"Timid" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... guard them. Eager for blood, he careered swiftly over the plain, and sprang unsuspecting into the midst of the flock, only to find himself clenched in the relentless jaws of Kaiser and his comrades, wolves more terrible than himself under the clothing of timid sheep. A conversation once took place at the Lodge on the character ascribed to dogs in Scripture. It slightly vexed the good duchess that they were so often mentioned in the Bible, but only as emblems of ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... Mr. Beckett lead me to the sofa. I let his hand on my shoulder gently press me to sit down by his wife, who had not spoken yet. Her blue eyes, fixed with piteous earnestness on mine, were like those of a timid animal, when it is making up its mind whether to trust and "take to" a human stranger who offers advances. I seemed to see her thinking—thinking not so much with her brain as with her heart, as you used to say Brian thought. I saw her ideas move as if they'd been the works of a watch ticking ...
— Everyman's Land • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... the great trans-Atlantic liners were due to pause in the outer harbour and take aboard the multitudes homeward-bound to America, the town was transfigured. The transfiguration, indeed, began on the previous evenings, for it was then that the less-knowing and more timid of the ...
— The Destroyer - A Tale of International Intrigue • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... texture of their lives behind them to come upon this mad campaign, this campaign that signified nothing and consumed everything, this mere fever of fighting. I saw how little and feeble is the life of man, a thing of chances, preposterously unable to find the will to realise even the most timid of its dreams. And I wondered if always it would be so, if man was a doomed animal who would never to the last days of his time take hold of fate and change it to his will. Always, it may be, he will ...
— The World Set Free • Herbert George Wells
... meat, and shortly returned with part of the carcass of a young buffalo cow, and one antelope, which was the first they had been able to kill. The man who killed it said that he resorted to the tactics generally adopted by the Indians. The timid animal would not allow him to approach within rifle-shot, until he had excited its curiosity by fastening a handkerchief on the end of his ramrod. As soon as the antelope saw it, it gradually walked toward him until so near that he was assured that his piece ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... the city, he waited till it was full day, and then with eager steps proceeded to the house whither he had borne the unconscious form of Marguerite two nights before. Hammering on the door, he waited, uncertain what to say or do, and timid as a schoolboy for the first time in his life. The old, crusty servant who opened the door, curtly informed him that his master was still ...
— Marguerite De Roberval - A Romance of the Days of Jacques Cartier • T. G. Marquis
... and complain. La Valliere, that timid, gentle lamb, turned round upon him, and with a glance like lightning imposed silence upon him. "Monsieur," she said, "when the king acts well, whether, in doing so, he does either myself or those who belong to me an ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... from the wood, and from the stile leading to their home; "and there," he added, "remain till I tell you you may stir, if you are so stupid as not to know that clapping your hands and shouting loud will frighten any birds, particularly timid ones like doves—tame doves, especially, who have strayed from ...
— Brotherly Love - Shewing That As Merely Human It May Not Always Be Depended Upon • Mrs. Sherwood
... Timid and weeping, the boy had attended his mother's funeral; gloomy and shy, he had listened to Siddhartha, who greeted him as his son and welcomed him at his place in Vasudeva's hut. Pale, he sat for many days by the hill of the dead, did not want to eat, gave ...
— Siddhartha • Herman Hesse
... such defiance was delayed by Charles II.'s very vices. Clarendon's fall had left him surrounded by profligate aides, too timid and too indolent to face the resolute men of Massachusetts. They often discussed the contumacy of the colony, but went no further than words. Massachusetts was even encouraged, in 1668, forcibly to reassert its authority ...
— History of the United States, Vol. I (of VI) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... some college of lunacy! Herbert, at the age of forty-five I fell in love with and married a girl of sixteen out of a log cabin! merely, forsooth, because she had a pearly skin like the leaf of the white japonica, soft gray eyes like a timid fawn's and a voice like a cooing turtle dove's! because those delicate cheeks flushed and those soft eyes fell when I spoke to her, and the cooing voice trembled when she replied! because the delicate face brightened when I came and faded ...
— Hidden Hand • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... once," said Gertrude Fremont, "and that was quite enough for me, and I do not call myself nervous or timid either. Still I would not have missed seeing them once for anything, but that experience is enough ...
— Miss Dexie - A Romance of the Provinces • Stanford Eveleth
... that the Spaniards, on landing, first beheld the islanders. Upon seeing strangers approaching, the natives collected and fled into the depths of the forests like timid hares pursued by hounds. The Spaniards followed them, but only succeeded in capturing one woman, whom they took on board their ships, where they gave her plenty of food and wine and clothes (for both sexes lived absolutely naked and in a ...
— De Orbe Novo, Volume 1 (of 2) - The Eight Decades of Peter Martyr D'Anghera • Trans. by Francis Augustus MacNutt
... aware of the presence of something Feminine at his immediate right. He took a cautious Look and beheld a timid Debutante, sparkling with the Dew ...
— Ade's Fables • George Ade
... ignorant and timid people argue that boys and young men in reading a work of this character will learn vices concerning which they had never so much as dreamed of before. This is, however, certain, that vices cannot be condemned unless they are mentioned; ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols
... abysmally throughout the meal that followed, he disappeared from the sight of his family, having answered with one frightful look his mother's timid suggestion that it was almost time for Sunday-school. He retired to his eyry—the sawdust box in the empty stable—and there gave rein to his embittered imaginings, incidentally forming many plans ...
— Penrod and Sam • Booth Tarkington
... lamp]. It seems so close, so sultry here. [She opens the window.] Yet it isn't so very warm out there, I feel—I know not how—oh dear! I wish my mother 'ld come home, I declare! I feel a shudder all over me crawl— I'm a silly, timid thing, that's all! [She begins to sing, while undressing.] There was a king in Thule, To whom, when near her grave, The mistress he loved so ...
— Faust • Goethe
... Frank, as the man advanced slowly with timid steps, while his large sunken eyes absolutely glared at the broken meat which ...
— Digging for Gold - Adventures in California • R.M. Ballantyne
... ride of three hours, we arrived at the breakfasting place. The coach door was opened, and I, not waiting for the steps, leaped out like a young grey-hound. The lady seemed half inclined to follow me, but was timid. I placed myself properly, promised to catch her, and she sprang into my arms. Suddenly recollecting herself, she exclaimed,—'What a wild creature I am!' and ran away, hiding her face with her hands. I blamed myself for having been too forward, ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... glory and power as this war, so various in its events and so uncertain as to its success, conferred upon Sylla, so much it took away from Marius, who was thought tardy, unenterprising, and timid, whether it were that his age was now quenching his former heat and vigor, (for he was above sixty-five years old,) or that having, as he himself said, some distemper that affected his muscles, and his body being unfit for action, he did service above his strength. Yet, ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... of an amateur of genius, while Henry James is a professor. Mr. Conrad never gives the impression of having used the dissecting-knife and the microscope and the test-tubes as Henry James does. He seems rather to be one of the splendid guessers. Not that Henry James is timid in speculations. He can sally out into the borderland and come back with his bag of ghosts like a very hero of credulity. Even when he tells a ghost story, however—and The Turn of the Screw is one of the great ghost stories of literature—he remains supremely master of his materials. He has ...
— Old and New Masters • Robert Lynd
... lingered on the dreamer's forehead, as if a breath from beyond the grave had lately passed over it; but terror was not the predominating feeling. He had ruled that timid, trusting girl too long and too imperiously to quail before her disembodied spirit. But a strange sadness overcame him as he pondered upon all that she had endured—and might still be enduring—for his sake: a glimmer of something like generosity and compassion flickered for a brief space over ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... joyous banquet share, Nor e'er let Gothic grandeur dare, With scowling brow, to overbear, A vassal's right invading. Let Freedom's conscious sons disdain To crowd his fawning, timid train, Nor even own his haughty reign, ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... ways: That flattery, even to kings, he held a shame, And thought a lie in verse or prose the same. That not in fancy's maze he wandered long: But stooped to truth, and moralised his song: That not for fame, but virtue's better end, He stood the furious foe, the timid friend, The damning critic, half approving wit, The coxcomb hit, or fearing to be hit; Laughed at the loss of friends he never had, The dull, the proud, the wicked, and the mad; The distant threats of vengeance ...
— Essay on Man - Moral Essays and Satires • Alexander Pope
... Whigs. Any one who had the most elementary notions of party tactics, must have attempted to make something of such an opportunity. Lord Durham was bitterly attacked from all sides, inveighed against by enemies, given up by timid friends; while those who would willingly have defended him did not know what to say. He appeared to be returning a defeated and discredited man. I had followed the Canadian events from the beginning; I had been one of the ...
— Autobiography • John Stuart Mill
... of life is not bad. Lodgings in roomy apartments, where one sleeps and attends to one's private affairs; meals altogether at the cafe. There one invites one's friends. No delay with dinner; no badly-cooked dishes; no stale or sour bread; no timid, overworn wife trembling for the result of new experiments in housekeeping. On the contrary, one has: prompt meals; exquisite food; delicious bread; polite waiters; and happy wife, with plenty of leisure at home to improve ...
— The Dodge Club - or, Italy in 1859 • James De Mille
... proud too and said they wouldn't help. And then of course the antelopes—although they were too shy and timid to be rude to the Doctor like the lion—THEY pawed the ground, and smiled foolishly, and said they ...
— The Story of Doctor Dolittle • Hugh Lofting
... Lord's Supper is concerned Melanchthon's report concerning the superficial character of the doctrinal discussions is little if at all exaggerated. He himself was one of those timid souls of whom he spoke having from the beginning done all he could not only to bar Luther's articles from the deliberations but also to prevent any penetrating discussion of the Lord's Supper. Assent ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
... no other land was in sight. I therefore gave myself up as lost. Nor were my fears lessened when I found that the shore abounded with enormous serpents and other sea monsters. I found, however, that they were timid, and that the rattling of sticks would make ...
— Favorite Fairy Tales • Logan Marshall
... had caught a great frog, green as grass. He was, I have no doubt, one of those hoarse old croakers, that make one timid about going by ponds and marshy ground in the night, up in our State. Well, they had him down in the grass, and one held him while the other ran a pin through both jaws and twisted it there. There was no fun in this. A lot of doctors cutting off an arm couldn't have been more gravely in earnest. ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens
... DEATH. You're a timid beggar! Live on then if you think it anything; but don't regret it later. I shall not come again for a long time. [Starts ...
— Lucky Pehr • August Strindberg
... produced such an effect upon all three of us that it confounded our senses and deprived us of judgment. We were smitten with terror and apprehension of the great disorders about to be perpetrated." Catherine, who was a timid woman, adds Tavannes, would willingly have recalled her orders, and with that intent hastily despatched a gentleman to the Duke of Guise expressly desiring him to return and attempt nothing against the admiral. "It is too late," was the answer brought back; "the admiral is dead"—a statement ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various
... pretending to be greatly surprised on hearing of the abduction of the ranee, to offer to go in search of her. It was a hazardous scheme; but Khan Cochut was a daring man, and had convinced himself that timid measures rarely meet ...
— The Young Rajah • W.H.G. Kingston
... and pathos with which she pleads for her brother are well known. At first she is timid, distrustful of her powers, shrinking with modest awe of the law's appointed organ; and she seems drawn unawares into the heights of moral argument and the most sweetly-breathing strains of Gospel wisdom. Much of what she says has become domesticated wherever ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... that first talk with her on the poop—her hurried, nervous voice (for she was a timid woman, speaking from a sense of duty), and the extravagant forms her ignorance took. With the emotions of the past night still throbbing in my brain and heart, with the sight of the sea and the coast, with the Rio Medio schooner hanging on our quarter, I listened to her, and had a hard task to ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... would excite in the public mind. All of which was directly illustrated in the experience of the editor of the Liberator. Each of these new notions presently appeared in the paper along with Abolitionism. What was his intention timid people began to inquire? Did he design to carry them along with the Abolition movement? Suspicious minds fancied they saw "in Mr. Garrison, a decided wish, nay, a firm resolve, in laboring to overthrow slavery, to overthrow ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke
... upon the boy was searching and distinctly hostile. As the dialogue proceeded, the look of malevolence gradually deepened upon the face of the stranger, till it might have made a timid heart quail. ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green
... age—almost grown up! She could look back, across the eons which separated her from seven-years-old, and dimly re-vision, as a stranger, the little girl who cried her first day in the Primary Grade. How absurd seemed that bashful, timid, ignorant little silly! She knew nothing at all. She still thought there was a Santa Claus!—would you believe that? And, even at eight, she had lingering fancies of fairies dancing on the flower-beds by moonlight, and talking in some mysterious language ...
— Missy • Dana Gatlin
... said of him as a writer of French. In the earlier years he felt the weight of the Academy. He did not feel that French would allow full freedom. He was scrupulous and timid. He soon shook off this timidity and became a really remarkable wielder of the French tongue. His translations of his own works have doubtless reached a far wider public than the works themselves, and are certainly ...
— Frederic Mistral - Poet and Leader in Provence • Charles Alfred Downer
... it were beginning her career anew; literally to her was this a new world; and she felt for a moment as if in her first blushing maidenhood of song. This second time the hesitation of the voice in that commencement was not felt. The note began soft and timid and scarce audible, as the prayer of Norma might have done; but how it gradually swelled with the influx of divine strength into the soul! The grand difficulty in the opening andante movement of Casta Diva lies in its ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton
... eve in the garden of the soul, calling it to a happiness which affrights it. And the timid and self-seeking soul strives to hide itself under the stars, under the clouds of heaven, under human love, under the distractions of work and pleasure and study, offers itself as a wistful servitor to child ...
— The Hound of Heaven • Francis Thompson
... with a more powerful fleet. Officers and men were in high spirits and confident of victory, Rupert as eager as when in his younger days he led his wild charges of cavaliers, Monk impatient with prudent counsels urged by timid pilots, and using sharp, strong language to encourage them to take risks which he as a landsman did not appreciate. Not a ship touched ground. Some Dutch ships were sighted on the look-out off the edge of the Gunfleet, but they drew off ...
— Famous Sea Fights - From Salamis to Tsu-Shima • John Richard Hale
... the banks of the Viorne, where they were to live like savages, happy with constant bathing, and the company of five or six books, which would amply suffice for their wants. Even womankind was to be strictly banished from that camp. Being very timid and awkward in the presence of the gentler sex, they pretended to the asceticism of superior intellects. For two years Claude had been in love with a 'prentice hat-trimmer, whom every evening he had followed at a distance, but to whom he had never ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... midst of the tumult, and immediately issuing orders in his bold, uncompromising manner to the authorities to see the laws respected at all events, the violence was promptly subdued. It was, nevertheless, a very dark time for the Colored people. The timid class did not for a year or two dare to send their children to school, and the whole mass of the Colored people dwelt in fear day and night. In August, 1836, Mr. Cook returned from Pennsylvania and reopened his school, which under him had, in ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... shrieked high in their zigzag flight, The owls' spread wings were quiet and white, The wind and the poplar gave sigh for sigh, And all about were the rustling shy Little live creatures that love the night - Little wild creatures timid and free. I passed, and they were not afraid ...
— Many Voices • E. Nesbit
... Government of Great Britain deeper and deeper into the meshes of the Egyptian Question, until the heroism, skill, and stubbornness of a few of her sons brought about results which would now astonish those who early in the eighties tardily put forth the first timid efforts at intervention. ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... the old man, "are they not bravo? Many times the borregueros have tried to steal my bucks to lead their timid sheep across the river, but Tira and Diente fight them like devils. One Summer for a week the chivas did not return, having wandered far up into the mountains, but in the end Tira and Diente fetched them safely home. See them now, lying down by the mother goat that suckled them; ...
— Hidden Water • Dane Coolidge
... till joy is but a memory and glory a lie. Amid such fleeting emotions nothing so resembles love as the young passion of an artist who tastes the first delicious anguish of his destined fame and woe,—a passion daring yet timid, full of vague confidence and sure discouragement. Is there a man, slender in fortune, rich in his spring-time of genius, whose heart has not beaten loudly as he approached a master of his art? If there be, that man ...
— The Hidden Masterpiece • Honore de Balzac
... perceptibly in size, from a broad sheet to a wide band, a narrow ribbon, a line, a hair and then disappear altogether. While the distant mountains were still growling, mumbling and playing shuttlecock with the echoes a timid chief hare went hopping across a green half-acre of grass at the damp edge of a melting snow patch in my path. Overhead a golden eagle sailed with a small mammal in its talons; strange reddish-colored bumblebees busied themselves in a bunch ...
— The Black Wolf Pack • Dan Beard
... southern portion of Kildare in 1850. The fifteenth of July in that year—St. Swithin's day—was a day of clouds and lightning, of thunder and terrific rain. It was one of those days that strike the timid with alarm and terror: sometimes it was dark as twilight; sometimes a sudden ghastly brightness was produced by the lightning. That the air was charged with electricity to a most unusual extent was felt by ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke
... the omission of wisdom from philosophy, warns us that in M. Bergson's thought we have something occasional and partial, the work of an astute apologist, a party man, driven to desperate speculation by a timid attachment to prejudice. Like other terrified idealisms, the system of M. Bergson has neither good sense, nor rigour, nor candour, nor solidity. It is a brilliant attempt to confuse the lessons of experience by refining upon its texture, ...
— Winds Of Doctrine - Studies in Contemporary Opinion • George Santayana
... passage over which requires not only days, but in some places even weeks to accomplish. We had traversed several of these valleys, and were now about to cross over the highest ridge of the Andes. Having travelled so far without encountering the Montoneros, even the most timid of our party had lost all ...
— Manco, the Peruvian Chief - An Englishman's Adventures in the Country of the Incas • W.H.G. Kingston
... have observed, are invariably objects of ridicule; timid, jealous, and nervous, a frown throws them into a state of agony it would be difficult to describe, and a smile bestowed upon a rival breaks their rest for a week. Only observe one of them engaged in ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, December 18, 1841 • Various
... sense of disloyalty to her father, hoped that she and Meredith might now be friends again. He was married, and had one little daughter. In her new and intolerable loneliness Corona's heart yearned after her own people. But she was too timid to make any advances, and Meredith never made any. Corona believed that he hated her, and let slip her last fluttering hope that the old breach would ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1902 to 1903 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... beyond, a rise of dry ground. The sight appeared to divert him, and he stood looking at it. He had the appearance of having forgotten Tito, and the child, uneasy at this sudden stillness as he was ready to be at anything the tramp did, said with timid urgence: ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner
... had given it him; it was black, and had but one eye; it was a middle-sized horse, of good height for him who was upon it. Seemed that this young man was quite other than either his nature, his stature, or his complexion bespoke him, for he was very timid in speaking, and is so to this day. That horse made him look tall; and he had a good countenance, and of good color, and speech bold and sensible." On perceiving Commynes, the king said to him, "Go and see if yonder folks would fain parley." "Sir," answered Commynes, "I will do so willingly; ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume III. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... repeated her confirmation, and begged to be excused from it. Upon this I gave her up, and this time all my counsellors were of one opinion." This was the longest courtship in the list, having lasted three whole months; and, quite disheartened by its bad success, Kepler's next attempt was of a more timid complexion. His advances to No. 9 were made by confiding to her the whole story of his recent disappointment, prudently determining to be guided in his behaviour, by observing whether the treatment he had experienced ...
— The Martyrs of Science, or, The lives of Galileo, Tycho Brahe, and Kepler • David Brewster
... quarrel with a magistrate, or a friendly intercourse with persons under a ban, exposed the delinquent to serious pecuniary loss. These considerations were avowed.[198] The dread of injury made the timid servile, and corrupted private intercourse. A secret influence pervaded every rank: society was embittered by suspicions and the dread of denunciation; and had not the growth of population decreased the comparative power of the ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West
... On the upper margin of the opening, the viewless influence had piled tree on tree, in such a manner as had not only enabled the two males of the party to ascend to an elevation of some thirty feet above the level of the earth, but, with a little care and encouragement, to induce their more timid companions to accompany them. The vast trunks which had been broken and driven by the force of the gust lay blended like jack-straws; while their branches, still exhaling the fragrance of withering ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... they flung their empty baskets into the air, and patted approvingly their 'fair round bellies'. From every side, as the carriage moved on, they gained fresh recruits and acquired new importance. The timid fled before them, the noisy shouted with them, the bold plunged into their ranks; and the constant burden of their rejoicing chorus was—'Health to the noble Pomponius! Prosperity to the senators of Rome, who feast us with their food and give us ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... thee, timid Sleep, to bide with me. Night after night do not affrighted be, Like some wild bird, Which, at the softest word Or slightest rustle heard, Afar from human presence ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 20, August 1877 • Various
... of their victories preceding them opened the timid cities to their entrance, and brought them abundant supplies. Brought into despair by the apparent death of Raymond of Toulouse and the serious wounding of Godfrey by a bear, they rejoiced in the recovery of both as a ...
— Peter the Hermit - A Tale of Enthusiasm • Daniel A. Goodsell
... as musically as ever. Marvelous woman. And what a glance she had: when it fell in reproof upon those servants, they shrunk and quailed as timid people do when the lightning flashes out of a cloud. I could have got the habit myself. It was the same with that poor old Brer Uriens; he was always on the ragged edge of apprehension; she could not even turn toward him ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... athwart his skin gave him an agreeable sensation, awakened a strange deep sense of comradeship. He restrained his desire to stroke the creature's nose. It appeared that they now all wished to taste his neck; but some were timid, and the touch of their tongues simply a tickle, so that he was compelled to laugh, and at that peculiar sound they withdrew and gazed at him. There seemed to be no one with them; then, at a little distance, quite motionless in the shade of a rock, he spied the goatherd, a boy about his ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... became in a sense the founder of the Freedmen's Bureau. Being specially detailed from the ranks to care for the freedmen at Fortress Monroe, he afterward founded the celebrated Port Royal experiment and started the Freedmen's Aid Societies. Thus, under the timid Treasury officials and bold army officers, Pierce's plan widened and developed. At first, the able-bodied men were enlisted as soldiers or hired as laborers, the women and children were herded into central camps under guard, and "superintendents of contrabands" multiplied here ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... Stilicho himself and the chief ministers of his party were treacherously slain in pursuance of an order extracted from the timid and jealous Honorius; and in the disturbances which followed the wives and children of the barbarian foederati throughout Italy were slain. The natural consequence was that these men to the number of 30,000 flocked to the camp of Alaric. clamouring to be led against their cowardly enemies. ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... to sever their connexion with the Society of Arts, and to assert their independence. They accordingly engaged a room of an auctioneer in Spring Gardens for a display of their works during May 1761. The more timid party still clung to the friendly Society in the Strand, and there held a second exhibition. From the spring of 1761, therefore, there were two exhibitions of ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook
... of this self-invited Guest suggests His over-abundant fulfilment of timid, half-conscious desires. I said at the beginning of my remarks that only curiosity was on the surface; but that the very fact that our Lord addressed Himself to the man seemed to imply that He descried in him something more than mere vulgar curiosity. And the glad leap with which Zacchaeus came ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... embroidered leather wallets that hung from their girdled waists. The Jews of Morocco, dressed in oriental fashion with silk kirtle and an ecclesiastical calotte, passed by leaning upon sticks, as if thus dragging along their bland, timid obesity. The soldiers of the garrison,—tall, slender, rosy-complexioned—made the ground echo with the heavy cadence of their boots. Some were dressed in khaki, with the sobriety of the soldier in the field; others wore the regular red jacket. White helmets, some ...
— Luna Benamor • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... among his enemies, by which he was certain to gain in the end. He never committed himself to a position of the security of which he was not sure; and he carried this spirit of caution to such an extremity that many of the early years of his reign present a succession of timid and vacillating movements, that more nearly resemble the subterfuges of a coward than the crafty artifices of ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson
... such timid lovers, but I have never yet seen one die. And since I myself have escaped death after all the troubles I have borne, I do not think that any one ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. II. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... Timid as Carrie was, she was strong in capability. The reliance of others made her feel as if she must, and when she must she dared. Experience of the world and of necessity was in her favour. No longer the lightest word of a man made ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser
... summary measures had not been taken the trough might have been embowered. The season seems to have been too damp for the night-jars, though quite to the taste of all species of pigeons. In the course of a few minutes the voice of the timid, tremulous, barred-shouldered dove came from among the yellow-flowered hibiscus of the beach, while the pheasant-tailed pigeon sounded its rich, dual note, the red-crowned fruit pigeon tolled its mournful chime, and the guttural of the magnificent fruit ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... Marie and to Croll. Of Fisker she was afraid, thinking that the iniquity of giving all the money to Marie originated with him, in order that he might obtain it by marrying the girl. Croll, who understood it all perfectly, told her the story a dozen times,—but quite in vain. She made a timid suggestion of employing a lawyer on her own behalf, and was only deterred from doing so by Marie's ready assent to such an arrangement. Marie's equally ready surrender of any right she might have to a portion of the jewels which had been saved had perhaps some effect ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... sided with the Drapier in his arguments, while confined to Wood's scheme, began to be alarmed, when, in the fourth letter, he entered upon the more high and dangerous matter of the nature of Ireland's connection with England. The object of these verses is, to encourage the timid to stand by their advocate in a cause ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... great treasures. The one mentioned was full-grown, although it measured only seven inches in length of body. It was covered with long, white, silky hairs, the tail being blackish, and the face nearly naked and flesh-coloured. It was a most timid and sensitive little thing. The woman who owned it carried it constantly in her bosom, and no money would induce her to part with her pet. She called it Mico. It fed from her mouth and allowed her to fondle it freely, but the nervous little creature would not permit strangers ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates
... Kuyper draws a conventional picture of British policy with regard to the Boers, making it out to be ever greedy of power. The contrary is the truth. A vacillating and timid policy has been England's great mistake in South Africa; it is this very vacillation that has ...
— Boer Politics • Yves Guyot
... assembled at twelve (12) M. on the thirtieth (30), the timid members absenting themselves because the tone of the general public was ominous of trouble. I think there were about twenty-six (26) members present. In front of the Mechanics Institute, where the meeting was held, there ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan
... a moment. He did not feel quite ready to undertake to make Nathan a beetle and wedges; but he did not know exactly how to reply to his mother's reasoning. At length he said, in a timid and hesitating voice, ...
— Rollo's Experiments • Jacob Abbott
... hitherto modestly restricted her exertions to keeping Tommie quiet on her lap. Like Mr. Troy, she occasionally looked at her aunt—and she now made a timid attempt to defend the neighborhood as a duty that ...
— My Lady's Money • Wilkie Collins
... Dunraven, Mr Moreton Frewen, Lord Rossmore, Colonel Hutcheson-Poe, and Mr Lindsay Crawford, who came upon the All-for-Ireland platform from the first, was foully assailed and traduced and had his motives impugned by the Board of Erin bosses, and other Unionists, more timid, naturally enough, shrank from incurring ...
— Ireland Since Parnell • Daniel Desmond Sheehan
... by the suggestion. We didn't believe that Peg Bowen was a witch. But to go to her—to seek her out in that mysterious woodland retreat of hers which was invested with all the terrors of the unknown! And that this suggestion should come from timid Cecily, of all people! But then, there was ...
— The Story Girl • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... for, says Ghotakamukha, "though a man loves a girl ever so much, he never succeeds in winning her without a great deal of talking." At last, when the man finds the girl completely gained over, he may then begin to enjoy her. As for the saying that women grow less timid than usual during the evening, and in darkness, and are desirous of congress at those times, and do not oppose men then and should only be enjoyed at these hours, it is a matter of ...
— The Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana - Translated From The Sanscrit In Seven Parts With Preface, - Introduction and Concluding Remarks • Vatsyayana
... mayor), and then threatened to fire on the mob. He gave them five minutes' time to disperse in, threatening to use military force (the city battalion being present) if they did not comply with the demand. The timid women fell back, and a pause was put to the devastation, though but few believed he would venture to put his threat in execution. If he had done so, he would have ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... kindly and chatted pleasantly with me, as I sat on his knee at twilight. I found my place at once in the household. If I had any first feelings of strangeness to be overcome, which is probable, as I was but a timid child, or if I wept any tears under deserved reproof, or was in any trouble from childish indiscretions, the traces of these things have all vanished; nothing remains but the record of long summer-days of ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various
... heart may occur at any age, but it is witnessed most frequently in young horses, which, when being trained for fast work, are often subjected to excessive hardship and fatigue. Nervous or timid animals also suffer from such diseases more frequently than those of a sluggish disposition. Any cause which induces a violent or sudden change in the circulation may result in injury to the heart. Symptoms which may frequently denote disease of the heart are difficult breathing or short-windedness, ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... the Misses Hurlbird. The Misses Hurlbird, in an odd, obstinate way, did not like my presence. But they were hampered by the national manners of these occasions. Florence had her own sitting-room. She could ask to it whom she liked, and I simply walked into that apartment. I was as timid as you will, but in that matter I was like a chicken that is determined to get across the road in front of an automobile. I would walk into Florence's pretty, little, old-fashioned room, take off my hat, ...
— The Good Soldier • Ford Madox Ford
... meeting, but had the unvarnished truth been admissible, the first and indeed the only necessary resolution should have run, "Resolved that in future we be collectively as brave as we have been individually timid, and that we take heart of grace and carry away from this meeting sufficient strength to do, in the exercise of our functions as the licensing authority, what we have always known to be our plain duty to our country and our God." No such resolution ...
— Ireland In The New Century • Horace Plunkett
... a good likeness, I cannot say I ever saw anything more unprepossessing. I am sure such a countenance as that could never have won a female heart. Surely, it is more calculated to terrify the imagination, than to soothe the affections of the timid and shrinking female. ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... the most attractive pictures that humanity can offer," said John Effingham to Mrs. Bloomfield, as Eve walked away; "a young, timid, modest, sensitive girl, so strong in her principles, so conscious of rectitude, so pure of thought, and so warm in her affections, that she views her selection of a husband, as others view their ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... little creatures; and as her own spotless coat was as white as theirs, she often managed to get quite close to a flock of sheep before they perceived that she belonged to the dreaded race of dogs. When the timid animals found out their mistake, a regular stampede used to ensue; and it was not supposed to be good for the health of the old or young sheep to hurry up the hill-sides in such wild fashion as that in which they rushed away from Rose's attempts to intrude on their society. Nettle may come, ...
— Station Amusements • Lady Barker
... bride to her husband's house. She comes in with a tender and languid mien, her pendent arms indicating soft yielding, and the right hand loosely holds a handkerchief, ready to apply in case of overpowering emotion. She is, or feigns to be, so timid and embarrassed as to require support by the arm of a friend who introduces her. She is followed by a male friend of the family, whose joyful face is turned toward supposed by-standers, right hand ...
— Sign Language Among North American Indians Compared With That Among Other Peoples And Deaf-Mutes • Garrick Mallery
... out of the town, on most they lay still—such were the ups and downs of life in Ladysmith. The inevitable siege paper, 'The Ladysmith Lyre,' appeared, and did something to relieve the monotony by the exasperation of its jokes. Night, morning, and noon the shells rained upon the town until the most timid learned fatalism if not bravery. The crash of the percussion, and the strange musical tang of the shrapnel sounded ever in their ears. With their glasses the garrison could see the gay frocks and parasols of the Boer ladies ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... essentially from the "cat," which is also known in many States by the name of fox squirrel. The former is larger, and altogether a more active animal, dashing up to the top of a pine-tree in a single run. The cat-squirrel, on the contrary, is slow and timid among the branches, and rarely mounts above the first fork, unless when forced higher by the near approach of its enemy. It prefers concealing itself behind the trunk, dodging round the tree as the hunter ...
— The Hunters' Feast - Conversations Around the Camp Fire • Mayne Reid
... had been assembled nearly an hour, there had been no games. The girls were huddled in groups on one side of the room, and the boys on the other, all shy, timid, and waiting for somebody to break the ice. Azalia was playing the piano, while Philip stood by her side. He was dressed in a new suit of broadcloth, and wore an eye-glass. Fanny was present, though she had threatened not to attend if ...
— Winning His Way • Charles Carleton Coffin
... own interests; they hardly looked at the stranger in mourning garments. The younger sister was to be married, and the elder was to be bridesmaid. They talked of their dresses and their presents; they compared the dashing bridegroom of one with the timid lover of the other; they laughed over their own small sallies of wit, over their joyous dreams of the future, over their opinions of the guests invited to the wedding. Too joyfully restless to remain inactive any longer, ...
— I Say No • Wilkie Collins
... that has frequently occurred to me, but which is involved in obscurity. Heraldic writers generally have contented themselves with the mere statement of ladies' arms being thus borne; and where we do find an opinion hazarded, it is more in the form of a quotation from a nameless author, or of a timid suggestion, than an attempt to elucidate the question by argument or ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 195, July 23, 1853 • Various
... favorite Fuzzy," Ruth was saying. "She is the sweetest thing. Of course, they're all pretty nice. I can't get over how affectionate and trusting they are; the ones we saw out in the woods were so timid." ...
— Little Fuzzy • Henry Beam Piper
... go on; as it was, they were already frightened out of their wits. Miss X—— glanced with apprehension at the wall thickly covered with soot and then at her pretty gown. Mr. Y—— sat down on a broken pillar and said he would go no farther, preferring to have a quiet smoke in the company of the timid torch-bearers. ...
— From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan • Helena Pretrovna Blavatsky
... timid girl of eighteen, with a neat figure that shrank from observation, although it was already aware that it looked best in gray, was there to drink in this music, and carried it home in her heart. She was Elspeth, and that dear ...
— Tommy and Grizel • J.M. Barrie
... bondage which is Freedom's self, And rivets with sensation's softest tie The kindred sympathies of human souls, Needed no fetters of tyrannic law: Those delicate and timid impulses 80 In Nature's primal modesty arose, And with undoubted confidence disclosed The growing longings of its dawning love, Unchecked by dull and selfish chastity, That virtue of the cheaply virtuous, 85 Who pride ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... this obstacle were serious and the Fool were imagined as a grown man, we may still insist that he must also be imagined as a timid, delicate and frail being, who on that account and from the expression of his face has a boyish look.[178] He pines away when Cordelia goes to France. Though he takes great liberties with his master he ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... fatigued, irresolute, weak, exhausted, feeble, languid, wearied, faded, half-hearted, listless, worn, faint-hearted, ill-defined, purposeless, worn down, faltering, indistinct, timid, worn out. ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... for example, just glance at that class of songs, which in the collection would be called hunting songs. In these men are invited to the pleasures of the chase, as to pleasures of a superior kind. The triumphs over the timid hare are celebrated in these with a kind of enthusiastic joy, and celebrated too as triumphs, worthy of the character of men. Glory Is even attached to these pursuits. But the Quakers, as it will appear in a future chapter, ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume I (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson
... the colonists thought that it would be desirable to have English rabbits in Australia and sent to England for a few pairs. When the rabbits arrived a great feast was held, and amidst speeches and mutual congratulations the timid creatures were let loose. In a short time rabbits seemed quite plentiful and the hunters had rare sport; but ere long the animals began to eat up the vegetables in ...
— Wealth of the World's Waste Places and Oceania • Jewett Castello Gilson
... timid boy, and, instead of crying, he began to reason in this way: "The boat does not leak. It is safe and sound. There are no waves to make me afraid. The wind does not blow. Here on a seat is a thick blanket. In this box is a loaf of bread and a ...
— The Nursery, No. 169, January, 1881, Vol. XXIX - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various
... hide that a bullet can scarcely penetrate it; and it can crush its way through thickets and bushes, however dense, without receiving a scratch. Although a very terrific animal to look at, it is fortunately of a very peaceable and timid disposition, so that it flees from danger and is very quick in discovering the presence of an enemy. Sometimes it is attacked by the jaguar, which springs suddenly upon it and fastens its claws in its back; but the tapir's tough hide is not easily torn, and he gets rid of ...
— Martin Rattler • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... bravery; for though Harry wasn't the hero of his own tales no more than his mates had been, yet he had gone through an amazing lot and done some bold and clever things. And the girl, being one of the timid sort, liked to hear of the courage of a man, as they will. Wade was an open speaker, and had no secrets from 'em. He confessed that he'd got a clear four hundred pounds a year out of his battle ...
— The Torch and Other Tales • Eden Phillpotts
... scarcely less marvellous, are actual realities. The Giant Cuttle Fish of Newfoundland, though the body is comparatively small, may measure 60 feet from the tip of one arm to that of another. The Whalebone Whale reaches a length of over 70 feet, but is timid and inoffensive. The Cachalot or Sperm Whale, which almost alone among animals roams over the whole ocean, is as large, and much more formidable. It is armed with powerful teeth, and is said to feed mainly ...
— The Beauties of Nature - and the Wonders of the World We Live In • Sir John Lubbock
... already late," quoth I. "And he was ever mighty careful and exact in his calculations. 'Tis an adventure so daring as few would have attempted, saving only our 'timid' Adam. And how if he never ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol
... A timid witness, whom you know to be telling the truth, may often be confused by cross-examination and made to make a false statement; but this you have no right, as an honorable attorney, to make him do. A just judge ought to stop you if you try it. To confuse a witness ...
— The Young Man and the World • Albert J. Beveridge
... The timid offers of nourishment made by his sister were either ignored or refused with such an ill grace that she finally forbore further overtures and left him to his morose reflections, to improve her opportunities of ...
— The Flaw in the Sapphire • Charles M. Snyder
... and checked both song and purse. On September 11 the low boom of guns was heard, and that very evening word came that the Continental army had been defeated at Brandywine. The moment the news reached Philadelphia an exodus of the timid began, which swelled in volume as the probability of the capture of the city grew. The streets were filled with waggons carting away the possessions of the people; the Continental Congress, which had been urging Washington to fight at all hazard, ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... configurations in the notation of this piece are so different from those of the works of any other composer that even an unmusical person could distinguish them from all the rest; and there is none of the timid groping, the awkward stumbling of the tyro. On the contrary, the composer presents himself with an ease and boldness which cannot but command admiration. The reader will remember what the Viennese critic said about Chopin's "aim"; that it was not to dazzle by the superficial means of the ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... occasions, and the refreshments did not rise to the splendor of a costly supper. This kind of compromise with fashionable gayety was wisely deemed by Lu the best method of introducing Daniel to the beau monde,—a push given the timid eaglet by the maternal bird, with a soft tree-top between him and the vast expanse of society. How simple was the entertainment may be inferred from the fact that Lu felt somewhat discomposed when she got a note from one of her guests asking ...
— Humorous Masterpieces from American Literature • Various
... lost its terrors; vowels were only for children and fools, and he was an adept in Talmud, cunning in dispute and the dovetailing of texts—quite a little Rabbi, they said in the Ghetto! And when the great moment actually came, after a few timid twists and turns of melody he found his voice soaring aloft triumphantly, and then it became to him a subtle pleasure to hold and dominate all the listening crowd. Afterwards his father and mother received many congratulations on the way he ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... nature, we shall be better prepared, not only to mend their manifold defects, but also to strengthen and purify both. Is mind degraded by this recognition of its dependence? Assuredly not. Matter, on the contrary, is raised to the level it ought to occupy, and from which timid ignorance would ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... fencing, an athletic one: he practised it assiduously even in his worst days.[39] So far as we can conjecture from what we see of him in those bad days, he must normally have been charmingly frank, courteous and kindly to everyone, of whatever rank, whom he liked or respected, but by no means timid or deferential to others; indeed, one would gather that he was rather the reverse, and also that he was apt to be decided and even imperious if thwarted or interfered with. He must always have been fearless,—in the play he appears insensible ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... yours is an Industrial Congress in which women occupied in every branch of labor are to be represented, you may think this question could not legitimately come before you. And even if it could, you may not think best to startle the timid or provoke the powerful by the assertion that a fair day's wages for a fair day's work and the dignity of labor, alike depend on the political status of the laborer. Perhaps in your country, where the right of representation is so limited even among men, women do not ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... the award of the prize of eloquence proposed by the Academy of Rouen. The subject was the eloge of Peter Corneille. In reading this work of our fellow-academician, we may be somewhat surprised at the immense distance that the modest, the timid, the sensitive Bailly puts between the great Corneille, ...
— Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men • Francois Arago
... always time, although at the end of the year we had acquired a sufficient amount of knowledge. The stiffest boy who came to Keilhau grew nimble, the biceps of the veriest weakling enlarged, the most timid nature was roused to courage. Indeed, here, if anywhere, it ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... his companion's steady and masterful eye. Even his disappointment was forgotten in the charm of this new-found friendship and protection. And as its outset had been marked by an unusual burst of confidence on Clarence's part, the boy, in his gratitude, now felt something of the timid shyness of a deeper feeling, ...
— A Waif of the Plains • Bret Harte
... her within his grasp. Not quite, however. Before his jaws could close upon the coveted prize the bird would tear herself away, and, apparently faint and sobbing, retire to a higher branch. His reputed powers of fascination availed him little, though it is possible that a more timid and less combative bird might have been held by the fatal spell. Presently, as he came gliding down the slender body of a leaning Alder, his attention was attracted by a slight movement of my arm; eying me an instant, with that crouching, utter, motionless gaze which ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... that they who had saved up corn—the regraters—brought it freely into market at his coming. As some scourge from hell must have been the presence of such governors as Appius and his predecessors among a people timid but industrious like these Asiatic Greeks. Like an unknown, unexpected blessing, direct from heaven, must have been the coming of ...
— The Life of Cicero - Volume II. • Anthony Trollope
... hesitation is saying, that in the state of blindness in which are plunged the best minds, with the measured march of normal progress, with our assemblies, of which I shall not be suspected to be the detractor, but which, when they are both honest and timid, as is often the case, are disposed to be led only by their average men, that is, by mediocrity; with the committees of initiative, their delays and ballottings, if the 2nd of December had not brought its overwhelming demonstration, if Providence had not taken a hand, France would ...
— Napoleon the Little • Victor Hugo
... of Battenberg and Lord Haldane and the torpedoed battleships annoyed him extravagantly. He had just sufficient disposition to believe such tales as to find their importunity exasperating. The idea of going over to Pyecrafts to spend his days in comforting a timid little dear obsessed by such fears, attracted him not at all. He had already heard enough adverse rumours at Claverings to make him thoroughly uncomfortable. He had been doubting whether after all his "Examination of War" was really much less ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... seems out of focus. We know that during his early years in Paris Abelard was a bold and daring champion in the lists of dialectic; brilliant, persuasive, masculine to a degree; yet this self-portrait is of a man timid, suspicious, frightened of realities, shadows, possibilities. He is in abject terror of councils, hidden enemies, even of his life. The tone is querulous, even peevish at times, and always the egotism and the pride persist, while he seems driven by the whip of desire for intellectual ...
— Historia Calamitatum • Peter Abelard
... hall, the walls of which had suffered a little through lack of heating, into the library, and seated themselves in easy-chairs before the blazing log fire. Parkins silently served them with coffee and brandy. He had scarcely left the room before there was a timid knock and Middleton made his ...
— The Great Impersonation • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... to the door, opened it with seeming caution, and just far enough to allow the face to be seen. It was the timid, pale, and unwashed face of a girl who was readily supposed to be a servant, taken from a cottage, and turned into a bringer of wood and water and a scourer of tubs and trenches. She waited in timorous silence the delivery of my message. ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... story is too puerile to have taken in any one who did not wish to believe it. How could they tell what happened when they were asleep? How could such an operation as forcing back a heavy stone, and exhuming a corpse, have been carried on without waking them? How could such a timid set of people have mustered up courage for such a bold act? What did they do it for? Not to bury their Lord. He had been lovingly laid there by reverent hands, and costly spices strewn upon the sacred limbs. The only possible ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... is not without the same sinister and moving undergloom, although, on the whole, he is aware of kindlier powers and of a timid affection between men and spirits. He actually addresses a remonstrance to Scotsmen for having soured the disposition of their ghosts and fairies, and his reconstructions of the ancient fairyland are ...
— Among Famous Books • John Kelman
... Spring Street at Sixth is a busy street, as timid pedestrians and the traffic cop stationed there will testify. In times not so far distant the general public howled insistently for a subway, or an elevated railway—anything that would relieve the congestion and make the downtown district of Los Angeles a decently safe place to walk ...
— The Thunder Bird • B. M. Bower
... valet, was a very agreeable young fellow, but very timid, and was, like all the rest of the household, devotedly attached to the First Consul. It happened one day in Egypt that the latter, who had never been able to shave himself (it was I who taught him how to shave himself, as I shall relate elsewhere at length), called Hebert ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... over on the sled from the Hall, Amelia Boggs, the homely girl, and Laura Polk, the red-haired, sat in the order named. There were rope "hand-holds" for all; but Grace preferred to cling to her brother. The first trip down the hill was always a trial to timid Grace Mason. ...
— Nan Sherwood's Winter Holidays • Annie Roe Carr
... women with some tenderness of heart and conscience; probably it had as fair a proportion of human goodness in it as any other small trading town of that day. But until every good man is brave, we must expect to find many good women timid,—too timid even to believe in the correctness of their own best promptings, when these would place them in a minority. And the men at St. Ogg's were not all brave, by any means; some of them were even fond of scandal, and to an extent that might have given their conversation an effeminate character, ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... I got from my experience with Stamaty was my acquaintance with Maleden, whom he gave me as my teacher in composition. Maleden was born in Limoges, as his accent always showed. He was thin and long-haired, a kind and timid soul, but an incomparable teacher. He had gone to Germany in his youth to study with a certain Gottfried Weber, the inventor of a system which Maleden brought back with him and perfected. He made it a wonderful tool with which to get to the depths ...
— Musical Memories • Camille Saint-Saens
... an hour he came and with him was Mrs. Deer, or maybe it was his daughter, and not his wife, for she looked so young and timid one hardly could picture her as the mate of Mr. Deer. He was a big fellow who would weigh about four hundred pounds, and had fourteen points—little branches shooting off ...
— Injun and Whitey to the Rescue • William S. Hart
... quality that boldly faces and leaps lightly over them. By the power of enthusiasm the most extraordinary undertakings, that seemed impossible of accomplishment, have been successfully carried out. Enthusiasm makes weak men strong, and timid women courageous. Almost all the great works of art have been produced when the artist was intoxicated with a passion for beauty and form, which would not let him rest until his thought was expressed ...
— The True Citizen, How To Become One • W. F. Markwick, D. D. and W. A. Smith, A. B.
... human affections. Her grenadier lover Potemkin, according to the character given of him by the Count Segur, was little better than a gigantic and savage buffoon—licentious and superstitious, bold and timid by turns—sometimes desiring to be King of Poland, at others a bishop or a monk. Of him we read that "he put out an eye to free it from a blemish which diminished his beauty. Banished by his rival, he ran to meet death ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... obstinate, timid and an enthusiast, loving, yet implacable, seated in Larry's studio, regarding with submissive adoration the being compact of the antithesis of his qualities, and ready, for that being's sake, to make any sacrifice save that of ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... them. She was a young woman in the garb of a peasant, but with something about her not belonging to the peasant. To the first glance she was more like a superior servant out for a holiday, but a second glance was bewildering. She stopped with a half timid but quiet look, then dropped ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... himself for the approaching ordeal. My lord and he had met and parted in the morning as they had now done for long, with scarcely the ordinary civilities of life; and it was plain to the son that nothing had yet reached the father's ears. Indeed, when he recalled the awful countenance of my lord, a timid hope sprang up in him that perhaps there would be found no one bold enough to carry tales. If this were so, he asked himself, would he begin again? and he found no answer. It was at this moment that a hand was laid upon his arm, and a voice said in his ear, "My ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... 'You stamped. The gentle, blue-eyed blonde whom I was looking for three days ago would have drooped timidly. Three days ago my passion for timid droopers amounted ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... people. The only trouble in Norway, as elsewhere, is that the people will no longer consent to be shepherded. They refuse to be guided and ruled. They rebel against spiritual and secular authority, and follow no longer the bell-wether with the timid gregariousness of servility and irresolution. To bring the new age into the parsonage of the reverend obscurantist in the shape of a young girl—the fiancee of the pastor's son—was an interesting experiment which gives occasion for strong scenes and, at last, for a drawn ...
— Tales of Two Countries • Alexander Kielland
... average male blockhead as no more than a feeble sentimentality. The truth is that it is precisely the opposite. It is surely not sentimentality to be moved by the stately and mysterious ceremony of the mass, or even, say, by those timid imitations of it which one observes in certain Protestant churches. Such proceedings, whatever their defects from the standpoint of a pure aesthetic, are at all events vastly more beautiful than any of the private acts of the folk who take part in ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken
... low, slightly tremulous tone, "you have some news to give me?" and at the same time she glanced from him to her son. A moment's silence followed. Henri and his father exchanged a timid look, but before either had spoken the wife had thrown herself into her husband's arms: what need had she of an answer—she, who for years had been used to read every thought, every wish, every feeling of those she loved, long ere ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... convinced that of themselves these mists round her native intelligence, engendered by a solitary and musing childhood, would subside in the fuller daylight of wedded life. She seemed pained when she saw how resolutely I shunned a subject dear to her thoughts. She made one or two timid attempts to renew it, but my grave looks sufficed to check her. Once or twice indeed, on such occasions, she would turn away and leave me, but she soon came back; that gentle heart could not bear one unkindlier shade between itself and what it loved. ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... type. He was a young man with heavy brows and a large mouth devoid of lips, set tight as a snapped man-trap. He had keen, restless, watchful eyes. His hair was sandy, thrust forward over his brow, and hanging low behind. On the opposite side of the hearth crouched a boy, a timid, delicately formed lad with a large head and full ...
— The Broom-Squire • S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould
... of advantage to the proletarians themselves in their present condition, but would certainly undo the capitalists, if it were carried to any lengths, and would lead through ruin and misery to the violent outbreak of the very revolution which these timid people are so ...
— Signs of Change • William Morris
... door of the limousine, descended, said to her chauffeur: "Follow us, please." She advanced to Selma with a timid and deprecating smile. "You'll let me walk ...
— The Conflict • David Graham Phillips
... Mooney closed the door. No sooner was she back in the dining-room than the tapping at the pane was resumed. This time it was louder. The widow, who was quite timid and nervous, felt frightened. She had years before believed in spirits, and she had not altogether gotten ...
— Bob the Castaway • Frank V. Webster
... He never forgot the cold winter mornings, and the loud voice of his master rousing him from sleep to make the fire, and go out to the barn and get the milking done before daylight. His sleeping-place was a loft above the shop reached by a ladder. Being always a timid boy, he suffered extremely from fear in the dark and lonely garret of a building where no one else slept, and to which he had to grope ...
— Captains of Industry - or, Men of Business Who Did Something Besides Making Money • James Parton
... life to the dying, and all this work continues. And its work for science, too, has been great. It has fostered science often and developed it. It has given great minds to it, and but for the fears of the timid its record in this respect would have been as great as in the other. Unfortunately, religious men started centuries ago with the idea that purely scientific investigation is unsafe—that theology must intervene. So began ...
— Scientific American, Vol.22, No. 1, January 1, 1870 • Various
... the miseries of life, instead of frightening your brothers by tales of future punishment? Why? Because Christ's True Doctrine would bring you no earthly wealth, and all that you look for is gold, and gold! And to satisfy your end and bleed the timid souls, of money, you have invented a Purgatory! Why afflict orphans and widows with dreadful tales of the next life, only to extort from them a few cents? Have you forgotten what the Apostle said? ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead
... a choregraphic love-story, the two dancers representing an enamoured swain and his mistress. It is the old theme—'the quarrel of lovers is the renewal of love.' Enraptured gaze, coy side-look, gallant advance, timid retrocession, impassioned declaration, supercilious rejection, piteous supplication, softening hesitation; worldly goods oblation, gracious acceptation; frantic jubilation, maidenly resignation. Petting, wooing, billing, cooing. ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... fashionable assemblage in her own house; and if her choicest guests courted her notice as little as they would have done any where else, she was too much elated and flustered, and overheated to think about it. One of her principal concerns was to keep her eye on her husband, who, being a shy, timid man, with very little tact, was not much calculated for playing the host on such an occasion. He had, however, been doing better than she expected, when, a little before supper, he wandered through the crowd to where she was standing, for the moment, alone, and asked, ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... Dulce was very timid by nature. She was the least outspoken of the three, and always kept in the background, like a modest little flower that loved the shade; but she was very soft-hearted, and had great regard for people's feelings. And the old man's downcast looks ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... Venus for lovers to voyage to heaven in. On a table near at hand lay some embroidered work at which Gnulemah's magic needle had been busy of late. Balder glanced at these things with a reverence almost timid; and, turning back to what lay so inert and doltish on the sacred bed, he could ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... largely in the revelation to his inmost spirit that 'Jehovah is peace.' We might rather have looked for a manifestation of the divine nature as ready to go forth to battle with the raw levies of timid peasants. We should have expected the thought which inspired their captain to have been 'The Lord is a man of war,' rather than 'The Lord is peace.' But it is not so—and therein lies the deep truth that the peace of ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... cried the Doctor. "Ten minutes law will give you a fine start; you'll make play with it—away, away!" He clapped his hands. Off flew Ernest and Buttar, fleet as greyhounds, and very unlike the timid ...
— Ernest Bracebridge - School Days • William H. G. Kingston
... sedition and open war, but being convicted by Cicero, was forced to fly the city. Yet Lentulus and Cethegus remained with several others, to carry on the same plot; and blaming Catiline, as one that wanted courage, and had been timid and petty in his designs, they themselves resolved to set the whole town on fire, and utterly to overthrow the empire, rousing whole nations to revolt and exciting foreign wars. But the design was discovered by Cicero, (as we have written in his life,) and the matter brought before the senate. ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... drops out of sight. He's managed to keep hold of a little property that brings him in just enough to scrub along on, and he joins that hungry-eyed, trembly-fingered fringe of margin pikers that hangs around every hotel broker's branch in town, takin' a timid flier now and then, but tappin' the free lunch hard and reg'lar. You know the kind,—seedy hasbeens, with ...
— Shorty McCabe on the Job • Sewell Ford
... mind, conscious of nothing in the world but the dark pressure of her softly parting lips. They pressed upon his brain as upon his lips as though they were the vehicle of a vague speech; and between them he felt an unknown and timid pressure, darker than the swoon of sin, softer than ...
— A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man • James Joyce
... great invasion of the British Isles. She did not hide it, hoping thereby to make the British keep their fleets at home in self-defence. But though, as always happens, there were people weak enough to want to keep the Navy close beside the coast and stupidly divided up, so that plenty of timid folk could see the ships in front of them, just where the enemy with one well handled fleet could beat them bit by bit, Pitt paid no attention at all to any silly nonsense of the kind. He and Anson knew, of course, that, when you have ...
— Flag and Fleet - How the British Navy Won the Freedom of the Seas • William Wood
... appeared, and even after another long sleep, from which he awoke completely refreshed, there was no sign of anybody, though a fresh meal of dainty cakes and fruit was prepared upon the little table at his elbow. Being naturally timid, the silence began to terrify him, and he resolved to search once more through all the rooms; but it was of no use. Not even a servant was to be seen; there was no sign of life in the palace! He began to wonder ...
— Beauty and the Beast • Anonymous |
