"Coy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of the tremendous catastrophe probably dawned upon the usual restless crowd of gold-getters intent upon their several avocations. The streets were filled with the expanded figures of gayly dressed women, acknowledging with coy glances the respectful salutations of beaux as they gracefully raised their remarkable cylindrical head-coverings, a model of which is still preserved in the Honolulu Museum. The brokers had gathered at their respective ...
— Legends and Tales • Bret Harte
... was forming in his mind, was dissipated by the she-wolf, who advanced upon him, sniffed noses with him for a fleeting instant, and then resumed her coy ...
— White Fang • Jack London
... presence of one whose favourite task it was to laugh his so-called virtues to scorn. Such, at least to begin with, was his honourable intention. But the subtle Wratislaw drew him from his retirement and skilfully elicited his coy principles. It was a cruel performance—a shameless one, had there been any spectator. The one would lay down a fine generous line of policy; the other would beg for a fact in confirmation. The one would haltingly detail some facts; the other would promptly ...
— The Half-Hearted • John Buchan
... the sense; And love unchanged will cloy, And she became a bore intense Unto her love-sick boy? With fitful glimmer burnt my flame, And I grew cold and coy, At last, one morning, I became Another's ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... And own that Dulman bears a brain. Some, in my place, to gain their ends, Would give relations up, and friends; Would lend a wife, who, they might swear Safely, was none the worse for wear; 1410 Would see a daughter, yet a maid, Into a statesman's arms betray'd; Nay, should the girl prove coy, nor know What daughters to a father owe, Sooner than schemes so nobly plann'd Should fail, themselves would lend a hand; Would vote on one side, whilst a brother, Properly taught, would vote on t'other; Would every petty band forget; To public eye be with one set, 1420 In private with ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... romantick maid, Whether by nodding towers you tread; Or haunt the desart's trackless gloom, Or hover o'er the yawning tomb; Or climb the Andes' clifted side, Or by the Nile's coy source abide; Or, starting from your half-year's sleep, From Hecla view the thawing deep; Or, at the purple dawn of day, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... carried in committee, which went to alter the operation and consequences of the bill. Thus Mr. O'Connell moved an amendment, the object of which was to relieve the tithe-payer immediately to the extent of forty per cent.; and in consequence of the accommodating language and coy resistance of ministers, it was carried by a majority of eighty-two to thirty-three. Additional concessions were also made in the committee; and even Mr. Shiel remarked that Ireland ought to be grateful. Such, indeed, was the departure from the original principles and arrangements ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... Cow Flat it was necessary to forage for ammunition. Two or three of the boys were provided with bags. It was proposed to fill these with such vegetables as would serve to allure the coy but gluttonous goat, and a silent, systematic descent was made upon several kitchen gardens ...
— The Gold-Stealers - A Story of Waddy • Edward Dyson
... let him see it without being rude; but the blindness of egotism and vast self-appreciation was upon him and he thought her only charmingly coy; probably with the intent to thus conceal ...
— Elsie's children • Martha Finley
... spontaneous. He knew that he was personally responsible for the present enforcement; he believed that because of it, Henry Devereux didn't have a Chinaman's chance; he knew that if Mirabelle got her legacy, she would have Mr. Mix to thank for it. But Henry was too cheerful, and Mirabelle was too coy, and the two facts ...
— Rope • Holworthy Hall
... and clean, to my great horror Mrs Neptune cried out in a voice so gruff, that one might have supposed she had attempted to swallow the best-bower anchor, and that it had stuck in her throat, "Now my pretty Master Green, let me give you a buss, to welcome you to the Polar Seas. Don't be coy now, and ...
— Peter the Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston
... too coy To them that chastely seeke them, And yet are apt to toy With baser Jacks ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... said the doctor, with his excellent temper in perfect working order again. "So delightfully impulsive! so charmingly reckless of what they say or how they say it! 'Oh, woman, in our hours of ease, uncertain, coy, and hard to please!' ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... passing moment give To the coy muse, with me she would not live In this dark city, nor would condescend 'Mid contradictions her delights to lend. Should e'er the fine-eyed maid to me be kind, Ah! surely it must be whene'er I ...
— Poems 1817 • John Keats
... like the rest of the tribe on the dead limbs, and with such violence as to be heard in still weather more than half a mile off; and listens to hear the insect it has alarmed." He listens rather to hear the drum of his rival, or the brief and coy response of the female; for there are no insects in ...
— A Year in the Fields • John Burroughs
... at Alvarado's or at the Custom-house, and every afternoon met at the races, the bull-fight, a merienda, or to climb the greased pole, catch the greased pig by its tail as it ran, or exhibit skill in horsemanship. Chonita, at times an imperious coquette, at others, indifferent, perverse, or coy, was La Favorita without appeal, and the girls alternately worshipped her—she was abstractedly kind to them—or heartily wished her back in Santa Barbara. Estenega rarely attended the socialities, being closeted with Alvarado and Castro most of the time, and when he did ...
— The Doomswoman - An Historical Romance of Old California • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... come to my knowledge, I deem it my duty to call a special meeting of the shareholders of 'The Island Navigation Coy.,' to consider circumstances in connection with the purchase of Mr. Joseph Pillin's fleet. And I give you notice that at this meeting your conduct will be ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... deliciously fragrant. In the swampy hollows were yellow marsh marigolds and blue forget-me-nots; on the drier soil of the rising bank the wild hyacinths were just shaking open their bells, and heartsease here and there lifted coy heads to ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil
... mammas and adoring daughters. We had our fun, and cleared besides a profit of nearly four pounds sterling. This financial coup would not have come off so well but for the warm-hearted co-operation of our railway printers, McCorquodale and Coy. They, good people, entered into our exploit with a will, did their part well, and made little if any profit, generously leaving that to Cynicus ...
— Fifty Years of Railway Life in England, Scotland and Ireland • Joseph Tatlow
... Coy Hebe flies from those that woo, And shuns the hands would seize upon her; Follow thy life, and she will sue To pour for thee the cup ...
— The Golden Treasury of American Songs and Lyrics • Various
... to supply my board and lodging, it was covenanted that, without any more ado, I should resign myself to clerical employment at Nantes. The merchant there is a friend of the family, and had offered to demonstrate his friendship by paying me too little to live on. Enfin, Fame has continued coy. The year expires to-night. I have begged a few comrades to attend a valedictory dinner—and at the stroke of midnight, despairing ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick
... the beautiful verses he addressed to her teach her to endure him. The nymph at length returned to her parents at Birmingham, and was soon forgotten. Business taking Johnson to Birmingham on the death of his own father, and calling upon his coy mistress there, he found her father dying. He passed all his leisure hours at Mr. Porter's, attending his sick bed, and in a few months after his death, asked Mrs. Johnson's consent to marry the old widow. After expressing her surprise ...
— Immortal Memories • Clement Shorter
... ignorance of Tiffles's sudden fortune, she was at a loss how to explain his defection. She conjectured all things, and finally settled down to the conclusion that he was a coy young man, and had not been sufficiently encouraged by her. She remembered instances where he had exhibited signs of ardor—in one case so far as beginning to slip a hand around her waist—and she had repelled him. He was evidently waiting for some marked encouragement. How foolishly prudish she ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... fountain of eternal day, Could it within the human flower be seen, Remembering still its former height, Shuns the sweet leaves and blossoms green; And, recollecting its own light, Does, in its pure and circling thoughts, express The greater heaven in an heaven less. In how coy a figure wound, Every way it turns away, So the world excluding round, Yet receiving in the day; Dark beneath but bright above, Here disdaining, there in love. How loose and easy hence to go! How girt and ready to ascend! Moving but on a point ...
— England's Antiphon • George MacDonald
... to listen much for the approach of footsteps, Ruth came back, and behind her Lorna; coy as if of her bridegroom; and hanging back with her beauty. Ruth banged the door, and ran away; and ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... Chattanooga who was not lynched in May only because the prominent citizens became his body guard until the doors of the penitentiary closed on him, had letters in his pocket from the white woman in the case, making the appointment with him. Edward Coy who was burned alive in Texarkana, January 1, 1892, died protesting his innocence. Investigation since as given by the Bystander in the Chicago Inter Ocean, October ...
— Southern Horrors - Lynch Law in All Its Phases • Ida B. Wells-Barnett
... grandeur of Mr. Oliver were mightily magnified. Mr. Delaford thrummed his most doleful tunes on the guitar that evening, but though the June sun was sinking beauteously, Charlotte never put her head out. However, the third time, he found her, and then she was coy and blushing, reserved and distant, and so much prettier, and more genuine than all his former conquests, that something ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... D.," said Johnny, attempting the line of a witty, gay young spendthrift. "That's my love—pounds, shillings, and pence; and a very coy mistress ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... child, is the Sissy Boy Who acts so womanly and coy. His head's as soft as new-made butter; His aim in life is just to flutter; Yet he goes along with unconcern And marries a ...
— Poems for Pale People - A Volume of Verse • Edwin C. Ranck
... cut. I had been waiting for an opportunity to ask him about it, and didn't know myself how to go about it. Just from that you can realize how he had me guessing, for it takes quite some jolt to make me coy. So I followed his own lead finally and blurted the question right out, without any fancy conversational trimmings, and he told ...
— Once to Every Man • Larry Evans
... uprising dew Tears glisten'd in my eyes, though few, To hail a dawning quite as new To me, as Time: It was not sorrow—not annoy— But like a happy maid, though coy, With grief-like welcome ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... also a Nonne, a Prioresse, That of her smyling was ful simple and coy; Hir grettest ooth was ne but by seynt Loy; And she was cleped madame Eglentyne. Ful wel she song the service divyne, Entuned in hir nose ful semely; And Frensh she spak ful faire and fetisly, After the scole of Stratford atte Bowe, For Frensh of Paris was to hir unknowe. ...
