"Timid" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... hand demurely. Her eyes were fixed on the ground. Her lips were slightly parted in a deprecating smile, suggestive of timid modesty. ...
— Priscilla's Spies 1912 • George A. Birmingham
... mouth, and a vast double chin, buried in a voluminous white neckcloth of more than one day's wear, completed the portrait. Nor did the expression of his countenance undergo any perceptible change as, after a timid knock, the door opened, and a young man entered of singularly ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various
... the merrymaking Marie was afraid to go to bed. She begged Ludwig to close the blinds and to read to her in a loud voice, so that she might not see the light of the fireworks or hear the tumult on the lake shore. That which amused the revellers at the manor was a terror for this timid child. ...
— The Nameless Castle • Maurus Jokai
... began to question Oswald respecting himself; for I was not warmly inclined to place implicit trust in the services of a man who had before shown himself at once mercenary and timid. There was little cant or disguise about that gentleman; he made few pretences to virtues which he did not possess; and he seemed now, both by wine and familiarity, peculiarly disposed to be frank. It was he who ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... than that which had crowded the counters in the morning, and she grew more and more bewildered under the confused fire of questions and orders. If any one had had the time or heart to observe, there would have been seen in her eyes the pathetic, fearful look of some timid creature of the woods when harried and driven ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... did, Inspector," said Mollie, with a timid, tender glance. "I thought you were the proper person ...
— Dope • Sax Rohmer
... page, discovered flying from Paris and the law, with his wife, in a carriage. Lost in the dark on a moor, he follows a light, and enters an old lonely house. He is seized by ruffians, locked in, and expects to be murdered, which he knows that he cannot stand, for he is timid by nature. In fact, a ruffian puts a pistol to La Motte's breast with one hand, while with the other he drags along a beautiful girl of eighteen. "Swear that you will convey this girl where I may never see her more," exclaims the bully, and La Motte, with the young lady, is taken ...
— Adventures among Books • Andrew Lang
... extension lecturer. At any rate he was something of that sort, something gentlemanly and refined without being opulent and impossible. She tried once or twice to ascertain whether he came from Oxford or Cambridge, but he missed her timid importunities. She tried to get him to make remarks about those places to see if he would say "come up" to them instead of "go down"—she knew that was how you told a 'Varsity man. He used the word "'Varsity"—not ...
— Twelve Stories and a Dream • H. G. Wells
... wonder at appearances, for example, in the heavens possesses the minds of people unacquainted with their causes, eager for the supernatural, and excitable through an inexperience which the knowledge of natural causes removes, replacing wild and timid superstition by the good hope and assurance of an ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... ill-timed thought, bad for the dark mood of his mind. It was an angry thought, goading him to some avenging act, that should change the cheerful house into a haunted place which lonely travellers would dread to pass by night; and where the timid would see shadows struggling in the ruined windows when the moon was dim, and hear wild noises in the ...
— The Cricket on the Hearth • Charles Dickens
... too many things don't happen to us!" This somewhat timid observation came from the quietest of the four—she who was walking with the one ...
— The Outdoor Girls of Deepdale • Laura Lee Hope
... outside the door, and still I hesitated. To some who read, my hesitancy may brand me childishly timid; but I, who had met many of the dreadful creatures of Dr. Fu-Manchu, had good reason to fear whomsoever or whatsoever rapped at midnight upon my door. Was I likely to forget the great half-human ape, with the strength ...
— The Hand Of Fu-Manchu - Being a New Phase in the Activities of Fu-Manchu, the Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer
... time thawing, too, which made it all the harder work; was sadly timid; scarcely ever spoke unless Tom spoke to him first; and, worst of all, would agree with him in everything—the hardest thing in the world for a Brown to bear. He got quite angry sometimes, as they sat together of a night in their study, at this provoking ...
— Tom Brown's Schooldays • Thomas Hughes
... novels of the sea for granted, but at the time when Cooper published 'The Spy' and 'The Pilot' neither an American novel nor a salt-water novel had ever been written. So far as Americans before Cooper had written fiction at all, Washington Irving had been the only one to cease from a timid imitation of British models. But Irving's material was local, rather than national. It was Cooper who first told the story of the conquest of the American continent. He caught the poetry and the romantic thrill of both the American forest and the sea; he dared to break ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... stood at the portal. The effect on the auditors was general and instantaneous. Notwithstanding the recent dialogue, the young men involuntarily sought their arms, while the startled females huddled together like a flock of trembling and timid deer. ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... out again without let or hindrance, and they were really all that was dangerous. As they could not reach me, they had resolved to punish my body; just as boys, if they cannot come at some person against whom they have a spite, will abuse his dog. I saw that the State was half-witted, that it was timid as a lone woman with her silver spoons, and that it did not know its friends from its foes, and I lost all my remaining respect ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... came at length; a tremulous, almost inaudible, stroke upon the door, and a nervous clasp of the latch, again spoke hope to my sinking spirits; and, with a swift step, I rose and gave admittance to a young and timid girl, blushing, and trembling, and wondering, as it seemed, at the extent of her own daring. This business was not so readily despatched as that of the angry matron. There were a thousand promises of secrecy to be given; a thousand ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 265, July 21, 1827 • Various
... distinction upon the humble recipient of his favor, he said: "Mr. Worth, I am delighted, more delighted than I can express, to welcome you to our city. It is a great day for this country—a great day!" He wrung the financier's timid hand with two hundred and fifty pounds of emotional energy. "Mr. Greenfield and I, with our friends and associates in the East, and Mr. Burk and Holmes here in the field, are doing what we can for these people, but there is a great work here yet for men like you—men of some means and financial ...
— The Winning of Barbara Worth • Harold B Wright
... see young Christians, as the days pass, growing more and more confident and heroic in their confession of Christ. At first they are shy, retiring, timid, and disposed to shrink from public revealing of themselves. But if, as they receive more of the Spirit of God in their heart, they grow more courageous in speaking for Christ and in showing their colors, they prove that they are true disciples, learners, ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... at once to our respect and pity. A flavour of the old school, a touch of something different in their manner—which is freer and rounder, if they come of what is called a good family, and often more timid and precise if they are of the middle class—serves, in these days, to accentuate the difference of age and add a distinction to gray hairs. But their superiority is founded more deeply than by outward marks or gestures. They are before us in the march of man; they have more or less solved the irking ...
— Essays of Robert Louis Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... spirits were high, and his manners frank even to coarseness. The temper of Pelham was yielding, but peevish: his habits were regular, and his deportment strictly decorous. Walpole was constitutionally fearless, Pelharn constitutionally timid. Walpole had to face a strong opposition; but no man in the Government durst wag a finger against him. Almost all the opposition which Pelham had to encounter was from members of the Government of which he was the head. His own pay-master ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... I am not obliged to be timid and wary in my deductions, and, as I said before, no one is so near mysticism as the sceptic. I realized it once more in myself when I began spreading my wings, like the bird which has been caged and delights in its new freedom. I saw before me endless space covered with new life. I ...
— Without Dogma • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... sleeping room, where he placed himself before them with 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, but spare their lives. "Me will have scalps," he answered ...
— Twenty-Two Years a Slave, and Forty Years a Freeman • Austin Steward
... outfit stood relaxed, there sounded through the immense voicelessness of the wilderness a long-drawn, far-carrying shout, at which the more timid women started flutteringly, but which the vanguard recognized and answered, and a moment later there appeared on the ledge of an overhanging cliff the lithe, straight ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... of hoop-iron, a 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 ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... and remove property that did not belong to them. There were Senator and Mrs. Jorrocks. The Senator is after bigger game than diamond stomachers, and Mrs. Jorrocks is known to be honest. There were Harry Gaddsby and his wife. Harry doesn't know enough to go in when it rains, and is too timid to call even his soul his own, so he couldn't have taken it; and Mrs. Gaddsby is long on stomachers, having at least five, and therefore would not be likely to try to land a sixth by questionable means. In that way we practically ...
— R. Holmes & Co. • John Kendrick Bangs
... scarcely formed any exception to the general system of continental measures. After a war of about forty years, undertaken by the most stupid, maintained by the most dissolute, and terminated by the most timid of all the emperors, the far greater part of the island submitted to the Roman yoke. The various tribes of Britons possessed valor without conduct, and the love of freedom without the spirit of union. They took up arms with savage fierceness; they laid them down, or turned ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... Timid as Carrie was, she was strong in capability. The reliance of others made her feel as if she must, and when she must she dared. Experience of the world and of necessity was in her favour. No longer the lightest word of a man made her head dizzy. She had learned that ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser
... on his tongue to say, "Well, not unless you want to sit down on some enemy," but he did not venture this: when it comes to daring of that sort, the boldest man is commonly a little behind a timid woman. ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... 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 cheeks grew ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach
... that," said Eleanor. "I don't think I'm the ordinary type of timid woman, but I must confess that all these things worry me, and I'll feel a lot safer if I know that we are not entirely at the mercy of any trick they try to play on us to-night. They seem to be getting bolder, all ...
— A Campfire Girl's Happiness • Jane L. Stewart
... and speaking aloud to himself.] Her's a wonderful contrary bird to be sure. And bain't a shy one neither, what gets timid and flustered and is easily netted. My word, but me and master has a job before us for to ...
— Six Plays • Florence Henrietta Darwin
... the head or the tail of the army; keep in the middle. I have learned how to fight with Turks; and that is the best place you can choose." The crusaders and the Greeks were mutually contemptuous, the former with a ruffianly pride, the latter with an ironical and timid refinement. ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume I. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... portrait of a painter by himself has a human interest apart altogether from its claim to be a work of art. Rembrandt's portrait of himself at the National Gallery, painted when he was thirty-two, is not one of his remarkable achievements. It is a little timid in the handling, but that it is an excellent likeness none can doubt. This bold-eyed, quietly observant, jolly-looking man was not quite the presentment of Rembrandt that the child had imagined; but ...
— Rembrandt • Mortimer Menpes
... great shell of a man—one who is legally dead, with the prison pallor, the shambling walk, the cringing manner, the furtive eyes. But oh, that piteous salute at that point when the priest dismisses him, and the wrecked giant, timid as a child, humbly, deprecatingly touches the priest's hand with his finger-tips and then kisses them devoutly! I see that picture yet, through tears, just as I saw for the first time that illustration of supreme humility ...
— Stage Confidences • Clara Morris
... it was an unheard-of proceeding for anybody to wish to go on board ship on such a night at such an hour, and insinuated that all verbal or pecuniary persuasions would be alike unavailing. It is very evident that Colombo boatmen are a thriving community; still they seem a timid race, for upon my having recourse to threats containing fearful allusions, which there was not the remotest possibility of my being able to carry into execution, a wonderful revolution was effected in the ...
— A Journey to Katmandu • Laurence Oliphant
... possibility of solution from mere handwriting. I can understand that a man should guess at one's temperament, whether lively or slow; at one's habit of thought, whether diffuse or logical; at one's Will, whether strong and direct or feeble and timid. But whether one distrusts men, and yet trusts friends? Half of this is true, at all events. Then I cannot conceive how a man should see in handwriting such an accident as whether one knew much of Books or men; and in this point it is very doubtful ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald - in two volumes, Vol. 1 • Edward FitzGerald
... likelier. Send her to Marpurg, and her brain will cool. Tug at the kite, 'twill only soar the higher: Give it but line, my lord, 'twill drop like slate. Use but that eagle's glance, whose daring foresight In chapter, camp, and council, wins the wonder Of timid trucklers—Scan results and outcomes— The scale is ...
— The Saint's Tragedy • Charles Kingsley
... few acts of Claudius showed a sensible and kindly disposition; but it soon became fatally obvious that the real powers of the government would be wielded, not by the timid and absent-minded Emperor, but by any one who for the time being could acquire an ascendency over his well-intentioned but feeble disposition. Now, the friends and confidents of Claudius had long been chosen from the ranks of his freedmen. As under Louis ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar
... the threshold of childhood a tiny, timid and retiring creature, naturally disposed to attach her affections to all that is pure and elevated, to everything that conduces to the practice of virtue and the love of God. While yet a child she ...
— Serious Hours of a Young Lady • Charles Sainte-Foi
... subject: 'Select for farm hands those who are fitted for heavy labour, who are not less than twenty-two years of age and have some aptitude for agriculture, which can be ascertained by trying them on several tasks and by enquiring as to what they did for their former master.' Slaves should be neither timid nor overconfident. The foreman should have some little education, a good disposition and economical habits, and it is better that they should be some what older than the hands, for then they will be listened to with ...
— Roman Farm Management - The Treatises Of Cato And Varro • Marcus Porcius Cato
... at two years of age, Phebe "fell into the hands of a relative who kept the county jail," and her childhood knew little but the bitter fare and ceaseless drudgery of domestic slavery. She grew up with a crushed spirit, and was a timid, shrinking woman as long as she lived. She married Timothy H. Brown, a house-painter of Ellington, Ct., and passed her days there and in Monson, Mass., where ...
— The Story of the Hymns and Tunes • Theron Brown and Hezekiah Butterworth
... for the approaching ordeal. My lord and he had met and 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, and ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XIX (of 25) - The Ebb-Tide; Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... sad story, the story of philology! The disgusting erudition, the lazy, inactive passivity, the timid submission.—Who was ...
— We Philologists, Volume 8 (of 18) • Friedrich Nietzsche
... With a timid sense of being an intruder Cytherea was about to step back and out of the room; but at the same moment Miss Aldclyffe turned, saw the impulse, and told her companion to stay, looking into her eyes as if she had half an intention to explain something. Cytherea felt certain it was the little mystery ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... guidance. But I cannot believe that they would rejoice in her defeat. They have been so injured in their fortunes and their influence, have been so long an oppressed caste—excluded from power, and even from sympathy—that they have acquired the faults of slaves—have become timid and ...
— Correspondence & Conversations of Alexis de Tocqueville with Nassau William Senior from 1834 to 1859, Vol. 2 • Alexis de Tocqueville
... and there was silence. What had happened? The steamer gave four timid hoots. The people in the cabin lay in the darkness wondering if they had broken down, for it was not nearly midnight. At last ...
— The Luck of Thirteen - Wanderings and Flight through Montenegro and Serbia • Jan Gordon
... of the Gaslight and Coke Company, Mr. George Livesey said many things with a view to inspire confidence of the future in the minds of timid gas proprietors. Among others he mentioned the advances now being made by invention in regard to improved appliances for developing the illuminating power of coal gas, with especial reference to a new burner just patented by Mr. Grimston. Mr. Livesey passed a very high encomium ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 362, December 9, 1882 • Various
... trifles and become contemptible. The prayer of the ant petitioning against the removal of a mountain, where a nation was to found its capital, was not more verily frivolous and inconsiderable than are these timid ones of 'let it alone!' And why let it alone? The Emancipation-for-the-sake-of-the-white-man party, as represented by President Lincoln's Message, commending remuneration, asks for no undue haste, no violent or sudden aggressive measures. It is satisfied to let the South free itself when ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various
... and Virginia. It is intended that the new Ballads shall start in couples. Two to make a Number, and a number of Numbers may be bound to the library, as a volume, for a term of years. The work will be set with variations. Occasionally there will be a duet or trio, to accommodate those timid vocalists who do not choose to make themselves particular in a solo, or those other singers of sociable habits who prefer giving tongue in a pack. One word about the words. They will be "merry and wise." Not a jest will be admitted that might be liable to ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13 Issue 364 - 4 Apr 1829 • Various
... I go to the Marquess's this evening. I'm due there with my thanks. He lives in the Boulevard St. Germain—I've got the number all right. Is one likely to find the house full of swells? I'm a bit of a savage just now and I'm correspondingly timid." ...
— The Man From Brodney's • George Barr McCutcheon
... made part of the Constitution: the necessity, or expediency, must be determined by circumstances outside of the Constitution. We contend that circumstances at present point to the complete extinguishment of slavery as the political necessity of the period. The time for timid counsels is past. The day of tenderness for Southern ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... with her disengaged hand; the child's mouth was full of bonbons, and in gurgling eloquence it was addressing an incomprehensible apostrophe to its nurse. I sat down near her and kissed the child on its fat cheeks, as though to imbibe some of its innocence. Brigitte accorded me a timid greeting; she could see her troubled image in my eyes. For my part, I avoided her glance; the more I admired her beauty and her air of candor, the more I was convinced that such a woman was either an angel or a monster of ...
— The Confession of a Child of The Century • Alfred de Musset
... the Kentish River running Through water-meads where dews Tossed flashing at thy feet And tossing flashed again When the timid herd By thy swift passing stirred ...
— Georgian Poetry 1918-19 • Various
... Charles Lamb know that he, who wrote so eloquently and pathetically in defence of Beggars and of Chimney-Sweepers, and who so ably and successfully vindicated the little innocent hare from the charge—made "by Linnaeus perchance, or Buffon"—of being a timid animal, indited an essay on the same long-eared and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... The Giant Cuttle Fish of Newfoundland, though the body is comparatively small, may measure 60 feet from the tip of one arm to that of another. The Whalebone Whale reaches a length of over 70 feet, but is timid and inoffensive. The Cachalot or Sperm Whale, which almost alone among animals roams over the whole ocean, is as large, and much more formidable. It is armed with powerful teeth, and is said to feed mainly on Cuttle ...
— The Beauties of Nature - and the Wonders of the World We Live In • Sir John Lubbock
... she returned to the Westchester farm, still timid, perplexed, and partly stunned by the glitter and noise of her recent metropolitan abode, she determined never again to stop at ...
— The Gay Rebellion • Robert W. Chambers
... Nodwengo, his brother, so that the land and those who dwell in it may become his without question. This plot the king knows—I had it from one of his women, who is my sister—and he is very wroth, yet he dare do little, for he grows old and timid, and seeks rest, not war. Yet he is minded, if he can find the heart, to go back upon the law and to name Nodwengo as his heir before all the army at the feast of the first-fruits, which shall be held on the third day from to-night. This ...
— The Wizard • H. Rider Haggard
... door softly, but she did not immediately turn round. The palms of her hands were wet with the cold, frightened sweat of that awful moment. When she returned, she came to him with a wondering, timid, girlish ...
— Murder in Any Degree • Owen Johnson
... imagination into a town like Sicca, and you will understand the great Apostle's anguish at seeing a noble and beautiful city given up to idolatry. Enter it, and you will understand why it was that the poor priest, of whom Jucundus spoke so bitterly, hung his head, and walked with timid eyes and clouded brow through the joyous streets of Carthage. Hitherto we have only been conducting heathens through it, boys or men, Jucundus, Arnobius, and Firmian; but now a Christian enters it with a Christian's ...
— Callista • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... in a timid inarticulate gabble, above which rose Deacon Bradley's loud voice,—"Our soul is escaped even as a bird out of the snare of the fowler. The snare is broken and we are escaped." He read the responses in a slow, booming ...
— Hillsboro People • Dorothy Canfield
... gentle patient sadness—nay of positive present suffering. He had not meant to greet her otherwise than with his late studied coldness of demeanour; but he could not help going up to her, as she stood a little aside, rendered timid by the uncertainty of his manner of late, and saying the few necessary common-place words in so tender a voice, that her eyes filled with tears, and she turned away to hide her emotion. She took her work and sate down ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... comfort to the afflicted, light to the blind, bread to the starving, life to the dying, and all this work continues. And its work for science, too, has been great. It has fostered science often and developed it. It has given great minds to it, and but for the fears of the timid its record in this respect would have been as great as in the other. Unfortunately, religious men started centuries ago with the idea that purely scientific investigation is unsafe—that theology must intervene. So began this ...
— Scientific American, Vol.22, No. 1, January 1, 1870 • Various
... before, and who were at that time being carried along the road at the rate of eight or ten miles an hour?" The witness, who had already encountered a good many of these questions, and who was inclined to be rough rather than timid, said that he didn't care twopence what the jury believed. It was simply his business to tell what he knew. Then the judge looked at that wicked witness,—who had talked in this wretched, jeering way about twopence!—looked at him over his spectacles, and shaking his head as though ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope
... marry. Billy frowned now, and tapped her foot nervously. It was, indeed, most puzzling—this question, and she did not want to make a mistake. Then, too, she did not wish to wound Cyril. If the dear man HAD come out of his icy prison, and were reaching out timid hands to her for her help, her interest, her love—the tragedy of it, if he met with no response!.... This vision of Cyril with outstretched hands, and of herself with cold, averted eyes was the ...
— Miss Billy • Eleanor H. Porter
... of greenery, where the chamois grazed, and the timid squirrel laid up its hoard—descanting on the charms of nature, drinking in the while her unalienable beauties—we were, in an ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... There was a curiously pathetic look in her great blue eyes such as we sometimes see in those of a timid child. "Yes—very glad." ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... in the midst of my brave army that timid counsels should be permitted.—Patriotism, discipline, patience, mutual confidence, all the military and civil virtues I find here. Here the principles of liberty and equality are cherished, the laws respected, property held ...
— Memoirs of General Lafayette • Lafayette
... of the Potomac stopped before Petersburg, driven out of its direct course to Richmond. It tried the Dutch Gap and the powder-ship, and shelled and shovelled till Sherman had cut five States in half, and only timid financiers, sutlers, and congressional excursionists paid the least attention to the armies on the James. We had fights without much purpose at our breastworks, and at Hatcher's Run, but the dashing achievements of Sheridan in the Shenandoah Valley overtopped all our dull infantry endeavors, ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... worked eagerly, turning frequently to his bag as a physician might turn to his medicine-case. No word was spoken in the office. Minutes passed. The bulk at the foot of the stairs surged restlessly. Mr. Max's operations were mostly hidden by the desk at which, in summer, timid old ladies inquired for their mail. Having time to think, Mr. Magee pictured the horror of those ladies could they come up to the ...
— Seven Keys to Baldpate • Earl Derr Biggers
... following the example already established in England, 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 ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... not in the least degree dangerous. Each animal if you will take the pains to observe, is following, very quietly, in the wake of its master. Some few, to be sure, are led with a rope about the neck, but these are chiefly the lesser or timid species. The lion, the tiger, and the leopard are entirely without restraint. They have been trained without difficulty to their present profession, and attend upon their respective owners in the capacity of valets-de-chambre. It is true, there are occasions when Nature asserts ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... 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 ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 17, No. 476, Saturday, February 12, 1831 • Various
... Davy without a remark, and ran straight at the bear, which stopped on seeing such a big, powerful man running so furiously at him, and flourishing a bludgeon that would almost have suited the hand of a giant. But polar bears are not timid. He rose on his hind legs at once, and paid no attention whatever to the tremendous crack that Sam dealt him over the skull. The blow broke the handspike in two, and the fool-hardy seaman would soon have paid for his rashness with his life had not friendly and ...
— Fast in the Ice - Adventures in the Polar Regions • R.M. Ballantyne
... hoyden still, it was quite as easy for her to assume the part of an elegant young lady, equipped for society with charming manners, a fastidious taste and indifferent ease. We occasionally laughed at her airs, but inwardly admired her superb assumptions of careless superiority: had she become timid, docile, admiring toward us, I dare say her reign would not ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various
... the advocates of union, never blessed with much confidence in their cause, were made timid by this point of Durham's reasoning. His arguments, which were intended to urge the advantages of a complete reform in the system and machinery of government, produced for a time a contrary effect. Governments might propose and parliaments might discuss resolutions of an academic kind, while eloquent ...
— The Fathers of Confederation - A Chronicle of the Birth of the Dominion • A. H. U. Colquhoun
... wedge has been done away with altogether. The game is just as fierce, but the open play has put a premium on speed instead of mass plays, and made it more interesting for the spectators and less dangerous for the players. And the most timid of mothers and anxious of aunties needn't go into hysterics for fear that their Algernon or Percival may try ...
— Bert Wilson on the Gridiron • J. W. Duffield
... try our reader's patience with the long conversation that followed. March had resolved to preach a discourse with the "Wild Man o' the West" for his text, and he preached so eloquently that his mother (who was by no means a timid woman) at length not only agreed to let him go, but commended him for his resolution. The only restraint she laid upon her son had reference to his behaviour towards the Wild Man, if he should ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne
... limbs were of spiral wire. When I reached the car my friend was standing in front of it, the gang-plank was ready, I leaped from the saddle and, running up the plank into the car, whistled to her; and she, timid and hesitating, yet unwilling to be separated from me, crept slowly and cautiously up the steep incline and stood beside me. Inside I found a complete suit of flannel clothes with a blanket and, better than all, a lunch-basket. My friend explained that he had bought the ...
— A Ride With A Mad Horse In A Freight-Car - 1898 • W. H. H. Murray
... intended to carry out with his timid pupils, of which he gathered a goodly number, with the assistance of Ned and Alick, long before sunset came round again. The trainer explained his proposed code of education still more fully as he and the hungry boys sat enjoying the picnic ...
— The Captain's Bunk - A Story for Boys • M. B. Manwell
... low, the flattery of deference in his fine eyes, which knew so well how to be at once both bold and timid. ...
— A Daughter of Raasay - A Tale of the '45 • William MacLeod Raine
... refuge in Scotland, where King James IV., anxious to distinguish himself in a war with England, acknowledged him as the Duke of York, and found him a wife of noble birth, Lady Catherine Gordon. It was probably in order to rally even the most timid around him, in face of such a danger, that Henry obtained the consent of Parliament to an act declaring that no one supporting a king in actual possession of the crown could be subjected to the penalty of treason in the event ...
— A Student's History of England, v. 1 (of 3) - From the earliest times to the Death of King Edward VII • Samuel Rawson Gardiner
... really extraordinary clemency, and in one regard, where his enemies were concerned, with a sense of honour most unusual in his generation. His care for the wounded, after Prestonpans, is acknowledged by the timid and Whiggish Home, in his 'History of the Rebellion,' and is very warmly and gracefully expressed in a letter to his father, written at Holyrood.' {23a} He could not be induced to punish miscreants who attempted his life and snapped pistols in ...
— Pickle the Spy • Andrew Lang
... was becoming to virginal modesty that the Virgin should be troubled. Because, as Ambrose says on Luke 1:20: "It is the part of a virgin to be timid, to fear the advances of men, and to shrink from ...
— Summa Theologica, Part III (Tertia Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... possessed genius to stretch beyond the trammels of custom and authority, boldly thinking for himself, pointing out the way of extending the knowledge of our globe by maritime discoveries, and persevering nobly in his renewed efforts, in spite of the timid ignorance of his unexperienced pilots and mariners. But it is not easy to explain the continuance of that slow progress, which was even retarded during the years which elapsed between the demise of that prince ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr
... folded hands twitched and her little neck seemed to elongate above her apron; but she waited until her grandmother took up an upper crust, and was just about to lay it over a pie. Then she spoke up suddenly. Her voice had a timid yet ...
— Young Lucretia and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins
... Ah, timid Syrinx, do I not know Thy tremor of sweet fear? For a beautiful and imperious player 15 Is the ...
— Sappho: One Hundred Lyrics • Bliss Carman
... of Cleveland, had a vulture Sought a timid dove for prey, Would you not, with human pity, Drive the gory ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... soon as he had been fed and cared for, he was quick to discover a change. He had become manlier and braver—more like his old self. He carried himself with a kind of timid pride, as though he knew himself to be of a greater value than he was likely to be reckoned at by others; almost as though he were confident that he was possessed of a claim to merit which, once stated, could not fail to be recognised. At the same time, there was a distressful ...
— Murder Point - A Tale of Keewatin • Coningsby Dawson
... by Beauty. Who will walk Between me and the crying of the frogs? Oh, savage Beauty, suffer me to pass, That am a timid woman, on her way From one ...
— Second April • Edna St. Vincent Millay
... nooks and unfrequented alleys, thick underwoods, open vistas, and groups of graceful and handsome trees to interest a lover of landscape for miles and miles, without any other disturbance than a chance meeting with a timid ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... faithful Jordan actually came to him and the King saw the man of peaceful enjoyment timid and uncomfortable in the field, he suddenly realized that he himself had become another and a stronger man. The guest who had been honored by him so long as the more scholarly, and who had corrected his verses, criticized ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... which Mrs Pettigrew kept on poking at the goat in a timid yet cross way, he sprang forward, crying out to his trusty followers, 'Stand ...
— The Wouldbegoods • E. Nesbit
... chicks, if we're lucky enough to have secured fertile eggs," mused Mrs. Henderson. "Oh, well, we'll see." And they did see. They saw exactly eighteen fluffy, peeping chicks, whose timid little mothers could not understand why their broods disappeared one by one from the long, wet grasses surrounding the nest. But in a warm canton flannel lined basket near the Henderson's stove the young arrivals chirped and picked at warm meal as sturdily as if hatched in a coop by a commonplace ...
— The Moccasin Maker • E. Pauline Johnson
... treachery of Djama, and I had talked of it with Francis Hartness and the professor until I had come to see that he was in truth sorely afflicted with that madness which is born of the lust of gold, which, as they told me, is a disease of the soul that makes timid men rash and mild ones fierce and cunning, and may even turn the gentleness of woman into the pitiless rage of ...
— The Romance of Golden Star ... • George Chetwynd Griffith
... liberal counsels of Napoleon III.; he designedly prolongs the exile of his master; he draws up the promises of the Motu Proprio, while devising means to elude them. At length, he returns to Rome, and for ten years continues to reign over a timid old man and an enslaved people, opposing a passive resistance to all the counsels of diplomacy and all the demands of Europe. Clinging tenaciously to power, reckless as to the future, misusing present opportunities, and day ...
— The Roman Question • Edmond About
... beside a piece of ice, and the chamois advanced, until its pretty form became recognisable by the naked eye. Its motions, however, were irregular. It was evidently timid. Sometimes it came on at full gallop, then paused to look, and uttered a loud piping sound, advancing a few paces with caution, and pausing to gaze again. Le Croix replied with an imitative whistle to its call. It immediately bounded forward with pleasure, but soon again hesitated, and stopped. ...
— Rivers of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... behalf, for there in the street below was Dirk van Goorl approaching Lysbeth's door. Yes, there he was dressed in his best burgher's suit, his brow knit with thought, his step hesitating; a very picture of the timid, doubtful lover. ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... perhaps, of large frame and fair Saxon coloring. In heaviness of jaw and height of cheek-bone she greatly resembles a German; nor are her features unlike those of Wordsworth, judging from his pictures. The expression of her face is gentle and amiable, while her manner is particularly timid and retiring. In conversation Mrs. Lewes is most entertaining, and her interest in young writers is a trait which immediately takes captive all persons of this class. We shall not forget with what kindness and earnestness she addressed a young ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various
... children by wives and mothers for the performance of their political duties, in short the incapacitating of women for wives and mothers and companions, will not much longer serve to frighten the timid. Proof is better than theory. The experiment has been tried and the predicted evils to flow from it have not followed. On the contrary, if we can believe the almost universal testimony, everywhere where it has been tried it has been followed ...
— Debate On Woman Suffrage In The Senate Of The United States, - 2d Session, 49th Congress, December 8, 1886, And January 25, 1887 • Henry W. Blair, J.E. Brown, J.N. Dolph, G.G. Vest, Geo. F. Hoar.
... and inclined to tearfulness, for the situation tired her fortitude in a degree Denzil could not estimate. Fears which were all but terrors, self-reproach which had the poignancy of remorse, tormented her gentle, timid nature. For a week and more she had not known unbroken sleep; dreams of fantastic misery awakened her to worse distress in the calculating of her perils and conflict with insidious doubts. At the dead hour before dawn, faiths of childhood revived before her conscience, upbraiding, menacing. ...
— Denzil Quarrier • George Gissing
... by that time. He reached for her hand. "I'll see you in the sunroom?" It was a timid, hopeful question. "And you'll tell me all the news—everything they're doing back on Earth. I haven't been ...
— The Guardians • Irving Cox
... McGuire echoed his fervent "Thank God!" while he gripped the soft hand that clung tightly to his, as if Althora, this radiant creature of Venus, were timid and abashed among the joyful, shouting ...
— Astounding Stories, February, 1931 • Various
... your wardrobe about with you," said the professor, "though it is rather curious taste to put them with vegetables. But here is something else," and the magician produced a small kitten, who regarded the audience with startled eyes and uttered a timid moan. ...
— The Store Boy • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... with his dying breath had designated his son Richard as his successor in the office of the Protectorate. Richard was exactly the opposite of his father,—timid, irresolute, and irreligious. The control of affairs that had taxed to the utmost the genius and resources of the father was altogether too great an undertaking for the incapacity and inexperience of the son. No one was quicker to realize this than Richard himself, and after a rule of a few months, ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers
... fractional and more evenly distributed method of taking. Both of these methods raise prices, the second most so, and so facilitate the automatic release of the future from the boarding of the past. So far all the belligerent Governments have taxed on the timid side. ...
— What is Coming? • H. G. Wells
... preachers do not feel this more and so recover their consciousness of an indispensable mission. One wonders that the churches can be so timid and dull and negative, that our sermons can be so pallid and inconsequential. One wonders why in the pulpit we have so many flutes and so few trumpets. For here is a world with the accumulating energies of the ...
— Christianity and Progress • Harry Emerson Fosdick
... the mud and snow to the proverbial end of all things, always followed by the same crowd, and stared at by all the inhabitants of the houses we passed. They seemed very timid, and inclined to run away directly we turned round. Still, their curiosity, especially respecting my sealskin jacket and serge dress, was insatiable, and I constantly felt myself being gently ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey
... With reverential, timid admiration Gabriel Nietzel looked into Rebecca's countenance, which was beaming with energy and beauty. He could not turn away his glance from her, for it seemed as if his inmost soul was held spellbound by her large, flaming ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... parlour, down stairs," answered the nun, coming to her assistance. "Indeed, child, I do not see how I can help you." She touched the black coils ineffectually. "There! Is that better?" she asked in a timid way. "I do not know how to ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford
... 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 be. If ...
— One of the 28th • G. A. Henty
... he needed constant surveillance. And he received it, till he repented genuinely of his marriage and neglected his personal appearance. Mrs. Delville alone in the hotel was unchanged. She removed her chair some six paces towards the head of the table, and occasionally in the twilight ventured on timid overtures of friendship to ...
— Under the Deodars • Rudyard Kipling
... at the estrangement which, day by day, assumed a more serious character, meditated an attempt to reconcile the father and daughter, by help of the memories of this family anniversary. They were all three sitting in Bartolomeo's study. Ginevra guessed her mother's intention by the timid hesitation on her face, and ...
— Vendetta • Honore de Balzac
... of the bear shows him to be naturally omnivorous, he rarely preys upon flesh in Ceylon, and his solitary habits whilst in search of honey and fruits render him timid and retiring. Hence he evinces alarm on the approach of man or other animals, and, unable to make a rapid retreat, his panic, rather than any vicious disposition, leads him to become an assailant in self-defence. But so furious are his assaults under such circumstances that the Singhalese ...
— Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon • J. Emerson Tennent
... Queen," the little circle of those who would hear the last note moved off, there was a clattering of shutters, a shining of lights through casement-windows, and soon the only sound to be heard was the rough voice of some villager, who would have been too timid to adventure anything by daylight, but now sang boldly out ...
— Friends in Council (First Series) • Sir Arthur Helps |
