"Coax" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... too bad of you, but fortunately for me the notion passes off after you have gone away," and Miss Lavinia, after loving her violets a bit longer, put them in a chubby jug of richly chased old silver. After breakfast we tried to coax her to bundle up and come with us to Washington Square to see the crystal trees in all their beauty; but that was too unorthodox a feat. To plough through snow in rubber boots in the very heart of the ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright
... of their cast-linen! Were it only to put it in my power to say, that I have a shirt on my back! But the idle wenches, like Solomon's lilies, "they toil not, neither do they spin;" so I must e'en continue to tie my remnant of a cravat, like the hangman's rope, round my naked throat, and coax my galligaskins to keep together their many-coloured fragments. As to the affair of shoes, I have given that up. My pilgrimages in my ballad-trade, from town to town, and on your stony-hearted turnpikes too, are not what even the hide of Job's behemoth could bear. The coat on my back is no more: ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... that? Why, he ran into a bear, and made a drive at him with his axe, but the bear, with one paw knocked the axe clear out of his hand, and with one sweep of the other tore his insides right out. They're mighty cute, too," went on Don. "They'll pretend to be almost dead just to coax you near enough, and then they'll spin round on their hind legs like a rooster. If they ever do catch you, the only thing to do is to lie still and make believe you're dead, and then, unless they're very hungry, they ...
— Glengarry Schooldays • Ralph Connor
... conventionalities, or his mother's unwise policy, pressed too hard upon his integrity or his indignation; and he would then free the barrier and present the shut-out truth in its full size and proportions before his mother's shocked eyes. It was in vain to try to coax or blind him; a marble statue is not more unruffled by the soft air of summer; and Mrs. Carleton was fain to console herself with the reflection that Guy's very next act after one of these breaks would be one of such happy ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... of the swimming period and Nyoda was thoroughly exhausted. She had been giving Gladys her first swimming lesson. It had taken a week to coax the girl into the water at all and nearly another one to get her in over her knees. She showed a perfectly unreasoning terror of the water. In vain did Sahwah dive off the tower and come up safe and sound; in vain did Hinpoha demonstrate how impossible it was to sink if you relaxed. Gladys doubled ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Maine Woods - Or, The Winnebagos Go Camping • Hildegard G. Frey
... this trouble? If the child is well, offer food to him at regular hours only. Do not coax or force him to eat even though he takes only one-half or one-third of his usual quantity. Lengthen the intervals between the feedings. It may be necessary with a child under a year old to reduce the number of feedings to three or four in twenty-four hours. Give water at more frequent ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... to coax you into any investment. It either looks good to you or it doesn't. You either want it or you don't. But be sure you ...
— More Toasts • Marion Dix Mosher
... could get hold of it, and how she was to coax it from him, and at last threatened her angrily, saying, 'And if you do not obey me, ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Various
... went into Ypres one day tried to coax one of the dogs to come with them. "Might have brought us luck," they said, hiding their pity for a poor beast. But it slunk back into the ruin of its master's house, distrustful of men who did things not belonging ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs
... speckled trout, Can't I coax you to come out? Is it such great fun to play In the water ...
— A Dome of Many-Coloured Glass • Amy Lowell
... that ever could be They had with a bad little girl of Dundee, Who never would finish her crust In vain they besought her, And patiently taught her And told her she must. Her grandma would coax, And so would the folks, And tell her the sinning Of such a beginning. But no, she wouldn't. She couldn't, she shouldn't, She'd have them to know— So they might as well go. And what do you think came to pass? This little girl of Dundee, alas! Who wouldn't take crusts the regular ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole
... difficulty we managed to light a small fire, and for about half-an-hour were nearly smothered by trying with inflated cheeks to coax it into a blaze. The tigers continued to call at intervals, but did not seem to be approaching us. It was a long weary wait, we were cold, wet, hungry, and tired; F., the cause of our misfortunes, had taken off his saddle, and with it for a pillow was now fast asleep. H. and ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... her long golden locks fell in confusion over her like a shower of laburnum blossom; but Odin set himself so winningly to coax her that, after she had held out for some long time, she told him at last that he might take one sip from ...
— Told by the Northmen: - Stories from the Eddas and Sagas • E. M. [Ethel Mary] Wilmot-Buxton
... noise from my gun, gave the poor slave who had been bound, such a shock, that he stood still on the spot, as if he had been in a trance. I gave a loud shout for him to come to me, and I took care to show him that I was a friend, and made all the signs I could think of to coax him up to me. At length he came, knelt down to kiss the ground, and then took hold of my foot, and set it on his head. All this meant that he was my slave; and I bade him rise, and made ...
— Robinson Crusoe - In Words of One Syllable • Mary Godolphin
... himself trained to vice and restiveness, in the hope that thus his own services and theirs might be less in request, now became the very curse of his life. Every morning, duly as an attempt was made to put them in motion, they began to back, and no arts, gentle or harsh, would for a moment avail to coax or to corce them into the counter direction. Could retrogression by any metaphysics have been translated into progress, we excelled in that; it was our forte; we could have backed to the North Pole. That might be the way to glory, or ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... Compadre had lost half of his tail and a good deal of his self-assurance. Since that night, almost a week ago, Compadre had been a changed cat. He had sought dark corners and had yowled when the best friend he had in the world tried to coax him out to his meals. Applehead was very patient and very sympathetic, and hunted small game with which ...
— The Phantom Herd • B. M. Bower
... back in the road, and quietly picking up the bag, he proceeded peaceably on his wonted way. The man, much dismayed, arose and followed the dog, making, every now and then, an ineffectual attempt to coax him to ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various
... all sent in one caravan, Thompson and Zeb coming into town to help Lars drive out. Our lares and penates were sent by freight on December 17. Polly had managed to coax another thousand dollars out of me for things for the house; and these, with the furniture from our old home, made a brave showing when we gathered around the big fire in the living room, December 22, for our ...
— The Fat of the Land - The Story of an American Farm • John Williams Streeter
... 'Half our work is done already. This Kit is one of your honest people; one of your fair characters; a prowling prying hound; a hypocrite; a double-faced, white-livered, sneaking spy; a crouching cur to those that feed and coax him, and a barking yelping ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... coax a fight out of Flynn, thinking that the Irish blood in him couldn't resist his taunts and challenge. But Flynn had been too clever for him. A defeat for Flynn meant loss of prestige, a victory possible prosecution. Either way he had nothing to gain. Perhaps ...
— The Vagrant Duke • George Gibbs
... with the marabout, the door which leads to thy sister's roof was nailed up hastily, by command of the master. Some order must have gone from him, unknown to the Roumi, while the two men were together. I could coax nothing of the story from the Sidi when he came to me, but he was vexed, and his brows drew together over eyes which for the first time did not seem to look ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... sorry I'm a naughty boy, an' then I promise to be better an' I say my prayers again! Gran'ma tells me that's the only way to make it right When a feller has been wicked an' sees things at night! An' so, when other naughty boys would coax me into sin, I try to skwush the Tempter's voice 'at urges me within; An' when they's pie for supper, or cakes 'at 's big an' nice, I want to—but I do not pass my plate f'r them things twice! No, ruther let Starvation wipe me slowly out o' sight Than I should keep a-livin' ...
— Love-Songs of Childhood • Eugene Field
... with its unceasing questions, seemed to annoy the old farmer as he dozed over his weekly newspaper beside the lamp. Then, if it was too early to go to bed, Steven would coax him over in a corner to look at the book that Mrs. Estel had given him, explaining each picture in a low voice that could not disturb the ...
— Big Brother • Annie Fellows-Johnston
... if 'inclined to mercy,'" I replied. "Mr. Yocomb and Miss Warren believe in the terrors of the law, so I have decided to make a full confession to Mrs. Yocomb after supper. I think that I am one of the 'transgressors' that she could 'coax.'" ...
— A Day Of Fate • E. P. Roe
... lord, but a beast," replied. the monster, "I hate false compliments: so do not fancy that you can coax me by any such ways. You tell me that you have daughters; now I will suffer you to escape, if one of them will come and die in your stead. If not, profuse that you will yourself return in three months, to be dealt ...
— The Junior Classics, Volume 1 • Willam Patten
... more attention than any other arising in the execution of the Fugitive Slave Law. Burns, who was a fugitive from Virginia living in Boston, betrayed his hiding place in a letter which fell into the hands of a southern slaver and was communicated to a slave hunter. The slaver tried to coax Burns to go back to bondage peaceably but failing in this he had him arrested and brought before a commissioner who, on June 2, 1854, decided that Burns was a fugitive and must be sent back to slavery. Boston showed its feelings on the day that the Negro ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 5, 1920 • Various
... the matter over when they had a chance, while Tony happened to be at the other end of the boat; and thus decided to coax the swamp boy to don some extra clothes they had along with them. He was not so much smaller than Phil, and if he was to make one of their party they felt that it would look better for him to discard the ...
— Chums in Dixie - or The Strange Cruise of a Motorboat • St. George Rathborne
... doing very well," Mrs. Ellis answered. "The only thing that gives him any concern is her lack of appetite. If he can coax that, he thinks she will ...
— Nan Sherwood at Palm Beach - Or Strange Adventures Among The Orange Groves • Annie Roe Carr
... save the spikes of the rain without and the smell of the drinking earth in my nostrils. I explained to my man that he was no wiser than he ought to be, and went back to the veranda to talk to Tietjens. She had gone out into the wet and I could hardly coax her back to me—even with biscuits with sugar on top. Strickland rode back, dripping wet, just before dinner, and the ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... was called by the Whigs, and therefore every exertion was made to prevent the passing of this resolution. Old Sir John Cox Hippisley palavered, and whined, and begged and prayed, for an hour, and endeavoured to wheedle and coax me to withdraw my motion for the sake of unanimity. Upon all public matters, however, I was ever inflexible, and I was therefore prepared at all times to do my duty without looking to the right or to the left, and I consequently insisted ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 3 • Henry Hunt
... got on the first wagon and tried to coax up the dogs, but they would not come. Emmett had to lash the four horses to start them; and other Mormons riding alongside, yelled at them, and used their whips. The wagon bowled into the water with a tremendous splash. We were wet through ...
— The Last of the Plainsmen • Zane Grey
... brilliant and enchanting after the manner of the day at Feather-Cap. And let me assure you, if you have not tried it, that to make the coffee and arrange the feast at a picnic like this is something quite different from being merely an ornamental. There is the fire to coax with chips and twigs, and a good deal of smoke to swallow, and one's dress to disregard. And all the rest are off in scattered groups, not caring in the least to watch the pot boil, but supposing, none the less, that it will. To be sure, Frank Scherman ...
— A Summer in Leslie Goldthwaite's Life. • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... Marvelous—wonderful—beautiful hands! They can coax roses to bloom in the strands Of your brown tresses; and ribbons will twine, Under mysterious touches of thine, Into such knots as entangle the soul And fetter the heart under such a control As only the strength of my ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley
... wrap her charge carefully in a shawl, and fetch milk from the dresser, and coax till Dorrie turned her small head, heavy with the cares of neglected babyhood, sideways on the old plaid maud and began to suck. Apparently he had interrupted the scrubbing of the kitchen floor, for the tiles were wet three quarters of the way over, and on a dry oasis stood ...
— Nightfall • Anthony Pryde
... the bison! and let the jackal In the light of thy love have a share; And coax the ichneumon to grow a new tail, And have lots ...
— A Nonsense Anthology • Collected by Carolyn Wells
... had told me in the drawing-room of her desire to coax Mulvaney into letting his beard grow. "'Twas so civilian-like," said poor Dinah, who hated her husband's ...
— This is "Part II" of Soldiers Three, we don't have "Part I" • Rudyard Kipling
... is to be short; and of course you won't think of going out at all. Apropos, you will find it dull here by yourself, won't you? I shall leave you my darling Blanche for companion," kissing a little French lap-dog as she laid it in Mary's lap; "only you must be very careful of her, and coax her, and be very, very good to her; for I would not have my sweetest Blanche vexed, not for the world!" And, with another long and tender salute to her dog, and a "Good-bye, my dear!" to her daughter, she quitted her to display her charms ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... said Dolly in a changed tone. "Well, mother, we'll go down first to this cottage in the country—they say it's delightful there;—and then, if it does you good, you'll be well enough, and we will coax father ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner
... something less than an hour, newly dressed and fresh looking, in her pure white gown, her brown hair bound in a coronet round her small Greek head. She sat down by Lady Kirkbank's side, and tried to coax her ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... is a matter of course. I always thought, mamma, that you and Amelia were a little wrong to coax her up in ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... Tommy is a scrapper when it comes to his rations. He reminds me of an English sparrow. He's always right in there wangling for his own. He will bully and browbeat if he can, and he will coax and cajole if he can't. It would be "Hi sye, corporal. They's ten men in Number 2 section and fourteen in ourn. An' blimme if you hain't guv 'em four loaves, same as ourn. Is it right, I ...
— A Yankee in the Trenches • R. Derby Holmes
... Then just get out the bottle, and give your father something to coax the cod down. Poll, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various
... Too much had occurred for his faculties to slip away at once into oblivion. His interview with Montcalm, his meeting with St. Luc, and the appearance of Tandakora at the camp fire, stirred him mightily. Events were certainly marching, and, while he tried to coax slumber to come, he listened to the noises of the camp and the forest. Where the French tents were spread, men were softly singing songs of their ancient land, and beyond them sentinels in neat uniforms were walking back and forth among trees that ...
— The Masters of the Peaks - A Story of the Great North Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler
... and rush ahead leaving us as if we were standing still—then they would turn almost in their own length and come rushing back, sometimes circling the ship two or three times. They reminded me of a couple of puppies gambolling and trying to coax the old dog into ...
— Into the Jaws of Death • Jack O'Brien
... more modern; but life was yet too earnest to display it in the dressing and nursing of waxen babies.) To suit the people from whom the peddler's income was derived, he must consult at least the appearance of utility, in every article he offered; for, though no man could do more, to coax the money out of one's pocket, without leaving an equivalent, even he could not succeed in such an enterprise, against the ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel
... amusing to see how he tried to coax her down, and to make her feel that he was her friend. Snow-drop mewed, and raised her back; but Bright, by some good-natured half-barks and playful grunts, soon made her understand that he was one of the family, and ...
— The Nursery, February 1873, Vol. XIII. - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest People • Various
... grandmother's country gardens, that countless muslin bags of the dried leaves sent to town ostensibly for stuffing poultry never reach the kitchen at all, but are accorded more honored places in the living room. They are placed in the sunlight of a bay window where Old Sol may coax forth their prisoned odors and perfume the air with memories of childhood summers ...
— Culinary Herbs: Their Cultivation Harvesting Curing and Uses • M. G. Kains
... of the asylum, hearing all particulars from Margrave, expressed a strong persuasion that the witness was his missing patient, and had himself committed the crime of which he had accused another. If so, the superintendent undertook to coax from him the full confession of all the circumstances. Like many other madmen, and not least those whose propensity is to crime, the fugitive maniac was exceedingly cunning, treacherous, secret, and habituated to trick and stratagem,—more ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... wrang; wears but never grups, and beats a' oor dowgs. She's a perfect meeracle, and as soople as a maukin." Then he related how they all knew her, and said, "There's that wee fell yin; we'll get them in noo." They tried to coax her to stop and be caught, but no, she was gentle, but off; and for many a day that "wee fell yin" was spoken of by these rough fellows. She continued this amateur work till she died, which she ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... thing away before in his whole life. Not but what he has always been very good to me, in his way. He'd never give me a cent o' money; but he'd always pay bills,—that is, that was any way reasonable. But I said to 'Siah this morning, 'If there's anybody on earth can coax your father to let us take him home, it's that Mrs. Philbrick; and I'm going to find her.' 'Siah didn't want me to. The boys are so ashamed about it; but I don't see any shame in it. It's just a kind of ...
— Mercy Philbrick's Choice • Helen Hunt Jackson
... me. That might do, as far as it goes," she remarked, after a moment's reflection. "It won't be easy; you'll have to threaten as well as coax, but I guess you can git it out of him in the long run, and maybe I can help you here, two bein' better than one, if one is ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor
... belonged, none the less, to an order of supernatural creatures whom we have never seen, but whom, in spite of that, we recognise and acclaim with rapture when some explorer of the unseen contrives to coax one forth, to bring it down from that divine world to which he has access to shine for a brief moment in the firmament of ours. This was what Vinteuil had done for the little phrase. Swann felt that the composer had been content (with the musical instruments ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... somethin' 'important,' sure enough, or she'd never have left them nuts. Well, I guess I can store 'em in my pockets, an' I'll coax her secret, whatever 'tis, out of her by givin' them back to her," mused ...
— The Brass Bound Box • Evelyn Raymond
... and gentlemen. You see how it is done. You back your eyes, and you win. I find that I shall have to close early to-night. Make your hay while the sun shines. Who'll be in on this turn? Watch the queen of hearts. I place her here. I coax the three cards a little——" he gave a swift ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin
... rebuke those sins, to warn and prophesy to his fellow- countrymen the certain ruin into which they are rushing headlong; and he speaks God's message boldly. From the poor idol-ridden labourer, offering cakes to the Queen of Heaven to coax her into sending him a good harvest, to the tyrant king who had built his palace of cedar and painted it with vermilion, he had a bitter word for every man. The lying priest tried to silence him; and Jeremiah answered him, that his wife should be a harlot in the ...
— Sermons on National Subjects • Charles Kingsley
... Foy kept pounding away. Occasionally a soiled pedestrian would slide down the slope, tell a wild tale of rich strikes, and a hundred men would quit work and head for the highlands. Foy would storm and swear and coax by turns, but to no purpose; for they were like so many steers, and as easily stampeded. When the Atlin boom struck the camp, Foy lost five hundred men in as many minutes. Scores of graders dropped their ...
— The Last Spike - And Other Railroad Stories • Cy Warman
... vestibule below was a letter-box into which no letter would go, and an electric button from which no mortal finger could coax a ring. Also appertaining thereunto was a card bearing the name "Mr. James ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various
... frantic minutes trying to coax that envelope from under the door. But, in his care to push it far enough, it had dropped beyond the sill, and he could not reach it. The thing was done for better or for worse. Perfectly certain that it was for worse, he splashed mournfully back to the lights. In the lantern room of the right-hand ...
— The Woman-Haters • Joseph C. Lincoln
... answered Jovita. "And you will be worse than any of them. Girls who think themselves too good to be spoken to are always easiest to coax when they find their match. Let him come, and you'll ...
— The Pretty Sister Of Jose - 1889 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... not want to let me do it; but when I began to coax him, then he consented. When the abbot heard about it from his seminarists, he immediately rushed out of the room swearing; there was such a disturbance, that tatus escaped to the barn. Toward evening, the abbot took ...
— The Knights of the Cross • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... they talked constantly of them, piling mountains of conjecture on molehills of fact. But now their talk was less of the wonder and the romance of the situation and more of the irritation of it. Ralph Addington's unease seemed to have infected them all. Frank Merrill had actually to coax them to keep at their duty of patrolling the beach. They were constantly studying the horizon for a glimpse of their strange visitors. Every morning they said, "I hope they'll come to-day"; every night, "Perhaps they'll come to-morrow." And always, "They won't put it over on ...
— Angel Island • Inez Haynes Gillmore
... say this is hard on a man that is reckon'd That sergeant-at-law whom we call Kite the Second, You mistake; for a slave, who will coax his superiors, May be proud to be licking a great man's posteriors. ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IV: - Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Volume II • Jonathan Swift
... his mother did him the justice to recognize. "Well, what is it you want to know?" Boyne was too hurt to answer at once, and his mother had to coax him a little. She did it sweetly, and apologized to him for saying what she had said. After all, he was the youngest, and her baby still. Her words and caresses took effect at last, and he stammered out, "Is everybody ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... danced through Mohammedan dream of Paradise, to dig pitfalls for the unwary feet of some misshapen country wench who was striving to lead an honest life. As a muley cow will turn from a manger filled with new-mown hay, and wear out her thievish tongue trying to coax a wisp of rotten straw through a crack in a neighbor's barn, so will man turn from consenting Venus' matchless charms to ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... female managed to arrange just such a contretemps every time there was an eligible male within sight; if discovered, she either assumed a look of infantile innocence, or she took the opportunity to coax a becoming blush. ...
— Sex=The Unknown Quantity - The Spiritual Function of Sex • Ali Nomad
... over stumblingly and put his arm round his mother's shoulder. "Never mind how I get such sense as I have, mother; I have so much time to think, it would be a wonder if I hadn't some. But I think we had better try to study her, and coax her along, and not fob her off as a very inferior person, or we shall have our hands full in earnest. My opinion is, she has got that which will save her and us too—a very high spirit, which only needs opportunity to develop into a remarkable thing; and, take my word ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... joys whereto I went as to a bridal, With Youth's fair aureole clustering on a brow That no amount of culture (herpecidal) Will coax the semblance of a crop from now, Once more I make ye mine; There is a train that ...
— Punch, or The London Charivari, Vol. 152, February 21st, 1917 • Various
... looking up from a compound of wet coal and driftwood which he had been vainly trying to coax into a flame for cooking purposes; "I's most ...
— The Giant of the North - Pokings Round the Pole • R.M. Ballantyne
... part of it was that his only idea of making what is known as "a return" was to devote himself to the Professor's family. When I hear pretty women lamenting that they can't coax Professor Dredge out of his laboratory I remember Mabel Lanfear's cry to me: "If Galen would only keep away!" When Mabel fell on the ice and broke her leg, Galen walked seven miles in a blizzard to get a surgeon; but if he did her this service one ...
— Tales Of Men And Ghosts • Edith Wharton
... as they trooped out of church, the inhabitants of Hempdon were greatly interested in the break-down of a large car, which seemed to defy the best efforts of the chauffeur to coax into movement. The owner drank cider at the Spotted Woodpigeon and talked pleasantly with the villagers, who, on learning that he had never even heard of the Surrey cattle-maimings, were at great pains to pour information and ...
— Malcolm Sage, Detective • Herbert George Jenkins
... her hair, and called her Naani and Mirdath, and said many things unto her, that now I scarce do wot of, but she did know them in the after time. And she was very quiet in mine arms, and seeming wondrous content; but yet did sob onward for a great time. And oft did I coax her and say vague things of comfort, as I have told. But truly she did ask no more comfort at that time than that she be sheltered where she did be. And truly she had been lonesome and in terror and in grief and dread, ...
— The Night Land • William Hope Hodgson
... continued; they must have fired half a dozen times before we could coax mother off. What awful screams! I had hoped never to hear them again, after Harry died. Charlie had gone to Greenwell before daybreak, to prepare the house, so we four women, with all those children and servants, were left ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... everybody this morning. When I was a child, and my father and mother were alive, and lived here, I remember I used to adopt exactly the same behaviour. If I had been naughty in the morning, I used to try and coax my parents at night. I remember in this very room, at this very table—oh, ever so many hundred years ago!—so coaxing my father, and mother, and your grandfather, Harry Warrington; and there were eels for supper, as we have had them to-night, and it was ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... for Arline when she got word that he was a broken-down invalid and had landed at an Atlantic Ocean port on his way home. She got arrowroot gruel and jelly and medicinal delicacies and cushions, and looked forward to a life of nursing. She hoped that in the years to come she could coax the glow of health back to his wan cheeks. And I wouldn't put it past her—mebbe she hoped she could get him to let the golden hair grow again, just long enough to make him interesting as he lay coughing on ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson
... The Evanses are a wealthy family, in spots, and she ought to have some money of her own if her aunt doesn’t coax it out of ...
— The House of a Thousand Candles • Meredith Nicholson
... bower-bird, in the garden at the Regent's Park, is indefatigable in his assiduity toward the female; and his winning ways to coax her into the bower conjure up the notion that the soul of some Damon in the course of his transmigration, has found its way into his elegant form. He picks up a brilliant feather, flits about with it before her, and when ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... all to you, uncle," said the niece; and she thought she would coax him up a little, and so she went on: "I know you won't be mean about it. Will ...
— Christmas Every Day and Other Stories • W. D. Howells
... they cannot do better still with both does not appear to be very plain. The ballot is a straight-forward dignified way of making your desire or choice felt. There are some things which are not pleasant to talk about, but would be delightful to vote against. Instead of having to beg, and coax, and entreat, and beseech, and denounce as women have had to do all down the centuries, in regard to the evil things which threaten to destroy their homes and those whom they love, what a glorious thing it would be if women could go out and vote against these things. It seems ...
— In Times Like These • Nellie L. McClung
... K. now. Running fine—I'm just tinkering the catch on the door, for even Richard Parsons cannot coax things into wearing forever. ...
— Christopher and the Clockmakers • Sara Ware Bassett
... each window wide, I drew each half-raised blind up; To coax him out in vain I tried; He could not make his mind up. He flew, he fell, he took a rest, And off again he scuffled With parted beak and panting breast ...
— The Vagabond and Other Poems from Punch • R. C. Lehmann
... history, in its past employments, and partly also in the new vitality which it receives from each brain which fills the word with its own life. It is like an old violin, with its subtle overtones, the result of many vibrations of the past, but yet each new player may coax a new tune from ...
— A Study of Poetry • Bliss Perry
... would coax Amelia Ellen to take a trip to California with her, and on the way they would stop in Arizona and give the letter into the hands of the young man. By that time no doubt his injured ankle would be sufficiently strong to allow his return from the journey ...
— The Man of the Desert • Grace Livingston Hill
... call it the inter-relations of life or something to that effect. What I'm after is to coax 'em ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... nurse. Low-voiced and soft-footed, she would coax the delirious man to lie down when he grew excited or to take his medicine according to the orders ...
— A Daughter of the Dons - A Story of New Mexico Today • William MacLeod Raine
... you must, for, as A. Van Buren Powell has said: "Everyone will grant that in photoplay writing 'The Idea's the thing.' The script of the beginner, carrying a brand-new idea, will find acceptance where the most technical technique in the world, disguising a revamped story, will fail to coax the coy check ...
— Writing the Photoplay • J. Berg Esenwein and Arthur Leeds
... about the Duke of Northumberland[26] till Sunday, when he wrote to announce the appointment. His Grace seems mightily pleased with it, and fancies that his figure and his fortune are more than enough to make him a very good Lord-Lieutenant. He says he was obliged to coax him a little to get him ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... the funeral Bob's dearest hope fled. He had ordered all things at the Sands plantation put in their every-day condition. Beulah Sands's uncles, aunts, and cousins had arranged to welcome her and to try by every means in their power to coax back her lost mind. They assured Bob that, barring the absence of Beulah's father, mother, and sister, there would not be a memory-recaller missing. Bob and his wife landed from the river packet at the foot of the driveway, which led straight from the landing ...
— Friday, the Thirteenth • Thomas W. Lawson
... will buy him a cleared farm in a settled country. The mossback pays in pennies and gives a mortgage. Then he addresses himself to clearing the land. It follows that he is poverty-stricken, lives frugally and is very tenacious of what property rights he may be able to coax or wring from a hard wilderness. He dwells in a shack, works in a swamp, and sees no farther than the rail fence he has split ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... investment, and by all odds the most respectable disguise that a lying or swindling business man can wear. Honor he thinks is a sham. Honesty he considers a plausible word to flourish in the eyes of the greener portion of our race, as you would hold out a cabbage leaf to coax a donkey. What people want, he thinks, or says he thinks, is something good to eat, something good to drink, fine clothes, luxury, laziness, wealth. If you can imagine a hog's mind in a man's body—sensual, greedy, selfish, cruel, cunning, sly, coarse, yet stupid, short-sighted, ...
— The Humbugs of the World • P. T. Barnum
... come up for the grand hop on next Monday," said Edith Brown. "He is capital company, and a delightful partner. I am going to coax Mr. Palmer to send for him. Come, girls, he has monopolized our pretty widow long enough; suppose we break up the conference and put in ...
— Mona • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... summer and early autumn he had been working on some idea that seemed to have taken hold of his mind to a greater extent than any previous effort had ever done. His chums knew of it, but no one had been able to coax Bud to let them ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Flying Squadron • Robert Shaler
... heart. It was such fun to help to arrange all the things from home, and see how nice they looked in their new surroundings. Then Dr. Ramsay had brought his car, and of course Merle wanted to help to clean it and to go out with her father in it and coax him to allow her to drive. Everybody felt that it was ideal to have Mrs. Ramsay at Bridge House. She took the place of a daughter to Aunt Nellie, who was somewhat of an invalid, and would nurse her and manage ...
— Monitress Merle • Angela Brazil
... hoping to hear more precisely what the row was about. Why hot water at all, if uncalled for? As she had not expected to hear much, she was very little surprised to hear nothing. She pictured the attitude in action of Miss Lutwyche, whom she knew well enough to know that she would coax history in her own favour. The best of lady's-maids cannot be at once a Tartar and an Angel. Gwen surmised that in the region of the servants' common-room and the kitchen Miss Lutwyche would show so much of the former as had been truly ascribed to her, whereas she ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... opening days of 1791. He passed his first night at the house of Bland, the music-publisher, at 45 High Holborn, which now, rebuilt, forms part of the First Avenue Hotel. Bland, it should have been mentioned before, had been sent over to Vienna by Salomon to coax Haydn into an engagement in 1787. When he was admitted on that occasion to Haydn's room, he found the composer in the act of shaving, complaining the while of the bluntness of his razor. "I would give my best quartet for a good razor," ...
— Haydn • J. Cuthbert Hadden
... him, Hester. I am more than delighted to find he has begun to take an interest in music. It is a taste that will grow upon him. Coax him to let you teach him—and bear with him if he should sing out of tune.—It is nothing wicked!" she added with ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... came in to her, and seeing her in this state, was lost to the world. However, she smoothed the matter over and hid the girl's condition from her father, of the love they bore me, nor did they cease to call to me and coax me, till they took me from where I was. After two months had passed by, her mother married her to a young man, a barber, who used to shave her father, and portioned and fitted her out of her own monies, whilst her father knew nothing of what had passed. ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume I • Anonymous
... me for five years and he hasn't caught up with me yet. Every time he's had a chance he's tossed a few sneers in my direction, so I made up my mind the other day I'd coax him down to the foundry and throw the anvil at him. If ever I do cut loose on that Birmingham gent he'll think he has swallowed one of his own harpoons. He's a case of Perpetual Grouch because it gets the ...
— You Can Search Me • Hugh McHugh
... weaver-bird's nest in a bush with three white eggs in it, a splendid nest, stock-full of the fireflies that light the little hen at night, he showed it privately first to Hurry Ghose, and then to Sumpsi Din, and lastly to Budhoo, the sweeper's son; and not one of them could he coax to carry off a single egg in company with him. Sonny Sahib recognised the force of public opinion, and left the weaver-bird to her house-keeping in peace, but he ...
— The Story of Sonny Sahib • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... was, he was nearly exhausted by the extra steps he had taken and the effort he had put forth to coax and bully, somehow to drag Sprudell along. The situation was desperate. The bitter cold grew worse as night came on. He knew that they had worked their way down toward the river, but how far down? Was the deep canyon he had tried ...
— The Man from the Bitter Roots • Caroline Lockhart
... children. And she actually sometimes still coquetted heavily with her husband. At twenty she had been addicted to baby talk when endeavouring to coax something out of someone. Her admirers had found it irresistible. At forty it was awful. Her selfishness was colossal. She affected a semi-invalidism and for fifteen years had spent one day a week in bed. She took no exercise and a great deal of baking soda and tried to fight ...
— Half Portions • Edna Ferber
... one of his little ones should do the evil thing, there is, I believe, no extreme of suffering to which, for the sake of destroying the evil thing in them, he would not subject them. A man might flatter, or bribe, or coax a tyrant; but there is no refuge from the love of God; that love will, for very love, ...
— Unspoken Sermons - Series I., II., and II. • George MacDonald
... soon came to see him; not from any real care for himself or his sufferings, but partly to coax and partly to threaten him into silence, so that he might not reveal the names of his companions in the attempt on Foster. But Ned's wife soon gave them to understand that her husband had already had more than enough of their company; that they needn't trouble themselves to call again; and that ...
— True to his Colours - The Life that Wears Best • Theodore P. Wilson
... him with a turn o' his hand," thought he; yet he regarded the lad with a mixture of kindness and respect, after all. There were other things in the world beside bone and muscle, he remembered, and when the boy came slowly along the deck, after a fruitless attempt to coax the mate into conversation, he put out one of his big red hands and stopped ...
— Culm Rock - The Story of a Year: What it Brought and What it Taught • Glance Gaylord
... not to leave him too long alone," observed Olivia, wearily. "I promised my husband that I would look after him. We must coax him to take some food, and then he must go to bed; he is very weak still, and all this has exhausted him." And as Greta evidently shared her anxiety, they ...
— Doctor Luttrell's First Patient • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... own services and theirs might be less in request, now became the very curse of his life. Every morning, duly as an attempt was made to put them in motion, they began to back, and no arts, gentle or harsh, would for a moment avail to coax or to coerce them into the counter direction. Could retrogression by any metaphysics have been translated into progress, we excelled in that; it was our forte; we could have backed to the North Pole. That might be the way to glory, or at least to distinction—sic itur ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... thoughts were elsewhere (as yours, my friend, have been absent once or twice to-night). To know the secret of Masonry was the wretched child's mad desire. With a thousand wiles, smiles, caresses, she strove to coax it from ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... for the machine first, I reckon. There! hear the thunder? We are going to get it, and I must raise the hood of the tonneau, too," proclaimed the lad. "Go on with your hamper and wraps. I see sheds back there, and I'll try to coax the old Juggernaut into that lane and ...
— Ruth Fielding and the Gypsies - The Missing Pearl Necklace • Alice B. Emerson
... to him," said Jack. "Look at me, shaken all to pieces with the fever and ague on the Wildcat, and look at that great big, bony coward of a Riley. I've done him no harm, but he wants to abuse me, and he's afraid of me. He daren't touch me. He has to coax you to stand by him, to protect him from poor little me. ...
— The Hoosier School-boy • Edward Eggleston |
