"Coy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Jane's room; this last, you understand, Might be convenient should you e'er require, If ill, an early cup of tea, or fire. Is Jane the pretty housemaid? I reply, She is, you sly boy, but she's coy and shy. Harry, I thought you'd known me better to—— All right, old boy, I was but joking you. Harry now left. When dressed for dinner I Resolved tube numbered one at once to try, I blew the whistle, from the other end Hallo, was quickly answered by my friend. I'm waiting to go down, will you ...
— Home Lyrics • Hannah. S. Battersby
... gone, Mr. Sheridan very gallantly attempted a set of verses. But the Muse was not to be wooed to-night, and stayed obstinately coy. ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell
... I'd heard from Mr. Caspian—and it seems he knows about Kidd's Pines, dear Miss Patty's beautiful place which is her own in spite of all misfortunes." She stopped and giggled a little; then went on in a coy tone, with an arch glance at her tall protege. "I had to confess that I could never believe he was an American. But now I have to. He knows too much about America not to have lived here. He says he used to keep ...
— The Lightning Conductor Discovers America • C. N. (Charles Norris) Williamson and A. M. (Alice Muriel)
... producing his Punch work was often irksome to him in the extreme, and many a time would he put Mark Lemon off—now, because he was so well in the swim with his novel then in hand that he begged hard to be let off, and again, because the Muse was coy and would not on any account be wooed. On one occasion he wrote explaining with what weariness he had been battening rhymes for three hours in his head, and could get nothing out: "I must beg you to excuse me," he ingeniously added, "for I've worked just as much for you as though ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... trenches held by the 88th Brigade, under General Cayley. On the way I was taken up to "Gibraltar" observation post to get a bird's-eye view of the line. Besides my old friends of the 29th Division I saw some of the new boys, especially the 1st Newfoundland Battalion under Colonel Burton, and the 2/1st Coy. of the London Regiment. This was the Newfoundlanders' first day in the trenches and they were very pleased with themselves. They could not understand why they were not allowed to sally forth at once and do the Turks in. The presence of these men from our oldest colony adds to the extraordinary ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume 2 • Ian Hamilton
... "Come then, coy Zephyr, waft my feathered bait Over this rippling shallow's tiny wave To yonder pool, whose calmer eddies lave Some Triton's ambush, where he lies in wait To catch my skipping fly; there drop it lightly: A ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... coy, but use your time, And, whilst ye may, go marry; For having lost but once your prime, You may for ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... clusters with a 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
... reserved, coy and discreet women much more than blunt, shrewd and boisterous. Falsehood, false hair, false curls, false forms, false bosoms, false colors, false cheeks, and all that is false, men naturally dislike, for in themselves they are a poor foundation ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis
... 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 on my ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... a 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, darling! Better than ...
— The Battle of the Bays • Owen Seaman
... continued oracularly, "there will be a third attending us when we return, if thou hast been coy with the gentle Seti during his ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... and glanced again at Messrs Beit's list. It had escaped his notice that A Bad Un to Beat was in its third three-volume edition. It was a great thing, at all events, to know in what direction to aim, if he wished to succeed. If he worked hard, he thought, he might some day win the approval of the coy and retiring Miranda of Smart Society; that modest maiden might in his praise interrupt her task of disinterested advertisement, her philanthropic counsels to "go to Jumper's, and mind you ask for Mr. C. Jumper, who will show you the lovely blue paper ...
— The Hill of Dreams • Arthur Machen
... 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 never take for ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... 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 ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photograph [March 1897] - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various
... flowers, which is very eloquent—a philosophy that is instructive. Nature appears to have made them as emblems of women. The timid snow-drop, the modest violet, the languid primrose, the coy lily, the flaunting tulip, the smart marigold, the lowly blushing daisy, the proud foxglove, the deadly nightshade, the sleepy poppy, and the sweet solitary eglantine, are ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 10, Issue 273, September 15, 1827 • Various
... and bright, with coy smiles forever dissolving in tears; and then May in full blossom and beauty ...
— Esther - A Book for Girls • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... door: and Marvel, not seeing his friend, addressed himself, as soon as he had breath, to his mistress.—The lady's manner changed, and Wright had an opportunity of seeing and admiring her powers of acting. To Marvel, she was coy and disdainful. ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... the little white hands more tightly in his own, and whispered sweet words to her that brought a bright flush to her face and a love light to her eyes. She drooped her head with the coy, pretty shyness of a bird, listening to words that seemed to her all poetry ...
