"Woo" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... I went into service, and in that position it is easy enough to gather that many people hold very loose and very nasty notions about some things; so I just wanted to see how you felt about such. If I had a sister now, and saw a man coming to woo her, all beclotted with puddle filth—or if I knew that he had just left some woman as good as she, crying eyes and heart out over his child—I don't know that I could keep my hands off him—at least if I feared ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald
... came not to woo her because they feared her strength, and the gods dared not love her because they knew ...
— The Book of Wonder • Edward J. M. D. Plunkett, Lord Dunsany
... with a blowlike suddenness that, if his caste was raised to Upper, he would be in a position to woo such ...
— Mercenary • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... to the ears of men To woo them from their beds, still murmuring That men can sleep while they their matins sing. Most divine service, whose so early lay Prevents the eyelids of the ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... So said you, when you woo'd. So souldiers tortur'd With tedious sieges of some wel-wall'd towne, Propound conditions of most large contents, 65 Freedome of lawes, all former government; But having once set foote within the ...
— Bussy D'Ambois and The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois • George Chapman
... course reminded herself that she was to hear from Mr. Goodwood again; but this was not to be for another year and a half, and in that time a great many things might happen. She had indeed failed to say to herself that her American suitor might find some other girl more comfortable to woo; because, though it was certain many other girls would prove so, she had not the smallest belief that this merit would attract him. But she reflected that she herself might know the humiliation of change, might really, for that matter, come to the end ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James
... bit of lazy life. I could imagine the place under some weird spell, and was half-minded to search out the princess. An old ragged black man, honest, simple, and improvident, told us the tale. The Wizard of the North—the Capitalist—had rushed down in the seventies to woo this coy dark soil. He bought a square mile or more, and for a time the field-hands sang, the gins groaned, and the mills buzzed. Then came a change. The agent's son embezzled the funds and ran off with them. Then the agent himself disappeared. Finally the new agent stole even the books, and ...
— The Souls of Black Folk • W. E. B. Du Bois
... poor fond thing! Heave and flutter to his sighs While the flatterer on his wing, Woo'd, and whisper'd thee ...
— Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1. • Coleridge, ed. Turnbull
... Of late years I have wished I had gone my ways and trod out my measure like lighter-hearted men. I have thought of how many happy experiences I may have lost through never going to woo.' ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... woo me, but not as of yore, When I hastened to welcome your ring at the door; For I trusted that he who stood waiting me then, Was the brightest, the truest, the noblest of men. Your lips on my own when they printed "Farewell," ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For • Various
... the duke, "the lady I would wish to marry is nice and coy, and does not much esteem my aged eloquence. Besides, the fashion of courtship is much changed since I was young: now I would willingly have you to be my tutor to instruct me how I am to woo." ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... that thy maidenhood is not for long, Whom the Phoeacian chiefs already woo, Lords of the land whence thou thyself art sprung. Soon as the shining dawn comes forth anew, For wain and mules thy noble father sue, Which to the place of washing shall convey Girdles and shawls and rugs of splendid hue. This for thyself were better than essay Thither ...
— Health and Education • Charles Kingsley
... Boo-oo-oom, Boo-woo-woo-oom-oom-ow-owm, yarryarr! The whirling cylinder boomed, roared, and snarled as it rose in speed. At last, when its tone became a rattling yell, David nodded to the pitchers, rasped his hands together, the sheaves began to fall from the stack, the band cutter, knife ...
— Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... clearer pool Than e'er reflected in its pleasant cool, The blue sky here, and there, serenely peeping Through tendril wreaths fantastically creeping. And on the bank a lonely flower he spied, A meek and forlorn flower, with naught of pride, Drooping its beauty o'er the watery clearness, To woo its own sad image into nearness: Deaf to light Zephyrus it would not move; But still would seem to droop, to pine, to love. So while the Poet stood in this sweet spot, Some fainter gleamings o'er his fancy shot; Nor was it ...
— Poems 1817 • John Keats
... Let him woo his Dulcinea swiftly and tempestuously, as King Hal wooed Kate, or let him serve twice seven years as Jacob served for Rachel, but let him never search out printed forms whereby to declare his passion; nor fit the measure of his love to the lines of the "Model Letter-Writer." As to "naming ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke
... the main comedy might proceed, with certain business at the upper windows—the profane Admiral with the timber leg popping his head out of one, the mysterious fat man—in some sort the villain of the piece—putting his head out of another to woo the buxom widow at a third. And then the muffin man! In the twilight when the lamp is lighted and the heroine at last is in the hero's arms, there would be a pleasant crunching of muffins at all the ...
— Chimney-Pot Papers • Charles S. Brooks
... brothers; the doughty heroes gave oaths one to another. They offered him the maid Gudrun, Giuki's daughter, and store of treasure; they drank and took counsel together many a day, Child Sigurd and the sons of Giuki; until they went to woo Brynhild, and Sigurd the Volsung rode in their company; he was to win her if he could get her. The Southern hero laid a naked sword, a falchion graven, between them twain; nor did the Hunnish king ever kiss her, neither take her into his arms; he handed the young ...
— Epic and Romance - Essays on Medieval Literature • W. P. Ker
... Alas that she should have it!— As yields no mercy to desert, Nor grace to those that crave it. Sweet sun, when thou look'st on, Pray her regard my moan. Sweet birds, when you sing to her, To yield some pity woo her. Sweet flowers, whenas she treads on, Tell her, her beauty deads one. And if in life her love she nill agree me, Pray her before I die, she ...
— Elizabethan Sonnet Cycles - Phillis - Licia • Thomas Lodge and Giles Fletcher
... crops and tend my flocks and herds; and in the long evenings smoke the calumet with the worthy aborigines. If I should find there some dusky maiden, like Palmer's Indian girl, who has no idea of puns, polkas, crinoline, or eligible matches, I will woo her in savage hyperbole, and she shall light my pipe with her slender fingers, and beat for me the tom-tom when I am sad. I will live in a calm and conscientious way; the Funny Fellow shall become like the dim recollection ...
— Humorous Masterpieces from American Literature • Various
... I careless play'd, Or plied the quiv'ring oar, on conquest bent:— Again, beneath the tall elms' silent shade, I woo'd the fair, and won the ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Volume I. No. 9. - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 26, 1850 • Various
... a general public repulsion against the playhouses, and to this, early in 1699, a roughly worded Royal Proclamation gave voice. During the whole of that year the stage was almost in abeyance, and even Congreve, with The Way of the World, was unable to woo his audience back to Lincoln's Inn. During this time of depression Catharine Trotter composed at least two tragedies, which she was unable to get performed, while the retirement of Congreve in a paroxysm of annoyance must have been a very ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... I woo the joys of Quiet, I see no more the country's riot, But the comparatively still Environment of Ludgate Hill. There, 'mongst the pigeons of St. Paul's, I muse melodious madrigals, Or loiter where the waters sport 'Mid the cool joys of Fountain Court, Where, undisturbed ...
— Mr. Punch Awheel - The Humours of Motoring and Cycling • J. A. Hammerton
... Petitpas. How often, after business hours, he had perused his well-thumbed copy of La Vie de Boheme and in fancy consorted with the gay descendants of Rodolphe and Marcel; how often he had regretted secretly that he, himself, did not woo a Muse and jest at want in a garret, instead of totting up figures, and eating three meals a day in comfort! And now positively one of the fascinating beings of his imagination lolled by his side! The little clerk ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick
... pleasure: When the dawn tomorrow first shall shine, And from her purple wheels aloft shall redden all the sky, Lead not thy Teucrians to the fight: Teucrians and Rutuli Shall let their swords be; and we twain, our blood shall quench the strife, And we upon that field shall woo Lavinia for a ...
— The AEneids of Virgil - Done into English Verse • Virgil
... fondly woo Those merry, dark-eyed girls, With faces of ebon hue, And teeth like eastern pearls! One vowed my love she would repay— Her heart my song had won— When winter snows had passed away, And smiled ...
— Poems • George P. Morris
... breeze to woo the flower, And stir the pulses of the ripening corn; He, too, lets loose the whirlwind's vengeful power To quench the plagues ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... Queen, a princess of Hainault. She rewarded him handsomely. Woman enough, too, she was, woman under the queen, duly to despatch him back again to his native land, where the young fellow's heart, she saw, was lost to a noble lady, whom, from his inferior station, he could woo only as a moth might woo the moon. He subsequently returned to Great Britain, and rode about on horseback gathering materials of history. He visited Italy under excellent auspices, and, together with Chaucer and with Petrarch, witnessed a magnificent marriage ceremonial in Milan. ...
— Classic French Course in English • William Cleaver Wilkinson
... silent when it mirrors most Whate'er is grand or beautiful above; The billow which would woo the flowery coast Dies in the first expression of its love; And could the bard consign to living breath Feelings too deep for thought, ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 4 October 1848 • Various
... by a specious loyalty to a false wife, but that Kathleen O'Connor might become accustomed to him in his new position. He would not hurry nor attempt to constrain her; he preferred to give her time to consider him as one permitted to woo her honourably. He became more attentive, more openly anxious to give the girl whatever she desired, more courteous in speech and action; but he refrained from ...
— Grey Town - An Australian Story • Gerald Baldwin
... possessions in her hands, he came to Lludd his brother, to beseech his counsel and aid. And that not so much for his own welfare, as to seek to add to the glory and honour and dignity of his kindred, if he might go to France to woo the maiden for his wife. And forthwith his brother conferred with him, and this ...
— The Mabinogion Vol. 3 (of 3) • Owen M. Edwards
... a thousand suns shall duplicate in beauty, and for jewels for which a handful of dollars can reimburse your loss; but you are infinitely careless with the delicate rose of maidenliness, which, once faded, no summer shining can ever woo back to freshness, and with the unsullied jewel of personal reputation which all the wealth of kings can never buy back again, once lost. See to it that you preserve that modesty and womanliness without ...
— A String of Amber Beads • Martha Everts Holden
... Katharine's father at the risk of his life; as well bred and as well born as Talbot, of ample fortune, and with a wide knowledge of men and things acquired in his merchant voyagings as captain of one of his own ships in many seas,—Seymour's single-hearted devotion eminently fitted him to woo and win Miss Katharine Wilton, as he ...
— For Love of Country - A Story of Land and Sea in the Days of the Revolution • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... another! Evelyn, so madly loved,—Evelyn might still be his! No law—from the violation of which, even in thought, Human Nature recoils appalled and horror-stricken—forbade him to reclaim her hand, to snatch her from the grasp of Vargrave, to woo again, and again to win her! But did Maltravers welcome, did he embrace that thought? Let us do him justice: he did not. He felt that Alice's resolution, in the first hour of mortified affection, was not to be considered ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book X • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... me what thou'lt do: Woo't weep? Woo't fight? Woo't fast? Woo't tear thyself? Woo't drink up eisel? Eat a crocodile? I'll do't. Dost thou come here to whine? To outface me with leaping in her grave? Be buried quick with her, and so will I: And, if thou ...
— The Journal of Arthur Stirling - "The Valley of the Shadow" • Upton Sinclair
... opens her lids; but no longer her eyes Behold the fair youth she would woo: Now appears the Paint-King in his natural guise; His face, like a palette of villainous dies, Black and white, ...
— Translations of German Poetry in American Magazines 1741-1810 • Edward Ziegler Davis
... not talk much in the train, he and Tyler. It was a sleepy lot of boys that that train carried back to the Great Central Naval Station. Tyler was undressed and in his hammock even before Moran, the expert. He would not have to woo sleep to-night. Finally Moran, too, had swung himself up to his precarious nest and relaxed ...
— Cheerful—By Request • Edna Ferber
... Whan Jamie first woo'd me, he was but a youth: Frae his lips flow'd the strains o' persuasion and truth; His suit I rejected wi' pride an' disdain, But, oh! wad he offer to ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume III - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... champions twain The beauteous girl did woo, Each had his hand on the hilt of his sword, And a ...
— Japanese Literature - Including Selections from Genji Monogatari and Classical - Poetry and Drama of Japan • Various
... the campaign against the Boxers, had had their share in the capture of Peking, and had then, at the close of the Far Asiatic War, been enrolled in the regiment. They were fine, powerful horses, with shining coats and strong bones, even if some of them did not reach the height of "Peiho," "Woo," and "Kwangsue," but were, strictly speaking, but ponies. Each one of the horses had its special claim on the affections of this man who now sat chatting with his "Vice" at ...
— A Little Garrison - A Realistic Novel of German Army Life of To-day • Fritz von der Kyrburg
... all very well to go talking like that, But tell me, pray, how does one do it? How feel at the sight of a hobble or hat A passionate impulse to woo it? I'm eager enough of my woes to be rid, But Cupid needs help in the placing Of shafts in a heart that's apparently hid 'Neath ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, February 11, 1914 • Various
... white man holds the land, he goes to and fro about his business of peace where impis ran forth to kill; his children laugh and gather flowers where men died in blood by hundreds; they bathe in the waters of the Imbozamo, where once the crocodiles were fed daily with human flesh; his young men woo the maidens where other maids have kissed the assegai. It is changed, nothing is the same, and of Chaka are left only a grave yonder ...
— Nada the Lily • H. Rider Haggard
... from the stream to the Book, with great regularity. I do not remember that he ever read the newspapers, or any other books than the Bible and the hymn-book. When he was over eighty years, old he would woo the trout-streams with great success, and between times would pore over the Book till his eyes were dim. I do not think he ever joined the church, or ever made an open profession of religion, as was the wont in those days; ...
— Our Friend John Burroughs • Clara Barrus
... went up for her first communion her flaxen curls were covered with a cap of richest Mechlin lace, which had been her mother's and her grandmother's before it came to her. Men spoke already, though she had but twelve years, of the good wife she would be for their sons to woo and win; but she herself was a little gay, simple child, in no wise conscious of her heritage, and she loved no playfellows so well as Jehan Daas's grandson ...
— Stories of Childhood • Various
... story, my lasses and lads, Peradventure you've heard from your grannams or dads, Of a merman that came every night to woo The spinster of ...
— Citation and Examination of William Shakspeare • Walter Savage Landor
... and of pleasurable excitement, seems as important as it is to those exquisite creatures of fancy that hover about the heroine, assiduous guardians of her "graceful ease and sweetness void of pride." Of that admired world likewise are the lovers that Matthew Prior creates, who woo neither with stormy passion nor with mawkish whining, but in a courtly manner; lovers who deem an epigram a finer tribute than a sigh. So the tender fondness of a middle-aged man for an infant is elevated above the commonplace by assuming the ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... comes to woo thee! He will bear thee hence; He'll make thee change the country for ...
— The Hunchback • James Sheridan Knowles
... and calculating guile; but it shall be the last. By Heaven, my very heart leaps upward in anticipation of thy coming hour. Woman, thy hatred to this man has made me love thee; yes, thou shall be my bride, and with my plans of vengeance will I woo thee. By this kiss I ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... so alone, I would not think that such love could meet only loathing and disdain. What! has Nature shaped me so unkindly that where I love no love can reply? What! has the accident of birth shut me out from the right to woo and mate with the high-born? For the last, at least that gentleman in justice should tell you since it has been his care to instil the haughty lesson into me, that my lineage is one that befits lofty hopes and warrants fearless ambition. My hopes, my ambition—they were you Oh, ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... his heart to marry a wife. No daughter of his own land would he woo, though there were many fair maidens in the Rhineland. But there came to him tidings of a Queen that dwelt beyond the sea; not to be matched was she for beauty, nor had she any peer for strength. Her love she proffered to any warrior who could vanquish her at three games, hurling of the ...
— Heroes Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... "You stay away from that kid," he growled, thinking of George Willard, and then, not knowing what else to say, turned to go away. "If I catch you together I will break your bones and his too," he added. The bartender had come to woo, not to threaten, and was angry with himself because ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... Oft woo'd the gleam of Cynthia, silver-bright, In cloisters dim, far from the haunts of folly, With freedom by my ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... marvell'd, but as in the first of days, The first of men and maids did meet and smile, And Aphrodite did their hearts beguile, So hands met hands, lips lips, with no word said Were they enchanted 'neath that leafy aisle, And silently were woo'd, betroth'd, and wed. ...
— Helen of Troy • Andrew Lang
... Ramilia boasts as outrageously as her brother, and is only prevented by sudden death from an incestuous union with him; Alvida, after poisoning her first husband to secure Rasni, shamelessly attempts to woo the King of Cilicia. Quite the most successful character, perhaps the most amusing of all Greene's clowns, is Adam, the blacksmith. His loyal defence of his trade against derogatory aspersions, his rare ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne
... A reverend Dean began to woo[2] A handsome, young, imperious girl, Nearly related to an earl.[3] Her parents and her friends consent; The couple to the temple went: They first invite the Cyprian queen; 'Twas answer'd, "She would not be seen;" But Cupid in ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... Ingram woo'd her Lady Maisery From father and from mother; Lord Ingram woo'd her Lady Maisery From ...
— Ballads of Romance and Chivalry - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - First Series • Frank Sidgwick
... sphere on sphere Earth's hidden strata bend, And caves of rock her central fires defend; Where gems new-born their twinkling eyes unfold, 5 And young ores shoot in arborescent gold. How the fair Flower, by Zephyr woo'd, unfurls Its panting leaves, and waves its azure curls; Or spreads in gay undress its lucid form To meet the sun, and shuts it to the storm; 10 While in green veins impassion'd eddies move, And Beauty kindles into life ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. I - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... a puritan, to woo her, And roughly did salute her with a kiss: Away! quoth she, and rudely push'd me from her; Brother, by yea and nay, I like not this: And still with amorous talk she was saluted, My artless ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... the marriage bond joining her to her Lord and Husband. The love of the Covenanters for the Church of the Lord Jesus arose in flames of jealousy when they saw a mere man, a dissolute and sinful man, attempt to woo her heart and alienate her affections from her Lord and King. They could not endure it. Her honor and purity were worth more ...
— Sketches of the Covenanters • J. C. McFeeters
... there was a lad who went out to woo him a wife. Among other places he came to a farmhouse, where the household were little better than beggars; but when the wooer came in they wanted to make out that they were well to do, as you may guess. Now the husband had got a new arm ...
— The Junior Classics, Volume 1 • Willam Patten
... yesterday, and yet in reality they had met three weeks ago. Love had drawn them irresistibly together. To Edwin the fair English girl with her old name and wide estates possessed a charm that he scarcely dared confess to himself. He determined to woo her. To Gwendoline there was that in Edwin's bearing, the rich jewels that he wore, the vast fortune that rumour ascribed to him, that appealed to something romantic and chivalrous in her nature. She loved to hear him speak of stocks and bonds, ...
— Literary Lapses • Stephen Leacock
... Spring, is the year's pleasant king; Then blooms each thing, then maids dance in a ring, Cold doth not sting, the pretty birds do sing, Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, to-witta-woo! ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... volume whenever he feels like it. Among the works on his shelves are books for every mood, every shade of varying temper and humor. He chooses for the moment the friend that best corresponds to it, or it may be, the one that may best woo him away from it. It may be that he will select none of them, but occupy himself with a pile of newcomers, some of whom may be candidates for admission to the inner group. The whole thing—the composition of his library, his attitude toward it, the books that he re-reads oftenest, ...
— A Librarian's Open Shelf • Arthur E. Bostwick
... seeking to woo him into a better humor, "would you construe silence on a woman's part as necessarily a mark of insanity? It is a rare thing, I concede. But might it not sometimes be an admirable thing ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb
... smiling lips decieve us, With words that woo and win; Our friends betray and leave us When ...
— Yorkshire Tales. Third Series - Amusing sketches of Yorkshire Life in the Yorkshire Dialect • John Hartley
... choked with the dusty atmosphere which they have left behind them. No air is stirring on the road. Nature dares draw no breath lest she should inhale a stifling cloud of dust. "A hot and dusty day!" cry the poor pilgrims as they wipe their begrimed foreheads and woo the doubtful breeze which the river bears along with it.—"Awful hot! Dreadful dusty!" answers the sympathetic toll-gatherer. They start again to pass through the fiery furnace, while he re-enters his cool hermitage and besprinkles it with a pail ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... woo your own destruction. None has ever set out to betray that secret and survived the first ...
— Caves of Terror • Talbot Mundy
... came to woo her, she never had a beau, Her misfit face precluded such things as that, you know,— She was nobody's darling, no feller's solid girl, And poets never called her an uncut Texas pearl. Her only two companions was ...
— Songs of the Cattle Trail and Cow Camp • Various
... the dead that have loved me, your love have been vanquished of death, But unvanquished of death is your hate; Say, is there none that may woo me and win me of all that draw breath, Not one but is envied ...
— The World's Desire • H. Rider Haggard and Andrew Lang
... in march, Hung made a remarkable progress of about one thousand miles to Woo-chang on the Yang-tse-Kiang and down that stream, the army fighting its way through all opposition. When towns and cities submitted their people were spared. Slaughter awaited those who resisted. Food and clothing ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 12 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... bread with, and am willing to aid any distressed creature, that is my friend's friend, with my counsel, and otherwise, so that I am not put to much charges, being in a strange country, like a poor lamb that has wandered from its ain native hirsel, and leaves a tait of its woo' in every d—d Southron bramble that comes across it." While he spoke thus, he read the contents of the letter, without waiting for permission, and then continued,—"And so this is all that you are wanting, my dove? nothing more than safe and ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... vainly, her marriage with Arran. On December 5, 1560, Francis II. died, leaving Mary Stuart a mere dowager; while her kinsmen, the Guises, lost power, which fell into the unfriendly hands of Catherine de Medici. At once Arran, who made Knox his confidant, began to woo Mary with a letter and a ring. Her reply perhaps increased his tendency to madness, which soon became open and incurable by the science of ...
— A Short History of Scotland • Andrew Lang
... where there is beauty now. The chalk! the chalk! where was the virgin snow Of that once heaving bosom!—even so,— The cold pale dewy chalk, with yellow shade Amid the leprous hues; and o'er it played The straggling moonlight, and the merry breeze, Like two fair elves, that, by the murmuring seas, Woo'd smilingly together; but there fell No life-gleam on the brow, all terrible Becoming, through its beauty, like a cloud That waneth paler even than a shroud, All gorgeous and all glorious before; For waste, like to the wanton night, was o'er Her virgin features, stealing them ...
— The Death-Wake - or Lunacy; a Necromaunt in Three Chimeras • Thomas T Stoddart
... allegiance, but decidedly this is, upon the whole, the most interesting of all orchids in the cultivator's point of view. For there are some genera and many species that refuse his attentions more or less stubbornly—in fact, we do not yet know how to woo them. But the Phaloenopsis is not among them. It gives no trouble in the great majority of cases. For myself, I find it grow with the calm complacency of the cabbage. Yet we are all aware that our success is accidental, in a measure. The general conditions which it demands are ...
— About Orchids - A Chat • Frederick Boyle
... all alone in the forest. Night fell, and King Solomon lay down under a tree to sleep. Over his head, on the branch of a tree, sat a huge Owl; and the Owl hooted so loud and so long, Too-whit too-woo! Too-whit too-woo! that Solomon could not sleep. Solomon looked up at the Owl, ...
— The Talking Thrush - and Other Tales from India • William Crooke
... three knights set out in a small vessel. Siegfried bade his companions represent him as Gunther's vassal only; but Brunhild, seeing his giant figure and guessing its strength, imagined that he had come to woo her. She was dismayed, therefore, when she heard that he had held the stirrup for Gunther to dismount. When he entered her hall, she advanced to meet him; but he drew aside, saying that honor was due ...
— Myths and Legends of All Nations • Various
... go as you are now going, and made you feel that I am not the perfect woman that you describe to me, as me. Even now, I fear that this letter will do me harm in your heart; but all the lover in me—and girls inherit from their fathers as well as from their mothers—cries out in me to woo you; and you must forget this, only at such times of tenderness as you will sometimes have while you are gone, when one embrace would be worth a world. Then read or remember this, as my return-clasp ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick
... of skunk, putrid meat, and garlic? After investigating the Carrion-flower and the Purple Trillium, among others, we learned that certain flies delight in foul odors loathsome to higher organisms; that plants dependent on these pollen carriers woo them from long distances with a stench, and in addition sometimes try to charm them with color resembling the sort of meat it is their special mission, with the help of beetles and other scavengers of Nature, to remove from the face of the ...
— Wild Flowers Worth Knowing • Neltje Blanchan et al
... thou, nor count thy lingering vain, Though comrades chide, and breezes woo the fleet. Approach the prophetess; with prayer unchain Her voice to speak. She shall the tale repeat Of wars in Italy, thy destined seat,— What toils to shun, what dangers to despise,— And make the triumph of thy quest complete. Thou hast whate'er ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... robed by Beauty's Queen, with softer charms SATURNIA woo'd the Thunderer to her arms; O'er her fair limbs a veil of light she spread, And bound a starry diadem on her head; 215 Long braids of pearl her golden tresses grac'd, And the charm'd CESTUS sparkled round her waist. —Raised o'er the woof, by Beauty's hand ...
— The Botanic Garden - A Poem in Two Parts. Part 1: The Economy of Vegetation • Erasmus Darwin
... been the recipient, and felt that he had been extremely fortunate in finding such a pleasant abiding-place; but, although he was very weary from his rough and tedious ride over the mountain, he found that slumber was hard to woo, and he, too, lay awake for long hours, wondering over the strange experience of the evening, and what hard fate—for hard he felt sure it must have been—could have driven a cultivated gentleman like Mr. Abbot, and his peerless daughter, who ...
— Virgie's Inheritance • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... been a great deal of "whistlin'" about the cabin up Lone River; whistling of robins in spring—nothing sweeter—the chordlike whistlings of thrush and vireo after sunset, that bubbling "mar-guer-ite" with which the blackbirds woo, and the light diminuendo with which the bluebird caressed the air after an April flight. Perhaps Joan's musical faculty was less untrained than any other. After all, that "Aubade Provencale" was ...
— The Branding Iron • Katharine Newlin Burt
... the Chamberlain of the Queen would woo a bride?" Dama Ecciva asked lightly, but unconsciously opening and closing her slender henna-stained fingers, straining them into the soft palms with strenuous motions, while she ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... pretended to take up arms in behalf of his self-promised bride, and proclaimed that he was about to march to Rome to redress Honoria's wrongs. Ambition and spite against her brother must have been the sole motives that led the lady to woo the royal Hun; for Attila's face and person had all the natural ugliness of his race, and the description given of him by a Byzantine ambassador must have been well known in the imperial courts. Herbert has well versified the portrait drawn by Priscus ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various
... wisdom too Is love to woo, And love to know. If love disarms, It is by charms; So yield ...
— Psyche • Moliere
... I, That poison those I love. Gentle I am As any lamb, And harmless as a dove. Thy cruel scorn Has left forlorn A nymph whose charms may vie With theirs who sport In Cynthia's court, Though Venus' self were by. Since, fugitive knight, to no purpose I woo thee, Barabbas's fate still pursue and ...
— Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... Shylock is circumvented by Portia; but they are also tied together, though less firmly, at the very outset of the play, when Antonio borrows from Shylock the money which makes it possible for Bassanio to woo and win the Lady of Belmont. Furthermore, any event in one of the main strands of causation may stand at the culmination of a minor strand, and thus may form a little knot in the general network of the plot. ...
— A Manual of the Art of Fiction • Clayton Hamilton
... turtle in the word. But the robin I love dear, For he singeth through the year. Robin! Robin! Merry Robin! So I'd have my true love be: Not to fly At the nigh Sign of cold adversity. "When the spring brings sweet delights, When aloft the lark doth rise, Lovers woo o' mellow nights, And youths peep in maidens' eyes, That time blooms the eglantine, Daisies pied upon the hill, Cowslips fair and columbine, Dusky violets by the rill. But the ivy green cloth grow When the ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle
... dear than life, Should other gallant woo, I'd straight unsheath my dudgeon knife And cut his weasand through; Or he, the conqueror in the strife, The ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow
... success is the only goal I have within me; The meanest man with the smallest soul May woo and win me. ...
— The Man from Snowy River • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
... Whereupon Mr. Polly said: "Leggo!" and again, "D'you hear! Leggo!" and then drove his elbow with considerable force into the region of Mr. Rusper's midriff. Whereupon Mr. Rusper, with a loud impassioned cry, resembling "Woo kik" more than any other combination of letters, released the bicycle handle, seized Mr. Polly by the cap and hair and bore his head and shoulders downward. Thereat Mr. Polly, emitting such words as everyone knows and nobody prints, butted his utmost into the concavity ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells
... woo the muser, warming into passion, pulsing with a more eager throb of desire, in changed tone and pace. Suddenly in a new quarter amid a quick strum of dance the main motive hurries along. The gay sounds vanish, ominous almost in the distance. The sadness of the lover now ...
— Symphonies and Their Meaning; Third Series, Modern Symphonies • Philip H. Goepp
... prologue was provided, but an Induction, in the course of which "a boy of the house" discourses with two gentlemen concerning the play, and explains that the author will "not be entreated to give it a prologue. He has lost too much that way already, he says. He will not woo the Gentile ignoramus so much. But careless of all vulgar censure, as not depending on common approbation, he is confident it shall super-please judicious spectators, and to them he leaves it to work with the rest by example or otherwise." ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... who was adjusting the bridle of Garey's horse. "Plenty o' time, I tell ee; they ain't a comin' yit. He woo! ole gal!" he continued, addressing himself to the mare—"ho-woo! we're a-gwine to leave you ahint a bit, but I reck'n yu'll turn up agin. They won't eat ye, anyhow; so don't be skeeart about thet, ole gal! Now, Billee, ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid
... me free! Heart, thou art desolate. Farewell, O sun. Vain are the plains of the earth, its flowers, and purling streams. I loved you all once—but now no longer love. Thee I woo, kind Death! Wa-shu-pa calls me hence. In life we were one. We'll bask together in the Spirit Land. Short is my pass ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... we differ, and (to prevent the flouting of the laity) to emphasise the points where we agree. I trust your paper will show me the way to a rejoinder; and that rejoinder I shall hope to make with so much art as to woo or drive you from your threatened silence. I would not ask better than to pass my life in beating out this quarter of corn with such a seconder ...
— The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... happy in marriage with you, cannot be happy with another man. Let us, just to make the thing clear, suppose that Jessie Loring is the woman whose inner life is most in harmony with yours. If your lives blend in a true marriage, then will she find true happiness; but, if, through your failure to woo and win, she be drawn aside into a marriage with one whose life is inharmonious, to what a sad, weary, hopeless existence may she not be doomed. Paul! Paul! There are two aspects in which this question is to be viewed. I pray to Heaven that you may ...
— The Hand But Not the Heart - or, The Life-Trials of Jessie Loring • T. S. Arthur
... Fitzwilliam, Earl of Southampton, to receive the Princess at Calais, and conduct her to England. On her arrival Henry was greatly disappointed. He did not think the Princess as charming as her portrait; and, unfortunately for her, she was unable to woo him with winning words, for she could speak no language but German, and of that Henry did not understand a word. Though not ugly (as many contemporaries testify), she was plain in person and manners, ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... might have echoed Rose's childish wish, that she had not quite so many aunts, for the tongues of those interested relatives made sad havoc with his little romance and caused him to long fervently for a desert island where he could woo and win his love in delicious peace. That nothing of the sort was possible soon became evident, since every word uttered only confirmed Phebe's resolution to go away and proved to Rose how mistaken she had been in believing that ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... measure to the oak, the pine, the willow, &c.' The same journal from which we take this anecdote mentions, that in Henry Taylor's drama, 'Edwin the Fair,' there are some pleasing lines, where the wind is feigned to feel the want of a voice, and to woo the ...
— Music and Some Highly Musical People • James M. Trotter
... "What would you do if I should die?" He paused a moment, some bright thought to woo, And then, in solemn tone, made this reply: "This thing, by Allah's help, I'll ...
— Gleams of Sunshine - Optimistic Poems • Joseph Horatio Chant
... surface sat mighty mists, which grouped themselves into arches and long cathedral aisles. Down one of these, with the fiery pace of a quarrel from a cross-bow, ran a frigate right athwart our course. "Are they mad?" some voice exclaimed from our deck. "Do they woo their ruin?" But in a moment, as she was close upon us, some impulse of a heady current or local vortex gave a wheeling bias to her course, and off she forged without a shock. As she ran past us, high aloft amongst the shrouds stood the lady of the pinnace. The deeps ...
— The English Mail-Coach and Joan of Arc • Thomas de Quincey
... woo', man,—it's the woo', and no the beasts themsells, that makes them be ca'd lang or short. I believe if ye were to measure their backs, the short sheep wad be rather the langer-bodied o' the twa; ...
— The Black Dwarf • Sir Walter Scott
... emerged from the grove into the street. The joyous sunlight—a stranger to him for years—shone warmly down upon his face, as if to welcome him to liberty and the world. The sounds of gay laughter rang in his ears, as if to woo him back to the blest enjoyments and amenities of life; but Nature's influence and man's example were now silent alike to his lonely heart. Over its dreary wastes still reigned the ruthless ambition which had exiled love ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... hardly to be wondered at that when she grew up, she too wished to choose her lover. Many came to woo, but at the age of twenty-three the rich and gifted girl was still single. The reason came out at last. In the house lived a quick-witted youth, whom Aslaug had taken in out of pity. He went by the name of the tramp or gipsy, ...
— The Bridal March; One Day • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... sickened and filled me with such utter loathing that often when she was more than usually tender I dreaded lest my pent-up wrath should break loose and impel me to kill her swiftly and suddenly as one crushes the head of a poisonous adder—an all-too-merciful death for such as she. I preferred to woo her by gifts alone—and her hands were always ready to take whatever I or others chose to offer her. From a rare jewel to a common flower she never refused anything—her strongest passions were vanity and avarice. Sparkling gems from the pilfered store of Carmelo Neri-trinkets ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... returned from Belleport in a mood bordering on ecstasy, his path now clear before him. He would woo Delight Hathaway and win her, and with a strong mutual love and hope they would set forth in life together. He had, to be sure, no capital but his youth, his strength, and his education, but he did not shrink from hard work and felt certain that he would be able not ...
— Flood Tide • Sara Ware Bassett
... maximalists of 1917 and 1918 were, in essence, nothing but a new and formidable horde of Jacksons. Their case rested upon principles held to be true by all good Americans, and constantly reaffirmed by the highest officers of state. It was thus extremely likely that, if they were permitted to woo the public ear, they would quickly amass a majority of suffrages, and so get the conduct of things into their own hands. So it became necessary, in order that the great enterprises then under way might be pushed to a successful issue, that all these marplots be silenced, and it was accordingly ...
— The American Credo - A Contribution Toward the Interpretation of the National Mind • George Jean Nathan
... Deor's Lament, v. 21. He was a king of the Goths. After his death, about 375 A.D., he came to be known as the typical bad king, covetous, fierce, and cruel. According to the Scandinavian form of the story, the king sends his son and a treacherous councillor, Bikki (the Becca of v. 19) to woo and bring to the court the maiden Swanhild. Bikki urges the son to woo her for himself and then betrays him to his father, who has him hanged and causes Swanhild to be trampled to death by horses. Her brothers revenge her death and wound the king. At this juncture the Huns attack him, and ...
— Old English Poems - Translated into the Original Meter Together with Short Selections from Old English Prose • Various
... they were as far from Monmouth's jovial violence as his tones from the Duke's reckless exclaiming. He was urgent but courteous, most insistent yet most deferential. Monmouth claimed and challenged, M. de Perrencourt seemed to beseech and woo. Yet he asked as though none could refuse, and his prayer presumed a favourable answer. Barbara listened in quiet; I could not tell whether fear alone bound her, or whether the soft courtly voice bred fascination ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope
... "Within the garden trimly bordered, Assisted by the merle, I mean to woo The Heavenly Nine, by young Apollo wardered," And Araminta answered, "Yes, dear, do. The deck chair's in the outhouse; lunch is ordered For ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, May 27, 1914 • Various
... had the audacity to woo her—among them Duc de Lauzun, whose complicity in the famous affair of the diamond necklace afterward cast her, though innocent, into ruin; the Duc de Biron; and the Baron de Besenval, who had obtained much influence over her, which he used ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... Joris had also a secret feeling of resentment. He had taken no pains to woo Katherine until some one else wanted her. It was universally conceded that he had been the first to draw his sword, and thus indulge his own temper at the expense of their child's good name and happiness. Taking these faults as rudimentary ones, Lysbet could enlarge on them indefinitely; ...
— The Bow of Orange Ribbon - A Romance of New York • Amelia E. Barr
... bitter and obstinate struggles that they succeeded in repressing their mirth, when he; appeared at his desk with one of his eyes literally closed, and his nose considerably improved in size and richness of color. When they were all assembled, he hemmed several times, and, in a woo-begone tone of voice, split—by a feeble attempt at maintaining authority and suppressing his terrors—into two parts, that jarred most ludicrously, he briefly addressed ...
— The Poor Scholar - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... hand—even the familiar table-cloth and carpet, and to sit instead inside the framework of a six-foot bed, with roof and walls forming the queerest possible combinations of lines and angles, and hung with three different patterns of paper." To woo the muses in a garret is the common fate of genius; but most of the "students" (for so their landladies, misled by a name, called the occupants of a study) were better off than this literary gentleman. ...
— Uppingham by the Sea - a Narrative of the Year at Borth • John Henry Skrine
... by the place where the Master-maid dwelt. He saw how brightly the hut shone and gleamed through the wood, and he too went into it to see who lived there, and when he entered and saw the beautiful young maiden he fell even more in love with her than the sheriff had done, and began to woo her at once. So the Master-maid asked him, as she had asked the sheriff, if he had a great deal of money, and the attorney said he was not ill off for that, and would at once go home to get it; and at night he came with a great ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various
... through thy life, Thou child of her we loved so tender; Prince Hogen thee doth woo for wife, And we ...
— Axel Thordson and Fair Valborg - a ballad • Thomas J. Wise
... one sort of weather; when it streams out to sea, that is another. But I can never tell which is which: nor in my experience does it much matter; for it seems impossible for Sorrento to do anything but woo us with gentle weather. But the use of Vesuvius, after all, is to furnish us a background for the violet light at sundown, when the villages at its foot gleam like a silver fringe. I have become convinced of one thing: ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... moonless night, when neither could woo coveted sleep to his tired eyes, the Boy said to his companion, "Father Paul, I'm going to be a man—a man, do you hear? I am going to New Orleans—you know Mr. Ledoux asked us to come in September—and I'm going to marry Opal, whatever ...
— One Day - A sequel to 'Three Weeks' • Anonymous
... images that be, combined, To this white couch and cool shall woo thee, Sleep! First will I think on fields of grasses deep In gray-green flower, o'er which the transient wind Runs like a smile; and next will call to mind How glistening poplar-tops, when breezes creep Among their leaves, a tender ...
— Ride to the Lady • Helen Gray Cone
... looking shyly at him, "Fame is waiting as anxiously for you to woo her as—as another person waited. Fame is a ...
— Revenge! • by Robert Barr
... curling, The silver streamlet purling, The meadow wildflowers furling Their leaflets to repose: All woo me from the world ...
— Poems • Denis Florence MacCarthy
... recalls Milton's Sonnet to Mr. Henry Lawes:— "Dante shall give Fame leave to set thee higher Than his Casella, whom he woo'd to sing, Met in the milder ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 2, Purgatory [Purgatorio] • Dante Alighieri |
