"Bashful" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Cis, were as bashful as they were clever, and did not come into sight if any one was watching. They were big enough to be seen easily, however, as proven by this: frequently one of them ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates
... favourite Campaspe, who posed naked before Apelles. Such a whim would have encountered no opposition from a woman of the land where even the most chaste made a boast of having contributed—some for the back, some for the bosom—to the perfection of a famous statue. But hardly would the bashful Nyssia consent to unveil herself in the discreet shadow of the thalamus, and the earnest prayers of the king really shocked her rather than gave her pleasure. The sentiment of duty and obedience alone induced her to yield at times to what she styled ...
— King Candaules • Theophile Gautier
... and get a bone!" he said. He said it like a boast. He slammed the door behind him. It made a rude noise. He came running back and looked a little sorry, but mostly bashful. He pointed at Tiger Lily. "What—What's HE afraid of?" ...
— Fairy Prince and Other Stories • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... cosy basket-chairs waiting for them, and a plateful of most delicious almond taffy, and she installed them to sit and admire the view, while she talked and put them at their ease. Schoolgirls are notoriously bashful visitors, and in certain circumstances all six would have been mum as mice and entirely devoid of conversation except a conventional yes or no, but with dear Mrs. Clark's beaming face and warm-hearted manner to disarm their shyness they were perfectly natural, and enjoyed themselves ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... deliberately turned in the opposite direction. At the gate the rider drew rein and swung lithely to the ground. Many young admirers gathered quickly about the hitching-post, but the girl was too swift for them. With a friendly nod and smile she tossed her reins to a bashful youngster, and tripped up the path to where ...
— Captain Pott's Minister • Francis L. Cooper
... the golden east, The sun had gained his zenith height, The guests were gathered to the feast, Prepared to grace the marriage rite; The youthful and the old were there, The rustic swain and bashful fair; The aged, reverend and gray, Yet hale, and garrulous, and gay, Each told, to while the time away, Some tale of his own wedding day; The youthful, timorous and shy, Spoke less with lip than tell-tale eye, That, in its stolen glances, sends The language Love ...
— Mazelli, and Other Poems • George W. Sands
... never appeared while we were singing," said Langdon. "I don't see why a man should be so modest and bashful. Why, if I'd done half what he's done I'd ride the tallest horse in the country; I'd have one of those Mexican saddles of yellow leather studded with large golden-headed nails; the stirrups would be of gold and the bridle bit would be gold, too. I'd have twelve uniforms all covered ...
— The Star of Gettysburg - A Story of Southern High Tide • Joseph A. Altsheler
... crag is ivied with legend, and the whole atmosphere of thought is hazy with the Indian summer of tradition. Nature without an ideal background is nothing. We may claim whatever merits we like, (and our orators are not too bashful,) we may be as free and enlightened as we choose, but we are certainly not interesting or picturesque. We may be as beautiful to the statistician as a column of figures, and dear to the political economist as a social phenomenon; but our hive has little of that marvellous Bee-bread that can transmute ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various
... not too wide to be crossed over by a rustic bridge, meandered through the domain, peeping occasionally out of the openings in the woods as it stole away like a bashful girl from the ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... however, a strange contradiction or opposition in love. Sometimes it is as weak and timid as a bashful girl, at other times, as strong and heroic as an Amazon; now it is like the harmony in music or the delicate coloring of a sunset; again, like the thunderous roar of Niagara or ...
— Parent and Child Vol. III., Child Study and Training • Mosiah Hall
... without singing was not to be thought of, and we requested the men to favor us with some folk-songs. No bashful schoolgirls could have resisted our entreaties with more tortuous graces than did those untutored peasants. One of them was such an exact blond copy of a pretty brunette American, whom we had always regarded as the most affected of her ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood
... of that gloom, which was occasioned by the first, and we may say the only act of insincerity she was ever guilty of towards her father. The reader knows that even this act was not a deliberate one, but merely the hurried evasion of a young and bashful girl, who, had her sense of moral delicacy been less acute, might have never bestowed a moment's subsequent consideration upon it. Let our fair young readers, however, be warned even by this very slight deviation from truth, and let ...
