"Wheedle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... nine-carat gold, let us say at the least—but assuredly a soul of tape. And he that has fetched and carried will explain how it has fared with him in his dealings, and if he has brought the wrong sort of sugar or thread he will wheedle away the displeasure from that leaden face as a pastrycook girl will drive bluebottles off a stale bun. And that man has known what it was to coax the fret of a thoroughbred, to soothe its toss and sweat as it danced beneath him in the glee and chafe of its pulses ...
— Reginald in Russia and Other Sketches • Saki (H.H. Munro)
... "Mary" had gone, then shook his head and sighed. The grocer proceeded to wheedle more news out of ...
— A Canadian Bankclerk • J. P. Buschlen
... needed for carrying on their work. By unavowed ways they secured a strong support among the members of the National House of Representatives and the Senate. They disguised themselves as pacifists, and they found it easy to wheedle the "lunatic fringe" of native pacifists into working for the domination of William of Hohenzollern over the United States, and for the establishing of his world dominion. The Kaiser's propagandists spread evil arguments to justify all ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer
... Ha! who comes yonder? The Eton chap who wheedled me into lending him my best hunter last year, and was the ruination of him; but that must be paid for, wheedle or no wheedle; and, for the matter of wheedling, I'd stake this here Mr. Wheeler, that is making up to me, do you see, against e'er a boy, or hobbledehoy, in all Eton, London, or Christendom, let the other ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth
... the boy's proud bearing appealed to the man. It had not dawned on him until now that the lad actually considered the proposal a strictly business one. He had thought that he came to wheedle and beg, and Mr. Carter detested having favors asked of him. Calling Paul back, he motioned ...
— Paul and the Printing Press • Sara Ware Bassett
... a great fisherman. He could wheedle out rock-fish by the dozen while envious miners sat about him tugging ...
— A Maid of the Silver Sea • John Oxenham
... I can wheedle him before the camera, you'll be interested in making a picture of him that Ellen and I shall want to frame ...
— Mrs. Red Pepper • Grace S. Richmond
... ninnies," cried Coralie, springing upon his knee and putting her beautiful arms about his neck. "They take life seriously, and life is a joke. Besides, you are going to be Count Lucien de Rubempre. I will wheedle the Chancellerie if there is no other way. I know how to come round that rake of a des Lupeaulx, who will sign your patent. Did I not tell you, Lucien, that at the last you should have Coralie's dead body for a ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac
... whom all other people interest; one of those who derive their peculiar charm more from what they find in you than from what they show you of themselves, though one might be ashamed to confess the truth so baldly. These are the people who, without any especial gift of either mind or person, wheedle your secrets out of you before you know it, possessing all your trust and your liking before they have given any real evidence of deserving your confidence, and yet, somehow or other, though rarely either great ...
— Only an Incident • Grace Denio Litchfield
... adorned with curls; 'Tis her's, the Queen who melted pearls Marc Antony to wheedle. Her bark, her banquets, all are fled; And Time, who cut her vital thread, Has only spared ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13, Issue 353, January 24, 1829 • Various
... lad, we shall see!" replied Mahony. "In the meantime, let me inform you, I can make good use of every penny I have. So if you've come here thinking you can wheedle something out of me, you're mistaken." He could seldom resist tearing the veil from Ned's gross ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... the honour she had done me. To my great astonishment, it turned out, however, that the waistcoat was not an honour, but a bribe. My lady had discovered that I was getting old before I had discovered it myself, and she had come to my cottage to wheedle me (if I may use such an expression) into giving up my hard out-of-door work as bailiff, and taking my ease for the rest of my days as steward in the house. I made as good a fight of it against the indignity of taking ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... shot, and, upon my word, I really do believe that I began to wheedle him, Whether I did, or whether I did not, we had the car upon the road in ten minutes, and were off for Dover before a quarter of an hour had passed. Previous to that I had slipped into the inn on the pretence of leaving my coat, and had left a letter for ...
— The Man Who Drove the Car • Max Pemberton
... Uncle Charlie, too" (Colonel Marsden turned laughingly to his wife), "but I don't wish he was here. I remember what a pet he was of yours in the old days, love—the curly-haired scamp. He could wheedle you and Aunt Betsy out of any thing he wanted. Such a tender heart he had—mad as fire one minute, and tears in his eyes the next—but withal so ...
— That Old-Time Child, Roberta • Sophie Fox Sea
... Oh! could I wheedle the votes at the vestry, I'd have a share of those good sav'ry things; Enchained by turkey, in love with the pastry. And floating in Champagne, while Bow bells ring. Those who are cautious are skinny and ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 404, December 12, 1829 • Various
... his Fabulous Stories and Relations to the King of Spain was made praefect of the Kingdom of Jucatan, in the Year of our Lord 1526; And the other Tyrants to this very day have taken the same indirect Measures to obtain Offices, and screw or wheedle themselves into publick Charges or Employments, for this praetext, and Authority, they had the greater opportunity to commit Theft and Rapine. This Kingdom was very well peopled, and both for Temperature of Air, and the Plenty of Food and Fruits, in which respect it is ...
— A Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies • Bartolome de las Casas
... conclusion that there was just one course for my taking: to see her and to beg, bully, or wheedle from her the unvarnished truth. Then, if it was as I feared, she should go back to Paris if I had to carry her; she should accompany me to Bordeaux, and on the first steamer she should sail from France. Yes; and the army should have its papers, ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... it turned out, Filippo Visconti had nothing in common with his infamous namesake but the name. On a long and trying journey, he showed neither sullen nor yet ferocious tempers; nor, at the end of it, did he attempt by any master-stroke of craft to wheedle from me more than his fair pay; but took the meerschaum pipe I gave him for a keepsake, with the frank goodwill of an accomplished gentleman. The only exhibition of his hot Italian blood which I remember did his ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... central home and breeding- place for all the touts of earth. There are touts insinuating, and touts raucous, greasy touts, brazen touts, and upper-class, refined, gentlemanly, take-you-by-the-arm touts; touts who intimidate and touts who wheedle; professionals, amateurs, and dilettanti, male and female; touts who would photograph you with your arm round a young lady against a faked background of the sublimest cataract, touts who would bully you into cars, ...
— Letters from America • Rupert Brooke
... master of the family, preferring the flirting airs of a young prinked up strumpet, to the artless sincerity of a plain, grave, and good wife, has given his desires aloose, and destroyed soul, body, family, and estate. But they are very favourable if they wheedle nobody into matrimony, but only make a present of a small live creature, no bigger than a bastard, to some of the family, no matter who gets it; when a child is born it must ...
— Everybody's Business is Nobody's Business • Daniel Defoe
... does—there is the white damask ready bought for the wedding gown, and I am ready to take you for better or worse to-morrow," continued Arthur, drawing the half-resisting, but more than half-willing girl, nearer and nearer to the boat at every word; while Teddy, hanging on her arm, continued to wheedle and ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... and young again, and I'll soon be after you across the sea, that shan't stop me; I'll come to—what's the name of your place in Ireland? and see what likeness I can find to her poor father in this grand-daughter of mine, that you puffed so finely yesterday. And let me see whether she will wheedle me as finely as Mrs. Petito would. Don't get ready your marriage settlements, do you hear, till you have seen my will, which I shall sign at—what's the name of your place? Write it down there; there's pen and ink; and leave me, for the twinge ...
— The Absentee • Maria Edgeworth
... him into a boat again with those human toadstools, and I've heard him swear round here enough to know it," scoffed the Colonel. "He's just goin' down to try to wheedle your sailors like he tried to wheedle you, and they're your men and he ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... on, if but a pallet, quite as good as he had been accustomed to. Moreover, after some time had elapsed, he was relieved from this close confinement during the hours of the day. A clever actor, and having a tongue that could "wheedle with the devil," he had wheedled with the mayor-domo to granting him certain indulgences; among them being allowed to spend part of his time in the kitchen and scullery. Not in idleness, however, but occupied with work for which he had proved himself well qualified. ...
— The Free Lances - A Romance of the Mexican Valley • Mayne Reid
... very much," she weakly asserted. "Ever so much. Besides, Alf,"—she began to appeal to him, in an attempt to wheedle—"Em's a real good sort.... You don't know ...
— Nocturne • Frank Swinnerton
... know what it was reminded the boy of that remaining Easter egg unless it was the sight of the unemployed pullet in her coop, which he visited the first thing; and I don't know how he managed to wheedle his mother out of it; but the first night after I came home from business—it was rather late and the children had gone to bed—she told me that ridiculous boy, as she called him in self-exculpation, had actually put the egg under ...
— Between The Dark And The Daylight • William Dean Howells
... tell me where she is?" he asked in his friendliest voice, and that would wheedle secrets ...
— King—of the Khyber Rifles • Talbot Mundy
... why so, while you're busied in making yourself ready, I'll wheedle her into the coach; and instead of you, borrow my lord's chaplain, and so run away ...
— The Comedies of William Congreve - Volume 1 [of 2] • William Congreve
... understand a claim for liberty originating in the rights of the common people and not in the gracious benevolence or intelligent policy of the King? The very idea must have been practically inconceivable by them. Accordingly, they strove by every available device of chicanery to wheedle the Netherlanders into accepting their independence as a gift from the King of Spain. But to such a piece of self-stultification the clear-sighted Dutchmen could by no persuasion be brought to consent. Their independence, they argued, was not the King's to ...
— The Unseen World and Other Essays • John Fiske
... would be so much stronger than theirs, as she had always been his darling, and favored by him above either of them. But Cordelia, disgusted with the flattery of her sisters, whose hearts she knew were far from their lips, and seeing that all their coaxing speeches were only intended to wheedle the old king out of his dominions, that they and their husbands might reign in his lifetime, made no other reply but this—that she loved his Majesty according to her duty, neither more ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... see what he is? He is one of those men whose one ambition is to make themselves friendly in a house where there are women to wheedle. If the wife is young he will strive to wheedle her, and though he may not succeed he must degrade her. Or, if she have daughters, he will never cease to appeal to, to work upon, to excite latent feelings which, had it not been ...
— Spring Days • George Moore |
