverse when ...
— Hidden Hand • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... may learn from their very Bibles and prayer-books. There are such things as education and culture—not to speak of good birth. You yourself, Dr. Millar, are fairly well born and well connected for a professional man." She instanced this with an imperceptible bridle and toss of her matronly head, which hinted broadly, "If it had not been so, Jonathan, I should never have been Mrs. Millar." The movement threatened to deposit her cap on the carpet behind her, but she recovered it in time, and took up the thread of her discourse by quoting the much-prized family distinction—"There ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler
... trying for these seven years; but alas! his beauty is at the fall of the leaf; Lord March,(148) Mr. Whitehead, a pretty Miss Beauclerc, and a very foolish Miss Sparre. These two damsels were trusted by their mothers for the first time of their lives to the matronly care of Lady Caroline. As we sailed up the mall with all our colours flying, Lord Petersham,(149) with his hose and legs twisted to every point of crossness, strode by us on the outside, and repassed again on the return. At the end of' the mall she called to him; ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... forum—were in frames on the walls; a large mirror and a set of lock-boxes gave the teachers toilet accommodations; while baskets of knitting and other belongings bespoke this as the retiring-room of the lady teachers. The chief of these, a kind-faced matronly woman, spoke English imperfectly; but several of the younger ones spoke it very well, and one or two were of charming ...
— In and Around Berlin • Minerva Brace Norton
... the young writer. Agar was perhaps thirty-five at that time. She was certainly very beautiful, but to me there was no charm about her, and I could not understand why this poetical Bonaparte was in love with this matronly woman. It was as clear as daylight that he was, and she too appeared to be in love. This interested me infinitely. I watched them clasp each other's hands, and then, with an abrupt and almost awkward movement, the young poet bent over the beautiful hand ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt
... sat down to it. "My goot girls!" said he, soon after, "you may go down; I do not want you; you need not wait." The two timid, gentle creatures instantly obeyed. More than an hour elapsed, and then Mr. Vanderclump's bell rang. The two matronly maidens were very busily employed in making a new cap. Betty rose at once; but suddenly recollecting that she had been trying on her new and unfinished cap, and had then only a small brown cotton skull-cap on her head, she raised both ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, No. - 288, Supplementary Number • Various
... one of such communities at that period; horny-handed farmers with long shaggy beards and unkempt hair, dressed in ill-fitting black suits; matronly looking farmers' wives in their Sunday best; rosy-cheeked daughters full of fun and vivacity and chattering like magpies; tall, lank, awkward, bashful sons, and red-haired, black-haired, and tow-headed urchins of both sexes, the latter awaiting the events ...
— Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks - A Picture of New England Home Life • Charles Felton Pidgin
... after wandering about the city for some hours, he turned into a park to rest. As he approached his usual bench, sacred to him because Ida and he in the old days had often sat there, he was annoyed to see it already occupied by a pleasant-faced, matronly looking German woman, who was complacently listening to the chatter of a couple of small children. Randall threw himself upon the unoccupied end of the bench, rather hoping that his gloomy and preoccupied air might cause them to depart and leave him to his melancholy revery. And, indeed, it was ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 7 • Various
... copper kettle, and slung this over a fire. The horses munched at their feed-box or cropped grass, wandering with their heads tied to their forefeet to prevent their cantering off. Grandma Padgett at the creek's brink, set up her tubs and buried herself to the elbows in suds, and aunt Corinne with a matronly countenance, assisted. All that day Robert went barelegged, and splashed water, wading out far to dip up a gourdful; and he thought it was fun to help stretch the clothes-line among saplings, and lift ...
— Old Caravan Days • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... children, and the woman who had already won his heart away from her. The shapely lady, with her queenly ways, her vivacity, her graceful adaptiveness to persons and circumstances, was sharply contrasted with the matronly figure, homely manners, and unresponsive mind of his wife. He pitied his wife, he pitied himself, he pitied his children, he almost pitied the dumb walls and the beautiful ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... manners, and an elderly white man, with white hair, who looks so respectable and dignified that one feels a little awkward at first in ordering him to do this or that service; and the chambermaids look so venerable and matronly that to ask them for a pitcher of water seems almost rude to them. But I am in a land where domestic servants are the best in the world. No servant aspires to a higher station, but feels a pride in making himself the first in that station. I notice this, for our own country presents a melancholy ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Samuel F. B. Morse
... loathes the thought of handling in this way refined and sensitive females of matronly character, or persons of either sex, with infirmities of body rendered sacred by years. The results of the examination were reduced to written reports, going into details, and, among other evidences in the trials, spread before ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... added to Bessie; "indeed, that was what brought me here. My sisters sent me to ask whether they may shelter themselves under your matronly protection, for my mother ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... queen's baby. The infant, it seems, was sickly (being troubled with its teeth, I suppose), and would take no food, and was all the time moaning with pain. The queen—her name was Metanira—was desirous of finding a nurse; and when she beheld a woman of matronly aspect coming up the palace steps, she thought, in her own mind that here was the very person whom she needed. So Queen Metanira ran to the door, with the poor wailing baby in her arms, and besought ...
— The Children's Hour, Volume 3 (of 10) • Various
... Being less in a hurry, I took time to build up a flourishing business in partnership with Laura's husband. As for the baronet's daughter—for we must get everybody into the concluding tableau—why there she is—that lady cutting bread and butter for the children, with as matronly an air as Werter's Charlotte: she is my wife; and we laugh to this day at the oddity of that First Interview which led to so ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 461 - Volume 18, New Series, October 30, 1852 • Various
... even when they sped a well-aimed shaft, the planter forced them to feel defeat by the tremendous discomfiting thunder of the laughter with which he accompanied his retorts. At the head of the table, serene, matronly, benevolent, reigned the mistress of the house, placing here and there the right smile, the right word, the ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... and in the beautiful Westminster Abbey, amid the gorgeous tombs, there stood four sorrowful figures. A sturdy knight, with bowed head and mournful look, carefully guided a white-haired, white-bearded old man, while a beautiful matronly lady was handed ...
— The Prince and the Page • Charlotte M. Yonge
... appeared,—a handsome young country-woman, to whose features, originally sly and espiegle in expression, matrimony had given that decent matronly air which peculiarly marks the peasant's wife of Scotland. She had an infant in one arm, and with the other she smoothed down her apron, to which hung a chubby child of two years old. The elder girl, whom the ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... exactly as Varney had pictured them in his thoughts. From the hatch emerged the stewards, in stately processional, bearing coffee and cigars, their paraphernalia and appurtenances. Twenty feet away, on the other side, was to be seen the sailing-master's wife, sitting under orders, sedate, matronly, knitting a pale blue shawl and giving to the bright scene an ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... Prince of the Church and an aged man,' said Lady Drummond, who had already risen, and was adjusting that headgear of Eleanor's that never would stay in its place. And her matronly voice acted upon Jean, so as to conquer the petulant pride, enough to make her remember that the Lady of Glenuskie was herself a Stewart and king's grandchild, and moreover knew more of courts and their ...
— Two Penniless Princesses • Charlotte M. Yonge
... women, forced to be chaste to preserve their reputation, allow their imagination to revel in the unnatural and meretricious scenes sketched by the novel writers of the day, slighting as insipid the sober dignity and matronly grace of history,* whilst men carry the same vitiated taste into life, and fly for amusement to the wanton, from the unsophisticated charms of virtue, and ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]
... liquid eyes and softly smiling mouth had an affectionate pensiveness far lovelier than her last year's bloom, and yet there was something painful in that beauty—it was too like the fragility of the flower fading under one hour's sunshine; and there was a sadness in seeing the matronly stamp on a face so young that it should have shown only girlhood's freedom from care. Arthur indeed was boasting of the return of the colour, which spread and deepened as he drew attention to it; but John and Lady Elizabeth agreed, as they walked to church, that it was the very ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... like Umm Kulsum,[FN341] for mere pleasure, in the luxury of sin, are drawn with an experienced and loving hand. Yet not the less do we meet with examples of the dutiful daughter, the model lover matronly in her affection, the devoted wife, the perfect mother, the saintly devotee, the learned preacher, Univira the chaste widow and the self-sacrificing heroic woman. If we find (vol. iii. 216) the ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... by a kindly-faced, matronly looking lady, whom he instinctively felt was the mother of the young lady. Making his business known, and requesting an interview with Miss Patton, he was ushered into a cool, well-furnished parlor, to await the conveyance of his message and to learn the ...
— The Burglar's Fate And The Detectives • Allan Pinkerton
... and purity. Her voice matched her beauty well, never loud, always melodious, with a peculiar, gliding, legato movement of the graceful sentences, for the pleasing effect of which she was indebted partly to Nature, and much more to Art. She appeared on this evening in a green silk dress, matronly in shade and general style, but not devoid of coquettish arrangement in the square corsage, the opening of which was filled with foam-like puffs of thulle, threatening, when her bust heaved in mirth or animated speech, to overflow the sheeny boundaries. A chaplet of ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... shame; with the scarlet token of infamy on her breast; with the sin-born infant in her arms; with a whole people, drawn forth as to a festival, staring at the features that should have been seen only in the quiet gleam of the fireside, in the happy shadow of a home, or beneath a matronly veil at church. Dreadful as it was, she was conscious of a shelter in the presence of these thousand witnesses. It was better to stand thus, with so many betwixt him and her, than to greet him face to face—they two alone. She fled for refuge, as ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... young mother, with a charming assumption of matronly dignity; "I shall hold the baby safe. I know all ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)
... to rest if they could not eat, hoping that when they moved from their chairs they would find the temperature lower within the house walls than outside them. Mavis gave little oppressed sighs as she fanned her jolly round face and broad matronly chest with a copy of the Courier. Ethel, who to-night seemed an extraordinarily cumbrous awkward creature, flumped the dishes down on the table and shuffled away on her big flat feet. Norah glided to and fro, now here, now there, pouring out milk and water for the children, ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... rough dreadnaughts of one sort and another, rowed out from the shore into the turmoil of the sea. A very little of the dancing I got now was delight enough for me, and, deadly sick, I besought to be taken home again, when the matronly Brinhilda at the cottage received me with open-throated peals of laughter, and then made me sit down till I had conquered my qualms and was able to walk back to Edinburgh. Before I went, she showed me a heap of her children, too many, it seemed to me, ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... Bridge, my promise is not worth half-a-crown, but I give it to you, wishing it were worth more.'" Enthusiastically the Chancellor exclaimed, "You are quite right. I admit the obligation. I remember all about it;" and, then, after a pause, archly surveying the damsel, whose graces were the reverse of matronly, he added, "But surely the time for keeping my promise has not yet arrived? You cannot be any one's wife at present?" For a few seconds Bessie hesitated for an answer, and then, with a blush and a ripple of ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... woman; and that she reciprocated the regard which makes her nephew so emphatic in her praise may be conjectured from the fact that, when he made his debut as a candidate for the honours of the State, she emerged from her habitual seclusion, laid aside for a time her matronly reserve, and, in order to assist him in his canvass, faced for his sake the rustic impertinence and ambitious turbulence of the crowds who thronged the Forum and the streets ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar
... that some tiny family, not too large for the building, were at breakfast within. It might even be the deer themselves; and Helen smiled at her whim, almost laughing outright as a picture arose of a matronly doe preparing coffee, while a solemn buck sat in his easy chair before the fire, reading his morning paper and now and then glancing at his wife over ...
— The Pagans • Arlo Bates
... thinking. He talked well, but for the present she was happier in her prospect of nearly a week of loneliness. The day was one of sunshine, windless, odorous: one of the rare placid days of April when the pettish month assumes a matronly air of summer and wears it till the end of the day. The beech twigs were strongly embrowned, the larches shot up green spires by the borders of woods and on mounds within, deep ditchbanks unrolled profuse tangles of new blades, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... cloud of white drapery was seen moving in the verandah. It soon resolved itself into a tall, dignified old lady, another of matronly appearance, and a bevy of young ones; two or three of them mere girls; perfect Houris they seemed to Adair, and Jack was much of the same opinion. As Adair threw himself from his horse, the old lady advanced from among the rest, holding ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston
... her tribe, Monica, Mona's mother, was somewhat reserved, and had not, as is usually the case with matronly monkeys, chattered and gossiped about her private affairs. And, as she clasped her little son to her, with her mother's heart swelling with love and pride, she thought, with pleasurable anticipation, of the surprise and gossip there would be in the morning when ...
— Rataplan • Ellen Velvin
... place among the Veronese artists of the first order. His characteristics can nowhere be seen to better advantage than in the Madonna of St. Andrew and St. Peter, in the Verona Gallery. The Virgin is in an oval glory, edged all around with small, fleecy clouds. She has a beautiful, matronly face, with abundant hair, smoothly brushed over her forehead. The two apostles, below, are fine, strong figures, full ...
— The Madonna in Art • Estelle M. Hurll
... to the fields it went blustering and humming, And the cattle all wondered whatever was coming. It pulled by their tails the grave, matronly cows, And tossed the colts' manes all about their brows, Till, offended at such a familiar salute, They all turned their backs and stood ...
— New National Fourth Reader • Charles J. Barnes and J. Marshall Hawkes
... picture upon which Mrs. Maria Owen, wife of Judge Owen of the ——th District Court, was looking just at twilight of a June evening; but something in that picture, or its surroundings, did not seem to please her; for her comely though matronly face was drawn into an expression of displeasure, and the little mice about the wainscot, if any there were, might occasionally have heard her foot patting the floor with impatience ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... aching brow, and sat down, while he composed himself to rest. She was a lady of about fifty, with bands of silver hair smoothed over her calm forehead, and in appearance not unlike her son. But there was something very sweet and matronly about her look, and it was impossible to see her without feeling the respect and honour which ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar
... some self-contempt that the course of her next afternoon's ramble took her instinctively clear of the network of woods. As to the horned cattle, Mortimer's warning was scarcely needed, for she had always regarded them as of doubtful neutrality at the best: her imagination unsexed the most matronly dairy cows and turned them into bulls liable to "see red" at any moment. The ram who fed in the narrow paddock below the orchards she had adjudged, after ample and cautious probation, to be of docile temper; to-day, however, she decided to leave his docility untested, for the usually ...
— The Chronicles of Clovis • Saki
... known; a man most kind, accomplished, gentle, friendly, and pure; and female descendants occupying high stations and embellishing great names; some renowned for beauty, and all for spotless lives, and pious matronly virtues. ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... provoking and absurd manner, the great actress whom I resembled so little and so much. In truth, I could hardly sustain the weight of velvet and ermine in which I was robed, and to which my small girlish figure was as little adapted as my dramatic powers were to the matronly dignity of the character. I cannot but think that if I might have dressed the part as Queen Katharine really dressed herself, and been allowed to look as like as I could to the little dark, hard-favored woman Holbein painted, it would have ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... the tablecloth she was folding and looked earnestly at the other woman. To an undiscerning eye the latter would have looked much as she always did—plump and matronly, with brown hair drawn back from the forehead and parted in the middle; keen brown eyes with a humorous twinkle in them—this was the Keziah Coffin the later generation of ...
— Keziah Coffin • Joseph C. Lincoln
... so that she has somewhat of a wasp-like appearance. Her wings are much shorter, in proportion, than those of the drone, or worker; the under part of her body is of a golden color, and the upper part darker than that of the other bees. Her motions are usually slow and matronly, although she can, when she pleases, move with ...
— Langstroth on the Hive and the Honey-Bee - A Bee Keeper's Manual • L. L. Langstroth
... answering smile; the boy glanced at the picture of the wise and courtly old Lord Wychester, gravely regarded that of the Duchess of Croft, of whose matronly charms, of whose charities and amiable qualities, all ...
— The Mother • Norman Duncan
... Hymen looked 'orrified rayther; but as for young Arrers-and-'Arts, He turned up his nose at the old 'un, whilst all the gay donas and tarts, Not to mention the matronly mivvies, were arter the boy with the bow, Plainly looking on TOLSTOI and IBSEN as crackpots, and not in ...
— Punch Among the Planets • Various |