— Medieval People • Eileen Edna Power
... die. She never thought so herself. She felt in no dying case; she had neither pain nor sickness. Her appetite was diminished; she knew the reason. It was because she wept so much at night. Her strength was lessened; she could account for it. Sleep was coy and hard to be won; dreams were distressing and baleful. In the far future she still seemed to anticipate a time when this passage of misery should be got over, and when she should once more be calm, ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... keep late hours; and as I listened to the wooing of fair Brooklyn by the eloquent son[1] of New York I thought we might be here till papa turned out the gas. Brooklyn is a New England maiden and a trifle coy, and it may take even more than an hour's pleading and persuasive wooing to win her. [Applause.] You ask me, sir, to turn our thoughts back from these considerations of pressing and immediate problems, from discussion of international and even intercontinental relations, ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various
... of the tender passion hardly drops into the heart before it buds and blooms, a perfect flower. Though the actual lapse of time represented in the play occupies only a few days, Juliet in that brief period must assume several distinct characters. We see her first the coy, heart-whole maiden, the cherished heiress of a patrician house: soon the blind bow-boy launches his shaft, and, quick as thought, she is passionately, impulsively, enduringly in love; then we see her but a few hours a bride, with black sorrow creeping ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 24, March, 1873 • Various
... through eclipsing fears, Fill'd, like Cassandra's, with prophetic tears: With such a visage, withering, woe-begone, Shrinks the pale poet from the damning dun. Come, let us teach each others tears to flow, Like fasting bards, in fellowship of woe, When the coy muse puts on coquettish airs, Nor deigns one line to their voracious prayers; Thy spirit, groaning like th'encumber'd block Which bears my works, deplores them as dead stock, Doom'd by these undiscriminating times To endless sleep, with Della Cruscan rhymes; ...
— Poetic Sketches • Thomas Gent
... state positively —and I knew this young gentleman quite well at the time—that it was not Sue at all that he longed for at this precise moment, even though he hurried to meet her. It was more the WOMAN IN HER—the something that satisfied his inner nature when he was with her—her coy touches of confidence, her artless outbursts of admiration, looking up in his face as she spoke, the dimples playing about the corners of her mouth. He revelled in all those subtle flatteries and cajoleries, and in all the arts to please of which she was past mistress. He loved to believe ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... a candidate for Nyleptha's hand in marriage, and when we appeared on the scene I fancy, from all I could gather, that though there were still many obstacles in his path, success was by no means out of his reach. But now all this had changed; the coy Nyleptha smiled no more in his direction, and he was not slow to guess the cause. Infuriated and alarmed, he turned his attention to Sorais, only to find that he might as well try to woo a mountain side. With a bitter jest or two about his fickleness, ...
— Allan Quatermain • by H. Rider Haggard
... cares not, and hardens her heart, and hies her off to the East, to find, among the opium-eaters of Nankin, a favourite with whom she lingers fondly—caressing his blue porcelain, and painting his coy maidens, and marking his plates with her six marks of choice—indifferent in her companionship with him, to all save the virtue ...
— The Gentle Art of Making Enemies • James McNeill Whistler
... has bent me down. To you, Paolo, I could look, however, Were my hump made a mountain. Bless him, God! Pour everlasting bounties on his head! Make Croesus jealous of his treasury, Achilles of his arms, Endymion Of his fresh beauties,—though the coy one lay, Blushing beneath Diana's earliest kiss, On grassy Latmos; and may every good, Beyond man's sight, though in the ken of heaven, Round his fair fortune to a perfect end! O, you have dried the sorrow of my eyes; My heart is beating with a lighter pulse; The air is musical; the total ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: Francesca da Rimini • George Henry Boker
... wouldn't allude to him in public as His Reverence!" Olive sighed. "It is almost as bad as her coy flirtation with him, during sermon time. If I were in his place, ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... in love, where scorn is bought with groans; Coy looks with heart-sore sighs; one fading moment's mirth 30 With twenty watchful, weary, tedious nights: If haply won, perhaps a hapless gain; If lost, why then a grievous labour won; However, but a folly bought with wit, Or else a wit ...
— Two Gentlemen of Verona - The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] • William Shakespeare
... their comfortable hours, the guests were come. The Morses appeared first. He was a pleasant, hollow-chested little man; his delicacy of lung gave him his excuse for playing gentleman farmer. She, half-Spanish, carried bulk for the family and carried it well. The Andalusian showed in her coy yet open air, in her small, broad hand and foot, in a languorous liquidity of eye. Their son, a well-behaved and pretty youth of twelve, and their daughter, two years older, rode behind them on the back seat. The daughter bore one of those mosaic names with which the mixed ...
— The Readjustment • Will Irwin
... melody, pitched in a higher key, yet not unlike Niagara. You hear the cardinal's rich flute-like song of "What, what cheer!" ringing from a wild grapevine. Again he seems to say "Come, come here!" Whether it be an invitation to all mankind or just a message to his coy mate you know he learned it from the same teacher as Niagara, and their voices are alike full of rarest melody. The leisurely golden chant of the wood thrush, where the misty spray and cool shadows enfold you, seems like a spirit voice speaking ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand
... replied she, clasping her hands, and looking solemnly up to heaven. "If, in my eager acquiescence, I seem unmaidenly, forgive me; but I dare not be coy, Eugene; we have no time for conventional reserve, and I must act as becomes a brave and trusting woman, for every moment is fraught with danger. I am surrounded by spies, even of my own household, and, ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... of the gentry in the nearest counties, to attend a great ball at Elmwood. The old house would be filled from garret to cellar, and the hospitable homes of nearby friends would open to take in the overflow of guests. Dames and maidens coy, clad in the quaint and picturesque colonial costume, with powdered hair and patches, in richly brocaded gowns and satin slippers, made stately courtesy to gay dandies and jovial squires arrayed in coats of many colors, broidered vests, knee breeches and silken hose, brilliant buckles at ...
— In Ancient Albemarle • Catherine Albertson
... was coy, and ever she fluttered near to me but never near enough. When my arm went out to her to girdle her, presto, she was not there. I knew, as never before, nor since, the thousand dear and delightful anguishes of love frustrated but ever ...
— The Red One • Jack London
... in love with Mr. Ryde," says Monica, sweetly, with averted face and a coy air, assumed ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown
... over-multitude their lords; The sea o'erfraught would swell, and the unsought diamonds Would so emblaze the forehead of the deep, And so bestud with stars, that they below Would grow inured to light, and come at last To gaze upon the sun with shameless brows. List, Lady; be not coy, and be not cozened With that same vaunted name, Virginity. Beauty is Nature's coin; must not be hoarded, But must be current; and the good thereof Consists in mutual and partaken bliss, Unsavoury in the ...
— L'Allegro, Il Penseroso, Comus, and Lycidas • John Milton
... sat watching him with deep, dissatisfied eyes. She had sense enough to see that she could not win him with the arts that had won others. His was a nature deeper, stronger. She must bide her time and be coy. But her spirit chafed beneath delay, and dark passions lurked behind and brooded in her eyes. Perhaps it was this that held him in a sort of uncertainty. It was as if he waited permission from some unseen source to take what she was so evidently ...
— The Witness • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... fanciful and sentimental, which means, of course, I was thinking about you. And then I imagined this whole scene—only a little different; I in this dress, and you at my feet, worshipping me and calling me all sorts of sweet names. And I was coy and held back!" ...
— Cleo The Magnificent - The Muse of the Real • Louis Zangwill
... heart to try to discover why such bitter feelings should be there. Surely that girl was honest: there was honesty in her eyes. She had been most kind to Sheila herself. And was there not at times, when she abandoned the ways and speech of a woman of the world, a singular coy fascination about her, that any man might be excused for yielding to, even as any woman might yield to it? Sheila fought with herself, and resolved that she would cast forth from her heart those harsh fancies and indignant feelings that seemed to have established themselves there. She would not ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 29. August, 1873. • Various
... flowers, which is very eloquent—a philosophy that is instructive. Nature appears to have made them as emblems of women. The timid snow-drop, the modest violet, the languid primrose, the coy lily, the flaunting tulip, the smart marigold, the lowly blushing daisy, the proud foxglove, the deadly nightshade, the sleepy poppy, and the sweet solitary ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 10, Issue 273, September 15, 1827 • Various
... down, and the dancing began, to the flamenco music of guitars and the clacking of castanets; the fandango, the bolero, the malaguena, the chaquera vella; all the classical dances of old Spain, and each one a variant on the theme of love, the woman coy, coquettishly retreating; the man persuading or demanding, the woman yielding in ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... couples among the convenient laurel and manzanita bushes which flounced the mountain side. After the dancing, old-fashioned children's games were revived with great laughter and half-hearted and coy protests from the ladies; notably one pastime known as "I'm a-pinin'," in which ingenious performance the victim was obliged to stand in the centre of a circle and publicly "pine" for a member of the opposite sex. Some hilarity was occasioned by the mischievous Miss "Georgy" Piper ...
— Under the Redwoods • Bret Harte
... experiences; "bus driver"; the air-tractor sledge; the Western sledging expedition; on tent pitching; his birthday; the relief party; winter work at the hut; wireless work; dredge constructed by; the home journey; account of Biology, work of the expedition Bird & Coy, Messrs. Birds, Antarctic, weight in relation to wing areas Birthday Camp Biscoe Island ........John, work Bishop and Clerk, islet Black Sunday Blair, J. H., Chief Officer on the 'Aurora' Blake, Cape ...... L R., work on Macquarie Island; visit to Sandy Bay; accident to; visits to Lusitania ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... "The coy potato or the onion browns, The tender steak takes on a nobler hue. I ponder 'mid the falling of the dew, And watch the lapwings circling o'er ...
— The Slowcoach • E. V. Lucas
... huge pots of beer for their husbands, who very liberally invited us to partake. After seven hours' hard travelling we came to the village, where we spend Sunday by the torrent Usangazi, and near a remarkable mountain, Namasi. The chief, a one-eyed man, was rather coy—coming incognito to visit us; and, as I suspected that he was present, I asked if the chief were an old woman, afraid to look at and welcome a stranger? All burst into a laugh, and looked at him, when ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume I (of 2), 1866-1868 • David Livingstone
... than she for this good turn. 92 Her help she sees, but help she cannot get; She bathes in water, yet her fire must burn: 'O! pity,' 'gan she cry, 'flint-hearted boy: 'Tis but a kiss I beg; why art thou coy? 96 ...
— Venus and Adonis • William Shakespeare
... prone to be coy, if not fickle, the manual part of transplanting should always be properly done. The plants should always be taken up with as little loss of roots as possible, be kept exposed to the air as short a ...
— Culinary Herbs: Their Cultivation Harvesting Curing and Uses • M. G. Kains
... to tell—numbers and knives. For your sun-scorched Nepenthean, when duly roused, confesses to an expert knowledge of anatomy; he can tell you, to the fraction of an inch, where the liver, the spleen, kidneys and various other coy organs of the human frame are located. Blood, the blood of the Sacred Sixty-three, began to flow. At that sight the women, as their manner is, ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... been known to express an opinion to the effect that a naughty word would be quite luxurious. The lovers whom we love kiss when they meet or part, they talk plainly—unless the girls play the natural and delightful trick of being coy—and they behave in a manner which human beings understand. Supposing that the duke uses a language which ordinary dukes do not affect save in moments of extreme emotion, it is not tiresome, and, at the worst, it satisfies a convention which has not done very much ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... silence till my passion should touch you, that I might the better conceal it if its silent demonstrations should displease you; or till I could express it even more delicately than in words if I found favor in your eyes. However, after having listened for long to the coy fears that fill a youthful heart with alarms, I write in obedience to the instinct which drags ...
— Louis Lambert • Honore de Balzac
... came, I observed a feverish excitement in her manner, which assured me, even plainer than the coy sweetness displayed in our last interview, that her heart had been touched by her lover's attentions. Indeed, she hinted as much before she left, saying in a melancholy tone, when I had ended my story in the usual happy ...
— The Leavenworth Case • Anna Katharine Green
... being careful to mention whose skill in the chase procured them, but in vain did they look for the bowl of succatash or embroidered moccasins—the products of woman's labor—in token that their gifts were pleasing to the coy beauty. In vain, when the shades of evening fell, the softly breathed flute lamented in melancholy tones her cruelty. In vain, with tasteful hand, the sighing lover painted his face and person to heighten ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... forward, immodest, rude, hoidenish, brazen, saucy, insolent, unabashed, audacious, pert, shameless, malapert; conspicuous, prominent, salient; steep, abrupt, precipitous, acclivitous, jagged. Antonyms: modest, bashful, diffident, coy, shy, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... into the realms of fairyland and wonder. Fleeces of irregular shape, but a mile long and two miles wide, slowly lifted themselves from a horizontal position to a vertical one, thus converting themselves from blankets into curtains. Yet behind and through them,—as a coy beauty half reveals, half conceals, her charms,—so the walls and buttes, the pinnacles and buttresses, took on a new and delicate beauty, a subtleness of charm and refinement that only such a veiling could produce. Every moment the panorama changed. This was veiled completely, that entirely ...
— The Grand Canyon of Arizona: How to See It, • George Wharton James
... out among the trees, trilling loudly a gleeful carol. The tits flew hither and thither, twittering to each other as they flew. The hedge-sparrows' metallic notes sounded clear amid all the varied music, as the birds, moving among the hazels and gently flirting their wings, pursued their coy mates from bough to bough. Through the raised curtain of the mist the sun—a white globe hardly too brilliant to be boldly looked at—illumined the dewy fields with its faint beams, till the cloud-streaked sky became a clear ...
— Creatures of the Night - A Book of Wild Life in Western Britain • Alfred W. Rees
... pure, fame's crown of light, The latest murmur of departing day, Fond friendship's plaint, that melts at piteous sight, The mystic farewell of each hour at flight, The kiss which beauty grants with coy delay,— ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... answer. But she had not yet quite made up her mind. Had she known her mind, she would have answered him frankly. She was quite resolved as to that. If she could once bring herself to give him her hand, she would not coy it for a moment. "I will be your wife, Larry." That was the form on which she had determined, should she find herself able to yield. But she had not brought herself to it as yet. "If you can take ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope
... thereof), Gives back to thee in sanctities of flower; And holy odours do her bosom invest, That sweeter grows for being prest: Though dear recoil, the tremorous nurse of joy, From thine embrace still startles coy, Till Phosphor lead, at thy returning hour, The laughing captive from the ...
— New Poems • Francis Thompson
... a genuine Scot, 530 In double portion swells thy glorious lot; For thee Edina culls her evening sweets, And showers their odours on thy candid sheets, Whose Hue and Fragrance to thy work adhere— This scents its pages, and that gilds its rear. [75] Lo! blushing Itch, coy nymph, enamoured grown, Forsakes the rest, and cleaves to thee alone, And, too unjust to other Pictish men, Enjoys thy person, ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron
... Why be coy about an opening like that? "Clyde, what do you know about Edwin Scott?" That let him spin any yarn he chose—if ...
— A Matter of Proportion • Anne Walker
... ceremony, with all the grand cordons of his orders blazing about his imperial person—thus dazzling, magnificent, triumphant, the great Galgenstein descended towards Mrs. Catherine. Her cheeks glowed red-hot under her coy velvet mask, her heart thumped against the whalebone prison of her stays. What a delicious storm of vanity was raging in her bosom! What a rush of long-pent recollections burst forth at the sound of ...
— Catherine: A Story • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the life and spirit of the poetry. I had a proof of this in an attempt which I made to impose a pantun of my own composing on the natives as a work of their countrymen. The subject was a dialogue between a lover and a rich coy mistress: the expressions were proper to the occasion, and in some degree characteristic. It passed with several, but an old lady who was a more discerning critic than the others remarked that it was "katta katta saja"—mere conversation; meaning that it was destitute of the quaint and ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... immobility is drawing the iron towards it. An intense energy lies behind such passivity, an absorbed pre-occupation in the end to be attained."[313] In the examples we have studied of the courtships of birds we saw that it is by no means a universal law that the male is eager and the female coy. I need only recall the instance noted by Darwin[314] in which a wild duck forced her love on a male pintail, and such cases, as is well known, are frequent. High-bred bitches will show sudden passions for low-bred or mongrel males. According to breeders and observers it is the female who is always ...
— The Truth About Woman • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... witty; and as her person was not very likely to attract many admirers, which, however, she was resolved to have, she was far from being coy when an occasion offered: she did not so much as make any terms: she was violent in her resentments, as well as in her attachments, which had exposed her to some inconveniences; and she had very indiscreetly quarrelled ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... Endiadis, or the Figure of Twinnes.] Ye haue yet another manner of speach when ye will seeme to make two of one, not thereunto constrained, which therefore we call the figure of Twynnes, the Greekes Endiadis thus. Not you coy dame ...
— The Arte of English Poesie • George Puttenham
... can only be one language for an emotion so powerful. Wise or foolish, Jane understood what I said, and in words equally sweet and foolish she gave me her promise. Oh, mother, it was not altogether the words! It was the little tremors and coy unfoldings and sweet agitations of love revealing itself—it wakened in Jane's heart like a wandering rose. And I saw this awakening of the woman, mother, and it was a ...
— The Measure of a Man • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... sometimes tried to make up to the prettiest ones, and offered them trinkets, pretty boxes of soap, beads, and small mirrors (so dear to the heart of the Indian girl), but the young maids were coy enough; it seemed to me they cared more for men of their ...
— Vanished Arizona - Recollections of the Army Life by a New England Woman • Martha Summerhayes
... believe like children? We don't often play, do we Philip? You must take my hand very gently, under the hay," pulling the cushion over her wrist. "I draw it away, you see, rather shyly, looking deliciously coy, and say: 'Oh! ...
— When the Birds Begin to Sing • Winifred Graham
... and uncivill usage in her, grew very distastefull to Anastasio, and so unsufferable, that after a long time of fruitlesse service, requited still with nothing but coy disdaine; desperate resolutions entred into his brain, and often he was minded to kill himselfe. But better thoughts supplanting those furious passions, he abstained from any such violent act; and governed by more manly consideration, determined, ...
— Ravenna, A Study • Edward Hutton
... I would rate the northern varieties as follows from highest to lowest: Major, Greenriver, Busseron, Indiana, Niblack, Kentucky, Warwick, Posey, Coy, Tissue, Johnson. Perhaps a little broader classification and grouping should be made. In my judgment, the Major, Greenriver, Busseron, Indiana, and Niblack compose one group which may be depended upon for fairly satisfactory production. The Kentucky, Warwick, ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Forty-Second Annual Meeting • Northern Nut Growers Association
... had lov'd them a whole summer long: 250 And soon his eyes had drunk her beauty up, Leaving no drop in the bewildering cup, And still the cup was full,—while he, afraid Lest she should vanish ere his lip had paid Due adoration, thus began to adore; Her soft look growing coy, she saw his chain so sure: "Leave thee alone! Look back! Ah, Goddess, see Whether my eyes can ever turn from thee! For pity do not this sad heart belie— Even as thou vanishest so I shall die. 260 Stay! though a Naiad of the rivers, stay! To thy far wishes will thy streams obey: Stay! ...
— Keats: Poems Published in 1820 • John Keats
... deter, discourage; browbeat, bully; threaten &c 909. Adj. fearing &c v.; frightened &c v.; in fear, in a fright &c n.; haunted with the fear of &c n.; afeard^. afraid, fearful; timid, timorous; nervous, diffident, coy, faint- hearted, tremulous, shaky, afraid of one's shadow, apprehensive, restless, fidgety; more frightened than hurt. aghast; awe-stricken, horror-stricken, terror-stricken, panic- stricken, awestruck, awe-stricken, horror-struck; frightened to death, white as a sheet; pale, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... coy, with long black hair and a short chamois dress, gaiters and moccasins and bare arms: so coy, and so smirking. Alvina ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence
... saw the writhing weeds lift languidly and sway reluctant arms, hising up their petticoats, in whispering water swaying and upturning coy silver fronds. Day by day: night by night: lifted, flooded and let fall. Lord, they are weary; and, whispered to, they sigh. Saint Ambrose heard it, sigh of leaves and waves, waiting, awaiting the fullness of their times, diebus ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... however, the females at first withdraw from the males; they are coy, and have to be sought out, and sometimes held by force. This tracking and grasping of the females by the males has given rise to many different characters in the latter, as, for instance, the larger eyes of the male bee, and especially of the males of the ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... she was, so full of grace, So innocent with coy caresses, So proud to step at my own pace, So rosy through her golden ...
— Fringilla: Some Tales In Verse • Richard Doddridge Blackmore
... Jefferson county I built a chimney for a man named —— M'Coy; he had forty-seven laboring hands. Near where I was at work, M'Coy had ordered one of his slaves to set a post for a gate. When he came to look at it, he said the slave had not set it in the right place; and ordered him to strip, and lie ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... on working. Then all of a sudden the transplendent sun sailed from its clouds and poured upon him its genial beams. He had at last found the golden Chersonese. His pockets, so long cobwebbed, now bulged with money. Publishers, who had been coy, now fought for him. All the world—or nearly all—sang his praises. [502] Lastly came the K.C.M.G., an honour that was conferred upon him owing in large measure to the noble persistency of the ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... Anna have six little girls here to supper to-night: Louisa Field, Hattie Paddock, Helen Coy, Martha Densmore, Emma Wheeler, and Alice Jewett. We had a splendid supper and then we played cards. I do not mean regular cards, mercy no! Grandfather thinks those kinds are contageous or outrageous or something dreadful and never ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... some folks don't keer. They don't raise they chillun; they drags 'em up. God knows if dat Daisy wuz mine, I'd throw her down an' put a hundred lashes on her back wid a plow-line. Here she come in de store Sat'day night (Acts coy and coquettish, burlesques DAISY'S walk) a wringing ...
— The Mule-Bone: - A Comedy of Negro Life in Three Acts • Zora Hurston and Langston Hughes
... the touch of the coy little hand, that he glanced down to assure himself he had it on his arm. But his glance, stopping for an instant at the bright eyes, forgot its first design, and ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... garb The rapid glory of his naked limbs, And like a streak of lightning reached the waves:— Wherein his thwarted speed appeared more awful As, brought within the scope of comprehension, Its progress and its purpose could be gauged. Spluttering Amyntas rose, Hipparchus near him Who cried 'Why coy of kisses, lovely lad? I ne'er would harm thee; art thou not ashamed To treat thy conquest thus?' He shouted partly to drown the sea's noise, chiefly The nearing Delphis to disarm. His voice lost ...
— Georgian Poetry 1911-12 • Various
... her reason all her passions sway; Easy in company, in private gay; Coy to a fop, to the deserving free; Still constant to herself, and just to me. She should a soul have for great actions fit; Prudence and wisdom to direct her wit; Courage to look bold danger in the face, Not fear, ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... Bright-eyed grisettes flung coy looks at the young artist as he strode along, admiring his well-knit figure, his handsome boyish features chiseled as finely as a cameo, the crisp brown hair with a slight tendency to curl, his velvet jacket ...
— In Friendship's Guise • Wm. Murray Graydon
... their round, since I beheld your face! In Memory's dim eye it yet appears Crowned, as it then seemed, with a chearful grace. Young prattling Maiden, on the Thames' fair side, Enlivening pleasant Sunbury with your smiles, Time may have changed you: coy reserve, or pride, To sullen looks reduced those mirthful wiles. I will not 'bate one smile on that clear brow, But take of Time a rigorous account, When next I see you; and Maria now Must be the Thing she was. To what amount These verses else?—all ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb
... diamonds Would so emblaze the forehead of the deep, And so bestud with stars, that they below Would grow inured to light, and come at last To gaze upon the sun with shameless brows. List, lady; be not coy, and be not cozened With that same vaunted name, Virginity. Beauty is Nature's coin; must not be hoarded, But must be current; and the good thereof 740 Consists in mutual and partaken bliss, Unsavoury in the enjoyment of itself. If you let ...
— Milton's Comus • John Milton
... Divine Architect, I dismiss all modes of conveyance, and with well-nailed shoes, rough clothes, a staff, and a lunch, I take the kingdom by force. When once in, I am royally entertained; for though coy and apparently hard to woo, Nature is a most delightful companion when once you ...
— Trail Tales • James David Gillilan
... that have no guile between them," saith a proverb, traced back to Confucius. O ye days of still sunshine, reflected back from our selves! O ye haunts endeared evermore by a look, tone, or smile, or rapt silence, when more and more with each hour unfolded before me that nature, so tenderly coy, so cheerful though serious, so attuned by simple cares to affection, yet so filled, from soft musings and solitude, with a poetry that gave grace to duties the homeliest, setting life's trite things ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... a new sense of misgiving. Danger was mysteriously coy, and she didn't know how to court it. True, there was still time enough, but the debut was not encouraging. When she had gone forth from Judson Flack's she had felt sure that adventure lay in wait for her, and Rashleigh Allerton had responded ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King
... be not coy, but use your time, And while ye may, go marry; For having lost but once your prime, You may ...
— A Selection From The Lyrical Poems Of Robert Herrick • Robert Herrick
... head, and the straining, glorious heroism of plunging, crashing bodies and aching limbs. For those minutes courage flowed like wine out of the November dusk, and he was the eternal hero, one with the sea-rover on the prow of a Norse galley, one with Roland and Horatius, Sir Nigel and Ted Coy, scraped and stripped into trim and then flung by his own will into the breach, beating back the tide, hearing from afar the thunder of cheers... finally bruised and weary, but still elusive, circling an end, twisting, changing pace, straight-arming... falling behind the Groton ...
— This Side of Paradise • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... nurse, and hung weeping round her neck. Her tears made the manly but tender-hearted Walter give a sort of gulp. Mary heard it, and put her white hand out to him. He threw himself upon his knees, and kissed it devotedly, and the coy girl was won. ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade
... Oxfordshire, he had pondered these things during his lonely years of youth and adolescence—had pondered, and in some cases already decided them UPON THE MERITS. This was remarkably so in the matter of Betty Coy, as he will tell you for himself before long. Meantime, lest I keep Dr. Lanfranchi too long upon the threshold of his own house, all I shall add to my picture of his pupil now is that he was the eldest son and third child of Squire Antony Strelley of Upcote, ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett
... woman! in our hours of ease, Uncertain, coy, and hard to please, And variable as the shade By the light, quivering aspen made,— When pain and anguish wring the brow, A ministering ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord
... dissembling, and such like playing the fool? Nay, how few matches would go forward, if the hasty lover did but first know how many little tricks of lust and wantonness (and perhaps more gross failings) his coy and seemingly bashful mistress had oft before been guilty of? And how fewer marriages, when consummated, would continue happy, if the husband were not either sottishly insensible of, or did not purposely ...
— In Praise of Folly - Illustrated with Many Curious Cuts • Desiderius Erasmus
... d'envoyer v^{re} filz vers moy, il sera le bien venu. Son traittement rendra tesmoinage de l'estime que je fais de vostre amitie. De vous envoyer des nouvelles, ce seroyt d'envoyer Noctuas Athenas. Tout est coy icy. La mort de Concini a rendu la France heureuse. Mais l'Italie est en danger d'estre exposee a la tirannie d'Espagne. Je vous baise les mains, et suis, Mons^r, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 213, November 26, 1853 • Various
... ask me if there might be another?" she inquired, with a coy glance and just a little petulance ...
— The Spoilers of the Valley • Robert Watson
... recommended for an office. Congress, that had no virtue, or if it had, its quality was too hard for use, was for ever standing in admiration of its beauty and whiteness, as a member or two since expelled had been pleased to call it, and was as scrupulous of having it called in question as a coy damsel. I who had virtues, was cast out because the color of it, as seen through the spectacles of my enemies, was not as white as alabaster. Ah, I have wiped the sweat from my fevered brow, and thought what a wrong-headed world we had-many a time! Every man has a history worth relating, or he must ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... with a rather soggy cake for the dessert. At most balls it is customary for the ladies to be seated first at the refreshment-table, where the most substantial articles of diet are boiled ham with sugar frosting, cakes flavored with the native lime, and lemon soda. Like the coy nun in Chaucer's "Prologue," she who is most elegant will take care not to spill the food upon her lap, eat with the fingers, or spit out the bones. At wedding feasts the gentlemen are given preference ...
— The Great White Tribe in Filipinia • Paul T. Gilbert
... and with her mother opposite. Mr. Shubrick bided his time in a mixture of patience and impatience. The latter needs no accounting for; the former was half brought about and maintained by the exquisite manner of Dolly's presentation of herself those days. The delicate, coy grace which invested her, it is difficult to describe it or the effect of it. She was not awkward, she was not even embarrassed, the least bit in the world; she was grave and fair and unapproachable, with the rarest maidenly shyness, which took the form of the rarest womanly dignity. She ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner
... speak, in connection with what he styled his horrible youth, of the years which she—the Dilecta—had tarnished. Too opportune to be sincere, this condemnation of his first liaison cannot but be regarded as an incense of flattery offered to the coy goddess ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton
... into the shadow of the room. She was trembling, and as she leaned toward him she was very different from the coy girl who had so long held him aloof. He ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... extravagances. If the experience of the reader has led him through the hallowed mystery of the first kiss of love, he needs not another's fancy to revive the beatific vision. If not, why, thousands of coy and blushing damsels, equally in the dark, are waiting, from whom he may select one to assist him in solving the mystery. Besides, it is not always wise to penetrate the secrets of the heart, even in a novel; for there is a sacredness about ...
— Hatchie, the Guardian Slave; or, The Heiress of Bellevue • Warren T. Ashton
... she returned, with a coy, sidelong look from her mild blue eyes, and then, at last, she shut ...
— The Wilderness Trail • Frank Williams |
