"Virago" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... have been badly mated, whose own temper, or their husbands, has made life anything but agreeable to them, and they are therefore down upon the whole of the opposite sex; some, having so much of the virago in their disposition, that nature appears to have made a mistake in their gender—mannish women, like hens that crow; some of boundless vanity and egotism, who believe that they are superior in intellectual ability to "all the world and ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... indignation, ire, frenzy; virago, termagant, shrew, vixen, beldame, Xantippe; agitation, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... to be done? Suppose the furrier refused the burden. But Henry's flight, she felt, had removed her even farther from the Elkman household. If she went to spy out the land, she would now have to face the virago in possession. But no! on second thoughts it was this other woman whom Henry's flight had changed to a stranger. What had the wretch to do with the children? She was a mere intruder in the house. Out with her, or at least ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... Indian women, they are far from complaining of their lot. On the contrary, they would despise their husbands should they stoop to any menial office, and would think it conveyed an imputation upon their own conduct. It is the worst insult one virago can cast upon another in a moment of altercation. "Infamous woman!" will she cry, "I have seen your husband carrying wood into his lodge to make the fire. Where was his squaw that he should be obliged to ...
— Journeys Through Bookland - Volume Four • Charles H. Sylvester
... 'You'll probably marry a virago; easy-going people like you generally do, and you'll be henpecked all your life,' was Sarah's ...
— Sarah's School Friend • May Baldwin
... naked body from a window of the stronghold of Forli. Catarina, however, with determined courage, succeeded in keeping the castle for her children, and she avenged her husband's death with ferocious cruelty. Subsequently she was known—to quote Marino Sanuto's words—as "a courageous woman and cruel virago."[79] Six years later she saw her brother Giangaleazzo die of poison administered by Ludovico il Moro, while before her very eyes her second, but not openly recognized, husband, Giacomo Feo of Savona, was slain in Forli by conspirators. She immediately mounted her charger, and ...
— Lucretia Borgia - According to Original Documents and Correspondence of Her Day • Ferdinand Gregorovius
... gracious to the Infante's many rivals and 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, ...
— Great Singers, First Series - Faustina Bordoni To Henrietta Sontag • George T. Ferris
... "That virago!" she heard Ben say. "No wonder she drives Lupo to drink. This young lady here has saved us all and guided me back through the swamp." He indicated the barefooted girl. "I suppose we would have been there yet if ...
— The Motor Maids at Sunrise Camp • Katherine Stokes
... folk thus spake the virgin brave, Thereby behold forth passed a Christian band Toward the camp, that herds of cattle drave, For they that morn had forayed all the land; The fierce virago would that booty save, Whom their commander singled hand for hand, A mighty man at arms, who Guardo hight, But far too weak to match with her ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... were not so obviously a stage cliche, I should say Damn Cambridge. As it is, I blame my kittens. And now let me warn you. If youre going to be a charming healthy young English girl, you may coax me. If youre going to be an unsexed Cambridge Fabian virago, I'll treat you as my intellectual equal, as I ...
— Fanny's First Play • George Bernard Shaw
... actual violence, and it sent her staggering from the sloppy bar at 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 of ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... Meg's conscience told her they had had too much already. Sometimes they failed, as when the croupier of the Helter Skelter got himself scalded with the mulled wine, in an unsuccessful attempt to coax this formidable virago by a salute; and the excellent president of the Wildfire received a broken head from the keys of the cellar, as he endeavoured to possess himself of these emblems of authority. But little did these dauntless officials ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... many a specious diagram fails when brought into its mechanical operation; or discovering the infinite varieties of a curve, she might take occasion to deduce her husband's versatility. If she become as jealous of his books as other wives might be of his mistresses, she may act the virago even over his innocent papers. The wife of Bishop COOPER, while her husband was employed on his Lexicon, one day consigned the volume of many years to the flames, and obliged that scholar to begin a second siege of Troy in a second Lexicon. The wife of WHITELOCKE ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... of too great moment in this quiet little world, not to turn it completely topsy-turvy. Labour is at a stand: the house has been a scene of confusion the whole evening. It has been beleagured by gipsy women, with their children on their backs, wailing and lamenting; while the old virago of a mother has cruised up and down the lawn in front, shaking her head, and muttering to herself, or now and then breaking into a paroxysm of rage, brandishing her fist at the Hall, and denouncing ill-luck upon Ready-Money Jack, and even upon the ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... day: there was nothing said to confirm Wilton in this fancy; and when he took leave, the Earl reminded him of the dinner hour, adding, "Be punctual, be punctual, Mr. Brown. We shall dine exactly at the hour; and my cook is a virago, ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James
... Woods then that stopped at Dexter's Oak one Friday morning with her donkey-cart and a small piece of the neck of mutton in it. She was not an entirely bad woman, though a downright cunning virago, and perhaps some inkling of the nature of the blow that was about to fall on Miss Dexter's head caused her to come prepared by an acceptable present to somewhat mitigate its ...
— Crowded Out! and Other Sketches • Susie F. Harrison
... popularity rested on some recent brutality, was declared capable of governing better than most of the present deputies, and the mob was more out of hand than it had been for weeks. At the call of some loud-mouthed patriot, or on the instigation of some screaming virago, a small body of dancing, swearing patriots would move away bent on mischief which would probably end in bloodshed. A street, more or less tranquil the moment before, would suddenly become a miniature battlefield, ...
— The Light That Lures • Percy Brebner
... Bethlehem. The square was enclosed with flat-roofed stables, and it being a busy time they were all occupied. The first one, immediately below us, was filled with a family of Kabyles, which consisted chiefly of a magnificent virago of a wife, tattooed, with a fine gold ring in her nostrils, who seemed to have a trying life with her mild and contemplative old husband. She had more children than one could count without giving the matter that close ...
— Old Junk • H. M. Tomlinson
... think. I'm the 'red-headed old virago' next door to you, whose scoundrelly little boys are always reaching through the fence and picking your flowers. When you started for town this morning your wife said: 'Now, Henry, if you want a dinner fit ...
— More Toasts • Marion Dix Mosher
... this persuasion, thrusting my head out at the window, I bestowed some epithets upon him, which must have sounded very harsh in the ears of a Frenchman. We stopped for a refreshment at a little town called Joigne-ville, where (by the bye) I was scandalously imposed upon, and even abused by a virago of a landlady; then proceeding to the next stage, I was given to understand we could not be supplied with fresh horses. Here I perceived at the door of the inn, the same person whom I had reproached at Sens. He came up to the coach, and told me, that ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... been in the room when brother George was reading his poetry out to the ladies, but his thoughts were busy with his own affairs, and he was entirely bewildered with your Clotildas and Erminias, and giants, and enchanters, and nonsense. No, Miss Hetty, I say and believe, had nothing of the virago in her composition; else, no doubt, she would have taken a fancy to a soft young fellow with a literary turn, or a genius for playing the flute, according to the laws of contrast and nature provided in those cases; and who has not heard how great, strong men have an affinity for ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... coarse-tongued virago, but even Anna, who had shrunk from her, felt a little mollified and touched as she saw how tenderly the rough hand rested on the child's curls. But Kit pushed it pettishly away. "Don't, Ma'am, you've been and gone and spoiled Jemima's ball dress, and she is going to wear ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... took her candle and went to bed, professing to herself that she could not understand it. But what did it signify? It was, at any rate, certain now that the man had put himself out of Nora's reach, and if he chose to marry a republican virago, with a red nose, it could now make no difference to Nora. Lady Rowley almost felt a touch of satisfaction in reflecting on the future misery ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... ground,' My father cried, '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, forsaking ...
— The Aeneid • Virgil
... joy, misfortune follows him with disease; grievous plagues seize him, making days and nights one sleepless pain; and his wife, who should have been his stay and help, as most women are, became, instead of a solace and blessing, querulous, crying, like a virago, shrilly, "Curse God, and die!" Job opens with tragedy; Lear, and Julius Caesar, and Othello, and Macbeth, and Hamlet, close with tragedy. Job's ruin is swift and immediate. He has had no time to prepare him for the shock. He ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle
... surrounding these islands embrace numerous bays, harbors and sounds, of which Cloak Bay, North Island, Virago Sound, Naden and Massett Harbors of Graham Island, Darwin and Juan Perez Sounds, Laskeek, Sedgwick, Henry and Robson Bays, Gold Harbor of Moresby Island, Cartwright and Rennell Sounds, and the excellent harbors afforded by Kio-Kath-li, Skaloo, ...
— Official report of the exploration of the Queen Charlotte Islands - for the government of British Columbia • Newton H. Chittenden
... owned extensive porcelain-factories at the North, and was besides a considerable tobacco-planter; that her father was very kind to her, but that the old woman, who was not her own mother, treated her very cruelly; that her father married this ancient virago for her wealth, and now repented the rash step, but found it impossible to retrace it, as the law of China allows no divorces excepting when the wife has parents living to receive and shelter her; and the obnoxious woman being nearly a hundred ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 20, June, 1859 • Various
... repose, in which mind as well as body participated. But, the slightest disregard of her commands—and sometimes even the neglect to anticipate her wishes, on the part of the servants; was sufficient to awake her. The inanimate and delicate beauty then changed into a stormy virago. Her black eyes flawed and sparkled with a snaky fierceness, her full lips compressed, and her brows bent and darkened. Her very voice, soft and sweet when speaking to her husband, and exquisitely fine and melodious, when accompanying ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... from a rending East in flaws The young green leaflet's harrier, sworn To strew the garden, strip the shaws, And show our Spring with banner torn. Was ever such virago morn? The wind has teeth, the wind has claws. All the wind's wolves through woods are loose, The wild wind's falconry aloft. Shrill underfoot the grassblade shrews, At gallop, clumped, and down the croft Bestrid by shadows, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... 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 mosquito with ...
— The Heart of the New Thought • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... a perfect virago—an "embodied storm." In her time she had cut off the hands and feet of some little Chippeway children, and strung them, and worn them for a necklace. And she feasted yet at the pleasant ...
— Dahcotah - Life and Legends of the Sioux Around Fort Snelling • Mary Eastman |
