“... remote people’s republics? Then there is a picture of an uncommonly orgulous vessel captioned ‘Lady Ghislaine, Mirror Holdings’ ocean-going yacht’. Where is she normally berthed? (Not in Liechtenstein, that’s for sure.) On what missions is she normally employed? Is she ever used for Mirror works outings? Is she perhaps a ‘nice little earner’ when ...”

“... Mary Cassatt’s Lady at the Tea Table (1883-85) establishes her as one of the outstanding American painters of the 19th century. Indeed, it is one of the most remarkable portraits, American or not, of its time. A subtle combination of strength and fragility, the painting shows Mrs Riddle, Cassatt’s first cousin once removed ...”

“... Arkansas at Fayetteville in 1974, she was enough of a rarity on campus to be referred to as ‘the lady professor’; and when she joined a major law firm in Little Rock in 1977, it was as its first female attorney. By the time she became a partner, women still made up less than 10 per cent of practising lawyers in the States. Her subsequent firsts were far ...”

“... visiting country houses and playing sardines – ‘For an hour [at Hackwood] Ld Londonderry, Lady Curzon, Biddy Carlisle, Jean Norton [and] the Aga Khan lay under a very hot bed’ – there was the London Season and its gruelling round of cocktail parties, dinners, suppers and balls. Channon had the arriviste’s anxiety that he might be ‘in Society ...”

“... of Starborough Castle, two of whose full-length, life-size effigies lay on the tomb chests in the Lady Chapel and a third, with his wife beside him, in the very centre of the chancel of the main body of the church. One effigy was engraved in brass, another was carved in stone and painted, while the couple in the chancel were carved out of alabaster. The ...”

“... was the late and much loved only child of ageing parents who doted on her. Sir Ralph and Lady Milbanke were justified in admiring their daughter’s intelligence and high spirits, if less sensible in giving in to them. In due course she was brought from the family home in County Durham to be launched in London. From Seaham Hall, a solid neoclassical ...”

“... the diary begins, and for the newcomer the first page establishes the milieu. ‘Had tea with dear Lady Throckmorton whose nephew Nicholas Throckmorton, Robert’s heir, called.’ Midi Gascoigne and Timmie Buxton, her sister, get a mention, as do Emerald Cunard and Denis Rickett. Logan Pearsall Smith, aged 80, starts to tell a story of an American cousin of ...”

“... criticism in English by a woman’. Southwell’s essay takes the form of a letter to her friend Lady Ridgway, who had told her that she prefers prose. ‘How falls it out (noble lady),’ Southwell begins, ‘that you are become a sworn enemy to poetry?’ The publication of two of Southwell’s manuscripts, containing ...”

“... us her pubes and long shadow of thigh The fresh linen smelled for all the world What did the lady on TV call it? An orchard of some kind       ******* Sure it’s just like staring out the window, Johnny sure but with fly eyes and sidewise       ******* When Pappy and Mahoney left for dinner and a show I was soooo a-LONE there in the ...”

“... became the inspiration for the first canzone of his new style: a love poetry that would praise his lady.Love says of her, ‘How can a mortal creaturebe equally as pure as she is fair?’Beholding her again, he now declaresthat in her God intended something new.In the Divine Comedy, written nearly twenty years later, a poet in Purgatory recognises Dante as ...”

“... world in these letters of 1875-1883 – the years, roughly, from The American to The Portrait of a Lady – is already the world of such great late works as The Awkward Age, The Ambassadors and The Wings of the Dove. They are the letters of a consciously cosmopolitan observer of European manners, but their decorum, even while he is being gathered to the bosom ...”

“... of them great ladies, as he was fond of pointing out; they were potential patrons and benefactors: Lady Ottoline Morrell, Lady Cynthia Asquith, the Honourable Dorothy Brett, Catherine Carswell, Mary Cannan, Amy Lowell and, later, Mabel (Dodge Sterne) Luhan. He accepted their money (Frieda was not above writing begging ...”

“... a miracle of discretion, because the artist himself emerges nowhere from the stone. A worshipping lady emerges in bas-relief, and is largely concealed behind a bush. One could do worse than to recommend a similar modesty to artists at large, wherever they may temporarily hide. Verlaine did not suffer from it. He scowls down at us from the top of the most ...”

“... and for that matter the English Gothic mode, which sets them apart from a production like Lady Sophia Sternheim. For all these stories are noticeably underpopulated – a single suffering consciousness takes up the whole canvas, sometimes accompanied by a second, the dear and true or dear and forbidden friend. Whereas Sophie von La Roche’s novel is ...”

“... one at the Embassy with a Rolls Royce and his presence was appreciated. A handsome woman named Lady Jardine introduced him to the pleasures of physical sex and he spent one day a week in London to see Tilly dancing. Her contract with C.B. Cochran paid her a thousand pounds a week: she had the star part in Coward’s Wake Up and Dream, and shared the ...”