"Spinster" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Cummins was unmarried by every implication of her being, as Henry James would say: but Samantha Ann Ripley was a spinster purely by accident. She had seldom been exposed to the witcheries of children, or she would have known long before this that, so far as she was personally concerned, they would always prove irresistible. ...
— Timothy's Quest - A Story for Anybody, Young or Old, Who Cares to Read It • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... groan the pictured Madonna on every wall. Carnival comes, and completes the wreck of the proprieties. The girls secure their window and pelt their black-bearded Professor in the street below without dread of a scolding on the "convenances." The impassive spinster whose voice never rises at home above the most polite whisper screams with delight at the first sugarplum that hits her, and furtively supplies her nieces with ammunition to carry on the war. "It is such fun, isn't it, papa?" shout the boys as they lean breathless over the balcony, ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green
... house to see to door boltings and window latchings, had hobbled upstairs to her own sleeping quarters over the kitchen wing, and in the elder sister's room, with the lights turned low, the two of them sat in their nightgowns on the side of Emmy Lou's bed and tried the case of Spinster Charlotte Helm, coloured, in the scales of their own youthful judgments. Without exactly being able to express the situation in words, both realised that a condition which verged upon the intolerable was fast ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... sepulchral. These stone avenues are very numerous. Of the so-called sacred circles the best examples are the "Longstones" on Scorhill Down, and the "Grey Wethers" under Sittaford Tor. By far the finest cromlech is the "Spinster's Rock" at Drewsteignton, a three-pillared cromlech which may well be compared with those of Cornwall. There are numerous menhirs or single upright stones; a large dolmen or holed stone lies in the bed of the Teign, near the Scorhill circle; and rock ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 3 - "Destructors" to "Diameter" • Various
... again as she looked at him and at this unveiling of his sublime self-centredness. He expected to find his world just as he would have it, his cushion at his head and his footstool at his feet, the wife in her place fulfilling her comely duties, the spinster friend in hers, administering balms and counsels; the wife at Merriston House, and the spinster friend in the little sitting-room where, for so many years, he had come to her with all his moods and misfortunes. She ...
— Franklin Kane • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... of an estimable plain spinster who had passed away, "did more for her than ever nature had done." He repeated it, too. "She was far more indebted, I say, to grace, than to nature," and before his sharp earnestness none were seen to smile. Nor could you forget the ...
— The Imperialist • (a.k.a. Mrs. Everard Cotes) Sara Jeannette Duncan
... the Fawners strain and relax the Muscles of their Faces in making Distinction between a Spinster in a coloured Scarf and an Handmaid in a Straw-Hat, the Worriers use the same Roughness to both, and prevail upon the Easiness of the Passengers, to ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... wedding or a funeral," I whispered, feeling more in the mood of the latter, but never dreaming how much those carriages meant to me. As I went timidly into the room I found nearly every seat full, and was greeted with cordial applause. My sister took a seat beside me. My subject was "Spinster Authors of England." My hands trembled so visibly that I laid my manuscript on the table, but after getting in magnetic touch with those before me, ...
— Memories and Anecdotes • Kate Sanborn
... known Dr. Spencer's opinion; and yet he only believed that they were grateful for good advice, and went about among them, easy, good-natured, and utterly unconscious that for him sparkled Mrs. Ledwich's bugles, and for him waved every spinster's ribbon, from Miss ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... asked for a certified copy of the following entry: "August 1, 1856. Philip Caresfoot, bachelor, gentleman, to Hilda von Holtzhausen, spinster (by license). Signed J. Few, curate; as witness, ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... silent streets, in search of the charming, old-world name that was to tell me where the aged spinster lived. Rose had said that I should see it written over the door in blue letters and that it was opposite a place where they sold sportsmen's and anglers' requisites, a shop with a sign that would be certain ...
— The Choice of Life • Georgette Leblanc
... some thought disappointed, as perhaps, in her foolish thought, she might a little be, was made Abbess of Quedlinburg, which opulent benefice had fallen vacant; and, there or at Berlin, lived a respectable Spinster-life, doubtless on easier terms than Ulrique's. Always much loved by her Brother, and loving him (and "taking care of his shirts," in the final times); noted in society, for her sharp tongue and ways. Concerning whom Thiebault and his Trenck romances are worth no notice,—if it be not with horsewhips ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... folk of finance. Discharged by Bonaparte in 1800, he withdrew to his natal town. After selling the Beauseant house, which he owned, for the benefit of his creditors, he had remaining an income of not more than twelve hundred francs. About 1816 he married Mlle. Cormon, a spinster who had been courted also by the Chevalier de Valois and Athanase Granson. This marriage set him on his feet again financially. He took the lead in the party of the opposition, established a Liberal ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe
... intensified in—er—climbing this height, and the—er—alacrity of his departure must be in exact ratio to his gravitation. Good idea. Ged! say it to schoolma'am. Wonder what she's like? Humph! the usual thin, weazened, hatchet-faced Yankee spinster, with an indecent familiarity with Webster's Dictionary! And this is the woman, Star, you're expected to discover, and bring back to affluence and plenty. This is the new fanaticism of Mr. Alexander Morton, sen. Ged! not satisfied with dragging his prodigal ...
— Two Men of Sandy Bar - A Drama • Bret Harte
... Genevieve's side. Between thirty-five and forty, a born spinster but clinging to the hope of marriage as the only career for women. Has a small and decreasing income. Affectedly feminine and ...
— The Sturdy Oak - A Composite Novel of American Politics by Fourteen American Authors • Samuel Merwin, et al.
... fat, good-natured man, is presented with a woollen night-cap on New Year's morning by his housekeeper, "a typical spinster not overburdened with fat." This so rejoices the Deacon that he is possessed to make others happy, goes to call upon his pastor, and makes him leave his books and spend the day skating, sleighing, and ...
— The Busted Ex-Texan and Other Stories • W. H. H. Murray
... St. Cow's began ringing for Ritualistic morning-service, with a sound as of some incontinently rambling dun spinster of the lacteal herd—now near at hand in cracked dissonance, as the wind blows hither; now afar, in tinkling distance, as the wind blows hence—MONTGOMERY PENDRAGON was several miles away from Bumsteadville upon his walking-match, with head already bumped like a pineapple, and face curiously ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 22, August 27, 1870 • Various
... way—that is,—that is, I have heard so," said the spinster, correcting herself; "for what should a country-bred woman know about you creatures? When you are near us, they say you are all raptures and flames and promises and I don't know what; when you are away, you forget ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... modern costume, sat down between two pairs of candles to the piano in the decaying drawing-room, which like a spinster strove to conceal its age. A generous fire flamed in the wide grate behind me: warmth has always been to me the first necessary of life. I turned round on the revolving stool and faced the fire, and felt it on my cheeks, and ...
— Sacred And Profane Love • E. Arnold Bennett
... but in all the free system is applauded by those in the sunshine, and execrated by those in the shade. The fair debutante of eighteen, basking in the bright light of youth, beauty, birth, and connections, has no sort of objection to the freedom of choice in the ball-room. If the mature spinster of forty would divulge her real opinion, what would it be on the same scene of competition? Experience proves that she is glad to retire, in the general case, from the unequal struggle, and finds the system of established precedence and fixed rank at dinner parties, much more ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various
... T. C. Noble kindly communicated to me a copy of the original marriage certificate, which is as follows: "Samuell Peps of this parish Gent. & Elizabeth De Snt. Michell of Martins in the fields, Spinster. Published October 19tn, 22nd, 29th 1655, and were married by Richard Sherwin Esqr one of the justices of the Peace of the Cittie and Lyberties of Westm. December 1st. (Signed) ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... sight, so common alas! in England, of the affluent spinster, "growing pointlessly rotund on rich food at one of the smug hotels or boarding-houses for parasitic nonentities, which are distributed so plentifully all over the land," while thousands of promising young men had to wait too long before they were able ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici
... a description of the Isle of Refuge, where Lemminkainen tarries three whole years with the sea-maidens, who bid him a tender farewell when he sails away again. He has, however, proved neglectful toward one of them, a spinster, who curses him, vowing he will suffer many things in return for his neglect. True to her prediction, he encounters many dangers on the homeward journey, and finds his house reduced to ashes and his parents gone! But, although he mourns for them as dead, he soon ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... willing to," added Sister Maria Cartridge, a spinster still possessing faith, hope, and charity, notwithstanding she had been on the waiting list a ...
— The Best American Humorous Short Stories • Various
... be, at this very moment, Mrs. William Beresford, a highly respectable young matron who painted rather good pictures in her spinster days, when she was Penelope Hamilton of the great American working-class, Unlimited; but first Mrs. Beresford's dangerous illness and then her death, have kept my dear boy a willing prisoner in Cannes, his heart sadly torn betwixt ...
— Penelope's Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... never even thought whether he was worthy of being loved. He was indeed more worthy of love than many to whom it is freely given; but he knew no more about it, I say, than a chicken in the shell knows of the blue sky. The shabby spinster, living with her cousin the baker in the house opposite, knew a hundred times better than he what the word love meant: she had a history, ...
— There & Back • George MacDonald
... winter before Edgar went to Stoke-Newington, he had attended an "infant school," in Richmond, taught by a somewhat gaunt, but mild-mannered spinster, with big spectacles over her amiable blue eyes, a starchy cap and a little bunch of frosty cork-screw curls on each side of her face. As a child, she had played with Mr. Allan's father on their native heath, in Ayrshire, ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard
... old lady, a sort of spinster, I guess," Jimmy explained. "She lives all by herself, and I guess she gets kind of lonesome sometimes. She's kind of deaf, though," ...
— The Radio Boys' First Wireless - Or Winning the Ferberton Prize • Allen Chapman
... motor by this time—the rich, the noble motor, as Mr Pepys would have described it—and there was poor Miss Lyall hung with parcels, and wearing a faint sycophantic smile. This miserable spinster, of age so obvious as to be called not the least uncertain, was Lady Ambermere's companion, and shared with her the glories of The Hall, which had been left to Lady Ambermere for life. She was provided with food and lodging and the use of the cart like a hip-bath ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... to find an attractive young woman awaiting him at the station, he was surprised to discover that his most sanguine expectations were exceeded. Here was no blue-stocking, or agitator, or superannuated spinster, but a graceful young woman, rather tall and slight, with blue eyes, set with dark lashes that intensified their color. Her complexion, although slightly freckled, charmed by its wholesomeness; and her hair, which ...
— The Ghost of Guir House • Charles Willing Beale
... always somebody who knows. It was understood—and this, anyhow, on Mark's own authority—that his father had been a country clergyman. It was said that, as a boy, Mark had attracted the notice, and patronage, of some rich old spinster of the neighbourhood, who had paid for his education, both at school and university. At about the time when he was coming down from Cambridge, his father had died; leaving behind him a few debts, as a warning to his family, and a reputation for short sermons, as an example to his ...
— The Red House Mystery • A. A. Milne
... jenny, a mob and a flight from Lancashire, a wrecked machine and a sacked house! To Crompton, inventing the spinning-mule (which, in simulating, surpassed the delicate pulling motion of the spinster's arm)—to Crompton, poverty so complete that the mule, patient bearer of innumerable fortunes to investors, was surrendered to them unpatented, while its maker retired to his "Hall-in-the-Wood" and ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... flecks of sunlight filtered through the branches of the tall trees to caress it. In the hair, too, was a single red rose, caught into place with a natural grace that it seemed a pity to waste on three spinster aunts and two dogs, and the same note of color was repeated in another rebellious blossom at the throat. The young face was plump and oval, and the cheeks were pink, the brown eyes were wide and sparkling and—Oh, well, the young man in ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume V. (of X.) • Various
... sent your daughter from this country,' he wrote, 'lest she should be frightened by the troops lying here. She has got one Betty Burke, an Irish girl, who, she tells me, is a good spinster. If her spinning pleases you, you may keep her till she spins all your lint.' In spite of the gravity of the situation, one cannot help thinking that Flora and her stepfather must have had a good deal of amusement concocting this circumstantial and ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang
... of herself, taken before the change, and conceives the idea that what she was once must still exist somewhere. The phantasy is played upon by impostors, who undertake to materialize the fancied creature and introduce her as the soul-sister of the credulous spinster. The instrument of the audacious fraud becomes conscience stricken and reveals it.—Edward Bellamy, Miss ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... conscience,' said the little spinster, plucking up spirit. 'I know it was with me. There had been some Americans calling on us that day—you remember—those charming Harvard people? And somehow it recalled to us both what a fuss they had made with us—and how kind everybody was. At ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... country church of St Mary Charlcombe, a remote village some two miles from Bath, that "Henry Fielding, of ye Parish of St James in Bath, Esq., and Charlotte Cradock of ye same Parish, spinster" were married, on the 28th of November 1734. [2] Fifty years later the village was described as containing only nine houses, the church, well fitted for the flock, being but eighteen feet wide. The old Somerset historian, ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden
... observed in studying these figures, that farmers' wives and children, working at home, are not reported as gainfully occupied. But a widow or a spinster owner, if herself acting as the enterpriser, is reported as "occupied" in agriculture. The increasing number of such cases in the past generation in part explains the growing number and ...
— Modern Economic Problems - Economics Vol. II • Frank Albert Fetter
... But be considerate, I beg 'ee, mee deer. Well—I wasn't a bachelor when I married 'ee, any more than you were a spinster. Just as you was a widow-woman, I was ...
— A Changed Man and Other Tales • Thomas Hardy
... uncontrollable desire to laugh possessed him; but, restraining himself, he took the first chance he had to make his presence known, at which Aunt Eliza groaned, "Oh, my!" and Mary Jane instinctively grasped her yelling children, and the prim spinster curtsied and asked if he used tobacco. At Job's surprised look and negative reply, she said, "Very well. I never employ a male being who permeates his environment with the noxious weed. As you do not, I will offer you proper remuneration if you ...
— The Transformation of Job - A Tale of the High Sierras • Frederick Vining Fisher
... joy, therefore, that Nevitt saw at last in the parish register of St. Mary's at Mambury, the interesting announcement, "June 27th, Henry Lucius Kelmscott, of the parish of Plymouth, bachelor, private in the Regiment of Scots Greys, to Lucy Waring, spinster, ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen
... conscience, the advantages and the disadvantages of its possession, and the consensus of opinion was of its being quite appropriate in regard to a clergyman, and that it was not altogether out of place on the part of a spinster, provided that she had counteracting virtues; but, on the whole, it was perhaps wiser to leave ...
— Phyllis of Philistia • Frank Frankfort Moore
... long days and evenings spent at my desk in the stuffy little lodgings to which I was limited by my narrow income, interrupted frequently by invasions on various pretexts of the ill-fed chambermaid, who insisted on telling me her woes, or by my neighbor from the next room, the good little spinster, who always knocked to ask if she might heat a flat-iron at my grate when I was in the midst of a bit of minute description. She would sit down, too, would poor withered Miss Jane, in my little rocking-chair to wait ...
— A Village Ophelia and Other Stories • Anne Reeve Aldrich
... Petherick. That is a cousin of yours? Yes." And he jotted down a note of any facts that Mavis could supply. "Still a spinster. About your own age, and living abroad. Thank you. That is all you can tell me? There seems to be doubt as to her whereabouts. Your aunt—Mrs. John Edward Petherick—does not know her address. But she will no doubt present ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... Street, and that she was three times married—first to a Mr. Dancer, then to a Mr. Barry, and finally to a Mr. Crawford, whose widow she was when he first knew her—he is telling us things that were not, for the true Barbara died a spinster, and was born ...
— Obiter Dicta - Second Series • Augustine Birrell
... season he'd growed well-t'-do: a drive in the teeth o' hell, in season—if hell's made o' wind an' sea, as I'm inclined t' think—an' the ease of a bachelor man, between whiles, in his cottage at Rickity Tickle, where he lived all alone like a spick-an'-span spinster. 'Twas not o' the sea he was scared. 'Twas o' want in an unkind world; an' t'was jus' that an' no more that drove un t' hard sailin' an' contempt o' death—sheer fear o' want in the wolf's world that he'd made this world out t' be in ...
— Harbor Tales Down North - With an Appreciation by Wilfred T. Grenfell, M.D. • Norman Duncan
... dear uncle, you were employed, according to the formula, "in virtue of these and subsequent engagements," and among the "subsequent engagements" you are kind enough to reckon one between Mademoiselle Berthe Lorinet, spinster, of no occupation, and M. Fabien Mouillard, lawyer. "Fabien Mouillard, lawyer"—that I may perhaps endure, but "Fabien Mouillard, son-in-law of Lorinet," never! One pays too dear for these rich wives. Mademoiselle ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... an anguished smile. She had crossed the ocean twice, and was a wiser, sadder woman for it. At eight she turned in, and ten minutes later Amanda came aboard with a flock of gay friends. But no temptations of the flesh could lure the wary spinster from her den; for the night was rough and cold, and the steamer a ...
— Shawl-Straps - A Second Series of Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott
... she cooed, "dear Lady Wilde!" I noticed that her glance went towards Willie, who was standing on the other side of his mother, talking to a tall, handsome girl. Willie's friend seemed amused at the lyrical outburst of the green spinster, for smiling a ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 1 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, I couldn't very well do it. I never yet have seen a man I would be that hard on. But it would be the only way she could be made to see some things, and maybe it might make her feel young again. Jess says there's nothing so kittenish as a spinster who's caught an unexpected beau. He is the most rejuvenating thing on earth to a woman who wants one. All don't want them. There are a great many more sensible women in this world than people realize, but in certain small places matrimony is still the chief pursuit in which women can engage ...
— Kitty Canary • Kate Langley Bosher
... of the house is plain now. It was once the residence of a country squire, whose family, probably dwindling down to mere spinster-hood, got merged in the more territorial name of Donnithorne. It was once the Hall; it is now the Hall Farm. Like the life in some coast town that was once a watering-place, and is now a port, where the genteel streets are silent and grass-grown, and the docks and warehouses busy and ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VI (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland IV • Various
... allowed to go unchallenged. Helen Johnson, who was well along in the twenties at least, and still a spinster, prided herself on her powers of conquest, despite the fact that she had no husband to show for it. So, now, she spoke with ...
— Making People Happy • Thompson Buchanan
... and Aunt Hester, who was a spinster, cast down her eyes and fidgeted with some papers which she had taken ...
— Spring Days • George Moore
... time she was near forty; a thin, hard-featured spinster, dwelling alone with her mother the Lady Balgarnock. Her two younger sisters had married early—the one to Captain Luce, of Dunragit in Wigtownshire, the other to a Mr. Forbes, of whom I know nothing save that his house was in ...
— Two Sides of the Face - Midwinter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... beer. For instance, it was logical to allow some degree of distinction between beer and tea, on the ground that a man may be moved by excess of beer to throw the pot at somebody's head. And it may be said that the spinster is seldom moved by excess of tea to throw the tea-pot at anybody's head. But the whole ground of argument is now changed. For people do not consider what the drunkard does to others by throwing the pot, but what he does to himself by drinking the beer. The argument is based on health; and it ...
— Eugenics and Other Evils • G. K. Chesterton
... class who have neither uncles nor aunts. For me, no yellow liverless individual, with characteristic bamboo and pigtail—emblems of half a million—returned to his native shores from Ceylon or remote Penang. For me, no venerable spinster hoarded in the Trongate, permitting herself few luxuries during a long-protracted life, save a lass and a lanthorn, a parrot, and the invariable baudrons of antiquity. No such luck was mine. Had all Glasgow perished by some vast epidemic, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various
... considerations for her personal ease were forgotten. Ten years passed and her father was no more; than gradually, one after another, the family she had so patiently reared took wing, leaving Celestina a lonely spinster of ...
— Flood Tide • Sara Ware Bassett
... various, and no doubt useful, functions, Miss Delia Wall performed that of gossip and news agent-general to the village of Inkston. A hard-featured, swarthy spinster of forty, with a roving, inquisitive, yet not unkindly eye, she perambulated—or rather percycled—the district, taking stock of every incident. Not a cat could kitten or a dog have the mange without her privity; critics of her mental activity went near to insinuating connivance. ...
— The Secret of the Tower • Hope, Anthony
... a dress as well became her favourite sport. She was not of those who 'walk in spurs but never ride.' The jerkin, the doublet, the galligaskins were put on to serve the practical purposes of life, not to attract the policeman or the spinster. And when a petticoat spread its ample folds beneath the doublet, not only was her array handsome, but it symbolised the career of one who was neither man nor woman, and yet both. After a while, however, the petticoat ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... thee to her and enquire an she be married or virginal; and, if she be unwedded, do thou ask her an she be willing to wive with me."[FN94] So Ja'afar fared to her and questioned her, whereat she answered, "A spinster." Quoth he, "The Youth who sent the dinar to thee desireth to mate with thee;" and quoth she, "An he can pay me my dower and my money down,[FN95] I will become his bride." Hereat Ja'afar said in his thought, "whence can the Prince of True Believers find her dower and her money down? Doubtless ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... earnest. Theodore went straight to the maiden aunt, with whom Miss Jones resided, and, after most vehement badgering, got her consent to a private marriage within three days. The poor spinster, though much flustered, knowing his attentions to Lesbia had been a good deal talked about, felt almost relieved to have it settled respectably, ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... which, however, was a work of time, and not yet a quarter accomplished. The place had been a fowl-house, and, at the bottom of the door, there was a small hatch for the ingress and egress of these bipeds, the original invention of some thrifty spinster, to prevent the maids from stealing eggs. But this hatch was closed, or Snarleyyow would have escaped through it. Smallbones took up his quarters in another outhouse, that he might not be observed, ...
— Snarley-yow - or The Dog Fiend • Frederick Marryat
... lease, and she enjoyed for a sum not worth mentioning the possession of an extraordinary number of noble, stone-floored rooms, with ceilings vaulted and frescoed, and barred windows commanding the loveliest view in the world. She was a needy and thrifty spinster, who never hesitated to declare that the lovely view was all very well, but that for her own part she lived in the villa for cheapness, and that if she had a clear three hundred pounds a year she would go ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James
... spinster with the most elaborate plans for the education of the negro goes to visit her nephew in Arkansas, where she learns the needs of the colored race first hand and begins to ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss
... young ladies in all, daughters of the superior families of Bunkers and the surrounding district. Miss Arnott, their teacher, was a tall, bony spinster, with austere glasses and sharp elbows that looked like weapons ...
— The Missing Link • Edward Dyson
... girls present who took no part in the competition, but who, as friends and acquaintances of Kathleen and Hanna, came to enjoy the festive spirit of the day. Hanna herself, however, who had earned some celebrity as a spinster, started for the honor of winning, as did Dora M'Mahon, whose small and beautiful fingers seemed admirably adapted for this graceful and peculiarly feminine process of Minerva. Towards evening the neighbors assembled ...
— The Emigrants Of Ahadarra - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... decidedly from the child, who went willingly with Harold, and was soon ushered into the large upper room, which was used as both nursery and school-room, for Mrs. Tracy could not allow her two sons, Tom and Jack, to come in contact with the boys at school; so she kept a governess, a middle-aged spinster, who, glad of a home, and the rather liberal compensation, sat all day in the nursery and bore patiently with Tom's freaks and Jack's dullness: to say nothing of the trouble it was to have the three-year-old Maude toddling ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... special knowledge of stage-craft. "I know as little about the division of a drama as the spinster about the division of a battle, to use Iago's simile,"[114] he once wrote to a friend. Yet as a critic he had of course some general ideas about the making of plays, without having worked out any subtle theories on the subject. In criticising a play by Allan Cunningham, who had ...
— Sir Walter Scott as a Critic of Literature • Margaret Ball
... from the extreme of shallowness to the extreme of sufficiency, scorning to be limited in abuse by adhering to any single hypothesis, the current literature of England has gloated over the rebellion of Slavery with the cynical chuckles of a sour spinster. Would that language less strong could express our meaning! President Lincoln—whatever may be judged his deficiency in resources of statesmanship—will be embalmed by history as one possessing many qualities peculiarly adapted to our perilous crisis, together with an integrity ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various
... possible for fear she should be taking her observations. "Bide as we be"; why, 'tis the best we can do. She can't pick a hole in your mother though, Bess. It would have been hard to have forgiven her that! You're not such an aged spinster.' ...
— More Bywords • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of mischief, he was sent to a sort of kindergarten, kept by a spinster around the corner. The spinster devoted rather more attention to the Browning boy than to her other pupils—she had to, to keep him out of mischief—and soon the boy was quite ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... Parish of St. Paul, Shadwell, in ye County of Middlesex, Bachelor, and Elizabeth Batts, of ye parish of Barking in ye County of Essex, Spinster, were married in this Church by ye Archbishop of Canterbury's Licence, this 21st day of December, one thousand seven hundred and sixty-two, by George Downing, Vicar of ...
— The Life of Captain James Cook • Arthur Kitson
... and strayed all about her brow and neck like an explosion of spun lava. For the rest, had she really been a little girl of twelve, one would feel free to describe her as fat and roly-poly; but in the case of a young spinster of somewhere in her third decade, well-gowned and stayed and otherwise in physical subjection to the modiste, and singing of love like a diva, what can one say? No more than this, perhaps, that the fortunate man who carries her ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick
... or form matrimonial connections, are ever on the alert for something or somebody better than themselves; and under such circumstances, naturally enough, Miss Alice Somebody—though a pretty girl—talented, as the world goes, highly educated, too, as many hundreds beside her, was still a spinster at twenty-three. The fact was, Mrs. Somebody was a woman of experience in the world—indeed, a dozen years' experience in life at Washington, had given her very definite ideas of expediency and diplomacy; and hence, as the means were cut off to live in their usual style and expensiveness—Mrs. ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... as ever, but not quite so sour. She was not a spinster. There were few spinsters in those days! She had married a man of the neighbouring valley, whom she loved to distraction, and whom she led the life of a dog! But it was her nature to be cross-grained. She could not help it, and the poor man appeared to ...
— Erling the Bold • R.M. Ballantyne
... to seniority. That tall, thin, cross-looking lady of forty-five is a spinster, and sister to Lord B. She has been persuaded very much against her will to come on board; but her notions of propriety would not permit her niece to embark under the protection of only her father. She is frightened at everything: ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... consent having been secured, on July 23, 1837, the "position was regularised" by the bridegroom's brother, the Rev. John James, vicar of Rathbiggon, County Meath. "Thomas James, bachelor, Lieutenant, 21st Bengal Native Infantry, and Rose Anna Gilbert, condition, spinster," was ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... the occupant was a spinster and a writer, and Esther remembered that she had noticed even at the time Miss Rice's manuscript, it was such a beautiful clear round hand, and it lay on the table, ready to be continued the moment she should have ...
— Esther Waters • George Moore
... appeared. Those whom I had known were many of them married—others were gone. Society had lost its first charm to me. So my father and I travelled three years. We had barely returned when he died. I did not take up my social duties again till I was thirty-two. Then it was as the spinster aunt, as you have known me. Now do you understand how hard it is for such a girl as ...
— The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him • Paul Leicester Ford
... believe me, I see," pursued the woman, calmly. "There is nothing but the stern facts that will satisfy you. You shall have them. They are soon told: Years ago, when I was young and fair as you are now, I lived at the home of a quiet, well-to-do spinster, Taiza Burt. She had a nephew, an honest, well-to-do young fellow, who worshiped me, much to the chagrin of his aunt; and out of pique one day I married him. I did not love the honest-hearted fellow, and I lived with him but ...
— Daisy Brooks - A Perilous Love • Laura Jean Libbey
... the leading spinster of Plainton. In companies where there were married ladies she was sometimes obliged to take a second place, but never among maidens, old or young. There were very few subjects upon which Miss Shott had not an opinion; and whatever this opinion ...
— Mrs. Cliff's Yacht • Frank R. Stockton
... who looked as if she might be a spinster of the type generally known as "old maid" was doing her best to silence the bird while she fished wildly in her ...
— Billie Bradley on Lighthouse Island - The Mystery of the Wreck • Janet D. Wheeler
... year of our Lord 1852, between William Charles Capas, of Charles-Henry Street, in the borough of Birmingham, in the county of Warwick, carpenter, of the one part, and Emily Hickson, of Hurst Street, Birmingham aforesaid, spinster, of the other part. Whereas the said William Charles Capas and Emily Hickson have mutually agreed with each other to live and reside together, and to mutually assist in supporting and maintaining each other during the remainder of their lives, and ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 190, June 18, 1853 • Various
... stared in reverentially, and wondered why old Madam Hyde's eyes followed them as far as they could see. Visitors came now and then to the kitchen-door, and usurped Keery's flag-bottomed chair, while they gossiped with her about village affairs; now and then a friendly spinster with a budget of good advice called Hitty away from her post, and, after an hour's vain effort to get any news worth retailing about the Judge from those pale lips, retired full of disappointed curiosity to tell how stiff that Mehitable Hyde was, and how hard it was to make her ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... installation, to the dexterity with which customers were led there, and to the grace with which the canvasser dipped the pen in the handsome silver inkstand. The county squire, the owner of racehorses, the undergraduate, and the Brixton spinster, are easily led by him to the commodious desk. Go and see the man, and you will be led ...
— Modern Painting • George Moore
... worst is about to happen If you were as good a churchgoer as one could wish, you would have been in your pew yesterday morning, when the banns were read out (for the first time of asking) "between George Goodman, bachelor, and Emily Parsons, spinster, both of this parish," though this would not have conveyed to you the appalling fact that your man is marrying my entire staff all at once. I doubt, however, if you will be able to find ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152. January 17, 1917 • Various
... The spinster drank those mellow accents, colored a little, looked keenly at the speaker, and, after a moment's reflection, said, half sullenly, "No, madam, you are polite. I must risk my poor piano. Be pleased to come ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... Quoth HUDIBRAS, 795 Thou offer'st nobly, valiant lass, And I shall take thee at thy word. First let me rise and take my sword. That sword which has so oft this day Through squadrons of my foes made way, 800 And some to other worlds dispatch'd, Now with a feeble spinster match'd, Will blush with blood ignoble stain'd, By which no honour's to be gain'd. But if thou'lt take m' advice in this, 805 Consider whilst thou may'st, what 'tis To interrupt a victor's course, B' ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... have thought Mary and Mr. Ashforth so suited to one another. Well, well, the heart's an unaccountable thing—to an old spinster, anyhow." ...
— Comedies of Courtship • Anthony Hope
... Britling had to go to the house for instructions, and guided by the under-butler found Lady Homartyn hiding away in the walled Dutch garden behind the dairy. She had been giving away the prizes of the flower-show, and she was resting in a deck chair while a spinster relation presided over the tea. Mrs. Britling had fled the outer festival earlier, and was sitting by the tea-things. Lady Meade and two or three visitors had motored out from Hartleytree to assist, and Manning ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... old red brick and the latticed panes. And the long wooden veranda that he had invoked did not unify the trinity. But one didn't want it to. The wrongness had a character all its own. The wrongness was right—at any rate after Mary had hit on it for William. As a spinster, she would, I think, have been happiest in a trim modern villa. But it was a belief of hers that she had married a man of strange genius. She had married him for himself, not for his genius; but ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm
... was an ant, a spinster ant, Whose virtues were so many That she became intolerant Of those who hadn't any: She had a small and frugal mind And lived a life ascetic, Nor was her temperament the kind That's known ...
— Fables for the Frivolous • Guy Whitmore Carryl
... imperially endowed remained so long unmarried? It was not that she looked her age, which he felt to be little less than his own, but that she implied it by her lack of inexperience. It was not that eight or nine and twenty made a spinster from the modern point of view, but that to reach that age unmarried she must have resisted many a suit. Had he lived longer in New England, he would have known more women of this kind, women who hide ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... the very same mind," said a very prim spinster. "But what a pity the former governor ...
— An Eagle Flight - A Filipino Novel Adapted from Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... always thought that maiden was a term that implied virgin innocence and purity, whether addressed to the blithe lass of sixteen, or the antiquated spinster of forty," returned the provoking sailor, with a ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie
... rather wearily, "and that I'm an elderly spinster teaching children to defy their parents and committing larceny to ...
— Tish, The Chronicle of Her Escapades and Excursions • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... twenty-seven, was now a stout matron of thirty-nine, with a tendency to pant after the most modest feats of stair-climbing; and Aunt Annie, only the other day a pretty girl with a head full of what is wrongly called nonsense, was a spinster—a spinster. Fortunately, they were blind to these obvious facts. Even Mr. Knight, accustomed as he was to survey fundamental truths with the detachment of a philosopher, would have been shocked to learn that his hair was grey. Before the glass, of a morning, he sometimes remarked, ...
— A Great Man - A Frolic • Arnold Bennett
... believe?" said Mr. Guppy. "Married woman. Thank you. Formerly Caroline Jellyby, spinster, then of Thavies Inn, within the city of London, but extra-parochial; now of Newman ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... conquests of Alexander. Then we have the spinning-wheel, which differs in no important respect from that of England in the thirteenth century, and is similar to, but ruder than, that used by our great-grandmothers, when "spinster" meant something, and a girl brought to the home of her choice a goodly array of linen. This was before cotton was king, and before factories were known either for cotton, flax or wool. Was it a better day than the present, or no? Things work round, and the roller-gin is now the better machine, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... great families who now pass for gentry in the western counties have been originally raised from and built up by this truly noble manufacture'. It has filled our census lists with surnames—Weaver, Webber, Webb, Sherman, Fuller, Walker, Dyer—and given to every unmarried woman the designation of a spinster. And from the time when the cloth trade ousted that of wool as the chief export trade of England down to the time when it was in its turn ousted by iron and cotton, it was the foundation of England's ...
— Medieval People • Eileen Edna Power
... party—it did not seem right. Besides, whom else was she to marry? Camelford would not have her; he did not want her then; he was not going to want her at forty. For practical purposes Camelford was out of the question. She might marry somebody else altogether—and fare worse. She might remain a spinster: she hated the mere name of spinster. The inky-fingered woman journalist that, if all went well, she might become: it was not her idea. Was she acting selfishly? Ought she, in his own interests, to refuse to marry dear ...
— The Philosopher's Joke • Jerome K. Jerome
... there is much work a married woman can do that would be impossible to the single woman. Anyway, I wasn't cut out for a spinster! It doesn't matter if there are only half as many men as women; some of the women get married, and I'll be one of ...
— Have We No Rights? - A frank discussion of the "rights" of missionaries • Mabel Williamson
... mere shame-faced, sister-hating, commonplace creature that the collective boy thinks it due to himself to be in society,' said Ethel, 'and me from an enjoying sister, into an elderly, care-taking, despised spinster—a burden to myself and ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... observed that this hand-spinning is the most primitive of female accomplishments, and can be traced back to the earliest times. Ballad poetry and fairy tales are full of allusions to it. The term 'spinster' still testifies to its having been the ordinary employment of the English young woman. It was the labour assigned to the ejected nuns by the rough earl who said, 'Go spin, ye jades, go spin.' It was the employment at which Roman ...
— Memoir of Jane Austen • James Edward Austen-Leigh
... buried in a vault under the floor of the church, not far from the windows of her house. Her sister, Miss Branwell, came up from Penzance to look after the children. You can see this small, middle-aged, early Victorian spinster, exiled for ever from the sunshine of the town she loved, dragging out her sad, fastidious life in a cold and comparatively savage country that she unspeakably disliked. She took possession of the room her sister died in (it ...
— The Three Brontes • May Sinclair
... like a rejected old spinster. She sat and mused and her thoughts were bitter. She remembered Doctor Mosely's sermon and wondered if he would preach what he preached if he knew what she knew. She would go to him and ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... welfare and education, should be expanded at whatever cost into something truly national and all embracing. The ancient grudging selfishness that would not feed other people's children should be cast out. In the war time the wealthy bachelor and the spinster of advancing years took it for granted that other people's children should fight for them. The ...
— The Unsolved Riddle of Social Justice • Stephen Leacock
... no reply,—too wise now for that; but she winced, and bit her lip severely, as the irate spinster "gave Miss Maverick to understand that an intercourse which might possibly be agreeable to her French associations could never be tolerated at the home of Dr. Johns. For herself, she had a reputation for propriety to sustain; and while Miss Maverick made a portion of her household, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various
... an' men, ye 're all alike,—all for looks," said the cook, who was a lean and ill-favored spinster, at least fifty years old. "The gal isn't any thin' so amazin' for good looks, 's I can see; but she's got mighty sarchin' eyes in her head. I wonder if she's a ...
— Mercy Philbrick's Choice • Helen Hunt Jackson
... Even the spinster, at the parsonage, was disposed to credit something to the rigid legal aspects which the affair was taking, and to find in them a shelter for her wounded dignities. Nor did she share the inquietude of the Doctor at thought of the new and terrible religious ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... with the strange gentleman,' whispered the spinster aunt, with true spinster-aunt-like envy, ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... character of the cat. Miss Waghorn loved. The bickerings were incessant. They only had to meet for hot disagreement to break out. Mrs. Plume, already bent with age, would strike the floor with the ebony stick she always carried, and glare at the erect, defiant spinster—'That horrud, dirrty cat; its always in the room!' Then Miss Waghorn: 'It's a very nice cat, Madame'—she always called her Madame—'and when I was a young girl I was taught to be kind to animals.'—'The drawing-room is not ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood
... heard of a man ..." began the spinster, putting down her work, and raising her head with the air they all knew so well, denoting a long rigmarole about some exceedingly uninteresting person, and Diana immediately chimed in with, "Shall you ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page
... morose or bland, farmers full of a sturdy sense that made their chat as wholesome as the mould they delved in; school children barefooted and blithe, and specimens of womankind, from the buxom housewife who took them under her motherly wing at once, to the sour, snuffy, shoe-binding spinster with "No Admittance" written ...
— Moods • Louisa May Alcott
... to meet Miss Orgreave, John's appreciably elder sister, spinster, who lived with another brother, Charles, a doctor at Ealing. Janet was a prim emaciated creature, very straight and dignified, whose glance always seemed to hesitate between benevolence and fastidiousness. Janet and Charles had consented to forget the episode ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett
... Sewall, who as a child was so troubled over her spiritual state, was not forced to accept an uncongenial mate; although, of course, the old judge thought she must not remain in the unnatural condition of a spinster. When she was seventeen her first suitor appeared, with her father's permission, of course; for the Judge had investigated the young man's financial standing, and had found him worth at least L600. ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday
... mostly husbands, seated themselves near to large groups of indulgent women and kept up an exquisite banter directed at each other's personal defects, or upon the idiosyncrasies of any bachelor or spinster near. These funny gentlemen kept alluding to the excursion as the "Exertion." If the boat rolled a little they said, "Now, Mother, don't rock ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... such excruciating kinds that I followed Ulysses' well-known plan and then tried to find quiet for my siesta in the back spare-room. The worst of this house is that it really has no back—it has various fronts, like the war. The spinster next door but one has a parrot—a cynical, tired parrot, but still fond of the sound of his own voice. The lady across the street is raising Pekinese puppies, who apparently bitterly regret being born outside of Pekin. She puts them in baskets on the roof in the sun and lets them cry it out, in ...
— The Smiling Hill-Top - And Other California Sketches • Julia M. Sloane
... pale boy who told her such pretty stories. Perhaps Mary nevertheless preserved a lingering fondness for her little lover's memory, for though many wooed her in after life, she never wedded, and died a spinster. As for John Clare, he fretted long and deeply, and all his life thought of Mary Joyce as the symbol, ideal, and incarnation of love. With the exception of a few verses addressed to 'Patty,' his future wife, ...
— The Life of John Clare • Frederick Martin
... easy reading. The spirit of the amateur is the spirit of the lover, who trembles at the thought that the delicate creature he loves may learn to love him in return, if he can but praise her worthily. The professional spirit is the spirit in which a man carefully and courteously woos an elderly spinster for the sake of her comfortable fortune. The amateur has an irresponsible joy in his work; he is like the golfer who dreams of mighty drives, and practises "putting" on his back lawn: the professional writer gives his solid hours to his work in a conscientious spirit, ...
— At Large • Arthur Christopher Benson
... the Indian was over now, and the day of the farmer who succeeded him was over, too. The crash of the loom and the whir of the spinning-wheel were heard no longer, but Amanda Dalton, spinster,—descendant of the original Tristram Dalton, to whom the claim belonged,—sat on alone in her house, and not far away sat Caleb Kimball, sole living heir of the original Caleb, himself a Dalton Righter, ...
— Ladies-In-Waiting • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... vii. Laird of Hermitage, The, xix. Laird of Lucky's Howe, ix. Laird Rorieson's Will, xviii. Last of the Pedlars, The, v. Last Scrap, The, xxiii. Leaves from the Life of Alexander Hamilton, xix. Leaves from the Diary of an Aged Spinster, vi. Leein' Jamie Murdieston, viii. Leveller, The, xvi. Linton Lairds, The; or, Exclusives and Inclusives, iv. Lord Durie and Christie's Will, ii. Lord Kames's Puzzle, xxiii, Lost Heir of the House of Elphinstone, xx. Lottery Hall, xiii. ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume XXIV. • Revised by Alexander Leighton
... daughters. Mr. and Mrs. Chadwick and their three daughters. The burly chancellor and his wife and clerical son from Oxford. The meagre little doctor without incumbrance. Mr. Harding with Eleanor and Miss Bold. The dean leaning on a gaunt spinster, his only child now living with him, a lady very learned in stones, ferns, plants, and vermin, and who had written a book about petals. A wonderful woman in her way was Miss Trefoil. Mr. Finnie, the ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... to the law of 1734, which remained valid until 1864, a spinster could not marry without the consent of her father, or, if he were dead, of her mother. Both parents being dead, this duty devolved upon the eldest ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... at her fat hands and smiled a little, seeming to see things in the matrimonial philosophy that no spinster was likely to understand. Then after opening the door they both turned again, from force of long habit, to look across the garden, and saw the square board more plainly now than they had done when close under the hedge. ...
— The Privet Hedge • J. E. Buckrose
... top of St. James's Street you are hailed simultaneously by two spinster ladies with hand luggage, wishing to be driven to Euston, and by a single unencumbered gentleman whose destination ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, February 28, 1917 • Various
... consideration that Miss Prue had bought the little horse, Jupiter, and then she changed the name at once. For a respectable spinster to drive any sort of horse was bad enough in Miss Prue's opinion; but to drive a heathen one! To replace "Jupiter" she considered "Ann" a sensible, dignified, and proper name, and "Ann" she named him, regardless of age, sex, or "previous condition of servitude." ...
— Across the Years • Eleanor H. Porter |
