"Bashfulness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... confidential friend and the depositor of his literary remains. In mixed societies he was silent; but with a few select spirits around him, and especially after the "good wine did the good office" of banishing his bashfulness and taciturnity, he became the most delightful and fascinating of conversers. The staple of his conversation was quiet, sly humour; but there was fine sentiment, touches of pathos, and now and then imagination peeped over like an Alp above meaner hills. Swift alone, we suspect, was his match; ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... of Peterborough. "I was," says he, "about seventeen, when I first came to town; an odd-looking boy, with short rough hair, and that sort of awkwardness which one always brings out of the country with one: however, in spite of my bashfulness and appearance, I used now and then to thrust myself into Will's, to have the pleasure of seeing the most celebrated wits of that time, who used to resort thither. The second time that ever I was there, Mr. Dryden was speaking of his own things, as ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott
... curved by the check rein and their black and blonde manes flowing over the proud arch, lustrous and wrinkled like satin, were ranged in a glittering hemicycle. They affected my friend like the youth and beauty of his earliest evening parties; he experienced a sense of bashfulness, of sickening personal demerit. He could not have had the audacity to bid on one of those superb creatures, if all the Chevaliers together had whispered him that here at last was ...
— Buying a Horse • William Dean Howells
... Another passenger on the Mayflower was Priscilla Mullins, daughter of William Mullins, a maiden of unusual beauty, just blooming into womanhood. The gallant widower fell in love with Priscilla, but for some reason which does not clearly appear, but probably bashfulness, he sent another to do his courting. Standish himself was about thirty-seven years of age, and doubtless showed the effect of his hard service in the wars. Nevertheless, he might have won Priscilla ...
— The Land We Live In - The Story of Our Country • Henry Mann
... Solomon and Obadiah, and by those names they were mostly called in my uncle's family. Solomon, was a good humored looking man of some thirty years of age; he had, I afterwards learned, been for some years in my uncle's employ. Obadiah was a youth of about seventeen years of age. His extreme bashfulness in the presence of strangers in general, and of ladies in particular, caused him to appear very awkward. Added to this, he was, to use a common term, very homely in his personal appearance. His hair was very light, almost white; his ...
— The Path of Duty, and Other Stories • H. S. Caswell
... Gay's is said to have suggested the story of the scholar's bashfulness in the 157th Rambler; and to similar stories in the Adventurer and ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... conversation that took place that night between the woodsman and the little tailoress we shall present no record. That he pleaded his case well and earnestly, and without a great deal of bashfulness, will be readily believed by those who have made his acquaintance. That the woman, in her lonely circumstances, and with her hungry heart, could lightly refuse the offer of his hand and life was an impossibility. From the hour of his last previous visit she had unconsciously gone toward him ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... Brother, "nothing particular of his infancy: except the great share of bashfulness (or, as a Philosopher perhaps would say, pride) which he possess'd in common with the rest of the Family.... Exceedingly mild in his temper and kind to his play-mates, he was ...
— An Essay on War, in Blank Verse; Honington Green, a Ballad; The - Culprit, an Elegy; and Other Poems, on Various Subjects • Nathaniel Bloomfield
... round him. Warmly, affectionately, Edward greeted them one and all, and rapidly answered the innumerable questions of Percy; defended his sister from all share in his concealment, of which Herbert and Emmeline laughingly accused her. The flush of almost painful bashfulness still lingered on his cheek, as he marked the eyes of all fixed upon him, strangers as well as friends; but as he turned in the direction of his aunt, and his eye fell on the venerable figure of his revered preceptor, who stood aside, enjoying the little scene he beheld, as the remembrance ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume II. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes • Grace Aguilar
... grievance quite confidently. He even sat down, though he had not been invited to do so, as he was wont to do in the bygone happy days when they were official colleagues together. It was Meyer's custom never to look those whom he was addressing in the face, which bashfulness deprived him, of course, of the advantage of being able to read from their countenances what impression he was making upon them. He was therefore greatly surprised when, on finishing his speech, his Honour Judge Bordacsi roared at him in the ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai
... suffrage of the people is most free, where it is made or given in such a manner that it can neither oblige nor disoblige another, nor through fear of an enemy, or bashfulness toward a friend, impair a ...
— The Commonwealth of Oceana • James Harrington
... singular, for the extraordinary, under whatever form, had long had no slight interest for me; and I had discernment enough to perceive that yon was no common man. Yet I went not near him, certainly not from bashfulness or timidity, feelings to which I had long been an entire stranger. Am I to regret this? perhaps, for I might have learned both wisdom and righteousness from those calm, quiet lips, and my after-course might have been widely different. As it was, I fell in with other guess companions, from whom ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... Wilfull is an odd mixture of bashfulness and obstinacy. But when he's drunk, he's as loving as the monster in The Tempest, and much after the same manner. To give bother his due, he has something of good-nature, and ...
— The Way of the World • William Congreve
... beautiful young woman in the world. The young woman had many suitors but rejected all, wishing only for the love of the bashful young man. He in his turn was accustomed to follow her about, longing for courage to declare his love, but bashfulness always sealed his lips. At last, despairing of ever making his unruly tongue tell of his passion, he took a dagger and, following her to the bathing place on the river bank, he cut out his own heart, cast it at her feet, and fell down lifeless. The girl fled, terrified, and a crow ...
— Philippine Folk-Tales • Clara Kern Bayliss, Berton L. Maxfield, W. H. Millington,
... and the musicians were just striking up the opening bars of the Lancers; upon which several gentlemen amongst the assembly, which now numbered about forty, ran out into the open and took up positions, like colour-sergeants at drill, to be presently joined, in some bashfulness, by such ladies ...
— The Tinted Venus - A Farcical Romance • F. Anstey
... the house, Jack's bashfulness returned. Even Ida's presence did not remove it. He hung back, and ...
— Jack's Ward • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... both to them and, to you, to let you know it. Those who deserve a good character, ought to have the satisfaction of knowing that they have it, both as a reward and as an encouragement. They write, that you are not only 'decrotte,' but tolerably well-bred; and that the English crust of awkward bashfulness, shyness, and roughness (of which, by the bye, you had your share) is pretty well rubbed off. I am most heartily glad of it; for, as I have often told you, those lesser talents, of an engaging, insinuating manner, an easy good-breeding, a genteel behavior and address, are of infinitely more ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... beautiful and the ugly, gave them large sums of money, changed them almost every week, and in general, he treated the women better than the men. He laughed at them, said to them disgraceful and offensive words, but he could never, even when half-drunk, rid himself of a certain bashfulness in their presence. They all, even the most brazen-faced, the strongest and the most shameless, seemed to him weak and defenseless, like small children. Always ready to thrash any man, he never laid a hand on women, although when irritated ...
— Foma Gordyeff - (The Man Who Was Afraid) • Maxim Gorky
... were universally regarded by myself, and the natives in general, as far as related to their complexions, as deformed. Our women too were in my eyes at least uncommonly graceful, alert, and modest to a degree of bashfulness; nor do I remember to have ever heard of an instance of incontinence amongst them before marriage. They are also remarkably cheerful. Indeed cheerfulness and affability are two of the ...
— The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, The African - Written By Himself • Olaudah Equiano
... secret quick of his simple, sensitive soul cut open and exposed to gaze. Not even the medical man before him could fail of sudden pity at witnessing what was written on his face—-all the dignity, the simplicity, the reticence, all the bashfulness of a man brought up helplessly against the knife. He could not—or perhaps would not—answer such a question even from the man before him, whom he suddenly had come to trust and respect as a being ...
— The Sagebrusher - A Story of the West • Emerson Hough
... such a mystery, before you're into it," Georgie said. "But once you're married, why, you feel as if you could attract any man in the world. No more bashfulness, Sue, no more uncertainty. You treat men exactly as you would girls, and of course ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris
... eye took in only the general outlines of fashion and comfortable circumstances; now too strange to it to go unnoted. In Fleda's usual mood her next movement would have been made with a demureness that would have looked like bashfulness. But the amusement and pleasure of the day just passed had for the moment set her spirits free from the burden that generally bound them down; and they were as elastic as her step as she came forward and presented to her aunt "Dr. Quackenboss,—and then ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... forehead lowreth, the nose | droppeth, the lippe trembleth, &c. | | 27. The causes of sobbing and | sighing: and how weeping easeth | the heart. | | 28. How melancholie easeth | both weeping and laughing, with | the reasons why. | | 29. The causes of blushing and | Causes of these symptomes [i.e. bashfulness, and why melancholie | bashfulness and blushing]. persons are given therunto. | | 30. Of the naturall actions altered | by melancholie. | | 31. How melancholie altereth | Symptomes of melancholy the naturall workes of the body: ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 227, March 4, 1854 • Various
... fine instincts of women his infirmity was especially conspicuous, and he drifted into misogyny through bashfulness and pride; and yet misogyny was incompatible with his scheme of life and his ambition. He felt himself to be worthy of the full diapason of home life; he desired to be as other men were, ...
— Twenty-One Days in India; and, the Teapot Series • George Robert Aberigh-Mackay
... feature in the personal character of the Indians of this part of South America is a degree of diffidence, bashfulness, or coldness, which affects all their actions. It is this that produces their quiet deliberation, their circuitous way of introducing a subject they have come to speak about, talking half an hour on different topics before mentioning it. Owing to this ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume 19 - Travel and Adventure • Various
... thought I was falling in love with a rich Jewish girl whose face had a bashful expression of a peculiar type. There are different sorts of bashfulness. This girl had the bashfulness of sin, as I put it to myself. She looked as if her mind harbored illicit thoughts which she was trying to conceal. Her blushes seemed to be full of sex and her eyes full of secrets. She ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... out. Their latter speeches had scarce been understood by Ambrose, even if he heard them, so full was he of conflicting feelings, now ready to cast himself before their feet, and entreat the Dean to help him to guidance, now withheld by bashfulness, unwillingness to interrupt, and ingenuous shame at appearing like an eavesdropper towards such dignified and venerable personages. Had he obeyed his first impulse, mayhap his career had been made safer and easier for him, but it was while shyness chained his ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge
... for a moment. A recollection of the chance that he had impotently and unaccountably thrown away returned to him. He tried to laugh, albeit with a glowing cheek, over the momentary bashfulness which he thought had overtaken him, and which must have made him ridiculous in her eyes. He even took a few hesitating steps in the direction of the path where she had disappeared. The sound of voices came to his ear, and the light ring of Cecily's laughter. The color deepened a little on ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... her left-hand neighbour with surprise, but I could feel that maiden bashfulness induced her to press less closely to my side than she had ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper
... to the Custom House, where I sat waiting for my luggage. Reporters and sightseers, meanwhile, pressed obtrusively around me. My protector held them back. I was half wild with embarrassment. I'm naturally a reserved and somewhat sensitive girl, and this American publicity made me crimson with bashfulness. ...
— Recalled to Life • Grant Allen
... have modesty, brother, silence, bashfulness, a savage virtue... and yet she's sighing and melting like wax, simply melting! Save me from her, by all that's unholy! She's most prepossessing... I'll repay you, I'll ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... its humility, I see no reason why I should quarrel with the aster for loving to make a show. Herein, too, plants are like men. An indisposition toward publicity is amiable in those to whom it is natural; but I am not clear that bashfulness is the only commendable quality. Let plants and men alike carry themselves according to their birthright. Providence has not ordained a diversity of gifts for nothing, and it is only a narrow philosophy ...
— The Foot-path Way • Bradford Torrey
... though the meal was frugal—potatoes, pork, green tea, flapjacks and drips, which is probably glucose flavored with essences—they gave me of their best, as even the poorest settlers do. One might travel the wide world over to find their equal in kindly hospitality. Perhaps the woman noticed my bashfulness, for ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss
... of a king came in the afternoon with a tail of a hundred vertebrae: he was a milder specimen than usual; he had neither Mambrino's helmet nor beadle's cloak, and perhaps his bashfulness in the presence of strangers arose from a consciousness that his head-gear and robes were not in keeping with his station. But he did not fail to grumble at his "dash;" indeed, he must be more than African who shall say, "Hold! enough." He vouchsafed a small return in ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... though partly addressed to Albert, was still more directed to his immediate neighbour, the young Scotsman, who seemed, from bashfulness, or some other reason, rather shy of his intimacy. To one or two personal touches from Wildrake's elbow, administered during his last speech, by way of a practical appeal to him in particular, he only answered, ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... well remember that myself and others took particular notice how those who were present dined; but to speak truth—whether for joy or sorrow I cannot tell—there was not one of them that half filled his belly; and certainly it could not have been from modesty or bashfulness before the King, for there was not one among them but had dined with his majesty ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson
... your mamma to let me stay?" said Virginie, with the bashfulness of a child; "haven't you a little place like yours, with white curtains and sanded floor, to give to poor little Virginie to learn to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... mountain, who came to offer her flowers, or chestnuts. On seeing me, she attempted to rise as if to meet me half-way, and her gesture was quite sufficient to encourage me to approach. She received me with a blushing look and tremulous lip, which I perceived, and which increased my own bashfulness. The strangeness of our situation was so embarrassing, that we remained some time without finding a word to say to each other. At last, with a timid and scarcely intelligible gesture, she motioned to me to sit down on the ...
— Raphael - Pages Of The Book Of Life At Twenty • Alphonse de Lamartine
... round Dick to congratulate him and examine the piece, he stood with a mingled feeling of bashfulness and delight at his unexpected good fortune. Recovering himself suddenly he seized his old rifle, and, dropping quietly to the outskirts of the crowd, while the men were still busy handling and discussing the merits of the ...
— The Dog Crusoe and his Master • R.M. Ballantyne
... she arrived, and the two set to work in earnest, buttering great piles of tea-cakes and toasted muffins, which were all set forth in tempting array when the children began to appear at the door, looking in with some bashfulness at first, but plucking up courage after sundry peeps at the good things, they came trooping in, in goodly numbers—a motly throng, ranging in point of age, from about seven to fourteen, and in point of condition, from ragged and torn urchins, with dirty ...
— Hollowmell - or, A Schoolgirl's Mission • E.R. Burden
... suggested to us in all these examples. The reason that excessive stoutness is laughable is probably because it calls up an image of the same kind. I almost think that this too is what sometime makes bashfulness somewhat ridiculous. The bashful man rather gives the impression of a person embarrassed by his body, looking round for some convenient cloak-room in ...
— Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic • Henri Bergson
... lonely. Yet I could no more have proposed to the landlord and landlady to admit me to their society (though I should have liked it—very much) than I could have asked them to present me with a piece of plate. Here my great secret, the real bashfulness of my character, is to be observed. Like most bashful men, I judge of other people as if they were bashful too. Besides being far too shamefaced to make the proposal myself, I really had a delicate misgiving that it would be in the ...
— The Holly-Tree • Charles Dickens
... "wuzn't," he meant that he wuzn't a stranger to his God. Bashfulness wuz the cause. Madder red wuz pale compared to his face when he sot down, and his tongue wuz thick and husky. I wuz sorry for him. Then a woman riz up with a black bunnet and veil on and white collar and cuffs; ...
— Samantha at Coney Island - and a Thousand Other Islands • Marietta Holley
... say to you personally what I am about to write, but was prevented by a kind of almost clownish bashfulness. Now that I a not in your presence I shall speak out more boldly: a letter does not blush. I am inflamed with an inconceivably ardent desire, and one, as I think, of which I have no reason to be ashamed, that in a history written by you my name should ...
— The Letters of Cicero, Volume 1 - The Whole Extant Correspodence in Chronological Order • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... the truth could not be anything that she dreaded. Mirah drew her chair very near, as if she felt that the sound of the conversation should be subdued, and looked at her visitor with placid expectation, while Gwendolen began in a low tone, with something that seemed like bashfulness— ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... it must be confessed, was not troubled by bashfulness, made a low bow to his opponent, and, advancing to the counting-room, opened the door. Mr. Ferguson looked up from ...
— Tom, The Bootblack - or, The Road to Success • Horatio Alger
... that pull down private houses adjoining to the temples of the gods, prop up such parts as are contiguous to them; so, in undermining bashfulness, due regard is to be had to adjacent modesty, good-nature ...
— Many Thoughts of Many Minds - A Treasury of Quotations from the Literature of Every Land and Every Age • Various
... as if you're nine or ten, even if he hadn't sarcastically hinted that you had not been asked for your advice. But I say, Drew, old fellow, I think you're right, and if Blackbeard thinks it would be best he'll go to the old man like a shot. No bashfulness in him." ...
— The Kopje Garrison - A Story of the Boer War • George Manville Fenn
... sir, for I can't account for what he said any other way; and he turned to me, and he said to me, solemn-like, 'Is your head bad enough to send you to the Lord Jesus to make you whole?' I could not speak a word, partly from bashfulness, I suppose, for I was but ten years old. So he followed it up, as they say: 'Then you ought to be at school,' says he. I said nothing, because I couldn't. But never since then have I given in as long as I could stand. And I can stand now, and ...
— The Seaboard Parish Vol. 2 • George MacDonald
... a dazzle of tears, looking so bright and tender that Odo's bashfulness melted like a ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... result of a mental egotism combined with love of admiration, and usually produces awkward diffidence or absurd affectation. Too often the first weakness is overcome, or covered up, most unwisely, by exchanging bashfulness for impertinent boldness; while the vanity and self-consciousness of the second very rarely result in manners or Conversation either sensible or agreeable. To overcome these defects, wisely, requires a strong effort. They should be radically subdued ...
— The Elements of Character • Mary G. Chandler
... pupil's capacity; and, taking that for his guide, to imitate the conduct of Socrates with his two scholars Theopompus and Ephorus, who, after remarking the lively genius of the former, and the mild and timid bashfulness of the latter, is reported to have said that he applied a spur to the one, and a curb to the other. The Orations now extant, which bear the name of Sulpicius, are supposed to have been written after his decease by my cotemporary P. Canutius, a man indeed of inferior rank, but ...
— Cicero's Brutus or History of Famous Orators; also His Orator, or Accomplished Speaker. • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... the name of Reine Vincart had come to his lips, a feeling of bashfulness, in addition to his ordinary timidity, had prevented him from interrogating Claudet concerning the character of this mysterious queen of the woods. Like all novices in love-affairs Julien dreaded that his feelings ...
— A Woodland Queen, Complete • Andre Theuriet
... were the heavy-laden pack horses, some wretched old women leading them, and two or three children clinging to their backs. Here were mules or ponies covered from head to tail with gaudy trappings, and mounted by some gay young squaw, grinning bashfulness and pleasure as the Meneaska looked at her. Boys with miniature bows and arrows were wandering over the plains, little naked children were running along on foot, and numberless dogs were scampering among the feet of the horses. ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... guest?" The next moment she perceived the Knight, and stood fixed in mute admiration; while Huldbrand gazed upon her lovely form, and tried to impress her image on his mind, thinking that he must avail himself of her amazement to do so, and that in a moment she would shrink away in a fit of bashfulness. But it proved otherwise. After looking at him a good while, she came up to him familiarly, knelt down beside him, and playing with a golden medal that hung from his rich chain, she said: "So, thou kind, thou beautiful guest! ...
— Famous Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... form of the publication that indicated any arrogance of merit. On the contrary, it was brought forward with a degree of diffidence, which, if it did not deserve the epithet of modesty, could incur nothing harsher than that of bashfulness. It was printed at the obscure market-town press of Newark, was altogether a very homely, rustic work, and no attempt was made to bespeak for it a good name from the critics. It was truly an innocent ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt
... condescends to be so treated. Perhaps the love is occasionally on the man's side; perhaps on the lady's. Perhaps some infatuated swain has ere this mistaken insensibility for modesty, dulness for maiden reserve, mere vacuity for sweet bashfulness, and a goose, in a word, for a swan. Perhaps some beloved female subscriber has arrayed an ass in the splendour and glory of her imagination; admired his dulness as manly simplicity; worshipped his selfishness as manly superiority; treated his stupidity as ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... She entered with bashfulness, as I thought; in a pretty confusion, for having carried her apprehensions too far. Sullen and slow moved she towards the tea-table.—Dorcas present, busy in tea-cup preparations. I took her reluctant hand, and pressed it to my ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... I asked you to meet me, and didn't call," began Jude with the bashfulness of a lover. "But I thought it would save time if we were going ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... though under the common size, was remarkably elegant, and her motions light, easy, and unembarrassed. She came from another part of the garden to receive Captain Waverley, with a manner that hovered between bashfulness and courtesy. ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... it, and those who are ignorant take care not to seem so; but are sometimes agreeable, often amusing, and seldom betes. Nowhere have I seen unformed sheepish boys, nowhere the surliness, awkwardness, ungraciousness, and uneasy proud bashfulness, I have seen in the best companies in England. Our French friend Lucien has, at fifteen, the air and conversation of a finished gentleman; and our English friend C—— is at eighteen, the veriest log of a lumpish school-boy that ever entered a room. What ...
— The Diary of an Ennuyee • Anna Brownell Jameson
... to where they were sitting, to select a flat boulder for spreading their table-cloth upon, and, amid the discussion on that subject, the matter pending between Knight and Elfride was shelved for a while. He read her refusal so certainly as the bashfulness of a girl in a novel position, that, upon the whole, he could tolerate such a beginning. Could Knight have been told that it was a sense of fidelity struggling against new love, whilst no less assuring as to his ultimate victory, it might have entirely abstracted ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... spiritual character of the one, and the trust reposed by her late father in the other, authorized them to be present upon the occasion. Eveline naturally blushed, as she advanced two steps to receive the handsome youthful envoy; and her bashfulness seemed infectious, for it was with some confusion that Damian went through the ceremony of saluting the hand which she extended towards him in token of welcome. Eveline was under the necessity ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... and were conducted to the courtyard. Here, to her joy, Margaret saw Peter waiting for them under guard, and dressed also in the Christian garments which they had begged might be supplied to him at their cost. She sprang to his side, none hindering her, and, forgetting her bashfulness, suffered him to embrace her before them all, asking him how he had fared ...
— Fair Margaret • H. Rider Haggard
... audience then he kissed her hand, and those of the King and his saintly sister, Elizabeth, while the Queen gratefully expressed her thanks, and the King stood by, with tears in his eyes, but withheld by his awkward bashfulness from expressing the ...
— A Book of Golden Deeds • Charlotte M. Yonge
... too far gone to pour forth the babble of good plump grandmothers; she adored the child in secret with the bashfulness of a young girl, without knowing how to fondle him. Sometimes she took him on her knees, and gazed at him for a long time with her pale eyes. When the little one, frightened by her mute white visage, began to cry, she seemed perplexed by what she had done, and ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... showed cheeks that were suffused with blushes, and looked at me with timid surprise. She made no answer; though that earnest, yet timid gaze, long remained, and for that matter, still remains, vividly impressed upon my recollection. It seemed to express astonishment, startled sensibility, feminine bashfulness, and maiden coyness; but it did not appear to me that it expressed displeasure. There was no time, however, to ask for explanations, since the voices of Herman Mordaunt and Bulstrode were now heard at the very door, and, at the next ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... settled when the door opened, and revealed the subject of discussion. Wearing a broad grin of mingled pride and bashfulness, and looking very stiff and awkward in one of the brightest tweed suits ever seen off the stage, Spike stood for a moment in the doorway to let his appearance sink into the spectator, then ...
— The Intrusion of Jimmy • P. G. Wodehouse
... to my married friends, I have often chuckled over the bashfulness, contending with love, which distinguishes the YOUNG FATHER. In the pride of his heart, perhaps, when his little man has first given evidence of that degree of mental exertion called 'taking notice,' he clasps the crowing baby in his arms; he rests its lily feet upon his knees; ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, June 1844 - Volume 23, Number 6 • Various
... sense of bashfulness about it, but he followed his father, and in a few minutes more the rough, bearded, red-shirted fellows were giving him three of the most ringing cheers he had ever heard. Ha-ha-pah-no and Na-tee-kah looked at him with something that was half ...
— Two Arrows - A Story of Red and White • William O. Stoddard
... occasions I make it a point to open the door myself, with a calmness and serenity that shall offer a marked contrast to his feverish and excited air, and shall throw suspicion of inebriety upon him. If he be inclined to timidity and bashfulness, during the best of the evening he is all too conscious of the disarrangement of his hair and cravat. If he is less sensitive, the result is often more distressing. A valued elderly friend once called upon me after undergoing ...
— Urban Sketches • Bret Harte
... now went back to his tree, whither he was slowly followed by Margery; the girl yielding to a feverish desire to accompany him, at the very time she was half restrained by maiden bashfulness; though anxiety and the wish to learn the worst as speedily ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper
... who was unusually excited. Mr. Peggotty, his face lighted up with uncommon satisfaction, and laughing with all his might, held his rough arms wide open, as if for little Em'ly to run into them; Ham, with a mixed expression in his face of admiration, exultation, and a lumbering sort of bashfulness that sat upon him very well, held little Em'ly by the hand, as if he were presenting her to Mr. Peggotty; little Em'ly herself, blushing and shy, but delighted with Mr. Peggotty's delight, as her joyous eyes expressed, ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... fairness-as we English choose to say-with a bright native colour, and beautiful light hair ; otherwise with but indifferent features, and not handsome : yet her air, though modest even to the extreme that borders upon bashfulness, is distinguished, and speaks her to be both ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay
... meaning, when she borroweth no counterfeitures of other tongues to attire herself withal, but useth plainly her own with such shift as nature, craft, experience, and following of other excellent doth lead her unto, and if she want at any time (as being imperfect she must) yet let her borrow with such bashfulness that it may appear, that if either the mould of our own tongue could serve us to fashion a word of our own, or if the old denizened words could content and ease this need we would not boldly ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... little May, who did not know what bashfulness was, 'I wish I might go and see him, too. I should so like to know if he has ever seen the island ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... as might be supposed of a lady that had been carried off by her own consent to Scotland; but I could only see her at first through her veil, which, from bashfulness or fashion, she kept over ...
— Castle Rackrent • Maria Edgeworth
... discuss their works, or merits, seriatim, as the judges call it; for I feel overwhelmed at the stringing together of such trisyllabic names. These gentlemen, as well as almost every one of their predecessors, are strangers to me; and you know my bashfulness and confusion ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... about four, mayhap, the Dawn (wretched 'prentice-boy!) opened in the east the shutters of the Day:—in other words, more than a dozen hours had passed. Corporal Brock had been relieved by Mr. Redcap, the latter by Mr. Sicklop, the one-eyed gentleman; Mrs. John Hayes, in spite of her sorrows and bashfulness, had followed the example of her husband, and fallen asleep by his side—slept for many hours—and awakened still under the guardianship of Mr. Brock's troop; and all parties began anxiously to expect the return of the ...
— Catherine: A Story • William Makepeace Thackeray
... but your heart is true, and I love the bashfulness of your goodwill. Ye are ashamed of your flow, and others are ...
— Thus Spake Zarathustra - A Book for All and None • Friedrich Nietzsche
... chateau of his ancestors. He chafed in his confinement, like a caged lion ready to break loose from bondage. But the lion freed might take refuge in his native woods, while Gaston, if he rushed forth into the world, knew that his bashfulness, his stammering, his near-sightedness, would render society a more intolerable prison than ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... increasing frequency for the meaning of this or that book word. She always looked aside when asking for such information, and spoke in a monotonous tone of indifference. He divined that she was studying by herself in secret, understood her bashfulness, and ceased to invite her to read with him. Shortly afterwards ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky
... the station, and immediately on getting out of the car, I saw an erect, rather tall, elderly man with white hair and blue eyes, peering over the crowd, as if on the lookout for a boy. The instinctive stir of kinship made me sure who he was; but from some childish bashfulness I did not like to go directly to him and came around from one side, then touched his arm. He glanced down. "Are you looking for a small fellow ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens
... man—the elephant with the tusks. Consequently I prepared for a struggle to the death. In other words, I summoned my faithful retainers, and told them that I was now going to follow those elephants to the edge of the world, if necessary. They showed a certain bashfulness about the business, but they did not gainsay me, because they dared not. Ever since I had prepared with all due solemnity to execute the rebellious Gobo they had conceived a great respect ...
— Maiwa's Revenge - The War of the Little Hand • H. Rider Haggard
... modest almost to bashfulness, was once asked by a country apothecary, of a contrary character, in a public and crowded assembly, and in a tone of voice sufficient to catch the attention of the whole company, "How it happened that the patriarchs lived to such extreme old age?" To ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon
... himself which of those two paths he should pursue; and as he there sat musing, there appeared to him two women of great stature which drew nigh to him. The one was fair to look upon, frank and free by gift of nature, (30) her limbs adorned with purity and her eyes with bashfulness; sobriety set the rhythm of her gait, and she was clad in white apparel. The other was of a different type; the fleshy softness of her limbs betrayed her nurture, while the complexion of her skin was embellished ...
— The Memorabilia - Recollections of Socrates • Xenophon
... these are placed such instinctive tendencies as bashfulness, sympathy, the gregarious instinct, or love of companionship, anger, self-assertion, ...
— Ontario Normal School Manuals: Science of Education • Ontario Ministry of Education
... indignantly. "Ain't I payin' the good woman a compliment, when I say that she had pity on me bashfulness, and came to me help when I was ...
— The Lighthouse • R.M. Ballantyne
... visiting at the rectory Turner regularly attended church in proper form; and finally he wrote a note to Mr. Trimmer, alluding to his affection for one of the rector's kinswomen, and suggesting: "If Miss —— would but waive bashfulness, or in other words make an offer instead of expecting one, the same [Lodge] might change occupiers." But Turner was doomed to disappointment, and never made another attempt at matrimony. In 1814 Turner commenced his contributions of drawings to illustrate "Cook's Southern Coast," ...
— A History of Art for Beginners and Students: Painting, Sculpture, Architecture - Painting • Clara Erskine Clement
... enormous. He ate heavy meat three times a day, but took little or no exercise. The pimples on his face became worse and worse. He grew peevish and nervous. He hated girls, and when in their society was a very bull-calf for bashfulness and awkward self-consciousness. At times the strangest and most morbid fancies took possession of him, chief of which was that every one was looking at him while he was ...
— Vandover and the Brute • Frank Norris
... for a moment on the landing outside the door of the private sitting-room, with an absurdly schoolboyish air of bashfulness. ...
— The Second Honeymoon • Ruby M. Ayres
... stairs with a civil inclination, a word of course, and a knock-down look out of her black eyes, and disappear in a rustle of silk, and with the revelation of an admirable foot and ankle. But these advances, so far from encouraging Mr. Scuddamore, plunged him into the depths of depression and bashfulness. She had come to him several times for a light, or to apologise for the imaginary depredations of her poodle; but his mouth was closed in the presence of so superior a being, his French promptly left him, and he could only ...
— New Arabian Nights • Robert Louis Stevenson
... a tall, spectacled man emerged from the crowd, and, beaming with a pleasing elderly bashfulness through his spectacles, gave it as his opinion that though gorsoon was a term usually applied to the male child, it was equally applicable to the female. "But, indeed," he concluded, "the Bench has as good Irish as ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross
... because they never happen; to have dreamed of balconies, guitars, stratagems, and bolts, enwrapped in Almaviva's cloak; and, after inditing a poem in fancy, to stop at the door of a house of ill-fame, and, crowning all, to discern in Rosina's bashfulness a reticence imposed by the police—is not all this, I say, an experience familiar to many a man who would ...
— Gambara • Honore de Balzac
... Morality—that is to say correctness of response to our neighbour and our temporal surroundings—is often well taught. Spirituality—correctness of response to God and our eternal surroundings—is most often ignored. A peculiar British bashfulness seems to stand in the way of it. It is felt that we show better taste in leaving the essentials of the soul's development to chance, even that such development is not wholly desirable or manly: that the atrophy of one aspect of "man's made-trinity" is best. I have heard ...
— The Life of the Spirit and the Life of To-day • Evelyn Underhill
... great pleasure, wishing for Leech to be at hand to sketch his lordship and his fat mamma, who sat on the counter. That lady fancied I was looking at her, though, as far as I could see, she had the figure and complexion of a roly-poly pudding; and so, with quite a premature bashfulness, she sent me a message by the shoemaker, ordering me to walk away if I had made my purchases, for that ladies of her rank did not choose to be stared at by strangers; and I was obliged to take my leave, though with sincere regret, for the little lord had just squeezed himself into ...
— Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo • William Makepeace Thackeray
... calm and stern reasoning embodied in its vigorous periods, which gave to the arguments of the advocate something of the impartiality of the judge. Unusually abstracted and unsocial,—for, despite his youth and that peculiar bashfulness before noticed, he was generally alive enough to all that passed around him,—Percival paid little attention to the comments that circulated round the easy-chairs in his vicinity, till a subordinate in the administration, ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... of the head we have Modesty and Reverence, the former running down into Bashfulness and the latter into Humility or Servility. Next to these we find Sublimity, which was correctly suggested by the Edinburgh phrenologists. It ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, November 1887 - Volume 1, Number 10 • Various
... almost as dark as their own skins, the remaining portions of our bodies, ordinarily protected from the sun by our clothing, should be so very much lighter. They were not oppressed by any feeling of false modesty or bashfulness, but examined us minutely at close quarters, jabbering together with the utmost animation all the while and lightly running their fingers over our arms and necks, with the apparent purpose of finding the join in the differently coloured portions of ...
— Turned Adrift • Harry Collingwood
... among the convulsions of the politics he was helpless to rearrange, he was equally mordant when he turned his attention to society, and perhaps more frightfully impartial. He hated the English for "their idle curiosity, bedizened awkwardness, impudent bashfulness, angular egotism, and vacant delight in all melancholy objects." As for the French, they are "les comediens ordinaires du bon Dieu;" yet "a blaspheming Frenchman is a spectacle more pleasing to the Lord than a praying Englishman." And Germany: "Germany alone possesses those colossal fools ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 30. September, 1873 • Various
... That glass of hot whiskey-and-water, though it enhanced the melancholy tenderness of the young man, robbed him of his bashfulness, and loosened the strings of his tongue. "For three years! And there was a time when she worshipped the very stool on which I sat at the office. I ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope
... was a sweeter fellow, they would have been puzzled to say in just what this difference consisted, and much as they liked him, the ladies of her cult were not quite satisfied with him till they decided that it was marked by an anxiety, a timidity, which was perfectly fascinating in a man so far from bashfulness as he. That is, he did nice things for others without asking; but with her there was always an explicit pause, and an implicit prayer and permission, first. Upon this condition they consented to the glamour which he had for ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... coward or a 'poor creature.' But when, as was often the case, the sensitive person was encouraged to openness by Fitzjames's downright ways, the implied compliment would be fully recognised. Lord Lytton, as an accomplished man of the world, was of course free from any awkward bashfulness; and at the very first interview was ready to meet Fitzjames half-way. His enthusiasm accordingly met with a rapid return. One of Fitzjames's favourite assertions was that nobody but a humbug could deny the pleasantness of flattery; and, in fact, I think ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... hunting for Indians. I'd like to see him married and settled down, like all the rest of us, even Isaac. You know Jack's the last of the Zanes, that is, the old Zanes. The difficulty arising from his extreme modesty and bashfulness can easily be overcome." ...
— The Last Trail • Zane Grey
... me," exclaimed Tom, who with a ludicrous mixture of pleasure, bashfulness, and mock anger, had been listening to what he evidently deemed a high encomium; "that we hav'nt drinked yet; have you quit drink, Archer, since I was to York? What'll you take, Mr. Forester? Gin? yes, I have got ...
— Warwick Woodlands - Things as they Were There Twenty Years Ago • Henry William Herbert (AKA Frank Forester)
... you may not consider my cousin the best of guides on all occasions; but he can lead the way to the top of our tower as well as a wiser man," said Hilda, observing the Spaniard's look of anger, and at the same time, from maiden bashfulness, not sorry to have Lawrence as an escort. Up they went, therefore, till ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... not going into the church?" he inquired, gazing at them complacently, yet with a mixture of bashfulness in his look—a sentiment not by any means the result of awe of their station, but only of appreciation of their elegance and youth. Before gentlemen—such as Moore or Helstone, for instance—William was often a little dogged; with proud or insolent ladies, too, he was quite ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... and matrimony are not so great social events as they are with our society beaux. The occasion is probably considered social enough by the rest of the invited guests, but it can hardly be called an agreeable episode in the life of the groom. Those whose bashfulness prevents them from contracting marriage in civilized communities can have the consolation of knowing that in far-off Arabia, among the fierce followers of the conquerors of Spain and of the Eastern Empire, they have sympathizing fellow-sufferers whom the conventionalities of the country ...
— History of Circumcision from the Earliest Times to the Present - Moral and Physical Reasons for its Performance • Peter Charles Remondino
... mischief thy folly hath wrought! Of a truth there's no call to complain of blindness in thy speech now, Master Alden. But still I have noted that if thou canst drive a bashful youth out of his bashfulness, there are ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... commanded Mr. Bryan, inwardly highly amused at the girl's bashfulness in venturing in when she saw a stranger ...
— Pretty Madcap Dorothy - How She Won a Lover • Laura Jean Libbey
... This was rather too intimate a description, but bashfulness or diffidence she knew were not ...
— The Man and the Moment • Elinor Glyn
... to sit by him. This I did, with apparent hesitation, telling him there was nobody in the house, and I wasn't quite sure it was right for me to stay alone in his company. This information, conveyed with a well assumed maiden bashfulness, seemed to afford the old rascal the most intense delight; he threw his arm around me, and kissed me repeatedly, then his hand began the exploration to which I have alluded. I suffered him to proceed just far enough to set his passions in a blaze; and then, breaking from his embrace, I took ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... virginal purity, and the temperate diet so helpful in preserving thy virginity uncontaminated. And where is now that grave deportment, and that modest mien, and that plain attire which so become a virgin, and that beautiful blush of bashfulness, and that comely paleness—the delicate bloom of abstinence and vigils, that outshines every ruddier glow. How often in prayer that thou mightest keep unspotted thy virginal purity hast thou poured forth thy ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... too—you like me best." She helped out the white man's bashfulness. But as her interlocutor, appalled, laid no claim to the sentiment, she lifted the mittened hand to her eyes, and from under it scanned the white face through the lightly falling snow. The other hand, still held out to the comfort of ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)
... the House of Commons which was elected in 1708. But the House of Commons was not the field for him. The bashfulness of his nature made his wit and eloquence useless in debate. He once rose, but could not overcome his diffidence, and ever after remained silent. Nobody can think it strange that a great writer should fail as a speaker. But many, probably, will think it strange that Addison's ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... the verses induce us to believe that he never told his love; but, as we have already surmised, was prevented by his bashfulness. ...
— From Farm House to the White House • William M. Thayer
... recommended patience, and more than once expressed her opinion that a young member would be better to sit in silence at least for one session, he was not driven to the mortification of feeling that he was incurring her contempt by his bashfulness. As regarded the men among whom he lived, I think he was almost annoyed at finding that no one seemed to expect that he should speak. Barrington Erle, when he had first talked of sending Phineas down to Loughshane, ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... her a smile of welcome, and explained to her, in his low voice, how it had happened that they had lost the track and the dog had not scented the animal till they were almost upon it. By this time she had forgotten her tears and her bashfulness, and he had drawn his knife to skin the bear on the spot. The flesh was of no value at this time; he meant to bury the carcass and take only the skin. So she held, and he skinned; then she ran down to ...
— The Bridal March; One Day • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... the period of growth and preparation as much as possible. But purity and innocence may be prolonged too late; innocence is really no more becoming to adults than a rattle or a rubber consoler, and the bashfulness that hampers this discussion, that permits it only in a furtive silly sort of way, has its ugly consequences in shames and cruelties, in miserable households and pitiful crises, in the production of countless, needless, and unhappy lives. Indeed, too often we carry ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells
... reproach of friends if she obeyed the deity, and, on the other, of his curse if she disobeyed him, the damsel at last, O foremost of kings, said these words unto that god, in accents tremulous with bashfulness, 'O god, as my father and mother and friends are still living, this violation of duty on my part should not take place. If, O god, I commit this unlawful act with thee, the reputation of this race shall be sacrificed in this world on my ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 2 • Translated by Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... reception-room, where the members of the club were constantly arriving, and putting off their hats and overcoats, and then falling into groups for talk. His friend of the Chronicle-Abstract introduced him lavishly, as our American custom is. Bartley had a little strangeness, but no bashfulness, and, with his essentially slight opinion of people, he was promptly at his ease. These men liked his handsome face, his winning voice, the good-fellowship of his instant readiness to joke; he could see that they liked him, and that his friend Ricker was proud of the impression ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... were seated in the coach on the way to our house my father began to laugh and marvel which had been the most shy, the gallant or the lady, telling my mother she need never reproach the English with bashfulness ...
— Stray Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... observe, gentlemen," he cried without bashfulness, "that I now perform the eminently interesting operation of dropping cakes—one, two, three. May the intelligent young lady return ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... her eyes from that sight, she would turn her moistened face to the pillow; but her eyeballs would flash in the darkness, and she would still see him there, there before her. She would see him as he stood beside her with manly bashfulness, when on the side of Olivet he first told her that he loved her. She would see him as he had sometimes sat, in his sweetest moods, in that drawing-room at Littlebath, talking to her with rapid utterance, with sweet, but energetic ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... account, as if it were by accident that I got you for my friend; for no kind of accident threw you in my way. That best of men, Virgil, long ago, and after him, Varius, told you what I was. When first I came into your presence, I spoke a few words in a broken manner (for childish bashfulness hindered me from speaking more); I did not tell you that I was the issue of an illustrious father: I did not [pretend] that I rode about the country on a Satureian horse, but plainly what I really was; you answer (as your custom ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace
... was not wanting in courage; but no man from the moon could have been more an alien on those sidewalks. He was naturally diligent, active, quick-witted, and of good, though maybe a little too scholarly address; quick of temper, it is true, and uniting his quickness of temper with a certain bashfulness,—an unlucky combination, since, as a consequence, nobody had to get out of its way; but he was generous in fact and in speech, and never held malice a moment. But, besides the heavy odds which his small secret seemed to be against him, stopping him from accepting such valuable friendships as might ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... prepare yourself there to receive yourself: it were a folly to trust yourself in your own hands, if you cannot govern yourself. A man may miscarry alone as well as in company. Till you have rendered yourself one before whom you dare not trip, and till you have a bashfulness and respect for yourself, ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... first by bashfulness, disappointment, and anxiety, but she had been freed from her troubles with Gilbert, had gained confidence in herself, and had taken her position at Bayford. She was beloved, esteemed, and trusted ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... blind and misplaced passion. He was indeed utterly incapable of availing himself of the opportunities afforded by his situation, to involve his pupil in the toils of a mutual passion. Honour and gratitude alike forbade such a line of conduct, even had it been consistent with the natural bashfulness, simplicity, and innocence of his disposition. To sigh and suffer in secret, to form resolutions of separating himself from a situation so fraught with danger, and to postpone from day to day the accomplishment of a resolution so prudent, was ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... of an ingenuous young man; after they had come before the judges, he was not able to say what he had intended, so much did his modesty confuse him there through his bashfulness. ...
— The Comedies of Terence - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Notes • Publius Terentius Afer, (AKA) Terence
... Miss Sydney, they says so," replied the lad, whose condition as the father of a family seemed to cast him into depths of bashfulness. ...
— A Tar-Heel Baron • Mabell Shippie Clarke Pelton
... top rail of the fence he could see the gray roof of the Hermit's cabin, silvered with the radiance of the full moon. At no time was Kagh troubled with bashfulness and now, under the influence of that flooding radiance, he decided to investigate the cabin and the clearing. The fence, ending in a rough wall of field stone, made a capital highway along which he shuffled happily ...
— Followers of the Trail • Zoe Meyer
... it stiffly; for Bashfulness is altogether an unprofitable Qualification in this Art. My last Shift is, I frame ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus
... not call myself, as though Thy friendship I to mere good fortune owe. No chance it was secured me thy regards, But Virgil first, that best of men and bards, And then kind Varius mentioned what I was. Before you brought, with many a faltering pause, Dropping some few brief words (for bashfulness Robbed me of utterance) I did not profess That I was sprung of lineage old and great, Or used to canter round my own estate On Satureian barb, but what and who I was as plainly told. As usual, you Brief answer make me. I retire, and then, Some nine months after, summoning me again, You bid me ...
— Horace • Theodore Martin
... seek, and satisfy each wish: You're always anxious for a fav'rite dish; 'Tis only to oblige that I comply. That, said the other, clearly I descry; I'm well persuaded, thou art always kind; But still I think thou would'st not be inclined; In such a scene to take the leading part, Thy bashfulness ...
— The Tales and Novels, Complete • Jean de La Fontaine
... and loose about their shoulders, a part of it on each side being carelessly platted, and sometimes rolled up into an awkward lump, instead of being neatly tied on the top of the head, as the Esquimaux women in most other parts are accustomed to wear it. The youngest female had much natural bashfulness and timidity, and we considered her to be the only unmarried one, as she differed from the other three in not being tattooed upon the face. Two of them had their hands tattooed also, and the old woman had a few marks of the same kind about each wrist. None of the men or children ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... lappet of my coat, returned it to the scabbard. I was pressed to do more than one thing which another could not do for me, and therefore endeavoured to make my mistress understand, that I desired to be set down on the floor; which after she had done, my bashfulness would not suffer me to express myself farther, than by pointing to the door, and bowing several times. The good woman, with much difficulty, at last perceived what I would be at, and taking me up again in her hand, walked into the garden, where ...
— Gulliver's Travels - into several remote nations of the world • Jonathan Swift
... little thing, who carried herself gracefully, without bashfulness. Her soft brown hair, brushed smoothly back from the tanned oval face, fell in long, thick braids over the slim shoulders, and disappeared in crisp ribbon bows of the same color. The dress was a simple affair of light blue wool, which fitted the wearer perfectly and gave ...
— Polly of Lady Gay Cottage • Emma C. Dowd
... fell in love, but his bashfulness ruined his chances. He wrote to the brother of the lady. "If she would only waive her bashfulness, or, in other words, make an offer instead of expecting one, the same (Solus Lodge) might change occupiers." ...
— Pictures Every Child Should Know • Dolores Bacon
... Tempy, with a display of genuine bashfulness; "eh-eh, honey! I 'fraid you all 'll set up dar un laugh me outer de house. I aint dast ter tell no tale 'long side er Brer Remus un Daddy Jack yer. I 'fraid I ...
— Nights With Uncle Remus - Myths and Legends of the Old Plantation • Joel Chandler Harris
... very remarkable that in the child's bashfulness we find a native nervous response to the presence of persons. And it is curious to note that, besides the general gregariousness which many animals have, they show in many instances special responses of the presence of ...
— The Story of the Mind • James Mark Baldwin
... think any one who knows us will accuse either of us of bashfulness; the opposite has been laid to my charge until it has become an old ...
— Miss Dexie - A Romance of the Provinces • Stanford Eveleth
... respect of others, for whose welfare, as he understood it, the good things of this world had been bestowed upon him. He was a proud man, with but few intimacies,—with a few dear friendships which were the solace of his life,—altogether gracious in his speech, if it were not for an apparent bashfulness among strangers; never assuming aught, deferring much to others outwardly, and showing his pride chiefly by a certain impalpable noli me tangere, which just sufficed to make itself felt and obeyed at the first approach of any personal freedom. He was a handsome man,—if ...
— Sir Harry Hotspur of Humblethwaite • Anthony Trollope
... forward to present his glossy buckeye, hung on a plaited horse-hair string that had been constructed by small Jennie with long and infinite patience. Miss Lavinia's commendations threw both donor and constructor into an agony of bashfulness from which Pete took refuge in Rose Mary's skirts and Jennie behind her mother's chair. But at this juncture the arrival on the scene of action of young Bob Nickols with a whole two-horse wagon-load of pine cones, which the old lady doted on for ...
— Rose of Old Harpeth • Maria Thompson Daviess
... timidly, for her bashfulness made him a trifle bashful in return. "I should like to very much—for more reasons than one;" and he looked at her meaningly. "I'm getting tired, in some ways, of life abroad. I'd much prefer to come back now ...
— Michael's Crag • Grant Allen
... plain truth, I had discovered that, in spite of my bashfulness, I loved every single girl I had ever seen—not even excepting good black Bess in my mother's kitchen, who concocted such admirable turnovers and seedcakes. But at that time, sooner than have acknowledged such a weakness, I would have ...
— The Fatal Glove • Clara Augusta Jones Trask |
