"Timidity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... him, and call him a heartless beast, and he would do anything to evade a sulky look; and now, when the funeral was over and they were walking home wet, sorrowful, and tired, it was curious to watch how he gave his arm to Kate, and the timidity with which he introduced the subject. At first he only spoke of himself, and his hopes of being able to obtain a better part and a higher salary in the new drama. But mention to a mummer who is lying on ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore
... shadow-like as we glide past them, and the master of one steamer shouts a warning to the master of another which he meets. The Englishmen, who hate to run any risk without an equivalent object, show a good deal of caution and timidity ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... road looked very suspiciously at me out of the corners of their eyes, and reminded me that another whom I had met that morning higher up the valley took to her heels at the sight of me. An old woman who had lived long enough to overcome such timidity, asked me if I was a marchand, by which she meant pedlar—the old question to which I have grown weary of replying. About a mile from the town I found the Dordogne again. It had grown to quite a fine river since I last saw it in the ravines below Bort. Many ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... that the great amount of capital always seeking employment where tolerable safety could be insured terribly embittered the competition between capitalists when a promising opening presented itself. The idleness of capital, the result of its timidity, of course meant the idleness of labor in corresponding degree. Moreover, every change in the adjustments of business, every slightest alteration in the condition of commerce or manufactures, not to speak of the innumerable business failures that took place ...
— Looking Backward - 2000-1887 • Edward Bellamy
... with a proclamation prepared and signed by themselves, without any mention of anybody else. They had awoke to a sense of the danger of the situation and their own indispensable merits. The two children knew their day was over; the nurses had come for them. Who can blame them for their timidity? The Consuls have the ears of the Governments; they are the authors of those despatches of which, in the ripeness of time, Blue-books and White-books are made up; they had dismissed (with some little assistance from yourself) MM. Cedercrantz and Senfft von Pilsach, and they had strangled, like ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... to terrify Mabel Harrington by these words, she was mistaken. A vague feeling of loneliness was upon her, but she had no cowardly timidity to contend with. ...
— Mabel's Mistake • Ann S. Stephens
... been her existence before the coming of the brig with the strangers. She remembered well that time; the uproar in the settlement, the never-ending wonder, the days and nights of talk and excitement. She remembered her own timidity with the strange men, till the brig moored to the bank became in a manner part of the settlement, and the fear wore off in the familiarity of constant intercourse. The call on board then became part ...
— Almayer's Folly - A Story of an Eastern River • Joseph Conrad
... Did she want to monopolize him jealously? Oh, no! any man, however old and ugly, would have suited her, provided he had plenty of money. Was she coy toward him? Perhaps; but not from a feeling of modesty and timidity inspired by love, but to make him more ardent and ready to pay. Was she proud of his love? She thought him a fool. Were her feelings toward him chaste and pure? As chaste and pure as his. Did she sympathize ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... accompanied by Van der Elst, arrived at his house, the repast, which had long been ready, was placed on the table, and Jaqueline appeared to preside at it. She received the young captain with less frankness than she might generally have bestowed on her father's friends. There was a slight timidity in her manner, which, in spite of herself, she could not help exhibiting, and a blush rose for a moment to her cheek as ...
— The Lily of Leyden • W.H.G. Kingston
... who had before become sensible of their error in the former change, and only wanted a decent excuse for coming back, seized that occasion for doing so. Another body, and a large one it is, who from timidity of constitution had gone with those who wished for a strong executive, were induced by the same timidity to come over to us rather than risk anarchy: so that, according to the evidence we receive from every direction, we may say that the whole of that portion of ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... intelligent-looking. It was plain to be seen that they had not the slightest hostile intentions toward the aviators. On the contrary their features expressed clear friendliness, although it was obvious that their experience with the Clarion was still too fresh to eradicate their natural timidity of such a strange ...
— Around the World in Ten Days • Chelsea Curtis Fraser
... getting along. Each time, I found her quiet, and curiously submissive. Indeed, on the last occasion, she even ventured to address me, on her own account, with regard to some household matter that needed attention. Though this was done with an almost extraordinary timidity, I hailed it with happiness, as being the first word, voluntarily spoken, since the critical moment, when I had caught her unbarring the back door, to go out among those waiting brutes. I wondered whether she ...
— The House on the Borderland • William Hope Hodgson
... high with Flora's bed, bundles of clothing, blankets, sheets, and comforters, while I brought up the rear, dragging Flora's wagon, in which she was seated. My poor sister was quite cheerful, and did not seem to be disturbed by any timidity. ...
— Down The River - Buck Bradford and His Tyrants • Oliver Optic
... called, unless by special recommendation from a mutual friend; and the few permanent inhabitants chanced to be such, that a visit to them was in some degree a condescension. Perhaps there was more of timidity and caution than of pride in the mother's exclusiveness, and Grace had always acquiesced in it as the natural and established state of affairs, without any sense of superiority, but rather of being protected. ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... as we have essayed, though most feebly, to describe them, were enhanced rather than lessened by that air of anxiety by which they were now overcast. Her step was no longer free. It was marked by an unwonted timidity. Her glance was no longer confident; and when she looked round upon the faces of the young village-maidens, it was seen that her lip trembled and moved, but no longer with scorn. If the truth were told, she now envied the meanest of those maidens that security which ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... eloquent face. It seemed as if he were moved beyond all the ordinary feelings of reunion and of love. He did not attempt to kiss the hands he held; and though the touch thrilled through every vein and fibre of his frame, his clasp was as light as that in which the first timidity of a boy's love ventures ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... differently from the rest. Once or twice I saw them talking in one of the halls. There was deep respect in his manner. What he does I have not yet found out. He has always shown great respect to me, though why I can not imagine. He has the same timidity of manner which marks Mrs. Compton. ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille
... did not realize that practically every word he had spoken had reached the ears of the three in hiding and that his final precaution as he divulged the information to the girl was prompted by an excess of timidity and secretiveness. ...
— The Oakdale Affair • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... countenance, he presented to me his hand, openly and benignly. I shrank on looking at him so near, and yet I sighed to love him. He smiled, not without an expression of pity, at perceiving my diffidence, my timidity; for I remembered how soft was the hand of Sleep, how warm ...
— The Glory of English Prose - Letters to My Grandson • Stephen Coleridge
... King's favorite companions, on account, as it should seem, of the strong opposition between their characters. The parts of D'Argens were good, and his manners those of a finished French gentleman; but his whole soul was dissolved in sloth, timidity, and self-indulgence. His was one of that abject class of minds which are superstitious without being religious. Hating Christianity with a rancor which made him incapable of rational inquiry, unable to see in ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... cold attention that seemed to pursue them. The children of the Presidio school smirched their copybooks under the awful supervision, and poor Paquita, the prize pupil, failed utterly in that marvelous upstroke when her patron stood beside her. Gradually distrust, suspicion, self-accusation, and timidity took the place of trust, confidence, and security throughout San Carlos. Whenever the Right Eye of the Commander fell, ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... delivered SOTTO VOCE, that is, under the powers of the performer's voice, to borrow an image from her musical vocabulary. Even if she does know a thing very well, she should keep her knowledge in the background; there is a graceful timidity that is far more attractive than such ...
— Mr. Hogarth's Will • Catherine Helen Spence
... besides these, every misdemeanor came within the proper scope of its inquiry; those especially of public importance, and for which the law, as then understood, had provided no sufficient punishment; for the judges interpreted the law in early times with too great narrowness and timidity, defects which, on the one hand, raised up the overruling authority of the court of chancery as the necessary means of redress to the civil suitor who found the gates of justice barred against him ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various
... yet, with the exception of Irenaeus, Tertullian, Clemens Alexandrinus, and Origen, know only the names and enigmas (of which latter Hippolytus was one), their fault-finding with the composition of the book does not affect me at all. In spite of the timidity of nearly all English theologians, inter muros academicos et extra, I have received very many hearty and manly letters from numerous and distinguished people. The King has, on my recommendation, sent Dr. Boetticher to spend two years here ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... world would lead us to consider as the one great security for good government. We have to engraft on despotism those blessings which are the natural fruits of liberty. In these circumstances, Sir, it behoves us to be cautious, even to the verge of timidity. The light of political science and of history are withdrawn: we are walking in darkness: we do not distinctly see whither we are going. It is the wisdom of a man, so situated, to feel his way, and not to plant his foot till ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... state of constant excitement. I well recall the first morning it was announced to us by one of the colored servants, while we were at the breakfast table, that "the rebels were coming," and the feeling of timidity that nearly overpowered me. Very soon some troops under the command of General Bradley T. Johnson, a native of Frederick, marched upon our lawn and encamped all around us. General Johnson immediately came to our ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur
... all that is beautiful, without asking the name of the master and the school. This Bohemian is recruited from amongst those young fellows of whom it is said that they give great hopes, and from amongst those who realize the hopes given, but who, from carelessness, timidity, or ignorance of practical life, imagine that everything is done that can be when the work is completed, and wait for public admiration and fortune to break in on them by escalade and burglary. They live, so to say, on the outskirts of life, in isolation and inertia. Petrified ...
— Bohemians of the Latin Quarter • Henry Murger
... rose from her seat with a cry in which was timidity, pity, and something of horror; for it was Pretty Pierre. She recoiled, but seeing how he swayed with weakness, and that his clothes had blood upon them, she helped him to a chair. He looked up at her with an enigmatical ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... down mighty cities in his madness. I think it would make a man walk down the street as if he were walking on egg-shells. I do not think this experiment in opportunism would end in frantic license; I think it would end in frozen timidity. If a man was forbidden to solve moral problems by moral science or the help of mankind, his course would be quite easy—he would not solve the problems. The world instead of being a knot so tangled as to need unravelling, would simply ...
— George Bernard Shaw • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... him what has happened. I know I don't dare ask him, and I am a passenger, a privileged person. This redoubtable old sea-relic has inspired me with a respect for him that partakes half of timidity and half ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London
... was no doubt looked upon as an act of timidity, and it was not long before we had a repetition of the offence. I had taken pains to have the garrison at Dayton carefully instructed that they must be patient and cool, avoiding every provocation, but if attacked, the aggressor must be punished on the spot. In ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... antelope, like most animals of its kind, has one strongly developed propensity—that of curiosity. Although to a known enemy it is the most timid of creatures, yet in the presence of an object that is new to it, it appears to throw aside its timidity, or rather its curiosity overcomes its sense of fear; and, impelled by the former, it will approach very near to any strange form, and regard it with an air of bewilderment. The prairie-wolf—a creature that ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid
... certainly the more nervous. His arm was about her shoulders; her firm, slender body was drawn close to his. His clasp tightened as the timidity of inexperience gave way to confidence; an amazing sense of conquest, of possession took hold of him. He could have shouted defiance to the storm. He held her! This beautiful, warm, ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon
... the water, Angelique followed the bank of the Chevrotte, that she might cross it on a plank which served as a bridge. But Felicien had gone a shorter way through the brambles and brushwood. Until now he had always been overcome by his timidity, and he had turned redder than she as he saw her bare feet, pure and chaste as herself. Now, in the overflow of his ignorant youth, passionately fond of beauty and desirous for love, he was impatient to cry out and ...
— The Dream • Emile Zola
... some directions to prepare for the flying visit, Flavia watching. She made no demand for attention, no betrayal of feminine timidity to hamper this man's world into which she had been brought. Men looked curiously at the delicate, serious girl who sat so quietly in the Mercury camp, but gradually the information crept out that she was Rose's sister and Gerard's fiancee, so ...
— From the Car Behind • Eleanor M. Ingram
... and full of natural courage, and consequently so incapable of intimidation, as that of our friend the proctor. And what was equally striking, the female portion of them were as free from the weakness and timidity of their sex, in this respect, as ...
— The Tithe-Proctor - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... education of an eastern despot, and been surrounded with slaves from his cradle. In person he was the tallest and handsomest man amidst the vast hosts which he led against Greece; but there was nothing in his mind to correspond to this fair exterior. His character was marked by faint-hearted timidity and childish vanity. Xerxes had not inherited his father's animosity against Greece; but he was surrounded by men who urged him to continue the enterprise. Foremost among these was Mardonius, who was eager to retrieve his reputation, and to obtain ...
— A Smaller History of Greece • William Smith
... numerous salmon spears were their only furniture. In a few minutes my arrival created a prodigious commotion. The whole population turned out to stare at me. The children ran into the bushes to hide. But feminine curiosity conquered feminine timidity. Although I was in the plight of the forlorn Odysseus after his desperate swim, I had no 'blooming foliage' to wind [Greek text which cannot be reproduced]. Unlike the Phaeacian maidens, however, ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... in his reign that Prussia laid the foundation of her greatness as a military monarchy. It was not the king who laid this foundation, but the great men whom Providence raised up in the darkest hours of Prussia's humiliation. He did one prudent thing, however, out of timidity, when his ministers waged vigorous and offensive measures. He refused to arm against Napoleon when Prussia lay at his mercy. This turned out to be the salvation of Prussia, A weak man's instincts proved to be wiser than the wisdom of the wise. When ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume X • John Lord
... "It will be all right to-morrow morning. What I write will make the fortune of the composition." He did not utter this vaingloriously, but as a man who stated simple truth. She gazed at him, her timidity and nervousness ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... professional men from Denver and Pueblo out for fish and such game as the law allowed, and all in holiday mood. They joked the waiter-girls, and joshed one another in noisy good-fellowship, ignoring the slim youth in English riding-suit, who came in with an air of mingled melancholy and timidity and took a seat at the lower ...
— The Forester's Daughter - A Romance of the Bear-Tooth Range • Hamlin Garland
... its melancholy face. That was when it first caught sight of the canoe. Then it exposed its very small teeth and gums after the fashion of its mother; but repentance seemed to follow instantly, for the sad look, mixed with a dash of timidity, resumed its place, and it buried its face in its ...
— The Red Eric • R.M. Ballantyne
... free from timidity, and always expressed himself well, made a very appropriate reply; and, at poor Ellis's earnest request, spoke for him also, and said a great deal more in his favour than ...
— Ernest Bracebridge - School Days • William H. G. Kingston
... piece of Dad's hand as well. Farmer had not been in many battles—no Defence Force man ever owned him. He threw up his head and snorted, and commenced a retreat. The kangaroo followed him up and seized Dad by the shirt. Joe evinced signs of timidity. He lost faith in Dad, and, half jumping, half falling, he landed on the ground, and set out speedily for a tree. Dad lost the stick, and in attempting to brain the brute with his fist he overbalanced and fell out of the saddle. He struggled to his feet, and clutched ...
— On Our Selection • Steele Rudd
... generally less regard for the status quo, are quick to see ulterior motives back of conservative timidity and solemn profession of respect for law and order. It was so in the case of the Stamp Act. Small shopkeepers who were soon sold out and had no great stock of "old moth-eaten goods" to offer at enhanced prices, rising young lawyers whose fees ceased with the closing of the courts, artisans and ...
— The Eve of the Revolution - A Chronicle of the Breach with England, Volume 11 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Carl Becker
... you ever think what this flirting means?" persisted Faith, who had lost all her timidity and was plunging ...
— For Gold or Soul? - The Story of a Great Department Store • Lurana W. Sheldon
... happen if this sensitive and proud heart of hers were driven into rebellion by some—possibly unintentional—wrong. And this high-spirited, fearless, honor-loving girl—who was gentle and obedient, not through any timidity or limpness of character, but because she considered it her duty to be gentle and obedient—was to be cast aside and have her tenderest feelings outraged and wounded for the sake of an unscrupulous, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 30. September, 1873 • Various
... those words his voice, gestures, and expression of countenance were in keeping with the language itself, and truly horrible. Suddenly a change came over his countenance; the dark lines of passion retreated, and an expression of timidity or fear came in their place. He muttered incoherently for a time, and then, as if communing with himself, he spoke in a subdued voice of the last scene in his conscious life. A few sentences were audible and connected, showing how his mind was ...
— Ellen Walton - The Villain and His Victims • Alvin Addison
... the lime-burner, vexed at his son's timidity, yet half infected by it. "Come forward, and show yourself, like a man, or I'll fling this chunk of ...
— The Snow Image • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Esther's natural timidity was increased by Marie's treatment. At first she made feeble efforts to converse, but finding herself continually repressed, gradually ceased from her endeavors to make friends ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls, Vol. XIII, Nov. 28, 1891 • Various
... a feeling of timidity that I accompanied my mother through several streets to the school taught by Miss Edmonds. My mother accompanied me to relieve me from any awkwardness I might feel in presenting myself for admission. It was a select school for girls. ...
— The Path of Duty, and Other Stories • H. S. Caswell
... either side of it. There was every reason to expect that Nekht-nebf, by warily guarding his frontier, and making full use of his resources, might baffle for a considerable time, if not wholly frustrate, the Persian attack. But his combined self-conceit and timidity ruined his cause. Taking the direction of affairs wholly upon himself and asking no advice from his Greek captains, he failed to show any of the qualities of a great commander, and was speedily involved in difficulties ...
— Ancient Egypt • George Rawlinson
... Wellington's operations were daring to extravagance, some cautious to the verge of timidity, all founded as much upon keen and nice perceptions of the political measures of his adversaries as upon pure military considerations—and 'he knew how to obey as ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... lock one of the doors of the green room, but while I was given brandy, and congratulated by my chairman and his family, a very old charwoman peeped in at another entrance, saying with emotional timidity, ...
— My Impresssions of America • Margot Asquith
... yet unsown, and that the volcano which buries a city preserves a thousand from destruction. But the evil is not for the time less fearful, because we have learned it to be necessary; and we easily understand the timidity or the tenderness of the spirit which would withdraw itself from the presence of destruction, and create in its imagination a world of which the peace should be unbroken, in which the sky should not darken nor the sea rage, in which the leaf should not change nor the blossom ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume II (of 3) • John Ruskin
... surprised us. She was very plain-featured, but the men—the rough teamsters, for instance—could not keep their eyes off her. She was the most amazing mixture of boldness and timidity I had ever met. We were about to plump ourselves down at table, for instance, when Miss Buchanan, folding her hands and raising her eyes, said grace; but to our first questions she ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell
... Lindsay's eyes fixed on him, and back came the thoughts of his terrible fright, with a little shame too at his own timidity. Which of us trusts as we should do in the ...
— Frances Kane's Fortune • L. T. Meade
... Lashmar, who had quite come round to his wife's opinion on the subject of the honeymoon, cared not how long these days of contented indolence lulled his ambitious soul; at times he was even touched by the devotion which repaid his sacrifice. A certain timidity which clung to Iris, a tremulous solicitude which marked her behaviour to him, became her, he thought, very well indeed. Constance Bride was right; he could not have been thus at his ease with a woman capable of reading his thoughts, and of criticising ...
— Our Friend the Charlatan • George Gissing
... an unsuspected timidity of character. "I don't like being left here all alone," she remarked. "Wait till ...
— A Master Of Craft • W. W. Jacobs
... points in it. By making the most of these, it might, perhaps, be rebutted, but his honesty rendered such a course out of the question if she were right in her conclusions, and he was forced to admit that this was possible. Bertram had shown timidity in his younger days—Challoner remembered that they had had some trouble in teaching him to ride—and there was no doubt that his was a highly-strung and nervous temperament. He had not the calm which marked the Challoners in time of strain. Then Dick Blake was recklessly generous and ...
— Blake's Burden • Harold Bindloss
... must be the foundation on which the ideal married state is built. The husband should realize that his wife's love for him induces her to allow privileges of a personal nature which her innate chastity and timidity might otherwise refuse. In return, he should accept these privileges with consideration. He should, in particular, on his wedding night, take care not to shock his young bride's sensibilities. He may ...
— Sex - Avoided subjects Discussed in Plain English • Henry Stanton
... Heine. He had married since I was last here. I found him in indifferent health; but full of energy, and so friendly and so natural in his behavior towards me, that I felt no timidity in exhibiting myself to him as I was. One day he had been relating to his wife my story of the Constant Tin Soldier, and, whilst he said that I was the author of this story, he introduced me to her. She was a lively, pretty young lady. A troop of children, who, as Heine says, belonged to a neighbor, ...
— The True Story of My Life • Hans Christian Andersen
... Lactantius, Basil, Ambrose, Augustine, Procopius of Gaza, Cosmas, Isidore Virgil of Salzburg's assertion of it in the eighth century Its revival by William of Conches and Albert the Great in the thirteenth Surrender of it by Nicolas d'Oresme Fate of Peter of Abano and Cecco d' Ascoli Timidity of Pierre d'Ailly and Tostatus Theological hindrance of Columbus Pope Alexander VI's demarcation line Cautious conservatism of Gregory Reysch Magellan ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... issue seemed doubtful. Shalmaneser could not maintain this policy of forbearance without loss of prestige in the eyes of the world: conduct which might seem prudent and cautious in a victorious monarch like Assur-nazir-pal would in him have argued timidity or weakness, and his rivals would soon have provoked a quarrel if they thought him lacking in the courage or the means to attack them. Immediately after his accession, therefore, he assumed the ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 7 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... ruddy glow through the isinglass of the stove. The old gentleman was slowly polishing his glasses with his silk handkerchief, blinking his eyes and looking the very picture of sternness. Edna stole softly up, her little heart beating with a mixture of timidity and gratitude. She gently, plucked her uncle's sleeve, then she said, "Thank you so much, Uncle Justus," and leaning forward she gave a little light kiss, which fell only upon the outer edge of one carefully curled ...
— A Dear Little Girl • Amy E. Blanchard
... world as the "Life Work Service," was in the hands of a few leaders who knew both its power and peril. An invitation would be given for all to declare their purpose who felt called to special Christian work. The difficulty was to encourage the most timid of those who, despite their timidity, felt sure of the inner voice, and yet prevent a stampede among those who, without any depth of desire, were in love with emotion, and would enjoy being conspicuous, if only for the brief moment of ...
— John Wesley, Jr. - The Story of an Experiment • Dan B. Brummitt
... end is to stay the panic; and the advances should, if possible, stay the panic. And for this purpose there are two rules: First. That these loans should only be made at a very high rate of interest This will operate as a heavy fine on unreasonable timidity, and will prevent the greatest number of applications by persons who do not require it. The rate should be raised early in the panic, so that the fine may be paid early; that no one may borrow out of idle precaution without paying well ...
— Lombard Street: A Description of the Money Market • Walter Bagehot
... Mr Thomas and was agreeably prepossessed by his open although nervous countenance, and the simplicity and timidity of his manner. 'What a people are these Americans!' he thought. 'Look at this nervous, weedy, simple little bird in a lownecked shirt, and think of him wielding and directing interests so extended and seemingly incongruous! 'But had we not better,' ...
— The Wrong Box • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... with the Ancients, by perusing the works of eminent Poets of the present age, whose names it would be superfluous to mention. I dismiss this attempt, and the pieces which accompany it, to the judgment of the public, with that timidity and diffidence which the review of so many great names, and the sense of Inexperience are fitted to inspire. Whatever may be the fate of either, I shall remember, with pleasure, that they have afforded me an opportunity of testifying that high and respectful ...
— An Essay on the Lyric Poetry of the Ancients • John Ogilvie
... received me with an easy self-possession that showed no trace of the reserve and timidity which foreigners had remarked ...
— Servia, Youngest Member of the European Family • Andrew Archibald Paton
... And indeed, in the work of the later classicists, there was too often no spirit to look for. The husk alone remained—a finicky pretentious framework, fluttering with the faded rags of ideals long outworn. Every great tradition has its own way of dying; and the classical tradition died of timidity. It grew afraid of the flesh and blood of life; it was too polite to face realities, too elevated to tread the common ground of fact and detail; it would touch nothing but generalities, for they alone are safe, harmless, and respectable; and, if they ...
— Landmarks in French Literature • G. Lytton Strachey
... perhaps, should have been there to welcome the child— his conscience rather smote him that he was not—but it was the minister's unbroken habit of years to spend Saturday evening alone in his study. And it might be that, with a certain timidity, inherent in his character, he shrank from this first meeting, and wished to put off as long as possible what must inevitably be awkward, and might be very painful. So, in darkness and rain, unwelcomed save by his own servants, most of whom even ...
— A Noble Life • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... especially in France and Germany, unable to strengthen itself by intermarriage with the noblesse, they retained that timidity which is the fruit of the insecurity of trade; and had to submit to a more and more centralised despotism, and grow up as they could, in the face of exasperating hindrances to wealth, to education, to the possession, in many parts of France, of large ...
— The Ancien Regime • Charles Kingsley
... Lud, this news of papa's puts me all in a flutter. Young, handsome: these he put last; but I put them foremost. Sensible, good-natured; I like all that. But then reserved and sheepish; that's much against him. Yet can't he be cured of his timidity, by being taught to be proud of his wife? Yes, and can't I—But I vow I'm disposing of the husband before ...
— She Stoops to Conquer - or, The Mistakes of a Night. A Comedy. • Oliver Goldsmith
... the Little White Lady continued her wanderings about the Abbey and its neighborhood. The delicacy and timidity of her deportment increased the interest already felt for her by Mrs. Wildman. That lady, with her wonted kindness, sought to make acquaintance with her, and inspire her with confidence. She invited her into the Abbey; treated her with the most delicate ...
— Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey • Washington Irving
... other species of the leviathan, died out of the minds of the whalemen as a body. There are those this day among them, who, though intelligent and courageous enough in offering battle to the Greenland or Right whale, would perhaps—either from professional inexperience, or incompetency, or timidity, decline a contest with the Sperm Whale; at any rate, there are plenty of whalemen, especially among those whaling nations not sailing under the American flag, who have never hostilely encountered the Sperm Whale, but ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... roof of trees to keep off the shooting stars and other dangers—when these queer people began to massage each other in turn, to rub and to thump, to slap and knead the limbs and muscles, then, in their intense curiosity, even the children forgot their timidity and crowded round. A pickaninny—the queerest little mite—even ventured to poke a tiny finger into the ribs of one of the three. After that there was a great pow-wow. Mr. Hume, with a man in the palm of each hand, a boy on each shoulder, ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville
... the House during the Extra Session of Congress had rekindled the war fever in the country; and the constant chatter about the suffering Cuban and the duty of the United States, the black iniquity of the Speaker and the timidity of the President, were wearying to the more evenly balanced members of the community. "You say that we need a war," said Betty contemptuously one day, "that it will shake us up and do us good. If we had fallen as low as that, no war could ...
— Senator North • Gertrude Atherton
... her mind she was prevented by a mixture of pride and timidity from addressing him again, and when they were looking at the rows of quaint portraits in the gallery above the cloisters, she kept up her air of interest and made her vivacious remarks without any direct appeal ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... fair to leave her in ignorance of what would necessarily affect her attitude towards him; but it was impossible not to shrink from telling her. Dorothea accused herself of some meanness in this timidity: it was always odious to her to have any small fears or contrivances about her actions, but at this moment she was seeking the highest aid possible that she might not dread the corrosiveness of Celia's pretty carnally minded prose. ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... the greatest timidity that we venture upon the publication of a few aphorisms which may give birth to this new art, as casts have created the science of geology; and we offer them for the meditation of philosophers, of young marrying people and ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part I. • Honore de Balzac
... a subtler stroke of policy, he promised that those who went back should share in the rewards gained by their more constant brethren. But four infantrymen and five horsemen shamefacedly availed themselves of this permission. The rest enthusiastically clamored to be led forward. Both mutiny and timidity were silenced ...
— South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... (C. R. 3, 292.) In a second letter of the same date he says that a real doctrinal discussion had never come to pass, partly because Luther's illness prevented him from taking part in the meetings, partly because the timidity of certain men [the Landgrave and others] had prevented an exact disputation lest any discord might arise. (296.) March 3 he wrote to Jonas in a similar vein saying that the reports of violent controversies among the ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
... hostility, and at last into direct conflict. In the early stages, slavery had on its side the advantage of an established place under the law, the support of its local communities becoming more and more determined, the long-time indifference and inertia of the free States, custom, conservatism, timidity, race prejudice. But against all this were operating steadily two tremendous forces. In the race for industrial advantage which is at last the decisive test, free society was superior to slave society by as much as the freeman is superior ...
— The Negro and the Nation - A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement • George S. Merriam
... overlooked, and all difficulties defied. I plunged into obscurities, and clambered over obstacles, from which, in a different state of mind, and with a different object of pursuit, I should have recoiled with invincible timidity. When the scene had passed, I could not review the perils I had undergone ...
— Edgar Huntley • Charles Brockden Brown
... had seemed such timid creatures, even the dark one—she couldn't remember their names—that day at the club, that she had felt it quite safe to be very friendly. Here they had come out of their shells; already; indeed, at once. There was no sign of timidity about either of them here. If they had got out of their shells so immediately, at the very first contact, unless she checked them they would soon begin to press upon her, and then good-bye to her dream of thirty restful, silent days, lying unmolested in the sun, getting her ...
— The Enchanted April • Elizabeth von Arnim
... four at table. The editor came, and his timidity soon wore off in the warmth of hospitality. He appeared a kind exciteable little man, glad of his dinner from the first, and in due time proud of his entertainer. His response to the toast of the Fourth Estate was an apology ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... the battle-axe, the former with the bow and the sword One Scyth is receiving his death-wound, the other is about to let loose a shaft, but seems at the same time half inclined to fly The steady confidence of the warriors on the one side contrasts well with the timidity and hesitancy of their weaker and smaller ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 5. (of 7): Persia • George Rawlinson
... dear, if the pains it cost me to vanquish my timidity and master feelings you thought so feeble were invisible to you, will Heaven, think you, reward them? I assure you, it needed no slight effort to show myself to you as I was in the days before I loved. At Madrid I was considered a good talker, and I wanted you to see for yourself the few gifts ...
— Letters of Two Brides • Honore de Balzac
... Symptoms of Love.—The first symptom of love in a young man, is timidity; in a girl, it is boldness. The two sexes have a tendency to approach, and each assumes the qualities ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... troops and the mine laborers will be able to wipe us out, themselves," von Schlichten said. "For the timidity and stupidity of our enemies, Allah make us truly thankful, amen. It's something no commander should depend on, but be glad when it happens. If Firkked had had a couple of regiments on hand outside the reservation to jump us as soon as the Tenth and the Zirks mutinied, he could have swamped us in ...
— Uller Uprising • Henry Beam Piper, John D. Clark and John F. Carr
... unsettled, and it was long before either of them slept. Esperance and Genevieve talked low, and long silences broke their confidences. Count Styvens had brought cigarettes for Maurice and Jean. All three stayed and talked a long time in the painter's room. Alone with men, Styvens lost all the timidity that sometimes made him awkward. His broad and cultivated mind, his humanitarian philosophy unaffected by his religious beliefs, the sincere simplicity with which he expressed himself, made a great impression on ...
— The Idol of Paris • Sarah Bernhardt
... gxis. Till (cultivate) kulturi. Tillage kulturajxo, terkulturo. Tiller (of boat) direktilo. Tilt klini—igi, duonlevi. Tilt (an awning) kovrilego. Timber ligno, lignajxo. Time tempo. Timely gxustatempa. Timepiece horlogxo. Timid timema. Timidity timeco. Timorous timema. Tin stani. Tin stano. Tinder fajrfungo. Tinfoil hidrargajxo. Tinge koloretigi. Tingle vibreti, soneti. Tinkle tinti. Tint koloretigi. Tiny malgrandeta. Tip pinto. Tip (gratuity) trinkmono. Tippet ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... after these worthies had disappeared within the house, the door was again opened, and Chief Justice Chandler, the man to whose singularly compounded character, made up of timidity, selfishness, vanity, thirst of power, kindness, and duplicity, or rather the conduct that flowed from it, may be mainly attributed the bloody tragedy that ensued, now made his appearance in the street. He wore a powdered wig, according ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... changed from my Christian name, Mary Morse Baker. Timidity in early years caused me, as an author, to assume various noms de plume. After my first marriage, to Colonel Glover [20] of Charleston, South Carolina, I dropped the name of Morse to retain my maiden ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy
... enormous, overhanging, frightful. These big ones generally conceal a fine disposition, a kindliness that borders on weakness and a gentleness that savors of timidity. ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... poisonous weeds, in the quiet corner that God has given one to dress and keep. Then perhaps one tries to put one's hand on what is amiss; sometimes one does too much, and in the wrong way; one has not enough faith, one dares not leave enough to God. Or from timidity or diffidence, or from the base desire not to be troubled, from the poor hope that perhaps things will straighten themselves out, one does too little; and that is the worst shadow of all, the shadow of cowardice ...
— The Thread of Gold • Arthur Christopher Benson
... boldness and ease in her presence, and not for one second losing sight of her, though he did not look at her. He felt as though the sun were coming near him. She was in a corner, and turning out her slender feet in their high boots with obvious timidity, she skated towards him. A boy in Russian dress, desperately waving his arms and bowed down to the ground, overtook her. She skated a little uncertainly; taking her hands out of the little muff that hung on a cord, ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... Now they were at the "come forward and sit at the feet of Jesus." To-night grandpa and grandma didn't do that; they merely knelt in the pew with bowed heads. So Missy also knelt with bowed head. She was by this time in a state difficult to describe; a quivering jumble of excitement, eagerness, timidity, fear, hope, ...
— Missy • Dana Gatlin
... exerted themselves for defence with an energy that does honor to them both. "Far from showing the least timidity," says the ever-modest Governor, "I have taken positions such as may hide our weakness from the enemy."[835] He stationed Rochbeaucourt with three hundred men at Pointe-aux-Trembles; Repentigny with two hundred at Jacques-Cartier; and Dumas with twelve hundred ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... the staircase which the girls had ascended, then up its long straight ascent. He took its first steps in a bound, but, as his brain became more perfectly awake, confusion of thought, wonder, a certain timidity because now the screaming had ceased, caused him to slacken his pace. He was thus hesitating in the darkness when he found himself confronted by Madge King. She stood majestic in grey woollen gown, candle in hand, and her dark eyes blazed ...
— A Dozen Ways Of Love • Lily Dougall
... that then he loved display and ostentation and was proud, wilful and self-confident; nevertheless, there were times when for a moment he feared, but in spite of that timidity, he went ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester
... and death. These fears may prevent him from being a philosopher in the old and noble sense of the word; but they sharpen his sense for many a psychological problem, and make him the spokesman of many an inarticulate soul. Animal timidity and animal illusion are deep in the heart of all of us. Practice may compel us to bow to the conventions of the intellect, as to those of polite society; but secretly, in our moments of immersion in ourselves, we may find them a great nuisance, even a vain nightmare. Could we only listen ...
— Winds Of Doctrine - Studies in Contemporary Opinion • George Santayana
... enormous jaguar stretched beneath the shade of a large mimosa. He had just killed a chiguire, an animal about the size of a pig, which he held with one of his paws, while the vultures were assembled in flocks around. It was curious to observe the mixture of boldness and timidity which these birds exhibited; for although they advanced within two feet of the jaguar, they instantly shrunk back at the least motion he made. In order to observe more clearly their proceedings, the travellers went into their ...
— Forest & Frontiers • G. A. Henty
... Academy, and a price was set upon his head. Having returned to Florence, he proceeded to court Duke Alessandro, into whose confidence he wormed himself, pretending to play the spy upon the exiles, and affecting a personal timidity which put the Prince off his guard. Alessandro called him 'the philosopher,' because he conversed in solitude with his own thoughts and seemed indifferent to wealth and office. But all this while Lorenzino was ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... attention, which had been wandering more and more during the progress of Magdalen's inquiries, wandered away altogether. Her gathering anxieties got the better of her discretion, and even of her timidity. Instead of answering her mistress, she suddenly and confusedly ventured on a question ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... given to Montalais was communicated by her to La Valliere, who could not but acknowledge that it was by no means deficient in judgment, and who, after a certain amount of resistance, arising rather from her timidity than from her indifference to the project, resolved to put it into execution. This story of the two girls weeping, and filling Madame's bedroom with the noisiest lamentations, was Malicorne's chef-d'oeuvre. As nothing is so probable as improbability, so natural ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... acquaintance of one whom to know was to love and to revere! How many of the more enlightened of his contemporaries have since regretted that they did not seek him! how very few knew his worth while he lived! and, of those few, several were withheld by timidity or envy from declaring their sense of it. But no man was ever more enthusiastically loved—more looked up to, as one superior to his fellows in intellectual endowments and moral worth, by the few who knew him well, and had ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... uncertain timidity she had not yet learned to overcome, she directed her once sightless eyes toward him. He stood with Doris clasped in his arms. The mother had not heeded his words of the previous evening, for they bore no hidden meaning to ...
— Idle Hour Stories • Eugenia Dunlap Potts
... one thing which seems to me to have always and invariably hampered and maimed me, whenever I have yielded to it, and I have often yielded to it; and that is Fear. It can be called by many names, and all of them ugly names—anxiety, timidity, moral cowardice. I can never trace the smallest good in having given way to it. It has been from my earliest days the Shadow; and I think it is the shadow in the lives of many men and women. I want in this book to track it, if I can, to its lair, to see what it is, where its awful ...
— Where No Fear Was - A Book About Fear • Arthur Christopher Benson
... the baby," returned the youth, pointing to the child, which, with a mixture of boldness and timidity, was playing with a pup, wrinkling up its fat visage into a smile when its playmate rushed away in sport, and opening wide its jet-black eyes in grave anxiety as the pup returned ...
— The Dog Crusoe and his Master • R.M. Ballantyne
... to you, sir, fitting to sit here wasting time?" Mr. Clarkson continued, with diminishing timidity. "Does it seem to you a proper task for twenty-three apparently ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson
... of the commander, and equally of the young officer schooling himself to the ways of the service, is the seeking of means to break down the natural timidity and reticence of the ...
— The Armed Forces Officer - Department of the Army Pamphlet 600-2 • U. S. Department of Defense
... his majority, left him by his mother's father; and, as he was heir to the entailed property, there was no need for concern as to his future prospects, so no effort was made by Mr Huntingdon to draw him out of his natural timidity and reserve, and induce him to enter on any regular professional employment. Perhaps he would take to travelling abroad some day, and that would enlarge his mind and rouse him a bit. At present he really would make nothing of law, physic, or divinity. He was sufficiently ...
— Amos Huntingdon • T.P. Wilson
... the magnates—the mysterious and all-powerful "they" of Freeman's—so that the loss of the second fortune did not reflect on Gilmartin's ability as a speculator, but on his luck. As a matter of fact, he had been too careful and had sinned from over-timidity at first, only to plunge later and ...
— The Tipster - 1901, From "Wall Street Stories" • Edwin Lefevre
... expression of modesty in the courtship of animals, where the modesty of the female was a form of fear on the organic side, but the accompanying movements of avoidance were, at the same time, a powerful attraction to the male. And we have in this, as in all expressions of fear—shame, guilt, timidity, bashfulness—an affective bodily state growing out of the strain thrown upon the attention in the effort of the organism to accommodate itself to its environment. The essential nature of the reaction is already fixed in types of animal life where the operation of ...
— Sex and Society • William I. Thomas
... steadfast ideas of every one had in time produced a timidity and secretiveness in the most ordinary actions, though where she believed herself to be directed by the Spirit, she had no lack of confidence and determination. If her movements could be kept secret she would do her utmost to make them so. She would send ...
— Women of the Country • Gertrude Bone
... overheard him, as he intended she should, and blushed a visible acknowledgment. All of her character was visible, well-developed as her body: her timidity showed itself in the unceasing dropping of her eyelid; her arch simplicity in the pouting lips; a coy reserve—well, that everywhere, to the very rosette on her retreating slipper; and her patriotism was quite palpable in ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... the account given by Sir E. Tennent, of the behaviour of the female elephants, used as decoys, without admitting that they intentionally practise deceit, and well know what they are about. Courage and timidity are extremely variable qualities in the individuals of the same species, as is plainly seen in our dogs. Some dogs and horses are ill-tempered, and easily turn sulky; others are good-tempered; and these qualities are certainly inherited. Every one knows ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... possessed of remarkable strength of character, which is the more surprising from the natural timidity and gentleness of ...
— Lady Rosamond's Secret - A Romance of Fredericton • Rebecca Agatha Armour
... Girondists might have been victorious. In the worst event, they would have fallen with unblemished honor. Thus much is certain, that their boldness and honesty could not possibly have produced a worse effect than was actually produced by their timidity and their stratagems. ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... With shrinking and timidity the Browning girl is unacquainted. As experience grows, these sensations may sadly touch her, but she will not have been prepared for them; no reason for feeling either had entered her dream ...
— Browning's Heroines • Ethel Colburn Mayne
... grace does she whirl these tiny banners around her head, as winningly as a Titania performing the sword exercise! How coyly does she dispose her garments and floating drapery to hide the too-maddening symmetry of her limbs! Gods! She is transformed all at once into an Amazon—the fawn-like timidity of her first demeanour is gone. Bold and beautiful flushes her cheek with animated crimson—her full voluptuous lip is more compressed and firm—the deep passion of the huntress flashing in her lustrous eyes! Widdicomb becomes excited—he moves with quicker step around the periphery ...
— The Bon Gaultier Ballads • William Edmonstoune Aytoun
... in sudden timidity and said a little hurriedly, "Help me into the saddle. I shall need to ...
— The Spirit of Sweetwater • Hamlin Garland
... say it," she answered brightly; "you must say it and leave me to think it. And I do think it. I believe that Elspeth, despite her timidity and her dependence on you, is like other girls at heart, and not more difficult ...
— Tommy and Grizel • J.M. Barrie
... remonstrances sent, public action fearlessly sifted and criticised; in short, because he held a steady faith in men's humane promptings when ultimately reached, he 'cried aloud' to them by every access, and 'spared not' to call them from their timidity and time-serving to manly utterance ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... and it would occasionally happen that Mr. Barker experimentalised with the timidity or forbearance of the wrong person, in which case a summons to a Police-office, was, on more than one occasion, followed by a committal to prison. It was not in the power of trifles such as these, however, to subdue the freedom of his spirit. As soon as they passed away, he resumed ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... life, the shadows are reversed, and the mind turns retrospectively, it is not to be supposed that I would abandon lightly, or idly put on trial, the party to which I have steadily adhered. It is rather to be assumed that conservatism, which belongs to the timidity or caution of increasing years, would lead me to cling to, to be supported by, rather than to cast off, the organization with which I have been so long connected. If I am driven to consider the necessity ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis
... itself in the depths of the vast waters. And there was finally, at the hospital in Plassans, a dissecting room to which he was almost the only visitor; a large, bright, quiet room, in which for more than twenty years every unclaimed body had passed under his scalpel. A modest man besides, of a timidity that had long since become shyness, it had been sufficient for him to maintain a correspondence with his old professors and his new friends, concerning the very remarkable papers which he from time to time sent to the Academy of Medicine. He was ...
— Doctor Pascal • Emile Zola
... funny to see Mr. Kingsland forsake billiards and come to quote Tennyson to her; Dr. Maryland's shy, distant homage was more comical yet; and the tender little mouth began to find out its lines and dimples and power of concealment. But the young heart had a good share of timidity, and that stirred very often; making the colour flit to and fro 'like the rosy light upon the sky'— Mr. Kingsland originally observed; while Dr. Maryland looked at the evening star and was silent. Compliments!—how they rained down upon her; how gayly she shook ...
— Wych Hazel • Susan and Anna Warner
... much to America. Not content with charming us with the works of her native genius, she teaches us also to appreciate our own. She steps in between the timidity of a British author, and the fastidiousness of the British public, and by using her' good offices' brings both parties to ...
— Letters on International Copyright; Second Edition • Henry C. Carey
... flesh upon the tranter—who here came into action again—shook like jelly. Mrs. Penny, being always rather concerned for her personal safety when she danced with the tranter, fixed her face to a chronic smile of timidity the whole time it lasted—a peculiarity which filled her features with wrinkles, and reduced her eyes to little straight lines like hyphens, as she jigged up and down opposite him; repeating in her own person not only his proper ...
— Under the Greenwood Tree • Thomas Hardy
... man who, more than any one else, held in his hand the destiny of the nation. But, when a tall, gaunt person, with wonderful, thoughtful eyes and a homely face, illumined by a melancholy but attractive smile, walked up to him and asked: "Is this George Knight?" all the boy's timidity vanished. As he answered, "Yes, I am George Knight," he felt as if he had known ...
— Chasing an Iron Horse - Or, A Boy's Adventures in the Civil War • Edward Robins
... as you say!" murmured Roger, as he began to rise. It was not without a natural feeling of timidity that he cautiously elevated himself first to his knees and then to his feet. As for Jimmy, he ...
— The Khaki Boys Over the Top - Doing and Daring for Uncle Sam • Gordon Bates
... led on by what another would say or do, were down upon me. It was a sort of contagious excitement, and they didn't stop to think it might be unjust or cruel. Things went on from bad to worse, until at last I gave up trying to conciliate, and turned on them like a little wild-cat. I forgot my timidity,—forgot everything but my desire to be even with them, as I expressed it. But it wasn't an even conflict,—thirty girls against one; and at length I did something dreadful. I was going from the school-room to a recitation room with my ink-bottle; that ...
— A Flock of Girls and Boys • Nora Perry
... over, and that peculiar timidity which comes over certain classes lifted out of their customary environment and doing their best to become accustomed to new surroundings having begun to wear away under the tactful welcome of Felix, and the hour having arrived for the grand ceremony of gift-giving, ...
— Felix O'Day • F. Hopkinson Smith
... Walderhurst liked her timidity. To see a fine, tall, upstanding creature colour in that way was not disagreeable when one realised that she coloured because she ...
— Emily Fox-Seton - Being The Making of a Marchioness and The Methods of Lady Walderhurst • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... this exhortation the manner of Walter Skinner still betrayed doubt, and even timidity. And at last he made the innkeeper understand that it was he whom he ...
— A Boy's Ride • Gulielma Zollinger
... murder; [B] they who ruled the State, 65 Though with such awful proof before their eyes That he, who would sow death, reaps death, or worse, And can reap nothing better, child-like longed To imitate, not wise enough to avoid; Or left (by mere timidity betrayed) 70 The plain straight road, for one no better chosen Than if their wish had been to undermine Justice, and make ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth
... the altar; the crowd kneels in a large circle. At the priest's signal the farmer approaches the altar and kneels. His behavior betrays superstitious timidity and great awkwardness. The shepherd exhibits the lamb first to the priest and then to the dancers who in fantastic dancing step advance and retreat while the music plays. Finally the lamb is placed ...
— The Buddha - A Drama in Five Acts and Four Interludes • Paul Carus
... disdained the danger—sprang lightly up the trunk, and flung himself along one of the branches, dropping, happily without any accident, on the meadow of the Chateau d'Urtis. Little more was left for him to do; and that little he did. He went towards the fair shepherdesses. He tried to overcome his timidity—he overwhelmed the first sheep of the flock with his insidious caresses—and then, finding himself within a few feet of Amaranthe—he bowed, and smiled, and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - April 1843 • Various
... enterprize that might prove too mighty for all our efforts; though some among us had so lately treated the difficulties which former voyagers were said to have encountered in this undertaking as little better than chimerical, and had supposed them to have arisen from timidity and unskilfulness, rather than from the real embarrassments of the winds and seas. But we were now convinced, from severe experience, that these censures were rash and ill founded; for the distresses with which we struggled during ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... we split it?" It was plain that Garson had given over the struggle against greed. After all, Mary was only a woman, despite her cleverness, and with all a woman's timidity. Here was ...
— Within the Law - From the Play of Bayard Veiller • Marvin Dana
... quiet hope with which in every trouble she secretly comforted herself—she wanted to whisper the words that were that moment in her own mind, "Truly I know that it shall be well with them that fear God;"—but her natural reserve and timidity kept her ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... and so luxuriant in vegetation. The Island is at present largely devoted to the cultivation of sugar. Rice also cuts a considerable figure in the agricultural production of Kauai. That it can produce coffee is undoubted, but there is a timidity about embarking in the industry, because some forty years ago the experiment of a coffee plantation was tried, and owing to misjudgment of location and soil, failed. Since then the cultivation of coffee has come to be more thoroughly understood, ...
— The Hawaiian Islands • The Department of Foreign Affairs
... and are farther removed from them than the intermediate virtues, are usually held in higher esteem than those virtues. Thus, because those who fear dangers too much are more numerous than they who fear them too little, temerity is frequently opposed to the vice of timidity, and taken for a virtue, and is commonly more highly esteemed than true fortitude. Thus, also, the prodigal are in ordinary more praised than the liberal; and none more easily acquire a great reputation for piety than the superstitious and hypocritical. ...
— The Principles of Philosophy • Rene Descartes
... us the nooks and lanes, the rocks and hills, of Switzerland, rather than the high peaks; Lambinet, an apple-orchard, a row of pollard-elms, or a weedy pond,—not cataracts or forests. This is not affectation or timidity, but an instinct that the famous scenes are no breaks in the order of Nature,—that what is seen in them is visible elsewhere as well, only not so obvious, and that the office of Art is not to parrot what is already distinct, but to reveal it where ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 76, February, 1864 • Various
... assassin and successor, the second Michael, was tainted from his birth with the Phrygian heresies: he attempted to mediate between the contending parties; and the intractable spirit of the Catholics insensibly cast him into the opposite scale. His moderation was guarded by timidity; but his son Theophilus, alike ignorant of fear and pity, was the last and most cruel of the Iconoclasts. The enthusiasm of the times ran strongly against them; and the emperors who stemmed the torrent were exasperated and punished by the public hatred. After the death of Theophilus, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... pressing the turf, the other slightly retired, as if she had just paused in her steps. She was not fronting me, but half-turned. She appeared to have come as near as she intended, and was about going off again in an oblique direction: like the startled antelope, that, despite its timidity, stops to gaze upon the "object that has alarmed it." So short a time had my eyes been averted from the path by which she must have approached, I might well have fancied that she had suddenly sprung out of the earth—as Cytherea from the sea! Equally ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... however, Varchi, quoted above, p. 243. The Report of Marco Foscari, Relazioni Venete, series ii, vol. i. p. 9 et seq., contains a remarkable estimate of the Florentine character. He attributes the timidity and weakness which he observes in the Florentines to their mercantile habits, and notices, precisely what Varchi here observes with admiration: 'li primi che governano lo stato vanno alle loro botteghe ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds
... others. I remember that at the relation of our "experience" which followed as a rite on the presentation of the convert for membership of the church, I was the only one who told it calmly and audibly, all the others being inaudible from their excitement and timidity, so that the presiding elder was obliged to repeat to the audience what they said in his ear, trembling, weeping with the emotion of the event. I felt as if I were a hypocrite, and only the thought of my mother's satisfaction gave me ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James
... women. They recognize it in the physique, in the sodden, colorless countenance, the lack-luster eye, in the dreamy indolence, the general carriage, the constant demeanor indicative of distrust, mingled boldness and timidity, and a series of anomalous combinations which mark this genus of physical and ...
— Plain Facts for Old and Young • John Harvey Kellogg
... he has been represented, a tiger born with an insatiate thirst of human blood, and capable, from his infancy, of the most inhuman actions. Nature had formed him of a weak rather than a wicked disposition. His simplicity and timidity rendered him the slave of his attendants, who gradually corrupted his mind. His cruelty, which at first obeyed the dictates of others, degenerated into habit, and at length became the ruling ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various
... Kenneby was allowed to go down. As he did so, Joseph Mason, who sat near to him, turned upon him a look black as thunder. Mr. Mason gave him no credit for his timidity, but believed that he had been bought over by the other side. Dockwrath, however, knew better. "They did not quite beat him about his own signature," said he; "but I knew all along that we ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... of consequence in the country by the newspapers, and he was ruined by his timidity. If he had admitted that he was an owner of stock in the Credit Mobilier Company, not much could have been made against him. His denials and explanations, which were either false or disingenuous, and his final admission of a fact which implied that he had been in the receipt of a quarterly payment ...
— Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 2 • George S. Boutwell
... apartments on Capitol Hill and struck into one of the winding walks which led downward toward the city. It was the fourth week of the "short session" of Bradley's term of office, and the tenth week since their marriage. He still treated Ida with a certain timidity, and his adoration had been increased rather than diminished by his daily association with her. She seemed not to regret her compact with him, and though hardly more demonstrative than he, she let him know how deeply she ...
— A Spoil of Office - A Story of the Modern West • Hamlin Garland
... not a lesson! I have no father that is a malignant, and could therefore only undergo simple murder. However, [touching the hilt of his sword] rest thou there! in Mercy's hallowed name—nay more, as rashness is animal, so a due timidity is soul, which is mind, and I have a great mind to run away, and mind being soul, I think I have a ...
— Cromwell • Alfred B. Richards
... rarely attended meeting, not from any lack of the need of worship, but because she shrank with painful timidity from appearing in the presence of the assembled neighborhood. She was, nevertheless, grateful for Gilbert's success, and her heart inclined to thanksgiving; besides, he desired that they should go, and she was not able to offer ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor
... gives but five. Secker shows that there were nineteen. Though the London Magazine was generally earlier in publishing the debates, it does not therefore follow that Johnson had seen their reports when he wrote his. His may have been kept back by Cave's timidity for some months even after they had been set up in type. In the staleness of the debate there was some safeguard ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... warned, and have promised and sworn peace and amends, and have totally defaulted, as we have already said, and have taken occasion, from the lenity shown them, to do greater mischiefs with more boldness—mistaking for timidity the kindliness that we have used toward them—it follows that, numerous though they are, we ought no longer to dissemble with them, but must punish them sternly; for the more numerous they are, the more mischief ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume VIII (of 55), 1591-1593 • Emma Helen Blair
... her hand was softly put upon Mr. Carleton's, as if partly in the fear of what might have grown out of his anger, and partly in thankfulness to him that he had rendered it unnecessary. There was a singular delicate timidity ...
— Queechy, Volume I • Elizabeth Wetherell
... to censure himself. Judith gave him her hand, but it was quite as much in gladness as with regret, while the two Delawares were not sorry to find he was leaving them. Of the whole party, Hetty alone betrayed any real feeling. Bashfulness, and the timidity of her sex and character, kept even her aloof, so that Hurry entered the canoe, where Deerslayer was already waiting for him, before she ventured near enough to be observed. Then, indeed, the girl came into the ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... prepossessing in his appearance."—"A very young man, say you? . . . Oh, then I will see him. . . . Rustan, tell him to come in." M. de Stael presented himself to Napoleon with modesty, but without any unbecoming timidity. When he had respectfully saluted the Emperor a conversation ensued between them, which Duroc described to me in ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... chamois was a pretty little creature, and quick and active to a remarkable degree. But she had also inherited her parents' sensitiveness and timidity, and never left her mother's side; where the mother chamois went, there the little one followed closely, and when a chasm or ravine was too wide to cross with a leap of her small body, the mother ...
— Rataplan • Ellen Velvin
... with his personal character. It had at first been liberal and just; it became arbitrary and even treacherous. His personal timidity made him at once harsh and vacillating. The heads of the great families, whom he had invited to a banquet, were seized and condemned to death on a charge of conspiracy. But a sudden terror of the possible consequences of his action caused him to relent, and he released ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... them, despite their sorrows and waiting. They were clerklings, not lords of love and life, but all the more easily did they yield to longing for happiness. Between them was the battle of desire and timidity—and not all the desire was his, not hers all the timidity. She fancied sometimes that he was as much afraid as was she of debasing their shy seeking into unveiled passion. Yet his was the initiative; always she panted and wondered what he ...
— The Job - An American Novel • Sinclair Lewis |
