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More "Coy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... orchis, taller and finer by far than those in the meadows, 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
... quick-witted girl had revealed to her, in one startled wave of consciousness, the full extent of Lance's infirmity of temper. With the instinct of awakened tenderness came a sense of responsibility, and a vague premonition of danger. The coy blossom of her heart was scarce unfolded before it was chilled by approaching shadows. Fearful of, she knew not what, she hesitated. Every moment of Lance's stay was imperiled by a single word that might spring from his suppressed white lips; ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... 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 ...
— Marion Arleigh's Penance - Everyday Life Library No. 5 • Charlotte M. Braeme
... shine no hands destroy, God of song, whose hymn no tongue refuses, Now, though spring far hence be cold and coy, Bid the golden mouths of all the Muses Ring forth gold of strains without alloy, Till the ninefold rapture that suffuses Heaven with song bid earth exult for joy, Since the child whose head this dawn bedews is Sweet as once ...
— A Midsummer Holiday and Other Poems • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... our hours of ease, Uncertain, coy, and hard to please,"— "But seen too oft, familiar with her face, We first endure, then ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various
... are wild and coy, Fickle, mysterious, and shy . . . And so we lost you, Love and I! And now, at last, because we find Your golden footprints, Love the boy, Dreams you are near . . . but Love is blind! Yet, surely Sorrow's arms ...
— The Inn of Dreams • Olive Custance
... 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 ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor
... sudden fortune, she was at a loss how to explain his defection. She conjectured all things, and finally settled down to the conclusion that he was a coy young man, and had not been sufficiently encouraged by her. She remembered instances where he had exhibited signs of ardor—in one case so far as beginning to slip a hand around her waist—and she had repelled him. He was evidently waiting for ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... she wouldn't allude 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
... for, as A. Van Buren Powell has said: "Everyone will grant that in photoplay writing 'The Idea's the thing.' The script of the beginner, carrying a brand-new idea, will find acceptance where the most technical technique in the world, disguising a revamped story, will fail to coax the coy check from its lair." ...
— Writing the Photoplay • J. Berg Esenwein and Arthur Leeds
... Greene advanced and took possession of the battle-field, and sent detachments in pursuit of Stewart. A victory was claimed by both parties. Washington seemed to consider it as such for Greene. "Fortune," he said, in a letter to him, "must have been coy indeed, had she not yielded at last to so persevering a pursuer as you have been." Yet there was no victory in the case. The advantage evidently lay with the Americans. The contest had been a most sanguinary one. The loss of the ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... 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
... of spring! O brown-eyed girl! Gathering violets near the woods, Whose coy young petals half unfurl The mystery of ...
— Along the Shore • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... 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 or something dreadful and never keeps them in the house. Grandmother ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... Athene; have we her approval? Nay, never blush, nor hide your face. Well, well, maidens will be coy; 'tis a delicate subject. But there, she nods consent. Now, off with you; and mind, the beaten ones must not be cross with the judge; I will not have the poor lad harmed. The prize of beauty ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... the temperature actually was, 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 ...
— A Pirate of the Caribbees • Harry Collingwood
... seemed to overwhelm him for a moment. Certainly of late Marjorie had been uncertain, coy, and very hard to please. Marjorie had suffered, and was suffering. She was contrasting Tom with Hugh, and Hugh with Tom, and it made her heart ache and made her angry with herself for her own previous blindness. ...
— The Imaginary Marriage • Henry St. John Cooper
... him to finish, but waltzed right in. I danced straight up to that side of beef with the diamonds still on it, and flinging my arms about her, turned a coy eye on the Bishop. ...
— In the Bishop's Carriage • Miriam Michelson
... something into their box and rejoiced exceedingly, and departed staggering under the weight. I gave them a good start, and then made the best of my way home; and all that night Duke Town howled, and sang, and thumped its tom-toms unceasingly; for I was told Egbo had come into the town. Egbo is very coy, even for a secret society spirit, and seems to loathe publicity; but when he is ensconced in this ark he utters sententious observations on the subject of current politics, and his word is law. The voice that comes out of the ark is very strange, and unlike a ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... some sublimest mind, decay? Nor putrefaction's breath Leave 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 Daemon of the World • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... out among the 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 ...
— Creatures of the Night - A Book of Wild Life in Western Britain • Alfred W. Rees
... claw'd away with Broad-Sides from any Female before, thou hast one Virtue I adore, good-Nature; I hate a coy demure Mistress, she's as troublesome as a Colt, I'll break none; no, give me a mad Mistress when mew'd, and in flying on[e] I dare trust upon the Wing, that whilst she's kind will come ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn
... it were best That this language you addressed Unto him who nightly came Down here from this balcony;— 'Tis enough for me to show All your lightness that I know, That less coy and cold to me Your pretended honour prove. If I am disdained, displaced, 'Tis another suits your taste, Not that you ...
— The Wonder-Working Magician • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... of the opposite sex, followed by efforts to attract that one's attention by "display" (strutting, decoration of the person, demonstrating one's prowess, especially in opposition to rivals). Then the male takes an aggressive attitude, the {148} female a coy attitude; the male woos, the female hangs back, and something analogous to pursuit and capture takes place, except that the capture may be ...
— Psychology - A Study Of Mental Life • Robert S. Woodworth
... in your service, rattling a glass down with a vehemence which would have startled a Venus in marble to turn and recognise an adorer! Round and round the Ring I have driven for hours, on the chance of a look. Nay, marble is not so coy as froward beauty! And at the Queen's chapel have I not knelt at the Mass morning after morning, at the risk of being thought a Papist, for the sake of seeing you at prayers; and have envied the Romish dog who handed you the aspersoir as you went out? And you to ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... said Ogilvy, "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
... coy coil join loin toil soil foist boil coin cloy point broil joist hoist joint enjoy voice royal noise spoil moist avoid choice annoy doily employ ...
— The Beacon Second Reader • James H. Fassett
... 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 ...
— Christie Johnstone • Charles Reade
... continued oracularly, "there will be a third attending us when we return, if thou hast been coy with the gentle ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... studied Nature intently, and discovered an exquisite sense of her beautiful forms and harmonious combinations. Those charms which, in other countries, she lavishes in wild solitudes, are here assembled round the haunts of domestic life. They seem to have caught her coy and furtive graces, and spread them, like ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... mellow radiance—see her, in her fresh young beauty, seated at the old instrument, the moonlight falling on her bright hair; the sweet eyes averted from my too admiring gaze, veiled beneath the drooping lashes, cast down with a coy pretence ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No 3, September 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... herself, not even love, But an unwitting void 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
... the soldier acquiesced, plausibly. "Let us consider it as if it were in the air—a possible contingency. This is what I would say—My—'the lady we are speaking of' is by way of being a difficult lady—'uncertain, coy, and hard to please' as Scott says, you know—and it must be a very skilfully-dressed fly indeed which brings her to the surface. She's been hooked once, mind, and she has a horror of it. Her husband was the most frightful brute and ruffian, you know. I was strongly ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... "three black Graces," as they have been termed by one of the most pleasant companions of our time, Law and Physic hastened to do homage to Lord Etherington, represented by Mr. Meiklewham and Dr. Quackleben; while Divinity, as favourable, though more coy, in the person of the Reverend Mr. Simon Chatterly, stood on tiptoe to offer any service ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... the sad plight of these two friends who were too coy or too perverse to know what was best for them, Johnnie suddenly slapped himself a whack on the thigh. A brilliant idea had flashed into his cranium. It proceeded to grow until he was ...
— The Big-Town Round-Up • William MacLeod Raine
... "Robert dear," said the coy little maiden to her sweetheart, "I'm sure you love me; but give me some proof of it, darling. We can't marry on fifteen dollars ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers
... second tableland. A grey dimness was taking the place of the dark, and it had suddenly grown bitterly cold. Dawn in such high latitudes is not a thing of violent changes, but of slow and subtle gradations of light, of sudden, coy flushes of colour, of thin winds and bright fleeting hazes. He lay for a minute in the scrub of cloud-berries, the collar of his coat buttoned round his throat, and the morning wind, fresh from leagues of snow, blowing chill on his face. Behind was the slope alive with men who at any moment ...
— The Half-Hearted • John Buchan
... 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 ...
— Broad Grins • George Colman, the Younger
... 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 large ears, ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects, and Curiosities of Art, (Vol. 2 of 3) • Shearjashub Spooner
... rhyme. He must not float upon his watery bier 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 by fountain, shade, and rill. Together both, ...
— Verses and Translations • C. S. C.
... beauty she to all appears And, lovely coy, she mocks all loveliness: And when he fronts her favor and her smile A-morn, the sun of day ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... also they must beautify, When in it there's scarce common honesty. Their bodies they must have tricked up and trim, Their inside full of filth up to the brim. Upon their clothes there must not be a spot, But is their lives more than one common blot. How nice, how coy are some about their diet, That can their crying souls with hogs'-meat quiet. All drest must to a hair be, else 'tis naught, While of the living bread they have no thought. Thus for their outside they are clean and nice, While their poor ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... to thee, Dame Ingeborg, If thou wilt not be coy and cold, A shirt, I trow, for me thou’lt sew, And array that shirt so fair ...
— Marsk Stig - a ballad - - - Translator: George Borrow • Thomas J. Wise
... all the virtues would not suit in the presence of one whose favourite task it was to laugh his so-called virtues to scorn. Such, at least to begin with, was his honourable intention. But the subtle Wratislaw drew him from his retirement and skilfully elicited his coy principles. It was a cruel performance—a shameless one, had there been any spectator. The one would lay down a fine generous line of policy; the other would beg for a fact in confirmation. The one would haltingly detail some facts; the other would promptly convince him of their falsity. ...
— The Half-Hearted • John Buchan
... 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 be Proud, or Base: Quick to advise by an Emergence ...
— The Pleasures of a Single Life, or, The Miseries Of Matrimony • Anonymous
... and an ease of attitude implying the largest range of selection between the forms of Parisian idleness; and even Andora Macy, seated opposite, as in the place of co-hostess or companion, reflected, in coy grays and mauves, the ...
— Tales Of Men And Ghosts • Edith Wharton
... cracks a few good jokes, but is mostly elaboration. Opus 8 is a fiery romanza appassionata. Opus 9 is a Scherzo-Caprice. This is probably his best work. It is dedicated to Liszt, and though extremely brilliant, is full of meaning. It has an interlude of tender romance. "Coy Maiden" is a graceful thing, but hardly deserves the punishment of so horrible a name. "A Gypsy Dance" is too long, but it is of good material. It has an interesting metre, three-quarter time with the first note dotted. There is a good effect gained by sustaining certain notes over several measures, ...
— Contemporary American Composers • Rupert Hughes
... to haste my carcase hence: Youth stole away and felt no kind of joy, And age he left in travail ever since; The wanton days that made me nice and coy Were but a dream, a shadow, ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... The matter's not so far gone As you suppose: Two words t' a bargain: That may be done, and time enough, When you have given downright proof; And yet 'tis no fantastic pique 545 I have to love, nor coy dislike: 'Tis no implicit, nice aversion T' your conversation, mein, or person, But a just fear, lest you should prove False and perfidious in love:, 550 For if I thought you could be true, I could love twice as ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... what request It gave assent, I never guessed. Some prayer of some hot heart, no doubt, To some coy maiden hereabout, Just as, maybe, With you, Sweet Heart, ...
— Poems of the Past and the Present • Thomas Hardy
... 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 ...
— The House of Torchy • Sewell Ford
... 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 (May-flies), some species ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... 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 ...
— The Leavenworth Case • Anna Katharine Green
... solemn! Was not the solitude enhanced by a glimpse she caught of a restless fawn, glancing in the distance across the avenue, as he silently changed the tree under which he slept?—Then the gentle breeze would enter her window, laden with sweet scents of which he had just been rifling the coy flowers beneath, in their dewy repose, tended and petted during the day by her own delicate hand!—Beautiful moon!—cold and chaste in thy skyey palace, studded with brilliant and innumerable gems, and shedding down thy rich and tender ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... the Figure of Twinnes.] Ye haue yet another manner of speach when ye will seeme to make two of one, not thereunto constrained, which therefore we call the figure of Twynnes, the Greekes Endiadis thus. Not you coy dame your ...
— The Arte of English Poesie • George Puttenham
... introduced, but he had eyes only for Betsy. She gave him a coy look out of her china-blue eyes. Tilda smiled shyly at Sally. Both of the Johnston girls wore pretty linsey-woolsey dresses under their shawls and neat moccasins on their feet. Sally, looking down at her own soiled dress ...
— Abe Lincoln Gets His Chance • Frances Cavanah
... 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
... 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 ...
— The Wife of his Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line, and - Selected Essays • Charles Waddell Chesnutt
... 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 ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... Opportunity is coy, is swift, is gone, before the slow, the unobservant, the indolent, or the careless can seize her. "Vigilance in watching opportunity," said Phelps, "tact and daring in seizing upon opportunity; force and persistence in crowding opportunity ...
— An Iron Will • Orison Swett Marden
... sound shall be In the reeds of Arcady, Evermore a low lament Of unrest and discontent, As the story is retold Of the nymph so coy and cold, Who with frightened feet outran ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... am he, And just as warm as he is chilling; Imagine, too, that thou art she, But quite as coy as she ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... as ever like a nervous intruder over the great snow peaks behind the steep hills black with forest that rose like a wall back of the little settlement of Sitka, parted for a moment, and the sun, a coy disdainful guest, flung a glittering mist over what Nature had intended to be one of the most enchanting spots on earth, until, in a fit of ill-temper—with one of the gods, no doubt—she gave it to Niobe as a permanent outlet ...
— Rezanov • Gertrude Atherton
... bell, (That iron tongue of death!) with solemn knell, On folly's errands as we vainly roam, Knocks at our hearts, and finds our thoughts from home! Men drop so fast, ere life's mid stage we tread, Few know so many friends alive, as dead. Yet, as immortal, in our up-hill chase We press coy fortune with unslacken'd pace; Our ardent labours for the toys we seek, Join night to day, and Sunday to the week: Our very joys are anxious, and expire Between satiety and fierce desire. Now what reward for all this grief and toil? But one; a female friend's endearing smile; A tender smile, ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young
... 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 more intimate connexion. They are the only two European powers, which have continental possessions ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. VIII • Various
... Coy's S.M.; Galbraith on whom descended Colthart's wonderful knack of obtaining whatever he wanted; Storrer Mosh alias Morrison Storrar of ...
— The Fife and Forfar Yeomanry - and 14th (F. & F. Yeo.) Battn. R.H. 1914-1919 • D. D. Ogilvie
... lecture course in the college do a rushing business. We just backed into the shafts and took the bit without a murmur. And maybe you think those girls didn't drive us. They seemed determined to make up for the drought of all the past. They were as coy and uncertain and as infernally hard to please as if they'd been used to getting one proposal a day and two on Sunday. Let one of us so much as drop over to Browning Hall to pass the time of day with one of the real heart-disturbers, and the particular vote that he was ...
— At Good Old Siwash • George Fitch
... the man in her aunt's house, not expecting to meet him, and the lover had had an opportunity of speaking his mind freely. She also had spoken hers freely. She would not engage herself to him without her father's consent. With that consent she would do so,—oh, so willingly! She did not coy her love. He might be certain that she would give herself to no one else. Her heart was entirely his. But she had pledged herself to her father, and on no consideration would she break that pledge. She went on to say that after what had passed she thought that they had better ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... low voice; the sister was too florid and loud for my fancy. We played at whist, and in the intervals between the games we tested Jerry's wine. He has a singularly good selection. The florid nymph was reserved and coy at first, but as the wine mounted she rather astonished me by her choice of expletives. The merry one had become business-like, and that sweet smile was gone. As I looked at him I gradually understood that I had once more made a fool of myself, ...
— The Chequers - Being the Natural History of a Public-House, Set Forth in - a Loafer's Diary • James Runciman
... every joy. He envied not, he never thought of kings; Nor from those appetites sustained annoy, Which chance may frustrate, or indulgence cloy: Nor fate his calm and humble hopes beguiled; He mourned no recreant friend, nor mistress coy, For on his vows the blameless Phoebe smiled, And her alone he loved, and loved her ...
— The Minstrel; or the Progress of Genius - with some other poems • James Beattie
... immobility is drawing the iron towards it. An intense energy lies behind such passivity, an absorbed pre-occupation in the end to be attained."[313] In the examples we have studied of the courtships of birds we saw that it is by no means a universal law that the male is eager and the female coy. I need only recall the instance noted by Darwin[314] in which a wild duck forced her love on a male pintail, and such cases, as is well known, are frequent. High-bred bitches will show sudden passions for low-bred or mongrel males. According to breeders and observers it is the female ...
— The Truth About Woman • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... won't say that she threw herself in my arms then and there. No, no! She demurred. All young girls, it seems, demur under the circumstances; but she was adorable, coy and tender in turns, pouting and coaxing, and playing like a kitten till she had taken the papers from me and, with a woman's natural curiosity, had turned the English letters over and over, even though she could not ...
— Castles in the Air • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... the Italians, talk with their whole bodies,—hands, arms, head, trunk, and all. The ladies, as usual, were each supplied with that prime necessity, a fan; and it is astonishing what a weapon of coquetry it becomes in the delicate hands of a Spanish beauty. Its coy archness is beyond comparison, guided by the pliant wrist of the owner, concealing or revealing her eloquent glances and features. With her veil and her fan, a Spanish woman is armed cap-a-pie, and ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou
... "All right, fellows! Just a minute, please! We've got a guest with us this evening, an honoured guest, fellows. Those of you who know football history know his name as well as you know the names of Heffelfinger and DeWitt and Coy and Brickley and—and many others in the Football Hall of Fame! I know you want to hear from him and I hope he will be willing to say a few words." Childers glanced at Doctor Proctor and the latter, smiling, shook his head energetically. "He ...
— Left Guard Gilbert • Ralph Henry Barbour
... bodily fear; terrorize, intimidate, cow, daunt, overawe, abash, 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^. 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 ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... breast, Love in each moment years and years of rest, Be calm, as being not. Ye oceans of intolerable delight, The blazing photosphere of central Night, Be ye forgot. Terror, thou swarthy Groom of Bride-bliss coy, Let me not see thee toy. O, Death, too tardy with thy hope intense Of kisses close beyond conceit of sense; O, Life, too liberal, while to take her hand Is more of hope than heart can understand; Perturb my golden patience not with joy, Nor, through a wish, profane The peace that should pertain ...
— The Victories of Love - and Other Poems • Coventry Patmore
... waste time. Spies, and envious tongues, and vigilant eyes, are around us; and it is not often that I can baffle them as I have done now. Fairest, hear me!" and this time he succeeded in seizing the hand which vainly struggled against his clasp. "Nay, why so coy? what can female heart desire that my love cannot shower upon thine? Speak but the word, enchanting maiden, and I will bear thee from these scenes unseemly to thy gentle eyes. Amidst the pavilions of princes shalt thou repose; and, amidst gardens of the orange and the rose, shalt ...
— Leila, Complete - The Siege of Granada • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Rouges," in 1814, when barely seventeen. He served until 1827, "twelve long years of peace," then resigned. Already in 1822 appeared a volume of 'Poemes' which was hardly noticed, although containing poetry since become important to the evolution of French verse: 'La Neige, le Coy, le Deluge, Elva, la Frigate', etc., again collected in 'Poemes antiques et modernes' (1826). Other poems were published after his death ...
— Cinq Mars, Complete • Alfred de Vigny
... be importunate I shall never break decorums. I shall die with confusion if I am forced to advance—oh no, I can never advance; I shall swoon if he should expect advances. No, I hope Sir Rowland is better bred than to put a lady to the necessity of breaking her forms. I won't be too coy neither—I won't give him despair. But a little disdain is not amiss; a ...
— The Way of the World • William Congreve
... was one bold with me too, Some coy thing would say rude, but 'tis no matter, I was to pay a Waiting womans ransom, And I have don't, and I would pay't again, Were I ...
— The Little French Lawyer - A Comedy • Francis Beaumont
... fit you upon all occasions—masquerade, ball, or supper, Sir: you may perhaps wish to go out, as we say in the West, in coy.—happy to receive your commands at any time, prompt ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... with my cousin, Mr. Payton. I met you and Mrs. Moore for a moment, I remember quite well. You both looked almost too young to be married, I thought, but your little girl was about four years old. She was not at the party officially" (Aunt Mary smiled at her own coy wit), "but I met her with a boy much older, who was playing with her. I took a snapshot of them both together, standing by a swing which was in a ...
— The Lightning Conductor Discovers America • C. N. (Charles Norris) Williamson and A. M. (Alice Muriel)
... until at last, one day when I was being rowed across 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
... Jefferson county I built a chimney for a man named —— M'Coy; he had forty-seven laboring hands. Near where I was at work, M'Coy had ordered one of his slaves to set a post for a gate. When he came to look at it, he said the slave had not set it in the right place; and ordered him to strip, and lie down on his face; telling him that if he struggled, ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... You reckon by, with shadowy hands, Lay benediction on the lands And landsmen, and the eve-jar's croak Summon ye, lightfoot fairy folk, To your activity full tide Over the empty earth and wide. Here be your food, fair nymph, and coy Of mortal ...
— Helen Redeemed and Other Poems • Maurice Hewlett
... Where Spring's coy steps in cold Canadia stray, And joyless seasons hold unequal sway, He saw the pine its daring mantle rear, Break the rude blast, and mock the brumal year, Shag the green zone that bounds the boreal skies, ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow
... weather is prone 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 a time as possible, and when set in the ground have the soil packed firmly about their roots, so firmly ...
— Culinary Herbs: Their Cultivation Harvesting Curing and Uses • M. G. Kains
... smarting. The one 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 sympathies with his forlorn position, inferring a certain similarity ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... to me, Without so much bother; Never let it be Given to another. Why this coy resistance? Wherefore keep such distance? Why hesitate so long to give that brief ...
— Interludes - being Two Essays, a Story, and Some Verses • Horace Smith
... 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
... Men with pastimes the Twilight beguile, I watch your plump cheek till it dimples with joy: And observe, that whatever occasions the smile, You give me a glance; but provokingly coy. ...
— Rural Tales, Ballads, and Songs • Robert Bloomfield
... 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 ...
— Rhymes of the East and Re-collected Verses • John Kendall (AKA Dum-Dum)
... we can do at present," Prescott concluded, will be to notify Lawyer Ripley or Chief Coy that we've seen ...
— The Grammar School Boys in Summer Athletics • H. Irving Hancock
... heart to try to discover why such bitter feelings should be there. Surely that girl was honest: there was honesty in her eyes. She had been most kind to Sheila herself. And was there not at times, when she abandoned the ways and speech of a woman of the world, a singular coy fascination about her, that any man might be excused for yielding to, even as any woman might yield to it? Sheila fought with herself, and resolved that she would cast forth from her heart those harsh fancies and indignant feelings that seemed to have established themselves ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 29. August, 1873. • Various
... in the nearest counties, to attend a great ball at Elmwood. The old house would be filled from garret to cellar, and the hospitable homes of nearby friends would open to take in the overflow of guests. Dames and maidens coy, clad in the quaint and picturesque colonial costume, with powdered hair and patches, in richly brocaded gowns and satin slippers, made stately courtesy to gay dandies and jovial squires arrayed in coats of many colors, broidered vests, knee breeches and ...
— In Ancient Albemarle • Catherine Albertson
... legal wife, and no light-o'-love to be petted and flung aside when he chose, butterfly-like, to flit to some other flower; and this she made abundantly clear to Henry Frederick. Her favours—after a period of coquetry and coy reluctance—were at his disposal; but the price to be paid for them was a wedding-ring—nothing less. And such was the infatuation she had inspired that the Duke—flinging scruples and fears aside, consented. One October day they took boat to Calais, ...
— Love Romances of the Aristocracy • Thornton Hall
... and, with shouts, songs, and laughter, encouraged each other to do their utmost. The flags of the two great Anglo-Saxon nations rippled and played in the soft breeze, sometimes drawing near caressingly together, again bending away, like two lovers coy to unite. The tight little boat of the Doctor would keep ahead, and the crimson and crossed flag of England would wave before me, and it seemed to say to the beautiful laggard astern, "Come on, come on; England leads the way." But was it not England's place to be in the front here? She won ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... 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 ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... effect it. Be thou no enemy to thyself; my wealth Shall weigh his titles down, and make you equals. Now for the means to assure him thine, observe me; Remember he's a courtier, and a soldier, And not to be trifled with; and therefore, when He comes to woo you, see you do not coy it. This mincing modesty hath spoil'd many a match By a first refusal, in vain ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 4, April 1810 • Various
... 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
... The other, however, had attractions of a very different class: fine-featured, dark-eyed, coal-black-haired and tall; as she stood—her right hand holding the rude torch over her head, while the left gathered the folds of a long cloak under her bosom, with her eyes of coy expectation and merry amazement—she seemed more the ideal of a robber's daughter in some old romance, than a menial in a moorland farm-house. I attempted to salute her, but she held me at bay with her hand. "Hech, ...
— Tales from Blackwood, Volume 7 • Various
... 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 ...
— Translations of German Poetry in American Magazines 1741-1810 • Edward Ziegler Davis
... third used to play the harp execrably, but it was agreed that her arms were the most beautiful in France, and we had to endure the harsh scraping of her nails over the strings so that she might have an opportunity of removing her gloves like a coy little girl. What can I say of the others, except that they vied with one another in all those affectations and fatuous insincerities, by which all the men childishly allowed themselves to be duped. One alone was really pretty, said nothing, and gave pleasure by her very lack ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... weird stuff the Secretary Bird spouted when you showed Phillis to him, Kit? About her being forward, or coy, or something. It sounded ...
— The Right Stuff - Some Episodes in the Career of a North Briton • Ian Hay
... Governor and his Secretary were exchanging clothes they heard the Mayor in the hallway arguing with a large German chambermaid in an earnest and fatherly manner, punctuated by coy screams from ...
— The Gay Rebellion • Robert W. Chambers
... not coy, but use your time, And while ye may, go marry; For having lost but once your prime, You may ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... the rise of Hampstead Heath. It was paled in, and had immediately before it a verdant lawn skirted with a variety of picturesque trees. Here Steevens lived, embosomed in books, shrubs and trees, being either too coy or too unsociable to mingle with his neighbours. His habits were indeed peculiar: not much to be envied or imitated, as they sometimes betrayed the flights of a madman and sometimes the asperities of a cynic. His attachments were ...
— Book-Lovers, Bibliomaniacs and Book Clubs • Henry H. Harper
... Why be coy about an opening like that? "Clyde, what do you know about Edwin Scott?" That let him spin any yarn ...
— A Matter of Proportion • Anne Walker
... give it a relish. There was an abundance of beautiful trout in the lake, but no one could catch them. W. C. Graves tells how he went fishing two or three different times, but without success. The lake was not frozen over at first, and fish were frequently seen; but they were too coy and wary to approach such bait as was offered. Soon thick ice covered the water, and after that no one attempted to fish. In fact, the entire party seemed dazed by the terrible ...
— History of the Donner Party • C.F. McGlashan
... the society was the advancement of universal brotherhood, of liberty and equality, the annihilation of those arbitrary barriers called national frontiers—in short, a society for the encouragement of the millennium, which, however, appeared to be coy. ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers
... great marvels can I work, 30 All the powers of Hell that lurk Favour me exceedingly, As deeds impossible shall attest Of awful shape, Miracles most manifest 35 Such that all shall see and gape, Visibly and invisibly. For I'll make a lady coy, Though love's guerdon she defer, If her lover look on her, 40 The very breath of life enjoy; And two lovers, love's curse under Kept asunder, Will I leave to grieve apart, And achieve by this my art 45 Things at which you'll gaze in wonder. ...
— Four Plays of Gil Vicente • Gil Vicente
... chequer'd scene display, And part admit and part exclude the day; As some coy nymph her lover's fond address, Nor quite indulges ...
— Alexander Pope - English Men of Letters Series • Leslie Stephen
... moon, 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 he gripped ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover
... 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; and attributing it to ...
— The Yotsuya Kwaidan or O'Iwa Inari - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 1 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... remoteness hidden it from the eyes of the world. I fancied as she came—'twas all in a flash—that into this rare creation He had breathed a spirit harmonious with the afflatus of its conception. And being thus overcome and preoccupied, I left the maid's coy lips escape me, but kissed her long, slender-fingered hand, which she withdrew, at once, to give to John Cather, who was most warm and voluble in greeting. I was by this hurt; but John Cather was differently affected: it seemed he did not care. He must be off to the hills, says he, ...
— The Cruise of the Shining Light • Norman Duncan
... curiosity regarding the increase of railway fares, but when invited to "name the day" Mr. BONAR LAW remained coy. Suggestions for postponements in the interests of this or that class of holiday-maker finally goaded him into asking sarcastically, "Why not until after Christmas?" Whereupon the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, July 28th, 1920 • Various
... though Bel-imperia seeme thus coy, Let reason holde you in your wonted ioy: In time the sauage bull sustaines the yoake, In time all haggard hawkes will stoope to lure, In time small wedges cleaue the hardest oake, In time the [hardest] flint is pearst with softest shower; And she in time will fall from her disdaine, ...
— The Spanish Tragedie • Thomas Kyd
... shore. Since the great Pan expired, and through the roar Of the Ionian waters broke a dread Voice which proclaimed "the Mighty Pan is dead." How much died with him! false or true—the dream Was beautiful which peopled every stream With more than finny tenants, and adorned The woods and waters with coy nymphs that scorned Pursuing Deities, or in the embrace Of gods brought forth the high heroic race 10 Whose names are on the ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... 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
... face! In Memory's dim eye it yet appears Crowned, as it then seemed, with a chearful grace. Young prattling Maiden, on the Thames' fair side, Enlivening pleasant Sunbury with your smiles, Time may have changed you: coy reserve, or pride, To sullen looks reduced those mirthful wiles. I will not 'bate one smile on that clear brow, But take of Time a rigorous account, When next I see you; and Maria now Must be the Thing she was. To ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb
... lightning reached the waves:— Wherein his thwarted speed appeared more awful As, brought within the scope of comprehension, Its progress and its purpose could be gauged. Spluttering Amyntas rose, Hipparchus near him Who cried 'Why coy of kisses, lovely lad? I ne'er would harm thee; art thou not ashamed To treat thy conquest thus?' He shouted partly to drown the sea's noise, chiefly The nearing Delphis to disarm. His voice lost its assurance while he spoke, And, as he finished, quick to escape he turned; Thy son's ...
— Georgian Poetry 1911-12 • Various
... even as I glimpsed thee thou wert gone, A dream for mortal eyes too proudly coy, Yet in thy place for subtle thought's employ The golden magic clung, a light that shone And filled me with thy joy. Before me like a mist that streamed and fell All names and shapes of antique beauty passed In garlanded procession with the swell Of flutes between the beechen ...
— Lyrics of Earth • Archibald Lampman
... these poor monosyllables conveyed! 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 scenes of agony. ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate
... to play the harp execrably, but it was agreed that her arms were the most beautiful in France, and we had to endure the harsh scraping of her nails over the strings so that she might have an opportunity of removing her gloves like a coy little girl. What can I say of the others, except that they vied with one another in all those affectations and fatuous insincerities, by which all the men childishly allowed themselves to be duped. One alone was really pretty, said nothing, and gave pleasure by her very lack of artificiality. ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... down, and the dancing began, to the flamenco music of guitars and the clacking of castanets; the fandango, the bolero, the malaguena, the chaquera vella; all the classical dances of old Spain, and each one a variant on the theme of love, the woman coy, coquettishly retreating; the man persuading or demanding, the woman yielding in passionate ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... is a coy maid— She has a habit quaint Of making eyes at millionaires And winking at ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers
... the man upstairs; Mrs. Kirkpatrick trying hard to look as if nothing had happened, for she particularly wished 'to prepare' Lady Cumnor; that is to say, to give her version of Mr Gibson's extreme urgency, and her own coy unwillingness. ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... be so hot, my Valour's coy, And shall be courted when you want it next. [Puts up ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn
... wild and coy, Fickle, mysterious, and shy . . . And so we lost you, Love and I! And now, at last, because we find Your golden footprints, Love the boy, Dreams you are near . . . but Love is blind! Yet, surely Sorrow's arms unwind From this tired heart, and dark distress Fades softly . . . softly from ...
— The Inn of Dreams • Olive Custance
... How do I 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 terror of your peaceful citizens, describing the ...
— The History of John Bull • John Arbuthnot
... even felt that it was very possible for Arthur to love the gentle little girl who smoothed his pillows so tenderly and whose fingers threaded so lovingly the damp, brown locks when she thought he, Thornton, was not looking on. She was very coy of him and very distant towards him, too, for she had not forgotten his sin, and she treated him at first with a reserve for which he could not account. But, as the days went on, and Arthur grew so sick that his parishioners ...
— The Rector of St. Mark's • Mary J. Holmes
... tale. So romantic is it that I shall be forced to pry into the coy recesses of the mind in order to exhibit a connected, reasonable affair, not only of a man and his wife prosperously seated in the mean of things, nel mezzo del cammin in space as well as time—for the Macartneys belonged to the middle class, and were well on to the middle of life themselves—, ...
— Love and Lucy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... allude 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 ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... newspapers containing sonnets, poems, odes, triolets, and such like, conspicuously marked with blue or red pencil tracings and all aimed, in a poetic sense, at Miss Woppit's virgin heart. This was the subtle work of the gifted Jake Dodsley! This was his ingenious way of storming the citadel of the coy maiden's affections. ...
— Second Book of Tales • Eugene Field
... congress appointed commissioners to visit the Arkansas territory accompanied by a deputation of Creeks, Choctaws, and Chickasaws. This expedition was commanded by Messrs. Kennerly, M'Coy, Wash Hood, and John Bell. See the different reports of the commissioners, and their journal, in the documents of congress, ...
— American Institutions and Their Influence • Alexis de Tocqueville et al
... hunt the deer, With a hey ho, come and kiss me, Dolly! It was the spring-time of the year, Hey ho, Dolly shut her eyes! King Rufus was a bully boy, He hunted all the day for joy, Sweet Dolly she was ever coy: And who would e'er be wise That looked ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... this state of things only served to make the man more eager to talk with the lady. She was not anxious for his attention. Ah! She was coy, and the acquaintance was to have the zest of being no lightly won friendship. All the better. He watched her as she talked, noted every charm of lash and lid and curving lip; stared so continually that she finally gave up looking his way at all, even when she was obliged to answer ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill
... youth gay, Rough rivals, essay To rive and riddle each butt, Sage sires stand by, And coy maidens cry, To welcome ...
— A History of Horncastle - from the earliest period to the present time • James Conway Walter
... he was the victim of a plot which his friends, Mr. Cunningham, Mr. M'Coy and Mr. Power had disclosed to Mrs. Kernan in the parlour. The idea been Mr. Power's, but its development was entrusted to Mr. Cunningham. Mr. Kernan came of Protestant stock and, though he had been converted to the Catholic ...
— Dubliners • James Joyce
... Laura's coy smile hinted many things. "I should say so. Since the very first day in church. He said—but I don't like to tell you what ...
— The Getting of Wisdom • Henry Handel Richardson
... young people strolled out into the garden, and Katie, as was her wont, insisted on Harry Norman rowing her over to her damp paradise in the middle of the river. He attempted, vainly, to induce Gertrude to accompany them. Gertrude was either coy with her lover, or indifferent; for very few were the occasions on which she could be induced to gratify him with the rapture of a tete-a-tete encounter. So that, in fact, Harry Norman's Sunday visits were generally moments of expected bliss of which ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... a bit, and then Hilda gets up and says she's going to the ladies' room. She doesn't act coy about it, the way most girls do when they're sitting ...
— It's like this, cat • Emily Neville
... in the Rue du Doyenne, could know nothing of the depravity and demoralizing harlotry which the Baron could no longer think of without disgust, for he had never known the charm of recalcitrant virtue, and the coy Valerie made him enjoy it to the utmost—all along the line, as the ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... of the rhyming couplet was not more displeasing to Milton's ear than the continued emphatic bark of a series of short sentences. Accustomed as he was to the heavy-armed processional manner of scholarly Renaissance prose, he felt it an indignity to "lie at the mercy of a coy, flirting style; to be girded with frumps and curtal jibes, by one who makes sentences by the statute, as if all above three inches long were confiscate." Later on in the Apology he returns to this grievance, and describes how his ...
— Milton • Sir Walter Alexander Raleigh
... 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 cheek of his ...
— The Scalp Hunters • Mayne Reid
... why 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
... 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 if we would put ...
— Aims and Aids for Girls and Young Women • George Sumner Weaver
... see it without being rude; but the blindness of egotism and vast self-appreciation was upon him and he thought her only charmingly coy; probably with the intent to thus conceal her love ...
— Elsie's children • Martha Finley
... matter's not so far gone As you suppose: Two words t' a bargain: That may be done, and time enough, When you have given downright proof; And yet 'tis no fantastic pique 545 I have to love, nor coy dislike: 'Tis no implicit, nice aversion T' your conversation, mein, or person, But a just fear, lest you should prove False and perfidious in love:, 550 For if I thought you could be true, I could love twice as ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... poultice, 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 mourning were as far from her as was active, tumultuous ...
— One Snowy Night - Long ago at Oxford • Emily Sarah Holt
... and dwelt in the tents of those besotted people, till thou hast become a partaker in their follies. How could I dream that he would have made scruples about a few years' youth or age, when the advantages of the match were so evident? And thou knowest, there would have been no moving yonder coy wench to be so frank as this coming Countess here, who hangs on our arms as dead a weight as a wool pack. I loved the lad too, and would have done him a kindness: to wed him to this old woman was to ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... may have been gathered from the few remarks which he had found it possible to introduce in the course of the evening, was a young gentleman of a peculiarly solid form of intellect, coy and retiring before the mysterious and the uncommon, with a constitutional dislike of paradox. During the restaurant dinner he had been forced to listen in almost absolute silence to a strange tissue ...
— The House of Souls • Arthur Machen
... great 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 ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... 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 ...
— Jennie Gerhardt - A Novel • Theodore Dreiser
... with a shake of the eyeglass, to shift and sidle again, as if distinctly excited by the subject. But it was as if his very excitement made the poor gentleman a trifle coy. "Are ...
— The Awkward Age • Henry James
... vatsohever. All I shall 'ave ze honour of showing you will be perform by simple Sloight of 'and, or Ledger-dee-Mang! (He invites any member of the Audience to step up and assist him, but the spectators remain coy.) I see zat I 'ave not to-night so larsh an orjence to select from as usual, still I 'ope——(Here one of the obvious Confederates slouches up, and joins him on the platform. ) Ah, zat is goot! I am vair moch oblige to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, November 15, 1890 • Various
... you must be how Benedick is in love with Beatrice. Now begin; for look where Beatrice like a lapwing runs close by the ground, to hear our conference.' They then began; Hero saying, as if in answer to something which Ursula had said: 'No, truly, Ursula. She is too disdainful; her spirits are as coy as wild birds of the rock.' 'But are you sure,' said Ursula, 'that Benedick loves Beatrice so entirely?' Hero replied: 'So says the prince, and my lord Claudio, and they entreated me to acquaint her with it; but I persuaded them, if they loved Benedick, never to let Beatrice know of it.' ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... 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, or to gain the means which are wanting, and we shall enjoy ...
— Won from the Waves • W.H.G. Kingston
... spirits of the Spring sweet breeze Came thronging round me, soft and coy, Light wood-nymphs sported in the trees, And laughing ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... Slumber was coy with me that night. I lay listening to the soughing of the wind, and thinking of Mr. Jaffrey's illusion. It had amused me at first with its grotesqueness; but now the poor little phantom was dead, I was conscious that there had been something pathetic in it ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... said, but her head careened, she gave him her coy reluctant ear, with total abandonment to the seductions of his whispers, and the lord let fly a peal of laughter. It had been a supper of copious wine, and the songs which rise from wine. Nature was excused ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... 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 ...
— Horace • Theodore Martin
... isolated circumstance. Pierre was torturing him with his accounts of daily rendezvous: if but for a moment, they were seeing each other every day, sometimes twice a day. And Virginie could speak to this man, though to himself she was coy and reserved as hardly to utter a sentence. Pierre caught these broken words while his cousin's complexion grew more and more livid, and then purple, as if some great effect were produced on his circulation ...
— My Lady Ludlow • Elizabeth Gaskell
... reasonable and moderate conversation with that coy bucket I left my friend, and continued on my way with my basket, under Miss Pray's commission to purchase "dangle-berries" at the ...
— Vesty of the Basins • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... as she'd got to them lines that the Boss began taking a good look at her. I saw him gazin' into her eyes like he'd taken out a search warrant. Don't know as I could blame him much, either. She was a top liner. Wasn't anything coy or kittenish about her. She stood up and gave him as good as he sent. Next I see him make the only fool play but one that I ever knew the ...
— Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford
... deliciously fragrant. In the swampy hollows were yellow marsh marigolds and blue forget-me-nots; on the drier soil of the rising bank the wild hyacinths were just shaking open their bells, and heartsease here and there lifted coy heads to ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil
... Nugent's journal or "Jamaica in 1801." I am persuaded that she must have been a most delightful little creature. She was very tiny, as she tells us herself, and had brown curly hair. She was a little coy about her age, which she confided to no one; by her own directions, it was omitted even from her tombstone, but from internal evidence we know that when her husband, Sir George Nugent, was appointed Governor of Jamaica on April 1, 1801 (how ...
— Here, There And Everywhere • Lord Frederic Hamilton
... insolent Betty Barnes has just now fired me anew, by reporting to me the following expressions of the hideous creature, Solmes—'That he is sure of the coy girl; and that with little labour to himself. That be I ever so averse to him beforehand, he can depend upon my principles; and it will be a pleasure to him to see by what pretty degrees I shall come ...
— Clarissa, Volume 1 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... 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 backward, ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... oft Meet a guerdon, coy and soft, And timid lovers sometimes find Reward both merciful and kind: Yet to the lips prefer the feet Seems to my mind ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... attunes my soul to song, awaking any muse from the silence in which she has long slumbered. But the voice of the coy maiden is less melodious than of yore: she shies me for my neglect: and despite the gentlest courting, refusing to breathe her divine spirit over a scene worthy of a sweeter strain. And this scene lay not upon the classic shores of the Hellespont—not ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... in a hurry," said Bonteen. "I'll bet you a sovereign Finn votes with us yet. There's nothing like being a little coy to set off a girl's charms. I'll bet you a sovereign, Ratler, that Finn goes out into the lobby with you and me against ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... into a fervent description of many meetings with his coy subjects, and the tricks he was compelled to resort to in order to let them understand ...
— The Outdoor Chums at Cabin Point - or The Golden Cup Mystery • Quincy Allen
... long since been lost to the man's, as with bent head she listened intently, for the first time amazed at what she had been to a man whose ideals were of the highest and his ways beyond reproach. A coy upward lift of the proudly carried head—a mere glance of transient reply—too brief for the man to read—might have meant, "Have not I too been careful ...
— Westways • S. Weir Mitchell
... fire always burned there on cool evenings, and moreover, he escaped the ragtime that nightly filled the community room where the piano was, the interminable arguments anent the European war, and the coy ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer
... 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 huge ...
— Mr. Wicker's Window • Carley Dawson
... bent me down. To you, Paolo, I could look, however, Were my hump made a mountain. Bless him, God! Pour everlasting bounties on his head! Make Croesus jealous of his treasury, Achilles of his arms, Endymion Of his fresh beauties,—though the coy one lay, Blushing beneath Diana's earliest kiss, On grassy Latmos; and may every good, Beyond man's sight, though in the ken of heaven, Round his fair fortune to a perfect end! O, you have dried the sorrow of my eyes; My heart is beating with a lighter ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: Francesca da Rimini • George Henry Boker
... 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 the memorialists renounce ...
— Lectures and Essays • Thomas Henry Huxley
... seems to have had an ingenious and enterprising mind. At a General Court held at Boston, Sept. 6, 1638, it was voted that, "Whereas Emanuel Downing, Esq., hath brought over, at his great charges, all things fitting for taking wild fowl by way of duck-coy, this court, being desirous to encourage him and others in such designs as tend to the public good," &c., orders that liberty shall be given him to set up his duck-coy within the limits of Salem; and all persons are forbidden to ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... [Footnote 8: Coy as was the Brahman in the adoption of the new gods he was wise enough to give them some place in his pantheon, or he would have offended his laity. Thus he recognizes K[a]l[i] as well as Cr[i]; in fact he prefers to recognize the female divinities ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins
... ecstasy that 'tis the most 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 old English Merchant ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 3 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... usage in her, grew very distastefull to Anastasio, and so unsufferable, that after a long time of fruitlesse service, requited still with nothing but coy disdaine; desperate resolutions entred into his brain, and often he was minded to kill himselfe. But better thoughts supplanting those furious passions, he abstained from any such violent act; and governed ...
— Ravenna, A Study • Edward Hutton
... anything which is necessary to the health and well-being of any other group, is bound to be pursued, wooed, bribed, paid. The monopolistic class, or sex, in turn, learns to withhold, to barter, to become "uncertain, coy and hard to please," to enhance and raise the price of her commodity, even though the economic basis of the transaction be utterly concealed or disguised. All this is exactly as natural and inevitable as a group of wage ...
— Women As Sex Vendors - or, Why Women Are Conservative (Being a View of the Economic - Status of Woman) • R. B. Tobias
... though Belimperia seem thus coy Let reason hold you in your wonted joy; In time the savage Bull sustains the yoke, In time all Haggard Hawkes will stoop to lure, In time small wedges cleave the hardest Oake, In time the flint is pearst with softest shower, And she in time will fall from her disdain, ...
— John Lyly • John Dover Wilson
... never could she be alone. Was she insensible to this presence? It seemed to me impossible: I could not realize such deadness. I imagined her grateful in secret, loving now with reserve; but purposing one day to show how much she loved: I pictured her faithful hero half conscious of her coy fondness, and comforted by that consciousness: I conceived an electric chord of sympathy between them, a fine chain of mutual understanding, sustaining union through a separation of a hundred leagues—carrying, across mound and hollow, communication by prayer and wish. Ginevra gradually became ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... tenant in the chicken-coop, once a gay and dapper young cock, bearing him so bravely among the coy hens. ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... for his master. He was among the fleetest, and after some coy dallying he stood still until the athletic Sioux came beside him. He vaulted upon his back, and then accepted the seeming ...
— The Young Ranchers - or Fighting the Sioux • Edward S. Ellis
... the world! Their ears To one demand alone are coy; They will not give us love and tears, They bring us light and warmth ...
— Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... Love. 20 In tender accents, faint and low, Well-pleas'd I hear the whisper'd 'No!' The whispered 'No'—how little meant! Sweet Falsehood that endears Consent! For on those lovely lips the while 25 Dawns the soft relenting smile, And tempts with feign'd dissuasion coy The ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... How enchantingly coy the dear girl had been yesterday! Taking down a Continental Bradshaw from one of the bookshelves, he looked up the route to Milan. She had chosen Rome, Naples and Capri for the honeymoon, and of course she should have her own way! Unable to control his impatience ...
— Enter Bridget • Thomas Cobb
... Rosamond was in a tower Kept, as 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, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 387, August 28, 1829 • Various
... should the campus be your joy, And whispered loves your lips employ, What time the twilight shadows gather, And tryst you keep with the maiden coy. ...
— Horace and His Influence • Grant Showerman
... prisoner there he kept her, In his hands her life did lie; Cupid's bands did tie them faster By the liking of an eye. In his courteous company was all her joy, To favour him in anything she was not coy. ...
— A Bundle of Ballads • Various
... have meddled in the concerns of men, prying into their plans, and arresting their execution. By my soul, I had not thought you so ready or so apt; but how do you reconcile it to your notions of propriety to be abroad at an hour which is something late for a coy damsel? Munro, you must look to these rare doings, or they will work you some difficulty ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... clasping her hands, and looking solemnly up to heaven. "If, in my eager acquiescence, I seem unmaidenly, forgive me; but I dare not be coy, Eugene; we have no time for conventional reserve, and I must act as becomes a brave and trusting woman, for every moment is fraught with danger. I am surrounded by spies, even of my own household, and, until I hear the blessing of the priest, I ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... Columbine disappears, the jest is frozen on the Clown's lips, and the hand of the filching Pantaloon is arrested in the act. Wherever death looks, there is silence and trembling. But although on every man he will one day or another look, he is coy of revealing himself till the appointed time. He makes his approaches like an Indian warrior, under covers and ambushes. We have our parts to play, and he remains hooded till they are played out. We are agitated by our passions, we busily pursue our ambitions, we are acquiring money ...
— Dreamthorp - A Book of Essays Written in the Country • Alexander Smith
... for no other figure could be mistaken for hers. By all the gods ever worshipped here, she is the loveliest woman I ever saw, but as coy as a maid of fifteen. The fact that she secludes herself so rigidly only stimulates curiosity, and I have sworn a solemn oath to make her acquaintance; for it is something novel in my experience to have my overtures rejected, ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... to that which shelters thee! Oh, could mine but acquire that livery Of countless charms thy mind and body show so! Or him, now famous grown—thou mad'st him grow so— Thy knight, in some dread combat could I see! Oh, could I be released from Amadis By exercise of such coy chastity As led thee gentle Quixote to dismiss! Then would my heavy sorrow turn to joy; None would I envy, all would envy me, And happiness be ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... master a few pieces that they can render without the notes. This relieves one of that time-worn excuse—"I haven't my notes." This is also the case with those who sing. By ceasing to urge performers, the company will be freed from much of that repeated, coy refusal that only needs ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke
... paroxysms of anger. Still he kept on working. Then all of a sudden the transplendent sun sailed from its clouds and poured upon him its genial beams. He had at last found the golden Chersonese. His pockets, so long cobwebbed, now bulged with money. Publishers, who had been coy, now fought for him. All the world—or nearly all—sang his praises. [502] Lastly came the K.C.M.G., an honour that was conferred upon him owing in large measure to the noble persistency of the Standard newspaper, which in season and out ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... "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
... 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 desire. The beauteous nymph who feeds my soul with ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... Doc Bennet! I tried all afternoon yesterday to locate the lithersome Clip. Took a coy little jaunt of two miles afoot - some one said she had a friend out Bentley way, but I did not locate her. Hope Doc has ...
— The Motor Girls on a Tour • Margaret Penrose
... came to 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
... many cares and 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
... O brown-eyed girl! Gathering violets near the woods, Whose coy young petals half unfurl The ...
— Along the Shore • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... was witty; and as her person was not very likely to attract many admirers, which, however, she was resolved to have, she was far from being coy when an occasion offered: she did not so much as make any terms: she was violent in her resentments, as well as in her attachments, which had exposed her to some inconveniences; and she had very indiscreetly quarrelled with a young girl whom ...
— The Memoirs of Count Grammont, Complete • Anthony Hamilton
... The coy and gentle being had from the first day so fully resigned herself never to step beyond the enchanted sphere where she found all her happiness, that, after six years of the tenderest intimacy, she still knew her lover only by the name of Roger. A print of the picture of the Psyche ...
— A Second Home • Honore de Balzac
... for an Edifice 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 ...
— Broad Grins • George Colman, the Younger
... she was coy, and would not believe That he did love her so; No, nor at any time would she ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... half of the 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 from side ...
— Space Platform • Murray Leinster
... "The muses are coy, and will only be wooed and won by some highly-favored suitors. The sciences are lofty, and will not stoop to the reach of ordinary capacities. But 'wisdom (by which the royal preacher means piety) is a loving spirit; she is easily seen of them that love her, and found ...
— Golden Steps to Respectability, Usefulness and Happiness • John Mather Austin
... Lucy Lee is on Madison Avenue she insists on her coming right out with us. So I get my orders to round up Lucy Lee when I'm through at the office and tow her out home. Hence this openin' scene in the taxi where I finds myself being sized up coy and curious. ...
— Torchy and Vee • Sewell Ford
... quality was too hard for use, was for ever standing in admiration of its beauty and whiteness, as a member or two since expelled had been pleased to call it, and was as scrupulous of having it called in question as a coy damsel. I who had virtues, was cast out because the color of it, as seen through the spectacles of my enemies, was not as white as alabaster. Ah, I have wiped the sweat from my fevered brow, and thought what a wrong-headed world we had-many a time! Every ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... such a woman when yo'd come to be one as my een had never looked 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 ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. II • Elizabeth Gaskell
... fear; terrorize, intimidate, cow, daunt, overawe, abash, 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^. 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 ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... addressed to a class we never met - readers of Cassell's series and that class of conscientious chaff, and my tale was dull, though I don't recall that it was conscientious. Only, there's the house at Murrayfield and a dead body in it. Glad the BALLADS amused you. They failed to entertain a coy public, at which I wondered, not that I set much account by my verses, which are the verses of Prosator; but I do know how to tell a yarn, and two of the yarns are great. RAHERO is for its length a perfect folk-tale: savage and yet fine, full of tailforemost morality, ancient as ...
— Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 2 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... huntress Diana—at one time haughty, rapid, imperious, with eyes and arrows that dart and kill. Harry watched and wondered at this young creature, and likened her in his mind to Artemis with the ringing bow and shafts flashing death upon the children of Niobe; at another time she was coy and melting as Luna shining tenderly upon Endymion. This fair creature, this lustrous Phoebe, was only young as yet, nor had nearly reached her full splendor: but crescent and brilliant, our young gentleman ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... Laura, a Lady bred at Court, and Yet want complaisance enough to entertain A Gallant in private! this coy Humour Is not a-la-mode.—Be not so peevish with a Heart that ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume IV. • Aphra Behn
... 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 of youth and her cheeks bore the bloom of the peach. ...
— Her Weight in Gold • George Barr McCutcheon
... Figure of Twinnes.] Ye haue yet another manner of speach when ye will seeme to make two of one, not thereunto constrained, which therefore we call the figure of Twynnes, the Greekes Endiadis thus. Not you coy dame your lowrs ...
— The Arte of English Poesie • George Puttenham
... go: you heare what he hath said Which was sometime his Generall: who loued him In a most deere particular. He call'd me Father: But what o'that? Go you that banish'd him A Mile before his Tent, fall downe, and knee The way into his mercy: Nay, if he coy'd To heare Cominius speake, Ile keepe ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... it the previous day, so turning two or three corners, I came to the front gate. From the gate to the entrance the walk was paved with granite. When I had passed to the entrance in the rikisha, this walk made so outlandishly a loud noise that I had felt coy. On my way to the school, I met a number of the students in uniforms of cotton drill and they all entered this gate. Some of them were taller than I and looked much stronger. When I thought of teaching fellows of this ilk, I was impressed with a queer sort of uneasiness. My card was taken ...
— Botchan (Master Darling) • Mr. Kin-nosuke Natsume, trans. by Yasotaro Morri
... and when we appeared on the scene I fancy, from all I could gather, that though there were still many obstacles in his path, success was by no means out of his reach. But now all this had changed; the coy Nyleptha smiled no more in his direction, and he was not slow to guess the cause. Infuriated and alarmed, he turned his attention to Sorais, only to find that he might as well try to woo a mountain side. With a bitter jest or two about his fickleness, ...
— Allan Quatermain • by H. Rider Haggard
... cataracts of melody, pitched in a higher key, yet not unlike Niagara. You hear the cardinal's rich flute-like song of "What, what cheer!" ringing from a wild grapevine. Again he seems to say "Come, come here!" Whether it be an invitation to all mankind or just a message to his coy mate you know he learned it from the same teacher as Niagara, and their voices are alike full of rarest melody. The leisurely golden chant of the wood thrush, where the misty spray and cool shadows enfold you, seems like a spirit voice speaking audibly ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand
... man to attack by telling him he is powerful,—the drooping lashes that hint, "Ah, do not take advantage of this situation, or the consequences may be terrible, and will certainly be delicious,"—the delicate and shy, yet lingering touch,—the twenty stitches where nine would be plenty,—the one coy, but tender glance at parting,—all this soft witchcraft beset Griffith Gaunt, and told on him; but not as yet in the way ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... you preach last Sunday," she said, glowing with interest. He began to look coy. Then her voice changed to something colder than the wind. "The most lamentable sairmon I ever listened to. Neither lairning nor inspiration. And a ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... in prison, as you have heard, and Nicolette remained shut up in her chamber. It was summer-time, in the month of May, when the days are warm and long and clear, and the nights coy and serene. ...
— The Renaissance - Studies in Art and Poetry • Walter Pater
... 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
... whose skill in the chase procured them, but in vain did they look for the bowl of succatash or embroidered moccasins—the products of woman's labor—in token that their gifts were pleasing to the coy beauty. In vain, when the shades of evening fell, the softly breathed flute lamented in melancholy tones her cruelty. In vain, with tasteful hand, the sighing lover painted his face and person to ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... enough to think of that," answered Donna Tullia, with a blush that might have passed for the result of a coy shyness, but which was in reality caused by a certain annoyance ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford
... coming, apt, yielding, and willing to embrace, to take a green gown, with that shepherdess in Theocritus, Edyl. 27. to let their coats, &c., to play and dally, at such seasons, and to some, as they spy their advantage; and then coy, close again, so nice, so surly, so demure, you had much better tame a colt, catch or ride a wild horse, than get her favour, or win her love, not a look, not a smile, not a kiss for a kingdom. [5125]Aretine's Lucretia was an excellent artisan ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... 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 ...
— South American Geology - also: - Title: Geological Observations On South America • Charles Darwin
... generalizations. The phrase was hers, and he rolled it over a couple of times. Then, again, her engagement with St. Vincent crept into his thought, and he charmed the Virgin by asking her to sing. But she was coy, and only after Bishop had rendered the several score stanzas of "Flying Cloud" did she comply. Her voice, in a weakly way, probably registered an octave and a half; below that point it underwent strange metamorphoses, while on the upper levels ...
— A Daughter of the Snows • Jack London
... the wireless installation; food experiences; "bus driver"; the air-tractor sledge; the Western sledging expedition; on tent pitching; his birthday; the relief party; winter work at the hut; wireless work; dredge constructed by; the home journey; account of Biology, work of the expedition Bird & Coy, Messrs. Birds, Antarctic, weight in relation to wing areas Birthday Camp Biscoe Island ........John, work Bishop and Clerk, islet Black Sunday Blair, J. H., Chief Officer on the 'Aurora' Blake, Cape ...... L R., work on Macquarie Island; ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... 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 ...
— The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile • Sir Samuel White Baker
... your portrait shall figure in one of those oval frames ere long. I think I'll have you painted as chaste Diana, descended from the sky, despite her coldness, to lavish sweet kisses on Endymion. You shall take your place among those other goddesses, who were as coy and hard to please at first as yourself, and who are far greater ladies, my dear, than you ever will be. Your fall is at hand, and you must learn, as your betters have done before you, that there's no withstanding ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... Bright-eyed grisettes flung coy looks at the young artist as he strode along, admiring his well-knit figure, his handsome boyish features chiseled as finely as a cameo, the crisp brown hair with a slight tendency to curl, his velvet jacket and flowing tie. Jack nodded ...
— In Friendship's Guise • Wm. Murray Graydon
... far she was, so full of grace, So innocent with coy caresses, So proud to step at my own pace, So rosy through her golden ...
— Fringilla: Some Tales In Verse • Richard Doddridge Blackmore
... spontaneous. He knew that he was personally responsible for the present enforcement; he believed that because of it, Henry Devereux didn't have a Chinaman's chance; he knew that if Mirabelle got her legacy, she would have Mr. Mix to thank for it. But Henry was too cheerful, and Mirabelle was too coy, and ...
— Rope • Holworthy Hall
... And then this coy young lady's very power of resistance began to give way. She had now battled for months against her own heart: first for her mother; then, in a far more terrible conflict for Raynal, for honor and purity; and ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade
... tremble into tears, eternal truths, draped in the garb of quaint and simple story, solemn fervors, subtile sympathies, and the winsomeness of little children at their play,—sometimes glowing with the deepest color, often just tinged to the pale and changing hues of a dream, but touched with such coy grace, modulated to such free, wild rhythm, suffused with such a delicate, evanishing loveliness, that they seem scarcely to be the songs of our tangible earth, but snatches from fairy-land. Often rude in form, often defective ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 78, April, 1864 • Various
... 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 ...
— Creatures of the Night - A Book of Wild Life in Western Britain • Alfred W. Rees
... to overwhelm him for a moment. Certainly of late Marjorie had been uncertain, coy, and very hard to please. Marjorie had suffered, and was suffering. She was contrasting Tom with Hugh, and Hugh with Tom, and it made her heart ache and made her angry with herself for her own previous blindness. And, womanlike, ...
— The Imaginary Marriage • Henry St. John Cooper
... "there will be a third attending us when we return, if thou hast been coy with the gentle Seti ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... Isn't it fun to make believe like children? We don't often play, do we Philip? You must take my hand very gently, under the hay," pulling the cushion over her wrist. "I draw it away, you see, rather shyly, looking deliciously coy, and say: ...
— When the Birds Begin to Sing • Winifred Graham
... south of the Mackenzie delta the Eskimo tell of a Supreme Goddess, Nuliayok, who was once a coy maiden and refused to marry a mortal. Wooed by a gull, she accompanied the bird to an inland home, to find instead of her dreams of delight a nest of sticks and rotten fish on a high-hung ledge. Jostled by the other fulmars, or gulls, who tried to push her off the rocks, she sent ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron
... illusions live anew To stay the soul with coy caresses; But he who only loves the True Slays them again, ...
— AE in the Irish Theosophist • George William Russell
... 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 ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... in our hours of ease, Uncertain, coy, and hard to please, And variable as the shade By the light thingummy aspen made. When pain and anguish wring the brow, She nothing ...
— Etheldreda the Ready - A School Story • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... she broke her neck down stairs at a christening. To be sure I shall never meet with her fellow! But never you mind that; I do not doubt that I shall find more in you upon further acquaintance. As coy and bashful as you seem, I dare say you are rogue enough at bottom. When I have touzled and rumpled you a little, we shall see. I am no chicken, miss, whatever you may think. I know what is what, and can see as far into a millstone as another. Ay, ay; you will come to. The fish will snap at the ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... 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, large ears, ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe
... 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 I answered naught, he went ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... 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 with the yellow spots at ...
— The Hill of Dreams • Arthur Machen
... 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
... as are Marvell's 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
... now each passing moment give To the coy muse, with me she would not live In this dark city, nor would condescend 'Mid contradictions her delights to lend. Should e'er the fine-eyed maid to me be kind, Ah! surely it must be whene'er I find Some flowery spot, sequester'd, wild, romantic, That often must have ...
— Poems 1817 • John Keats
... 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 ...
— Master Humphrey's Clock • Charles Dickens
... kin. At last, she instinctively felt that the burning gaze of a lover was bent upon her face, and, looking up, she saw only the sun in the sky, shining as though myriads needed his light. 'Alas!' she sighed, 'He is as lonely as I, and he shall be my lover;' but the sun was coy and timid. He gazed proudly at her from a great distance, and veiled himself behind a cloud when she would see him, that his brightness might not harm her; but he never came nigh. At last, when she was worn out ...
— The Witch of Salem - or Credulity Run Mad • John R. Musick
... first sweet warning Of daylight come, is the cheerful song To the hum of the wheel, in the early morning. Benjie, the gentle, red-cheeked boy, On his way to school, peeps in at the gate; In neat, white pinafore, pleased and coy, She reaches a hand to ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... the trap kind, there is, perhaps, no one more novel and comical than the "Fool's Cap" crow-trap, which forms the subject of our present illustration. Crows are by no means easy of capture in any form of trap, and they are generally as coy and as shrewd in their approach to a trap as they are bold in their familiarity and disrespect for the sombre scarecrows in the com field. But this simple device will often mislead the smartest and shrewdest crow, and make a perfect fool of him, ...
— Camp Life in the Woods and the Tricks of Trapping and Trap Making • William Hamilton Gibson
... Cease your Folly, Learn to ease me, No more teaze me. Love's but Reason When in Season: Nay, 'tis Duty, Youth and Beauty To improve In happy Love. Therefore, Molly, Cease your Folly, And instead of being coy, Give, O give your ...
— The Merry-Thought: or the Glass-Window and Bog-House Miscellany - Parts 2, 3 and 4 • Hurlo Thrumbo (pseudonym)
... 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
... 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 ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume 2 • Ian Hamilton
... guests were 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 ...
— The Readjustment • Will Irwin
... 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
... pretty interesting soft maiden. The other, however, had attractions of a very different class: fine-featured, dark-eyed, coal-black-haired and tall; as she stood—her right hand holding the rude torch over her head, while the left gathered the folds of a long cloak under her bosom, with her eyes of coy expectation and merry amazement—she seemed more the ideal of a robber's daughter in some old romance, than a menial in a moorland farm-house. I attempted to salute her, but she held me at bay with her hand. "Hech, lad! ye're no blate—is it knievin' troots[A] ...
— Tales from Blackwood, Volume 7 • Various
... sure, I gathered." He bowed gallantly to Dorothea. "'O woman! in our hours of ease, Uncertain, coy, and hard to please'—not, of course, that I attribute any such foibles to Miss Westcote, but for the sake ...
— The Westcotes • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... 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 ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... Home (for such the Cricket was) came out, in fairy shape, into the room, and summoned many forms of Home about him. Dots of all ages, and all sizes, filled the chamber. Dots who were merry children, running on before him gathering flowers, in the fields; coy Dots, half shrinking from, half yielding to, the pleading of his own rough image; newly-married Dots, alighting at the door, and taking wondering possession of the household keys; motherly little Dots, attended by fictitious Slowboys, bearing babies to be christened; matronly Dots, still young ...
— The Cricket on the Hearth • Charles Dickens
... frames ere long. I think I'll have you painted as chaste Diana, descended from the sky, despite her coldness, to lavish sweet kisses on Endymion. You shall take your place among those other goddesses, who were as coy and hard to please at first as yourself, and who are far greater ladies, my dear, than you ever will be. Your fall is at hand, and you must learn, as your betters have done before you, that there's no withstanding the will ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... 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 ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. III • Various
... to the spring house to write a poem on her beauty, which he later read to her in German through a kitchen window that was raised. The window was screened; so he read it all. Later he gets Sandy Sawtelle to tell her this poem is all about how coy she is. Every once in a while you could get an idea partway over on Herman. He was almost certain ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson
... unexplained, Woke in her what she oft had feigned. And when his arm stole near her waist, As startled maidens blush with chaste Sweet fear at love's advances, so She blushed from brow to breast of snow. Strange, new emotions, fraught with joy And pain commingled, made her coy; But when he would have clasped her neck With gems that might a queen bedeck And offered gold, her lips grew white With sudden anger at the sight Of what had been her god for years. She flung them from her. Then such tears As only spring from love's despair Welled from ...
— Poems of Sentiment • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... 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
... day, so turning two or three corners, I came to the front gate. From the gate to the entrance the walk was paved with granite. When I had passed to the entrance in the rikisha, this walk made so outlandishly a loud noise that I had felt coy. On my way to the school, I met a number of the students in uniforms of cotton drill and they all entered this gate. Some of them were taller than I and looked much stronger. When I thought of teaching fellows of this ilk, I was impressed with a queer sort of uneasiness. My card was taken to ...
— Botchan (Master Darling) • Mr. Kin-nosuke Natsume, trans. by Yasotaro Morri
... about God, when they can talk about each other. I think Herbert Courtland is about the healthiest man I know, and I'm sure that you are the healthiest girl. You and he are most sympathetic companions. You are not at all stupidly coy, my sweet maiden." ...
— Phyllis of Philistia • Frank Frankfort Moore
... name usually given her) could scarcely be called an impostor, for she appeared to have sincere faith in her profession. Often she exclaimed with solemn fervency, "The gift I hae is fae aboon, an' what He gies daurna be hidit." It was common for coy damsels and staid matrons to wend their way to Lizzie's cot about twilight, to have their fortunes spaed. About ten years before her death, when the prospects of the herring fishing were discouraging ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... 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 ...
— Tales of Trail and Town • Bret Harte
... clock You reckon by, with shadowy hands, Lay benediction on the lands And landsmen, and the eve-jar's croak Summon ye, lightfoot fairy folk, To your activity full tide Over the empty earth and wide. Here be your food, fair nymph, and coy Of mortal ken—remember'd joy! ...
— Helen Redeemed and Other Poems • Maurice Hewlett
... having 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 will be ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... cannibalistic tendencies were greatly and visibly increased. Louise was no coy and coquettish damsel without a thorough knowledge of her own heart. Having made up her mind that Lawford was the mate for her, and being confident that her father would approve of any choice she made, she was willing to let the young man ...
— Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper • James A. Cooper
... Our sister love so true and deep From many an eye unused to weep Hath oft beguiled The coy reluctant tear! ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... given to understand, sir, that in these 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, from discussion of international ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various
... for Arthur to love the gentle little girl who smoothed his pillows so tenderly and whose fingers threaded so lovingly the damp, brown locks when she thought he, Thornton, was not looking on. She was very coy of him and very distant towards him, too, for she had not forgotten his sin, and she treated him at first with a reserve for which he could not account. But, as the days went on, and Arthur grew so sick that his parishioners began to ...
— The Rector of St. Mark's • Mary J. Holmes
... 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 or something dreadful and never keeps them in the ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... realms of fairyland and 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. ...
— The Grand Canyon of Arizona: How to See It, • George Wharton James
... in a hermitage are naturally shy and reserved; but for all that, She did look towards me, though she quick withdrew Her stealthy glances when she met my gaze; She smiled upon me sweetly, but disguised With maiden grace the secret of her smiles. Coy love was half unveiled; then, sudden checked By modesty, left half to ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... Chattanooga who was not lynched in May only because the prominent citizens became his body guard until the doors of the penitentiary closed on him, had letters in his pocket from the white woman in the case, making the appointment with him. Edward Coy who was burned alive in Texarkana, January 1, 1892, died protesting his innocence. Investigation since as given by the Bystander in the Chicago Inter Ocean, ...
— Southern Horrors - Lynch Law in All Its Phases • Ida B. Wells-Barnett
... nectar from a pair of rose-red lips—thou shalt not guess the riddle of the stars till thou hast gazed deep down into the fathomless glory of a maiden's eyes—thou canst not know delight till thou hast clasped eager arms round a coy waist and heard the beating of a passionate heart against thine own! A truce to thy musty volumes! Believe it, those ancient and sorrowful philosophers had no manhood in them—their blood was water—and their slanders against women were but the pettish utterances of their own deserved ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... dreaming "of a wild young falcon that she trained for many a day, till two fierce eagles tore it." And she rushes to her mother Ute, that she may read the dream for her; and her mother tells her what it means. And then the coy maiden answers:— ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... 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 ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... elbow, you remember I caught it on a nail by the gate. Isn't it fun to make believe like children? We don't often play, do we Philip? You must take my hand very gently, under the hay," pulling the cushion over her wrist. "I draw it away, you see, rather shyly, looking deliciously coy, and say: 'Oh! you mustn't, ...
— When the Birds Begin to Sing • Winifred Graham
... the opposite sex, followed by efforts to attract that one's attention by "display" (strutting, decoration of the person, demonstrating one's prowess, especially in opposition to rivals). Then the male takes an aggressive attitude, the {148} female a coy attitude; the male woos, the female hangs back, and something analogous to pursuit and capture takes place, except that the capture may be heartily accepted by ...
— Psychology - A Study Of Mental Life • Robert S. Woodworth
... exceedingly, and departed staggering under the weight. I gave them a good start, and then made the best of my way home; and all that night Duke Town howled, and sang, and thumped its tom-toms unceasingly; for I was told Egbo had come into the town. Egbo is very coy, even for a secret society spirit, and seems to loathe publicity; but when he is ensconced in this ark he utters sententious observations on the subject of current politics, and his word is law. The voice that comes out of the ark is very strange, and unlike a human voice. I heard it ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... odor, but not in scent. My second is in strike, but not in dent. My third is in man, but not in boy. My fourth is in modest, but not in coy. My fifth is in cover, but not in lid. My sixth is in done, but not in did. My seventh is in sound, but not in ring. My whole is a ...
— Harper's Young People, July 13, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... on de Lipscomb place. Dey's seven of us chillen, my mamma, three uncle and three aunt and one man what wasn't no kin to us. I was oldest of de chillen, and dey called Sallie and Carrie and Alice and Jabus and Coy and LaFate and Rufus ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves. - Texas Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... 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
... waist round as a 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 ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 1 • Honore de Balzac
... Beatrix effusively, and cast a coy glance at Lorimer while she murmured a few words of congratulation. Then she fell a victim to one of Bobby's quibbles, and while she was struggling to see the point of his joke, the ...
— The Dominant Strain • Anna Chapin Ray
... off for a drive—she, looking about and noticing fine clothing, the young men voicing those silly pleasantries and weak quips which pass for humour in coy circles. Carrie saw the great park parade of carriages, beginning at the Fifty-ninth Street entrance and winding past the Museum of Art to the exit at One Hundred and Tenth Street and Seventh Avenue. Her eye was once more taken by the ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser
... I was never claw'd away with Broad-Sides from any Female before, thou hast one Virtue I adore, good-Nature; I hate a coy demure Mistress, she's as troublesome as a Colt, I'll break none; no, give me a mad Mistress when mew'd, and in flying on[e] I dare trust upon the Wing, that whilst she's kind will come ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn
... all too coy For Harpalus to win; For Corin was her only joy, Who forced[2] her not ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... 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
... shine upon the world! Their ears To one demand alone are coy; They will not give us love and tears, They bring us light and warmth ...
— Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... cold and biting winds had gradually been left behind, and Nature, coy and uncertain at first, had, with the advance into the South, grown bolder. They had come from the land of bleakness and barrenness—from the place of leafless trees—into the region of Summer, almost in a day and night. They had ...
— The Outdoor Girls in Florida - Or, Wintering in the Sunny South • Laura Lee Hope
... gods can but destroy. The noblest way to fly is that death shows; I'll court her now, since victory's grown coy. ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. II • Edited by Walter Scott
... animals, however, 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 ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... well-remembered room with its mellow radiance—see her, in her fresh young beauty, seated at the old instrument, the moonlight falling on her bright hair; the sweet eyes averted from my too admiring gaze, veiled beneath the drooping lashes, cast down with a coy pretence of studying the ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No 3, September 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... i.e. "Eros, the Lord of Passion, must lend his hand." "But," he proceeds, "the god is coy; he has little liking for the breasts of kings. He is more likely to be found in the cottage of the peasant than the ...
— Hiero • Xenophon
... good morning, for it was close upon one o'clock; but she frowned at me, and pushed me aside with a 'Go to your bed, troublesome imp! What business have you up at this hour?' 'As much business as you have riding about in your coach,' I had a mind to say, mais je me tenais coy; and made her ladyship la belle Jennings' curtsy instead. She sinks lower and rises straighter than any of the other ladies. I watched her on mother's visiting-day. Lord, auntie, how white you are! One might take ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... part of Jefferson county I built a chimney for a man named —— M'Coy; he had forty-seven laboring hands. Near where I was at work, M'Coy had ordered one of his slaves to set a post for a gate. When he came to look at it, he said the slave had not set it in the right place; and ordered him to strip, and lie ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... high-priest of all the virtues would not suit in the presence of one whose favourite task it was to laugh his so-called virtues to scorn. Such, at least to begin with, was his honourable intention. But the subtle Wratislaw drew him from his retirement and skilfully elicited his coy principles. It was a cruel performance—a shameless one, had there been any spectator. The one would lay down a fine generous line of policy; the other would beg for a fact in confirmation. The one would haltingly detail some facts; the ...
— The Half-Hearted • John Buchan
... precluded his flow of colloquial eloquence, it did not impede, or at all lessen, the force of that conciser quality, wit. Of satiric wit he possessed a very peculiar species. It was neither the dead-doing broadside of Dr. Johnson's satire, nor the aurora borealis of Gray ... whose arch yet coy and quiet fastidiousness of taste and feeling, as recorded by Mason, glanced bright and cold through his conversation, while it seemed difficult to define its nature; and while its effects were rather perceived ...
— Evolution, Old & New - Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, - as compared with that of Charles Darwin • Samuel Butler
... clothing they, especially the younger ones, exhibited by their attitude a keen sense of modesty, if, indeed, a consciousness of their nakedness can be thus considered. When we desired to take a photograph of a group of young women, they were very coy at the proposal to remove their scanty garments, and retired behind a wall to do so; but once in a state of nudity they made no objection to exposure to the camera." (Report of the Horn Scientific Expedition, 1896, vol. ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... a street turned off from the road, and saying in a low tone, "This way," she led Diodoros, to his surprise, into the shadow. His heart beat high. Did she, whose coy and maidenly austerity before and after the intoxication of the dance had vouchsafed him hardly a kind look or a clasp of the hand-did she even yearn for some tender embrace alone and in darkness? Did the quiet, modest girl, who, since she had ceased to be a child, had but rarely ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... 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
... already mentioned Lady Nugent's journal or "Jamaica in 1801." I am persuaded that she must have been a most delightful little creature. She was very tiny, as she tells us herself, and had brown curly hair. She was a little coy about her age, which she confided to no one; by her own directions, it was omitted even from her tombstone, but from internal evidence we know that when her husband, Sir George Nugent, was appointed Governor of Jamaica ...
— Here, There And Everywhere • Lord Frederic Hamilton
... their lords; The sea o'erfraught would swell, and the unsought diamonds Would so emblaze the forehead of the deep, And so bestud with stars, that they below Would grow inured to light, and come at last To gaze upon the sun with shameless brows. List, lady; be not coy, and be not cozened With that same vaunted name, Virginity. Beauty is Nature's coin; must not be hoarded, But must be current; and the good thereof 740 Consists in mutual and partaken bliss, Unsavoury in the enjoyment of itself. If you let slip time, like a neglected ...
— Milton's Comus • John Milton
... had a candy-pull; there were 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 low intellectual depths; and some of our girls sneak off and get ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... 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, large ears, my ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe
... I see early pricks the tree that will prove a thorn: hath my familiar conversing with you made you coy,[1] or my good looks drawn you to be thus contemptuous? I can quickly remedy such a fault, and I will bend the tree while it is a wand. In faith, sir boy, I have a snaffle for such a headstrong colt. You, sirs, lay hold ...
— Rosalynde - or, Euphues' Golden Legacy • Thomas Lodge
... 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 ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... had none, Nor loose Anacreon E'er taught so bold assuming of the bays When they deserv'd no praise. To rail men into approbation Is new to your's alone: And prospers not: for known, Fame is as coy, as you Can be disdainful; and who dares to prove A rape on ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... upon a lover's interview? Who dares to snatch the first coy love words from a maiden's lips, and give them to a world grown old in love making, and appraising each tender word by its own ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch
... was as gay and attentive as I suppose he was on the journey—this is how they speak of it—and made one or two quite risque jokes down the ear trumpet, and Aunt Maria blushed and looked so coy. Apparently she had had hysterics at Folkestone originally—did you have them when you married, Mamma? I never thought of such a thing when Harry and I—but I did not mean to speak of him again. Aunt Maria wears ...
— Elizabeth Visits America • Elinor Glyn
... proclaimed "the Mighty Pan is dead." How much died with him! false or true—the dream Was beautiful which peopled every stream With more than finny tenants, and adorned The woods and waters with coy nymphs that scorned Pursuing Deities, or in the embrace Of gods brought forth the high heroic race 10 Whose names are on the hills and ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... ever reasonable and moderate conversation with that coy bucket I left my friend, and continued on my way with my basket, under Miss Pray's commission to purchase "dangle-berries" at ...
— Vesty of the Basins • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... Missions propose to print at the Union station, in the Cherokee country west of the Mississippi, books in the languages of the Cherokees, Creeks, Choctaws, and Osages; and the Rev. Mr. M'Coy, under the auspices of the Baptist General Convention, has issued proposals for publishing a semi-monthly periodical at the Shawanee mission, three hundred miles west of St. Louis. Several books have been printed at this press in the languages ...
— Impressions of America - During The Years 1833, 1834, and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Tyrone Power
... the artist voweth lover's vows To Art, in manhood maketh her his spouse. Well if her charms yet hold for him such joy As when he craved some boon and she was coy! ...
— The Poems of William Watson • William Watson
... 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 subject of ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... to be introduced, but he had eyes only for Betsy. She gave him a coy look out of her china-blue eyes. Tilda smiled shyly at Sally. Both of the Johnston girls wore pretty linsey-woolsey dresses under their shawls and neat moccasins on their feet. Sally, looking down at her own soiled dress and bare toes, wished that she could run away and hide. ...
— Abe Lincoln Gets His Chance • Frances Cavanah
... sex! the sex!" said the doctor, with his excellent temper in perfect working order again. "So delightfully impulsive! so charmingly reckless of what they say or how they say it! 'Oh, woman, in our hours of ease, uncertain, coy, and hard to please!' There! there! ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... partaker in their follies. How could I dream that he would have made scruples about a few years' youth or age, when the advantages of the match were so evident? And thou knowest, there would have been no moving yonder coy wench to be so frank as this coming Countess here, who hangs on our arms as dead a weight as a wool pack. I loved the lad too, and would have done him a kindness: to wed him to this old woman was to make his fortune, to unite him to Isabelle were to have brought ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... possessed little but his sword. He was discontented, and although now nearly fifty years of age, he still had ambition. With remembrance of what he had heard the young Indian chief tell Balboa, constantly inciting him to a further grapple with hitherto coy and elusive fortune, he formed a partnership with another poverty-stricken but enterprising veteran named Diego de Almagro, whose parentage was as obscure as Pizarro's—indeed more so, for he is reputed to have been a foundling, ...
— South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... else, for he has very lax morals concerning property, and a great idea that right is established by possession. If he should be caught and put in confinement, he is very ferocious, or dies of ennui; but he is much too coy and clever to be easily entrapped. His cry is a sort of yelp, which, however, he is much too cautious to utter when he ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee
... sick, well, sullen, Merry, coy, over-joy'd, and seem to dye All in one half hour, to make an asse of him: I make no doubt she will be drunk too damnably, And in her drink will fight, then ...
— The False One • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... Changing from grave to gay, so keep the mean, That God or Heroe of the lofty scene, In royal gold and purple seen but late, May ne'er in cots obscure debase his state, Lost in low language; nor in too much care To shun the ground, grasp clouds, and empty air. With an indignant pride, and coy disdain, Stern Tragedy rejects too light a vein: Like a grave Matron, destin'd to advance On solemn festivals to join the dance, Mixt with the shaggy tribe of Satyrs rude, She'll hold a sober mien, and act the prude. Let me not, Pisos, in the Sylvan scene, ...
— The Art Of Poetry An Epistle To The Pisos - Q. Horatii Flacci Epistola Ad Pisones, De Arte Poetica. • Horace
... to be a grand one, by any means. Quite the contrary. The parties principally concerned were modest, retiring, and courted privacy. But the more they courted privacy, the more did that condition—like a coy maiden—fly away from them. ...
— The Young Trawler • R.M. Ballantyne
... the gray arch the soft, dewy blue crept gently, deepening, broadening; below it, the level bars of light struck full on the sullen black of the west, and worked there undaunted, tinging it with crimson and imperial purple. Two or three coy mist-clouds, soon converted to the new allegiance, drifted giddily about, mere flakes of rosy blushes. The victory of the day came slowly, but sure, and then the full morning flushed out, fresh with moisture and light and delicate perfume. The bars of sunlight fell on the lower earth ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 49, November, 1861 • Various
... while the fair beauty was coy, and would give no decisive answer; but at length under the united pressure of her father and lover, a day was named. A day was named, and Mr. Brown's consent to that day was obtained; but this arrangement was not ...
— The Struggles of Brown, Jones, and Robinson - By One of the Firm • Anthony Trollope
... recollect that the woman was so notorious for excessive ill-breeding, that no particular affront was intended, and hoped she would not continue coy, as I long to hear something of this Lioness from ...
— Before and after Waterloo - Letters from Edward Stanley, sometime Bishop of Norwich (1802;1814;1814) • Edward Stanley
... fragrant. In the swampy hollows were yellow marsh marigolds and blue forget-me-nots; on the drier soil of the rising bank the wild hyacinths were just shaking open their bells, and heartsease here and there lifted coy heads to the sunlight. ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil
... 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 ...
— Snow-Bound at Eagle's • 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 Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... 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 ...
— Mr. Wicker's Window • Carley Dawson
... writer with the distinguished subject of his biography. It is a quiet and tranquil picture that he has given us, of a serene and tranquil life. As we have turned it over delightedly, chapter after chapter, and volume upon volume, we have wished at times that the coy biographer had been endowed with a spice of garrulity or of egotism; for, say what we will, these qualities contribute largely to the interest with which we follow the story of a life about whose incidents and development the public has greed ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various
... 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 that 's in ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel , Volume I. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... 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 to their innocent rites and ceremonies. Her taste in tinting, too, ...
— The Library • Andrew Lang
... 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 ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope
... awakes; and tremors play, Coy in her leafy trees, and falt'ring creep Across the daisy lawn and whisper, "Well-a-day," ...
— An Anthology of Australian Verse • Bertram Stevens
... caught of a restless fawn, glancing in the distance across the avenue, as he silently changed the tree under which he slept?—Then the gentle breeze would enter her window, laden with sweet scents of which he had just been rifling the coy flowers beneath, in their dewy repose, tended and petted during the day by her own delicate hand!—Beautiful moon!—cold and chaste in thy skyey palace, studded with brilliant and innumerable gems, and shedding down thy rich and tender radiance upon this lovely seclusion—was there upon ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... just 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 John M. will have relented toward his gifted son-in-law, and all will ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble
... forced to advance—oh no, I can never advance; I shall swoon if he should expect advances. No, I hope Sir Rowland is better bred than to put a lady to the necessity of breaking her forms. I won't be too coy neither—I won't give him despair. But a little disdain is not amiss; ...
— The Way of the World • William Congreve
... 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 ...
— Poems • Marietta Holley
... wear-and-tear on a constitution that is slowly being sapped to its foundations by exposure in the night-air and the dew." "And while you receive no 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 ...
— Pipes O'Pan at Zekesbury • James Whitcomb Riley
... 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 a sacredness ...
— Hatchie, the Guardian Slave; or, The Heiress of Bellevue • Warren T. Ashton
... is said, when she had not seen her Royal lover for some days she even disguised herself as a servant and intercepted him in one of the corridors of the Palace. The coy and cold maiden who had told the King that she "thought nothing" of his advances, had developed into the veriest coquette who ever set her heart on winning a man. Such is the strange waywardness of woman; and by such revolutions she often ...
— Love Romances of the Aristocracy • Thornton Hall
... 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; and attributing ...
— The Yotsuya Kwaidan or O'Iwa Inari - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 1 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... virtue join'd, Spur thee 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
... 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 how ...
— Once to Every Man • Larry Evans
... care?—you who were so coy, and who, when you knew my heart was hungering for you, would ...
— The Birthright • Joseph Hocking
... thyself; my wealth Shall weigh his titles down, and make you equals. Now for the means to assure him thine, observe me; Remember he's a courtier, and a soldier, And not to be trifled with; and therefore, when He comes to woo you, see you do not coy it. This mincing modesty hath spoil'd many a match By a first refusal, ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 4, April 1810 • Various
... the facetious fiddle's repartee: Our home-spun authors must forsake the field, And Shakspeare to the soft Scarletti yield. 10 To your new taste the poet of this day Was by a friend advised to form his play. Had Valentini, musically coy, Shunn'd Phaedra's arms, and scorn'd the proffer'd joy, It had not moved your wonder to have seen An eunuch fly from an enamour'd queen: How would it please, should she in English speak, And could ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... have mingled with 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 heart In ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, February 11, 1914 • Various
... semblance oft Meet a guerdon, coy and soft, And timid lovers sometimes find Reward both merciful and kind: Yet to the lips prefer the feet Seems to ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... assiduously waited upon, or more delicately handled by her tire-women, than the slender whale- boat by her crew. And out of its element, it seems fragile enough to justify the utmost solicitude. For truly, like a fine lady, the fine whale-boat is most delicate when idle, though little coy ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... for no bird could secure a living with three feet of snow on the ground. Nature is very dead, and I understood the glee with which the children used to announce the return of the crows, for these wise birds are the unfailing harbingers of Spring. With us Spring is undecided, fickle, and coy. She is not sure of herself, and after making timid, tentative advances, retreats again, uncertain as to her ability to cope with grim Winter. In Canada, Spring comes with an all-conquering rush. In one short fortnight she clothes the trees in green, and carpets the ground with blue and ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton
... 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 ...
— The Woman Who Dared • Epes Sargent
... it has nothing to do with harvesting nor harrowing," he cried; "I said kirtles, didn't I! And you needn't be so coy about the matter; surely to God you never learned modesty at your trade of sacking ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... pleasant it would prove Her pretty chit-chat to convey, P'rhaps be the record of her love, Told in some coy enchanting way. ...
— Poems • Sir John Carr
... that livery Of countless charms thy mind and body show so! Or him, now famous grown—thou mad'st him grow so— Thy knight, in some dread combat could I see! Oh, could I be released from Amadis By exercise of such coy chastity As led thee gentle Quixote to dismiss! Then would my heavy sorrow turn to joy; None would I envy, all would envy me, And happiness be mine ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... which was bound in a plain knot on the back of her head, was dark—almost black; her eyes were large, grey, lustrous, and on occasion could be proud and angry. Yet with it all she was pretty—pretty, said Drusus to himself, as any girl he had seen in Athens. For there were coy dimples in her delicate little chin, her finely chiselled features were not angular, while her cheeks were aglow with a healthy colour that needed no rouge to heighten. In short, Cornelia, like Drusus, was a Roman; and Drusus saw that she was ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... In love: when scorn is bought with groans; coy looks, With heart-sore sighs; one fading moment's mirth, With ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... perceive we are deluded both. For when I offered many gifts of Gold, And Jewels to entreat for love, She hath refused them with a coy disdain, Alledging that she could not see the Sun. The same conjectured I to be thy drift, That faining so she might be ...
— Fair Em - A Pleasant Commodie Of Faire Em The Millers Daughter Of - Manchester With The Love Of William The Conquerour • William Shakespeare [Apocrypha]
... 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 tea, ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... 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
... a verdurous gorge; and lies pitched so far as the very waterside, a picturesque jumble of wall and roof. Its banked edges bristle and stand up in the bight of a vaster bay, with a crooked breakwater, like a bent finger, beckoning passing sails to its harbourage—an invitation which most are coy of accepting. For the attractions of King's Cobb are—comparatively—limited, and its nearest station is a full six miles ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes
... our minds in proportion to the amount of obstacles which had to be surmounted, difficulty upon difficulty was now conjured up and produced as fast as they thought they were working upon our inclinations. Sometimes our advisers would go, and then the opposite. They were verily as coy in their advancements and retractions as a woman who, in love, gives and takes with a wavering man on whom she has set her heart at a time when he is fearful of giving way ...
— What Led To The Discovery of the Source Of The Nile • John Hanning Speke
... name was Mosca, and his heart bleeding at her feet. Olimpia smiled beautifully upon him, but was careful; took a share of the courser, but gave in return nothing more than a hand on its master's belt. He wanted much more, and showed it. Olimpia, far from coy, hinted an exchange. She needed her bearings; did this apparent hero know Ferrara? The Mosca snorted, threw back his head at the word. Ferrara? cried he, did he know it! Saints and Angels, who could know it better? "Ferrara?" he went on to shout, appealing to gods and men, "the ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... all rose to 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
... thee I owe, More than others here will know; Thou hast cheered my weary days, With thy coy and winsome ways. When my heart has been most sad, Smile of thine has made me glad; In return, I wish for thee, Health and sweet felicity. May thy future days be blest, With all things the world deems best. If perchance the day should come, Thou does leave thy childhood's home; Bound by ...
— Yorkshire Lyrics • John Hartley
... relief, and one young and unorthodox 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 ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... camera advocate into a fervent description of many meetings with his coy subjects, and the tricks he was compelled to resort to in order to let them understand he meant ...
— The Outdoor Chums at Cabin Point - or The Golden Cup Mystery • Quincy Allen
... not convince myself that such was the case, but Wilmur Benton gave me so to understand—said you were a coy damsel but a glorious girl, and would make a splendid wife—'just such as I need,' ...
— The Harvest of Years • Martha Lewis Beckwith Ewell
... bruised, But, as the world, harmoniously confused: Where order in variety we see, And where, though all things differ, all agree. Here waving groves a chequered scene display, And part admit, and part exclude the day; As some coy nymph her lover's warm address Nor quite indulges, ...
— Elementary Guide to Literary Criticism • F. V. N. Painter
... soon as he ventured to hint that his affections were concerned in their acquaintanceship. The anxious mother had to console herself with the fact that her daughter drove away the ineligible as ruthlessly as the eligible, formed no unworldly attachments, was still very young, and would grow less coy as she advanced in years and in what Mrs. ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw
... proceedings of this particular night at the Green Dragon. The pipes charged, and those of the guests who smoked, well fixed behind them, celestial Harmony was invoked through the slowly curling clouds. In Britain the Goddess is coy. She demands pressure to appear, and great gulps of ale. Vastly does she swell the chests of her island children, but with the modesty of a maid at the commencement. Precedence again disturbed the minds of the company. At last the red-faced ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... given way to paroxysms of anger. Still he kept on working. Then all of a sudden the transplendent sun sailed from its clouds and poured upon him its genial beams. He had at last found the golden Chersonese. His pockets, so long cobwebbed, now bulged with money. Publishers, who had been coy, now fought for him. All the world—or nearly all—sang his praises. [502] Lastly came the K.C.M.G., an honour that was conferred upon him owing in large measure to the noble persistency of the Standard newspaper, which in season and out of season ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... each passing moment give To the coy muse, with me she would not live In this dark city, nor would condescend 'Mid contradictions her delights to lend. Should e'er the fine-eyed maid to me be kind, Ah! surely it must be whene'er I find ...
— Poems 1817 • John Keats
... people strolled out into the garden, and Katie, as was her wont, insisted on Harry Norman rowing her over to her damp paradise in the middle of the river. He attempted, vainly, to induce Gertrude to accompany them. Gertrude was either coy with her lover, or indifferent; for very few were the occasions on which she could be induced to gratify him with the rapture of a tete-a-tete encounter. So that, in fact, Harry Norman's Sunday visits were generally moments of expected bliss of which the full fruition ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... is he hasn't told me anything specific," Sprague had to admit. "The matter is still under negotiation, as one may say. Jasper is coy." ...
— The Henchman • Mark Lee Luther
... tower; But yet love, who subtle is, Crept to that, and came to this: Be ye lock'd up like to these, Or the rich Hesperides: Or those babies in your eyes, In their crystal nurseries; Notwithstanding love will win, Or else force a passage in; And as coy be as you can. Gifts will get ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 387, August 28, 1829 • Various
... feathers, leaves and 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 up a family ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 87, March, 1875 • Various
... Huguenots thought that with England as a bait, and the powerful mind of Elizabeth to guide him, the youth might change his views. Leicester offered his help—for he knew the match was unlikely—and soon Catherine de Medici's agents were busy by Elizabeth's side. Elizabeth, as usual, was coy and maidenly. She was too old, she said, the thought of marriage was shocking to her; but, withal, the courtship went on actively. Anjou's charms and rumoured gallantries were the staple gossip at her court, and Elizabeth never tired of hearing ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various
... not so easy a matter as my vanity had prompted me to think. 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 whole world an antidote to my love for Jane. ...
— When Knighthood Was in Flower • Charles Major
... 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)
... gay, Rough rivals, essay To rive and riddle each butt, Sage sires stand by, And coy maidens cry, To welcome the ...
— A History of Horncastle - from the earliest period to the present time • James Conway Walter
... it does. What! do you think I am so dull of ear That I can mark no changes in the tones That reach me? Once I liked not girlish pride And that coy quiet, chary of reply, That held me distant: now the sweetest lips Open to entertain me—fairest hands Are ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Jean Ingelow
... Lady Latimer had suggested this possible solution of a difficulty, and Lady Angleby had supported her, and had agreed that it was time now to give Mr. Cecil Burleigh a new opportunity of urging his suit, and the coy young lady a chance of comparing him with those whom her affection and imagination had invested with greater attractions. There was feminine diplomacy in this, and the joyful accident that appeared ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr
... Braboy," she 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 affections ...
— The Wife of his Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line, and - Selected Essays • Charles Waddell Chesnutt
... She was coy, and she would not believe That he did love her so, No, nor at any time she would Any countenance to ...
— Ballads of Mystery and Miracle and Fyttes of Mirth - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - Second Series • Frank Sidgwick
... there's just three sorts of 'em. There's Snorters—the goers, you know—the sort that go rampaging round, looking for insults, and naturally finding them; and then there's fools; and they're mostly screeching when they're not smirking—the uncertain-coy-and-hard-to-please variety, you know," he chuckled, "and then," he added seriously, "there's the right sort, the sort you tell things to. They're A1 ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... 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
... 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 ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... his oath. But he who loves our common Father, hath All men for brothers, and with God doth joy In whatsoever worketh for their bliss. Good Francis called the birds upon his path Brethren; to him the fishes were not coy.— Oh, blest is he who ...
— Sonnets • Michael Angelo Buonarroti & Tommaso Campanella
... began, to the flamenco music of guitars and the clacking of castanets; the fandango, the bolero, the malaguena, the chaquera vella; all the classical dances of old Spain, and each one a variant on the theme of love, the woman coy, coquettishly retreating; the man persuading or demanding, the woman yielding ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... seem to know what it came to buy or cared what it purchased so long as it could engage Mavis in a few moments' conversation. She soon got to know this type at a glance, and gave it short shrift. Others at "Dawes'" were not so coy. Many of the customers she got to know by sight, owing to their repeated visits. One of these she disliked from the first; later experience of her only intensified this impression. She was a tall, fine woman, well, if a trifle over-dressed; her complexion was a little more ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte
... latter organs purely for ornament—apparently looking at things with her nose, her sensitive ears, and sometimes even a slight lifting of her slim near foreleg. On our first interview I thought she favored me with a coy glance, but as it was accompanied by an irrelevant "Look out!" from her owner, the teamster, I was not certain. I only know that after some conversation, a good deal of mental reservation, and the disbursement ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various
... that they were to live in common harmony and good-will? Kelly tried again, with apparent reluctance, and said the spirits insisted upon the literal interpretation. The poor fanatic Dee resigned himself to their will; but it suited Kelly's purpose to appear coy a little longer. He declared that the spirits must be spirits not of good, but of evil; and refused to consult them any more. He thereupon took his departure, saying that ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... replied she, clasping her hands, and looking solemnly up to heaven. "If, in my eager acquiescence, I seem unmaidenly, forgive me; but I dare not be coy, Eugene; we have no time for conventional reserve, and I must act as becomes a brave and trusting woman, for every moment is fraught with danger. I am surrounded by spies, even of my own household, and, until I hear the blessing of the priest, ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... had attractions of a very different class: fine-featured, dark-eyed, coal-black-haired and tall; as she stood—her right hand holding the rude torch over her head, while the left gathered the folds of a long cloak under her bosom, with her eyes of coy expectation and merry amazement—she seemed more the ideal of a robber's daughter in some old romance, than a menial in a moorland farm-house. I attempted to salute her, but she held me at bay with her hand. "Hech, lad! ye're no blate—is ...
— Tales from Blackwood, Volume 7 • Various
... powerful mind of Elizabeth to guide him, the youth might change his views. Leicester offered his help—for he knew the match was unlikely—and soon Catherine de Medici's agents were busy by Elizabeth's side. Elizabeth, as usual, was coy and maidenly. She was too old, she said, the thought of marriage was shocking to her; but, withal, the courtship went on actively. Anjou's charms and rumoured gallantries were the staple gossip at her court, and Elizabeth never tired of hearing praises ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various
... the table behind her tea-urn and with her mother opposite. Mr. Shubrick bided his time in a mixture of patience and impatience. The latter needs no accounting for; the former was half brought about and maintained by the exquisite manner of Dolly's presentation of herself those days. The delicate, coy grace which invested her, it is difficult to describe it or the effect of it. She was not awkward, she was not even embarrassed, the least bit in the world; she was grave and fair and unapproachable, ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner
... of the coy little hand, that he glanced down to assure himself he had it on his arm. But his glance, stopping for an instant at the bright eyes, forgot its first ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... is 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
... wood-man's ballad shall prevail; No more the smith his dusky brown shall clear, 245 Relax his pond'rous strength, and lean to hear; The host himself no longer shall be found Careful to see the mantling bliss go round; Nor the coy maid, half willing to be press'd, Shall kiss the cup to pass it to ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... to my knowledge, I deem it my duty to call a special meeting of the shareholders of 'The Island Navigation Coy.,' to consider circumstances in connection with the purchase of Mr. Joseph Pillin's fleet. And I give you notice that at this meeting your conduct will ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... other powers of literature are coy and haughty, they must be long courted, and at last are not always gained; but criticism is a goddess easy of access and forward of advance, she will meet the slow and encourage the timorous. The want of meaning ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou
... 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— Misconsture not, tis from the Realm, not thee: Though Lands part Bodies, Hearts keep company. Thou knowst that I imparted often have Private relations with ...
— 2. Mucedorus • William Shakespeare [Apocrypha]
... 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 ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... 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
... Rumford in her had their joy She showed herself courteous and modestly coy And at her commandment still would they be; So fair and ...
— English Songs and Ballads • Various
... old the Sun, our sire, Came wooing the mother of men, Earth, that was virginal then, Vestal fire to his fire. Silent her bosom and coy, But the strong god sued and pressed; And born of their starry nuptial joy Are all that drink ...
— Poems of To-Day: an Anthology • Various
... so far gone As you suppose: Two words t' a bargain: That may be done, and time enough, When you have given downright proof; And yet 'tis no fantastic pique 545 I have to love, nor coy dislike: 'Tis no implicit, nice aversion T' your conversation, mein, or person, But a just fear, lest you should prove False and perfidious in love:, 550 For if I thought you could be true, I could love twice as ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... naked limbs, And like a streak of lightning reached the waves:— Wherein his thwarted speed appeared more awful As, brought within the scope of comprehension, Its progress and its purpose could be gauged. Spluttering Amyntas rose, Hipparchus near him Who cried 'Why coy of kisses, lovely lad? I ne'er would harm thee; art thou not ashamed To treat thy conquest thus?' He shouted partly to drown the sea's noise, chiefly The nearing Delphis to disarm. His voice lost its assurance while he spoke, And, as he finished, quick to escape he turned; Thy son's ...
— Georgian Poetry 1911-12 • Various
... woman! in our hours of ease Uncertain, coy and hard to please, As variable as the ...
— The Romance of Mathematics • P. Hampson
... and cries of "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 pay none ...
— A Son of the City - A Story of Boy Life • Herman Gastrell Seely
... 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 a ...
— Absolution • Clara Viebig
... much from women. They have the strangest facility in reading physiological language, tones, gestures, bearing, and all those countless signs which make the face and eyes such tell-tales of the soul. They will look into your eyes, and see you think; listen to your voice, and hear you feel. The coy and subtle world of emotion now infinitely timid and reticent, now all gates flung down for the floods to pour is their domain. They are at home in it all, from the rosy fogs of feeling to the twilight borders of intelligence. On the one side, these endowments are a help to friendship. The ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger
... reason all her passions sway; Easy in company, in private gay; Coy to a fop, to the deserving free; Still constant to herself, and just to me. She should a soul have for great actions fit; Prudence and wisdom to direct her wit; Courage to look bold danger in the face, Not fear, but only to be proud ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... 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, "few more amusing performances ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photograph [March 1897] - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various
... 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 ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... crossed the farm-yard, he vowed that coy and capricious girls were the most intolerable creatures he knew. The thing was that he did not feel at all satisfied with the upshot of the day. Not that he for a moment doubted that she loved him; but, just ...
— Tales of Two Countries • Alexander Kielland
... of all the countries whose shores it washes. Our commerce must become vassal to her and dependent on her will. Since we are come no longer to trust to our force in arms, but to our dexterity in negotiation, and begin to pay a desperate court to a proud and coy usurpation, and have finally sent an ambassador to the Bourbon Regicides at Paris, the King of Naples, who saw that no reliance was to be placed on our engagements, or on any pledge of our adherence to our nearest and dearest interests, has been obliged to send his ambassador also to ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... have left him with less than three dollars in cash—Oliver crawls into Vanamee and Company's about four in the afternoon. Everybody but Mrs. Wimple and Mr. Tickler is out of Copy for the moment and the former greets him with coy wit. ...
— Young People's Pride • Stephen Vincent Benet
... fellow, Doc Bennet! I tried all afternoon yesterday to locate the lithersome Clip. Took a coy little jaunt of two miles afoot - some one said she had a friend out Bentley way, but I did not locate her. ...
— The Motor Girls on a Tour • Margaret Penrose
... fashion and fanaticism. "Out upon such half-faced fellowship!" Mr. Wilberforce has the pride of being familiar with the great; the vanity of being popular; the conceit of an approving conscience. He is coy in his approaches to power; his public spirit is, in a manner, under the rose. He thus reaps the credit of independence, without the obloquy; and secures the advantages of servility, without incurring any obligations. He has two strings to his bow:—he by no means ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... things among the unchiseled palaces and 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 once you ...
— Trail Tales • James David Gillilan
... To Rob Harmonious Waller of his Rest? To send him Murm'ring thro' the Cypress-Grove, In strains lamenting his neglected Love. Th' attentive Forest did his Grief partake, And Sympathizing Oaks their knotted Branches shake. Each Nymph, tho' Coy, to Pity would incline; And every stubborn Heart was mov'd, but Thine. Henceforth be Thou to future Ages known; Like Niobe, ...
— Discourse on Criticism and of Poetry (1707) - From Poems On Several Occasions (1707) • Samuel Cobb
... 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 days, the laboring ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... a language in 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
... the fault lie with all these 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 musicians. A single good picture seen in ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer
... herself. She felt in no dying case; she had neither pain nor sickness. Her appetite was diminished; she knew the reason. It was because she wept so much at night. Her strength was lessened; she could account for it. Sleep was coy and hard to be won; dreams were distressing and baleful. In the far future she still seemed to anticipate a time when this passage of misery should be got over, and when she should once more be calm, though perhaps never ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... rights of citizens 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 more intimate connexion. ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. VIII • Various
... was not lynched in May only because the prominent citizens became his body guard until the doors of the penitentiary closed on him, had letters in his pocket from the white woman in the case, making the appointment with him. Edward Coy who was burned alive in Texarkana, January 1, 1892, died protesting his innocence. Investigation since as given by the Bystander in the Chicago Inter Ocean, ...
— Southern Horrors - Lynch Law in All Its Phases • Ida B. Wells-Barnett
... 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 have moped ...
— Penny Plain • Anna Buchan (writing as O. Douglas)
... 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 ...
— Chinese Literature • Anonymous
... Lady Nugent's journal or "Jamaica in 1801." I am persuaded that she must have been a most delightful little creature. She was very tiny, as she tells us herself, and had brown curly hair. She was a little coy about her age, which she confided to no one; by her own directions, it was omitted even from her tombstone, but from internal evidence we know that when her husband, Sir George Nugent, was appointed ...
— Here, There And Everywhere • Lord Frederic Hamilton
... God or Heroe of the lofty scene, In royal gold and purple seen but late, May ne'er in cots obscure debase his state, Lost in low language; nor in too much care To shun the ground, grasp clouds, and empty air. With an indignant pride, and coy disdain, Stern Tragedy rejects too light a vein: Like a grave Matron, destin'd to advance On solemn festivals to join the dance, Mixt with the shaggy tribe of Satyrs rude, She'll hold a sober mien, and act the prude. Let me not, Pisos, in the Sylvan scene, Use abject terms ...
— The Art Of Poetry An Epistle To The Pisos - Q. Horatii Flacci Epistola Ad Pisones, De Arte Poetica. • Horace
... he so extremely burned. And thus came Love, with Proteus and his power, T' encounter Eucharis: first, like the flower That Juno's milk did spring,[97] the silver lily, He fell on Hymen's hand, who straight did spy The bounteous godhead, and with wondrous joy Offer'd it Eucharis. She, wonderous coy, Drew back her hand: the subtle flower did woo it, And, drawing it near, mixed so you could not know it: 220 As two clear tapers mix in one their light, So did the lily and the hand their white. She ...
— The Works of Christopher Marlowe, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Christopher Marlowe
... hasn't told me anything specific," Sprague had to admit. "The matter is still under negotiation, as one may say. Jasper is coy." ...
— The Henchman • Mark Lee Luther
... into their plans, and arresting their execution. By my soul, I had not thought you so ready or so apt; but how do you reconcile it to your notions of propriety to be abroad at an hour which is something late for a coy damsel? Munro, you must look to these rare doings, or they will work you some difficulty in ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... good 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, the ...
— Lucasta • Richard Lovelace
... the unmerited calamities, the heartbreaking woe, or the untimely death of Edwin. From Edwin therefore the language of love would have created no disgust. Imogen was not heedless and indiscreet; she would not have sacrificed the dignity of innocence. Imogen was not coy; she would not have treated her admirer with affected disdain. She had no guard but virgin modesty and that conscious worth, that would be wooed, and not unsought ...
— Imogen - A Pastoral Romance • William Godwin
... the bottom of a feather-pot, and then, after she had given them three whisks of a broom besom athwart the chimney, casting into the fire half a bavin of long heather, together with a branch of dry laurel, she observed with a very hush and coy silence in what form they did burn, and saw that, although they were in a flame, they made no kind of noise or crackling din. Hereupon she gave a most hideous and horribly dreadful shout, muttering betwixt her teeth some few barbarous words ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... "Scenery and sleep; of the two I prefer the latter. I have always been routed out at dawn and never allowed to turn in till midnight. You can always find scenery, but sleep is a coy thing." ...
— A Splendid Hazard • Harold MacGrath
... 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
... 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 body whose course is regulated ...
— The Romance of Mathematics • P. Hampson
... breathless with her run, but looking all the better for the colour in her cheeks and the light in her eyes—"I don't see the line of argument at all. Your hair is simply dreadful! You look like Pan, heated in the pursuit of a coy nymph of Delphos. If you only wore skins and a pair of hoofs, the resemblance ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... asked many questions, until at last, one day when I was being rowed across 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 ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... my bidding, Humphrey, and it is in vain to court her. She is a coy mistress, who will not be caught by any wiles till she comes of her own sweet will. But is aught amiss, Humphrey, that you seek me so soon? Hero, my good horse, came out of the fray untouched. I assured myself of that ere I came hither ...
— Penshurst Castle - In the Days of Sir Philip Sidney • Emma Marshall
... species, he says: "It rattles like the rest of the tribe on the dead limbs, and with such violence as to be heard in still weather more than half a mile off; and listens to hear the insect it has alarmed." He listens rather to hear the drum of his rival, or the brief and coy response of the female; for there are no insects in these ...
— A Year in the Fields • John Burroughs
... the chief and his guests with such winning grace that they were all captivated, and at the end of the dance the delighted chief seized his prize by the hand and drew the seemingly coy damsel into his own tent. Once within its folds, the yielding girl suddenly changed into a heroic youth who clasped the rebel with a vigorous embrace and slew him on the spot. For this exploit the youthful prince received his title of Yamato-Dake, ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 12 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... 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 from side ...
— Space Platform • Murray Leinster
... 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 one ...
— The Valley of the Giants • Peter B. Kyne
... had our fun, and cleared besides a profit of nearly four pounds sterling. This financial coup would not have come off so well but for the warm-hearted co-operation of our railway printers, McCorquodale and Coy. They, good people, entered into our exploit with a will, did their part well, and made little if any profit, generously leaving that ...
— Fifty Years of Railway Life in England, Scotland and Ireland • Joseph Tatlow
... real child—came into the summer-house a few minutes ago, and I gave up my writing to watch her. After some coy manoeuvring about the door, she drew nearer and nearer to me, as if I were a snake fascinating a pretty bird. Her tongue seemed more bashful than the rest of her frame; for she came within arm's-length, let me catch her, draw her to me, and hold her close to my side. A novel sensation ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 6, April, 1858 • Various
... we are deluded both. For when I offered many gifts of Gold, And Jewels to entreat for love, She hath refused them with a coy disdain, Alledging that she could not see the Sun. The same conjectured I to be thy drift, That faining so she might be rid ...
— Fair Em - A Pleasant Commodie Of Faire Em The Millers Daughter Of - Manchester With The Love Of William The Conquerour • William Shakespeare [Apocrypha]
... you, Paolo, I could look, however, Were my hump made a mountain. Bless him, God! Pour everlasting bounties on his head! Make Croesus jealous of his treasury, Achilles of his arms, Endymion Of his fresh beauties,—though the coy one lay, Blushing beneath Diana's earliest kiss, On grassy Latmos; and may every good, Beyond man's sight, though in the ken of heaven, Round his fair fortune to a perfect end! O, you have dried the sorrow of my eyes; My heart is beating ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: Francesca da Rimini • George Henry Boker
... stuff the Secretary Bird spouted when you showed Phillis to him, Kit? About her being forward, or coy, or something. It sounded rather ...
— The Right Stuff - Some Episodes in the Career of a North Briton • Ian Hay
... wolf, my weanlings! their milky mothers spare! Harm not the little lad that hath so many in his care! What, Firefly, is thy sleep so deep? It ill befits a hound, Tending a boyish master's flock, to slumber over-sound. And, wethers, of this tender grass take, nothing coy, your fill: So, when it comes, the after-math shall find you feeding still. So! so! graze on, that ye be full, that not an udder fail: Part of the milk shall rear the lambs, and part shall fill my pail." Then Daphnis flung a carol out, as of ...
— Theocritus • Theocritus
... thee! (selfish love Such preference may be,) That thou reservest all thy sweets, Coy ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 5. May 1848 • Various
... by meadow and stream, and touched the slumbering earth with gentler breezes. And soon, where she had passed, the crocus reared its yellow head, anemones, scarlet, blue and purple, tossed from her lap, sang the glories of spring in their tender harmonies of hue, coy violet and sweet-smelling nardosmia waved their incense on her altars, and the ...
— The Strolling Saint • Raphael Sabatini
... springs. Contentment opes the source of every joy. He envied not, he never thought of kings; Nor from those appetites sustained annoy, Which chance may frustrate, or indulgence cloy: Nor fate his calm and humble hopes beguiled; He mourned no recreant friend, nor mistress coy, For on his vows the blameless Phoebe smiled, And her alone he loved, and loved her from ...
— The Minstrel; or the Progress of Genius - with some other poems • James Beattie
... me 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, ...
— The Battle of the Bays • Owen Seaman
... remember the desires of man who, issuing from all, is none the less ever longing. But that, Wilfrid, is only a woman's thought. You find seductive fancies in the wreathing mists, the light embroidered veils which Nature dons like a coy maiden, in this atmosphere where she perfumes for her spousals the greenery of her tresses. You seek the naiad's form amid the gauzy vapors, and to your thinking my ears should listen only to the virile voice ...
— Seraphita • Honore de Balzac
... was bound in a plain knot on the back of her head, was dark—almost black; her eyes were large, grey, lustrous, and on occasion could be proud and angry. Yet with it all she was pretty—pretty, said Drusus to himself, as any girl he had seen in Athens. For there were coy dimples in her delicate little chin, her finely chiselled features were not angular, while her cheeks were aglow with a healthy colour that needed no rouge to heighten. In short, Cornelia, like Drusus, was a Roman; and Drusus saw that she was ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... joy," Girl-Beauty cried, with glances coy: "In the New Year a woman I; I'll then have jewels in my hair, And such rare webs as Princes buy Be none too choice for me to wear: I'll queen it as a beauty should, And not ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor
... wedding as if it would take place as a matter of course. Mrs. Whately's affectionate smiles and encouraging words were even harder to endure. That good lady acted as if Miss Lou were a timid and coy maiden, who merely needed heartening and reassuring in order to face a brief ordeal, and then all would be well. Her cousin gallantly lifted her hand to his lips and then rode away with part of his men, saying cheerfully, "I'll manage everything ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe
... become a partaker in their follies. How could I dream that he would have made scruples about a few years' youth or age, when the advantages of the match were so evident? And thou knowest, there would have been no moving yonder coy wench to be so frank as this coming Countess here, who hangs on our arms as dead a weight as a wool pack. I loved the lad too, and would have done him a kindness: to wed him to this old woman was to make his fortune, to unite ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... Kitty for me that evening, but for her father such clinging, coaxing, wheedling ways, and for the Jook such coy, sparkling, artfully-accidental glances, such shy turns of the little head, such dainty capricious airs, that it was delicious to watch her. Koenigin and I sat in a dark corner for the express purpose of admiring her delicate little manoeuvres. As for her father, good stolid man! he was well ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various
... their sharp spikes being gone." The mere fact of its loveliness and perfection gives them no authority to do so; and to my ear the rather stately procession of syllables is reminiscent of Fletcher. We shall never be certain; and who would not swear that "Hear, ye ladies that are coy" was by the same hand that wrote "Sigh no more, ladies," if we were not sure of the contrary? But the most effective test, even in the case of Fletcher, is to see whether the trill of song is, or is not, an inherent portion ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... 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
... 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 south-west side ...
— The Beautiful Wretch; The Pupil of Aurelius; and The Four Macnicols • William Black
... 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 ...
— Creatures of the Night - A Book of Wild Life in Western Britain • Alfred W. Rees
... the needful preliminaries, and a very little coy hesitation on the part of the lady, Lorena Sears, spinster, native of Elyria, Ohio, was duly sealed to, for time and eternity, and became a star forever in the crown of, Joel Rae, Elder after the Order of Melchisedek in the Church ...
— The Lions of the Lord - A Tale of the Old West • Harry Leon Wilson
... regarding the increase of railway fares, but when invited to "name the day" Mr. BONAR LAW remained coy. Suggestions for postponements in the interests of this or that class of holiday-maker finally goaded him into asking sarcastically, "Why not until after Christmas?" Whereupon the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, July 28th, 1920 • Various
... swelled her song With maiden coy caprice In a labyrinth of throbs, 120 Pauses, cadences; Clear-noted as a dropping brook, Soft-noted like the bees, Wild-noted as the shivering wind Forlorn through forest trees: Love-noted like the wood-pigeon Who hides herself for love, Yet cannot keep her secret safe, But coos ...
— Goblin Market, The Prince's Progress, and Other Poems • Christina Rossetti
... 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 intelligence and ...
— Elements of Military Art and Science • Henry Wager Halleck
... 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 the memorialists renounce ...
— Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays • T. H. Huxley
... advocate into a fervent description of many meetings with his coy subjects, and the tricks he was compelled to resort to in order to let them understand he meant them ...
— The Outdoor Chums at Cabin Point - or The Golden Cup Mystery • Quincy Allen
... said the doctor, with his excellent temper in perfect working order again. "So delightfully impulsive! so charmingly reckless of what they say or how they say it! 'Oh, woman, in our hours of ease, uncertain, coy, and hard to please!' There! there! ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... go thy way, for the true-heartedst man That liveth, and as full of honesty, And yet as wanton as a pretty lamb. He'll come again, for he hath lov'd me long, And so have many more besides himself; But I was coy and proud, as maids are wont, Meaning to match beyond my mean estate: Yet I have favour'd youths and youthful sports, Although I durst not venture on the main; But now it will not be so soon espied. Maids cannot, but a wife ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various
... Monkey far from suggesting the habits of a Monk is a roystering, philanderous old rounder that would disgrace a heathen temple, much less adorn a Monastery. And finally if there is anything lower than a Hyena, or less coy than a Coyote, I don't ...
— The Autobiography of Methuselah • John Kendrick Bangs
... fun to make believe like children? We don't often play, do we Philip? You must take my hand very gently, under the hay," pulling the cushion over her wrist. "I draw it away, you see, rather shyly, looking deliciously coy, and say: 'Oh! you ...
— When the Birds Begin to Sing • Winifred Graham
... fair maid And fresh as any flower, Whom Harpalus the herdman prayed To be his paramour. Harpalus and eke Corin Were herdmen, both yfere; And Phylida could twist and spin, And thereto sing full clear. But Phylida was all too coy For Harpalus to win; For Corin was her only joy, Who forced her not a pin. How often would she flowers twine, How often garlands make, Of cowslips and of columbine, And all for Corin's sake! But ...
— Tudor and Stuart Love Songs • Various
... the horses' feet upon the deserted roadway kept time to the murmurs of a most coy Delilah, who molded as wax in her slender hands the ardent military Samson, who was all unmindful of his flowing locks! And the silent moon shimmered down upon the ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... 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
... sledge; the Western sledging expedition; on tent pitching; his birthday; the relief party; winter work at the hut; wireless work; dredge constructed by; the home journey; account of Biology, work of the expedition Bird & Coy, Messrs. Birds, Antarctic, weight in relation to wing areas Birthday Camp Biscoe Island ........John, work Bishop and Clerk, islet Black Sunday Blair, J. H., Chief Officer on the 'Aurora' Blake, Cape ...... L R., work on Macquarie ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... to the defensive tactics which other ladies of his acquaintance had adopted, tactics of a patently coy and coquettish nature, this self-collected manner was new and spicy, challenging to powers never as yet fully exerted while beneath her manner he felt throbbing that rare and dangerous thing in women, a temperament, for which men have given ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... the latter, which they consider as the life and spirit of the poetry. I had a proof of this in an attempt which I made to impose a pantun of my own composing on the natives as a work of their countrymen. The subject was a dialogue between a lover and a rich coy mistress: the expressions were proper to the occasion, and in some degree characteristic. It passed with several, but an old lady who was a more discerning critic than the others remarked that it was "katta katta saja"—mere ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... times.' He uttered his inmost thoughts out of pity:—All this he had awaited. The King's Highness by the report of his painters, his ambassadors, his spies—they were all in the pay of Cromwell—had awaited a lady of modest demeanour, a coy habit, and a great and placid fairness. 'I had warned the Almains at Rochester to attire her against our coming. But she slobbered with ecstasy and slipped sideways, aiming at a courtesy. Therefore the King was hot with new ...
— The Fifth Queen • Ford Madox Ford
... during the burned breakfast at the parsonage, or the drive to Major Scott's, for deep emotion is ever silent. Yet not for them were the coy reserves often evinced by hearts on the verge of a life-union—the faltering timidity which hesitates to lift the veil from feelings in whose light existence is thenceforth to pass. They could not forget that they were to part, and even Mary hesitated not to let her ...
— Evenings at Donaldson Manor - Or, The Christmas Guest • Maria J. McIntosh
... very coy," said the emperor. "All my gold and diamonds have won me not a smile—she will not yield up her secret. But I believe that she has responded to the love of one ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... Barton 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. And soon—at least on his part—the friendship ripened into genuine love; and ...
— From Wealth to Poverty • Austin Potter
... attentively. He had foreseen that if he showed himself ready to help Karpathy out of his financial difficulties, the latter would at once grow coy. ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai
... 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 ...
— Poetical Works of George MacDonald, Vol. 2 • George MacDonald
... of Foreign Missions propose to print at the Union station, in the Cherokee country west of the Mississippi, books in the languages of the Cherokees, Creeks, Choctaws, and Osages; and the Rev. Mr. M'Coy, under the auspices of the Baptist General Convention, has issued proposals for publishing a semi-monthly periodical at the Shawanee mission, three hundred miles west of St. Louis. Several books have been printed at this press in the languages of the ...
— Impressions of America - During The Years 1833, 1834, and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Tyrone Power
... there from Saturday afternoon till Monday at noon, and Boggley says that Kangchenjunga is often cloud-covered for weeks, so it is a mere chance whether we shall see it. But surely, surely Kangchenjunga won't be coy with me. I came to India, of course, in the first place to see Boggley, but in the second place to see the snows, and I can't believe that the gods will be so unkind as to deny a humble worshipper of great mountains a sight ...
— Olivia in India • O. Douglas
... brightness in her eyes; she was an untrained athlete of the farm, ready to put a back-log into the yawning fire-place or to choke a greedy calf off from its mother. She had no manners and was shy; and, without knowing how to play with a man's affection, was coy. Lyman looked into her eyes and thought of the bluish pink of the turnip. She blushed again and said: "I reckon we'd have rain if it was cloudy, but it ain't. Where's pa?" And then looking round she called: "Come ...
— Old Ebenezer • Opie Read
... maid, Whether by nodding towers you tread; Or haunt the desart's trackless gloom, Or hover o'er the yawning tomb; Or climb the Andes' clifted side, Or by the Nile's coy source abide; Or, starting from your half-year's sleep, From Hecla view the thawing deep; Or, at the purple dawn of ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... greeting and some reference to the chicken. She felt it a great honor to be remembered by the bride, and thanked again, after all these years, for her parting gift. She gave a little giggle when Lloyd came up, and said, with a coy self-conscious air that was extremely amusing to the Northern man, who had never met this type of the race before, "I'se a maid ...
— The Little Colonel: Maid of Honor • Annie Fellows Johnston
... depositaries of these national treasures, believe that the inquirer can have any real interest in the matter. They fear that the question is only put to turn them into ridicule; for the popular mind is a sensitive plant; it becomes coy, and closes its leaves at the first rude touch; and when once shut, it is hard to make these aged lips reveal the secrets of the memory. There they remain, however, forming part of an under-current of tradition, of which the educated ...
— Popular Tales from the Norse • Sir George Webbe Dasent
... story, solemn fervors, subtile sympathies, and the winsomeness of little children at their play,—sometimes glowing with the deepest color, often just tinged to the pale and changing hues of a dream, but touched with such coy grace, modulated to such free, wild rhythm, suffused with such a delicate, evanishing loveliness, that they seem scarcely to be the songs of our tangible earth, but snatches from fairy-land. Often rude in form, often defective ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 78, April, 1864 • Various
... but is mostly elaboration. Opus 8 is a fiery romanza appassionata. Opus 9 is a Scherzo-Caprice. This is probably his best work. It is dedicated to Liszt, and though extremely brilliant, is full of meaning. It has an interlude of tender romance. "Coy Maiden" is a graceful thing, but hardly deserves the punishment of so horrible a name. "A Gypsy Dance" is too long, but it is of good material. It has an interesting metre, three-quarter time with the first note dotted. ...
— Contemporary American Composers • Rupert Hughes
... 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 I may be ...
— Nina Balatka • Anthony Trollope
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