"Shy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... All the shy boldness of an enamoured girl peeped out of Rina's eyes, as she whispered: "I'm glad it's lonesome! I don' want ...
— Two on the Trail - A Story of the Far Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... the doorway, now. "W'y," he cried, "here's thet fool Norwegian goin' t' th' landin'. Wal, he is pritty shy on sand!" ...
— The Plow-Woman • Eleanor Gates
... kissed her, made her rest on the sofa, and talked to her, the shy monosyllabic replies lengthening every time as the motherliness drew forth a response, until, when conducted to the cheerful little room which Mrs. Brownlow had carefully decked with little comforts for the convalescent, and with the ornaments likely to ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... experience of my fellow-creatures, that I was at a loss how to answer her. Nothing had prepared me for her kindness and her beauty. The misery of many years has not hardened my heart, thank God. I was as awkward and as shy with her, as if I had been ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... a solitary voice Should say "These verses polyglot Are not so bad," I should rejoice; But oh, my publishers would not! * * * * * And I, though shy and unanointed, Should be ...
— Tobogganing On Parnassus • Franklin P. Adams
... of Chung-kung, If the calf of a brindled cow be red and horned, though men be shy to offer him, will the hills and ...
— The Sayings Of Confucius • Confucius
... her large, mournful eyes, the only beauty, save her hair, of which she could boast. Very few had ever cared for poor Mabel, who, though warm-hearted and affectionate, required to be known in order to be appreciated, and as she was naturally shy and retiring, there were not many who felt at all acquainted with her. Left alone in the world at a very early age, she had never known what it was to possess a real, disinterested friend, unless we except Nellie Douglass, ...
— 'Lena Rivers • Mary J. Holmes
... economical of labour, to remove the body nearer to his den, would satisfy his hunger on the spot, and offer an opportunity to overtake him at his meals; besides, the bear, being quick of sight and shy, and so sensitive of scent that he can smell a man at the distance of a mile or more if he approaches with the wind, will frequently leave his food and as frequently return to it; and, therefore, the Norwegians ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... metallic tender solicitude. Mr Brindley adopted an entirely serious attitude towards her. If I had met him there and nowhere else I should have taken him for a dignified mediocrity, little better than a fool, but with just enough discretion not to give himself away. I said nothing. I was shy. I always am shy in a bar. Out of her cold, cold roving eye Miss Brett watched me, trying to add me up and not succeeding. She must have perceived, however, that I was not ...
— The Grim Smile of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... remained for an instant standing in the doorway in the same self-possessed, coldly graceful pose he remembered she had taken on the platform at Tasajara. Her eyelids were slightly downcast, as if she had been arrested by some sudden thought or some shy maiden sensitiveness; in her hesitation Mrs. Ramirez passed ...
— A First Family of Tasajara • Bret Harte
... him here: his external self; his character, ever so little shy and unsocial; his temperament, which was made ...
— Fabre, Poet of Science • Dr. G.V. (C.V.) Legros
... dull hours for me, and kept me company in many lonesome ones. For kindnesses of this sort, indeed, I am under obligations to edifices in every part of the city; and there is hardly a bit of sculptured stone in the Ducal Palace to which I do not owe some pleasant thought or harmless fancy. Yet I am shy of endeavoring in my gratitude to transmute the substance of the Ducal Palace into some substance that shall be sensible to the eyes that look on this print; and I forgive myself the reluctance the more readily when I remember how, ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... very reluctant to tell. She was very shy, and clung to her mother, and hid her face in her ample dress; and though presently she was beguiled by Mary's voice, and in a short time came to her side, and clung to her as she had clung to Mrs. Turner, she still kept her secret to herself. They were all very kind to Mary, the elder girls standing ...
— Old Lady Mary - A Story of the Seen and the Unseen • Margaret O. (Wilson) Oliphant
... is excessively wild and shy in its habits, frequenting, in the daytime, the highest and most inaccessible rocks, and only descending into the valleys to feed early in the morning and late in the evening. When disturbed in the daytime ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 1 (of 2) • George Grey
... secure the hand of the beautiful Miss Effingham, and not daring to risk another trial, as it might spoil the plans he had been contemplating since Edith's dismissal of him, he had kept shy of that young lady during the remainder of his stay, and prior to his departure for London, he had contrived to have a long interview with the Baronet, during which he very ably showed the position that he would hold ...
— Vellenaux - A Novel • Edmund William Forrest
... some trouble in reaching Mr. Larabee, who was a bit shy of strangers. When one, (in this case Larson) was announced by Aunt Samantha, ...
— Dick Hamilton's Airship - or, A Young Millionaire in the Clouds • Howard R. Garis
... younger officers promptly sought to play the agreeable to Mrs. Whately and her niece, and upon the latter all eyes rested in undisguised admiration. Cold and shy as she had appeared, she had not failed to note the fact. The woman was sufficiently developed within her for this, and the quick, unanimous verdict of these strangers and enemies in regard to herself which she read in their eyes came with almost the force of a revelation. For the first time, she ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe
... Yet I do so long for a little sympathy. Wonder if I shall get any from my dear cousin Eva some fine day? Hum. I more and more incline to that venture. It would suit my book, to say nothing of my being really almost in love with the dear creature. But I'm so abominably shy. Let's see, Ratman is due first week in October—a month hence. I shall have to keep him quiet some how. He won't be satisfied with things as they are, I'm afraid. All very well to be heir-presumptive when there's little prospect of presuming. Dear Roger is certainly ...
— Roger Ingleton, Minor • Talbot Baines Reed
... higher strata of English society as in "Middlemarch," or, as in "Romola," give an historical picture of another time in a foreign land. The woman who was gracious hostess at those famous Sunday afternoons at the Priory seems to have little likeness to the frail, shy, country girl in Griff—seems, too, far more important; yet it may be doubted whether all this later work reveals such mastery of the human heart or comes from such an imperative source of expression as do the earlier novels, ...
— Masters of the English Novel - A Study Of Principles And Personalities • Richard Burton
... fact, that more organic wealth has been made by saving than in any other way. The race is not in the long run to the phenomenally swift nor the battle to the phenomenally strong, but to the good average all-round organism that is alike shy of Radical crotchets and old world obstructiveness. Festina, but festina lente—perhaps as involving so completely the contradiction in terms which must underlie all modification—is the motto they would assign to organism, and Chi va piano ...
— Luck or Cunning? • Samuel Butler
... up like a geranium and smiles shy, like he always does when he's kidded. "If you please, sir," says he, "it's only a lady; to ...
— Wilt Thou Torchy • Sewell Ford
... bottom out o' the trail," said the Man with the Gash, between departing paroxysms of mirth. "An' I only 'ope as you'll appreciate the hoppertunity of consortin' with a man o' my mug. Get steam up in that fire-box o' your'n. I'm goin' to unrig the dogs an' grub 'em. An' don't be shy o' the wood, my lad; there's plenty more where that come from, and it's you've got the time to sling an axe. An' tote up a bucket o' water while you're about it. Lively! or I'll run you ...
— The God of His Fathers • Jack London
... catch the moments as they fly, And use them as ye ought, man: Believe me, happiness is shy, And comes not aye ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... clergyman, coming to the patient's bedside,—not with the professional look on his face which suggests the undertaker and the sexton, but with a serene countenance and a sympathetic voice, with tact, with patience, waiting for the right moment,—will surprise the shy spirit into a confession of the doubt, the sorrow, the shame, the remorse, the terror which underlies all the bodily symptoms, and the unburdening of which into a loving and pitying soul is a more potent anodyne than all the drowsy sirups of the world. And, on the other hand, there are many nervous ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... of food for his pessimism, and merry hearts were very rare among his neighbors. Still a certain amount of gloom appears to have been inherent in the man. And as he distrusted the whole world, so Joseph distrusted himself, which made him shy and awkward in company. My mother tells how, at the wedding of his only son, my father, Joseph sat the whole night through in a corner, never as much as cracking a smile, while the wedding guests ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin
... mistake of confounding the unusual with the interesting. Romance is a shy bird, and not to be hunted with a brass band. Where is the heart of life, if not at one's elbow? At the farthest, one has only to turn the corner of the street. It is useless to look for prodigies in the abyss, but every ...
— The Gates of Chance • Van Tassel Sutphen
... Ladies shy the saving sense Write me patronizing letters; And there are the writing gents, Always out to knock their betters. What cares Flaccus if he may Lallygag ...
— A line-o'-verse or two • Bert Leston Taylor
... very shy man, Mr. Holmes. He would rather walk with me in the evening than in the daylight, for he said that he hated to be conspicuous. Very retiring and gentlemanly he was. Even his voice was gentle. He'd had the quinsy and ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... "You're shy, rather than over, at that. And two hundred thousand would build a number of miles of ordinary railroad, wouldn't it? But that isn't all. The cliffs along that canyon are shale-topped and shale-undermined, the shale alternating with loose rock about fifty feet ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde
... says one of my Notebooks; "a young gentleman of small stature, shining courage in battle, but somewhat shy and bashful; who has had his troubles in Petersburg society, till the trial came,—and will have. Here are the stages ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. X. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—At Reinsberg—1736-1740 • Thomas Carlyle
... start, and after I started, and could show the doubters what could be done, I could raise more money then. I am sure of it. Of course the first investment is the most dangerous gamble, and that's why everybody is shy. But I believe my scheme would work, though I can't seem to get ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... as shy as rabbits," thought Vane, laughing to himself. "It's leading such a wild life, I suppose. Here," he cried to the first lad, who was now within a yard of him, while the other was close behind; "see these? I want some of them. Come on, and I'll show you how ...
— The Weathercock - Being the Adventures of a Boy with a Bias • George Manville Fenn
... we become terror-stricken at the thought of ghosts. The untutored child needs only a hint to make him shy at the dark; and a lad has to be pretty large before he can walk far at night without once in a while looking behind him, just to be certain there ...
— Trail Tales • James David Gillilan
... did those sons fight shy of touching their father's body? Had it been your father or mine who was beaten down by a murderer's spite, we would surely have given him one fare-well clasp of ...
— The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley • Louis Tracy
... time when folks were shy o' these woods we just come through," said Mrs. Todd seriously. "The men-folks themselves never 'd venture into 'em alone; if their cattle got strayed they 'd collect whoever they could get, and start ...
— The Queen's Twin and Other Stories • Sarah Orne Jewett
... meteoric figure, who was subsequently devoured by a crocodile on the Blue Nile, Mr. Chumbleton spoke with genuine affection. "He was something like a Dook," said the old man, "and not one of your barley-water-drinking faddists. Yes, in those days a Dook was a Dook and not a cock-shy for demigods [? demagogues]. I can remember," he went on, "when there were three Dooks in residence at the same time, the Dook of Midhurst, the Dook of St. Ives and the Dook of Clumber. But the Dook of Midhurst was the pick of the bunch. Why, once he went into a grocer's shop in the High ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, July 22, 1914 • Various
... Possibly her contrition for the little fault, if fault indeed it was, may have increased the agony of feeling with which she forced rather than poured out her confession. But he soothes her with gentle, consoling, restoring words: "Be of good comfort." He heals the shy suffering spirit, "wherein old dints of deep wounds did remain." He confirms the cure she feared perhaps might be taken from her again. "Go in peace, and be whole of thy plague." Nay, more, he attributes her cure to her own faith. "Thy faith hath made thee whole." ...
— Miracles of Our Lord • George MacDonald
... examples that help to make the matter clear. I will again employ the simplest of them—one so simple that a child can understand it. It is a mathematical example, as it ought to be, for the whole question of logical types, or dimensions, is a mathematical one. I beg the reader not to shy at, or run away from, the mere word mathematical, for, although most of us have but little mathematical knowledge, we all of us have the mathematical spirit, for else we should not be human—we are all of us mathematicians at heart. Let us, then, ...
— Manhood of Humanity. • Alfred Korzybski
... Dorothy's hands smoothed the coverings. It was well for him to see the patient endurance of suffering, such as his youth and strength defied. It was bliss to wait on Dorothy, and follow her with little watchful homages, received with a shy wonder which was delicious to him,—for Dorothy's nineteen years had been too full of service to others to leave much room for dreams of a kingdom of her own. Her silent presence in her mother's sick-room awed him. Her gentle, decisive voice and ways, her composure and unshaken endurance through ...
— Stories by American Authors (Volume 4) • Constance Fenimore Woolson
... in a climate which can be made tolerable to an European only by spacious and well placed apartments. He had been furnished with letters of recommendation to a gentleman who might have assisted him; but when he landed at Fort St. George he found that this gentleman had sailed for England. The lad's shy and haughty disposition withheld him from introducing himself to strangers. He was several months in India before he became acquainted with a single family. The climate affected his health and spirits. His duties were of a kind ill-suited to his ardent and daring character. He pined ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... grew up a poet. The unsettled and aimless mind of his mother, shadowed as it was with perpetual blackness, prevented her from calmly and wisely striving to place her son in some position by which he could have aided in supporting himself and her. As a child, Andrew was shy and solitary, caring little for the society of children of his own years, and taking refuge from the never-ceasing violence of his mother's temper in the privacy of his own poor bedroom, with some old book which he had contrived to borrow, or with his pen, for he was ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... found it impossible to break, filled Philippe with remorse. At that moment, he experienced a feeling of aversion for that capricious and unreasonable little girl, who had brought about those compromising minutes between them. Unaccustomed to women and always rather shy in their company, he suspected her of some ...
— The Frontier • Maurice LeBlanc
... cried on, hiding her face in Lois's skinny hand, until Sam Polston came in, when she grew quiet and shy. The poor deformed girl lay watching them, as they talked. Very pretty Jenny looked, with her blue eyes and damp pink cheeks; and it was a manly, grave love in Sam's face, when it turned to her. A different love from any she had known: better, she thought. It ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IX., March, 1862., No. LIII. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics, • Various
... thirteen, came to stay with us. She is the younger daughter of Mrs. H. Green, and is rather a nice-looking girl, with dark wavy hair and a fairish skin. She is always spick-and-span, never so much as a hair out of its place. Naturally she is very shy, and I think, though she wanted to visit us, the coming was a great effort to her. But now that the plunge has been made I hope she finds it less alarming than she expected. She helps Ellen a good deal, and this keeps her occupied and makes her ...
— Three Years in Tristan da Cunha • K. M. Barrow
... more I saw of Marmaduke, the less I thought about the bats. Get under the surface, and he wa'n't nutty at all. He just had a free flow of funny thoughts and odd ways of expressin' 'em. Most of us are so shy of lettin' go of any sentiments that can't be had on a rubber stamp that it takes a mighty small twist to put a ...
— Odd Numbers - Being Further Chronicles of Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford
... gathered Aida into her arms. At the same time Ann removed herself from Jimmy's. She did not look at him. She was feeling oddly shy. Shyness had never been a failing of hers, but she would have given much now to ...
— Piccadilly Jim • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... The child was shy, dreamy, sensitive, inventive, and a liar. He and his brother Dick were together walking in the shabby High Street, and talking ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... voluminous writings were closed, there was portrayed an entirely novel specimen, one marked by the most grotesque extravagance, in the shape of that impish malignant, "the Deputy," whose pastime at once and whole duty in life seemed to be making a sort of vesper cock-shy of Durdles and ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent
... before him [of one] whom, as she drew nigher to him, he saw to be a seemly dame as for her years, straight and tall; neither was she clad in rags, but in a comely black gown and white coif. Nevertheless, as 't is said, Once bit, twice shy, so it was with him, and he was for giving her the go-by. But she would not have it so, and she greeted him and said: "Hail to thee, noble; whence art thou last?" Her voice was clear and good, and now as he looked in her face he deemed he saw no evil in it, but goodwill rather. But he ...
— The Sundering Flood • William Morris
... always doing his best to risk his life in absurd ventures such as no one else would have attempted. It was only the other day that Peter had seen him trying to break a horse which even a gaucho felt shy of riding; and he loved to be in the thick of the melee attempting the difficult task of swinging a lasso above his head, with that air of imperturbable gravity always about him. Or Peter pictured him in the long chair, where ...
— Peter and Jane - or The Missing Heir • S. (Sarah) Macnaughtan
... Sally and the staggerer wended their way overland to the same rendezvous slowly—remarkably slowly. They had so much to talk about; not of politics, you may be sure, nor yet of love, for they were somewhat shy of that, being, so ...
— The Lonely Island - The Refuge of the Mutineers • R.M. Ballantyne
... boundaries, rivers and mountains, capes, bays and islands, became for once worlds of beauty under the magic touch of the greenery. On the wall just over his desk, the master wrought out in evergreen an arching "WELCOME," but later on, the big girls, with some shy blushing, boldly tacked up underneath an answering "FAREWELL." By the time the short afternoon had faded into the early evening, the school stood, to the eyes of all familiar with the common sordidness of its everyday dress, a picture of artistic loveliness. And after the master's little speech ...
— Glengarry Schooldays • Ralph Connor
... found a bald little man who flitted along the paths like a ghost. He was so thin and so light that there seemed some danger of his being blown away by the wind. His timid manner and lus long and lean neck, when he bent forward, and his head, no larger than a man's fist, his shy side-glances and his skipping gait, his short arms uplifted like a pair of flippers, gave him undeniably a great resemblance to ...
— Balthasar - And Other Works - 1909 • Anatole France
... darting, scornful; it tosses its analogies in your face; humor is slow and shy, insinuating its fun into your heart," says E. P. Whipple. "Wit is intellectual, humor is emotional; wit is perception of resemblance, humor of contrast—of contrast between ideal and fact, theory and practice, promise and performance," ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers
... her face with wonder, and a little fear, for which he was angry with himself. He noted the three grains de beaute and the smile that seemed to break high on her cheek, in a small nick, like that on the cheek of a Japanese doll. She frightened him, made him feel shy, yet made him feel at ease, too, as though her own were contagious; and his impression of her was softly permeated with the breath of violets. Jack disapproved of perfumes; but he really couldn't tell whether it wasn't Mrs. Upton's gaze only, the sweet oddity of her smile, that, by some trick ...
— A Fountain Sealed • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... another, and by no effort of his. People had a fashion of "looking out for him." Not that he had grown up particularly incapable or helpless; it might rather have been due to a certain appealing gentleness of bearing, something that was the resultant of a half-shy manner, expanding into boyish confidence winningly; a shortish, slender figure, scarcely robust; eager, friendly brown eyes behind his glasses; and a keen desire to be liked. It might be seen, in the present sharp nervous play of emotion over his face, how utterly he was unsuited to ...
— Life at High Tide - Harper's Novelettes • Various
... shy one, also stepped forward and spoke: "I also take my refuge in the exalted one and his teachings," and he asked to accepted into the community of his disciples and ...
— Siddhartha • Herman Hesse
... intercourse with Gowan she was capricious and had her moods. Sometimes she indulged in the weakness of tiring herself in all her small bravery when he was coming, and presented herself in the parlor beauteous and flushed and conscious, and was so delectably shy and sweet that she betrayed him into numerous trifling follies not at all consistent with his high position of mentor; and then, again, she was obstinate, rather incomprehensible, and did not adorn herself at all, and, indeed, was ...
— Vagabondia - 1884 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... think that he might be shy, too?" she asked. "He left two children and came home to find two distrustful adults. Give him ...
— Ralestone Luck • Andre Norton
... uneasy to him, and he got and wore a hat of the natural color of the fur. "In attending meetings this singularity was a trial to me, . . . and some Friends, who knew not from what motives I wore it, grew shy of me. . . . Those who spoke with me I generally informed, in a few words, that I believed my wearing it was ...
— Initial Studies in American Letters • Henry A. Beers
... better come first, for after you have heard the nightingale you won't care for the canary," added Rose, wishing to put Phebe at her ease, for she sat among them looking like a picture, but rather shy and silent, remembering the days when her place was in ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... her. Indeed, I was a little shy myself of meeting Mr Evans, or any of that set, in my new garb. They would be sure to pass their nasty personal remarks upon it. It would be better to preserve it in its virgin purity for my entrance to ...
— Tom, Dick and Harry • Talbot Baines Reed
... and of many cannons as well, to a man who had written a Treatise on the management of Artillery, and devised certain engines and instruments for the management of the same, was indeed a clever cast, and the fly was tempting enough to attract even so shy a fish as Niccolo Tartaglia. In his reply to Jerome's scolding letter of February 12, 1539, Tartaglia concludes with a description of the instruments which he was perfecting: a square to regulate the discharge of cannon, and to level and determine every ...
— Jerome Cardan - A Biographical Study • William George Waters
... understanding. They think it is better to work with people than to work for them. They think that one of the inalienable rights of man is the right to make his own mistakes and to learn the lesson from them without too much prompting. So they are a little shy of many of the more intrusive forms of philanthropy. But you should see what they ...
— By the Christmas Fire • Samuel McChord Crothers
... love he told, that made me bold To look at him fairly, And see the burning blush take hold And colour him up rarely. Within his ply though caught was I, I backt a saucy head: "Oh, I was shy a year gone by— Your ...
— The Village Wife's Lament • Maurice Hewlett
... on him consid'ble o' the time. I haf to be pooty shy abaout it, or he'll find aout th't I'm on his tracks. I don' want him to get a spite ag'inst me, 'f I c'n help it; he looks to me like one o' them kind that kerries what they call slung-shot, 'n' hits ye on the side o' th' head with 'em so suddin y' ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860 • Various
... going to do?" inquired Hazelton. "Are we going to remain afraid of the box and shy away ...
— The High School Boys' Fishing Trip • H. Irving Hancock
... upon ordinary topics as they ascended the stairs together, but when they reached the door of Isabel's sitting-room she became suddenly shy again. ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell
... word or two about his visit to the North, and they talked for a few minutes about a rumour that Hubert had heard of a rising on behalf of Mary: but Hubert was shy and constrained, and Isabel was still a little tremulous. At last he said he must be going, and then suddenly remembered a message from ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... hospitably received, but the native wife, as is usually the case, was too shy to eat with us or even to appear at all. Our host is a superb young man, very frank and prepossessing looking, a thorough mountaineer, most expert with the lasso and in hunting wild cattle. The "station" consists of a wool ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... two of our cows left at present, Taxey and Votey. It is something a little peculiar that Taxey is very obtrusive; why, I can scarcely step out of doors without being confronted by her, while Votey is quiet and shy, but she is growing more docile and domesticated every day, and it is my opinion that in a very short time, wherever you find Taxey there Votey ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... countrymen. Every little sketch of a passing face is exquisite in Scott's work, when he is at his best. For example, Dandie Dinmont's children are only indicated "with a dusty roll of the brush;" but we recognize at once the large, shy, kindly families of the Border. Dandie himself, as the "Edinburgh Review" said (1817), "is beyond all question the best rustic portrait that has ever yet been exhibited to the public,—the most honourable to ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... known. He never leaves off making queer faces, and is the delight of all the rest, who grin from ear to ear incessantly. Among the dancers are two young mulatto girls, with large, black, drooping eyes, and head- gear after the fashion of the hostess, who are as shy, or feign to be, as though they never danced before, and so look down before the visitors, that their partners can see nothing ...
— American Notes for General Circulation • Charles Dickens
... the two men in those days, receiving regularly the poet's sunny recognition and the statesman's rather unsympathetic stare. Both men were overwhelmingly famous, but, touched simultaneously by warmth and frost, I, a shy youngster, could keep my balance in their presence. Sumner in those years was the especial bete noire of the South and the conservative North, and the idol of the radicals—at once the most banned and the most blessed of men. I had, besides, ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer
... He had the shy decisiveness of a man who seldom spoke his mind. If necessary I would have wrested his name from him and pretended a relationship with his wife. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, January 19, 1916 • Various
... dropped, without a rustle, from my shoulders, and if I wavered for the instant it was not with what I kept back. I put out my hand to her and she took it; I held her hard a little, liking to feel her close to me. There was a kind of support in the shy heave of her surprise. "You came for me for church, of ...
— The Turn of the Screw • Henry James
... go into a church of her religion, not merely for spiritual aid, but for the comfort of space and rest in this world of crowding and bustle; for the sense of a piece of heaven closed in for one's need and all one's very own. Dear Madame Blanc, how many shy shadows do we not seem to see around us since her death; or rather to guess at, roaming disconsolate, lacking they scarce know what, that ever-welcoming sanctuary ...
— Hortus Vitae - Essays on the Gardening of Life • Violet Paget, AKA Vernon Lee
... road and frownin' at you, black, Makes you feel like takin' to the weeds along the way; Wish to goodness you could turn and hump yerself straight back; Know 'twill be awful when he gets you close at bay! Trouble standin' in the road is bound to make you shy— But wait until it reaches you afore ...
— It Can Be Done - Poems of Inspiration • Joseph Morris
... disposal; that of the second, the student, was carefully guarded from the sun by a covering formed of newspapers; the third, belonging to Jacobi, the youngest, appeared to us filled with books. Jacob was shy, and some days elapsed before we became acquainted. Anton, however, appeared modestly ready to attend to our least beck and call. The first evening, perceiving that we had no candlesticks, we ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Volume 11, No. 26, May, 1873 • Various
... and mounted dragoons dashed to and fro on military errands. I tried to imagine how very disagreeable the presence of a Southern army would be in a sober town of Massachusetts; and the thought considerably lessened my wonder at the cold and shy regards that are cast upon our troops, the gloom, the sullen demeanor, the declared or scarcely hidden sympathy with rebellion, which are so frequent here. It is a strange thing in human life, that ...
— Sketches and Studies • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... the reluctance of the Parish Authorities—once bitten, twice shy—to let the Parish Room again as a School after the legal difficulty about getting rid of the tenant, but to their credit be it said they made an exception in favour of music—with a proviso. The late Mr. James Richardson, when a young man, it is on record, applied to the Parish Authorities ...
— Fragments of Two Centuries - Glimpses of Country Life when George III. was King • Alfred Kingston
... station and rapidly disgorged its crowd of passengers, amongst whom Julian was one of the first to alight. Catherine found herself trembling. The shy words of welcome which had formed themselves in her mind died away on her lips as their glances met. She ...
— The Devil's Paw • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... With a shy smile, she gave him a package. "I drew this before leaving," she said. "I thought, well, your ...
— Industrial Revolution • Poul William Anderson
... dance, where each gentleman kisses a lady. I was not too shy, and each time I continued to kiss my mistress with considerable ardour, which made the peasant-elector burst with laughter and ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... called out, "Den, Den!" This time the Fish thought that the Den was no doubt accustomed to reply when the Jackal called to it. Perhaps it was shy because she was present. Anyhow she thought she had better answer, so she called ...
— The Talking Thrush - and Other Tales from India • William Crooke
... well says of her, "Her sense, energy, lightness, and quickness of action; her thorough knowledge of the work, her amazing yet simple resources, her shy humility which made her regard her own work with impatience, almost with contempt—all this and much else make her memory a source of strength and tenderness which nothing can take away." Elsewhere, the same writer adds, "Strength and sweetness, sound practical sense, deep humility, ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... practical. The great object of the mission of Jesus was to "save His people from their sins;" [198:4] and the tendency of all the teachings of the New Testament is to promote sanctification. But the holiness of the gospel is not a shy asceticism which sits in a cloister in moody melancholy, so that its light never shines before men; but a generous consecration of the heart to God, which leads us to confess Christ in the presence of gainsayers, ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... action. He can always bring exculpatory evidence, and in spite of any evidence he is always believed to be guilty. The effect of Milton's furious denunciation of Morus had been to damage his credit in religious circles, and to make mothers of families shy of allowing him to ...
— Milton • Mark Pattison
... as much as that to myself, too. So I soon went to work. I was rather shy about it at first; but the girls helped me. They put it into her head, I think, before I mentioned it at all. However, by degrees, I asked her plump, whether she'd any mind to be Mrs. Kelly? and, though she didn't say 'yes,' she ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope
... knowledge of the world, and the converse of their people is polite. Thus Nehemoth passes on through the other Audience Chambers and receives, perhaps, some Sheikhs of the Arab folk who have crossed the great desert from the West, or receives an embassy sent to do him homage from the shy jungle people to the South. And all the while the slaves with the ringing palanquin run westwards, following the sun, and ever the sun shines straight into the chamber where Nehemoth sits, and all the while the music from one or other of his bands of musicians comes tinkling to his ears. But when ...
— The Sword of Welleran and Other Stories • Lord Dunsany
... nearly all lied, and by what inquiries you could extort the truth notwithstanding. You saw the different way people took the same things. The diagnosis of dangerous illness would be accepted by one with a laugh and a joke, by another with dumb despair. Philip found that he was less shy with these people than he had ever been with others; he felt not exactly sympathy, for sympathy suggests condescension; but he felt at home with them. He found that he was able to put them at their ease, and, when ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... got up without a good deal of preliminary rum-drinking. The girls were so coy that the young men could not get sufficient partners for the dances without first subscribing for a few flagons of the needful cashaca. The coldness of the shy Indian and Mameluco maidens never failed to give way after a little of this strong drink, but it was astonishing what an immense deal they could take of it in the course of an evening. Coyness is not always a sign of innocence in these people, for most of the half- caste women on the Upper Amazons ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates
... the laugh was dry and hollow and painful. It suddenly passed from his wrinkled lips, and he sat down again; but now with an air as of shy ness and shame. "Let us talk," he said, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... does he shrink into himself in that shy way as though he fancied he was naked?" thought Laptev, as he walked along Nikolsky Street, trying to understand the change that had come over his brother. "And his language is new, too: 'Brother, dear brother, God has sent us joy; to pray to ...
— The Darling and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... grouped on one side. Duane, of New York, sat near them, "shy and squint-eyed, very sensible and very artful," wrote John Adams ...
— Little Journeys To the Homes of the Great, Volume 3 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... I became abnormally developed in my lowest nature. I grew bolder, and from being able to return shy glances at first, was soon able to meet more daring ones, until the waltz became to me and whomsoever danced with me, one lingering, sweet and purely sensual pleasure, where heart beat against heart, hand was held in hand and eyes looked burning words ...
— There is No Harm in Dancing • W. E. Penn
... was better, although the whole eastern part of Mazowsze was also one wilderness. But it did not terminate uninhabitated as the other did. When the Bohemian arrived at a colony they were less shy—perhaps because they were not so much brought up in constant hatred, or that the Bohemian could converse with them in Polish. The only trouble with them was the boundless curiosity of the people who surrounded the travelers, and overwhelmed them with questions. ...
— The Knights of the Cross • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... looked and beheld from the height of the burg shapes of men grey and colourless creeping toward the lair from sunshine to shadow, like wild creatures shy and fearful of the hunter, or so he deemed ...
— The Roots of the Mountains • William Morris
... really necessary! About the twelfth he lies down to sleep. Why, it's so simple it's real art! I'll just hold Bolton back until those rounds. I'll make him take it slow—and then send him in to clean up! Dennison is shy a match right this minute for The Red; they're all a little doubtful about him. The Pilgrim will be the only logical man in the world to send against him—that is, according to your sporting columns. And Dennison, of ...
— Once to Every Man • Larry Evans
... met groups of Tibetans, men and women, rough-looking and shy, with the shyness of a wild animal. Generally after a moment's pause to reassure themselves, they answered my greeting in jolly fashion, seeming quite ready to make friends. Occasionally the way was ...
— A Wayfarer in China - Impressions of a trip across West China and Mongolia • Elizabeth Kendall
... whiskered face is such a kindly and woeful and helpless one, while the voice is gentle, so gentle. At last, what do you think? As the girl has become all excited, and has already grown hoarse from tears, and is shy of everybody—he, this same 'roundsman on the beat,' stretches out two of his black, calloused fingers, the index and the little, and begins to imitate a nanny goat for the girl and reciting an appropriate nursery rhyme! ... And so, when I looked upon this charming scene and thought ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... a trim young glass of fashion, and it was he, the stranger, who was entirely at his ease, and the "bunch," the gay, accustomed bunch, which was a little shy and constrained. Jimsy stood sponsor for him and Honor was an earnest hostess. He said he enjoyed himself; certainly he made himself gently agreeable to Mrs. Lorimer, to the girls. Honor's stepfather observed him with ...
— Play the Game! • Ruth Comfort Mitchell
... observance—family prayers, she thought it must be! She felt confused, troubled, ashamed—so grievously out of her element that she never knew until they rose, that the rest were kneeling while she sat staring into the fire. Then she felt guilty and shy, but as nobody took any notice, persuaded herself they had not observed. The unpleasantness of all this, however, did not prevent her from saying to herself as she went to bed, "Oh, how delightful it would be to live in a house where everybody understood, and loved, and thought ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... village maid steals through the shade Her shepherd's suit to hear; To Beauty shy, by lattice high, Sings high-born Cavalier. The star of Love, all stars above, Now reigns o'er earth and sky, And high and low the influence know— But where is ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various |
