"Shy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Arabian. And yet she had been about Paris with all sorts of men, and had not cared what people had thought or said. But those men had been clever, workers in the arts, men with names that were known, or that would be known presently. Arabian was different. She felt oddly shy about being seen with him. Her audacity seemed fading away in her. She realized that and felt alarmed. If only she knew something definite about Arabian, who he was, what his people were, where he came from, she would feel much easier. She began to worry about the matter. She lay awake ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens
... remember old Mrs Willis and her granddaughter, but had neither seen nor heard of them since they left. They knew very little about them personally, and nothing whatever of their previous history, as they had stayed only a short time in the town, and had been remarkably shy and uncommunicative—the result, it was thought, of their having ...
— My Doggie and I • R.M. Ballantyne
... Lucy gone. His father was smiling, and his mother had wide-open hopeful eyes. A slim young girl, with freckles, grave sweet eyes and curly hair was standing by a window. She turned and devoured him with those shy eyes. From that look he ...
— Valley of Wild Horses • Zane Grey
... said Katherine; 'are you shy of Mr. Somerville? look there, Edward and Winifred are not shy, and you are quite a great girl. ...
— Abbeychurch - or, Self-Control and Self-Conceit • Charlotte M. Yonge
... list of one after another as I happen to call them to me or think of them, The real poems, (what we call poems being merely pictures,) The poems of the privacy of the night, and of men like me, This poem drooping shy and unseen that I always carry, and that all men carry, (Know once for all, avow'd on purpose, wherever are men like me, are our lusty lurking masculine poems,) Love-thoughts, love-juice, love-odor, love-yielding, love-climbers, and the climbing sap, ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... mentioned at all. Many solicitors consider it so essential to keep the price in the background until near the end of the canvass that they artfully dodge the question, "What is the cost?", until they think the prospect is sufficiently interested not to "shy" when the figure ...
— Business Correspondence • Anonymous
... that are some sea-lions! Go and take a look at them. I'll join you as soon as we are through here. Won't be long. But you'll have to stalk them to the leeward if you want to get close," he added, "they're shy. I'll meet you there and we'll go back to dinner. You ought to ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... said love ruled the world; that I Adored her; called her "Nan." She merely looked a little shy, And then ...
— When hearts are trumps • Thomas Winthrop Hall
... course, she wasn't Joan, this strange, gaunt creature. Besides, his wife could never have done what this woman was doing. Why, Joan couldn't talk like this, she couldn't act to save her soul! She was as simple as a child, and shy, with the unself-conscious shyness of wild things. To be sure, this "actress-lady" was making-believe she was a wild thing, and she was doing it almighty well, but Joan had been the reality, and grave and still, part of his own big, grave, mountain country, ...
— The Branding Iron • Katharine Newlin Burt
... knowest thou the magic flower By whose bright rays the soul's dark deeps are lit; Which, hiding in its quiet, sacred bower, Waits for the Fairy Prince to gather it; But which, if he find not its shy recess, Withers and dies in forlorn loneliness? Within the bosom of its petals furled Lies with Life's sense the Riddle of the World; And he that first its chalice openeth Glows with the wine of Life, the scorn ...
— Turandot, Princess of China - A Chinoiserie in Three Acts • Karl Gustav Vollmoeller
... o' way to show him that it wasn't the kind o' thing for a gen'leman to do. I should have pointed out to him as he did wrong last time in going off, and what a lot of injury it did him; and he knew it, or else he wouldn't have kep' it so close, and gone without letting me know. But once bit twice shy, and I'm not going to be bit again. I'm not going to break my heart fancying he's made a hole in the water. That's what set me thinking about the lieutenant as I did. If he wasn't one of the easiest-going bits o' human machinery as ever lived, he'd have been awfully ...
— The Queen's Scarlet - The Adventures and Misadventures of Sir Richard Frayne • George Manville Fenn
... Secretary of the Treasury, and it is very important for us to keep him straight on the currency and the tariff. So I have come on to establish more intimate relations with him, as they say in diplomacy. I want to get him to dine with me at Welckley's, but as I know he keeps very shy of politics I thought my only chance was to make it a ladies' dinner, so I brought on Julia. I shall try and get Mrs. Schuyler Clinton, and I depend upon you and your sister ...
— Democracy An American Novel • Henry Adams
... with the keeper, and then went into the cottage to buy a couple of Polly's turnovers, and found her looking very red-faced and shy, but she was businesslike enough over taking the money, and we went off browsing down the lane upon Polly's pastry and ...
— Burr Junior • G. Manville Fenn
... practiced total abstinence; but the world was amusing, and he liked it. He was fond of the theatre, fond of whist, fond of visiting the studios, fond of going to the houses of his friends. But he would run no risks; he was shy and he was proud. He dreaded contact with the ultra-fashionables. Naturally, his opportunities for such intercourse were limited, but he cheerfully neglected his opportunities. I doubt if he ever bewailed his humble origin; nevertheless, the constitution of English society ...
— The Bibliotaph - and Other People • Leon H. Vincent
... But there I let him weep enough and plain,* *bewail Till freshe May will rue upon his pain. O perilous fire, that in the bedstraw breedeth! O foe familiar,* that his service bedeth!** *domestic **offers O servant traitor, O false homely hewe,* *servant Like to the adder in bosom shy untrue, God shield us alle from your acquaintance! O January, drunken in pleasance Of marriage, see how thy Damian, Thine owen squier and thy boren* man, *born Intendeth for to do thee villainy:* *dishonour, outrage God grante thee thine *homehy foe* t' espy. *enemy in the household* ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... together since Philip had returned from India as a man of fifty, with the reasonable hope of enjoying his pensioned retirement. Philip had spent his energy freely in the Indian Civil Service, and the two middle-aged brothers, either too poor to marry, too shy, or both, determined to combine resources with companionship and keep ...
— War-time Silhouettes • Stephen Hudson
... weight in gold; his dreams, a credit to the bed he slept on; and his feelings, like blind puppies, young and alive to the milk of love and kindness which they drew from his heart. Most of this delight escaped the observation of the world, for Neal, like your true lover, became shy and mysterious. It is difficult to say what he resembled; no dark lantern ever had more light shut up within itself, than Neal had in his soul, although his friends were not aware of it. They knew, indeed, that he had turned his back upon ...
— Phelim O'toole's Courtship and Other Stories • William Carleton
... next few minutes I found that some of the shy mountain women were beginning to hover about me, and in another ten minutes I had laid the foundations of an export rug and quilt business that I have a feeling ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... his place!" "Amazing tact! Scarce credible!" "But 'tis the fact." "You quicken my desire to get An introduction to his set." "With merit such as yours, you need But wish it, and you must succeed. He's to be won, and that is why Of strangers he's so very shy." "I'll spare no pains, no arts, no shifts! His servants I'll corrupt with gifts. To-day though driven from his gate, What matter? I will lie in wait, To catch some lucky chance; I'll meet Or overtake him in the street; I'll haunt him like his shadow. Nought In life without ...
— Horace • Theodore Martin
... come back," she said to herself, even while she scorned the thought of failure, for with all her shy pride she was both brave and ardent, and her dreams were of ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott
... whether she actually bound them, as at the present day, is purely a matter of conjecture. The modern style of binding inflicts great pain for a long time upon the little girls who have to endure it. They become very shy on the subject, and will on no account show their bare feet, though Manchu women and others with full-sized feet frequently walk about unshod, and the boat-girls at Canton and elsewhere never seem to wear shoes or stockings ...
— The Civilization Of China • Herbert A. Giles
... to personal distinction which never fell to Jane's lot. When she visited her kind publisher in London, literary men and women were invited purposely to meet her: Thackeray bestowed upon her the honour of his notice; and once in Willis's Rooms, {117} she had to walk shy and trembling through an avenue of lords and ladies, drawn up for the purpose of gazing at the author of 'Jane Eyre.' Miss Mitford, too, lived quietly in 'Our Village,' devoting her time and talents to the benefit of a father scarcely worthy of her; but she did not ...
— Memoir of Jane Austen • James Edward Austen-Leigh
... others; with all this, a man who never desired to show more wits than they with whom he conversed, who put himself within everybody's range without ever letting it be perceived, in such wise that nobody could drop him, or fight shy of him, or not want to see him again. It was this rare talent, which he possessed to the highest degree, that kept his friends so completely attached to him all his life, in spite of his downfall, and that, in their dispersion, brought them together to speak of him, to sorrow after him, to ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... can think of no more charming man than Timothy Rearden. He had a most attractive personality, combining rare intelligence and kindly affection with humor and a modesty that left him almost shy. He was scholarly and brilliant, especially in literature and languages. His essays and studies in Greek attracted world-acknowledgment, but at home he was known chiefly as a genial, self-effacing lawyer, not ambitious for a large practice and oblivious ...
— A Backward Glance at Eighty • Charles A. Murdock
... sir; once bit twice shy. I haven't really thought of anything definite, but what I should like best of all would be a cadetship under ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... the army, and those of the royal stables, having been daily led before me, were no longer shy, but would come up to my very feet without starting. The riders would leap them over my hand as I held it on the ground; and one of the emperor's huntsmen, upon a large courser, took my foot, shoe and all, which was indeed ...
— Gulliver's Travels - Into Several Remote Regions of the World • Jonathan Swift
... sight of some deer a short way ahead. He therefore started at once for a stalk, several of the others going off in other directions. Mr. Herries proceeded very cautiously, and the wind being fortunately toward him, he was enabled to creep up tolerably close. The animals, which are extremely shy, had, however, an idea that danger was about before he could get within a fair shot. As he knew that they would be off in another instant, he at once practiced a trick which he had often ...
— On the Pampas • G. A. Henty
... said an old hunting squire to his daughter when they had passed. "Shy, no doubt—very natural! But nowadays girls, when they're shy, don't giggle and blush as they used to in my young days; they look as if you meant to insult them, and they weren't going to allow it! Oh, very handsome—very handsome—of course. But you can see she's advanced—peculiar—or what d'ye ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Stuart. The snowy kerchief folded across her bosom and the big mob cap on her head are precisely like those in the portraits of the colonial lady. The child purses her lips together primly and folds her hands in a demure attitude in her lap, as if to play her part well, but she is far too shy to look us directly in the face, and glances ...
— Sir Joshua Reynolds - A Collection of Fifteen Pictures and a Portrait of the - Painter with Introduction and Interpretation • Estelle M. Hurll
... week, or afterward (for I promise to find you any time you appoint) I hope to find you alone—for twenty years' Solitude make me very shy: but ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald to Fanny Kemble (1871-1883) • Edward FitzGerald
... tried to practice medicine. They once in a while talked about some suggestion or discovery which was attracting Dr. Leslie's attention, but the girl seemed hardly to have gained much interest even for this, and became a little shy of being found with one of the medical books in her hand, as she tried to fancy herself in sympathy with the conventional world of school and of the every-day ideas of society. And yet her inward sympathy with ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... before and crowded with the troops of three nations. I was also made the shepherd of all these sheep, who were commanded to keep their eyes upon me and not to go astray but to follow where I led. It was a most ridiculous position for a London journalist of a shy and retiring nature, especially as some of the nurses were getting out of hand and indulging in private adventures. One of them, a most buxom and jolly soul, who, as she confided to me, "didn't care a damn," ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs
... and son what contrast could be greater? Charles VII., "the Well-served," so easygoing, so open and free from guile; Louis XI., so shy of counsellors, so energetic and untiring, so close and guileful. History does but apologise for Charles, and even when she fears and dislikes Louis, she cannot forbear to wonder and admire. And yet Louis enslaved his country, ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... run up at once to his room, and Hilda had not yet put in an appearance, but Judy, who was sitting on a sofa reading "Sylvie and Bruno," jumped up at once and came forward in her shy but self-possessed little way to meet ...
— A Young Mutineer • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... known, the women of Cho-sen, with the exception of the lower classes, are kept in seclusion. They are seldom allowed to go out, and when they do they cover their faces with white or green hoods, very similar in shape to those worn by the women at Malta. They appear, or pretend to be, shy of men, and foreigners in particular, and generally hide when one is approaching, especially if in a solitary street. I remember how astonished I was the first few days I was in Seoul, at the fact that every ...
— Corea or Cho-sen • A (Arnold) Henry Savage-Landor
... I mien, or face, In which more plainly I could trace Benignity and home-bred sense Ripening in perfect innocence. Here scattered, like a random seed, Remote from men, Thou dost not need The embarrassed look of shy distress, And maidenly shamefacedness: Thou wear'st upon thy forehead clear The freedom of a Mountaineer: A face with gladness overspread! Soft smiles, by human kindness bred! And seemliness complete, ...
— The Hundred Best English Poems • Various
... for their display. Andre Duchatel, seigneur of Montboeuf, was a vulgar looking, short, broad-set, florid figure, of fifty years or so; material in his tastes, in disposition obstinate and narrow-minded, unenlarged by education; shy with strangers, yet fond of good fellowship with his acquaintance, and, with much reason, accounted to be rich. He was a widower, but lived in a kind of surly, patriarchal state, in the midst of three sons and a daughter; the former ...
— The Advocate • Charles Heavysege
... old peasant in shabby clothes, and with his look half-shy, half-sycophant, but vulgarly dressed in broadcloth and bright buttons, a tall hat on his head, and a crimson cravat round his neck. His face was flushed, and his eye flashing and insolent, so that O'Shea only feebly recognised ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... or fears to walk up a dark entry may be an excellent good man, and fit for a hundred things, but he will not do to make a good Sentimental Traveller.—I count little of the many things I see pass at broad noonday, in large and open streets.—Nature is shy, and hates to act before spectators; but in such an unobserved corner you sometimes see a single short scene of hers worth all the sentiments of a dozen French plays compounded together,—and yet they are absolutely fine;—and whenever I have a more brilliant affair ...
— A Sentimental Journey • Laurence Sterne
... woman. The other woman was younger, and her sad face showed traces of a former comeliness. They called her Mrs. Durade. The girl was her daughter Allie. She appeared about fifteen years old, and was slight of form. Her face did not seem to tan. It was pale. She looked tired, and was shy and silent, almost ashamed. She had long, rich, chestnut-colored hair which she wore in a braid. Her eyes were singularly large and dark, and ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey
... with an embarrassed little laugh. Her question called up memories of shy glances, gifts of flowers and fruit, boyish confidences—all the things which fall to the lot of any ...
— Revelations of a Wife - The Story of a Honeymoon • Adele Garrison
... artificial summer and sunshine through the room, and lights up each countenance with a kindlier welcome. Where does the honest face of hospitality expand into a broader and more cordial smile—where is the shy glance of love more sweetly eloquent—than by the winter fireside? and as the hollow blast of wintry wind rushes through the hall, claps the distant door, whistles about the casement, and rumbles down the chimney, what can be more grateful than that feeling of sober and sheltered ...
— Christmas - Its Origin, Celebration and Significance as Related in Prose and Verse • Various
... Mr. Hunsden," muttered I with a bow, and then, like a shy noodle as I was, I began moving away—and why? Simply because Mr. Hunsden was a manufacturer and a millowner, and I was only a clerk, and my instinct propelled me from my superior. I had frequently seen Hunsden in Bigben Close, where he came ...
— The Professor • (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell
... and least in size comes the violet. For "the flower of sweetest smell is shy and lowly," and has taken a modest place in ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 643, April 28, 1888 • Various
... or by porridge made from wheaten meal, you may secure good digestion when the gastric juice is scanty and poor; but we should not like to be restricted to that. We want a stomach that will not fight shy of any wholesome thing. We must treat it so that when suitable food is offered ...
— Papers on Health • John Kirk
... at midday it has all gone. You did not intend it to go, you did not set yourself to banish it, you simply opened the door to the flocking in of the whole crowd of the world's cares and occupations, and away went the shy, solitary thought that, if it had been cared for and tended, might have led you at last to the Cross of Jesus Christ. Do not allow yourselves to be drifted, by the rushing current of earthly cares, from the impressions ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... up and down to take the evening air, (Sweet to meet upon the street, why must I be so shy?) I saw him lay his hand upon her torn black hair; ("Little dirty Latin ...
— A Few Figs from Thistles • Edna St. Vincent Millay
... which he had slowly retired in order to pick up his spears and throwing-stick, both of which were precisely similar to those of Cape York, from which place they had probably been procured. He was a quiet, sedate, good-natured old man, and although at first rather shy he soon laid aside his fears on receiving assurances in the Kowrarega language, which he understood, that markai poud Kulkalaig Nagir (the white men are friends of the Kulkalega tribe of Mount Ernest) backed by a ...
— Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Vol. 2 (of 2) • John MacGillivray
... circuit of the house, and found the door open and the bridge withdrawn. It was plain, then, that Jimson must have come; plain, too, that he must be on board. He must be a very shy man to have suffered this invasion of his residence, and made no sign; and her courage rose higher at the thought. He must come now, she must force him from his privacy, for the plank was too heavy for her single strength; so she tapped upon the open ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... course of the day Punan shouts were heard, coming from a distance of some hundreds of yards. The interpreter was sent out with instructions to parley and, if possible, to persuade the Punans to come into camp. Presently he returned with two shy but curious strangers, who squatted at some distance and were gradually encouraged to come to close quarters. After staying a few minutes and accepting presents of tobacco and cloth, they made off. On the following day they returned with eight male companions, bringing ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall
... stick on which he inadvertently set his foot snapped across. The splendid shy eyes of the deer looked round in alarm as he bounded away. A shot rang through the forest after him, waking such a clamour of jays and crows and woodpeckers, that Arthur was quite provoked with them, they ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... declare, an' so they 'ave—the NAUGHTY creatures!" exclaimed Mrs. Beamish in mock dismay. "But trust you, Mr. Smith, for sayin' the right thing. Jus' exackly like birds they are—so shy an' scared-like. But I'll give you the 'int, gents. They'll not be far away. Jus' you show 'em two can play at that game.—Mr. S., you ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... in procuring good water. He considered that there was every appearance of an unusual drought in the country. This may also have been the reason why he saw only three or four blacks, who were so shy that the sailors could not get near them. There must certainly have been fairly large families of blacks on Phillip Island at one time, for there are several extensive middens on the coast, with thick deposits of ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott
... and trees, and beasts and fishes, and for flinging a kind of spiritual interest over these things, he did more than he perhaps intended toward consolidating the fame of his accidental human sojourn. He was as shy and ungregarious as Hawthorne; but he and the latter appear to have been sociably disposed towards each other, and there are some charming touches in the preface to the Mosses in regard to the hours they spent in boating together ...
— Hawthorne - (English Men of Letters Series) • Henry James, Junr.
... shy, but not awkward. I was flattered by the attention of this amusing, perhaps rather fascinating, young man of the world; and he plainly addressed himself with diligence to amuse and please me. I dare say there was more effort than I fancied in ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... orchard aisles are sweet With smell of ripening fruit. Through the sere grass, in shy retreat, Flatter, at coming feet, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... the ice, and Miss Moore's girls, and Mark's friends, and the Spectacle Man's shy student, all became sociable directly, as they moved ...
— The Spectacle Man - A Story of the Missing Bridge • Mary F. Leonard
... noted in sadists whose crimes were very much more serious and brutal than those of De Sade. A man who stabbed women in the streets at St. Louis was a waiter with a high-pitched, effeminate voice and boyish appearance. Reidel, the sadistic murderer, was timid, modest, and delicate; he was too shy to urinate in the presence of other people. A sadistic zooephilist, described by A. Marie, who attempted to strangle a woman fellow-worker, had always been very timid, blushed with much facility, could not look even children in the eyes, or urinate ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... pale-green vineyards, the yellow cornfields; she looked at the rushing river, with the diamonds sparkling on its surface, at the far-away gleaming snows of Monte Sfiorito, at the scintillant blue shy overhead. ...
— The Cardinal's Snuff-Box • Henry Harland
... Scylla o'er the billows rude. For as Apollo each eve doth devise A new appareling for western skies; So every eve, nay every spendthrift hour Shed balmy consciousness within that bower. And I was free of haunts umbrageous; Could wander in the mazy forest-house 470 Of squirrels, foxes shy, and antler'd deer, And birds from coverts innermost and drear Warbling for very joy mellifluous sorrow— ...
— Endymion - A Poetic Romance • John Keats
... stated that wild hogs are frequently found in remote parts, and that many of them are not "strays," but have been "littered" and brought up in the forest. These are as shy and difficult to approach as deer, or any other hunted animals. They are generally of a small breed, and it is supposed that they are identical with the species found throughout Mexico, ...
— The Hunters' Feast - Conversations Around the Camp Fire • Mayne Reid
... passage from Madame Girardin's letter of March 7, 1847, in Vol. IV. of "Le Vicomte de Launay," where, after describing Mdlle. O'Meara's beauty, more especially her Irish look—"that mixture of sadness and serenity, of profound tenderness and shy dignity, which you never find in the proud and brilliant looks which you admire in the women of ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... travel in the West, One shy glance will pierce your breast From a bright eye, O so bright! And an auburn heaven of hair Will so glorify the air, You'll surrender all your soul at sight. Oho! My Boy! Oho! Always for your weal and never for your woe, Your little heart will gallop on the ...
— Soldier Songs and Love Songs • A.H. Laidlaw
... short of stature, smooth-faced and looked like a good-natured country bumpkin in his peasant garb, all decorated with dust. He was modest, half-shy, and the nuns who peered at him from behind the arras as he walked down the hallway of the Convent caused his countenance to run ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... divided into two broad currents. And strange to relate, the majority of her own sex took her part, and the males were but equally divided; which hardly happens once in a hundred years. Perhaps some lady will explain the phenomenon. As for me, I am a little shy of explaining things I don't understand. It has become so common. Meantime, had she been a lover of notoriety, she would have been happy, for the town talked of nothing but her. The poor girl, however, had but one wish to escape the crowd that followed ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... continued, "I am ... well, rather a shy man. As soon as Malcom told me what the device would do when it was properly powered, I knew that there would be trouble. I am not a fighter, Mr. Elshawe. I have no desire to spend time in prison or be vilified in the news or called ...
— By Proxy • Gordon Randall Garrett
... became at once the predominating spirit of that little group. The interest of all the children, from the shy little beginners in the Primer class to the tall ones in the A ...
— Patchwork - A Story of 'The Plain People' • Anna Balmer Myers
... seemed to her that she had lost her confidence. The freemasonry of old acquaintance which existed between all of them left her outside an invisible but very real circle. Words came to her with difficulty. She felt stupid, almost shy. When she made an effort to break through it she was acutely conscious of her failure. Her laugh was too hard, it lacked sincerity or restraint. The cigarette which she smoked out of bravado with her coffee, seemed somehow out of ...
— A Lost Leader • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... but too full of admiration for the near presence of beauty to refuse, gave it to her. Then, indeed, did Miss Farnsworth prove the truth of her assertion that she was accustomed to horses. In five minutes she had made love to the mare so effectively that the shy and hitherto somewhat disdainful creature was following her with a slack halter and an entreating nose. Incidentally Betty had allowed the slender fingers ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 • Various
... August 1785. He was the fifth child in a family of eight (four sons and four daughters). His father, descended from a Norman family, was a merchant, who left his wife and six children a clear income of 1600 a year. Thomas was from infancy a shy, sensitive child, with a constitutional tendency to dreaming by night and by day; and, under the influence of an elder brother, a lad "whose genius for mischief amounted to inspiration," who died in his sixteenth ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various
... years old, came forward boldly enough, and submitted to be lifted to her knee. But Norman, aged five, had been once or twice sent to the school, with his brothers, when his absence was convenient at home, and certain unpleasant recollections of such times made him a little shy of meeting her friendly advances. Even Robin and Jack had been in their day afraid of the mistress and her tawse. But Marjorie had never been at the school, and had always seen her in her best mood in the manse parlour. She had had ...
— Allison Bain - By a Way she knew not • Margaret Murray Robertson
... saying 'Cousin Nancy,' and the affectionate way in which I was received by your dear father and mother. It had never been my fortune before to live in a household with an educated man at its head, and I felt a little shy of your father but soon found there was no occasion. Although it was a period of great financial depression, he always found time to be social and kindly in his family. He seemed to have an eye for everything, his business, the ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... It was so changed I should not have recognized it, repainted and modernized with much show of glass and bow-windows. There were few people to be seen along the white walks until I met the stream from the post-office. Old men and boys, shy girls and children, came out with their letters and papers just as in the old time. Some of the men, grown corpulent and gray, I recognized with the old feeling of reverence and love, and stopped to speak with them. But Belfield life, slow and stagnant though ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, November, 1878 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... however, requiring better and scarcer forage—short, tender grass and plenty of water—frequents the most remote and lofty of the mountain pastures, is handled only when the fleece is removed, seldom sees any one except the peaceful shepherds, and is extremely shy of strangers, although not nearly as timid as its distant cousin the vicuna. I shall never forget the first time I ever saw some alpacas. They looked for all the world like the "woolly-dogs" of our toys shops—woolly along the neck ...
— Inca Land - Explorations in the Highlands of Peru • Hiram Bingham
... light— One hour on the top of a breezy hill, There in the sassafras all out of sight The Blackbird is splitting his slender bill For the ease of his heart: Do you think if he said "I will sing like this bird with the mud colored back And the two little spots of gold over his eyes, Or like to this shy little creature that flies So low to the ground, with the amethyst rings About her small throat—all alive when she sings With a glitter of shivering green—for the rest, Gray shading to gray, with the sheen of her breast Half ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photograph, Volume 1, Number 2, February, 1897 • anonymous
... his head. "The Lazy S M are bringin' in a lot of bad men from Texas an' the Strip. Some of our boys ain't exactly gun-shy either. One of these days there's sure goin' to be ...
— A Man Four-Square • William MacLeod Raine
... of the sanctuary where this small tribute is written mice look down upon our table with its newspaper cover, diffidently waiting for us to finish our meal and permit them to dine. We regard them as shy visitors—though are we not billeted on them?—not as sneaking thieves, and by the light of our candles perceive how sleek, bright-eyed, neat-handed and agile they are. In one dug-out I know a certain mouse who will drop on your shoulder and sit there a ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 150, February 2, 1916 • Various
... Minister and the gentlemen at the English hotel used to be rather shy of us two Irish noblemen, and questioned our pretensions to rank. The Minister was a lord's son, it is true, but he was likewise a grocer's grandson; and so I told him at Count Lobkowitz's masquerade. My uncle, like a noble gentleman as he was, knew the pedigree of every ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... came bravely to my aid in my grapple with the traitor before Acre; and when the blow had fallen on Richard, the boy's grief was such that I loved him ever after. And of late I have had no truer trustier warrior. I warrant me he was too shy to tell thee that I knighted him last year in the midst of some of the best feats of arms I ever beheld against the Welsh! Whatever John de Mohun saith is sooth, and I would rather mate my daughter with him than with many a ...
— The Prince and the Page • Charlotte M. Yonge
... picture it made! It was the realisation of a poetic death—the victim smothered by roses beside the singing waters of a brook. It was a long time before any one came, and the two visitors sat in the verandah feeling rather shy and uncomfortable, for this was the neighbour's first visit, and the native, who had ushered them in, vanished, sending weird cries around the tangled garden paths as though to summon ...
— From Jungle to Java - The Trivial Impressions of a Short Excursion to Netherlands India • Arthur Keyser
... the sons of the house appeared, and with them Tom Southam, Jack's roommate at college. Jack had the same merry blue eyes and sunny smile as his sister, and Judith forgot to be shy with him. Thomas was a cheery youth, whose chief interest at the dinner-table was the food, and Judith gave him scant attention. But Tim, the elder brother, who had been in the Flying Corps and had several enemy machines to his credit, who still limped from injuries ...
— Judy of York Hill • Ethel Hume Patterson Bennett
... Sol decidedly. "It's been a shy kind o' moon to-night, an' it's a gittin' so much shyer that it's plumb afraid to show its face. In three minutes it will hide behind a big cloud that's edgin' up over thar, an' we won't see it ...
— The Free Rangers - A Story of the Early Days Along the Mississippi • Joseph A. Altsheler
... or I more shy, And after the bath I drew my garments close, Fearing thy soft persuasion amongst my hair When thou camest fresh with the scent of ...
— Last Poems • Laurence Hope
... Indian girl! I see her yet as she stood in all ways the ideal type of her race, lithe and active, with clean-cut aquiline features, olive-red complexion and long dark hair; but developed by her white-man training so that the shy Indian girl had given place to the alert, resourceful world-woman, at home equally in the salons of the rich and learned or in the stern of the birch canoe, where, with paddle poised, she was in absolute and fearless control, watching, warring and winning against ...
— The Shagganappi • E. Pauline Johnson
... saw the partridge drum in the woods; He heard the woodcock's evening hymn; He found the tawny thrush's broods, And the shy hawk did wait for him. What others did at distance hear And guessed within the thicket's gloom Was shown to this philosopher, And at his bidding ...
— Andrew Marvell • Augustine Birrell
... sometimes called also rojh. At last my slaughterous appetite was gratified, and a blue-cow bore witness to the merit of my rifle, if not to my marksmanship. It had cost me a tiresome search, and, being a shy animal, much stealthy tracking. Yet when the beautiful creature lay stretched at my feet it seemed as if I had been guilty of wanton cruelty, and I wished my aim had miscarried, proud as I had just before been ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 87, March, 1875 • Various
... I'm too young to talk about goin shy a laig. With that they ties it up as well as ever they can, warnin' me meanwhile that I've got about one chance in a score to beat the game. Then they imparts a piece of news that's a mighty sight worse ...
— Wolfville Nights • Alfred Lewis
... that race. Not a friend of his but loved him with a great and serious affection for those qualities which are too often separable from the austerity of a fine character, the honour of an upright man. His sweetness was exquisite, and this partly because it was so unexpected. A somewhat shy and quiet manner did not prepare men for the urbanity, the tolerance, the magnanimity that lay at the back of his heart. Generosity in thought—the rarest form of generosity that is reared among the flowers ...
— From Capetown to Ladysmith - An Unfinished Record of the South African War • G. W. Steevens
... spring wild-flowers, whose shy faces among the dry leaves and rocks are so welcome, yield no honey. The anemone, the hepatica, the bloodroot, the arbutus, the numerous violets, the spring beauty, the corydalis, etc., woo lovers of nature, but do not woo ...
— Birds and Bees, Sharp Eyes and, Other Papers • John Burroughs
... rudiments of religion. Orders are easily made, but they do not execute themselves. They say their catechism, at stated times, under an able master. But this able master was, I think, not elected before last February; and my visit happened, if I mistake not, in November. The children were shy, when interrogated by a stranger. This may be true, but the same shiness I do not remember to have hindered them from answering other questions; and I wonder, why children, so much accustomed to new spectators, ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson
... be yere. He allers fights shy. An' 'twouldn't be uv no use. He's made up his mind to hev th' gal, an' hev har he will. He's come all th' way from Orleans ter ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol III, Issue VI, June, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... "Mother's a little shy," said a voice from behind Mrs. Ferry, who stood in the small porch, looking down at her visitor. Sally, in a crisp frock of white with tiny black figures, her sunny head uplifted, and her cheeks now round and rosy with returning health, ...
— Strawberry Acres • Grace S. Richmond
... a hermitage are naturally shy and reserved; but for all that, She did look towards me, though she quick withdrew Her stealthy glances when she met my gaze; She smiled upon me sweetly, but disguised With maiden grace the secret of her smiles. Coy ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... neatly rebandaged, the boy caught at Miss Pinkerton with a shy hand. "Gracias—thank you," he said, "but why you take so long trouble for us, Lady, when we ...
— Across the Fruited Plain • Florence Crannell Means
... wine when I met them, and was introduced as a friend of Miss Mavis who had gone abroad. I was I found well known by name and a character for kindness, and I expect also for being a fool. All the women were shy at first, Hannah's sister (the servant) I overheard telling Hannah that the ladies did not like my being in the parlour. Hannah at times would ask me to leave, as a lady wanted to come into the parlour and wait there, ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... thirty-five years of age. He was meek, and had no features to speak of. His hair was unassuming, and his whiskers were too shy to curl. He was a clerk in a solicitor's office in the town of Gallowbay, and he seemed likely to live to the end of his days in the pursuit of labours no ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VI. • Various
... Margaret, with cold decision; then, as if ashamed of her tone, she looks up at him. It is rather a shy look, and makes her even more admirable in the eyes of the man watching her. "Why will you ...
— The Hoyden • Mrs. Hungerford
... do so little for a man if he do not know how to seize or seduce opportunity. No doubt, in his youth, Ambrogio had been shy, silent, out of his art timid, and in his person ungraceful, and unlovely. So the world had passed by him turning a deaf ear to his melodies, and he had let it pass, because he had not that splendid audacity to grasp it perforce, and ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... sentence!" she said, in her bright persuasive voice. "You were going to say that I remind you of someone?"—and as he met her kind friendly glance, his shy stiffness relaxed. ...
— Doctor Luttrell's First Patient • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... as well as myself are very anxious to be of use to poor Alexander. The dispositions of the whole family are extremely kind towards him, but he is shy and a little helpless; his present melancholy situation is of course calculated to increase this. His position puts me in mind of mine in 1817.... He, besides, is surrounded by people who are kind to him. Of George IV., then Regent, it was observed that for years he had not ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume 1 (of 3), 1837-1843) • Queen Victoria
... can think of this summer day and my greenery yon; and, maybe, too, of the first time they ever ate 'finnan haddie' and 'John's Delight.' More than that, it will give us the freedom of speech with son, as it wouldn't were they sitting by. He's aye shy, ...
— Dorothy's Travels • Evelyn Raymond
... not for you. You must—you must be happy! The shy and tender Dawn creeps up in fear That Night has laid some blight upon the world, But finding all is well, steps forth, and lo! Out of her courage the great sun is born. So doth the heart look outward after grief To find the world all dark, but nay, the light Is more of heaven than it was before, ...
— Semiramis and Other Plays - Semiramis, Carlotta And The Poet • Olive Tilford Dargan
... out-work, outlast and out-guess any man I ever met. He has the instinct of a wild animal for finding his way and the coldest nerve I ever saw. His honesty and loyalty amount almost to fanaticism. But he is diffident and shy as a school girl and as sensitive as a bashful boy. I verily believe he knows more to-day about the great engineering projects in the West than nine-tenths of the school men but I've seen him sit for an hour absolutely dumb, half scared to death, listening to the cheap ...
— The Winning of Barbara Worth • Harold B Wright
... a chair forward, and they sat down, each waiting for the other to speak. Finally she put some random question about his travelling-companion, a slow shy meditative youth whom he had once or twice brought down to Givre. She reflected that it was natural he should have given this uncommunicative comrade the preference over his livelier acquaintances, and aloud she said: "I'm so glad Fred Rempson ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton
... assent, took from a glass counter-case a paper box in which was a miscellaneous assortment of such articles; there were five or six of the pocket-books. Madeline selected one,—a small, flexible affair, of some dark-colored morocco lined with pink silk. She paid the trifle the shy, demure little librarian demanded, and was taking her leave in silence, without even a "Good-day," when, as she was passing the door, Miss Wimple espied on the counter, near where her customer had ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... several drawing-rooms,' she says. 'I saw ladies who were so shy that they couldn't utter a word before me, but who suddenly put a ribbon round my wrist to measure it'—you know, of course, by ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, January 28, 1914 • Various
... should fare badly without the young monkeys. Your pet Marian is almost as shy as ever, though she has left off saying "can't," by ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley
... children's doings, she passed them at first in silence. It was only when she found them still in the same silent and expectant posture half an hour later that she said tentatively: "I wonder whether you would tell me what you are doing here?" After some hesitation, one of them said, in a shy voice: "We're waitin' for the barrer." It then transpired that, once a week, a vegetable-and-flower-cart was driven through this particular street, on its way to a more prosperous neighborhood, and on a few red-letter days, a flower, or a sprig, or even a root sometimes fell out of the back ...
— The Art of the Story-Teller • Marie L. Shedlock
... to do; we admits dat," said Bluegum Frakes. "But whut's de use doin' hit ef we kin manage to shy roun' some o' dat wuck an' keep on libin' anyhow, specially wid wages ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling
... then barricades the gate Within which they inhabit;—of his wit And wisdom, you'll cry out when you are bit. 230 He is a pearl within an oyster shell. One of the richest of the deep;—and there Is English Peacock, with his mountain Fair, Turned into a Flamingo;—that shy bird That gleams i' the Indian air—have you not heard 235 When a man marries, dies, or turns Hindoo, His best friends hear no more of him?—but you Will see him, and will like him too, I hope, With the milk-white Snowdonian Antelope Matched with this cameleopard—his fine wit 240 ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... neat indeed, but still in a coloured print, of a pattern familiar to his observant eye in the windows of many a shop lavish of tickets, and inviting you to come in by the assurance that it is "selling off." The artist stopped, coloured, bowed, answered the listless questions put to him with shy haste: he then attempted to escape; they ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... consist of two groups, the first of which have no cheek pouches, but always have very long tails, They are true forest monkeys, very active and of a shy disposition. The most remarkable of these is the long-nosed monkey of Borneo, which is very large, of a pale brown color, and distinguished by possessing a long, pointed, fleshy nose, totally unlike that of all other monkeys. Another ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 344, August 5, 1882 • Various
... round-faced, boyish-looking man, of an English rather than a Spanish type, with clear gray honest eyes and a winning expression of friendliness and rustic bonhomie, like that of an amiable, intelligent young peasant. He greeted us cordially, but with a slight trace of shy awkwardness, and invited us into the small, dark cabin, where we drank one another's health in a bottle of sweet, strong liqueur, and he told us the rather pathetic story of his misfortune. The brigantine Frascito ("Little Flask"), he said, belonged ...
— Campaigning in Cuba • George Kennan
... State of Maine; it all belonged to the Indians once," Rebecca remarked gloomily, for she was curiously shy about ...
— New Chronicles of Rebecca • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... special care, lest a change for the worse might come unnoticed; and besides all this a laundry was set up, so that a constant supply of fresh linen might be at hand. In a little while, when some of the wounds were healing and the broken heads had ceased to ache, there would come shy petitions from the beds that the nurse would write them a letter home, to say that they had been more fortunate than their comrades and were still alive, and hoped to be ...
— The Red Book of Heroes • Leonora Blanche Lang
... is very shy, and is always on the alert. Its sense of hearing, of smell, and of sight is very acute, and the most skillful hunter will sometimes search the mountain pastures for days without securing his game. When the troop is grazing, a sentinel is always appointed, who ...
— Harper's Young People, March 23, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... him, and that his conduct in the last six years did not warrant their joining any undertaking in which he was concerned. You can't blame them. They've backed him so many times already, and they've been bitten, and they're shy, naturally. But I swore he was repentant, that he saw the error of his ways, that he wanted to sit once more before he died on the throne of his ancestors, and that he felt it was due to his son that he should ...
— The King's Jackal • Richard Harding Davis
... by merely academic knowledge; yet, its beginnings in adolescence are often lost, because young people are completely ignorant of the meaning of their own experiences, and the universal character of those needs and responses which they dimly feel stirring within them. They are too shy to ask, and no one ever tells them about it in a business-like and unembarrassing way. This infant mortality in the spiritual realm ought not to be possible. Experience of God is the greatest of the ...
— The Life of the Spirit and the Life of To-day • Evelyn Underhill
... for a brief instant in a warm strong pressure, but dropped it again and there was a quick cold withdrawing of his eyes that she did not understand. The old Mark Carter would never have looked at her coolly, impersonally like that. What was it, was he shy of her after the long separation? Four years was a long time, of course, but there had been occasional letters. He had always been away when she was at home, and she had been home very little between her school years. There ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill
... From me and Pity do you fly? Your little heart against your plumes Beats hard—ah! dreary are these glooms! Famine has chok'd the note of joy That charm'd the roving shepherd-boy. Why, wand'rer, do you look so shy? And why, when I approach you, fly? The crumbs which at your feet I strew Are only meant to nourish you; They are not thrown with base decoy, To rob you of one hour of joy. Come, follow to my silent mill, That stands ...
— Poems • Sir John Carr
... were gone from the district; they stuck up a coach in the West, And I rode by myself in the paddocks, taking a bit of a rest, Riding this colt as a youngster — awkward, half-broken and shy, He wheeled round one day on a sudden; I looked, but I couldn't see why, But I soon found out why, for before me, the hillside rose up like a wall, And there on the top with their rifles were ...
— Rio Grande's Last Race and Other Verses • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
... rock-wall, while he devoured it with frantic haste and bestial noises. But as he found himself treated with invariable kindness, he began to develop an anxious gratitude and docility. On A-ya's tall form his little round eyes, shy and fierce at the same time, came to rest with an adoring awe. The smell of him being extremely offensive to all this cleanly tribe, and especially to A-ya and Grom, who were more fastidious than their fellows, ...
— In the Morning of Time • Charles G. D. Roberts
... said Leslie, more restrainedly. She remembered her respect for age and office. Yet she felt sorely tempted, shy, proud girl as she was, to take up cudgels for her friends, at least. Mr. Wharne liked her the ...
— A Summer in Leslie Goldthwaite's Life. • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... tell you what that bird was—a kingfisher, the celebrated halcyon of the ancients, about which so many tales are told. It lives on fish, which it catches in the manner you saw. It builds in holes in the banks, and is a shy, retired bird, never to be seen far from ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... are they going to train to fly?" asked Joe Little, a shy boy who rarely contributed to the conversation. Joe's mother was a widow who had lived but few years in the town, having moved there to give her only boy such education as he could obtain before her small income was exhausted. Joe was never loud or ...
— The Brighton Boys with the Flying Corps • James R. Driscoll
... precious marbles, . . . . but partly, perhaps, owing to the dusky light, as well as to the want of cleanliness, there was a dingy effect upon the whole. We made but a very short stay, our New England breeding causing us to feel shy of moving about the church ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Miss Stanley begin to talk about Hiram, you may be certain it will spread through the school and into the church. He knew what was going on—of course he did; but only took still greater pains with his personal appearance, and became more shy and ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3 No 2, February 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... has the habit of elevating the feathers on the top of the head so as to suggest a crest. The solitary skylark that I discovered several years ago in a field near me was seen on several occasions paying his addresses to one of these birds, but the vesper-bird was shy, ...
— Ways of Nature • John Burroughs
... everybody not to fight shy of such paths (Wagner and Schopenhauer). The wholly unphilosophic feeling of remorse, has become quite strange ...
— The Case Of Wagner, Nietzsche Contra Wagner, and Selected Aphorisms. • Friedrich Nietzsche.
... box, which amazed her by its weight, and suggested ideas of value quite out of keeping with what she had any reason to expect from one so little known to her as Lady Scrope. She thanked the donor with shy gratitude, and pressed the withered hand to her fresh young lips. Lady Scrope, a little moved despite her cynical fashion of talking, gave her several affectionate kisses; and then the other girls came in to see the last of their companion, and ...
— The Sign Of The Red Cross • Evelyn Everett-Green
... East Indies, under another name, and shipped aboard one of our national ships. And so, what does he do but go to work and petition the Navy Department for Taylor's discharge, upon the ground that a grand estate had been left him—or, that he had large expectations, I forget which. He was very shy at first, and wouldn't acknowledge that he had ever gone by the name of Thomas Taylor. I dare say he had his reasons. But, after hunting him through hospitals, and navy yards, and sailor boarding-houses, and from ship to ship, the colonel he cornered him, and got ...
— Godey's Lady's Book, Vol. 42, January, 1851 • Various
... dropped, without a rustle, from my shoulders, and if I wavered for the instant it was not with what I kept back. I put out my hand to her and she took it; I held her hard a little, liking to feel her close to me. There was a kind of support in the shy heave of her surprise. "You came for me for church, of course, but ...
— The Turn of the Screw • Henry James
... He brought with him a friend, who, like himself, had been educated in England, and who had obtained a good appointment, together with the rank of a field officer, from the Pasha. The manners of the gentleman were good; modest, but not shy. He spoke excellent English, and conversed very happily upon all the subjects broached. Our friend was still in doubt and anxiety respecting his own destination. Mehemet Ali had left Alexandria for one of his country residences, on the plea ...
— Notes of an Overland Journey Through France and Egypt to Bombay • Miss Emma Roberts
... her eyes were shy and would not meet his. He winced as he heard the name, though ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... garment from his shoulders threw, And, in the presence of his sire, Indued the ascetic's rough attire. But Sita, in her silks arrayed, Threw glances, trembling and afraid, On the bark coat she had to wear, Like a shy doe that eyes the snare. Ashamed and weeping for distress From the queen's hand she took the dress. The fair one, by her husband's side Who matched heaven's minstrel monarch,(312) cried: "How bind they on their woodland dress, Those hermits of ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... Richards, to go up the Mississippi—it was a Friday, a day that I hate. All seamen and hunters do hate it; it's an unlucky day. All the bad luck I ever had, came to me on Fridays. I had a feeling that something would go wrong when we went on board the Helen M'Gregor. I thought Miss Lambton looked shy upon me, and the old gentleman stiffer than ever. I followed the Miss, however, wherever she went, so close, that once or twice I trod the fringe ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... unwholesome stenches, and swarming with half-naked children and whole worlds of dirty people—make up, altogether, such a scene of wonder: so lively, and yet so dead: so noisy, and yet so quiet: so obtrusive, and yet so shy and lowering: so wide awake, and yet so fast asleep: that it is a sort of intoxication to a stranger to walk on, and on, and on, and look about him. A bewildering phantasmagoria, with all the inconsistency of a dream, ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... this state of affairs. In conversation Edison is direct, courteous, ready to discuss a topic with anybody worth talking to, and, in spite of his sore deafness, an excellent listener. No one ever goes away from Edison in doubt as to what he thinks or means, but he is ever shy and diffident to a degree if the talk turns on himself rather ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... up his hand. Thistelweight—a youth of some one hundred and forty pounds—struggled agitatedly with his sweater and bounded into the field, and Barnard, white and weak, was helped limping off. For awhile St. Eustace fought shy of right-guard, and then again the weight of all the backs was suddenly massed at that point, and, though a yard resulted, the crimson wearers found cause for joy, and a ringing cheer swept over the field. But Littlefield at left-guard was also weakening, and the tackle beside him ...
— The Half-Back • Ralph Henry Barbour
... reconciliation, in which she did beguile me of my tears, but the deuce a one did she shed. What do you think? She cajoled me out of my little Buonaparte as cleverly as possible, in manner and form following. She was shy the Saturday and Sunday (the day of my departure) so I got in dudgeon, and began to rip up grievances. I asked her how she came to admit me to such extreme familiarities, the first week I entered the house. "If she had no particular regard for me, she must do so (or more) with everyone: if she ...
— Liber Amoris, or, The New Pygmalion • William Hazlitt
... there not more than half a dozen. Fish-bones were not found at all, which seems to prove, that in their journies inland these people do not carry with them any provisions of that kind. Kanguroos were frequently seen, but were so shy that it was very difficult to shoot them. With respect to these animals, it is rather an extraordinary circumstance, that, notwithstanding their great shyness, and notwithstanding they are daily shot at, more of them are seen near ...
— The Voyage Of Governor Phillip To Botany Bay • Arthur Phillip
... Pasta, Cinti, and Fodor, and the idea of her singing Rossini's music seemed purely preposterous. On the 15th of June, 1826, she made her bow to the French public. The victory was partly won by the shy, blushing beauty of the young German, who seemed the very incarnation of maidenly modesty and innocence, and when she had finished her first song thunders of applause shook the house. Her execution of Rode's variations surpassed even that of Catalani, ...
— Great Singers, First Series - Faustina Bordoni To Henrietta Sontag • George T. Ferris
... that she must act with caution in order not to frighten these shy people, who were evidently unused to the presence of strangers. There was a delightful fragrant odor of fresh bread in the town, and this made the little girl more hungry than ever. She told Toto and Billina to stay back while she ...
— The Emerald City of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... all Consul Mathew can do for you. He's been kicking up a fuss for two years; but he might as well whistle agin a brickbat as to talk his nonsense about English niggers to South Carolina. He'll get tarred and feathered yet, if he a'n't mighty shy about his movements. Sorry, Captain, we can't accommodate you, but we're only actin' for the sheriff, and his orders are imperative to bring him right up. We must lock the fellow up. We don't make the law, nor we ha'n't the power to control it." Thus saying, Dunn took a little key from ...
— Manuel Pereira • F. C. Adams
... introduced to the reader, was a tall, slim, but firmly-knit, youth, with a kind, gentle disposition. He was always open, straightforward, and polite. He never indulged in broad humour, though he enjoyed it much, seldom ventured on a witticism, was rather shy in the company of his companions, and spoke little; but for a quiet, pleasant tete-a-tete there was not a man in the ship equal to Tom Singleton. His countenance was Spanish-looking and handsome, his hair black, short, and curling, ...
— The World of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... soothing terms which occurred, to endeavour to alleviate his distress; and, with an action which the difference of their age rendered natural, drew his hand kindly along the long hair of the disconsolate child. The lad appeared so shy as even to shrink from this slight approach to familiarity—yet, when Lord Glenvarloch, perceiving and allowing for his timidity, sat down on the farther side of the fire, he appeared to be more at his ease, and to hearken with some apparent interest ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... before, and Columbine was out of mourning now. She had come into the Spear Point community like a shy bird, a little slip of a thing, upright as a dart, with a fashion of holding her head that kept all familiarity at bay. But the shyness had all gone now. The girlish immaturity was fast vanishing in soft curves and tender lines. And the beauty of her!—the ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell
... of whom I had heard so much, with a great deal of curiosity. Shy and diffident with strangers, his manner even somewhat abrupt, one could not fail to be impressed with the expression of power, resolution, and kindness, on the rugged countenance, and with the keen, piercing glance of the blue eyes, which seemed to read one through in an ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson
... loading of it, for it did him no Harm. The Wolf stay'd till he had almost loaded again, but the Bitch making a great Noise, at last left us and went aside. We had no sooner laid down, but he approach'd us again, yet was more shy, so that we could not get ...
— A New Voyage to Carolina • John Lawson
... is here 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 ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... society in Sydney, when my family first arrived there, was no easy matter. Not that there was any lack of it in the place, but the residents were, very properly, shy of strangers, unless provided with testimonials as to their respectability. Fortunately for us, a kind friend in Singapore, who had been in New South Wales, and knew the value of the favour he was conferring, supplied ...
— Trade and Travel in the Far East - or Recollections of twenty-one years passed in Java, - Singapore, Australia and China. • G. F. Davidson
... and brought here in a ship. And he said there was treasure, heaps of it, in the bottom of the Cat's Mouth, where ships had sunk, gold pieces all in amongst the ribs of dead men. Mr. Pendarves,"—she looked at me with a shy, awed sympathy,—"I saw ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... At this shy hour I see from my unshaded window Bright girls, hair flowing, go by with shuttered faces, Holding close captive their warm insurgent bosoms. And then, at the corner, Some slender lad of bold and upright carriage Greets them, and the ...
— Song Book of Quong Lee of Limehouse • Thomas Burke
... appear at week-ends or in the evening, tramping down the lane to hail the house in absurd varieties of the latest New York slang, which, never failed to amuse Mary. The shy Jamie was often with her; they were now the most intimate of friends. He would show her primitive tools and mechanical contrivances of his own making, and she would tell him stories of Scotland, of Prince Charlie and Flora, of Bruce and Wallace, of Bannockburn, ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale
... the tall young men, many taller than he, and the great lean-armed, gaunt-breasted Sikh women. The boys were so studious, so simple and gentle, compared with the few others he had known, and the women such adepts at mothering! Then the shy, slender girls, impassable ranges between him and any romantic sense; yet, he was glad to be near them, glad to hear their voices and their laughter in the evenings.... He loved the long shadow of the mountains, the still dusty roads where the cattle moved so softly that the ...
— Fate Knocks at the Door - A Novel • Will Levington Comfort
... and then went very slowly down the first flight, fastening her belt. She stopped at the landing window, tucking the frayed end of the petersham under the frame of the buckle... they were all downstairs, liking her. She could not face them. She was too excited and too shy. ... She had never once thought of their "feeling" her going away... saying goodbye to each one... all minding and sorry—even the servants. She glanced fearfully out into the garden, seeing nothing. Someone called up ...
— Pointed Roofs - Pilgrimage, Volume 1 • Dorothy Richardson
... find you so weak and small, A human child, not a god at all; Two angry, sleepy eyes that cry, Two little hands so soft and shy, I'll hush you with a ...
— The Fairy Changeling and Other Poems • Dora Sigerson
... known by her nickname of the "Sultana," had become celebrated for her liaison with the Prince of Wales, which was destined to continue for some years till she was superseded in favour by Lady Conyngham. She was described as shy and insipid, her manners were stately and formal, and the impression which she conveyed was that of a person rigidly correct in comportment and morals. But if, indeed, she ever attempted to reunite the husband and wife whom her conduct had assisted to alienate, it ...
— The Letter-Bag of Lady Elizabeth Spencer-Stanhope v. I. • A. M. W. Stirling (compiler)
... dry and forced. How strange! They were almost shy in each other's presence, and neither of ...
— Married • August Strindberg
... Baldwin," Kendrick said, "has a vivid imagination and a wonderful gift of picturesque similies. Still, I have just been telling them that one reason why I wouldn't touch B. & I.'s is because they have an idea over here that you are going to have a shy at them." ...
— The Profiteers • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... shy at a few hundred pounds. Ye know one year of order and rents will pay all ye owe me twice over. Ye must not displeasure Sir William for ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... pleasure in the chance glimpses of the Lady Downstairs. It was a feeling which made her eager to see her or anything which belonged to her; it made her strain her child ears to catch the sound of her voice; it made her long to hear Andrews or the other servants speak of her, and yet much too shy to dare to ask any questions. She had found a place on the staircase leading to the Nursery, where, by squeezing against the balustrade, she could sometimes see the Lady pass in and out of her pink bedroom. She used to sit on a step and peer between the ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... "She is too shy to tell you herself; I have come all these miles to do it for her. Isabel, you need not look so consequential. Ellis is a good fellow, I dare say, but our little Mattie has done better for herself than even you. Mother, ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... those ancient sources whence all our knowledge has come; I have felt again the solitude and sanctity of those venerable shades where the voices of the oracles were once heard, and fleeting glimpses of shy divinities made a momentary splendour in the ...
— Under the Trees and Elsewhere • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... mignon. Her haunting suspicions of the star lodger arose again, fourfold. Thus courted and admired and smiled upon by that fashionable and gracious assembly, what else could Mr. Brunelli be but one of those dazzling titled patricians, glorious of name but shy of rent money, concerning whom experience had made her wise? With a sense of his ineligibility growing within her there was mingled a torturing conviction that his personality was becoming more pleasing to her day by day. And why had he left ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry |
