"Shy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... maternal care, And promised never to go near. Yet still he burned to disobey, And hovered round it day by day; And communed thus: "I wonder why? Does mother think my soul is shy? Thinks me a coward? or does she Store grain in yonder well from me? I'll find that out, and so here goes." So said, he flaps his wings and crows, Mounted the margin, peered below, Where to repel him rose a foe. His choler rose, his plumes upreared— With ruffled ...
— Fables of John Gay - (Somewhat Altered) • John Gay
... wealthy England, and though he rarely saw Leon again, the lad came in a shadowy way to take the place he had momentarily designed for Joseph Strelitski. To-night it was Pinchas who assumed the paternal manner, but he mingled it with a subtle obsequiousness that made the shy simple lad uncomfortable, though when he came to read the poet's lofty sentiments which arrived (with an acrostic dedication) by the first post next morning, he conceived an enthusiastic admiration ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... about six miles, but could discover no place where the natives obtained their supplies of water. At this point they were travelling over burnt scrubby sandhill country still north, when the natives who had appeared so shy came running after them in a threatening manner, howling at them, and annoying them in every possible way. These people, who had now arrayed themselves in their war-paint, and had all their fighting weapons in hand, evidently meant mischief; but my officers managed to get away from them without ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles
... a child, on my lap, and played on my knees with her doll. Thus they behaved to me when I saw them for the first time in their present elevation; I found them afterwards, in their drawing-rooms or at their routs and parties, more shy and distant. This change did not much surprise me, as I hardly knew any one that had the slightest pretension to their acquaintance who had not troubled them for employment or borrowed their money, at the same time that they complained of their neglect ...
— Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud, Complete - Being Secret Letters from a Gentleman at Paris to a Nobleman in London • Lewis Goldsmith
... had woven this hallucination, he turned toward her again, and found, as their eyes met, a little of the shy hesitation with which the mother's gaze had met his in the ...
— Strong as Death • Guy de Maupassant
... glad to hear this, for, though I was not a shy person, my first visit to Gladwyn would be a little formidable; so I told him briefly that I would be ready by half-past six, as they wished me to go early, and it would never do to be formal on my side. And then I gave him an account of Lady Betty's visit, but it did ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... separated the moment they met, but neither had the impulse nor the intention to leave the shade of the wood; and when the brief twilight fell and the moon rose, there still was Nevis, and after her the many craft to divert their gaze. Hamilton was honourable and shy, and Rachael was a woman of uncommon strength of character and had been brought up by a woman of austere virtue. These causes held them apart for a time, but one might as well have attempted to block two comets rushing at each other in the same orbit. The magnetism of the Inevitable ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... altogether relish;—"what could I do? You see Ballycloran is three miles out of this, and I couldn't always be up there when Ussher was coming. And though I believe I'd be bold enough where one of my own girls was concerned, I'd be shy of speaking to a man like Captain Ussher, when it was ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope
... Be shy of breastpins; plain, well-ironed white, With small pearl buttons,—two of them in sight,— Is always genuine, while your gems may pass, Though real diamonds, for ignoble glass. But spurn those paltry Cisatlantic lies That round ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... The shy little sumacs, in lonely places, Bowed all summer with dust and heat, Like clean-clad children with rain-washed faces, Are dressed in scarlet from head to feet. And never a flower had the boastful summer, In all the blossoms that decked her sod, So royal hued ...
— Poems of Sentiment • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... and convolutions and foliole curlings most beautiful and extraordinary. In some respects this toy is a costume model, for it imitates exactly the real coiffure of Japanese maidens and brides. But the expression of the face of the beppin is, I think, the great attraction of the toy; there is a shy, plaintive sweetness about it impossible to describe, but deliciously suggestive of a real Japanese type of girl-beauty. Yet the whole thing is made out of a little crumpled paper, coloured with a few dashes of the brush by an expert ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan - First Series • Lafcadio Hearn
... into the lab. Karen was there alone, setting up an apparatus for the next attempt at heat treatment. A smock covered her into shapelessness, and her spectacular hair was bound up in a kerchief, but she still looked good. Lancaster, a shy man, was more susceptible to her ...
— Security • Poul William Anderson
... I feel very shy and queer, going among strangers. You see, I have never really been away in my life; never in this way, I mean. I was always with father; and then—afterward—I went to Fernley; and though so many people have come into my life, dear, delightful ...
— The Merryweathers • Laura E. Richards
... conveyed, so many claims on our regard has that popular form of church government for which Nonconformists contend, so perfectly compatible is it with all progress towards perfection, that culture would make us shy even to propose to Nonconformists the acceptance of the Anglican prayer-book and the episcopal order; and would be forward to wish them a prayer-book of their own approving, and the church discipline to which they are attached and accustomed. Only not at the price ...
— Culture and Anarchy • Matthew Arnold
... Beesley, and mother sent these eggs to scramble with the ones you got this morning for supper," she said in a low voice that was positively fragrant with sweetness. Two huge plaits of corn-silk hair fell over her shoulders, and her eyes were as shy and blue as violets were before they became a large commercial product. Her gingham dress was cut with decorum just below her shoe-tops and, taking into consideration the prevailing mode, its length, fullness, and ruffles made the slim young thing look like a picture from the same review ...
— The Golden Bird • Maria Thompson Daviess
... Pardon expressed the conviction that Miss Chancellor agreed with him in this, and it required a great effort of mind on Olive's part, so small was her desire to act in concert with Mr. Pardon, to admit to herself that she did. She asked him, with a certain lofty coldness—he didn't make her shy, now, a bit—whether he took a great interest in the improvement of the position of women. The question appeared to strike the young man as abrupt and irrelevant, to come down on him from a height with which he was not ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. I (of II) • Henry James
... near the door, receiving her Christmas guests. They came straggling in, in twos and threes, some boldly and impudently, some shame-faced and shy, some eager, some indifferent, but all poverty-pinched. Each one was pleasantly welcomed, and passed on to the feast. Angela watched and waited, and at last the door opened slowly to admit old Marg, who stopped short on ...
— A Budget of Christmas Tales by Charles Dickens and Others • Various
... entered the house. He was thinking strange thoughts. For the first time he was touched by a woman, this poor, ill-clad, tramping woman, the wife of an evident scoundrel, touched to the heart for her and her child. The happy, pretty girls who had looked shy invitation at him had not appealed. They had, one by one, put him down as a dry old bachelor and taken their charms elsewhere. Patsy had never missed wife or child. He would have said himself that he had enough to think of, with her Ladyship and the Master and ...
— Love of Brothers • Katharine Tynan
... abundant, all these wild creatures are shy, and one may travel many days without adventure, and any sense of danger is soon lost in admiration of the beauties ...
— Burma - Peeps at Many Lands • R.Talbot Kelly
... glory that tightened the girl's throat as she waved good-by from the veranda. She was glad Bruce was going, even if her throat did ache. Aches like that seemed far less important than they used to. She waved with a thrill coursing up her spine and a shy, eager sense of how big and wonderful and happy a thing it was to be ...
— The Camerons of Highboro • Beth B. Gilchrist
... your first shy at the government official, isn't it? They're not all as bad as that. At first I couldn't make out whether he was just fat and lazy. Now I know he's a grafter. He ought to get a nice neat 'For Sale' sign painted. Did you hear the nerve of him? Wanted a thousand dollars bribe to ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... appear in all Publick Places without any Buttons to their Coats, which they supply with several little Silver Hasps, tho' our freshest Advices from London make no mention of any such Fashion; and we are something shy of affording Matter to the Button-Makers for a second ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... older if she had wished to escape she would not have dared, would not have known how; for she was shy outside the family circle, and could hardly move or talk; people thought her insignificant. This she knew; it wounded her self-respect, and therefore she went out as little as possible, preferring to stay at home, where she was simple, natural and taciturn. This silence did not arise ...
— Clerambault - The Story Of An Independent Spirit During The War • Rolland, Romain
... Philip had returned from India as a man of fifty, with the reasonable hope of enjoying his pensioned retirement. Philip had spent his energy freely in the Indian Civil Service, and the two middle-aged brothers, either too poor to marry, too shy, or both, determined to combine resources with ...
— War-time Silhouettes • Stephen Hudson
... moment, ushered by a servant, stalked forward, booted and fully equipped, my travelling companion—if such a word can at all express the relation between the arrogant young blood, just fresh from assuming the toga virilis, and a modest child of profound sensibilities, but shy and reserved beyond even English reserve. The aged servant, with apparently constrained civility, presented my mother's compliments to him, with a request that he would take breakfast. This he hastily and rather peremptorily ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... take French service, profoundly incognito, and signalize himself in the Italian War (just expected to break out), which might have recovered him some favor from his Majesty: does not tell clearly where his money came from; shy extremely of elucidating Katte and Keith;—in fact, as we perceive, struggles against mendacity, but will not tell the whole truth. "Let him lie in ward, then; and take what doom the Laws have appointed for the like of him!" Divine Laws, are they ...
— History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 7 • Thomas Carlyle
... have Gold you shall have Treasure, Or any dainty kind of thing; Thou may'st command all Delights and Pleasure, And what you'd have, Love, I would you bring: But you prove shy, and at last deny, Him that admires you alone; Unconstant Woman proves true to no Man, She's left me ...
— Wit and Mirth: or Pills to Purge Melancholy, Vol. 5 of 6 • Various
... walking ever broad-minded through the narrowness of her little town; remaining white though often threading its soiling ways; and from every life which touched hers, however crippled and confined, extracting its significance instead of its insignificance, shy harmonies instead of the easy discords which can so palpably be struck by ...
— The Mettle of the Pasture • James Lane Allen
... speaking as kindly as I could, and asking to see her child. She understood me, and with a smile held up her little papoose, as she called him,—who, to say truth, I could not call very pretty. He seemed to have a wild, shy look, like the offspring of an untamed, animal. The woman wore a blanket, gaudily fringed, and she had a string of beads on her neck. She took down a basket, woven of white and red willows, and pressed me to taste ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... the younger sons, stand to one another in a rational, not a conventional relation. Nothing is considered of so much importance as education, which the head of the house gives not only to the children, but to the whole household. He first develops his wife from a shy girl, brought up in careful seclusion, to the true woman of the house, capable of commanding and guiding the servants. The sons are brought up without any undue severity, carefully watched and counselled, and controlled 'rather by authority than by force.' And finally the ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... were accepted by the promoters. Subscription books opened but capital fought shy of the proposition. Two years solicitation only resulted in subscriptions to the amount of two million dollars being paid up ...
— The Story of the First Trans-Continental Railroad - Its Projectors, Construction and History • W. F. Bailey
... all the voices strained themselves did not hear their doubt-destroying response, tumultuous though it was. Another voice, close beside him, had taken up that refrain, making all others inaudible, a shy, glad, whispering voice ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... and her daughter were both amused and pleased by the earnest and rapid fashion in which Sheila talked. They had generally considered her to be a trifle shy and silent, not knowing how afraid she was of using wrong idioms or pronunciations; but here was one subject on which her heart was set, and she had no more thought as to whether she said like-a-ness or likeness, or whether she said gyarden ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 30. September, 1873 • Various
... Vera looked shy, and Agatha said, "She has a good voice, and Madame Lardner thinks it would answer to send her to some superior Conservatoire ...
— Modern Broods • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... The girl flashed a shy look into the beaming, inquisitive face. "I don't know," she confessed, soberly. "I have not even seen him for such a long time; but—but, I guess, he is more to me than any ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... he had no place at all. Now the dusk had fallen to such an extent that he had to follow her implicitly, and even lean his hand on her shoulder when they jumped a bank into a very narrow lane. And he felt curiously shy of her when she began to shout through her hands at a spot of light which swung upon the mist in a neighboring field. He shouted, too, ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... face me: be women no more; But fellow-men born, from top branch to the core; Men who must fight—who can kill, who can die, While women once more shall be covered and shy. ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... the Lianhan Shee, by, driving its victim out of the parish. The opinion of these persons was, in its distinct unvarnished reality, that Father Felix absolutely showed the white feather on this critical occasion—that he became shy, and begged leave to decline being introduced to this intractable pair—seeming to intimate that he did not at all relish adding them to the stock of ...
— Phil Purcel, The Pig-Driver; The Geography Of An Irish Oath; The Lianhan Shee • William Carleton
... comfort, cheer, and kind intent The weary stranger oft hath known When she, its mistress, fair and good, Reigned here in peerless womanhood, When soft, shy maiden fancy gave Encouragement to soldiers brave, And Washington his presence lent ...
— Poems - Vol. IV • Hattie Howard
... reconciliation, in which she did beguile me of my tears, but the deuce a one did she shed. What do you think? She cajoled me out of my little Buonaparte as cleverly as possible, in manner and form following. She was shy the Saturday and Sunday (the day of my departure) so I got in dudgeon, and began to rip up grievances. I asked her how she came to admit me to such extreme familiarities, the first week I entered the house. "If she had ...
— Liber Amoris, or, The New Pygmalion • William Hazlitt
... old Lied, that thou hast so often played, and for a toast, 'Fifine.' If Fifine had been there she would have been lying on my shoulder, but since I rescued her from the teasing of a big drum-major she has grown shy and doesn't like company; and though she would soon be a pet with most of our men, keeps her love for me alone, and would be a very charming companion if I had time to devote to her pretty ways.' So you see ...
— Miss Grantley's Girls - And the Stories She Told Them • Thomas Archer
... in his face, sits wistfully apart, Searching it with those looks of love that leap from heart to heart; Her eyes—afire with shy desire, veiled by their lashes black— Speak so that Krishna cannot choose but send the message back, In the company of damsels whose bright eyes in a ring Shine round him with soft meanings in ...
— Indian Poetry • Edwin Arnold
... be good friends," said Annie Boyle, who did not seem at all shy in conversing with strangers, "but Pa's soured on him lately. I don't know why. P'raps because Abe is a German, an' everybody's tryin' to fling mud at the Germans. But Abe says the German-Americans are the back-bone of this country, and as ...
— Mary Louise and the Liberty Girls • Edith Van Dyne (AKA L. Frank Baum)
... that the interest of the story flagged, and that the enjoyment of reading was much enhanced by the proximity of a gray bonnet and a girlish profile. But Dickens soon proved more powerful than Debby, and she was forgotten, till, pausing to turn a leaf, the young man met her shy glance, as she asked, with the pleased expression of a child who has shared an apple with ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... himself; or only remembered them enough to give an additional tender gravity to their manner. For Mr. Hale had not been known to many; he had belonged to one of the smaller colleges, and had always been shy and reserved; but those who in youth had cared to penetrate to the delicacy of thought and feeling that lay below his silence and indecision, took him to their hearts, with something of the protecting kindness which they would have shown to a woman. And the renewal ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... a great difference what kind of fox you use, however. I once had a fox on my Pumpkin Butte estates that lasted me three years, and I never knew him to shy or turn out of the road for anything but a loaded team. He was the best fox for hunting purposes that I ever had. Every spring I would sprinkle him with Scotch snuff and put him away in the bureau till fall. He would ...
— Nye and Riley's Wit and Humor (Poems and Yarns) • Bill Nye
... for a brief instant in a warm strong pressure, but dropped it again and there was a quick cold withdrawing of his eyes that she did not understand. The old Mark Carter would never have looked at her coolly, impersonally like that. What was it, was he shy of her after the long separation? Four years was a long time, of course, but there had been occasional letters. He had always been away when she was at home, and she had been home very little between her school years. There had been summer sessions twice and once ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill
... "Well, she ain't quite shy of friends, neither. I ain't got no gold mines—never took no stock in them. But I've got a bunch of cows and the old man's got a right nice ranch. If it wasn't for one thing, I'd just rack in and ...
— Louisiana Lou • William West Winter
... chiefly concerned pleaded yet more persuasively. What harm, after all, was done, except for a little trouble and a little gossip? To these Mary and John were utterly indifferent. At first they had been rather shy in referring, before one another, to their loves, but custom taught them to mention the names without confusion, and ere long they had exchanged confidences as to their future plans. John's arrangement was obviously the more prudent and becoming. He discountenanced Mary's suggestion ...
— Comedies of Courtship • Anthony Hope
... slight, his complexion pale, his hair weak and thin, his manner diffident, awkward, almost ungainly, but that its thorough courtesy and good-nature were so obvious and unaffected. In general society people passed him over as a shy, harmless, unmeaning little man; but those who really knew him affirmed that his courage was not to be damped, nor his nerve shaken, by extremity of danger—that he was always ready with succour for the needy, with sympathy for the sorrowful. ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... corner, or to kill a deer in another, it would be, 'where is the dog Priest?' says one. 'Who has seen the accursed Tuck?' says another. 'The unfrocked villain destroys more venison than half the country besides,' says one keeper; 'And is hunting after every shy doe in the country!' quoth a second.—In fine, good my Liege, I pray you to leave me as you found me; or, if in aught you desire to extend your benevolence to me, that I may be considered as the poor Clerk of Saint Dunstan's cell in Copmanhurst, ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... completely aware of something that perhaps she had already latently known—that the relation between her mother and herself had, of late, not been quite what once it was. At moments she had felt almost shy of her mother, only at moments. Formerly she had always told her mother everything, and had spoken—as her mother had just said—out of her own heart and desire, with eagerness, inevitably. Now—well, now she could ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens
... had nothin' to eat," she said and disappeared. The old man asked questions, the young mother rocked her baby on her knees, the children got less shy and drew near the fireplace, the Blight and the little sister exchanged a furtive smile and the contrast of the extremes in American civilization, as shown in that little cabin, ...
— A Knight of the Cumberland • John Fox Jr.
... from being gun-shy. And Uncle Eddy ate some, too, one time when he was little, because the colored stable boy told him it would make ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston
... mind my friend here,' I said, pointing to the horse; 'he's a little shy in society, but he means well. If you'll move to one side, we'll pass on.' It was a fool sort of an idea, standing there and talking to a bear, but I was interested in studying the expression of his face and seeing how puzzled ...
— Bears I Have Met—and Others • Allen Kelly
... the week I tagged around after him and tried to get acquainted. I had to do the talking, because he was shy, but I didn't mind it. He seemed pleased to have me around, and I used the sociable "we" a good deal, because it seemed to flatter him to ...
— The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... more restrainedly. She remembered her respect for age and office. Yet she felt sorely tempted, shy, proud girl as she was, to take up cudgels for her friends, at least. Mr. Wharne liked her the better ...
— A Summer in Leslie Goldthwaite's Life. • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... into a laugh full of the cruelty and insult of a woman's long-smothered sense of injury. "Caro nonno," she screamed into her grandfather's dull ear, "he is really in despair how to support his happiness. He is shy, even of his old friends,—he has had so little experience. It is the first love of a young man. Bisogna compatire la gioventu, caro nonno." And her tongue being finally loosed, the Paronsina broke into incoherent mockeries, ...
— A Fearful Responsibility and Other Stories • William D. Howells
... gone—they looked dark and hard—her fair curls were matted against her damp forehead; indeed, Madame thought that for the moment all Crystal's beauty had gone—the sweet, submissive beauty of the girl, the grace of movement, the shy, appealing gentleness of her ways. She now looked all determination, resentment, ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy
... oxygen and deprived of sunlight, if the whole system has been kept on the rack, whether in the sweatshop, or in the furnace of affliction, what is the effect on the nervous system? Just what might have been expected. The sense-organs shy, like a frightened horse, at every shadow or fluttering leaf. The conducting wires break, and cross, and tangle in every imaginable fashion. The central exchange, half wild with hunger, or crazed with fatigue-toxins, shrieks out as each distorted ...
— Preventable Diseases • Woods Hutchinson
... little boys in tartan caps were playing beside him. I stopped to talk to the children, showed them my watch, and, holding it to their ears, asked if they had ever seen the inside of a watch. They did not answer, but they did not seem surprised, nor were they in the least shy. I asked the man if ...
— The Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... to a smaller field. She drew more and more into herself, slipped more and more from out the routine life of Drift. She became self-centered, and when her body was not absent, as happened upon most fine days, her mind abstracted itself to extreme limits. She grew shy of fellow-creatures, found no day happy of which a part had not been spent beside a cross, showed a gradual indifference to the services of the church which not long since had attracted her so strongly and braced ...
— Lying Prophets • Eden Phillpotts
... too great a hurry to get down to the mill, to take any notice of the attraction they met upon the road. Harry was compelled to have one shy at the squirrel that scampered up into the chestnut tree; but with that exception not a stoppage was made, and in a very short time they came to the plank over the great ditch—the plank which replaced the one that broke when ...
— Hollowdell Grange - Holiday Hours in a Country Home • George Manville Fenn
... blue, and their clear, candid expression indicates an unusually sincere and simple character. But, unfortunately, it is only her friends who are fully conversant with the expression of her eyes, for she is very shy. Shyness in little people is frequently piquant, but its effect in girls of the Juno style is too often that of awkwardness. Her friends call Maud Elliott stately; those who do not like her call her stiff; while indifferent persons speak of her as rather too reserved and dignified in manner to be ...
— A Love Story Reversed - 1898 • Edward Bellamy
... in again, thridding the resinous woods to track the shy Naiads hiding in their coverts. Over the brown spines of the pines, soft and perfumed, we loiter, following leisurely the faint warble of waters, till we come to the boiling rapids, where the stream comes hurrying down, and with sudden pique flies ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... else why star-shape the dew For the unbreathing, shy, heart-hiding rose? And when earth darkens, and the North wind blows, Why into stars, flake every cloud's black brew? What fitter forms for longings high and true, Man's hopes, ideals, than bright orbs like those Asbine from Nature's dawn to Nature's close, In clusters, ...
— Freedom, Truth and Beauty • Edward Doyle
... asking the old Malay to try and shoot one for me, he told me that although he had been for twenty years shooting birds in these forests he had never yet shot one, and had never even seen one except after it had been caught. The bird is so exceedingly shy and wary, and runs along the ground in the densest parts of the forest so quickly, that it is impossible to get near it; and its sober colours and rich eye-like spots, which are so ornamental when seen ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume I. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... charm royalties,—these are the things Psyche most cares for, not her radiant wings Or Cupid's shy caresses. She dreams of conquests that a world applauds, Or a Stage-wardrobe with a thousand ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari Volume 98, January 4, 1890 • Various
... my young aide, Mr. Trist here, for good reasons. He is just back from six months in the wilderness, and may be shy; but once he had a way with women, so they tell me—and you know, in approaching the question ad feminam we operate ...
— 54-40 or Fight • Emerson Hough
... few believe should be the case, the first initiation is delayed to the tenth year or even later, there is the difficulty that it is no longer so easy to talk simply and naturally about such things; the mother is beginning to feel too shy to speak for the first time about these difficult subjects to a son or a daughter who is nearly as big as herself. She feels that she can only do it awkwardly and ineffectively, and she probably decides not to do it at all. Thus an atmosphere of ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... have a word, orenda, the meaning of which is easier to describe than to define, but it seems to express the very soul of magic. This orenda is your power to do things, your force, sometimes almost your personality. A man who hunts well has much and good orenda; the shy bird who escapes his snares has a fine orenda. The orenda of the rabbit controls the snow and fixes the depth to which it will fall. When a storm is brewing the magician is said to be making its orenda. When you yourself are in a rage, great is your orenda. The notes of birds are utterances of ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... is you, poor better thoughts! The needful hope, shame for the ancient blots, Heart's gentleness with mind's severity, And vigilance, and calm, and constancy, And all!—But slow as yet, though well awake; Though sturdy, shy; scarce able yet to break The spell of stifling night and heavy dreams. One comes after the other, and each seems Uncouther, and all fear the moonlight cold. "Thus, sheep when first they issue from the fold, Come,—one, then two, then three. The rest delay, With lowered heads, in stupid, ...
— Poems of Paul Verlaine • Paul Verlaine
... possible; and, in return, it belongs to me to find occasions for teasing and quarrelling with you as often as may be; and I shall begin directly by asking you what made you so unwilling to come to the point at last. What made you so shy of me, when you first called, and afterwards dined here? Why, especially, when you called, did you look as if you did not ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... she said, "was Elsie always as shy as she seems to be now, in talking with those ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 41, March, 1861 • Various
... far as my friend would go with me in words; but I knew, from observation, that the fabric of his fortunes tottered. For the rest, it was only by accident I got wind of the transaction; for Pinkerton, after a time, was shy of introducing me to his arcana: the reason ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... business into that unknown, outlying country. But many even of the people of the parish were ignorant of the strange events which had marked the first year of Mr. Soulis's ministrations; and among those who were better informed, some were naturally reticent, and others shy of that particular topic. Now and again, only, one of the older folk would warm into courage over his third tumbler, and recount the cause of the ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Ghost Stories • Various
... as I ought to do: to you most freely. You know me, both head and heart, and I will make what deductions your reasons may dictate to me. I can think of no other person (for your travelling companion)—what wonder? For the last years, I have been shy ...
— Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1. • Coleridge, ed. Turnbull
... to me since that he has seen you before, though I could not get much out of him about it. He will talk for ever about Arabia, faith, war, and angels; but, if you touch on anything personal, I observe he is always very shy. He has not my fatal frankness. Did you know ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli
... says, 'Sell everything,' and that included this handsome bird. Speaks Spanish, they tell me. Wish Polly would oblige us by saying something in Spanish, but he—I understand it's a male—is too shy to speak before strangers. He's been well taken care of. Wonderful gloss to his feathers," praised Mr. Bean. "Beautiful color. Give an accent to any decor, modern or traditional, besides being a wonderful pet. Now who is going ...
— Jerry's Charge Account • Hazel Hutchins Wilson
... to Irene—perhaps she was shy—but, starting off at a quick pace, led her down a long passage into a room on the ground floor. It was a pleasant room with a French window that opened out on to a veranda, where, over a marble balustrade, there was a view of an orange garden and the sea. ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... this affair agitated him at that time, I was not surprised at the sequestration in which he held himself, and which made those who were not acquainted with his shy and mystical nature apply to him the description ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... said musingly. Then, after another thoughtful pause: "Say, I suppose you're a little shy about bracin' these employment ...
— The She Boss - A Western Story • Arthur Preston Hankins
... dressing-table. She did not know why, but a great shyness had come upon her. It was like a cloud enveloping her. Never before had she felt like this with Maurice, not even when they were first married. She had loved him too utterly to be shy with him. Maurice was still in the sitting-room, fastening the shutters of the window. She heard the creak of wood, the clatter of the iron bar falling into the fastener. Now he ...
— The Call of the Blood • Robert Smythe Hichens
... most severely; they are not sensible of any change in themselves, except, perhaps, they are conscious of having improved both in sense and language. This unmerited loss of their late gratuitous allowance of sympathy, usually operates unfavourably upon the temper of the sufferers; they become shy and silent, and reserved, if not sullen; they withdraw from our capricious society, and they endeavour to console themselves with other pleasures. It is difficult to them to feel contented with their own little occupations and amusements, for want of the spectators ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth
... He had paid much attention to his toilet, selecting, with purpose, the white waistcoat, the long, blue-grey coat cut in a fashion anterior to this time by thirty years or more, and particularly to the arrangement of his hair. He resembled Napoleon—not the later Napoleon, but the Bonaparte, lean, shy, laconic, who fought at Marengo; and this had startled the Cure in his pulpit, and the rest of the ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... a bad thing for a poor man to have a fast horse now and then, is it, Mr. Falkland?' he said, looking up and smiling, just like a boy. He was very shy, was poor Jim. ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... be afraid, if all the girls dress as finely as you do, and know as much," said Polly, beginning to feel shy at ...
— An Old-fashioned Girl • Louisa May Alcott
... never self-conscious enough to be really shy. She hastened to the office, meeting Victor Dorn in the ...
— The Conflict • David Graham Phillips
... people believe that you and I know more of the recent mission of Wittenhorst than we admit. You had best interrogate Cruwel in the presence of witnesses. I know not the man's humour, but it seems to me since his failure, that, in spite of his shy and lumpish manner, he is false ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... of Mr. Charles Fox, of whose abilities he thought highly, but observed, that he did not talk much at our CLUB. I have heard Mr. Gibbon remark, 'that Mr. Fox could not be afraid of Dr. Johnson; yet he certainly was very shy of saying any thing in Dr. Johnson's presence[775].' Mr. Scott now quoted what was said of Alcibiades by a Greek poet[776], to ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... into a most unlordly scrape, from which they can only relieve him by treading back their steps. The more I consider their conduct, the more I am astonished at their impudence. A downright robbery is honourable to it. If you see Rogers, do not be shy to speak: he trembles at report, and here is ...
— A Publisher and His Friends • Samuel Smiles
... about it, LILLIAN, would you object to giving your attention to certain relations of the monster which you propose to slay? We name them, Detraction and Calumny. They are tough old Dragons, now, we tell you; perhaps it were best to fight shy of them. ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 26, September 24, 1870 • Various
... has happened, Signora," said the Marchese, emboldened by the smile, and by a shy sidelong glance, which she shot from under her eye-lashes with a laugh in her eyes, as she spoke; "now it has happened that I have been permitted to see you in a toilet all the more exquisitely charming in that it wants ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... London society, which I don't like; on one side I am a patrician connection, whom the parvenu branches always incline lovingly to—and on the other side I am a half-dependent cadet, whom the noble relations look civilly shy at. Some day, when I grow tired of travel and idleness, I shall come back and wrestle with these little difficulties, conciliate my methodistical uncle, and grapple with my noble cousin. But now I am fit for something better than getting on in the world. Dry chips, not green ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... accent. But she would not talk much; she was, perhaps, shy. After luncheon, however, Clara asked her if she would sing, and she complied, showing considerable skill with her accompaniment, and singing a simple song in good taste and with a sweet voice. Arnold observed, however, that there was ...
— In Luck at Last • Walter Besant
... split through to Eaux Chaudes and Eaux Bonnes, was in Miocene times the bed of a huge glacier. It is known as the Val d'Ossau,—"the vale where the bears come down." Bears are still met with, it is said, in the vast forests about the foot of the Midi, but they are shy and scarce. The izard,—the chamois of the Pyrenees,—is more frequently seen and often hunted. This valley is individual in Bearn, as Bearn is in France. In past time it was a distinct principality, small but defiant, and it had its own line of hereditary viscounts entirely independent ...
— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix
... A familiarity, shy on Martin's side and patronising in John, obtained between the brothers and their pretty attendant, for she knew all about them and the very cottage in which their parents had dwelt and died. The girl came and went, answered John Grimbal's jests readily, and ministered to them as ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... been rather making a mess of my life, and I have not been much in town. Besides, I was a little shy ...
— The Black Cat - A Play in Three Acts • John Todhunter
... pushed them in front of him, always taking care that they were big enough to hide him. When they were able to stand alone he stole out in the dark to have a look at them, and then if unobserved his bosom swelled. I have never known any one more modest and no one quite so shy. Many actors have played for him for years and never spoken to him, have perhaps seen him dart up a side street because they were approaching. They may not have known that it was sheer shyness, but ...
— Charles Frohman: Manager and Man • Isaac Frederick Marcosson and Daniel Frohman
... little chimes, and all across it the wind sends arpeggio chords of delicate music, like a harp played on silver strings. A great big horse-chestnut tree, carrying its flowers proudly like a bouquet, showers the road with petals, and the shy hedges put up a screen all laced and decorated with white may. It just seems as if Mother Earth had become young again, and was tossing her babies up to the summer sky, and the wind played hide-and-seek, ...
— My War Experiences in Two Continents • Sarah Macnaughtan
... slim girl, who drooped in her chair, with her little head fallen forward, and played with her bread, ignoring her food otherwise, while she listened with a bored air to the talk which made Hewson its prey. She had an effect of being both shy and indifferent, in this retrospect; and when St. John put up the window, and led the way out to the women in the garden, and presented Hewson, she had still this effect. She did not smile or speak in acknowledgement of Hewson's ...
— Questionable Shapes • William Dean Howells
... bestowed his horse, and I went with him, having an hour left before we started, rather than face any more banter concerning my thanedom. It was almost in my mind to go to the ealdorman's house to ask after Elfrida, but I forbore, being shy, I suppose, and so left the Norseman to join us presently, and went back to the king's hall by a short cut from the village, whereby I had a meeting which ...
— A Prince of Cornwall - A Story of Glastonbury and the West in the Days of Ina of Wessex • Charles W. Whistler
... writers contemporary with Mrs. Stowe: Mrs. L. H. Sigourney, for example, a Hartford poetess, formerly known as "the Hemans of America," but now quite obsolete; and J. G. Percival, of New Haven, a shy and eccentric scholar, whose geological work was of value, and whose memory is preserved by one or two of his simpler poems, still in circulation, such as To Seneca Lake and the Coral Grove. Another Hartford poet, ...
— Initial Studies in American Letters • Henry A. Beers
... with blind confidence the religious and moral teaching of the reverend fathers. A doctrine which preached separation from profane things; the attractions of a meditative and pious life, and mistrust of the world and its perilous pleasures, harmonized with the shy and melancholy timidity of his nature. Human beings, especially women, inspired him with secret aversion, which was increased by consciousness of his awkwardness and remissness whenever he found himself in the society of women ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... preparation against accidents showed the same nervous and imaginative fearfulness. "His bridle," says the late Lord B——, who rode frequently with him at Genoa, "had, besides cavesson and martingale, various reins; and whenever he came near a place where his horse was likely to shy, he gathered up these said reins and fixed himself as if he was going at a five-barred gate." None surely but the most superficial or most prejudiced observers could ever seriously found upon such indications of nervousness any conclusion against the real ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... arises from several distinct causes. In the first place, the giraffe inhabits only those countries about which very little is known by civilised people; secondly, it is but rarely seen, even by travellers; and, thirdly, when it is encountered in its native haunts, it is of so shy a disposition, and so ready to take flight, that scarce any opportunity is ever obtained for ...
— Quadrupeds, What They Are and Where Found - A Book of Zoology for Boys • Mayne Reid
... I have been so shy, that I have hardly spoken to him, or he to me. I cannot imagine why the family was so rejoiced at his return. If he had spent his whole life abroad, I should have supposed they might rather have been thankful than sorrowful. However, I hope they do not think so ill of him as I do. At least, ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney
... formidable, and have at different times become the dread of the neighbourhood when any one has interfered with their contraband trade. The local magistrates, from timidity or worse motives, have become shy of acting against them, and impunity has rendered them equally daring and desperate. With all this, my father, a stranger in the land, and invested with no official authority, had, one would think, nothing to do. But it must be owned, that, as he himself ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... you so weak and small, A human child, not a god at all; Two angry, sleepy eyes that cry, Two little hands so soft and shy, I'll hush you with a lullaby. ...
— The Fairy Changeling and Other Poems • Dora Sigerson
... small daughters Molly and Betty, whom he found tussling like kittens on her bed, and installing Eileen the eldest, who crept down like a bright-eyed mouse from the big chair by the pillow at his coming, as her mother's keeper. Eileen was his darling; a shy child, gentle but curiously determined, protective in her attitude towards Maud, reserved towards himself. Jake was wont to say with a laugh that he was by no means sure that his eldest daughter approved of him, but he knew in his heart that her love for him was ...
— Charles Rex • Ethel M. Dell
... Carol was very shy with her. She was not used to the type. There had been women in her father's churches, but they had been of different kinds. Mrs. Waldemar's straight-staring eyes embarrassed her. She listened silently when the other women ...
— Sunny Slopes • Ethel Hueston
... ride on as he was doing. "Were your horse to shy, Miss Ferris," he remarked, "I might be the means of saving you, and I would run every risk for the ...
— The Missing Ship - The Log of the "Ouzel" Galley • W. H. G. Kingston
... clear. I will again employ the simplest of them—one so simple that a child can understand it. It is a mathematical example, as it ought to be, for the whole question of logical types, or dimensions, is a mathematical one. I beg the reader not to shy at, or run away from, the mere word mathematical, for, although most of us have but little mathematical knowledge, we all of us have the mathematical spirit, for else we should not be human—we are ...
— Manhood of Humanity. • Alfred Korzybski
... came to the end of the place. Then she gazed at her followers in a peculiar manner, with a shy and mischievous glance, and a strange fancy came to her mind. She drew them up on the bank of ...
— Yvette • Henri Rene Guy de Maupassant
... the blue of the sky. All about him old oaks stood like giant guardians watching sturdily over the soil where they had grown for centuries. Arthur could look between the trunks and see rabbits and squirrels whisking about. Sometimes a herd of brown deer with shy dark eyes would pass, holding their graceful heads high in the air; sometimes a flock of pheasants with brilliant plumage rose from the bushes. Again there was no sound except the tapping of a bright-crested woodpecker, and no motion but the fluttering ...
— King Arthur and His Knights • Maude L. Radford
... the works of Prynne, Barthius, Reynaud, and other voluminous writers must have had a sorry experience with their authors; but "once bitten twice shy." Hence some of these worthies found it rather difficult to publish their works, and there were no authors' agents or Societies of Authors to aid their negotiations. Indeed we are told that a printer who was saddled with a large number of unsaleable copies of a heavy piece of literary ...
— Books Fatal to Their Authors • P. H. Ditchfield
... was followed. A mat was placed by the side of the kitchen fire; much pains were taken to coax the shy stranger; (Dick, who loved and understood dogs, devoting himself to the task of making himself agreeable to this gentle and beautiful creature;) and she seemed so far reconciled as to suffer his caresses, to lap a little milk when sure that nobody saw her, and even to bridle ...
— The Widow's Dog • Mary Russell Mitford |
