"Coy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... your portrait shall figure in one of those oval frames ere long. I think I'll have you painted as chaste Diana, descended from the sky, despite her coldness, to lavish sweet kisses on Endymion. You shall take your place among those other goddesses, who were as coy and hard to please at first as yourself, and who are far greater ladies, my dear, than you ever will be. Your fall is at hand, and you must learn, as your betters have done before you, that there's no withstanding the will of a Vallombreuse. 'Frango ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... by a glimpse she caught of a restless fawn, glancing in the distance across the avenue, as he silently changed the tree under which he slept?—Then the gentle breeze would enter her window, laden with sweet scents of which he had just been rifling the coy flowers beneath, in their dewy repose, tended and petted during the day by her own delicate hand!—Beautiful moon!—cold and chaste in thy skyey palace, studded with brilliant and innumerable gems, and shedding down thy rich and tender radiance upon this lovely seclusion—was there upon ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... a fair maid And fresh as any flower, Whom Harpalus the herdman prayed To be his paramour. Harpalus and eke Corin Were herdmen, both yfere; And Phylida could twist and spin, And thereto sing full clear. But Phylida was all too coy For Harpalus to win; For Corin was her only joy, Who forced her not a pin. How often would she flowers twine, How often garlands make, Of cowslips and of columbine, And all for Corin's sake! But Corin, he had hawks to lure, And forced more the field; Of lovers' law he took no cure, For once he was ...
— Tudor and Stuart Love Songs • Various
... in our hours of ease Uncertain, coy, and hard to please, And variable as the shade By the light quivering aspen made; When pain and anguish wring the brow, ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje
... 730 The herds would over-multitude their lords; The sea o'erfraught would swell, and the unsought diamonds Would so emblaze the forehead of the deep, And so bestud with stars, that they below Would grow inured to light, and come at last To gaze upon the sun with shameless brows. List, lady; be not coy, and be not cozened With that same vaunted name, Virginity. Beauty is Nature's coin; must not be hoarded, But must be current; and the good thereof 740 Consists in mutual and partaken bliss, Unsavoury in the ...
— Milton's Comus • John Milton
... attractions of a very different class: fine-featured, dark-eyed, coal-black-haired and tall; as she stood—her right hand holding the rude torch over her head, while the left gathered the folds of a long cloak under her bosom, with her eyes of coy expectation and merry amazement—she seemed more the ideal of a robber's daughter in some old romance, than a menial in a moorland farm-house. I attempted to salute her, but she held me at bay with her hand. "Hech, lad! ye're no ...
— Tales from Blackwood, Volume 7 • Various
... to my knowledge, I deem it my duty to call a special meeting of the shareholders of 'The Island Navigation Coy.,' to consider circumstances in connection with the purchase of Mr. Joseph Pillin's fleet. And I give you notice that at this meeting your conduct will ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... Lord of Passion, must lend his hand." "But," he proceeds, "the god is coy; he has little liking for the breasts of kings. He is more likely to be found in the cottage of the ...
— Hiero • Xenophon
... cool air stirs in the trees above, exorcising all mournful spirits. The harvest moon is rising and the white light lies sleeping, dreaming, on trees and cliff and river. On such a night pleading Pan wooed his coy nymph with the promise: ...
— Some Summer Days in Iowa • Frederick John Lazell
... steady-borne by the hands of reverence, as one has seen Infallibility pass with uplifting of jewelled fingers through genuflexions to the Balcony. Port has this in it: that it compels obeisance, master of us; as opposed to brother and sister wines wooing us with a coy flush in the gold of them to a cursory tope or harlequin leap shimmering up the veins with a sly wink at us through eyelets. Hussy vintages swim to a cosset. We go to ...
— A Christmas Garland • Max Beerbohm
... thirst for drink than she for this good turn. 92 Her help she sees, but help she cannot get; She bathes in water, yet her fire must burn: 'O! pity,' 'gan she cry, 'flint-hearted boy: 'Tis but a kiss I beg; why art thou coy? 96 ...
— Venus and Adonis • William Shakespeare
... banker, attentively. He had foreseen that if he showed himself ready to help Karpathy out of his financial difficulties, the latter would at once grow coy. ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai
... and uncivill usage in her, grew very distastefull to Anastasio, and so unsufferable, that after a long time of fruitlesse service, requited still with nothing but coy disdaine; desperate resolutions entred into his brain, and often he was minded to kill himselfe. But better thoughts supplanting those furious passions, he abstained from any such violent act; and governed by more manly consideration, determined, that as shee hated him, he ...
— Ravenna, A Study • Edward Hutton
... visible acknowledgment. All of her character was visible, well-developed as her body: her timidity showed itself in the unceasing dropping of her eyelid; her arch simplicity in the pouting lips; a coy reserve—well, that everywhere, to the very rosette on her retreating slipper; and her patriotism was quite palpable in the color of her Balmoral. She ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... romantick maid, Whether by nodding towers you tread; Or haunt the desart's trackless gloom, Or hover o'er the yawning tomb; Or climb the Andes' clifted side, Or by the Nile's coy source abide; Or, starting from your half-year's sleep, From Hecla view the thawing deep; Or, at the purple dawn of ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... space suit, anchored to its outer plates, directed a plastic hose which stretched out impossibly far and clamped to one drone with a magnetic grapple. He maneuvered it to the hull and made it fast. He captured a second, which was worked delicately within reach by coy ...
— Space Tug • Murray Leinster
... breathed even into inanimate objects by the imagination of Slavic girls and youths. A Servian youth contracts a regular league of friendship and brotherhood with a bramble-bush, in order to induce it to catch his coy love's clothes, when she flees before his kisses. Even the stars and planets sympathize with human beings, and live in constant intercourse with them and their affairs. Stars become messengers; a proud maiden boasts to be more beautiful than the sun; the ...
— Historical View of the Languages and Literature of the Slavic - Nations • Therese Albertine Louise von Jacob Robinson
... facilemque, "Give me the beauty that is not too coy," is the Alpha and Omega of his personal creed. How should it have been otherwise? Knowing woman chiefly, as he obviously did, only in the ranks of the demi-monde, he was not likely to regard the fairest face, after the first heyday of his youth was past, as worth the pain its owner's caprices ...
— Horace • Theodore Martin
... fragrant reeds that grow upon the rivers' banks, yet of such limpid transparency that one's form could be seen in their liquid depths as if reflected in a mirror. These were surrounded by long silken lashes—now drooping in coy modesty, anon rising in youthful gaiety and disclosing the laughing eyes but just before concealed beneath them. Eyebrows like the willow leaf; cheeks of snowy whiteness, yet tinged with the gentlest colouring of the rose; teeth like pearls of the finest water were seen peeping from ...
— Myths and Legends of China • E. T. C. Werner
... rebirth; sun and moon are everywhere types of warm and tender feelings; love is the converter of a winter of discontent into a glorious summer. In all love poems the wooer would fain embrace the wooed. And if she prove coy, he will tell of the menial parts he would be ready to perform, to continue unrebuked in her vicinity. Anacreon's lover (xx) would be water in which the maid should bathe, and the Egyptian sighs, "Were I ...
— The Book of Delight and Other Papers • Israel Abrahams
... Alexander offered Norway as the price of alliance, with hints of the crown of France for Bernadotte somewhere in the dim future. Napoleon temptingly offered Finland for forty thousand Swedish soldiers. But the new crown prince was seemingly coy, and dallied with both. This temporizing was brought to a sudden end in January, 1812, when Davout occupied Swedish Pomerania. On April twelfth the alliance between Sweden and Russia was sealed. It carried with it an armistice between ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... introduced, but he had eyes only for Betsy. She gave him a coy look out of her china-blue eyes. Tilda smiled shyly at Sally. Both of the Johnston girls wore pretty linsey-woolsey dresses under their shawls and neat moccasins on their feet. Sally, looking down at her own soiled dress and bare ...
— Abe Lincoln Gets His Chance • Frances Cavanah
... very bitter to Mary Wells, for she was in the very act of making a conquest. Young Drake, a very small farmer and tenant of Sir Charles, had fallen in love with her, and she liked him and had resolved he should marry her, with which view she was playing the tender but coy maiden very prettily. But Drake, though young and very much in love, was advised by his mother, and evidently resolved to go the old-fashioned way—keep company a year, and know the girl ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade
... of Rumford in her had their joy, She showed herself courteous, but never too coy, And at their commandment still she would be, So fair and ...
— Ancient Poems, Ballads and Songs of England • Robert Bell
... repoodiate hall hassistance from hany spirrids or soopernatural beins vatsohever. All I shall 'ave ze honour of showing you will be perform by simple Sloight of 'and, or Ledger-dee-Mang! (He invites any member of the Audience to step up and assist him, but the spectators remain coy.) I see zat I 'ave not to-night so larsh an orjence to select from as usual, still I 'ope——(Here one of the obvious Confederates slouches up, and joins him on the platform. ) Ah, zat is goot! I am vair moch oblige to you, Sare. (The Confederate grins sheepishly.) Led ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, November 15, 1890 • Various
... and deliciously fragrant. In the swampy hollows were yellow marsh marigolds and blue forget-me-nots; on the drier soil of the rising bank the wild hyacinths were just shaking open their bells, and heartsease here and there lifted coy heads to ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil
... our hours of ease, Uncertain, coy, and hard to please, And variable as the shade By the light, quivering aspen made,— When pain and anguish wring the ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord
... yellow hair and dreaming, wine-brown eyes. Thick crowd the doves for food. She gives ME none. She sees and will not see. Vain are my sighs. One slow, reluctant stroke. Aha! she turns, Gestures and smiles, with coy ...
— Verses • Susan Coolidge
... in the centre of the first row) as she descended from the platform. She had not the hardihood to glance toward the great man until the indistinct stockman had had his wish, and Mrs. Clarkson, in her fine new raiment, had both sung and acted a coy ditty of the previous decade, wherein every line began with the word "somebody." It was an immediate success; the obstreperous stockman led the encore; but Miss Bouverie, who duly accompanied, extracted solace from the depressed ...
— Stingaree • E. W. (Ernest William) Hornung
... and was feeling fanciful and sentimental, which means, of course, I was thinking about you. And then I imagined this whole scene—only a little different; I in this dress, and you at my feet, worshipping me and calling me all sorts of sweet names. And I was coy and held back!" ...
— Cleo The Magnificent - The Muse of the Real • Louis Zangwill
... that from morning to night and Sunday to Sunday, in calm and storm, had clung to his rough affections: and the bright eyes, and the winding arms so often trellised over his tremendous form, and the coy tricks and laughter that had cheered so many tired hours. He may have been much of a brute, but he felt that, after all, that sort of thing was denied to dogs and pigs. Before he could translate his thoughts into words or acts a shrewd-looking, curly-haired stonemason, ...
— Ginx's Baby • Edward Jenkins
... right a street turned off from the road, and saying in a low tone, "This way," she led Diodoros, to his surprise, into the shadow. His heart beat high. Did she, whose coy and maidenly austerity before and after the intoxication of the dance had vouchsafed him hardly a kind look or a clasp of the hand-did she even yearn for some tender embrace alone and in darkness? Did the quiet, modest ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... what it came to buy or cared what it purchased so long as it could engage Mavis in a few moments' conversation. She soon got to know this type at a glance, and gave it short shrift. Others at "Dawes'" were not so coy. Many of the customers she got to know by sight, owing to their repeated visits. One of these she disliked from the first; later experience of her only intensified this impression. She was a tall, fine woman, well, ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte
... proved so amusing that Kirkwood, chuckling, forbore to resent the manner of its delivery, and, abandoning until a more favorable time the chase of the coy sovereign purse, extracted from one trouser pocket half a handful of large ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... profit nor published for fame. Fame is a coy goddess that rarely bestows her favors on him who seeks her—a phantom that many pursue and ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... she threw herself in my arms then and there. No, no! She demurred. All young girls, it seems, demur under the circumstances; but she was adorable, coy and tender in turns, pouting and coaxing, and playing like a kitten till she had taken the papers from me and, with a woman's natural curiosity, had turned the English letters over and over, even though she could not ...
— Castles in the Air • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... had not been altogether successful in the chase. The necessary wolf had been coy, and they, perforce, had to compromise with his poor relation, the coyote—a poor relation, indeed, whose shabby coat, thinned by the process of summer shedding, made it an unworthy souvenir to Miss Colebrooke. But it was not the lack of ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning
... never." She shook a coy finger at him. "You dear old tightie," she cooed, "you don't realize what a closed car means to a woman." She turned to Shirley. "How an open car does blow ...
— The Valley of the Giants • Peter B. Kyne
... hither and thither, twittering to each other as they flew. The hedge-sparrows' metallic notes sounded clear amid all the varied music, as the birds, moving among the hazels and gently flirting their wings, pursued their coy mates from bough to bough. Through the raised curtain of the mist the sun—a white globe hardly too brilliant to be boldly looked at—illumined the dewy fields with its faint beams, till the cloud-streaked sky became a clear expanse, ...
— Creatures of the Night - A Book of Wild Life in Western Britain • Alfred W. Rees
... indolently sit, And, from the dull fatigue of thinking free, Hear the facetious fiddle's repartee: Our home-spun authors must forsake the field, And Shakspeare to the soft Scarletti yield. 10 To your new taste the poet of this day Was by a friend advised to form his play. Had Valentini, musically coy, Shunn'd Phaedra's arms, and scorn'd the proffer'd joy, It had not moved your wonder to have seen An eunuch fly from an enamour'd queen: How would it please, should she in English speak, And could Hippolitus reply in Greek! But he, a stranger ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... Subjection, but requir'd with gentle sway, And by her yielded, by him best receiv'd,— Yielded with coy submission, modest pride, And ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett
... hand. "All right, fellows! Just a minute, please! We've got a guest with us this evening, an honoured guest, fellows. Those of you who know football history know his name as well as you know the names of Heffelfinger and DeWitt and Coy and Brickley and—and many others in the Football Hall of Fame! I know you want to hear from him and I hope he will be willing to say a few words." Childers glanced at Doctor Proctor and the latter, smiling, shook his head energetically. "He says he will be glad to, fellows," continued ...
— Left Guard Gilbert • Ralph Henry Barbour
... swelled her song With maiden coy caprice In a labyrinth of throbs, 120 Pauses, cadences; Clear-noted as a dropping brook, Soft-noted like the bees, Wild-noted as the shivering wind Forlorn through forest trees: Love-noted like the wood-pigeon Who hides herself for love, Yet cannot keep her secret safe, But ...
— Goblin Market, The Prince's Progress, and Other Poems • Christina Rossetti
... long since been lost to the man's, as with bent head she listened intently, for the first time amazed at what she had been to a man whose ideals were of the highest and his ways beyond reproach. A coy upward lift of the proudly carried head—a mere glance of transient reply—too brief for the man to read—might have meant, "Have not I too been ...
— Westways • S. Weir Mitchell
... babies and could rarely pass one in a perambulator without wanting to kiss it and know all its little history. To have a baby of her very own was a prospect so full of allurement, that she offered no coy objections when Meredith wanted the marriage fixed at the earliest possible date. Indeed, her calm was the despair of her girl friends who envied her openly. Wasn't she "terribly" in love with him? Wasn't she just "thrilled to death" with excitement at the prospect ...
— Banked Fires • E. W. (Ethel Winifred) Savi
... Gavin scratched gratingly on the tree trunk, and gazed up in ostentatious admiration at the coy Simon Cameron. The Persian, like all his kind, was foolishly open to admiration. Brice's look, his crooning voice, his entertaining fashion of scratching the tree for the cat's amusement all these proved a genuine ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... the concerns of men, prying into their plans, and arresting their execution. By my soul, I had not thought you so ready or so apt; but how do you reconcile it to your notions of propriety to be abroad at an hour which is something late for a coy damsel? Munro, you must look to these rare doings, or they will work you some difficulty in time ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... year, ever sin' I saw yo' i' the kitchen corner sitting crouching behind my uncle, I as good as swore I'd have yo' for wife, or never wed at all. And it was not long ere yo' knowed it, for all yo' were so coy, and now yo' have the face—no, yo' have not the face—come, my darling, what is it?' for she was crying; and on his turning her wet blushing face towards him the better to look at it, she suddenly ...
— Sylvia's Lovers — Complete • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... a few good jokes, but is mostly elaboration. Opus 8 is a fiery romanza appassionata. Opus 9 is a Scherzo-Caprice. This is probably his best work. It is dedicated to Liszt, and though extremely brilliant, is full of meaning. It has an interlude of tender romance. "Coy Maiden" is a graceful thing, but hardly deserves the punishment of so horrible a name. "A Gypsy Dance" is too long, but it is of good material. It has an interesting metre, three-quarter time with the first note dotted. There is a good effect gained by sustaining certain notes over ...
— Contemporary American Composers • Rupert Hughes
... ascribed. If we attend, however, to the whole animal creation, if we consider it attentively wherever it falls under our observation, it will discover to us, that in the female there is a greater degree of delicacy or coy reserve than in the male. Is not this a proof, that, through the wide extent of creation, the seeds of delicacy are more liberally bestowed upon females ...
— Sketches of the Fair Sex, in All Parts of the World • Anonymous
... gray arch the soft, dewy blue crept gently, deepening, broadening; below it, the level bars of light struck full on the sullen black of the west, and worked there undaunted, tinging it with crimson and imperial purple. Two or three coy mist-clouds, soon converted to the new allegiance, drifted giddily about, mere flakes of rosy blushes. The victory of the day came slowly, but sure, and then the full morning flushed out, fresh with moisture and light and delicate perfume. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 49, November, 1861 • Various
... it does. What! do you think I am so dull of ear That I can mark no changes in the tones That reach me? Once I liked not girlish pride And that coy quiet, chary of reply, That held me distant: now the sweetest lips Open to entertain me—fairest hands Are proffered me ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Jean Ingelow
... Ganimede [Rosalind's page-name], what mad cattell you women be, whose hearts sometimes are made of adamant that will touch with no impression, and sometimes of waxe that is fit for everie forme; they delight to be courted and then they glorie to seeme coy, and when they are most desired, ...
— The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare • J. J. Jusserand
... tried to make up to the prettiest ones, and offered them trinkets, pretty boxes of soap, beads, and small mirrors (so dear to the heart of the Indian girl), but the young maids were coy enough; it seemed to me they cared more for men of ...
— Vanished Arizona - Recollections of the Army Life by a New England Woman • Martha Summerhayes
... and enjoyed things—the coy tremble of the tiller and the backwash of air from the dingy mainsail, and, with a somewhat chastened rapture, the lunch which Davies brought up to me ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... anew To stay the soul with coy caresses; But he who only loves the True Slays them ...
— AE in the Irish Theosophist • George William Russell
... O'Hana, in which the maiden was coy and willing, the lover circumspect and eager, or at least thought he was, those around the pair were soon well informed; that is, with the exception of the most interested—O'Iwa and Kwaiba. The marked neglect ...
— The Yotsuya Kwaidan or O'Iwa Inari - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 1 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... was also a Nonne, a Prioresse, That of her smyling was ful simple and coy; Hir grettest ooth was ne but by seynt Loy; And she was cleped madame Eglentyne. Ful wel she song the service divyne, Entuned in hir nose ful semely; And Frensh she spak ful faire and fetisly, After ...
— Medieval People • Eileen Edna Power
... not expecting to meet him, and the lover had had an opportunity of speaking his mind freely. She also had spoken hers freely. She would not engage herself to him without her father's consent. With that consent she would do so,—oh, so willingly! She did not coy her love. He might be certain that she would give herself to no one else. Her heart was entirely his. But she had pledged herself to her father, and on no consideration would she break that pledge. She went on to say that after what had passed she ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... reason all her passions sway; Easy in company, in private gay; Coy to a fop, to the deserving free; Still constant to herself, and just to me. She should a soul have for great actions fit; Prudence and wisdom to direct her wit; Courage to look bold danger in the face, Not fear, but only to be proud or base; Quick to advise, by an emergence ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... you care?—you who were so coy, and who, when you knew my heart was hungering for you, ...
— The Birthright • Joseph Hocking
... upon this spot, And a small arbour, made for rural joy; 'Twill be the traveller's shed, the pilgrim's cot, A place of love for damsels that are coy. 60 ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. II. • William Wordsworth
... they have always been my oppressors! I abandon them, and now let you and me swear an eternal friendship!" Such a proposition, from such a quarter, Sir, was not likely to be long withstood. The other party was a little coy, but, upon the whole, nothing loath. After proper hesitation, and a little decorous blushing, it owned the soft impeachment, admitted an equally sudden sympathetic impulse on its own side; and, since few words are wanted ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... slumbering earth with gentler breezes. And soon, where she had passed, the crocus reared its yellow head, anemones, scarlet, blue and purple, tossed from her lap, sang the glories of spring in their tender harmonies of hue, coy violet and sweet-smelling nardosmia waved their incense on her altars, and the hellebore sprouted by ...
— The Strolling Saint • Raphael Sabatini
... aboard fer a night 'thout a pond o' rum somewheres in the manifest," said Tom Platt, playing up to the lead. "He used to bum araound the c'mission houses to Boston lookin' fer the Lord to make him captain of a tow-boat on his merits. Sam Coy, up to Atlantic Avenoo, give him his board free fer a year or more on ...
— "Captains Courageous" • Rudyard Kipling
... West, the first of April last a servant man, named Willis M'Coy, a small short fellow, his right eye looks red; he had on when he went away, a blue jacket and a striped flannel jacket under it, a pair of trowsers, and under them a pair of cloth breeches, too long for him, and were ripped at the knee; he had two shirts on, one ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Vol. I. Jan. 1916 • Various
... rhyming couplet was not more displeasing to Milton's ear than the continued emphatic bark of a series of short sentences. Accustomed as he was to the heavy-armed processional manner of scholarly Renaissance prose, he felt it an indignity to "lie at the mercy of a coy, flirting style; to be girded with frumps and curtal jibes, by one who makes sentences by the statute, as if all above three inches long were confiscate." Later on in the Apology he returns to this grievance, and describes ...
— Milton • Sir Walter Alexander Raleigh
... Fortune (that easy mistress to the young, But to her ancient servants coy and hard), Him at that age her favourites rank'd among, When she her best-loved ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... beneath his shoulders broad: She, as a veil, down to the slender waist Her unadorned golden tresses wore Dishevelled, but in wanton ringlets waved As the vine curls her tendrils, which implied Subjection, but required with gentle sway, And by her yielded, by him best received, Yielded with coy submission, modest pride, And sweet, reluctant, amorous delay. Nor those mysterious parts were then concealed; Then was not guilty shame, dishonest shame Of nature's works, honour dishonourable, ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton
... in a bright blue blanket and red breech clout, with an extra quantity of paint and feathers, attended by a train of half-naked warriors and nobles. A horse was in waiting to receive the princess, who was mounted behind one of the clerks, and thus conveyed, coy but compliant, to the fortress. Here she was received with devout, though decent joy, by ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... the Spring sweet breeze Came thronging round me, soft and coy, Light wood-nymphs sported in the trees, And laughing Echo leapt ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... thy thoughts, low vassals to thy state'— 'No more,' quoth he; 'by heaven, I will not hear thee: Yield to my love; if not, enforced hate, Instead of love's coy touch, shall rudely tear thee; That done, despitefully I mean to bear thee Unto the base bed of some rascal groom, To be thy partner ...
— The Rape of Lucrece • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... and as her person was not very likely to attract many admirers, which, however, she was resolved to have, she was far from being coy when an occasion offered: she did not so much as make any terms: she was violent in her resentments, as well as in her attachments, which had exposed her to some inconveniences; and she had very indiscreetly quarrelled with a young girl whom Lord Rochester admired. ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... gentry in the nearest counties, to attend a great ball at Elmwood. The old house would be filled from garret to cellar, and the hospitable homes of nearby friends would open to take in the overflow of guests. Dames and maidens coy, clad in the quaint and picturesque colonial costume, with powdered hair and patches, in richly brocaded gowns and satin slippers, made stately courtesy to gay dandies and jovial squires arrayed in coats of many colors, broidered vests, knee breeches ...
