|
|
|
More "Shy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Janet was not one whit afraid of double dealing when she was present, and being proud of Mistress Penwick and not wishing it to appear that she was a prisoner, she opened the door and in came Lady Constance smiling and shy, a hollow-hearted creature of the world. Now it so happened that Lady Constance had kept herself from Katherine for some little time, wishing not to be disturbed by the maid's beauty; as it usually ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne
... bacon at the table for his breakfast. He got up when he saw me—he's a nice big man, uncle, but I think his hair wants cutting. We shook hands, and I told him I'd been expecting him ever so long. He looked rather shy, but after he had quite finished his breakfast, we had a very nice talk, and Mrs. Maxwell went bustling about getting dinner ready. Tommy told me all about himself from the very beginning, but I really quite forget some of it. He never kept any pigs at ...
— Probable Sons • Amy Le Feuvre
... grizzly bear, drags his body along the high ridges; the carcajou squats upon the projecting rock, waiting the elk that must pass to the water below; and the bighorn bounds from crag to crag in search of his shy mate. Along the pine branch the bald buzzard whets his filthy beak; and the war-eagle, soaring over all, cuts sharply against the ...
— The Scalp Hunters • Mayne Reid
... ovo, discussing the genesis of man's belief in immortality! That preface would leave, in the actual delivery of the sermon, about five minutes for the handling of the precious words, "To depart and to be with Christ, which is far better." Generally, be shy of much introduction and preface in the pulpit. I do not mean that we are never to elucidate connexions and contexts. But, remember limits. Your minutes are few, ah, so few, for such a Message,—Christ Jesus in His fulness, ...
— To My Younger Brethren - Chapters on Pastoral Life and Work • Handley C. G. Moule
... the top of a breezy hill, There in the sassafras all out of sight The Blackbird is splitting his slender bill For the ease of his heart: Do you think if he said "I will sing like this bird with the mud colored back And the two little spots of gold over his eyes, Or like to this shy little creature that flies So low to the ground, with the amethyst rings About her small throat—all alive when she sings With a glitter of shivering green—for the rest, Gray shading to gray, with the sheen of her breast Half rose ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photograph, Volume 1, Number 2, February, 1897 • anonymous
... she was right, for when he drew within hail of the gate, forth rushed the tollman's children, shrieking in tiny chorus, 'Mr Pinch!' to Tom's intense delight. The very tollman, though an ugly chap in general, and one whom folks were rather shy of handling, came out himself to take the toll, and give him rough good morning; and that with all this, and a glimpse of the family breakfast on a little round table before the fire, the crust Tom Pinch had brought away with him acquired ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... of Christian is an exhibition of Bunyan's own feelings, the temptations of Madam Wanton are very properly laid in the way of Faithful, and not of Christian. She would have had no chance with the man who admired the wisdom of God in making him shy of women, who rarely carried it pleasantly towards a woman, and who abhorred the common salutation of women-(Grace Abounding, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... fellow, better and better as we see him more. Something shy and skittish in the man; but a brave heart intrinsically, with sound, earnest sense, with plenty of insight and even humor. He confirms an observation of mine, which indeed I find is hundreds of years old, that a stammering man is ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1834-1872, Vol II. • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... full of delicate subtleties and dreamy glimpses of shy humane wisdom. The manner in which outward things—the mere background and scenery of the play—are used to deepen and enhance the dramatic interest is a thing peculiarly characteristic of this author. Tchekoff has that kind of imaginative sensibility which makes every material ...
— One Hundred Best Books • John Cowper Powys
... You will not shoot while you live here? Thanks. I have a large family. The woods are filled with my family. I have brought them from far and near, birds and beasts of every kind. They see us now, but are shy.' ...
— Our Home in the Silver West - A Story of Struggle and Adventure • Gordon Stables
... account of its height, and the glaring heat, and the shells passing, and the Greek guns going off and then turning somersaults, it was not a place suited for meditation; but Ambroise Frantzis meditated there as though he were in his own study. He was a very young man and very shy, and he was too busy to consider his own safety, or to take time, as the others did, to show that he was not considering it. Some of the other officers stood up on the breastworks and called the attention of the men to what they were doing; but as they did not wish the men to follow their ...
— Notes of a War Correspondent • Richard Harding Davis
... the Moth, with her plumage of down, And the Hornet, in jacket of yellow and brown; Who with him the Wasp, his companion, did bring, But they promised that evening to lay by their sting. Then the shy little Dormouse peeped out of his hole, And led to the feast his blind cousin, the Mole; And the Snail, with her horns peeping out of her shell, Came, fatigued with the distance, the length of an ell. ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... just ten years old, and though there might not be much in her first appearance to captivate, there was, at least, nothing to disgust her relations. She was small of her age, with no glow of complexion, nor any other striking beauty; exceedingly timid and shy, and shrinking from notice; but her air, though awkward, was not vulgar, her voice was sweet, and when she spoke her countenance was pretty. Sir Thomas and Lady Bertram received her very kindly; and Sir Thomas, seeing how much she needed encouragement, tried to be all that was conciliating: ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... emotion. She was immediately conscious only of the wasted figure before her, and its peril, but back of consciousness were unformed memories of their girlhood together, of the inseparable intimacy of their young womanhood, and of that shy and tender time when she had been the confidante ...
— Counsel for the Defense • Leroy Scott
... school-boys often were, even those born in a city. Very much of Ralph's life had been spent away from home, she knew; and she had often heard that boys away from home influences grew rude and coarse oftentimes. Yes, that was undoubtedly it. Shy, too, he was of course; he was of about the age to be that. She could imagine just how he looked—he felt out of place in the grand mansion which he called home, but where he had passed so small a portion of his time. Probably he didn't know what ...
— Ester Ried • Pansy (aka. Isabella M. Alden)
... neglect 'em, and when they're wore out turn 'em loose fer ther wolves. Second, they kin run off a bunch o' ponies in a hurry, but they balk some at rustlin' cattle because they move so slow. If we aire shy on beeves ther ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor
... shy that we made no sort of acquaintance. If instead of going round the world he had only fallen from the moon, he could not appear less versed in the usual modes of a tea-drinking party. But what, you will say, has a tea-drinking party to do with ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay
... picks him up, and instead of talking constrainedly about the weather or about business, he begins naturally to talk to him about spiritual matters. Why could they not talk about the Mission that has just been held, or the Quiet Day that is in prospect? One great trouble, is it not? is that we fight shy of talking to our fellow-Christians of the interests that we really have in common and try to put intercourse on some other ground where we have little or nothing in common. The things that should, and ...
— Our Lady Saint Mary • J. G. H. Barry
... next man was of a shy and gentle disposition. He did not venture to get on his feet, but threw out a suggestion as he sat: 'I suppose it must have been one of the two. There couldn't have been somebody else, ...
— The Queen Against Owen • Allen Upward
... reconcile her responses with probability. Helena answered the questions of Alexina; Lais anticipated even Helena. All that Iduna had to do was to smile and be silent, and it was universally agreed that Iskander was singularly shy as well as excessively handsome. In the meantime, when Nicaeus met Iduna in the evening of the second day of their visit, he informed her that he had been so fortunate as to resume an acquaintance with an old companion in arms in the person of a neighbouring noble, who ...
— The Rise of Iskander • Benjamin Disraeli
... for the county and owner of some fine short horns, is surrounded by gaitered and pot-hatted men, who all appear to be talking at once. Helmdon conducting Philippa and his sister with the ever constant Jimmy, carefully fights shy of his father. ...
— Lippa • Beatrice Egerton
... position for Telly, and one that she had never before been called upon to fill. Rather shy naturally, and her sole acquaintance with the usages of society limited to the few people among whom she had been brought up, to be called upon to entertain a smartly dressed and citified young man was a decidedly new experience. Albert saw her embarrassment, and ...
— Uncle Terry - A Story of the Maine Coast • Charles Clark Munn
... the others were still as partridges in stubble. Ingerman did not intend to alarm the shy bird of the ...
— The Postmaster's Daughter • Louis Tracy
... rested motionless, under the sway of an emotion akin to dismay. He stood staring intently at his son with a perplexity in his expression that was almost ludicrous. When, at last, he spoke, his voice was a rumble of strangely shy pleasure. ...
— Within the Law - From the Play of Bayard Veiller • Marvin Dana
... a great deal of time and trouble to find Jim. For Jim had moved his home and had not heard of Nanny's illness till long after she was taken to the hospital. He was much too shy to go and inquire about her there. But when at length she went to live with Diamond's family, Jim was willing enough to go and see her. It was after one of his visits during which he and Nanny had talked things over that ...
— At the Back of the North Wind • Elizabeth Lewis and George MacDonald
... of this summer day and my greenery yon; and, maybe, too, of the first time they ever ate 'finnan haddie' and 'John's Delight.' More than that, it will give us the freedom of speech with son, as it wouldn't were they sitting by. He's aye shy, ...
— Dorothy's Travels • Evelyn Raymond
... she was lying awake, waiting for the maid to bring her tea. The shy London sunlight peeped through the blinds. The room had a ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... than trials. He had been bred a farmer's boy. He was poor, and had his living to get. And he was now going out into the world, he scarcely knew whither, to see what prizes were to be won. In person he was tall, slender, slightly bent; shy and diffident in his manners; in his appearance a little green and awkward. He had an impediment in his speech also. His name—it is an odd one, but you may ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 78, April, 1864 • Various
... the safe and conventional, and he had set out on his own account to lead the life adventurous, he was conscious of an absurd diffidence. New York looked different to him. It made him feel positively shy. A pressing need for a friendly native in this strange land manifested itself. Smith would have ideas and advice to bestow—he was notoriously prolific of both—and in this ...
— The Prince and Betty - (American edition) • P. G. Wodehouse
... known as yet, even in this age of publicity, about the domestic arrangements and private life of fishes. Not that the creatures themselves shun the wiles of the interviewer, or are at all shy and retiring, as a matter of delicacy, about their family affairs; on the contrary, they display a striking lack of reticence in their native element, and are so far from pushing parental affection to a quixotic extreme that many of them, like the common rabbit immortalised ...
— Science in Arcady • Grant Allen
... only were seen any shells of oysters or muscles, and there not more than half a dozen. Fish-bones were not found at all, which seems to prove, that in their journies inland these people do not carry with them any provisions of that kind. Kanguroos were frequently seen, but were so shy that it was very difficult to shoot them. With respect to these animals, it is rather an extraordinary circumstance, that, notwithstanding their great shyness, and notwithstanding they are daily shot at, more of them are seen near the camp than ...
— The Voyage Of Governor Phillip To Botany Bay • Arthur Phillip
... and see my brother and sister,' said Mr. Lennox, making no movement of departure. Margaret was seized with a shy awkward dread of being left alone with him. The scene on the little terrace in the Helstone garden was so present to her, that she could hardly help believing ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... unusual thing for her. Joyce could see herself going up the path, swinging her sun-bonnet by the strings and taking hurried little bites of a big June apple in order to finish it before going into the house. Now she was sitting on the sofa beside Cousin Kate, feeling very awkward and shy with her little brown fingers clasped in this stranger's soft white hand. She had heard that Cousin Kate was a very rich old maid, who had spent years abroad, studying music and languages, and she had expected to see a stout, homely woman with bushy ...
— The Gate of the Giant Scissors • Annie Fellows Johnston
... the door, taking silence for consent, presented himself, and the women shuddered. This was the prowler that had been making inquiries about them for some time past. But they looked at him with frightened curiosity, much as shy children stare silently at a stranger; ...
— An Episode Under the Terror • Honore de Balzac
... yesterday. She is a quiet, plain woman. The young man is good-looking, but very shy and awkward. The daughter ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... anecdotes. They went with the scoffers, and quoted Sydney Smith and "Blackwood," while "the world's dread laugh" made them shy of committing themselves to any decided opinion. But if Bentham was a myth, surely Dumont was not, and the shadow might well be allowed to prove the substance; and yet they persisted in believing the most extravagant inventions, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 97, November, 1865 • Various
... friendly face," she faltered, taking a shy look around. "They all think I am—" She could not finish, but had to bite her lip to keep the ...
— The Mansion of Mystery - Being a Certain Case of Importance, Taken from the Note-book of Adam Adams, Investigator and Detective • Chester K. Steele
... or make his view unsteady even for an instant. What no one else saw, he saw, and he saw nothing else. Not a boy in the land welcomed the outbreak of the war so fiercely as did this shy village philosopher, then at the age of fifty-eight. He saw that war was the cure for cowardice, moral as well as physical. It was not the cause of the slave that moved him; it was not the cause of the Union for which he cared a farthing. It was something deeper than ...
— Emerson and Other Essays • John Jay Chapman
... we like it or not, whether we be Free Traders or Tariff Reformers, we have to reckon with the fact that almost every Indian is a Protectionist at heart, whatever he may be in theory. The Indian National Congress has hitherto fought shy of making Protection a prominent plank of its platform, lest it should offend its political friends in England. Yet as far back as 1902 a politician as careful as Mr. Surendranath Banerjee to avoid in his public utterances anything that might alienate British Radicalism, ...
— Indian Unrest • Valentine Chirol
... again and observed her, full of shy curiosity. The moonlight shone full upon the delicate slim face, that seemed to shine with an inner radiance. The eye had a yearning glow. A smile, ecstatic and fearful at once, made the lips quiver, ...
— The Indian Lily and Other Stories • Hermann Sudermann
... Quartermaster-Sergeant and the cook's boy. I'd got a small blackboard in Boulogne, and they all had notebooks, and the Q.M.S. had arranged it very nicely. They were very keen, and got on at a great pace. They weren't a bit shy over trying to pronounce, and will I think make good progress. They have a great pull over men of their class in England, by their opportunities of listening to French spoken by the French, such a totally different language to French spoken by most ...
— Diary of a Nursing Sister on the Western Front, 1914-1915 • Anonymous
... been partially accounted for by the grace of her slim form and her unconscious but distinctive poise of bearing. Few people would describe Mary Louise Burrows as beautiful, while all would agree that she possessed charming manners. And she was fifteen—an age when many girls are both awkward and shy. ...
— Mary Louise • Edith van Dyne (one of L. Frank Baum's pen names)
... that p'int, Miles, the difficulty is in the war, and the hot press that must now be going. The English will be shy in visiting the opposite coast; and good men are hard to find, just now, I'm thinking, floating about the coasts of England, unless they ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper
... who shy at the tete-a-tete life which, for a long time, matrimony demands. As his wedding-day approached he grew fearful of the prolonged conversation which would stretch from the day of marriage, down the interminable vistas, to his death, and, more and more, he became doubtful of his ability to cope ...
— Here are Ladies • James Stephens
... climate, its prospects for the settler, and its geographical position, were all such as to appeal to the dwellers on the veldt. But when the subject was broached once or twice to Lord K. during the summer of 1915 he would have nothing to do with it. Once bitten twice shy. The War Minister looked on side-shows with no kindly eye. Nor could he be persuaded that this was one which would only be absorbing resources that could hardly be made ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell
... awhile I quit talkin' and I went home. I watched that night, but her lamp went out before nine o'clock, and when Doctor Malcom came drivin' past and sort of slowed up he see there wa'n't any light and he drove along. I saw her sort of shy out of meetin' the next Sunday, too, so he shouldn't go home with her, and I begun to think mebbe she did have some conscience after all. It was only a week after that that Maria Brown died—sort of sudden at the last, though everybody had seen ...
— The Wind in the Rose-bush and Other Stories of the Supernatural • Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman
... after I started, and could show the doubters what could be done, I could raise more money then. I am sure of it. Of course the first investment is the most dangerous gamble, and that's why everybody is shy. But I believe my scheme would work, though I can't seem to get anybody ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... to endeavour to alleviate his distress; and, with an action which the difference of their age rendered natural, drew his hand kindly along the long hair of the disconsolate child. The lad appeared so shy as even to shrink from this slight approach to familiarity—yet, when Lord Glenvarloch, perceiving and allowing for his timidity, sat down on the farther side of the fire, he appeared to be more at his ease, and to hearken with some ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... dears, you must make yourselves quite at home. You must not be shy, or lonely, or unhappy. You must enter—which I hope you will do very quick—into the life of this most delightful house. We are all willing and anxious to make you happy. As to your trunks, they will be unpacked and put away in one of ...
— Betty Vivian - A Story of Haddo Court School • L. T. Meade
... woman was not then sure, but she took full advantage of the position, and the ponies walked undirected, while Geoffrey essayed to chase away her fears. He bent his head lower towards her, and Millicent smiled at him with apparently shy gratitude. ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... robins and little birds. These should be refilled twice a day, at least, in summer time. You can place the pans on the grass or path, where you can see them comfortably from the house, but not nearer than you can help, because the blackbirds are rather shy, and it would be a pity to make drinking too great an ...
— What Shall We Do Now?: Five Hundred Games and Pastimes • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... head on high; When the crimson-tinted evening fades From the glowing saffron sky; When the sun's last beams Light up woods and streams, And brighten the gloom below; And the deer springs by With his flashing eye, And the shy, swift-footed doe; And the sad winds chide In the branches wide, With a tender plaint ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... come up again. Well, off we went, and soon came up with the school: they are the most awkward part of whale fishing; for they are savage, and, moreover, easily 'gallied,' that is, frightened. I picked out one, and tried to come up with him, but he was very shy, and at last he raised his head clean out of the water, and set off at the rate of ten miles an hour; this showed that he was aware of danger. I had just thought of giving him up, and trying for another, when he suddenly turned round, and came right ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... Dorothy's mother from side to side of her bed, while Dorothy's hands smoothed the coverings. It was well for him to see the patient endurance of suffering, such as his youth and strength defied. It was bliss to wait on Dorothy, and follow her with little watchful homages, received with a shy wonder which was delicious to him,—for Dorothy's nineteen years had been too full of service to others to leave much room for dreams of a kingdom of her own. Her silent presence in her mother's sick-room ...
— Stories by American Authors (Volume 4) • Constance Fenimore Woolson
... that the two nations were always at war, and that she had been kept as a slave among them three years and was then retaken by her countrymen. While we were talking together she appeared to be very shy, and I durst not come nearer than a rod to her, lest she should run from me. She said that Croy, the place I was bound to, was about three miles distant: That if I would follow her she would conduct me to her countrymen, ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge
... second Annex, the question of help got serious. Most of our college waiters had gone back to school, and we was pretty shy of servants. So we put some extry advertisin' in the Cape weeklies, and trusted ...
— The Depot Master • Joseph C. Lincoln
... winter-evening was cold; and today he wisht for the presence of his fellow traveller, though at other times wont to avoid his society; for on this evening he purpost to disclose a secret to him and ask his advice. The timid, shy Emilius found so many difficulties, such insurmountable hinderances, in every affair he was engaged in, and in every event that befell him, that it almost seemed as if his destiny had been in an ironical mood when it threw him and Roderick together, Roderick being ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck
... Gum Greek. The horses have had such poor food for the last week that I shall rest them to-day. About half a mile below us there is a large water hole a quarter of a mile long, with a number of black ducks upon it, but they are very shy. It rained very heavily and without intermission all last night and to-day. This creek is visited by a great many natives. We saw them making ...
— Explorations in Australia, The Journals of John McDouall Stuart • John McDouall Stuart
... Earl of Westmoreland, who acted as a secret agent between the Scots in English pay and their paymasters. We much later (1559) find the Reformer's brother, William, engaged with him in a secret political mission to the Governor of Berwick; probably this William knew shy Border paths, and he may have learned them as the Lord Westmoreland's fowler in ...
— John Knox and the Reformation • Andrew Lang
... between the classes. When asked how that was to be brought about, he would answer with his dry, slightly malicious, suavity, that if you stirred hornets' nests with sticks the hornets would come forth. Having no land, he was shy of expressing himself on that vexed question; but if resolutely attacked would give utterance to some such sentiment as this: "The land's best in our hands on the whole, but we want fewer dogs-in-the-manger ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... became absolute, the most refractory of that country used to write libels, called North Danes, against this great officer; but that practice has long since ceased. Count Holke seems rather proud of his favour, than shy of ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume II • Horace Walpole
... pleasant as pie! While the Bacchanals danced to their tambourines, and the vine-leaves flew, and Hook just eyed him Once, as a man that was brought up pious, and scornfully hollers, "Well, you ain't shy!" ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... mother had company, he went and hid till the guests were gone, or only came out of concealment to get some sort of shy lunch. If the other fellows' mothers were there, he might be a little bolder, and bring out cake from the second table. But he had to be pretty careful how he conformed to any of the usages of grown-up society. A fellow who brushed his hair, ...
— Boy Life - Stories and Readings Selected From The Works of William Dean Howells • William Dean Howells
... as in "Romola," give an historical picture of another time in a foreign land. The woman who was gracious hostess at those famous Sunday afternoons at the Priory seems to have little likeness to the frail, shy, country girl in Griff—seems, too, far more important; yet it may be doubted whether all this later work reveals such mastery of the human heart or comes from such an imperative source of expression as do the earlier novels, "Adam ...
— Masters of the English Novel - A Study Of Principles And Personalities • Richard Burton
... against a stone wall, for thus I regarded it, became at last almost unendurable. Clavering shy, and the secretary unapproachable—how was I to gain anything? The short interviews I had with Mary did not help matters. Haughty, constrained, feverish, pettish, grateful, appealing, everything at ...
— The Leavenworth Case • Anna Katharine Green
... plannin' to spend the summer here, are you?" says I. "Besides, it'll do you good to learn not to shy at a man just because he's done time. Show us ...
— Shorty McCabe on the Job • Sewell Ford
... murmured softly in the plantations. Other passers-by, other sounds there were none—save when a noisy party of flaxen-haired, bare-footed children came whooping and racing along, but turned suddenly shy and silent at sight of Monsieur ...
— Monsieur Maurice • Amelia B. Edwards
... or fears to walk up a dark entry may be an excellent, good man, and fit for a hundred things, but he will not do to make a sentimental traveler. I count little of the many things I see pass at broad noonday, in large and open streets; Nature is shy, and hates to act before spectators; but in such an unobservable corner you sometimes see a single short scene of hers worth all the sentiments of a dozen French plays compounded together; and yet they are ABSOLUTELY fine, and whenever I have a more brilliant affair upon my hands than common, ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... all thought so shy, My eye! Ne'er thought of a simper or sigh, For why? But "Lucius," says she, "Since you've made now so free, You may marry your Mary Malone, Ohone! You may marry ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... reflected that war was caused by luxury in dress, etc., the use of dyed garments grew uneasy to him, and he got and wore a hat of the natural color of the fur. "In attending meetings this singularity was a trial to me, . . . and some Friends, who knew not from what motives I wore it, grew shy of me. . . . Those who spoke with me I generally informed, in a few words, that I believed my wearing it was ...
— Initial Studies in American Letters • Henry A. Beers
... and, in riding, his preparation against accidents showed the same nervous and imaginative fearfulness. "His bridle," says the late Lord B——, who rode frequently with him at Genoa, "had, besides cavesson and martingale, various reins; and whenever he came near a place where his horse was likely to shy, he gathered up these said reins and fixed himself as if he was going at a five-barred gate." None surely but the most superficial or most prejudiced observers could ever seriously found upon such indications ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... head and assumed an air of great perplexity. She stole a glance across the table at Sadie, but that shy little cousin seemed on the verge of tears. Mrs. Burton intercepted the wireless appeal and shifted her cross-questioning to Sadie. She was determined to unravel the mystery. She read Sadie's panic as a symptom ...
— Officer 666 • Barton W. Currie
... assembled in Lord's Cricket Ground on Tuesday last, when the betting was decidedly in favour of the Cons, whose appearance and manner was more confident than usual; while, on the contrary, the Rads seemed desponding and shy. On tossing up, the Whigs succeeded in getting first innings, and the Tories dispersed themselves about the field in high glee, flattering themselves that they would ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, September 5, 1841 • Various
... bevy of these creatures on the road in the dusk of evening, their white, fluttering garments would give them the appearance of winged celestials. The Turkish women are generally timorous of men, and especially so of foreigners. Those of the rural districts, however, are not so shy as their city cousins. We frequently met them at work in groups about the villages or in the open fields, and would sometimes ask for a drink of water. If they were a party of maidens, as was often the case, they would draw back ...
— Across Asia on a Bicycle • Thomas Gaskell Allen and William Lewis Sachtleben
... the centre of the wings, which are pencilled with jet-black lines. The quill-feathers are also black, each being edged with white; and the bill is a light yellow. The females differ considerably from the males. They are shy and retiring birds, and their habits, consequently, ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... could not help hearing the free talk of the persons amongst whom he lived, and who were men of pleasure and the world, he sat pretty silent himself in the midst of their rattle; never indulged in double entendre in his conversation with women; had no victories over the sex to boast of; and was shy and awkward when he heard such narrated ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the Old Pasture just as jolly, round, red Mr. Sun had crept out of bed, and he had fully made up his mind that he would be back in the Green Forest before Mr. Sun had climbed very far up in the blue, blue sky. You see, big as he is and strong as he is, Buster Bear is very shy and bashful, and he has no desire to meet Farmer Brown, or Farmer Brown's boy, or any other of those two-legged creatures called men. It seems funny but he actually is afraid of them. And he had a feeling that he was a great deal ...
— The Adventures of Buster Bear • Thornton W. Burgess
... little creature to my breast, and felt a tender pride in knowing she was mine. Something in the shy caress those soft arms gave touched my cold nature with a generous warmth, and the innocence of that confiding heart was an appeal to all that made my ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... distant vision of airy gauzes, of pearly whiteness, of sea-shell pink, of infantine smiles, and waving, golden curls, he stood up with a shy desire to approach the wonderful creature, and yet with a sort of embarrassed feeling of being very awkward and clumsy. He felt, somehow, as if he were a great, coarse behemoth; his arms seemed ...
— Pink and White Tyranny - A Society Novel • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... a bright crystal or a diamond. Pachmann is inhuman, and music, too, is inhuman. To him, and rightly, it is a thing not domesticated, not familiar as a household cat with our hearth. When he plays it, music speaks no language known to us, has nothing of ourselves to tell us, but is shy, alien, and speaks a language which we do not know. It comes to us a divine hallucination, chills us a little with its "airs from heaven" or elsewhere, and breaks down for an instant the too solid walls of the world, showing us the gulf. When d'Albert plays ...
— Plays, Acting and Music - A Book Of Theory • Arthur Symons
... I remember best. Petie we called him; Peter Brand; he died long ago. He had been a comfort to my mother Marie, in days of sadness,—before my birth, for she was never sad after I came,—and she loved him, and he clung to her. He was a round-faced boy, with hair almost white; awkward and shy, but very good ...
— Rosin the Beau • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
... approached, the stout ladies smiled at me benignly, hiding suppressed yawns behind feather fans. Miss Dandridge was, as George said, "awfully pretty," with large shallow eyes of pale blue, an insipid mouth, and a shy little smile that looked as if she had put it on with her crown of azaleas and would take it off again and lay it away in her bureau drawer when ...
— The Romance of a Plain Man • Ellen Glasgow
... earliest visit to this dear kiosk, my gentle mute? There thou stoodst with folded arms and looks demure as day, and ever and anon with those dark eyes stealing a glance which made my cheek quite pale. Methinks I see thee even yet, shy bird. Dost know, I was so foolish when it quitted me, ...
— Alroy - The Prince Of The Captivity • Benjamin Disraeli
... not impress him. Here was a quiet, motherly personality, a personality to grow upon one through months and years. At first meeting she seemed only a gray-haired, shy, silent sort of person, not to be spoken of by herself as Mrs. Lightener, but in the reflected rays of her husband, as Malcolm ...
— Youth Challenges • Clarence B Kelland
... have hit the side of a house even if I'd been inside it. Now I can look at one, point a stick at him and say bang, with my nerves just as quiet as if it were a cow. I have seen a few bears, but they are very shy. We'll turn loose on them, too, when we get round to hunting, but in the mean time we are sticking to our timber job for all there is ...
— Dick in the Everglades • A. W. Dimock
... telling him something Miss Satterly had said—some whimsical thing—and he could hear his heart pounding in the silence which followed. The little, nickel alarm clock tick-tick-ticked with such maddening precision and speed that Chip wanted to shy a book at it, but his eyes never left the rocky bluff opposite, and the clock ...
— Chip, of the Flying U • B. M. Bower
... summoned away by express; so that, for the rest of his stay at Buxton, he had Leviathan entirely to himself, and had the honor of bowsing with him in the evening. Hobbes, it seems, at first showed a good deal of stiffness, for he was shy of divines; but this wore off, and he became very sociable and funny, and they agreed to go into the bath together. How Tennison could venture to gambol in the same water with Leviathan, I cannot explain; but so it was: they frolicked about like two dolphins, though Hobbes ...
— Miscellaneous Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... with rain and wind; the same wind and rain which had stamped such a gray fatigue on Alice Puttenham's cheeks. Amid the dusk, the fire-light touched her hair and her ungloved hand. She was a vision of youth and soft life; and her composure, her slight, shy smile, would alone have ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... marry again, and he named his baby Mehitable. She grew up as a half-orphaned child with an elderly and undemonstrative father would naturally grow,—shy, sensitive, timid, and extremely grave. Her dress, thanks to Aunt Keery and the minister's wife, (who looked after her for her mother's sake,) was always well provided and neat, but no way calculated to cultivate ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... behind Mm and Copper slipped quietly into the office. She looked at him curiously, a faint half-shy ...
— The Lani People • J. F. Bone
... book. That's what you call the book that a society's secretary writes what it does in. Denny went with him to help. He knows a lot of poetry. I think he went to a lady's school where they taught nothing but that. He was rather shy of us, but he took to Noel. I can't think why. Dicky and Oswald walked round the garden and told each other what they thought of the ...
— The Wouldbegoods • E. Nesbit
... on their errand very gayly in the big car, although Polly and Janet, in the back seat together, were a little shy and silent at the very first. At the end of a mile, however, they were beginning to warm toward each other and had set up a brisk chatter before they ...
— The Windy Hill • Cornelia Meigs
... Upton, Russell's cousin, a fifth-form boy, who had just come into the room—and he boxed Barker's ears as a premonitory admonition. "But I say, young 'un," continued he to Eric, "this kind of thing won't do, you know. You'll get into rows if you shy candlesticks at fellows' heads at ...
— Eric, or Little by Little • Frederic W. Farrar
... being gun-shy. And Uncle Eddy ate some, too, one time when he was little, because the colored stable boy told him it would ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston
... your duty; this gentleman and I belong to the service; but be sure you look after that shy cock in the slouched hat that sits in the corner of the coach. I believe he's one of the ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... Petawanaquat," said Sam Ravenshaw, with a laugh; "he's Little Wolf by name, and a big thief by practice, no doubt. You needn't fear him, however, he's not so dangerous as he looks, and I gave him a rebuff just now that will make him shy of Willow Creek.—Ha, Tony, ...
— The Red Man's Revenge - A Tale of The Red River Flood • R.M. Ballantyne
... a wonderful father. What would you have done? The mere notion of going back (and as an officer, too), to be worried and bothered, and kept on the jump night and day by that brute, made me feel sick. But she wasn't a ship you could afford to fight shy of. Besides, the most genuine excuse could not be given without mortally offending Apse & Sons. The firm, and I believe the whole family down to the old unmarried aunts in Lancashire, had grown desperately ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad
... making myself at home," he continued, jauntily poking a small log into place with the bellows, and then brushing his seedy trousers with his hand; "it was always my style. Most men that's been knocked about all their lives get shy and wary. But that's not Eben Slade. Well, when are you ...
— Donald and Dorothy • Mary Mapes Dodge
... kept is this beautiful Cantal cow, a small, red, glossy-coated breed, very gentle, and very shy. The enormous quantities of milk afforded by these dairy farms are sold in part at Aurillac for home consumption. By far the larger proportion is used in the cheese- makers' huts, or 'burons,' on the ...
— The Roof of France • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... out in the leavings of a milliner's shop and bringing as offering a worn copy of one of Mary J. Holmes' novels. There was a good-hearted lady, so disastrously given to expressing enthusiasm by embracing anyone within her reach that the heroes and heroines of the evening fought shy of her, and Tom made her well-known tendency an excuse for withdrawing altogether and going out to the fence behind the building where he could overlook the festive scene and smoke a cigar surreptitiously. Not least "among those present" ...
— The Wide Awake Girls in Winsted • Katharine Ellis Barrett
... letters unpublished, she declares the source of her information to have been some papers in the possession of a Scotch clergyman, "which," says Mrs. Grant, "it appears he did not give to John Home, who would scarcely have asked the favour, keeping very shy ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745. - Volume I. • Mrs. Thomson
... slowly. 'I have seldom spoken to her, to be sure. She actually makes me shy! I never saw anything half so lovely. I cannot help her reigning over my thoughts. I shall never believe a word against her, though I cannot dispute what you say of my aunt. She is of another mould, I wish you could let me ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... and in another hemisphere, was beating yet for its birthplace. At times too, when the boat brought his daily supplies and water to the island, he went down from the tower to talk with Johnson, the guard. But after a while he seemed to grow shy. He ceased to go to the town to read the papers and to go down to talk politics with Johnson. Whole weeks passed in this way, so that no one saw him and he saw no one. The only signs that the old man was living were ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Polish • Various
... individuals, we may ask why we have such distant notions of God, so shy a faith of His coming within the circle of our own life and work? Why are our prayers so formal, so empty of the expectation of an immediate and divine answer? Why is our attitude at our work so destitute of practical ...
— Four Psalms • George Adam Smith
... in the jungle the three were familiar figures. The little monkeys knew them well, often coming close to chatter and frolic about them. When Akut was by, the small folk kept their distance, but with Korak they were less shy and when both the males were gone they would come close to Meriem, tugging at her ornaments or playing with Geeka, who was a never ending source of amusement to them. The girl played with them and fed them, and when she was ...
— The Son of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... drink the sunset like strong wine Or, hushed in trance divine, Hailed the first shy and timorous glance from far ...
— Literary Hearthstones of Dixie • La Salle Corbell Pickett
... read his thoughts, and had felt him yielding to her fixed determination. Then, suddenly, her power had left her, and as she walked beside him, she knew that if she looked into his face she would blush and be confused like a shy girl. She almost wished that he would leave her without a word and ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford
... might bestow Rest on the fever'd bed, All slumb'rous sounds and low Are mingled here and wed, And bring no drowsihed. Shy dreams flit to and fro With shadowy hair dispread; With wistful eyes that glow, And silent robes that sweep. Thou wilt not hear me; no? Wilt thou not ...
— Ballads in Blue China and Verses and Translations • Andrew Lang
... Theodorus is not given to jesting; and I cannot allow you to retract your consent on any such pretence as that. If you do, he will have to swear to his words; and we are perfectly sure that no one will be found to impugn him. Do not be shy then, but stand to ...
— Theaetetus • Plato
... she had sought out Selene, but dame Hannah could not and would not conduct her to see the sick girl, for she learnt from Mary that she was the mother of her patient's faithless lover; and on a second visit Selene was so shy, so timid and so strange in her demeanor, that the old woman was forced to conclude that her visit was an ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... never before looked down on the back of a horse, and Joby's horses astonished him; they were so broad behind, and so narrow at the shoulders. He wanted to ask if the shape were at all common, but felt shy. He stole a glance at the silver ring in Joby's left ear, and blushed when Joby turned ...
— The Ship of Stars • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... "Blest if I didn't forget all about Tommy," he cried, turning to search the platform with eager eyes. "He's here somewhere, but he's a shy youth and I guess he was afraid you'd want to kiss him, too, Judy. Oh, there he is. Hullo, Tommy! Step ...
— Miss Pat at School • Pemberton Ginther
... first converts. I observed her from the moment I was told she was under Conviction, till she experienced Religion. She sang no more of mornings, and the making of molasses candy was suspended in the evenings. I thought her less pleasing, and felt shy of holding ordinary conversations with her, for had she not been set apart for a mysterious work? I perceived that when she sewed between meetings her work was worse done than ever; but grand'ther made no mention of it. I went with Aunt Mercy to meetings three times a day, and employed ...
— The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard
... collectors knew of them only by hearsay. Then you know the effect of suggestion in such cases. The undefinable sense we were speaking of is a ticklish instrument, easily thrown out of gear by a sudden fall of temperature; and the sharpest experts grow shy and self-distrustful when the cold current of depreciation touches them. The sale was a slaughter—and when I saw the Daunt Diana fall at the wink of a little third-rate brocanteur from Vienna I turned sick at the folly ...
— Tales Of Men And Ghosts • Edith Wharton
... place five nights running in the open space between the Shinto shrine and the old barn theatre. Nothing could have been duller. The line from Ruddigore came to mind, "This is one of our blameless dances." The first night the performers were evidently shy and the girls would hardly come forward. Things warmed up a little more each night and on the last night of all there was a certain animation; but even then the movement, the song and the whole scheme of the dance seemed to be lacking in vigour. What happened was that a number of ...
— The Foundations of Japan • J.W. Robertson Scott
... country hasn't been much explored. They all go on doing Plymouth and Salem. So stupid. My cousin's house, now, is remarkable. This place must have had a past—it must have been more of a place once." He stopped short, with the blush of a shy man who overhears himself, and fears he has been voluble. "I'm an architect, you see, and I'm hunting up old houses ...
— Summer • Edith Wharton
... about that, man," said the other. "Don't shy at it like a horse at a blue bogey in ...
— Cutlass and Cudgel • George Manville Fenn
... into a most unlordly scrape, from which they can only relieve him by treading back their steps. The more I consider their conduct, the more I am astonished at their impudence. A downright robbery is honourable to it. If you see Rogers, do not be shy to speak: he trembles at report, and here is an evil ...
— A Publisher and His Friends • Samuel Smiles
... I ought to do: to you most freely. You know me, both head and heart, and I will make what deductions your reasons may dictate to me. I can think of no other person (for your travelling companion)—what wonder? For the last years, I have been shy of all ...
— Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1. • Coleridge, ed. Turnbull
... Wenna Rosewarne, whose virtues were almost a trifle too severe? The despair and remorse of the letter did not touch him—he was too angry and indignant over the insult to himself—but it astonished him. The passionate emotion of those closely-written pages he could scarcely connect with the shy, frank, kindly little girl he remembered: it was a cry of agony from a tortured woman, and he knew at least that for her the old quiet time ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, April 1875, Vol. XV., No. 88 • Various
... crimson cardinal, crest lifted, sat singing deliciously on some green bough; now and then a summer tanager dropped like a live coal into the deeper jungle. Great shiny blue, crestless jays flitted over the scrub; shy black and white and chestnut chewinks flirted into sight and out again among the heaps of dead brush; red-bellied woodpeckers, sticking to the tree trunks, turned their heads calmly; gray lizards, big, ugly red-headed lizards, swift ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers
... makes it so delightful to talk to you is that I can say exactly what I like. You won't expect me to be clever, or shy, or any of those tiresome things. We can be perfectly frank with each other. And that's such ...
— The Incomplete Amorist • E. Nesbit
... Effingham rang the bell, and desired Pierre to request Miss Van Cortlandt to join him in the library. Grace entered blushing and shy, but with a countenance beaming with inward peace. Her uncle regarded her a moment intently, and a tear glistened in his eye, again, as he tenderly kissed ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... though earnest purpose, Mr. Dalton laid his strong warm hand upon my head and turned my tearful face towards him. There was a hovering smile around the pale, calm countenance that met my shy and half averted look. ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"
... you would be charmed with the beauty of the scenery, and the shady coolness of the spot; till coming upon a black snake coiled away among the rocks, like a rope on the deck of a man of war, you would probably withdraw, not without a strong inclination to "shy" at every black stick you saw for the rest of the day. For this lower part of the Moira creek was, I am sorry to say, the most troubled locality for snakes, diamond, black, carpet, and other, which I ever ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... confessed their comparative ignorance, neither ever having seen its nest or become acquainted with its haunts and general habits. Its song is quite striking and novel, though its voice at once suggests the class of Warblers, to which it belongs. It is very shy and wary, flying but a few feet at a time, and studiously concealing itself from your view. I discover but one pair here. The female has food in her beak, but carefully avoids betraying the locality of her nest. The Ground-Warblers all have one notable feature,—very beautiful legs, as white and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various
... reaching Mr. Larabee, who was a bit shy of strangers. When one, (in this case Larson) was announced by Aunt Samantha, ...
— Dick Hamilton's Airship - or, A Young Millionaire in the Clouds • Howard R. Garis
... us, Mr. Finnerty, and it is useless to shy Abraham. You're bagged at last, so come off quietly to ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... served in the drawing-room. This is for those who can stay on for several hours. My husband is going to dine at his club, so we can keep the dear things as long as they are happy," said Nan with a gush, while the two girls smiled at each other with shy friendliness. ...
— Betty Trevor • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey
... beautiful bird, but so shy that it feeds on the wing and never alights long enough for a common man to pluck ...
— Oklahoma Sunshine • Freeman E. (Freeman Edwin) Miller
... a large card. He smiled carelessly. "Fact is, I've just told the fellows to shy the stuff overboard; I shall risk ...
— Stories by English Authors: The Sea • Various
... whose houses they paused to ask a dipper of water, or to make an inquiry, gravely advised that they "had better light, and stay all night." In the coloring forests, squirrels scampered and scurried out of sight, and here and there on the tall slopes they saw shy-looking children regarding them ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck
... and pearl-white gardenias scented and beautified the poor little room where Hetty lay. Where had they come from, she wondered, and who was the pretty lady who sat by her side and kept putting nice-smelling things to her nose? At first she was very shy and only looked at her with half-closed eyes, but after some time she took courage ...
— Hetty Gray - Nobody's Bairn • Rosa Mulholland
... off it, and hurried out into the sunlit Place. He went rather slowly up the church steps, however, for he was afraid of Denise. Her youth, and something spring-like and mystic in her being, disturbed him, made him uneasy and shy; which was perhaps his reason for drawing aside the heavy leather curtain and going into the church, instead of waiting for her outside. He preferred to meet her on his own ground—in the chill air, heavy ...
— The Isle of Unrest • Henry Seton Merriman
... people together and making them feel at their ease. There was also, as a rule, some little individual touch about his entertainments that made them stand out. His manner, though naturally boyish and shy, could be both gay and debonair, quite irresistible in fact, when he was surrounded by congenial spirits! He played hockey, and was made a member of several clubs, sketched and made beautiful photographs. His ...
— A Student in Arms - Second Series • Donald Hankey
... her in the face of it. "You might have somebody that's a good deal better off if you didn't have me," he said to her once, and they both knew whom he meant. "I don't want anybody else," Charlotte had replied, with her shy stateliness. Now Barney thought that she had changed her mind; and why should she not? A girl ought to marry if she could; he could not marry her himself, and should not expect her to remain single all her life for his sake. Of course Charlotte wanted to be married, like other women. This probable ...
— Pembroke - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... our navigators. Among the shoals and sand banks of the coast, they saw many large birds, and some in particular of the same kind which they had seen in Botany Bay. These they judged to be pelicans, but they were so shy as never to come within reach of a musket. On the shore was found a species of the bustard, one of which was shot that was equal in size to a turkey, weighing seventeen pounds and a half. All the gentlemen agreed that this was the best bird they had eaten since they left England; ...
— Narrative of the Voyages Round The World, • A. Kippis
... him,—timidly as a shy bird, yet with a wonderful smile quivering on her lips, and in the clear depths of her starry eyes. Very gently she placed her arms about his neck and looked down at ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... element in the Carson home that drew her strongly, although she was shy about even thinking of it, and that was the frank, outspoken Christianity. "Ma" tempered all her talk with it, adjusted all her life to God and what He would think about her actions, spoke constantly of what was right and wrong. Betty had never ...
— Exit Betty • Grace Livingston Hill
... on the mountain side hid in a grassy nook Where door and windows open wide that friendly stars may look. The rabbit shy can patter in, the winds may enter free, Who throng around the mountain ...
— The Nuts of Knowledge - Lyrical Poems New and Old • George William Russell
... 'Shy she was, and I thought her cold; Thought her proud, and fled over the sea; Fill'd I was with folly and spite, When Ellen ...
— English Songs and Ballads • Various
... in love is said to have first driven the Duke into retirement, and rendered him shy and eccentric, with an especial objection to the society of ladies, although he had once been a gay, if not dissipated, young gentleman, fond of the turf. He rode a race at Trentham Hall, the seat of his brother-in-law, the Marquis ...
— Rides on Railways • Samuel Sidney
... had arrived. They were three shy, quiet girls who had worshiped Grace from a distance, and who had been surprised almost to tears by her invitation. Two of them were from Portville, a small town about seventy miles from Oakdale, and had begun High School with Grace, who had been too busy with her own affairs up to the present ...
— Grace Harlowe's Junior Year at High School - Or, Fast Friends in the Sororities • Jessie Graham Flower
... was a wise man, wrote to the priest of the settlement of Chezzetcook, to explain the "what for," and the consequence was—these portraits! But these women had a terrible time at the head of the first flight of stairs. Not an inch would these shy creatures budge beyond. At last, the wife of the operator induced them to rise to the high flight that led to the Halifax skylight, and there they were painted by the sun, as we ...
— Acadia - or, A Month with the Blue Noses • Frederic S. Cozzens
... pleasant-looking white steamer called Jean Jacques. Pulling his soft hat over his eyes, Henry slipped in among the throng, and embarked on what might well prove to be his last official lake trip. He felt rather shy, for he had become, though in a minor way, News. Women were News; and women disguised as men were doubly and trebly News (and Henry felt sure that Charles Wilbraham would be believed on this point rather than he, who had said it was ...
— Mystery at Geneva - An Improbable Tale of Singular Happenings • Rose Macaulay
... often she had been seated, when a child, on my lap, and played on my knees with her doll. Thus they behaved to me when I saw them for the first time in their present elevation; I found them afterwards, in their drawing-rooms or at their routs and parties, more shy and distant. This change did not much surprise me, as I hardly knew any one that had the slightest pretension to their acquaintance who had not troubled them for employment or borrowed their money, at the same time that they complained of their neglect ...
— Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud, Complete - Being Secret Letters from a Gentleman at Paris to a Nobleman in London • Lewis Goldsmith
... chance she saw me. Or was it through our destiny? While with eyes kept sedulously on the marble floor, to shun the weight of admiration thrust too boldly on them, while with shy quick steps she passed, some one (perhaps with purpose) trod on the skirt of her clear white dress,—with the quickness taught her by many a scene of danger, she looked up, and ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... a most unexpected move, and no mistake; but the ship ain't gone yet; and, from what I heard passin' among the others, just now, afore you come up, I ain't by no means sure as they'll leave to-night. Some of 'em is that greedy that they wants to stop and have a shy at the other treasure; and if they does, there's no knowin' what may happen betwixt now and then. And if they makes up their minds to go, I don't go with 'em. I'll slip overboard, and swim ashore, if there's no ...
— The Cruise of the "Esmeralda" • Harry Collingwood
... replied, "but it isn't a case of rattles with me. I'm shy with the mazume, and it looks now as if that little trip to the minister's will have to be ...
— You Can Search Me • Hugh McHugh
... am not shy on this occasion; indeed, I feel that I should like to keep your eyes upon me for a long time to-night, and go on talking far past your patience or my wit. For I cannot think it likely that our ways will cross again." Here her words grew ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)
... quite noted for their preaching, and would often go up into the pulpits of the churches, where large crowds gathered to hear them, the Bishop even inviting St. Francis to preach in the cathedral. Now, among the brethren there was one called Ruffino, who was very shy and nervous and felt he simply couldn't preach and face a great crowd of people, all staring at him and waiting for his words. Now, St. Francis hated that any of his Friars should give in to themselves about anything. He also loved them to obey quickly, and do everything ...
— Stories of the Saints by Candle-Light • Vera C. Barclay
... a large bow, matching his complexion. His companion was thin and sallow, and wore a very desponding air, despite a prolific red beard, which, when we landed, caused much excitement among the Icelanders. I think their admiration made him feel shy, for after the demonstration made in its favour at the first landing port, he seldom went ashore, and even during the four days the Camoens lay off Reykjavik, ...
— A Girl's Ride in Iceland • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... she brings her to reason by more efficient, if less agreeable expedients. The child is encouraged to play with her dolls, and to find pleasure in flowers and child-like amusements, as long as possible. Thus she grows up with simple tastes, although a little awkward and shy. ...
— The Education of American Girls • Anna Callender Brackett
... something in the air. You'll notice the Turkish muleteers are having nothing whatever to say to our Zeitoonli, although they've accepted the same service. Moslems are keeping together, and Armenians are getting the silence cure. Armenians are even shy of speaking to one another. I've tried listening, and I've tried asking questions, although that was risky. I can't get a word of explanation. I've noticed, though, that the ugly mood is broadening. They've been polite to me, ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy
... and the old woman wear front-and-back aprons of camote vines; the youth with them is nude. The three transplanters wear skirts, and one of them wears an open jacket. Besides these there are three children in and about the sementera; one is a pretty, laughing girl of about 9 years; one is a shy, faded-haired little girl of 3 or 4 years; and the other is a fat chunk of a boy about 5 years. All three are perfectly naked. It is impossible to say what clothing these toilers wore before I went among them to watch their work, but it is certain ...
— The Bontoc Igorot • Albert Ernest Jenks
... [Cheers.] Why did Rome refuse so light-heartedly the proposals of Vienna? The Italian manifesto of war, which conceals an uneasy conscience behind vain phrases, does not give us any explanation. They were too shy, perhaps, to say openly what was spread abroad as a pretext by the press and by gossip in the lobbies of the Chamber, namely, that Austria's offer came too late ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... The path, which ran beside a little chattering stream, was narrow for the most part, and Farmer Hosking, with an apology, strode on ahead to beat aside the brambles. But whenever its width allowed us to walk side by side I caught him from time to time stealing a shy inquisitive glance under his rough eyebrows. Courteously though he bore himself, it was clear that he could not sum me up to his satisfaction or bring me square with his notion of a tenant for his 'secluded ...
— Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... "unalterable opposition to the election of any President for a third term."[1474] Furthermore, the convention sought candidates of prominence and approved integrity. In the presence of threatened defeat such men were shy. William H. Robertson of Westchester thrice declined the comptrollership, and insistence upon his acceptance did not cease until James W. Husted, springing to his feet, declared that such demands were evidently intended as an insult. Then Edwin D. Morgan proposed ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... only Julie raised her eyes and looked at the stranger, and then only because she was in a manner compelled to do so, for her husband called upon her to admire the action of the thoroughbred. It so happened that their glances clashed; and the shy Englishman, instead of riding abreast of the carriage, fell behind on this, and followed them at a ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Honore de Balzac
... Doubtless it would have been my interest still to meet her with the same cheerful smile and tone of respectful cordiality as before; but I could not, if I would: my manner altered with my feelings, and became so cold and shy that she could not fail to notice it. She soon did notice it, and HER manner altered too: the familiar nod was changed to a stiff bow, the gracious smile gave place to a glare of Gorgon ferocity; her vivacious loquacity ...
— Agnes Grey • Anne Bronte
... pleasure. From the contours of her figure in its upper part, she must have had a beautiful neck and shoulders; but since her infancy nobody had ever seen them. Had she been put into a low dress she would have run and thrust her head into a bush. Yet she was not a shy girl by any means; it was merely her instinct to draw the line dividing the seen from the unseen higher than they do it ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy
... journeying, now showed distinct falls and folds. Troops of Dera or gazelles, herding like goats, stood, stared at us, turned their white tails, faced away, broke into a long trot, and bounded over the plain as we approached. A few ostriches appeared, but they were too shy even for bullet. [41] At 8 P.M. we crossed one of the numerous drains which intersect this desert—"Biya Hablod," or the Girls' Water, a fiumara running from south-west to east and north-east. Although dry, it abounded in the Marer, a tree bearing yellowish red ...
— First footsteps in East Africa • Richard F. Burton
... for the journey, to notice that he was eating hardly anything; and in the midst of his trouble the thought came across Arthur's mind that it was a very good thing he was not hungry, as he felt a great deal too shy to ...
— Left at Home - or, The Heart's Resting Place • Mary L. Code
... in shy pleasure at her, a little embarrassed because she didn't know whether to thank Lucy for the valentines ...
— Jewel's Story Book • Clara Louise Burnham
... sight, my horse, that was shy, backed a little. I called to the woman to stand out of ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth
... up like a geranium and smiles shy, like he always does when he's kidded. "If you please, sir," says he, "it's only a lady; ...
— Wilt Thou Torchy • Sewell Ford
... him a little, and he said, with a shy glance aside, "I don't know what you mean." "I reckon," Dryfoos answered, quietly, "you got your notion, though. I set that woman on to speak to you the way she done. But if there was anything wrong in the way she spoke, or ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... that the wicked fairies leaping so realistically from Pandora's box weren't real at all, but I'm sure I did not convince the smaller one, who was far too shy and excited to utter a word beyond a startled whisper: "Yes, Miss," or "No, Miss." There were wails in the audience when the witch appeared, and several small boys near us doubled under their seats in terror, like little rabbits going to earth, ...
— Fanny Goes to War • Pat Beauchamp
... the waltz," said the violinist; "but if you play it over for me once or twice, I'll try to get the air—if you would like to have me to," he added with a shy, gentle courtesy. ...
— A Volunteer Poilu • Henry Sheahan
... to Irene—perhaps she was shy—but, starting off at a quick pace, led her down a long passage into a room on the ground floor. It was a pleasant room with a French window that opened out on to a veranda, where, over a marble balustrade, there was a view of an orange garden ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... page 465, the mistake was put right.) "in considerable numbers," resembles sand-lark—is called "wire bird," has long greenish legs like wires, runs fast, eyes large, bill moderately long, is rather shy, does not possess much powers of flight. What was it? I have written to ask Sclater, also about birds of Madeira and Azores. It is a very curious thing that the Azores do not contain the (non-European) American genus Clethra, that is found in Madeira and Canaries, and that the Azores ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin
... leaders on both sides Jackson had been an officer of regulars. He was, however, in many ways unlike the army type. He disliked society amusements, was awkward, shy, reserved, and apparently recluse. Moderately tall, with large hands and feet, stiff in his movements, ungainly in the saddle, he was a mere nobody in public estimation when the war broke out. A few brother-officers ...
— Captains of the Civil War - A Chronicle of the Blue and the Gray, Volume 31, The - Chronicles Of America Series • William Wood
... "I'm not shy," Granet laughed. "By-the-bye, pardon me, but isn't your father the Sir Meyville Worth who invents things? I'm not quite sure what sort of things," he added. "Perhaps you'd better post ...
— The Kingdom of the Blind • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... more unfitted to teach things to so shy a boy as Philip. He had come to the school with fewer terrors than he had when first he went to Mr. Watson's. He knew a good many boys who had been with him at the preparatory school. He felt more grownup, and instinctively realised that among ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... mouth looked ripe and eager for pleasure, her eyes sparkled with youth and gaiety, but when shy or thoughtful or impatient her mouth was too large and closely set, her low thick brows made her eyes look sullen and opaque, their blue too dark even for beauty. It was a day when "pencilled" eyebrows inspired the sonnet, when mouths were rosebuds, or should be for fashion's sake, ...
— The Gorgeous Isle - A Romance; Scene: Nevis, B.W.I. 1842 • Gertrude Atherton
... afflicted with a personal consciousness of her reputation, nor was she trammeled by it. The sense that a great work had been accomplished through her only made her more humble, and her shy, absent-minded ways were continually throwing her admirers into confusion. Late in life (when her failing powers made it impossible for her to speak as one living in a world which she seemed to have left far behind) she was ...
— Authors and Friends • Annie Fields
... precocious person. Any girl of sixteen is, of course, a great deal older and more mature than a youth of nineteen. In the present instance Harriet might have been Shelley's senior by five years. There is no doubt that she fell in love with him; but, having done so, she by no means acted in the shy and timid way that would have been most natural to a very young girl in her first love-affair. Having decided that she wanted him, she made up her mind to get Mm at any cost, and her audacity was equaled only by his simplicity. She was ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... matter of fact, big and legitimate capital is fighting shy of Alaska. Conditions are such, thanks to red-tapeism and bad politics, that capital, big and little, looks askance at Alaska and cannot be interested. Think of it, Miss Standish! There are thirty-eight separate bureaus at Washington ...
— The Alaskan • James Oliver Curwood
... summer day and my greenery yon; and, maybe, too, of the first time they ever ate 'finnan haddie' and 'John's Delight.' More than that, it will give us the freedom of speech with son, as it wouldn't were they sitting by. He's aye shy, is ...
— Dorothy's Travels • Evelyn Raymond
... lasted only a moment, for, as Jeanette, shy, and dewy-eyed, held out her arms to her new-found friend, quite suddenly Lucile knew. Impulsively she threw her arms about the older girl and drew her close, whispering, softly, "Tell me all you feel you can, Jeanette; you can ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... Germany, he arrived at Geneva. An old friend, possibly Louis du Tillet, discovered him, and told Farel; and Farel, in sore straits for a helper, besought him, and indeed in the name of the Almighty commanded him, to stay. Calvin was reluctant, for he was reserved and shy, and conceived his vocation to be the scholar's rather than the preacher's; but the entreaties of Farel, half tearful, half minatory, prevailed. And thus Calvin's connection ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various
... get at the true man only after he had been mellowed into speech by good English ale. Then he would open his heart and unburden his mind of all the accumulated knowledge that he possessed, and add something to the epic of the soil. Borrow's overbearing manner made people shy of him. On one occasion he told John, the son and successor of Henry Hill, that he ought to be responsible for the debt of his half-brother; the debt, it may ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins
... glimpse of him was a complete surprise to me. I saw him on the street in town. Harriet pointed him out, else I should never have recognized him: a quiet, shy, modest man, as different as one could imagine from the singer I had seen so often passing my farm. He wore neat, worn clothes; and his horse stood tied in front of the store. He had brought his honey to town to sell. He was ...
— Adventures In Friendship • David Grayson
... girlie! You can't guess how that braces me—the thought that it's for you! You see, I'm beginning to count on things now. I'm not even afraid of your money now. Good old Grif—Griffith, you know—has given me a shy at a peach of a proposition—toughest problem I was ever up against. It's a big irrigation dam that has feazed half ...
— Out of the Primitive • Robert Ames Bennet
... confusion—for he was rather shy—Welland made several abortive efforts to check the see-saw, which efforts Dick Swiller resisted to the uttermost, to the intense amusement of a little girl who held Mrs Brisbane's hand. At last he succeeded in arresting it ...
— Dusty Diamonds Cut and Polished - A Tale of City Arab Life and Adventure • R.M. Ballantyne
... makes the situation look a little better for us. If they're just a bunch of fellows out for a liquor outing, maybe we don't need to be much concerned about them if we keep shy of them." ...
— The Radio Boys in the Thousand Islands • J. W. Duffield
... plumage from those which are seen in Canada. We also killed a great many seals. These animals ordinarily keep upon the rocks. We also saw several foxes of the species called Virginia fox: they were shy and yet fierce, barking like dogs and then flying precipitately. Penguins are also numerous on the Falkland Isles. These birds have a fine plumage, and resemble the loon: but they do not fly, having only little stumps of wings ...
— Narrative of a Voyage to the Northwest Coast of America in the years 1811, 1812, 1813, and 1814 or the First American Settlement on the Pacific • Gabriel Franchere
... described by John Gyles: "If a young fellow determines to marry, his relations and the Jesuit advise him to a girl, he goes into the wigwam where she is and looks on her. If he likes her appearance, he tosses a stick or chip into her lap which she takes, and with a shy side-look views the person who sent it; yet handles the chip with admiration as though she wondered from whence it came. If she likes him she throws the chip to him with a smile, and then nothing is wanting but a ceremony with ...
— Glimpses of the Past - History of the River St. John, A.D. 1604-1784 • W. O. Raymond
... was fair and blushed easily. Being secretly a sentimental youth he was shy of any of the verbal expressions of sentiment; but he swallowed and continued heroically. "You—you—I think you love him. I can see you are not heartless, that you are terribly cut up. If you love him enough you might save ...
— Sleeping Fires • Gertrude Atherton
... been choking various People and taking it away from them. He had four Salesmen under him and had butted into the Firm, but he was still shy on Botany. ...
— People You Know • George Ade
... children standing in the doorway, and presently Mr. Bowles came out and shook hands with me and helped me down with my things. He was a kind, sensible-looking man, and he made the children come and speak to me and shake hands. They were shy then and hung back, and put their fingers in their mouths; I knew just how they felt. I wanted to hang back, too, when he took me into the house to see Mrs. Bowles. She was an invalid, he told me, and could not ...
— The Green Satin Gown • Laura E. Richards
... women, and children around me. My mode of cooking the condensed food and liquid beef; so quickly prepared for the palate, and the remarkable boat of paper, all filled the islanders with wonder. They were at first a little shy, looking upon the apparition — which seemed in some wonderful way to have dropped upon their beach — with the light of curiosity in ...
— Voyage of The Paper Canoe • N. H. Bishop
... garden! all the days Are fain to crown the darling year, Ephemeral bells and garland bays, Shy blade and ...
— Silverpoints • John Gray
... little shy when she arrived. Laverick had left special orders downstairs, and she was brought up into his sitting-room immediately. She was very quietly dressed except for her hat, which was large and wavy. He found it becoming, but he knew enough ...
— Havoc • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... out with him for a day on Meacham River, and promised to convince her of the charm of angling. She wore a new gown, fawn-colour and violet, with a picture-hat, very taking. But the Meacham River trout was shy that day; not even Beekman could induce him to rise to the fly. What the trout lacked in confidence the mosquitoes more than made up. Mrs. De Peyster came home much sunburned, and expressed a highly unfavourable opinion of fishing as an amusement ...
— Fisherman's Luck • Henry van Dyke
... cried on, hiding her face in Lois's skinny hand, until Sam Polston came in, when she grew quiet and shy. The poor deformed girl lay watching them, as they talked. Very pretty Jenny looked, with her blue eyes and damp pink cheeks; and it was a manly, grave love in Sam's face, when it turned to her. A different love from any she had known: ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IX., March, 1862., No. LIII. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics, • Various
... dearth of booty. The Spaniards were getting shy of keeping too many valuables where they could be taken. So negotiations, emphasized by piecemeal destruction, went on till sickness and the lateness of the season put the English in a sorry fix. ...
— Elizabethan Sea Dogs • William Wood
... declare, an' so they 'ave—the NAUGHTY creatures!" exclaimed Mrs. Beamish in mock dismay. "But trust you, Mr. Smith, for sayin' the right thing. Jus' exackly like birds they are—so shy an' scared-like. But I'll give you the 'int, gents. They'll not be far away. Jus' you show 'em two can play at that game.—Mr. S., ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... be shy about coming here again," said Mr. Mellowtone, after I had rolled about on my bed for a time; and I think he spoke to turn my thoughts away from the engrossing ...
— Field and Forest - The Fortunes of a Farmer • Oliver Optic
... well thought of. It may interest her to know that a relation of mine has married her countryman. Very odd that I never did mention it; but, to say truth, I really do talk so little to her; she is so superior, and I feel positively shy ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... French seem, for some reason or other, not surely founded on the importance of Kerguelen's discovery, to have been very shy of publishing a full and distinct account of it. No such account had been published while Captain Cook lived. Nay, even after the return of his ships in 1780, the gentleman who obligingly lent his assistance to give a view of the prior observations ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 15 (of 18) • Robert Kerr
... ay, the very man; and the best part of it was, he was shy of taking her at first. He talked a good deal about honour, and conscience, and deceiving some dear friend; but, Lord, we soon ...
— The Duenna • Richard Brinsley Sheridan
... man's eyes,—good, clear, well-set, dark eyes that match his brown hair; eyes that speak from the heart,—note how they dwell upon every detail of the opposing figure, caressing with their shy surreptitious glances the girl's hair, her broad forehead, her lips; observe how they flit back betimes to those ripe red lips, like bees that hover over a flower trembling in the wind; how the eyes of the young man play about the strong chin, and the ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... hermitage are naturally shy and reserved; but for all that, She did look towards me, though she quick withdrew Her stealthy glances when she met my gaze; She smiled upon me sweetly, but disguised With maiden grace the secret of her smiles. Coy love was half unveiled; ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... think, gentlemen, on mature reconsideration," began Handy, "we might take another shy at 'Uncle Tom,' and ...
— A Pirate of Parts • Richard Neville
... summer days, Thora was the natural source of interest and the inciting element of all the work and chatter that turned the Ragnor house upside down and inside out; but Thora was naturally shy and quiet, and Sunna naturally expressive and presuming; and it was difficult for their companions to keep Thora and Sunna in their proper places. Every one found it difficult. Only when Ian was present, did Sunna take her proper secondary place and Ian, though the most faithful ...
— An Orkney Maid • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... She made a shy curtsey and John bowed. It was the first time that he was ever in the heart of an old French home, and he did not know the rules, but he felt that he ought not to offer his hand. Young girls, he ...
— The Forest of Swords - A Story of Paris and the Marne • Joseph A. Altsheler
... bespeak a mind Old-world traditions fail to bind. She is not shy Or bold, but simply self-possessed; Her independence adds a zest Unto her speech, her piquant jest, Her ...
— An Anthology of Australian Verse • Bertram Stevens
... kind," Kitty answered, with a shy sort of stiffness, which seemed to show that she could well dispense with his kindness. Hugo laughed to himself, and pictured Vivian's discomfiture if he had seen the reception of his ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... "My cousin, however, desired me to point out to you the fact that in any case he would probably be shy of doing so. He is behaving in an absurd manner; he is in a very weakly state; and without a doubt he is to some degree insane. Nevertheless, the fact remains that he is in the Colony, or was three months ago, and that if he succeeds in reaching the coast you may at any time ...
— The Great Impersonation • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... by his wife or mother, in the presence of the vestal virgins. And having got into his friend's house privately, a few only being present, he began to deliberate how he should treat these men. The severest and the only punishment fit for such heinous crimes, he was somewhat shy and fearful of inflicting, as well from the clemency of his nature, as also lest he should be thought to exercise his authority too insolently, and to treat too harshly men of the noblest birth and most powerful friendships in the city; and yet, if he should ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch
... My dispositions completed, the thing was in the hands of God, and I was free to go my own road. Mocking-birds and thrushes cried in the thickets, squirrels flirted across the path, and now and then a shy deer fled before us. There come moments to every man when he is thankful to be alive, and every breath drawn is a delight; so at that hour I praised my Maker for His good earth, and for sparing ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan
... be just four feet high. The color was from chocolate-brown to copperish, except the palms, which were of a yellowish white. The hair was deep black, thick, and frizzled; the skull broad and high; the lips full and swollen. Like other Pygmy tribes, these are very shy, wandering from place to place in the forest, and avoiding frequented routes of travel. They are skilful hunters and collect much rubber, which they dispose of to ...
— Man And His Ancestor - A Study In Evolution • Charles Morris
... his grandson, Louis XVI (1774-1792), a weak-kneed prince of twenty years, very virtuous and well-meaning, but lacking in intelligence and will-power. He was too awkward and shy to preside with dignity over the ceremonious court; he was too stupid and lazy to dominate the ministry. He liked to shoot deer from out the palace window, or to play at lock-making in his royal carpentry shop. Government he ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... continent, he had been admitted to confidential intimacy by diplomatists and men of rank; immediately on his return he was enrolled in the Kit-Cat Club, and brought thus and otherwise into communication with the gentry of the Whig party. Although all accounts agree in representing him as a shy man, he was at least saved from all risk of making himself disagreeable in society, by his unassuming manners, his extreme caution and that sedulous desire to oblige, which his satirist Pope exaggerated ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... indignant at this open reference to what was no more than an unspoken vision. She had a thousand shy silent thoughts in her heart, but it was not for any one to drag them into the light. Lady Latimer understood that she had said too much, but she would not retract, and in this way their contention began. They were henceforward visibly in opposition. Mr. Harry Musgrave called the next morning ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr
... things calm and patient that would make a man flinch and shy off like a balky horse, and visey versey. I wouldn't want to represent Josiah lots of times, breakin' colts, ploughin' greensward, cuttin' cord-wood etc., etc. Men and wimmen want equal legal rights to represent themselves and their own sex which are different, and always ...
— Samantha on the Woman Question • Marietta Holley
... constructed. A sworn admirer of Mr. Brown's Betsy Lee and The Doctor has no doubt great advantage over other people in approaching The Manxman. Who, that has read his Fo'c's'le Yarns worthily, can fail to feel kindly towards the little island and its shy, home-loving folk? And—by what means I do not know—Mr. Hall Caine has managed from time to time to catch Mr. Brown's very humor and set it to shine on his page. The secret, I suppose, is their common possession as ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... job with Udell. I was there last night and had a talk with him. He aint got no friends and stays in the office nights alone. I just thought I'd tell you. He's shy of Christians though, and proud as an old turkey gobbler in the spring. But he needs somebody to talk to more'n anything else, that's all." And the old man turned ...
— That Printer of Udell's • Harold Bell Wright
... represented as a little coy maiden, whose short silver-gray dress reaches a little below the knee, and displays to advantage her delicately formed limbs. The sweet face, which is partly averted, reveals a pair of large blue eyes, which appear to look at you with wondering surprise and shy mistrust; {169} her pale, golden hair is bound by the faintest ...
— Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome • E.M. Berens
... the sight of another white handbill in the middle of the road caused him to shy to one side. Both boys were unseated, and Sam would have gone to the ground had not ...
— The Rover Boys on the River - The Search for the Missing Houseboat • Arthur Winfield
... deeply over these twin feasts, and it has occurred to me that, whilst land sports and water sports are both of them very good things in their way, neither expresses the real genius of a maritime resort, and also that we visitors, if we are too shy to enter with gusto into the local games, ought to provide some suitable entertainment in return. I have compiled therefore a programme of a Grand Beach Gala for next week, and have had a notice put up in the post-office window inviting entries. Not many people buy stamps at the post-office, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 1st, 1920 • Various
... a senior when he was a junior; and had then and ever after shared each other's confidence. Mr. Trent, I gathered, had from the very first been in love with my mother, even when she was a little girl; but he was poor and shy, and did not like to speak. When he had made up his mind to do so, he found that she had by then met my father, and could not help seeing that they loved each other. So he was silent. He told me he had never said a word about it to anyone—not ...
— The Lady of the Shroud • Bram Stoker
... trees, and beasts and fishes, and for flinging a kind of spiritual interest over these things, he did more than he perhaps intended toward consolidating the fame of his accidental human sojourn. He was as shy and ungregarious as Hawthorne; but he and the latter appear to have been sociably disposed towards each other, and there are some charming touches in the preface to the Mosses in regard to the hours they spent in boating together on the large, quiet Concord river. ...
— Hawthorne - (English Men of Letters Series) • Henry James, Junr.
... hushed, They yearned in sighs That shook the world—tumultuously heaved To a great throne of azure laced with light And canopied in foam to grace their queen. Shrieking for joy came O-ce-an'i-des, And swift Ner-e'i-des rushed from afar, Or clove the waters by. Came eager-eyed Even shy Na-i'a-des from inland streams, With wild cries headlong darting through the waves; And Dryads from the shore stretched their long arms, While, hoarsely sounding, heard was Triton's shell; Shoutings uncouth, bewildered sounds, And innumerable splashing ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... myself as well as I could behind a chair, for I was shy, and watched little Stella Carson, who was the squire's only child, giving the children presents off the tree. She was dressed as Father Christmas, with some soft white stuff round her lovely little face, and she had large dark eyes, which I ...
— Allan's Wife • H. Rider Haggard
... keep it from her; and for nights afterward, according to his mother she had not been able to sleep. He himself had tried of late to distract her. He had asked her to ride with him; he had brought her books and flowers. To no avail. She was very short and shy with him; only happy, apparently, with his mother, to whom her devotion was extraordinary. To her own mother, so Lady Tatham reported, she was as good—as gentle even—as her temperament allowed. But there was ...
— The Mating of Lydia • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the fate of our darlings together; we berated in chorus the white-aproned but bloodstained fraternity who prowled about us. When she went away for a moment I minded the pigs, and when I strolled about she minded my cow. How shy the innocent beast was of those carnal market men. How she would shrink away from them. When they put out a hand to feel her condition she would "scrooch" down her back, or bend this way or that, as if the hand were a branding iron. So long as I stood by her head she felt safe—deluded creature—and ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various
... neck, might have served as a model to an Athenian sculptor. There was nothing in the face, however, to recall the regular beauty of the East. It was Anglo-Saxon to the last feature, with its honest breadth between the eyes and its nascent moustache, a shade lighter in colour than the sun-burned skin. Shy, and yet strong; plain, and yet pleasing; it was the face of a type of man who has little to say for himself in this world, and says that little badly, but who has done more than all the talkers and the writers to ring this planet round with a crimson ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... by a servant, stalked forward, booted and fully equipped, my travelling companion—if such a word can at all express the relation between the arrogant young blood, just fresh from assuming the toga virilis, and a modest child of profound sensibilities, but shy and reserved beyond even English reserve. The aged servant, with apparently constrained civility, presented my mother's compliments to him, with a request that he would take breakfast. This he hastily and rather peremptorily declined. Me, however, he condescended to notice with an ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... knew that capital was shy and that conditions were not favourable, his thoughts always reverted to a man he might be willing to go into such a scheme with—the president of the Shadow Hill ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers
... knew little of him personally, he shunned publicity, he was not a seeker after popularity. Though he had few personal friends, he was endeared to that chosen few in a way unique and rare. He was shy and reserved about the deep things of life, but a charming companion in ordinary ways—very amusing and agreeable. He had a great sense of humor, and his rapid intuition gave him a wonderful insight into character, and he soon arrived ...
— World's War Events, Vol. II • Various
... she said, "was Elsie always as shy as she seems to be now, in talking with those to whom she ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 41, March, 1861 • Various
... during which they were both shy and extraordinarily happy, they took a taxi-cab and drove to a ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter
... sunshine in a pool Floats in her parlour still and cool; While the slim bird its lean wires shakes, As into piercing song it breaks; Till Peter's pale-green eyes ajar Dream, wake; wake, dream, in one brief bar. And I am sitting, dull and shy, And ...
— Collected Poems 1901-1918 in Two Volumes - Volume I. • Walter de la Mare
... twelve miles from Birmingham, and that both his house and his forefathers were well known as the home and patrons of literary men: Thomson, Pope and other poets have described and apostrophized Hagley. The late owner was a good antiquary and writer, but in society he was painfully shy. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... the Government is broken up just now, but it is quite clear that they cannot go on long; it is a question of months. The Duke of Wellington told me yesterday that he could do nothing, and he will be rather shy of giving to the world a second volume of that old business in which he got so bedevilled two ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. III • Charles C. F. Greville
... to time as I looked at him, he caught my eye and instantly averted his own, turning rather red. Apparently he was a shy, nervous man, which might account for his giggling; for I have noticed that shy or nervous people have a habit of smiling inopportunely and even giggling when embarrassed by meeting an over-steady eye. And it seemed my own eye had this disconcerting ...
— The Mystery of 31 New Inn • R. Austin Freeman
... 'doubloons, doubloons,' because it was got in the Spanish Main and brought here in a ship. And he said there was treasure, heaps of it, in the bottom of the Cat's Mouth, where ships had sunk, gold pieces all in amongst the ribs of dead men. Mr. Pendarves,"—she looked at me with a shy, awed sympathy,—"I ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... sheep—he drew the solemn inference that happiness may come if not sought, but if looked for will never be seen; for next to the favor of Hastur, who never disclosed himself, Haita most valued the friendly interest of his neighbors, the shy immortals of the wood and stream. At nightfall he drove his flock back to the fold, saw that the gate was secure and retired to his cave for refreshment ...
— Can Such Things Be? • Ambrose Bierce
... but sighing inwardly, Guthrie followed his host to the room in the old part of the house which he called his office. Mr Pennycuick carefully shut the door, opened a desk full of drawers and pigeon-holes, and brought forth a bit of cardboard with a shy air. He had never shown it to his family, and doubtless would not have shown it now if he had not been growing old and soft and sentimental. It was a prim and niggling little water-colour drawing of English Redford—a flat facade, with swallows as big as condors flying ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... private character. That impressed itself insensibly upon us as worthy of the highest respect. But it was simply from the natural effluence of a noble character, for we came rarely into anything like personal intimacy with him. He was reserved and even shy, and I doubt if any of us knew much more of him privately than I ...
— Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman • Giberne Sieveking
... went down into Yorkshire before I began this book, in very severe winter time which is pretty faithfully described herein. As I wanted to see a schoolmaster or two, and was forewarned that those gentlemen might, in their modesty, be shy of receiving a visit from the author of the "Pickwick Papers," I consulted with a professional friend who had a Yorkshire connexion, and with whom I concerted a pious fraud. He gave me some letters of introduction, in the name, I think, of my travelling companion; they bore ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... not be condemned for being a little shy and incoherent; all new ideas are shy when introduced first among our old ones. We should have patience and see whether the incoherency is likely to wear off or to wear on, in which latter case the sooner we get rid of ...
— The Note-Books of Samuel Butler • Samuel Butler
... may be, but he is no coward," interrupted La Mothe hastily. He foresaw what was coming and had all a shy man's horror of being thanked. "He sat his horse like a little hero. There is no such courage as ...
— The Justice of the King • Hamilton Drummond
... talked India and ragged Tara, in a big-brotherly way, ignored Christine, as if five and a half simply didn't count. That roused Roy; and by way of tacit rebuke, he bestowed such marked attention on his small sister, that Christine (who adored him, and was feeling miserably shy) sparkled like a dewdrop ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... after him. Why, he is thirty now, and will be settling down into a confirmed old bachelor before long. It's the greatest kindness we could do him, to take Minnie on board; and I am sure he is the sort of man any girl might fall in love with when she gets to know him. The fact is, he's shy! He never had any sisters, and spends all his time in winter at that horrid club; so that really he has never had any women's society, and even with us he will never come unless he knows we are alone. I call it a great pity, for I don't ...
— Among Malay Pirates - And Other Tales Of Adventure And Peril • G. A. Henty
... hand, and clasped it for a brief instant in a warm strong pressure, but dropped it again and there was a quick cold withdrawing of his eyes that she did not understand. The old Mark Carter would never have looked at her coolly, impersonally like that. What was it, was he shy of her after the long separation? Four years was a long time, of course, but there had been occasional letters. He had always been away when she was at home, and she had been home very little between her ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill
... entertain them. It was a dull, thankless position, perhaps, to be so far removed from the excitement and glamor, to be always playing or singing into a little wooden box and never catching a glimpse of the fun that was going on at the other end of the line; but since Mr. Watson was a rather shy person it is possible he was quite as well pleased. After all, it was Mr. Bell whom everybody wanted to see and of course Mr. Watson understood this. Therefore he was quite content to act his modest role and not only gather together at his end of the wire cornet ...
— Ted and the Telephone • Sara Ware Bassett
... came slowly towards her, hesitating, making a shy bright little cotillion on the dark clear water. Their gay bright candour moved her so much as they came near, that she was almost ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... shrank from asking, "Is civilization unethical, or wrong, or bad?" For nowadays we find moral judgments more attractive when they are disguised or at least slightly veiled. When we are really curious to know what is good, we become shy; we are not sure that our neighbors may not put a cynical interpretation upon any appearance of enthusiasm in our effort to find out what is right. Anticipating such delicacy in my prospective audience of to-night, I threw a physiological drapery, not to say pathological, ...
— Is civilization a disease? • Stanton Coit
... pretty strictly to her corner all that evening. She was generally shy of strangers, and none of these were sufficiently attractive to make her break through her usual habits. Least attractive of all, to her, was the lovely Lady de Narbonne. Her light, airy ways, which seemed to enchant the Earl's knights and squires, simply disgusted Maude. She was the perpetual ...
— The White Rose of Langley - A Story of the Olden Time • Emily Sarah Holt
... position he filled in Sangamon County in 1835 was not all due to these qualities; much was due to his personal charm. By all accounts he was big, awkward, ill-clad, shy—yet his sterling honor, his unselfish nature, his heart of the true gentleman, inspired respect and confidence. Men might laugh at his first appearance, but they were not long in recognizing the real ...
— McClure's Magazine, Volume VI, No. 3. February 1896 • Various
... than the snow-flake that falls upon a child's warm mouth can be melted into a drop of water, caused Inger's petrified figure to evaporate, and a little bird arose, following the zigzag course of the ray, up towards the world that mankind inhabit. But it seemed afraid and shy of everything around it; it felt ashamed of itself; and apparently wishing to avoid all living creatures, it sought, in haste, concealment in a dark recess in a crumbling wall. Here it sat, and it crept ...
— The Sand-Hills of Jutland • Hans Christian Andersen
... blinks dull and shy, And the lady's eyes, they shrunk in her head, Each shrunk up to a serpent's eye, And with somewhat of malice, and more of dread At Christabel she looked askance!— One moment,—and the sight was fled! But Christabel in dizzy trance, Stumbling on the unsteady ground— Shudder'd ...
— The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - 1838 • James Gillman
... loved those old times exceedingly! When the Company had not yet come to Selangor, when all were shy of Si-Hamid, and none dared face his kris, the "Chinese Axe." I never felt the grip of poverty in those times, for my supplies were ever at the tip of my dagger, and they were few who dared withhold aught which ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford
... gen'leman to do. I should have pointed out to him as he did wrong last time in going off, and what a lot of injury it did him; and he knew it, or else he wouldn't have kep' it so close, and gone without letting me know. But once bit twice shy, and I'm not going to be bit again. I'm not going to break my heart fancying he's made a hole in the water. That's what set me thinking about the lieutenant as I did. If he wasn't one of the easiest-going bits o' human machinery ...
— The Queen's Scarlet - The Adventures and Misadventures of Sir Richard Frayne • George Manville Fenn
... well placed apartments. He had been furnished with letters of recommendation to a gentleman who might have assisted him; but when he landed at Fort St. George he found that this gentleman had sailed for England. The lad's shy and haughty disposition withheld him from introducing himself to strangers. He was several months in India before he became acquainted with a single family. The climate affected his health and spirits. His duties were of a kind ill-suited to his ardent and daring character. He pined ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... would," Will replied. "Outlaws of the Cameron stamp resort to all sorts of tricks and crimes, but they usually fight shy of murder. I'm afraid, however, that the boys will be starved or ...
— The Call of the Beaver Patrol - or, A Break in the Glacier • V. T. Sherman
... following Molly about as bad as Billy Moore does. But don't you all say a word, for John's mighty timid, and I don't believe, in spite of all these years, he's had a single notion yet. If he had had he'd have tried a set-to with you, Molly, like all the rest of the shy birds in town. He doesn't see a woman as anything but a patient at the end of a spoon, and mighty kind and gentle he does the dosing of them, too. Just the other day—dearie me, Judy, what has boiled over now?" And in the excitement that ensued I ...
— The Melting of Molly • Maria Thompson Daviess
... earnest purpose, Mr. Dalton laid his strong warm hand upon my head and turned my tearful face towards him. There was a hovering smile around the pale, calm countenance that met my shy and half averted look. ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"
... under the arrows of Rama. The heads, that once, sustained on Siva's breast, shone with heavenly splendour, now lie beneath the vulture's talons. Mandodari bewails the death of her husband. Sita is recovered, but Rama is rather shy of his bride, until her purity is established by her passing through the fiery ordeal: a test she successfully undergoes. Rama returns with Sita and his friends to Ayodhya, when Angada challenges them all to fight him, as it is now time to revenge his father's death. A voice from heaven, however, ...
— Tales from the Hindu Dramatists • R. N. Dutta
... gray and blue, lush with the early tenderness of leaves, the pink azaleas open light-shy eyes like pupils of albinos, sloughing off delicate pods that smoulder, when the wind blows, live coals among the gray of furnace ashes. Here are magenta carpets fit for leprechauns, when crescent moons glimmer upon the ocher ponds, and the ...
— Carolina Chansons - Legends of the Low Country • DuBose Heyward and Hervey Allen
... was shy and awkward in her attire as a boy, and indeed had there been time the night before to procure a disguise for her as a girl it would have been done, although Harry's opinion that it would attract less ...
— In the Reign of Terror - The Adventures of a Westminster Boy • G. A. Henty
... that—but we had no open break for I love him dearly, for all my opposing ways, and he saw that, and it helped, though he did say after I had given my promise to stop where I was and never to take up such work again, that—" here she stole a shy look at the face bent so eagerly towards her—"that I had lost my social status and need never hope now for the attentions of—of—well, of such men as he admires and puts faith in. So you see," her dimples all showing, ...
— The Golden Slipper • Anna Katharine Green
... new-comer they looked pasty-faced, spiritless beings. The prints that the girls were dressed in were rather washed out; Peter had outgrown his suit. They were ill-clad, shy, ...
— Queensland Cousins • Eleanor Luisa Haverfield
... was a little enhanced by the loves of Prince Louis of Hesse and the Princess Alice. He had arrived the night before, almost a stranger to her" (a mistake), "but as her suitor. At first they were very shy, but they soon reminded me of Ferdinand and Miranda in the Tempest, and I ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen, (Victoria) Vol II • Sarah Tytler
... in words. Not a syllable could he utter. He was so shy that he could think of nothing better than to run away, although he longed to stay. Hastily he got his hat on his head and his leather bag on his back. Then he ran away through the clumps ...
— Invisible Links • Selma Lagerlof
... a sort of vegetable cream-puff, the succulent tuki-taki, pale-green with red dots, a natural cross between the banana and the cocoanut, having the taste of neither, and the numerous crawling things, the whistling-ants and shy, lamp-eyed lily-bugs (anchoridae flamens) who flashed ...
— The Cruise of the Kawa • Walter E. Traprock
... station and rapidly disgorged its crowd of passengers, amongst whom Julian was one of the first to alight. Catherine found herself trembling. The shy words of welcome which had formed themselves in her mind died away on her lips as their glances met. She lifted ...
— The Devil's Paw • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... visits; but Young Gerard was as patient as the earth, and did not begin to look for her till April. As surely as it brought leaves to the trees and flowers to the grass, it would, he knew, bring his little mistress's question, half shy, half smiling, "Is your cherry-tree in blossom, shepherd?" And later her request, ...
— Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard • Eleanor Farjeon
... to perch on the low boughs above his head, where they chirped to him as if he were a feathered brother. There was nothing about the building of nests with which he was not familiar. He could have helped in the task, if the birds had not been so shy, and if he had possessed beak and claw instead of clumsy fingers. He would sit near a beehive for hours without moving, or lie prone in the sandy road, under the full glare of the sun, watching the ants ...
— A Village Stradivarius • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... a little child is born, All night a soft wind rocks the corn, One more butter-cup wakes to the morn, Somewhere. One more rose-bud shy will unfold, One more grass-blade push through the mould, One more bird's song ...
— Graded Memory Selections • Various
... crowd of children. Two boys had gone away. There remained two growing girls; a shy midget of eight; John, tall, awkward, and eighteen; Jim, younger, quicker, and better looking; and two babies of indefinite age. Then there was Josie herself. She seemed to be the center of the family: always busy at service, or at home, or berry-picking; a little nervous and ...
— The Upward Path - A Reader For Colored Children • Various
... weight in gold; his dreams, a credit to the bed he slept on; and his feelings, like blind puppies, young and alive to the milk of love and kindness which they drew from his heart. Most of this delight escaped the observation of the world, for Neal, like your true lover, became shy and mysterious. It is difficult to say what he resembled; no dark lantern ever had more light shut up within itself, than Neal had in his soul, although his friends were not aware of it. They knew, indeed, that he had turned ...
— Phelim O'toole's Courtship and Other Stories • William Carleton
... all been so since the start." He turned to the window again, raised his hat to it, walked quickly out into the road and made his way to the View hotel. As he came upon the veranda Mildred Margrave passed him. He saw the shy look of interest in her face, and with simple courtesy he raised his hat. She bowed and went on. He turned and looked after her; then, shaking his head as if to dismiss an unreasonable thought, entered ...
— An Unpardonable Liar • Gilbert Parker
... from nature's self. He began by merely picking up shells, as a child picks them up, because they were pretty; until, while still a lad, he had a very complete collection all nicely arranged in a cabinet and labeled. Youth being past, the shy and lonely young man began to study botany, which he pursued until he had seen and felt everything that grew in Caithness. Next he studied insects, and studied with such zeal that in nine months he had collected, of beetles ...
— Captains of Industry - or, Men of Business Who Did Something Besides Making Money • James Parton
... increased his salary by another L100 a year, he usually had a nag for the season. This, however, was not attained till he was able to count five years' service in the Weights and Measures. He was, as a boy, somewhat shy and reserved in his manners, and as he became older he did not shake off the fault. He showed it, however, rather among men than with women, and, indeed, in spite of his love of exercise, he preferred the society of ladies to any of the bachelor gaieties of his unmarried acquaintance. He ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... way to please people was a good way," retorted Sally, saying more with her eyes than with her voice,—so much more, that in fact this fly was fast. A little puff of wind blew off Sally's bonnet; she looked shy, flushed, lovely. George stood up on his feet, and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... begrudge us, and we'll take Our leave of bones and puppy cake. Back to the woods we'll hie, and there Thou'lt hunt the fleet but fearful hare, Pursue the hedge's prickly pig, Dine upon rabbits' eggs and dig With practised paw and eager snuffle The shy but oh! ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 152, Feb. 7, 1917 • Various
... here dropped the conversation; but it was one of Wildrake's marked peculiarities, that he could never let matters stand when they were well. He continued to plague the shy, proud, and awkward lad with his observations. "You speak your national dialect pretty strongly, Master Girnigo," said he, "but I think not quite the language of the gallants that I have known among the Scottish cavaliers—I knew, for example, some of the ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... for their preaching, and would often go up into the pulpits of the churches, where large crowds gathered to hear them, the Bishop even inviting St. Francis to preach in the cathedral. Now, among the brethren there was one called Ruffino, who was very shy and nervous and felt he simply couldn't preach and face a great crowd of people, all staring at him and waiting for his words. Now, St. Francis hated that any of his Friars should give in to themselves about anything. He also loved them to obey quickly, and do everything they ...
— Stories of the Saints by Candle-Light • Vera C. Barclay
... within a few yards of one of our wagons, and some of the drivers peppered them with bullets from their pistols. Though these frightened droves could not be stopped, they would shy to the right or left if an unusual commotion was made in time in front of them. When a drove, at some distance, seemed to be headed toward our train, we often ran toward it, yelling, firing guns, and waving articles of clothing. ...
— A Gold Hunter's Experience • Chalkley J. Hambleton
... that eye, which, wild as the Gazelle's, Now brightly bold or beautifully shy, Wins as it wanders, dazzles where it dwells,[17] Glance o'er this page, nor to my verse deny That smile for which my breast might vainly sigh Could I to thee be ever more than friend: This much, dear Maid, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... impunity, I was tempted one day to follow up a most romantic glen in search of a sketch, when I came upon a remarkably handsome peasant girl, driving a donkey before her loaded with wood. My sudden appearance on the narrow path made the animal shy against a projecting piece of rock, off which he rebounded to the edge of the path, which, giving way, precipitated him and his load down the ravine. He was brought up unhurt against a bush some twenty feet below, the ...
— Fashionable Philosophy - and Other Sketches • Laurence Oliphant
... taught to feed themselves. The fishermen would help, but Arthur could only hope that they would prove equal to the occasion. He did not know what to expect from them. From the hunters he expected but little. The Indians were wary hunters, and game would be shy if ...
— The Runaway Skyscraper • Murray Leinster
... git enough grass to keep him in shape. And them hobbles won't burn him. Any time you're shy of hobbles, ...
— Partners of Chance • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... kept the walls that used to separate their chamber and his painting room removed; so that a single essence filled both rooms. And here, as he worked silently day after day, it seemed to him that she had learned to come. At first shy, undecided, in some far corner of the space she watched him; then, taking courage, would drift near. She leaned now by his shoulder, as he worked. Always it was the left shoulder. He could feel her breath—colder indeed than from ...
— The Dragon Painter • Mary McNeil Fenollosa
... the attempt to secure the hand of the beautiful Miss Effingham, and not daring to risk another trial, as it might spoil the plans he had been contemplating since Edith's dismissal of him, he had kept shy of that young lady during the remainder of his stay, and prior to his departure for London, he had contrived to have a long interview with the Baronet, during which he very ably showed the position that ...
— Vellenaux - A Novel • Edmund William Forrest
... I knew I was plain and shy, and made friends slowly. So I chose such pleasures as should be under my own control, and could never fail me. They make my life so much happier and more precious than it was ten years ago, that ...
— Autumn Leaves - Original Pieces in Prose and Verse • Various
... excessive competition in the fertile areas, heavy fixed charges on inflated capital or leased roads, water competition, absentee proprietorship, all played their part. Whatever the causes, the results were clear, and capitalists long fought shy of Canadian ...
— The Railway Builders - A Chronicle of Overland Highways • Oscar D. Skelton
... a sad, hopeless face!" exclaimed one of the college girls whom the others called "Muffit." "If she were an American girl I'd ask her to walk with us. But English girls are so reserved and shy, and I am afraid it would ...
— Mildred's Inheritance - Just Her Way; Ann's Own Way • Annie Fellows Johnston
... caught-in laugh. "Look me up, Dicky, between you and me! Never mind, you funny, shy, big boy, you shall put it that way if you like. As a matter of fact, I am going to stay at the Knightsbridge Hotel for a week or so on my way through to my husband's people. Why ...
— To Love • Margaret Peterson
... man of forty-six, and a tale writer of some twenty-four years' standing, when "The Scarlet Letter" appeared. He was born at Salem, Mass., on July 4th, 1804, son of a sea-captain. He led there a shy and rather sombre life; of few artistic encouragements, yet not wholly uncongenial, his moody, intensely meditative temperament being considered. Its colours and shadows are marvelously reflected in his "Twice-Told ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... "Fight shy of both of them. They're no good. They'll make you and your chums do all the work, now you've come ...
— The Wizard of the Sea - A Trip Under the Ocean • Roy Rockwood
... duck were shot, as well as a few brent-geese, but these birds appeared remarkably shy and wary, although ...
— Stray Leaves from an Arctic Journal; • Sherard Osborn
... father was dead, and she lived with her mother, a woman of low degree, who had been a cook before marrying her master. Either for this reason, or on account of the indisputable ugliness of her face, the Indians fought shy of her; although her exaggerated idea of her position exacted a certain respect in society. Her face was hideous, with irregular features, marked with erysipelas, and disfigured by red patches about the nostrils. She only retained one feminine taste, and that was for dancing, which was ...
— The Grandee • Armando Palacio Valds
... as I looked at him, he caught my eye and instantly averted his own, turning rather red. Apparently he was a shy, nervous man, which might account for his giggling; for I have noticed that shy or nervous people have a habit of smiling inopportunely and even giggling when embarrassed by meeting an over-steady eye. And it seemed my own eye had this disconcerting quality, for even as ...
— The Mystery of 31 New Inn • R. Austin Freeman
... them and find out," said Mrs. Brewster. "Here, you girls," she said, "every one of you go home and get your mother." Delightedly the girls obeyed, and the mothers came, a little backward, some of them, a little shy, pathetically eager, and decidedly breathless. Migwan's mother, Mrs. Gardiner, had known Mrs. Brewster in her girlhood, and Nakwisi's mother had known Mrs. Evans, and Chapa's and Medmangi's mothers had known each other. What a happy reunion ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at School • Hildegard G. Frey
... good boys," said Mr. Beasley. "But it seems like you're too shy and quiet ever to make much of a lawyer, Irving—or a teacher," he added, ...
— The Jester of St. Timothy's • Arthur Stanwood Pier
... blew a great blast, and the thread was gone. In the air Nowhere Was a moonbeam bare; Far off and harmless the shy stars shone— Sure and certain ...
— Childhood's Favorites and Fairy Stories - The Young Folks Treasury, Volume 1 • Various
... jealously even from her girl friends or her nearest relatives? What more romantic than the tortures and tragedies, the mixed emotions, that doubt or jealousy gives rise to? Does not a willing but coyly reserved maiden romance about her feelings? What could be more fanciful and romantic than her shy reserve and coldness when she is longing to throw herself into the lover's arms? Is not her proud belief that her lover—probably as commonplace and foolish a fellow as ever lived—is a hero or a genius a romantic exaggeration? Is ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... a public school, I was shy, and reserved, but greedily listened to all the lewed talk, of which I did not believe a great deal. I became one of a group of boys of the same tastes as myself. One day some of them coaxed me into a privy, and there, in spite of me, pulled ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... porter, Malcolm felt doubly wretched as he was ushered into the hall and the buzz of talk and the confusion made by the attendance of the worthy knight and his many sons, one of whom, waiting with better will than skill, had nearly run down the shy limping Scotsman, who looked wildly for refuge at some table. In his height of distress, a kindly gesture of invitation beckoned to him, and he found himself seated and addressed, first in French, and then in careful foreign English, by the same lady whom he had yesterday taken for Joan of Somerset, ...
— The Caged Lion • Charlotte M. Yonge
... on my theory, and they got my money. Perhaps the theory of Bannerman was wrong. He claimed he knew just how the capitalists were robbing labor. Suppose we backed his theory with some money and got stung? I was now theory shy and I have stayed away ...
— The Iron Puddler • James J. Davis
... intimate with them. The equality of companionship was wanting. Boys he knew, and with them he could hold his own and yet be on affectionate terms. But girls were strange to him, and in their presence he was shy. With this lack of understanding of the other sex, grew up a sort of awe of it. His opportunities of this kind of study were so few that the ...
— The Man • Bram Stoker
... "The shy sweet girls, from window high In wonder peep at the sparks that fly From our horses heels, as down the street Of the earl's town we ride so fleet. Spur on!—that every pretty lass May hear our horse-hoofs as we pass Clatter upon the ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson
... first week in April that the Fearless steamed into St. John's harbor, and Bobby for the first time in his life saw a city, and great buildings, and railway trains, and horses—horses were his great mark of admiration—and very shy he was, for he had been transported to a world that was ...
— Bobby of the Labrador • Dillon Wallace
... upon her shy, sweet loveliness, what time her bosom rose and fell tempestuous, and she ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol
... to devour the finny race; and thither came, on like errand, the splendidly-plumed kingfisher. The magpie chattered, the jay screamed and flew deeper into the woods as the horsemen approached, and the shy bittern hid herself amid the rushes. Occasionally, too, was heard the deep ominous ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... to me, my darling, whom I despaired of ever seeing again—she came shy and coy, I thought, but love was shining from ...
— The Birthright • Joseph Hocking
... smile, thou wilt conquer all hearts with thy prevailing gentleness, and I will show the world what Shakespear's women were!—Some gallants set their hearts on princesses; others descend in imagination to women of quality; others are mad after opera-singers. For my part, I am shy even of actresses, and should not think of leaving my card with Madame Vestris. I am for none of these bonnes fortunes; but for a list of humble beauties, servant-maids and shepherd-girls, with their red elbows, ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... was very shy, and when she heard that Sayen was coming to her house she hid behind the door and sent her servant, Laey, out to meet him. And so it happened that Sayen, not seeing Danepan, married Laey, thinking that she was her beautiful mistress. He took her away to a house he had built at the ...
— Philippine Folk Tales • Mabel Cook Cole
... frightened, and in their excited flight one struck against a neighbor's window and was badly stunned. My husband, who chanced to be near at the time, picked up the injured one and brought it home. My three daughters, who at times had had pet horses, snakes, turtles, and rats, welcomed this shy little stranger and at once set about caring for her injuries. Just before "Bob" had fully recovered, there came a heavy fall of snow, which was followed by such a succession of storms that we concluded to keep her with us, provided she was willing to stay. We gave her the freedom of the house. For ...
— Wild Life on the Rockies • Enos A. Mills
... shall remain buried in the archives of his own La Mancha until Heaven provide some one to garnish him with all those things he stands in need of; because I find myself, through my shallowness and want of learning, unequal to supplying them, and because I am by nature shy and careless about hunting for authors to say what I myself can say without them. Hence the cogitation and abstraction you found me in, and reason enough, what you have ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... Shy sylvan spirit singing so sweetly, Dancing to measures that flow with your song Frolic your fairy feet faultlessly, fleetly, As down the ...
— Our Profession and Other Poems • Jared Barhite
... the remains of her precious fifty dollars, insisted on advancing this; and on the first Sunday morning the young Italian, looking very pretty but rather shy, took her place in Miss Etta's class, and was at once enrolled among ...
— Katie Robertson - A Girls Story of Factory Life • Margaret E. Winslow
... silent and depressed; but, true to our agreement, I asked no questions, and she volunteered no explanation. She said she was not going to church, but later on she changed her mind. I think she saw that I was disappointed, and a trifle shy at going alone, so off we went together— Charmion a marvel of unobtrusive elegance in grey, and I "taking the eye" in sapphire-blue—along the breezy lane, past the closed gates of Uplands, through the shuttered High Street into the tiny square, in a corner of which the church ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... send them unto you; And if they are not all your due, Once they have looked into your face Your graciousness will give them place. You know they were not born to bloom Like roses in a crowded room; For though courageous they are shy, Loving but one sweet hand and eye. Ah, should you take them to the rest, The warmth, the shelter of your breast, Since on the bleak And frozen bosom of our snows They dared to smile, on yours who knows But that they ...
— Songs of Two • Arthur Sherburne Hardy
... Charles is shy and very modest, and no bigger than so many French youths—he is only twenty-two—with dark-brown hair and blue eyes with very black centres, and a moustache that never succeeds in looking more than three weeks old. Being, however, brave, he does not let his maimed condition unduly trouble him, but ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, March 29, 1916 • Various
... sometimes a-near. All-marring 'ARRY'S exuberant voice, With music strange and manifold, Howling out choruses loud and bold As when Bank-holidayites rejoice With concertinas, and the many-holed Shrill whistle of tin, till the riot is rolled Through shy backwaters, where swan-nests are; And greasy scraps of the Echo or Star, Waifs from the cads' oleaginous feeds, Emitting odours reekingly rank, Drift under the clumps of the water-weeds, And broken ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, August 9, 1890. • Various
... numerous and of two different kinds, the grey and blue: they were great enemies to the young chickens, and it was no unusual sight to see them take up the rats. Quails and curlews are plentiful, but very shy. The owls, which have very handsome plumage, make a noise like one man calling to another, and they pronounce the word "yaho" very distinctly. Many of the smaller birds have a most melodious note, and their ...
— An Historical Journal of the Transactions at Port Jackson and Norfolk Island • John Hunter
... he had existed, probably forgotten by the world, for six years. It was by an act of grace that the duke safely placed Oldys in the Heralds' College as Norroy King of Arms.[341] But Oldys, like all shy and retired men, had contracted peculiar habits and close attachments for a few; both these he could indulge at no distance. He liked his old associates in the purlieus of the Fleet, whom he facetiously dignified as "his Rulers," and there, as I have heard, with the grotesque whim of a herald, ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... As a good hawk, who duck or woodcock shy, Partridge or pigeon, or such other prey, Seeing towards her from a distance fly, Raises her head, and shows her blithe and gay; So Mandricardo, in security Of crushing Rodomont in that affray, Gladly his courser seized, bestrode the seat, Reined him, and in the ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... especially the awkward youths new to such scenes, and the bashful girls conscious of faded muslins and cleaned gloves. It was pleasant to see stately Mrs Amy promenade on the arm of a tall country boy, with thick boots and a big forehead, or Mrs Jo dance like a girl with a shy fellow whose arms went like pump-handles, and whose face was scarlet with confusion and pride at the honour of treading on the toes of the president's wife. Mrs Meg always had room on her sofa for two or three girls, and Mr Laurie devoted ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... and misdemeanors, such as getting into the dairy and lapping the cream from the bowls, and stealing meat or anything that happened to be on the table, as soon as ever she had a chance. For these and other acts of transgression she frequently got a good whipping, so that she was very shy of going into ...
— The Life and Adventures of Poor Puss • Lucy Gray
... distance off. But they knew his gait and his figure well, and the clothes he used to wear; and they could tell the beast he laid his hand on by its color—white, dun, or black; and that beast was sure to sicken and die. The neighbors grew shy of taking the path over the park; and no one liked to walk in the woods, or come inside the bounds of Barwyke; and the cattle went on ...
— A Stable for Nightmares - or Weird Tales • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... every moment a stranger among them all. Fortunately the innate kindliness of these children of the soil prevented any chaffing remarks being made about the silence of the bride. It is always an understood thing that brides are shy and nervous, and though there had been known cases in Marosfalva where a bride had been very lively and talkative at her "maiden's farewell" it was, on the whole, considered more seemly to preserve a semi-tearful attitude, seeing that a girl on the eve of her marriage is saying good-bye to her ...
— A Bride of the Plains • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... had been a school-fellow—that is to say, she had been one of the older girls when Philippa, a shy child of fourteen, had arrived, unhappy and awkward, among a crowd of new faces in an unknown land. Marion Wells, as she then was, was one of those people in whom the motherly instinct is strong, even in youth. She had taken Philippa under ...
— East of the Shadows • Mrs. Hubert Barclay
... of humanity have been irresistibly attracted to Him, never weary of studying Him. And the utterance of this cry is the culminating moment to which the inquiring mind specially turns. Theology has its centre in the cross. Sometimes, indeed, it has been shy of it, and has divagated from it in wide circles; but, as soon as it becomes profound and humble again, it ...
— The Trial and Death of Jesus Christ - A Devotional History of our Lord's Passion • James Stalker
... at the shy, half-hesitating way in which the last word slipped from the rich red lips, and the tender, loving light in the soft eyes as they met the fond, admiring ...
— Elsie's Womanhood • Martha Finley
... obtain Dr. Lee's advice as to future management. Her coming was great joy to Cherry, who had dreaded the meeting almost with a sense of guilt, though still hoping Felix had been silent on her motive; and Wilmet did not betray him, but only treated her sister with a mixture of almost shy tenderness and reverence. Nor did Cherry dare to ask a question as to Wilmet's own affairs, nor even about Ferdinand Travis, lest she should seem to be leading in that direction. However, Wilmet, in a persuasive tone, communicated ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... from France. Budaeus, Cop, Etienne Poncher, Bishop of Paris, wrote to him that the king, the youthful Francis I, would present him with a generous prebend if he would come to Paris. Erasmus, always shy of being tied down, only wrote polite, evasive answers, and did ...
— Erasmus and the Age of Reformation • Johan Huizinga
... up reserved and shy; he went on tending the cattle and making songs. He was now in his twentieth year. The pastor lent him books to read, the only thing he ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol. I • Various
... the house, and found the door open and the bridge withdrawn. It was plain, then, that Jimson must have come; plain, too, that he must be on board. He must be a very shy man to have suffered this invasion of his residence, and made no sign; and her courage rose higher at the thought. He must come now, she must force him from his privacy, for the plank was too heavy for her ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Leigh's heart began to beat, and she could almost have turned round and gone home again. Her country breeding had made her shy of strangers, and this Susan Palmer appeared to her like a real born lady by all accounts. So she knocked with a timid feeling at the indicated door, and when it was opened, dropped a simple curtsey ...
— Lizzie Leigh • Elizabeth Gaskell
... side was a much smaller one, and was occupied by Mr. Gregorius Lambkin. Mr. Gregorius Lambkin was a very shy and rather elderly bachelor. He issued from his front door every morning at half-past eight holding a neat little attache case in a neatly-gloved hand. He spent the day in an insurance office and returned, still unruffled and immaculate, at about half past six. Most people ...
— More William • Richmal Crompton
... which, for the sake of being original, should leave them out, would be like those verses where the letter A or E or some other is omitted? No,—they will bloom over and over again in poems as in the summer fields, to the end of time, always old and always new. Why should we be more shy of repeating ourselves than the spring be tired of blossoms or the night of stars? Look at Nature. She never wearies of saying over her floral pater-noster. In the crevices of Cyclopean walls,- -in the dust where men lie, dust also,—on the mounds ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... drumming in the distance, Rolling out his mimic thunder in the sultry noons; Hear beyond the silver reach in ringing wild persistence Reel remote the ululating laughter of the loons; See the shy moose fawn nestling by its mother, In a cool marsh pool where the sedges meet; Rest by a moss-mound where the twin-flowers smother With a drowse of orient perfume drenched in light ...
— Lundy's Lane and Other Poems • Duncan Campbell Scott
... occasion for her presence, one would think. Knox at least survived her; and we possess his epigraph to their long intimacy, given to the world by him in an appendix to his latest publication. I have said in a former paper that Knox was not shy of personal revelations in his published works. And the trick seems to have grown on him. To this last tract, a controversial onslaught on a Scottish Jesuit, he prefixed a prayer, not very pertinent to the matter in hand, ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson
... passionate entreaty. And the lanterns made a shining glory of her hair, and showed him the deep wonder of her eyes, the quick surge of her round, young bosom, the tender quiver of the parted lips as she waited his answer; thus our Barnabas beholding the witchery of her shy-drooping lashes, the scarlet lure of her mouth, the yielding warmth and all the ripe beauty of her, fell suddenly a-trembling and sighed; then, checking the sigh, looked away again across the dim desolation of the country-side, ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... a working man is more handicapped in than that of a Steam Boiler Stoker; there are no books on stoking; the man leaving his situation is not anxious to communicate with the man who is taking his place anything that might help or instruct him; and the new man will be shy of asking for information for fear of being thought incapable for the post he is seeking; and the transfer takes place almost in silence, and the new man has to find out all the ways and means at his own risk, sometimes at ...
— The Stoker's Catechism • W. J. Connor
... insensibly upon us as worthy of the highest respect. But it was simply from the natural effluence of a noble character, for we came rarely into anything like personal intimacy with him. He was reserved and even shy, and I doubt if any of us knew much more of him privately than ...
— Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman • Giberne Sieveking
... seen Lawrence in quite a different light that afternoon. Compared to John, he was an astoundingly difficult person to get to know. He was the opposite of his brother in almost every respect, being unusually shy and reserved. Yet he had a certain charm of manner, and I fancied that, if one really knew him well, one could have a deep affection for him. I had always fancied that his manner to Cynthia was rather constrained, and that ...
— The Mysterious Affair at Styles • Agatha Christie
... you so weak and small, A human child, not a god at all; Two angry, sleepy eyes that cry, Two little hands so soft and shy, I'll hush you with ...
— The Fairy Changeling and Other Poems • Dora Sigerson
... present her eagerness for experience was stronger, by far, than her eagerness for any single human being. I wondered whether Trenchard knew that. He was, beyond discussion, most desperately in love; the love of a shy man who has for so many years wondered and dreamed and finds, when the reality comes to him, that it is more, far more, than he had expected. When she came in to us he sat very quietly by her side and talked, if he talked at all, to the other Sister, a stout comfortable ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole
... was Andrew. She was very shy of him at first, but he coaxed her to look at a bird's nest with its small, blue-speckled eggs. And there were the chickens that, as they grew larger, followed her about. Andrew found the first ripe early ...
— A Little Girl in Old Philadelphia • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... magnificent this evening in black bombazine, with a mauve front cut in a shy triangle, and crowned with a black velvet ribbon round the base of her thin throat; black and mauve for evening wear was esteemed very chaste by nearly ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... weary days and nights were over, and that at last we had reached the haven where we would be, my first thought was one of deep gratitude. It was easy to see that it was a good moment with everyone; squabbles were made up with surprising quickness; shy people grew suddenly sociable; some who had comfortable homes to go to on landing gave kind and welcome invitations to others, who felt themselves sadly strange in a new country; and it was with really a lingering feeling of regret that we all separated at last, though a very short time ...
— Station Life in New Zealand • Lady Barker
... so daintily bewitching to John; no, not even on that memorable first day at school. Her long, graceful curls were caught in a big, blue silk bow which matched her dress, and her eyes were a-dance with the excitement of her first party. She greeted the company with a shy, quick smile and sat down in the chair nearest her exultant worshiper. A constrained silence took possession of ...
— A Son of the City - A Story of Boy Life • Herman Gastrell Seely
... speak? In the proud spirit suddenly grown meek— The haughty heart grown humble; in the tender And unnamed light that floods the world with splendor; In the resemblance which the fond eyes trace In all fair things to one beloved face; In the shy touch of hands that thrill and tremble; In looks and lips that can no more dissemble— Thus ...
— Poems of Passion • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... "They're afraid of their hides. When a man does a lot of talking, he is generally shy ...
— Red Fleece • Will Levington Comfort
... and we had visits from jackals and hyena-dogs, who came prowling round, attracted by the scent of our roasting meat; Stanley's unerring rifle supplying us amply with game. We had a pleasant addition one day in a large bustard which he shot. Though very abundant, the bird is shy, so that a good sportsman alone can hope to kill it. It weighed about fifteen pounds. The flesh was very tender and palatable, and we agreed that it was the best flavoured of the game birds we had met with. After each day's journey, Timbo generally went in search of small game or ...
— In the Wilds of Africa • W.H.G. Kingston
... a moment. He realized it was a great honor, but his naturally shy personality kept him ...
— On the Trail of the Space Pirates • Carey Rockwell
... are as shy of officials as of fashionable restaurants, they take advice from irregular sources as they turn into a little wineshop to drink. Each rank in life finds its own level, and there abides. None but a chosen few care to ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... been wasting no time while she talked. She first had to get her pony to stand She knew it was not gun-shy. It was only the scent and sight of the ...
— Ruth Fielding in the Great Northwest - Or, The Indian Girl Star of the Movies • Alice B. Emerson
... and Patty put her fingertip in her mouth, and looked so exaggeratedly shy that Jack burst ...
— Patty's Butterfly Days • Carolyn Wells
... this day and mingled once more with the family. The bare sight of her was enough for Camille at first, but after awhile he wanted more. He wanted to be often alone with her; but several causes co-operated to make her shy of giving him many such opportunities: first, her natural delicacy, coupled with her habit of self-denial; then her fear of shocking her mother, and lastly her fear of her own heart, and of Camille, whose power over her she knew. For Camille, when he did get a sweet ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade
... unmercifully "chaffed" for the absurd idea that a paper-eating worm could be kept a prisoner in a paper box. Oh, these critics! Your bookworm is a shy, lazy beast, and takes a day or two to recover his appetite after being "evicted." Moreover, he knew his own dignity better than to eat the "loaded" glazed shoddy note paper in ...
— Enemies of Books • William Blades
... as naught: Stilled is the laughter that was erst our pleasure; The pretty air, the childish grace untaught, The innocent wiles, And all the sunny smiles, The cheek that flushed to greet some tiny treasure; The mouth demure, the tilted chin held high, The gleeful flashes of her glancing eye; Her shy bold look of wildness unconfined, And the gay impulse of her baby mind That none could tame, That sent her spinning round, A spirit of living flame Dancing in airy rapture o'er the ground— All these with that faint sigh ...
— The Vagabond and Other Poems from Punch • R. C. Lehmann
... a strong desire to meet this girl, to see her nearer by and to talk with her. But Dolly was timid. Beside her careful education in deportment, she was naturally shy and reticent. She was sure she never could make any advances to become acquainted with this new girl, and yet, she ...
— Two Little Women • Carolyn Wells
... simply because you are a man, and some girls are never really themselves with men; they are for ever acting a part; a vulgar part, I admit, but one they have learned before they were born, the instinctive quarry eluding the instinctive hunter. The girl is naturally shy; I could tell that, and she covers it with a kind of boldness that isn't—well, particularly attractive to one of your fastidious mind. Yet there is something rather taking about her. She reminds me of a small, bright ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow
... hand as I spoke. I was a little shy, as lonely people are, but the situation made me eloquent, and even bold. She pressed my hand, she laid hers upon it, and her eyes glowed, as, looking hastily into mine, she smiled again, ...
— Carmilla • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... foremost rank saw them they fell back at once in great disorder, which alarmed those in the rear, who thought they had been fighting. There was then space and room enough for them to have passed forward, had they been willing so to do; some did so, but others remained shy. All the roads between Abbeville and Crecy were covered with common people, who, when they were come within three leagues of their enemies, drew their swords, bawling out, "Kill, kill," and with them were many great lords that were eager ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... was a man who in a primitive community might well escape notice. In appearance, manner and training, he was the exact antithesis of Mark Twain. He was a student before he was a writer and possessed the student's shy reserve. I can well imagine him, a slight boyish figure, flitting from camp to camp, wrapped in his own thoughts, keeping his own counsel. Yet he alone of that little band, unless you except Mark Twain, possessed the divine spark ...
— A Tramp Through the Bret Harte Country • Thomas Dykes Beasley
... her timid again; she was no more the imperious goddess of the night. It was a shy and tender little maiden who nestled into the protecting strong arms ...
— Halcyone • Elinor Glyn
... time with Judge Blodgett, warily snuffing the air, and shy of both Bohemia and Benares. Into the presence of Madame le Claire, now gowned appropriately for the morning, and looking—extraordinary, it is true, with her party-colored hair and luminous eyes—but not so jungly as when she greeted the despairing sight of Amidon ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick
... poor fellow, from the effort, the cap is at the back of his neck, the whiskered face is such a kindly and woeful and helpless one, while the voice is gentle, so gentle. At last, what do you think? As the girl has become all excited, and has already grown hoarse from tears, and is shy of everybody—he, this same 'roundsman on the beat,' stretches out two of his black, calloused fingers, the index and the little, and begins to imitate a nanny goat for the girl and reciting an appropriate nursery rhyme! ... And so, when I looked upon this charming scene and thought that ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... a geranium and smiles shy, like he always does when he's kidded. "If you please, sir," says he, "it's only a lady; to see Mr. ...
— Wilt Thou Torchy • Sewell Ford
... in the West, One shy glance will pierce your breast From a bright eye, O so bright! And an auburn heaven of hair Will so glorify the air, You'll surrender all your soul at sight. Oho! My Boy! Oho! Always for your weal and never for your woe, Your little heart will gallop on the go, And it will ...
— Soldier Songs and Love Songs • A.H. Laidlaw
... with a crude sarcasm, "Ask your Aunt Mehetabel about the beaux that used to come a-sparkin' her!" or, "Mehetabel, how was't when you was in love with Abel Cummings." As a matter of fact, she had been the same at twenty as at sixty, a quiet, mouse-like little creature, too timid and shy for anyone to notice, or to raise her eyes for a moment and wish for ...
— Hillsboro People • Dorothy Canfield
... I obtain Now and again; Though I'm shy, it doesn't matter, I will tell you how they flatter: Every compliment ...
— Are Women People? • Alice Duer Miller
... been moving restlessly about the room all this time, with her wild brown eyes fixed now on Ronald, now on the old man, and oftener in a shy, inquisitive stare on the corpse, lit a dusty chemical lamp and led the way down the awkward passages and stairs. Ronald tried to start a conversation with her ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 8 • Various
... attuned to crooning sweetest lullabys; but her heart was empty—save for a child of mist and wishes. It was dark, now; but though the wind was still rollicking down there was no snow blowing, and the shy stars were winking wide-eyed upon the busy world and all the myriad mysteries it exhibited out-of-doors. The gift of silk and fawn-skin was finished. A perfect gift: fashioned and accomplished with all the dexterity Pattie Batch could employ. "Just as if," ...
— Christmas Eve at Swamp's End • Norman Duncan
... you—really I think you'd better not. He's very odd in some ways. He has an extraordinary hatred of sleeping out of London. He has the real Gloucestershire LOVE of London. At the same time, he's very shy; and if you asked him he wouldn't very well know how to refuse. I think it would be ...
— Seven Men • Max Beerbohm
... acquaintance was at least as much embarrassed as herself. Since her being at Lambton, she had heard that Miss Darcy was exceedingly proud; but the observation of a very few minutes convinced her that she was only exceedingly shy. She found it difficult to obtain even a word from her ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... had never been in such a magnificent place before. He had never read How to behave in a Palace, but, though much amazed, he did not feel at all shy. As he followed his guides, he suddenly noticed that the tortoise had disappeared, but he soon forgot this when he saw a lovely Princess, surrounded by her maidens, come forward to ...
— Edmund Dulac's Fairy-Book - Fairy Tales of the Allied Nations • Edmund Dulac
... got a sure-enough well-dressed room; I never seen anything that could hold a candle to it,—it's a bird!" He stole a shy abashed glance at the pictures on the wall, but becoming aware that Gilmore was watching him, he dropped his eyes in some confusion. "I reckon' them female pictures ...
— The Just and the Unjust • Vaughan Kester
... network of their million leaves; she looked at the laughing white villas westward, the pale-green vineyards, the yellow cornfields; she looked at the rushing river, with the diamonds sparkling on its surface, at the far-away gleaming snows of Monte Sfiorito, at the scintillant blue shy overhead. ...
— The Cardinal's Snuff-Box • Henry Harland
... enabled him to hold his own in any company, but he never paraded his knowledge, or lay in wait to trip people up. Although the prospect of going out worried him, and his first impulse was to refuse an invitation, he enjoyed society when he was in it, being neither vain nor shy. At Oxford he could not dine out. Late hours interfered with his work. But he was hospitable both to tutors and to undergraduates, liking to show himself at home in the old place. Except for the failure of his health, perhaps in spite of it, his enjoyment of his ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul
... maternal care, And promised never to go near. Yet still he burned to disobey, And hovered round it day by day; And communed thus: "I wonder why? Does mother think my soul is shy? Thinks me a coward? or does she Store grain in yonder well from me? I'll find that out, and so here goes." So said, he flaps his wings and crows, Mounted the margin, peered below, Where to repel him rose a foe. His choler rose, his plumes upreared— With ruffled ...
— Fables of John Gay - (Somewhat Altered) • John Gay
... wealthy England, and though he rarely saw Leon again, the lad came in a shadowy way to take the place he had momentarily designed for Joseph Strelitski. To-night it was Pinchas who assumed the paternal manner, but he mingled it with a subtle obsequiousness that made the shy simple lad uncomfortable, though when he came to read the poet's lofty sentiments which arrived (with an acrostic dedication) by the first post next morning, he conceived an enthusiastic admiration ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... about six miles, but could discover no place where the natives obtained their supplies of water. At this point they were travelling over burnt scrubby sandhill country still north, when the natives who had appeared so shy came running after them in a threatening manner, howling at them, and annoying them in every possible way. These people, who had now arrayed themselves in their war-paint, and had all their fighting weapons in hand, evidently meant mischief; but my officers managed to get away from them without ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles
... a child, on my lap, and played on my knees with her doll. Thus they behaved to me when I saw them for the first time in their present elevation; I found them afterwards, in their drawing-rooms or at their routs and parties, more shy and distant. This change did not much surprise me, as I hardly knew any one that had the slightest pretension to their acquaintance who had not troubled them for employment or borrowed their money, at the same time that they complained of their neglect ...
— Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud, Complete - Being Secret Letters from a Gentleman at Paris to a Nobleman in London • Lewis Goldsmith
... had woven this hallucination, he turned toward her again, and found, as their eyes met, a little of the shy hesitation with which the mother's gaze had met his in the ...
— Strong as Death • Guy de Maupassant
... glad to hear this, for, though I was not a shy person, my first visit to Gladwyn would be a little formidable; so I told him briefly that I would be ready by half-past six, as they wished me to go early, and it would never do to be formal on my side. And then I gave him an account of Lady Betty's visit, but it did ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... separated the moment they met, but neither had the impulse nor the intention to leave the shade of the wood; and when the brief twilight fell and the moon rose, there still was Nevis, and after her the many craft to divert their gaze. Hamilton was honourable and shy, and Rachael was a woman of uncommon strength of character and had been brought up by a woman of austere virtue. These causes held them apart for a time, but one might as well have attempted to block two comets rushing at each other in the same orbit. The magnetism of the Inevitable ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... altogether relish;—"what could I do? You see Ballycloran is three miles out of this, and I couldn't always be up there when Ussher was coming. And though I believe I'd be bold enough where one of my own girls was concerned, I'd be shy of speaking to a man like Captain Ussher, when it was ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope
... Be shy of breastpins; plain, well-ironed white, With small pearl buttons,—two of them in sight,— Is always genuine, while your gems may pass, Though real diamonds, for ignoble glass. But spurn those paltry Cisatlantic lies That round ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... The shy little sumacs, in lonely places, Bowed all summer with dust and heat, Like clean-clad children with rain-washed faces, Are dressed in scarlet from head to feet. And never a flower had the boastful summer, In all the blossoms that decked her sod, So royal hued ...
— Poems of Sentiment • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... and convolutions and foliole curlings most beautiful and extraordinary. In some respects this toy is a costume model, for it imitates exactly the real coiffure of Japanese maidens and brides. But the expression of the face of the beppin is, I think, the great attraction of the toy; there is a shy, plaintive sweetness about it impossible to describe, but deliciously suggestive of a real Japanese type of girl-beauty. Yet the whole thing is made out of a little crumpled paper, coloured with a few dashes of the brush by an expert ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan - First Series • Lafcadio Hearn
... into the lab. Karen was there alone, setting up an apparatus for the next attempt at heat treatment. A smock covered her into shapelessness, and her spectacular hair was bound up in a kerchief, but she still looked good. Lancaster, a shy man, was more susceptible to her ...
— Security • Poul William Anderson
... I feel very shy and queer, going among strangers. You see, I have never really been away in my life; never in this way, I mean. I was always with father; and then—afterward—I went to Fernley; and though so many people have come into my life, dear, delightful ...
— The Merryweathers • Laura E. Richards
... conveyed, so many claims on our regard has that popular form of church government for which Nonconformists contend, so perfectly compatible is it with all progress towards perfection, that culture would make us shy even to propose to Nonconformists the acceptance of the Anglican prayer-book and the episcopal order; and would be forward to wish them a prayer-book of their own approving, and the church discipline to which they are attached and accustomed. Only not at the price ...
— Culture and Anarchy • Matthew Arnold
... Beesley, and mother sent these eggs to scramble with the ones you got this morning for supper," she said in a low voice that was positively fragrant with sweetness. Two huge plaits of corn-silk hair fell over her shoulders, and her eyes were as shy and blue as violets were before they became a large commercial product. Her gingham dress was cut with decorum just below her shoe-tops and, taking into consideration the prevailing mode, its length, fullness, and ruffles made the slim young thing look like a picture from the same review ...
— The Golden Bird • Maria Thompson Daviess
... Pardon expressed the conviction that Miss Chancellor agreed with him in this, and it required a great effort of mind on Olive's part, so small was her desire to act in concert with Mr. Pardon, to admit to herself that she did. She asked him, with a certain lofty coldness—he didn't make her shy, now, a bit—whether he took a great interest in the improvement of the position of women. The question appeared to strike the young man as abrupt and irrelevant, to come down on him from a height with which he was not ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. I (of II) • Henry James
... near the door, receiving her Christmas guests. They came straggling in, in twos and threes, some boldly and impudently, some shame-faced and shy, some eager, some indifferent, but all poverty-pinched. Each one was pleasantly welcomed, and passed on to the feast. Angela watched and waited, and at last the door opened slowly to admit old Marg, who stopped short on ...
— A Budget of Christmas Tales by Charles Dickens and Others • Various
... entered the house. He was thinking strange thoughts. For the first time he was touched by a woman, this poor, ill-clad, tramping woman, the wife of an evident scoundrel, touched to the heart for her and her child. The happy, pretty girls who had looked shy invitation at him had not appealed. They had, one by one, put him down as a dry old bachelor and taken their charms elsewhere. Patsy had never missed wife or child. He would have said himself that he had enough to think of, with her Ladyship and the Master and ...
— Love of Brothers • Katharine Tynan
... abundant, all these wild creatures are shy, and one may travel many days without adventure, and any sense of danger is soon lost in admiration of the beauties ...
— Burma - Peeps at Many Lands • R.Talbot Kelly
... glory that tightened the girl's throat as she waved good-by from the veranda. She was glad Bruce was going, even if her throat did ache. Aches like that seemed far less important than they used to. She waved with a thrill coursing up her spine and a shy, eager sense of how big and wonderful and happy a thing it was to be ...
— The Camerons of Highboro • Beth B. Gilchrist
... your first shy at the government official, isn't it? They're not all as bad as that. At first I couldn't make out whether he was just fat and lazy. Now I know he's a grafter. He ought to get a nice neat 'For Sale' sign painted. Did you hear the nerve of him? Wanted a thousand dollars bribe to ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... appear in all Publick Places without any Buttons to their Coats, which they supply with several little Silver Hasps, tho' our freshest Advices from London make no mention of any such Fashion; and we are something shy of affording Matter to the Button-Makers for a second ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... older if she had wished to escape she would not have dared, would not have known how; for she was shy outside the family circle, and could hardly move or talk; people thought her insignificant. This she knew; it wounded her self-respect, and therefore she went out as little as possible, preferring to stay at home, where she was simple, natural and taciturn. This silence did not arise ...
— Clerambault - The Story Of An Independent Spirit During The War • Rolland, Romain
... Philip had returned from India as a man of fifty, with the reasonable hope of enjoying his pensioned retirement. Philip had spent his energy freely in the Indian Civil Service, and the two middle-aged brothers, either too poor to marry, too shy, or both, determined to combine resources with ...
— War-time Silhouettes • Stephen Hudson
... moment, ushered by a servant, stalked forward, booted and fully equipped, my travelling companion—if such a word can at all express the relation between the arrogant young blood, just fresh from assuming the toga virilis, and a modest child of profound sensibilities, but shy and reserved beyond even English reserve. The aged servant, with apparently constrained civility, presented my mother's compliments to him, with a request that he would take breakfast. This he hastily and rather peremptorily ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... take French service, profoundly incognito, and signalize himself in the Italian War (just expected to break out), which might have recovered him some favor from his Majesty: does not tell clearly where his money came from; shy extremely of elucidating Katte and Keith;—in fact, as we perceive, struggles against mendacity, but will not tell the whole truth. "Let him lie in ward, then; and take what doom the Laws have appointed for the like of him!" Divine Laws, are they ...
— History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 7 • Thomas Carlyle
... have Gold you shall have Treasure, Or any dainty kind of thing; Thou may'st command all Delights and Pleasure, And what you'd have, Love, I would you bring: But you prove shy, and at last deny, Him that admires you alone; Unconstant Woman proves true to no Man, She's left me ...
— Wit and Mirth: or Pills to Purge Melancholy, Vol. 5 of 6 • Various
... walking ever broad-minded through the narrowness of her little town; remaining white though often threading its soiling ways; and from every life which touched hers, however crippled and confined, extracting its significance instead of its insignificance, shy harmonies instead of the easy discords which can so palpably be struck by ...
— The Mettle of the Pasture • James Lane Allen
... speaking as kindly as I could, and asking to see her child. She understood me, and with a smile held up her little papoose, as she called him,—who, to say truth, I could not call very pretty. He seemed to have a wild, shy look, like the offspring of an untamed, animal. The woman wore a blanket, gaudily fringed, and she had a string of beads on her neck. She took down a basket, woven of white and red willows, and pressed me to taste ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... the younger sons, stand to one another in a rational, not a conventional relation. Nothing is considered of so much importance as education, which the head of the house gives not only to the children, but to the whole household. He first develops his wife from a shy girl, brought up in careful seclusion, to the true woman of the house, capable of commanding and guiding the servants. The sons are brought up without any undue severity, carefully watched and counselled, and controlled 'rather by authority than by force.' And finally the ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... were accepted by the promoters. Subscription books opened but capital fought shy of the proposition. Two years solicitation only resulted in subscriptions to the amount of two million dollars being paid up ...
— The Story of the First Trans-Continental Railroad - Its Projectors, Construction and History • W. F. Bailey
... all the voices strained themselves did not hear their doubt-destroying response, tumultuous though it was. Another voice, close beside him, had taken up that refrain, making all others inaudible, a shy, glad, whispering voice ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... and her daughter were both amused and pleased by the earnest and rapid fashion in which Sheila talked. They had generally considered her to be a trifle shy and silent, not knowing how afraid she was of using wrong idioms or pronunciations; but here was one subject on which her heart was set, and she had no more thought as to whether she said like-a-ness or likeness, or whether she said gyarden ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 30. September, 1873 • Various
... Vera looked shy, and Agatha said, "She has a good voice, and Madame Lardner thinks it would answer to send her to some superior Conservatoire ...
— Modern Broods • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... The girl flashed a shy look into the beaming, inquisitive face. "I don't know," she confessed, soberly. "I have not even seen him for such a long time; but—but, I guess, he is more to me than any ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... he had no place at all. Now the dusk had fallen to such an extent that he had to follow her implicitly, and even lean his hand on her shoulder when they jumped a bank into a very narrow lane. And he felt curiously shy of her when she began to shout through her hands at a spot of light which swung upon the mist in a neighboring field. He shouted, too, ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... face me: be women no more; But fellow-men born, from top branch to the core; Men who must fight—who can kill, who can die, While women once more shall be covered and shy. ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... the Lianhan Shee, by, driving its victim out of the parish. The opinion of these persons was, in its distinct unvarnished reality, that Father Felix absolutely showed the white feather on this critical occasion—that he became shy, and begged leave to decline being introduced to this intractable pair—seeming to intimate that he did not at all relish adding them to the stock of ...
— Phil Purcel, The Pig-Driver; The Geography Of An Irish Oath; The Lianhan Shee • William Carleton
... comfort, cheer, and kind intent The weary stranger oft hath known When she, its mistress, fair and good, Reigned here in peerless womanhood, When soft, shy maiden fancy gave Encouragement to soldiers brave, And Washington his presence lent ...
— Poems - Vol. IV • Hattie Howard
... reconciliation, in which she did beguile me of my tears, but the deuce a one did she shed. What do you think? She cajoled me out of my little Buonaparte as cleverly as possible, in manner and form following. She was shy the Saturday and Sunday (the day of my departure) so I got in dudgeon, and began to rip up grievances. I asked her how she came to admit me to such extreme familiarities, the first week I entered the house. "If she had ...
— Liber Amoris, or, The New Pygmalion • William Hazlitt
... old Lied, that thou hast so often played, and for a toast, 'Fifine.' If Fifine had been there she would have been lying on my shoulder, but since I rescued her from the teasing of a big drum-major she has grown shy and doesn't like company; and though she would soon be a pet with most of our men, keeps her love for me alone, and would be a very charming companion if I had time to devote to her pretty ways.' So you see ...
— Miss Grantley's Girls - And the Stories She Told Them • Thomas Archer
... in his face, sits wistfully apart, Searching it with those looks of love that leap from heart to heart; Her eyes—afire with shy desire, veiled by their lashes black— Speak so that Krishna cannot choose but send the message back, In the company of damsels whose bright eyes in a ring Shine round him with soft meanings in ...
— Indian Poetry • Edwin Arnold
... be good friends," said Annie Boyle, who did not seem at all shy in conversing with strangers, "but Pa's soured on him lately. I don't know why. P'raps because Abe is a German, an' everybody's tryin' to fling mud at the Germans. But Abe says the German-Americans are the back-bone of this country, and as ...
— Mary Louise and the Liberty Girls • Edith Van Dyne (AKA L. Frank Baum)
... that the interest of the story flagged, and that the enjoyment of reading was much enhanced by the proximity of a gray bonnet and a girlish profile. But Dickens soon proved more powerful than Debby, and she was forgotten, till, pausing to turn a leaf, the young man met her shy glance, as she asked, with the pleased expression of a child who has shared an apple with ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... himself; or only remembered them enough to give an additional tender gravity to their manner. For Mr. Hale had not been known to many; he had belonged to one of the smaller colleges, and had always been shy and reserved; but those who in youth had cared to penetrate to the delicacy of thought and feeling that lay below his silence and indecision, took him to their hearts, with something of the protecting kindness which they would have shown to a woman. And the renewal ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... a great difference what kind of fox you use, however. I once had a fox on my Pumpkin Butte estates that lasted me three years, and I never knew him to shy or turn out of the road for anything but a loaded team. He was the best fox for hunting purposes that I ever had. Every spring I would sprinkle him with Scotch snuff and put him away in the bureau till fall. He would ...
— Nye and Riley's Wit and Humor (Poems and Yarns) • Bill Nye
... for a brief instant in a warm strong pressure, but dropped it again and there was a quick cold withdrawing of his eyes that she did not understand. The old Mark Carter would never have looked at her coolly, impersonally like that. What was it, was he shy of her after the long separation? Four years was a long time, of course, but there had been occasional letters. He had always been away when she was at home, and she had been home very little between her school years. There had been summer sessions twice and once ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill
... "Well, she ain't quite shy of friends, neither. I ain't got no gold mines—never took no stock in them. But I've got a bunch of cows and the old man's got a right nice ranch. If it wasn't for one thing, I'd just rack in and ...
— Louisiana Lou • William West Winter
... chiefly concerned pleaded yet more persuasively. What harm, after all, was done, except for a little trouble and a little gossip? To these Mary and John were utterly indifferent. At first they had been rather shy in referring, before one another, to their loves, but custom taught them to mention the names without confusion, and ere long they had exchanged confidences as to their future plans. John's arrangement was obviously the more prudent and becoming. He discountenanced Mary's suggestion ...
— Comedies of Courtship • Anthony Hope
... slight, his complexion pale, his hair weak and thin, his manner diffident, awkward, almost ungainly, but that its thorough courtesy and good-nature were so obvious and unaffected. In general society people passed him over as a shy, harmless, unmeaning little man; but those who really knew him affirmed that his courage was not to be damped, nor his nerve shaken, by extremity of danger—that he was always ready with succour for the needy, with sympathy for the sorrowful. ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... corner, or to kill a deer in another, it would be, 'where is the dog Priest?' says one. 'Who has seen the accursed Tuck?' says another. 'The unfrocked villain destroys more venison than half the country besides,' says one keeper; 'And is hunting after every shy doe in the country!' quoth a second.—In fine, good my Liege, I pray you to leave me as you found me; or, if in aught you desire to extend your benevolence to me, that I may be considered as the poor Clerk of Saint Dunstan's cell in Copmanhurst, ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... completely aware of something that perhaps she had already latently known—that the relation between her mother and herself had, of late, not been quite what once it was. At moments she had felt almost shy of her mother, only at moments. Formerly she had always told her mother everything, and had spoken—as her mother had just said—out of her own heart and desire, with eagerness, inevitably. Now—well, now she could ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens
... had nothin' to eat," she said and disappeared. The old man asked questions, the young mother rocked her baby on her knees, the children got less shy and drew near the fireplace, the Blight and the little sister exchanged a furtive smile and the contrast of the extremes in American civilization, as shown in that little cabin, ...
— A Knight of the Cumberland • John Fox Jr.
... from being gun-shy. And Uncle Eddy ate some, too, one time when he was little, because the colored stable boy told him it would make ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston
... mind my friend here,' I said, pointing to the horse; 'he's a little shy in society, but he means well. If you'll move to one side, we'll pass on.' It was a fool sort of an idea, standing there and talking to a bear, but I was interested in studying the expression of his face and seeing how puzzled ...
— Bears I Have Met—and Others • Allen Kelly
... the week I tagged around after him and tried to get acquainted. I had to do the talking, because he was shy, but I didn't mind it. He seemed pleased to have me around, and I used the sociable "we" a good deal, because it seemed to flatter him to ...
— The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... more restrainedly. She remembered her respect for age and office. Yet she felt sorely tempted, shy, proud girl as she was, to take up cudgels for her friends, at least. Mr. Wharne liked her the better ...
— A Summer in Leslie Goldthwaite's Life. • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... into a laugh full of the cruelty and insult of a woman's long-smothered sense of injury. "Caro nonno," she screamed into her grandfather's dull ear, "he is really in despair how to support his happiness. He is shy, even of his old friends,—he has had so little experience. It is the first love of a young man. Bisogna compatire la gioventu, caro nonno." And her tongue being finally loosed, the Paronsina broke into incoherent mockeries, ...
— A Fearful Responsibility and Other Stories • William D. Howells
... gone—they looked dark and hard—her fair curls were matted against her damp forehead; indeed, Madame thought that for the moment all Crystal's beauty had gone—the sweet, submissive beauty of the girl, the grace of movement, the shy, appealing gentleness of her ways. She now looked all determination, resentment, ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy
... oxygen and deprived of sunlight, if the whole system has been kept on the rack, whether in the sweatshop, or in the furnace of affliction, what is the effect on the nervous system? Just what might have been expected. The sense-organs shy, like a frightened horse, at every shadow or fluttering leaf. The conducting wires break, and cross, and tangle in every imaginable fashion. The central exchange, half wild with hunger, or crazed with fatigue-toxins, shrieks out as each distorted ...
— Preventable Diseases • Woods Hutchinson
... little boys in tartan caps were playing beside him. I stopped to talk to the children, showed them my watch, and, holding it to their ears, asked if they had ever seen the inside of a watch. They did not answer, but they did not seem surprised, nor were they in the least shy. I asked the man if ...
— The Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... to a smaller field. She drew more and more into herself, slipped more and more from out the routine life of Drift. She became self-centered, and when her body was not absent, as happened upon most fine days, her mind abstracted itself to extreme limits. She grew shy of fellow-creatures, found no day happy of which a part had not been spent beside a cross, showed a gradual indifference to the services of the church which not long since had attracted her so strongly and braced ...
— Lying Prophets • Eden Phillpotts
... too great a hurry to get down to the mill, to take any notice of the attraction they met upon the road. Harry was compelled to have one shy at the squirrel that scampered up into the chestnut tree; but with that exception not a stoppage was made, and in a very short time they came to the plank over the great ditch—the plank which replaced the one that broke when ...
— Hollowdell Grange - Holiday Hours in a Country Home • George Manville Fenn
... blue, and their clear, candid expression indicates an unusually sincere and simple character. But, unfortunately, it is only her friends who are fully conversant with the expression of her eyes, for she is very shy. Shyness in little people is frequently piquant, but its effect in girls of the Juno style is too often that of awkwardness. Her friends call Maud Elliott stately; those who do not like her call her stiff; while indifferent persons speak of her as rather too reserved and dignified in manner to be ...
— A Love Story Reversed - 1898 • Edward Bellamy
... in again, thridding the resinous woods to track the shy Naiads hiding in their coverts. Over the brown spines of the pines, soft and perfumed, we loiter, following leisurely the faint warble of waters, till we come to the boiling rapids, where the stream comes hurrying down, and with sudden pique flies ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... else why star-shape the dew For the unbreathing, shy, heart-hiding rose? And when earth darkens, and the North wind blows, Why into stars, flake every cloud's black brew? What fitter forms for longings high and true, Man's hopes, ideals, than bright orbs like those Asbine from Nature's dawn to Nature's close, In clusters, ...
— Freedom, Truth and Beauty • Edward Doyle
... asking the old Malay to try and shoot one for me, he told me that although he had been for twenty years shooting birds in these forests he had never yet shot one, and had never even seen one except after it had been caught. The bird is so exceedingly shy and wary, and runs along the ground in the densest parts of the forest so quickly, that it is impossible to get near it; and its sober colours and rich eye-like spots, which are so ornamental when seen ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume I. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... charm royalties,—these are the things Psyche most cares for, not her radiant wings Or Cupid's shy caresses. She dreams of conquests that a world applauds, Or a Stage-wardrobe with a thousand ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari Volume 98, January 4, 1890 • Various
... my young aide, Mr. Trist here, for good reasons. He is just back from six months in the wilderness, and may be shy; but once he had a way with women, so they tell me—and you know, in approaching the question ad feminam we operate ...
— 54-40 or Fight • Emerson Hough
... few believe should be the case, the first initiation is delayed to the tenth year or even later, there is the difficulty that it is no longer so easy to talk simply and naturally about such things; the mother is beginning to feel too shy to speak for the first time about these difficult subjects to a son or a daughter who is nearly as big as herself. She feels that she can only do it awkwardly and ineffectively, and she probably decides not to do it at all. Thus an atmosphere of ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... have a word, orenda, the meaning of which is easier to describe than to define, but it seems to express the very soul of magic. This orenda is your power to do things, your force, sometimes almost your personality. A man who hunts well has much and good orenda; the shy bird who escapes his snares has a fine orenda. The orenda of the rabbit controls the snow and fixes the depth to which it will fall. When a storm is brewing the magician is said to be making its orenda. When you yourself are in a rage, great is your orenda. The notes of birds are utterances of ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... is you, poor better thoughts! The needful hope, shame for the ancient blots, Heart's gentleness with mind's severity, And vigilance, and calm, and constancy, And all!—But slow as yet, though well awake; Though sturdy, shy; scarce able yet to break The spell of stifling night and heavy dreams. One comes after the other, and each seems Uncouther, and all fear the moonlight cold. "Thus, sheep when first they issue from the fold, Come,—one, then two, then three. The rest delay, With lowered heads, in stupid, ...
— Poems of Paul Verlaine • Paul Verlaine
... possible; and, in return, it belongs to me to find occasions for teasing and quarrelling with you as often as may be; and I shall begin directly by asking you what made you so unwilling to come to the point at last. What made you so shy of me, when you first called, and afterwards dined here? Why, especially, when you called, did you look as if you did not ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... far as my friend would go with me in words; but I knew, from observation, that the fabric of his fortunes tottered. For the rest, it was only by accident I got wind of the transaction; for Pinkerton, after a time, was shy of introducing me to his arcana: the reason ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... business into that unknown, outlying country. But many even of the people of the parish were ignorant of the strange events which had marked the first year of Mr. Soulis's ministrations; and among those who were better informed, some were naturally reticent, and others shy of that particular topic. Now and again, only, one of the older folk would warm into courage over his third tumbler, and recount the cause of the ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Ghost Stories • Various
... to me since that he has seen you before, though I could not get much out of him about it. He will talk for ever about Arabia, faith, war, and angels; but, if you touch on anything personal, I observe he is always very shy. He has not my fatal frankness. Did you know ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli
... says, 'Sell everything,' and that included this handsome bird. Speaks Spanish, they tell me. Wish Polly would oblige us by saying something in Spanish, but he—I understand it's a male—is too shy to speak before strangers. He's been well taken care of. Wonderful gloss to his feathers," praised Mr. Bean. "Beautiful color. Give an accent to any decor, modern or traditional, besides being a wonderful pet. Now who is going ...
— Jerry's Charge Account • Hazel Hutchins Wilson
... this affair agitated him at that time, I was not surprised at the sequestration in which he held himself, and which made those who were not acquainted with his shy and mystical nature apply to him the description ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... said musingly. Then, after another thoughtful pause: "Say, I suppose you're a little shy about bracin' these employment ...
— The She Boss - A Western Story • Arthur Preston Hankins
... dressing-table. She did not know why, but a great shyness had come upon her. It was like a cloud enveloping her. Never before had she felt like this with Maurice, not even when they were first married. She had loved him too utterly to be shy with him. Maurice was still in the sitting-room, fastening the shutters of the window. She heard the creak of wood, the clatter of the iron bar falling into the fastener. Now he ...
— The Call of the Blood • Robert Smythe Hichens
... most severely; they are not sensible of any change in themselves, except, perhaps, they are conscious of having improved both in sense and language. This unmerited loss of their late gratuitous allowance of sympathy, usually operates unfavourably upon the temper of the sufferers; they become shy and silent, and reserved, if not sullen; they withdraw from our capricious society, and they endeavour to console themselves with other pleasures. It is difficult to them to feel contented with their own little occupations and amusements, for want of the spectators ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth
... He had paid much attention to his toilet, selecting, with purpose, the white waistcoat, the long, blue-grey coat cut in a fashion anterior to this time by thirty years or more, and particularly to the arrangement of his hair. He resembled Napoleon—not the later Napoleon, but the Bonaparte, lean, shy, laconic, who fought at Marengo; and this had startled the Cure in his pulpit, and the rest of the ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... a bad thing for a poor man to have a fast horse now and then, is it, Mr. Falkland?' he said, looking up and smiling, just like a boy. He was very shy, was poor Jim. ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... be afraid, if all the girls dress as finely as you do, and know as much," said Polly, beginning to feel shy at ...
— An Old-fashioned Girl • Louisa May Alcott
... never self-conscious enough to be really shy. She hastened to the office, meeting Victor Dorn in the ...
— The Conflict • David Graham Phillips
... people believe that you and I know more of the recent mission of Wittenhorst than we admit. You had best interrogate Cruwel in the presence of witnesses. I know not the man's humour, but it seems to me since his failure, that, in spite of his shy and lumpish manner, he is false ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... of Mr. Charles Fox, of whose abilities he thought highly, but observed, that he did not talk much at our CLUB. I have heard Mr. Gibbon remark, 'that Mr. Fox could not be afraid of Dr. Johnson; yet he certainly was very shy of saying any thing in Dr. Johnson's presence[775].' Mr. Scott now quoted what was said of Alcibiades by a Greek poet[776], to ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... about it, LILLIAN, would you object to giving your attention to certain relations of the monster which you propose to slay? We name them, Detraction and Calumny. They are tough old Dragons, now, we tell you; perhaps it were best to fight shy of them. ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 26, September 24, 1870 • Various
... has happened, Signora," said the Marchese, emboldened by the smile, and by a shy sidelong glance, which she shot from under her eye-lashes with a laugh in her eyes, as she spoke; "now it has happened that I have been permitted to see you in a toilet all the more exquisitely charming in that it wants ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... London society, which I don't like; on one side I am a patrician connection, whom the parvenu branches always incline lovingly to—and on the other side I am a half-dependent cadet, whom the noble relations look civilly shy at. Some day, when I grow tired of travel and idleness, I shall come back and wrestle with these little difficulties, conciliate my methodistical uncle, and grapple with my noble cousin. But now I am fit for something better than getting on in the world. Dry chips, not green ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... accent. But she would not talk much; she was, perhaps, shy. After luncheon, however, Clara asked her if she would sing, and she complied, showing considerable skill with her accompaniment, and singing a simple song in good taste and with a sweet voice. Arnold observed, however, that there was ...
— In Luck at Last • Walter Besant
... split through to Eaux Chaudes and Eaux Bonnes, was in Miocene times the bed of a huge glacier. It is known as the Val d'Ossau,—"the vale where the bears come down." Bears are still met with, it is said, in the vast forests about the foot of the Midi, but they are shy and scarce. The izard,—the chamois of the Pyrenees,—is more frequently seen and often hunted. This valley is individual in Bearn, as Bearn is in France. In past time it was a distinct principality, small but defiant, and it had its own line of hereditary viscounts entirely independent ...
— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix
... A familiarity, shy on Martin's side and patronising in John, obtained between the brothers and their pretty attendant, for she knew all about them and the very cottage in which their parents had dwelt and died. The girl came and went, answered John Grimbal's jests readily, and ministered to them as ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... pushed them in front of him, always taking care that they were big enough to hide him. When they were able to stand alone he stole out in the dark to have a look at them, and then if unobserved his bosom swelled. I have never known any one more modest and no one quite so shy. Many actors have played for him for years and never spoken to him, have perhaps seen him dart up a side street because they were approaching. They may not have known that it was sheer shyness, but ...
— Charles Frohman: Manager and Man • Isaac Frederick Marcosson and Daniel Frohman
... little chimes, and all across it the wind sends arpeggio chords of delicate music, like a harp played on silver strings. A great big horse-chestnut tree, carrying its flowers proudly like a bouquet, showers the road with petals, and the shy hedges put up a screen all laced and decorated with white may. It just seems as if Mother Earth had become young again, and was tossing her babies up to the summer sky, and the wind played hide-and-seek, ...
— My War Experiences in Two Continents • Sarah Macnaughtan
... slim girl, who drooped in her chair, with her little head fallen forward, and played with her bread, ignoring her food otherwise, while she listened with a bored air to the talk which made Hewson its prey. She had an effect of being both shy and indifferent, in this retrospect; and when St. John put up the window, and led the way out to the women in the garden, and presented Hewson, she had still this effect. She did not smile or speak in acknowledgement of Hewson's ...
— Questionable Shapes • William Dean Howells
... bestowed his horse, and I went with him, having an hour left before we started, rather than face any more banter concerning my thanedom. It was almost in my mind to go to the ealdorman's house to ask after Elfrida, but I forbore, being shy, I suppose, and so left the Norseman to join us presently, and went back to the king's hall by a short cut from the village, whereby I had a meeting which ...
— A Prince of Cornwall - A Story of Glastonbury and the West in the Days of Ina of Wessex • Charles W. Whistler
... writers contemporary with Mrs. Stowe: Mrs. L. H. Sigourney, for example, a Hartford poetess, formerly known as "the Hemans of America," but now quite obsolete; and J. G. Percival, of New Haven, a shy and eccentric scholar, whose geological work was of value, and whose memory is preserved by one or two of his simpler poems, still in circulation, such as To Seneca Lake and the Coral Grove. Another Hartford poet, ...
— Initial Studies in American Letters • Henry A. Beers
... with blind confidence the religious and moral teaching of the reverend fathers. A doctrine which preached separation from profane things; the attractions of a meditative and pious life, and mistrust of the world and its perilous pleasures, harmonized with the shy and melancholy timidity of his nature. Human beings, especially women, inspired him with secret aversion, which was increased by consciousness of his awkwardness and remissness whenever he found himself in the society of women ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... preparation against accidents showed the same nervous and imaginative fearfulness. "His bridle," says the late Lord B——, who rode frequently with him at Genoa, "had, besides cavesson and martingale, various reins; and whenever he came near a place where his horse was likely to shy, he gathered up these said reins and fixed himself as if he was going at a five-barred gate." None surely but the most superficial or most prejudiced observers could ever seriously found upon such indications of nervousness any conclusion against the real ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... arises from several distinct causes. In the first place, the giraffe inhabits only those countries about which very little is known by civilised people; secondly, it is but rarely seen, even by travellers; and, thirdly, when it is encountered in its native haunts, it is of so shy a disposition, and so ready to take flight, that scarce any opportunity is ever obtained for ...
— Quadrupeds, What They Are and Where Found - A Book of Zoology for Boys • Mayne Reid
... I have been so shy, that I have hardly spoken to him, or he to me. I cannot imagine why the family was so rejoiced at his return. If he had spent his whole life abroad, I should have supposed they might rather have been thankful than sorrowful. However, I hope they do not think so ill of him as I do. At least, ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney
... formidable, and have at different times become the dread of the neighbourhood when any one has interfered with their contraband trade. The local magistrates, from timidity or worse motives, have become shy of acting against them, and impunity has rendered them equally daring and desperate. With all this, my father, a stranger in the land, and invested with no official authority, had, one would think, nothing to do. But it must be owned, that, as he himself ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... small daughters Molly and Betty, whom he found tussling like kittens on her bed, and installing Eileen the eldest, who crept down like a bright-eyed mouse from the big chair by the pillow at his coming, as her mother's keeper. Eileen was his darling; a shy child, gentle but curiously determined, protective in her attitude towards Maud, reserved towards himself. Jake was wont to say with a laugh that he was by no means sure that his eldest daughter approved of him, but he knew in his heart that her love for him was ...
— Charles Rex • Ethel M. Dell
... Carol was very shy with her. She was not used to the type. There had been women in her father's churches, but they had been of different kinds. Mrs. Waldemar's straight-staring eyes embarrassed her. She listened silently when the other women ...
— Sunny Slopes • Ethel Hueston
... ride on as he was doing. "Were your horse to shy, Miss Ferris," he remarked, "I might be the means of saving you, and I would run every risk for the ...
— The Missing Ship - The Log of the "Ouzel" Galley • W. H. G. Kingston
... clear. I will again employ the simplest of them—one so simple that a child can understand it. It is a mathematical example, as it ought to be, for the whole question of logical types, or dimensions, is a mathematical one. I beg the reader not to shy at, or run away from, the mere word mathematical, for, although most of us have but little mathematical knowledge, we all of us have the mathematical spirit, for else we should not be human—we are ...
— Manhood of Humanity. • Alfred Korzybski
... came to the end of the place. Then she gazed at her followers in a peculiar manner, with a shy and mischievous glance, and a strange fancy came to her mind. She drew them up on the bank of ...
— Yvette • Henri Rene Guy de Maupassant
... the blue of the sky. All about him old oaks stood like giant guardians watching sturdily over the soil where they had grown for centuries. Arthur could look between the trunks and see rabbits and squirrels whisking about. Sometimes a herd of brown deer with shy dark eyes would pass, holding their graceful heads high in the air; sometimes a flock of pheasants with brilliant plumage rose from the bushes. Again there was no sound except the tapping of a bright-crested woodpecker, and no motion but the fluttering ...
— King Arthur and His Knights • Maude L. Radford
... the works of Prynne, Barthius, Reynaud, and other voluminous writers must have had a sorry experience with their authors; but "once bitten twice shy." Hence some of these worthies found it rather difficult to publish their works, and there were no authors' agents or Societies of Authors to aid their negotiations. Indeed we are told that a printer who was saddled with a large number of unsaleable copies of a heavy piece of literary ...
— Books Fatal to Their Authors • P. H. Ditchfield
... was followed. A mat was placed by the side of the kitchen fire; much pains were taken to coax the shy 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 ...
— The Widow's Dog • Mary Russell Mitford
... the patch over one eye; and likewise saw something characteristic in the old fellow's way of standing under the arch of a gate, only revealing enough of himself to make me recognize him as an acquaintance. He was a very shy personage, this Mr. Moodie; and the trait was the more singular, as his mode of getting his bread necessarily brought him into the stir and hubbub of the world more than ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... you do them in? Come, don't be shy: You know I love to hear how Germans die, Downstairs in dug-outs. "Camerad!" they cry; Then squeal like stoats when ...
— The War Poems of Siegfried Sassoon • Siegfried Sassoon
... expressed, ait once a mock denial and extreme desire, whilst her sweetness was zested with a coyness so pleasingly provoking, her moods of keeping him off were so attractive, that they redoubled the impetuous rage with, which, he covered her with kisses: and kisses that, whilst she seemed to shy from or scuffle for, the cunning wanton contrived such sly returns, of, as were, doubtless the sweeter for the gust she gave them, ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland
... himself in Parliament. He said: "Handsome, beautifully groomed, with a slight stoop, slow delivery, speaking rarely and on subjects which he thoroughly understood, his phrasing perfect, manner engaging: a man reserved and shy, not seeking acquaintance, but, if sought, eminently agreeable." University members, he added, should come always in pairs: one to represent the high University ideal, embodied only in a very few; his colleague reflecting the mob of country parsons who by ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn
... was a strange little figure, and showed a shy awkwardness at the grandeur of his surroundings. He bobbed a funny little curtsy to Ruth, whom he already adored, and with an embarrassed nod, included the rest of ...
— Vicky Van • Carolyn Wells
... its white tombstones. Charlotte Bronte was a kind of prosaic, most demure and orthodox Shelley in the Victorian literature—with visible genius, an intense personality, unquenchable fire, an early and tragic death. And all this passion in a little prim, shy, delicate, ...
— Studies in Early Victorian Literature • Frederic Harrison
... mind that he would go over to the big fern when he saw those two soft, gentle eyes peeping from under a different leaf. It seemed to Peter that never in all his life had he seen such beautiful eyes. They looked so shy and bashful that Peter held his breath for fear that he would ...
— Mrs. Peter Rabbit • Thornton W. Burgess
... man for whom all the voices strained themselves did not hear their doubt-destroying response, tumultuous though it was. Another voice, close beside him, had taken up that refrain, making all others inaudible, a shy, glad, ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... my very life 's at stake, And do not many difficulties make. Convince thereby how much your spouse you love; 'Twill pleasure doubtless give the pow'rs above. But should the blockhead any how prove shy Send instantly to me; I shall be nigh; I'm going now to rest; by no means fail; We'll soon contrive and ev'ry way prevail. But there was no necessity for this; 'Tis pretty clear that nothing went amiss. In fact the rustick ...
— The Tales and Novels, Complete • Jean de La Fontaine
... had when he first knew it! Hereafter it would always be associated in his mind with memories of a slight figure that he had been permitted to hold for a single minute, a flushed face, a pair of glorious eyes, and a voice that he should never forget. How shy she was, and at the same time how dignified; how sweet and womanly in her anxiety about her father! He hoped they could be friends, as all business partners should be. Of course they could never be anything more than that; for he was not forgetting ...
— The Copper Princess - A Story of Lake Superior Mines • Kirk Munroe
... for they gradually came back and resumed their usual manner of life. The mother was occupied with keeping two small children in order. Besides these, there was a little boy and a girl. This latter was the oldest of the family. She was not so shy as her mother; on the contrary, she arranged herself in a most becoming attitude against the front of the verandah. Every now and then the mother showed her teeth and spoke crossly to the baby, and once when it cried she whipped it with a bit of palm-leaf until it came to a ...
— A Visit to Java - With an Account of the Founding of Singapore • W. Basil Worsfold
... strong desire to meet this girl, to see her nearer by and to talk with her. But Dolly was timid. Beside her careful education in deportment, she was naturally shy and reticent. She was sure she never could make any advances to become acquainted with this new girl, and yet, she ...
— Two Little Women • Carolyn Wells
... the long day very contentedly in Kate's beautiful Commonwealth Avenue home. The two boys, Paul, twelve years old, and Egbert, eight, were a little shy, it is true, and not really of much use as companions; but there was a little Kate, four years old, who proved to ...
— Miss Billy • Eleanor H. Porter
... the hearth-square for logs, when she wanted fire: because Fredi bathed in any weather: the oaken towel-coffer; the wood-carvings of doves, tits, fishes; the rod for the flowered silken hangings she was to choose, and have shy odalisque peeps of sunny water from ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... calves," cried Jones, in ecstatic tones. "See how shy they are, how close they stick ...
— The Last of the Plainsmen • Zane Grey
... with me, Cecil,' he said in his most cheery tone—knowing that the lad usually formed one of the choir when at home, and thinking that his ill success at school had made him shy of facing the other choristers, who probably knew all about it ...
— Holiday Tales • Florence Wilford
... is concerned, his protest died with him: he left few imitators and (it may easily be conceived) no successful imitators. The suggestion of him lingers on in the exquisite Elizabethan perversity of Coventry Patmore; and has later flamed out from the shy volcano of Francis Thompson. Otherwise (as we shall see in the parallel case of Ruskin's Socialism) he has no followers in his own age: but ...
— The Victorian Age in Literature • G. K. Chesterton
... any more to him than a lady's bonnet-ribbon. He got a good name for his jumping as a steeple-chaser; but when he'd been the death of three jocks and two gentlemen riders, folks began to get rather shy of him and his jumping; and then Captain Chesterly come and planted him on my guv'nor, which more fool my governor to take him at any price, says I. And now, sir, I've stood your friend, and give you a honest warning; and perhaps it ain't going too far ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... soldier who had seen all, she bade him tell her what had come to pass. This he did truthfully, being friendly disposed towards me because I had overcome the Nubian. Thereon she turned and spoke to the girl bearing the fan who stood beside her—a woman with curling hair and shy dark eyes, very beautiful to see. The girl answered somewhat. Then Cleopatra bade them bring the slave to her. So they led forward the giant, who had found his breath again, and with him the woman whom he ...
— Cleopatra • H. Rider Haggard
... lent my love a book one day; She brought it back; I laid it by: 'Twas little either had to say,— She was so strange, and I so shy. ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson
... of forty-three, then, previously unknown in the world of letters, this shy and obscure gentleman-in-waiting to the Princes of Conde, rose into fame, and enjoyed the admiration or the envy of whatever was most prominent in Paris. The public which he addressed was one which we may pause ...
— Three French Moralists and The Gallantry of France • Edmund Gosse
... 'Nobody knows where Brooke will be—there's no counting on Brooke'—that is what people say of you, to be quite frank. Now, do turn respectable. How will you like going to Sessions with everybody looking shy on you, and you with a bad conscience and ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... it all right enough, unless you've changed mightily. But, here, I'll shy your book through ...
— The Half-Back • Ralph Henry Barbour
... sweep of some half-mile between the lodge and the house, and he was riding along at a foot pace over the smooth gravel, once Nickits's, when Mr. Bounderby burst out of the shrubbery, with such violence as to make his horse shy ...
— Hard Times • Charles Dickens*
... April with her wild blue eye Comes dancing over the grass, And all the crimson buds so shy Peep out to see her pass; As lightly she loosens her showery locks And flutters her rainy wings; Laughingly stoops To the glass of the stream, And loosens and loops Her hair by the gleam, While all the young villagers blithe as the flocks Go frolicking round in rings; - Then Winter, he ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... stairway of the hotel to his room. He was keen to get back to his little friend after the hazards of the night, eager to see the brown eyes light up with joy at sight of him and to hear the soft voice with the trailing inflection drawl out its shy questions. So he took the stairs three at a time, with a song on his lips and in ...
— Bucky O'Connor • William MacLeod Raine
... may be many and and behold, a bold girl will appear and carry off the shy man! Perhaps to the life-long chagrin and sorrow ...
— Hints for Lovers • Arnold Haultain
... circuit of the house, and found the door open and the bridge withdrawn. It was plain, then, that Jimson must have come; plain, too, that he must be on board. He must be a very shy man to have suffered this invasion of his residence, and made no sign; and her courage rose higher at the thought. He must come now, she must force him from his privacy, for the plank was too heavy for her single strength; so she tapped upon the open ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... mother, 'kiss the gentleman for the gift.' Would yer believe it, Jim, thet shy girl come and put her arms around my ...
— The Wedge of Gold • C. C. Goodwin
... there for years and had grown quite hopeless about seeing his kind again. When there was a gap in the mountains, he could hear the querulous, senseless love-quarrel of flickers going on below him; passing a deep ravine, the note of the wood-thrush—that shy lyrist of the hills—might rise to him from a dense covert of maple and beech: or, with a startling call, a red-crested cock of the woods would beat his white-striped wings from spur to spur, as though he were keeping close to the long swells of an unseen sea. Several times, ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox
... exceedingly shy that we made no sort of acquaintance. If instead of going round the world he had only fallen from the moon, he could not appear less versed in the usual modes of a tea-drinking party. But what, you will say, has a tea-drinking party to do with a botanist, a man of science, a president of the ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay
... Cricket Ground on Tuesday last, when the betting was decidedly in favour of the Cons, whose appearance and manner was more confident than usual; while, on the contrary, the Rads seemed desponding and shy. On tossing up, the Whigs succeeded in getting first innings, and the Tories dispersed themselves about the field in high glee, flattering themselves that they would not ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, September 5, 1841 • Various
... They are very vigilant and wakeful, sufficed with very little sleep: very hardy both for diet and weather, very proud and self conceited. They take something after the Bramines, with whom they scruple not both to marry and eat. In both which otherwise they are exceeding shy and cautious. For there being many Ranks or Casts among them, they will not match with any Inferiour to themselves; nor eat meat dressed in any house, but in those only that are of as good a Cast or Race as themselves: and that which any one hath left, none but those that ...
— An Historical Relation Of The Island Ceylon In The East Indies • Robert Knox
... Effie sang wild ballads for us, and her rich full notes were echoed from the distance by the spirit voices of the hills. We wove garlands of water-lilies and wild flowers, and when I said we were making Ophelias of ourselves, Effie, with shy earnestness most bewitching, unloosened her beautiful hair, twining the long locks, and banding her temples with the water-lily garlands and long grass—then wrapping an India muslin mantle around her shoulders, she gathered up the ends ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol. XXXII No. 2. February 1848 • Various
... equally excellent, which have remained part of the language of the English-speaking world for three centuries since Shakespeare, and will no doubt continue to belong to it for ever, we are apt to declare he should have worn in their newest gloss, not cast aside so soon. Why was he as shy of repeating any one of them even once as Hudibras was of showing ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XXVI., December, 1880. • Various
... He was a shy gentle youth, very quiet and refined, a little effeminate, even, in his exaggerated gracefulness and in his meticulous care for his clothes and his person. He avoided all company except that of the Barringtons, probably because a similarity ...
— Kimono • John Paris
... John's wounded pride led him to the conclusion that it was the duty of every patriotic Englishman to do his best to destroy the commerce of Holland. She was very impatient of those peoples who were shy of imitating her, forgetting that her conduct through six generations had made a strong impression on the world's mind, and that her sudden conversion could not immediately avail against her long persistence in sinning against political economy, ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I., No. IV., April, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... stampin' grounds every onct in a while, an' let me tell you he hunts some peculiar, he do, he's half man and half wolf—but shucks, I won't spoil the show, you will see how he hunts for yourself if you stay here long. Glory be, but he's got me some bashful and shy. But mosey along and I'll hist yore stuff on this here cayuse while you let them tha' dogs out of their chicken coop boxes. You can cache your dude duds in the Emporium general store over yonder next to Squinty Quinn's saloon, an' then we're off for the hills. I'll yarn about this Wild Hunter ...
— The Black Wolf Pack • Dan Beard
... much known in the Rhode Island village, being shy and reticent. She had kept the house clean and helped the captain in the garden. When her parents were dead she had found herself alone with thirty-seven hundred dollars in the bank and the little home, and had married a young man who was a clerk ...
— Windy McPherson's Son • Sherwood Anderson
... Lylyan Lynch-Blosse, an English lady, who came to Sioux Falls early last winter and attracted almost instantly the respectful attention of the citizens. Not because she was a strikingly beautiful woman, for a student of statues might find some faults in her features, but because out of the shy, violet eyes a high, indomitable spirit occasionally gleamed and a stray flash from them, combined with her radiant freshness of complexion and perfect grace of figure and of carriage, would light up the common sordid ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 24, November, 1891 • Various
... with all the politeness he would have shown to any lady. He knew that she was now his friend, and he had conceived a sincere liking for her. She was shy and very quiet when a passenger on his stage, ready to do anything he asked, obedient to any suggestion he ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page
... the affair before dinner, but by the time she was gowned and primped, the first premature guest had arrived like the rashest primrose, shy, surprised, and surprising. Sir Joseph had gone below already. Lady Webling was hull ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... a brief instant in a warm strong pressure, but dropped it again and there was a quick cold withdrawing of his eyes that she did not understand. The old Mark Carter would never have looked at her coolly, impersonally like that. What was it, was he shy of her after the long separation? Four years was a long time, of course, but there had been occasional letters. He had always been away when she was at home, and she had been home very little between her school years. There had been summer sessions twice and once father and mother ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill
... whose crimes were very much more serious and brutal than those of De Sade. A man who stabbed women in the streets at St. Louis was a waiter with a high-pitched, effeminate voice and boyish appearance. Reidel, the sadistic murderer, was timid, modest, and delicate; he was too shy to urinate in the presence of other people. A sadistic zooephilist, described by A. Marie, who attempted to strangle a woman fellow-worker, had always been very timid, blushed with much facility, could not look even children in the eyes, or urinate in the presence of another ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... silent orchard aisles are sweet With smell of ripening fruit. Through the sere grass, in shy retreat, Flutter, at coming feet, The ...
— Poems • William D. Howells
... The parroquets are entirely green, except a red tuft on their head. Hawks are numerous and of two different kinds, the grey and blue: they were great enemies to the young chickens, and it was no unusual sight to see them take up the rats. Quails and curlews are plentiful, but very shy. The owls, which have very handsome plumage, make a noise like one man calling to another, and they pronounce the word "yaho" very distinctly. Many of the smaller birds have a most melodious note, and their plumage ...
— An Historical Journal of the Transactions at Port Jackson and Norfolk Island • John Hunter
... of the first negro regiment. A Rev. Mr. Fowler has been appointed chaplain and is at work recruiting, appealing to their religious feelings. He spent two nights here and talked in the praise-house, both evenings. The women came to hear him, but the young men were shy. Not one came near him, nor would they come near ...
— Letters from Port Royal - Written at the Time of the Civil War (1862-1868) • Various
... tenderness of the Christmas-tide, I could not help doing the same by all the others who were present. And I remember now the dignity of mien in some, the frank ease in others, both graceful and gracious, with which my civility was met. If a few were a little shy, the rest more than made it up by their welcome of me, and a sort of politeness which had almost something courtly in it. Darry and Maria together gave me a seat, in the very centre and glow of the kitchen light and warmth; and the rest made a half circle around, leaving ...
— Daisy • Elizabeth Wetherell
... whose ball it is until they get there. That's the way to catch the snippy ones. Let's don't even tell Miss Judy. It might make her kind of shy. Just let 'em all get to dancin' an' kinder warmed up an' then when we got 'em where they can't back out without bein' mighty rude we'll up an' make speeches an' let the county know how we stand for that girl an' what she is an' how proud we are of her," suggested ...
— The Comings of Cousin Ann • Emma Speed Sampson
... came into this building—though I am not a shy man, having been educated at Brazenose College, and preposterously flattered throughout my life, most probably on account of my size,—I had not lost this sense of unworthiness; but your gracious reception has not only reassured ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various
... his guests, the man stood in an inquiring attitude, surreptitiously glancing at Joyce who seemed to him almost superhumanly beautiful in that dusty place, for her pink flush and shy eyes only accentuated her charms. She found it necessary to explain the intrusion at once, but was so nervous over just the right form of self-introduction required that she rather lost ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... Army, or that work will be found for him on his release, and the like, that undertaking, whatever it may be, is noted in the book which I have mentioned, and although years may pass before it can be fulfilled, is in due course carried out to the letter. Now, convicts are shy birds, who put little faith in promises. But when they find that these are always kept they gain confidence in the makers of them, and often learn ...
— Regeneration • H. Rider Haggard
... was the curling golden hair. All the children of Cottonwoods were Jane Withersteen's friends, she loved them all. But Fay was dearest to her. Fay had few playmates, for among the Gentile children there were none near her age, and the Mormon children were forbidden to play with her. So she was a shy, ...
— Riders of the Purple Sage • Zane Grey
... said he, in humble tone, With shy but conscious look, "Such facts I never could have known ...
— More Beasts (For Worse Children) • Hilaire Belloc
... I always consider that my career as a dog proper really started when I was bought for the sum of half a crown by the Shy Man. That event marked the end of my puppyhood. The knowledge that I was worth actual cash to somebody filled me with a sense of new responsibilities. It sobered me. Besides, it was only after that half-crown changed hands that I went out into the great world; and, ...
— The Man with Two Left Feet - and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... threw up his job and went back to Derlingport. They tell me she don't do nothin' much now but set around the house and think up new ways to git acquainted with men that ain't heard enough of her to stay shy of her. Sorry I ain't got no ink, ...
— Philo Gubb Correspondence-School Detective • Ellis Parker Butler
... The winter in Haworth had been a sickly season. Influenza had prevailed amongst the villagers, and where there was a real need for the presence of the clergyman's daughters, they were never found wanting, although they were shy of bestowing mere social visits on the parishioners. They had themselves suffered from the epidemic; Anne severely, as in her case it had been attended with cough and fever enough to make her elder sisters very ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... Melville or Strathtyrum; rambling (without a fishing-rod) in the charmed 'dens' of the Kenley burn, a place like Tempe in miniature: these things were Murray's usual enjoyments, and they became his indispensable needs. His peculiarly shy and, as it were, silvan nature, made it physically impossible for him to live in crowded streets and push his way through throngs of indifferent men. He could not live even in Edinburgh; he made the effort, and his health, at no time strong, seems never to have recovered ...
— Robert F. Murray - his poems with a memoir by Andrew Lang • Robert F. Murray
... men with other women." Ellen Key, referring to the demand sometimes made by women for purity in men (Ueber Liebe und Ehe, p. 96), asks whether women realize the effect of their admiration of the experienced and confident man who knows women, on the shy and hesitating youth, "who perhaps has been struggling hard for his erotic purity, in the hope that a woman's happy smile will be the reward of his conquest, and who is condemned to see how that woman looks down on him with lofty compassion and gazes with admiration ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... to look upon. She had taken off her hat and coat in the little ante-room, and as she stood there in her black frock, with its demure little white turn-down collar, she looked very young, very shy, and if the truth must be told, very pretty. Whereupon Barry, who loved all pretty girls in a harmless, kindly fashion, rejoiced exceedingly; while even Owen, to whom things feminine were at present anathema, owned to himself that she was certainly ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes
... Miss Madigan went out into the future, sent thither by her auntly sense of responsibility, and brought it back with her. It led them straight to Warren Pemberton's office, and Pretense fled like a shy shadow before the sun when Reality looked at her through Pemberton's cold, ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson
... 1873.—In four hours we came within sight of the Luena and Lake, and saw plenty of elephants and other game, but very shy. The forest trees are larger. The guides are more at a loss than we are, as they always go in canoes in the flat rivers and rivulets. Went E., ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume II (of 2), 1869-1873 • David Livingstone
... oldest and best organization. It has enough energy, enough driving force, to better conditions for all if it could be properly applied; but being an exceedingly respectable institution it has been rather shy of changes, and so has found it hard to adapt itself to new conditions. It has clung to shadows after the substance has departed; and even holds to the old phraseology which belongs to a day long dead. Stately and beautiful and meaningful ...
— The Next of Kin - Those who Wait and Wonder • Nellie L. McClung
... pigeon, are less frequent visitors; and though the purple-breasted fruit pigeon—the most magnificent of all—talks to his mate in coarse gutturals from the trees above, he has not been seen actually drinking. So shy and furtive a bird would choose his time for refreshment when there is little likelihood of interruption. In the ravine there are often metallic starlings by the dozen, and little green pigeons—for those domiciled come and go at all ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... I practised, and planted some flowers, and made some things for Miranda's baby, and then"—she hesitated, with an adorably shy look full of that pathos, which made so many of her simplest statements seem claims for protection, "and then I went over ...
— Katrine • Elinor Macartney Lane
... can't remember a time when I didn't have them. Even in my cradle, so mother has told me, I was supersensual. I scorned the healthy breast of my nurse, and had to be brought up on goats' milk. As a little boy I was mysteriously shy before women, which really was only an expression of an inordinate interest in them. I was oppressed by the gray arches and half-darknesses of the church, and actually afraid of the glittering altars and images of the saints. Secretly, however, I sneaked ...
— Venus in Furs • Leopold von Sacher-Masoch
... her eyes. There was no doubt about it. The little fellow, not in the least shy, and, in fact, now become rather proud of his adventure, commenced to prattle very soon. Matravers interrupted him ...
— Berenice • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... up a shindy. Paris is the finest place in Europe to get murdered in peacefully and without a lot of silly fuss. You see, it might be a hoax. Your Parisian hoaxer likes a dash of Grand Guignol horrors in his jokelet. The police have been had several times, and they're very much hoax-shy. I could tell you some pretty tales about mysterious disappearances that never ...
— Swirling Waters • Max Rittenberg
... there sprang up many factional differences from various causes, some personal, others political, and some, I regret to say, from downright moral obliquity—as, for example, those between Cortinas and Canales —who, though generally hostile to the Imperialists, were freebooters enough to take a shy at each other frequently, and now and then even to join forces against Escobedo, unless we prevented them by coaxing or threats. A general who could unite these several factions was therefore greatly needed, and on my return to New Orleans I so telegraphed General Grant, and ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan
... though by accident at the sleeping man opposite. Then, as though conscious of what she had done, a spot of color burned in her cheeks. Since the anger which had first inspired her to speech had died away, her manner had been a little shy. I realized more and more that ...
— The Lost Ambassador - The Search For The Missing Delora • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... waggon or cart, the crowds seek some neighbouring grove, and there the day is given over to laughter, mirth, and song. The children roll and tumble on the sward in the intoxication of "swing-turn" and "ring-around-a-rosy." The young women, with many blushes and shy glances, steal off to quiet nooks with their imploring swains. Some of the elders, anxious to prove that they have not yet lost all their youth and agility, indulge, rather awkwardly perhaps, in the exhausting amusement of the jumping-rope. A few of the more ...
— The Uncalled - A Novel • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... when she came into the sidings with her team, it was Joe she looked for. She acknowledged to herself that she was sweet on him. But Albert did all the talking. He was so full of fun and nonsense. Joe was a very shy bird, very brief and remote in his answers. Miss Stokes was driven to indulge in repartee with Albert, but she fixed her magnetic attention on the younger fellow. Joe would talk with Albert, and laugh at his jokes. But Miss Stokes could get little out of him. She had to depend ...
— England, My England • D.H. Lawrence
... part with this view; but the notablest is still to mention: that of stirring up, by Voltaire's means, an important-looking Cardinal de Tencin to labor in the business. Eminency Tencin lives in Lyon, known to the Princess on her Italian Tour;—shy of asking Voltaire to dinner on that fine occasion,—but, except Officially, is not otherwise than well-affected to Voltaire. Was once Chief Minister of France, and would fain again be; does not like these Bernis novelties and Austrian Alliances, had he ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVIII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Seven-Years War Rises to a Height.—1757-1759. • Thomas Carlyle
... the sheets; the supply of forms actually failed once, and Constance herself had to hurry to the printers to order more. Samuel was put into a passion by this carelessness of the printers. He offered Cyril sixpence for every sheet of signatures which the boy would obtain. At first Cyril was too shy to canvass, but his father made him blush, and in a few hours Cyril had developed into an eager canvasser. One whole day he stayed away from school to canvas. Altogether he earned over fifteen shillings, quite honestly except that he got a companion to forge a couple of signatures with addresses ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... magazines. She had contributed stories to most of them, but not one was known, even by name, to her inquisitors. One shy old lady asked faintly if she had ever heard of Mr. Tweed. She thought she had heard of a Mister Tweed of New ...
— Kilo - Being the Love Story of Eliph' Hewlitt Book Agent • Ellis Parker Butler
... water's edge and walked up to its knees in the water towards us; the boat was backed in and we endeavoured to entice it within our reach by throwing some food; but the animal, upon discovering that we were strangers, became shy, and after smelling about ran back towards a bush about fifty yards off; from which the natives, who had all the time been concealed behind it, rushed out and with loud shouts ran towards us: upon reaching the water's edge they threw several stones, one of which ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia - Performed between the years 1818 and 1822 • Phillip Parker King
... something Miss Satterly had said—some whimsical thing—and he could hear his heart pounding in the silence which followed. The little, nickel alarm clock tick-tick-ticked with such maddening precision and speed that Chip wanted to shy a book at it, but his eyes never left the rocky bluff opposite, and ...
— Chip, of the Flying U • B. M. Bower
... I mean his eternal D.V., which, translated, only means, "If I happen to be in the Humour." You must know that the feeling of being bound to an Engagement is the very thing that makes him wish to break it. Spedding once told me this was rather my case. I believe it, and am therefore shy of ever making an engagement. O si ...
— Two Suffolk Friends • Francis Hindes Groome
... here represented as having the tongue of 'them that are taught,' and as having it, because morning by morning He has been wakened to hear God's lessons. He is thus God's scholar—a thought of which an unreflecting orthodoxy has been shy, but which it is necessary to admit unhesitatingly and ungrudgingly, if we would not reduce the manhood of Jesus to a mere phantasm. He Himself has said, 'As the Father taught Me, I speak these things.' With emphatic repetition, He was ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... square chap," he reflected. "I've had a lot of so-called friends, here, but he is the only one who still rings true. I may imagine it, but I'm sure the rest are beginning to shy off. Well, I shan't bother them much longer—they can prepare ...
— In Her Own Right • John Reed Scott
... King went to drink in his hall, Audunn ate his meal out of doors, as is the custom of Rome pilgrims, so long as they have not laid aside their staff and scrip. In the evening, when the King went to Vespers, Audunn intended to meet him, but shy as he was before, he was much more so now that the courtiers were merry with drink. As they were going back, the King noticed a man, and thought he could see that he had not the confidence to come forward and meet him. But as the courtiers walked in, the King ...
— Seven Icelandic Short Stories • Various
... the young Wykehamists was shy and churlish, and sheered off from the brothers, but the other catechised them on their views of becoming scholars in the college. He pointed out the cloister where the studies took place in all weathers, showed them the hall, the chapel, and the ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... Phillis felt rather shy and uncomfortable as she picked her way warily among the rain-pools in the semi-darkness. Her companion was inclined to be silent; most likely he considered her churlish in repelling his civil offers of help: so, to make amends, and set herself at her ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... all out on the tennis-court one afternoon, when our attention was attracted by the strange antics of the Guernsey. She was generally quite shy and would allow no one to whom she was not accustomed to come near her. But on this occasion she lurched up near where we were standing, and crossed her forefeet and leered at us in such a way that we women instinctively moved backward and put the ...
— At Home with the Jardines • Lilian Bell
... staying with mamma, and mentioned a suitable hotel, adding that I was so sorry I had to return to town that afternoon, as I had begun to love the scholastic peace of Oxbridge and valued so much the opportunity of meeting its greatest men. I was bright and poetical in streaks, and every shy—if I may use the expression—hit the coco-nut. Sometimes I glanced at Willie, my pseudo-brother. His face twitched a little, but he never actually gave way to his feelings. The Dean had ceased to ...
— Marge Askinforit • Barry Pain
... like blind puppies, young and alive to the milk of love and kindness which they drew from his heart. Most of this delight escaped the observation of the world, for Neal, like your true lover, became shy and mysterious. It is difficult to say what he resembled; no dark lantern ever had more light shut up within itself, than Neal had in his soul, although his friends were not aware of it. They knew, indeed, that he had turned his back upon valor; but ...
— Phelim O'toole's Courtship and Other Stories • William Carleton
... Shy, misty moon, Whence comes the blush that trembles In sweet disgrace O'er half thy face When Night her ...
— Jimbo - A Fantasy • Algernon Blackwood
... assault there seemed to be no reply to make. Lady Theobald had her granddaughter under excellent control. Under her rigorous rule, the girl—whose mother had died at her birth—had been brought up. At nineteen she was simple, sensitive, shy. She had been permitted to have no companions, and the greatest excitements of her life had been the Slowbridge tea-parties. Of the late Sir Gilbert Theobald, the less said the better. He had spent very little of his married life at Oldclough Hall, and upon ...
— A Fair Barbarian • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... he said, "that spoon will spin splendidly, and I don't expect the fish here have been educated so far as to know what a fish-hook is. They've a lot to learn before they grow shy of an artificial bait. Think that ...
— Old Gold - The Cruise of the "Jason" Brig • George Manville Fenn
... lap, and played on my knees with her doll. Thus they behaved to me when I saw them for the first time in their present elevation; I found them afterwards, in their drawing-rooms or at their routs and parties, more shy and distant. This change did not much surprise me, as I hardly knew any one that had the slightest pretension to their acquaintance who had not troubled them for employment or borrowed their money, at the same time that they complained of their neglect and their breach of ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... these wild creatures are shy, and one may travel many days without adventure, and any sense of danger is soon lost in admiration of the beauties of ...
— Burma - Peeps at Many Lands • R.Talbot Kelly
... her—at a distance. In her intercourse with Gowan she was capricious and had her moods. Sometimes she indulged in the weakness of tiring herself in all her small bravery when he was coming, and presented herself in the parlor beauteous and flushed and conscious, and was so delectably shy and sweet that she betrayed him into numerous trifling follies not at all consistent with his high position of mentor; and then, again, she was obstinate, rather incomprehensible, and did not adorn herself at all, and, indeed, was hard enough ...
— Vagabondia - 1884 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... intelligent, made an attempt to speak, and muttered something indistinctly. She would stretch out her hand when told to give it, and she recognized with a smile her nurse and the physician. Some four months later she would grind her teeth when in a pleasant mood, and would act as if she were shy when spoken to, holding her hand before her eyes. She was fond of her nurse. Thus there was capacity of observation, there were attention, memory, affection, and some power of voluntary movement. She died in January, 1876. ...
— The Mind of the Child, Part II • W. Preyer
... don't believe you're scared of work; you're only sort of shy about it. I never saw you really afraid of more'n three things—bein' a spoil-sport, or out of style, or havin' a waiter think you're stingy. No, you ain't afraid of work, but you never been properly ...
— Rope • Holworthy Hall
... returned to his own place. He was in middle age—a man of fifty. He married soberly enough Mary of Cleves, ugly and young: he married her in order to cement the understanding with Burgundy. She did not love him with his shy florid face, long neck and features and mild eyes. His age for twenty-five years passed easily, he had reached his "castle of No Care." As late as 1462 his son (Louis XII) was born; his two daughters at long intervals before. His famous library moved with him as ...
— Avril - Being Essays on the Poetry of the French Renaissance • H. Belloc
... we silenced most of the Boer guns by 5 p.m. and slept that night as we stood. I had the Boer 100 lb. 6" shell (which had fallen close to us without bursting) carried up the hill to show the Commander-in-Chief and Staff; they were all interested but rather shy of it, but one of them took a photo. We picked up many fragments of shells which had fallen close to us during the day and from which all of us had narrow escapes, for we were in a warm corner. General Hildyard and Staff who were sitting close by us at one part ...
— With the Naval Brigade in Natal (1899-1900) - Journal of Active Service • Charles Richard Newdigate Burne
... snatched his rudder, and shook out more sail; And day and night held on indignantly O'er the blue Midland waters with the gale, Betwixt the Syrtes and soft Sicily, To where the Atlantic raves Outside the western straits; and unbent sails There, where down cloudy cliffs, through sheets of foam, Shy traffickers, the dark Iberians come; And on the beach ...
— Lyra Heroica - A Book of Verse for Boys • Various
... It would have been cheek to tell you—the second time we met—that your eyes looked at me just as they did when you were a little child. I should have had to be decently careful because you might have felt shy. You don't feel shy now, do you? No, you don't," ...
— Robin • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... English name given to a bird belonging to the family Fringillidae (see FINCH), of a bluish-grey and black colour above, and generally of a bright tile-red beneath, the female differing chiefly in having its under-parts chocolate-brown. It is a shy bird, not associating with other species, and frequents well-wooded districts, being very rarely seen on moors or other waste lands. It builds a shallow nest composed of twigs lined with fibrous ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... "He's shy," proceeded Mrs. Ch'in, "and has seen nothing much of the world, so that you are sure to be put out when you see ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... Annex, the question of help got serious. Most of our college waiters had gone back to school, and we was pretty shy of servants. So we put some extry advertisin' in the Cape weeklies, and trusted ...
— The Depot Master • Joseph C. Lincoln
... and his quiet tutor was somewhat pathetic. The prospects of the Pole were, in their way, far drearier than those of his pupil. He was an intensely shy man; and yet the thought of leaving the home which had come so perfectly to suit his sensitive temperament, was to him more calamitous than the prospect of finding and fitting himself into another place. On the last morning, master ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... under the pines would lose half its summer charm were I to miss that shy anchorite, the Wilson's thrush, nor hear in haying time the metallic ring of his song, that justifies his rustic name of scythe-whet. I protect my game as jealously as an English squire. If anybody had ooelogized a certain cuckoo's nest I know of (I have a pair ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... plastered tile bungalows. Then without warning Billy sat up. How long had that young scamp been awake? Had he slept at all? He was like a man, grave and stern with business before him. The doctor almost felt shy ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill
... frost, seems to afford them some food. In the spring thrushes move along, rustling the fallen leaves as they search behind the arum-sheaths unrolling beside the palings, or under the shelter of the group of trees where arum-roots are plentiful. There are nooks and corners from which shy creatures can steal out from the shadow and be happy. The dew falls softly, more noiseless than snow, and a star shines to the north over the spruce fir. By day there is a loving streak of sunshine somewhere among the tree-trunks; by night ...
— The Toilers of the Field • Richard Jefferies
... their lessons in a way they never did before. Every day they prepare bouquets for him, and he gets more of them than a prima donna, or at any rate a more regular supply. The first day he came I was afraid they would be very shy of such a big strange man, and that he would extract nothing from them but tears; but the moment I left them alone together and as I shut the door, I heard them eagerly informing him, by way of opening the friendship, that their heads were washed every Saturday night, and that their hair-ribbons ...
— The Solitary Summer • Elizabeth von Arnim
... time in the bull's-eye, suh," admitted the Southern lad; "and I confess that I thought it half an hour later. I'm still some shy, it seems, on telling time ...
— Afloat - or, Adventures on Watery Trails • Alan Douglas
... matter, this trying to get to know the birds; but scouts are not looking for the easiest jobs, and it is great sport for them to follow some shy songster through the briery thicket until a really good look can be had, to sit stock still for half an hour to watch some unknown bird come home to her nest, or to wriggle on all fours through the grass ...
— Boy Scouts Handbook - The First Edition, 1911 • Boy Scouts of America
... several members of a beaver family are trapped in succession. The survivors then become extremely shy, and can scarcely be "brought to medicine," to use the trapper's phrase for "taking the bait." In such case, the trapper gives up the use of the bait, and conceals his traps in the usual paths and crossing places of ...
— The Adventures of Captain Bonneville - Digested From His Journal • Washington Irving
... neighbourhood. With that view I left in and about the houses hatchets, knives, glasses and a variety of things that I thought would be useful or pleasing to them, and also to show them that we were disposed to be friendly to them, and by that means I hoped they would become less shy, and that our intercourse with them would be brought about; and I stood round the northernmost island to visit other parts of the island, and on the 14th in the morning Lt. Corner was sent on shore with ...
— Voyage of H.M.S. Pandora - Despatched to Arrest the Mutineers of the 'Bounty' in the - South Seas, 1790-1791 • Edward Edwards
... All the shy boldness of an enamoured girl peeped out of Rina's eyes, as she whispered: "I'm glad it's lonesome! I don' want ...
— Two on the Trail - A Story of the Far Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... the doorway, now. "W'y," he cried, "here's thet fool Norwegian goin' t' th' landin'. Wal, he is pritty shy on sand!" ...
— The Plow-Woman • Eleanor Gates
... kissed her, made her rest on the sofa, and talked to her, the shy monosyllabic replies lengthening every time as the motherliness drew forth a response, until, when conducted to the cheerful little room which Mrs. Brownlow had carefully decked with little comforts for the convalescent, and with the ornaments likely to ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... experience of my fellow-creatures, that I was at a loss how to answer her. Nothing had prepared me for her kindness and her beauty. The misery of many years has not hardened my heart, thank God. I was as awkward and as shy with her, as if I had been ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... a solitary voice Should say "These verses polyglot Are not so bad," I should rejoice; But oh, my publishers would not! * * * * * And I, though shy and unanointed, Should be ...
— Tobogganing On Parnassus • Franklin P. Adams
... of Chung-kung, If the calf of a brindled cow be red and horned, though men be shy to offer him, will the hills and ...
— The Sayings Of Confucius • Confucius
... her large, mournful eyes, the only beauty, save her hair, of which she could boast. Very few had ever cared for poor Mabel, who, though warm-hearted and affectionate, required to be known in order to be appreciated, and as she was naturally shy and retiring, there were not many who felt at all acquainted with her. Left alone in the world at a very early age, she had never known what it was to possess a real, disinterested friend, unless we except Nellie Douglass, ...
— 'Lena Rivers • Mary J. Holmes
... economical of labour, to remove the body nearer to his den, would satisfy his hunger on the spot, and offer an opportunity to overtake him at his meals; besides, the bear, being quick of sight and shy, and so sensitive of scent that he can smell a man at the distance of a mile or more if he approaches with the wind, will frequently leave his food and as frequently return to it; and, therefore, the Norwegians ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... metallic tender solicitude. Mr Brindley adopted an entirely serious attitude towards her. If I had met him there and nowhere else I should have taken him for a dignified mediocrity, little better than a fool, but with just enough discretion not to give himself away. I said nothing. I was shy. I always am shy in a bar. Out of her cold, cold roving eye Miss Brett watched me, trying to add me up and not succeeding. She must have perceived, however, that I was not ...
— The Grim Smile of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... remained for an instant standing in the doorway in the same self-possessed, coldly graceful pose he remembered she had taken on the platform at Tasajara. Her eyelids were slightly downcast, as if she had been arrested by some sudden thought or some shy maiden sensitiveness; in her hesitation Mrs. Ramirez passed ...
— A First Family of Tasajara • Bret Harte
... him here: his external self; his character, ever so little shy and unsocial; his temperament, which was made ...
— Fabre, Poet of Science • Dr. G.V. (C.V.) Legros
... dull hours for me, and kept me company in many lonesome ones. For kindnesses of this sort, indeed, I am under obligations to edifices in every part of the city; and there is hardly a bit of sculptured stone in the Ducal Palace to which I do not owe some pleasant thought or harmless fancy. Yet I am shy of endeavoring in my gratitude to transmute the substance of the Ducal Palace into some substance that shall be sensible to the eyes that look on this print; and I forgive myself the reluctance the more readily when I remember how, ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... very reluctant to tell. She was very shy, and clung to her mother, and hid her face in her ample dress; and though presently she was beguiled by Mary's voice, and in a short time came to her side, and clung to her as she had clung to Mrs. Turner, she still kept her secret to herself. They were all very kind to Mary, the elder girls standing ...
— Old Lady Mary - A Story of the Seen and the Unseen • Margaret O. (Wilson) Oliphant
... is excessively wild and shy in its habits, frequenting, in the daytime, the highest and most inaccessible rocks, and only descending into the valleys to feed early in the morning and late in the evening. When disturbed in the daytime ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 1 (of 2) • George Grey
... secure the hand of the beautiful Miss Effingham, and not daring to risk another trial, as it might spoil the plans he had been contemplating since Edith's dismissal of him, he had kept shy of that young lady during the remainder of his stay, and prior to his departure for London, he had contrived to have a long interview with the Baronet, during which he very ably showed the position that he would hold ...
— Vellenaux - A Novel • Edmund William Forrest
... some trouble in reaching Mr. Larabee, who was a bit shy of strangers. When one, (in this case Larson) was announced by Aunt Samantha, ...
— Dick Hamilton's Airship - or, A Young Millionaire in the Clouds • Howard R. Garis
... younger officers promptly sought to play the agreeable to Mrs. Whately and her niece, and upon the latter all eyes rested in undisguised admiration. Cold and shy as she had appeared, she had not failed to note the fact. The woman was sufficiently developed within her for this, and the quick, unanimous verdict of these strangers and enemies in regard to herself which she read in their eyes came with almost the force of a revelation. For the first time, she ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe
... Yet I do so long for a little sympathy. Wonder if I shall get any from my dear cousin Eva some fine day? Hum. I more and more incline to that venture. It would suit my book, to say nothing of my being really almost in love with the dear creature. But I'm so abominably shy. Let's see, Ratman is due first week in October—a month hence. I shall have to keep him quiet some how. He won't be satisfied with things as they are, I'm afraid. All very well to be heir-presumptive when there's little prospect of presuming. Dear Roger is certainly ...
— Roger Ingleton, Minor • Talbot Baines Reed
... higher strata of English society as in "Middlemarch," or, as in "Romola," give an historical picture of another time in a foreign land. The woman who was gracious hostess at those famous Sunday afternoons at the Priory seems to have little likeness to the frail, shy, country girl in Griff—seems, too, far more important; yet it may be doubted whether all this later work reveals such mastery of the human heart or comes from such an imperative source of expression as do the earlier novels, ...
— Masters of the English Novel - A Study Of Principles And Personalities • Richard Burton
... fact, that more organic wealth has been made by saving than in any other way. The race is not in the long run to the phenomenally swift nor the battle to the phenomenally strong, but to the good average all-round organism that is alike shy of Radical crotchets and old world obstructiveness. Festina, but festina lente—perhaps as involving so completely the contradiction in terms which must underlie all modification—is the motto they would assign to organism, and Chi va piano ...
— Luck or Cunning? • Samuel Butler
... bottom out o' the trail," said the Man with the Gash, between departing paroxysms of mirth. "An' I only 'ope as you'll appreciate the hoppertunity of consortin' with a man o' my mug. Get steam up in that fire-box o' your'n. I'm goin' to unrig the dogs an' grub 'em. An' don't be shy o' the wood, my lad; there's plenty more where that come from, and it's you've got the time to sling an axe. An' tote up a bucket o' water while you're about it. Lively! or I'll run you ...
— The God of His Fathers • Jack London
... catch the moments as they fly, And use them as ye ought, man: Believe me, happiness is shy, And comes not aye ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... clergyman, coming to the patient's bedside,—not with the professional look on his face which suggests the undertaker and the sexton, but with a serene countenance and a sympathetic voice, with tact, with patience, waiting for the right moment,—will surprise the shy spirit into a confession of the doubt, the sorrow, the shame, the remorse, the terror which underlies all the bodily symptoms, and the unburdening of which into a loving and pitying soul is a more potent anodyne than all the drowsy sirups of the world. And, on the other hand, there are many nervous ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... of food for his pessimism, and merry hearts were very rare among his neighbors. Still a certain amount of gloom appears to have been inherent in the man. And as he distrusted the whole world, so Joseph distrusted himself, which made him shy and awkward in company. My mother tells how, at the wedding of his only son, my father, Joseph sat the whole night through in a corner, never as much as cracking a smile, while the wedding guests ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin
... mistake of confounding the unusual with the interesting. Romance is a shy bird, and not to be hunted with a brass band. Where is the heart of life, if not at one's elbow? At the farthest, one has only to turn the corner of the street. It is useless to look for prodigies in the abyss, but every ...
— The Gates of Chance • Van Tassel Sutphen
... Ladies shy the saving sense Write me patronizing letters; And there are the writing gents, Always out to knock their betters. What cares Flaccus if he may Lallygag ...
— A line-o'-verse or two • Bert Leston Taylor
... very shy man, Mr. Holmes. He would rather walk with me in the evening than in the daylight, for he said that he hated to be conspicuous. Very retiring and gentlemanly he was. Even his voice was gentle. He'd had the quinsy and ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... "You're shy, rather than over, at that. And two hundred thousand would build a number of miles of ordinary railroad, wouldn't it? But that isn't all. The cliffs along that canyon are shale-topped and shale-undermined, the shale alternating with loose rock about fifty feet ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde
... says one of my Notebooks; "a young gentleman of small stature, shining courage in battle, but somewhat shy and bashful; who has had his troubles in Petersburg society, till the trial came,—and will have. Here are the stages ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. X. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—At Reinsberg—1736-1740 • Thomas Carlyle
... start, and after I started, and could show the doubters what could be done, I could raise more money then. I am sure of it. Of course the first investment is the most dangerous gamble, and that's why everybody is shy. But I believe my scheme would work, though I can't seem to get ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... as shy as rabbits," thought Vane, laughing to himself. "It's leading such a wild life, I suppose. Here," he cried to the first lad, who was now within a yard of him, while the other was close behind; "see these? I want some of them. Come on, and I'll show you how ...
— The Weathercock - Being the Adventures of a Boy with a Bias • George Manville Fenn
... we become terror-stricken at the thought of ghosts. The untutored child needs only a hint to make him shy at the dark; and a lad has to be pretty large before he can walk far at night without once in a while looking behind him, just to be certain there ...
— Trail Tales • James David Gillilan
... did those sons fight shy of touching their father's body? Had it been your father or mine who was beaten down by a murderer's spite, we would surely have given him one fare-well clasp of ...
— The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley • Louis Tracy
... time when folks were shy o' these woods we just come through," said Mrs. Todd seriously. "The men-folks themselves never 'd venture into 'em alone; if their cattle got strayed they 'd collect whoever they could get, and start ...
— The Queen's Twin and Other Stories • Sarah Orne Jewett
... meteoric figure, who was subsequently devoured by a crocodile on the Blue Nile, Mr. Chumbleton spoke with genuine affection. "He was something like a Dook," said the old man, "and not one of your barley-water-drinking faddists. Yes, in those days a Dook was a Dook and not a cock-shy for demigods [? demagogues]. I can remember," he went on, "when there were three Dooks in residence at the same time, the Dook of Midhurst, the Dook of St. Ives and the Dook of Clumber. But the Dook of Midhurst was the pick of the bunch. Why, once he went into a grocer's shop in the High ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, July 22, 1914 • Various
... Possibly her contrition for the little fault, if fault indeed it was, may have increased the agony of feeling with which she forced rather than poured out her confession. But he soothes her with gentle, consoling, restoring words: "Be of good comfort." He heals the shy suffering spirit, "wherein old dints of deep wounds did remain." He confirms the cure she feared perhaps might be taken from her again. "Go in peace, and be whole of thy plague." Nay, more, he attributes her cure to her own faith. "Thy faith hath made thee whole." ...
— Miracles of Our Lord • George MacDonald
... examples that help to make the matter clear. I will again employ the simplest of them—one so simple that a child can understand it. It is a mathematical example, as it ought to be, for the whole question of logical types, or dimensions, is a mathematical one. I beg the reader not to shy at, or run away from, the mere word mathematical, for, although most of us have but little mathematical knowledge, we all of us have the mathematical spirit, for else we should not be human—we are all of us mathematicians at heart. Let us, then, ...
— Manhood of Humanity. • Alfred Korzybski
... Dorothy's hands smoothed the coverings. It was well for him to see the patient endurance of suffering, such as his youth and strength defied. It was bliss to wait on Dorothy, and follow her with little watchful homages, received with a shy wonder which was delicious to him,—for Dorothy's nineteen years had been too full of service to others to leave much room for dreams of a kingdom of her own. Her silent presence in her mother's sick-room awed him. Her gentle, decisive voice and ways, her composure and unshaken endurance through ...
— Stories by American Authors (Volume 4) • Constance Fenimore Woolson
... in a climate which can be made tolerable to an European only by spacious and well placed apartments. He had been furnished with letters of recommendation to a gentleman who might have assisted him; but when he landed at Fort St. George he found that this gentleman had sailed for England. The lad's shy and haughty disposition withheld him from introducing himself to strangers. He was several months in India before he became acquainted with a single family. The climate affected his health and spirits. His duties were of a kind ill-suited to his ardent and daring character. He pined ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... grew up a poet. The unsettled and aimless mind of his mother, shadowed as it was with perpetual blackness, prevented her from calmly and wisely striving to place her son in some position by which he could have aided in supporting himself and her. As a child, Andrew was shy and solitary, caring little for the society of children of his own years, and taking refuge from the never-ceasing violence of his mother's temper in the privacy of his own poor bedroom, with some old book which he had contrived to borrow, or with his pen, for he was ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... found it impossible to break, filled Philippe with remorse. At that moment, he experienced a feeling of aversion for that capricious and unreasonable little girl, who had brought about those compromising minutes between them. Unaccustomed to women and always rather shy in their company, he suspected her of some ...
— The Frontier • Maurice LeBlanc
... thirteen, came to stay with us. She is the younger daughter of Mrs. H. Green, and is rather a nice-looking girl, with dark wavy hair and a fairish skin. She is always spick-and-span, never so much as a hair out of its place. Naturally she is very shy, and I think, though she wanted to visit us, the coming was a great effort to her. But now that the plunge has been made I hope she finds it less alarming than she expected. She helps Ellen a good deal, and this keeps her occupied and makes her ...
— Three Years in Tristan da Cunha • K. M. Barrow
... more I saw of Marmaduke, the less I thought about the bats. Get under the surface, and he wa'n't nutty at all. He just had a free flow of funny thoughts and odd ways of expressin' 'em. Most of us are so shy of lettin' go of any sentiments that can't be had on a rubber stamp that it takes a mighty small twist to put a ...
— Odd Numbers - Being Further Chronicles of Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford
... gathered Aida into her arms. At the same time Ann removed herself from Jimmy's. She did not look at him. She was feeling oddly shy. Shyness had never been a failing of hers, but she would have given much now to ...
— Piccadilly Jim • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... The child was shy, dreamy, sensitive, inventive, and a liar. He and his brother Dick were together walking in the shabby High Street, and talking ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... voluminous writings were closed, there was portrayed an entirely novel specimen, one marked by the most grotesque extravagance, in the shape of that impish malignant, "the Deputy," whose pastime at once and whole duty in life seemed to be making a sort of vesper cock-shy of Durdles and ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent
... before him [of one] whom, as she drew nigher to him, he saw to be a seemly dame as for her years, straight and tall; neither was she clad in rags, but in a comely black gown and white coif. Nevertheless, as 't is said, Once bit, twice shy, so it was with him, and he was for giving her the go-by. But she would not have it so, and she greeted him and said: "Hail to thee, noble; whence art thou last?" Her voice was clear and good, and now as he looked in her face he deemed he saw no evil in it, but goodwill rather. But he ...
— The Sundering Flood • William Morris
... always doing his best to risk his life in absurd ventures such as no one else would have attempted. It was only the other day that Peter had seen him trying to break a horse which even a gaucho felt shy of riding; and he loved to be in the thick of the melee attempting the difficult task of swinging a lasso above his head, with that air of imperturbable gravity always about him. Or Peter pictured him in the long chair, where ...
— Peter and Jane - or The Missing Heir • S. (Sarah) Macnaughtan
... Sally and the staggerer wended their way overland to the same rendezvous slowly—remarkably slowly. They had so much to talk about; not of politics, you may be sure, nor yet of love, for they were somewhat shy of that, being, so ...
— The Lonely Island - The Refuge of the Mutineers • R.M. Ballantyne
... boundaries, rivers and mountains, capes, bays and islands, became for once worlds of beauty under the magic touch of the greenery. On the wall just over his desk, the master wrought out in evergreen an arching "WELCOME," but later on, the big girls, with some shy blushing, boldly tacked up underneath an answering "FAREWELL." By the time the short afternoon had faded into the early evening, the school stood, to the eyes of all familiar with the common sordidness of its everyday dress, a picture of artistic loveliness. And after the master's little speech ...
— Glengarry Schooldays • Ralph Connor
... found a bald little man who flitted along the paths like a ghost. He was so thin and so light that there seemed some danger of his being blown away by the wind. His timid manner and lus long and lean neck, when he bent forward, and his head, no larger than a man's fist, his shy side-glances and his skipping gait, his short arms uplifted like a pair of flippers, gave him undeniably a great resemblance to ...
— Balthasar - And Other Works - 1909 • Anatole France
... darting, scornful; it tosses its analogies in your face; humor is slow and shy, insinuating its fun into your heart," says E. P. Whipple. "Wit is intellectual, humor is emotional; wit is perception of resemblance, humor of contrast—of contrast between ideal and fact, theory and practice, promise and performance," ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers
... her face with wonder, and a little fear, for which he was angry with himself. He noted the three grains de beaute and the smile that seemed to break high on her cheek, in a small nick, like that on the cheek of a Japanese doll. She frightened him, made him feel shy, yet made him feel at ease, too, as though her own were contagious; and his impression of her was softly permeated with the breath of violets. Jack disapproved of perfumes; but he really couldn't tell whether it wasn't Mrs. Upton's gaze only, the sweet oddity of her smile, that, by some trick ...
— A Fountain Sealed • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... another, and by no effort of his. People had a fashion of "looking out for him." Not that he had grown up particularly incapable or helpless; it might rather have been due to a certain appealing gentleness of bearing, something that was the resultant of a half-shy manner, expanding into boyish confidence winningly; a shortish, slender figure, scarcely robust; eager, friendly brown eyes behind his glasses; and a keen desire to be liked. It might be seen, in the present sharp nervous play of emotion over his face, how utterly he was unsuited to ...
— Life at High Tide - Harper's Novelettes • Various
... intercourse with Gowan she was capricious and had her moods. Sometimes she indulged in the weakness of tiring herself in all her small bravery when he was coming, and presented herself in the parlor beauteous and flushed and conscious, and was so delectably shy and sweet that she betrayed him into numerous trifling follies not at all consistent with his high position of mentor; and then, again, she was obstinate, rather incomprehensible, and did not adorn herself at all, and, indeed, was ...
— Vagabondia - 1884 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... think that he might be shy, too?" she asked. "He left two children and came home to find two distrustful adults. Give him ...
— Ralestone Luck • Andre Norton
... uneasy to him, and he got and wore a hat of the natural color of the fur. "In attending meetings this singularity was a trial to me, . . . and some Friends, who knew not from what motives I wore it, grew shy of me. . . . Those who spoke with me I generally informed, in a few words, that I believed my wearing it was ...
— Initial Studies in American Letters • Henry A. Beers
... better come first, for after you have heard the nightingale you won't care for the canary," added Rose, wishing to put Phebe at her ease, for she sat among them looking like a picture, but rather shy and silent, remembering the days when her place was in ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... her. Indeed, I was a little shy myself of meeting Mr Evans, or any of that set, in my new garb. They would be sure to pass their nasty personal remarks upon it. It would be better to preserve it in its virgin purity for my entrance to ...
— Tom, Dick and Harry • Talbot Baines Reed
... and of many cannons as well, to a man who had written a Treatise on the management of Artillery, and devised certain engines and instruments for the management of the same, was indeed a clever cast, and the fly was tempting enough to attract even so shy a fish as Niccolo Tartaglia. In his reply to Jerome's scolding letter of February 12, 1539, Tartaglia concludes with a description of the instruments which he was perfecting: a square to regulate the discharge of cannon, and to level and determine every ...
— Jerome Cardan - A Biographical Study • William George Waters
... understanding. They think it is better to work with people than to work for them. They think that one of the inalienable rights of man is the right to make his own mistakes and to learn the lesson from them without too much prompting. So they are a little shy of many of the more intrusive forms of philanthropy. But you should see what they ...
— By the Christmas Fire • Samuel McChord Crothers
... love he told, that made me bold To look at him fairly, And see the burning blush take hold And colour him up rarely. Within his ply though caught was I, I backt a saucy head: "Oh, I was shy a year gone by— Your ...
— The Village Wife's Lament • Maurice Hewlett
... on him consid'ble o' the time. I haf to be pooty shy abaout it, or he'll find aout th't I'm on his tracks. I don' want him to get a spite ag'inst me, 'f I c'n help it; he looks to me like one o' them kind that kerries what they call slung-shot, 'n' hits ye on the side o' th' head with 'em so suddin y' ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860 • Various
... going to do?" inquired Hazelton. "Are we going to remain afraid of the box and shy away ...
— The High School Boys' Fishing Trip • H. Irving Hancock
... upon ordinary topics as they ascended the stairs together, but when they reached the door of Isabel's sitting-room she became suddenly shy again. ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell
... word or two about his visit to the North, and they talked for a few minutes about a rumour that Hubert had heard of a rising on behalf of Mary: but Hubert was shy and constrained, and Isabel was still a little tremulous. At last he said he must be going, and then suddenly remembered a message from ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... hospitably received, but the native wife, as is usually the case, was too shy to eat with us or even to appear at all. Our host is a superb young man, very frank and prepossessing looking, a thorough mountaineer, most expert with the lasso and in hunting wild cattle. The "station" consists of a wool ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... two of our cows left at present, Taxey and Votey. It is something a little peculiar that Taxey is very obtrusive; why, I can scarcely step out of doors without being confronted by her, while Votey is quiet and shy, but she is growing more docile and domesticated every day, and it is my opinion that in a very short time, wherever you find Taxey there Votey ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... countrymen. Every little sketch of a passing face is exquisite in Scott's work, when he is at his best. For example, Dandie Dinmont's children are only indicated "with a dusty roll of the brush;" but we recognize at once the large, shy, kindly families of the Border. Dandie himself, as the "Edinburgh Review" said (1817), "is beyond all question the best rustic portrait that has ever yet been exhibited to the public,—the most honourable to ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... known. He never leaves off making queer faces, and is the delight of all the rest, who grin from ear to ear incessantly. Among the dancers are two young mulatto girls, with large, black, drooping eyes, and head- gear after the fashion of the hostess, who are as shy, or feign to be, as though they never danced before, and so look down before the visitors, that their partners can see nothing ...
— American Notes for General Circulation • Charles Dickens
... the two men in those days, receiving regularly the poet's sunny recognition and the statesman's rather unsympathetic stare. Both men were overwhelmingly famous, but, touched simultaneously by warmth and frost, I, a shy youngster, could keep my balance in their presence. Sumner in those years was the especial bete noire of the South and the conservative North, and the idol of the radicals—at once the most banned and the most blessed of men. I had, besides, ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer
... He had the shy decisiveness of a man who seldom spoke his mind. If necessary I would have wrested his name from him and pretended a relationship with his wife. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, January 19, 1916 • Various
... dropped, without a rustle, from my shoulders, and if I wavered for the instant it was not with what I kept back. I put out my hand to her and she took it; I held her hard a little, liking to feel her close to me. There was a kind of support in the shy heave of her surprise. "You came for me for church, of ...
— The Turn of the Screw • Henry James
... go into a church of her religion, not merely for spiritual aid, but for the comfort of space and rest in this world of crowding and bustle; for the sense of a piece of heaven closed in for one's need and all one's very own. Dear Madame Blanc, how many shy shadows do we not seem to see around us since her death; or rather to guess at, roaming disconsolate, lacking they scarce know what, that ever-welcoming sanctuary ...
— Hortus Vitae - Essays on the Gardening of Life • Violet Paget, AKA Vernon Lee
... road and frownin' at you, black, Makes you feel like takin' to the weeds along the way; Wish to goodness you could turn and hump yerself straight back; Know 'twill be awful when he gets you close at bay! Trouble standin' in the road is bound to make you shy— But wait until it reaches you afore ...
— It Can Be Done - Poems of Inspiration • Joseph Morris
... disposal; that of the second, the student, was carefully guarded from the sun by a covering formed of newspapers; the third, belonging to Jacobi, the youngest, appeared to us filled with books. Jacob was shy, and some days elapsed before we became acquainted. Anton, however, appeared modestly ready to attend to our least beck and call. The first evening, perceiving that we had no candlesticks, we ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Volume 11, No. 26, May, 1873 • Various
... and mounted dragoons dashed to and fro on military errands. I tried to imagine how very disagreeable the presence of a Southern army would be in a sober town of Massachusetts; and the thought considerably lessened my wonder at the cold and shy regards that are cast upon our troops, the gloom, the sullen demeanor, the declared or scarcely hidden sympathy with rebellion, which are so frequent here. It is a strange thing in human life, that ...
— Sketches and Studies • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... the reluctance of the Parish Authorities—once bitten, twice shy—to let the Parish Room again as a School after the legal difficulty about getting rid of the tenant, but to their credit be it said they made an exception in favour of music—with a proviso. The late Mr. James Richardson, when a young man, it is on record, applied to the Parish Authorities ...
— Fragments of Two Centuries - Glimpses of Country Life when George III. was King • Alfred Kingston
... With a shy smile, she gave him a package. "I drew this before leaving," she said. "I thought, well, your ...
— Industrial Revolution • Poul William Anderson
... dance, where each gentleman kisses a lady. I was not too shy, and each time I continued to kiss my mistress with considerable ardour, which made the peasant-elector burst with laughter and ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... called out, "Den, Den!" This time the Fish thought that the Den was no doubt accustomed to reply when the Jackal called to it. Perhaps it was shy because she was present. Anyhow she thought she had better answer, so she called ...
— The Talking Thrush - and Other Tales from India • William Crooke
... well says of her, "Her sense, energy, lightness, and quickness of action; her thorough knowledge of the work, her amazing yet simple resources, her shy humility which made her regard her own work with impatience, almost with contempt—all this and much else make her memory a source of strength and tenderness which nothing can take away." Elsewhere, the same writer adds, "Strength and sweetness, sound practical sense, deep humility, ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... practical. The great object of the mission of Jesus was to "save His people from their sins;" [198:4] and the tendency of all the teachings of the New Testament is to promote sanctification. But the holiness of the gospel is not a shy asceticism which sits in a cloister in moody melancholy, so that its light never shines before men; but a generous consecration of the heart to God, which leads us to confess Christ in the presence of gainsayers, ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... action. He can always bring exculpatory evidence, and in spite of any evidence he is always believed to be guilty. The effect of Milton's furious denunciation of Morus had been to damage his credit in religious circles, and to make mothers of families shy of allowing him to ...
— Milton • Mark Pattison
... as much as that to myself, too. So I soon went to work. I was rather shy about it at first; but the girls helped me. They put it into her head, I think, before I mentioned it at all. However, by degrees, I asked her plump, whether she'd any mind to be Mrs. Kelly? and, though she didn't say 'yes,' she ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope
... knowledge of the world, and the converse of their people is polite. Thus Nehemoth passes on through the other Audience Chambers and receives, perhaps, some Sheikhs of the Arab folk who have crossed the great desert from the West, or receives an embassy sent to do him homage from the shy jungle people to the South. And all the while the slaves with the ringing palanquin run westwards, following the sun, and ever the sun shines straight into the chamber where Nehemoth sits, and all the while the music from one or other of his bands of musicians comes tinkling to his ears. But when ...
— The Sword of Welleran and Other Stories • Lord Dunsany
... nearly all lied, and by what inquiries you could extort the truth notwithstanding. You saw the different way people took the same things. The diagnosis of dangerous illness would be accepted by one with a laugh and a joke, by another with dumb despair. Philip found that he was less shy with these people than he had ever been with others; he felt not exactly sympathy, for sympathy suggests condescension; but he felt at home with them. He found that he was able to put them at their ease, and, when ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... got up without a good deal of preliminary rum-drinking. The girls were so coy that the young men could not get sufficient partners for the dances without first subscribing for a few flagons of the needful cashaca. The coldness of the shy Indian and Mameluco maidens never failed to give way after a little of this strong drink, but it was astonishing what an immense deal they could take of it in the course of an evening. Coyness is not always a sign of innocence in these people, for most of the half- caste women on the Upper Amazons ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates
... the laugh was dry and hollow and painful. It suddenly passed from his wrinkled lips, and he sat down again; but now with an air as of shy ness and shame. "Let us talk," he said, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... does he shrink into himself in that shy way as though he fancied he was naked?" thought Laptev, as he walked along Nikolsky Street, trying to understand the change that had come over his brother. "And his language is new, too: 'Brother, dear brother, God has sent us joy; to pray to ...
— The Darling and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... grouped on one side. Duane, of New York, sat near them, "shy and squint-eyed, very sensible and very artful," wrote John Adams ...
— Little Journeys To the Homes of the Great, Volume 3 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... I became abnormally developed in my lowest nature. I grew bolder, and from being able to return shy glances at first, was soon able to meet more daring ones, until the waltz became to me and whomsoever danced with me, one lingering, sweet and purely sensual pleasure, where heart beat against heart, hand was held in hand and eyes looked burning words ...
— There is No Harm in Dancing • W. E. Penn
... was better, although the whole eastern part of Mazowsze was also one wilderness. But it did not terminate uninhabitated as the other did. When the Bohemian arrived at a colony they were less shy—perhaps because they were not so much brought up in constant hatred, or that the Bohemian could converse with them in Polish. The only trouble with them was the boundless curiosity of the people who surrounded the travelers, and overwhelmed them with questions. ...
— The Knights of the Cross • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... looked and beheld from the height of the burg shapes of men grey and colourless creeping toward the lair from sunshine to shadow, like wild creatures shy and fearful of the hunter, or so he deemed ...
— The Roots of the Mountains • William Morris
... really necessary! About the twelfth he lies down to sleep. Why, it's so simple it's real art! I'll just hold Bolton back until those rounds. I'll make him take it slow—and then send him in to clean up! Dennison is shy a match right this minute for The Red; they're all a little doubtful about him. The Pilgrim will be the only logical man in the world to send against him—that is, according to your sporting columns. And Dennison, of ...
— Once to Every Man • Larry Evans
... met groups of Tibetans, men and women, rough-looking and shy, with the shyness of a wild animal. Generally after a moment's pause to reassure themselves, they answered my greeting in jolly fashion, seeming quite ready to make friends. Occasionally the way was ...
— A Wayfarer in China - Impressions of a trip across West China and Mongolia • Elizabeth Kendall
... whiskered face is such a kindly and woeful and helpless one, while the voice is gentle, so gentle. At last, what do you think? As the girl has become all excited, and has already grown hoarse from tears, and is shy of everybody—he, this same 'roundsman on the beat,' stretches out two of his black, calloused fingers, the index and the little, and begins to imitate a nanny goat for the girl and reciting an appropriate nursery rhyme! ... And so, when I looked upon this charming scene and thought ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... a trim young glass of fashion, and it was he, the stranger, who was entirely at his ease, and the "bunch," the gay, accustomed bunch, which was a little shy and constrained. Jimsy stood sponsor for him and Honor was an earnest hostess. He said he enjoyed himself; certainly he made himself gently agreeable to Mrs. Lorimer, to the girls. Honor's stepfather observed him with ...
— Play the Game! • Ruth Comfort Mitchell
... observance—family prayers, she thought it must be! She felt confused, troubled, ashamed—so grievously out of her element that she never knew until they rose, that the rest were kneeling while she sat staring into the fire. Then she felt guilty and shy, but as nobody took any notice, persuaded herself they had not observed. The unpleasantness of all this, however, did not prevent her from saying to herself as she went to bed, "Oh, how delightful it would be to live in a house where everybody understood, and loved, and thought ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... village maid steals through the shade Her shepherd's suit to hear; To Beauty shy, by lattice high, Sings high-born Cavalier. The star of Love, all stars above, Now reigns o'er earth and sky, And high and low the influence know— But where is ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... selected by the shy young pair for their nursery stood in a pleasant bit of woods, left wild, on the shore of the Great South Bay, "where precious qualities of silence haunt," and the delicious breath of the sea mingled with the fragrance ...
— Little Brothers of the Air • Olive Thorne Miller
... this apparently proper request was responsible for changing the whole aspect of things. For, keenly desirous to oblige him, though she was, there was something in the stranger's eyes as they now rested upon her that made her feel suddenly shy; a flood of new impressions assailed her: she wanted to evade the look and yet foster it; but the former impulse was the stronger, and for the first time she was conscious of a growing feeling of restraint. Indeed, some inner voice told her ...
— The Girl of the Golden West • David Belasco
... went on, "you don't want to be shy about taking advantage of the opportunities that come to you. You'll find you won't get along in New York unless you go right in and grab what you can. People will be quick enough to take advantage ...
— The Metropolis • Upton Sinclair
... his high-heeled boots and old dusty hat, the Duke was a typical figure of the old-time cow-puncher such as one never meets in these times around the stockyards of the Middle West. There are still cow-punchers, but they are mainly mail-order ones who would shy from a gun such as pulled down ...
— The Duke Of Chimney Butte • G. W. Ogden
... mirth. On foot, by horse, in waggon or cart, the crowds seek some neighbouring grove, and there the day is given over to laughter, mirth, and song. The children roll and tumble on the sward in the intoxication of "swing-turn" and "ring-around-a-rosy." The young women, with many blushes and shy glances, steal off to quiet nooks with their imploring swains. Some of the elders, anxious to prove that they have not yet lost all their youth and agility, indulge, rather awkwardly perhaps, in the exhausting amusement of the jumping-rope. ...
— The Uncalled - A Novel • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... employed a good deal of his time in trying to discover the principle, he was ridiculed by his neighbors and friends, and the more thoughtless among them didn't know whether he was a crank, a half-wit, or a "luny." From all accounts, he was a modest, shy, retiring man, though a merry one. He had but little money to devote to the experiments he wished to make, and in this was not different from ...
— Stories Of Georgia - 1896 • Joel Chandler Harris
... the girl was too willing, neither! Her mother was shy and coy for a month, at least; but frankness, after all, is a recommendation in a ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... steals through the shade Her shepherd's suit to hear; To Beauty shy, by lattice high, Sings high-born Cavalier. The star of Love, all stars above, Now reigns o'er earth and sky, And high and low the influence know— But where is ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... of them, as she did? The boys talked readily and naturally—there was even a flavor to what they said. As for herself, try never so conscientiously and she would be confronted by frank amusement or shy distrust. Even "paw" beamed at Judith appreciatively as he consumed his meal with infinite, toothless labor. The Spartan family became almost sprightly under the pleasantly stimulating influence ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning
... as nominal mistress of an establishment already accounted one of the finest in Washington,—the real owner, Reuben Moore, preferring to live abroad with his French wife,—gave to her least action an importance which her shy, if not appealing looks, and a certain strained expression most difficult to characterize, vainly attempted to contradict. I could not understand her, and soon gave up the attempt; but my admiration held firm, and by the time the evening was half over I was her obedient slave. ...
— The Filigree Ball • Anna Katharine Green
... thy seven sweet strings, my shell, Thy "diverse tones," Nor vocal once nor pleasant, now To rich man's board and temple dear: Put forth thy power, till Lyde bow Her stubborn ear. She, like a three year colt unbroke, Is frisking o'er the spacious plain, Too shy to bear a lover's yoke, A husband's rein. The wood, the tiger, at thy call Have follow'd: thou canst rivers stay: The monstrous guard of Pluto's hall To thee gave way, Grim Cerberus, round whose Gorgon head A hundred snakes are hissing death, Whose triple jaws black venom shed, And sickening breath. ...
— Odes and Carmen Saeculare of Horace • Horace
... present evening, however, being of a shy disposition, he could not bring himself to face cousin Fanny. He therefore left the hall miserable, and went home with desperate intentions as to the moon. Unfortunately that luminary was not visible, the sun having just set, but from his bedroom window, which commanded ...
— The Floating Light of the Goodwin Sands • R.M. Ballantyne
... leave them out, would be like those verses where the letter A or E or some other is omitted? No,—they will bloom over and over again in poems as in the summer fields, to the end of time, always old and always new. Why should we be more shy of repeating ourselves than the spring be tired of blossoms or the night of stars? Look at Nature. She never wearies of saying over her floral pater-noster. In the crevices of Cyclopean walls, —in the dust where ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... your kidding, fellows!" said Nick, in disgust. "You know what I've been shy on all this blessed trip. A pair of wings; not angel wings, but canvas ones, to keep a new beginner swimmer from sinking. I tell you I'd never lost all this flesh with worry on this cranky, wobbly boat ...
— Motor Boat Boys Mississippi Cruise - or, The Dash for Dixie • Louis Arundel
... he warbled half-angrily or upbraidingly, then coaxingly, then cheerily and confidently, the next moment in a plaintive, far-away manner. He would half open his wings, and twinkle them caressingly, as if beckoning his mate to his heart. One morning she had come, but was shy and reserved. The fond male flew to a knothole in an old apple-tree, and coaxed her to his side. I heard a fine confidential warble,—the old, old story. But the female flew to a near tree, and uttered her plaintive, homesick note. The male went and got some dry grass or bark in his beak, and flew ...
— Locusts and Wild Honey • John Burroughs
... thy earliest visit to this dear kiosk, my gentle mute? There thou stoodst with folded arms and looks demure as day, and ever and anon with those dark eyes stealing a glance which made my cheek quite pale. Methinks I see thee even yet, shy bird. Dost know, I was so foolish when it quitted me, dost ...
— Alroy - The Prince Of The Captivity • Benjamin Disraeli
... feeling of the wonder of this marriage overcame Alexander Whitaker. This Indian maiden who was a creature of the woods, shy and proud as a wild animal, was to be married by him to an Englishman with centuries of civilization behind him. What boded it for them both and for ...
— The Princess Pocahontas • Virginia Watson
... not come to town solely for his pleasure, although he was not disposed to shy from any diversion that offered. He had business in hand, business of prime importance since it involved spending a little matter of twelve thousand dollars. In brief, he had to replace the Blackbird, ...
— Poor Man's Rock • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... leave you," he said gently, "not if you feel that way, though there is really no danger here in daytime. The wild creatures are very shy and only show themselves at night. But if I do not find your horse how are you to get speedily back to your friends? It is a long distance you have come, and ...
— The Man of the Desert • Grace Livingston Hill
... can be washed off by water; sometimes their colour "runs" while they are in the nest, thereby imparting a pink hue to the whole shell. Both sexes take part in nest construction, but the hen alone appears to incubate. She is a very shy creature, and is rarely discovered actually sitting, because she leaves the nest with a little cry of alarm at the first sound ...
— A Bird Calendar for Northern India • Douglas Dewar
... the tale of her years number seventeen, but already she was noted over all the countryside as a pretty girl, with a skin like snow, and hair that glistened like pale gold when the light fell upon it. Living so far from society, she was naturally not a little shy. But as soon as her first feeling of bashfulness was over, Rose spoke freely and brightly. Edward and she, however, had but little time to be alone together. For it was not long before the Baron of Bradwardine appeared, striding toward them as if he had ...
— Red Cap Tales - Stolen from the Treasure Chest of the Wizard of the North • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... any one else. I 've brought you a new cousin." The other children had been so absorbed in their old friend they had scarcely noticed the strangers hitherto, but now they turned to gaze curiously at Daniel and his father. Joseph and Mercy were both a little younger than Daniel, and all three were shy, but no one could stay shy long when the Captain was about, and soon they were walking along ...
— The Puritan Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... much of her now since you've come to your head, I reckon she'll be passin' you over to me to look after. She's shy that way. Yes, sir, any time I git bit up by man or beast, or shot up or knifed, I'll take Rabbit ahead of any doctor you can find. Them Indians they know the secrets of it. I wouldn't be afraid to stand and let a rattlesnake ...
— The Flockmaster of Poison Creek • George W. Ogden
... went on, "I am not shy on this occasion; indeed, I feel that I should like to keep your eyes upon me for a long time to-night, and go on talking far past your patience or my wit. For I cannot think it likely that our ways will cross again." Here her words grew suddenly low and hurried. "If I may trespass upon your ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)
... think he likes a woman to smoke and be a man's pal), the moonlight shining on his face, showing his eyes half shut, and talking in his quietest way, as if he were dreaming it all over again, or speaking to himself! I hardly breathed, till he broke off suddenly and laughed in quite a shy sort of way, ashamed of being 'egotistical,' though he hadn't praised himself at all. The flowery things I've said are mine. He even apologized! I felt I'd never had so great a compliment in my life. It seemed too good to be true that such a man should have opened his heart to me. But ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... lip to lip with a laugh and a jest, that, no matter how innocent her words or her actions might be, an evil meaning was twisted out of them and applauded. Even her uncle laughed and seemed to agree when Heriot declared that a woman who was shy in her love affairs was always the most dangerous, and suggested that Mrs. Dearmer must look to her laurels now that Mistress Lanison had taken the field against her. To deny the insinuations, or to resent them, was only to make these ...
— The Brown Mask • Percy J. Brebner
... for him here: his external self; his character, ever so little shy and unsocial; his temperament, which was made ...
— Fabre, Poet of Science • Dr. G.V. (C.V.) Legros
... doings, she passed them at first in silence. It was only when she found them still in the same silent and expectant posture half an hour later that she said tentatively: "I wonder whether you would tell me what you are doing here?" After some hesitation, one of them said, in a shy voice: "We're waitin' for the barrer." It then transpired that, once a week, a vegetable-and-flower-cart was driven through this particular street, on its way to a more prosperous neighborhood, and on a few red-letter days, a flower, or a sprig, or even a root sometimes fell out of the ...
— The Art of the Story-Teller • Marie L. Shedlock
... soon as I can trot out and call her. She's just outside, meanderin' in the road—kinder shy, ye know, at first." ...
— The Best American Humorous Short Stories • Various
... once recognized as the mermen of fable and romance. Their faces were dark as that of his sable majesty; their hair was tossed wildly. But they looked the picture of despair, whereas mermen were generally reputed to be jolly. It might be no harm to accost them, and Jem was not shy about strangers. ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
... continued Dorothy, "two good eyes. By night or by day I can see everything within the range of my vision, and a great deal that is not. I shy, at times, when an uncouth object suddenly comes upon me. I am warranted gentle if properly handled, but otherwise it is ...
— Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall • Charles Major
... blue print frock, and a little round face. She had pretty shy eyes that looked out from beneath a shock of curly hair. The little King was very pretty too. And he liked to play with dolls, which I always think is a nice trait of character ...
— Little Folks - A Magazine for the Young (Date of issue unknown) • Various
... my master often praised my diligence, and would show me where to look for what I wanted in his books, or explain difficulties: I looked up to him as a miracle of science and learning; nay, I was actually growing fond of him, but this did not last long. In process of time, he grew shy of explaining things to me; he scolded me for thumbing his books, though, God knows, my thumbs were always cleaner than his own, and he thwarted me continually upon some pretence or other. I could not for some time conceive the cause of this change in my master's behaviour: indeed it ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... explaining my motives—you wouldn't understand them. Still, in future, don't set down every man commonly honest as an uncommon fool. If I ever had much money, which is hardly likely, I should fight extremely shy of any ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... happened, Signora," said the Marchese, emboldened by the smile, and by a shy sidelong glance, which she shot from under her eye-lashes with a laugh in her eyes, as she spoke; "now it has happened that I have been permitted to see you in a toilet all the more exquisitely charming in that it wants the formality of ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... of his disposition, which his misdirected courtship had interrupted for the time, returning to the intellectual pursuits which were likely to be beneficial, not only as pleasures, but in an economical point of view; and he was half shy, half proud of the profits, such as they were, of a few poems and essays which he certainly had not had it in him to write before the ordeal he ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge
... visits from house to house. If it is remembered that I was only eight and a half when this scheme was carried into practice, it will surprise no one to hear that it was not crowned with success. I disliked extremely this visitation of the poor. I felt shy, I had nothing to say, with difficulty could I understand their soft Devonian patois, and most of all—a signal perhaps of my neurotic condition—I dreaded and loathed the smells of their cottages. One had to run over the whole gamut of odours, some so faint ...
— Father and Son • Edmund Gosse
... to him, without embarrassment, and put her hand on his knee. Not once had he taken his eyes from her face. He put out his own hand with an awkward, shy movement, picked a strawberry from her fingers, and thrust ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... except a good distance off. But they knew his gait and his figure well, and the clothes he used to wear; and they could tell the beast he laid his hand on by its color—white, dun, or black; and that beast was sure to sicken and die. The neighbors grew shy of taking the path over the park; and no one liked to walk in the woods, or come inside the bounds of Barwyke; and the cattle went on sickening and dying, ...
— A Stable for Nightmares - or Weird Tales • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... Too shy in those days to meet their eyes, too worshipful to ever hope for word or smile, I remained their silent adorer. Here and now I set down the tribute which I ...
— A Daughter of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... the men, of course, in the Army—young officers on short leave, or temporarily invalided, or boys of eighteen just starting their cadet training—she had spent a month full of emotions, not often expressed. For generally she was shy and rather speechless, though none the less liked by her companions for that. But many things sank deep with her; the beauty of mountain and stream; the character of some of the boys she walked and fished with—unnoticed sub-lieutenants, who had come home to get ...
— Elizabeth's Campaign • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... them they fell back at once in great disorder, which alarmed those in the rear, who thought they had been fighting. There was then space and room enough for them to have passed forward, had they been willing so to do; some did so, but others remained shy. All the roads between Abbeville and Crecy were covered with common people, who, when they were come within three leagues of their enemies, drew their swords, bawling out, "Kill, kill," and with them were many great lords that were eager ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... also, was well-satisfied with the way things were going. It had been a strain to pass up the juicy little quadruped in the cage, but the inhabitants of the other world seemed shy, and the Harn did not wish to frighten them. At least, it knew now that life could come through the hole, and the small herbivore it had herded through confirmed that passage in the opposite direction was equally possible—plus a gratis demonstration ...
— Cat and Mouse • Ralph Williams
... it seemed to Elmore that Lily was a little shy of Hoskins, and he thought that she resented his using her charm in his art; but before the evening wore away, he lost this impression. They all got into a long talk about home, and she took her place at the piano and played some of the war-songs that had begun to supersede ...
— A Fearful Responsibility and Other Stories • William D. Howells
... her ringing, merry laugh. "Of course you don't know. How could you? Our name is Bathurst. I'm Dinah and this is Billy. I am years older than he is, of course." She gave Eustace a shy glance. ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell
... revolt against our degraded mob-ridden conscience was borrowed from Walter Pater, but whereas that shy and subtle spirit moved darkly and mysteriously aside from all contact with the vulgar herd, Wilde, full of gay and wanton pride in his sacred mission, lost no opportunity of flaunting his classic orthodoxy in the face of ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys
... with a hoarse bass, while another across the creek has a bagpipe apparently as big but pitched in a higher key. Two months ago one could not get near enough to see this queer inflation, but now the frogs do not seem so shy. Garter snakes wiggle through the grass down the bank of the creek and the crickets are just beginning to chirp the love chorus which is soon to swell incessantly till the fall frosts come. Butterflies, dragon flies, saw flies and gall flies are busy and we see evidences of ...
— Some Spring Days in Iowa • Frederick John Lazell
... on the following evening, and it seemed to Henry when he saw Mary entering Ninian's sitting-room that she was a stranger to him. He had known her as a child and as a young, self-conscious girl, but this Mary was a woman. He felt shy in her presence, and when, for a few moments, he was left alone with her, he hardly knew what to say to her. They had been "Quinny" and "Mary" to each other before, but now they avoided names.... He spoke tritely about her journey to London, reminding her of the slowness of ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... not of her council. I was still absent. And it was agreed upon between my aunt Hervey and her, that she was to be quite solemn and shy in his next visit, if there were not a peculiarity in ...
— Clarissa, Volume 1 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... sail, which one boy held while the other two took to the oars, and, after some hard work, the Nancy Lee was safely beached. Grizzel joined Mollie and Prudence, and the three girls watched the three boys, not offering to go and help with the raft because they felt a little shy of ...
— The Happy Adventurers • Lydia Miller Middleton
... gently. I had a hunch that she was leading up to something, but ducking shy about it until she managed to find out how I thought. It would have been all zero if we'd been in a clear area, but as it was ...
— Highways in Hiding • George Oliver Smith
... smartest girl in Westfield, but perhaps for that very reason she had held aloof from manhood until now. At least no youth in her neighborhood had ever impressed her as her equal. Neither did Babcock so impress her; but he was different from the rest. He was not shy and unexpressive; he was buoyant and self-reliant, and yet he seemed to appreciate her quality ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... began to notice the look that came into Willie's eyes when they lighted on her, he was startled first, and then he was angry, and he let his anger be seen, which was foolish. I am afraid he spoke to Elsie herself, which was more foolish still. For she became conscious, and shy, and ill at ease, and these two, who up to that time had been like brother and sister, had little to say to one another. When Elsie was sent away to visit an aunt, Willie grew restless and angry, and, in a moment when something had vexed ...
— Allison Bain - By a Way she knew not • Margaret Murray Robertson
... everything he undertook, always doing his best to risk his life in absurd ventures such as no one else would have attempted. It was only the other day that Peter had seen him trying to break a horse which even a gaucho felt shy of riding; and he loved to be in the thick of the melee attempting the difficult task of swinging a lasso above his head, with that air of imperturbable gravity always about him. Or Peter pictured him in the long chair, where during a feverish attack he had lain so often, ...
— Peter and Jane - or The Missing Heir • S. (Sarah) Macnaughtan
... new Peter, a boyish individual Harmony had never met before. For the first time it struck her that Peter was young. He had always seemed rather old, solid and dependable, the fault of his elder brother attitude to her, no doubt. She was suddenly rather shy, a bit aloof. Peter felt the change and thought she was bored. He talked ...
— The Street of Seven Stars • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... of her dainty wrist showed white above her glove, the points of her tiny feet stole out provokingly beneath her petticoat, the rosy little mouth quivered with its burden of prattle and smiles, and the two half shaded eyes met his with shy confidence. ...
— Captain Mansana and Mother's Hands • Bjoernstjerne Bjoernson
... school-days in Hans Place (H. P., as she mysteriously writes it), that she admits us at once behind the scenes. She describes herself as sent there (we will not supply the date, but presume it to be somewhere about 1800) "a petted child of ten years old, born and bred in the country, and as shy as a hare." The schoolmistress, a Mrs. S—-, "seldom came near us. Her post was to sit all day, nicely dressed, in a nicely-furnished drawing-room, busy with some piece of delicate needlework, receiving mammas, aunts, and godmammas, answering ...
— A Walk from London to Fulham • Thomas Crofton Croker
... Fandor, "here's a way to fill up my hours of solitude. It oughtn't to be hard for one in my position to get up an intrigue, and provided the lady is not too shy I can begin one of those adventures one ...
— A Royal Prisoner • Pierre Souvestre
... behind, there was a steady roar and buzz of voices; the Captain was easy and genial, prophesying to the ladies on either side Of him a calm voyage. In the shelter of his big voice even the shy found it easy to make remarks to their neighbors. Listening to fragments of the talk O'Malley found that his own eyes kept wandering down the table—diagonally across—to the two strangers. Once or twice he intercepted the doctor's glance traveling in the same direction, and on ...
— The Centaur • Algernon Blackwood
... with stuffiness in this month of August, and moreover empty. He wished he were on the pier at Southend, or at Margate, or at any place, in fact, where he might see the waves rolling in and rolling out again, and shy pebbles ...
— Love at Paddington • W. Pett Ridge
... ever liked kissing a girl who didn't want to be kissed? Love has got to be mutual. Your lover is frequently more interested in being loved than in loving. And the trump cards are always the woman's. These grown-up boys of ours are shy and self-depreciatory in love, and they run like deer when they think they are not wanted. So the woman has to play a double game, and gets blamed for guile when it is only wisdom. Her instinct is to run, partly because she is afraid of love and partly because she has to appear to ...
— 'Oh, Well, You Know How Women Are!' AND 'Isn't That Just Like a Man!' • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... openly. When you've had your drink and he has seen you, you will drive a little way along the road and there await him. He does not wish to be seen with you. He's rather shy, you see!" and the pleasant-faced man who controlled the most dangerous criminal gang in Europe smiled sardonically. "He has his instructions, and you will follow them. Take a suit-case with you, for you may be away a ...
— The Golden Face - A Great 'Crook' Romance • William Le Queux
... customers, balls, assemblies, and billiards; in process of time made a fashionable failure, a fashionable marriage, and commenced business afresh. To the questions of his acquaintance respecting his excursion "down east," he was shy and reserved; evading all questions on the subject by declaring that he had passed his time very pleasantly while he was in New England, but that the people had some very peculiar and odd notions of things. In process of time the story of his repulse reached New York with all its embellishments. ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... home, and he had not even been invited—except by Tom. And strangers always made him shy. And then there was Nance, with her great eyes fixed on him, he knew, though he had not dared to ...
— A Maid of the Silver Sea • John Oxenham
... said Victoria, standing beside Stephen, and leaning on the rail. She spoke to herself, half whispering the words, hardly aware that she uttered them, but Stephen heard. The two had not been long together during the morning, for each had been shy of giving too much of himself or herself, although they had secretly wished for each other's society. As the voyage drew to a close, however, Stephen was no longer able to resist an attraction which he felt like a compelling magnetism. His excuse was that he wanted to know ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... army, and those of the royal stables, having been daily led before me, were no longer shy, but would come up to my very feet without starting. The riders would leap them over my hand as I held it on the ground; and one of the emperor's huntsmen, upon a large courser, took my foot, shoe and all, which was ...
— Gulliver's Travels - Into Several Remote Regions of the World • Jonathan Swift
... wedding-breakfast at Sherry's; he was eager to load her with jewels, and settle a large sum of money upon her, and take her around the world for her honeymoon journey; he loved her little soft tricks of speech, the shy way in which she dropped her eyes, the curve of the simple white dress that fell away from her neck when she leaned towards him; and though she saw him drink—and drank with him more than once before ...
— The Old Gray Homestead • Frances Parkinson Keyes
... quite different," the girl said. "Why, the first time I saw him he was as shy as shy could be. It was quite hard work getting on with him. Now he ...
— One of the 28th • G. A. Henty
... riotous intoxication: that is a bacchanal; they have been drinking, those magnificent brutes, there is wine firing their blood and weighing down their heads. But here all is different, in this so-called Bacchanal of Mantegna. This heavy Silenus is supine like a mass of marble; these fauns are shy and mute; these youths are grave and sombre; there is no wine in the cups, there are no lees in the vat, there is no life in these magnificent colossal forms; there is no blood in their grandly bent lips, no light in their wide-opened ...
— The Contemporary Review, Volume 36, September 1879 • Various
... despair and remorse of the letter did not touch him—he was too angry and indignant over the insult to himself—but it astonished him. The passionate emotion of those closely-written pages he could scarcely connect with the shy, frank, kindly little girl he remembered: it was a cry of agony from a tortured woman, and he knew at least that for her the old quiet time ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, April 1875, Vol. XV., No. 88 • Various
... West, One shy glance will pierce your breast From a bright eye, O so bright! And an auburn heaven of hair Will so glorify the air, You'll surrender all your soul at sight. Oho! My Boy! Oho! Always for your weal and never for your woe, Your little heart will ...
— Soldier Songs and Love Songs • A.H. Laidlaw
... secret hope that she might make one more advance towards him. The kind of self-brooding vanity, which he had so long cherished in secret, can be carried to absurd extremes, and is apt to be at once too retiring and too exacting. His shy reserve forbade him to call upon her, in spite of her express invitation, and yet he was audacious enough to cherish a hope that she would seek him at the place where he had already met her. Every day he went to ...
— Captain Mansana and Mother's Hands • Bjoernstjerne Bjoernson
... little to this, though she was too shy to say much. "Town is so cheerful," she said. It was not Sir Robert's way ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... a certain slim, mild apothecary in the town, by the name of Meeks. It was generally given out that Mr. Meeks had a vague desire to get married, but, being a shy and timorous youth, lacked the moral courage to do so. It was also well known that the Widow Conway had not buried her heart with the late lamented. As to her shyness, that was not so clear. Indeed, her attentions to Mr. Meeks, whose mother ...
— The Story of a Bad Boy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... should come of age. And on that Tuesday the little lord set foot in the castle; and my lady was down at the door-way to meet him, in a new velvet gown, with her wimple sewn in fine pearls, and my lord with her; but my two nurslings waxed shy at the last minute, and would not come down, but leaned and peered through the posts o' the stair-rail, and my little lady let fall one o' her shoes in her eagerness to glimpse at her new cousin. And straightway ran the lad and lifted the wee shoe, and looked ...
— A Brother To Dragons and Other Old-time Tales • Amelie Rives
... brought into the world in the course of three years no less than four babies; between her and Vassily was a perfect gulf.... Anna Pavlovna went to church, prayed, fasted, and was preparing herself for death. There remained only Olga—a fresh, shy, pretty girl.... Vassily did not notice her at first... indeed, who does notice a dependant, an orphan girl kept from charity in the house?... One day, at the very beginning of spring, Vassily was walking ...
— The Jew And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... diamond. Pachmann is inhuman, and music, too, is inhuman. To him, and rightly, it is a thing not domesticated, not familiar as a household cat with our hearth. When he plays it, music speaks no language known to us, has nothing of ourselves to tell us, but is shy, alien, and speaks a language which we do not know. It comes to us a divine hallucination, chills us a little with its "airs from heaven" or elsewhere, and breaks down for an instant the too solid walls of the world, showing us the gulf. When d'Albert plays Chopin's Berceuse, beautifully, ...
— Plays, Acting and Music - A Book Of Theory • Arthur Symons
... by Drusy's side, and they talked in a low, interested tone. She never talked to him in that way, never listened to what he had to say with such half-shy, half-coquettish attention. But she would ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various
... aside to hide a smile, for if there is anybody who delights in being both seen and heard it is Jenny Wren, while Little Friend the Song Sparrow is shy and retiring, content to make all the world glad with his song, but preferring to keep out of sight ...
— The Burgess Bird Book for Children • Thornton W. Burgess
... ranging about in the day-time; but that was when they were more numerous, and less hunted. Now that they were scarce, and their skins so highly prized—which, of course, led to their becoming scarcer every day, and more shy too—they rarely ever left their hiding-place except during the night, and in this way they contrived to escape the vigilance of the hunters. As to the one they were waiting for, the hunter said he might return earlier or later, according to whether ...
— Bruin - The Grand Bear Hunt • Mayne Reid
... I waited, as I said I would. I now expect no answer from you, regarding you as a mere dumb cock-shy, or a target, at which we fire our arrows diligently all day long, with no anticipation it will bring them back to us. We are both sadly mortified you are not coming, but health comes first; alas, that man should be so crazy. What fun we could have, if we were all well, what work ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... a good hawk, who duck or woodcock shy, Partridge or pigeon, or such other prey, Seeing towards her from a distance fly, Raises her head, and shows her blithe and gay; So Mandricardo, in security Of crushing Rodomont in that affray, Gladly his courser seized, bestrode the seat, Reined ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... skylark, and with which we connected the ripening of the strawberry, the merriest and most rollicking of all bird songs, as that of the bluebird was the tenderest. Then came the hermit thrush, heard only in the depth of the forest, shy and remote in his life and nesting, and the whip-poor-will, in the evening. Each was a new leaf turned over in my book of life, the reading of which was my only happiness. What else, or more, could be expected of an existence hedged ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James
... before, and Columbine was out of mourning now. She had come into the Spear Point community like a shy bird, a little slip of a thing, upright as a dart, with a fashion of holding her head that kept all familiarity at bay. But the shyness had all gone now. The girlish immaturity was fast vanishing in soft curves and tender lines. And ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell
... their learning taught; in speech Right gentle, yet so wise; princely of mien, Yet softly-mannered; modest, deferent, And tender-hearted, though of fearless blood; No bolder horseman in the youthful band E'er rode in gay chase of the shy gazelles; No keener driver of the chariot In mimic contest scoured the Palace-courts; Yet in mid-play the boy would ofttimes pause, Letting the deer pass free; would ofttimes yield His half-won race because the labouring steeds Fetched painful breath; or if his princely mates Saddened to lose, ...
— The Light of Asia • Sir Edwin Arnold
... Don, I don't think so. If we take the boat, 'fore we've gone far they'll ketch sight of us aboard, and send another one to fetch us back, or else make a cock-shy of us with ...
— The Adventures of Don Lavington - Nolens Volens • George Manville Fenn
... the display and culture and power around him. It was another kind of wilderness, that was all; and it was for him to learn the ways of it, the signs and trails and water-holes where good hunting lay, and the bad stretches of field and flood to be avoided. As usual, he fought shy of the women. He was still too badly scared to come to close quarters with the dazzling and resplendent creatures his own millions ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... more unlike himself than the bold advertising-agent in this colloquy. He was subdued and shy; his usual racy and virile talk had given place to an insipid mildness. He seemed bent on showing that the graces of polite society were not so strange to him as one might suppose. But under Mrs. Damerel's interrogation a ...
— In the Year of Jubilee • George Gissing
... me: be women no more; But fellow-men born, from top branch to the core; Men who must fight—who can kill, who can die, While women once more shall be covered and shy. ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... shining with joy, burst into the room. 'Mamma, mamma, I am a child of God! My sins are forgiven—Jesus is my Saviour!' she cried, flinging herself into her mother's arms. And this was the same Katie, who had been so shy and backward that she had never before dared to speak about her spiritual anxieties, even to her mother! Ah! what a change real conversion, or change of heart, ...
— Catherine Booth - A Sketch • Colonel Mildred Duff
... Stilled is the laughter that was erst our pleasure; The pretty air, the childish grace untaught, The innocent wiles, And all the sunny smiles, The cheek that flushed to greet some tiny treasure; The mouth demure, the tilted chin held high, The gleeful flashes of her glancing eye; Her shy bold look of wildness unconfined, And the gay impulse of her baby mind That none could tame, That sent her spinning round, A spirit of living flame Dancing in airy rapture o'er the ground— All these ...
— The Vagabond and Other Poems from Punch • R. C. Lehmann
... Malcolm felt doubly wretched as he was ushered into the hall and the buzz of talk and the confusion made by the attendance of the worthy knight and his many sons, one of whom, waiting with better will than skill, had nearly run down the shy limping Scotsman, who looked wildly for refuge at some table. In his height of distress, a kindly gesture of invitation beckoned to him, and he found himself seated and addressed, first in French, and then in careful foreign English, by the same lady whom he had yesterday taken for Joan ...
— The Caged Lion • Charlotte M. Yonge
... all rose to go to the dining-room; and as I stepped out to have a look down the street for Hamilton, I heard Colonel Adderly's last fling—"Pretty rascals, you gentlemen adventurers are, so shy and coy about ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... been but a few of the emigrants near us. We were both dressed in buck-skin, and they did not know what to make of us. The young girls and some of the young men were very shy. They had never seen anyone dressed in buck-skin before. An elderly woman came to us and said, "Ain't you two men what they call mountaineers?" Jim answered, "Yes, ...
— Chief of Scouts • W.F. Drannan
... and a bowler 'at, tell my landlady to keep my rooms for me till I comes back, slip out o' the 'ouse, and into the fust 'ansom I meets, and back to the Halbany. And a month arter that, I shall come into my chambers at the Halbany, fling Voltaire and Parini into the fire, shy me 'at at the bust of good old 'Omer, slip on my blue suit agen, and back to the Mile ...
— Novel Notes • Jerome K. Jerome
... Fine country. Discovery of a good river. Granitic soil. Passage of the Glenelg. Country well watered. Pigeon ponds. Soft soil again impedes the party. Halt to repair the carts and harness. Natives very shy. Chetwynd rivulet. Slow progress over the soft surface. Excursion into the country before us. Beautiful region discovered. The party extricated with difficulty ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 2 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell
... the shy, half-hesitating way in which the last word slipped from the rich red lips, and the tender, loving light in the soft eyes as they met the fond, admiring gaze ...
— Elsie's Womanhood • Martha Finley
... the midst of telling her about the draw for the great diamond at Brennerstadt and how the tickets had been reduced from monkeys to ponies because the monkeys were too shy, when there came the sound for which she waited—a hand upon the window-catch and the swirl of sand blown in by the ...
— The Top of the World • Ethel M. Dell
... has lost his father. In future, when you send such a shy Englishman to me, let me know beforehand that he comes to talk over something with me. I had the greatest wish, and leisure too, to do all he wanted, but discovered only after he was gone that he came to ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... suggest something for the Reception Fest?" she went on, with a certain shy eagerness. "Our little child here, our baby, we will dress him in little white coat, with small wings, as an Easter angel, and he will carry a large white Easter egg, and inside shall be a basket of plover eggs, of which the Prince is so fond, ...
— The Chronicles of Clovis • Saki
... in the event of our coming across a hostile tribe who fought shy of my friendly advances, I would, without ceremony, introduce myself by dashing into their midst and turning a few somersaults or Catherine-wheels such as the London gamins display for the benefit of easily-pleased excursionists. This queer entertainment ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont
... truly or falsely, how a rising man of brilliant reputation, the present Dean of St. Paul's, Dr. Milman, admired and loved him, adding, that somehow he was strangely unlike any one else. However, at the time when I was elected Fellow of Oriel he was not in residence, and he was shy of me for years in consequence of the marks which I bore upon me of the evangelical and liberal schools. At least so I have ever thought. Hurrell Froude brought us together about 1828: it is one of the ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... nicely,—her smiles, and dimples, and provocative, inviting coquetterie! Her Rosalind, her Country Wife, her Helena, her Railroad of Love, and above all, her Katharine in "The Taming of the Shrew!" I can only ejaculate. Directly she came on I knew how she was going to do the part. She had such shy, demure fun—she understood, like all great comedians, that you must not pretend to be serious so sincerely that no one in ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, July 1908. • Various
... her a false name and address, and so she lost sight of him. Then her child was born, and she lived with her mother. And you must know what her life was—she and her old mother and her baby and nothing to keep them. And though she was a shy ignorant girl she made up her mind to look for him until she found him to make him pay for the child. She said he had come on his horse so often to see her that he could not be too far away, and every morning she would go off in search of him, and she spent weeks and months tramping about ...
— A Traveller in Little Things • W. H. Hudson
... to be a nigger-minstrel show with clog-dancing furnished by the miners and lumbermen from the Pass, at Shock's urgent invitation. The whole affair was to be wound up by a grand promenade headed by young Malcolm Forbes, son of a Highland chief, a shy young fellow whom Shock had dug up from a remote valley, and who was to appear in full Highland costume with his pipes. Small wonder that the whole community, from the Fort to the Pass, was tingling with delighted anticipation. Such an event was not only important of itself, ...
— The Prospector - A Tale of the Crow's Nest Pass • Ralph Connor
... ardent reader of books from childhood up, and he was enabled to gratify this taste by means of a very small village library, which contained several books of history, of which he was naturally fond. This boy, however, was a shy, devoted student, brave to maintain what he thought right, but so bashful that he was known to hide in the cellar when his parents were ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume III (of 6) - Orators and Reformers • Various
... Aunt Sally for any man to shy at," he resumed bitterly. "My place henceforth is in the dark. Right! I've finished; the book's closed. From the time I quit England—if I can quit—I'm on the straight! I've promised Carneta, and I mean to keep ...
— The Quest of the Sacred Slipper • Sax Rohmer
... had many opportunities of gaining that intimacy with Warner which had become to him an object; and though the painter, constitutionally diffident and shy, was at first averse to, and even awed by, the ease, boldness, fluent speech, and confident address of a man much younger than himself, yet at last he could not resist the being decoyed into familiarity; and the youthful pair gradually advanced from companionship into friendship. ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... a great blast, and the thread was gone. In the air Nowhere Was a moonbeam bare; Far off and harmless the shy stars shone— Sure and certain ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 1 (of 4) • Various
... a hobby of my own, and do some steady stiff reading, only, as you are going to be a woman, and not a student, I would choose reading that linked me to as many as possible of other people's interests. How dull and shy poor little Miss Smith was yesterday, till I found that she knew Venice as well as I did. After that she quite ...
— Stray Thoughts for Girls • Lucy H. M. Soulsby
... dualism rarely are, for the second nature they build up on the foundation of their own is never wholly artificial. The disposition to certain modes of thought and habits of bearing is really present, as is sufficiently proved by their admiration of both. Very shy persons, for instance, invariably admire very self-possessed ones, and in trying to imitate them occasionally exhibit a cold-blooded arrogance which is amazing. Timothy Titmouse secretly looks up to Don Juan as his ideal, and after half a lifetime of failure outdoes his model, to the horror of his ...
— Don Orsino • F. Marion Crawford
... this light, of that her mother was quite sure. Sandy treated him as she did her own brothers, frankly, despotically, delightfully. And perhaps it was wiser, after all, not to give the child a hint, for it was evident that the shy, gentle Owen was absolutely at home and happy in the Salisbury home; nothing would be gained by making Sandy feel ...
— The Treasure • Kathleen Norris
... of grace and womanliness in this hoyden, the gentle swelling of lankness to beauty, of lowliness to shy self-poise, was a sudden joy, to others a mere blindness. Mary Taylor was perplexed and in some indefinite way amazed; and many of the other teachers saw no beauty, only a strangeness that brought a smile. They were such as know beauty by convention only, and find it lip-ringed, ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... vulgar-minded, spiteful, meddlesome old thing; that there should be any other Mme. d'Albany than the one of his noble fancy, than the woman whose image (fashioned by himself) he loved to unite with the image of his own sweet, serious, shy, noble-minded mother: all these things M. de Sismondi, who never guessed himself to be otherwise than the most unpoetical and practical of men, never dreamed of. So Sismondi went on writing to Mme. d'Albany, pouring ...
— The Countess of Albany • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)
... what was the oddest thing that had happened in their lives. One would have supposed that I should often have got for my impertinence a surly answer, or, at any rate, an elegant rapier-thrust, or some other form of snub. Strangely enough, I never found anyone "shy" at my question, but I did get many curious answers, and some of these I have a perfect right to record. A section of this chapter should deal with accidental conversations and accidental confessions. It has been my good luck once or twice to listen ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... within the game, and his clear comprehension of it added a flavor which even the dullest member of the Squad was elated by. Sometimes you couldn't understand toffs when they made a shy at being friendly, but you could understand him, and he stirred up your spirits. He didn't make jokes with you, either, as if a chap had to be kept grinning. After the few minutes were over, he went away. Then they sat down again in their circle and talked about him, because ...
— The Lost Prince • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... we must!" answered Clem merrily, and rising, he went to the "key," with his eyes looking straight into Nattie's, and wrote something that made her blush and seize his hand in shy ...
— Wired Love - A Romance of Dots and Dashes • Ella Cheever Thayer
... profit on his winter's operations, Bill realized that he was still shy approximately half of the sum which Doctor Thomas had set as satisfactory, and when the latter began planning to resume work on a larger scale in the fall Mr. Hyde was stricken with panic. Fearing ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach
... the nest, not so much to study the fishhawks as to catch fleeting glimpses of a shy, wild life of the woods, which is hidden from most eyes. The fishing was good, and both birds were expert fishermen. While the young were growing there was always an abundance in the big nest on the spruce top. The overflow of this ...
— Wood Folk at School • William J. Long
... in the fullest measure That ever a strong man's heart could hold, In all the tales of heavenly pleasure By poets sung or by prophets told; For in the joy of your shy, sweet kisses, Your pulsing touch and your languid sigh I am filled and thrilled with better blisses Than ever were ...
— Poems of Passion • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... heart a more innocent passion stirred and awoke—the tender pleasure I have always found in seeking out those shy people of the forest, the wild blossoms—a harmless pleasure, for it is ever my habit to leave ...
— The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers
... always untidy, her hairpins displaying abnormal activity in respect of escape and independent action. Her eyes were round and very prominent, suggestive of highly-polished, brown agates. She was not the least shy or averse to attracting attention. She laughed much, and practised, as prelude to her laughter, an impudently, coquettish, little stare. And finally, as he sat on her right at dinner, her rattling talk ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... "I do not see that, Rita! She is shy and awkward, and I should think very young for her age. But she has an honest, good face, and I like her. Besides," she added, unconsciously repeating the argument she had used in defending Rita herself against ...
— Three Margarets • Laura E. Richards
... be an Englishman, though not remarkably so had he been an American; with an intelligent, pleasant, and sensitive face,—a man very evidently of refined feelings and cultivated mind. . . . . He is very simple and agreeable in his manners; a little shy, yet perfectly frank, and easy to meet on real grounds. . . . . He said that his wife had proposed to come with him, and had, indeed, accompanied him to town, but was kept away. . . . . We were very sorry for this, because Mr. Patmore seems to acknowledge her as the real "Angel ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... themselves to itself—an exquisite justesse, an alertness of spirit not shaking off rule and measure, above all, a consummate propriety in the true and best, not the limited sense of the word. Nor is it difficult to observe in the shy philosopher a temperament which must have commended itself to Mr Arnold almost as strongly as his literary quality, and very closely indeed connected with that—the temperament of equity, of epieikeia, of freedom from swagger and brag and self-assertion. And here, once more, the things receive ...
— Matthew Arnold • George Saintsbury
... officers belonging to the revenue. Whensoever they present themselves before you in the sacred tribunal, interrogate that sort of people, by what means they grow so rich? what secret they have to make their offices and employments bring them in such mighty sums? If they are shy of telling you, turn and wind them every way, and the most mildly that you can, make them speak, in spite of themselves. You shall soon discover their tricks, and secret ways of management, by ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume XVI. (of 18) - The Life of St. Francis Xavier • John Dryden
... she was his only daughter. Tom saw her play about the steamboat, for they were days and nights on the voyage. Eva used to come close and look at him, when he sat thinking of Chloe and the children. The little one was shy, notwithstanding all her busy interest in everything going on, and it was not easy to tame her. But at last Tom and she got ...
— Pictures and Stories from Uncle Tom's Cabin • Unknown
... yet discharged its load. Out from the wide doorway of the long car labelled "32 hommes, 6 chevaux," was streaming an extraordinary procession; tall, bearded men with the high cheek-bones and sad, wide-apart eyes of the Slav: a blond, round-cheeked boy whose shy yet stolid face could only have been bred in Germany, or Alsace; sharp-featured, rat-eyed fellows who might have been collected at Montmartre or in a Marseilles slum; others who were nondescripts of no complexion and ...
— A Soldier of the Legion • C. N. Williamson
... afterward that there was a good deal more passing up and down the loaning than when we first arrived. At dusk especially, small processions of children and young people walked by our cottage and gave shy glances ...
— Penelope's Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... opinion that Dave's too shy to make up to women folks. I don't think he'll even get up the courage to ask Kate to ...
— 'Way Down East - A Romance of New England Life • Joseph R. Grismer
... round the promontory in their boat, in pursuit of stray single seals; but, the animals were so shy that only a long shot could be had at them. This made it a risky and almost needless task to waste gunpowder in their pursuit; for, in the event of the animals being merely wounded and not killed right out at once, they invariably slipped off the rocks, disappearing ...
— Fritz and Eric - The Brother Crusoes • John Conroy Hutcheson
... displeased,—I don't think we can blame him for that—but we had no open break for I love him dearly, for all my opposing ways, and he saw that, and it helped, though he did say after I had given my promise to stop where I was and never to take up such work again, that—" here she stole a shy look at the face bent so eagerly towards her—"that I had lost my social status and need never hope now for the attentions of—of—well, of such men as he admires and puts faith in. So you see," her dimples ...
— The Golden Slipper • Anna Katharine Green
... suffering under whooping-cough and measles and looked miserably dejected. We endeavoured in vain to prevail on one of them to accompany us for the purpose of killing ducks which were numerous but too shy for our sportsmen. We had the satisfaction however of exchanging the mouldy pemmican obtained at Swampy Lake for a better kind, and received moreover a small but very acceptable supply of fish. Holy Lake, viewed from an ...
— The Journey to the Polar Sea • John Franklin
... laughed at the spectacle he made. To many people a gun-shy dog is, in his terror, a sight for mirth. Perhaps he is. Certainly he is as much so as a dog with a can tied to his tail. But some day neither sight will be funny ...
— Frank of Freedom Hill • Samuel A. Derieux
... a shy glance at her. "I like to stir you up, Maggie darlin'; it makes you purty as ...
— They of the High Trails • Hamlin Garland
... one! Full of all kinds of happiness; but shy. I'd like to see some rounder try to speak To her on Broadway. She looks like ...
— Mr. Faust • Arthur Davison Ficke
... there may be an inner Planet, but, so far as we know for certain, Mercury is the one nearest to the Sun, its average distance being 36,000,000 miles. It is much smaller than the Earth, its weight being only about 1/24th of ours. Mercury is a shy though beautiful object, for being so near the Sun it is not easily visible; it may, however, generally be seen at some time or other during the year as a morning ...
— The Beauties of Nature - and the Wonders of the World We Live In • Sir John Lubbock
... dressing-gown, I sat by my tiny window, watching the shadows of the wind-blown locust-boughs on the moonlit grass below, full of the dreams which are the stuff that romances are made of, and which, though I had often used them as "material," I had never known myself before; shy and tender dreams they were, that glorified that summer night, and ...
— A Village Ophelia and Other Stories • Anne Reeve Aldrich
... fanciful with a little that was true. But the result was that gossip spread wide about Anthony, and he was held in the town to be a very fearful person, who could do strange mischief if he had a mind to; Anthony never cared to walk abroad, for he was of a shy habit, and disliked to meet the eyes of his fellows; but if he did go about, men began to look curiously after him as he went by, shook their heads and talked together with a dark pleasure, while children fled before ...
— Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories - Reprinted from The Hill of Trouble and The Isles of Sunset • Arthur Christopher Benson
... little man, had some playthings upon one of her many tables; for her royal highness has at least twenty in her principal room. The child, in a new muslin frock, sash, etc.' did not look to much disadvantage, and she examined him with the most good-humoured pleasure, and, finding him too shy to be seized, had the graciousness, as well as sense, to play round and court him by sportive wiles, instead of being offended at his insensibility to her royal notice. She ran about the room, peeped at him through chairs, clapped her hands, half ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay
... Edwin was no vulgar boy; Deep thought oft seemed to fix his infant eye. Dainties he heeded not, nor gaude, nor toy, Save one short pipe of rudest minstrelsy. Silent when glad; affectionate, though shy; And now his look was most demurely sad, And now he laughed aloud, yet none knew why. The neighbours stared and sighed, yet blessed the lad: Some deemed him wondrous wise, and ...
— The Minstrel; or the Progress of Genius - with some other poems • James Beattie
... the boys—now shy lads in their teens, who had found the evidences of a struggle and possible murder so long before on the river bluff. Under the adroit lead of counsel, they told each the same story, and were excused cross-examination. Both boys had identified the hat ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine
... concerning matters that seemed so simple on the surface? The devil that spurred him on to understand that there always was some hidden side to every case? Then the sigh and the smile passed, and Muller raised his head in one of the rare moments of pride in his own gifts that this shy unassuming little man ever allowed himself. This was the work that he was intended by Providence to do or he wouldn't have been fitted for it, and it was work for the common good, for the public safety. ...
— The Lamp That Went Out • Augusta Groner
... there any place else in the whole world that you can go for shelter and comfort but to our house? You have spoken of this madness and delusion; you are satisfied that you must leave—" He had meant to say "this man," but he was too shy, and he faltered—"that ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall
... so shy of a circus before, Mr. Burrows," he said. "They've melted away as though the circus were a plague. But I guess we can get ...
— The Circus Comes to Town • Lebbeus Mitchell
... demurred, but Barbe strongly advised consent, 'Or my young lord will be coming up here,' she said; 'they both wish to have speech of you, and would have been here before now, if my old lord were not so lame, and the young one so shy, the poor child!' ...
— Two Penniless Princesses • Charlotte M. Yonge
... excitement were over. As yet Mistress Lucy had spoken scarce a word; but she had looked at me with great kindness, and I knew that she was but waiting for an opportunity to thank me for the service I had rendered her. With the shy awkwardness of my age I wished to avoid this, and so I willingly related to the innkeeper all that had occurred, and had barely ended when Peabody came back in haste from Glazeley, where I fear he had been fuddling himself as his ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang
... some girls are never really themselves with men; they are for ever acting a part; a vulgar part, I admit, but one they have learned before they were born, the instinctive quarry eluding the instinctive hunter. The girl is naturally shy; I could tell that, and she covers it with a kind of boldness that isn't—well, particularly attractive to one of your fastidious mind. Yet there is something rather taking about her. She reminds me of a ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow
... and again she was seen to be fleeing, laughing as she went, from the pursuit of a skater who wished to make a circuit of the flooded meadow holding Deleah's hand. The girl was at once a romp and shy. She laughed with dancing eyes as she flew ahead; but captured, had a frightened, anxious look, her eyes appealing to her mother as she passed ...
— Mrs. Day's Daughters • Mary E. Mann
... the unrestraint of children. At times their plain speaking is formidable, but they are not conscious of impropriety, and their coarseness is not intentional. It is their nature to be downright, and to be communicative on subjects about which the Saxon is shy or silent, and it must be remembered that the separation of the sexes adds considerably to this freedom of expression. Their language is material in quality, every root is objective; as an instance, for the word soul they ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... diplomatists and men of rank; immediately on his return he was enrolled in the Kit-Cat Club, and brought thus and otherwise into communication with the gentry of the Whig party. Although all accounts agree in representing him as a shy man, he was at least saved from all risk of making himself disagreeable in society, by his unassuming manners, his extreme caution and that sedulous desire to oblige, which his satirist Pope exaggerated into a positive fault. His knowledge and ability ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... into the library, and was standing motionless before the mantel. She became suddenly aware of what was going on within the mind of Mr. McGowan, and a shy ...
— Captain Pott's Minister • Francis L. Cooper
... row were communicating, and annoying me, while the third class was reciting in 'First Steps in Numbers,' and I was so incensed that I called Lizzie—that's her name—right out, and had her stand up for twenty minutes. She was a shy little thing, and set great store by perfect marks. I saw that she was troubled a good deal, to have all of them looking and laughing at her. But she stood there, with her hands folded behind her, and not ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 9 • Various
... sea-sickness at once, and if there were any need to communicate such secrets to the public, one might tell of much more good that the pleasant morning-watch effected; but there are a set of emotions about which a man had best be shy of talking lightly,—and the feelings excited by contemplating this vast, magnificent, harmonious Nature are among these. The view of it inspires a delight and ecstasy which is not only hard to describe, but which has something secret in it that a man should not utter loudly. Hope, memory, humility, ...
— Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo • William Makepeace Thackeray
... amazement and censure that was the lot of Mark Twain many years after, when, at a dinner in the Hub, he sought to jest irreverently with the sacred names of Holmes, Emerson, and Longfellow. Again try to fancy the shy, eccentric, improvident genius of "Ulalume," "The Bells," and "The Fall of the House of Usher" at ease in a company that, while delightful, was all propriety and solid intellectuality. No, Poe would no more ...
— Fifth Avenue • Arthur Bartlett Maurice
... a hawser," growled the man, hauling in the rope. "Better shy a few anchors down too, you ...
— Blue Jackets - The Log of the Teaser • George Manville Fenn
Copyright © 2024 Free Translator.org
|
|
|
