"Shy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... thinking I'll get your supper fur you, fur I don't mean to do nothing of the kind. I don't intend to do any hunting, but to git away from you so as to let you have the chance. I don't say that if a big horn or a antelope or buck walks up in front of me and asks me to take a shy at him that I won't pop him over, though some folks that I know wouldn't do the same if the buck happened to be a two-legged one; but such things don't often happen; and, if you don't fetch in any game, them appetites of your'n are likely to bother you as much as ...
— Two Boys in Wyoming - A Tale of Adventure (Northwest Series, No. 3) • Edward S. Ellis
... Again he called out, "Den, Den!" This time the Fish thought that the Den was no doubt accustomed to reply when the Jackal called to it. Perhaps it was shy because she was present. Anyhow she thought she had better answer, so she called ...
— The Talking Thrush - and Other Tales from India • William Crooke
... and meant to profit by me in all possible ways. He had discovered my electioneering talents. I was very engaging among the women: a matter of no small moment in such affairs: and 'though I was rather shy of my glass, yet I could sing an excellent song, which I could likewise make, quite suitable to the occasion.' He therefore proposed that we should both journey into my native county, and there exercise all our wit and ingenuity, to aid in bringing in my ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... not butler's business, but Knight said the footmen were stupid, and Charrington had been persuaded or bribed into performing the duty. Annesley's life of suppression had made her shy of putting herself forward; and though Knight had never told her that she would be a disturbing element in the den, his silence had bolted the door ...
— The Second Latchkey • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... says, 'Sell everything,' and that included this handsome bird. Speaks Spanish, they tell me. Wish Polly would oblige us by saying something in Spanish, but he—I understand it's a male—is too shy to speak before strangers. He's been well taken care of. Wonderful gloss to his feathers," praised Mr. Bean. "Beautiful color. Give an accent to any decor, modern or traditional, besides being a wonderful pet. Now who is going to be the lucky owner ...
— Jerry's Charge Account • Hazel Hutchins Wilson
... lips that would not tell them, Fearless and shy the young unwearied eyes— Men die by millions now, because God blunders, Yet to have made this boy he must ...
— Flame and Shadow • Sara Teasdale
... eyes grown suddenly shy to view her own image in the glass, gave her back a picture such as she had never dreamed could be made by herself, under any conditions whatever. Over her shoulder her employer's wife smiled ...
— Mrs. Red Pepper • Grace S. Richmond
... Clair, especially her father, for she was his only daughter. Tom saw her play about the steamboat, for they were days and nights on the voyage. Eva used to come close and look at him, when he sat thinking of Chloe and the children. The little one was shy, notwithstanding all her busy interest in everything going on, and it was not easy to tame her. But at last Tom and she got on quite ...
— Pictures and Stories from Uncle Tom's Cabin • Unknown
... until his seventieth year was reached, before he would print them, and when they appeared, he could not find the courage to put his name on the title-page. Not one of his own titlarks or sedge-warblers could be more shy of public observation. Even the fact that his own brother was a publisher gave him no real ...
— Gossip in a Library • Edmund Gosse
... we bewailed the fate of our darlings together; we berated in chorus the white-aproned but bloodstained fraternity who prowled about us. When she went away for a moment I minded the pigs, and when I strolled about she minded my cow. How shy the innocent beast was of those carnal market men. How she would shrink away from them. When they put out a hand to feel her condition she would "scrooch" down her back, or bend this way or that, as if the hand were a branding iron. So long as I ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various
... was to be meted out, Phil's opinion had considerable weight—for he had much greater leisure than other more prosperous men; if a man was taken ill (this was in the days before a doctor came), Phil was asked to declare if he would "shy from ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... afternoon Miss Sternberger and Mr. Arnheim returned from a sail. Their faces were flushed and full of shy, sweet mystery. ...
— Every Soul Hath Its Song • Fannie Hurst
... followed me, and William Adolphus sat down by Coralie. But I had not been talking to Wetter more than two minutes when the lady rose, left my brother-in-law, and came to join our group. She took her stand close by me. Half attracted and half repelled by her, young enough still to be shy, I was much embarrassed; the other men were smiling—I must except William Adolphus—and ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope
... his heels, and another and another; the string seemed endless. Now and again one would touch the bird, or would actually catch the head, but the body was too securely buried to be pulled out easily. Cheers would ascend as the riders showed approximate success. Sometimes a horse would shy, and the white visitor looked for nothing less than a broken neck for his rider. But, laughing and shouting, the athletic and careless Indian would swing himself into the saddle, and in a few rough jerks teach the unruly animal to recognize a master. ...
— The Grand Canyon of Arizona: How to See It, • George Wharton James
... a gregarious animal, but I'm not. I'm shy and solitary and hard to get acquainted with. And it takes time to make friends. Besides, in making friends you also make enemies, and one enemy can do you more harm than all your friends can do you good. Then too, ...
— The Great God Success • John Graham (David Graham Phillips)
... were shy. We disliked and shunned strangers. And when old Gil appeared suddenly, while we were still chewing the melancholy cud of Kit's announcement, and cried sepulchrally, "M. le Vidame de Bezers to pay his respects to Mademoiselle!"—Well, there was something ...
