Word: coyness
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1940-1949
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Coy Genius. Years later, when married, a father and famous as the author of The Scarlet Letter, he was still a recluse at heart. Young William Dean Howells went to call on him in Concord, found him "visibly shy to the point of discomfort." His Concord neighbor Bronson Alcott noted in his journal: "I get glimpses of Hawthorne as I walk up the sledpaths, he dodging about amongst the trees on his hilltop as if he feared his neighbor's eyes would catch him as he walked. A coy genius. . . . Nobody gets a chance to speak with him unless...
Glimpses are about all one can get of the coy genius in these stories and sketches. But they are as good an index as any to the color and quality of his haunted mind...
...Coy swarmed up to the gallery. With an instrument made from stolen brass toilet parts, he spread the bars, squirmed inside and stood against the wall, waiting. Burch came back. Coy slugged him, took his rifle, .45 pistol, keys and let himself into D block...
...Killers. D block is Alcatraz' "solitary." There Coy freed Joseph Cretzer; bank robber and murderer; Marvin Hubbard, kidnaper; Sam Shockley, Oklahoma badman; Miran Thompson, murderer; 18-year-old "baby" Clarence Carnes. They pounced on Guard William Miller, beat him, took his keys. They threw other guards in a cell. Cretzer, armed with Burch's .45, stood outside yelling and firing at the guards through the bars. He wounded several, killed Miller...
...been one fatal slip. Guard Miller had managed to throw away the key to the yard door. When the convicts realized this Cretzer babbled: "Well, that does it up. San Francisco is just as far away." With one pistol, one rifle, and less than 50 rounds of ammunition, Coy and his desperate men settled down to holding off the besiegers...