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More "Timidity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to terrify Mabel Harrington by these words, she was mistaken. A vague feeling of loneliness was upon her, but she had no cowardly timidity to contend with. ...
— Mabel's Mistake • Ann S. Stephens
... been her existence before the coming of the brig with the strangers. She remembered well that time; the uproar in the settlement, the never-ending wonder, the days and nights of talk and excitement. She remembered her own timidity with the strange men, till the brig moored to the bank became in a manner part of the settlement, and the fear wore off in the familiarity of constant intercourse. The call on board then became part ...
— Almayer's Folly - A Story of an Eastern River • Joseph Conrad
... Did she want to monopolize him jealously? Oh, no! any man, however old and ugly, would have suited her, provided he had plenty of money. Was she coy toward him? Perhaps; but not from a feeling of modesty and timidity inspired by love, but to make him more ardent and ready to pay. Was she proud of his love? She thought him a fool. Were her feelings toward him chaste and pure? As chaste and pure as his. Did she sympathize ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... accompanied by Van der Elst, arrived at his house, the repast, which had long been ready, was placed on the table, and Jaqueline appeared to preside at it. She received the young captain with less frankness than she might generally have bestowed on her father's friends. There was a slight timidity in her manner, which, in spite of herself, she could not help exhibiting, and a blush rose for a moment to her cheek as ...
— The Lily of Leyden • W.H.G. Kingston
... who had before become sensible of their error in the former change, and only wanted a decent excuse for coming back, seized that occasion for doing so. Another body, and a large one it is, who from timidity of constitution had gone with those who wished for a strong executive, were induced by the same timidity to come over to us rather than risk anarchy: so that, according to the evidence we receive from every direction, we may say that the whole of that portion of ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... intelligent-looking. It was plain to be seen that they had not the slightest hostile intentions toward the aviators. On the contrary their features expressed clear friendliness, although it was obvious that their experience with the Clarion was still too fresh to eradicate their natural timidity of such a strange ...
— Around the World in Ten Days • Chelsea Curtis Fraser
... getting along. Each time, I found her quiet, and curiously submissive. Indeed, on the last occasion, she even ventured to address me, on her own account, with regard to some household matter that needed attention. Though this was done with an almost extraordinary timidity, I hailed it with happiness, as being the first word, voluntarily spoken, since the critical moment, when I had caught her unbarring the back door, to go out among those waiting brutes. I wondered whether she ...
— The House on the Borderland • William Hope Hodgson
... high with Flora's bed, bundles of clothing, blankets, sheets, and comforters, while I brought up the rear, dragging Flora's wagon, in which she was seated. My poor sister was quite cheerful, and did not seem to be disturbed by any timidity. ...
— Down The River - Buck Bradford and His Tyrants • Oliver Optic
... called, unless by special recommendation from a mutual friend; and the few permanent inhabitants chanced to be such, that a visit to them was in some degree a condescension. Perhaps there was more of timidity and caution than of pride in the mother's exclusiveness, and Grace had always acquiesced in it as the natural and established state of affairs, without any sense of superiority, but rather of being protected. ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... as we have essayed, though most feebly, to describe them, were enhanced rather than lessened by that air of anxiety by which they were now overcast. Her step was no longer free. It was marked by an unwonted timidity. Her glance was no longer confident; and when she looked round upon the faces of the young village-maidens, it was seen that her lip trembled and moved, but no longer with scorn. If the truth were told, she now envied the meanest of those maidens that security which ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... eloquent face. It seemed as if he were moved beyond all the ordinary feelings of reunion and of love. He did not attempt to kiss the hands he held; and though the touch thrilled through every vein and fibre of his frame, his clasp was as light as that in which the first timidity of a boy's love ventures ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... differently from the rest. Once or twice I saw them talking in one of the halls. There was deep respect in his manner. What he does I have not yet found out. He has always shown great respect to me, though why I can not imagine. He has the same timidity of manner which marks Mrs. Compton. ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille
... did not realize that practically every word he had spoken had reached the ears of the three in hiding and that his final precaution as he divulged the information to the girl was prompted by an excess of timidity and secretiveness. ...
— The Oakdale Affair • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... countenance, he presented to me his hand, openly and benignly. I shrank on looking at him so near, and yet I sighed to love him. He smiled, not without an expression of pity, at perceiving my diffidence, my timidity; for I remembered how soft was the hand of Sleep, how warm ...
— The Glory of English Prose - Letters to My Grandson • Stephen Coleridge
... King's favorite companions, on account, as it should seem, of the strong opposition between their characters. The parts of D'Argens were good, and his manners those of a finished French gentleman; but his whole soul was dissolved in sloth, timidity, and self-indulgence. His was one of that abject class of minds which are superstitious without being religious. Hating Christianity with a rancor which made him incapable of rational inquiry, unable to see in ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... cold attention that seemed to pursue them. The children of the Presidio school smirched their copybooks under the awful supervision, and poor Paquita, the prize pupil, failed utterly in that marvelous upstroke when her patron stood beside her. Gradually distrust, suspicion, self-accusation, and timidity took the place of trust, confidence, and security throughout San Carlos. Whenever the Right Eye of the Commander fell, ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... delivered SOTTO VOCE, that is, under the powers of the performer's voice, to borrow an image from her musical vocabulary. Even if she does know a thing very well, she should keep her knowledge in the background; there is a graceful timidity that is far more attractive than such ...
— Mr. Hogarth's Will • Catherine Helen Spence
... besides these, every misdemeanor came within the proper scope of its inquiry; those especially of public importance, and for which the law, as then understood, had provided no sufficient punishment; for the judges interpreted the law in early times with too great narrowness and timidity, defects which, on the one hand, raised up the overruling authority of the court of chancery as the necessary means of redress to the civil suitor who found the gates of justice barred against him ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various
... yet, with the exception of Irenaeus, Tertullian, Clemens Alexandrinus, and Origen, know only the names and enigmas (of which latter Hippolytus was one), their fault-finding with the composition of the book does not affect me at all. In spite of the timidity of nearly all English theologians, inter muros academicos et extra, I have received very many hearty and manly letters from numerous and distinguished people. The King has, on my recommendation, sent Dr. Boetticher to spend two years here ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... world would lead us to consider as the one great security for good government. We have to engraft on despotism those blessings which are the natural fruits of liberty. In these circumstances, Sir, it behoves us to be cautious, even to the verge of timidity. The light of political science and of history are withdrawn: we are walking in darkness: we do not distinctly see whither we are going. It is the wisdom of a man, so situated, to feel his way, and not to plant his foot till ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... state of constant excitement. I well recall the first morning it was announced to us by one of the colored servants, while we were at the breakfast table, that "the rebels were coming," and the feeling of timidity that nearly overpowered me. Very soon some troops under the command of General Bradley T. Johnson, a native of Frederick, marched upon our lawn and encamped all around us. General Johnson immediately came to our ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur
... all that is beautiful, without asking the name of the master and the school. This Bohemian is recruited from amongst those young fellows of whom it is said that they give great hopes, and from amongst those who realize the hopes given, but who, from carelessness, timidity, or ignorance of practical life, imagine that everything is done that can be when the work is completed, and wait for public admiration and fortune to break in on them by escalade and burglary. They live, so to say, on the outskirts of life, in isolation and inertia. Petrified ...
— Bohemians of the Latin Quarter • Henry Murger
... rose from her seat with a cry in which was timidity, pity, and something of horror; for it was Pretty Pierre. She recoiled, but seeing how he swayed with weakness, and that his clothes had blood upon them, she helped him to a chair. He looked up at her with an enigmatical ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... down mighty cities in his madness. I think it would make a man walk down the street as if he were walking on egg-shells. I do not think this experiment in opportunism would end in frantic license; I think it would end in frozen timidity. If a man was forbidden to solve moral problems by moral science or the help of mankind, his course would be quite easy—he would not solve the problems. The world instead of being a knot so tangled as to need unravelling, would simply ...
— George Bernard Shaw • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... him what has happened. I know I don't dare ask him, and I am a passenger, a privileged person. This redoubtable old sea-relic has inspired me with a respect for him that partakes half of timidity and half ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London
... was no doubt looked upon as an act of timidity, and it was not long before we had a repetition of the offence. I had taken pains to have the garrison at Dayton carefully instructed that they must be patient and cool, avoiding every provocation, but if attacked, the aggressor must be punished on the spot. In ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... antelope, like most animals of its kind, has one strongly developed propensity—that of curiosity. Although to a known enemy it is the most timid of creatures, yet in the presence of an object that is new to it, it appears to throw aside its timidity, or rather its curiosity overcomes its sense of fear; and, impelled by the former, it will approach very near to any strange form, and regard it with an air of bewilderment. The prairie-wolf—a creature that ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid
... certainly the more nervous. His arm was about her shoulders; her firm, slender body was drawn close to his. His clasp tightened as the timidity of inexperience gave way to confidence; an amazing sense of conquest, of possession took hold of him. He could have shouted defiance to the storm. He held her! This beautiful, warm, ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon
... the water, Angelique followed the bank of the Chevrotte, that she might cross it on a plank which served as a bridge. But Felicien had gone a shorter way through the brambles and brushwood. Until now he had always been overcome by his timidity, and he had turned redder than she as he saw her bare feet, pure and chaste as herself. Now, in the overflow of his ignorant youth, passionately fond of beauty and desirous for love, he was impatient to cry out and ...
— The Dream • Emile Zola
... some directions to prepare for the flying visit, Flavia watching. She made no demand for attention, no betrayal of feminine timidity to hamper this man's world into which she had been brought. Men looked curiously at the delicate, serious girl who sat so quietly in the Mercury camp, but gradually the information crept out that she was Rose's sister and Gerard's fiancee, so ...
— From the Car Behind • Eleanor M. Ingram
... and full of natural courage, and consequently so incapable of intimidation, as that of our friend the proctor. And what was equally striking, the female portion of them were as free from the weakness and timidity of their sex, in this respect, as ...
— The Tithe-Proctor - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... education of an eastern despot, and been surrounded with slaves from his cradle. In person he was the tallest and handsomest man amidst the vast hosts which he led against Greece; but there was nothing in his mind to correspond to this fair exterior. His character was marked by faint-hearted timidity and childish vanity. Xerxes had not inherited his father's animosity against Greece; but he was surrounded by men who urged him to continue the enterprise. Foremost among these was Mardonius, who was eager to retrieve his reputation, and to obtain ...
— A Smaller History of Greece • William Smith
... numerous salmon spears were their only furniture. In a few minutes my arrival created a prodigious commotion. The whole population turned out to stare at me. The children ran into the bushes to hide. But feminine curiosity conquered feminine timidity. Although I was in the plight of the forlorn Odysseus after his desperate swim, I had no 'blooming foliage' to wind [Greek text which cannot be reproduced]. Unlike the Phaeacian maidens, however, ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... in his reign that Prussia laid the foundation of her greatness as a military monarchy. It was not the king who laid this foundation, but the great men whom Providence raised up in the darkest hours of Prussia's humiliation. He did one prudent thing, however, out of timidity, when his ministers waged vigorous and offensive measures. He refused to arm against Napoleon when Prussia lay at his mercy. This turned out to be the salvation of Prussia, A weak man's instincts proved to be wiser than the wisdom of the wise. When ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume X • John Lord
... "It will be all right to-morrow morning. What I write will make the fortune of the composition." He did not utter this vaingloriously, but as a man who stated simple truth. She gazed at him, her timidity and nervousness ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... professional men from Denver and Pueblo out for fish and such game as the law allowed, and all in holiday mood. They joked the waiter-girls, and joshed one another in noisy good-fellowship, ignoring the slim youth in English riding-suit, who came in with an air of mingled melancholy and timidity and took a seat at the lower ...
— The Forester's Daughter - A Romance of the Bear-Tooth Range • Hamlin Garland
... its melancholy face. That was when it first caught sight of the canoe. Then it exposed its very small teeth and gums after the fashion of its mother; but repentance seemed to follow instantly, for the sad look, mixed with a dash of timidity, resumed its place, and it buried its face in its ...
— The Red Eric • R.M. Ballantyne
... free from timidity, and always expressed himself well, made a very appropriate reply; and, at poor Ellis's earnest request, spoke for him also, and said a great deal more in his favour than ...
— Ernest Bracebridge - School Days • William H. G. Kingston
... piece of Dad's hand as well. Farmer had not been in many battles—no Defence Force man ever owned him. He threw up his head and snorted, and commenced a retreat. The kangaroo followed him up and seized Dad by the shirt. Joe evinced signs of timidity. He lost faith in Dad, and, half jumping, half falling, he landed on the ground, and set out speedily for a tree. Dad lost the stick, and in attempting to brain the brute with his fist he overbalanced and fell out of the saddle. He struggled to his feet, and clutched ...
— On Our Selection • Steele Rudd
... generally less regard for the status quo, are quick to see ulterior motives back of conservative timidity and solemn profession of respect for law and order. It was so in the case of the Stamp Act. Small shopkeepers who were soon sold out and had no great stock of "old moth-eaten goods" to offer at enhanced prices, rising young lawyers whose fees ceased with the closing of the courts, artisans and ...
— The Eve of the Revolution - A Chronicle of the Breach with England, Volume 11 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Carl Becker
... you ever think what this flirting means?" persisted Faith, who had lost all her timidity and was plunging ...
— For Gold or Soul? - The Story of a Great Department Store • Lurana W. Sheldon
... happen if this sensitive and proud heart of hers were driven into rebellion by some—possibly unintentional—wrong. And this high-spirited, fearless, honor-loving girl—who was gentle and obedient, not through any timidity or limpness of character, but because she considered it her duty to be gentle and obedient—was to be cast aside and have her tenderest feelings outraged and wounded for the sake of an unscrupulous, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 30. September, 1873 • Various
... those words his voice, gestures, and expression of countenance were in keeping with the language itself, and truly horrible. Suddenly a change came over his countenance; the dark lines of passion retreated, and an expression of timidity or fear came in their place. He muttered incoherently for a time, and then, as if communing with himself, he spoke in a subdued voice of the last scene in his conscious life. A few sentences were audible and connected, showing how his mind was ...
— Ellen Walton - The Villain and His Victims • Alvin Addison
... the lime-burner, vexed at his son's timidity, yet half infected by it. "Come forward, and show yourself, like a man, or I'll fling this chunk of ...
— The Snow Image • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Esther's natural timidity was increased by Marie's treatment. At first she made feeble efforts to converse, but finding herself continually repressed, gradually ceased from her endeavors to make friends ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls, Vol. XIII, Nov. 28, 1891 • Various
... a feeling of timidity that I accompanied my mother through several streets to the school taught by Miss Edmonds. My mother accompanied me to relieve me from any awkwardness I might feel in presenting myself for admission. It was a select school for girls. ...
— The Path of Duty, and Other Stories • H. S. Caswell
... either side of it. There was every reason to expect that Nekht-nebf, by warily guarding his frontier, and making full use of his resources, might baffle for a considerable time, if not wholly frustrate, the Persian attack. But his combined self-conceit and timidity ruined his cause. Taking the direction of affairs wholly upon himself and asking no advice from his Greek captains, he failed to show any of the qualities of a great commander, and was speedily involved in difficulties ...
— Ancient Egypt • George Rawlinson
... Wellington's operations were daring to extravagance, some cautious to the verge of timidity, all founded as much upon keen and nice perceptions of the political measures of his adversaries as upon pure military considerations—and 'he knew how to obey as ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... lock one of the doors of the green room, but while I was given brandy, and congratulated by my chairman and his family, a very old charwoman peeped in at another entrance, saying with emotional timidity, ...
— My Impresssions of America • Margot Asquith
... yet unsown, and that the volcano which buries a city preserves a thousand from destruction. But the evil is not for the time less fearful, because we have learned it to be necessary; and we easily understand the timidity or the tenderness of the spirit which would withdraw itself from the presence of destruction, and create in its imagination a world of which the peace should be unbroken, in which the sky should not darken nor the sea rage, in which the leaf should not change nor the blossom ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume II (of 3) • John Ruskin
... surprised us. She was very plain-featured, but the men—the rough teamsters, for instance—could not keep their eyes off her. She was the most amazing mixture of boldness and timidity I had ever met. We were about to plump ourselves down at table, for instance, when Miss Buchanan, folding her hands and raising her eyes, said grace; but to our first questions she ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell
... Lindsay's eyes fixed on him, and back came the thoughts of his terrible fright, with a little shame too at his own timidity. Which of us trusts as we should do in the ...
— Frances Kane's Fortune • L. T. Meade
... Lashmar, who had quite come round to his wife's opinion on the subject of the honeymoon, cared not how long these days of contented indolence lulled his ambitious soul; at times he was even touched by the devotion which repaid his sacrifice. A certain timidity which clung to Iris, a tremulous solicitude which marked her behaviour to him, became her, he thought, very well indeed. Constance Bride was right; he could not have been thus at his ease with a woman capable of reading his thoughts, and of criticising ...
— Our Friend the Charlatan • George Gissing
... an unsuspected timidity of character. "I don't like being left here all alone," she remarked. "Wait till ...
— A Master Of Craft • W. W. Jacobs
... points in it. By making the most of these, it might, perhaps, be rebutted, but his honesty rendered such a course out of the question if she were right in her conclusions, and he was forced to admit that this was possible. Bertram had shown timidity in his younger days—Challoner remembered that they had had some trouble in teaching him to ride—and there was no doubt that his was a highly-strung and nervous temperament. He had not the calm which marked the Challoners in time of strain. Then Dick Blake was recklessly generous and ...
— Blake's Burden • Harold Bindloss
... must be the foundation on which the ideal married state is built. The husband should realize that his wife's love for him induces her to allow privileges of a personal nature which her innate chastity and timidity might otherwise refuse. In return, he should accept these privileges with consideration. He should, in particular, on his wedding night, take care not to shock his young bride's sensibilities. He may ...
— Sex - Avoided subjects Discussed in Plain English • Henry Stanton
... Heine. He had married since I was last here. I found him in indifferent health; but full of energy, and so friendly and so natural in his behavior towards me, that I felt no timidity in exhibiting myself to him as I was. One day he had been relating to his wife my story of the Constant Tin Soldier, and, whilst he said that I was the author of this story, he introduced me to her. She was a lively, pretty young lady. A troop of children, who, as Heine says, belonged to a neighbor, ...
— The True Story of My Life • Hans Christian Andersen
... Lactantius, Basil, Ambrose, Augustine, Procopius of Gaza, Cosmas, Isidore Virgil of Salzburg's assertion of it in the eighth century Its revival by William of Conches and Albert the Great in the thirteenth Surrender of it by Nicolas d'Oresme Fate of Peter of Abano and Cecco d' Ascoli Timidity of Pierre d'Ailly and Tostatus Theological hindrance of Columbus Pope Alexander VI's demarcation line Cautious conservatism of Gregory Reysch Magellan ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... issue seemed doubtful. Shalmaneser could not maintain this policy of forbearance without loss of prestige in the eyes of the world: conduct which might seem prudent and cautious in a victorious monarch like Assur-nazir-pal would in him have argued timidity or weakness, and his rivals would soon have provoked a quarrel if they thought him lacking in the courage or the means to attack them. Immediately after his accession, therefore, he assumed the ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 7 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... ruddy glow through the isinglass of the stove. The old gentleman was slowly polishing his glasses with his silk handkerchief, blinking his eyes and looking the very picture of sternness. Edna stole softly up, her little heart beating with a mixture of timidity and gratitude. She gently, plucked her uncle's sleeve, then she said, "Thank you so much, Uncle Justus," and leaning forward she gave a little light kiss, which fell only upon the outer edge of one carefully curled ...
— A Dear Little Girl • Amy E. Blanchard
... world as the "Life Work Service," was in the hands of a few leaders who knew both its power and peril. An invitation would be given for all to declare their purpose who felt called to special Christian work. The difficulty was to encourage the most timid of those who, despite their timidity, felt sure of the inner voice, and yet prevent a stampede among those who, without any depth of desire, were in love with emotion, and would enjoy being conspicuous, if only for the brief moment of ...
— John Wesley, Jr. - The Story of an Experiment • Dan B. Brummitt
... end is to stay the panic; and the advances should, if possible, stay the panic. And for this purpose there are two rules: First. That these loans should only be made at a very high rate of interest This will operate as a heavy fine on unreasonable timidity, and will prevent the greatest number of applications by persons who do not require it. The rate should be raised early in the panic, so that the fine may be paid early; that no one may borrow out of idle precaution without paying well ...
— Lombard Street: A Description of the Money Market • Walter Bagehot
... Mr Thomas and was agreeably prepossessed by his open although nervous countenance, and the simplicity and timidity of his manner. 'What a people are these Americans!' he thought. 'Look at this nervous, weedy, simple little bird in a lownecked shirt, and think of him wielding and directing interests so extended and seemingly incongruous! 'But had we not better,' ...
— The Wrong Box • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... with the Ancients, by perusing the works of eminent Poets of the present age, whose names it would be superfluous to mention. I dismiss this attempt, and the pieces which accompany it, to the judgment of the public, with that timidity and diffidence which the review of so many great names, and the sense of Inexperience are fitted to inspire. Whatever may be the fate of either, I shall remember, with pleasure, that they have afforded me an opportunity of testifying that high and respectful ...
— An Essay on the Lyric Poetry of the Ancients • John Ogilvie
... received me with an easy self-possession that showed no trace of the reserve and timidity which foreigners had remarked ...
— Servia, Youngest Member of the European Family • Andrew Archibald Paton
... And indeed, in the work of the later classicists, there was too often no spirit to look for. The husk alone remained—a finicky pretentious framework, fluttering with the faded rags of ideals long outworn. Every great tradition has its own way of dying; and the classical tradition died of timidity. It grew afraid of the flesh and blood of life; it was too polite to face realities, too elevated to tread the common ground of fact and detail; it would touch nothing but generalities, for they alone are safe, harmless, and respectable; and, if they ...
— Landmarks in French Literature • G. Lytton Strachey
... perhaps, should have been there to welcome the child— his conscience rather smote him that he was not—but it was the minister's unbroken habit of years to spend Saturday evening alone in his study. And it might be that, with a certain timidity, inherent in his character, he shrank from this first meeting, and wished to put off as long as possible what must inevitably be awkward, and might be very painful. So, in darkness and rain, unwelcomed save by his own servants, most of whom even ...
— A Noble Life • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... especially in France and Germany, unable to strengthen itself by intermarriage with the noblesse, they retained that timidity which is the fruit of the insecurity of trade; and had to submit to a more and more centralised despotism, and grow up as they could, in the face of exasperating hindrances to wealth, to education, to the possession, in many parts of France, of large ...
— The Ancien Regime • Charles Kingsley
... Lud, this news of papa's puts me all in a flutter. Young, handsome: these he put last; but I put them foremost. Sensible, good-natured; I like all that. But then reserved and sheepish; that's much against him. Yet can't he be cured of his timidity, by being taught to be proud of his wife? Yes, and can't I—But I vow I'm disposing of the husband before ...
— She Stoops to Conquer - or, The Mistakes of a Night. A Comedy. • Oliver Goldsmith
... the Little White Lady continued her wanderings about the Abbey and its neighborhood. The delicacy and timidity of her deportment increased the interest already felt for her by Mrs. Wildman. That lady, with her wonted kindness, sought to make acquaintance with her, and inspire her with confidence. She invited her into the Abbey; treated her with the most delicate ...
— Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey • Washington Irving
... other species of the leviathan, died out of the minds of the whalemen as a body. There are those this day among them, who, though intelligent and courageous enough in offering battle to the Greenland or Right whale, would perhaps—either from professional inexperience, or incompetency, or timidity, decline a contest with the Sperm Whale; at any rate, there are plenty of whalemen, especially among those whaling nations not sailing under the American flag, who have never hostilely encountered the Sperm Whale, but ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... roof of trees to keep off the shooting stars and other dangers—when these queer people began to massage each other in turn, to rub and to thump, to slap and knead the limbs and muscles, then, in their intense curiosity, even the children forgot their timidity and crowded round. A pickaninny—the queerest little mite—even ventured to poke a tiny finger into the ribs of one of the three. After that there was a great pow-wow. Mr. Hume, with a man in the palm of each hand, a boy on each shoulder, ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville
... the House during the Extra Session of Congress had rekindled the war fever in the country; and the constant chatter about the suffering Cuban and the duty of the United States, the black iniquity of the Speaker and the timidity of the President, were wearying to the more evenly balanced members of the community. "You say that we need a war," said Betty contemptuously one day, "that it will shake us up and do us good. If we had fallen as low as that, no war could ...
— Senator North • Gertrude Atherton
... her mind she was prevented by a mixture of pride and timidity from addressing him again, and when they were looking at the rows of quaint portraits in the gallery above the cloisters, she kept up her air of interest and made her vivacious remarks without any direct appeal ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... fair to leave her in ignorance of what would necessarily affect her attitude towards him; but it was impossible not to shrink from telling her. Dorothea accused herself of some meanness in this timidity: it was always odious to her to have any small fears or contrivances about her actions, but at this moment she was seeking the highest aid possible that she might not dread the corrosiveness of Celia's pretty carnally minded prose. ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... the greatest timidity that we venture upon the publication of a few aphorisms which may give birth to this new art, as casts have created the science of geology; and we offer them for the meditation of philosophers, of young marrying people and ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part I. • Honore de Balzac
... a subtler stroke of policy, he promised that those who went back should share in the rewards gained by their more constant brethren. But four infantrymen and five horsemen shamefacedly availed themselves of this permission. The rest enthusiastically clamored to be led forward. Both mutiny and timidity were silenced ...
— South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... (C. R. 3, 292.) In a second letter of the same date he says that a real doctrinal discussion had never come to pass, partly because Luther's illness prevented him from taking part in the meetings, partly because the timidity of certain men [the Landgrave and others] had prevented an exact disputation lest any discord might arise. (296.) March 3 he wrote to Jonas in a similar vein saying that the reports of violent controversies among the ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
... hostility, and at last into direct conflict. In the early stages, slavery had on its side the advantage of an established place under the law, the support of its local communities becoming more and more determined, the long-time indifference and inertia of the free States, custom, conservatism, timidity, race prejudice. But against all this were operating steadily two tremendous forces. In the race for industrial advantage which is at last the decisive test, free society was superior to slave society by as much as the freeman is superior ...
— The Negro and the Nation - A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement • George S. Merriam
... overlooked, and all difficulties defied. I plunged into obscurities, and clambered over obstacles, from which, in a different state of mind, and with a different object of pursuit, I should have recoiled with invincible timidity. When the scene had passed, I could not review the perils I had undergone ...
— Edgar Huntley • Charles Brockden Brown
... had seemed such timid creatures, even the dark one—she couldn't remember their names—that day at the club, that she had felt it quite safe to be very friendly. Here they had come out of their shells; already; indeed, at once. There was no sign of timidity about either of them here. If they had got out of their shells so immediately, at the very first contact, unless she checked them they would soon begin to press upon her, and then good-bye to her dream of thirty restful, silent days, lying unmolested in the sun, getting her ...
— The Enchanted April • Elizabeth von Arnim
... four at table. The editor came, and his timidity soon wore off in the warmth of hospitality. He appeared a kind exciteable little man, glad of his dinner from the first, and in due time proud of his entertainer. His response to the toast of the Fourth Estate was an apology ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... the battle-axe, the former with the bow and the sword One Scyth is receiving his death-wound, the other is about to let loose a shaft, but seems at the same time half inclined to fly The steady confidence of the warriors on the one side contrasts well with the timidity and hesitancy of their weaker and smaller ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 5. (of 7): Persia • George Rawlinson
... dear, if the pains it cost me to vanquish my timidity and master feelings you thought so feeble were invisible to you, will Heaven, think you, reward them? I assure you, it needed no slight effort to show myself to you as I was in the days before I loved. At Madrid I was considered a good talker, and I wanted you to see for yourself the few gifts ...
— Letters of Two Brides • Honore de Balzac
... Symptoms of Love.—The first symptom of love in a young man, is timidity; in a girl, it is boldness. The two sexes have a tendency to approach, and each assumes the qualities ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... troops and the mine laborers will be able to wipe us out, themselves," von Schlichten said. "For the timidity and stupidity of our enemies, Allah make us truly thankful, amen. It's something no commander should depend on, but be glad when it happens. If Firkked had had a couple of regiments on hand outside the reservation to jump us as soon as the Tenth and the Zirks mutinied, he could have swamped us in ...
— Uller Uprising • Henry Beam Piper, John D. Clark and John F. Carr
... unsettled, and it was long before either of them slept. Esperance and Genevieve talked low, and long silences broke their confidences. Count Styvens had brought cigarettes for Maurice and Jean. All three stayed and talked a long time in the painter's room. Alone with men, Styvens lost all the timidity that sometimes made him awkward. His broad and cultivated mind, his humanitarian philosophy unaffected by his religious beliefs, the sincere simplicity with which he expressed himself, made a great impression on ...
— The Idol of Paris • Sarah Bernhardt
... gxis. Till (cultivate) kulturi. Tillage kulturajxo, terkulturo. Tiller (of boat) direktilo. Tilt klini—igi, duonlevi. Tilt (an awning) kovrilego. Timber ligno, lignajxo. Time tempo. Timely gxustatempa. Timepiece horlogxo. Timid timema. Timidity timeco. Timorous timema. Tin stani. Tin stano. Tinder fajrfungo. Tinfoil hidrargajxo. Tinge koloretigi. Tingle vibreti, soneti. Tinkle tinti. Tint koloretigi. Tiny malgrandeta. Tip pinto. Tip (gratuity) trinkmono. Tippet ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... after these worthies had disappeared within the house, the door was again opened, and Chief Justice Chandler, the man to whose singularly compounded character, made up of timidity, selfishness, vanity, thirst of power, kindness, and duplicity, or rather the conduct that flowed from it, may be mainly attributed the bloody tragedy that ensued, now made his appearance in the street. He wore a powdered wig, according ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... changed from my Christian name, Mary Morse Baker. Timidity in early years caused me, as an author, to assume various noms de plume. After my first marriage, to Colonel Glover [20] of Charleston, South Carolina, I dropped the name of Morse to retain my maiden ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy
... enormous, overhanging, frightful. These big ones generally conceal a fine disposition, a kindliness that borders on weakness and a gentleness that savors of timidity. ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... poisonous weeds, in the quiet corner that God has given one to dress and keep. Then perhaps one tries to put one's hand on what is amiss; sometimes one does too much, and in the wrong way; one has not enough faith, one dares not leave enough to God. Or from timidity or diffidence, or from the base desire not to be troubled, from the poor hope that perhaps things will straighten themselves out, one does too little; and that is the worst shadow of all, the shadow of cowardice ...
— The Thread of Gold • Arthur Christopher Benson
... boldness and ease in her presence, and not for one second losing sight of her, though he did not look at her. He felt as though the sun were coming near him. She was in a corner, and turning out her slender feet in their high boots with obvious timidity, she skated towards him. A boy in Russian dress, desperately waving his arms and bowed down to the ground, overtook her. She skated a little uncertainly; taking her hands out of the little muff that hung on a cord, ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... Now they were at the "come forward and sit at the feet of Jesus." To-night grandpa and grandma didn't do that; they merely knelt in the pew with bowed heads. So Missy also knelt with bowed head. She was by this time in a state difficult to describe; a quivering jumble of excitement, eagerness, timidity, fear, hope, ...
— Missy • Dana Gatlin
... exerted themselves for defence with an energy that does honor to them both. "Far from showing the least timidity," says the ever-modest Governor, "I have taken positions such as may hide our weakness from the enemy."[835] He stationed Rochbeaucourt with three hundred men at Pointe-aux-Trembles; Repentigny with two hundred at Jacques-Cartier; and Dumas with twelve hundred ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... the staircase which the girls had ascended, then up its long straight ascent. He took its first steps in a bound, but, as his brain became more perfectly awake, confusion of thought, wonder, a certain timidity because now the screaming had ceased, caused him to slacken his pace. He was thus hesitating in the darkness when he found himself confronted by Madge King. She stood majestic in grey woollen gown, candle in hand, and her dark eyes blazed ...
— A Dozen Ways Of Love • Lily Dougall
... that then he loved display and ostentation and was proud, wilful and self-confident; nevertheless, there were times when for a moment he feared, but in spite of that timidity, he went ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester
... and death. These fears may prevent him from being a philosopher in the old and noble sense of the word; but they sharpen his sense for many a psychological problem, and make him the spokesman of many an inarticulate soul. Animal timidity and animal illusion are deep in the heart of all of us. Practice may compel us to bow to the conventions of the intellect, as to those of polite society; but secretly, in our moments of immersion in ourselves, we may find them a great nuisance, even a vain nightmare. Could we only listen ...
— Winds Of Doctrine - Studies in Contemporary Opinion • George Santayana
... enormous jaguar stretched beneath the shade of a large mimosa. He had just killed a chiguire, an animal about the size of a pig, which he held with one of his paws, while the vultures were assembled in flocks around. It was curious to observe the mixture of boldness and timidity which these birds exhibited; for although they advanced within two feet of the jaguar, they instantly shrunk back at the least motion he made. In order to observe more clearly their proceedings, the travellers went into their ...
— Forest & Frontiers • G. A. Henty
... Academy, and a price was set upon his head. Having returned to Florence, he proceeded to court Duke Alessandro, into whose confidence he wormed himself, pretending to play the spy upon the exiles, and affecting a personal timidity which put the Prince off his guard. Alessandro called him 'the philosopher,' because he conversed in solitude with his own thoughts and seemed indifferent to wealth and office. But all this while Lorenzino was ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... attention, which had been wandering more and more during the progress of Magdalen's inquiries, wandered away altogether. Her gathering anxieties got the better of her discretion, and even of her timidity. Instead of answering her mistress, she suddenly and confusedly ventured on a question ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... given to Montalais was communicated by her to La Valliere, who could not but acknowledge that it was by no means deficient in judgment, and who, after a certain amount of resistance, arising rather from her timidity than from her indifference to the project, resolved to put it into execution. This story of the two girls weeping, and filling Madame's bedroom with the noisiest lamentations, was Malicorne's chef-d'oeuvre. As nothing is so probable as improbability, so natural ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... acquaintance of one whom to know was to love and to revere! How many of the more enlightened of his contemporaries have since regretted that they did not seek him! how very few knew his worth while he lived! and, of those few, several were withheld by timidity or envy from declaring their sense of it. But no man was ever more enthusiastically loved—more looked up to, as one superior to his fellows in intellectual endowments and moral worth, by the few who knew him well, and had ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... uncertain timidity she had not yet learned to overcome, she directed her once sightless eyes toward him. He stood with Doris clasped in his arms. The mother had not heeded his words of the previous evening, for they bore no hidden meaning to ...
— Idle Hour Stories • Eugenia Dunlap Potts
... one thing which seems to me to have always and invariably hampered and maimed me, whenever I have yielded to it, and I have often yielded to it; and that is Fear. It can be called by many names, and all of them ugly names—anxiety, timidity, moral cowardice. I can never trace the smallest good in having given way to it. It has been from my earliest days the Shadow; and I think it is the shadow in the lives of many men and women. I want in this book to track it, if I can, to its lair, to see what it is, where its awful ...
— Where No Fear Was - A Book About Fear • Arthur Christopher Benson
... the baby," returned the youth, pointing to the child, which, with a mixture of boldness and timidity, was playing with a pup, wrinkling up its fat visage into a smile when its playmate rushed away in sport, and opening wide its jet-black eyes in grave anxiety as the pup returned ...
— The Dog Crusoe and his Master • R.M. Ballantyne
... to you, sir, fitting to sit here wasting time?" Mr. Clarkson continued, with diminishing timidity. "Does it seem to you a proper task for twenty-three apparently ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson
... of the commander, and equally of the young officer schooling himself to the ways of the service, is the seeking of means to break down the natural timidity and reticence of the ...
— The Armed Forces Officer - Department of the Army Pamphlet 600-2 • U. S. Department of Defense
... his majority, left him by his mother's father; and, as he was heir to the entailed property, there was no need for concern as to his future prospects, so no effort was made by Mr Huntingdon to draw him out of his natural timidity and reserve, and induce him to enter on any regular professional employment. Perhaps he would take to travelling abroad some day, and that would enlarge his mind and rouse him a bit. At present he really would make nothing of law, physic, or divinity. He was sufficiently ...
— Amos Huntingdon • T.P. Wilson
... the magnates—the mysterious and all-powerful "they" of Freeman's—so that the loss of the second fortune did not reflect on Gilmartin's ability as a speculator, but on his luck. As a matter of fact, he had been too careful and had sinned from over-timidity at first, only to plunge later and ...
— The Tipster - 1901, From "Wall Street Stories" • Edwin Lefevre
... expression of modesty in the courtship of animals, where the modesty of the female was a form of fear on the organic side, but the accompanying movements of avoidance were, at the same time, a powerful attraction to the male. And we have in this, as in all expressions of fear—shame, guilt, timidity, bashfulness—an affective bodily state growing out of the strain thrown upon the attention in the effort of the organism to accommodate itself to its environment. The essential nature of the reaction is already fixed in types of animal life where the operation of ...
— Sex and Society • William I. Thomas
... steadfast ideas of every one had in time produced a timidity and secretiveness in the most ordinary actions, though where she believed herself to be directed by the Spirit, she had no lack of confidence and determination. If her movements could be kept secret she would do her utmost to make them so. She would send ...
— Women of the Country • Gertrude Bone
... overheard him, as he intended she should, and blushed a visible acknowledgment. All of her character was visible, well-developed as her body: her timidity showed itself in the unceasing dropping of her eyelid; her arch simplicity in the pouting lips; a coy reserve—well, that everywhere, to the very rosette on her retreating slipper; and her patriotism was quite palpable in ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... the account given by Sir E. Tennent, of the behaviour of the female elephants, used as decoys, without admitting that they intentionally practise deceit, and well know what they are about. Courage and timidity are extremely variable qualities in the individuals of the same species, as is plainly seen in our dogs. Some dogs and horses are ill-tempered, and easily turn sulky; others are good-tempered; and these qualities are certainly inherited. Every one knows ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... possessed of remarkable strength of character, which is the more surprising from the natural timidity and gentleness of ...
— Lady Rosamond's Secret - A Romance of Fredericton • Rebecca Agatha Armour
... Girondists might have been victorious. In the worst event, they would have fallen with unblemished honor. Thus much is certain, that their boldness and honesty could not possibly have produced a worse effect than was actually produced by their timidity and their stratagems. ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... With shrinking and timidity the Browning girl is unacquainted. As experience grows, these sensations may sadly touch her, but she will not have been prepared for them; no reason for feeling either had entered her dream ...
— Browning's Heroines • Ethel Colburn Mayne
... grace does she whirl these tiny banners around her head, as winningly as a Titania performing the sword exercise! How coyly does she dispose her garments and floating drapery to hide the too-maddening symmetry of her limbs! Gods! She is transformed all at once into an Amazon—the fawn-like timidity of her first demeanour is gone. Bold and beautiful flushes her cheek with animated crimson—her full voluptuous lip is more compressed and firm—the deep passion of the huntress flashing in her lustrous eyes! Widdicomb becomes excited—he moves with quicker step around the periphery ...
— The Bon Gaultier Ballads • William Edmonstoune Aytoun
... in sudden timidity and said a little hurriedly, "Help me into the saddle. I shall need to ...
— The Spirit of Sweetwater • Hamlin Garland
... say it," she answered brightly; "you must say it and leave me to think it. And I do think it. I believe that Elspeth, despite her timidity and her dependence on you, is like other girls at heart, and not more difficult ...
— Tommy and Grizel • J.M. Barrie
... remonstrances sent, public action fearlessly sifted and criticised; in short, because he held a steady faith in men's humane promptings when ultimately reached, he 'cried aloud' to them by every access, and 'spared not' to call them from their timidity and time-serving to manly utterance ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... and it would occasionally happen that Mr. Barker experimentalised with the timidity or forbearance of the wrong person, in which case a summons to a Police-office, was, on more than one occasion, followed by a committal to prison. It was not in the power of trifles such as these, however, to subdue the freedom of his spirit. As soon as they passed away, he resumed ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... life, the shadows are reversed, and the mind turns retrospectively, it is not to be supposed that I would abandon lightly, or idly put on trial, the party to which I have steadily adhered. It is rather to be assumed that conservatism, which belongs to the timidity or caution of increasing years, would lead me to cling to, to be supported by, rather than to cast off, the organization with which I have been so long connected. If I am driven to consider the necessity ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis
... itself in the depths of the vast waters. And there was finally, at the hospital in Plassans, a dissecting room to which he was almost the only visitor; a large, bright, quiet room, in which for more than twenty years every unclaimed body had passed under his scalpel. A modest man besides, of a timidity that had long since become shyness, it had been sufficient for him to maintain a correspondence with his old professors and his new friends, concerning the very remarkable papers which he from time to time sent to the Academy of Medicine. He was ...
— Doctor Pascal • Emile Zola
... funny to see Mr. Kingsland forsake billiards and come to quote Tennyson to her; Dr. Maryland's shy, distant homage was more comical yet; and the tender little mouth began to find out its lines and dimples and power of concealment. But the young heart had a good share of timidity, and that stirred very often; making the colour flit to and fro 'like the rosy light upon the sky'— Mr. Kingsland originally observed; while Dr. Maryland looked at the evening star and was silent. Compliments!—how they rained down upon her; how gayly she shook ...
— Wych Hazel • Susan and Anna Warner
... much to America. Not content with charming us with the works of her native genius, she teaches us also to appreciate our own. She steps in between the timidity of a British author, and the fastidiousness of the British public, and by using her' good offices' brings both parties to ...
— Letters on International Copyright; Second Edition • Henry C. Carey
... flesh upon the tranter—who here came into action again—shook like jelly. Mrs. Penny, being always rather concerned for her personal safety when she danced with the tranter, fixed her face to a chronic smile of timidity the whole time it lasted—a peculiarity which filled her features with wrinkles, and reduced her eyes to little straight lines like hyphens, as she jigged up and down opposite him; repeating in her own person not only his proper ...
— Under the Greenwood Tree • Thomas Hardy
... man who, more than any one else, held in his hand the destiny of the nation. But, when a tall, gaunt person, with wonderful, thoughtful eyes and a homely face, illumined by a melancholy but attractive smile, walked up to him and asked: "Is this George Knight?" all the boy's timidity vanished. As he answered, "Yes, I am George Knight," he felt as if he had known ...
— Chasing an Iron Horse - Or, A Boy's Adventures in the Civil War • Edward Robins
... as you say!" murmured Roger, as he began to rise. It was not without a natural feeling of timidity that he cautiously elevated himself first to his knees and then to his feet. As for Jimmy, he ...
— The Khaki Boys Over the Top - Doing and Daring for Uncle Sam • Gordon Bates
... led on by what another would say or do, were down upon me. It was a sort of contagious excitement, and they didn't stop to think it might be unjust or cruel. Things went on from bad to worse, until at last I gave up trying to conciliate, and turned on them like a little wild-cat. I forgot my timidity,—forgot everything but my desire to be even with them, as I expressed it. But it wasn't an even conflict,—thirty girls against one; and at length I did something dreadful. I was going from the school-room to a recitation room with my ink-bottle; that ...
— A Flock of Girls and Boys • Nora Perry
... over, and that peculiar timidity which comes over certain classes lifted out of their customary environment and doing their best to become accustomed to new surroundings having begun to wear away under the tactful welcome of Felix, and the hour having arrived for the grand ceremony of gift-giving, ...
— Felix O'Day • F. Hopkinson Smith
... Walderhurst liked her timidity. To see a fine, tall, upstanding creature colour in that way was not disagreeable when one realised that she coloured because she ...
— Emily Fox-Seton - Being The Making of a Marchioness and The Methods of Lady Walderhurst • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... this exhortation the manner of Walter Skinner still betrayed doubt, and even timidity. And at last he made the innkeeper understand that it was he whom he ...
— A Boy's Ride • Gulielma Zollinger
... murder; [B] they who ruled the State, 65 Though with such awful proof before their eyes That he, who would sow death, reaps death, or worse, And can reap nothing better, child-like longed To imitate, not wise enough to avoid; Or left (by mere timidity betrayed) 70 The plain straight road, for one no better chosen Than if their wish had been to undermine Justice, and make ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth
... the altar; the crowd kneels in a large circle. At the priest's signal the farmer approaches the altar and kneels. His behavior betrays superstitious timidity and great awkwardness. The shepherd exhibits the lamb first to the priest and then to the dancers who in fantastic dancing step advance and retreat while the music plays. Finally the lamb is placed ...
— The Buddha - A Drama in Five Acts and Four Interludes • Paul Carus
... disdained the danger—sprang lightly up the trunk, and flung himself along one of the branches, dropping, happily without any accident, on the meadow of the Chateau d'Urtis. Little more was left for him to do; and that little he did. He went towards the fair shepherdesses. He tried to overcome his timidity—he overwhelmed the first sheep of the flock with his insidious caresses—and then, finding himself within a few feet of Amaranthe—he bowed, and smiled, and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - April 1843 • Various
... enterprize that might prove too mighty for all our efforts; though some among us had so lately treated the difficulties which former voyagers were said to have encountered in this undertaking as little better than chimerical, and had supposed them to have arisen from timidity and unskilfulness, rather than from the real embarrassments of the winds and seas. But we were now convinced, from severe experience, that these censures were rash and ill founded; for the distresses with which we struggled during ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... we split it?" It was plain that Garson had given over the struggle against greed. After all, Mary was only a woman, despite her cleverness, and with all a woman's timidity. Here was ...
— Within the Law - From the Play of Bayard Veiller • Marvin Dana
... quiet hope with which in every trouble she secretly comforted herself—she wanted to whisper the words that were that moment in her own mind, "Truly I know that it shall be well with them that fear God;"—but her natural reserve and timidity kept her ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... and so luxuriant in vegetation. The Island is at present largely devoted to the cultivation of sugar. Rice also cuts a considerable figure in the agricultural production of Kauai. That it can produce coffee is undoubted, but there is a timidity about embarking in the industry, because some forty years ago the experiment of a coffee plantation was tried, and owing to misjudgment of location and soil, failed. Since then the cultivation of coffee has come to be more thoroughly understood, ...
— The Hawaiian Islands • The Department of Foreign Affairs
... and are farther removed from them than the intermediate virtues, are usually held in higher esteem than those virtues. Thus, because those who fear dangers too much are more numerous than they who fear them too little, temerity is frequently opposed to the vice of timidity, and taken for a virtue, and is commonly more highly esteemed than true fortitude. Thus, also, the prodigal are in ordinary more praised than the liberal; and none more easily acquire a great reputation for piety than the superstitious and hypocritical. ...
— The Principles of Philosophy • Rene Descartes
... us the nooks and lanes, the rocks and hills, of Switzerland, rather than the high peaks; Lambinet, an apple-orchard, a row of pollard-elms, or a weedy pond,—not cataracts or forests. This is not affectation or timidity, but an instinct that the famous scenes are no breaks in the order of Nature,—that what is seen in them is visible elsewhere as well, only not so obvious, and that the office of Art is not to parrot what is already distinct, but to reveal it where ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 76, February, 1864 • Various
... assassin and successor, the second Michael, was tainted from his birth with the Phrygian heresies: he attempted to mediate between the contending parties; and the intractable spirit of the Catholics insensibly cast him into the opposite scale. His moderation was guarded by timidity; but his son Theophilus, alike ignorant of fear and pity, was the last and most cruel of the Iconoclasts. The enthusiasm of the times ran strongly against them; and the emperors who stemmed the torrent were exasperated and punished by the public hatred. After the death of Theophilus, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... pressing the turf, the other slightly retired, as if she had just paused in her steps. She was not fronting me, but half-turned. She appeared to have come as near as she intended, and was about going off again in an oblique direction: like the startled antelope, that, despite its timidity, stops to gaze upon the "object that has alarmed it." So short a time had my eyes been averted from the path by which she must have approached, I might well have fancied that she had suddenly sprung out of the earth—as Cytherea from the sea! Equally ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... however, Varchi, quoted above, p. 243. The Report of Marco Foscari, Relazioni Venete, series ii, vol. i. p. 9 et seq., contains a remarkable estimate of the Florentine character. He attributes the timidity and weakness which he observes in the Florentines to their mercantile habits, and notices, precisely what Varchi here observes with admiration: 'li primi che governano lo stato vanno alle loro botteghe ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds
... others. I remember that at the relation of our "experience" which followed as a rite on the presentation of the convert for membership of the church, I was the only one who told it calmly and audibly, all the others being inaudible from their excitement and timidity, so that the presiding elder was obliged to repeat to the audience what they said in his ear, trembling, weeping with the emotion of the event. I felt as if I were a hypocrite, and only the thought of my mother's satisfaction gave me ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James
... women. They recognize it in the physique, in the sodden, colorless countenance, the lack-luster eye, in the dreamy indolence, the general carriage, the constant demeanor indicative of distrust, mingled boldness and timidity, and a series of anomalous combinations which mark this genus of physical and ...
— Plain Facts for Old and Young • John Harvey Kellogg
... he has been represented, a tiger born with an insatiate thirst of human blood, and capable, from his infancy, of the most inhuman actions. Nature had formed him of a weak rather than a wicked disposition. His simplicity and timidity rendered him the slave of his attendants, who gradually corrupted his mind. His cruelty, which at first obeyed the dictates of others, degenerated into habit, and at length became the ruling ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various
... Kenneby was allowed to go down. As he did so, Joseph Mason, who sat near to him, turned upon him a look black as thunder. Mr. Mason gave him no credit for his timidity, but believed that he had been bought over by the other side. Dockwrath, however, knew better. "They did not quite beat him about his own signature," said he; "but I knew all along that we ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... of consequence in the country by the newspapers, and he was ruined by his timidity. If he had admitted that he was an owner of stock in the Credit Mobilier Company, not much could have been made against him. His denials and explanations, which were either false or disingenuous, and his final admission of a fact which implied that he had been in the receipt of a quarterly payment ...
— Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 2 • George S. Boutwell
... apartments on Capitol Hill and struck into one of the winding walks which led downward toward the city. It was the fourth week of the "short session" of Bradley's term of office, and the tenth week since their marriage. He still treated Ida with a certain timidity, and his adoration had been increased rather than diminished by his daily association with her. She seemed not to regret her compact with him, and though hardly more demonstrative than he, she let him know how deeply she ...
— A Spoil of Office - A Story of the Modern West • Hamlin Garland
... not a lesson! I have no father that is a malignant, and could therefore only undergo simple murder. However, [touching the hilt of his sword] rest thou there! in Mercy's hallowed name—nay more, as rashness is animal, so a due timidity is soul, which is mind, and I have a great mind to run away, and mind being soul, I think I have a ...
— Cromwell • Alfred B. Richards
... rarely attended meeting, not from any lack of the need of worship, but because she shrank with painful timidity from appearing in the presence of the assembled neighborhood. She was, nevertheless, grateful for Gilbert's success, and her heart inclined to thanksgiving; besides, he desired that they should go, and she was not able to offer ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor
... gives but five. Secker shows that there were nineteen. Though the London Magazine was generally earlier in publishing the debates, it does not therefore follow that Johnson had seen their reports when he wrote his. His may have been kept back by Cave's timidity for some months even after they had been set up in type. In the staleness of the debate there was some safeguard ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... warned, and have promised and sworn peace and amends, and have totally defaulted, as we have already said, and have taken occasion, from the lenity shown them, to do greater mischiefs with more boldness—mistaking for timidity the kindliness that we have used toward them—it follows that, numerous though they are, we ought no longer to dissemble with them, but must punish them sternly; for the more numerous they are, the more mischief ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume VIII (of 55), 1591-1593 • Emma Helen Blair
... her hand was softly put upon Mr. Carleton's, as if partly in the fear of what might have grown out of his anger, and partly in thankfulness to him that he had rendered it unnecessary. There was a singular delicate timidity ...
— Queechy, Volume I • Elizabeth Wetherell
... to censure himself. Judith gave him her hand, but it was quite as much in gladness as with regret, while the two Delawares were not sorry to find he was leaving them. Of the whole party, Hetty alone betrayed any real feeling. Bashfulness, and the timidity of her sex and character, kept even her aloof, so that Hurry entered the canoe, where Deerslayer was already waiting for him, before she ventured near enough to be observed. Then, indeed, the girl came into the ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... prepossessing in his appearance."—"A very young man, say you? . . . Oh, then I will see him. . . . Rustan, tell him to come in." M. de Stael presented himself to Napoleon with modesty, but without any unbecoming timidity. When he had respectfully saluted the Emperor a conversation ensued between them, which Duroc described to me in ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... chamois was a pretty little creature, and quick and active to a remarkable degree. But she had also inherited her parents' sensitiveness and timidity, and never left her mother's side; where the mother chamois went, there the little one followed closely, and when a chasm or ravine was too wide to cross with a leap of her small body, the mother ...
— Rataplan • Ellen Velvin
... with his personal character. It had at first been liberal and just; it became arbitrary and even treacherous. His personal timidity made him at once harsh and vacillating. The heads of the great families, whom he had invited to a banquet, were seized and condemned to death on a charge of conspiracy. But a sudden terror of the possible consequences of his action caused him to relent, and he released ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... them, despite their sorrows and waiting. They were clerklings, not lords of love and life, but all the more easily did they yield to longing for happiness. Between them was the battle of desire and timidity—and not all the desire was his, not hers all the timidity. She fancied sometimes that he was as much afraid as was she of debasing their shy seeking into unveiled passion. Yet his was the initiative; always she panted and wondered what he ...
— The Job - An American Novel • Sinclair Lewis
... accept any rules of conduct for him under given circumstances. No man can say what a Grizzly will or will not do, when molested or encountered, any more than he can lay down a general rule for dogs or men. One bear may display extreme timidity and run away bawling when wounded, and another may be aggressive enough to begin hostilities at sight and fight to the death. It can be said safely, however, that the Grizzly is a far more dangerous animal than the Black Bear and much more likely to accept ...
— Bears I Have Met—and Others • Allen Kelly
... ill satisfied with the conduct of his allies guarding Ciudad Rodrigo, and returned to resume command in that region. In the same despatch he complains bitterly of the niggardly policy of his government in regard to money and supplies. The same timidity on the part of ministers at home appears in a letter from Liverpool, almost forbidding him to accept the command-in-chief of the Spanish armies, which, however, was conferred upon him later in this year.[49] At present, he decided to march against Marmont in the plains of Leon. This movement ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick
... which were entirely unknown in the hard life she had led at home, and which by their very novelty, as well as because they harmonized with her own nature and dreams, were doubly beautiful and fascinating. She enjoyed this life to the full, while her timidity kept her only a spectator; and she ornamented it with a fresher grace, suggestive of the woods and fields, when she ventured to engage in the airy game. It was a sphere for her capacities and talents. She shone in it, and the ...
— Literary and Social Essays • George William Curtis
... her little hands. She had such a love for the King that she tried to catch in his eyes every hint of the things that would give him pleasure. If he ever looked at her kindly, that day was bright." Madame De Caylus tells us that the Queen had such a dread of her royal husband and such an inborn timidity that she hardly dared speak to him. Madame de Maintenon relates that the King, having once sent for the Queen, asked Madame to accompany Her Majesty so that she might not have to appear alone in the presence of her royal husband, and that when Madame de Maintenon conducted the Queen ...
— The Story of Versailles • Francis Loring Payne
... would perish in the woods. Necessity, however, added boldness to her measures, and she advanced with ten or twelve female attendants to Chisapani, a fortress commanding the entrance into Nepal. It was evident, however, that the commiseration of the people was daily gaining strength, and the timidity of the regent gave daily an increase of power to the princess. An additional company of Seapoys was sent to Chisapani, as if soldiers were the proper persons to stop the progress of a few helpless women. The officer commanding ...
— An Account of The Kingdom of Nepal • Fancis Buchanan Hamilton
... Kensington. For she had no sense at all of her own beauty. She had no comprehension whatever of beauty of the body, and she could slash her beautiful lines to rags with hat-brims and trimmings. Thank Heaven! a natural refinement, a natural timidity, and her extremely slender purse kept her from the real Smithie efflorescence! Poor, simple, beautiful, kindly limited Marion! Now that I am forty-five, I can look back at her with all my old admiration and none of my old bitterness with a new affection ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... departure. Forney, however, continued his retreat, assisting his wounded companion as much as he could, and, although fired upon several times, managed to keep the Indians at some distance off by presenting, his unerring rifle when their timidity was manifested by falling down in the grass, or taking shelter behind the trees, each one, no doubt, supposing the well-aimed shot might fell him to the earth. At length poor Richards, becoming faint from loss of blood, and seeing the ...
— Sketches of Western North Carolina, Historical and Biographical • C. L. Hunter
... He also thought that the doctor must have mixed all those medicines from rules in those great books, and a sudden feverish desire to look into them seized him. However, neither his pride nor his timidity would have allowed him to touch one of those books, even if he had not expected the doctor to enter ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... constitutional timidity seemed to be filled to the brim by the loudness of Allan's voice and the bluntness of Allan's request. He ran over in the same feeble flow of words with which he had deluged Midwinter on the occasion when ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... allowed Renard to promise for her that she would make no changes in religion, but "she had now told the lords distinctly that she would not recognise any of the laws which had been passed in the minority,[70] and she intended to act boldly; timidity would only encourage the people to be insolent;" "the lords were all quarrelling among themselves, and accusing one another; she could not learn the truth on any point of the late conspiracy; she did not know who were guilty or who were ...
— The Reign of Mary Tudor • James Anthony Froude
... amongst his things—some book or trinket that you would remember," said Janetta, speaking with timidity. Mr. Brand gave her a keen look, and Mrs. Brand accepted ...
— A True Friend - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... climbers. Helen was enchanted. Twice she half turned to address some question to Bower; but on each occasion she happened to catch him in the act of swallowing some brandy from a flask. Governed by an unaccountable timidity, she pretended not to notice his actions, and diverted her words to Barth, who told her the names of the peaks and pointed to the junctions of minor ice fields with the main artery of ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... lathing and plastering were completed, the little bride-elect began to tremble with timidity and happiness at the consciousness of the nearness of her ...
— Amarilly of Clothes-line Alley • Belle K. Maniates
... of mind to enable him to undergo the greatest hardships, and face the most imminent dangers; whilst the other, on the contrary, is of a weak and delicate constitution, accompanied with a natural softness and modest timidity, which render her more fit for a sedentary life, and dispose her to keep within the precincts of the house, and to employ herself in the concerns of ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... taken by surprise by the suddenness of the revolution, had to suspend their payments and of course to withdraw from the Panama Canal and railroad scheme. Others withdrew from contagious fear and timidity. Finally the term fixed for carrying out certain obligations of the contract expired without their fulfillment by the company, and the concession was forfeited. Another contract was almost immediately applied for and granted ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 344, August 5, 1882 • Various
... momentary discouragement under the first temporary check. That which really concerns him is what people at a later day, or even in a later generation, might say of men trusted with great duties for their country, who proved unequal to their opportunities, and through some short-sighted timidity of the moment lost the chance ...
— Problems of Expansion - As Considered In Papers and Addresses • Whitelaw Reid
... white throat? The balmy morning of her young life has passed. The brown calico frock, and the little school bonnet, with its blue veil, have been put away forever. The lithe figure has grown matronly, the childish timidity is gone; the softened face tells of changes,—changes made by much happiness; changes ...
— Trifles for the Christmas Holidays • H. S. Armstrong
... justices of the peace, of the members of the departments and of the National Assembly."[3140]—At the outset, a few lives would have sufficed: "five hundred heads ought to have fallen when the Bastille was taken, and all would then have gone on well." But, through lack of foresight and timidity, the evil was allowed to spread, and the more it spread the larger the amputation should have been.—With the sure, keen eye of the surgeon, Marat gives its dimensions; he has made his calculation beforehand. In September, ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... disappearance on a former evening, my tracing you to the recess in the bank, your silence on my first and second call, your vague answers and invincible embarrassment, when you, at length, ascended the hill, I recollected with new surprize. Could this be the summerhouse alluded to? A certain timidity and consciousness had generally attended you, when this incident and this recess had been the subjects of conversation. Nay, I imagined that the last time that adventure was mentioned, which happened in the presence of Carwin, the countenance of the latter ...
— Wieland; or The Transformation - An American Tale • Charles Brockden Brown
... was increased by two persons. One was habited in the full costume of a red-skin chief, and a big commanding-looking fellow he was; the other was an Indian squaw; she was a fine but modest girl, and she seemed to shrink back with true feminine timidity from the gaze of so many strangers. To my surprise I found that the handsome chief, who decidedly would have created a great sensation in any London drawing-room, and, perhaps, have won the hearts of half a dozen young ladies, and persuaded them to settle ...
— Dick Onslow - Among the Redskins • W.H.G. Kingston
... since he had come into a small fortune at his majority, left him by his mother's father; and, as he was heir to the entailed property, there was no need for concern as to his future prospects, so no effort was made by Mr Huntingdon to draw him out of his natural timidity and reserve, and induce him to enter on any regular professional employment. Perhaps he would take to travelling abroad some day, and that would enlarge his mind and rouse him a bit. At present he ...
— Amos Huntingdon • T.P. Wilson
... great loss from this accident, which was caused by the clumsiness and timidity of the steersman, Chaboneau. Captain Lewis's account of the incident records that the conduct of Chaboneau's wife, Sacajawea, was better than that of her cowardly ...
— First Across the Continent • Noah Brooks
... fear predominates in ev'ry thought, And sways thy breast with absolute dominion, Think on th' insulting scorn, the conscious pangs, The future mis'ries, that wait th' apostate; So shall timidity assist thy reason, And wisdom into ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... subject to grief is also liable to fear, and to a broken kind of spirits and sinking. Now, whenever these befall a man, he is in a servile state, and must own that he is overpowered; for whoever admits these feelings, must admit timidity and cowardice. But these cannot enter into the mind of a man of courage; neither, therefore, can grief: but the man of courage is the only wise man; therefore grief cannot befall the wise man. It is, besides, necessary that whoever ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... unpleasing circumstance, even under an intention only of marrying him, to find my friendship stronger for another; what then would it have been under the most sacred of all engagements, that of marriage? What wretchedness would have been the portion of both, had timidity, decorum, or false honor, carried me, with this partiality in my heart, to fulfill those views, entered into from compliance to my family, and continued from a false idea of propriety, and weak fear of ...
— The History of Emily Montague • Frances Brooke
... was Madeleine's character. Beneath her gentle timidity lay a strong, self-reliant will. Once decided upon what was right and just, nothing could change her. If it was her duty to make a sacrifice, it was to be carried out to the letter; no hesitation and sighs for what might have been; she shut out all deceitful ...
— File No. 113 • Emile Gaboriau
... of Mrs Reichardt, who pulled an oar almost as well as myself, we could get her along in very good style, even when heavily laden, and our labours together had taken from her all that timidity which had deterred her from trusting herself with me, when I first ventured from ...
— The Little Savage • Captain Frederick Marryat
... curiosity was now blended with an absorbing interest, and Anne longed to follow Edward into the enclosure, but hesitated until he called out, "Only look! Anne! what can this be?" Then forgetting all her timidity, she hastened to see what he was dragging out of the rubbish, and as he held it up triumphantly for her inspection, she looked ...
— The American Family Robinson - or, The Adventures of a Family lost in the Great Desert of the West • D. W. Belisle
... became aware that the old gentleman who had lent her the paper was eyeing her curiously yet kindly. She met his glance with a mixture of frankness and timidity which gave her expression a wonderful charm. He ventured to speak as he might have ...
— Innocent - Her Fancy and His Fact • Marie Corelli
... to whet my appetite," she said presently, unable to bear the unnatural silence. "Of course I know you have finished the picture at last. You have asked me to come here to see it. Then why on earth not let me see it? All this waiting can't come from timidity. I know you don't care for opinion so long as your own ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens
... Island. But he has shown the discretion of a brave man. South Carolina will soon learn how much she has undervalued the people of the Free States. Because they prefer law to bowie-knives and revolvers, she has too lightly reckoned on their caution and timidity. She will find, that, though slow to kindle, they are as slow to yield, and that they are willing to risk their lives for the defence of law, though not for the breach of it. They are beginning to question the value of a peace that is forced on them at the point of the bayonet, ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various
... personal character. It had at first been liberal and just; it became arbitrary and even treacherous. His personal timidity made him at once harsh and vacillating. The heads of the great families, whom he had invited to a banquet, were seized and condemned to death on a charge of conspiracy. But a sudden terror of the possible consequences ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... the freedom and the courage of her outlook upon life, Yvonne's tragic story had appealed strongly, but more Yvonne's timidity. Often the young French girl appeared unwilling to go on with the daily struggle of life when everything for which she had ever cared ...
— The Campfire Girls on the Field of Honor • Margaret Vandercook
... the grandest form of cloud. Calame gives us the nooks and lanes, the rocks and hills, of Switzerland, rather than the high peaks; Lambinet, an apple-orchard, a row of pollard-elms, or a weedy pond,—not cataracts or forests. This is not affectation or timidity, but an instinct that the famous scenes are no breaks in the order of Nature,—that what is seen in them is visible elsewhere as well, only not so obvious, and that the office of Art is not to parrot what is already distinct, but to reveal it where ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 76, February, 1864 • Various
... uncomfortable while he was gone for a boat. He left the horse with her and walked upstream in the direction of Brooksburg. As he had warned her that he might be gone a long time, he knew she would not be alarmed for him—and she had already proved that timidity about herself was not in her nature. But he was alarmed for her—this girl alone in that lonely darkness—with light enough to make her ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... discontented and unhappy though he could not have told exactly why. But one thing was evident—he was not anticipating Loren's home-coming with much pleasure. He felt, in fact, a certain reluctance, or rather timidity, about meeting this younger brother of his who knew so much and talked so much, and seemed to enjoy himself so thoroughly. He anticipated keenly the difference that two years must have brought between them, and dreaded the time when they ...
— A Williams Anthology - A Collection of the Verse and Prose of Williams College, 1798-1910 • Compiled by Edwin Partridge Lehman and Julian Park
... Baghdad music-girl prefer that man to all other individuals? Did she want to monopolize him jealously? Oh, no! any man, however old and ugly, would have suited her, provided he had plenty of money. Was she coy toward him? Perhaps; but not from a feeling of modesty and timidity inspired by love, but to make him more ardent and ready to pay. Was she proud of his love? She thought him a fool. Were her feelings toward him chaste and pure? As chaste and pure as his. Did she sympathize with his pleasures and pains? She dismissed him as soon as ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... acute feelings and painful timidity,' said Helen, 'it is worse for her than it would be for anyone else, yet how gently and simply she bears it all! and old Mrs. Hazleby says that she is often ill after these scoldings, and she would have ...
— Abbeychurch - or, Self-Control and Self-Conceit • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Camber extended her hand with a sort of appealing timidity, it appeared to me that she felt herself to be intruding. The expression in her beautiful eyes when she glanced at her husband could only be described as one of adoration; and whilst it was impossible to doubt ...
— Bat Wing • Sax Rohmer
... me; or he would walk with me about the villages where we rested. The ladies were shocked, and my husband was censured for letting me 'faire l'Anglaise,' but we were young and full of spirits, and the being thus thrown on each other had put an end to his timidity towards me. He did indeed blush up to his curls, and hold himself as upright as a ramrod, when satire was directed to us as Celadon and Chloe; but he never took any other notice of it, nor altered his behaviour in consequence. Indeed, we felt like children escaping from school when we crept ...
— Stray Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Indian silk fell in graceful folds on the tall supple figure; the beautiful head, with its coils of dark glossy hair, was bent in girlish timidity. Margaret had clasped round her white throat the pearl necklace and diamond cross that had belonged to her mother, and which she was to have worn at her own bridal. "I shall not need it; it is for Raby's wife," she said, as Crystal protested with tears ...
— Wee Wifie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... this timidity, and to open a trade with the simple inhabitants of the hut, who, he did not doubt, had furs somewhere concealed, the captain now drew forth that grand lure in the eyes of a savage, a pocket mirror. The sight of it was irresistible. After examining it for a ...
— The Adventures of Captain Bonneville - Digested From His Journal • Washington Irving
... in it. By making the most of these, it might, perhaps, be rebutted, but his honesty rendered such a course out of the question if she were right in her conclusions, and he was forced to admit that this was possible. Bertram had shown timidity in his younger days—Challoner remembered that they had had some trouble in teaching him to ride—and there was no doubt that his was a highly-strung and nervous temperament. He had not the calm which marked the Challoners in time of strain. Then Dick Blake was recklessly ...
— Blake's Burden • Harold Bindloss
... akin to the influence of a sunshiny day. So, again, the melancholy of a melancholy woman is invariably, though silently, infectious; and Mrs. Sherwin was one of this latter order. Her pale, sickly, moist-looking skin; her large, mild, watery, light-blue eyes; the restless timidity of her expression; the mixture of useless hesitation and involuntary rapidity in every one of her actions—all furnished the same significant betrayal of a life of incessant fear and restraint; of a disposition full of modest generosities and meek sympathies, which had ...
— Basil • Wilkie Collins
... had gone to bed. She seemed to have something on her mind. She became distinctly paler. It might have been illness, or it might have been anxiety, or it might have been overwork. A queer look came into her eyes. Sometimes it was almost like a look of apprehension. Then there would come a timidity in all her movements, as if she were even afraid of him. Then it would be like a look of vacancy, as if her thoughts were far away. When that vacant look was there, she seemed to be unconscious of her husband's presence—just as he had a trick, in his meditative moods, ...
— The Harmsworth Magazine, v. 1, 1898-1899, No. 2 • Various
... Chavasse, who was watching the young man with febrile keenness, had the satisfaction to note that very soon Richard began to throw off his bucolic timidity, his latent yet distinctly perceptible disapproval of the company into which he had been brought. He sought out his sister-in-law and drew her attention to Lambert in close conversation ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy
... for he understood very well the timidity of his host. "Then," he said, "as I have no wife to be anxious about me, perhaps I had better ...
— The Young Bank Messenger • Horatio Alger
... about her once more and draws her closer to him. At first she resists a little, then she yields and gazes, with frank blessedness, into the joyous face of LOTH which bends above her. Involuntarily, in the awkwardness of her very timidity, she kisses his mouth. Both grow red; then LOTH returns her kiss. His caress is long and heartfelt. A giving and taking of kisses—silent and eloquent at once—is, for a time, all that passes between them. LOTH is ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume I • Gerhart Hauptmann
... and curiously submissive. Indeed, on the last occasion, she even ventured to address me, on her own account, with regard to some household matter that needed attention. Though this was done with an almost extraordinary timidity, I hailed it with happiness, as being the first word, voluntarily spoken, since the critical moment, when I had caught her unbarring the back door, to go out among those waiting brutes. I wondered whether ...
— The House on the Borderland • William Hope Hodgson
... we crossed the Rio Grande at Christobal, and we had still a long journey before us. This delay, occasioned by the timidity of our guards, proved our salvation. We had been but one day on our march in the swamp after leaving Christobal, when the war-whoop pierced our ears, and a moment afterwards our party was surrounded by me hundred Apaches, who saluted us with ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... it were too thin and too short to adapt itself to any feminine usage, was also not of her family; but her disposition was a compound of the paternal and maternal qualities. She had all her father's painful hesitating timidity, and with it all her mother's grasping spirit. If there ever was an eye that looked sharp after the pence, that could weigh the ounces of a servant's meal at a glance, and foresee and prevent the ...
— The Struggles of Brown, Jones, and Robinson - By One of the Firm • Anthony Trollope
... been an immediate appeal to force. The Girondists might have been victorious. In the worst event, they would have fallen with unblemished honour. Thus much is certain, that their boldness and honesty could not possibly have produced a worse effect than was actually produced by their timidity and ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... each the larger animal keeps a contemptuous good humour; in each the smaller annoys him with wasp- like impudence, certain of practical immunity; in each we shall find a double life producing double characters, and an excursive and noisy heroism combined with a fair amount of practical timidity. I have known dogs, and I have known school heroes that, set aside the fur, could hardly have been told apart; and if we desire to understand the chivalry of old, we must turn to the school playfields or the dungheap where the ...
— Memories and Portraits • Robert Louis Stevenson
... afraid to sleep in his own house without special and extraordinary protection from Almighty God. These old settlers thought nothing but the consciousness of guilt, the stings of a guilty conscience, could account for such timidity. Forquer and his lightning-rod were talked over in every settlement from Sangamon to the Illinois and the Wabash. Whenever he rose to speak thereafter, they said, 'There is the man who dare not sleep in his own house without ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... the meanest understanding. Struggling a good while with these thoughts, by degrees I felt myself more firm. I derived, at length, some confidence from what in other circumstances usually produces timidity. I grew less anxious, even from the idea of my own insignificance. For, judging of what you are by what you ought to be, I persuaded myself that you would not reject a reasonable proposition because it had nothing but its reason to recommend it. On the other ...
— Burke's Speech on Conciliation with America • Edmund Burke
... of those words his voice, gestures, and expression of countenance were in keeping with the language itself, and truly horrible. Suddenly a change came over his countenance; the dark lines of passion retreated, and an expression of timidity or fear came in their place. He muttered incoherently for a time, and then, as if communing with himself, he spoke in a subdued voice of the last scene in his conscious life. A few sentences were audible and connected, showing how his mind ...
— Ellen Walton - The Villain and His Victims • Alvin Addison
... Champion. This Wilding saw, and almost frenziedly did he urge it upon Danvers that all London needed at the moment was a resolute leader. But the Colonel still held back; indeed, he had neither truth nor valour; he was timid, and used deceit to mask his timidity; he urged frivolous reasons for inaction, and when Wilding waxed impatient with him, he suggested that Wilding himself should head the rising if he were so confident of its success. And Wilding would have ...
— Mistress Wilding • Rafael Sabatini
... had been conquered—little by little, as she had herself described it—by that charm of sweetness and simplicity in Iris, of which her own depraved nature presented no trace. She now spoke with hesitation, almost with timidity, in addressing the woman whom she had so cleverly deceived, at the ...
— Blind Love • Wilkie Collins
... whole, Nora seemed to me more sympathetic. With all her brightness and joyousness, there was also a strange timidity, at times, and shyness, and furtive glances. An occasional flush, also, gave her a sweet confusion of manner, which heightened her charms. All these were signs which I very naturally interpreted in my own favor. ...
— The Lady of the Ice - A Novel • James De Mille
... through the woods and meadows, and delighted in the azure tints of the far-away Berkshire hills; and later in life he was keen to notice and admire the soft harmonies of landscape, but with a change in weather or with the approach of a storm the poet would be lost in the timidity and ...
— A Little Book of Western Verse • Eugene Field
... a woman from the woods?" repeated the same soft voice, nearer to the elbow of the young Sachem, and which spoke with less of the timidity of the sex, now that the troubled spirit of the Indians of ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... best a keen stimulus, at worst a drugging pleasure? Is the dead weight of society altogether to crush their delight in life? What is society? What is it but the accumulated emanations of the fear and timidity and shyness that beset human beings whenever they are gathered together? And to this accumulation are those who are not artists to bring nothing but fear and shyness and timidity to make the shadow over life grow denser and darker? Is there to be no reaction? How can there be individuals worthy ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef
... chevalier by saying, "Listen to me, sir; whether it is owing to timidity or to premonition, I grow more and more agitated—it seems to me that misfortune menaces us; on no account would I at this time, and in the condition of my spirits, prolong any further a jest which has already lasted ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue
... beginning of their confinement, the most debauched from those whom a moment of distress or error has thrown into these scenes of depravity, the contamination of bad example rapidly spreads, and those who enter dissolute, frequently come out thievish; while all timidity is banished from the mind of the more diffident. Besides, it is not always the most culpable who fall into the hands of the police, the more cunning and experienced, by contriving to come to terms with its agents, employed on these errands, generally escape; and thus the object ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... stigmatised by 'the enlightened ones' as 'the reaction.' They say that the earlier nature-worship, which they call Pantheistic, speaks the true and genuine man; the later and more consciously Christian mood they regard as the product, not of deepened experience, but of timidity, or at least as the sign of decreasing insight. It is not so that I would interpret it. Wordsworth and his sister, with their rare gift of soul and eye, saw further into nature, and felt it more profoundly ...
— Recollections of a Tour Made in Scotland A.D. 1803 • Dorothy Wordsworth
... (lapis), closely drawn around the figure, that the rich variegated folds of the saya burst out beneath it like the blossoms of a pomegranate. This swathing only allows the young girls to take very short steps, and this timidity of gait, in unison with their downcast eyes, gives them a very modest appearance. On their naked feet they wear embroidered slippers of such a small size that their little toes protrude for want of room, and grasp the ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.
... confess that I totally dissent from all these opinions. These suppositions become the strongest reasons with me to evince the necessity of some clear and positive settlement of this question of contested jurisdiction. If judges are so full of levity, so full of timidity, if they are influenced by such mean and unworthy passions, that a popular clamour is sufficient to shake the resolution they build upon the solid basis of a legal principle, I would endeavour to fix that mercury by a positive law. If to please an administration the judges ...
— Thoughts on the Present Discontents - and Speeches • Edmund Burke
... is enterprising, it is to increase his blessings in this world; if devout, it is to perpetuate them in the next: for sincere religion he has none,—since religion is but another name for Love, inspiring hope, charity, and a zeal for the welfare of all mankind.—Others are conservative from timidity, or because they are wedded to tranquility. "Oh yes," they say, "no doubt the cause you are fighting for is just; but then fighting is so dreadful! Let us have peace,—peace at any cost!" Good-hearted ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various
... have a blush on their face, a down-cast eye, a timid bearing. But their affected timidity is the token of their knowledge of good and evil; like Eve, if they have not yet tasted of the forbidden fruit, they burn to taste it, for their thought is sullied, their imagination is vagrant and at the bottom of their soul there is ...
— The Grip of Desire • Hector France
... useless to tell them that for the very reason the ship has slackened her speed it is obvious she is being navigated with care and watchfulness. Reason at such a time is dethroned by the natural timidity of the unseen, and it is not surprising therefore that the passengers on board the Blue-Bell should one and all find some pretext to gain the deck in their eagerness to find out why the vessel had slowed down. The answer was a reassuring ...
— The Albert Gate Mystery - Being Further Adventures of Reginald Brett, Barrister Detective • Louis Tracy
... a knock at the door and a dripping woman entered. There was not the slightest trace of timidity in her manner. Really, Aunt Jennie, I thought at first that she was the most awful frump I had ever seen. Her head was wrapped in a soaking little shawl, and her dress was a remnant of grand-mother's days. Yet the poise of ...
— Sweetapple Cove • George van Schaick
... of policy, he promised that those who went back should share in the rewards gained by their more constant brethren. But four infantrymen and five horsemen shamefacedly availed themselves of this permission. The rest enthusiastically clamored to be led forward. Both mutiny and timidity were ...
— South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... Mina's timidity had worn off, Percy was not so "finicky" in her tastes, Bessie was more careful of other people's feelings, Grace really seemed almost cured of laziness, Frank was by no means so hoydenish as she once was, and as for Wynifred, she was just as hearty and happy as it seemed a girl could be. ...
— Wyn's Camping Days - or, The Outing of the Go-Ahead Club • Amy Bell Marlowe
... control of Mr. Merensky. In person the Basutus are thin and weakly when compared to the stalwart Zulu, and it is their consciousness of inferiority both to the white men, and their black brethren, that, together with their natural timidity, makes them submit as easily as they do to the yoke of ...
— Cetywayo and his White Neighbours - Remarks on Recent Events in Zululand, Natal, and the Transvaal • H. Rider Haggard
... timidity; and, curtseying to the "Senor Francisco," as she styles Hamersley, takes seat upon the log from which he has arisen; Walt laying hold of her hand and ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... she felt a kindness and grace in him which was not condescension, and which almost dispelled the timidity which, being part of her nature, so unduly beset her at all times when she addressed or was addressed by a stranger. John Oxon, bowing his bright curls, and seeming ever to mock with his smiles, had caused her to be overcome with shy awkwardness and blushes; ...
— A Lady of Quality • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... file upon their claims, or the caution of proceeding instead to Glasgow where the next nearest land-office might be found. Slim and Happy Jack favored caution and Glasgow. The others sneered at their timidity, as ...
— The Flying U's Last Stand • B. M. Bower
... his friend and understood the expression on her face. So did Jennie, and the couple had such sport of their Boston visitor that the cloud quickly vanished and Monteith felt a trifle humiliated at his exhibition of what might be considered timidity. Nevertheless he quietly slipped his loaded revolver in the outer pocket of his heavy coat just before starting and when no ...
— Cowmen and Rustlers • Edward S. Ellis
... singular, for the extraordinary, under whatever form, had long had no slight interest for me: and I had discernment enough to perceive that yon was no common man. Yet I went not near him, certainly not from bashfulness, or timidity, feelings to which I had long been an entire stranger. Am I to regret this? perhaps, for I might have learned both wisdom and righteousness from those calm, quiet lips, and my after-course might have been ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter
... this amazing development around us is not of airy and vanishing films. It is solidly constructed, in marble and brick, in stone and iron, while the proportions to which it has swelled surpass precedent, and rebuke the timidity of the boldest prediction. But that which has built it has been simply the industry, manifold, constant, going on in these cities, to which ...
— Opening Ceremonies of the New York and Brooklyn Bridge, May 24, 1883 • William C. Kingsley
... during the Extra Session of Congress had rekindled the war fever in the country; and the constant chatter about the suffering Cuban and the duty of the United States, the black iniquity of the Speaker and the timidity of the President, were wearying to the more evenly balanced members of the community. "You say that we need a war," said Betty contemptuously one day, "that it will shake us up and do us good. If we had fallen as ...
— Senator North • Gertrude Atherton
... belief she shared—that the social reforms so urgently needed could be worked rapidly by the Government, providing only it were willing. Over-boldness of expression on the part of advanced sections only increased the timidity and irresolution of action complained of in the administration. As the ranks of the Ministry split up into factions, Madame Sand attached herself to the party of Ledru-Rollin—in whom at that time she had confidence,—a party that desired to see him at the head of affairs, and that included Jules ...
— Famous Women: George Sand • Bertha Thomas
... began to grieve because he had no wireless to bring him a prompt reply; he berated himself for not waiting at the dock in Norfolk until his owners should have had an opportunity to answer; he abused himself for his timidity in questioning the judgment of his owners, for indeed he had been content to hint when ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... his way to his little dog hospital, she returning from a bit of marketing in the street. At such times they passed each other with averted eyes, pretending a certain preoccupation, suddenly seized with a great embarrassment, the timidity of a second childhood. He went on about his business, disturbed and thoughtful. She hurried up to her tiny room, her curious little false curls shaking with her agitation, the faintest suggestion of a flush coming and going in her withered ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris
... question of safe policy, what the English ought to have done. The chance of being dragged into an Indian war, through the feud between Narragansetts and Mohegans, was always imminent. The policy which condemned Miantonomo was one of timidity, and fear is merciless. ...
— The Beginnings of New England - Or the Puritan Theocracy in its Relations to Civil and Religious Liberty • John Fiske
... conspiracy were in our hands as early as the month of November of the preceding year, and steps had been taken to sound the chief associates by summoning them to court, an interval necessarily followed during which we had all to fear; and this not only from the despair of the guilty, but from the timidity of the innocent, who in a court filled with cabals and rumours of intrigues might see no way to clear themselves. Even the shows and interludes which followed the Dauphin's birth, and made that Christmas remarkable, served ...
— In Kings' Byways • Stanley J. Weyman
... ghostly infants has frightened John a little, but he does not like to admit any timidity there with his father and sister, so he straightens up, expands his eyebrows and ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester
... yet decide whether it was prudent discreation or rather, fearful and narrow-minded timidity, that deterred me from the great resolve of abandoning my family and my sphere of activity, to alone remain true to Elsje. It was for many years a hard and fearful struggle. It was indeed the hardest period of my life, albeit not the darkest. ...
— The Bride of Dreams • Frederik van Eeden
... did she lean too heavily on one oar so that the boat was drawn too much to one side or sent ungainly to this side and to that in an exhausting effort to keep a straight course. He lay back against his mother and regarded Eleanor out of half-shut eyes. She mystified him. Her timidity when he had first spoken to her had seemed to him then to be her chief characteristic and it had caused him to feel tenderly for her: he would be her protector. But she was not always timid. He had discovered courage in her and something uncommonly ...
— The Foolish Lovers • St. John G. Ervine
... expectations, for living amongst swaggering Hussars, and having as a mentor a sort of brigand who laughed at my innocence, I began to howl with the wolves, and for fear that I might be mocked for my timidity, I became a real devil. This, however, was not enough for me to be accepted into a sort of brotherhood, which under the name of the clique, had members in all the ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot
... in a matter where the spirit of the age must be consulted; but I pointed out to him what I am sure is true, that Murray, apprehensive of his displeasure, had not ventured to write to him out of mere timidity and not from any [intention to offend]. I treated [lightly] his old woman's apprehensions and cautions, and all that gossip about friends and enemies, to which a splendid number or two will be a sufficient answer, and I ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... otherwise, papa. Yet, remembering how he looked to-night, I cannot help being sorry for him, even though my mind inclines to the belief that constitutional timidity restrains him. I never saw a man tremble so, and he turned white to his very lips. Papa, have you read 'The Fair ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... home, she will see me in their Company; but if they be not in the Way, she flies to her Chamber. I can discover no Signs of her Aversion; but either a Fear of falling into the Toils of Matrimony, or a childish Timidity, deprives us of an Interview apart, and drives us upon the Difficulty of languishing out our Lives in fruitless Expectation. Now, Mr. SPECTATOR, if you think us ripe for Oeconomy, perswade the dear Creature, that to pine away into Barrenness and Deformity under a Mothers Shade, is not so ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... and equip the army, but in a short time fill our wagons for another start. I feel certain, from the character of the fighting, that we have got Johnston's army afraid of us. He himself acts with timidity and caution. His cavalry alone manifests spirit, but limits its operations to our stragglers and foraging-parties. My marching columns of infantry do not pay the cavalry any attention, but walk right ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... return from school. He knew very exactly her hours of recitation and at last she came, her arms filled with books, moving with such stately step she seemed a woman, tall and sedate. She perceived Jack waiting, but was not alarmed, for she comprehended something of his goodness and timidity. ...
— The Eagle's Heart • Hamlin Garland
... Yes," answered Alicia. And, in her effort to exclude timidity, she infused into her voice ...
— Half a Hero - A Novel • Anthony Hope
... station and entered the cars. Securing a double seat he placed her at the window, and sat down opposite. It was her introduction to railway travel, and when the train moved off, and the locomotive sounded its prolonged shriek of departure, Regina started up, but, as if ashamed of her timidity, coloured and bit her lip. Observing that she appeared interested in watching the country through which they sped, Mr. Palma drew a book from his valise, and soon became so absorbed in the contents that he forgot tie silent figure ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... then, as ye say," returned Thorward, "and reserving the matter of timidity for future discussion, what reply have ye to ...
— The Norsemen in the West • R.M. Ballantyne
... doubts, and his timidity, as a person of political aspirations, in treating the subject of slavery in a practical manner, reduced his conduct to the verge of cowardice, if not of duplicity. While writing to Dr. Price in this assured tone, and urging him to exhort the young men of the College ...
— Anti-Slavery Opinions before the Year 1800 - Read before the Cincinnati Literary Club, November 16, 1872 • William Frederick Poole
... last fixed a nail in the proverbially inconstant wheel of Fortune, whose stability in behalf of an individual who had so boldly courted her favours for three successive times had not as yet been shaken. I had attained, perhaps, that degree of reputation at which prudence, or certainly timidity, would have made a halt, and discontinued efforts by which I was far more likely to diminish my fame than to increase it. But, as the celebrated John Wilkes is said to have explained to his late Majesty, that he himself, ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... looked pretty smart, in a red velvet waistcoat, and a frill, into which his wife had stuck her best brooch. In spite of Mrs. Bungay's kindness, perhaps in consequence of it, Mrs. Shandon felt great terror and timidity in approaching her: indeed, she was more awful than ever in her red satin and bird of paradise, and it was not until she had asked in her great voice about the dear little gurl, that the latter was somewhat encouraged, and ventured ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... was this curious difficulty or timidity in composition due? In the case of the poetry, Mr. Gosse attributes it largely to the fact of a poet of lyrical genius attempting to write only philosophical or narrative poetry; and there is much truth in the suggestion. Nothing in Patmore, except his ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... in irons. He had treated the Indians well, and had not angered them by the harshness and brutality that so often made them side against the English or Americans and in favor of the French; but he knew that any signs of timidity would be fatal. His boldness and decision were crowned with complete success. The crestfallen prisoners humbly protested that they were only trying to find out if the French were really friendly to Clark, ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Two - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1777-1783 • Theodore Roosevelt
... lower ranks. Hence, the deep and essential difference which separated the Huguenots, the Lutherans, the Scottish presbyterians, and, in fine, all the other reformed churches, from that of England. But James, with a timidity which sometimes supplies the place of prudence, contented himself with gradually imposing upon the Scottish nation a limited and moderate system of episcopacy, which, while it gave to a proportion of the churchmen a seat in the council of the nation, induced them to ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, Vol. II (of 3) • Walter Scott
... follow; that was quietly to wait where they were until near night, by which time all danger would be gone. But neither proposed the course nor made mention of it. It is natural for youth to be rash, and there was a semblance of timidity in such a shrinking back that was repellent to American and Irish lad alike. And so you will understand how it was that each showed an eagerness to enter into the contest with the ...
— The Hunters of the Ozark • Edward S. Ellis
... Doubt and timidity at the closing stage, after the earlier steps have been taken successfully, are paradoxes. Surely each preliminary advance the salesman makes should add to his confidence that he can complete the sale. His proved ability ...
— Certain Success • Norval A. Hawkins
... him for a few other strong spirits with whom to construct a focus of power which should control the senate. The young man had not long to look, for within a week after the beginning of the session these others showed themselves to his view, rising above the general level of mediocrity and timidity, party-leaders and chiefs of faction, men who were on their feet continually, speaking half-a-dozen times a day, freely and loudly. To these, and that house at large, he felt it necessary to introduce himself by a speech which must ...
— In the Arena - Stories of Political Life • Booth Tarkington
... he thought to himself, busy with a lead-weighted string and a stick of soft charcoal wrapped in silver foil. For a few moments he continued working, not inclined to trouble himself to answer the door, but the hesitating timidity of a third appeal amused him, and he walked out into the hallway and opened the door. In the dim light a departing figure turned ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers
... live at Lyons, where M. Roland was an inspector of manufactories, and from Lyons, in July, 1789, Madame Roland, now become at last a most classical Republican, wrote to her friend M. Bosc (who afterwards published her Memoirs), a letter denouncing the timidity of their political friends. 'Your enthusiasm,' she exclaims, 'is only a fire of straw! If the National Assembly does not regularly bring to trial two illustrious heads, or if some generous imitators of Decius do not strike them down, you ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... ever did that before to me," she said, almost plaintively, for he had spoken no justifying words, and she was balancing between a remorseful timidity and a ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne
... and his Federalist allies as profligates and political blacklegs. Yet they all voted for Rufus King. Van Buren made up their minds for them; and, though protesting against the duplicity of Bucktail, the cowardliness of Federalist, and the timidity of Clintonian, each party indorsed him, while proclaiming ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... her with an affectionate gesture, and smiled in that ingratiating manner so necessary to timidity ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici
... revolving, that we knew not which door to open first. And then I think we both felt, but I more than he, that explanations and statements were futile, that even if all the doors were thrown open together, they would be inadequate. The deliciousness of silence, of wonder, of timidity, of things ...
— Sacred And Profane Love • E. Arnold Bennett
... thing himself was his next idea. But the scare of the night before had given him a distaste for the house; and he shrank from the attempt with a timidity he did not understand. He held the room in abhorrence, the house in dread; and though he told himself that in the last resort—perhaps he meant the last but one—he should venture, while there was any other way ...
— The Long Night • Stanley Weyman
... composed of heterogeneous elements, that his subordinates of different nationalities were jealous of his authority and of one another, and above all, as will be seen, that his bold and well-laid plans were again and again hindered and thwarted by the timidity and obstinacy of the civilian deputies who were placed by the States-General at his side. Had Marlborough been unhampered, the war would probably have ended some years before it did; as it was, the wonderful successes ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson
... mixed with timidity, that she took the Irishman's arm when they met, and asked if he really knew where ...
— The Golden Dream - Adventures in the Far West • R.M. Ballantyne
... being for some time supposed to have disappeared mysteriously, and of proving Bella. The dread of our being forced on one another, and perpetuating the fate that seemed to have fallen on my father's riches—the fate that they should lead to nothing but evil—was strong upon the moral timidity that dates from my ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... to the ordinary if antiquated code, which implies the timidity and defencelessness of young women whenever and wherever assailed. She had not gone far enough in her emancipation to reckon as part of it, immunity from apprehension of every kind, including ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler
... mademoiselle, forgetting that she was a servant, leaned over to her with the brusque familiarity of tone and gesture that went straight to her heart, Germinie, confused and overcome with blushing timidity, was speechless and seemed bereft of sense under the horrible torture caused by the consciousness of her own unworthiness. She would fly from the room, she would invent some pretext to escape from that affection which she so shamefully betrayed, and ...
— Germinie Lacerteux • Edmond and Jules de Goncourt
... by a passion so long restrained, so long crushed under timidity and fear, he ran up to her, seized her hands and hungrily sought ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... radiant,—Lady Ruth and Wingrave were alone. She watched him close the door and turn towards her, with a new timidity. The color came and went in her pale cheeks, her eyes were no longer tired. When he turned towards her, she leaned to him with a little seductive movement of her body. Her ...
— The Malefactor • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... a hint of irony in the boatman's tone, and remembering the timidity he had shown when clutched by the squid, Colin felt that this was the chance to ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... and vacillating; but it was in his reign that Prussia laid the foundation of her greatness as a military monarchy. It was not the king who laid this foundation, but the great men whom Providence raised up in the darkest hours of Prussia's humiliation. He did one prudent thing, however, out of timidity, when his ministers waged vigorous and offensive measures. He refused to arm against Napoleon when Prussia lay at his mercy. This turned out to be the salvation of Prussia, A weak man's instincts proved to ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume X • John Lord
... awful scenery, he saw an enormous jaguar stretched beneath the shade of a large mimosa. He had just killed a chiguire, an animal about the size of a pig, which he held with one of his paws, while the vultures were assembled in flocks around. It was curious to observe the mixture of boldness and timidity which these birds exhibited; for although they advanced within two feet of the jaguar, they instantly shrank back at the least motion he made. In order to observe more nearly their proceedings, the travellers went into their little ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... with an air of high self-possession in marked contrast to her timidity and indecision of the previous day. Amherst thought she looked taller, more majestic; so readily may the upward slant of a soft chin, the firmer line of yielding brows, add a cubit to the outward woman. Her aspect was ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton
... this hour to survey the mighty range of this splendid life. We would assign to him the title. 'The Great Nationalist of the Nineteenth Century;' the greatest of the master-builders of modern England. Timidity had no place in Mr. Gladstone's soul. Ho was a lion among men, endowed with a granite strength of will and purpose, rare indeed in our age ...
— The Grand Old Man • Richard B. Cook
... looked at the frowsy derelict with more interest. I did have a story. Why not tell it to him? I had told none of my friends. I had always been a reserved and bottled-up man. It was psychical timidity or sensitiveness—perhaps both. And I smiled to myself in wonder when I felt an impulse to confide ...
— Options • O. Henry
... there was a reluctant timidity in her eyes; it was such a look as you may see years afterward in the woman you once have cast aside for some other, perhaps not ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
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