— Jane Sinclair; Or, The Fawn Of Springvale - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... save me, I implore you, from this man," and with the words she sprang towards the door; but the churlish giant, guessing her intention, intercepted, and bore her back, saying "Keep quiet, gentle lady; have patience, bashful beauty; sit down, sit down; come pet, come." And he made as if to approach her; when, forgetting the hazard of her position, and inspired with returning native courage, with her heart swelling with womanly indignation, and looking the vast figure in the face, she ...
— The Advocate • Charles Heavysege
... go back. I couldn't bear the thought of having him so far away from me and unprotected. I told him that, and it made him break down and cry. Then he let me kiss him; he never had before, he's so bashful, and, well"—her eyes were glistening and her tone was husky—"the next morning I saw him in the field bright and early. He was doing the hardest work there is on a farm—digging sprouts with a heavy grubbing-hoe. ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben
... small, and elegant though private, had not prepared her for the splendour or the diversity of a London assembly, they yet, by initiating her in the practical rules of good breeding, had taught her to subdue the timid fears of total inexperience, and to repress the bashful feelings of shamefaced awkwardness; fears and feelings which rather call for compassion than admiration, and which, except in extreme youth, serve but to ...
— Cecilia Volume 1 • Frances Burney
... for the Poor should not only provide for the relief and support of those who are most forward and clamorous in calling out for assistance;—humanity and justice require that peculiar attention should be paid to those who are bashful and silent.—To those, who, in addition to all the distresses arising from poverty and want, feel, that is still more insupportable to their unfortunate and ...
— ESSAYS, Political, Economical and Philosophical. Volume 1. • Benjamin Rumford
... affected me.—Had this dispute been so handled by every one, I had been ashamed to look up. I began to be bashful. ...
— Clarissa, Volume 7 • Samuel Richardson
... and bashful gentleman, who never wasted words, merely bowed over his plate, and went on with his supper. There was a theory in the family—a theory romantic old Miss Lydia still hung hard by—that Mr. Bill's peculiar apathy was of a sentimental origin. Nearly ...
— The Battle Ground • Ellen Glasgow
... the Circassian and the Georgian, and the French and English the Greek. When they do appear, they are generally disposed of at a high price. [Sidenote: GEORGIAN SLAVE.] This beautiful captive, who proved to be a Georgian, was neither bashful nor timid. She saluted us with smiles, severing her raven locks, and trying to captivate the spectators, by making her beauty appear to the greatest advantage. However, it did not seem to possess any power over the Turks; and as to the ...
— Journal of a Visit to Constantinople and Some of the Greek Islands in the Spring and Summer of 1833 • John Auldjo
... things quiet. An' they don't like to run in their friends, an' so, by the time you think you made 'em understand what you're drivin' at, the villain has got away, an' you're like to be hauled up before the magistrate for disturbin' the peace, which, bein' so shy an' bashful before high officials, p'licemen don't like to blow in at court without somethin' to show for the way ...
— Martha By-the-Day • Julie M. Lippmann
... things. Like time and tide they wait for no man. Somebody might be dead or dying. So summoning all her courage, she cleared her throat. Then she gave a bashful little cough. Betty looked up with an absent-minded stare. She had been so busy polishing a figure of speech to her satisfaction that she had forgotten where she was. For an instant the preoccupied little pucker between ...
— The Little Colonel: Maid of Honor • Annie Fellows Johnston
... London in the same winter, were costly and dangerous frolics. They were, indeed, without a meaning, as without an excuse. The irksomeness of a cloistered life repeatedly tempted me to wander; but my chief pleasure was that of travelling; and I was too young and bashful to enjoy, like a Manly Oxonian in Town, the pleasures of London. In all these excursions I eloped from Oxford; I returned to college; in a few days I eloped again, as if I had been an independent stranger ...
— Memoirs of My Life and Writings • Edward Gibbon
... You didn't tink I was bashful didja? Wot fer did you detail dem two pikers, Miller and Swenson, to guard de skirt fer if it wasn't fer some special frame-up of yer own? Dey never been in our gang, and dats just wot you wanted 'em fer. It was easy to tip dem off to hike out wid de squab, and de first chanct you get ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... and go over their testimony with them so that their regular daily work may not be interrupted more than shall be actually necessary. Some he cautions against being overenthusiastic and others he encourages to greater emphasis. The bashful "cop" is badgered until at last he ceases to begin his testimony in ...
