"Bashful" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... further indicated from whom he sprung. He would undertake a journey of half a sun to find a crawfish; he would climb with great labour, and at the risk of his neck, the tallest poplar of the forest for its juicy buds, and the slender tree for its frightened and bashful leaves, that wither and die if one do but so much as touch them. He had much cunning and subtlety, as well he might have, if the blood of the god whom Indians adore ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 3 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... little as this ship, sir, and would follow. There is no port short of Egg Harbour, and into that I should be bashful about entering with a vessel of this size; whereas, by running to the eastward, and doubling Montauk, which would owe us shelter on account of our name, I might get into the Sound, or New London, at need, and then claim the sweepstakes, as ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... runs up to her—"Oh, you silly kind mamma," she says, kissing her again, "that's what Harry would like;" and she broke out into a great joyful laugh: and Lady Castlewood blushed as bashful ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... at, it is, above all things, necessary that the inquiry bear a tint so neutral that the person to whom it is addressed shall find it impossible to reflect its colour in his reply. He will then sometimes, in his confusion, blunder into a truthful answer, but he does so generally with a bashful air, indicative of the painful consciousness that he has been reluctantly violating the rules of good breeding. A search after accurate statistics, under such conditions, is ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin
... as stays. A sort of short jacket that was of no particular cut, and possessed the advantage of fitting any variety of size or figure, completed the attire. The buttons that should have confined the dress in front were generally absent, and the ladies were not bashful at their loss, but exposed their bosoms without any consciousness of indelicacy. There was no peculiarity in the arrangement of the hair, but each head was tied up in a cloth, either white or some gaudy colour, which, once gay, ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... not been much accustomed to the society of girls, and in consequence felt quite bashful when he found himself seated next to her at table; but her quiet, easy, and graceful manner speedily put him at his ease; and during the progress of dinner he could not refrain from stealing a few glances at her face and ...
— Leslie Ross: - or, Fond of a Lark • Charles Bruce
... me and now you deign to leave me. That is all. And your vows of 'faithfulness till death'—they too are cancelled. There is no need for you to grieve at this parting, but since I see you so sad and can give you no other comfort—you once praised my harp-playing; but I was bashful and would not play to you. Now I am bolder, and if you choose, I will play ...
— More Translations from the Chinese • Various
... we have necessarily been long in describing, Lucy felt in the glance of a moment, and had no sooner encountered the keen black eyes of the stranger than her own were bent on the ground with a mixture of bashful embarrassment and fear. Yet there was a necessity to speak, or at last she thought so, and in a fluttered accent she began to mention her wonderful escape, in which she was sure that the stranger must, under Heaven, have been her father's protector ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... 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
... on his face. "That girl loves you," said the Doctor tersely. For a moment then the Doctor's lips puffed silently at his pipe, until at last with an almost bashful gesture, he cried out abruptly: "Stanton, somehow I feel as though I owed you an apology, or rather, owed your fiancee one. Somehow when you told me that day that your young lady had gone gadding off to Florida and—left you alone with your sickness, why I thought—well, ...
— Molly Make-Believe • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... 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 ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben
... 'way bashful an' behind on all social plays, an' am plenty awe-struck about the old foiks. I never feels happy a minute where they be. The old lady does her best to make me easy an' free, too. Comes out when I rides up, an' lets down the bars for my hoss, ...
— Wolfville • Alfred Henry Lewis
... would probably strongly commend itself to that class among pale faced beau and belles denominated bashful; though, perhaps, it would not suit others as well. The men, or a number of them, usually begin the dance alone, and the women, or each of them, selecting the one with whom she would like to dance, presents herself ...
— Legends, Traditions, and Laws of the Iroquois, or Six Nations, and History of the Tuscarora Indians • Elias Johnson
... Boonville, county seat of Warwick County and heard a case in which one of the aristocratic Breckenridges of Kentucky was attorney for the defense. The power of his oratory was a revelation to the lad. At its conclusion the awkward, ill-dressed, bashful but enthusiastic young Lincoln pressed forward to offer his congratulations and thanks to the eloquent lawyer, who haughtily brushed by him without accepting the proffered hand. In later years the men met again, this time in Washington ...
— The Life of Abraham Lincoln • Henry Ketcham
... fine prospect! Nonsense, you are joking; you know that a little boldness always succeeds with lovers; it is only the bashful and timid who are losers; and were I to fall in love with a goddess, I would tell her of my ...
