"Coyness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... hard to find excuses for her. He strove to convince himself that this strange coldness, this evasion, this half-repellent attitude, was but a form of maiden coyness. It was her natural fear of so great a change. It was the result, perhaps, of some last lingering look back to the scene of her artistic triumphs. It did not even occur to him as a possibility that this woman with her unstable sympathies and her fatally facile imagination, ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... produce The gentler apple's winy juice; The golden fruit that worthy is Of Galatea's purple kiss; He does the savage hawthorn teach To bear the medlar and the pear. He bids the rustic plum to rear A noble trunk, and be a peach. Even Daphne's coyness he does mock, And weds the cherry to her stock, Though she refused Apollo's suit, Even she, that chaste and virgin tree, Now wonders at herself, to see That she's a mother made, ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... borne by dappled steeds, The sacred gate of orient pearl and gold, Smitten with Lucifer's light silver wand, Expanded slow to strains of harmony: The waves beneath in purpling rows, like doves Glancing with wanton coyness tow'rd their queen, Heaved softly; thus the damsel's bosom heaves When from her sleeping lover's downy cheek, To which so warily her own she brings Each moment nearer, she perceives the warmth Of coming kisses fanned by playful dreams. Ocean and earth and heaven was jubilee. For ...
— Gebir • Walter Savage Landor
... there is something charming in a girl simply because she is a girl. It is in the ring of her laugh, in her irony, in her frankness or her coyness, in the way she does the commonest things,— puts on her scarf, or catches hold of your arm,—things that only too soon disappear in conventionalities, ceremonies, and proprieties. But there is no need of this change as concerns much that is now called only girlish. ...
— Hold Up Your Heads, Girls! • Annie H. Ryder
... child incur neither punishment nor reproof? Verily, thou hast committed thyself to a quibble for the sake of contention, and it is thy duty to bow before a proposal of fruition, so henceforward cease from denial and coyness, for the commandment of Allah is a decree foreordained:[FN337] indeed, I have more reason than thou to fear falling and by sin to be misled; and well inspired was ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... Covetousness avideco. Covey kovitaro. Cow bovino. Coward malkuragxulo. Cowardice malkuragxeco. Cowherd bovgardisto. Cow shed bovinejo. Cowl kapucxo. Cowslip verprimolo. Coxcomb dando. Coy rezerva. Coyness rezerveco. Cozen trompi. Crab kankro. Crack (split) fendi. Crack (noise) kraki. Crackle kraketi. Cradle lulilo. Craft ruzo. Craft (vessel) sxipeto. Crafty, to be ruzi. Crafty ruza. Cram (of food) supersatigi. Cram plenegigi. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... Doctor Brown, "So this is Turkish coyness, is it? You must contrive to fight it down— Come, come, sir, please to ...
— Bab Ballads and Savoy Songs • W. S. Gilbert
... I then with patient mind Still attend her wayward pleasure? Time will make her prove more kind, Let her coyness then take leisure: She is worthy ...
— Lyrics from the Song-Books of the Elizabethan Age • Various
... assure you I am not provoking. I am merely complimentary. Conversation is an art, Louisa. None of my sisters ever can be got to understand that. It is dreadfully crude to rush in waist-deep at once. There should be feints and approaches. You should nibble at your sugar with a graceful coyness. You should cut a few frills and skirmish a little before setting the battle actively in array. And it is just this that I have been striving to do during the last five minutes. But you do not appear to appreciate ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... expectation with regard to sexual love, and the coyness in this expectation, spoils all the perspectives of women at ...
— Beyond Good and Evil • Friedrich Nietzsche
... given occasion for the ghost of a hope of supplanting Jim in her tempestuous heart. She now assumed towards Done an attitude of happy submission; the quizzical insistence on his boyishness was abandoned: she acknowledged her master with an exuberant rapture that had not the faintest suspicion of coyness, and although Jim often blushed under it, and experienced a great uneasiness in the course of a public demonstration, Aurora showed a barbaric disregard for contemporary opinion. She felt no shame in the presence of her emotions, and consequently had no impulse to hide ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson
... happy banter and light oppositions, to give themselves a sweeter sense of unity of heart. The child, with a cunning which only Nature has taught, will sometimes put a little honey of refusal into its kisses before giving them; the maiden adds to her virgin blooms the further attraction of virgin coyness and reserve; the civilizing dinner-table would lose all its dignity in losing its delays; and so everywhere, delicate denial, withholding reserve have an inverse force, and add a charm of emphasis to gift, assent, attraction, and sympathy. How is the word Immortality ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 54, April, 1862 • Various
... any escort less invincibly good-humored than Uncle Ben, but none of these things marred his fatuous felicity. It is even probable that in his gratuitous belief that his timid attentions had been too marked and impulsive, he attributed Cressy's flight to a maidenly coyness that pleasurably increased his admiration for her and his confidence in himself. In his abstraction of enjoyment and in the gathering darkness he ran against a fir-tree very much as he had done while walking with ...
— Cressy • Bret Harte
... with an affectation of coyness that was irresistibly amusing. Dorothy laughed merrily, and Rhoda resisted doing the same only by an enormous effort of self-will. She succeeded, however, in looking sulky and bad-tempered, and went downstairs feeling quite pleased with herself for ...
— Tom and Some Other Girls - A Public School Story • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... out of the room, leaving him in a consternation impossible to describe, almost to conceive; her mother came in immediately after, and judging by his countenance how her daughter had behaved, told him he must not regard the coyness of a young girl; that she doubted not but Maria would soon be convinced what was her true happiness; and that a little perseverance and assiduity on his side, and authority on theirs, would remove ...
— Life's Progress Through The Passions - Or, The Adventures of Natura • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... brush-up, dress her in a gauzy frock, and exchange her thick woollen stockings and wooden sabots for silk and dancing slippers, she would make a very smart little fairy. Even in her native state she is a most attractive young person, of an engaging coyness. If you say: "Bonjour, Gabrielle!" she whispers: "B'jour M'sieur le Capitaine"—or, "M'sieur le Caporal"; for she knows all badges of rank—and hangs her head demurely. But presently, if you stand quite still and look the other way, Gabrielle will sidle up to you and squeeze ...
— All In It K(1) Carries On - A Continuation of the First Hundred Thousand • John Hay Beith (AKA: Ian Hay)
... quite struck by it. 'I shall call her May before I leave her,' he thought, gazing at her, and discovering how well the name suited her, with its significances of alertness, geniality, and half-mocking coyness. ...
— Tales of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... Aunt Viney. She had heard enough—she did not wish to hear more. The mystery was explained. Dick loved Cecily; the coyness or hesitation was not on HIS part. Some idiotic girlish caprice, quite inconsistent with what she had noticed at the mission church, was keeping Cecily silent, reserved, and exasperating to her lover. She would have a talk with the young ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... the earlier years of childhood I have been unable to detect any notable difference in this respect between the sexes; but during the latter part of the second period of childhood, boys are unquestionably more active. In general, the girl-child, when in love, displays far less coyness and reserve than the young woman. In this respect the difference between children and adults is most marked. A girl of eleven, for example, will not make any difficulties about the exchange of love-letters with the ...
— The Sexual Life of the Child • Albert Moll
... enough for him to be aware that the negative often meant nothing more than the preface to the affirmative; and it was little enough for him not to know that in the manner of the present negative there lay a great exception to the dallyings of coyness. That she had already permitted him to make love to her he read as an additional assurance, not fully trowing that in the fields and pastures to "sigh gratis" is by no means deemed waste; love-making being here ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... of young birds clothed her. From her sleeves her hands peeped; they were small, dainty, childlike. Almost childlike, too, was her face, so palely golden, so fresh, so lovely, so petite. There were mingled in her the coyness of a child and the ...
— The Eternal Maiden • T. Everett Harre
... of a girl, much fonder of Romping and Horse-play of the Tomboy order than of the Pursuits and Pastimes of my own sex. The difference was more remarkable, as you know the Irish girls are distinguished above all other Maidens in creation by an extreme Delicacy and Coyness, not to say Prudishness of Demeanour. But Betty—I was christened Elizabeth—was always gammocking and tousling with the Lads instead of holding by her Mother's apron, or demurely sitting by her spinning-wheel, or singing plaintive ballads to herself to the music of the Irish Harp, ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 1 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... so she might not leave the Sultan angry with the Lady Bedrulbudour, said to him, "O King of the Age, this is the wont of most brides, on their wedding-day, to be shamefast and show somewhat of coyness. So be not vexed with her and after a day or two she will return to herself and proceed to speak with the folk; but now, O King of the Age, shame hindereth her from speaking. However, I purpose to go to her and see her." ...
— Alaeddin and the Enchanted Lamp • John Payne
... have put my hand in my wallet at once and have bought your freedom and have carried you off home as my wife—and no Masdakite who saw you would ever blame me. Now you know all about it, and there, I hope, is an end of your coyness ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... poem, after all, turned out to be but a lover's appeal to his mistress to give over coyness and use time while she might; but Dorothea wondered why its solemn language should have hit her namesake's fancy, and, turning a few more pages, discovered that this merry dead girl had chosen and copied ...
— The Westcotes • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... my thought * 'Vails naught and 'gainst th' obsession loses might: Couldst for thy lover feel 'twould ease his soul; * E'en thy dear Phantom would his sprite delight! Then on my weakness lay not coyness-load * Nor in such breach of troth be traitor-wight: And, weet ye well, for this your land I fared * Hoping to 'joy the union-boon forthright: How many a stony wold for this I spanned; * How oft I waked when men kept watch o'night! ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... color showed itself in Lady Alice's delicate face. "He does know," she whispered, almost with the coyness of ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... speaks of glory and the force of love And thou not near, my maiden-minded dove! With all the coyness, all the beauty sheen Of thy rapt face? A fearless virgin-queen, A queen of peace art thou,—and on thy head The golden light of all thy hair is shed Most nimbus-like, and most suggestive too Of ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... concentration of fragrance and beauty it was! golden and sweet to satiety! rich to sight, and touch, and smell! Lizzy was enchanted, and ran off with her prize, hiding amongst the trees in the very coyness of ecstasy, as if any human eye, even mine, would be a restraint ...
— Our Village • Mary Russell Mitford
... of her voice as she repeated the word "Content!" the surrender of her eyes that placed her heart in his keeping, as frankly as she left her hands in his, proclaimed it. The reserves of her sex, the tricks of coyness and reticence men look for in maids, were shaken from her; and as man to man her eyes told him the truth, told him that if she had ever doubted she no longer doubted that she loved him. In the heart which ...
— The Long Night • Stanley Weyman
... I have in my time known honest gentlemen abused by a pretended coyness in their wives, and I had a mind to try my lady's virtue. And when I could not prevail for you, gad, I pretended to be in love myself; but all in vain, she would not hear a word upon that subject. Then I ...
— The Comedies of William Congreve - Volume 1 [of 2] • William Congreve
... its perfect symmetry, looked smaller than it really was, for she was a tall girl: it filled the eye and held fast the fancy with the charms of a thousand graces as she moved or stood, suggestive of the beauty of a tame fawn, that in all its movements preserves somewhat of the coyness and easy grace of ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... and ill-treatment I was forced to listen to! They rushed upon me, shrieking for the brilliants and money which they had brought me as an offering. How they scolded and called me a deceiver! I was only very beautiful and coquettish, and that was no deception! I charmed them with my coyness, and they brought me the most costly presents, because I was a virtuous woman. Now they reproached me, demanding a return of them all, which they had forced upon me of their own free will. I was obliged to bear it silently in my costume of innocence, and as goddess I could not defend myself ...
— Old Fritz and the New Era • Louise Muhlbach
... of the most authentic books, papers, and records." The design was to preserve our literary history from the Restoration. This silent labour he had been pursuing all his life, and published the first volume in his sixty-eighth year, the very year he died. But he was so sensible of the coyness of the public taste for what he calls, in a letter to a literary friend, "a tedious heavy book," that he gave it away to the publisher. "The volume, too large, brings me no profit. In good truth, the scheme was laid for conscience' sake, to restore a good old principle ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... went on with a gush, "forego this virgin coyness, you have done enough and more than enough for honour, now throw aside pretence, lay down your arms and yield. No hour, I swear, of this long fight will be so happy to you as that of your sweet surrender, for ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... accept her lot; and, since she was thus indissolubly bound up with another, she had to try to live with that other. Hortense, externally so gentle and yielding, so full of maiden coyness and delicacy, nevertheless possessed a strong and resolute soul, and, in the noble pride of her wounded heart, was unwilling to give any one the right to pity her. Her soul wept, but she restrained her tears and still tried ...
— Queen Hortense - A Life Picture of the Napoleonic Era • L. Muhlbach
... even when played. Darwin, in his "Descent of Man," recognizes a real innate coyness, and that not merely of the female sex, which has been a great factor in improving the race. And, since we are come to the scientific standpoint, let it be admitted that marriage is a racial safeguard which does not exhaust the possibilities ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... and flounders. "Dree and zixpence if you like," said he. "I could a bought vour times as much vor one and zixpence coast-ways, if I'd a mind, and I'll give thee no more, and not a word of a lie." His oratory conquered the coyness of the fishy damsel; and he invited the lady to take a glass of "zomat avore he ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 19, No. 535, Saturday, February 25, 1832. • Various
... all straight, for what I know," said the widow gently, as with a trace of coyness she gave a hasty glance. "I don't know but what 'tis warped a little, but nothin' to speak of. You've got real nice features, like your ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... I wou'd have ye—d'ye see—'twill not out; why, I wou'd have ye lie with the Sultan, Huswife; I wonder how the Devil you have the face to refuse him, so handsom, so young a Lover; come, come, let me hear no more of your Coyness, Mistress, for if I do, I shall be hang'd; [Aside. The Great Turk's a most worthy Gentleman, and therefore I advise you to do as he advises you; and the Devil ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. III • Aphra Behn
... the spirit of the occasion with Western thoroughness and learned a lesson in a few hours which it has taken some men years to learn—that hot rum when taken on a cold and empty stomach must be treated with respect; in fact, a certain amount of coyness is not out of place. Mid was soon being supported on a chair while he delivered an epic on the "soul of a jellyfish"; he was then tossed in the "sacred blanket" and put through other Bedouin initiations; after which he was tucked comfortably ...
— Night Bombing with the Bedouins • Robert Henry Reece
... is to be hoped for only once in a lifetime. With the violets, the beautiful blush-bells of the anemone come garlanded with their graceful leaves, plentifully enough. But did the rambler ever find the sensitive fern, which resented the intrusive hand with all Mimosa's coyness? I never did but once. I have wooed many a delicate frond of all varieties of fern since, but never one so conscious. Now, too, ere the trees come into leaf, is the time to seek the boxwood, called, I hope improperly, by the ominous name of the Southern dogwood. It is worth an afternoon's ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 27, January, 1860 • Various
... unutterable love when she played Cleopatra that one might well pardon the peccadilloes of poor Antony. But as yet there was no thought of drooping eyelids or amorous glances; all was natural, and nothing more so than the coyness of Nance upon seeing the author of "Love ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... born to assume heavy responsibilities, whereas older ones accept them as a matter of course. And that's just what I have come way down here to try to do for my sweet niece," ended Mrs. Stewart smiling with would-be fascinating coyness. The smile would have been somewhat less complacent could she have heard old Jerome's comment as he placed upon the pantry shelf the fingerbowls which he had just removed ...
— Peggy Stewart at School • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... to be contented with one reel; so, after fruitlessly attempting to make the ladies join us, we sent over to the men's houses for the old Canadian wife of Pierre Lattinville and her two blooming daughters. They soon came, and after much coyness, blushing, and hesitation, at last stood up, and under the inspiring ...
— Hudson Bay • R.M. Ballantyne |