— The House of the Wolf - A Romance • Stanley Weyman
... standing much closer to the level of the subject than his great predecessor does. Wordsworth is the benevolent philosopher sitting in a post-chaise or crossing the "wide moor" in meditation. Mr. Hardy is the familiar neighbour, the shy mourner at the grave; his relation is a more intimate one: he is patient, humble, un-upbraiding. Sometimes, as in the remarkable colloquy called "The Ruined Maid," his sympathy is so close as to offer an absolute flout in the face to the system of Victorian morality. Mr. Hardy, indeed, ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... sand And caught the boat and drew it with a swing High on the beach,—its movement seemed alive. His sinewy fingers loosed the flapping sail, Gay shells clinked musical against the mast, And all the maidens, timorous as birds, Laughed at the sound with shy averted face. Then straight and slender as the cocoa palm, Straight as its shaft and crowned with shining hair, The stranger lifted up his head. The wreath, Faded yet still alive thro' ocean's breath, ...
— The Rose of Dawn - A Tale of the South Sea • Helen Hay
... am far away: For never saw I mien, or face, In which more plainly I could trace Benignity and home-bred sense Ripening in perfect innocence. Here scattered, like a random seed, Remote from men, Thou dost not need The embarrassed look of shy distress, And maidenly shamefacedness: Thou wear'st upon thy forehead clear The freedom of a Mountaineer: A face with gladness overspread! Soft smiles, by human kindness bred! And seemliness complete, that sways Thy courtesies, about thee plays; With no restraint, but such as springs From ...
— The Hundred Best English Poems • Various
... been hunting for greater kudu. Each day Memba Sasa and I went in one direction, while Mavrouki and Kongoni took another line. We looked carefully for signs, but found none fresher than the month before. Plenty of other game made the country interesting; but we were after a shy and valuable prize, so dared not shoot lesser things. At last, at the end of the week, Mavrouki came in with a tale of eight lions seen in the low scrub across the stream. The kudu business was about finished, ...
— The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White
... if it ran rather shy on presents in the Prescott household, was at least a season of extremely good feeling among three people ...
— The Grammar School Boys Snowbound - or, Dick & Co. at Winter Sports • H. Irving Hancock
... from us all," Madame de S— continued, with ghastly vivacity. "After coming to the very door! What a peculiar proceeding! Well, I have been a shy little provincial girl at one time. Yes, Razumov" (she fell into this familiarity intentionally, with an appalling grimace of graciousness. Razumov gave a perceptible start), "yes, that's my origin. A simple ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... impress him. Here was a quiet, motherly personality, a personality to grow upon one through months and years. At first meeting she seemed only a gray-haired, shy, silent sort of person, not to be spoken of by herself as Mrs. Lightener, but in the reflected rays of her husband, as Malcolm ...
— Youth Challenges • Clarence B Kelland
... of men, had, indeed, as yet volunteered for the Candahar; for, most of the old hands worth their salt fought shy of the station she was reported to be going to, on account less of its unhealthiness, which to Jack is of small account, than to the absence of any prize-money or extra pay, such as might be gained even on the deadly West Coast, with its malarial ...
— Crown and Anchor - Under the Pen'ant • John Conroy Hutcheson
... strange, shy grace Of Mary's gentle Son; Young mothers envied her the Boy Who love from all hearts won; And, gazing on that face so mild, Prayed low to Heaven for such ...
— The Poetical Works of Mrs. Leprohon (Mrs. R.E. Mullins) • Rosanna Eleanor Leprohon
... lasted, two or three shy sidelong glances passed between him and Jane. So extremely modest was the young man that, from an apprehension lest these glances might have been noticed, his pale face became lit up with a faint blush, in which state of confusion he ...
— Jane Sinclair; Or, The Fawn Of Springvale - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... school. It seemed to me, at the time, quite a formidable undertaking—this going to school. I had never been separated from my mother, and the five hours to be spent daily in the school-room seemed to my childish mind a very long time. I had ever been shy and diffident in the presence of strangers, and the idea of entering a large school a stranger to both teacher and pupils, was very unpleasant to me. But when I found it to be my mother's wish that I should go, I endeavoured ...
— The Path of Duty, and Other Stories • H. S. Caswell
... a large, showy shop, with Virgins and crucifixes and altar candelabra's in the windows, and pictures of bleeding hearts. He went in and stood at the counter. A rosy-faced servant-girl, with a shy, pleased expression, was making choice of a rosary. A young priest, a few steps away, was looking at an image ...
— Saint Patrick - 1887 • Heman White Chaplin
... saucers, while Mary washed. She clinked the glasses, and rattled the cups and spoons, and stepped about as briskly as if she had two or three breezes to carry her train, and chattered half English and half French, for the sake of bringing into Mary's cheek the shy, slow dimples that she liked to watch. But still Mrs. Scudder was around, with an air as provident and forbidding as that of a sitting hen who watches her nest; nor was it till after all things had been cleared away in the house, and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... himself than the bold advertising-agent in this colloquy. He was subdued and shy; his usual racy and virile talk had given place to an insipid mildness. He seemed bent on showing that the graces of polite society were not so strange to him as one might suppose. But under Mrs. Damerel's interrogation a restiveness began ...
— In the Year of Jubilee • George Gissing
... strongest motive in men's minds in seeking advancement, and the honest desire of doing any kind of duty to be an entirely secondary one, to hold up their hands. (About a dozen of hands held up—the audience, partly not being sure the lecturer is serious, and, partly, shy of expressing opinion.) I am quite serious—I really do want to know what you think; however, I can judge by putting the reverse question. Will those who think that duty is generally the first, and love of praise ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... which he inadvertently set his foot snapped across. The splendid shy eyes of the deer looked round in alarm as he bounded away. A shot rang through the forest after him, waking such a clamour of jays and crows and woodpeckers, that Arthur was quite provoked with them, they seemed exulting over his failure. Pushing aside the dried timber ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... our Beautiful One to lie In the green peace within your gates, he came To give us greeting, boyish and kind and shy, And, stricken as we were, we blessed his name: Yet, like the Creature of Light that had been ours, Soon of the sweet Earth disinherited, He too must join, even with the Year's old flowers, The unanswering generations of the Dead. So stand we friends for you, who stood our friend ...
— Hawthorn and Lavender - with Other Verses • William Ernest Henley
... as such a type was bound to deal. Then, having inspired confidence, he created a rarer atmosphere, and in Denis Clifton, a blend of solicitor and play-wright, he produced a figure of fantasy whose delightfully irresponsible humour might have found his audience a little shy at an earlier stage. There was a real note of distinction, extraordinarily well maintained, in Clifton's dialogue with Crawshaw and the boy-clerk, and Mr. MILNE was particularly fortunate to have the part interpreted by Mr. DION BOUCICAULT, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, April 18, 1917 • Various
... to face me: be women no more; But fellow-men born, from top branch to the core; Men who must fight—who can kill, who can die, While women once more shall be covered and shy. ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... few, but single most, And lurking dimly in their shy retreats, Or glancing on each other cheerful looks, Like separated ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... was consigned by common consent. The marquis, who, though he was, as he said, much in love, was not very delicate as to the possession of the lady's affections, wondered that any one going to be married to the Marquis of Twickenham could be so shy and so melancholy; but her confidantes assured him that it was all uncommon refinement and sensibility, which was their sweetest Maria's only fault. Excellent claret, and a moderately good opinion of himself, persuaded the marquis of the truth of all which the Miss Falconers ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... kissed her. Her lips were warm and comforting. Maggie, who had, when she was shy, something of the off-hand manner of a ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... He had not long been awake, and had only said his prayers, and washed at the pump, when horses' feet were heard, and Cousin George called to him to come out and speak to the captain. He came, with hair wringing wet, and shy, awkward looks. ...
— The Carbonels • Charlotte M. Yonge
... in the telling, I think, that Casey for the first time forgot to be shy and became his real, Casey Ryan best. The Little Woman saw at once, when he pointed it out to her, that she ought to drift and cut under the iron capping instead of tunnelling away from it as ...
— Casey Ryan • B. M. Bower
... by porridge made from wheaten meal, you may secure good digestion when the gastric juice is scanty and poor; but we should not like to be restricted to that. We want a stomach that will not fight shy of any wholesome thing. We must treat it so that when suitable food is offered it may ...
— Papers on Health • John Kirk
... will step through the house and go out the other way," Mr. Chamberlain remarked coolly, "it will oblige me. My horse is loose in the yard, and I'm afraid you'll scare him off. He's shy with strangers." ...
— The Stolen Singer • Martha Idell Fletcher Bellinger
... of Oxford, who have assembled in your thousands to hear—" Bunny began once more, but the rude man shouted that he was not at a concert, and when he wanted to listen to the same thing over and over again he was not too shy ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley
... as the Eye of the Shy; as a bird, as a calf, and as a man; its barks, voyages round the world, and encounters with the serpent Apopi—The Moon-god and its enemies—The Star-gods: the Haunch of the Ox, the Hippopotamus, the Lion, the five Horus-planets; Sothis ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 1 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... and by no effort of his. People had a fashion of "looking out for him." Not that he had grown up particularly incapable or helpless; it might rather have been due to a certain appealing gentleness of bearing, something that was the resultant of a half-shy manner, expanding into boyish confidence winningly; a shortish, slender figure, scarcely robust; eager, friendly brown eyes behind his glasses; and a keen desire to be liked. It might be seen, in the present sharp ...
— Life at High Tide - Harper's Novelettes • Various
... Queen rose, as did all the members of the council, and retired bowing. We had luncheon in the same room half an hour later and went off. The Duke of Wellington went in an open carriage with a pair; all our other grand people with four. Peel looked shy all through. I visited Claremont once before, 27 years ago I think, as a child, to see the place, soon after the Princess Charlotte's death. It corresponded ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... they attempt to destroy them; for there is such an instinctive caution in these animals, accompanied with a surprising sagacity in discovering any cause of danger, that if any of them be hurt, or pursued, in an unusual manner, the rest take the alarm, and become so shy and wary, that they elude all the devices and stratagems of their pursuers for some time after. The place where the rats are to be assembled, should be some closet, or small room, into which all the openings, but one or two, may be secured; and this place should be, as near as may ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton
... and a secretary and was governing itself according to Roberts' Rules of Order quite as capably as it had been governed in the past by the Madam. It was even, thanks to Jemima's recent activities in the neighborhood, beginning to discuss in a shy and tentative manner the question of Votes for Women. Kate felt that she had created ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... in sight, and her grandfather had not returned from town; but as Sylvia paused a moment at the door of the spacious high-ceilinged drawing-room she saw a golden head bent over a music rack by the piano. Sylvia stood on the threshold an instant, shy and uncertain as to how she should make herself known. The sun flooding the windows glinted on the bright hair of the girl at the piano; she was very fair, and her features were clear-cut and regular. There was no sound in the room but the crisp rustle of the leaves of ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson
... neighbor was a pale, quiet little girl, with short hair and a drawl. Betty couldn't decide whether she meant to be "snippy" or was only shy and offish. After she had said that her name was Roberta Lewis and her home Philadelphia, Betty inquired politely whether she ...
