"Shy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... intended that they should realize in communion with man. The peculiar odor of the fox is his, though in a mitigated degree. He loves to make a lair under the bushes by tearing up the turf with his teeth and paws, and to lie in it. He is of a shy and reserved disposition, and usually more lively at night than by day. These are attributes of beasts of prey. Unlike all other members of the terrier family, he cares nothing about rats. He will sit down and bark in a tone of contempt at one turned out before him in a close passage ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... the town a pleasanter and healthier place to live in, they may indirectly increase their revenue; but if they do them extravagantly and badly, they run the risk of putting a burden on the ratepayers that will make people shy of ...
— International Finance • Hartley Withers
... many different Princes have we not gone the same round with!! The children are much admired by the Sovereigns—(how grand this sounds!)—and Alice allowed the Emperor to take her in his arms, and kissed him de son propre accord. We are always so thankful that they are not shy. Both the Emperor and the King are quite enchanted with Windsor. The Emperor said very poliment: "C'est digne de vous, Madame." I must say the Waterloo Room lit up with that entire service of gold looks splendid; and the Reception Room, beautiful to sit in afterwards. ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Vol 2 (of 3), 1844-1853 • Queen Victoria
... here is my daughter, Maud, who is quite as anxious to see you as I am." A figure sitting in a corner, talking to Miss Merry, rose up, came forward into the light, and held out her hand with rather a shy smile. ...
— Watersprings • Arthur Christopher Benson
... reflected that war was caused by luxury in dress, etc., the use of dyed garments grew uneasy to him, and he got and wore a hat of the natural color of the fur. "In attending meetings this singularity was a trial to me, . . . and some Friends, who knew not from what motives I wore it, grew shy of me. . . . Those who spoke with me I generally informed, in a few words, that I believed my wearing it was not in ...
— Initial Studies in American Letters • Henry A. Beers
... shy, but for a moment he forgot it, and, turning his intelligent blue eyes on Mrs. ...
— Queer Stories for Boys and Girls • Edward Eggleston
... reputation is so difficult to regain and always remains so fragile that, in spite of the shy reserve of La Blanchotte, they ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... 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, ...
— Clerambault - The Story Of An Independent Spirit During The War • Rolland, Romain
... talked of her statuary, as you may assist her if she has a mind to borrow anything to copy from the Great Duke's collection. Lady William Campbell, her uncle's widow, accompanies, who is a very reasonable woman too, and equally shy. If they return through Florence, pray give them a parcel of my letters. I had been told your nephew would make you a visit this autumn, but I have heard nothing from him. If you should see him, pray give him the parcel, for he will ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume II • Horace Walpole
... for Sebastian had been cooling continuously. Admiring his greatness still, I had doubts as to his goodness. That day I felt I positively mistrusted him. I wondered what his passage of arms with Hilda might mean. Yet, somehow, I was shy of alluding to ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... like, that undertaking, whatever it may be, is noted in the book which I have mentioned, and although years may pass before it can be fulfilled, is in due course carried out to the letter. Now, convicts are shy birds, who put little faith in promises. But when they find that these are always kept they gain confidence in the makers of them, and often learn to ...
— Regeneration • H. Rider Haggard
... steadily, she says, multiplicity becomes unity, which is somehow the secret of life, though it does not prevent her from following the macaroni as it goes round the table, and sometimes, on spring nights, she makes the strangest confidences to shy ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... suggested that the later appearance of the complete Vinaya in Chinese is due to the late compilation of the Sanskrit original.[777] It seems to me that other explanations are possible. The early translators were clearly shy of extensive works and until there was a considerable body of Chinese monks, to what public would these theological libraries appeal? Still, if any indication were forthcoming from India or Central Asia that ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Charles Eliot
... long, so that every two months a tuck has to be let down in her frocks, then a great difference becomes visible. The boy goes on racing and whooping and comporting himself generally like a young colt in a pasture; but she turns quiet and shy, cares no longer for rough play or exercise, takes droll little sentimental fancies into her head, and likes best the books which make her cry. Almost all girls have a fit of this kind some time or other in the course of their lives; and it is rather ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... tea-table, acting right- hand, and passing cake, cream, sugar, with such busy assiduity that every one besides herself thought that her mind, as well as her hands, was fully occupied. She tried to talk to the two shy girls, as in virtue of her two years' seniority she thought herself bound to do; and the consequence was, she went upstairs with the twain clinging to her arms, and willing to swear an eternal friendship. Nothing would satisfy them but that she must sit between them at ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... Bo and Bo looked at him. Their glances were strange, wondering, and they grew shy. Bo dropped hers. The cowboy apparently forgot what had been demanded ...
— The Man of the Forest • Zane Grey
... with beautiful shy curves of her body, against the wall so that he could manoeuvre his bigness through the drawing-room doorway, he gave her a glance half benign and half politely malicious, which seemed to say again: "I know you're afraid, and I rather ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... fruits from year to year. Our oil has alone been able to find vent by favour of the double duty imposed till now upon Sicilian, superior to ours in quality. But the English speculators are already shy of purchasing, in the expectation of an assimilation of duties on oils of whatever origin." The Ayuntamiento proceeds to urge the necessity of a "beneficial compensation" to British manufactures in the tariff of Spain, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various
... Eric met some callow, check-shirted, bare-legged lad on horseback, or a shrewd-faced farmer in a cart, who nodded and called out cheerily, "Howdy, Master?" A young girl, with a rosy, oval face, dimpled cheeks, and pretty dark eyes filled with shy coquetry, passed him, looking as if she would not be at all averse to a better acquaintance ...
— Kilmeny of the Orchard • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... but with his increased height he seemed leaner than ever. Also, he was more nervous. With the nervousness increased his peevishness and irritability. The children had learned by many bitter lessons to fight shy of him. His mother respected him for his earning power, but somehow her respect ...
— When God Laughs and Other Stories • Jack London
... Wise hand enchasing here those warts Which we to others from ourselves Sell, and brought hither by the elves. The tempting mole, stolen from the neck Of some shy virgin, seems to deck The holy entrance; where within The room is hung with the blue skin Of shifted snake, enfriezed throughout With eyes of peacocks' trains, and trout— Flies' curious wings; and these among Those silver pence, that cut the tongue Of the red infant, neatly hung. The glow-worm's ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... altho' he had much Wit, He was very shy of using it, As being loth to wear it out. And therefore bore it not about, Unless on Holydays or so, As Men their best Apparel do. Besides, 'tis known he could speak Greek As naturally as Pigs squeak.: That Latin was no more difficile Than to a Blackbird 'tis to whistle; Being rich in both he ...
— Reflections on Dr. Swift's Letter to Harley (1712) and The British Academy (1712) • John Oldmixon
... away on the violin. The men kept time with the cranks of the grindstone, and all faces turned with bashful smiles and bold grins at Mrs. Field. Most of them shrank a little from her look, like shy animals. ...
— Other Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... Shy, misty moon, Whence comes the blush that trembles In sweet disgrace O'er half thy face When Night ...
— Jimbo - A Fantasy • Algernon Blackwood
... 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 ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... sportsman. ''E went and lamed isself. I see 'im do it, and I giv' 'im a shy as a Widdy-warning to 'im not to go a-bruisin' 'is master's mutton ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens
... become a celebrated man, and is hoping for the return of his master. He is, we hear, at this moment deeply occupied in his laboratory, seeking to produce a Homunculus. The servant retires, and the bachelor enters—the same whom we knew some years before as a shy young student, when Mephistopheles (in Faust's gown) made game of him. He is now become a man, and is so full of conceit that even Mephistopheles can do nothing with him, but moves his chair further and further, and at last ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... my darling, whom I despaired of ever seeing again—she came shy and coy, I thought, but love was shining from her eyes ...
— The Birthright • Joseph Hocking
... ardent reader of books from childhood up, and he was enabled to gratify this taste by means of a very small village library, which contained several books of history, of which he was naturally fond. This boy, however, was a shy, devoted student, brave to maintain what he thought right, but so bashful that he was known to hide in the cellar when his parents were going ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume III (of 6) - Orators and Reformers • Various
... Melaleuca, and a fine Ironbark, with broad lanceolate, but not cordate, glaucous leaves, and very dark bark, formed the forest. An arborescent Acacia, in dense thickets, intercepted our course several times. Bronze-winged pigeons were very numerous, but exceedingly shy. ...
— Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia • Ludwig Leichhardt
... she, laughing; "don't say more about it, but tell me some more of your adventures." And, fearing she was neglecting the youth who had got over his frolicsome fit and become very shy, she added: "I wish both of you to talk ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman
... wonderment were expressed by all who entered, and I found that the host was under grave apprehensiveness that the presents might be looted by the more unscrupulous of the guests, for he pointed out to me a sharp-eyed, shy gentleman in a corner, who, he informed me, was a disguised police-officer. This, at first, I was loth to believe, but was assured that it was a ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey
... little employment he had was performed ill, at best unpleasantly. "Great practical method and expertness" he may brag of; but is there not also great practical pride, though deep-hidden, only the deeper-seated? So shy a man can never have been popular. We figure to ourselves, how in those days he may have played strange freaks with his independence, and so forth: do not his own words betoken as much? "Like a very young person, I imagined ...
— Sartor Resartus - The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh • Thomas Carlyle
... party climbed upwards towards the slope where the sheep had been seen on the previous day, Joses was full of stories about the shy nature of ...
— The Silver Canyon - A Tale of the Western Plains • George Manville Fenn
... Polly felt dreadfully shy with such unusual-looking girls. Not that their hats had feathers or fine flowers, nor their suits had any expensive trimmings on them, to suggest wealth, but the way they looked in their clothes! What ...
— Polly of Pebbly Pit • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... in a very attractive linen gown was strolling toward us, quite prettily engaged with a book which she read as she walked, her fair young head bowed beneath a sunshade which tinted her face becomingly. She gave me a shy smile and a low-voiced greeting as we passed. Only my knowledge of the young woman prevented me from being ...
— The Fortune Hunter • Louis Joseph Vance
... mild and gentle, soft-spoken and shy. They had all adopted Brazilian clothes. The hut of the chief was extremely clean and neat inside, the few utensils that were visible being kept in a ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... were to take care of Granny kept the money and the clothes, and put her to work as if she had been a servant, and didn't let her get the least bit of schooling. And when her father's friends came and asked about her, they told all sorts of tales about how well she was doing, but she was so shy, they said, that she always ran away when any ...
— The Soul of a Child • Edwin Bjorkman
... hear one of the trainers avow that, for her part, she thought his thin, Yankee face, with its big features and keen eyes, as homely as a hedge-fence. Lydia said nothing, but she wondered what people could expect. She was a greedy novel-reader, and she had shy thoughts of her own. It seemed to her that Eben, who also had passed his first youth, must have been a great favorite in his day. Every commonplace betrayal in those intimate talks with her mother served ...
— Country Neighbors • Alice Brown
... several times seen musk-deer as they journeyed up the mountain; but as the animal is exceedingly shy, and one of the swiftest of the deer kind, they had not succeeded in getting a shot. They were all the more anxious to procure one, from the very difficulty which they had met with ...
— The Plant Hunters - Adventures Among the Himalaya Mountains • Mayne Reid
... but which was soon removed by the politeness, and hospitable manner I was received by his son: yet, my only recommendation to either, was my being a stranger; and being a stranger is, in general, a good recommendation to a Frenchman, for, upon all such occasions, they are never shy, or backward in communicating what they know, or of gratifying the curiosity of an inquisitive traveller; their houses, cabinets, and gardens, are always open; and they seem rather to think they receive, ...
— A Year's Journey through France and Part of Spain, 1777 - Volume 1 (of 2) • Philip Thicknesse
... shacks, the brave vanguard of civilization, whose solitary loneliness only served to emphasize their remoteness from the civilization which they heralded. Away from the haunts of men and through the haunts of wild things where the shy coyote, his head thrown back over his shoulder, loped laughing at them and their futile noisy speed. Away through the wide rich pasture lands where feeding herds of cattle and bands of horses made up the wealth of the solitary rancher, whose low-built wandering ...
— The Patrol of the Sun Dance Trail • Ralph Connor
... and of the wife he loved like his own soul, he cannot bear that that man's avarice should rob him of his beloved daughter, with whom he hoped to end in rest these last years of his failing age. In Naples we have no friends; for my father's disaster makes every one shy of us: our relatives are our enemies. Cornelia is kept in the house of my uncle's kinsman Giangiacopo Coscia, where no one is allowed to speak to ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... was shy and churlish, and sheered off from the brothers, but the other catechised them on their views of becoming scholars in the college. He pointed out the cloister where the studies took place in all weathers, showed them the ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... "I don't. I don't know it at all—I can't think, of course, who this man could be, to have my name and address. I thought he might have been some country solicitor, wanting my professional services, you know," he went on, with a shy smile at Spargo; "but, three—three o'clock in the ...
— The Middle Temple Murder • J.S. Fletcher
... the later biologists or biological philosophers are as shy of the term "vital force," and even of the word "vitality," as they are of the words "soul," "spirit," "intelligence," when discussing natural phenomena. To experimental science such words have no meaning because the supposed realities for which they stand are quite beyond the reach of ...
— The Breath of Life • John Burroughs
... spread the news over the Green Meadows and through the Green Forest that a stranger had come from the North. At once all the little meadow people and forest folk made some excuse to go over to the big poplar tree where the stranger was so busy eating. At first he was very shy and had nothing to say. He was a queer fellow, and he was so big, and his teeth were so sharp and so long, that his ...
— The Adventures of Prickly Porky • Thornton W. Burgess
... He looked just as extraordinary as he had at the Savoy and as difficult to place. His manner could not be said to express anything, for he had no manner, but his voice was the voice of a shy undergraduate, while his clothes, Edith thought, suggested a combination of a bushranger and a conjuror. His tie, evidently new, was a marvel, a sort of true-lover's knot of red patterned with green, strange ...
— Love's Shadow • Ada Leverson
... at night, a regrettable circumstance, which does not allow me to follow the worker's methods. I see the result; and that is all. Were I to visit the building-yard by the light of a lantern, I should be no wiser. The animal, which is very shy, would at once dive into her lair; and I should have lost my sleep for nothing. Furthermore, she is not a very diligent labourer; she likes to take her time. Two or three bits of wool or raphia placed in position represent a whole night's work. And to this ...
— The Life of the Spider • J. Henri Fabre
... Christmas dinner in quiet, and he was determined he would. Don Miguel has been with him at the Cottage these two days. He has been received with great magnificence; they say he behaves well enough, but is very shy. He went out stag-hunting in red coat and full hunting costume, and rode over the ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... that As Montaigne, playing with his cat, Complains she thought him but an ass, Much more she would Sir Hudibras, (For that the name our valiant Knight To all his challenges did write) But they're mistaken very much, 'Tis plain enough he was no such. We grant although he had much wit, H' was very shy of using it; As being loth to wear it out, And therefore bore it not about Unless on holidays, or so, As men their best apparel do. Besides, 'tis known he could speak Greek As naturally as pigs squeak: That Latin was no more difficile, ...
— English Satires • Various
... did not impress him. Here was a quiet, motherly personality, a personality to grow upon one through months and years. At first meeting she seemed only a gray-haired, shy, silent sort of person, not to be spoken of by herself as Mrs. Lightener, but in the reflected rays of her husband, as ...
— Youth Challenges • Clarence B Kelland
... on both sides by walls from 7 to 10 or 12 feet in height. They are plastered white and overgrown by the ivy; and as one walks along in these, he may well occupy his time in watching a species of little reptiles that are very nimble but shy, running up the high smooth walls as easily as along the ground. They are harmless, no doubt, but I dreaded them quite as much as if I had been in a similar danger of treading upon snakes! They dart like arrows across the ...
— The Youthful Wanderer - An Account of a Tour through England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany • George H. Heffner
... strappin' youth; he takes the mother's eye; Blythe Jenny sees the visit's no ill ta'en; The father cracks of horses, pleughs, and kye. [chats, cows] The youngster's artless heart o'erflows wi' joy, But blate and laithfu', scarce can weel behave; [shy, bashful] The mother, wi' a woman's wiles, can spy What makes the youth sae bashfu' an' sae grave; Weel-pleased to think her bairn's respected like the ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson
... forgotten how often she had been seated, when 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 ...
— Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud, Complete - Being Secret Letters from a Gentleman at Paris to a Nobleman in London • Lewis Goldsmith
... kind of you!" she added in that suddenly soft, half-shy tone that I have before attempted to describe. "Y' see," she continued, "nobody ever troubled themselves about me all my life, except Jerry—or them as I keeps my little knife for. And you ain't that sort, ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... probably some garden beneath the moonlit shy, near the town, and within sound of the sea. The characters are Simaetha, and Thestylis, ...
— Theocritus, Bion and Moschus rendered into English Prose • Andrew Lang
... it has become only a fading memory in our hearts and a faery fable upon our lips. Yet there are still places in this isle, remote from the crowded cities where men and women eat and drink and wear out their lives and are lost in the lust for gold, where the shy peasant sees the enchanted lights in mountain and woody dell, and hears the faery bells pealing away, away, into that wondrous underland whither, as legends relate, the Danann gods withdrew. These things are ...
— AE in the Irish Theosophist • George William Russell
... to break the ice, and Miss Moore's girls, and Mark's friends, and the Spectacle Man's shy student, all became sociable directly, as ...
— The Spectacle Man - A Story of the Missing Bridge • Mary F. Leonard
... knew she was grateful for the food, and it had become all they could do for her in the hard struggle she was having. The trees were growing bare; the flowers were few and without scent; the birds did not sing any more, but were shy, and twittered and complained, while the swallows were restless, like those going a long journey. Singing time was over, life burning down, it was natural to be silent and ...
— The Hallam Succession • Amelia Edith Barr
... laughed, but more often heard the story out to the end and offered them a place in the shade, a drink of milk, and a meal. The women were always kind, and the little children as children are the world over, alternately shy and venturesome. ...
— Kim • Rudyard Kipling
... spend the summer here, are you?" says I. "Besides, it'll do you good to learn not to shy at a man just because he's done time. ...
— Shorty McCabe on the Job • Sewell Ford
... is the case," answered her aunt; "otherwise I should be at a loss to account for her sudden fondness. She is usually very shy with strangers." ...
— Minnie's Pet Cat • Madeline Leslie
... way, and the next morning there came to me an invitation to call upon the bride. I found her to be the most beautiful Chinese girl I had ever seen, with manners all the more pleasing because so very shy. Her husband had prepared quarters for her which, as compared with the average Chinese home, were almost palatial, and everything seemed to promise a future ...
— The American Missionary - Vol. 44, No. 3, March, 1890 • Various
... encouraging effect, for forthwith there was a general rush towards Watchorn, and it was only by rating and swinging his 'whop' about that he prevented the pack from pawing, and perhaps downing him. At length, having got them somewhat tranquillized, he set off on his return to the stables, coaxing the shy hounds, and rating and rapping those that seemed inclined to break away. Thus he managed to march into the stable-yard in pretty good order, just as the house party arrived in the opposite direction, attired in the most extraordinary and ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... have long wanted to see and haven't expected to admire, which, seen, give you a double thrill, that they're at last there, and that they're better than your hopes. For Liberty stands nobly. Americans, always shy about their country, have learnt from the ridicule which Europeans, on mixed aesthetic and moral grounds, pour on this statue, to dismiss it with an apologetic laugh. Yet it is fine—until you get near enough to see its clumsiness. I admired the great ...
— Letters from America • Rupert Brooke
... easily tamable, though naturally shy. Feeds out of the hand in a day or two, if fed regularly ...
— Love's Meinie - Three Lectures on Greek and English Birds • John Ruskin
... her dinner as much as she usually did the midday Sunday feasts when grandpa and grandma came to eat with them. She felt embarrassed and shy. Of course she had to answer when asked why she wasn't eating her drumstick, and whether the green apples in grandma's orchard had given her an "upset," and other direct questions; but when she could, she kept silent. She was glad Pete didn't talk to her much. ...
— Missy • Dana Gatlin
... stood, perfectly still, his steady gaze fixed on the lady opposite, while she in her turn never wavered in her gaze upon him. But whereas there was something bold in his homage there was a half-shy way with her. He was facing her squarely, but she looked at him a little sideways, and a little curiously, in demure dubiousness. One could see that she was enormously intrigued, but her interest was not expressed by any movement. In fact neither moved; they ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, March 14, 1917 • Various
... pitiless to be a spy upon to delight to behave to watch to snatch from she was looking at me on the shy it takes her appetite away to have one's ...
— Le Petit Chose (part 1) - Histoire d'un Enfant • Alphonse Daudet
... to 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)
... and peremptory, and the absent demeanour gave place to a most purposeful energy. His vigilance was marvellous: his eye was everywhere; he let nothing pass without his personal scrutiny. The unfortunate officer accused of indolence or neglect found the shy and quiet professor transformed into the most implacable of masters. No matter how high the rank of the offender, the crime met with the punishment it deserved. The scouts compared him with Lee. ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... "sneaking kindness" for, which Oonah's distance of manner alone had hitherto made him keep to himself; but now, when he saw her eyes beam gratitude, and her cheek flush, after her strong demonstration of regard, and heard her last words, so very like a hint to a shy man, it must be owned a sudden pang shot through poor Andy's heart, and he sickened at the thought of being married, which placed the tempting prize before him hopelessly beyond ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... this I have been informed that the overture to "Tannhauser," which, when I conducted it at Dresden, used to last twelve minutes, now lasts twenty. No doubt I am here alluding to thoroughly incompetent persons who are particularly shy of Alla breve time, and who stick to their correct and normal crotchet beats, four in a bar, merely to shew they are present and conscious of doing something. Heaven knows how such "quadrupeds" find their way from the village church to our opera theatres. But "dragging" ...
— On Conducting (Ueber das Dirigiren): - A Treatise on Style in the Execution of Classical Music • Richard Wagner (translated by Edward Dannreuther)
... Her shy, maiden soul revolted at the thought and perforce she gave investigation up, her thoughts, finally, turning from the really remote chance of a difficulty between the men to the pleasanter task ...
— In Old Kentucky • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey
... through the shade Her shepherd's suit to hear; To Beauty shy, by lattice high, Sings high-born Cavalier. The star of Love, all stars above, Now reigns o'er earth and sky, And high and low the influence know— But ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... say," she answered, oh so softly! "or the changes?" And then she became suddenly shy, and withdrew her hand, which he was still holding; and he, drawing himself up to his full height, stood stock still for a moment as if lost in thought and ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow
... beaucoup chez nous, ils sont grands gobeurs de cerises.' It would appear from this that cherries are a favourite food with this bird, and the presence of cherry orchards would account for their settling down at St. George. I believe they are said to be very shy, and the absence of wood would account for their not being seen in the ...
— Birds of Guernsey (1879) • Cecil Smith
... stood by Drusy's side, and they talked in a low, interested tone. She never talked to him in that way, never listened to what he had to say with such half-shy, half-coquettish attention. But she would not dance, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various
... making green pillars of their rough trunks. Fountains threw their bright waters to the roof, and flocks of silver-winged birds flew singing among the flowers, or brooded lovingly above their nests. Doves with gentle eyes cooed among the green leaves, snow-white clouds floated in the sunny shy, and the golden light, brighter than before, shone ...
— Flower Fables • Louisa May Alcott
... felt a wish to be associated with them; had read the scanty accounts of General Hunter's abortive regiment, and had heard rumors of General Saxton's renewed efforts. But the prevalent tone of public sentiment was still opposed to any such attempts; the government kept very shy of the experiment, and it did not seem possible that the time had come when it could ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... excuse me, Aunt Elsie, if I open my letter now just for a peep?" asked Evelyn with a slight shy smile. ...
— The Two Elsies - A Sequel to Elsie at Nantucket, Book 10 • Martha Finley
... tied under his chin, sprang to his feet. "Ah! Is that you, Mr. Felix? I been a-wonderin' where you been a-keepin' yourself. Take this chair; it's more comfortable. I was thinkin' somehow you might come in to-night, and so I took a shy at my bills to have somethin' to do. I suppose"—he stopped, and in a whisper added: "I suppose you haven't heard anything, ...
— Felix O'Day • F. Hopkinson Smith
... had a meeting in the evening. The following day we walked out to visit the Mohawk Institution, supported by the New England Company; this institution has been, I believe, nearly thirty years in existence, and they have at present thirty-eight boys and forty-two girls. It was strange how shy our boys seemed of the young Mohawks, though making friends so readily with white boys. Mohawks and Ojebways were hereditary enemies, and, in days gone by, used to delight ...
— Missionary Work Among The Ojebway Indians • Edward Francis Wilson
... small size and, with a few exceptions, of plain plumage. The result is that the great majority of them resemble one another so closely that it is as difficult to identify them when at large as it is to see through a brick wall. Small wonder, then, that field naturalists fight rather shy of this family. Of the 110 species of warbler which exist in India, I propose to deal with only one, and that favoured bird is Hodgson's grey-headed flycatcher-warbler (Cryptolopha xanthoschista). My reasons for raising this particular species from among the vulgar herd of warblers are two. ...
— Birds of the Indian Hills • Douglas Dewar
... Effingham rang the bell, and desired Pierre to request Miss Van Cortlandt to join him in the library. Grace entered blushing and shy, but with a countenance beaming with inward peace. Her uncle regarded her a moment intently, and a tear glistened in his eye, again, as he tenderly ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... of frame, and not at all imposing in stature, but he bore himself with a certain shy courtliness of carriage which had a distinction of its own. His face, with its little black moustache and large dark eyes, was fine upon examination, but in some elusively foreign way. There lingered a foreign note, ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... of security, and the certainty that your bearers won't shy, or come into collision, or go off the rails, or otherwise injure your nerves or bones. You are independent of hotels and hospitality. If the traveller in India depended upon the former, he would ...
— A Journey to Katmandu • Laurence Oliphant
... When Miss Hatchard called upon the North Dormer maidenhood to collaborate in the festal preparations Charity had at first held aloof; but it had been made clear to her that her non-appearance might excite conjecture, and, reluctantly, she had joined the other workers. The girls, at first shy and embarrassed, and puzzled as to the exact nature of the projected commemoration, had soon become interested in the amusing details of their task, and excited by the notice they received. They would not for the world have missed their afternoons at Miss Hatchard's, and, while ...
— Summer • Edith Wharton
... shy hind, the soft-eyed gentle Brute Now moves, now stops, approaches by degrees— At length emerges from the shelt'ring Trees, Lur'd by her Hunter with the Shepherd's flute, Whose music travelling on the twilight breeze, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... the smallest tangible demonstration they were fast friends. The girl's horizon now bordered a triune interest;—the church, the mistress, and the parlor floor. Gaunt and spare, she trod her beat. Shy of manner, with eyes looking nowhere, she seemed a human machine of the broom. A woman without kith or kin, without a history, and apparently without a memory. Never sick, never absent, never a letter from friends, never a visit away. The old habitues of the house liked ...
— Idle Hour Stories • Eugenia Dunlap Potts
... where the girls are supreme and superior, and he began to feel for the first time that he was an awkward boy. The girl takes to society as naturally as a duckling does to the placid pond, but with a semblance of shy timidity; the boy plunges in with a great splash, and hides his shy awkwardness ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... distasteful behaviour of our earliest visitors, and the case of the lady who rubbed herself upon the cushions—which would give a very false opinion of Marquesan manners. The great majority of Polynesians are excellently mannered; but the Marquesan stands apart, annoying and attractive, wild, shy, and refined. If you make him a present he affects to forget it, and it must be offered him again at his going: a pretty formality I have found nowhere else. A hint will get rid of any one or any number; they are so fiercely proud and modest; while many of the more lovable but blunter islanders ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Mostrarskegg, the son of Ornolf Fish-driver, but Ari the Wise says he was the son of Thorgil Reydarside. Thorolf Mostrarskegg had to wife Oska, the daughter of Thorstein the Red. The mother of Thorgrim was named Thora, a daughter of Oleif the Shy, the son of Thorstein the Red, the son of Oleif the White, the son of Ingialld, the son of Helgi; but the mother of Ingialld was Thora, a daughter of Sigurd Snake-eye, son of Ragnar Hairybreeks; but the mother of Snorri the Priest was ...
— Njal's Saga • Unknown Icelanders
... the distinguished French students of sociology, Professor Letourneau has long stood in the first rank. He approaches the great study of man free from bias and shy of generalisations. To collect, scrutinise, and appraise facts is his ...
— The Industries of Animals • Frederic Houssay
... HUDIBRAS; 40 (For that's the name our valiant knight To all his challenges did write). But they're mistaken very much, 'Tis plain enough he was no such; We grant, although he had much wit, 45 H' was very shy of using it; As being loth to wear it out, And therefore bore it not about, Unless on holy-days, or so, As men their best apparel do. 50 Beside, 'tis known he could speak GREEK As naturally as pigs squeek; That ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... the energy confined within her little body was a thing to have astounded scientists: And Honora grew to womanhood and reflection before she had. guessed or considered that her aunt was possessed of intense emotions which had no outlet. Her features were regular, her shy eye had the clearness of a forest pool. She believed in predestination, which is to say that she was a fatalist; and while she steadfastly continued to regard this world as a place of sorrow and trials, she concerned herself very little about her ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... of several spiders and of some larvae. The spider, it appears, is an "undescribed species of Erigone," and the larvae are probably lepidopterous. A small shrike was also secured as a specimen. We saw several species of gulls, a snowy owl—which by the way was very shy—a few lemmings, and the tracks ...
— The First Landing on Wrangel Island - With Some Remarks on the Northern Inhabitants • Irving C. Rosse
... express; so that, for the rest of his stay at Buxton, he had Leviathan entirely to himself, and had the honor of bowsing with him in the evening. Hobbes, it seems, at first showed a good deal of stiffness, for he was shy of divines; but this wore off, and he became very sociable and funny, and they agreed to go into the bath together. How Tennison could venture to gambol in the same water with Leviathan, I cannot explain; but so it was: they frolicked about like two dolphins, though Hobbes must have been as old ...
— Miscellaneous Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... represented as having the tongue of 'them that are taught,' and as having it, because morning by morning He has been wakened to hear God's lessons. He is thus God's scholar—a thought of which an unreflecting orthodoxy has been shy, but which it is necessary to admit unhesitatingly and ungrudgingly, if we would not reduce the manhood of Jesus to a mere phantasm. He Himself has said, 'As the Father taught Me, I speak these things.' With emphatic repetition, He was continually making that assertion, as, for instance, 'I have ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... plunged her into the cool water, and now commanded me that having stripped I too should enter the spring. We were yet disporting ourselves in the lovely fountain, when, raising my head and gazing with longing eyes around, I saw amid the leaves a youth, pale and shy of appearance, who with slow steps was advancing towards the sacred water. As I looked on him he was pleasant in my eyes, but that he should behold me naked filled me with shame, and I turned away to ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... well to have a store of very small trout-flies at hand, while experience has shown that even the dry fly will kill sea-trout on occasion, a thing that is worth remembering where rivers are low and fish shy. July, August and September are in general the best months for sea-trout, and as they are dry months the angler often has to put up with indifferent sport. The fish will, however, rise in tidal water and ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 2, Part 1, Slice 1 • Various |