— The Magnificent Lovers (Les Amants magnifiques) • Moliere
... the background, keep one's distance; pursue the noiseless tenor of one's way, do good by stealth and blush to find it fame [Pope], hide one's light under a bushel, cast a sheep's eye. Adj. modest, diffident; humble &c 879; timid, timorous, bashful; shy, nervous, skittish, coy, sheepish, shamefaced, blushing, overmodest. unpretending^, unpretentious; unobtrusive, unassuming, unostentatious, unboastful^, unaspiring; poor in spirit. out of countenance &c (humbled) ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... he made steady reply. "But you've nothing to be ashamed about. Stumpy's an awful ass, you know,—always has been. He's been head over heels in love with you ever since he met you. No, you needn't let that shock you. He's such a bashful knight he'll never tell you so. You'll have to do that part of it." He smiled with faint irony. "But you may take my word for it, it is so. He has thought of nothing but you and your happiness from the very beginning of things. And—unlike someone ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell
... guards, to Cato's palace, in order to pass for Juba, in a place where they were both so very well known: he meets Juba there, and resolves to murder him with his own guards. Upon the guards appearing a little bashful, he ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson
... A sheepish fellow; a bashful or shamefaced fellow. To cast a sheep's eye at any thing; to look wishfully ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... motives are inexcusable; but the very modesty of women makes against their happiness in this point, by giving them a kind of bashful fear of objecting to such persons as their parents recommend as proper objects of ...
— The History of Emily Montague • Frances Brooke
... to think that he can't take care of himself in a given instance." She hesitated in a funny, bashful manner ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... sometimes another, according to the side I turn her to. If I speak variously of myself, it is because I consider myself variously; all the contrarieties are there to be found in one corner or another; after one fashion or another: bashful, insolent; chaste, lustful; prating, silent; laborious, delicate; ingenious, heavy; melancholic, pleasant; lying, true; knowing, ignorant; liberal, covetous, and prodigal: I find all this in myself, more or less, according as I turn myself about; ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... one of the great draper's shops. The brother and sister went into the ante-room, a murmur of voices was heard, and a sound uncommonly like suppressed sobs. When Sabine returned her eyes were very red, but she looked happy and bashful. When the cousin went into the ante-room on some pretext or other, the great parcel was lying on a chair; and as she touched it—of course accidentally—and the paper was not tied up, it came to pass that she beheld its contents—a variety of exquisite dresses, and one thing that moved ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... then between him and her lips a dark and shadowy face; two great storm-swept eyes looked into his out of a world of infinite pain, and he dropped his head in hesitation and shame, and kissed her hand. Miss Wynn thought him delightfully bashful. ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... was in a great measure owing to thy admiration of those poets that I ventured on that path which their memory has hallowed, in pursuit of—I myself hardly know what—time alone must determine.... I am a tall, dark-complexioned, and, I am sorry to say, rather ordinary-looking fellow, bashful, yet proud as any poet should be, and believing with the honest Scotchman that 'I hae muckle reason to be thankful that I am as I am.'"[3] It is of interest further to state that Whittier's life-long ...
— Whittier-land - A Handbook of North Essex • Samuel T. Pickard
... take her back to Lebanon," he continued with a quickening look. "She'll be all right in a jiffy. I've got room for her in my buggy—and room for her in any place that belongs to me," he hastened to reflect with a curious, bashful smile. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... stirred the fire of dry branches and turfs of peat, then sat down in an armchair and took up one of the shirts that she had begun. She sat there under the officer's eyes, half bashful, afraid to look up, and calm to all appearance; but her bodice rose and fell with the rapid breathing that betrayed her nervousness, and it struck Genestas that her figure ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac
... galvanically active the moment they were punched up and fell flat the moment the punching was remitted. I did all I could for them, but, having Daniel in tow, dared not sail too near the edge of the Doldrums, lest he should drop into sympathetic stagnation and be taken preternaturally bashful with his sails all aback, just as I wanted to carry him gallantly into action with some clipper-built cruiser of a nice young lady. Finally, Lu bethought herself of that last plank of drowning conversationalists, the photograph album. All the dejected young men made for it at once, some ...
— A Brace Of Boys - 1867, From "Little Brother" • Fitz Hugh Ludlow
... behind the screen. She is breathing as if she had been running hard. She lifts her eyes. The tall young man, divested of hat and coat, is standing by her table, holding out his hand with a sort of bashful hardiness. ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... stampin' grounds every onct in a while, an' let me tell you he hunts some peculiar, he do, he's half man and half wolf—but shucks, I won't spoil the show, you will see how he hunts for yourself if you stay here long. Glory be, but he's got me some bashful and shy. But mosey along and I'll hist yore stuff on this here cayuse while you let them tha' dogs out of their chicken coop boxes. You can cache your dude duds in the Emporium general store over yonder next to Squinty Quinn's saloon, an' then we're off for the ...
— The Black Wolf Pack • Dan Beard
... trusted maid shows that they are "safe," and for the last time they play again their little comedy of formality. She pretends to be the formal grande dame, the lady with the colder breast than snow: he is the bashful gallant, who hardly dares touch the tips of her fingers. In this laughing moment, the dagger of the husband is driven deep into his back. Like all of Browning's lovers, he gives, even on the edge of the eternal darkness, no thought to himself, but only to her. Gathering his dying ...
— Robert Browning: How To Know Him • William Lyon Phelps
... the two shrewdest observers of their age. But their observations on each other had led them to favourable conclusions. Swift did full justice to the rare powers of conversation which were latent under the bashful deportment of Addison. Addison, on the other hand, discerned much good-nature under the severe look and manner of Swift; and, indeed, the Swift of 1708 and the Swift of 1738 ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... presence of 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 ...
— A String of Amber Beads • Martha Everts Holden
... of a mother!—a dear, tender mother, who would have managed the business in ten minutes, and, in the course of a little delicate confidential conversation, would have extracted the interesting avowal from the bashful lips of the ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... driving with us," and he covered his nose with his sleeve as though he were bashful. "What a grand driver! Stay with us and you shall drive the waggons and ...
— The Bishop and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... sugared phrases of the court Bartering beads for gold, he drew out all The simple Devon seaman's inmost heart, And coiled up in the soul of Francis Drake. There in the solemn night they interchanged Lies for sweet confidences. From one wall The picture of Drake's love looked down on him; And, like a bashful schoolboy's, that bronzed face Flushed as he blurted out with brightening eyes And quickening breath how he had seen her first, Crowned on the village green, a Queen of May. Her name, too, was Elizabeth, he said, As if it proved that she, too, was a queen, Though crowned ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... many of them went back to the intrenchments, and probably most of them are wandering about the country in this vicinity," replied the sergeant. "The farmers' corncribs, if there is anything left in them, will suffer for the next week. They are not bashful, those fellows; and I have no doubt they will visit the houses, and order meals as they would at ...
— A Lieutenant at Eighteen • Oliver Optic
... and worms provide Without their pains, when earth has nought beside To answer their small wants. To view the graceful deer come tripping by, Then stop, and gaze, then turn, they know not why, Like bashful younkers in society. To mark the structure of a plant or tree, And all fair things of earth, how fair ...
— Charles Lamb • Walter Jerrold
... of false modesty, have run into the other extreme, and acquired the character of impudent. This is as great a fault as the other. A well-bred man keeps himself within the two, and steers the middle way. He is easy and firm in every company; is modest, but not bashful; steady, but not impudent. He copies the manners of the better people, and conforms to their customs with ease ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... sparrow and crow, Cooling their feet in the melting snow: "Won't you come in, good folk?" she cried. But they were too bashful, and stood outside Though "Pray come ...
— The Posy Ring - A Book of Verse for Children • Various
... trying to speak to Caddy, and except just to state, without a single needless-word, the hour, this clock had never tried to speak before. But the clock liked Caddy very much. It had seen that Caddy was very bashful, and that the other children took hardly any notice of her, or any care for her pleasure, and it liked the feeling of Caddy's little cheek and warm ...
— Harper's Young People, January 20, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... equilibrium and prevents people from tending to extremes; for it is known that unions of dwarfs are fruitful of dwarfs, that giants proceed from the embrace of giants, and that offspring of parents alike irritable, alike passive, alike bashful, etc., inherit the prominent qualities of both to such a degree as to seriously interfere with their ...
— The Ladies Book of Useful Information - Compiled from many sources • Anonymous
... engaging advances, as proceeding from a hostile and dangerous power, who could have no business there, unless it were to deprive her of a customer, or suggest what became of the self-consuming tea and sugar, and other general trifles. That would have been agreeable. The bashful, winning, glorious curiosity, with which little Ruth, when fiery-face was gone, peeped into the books and nick-nacks that were lying about, and had a particular interest in some delicate paper-matches on the chimney-piece; wondering who could have made ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... forward, immodest, rude, hoidenish, brazen, saucy, insolent, unabashed, audacious, pert, shameless, malapert; conspicuous, prominent, salient; steep, abrupt, precipitous, acclivitous, jagged. Antonyms: modest, bashful, diffident, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... want, graciously allow the children to call him Uncle Ridley, 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 ...
— Six Girls - A Home Story • Fannie Belle Irving
... He was a very different person from the rough, awkward lad of eight years back. He still had the somewhat loutish figure which, in his mother's family, was the shell of fine-looking men, and he was shy and bashful, but Eton polish had taken away the rude gruffness, and made his manners and bearing gentlemanly. His face was honest and intelligent, and he had a thoroughly good, conscientious disposition; his character stood high, and he was ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... steeped in vinegar have helped me, and I hope that my belly will get on its good behavior, for sometimes there's such a rumbling in my guts that you'd think a bellowing bull was in there. So if anyone wants to do his business, there's no call to be bashful about it. None of us was born solid! I don't know of any worse torment than having to hold it in, it's the one thing Jupiter himself can't hold in. So you're laughing, are you, Fortunata? Why, you're always keeping ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... 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
... pretty little place," Mr Proctor said, with satisfaction: "of course it is but a small living compared to Carlingford. I hope you will come and see me, after—it is furnished," said the bashful bridegroom: "it is a nuisance to have all that to look ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... hand with almost a bashful air. Swiftly I thought—Yes, I will witness the last scene of the drama. Beside which, his mien conquered me, and an affectionate sentiment towards him, again filled my heart—I bade him command me. "Aye, that I will," said he gaily, "that's my cue now; be ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... 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 ...
— Tip Lewis and His Lamp • Pansy (aka Isabella Alden)
... little, reminiscently. He remembered the autograph albums of his bashful youth. How much better than an autograph album ...
— Miss Theodosia's Heartstrings • Annie Hamilton Donnell
... was worthy of Sheridan. Every Oxonian knows Hall, the boat-builder at Folly Bridge. Mrs. Hall was, in my time, proprietress of those dangerous skiffs and nutshell canoes which we young harebrains delighted to launch on the Isis. Some youthful Sheridanian had a long account with this elderly and bashful personage, who had applied in vain for her money, till, coming one day to his rooms, she announced her intention not to leave till the money was paid. 'Very well, Mrs. Hall, then you must sit down and make yourself comfortable while I dress, for I am going ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton
... previous arrangement, late on Sunday afternoon Dick Blake, Ed Matheson, and Bill Campbell, Ungava Bob's trapping companions, joined him and Shad at Wolf Bight, where they were to spend the night. Bill Campbell was a tall, awkward, bashful young man of twenty-one, whose chief physical characteristic was a great ...
— The Gaunt Gray Wolf - A Tale of Adventure With Ungava Bob • Dillon Wallace
... population was somewhat sparse at Oldfield. There were a few Eton boys, and one or two in that delightful transition age when youth is most bashful and uninteresting,—a sort of unfledged manhood, when the smooth boyish cheek contradicts the deepened bass of the voice,—an age that has not ceased to blush, and which is full of aggravating idosyncrasies ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... power over people's tongues, and not be forced to hear my own work railed at and commended fifty times a day, affecting all the while a countenance wholly unconcerned, and joining out of policy or good manners with the judgment of both parties: this, I confess, is too great a hardship for so bashful and unexperienced a writer.[3] ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift
... that you were a bold man with women, and I know that at least that part of what you said was untrue, for you are a bashful man, John, you are downright bashful. It is I who have been bold. You were too timid to woo me, and I so longed for you that I—I—was ...
— Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall • Charles Major
... 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 got that boy ...
— One of Ours • Willa Cather
... without it, and though not morbidly bashful, felt that at present it was more comfortable to be under Miss Charlecote's wing than that of Lucilla, and that the quiet evening was more composing than fresh ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... surroundings were satin. At this sight the poor child, armed against his desire, so great was his fear, dared only to make brief devotion and curt caresses, and although he kissed softly this fair surface, he remained bashful, the which, feeling by the senses of her soul and the intelligence of her body, the seneschal's lady who took great care not to move, called out to him—"Ah, Rene, I ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... Dick take the part, father,"—and Mrs. Todd's tone was most ingratiating. "John's terrible dull and bashful anyway, an' mebbe he'd have a pain he couldn't stan' jest when he's givin' out the presents. An' Dick ...
— The Romance of a Christmas Card • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... looked like a creeping plant broken in two. And she touched his body with her own and repeatedly clasped Rishyasringa in her arms. Then she bent and break the flowery twigs from trees, such as the Sala, the Asoka and the Tilaka. And overpowered with intoxication, assuming a bashful look, she went on tempting the great saint's son. And when she saw that the heart of Rishyasringa had been touched, she repeatedly pressed his body with her own and casting glances, slowly went away under the pretext that she was ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... know that you love me!" cried Edgar triumphantly, holding her strained to his heart as he pressed her bashful, tremulous little lips, Leam feeling that she had proved her love by the sacrifice of all that she held most dear—by the sacrifice ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XVII. No. 101. May, 1876. • Various
... familiar terms. Some of them even took a sort of liking to her, and gave her an uncouth greeting as they went by; and, more than once, one or another of them had paused to ask for a flower or two, and had received them with a curious bashful awe, when they had been passed over the ...
— That Lass O' Lowrie's - 1877 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... easy, free, and unconfined. It has nothing resentful belonging to it, nothing invidious, nothing fierce and flaming, nothing exaggerated, nothing marvellous, nothing artful and designing; but resembles a chaste, a bashful, and an unpolluted virgin. We may, therefore, consider it as a kind of polite conversation, rather than a species ...
— Cicero's Brutus or History of Famous Orators; also His Orator, or Accomplished Speaker. • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... Lord answered from within, I know you not. As the omniscient he knew them; he was acquainted with all their ways. He knew them, for they had crucified him afresh by their neglect. But he did not know them, as he knew the poor bashful woman who crept near in the crowd and by her touch drew saving grace from his overflowing heart; he did not know them by feeling their weight, like ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... were not quite a myriad. The festivities they illumined obtained no mention in the paper, nor did they who trod the measures in this second temple exhibit any sense of injury because of the Tocsin's omission. Nay, they were of that class, shy without being bashful, exclusive yet not proud, which shuns publicity with a single-heartedness almost unique in our republic, courting observation neither in the prosecution of their professions nor in ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington
... other side, Dusopius is so bashful that he hides himself in a corner; he hardly bears being looked at, and never quits the first chair he lights upon, lest he should expose himself to public view. He trembles when you bowe to him at a distance, is shocked ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding
... bashful merman began to blubber. Some of the mergirls put their hands over their mouths to hide their laughing, while they winked at each other and their eyes showed how they enjoyed the fun. To have a merman among them, at that hour, in broad ...
— Dutch Fairy Tales for Young Folks • William Elliot Griffis
... this sweet bank your head thrice sweet and dear I lay, and spread your hair on either side, And see the new-born woodflowers bashful-eyed Look through the golden tresses here and there. On these debatable borders of the year Spring's foot half falters; scarce she yet may know The leafless blackthorn-blossom from the snow; And through her bowers the wind's way still ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... try. But it'd be no use if they mean bad. I can't make up my mind yet what's comin' off. It's all right for you to pretend you're bashful. ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey
... acquaintance with cards and company; but, with a soft contempt of my ignorance and pedantry, she said, that he had been already confined too long to solitary study, and it was now time to shew him the world; nothing was more a brand of meanness than bashful timidity; gay freedom and elegant assurance were only to be gained by mixed conversation, a frequent intercourse with strangers, and a timely introduction to splendid assemblies; and she had more than once observed, that his forwardness and complaisance began to desert him, ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... patience for our landing, and when we pitched our tent, were all eager to assist; thus we were soon at home among them. Seven tents were standing on the strand, and we found the people here differing much in their manners from the people at Saeglek. Their behaviour was modest and rather bashful, nor were we assailed by beggars and importunate intruders, as at the latter place, where beggary seemed quite the fashion, and proved very troublesome to us. But we had no instance of stealing. Thieves are considered ...
— Journal of a Voyage from Okkak, on the Coast of Labrador, to Ungava Bay, Westward of Cape Chudleigh • Benjamin Kohlmeister and George Kmoch
... considering the modest costumes of these Indian ladies and their bashful and shrinking disposition, it does seem strange that they should fascinate one like myself of the Saxon race. To be sure the sight of the bared shoulders and necks of society belles when undressed in the decollete fashion of their ball gowns ravishes and gluts our sensuality, but a momentary ...
— Tales of Aztlan • George Hartmann
... mischief, doth easelie corrupt the best natures, and best brought vp wittes. But I meruell the lesse, that thies misorders be emonges som in the Court, for commonlie in the contrie // Misorders also euerie where, innocencie is gone: Bashful- // in the coun- nesse is banished: moch presumption in yougthe: // trey. small authoritie in aige: Reuerence is neglected: dewties be confounded: and to be shorte, disobedience doth ouerflowe the bankes of good order, almoste in euerie place, ...
— The Schoolmaster • Roger Ascham
... told how to go light than you can be told how to hit a ball with a bat. It is something that must be lived through, and all advice on the subject has just about the value of an answer to a bashful young man who begged from one of our woman's periodicals help in overcoming the diffidence felt on entering a crowded room. The reply read: "Cultivate an easy, graceful manner." In like case I might hypothecate, "To go light, discard all ...
— The Forest • Stewart Edward White
... white-throated sparrows. The hospitable creatures seemed to be inviting me to come at once into their woods; but I knew only too well that, if the invitation were accepted, they would every one of them take to hiding like bashful children. ...
— Birds in the Bush • Bradford Torrey
... covered, held it out to the Princess. She, innocently supposing that the paper was held up to be looked at, attempted to read. This compelled Captain Jan to explain himself, whereupon she burst into a hearty fit of laughter, and, flinging away the paper, took the ungloved hand of the loyal but bashful miner. ...
— Personal Reminiscences in Book Making - and Some Short Stories • R.M. Ballantyne
... bashful about acceptin' the invitation, nor our starin' at him don't seem to get him a bit fussed. In fact, he's about the coolest appearin' member of our ...
— Wilt Thou Torchy • Sewell Ford
... officers of the ship for their partners were struck by their extraordinary taciturnity; for, with the exception of the young lieutenant who had visited the shore, not one of them spoke a word. Captain Dupin remarked that they were rough fellows, little accustomed to the society of ladies, and were too bashful to speak—though Miss Kathleen O'Rourke, one of the belles of the party, observed that they seemed anything but bashful from ...
— The Missing Ship - The Log of the "Ouzel" Galley • W. H. G. Kingston
... girl or two found her out, several lively old maids, as full of the romance of the past as ancient novels, a bashful boy, three or four invalids, and all the children, for Christie had a motherly heart and could find charms in the plainest, crossest ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott
... by a visit from the Miller Luck and his son. The son was a fine looking young man of three or four and twenty, who had about three years before married a farmer's daughter, and had lost her at the birth of her second child. There he stood, almost as bashful as Stead himself could have been under the circumstances, while his father paid the astonished Patience the compliment of declaring that they had put their heads together, and made up their minds that there was no wench in those parts ...
— Under the Storm - Steadfast's Charge • Charlotte M. Yonge
... have been found predicting by means of nails of the hand, and telling the disposition of persons with certain descriptions of nails. However absurd it may appear, we shall give examples of this superstition:—A person with broad nails is of gentle nature, timid, and bashful. Those whose nails grow into the flesh at the points or sides are given to luxury. A white mark on the nail bespeaks misfortune. Persons with very pale nails are subject to much infirmity of the flesh, and persecution by neighbours ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... little, and his florid face took on an added color. In his embarrassment he giggled like a bashful boy, and scraped one foot behind him in a ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... was a scented note upon the table; another day, in a bashful, girlish way, which accorded strangely with the young officer's great, manly aspect, there was a hint let fall; and before long Dick smiled to himself as he felt certain that he had been right in his guess as to the purpose for which the lessons ...
— The Queen's Scarlet - The Adventures and Misadventures of Sir Richard Frayne • George Manville Fenn
... they should have said, if they had been able to voice their sense of the gift which the gods were bestowing. But they were dumb humans, who threw pebbles at each other's toes, though in the deep places of their souls, far below the surface waves of bashful patter, heart might have spoken ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... this," resumed the Vrouw Grobelaar, after an expressionless glance at the two of us. "Christina was a wild fanciful girl, with an eye to every stranger that off- saddled at the farm, Katje; and she had barely a civil word to waste on a bashful Burgher. I can't say I ever saw much in her myself. She was a tall young woman, with a face that drew the eye, as it were; but she was restless and unquiet in her motions, and, to my mind, too thin and leggy. But men have no taste in these things; and if Christina ...
— Vrouw Grobelaar and Her Leading Cases - Seventeen Short Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... this she gather'd from the people's eyes: This too the women who attired her head, To please her, dwelling on his boundless love, Told Enid, and they sadden'd her the more: And day by day she thought to tell Geraint, But could not out of bashful delicacy; While he that watch'd her sadden, was the more Suspicious that her ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester
... and as it beamed on Rosamond very close to her, she felt something like bashful timidity before a superior, in the presence of this self-forgetful ardor. She said, with blushing embarrassment, "Thank you: you are ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... Elderkin house; and there were green garlands which Rose and Adele have plaited over the mantel, and over the stiff family portraits; and good Phil—in the character of Santa Claus—has stuffed the stockings of all the grandchildren, and—in the character of the bashful lover—has played like a moth about ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various
... and everything. But what does a civilian amount to? Just a dummy. [Silence] I wonder why it is that so many ladies sit down with their feet under their chairs. There's positively no difficulty in learning how! Although I was a little bashful before the teacher, I learned how to do it perfectly in twenty lessons. Why not learn how to dance? It's only a superstition not to. Here mamma sometimes gets angry because the teacher is always grabbing at my knees. All ...
— Plays • Alexander Ostrovsky
... what it cost her poor heart. She did not look back. Kalkreuth would have given years to take leave once more of the lovely face, to ask pardon for the hard, rude words he had dared to say. The princess had still the bashful timidity of virtue; after the confession she had made she dared not look upon him. The count controlled himself; he followed Saldow. He was bewildered, rapturously giddy. As he left the castle and entered his carriage he looked up at the window and said: "I will not ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... avoided, there being nothing more generally shocking than impudence. The medium between the two extremes marks out the well- bred man; he feels himself firm and easy in all companies; is modest without being bashful, and steady without being impudent; if he is a stranger, he observes with care the manners and ways of the people most esteemed at that place, and conforms to them ...
— Frost's Laws and By-Laws of American Society • Sarah Annie Frost
... Slim, a garter snake, Leaned against a garden rake And smiled a sentimental smile At Tilly Toad, on the gravel pile, Till that bashful miss was forced to hop And hide her face in ...
— The Peter Patter Book of Nursery Rhymes • Leroy F. Jackson
... twise or thrise, in which time the drab had gotten the purse and put it up. The Gentleman thinking it had been some merrie friend of his, reckoned the names of three or foure, when letting him go, the crafty knave dissembling a bashful shame of what he had done, said: By my troth sir I crie ye mercy, as I came in at the Church doore, I took ye for such a one (naming a man) a verie friend of mine, whome you very much resemble: I ...
— The Third And Last Part Of Conny-Catching. (1592) - With the new deuised knauish arte of Foole-taking • R. G.
... me she raised a hand to her face as, spitting a gout of blood, she smiled a sort of bashful smile. ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky
... I pity bashful men, who feel the pain Of fancied scorn, and undeserv'd disdain, And bear the marks upon a blushing face, Of needless shame, and self-impos'd disgrace. ...
— Handy Dictionary of Poetical Quotations • Various
... Sect. 40.—I am naturally bashful; nor hath conver- sation, age, or travel, been able to effront or enharden me; yet I have one part of modesty, which I have seldom discovered in another, that is (to speak truly), I am not so much afraid of death ...
— Religio Medici, Hydriotaphia, and the Letter to a Friend • Sir Thomas Browne
... answer; but when, with my fingers squeezed together a la Normande, he saw me make a gesture of grasping something, he could not prevent himself from smiling, with that bashful expression of Yes, which he had not courage to utter. The hypocrite had some shame about him, the shame of a devotee. I ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 381 Saturday, July 18, 1829 • Various
... in the tone of thoughtful soliloquy, he said, "Has Sir Charles Bassett no eyes? and are there women so furtive, so secret, or so bashful, they do ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade
... murmured, casting a bashful glance at Mrs. Marteen; then she added with simple gratefulness: "I'm glad you're friends." In her child's fashion she had looked ...
— Out of the Ashes • Ethel Watts Mumford |