— Betty Wales Freshman • Edith K. Dunton
... Peter Brand; he died long ago. He had been a comfort to my mother Marie, in days of sadness,—before my birth, for she was never sad after I came,—and she loved him, and he clung to her. He was a round-faced boy, with hair almost white; awkward and shy, but very good ...
— Rosin the Beau • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
... neck, the whiskered face is such a kindly and woeful and helpless one, while the voice is gentle, so gentle. At last, what do you think? As the girl has become all excited, and has already grown hoarse from tears, and is shy of everybody—he, this same 'roundsman on the beat,' stretches out two of his black, calloused fingers, the index and the little, and begins to imitate a nanny goat for the girl and reciting an appropriate ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... of the case,—that most of the married women had declared war against Mrs. Harrison, that she had retaliated upon them all, and that the husbands were drawn into their wives' quarrels, and obliged to fight shy of her before strangers. It was clear, then, that he must apply to a bachelor; and accordingly he waylaid Sumner, who "was too happy" to introduce him ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... of the yaps Like me would make A holy break Doing his turn With money to burn. Anyhow, I Wouldn't shy Making a try! ...
— The Best American Humorous Short Stories • Various
... fully equal in this respect [sport] to the fox; but as the pack was not sufficiently numerous to kill these animals at once, they always suffered so severely from their bite that at last the members of the hunt were shy in allowing the ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... when she isn't a great success she is a great warning. In nineteen cases out of twenty, among the people who know how to live—I won't say what THEIR proportion is— the results are highly satisfactory. The girls are not shy, but I don't know why they should be, for there is really nothing here to be afraid of. Manners are very gentle, very humane; the democratic system deprives people of weapons that every one doesn't equally possess. No one is formidable; ...
— The Point of View • Henry James
... red hair brushed straight back from her face, and hidden as much as possible under a large black net, and but for the presence of Madam her first reception would have been exceedingly unpleasant. She was shy and awkward, and evidently ill at ease among so many strangers. As soon as possible she hastened back to the seclusion of her own room. The next day she was examined, and assigned to her place in the different classes, and to the surprise ...
— Choice Readings for the Home Circle • Anonymous
... as regards the whole story, for the facts tell their own tale. I fell in love with Victorien Mergy from the first. Perhaps I was wrong not to declare myself at once. But true love is always timid, hesitating and shy; and I did not announce my choice until I felt quite certain and quite free. Unfortunately, that period of waiting, so delightful for those who cherish a secret passion, had permitted Daubrecq to hope. His anger was ...
— The Crystal Stopper • Maurice LeBlanc
... and subsided. He had been snubbed too many times not to have learned this lesson. It never entered his head that the introduction might have been brought about by the girl's interest. He was too mortally shy of women to conceive of such a possibility. So his gratitude was extended to the purser, who, on his side, regretted his good-natured recommendations of ...
— Parrot & Co. • Harold MacGrath
... speech to hear one of the trainers avow that, for her part, she thought his thin, Yankee face, with its big features and keen eyes, as homely as a hedge-fence. Lydia said nothing, but she wondered what people could expect. She was a greedy novel-reader, and she had shy thoughts of her own. It seemed to her that Eben, who also had passed his first youth, must have been a great favorite in his day. Every commonplace betrayal in those intimate talks with her mother served to show her how good he ...
— Country Neighbors • Alice Brown
... to spend the days among the shy brush-cattle, with Bessie Belle for company. The mare seemed to enjoy the excursions as much as her owner. Her eyes and ears were ever alert; she tossed her head and snorted when a deer broke cover or a jack-rabbit scuttled ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach
... accustomed to draw the wagon without one, ever since the Hottentot servants ran away; and Swartboy had driven many miles with no other help than his long whip. But the strange look of everything, since the locusts passed, had made the oxen shy and wild; besides the insects had obliterated every track or path which oxen would have followed. The whole surface was alike,—there was neither trace nor mark. Even Von Bloom himself could with difficulty recognise the ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... began to beat, and she could almost have turned round and gone home again. Her country breeding had made her shy of strangers, and this Susan Palmer appeared to her like a real born lady by all accounts. So she knocked with a timid feeling at the indicated door, and when it was opened, dropped a simple curtsey without speaking. Susan had her little ...
— Lizzie Leigh • Elizabeth Gaskell
... and a tingling in his large muscles which P. Blinders, being out of reach, can afford to provoke. "You wouldn't think it amusin', sir, if it were your wife, making herself a—a figure of fun for those Dutch bounders to shy at." ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... was going back home whooping and yelling, he saw something dark in the road before him, and he rode his horse at it full tilt. The horse seemed to have little taste for such sport, for he snorted and wanted to shy around the dark object. But the man clapped spurs to the horse and drove him right at it. The black thing ran, and the man spurred his horse after it. It ran down the road, then across an old field and back into the road again, the man pursuing it as hard as he could make his horse ...
— Little Mr. Thimblefinger and His Queer Country • Joel Chandler Harris
... wou'd Sir HUDIBRAS; 40 (For that's the name our valiant knight To all his challenges did write). But they're mistaken very much, 'Tis plain enough he was no such; We grant, although he had much wit, 45 H' was very shy of using it; As being loth to wear it out, And therefore bore it not about, Unless on holy-days, or so, As men their best apparel do. 50 Beside, 'tis known he could speak GREEK As naturally as pigs squeek; ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... great meat eaters. So are the English. Meat can be had almost every place. The kind of meat differs much in locality. Chickens can be obtained anywhere. The Indian cock is small of head and long of leg, shrill of voice and bold in spirit. The Indian hen is shy and wild, but gives plenty of small, delicately-flavored eggs. On the whole, aside from a few idiosyncrasies, the Indian fowl ...
— The Khaki Kook Book - A Collection of a Hundred Cheap and Practical Recipes - Mostly from Hindustan • Mary Kennedy Core
... Oscar felt himself), placed between a choice of difficulties. On one side, my dislike of dark colors and dark people warned Oscar to hold his tongue. On the other, my hatred of having advantage taken of my blindness to keep things secret from me, pressed him to speak out. Isn't that enough—with his shy disposition, poor fellow—to account for his being embarrassed? Besides," she added, speaking more seriously, "perhaps he saw in my manner towards him that he ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins
... little service to me at present; at least I should be shy of applying. I cannot possibly be settled as a supervisor, for several years. I must wait the rotation of the list, and there are twenty names before mine. I might indeed get a job of officiating, where a settled supervisor was ill, ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... all this, a man who never desired to show more wits than they with whom he conversed, who put himself within everybody's range without ever letting it be perceived, in such wise that nobody could drop him, or fight shy of him, or not want to see him again. It was this rare talent, which he possessed to the highest degree, that kept his friends so completely attached to him all his life, in spite of his downfall, and that, in their dispersion, brought them together to ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... George had scarcely finished their supper, when the first pair of shy little girls came for their kisses and to bring "Teacher" a bunch of flowers and a pretty pocket handkerchief from each. They came in flocks, each with flowers, most with a towel or some small remembrance; then the elders began to come, merchants with comforts, blankets, ...
— A Daughter of the Land • Gene Stratton-Porter
... nights were over, and that at last we had reached the haven where we would be, my first thought was one of deep gratitude. It was easy to see that it was a good moment with everyone; squabbles were made up with surprising quickness; shy people grew suddenly sociable; some who had comfortable homes to go to on landing gave kind and welcome invitations to others, who felt themselves sadly strange in a new country; and it was with really a lingering feeling ...
— Station Life in New Zealand • Lady Barker
... thou the magic flower By whose bright rays the soul's dark deeps are lit; Which, hiding in its quiet, sacred bower, Waits for the Fairy Prince to gather it; But which, if he find not its shy recess, Withers and dies in forlorn loneliness? Within the bosom of its petals furled Lies with Life's sense the Riddle of the World; And he that first its chalice openeth Glows with the wine of ...
— Turandot, Princess of China - A Chinoiserie in Three Acts • Karl Gustav Vollmoeller
... held it as a screen between her crimsoning face and his pitiless old eyes. She writhed inwardly to think that all the idle fancies in which she had been indulging during the afternoon had been poured into her grandfather's angry ears. And it was positive agony to her shy nature to know that her shadowy friend was no longer her ...
— The Rebellion of Margaret • Geraldine Mockler
... devotional life, and accepted with blind confidence the religious and moral teaching of the reverend fathers. A doctrine which preached separation from profane things; the attractions of a meditative and pious life, and mistrust of the world and its perilous pleasures, harmonized with the shy and melancholy timidity of his nature. Human beings, especially women, inspired him with secret aversion, which was increased by consciousness of his awkwardness and remissness whenever he found himself in the society ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... sign-post" I Point out the road towards the sky; And then with glance so very shy You archly ask me, lady, why I hesitate myself to go In the direction which ...
— A Wreath of Virginia Bay Leaves • James Barron Hope
... self-discipline to become leaders of men than Stonewall Jackson. From the day he joined that admirable school at West Point he may be said to have trained himself mentally, morally, and physically, for the position to which he aspired, and which it would seem he always believed he would reach. Shy as a lad, reserved as a man, speaking little but thinking much, he led his own life, devouring the experiences of great men, as recorded in military history, in order that when his time came he should be ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... little, openin' rosebud mouth makes a strong combination, and if it hadn't been for the mural decorations I might have fallen hard for Gladys; but ever since I leaned up against a shiny letterbox once I've been shy of fresh paint. So I proceeds to hand out ...
— On With Torchy • Sewell Ford
... an unusually handsome one with his fair, curling hair and his big blonde moustache—he certainly was: a lisping, "ha-ha-ing" "don't-cher-know-ing" silly ass, whom the presence of ladies seemed to cover with confusion and drive into a very panic of shy embarrassment. ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... gone up to her room to dress before Minora and her bicycle were got here. I hurried out to meet her, feeling sorry for her, plunged into a circle of strangers at such a very personal season as Christmas. But she was not very shy; indeed, she was less shy than I was, and lingered in the hall, giving the servants directions to wipe the snow off the tyres of her machine before she lent an attentive ...
— Elizabeth and her German Garden • "Elizabeth", AKA Marie Annette Beauchamp
... days went by, we had the odd sense of threading uncharted seas; we found it more and more difficult to believe that this empty, lonesome ocean was the Atlantic in the twentieth century. Once we saw a four-master; once a shy, silent steamer avoided us, westward bound; and once in mid-ocean, tossed on a sea sun-silvered under a rack of clouds, we overtook a gallant little schooner out of New Bedford or ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... mixed party. It will be a great evil if the Government is broken up just now, but it is quite clear that they cannot go on long; it is a question of months. The Duke of Wellington told me yesterday that he could do nothing, and he will be rather shy of giving to the world a second volume of that old business in which he got so ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. III • Charles C. F. Greville
... displeased,—I don't think we can blame him for that—but we had no open break for I love him dearly, for all my opposing ways, and he saw that, and it helped, though he did say after I had given my promise to stop where I was and never to take up such work again, that—" here she stole a shy look at the face bent so eagerly towards her—"that I had lost my social status and need never hope now for the attentions of—of—well, of such men as he admires and puts faith in. So you see," her dimples all showing, "that I am not such a very good match for an Upjohn of Massachusetts, ...
— The Golden Slipper • Anna Katharine Green
... the establishment? and would he add a superfluous third to our little party of two, so complete and companionable, solus cum sola, in this populated wilderness? Above all, would he turn out to be a comely young man, and bring my aerial castles tumbling about my ears? The shy look and the blush with which she had suggested the introduction were ominous indications, upon which I mused gloomily as we ascended the stairs and passed through the wide doorway. I glanced apprehensively at my companion, and ...
— The Vanishing Man • R. Austin Freeman
... were both amused and pleased by the earnest and rapid fashion in which Sheila talked. They had generally considered her to be a trifle shy and silent, not knowing how afraid she was of using wrong idioms or pronunciations; but here was one subject on which her heart was set, and she had no more thought as to whether she said like-a-ness or likeness, or whether she said gyarden or garden. Indeed, she forgot ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 30. September, 1873 • Various
... my porridge, I weary of my play; No longer can I sleep at night, No longer romp by day! Though forty pounds was once my weight, I'm shy of thirty now; I pine, I wither and I fade ...
— Songs and Other Verse • Eugene Field
... at her innocent memories. Kessler suppressed a yawn. "Oh, my," Margaret said, "the poor man! How embarrassing if he was that shy." ...
— The Last Straw • William J. Smith
... received, but the native wife, as is usually the case, was too shy to eat with us or even to appear at all. Our host is a superb young man, very frank and prepossessing looking, a thorough mountaineer, most expert with the lasso and in hunting wild cattle. The "station" consists of a wool shed, a low grass hut, a hut with one side gone, a bell-tent, and the more ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... steals through the shade Her shepherd's suit to hear; To Beauty shy, by lattice high, Sings high-born Cavalier. The star of Love, all stars above, Now reigns o'er earth and sky, And high and low the influence know— But where ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... which had so marked her voice and manner when Tunis had first met her soon wore away. With Cap'n Ira and Prudence she was never shy, and when the captain of the Seamew came back again he found such a different girl at the old house on Wreckers' Head that he could scarcely believe she was the Sheila Macklin who had told him her history on ...
— Sheila of Big Wreck Cove - A Story of Cape Cod • James A. Cooper
... she, angrily; "and what should ail thee to shy at the quarry? Give me the weapon." And with that she seized the hammer as though rendered furious by the pusillanimity of her attendants. The whole group were paralysed with terror. Not a word was spoken; scarcely a breath was drawn; every eye was riveted upon her, without the power of withdrawal. ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... not join in the conversation, but after a time the subject became so interesting that she made a few shy interpolations. But he scarcely seemed to notice her as he talked. He went on to describe a new method of entertaining people. They were hypnotised, and then suggestions were made to them so skilfully that they seemed to be living in ancient times again. They played out a ...
— Tales of Space and Time • Herbert George Wells
... the last twenty-four hours, she felt that nothing was beyond His power, but she was too shy to say so aloud. A deep sense of love and gratitude for all the goodness shown to her made her feel, a moment later, ashamed of her shyness. God had been so good to her, how could she be so bad as to feel ashamed to speak of Him? She had prayed and prayed, and prayed to Him all ...
— Dick and Brownie • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... off her slab of soldier bread and gazing adoringly up into the shrinking donor's face. Miss Minneconjou had caught sight of her own winsome face in a mirror that hung in a stained-wood frame opposite Mira's seat, and with no little shy giggling was revelling in the study of her charms even while busily munching the big biscuit in her slender brown hand. Here was a trait that formed a bond of sympathy, and Mira took courage. It is not the contemplation of their nobler qualities, but their weaknesses, that puts us on easy ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... universal consent that General Aguinaldo was the dictator for his people and had the executive word to say; but when it came to drawing the fine lines of his relations with the United States as the embodiment of a revolutionary movement, he became shy and referred to those ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead
... since Philip had returned from India as a man of fifty, with the reasonable hope of enjoying his pensioned retirement. Philip had spent his energy freely in the Indian Civil Service, and the two middle-aged brothers, either too poor to marry, too shy, or both, determined to combine resources with companionship ...
— War-time Silhouettes • Stephen Hudson
... them they are out somewhere near the fifth decimal place. There are sixteen ounces to the pound still, but two of them are wrapping paper in a good many stores. And there're just as many chances for a fellow as ever, but they're a little gun shy, and you can't catch them by any such coarse method as putting ...
— Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son • George Horace Lorimer
... cold, sharp, invigorating winter morning. The snow was crusted over with hoar frost, and the bare forest trees were hung with icicles. The cunning fox, the 'possum and the 'coon, crept shivering from their dens; but the shy, gray rabbit, and the tiny, brown wood-mouse, still nestled in their holes. And none of nature's small children ventured from their nests, save the hardy and courageous little snow-birds that came to seek their food even at the very threshold ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... slender lad, with corn-silk hair and wide blue eyes. He was shy and timid, not strong physically, dreading the cold of winter, and avoiding the rougher sports of his playmates. And yet he was full of the spirit of youth, a spirit that manifested itself in the performance of many ingenious pranks. His every-day life was ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley
... boring thing about this place is that there are no amusing ways of taking exercise, which is necessary to keep one fit. As a double Coy. Commander I have a horse, a quiet old mare which does nothing worse than shy and give an occasional little buck on starting to canter. But the rides are very dull. There are only three which one may call A, B and ...
— Letters from Mesopotamia • Robert Palmer
... Tiberius had no charm of manner: Drusus his brother quite put him in the shade. He carried with him the scars of his babyhood's perilous adventures, and the terror of that unremembered night of fire. He was desperately shy and sensitive; awkward in company; reserved, timid, retiring, silent. Within the nature so pent up were tense feelings; you would say ungovernable, only that he always did govern them. He went unnoticed; Drusus was the pet of all; under such conditions how much harmony as ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... ever knew what it meant. It was long, and sounded like an explanation. Having spoken, Miltiades suddenly looked shy. He wriggled towards the top of the ladder. Dion thought that Rosamund would try to stop him from leaving her, but she did not. On the contrary, she drew up her legs and made way for him, carefully. The child deftly descended, picked up his staff and turned. The dog, barking ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... might be, they had become Changed; for the dame grew distant, the youth shy, Their looks cast down, their greetings almost dumb, And much embarrassment in either eye; There surely will be little doubt with some That Donna Julia knew the reason why, But as for Juan, he had no more notion Than he who never ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... idea was, by insisting on the fact of the girl's prominence as a feature of the season's end, to keep Densher in relation, for the rest of them, both to present and to past. "It's everything that has happened since that makes you naturally a little shy about her. You don't know what has happened since, but we do; we've seen it and followed it; we've a little been of it." The great thing for him, at this, as Kate gave it, was in fact quite irresistibly that the case was a real one—the ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume II • Henry James
... who is uncommunicative, or morose or unusually shy. From the day that he starts his service, his superiors should do their best to help him to change his ways; these ingrown men are roadblocks to group cooperation. But if he does not pick up and become ...
— The Armed Forces Officer - Department of the Army Pamphlet 600-2 • U. S. Department of Defense
... the other sleeve falls loose; he is one-armed. His attitude and gait express his defrauded existence. Cotton clings to his clothes; his shoes, nearly falling off his feet, are red with clay stains. I greet him; he is shy and surprised, but returns the salutation and keeps step with me. He is "from the hills," an orphan, perfectly friendless. He boards with a lot of men; evidently their companionship has not been any solace ...
— The Woman Who Toils - Being the Experiences of Two Gentlewomen as Factory Girls • Mrs. John Van Vorst and Marie Van Vorst
... father was dead, and she lived with her mother, a woman of low degree, who had been a cook before marrying her master. Either for this reason, or on account of the indisputable ugliness of her face, the Indians fought shy of her; although her exaggerated idea of her position exacted a certain respect in society. Her face was hideous, with irregular features, marked with erysipelas, and disfigured by red patches about the nostrils. She only retained ...
— The Grandee • Armando Palacio Valds
... my predecessor at Kootenay, I found my friend Reynolds doing a fine work there, among the farmers and miners, as Congregational minister. He was doing precisely the work I wanted to do; but there was only one of him. Was I to fight shy of him, or set to work, as it were, in opposition to him? Well, anyhow, that didn't seem to me the way. We had our own places of worship; but, for the rest, both desiring the one thing—the Christian living of the folk in our district—we worked absolutely shoulder to shoulder. There were ...
— The Message • Alec John Dawson
... loved, alas! The dear shy youth, with touch of scorn, I loved with him through woods to pass, And girding ...
— Heroic Romances of Ireland Volumes 1 and 2 Combined • A. H. Leahy
... We were lamentably shy on dishes and knives and forks. We had bacon and eggs, fried potatoes, bread and butter and some really excellent coffee. There was only a single room in the hut, but it was clean and fairly tidy. Peterson ...
— John Henry Smith - A Humorous Romance of Outdoor Life • Frederick Upham Adams
... You look as if you'd been insulted whenever you're thrown with any except the most popular boys. Why, Bernice, I'm cut in on every few feet—and who does most of it? Why, those very sad birds. No girl can afford to neglect them. They're the big part of any crowd. Young boys too shy to talk are the very best conversational practice. Clumsy boys are the best dancing practice. If you can follow them and yet look graceful you can follow a baby tank ...
— Flappers and Philosophers • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... be cautious of having anything to do with horses that are naturally shy; for horses that are excessively timorous will not only not allow the rider on their back to harm the enemy, but will often take him by surprize, and expose him to great danger. We must also learn whether the ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume I (of X) - Greece • Various
... like to "hit the nail on the head" and settle matters at once, by arranging with the purser for a second-class cabin to be put at the hero's disposal. I wanted him to do that part alone, but he pretended to be shy, and said he had grown to depend so entirely on my co-operation, that he felt unequal to undertaking any responsibility without it. He told the same story to the purser that he had told others, about my being the one to start the subscription, and he wanted me to sign ...
— Lady Betty Across the Water • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... ploughed three years running. Can it still have a shy at its little go? Examine this, and say all you know about "PIERS, or PEARS, the Ploughman." Did he use his ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 100, May 9, 1891 • Various
... wines. The same excessive duty tends to diminish the consumption of our fruits from year to year. Our oil has alone been able to find vent by favour of the double duty imposed till now upon Sicilian, superior to ours in quality. But the English speculators are already shy of purchasing, in the expectation of an assimilation of duties on oils of whatever origin." The Ayuntamiento proceeds to urge the necessity of a "beneficial compensation" to British manufactures in the tariff of Spain, without ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various
... speed along the bank of the Syr-darya. Here grow small woods and thickets where tigers stalk their prey, and in the dense reed beds wild boars dig up roots. The shy gazelles like the open country, hares spring over the shrubs, ducks and geese quack on the banks, and flocks of pheasants lure the traveller to sport. The setting sun sheds a gleam of fiery red over the steppe, and as it grows dim the stars begin ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin
... at the great fair where the horses run (i.e., the races), I was keeping a cock-shy, and I saw a gentleman, and asked him for a drop of ale. 'Yes,' he said, 'I'll give you ale, and a good smoke too.' 'Thank you,' says I, 'Sir.' So he gave me the ale, and a dozen cigars. I put them in my pocket, and went on the road and ...
— The English Gipsies and Their Language • Charles G. Leland
... kiss a new love put forth its strength, not the pale beatitude of his dream, with its sweet wistfulness, its shy desires. That was large and vague and insubstantial, permeating like an odor the humdrum purlieus of the day. This was savage, triumphant, that leaped like flame from his heart to his mouth, that burned blood-red on ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... for an offence about nuts or cherries as if they had broken open a money-box. His parents, he acknowledged, had meant it for the very best, but they had kept him, nevertheless, so strictly that he had become shy and timid. Theirs, however, was not that unloving severity which blunts the spirit of a child, and leads to artfulness and deceit. Their strictness, well intended, and proceeding from a genuine moral earnestness of purpose, furthered in him a strictness ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin
... I find you so weak and small, A human child, not a god at all; Two angry, sleepy eyes that cry, Two little hands so soft and shy, I'll hush you with ...
— The Fairy Changeling and Other Poems • Dora Sigerson
... declared that he'd an "Evil Eye,"— This in a sense was true—he had but one; Men, on the other hand, alleged him shy: We sometimes say so of the friends we shun; But, wrong or right, suffices to affirm it— The Cyclops lived a ...
— Collected Poems - In Two Volumes, Vol. II • Austin Dobson
... Hippopotamus. "That's the whole point. He's the one that's shy, and because we won't consent to pay his fare out of our own pockets he's going to hold us up. I move ...
— Andiron Tales • John Kendrick Bangs
... had always to be convincing not only others but himself that he was a strong man whose views were unassailable, the eyes of Buckingham Smith like black holes in his handsome face, the stylish gestures and coarse petulance of Buckingham Smith, the shy assurance of little old Prince. He envied the pair. Their existence had a cloistral quality which appealed to something in him. They were continually in the studio, morning, afternoon, evening. ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett
... her in the stern, establishing itself there apart, with an air of righteous possession: five, six, seven men, three young, four middle-aged, rather shy and awkward, on its fringe. In its centre two women in slender tailor-made suits and motor veils, looking like bored uninterested ...
— The Romantic • May Sinclair
... seemed to come to the breakfast table just as it suited them, and the meal could scarcely be called a social one. Neither Sophy nor her father talked much, he having his newspaper open before him. Lucy was too shy as yet to talk without encouragement, which Sophy did not give; and she felt it a relief when Stella, with her ...
— Lucy Raymond - Or, The Children's Watchword • Agnes Maule Machar
... you please," he answered, with some dignity. It is, perhaps, difficult to be stately when one is only five feet tall, but John felt stately inside, as well as shy. The stranger turned and made a sign to the other men, who came quickly, bringing a gang-plank, which they ran out from the schooner's deck to the wharf. The Skipper, for such the dark man appeared to be, made a sign of invitation, and after a moment's hesitation, John ran across and stood on ...
— Nautilus • Laura E. Richards
... She was no longer the shy Tonine of last night; she had that exultant air which happiness bestows, and the look of pleasure which the delights of love give to a young beauty. I could not understand how I had escaped from doing homage to her beauty when I first saw her at her ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt |
