Sir Walter Scott
Even the most simple and unsuspicious of the female sex have (God bless them!) an instinctive sharpness of perception in love matters, which sometimes goes the length of observing partialities that never existed, but rarely misses to detect such as pass actually under their observation.
—Waverley.
Her accents stole
On the dark visions of their soul,
And bade their mournful musings fly,
Like mist before the zephyr’s sigh.
Rokeby, Canto 4.
She sung with great taste and feeling, and with a respect to the sense of what she uttered, that might be proposed in example to ladies of much superior musical talent. Her natural good sense taught her, that if, as we are assured, “music must be married to immortal verse,” they are very often divorced by the performer in a most shameful manner. It was perhaps owing to this sensibility to poetry, and combining its expression with those of the musical notes, that her singing gave more pleasure to all the unlearned in music, and even to many of the learned, than could have been communicated by a much finer voice and more brilliant execution, unguided by the same delicacy of feeling.
—Waverley.
Like every beautiful woman, she was conscious of her own power, and pleased with its effects…. But as she possessed excellent sense, she gave accidental circumstances, full weight in appreciating the feeling she aroused.
—Waverley.
There was a soft and pensive grace,
A cast of thought upon her face,
That suited well the forehead high,
The eye-lash dark, and downcast eye;
The mild expression spoke a mind
In duty firm, composed, resign’d.
Rokeby, Canto 4.
The rose, with faint and feeble streak
So slightly tinged the maiden’s cheek,
That you had said her hue was pale;
But if she faced the summer-gale,
Or spoke, or sung, or quicker moved,
Or heard the praise of those she loved,
Or when of interest was express’d
Aught that waked feeling in her breast,
That mantling blood in ready play
Rivall’d the blush of rising day.
Rokeby, Canto 4.
What woman knows not her own road to victory?
—The Talisman.
She had been beautiful, and was stately and majestic in her appearance. Endowed by nature with strong powers and violent passions, experience had taught her to employ the one, and to conceal, if not to moderate, the other. She was a severe and strict observer of the external forms, at least, of devotion; her hospitality was splendid, even to ostentation; her address and manners were grave, dignified, and severely regulated by the rules of etiquette…. And yet, with all these qualities to excite respect, she was seldom mentioned in the terms of love or affection. Interest,—the interest of her family, if not her own—seemed too obviously the motive of her actions: and when this is the case, the sharp-judging and malignant public are not easily imposed upon by outward show.
—The Bride of Lammermoor.
Reasoning—like a woman, to whom external appearance is scarcely in any circumstance a matter of unimportance, and like a beauty who has confidence in her own charms.
—Kenilworth.
Her affection and sympathy dictated at once the kindest course. Without attempting to control the torrent of grief in its full current, she gently sat her down beside the mourner…. She waited a more composed moment to offer her little stock of consolation in deep silence and stillness.
—The Betrothed.
Her kindness and her worth to spy
You need but gaze on Ellen’s eye;
Not Katrine in her mirror blue,
Gives back the shaggy banks more true,
Than every free-born glance confess’d
The guileless movements of her breast;
Whether joy danced in her dark eye,
Or woe or pity claim’d a sigh,
Or filial love was glowing there,
Or meek devotion pour’d a prayer.
Or hate of injury call’d forth
The indignant spirit of the North.
One only passion unreveal’d,
With maiden pride, the maid conceal’d,
Yet no less purely felt the flame—
O need I tell that passion’s name?
The Lady of the Lake, Canto 1.
She is fairer in feature than becometh a man of my order to speak of; and she has withal a breathing of her father’s lofty spirit. The look and the word of such a lady will give a man double strength in the hour of need.
—The Betrothed.
Her smile, her speech, with winning sway,
Wiled the old harper’s mood away.
With such a look as hermits throw
When angels stoop to soothe their woe,
He gazed, till fond regret and pride
Thrill’d to a tear.
The Lady of the Lake, Canto 2.
All her soul is in her eye,
Yet doubts she still to tender free
The wonted words of courtesy.
Go to her now—be bold of cheer,
While her soul floats ’twixt hope and fear:
It is the very change of tide,
When best the female heart is tried—
Pride, prejudice …
Are in the current swept to sea.
Rokeby, Canto 2.
