"Coddle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... resources; and in the use of those resources, during the past fifteen years particularly, much has been revealed to us of what is now in the working class mind. I am not suggesting that to seek a settlement of conditions of disunity, or the trouble arising from those conditions, you must coddle the working classes, praise them and pay them highly, and try to keep them contented with conditions which in themselves cannot be defended. I do not mean that at all. What I mean is that if unity between classes in industrial and economic life is to be sought and secured, it can ...
— The War and Unity - Being Lectures Delivered At The Local Lectures Summer - Meeting Of The University Of Cambridge, 1918 • Various
... ten minutes' walk over to classes, whatever the weather may be. I should object to shivering across the first thing in the morning in rain and snow and getting all splashed and blown. No one can call me a coddle, but I do like comfort, and it would be a ...
— Tom and Some Other Girls - A Public School Story • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... wonderful flower-pots; he saw nothing but his uncle's gaiters. Not that Tom was in awe of his uncle's mental superiority; indeed, he had made up his mind that he didn't want to be a gentleman farmer, because he shouldn't like to be such a thin-legged, silly fellow as his uncle Pullet,—a molly-coddle, in fact. A boy's sheepishness is by no means a sign of overmastering reverence; and while you are making encouraging advances to him under the idea that he is overwhelmed by a sense of your age and wisdom, ten to one he is ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... course comes back with me next packet; this letter goes by the overland mail more quickly than we can; gladly would I go too, but the old woman, whose life is essential to your rights, would die of fatigue by the way; as it is, I am obliged to coddle her, and feed her, and ptisan her, like a sick baby, bless her dear old heart that loves my darling Emmy! She has a pack of papers with her, which she will not open, till the general is by her side: if she unfortunately dies before we can return, ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... takes a woman, I'm thinking, to carry a heart-load. If it was a woman you were worrying about, I'd coddle you a little; but I never knew a man who ran away from his friends who was worth a tear. You'll soon see the folly ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent
... hoping to find you well as it leaves me at present and I beg leave to tell you there be some dam funny goings-on, down here to Looe. The E. & W. Looe Volunteer Artllry have took to calling themselves the Die-hards and the way they coddle is a public scandal, when I tell you that for six weeks there has been no drill in the fresh air and 16s 8d public money has been paid to T. Tripconey carpenter (a member of the corps) for fastening up the windows of the ...
— Merry-Garden and Other Stories • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... go! Such fun, Billy! I know you'll like it. A real gun and dog and hunter! Come on, and don't be a molly-coddle," ...
— The Louisa Alcott Reader - A Supplementary Reader for the Fourth Year of School • Louisa M. Alcott
... things helped to make Harry popular. He was now nearly sixteen, tall and strong for his age, thanks to the outdoor life he had always lived. An only son, he and his father had always been good friends. Without being in any way a molly-coddle, still he had been kept safe from a good many of the temptations that beset some boys by the constant association with his father. It was no wonder, therefore, that John Grenfel, as soon as he had talked with Harry and learned of the credentials ...
— The Boy Scout Aviators • George Durston
... succeeded in getting into one slipper and, rising, tried to stand in it; but it hurt her so frightfully that she immediately sank down upon the floor and proceeded to pat and rub and coddle her foot to ease the pain. It was while she was thus engaged that a knock ...
— The Girl of the Golden West • David Belasco
... in the misty crags of the Alleghanies some tiny rills trickle and gurgle from a cleft in the mossy rocks. The drippling waters, timid perhaps in the bleak and lonely fastness of the heights, hug and coddle one another until they flash into a limpid pool. A score of rivulets from all the mountain side babble hither over rocky beds to join their companions. Thence in rippling current they purl and tinkle down the gentle slopes, through bosky nooks sweet with the odors of fir tree and pine, over ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker
... the poignant ridicule of the cruel for many a long day. Something of this derision had begun already, and he had found no secret place to hide his tears. That they would call him a milksop, a molly-coddle, and all kinds of horrid names, he knew, and he had tried manfully to bear-up under persecution. It was not until after many hot and silent drops had relieved the fever of his overwrought brain, that sleep had come to him, and now it was ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar
... the Himalayas and the whole northern frontier will earn you a regular rank. Coddle Anstruther, too, and cling to the Vice-roy! I'll back you with any money you need. It's the one chance of ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... purpose at Amblemere. 'Ay, Miss Millikin, mum, he cooms ahn boord reglar, does that wee dug,' said the old boatman, 'and a' makes himsel' rare an' frien'ly, a' do—they coddle him oop fine, amang 'em. Eh, but he's a smart little dug, we quite look for him of a morning coomin' for his constitutionil, fur arl the worl' like ...
— The Talking Horse - And Other Tales • F. Anstey
... talk of women's dependence. This is, I am sure, only an awkward name for less resentment at mastery. The actual nursing of the young seems likewise to involve equally unreasoning tendencies to pet, coddle, and "do for" others. The existence of these two instincts has been long recognized by literature and common knowledge, but their importance in causing differences in the general activities of the two sexes has not. The fighting instinct is in fact the cause of ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman
... heart clean of anger and revenge, even scorn for the wretch that sold himself for money. There was nothing else to sweep out, was there?"—bitterly,—"no friendships, such as weak women nurse and coddle into being,—or love, that they live in, and die for sometimes, in a ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IX., March, 1862., No. LIII. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics, • Various
... beautiful and good as may be; and a half-truth or a truth with a reservation may be as dangerous as falsehood. The poet who should so paint the velvety beauty of a rattlesnake as to make you long to coddle it would hardly be considered a safe character to be at large. Likewise an ode to the nettle, or to the autumn splendor of the poison-sumac, which ignored its venom would scarcely be a wise botanical guide for indiscriminate circulation among the innocents. Think, then, of a poetic eulogium ...
— My Studio Neighbors • William Hamilton Gibson
... "Ken's no molly-coddle!" Ella had said to her complacently, in connection with this topic, and one of Ella's closest friends had added, "Oh, Heaven save me from ever having one of my sons afraid to go out and do what the other boys do. Let 'em sow their wild oats, they're ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris
... have been happiest in a trim modern villa. But it was a belief of hers that she had married a man of strange genius. She had married him for himself, not for his genius; but this added grace in him was a thing to be reckoned with, ever so much; a thing she must coddle to the utmost in a proper setting. She was a year older than he (though, being so small and slight, she looked several years younger), and in her devotion the maternal instinct played a great part. William, as I have already conveyed to you, was not greatly gifted. Mary's instinct, ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm
... than you think, Miss Gilmer. Except one time when I had the measles, I'd never been sick in my life till last week. I don't believe it's good for people to coddle themselves and worry all the time for feah they are ...
— The Little Colonel's Christmas Vacation • Annie Fellows Johnston
... way home her Mind was in a Tumult. Why had he given her the Con Speech and all that Money? What was the Ulterior Motive? What had he been Doing that he should attempt to Coddle her into a Forgiving Mood? Did he Fear that she would get ...
— More Fables • George Ade
... arm-chairs? In my time there was a single arm-chair in a house, for elderly persons—at any rate it was so at my mother's, who was a good woman, I can tell you. Everybody can't be rich! No fortune can hold out against waste! I should be ashamed to coddle myself as you do! And yet I am old. I need looking after. And there! there! fitting up gowns! fallals! What! silk for lining at two francs, when you can get jaconet for ten sous, or even for eight, that ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert
... paragraphs of concession as the infusion drawn from those two doctrines laid down at starting, and throw away the effete axioms as fit only for old women to coddle and drench themselves withal. Having done this, the reader is ready for the book the title of which we ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various
... fairest you can get, and coddle them very tender, so that a straw may go through to the Core, then core them with a scoop or small knife, then pare them neatly, and weigh them, to every pound of Quinces, take one pound of double ...
— The Queen-like Closet or Rich Cabinet • Hannah Wolley
... motion with his powerful hand. "Yes, I know; but when I quit moving I want to die. I know I could get a steam-heated back room in a quiet street of a sleepy town somewhere and coddle myself into a good many years yet; but it isn't worth the price. I love this big free life too well ever to leave it. Most of the people one meets here are rough, but in time that will all change. It's changing now; and meantime nature ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge
... (on the day on which Richard had advertised me she was coming,) the door was opened, and some one was taken to the parlor. Then old Peter rang a bell which stood on the hall table, and called out to Ann Coddle (once my nurse, now the seamstress, chambermaid, and general lightener of his toils), to tell Miss Pauline a ...
— Richard Vandermarck • Miriam Coles Harris
... as she knew Mallow did not coddle himself in any way. However, she had seen the overcoat too often to mistake to whom it belonged. Moreover, Cuthbert did not deny that he had jumped the wall in the way she explained. "Well, now you know all, what ...
— The Secret Passage • Fergus Hume
... when he fell he should get up at once, rub the bump, and say, "That didn't hurt." All through his career the bumps and the hardships of life were met with the same pluck. On the other hand, a thoughtless caretaker will excitedly jump and catch up the slightly injured child, coddle it, rock it, pet it—and the crying continues indefinitely. This early training in meeting minor hurts and obstacles lasts throughout the lifetime. Pluck and grit are lacking. The behavior of the man in the face of difficulties is foreshadowed by the attitude of the child toward ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler
... be polite, and even formal, rather than free-and-easy and rude. She taught him to be a man. He must not be what brave boys called a molly-coddle: like most womanly women, she had a veneration for man, and she gave him her own high idea of ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade
... sleeplessness. The brain during sleep is comparatively empty of blood; warm feet and cool head tend to produce sleep. Rocking, etc., is unnatural, and baby is made to receive and enjoy the natural. If the baby is sick the mother may take it in her arms and sing to it and coddle it carefully, but it is then sick. If it is trained properly from the beginning, rocking to sleep will be unnecessary; walking with the baby is of the same nature. See that your baby has warm feet and legs and body ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... coquetry. true lover's knot, plighted love; love tale, love token, love letter; billet-doux, valentine. honeymoon; Strephon and Chloe^. V. caress, fondle, pet, dandle; pat, pat on the head, pat on the cheek; chuck under the chin, smile upon, coax, wheedle, cosset, coddle, cocker, cockle; make of, make much of; cherish, foster, kill with kindness. clasp, hug, cuddle; fold in one's arms, strain in one's arms; nestle, nuzzle; embrace, kiss, buss, smack, blow a kiss; salute &c (courtesy) 894; fold to the heart, press to the bosom. bill and ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... know that means he is either a molly-coddle or a black sheep. I remember the time I had when you set me on to look after ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... knew her, and could not take care of them; but I remember that there were blush roses, and white roses, and cinnamon roses all in a tangle in one corner, and I used to pick the crumpled petals of those to make myself a delicious coddle with ground cinnamon and damp brown sugar. In the spring I used to find the first green grass there, for it was warm and sunny, and I used to pick the little French pinks when they dared show their heads in the cracks of the flag-stones that were laid around the house. ...
— Deephaven and Selected Stories & Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... tearing women and children, became more of a necessity to their appetites. Take two instances. Titus was a rough, hardened soldier; but he wept at the horrors which his siege obliged him to inflict on Jerusalem. Nero was an artist, and fiddled while Rome was burning. Coddle your boys; you may keep them from wishing to fight their equals, but you will not cure them of torturing animals. Idleness means not only sluggishness, but a morbid and criminal desire for sensation, which honest industry would have ...
— Four Psalms • George Adam Smith
... systematically punish them, though they sometimes strike them in momentary anger. On the Sacramento they teach them how to swim when a few weeks old by holding them on their hands in the water. I have seen a father coddle and teeter his baby in an attack of crossness for an hour with the greatest patience, then carry him down to the river, laughing good-naturedly, gently dip the little brown smooth-skinned nugget in the waves clear under, and then lay him on the moist, warm sand. The treatment was no less ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... laid aside, a useless weapon; I am not even physically capable of writing, even if the world would hear me; and I am forced back upon myself, upon a feeble life, necessarily self-centered, to nurse and coddle myself as though I was a poor failing dotard, with one avenue alone—and how precarious!—through which I may perhaps speak my little message to the world—the education of a child to carry on ...
— Memoirs of Arthur Hamilton, B. A. Of Trinity College, Cambridge • Arthur Christopher Benson
... nations are penalizing talent and genius, the bearers of the torch of civilization, to coddle and perpetuate the choking human undergrowth, which, as all authorities tell us, is escaping control and threatens to overrun the whole garden of humanity. Yet men continue to drug themselves with the opiate of optimism, or sink back upon ...
— The Pivot of Civilization • Margaret Sanger
... voice of authority, and it was not an English voice, nor is O'Shea distinctively an English name. "Dreadful. And, by the way, I hope you are not spoiling these youngsters. You must remember that you are fitting them for the battle of life. Don't coddle your soldiers. Can you reconcile ...
— Little Citizens • Myra Kelly
... to deliver it to the world. The form which such a recognition takes, consciously or unconsciously, is worship; and worship does not question nor criticize, it obeys. The object of it does not need to coddle it, bribe it, beguile it, reason with it, convince it—it commands it; that is sufficient; the obedience rendered is not reluctant, but prompt and whole-hearted. Admiration for a Napoleon, confidence in him, pride in him, affection for him, can lift him high and carry him ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... not know that by intuition, you see," said Lawless; "he thought, I daresay, as I did, that you were a mere molly-coddle, brought up at your mother's apron-string, and had not pluck enough in you to ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... of 'em good and proper, once," returned Robert, who had been, known to coddle an ailing worm, but at the moment he was just a little boy with Peter, in very proper high spirits. And while braggingly he went on talking to his delighted listener, the rest of the party were silently, but with keen enjoyment, watching the passing country side. It was a ride to be ...
— Suzanna Stirs the Fire • Emily Calvin Blake
... she hasn't," retorted Polly vehemently; "she has five of you to coddle her, and you just go there because you like the fun and think it sounds goody. There are enough of you without me, and one of you can take my ...
— Half a Dozen Girls • Anna Chapin Ray
... and although a thousand fall, there are always some to go into the breach. When they told Joan of Arc she should be at home minding women's work, she answered there were plenty to spin and wash. And so, even with your own rare gifts! When nature is "so careless of the single life," why should we coddle ourselves into the fancy that our own is of exceptional importance? Suppose Shakespeare had been knocked on the head some dark night in Sir Thomas Lucy's preserves, the world would have wagged on better or worse, ...
— Virginibus Puerisque • Robert Louis Stevenson
... livelihood. Oh, Bibi—"Bibi Coeur d'Or," as she was called so frequently by her multitudinous adorers—would that in these mundane days you could revisit us with your girlish laugh and supple dancing form! Look at the portrait of her, painted by Coddle at the height of her amazing beauty: note the sensitive nostrils, the delicate little mouth, and those eyes—the gayest, merriest eyes that ever charmed a king's heart; and her hair—that "mass of waving corn," ...
— Terribly Intimate Portraits • Noel Coward
... continued the chatterer, "that it would be a nice plan—a most charming plan, for you and me to make a little exchange. You give me your bird Content, which I'll always cherish and coddle, and feed on sugar-plums and strawberry ice, in affectionate remembrance of you"—(O Folly! Folly! how little you care for truth!)—"and you shall have my magnificent cockatoo, Parade, that I've taught to speak myself; he's ...
— The Crown of Success • Charlotte Maria Tucker
... a strong boy to start with, but left to the mercy of so many doting women, he gradually became a helpless molly-coddle. ...
— Married • August Strindberg
... him—they're phenomenal. There are times when that boy appears to be nothing but one frightful, perambulating cold! Well," he sighed, "and yet it's a strange fact, that the more depraved and miserable a little devil is, the more his mother'll coddle him. ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... suited Patty at all, for she said that Vernondale would be no rest and not much fun. She was fond of her Elliott cousins, but she felt sure that they would treat her as a semi-invalid and coddle her until ...
— Patty's Summer Days • Carolyn Wells
... gentleman who wants an heir," the old woman answered, as disrespectful of his spouse as he was, being a time-serving crone, and knowing that it paid but poorly to coddle women who did not as their husbands would have them in the way of offspring. "It should have been a fine boy, but it is ...
— A Lady of Quality • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... Bless me! don't let us be too ceremonious," cried Mr Wodehouse. "Take Lucy, my dear sir—take Lucy. Though she has her garden-gloves on, she's manager indoors for all that. Molly here is the one we coddle up and take care of. Put down your knitting, child, and don't make an old woman of yourself. To be sure, it's your own concern—you should know best; but that's my opinion. Why, Wentworth, where are you off to? 'Tisn't a fast, surely—is it, Mary?—nothing of the sort; it's ...
— The Rector • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... that some one in the high places has a grudge against you. You can hear him saying to his underlings: "Let me see. So-and-so is a pretty rotten camp, isn't it? I'll keep this battalion or that squadron or the other battery there. Do 'em good. Mustn't coddle 'em." And you are kept "there" ...
— With Our Army in Palestine • Antony Bluett
... were not?" he cried, with all the dramatic intensity he could bring to voice. "If instead of being the son of a millionaire, a pampered molly-coddle who never earned a dollar in his life—suppose I were a man who had to fight every ...
— Officer 666 • Barton W. Currie
... way with maidens to sigh for that not easily attained, and it might serve thee to put forth an indifferent air and incline thy attentions toward another and act a mighty cold lord and coddle not ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne
... specific, to name things and people by their names one by one. If he will become drastic enough he can shorten the time of his travail from years to minutes and enter the good land long before his slower brethren who coddle their feelings and insist upon caution in ...
— The Pursuit of God • A. W. Tozer
... her. "Yet we are willing to give you girls all the credit you like for your decision of character, only caring to retain just a little vanity on account of our own endurance in other ways. And you'll have to own there isn't one of you who likes a Molly Coddle!" ...
— All Aboard - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... I love the jolly rattle Of an orde-al by battle, There's an end of tittle-tattle When your enemy is dead. It's an arrant molly-coddle Fears a crack upon his noddle And he's only fit to swaddle In ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... woman afflicted with chronic bronchitis, who wears furs and velvets in May and fears the east wind as much as an East-Indian fears a tiger, does her best to coddle her husband, father, and sons in about the same ratio as she coddles herself. They must not go out without an overcoat; they must be sure to take an umbrella if the day is at all cloudy; they must not walk too far, nor ride too hard, and they must be ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous
... the head of his house. He ought to get his own way, if anybody does, and, if he is not a coward, he will, too," said Mr. Heathcote rather hotly. "Would you have a man a molly-coddle, tied to his wife's apron-string, and not daring to call his soul ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, August, 1885 • Various
... you call long. As for walking with him, it's out of the question. He goes about a mile an hour. And then he makes me look so much like a fool. I had no idea that he would be such an old coddle." ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... I do, punish, or act as I longed to, coddle the boys and comfort the poor knees? True, I had not forbidden them to crawl through the sewer pipes, because the idea of their doing it had never occurred to me, so they could not be said to have exactly disobeyed; but, on the other hand, there was an unwritten law that they ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright
... way; if any of the children are sick, I never coddle them; it's best to teach them to make as light ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... she was—and set her down hard in a chair and told her not to come back into the other room, and she minded. She had her hysterics in there till she got tired. When she found out that nobody was comin' to coddle her and do for her she stopped. At least I suppose she did. I had all I could do with poor Aunt Abby tryin' to keep the breath of life in her. The doctor had told me that she was dreadful low, and give me some very strong medicine ...
— The Wind in the Rose-bush and Other Stories of the Supernatural • Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman
... I give him command of a steamer? You can slip him a fat check if you feel that way about it, but I never coddle my skippers, Joey, until I'm sure they're worth while. I think, however, that Mac will make good. ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... He sat quietly in a corner with David, old Jo at their feet, and watched the others. Eve had been angry with him for his interference at Crossroads. "I didn't know you were a molly-coddle, Dicky," she had said, "and I ...
— Mistress Anne • Temple Bailey
... this morning, and would permit no intrusion. He would take care of madame, he had informed the girl, and when she had taken herself away, he repeated it emphatically. Opal was his little girl, he said, and he was going to pet and coddle her himself. Femme de chambre indeed! Wasn't he worth a dozen of the impertinent French minxes! Wanted to coquette with him, most likely—thought he might be ready to yawn over madame's charms! She could keep her pretty ankles ...
— One Day - A sequel to 'Three Weeks' • Anonymous
... I to do, my boy—coddle you up, and keep you always under my eye; or give you a little latitude, and trust to your discretion to take care of yourself ...
— Menhardoc • George Manville Fenn
... not coddle the boy, Margaret," he said as Guy and Henry went off. "I know that he is not physically strong as yet, and sorry I am that it should be so, but he might exert himself more than he does, and he is ...
— At Agincourt • G. A. Henty
... Front, ain't they, poor fellows?" she said to the billetin' orficer. "I'll do my best by 'em. Nobody wouldn't like to coddle 'em better than I should, but 'twould be crule kindness to 'em, I knows. If 'ardships are in store for 'em let 'em 'ave a taste before they goes, I says, and it won't fall so 'eavy on 'em when ...
— Punch, or The London Charivari, Vol. 152, February 21st, 1917 • Various
... reputation to think about. I don't want to coddle it, but there's no harm in just keeping an ...
— The Great Adventure • Arnold Bennett
... is by no means one of my habits to coddle the dogs, cats and other familiars of my household, yet my Muse had so pitiful an appearance that I determined to send for the doctor, but not before I had seen her to bed with a hot bottle, a good supper, and such other comforts ...
— On Nothing & Kindred Subjects • Hilaire Belloc
... second; then, strong in his unconquerable energy, notwithstanding the change in his features, which were now visibly disfigured, Rodin said, in a broken voice, which he tried to make firm: "The fire has warmed me; it will be nothing. I have no time to coddle myself. It would be a pretty thing to fall ill just as the Rennepont affair can only succeed by my exertions! Let us return to business. I told you, Father d'Aigrigny, that you might serve us a good deal; and you also, ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... 'at there ain't none comin' to him, so he hides it by cuttin' up a little worse than usual but it's there, an' Gee! but it does rest heavy when it comes. Why, take me even now when the' wouldn't nothin' but a grizzly bear have the nerve to coddle me, an' yet week before last I felt so blue an' solitary 'at I couldn't 'a' told to save me whether I was homesick or whether it was only 'cause the beans was ...
— Happy Hawkins • Robert Alexander Wason
... or girl, ought to be able to bear a few falls, knocks, and bruises. This is nature's way of training a child to be more observant or agile. Besides, physical hardihood is one of the best possible results from the playing of games. Do not coddle a child who has received an injury. Cultivate a stoic spirit. If it be a slight injury, have the child go on with his play and he will soon forget it. If it require treatment of any sort, take the player at once away from the playground or vicinity of the other ...
— Games for the Playground, Home, School and Gymnasium • Jessie H. Bancroft
... but that pesky bacon you ate this mornin', Caesar: you sha'n't never touch a bit again's long's you live; do you hear?" and with hot water and flannels, she would proceed to comfort and coddle him as if no anger had ever ...
— Hetty's Strange History • Helen Jackson
... their mother had most particularly charged him that he was never to take them off without special permission, for he was too delicate to run the risk of damping his feet. Elsie and Duncan thought it great nonsense, and both pitied and despised Robbie for being such a miserable molly-coddle. ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... him to dance. He was tired. She would coddle him. He was only a baby—tired, sleepy, sad. She must ask no questions. Only love. Before her love the darkness of his face would clear away as ...
— Erik Dorn • Ben Hecht
... through psychology and molly-coddle stuff, We often talk in institutes, we've lost the power to bluff; Perhaps 'twas Pestalozzi, Froebel and John Herbart Who robbed the wand of Skinny of its pedagogic art; We'll not discuss philosophy, but we know about the chalk, That ...
— The Loom of Life • Cotton Noe
... was interested listening to their conversation mixed with sharp jokes. Nearly every man had a nickname. Murch was called 'Captain Snarl'; a tall, fierce-looking man, who just filled my idea of a Spanish freebooter, was 'Dr. Coddle.' I think his real name was Wood. The rum seems to make them crazy, for one, who was called 'Rub-a-dub,' pitched 'Dr. Coddle' head and heels into the water. A gentlemanly man named Thompson, who acted as master of ceremonies, ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop
... was really quite worn out; but I didn't give way to it. I told Mr. Exact I thought it would rest me to take a drive into New York and attend the Sanitary Fair, and so we did. I suppose Mrs. Evans would have thought she must go to bed and coddle herself for a month." ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various
... celebrated for their strength and goodness; so much so, indeed, that the young men never dream of going to bed without 'em, and I believe it's admitted on all hands that THEY know what's good, and don't coddle themselves.' ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... or the ends of nations or associations of men; he is careless of our ceremonies and invocations. He does not lose his temper with our follies and weaknesses. It is for us to serve Him. He captains us, he does not coddle us. He has his own ends for which he needs us. . ...
— God The Invisible King • Herbert George Wells
... he was evidently anxious, as he was wont to say, "to see what the fellow is made of,'' and he would frequently put some provoking question, liking nothing better than to receive a pithy answer. Of his kind feelings toward students I could say much. He was not inclined to coddle them, but was ever ready to help ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... rather amused him to come into sudden contact with the respectable; they were always so much surprised. He had rather liked this man. Some people had good-temperedly despised him for a molly-coddle; he had been a delicate boy, and had cherished himself rather. Peter, delicate himself, incapable of despising anyone, and with a heart that went out to all unfortunates, had been, in a mild and casual way, his friend. Looking into his face now, Peter was struck ...
— The Lee Shore • Rose Macaulay
... upon what her possibilities had been and how she had misused them, the iller and the more distressed she got. She grew thin and spare of flesh. Her friends became frightened. They began to dose her and to coddle her. She looked at them with eyes full of supreme melancholy, and she frequently wept upon ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 6 • Various
... have any, and nerves you to grapple with fortune. You will discover what a number of things you can do without when you have no money to buy them. You won't want new gloves and varnished boots, eau de Cologne and cabs to ride in. You have been bred up as a molly-coddle, Pen, and spoilt by the women. A single man who has health and brains, and can't find a livelihood in the world, doesn't deserve to stay there. Let him pay his last halfpenny and jump over Waterloo Bridge. Let him steal a leg of ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... know!" she said brokenly. "I ache for you, dear; but I understand! I have parted with a child of my own—not for a few years, but for ever, till we meet again in God's heaven. I'll help you every way I can. I'll watch her night and day; I'll coddle her when she's ill; I'll try to make her a good woman. I'll love her, dear, and she shall be my own special charge. I'll be a second ...
— About Peggy Saville • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey
... government as a symbol of that unity. To borrow and adapt the words of one southern leader, while the United States can hardly be expected to do other than recognize the Peking as the de facto government, there is no need to coddle that government and give it face. Such a course maintains a nominal and formal unity while in fact encouraging the military and corrupt forces that keep China divided and which make ...
— China, Japan and the U.S.A. - Present-Day Conditions in the Far East and Their Bearing - on the Washington Conference • John Dewey
... please, but its practice were impossible. We are too tender, too sentimental. We have not the nerve to do our duty to children, nor can we bear to think of any one else doing it. To children we can do nothing but 'spoil' them, nothing but bless their hearts and coddle their souls, taking no thought for their future welfare. And we are justified, maybe, in our flight to this opposite extreme. Nobody can read one line ahead in the book of fate. No child is guaranteed to become ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... delicacy, and had made her so appealingly helpless, they were drawn to her as surely as bee to flower. Old and young, dignified and happy-go-lucky, all were moved irresistibly to do something for her, to coddle her, to ...
— The Heart of the Desert - Kut-Le of the Desert • Honore Willsie Morrow
... laying the foundation in the lad of the same faults that he had himself. But David Dunster did not look on drinking as a fault at all. It was what he had been used to all his life. It was what all the miners had been used to for generations. A man was looked on as a milk-sop and a Molly Coddle, that would not take his mug of ale, and be merry with his comrades. It required the light of education, and the efforts that have been made by the Temperance Societies, to break in on this ancient custom of drinking, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... "I know how it is, Mr. Varney. Bit of a inverlid myself, I am—no health and no constitootion whatsomever, sir. Feelin' a leetle stiddier now, are you? Better lie down on my parlor sofy a while and git rested up nice, hadn't ye?—many's the day I've lazied there, Lord knows, tryin' f'r to coddle my strength back." ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... in their fun, and the only wonder was that they hadn't treated him worse. He supposed that they would have done so had his father not been a ranch-owner. So! they probably thought he was something of a molly-coddle. He was angry enough, but this thought made him angrier—that he hadn't been treated worse. Which goes to show what a reasonable ...
— Injun and Whitey to the Rescue • William S. Hart
... plumbs before they have stones in them, which you may know by putting a pin through them, then codle them in many waters till they are as green as grass, peel them and coddle them again; you must take the weight of them in sugar, a pint of water, then put them in, set them on the fire, to boil slowly till they be clear, skiming them often, and they will be very green; put them up in glasses and ...
— American Cookery - The Art of Dressing Viands, Fish, Poultry, and Vegetables • Amelia Simmons
... her everything that the doctor had said, he told her that Willie was all right. Willie had been declared to be a child of powerful health. They weren't to coddle him. As if any one had coddled him! Poor Aggie only wished ...
— The Judgment of Eve • May Sinclair
... Constance was saying to a very plain, angular girl with large spectacles when the tea was almost over, "we've got to show this budding genius a little friendly attention, or she'll get homesick and mopey before the resplendent Merton returns to coddle her. What are you going to do to liven ...
— Miss Pat at Artemis Lodge • Pemberton Ginther
... Theodora had pictured Cicely as a dainty, clinging little maiden who would cajole and coddle Allyn out of his unfriendly moods. Cicely certainly did rouse Allyn from those moods; but it was by no process of feminine cajolery. She went at him, as the phrase is, hammer and tongs. Good-tempered herself, she demanded good ...
— Phebe, Her Profession - A Sequel to Teddy: Her Book • Anna Chapin Ray
... foreseen. At first he hardly noticed it, it was such a slight accident—simply that in leaping out of the way he turned his ankle. There was a twinge of pain, but Jurgis was used to pain, and did not coddle himself. When he came to walk home, however, he realized that it was hurting him a great deal; and in the morning his ankle was swollen out nearly double its size, and he could not get his foot into his shoe. Still, even then, he did nothing more than swear a little, and wrapped ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... methods of adult work. The child at play is noisy and ought to be noisy: Sir Isaac Newton at work is quiet and ought to be quiet. And the child should spend most of its time at play, whilst the adult should spend most of his time at work. I am not now writing on behalf of persons who coddle themselves into a ridiculous condition of nervous feebleness, and at last imagine themselves unable to work under conditions of bustle which to healthy people are cheerful and stimulating. I am sure that if people had to choose between living where the noise of children never stopped ...
— A Treatise on Parents and Children • George Bernard Shaw
... 'lay me out' if I touched him. I didn't know whether I was justified, but I drew my truncheon and swore I'd brain the first man who came near me. But I was in a cold sweat all the time. They didn't coddle us in those days." ...
— Scotland Yard - The methods and organisation of the Metropolitan Police • George Dilnot
... so-called unmoral romances, which imagine a world where the sins of sense are unvisited by the penalties following, swift or slow, but inexorably sure, in the real world, are deadly poison: these do kill. The, novels that merely tickle our prejudices and lull our judgment, or that coddle our sensibilities or pamper our gross appetite for the marvellous, are not so fatal, but they are innutritious, and clog the soul with unwholesome vapors of all kinds. No doubt they too help to weaken the moral ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... Its minor strains and its expressions of womanly doubts and fears were antipathetic to his sanguine, buoyant, self-confident nature. He was inclined to ridicule the conclusions of its last verse and to say that the man was a molly-coddle—or whatever the word of contempt was in those days. As an antidote he usually called for "O'er the hills in legions, boys," which exactly expressed his love of ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... Redford level), Mary protested vehemently and with tears, the only occasion of her showing a Pennycuick spirit since renouncing the Pennycuick name. The old maid, for her part, was enthusiastically devoted to the new sister-in-law, whom it was her joy to pet and coddle. "I can be of use to her," she tremblingly commended herself to her brother. "I can take the drudgery of the housework off her, and save her in the parish." "Well, perhaps so," said Mr Goldsworthy. And, sincerely desiring to endear himself ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... you once think of it, how much we coddle the baby when he is cute, how we shower him with toys far in excess of what he can use or enjoy, how we fuss and fondle him, and how much thought we give to every possible and impossible want; and how, on the other hand, we neglect the boy when he enters upon that ...
— Your Child: Today and Tomorrow • Sidonie Matzner Gruenberg
... no longer cared for her, nothing mattered any longer. Her depression was put down to the shock she had suffered, and efforts were made to feed her up and coddle her, ...
— The Ashiel mystery - A Detective Story • Mrs. Charles Bryce
... at the station with the milk before five every morning," said the old gentleman, grimly. "Eames says his good woman is inclined to 'coddle him a bit'—she can't forget who he really is, it appears. I was glad to hear it; I don't want the poor boy actually to suffer—and I don't want it to go on much longer. I confess I don't see that there can be much 'coddling' if he has to be up and out before five o'clock in the morning at this ...
— Great Uncle Hoot-Toot • Mrs. Molesworth
... makes an allusion to 'our benefactor,' and the brethren and sisters cheer. The General bows. High old doctors of divinity press up to be introduced. They are all after more. They flatter the General; they coddle him. They give him the highest seat. They pretend to respect him. They defend him from all slanders. They are proud of the General. He is their man. I look into the religious newspapers, and in one column I behold a curse on the stock-jobbing of Wall street, and in the next, the praise of the ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... continuing purpose would knit together the scattered effort of life, his immortality would take the sting from death" (p. 21-22). A little further on, the idea is elaborated in a high strain of mysticism. God, who "captains us but does not coddle us" (p. 42), will by no means undertake to hold the believer scatheless among the pitfalls and perils that beset our earthly pilgrimage. "But God will be with you nevertheless. In the reeling aeroplane, or the dark ice-cave, ...
— God and Mr. Wells - A Critical Examination of 'God the Invisible King' • William Archer
... coming through my boots? The sole of one's foot is a mere bagatelle—it will never be anything but just a base, dirty sole. And shoes do not matter, either. The Greek sages used to walk about without them, so why should we coddle ourselves with such things? Yet why, also, should I be insulted and despised because of them? Tell Thedora that she is a rubbishy, tiresome, gabbling old woman, as well as an inexpressibly foolish one. As for my grey hairs, you are quite wrong ...
— Poor Folk • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... cuddle and coddle him allus wor fain; Shoo wod cook, stew or bake, Wesh and scaar for his sake, An could doctor his ivvery pain. Tho his wage wor but small Shoo ne'er grummeld at all, An if th' butter should chonce to run short; Her cake shoo'd ait dry, If axt why? shoo'd reply, ...
— Yorkshire Lyrics • John Hartley
... you, though I hate to be a molly-coddle!" whispered Diana. "I'm most fearfully sorry if I've ...
— A harum-scarum schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... the girl of the Red Mill repeated. "Aunt Alvirah will snuggle you down between soft, fluffy blankets, and give you hot boneset tea, or 'composition,' and otherwise coddle you. To-morrow morning you will feel like ...
— Ruth Fielding in Moving Pictures - Or Helping The Dormitory Fund • Alice Emerson
... much! Get up! You coddle yourself like a king! All the same, old chap, you don't ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert
... left, after cautioning the young man not to move the sick arm. "You'll be all right to strum the guitar and sport a diamond ring in a fortnight at the outside," said he. At the door he lectured Adelaide: "For God's sake, Miss Ranger, don't let his mother coddle him. He's got the makings of a man like his father—not as big, perhaps, but still a lot of a man. Give him a chance! Give him a chance! If this had happened in a football game or a fox-hunt, nobody would have thought anything of it. But just because it was ...
— The Second Generation • David Graham Phillips
... etc.) sxmiri. Coax logi. Cobalt kobalto. Cobweb araneajxo. Cock (trigger) cxano. Cock (tap) krano. Cock (rooster) koko. Cockerel kokido. Cock's comb kresto. Cocoa kakao. Cocoa-nut kokoso. Cod gado. Code legxaro. Codicil kodicilo. Coddle dorloti. Coerce devigi. Coercion devigo. Coffee kafo. Coffee-house kafejo. Coffee pot kafkrucxo. Coffee tin or box kafujo. Coffer kesto. Coffin cxerko. Cogent videbla. Cognomen alnomo. Coherence kunligo. Coil rulajxo. volvajxo. Coin monero. Coincide ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... "I hope he is not a molly-coddle;" but before there was time to say more the curtains of the litter were drawn aside, and in another moment an attendant had lifted out its occupant, who forthwith proceeded to ...
— A Budget of Christmas Tales by Charles Dickens and Others • Various
... I am ashamed of the Anne Tresslyn who was. I petted and coddled her for years and I alone made her what she was, so I shall not turn against her now. There is a great deal of the old Anne in me still and I coddle her as much as ever. But I've found out something new about her that I never suspected before, and it is this new quality that speaks to you now. I ask you to try to ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... that stern discipline that was to be put in force here—no rocking, no getting up at night to coddle a weeping infant?" ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser
... difference between the two men. Fielding, he says "couldn't do otherwise than laugh at the puny cockney bookseller, pouring out endless volumes of sentimental twaddle, and hold him up to scorn as a moll-coddle and a milksop. His genius had been nursed on sack posset, and not on dishes of tea. His muse had sung the loudest in tavern choruses, and had seen the daylight streaming in over thousands of empty ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden
... however, she appeared at breakfast, for Clay's was not a house wherein one felt encouraged to coddle themselves without exceptional reason, and to all but a suspicious or hypercritical observer she ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin
... program in the shaping of social ethics? Will he follow meekly and at a safe distance in the wake of the modern movement for economic justice and humane living conditions? Will he allow people to think for a moment that his job is to coddle a few of the elect and to solace a few of the victims of preventable ...
— The Minister and the Boy • Allan Hoben
... charities. If they were as many armed as Briareus or the octopus, their charity would be known to each and every hand on their arms. These sentimental anarchs! They even marry our girls and carry them off to coddle their conscience with gilded gingerbread. Yet they would turn their backs on Christ if he came to Hester Street—Christ, the first modern anarch, a destructionist, a proletarian who preached fire and sword for the evil rich of his times. Nowadays he would ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... jest as you are a mind to," said Aunt Maria. "I'm goin' to meetin'. If folks want to act like fools, I ain't goin' to stay at home and coddle them." ...
— By the Light of the Soul - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... camp cooks, who may or may not give them things that they can eat. And they lie out under the stars with their wounds, and if any of you has a finger ache, you go to bed with hot water bottles and are coddled and cared for. But our boys,—there isn't anyone to coddle them—they have to stick it out. And we've got to stick it out—and not be sorry for ourselves. Oh, why should we be sorry for ourselves!' The tears were streaming down her cheeks when she finished, and a gray-haired woman who had wept with the others got up and came over to her. 'My ...
— The Tin Soldier • Temple Bailey
... coddle yourself a little more," retorted his wife, "you would not cough every morning as you do. Really, Jules, if you do not consult a physician, I shall send for Kemp myself. I actually think it is ...
— Other Things Being Equal • Emma Wolf |