— Marion Arleigh's Penance - Everyday Life Library No. 5 • Charlotte M. Braeme
... 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 ...
— The Memoirs of Count Grammont, Complete • Anthony Hamilton
... never went 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 account of ...
— "Captains Courageous" • Rudyard Kipling
... beautiful Snuff he ever put to his Nose. He bought a Pound of it, for which De Suaso charged him at the moderate rate of Four Guineas; and desires to know his Lodging, that he may send his Friends to buy some of this Incomparable Mixture. The Artful Rogue then affects the Coy, says that his Stock of the Snuff is very low, and by degrees raises his price to Eleven Pistoles a Pound, until the English in Brussels have been half-poisoned with his filthy Remnant; when there comes upon the scene a certain Mr. Dubiggin, a rich ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 3 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... at a party, and, being introduced by a mutual friend, was fascinated by his manly bearing and intelligent, racy conversation. And he, as his blood tingled at coy cupid's whisperings, soliloquized: "She is the most intelligent and charming girl I ever saw." They met several times at parties during the winter, and he became marked in his attentions, which she did not discourage. ...
— From Wealth to Poverty • Austin Potter
... 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 endless sleep, with Della Cruscan ...
— Poetic Sketches • Thomas Gent
... him one of those shy, timid glances he had noticed before, and began coiling something around her fingers, with a suggestion of coy embarrassment, indescribably inconsistent with her ...
— Tales of Trail and Town • Bret Harte
... 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 ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... 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 finally ...
— Diary of a Pedestrian in Cashmere and Thibet • by William Henry Knight
... 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 Golden Treasury of American Songs and Lyrics • Various
... swells thy glorious lot; For thee Edina culls her evening sweets, And showers their odours on thy candid sheets, Whose Hue and Fragrance to thy work adhere— This scents its pages, and that gilds its rear. [75] Lo! blushing Itch, coy nymph, enamoured grown, Forsakes the rest, and cleaves to thee alone, And, too unjust to other Pictish men, Enjoys thy person, and inspires ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron
... to the shores of the Atlantic: the 840 feet plain, at the mouth of the Santa Cruz, is seen extending horizontally far to the south; and I am informed by the Officers of the Survey, that bending round the head of Coy Inlet (sixty-five miles southward), it trends inland. Outliers of apparently the same height are seen forty miles farther south, inland of the river Gallegos; and a plain comes down to Cape Gregory (thirty-five miles southward), in the Strait of Magellan, which was estimated at between eight hundred ...
— South American Geology - also: - Title: Geological Observations On South America • Charles Darwin
... 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, ...
— Legends and Tales • Bret Harte
... 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 day, Tadnor's ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... head, and the straining, 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, ...
— This Side of Paradise • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... with gentle sway, And by her yielded, by him best receiv'd,— Yielded with coy submission, modest pride, And ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett
... In silence I took a deep delicious bite, nimbly chased the coy filling around a corner with my tongue, devoured every bit down to the last crumb and licked the stickiness off my fingers. Then I investigated the interior of ...
— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber
... position and the naive grace of its environs will please you no less. The country immediately surrounding it is ravishing; the hedges are full of flowers, honeysuckles, roses, box, and many enchanting plants. It is like an English garden, designed by some great architect. This rich, coy nature, so untrodden, with all the grace of a bunch of violets or a lily of the valley in the glade of a forest, is framed by an African desert banked by the ocean,—a desert without a tree, an herb, a bird; where, on sunny ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... 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 red with the rich, warm blood ...
— Her Weight in Gold • George Barr McCutcheon
... at present its popularity is only a little less than that of roses and daffodils, but when we trust to seeds as a means of reproducing the best of windflowers instead of buying dried roots from the shops, then, and then only, will "coy anemone" become a garden queen. A. coronaria, if treated as an annual, furnishes glowing blossoms from October until June, after which A. dichotoma and A. japonica in all its forms—white and rosy—carry on the supply and complete ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 458, October 11, 1884 • Various
... the history of Rebekah's courtship, and then prayed over it, and over his own wooing. Madam Rogers and Madam Leverett much congratulated him, and his daughter Judith visited her prospective stepmother. But alas! the lady was coy and averse to ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle
... brother Michael. "The virtues of both lovers diffuse themselves through the lake. The infusion of masculine valour makes the fish active and sanguineous: the infusion of maiden modesty makes him coy and hard to win: and you shall find through life, the fish which is most easily hooked is not the best worth dishing. But yonder are the ...
— Maid Marian • Thomas Love Peacock
... 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 a foot ...
— The Sorrows of a Show Girl • Kenneth McGaffey
... I talk of my Mr. Jones just as if we were married, because it all comes easier to me in that way. You will see that I absolutely believe in you and I expect that you shall absolutely believe in me. Send you a kiss! Of course I do; I am not at all coy of my favours. You ask Mahomet also as to what he thinks of the strength of my right arm. I examined his face so minutely when I had to fall into his arms on the stage, and there I saw the round mark of my fist, and the swelling all round it. And I thought ...
— The Landleaguers • Anthony Trollope
... enchanted. This was not Miss Fleckring, the companion and household help of Mrs. Maldon, but a nymph, a fay, the universal symbol of his highest desire.... He would have been happy to kiss the glinting steel buckle, so feminine, so provocative, so coy. The tight rounded line of the waist, every bend of the fingers, the fall of the eye-lashes—all were exquisite and precious to him after the harsh, unsatisfying, desolating masculinity of Horrocleave's. This was the divine reward of Horrocleave's, the sole reason of Horrocleave's. Horrocleave's ...
— The Price of Love • Arnold Bennett
... At most balls it is customary for the ladies to be seated first at the refreshment-table, where the most substantial articles of diet are boiled ham with sugar frosting, cakes flavored with the native lime, and lemon soda. Like the coy nun in Chaucer's "Prologue," she who is most elegant will take care not to spill the food upon her lap, eat with the fingers, or spit out the bones. At wedding feasts the gentlemen are given ...
— The Great White Tribe in Filipinia • Paul T. Gilbert
... 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 ...
— The Beautiful Wretch; The Pupil of Aurelius; and The Four Macnicols • William Black
... little bunches carelessly and impartially over the rest of his features; he was dressed in a very big old frock coat and a long cylindrical top hat, which he had kept on; he was very much bent, and he carried a rush basket from which protruded coy intimations of the lettuces and onions he had brought to grace the occasion. He hobbled into the room, resisting the efforts of Johnson to divest him of his various encumbrances, halted and surveyed the company with an expression ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells
... "because she's been on a bat and supped somewhere until the coy and rosy dawn chased her homeward. And your pretty paragon, Miss West, was ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers
... of 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 classic shores ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... she said. Why should she hesitate, and play the coy girl, and pretend to any doubts in her mind which did not exist there? She did love him, and had so told herself with much earnestness. To him, while his words had been doubtful while he had simply played at making love to her, she had ...
— The Belton Estate • Anthony Trollope
... up. And 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 ...
— Once to Every Man • Larry Evans
... is curving o'er her creamy cheek, Her bosom swells with all a lover's joy, When love receives a message that the coy Young love-god made a strong and true heart speak From far-off lands; and like a mountain-peak That loses in one avalanche its cloy Of ice and snow, so doth her breast employ Its hidden store of blushes; and they wreak Destruction, as they crush my aching heart,— Destruction, ...
— When hearts are trumps • Thomas Winthrop Hall
... 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 her with ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... what they think—- Only know they eat and drink, And on all that lies about With a quiet heart look out, Each after its kind, stately or coy, Solemn like man, gamesome like boy, Glad with its ...
— Poetical Works of George MacDonald, Vol. 2 • George MacDonald
... 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
... shun the bed of the wicked. She is a wanton mistress, and will cuddle where her fancy chances, careless whether vice or virtue is her bedfellow; coy when most eagerly supplicated, ...
— Once Aboard The Lugger • Arthur Stuart-Menteth Hutchinson
... 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 ...
— The Rape of Lucrece • William Shakespeare [Clark edition]
... readers and are knowing and knowledgeable. Those who drift away from country life are for the most part men who hustle after the coy damsel fortune by searching for minerals, and just as many who have succeeded in that arduous passion settle quietly on the land. Each may and does desire amendments to and amelioration in his lot. There is still left to all the healthy impulse of achievement, the desire ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... 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
... sigh awakes; and tremors play, Coy in her leafy trees, and falt'ring creep Across the daisy lawn and whisper, "Well-a-day," Soft, ...
— An Anthology of Australian Verse • Bertram Stevens
... in the flowery region just above the Colonel's head. A perplexed balloonist was at one and the same time suppressing an outburst of hysterical laughter, and encouraging coy soil-theories to evolve themselves from the ...
— The Harmsworth Magazine, v. 1, 1898-1899, No. 2 • Various
... sport, hope-sharer; while, occasionally, a premonitory, prophetic pang of rapture out of the coming eternities of bliss would thrill through us. I had even a fancy that there would be no interchange of words, no lessening of the coy distance of space and manner, during this first interview. 'It is to last so long! so long!' Again, I fancied that we might sit there only weeping, as we looked and loved. 'So long! so long!' Tender, dewy eyes wandering naively, innocently, over each feature of face and form—inquiry, ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol V. Issue III. March, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... in the style of a carte blanche, I received fresh kisses of compliment from them all, in approval of my docility and good nature. Now I was "a sweet girl... I came into things with a good grace... I was not affectedly coy... I should be the pride of ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland
... 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 ...
— Complete Works of James Whitcomb Riley • James Whitcomb Riley
... don't keer. They don't raise they chillen, they drags 'em up. God knows if dat Daisy was mine, I'd throw her down and put a hundred lashes on her back wid a plow-line. Here she come in de store Sat'day night (acts coy and coquettish, burlesques Daisy's walk) a wringing and ...
— De Turkey and De Law - A Comedy in Three Acts • Zora Neale Hurston
... come 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 ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... Nothing should be received in scientific inquiry which it is not compulsory on our understanding to believe. It is not a whit more difficult in these than in other cases to obtain inductive certainty. Nature is not here peculiarly coy or averse from ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various
... wait for? "Ah! woman's strength is in passivity," Fastidio says, shaking his wise, wise head, And withering me with a disdainful stare. Nay! woman's strength is in developing, In virtuous ways, all that is best in her. No superstitious waiting then be mine! No fancy that in coy, alluring arts, Rather than action, modest and sincere, Woman most worthily performs her part. Here am I twenty-five, and all alone In the wide world; yet having won the right, By my own effort, to hew out my lot, And create ties to cheer this arid ...
— The Woman Who Dared • Epes Sargent
... Should 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 ...
— Men, Women, and Ghosts • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... gunwale into the boat. And presently I was aware that violence had succeeded where patience had failed. Polly sat in the stern sheets timidly cooing and offering to shake hands. At another time I should have burst laughing at her—she was so coy, so anxious to please. But I had just arrived from seeing my captain's head broken to pieces by a falling spar, and a good friend of mine stabbed by another good friend of mine, and I was ...
— The Spread Eagle and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... compensation 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 ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... ago, in that heroic time When I, a coy and modest youth, was shot Out on this dust-heap of careers and crime To try and ...
— Rhymes of the East and Re-collected Verses • John Kendall (AKA Dum-Dum)
... driven from the kitchen-door, beats a coy retreat, with long reaches of her foot, upon the yielding surface. The matronly hens saunter out at a little lifting of the storm, and eye curiously, with heads half turned, their sinking steps, and then fall back, with a quiet ...
— Dream Life - A Fable Of The Seasons • Donald G. Mitchell
... maidens—the tender, the hard, The coy and the clinging—in legions; But none has contrived to inflict on the bard A jolt in the cardiac regions; Must I turn for assistance to science or art, Or put my predicament meekly To "Mona" who handles affairs of the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, February 11, 1914 • Various
... 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 ...
— The Yotsuya Kwaidan or O'Iwa Inari - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 1 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... 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 ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... 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 ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... smoke till we came to Strasburg, where I got some caporal." The man's mind is full, very likely, of the great sights which he has seen, of the great emotions with which the vast works of nature have inspired it. But his enthusiasm is too coy to show itself, even to his closest friend, and he veils it with a cloud of tobacco. He will speak more fully of confidential evenings, however, and write ardently and frankly about that which he is shy of saying. The thoughts and experience of ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... 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 ...
— Horace • Theodore Martin
... said, 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
... strength, was to employ him to lie 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 ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... upon Tildy's 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 had taken the ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry
... 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
... the females at first withdraw from the males; they are coy, and have to be sought out, and sometimes held by force. This tracking and grasping of the females by the males has given rise to many different characters in the latter, as, for instance, the larger eyes of the male bee, and especially of the males of the Ephemerids ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... upon, and this 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 hid it in his breast. He lulled and soothed her in his arms, as if she had been a weeping child and ...
— Sylvia's Lovers — Complete • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... twenty-five candy-pulls and taffy-bakes in that town that winter. John Rose says, in the Connecticut Valley, where he came from, it was missionary barrels; and I heard of a place where it was cold coffee. In Harmouth it's improving your mind. And so," added Coy, "we run to reading-clubs, and we all go fierce, winter after winter, to see who'll get the 'severest.' There's a set outside of the faculty that descends to charades and music and inconceivably ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... very best— where the profits are to come from with a bill of fare like that passes my powers of arithmetic, and so I point out to her. I hope it is appreciated—yes, I do hope that, Mr. Lovegrove"—there the speaker became extremely coy and playful. "A little bird sometimes seems to twitter to me that it is. And yet I am sure I don't know. The members of your sex are very misleading, Mr. Lovegrove. Do not perjure yourself now. You cannot take me in. And a certain gentleman is very close, you know, and stand-offish. It ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... 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 thee, dearest ...
— The Sylvan Cabin - A Centenary Ode on the Birth of Lincoln and Other Verse • Edward Smyth Jones
... lines to his Coy Mistress, I have not the heart to omit them, so eminently characteristic are they of his style ...
— Andrew Marvell • Augustine Birrell
... there in "I will in no wise cast out," if another stood by that could receive them? But here appears the glory of Christ, that none but he can save. And here appears his love, that though none can save but he, yet he is not coy in saving. "But him that comes to me," says he, "I will in no wise ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... they had been married almost fifteen years. She had bewitched him. Her big eyes, that gleamed like dark velvet in her white face, played the fool with him. He could not be angry with her, although she often tried him sorely. And, all things considered, wasn't it rather nice of her that she was so coy and reserved? The owner of [Pg 19] Starydwor had, in the course of his life, come across enough women who had thrown themselves at his head. He could not even credit Hanusia, his first wife, with ...
— Absolution • Clara Viebig
... convenience, and I suppose that ought to be totted up to his credit, since it's because he's got the good taste to resemble me.... Consider his thoughtfulness in providing me this cab! What'd I've done without it? To tell the truth I was quite at a loss to frame it up, how to win your coy consent to this giddy elopement, back there in the hall. But dear kind Mis-ter Maitland, bless his innocent heart! fixes it all up for me.... And so," concluded the criminal with ironic relish,—"and so ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance
... 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 ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... other book" which caused so much scandal, forty years ago, may not yet be generally accepted, and though Bishop Colenso's criticisms may still lie, formally, under ecclesiastical ban, yet the Church has not wholly turned a deaf ear to the voice of the scientific tempter; and many a coy divine, while "crying I will ne'er consent," has consented to the proposals of that scientific criticism which ...
— Lectures and Essays • Thomas Henry Huxley
... 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. The bars of sunlight fell on the lower earth ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 49, November, 1861 • Various
... palls the 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 ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... greater number of the party had been murdered off, things went on pretty smoothly, till one M'Coy, who had been employed in a distillery in Scotland, tried an experiment with the tea-root, and succeeded in producing a bottle of ardent spirits. This induced one Quintal to 'alter his kettle into a still,' ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 492 - Vol. 17, No. 492. Saturday, June 4, 1831 • Various
... around the rocks and a 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 ...
— Some Summer Days in Iowa • Frederick John Lazell
... in each. The instruction of Congress on this important point is much to be desired. For my part I think a temporary stipulation of that sort might be expedient. They mean to court us and in my opinion we should avoid being either too forward or too coy. I have no faith in any Court in Europe, but it would be improper to discover that sentiment. There are circumstances which induce me to believe, that Spain is turning her eyes to England for a ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. VIII • Various
... groves a chequer'd scene display, And part admit and part exclude the day; As some coy nymph her lover's fond address, Nor quite indulges nor can ...
— Alexander Pope - English Men of Letters Series • Leslie Stephen
... afternoon had been a miserable one. Rachel was coy and sweet, yet cunningly bold. I felt indignant at my father for forcing her company on me, and I resented the circumstance that made me a victim to injustice. I detested the beautiful creature beside me for her assumption of authority over my actions, and above all, I longed with an aching, starved ...
— The Price of the Prairie - A Story of Kansas • Margaret Hill McCarter
... young oak and all fresh and clean and pretty, like the first frost, green and tender as an April bud; in fact, she resembled all that is prettiest in the world. She had eyes of a modest and virtuous blue, with a look more coy than that of the Virgin, for she was less forward, never having had ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... as a maid, but her conversation is pleasing and she has a most cheery grin. She reads the works of Florence Barclay, and doesn't care for music-halls—'low I call them, Miss.' I asked her if she were fond of music, and she said, 'Oh yes, Miss,' and then with a coy glance, 'I ply the mandoline.' I think she is about fifty, and not at all good-looking, so she will be a much more comfortable person in the house than Julie, who would ...
— Penny Plain • Anna Buchan (writing as O. Douglas)
... The dance goes on; hearts are beating, wit is flashing, eyes encounter eyes with the leveled lances of their beams, merriment and joy and sudden bright surprises thrill the breast, voices are throwing off disguise, and beauty's coy ear is bending with a venturesome docility; here love is baffled, there deceived, yonder takes prisoners and here surrenders. The very air seems to breathe, to sigh, to laugh, while the musicians, with disheveled ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
... wonder. Fleeces of irregular shape, but a mile long and two miles wide, slowly lifted themselves from a horizontal position to a vertical one, thus converting themselves from blankets into curtains. Yet behind and through them,—as a coy beauty half reveals, half conceals, her charms,—so the walls and buttes, the pinnacles and buttresses, took on a new and delicate beauty, a subtleness of charm and refinement that only such a veiling could produce. Every moment the panorama changed. This was veiled completely, ...
— The Grand Canyon of Arizona: How to See It, • George Wharton James
... "dog-bane," others searched among the knotted roots for the little nut-like tuber that clings to the root of the flag, while others brought to the pot wild parsnips, and the dried stalks of the prairie pusley. A coy little maiden, whom many a hunter had wooed but failed to win, had in her sweet little brown hands a tangle of winter-green, and maiden-hair. Then came striding along the young hunters, with the dogs. Each dog selected ...
— The Story of Louis Riel: The Rebel Chief • Joseph Edmund Collins
... I started with a handicap, since Jane had heard my declaration to Mary, and I had to undo all that before I could do anything else. Try the same thing yourself with a spirited girl, naturally laughter-loving and coy, if you think it a simple, easy undertaking. I began to fear I should need another antidote long before I heard her sweet soul-satisfying "yes." I do not believe, however, I could have found in the ...
— When Knighthood Was in Flower • Charles Major
... s'il vous plaira d'envoyer v^{re} filz vers moy, il sera le bien venu. Son traittement rendra tesmoinage de l'estime que je fais de vostre amitie. De vous envoyer des nouvelles, ce seroyt d'envoyer Noctuas Athenas. Tout est coy icy. La mort de Concini a rendu la France heureuse. Mais l'Italie est en danger d'estre exposee a la tirannie d'Espagne. Je vous baise les mains, et suis, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 213, November 26, 1853 • Various
... 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 ...
— Cousin Phillis • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... could not have been induced to surrender." Nevertheless, a treaty was at last made, without the direct intervention of the quadrupeds. Again commissioners went up among the mountains to treat with negotiators at first invisible; again were hats and jackets interchanged, not without coy reluctance on the part of the well-dressed Englishmen; and a solemn agreement was effected. The most essential part of the bargain was a guaranty of continued independence, demanded by the suspicious Maroons. Gen. Walpole, however, promptly pledged himself that ...
— Black Rebellion - Five Slave Revolts • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... and sweeties, to an extent greater than it had entered into their small imaginations to conceive as possible. At first we had great difficulty in making them come near us. They were like a lot of wild young colts, very inquisitive, but very coy and not to be cajoled easily. The children were nine in all—five boys and two girls belonging to Mr and Mrs Rollings, and two to Ernest. I never saw a finer lot of children than the young Rollings, the boys were hardy, robust, fearless little fellows with eyes as clear ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... to say to you. You blush like a maiden over the acknowledgment. I am half inclined to believe you are the girl in the case, and your partner in love some great, strapping fellow on whose bosom you intend to pillow your coy head. So it is Daisy, eh? And last night it came to you? Tell me how ...
— A Black Adonis • Linn Boyd Porter
... 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. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... 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 ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... happened entirely by accident. It had occurred through a misunderstanding during a game of consequences in a country house. She was terribly literal. Having taken some joke of his seriously, she had sent him a touchingly coy letter saying she was overwhelmed at his offer (feeling she was hardly worthy to be his wife) and must think it over. He did not like to hurt her feelings by explaining, and when she relented and accepted ...
— Tenterhooks • Ada Leverson
... 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 John M. will have relented toward his gifted ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble
... who "stoops to folly"—nor woman who in our hour of ease is uncertain, coy, and hard to please. But Woman, the weekly Woman who is doing uncommonly well and in her fifty-third number, gave the week before Christmas, her idea of a Christmas dinner, and, but for "sweetbread cutlets," a very good and simple ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., January 3, 1891. • Various
... 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, Posey, Coy, Tissue, ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Forty-Second Annual Meeting • Northern Nut Growers Association
... 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 ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil
... 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 rode Squire ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... 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 insects in these ...
— A Year in the Fields • John Burroughs
... mine, if I should other deem, Nor can coy Fortune contrary allow. But, my Anselmo, loth I am to say, I must estrange that friendship. Misconstrue not; 'tis from the realm, not thee: Though lands part bodies, hearts keep company. Thou know'st that I imparted often have Private relations ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VII (4th edition) • Various
... wealth of light and air, With leaf and bud and blossom everywhere, Let all bright tokens affluent combine, And round the bridal pair in splendor shine; Let sweethearts coy and lovers fond and true On this glad day their tender vows renew, And all in wedlock's bond rejoice as they Whom God hath ...
— Poems - Vol. IV • Hattie Howard
... charm'd A tumult to his heart, and a new life Into his eyes. Ah, miserable strife, 530 But for her comforting! unhappy sight, But meeting her blue orbs! Who, who can write Of these first minutes? The unchariest muse To embracements warm as theirs makes coy excuse. ...
— Endymion - A Poetic Romance • John Keats
... bunching together and telling each other things in low tones, while not seeming to look at Hetty and her dupes, at which all would giggle in the most venemous manner. Daisy Estelle left the bunch once and made a coy bid for the notice of Mr. D. by snatching his cap and running merrily off with it about six feet. If there was any one in the world—except Hetty—could make a man hate the idea of riding pants for women, she was it. I could see the cold, ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... pine oil snake prose parch wild moil baste those starch mild coil haste froze larch tile foil taste force lark slide soil paste porch stark glide toil bunch broth prism spent boy hunch cloth sixth fence coy lunch froth stint hence hoy punch moth smith pence joy plump botch whist thence toy stump stock ...
— McGuffey's Eclectic Spelling Book • W. H. McGuffey
... when sweet Susan, coy but smart, Safe landed him, and Cupid's dart Went through his breast as through a cheese, And pierced his heart with perfect ease, He—well, I'll not the words impart He said ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VII. (of X.) • Various
... finally a scurrying splash as the iron messenger swept along the surface of the water and sank, falling short by about a hundred yards. At the same moment the heavy sweeps were laid in; the schooner's sails were trimmed as if by magic to the coy breeze; her head paid off; and as she swept gracefully round upon a course which would enable her to intercept the Aurora, a tiny ball went soaring aloft to her main-topmast-head and, breaking abroad as it reached the truck, a square black ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood
... person has been known to express an opinion to the effect that a naughty word would be quite luxurious. The lovers whom we love kiss when they meet or part, they talk plainly—unless the girls play the natural and delightful trick of being coy—and they behave in a manner which human beings understand. Supposing that the duke uses a language which ordinary dukes do not affect save in moments of extreme emotion, it is not tiresome, and, at the worst, it satisfies a convention which has not done very much harm. Now on what logical ground ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... always knew you were crafty, for all your simple ways. Mind, I don't say you haven't done well for yourself, you have—a deal better than you deserve. But don't ever say you couldn't help it to me again! For if you do, I'll trounce you for it, do you hear? None of your coy airs for me! I won't put up with 'em. You'll behave yourself as long as you're in this house, or I'll know ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell |
