"Coy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 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 ...
— Lights and Shadows in Confederate Prisons - A Personal Experience, 1864-5 • Homer B. Sprague
... ourselves in support. Meanwhile our job was to dig new trenches out in front as jumping off places for the attack. They were successfully completed, but when the enemy saw them he paid his usual attention to them and as a result 2nd-Lt. Chatterton (C Coy.) was badly wounded, and eventually lost a leg. He was an extremely popular figure both with officers and men being known to everyone as "Joe," and his absence was keenly felt, for he had gone out originally with ...
— The Seventh Manchesters - July 1916 to March 1919 • S. J. Wilson
... the Sissy Boy Who acts so womanly and coy. His head's as soft as new-made butter; His aim in life is just to flutter; Yet he goes along with unconcern And marries a woman with money ...
— Poems for Pale People - A Volume of Verse • Edwin C. Ranck
... all very true. Then he was pressing, and you were coy, until finally he extorted your definitive answer, which was—" Maria paused, and seemed to be intensely studying the looks of the other—Miss Henley smiled as she turned her placid, ingenuous features to her gaze, and continued the ...
— Tales for Fifteen: or, Imagination and Heart • James Fenimore Cooper
... getting some money for the Charles were spoiled through Mr. Waith's perverseness, which did so vex me that I could not sleep at night. But I wrote a letter to him to send to-morrow morning for him to take my money for me, and so with good words I thought to coy ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... effect of this chill history could never be undone. The wise—and they included all his social world and many who were not of it—could see just how he had been living. The article which accompanied the pictures told how he had followed Jennie from Cleveland to Chicago, how she had been coy and distant and that he had to court her a long time to win her consent. This was to explain their living together on the North Side. Lester realized that this was an asinine attempt to sugar-coat the true story and it made him angry. Still he preferred to have it that way ...
— Jennie Gerhardt - A Novel • Theodore Dreiser
... in agony-columns; there were futile attempts made to pacify the Court of Chancery. All the Beresfords came up to town, except Nan, who remained to look after the Brighton house. The chief difficulty of the moment was to discover the whereabouts of Mr. John Hanbury. That gentleman was coy; and wanted to find out something of what was likely to happen to him if he emerged from his hiding-place. At last it was conveyed to him that he was only making matters worse; then he wrote from certain furnished apartments in a house on ...
— The Beautiful Wretch; The Pupil of Aurelius; and The Four Macnicols • William Black
... from Beaufort to Ladies' Island, I found myself, with delight, on the actual trail of a song. One of the oarsmen, a brisk young fellow, not a soldier, on being asked for his theory of the matter, dropped out a coy confession. "Some good sperituals," he said, "are start jess out o' curiosity. I been a-raise ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... to betray the secret reason which Martha had not yet discovered. After the strong words he had taken from her, she owed him a kindness, he thought; if she would only allow the impression that the matter was still undecided—that more time (which a coy young maiden might reasonably demand) had been granted! On the other hand, he feared that her clear, firm integrity of character would be repelled by the nature of his motive. He was beginning to feel, greatly to his own surprise, a profound ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor
... rawhide, half walking and half flying, his wings spread out, 'cree-ing' to himself about bulldogs and their ways; next come Bobby, still sputtering and swearing, and behind ambled Thomas at a lively wriggle, a coy, large smile ...
— Red Saunders' Pets and Other Critters • Henry Wallace Phillips
... due to the artist to say that his wildness that morning was not the result only of despair at the obvious indifference with which Nita regarded him. It was the combination of that wretched condition with a heroic resolve to forsake the coy maiden and return to his first love— his beloved art—that excited him; and the idea of renewing his devotion to her in dangerous circumstances was rather congenial to his savage state of mind. It may be here remarked that Mr Slingsby, ...
— Rivers of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... thereof), Gives back to thee in sanctities of flower; And holy odours do her bosom invest, That sweeter grows for being prest: Though dear recoil, the tremorous nurse of joy, From thine embrace still startles coy, Till Phosphor lead, at thy returning hour, The laughing ...
— New Poems • Francis Thompson
... up a bit husky in evenin' dress. Talk about elbow dimples! And I was wishin' she'd forgot to do her hair that antique way, all piled up on her head, with a few coy ringlets over one ear. But she'd landscaped her facial scenery artistic, and she sure does know how to roll them ...
— The House of Torchy • Sewell Ford
... hands. It was a touching sight, and of a human interest larger than any London characteristic. So, in a little different sort, was the rapture of a couple behind a tree on whom a friend of mine came suddenly in St. James's Park at the very moment when the eager he was pressing the coy she to be his. My friend, who had not the courage of an ever-present literary mission, fled abashed from the place, and I think he was right; but surely it was no harm to overhear the affianced of a 'bus-driver talking tender nothings to him all the way from Knightsbridge to ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... and after her and overtook her at the end of Hosier lane in Smithfield, and without standing in the street desired her to follow me, and I led her into a little blind alehouse within the walls, and there she and I alone fell to talk and baiser la and toker su mammailles, but she mighty coy, and I hope modest.... I did give her in a paper 20s., and we did agree para meet again in the Hall at Westminster on Monday next; and so giving me great hopes by her carriage that she continues modest and honest, we did there part, she going home and I to Mrs. Turner's, ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... Coy, sweet maid, I love so well, Fair Estelle. How much I love thee tongue can't tell, Sweet Estelle. But I love thee—love thee true— More than violets love the dew, More than roses love the sun— Do I love ...
— The Sylvan Cabin - A Centenary Ode on the Birth of Lincoln and Other Verse • Edward Smyth Jones
... temples where Nature pays homage in the courts of the Divine Architect, I dismiss all modes of conveyance, and with well-nailed shoes, rough clothes, a staff, and a lunch, I take the kingdom by force. When once in, I am royally entertained; for though coy and apparently hard to woo, Nature is a most delightful companion when ...
— Trail Tales • James David Gillilan
... not coy, but use your lungs, And while ye may, cry "Waiter!" For having held just now your tongues, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, March 26, 1892 • Various
... 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 but ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... the papoose's wail, and stilled the squaw's low-crooning lilt. No longer shimmers starlight from eyes of savage maids Worshippers of the fire and sun, poor dwellers of the caves— The sisters of the deer and lo, shy startled fawns of Aztec race Or coy ancestral dams of moon-eyed Toltec doe. Now Verde witches bathe in Montezuma's well And over its crystal waters ...
— Tales of Aztlan • George Hartmann
... clerking. She was unquestionably the prettiest girl in Geneva; indeed she was as pretty as girls are made. With all her small-town limitations she was bright as a pin, and as sharp; fine of instinct and, withal, coy as a coquette. The first time Alac addressed her it was as a shop-keeper. Something she said kept turning over in his brain and he realized next morning, as he was shaving, that her reply had been ...
— Our Nervous Friends - Illustrating the Mastery of Nervousness • Robert S. Carroll
... long, there short, afloat the duckweed lies; But caught at last, we seize the longed-for prize. The maiden modest, virtuous, coy, is found; Strike every lute, and joyous welcome sound. Ours now, the duckweed from the stream we bear, And cook to use with other viands rare. He has the maiden, modest, virtuous, bright; Let bells and drums proclaim ...
— Chinese Literature • Anonymous
... 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. ...
— Lyrical Ballads with Other Poems, 1800, Vol. 2 • William Wordsworth
... leave Flossie, the belle of the village, waiting at the gate any time a burlesque three-sheet shows up on the side of the blacksmith shop. And right down front, with their feet on the base drum, handing out the coy glances before the first curtain is ...
— The Sorrows of a Show Girl • Kenneth McGaffey
... in a spasm of longing—if she could get those thousand francs! But though she was so dizzy and so upset she retained her grip on her native Florentine shrewdness. She said nothing of her need of the money; not a syllable of her sore distress. On the contrary, she was coy and wary, affected great reluctance to part with her pet, invented a great offer made for him by a director of a circus, and finally let fall a hint that less than a thousand francs she could ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... and Glory fails, And coy Reward in sighs exhales, I gaze in my two springs and see Attainment ...
— The Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier
... in England, Amy. It seems to require our deeper-tinted skies to produce them. Ah, there comes his mate. You can tell her by the lighter blue of her plumage, and the tinge of brown on her head and back. She is a cold, coy beauty, even as a wife; but how gallant is her azure-coated beau! Flirt away, my little chap, and make the most of your courting and honeymoon. You will soon have family cares enough to discourage anybody but a bluebird;" and the doctor looked at his favorites with an exulting ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... 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 the ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... glorious heroism of plunging, crashing bodies and aching limbs. For those minutes courage flowed like wine out of the November dusk, and he was the eternal hero, one with the sea-rover on the prow of a Norse galley, one with Roland and Horatius, Sir Nigel and Ted Coy, scraped and stripped into trim and then flung by his own will into the breach, beating back the tide, hearing from afar the thunder of cheers... finally bruised and weary, but still elusive, circling an end, twisting, changing pace, straight-arming... falling behind the ...
— This Side of Paradise • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... age, whose spirit of romance is not yet quenched, who are content to ramble through the world in a pleasant dream, rather than ever waken again to its harsh realities. We are alchemists who would extract the essence of perpetual youth from dust and ashes, tempt coy Truth in many light and airy forms from the bottom of her well, and discover one crumb of comfort or one grain of good in the commonest and least-regarded matter that passes through our crucible. Spirits of past times, creatures of imagination, and people of to-day ...
— Master Humphrey's Clock • Charles Dickens
... she shot them; the vivacious and intelligent daughter of Massachusetts, all sensitive, modest, and graceful; the placid belle of Pennsylvania, whose fair complexion drew upon her all admiration; the bright-eyed Buckeye, with face so oval, than whom none was more coy, nor ever shot a glance or stole a heart so well; the rustic daughter of Down East, who affected great contempt for all superior people, and declared the queen not a whit better than anybody else; the buxom Green-mountain ...
— The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth • Timothy Templeton
... wouldn't. And I was unwilling to force the matter for fear of losing entirely that coy and canny fish. I did get him, though, to let me rewrite the line last month, so as to include some property not at first insured, and that ties it up until next April. And maybe before next April comes around, the hard-hearted ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble
... everywhere, in all countries; and the more ardently and eagerly he sought it, the less was he able to find it. Pleasure was the first modest, coy woman who cruelly shunned him, and the more he pursued her, the more coldly did she seem to ...
— The Merchant of Berlin - An Historical Novel • L. Muhlbach
... by a secret, but a pow'rful Art, } Winds up the Spring of Life, and do's impart } Fresh Vital Heat to the transported Heart, } I'd have her Reason, and her Passions sway, Easy in Company, in private Gay. Coy to a Fop, to the deserving free, Still Constant to her self, and Just to me. A soul she shou'd have for great Actions fit, Prudence, and Wisdom to direct her Wit. Courage to look bold danger in the Face, No Fear, but only to ...
— The Pleasures of a Single Life, or, The Miseries Of Matrimony • Anonymous
... speak, in connection with what he styled his horrible youth, of the years which she—the Dilecta—had tarnished. Too opportune to be sincere, this condemnation of his first liaison cannot but be regarded as an incense of flattery offered to the coy goddess ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton
... 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. ...
— Contemporary American Composers • Rupert Hughes
... this is courtly now, this is sweete, this plaine, this is familiar, but by the Court of France, our peevish dames are so proud, so precise, so coy, so disdainfull, and so subtill, as the Pomonian Serpent, mort dieu the Puncke of Babylon was never ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. III • Various
... worship. We chase the illusive glitter of fashion as though it was a crown of glory, and could impart dignity and peace to its wearer. We hunt after pleasure as though it could be found by searching. Pleasure comes of itself. It must never be wooed. She is a coy maid, and ever eludes her flattering followers. She will come and abide with us when we use wisely the world and its good things. But we must put things to their true use, else pleasure will keep away. Oh, how much might we enjoy life ...
— Aims and Aids for Girls and Young Women • George Sumner Weaver
... for he had learned to draw his sword, wave it dramatically over his head, cheer for a few seconds in monkey talk, then break and dash to the rear. "Paterno" was an easy candidate for second honors. He gave a giddy dance and looked coy. ...
— Bamboo Tales • Ira L. Reeves
... this suggestion, promptly became as coy as a partridge-hen. Whinnie, of course, remained Scottish and canny. He became more shrewdly magnanimous, however, after we'd had a bit of talk by ourselves. "Weel, I'll tak' the woman, rather than see her frettin' hersel' to death!" he finally conceded, knowing ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer
... 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 ...
— Seven Keys to Baldpate • Earl Derr Biggers
... let Anna have six little girls here to supper to-night: Louisa Field, Hattie Paddock, Helen Coy, Martha Densmore, Emma Wheeler, and Alice Jewett. We had a splendid supper and then we played cards. I do not mean regular cards, mercy no! Grandfather thinks those kinds are contageous or outrageous ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... never had time called but once. He caught a couple of punts with his one good arm and every other punt he attempted to catch and muffed he saved the ball from the other side by falling on it. In the same game, a peculiar thing happened to me. I tackled Ted Coy about fifteen minutes before the end of the game, and until I awoke hours later, lying in a drawing-room car, pulling into the Grand Central Station, my mind was a blank. Yet I am told the last fifteen minutes of the game I played well, especially when ...
— Football Days - Memories of the Game and of the Men behind the Ball • William H. Edwards
... cried he, to that worthy, who peeped in at that moment; "you are right, it is better to plow away upon canvas blindfold, as our grandfathers—no, grandmothers—used, than to kill ourselves toiling after such coy ladies as ...
— Christie Johnstone • Charles Reade
... That, of course, she could not tell her mother. There are some things too sacred for little girls to tell their mothers. She wondered if Wollaston would ask leave to walk home with her. She had seen a boy step out of a waiting file at the vestry door to a blushing girl, and had seen the girl, with a coy readiness, slip her hand into the waiting crook of his arm, and walk off, and she had wondered when such bliss would come to her. It never had. She wondered if the pink gingham might bring it to pass to-night. The pink ...
— By the Light of the Soul - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... bowl of punch; and when a few glasses of the hot beverage had restored his powers, James opened ore rotundo on the merits of the forthcoming romance. "One chapter, one chapter only," was the cry. After "Nay, by'r Lady, nay!" and a few more coy shifts, the proof sheets were at length produced, and James, with many a prefatory hem, read aloud what he considered as the ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... into those eyes; read that blush now. She looks coy, not reluctant. She bends before him—adorned as for love, by all her native graces. Air seems brightened by her bloom. No more the Outlaw-Child of Ignominy and Fraud, but the Starry Daughter of POETRY AND ART! Lo, where they glide away under the leafless, melancholy trees. Leafless and melancholy! ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... deter, discourage; browbeat, bully; threaten &c. 909. Adj. fearing &c. v.; frightened &c. v.; in fear, in a fright &c. n.; haunted with the fear of &c. n.; afeard[obs3]. afraid, fearful; timid, timorous; nervous, diffident, coy, faint- hearted, tremulous, shaky, afraid of one's shadow, apprehensive, restless, fidgety; more frightened than hurt. aghast; awe-stricken, horror-stricken, terror-stricken, panic- stricken, awestruck, awe-stricken, horror-struck; frightened to death, white as a sheet; pale, pale as a ghost, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... unpuritanic days lovers keep late hours; and as I listened to the wooing of fair Brooklyn by the eloquent son[1] of New York I thought we might be here till papa turned out the gas. Brooklyn is a New England maiden and a trifle coy, and it may take even more than an hour's pleading and persuasive wooing to win her. [Applause.] You ask me, sir, to turn our thoughts back from these considerations of pressing and immediate problems, ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various
... dear, 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
... to be coy, if not fickle, the manual part of transplanting should always be properly done. The plants should always be taken up with as little loss of roots as possible, be kept exposed to the air as short ...
— Culinary Herbs: Their Cultivation Harvesting Curing and Uses • M. G. Kains
... 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 might be her father twice over." As ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... the fact that spring had at last made her coy and reluctant debut, there had been a sharp change in the weather and winter again held the center of the stage. Regardful of this fact, Tatsu had built a roaring fire in the library to cheer Hayden's home-coming. The flames crackled ...
— The Silver Butterfly • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... part of Jessie's charms, Which the bosom ever warms; But the charms by which I 'm stung, Come, O Jessie, from thy tongue! Jessie, be no longer coy; Let me taste a lover's joy; With your hand remove the dart, And heal the wound ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel , Volume I. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... while? Thy sunk eyes glisten through eclipsing fears, Fill'd, like Cassandra's, with prophetic tears: With such a visage, withering, woe-begone, Shrinks the pale poet from the damning dun. Come, let us teach each others tears to flow, Like fasting bards, in fellowship of woe, When the coy muse puts on coquettish airs, Nor deigns one line to their voracious prayers; Thy spirit, groaning like th'encumber'd block Which bears my works, deplores them as dead stock, Doom'd by these undiscriminating times To ...
— Poetic Sketches • Thomas Gent
... Danae, in 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 ye, or ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 387, August 28, 1829 • Various
... 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 ...
— Ravenna, A Study • Edward Hutton
... no use my pretending or being coy, Cally. Oh, I'd dearly love to have it. I've been wondering what on earth I'd do for a nice suit this year.... Why, it's like ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... she shines like the sun, With 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 and feigned surprise. ...
— Verses • Susan Coolidge
... that tawny shell, Stained by thy tears and hollowed by thy sighs, Recalls thee still to mind—dost thou regard, From some tumultuous covert of this woodland, Thy whilom sphere and palace? Nun of the skies, In coy virginity of pulse, thy hands Repelled me when I sought to win thy lair, Fraternal, with no thoughts but humorous ones; And in thy chill revulsion, through thy skies, At my advance thy crystal home would fade, A ghost, a shadow, a film, a papery dream. Thou and thy moon were one. ...
— Hypolympia - Or, The Gods in the Island, an Ironic Fantasy • Edmund Gosse
... and 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 ...
— One Snowy Night - Long ago at Oxford • Emily Sarah Holt
... The coy twilight waned quickly, and the caravan was still pushing on through the thick darkness of the wood, when a high tensioned yelping made the vast silence insignificant, ugly. But as the travelers filed into the clearing where the village was, the curs slunk away ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... recovering wits. In a moment she had advanced from a hopeless, lowly admirer to be an Eve-sister of the potent Aileen. She herself was now a man-charmer, a mark for Cupid, a Sabine who must be coy when the Romans were at their banquet boards. Man had found her waist achievable and her lips desirable. The sudden and amatory Seeders had, as it were, performed for her a miraculous piece of one-day laundry work. He ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry
... needless adjuncts—these elaborate dressings, these set forms, these expensive preparations, these many devices and arrangements that imply trouble and raise expectation? Who that has lived thirty years in the world has not discovered that Pleasure is coy; and must not be too directly pursued, but must be caught unawares? An air from a street-piano, heard while at work, will often gratify more than the choicest music played at a concert by the most accomplished ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer
... 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 her with it; but I persuaded them, if they loved Benedick, ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... such other adornments as they are able to collect. Here in this arena the courting is done, the male bird chasing his mate up and down, bowing his pretty head and playing the agreeable generally, while she indulges in all manner of airs and graces, pretends to be very coy, and acts the coquette to perfection. But her lover's devotion conquers at last, and in due time the fair flirt surrenders, yields up her liberty and settles down as a dutiful wife and loving mother, bringing ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 87, March, 1875 • Various
... young lady," remarked Walderhurst, with a lighter manner than usual. "You ought to say something deprecatory or—a little coy, perhaps." ...
— Emily Fox-Seton - Being The Making of a Marchioness and The Methods of Lady Walderhurst • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... sense; And love unchanged will cloy, And she became a bore intense Unto her love-sick boy? With fitful glimmer burnt my flame, And I grew cold and coy, At last, one morning, I became Another's ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... "Girls are uncommon coy critters," said he, with a grave smile in his eyes. He handed back the child, and once more was absorbed in the ...
— The Last Trail • Zane Grey
... adventurous, chivalrous, and bright blue Norman blood. To such purpose do the gay young Vikings of the world of quack pour in (when the weather and the time of year invite), equipped with red boots and plumes of purple velvet, to enchant the coy lady ducks in soft water, and eclipse the familiar and too legal drake. For a while they revel in the change of scene, the luxury of unsalted mud and scarcely rippled water, and the sweetness and culture of tame dilly-ducks, to whom their brilliant bravery, as well as an air ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... however, from the delicate prettiness of her refined face with its soft gray shadows, or the dark gentle eyes, whose blue-veined lids were just then wrinkled into coquettishly mischievous lines by the strong light. She was taller and thinner than Kate, and had at times a certain shy, coy sinuosity of movement which gave her a more virginal suggestion than her unmarried sister. For Miss Kate, from her earliest youth, had been distinguished by that matronly sedateness of voice and step, and completeness of figure, which indicates some members of the gallinaceous ...
— Snow-Bound at Eagle's • Bret Harte
... go to the dining-room; and as I stepped out to have a look down the street for Hamilton, I heard Colonel Adderly's last fling—"Pretty rascals, you gentlemen adventurers are, so shy and coy about law courts." ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... ladies that are coy, What the mighty Love can do; Fear the fierceness of the boy: The chaste Moon he makes to woo; Vesta, kindling holy fires, Circled round about with spies, Never dreaming loose desires, Doting at the altar ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... aught of this pure spectacle But loathsomeness and ruin?— 20 Spare aught but a dark theme, On which the lightest heart might moralize? Or is it but that downy-winged slumbers Have charmed their nurse coy Silence near her lids To watch their own repose? 25 Will they, when morning's beam Flows through those wells of light, Seek far from noise and day some western cave, Where woods and streams with soft and pausing winds A lulling murmur weave?— 30 Ianthe doth not sleep The ...
— The Daemon of the World • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... in Maxim's so gay and kittenish and coy as she! She was the essence of youth. Her hair was as yellow as gold and so thick and undulating that one could not help wondering how far down her back it would drop if released. Her lips were ...
— Her Weight in Gold • George Barr McCutcheon
... tremendous catastrophe probably dawned upon the usual restless crowd of gold-getters intent upon their several avocations. The streets were filled with the expanded figures of gayly dressed women, acknowledging with coy glances the respectful salutations of beaux as they gracefully raised their remarkable cylindrical head-coverings, a model of which is still preserved in the Honolulu Museum. The brokers had gathered at their respective temples. The shopmen were exhibiting their goods. The idlers, or 'Bummers,'—a ...
— Legends and Tales • Bret Harte
... service she did, for it was a 'she', reader as the sequel will prove. About eighteen months before, the troopers had visited Hinchinbrook Island, to recover stolen property, and in one of the native camps had found an exceedingly pretty gin of some fourteen summers. The personal charms of this coy nymph of the forest had proved too much for the susceptible heart of Ferdinand, who, regarding her as his lawful prize, had borne her, irate and struggling, to the boat, from whence she was in due course transported to the police camp (mounted on ...
— Australian Search Party • Charles Henry Eden
... you care?—you who were so coy, and who, when you knew my heart was hungering for you, would tell ...
— The Birthright • Joseph Hocking
... is a soul, but a coy one. The nine hundred and ninety-nine never win it. They play rapid tunes, but the soul of beautiful gayety is not there; slow tunes, very slow ones, wherein the spirit of whining is mighty, but the sweet soul of pathos is absent; ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... it felt raw and chill after the close, stifling atmosphere of the midshipman's berth. It was very dark, for it was only just past the date of the new moon, and the thin silver sickle—which was all that the coy orb then showed of herself—had set some hours before; moreover, there was a thin veil of mist or sea fog hanging upon the surface of the water, through which only a few of the brighter stars could be faintly distinguished near the zenith. There ...
— A Pirate of the Caribbees • Harry Collingwood
... was ornamented chiefly by hand-tinted photographs from the yoshiwaras of Nagasaki, of simpering, coy geishas. Souvenirs of their trade, glittering fans, nicked teacups, flimsy sandals, adorned the available shelf room. Cigars as brawny and black as if their maker had striven to emulate the captain's own bulk were scattered among papers on ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... trots with a jog, jog, jog, And a jog, jog, jog; and a jog, jog, jog. And the old road makes a little jog, jog, jog, To the west, jog, jog; and the north, jog, jog. While the farmer drinks some cider from his jug, jug, jug, From his coy jug, jug; from his joy jug, jug. Till he accumulates a little jag, jag, jag, And he jigs, jigs, jigs, ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis
... delight, so that she cannot contain herself; and leaning on the arm of an attendant, in a graceful attitude, remains slightly smiling, in such a manner that no description can express her beauty. The guards become fascinated and remain immoveable. With trembling frame and coy of heart she ...
— Diary of a Pedestrian in Cashmere and Thibet • by William Henry Knight
... which asked only sleep or relaxation after two sleepless nights under fire. "The Germans haven't any aeroplanes up to enable them to see us and no sausage balloons, either. Since our planes brought down those six in flames the day before the attack the others have been very coy." ...
— My Second Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... trees, trilling loudly a gleeful carol. The tits flew 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, and the blue and brown countryside glowed ...
— Creatures of the Night - A Book of Wild Life in Western Britain • Alfred W. Rees
... refuses to go. Gawayne is assailed by terrible temptations. The thought of the Green Chapel, fortunately, helps him to overcome them, and the first, second, and third night his fair friend finds him equally coy. She kisses him once, twice, thrice, and jeers at him for forgetting each day what she had taught him on the previous one, namely, to kiss. When the hunter returns in the evening, Gawayne gives him the kisses he has received in exchange for the spoils of the ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... Unwept, and welter to the parching wind, Without the meed of some melodious tear. Begin then, sisters, of the sacred well, That from beneath the seat of Jove doth spring; Begin, and somewhat loudly sweep the string. Hence with denial vain, and coy excuse, So may some gentle muse With lucky words favour my destined urn, And, as he passes, turn And bid fair peace be to my sable shroud: For we were nursed upon the self-same hill, Fed the same flock ...
— Verses and Translations • C. S. C.
... sit thee down upon this flowery bed, While I thy amiable cheeks do coy, And stick musk roses in thy sleek, smooth, head, And kiss thy fair, ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe
... enough in all conscience in Adrian's eyes, there was little doubt. With sombre heart he failed not to mark every point of this all-human grace, but to him goddess-like beauty, the triumph and glory of youth. The coy, dainty poise of the adorable foot—pointed so—and treading the ground with the softness of a kitten at play; the maddening curve of her waist, which a sacque, depending from an exquisite nape, ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... off into the shadow of the room. She was trembling, and as she leaned toward him she was very different from the coy girl who had so long held him aloof. He took her ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... allies! Now I think of it, 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 where hearts are already known, the honorable ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... a-bed all day and hatch turkey's eggs. The least allusion to this rumour used to drive him well-nigh frantic, and the fatal termination of his duel with young Crofts, which began in wanton mirth, and ended in bloodshed, made men more coy than they had formerly been, of making the fiery little hero the subject of ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... 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. This is the hall-mark of Shakespeare, ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... this pursuit of 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 which now ensued O'Iwa took in wifely fashion; ...
— The Yotsuya Kwaidan or O'Iwa Inari - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 1 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... love for a grown-up daughter is the most dangerous of all infatuations. I apologize for mentioning my own pale, coy, mistrustful fancy in ...
— Major Barbara • George Bernard Shaw
... covering him with a coy glance, "an' it 's rale 'shamed I am to hev b'en talkin' ter ye ez I hev. It looks as though I 'd b'en doin' the coortin'. I did n't drame that I 'd b'en able ter draw yer ...
— The Wife of his Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line, and - Selected Essays • Charles Waddell Chesnutt
... new appellation, to me the most desirable in the world, which was Freeman, and at the dances I gave my Georgia superfine blue clothes made no indifferent appearance, as I thought. Some of the sable females, who formerly stood aloof, now began to relax and appear less coy; but my heart was still fixed on London, where I hoped to be ere long. So that my worthy captain and his owner, my late master, finding that the bent of my mind was towards London, said to me, 'We hope you won't leave us, but that you will still be with the vessels.' Here ...
— The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, The African - Written By Himself • Olaudah Equiano
... with their soft, silvery light, brilliant as another moon; sometimes they stand afar off in the distant skies, and deign not to approach our steady-going earth, which pursues its regular course day by day, and year by year. Then, after a few days' coy inspection of our planet from different points of view, they fly to other remote parts of the universe, and do not condescend to show themselves again for a hundred years or so. Such is the erratic conduct of a heavenly ...
— The Romance of Mathematics • P. Hampson
... which I then felt my first real passion. I thought I had loved before, but no, it was only a dream; the dream of the village schoolboy, who saw heaven in the bright eyes of his coy class-mate; or perhaps at the family picnic, in some romantic dell, had tasted the rosy ...
— The Scalp Hunters • Mayne Reid
... a short knock sounded on the back door, and an instant change came over Becky Boozer. It was impossible to imagine that anyone as ponderous as Becky could be coy, but at the sound of the knock, this is what she became. Wiping her hands hastily on one of many petticoats, she pushed and pulled at her hat (which remained immovable), straightened her fichu, and smoothing her dress, she minced her ...
— Mr. Wicker's Window • Carley Dawson
... weird stuff the Secretary Bird spouted when you showed Phillis to him, Kit? About her being forward, or coy, or something. It sounded rather cheek, ...
— The Right Stuff - Some Episodes in the Career of a North Briton • Ian Hay
... me, my darling, whom I despaired of ever seeing again—she came shy and coy, I thought, but love was shining from ...
— The Birthright • Joseph Hocking
... situation until men began to fall, from volleys poured into them from the flanks. Major Johns went in the direction from which the fire was coming, thinking that some of our own troops were firing on them through mistake. He was made prisoner. Adjutant M'Coy was ordered to report the condition of things to General Mead. On reaching the open ground, he saw the battle flags of nine rebel regiments on the flank and rear. He at once reported to the colonel. Orders ...
— In The Ranks - From the Wilderness to Appomattox Court House • R. E. McBride
... 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 ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... am hot and fiery, And my bloud beats alarms through my body, And fancie high. You of my guard retire, And let me hear no noise about the lodging But musick and sweet ayres, now fetch your Daughter, And bid the coy wench put on all her beauties, All her enticements, out-blush damask Roses, And dim the breaking East with her bright Crystals. I am ...
— Beaumont & Fletcher's Works (1 of 10) - The Custom of the Country • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... Coy Hebe flies from those that woo, And shuns the hands would seize upon her; Follow thy life, and she will sue To pour for thee the ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... ardent wooer. It is an exceedingly interesting and amusing sight to see a couple of males paying their addresses to a coy and coquettish female; the apparent shyness of the suitors as they sidle up to her and as quickly retreat again, the shy glances given as one peeps from behind a limb watching the other—playing bo-peep—seem very human, and "I have seen," says an observer, ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photograph [March 1897] - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various
... St. George will be interested in the advertisement of this sale," she suggested, with a coy emphasis which made Doctor Taylor want to smother the well-meaning ...
— A Soldier of the Legion • C. N. Williamson
... and stars. Apple of my eye, did I say?—I'd give the apples of my eyes to make sauce for the cockles of your heart. Mrs. Fay, darling, don't be coy. Ha! I have you fast!" and ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover
... between them," saith a proverb, traced back to Confucius. O ye days of still 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 ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... dowagers turn out to be the fluffy and painted keepers of brothels; the misses sink into grinning hussies, who are branded on the cheeks and forehead with the ineradicable mark of shame; and the warm and coy pages, whom at the worst he might have supposed to be imprudent or improvident girls, stare at him with the deathly-cold implacability of the commonest street-walkers—those in fact who glory in their shame, and whose very contact is vile to anything with a spark of healthy ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... love: when scorn is bought with groans; coy looks, With heart-sore sighs; one fading moment's mirth, With twenty watchful, ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... the curious in quaint and graceful invention. {14} Another book—the "Under the Window" of Miss Kate Greenaway—comes within the same category. Since Stothard, no one has given us such a clear-eyed, soft-faced, happy-hearted childhood; or so poetically "apprehended" the coy reticences, the simplicities, and the small solemnities of little people. Added to this, the old-world costume in which she usually elects to clothe her characters, lends an arch piquancy of contrast ...
— The Library • Andrew Lang
... should I repine, Since all the roving birds are mine? The thrush and linnet in the vale, The sweet sequester'd nightingale, The bulfinch, wren, and wood-lark, all Obey my summons when I call: O! could I form some cunning snare To catch the coy, coquetting fair, In Cupid's filmy web so fine, The pretty girls should all ...
— Translations of German Poetry in American Magazines 1741-1810 • Edward Ziegler Davis
... human dog. I used to think I was the Village Rubber—but not any more. They have made me look like thirty cents not once, but a dozen times. I can gaze into the dim, hazy distance and see where every one of these coy, clever fellows is going to get it, and get it good, and I am glad of it. My ...
— Billy Baxter's Letters • William J. Kountz, Jr.
... that brought me back to his chin—back to that big, oozing cut. I had been waiting for an opportunity to ask him about it, and didn't know myself how to go about it. Just from that you can realize how he had me guessing, for it takes quite some jolt to make me coy. So I followed his own lead finally and blurted the question right out, without any fancy conversational trimmings, and he told me ...
— Once to Every Man • Larry Evans
... gone to roam, The franklin's maid she bides at home; But she is cold, and coy, and staid, And who may win the ...
— Songs of Action • Arthur Conan Doyle
... The engagement neared its close, and on the day before that of the wedding, the man, slow minded, loving intensely, procured the marriage licence. The woman read the document, and with the last coy flutter before surrender told him that she would not ...
— The Kempton-Wace Letters • Jack London
... brought herself to my bosom, round whom Cupid, often running hither thither, gleamed lustrous-white in saffron-tinted tunic. Still although she is not content with Catullus alone, we will suffer the rare frailties of our coy lady, lest we may be too greatly unbearable, after the manner of fools. Often even Juno, greatest of heaven-dwellers, boiled with flaring wrath at her husband's default, wotting the host of frailties of all-wishful Jove. Yet 'tis not meet to match men with the gods, * * * * bear up the ungrateful ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus
... in our hours of ease uncertain, coy, and hard to please,'" he murmured. "Come, sit down, stranger; 'Sit down an' share a soldier's couch, a soldier's fare.' Not as I'm a sojer," he hastened to explain, "but thet's how it is in ther book. Say, old woman, kint ye kinder sker up some coffee fer we uns—leastwise ...
— My Lady of the North • Randall Parrish
... still carrying on the jest, with a coy, coquettish air, (14) replied: Yes; only please do not bother me at present. I have other things to ...
— The Symposium • Xenophon
... few coy mermaids," laughed Jack; "but then our friend here wouldn't find it quite so easy to climb to the top of a palmetto as to ...
— Motor Boat Boys Down the Coast - or Through Storm and Stress to Florida • Louis Arundel
... I found your good father planning for your wife, Paul, that evening when I interrupted you! Are you of the same coy mind still? It did not look like it a ...
— Cousin Phillis • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... that scene 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 Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... next came, I observed a feverish excitement in her manner, which assured me, even plainer than the coy sweetness displayed in our last interview, that her heart had been touched by her lover's attentions. Indeed, she hinted as much before she left, saying in a melancholy tone, when I had ended my story in the usual happy way, with kisses and marriage, "I shall never marry!" finishing the exclamation ...
— The Leavenworth Case • Anna Katharine Green
... though expecting an answer. But she had not yet quite made up her mind. Had she known her mind, she would have answered him frankly. She was quite resolved as to that. If she could once bring herself to give him her hand, she would not coy it for a moment. "I will be your wife, Larry." That was the form on which she had determined, should she find herself able to yield. But she had not brought herself to it as yet. "If you can take me, Mary, you will,—well,—save me from lifelong ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope
... want to know if La Belle Ariola"—he waved his hand towards a poster which showed chiefly a toreador hat, a pair of flashing eyes, and a whirl of white draperies—"is engaged or no to the Prince of Sardinia. I find the maiden coy, not to ...
— Swirling Waters • Max Rittenberg
... further compensation in return," said John, "than, perhaps, the coy turning up of a lamp at an upper casement where the jasmine climbs; or an exasperating patter of invisible palms; or a huge dank wedge of fruit-cake shoved at you by the old man, through a crack in ...
— Complete Works of James Whitcomb Riley • James Whitcomb Riley
... "Ministering Angels," ye Who yet are mobile as the breeze, Have you alone the right to be "Uncertain, coy and hard to please?" Our Ministerial Angels (GEORGE and kind)— Aren't they allowed, poor ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, April 23, 1919 • Various
... stars, or like the rising sun, Forth from my burning heart the words shall run. Far, far be envy, far be jealous fear, With discord dark and drear, And all the choir that is of love the foe.— The season had returned when soft winds blow, The season friendly to young lovers coy, Which bids them clothe their joy In divers garbs and many a masked disguise. Then I to track the game 'neath April skies Went forth in raiment strange apparelled, And by kind fate was led Unto the spot where stayed my soul's ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... morning to the day, O' th' sudden Roscius breaks in a bright ray: Gods with your favour, I've presum'd to see A mortal fairer then a deitie. With looks and hands a satyre courts the boy, Who draws back his unwilling cheek as coy. Although of marble hewn, whom move not they? The boy ev'n seems to weep, ...
— Lucasta • Richard Lovelace
... he requests me to ride, sending his link-boys to bring out all the farnoozes to supplement fair Luna's coy and inefficient beams; and after the performance, the old gentleman promises to send me round a dish of pillau. In due time the promised pillau comes round, an ample dish, sufficient to satisfy even my present ravenous appetite, and after this he sends round ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... sorrows were many of these apparently happy creatures weighed down? Even the noble brow of the goddess Diana was not so unruffled as Homer describes it, her countenance expressed care and unrest, and in her great black eyes there glowed such fire as had never shone in the orbs of the coy goddess. ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... doing so incurred much misrepresentation, and perhaps no little ill-will, in the cause of truth and humanity, claim for them some distinction in a work on Demonology. The pursuers of exact science to its coy retreats, were sure to be the first to discover that the most remarkable phenomena in Nature are regulated by certain fixed laws, and cannot rationally be referred to supernatural agency, the sufficing cause ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott
... to stope out my stove polish ore and sell it for enough to go on with the development. I tried that, but capital seemed coy. Others had been there before me and capital bade me soak my head and said other things which grated harshly ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... 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 the scole of Stratford atte Bowe, For Frensh ...
— Medieval People • Eileen Edna Power
... fain would have 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 master's voice ...
— Poems • Marietta Holley
... "Won't play!" arose from some of the girls. Others maintained a coy silence. Eventually the whole company joined; that is, all save John. He saw no fun in such pastime. What was the use of kneeling on a pillow and kissing, for example, homely Ella Black? Other boys might, if they wished. There was but one divinity worthy of his homage, and he would ...
— A Son of the City - A Story of Boy Life • Herman Gastrell Seely
... in estimation, Never was any less presuming seen! It shrinks, so modestly, from observation! And hides behind all sorts of evergreen;— Like a coy Maid, design'd for filthy Man, Peeping, at his approach, ...
— Broad Grins • George Colman, the Younger
... to him in public as His Reverence!" Olive sighed. "It is almost as bad as her coy flirtation with him, during sermon time. If I were in his place, I'd ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... other hand, with the rarest exceptions, is less eager than the male. As the illustrious Hunter (20. 'Essays and Observations,' edited by Owen, vol. i. 1861, p. 194.) long ago observed, she generally "requires to be courted;" she is coy, and may often be seen endeavouring for a long time to escape from the male. Every observer of the habits of animals will be able to call to mind instances of this kind. It is shewn by various facts, given ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... 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
... a nonne, a Prioresse, That of hire smiling was ful simple and coy; Hire gretest othe n'as but by seint Eloy: And she was cleped Madame Eglentine. Ful wel she sange the service divine Entuned in hire nose ful swetely; And Frenche she spake ful fayre and fetisly, ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt
... devotion, and having accordingly made his vows to Venus, he found himself divinely restored the very first night after his oblations and sacrifices. Now women are to blame to entertain us with that disdainful, coy, and angry countenance, which extinguishes our vigour, as it kindles our desire; which made the daughter-in-law of Pythagoras—[Theano, the lady in question was the wife, not the daughter-in-law of Pythagoras.]— say, "That the woman who goes to bed to a man, must put off her modesty with her ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... reflected a sheen of glorious splendor; when, conscious of her immense wealth in coal, minerals, and fisheries, her delightful climate and geographical position, she bid for commercial supremacy. It is said of States, as of women, they are "fickle, coy and hard to please." For, changed and governed from England's Downing Street, "with all its red tape circumlocution," "Tile Barncal," incapacity, and "how-not-to-do-it" ability that attached to that venerable institution, its ...
— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs
... 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 ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace
... our page with any unseemly extravagances. If the experience of the reader has led him through the hallowed mystery of the first kiss of love, he needs not another's fancy to revive the beatific vision. If not, why, thousands of coy and blushing damsels, equally in the dark, are waiting, from whom he may select one to assist him in solving the mystery. Besides, it is not always wise to penetrate the secrets of the heart, even in a novel; for there is ...
— Hatchie, the Guardian Slave; or, The Heiress of Bellevue • Warren T. Ashton
... sidewall of the Shed. In shape, its upper part was like the top half of a loaf of bread. In motion, here, it rested on some sort of wheeled vehicle, and it was reared up like an indignant caterpillar, and a blue-white flame squirted out of its tail, with coy and frolicsome flirtings ...
— Space Platform • Murray Leinster
... as are Marvell's lines to his Coy Mistress, I have not the heart to omit them, so eminently characteristic are they of his ...
— Andrew Marvell • Augustine Birrell
... though it were just as glad as we are! Can't you feel that the trees feel just as we do about things? The leaves haven't all come out yet, some of them are holding themselves within themselves in a coy little way they have—although intending all the time to come out just as fast as ever they can. And it's that glorious, unspoiled green—the kind nature uses to make painters feel foolish. Oh, nature's having much fun ...
— The Glory Of The Conquered • Susan Glaspell
... as a maiden I ought to be coy, and say that I would prefer to wait; but, dearest love, sorrow and trouble have banished all that. You will not love me less because I tell you that I count the minutes till ...
— Nina Balatka • Anthony Trollope
... father said the same words to you. There can only be one language for an emotion so powerful. Wise or foolish, Jane understood what I said, and in words equally sweet and foolish she gave me her promise. Oh, mother, it was not altogether the words! It was the little tremors and coy unfoldings and sweet agitations of love revealing itself—it wakened in Jane's heart like a wandering rose. And I saw this awakening of the woman, mother, and it was a ...
— The Measure of a Man • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... and loving song, We'll chase the lagging hours along, And if {I find } the maiden coy, we find I'll } murmur forth decorous ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... lament thy downfall? Thy ruin could never be meditated by any who meant well to English liberty. No modern lyceum will ever equal thy glory: whether in soft pastorals thou didst sing the flames of pampered apprentices and coy cook maids; or mournful ditties of departing lovers; or if to Maeonian strains thou raisedst thy voice, to record the stratagems, the arduous exploits, and the nocturnal scalade of needy heroes, ...
— The History of John Bull • John Arbuthnot
... soldier? Will you not take care of your bread! Is vanity your principle of action? Will you not guard those mighty blessings, your epaulets and feathers! Are you impelled by a love of glory or a love of power? And can you forget that these coy mistresses are only to be won by ...
— Elements of Military Art and Science • Henry Wager Halleck
... in red-browed finches And all birds of scanty inches. Willie wagtail is a pleasant bird, and coy. All the babblers, chats and wrens, Tits and robins, and their hens, Are my very special ...
— A Book for Kids • C. J. (Clarence Michael James) Dennis
... was Fancy: Love gazed, and his eager eye shone With a lustre of feeling, deep, fervent, and sweet; And he thought it were better to give up his throne For a place, on his knees, at the coy ...
— Mazelli, and Other Poems • George W. Sands
... More than any other words in the whole dictionary have they enraptured or saddened the human heart; rung out the peal of joy, or sounded the knell of hope. And yet not so often as at first sight might appear, for these blunt and honest words are, both, kindly coy in ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate
... Go, shove the dim mist from the mountain's brow, Chase the white fog, which floods the vale below; 455 Melt the thick snows, that linger on the lands, And catch the hailstones in your little hands; Guard the coy blossom from the pelting shower, And dash the rimy spangles from the bower; From each chill leaf the silvery drops repel, 460 And close the timorous floret's ...
— The Botanic Garden - A Poem in Two Parts. Part 1: The Economy of Vegetation • Erasmus Darwin
... his owne bondmaide, The faire Ixione captiv'd from Troy: 490 But th'other was with Thetis love assaid, Great Nereus his daughter and his ioy. On this side them there is a yongman layd, Their match in glorie, mightie, fierce, and coy, That from th'Argolick ships, with furious yre, 495 Bett back the furie ...
— The Poetical Works of Edmund Spenser, Volume 5 • Edmund Spenser
... to deeds of pith, where courage, tried In Reason's court, is amply justified: Or, fond of knowledge, and averse to strife, Shouldst thou prefer the calmer walk of life; Shouldst thou, by pale and sickly study led, Pursue coy Science to the fountain-head; Virtue thy guide, and public good thy end, Should every thought to our improvement tend, 40 To curb the passions, to enlarge the mind, Purge the sick Weal, and humanise mankind; Rage in her eye, and malice in her breast, Redoubled Horror grining on her crest, ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... my dear Harry, we must all be prepared for trials in this rugged world, but then, according to my experience, we are the better for them in the end. If the lady is obdurate or coy, or if her friends throw obstacles in the way, or if want of means exist, we must try to win her by greater attention, or sometimes by pretended indifference, or we must set to work to overcome the obstacles, ...
— Won from the Waves • W.H.G. Kingston
... turned away, and stared again. Three tables off, with a doubtful sort of woman, a woman at once coy and withered, was Paul Riesling, and Paul was supposed to be in Akron, selling tar-roofing. The woman was tapping his hand, mooning at him and giggling. Babbitt felt that he had encountered something involved and harmful. Paul was talking with the rapt eagerness of a man who is telling ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... as he intended she should, and blushed a 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
... come. The Morses appeared first. He was a pleasant, hollow-chested little man; his delicacy of lung gave him his excuse for playing gentleman farmer. She, half-Spanish, carried bulk for the family and carried it well. The Andalusian showed in her coy yet open air, in her small, broad hand and foot, in a languorous liquidity of eye. Their son, a well-behaved and pretty youth of twelve, and their daughter, two years older, rode behind them on the back seat. The daughter bore one of those ...
— The Readjustment • Will Irwin
... talked, 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 lure. Down the tree started Simon Cameron, moving ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... of production, I would rate the northern varieties as follows from highest to lowest: Major, Greenriver, Busseron, Indiana, Niblack, Kentucky, Warwick, Posey, Coy, Tissue, Johnson. Perhaps a little broader classification and grouping should be made. In my judgment, the Major, Greenriver, Busseron, Indiana, and Niblack compose one group which may be depended upon for fairly satisfactory production. The Kentucky, Warwick, ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Forty-Second Annual Meeting • Northern Nut Growers Association
... from James 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 ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Vol. I. Jan. 1916 • Various |
