"Timorous" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... after sleep, and shaking her invincible locks; methinks I see her, as an eagle, mewing her mighty youth, and kindling her undazzled eyes at the full midday beam; purging and scaling her long abused sight at the fountain itself of heavenly radiance; while the whole noise of timorous and flocking birds, with those also that love the twilight, flutter about, amazed at what she means, and in their envious gabble would prognosticate a year of sects ...
— Elementary Guide to Literary Criticism • F. V. N. Painter
... raven's quill, overarching such an eye, and contrasting itself with the burning gold of the hair, and a skin of Parian white and purity. Then contemplate a softness beside which the velvet upon the petal of a pansy would seem rigid; and this eye large and timorous, and ...
— The Four Canadian Highwaymen • Joseph Edmund Collins
... his bundle and obeyed the summons, advancing with an awkward almost stumbling step, suggestive of actual weakness as well as the extremity of shyness. Reaching the two men, he touched his cap humbly, and stood with timorous eyes upraised ...
— "Seth" • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... In the words with which the President, the Earl of Rosse, accompanied the presentation of the medal, "it is not difficult," writes Sir M. Foster, "reading between the lines, to recognise the appreciation of a new spirit of anatomical inquiry, not wholly free from a timorous apprehension as to its complete validity." ("In these papers (on the Medusae) you have for the first time fully developed their structure, and laid the foundation of a rational theory for their classification." ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley
... passing them, confusedly touched their hats. Murguia, who was then in the rear, stopped when he saw the two strangers. Driscoll looked back, but judged from the greetings that the three were old acquaintances. The assiduously respectful bearing of the timorous old man was to be counted as only habitual. And when he saw one of Don Anastasio's mozos bring a bottle and glasses, he was completely reassured, and rested like the others of the caravan ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... safety. On seeing the rapid disappearance of the Frogs, one of the Hares cried out to his companions: "Stay, my friends, do not do as you intended; for you now see that other creatures who yet live are more timorous ...
— Aesop's Fables - A New Revised Version From Original Sources • Aesop
... Hermes is a god and has wings and flies, and so do many other gods. First of all, Victory flies with golden wings, Eros is undoubtedly winged too, and Iris is compared by Homer to a timorous dove.[239] If men in their blindness do not recognize you as gods and continue to worship the dwellers in Olympus, then a cloud of sparrows greedy for corn must descend upon their fields and eat up all their ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... Pharisees, and my death would be resolved upon. But art thou sure that the hirelings of the priests haven't been told to kill thee? Nicodemus asked. Pilate's friendship for me is notorious, Joseph replied. I'm not afraid, Nicodemus, and it is well for me that I'm not, for assassination comes to the timorous. That is true, Nicodemus rejoined, our fears often bring about our destiny, but thou shouldst avoid returning by the valley; return by the eastern gate and on horseback. But that way, Joseph answered, is a lonely and long one, and thinking it better to put a bold face on the matter, though ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore
... He never was a warrior, though a true soldier. He never was a courtier, though he had always a good mind to be one. He never was a good party man, though his whole life was engaged in partisanship. He was very timorous and bashful in conversation, and thought he always stood in need of apologies, which, considering that his "Maxims" showed not great regard for virtue, and that his practice was always to get out of affairs with the same hurry ...
— The Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz, Complete • Jean Francois Paul de Gondi, Cardinal de Retz
... of a hotel, and the first thing we saw of it we liked. That was a pair of sabots on the mat at the foot of the staircase. Pausing only to remove the dust of travel, we set off to visit our son, walking with timorous haste along the grand old avenue where the school was situated. A little casement window to the left of the wide entrance-door showed a red cross. We looked ...
— A Versailles Christmas-Tide • Mary Stuart Boyd
... with like timorous[116] accent and dire yell As when, by night and negligence, the fire Is spied in ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... had not lost her presence of mind. She had certainly listened to de Marmont's final tirade, because she knew that she was helpless in his hands, but she had never been frightened for a moment. Jeanne was within call, and she herself had never been timorous: at the same time she was thankful enough that her father and St. ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy
... late Nawab Safdar Jang, it was for his majesty to judge how useful might be the friendship of a potentate whose predecessor's hostility had been so formidable. "But," added the prudent Rohilla, "it must be remembered that the recollection of the past will make the Vazir timorous and suspicious. The negotiation will be as delicate as important. It should not be entrusted to ordinary agency, or to the impersonal ...
— The Fall of the Moghul Empire of Hindustan • H. G. Keene
... gracious reader has had losses in life, losses not so bad as to cause absolute want, or inflict upon him or her the bodily injury of starvation, let him confess that the evils of this poverty are by no means so great as his timorous fancy depicted. Say your money has been invested in West Diddlesex bonds, or other luckless speculations—the news of the smash comes; you pay your outlying bills with the balance at the banker's; you assemble your family and make them a fine speech; ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the place calculated to alarm the most timorous of mortals; and as the boy glanced round he saw simply just what he had seen there many times before—the grindstone, Uncle Roger's box, some gardening tools, and sticks for rose-trees and other plants, a quantity of matting stuff which ...
— Under Padlock and Seal • Charles Harold Avery
... and eyes glowing, a pretty quarry indeed and well worthy of so arduous a pursuit. For Renwick was not to be denied and as the girl turned into the path which led to the thatched arbor, he saw that she was breathing hard and the half-timorous laugh she threw over her shoulder at him only spurred him on to new endeavor. He reached the hedge as she disappeared, but his instinct was unerring and he leaped through the swaying branches just in time to see the hem of her skirt in the foliage on the other side and plunging through ...
— The Secret Witness • George Gibbs
... country girl, who, either from ignorance or conceit, is startled at every word of gallantry addressed to her by a young man, who, for the present, has nothing better to do than coin and circulate such false compliments. But I must not let this fear of seeming rustic and awkwardly timorous carry me too far; and being ignorant of the exact limits, I will take ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... as a man, in evening clothes, preferably a Tuxedo. In her hand is a card, and under her arm a paper-wrapped parcel. She peeps about curiously and advances to table. She is timorous and excited, elated and at the same time frightened. Her ...
— The Human Drift • Jack London
... they cannot be angels, ought to thwart their ambition, and not endeavor to become infernal spirits. It is too well exemplified in the present time, where the faults and errors of humanity, checked by the imperfect, timorous virtues, have been overpowered by those who have stopped at no crime. It is a dreadful part of the example, that infernal malevolence has had pious apologists, who read their lectures on frailties in favor of crimes,—who abandon the weak, and court the friendship of the wicked. ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... about villagers and tenants who had long lain mouldering in their humble graves—their way thither cheered and smoothed by Mrs. Aubrey's Christian charity and benevolence! 'Twas a touching sight to see her two beautiful grandchildren, in whose company she delighted, brought, with a timorous and half-reluctant air, into her presence. How strange must have seemed to them the cheerfulness of the motionless figure always lying in the bed; a cheerfulness which, though gentle as gentle could be, yet sufficed not ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... warnings; and in the end he must unwillingly surrender what he was too proud at first to yield uncompelled. Wermund, shaken by deep sighs, answered that it was too insolent to sting him with these taunts upon his years; for he had passed no timorous youth, nor shrunk from battle, that age should bring him to this extreme misery. It was equally unfitting to cast in his teeth the infirmity of his blindness: for it was common for a loss of this kind to accompany such a time of life as his, ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... a reconnoitring party. If the story were true, it would be chiefly important as indicating that the Prince of Orange was one of the many historical characters, originally of an excitable and even timorous physical organization, whom moral courage and a strong will have afterwards converted into dauntless heroes. Certain it is that he was destined to confront open danger in every form, that his path was to lead through perpetual ambush, yet that his cheerful confidence and tranquil courage ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... was enlivened by herds of antelopes and buffaloe; the last of which were in such multitudes, that we cannot exaggerate in saying that at a single glance we saw three thousand of them before us. Of all the animals we had seen the antelope seems to possess the most wonderful fleetness: shy and timorous they generally repose only on the ridges, which command a view of all the approaches of an enemy: the acuteness of their sight distinguishes the most distant danger, the delicate sensibility of their smell defeats the precautions of concealment, ...
— History of the Expedition under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark, Vol. I. • Meriwether Lewis and William Clark
... laughed at Ward; for the field foreman was no horseman and the timorous way in which he had brought out this snapping, vicious animal had testified to the fact. He ...
— Judith of Blue Lake Ranch • Jackson Gregory
... attenuated skeleton of a man, with weary eyes and trembling hands, and I grew more and more sure that the inactivity against their usurpers visible in the valley beneath was due more to his age and timorous nature than to any inability to turn the tables. They seemed to hold the "Schrees" in contempt, yet never took any action against them, so that I wondered if the contempt were justified or ...
— Valley of the Croen • Lee Tarbell
... timely appearance in Regengetz Circus was regarded in the light of divine intervention, although no one questioned the perfectly human pluck that brought it about. Noble ladies smiled upon him in the park, to which they now repaired with timorous hearts; counts and barons slapped him on the back and doughty guardsmen actually saluted him with admiration ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... strong provocation. I mean the feelings, not the bodies. As against spears, knives, hatchets, clubs, or arrows, old Nelson had proved himself capable of taking his own part. In every other respect he had a timorous soul. So he sat on the back verandah with a concerned expression, and whenever the voices of his daughter and Jasper Allen reached him, he would blow out his cheeks and let the air escape with a dismal sound, like a ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad
... sixteen followed her, ugly and misshapen as a gargoyle; he carried the baby in a sling on his back. Two timorous little girls came last. ...
— The Fur Bringers - A Story of the Canadian Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... the divan, perspiring and uncomfortable, uneasy in conscience and timorous as to results, until near evening, when her husband, with many a misgiving, took her away in a ...
— The Gentle Art of Cooking Wives • Elizabeth Strong Worthington
... now am I, though an old Sinner, as timorous as a young Thief: 'tis a great inconvenience in these Popish Countrys, that a man cannot have liberty to steal to a Wench without danger; not that I need fear who sees me except Galliard, who suspecting my business, will go near to think I am wickedly ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. II • Aphra Behn
... lost not Heaven; he seemed For dignity composed, and high exploit. But all was false and hollow; though his tongue Dropped manna, and could make the worse appear The better reason, to perplex and dash Maturest counsels: for his thoughts were low— To vice industrious, but to nobler deeds Timorous and slothful. Yet he pleased the ear, And with persuasive accent thus began:— "I should be much for open war, O Peers, As not behind in hate, if what was urged Main reason to persuade immediate war Did not dissuade me most, and seem to cast Ominous conjecture on the whole success; ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton
... day, you see, had a certain timorous respect for the technique of the stage. It never occurred to us to make light of those literary conventions which it was not our business to understand. We were behind you fellows in every way. But Pharazyn was a sort of forerunner: he said that any intelligent ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 27, March 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... leaving only a child too young to testify against him. The people he attacked were generally merchants with money in their possession. Robberies are not frequent in Siberia, though a traveler hears many stories designed to alarm the timorous. I was told of a party of three persons attacked in a lonely place at night. They were carrying gold from the mines to the smelting works, and though well armed were so set upon that the three were killed ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... the sunset like strong wine Or, hushed in trance divine, Hailed the first shy and timorous glance from far Of evening's ...
— Literary Hearthstones of Dixie • La Salle Corbell Pickett
... sure he had never felt like that; and as she evaded his questions the something within her demanding life and expression grew stronger and more rebellious, more contemptuous of the fear-precepts congenial to a nature timorous ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... them quietly stabbed or shot—nothing was ever proved against him though everybody knew it was his work—he experienced no further opposition in his political career. Morena never threatens, they say; he performs. A safe man! From a timorous Liberal Government, his avowed enemies, he extorted the title of Commendatore; not because he attached any value to such outward distinctions but because, like a true Camorrista, he never lost an opportunity of showing that he ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... silent at Lambeth. He seemed zealous against Popery in private discourse: But he was of such a timorous temper, and so set on the enriching his nephew, that he shewed no sort of courage.—Swift. ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift
... vault, came on his ear, he cast his haughty eye in such disdain over the groups, that Gawtrey, observing him, trembled for his safety; and nothing but Philip's sense of his own impotence, and the brave, not timorous, desire not to perish by such hands, kept silent the fiery denunciations of a nature still proud and honest, that quivered on his lips. All present were armed with pistols and cutlasses except Morton, who suffered the weapons presented to him to ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... of her were not benevolent. He knew her to be mendacious, timorous, and a malicious friend. He had proof that she was given to falling in love with actors of the lowest type, or, at all events, that she made shift with them. He was not certain that she did not deceive him, not that he had discovered anything suspect in the life which she was leading, ...
— A Mummer's Tale • Anatole France
... Father worked, in his most desperate escapades, was to wade breast-high into one of the huge pools, and examine the worm-eaten surface of the rock above and below the brim. In such remote places—spots where I could never venture being left, a slightly timorous Andromeda, chained to a safer level of the cliff—in these extreme basins, there used often to lurk a marvellous profusion of animal and vegetable forms. My Father would search for the roughest and most corroded points of rock, those offering the best refuge for a variety of creatures, ...
— Father and Son • Edmund Gosse
... bother your head with politics, and you would lose patience in a very short time. I do myself, occasionally. Many who are the foremost in talk, when there is no prospect of doing anything, draw back when the time approaches for action, and it is sickening to listen to the timorous objections and paltry arguments that are brought forward. Here am I, a man of sixty, ready to risk life and fortune in the good cause, and there are many, not half my age, who speak with as much caution as if they were graybeards. Still, ...
— A Jacobite Exile - Being the Adventures of a Young Englishman in the Service of Charles the Twelfth of Sweden • G. A. Henty
... friends, and that I have had encouragement enough from fellow craftsmen, from professional critics, and from casual readers at home, in the colonies, and the United States to bolster up the courage of the most timorous man that ever held a pen. As a set-off against all this, I have received one very noble and dignified rebuke from a Contemporary in Fiction, whom the world holds in high honour, who regrets that I am not engaged in creative work—in ...
— My Contemporaries In Fiction • David Christie Murray
... cottager, who lived near the centre of the village, heard frequently a strange noise behind his house, like that of a person in extreme agony. Soon after, it caught the attention of his wife who was then confined to her bed. She was a timorous woman, and being greatly alarmed, her husband endeavoured to persuade her that the noise she heard was only the bellowing of the stags in the forest. By degrees, however, the neighbours on all sides heard it, and ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XIX. No. 554, Saturday, June 30, 1832 • Various
... her mind to go out and give her whole life to Africa. So she offered herself, a timorous girl who could not cross a field with a cow in it, as a missionary for cannibal ...
— The Book of Missionary Heroes • Basil Mathews
... With timorous heart, and trembling hand of dread, Of cunning* naked, bare of eloquence, *skill Unto the *flow'r of port in womanhead* *one who is the perfection I write, as he that none intelligence of womanly behaviour* Of metres hath, nor flowers of sentence, Save that me list ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... spoke. Moloch was in favor of open war, since nothing could be worse than Hell, and continued assault against the Most High would, in annoying him, be a sweet revenge. Belial, who though timorous and slothful, was a persuasive orator, denounced Moloch's plan. Since the ruler of Heaven was all-powerful, and they immortal, no one knew to what greater misery he could push them; perhaps he would bury them in boiling pitch to eternity, or inflict a thousand ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb
... refuge is the God of love; Why do my foes insult and cry, "Fly like a timorous trembling dove, "To distant woods ...
— The Psalms of David - Imitated in the Language of The New Testament - And Applied to The Christian State and Worship • Isaac Watts
... pleasure, as a child might find delight in some strange toy from which it could call weird shapes at will. On it moved with a noiseless, gliding motion; now inside the door, now coming, coming, coming—nearly to me. Now it let fall a timorous blade of light along the floor. It reached Broussard's body. Its foot struck him. It stooped, threw the light full upon him. Open fell the concealing mantle, showing the barren stones, the corpse, the ghastly upturned face of the ...
— The Black Wolf's Breed - A Story of France in the Old World and the New, happening - in the Reign of Louis XIV • Harris Dickson
... gradually absorbed into the national character, as far as conversation is concerned. "They have not become woolly, nor do they wear horns, but the nobility are eternally bellowing forth the astounding deeds of their ancestors, whilst the muttonish middle classes bleat a timorous approval.... Such subjects constitute their fund of amusing small talk," &c. From the foregoing elegant description of conversation, he passes onwards to the subject of gentility, and describes a young honourable, on board ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... air of heaven, Some boon of strength has Nature given. In forming the majestic bull, She fenced with wreathed horns his skull; A hoof of strength she lent the steed, And winged the timorous hare with speed. She gave the lion fangs of terror, And, o'er the ocean's crystal mirror, Taught the unnumbered scaly throng To trace their liquid path along; While for the umbrage of the grove, She plumed ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... would you say? Hel. I am not worthie of the wealth I owe, Nor dare I say 'tis mine: and yet it is, But like a timorous theefe, most faine would steale What law does vouch ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... life he was reckoned rather timorous than bold to any excess. In prison, he said he was naturally inclined to fear in his temper, but desired those about him as he could not but do, to observe that the Lord had heard his prayer, and removed all fear from him, ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... believed that she was dead, so pale was her beautiful face; and the coils of her soft hair were trailing in the surging water. But she was not dead, and, placed in the warm cabin of the delivered ship, soon opened her great, timorous eyes. ...
— Annette, The Metis Spy • Joseph Edmund Collins
... arts that caused himself to rise; Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer, And without sneering, teach the rest to sneer; Willing to wound and yet afraid to strike, Just hint a fault and hesitate dislike; Alike reserved to praise or to commend, A timorous foe and a suspicious friend; Dreading ev'n fools, by flatterers besieged, And so obliging that he ne'er obliged; Like Cato, give his little senate laws, And sit attentive to his own applause: While wits ...
— Alexander Pope - English Men of Letters Series • Leslie Stephen
... and fear to die? What timorous worms we mortals are! Death is the gate of endless joy, And yet we ...
— Hymns and Spiritual Songs • Isaac Watts
... doing; knowledge comes by eyes always open, and working hands; and there is no knowledge that is not power. And if the life be true and noble, we have quite another sort of seniors than the frowzy, timorous, peevish dotards who are falsely old,—namely, the men who fear no city, but by whom cities stand; who appearing in any street, the people empty their houses to gaze at and obey them: as at "My Cid, with the fleecy beard," in Toledo; or Bruce, as Barbour ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... of literature are coy and haughty, they must be long courted, and at last are not always gained; but criticism is a goddess easy of access and forward of advance, she will meet the slow and encourage the timorous. The want of meaning she supplies with words, and the want of spirit she ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou
... by the creek a flight of clamorous killdees Rose from their timorous sleep with piercing and iterant challenge, Wheeled in the starlight and fled away into distance and silence. White on the other hand lay the tents, and beyond them glided the river, Where the broadhorn[A] drifted slow at the will of the current, And where ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 61, November, 1862 • Various
... military one, but a pacific laissez-faire for the purposes of trade. France envisages the complete ruin of German industry and commerce, and believes that Foch is the man to do it. At this the Italians smile quietly and counsel the timorous Germans not to despair. Rome chooses to hold to the thesis that a prosperous Italy depends on a prosperous Germany, and no outsider is qualified to dispute such a point of view. Somehow Italy manages to suggest a similar thought to England. A prosperous England depends ...
— Europe—Whither Bound? - Being Letters of Travel from the Capitals of Europe in the Year 1921 • Stephen Graham
... with ruffians and nose-eaters, were the most insignificant episodes of his nightly career. Nor do I dare relate other adventures of a more intimate character, from which, as the writers of an earlier day would say in noble style, a pen the least timorous would recoil with horror. ...
— Ten Tales • Francois Coppee
... from Martin's point of view, embraced a definite assurance that Chris was free; and, as they walked homewards, he kept silence upon this thought for the space of half an hour. The uneasy hopes and black fears of love circled him about. Perhaps his timorous mind, in some moods, had been almost relieved at declaration of the girl's engagement to another. But now the tremendous task of storming a virgin heart lay ahead of him, as he imagined. Torments unfelt ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... and nose, tightly compressed lips, and a rather sharp chin. Her hair, of a chestnut shade, fell low on her slender neck. In her whole personality, in the expression of her face, intent and a little timorous, in her clear but changing glance, in her smile, which was, as it were, intense, in her soft and uneven voice, there was something nervous, electric, something impulsive and hurried, something, in fact, which could never be attractive to every one, ...
— On the Eve • Ivan Turgenev
... taking hers, shook it kindly; and bade her (but it was not in a cheering tone) "not be afraid." This gave her no confidence; and she began, before her father's arrival, to seclude herself in the apartments allotted for her during the time of his stay; and in the timorous expectation of his coming, her appetite declined, and she lost all her colour. Even Miss Woodley, whose spirits had been for some time elated with the hopes she had formed, on drawing near to the test, found those hopes vanished; and though she endeavoured ...
— A Simple Story • Mrs. Inchbald
... were a miserable wretch indeed, who could not afford one warm dish for the wife of his bosom. But you timorous virgins form a dreadful chimaera of a husband, as of a creature contrary to that soft, humble, pliant, easy thing, a lover; so guess at plagues in matrimony, in opposition to the pleasures of courtship. Alas! courtship to marriage, is but as the music in the play-house, ...
— The Comedies of William Congreve - Volume 1 [of 2] • William Congreve
... observe, too, that his yellowish-white neckerchief is carefully pinned up, to conceal the tattered garment underneath, and that his hands are encased in the remains of an old pair of beaver gloves, you may set him down as a shabby-genteel man. A glance at that depressed face, and timorous air of conscious poverty, will make your heart ache—always supposing that you are neither a philosopher ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... woman named the Hostage been brought hither of late days? A fair woman, bright-haired and grey-eyed, kind of countenance, soft of speech, yet outspoken and nought timorous; tall according to our stature, but very goodly of fashion; a woman of the House of the Rose, and my ...
— The Story of the Glittering Plain - or the Land of Living Men • William Morris
... time and employments, his abilities and behaviour were such, as procured him both love and reverence from the whole Society; there being no exception against him for any faults, but a sorrow for the infirmities of his being too timorous and bashful; both which were, God knows, so connatural as they never left him. And I know not whether his lovers ought to wish they had; for they proved so like the radical moisture in man's body, that they preserved the life of virtue ...
— Lives of John Donne, Henry Wotton, Rich'd Hooker, George Herbert, - &C, Volume Two • Izaak Walton
... sprightly and vigorous it was when the cardinal was with him, for he depended so much on everything he did, he that was at the utmost dilemma when he was absent, always timorous, jealous, ...
— Memoirs of a Cavalier • Daniel Defoe
... This timorous mood of the emigrants was doubly unfortunate, as it exposed them to real danger. Assume, in the presence of Indians a bold bearing, self-confident yet vigilant, and you will find them tolerably safe neighbors. But your safety depends on the respect and fear ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... foot of green baize. Nor was his commonplace book neglected; and in August we come upon an entry which shows that poetical aspirations were again possessing him; this time not to be cast forth, either at the timorous voice of Prudence or the importunate bidding of Poverty. Burns has calmly and critically taken stock—so to speak—of his literary aptitudes and abilities, and recognised his fitness for a place in the ranks of Scotland's poets. 'However I am pleased ...
— Robert Burns - Famous Scots Series • Gabriel Setoun
... vast, and desarts idle] Whoever ridicules this account of the progress of love, shows his ignorance, not only of history, but of nature and manners. It is no wonder that, in any age, or in any nation, a lady, recluse, timorous, and delicate, should desire to hear of events and scenes which she could never see, and should admire the man who had endured dangers and performed actions, which, however great, were yet magnified by her timidity. [Pope: deserts ...
— Notes to Shakespeare, Volume III: The Tragedies • Samuel Johnson
... away early from the Home Office, met her in that dark hall, to which he had paid no attention since his young wife died, fifteen years ago. Embracing him, with a smile of love almost timorous from intensity, Frances Freeland looked him up and down, and, catching what light there was gleaming on his temples, determined that she had in her bag, as soon as she could get it open, the very ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... dark night, moonless, starless, skyless, on the trembling whiteness of a vast ledge of snow, slowly a long rope unrolled itself, to which were attached in file certain timorous and very small shades, preceded, at the distance of a hundred feet, by a lantern casting a red light along the way. Blows of an ice-axe ringing on the hard snow, the roll of the ice blocks thus detached, ...
— Tartarin On The Alps • Alphonse Daudet
... my father's gun, his good old gun, now!" would Hector say, as he eyed the timorous flocks as they rose and fell upon the lake; "but these foolish birds are so shy, that they are away before an arrow ...
— Canadian Crusoes - A Tale of The Rice Lake Plains • Catharine Parr Traill
... conveyed that the missive, now folded and placed in his breast-pocket, was only to be obtained bespattered with his life's blood. And the Abbe wiped his clammy brow with some satisfaction that it should be thus removed from his own timorous custody. ...
— The Last Hope • Henry Seton Merriman
... him enter upon a political career because he had been unable to make him acquire even that exterior bearing which confers the necessary dignity upon him who exercises great power, to say nothing of the firmness, precision, and force of will required in governing men. Credulous, timorous, impressionable, and at the same time obstinate, gluttonous, and sensual, this erudite, overgrown boy had become in the imperial palace a kind of plaything for everybody, especially for his slaves, who, knowing his defects ...
— The Women of the Caesars • Guglielmo Ferrero
... emotion. The faithful Argus came to announce the near approach of Monteblanco and his guest, Don Rodrigo. Gomez Arias, however, could not believe the danger to be so imminent, making due allowance for the valet's timorous disposition; but the good duenna, who had been unpleasantly disturbed at her devotions, now came forward to confirm ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... exclude The one quick timorous transient star; The waves outside where breakers are Huzza like a mad multitude. "Where the sun ups it, mist-imbued," I cry, "there reigns the star for me!" The wind outshrieks from points and peaks: "Here, westward, ...
— Moments of Vision • Thomas Hardy
... emphasis of it which thrilled me. I saw the emptyness of heathen worship at a point from which I had never looked at it before. A God that is true, that can be absolutely trusted! Where will you find one in any heathen Pantheon? Conceive now a thoughtful, honest man passing from the timorous worship of such gods to the rest and comfort and courage which come from knowing and trusting Him who is true, and you will begin to realize ...
— American Missionary, Volume 44, No. 6, June, 1890 • Various
... friendship's finely pointed dart Fall blunted from each indurated heart. Some sterner virtues o'er the mountain's breast May sit, like falcons cow'ring on the nest; But all the gentler morals, such as play 235 Through life's more cultur'd walks, and charm the way, These far dispers'd, on timorous pinions fly, To sport and ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... soon to cast this away, as it not only threatened to burn my hand but left the eyes unable to pierce the surrounding wall of darkness. In the silence of the night there came to mind the assertion of by no means our most timorous engineer, that he never passed over this trail after dark without carrying his revolver cocked in his hand. My fellow countrymen of the region all wore huge "six-shooters" with a large belt of cartridges always in sight, less for use than the salutary ...
— Tramping Through Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras - Being the Random Notes of an Incurable Vagabond • Harry A. Franck
... a beautiful horse, exact and nicely proportioned, of a bay colour, with a black tail, which in some provinces is long, in others very short: some have long manes hanging to the ground. They are so timorous that they never feed but surrounded with other beasts that defend them. Deer and other defenceless animals often herd about the elephant, which, contenting himself with roots and leaves, preserves those beasts that place themselves, as it were, under his protection, from ...
— A Voyage to Abyssinia • Jerome Lobo
... he did!—then, as she retreated towards the open room-door, came the last outburst of her invectives, high-pitched in their voluble utterance, against him, against them both, against everybody, including Mr. Raddle in the kitchen—"a base, faint-hearted, timorous wretch, that's afraid to come upstairs and face the ruffinly creaturs—that's afraid to come—that's afraid!" Ending with her screaming descent of the stairs in the midst of a loud double-knock, upon the arrival just ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent
... some days gone by. The self-same spot sought idly. There, Obstruction foiled, the adoring air Caressed a blossom woven of sky And dew, whose misty petals blue, With bliss of being thrilled athrough, Dilated like a timorous eye. ...
— In Divers Tones • Charles G. D. Roberts
... dim regards 90 Self-centre. Lo they vanish! or acquire New names, new features—by supernal grace Enrobed with Light, and naturalised in Heaven. As when a shepherd on a vernal morn Through some thick fog creeps timorous with slow foot, 95 Darkling he fixes on the immediate road His downward eye: all else of fairest kind Hid or deformed. But lo! the bursting Sun! Touched by the enchantment of that sudden beam Straight the black vapour melteth, and in globes 100 Of dewy glitter ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... enough; but once outside of the Atrium Vestae every shadow had been a refuge of cutthroats, every noise the oncoming of goblins. Fortunately for her, she did not know the contents of the tablets she carried pressed to her breast, or she would have been all the more timorous. Once a few half-sober topers screamed ribald words after her, as she stole past a low tavern. She had lost her way, in the darkness and fright, among the alleys; she had dodged into a doorway more than once ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... not in point of actual conversation that Mr Willet shone so brilliantly, for he had none of his old cronies to 'tackle,' and was rather timorous of venturing on Joe; having certain vague misgivings within him, that he was ready on the shortest notice, and on receipt of the slightest offence, to fell the Black Lion to the floor of his own parlour, ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... perhaps that was one reason for the disappointment which flitted across the rector's face—and which Irving, who was acutely sensitive, perceived in his blinking glance. He flushed, aware that somehow his appearance was too timorous. ...
— The Jester of St. Timothy's • Arthur Stanwood Pier
... disappointed; the opposition to his schemes has, indeed, exhibited, if anything, too much of the style of "bated breath" to befit the dignity of independent legislators; and the only result of this timorous dissent has been to inflame him with the notion that the public men who offered it were conscious that the people were on his side, and concealed anxiety for their own popularity under a feigned indisposition to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... and his captives were not far off, and the likelihood that we might be engaged within the hour, expelled from the minds of even the most timorous among us the vapourish fears which had before haunted them. In the hurried scramble which presently landed us on the bank of the stream, men who had ridden for hours in sulky silence found their voices, and from cursing their horses' blunders ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... terrorize, intimidate, cow, daunt, overawe, abash, deter, discourage; browbeat, bully; threaten &c. 909. Adj. fearing &c. v.; frightened &c. v.; in fear, in a fright &c. n.; haunted with the fear of &c. n.; afeard[obs3]. afraid, fearful; timid, timorous; nervous, diffident, coy, faint- hearted, tremulous, shaky, afraid of one's shadow, apprehensive, restless, fidgety; more frightened than hurt. aghast; awe-stricken, horror-stricken, terror-stricken, panic- stricken, awestruck, awe-stricken, horror-struck; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... unfortunate brother. Not, be it observed, that he much cared for a well-looking or respectable quarrel. No. I have been assured that, even when the most fawning obsequiousness ad appealed to his clemency, in the person of some timorous new-comer, appalled by the reports he had heard, even in such cases, (deeming it wise to impress, from the beginning, a salutary awe of his Jovian thunders) he made a practice of doing thus: He would speak loud, utter some ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... had made up her mind about me, and in no timorous or uncertain terms had set down her reasons for her opinion. Fifteen years were to pass before any other critic—except Mr. Howells, I think—was to reutter that daring opinion and print it. Right or wrong, it was a brave position for that little analyser ...
— Chapters from My Autobiography • Mark Twain
... timorous glance towards the workers, and murmured something about not having much time to spare, but she placed the water-cans on the ground and sank down on the grass. Stanford throwing himself on the sward at her feet, but, seeing that she shrank ...
— The Idler Magazine, Vol III. May 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... every look is treasur'd there, Till Thought itself becomes a prayer, And Hopes hang on him full and gay. "As blossoms on a bough in May"[1]— Shall any venture to intrude On thee? Oh! not with footstep rude, But with a timorous zeal I come, Just hang this wreath upon his tomb— Record fond wishes sadly o'er, To ...
— Vignettes in Verse • Matilda Betham
... say? She did not care; she was going. She had been womanish and timorous too long; this was the great crisis which would decide her future; she must be worthy of it and of him. But remembering Aunt Maria, she sent a letter by messenger to the hacienda, explaining that pressing business called her to be absent for some weeks, and confessing ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... negotiation went prosperously on. The minds of the Indians had been already prepared. In La Salle they saw their champion against the Iroquois, the standing terror of all this region. They gathered around his stronghold like the timorous peasantry of the middle ages around the rock-built castle of their feudal lord. From the wooden ramparts of St. Louis,—for so he named his fort,— high and inaccessible as an eagle's nest, a strange scene lay before his eye. The broad flat valley of the Illinois was spread beneath him like ...
— France and England in North America, a Series of Historical Narratives, Part Third • Francis Parkman
... timorous, and vagrant people, and of a disposition so selfish as sometimes to have excited suspicions of their integrity. Their complexion is swarthy; their features are coarse, and their hair is lank, but not always of a black colour; nor have they, universally, the ...
— Travels in North America, From Modern Writers • William Bingley
... reason that ye cannot let me be at rest now that I am dead, and all is over with me? What have I done to you? What have I done to cause you to defame me in every thing, who have a hand in nothing, and to blame me for that of which I am entirely ignorant?" "Who are you?" said I with a timorous bow, "for I really do not understand you." "I am," said he, "the unfortunate Juan de la Encina, whom, notwithstanding I have been here many years, ye mix up with all the follies which ye do and say during your lives; for all your lives ...
— The Sleeping Bard - or, Visions of the World, Death, and Hell • Ellis Wynne
... General Webb lay encamped at Fort Edward with twenty-six hundred men, and to him Monro sent for assistance. But the timorous Webb had no stomach for a fight. Huddling behind his breastworks, he listened to the booming of the fierce cannonade across the hills, but made no move to save Fort William Henry. Monro, seeing himself ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... war begins at dawn—and the thickets around a certain little gray stone fort alive with slouch hat, blue blouse, and Krag-Jorgensen, slipping through the brush, building no fires, and talking in low tones for fear the timorous enemy would see, or hear, and run before the American sharpshooter could get a chance to try his marksmanship; wondering, eight hours later, if the timorous enemy were ever going to run. Eastward and on a high ...
— Crittenden - A Kentucky Story of Love and War • John Fox, Jr.
... honours bid him rise, That, if his granary has stored away Of Libya's thousand floors the yield entire; The man who digs his field as did his sire, With honest pride, no Attalus may sway By proffer'd wealth to tempt Myrtoan seas, The timorous captain of a Cyprian bark. The winds that make Icarian billows dark The merchant fears, and hugs the rural ease Of his own village home; but soon, ashamed Of penury, he refits his batter'd craft. There is, who thinks no scorn of Massic draught, Who robs the daylight of an hour unblamed, Now ...
— Odes and Carmen Saeculare of Horace • Horace
... stayed in feverish agony until a pale beam of light appeared on the floor below the curtain. This timorous paleness of the distant dawn suddenly brought him peace. He felt the light gliding into the room, when it was still impossible to distinguish it from darkness. Then his fever would die down, his blood would grow calm, like a flooded river returning to its bed; an ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... 691, which it had so loudly and so justly censured. Had they wished to bring to account the real authors of the fatal decree, they ought to have seized not on the pusillanimous consul, but on the section of the strict aristocracy which had urged the timorous man to that execution. But in formal law it was certainly not the advisers of the consul, but the consul himself, that was responsible for it, and it was above all the gentler course to call the consul alone ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... of service. The General, profiting by the precepts of his erstwhile companions in arms, had never soiled his military escutcheon by labor, nor had he ever risen to the higher planes of criminality. Rather as a mediocre pickpocket and a timorous confidence man had he eked out a meager existence, amply punctuated by seasons of straight bumming and intervals spent as the guest of various inhospitably hospitable states. Now, for the first time in his life, ...
— The Oakdale Affair • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... a trifle pale, and though in a manner well enough dressed her clothes had an air of bewilderment, of general irresolution, as though each article was uncertain in its mind as to whether it purposed to remain where it had been put, or casually wander away on blind and timorous adventures. ...
— No. 13 Washington Square • Leroy Scott
... I do, while pitying even more The ignoble weakness of a strength debased. Do I yet mourn the faith that died of yore— The trust by timorous treachery effaced? Through all, and over all, my soul mounts free To heights of peace you cannot hope to gain, Sings to the stars its mountain minstrelsy, And smiles down proudly on your murky plain; 'Tis vain to invite you—yet come up, come up, Conquer ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor
... scold, and, perhaps, beat him. At first the child experiences fear at each exhibition of violence, but repetition of these incidents very soon creates the habit of fear, and in the presence of his father, even in his mildest moods, the child is timorous; that is to say, the mere presence of the father throws the child's fear-disposition into a condition of sub-excitement, which increases on the slightest occasion until it produces all the subjective and objective manifestations ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... the ruling powers was evidently on the wane; the star, which was now Lord of the ascendant, shed on him a malign influence. Abjured by those whom he had served, hated by the royalists, and despised by all parties; could a more pitiable object be found, than a timorous, susceptible, falling villain; conscious of guilt, aware of danger, convinced of the necessity of repentance; but too much attached to temporal enjoyments ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... means, bread was always to be had in plenty, and as cheap as usual, as I said above; and provisions were never wanting in the markets, even to such a degree that I often wondered at it, and reproached myself with being so timorous and cautious in stirring abroad, when the country people came freely and boldly to market, as if there had been no manner of infection in the city, or danger ...
— History of the Plague in London • Daniel Defoe
... amelioration to the hours which she was expected to spend in the garden, for it was an easy scramble from the stairs to the top of the wall, whence she could survey the world. To be sure the wall was narrow as well as high, but a timorous gait shows off a pretty figure, and slight nervousness adds a pathetic expression to a pretty face; to both of which advantages Dot was not, it is to be believed, altogether indifferent when khaki coats dwelt the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, February 14, 1917 • Various
... little colony. His hand took up the ax, and forgot the sword and gun. Day after day he stood looking about him, examining and studying in little all the strange things which he saw; seeking to learn as much as might be of the timorous savages, who in time began to straggle back to their ruined villages; talking, as best he might, through such interpreting as was possible, with savages who came from the west of the Messasebe, and from the South ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough
... for a place where I might spend the night—towns are inhospitable places, and one is timorous of sleeping in a tavern full of armed drunkards—when I was hailed by a queer old man, who noticed that I was a stranger. He kept one of the two hundred wine-cellars of the town, and was able to give me a good supper and a glass of wine with it. He was an aged Mingrelian, bald on his ...
— A Tramp's Sketches • Stephen Graham
... defensive position that I propose to take. I should not think it needful at this time even so much as briefly to reflect any of those timorous and painful arguments pro and con that one finds at times running through the columns of the press, particularly of the religious weeklies, on such a question as, for example, whether nowadays a man can at the same time be a true Christian and a successful ...
— The business career in its public relations • Albert Shaw
... the dim wood's lustrous child, Though born amid a race of uncouth men, And gentle as the fawn, which, through the wild, Trembled with timorous haste, and fled, and when She stood within the rude and silent glen, Of deepest forests, she appear'd more bright, Than other nymphs who roamed these regions then, And now—for o'er her form and sylph-like waist, A native modesty entranced the ...
— Lays of Ancient Virginia, and Other Poems • James Avis Bartley
... noise and alarms the credulous. Perhaps it may be wise to counteract this with a little quiet promotion of ideas of safety and prosperity, based on order and law. It may be well to calm the nerves of the timorous and it can do no harm to set in motion a counter wave of horror and repulsion against those who are planning to lead the world back to conditions of tribal savagery. Educational work is always beneficent. Let us have much of that but no panic. The power of truth ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers
... were about to depart for the field, the President addressed a farewell to the burghers, assuring them that God's aid could confidently be implored for their just cause; he also quoted part of the Verse, "Whosoever shall seek to save his life shall lose it," intending it as an exhortation for the timorous, warning them of the greater danger incurred by retreat or flight than when maintaining a manful stand. (The reader will know that the above quotation does not complete the verse, the rest being, "But whosoever shall lose his life ...
— Origin of the Anglo-Boer War Revealed (2nd ed.) - The Conspiracy of the 19th Century Unmasked • C. H. Thomas
... as timorous as you, Master Cotton, I should now be in the company of Sam Haines, with a rope tied tightly ...
— Neal, the Miller - A Son of Liberty • James Otis
... Judy's idol, was not the strongest of characters. She was very sweet and amiable, intensely true and affectionate to those to whom she gave her heart, but she was somewhat timorous and somewhat easily led. ...
— A Young Mutineer • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... this, the greater part of so vilely abused parents are so timorous and afraid of devils and hobgoblins, and so deeply plunged in superstition, that they dare not gainsay nor contradict, much less oppose and resist those unnatural and impious actions, when the ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... goat-kind, with the hair growing forward, or towards the head. It is further described to be of the size of a beeve, and to be likewise a fierce creature, contrary to what is observed of the goat or deer kind, which, unless they are irritated and highly provoked, are all of them of a shy and timorous nature. The only quadruped that we are acquainted with to which these marks will apply is the buffalo, well known in Egypt and in various parts of Western Asia. It may be so far reckoned of the goat kind, as the horns are not smooth and even as in the beeve, but rough and wrinkled as in the ...
— Palestine or the Holy Land - From the Earliest Period to the Present Time • Michael Russell
... began to think of offering the scarlet gown of their most honourable degree to the assailant of Price and the Dissenters. The great army of the indolent good, the people who lead excellent lives and never use their reason, took violent alarm. The timorous, the weak-minded, the bigoted, were suddenly awakened to a sense of what they owed to themselves. Burke gave them the key which enabled them to interpret the Revolution in harmony with their usual ideas and ...
— Burke • John Morley
... by all nations during the prevalence of the black plague is without parallel and beyond description. In the eyes of the timorous, danger was the certain harbinger of death; many fell victims to fear on the first appearance of the distemper, and the most stout-hearted lost their confidence. The pious closed their accounts with the world; their only remaining desire was for a participation in the consolations ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... nice and quiet for a talk with the boss or was inclined to make a fuss about it. In either event, so Cheesy was assured, he, could have his wish gratified. And Cheesy, who had the heart of a rabbit—a rabbit feeding on other folks' cabbage, but a timorous, nibbling bunny for all ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb
... was so timorous that she would grow pale whenever she spoke to any one, and she thought of nothing but the blows with which she was threatened; and she became thinner, more yellow and drier than a ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... difference of rig between an English craft and a Spaniard. I abode with them for two years, and aided them in their fights whenever the Spaniards sent out parties, which they did many times, to capture them. They were poor, timorous creatures, their spirits being altogether broken by the tyranny of the Dons; but when they saw that I feared them not, and was ready at any time to match myself against two or, if need be, three of the Spaniards, they plucked up heart, and in time came to fight so stoutly that the ...
— By England's Aid • G. A. Henty
... to crush her. She is meek, and soft, and maiden-like; but she is Friedland's daughter, and does not shrink from what is unavoidable. There is often a rectitude, and quick inflexibility of resolution about Thekla, which contrasts beautifully with her inexperience and timorous acuteness of feeling: on discovering her father's treason, she herself decides that Max 'shall obey his first impulse,' and ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle
... forth from her strown bed in terror, with beating heart, in such clear vision had she beheld the dream. Then she sat upon her bed, and long was silent, still beholding the two women, albeit with waking eyes; and at last the maiden raised her timorous voice ...
— Theocritus, Bion and Moschus rendered into English Prose • Andrew Lang
... the minutes passed, her timorous gaze continued steadfastly on the stern countenance before her. She dully expected something terrible to happen when Ed Sorenson appeared, for she knew Ed would be angry; but she had been powerless to prevent the intrusion of this ...
— In the Shadow of the Hills • George C. Shedd
... pilgrims,—giants and hobgoblins, ill-favoured ones, and shining ones,—the tall, comely, swarthy Madam Bubble, with her great purse by her side, and her fingers playing with the money,—the black man in the bright vesture,—Mr. Worldly-Wiseman, and my Lord Hategood,—Mr. Talkative, and Mrs. Timorous,—all are actually existing beings to us. We follow the travellers through their allegorical progress with interest not inferior to that with which we follow Elizabeth from Siberia to Moscow, or Jeanie Deans ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XIX. No. 532. Saturday, February 4, 1832 • Various
... more to be relied upon as ready means of identification than any striking difference in plumage; the white-headed, the pheasant-tail, the gorgeous "superb," the tranquil dove, Ewing's fruit pigeon—most timorous of the order—are regular patrons, and each of the family has the distinctive demeanour and note. All save the allied—which is too full of assurance and fruit to be disconcerted by the presence of man—may flutter into the jungle, and ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... unworthy of her faithful tenderness. Now Niphrata is a child of delicate caprice ... she loves ME,—me, her lord,—and methinks I am not negligent or undeserving of her devotion! ... again, she has no strength of spirit,—her timorous blood would freeze at the mere thought of death,—she is more prone to play with flowers and sing for pure delight of heart than perish for the sake of love! 'Tis an unequal simile, my friend!— as well compare a fiery planet ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... of the islands, to that degree that he delighted to call me and look on me as his brother. And should they fall out with these people, neither he nor his subjects know anything of weapons, and go naked, as I have said, and they are the most timorous people in the world. The few people left there are sufficient to conquer the country, and the island would thus remain without danger to them, ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young
... word of a coward," cried the king, who, although somewhat timorous about spirits, was in reality a bold, brave man, and felt nettled that any of his warriors should show the white feather. "If evil spirits are there, our fetishman will drive them away. Let ...
— The Gorilla Hunters • R.M. Ballantyne
... should see a man who were to cross from Dover to Calais, run about very busy and solicitous, and trouble himself many weeks before in making provisions for the voyage, would you commend him for a cautious and discreet person, or laugh at him for a timorous and impertinent coxcomb? A man who is excessive in his pains and diligence, and who consumes the greatest part of his time in furnishing the remainder with all conveniences and even superfluities, is to angels and wise men no less ridiculous; ...
— Cowley's Essays • Abraham Cowley
... rounded off in the first scene of the fourth act when she begs the Elector to liberate Homburg. She could have borne the death of the Prince, but this timorous misrepresentation of ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various |
