"Timid" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... best bottom for the salt-water aquarium. It must be recollected that many of the marine tenants are burrowers, and require a bottom adapted to their habits. Some rock-work is considered essential to afford a grateful shelter and concealment to such creatures as are timid by nature, and require a spot in which to hide: this is true of many fishes. Branches of coral, bedded in cement, may be introduced, and form beautiful and natural objects, on which plants ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various
... by a Quarterly Reviewer to fly turbulence and strife, and to be timid, which is very true; but this is very incompletely stating the question. Capital eschews no profit, or very small profit, just as Nature was formerly said to abhor a vacuum. With adequate profit, capital is very bold. A certain 10 per cent. will ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel
... be too tedious to relate all the particulars of his courtship; so I shall only say, that humble and timid as the first emotions of a sincere passion are, he was emboldened, by the extraordinary complaisance of Harriot, to declare it to her in a few days.—The art with which she managed on this occasion, might have deceived the most knowing ...
— Life's Progress Through The Passions - Or, The Adventures of Natura • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... Roderick. The light was burning before him; the winter evening was cold; and to-day he wished for the presence of his fellow-traveller, though at other times wont rather to avoid his society: for on this evening he was about to disclose a secret to him, and beg for his advice. The timid, shy Emilius found in every business and accident of life so many difficulties, such insurmountable hindrances, that it might seem to have been an ironical whim of his destiny which brought him and Roderick together, Roderick being in everything the reverse of his friend. ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... the chaff," said Peter. "Move on, good people, all you whose names were not called." The order was to the few timid strangers who were there because they had nowhere else to go. They ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... maiden, who, for all her wilfulness, was timid as a bird, drew close to the knight and whispered, 'Are you also angry with me, ...
— Undine • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque
... the pontiff always came before the prince, the priest before the citizen; in the secret struggles of his mind, pontifical and priestly conference always outweighed the conscience of the prince and citizen. And as his conscience was a very timid one, it followed that his inward conflicts were frequent; that hesitation was a matter of course, and that he often took resolutions even about temporal affairs, more from religious intuition or impulse than from his judgment ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne
... the coming strife, they crushed, unheeded, the wild flower which spread its simple charms before them, and burst asunder the beautiful garlands which summer had woven around their path. The melody of nature was hushed at their approach; the birds nestled in their leafy coverts; the timid hare bounded before their steps, and the squirrel looked down in silence from his airy height, as they passed on, and disturbed the ...
— The Rivals of Acadia - An Old Story of the New World • Harriet Vaughan Cheney
... Creepers crept, plants grew, and ferns waved under the care of Nathan Spiderwitz, Monitor of the Window Boxes. There was such a martial swing and strut in Patrick Brennan's leadership of the line that it inflamed even the timid heart of Isidore Wishnewsky with a war-like glow and his feet with a spasmodic but well-meant tramp. Sadie Gonorowsky and Eva, her cousin, sat closely side by side, no longer "mad on theirselves," but "mit kind feelings." The work of the preceding term was laid in neat and docketed piles ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume III. (of X.) • Various
... tightened round his brother's figure, and again for a few moments he was silent; then suddenly resuming he said: "You must strive to make a good impression on Mr. Delancey, Guly; don't be timid or shrinking—such things have a bad effect. Be every inch a man, as you so well know how to be; bear always in mind how much depends on us two, and we shall get on bravely." It was evident Arthur dreaded more for his brother than he thought ...
— The Brother Clerks - A Tale of New-Orleans • Xariffa
... was dark and cold. Night had already begun. I rang the school-door bell with the tranquillity of a resolute man. The moment that the timid servant opened the door, I slipped a gold piece into her hand, and promised her another if she would arrange matters so that I could see Mademoiselle Alexandre. ...
— The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard • Anatole France
... the whole boat in its complicated coils, twisting and writhing around it in almost every direction. All the oarsmen are involved in its perilous contortions; so that to the timid eye of the landsman, they seem as Indian jugglers, with the deadliest snakes sportively festooning their limbs. Nor can any son of mortal woman, for the first time, seat himself amid those hempen intricacies, and while ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... ever-increasing sway of the foreigners; and several years of bad harvests, high prices, rain, flood, and murrain sharpened the chronic misery of the poor. The withdrawal of Earl Richard to his new kingdom deprived the king and nation of an honourable if timid counsellor, though a more capable leader was at last provided in the disgraced governor of Gascony. Simon still deeply resented the king's ingratitude for his services, and had become enough of an Englishman to sympathise ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout
... his old shoes off, and resented the feeble attempts which the mago made to replace them, and finally walked in to Yokote and down its long and dismal street mainly on his hind legs, shaking the rope out of his timid leader's hand, and shaking me into a sort of aching jelly! I used to think that horses were made vicious either by being teased or by violence in breaking; but this does not account for the malignity of the Japanese horses, for the people are so much afraid of them that ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird
... inside. It was the strangest, most primitive conveyance I ever saw, except the one commonly used by a gaucho to take his wife on a visit to a neighbour's house when she was in a delicate condition or too timid to ride on a horse or not well enough off to own a side-saddle. This was a well-stretched, dried horse-hide, with a lasso attached at one end to the head or fore-part of the hide and the other end to the ...
— Far Away and Long Ago • W. H. Hudson
... screaked, a slow, timid, almost furtive sort of screak, and then banged suddenly shut as though it despaired of further concealment. Mary Louise gathered her sewing to her, rose to her feet, and looked out. It was raining. Through the glass upper half of the door that opened from the sitting room upon ...
— Stubble • George Looms
... to me, is like happiness. She flies pursuit, she is shy, and wild, and timid, and will be best wooed by indirection. Quite unexpectedly, sometimes, as we pass in the open road, she puts her hand in ours, like a child. Friendship is neither a formality nor a mode: it is rather a life. Many and many a time I have seen Charles Baxter at work in his carpentry-shop—just ...
— Adventures In Friendship • David Grayson
... at once gave my orders to Mr Saunders, who forthwith set all hands to work. I then went below to my cabin to write some letters home, to be forwarded by the frigate that was to take the Spanish despatches; and whilst I was thus engaged a timid, hesitating ...
— The Log of a Privateersman • Harry Collingwood
... about in the neighbourhood of the bookstall. There was no sign of Mlle. Dorian. He walked around the booking office without seeing her and glanced into the waiting-room. Then, looking up at the station clock, he saw that the hour had come, and as he stood there staring upward he felt a timid ...
— The Golden Scorpion • Sax Rohmer
... The timid voice goes on, saying the lines by rote as Phene had learned them—and hard indeed they must have been to learn! For, as Lutwyche had told his friends, it must be "something slow, involved, and mystical," it must hold Jules long in doubt, and lure ...
— Browning's Heroines • Ethel Colburn Mayne
... do not know a quarter of what she goes through when she thinks you are in any danger. It could not be worse if you were on the field of battle! And it is very strange, for she is not at all a timid person for herself. In the boat, that time when the wind rose, I am sure Aunt Geoffrey was more afraid than she was, and I have seen it again and again that she ...
— Henrietta's Wish • Charlotte M. Yonge
... overhead, the warm coloring of the deep-toned flowers sleeping in the room, the native grace of the tame antelope lifting its human eyes to his as he lingered on the threshold in an attitude eager yet timid, watching that other figure as it looked into the night and ...
— Pauline's Passion and Punishment • Louisa May Alcott
... before the narrator, Sir Thomas Overbury, J.P. Perry said that after starting for Charringworth to seek his master on the previous evening, about 8.45 P.M., he met by the way William Reed of Campden, and explained to him that as he was timid in the dark he would go back and take Edward Harrison's horse and return. Perry did as he had said, and Reed left him 'at Mr. Harrison's Court gate.' Perry dallied there till one Pierce came past, and with Pierce (he did not say why) 'he went a bow's shot into the fields,' and so back once ...
— Historical Mysteries • Andrew Lang
... reminding her that Anton Von Barwig's new symphony was to be played that night and that a member of the Royal family was to be present on the occasion, she had shaken her head gravely, accusing him of being a foolish, timid old boy. It needed all the courage he could muster up to enable him to ring the door-bell of Von Barwig's dwelling. There was such a death-like stillness that Poons thought for a moment no one was there; he dreaded he knew not what. As he stood listening to the silence, ...
— The Music Master - Novelized from the Play • Charles Klein
... do?" exclaimed the timid maiden, recalling all she knew about cannibals and fierce savages found on the South ...
— Work and Win - or, Noddy Newman on a Cruise • Oliver Optic
... her flights with admiration as he helped the timid and awkward tyros of the company, ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... actions of men otherwise rational and tinges them all with its own semblance of insanity. But with the multitude good Mr. Hooper was irreparably a bugbear. He could not walk the street with any peace of mind, so conscious was he that the gentle and timid would turn aside to avoid him, and that others would make it a point of hardihood to throw themselves in his way. The impertinence of the latter class compelled him to give up his customary walk at sunset to the burial-ground; ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... severe strain on his loyalty, but he withstood it; he has, I believe, never expressed his opinion about the King; we can guess what it must have been. It was a melancholy picture: a King violent and timid, obstinate and irresolute; his will dragged now this way, now that, by his favourites, his wife and his brother; his own Ministers intriguing against each other; ambassadors recommending a policy instead of carrying out their instructions; and the ...
— Bismarck and the Foundation of the German Empire • James Wycliffe Headlam
... but a four-year-old baby when she received her first definite conviction that God hears and answers prayer. She was a timid little maiden, and the greatest comfort she had in the world was the fact that she possessed a real Father in Heaven, strong, mighty, and willing to protect and help her. Sunday evenings in Forest House—as the Bosanquet mansion was called—were devoted to the children. On those occasions ...
— Fletcher of Madeley • Brigadier Margaret Allen
... men," the girl answered, sadly—"my father, who is old, and the timid country folk, and the holy brothers of the church. Of men from the valley, from the city, I have seen but two—you and one other." She paused for a moment, thoughtfully, and then went on with a swell of exultation in her voice—"and that other was ...
— The Proud Prince • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... shy awkwardness over her beautiful blue eyes. She shook hands in a frank way, yet she was shrinking. Evidently she was not sure how her position would affect her visitor. And yet she was assured in herself, shrinking and timid ...
— England, My England • D.H. Lawrence
... about four and twenty, of a feeble body, and with a face marked with the small-pox, to approaching deformity; his eye was brilliant and piercing, but unsettled, and at times wild—his manner awkward, constrained, and timid. There would be seen, it is true, an intelligence and animation, which occasionally lighted his countenance into gleams of sunshine, that caused you to overlook the lesser accompaniments of complexion and features in the expression; but they were transient, and inevitably ...
— Precaution • James Fenimore Cooper
... administrations of Washington and Adams. The Republicans were now plunged into the hornets' nest. The party whose ardent spirits had burned Jay in effigy, stoned Hamilton for defending his treaty, jeered Washington's proclamation of neutrality, and spoken bitterly of "timid traders," could no longer take refuge in criticism. It had ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard
... he gave a voice in this assembly to the "Third Estate," the common folk or "citizens," as well as to the nobles and the clergy. So even in France we find the people acquiring power, though as yet this Third Estate speaks with but a timid and subservient voice, requiring to be much encouraged by its money-asking sovereigns, who little dreamed it would one day be strong enough to demand a reckoning of all its ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... is a great chief, and Black Snake is his brother. Grey Eagle looks as he rises on the stony-hill for his wampum, that he may sit in the circle, of chiefs. Shall the Swaying Reed meet Grey Eagle with her wampum? Is the Fawn too timid to go? Black Snake will stay with the Fawn and let Swaying Reed fly on the trail towards ...
— Birch Bark Legends of Niagara • Owahyah
... at him, scarce believing now that he was sane, and marvelling deeply whence had sprung this sudden martial fervour in one whose nature was more indolent than active, more timid than warlike. And yet the reason was not far to seek, had they but cared to follow the line of thought to which he, himself, had given them the clue when he referred to the voice he had heard, and the sights he had seen in the streets of Babbiano. The voice was the voice that had acclaimed ...
— Love-at-Arms • Raphael Sabatini
... is pure. Her form has rather the statuesque roundness of Psyche than the luxurious excess of Venus. Timid, yet not tremulous, graceful even to delicacy, coquettish in outline, her beauty is formed for smiles. She is a still-eyed Xenobi, but knows nothing of Passion with disheveled locks, divine frenzy, and fiery grasp. She is your friend and comforter; ...
— Trifles for the Christmas Holidays • H. S. Armstrong
... British keep their fleets at home in self-defence. But though, as always happens, there were people weak enough to want to keep the Navy close beside the coast and stupidly divided up, so that plenty of timid folk could see the ships in front of them, just where the enemy with one well handled fleet could beat them bit by bit, Pitt paid no attention at all to any silly nonsense of the kind. He and Anson knew, of course, that, when you have the stronger fleet, the only right ...
— Flag and Fleet - How the British Navy Won the Freedom of the Seas • William Wood
... smile, "that if the newspapers had got word of what was going on there they might have made some excitement; I can assure you, however, that no act of mine could be construed even by our most susceptible and timid State Department as a violation ...
— L. P. M. - The End of the Great War • J. Stewart Barney
... at him, meaning to refuse. What did she see in his face that changed hers so wholly? The weariness swept off like clouds from the sky; her mournful eyes brightened into joy; the pretty little smile, which Edgar knew so well, stole round her mouth, timid, fluttering, evanescent; and she laid her hand in his with an indescribable expression of relief, like one suddenly ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XVII. No. 101. May, 1876. • Various
... men, who, quarrelling with their old associates on some personal question, join the adversary in search of revenge; vain men, who think their place unequal to their merits, and hope to gain a higher on the opposite side: timid men, who are frightened as it were at the noise of their own guns, and the stir of actual battle—who had liked to dally with popular principles in the parade service of debating or writing in quiet times, but who shrink alarmed when both sides are become thoroughly in earnest: and again, quiet ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various
... came. How peaceful and sweet the life of Woodstock seemed now. The little meeting-house, whose shingled spire still pointed at the stars, would always be sweet with the memory of Myra Thurber, whose timid clasp upon his arm troubled him then and pained him now. He had so little to give in return for her devotion—therefore he had given nothing. He had said good-bye almost harshly—his ambition hardening his ...
— The Light of the Star - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... strength of this country. They have heard it talk loudly, indeed, of the house of Austria, when it was in your power to have raised her to that state, in which she was properly to be considered as the support of the balance of Europe, if timid neutralities had not intervened, and our naval strength had properly ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 11. - Parlimentary Debates II. • Samuel Johnson
... his coming, and said to him With timid firmness, "Have I leave to speak?" He said, "Ye take it, speaking," and ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester
... The children were not timid; they were already used to society and looked visitors full in the face. If they made little haste, it was because they were naturally indolent and did not care to obey. They at last made up their minds and allowed themselves to ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola
... like to be sneered at. I suppose nobody does. But it does not make me feel timid and yield, as it seems to do many: it only ...
— Out in the Forty-Five - Duncan Keith's Vow • Emily Sarah Holt
... heard the jaguar, this was deemed best; for they knew that fire will not always frighten off that fierce animal. As the neighbourhood looked suspicious, and also as it was their first encampment, they, like all travellers at setting out, of course were more timid ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... sweet, serious, timid and a little slow, and Dorothy Rose—a sparkling brunette, quick, elf-like, high tempered, full of mischief and always ...
— The Outdoor Girls at Bluff Point - Or a Wreck and a Rescue • Laura Lee Hope
... actually greater courage, fortitude, and strength of character than our women of similar age, or even a tougher physical endurance than they. Morally, she is strong, I suspect, only in society, and in the common routine of social affairs, and would be found powerless and timid in any exceptional strait that might call for energy outside of the conventionalities amid which she ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... particular, and with the world in general. Then came from a neighbouring wood the clear voice of the cuckoo. It seemed to sing purposely in honour of the good man; and I fancied I could see a ravenous hawk upon a tree, abashed at Mr. Prigg's presence and superior ability; and a fluttering timid lark seemed to shriek, "Wicked bird, live and let live;" but it was the last word the silly lark uttered, for the hawk was upon him in a moment, and the little innocent songster was crushed in its ravenous beak. Still the cuckoo sang on in praise of Mr. Prigg, ...
— The Humourous Story of Farmer Bumpkin's Lawsuit • Richard Harris
... the Papacy, princes and lords, and all judges, were very timid in shedding blood, and punishing robbers, murderers, thieves, and all manner of evil-doers; for they knew not how to distinguish a private individual who is not in office from one in office, charged with ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... unpicturesque garb of our marine service. His woollen cap, pitched forward at an acute angle with his nose, showed the back part of a head thatched with short yellow hair, which had broken into innumerable curls of painful tightness. On his ruddy cheeks a sparse sandy beard was making a timid debut. Add to this a weak, good-natured mouth, a pair of devil-may-care blue eyes, and the fact that the man was very drunk, and you have a pre-Raphaelite portrait—we may as well say it at once—of Mr. Larry O'Rourke of Mullingar, County ...
— A Rivermouth Romance • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... of her was magnetic. While charming the heart she convinced the mind with argument. Her power did not absorb and minify; it enlarged, enlivened, and became a source of inspiration. After talking with her, impossibilities became possible to the timid, the diffident were encouraged to dare, and those who were strong at coming went away valorous. Her dignity and ready decision when presiding over a public assembly were noteworthy. She became a stateswoman in whatever concerned her sex; an earnest ...
— Memories of Jane Cunningham Croly, "Jenny June" • Various
... in behalf of factory legislation. The national or, to use its formal name, The General Federation of Woman's Clubs had been organized in Chicago only the year before this legislation was secured. The Federation was then timid in regard to all legislation because it was anxious not to frighten its new membership, although its second president, Mrs. Henrotin, was most untiring in her efforts to ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams
... individual sincerity, but in a voice so harsh and bitter, and in such sardonic phrases—as when he says: "Sincerity is met with in very few people, and is usually nothing but a delicate dissimulation to attract the confidence of others"—that the more timid of his auditors shrank from him, as if he had been Hamlet or Lear. When he dared to suggest that none of these maxims were intended to refer to the reader himself, but only to all other persons, ...
— Three French Moralists and The Gallantry of France • Edmund Gosse
... boy lingered—he could not bear to return to his dark and dismal dwelling, to the harsh words and harsher usage of those who loved him not, without having that question, which his soul was so eagerly asking, answered. But that little timid heart lacked courage, and he knew the words would die in his throat if he attempted to speak them, and so he must go away without knowing the way to the Father—but his feet dragged unwillingly along, and his eyes searched earnestly the figures that, ...
— Words of Cheer for the Tempted, the Toiling, and the Sorrowing • T. S. Arthur
... many Indian tribes. It is based upon the idea that one becomes like that which he eats. If one eats the heart of a mountain-lion or bear he becomes daring and courageous. But to eat the heart of the timid deer is to make oneself ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James
... Nor sail it. But after I had been on that voyage I could see us always like mice running close to a wall, forever and forever! Juan Lepe, we are little and timid!" ...
— 1492 • Mary Johnston
... harass the enemy. Don't expose yourself; send me to carry your orders to points of danger.' The colony officers do not like those from France. The Canadians are independent, spiteful, lying, boastful; very good for skirmishing, very brave behind a tree, and very timid when not under cover. I think both sides will stand on the defensive. It does not seem to me that M. de Montcalm means to attack the enemy; and I think he is right. In this country a thousand men could ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... her leaves And veiled her timid face, And all the flowers bowed a-down, For holy was the place. Only a little common flower Looked boldly up and smiled To see the happy mother come ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, August 18th, 1920 • Various
... way with timid people," Miss Penfold said. "They are often afraid of shadows, and see no danger where danger really exists. At any rate, I am determined to see whether the will really is where we suppose it to ...
— One of the 28th • G. A. Henty
... for her absolute lack of knowledge. Peg put up with that just as long as she could. Then one day she opened out on them and astonished them. They could not have been more amazed had a bomb exploded in their midst. The little, timid-looking, open-eyed, Titian-haired girl was a veritable virago. She attacked and belittled, and mimicked and berated them. They had talked of her BROGUE! They should listen to their own nasal utterances, that sounded as if they were speaking ...
— Peg O' My Heart • J. Hartley Manners
... reflected upon herself, and brighten her life, and give her ease and comfort: inward joys are beautiful: but a little ray of light from without shining in from time to time is sweet, and does so much good!... But she never said anything, because she was timid: and besides, she knew that even if he wished to make a reputation it was by no means certain that he would succeed: it was too late!... Their greatest sorrow was that they had no children. Each hid that sorrow from the other: and they were only the more tender with each other: ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland
... "weeper's wares" Everyone has his share How much excited cowardice there often is in boldness Love has no law People do not think as they speak, and do not speak as they act Rage of a timid man She saw that he would ...
— Widger's Quotations from The Short Stories of Guy de Maupassant • David Widger
... timid greeting (the lifting of her upper lip that just showed two dear little white teeth) he gave back a reluctant and embarrassed smile. He used to like sitting by Flossie because she was so pretty and so plump. He used to ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... very timid people who inhabit the mountains of Mindoro Island. They have long, lank hair and whitish faces, and do not appear to be of one of the original races. They are occasionally met with (when they do not hide themselves) in the cordillera which runs north-west to ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... health, beauty, and gayety; and she put the crowning touch to her charms by very openly and frankly soliciting and valuing the admiration she received. For, after all, it's only exceptional men who are attracted by difficile beauty; to most of us a gracious reception of our timid advances is the most subtle temptation of ...
— A Man of Mark • Anthony Hope
... This we did, but it was arduous walking—through mud and slime, with snakes darting out every now and then upon us, and huge crocodiles crawling out of our way, just as we almost set foot on them, which frightened some of the timid ones pretty ...
— The Penang Pirate - and, The Lost Pinnace • John Conroy Hutcheson
... the noblest expression of modern ambition. That hope is sure to be fulfilled. But the other timid prayer, that something different, something more worth having, may come out of Winnipeg, exists, and not quite unreasonably. That ...
— Letters from America • Rupert Brooke
... suffering, participated in the scheme to worry him. He could even forget her beauty—forget all, save the unholy fetters binding him. She seemed to imprison him in bare walls. He meditated on her character. She had no strength. She was timid, comfort-loving, fond of luxury, credulous, preposterously conventional; that is, desirous more than the ordinary run of women of being hedged about and guarded by ceremonies—"mere ceremonies," said Edward, forgetting the notion he entertained ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... the way of food and drink, since they require water but once a day, and can maintain life and strength on a plain which, to the naked eye, seems little more than a barren waste of sand. But because, in other respects, they are exceedingly timid and helpless creatures, especially in times and places of danger, the burdens which their welfare and safety impose upon the shepherd, while paternal and winning, are, nevertheless, arduous and manifold. ...
— The Shepherd Of My Soul • Rev. Charles J. Callan
... he husband, and thereupon M. d'Aubepine became frantic to join them, and to share in their councils. We tried to convince her that she could be of no use, but no—suppose they were going to raise their vassals, she could do the same by those of d'Aubepine, and she, who had hitherto been the most timid and helpless of beings, now rose into strong resolution and even daring. It was in vain that I represented to her that to raise one's vassals to make war on the King was rank rebellion. To her there was only one king—the husband who deserved so ...
— Stray Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... timid souls deprecate these annual reunions, fearing they may arouse old strifes and sectional animosities. But a war in which 500,000 men were killed, and 2,000,000 were wounded, in which states were devastated and money spent equal to twice England's gigantic debt, has a meaning, a lesson and ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, August 1887 - Volume 1, Number 7 • Various
... upon her shoulders. At his look and touch her throat swelled, her bosom heaved, and the silken lids fluttered until she seemed choked by a very flood of sweet womanliness. She blushed like a little maid and laughed a timid, broken laugh; then pulling herself together, the merry, careless tone came into her voice and her ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach
... "I don't say to the contrary,—though I like the young man, and am sure that he's more timid than false. I may now tell you—for I want your advice, Mary—what I kept secret before. When Mainwaring visited us, many months ago, at Southampton, he confessed to me that he felt warmly for Susan, and asked if I thought Sir Miles would consent. I knew ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... husband by her still? Or weariness! Where all was new? Hark! What a welcome from the hill! There gathered are a hermits few. Screaming the peacocks upward soar; Wondering the timid wild deer gaze; And from Briarean fig-trees hoar Look down the monkeys in amaze As the procession moves along; And now behold, the bridegroom's sire With joy comes forth amid the throng;— What ...
— Ancient Ballads and Legends of Hindustan • Toru Dutt
... exchange for cereals, tobacco and iron weapons. They are courageous hunters, and do not hesitate to attack even elephants, both sexes joining in the chase. They are very agile, and are said by the neighbouring negroes to leap about in the high grass like grasshoppers. They are timid as children before strangers, but are declared to be malevolent and treacherous fighters. In dress, weapons and utensils they are as the surrounding negroes. They build round huts of branches and leaves in the forest clearings. They seem in no way a degenerate race, ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... enjoyment of better days. But these trials, it seems to me, must be such as come through the direct intervention of Providence; and they must be clear of the elements of human cruelty or injustice. I do not believe that a man who was a weakly and timid boy can ever look back with pleasure upon the ill-usage of the brutal bully of his school-days, or upon the injustice of his teacher in cheating him out of some well-earned prize. There are kinds of great suffering which can never ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IX., March, 1862., No. LIII. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics, • Various
... the depths of the forest. The jaguars, for instance, pursue the peccaries and the tapirs, which, having no defence, flee in close troops, and break down the bushes they find in their way. Terrified at this struggle, the timid and distrustful monkeys answer, from the tops of the trees, the cries of the large animals. They awaken the birds that live in society, and by degrees the whole assembly is in commotion. It is not always in a fine moonlight, but ...
— The Beauties of Nature - and the Wonders of the World We Live In • Sir John Lubbock
... really worth visiting, and it told at a glance the character of the owner. Its walls were decorated with articles that would not have been allowed inside the doors had Mrs. Morris beheld them in time to utter a protest, for she was as timid about some things as she was sharp in others. For instance, there was a fine breech-loading rifle, dear to the heart of Maxwell, that hung on the wall above a brace of handsome revolvers. These were the cause of constant terror ...
— Miss Dexie - A Romance of the Provinces • Stanford Eveleth
... funeral of a man whom she had known and liked. And in that case, too, she would probably not want to talk if she drove home from the cemetery with his brother: nor would she want the brother to talk. Silence is usually either stupid or timid. But for a man who stammers if he tries to talk fast, and drawls so slowly, when he doesn't stammer, that nobody has time to listen to him, silence is advisable. Nevertheless, too much silence is open to suspicion. It may be reticence, or it ...
— The Turmoil - A Novel • Booth Tarkington
... sudden sunset—we want the clouds of gold that float in the azure sea. No one would enjoy a sudden sunrise—we are in love with the morning star, with the dawn that modestly heralds the day and draws aside, with timid hands, the curtains of the night. In other words, we ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll
... our enemies, ye ken," said poor Effie, with a timid look and a subdued voice; for her conscience told her what a different character the feelings with which she regarded her seducer bore, compared with the Christian charity under which she attempted to ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... festival held through the length and breadth of the country Will henceforward to me be a glad anniversary also! But I am grieved to observe that the youth, who is always so active When he is here at home, abroad is so slow and so timid. Little at any time cares he to mix with the rest of the people; Yes, he even avoids young maidens' society ever, And the frolicsome dance, that ...
— The Poems of Goethe • Goethe
... Moreover, I possessed a clerk—a knave who had killed an abbot and fled from the monastery—a man of poetry, wit and sentiment. Whenever the letters lacked for ardor, and the lovers had grown too timid, him I set to forge a postscript, or indite new missives, which the rogue did most prettily, having studied love-making under the monks. And thus, Sir Fool, I courted and won ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... mandrakes were said to, when pulled up as weeds. Some persons may even at this late day take offence at a few opinions expressed in the following pages, but most of these passages will be read without loss of temper by those who disagree with them, and by-and-by they may be found too timid and conservative for intelligent readers, if they are ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... floundered into explanations. "The waiter, who can speak some English, has been frightening her ladyship," said he. "After the day before yesterday she's grown a bit timid, and to hear that the cold she has suffered from is nothing to what she may have to experience higher up, and later in the day, as the sun gets down behind the mountains, has put her off motoring. It seems we can go on from here by train to ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... who would have spoken for Eline, but they were timid and afraid of those who talked so boastfully. Wherefore they were silent. It is true that one or two attempted to recall the noble deeds of the absent one, and to point out that she had really built the temple; they had supplied only the labor; yet the fruits of it ...
— The Strange Little Girl - A Story for Children • V. M.
... the great Van Buren Street depot at 4.30 of a dark day in late October. A tall young man, with a timid look in his eyes, was almost the last passenger to get on, and his pale face wore a worried look as he dropped into an empty seat and peered out at the squalid city reeling past ...
— Other Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... that in which we are biased by our wishes; but the liability is almost as great to the undue adoption of a conclusion which is disagreeable to us, as of one which is agreeable, if it be of a nature to bring into action any of the stronger passions. Persons of timid character are the more predisposed to believe any statement, the more it is calculated to alarm them. Indeed it is a psychological law, deducible from the most general laws of the mental constitution of man, that any strong passion renders ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... you mean?' asked the King, starting violently, and turning so fiercely upon the timid burgher, that he lost the little balance of wits ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... that though many of these associations of ideas, will be wild and chimerical, yet that others will have the chance of giving rise to the greatest and most capital discoveries; such as very cautious, timid, sober, and slow-thinking people would never ...
— Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air • Joseph Priestley
... greater variety. Unfortunately, this eagerness was not met with a corresponding fervour. There was in the household the acquiescence with long- established invalidism, that sometimes settles down and makes a newcomer's innovations unwelcome. Raymond had spoken to the old doctor, who had been timid and discouraging; Susan resented the implication that the utmost had not been done for her dear mistress; and Mrs. Poynsett herself, though warmly grateful for Rosamond's affection, was not only nervously unwilling to try experiments, but had an ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Amarilly summoned John to council. It was not easy to bridge the distance which had been steadily increasing with the months that had rolled by since the surplice denouement, and Colette, formerly supreme in her sway, was perceptibly timid in making the advance. After writing and tearing up several notes she called him up by telephone and asked him in a consciously casual tone if he could find it convenient to call that evening with reference to a little matter ...
— Amarilly of Clothes-line Alley • Belle K. Maniates
... simplest flowers wear the loveliest faces; The sparrows are our most enraptured singers, And round their songs the fondest memory lingers; Our forests tower and tremble, star-enchanted, Their roots are by the timid spirits haunted Of hermit thrushes,—tranced is the air, Ever in doubt when they shall sing or where; The mountains may with ice and avalanche wrestle, Far down their rugged steeps dimple and nestle The still, translucent, ...
— Lundy's Lane and Other Poems • Duncan Campbell Scott
... idea of imposing upon her. But, she told him quickly, it could be done; she had acted for another gentleman in this capacity, Mr. Nate Kemble of the Quigley mines. She knew all about it. As for imposition, she broke into a timid little laugh. ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory
... has ever stirred more lately. They were a good preparation for the more serious marching and severer drill which were soon to come, though the Republicans scoffed at all anticipations of such a future, and sneered at the timid ones who croaked of war ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. I. • John T. Morse
... back kitchen door of Esq. Pimble's great brick mansion, and a clattering of plates and tea things within which quite drowned the timid knock. A second and louder one brought a fat, red-faced woman with rolled-up sleeves and a dish-towel in hand, to answer ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... reputation to make. His old admirers were at first delighted to greet him; but they soon saw with unfeigned regret that he was compromising a great and well-earned name. His tone, once so pure and beautiful, had become uncertain; his bow was as timid as his fingers, and he no longer dared to indulge fearlessly the suggestions of his imagination; in short it was too apparent that, in spite of his delusion, Rode's former confidence in himself was gone; and we know the importance of that feeling ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 17, No. 476, Saturday, February 12, 1831 • Various
... nervous and timid manner toward the bed. She was evidently afraid of the little shriveled old woman with the staring black eyes and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 12, No. 32, November, 1873 • Various
... vessels left the shelter of the bay, they felt the full force of the gale; and but for skilful handling on the part of their crews, would most likely have come to grief. Even as it was, the more timid of the passengers began to think they would have done better in trusting to the mercy of the ...
— At the Point of the Sword • Herbert Hayens
... shame, And thought a lie in verse or prose the same. That not in Fancy's maze he wander'd long, 340 But stoop'd to Truth, and moralised his song: That not for Fame, but Virtue's better end, He stood the furious foe, the timid friend, The damning critic, half-approving wit, The coxcomb hit, or fearing to be hit; Laugh'd at the loss of friends he never had, The dull, the proud, the wicked, and the mad; The distant threats of vengeance on his head, The blow unfelt, the tear ...
— The Poetical Works Of Alexander Pope, Vol. 1 • Alexander Pope et al
... preparations for the harvest at hand, he sat on with the dead: he could not leave her until his wife should come to take his place and keep her company! He brought a bible from the next room, sat down again, and waited beside her. In doubtful, timid, tremulous hope, not worthy of the name of hope—a mere sense of a scarcely possible possibility, he waited what he would not consent to believe he waited for. He would not deceive himself; he would give his wife no hint, but wait to see how she saw! He would put to her no leading question ...
— Salted With Fire • George MacDonald
... say, but it is very certain that a more insolent, ungoverned race than the cabmen do not exist anywhere. The best position of the best promenade is occupied by these fellows; and no respectable female or timid man dares to pass them without receiving coarse insult; and, if complaint is made, they mark the complainant; and, if they keep a sleigh or carriage, make a point of running races near them, and cracking heavy whips to frighten their horses. ...
— Canada and the Canadians, Vol. 2 • Richard Henry Bonnycastle
... be so very angry, that Tom, who, you know, is timid and meek, would be dreadfully frightened," ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... ultimate consequences of what he does. The world is so rich, population grows so rapidly, civilisation is armed with so much knowledge in its struggle against the barbarian and against nature, that to-day we are able to laugh at the timid prudence of our forefathers, who had, as it were, a fear of wealth, of pleasure, of love; we can boast in the pride of triumph that we are the first who dare in the midst of a conquered world, to enjoy—enjoy without scruple, without restriction—all the good things life offers ...
— Characters and events of Roman History • Guglielmo Ferrero
... others were willing to do as the most timid of the trio wished, and they hurried along in silence till they saw, with hearts full of thankfulness, the lights of Three Towers Hall shine out on the ...
— Billie Bradley on Lighthouse Island - The Mystery of the Wreck • Janet D. Wheeler
... middle of the eighteenth century men had begun to think more fearlessly. The great Emanuel Kant wrote in his younger and less timid years, "The General History of Nature and Theory of the Heavens." The great Newton had by his law of gravitation brought order into the heavens. Kant looked longingly for a greater Newton, who should find a similar unity in the animal world. He saw the wonderful likenesses between animals ...
— The Meaning of Evolution • Samuel Christian Schmucker
... the evening. Nay, it was not till after dark that his mother—who sat wringing her hands in the little kitchen and trying in vain to listen to the Parson and Mrs. Dale, who (after sending in search of the fugitive) had kindly come to console the mother—heard a timid knock at the door and a nervous fumble at the latch. She started up, opened the door, and Lenny sprang to her bosom, and there buried ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... the brush a soft persuasive cooing, a sound so subtle and wild and unobtrusive that it requires the most alert and watchful ear to hear it. How gentle and solicitous and full of yearning love! It is the voice of the mother hen. Presently a faint timid "Yeap!" which almost eludes the ear, is heard in various direction,—the young responding. As no danger seems near, the cooing of the parent bird is soon a very audible clucking call, and the young ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... say," said the agent, "if you like I'll just lock the office, and give you the outside door key. There ain't no tramps, but if you should be timid, before I come back, just turn the ...
— Dorothy Dale's Camping Days • Margaret Penrose
... stayers-at-home, and Mr. Briley often made his seven-mile journey in entire solitude, except for the limp leather mail-bag, which he held firmly to the floor of the carriage with his heavily shod left foot. The mail-bag had almost a personality to him, born of long association. Mr. Briley was a meek and timid-looking body, but he held a warlike soul, and encouraged his fancies by reading awful tales of bloodshed and lawlessness in the far West. Mindful of stage robberies and train thieves, and of express messengers who died at their posts, he was prepared for anything; ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... that on her return she must make up for it to her forsaken friend, especially as she had treated him very curtly for a long time past. Her abrupt and mysterious departure had made a profound and poignant impression on the timid heart of Stepan Trofimovitch, and to make matters worse he was beset with other difficulties at the same time. He was worried by a very considerable money obligation, which had weighed upon him for a long time and which he could never hope ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... aeroplane bomb was heard coming through the air; it fell 30 yards from the Mess). At the end of May rest billets were altered to La Pierriere, a small straggling village west of the La Bassee Canal, where few shells fell but whither the civilians were as yet timid to return. At La Pierriere, whenever the Battalion came out for its four days' rest, the Canteen was established on the most up-to-date lines with a full stock, including beer and the current newspapers from England. During the summer several local papers ...
— The Story of the 2/4th Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry • G. K. Rose
... bountiful, and ever great, had not spread out this replete and luxurious pasture, without stocking it with numerous flocks and herds; nor were their ferocious attendants, who prey upon them, wanting, to fill up the circle of created beings. Here was seen the timid deer; the towering elk; the fleet stag; the surly bear; the crafty fox; the ravenous wolf; the devouring panther; the insidious wildcat; the haughty buffalo, besides innumerable other creatures, ...
— The Land of the Miamis • Elmore Barce
... with the canons of honour, never repeated, oh, surely never repeated! tincture all the future with a slow, spreading black drop? If so ... but why imagine it? It was unlikely. A whip in the closet to frighten the timid children.... ...
— The Strange Cases of Dr. Stanchon • Josephine Daskam Bacon
... lawyer went with me down to the river, and to this day declares it was the "most memorable trip of his life;" while the timid lady, to my own knowledge, has made over five ...
— The Grand Canyon of Arizona: How to See It, • George Wharton James
... city bailiff could penetrate into the square of little streets which lay behind the present Town-hall; the Church itself was powerless against the synagogue that rose in haughty rivalry beside the cloister of St. Frideswide. The picture which Scott has given us in 'Ivanhoe' of Aaron of York, timid, silent, crouching under oppression, accurately as it represents our modern notions of the position of his race during the Middle Ages, is far from being borne out by historical fact. In England at least the attitude of the Jew is almost to the end an attitude of proud ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green
... sail-needle, and a broken pen-knife. But Jack did it. He was of, that disposition which will not be conquered. When he believed himself to be acting rightly, he overcame all obstacles. I have seen Jack, when doubtful whether what he was about to do were right or wrong, as timid and vacillating as a little girl,—and I honour ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... vanished in Dodge at the close. A great stickler for the rights of the people, he never considered that this people was composed of many integral parts, but he viewed all things as gravitating towards the great aggregation. Majorities were his hobbies, and though singularly timid as an individual, or when in the minority, put him on the strongest side and he was ready to face the devil. In short, Mr. Dodge was a people's man, because his strongest desire, his "ambition and his pride," as he often expressed ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... at the mouth of the slope, and prepared to descend in a car that was about to start down with some timbers for props, a timid voice said, ...
— Derrick Sterling - A Story of the Mines • Kirk Munroe
... woodpeckers were so timid that I was unable to secure a good look at them. The marked difference of manner, however, convinced me that both parents were engaged in attending upon the young family; and as they grew less vigilant and I learned to distinguish them, I discovered ...
— Little Brothers of the Air • Olive Thorne Miller
... the matter when the object of his thoughts appeared in his usual timid manner. He wished to send another dispatch, he said. While he wrote it out Jack studied the mild, almost benevolent features of the man ...
— The Ocean Wireless Boys And The Naval Code • John Henry Goldfrap, AKA Captain Wilbur Lawton
... laughs at the roar of the hurricane. He has slain the foe and the great Mat With his hissing arrow and deadly stroke. My heart is swift but my tongue is slow. Let the warrior come to my lodge and smoke; He may bring the gifts; [25] but the timid doe May fly from the hunter ...
— Legends of the Northwest • Hanford Lennox Gordon
... a long knife in his hand. Having assumed this frightful attitude, he commanded them in a voice of thunder, to get up and give him some supper. They were awake now. Oh, horror! what a sight for a guilty man, and a timid woman! "Me come to kill you!" said the Indian, as he watched their blanched cheeks and quivering lips. They tottered about on their trembling limbs to get everything he asked for, imploring him for God's sake to take all, ...
— Twenty-Two Years a Slave, and Forty Years a Freeman • Austin Steward
... of the forest are more timid than the deer, which, like the bear, is found in almost every portion of the American continent. The buck with one swift whirl on his hoofs, faced the other way, and was off like an arrow, shooting between the trees, through the undergrowth, and bounding over obstructions as though they were ...
— Camp-fire and Wigwam • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... been stern indeed, or perhaps very timid with women, not to respond in a more human way to the advances of a girl like Nathalie Haldin—I thought to myself. Those lofty and solitary existences (I remembered the words suddenly) make a young man shy and an ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... indeed, your Grace,—very cold." The Duke had intended to pass on, but the Major managed to stop him by standing in the pathway. The Major did not in the least know his man. He had heard that the Duke was shy, and therefore thought that he was timid. He had not hitherto been spoken to by the Duke,—a condition of things which he attributed to the Duke's shyness and timidity. But, with much thought on the subject, he had resolved that he would have a few words with his host, and had ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... mind home from her, to fix it on Tenney, who, having finished his prayer, was calling on one and another, with an unction that seemed merely a rejoicing tyranny, for testimony. It was a scene of tension. Church members were timid before the ordeal of experience or pleading, and the unconverted were strained to the verge of hysteria over a prospect of being haled into the open and prayed for. Neither Raven nor Nan knew how unpopular Tenney had become, because he could not enter the ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... over England, and dropped their first bomb on English soil. The air raids over England during the war were many and serious; they were an important and characteristic part of the German plan of campaign, and their story must be told separately. They began with a curious timid little adventure. On the 21st of December a German aeroplane made its appearance above Dover; it dropped a bomb which was aimed, no doubt, at some part of the harbour, but fell harmlessly in the sea. The aeroplane then went home. ...
— The War in the Air; Vol. 1 - The Part played in the Great War by the Royal Air Force • Walter Raleigh
... of more or less puzzled Britons discovered, conscientiously endeavouring to do justice to the Collection, having realised that Mr. WHISTLER's work is now considered entitled to serious consideration, but feeling themselves unable to get beyond a timid tolerance. In addition to these, there are Frank Philistines who are here with a fixed intention of being funny, Matrons with a strongly domesticated taste in Art, Serious Elderly Ladies, Literal ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, April 16, 1892 • Various
... the person could be that would think of carrying away that princess who hath such powerful protectors and who is even like a walking embodiment of the hearts of the sons of Pandu? Piercing whose breasts will terrible shafts stick to the ground to-day? Do not weep for her, O timid girl, for know thou that Krishna will come back this very day, and the sons of Pritha, having slain their foes, will again be united with Yagnaseni!' Thus addressed by him, Dhatreyika, wiping her beautiful face, replied unto Indrasena the charioteer, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 2 • Translated by Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... constabulary, of which the London "Bobby" must be admitted by all as ranking at the very head of his contemporaries throughout the civilized world. Certainly no more affable and painstaking servants of the public are anywhere to be found; they are truly the "refuge of the inquiring stranger and timid women." ...
— Dickens' London • Francis Miltoun
... glades since man first sheltered in them, certain it is that in no other region in Europe has Mother Church laid such a heavy ban upon all the things of faery as in this strange and isolated peninsula. A more tolerant ecclesiastical rule might have weaned them to a timid friendship, but all overtures have been discouraged, and to-day they are enemies, active, malignant, swift to inflict evil upon the pious peasant because he is pious and on the energetic ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence
... water-proof coat, sending on my baggage by the coach to the hotel on the other side. If I can get an hour's start, I can (by straightening the zig-zags) nearly double it going up; if not, I will wait on the other side for the next stage. If it were not for the cowardly fear of being thought timid, there would be more care used in such matters. Hitherto, I have not given the subject much consideration, but I turn over a new leaf from the date ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley
... an entire nation. It is work carried on by citizens of the neutral nations. The cause itself is so admirable that it deserves wide support. It gives an outlet for the ethical feelings of our people, feelings that have been unnaturally dammed for nearly two years by the cold and timid policy ...
— Golden Lads • Arthur Gleason and Helen Hayes Gleason
... having the same long curly hair and slight figure; they did not appear to be a navigating tribe, for we saw no canoes, nor did we observe any trees in the woods with the bark stripped, of which material they are usually made; and, from the timid manner they approached the water, it is more than probable that they are not much accustomed even to swimming. Captain Flinders is mistaken in stating that the natives of this place do not use the throwing-stick; but it is probable they did not produce those instruments to him, for fear of being ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia] [Volume 2 of 2] • Phillip Parker King
... assent to this motion. And yet I must admit that the honourable Member for Finsbury (Mr Thomas Duncombe.) has framed it with considerable skill. He has done his best to obtain the support of all those timid and interested politicians who think much more about the security of their seats than about the security of their country. It would be very convenient to me to give a silent vote with him. I should then have it in my power to say to ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... blank silence. Neither dared to touch that deeper stage question that lay next their hearts. But when Keith Macleod, in many a word of timid suggestion, and in the jesting letter he sent her from Castle Dare, had ventured upon that dangerous ground, it was not to talk about the real furniture of a stage drawing-room. However, was not this an ordinary morning call? His manner—his speech—everything said so but the tightly-clasped ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... her field-sorrel, and went away home and ate her solitary midday meal with a mixture of pride and sorrow in her timid little breast. "Some day, when I am grown brave," she thought, "Gamma-gata will come back to me; but he will ...
— The Blue Moon • Laurence Housman
... parliamentary sessions, with their ocean of bald or apoplectic heads, the endless noise of crumpled paper, the shouts of the pages, the drumming of paper knives on the tables, and the hum of private conversations, above which the orator's voice soars in a timid or vociferous solo ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... to come to California, after the gold discoveries; but when he married me he agreed not to think of it any more. I was very young and timid, and very much attached to my childhood's home, and my parents; and I could not bear the thought of going so long a distance away from them. It was not then, as it is now, an easy journey of one week; but ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor
... now no longer the shy, timid girl, but the resolute, proud woman, who was ready to wrestle with fate for ...
— Henry VIII And His Court • Louise Muhlbach
... see that the Madonna as the Christ-bearer is the ideal he always has in view. He falls short of it, not through any lack of earnestness, but because his type of womanhood is incapable of expressing such lofty idealism. His virgins are modelled upon the simple Andalusian maidens, sweet, timid, dark-eyed creatures. Their faces glow with gentle affection as they look wistfully out of the picture, or raise their eyes to heaven, as if dimly discerning the heights ...
— The Madonna in Art • Estelle M. Hurll
... understood. Laying her hands upon his head, she repeated the blessing with which she had blessed him when, as a timid young man, he made ...
— Stories of the Prophets - (Before the Exile) • Isaac Landman
... given by Mrs. Fremont in the lines just quoted! Truly the most determined hater of the so much read and so much abused 'women's books,' must cease to sneer in acknowledging that here indeed was inducement sufficient to make the most timid and shrinking of the sex face the frowns of the critic, the scoff of the antagonistic politician, and the astonishment of the fashionable world that one who had long been one of its most brilliant ornaments should condescend to become known as an authoress! ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 2, August, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... amends, after his own manner, by marrying one of the Captain's daughters. There were two of them. Isabel, the elder, was a gentle and beautiful girl, very delicate, very timid, and most sweet when most submissive, like the woodland herbs which give out their sweetest fragrance when they are trodden on and crushed. Bridget, the younger, was rather homely, rather common, proud of her strength of mind ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... one's love, many of the ancient and after them some modern writers have assigned the affections to the heart, and have made the heart their dwelling-place. From this have come into common language such expressions as a stout heart, a timid heart, a joyful heart, a sad heart, a soft heart, a hard heart, a great heart, a weak heart, a whole heart, a broken heart, a heart of flesh, a heart of stone; likewise being gross, or soft, or tender in heart; giving the heart to a thing, giving a single heart, giving a new heart, ...
— Angelic Wisdom Concerning the Divine Love and the Divine Wisdom • Emanuel Swedenborg
... dutifully considered the matter while she continued the scalp massage. Before they had decided definitely upon the extravagance of a henna rinse, which was only a timid sort of experiment and at best a mere compromise art and nature, Marion had applied the tonic. It seemed a shame to waste that now with a shampoo, and she did not dare to go for another dish of the tonic; so Kate sighed and consoled herself with a dollar saved, and went ...
— The Lookout Man • B. M. Bower
... at once. Mr. Bennington was astonished when he saw his son taking her out to sail on such a chilly, blustering day; but he always allowed his guests to suit themselves, and offered no objection to the expedition. Leopold seated his timid passenger in the standing-room, and shoved off the boat. In the river she made smooth sailing of it; but the instant she passed the range of the high bluff on the north shore, the No-Name plunged into a heavy sea, burying her bow deep ...
— The Coming Wave - The Hidden Treasure of High Rock • Oliver Optic
... out into the street, and called him to follow. He thought it was too good news to be true, and only came for a few steps, then stopped to look with a timid gaze into my face as ...
— Dick and His Cat and Other Tales • Various
... his fore-head with a red handkerchief. "But they have at Dubuque. I'll tell you how it was. I was married a couple of days ago, and night before last I put up at a Dubuque hotel. My wife never had been married before, any at all, and she is timid, and thinks everybody is watching us, and making fun ...
— Peck's Sunshine - Being a Collection of Articles Written for Peck's Sun, - Milwaukee, Wis. - 1882 • George W. Peck
... the present, are the only prophecies known to us that deserve any particular attention. The prediction in both is timid and laconic; but, in those regions where the least gleam of light assumes extraordinary importance, it is not to be neglected. I admit, for the rest, that there has so far been no time to carry out a serious enquiry on this point, but I should ...
— The Wrack of the Storm • Maurice Maeterlinck
... second floor of the church tower were the two boys whom we saw talking to the Sage. The younger, a child of seven years with large black eyes and a timid countenance, was huddling close to his brother, a boy of ten, whom he greatly resembled in features, except that the look on the elder's face was deeper ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... bewildered no doubt, took refuge in a compromise. They occupied an hour in considering and debating among themselves in their own room. (A jury of women would not have taken a minute!) Then they returned into Court, and gave their timid and trimming Scotch Verdict in ...
— The Law and the Lady • Wilkie Collins
... was, that it came to an end. I would have wished it to spin along until the war was over, or we in a settled home. But it ended at last, to Jimmy's great relief, for he was too frightened to move even, and only ventured a timid chirp if the car stopped, as if to ask, "Is it over?" Nothing occurred of any interest except once a little boy sent us slightly off the track, by meddling ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... race, the hero of the adventures herein chronicled had an individuality that was his own, and most thoroughly so. This, too, is common. Most people have an individuality, if they can only find it! A good many men never do find this quality in themselves, having it crushed out by the timid or designing people who take charge of their education, so called; but for all that, to every man is given a being unlike that of any other in all the world, and it is the business of each, for himself, to make the most of his own peculiar gift, and for all his teachers and all systems of education ...
— The Evolution of Dodd • William Hawley Smith
... the Counsel roared. The timid witness said, "My Lord, A Season-ticket holder I Where London's southern suburbs lie." "Tut, tut," his Lordship made demur, "He meant what is your business, Sir." The witness sighed and shook his head, "I get no time for ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Feb. 5, 1919 • Various
... now that she was beginning to be a little frightened. Mr. Morris was the new Rector of St. James', the little church over by the cattle market. He had not been in Polchester very long and was said to be a shy timid man, but a good preacher. He was a widower, and his sister-in-law kept house for him. Joan considered further on the great importance of these concessions; it made all the difference to everything. She was now to have a life of her own, and every kind of adventure and romance was possible ...
— The Cathedral • Hugh Walpole
... resting? Yes, we know that to be true. The universal conspiracy of the silent-assertion lie is hard at work always and everywhere, and always in the interest of a stupidity or a sham, never in the interest of a thing fine or respectable. Is it the most timid and shabby of all lies? It seems to have the look of it. For ages and ages it has mutely laboured in the interest of despotisms and aristocracies and chattel slaveries, and military slaveries, and religious slaveries, and has ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... parted in the morning as they had now done for long, with scarcely the ordinary civilities of life; and it was plain to the son that nothing had yet reached the father's ears. Indeed, when he recalled the awful countenance of my lord, a timid hope sprang up in him that perhaps there would be found no one bold enough to carry tales. If this were so, he asked himself, would he begin again? and he found no answer. It was at this moment that a hand was laid upon his arm, ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... for yourself; nor wait with timid phlegm Till some illustrious pedant hum or hem. 179 The lords who starv'd old Ben were learn'dly fond Of Chaucer, whom with bungling toil they conn'd, Their sons, whose ears bold Milton could not seize, } ...
— Essays on Taste • John Gilbert Cooper, John Armstrong, Ralph Cohen
... strangers ringing the front-door bell at the Manor House were, on being admitted, faced by large cards on the opposite wall bearing such devices as, "Be sure you shut the door quietly," "Do not speak loudly," "Go round to the back if possible." And it is told of one timid guest, that on reading the aforesaid directions (which, by the way, were only supposed to apply to the children) he incontinently fled before the astonished butler could stop him; and, as directed, meekly rang the back-door bell, some ...
— The Ffolliots of Redmarley • L. Allen Harker
... station. Against the West Indian planters the crusade of Wilberforce was in full progress, and the very name of "plantation" had an evil savour. South Africa promised little but the plentiful race troubles, which indeed came. The timid apathy of the Colonial Office was no more than the reflex of the dead indifference of the nation. None but a man of genius could have breathed life into it. Fortunately ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... themselves unto it with calmness, with prudence, with watchfulness, with courage. They are beset on every side by crafty and desperate enemies. Greedy land-jobbers, in haste to be rich, will try to persuade them that not to be innocent is to be wise. Timid timeservers will urge a submission which promises peace, though it be but a solitude that is called so. Rampant Pro-slavery will exalt its horn against Righteousness and try again the virtue of ruffianism to prevail against ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various |
