When a man is in love he wears his heart on his sleeve and feels eager
to have the beloved see how passionately it throbs for her. When a
girl is in love she tries to conceal her heart in the innermost
recesses of her bosom, lest the lover discover her feelings
prematurely. In other words, coyness is a trait of feminine love--the
only ingredient of that passion which is not, to some extent, common
to both sexes. "The cruel nymph well knows to feign, ... coy looks and
cold disdain," sang Gay; and "what value were there in the love of the
maiden, were it yielded without coy delay?" asks Scott.
'Tis ours to be forward and pushing;
'Tis yours to affect a disdain,
Lady Montagu makes a man say, and Richard Savage sings:
You love; yet from your lover's wish retire;
Doubt, yet discern; deny, and yet desire.
Such, Polly, are your sex--part truth, part fiction,
Some thought, much whim, and all a contradiction.
"Part truth, part fiction;" the girl romances regarding her feelings;
her romantic love is tinged with coyness. "She will rather die than
give any sign of affection," says Benedick of Beatrice; and in that
line Shakspere reveals one of the two essential traits of genuine
modern coyness--_dissemblance of feminine affection_.
Was coyness at all times an attribute of femininity, or is it an
artificial product of modern social conditions and culture? Is coyness
ever manifested apart from love, or does its presence prove the
presence of love? These two important questions are to be answered in
the present section.