— In Ancient Albemarle • Catherine Albertson
... to observe his own motions and gestures mimicked, and wakens to the conviction that the phantom is but a dilated reflection of himself. This Titan amongst the apparitions of earth is exceedingly capricious, vanishing abruptly for reasons best known to himself, and more coy in coming forward than the Lady Echo of Ovid. One reason why he is seen so seldom must be ascribed to the concurrence of conditions under which only the phenomenon can be manifested; the sun must be near to the horizon, (which, of itself, ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... source of every joy. He envied not, he never thought of kings; Nor from those appetites sustain'd annoy, That chance may frustrate, or indulgence cloy; Nor Fate his calm and humble hopes beguiled; He mourn'd no recreant friend, nor mistress coy, For on his vows the blameless Phoebe smiled, And her alone he loved, and loved her ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]
... surmeti. Cover (roof) tegi. Cover kovrilo. Covet avidi. Covetousness avideco. Covey kovitaro. Cow bovino. Coward malkuragxulo. Cowardice malkuragxeco. Cowherd bovgardisto. Cow shed bovinejo. Cowl kapucxo. Cowslip verprimolo. Coxcomb dando. Coy rezerva. Coyness rezerveco. Cozen trompi. Crab kankro. Crack (split) fendi. Crack (noise) kraki. Crackle kraketi. Cradle lulilo. Craft ruzo. Craft (vessel) sxipeto. Crafty, to be ruzi. Crafty ruza. Cram (of food) supersatigi. Cram plenegigi. Cramp (metal) krampo. Crane ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... again from under his brow, sidles along the table, with far less of ease than he had worn when he came whistling through the hall,—sidles nearer and nearer, till she, with a coy approach that seems to be full of doubt, meets him with a little furtive hand-shake. Then he, retiring a step, leans with one elbow on the friendly table, eying her curiously, and more boldly when he discovers that her look is downcast, and that she seems to be warming ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various
... with a coy, sidelong look from her mild blue eyes, and then, at last, she shut the ...
— The Wilderness Trail • Frank Williams
... who had been informed by Alice that if he deserted her for a single moment that evening or the next he need never bring his friend there again, sat outside on the porch and close by the window, smoking incessantly and smiling to himself at the clever tactics of his charming but coy sister. When the concert was ended he observed, "If there's one song in the house that you have not sung, Alice, I wish you would sing it. I hate to have ...
— Uncle Terry - A Story of the Maine Coast • Charles Clark Munn
... flow'r be seen, Rememb'ring still its former height, Shuns the sweet leaves, and blossoms green; And, recollecting its own light, Does, in its pure and circling thoughts, express The greater heaven in an heaven less, In how coy a figure wound, Every way it turns away: So the world excluding round, Yet receiving in the day. Dark beneath, but bright above; Here disdaining, there in love, How loose and easy hence to go; How girt and ready to ascend: Moving but on a point below, It all about does upward bend. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 20. No. 568 - 29 Sept 1832 • Various
... he kept her, In his hands her life did lie; Cupid's bands did tie them faster By the liking of an eye. In his courteous company was all her joy, To favour him in anything she was not coy. ...
— A Bundle of Ballads • Various
... other powers of literature are coy and haughty, they must be long courted, and at last are not always gained; but criticism is a goddess easy of access and forward of advance, she will meet the slow and encourage the timorous. The want of meaning she supplies ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou
... and are most tractable and coming, apt, yielding, and willing to embrace, to take a green gown, with that shepherdess in Theocritus, Edyl. 27. to let their coats, &c., to play and dally, at such seasons, and to some, as they spy their advantage; and then coy, close again, so nice, so surly, so demure, you had much better tame a colt, catch or ride a wild horse, than get her favour, or win her love, not a look, not a smile, not a kiss for a kingdom. ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... a small adventure which was very surprising to me on this journey; passing this plain country, we came to an open piece of ground where a neighbouring gentleman had at a great expense laid out a proper piece of land for a decoy, or duck-coy, as some call it. The works were but newly done, the planting young, the ponds very large and well made; but the proper places for shelter of the fowl not covered, the trees not being grown, and men were still at work improving and enlarging and planting on the adjoining heath ...
— From London to Land's End - and Two Letters from the "Journey through England by a Gentleman" • Daniel Defoe
... passion should touch you, that I might the better conceal it if its silent demonstrations should displease you; or till I could express it even more delicately than in words if I found favor in your eyes. However, after having listened for long to the coy fears that fill a youthful heart with alarms, I write in obedience to the instinct which drags ...
— Louis Lambert • Honore de Balzac
... the frenzy of worship, and, with a wild cry, would join the dancers, his for ever. But the god is not unscrupulous. He would fain win her by gentle and fair means, even by wedlock. That chaplet of seven stars is his bridal offering. Why should not she accept it? Why should she be coy of his desire? It is true that he drinks. But in time, may be, a wife might be able to wean him from the wine-skin, and from the low company he affects. That will be for time to show. And, meanwhile, how brilliant a match! Not even Pasiphae, her mother, ever contemplated ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... sunshine, reflected back from our selves! O ye haunts endeared evermore by a look, tone, or smile, or rapt silence, when more and more with each hour unfolded before me that nature, so tenderly coy, so cheerful though serious, so attuned by simple cares to affection, yet so filled, from soft musings and solitude, with a poetry that gave grace to duties the homeliest, setting life's trite things to Music! Here nature and fortune concurred alike,—equal in birth and pretensions, similar in ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... and simple story, solemn fervors, subtile sympathies, and the winsomeness of little children at their play,—sometimes glowing with the deepest color, often just tinged to the pale and changing hues of a dream, but touched with such coy grace, modulated to such free, wild rhythm, suffused with such a delicate, evanishing loveliness, that they seem scarcely to be the songs of our tangible earth, but snatches from fairy-land. Often rude in form, often defective in rhyme, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 78, April, 1864 • Various
... it perhaps preserves for us some details of what took place at the accession of Genghis. It is well known that the Mongol Khan affected a coy resistance when asked to become chief. The letter runs thus: "You conspired to kill me, yet from the beginning did I tell the sons of Bartam Bahadur (i.e., his grandfather), as well as Satcha ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various
... bright, with coy smiles forever dissolving in tears; and then May in full blossom and beauty giving promise of ...
— Esther - A Book for Girls • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... coy, is swift, is gone, before the slow, the unobservant, the indolent, or the careless can seize her. "Vigilance in watching opportunity," said Phelps, "tact and daring in seizing upon opportunity; force and persistence in crowding opportunity ...
— An Iron Will • Orison Swett Marden
... must confess, there was one bold with me too, Some coy thing would say rude, but 'tis no matter, I was to pay a Waiting womans ransom, And I have don't, and I would pay't again, Were I ta'n ...
— The Little French Lawyer - A Comedy • Francis Beaumont
... take example by the chatrynge pye. Whiche doth hyr nest and byrdes also betraye By hyr grete chatterynge, clamoure dyn and crye Ryght so these folys theyr owne foly bewraye. But touchynge wymen of them I wyll nought say They can nat speke, but ar as coy and styll As the horle wynde or clapper or ...
— The Ship of Fools, Volume 1 • Sebastian Brandt
... the mill; Past the vineyards shady; Where the sun shone on a rill Jewell'd like a lady. Proud the stream with lily-bud, Gay with glancing swallow; Swift its trillion-footed flood, Winding ways to follow. Coy and still when flying wheel Rested from its labour; Singing when it ground the meal Gay as lute or tabor. "Bouche-Mignonne" it called, when, red In the dawn were glowing, Eaves and mill-wheel, "leave thy bed, "Hark ...
— Old Spookses' Pass • Isabella Valancy Crawford
... red-bellied species, he says: "It rattles like the rest of the tribe on the dead limbs, and with such violence as to be heard in still weather more than half a mile off; and listens to hear the insect it has alarmed." He listens rather to hear the drum of his rival, or the brief and coy response of the female; for there are no ...
— A Year in the Fields • John Burroughs
... created by the blue hat. It was the last to come ashore. It lingered on the gunwale with an appealing turn manwards until a red arm was offered on one side, a black arm on the other, whereupon it hopped ashore with a coy wag to the right and to the left. It was not hard to see why the boatmen had christened ...
— The Huntress • Hulbert Footner
... attunes my soul to song, awaking any muse from the silence in which she has long slumbered. But the voice of the coy maiden is less melodious than of yore: she shies me for my neglect: and despite the gentlest courting, refusing to breathe her divine spirit over a scene worthy of a sweeter strain. And this scene lay not upon the classic shores of the Hellespont—not in the famed ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... purple hue. Shortly she shall follow you; for her impetuous time runs on, and shall place to her account those years of which it abridges you; shortly Lalage with a wanton assurance will seek a husband, beloved in a higher degree than the coy Pholoe, or even Chloris; shining as brightly with her fair shoulder, as the spotless moon upon the midnight sea, or even the Gnidian Gyges, whom if you should intermix in a company of girls, the undiscernible difference occasioned by his flowing locks and doubtful countenance would wonderfully ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace
... head careened, she gave him her coy reluctant ear, with total abandonment to the seductions of his whispers, and the lord let fly a peal of laughter. It had been a supper of copious wine, and the songs which rise from wine. Nature was excused ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... coy steps in cold Canadia stray, And joyless seasons hold unequal sway, He saw the pine its daring mantle rear, Break the rude blast, and mock the brumal year, Shag the green zone that bounds the boreal skies, And bid all southern vegetation rise. Wild o'er the vast impenetrable round The untrod ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow
... perceive we are deluded both. For when I offered many gifts of Gold, And Jewels to entreat for love, She hath refused them with a coy disdain, Alledging that she could not see the Sun. The same conjectured I to be thy drift, That faining so she might be ...
— Fair Em - A Pleasant Commodie Of Faire Em The Millers Daughter Of - Manchester With The Love Of William The Conquerour • William Shakespeare [Apocrypha]
... a tower; But yet love, who subtle is, Crept to that, and came to this: Be ye lock'd up like to these, Or the rich Hesperides: Or those babies in your eyes, In their crystal nurseries; Notwithstanding love will win, Or else force a passage in; And as coy be as you can. Gifts will get ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 387, August 28, 1829 • Various
... love with Beatrice. Now begin; for look where Beatrice like a lapwing runs close by the ground, to hear our conference.' They then began; Hero saying, as if in answer to something which Ursula had said: 'No, truly, Ursula. She is too disdainful; her spirits are as coy as wild birds of the rock.' 'But are you sure,' said Ursula, 'that Benedick loves Beatrice so entirely?' Hero replied: 'So says the prince, and my lord Claudio, and they entreated me to acquaint ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... now begun to withdraw from town and go out into the country, but in their retirement to the sylvan shades they were accompanied sometimes, indeed, by Milton's "mountain nymph, sweet Liberty," but quite as frequently by Shenstone's nymph, "coy Elegance," who ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... out to his eager heart, Erik determined to go himself to England, but incognito, disguised as the servant of some foreign lord. Thus he would see and conquer the coy maiden queen. The warnings and expostulations of his friends failed to move him from this romantic project, but at length it reached the king's ears, and he strictly forbade the wild-goose project as hazardous and undignified. Erik, ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 9 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. Scandinavian. • Charles Morris
... you preach last Sunday," she said, glowing with interest. He began to look coy. Then her voice changed to something colder than the wind. "The most lamentable sairmon I ever listened to. Neither lairning nor inspiration. And a ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... drawing-room song, darling! Sing by the sunset's glow; Now while the shadows are long, darling; Now while the lights are low; Something so chaste and so coy, darling! Something that melts the chest; Milder than even Molloy, ...
— The Battle of the Bays • Owen Seaman
... Madison. "Why, you go down there like a whole parade and a gorgeous pageant rolled into one, in feathers and paint and diamond boulders in your ears—and you come out of it in a gingham apron and coy sunbonnet as ...
— The Miracle Man • Frank L. Packard
... gives command—the inferior powers obey— The crippled artist [Footnote: Vulcan.] moulds the tempered clay: A maid's coy image rose at Jove's behest; Minerva clasped the zone, diffused too vest; Adored Persuasion and the Graces young Her tapered limbs with golden jewels hung; Round her smooth brow the beauteous-tressed Hours A garland ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... it were best That this language you addressed Unto him who nightly came Down here from this balcony;— 'Tis enough for me to show All your lightness that I know, That less coy and cold to me Your pretended honour prove. If I am disdained, displaced, 'Tis another suits your taste, Not that ...
— The Wonder-Working Magician • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... and showed two or three water-coloured drawings of the graceful little head and piquant features. Edgar criticised, and promised a lesson; and the sitter, nothing loth, though rather coy, was caught. She blushed and smiled, and took exception at little personalities, and laughed her forgiveness, going through a play of countenance very perplexing to the pupil, but much relished by the master, as he called up the pout and smile ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... kitchen. Whereupon I straightway ran in thither, and was shocked and affrighted when I saw the sheriff himself standing in the corner with his arm round my child her neck; he, however, presently let her go, and said, "Aha, reverend Abraham, what a coy little fool you have for a daughter! I wanted to greet her with a kiss, as I always used to do, and she struggled and cried out as if I had been some young fellow who had stolen in upon her, whereas I ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... has bent me down. To you, Paolo, I could look, however, Were my hump made a mountain. Bless him, God! Pour everlasting bounties on his head! Make Croesus jealous of his treasury, Achilles of his arms, Endymion Of his fresh beauties,—though the coy one lay, Blushing beneath Diana's earliest kiss, On grassy Latmos; and may every good, Beyond man's sight, though in the ken of heaven, Round his fair fortune to a perfect end! O, you have dried the sorrow of my eyes; My heart is beating with a lighter pulse; ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: Francesca da Rimini • George Henry Boker
... gardening, is unrivalled. They have studied Nature intently, and discovered an exquisite sense of her beautiful forms and harmonious combinations. Those charms which, in other countries, she lavishes in wild solitudes, are here assembled round the haunts of domestic life. They seem to have caught her coy and furtive graces, and spread them, like witchery, about ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... office fire, Miss Thornhill read a magazine in the indolent fashion so much affected at Baldpate Inn during the heated term; while the mayor of Reuton chatted amiably with the ponderously coy Mrs. Norton. Into this circle burst the envoys to the hermitage, flushed, ...
— Seven Keys to Baldpate • Earl Derr Biggers
... that we can do at present," Prescott concluded, will be to notify Lawyer Ripley or Chief Coy that we've seen ...
— The Grammar School Boys in Summer Athletics • H. Irving Hancock
... Song, from some far Land To the kind Reader The New Amadis When the Fox dies, his Skin counts The Heathrose Blindman's Buff Christel The Coy One The Convert Preservation The Muses' Son Found Like and Like Reciprocal Invitation to the Dance Self-Deceit Declaration of War Lover in all Shapes The Goldsmith's Apprentice Answers in a Game of Questions Different Emotions on the same Spot Who'll ...
— The Poems of Goethe • Goethe
... the end Buck's pertinacity was rewarded; for the wolf, finding that no harm was intended, finally sniffed noses with him. Then they became friendly, and played about in the nervous, half-coy way with which fierce beasts belie their fierceness. After some time of this the wolf started off at an easy lope in a manner that plainly showed he was going somewhere. He made it clear to Buck that he was to come, and they ran side by side through the sombre twilight, straight up the creek bed, ...
— The Call of the Wild • Jack London
... Coy as he grows fond, she meets him With a modest show; Shaming truth with truthful seeming, While ...
— Indian Poetry • Edwin Arnold
... Always changing, yet still the same. 'Twill show you the trees, or the clouds, or yourself, or the stars; and it's so clear and so dark, and so sunny, and—so cold. It tells everything, and yet nothing. It's so pure, and so playful, and so tuneful, and so coy, yet so mysterious and fatal. I sometimes think, Miss Lilias, I've seen this river spirit; and she's ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... who durst with fingering bold assay To touch the softness of her tender skin, She looked as coy, as if she list not play, And made as things of worth were hard to win; Yet tempered so her deignful looks alway, That outward scorn showed store of grace within: Thus with false hope their longing hearts she fired, For hardest gotten things ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... their follies. How could I dream that he would have made scruples about a few years' youth or age, when the advantages of the match were so evident? And thou knowest, there would have been no moving yonder coy wench to be so frank as this coming Countess here, who hangs on our arms as dead a weight as a wool pack. I loved the lad too, and would have done him a kindness: to wed him to this old woman was to make his fortune, ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... "She is still coy," said the young Spaniard, telling Ulrich to wait at the narrow door, which opened upon the balcony. "There sits the angel! Just look! I gave her the pomegranate blossom in her magnificent hair—did you ever see more beautiful tresses? Take notice! ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... is like to break in twain: * Till when these coy denials ah! till when? O thou who fliest me sans fault of mine, * Gazelles are wont at times prove tame to men: Absence, aversion, distance and disdain, * How shall young lover all these ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... proud, and responded coldly to his advances. He did not care what harm came to Ralegh, upon whom, as Mr. Gardiner says, he knew the Spaniards would fall wherever they found him. Meanwhile he hoped to warm his coy allies by letting loose upon the Spanish Main their and his inveterate aversion. Ralegh was a convenient firebrand to show Spain the harm England, if an enemy, could do. He was a scapegoat to immolate in proof of all England was prepared to ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... joy, In songbirds trill, in flowerlets coy, Shall we, also, voices raise, Sing our ...
— Ohio Arbor Day 1913: Arbor and Bird Day Manual - Issued for the Benefit of the Schools of our State • Various
... taken this pretty pet lamb To dwell in his stately fold, To fetter it fast with a jeweled chain, And cage it with bars of gold; But this coy little lamb loved its freedom, Not so free was she, though, to be true, But, oh, the dainty and shy little lamb Well her ...
— Poems • Marietta Holley
... anything to say?" she asked coyly; though her eyes, as they fixed mine, were not coy, but eager; and I felt, eerily, that she was wondering whether the millions, of which she'd heard, were in English pounds ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... a shake of the eyeglass, to shift and sidle again, as if distinctly excited by the subject. But it was as if his very excitement made the poor gentleman a trifle coy. "Are there no nice ...
— The Awkward Age • Henry James
... drawing the iron towards it. An intense energy lies behind such passivity, an absorbed pre-occupation in the end to be attained."[313] In the examples we have studied of the courtships of birds we saw that it is by no means a universal law that the male is eager and the female coy. I need only recall the instance noted by Darwin[314] in which a wild duck forced her love on a male pintail, and such cases, as is well known, are frequent. High-bred bitches will show sudden passions for low-bred ...
— The Truth About Woman • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... 4 Then be not coy, but use your time, And, whilst ye may, go marry; For having lost but once your prime, You may ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... be no longer cold, no longer coy, dear Margaret—here in the sweet evening, among these pleasant shades, love, alone, has supremacy. Here, in the words of one ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... accord, they turned to a dove-like maiden mild, With a seraph's purity of look, and soft graces of a child; "Speak out, speak out now, sweet shy Clare, we anxious wait for thee, Coy, gentle one! fear not to say what thy heart's ...
