Victor Hugo
All her face, all her person, breathed an ineffable love and kindness. She had always been predestined to gentleness, but Faith, Hope, and Charity, those three virtues that softly warm the soul, had gradually elevated that gentleness to sanctity. Nature had only made her a lamb, and religion had made her an angel.
—Les Misérables.
She was the very embodiment of joy as she went to and fro in the house; she brought with her a perpetual spring.
—Toilers of the Sea.
Her entire person was simplicity, ingenuousness, whiteness, candor, and radiance, and it might have been said of her that she was transparent. She produced a sensation of April and daybreak, and she had dew in her eyes. She was the condensation of the light of dawn in a woman’s form.
—Les Misérables.
The woman was weak, but the mother found strength.—Ninety-Three.
Woman feels and speaks with the infallibility which is the tender instinct of the heart.
—Les Misérables.
What is a husband but the pilot in the voyage of matrimony? Wife, let your fine weather be your husband’s smiles.
—Toilers of the Sea.
No one knows like a woman how to say things which are at once gentle and deep. Gentleness and depth,—in these things the whole of woman is contained, and it is heaven.
—Les Misérables.
Beauty heightened by simplicity is ineffable, and nothing is so adorable as a beauteous, innocent maiden, who walks along unconsciously, holding in her hand the key of Paradise.
—Les Misérables.
She had the prettiest little hands in the world, and little feet to match them. Sweetness and goodness reigned throughout her person; … her occupation was only to live her daily life; her accomplishments were the knowledge of a few songs; her intellectual gifts were summed up in her simple innocence.
—Toilers of the Sea.
The coquette is blind: she does not see her wrinkles.
—By Order of the King.
A mother’s arms are made of tenderness, and children sleep soundly in them.
—Les Misérables.
There are moments when a woman accepts, like a sombre and resigned duty, the worship of love.
—Les Misérables.
She was pale with that paleness which is like the transparency of a divine life in an earthly face…. A soul standing in the dawn.
—By Order of the King.
He looked at her, and saw nothing but her. This is love; one may be carried away for a moment by the importunity of some other idea, but the beloved one enters, and all that does not appertain to her presence immediately fades away, without her dreaming that perhaps she is effacing in us a world.
—By Order of the King.
She walked on with a light and free step, so little suggestive of the burden of life that it might easily be seen that she was young. Her movements possessed that subtle grace which indicates the most delicate of all transitions—the soft intermingling, as it-were, of two twilights,—the passage from the condition of a child to that of womanhood.
—Toilers of the Sea.
She had never been pretty, but her whole life, which had been but a succession of pious works, had eventually cast over her a species of whiteness and brightness, and in growing older she had acquired what may be called the beauty of goodness. What had been thinness in her youth had became in her maturity transparency, and through this transparency the angel could be seen.
—Les Misérables.
A ray of happiness was visible upon her face. Never had she appeared more beautiful. Her features were remarkable for prettiness rather than what is called beauty. Their fault, if fault it be, lay in a certain excess of grace…. The ideal virgin is the transfiguration of a face like this. Dèruchette, touched by her sorrow and love, seemed to have caught that higher and more holy expression. It was the difference between the field daisy and the lily.
—Toilers of the Sea.
The glance of a woman resembles certain wheels which are apparently gentle but are formidable…. You come, you go, you dream, you speak, you laugh, and all in a minute you feel yourself caught, and it is all over with you. The wheel holds you, the glance has caught you.
—Les Misérables.
She had listened to nothing, but mothers hear certain things without listening.—Ninety-Three.
She was really a respectable, firm, equitable, and just person, full of that charity which consists in giving, but not possessing to the same extent the charity which comprehends and pardons.
—Les Misérables.
She seemed a vision scarcely embodied; … in her fairness, which amounted almost to serenity of her look; … in the sacred innocence of her smile, she was almost an angel, and yet just a woman.
—By Order of the King.
The girl becomes a maiden, fresh and joyous as the lark. Noting her movements, we feel as if it were good of her not to fly away. The dear familiar companion moves at her own sweet will about the house; flits from branch to branch, or rather from room to room; goes to and fro; approaches and retires…. She asks a question and is answered; is asked something in return, and chirps a reply. It is delightful to chat with her when tired of serious talk; for this creature carries with her something of her skyey element. She is, as it were, a thread of gold interwoven with your sombre thoughts; you feel almost grateful to her for her kindness in not making herself invisible, when it would be so easy for her to be even impalpable; for the beautiful is a necessity of life. There is in the world no function more important than that of being charming…. To shed joy around, to radiate happiness, to cast light upon dark days, to be the golden thread of our destiny, and the very spirit of grace and harmony, is not this to render a service?
—Toilers of the Sea.
She scarcely knew, perhaps, the meaning of the word love, and yet not unwillingly ensnared those about her in the toils.
—Toilers of the Sea.
She stopped. She walked back a few paces, stopped again; she inclined her head, with those thoughtful eyes which look attentive yet see nothing…. Her lowered eyelids had that vague contraction which suggests a tear checked in its course, or a thought suppressed…. Her face, which might inspire adoration, seemed meditative, like portraits of the Virgin.
—Toilers of the Sea.
She broke the bread into two fragments, and gave them to the children, who ate with avidity. “She has kept none for herself,” grumbled the sergeant. “Because she is not hungry,” said a soldier. “Because she is a mother,” said the sergeant.—Ninety-Three.
Extreme simplicity touches on extreme coquetry…. They did not speak, they did not bow, they did not know each other, but they met; and like the stars in the heavens, they lived by looking at each other. It was thus that she gradually became a woman, and was developed into a beautiful and loving woman, conscious of her beauty and ignorant of her love. She was a coquette into the bargain, through her innocence.
—Les Misérables.
Does not beauty confer a benefit upon us, even by the simple fact of being beautiful?—Here and there we meet with one who possesses that fairy-like power of enchanting all about her; sometimes she is ignorant herself of this magical influence, which is, however, for that reason only the more perfect. Her presence lights up the home; her approach is like cheerful warmth; she passes by, and we are content; she stays awhile, and we are happy.
—Toilers of the Sea.
To behold her is to live; she is the Aurora with a human face. She has no need to do more than simply to be, she makes an Eden of the house; Paradise breathes from her: and she communicates this delight to all, without taking any greater trouble than that of existing beside them. Is it not a thing divine to have a smile which, none know how, has the power to lighten the weight of that enormous chain which all the living, in common, drag behind them?
—Toilers of the Sea.
On the day when a woman who passes before you emits light as she walks you are lost, for you love. You have from that moment but one thing to do: think of her so intently that she will be compelled to think of you.
—Les Misérables.
The soul only needs to see a smile in a white crêpe bonnet in order to enter the palace of dreams.
—Les Misérables.
She had upon her lips almost the light of a smile, with the fulness of tears in her eyes…. The reflection of an angel was in her look.
—Toilers of the Sea.