"Diffident" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... freedom, and sometimes a diffident stare Of shame scarcely seeming to know that she's there, There's virtue, the title it surely may claim, 15 Yet wants heaven knows what to be worthy ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. II. • William Wordsworth
... in that housewifely accomplishment. How easy it looks, as the fleecy web moves through her fingers, and winds in smooth, even yarn on the swiftly turning reel; and, oh, what bungling and botching when we essay that same! The two pretty, modest, and diffident daughters are quite overcome at last, and join in ...
— Over the Border: Acadia • Eliza Chase
... I read that particular book, sir," returned the mate, diligently thumbing his watch-key, "that I should be diffident about expressing an opinion. I think, however, a little Bible might do ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... said slowly, and with emphasis. "Moreover, Beth Norvell is my stage name, but in part it is my true name also." Suddenly she paused and glanced aside at him. "I have spoken with unusual frankness to you this morning, Mr. Winston. Most people, I imagine, find me diffident and uncommunicative—perhaps I appear according to my varying moods. But I have been lonely, and in some way you have inspired my confidence and unlocked my life. I believe you to be a man worthy of trust, and because I thus believe I am now going ...
— Beth Norvell - A Romance of the West • Randall Parrish
... minister's daughter. From early childhood they had seen and known each other at school, and between them had sprung up a warm childish friendship, apparently because their ways home lay along the same route. In such companionship the years sped; but Fred was a diffident boy, and he was seventeen and Elizabeth near the same before he began to feel those promptings which made him blushingly offer to carry her book for her as far as he went. She had hesitated, refused, and then assented, as is the manner of her sex and years. It had become a settled ...
— The Uncalled - A Novel • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... him. He seemed to be no longer on an equality with her. He was diffident, he was respectful. If this girl was a friend of Mr. Gay the distinguished poet and dramatist whose latest work, "The Fables," was being talked about at Button's, at Wills', at every coffee-house where the wits gathered, she must be somebody ...
— Madame Flirt - A Romance of 'The Beggar's Opera' • Charles E. Pearce
... even relieved. That uncertain, diffident smile hovered for a moment about his mouth. "I'd treat you right, that's sure," he said. "It's pretty hard for a fellow to get work. I just ...
— Roy Blakeley in the Haunted Camp • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... interests of India, but over the work of his department he had little chance of winning distinction. In fact his first prominent speech was on the Reform of Lunatic Asylums, not an easy subject for a new member to handle. He was diffident in manner and almost inaudible. Without the kindly encouragement of friends he might have despaired of future success; but his sincerity in the cause was worth more than many a brilliant speech. The Bill was carried, a new board was constituted, and ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore
... he could not associate with them to any degree of satisfaction. He never knew how to take them, never could rid himself of the idea that they were to be treated as ladies. They, on their part, did not like him; he was too diffident, too courteous, too "slow." They preferred the rough self-assertion and easy confidence of Geary, who never took "no" as an answer and who could chaff with them on their ...
— Vandover and the Brute • Frank Norris
... not search for other media of communication. Mental presence is either inspiring and assuring, or depressing and embarrassing. I have observed that when in the presence of some people I have felt comfortable and assured, while in the presence of others I have felt diffident and uneasy, I allude here to persons with whom I had no previous acquaintance. Minds are felt in a ratio proportionate to their will-power. Shallow, conceited minds are not magnetic. I have been told by blind preachers, public lecturers and concert singers, that they always feel the difference ...
— The World As I Have Found It - Sequel to Incidents in the Life of a Blind Girl • Mary L. Day Arms
... appear nor rash nor diffident; Immod'rate valour swells into a fault; And fear, admitted into public councils, Betrays like treason. Let us shun them both. Fathers, I cannot see that our affairs Are grown thus desp'rate: we have bulwarks round us; Within our ...
— Cato - A Tragedy, in Five Acts • Joseph Addison
... monosyllables; she withdrew into herself, went back into her shell. When this happened to her, she did not very quickly come out again; her face even assumed at such times an obstinate, almost stupid expression. She was not exactly shy, but diffident, and rather overawed by her sister, who had educated her, and who had no suspicion of the fact. Arkady was reduced at last to calling Fifi to him, and with an affable smile patting him on the head to give himself an ...
— Fathers and Children • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... be depended upon to meet all the varied conditions which arise in the practice of the day, but I have frequently employed a simple exercise which seems to 'coax' the hand into muscular activity in a very short time. It is so simple that I am diffident about suggesting it. However, elemental processes lead to large structures sometimes. The Egyptian pyramids were built ages before the age of steam and electricity, and scientists are still wondering how those massive stones were ever put ...
— Great Pianists on Piano Playing • James Francis Cooke
... out his hand as if with the intention of giving Done an approving pat on the shoulder, but the young man turned away abruptly, thrusting himself through the men, who had clustered around him muttering diffident compliments, and endeavouring to shake him by ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson
... stranger. Her father had moved to this place from a distant town, and she had walked to school that morning with a pupil who lived on the same street, but who had fluttered away into a little bevy of children almost as soon as she had shown the new girl the cloak-room; and Bernice, naturally a bit diffident and sensitive, felt ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... I have met with in the books of the Peripateticks, and the pretty experiments that have been shew'd me in the Laboratories of Chymists, I am of so diffident, or dull a Nature, as to think that if neither of them can bring more cogent arguments to evince the truth of their assertion then are wont to be brought; a Man may rationally enough retain some doubts concerning the very number ...
— The Sceptical Chymist • Robert Boyle
... religious art and in fiction. Their husbands must be models, worthy of their high ideals, and other women must have no blemish of any kind. Aileen, urgent, elemental, would have laughed at all this if she could have understood. Not understanding, she felt diffident and uncertain of herself in ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... attentions to his military duties, strict in the discipline of is officers as well as men, -and the first to lead the way in every decency and regularity. When to this I add that his conversation is sensible, and well bred, yet uncommonly diffident, and that but twenty-three summers have yet rolled over his head, so much good sense, forbearance, and propriety, in a situation so open to flattery, ambition, or vanity, obtained, as they merited, high ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay
... contrast to the latter, being taller, slighter, with a prettier, sweeter, and altogether more womanly face, as some people said. A stranger might have thought that she had less character too, but that was not the case. She suffered neither from weakness nor want of decision; but her manner was more diffident, and ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... mutilated saints Commend me to Fennimore Cooper to find beauty in the Indians Conceived a sort of unwarrantable unfriendliness Confer the rest of their disastrous patronage on some other firm Creator made Italy from designs by Michael Angelo! Cringing spirit of those great men Diffident young man, mild of moustache, affluent of hair Expression Felt that it was not right to steal grapes Fenimore Cooper Indians Filed away among the archives of Russia—in the stove For dismal scenery, I think ...
— Quotes and Images From The Works of Mark Twain • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)
... of a special diligence and a consideration wholly affectionate, just because there is not about them the stress of a great name and authority. Of this select number Botticelli is one; he has the freshness, the uncertain and diffident promise which belongs to the earlier Renaissance itself, and makes it perhaps the most interesting period in the history of the mind: in studying his work one begins to understand to how great a place in human culture the art of Italy had ...
— The Renaissance - Studies in Art and Poetry • Walter Pater
... expression, I am told (for I have not witnessed those scenes myself), and looked around at the people with an air of placid sufficiency which was the first hint to the world of the man's overweening, immeasurable conceit, hidden hitherto under a diffident manner. It could be seen too in his dogged assertion that if he had been given enough time and a lot more money everything would have come right. And there were some people (yes, amongst his very victims) who more than half believed him, even after the criminal prosecution ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... thousand Cavaliers, men of approved valour, who had staked their all on the result. With such an army a general of talent and enterprise might have replaced the king on his throne; but Hamilton, though possessed of personal courage, was diffident of his own powers, and resigned himself to the guidance of men who sacrificed the interests of the service to their private jealousies and feuds. Forty days were consumed in a short march of eighty miles; and when the ...
— The History of England from the First Invasion by the Romans - to the Accession of King George the Fifth - Volume 8 • John Lingard and Hilaire Belloc
... how great was his annoyance when Simmons came in again, very diffident, coughing behind his hand, and taking shelter in the shaded part of the room, with the hesitating statement that a lady—who would take no denial, who looked as if she knew the chambers as well as he did, and ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant
... Later that night Peter sat in his room, or rather, with half his body out of the window, puffing his pipe, and thinking how well he had gone through the day. He had not made a single slip. Nothing to groan over. "I'm getting more experienced," he thought, with the vanity noticeable in even the most diffident of collegians, never dreaming that everything that he had said or done in the last few hours, had been made easy for him by ...
— The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him • Paul Leicester Ford
... in Samarang roads, he had commenced that study of himself, of his own ways, of his own abilities, of those fate-compelling qualities of his which led him toward that lucrative position which he now filled. Being of a modest and diffident nature, his successes amazed, almost frightened him, and ended—as he got over the succeeding shocks of surprise—by making him ferociously conceited. He believed in his genius and in his knowledge of the ...
— An Outcast of the Islands • Joseph Conrad
... Nor was he disappointed. Madge's mind was not colorless, if her face was, and she gradually began to respond to his mirthfulness, and to take an interest, intelligent for a child, in what occupied his thoughts. Kindness creates an atmosphere in which the most sensitive and diffident natures develop and reveal themselves, and Madge Alden, who might easily have been chilled into a reticent and dispirited girl, eventually manifested an unusual versatility of fancy and thought, acquiring also no slight power ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe
... Childhood is diffident. Children for the most part are averse to the addressing themselves to strangers, unless in cases where, from the mere want of anticipation and reflection, they proceed as if they were wholly without ...
— Thoughts on Man - His Nature, Productions and Discoveries, Interspersed with - Some Particulars Respecting the Author • William Godwin
... various theories of electro-chemical decomposition, whilst it has made me diffident, has also given me confidence to add another to the number; for it is because the one I have to propose appears, after the most attentive consideration, to explain and agree with the immense collection of facts belonging to this branch ...
— Experimental Researches in Electricity, Volume 1 • Michael Faraday
... they slandered,—could not pardon the severe truth whereby she drew the sting from their spite. Indeed, how could so undisguised a censor but shock the prejudices of the moderate, and wound the sensibilities of the diffident; how but enrage the worshippers of new demi-gods in literature, art and fashion, whose pet shrines she demolished; how but cut to the quick, alike by silence or by speech, the self-love of the vain, whose claims she ignored? ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. II • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... striking appearance, though of a slighter figure, and not as tall as himself. He spoke of him as his particular friend, the Count Montifalcone, who was on his way with him to join those struggling for Grecian independence. His manners were elegant: but he appeared to be very bashful, or diffident; and, at all events, appeared very much disinclined to enter into conversation. The Greek, however, introduced his Italian friend to Miss Garden; and though, at first, he was very much reserved, as he gazed at her animated and lovely countenance, he appeared to gain courage, and warmly ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... and that he had never been at school before. The way in which his companions treated him put him in very good spirits, and he became sufficiently satisfied with himself and with everything around him. He felt that he could do a number of things, but he was diffident from not knowing of what value they might be considered by other boys. He had heard that some savages despised the purest pearls, while they set a high value on bits of glittering glass, and so he thought that some of his accomplishments might be very little thought of by other boys. ...
— Ernest Bracebridge - School Days • William H. G. Kingston
... really astonishing how Hiram's countenance had changed. How every trace of keen, shrewd apprehension had vanished, leaving only the appearance of a highly intelligent and interesting, but almost diffident youth! ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... them again, and that he might not know all at once; and when he had read a friend's letter for the second time, he sprang from his seat and cried, "Thank God! thank God! that I am so fortunate as to have such friends!" To his inwardly diffident nature these helps were a real requirement; they served to cheer him, and only those who did not know him called his joy at the reception of praise—conceit; it was, on the contrary, the truest modesty. How often did he sit there, and all that he had taught and ...
— Christian Gellert's Last Christmas - From "German Tales" Published by the American Publishers' Corporation • Berthold Auerbach
... you speak to her? A woman never thinks any better of a man for being diffident in ...
— Vera Nevill - Poor Wisdom's Chance • Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron
... sunstroke! Malati dwindles until her form resembles the moon in its last quarter; her face is as pale as the moon at morning dawn. Always both the lovers, though he be a king—as he generally is—and she a goddess, are diffident at first, fearing failure, even after the most unmistakable signs of fondness, in the betrayal of which the girls are anything but coy. All these symptoms the poets prescribe as regularly as a physician makes out a ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... the men that I know intimately,' said the archdeacon, 'Arabin is, in my opinion, the most free from any taint of self-conceit. His fault is that he's too diffident.' ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... for so long!" said Margaret. "Perhaps it is best, for it is very miserable when papa is sarcastic and sharp, and he cannot understand it, and takes it as meaning so much more than it really does, and grows all the more frightened and diffident. I cannot think what he would do ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... to soothe the terrors of Lady Margaret, and to reconcile the veteran Major to his opinion of Morton, Evandale, getting the better of that conscious shyness which renders an ingenuous youth diffident in approaching the object of his affections, drew near to Miss Bellenden, and accosted her in a tone ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... endeavoured to show that Mr. Crips was not a diffident man; he did not distress himself with scruples; fear of failure in an enterprise of this kind never worried him. He walked across the grand ball-room, swaggering in his rags, lifted his hat to a Watteau shepherdess who was laughing at him from a settee ...
— The Missing Link • Edward Dyson
... twelve years of age to swear fealty in their respective wardmotes; and by proclamation commanded the knights of the several counties to attend the next parliament in arms. The barons immediately assembled their retainers, and marched to the neighborhood of the capital; but each party, diffident of its strength, betrayed an unwillingness to begin hostilities; and it was unanimously agreed to postpone the discussion of their differences till the return of Prince Edward, who was in France displaying his ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various
... impressions,'' dictated by Dr. Bronner, state that at first we found Emma very quiet and diffident, possibly somewhat shy and timid. At best she did not talk freely, only in monosyllables as a rule. She appears rather nervous. She says she thinks of lots of things she does not speak of. Emma smiles in friendly enough fashion, and ...
— Pathology of Lying, Etc. • William and Mary Healy
... understood for quite a long time that young George was getting to dislike me more and more. Somehow, I've never been able to get his friendship; he's always had a latent distrust of me—or something like distrust—and perhaps that's made me sometimes a little awkward and diffident with him. I think it may be he felt from the first that I cared a great deal about you, and he naturally resented it. I think perhaps he felt this even during all the time when I was so careful—at least I thought I was—not ...
— The Magnificent Ambersons • Booth Tarkington
... around and saying to me: 'I'm a poor married man, but you can't notice the scar,' or something like that?" The agent was plainly interested and desirous of rendering any assistance possible, and also rather diffident about discussing so delicate a matter with a ...
— The Uphill Climb • B. M. Bower
... up in the sea, than this monstrous system of iniquity be carried on.[A]" While such conversation was passing, and when all appeared to be interested in the cause, Mr. Langton put the question, about the proposal of which I had been so diffident, to Mr. Wilberforce, in the shape of a delicate compliment. The latter replied, that he had no objection to bring forward the measure in parliament when he was better prepared for it, and provided no person more proper could be found. Upon this, Mr. Hawkins ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson
... criticism, was dismissed. Miss Pillbody was pronounced "a little proud," because she stood straight, with shoulders thrown back, which was her usual attitude. Miss Trapper was admitted to be a very modest and diffident creature, because she had a slight stoop in the back, ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... her, as Lilly's new nurse. She looked so kind and gracious, I thought I should have sunk at her feet, to beg her to bless her child. I could not speak, and papa apologized for me by saying that I was very diffident, but that Lilly seemed to take to me, and he hoped I would do well; and then she smiled on me, and I took that ...
— Stories of Many Lands • Grace Greenwood
... sugar he rolled out of the door with a half-diffident, half-inviting look in his eye, as if he expected me to follow. I did so, but the sniffing and snorting of the keen-scented Pomposo [Footnote: Pomposo: the writer's horse.] in the hollow, not only revealed ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... who was full of self-importance about his acquaintance with the Union leaders of Illinois, Grant wrote to the Adjutant-General at Washington offering to command a regiment. Like Sherman, he felt much more diffident about the rise from ex-captain of regulars to colonel commanding a battalion than some mere civilians felt about commanding brigades or directing the strategy of armies. He has himself recorded his horror of ...
— Captains of the Civil War - A Chronicle of the Blue and the Gray, Volume 31, The - Chronicles Of America Series • William Wood
... literature and language. He edited a collection of ballads, Little & Brown's edition of the British Poets, and was a thorough student of Shakespeare and Chaucer. To the elucidation of the text of Chaucer he made some admirable contributions. He was shy and diffident, full of kindness toward persons whom he knew and to children, and of sympathy with persons who were in sorrow, but whimsical, grotesque, and apt to take strong prejudices against persons whom he did not know. I suppose some of the best of our American men of letters of late years would ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... do?" he greeted his colleague in a slightly diffident tone. "Am I to understand that ... may I ask if I am intruding, or..." and he broke off, obviously uncertain as to ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell
... for a certain modern style of poetry in my companion, I bethought me of a poem which I had written on the roadside a few days before, and which, I confess, I was eager to confide to some sympathetic ear. I was diffident of quoting it after such lines as Rosalind had recalled, but by the time we had reached our coffee, I plucked up courage to mention it. I had, however, the less diffidence in that it would have a technical interest for her, being indeed no other than a song of cycling ...
— The Quest of the Golden Girl • Richard le Gallienne
... not as a rule very precocious—they are often shy, awkward, absent-minded. Genius is often strangely like stupidity in its early stages. The stupid boy escapes notice because he is stupid. The genius escapes notice because he is diffident, and ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson
... to Allan who is now on his way for many an hour. As he made his way, he marveled that he should have had notice brought upon himself, for he was young and diffident and should by every token have escaped attention in these his first days at court. How would his heart have grown tumultuous had he known that none other than Arthur himself had made him choice. But that he was not to ...
— In the Court of King Arthur • Samuel Lowe
... and religion. Being frequently told that women did not wish to vote, I adopted the plan of calling for a rising vote at the close of my lectures, and on all occasions a majority of the women would promptly rise. Knowing that the men had the responsibility of voting before their eyes, and might be diffident about rising, I reversed the manner of expression in their case, requesting all those in favor of woman suffrage to keep their seats, and those opposed to rise up, thus throwing the onerous duty of changing their attitudes on the opposition. So few arose under such circumstances ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... flows swiftly over a stony bed. Day and night one's ears are filled with the music of the rushing waters hastening impetuously to the distant sea as though eager to lose themselves in its infinite embrace. One evening the guests at the hotel arranged a concert, and to our surprise—for we knew how diffident he was—Paul, evidently moved by the genius loci, volunteered to take part in it. When the time came he advanced to the piano through the crowded room and, with an elbow resting on the instrument, astonished the audience by a few explanatory words. He said ...
— War Letters of a Public-School Boy • Henry Paul Mainwaring Jones
... to his diffident nature, Malcolm walked to the other end of Addison's Walk; then something seemed to drag at him, and he retraced his steps slowly and reluctantly; finally, as though constrained by some unseen power that overmastered his reserve, he sat down on the bench ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... a most pleasing trait about His Excellency, and one which in happier times should have endeared him even to people who have small use for earls. He could make the young or diffident man feel more at home than could the democratic and autocracy-hating Andrew Lewis. Nor was it any affectation; for we were soon to learn he could keep up with hardy borderers on long forest marches, and at that, proceed afoot and carry his own blanket and equipment ...
— A Virginia Scout • Hugh Pendexter
... sufficiently from his soul-shaking plunge to follow her lead. Inarticulate, distrusting his newly found supreme happiness, he must needs stay out of those enchanted waters or plunge again. And he was afraid to plunge—diffident, still deeming himself unworthy of the miracle of this wonder-girl's love—even though every fiber of his being shrieked its demand to feel again that slender body in his clasping arms. He did not consciously think those thoughts. He acted them without ...
— Triplanetary • Edward Elmer Smith
... great Punch table. He himself described the glamour Thackeray's name possessed for him, inspiring him as he climbed out of the despair that followed the sudden partial deprivation of his sight. The only time he met his master he was too diffident to accept an invitation to be introduced. Thackeray seemed so great. But all that evening he remained as close to him as possible, greedily listening to his words. Like Thackeray, du Maurier thought that the finest thing in the world ...
— George Du Maurier, the Satirist of the Victorians • T. Martin Wood
... The broad, stooping shoulders, and grizzled head, of a man past the middle age, appeared: after a moment's hesitation, a pair of large, diffident feet, shod with canvas slippers, concluded to follow. When the apparition was complete, it closed the door softly, and stood there,—a very shy ghost indeed,—with apparently more than the usual spiritual indisposition to begin a conversation. The "Rose" resented this impatiently, ...
— Tales of the Argonauts • Bret Harte
... faithful and unaffected direct study of nature in large studies carefully finished on the spot, though never carried to the elaboration of later and younger painters. But he was so restrained by an excess of humility as to his own work, and so justly diffident of his knowledge of technique, that he could not bring himself to accept a pupil, and I finally applied to F.E. Church, a young painter, pupil of Cole, and for many years after the leading landscape painter of the ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James
... lieth at his length, is overcome by adversity; while he that is active and skillful is sure to reap success and enjoy prosperity. Intelligent persons engaged in acts with confidence in themselves regard all who are diffident as doubting and unsuccessful. The confident and faithful, however, are regarded by them as successful. And this moment misery hath overtaken us. If, however, thou betakest to action, that misery will certainly be removed. If thou meetest failure, then that will furnish a proof unto thee ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... seen us all—that is still seeing some of us—unwillingly dragged, and painfully goaded up the steep slopes of book-learning. Outside, the March wind is roughly hustling the dry, brown trees and pinching the diffident green shoots, while the round and rayless sun of late afternoon is staring, from behind the elm-twigs in at the long maps on the wall, in at the high chairs—tall of back, cruelly tiny of seat, off whose rungs we have kicked all the paint—in at the green baize table, ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... that Jane submitted to it as the best possible under the circumstances, though she feared that Mrs. Phillips would show to Elsie the caprice and bad temper which she dared not show to herself. And in this she was not mistaken; for Elsie was so yielding and so diffident, that her new mistress exercised a great deal of real tyranny over her, varied by fitful acts of liberality and kindness. Peggy Walker opened her eyes very wide when she heard of both the young ladies, whom she had been accustomed to ...
— Mr. Hogarth's Will • Catherine Helen Spence
... diffident about running up close to a wounded bear, for Tom had told us it would fight when it got down. Nevertheless, we nocked an arrow again, and just as he reached the ground we were close by to receive him. We delivered two glancing ...
— Hunting with the Bow and Arrow • Saxton Pope
... interest in the business at all: they do not count. The sympathy of a mother may be reckoned on, but not her judgement, for she is either wildly favourable, or, mistrusting her own tendencies, is more diffident than need be. The most that relations can do for the end before us is to worry, interrupt, deride, and tease the literary member of the family. They seldom fail in these duties, and not even success, ...
— How to Fail in Literature • Andrew Lang
... sat in an easy-chair near the window, doing nothing, when I marched in to begin the siege. I felt diffident and uneasy, although I am not usually troubled that way. But if I should live to the advanced age of Methusaleh, I could never forget Mrs. Pinkerton's appearance on that memorable occasion. Before I had spoken a word I saw that she knew what ...
— That Mother-in-Law of Mine • Anonymous
... once; from all that I had heard of Mr. Hawthorne's shyness, I thought it doubtful if he would call, and I was therefore very much pleased when his card was sent in this morning. Mr. Hawthorne was more chatty than I had expected, but not any more diffident. He remained about five minutes, during which time he took his hat from the table and put it back once a minute, brushing it each time. The engravings in the books are much like him. He is not handsome, but looks as the author of his books should ...
— Maria Mitchell: Life, Letters, and Journals • Maria Mitchell
... an open declaration against France, that it is not easy to account for the different line which he pursues; it must, however, be attributed to the influence of the very weak persons who are in familiar confidence with him, and to his being too diffident in himself to decide upon the important measure of engaging Prussia in war. I am, however, inclined to believe that such will at last be his decision, though there is too much hesitation in his own mind to give us any solid ground of reliance ...
— Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, Volume 2 (of 2) - From the Original Family Documents • The Duke of Buckingham
... Plato said, it was allowable in Physicians to lie to their Patients to keep up their Spirits, I am half doubtful whether my Friends Behaviour is not as excusable. His Manner is to express himself surprised at the Chearful Countenance of a Man whom he observes diffident of himself; and generally by that means makes his Lie a Truth. He will, as if he did not know any [thing] [2] of the Circumstance, ask one whom he knows at Variance with another, what is the meaning that Mr. such a one, naming his Adversary, ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... that untoward things happen. My sister gave a "candy-pull" on a winter's night. I was too young to be of the company, and Jim was too diffident. I was sent up to bed early, and Jim followed of his own motion. His room was in the new part of the house, and his window looked out on the roof of the L annex. That roof was six inches deep in snow, and the snow ...
— Chapters from My Autobiography • Mark Twain
... intercourse, he was not, personally, in a word, what is called sociable. The general impression of this silence-loving and shade-seeking side of his character is doubtless exaggerated, and, in so far as it points to him as a sombre and sinister figure, is almost ludicrously at fault. He was silent, diffident, more inclined to hesitate, to watch and wait and meditate, than to produce himself, and fonder, on almost any occasion, of being absent than of being present. This quality betrays itself in all his writings. ...
— Hawthorne - (English Men of Letters Series) • Henry James, Junr.
... achievement or restrain from unworthy acts. A school in which the standards of preparation and recitation are low presents a difficult problem for the teacher in the recitation. In some schools pupils who are diffident about reciting, or who do not care to take the trouble, shake their heads in refusal almost before they hear the question in full. Others sit in stolid silence when called upon, and make no response of any kind. In still other cases the class smile or giggle when several ...
— The Recitation • George Herbert Betts
... of sound hard sense—and thought, 'can this be the Wit?' How few years is it since Henry Cockburn, hating London, and coming but rarely to what he called the 'devil's drawing room,' stood near him, yet apart, for he was the most diffident of men; his wonderful luminous eyes, his clear, almost youthful, vivid complexion, contrasting brightly with the gray, pallid, prebendal complexion of Sydney? how short a time since Francis Jeffery, the smallest of great men, a beau in ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton
... ambitious mother, would be absolutely incredible to a man bred up in such schools. They are often utterly unable to act, think, or speak for themselves. If they happen, as they sometimes do, to get well informed in reading and conversation, they remain, Hamlet-like, nervous and diffident; and, however speculatively or ruminatively wise, quite unfit for action, or for performing their part in the ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... have heard Mozart in Vienna, as before remarked. Still, the delicacy of Sterkel's style may well have been a new revelation to him of the powers of the instrument. Upon leaving the piano-forte, the master invited his young visitor to take his place. Beethoven was naturally diffident, and was not to be prevailed with, until Sterkel intimated a doubt whether he could play his own very difficult variations upon the air, "Vieni, Amore," which had then just been published. Thus touched ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 7, May, 1858 • Various
... to resist such appeals from such a person, even at three o'clock in the morning; and diffident, but determined, he then entered into what was, perhaps, the most remarkable portion of his speech—an investigation of what was the real position of the country with respect to the supply of food in the past autumn and at the present moment. Having shown from the trade circulars that, ...
— Lord George Bentinck - A Political Biography • Benjamin Disraeli
... superfluous, that does make some difference. It proves that a widely preached scientific conclusion may be as spectral as Bathybius. On other more important points, therefore, we may differ from the newest scientific opinion without too much diffident apprehensiveness. ...
— The Making of Religion • Andrew Lang
... to this general rule is the child of my first cousin, Little Frank. I have a particular affection for that child, and he takes very kindly to me. He is a diffident boy by nature; and in a crowd he is soon run over, as I may say, and forgotten. He and I, however, get on exceedingly well. I have a fancy that the poor child will in time succeed to my peculiar position in the family. We talk but little; still, we understand each other. We walk about, hand ...
— Some Christmas Stories • Charles Dickens
... freed him from his chains, conducted him to that place, and commanded him to put on the king's robe and diadem, and to sit where they found him, and to say nothing. Alexander, when he heard this, by the direction of his soothsayers, put the fellow to death, but he lost his spirits, and grew diffident of the protection and assistance of the gods, and suspicious of his friends. His greatest apprehension was of Antipater and his sons, one of whom, Iolaus, was his chief cupbearer; and Cassander, who had ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... must be admitted that the vogue of Thorwaldsen owed much to the remarkable social qualities of the man. His handsome face and fine form were supplemented by a manner most gentle and winning; and whether his half-diffident ways and habit of reticence were natural or the triumph of art was a vexing ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... stern, full bosomed, wet eyed, held out her one little present to her girl, her ewe lamb, whom she was now surrendering. But no hand of the bride was extended for the bride's bouquet. The voice of the bride was not low and diffident, ...
— The Covered Wagon • Emerson Hough
... freedom! Dost Thou see these stones in the desolate and glaring wilderness? Command that these stones be made bread—and mankind will run after Thee, obedient and grateful like a herd of cattle. But even then it will be ever diffident and trembling, lest Thou should take away Thy hand, and they lose thereby their bread! Thou didst refuse to accept the offer for fear of depriving men of their free choice; for where is there freedom of choice where men are bribed with bread? Man ...
— "The Grand Inquisitor" by Feodor Dostoevsky • Feodor Dostoevsky
... had attended Wolsey's policy during his seven years' tenure of power, and the influential position to which he had raised England in the councils of Christendom, might well have disturbed the mental balance of a more modest and diffident man than the Cardinal; and it is scarcely surprising that he fancied himself, and sought to become, arbiter of the destinies of Europe. The condition of continental politics made his ambition seem less than extravagant. Power was almost monopolised by two young princes ...
— Henry VIII. • A. F. Pollard
... he had time. If he was in love with Rose Tramore this was distracting to him only in the same sense as his religion, and it was included in that department of his extremely sub-divided life. His religion indeed was of an encroaching, annexing sort. Seen from in front he looked diffident and blank, but he was capable of exposing himself in a way (to speak only of the paths of peace) wholly inconsistent with shyness. He had a passion for instance for open-air speaking, but was not thought on the whole to excel in it unless he could ...
— The Chaperon • Henry James
... did recall it for the moment, and cast a diffident conjecture as to whether Daisy also remembered. Who shall say? I have been young and now am old, yet have I not learned the trick of reading a woman's mind. Very far indeed was I from it in those ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... you inquire?" said the soft, sweet voice, not without a tremulousness of accent, as if the question was put with diffident reluctance. ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... beat, the horses champed. The street was full too, chiefly of peasants, but among them myriad resolute American virgins, in motor veils, whom nothing can ever surprise; a few American men, sceptical, as ever, of anything ever happening; here and there a diffident Englishwoman and Englishman, more in the background, but destined in the end to see all. But what I chiefly noticed was the native girls, with their proud bosoms carried high and nothing on their heads. They at any rate know their own future. ...
— A Wanderer in Florence • E. V. Lucas
... only nineteen years old at the period of her marriage. Her hair was blond, her eyes blue and expressive, her carriage noble, and her figure striking, while her hand and foot might have served as models; in fact, her whole person breathed youth, health, and freshness. She was diffident, and maintained a haughty reserve towards the court; but she was said to be affectionate and friendly in private life, and one fact I can assert positively is that she was very affectionate toward the Emperor, and submissive to his will. In their first interview ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... content to let Bobbie monopolize the conversation, which was unusual, for Justin liked to be the center of things. He had always been the center of things, and he was not diffident, as a rule, ...
— Glory of Youth • Temple Bailey
... know was: Whether it was right to wear an extra handkerchief showing out of the coat breast pocket or not, and, if it was right—ought the handkerchief to have a coloured border or to be plain white? But he had never before brought any such perplexities to his father, and found himself too diffident ...
— Ramsey Milholland • Booth Tarkington
... hand should be annexed to pass his credit for him that now he might be safely read; it could not be apprehended less than a disgraceful punishment. Whence to include the whole nation, and those that never yet thus offended, under such a diffident and suspectful prohibition, may plainly be understood what a disparagement it is. So much the more, whenas debtors and delinquents may walk abroad without a keeper, but unoffensive books must not stir forth without a visible jailer in ...
— Areopagitica - A Speech For The Liberty Of Unlicensed Printing To The - Parliament Of England • John Milton
... with its neatness and tenderness, as well as equally convinced of the necessity of asking the performer first to wash his hands and then to eat his breakfast, both which kind proposals he accepted with diffident gratitude, first casting a glance around the apartment, which, though he said nothing, conveyed that he was profoundly struck with the tokens of occupation that it contained. The breakfast was, in the first place, ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... cause, that it was undoubtedly wise in me to select as a partner one who, while her benevolent feelings were in union with mine, was less immediately and entirely connected with it. I knew she was naturally diffident, and distrustful of her own ability to do all that her heart might prompt. She is one of those who prefer to toil unseen—to give by stealth—and to sacrifice in seclusion. By her unwearied attention to my wants, her sympathetic regards, her perfect ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke
... not until we had tied up for the night, had had beer at the Shovel, and (Nuppie and Albert being safely asleep in the second cabin) had met at supper that my instructions had been fully grasped. Thomas himself was inclined to be diffident, and had it not been for Ada would, I think, have let my offer slide. She was enthusiastic. It was she who told me of the cottage they had at Fenny Stratford, which they used as headquarters whilst waiting for ...
— Not George Washington - An Autobiographical Novel • P. G. Wodehouse
... strength of Detroit. Lieut.-Colonel—— preceded him by some days, but in such state of mind that forbids my placing any dependance in his exertions. When I first mentioned my intention of sending him to Amherstburg, he seemed diffident of his abilities, but pleased at the distinction. However, when he received his final instructions, his conduct in the presence of some officers was so very improper, and otherwise so childish, that I have since written to say, ...
— The Life and Correspondence of Sir Isaac Brock • Ferdinand Brock Tupper
... professionally if not in private life. Some of them were amazingly patronising and self-possessed, and these did not ask Cicely to dance again. She felt, when they returned her to her mother, that she had not been a success with them. Others were boyish and diffident, and with them she got on pretty well. With one, a modest child of nineteen or so with a high-sounding title, she was almost maternally friendly, and he seemed to cling to her as a refuge from a new and bewildering world. They ate ices together—he told ...
— The Squire's Daughter - Being the First Book in the Chronicles of the Clintons • Archibald Marshall
... bag on his shoulders, found the doorway blocked by these two. He hesitated with a diffident charming smile, feeling, as he often did in front of his father, that he ought to apologise for his existence, and yet fiercely calling himself an ass for such a sentiment. Darius Clayhanger nodded at him carelessly, but not without a surprising benevolence, ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... reasons—as if we had got into a mess here. You are rather a disturbing clement, dear Howard! I may speak plainly to you now, mayn't I? I think you have more effect on people than you know. You have upset us! I am not criticising you, because you have exceeded all my hopes. But you are too diffident, and you don't realise your power of sympathy. You are very observant, very quick to catch the drift of people's moods, and you are not at all formidable. You are so much interested in people that you lead them to reveal themselves and to betray themselves; and they don't find ...
— Watersprings • Arthur Christopher Benson
... years past, though seemingly never grown older (as the speaker reflects), singing his way meagrely from farm to farm, to the sound of [152] his harp. His name?—It was scarcely a name at all, in the diffident syllables he uttered in answer to that question, on first coming there; but of names known to them it came nearest to a malignant one in Scripture, Apollyon. Apollyon had a just discernible tonsure, but probably no right ...
— Miscellaneous Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... think he's conceited," Mary went on, warming up to the never-ending pleasure of analysis, "but it's because he's really diffident. Lots of people I know who people think are ...
— Tutors' Lane • Wilmarth Lewis
... a rebuff, Patty felt very diffident about mentioning the matter to the remaining members of the class. She had no wish to be considered self-righteous and interfering, but, all the same, she thought she was bound to try and use her influence to set straight what was certainly a doubtful practice, and she meant ...
— The Nicest Girl in the School - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... (nobler, for instance, on the scale of capacity for doing and suffering) never rose to a sentiment of respect for the ordinary Grecian. The Romans viewed him as essentially framed for ministerial offices. Am I sick? Come, Greek, and cure me. Am I weary? Amuse me. Am I diffident of power to succeed? Cheer me with flattery. Am I issuing from a bath? ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. II (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... known one. He was a lad of genius—drew truthfully, had a nice sense of the beautiful, and possessed the true poetic faculty; but he lacked health and spirits, and was naturally of a melancholy temperament, and diffident of himself. He was at this time a thin, pale lad, fair-haired, with a clear waxen complexion, flat chest, and stooping figure; and though he lasted considerably longer than could have been anticipated from ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... Only a working girl, plain in appearance and in dress, diffident and self-effacing. "But," says one whom she used to take down as a boy to the mission and place beside her as she taught, "she possessed something we could not grasp, something indefinable." It was the glow of the spirit of Christ which lit up her inner life and shone in her face, and which, ...
— Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary • W. P. Livingstone
... formalism, due to her training, that are really refreshing to elderly people, and sit quaintly upon her. She is charming, both when her natural vivacity crops out, that has been so repressed, and when she is shyly diffident. Cards and invitations are left for her, and Grandon Park blossoms out into unwonted gayety. The people who go away find no difficulty in renting their houses to those who want to come; perhaps the Latimers have given the impetus, for Mrs. Latimer is one of those women who are always ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... even know which side of the river to go to, nor where to begin his search. He was wistful for human companionship, but as he looked at the distant shanty-boats, and passed a river town or two, he found himself diffident and shamed. ...
— The River Prophet • Raymond S. Spears
... polishing away one morning, he suddenly became conscious that she was approaching. It seemed that she was looking directly at him, and was about to speak. His heart thumped like a trip-hammer, his cheeks burned, and a blur came over his eyes, for he was diffident in ladies' presence. Therefore he stood before her the picture of confusion, with a big boot poised in one hand, and the polishing-brush in the other. With the instincts of a gentleman, however, he made an awkward bow, feeling, though, ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
... on my door at the hotel and, without waiting to be bidden, thrust in his great, red, bristling, monstrously scarred head. 'Twas an intrusion most diffident and fearful: he was like a mischievous ...
— The Cruise of the Shining Light • Norman Duncan
... since I have been in this house. I certainly have not been able to do myself justice. Whenever I have undertaken to advise, I have had the tables turned upon me. It must be that I am strange and diffident among people I am not accustomed to. I wish they could hear ...
— The Crayon Papers • Washington Irving
... It's a little difficult for me to tell you about these things, you know. I understand that the book must have meant a great deal to you, and so I am naturally diffident. But if you will pardon my saying so, it seems to me that the book—it is obviously, of course, the work of a young man—it is very emotional, it strives to very high altitudes. I will not say that it is exaggerated, but—the last part particularly—it seems to me that you are ...
— The Journal of Arthur Stirling - "The Valley of the Shadow" • Upton Sinclair
... the same age—between seventeen and eighteen. Emily was fair and pretty, girlish and diffident—blue eyes and light hair. Laura had a proud bearing, and a somewhat mature look; she had fine, clean-cut features, her complexion was pure white and contrasted vividly with her black hair and eyes; she was not what one calls pretty —she was ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 1. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... Building he ventured a diffident greeting to the elevator boy, whom he remembered. The boy looked at him quizzically and nodded with customary aloofness. Graydon found himself hoping that he would not meet Bobby Rigby. He also wondered, as the car shot up, how his father ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... intimate though less fantastic relation with the Medhursts. And, moreover, he was in love with a beautiful and talented girl, who, he modestly felt, had a great esteem for him—though any other eyes than those of the diffident lover would have seen at a glance that she loved him ...
— Cleo The Magnificent - The Muse of the Real • Louis Zangwill
... was a diffident man and slow to offer his own opinions, not because they were unsettled, but too sincere and earnest to be lightly spoken. As he glanced from Jo to several other young people, attracted by the brilliancy of the philosophic pyrotechnics, he knit his brows and longed to speak, fearing that some ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... of the seance, "it has given me a lesson with respect to the worthlessness of evidence which I shall always remember, and besides will make me very diffident in trusting myself. Unless I had seen it, I could not have believed in the evidence of any one with such perfect bona fides as Mr. Y ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley
... me, most venerable Father, repos'd upon a rosy-colour'd silver Sopha, where you shall use your Pleasure with your humble Servant. With that she made him a low Courtesy; took up Zadig's general Release as soon as duely sign'd, and left the old Doatard all over Love, tho' somewhat diffident of his own Abilities. The Residue of the Day he spent in his Bagnio; he drank large enlivening Draughts of a Water distill'd from the Cinnamon of Ceilan, and the costly Spices of Tidor and Ternate, and waited with the utmost Impatience for the up-rising ...
— Zadig - Or, The Book of Fate • Voltaire
... to be an incredibly old couple, brown and withered and gray of locks, shrunken in stature, slow and feeble in action, and even rather timid themselves in their greetings. They made much of this grandchild, but they were diffident. Slowly it came to his knowledge that he was set up as a creature to adore. He enjoyed a blissful new sensation of being deferred to. Thereafter he lorded it over them, speaking in confident tones and making wild demands of entertainment. His mother had been right. They were Beans and, therefore, ...
— Bunker Bean • Harry Leon Wilson
... if there were no disconsolate widow pining away her desolate being for him. The boarders recognize the fact, and they enjoy the fun, and flatter her into the belief that the bachelor is willin', but too diffident to propose, and they tell her that she must not be shy—that she can reveal the state of her feelings in a delicate way—and, when they have every thing in a right train, they withdraw from the little parlor, ...
— The Elm Tree Tales • F. Irene Burge Smith
... Marjorie came over to Ruth's on Wednesday evening, Harold found the girl to be just as he had expected: rather quiet and diffident, even pretty, but not striking-looking; and he made no attempt to become intimate with her. After they had tired of playing cards, whenever Jack and Ruth saw fit to dance together, he offered to do likewise with Marjorie, as a mere matter of form. But ...
— The Girl Scouts' Good Turn • Edith Lavell
... Castleford's messenger had reached London! He might call himself a poor creature—and certainly a man of harder, bolder stuff would not have fared so badly in the strife; but it always seemed to me in after years that much of what he called the poor creature—the old, nervous, timid, diffident self—had been shaken off in that desperate struggle, perhaps because it had really given him more self-reliance, and certainly inspired others with ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge
... [to whom it was referred to publish the Whole in such a Way as he should think would be most acceptable to the Public] was so diffident in relation to this Article of Length, that he thought proper to submit the Letters to the Perusal of several judicious Friends; whose Opinion he desired of what might be ...
— Clarissa: Preface, Hints of Prefaces, and Postscript • Samuel Richardson
... by possession, and disgusted with the art and dissimulation of one, he beheld the simplicity and gentleness of the other, the contrast became too striking not to fill him at once with surprise and admiration. He frequently conversed with Charlotte; he found her sensible, well informed, but diffident and unassuming. The languor which the fatigue of her body and perturbation of her mind spread over her delicate features, served only in his opinion to render her more lovely: he knew that Montraville did not design to marry her, and he formed a resolution to endeavour to gain her himself ...
— Charlotte Temple • Susanna Rowson
... that evening there, to be so with my Cousin Dolly; for each of us knew, and that the other knew that too, that matters were advanced with us, since we had been through peril together. It was strange how diffident we both were, and how we could not meet one another's eyes; and yet I was aware that she would have it otherwise if she could, and strove to be natural. We had music again that night, and Dolly and her maid sang the ...
— Oddsfish! • Robert Hugh Benson
... just now with two spectacles, which may help us to take modest and diffident views of the progress of the species.... At home there is an utterly unreasonable and unaccountable financial panic among the depositors in the Birkbeck Bank, while in America the free and enlightened democracy of a portion of New York State has ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, Sep. 24, 1892 • Various
... look she flung toward him was shy and diffident. She had loved him then. She loved him now. Somehow he was infinitely nearer to her than he ...
— The Highgrader • William MacLeod Raine
... allow any sign of defiance to show. He would go through the motions as if he were a bad little boy who had realized his errors. It was a meek-and-mild act that had paid off more than once in Ross's checkered past. So he faced the man seated behind the desk in the other room with an uncertain, diffident smile, standing with boyish awkwardness, respectfully waiting for ...
— The Time Traders • Andre Norton
... showed the most marked graciousness for this prince. The effects of this, and of the change that had taken place in his state, were soon most clearly visible in the Dauphin. Instead of being timid and retiring, diffident in speech, and more fond of his study than of the salon, he became on a sudden easy and frank, showing himself in public on all occasions, conversing right and left in a gay, agreeable, and dignified manner; presiding, in fact, over the Salon of Marly, ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... he talked, the more did Garret revolt against the idea of presenting himself to Master Dalaber in Dorsetshire under a false name and in false colours. He could not believe that this could be pleasing to God, and he saw that the old shepherd, though diffident of speech, was of ...
— For the Faith • Evelyn Everett-Green
... 1285). He executed them in a few months, being endowed by nature with remarkable readiness and certainty of hand and unhesitating firmness in his work, although in the general mould of his mind he was timid and diffident. The subjects are the saint sharing his cloak with a leper, cursing some gamblers, and restoring a girl possessed with a devil. The second and third works excel the first, and are impulsive and ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... is noisy and boisterous; truth is meek—error is proud and self-sufficient; truth is modest—error is bold and forward; truth is diffident—error is confident and assuming; truth is resigned to the will of God—error is self-willed. To arrive at the truth is not the design of such persons. It is not their eternal interests, nor those of their fellow creatures that stimulate them to effort. They read the Scriptures, not ...
— A Review of Uncle Tom's Cabin - or, An Essay on Slavery • A. Woodward
... woman, man is by nature a diffident animal. The women who recognize this are often ...
— Hints for Lovers • Arnold Haultain
... room, old voyagers were settling down comfortably while new voyagers were regarding them with a diffident respect. Among the passengers Coleman found a number of people whom he knew, including a wholesale wine merchant, a Chicago railway magnate and a New York millionaire. They lived practically in the smoking ...
— Active Service • Stephen Crane
... me to here declare that I am not, in the usual sense, peculiar, nor was I different in my childhood from other children, save as each differs from the other. I was very diffident, and—not using the word in the psychical sense—sensitive. I was not given to morbid states or to the "dreaming of dreams." Perhaps I was imaginative; most children are; and I loved fairy tales, but ...
— The Arena - Volume 18, No. 92, July, 1897 • Various
... the Middle Temple, to which he had migrated from Lincoln's Inn. During his first years at the chancery bar, Cairns showed little promise of the eloquence which afterwards distinguished him. Never a rapid speaker, he was then so slow and diffident, that he feared that this defect might interfere with his legal career. Fortunately he was soon able to rid himself of the idea that he was only fit for practice as a conveyancer. In 1852 he entered parliament as member for ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... dissensions to occasion you alarm, but to remind you of their causes; to show that as you doubtless are aware of them, we also keep them in view, and to remind you that their results ought not to make you diffident of your power to repress the disorders of the present time. The ancient families possessed so much influence, and were held in such high esteem, that civil force was insufficient to restrain them; but now, ...
— History Of Florence And Of The Affairs Of Italy - From The Earliest Times To The Death Of Lorenzo The Magnificent • Niccolo Machiavelli
... for a moment. "In that case he will in all probability do it; but I don't think you need feel diffident about meeting him, especially as you can't help it. He'll wait and say nothing until he considers ...
— Masters of the Wheat-Lands • Harold Bindloss
... song expires Pervades a moment those who listen round; And then of course the circle much admires, Nor less applauds, as in politeness bound, The tones, the feeling, and the execution, To the performer's diffident confusion. ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... conversation and formed for society, was too diffident to attempt speaking where so little encouraged; they both, therefore, continued silent, till Sir Robert Floyer, Mr Harrel, and Mr Arnott entered the room together, and all at the same time ...
— Cecilia Volume 1 • Frances Burney
... man so free from all self-consciousness, and yet so delicate and diffident the combination is a rare one. We went up a steep staircase to a room on the second floor. My companion threw the shutters open, setting all the flies buzzing. The top of a plane-tree was on a level with the window, and all its little ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy |
