"Coy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 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
... 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, and ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... 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 ...
— The Golden Treasury of American Songs and Lyrics • Various
... 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
... coy, but use your time, And, whilst ye may, go marry; For having lost but once your prime, You may ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... 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
... 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
... 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
... 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
... 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
... Coy as he grows fond, she meets him With a modest show; Shaming truth with truthful seeming, While ...
— Indian Poetry • Edwin Arnold
... 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
... 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, And bid all southern vegetation rise. Wild o'er the ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow
... 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
... that I am he, And just as warm as he is chilling; Imagine, too, that thou art she, But quite as coy ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... 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
... continued oracularly, "there will be a third attending us when we return, if thou hast been coy with the gentle Seti during ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... 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
... 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,' and the natural consequence ensued. Like the philosopher who destroyed himself with his own ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 492 - Vol. 17, No. 492. Saturday, June 4, 1831 • Various
... 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
... 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 ...
— Dubliners • James Joyce
... 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
... 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
... 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) |