— Courts and Criminals • Arthur Train
... have poured gold! You will be pleased with the monarch's politesse. Sir John Bland and Offley made interest to play at Twelfth-night, and succeeded—not at play, for they lost 1400 pounds and 1300 pounds. As it is not usual for people of no higher rank to play, the King thought they would be bashful about it, and took particular care to do the honours of his house to them, set only to them, and spoke to them at ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... that boyish love? Was that chivalry? Was that poetry? The sordid details of his orgies stank under his very nostrils. The soot-coated packet of pictures which he had hidden in the flue of the fireplace and in the presence of whose shameless or bashful wantonness he lay for hours sinning in thought and deed; his monstrous dreams, peopled by ape-like creatures and by harlots with gleaming jewel eyes; the foul long letters he had written in the joy of ...
— A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man • James Joyce
... him with all the heart of a weak, resigned, ill-used man. He loved with mad bursts of affection, with caresses and with all the bashful tenderness which was hidden in him, and which had never found an outlet, even at the early period of his married life, for his wife had always shown herself cold and reserved. Just then, however, Julie came to the door, with a pale face and glistening eyes, and she said in a ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... really amounts to this—that because a certain thing has impressed millions of different people as likely or necessary, therefore it cannot be true. And then this bashful being, veiling his own talents, convicts the wretched G.K.C. ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... neighboring field. She was tripping lightly along, singing as gaily as a bird, when she came suddenly upon the young man, over whose face there passed an instant glow of admiration. Mark bowed and smiled, the maiden dropped a bashful courtesy, and then each passed on; but neither to forget the other. When Mark turned, after a few steps, to gaze after the sweet wild flower he had met so unexpectedly, he saw the face again, for she ...
— Heart-Histories and Life-Pictures • T. S. Arthur
... less sentimental and altogether useless. So, now that they were in public, they all shook hands very formally: Tug with a girl several years older than he; Pretty with the beautiful Enid; Quiz with the fickle Cecily Brown; bashful Bobbles with the bouncing Betsy; B.J. with a girl who had as many freckles as B.J. had had imaginary encounters with the bandits who had tried to steal her; the unwilling Sleepy with a lively young woman who broke ...
— The Dozen from Lakerim • Rupert Hughes
... the momentary effect in conversation of the two neighbors, Hawthorne and Emerson. Speech seemed like a kind of travail to Hawthorne. One must harpoon him like a cetacean with questions to make him talk at all. Then the words came from him at last, with bashful manifestations, like those of a young girl, almost—words that gasped themselves forth, seeming to leave a great deal more behind them than they told, and died out discontented with themselves, like the monologue of thunder in the sky, which always ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various
... laws of the land, would have to pay her price. I said I could not tell without seeing her wounds, but, under any circumstances, the bullets ought to be extracted. This appeared to them still more alarming than ever. They did not wish me to inspect the wounds, and the woman herself was very bashful. However, the Sahib was the only surgeon present, and votes gave me the practice. It was certainly very amusing to witness the struggle between virtue and necessity, and the operation was so far satisfactory that I succeeded in ...
— What Led To The Discovery of the Source Of The Nile • John Hanning Speke
... though was that of the born combatant. The class that laughed openly at his first tremblingly bashful, and ludicrously inapt answer at quiz, was indelibly photographed ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... with a slight air of bashful reserve; Flora advances and boldly offers her hand. The blue eyes and the black meet; the former twinkle, the latter beam, and the knot is tied; they are fast ...
— Freaks on the Fells - Three Months' Rustication • R.M. Ballantyne
... him strewn with creamy folds of fleece. From a thing like a gallows in a corner huge bags were suspended which were slowly filling. A cauldron of pitch bubbled over a fire, and the smoke rose blue in the hot hill air. Every minute a bashful animal was led to be branded with a great E on the left shoulder and then with awkward stumbling let loose to join her naked fellow-sufferers. Dogs slept in the sun and wagged their tails in the rear of the paddock. Small children sat on gates and lent willing ...
— The Half-Hearted • John Buchan
... any means a bashful boy, and it took a great deal to astonish him; but this sudden invitation almost took his breath away. The idea that Mr. Minturn had actually invited him, Tip Lewis, to come to the white house!—to come near to that wonderful fountain, ...
— Tip Lewis and His Lamp • Pansy (aka Isabella Alden)
... I have been on my farm. A solitary inmate of an old smoky spence, far from every object I love, or by whom I am beloved; nor any acquaintance older than yesterday, except Jenny Geddes, the old mare I ride on; while uncouth cares and novel plans hourly insult my awkward ignorance and bashful inexperience.... Your surmise, madam, is just; I am, indeed, a husband.... You are right that a bachelor state would have ensured me more friends; but, from a cause you will easily guess, conscious peace in the enjoyment of my own mind, and unmistrusting confidence in approaching ...
— Robert Burns - Famous Scots Series • Gabriel Setoun
... much younger than even the twenty-five Mike had guessed at. She seemed to be more like a somewhat bashful teen-ager who had been educated in a convent. "I was what they call an 'exceptional child.' My mother died when I was seven, and Dad ... well, he just didn't know what to do with a baby girl, I guess. He was a kind ...
— Unwise Child • Gordon Randall Garrett
... the landlady closed the door and disappeared. She was always shy and dreaded conversations or discussions. She was a woman of forty, not at all bad-looking, fat and buxom, with black eyes and eyebrows, good-natured from fatness and laziness, and absurdly bashful. ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... praise!—like summer rose, That brighter in the dew-drop glows, 515 The bashful maiden's cheek appeared, For Douglas spoke and Malcolm heard. The flush of shame-faced joy to hide, The hounds, the hawk, her cares divide; The loved caresses of the maid 520 The dogs with crouch and whimper paid; And, at her whistle, ...
— Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... do not take beyond Thursday. She was pleased to say, Sure it will not be delayed by you, madam, more than needs!—Well, said he, now you are on my side, I will leave you with her to settle it: and, I hope, she will not let little bashful niceties be important with her; and so ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson
... 'em, and sez he, "How handy that would be, Samantha, if a man wuz diffident, and every man, no matter how bashful he is, has more or less wood chips in his back yard. Sometimes I ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley
... of bashful maiden art! The English words had seemed too fain, But these—they drew us heart to heart, Yet held us tenderly apart; She ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... ever and anon twirling her round violently with one arm, and catching her round the waist with the other, in order apparently to save her from total destruction. To this treatment the fair damsels submitted for some time with downcast eyes and pleased yet bashful looks. Then the men seemed to fling them off and go at it entirely on their own account, yet keeping up a sort of revolving course round their partners, like satellites encircling their separate suns. Presently the men grew furious; rushed about the circle in wild erratic ...
— Chasing the Sun • R.M. Ballantyne
... submit to be kissed at coming and going, then get out of the way, and confine his further acquaintance with them to the medium of occasional checks and a few letters, when,—well, did you ever!—here he sat, blushing like the most bashful lover in Christendom, and couldn't get up his courage to offer the widow help of any kind; had actually requested the youngest child to kiss, and call him Uncle Ridley, and was now entertaining an idea, which, had it been broached to him before leaving ...
— Six Girls - A Home Story • Fannie Belle Irving
... I mean is that one yonder." He was getting so romantically attached to Christminster that, like a young lover alluding to his mistress, he felt bashful at mentioning its name again. He pointed to the light in the sky—hardly perceptible to their ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... the banquet was allowed to remain untouched till all the preliminaries were settled. There was the tea left to draw till it should be as bitter as Maryanne's temper, and the sally luns were becoming as cold as Sarah Jane's heart. Mr. Brown did, in some half-bashful manner, make an attempt at performing the duties of a host. "My dears, won't Mr. Brisket have his dish of tea now it's here?" But "my dears" were deaf to the hint. Maryanne still sat sullen in the corner, and Sarah Jane stood bolt upright, with ears erect, ...
— The Struggles of Brown, Jones, and Robinson - By One of the Firm • Anthony Trollope
... situation as though he had eyes in his shoulder-blades, he joined us with a leap and took the lead. The Chinaman fled silent like a rapid shadow on the dust of an extremely oriental road. I followed. A long way in the rear my mate whooped like a savage. A young moon threw a bashful light on a plain like a monstrous waste ground: the architectural mass of a Buddhist temple far away projected itself in dead black on the sky. We lost the thief of course; but in my disappointment I had to admire Hermann's presence ...
— Falk • Joseph Conrad
... both, and Ulfinore Hung down his head, but yet did lift his eyes As if he fain would see a little more, For much, tho' bashful, he ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume II • Theophilus Cibber
... subsequently to learn, represented the metamorphosis of Actaeon. At the moment I did not look too closely. The figures of Diana in her bath with her plump attendant nymphs caused me quickly to withdraw my bashful eyes. ...
— The Strolling Saint • Raphael Sabatini
... have done so bad, though, if it hadn't been for Aunt Laura. And say, mark it up on the bulletin right here, she ain't my aunt! She's Benny's. I was tellin' you how I loaded Mildred, our lady typewriter that was, into Mr. Robert's car alongside of Bashful Benny, and what came of it, wa'n't I! And how Benny's so grateful that he says I've got to be one ...
— Torchy • Sewell Ford
... as he loosed his bridle from the fence, "been writing something for Johanna?" and when she said, "Yass, seh," he knew the bashful lie was part of her complicity in a matter she did not understand, but only hoped it was some rascality. A secret delight filled her bosom as he mounted and walked his horse out of sight. She stopped with lifted head and let her joy tell itself ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable
... by my means. Probably I might secure peace and comparative freedom for Olivia, but that was all. She could never be more to me than she was now. My only prospect was that of a dreary bachelorhood; and Captain Carey's bashful exultation made the future seem less ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... then to turn all love to God?' ... 'And yet I have the opinion,' says Parlemente, 'that no man will ever love God perfectly who has not perfectly loved some creature in this world.' 'What do you by loving perfectly?' asks Saffredant; 'do you call perfect lovers who are bashful and adore ladies from a distance, without daring to express their wishes?' 'I call those perfect lovers,' replies Parlemente, 'who seek some perfection in what they love—whether goodness, beauty or kindness—and ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme
... nonsense this barbaric elucidation might suggest, if a carouse, or love, woman or drunkenness were defined in this vein; and he would weave in amusing attacks on earlier, less intrepid speakers, who, as Vilsing put it, reminded one of the bashful forget-me-not, inasmuch as you could read in the play of their features: "Forget me not! ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes
... in the manner of the strapping seaman as he sat down beside the puny little boy, with a bashful expression on his handsome face, as if he were about to make ...
— The Buffalo Runners - A Tale of the Red River Plains • R.M. Ballantyne
... placed his hand on the young woman's arm; and though Lucille was naturally so bashful that even her mother would laughingly reproach her for the excess of a maiden virtue, she felt not the least pang of shame, as she found herself thus suddenly walking through the streets of Malines along with a young ...
— The Pilgrims Of The Rhine • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... amused, rang for tea, although the hour was early. After a little while, either the toast or the tea appeared to act on Plank as a lingual laxative, for he began suddenly to talk, which is characteristic of bashful men; and Siward gravely helped him on when he floundered and turned shy. After a little, matters went very well with them, and Plank, much more at ease than he had ever dared to hope he could be with Siward, talked and talked; ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... been able to obscure the brightness of that aerial kind of soul, unknown in our climates. In every thing that Eliza did, an irresistible charm was diffused around her. Desire, but of a timid and bashful cast, followed her steps in silence. Any man of courteousness alone must have loved her, but would not have dared to own ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 486 - Vol. 17, No. 486., Saturday, April 23, 1831 • Various
... I do not want to lose one word of your good stories, Grandfather," murmurs the little maiden, with her pretty, upward glance and bashful smile. ...
— Wigwam Evenings - Sioux Folk Tales Retold • Charles Alexander Eastman and Elaine Goodale Eastman
... hour, saying nothing new, nothing noble, not a word that would give one maid or mother a purer or better thought. She drew no pictures of love in the household—she did not seem to think that man and wife could even stay under the same roof. She was not content that any woman should be a bashful, modest woman, but wanted them to be like her, to think as she thought.... People went there to see Susan B. Anthony, who has achieved an evanescent reputation by her strenuous endeavors to defy nature. Not one woman in a hundred cares to vote, cares aught for the ballot, would take ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... all of a sudden rather bashful; for it was not often that he talked about himself or his own doings. He was rather the odd one of the family—Norah and Dan being such very great friends, and having so many little plays and fancies together in which he had no share; and Philip ...
— The Gap in the Fence • Frederica J. Turle
... happened, when a half-hour passed, and the bright-eyed bevy missed Flo and couldn't find her, wisely giving up the search at last, she, the quietest and most bashful of the lot, was being initiated into the mysteries ...
— The Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories • Alice Dunbar
... a great flounce, "to be sure I don't! Catch me loving any man! I told him last night I didn't; but it didn't do a bit of good. I used to think that man was bashful, but I declare I have altered my mind; he will talk and talk till I don't know what to do. I tell you, Mary, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... Retiring and bashful in her manners, every look which fell from her eyes—every smile which wreathed her lips, denoted the chaste purity of her soul. With all her readiness to oblige—with all her anxiety to do her duty ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... Rose's great dismay, six more hands were offered, and it was evident that she was expected to shake them all. It was a trying moment to the bashful child; but, remembering that they were her kinsmen come to welcome her, she tried her best to return the ...
— Eight Cousins • Louisa M. Alcott
... Clay was very bashful and diffident, and scarcely dared recite before his class at school, but he determined to become an orator. So he committed speeches and recited them in the cornfields, or in the barn with the horse and ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... knew that it was wise to do so, he felt bashful about removing them in presence of the woman. But his Indian host brought from a nail, on which they hung, a pair of buckskin breeches of his own, and offered them to ...
— The Young Bank Messenger • Horatio Alger
... I have ever seen," remarked Uncle John, "were those of prominent men, and foreign kings, and the like, who stop before the camera and bow as awkwardly as a camel. They know they are posing, and in spite of their public experience they're as bashful as schoolboys or as arrogant as policemen, ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Out West • Edith Van Dyne
... own metamorphosis is indeed so extraordinary, that I must make you acquainted with it. You know I am really very thick and short, prodigiously talkative and wonderfully impudent. Now I am thin and tall, strangely silent, and very bashful. If these things continue, who is safe? Even you, Boswell, may feel a change. Your fair and transparent complexion may turn black and oily; your person little and squat; and who knows but you may eternally rave about the King of Great ...
— Boswell's Correspondence with the Honourable Andrew Erskine, and His Journal of a Tour to Corsica • James Boswell
... keep out of her way, then. If she tries to do any missionary work among my chickens, I'll tell her a few home truths her husband's too bashful to tell her. It's my opinion she's ...
— One of Ours • Willa Cather
... higher perfection than in the Malay Peninsula. Here the methods by which the wizard works his will are various, and so too are his motives. Sometimes he desires to destroy an enemy, sometimes to win the love of a cold or bashful beauty. Thus, to take an instance of the latter sort of charm, the following are the directions given for securing the soul of one whom you wish to render distraught. When the moon, just risen, looks red above the eastern horizon, go out, and standing in the moonlight, with the big ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... daylight come, is the cheerful song To the hum of the wheel, in the early morning. Benjie, the gentle, red-cheeked boy, On his way to school, peeps in at the gate; In neat, white pinafore, pleased and coy, She reaches a hand to her bashful mate; ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... many scruples. He was, however, a most respectable man, and one who never dared to look a young girl in her face, he was so bashful. "Well," he often used to say, "God has well done all that he has done, and He is too wise to be angry when we make use ...
— The Grip of Desire • Hector France
... sigh, And you give each other presents that you can't afford to buy— When the little boys with snowballs are so shockingly unkind, And improve on the occasion to attack you from behind— When the mistletoe its terrors at the bashful person hurls, And you have to kiss a number ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, January 7, 1893 • Various
... laughed coldly, and then, more and more softly, said, with a sigh, "I will prove all I say." And as she spoke she removed the mask: and the Countess de St. Alyre, smiling, confused, bashful, more beautiful ...
— The Room in the Dragon Volant • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... see, Even so with colours forms emitted be; And where Love's form is, Love is; Love is form: He entered at the eye; his sacred storm Rose from the hand, Love's sweetest instrument: It stirred her blood's sea so, that high it went, 230 And beat in bashful waves 'gainst the white shore Of her divided cheeks; it raged the more, Because the tide went 'gainst the haughty wind Of her estate and birth: and, as we find, In fainting ebbs, the flowery Zephyr hurls The green-haired Hellespont, broke in silver curls, 'Gainst Hero's tower; ...
— The Works of Christopher Marlowe, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Christopher Marlowe
... Alfred; but still there were hopes. He was the eldest son of a Lincolnshire squire, a man of fair property and undoubted family; but who, it was thought, would not object to merge the name of Thoresby in that of Hotspur. Nothing came of the young man, who was bashful, and to whom Miss Hotspur certainly gave no entertainment of a nature to remove his bashfulness. But when the day for George's coming had been fixed, Sir Harry thought it expedient to write to young Thoresby and accelerate a visit which ...
— Sir Harry Hotspur of Humblethwaite • Anthony Trollope
... Irishmen are not wont to be bashful, but at that moment Alick and Stella entered the room, not failing to remark the confusion their appearance created. Terence, of course, explained that he had called, not expecting to see Miss Rogers, but had come ...
— The Three Commanders • W.H.G. Kingston
... brutish coarseness and fiendish malignity of this man, her gentleness appears only a contemptible weakness; her purity of affection, which saw "Othello's visage in his mind," only a perversion of taste; her bashful modesty, only a cloak for evil propensities; so he represents them with all the force of language and self-conviction, and we are obliged to listen to him. He rips her to pieces before us—he would have bedeviled ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... tangle sat the men and women—tenants of cottages, labourers, farm servants and their children, all who had been helping with the harvest. Jenifer Keast was there, flushed now instead of with that mysterious pallor of the dusk, and to her Archelaus made his way with a sort of bashful openness, followed by glances and sly smiles. People felt disposed to condone whatever was in the way of nature, for the meal of hoggans—pasties with chunks of bacon in them, superior to the fuggans of everyday ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... failure with that big drum; an' then ag'in, I'm scared to ask a girl to go. You-all most likely has missed noticin' it a heap—for I frequent forces myse'f to be gala an' festive in company—but jest the same, deep down onder my belt, I'm bashful. An' when I'm younger I'm worse. I'm bashful speshul of girls; for I soon discovers that it's easier to face a gun than a girl, an' the glance of her eye is more terrifyin' than the glimmer of a bowie. That's the way I feels. ...
— Wolfville Nights • Alfred Lewis
... that! But I can't get to believe it. You, little mother mine, you that are so timid and bashful and quiet. That you—you should have done ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge
... set. There was not any light, Save of the lonely legion'd watch-stars pale In outer air, and what by fits made bright Hot oleanders in a rosy vale Searched by the lamping fly, whose little spark Went in and out, like passion's bashful hope." ...
— Swan Song • Anton Checkov
... which in the midst of solitude could reach no other human ear, would startle the bashful creature into alarm; and whilst her cheek became alternately pale and crimson at such an avowal thus uttered aloud, she would wipe away the tears that arose to her eyes whenever the depths of her affection were stirred ...
— Jane Sinclair; Or, The Fawn Of Springvale - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... passed, and the sun was shining quite cheerily in the eastern recitation room the next morning when Miss Kate, whose seat was nearest the window, placing her hand pathetically upon her heart, affected to fall in bashful and extreme agitation upon the shoulder of Carry, her neighbor. "HE has come," she gasped in a thrilling whisper. "Who?" asked Carry sympathetically, who never clearly understood when Kate was in ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... lips, and I saw a blush, like the rosy veil of dawn, reddening his body and his cheeks. Then I made them bathe him, and anoint him with scented oils from head to foot, till his limbs shone and glistened with the gentle and mellow glow of an ivory statue. Then I said: 'You are bashful, because you shine alone amongst us all; see, we too will be your fellows.' The girls began first of all, fondling and kissing one another, and doing for each other the offices of waiting-maids. They drew out the pins and loosened the bands of their hair, and I never knew before ...
— The Hill of Dreams • Arthur Machen
... he repeated, no one replying, and all hands looking bashful and crest-fallen. "Are you all drunk? or what is the matter? I asked ...
— Warwick Woodlands - Things as they Were There Twenty Years Ago • Henry William Herbert (AKA Frank Forester)
... an island by courtesy only at this time of year, aground in the green marsh. The bashful tides of summer yearn shyly toward it, and twice every twenty-four hours stretch soft white arms up the creeks from Cohasset harbor to the east and the west and fondle it. They hold it close at the hour of flood, but hand does not clasp hand about it, and ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard
... a fresh clover in a meadow of sun-scorched grasses, or the sound of a singing lark in a council of crows, is the sight of a bashful child. In this age of juvenile precocity and pinafore wisdom I would rather run across a downright timid boy or girl than drink Arctic soda in dog days. Never be distressed, then, when "johnnie" hangs his head and blushes like a girl, or when his little ...
— A String of Amber Beads • Martha Everts Holden
... in a newly-furbished suit, with clean linen, and a brown wig worn for the first time on his hitherto shining head, stood Theophilus Clamp. He had even picked a blossom from the geranium in the hall and was toying with it like a bashful boy. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various
... that evening, Uncle Kit suggested that we visit the emigrant camp and see the ladies, which did not altogether meet with my approval, but rather than be called bashful, I went along with the crowd. I was now twenty-one years of age, and this was the first time I had got sight of a white woman since I was fifteen, this now being the ...
— Thirty-One Years on the Plains and In the Mountains • William F. Drannan
... the group a few minutes later, and they went together to the main cabin. Bob's father, Mr. Ghent, the Captain, and Job Howland settled themselves comfortably over long pipes and glasses of port, and prepared to hear the boys' story. Jeremy, bashful in such fine company, was persuaded to recount his adventures from the time Job had gone over the side till the kidnapped Delaware boy had come aboard. Then Bob took up the tale and told with much spirit of the ...
— The Black Buccaneer • Stephen W. Meader
... behaviour cannot be reconciled with the hallucination of a hotel, and they must take the house for a public institution of some kind, though of what kind I cannot guess. There was an extremely bashful youth, for instance, who roamed the garden for a while on the day after the late Duke of Cambridge's funeral, and, suddenly dashing in by the back door, wanted to know why our flag was not at half-mast. There was also a lady who called on the excuse that she had made a life-study ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... I fell suddenly into a fit of shame and bashful embarrassment. The assurance that I had gained at Court forsook me, and I was tongue-tied ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope
... you know, that keeps the cross-roads store nigh us, clerked in Darley before he went in on his own hook out here, an' I've heard 'im tell of a lot o' pranks that they had over thar. He said thar was an old bachelor that, kept a dry-goods store who never had had much to do with women. He was bashful-like, but thar was one young woman that he had his eye on, an' now an' then he'd spruce up an' go to see 'er or take 'er out to meetin', but Jeff said he was too weak-kneed to pop the question, an' the gal went off on a visit to Alabama and got married. Now, the old bach' had a gang o' friends ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben
... brought girls whom the cures of France had carefully selected in country parishes. Yearly Talon gave a bounty to the middle-aged duenna who had safely chaperoned her charges across seas to the convents of Quebec and Montreal, where the bashful suitors came to make choice. "We want country girls, who can work," wrote the Intendant; and girls who could work the King sent, instructing Talon to mate as many as he {124} could to officers of the Carignan Regiment, so that the soldiers would be likely to turn settlers. ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... Julia again, I shall feel like a fond but bashful suitor, who views at a distance the fair personage to whom, in his clownish awe, he dare not risk a near approach. Such is the clearest idea I can give you of my feeling towards children I like, but to whom I am a stranger;—and ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... and overwhelming, exists, that the arboreal and human natures are in substance one. Know that once on a time, as Daphne, the lovely daughter of Peneus, was amusing herself with a bow and arrows in a forest of Thessaly, she was surprised by a rude musician named Phoebus. Timid and bashful, as most young ladies are, she turned and fled as fast as her [Greek: skelae] could carry her. After running, closely pursued by the eager Delphian, for several miles, and becoming very much fatigued, she felt inclined to yield: but wishing ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various
... his next theme, and with it was coupled the sermons I had written, not omitting the one I had brought in my pocket. But his young friend was so bashful! was so fearful of intruding on his lordship! as indeed every one must be, who had any sense of what is always due to our superiors! Yet as the doctrines of his young friend were so sound, and he was so true a churchman, it might perhaps happen that his lordship would have the condescension ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... teasin' Dan'l," he said. "He's done all them things that people talk about, an' more, too, that he's hid, but he's plum' bashful. When anybody speaks of 'em he gets to squirmin'. I'm not that way. When I do a big thing, I'm goin' to ...
— The Riflemen of the Ohio - A Story of the Early Days along "The Beautiful River" • Joseph A. Altsheler |
