"Bashfulness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... did, you black thing, you?" said Julia, who in her grief for her favorite, and her anger at Aunt Judy, forgot the stranger, and her bashfulness, too. "You were careless, I know you were," she continued, "or you never could have tipped the coffee over ...
— Tempest and Sunshine • Mary J. Holmes
... more an alien on those sidewalks. He was naturally diligent, active, quick-witted, and of good, though maybe a little too scholarly address; quick of temper, it is true, and uniting his quickness of temper with a certain bashfulness,—an unlucky combination, since, as a consequence, nobody had to get out of its way; but he was generous in fact and in speech, and never held malice a moment. But, besides the heavy odds which his small secret seemed to be against him, stopping him from accepting such valuable friendships as ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... done him, when they ascribed to a delicate organization the fact that, at an age when love runs riot in all healthy blood, he could not see a Balmoral without his cheeks rivalling the most vivid stripe in it. They flattered themselves that he would outgrow his bashfulness; but Daniel had no such hope, and frequently confided in me that he thought he should ...
— Humorous Masterpieces from American Literature • Various
... for a while to have suspended his poetry: but he was soon called back to labour by the death of the Chancellor, for his place then became vacant; and though the Lord Hardwicke delayed for some time to give it away, Thomson's bashfulness or pride, or some other motive perhaps not more laudable, withheld him from soliciting; and the new Chancellor would not give him what he would not ask. He now relapsed to his former indigence; but the ...
— Lives of the Poets: Gay, Thomson, Young, and Others • Samuel Johnson
... the one triumphs in the victory which the other is obliged to acquire. Hence arise the various modes of attack and defence between the sexes; the boldness of one sex and the timidity of the other; and in a word, that bashfulness and modesty, with which nature hath armed the weak in order ...
— Shelley, Godwin and Their Circle • H. N. Brailsford
... sign of the cross we profess ourselves to be Christians; Bishop Mortoune calleth(785) the cross a sign of constant profession of Christianity; Hooker calleth(786) it "Christ's mark applied unto that part where bashfulness appeareth, in token that they which are Christians should be at no time ashamed of his ignominy;" Dr Burges(787) maintaineth the using of the surplice to signify the pureness that ought to be in the minister of God; Paybody(788) will have kneeling at the Lord's supper to be a signification of the ...
— The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Gillespie
... cause of worry is bashfulness. One who is bashful finds in his intercourse with his fellows many worries. His hands and feet are too large, he blushes at a word, he doesn't know what to say or how, he is confused if attention is directed his way, his thoughts fly to the ends of the earth the moment he is addressed, ...
— Quit Your Worrying! • George Wharton James
... and more than once expressed her opinion that a young member would be better to sit in silence at least for one session, he was not driven to the mortification of feeling that he was incurring her contempt by his bashfulness. As regarded the men among whom he lived, I think he was almost annoyed at finding that no one seemed to expect that he should speak. Barrington Erle, when he had first talked of sending Phineas down to Loughshane, had predicted for him ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... ready,' pouted Flora, coming to a sudden stop in a captivating bashfulness, 'that I must admit, Papa said you had spoken of her in an earnest way and I said what I have ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... costly array usually bear a proud, disdainful look. When redeemed by grace the fashionable dress and proud look give place to a sweet Christian modesty. A humble heart and a fashionable dress are incompatible. Shamefacedness is derived from aidos in the Greek, and has "modesty" and "bashfulness" for ...
— The Gospel Day • Charles Ebert Orr
... speaker who had addressed them on the Kohlmarkt, conscious of his pledges and of the reward promised to him, overcame his momentary bashfulness and stepped boldly into the ante-room, where the others, encouraged by his example, followed him ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... given to boys the boon of plenty, to young men merriment, and to the old security. But now, Scipio, that I have come to touch on your merits, I fear lest either your own noble modesty or my own native bashfulness may close my mouth. But I cannot refrain from touching on a very few of the many virtues which we so justly admire in you. Citizens whom he has saved, show with me that you ...
— The Apologia and Florida of Apuleius of Madaura • Lucius Apuleius
... alarming ordeal for the country youth, who made prodigious preparations, drove to the house in a state of abject terror, and in five minutes was sitting on an ottoman, talking to Lady Beaumont, and more at ease than he had ever been in his life. In truth, bashfulness was never one of ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... we are all liable; for who is free from the accident of being angry unjustly and after sunset; or even of using bodily violence; or easily speaking evil; or rashly swearing; or forfeiting his plighted word; or lying from bashfulness or necessity? In business, in official duties, in trade, in food, in sight, in hearing, by how great temptations are we assailed! So that if there were no pardon for such simple sins as these, salvation ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.
... in manufacturing their flaxen or woollen garments, or in other domestic offices. It must be mentioned to their honour, that they were always properly clothed, and behaved with the utmost decorum; justly deserving all commendation, for a bashfulness and modesty becoming their sex: and this was the more meritorious in them, as the male inhabitants discovered no sense of shame. In their manufactures and mechanic arts, these people have arrived to a greater degree of extent and ingenuity, both with regard to the ...
— Narrative of the Voyages Round The World, • A. Kippis
... blushes cross her cheek, Restless awaits the Minstrel's power To dispossess the present hour, And by a spirit-seizing charm, Her thoughts employ, her fancy warm, And snatch her from the mute distress Of conscious, breathless bashfulness. ...
— The Lay of Marie • Matilda Betham
... Held in her hand, clear'd such a fatal storm, From hell she thought his person would defend her, Which night and Hellespont would quickly send her. With this confirm'd, she vow'd to banish quite All thought of any check to her delight; And, in contempt of silly bashfulness, She would the faith of her desires profess, Where her religion should be policy, To follow love with zeal her piety; Her chamber her cathedral-church should be, 180 And her Leander her chief deity; For in her love these did the ...
— The Works of Christopher Marlowe, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Christopher Marlowe
... the surest bait. If we would wish to shine in any particular character, we must never affect that character. An affectation of courage will make a man pass for a bully; an affectation of wit, for a coxcomb; and an affectation of sense, for a fool. Not that I would recommend bashfulness or timidity; no: I would have every one know his own value, yet not discover that he knows it, but leave his merit to ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... forth his grievance quite confidently. He even sat down, though he had not been invited to do so, as he was wont to do in the bygone happy days when they were official colleagues together. It was Meyer's custom never to look those whom he was addressing in the face, which bashfulness deprived him, of course, of the advantage of being able to read from their countenances what impression he was making upon them. He was therefore greatly surprised when, on finishing his speech, his Honour Judge Bordacsi roared at him in the angriest ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai
... fronting me, and all tea time kept ogling me in a manner that gave me the utmost pain and confusion, all the mark of which he still explained to be my bashfulness, and not being ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland
... He hastened down to shew her all honour, leading her from the door into a room by themselves; and when he found her in tears, addressed her in the most considerate and subdued, yet still not unhappy manner, taking her confusion for bashfulness, and never dreaming what a tragedy had ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt
... the wife}. At first she is silent; and, fixing her eyes upon her father's countenance, she is in confusion, and fills her eyes with the warm tears. Cinyras, supposing this to be {the effect} of virgin bashfulness, bids her not weep, and dries her cheeks, and gives her kisses. On these being given, Myrrha is too much delighted; and, being questioned what sort of a husband she would have, she says, 'One like thyself.' But he praises the answer not {really}[45] understood by him, and says, 'Ever be thus affectionate.' ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso
... remote distance, saw that the royal mother of Arjuna was afflicted with grief. Unto her Vyasa said,—'Tell me, O blessed one, what is in thy mind. Tell me what thou wishest to say. At this, Kunti, bending her head unto her father-in-law, and overcome with bashfulness, said these words unto him, relating to the occurrences ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... proposed to the landlord and landlady to admit me to their society (though I should have liked it—very much) than I could have asked them to present me with a piece of plate. Here my great secret, the real bashfulness of my character, is to be observed. Like most bashful men, I judge of other people as if they were bashful too. Besides being far too shamefaced to make the proposal myself, I really had a delicate misgiving that it would be in the last degree ...
— The Holly-Tree • Charles Dickens
... the youthful critic, and, in some of the notices referred to, the signs of youth are manifest in the ill-balanced enthusiasm, as well as in the employment of phrases of praise which the old hand shirks with a curious kind of bashfulness. ...
— Our Stage and Its Critics • "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"
... to the doctor. No such scruples restrained Leff, who squatted on his heels at the edge of the creek, washing his linen and listening over his shoulder. By the second Sunday they had mastered their bashfulness and both came shuffling their hats in awkward hands and sitting side by side on a log. Leff, who had never been to church in his life, was inclined to treat the occasion as one for furtive amusement, at intervals casting ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... minister. His congregation was a handful of refined mystics who took no prominent part in public affairs and were quiet and unobtrusive citizens. He was not attractive as a preacher, his voice trembled with emotion and bashfulness, and he read with difficulty. He was painfully shy, and he was oppressed and suffered in a crowd. He was unmarried and lived by himself in great simplicity. He seemed to sustain generally good health on tea, toast, ...
— A Backward Glance at Eighty • Charles A. Murdock
... queer instrument of thought. While coyness has the various meanings of shyness, modest reserve, bashfulness, shrinking from advances or familiarity, disdainfulness, the verb "to coy" may mean the exact opposite—to coax, allure, entice, woo, decoy. It is in this sense that "coyness" is obviously a trait of primitive maidens. What ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... two instances which I hasten to put on record, if only to confute those who say that the age in general, and spirit mediums in particular, are not prone to be modest and retiring. My first modest person was a Spirit Photographer; my second was a Sibyl. I might have looked for bashfulness in the latter, but was certainly surprised to meet with it in the former. I suddenly learnt from the Medium the fact that a Spirit Photographer had settled down in my immediate neighbourhood, and the appearance of his ghostly advertisement brings to my recollection ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... step, dropped her eyes, and, with a smile that was a charming hesitation between bashfulness and impudence, said: "So you are hidin', ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... in philosophical and religious studies. Once a year, says Horace Walpole, the good old man was carried to St. Paul's, to contemplate the glorious chef-d'oeuvre of his genius. Steele, in the Tatler, refers to Wren's vexations, and attributes them to his modesty and bashfulness. ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... feature in the personal character of the Indians of this part of South America is a degree of diffidence, bashfulness, or coldness, which affects all their actions. It is this that produces their quiet deliberation, their circuitous way of introducing a subject they have come to speak about, talking half an hour on different topics before mentioning it. Owing to this feeling, they will run away if ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume 19 - Travel and Adventure • Various
... little man in his bashfulness, "that part of the discourse which related to the flying of kites has interested me greatly, and I am ready to contend that kites fly, not, as many say, through the influence of a demon or spirit ...
— The O'Ruddy - A Romance • Stephen Crane
... make it a point to open the door myself, with a calmness and serenity that shall offer a marked contrast to his feverish and excited air, and shall throw suspicion of inebriety upon him. If he be inclined to timidity and bashfulness, during the best of the evening he is all too conscious of the disarrangement of his hair and cravat. If he is less sensitive, the result is often more distressing. A valued elderly friend once called upon me after undergoing a twofold struggle with ...
— Urban Sketches • Bret Harte
... my Don Quixote open in one hand, while she clasped with the other the child she carried on her arm. She looked at the book, and then from time to time she looked at me, very kindly but very curiously, with a faint smile, so that as I stood there, inwardly writhing in my bashfulness, I had the sense that in her eyes I was a queer boy. She returned the book without comment, after some questions, and I took it off to my room, where the confidential friend of Cervantes ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... as if she had been mistaken in him. She must love him very much when she could excuse such cowardice.—For when she said that she had sent for him to ask him to give up his thoughts of revenge, it must have been from bashfulness not to have to acknowledge the real reason of the summons. She was so right in it. He who was the man ought ...
— Invisible Links • Selma Lagerlof
... husband so that she will not run away. The go-between returns the following day and claims her guerdon. Several cases passed under my observation, in which the husband was unable to use his marital rights for weeks owing to the timorousness and bashfulness of his youthful spouse. In no case was anything but patience and gentleness displayed by ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... town coming to me. I first heard them recite the words of the Catechism, and then examined them about the sense, and lastly urged them, with all possible engaging reason and vehemency, to answerable affection and practice. If any of them were stalled through ignorance or bashfulness, I forbore to press them, but made them hearers, and turned all into instruction and exhortation. I spent about an hour with a family, and admitted no others to be present, lest bashfulness should make it burdensome, or any should talk of the weakness ...