She was highly accomplished; yet she had not learned to substitute the gloss of politeness for the reality of feeling.
—Waverley.
A deep-thinking and impassioned woman, ready to make exertions alike, and sacrifices, with all that vain devotion to a favorite object of affection, which is often so basely rewarded.
—The Fortunes of Nigel.
The spotless virgin fears not the raging lion.
—The Talisman.
Sweet was her blue eye’s modest smile …
And down her shoulders graceful roll’d
Her locks profuse of paly gold …
She charm’d at once, and tamed the heart.
Marmion, Canto 5.
At length, an effort sent apart
The blood that curdled to her heart,
And light came to her eye,
And color dawn’d upon her cheek,
A hectic and a flutter’d streak.
And when her silence broke at length,
Still as she spoke she gather’d strength,
And arm’d herself to bear;—
It was a fearful sight to see
Such high resolve and constancy,
In form so soft and fair.
Marmion, Canto 2.
She look’d down to blush, and she look’d up to sigh,
With a smile on her lips, and a tear in her eye.
Marmion, Canto 5.
Her very soul is in home, and in the discharge of all those quiet virtues of which home is the centre. Her husband will be to her the object of all her care, solicitude, and affection. She will see nothing, but by him, and through him. If he is a man of sense and virtue, she will sympathize in his sorrows, divert his fatigue, and share his pleasures. If she becomes the property of a churlish or negligent husband, she will suit his taste also, for she will not long survive his unkindness.
—Waverley.
When there can be no confidence betwixt a man and his plighted wife, it is a sign she has no longer the regard for him that made their engagement safe and suitable.—The Heart of Mid-Lothian.
She was by nature perfectly good-humoured, and if her due share of admiration and homage was duly resigned to her, no one could possess better temper, or a more friendly disposition; but then, like all despots, the more power that was voluntarily yielded to her, the more she desired to extend her sway. Sometimes, even when all her ambition was gratified, she chose to be a little out of health, and a little out of spirits.—- The Talisman.
Her look composed, and steady eye,
Bespoke a matchless constancy.
Marmion, Canto 2.
The noble dame, amid the broil,
Shared the gray seneschal’s high toil,
And spoke of danger with a smile;
Cheer’d the young knights, and council sage
Held with the chiefs of riper age.
The Lay of the Last Minstrel, Canto 3.
Woman’s faith and woman’s trust,
Write the characters in dust.
The Betrothed.
Ne’er did Grecian chisel trace
A Nymph, or Naiad, or a Grace,
Of finer form, or lovelier face!
What though the sun, with ardent frown,
Had slightly tinged her cheek with brown,
The sportive toil, which, short and light
Had dyed her glowing hue so bright,
Served too in hastier swell to show
Short glimpses of a breast of snow;
What though no rule of courtly grace
To measured mood had train’d her pace,—
A foot more light, a step more true,
Ne’er from the heath-flower dash’d the dew;
E’en the slight hare-bell raised its head,
Elastic from her airy tread;
What though upon her speech there hung
The accent of the mountain tongue,
Those silver sounds, so soft, so clear,
The list’ner held his breath to hear.
Lady of the Lake, Canto 1.
Spoilt she was on all hands…. But though, from these circumstances, the city-beauty had become as wilful, as capricious, and as affected, as unlimited indulgence seldom fails to render those to whom it is extended; and although she exhibited upon many occasions that affectation of extreme shyness, silence, and reserve, which misses are apt to take for an amiable modesty; and upon others, a considerable portion of that flippancy which youth sometimes confounds with wit, she had much real shrewdness and judgment, which wanted only opportunities of observation to refine it—a lively, good-humoured, playful disposition, and an excellent heart.
—The Fortunes of Nigel.
The buoyant vivacity with which she had resisted every touch of adversity, had now assumed the air of composed and submissive, but dauntless, resolution and constancy.
—Rob Roy.
Her complexion was exquisitely fair, but the noble cast of her head and features prevented the insipidity which sometimes attaches to fair beauties. Her clear blue eye, which sat enshrined beneath a graceful eyebrow of brown, sufficiently marked to give expression to the forehead, seemed capable to kindle as well as to melt, to command as well as to beseech.
—Ivanhoe.