Both Uses of
piquant
in
The Mill on the Floss
- But if Maggie had been the queen of coquettes she could hardly have invented a means of giving greater piquancy to her beauty in Stephen's eyes; I am not sure that the quiet admission of plain sewing and poverty would have done alone, but assisted by the beauty, they made Maggie more unlike other women even than she had seemed at first.†
Chpt 6.2 *
- …been harder than mine, your temptation greater; let us help each other to stand and walk without more falling,"—to have done this would have demanded courage, deep pity, self-knowledge, generous trust; would have demanded a mind that tasted no piquancy in evil-speaking, that felt no self-exaltation in condemning, that cheated itself with no large words into the belief that life can have any moral end, any high religion, which excludes the striving after perfect truth, justice, and love…†
Chpt 7.4
Definition:
-
(piquant) having an agreeably pungent or spicy taste
or:
engagingly stimulating or provocative