— The Poetical Works of Mrs. Leprohon (Mrs. R.E. Mullins) • Rosanna Eleanor Leprohon
... maiden, who in ancient song Was wont to flout her swain, I prithee be not always coy, But turn your face again. My heart is true, and it will rue, That ever you should doubt me, So sweet, be kind, and change your mind, And don't for ...
— The Princess of the School • Angela Brazil
... with their hues reflected streaking bright Her radiant bow, bids all her Warblers sing; The Lark, shrill caroling on soaring wing; The lonely Thrush, in brake, with blossoms white, That tunes his pipe so loud; while, from the sight Coy bending their dropt heads, young Cowslips fling Rich perfume o'er the fields.—It is the prime Of Hours that Beauty robes:—yet all they gild, Cheer, and delight in this their fragrant time, For thy dear sake, to me less pleasure yield Than, veil'd in sleet, and rain, and hoary rime, Dim ...
— Original sonnets on various subjects; and odes paraphrased from Horace • Anna Seward
... doubt whatever that this moose, at least, had come to what he thought was the call of a mate. Moonlight is deceptive beyond a few feet; so when the low grunt sounded in the shadow of the great rock he was sure he had found the coy creature at last, and broke out of his concealment resolved to keep her in sight and not to let her get away again. That is why he swam after us. Had he been investigating some new sound or possible danger, he would never have left the land, where alone ...
— Wood Folk at School • William J. Long
... radiant scene Swell'd his exulting thought, than this surveys A muckworm's entrails, or a spider's fang. Next him a youth, with flowers and myrtles crown'd, 170 Attends that virgin form, and blushing kneels, With fondest gesture and a suppliant's tongue, To win her coy regard: adieu, for him, The dull engagements of the bustling world! Adieu the sick impertinence of praise! And hope, and action! for with her alone, By streams and shades, to steal these sighing hours, Is all he asks, and all that ...
— Poetical Works of Akenside - [Edited by George Gilfillan] • Mark Akenside
... the white squares of the plaid turn outward? and where should she put the coral? and would it be becoming after all? A pretty, girlish sight, and you may laugh at it if you choose; but there was a prettier woman's tenderness underlying it, just as a strain of fine, coy sadness will wind through a mazourka or a waltz. For who would see the poor little hat to-morrow at church? and would he like it? and when he came to-morrow night,—for of course he would come to-morrow night,—would he ...
— Men, Women, and Ghosts • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... No. Coy Conveyancing would not come to Mr. Grewgious. She was wooed, not won, and they went their several ways. But an Arbitration being blown towards him by some unaccountable wind, and he gaining great ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens
... that he has no companion in that part of the world, no Sir Charles Sedleys, nor Buckinghams, and what is still worse, even deprived of the happiness of a mistress, for, the women there, he says, are so coy, and so narrowly watched by their relations, that there is no possibility of accomplishing an intrigue. He mentions, however, one Monsieur Hoffman, who married a French lady, with whom he was very great, and after the calamitous accident of Mr. Hoffman's ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. III • Theophilus Cibber
... pure and bashful middle-class wife, a blossom hidden in the Rue du Doyenne, could know nothing of the depravity and demoralizing harlotry which the Baron could no longer think of without disgust, for he had never known the charm of recalcitrant virtue, and the coy Valerie made him enjoy it to the utmost—all along the line, as ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... photoplay writing 'The Idea's the thing.' The script of the beginner, carrying a brand-new idea, will find acceptance where the most technical technique in the world, disguising a revamped story, will fail to coax the coy ...
— Writing the Photoplay • J. Berg Esenwein and Arthur Leeds
... have we her approval? Nay, never blush, nor hide your face. Well, well, maidens will be coy; 'tis a delicate subject. But there, she nods consent. Now, off with you; and mind, the beaten ones must not be cross with the judge; I will not have the poor lad harmed. The prize of beauty can ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... word had Kitty for me that evening, but for her father such clinging, coaxing, wheedling ways, and for the Jook such coy, sparkling, artfully-accidental glances, such shy turns of the little head, such dainty capricious airs, that it was delicious to watch her. Koenigin and I sat in a dark corner for the express purpose ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various
... he looked upon as given to him above Adam was the power of attraction, by which he could supplant him with others and rob him of their affection; so that, though he was no more charmed by Eve's rare beauty than he was won by her coy modesty, no sooner did he see that Adam's affection was turned toward her than he coveted her love and desired to boast of it as being his own. With this object in view, he began by enlisting Eve's sympathies with his forlorn position, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... put it on, covered Ermine well, made up the fire, and took her seat on the form, just outside the screen, while Ermine tried to sleep. But sleep was coy, and would not visit the girl's eyes. Her state of mind was strangely quiescent and acquiescent in all that was done to her or for her. Perhaps extreme weakness had a share in this; but she felt as if sorrow and mourning ...
— One Snowy Night - Long ago at Oxford • Emily Sarah Holt
... that Genius of his Hearth and Home (for such the Cricket was) came out, in fairy shape, into the room, and summoned many forms of Home about him. Dots of all ages, and all sizes, filled the chamber. Dots who were merry children, running on before him gathering flowers, in the fields; coy Dots, half shrinking from, half yielding to, the pleading of his own rough image; newly-married Dots, alighting at the door, and taking wondering possession of the household keys; motherly little Dots, attended by fictitious Slowboys, bearing babies to be christened; matronly Dots, still ...
— The Cricket on the Hearth • Charles Dickens
... stuff the Secretary Bird spouted when you showed Phillis to him, Kit? About her being forward, or coy, or something. It ...
— The Right Stuff - Some Episodes in the Career of a North Briton • Ian Hay
... Light mixed with shadow. Love met the maid again, Dreaming through the meadow. "Not so coy," urged the boy; "List in time to love and reason." "By and by," she mused reply; ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 7, May, 1858 • Various
... being gone." The mere fact of its loveliness and perfection gives them no authority to do so; and to my ear the rather stately procession of syllables is reminiscent of Fletcher. We shall never be certain; and who would not swear that "Hear, ye ladies that are coy" was by the same hand that wrote "Sigh no more, ladies," if we were not sure of the contrary? But the most effective test, even in the case of Fletcher, is to see whether the trill of song is, or is not, an inherent portion of the dramatic structure of the play. ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... stop it?" She watched his face, her manner coy and yielding. "Nat," she said in a softer voice, "if you like me as well as ...
— The Fortune Hunter • Louis Joseph Vance |