— Bunyan Characters - First Series • Alexander Whyte
... young girl; that she doubted not but Maria would soon be convinced what was her true happiness; and that a little perseverance and assiduity on his side, and authority on theirs, would remove all the scruples, bashfulness alone had created in her: 'No, madam,' answered he, with some impatience, 'there is somewhat more than all this you have mentioned, against me;—there is a rooted detestation to me in the very soul of Maria, which as I cannot but despair of being ever able to remove, common reason bids me attempt ...
— Life's Progress Through The Passions - Or, The Adventures of Natura • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... distinction and the possessor of an honored name may be invincibly shy and afraid to speak; while her next neighbor, knowing her fame perhaps, and anxious to make her acquaintance, misconstrues shyness for pride—a masquerade which bashfulness sometimes plays; so two people, with volumes to say to each other, remain silent as fishes, until the kindly magician comes along, and, by the open sesame of an introduction, unlocks the treasure which has been so deftly hidden. A woman of fashion may enter an ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
... storm-clouds. Clear-sighted and prudent, loving and unselfish at the same time, his glance is projected downwards; and all things that are illumined by this double ray of light, nature conjures to discharge their strength, to reveal their most hidden secret, and this through bashfulness. It is more than a mere figure of speech to say that he surprised Nature with that glance, that he caught her naked; that is why she would conceal her shame by seeming precisely the reverse. What has hitherto been invisible, the inner life, seeks its salvation ...
— Thoughts out of Season (Part One) • Friedrich Nietzsche
... confidential henchman and factotum, although not regularly so employed. His chief object in life was apparently to get as much amusement as possible out of that experience, and he was quite unhampered by over-nice notions of delicacy or bashfulness. But, withal, Mr. Larrabee was a very honest and loyal person, strong in his likes and dislikes, devoted to David, for whom he had the greatest admiration, and he had taken a fancy to our friend, ...
— David Harum - A Story of American Life • Edward Noyes Westcott
... side being carelessly platted, and sometimes rolled up into an awkward lump, instead of being neatly tied on the top of the head, as the Esquimaux women in most other parts are accustomed to wear it. The youngest female had much natural bashfulness and timidity, and we considered her to be the only unmarried one, as she differed from the other three in not being tattooed upon the face. Two of them had their hands tattooed also, and the old woman had a few marks of ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... a fog (which existed not before and) which enveloped the whole region in darkness. And the maiden, beholding the fog that was created by the great Rishi wondered much. And the helpless one became suffused with the blushes of bashfulness. And she said, 'O holy one, note that I am a maiden under the control of my father. O sinless one, by accepting your embraces my virginity will be sullied. O best of Brahmanas, my virginity being sullied, how shall I, O Rishi, be able to return home? ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... that peculiar bashfulness such occasions are sure to elicit, disclaimed the happiness my friends so clearly ascribed to me, I yet pretty plainly let it be understood that the more brilliant they supposed my present prospects to be, the more near were they to estimate them justly. One thing certainly gratified me throughout. ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Vol. 1 • Charles James Lever
... surprise (Which competition still defies) - Our celebrated "Sir!!!" Then all the crowd take down our looks In pocket memorandum books. To diagnose, Our modest pose The kodaks do their best: If evidence you would possess Of what is maiden bashfulness, You only need a button press - And ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... which has hitherto supported the government by custom duties, has also the power of levying excise duties, and now, in its first session since the commencement of the war, has begun to use that power without much hesitation or bashfulness. As regards their taxes levied at the custom-house, the government of the United States has always been inclined to high duties, with the view of protecting the internal trade and manufactures of the country. The amount required for national expenses was easily obtained; and these duties ...
— Volume 2 • Anthony Trollope
... wish to meet. It was the caution of a child who had burnt his fingers, not once but many times. Had I known what I afterwards learned of Farmer Hosking's tribulations as landlord of a 'secluded country residence,' I should have approached him with the bashfulness proper to my suit and faltered as I undertook to prove the bright exception in a long line of painful experiences. He had bought the Tresillack estate twenty years before—on mortgage, I fancy—because the land adjoined his own and would pay him for tillage. But the house was a nuisance, an incubus; ...
— Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... Teddy so far improved on his bashfulness that he made grabs at several things which would have disagreed with him if I had let him follow his inclinations. He affably received my hints on table etiquette, and smiled with gentleness when I told ...
— The Chequers - Being the Natural History of a Public-House, Set Forth in - a Loafer's Diary • James Runciman
... Reviewers concerning you and me; they take you for a poor distressed gentleman, writing for bread, and me for a very impudent Irishman; whereas you are heir to a thousand a year, and I am one of the most bashful Scotchmen that ever appeared! I confess, indeed, my bashfulness does not appear in my works, for them I print in the most impudent manner; being exceeded in that respect by nobody but James ...
— Boswell's Correspondence with the Honourable Andrew Erskine, and His Journal of a Tour to Corsica • James Boswell
... her on the forehead, and Miss Wimple smiled. Then both arose and put on their garments,—Madeline the skimped delaine, and Miss Wimple the flounces. Oh! the grotesque pathos of that exchange!—and Madeline did not remark with what haste, and a certain awkward bashfulness, Miss Wimple retired to a far corner and covered her shoulders with ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various
... Pansy, I think of you Parsley, Festivity, Feasting Passion Flower, Superstition Pea, Common, Respect Pea, Everlasting, A meeting Peach, Matchess Charms Peach Blossom, Your Captive Pear, Affection Pear Tree, Comfort Pennyroyal, Flee away Peony, Shame, Bashfulness Peppermint, Warm Feeling Periwinkle, Early Friendship Persicaria, Restoration Peruvian Heliotrope, Devotion Petunia, Keep your Promise Pheasant's Eye, Remembrance Phlox, Unanimity Pigeon Berry, Indifference Pimpernel, Change Pine, Black, Pity ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole
... most beautiful little fairy groups that a painter could imagine. It consisted of a boy and two girls, the eldest not more than six, and lovely as seraphs. They were going the rounds of the house, and singing at every chamber-door; but my sudden appearance frightened them into mute bashfulness. They remained for a moment playing on their lips with their fingers, and now and then stealing a shy glance, from under their eyebrows, until, as if by one impulse, they scampered away, and as they turned an ...
— Old Christmas From the Sketch Book of Washington Irving • Washington Irving
... let one of them go by without a stop, some of the girls came along the platform with baskets of fruit, of which they made free gifts to our trainload of men. Sometimes they took payment in kisses, quite simply and without any bashfulness, lifting their faces to the lips of bronzed young men who thrust their kepis back and leaned out ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs
... after eyeing the little figure before him in silence for some time, and when the temporary absence of Mr. Home from the room relieved him from the half-laughing bashfulness, which was all he knew of timidity—-"Mother, I see a young lady in the present society to whom I have ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... disposition,—honesty, and a good heart;— are such as any one may boldly lay claim to, without fear of being taxed with vanity or ostentation.—And if individuals in private stations, on any occasion are called upon to lay aside their bashfulness and modest dissidence, and come forward into public view, it must surely be, when by their exertions they can essentially contribute to promote measures which are calculated to increase the happiness ...
— ESSAYS, Political, Economical and Philosophical. Volume 1. • Benjamin Rumford
... a few courteous words, came back to the blue eyes and brown hair; still he kept his look fixed upon her, and his tones grew sweeter and lower as he became more interested in talk, until this poor, dear Helen, what with surprise, and the bashfulness natural to one who had seen little of the gay world, and the stirring of deep, confused sympathies with this suffering father, whose heart seemed so full of kindness, felt her cheeks glowing with unwonted flame, and betrayed the pleasing trouble of her situation ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various
... of the first who composed in Anglo-Saxon, and some of whose compositions are preserved. Strange and myth-like stories are told by Bede about this remarkable natural genius. He was originally a cow-herd. Partly from want of training, and partly from bashfulness, when the harp was given him in the hall, and he was asked, as all others were, to raise the voice of song, Caedmon had often to abscond in confusion. On one occasion he had retired to the stable, where he fell into a sound sleep. He dreamed that a stranger appeared to him, and said, 'Caedmon, ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... certain awkwardness and rusticity at the outset. But did not Sheridan make the same melancholy ending, and run the same fatal career, though in a higher and more brilliant circle? He did; and though not from exactly the same cause, (for no one could accuse Sheridan's purple nose and flashing eye of a bashfulness—"modest as morning when she coldly eyes the youthful Phoebus!") yet it was perhaps from one nearly allied to it, namely, the want of that noble independence and confidence in its own resources which should distinguish genius, and the dangerous ambition ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 290 - Volume X. No. 290. Saturday, December 29, 1827. • Various
... upon surer ground, because often our good wishes for the speaker, or the applause bestowed on him, surprizes us into approbation. We are ashamed to differ in opinion from others, and by a sort of secret bashfulness are kept from believing ourselves more intelligent than they are; tho indeed we are aware, at the same time, that the taste of the greater number is vicious, and that sycophants, even persons hired to applaud, praise things which can not please us; as, on ...
— The Training of a Public Speaker • Grenville Kleiser
... she laughed, too much absorbed with thoughts of Sybil, to notice the extra warmth of his greeting, or a certain change of manner, that was a mingling of boldness, bashfulness, ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch
... in the House of Commons which was elected in 1708. But the House of Commons was not the field for him. The bashfulness of his nature made his wit and eloquence useless in debate. He once rose, but could not overcome his diffidence, and ever after remained silent. Nobody can think it strange that a great writer should fail as a speaker. But many, probably, will think it strange that ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... he saw her among so many ladies of arrogant bearing and striking presence, he felt attracted towards her by force of contrast. The bashfulness, the modesty, the insignificance of the girl impressed him. She was small, her face offered no other beauty than that of youth, her body had the charm of delicacy. Like himself, the poor girl was there out of a sort of condescendence on the part of the others; she seemed to be there by sufferance ...
— Woman Triumphant - (La Maja Desnuda) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... the Peninsula. At Kota Bharu, women, both young and old, crowd the markets at all hours of the day, and do most of the selling and buying. They converse freely with strangers, go about unveiled, and shew no signs of that affected bashfulness, which cloaks the very indifferent morals of the average Malay woman, but which it is a point of honour with her to assume when in the ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford
... private audience then he kissed her hand, and those of the King and his saintly sister, Elizabeth, while the Queen gratefully expressed her thanks, and the King stood by, with tears in his eyes, but withheld by his awkward bashfulness from expressing the ...
— A Book of Golden Deeds • Charlotte M. Yonge
... reserved as Clarence was generally, I fear that bashfulness of approach to the other sex was not one of these indications. He walked up to Susy with appalling directness, and passed his arm around her waist. She did not move, but remained looking at him and his intruding arm with a certain critical curiosity, as if awaiting some novel sensation. ...
— Susy, A Story of the Plains • Bret Harte
... The most pernicious spirits Of hell he must have summoned to his aid, To cast this mist before your waking senses. Your ear no more was open to the voice Of friendly warning, and your eyes were shut To decency; soft female bashfulness Deserted you; those cheeks, which were before The seat of virtuous, blushing modesty, Glowed with the flames of unrestrained desire. You cast away the veil of secrecy, And the flagitious daring of the man O'ercame ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... youths, where shame or modesty is good and praiseworthy; which shame or modesty is not virtue, but a certain good passion. And it says, "In women and the young," that is to say, in youths; because, as the Philosopher expresses it in the fourth book of the Ethics, shame, bashfulness, modesty, is not praiseworthy nor good in the old nor in men of studious habits, because to them it is fit that they beware of those things which would lead them to shame. In youths and maidens such caution is ...
— The Banquet (Il Convito) • Dante Alighieri
... idioms picturesque, they compared favorably with the men she had known in the East. Did they lack the subtleties, they made up for this by their unfailing deference. And they were never rude; their very bashfulness ...
— The Two-Gun Man • Charles Alden Seltzer
... my wife into danger," said Mr. Stobell, with surly bashfulness; "I'm—I'm too fond of her for that. And she don't want to ...
— Dialstone Lane, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... autocrat in intellect, revelling in all the confidence of his own great powers, a somewhat nearer observation enabled a common acquaintance at Venice[1] to detect, under all this, traces of that self-distrust and bashfulness which had marked him as a boy, and which never entirely forsook him through the whole ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... lilac-sprigged gown. Indeed, a corner of it peeped out at this moment. Had he seen it?—monstrous thought! She knew young men and the interpretations that they put upon nothings! This, in spite of his solemn looks and mantling bashfulness, was a young man. ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett
... a smile that made us feel we had never quarreled, never parted, but were at home in the Wilderness. I need not tell the answer. I had got quit of my bashfulness on the subject of Gretna Green and postchaises with a vengeance; and then and there I suggested a trip to that delectable region, and scorned all the objections she attempted to make about our respective fathers, and family quarrels, and all the chimeras that disappear before the breath of true ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844 • Various
... doubtful and diffident, but frank, open, sure, as if the game were one that could not be played out. It is now a very long while that buds have burst and grass grown; yet Spring comes forward still without bashfulness, fearing no charge of having plagiarized from her predecessors. The field blushes not for its blades, though they are such as for immemorial times have spired from the sod; the boughs publish their ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... themselves. I pledge you my word, if I was asked what was the great blemish in my manner, I'd have said it was bashfulness.' ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... humility &c 879; diffidence, timidity; retiring disposition; unobtrusiveness; bashfulness &c adj.; mauvaise honte [Fr.]; blush, blushing; verecundity^; self-knowledge. reserve, constraint; demureness &c adj.; blushing honors [Henry VIII]. V. be modest &c adj.; retire, reserve oneself; give way to; draw in one's horns &c 879; hide one's face. keep private, keep in the ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... herself about his manners. It was an awkward ceremony at any time to be receiving wedding visits, and a man had need be all grace to acquit himself well through it. The woman was better off; she might have the assistance of fine clothes, and the privilege of bashfulness, but the man had only his own good sense to depend on; and when she considered how peculiarly unlucky poor Mr. Elton was in being in the same room at once with the woman he had just married, the woman he had wanted to marry, and ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... 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 ...
— Sex and Society • William I. Thomas
... topsy-turvy. Where was I?—Oh! this was it. Suppose even, I say, suppose this Gilbert's fancy should stick to Mabel, I might manage him, nevertheless. I've a great advantage and prerogative over this Englishman, in his having never been dipped in the Shannon. He is so under cow with bashfulness now, that I don't doubt but what in one of his confusions I could asy bring him to say Yes in the wrong place; and sooner than come to a perplexing refusal of a young lady, he might, I'll engage, be brought about to marry the girl he didn't like, in ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth
... his daughter, to whom I've been engaged for ever so long, but secretly. This is the third start I have made, but each time I have turned back again. If it were not for the disgrace of it, and the reproaches I should have to take from my mother, it would be the same story over again. This bashfulness of mine is an inborn weakness, and it's not easy to get the better of it. Each time I go to knock on the door, it is as if some one were holding back my hand. But courage, Antonius, is half the battle! ...
— Comedies • Ludvig Holberg
... thee! By Allah, from the day I saw thee sleep hath not been sweet to me nor hath food been pleasant." Quoth I, "Such hath also been my case: and I am thy slave, thy negro slave." Then we sat down to converse and I hung my head earthwards in bashfulness, but she delayed not long ere she set before me a tray of the most exquisite viands, marinated meats, fritters soaked in bee's[FN536] honeys and chickens stuffed with sugar and pistachio nuts, whereof we ate till we were satisfied. ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... of an ambassador, and the negotiation would not be difficult except in the matter of keeping my countenance. It was all too extravagantly nonsensical, and I conceived that it would be best to compose for myself a grave demeanour. I practised this in my boat as I went along, but the bashfulness that came secretly upon me the moment I stepped on the deck of the Diana is inexplicable. As soon as we had exchanged greetings Hermann asked me eagerly if I knew whether Falk had found his ...
— Falk • Joseph Conrad
... understood it, the good things of this world had been bestowed upon him. He was a proud man, with but few intimacies,—with a few dear friendships which were the solace of his life,—altogether gracious in his speech, if it were not for an apparent bashfulness among strangers; never assuming aught, deferring much to others outwardly, and showing his pride chiefly by a certain impalpable noli me tangere, which just sufficed to make itself felt and obeyed at the first approach ...
— Sir Harry Hotspur of Humblethwaite • Anthony Trollope
... bashfulness, by profane protest, by muttered and comprehensive curses I knew that my companion on the other pile ...
— Blazed Trail Stories - and Stories of the Wild Life • Stewart Edward White
... plain truth, I had discovered that, in spite of my bashfulness, I loved every single girl I had ever seen—not even excepting good black Bess in my mother's kitchen, who concocted such admirable turnovers and seedcakes. But at that time, sooner than have acknowledged such a weakness, I would ...
— The Fatal Glove • Clara Augusta Jones Trask
... sent her whole blood at once to her face and neck. Her form, though under the common size, was remarkably elegant, and her motions light, easy, and unembarrassed. She came from another part of the garden to receive Captain Waverley, with a manner that hovered between bashfulness and courtesy. ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... of Reine Vincart had come to his lips, a feeling of bashfulness, in addition to his ordinary timidity, had prevented him from interrogating Claudet concerning the character of this mysterious queen of the woods. Like all novices in love-affairs Julien dreaded that his feelings should be divined, at the mere mention of the young girl's ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... took in only the general outlines of fashion and comfortable circumstances, now too strange to it to go unnoted. In Fleda's usual mood her next movement would have been made with a demureness that would have looked like bashfulness. But the amusement and pleasure of the day just passed had for the moment set her spirits free from the burden that generally bound them down; and they were as elastic as her step, as she came forward and presented to her aunt "Dr. Quackenboss," ...
— Queechy, Volume I • Elizabeth Wetherell
... of surprise, and bashfulness at being overheard, and something not very far removed from alarm at the unexpected presence of one so famed for evil deeds as the man beside him, Arvina recoiled a pace or two, and thrust his hand into the bosom of his toga, disarranging its folds for a moment, and ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... influence of a variety of exciting sensations. Only Pierre and Helene sat silently side by side almost at the bottom of the table, a suppressed smile brightening both their faces, a smile that had nothing to do with Sergey Kuzmich—a smile of bashfulness at their own feelings. But much as all the rest laughed, talked, and joked, much as they enjoyed their Rhine wine, saute, and ices, and however they avoided looking at the young couple, and heedless and unobservant as they seemed ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... crowded round Dick to congratulate him and examine the piece, he stood with a mingled feeling of bashfulness and delight at his unexpected good fortune. Recovering himself suddenly, he seized his old rifle, and dropping quietly to the outskirts of the crowd, while the men were still busy handling and discussing ...
— The Dog Crusoe and His Master - A Story of Adventure in the Western Prairies • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... sensible of her presence in every line of her speaking. The stipulations with her lover in view of marriage, her fine lady's delicacy, and fine lady's easy evasions of indelicacy, coquettish airs, and playing with irresolution, which in a common maid would be bashfulness, until she submits to 'dwindle into a wife,' as she says, form a picture that lives in the frame, and is in harmony with ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... gave every day some new proofs of his passion, which, though they had not risen to proposals of marriage, yet we thought fell but little short of it; and his slowness was attributed sometimes to native bashfulness, and sometimes to his fear of offending his uncle. An occurrence, however, which happened soon after, put it beyond a doubt that he designed to become one of our family; my wife even regarded it as ...
— The Ontario High School Reader • A.E. Marty
... first come into any company be modest, but without the least bashfulness or sheepishness, steady without impudence, and as unembarrassed as if you were in your own room. This is a difficult point to hit, and therefore deserves great attention; nothing but a long usage of the world and in the best company ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IV (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland II • Various
... the children had lost their bashfulness, and were acting as naturally as though they really were at school. They played tag and other simple games, while the camera clicked their images on the celluloid film. Miss Burns, as the teacher, took part in ...
— The Bobbsey Twins at Meadow Brook • Laura Lee Hope
... both the mother and the son, yet, regardless of consequences, I ventured, uninvited, to enter the house. In order to shake off the restraint which I felt my society imposed, I found it absolutely necessary to divest myself of bashfulness, and to exert such conversational powers as I possessed. I succeeded so well that the discourse soon became lively and animated; and what chiefly delighted me was, that she, for whose sake I had committed my present ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... letter, for she knew it to be in the handwriting of Owen Fitzgerald. Perhaps the countess from the corner of her eye may have observed some portion of her daughter's blushes; but if so, she said nothing, attributing them to Clara's natural bashfulness in her present position. "She will get over it soon," the countess may probably have ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... ate heavy meat three times a day, but took little or no exercise. The pimples on his face became worse and worse. He grew peevish and nervous. He hated girls, and when in their society was a very bull-calf for bashfulness and awkward self-consciousness. At times the strangest and most morbid fancies took possession of him, chief of which was that every one was looking at him while he was walking in ...
— Vandover and the Brute • Frank Norris
... and the chaste and undefiled couch, and the progress in virginal purity, and the temperate diet so helpful in preserving thy virginity uncontaminated. And where is now that grave deportment, and that modest mien, and that plain attire which so become a virgin, and that beautiful blush of bashfulness, and that comely paleness—the delicate bloom of abstinence and vigils, that outshines every ruddier glow. How often in prayer that thou mightest keep unspotted thy virginal purity hast thou poured forth thy tears! How many letters hast thou indited to holy men, imploring their prayers, not that ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... shifting of the candles, for the first time afforded him a full view of her face. "How many years have passed since first we met!" she resumed, in a voice which she mainly endeavored to maintain at its former pitch of composure, and eying him with daring bashfulness. ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... her veil, and looked on them with a countenance in which bashfulness contended with dignity. Her exceeding beauty excited a murmur of surprise, and the younger knights told each other with their eyes, in silent correspondence, that Brian's best apology was in the power of her ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... his Excellency the Governor, his Secretary, and various courtiers, as likewise myself. The lady herself is not quite a Desert maiden, skipping like a young roe over the mountains, in untutored innocence or coyish bashfulness. She is young, it is true, but full-blown and bloated, very big about, and excessively dirty and nasty. The favourite of the Mudeer is besides almost as black as a Negress, with a pock-marked face. After dodging about with the Negro clown some ten minutes, ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... collect me so many, they please me very much. I wish I knew of something that you would like as well as I like these, and if I can, I will give it to you, or ask mamma to help me." The boy not being troubled with bashfulness, immediately said, that of all things he should like a regular rigged boat, a ship, "a little-un" that would swim. The girl put her finger in her mouth and said "she didn't know." "Are you going to have a boat?" said every little voice, "oh, what fun we shall have." "Yes," said our peace-making ...
— Emilie the Peacemaker • Mrs. Thomas Geldart
... has guessed the author to be Anstey, who wrote the "Bath Guide"! How improbable and how extraordinary a supposition! But they have both of them done it so much honour that, but for Richard's anger at Evelina's bashfulness, I never Could believe they did not suspect me. I never went to Brompton without finding the third volume in Richard's hands; he speaks of all the characters as if they were his acquaintance, and Praises different ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... in suspense, when Andrew, who mistook my hesitation for bashfulness, proceeded to exhort me to lay it aside. "Speak till him—speak till him, Mr. Francis—he's no provost yet, though they say he'll be my lord neist year. Speak till him, then—he'll gie ye a decent answer for as rich as he is, unless ye were wanting siller frae him—they say he's dour to ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... tears 220 That stifled feeling dare not shed, And changed her cheek from pale to red, And red to pale, as through her ears Those winged words like arrows sped, What could such be but maiden fears? So bright the tear in Beauty's eye, Love half regrets to kiss it dry; So sweet the blush of Bashfulness, Even Pity scarce ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron
... said 'Thank you.' He had risen from his seat and was about to go, but the light of his candle caught Princess Kunigmunde's brown eyes (which were wet with tears), and something rose like fire in his breast and made him forget his bashfulness, his respect, and his ...
— Orpheus in Mayfair and Other Stories and Sketches • Maurice Baring
... I thought of nothing but the squire's straight-forwardness, and grieved to have to wound him. Janet helped me. She hinted with a bashfulness, quite new to her, that I must go through some ceremony. Guessing what it was, I saluted her on the cheek. The squire observed that a kiss of that sort might as well have been planted on her back hair. 'But,' said he, and wisely, 'I'd rather ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... and by the torrent of her words. At the same time, unlike most great talkers, she possessed to a very eminent degree the gifts of learning from others, of grasping the characteristic features of their teaching, of awakening sympathies, of dispelling bashfulness, and of kindling latent intellect into a flame. Few women combined so remarkably a sound and moderate judgment with extreme vividness and impetuosity of emotion. She admired deeply, and she generally admired ...
— Historical and Political Essays • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... image suggested to us in all these examples. The reason that excessive stoutness is laughable is probably because it calls up an image of the same kind. I almost think that this too is what sometime makes bashfulness somewhat ridiculous. The bashful man rather gives the impression of a person embarrassed by his body, looking round for some convenient cloak-room ...
— Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic • Henri Bergson
... the basis of truth. In cases where her judgment was at fault, or when she could not see her way, she was a perfect child, and, like a child, should be taken by the hand and supported. It was, however, when mingling in society that her timidity and bashfulness were most observable; these, however, were accompanied with so much natural grace, and unaffected innocence of manner, that the general charm of her whole character was fascinating and irresistible; nay, her very weaknesses created an atmosphere of love and sympathy ...
— The Evil Eye; Or, The Black Spector - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... hands, and arms were almost as dark as their own skins, the remaining portions of our bodies, ordinarily protected from the sun by our clothing, should be so very much lighter. They were not oppressed by any feeling of false modesty or bashfulness, but examined us minutely at close quarters, jabbering together with the utmost animation all the while and lightly running their fingers over our arms and necks, with the apparent purpose of finding the join in the differently ...
— Turned Adrift • Harry Collingwood
... its men against a' the human race,—but I wadna say much for the stabeelity o' its women. I wad just tak to my heels and run if I saw a real, thumpin', red-cheeked, big-boned Scotch lassie makin' up to me. There's nae bashfulness in they sort, and ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... close of the meal, to which Sam, despite his bashfulness, did full justice, Mr. Chester opened his pocket-book and produced ...
— Sam's Chance - And How He Improved It • Horatio Alger
... sat for a long time behind a hedge, while many thoughts flitted through her mind. Her cheeks glowed with a flush caused by anger at herself for having made so sharp a reply to a harmless question, by bashfulness, and by a strange, inward emotion. And involuntarily she began to hum ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various
... show his hand until he had established himself in a favorable position in the susceptible Birdie's heart. With this object in view he set himself to offer his blandishments in characteristic fashion. He did not suffer from Toby's complaint of bashfulness. Married life had cured him of that. In consequence, his method, if crude, ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... and Virginie, to whom the draper had not yet confided his disappointment, cast meaning glances at Joseph Lebas, who was extremely embarrassed. The young assistant's bashfulness commended him to his mother-in-law's good graces. The matron became so cheerful that she smiled as she looked at her husband, and allowed herself some little pleasantries of time-honored acceptance in such simple families. She wondered whether Joseph or Virginie ...
— At the Sign of the Cat and Racket • Honore de Balzac
... which she had counted. In truth, there was something deeper than vanity in the feelings with which he regarded Ellen Kingsbury. The encouragement which he supposed himself to have received, threw down the barrier which his extreme bashfulness would have interposed between himself and any one who possessed charms enough to attract him; and we must excuse him if, in such a case, he did not criticise the mode of encouragement, but rather grasped eagerly the proffered good without a scruple, or ...
— The Best American Humorous Short Stories • Various
... The word is sweet. I see not why your lip should shrink from it; If the word burns it,—what would the kiss do? Oh! let it not your bashfulness affright; Have you not, all this time, insensibly, Left badinage aside, and unalarmed Glided from smile to sigh,—from sigh to weeping? Glide gently, imperceptibly, still onward— From tear ...
— Cyrano de Bergerac • Edmond Rostand
... bashfulness took flight. Seven schools had taught her to hold her own, and she was soon imparting information about herself with a volubility that left no doubt of her acquaintance with the English tongue. ...
— The Leader of the Lower School - A Tale of School Life • Angela Brazil
... mind that she must see Alec before he went, but a secret bashfulness prevented her from writing to him. She was afraid that he would refuse, and she could not force herself upon him if she knew definitely that he did not want to see her. But with all her heart she wanted to ask his ...
— The Explorer • W. Somerset Maugham
... age, entered the room. The Count approached me with a frank and friendly air; I endeavored to be self-possessed and began to introduce myself, but he anticipated me. We sat down. His conversation, which was easy and agreeable, soon dissipated my awkward bashfulness; and I was already beginning to recover my usual composure, when the Countess suddenly entered, and I became more confused than ever. She was indeed beautiful. The Count presented me. I wished to appear at ease, but the more I tried to assume an ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Russian • Various
... remained, were soon removed, for the stranger sank on the bank at her side, in an attitude in which female bashfulness was beautifully contrasted with her attire, and gave vent to her mirth in an uncontrollable burst ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... that Topham has suddenly come out as a juggler, and swallows candles, and does wonderful things with the poker very well indeed, but with a bashfulness and embarrassment extraordinarily ludicrous. ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 1 (of 3), 1833-1856 • Charles Dickens
... advice of Caius, sent his youngest son into the market-place, with a herald's rod in his hand. He, being a very handsome youth, and modestly addressing himself, with tears in his eyes and a becoming bashfulness, offered proposals of agreement to the consul and the whole senate. The greatest part of the assembly were inclinable to accept of the proposals; but Opimius said, that it did not become them to send messengers and capitulate with ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... May, who did not know what bashfulness was, 'I wish I might go and see him, too. I should so like to know if he has ever seen the island where ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... among the helpless sick. Females of rank seemed to forget their natural bashfulness, and committed the care of their persons, indiscriminately, to men and women of the lowest order. No longer were women, relatives or friends, found in the houses of mourning, to share the grief of the survivors; no longer was the corpse ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... bashfulness, and asked the name of everything they saw, which Jeannette was always ready to tell them. Their attempts at talking French afforded her ...
— From Powder Monkey to Admiral - A Story of Naval Adventure • W.H.G. Kingston
... young men, we regret to say, were not members of any of the temperance societies; and as they had partaken freely of the stimulating beverages which had been called for, they were getting very noisy and losing much of that bashfulness which had hitherto kept them silent. In this state of things, Mr. Hand was forced to entreat one of the veterans to amuse them with some interesting ...
— The Yankee Tea-party - Or, Boston in 1773 • Henry C. Watson
... pressed obtrusively around me. My protector held them back. I was half wild with embarrassment. I'm naturally a reserved and somewhat sensitive girl, and this American publicity made me crimson with bashfulness. ...
— Recalled to Life • Grant Allen
... shown you a duty, do it in his fear, in a humble, submissive way. God may be leading you, and yet he may not be making his design very clear to others. There may be many difficulties in your way, such as bashfulness, want of fluent speech, awkwardness of manner, and ignorance. If, however, God has called you, and you keep submissive to him, he will in his own way bring out his design in you. Whatever your hands find to do, do it with your might. One has said, ...
— Trials and Triumphs of Faith • Mary Cole
... she attributed to bashfulness, encouraged the shameless coquette to add: "Maybe you liked me better as Bud?" Jeff was scarlet as he replied: "I liked Bud first-rate, but Bud'll remember what I said about his sister." Then he quite spoiled ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell
... offspring? The untidiness of sorrow and poverty has its bounds. A long time must have passed since the child's face and hands had been washed, and his soiled clothes were literally falling to rags. Still, he was a handsome little fellow, and seemed fairly intelligent, in spite of his bashfulness. He was very light-haired, and in features he was extremely like M. de Coralth. Chupin took him on his knees, and, after looking to see if the door communicating with the inner room were securely closed, he asked: "What's your ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... protestations of lack of skill and want of practice, to stand up opposite Homer Pettifoot, Mary B.'s husband, a tall man, with a slight stoop, a bald crown, and full, dreamy eyes,—a man of much imagination and a large fund of anecdote. Two other couples completed the set; others were restrained by bashfulness or religious scruples, which did not yield until later ...
— The House Behind the Cedars • Charles W. Chesnutt
... manners, for a modesty amounting to bashfulness, a handsome form, and an attachment to his mother, sister, and aunt, which was most exemplary. He was frugal and chaste. He left his mother and sister twenty thousand sesterces, requesting his mother, in a written codicil, to present to Cornutus, as some say, one hundred sesterces, ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... the shortcomings of the Middle Ages, there was then a healthy sensualism, that sprang from a rugged and happy native disposition among the people, and that Christianity was unable to suppress. The hypocritical prudery and bashfulness; the secret lustfulness, prevalent to-day, that hesitates and balks at calling things by their right name, and to speak about natural things in a natural way;—all that was foreign to the Middle Ages. Neither was that age familiar with the piquant double sense, ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel
... entitled to the epithet, who ought be six or seven years old, to judge by the gap left by his front milk teeth, these having resigned in favor of their successors, who have not yet presented their credentials. He is rather old for an enfant terrible, and quite too young to have grown into the bashfulness of adolescence; but he has some of the qualities of both these engaging periods of development, The member of the Haouse calls him "Bub," invariably, such term I take to be an abbreviation of "Beelzeb," as "bus" is the short form of ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... Brother, "nothing particular of his infancy: except the great share of bashfulness (or, as a Philosopher perhaps would say, pride) which he possess'd in common with the rest of the Family.... Exceedingly mild in his temper and kind to his play-mates, he was very ...
— An Essay on War, in Blank Verse; Honington Green, a Ballad; The - Culprit, an Elegy; and Other Poems, on Various Subjects • Nathaniel Bloomfield
... blushes, and looked at me with timid surprise. She made no answer; though that earnest, yet timid gaze, long remained, and for that matter, still remains, vividly impressed upon my recollection. It seemed to express astonishment, startled sensibility, feminine bashfulness, and maiden coyness; but it did not appear to me that it expressed displeasure. There was no time, however, to ask for explanations, since the voices of Herman Mordaunt and Bulstrode were now heard at the very door, and, at the next instant, ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... trust," said he, "to our salute? She must!" said he, "And then I will accost her gently—much to her surprise! - For knowing not I am with you here, when I speak up and call her dear A tenderness will fill her voice, a bashfulness her eyes. ...
— Time's Laughingstocks and Other Verses • Thomas Hardy
... glass of hot whiskey-and-water, though it enhanced the melancholy tenderness of the young man, robbed him of his bashfulness, and loosened the strings of his tongue. "For three years! And there was a time when she worshipped the very stool on which I sat at the office. I don't ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope
... doth not proceed from any malitious ill-natur'd Coyness, as some imagine, but from an ingenuous modesty and bashfulness, which usually accompanies, and is a proof of Simplicity: Tis very rare, says Pliny, to find a man so exquisitely skillful, as to be able to show those Features in a Picture which he hides, and I think ...
— De Carmine Pastorali (1684) • Rene Rapin
... that our happiness, which has no resemblance to that of other people, should conform to the laws of the world? And yet I delight too much in your bashfulness, your religion, your superstitions, not to obey your lightest whim. What you do must be right; nothing can be purer than your mind, as nothing is lovelier than your face, which ...
— Louis Lambert • Honore de Balzac
... side of the head we have Modesty and Reverence, the former running down into Bashfulness and the latter into Humility or Servility. Next to these we find Sublimity, which was correctly suggested by the Edinburgh phrenologists. It ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, November 1887 - Volume 1, Number 10 • Various
... thought I was falling in love with a rich Jewish girl whose face had a bashful expression of a peculiar type. There are different sorts of bashfulness. This girl had the bashfulness of sin, as I put it to myself. She looked as if her mind harbored illicit thoughts which she was trying to conceal. Her blushes seemed to be full of sex and her eyes full of secrets. She was not a pretty girl at all, but her "guilty look" disturbed me as ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... young man with light yellow hair and a little fair moustache, which made him appear almost boyish; he was light-complexioned and blue-eyed, and had a frank and pleasant look mingled with a curious bashfulness that made him blush ...
— Liza of Lambeth • W. Somerset Maugham
... came and caught the maiden in his arms, He pressed her to his bosom as a mother Presses her infant. She was pleased, and wept, But her's were tears of joy; Hung her head, and hid her beautuous face, Yet was she not ashamed. Her's was maiden bashfulness. Blushes she to be so caught in love? See her stolen glances! sunlit glances! see! She doth not altogether hate ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 1 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... are placed such instinctive tendencies as bashfulness, sympathy, the gregarious instinct, or love of companionship, ...
— Ontario Normal School Manuals: Science of Education • Ontario Ministry of Education
... is very remarkable that in the child's bashfulness we find a native nervous response to the presence of persons. And it is curious to note that, besides the general gregariousness which many animals have, they show in many instances special responses of the presence of creatures of their own kind or of other kinds. Dogs ...
— The Story of the Mind • James Mark Baldwin
... look, I suppose, sir, for I can't account for what he said any other way; and he turned to me, and he said to me, solemn-like, 'Is your head bad enough to send you to the Lord Jesus to make you whole?' I could not speak a word, partly from bashfulness, I suppose, for I was but ten years old. So he followed it up, as they say: 'Then you ought to be at school,' says he. I said nothing, because I couldn't. But never since then have I given in as long as I could stand. And I can stand now, and lift my ...
— The Seaboard Parish Vol. 2 • George MacDonald
... which had all the airs and graces of a village coquette, together with the bashfulness of a school miss, seemed to Katie and Dolores, but especially Katie, a very rich and wondrous thing. She always knew that Mrs. Russell was a gushing, sentimental creature, but had never before seen her so deeply affected. ...
— A Castle in Spain - A Novel • James De Mille |
