"Virago" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of knowledge. Peg put up with that just as long as she could. Then one day she opened out on them and astonished them. They could not have been more amazed had a bomb exploded in their midst. The little, timid-looking, open-eyed, Titian-haired girl was a veritable virago. She attacked and belittled, and mimicked and berated them. They had talked of her BROGUE! They should listen to their own nasal utterances, that sounded as if they were speaking with their noses ...
— Peg O' My Heart • J. Hartley Manners
... the man, putting himself before the young virago, who was about to rush upon me, "my turn is first." Then, advancing to me in a menacing attitude, he said with a look of deep malignity, "'Afraid' was ...
— Isopel Berners - The History of certain doings in a Staffordshire Dingle, July, 1825 • George Borrow
... Frau Hadebusch, virago that she could be when a dubious debtor failed to fulfil his obligations, stormed her way up the steps. The rent was long overdue, and uncanny councils were being held in the living room, in which an invalid ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... would-be successors. Bitter quarrels and recriminations ensued, and the jealous ravings of Catarina's princely admirer were more than matched by the fierce sarcasms and shrill clamor of the beautiful virago. One day Don Ferdinand, justly suspecting her of gross unfaithfulness, assailed her with unusual fury, to which she replied by terming him a gobbo maladetto (accursed hunchback). On this the Prince, carried beyond all control, had her imprisoned on some ...
— Great Singers, First Series - Faustina Bordoni To Henrietta Sontag • George T. Ferris
... cried, under her breath, and actually made a passionate half-start toward her. "You violent-natured virago! The very look on your face is enough ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... the point, it is on record, of putting a knife to his throat. Not once but several times his servants found him scratched and bruised. But the old man could not summon up the strength of mind to be quit of this succubine virago. ...
— She Stands Accused • Victor MacClure
... of a brave, an energetic, or a supremely criminal woman is a tall, dark-haired, large-armed virago, who might pass as the younger brother of her husband, and about whom nature seemed to have hesitated before determining whether to make her a man or a woman—a kind of debatable land, in fact, between the two sexes, and almost as ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous
... a good deal of, was her freshness and simplicity. She was quiet and a little shy. There was nothing coarse or loud about her; she had not the exuberance common to the half-caste; and it was almost impossible to believe that she could be the virago that the horrible scenes between husband and wife, which were now common knowledge, indicated. In her pretty pink frock and high-heeled shoes she looked quite European. You could hardly have guessed at that dark background of native life in which she felt herself so ...
— The Trembling of a Leaf - Little Stories of the South Sea Islands • William Somerset Maugham
... nearly scared out of his wits, darted from the inhospitable pocket up the chair-back, then leaped to the top of the window, where, feeling secure, he hung himself up to the curtain-rod by his tail, and proceeded to scold, like a perfect virago. ...
— All Aboard - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... love of pretty things, attachment to her own abode with its high-art lining, love for her mate and her own kitten, Thyme, dread of disturbance—all made her long to push this woman from the room; this woman with the skimpy figure, and eyes that, for all their patience, had in them something virago-like; this woman who carried about with her an atmosphere of sordid grief, of squalid menaces, and scandal. She longed all the more because it could well be seen from the seamstress's helpless attitude that she too would have liked an easy life. To dwell on things like this was to ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... can go as you came!" exclaimed the virago. "My husband is not a wild animal on exhibition, and I am not going to let in every idle stranger that interferes with his work and cuts off my bread. God knows he gives me little enough, without lessening the pittance by ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... the bitterness of her anger. However little I oppose what she has taken into her head, I raise a terrible storm which lasts at least a week. She makes me tremble when she begins her outcries; I don't know where to hide myself. She is a perfect virago; and yet, in spite of her diabolical temper, I must call her ...
— The Learned Women • Moliere (Poquelin)
... sublimely like martyrs. But if a dusty shoe trod upon a freshly washed floor, or husband or child came tardily to the breakfast-table, or lingered outside the door after regulation hour for retiring—lo, the Angel became a virago, or a droning ...
— The Heart of the New Thought • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... Drabble was quite a character in her way; she was a fair, fussy little woman, who looked meek enough to warrant the best of tempers; she had a soft voice and manner that deceived you, and a vague rambling sort of talk that landed you nowhere; but if ever woman could be a mild virago Mrs. Drabble was that woman. She worshipped her master, and never allowed any one to find fault with him; but with Mr. Tudor, or the maid, or any one who interfered with her, she could be a flaxen-haired termagant; she could scold in a low voice for half an hour together without ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... exclamations of the fierce tymbesteres, as they retorted scratch for scratch, and blow for blow. The spectators grew animated by the sight of actual outrage and resistance; the humpbacked tinker, whose unwholesome fancy one of the aggrieved tymbesteres had mightily warmed, hastened to the relief of his virago; and rendered furious by finding ten nails fastened suddenly on his face, he struck down the poor creature by a blow that stunned her, seized her in his arms,—for deformed and weakly as the tinker was, the old woman, now sense and spirit were gone, was as light as skin and bone could ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the language, it appeared to Mr. Roscorla, of a virago; only, viragoes do not ordinarily have tears in their eyes, as was the case with Mabyn when she finished ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, April 1875, Vol. XV., No. 88 • Various
... succeeds in traversing the Land of Birds, the Land of Wild Beasts, the country of the Warlocks and the Enchanters, and the Land of the Jinn, and enters the islands of Wak—there to fall into the hands of that masterful virago, his wife's eldest sister. After a preliminary outburst against Hasan, this amiable creature pours, as is the wont of women, the full torrent of her wrath against her erring sister. From the tortures she inflicts, Hasan at length rescues his wife, with ...
— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland
... the Dame, but no applause ensu'd; 35 Belinda frown'd, Thalestris call'd her Prude. "To arms, to arms!" the fierce Virago cries, And swift as lightning to the combat flies. All side in parties, and begin th' attack; Fans clap, silks rustle, and tough whalebones crack; 40 Heroes' and Heroines' shouts confus'dly rise, And bass, and treble voices strike the skies. No common weapons in their hands are ...
— The Rape of the Lock and Other Poems • Alexander Pope
... in a large lumbering coach, or rather waggon, compared with which indeed the generality of modern waggons were a luxurious conveyance. With four starved and perhaps spavined hacks, he slowly sets forth under a mountain of bandboxes. At his side sits the wandering virago, Marquise du Chatelet, in front of him a serving maid, with additional bandboxes, et divers effets de sa maitresse. At the next stage the postilions have to be beat up: they came out swearing. Cloaks ...
— Old Roads and New Roads • William Bodham Donne
... entertain him with edifying conversation while the audience was coming in remarked that they had had rather a trying experience during the lecture of the week before. On Taylor's asking what it was, the chairman answered: "The lecturer was seized by a virago on the stage." He meant vertigo. Dana told good stories of old Dr. Osgood of Medford, whose hatred of Democracy was shown not only in his well-known reading of Governor Gerry's proclamation, but in his bitter sermon at the election of Thomas Jefferson. ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White
... relieve each other: previously they have asked of their favorite deputy "at what hour they must come, whether all goes on well, and whether he is satisfied with those fools of parsons (calotins) and the aristocrats." Others consist of low women under the command of Theroigne de Mericourt, a virago courtesan, who assigns them their positions and gives them the signal for hooting or for applause. Publicly and in full session, on the occasion of the debate on the veto, "the deputies are applauded ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... courage of men. We have only to observe the thoroughly manly bearing of most of the women in the heroic poems, especially those of Boiardo and Ariosto, to convince ourselves that we have before us the ideal of the time. The title 'virago,' which is an equivocal compliment in the present day, then implied nothing but praise. It was borne in all its glory by Caterina Sforza, wife and afterwards widow of Girolamo Riario, whose hereditary possession, Forli, she gallantly ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... the virago pass, Laidlaw proceeded to the court, where, to his great surprise, he found Tommy Splint sitting on a doorstep, not exactly in tears, but with disconsolation deeply impressed on his dirty ...
— The Garret and the Garden • R.M. Ballantyne
... said, roughly—"I will not have a scandal here in my studio! You'll bring my man-servant up in a moment with your stupid noise! I'm ashamed of you!—screaming and crying like a virago! If you make this ...
— Innocent - Her Fancy and His Fact • Marie Corelli
... she be a-comin' in an' a-robbin' us of our pay?" muttered a coarse, red-faced virago, her hair in a frowse about her head, her slatternly dress open at the throat. "Oi'll be one to go an' pull her off the dock and jump on her. What's she a-doin', any-how, puttin' down prices! Ef her ole man had a leg to walk on, instid of his lyin' ...
— Tom Grogan • F. Hopkinson Smith
... grew, her voice rose, not shrilly as with most women, but taking on a warm, hoarse note—her words seemed to be flung out hot as coals from a fire. Mr. Huxtable grimaced. "She's a virago," he thought to himself. He put up his hand suavely to induce silence, but the ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith
... be told: the point is that this scene—the scene of tense expectancy as to the result of a crisis which is taking place in another room of the same house—is really far more dramatic than the crisis itself would be. The audience already knows all that the angry virago can say to her master; and of course no discussion of the merits of the case is possible between these two. Therefore M. de Curel is conspicuously right in sparing us the scene of vulgar violence, and giving ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer
... account of the scene.[FN35] Gidi Mavunga so managed that the porters, instead of proceeding straight to the stream, marched upon Banza Nokki where his royal son was awaiting us. Worse still, Nessudikira's royal mother was there, a large old virago, who smoked like a steam-engine and who "swore awful." The moleques were armed, but none liked proceeding to extremes; so, after an unusually loud quarrel, we reached the river in three hours, and at 9.45 A.M. we set ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... the virago, "Hyperphon the beggarly hunchback, the laughing-stock of Athens! O Mother Hera!—but I see the villain's aim. You are weary of me. Then divorce me like an honourable man. Send me back to Polus my dear brother. Ah, you sheep, you are silent! You think of the ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... this she was indignant and sent to me to say, amongst other things, 'An thou have wit, tarry not in this town; else wilt thou perish and thy sin shall be on shine own neck.[FN305]' For she is a virago of viragoes. Accordingly I left Bassorah, brokenhearted, and limned this likeness of her in books and scattered them abroad in various lands, so haply they might fall into the hands of a comely youth like thyself and he contrive access to her and peradventure she might fall in ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton
... father if you like, his grandfather very probably, misgoverned Ireland, but never he himself. Why, just look at him now, his hand never out of his pocket relieving the shrill cries of Irish distress. There she stands, a poverty-stricken virago at his door, shaking her bony fist at him, Celtic porter in her eye, the most fearful apparition in history, his charwoman, shaming him before the neighbours and demanding payment for long past spring cleanings that he, good soul, ...
— The Crime Against Europe - A Possible Outcome of the War of 1914 • Roger Casement
... wandering "cat," seemed less to be dreaded than the wild bacchanals who surrounded us. We would fain have returned, but it was too late. Barney was already in the power of unseen hands, which had seized upon him in the darkness; an old virago had ordered us into the house; and when we had declined to partake of the relics of a feast which strewed the table, we were ignominiously consigned to a den of a lean-to opening upon the piazza. A "terribly-strange bed" indeed was the old four-poster, which swayed ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, September 1880 • Various
... sometimes turned from with weary scorn in her careless perusal of the daily shameful chronicle of domestic infelicity. Then she had coldly wondered if there could be any such men and women. And now! The crowd fell back before her; even the virago was silenced as she looked at her face. The humorist's face was as white, but not as immobile, as he gasped, "Christ! if I don't believe she knew nothin' ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... which their altercation took place against a bench by the wall, where she sat down pale and gasping, to the indignation of a slatternly woman nursing her child, and the concern of an honest coalheaver, who had a virago ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... the same month;" but the parish registers have been examined for confirmation with "fruitless solicitude." Cunningham gives December as the month of his birth; this is a mistake; so also is his notice of the painter's introduction of the Virago into his picture of the "Modern Midnight Conversation." No female figure appears in this subject. It is in the third plate of the "Rake's Progress" the woman alluded to is introduced. A small critic might here find a fit subject for ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... Sand, has also some of the characteristics of Madame d'Abrantes. Balzac describes Mademoiselle des Touches as being past forty and un peu homme, which reminds one that the Countess Dash describes Madame d'Abrantes as being rather masculine, with an organe de rogome, and a virago when past forty. Calyste became enamored of Beatrix after having loved Mademoiselle des Touches, while Balzac became infatuated with Madame de Castries after having been in love with Madame d'Abrantes, in each case, the blonde after ...
— Women in the Life of Balzac • Juanita Helm Floyd
... 'where warlike steeds are found. Yet, since reclaim'd to chariots they submit, And bend to stubborn yokes, and champ the bit, Peace may succeed to war.' Our way we bend To Pallas, and the sacred hill ascend; There prostrate to the fierce virago pray, Whose temple was the landmark of our way. Each with a Phrygian mantle veil'd his head, And all commands of Helenus obey'd, And pious rites to Grecian Juno paid. These dues perform'd, we stretch our sails, and stand To sea, ...
— The Aeneid • Virgil
... that the real worth of their work lies in their instinct for the poetry which, more specially in Gaelic-speaking regions, sits in rags by roadside and chimney corner. Irish poetry is not only the tragic voice of the keene; Gaelic had its comic muse as well, a robust virago, of the breed which produced Aristophanes and Rabelais—and Slipper with his gift for epic narrative is ...
— Irish Books and Irish People • Stephen Gwynn
... ashamed at his present position, and endeavoring in vain to shake off the grasp of the virago, slipped his hand into his girdle, and drew forth a short knife. So menacing was his look, so brightly gleamed the blade, that Stratonice, who was used only to that fashion of battle which we moderns call the pugilistic, started back ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... armed her slaves, they made several bold attempts upon an advanced post occupied by major Melville, and threw up intrenchments upon a hill opposite to the station of this officer, who had all along signalized himself by his uncommon intrepidity, vigilance, and conduct. At length the works of this virago were stormed by a regular detachment, which, after an obstinate and dangerous conflict, entered the intrenchment sword in hand, and burned the houses and plantations. Some of the enemy were killed, and ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett |
