"Coquetry" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the lemons with a little gesture expressing amusement, triumph, and a dash of coquetry. Laurie's eyes glowed as he looked at her. For the second time, in her actual presence, a sharp thrill shot through him. Oh, if she were always like this!—gay, happy, without that incredible, unbelievable background ...
— The Girl in the Mirror • Elizabeth Garver Jordan
... the quarter, "here a little and there a little," is one of the greatest evils of the day. This getting a little in love with Julia, and then a little with Eliza, and a little more with Mary,—this fashionable flirtation and coquetry of both sexes—is ruinous to the domestic affections; besides, effectually preventing the formation of true connubial love. I consider this dissipation of the affections one of the greatest sins against Heaven, ourselves, and the one trifled with, ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis
... these barbarians, adds to its value. The women use it for greasing their hair: without this they would think something deficient in their dress. One cannot believe to what excess they carry their coquetry. They dress their hair with great art. They keep it flowing in tresses upon their breasts, and fasten to it any thing they can find. I have seen some of them ornament it with shell-work, keys of chests, and padlocks, rings of umbrellas, ...
— Perils and Captivity • Charlotte-Adelaide [nee Picard] Dard
... not to be daunted. Doggedly he fought his way around and through the swampy underbrush and presently stood blinking his delighted eyes in a little natural clearing that was a glorious climax to all the tantalizing coquetry of the creek. Encircled by drooping, long-leaved willows that were themselves enringed by stately trees, lay a broad, deep pool, clear as crystal, one side carpeted with velvety turf and screened with leafy draperies, and the whole canopied by the smiling ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume V. (of X.) • Various
... of what followed—I mean of my motives; my actions, thank God! were less reprehensible. There was another cadet ambitious of the vacant situation. He called my attention to what he led me to term coquetry between my wife and this young man. Sophia was virtuous, but proud of her virtue; and, irritated by my jealousy, she was so imprudent as to press and encourage an intimacy which she saw I disapproved and regarded ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... marriage when we were only seven years old? Did I not remember how I would pass her house on my way to school, and stand at the gate and whistle until she came shyly out, with her face as red as her little hood and tippet, and give me her books to carry, and protest with the ever present coquetry of girlhood that she thought I had gone long ago? Could I ever forget how I saved my coppers, one by one, until I had accumulated a sum large enough to buy a whole cocoanut, which I presented to her in the proudest moment of my life, and how the ...
— The Romance of an Old Fool • Roswell Field
... geometric Lady, age now forty-two, with a Great Man who has scandalously ceased to love her, casts her eye upon St. Lambert: 'Yes, you would be the shoeing-horn, Monsieur, if one had time, you fine florid fellow, hardly yet into your thirties—' And tries him with a little coquetry; I always think, perhaps in this view chiefly? And then, at any rate, as he responded, the thing itself became so interesting: 'Our Ulysses-bow, we can still bend it, then, aha! 'And is not that a pretty stag withal, worth bringing down; florid, just entering his thirties, and with the susceptibilities ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVI. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Ten Years of Peace.—1746-1756. • Thomas Carlyle
... spoils, was by her side, and, having restored her nerves with champagne, proceeded to agitate them again with the warmest protestations of affection. The child with the day's experience before her, only half-believed him, but the spirit of coquetry woke up, and she resolved to try and make him care for her as much as he ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... proprietor of his wife In Rome justice and religion always rank second to politics Kings only desire to be obeyed when they command Laws will only be as so many black lines on white paper Love-affair between Mademoiselle de la Valliere and the King Madame de Montespan had died of an attack of coquetry Not show it off was as if one only possessed a kennel That Which Often It is Best to Ignore Violent passion had changed to mere friendship When women rule their reign is always stormy and troublous Wife: property or of furniture, useful to his house Won ...
— Widger's Quotations from The Court Memoirs of France • David Widger
... every thing successively, that she passed thus, almost in the same instant, from melancholy to gaiety, from profundity to grace—from conversation the most astonishing, by the knowledge and the ideas it displayed, to the coquetry of a woman who seeks to please, and desires to captivate; but there was, even in that coquetry, such perfect nobleness that it imposed as much respect as the ...
— Corinne, Volume 1 (of 2) - Or Italy • Mme de Stael
... entirely unconscious how the incumbent regarded her soft eyes, meek pensiveness, motherly sweetness, and, above all, the refined graceful dignity that remained to her from the leading station she had occupied. Her gracious respect towards her clergyman was a contrast as much to the deferential coquetry of his admirers as to the abruptness of his foe, and her indifference to parish details had even its charm in a world of fussiness; he did not know himself how far a wish of hers would have led him, and she was the last person to guess. She viewed him, ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... me?" she exclaimed. "The interest you take in me isn't really controversial—a bit. It's quite personal!" She was the most extraordinary girl; she could speak such words as those without the smallest look of added consciousness coming into her face, without the least supposable intention of coquetry, or any visible purpose of challenging the young ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. II (of II) • Henry James
... moment, and as she lifted her eyes to his something in their shining depths spoke witchingly to the youth of nineteen, untrained in ways of feminine coquetry. He was only a country boy, unskilled in social tactics, but a combination of timidity and good breeding shaped his ideals and ...
— Winning the Wilderness • Margaret Hill McCarter
... purpose on that wilful, high-strung young person, the pique that Gray's frank interest in Mavis brought to life within her, and he was not yet far enough along in the classics to suspect that Marjorie might weary of hearing Aristides called the Just. Nor could he know the spirit of coquetry that lurked deep behind her serious eyes, and was for that reason the ...
— The Heart Of The Hills • John Fox, Jr.
... If to these she had not added the dangerous desire to please, and the wish to hold other hearts than the royal one she had enslaved, in thraldom, all might, perhaps, have been well. But, alas like many other beautiful women, she had a strong tendency to coquetry. How severely she suffered for it, it is the purpose of this history to relate. An excellent description of her has been given by a contemporary writer, the Comte de Chateaubriand, who, while somewhat disparaging her personal ...
— Windsor Castle • William Harrison Ainsworth
... him to make his heroine more true to nature than his theories have allowed him to make his hero. And his theories about girls are quite as good and quite as different from the fashionable practice of his day as those about boys. It is curious how his ideas approach the American customs. A certain coquetry, he says, is allowable in marriageable girls; amusement is their principal business. Married women have the cares of home to occupy them, and have no longer to seek husbands. Rousseau would let the girls appear in public, would take them to balls, entertainments, the theatre. ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell
... this woman of the East marvels at the women of the West, 'the beautiful worldly women of the West,' whom she sees walking in the Cascine, 'taking the air so consciously attractive in their brilliant toilettes, in the brilliant coquetry of their manner!' She finds them 'a little incomprehensible,' 'profound artists in all the subtle intricacies of fascination,' and asks if these 'incalculable frivolities and vanities and coquetries and caprices' are, to us, an essential part of their charm? And ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... burned. She had been wishing for the coming of a man who would not be clay in her hands. To Circe all men must have been swine, from the start, save the man who could pass by. Now, of a sudden, every wile of coquetry became a lost art to Mary Burton. She felt like an accomplished and intriguing diplomat, facing an adversary who has no secrets to conceal and no interest in the evasions of others. He roused a new eagerness because she knew intuitively that to mere fascination he would surrender ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... art go hand in hand, with little help from fine writing or imposing scenery. Everybody was in the happiest mood, especially 'little Dolly', who danced like a will-o'-the-wisp with light-footed Mercury and Apollo as he promenaded with the Marquise on his arm, who seemed to have left her coquetry in the green room ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... some fine day," Senor Ignacio would say to Leandro, incensed by the cruel coquetry of the maiden, "is to get her into a corner and take all you want.... And then give her a beating and leave her soft as mush. The next day she'd be following you ...
— The Quest • Pio Baroja
... her victims her magnetic glances, commenced by attracting them, little by little, into the blazing whirlwind which seemed to emanate from her; then, seeing them lost, suffering every torment of a tantalized craving, she amused herself by a refinement of coquetry, prolonging their delirium; then, returning to her first instincts, she destroyed them in her homicidal embrace. This was ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue
... was, thought that she was an angel sent to me by sympathetic fate... Again I was mistaken; the love of a savage is little better than that of your lady of quality, the barbaric ignorance and simplicity of the one weary you as much as the coquetry of the other. I am not saying that I do not love her still; I am grateful to her for a few fairly sweet moments; I would give my life for her—only I am bored with her... Whether I am a fool or a villain I know not; but this is certain, I am also most deserving of pity—perhaps more than she. ...
— A Hero of Our Time • M. Y. Lermontov
... had not ended in anything serious—except the establishing of a character for coquetry for Virginia—nor had several others which followed ...
— Elsie's children • Martha Finley
... I was haunted by the beauty and subtlety of your voice, the unconscious grace of your poses, your little tricks of coquetry, and the ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice
... most gracious salute to us all, and, glancing at me with a spice of coquetry, to which she was evidently not unaccustomed, was pleased to observe, that I ...
— The Ghost Ship - A Mystery of the Sea • John C. Hutcheson
... a double circuit of coquetry and slanted off with a suggestive glance at the massive doorway of the Hawker-Sponge mansion, one of the most aristocratically mortgaged ...
— Officer 666 • Barton W. Currie
... he were watching the capricious sparks which mark the progress of a slow match toward a powder-train. Bub Quinn, meanwhile, stood rooted before the girl, while Joe, having possessed himself of the fallen fan, met her coquetry with blandishments of the most undisguised nature. At length, hesitatingly, deprecatingly, she took Quinn's plate, but at the same time she moved along on the bench and offered Joe a seat. He promptly ...
— Peak and Prairie - From a Colorado Sketch-book • Anna Fuller
... the schools and free from all the guiles of heartless coquetry, an orphan girl in an Indian village, with neither prudery on the one hand, nor hothouse teachings on the other, which turn the heads of so many girls, Astumastao was to herself a riddle which she could not solve—a problem the most difficult ...
— Oowikapun - How the Gospel Reached the Nelson River Indians • Egerton Ryerson Young
... Dr. Leete. "There is no more pretense of a concealment of feeling on their part than on the part of their lovers. Coquetry would be as much despised in a girl as in a man. Affected coldness, which in your day rarely deceived a lover, would deceive him wholly now, for no one thinks of ...
— Looking Backward - 2000-1887 • Edward Bellamy
... sir," said Draxy, as she stepped from the last stair, and standing close in front of him, lifted the new, sweet, softened eyes up to his. Draxy was as simple and sincere in this as in all other emotions and acts of her life. She had no coquetry in her nature. She had no distinct thought either of a new relation between herself and the Elder. She simply felt a new oneness with him; and she could not have understood the suggestion of concealment. If Elder Kinney had been a man of the world, he would have folded ...
— Saxe Holm's Stories • Helen Hunt Jackson
... her lashes as she glanced at him, asking this question with her lips and a hundred others with her eyes, with her gay air of youth and happiness—with her very attitude of coquetry, as she stood in the spring sunshine, with the scent of the primroses ...
— The Last Hope • Henry Seton Merriman
... the coquetry of one who knows that his words are of interest, the driver began to look around him with an air of abstraction and to ...
— The Cabman's Story - The Mysteries of a London 'Growler' • Arthur Conan Doyle
... ladies how Huxter had elevated Fanny to the rank of wife, and what terrors he was in respecting the arrival of his father. He described the scene with considerable humour, taking care to dwell especially upon that part of it which concerned Fanny's coquetry and irrepressible desire of captivating mankind; his meaning being, "You see, Laura, I was not so guilty in that little affair; it was the girl who made love to me, and I who resisted. As I am no longer present, the little siren practises her arts and fascinations upon others. Let that transaction ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... father going to die?" said the seventh, laughing and throwing her bouquet to Don Juan with maddening coquetry. She was an innocent young girl who was accustomed to play with ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various
... house was done, Marius entered softly the room where Varia lay, tended by Nerissa. The old woman slipped away, and Varia held out a slim hand to him in one of her sudden and unaccountable moods of coquetry. He kissed it gallantly. ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor
... stranger; (Dick, who loved and understood dogs, devoting himself to the task of making himself agreeable to this gentle and beautiful creature;) and she seemed so far reconciled as to suffer his caresses, to lap a little milk when sure that nobody saw her, and even to bridle with instinctive coquetry, when Dash, head and tail up, advanced with a sort of stately and conscious courtesy to examine into the claims of the newcomer. For the first evening all seemed promising; but on the next morning, nobody knew how or when, Chloe eloped to ...
— The Widow's Dog • Mary Russell Mitford
... begun to make hollow her pallid cheeks, and if her abundant hair, in other times the delight and adornment of her person, was even yet simply and neatly arranged, though without pins or combs, it was not from coquetry ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... she was, and not merely because her shoes were off and she could not well get away, but because it was not in her nature not to wish every one to be happy and comfortable. She was as far as any woman can be from coquetry, but she could not see any manner of man without trying to please him. "I'm sorry he's isn't here," she said, and then, as there seemed nothing for him to answer, she ventured, "It's very cold out, ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... effects, of deliberately manipulating her public; and there must indeed have been a certain exhilaration in attaining results so considerable by means involving so little conscious effort. Mrs. Amyot's art was simply an extension of coquetry: she flirted with ...
— The Greater Inclination • Edith Wharton
... manner, with eyes, gestures, and a profusion of compliments, till the Colonel's old head felt thirty years younger on his padded shoulders. Edna marveled, not comprehending. She herself was almost devoid of coquetry. ...
— The Awakening and Selected Short Stories • Kate Chopin
... the first Sunday after our arrival, and found the rites homely and naked, very much like those of our own Presbyterians. There was a luxury about this building that you would hardly expect to meet among a people so simple, which quite puts the coquetry of our own carpeted, cushioned, closet-like places of worship to shame. This is the summer church of Vevey, another being used for winter. This surpasses the refinement of the Roman ladies, who had their summer and their winter rings, but were satisfied to use the same ...
— A Residence in France - With An Excursion Up The Rhine, And A Second Visit To Switzerland • J. Fenimore Cooper
... the lady said she did not know how that might be, and she went on toasting the experiment. In all this there is a fine contempt for everything but the spiritual aspect of literature; there is an aversion to the mere coquetry and display of morocco and red letters, and the toys which amuse the minds of men. Where ladies have caught "the Bibliomania," I fancy they have taken this pretty fever from the other sex. But it must be owned that the books they have ...
— Books and Bookmen • Andrew Lang
... I went, after seeing her 'Rosiere de Salency,' with the most favourable disposition, but I could not like her.... And from time to time I saw, or thought I saw, through the gloom of her countenance a gleam of coquetry. But my father judges of her much more favourably than I do. She evidently took pains to please him, and he says he is sure she is a person over whose mind he could gain ...
— A Book of Sibyls - Miss Barbauld, Miss Edgeworth, Mrs Opie, Miss Austen • Anne Thackeray (Mrs. Richmond Ritchie)
... thine eyelids show of Kohl and coquetry! * By what thy shape displays of lissome symmetry! By what thy liplets store of honey dew and wine! * By what thy mind adorns of gracious kindly gree! To me thy sight dream-visioned, O my hope! exceeds * The happiest escape from ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... her beauty which had enchanted him, though, like all Frenchmen, he was a passionate worshipper of the beautiful. The sweet soul in her eyes had touched his heart. Her ignorance had done more to strengthen it than anything she could have done. There was not a spark of coquetry in her whole nature. She listened to his poetic speeches, wondering but believing—wondering how they could be true of her, yet trusting him and all the world too seriously to accuse him ...
— Theo - A Sprightly Love Story • Mrs. Frances Hodgson Burnett
... on a stem; And he asked that one of them be given him in marriage— He did not care which one it was, but left the choice to them. But, oh, the terror that they felt, their efforts to evade him, With careless art, with coquetry, with wile ...
— On the Tree Top • Clara Doty Bates
... had never seen such a bewildering disorder of feminine clothes. He had never had the opportunity of noting the pathetic difference existing between the toilette surroundings of a woman who is strong and well, and of one who is deprived of all natural coquetry by the cruel ravages of long sickness and disease. His sister, beautiful even in her incurable physical affliction, had always borne that affliction more or less in mind, and had attired herself with a severely simple taste,—her bedroom, where she had had to pass so many ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... gilliflowers, and Audrey gathered up her apron and filled it with the vivid blooms. The child that had thus brought loaves of bread to a governor's table spread beneath a sugar-tree, with mountains round about, had been no purer of heart, no more innocent of rustic coquetry. When her apron was filled she would have returned to the house, but Haward would not have it so. "They will call when dinner is ready," he said. "I wish to talk to you, little maid. Let us go sit in the shade of ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... and her laugh is silvery. She points to a gay mountaineer, who is tripping up to her merrily. Why does Glyndon feel jealous? Why, when she speaks again, does he shake his head no more? He offers his hand; Fillide blushes, and takes it with a demure coquetry. What! is it so, indeed! They whirl into the noisy circle of the revellers. Ha! ha! is not this better than distilling herbs, and breaking thy brains on Pythagorean numbers? How lightly Fillide bounds along! ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... open seemed all unconscious of what was going on so near them. Nick was gazing upon the woman, his heart laid bare in his eyes. And Aim-sa was smiling up into his face with all the arch coquetry of her sex, with that simple, trusting look which, however guileful, must ever appeal to the ...
— In the Brooding Wild • Ridgwell Cullum
... charming coquetry!" said the Court ladies, and each tried to keep their mouths full of water so that they might gurgle like the Nightingale when they spoke to anyone. Even the footmen and the ladies' maids expressed their perfect satisfaction, and that was a great deal, for they are ...
— Tales of Wonder Every Child Should Know • Various
... unoccupied and uninterested girl into their excitements. Those whose minds are of too active and vivacious a nature to live on without an object, may too easily find one in the dangerous and selfish amusements of coquetry—in the seeking for admiration, and its enjoyment when obtained. The very woman who might have been the most happy herself in the enjoyment of intellectual pursuits, and the most extensively useful to others, is often the one who, ...
— The Young Lady's Mentor - A Guide to the Formation of Character. In a Series of Letters to Her Unknown Friends • A Lady
... to the bedrooms—simpered down on him with encouraging benignity. Prim women, wearing enormously long waists, and their heads a good deal on one side, pointed their fans at him, while he washed his hands, with a coquetry irresistible, had their colours only stood, combining entreaty and command; while a jolly old boy in flowing wig, steel breast-plate, and the most convivial of noses, smiled in his face, as who should say, "Audaces Fortuna juvat!—Go ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... smoking a cigarette, and resting his bare feet upon the dashboard. Behind the curtain of a passing quilez you can catch a glimpse of brown eyes, raven hair, and olive-tinted cheeks, displayed with all the coquetry of a Manila belle. A Filipino family in a rickety cart, tilted at an impossible angle, are drawn by a moth-eaten pony, mostly bones. Public conveyances—if these are not indeed a myth—are most exasperating. You can never find one when you want ...
— The Great White Tribe in Filipinia • Paul T. Gilbert
... went into the house; her innocent coquetry more than sufficiently punished already. And we three looked at one another with blank faces, It was clear that we had made a dangerous enemy, and an enemy at our own gates. As the Vidame had said, ...
— The House of the Wolf - A Romance • Stanley Weyman
... you, mademoiselle," said D'Artagnan, "what M. de Bragelonne said of you, at Antibes, when he already meditated death: 'If pride and coquetry have misled her, I pardon her while despising her. If love has produced her error, I pardon her, but I swear that no one could have loved her as I ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... marrying resigned his commission, at the earnest entreaties of his wife, and retired to one of her seats, to the enjoyment of ease and domestic love. The countess was enthusiastically attached to him; and as motives for the indulgence of coquetry were wanting, her character became gradually improved by the contemplation of the excellent qualities of ...
— Precaution • James Fenimore Cooper
... by coquetry to a woman who amused herself by playing with fire brought tears to Lucien's eyes; but her first kiss upon his forehead calmed the storm. Decidedly Lucien was a great man, and she meant to form him; she thought of teaching him Italian and German and perfecting his manners. That ...
— Two Poets - Lost Illusions Part I • Honore de Balzac
... discouraging either. But Bob Broadley, a literal man, found no warrant for fresh hope in any of the not very significant words which he repeated to himself as he rode home up the valley of the Blent. He suffered under modesty; it needed more than coquetry to convince him that he exercised any attraction over the rich and brilliant (brilliance also is a matter of comparison) Miss Iver, on whose favor Mr Tristram waited and at whose ...
— Tristram of Blent - An Episode in the Story of an Ancient House • Anthony Hope
... coquetry in Zany's manner now. In a moment she was in Chunk's arms sobbing, "Tek me way off fum dis place. I go wid you now, dis berry minute, en I neber breve easy till we way, way off enywhar, I doan keer whar. Oh, Chunk, you doan know w'at ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe
... Lucy, with a look of surprise that sadly puzzled me whether to ascribe it to coquetry or ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... the sublime leads to inflation, and affectation of nobleness to preciosity, in the same manner affectation of grace ends in coquetry, and that of dignity ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... refine a little in these speculations, which he had drawn from what he observed himself, or had been told him by others; however, I could not reflect without some amazement, and much sorrow, that the rudiments of lewdness, coquetry, censure, and scandal, should have place by ...
— Gulliver's Travels - into several remote nations of the world • Jonathan Swift
... them. Her eyes were fine, and full of coquetry. Her figure was all that a woman's should be. Yes, the camp liked the look of her, and so it set out to give Scipio ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... a flirtation. It behoves a girl then to choose her man carefully, and not to place herself in any false position towards him. If he is not chivalrous enough to take a delicately conveyed hint, he will only imagine that she is playing a more subtle game of coquetry, and by redoubling his attentions make himself the reverse of agreeable. No man with any regard for the most elementary rules of etiquette would either embarrass a lady by keeping up a tone that she had even indirectly ...
— The Etiquette of Engagement and Marriage • G. R. M. Devereux
... of Angle's fluttering farewells on the sidewalk. Josie was lingering on the doorstep in an agony of untrained coquetry. He lowered his tone for her benefit, thereby adding new weight to his bombardment of her ...
— The Fortune Hunter • Louis Joseph Vance
... there was one, of course, who lagged behind his fellows, with a yearning tenderness in his face that a glance from the girl would have quickly turned to love. But Sara Lee had no coquetry. When, as occasionally happened, there was a bit too much fervor when her hand was kissed, she laid it where it belonged—to loneliness and the spring—and became extremely maternal and very, very kind. Which—both of them—are death blows ...
— The Amazing Interlude • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... Gallery, next day, she was not late by coquetry, but because she had changed her dress at the last minute, and because she was afraid of letting him think her eager. She saw him at once standing under the colonnade, looking by no means imperturbable, ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... complexion be inexcusable, to be ill-painted is unforgivable; and, when the toilet is laden once more with the fulness of its elaboration, we shall hear no more of the proper occupation for women. And think, how sweet an energy, to sit at the mirror of coquetry! See the dear merits of the toilet as shown upon old vases, or upon the walls of Roman ruins, or, rather still, read Boettiger's alluring, scholarly description of 'Morgenscenen im Puttzimmer Einer Reichen Roemerin.' Read of ...
— The Works of Max Beerbohm • Max Beerbohm
... gentleman wore powder; the lady had her dark hair gathered away from her face, and a little cap, with a cherry-coloured bow, set on the top of her head—a coquettish head-dress, but the eyes spoke of sadness rather than of coquetry. ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... In a little while she will have put on the careworn look of the Southern summer. Many a plant now in splendid bloom, animated by the spirit of loveliness that presides over the law of reproduction, will soon be casting its seed and bringing its brief destiny to a close. Now all is coquetry, beauty, and ravishment. The rock-hiving bees, unconscious instruments of a great purpose, are yellow with pollen and laden with honey. They find more, infinitely more, nectar than they can carry away. The days are long, and every hour is full of joy. But already ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker
... stranger on the opposite side, dropped their garments (I should say garment, to be quite correct) over their limbs, which their occupation exposed somewhat too freely, and, with a shrill exclamation of 'Eh, sirs!' uttered with an accent between modesty and coquetry, sprung off ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... girl, the daughter of a rich general, who could speak three languages, gave away all that her rich brother sent her, and lived like the simplest working girl, and dressed not only simply, but poorly, paying no heed to her appearance. This trait and a complete absence of coquetry was particularly surprising and therefore attractive to Maslova. Maslova could see that Mary Pavlovna knew, and was even pleased to know, that she was handsome, and yet the effect her appearance had on men ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy
... often relieves me when suffering from that malady; and, on ascending the stairs, I met our landlord's eldest daughter, a tall, graceful girl of twenty. I found she was coming down backwards, which I took to be a mere girlish freak, or perhaps a piece of coquetry, practised on myself: but I afterwards found, that about the time the earth is at the full, the whole family pursued the same course, and were very scrupulous in making their steps in this awkward and inconvenient way, because it was one of the ...
— A Voyage to the Moon • George Tucker
... It is full, however, of a grandeur which is more dazzling than genuine; and, indeed, we could expect nothing else from a cento of Lucan's hyperbolical antitheses. These bravuras of rhetoric are strung together on the thread of a clumsy plot. The intrigues of Ptolemy, and the ambitious coquetry of his sister Cleopatra, have a petty and miserable appearance alongside of the picture of the fate of the great Pompey, the vengeance-breathing sorrow of his wife, and the magnanimous compassion of Caesar. Scarcely has ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... and Ambition to Virtue, and become the Protector of that Innocence which he so long and so indefatigably labour'd to supplant: And all this without ever having entertain'd the least previous Design or Thought for that Purpose: No Art used to inflame him, no Coquetry practised to tempt or intice him, and no Prudery or Affectation to tamper with his Passions; but, on the contrary, artless and unpractised in the Wiles of the World, all her Endeavours, and even all her Wishes, tended ...
— Samuel Richardson's Introduction to Pamela • Samuel Richardson
... had been manifested an expression of mingled curiosity, coquetry and banter on Vaudrey's appearance in their midst. His presence in the manager's box had been noticed and his coming to the greenroom expected. Every one had hurried thither. Sulpice was pointed out. He was the cynosure of ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... smile held up his hand, so plainly interposing 'not for better taste', that Bella's colour deepened over the little piece of coquetry she was checked in. ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... "So lonely." And the coquetry faded from her eyes as her glance wandered waterward and became fixed on some object invisible and far ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... jealousy, pugnacity, clannishness, the hunting and predatory instincts, the migratory instinct, love of adventure and the unknown, superstition, the sex instincts, which express themselves in sex-love, vanity, coquetry, modesty; and, closely allied with these, the love of nature and of solitude, and the aesthetic, the religious, and the ...
— Principles of Teaching • Adam S. Bennion
... a trifle appalled by it, if the truth must be told. If Richard had scattered his love-making through the month of her convalescence, or if he had made his avowal in a different mood, perhaps Margaret might have met him with some natural coquetry. But Richard's tone and manner had been such as to suppress any instinct of the kind. His declaration, moreover, had amazed her. Margaret's own feelings had been more or less plain to her that past month, and she ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... which she disregarded the discipline of his house, and grumbled at times over foreign ways and habits that he had no fancy to see under his roof. When she did appear, however, her winning manners, her grace, and a certain half-caressing coquetry she could practise to perfection, so soothed and amused him that he soon forgot any momentary displeasure, and more than once gave up his evening visit to the club at Moate to listen to her as she sang, or hear her sketch off some trait of that Roman society in which British pretension and ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... raising her eyes a moment to mine. The glance was brief, but hinted a coquetry whose natural play would have delighted—well, ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope
... like one of the old Council of Venice. You try hard to make me fear you," said Beatrice, seeking to escape from the graver kind of impression Harley had made on her, by the affectation partly of coquetry, partly of levity. ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... to avoid the tone of indifference in which I discussed matters that were actually wringing my own heart at the moment. Yet such was the bitterness of my spirit, that I set down this conduct on her part as coquetry; and quite convinced myself that any slight encouragement she might ever have given my attentions, was only meant to indulge a spirit of vanity, by adding another to ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... takes a {"}Grande Passion{"}, It is a very serious thing indeed: Nine times in ten 'tis but caprice or fashion, Coquetry, or a wish to take the lead, The pride of a mere child with a new sash on. Or wish to make a rival's bosom bleed: But the {Tenth} instance will be a tornado, For there's no saying what they will or may do." {—Lord Byron, }Don ...
— Reflections - Or, Sentences and Moral Maxims • Francois Duc De La Rochefoucauld
... presence of Ellen Kingsbury, and she bethought her of a plan which would ensure her some amusement at the expense of these impertinent rustics, though in a manner different somewhat from her original more natural idea of simple coquetry. ...
— The Best American Humorous Short Stories • Various
... o andaz"coquetry, in a half-honest sense. The Persian "Kaka Siyah," i.e. "black brother" (a domestic negro) ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... were asleep upon the piazzas, and the furniture was removed or broken. Some rustic cottages dotted the lawn, but these were now inhabited by officers and their servants. A few days were to finish the work of rapine, and a heap of ashes was to mark the scene of tournament, coquetry, and betrothal. I witnessed a review of troops in a field contiguous, at nine o'clock. The heat was so intense that many men fell out of line and were carried off to their camps. McDowell passed exactingly from man to man, examined muskets, clothing, and ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... Lusignan, King of Cyprus, in his Prise d'Alexandrie; the Voir dit relates in varying verse and prose the course of his sexagenarian love for a maiden in her teens, Peronne d'Armentieres, who gratified her coquetry with an old poet's adoration, and then ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden
... her. Hers was an almost childish coquetry, inevitable fruit of her intense femininity, craving ever the worship of the sterner sex and the incense of its flattery. And Samoval, after all, young, noble, handsome, with a half-sinister reputation, was something of a figure of romance, as a good many women ...
— The Snare • Rafael Sabatini
... glad," she answered, without the slightest appearance of coquetry, and as simply and naturally as though she were talking about the weather. Paul was puzzled. He could not understand her, and not knowing how to proceed, an awkward silence followed. Presently she leaned her head upon her hand, ...
— The Ghost of Guir House • Charles Willing Beale
... the wilds of America, and so sweet were their attentions to my chafed spirit. With them is my trusty Philip, whose trials are now over, while he basks in the favor of the Earl and the smiles of the pretty Prudence, his wife, undisturbed save by her occasional coquetry, which only serves, I suppose, to make his love ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams
... Lennox was not to blame. There was no false play on either side; he is as much above the meanness of coquetry, as—I must say it—as I am. His thoughts were all along taken up with you, even while he talked, and laughed, and quarrelled with me. While I, so strong in the belief that worlds could not shake my allegiance to Edward, could have challenged all mankind to win my love; and ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... a few steps in silence. Then she turned and spoke softly over her shoulder. There was not a touch of coquetry in her simple manner, yet it had an engaging ...
— The Second Violin • Grace S. Richmond
... Leonore's exclamation as she entered Eva's chamber; and in fact nothing could be imagined more charming than that little abode of peace, adorned as it now was by the coquetry of affection. The most delicious odour of fruit and flowers filled the air, and the sun threw his friendly beams on a table near the sofa, on which a basket filled with beautiful fruit stood enticingly in the midst of many pretty ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... that the ladies here would frequently divert themselves by going a little aside with our gentlemen, as if they meant to be kind to them, and then would run away laughing at them. Whether this was chastity or coquetry, I shall not pretend to determine; nor is it material, since the consequences were ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World Volume 2 • James Cook
... he won the right to do so. Madame, on her side, remained for some time plunged in a painful reverie. Her agitation could be seen by her quick respiration, by her drooping eyelids, by the frequency with which she pressed her hand upon her heart. But, in her, coquetry was not so much a passive quality, as, on the contrary, a fire which sought for fuel to maintain itself, finding anywhere ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... at the door. He had a handsome stone put up for his two children, which may be seen in Castlewood churchyard to this very day; and before a year was out his own name was upon the stone. In the presence of Death, that sovereign ruler, a woman's coquetry is scared; and her jealousy will hardly pass the boundaries of that grim kingdom. 'Tis entirely of the earth that passion, and expires in the cold blue air, beyond ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... much discernment, that I should think she could not be easily deceived. If my kinswoman knows your views, I should say that you have reason to be encouraged by her manner. There is nothing like coquetry about her; I am convinced she thinks highly ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... no meaning in those smiles. They may be the expressions of good-nature of simple friendship, perhaps of a little coquetry. For all that, you cannot behold them without envy—without suspicion If there be a meaning—if they be the smiles of love—if the heart of that simple girl has made its lodgement either upon the young apprentice or him of the smock—then are you fated to the bitterest pang that human ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid
... exceed the warmth of her feelings. She may, I think, be compared to a young bride, a sort of Mrs. Major Waddle; her independence is to her as a newly-won bridegroom; for him alone she has eyes, ears, or heart;—the honeymoon is not over yet;—when it is, America will, perhaps, learn more coquetry, and know better how to faire ...
— Domestic Manners of the Americans • Fanny Trollope
... courage of Tahoser. Then she regained confidence, and said to herself that her beauty, her youth, her love would surely at last move that insensible heart. She would be so sweet, so attentive, so devoted, she would use so much art and coquetry in dressing herself, that certainly Poeri would not be able to resist. Then she promised herself to reveal to him that the humble servant-maid was a girl of high rank, possessing slaves, estates, and palaces, and she foresaw, in her imagination, a life of splendid ...
— The Works of Theophile Gautier, Volume 5 - The Romance of a Mummy and Egypt • Theophile Gautier
... to herself, glancing alternately at Zibeline and at her brother, between whom a tone of frank comradeship had been established, free from any coquetry on her side ...
— Zibeline, Complete • Phillipe de Massa
... friendly office of less delicacy to a European apprehension. At bimbangs the women often put on their dancing dress in the public hall, letting that garment which they mean to lay aside dexterously drop from under, as the other passes over the head, but sometimes, with an air of coquetry, displaying as if by chance enough to warm youthful imaginations. Both men and women anoint themselves before company when they prepare to dance; the women their necks and arms, and the men their breasts. They also paint each others faces; ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... the subtlety of their natures, and they think that they are understood. And what do all women wish but to be amused, understood, or adored? It is only after much reflection on the things of life that we understand the consummate coquetry of neglect of dress and reserve at a first interview; and by the time we have gained sufficient astuteness for successful strategy, we are too old to profit ...
— The Deserted Woman • Honore de Balzac
... colossal, half barbaric, trivial, and sublime. An Homeric hero struggles among the sneers of a stupid crowd, a herd of brawling and hobbling ninnies. A violin solo, in a sort of concerto, describes the seductions, the coquetry, and the degraded wickedness of woman. Then strident trumpet-blasts sound the attack; and it is beyond me to give an idea of the terrible charge of cavalry that follows, which makes the earth tremble and our hearts leap; nor can I describe how an iron determination leads to the storming of towns, ...
— Musicians of To-Day • Romain Rolland
... was no thought of coquetry in the declaration which Susan Barringer blurted out to her old lover under the sympathetic starlight of the May heaven. But Allen Golyer would have been a dull boy not to have taken heart and hope from it. He became, ...
— Not Pretty, But Precious • John Hay, et al.
... sooner had I screwed myself into the commander's chair, which was fixed to the floor at the head of the narrow table, and found the tea-tray almost on my lap, than a wave of memory from our childhood came sweeping back on me, and I could not help giving way to the coquetry which lies hidden in every girl's heart so as to find out how much Martin had been ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... figure are of extraordinary physical beauty of type, of a breadth and nobility which contrast with the smaller, prettier, and less dignified forms of later art; the gesture, too, has not the conscious coquetry which we see in such a work as the Venus de' Medici. But, on the other hand, we must recognise that the statue represents the goddess under a human rather than a divine aspect, that even her mood and feeling of timidity are portrayed in a manner which, however charming in itself, is totally ...
— Religion and Art in Ancient Greece • Ernest Arthur Gardner
... ability made a great appeal to these men. They marveled at her industry. Thirty-four years old now, not handsome but wholesome, simply and neatly dressed, her brown hair smoothly parted and brought down over her ears, she had nothing of the scatterbrained impulsive reformer about her, and no coquetry. She was practical and intelligent, and men liked to discuss their work with her. William Henry Channing, admiring her executive ability and her plucky reaction to defeat, dubbed her the Napoleon of the woman's rights movement. Parker Pillsbury, the fiery abolitionist ...
— Susan B. Anthony - Rebel, Crusader, Humanitarian • Alma Lutz
... around the unrepentant Eve,—for all the world like a modern husband fastening his wife's gown,—while she for the first time gathers up her long fair hair. Her attitude is full of innocent yet indescribable coquetry. The passion for self-adornment had already taken possession of her soul. Before her lies a future of many cares and some compensations. She is going to work and she is going to weep, but she is also going to dress. The price ...
— Americans and Others • Agnes Repplier
... and pitiful figure revolved several times, stamping on her heels, then stopped with the same grotesque coquetry. ...
— Women of the Country • Gertrude Bone
... science. Just see with what admirable stupidity girls lend themselves to reap the benefit of the education which is imposed upon them in France; we give them in charge to nursery maids, to companions, to governesses who teach them twenty tricks of coquetry and false modesty, for every single noble and true idea which they impart to them. Girls are brought up as slaves, and are accustomed to the idea that they are sent into the world to imitate their grandmothers, to breed canary birds, to make herbals, to water little Bengal rose-bushes, to fill in ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part II. • Honore de Balzac
... have been too pronounced for a young girl, were admirably suited to the woman and harmonized beautifully with her tall and statuesque figure. Sometimes, in the poems of her youth, she spoke as an authority on the subject of "the happiness of being beautiful." It was not coquetry with her, it was the sentiment of harmony; her beautiful soul was happy in ...
— Women in the Life of Balzac • Juanita Helm Floyd
... obtain the esteem of the fair sex.... A plain close cap and a coarse cotton gown, virtue and good housewifery, are looked upon by the fair sex as sufficient ornaments for their persons; a flirting disposition, coquetry and paint would have very little effect in making conquests of young men brought up in so hardy a manner, and who have had so homely and artless an education as the youth in this place. In short, here, if anywhere in the world, one may lead an innocent, virtuous, ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 1 (of 6) - From the Foundation of Cape Colony to the Boer Ultimatum - of 9th Oct. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... who belonged to the Society of Friends, and who was of course not much addicted to poetic comparisons, used to say he could never look at her without thinking of the clear pink and white of a beautiful conch-shell. She was scrupulously neat, and had something of that chastened coquetry in dress, which is apt to characterize the handsome women of her orderly sect. Her drab-colored gown, not high in the neck, was bordered by a plain narrow tucker of fine muslin, visible under her snow-white neckerchief. A white under-sleeve came just below the elbow, where it terminated in ...
— Isaac T. Hopper • L. Maria Child
... half hour together on his door-step in winter evenings. Sally was a belle; she knew it and liked it, as every honest girl does;—and she would have been a belle without the aid of her father's wide farm and pine-tree shillings; for she was fresh and lovely, with a spice of coquetry, but a true ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... The staircase on which the rooms lay—a bare, dusty, unfurnished place—was deserted; and the girl herself opened the door to him, her finger on her lips. He looked for a blush and a glance of meaning, a little play of conscious eyes and hands, a something of remembrance and coquetry; and had his hat ready in his hand and a smile on his lips. But she had neither smile nor blush for him; on the contrary, when the dim light that entered the dingy staircase disclosed who awaited her, she drew back a pace with a look of ...
— The Castle Inn • Stanley John Weyman
... light does Lady Harriet appear, while she is displaying all that foolish coquetry! And how different a figure does she make, when she has got ...
— The Governess - The Little Female Academy • Sarah Fielding
... for me?" she said, with the first touch of coquetry which I had seen in her lighting ...
— The Indiscretion of the Duchess • Anthony Hope
... substitution had been made prior to the ball and with Mrs. Fairbrother's full cognizance. The effectual way in which she had wielded her fan between the glittering ornament on her breast and the inquisitive glances constantly leveled upon it might at the time have been due to coquetry, but to them it looked much more like an expression of fear lest the deception in which she was indulging should be discovered. No one fixed the time where I did; but then, no one but myself had watched the scene with the eyes of love; besides, and ...
— The Woman in the Alcove • Anna Katharine Green
... neither the philosopher whom he had provoked, nor the fine lady whom he had reproved, left him as an enemy. His nature with its varied riches had quite enough feminine coquetry to regain betimes the sympathy which he was on the eve of losing. A gracious word, an affectionate clasp of the hand, and ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various
... resumed Madame, pathetically. "Delphine is not an heiress. Delphine is proud. She will not stoop to charm. Her coquetry is that of an Amazon. Her kisses are arrows. She is Medusa!" ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 3, No. 16, February, 1859 • Various
... attentions with a finished coquetry that was far from childlike, a flush on her satin cheek, a dimple puckering the corner of her mouth, and silky lashes lowered over her satisfied eyes. She was inevitably precocious in many ways, but she was young enough ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... the power of woman, if she be Whole-souled and noble, free from coquetry - Her motives all unselfish, worthy, good, To make herself and feelings understood By nameless acts, thus sparing what to man, However gently answered, causes pain, The offering of his hand and heart ...
— Maurine and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... singularly gracious and winning. There is a frank fearlessness in the beautiful speaking eyes so full of poetry and soul, a mingled tenderness and decision in the mouth, with an utter absence of that self-consciousness and coquetry which often mar the charm of even the most beautiful face. This is the artist's study to which she flies back gladly, now and then, for a few weeks' rest and relaxation from the exacting life of a strolling player, whose days are spent wandering in pursuit of her profession over the vast ...
— Mary Anderson • J. M. Farrar
... either face. She read condemnation in both pairs of eyes. For the first time in her life she felt daunted, humiliated. She knew nothing more beyond the fact that in deliberate coquetry she had pitted brother against brother, and that something cruel and tragical had happened for which she was being judged. Neither spoke. She summoned her outer dignity, tossed her pretty head, and went out by the end door ...
— Viviette • William J. Locke |
