"Shy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... over the match he was touching to his cigarette. "You're Greek Conniston, son of the big Conniston who does things on the Street. But we didn't happen to travel in the same class. I was shy on the money end of it. Oh, I remember you, all right. I saw that record run of yours around left end to a touchdown. Gad, that was a great day! I went crazy then with a thousand other fellows. I remember," with ...
— Under Handicap - A Novel • Jackson Gregory
... to Lord Cornwallis, writes on the 26th of July, at Portsmouth, and says his master, Tarleton, and Simcoe, are still in town, but expect to move. The greatest part of the army is embarked. My lord's baggage is yet in town. His lordship is so shy of his papers that my honest friend says he cannot get at them. There is a large quantity of negroes, but, it seems, no vessels to take them off. What garrison they leave I do not know: I shall take care at least to keep them within bounds. . . . Should a French fleet now come ...
— Memoirs, Correspondence and Manuscripts of General Lafayette • Lafayette
... play his part, was the moment for him to salute. He half lifted his hand as he reclined, but let it fall again. From the river-bank a pair of eyes looked down into his; dark grey eyes—or were they violet?—shy and yet bold, dim and yet shining with emotion. God help him! This child—she could be little more—was worshipping him ...
— Fort Amity • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... till at last she relented, and remembered that anger hurt her beauty, and smiled once more. All the younger gods were for welcoming Psyche at once, and Hermes was sent to bring her hither. The maiden came, a shy newcomer among those bright creatures. She took the cup that Hebe held out to her, drank the divine ambrosia, ...
— Good Stories For Great Holidays - Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the - Children's Own Reading • Frances Jenkins Olcott
... the world outside of her mother's love. She had never felt so lonely as when surrounded by all these girls, each of whom had her intimate friend, and among whom she was not wanted. She could not help feeling that she was different from the others, and day by day the wondering eyes grew shy and lonely; and she avoided the children out of school hours, bravely hiding from her mother that the gingham apron, which always hid her faded dress, seemed to her a badge of disgrace that separated her ...
— Jewel's Story Book • Clara Louise Burnham
... with the utmost repugnance that Goldsmith entered college in this capacity. His shy and sensitive nature was affected by the inferior station he was doomed to hold among his gay and opulent fellow-students, and he became, at times, moody and despondent. A recollection of these early mortifications induced him, in after years, most strongly to dissuade his brother ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... Rambouillet,—certain rules which good society has since observed. She discouraged the tete-a-tete in a low voice in a mixed company; if any one in her circle was likely to have especial knowledge, she would appeal to him with an air of deference; if any one was shy, she encouraged him; if a mot was particularly happy, she would take it up and show it to the company. Presiding in her own salon, she talked but little herself, but rather exerted herself to draw others out; without being learned, she exercised great judgment ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VII • John Lord
... Then a mob of these Amazons followed him to his house, and, to save himself from being torn and scratched to pieces by the troop, he paid ten dollars, and was happy to escape so easily. The Amazonian white-washers like to have a shy at Mr. Gagliuffi or the Doctor, because they are down upon them for a good mulct or present. To save their respective dignities, Consul and Doctor take care to keep out of that quarter of the town where the work of the Amazons is ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... shadow of the trees. Now we stalk a solitary piping-crow from tree to tree; but no sooner do you get near enough to take a pot shot at him than he pipes his note, and is off. The only way of getting at him is to proceed cautiously from bush to bush; but even then, so shy a bird is he, that it is very difficult ...
— A Boy's Voyage Round the World • The Son of Samuel Smiles
... horrid she had been. She had behaved unpardonably. Her penitence showed itself in a shy and deferential solicitude towards Mrs. Fisher which made the observant Briggs think her still more angelic, and wish for a moment that he were an old lady himself in order to be behaved to by Rose Arbuthnot just like that. There was evidently no end, he thought, to the things she ...
— The Enchanted April • Elizabeth von Arnim
... I don't like it. No one will suspect us of being adventurers, for as long as we live in this luxurious fashion we shall pay our bills promptly and be proper and respectable in every way. The only chance we run lies in the danger that eligible young men may prove shy, and refuse to take our bait; but are we not diplomats, mother dear? We won't despise a millionaire, but will be content with a man who can support us in good style, or even in comfort, and in return for his money I'll be a very good wife to him. That seems ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces • Edith Van Dyne
... showed their delicate fringes, and the geraniums blazed, and the heliotrope languished, and the "Puritan pansies" lifted their sweet faces and looked gravely about, as if reproving the other flowers for their frivolity; while shy Mignonette, thinking herself well hidden behind her green leaves, still made her presence known by the exquisite perfume which all her gay sisters would have ...
— Queen Hildegarde • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
... graceful and showy manner. The male is a magnificent bird, and has perhaps as fine plumage as any bird on the border; the flesh yields the most delicate eating of any game bird I know; the slices of mingled brown and white from the breast are delicious. The birds are rather shy, generally getting up a long way in front of the line, and moving with a slow, rather clumsy, flight, not unlike the flight of the white earth owl. They run with great swiftness, and are rather hard to kill, unless hit about the neck and ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... side was a much smaller one, and was occupied by Mr. Gregorius Lambkin. Mr. Gregorius Lambkin was a very shy and rather elderly bachelor. He issued from his front door every morning at half-past eight holding a neat little attache case in a neatly-gloved hand. He spent the day in an insurance office and returned, still unruffled and immaculate, at about half past ...
— More William • Richmal Crompton
... shy," Miss Kitty remarked to Rusty Wren with a sly smile. "I've been hoping to get more acquainted with her. That's why I climbed up and sat on your roof. When people are shy and don't invite me inside their houses I believe in making ...
— The Tale of Miss Kitty Cat - Slumber-Town Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... melancholy, from the effects of which, probably, he never thoroughly recovered. In what a new light does this place his rejection (O call it by a gentler name!) of mild Susan P——, unravelling into beauty certain peculiarities of this very shy and retiring character!—Henceforth let no one receive the narratives of Elia for true records! They are, in truth, but shadows of fact-verisimilitudes, not verities—or sitting but upon the remote edges and outskirts of history. He is no such honest chronicler as R.N., and would have done ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... This was apparently just what he liked. When, however, he saw a restless movement among some of the more impatient, as though they were stooping down to gather chips to shy at him, he knew the time had come to open those ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts - Or, The Struggle for Leadership • George A. Warren
... neglected guy-rope, and went up head downwards about twenty feet below the car. The party in the balloon could not haul him up because they could not get hold of the rope, and the bride would not consent to give up the trip, because the groom had always been a little shy, and she was afraid that, if she let him go this time, she might not be able to land him again. So the parson went on with the ceremony, and the groom made most of his responses in bad language, and howled ...
— The Idler, Volume III., Issue XIII., February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly. Edited By Jerome K. Jerome & Robert Barr • Various
... hunted by the inhabitants, or persecuted by hawks, or cats, or other animals; but this is not the case, and no cause can be assigned for their wildness. They live on the central, higher rocky land and near the sea-cliffs, and, being exceedingly shy and timid, seldom appear in the lower and cultivated districts. They are said to produce from four to six young at a birth, and their breeding season is in July and August. Lastly, and this is a highly remarkable fact, Mr. Bartlett could never succeed in ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Vol. I. • Charles Darwin
... appointed an assistant teacher, and she and Mr. Mott, with a desire to know more of literature, and quite possibly more of each other, began to study French together. He was tall, with light hair and blue eyes, and shy in manner; she, petite, with dark hair and eyes, quick in thought and action, and fond of mirth. When she was eighteen and James twenty-one, the young teachers were married, and both went to her father's ...
— Lives of Girls Who Became Famous • Sarah Knowles Bolton
... yellow gum, there was less than upon the same kind of plant in Botany Bay. Among the shoals and sandbanks we saw many large birds, some in particular of the same kind that we had seen in Botany Bay, much bigger than swans, which we judged to be pelicans; but they were so shy that we could not get within gun-shot of them. Upon the shore we saw a species of the bustard, one of which we shot; it was as large as a turkey, and weighed seventeen pounds and a half. We all agreed that this was the best bird ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr
... Philip, there was hope. He had been an odd child, slim and pale while Aimery was large and ruddy, shy where his brother was bold and bold where he was shy. He was backward in games and unready in a quarrel, but it was observed that he had no fear of the dark, or of the Green Lady that haunted the river avenue. Father Ambrose, his tutor, reported him of quick and excellent parts, but marred by a ...
— The Path of the King • John Buchan
... old woodchuck was a shy creature, and not knowing what guile the little boy's cordial greeting might mask, the old woodchuck discreetly disappeared in his hole, much to the ...
— A Little Book of Profitable Tales • Eugene Field
... do that, and the children were not so shy when the Patchwork Girl sat down to play with them. They grew to like Toto, too, and the little dog allowed them to pat him on his head, which gave the little ones ...
— The Patchwork Girl of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... allow her to alter it in any way. He is very obstinate at times, like so many shy men. And when your answer came, you see, things ...
— The Little Nugget • P.G. Wodehouse
... the day-time; but that was when they were more numerous, and less hunted. Now that they were scarce, and their skins so highly prized—which, of course, led to their becoming scarcer every day, and more shy too—they rarely ever left their hiding-place except during the night, and in this way they contrived to escape the vigilance of the hunters. As to the one they were waiting for, the hunter said he might return earlier or later, according ...
— Bruin - The Grand Bear Hunt • Mayne Reid
... gained ground."[21] Fox himself was not present at the "discussion," but he had a personal interview with Abrahams at about the same time as the "discussion." The interview was not very satisfactory. Fox says that he found this "notable teacher" "very high and shy, so that he would not let me touch him nor look upon him, but he bid me keep my eyes off him, for {123} he said they pierced him!"[22] But at a later visit, in 1684, Fox found the Collegiant doctor, now venerable with years, "very ...
— Spiritual Reformers in the 16th & 17th Centuries • Rufus M. Jones
... that day, the time I said I had to be mighty careful? Well, she's it. I'll walk on up with you. Run it down—run in panting, you might say. Said I had to have her and she shied at first, but that didn't make any difference, for I was there three times a day till she saw it wasn't any use to shy any longer; so she gave in and I caught the first preacher that happened to be hanging around and he soon pronounced us one and the same kind—something of the same sort. Go right down that street and you'll see calico on my clothes line most any ...
— The Jucklins - A Novel • Opie Read
... of a Greek chorus, the tale was flung at him, piecemeal and in chunks, and in a triple key. When presently he understood, Hazen looked down for a moment at the puppy—which was making sundry advances of a shy but friendly nature toward him. Then he looked at the boy, and noted Dick's hero-effort to choke back the onrush of babyish sobs. And then, with a roughly tolerant gesture, he silenced the two raucous women, who were beginning the tale over ...
— Bruce • Albert Payson Terhune
... side-table were the warm meats, vegetables, and several cold dishes. No servants were allowed in the room. It is the only meal when the family are quite alone together; the serving was all done by the royalties themselves. I felt quite shy when the King proposed to shell my shrimps for me! "Oh, your Majesty," I said, "I can ...
— The Sunny Side of Diplomatic Life, 1875-1912 • Lillie DeHegermann-Lindencrone
... orthodox doctrine is mere symbolism or adumbration of truths, the admission would involve the loss of the truths so indicated. Moral conduct, again, and moral beliefs are supposed to depend upon some affirmation of these truths; and excellent people are naturally shy of any open admission which may appear to throw doubt upon the ultimate ...
— Social Rights and Duties, Volume I (of 2) - Addresses to Ethical Societies • Sir Leslie Stephen
... friends, mixing up much that was fanciful with a little that was true. But the result was that gossip spread wide about Anthony, and he was held in the town to be a very fearful person, who could do strange mischief if he had a mind to; Anthony never cared to walk abroad, for he was of a shy habit, and disliked to meet the eyes of his fellows; but if he did go about, men began to look curiously after him as he went by, shook their heads and talked together with a dark pleasure, while children fled before his face and women feared him; all of which pleased Anthony ...
— Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories - Reprinted from The Hill of Trouble and The Isles of Sunset • Arthur Christopher Benson
... reached the woods, where the white birches stood like shy dryads among the oaks, she heard once more the robin's flutelike call. It was answered by another, exactly upon the same notes, yet wholly different as to quality. Presently, among the trees, she caught ...
— Old Rose and Silver • Myrtle Reed
... differences from various causes, some personal, others political, and some, I regret to say, from downright moral obliquity—as, for example, those between Cortinas and Canales —who, though generally hostile to the Imperialists, were freebooters enough to take a shy at each other frequently, and now and then even to join forces against Escobedo, unless we prevented them by coaxing or threats. A general who could unite these several factions was therefore greatly ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. II., Part 5 • P. H. Sheridan
... mild-eyed missionary, too new in the land to have lost his illusions or have blunted the keen edge of his enthusiasms; a colourless person with a finical way of handling his knife and fork, who darted continually shy, sidelong glances at Sophia, or interpolated eager, undigested ...
— The Bronze Bell • Louis Joseph Vance
... comes to give Janie her music-lesson every Wednesday afternoon.—We couldn't do without Miss Lisle, could we, Janie?" The girl was shy and did not speak, but a ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December 1878 • Various
... to say, you must put them into class one. In bringing about this change of footing, you yourself must make the advances. You must say, Go to, I will bear them in mind as I would a person I wished to cultivate. When occasion rises, you must introduce them into your talk. You will feel a bit shy about it, for introductions are difficult to accomplish gracefully; you will steal a furtive glance at your hearer perchance, and another at the word itself, as you would when first labeling a man "my friend Mr. Blank." But the embarrassment is momentary, and there ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... your ladyship's house the last year when he was butten by the red dog and your ladyship so kind as to giv him five shullins the terrier's name is Donacha bit he will soon answer to his English name that is Duncan Honnerd Lady you must be kind to him for he will be a little shy the first time he is awa from home and because he will not understand your languish as he was taught Gealic he got plenty of Blood on the foxes he can warry wan with himself alone let me no how you will be please with him and if he is behaved ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... Ramsey was sitting. The child gazed at pictures and ornaments, soft draperies and luxurious couches, feeling as if this were the court of a queen. She had knocked about too much in the streets to be very shy, but she was bewildered by all that she saw, so she sat on the edge of a chair not speaking, nor even listening to ...
— A Dear Little Girl • Amy E. Blanchard
... animals are put into smaller pastures provided with enclosures, where they are shut up at night. The extent of the larger savannahs is very great, some of them exceeding twenty miles, and the horses that are allowed to range in them become so shy, that their owners only can approach them, and the animals are considered safe ...
— A Peep into Toorkisthhan • Rollo Burslem
... duck were shot, as well as a few brent-geese, but these birds appeared remarkably shy and wary, although evidently ...
— Stray Leaves from an Arctic Journal; • Sherard Osborn
... fairly familiar term, Unique, has been very badly entreated. A late eminent auctioneer, who was not shy of using it, tried to bring into vogue the variant form, ...
— The Book-Collector • William Carew Hazlitt
... of books from childhood up, and he was enabled to gratify this taste by means of a very small village library, which contained several books of history, of which he was naturally fond. This boy, however, was a shy, devoted student, brave to maintain what he thought right, but so bashful that he was known to hide in the cellar when his parents were going ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume III (of 6) - Orators and Reformers • Various
... my wife and my shoulders are a little stooped. Although I write boldly I am a shy man. I like being at work alone in this room with the door closed. There are many books here. Nations march back and forth in the books. It is quiet here but in the books a great ...
— Triumph of the Egg and Other Stories • Sherwood Anderson
... except to your mother, your wife, or your greatest friend. It is a shy habit, a mania I have to the last degree. The idea that I am not writing for those alone to whom I write, or for those who love them thoroughly, would freeze my heart and my hand directly. Everyone has a fault. Mine is a misanthropy ...
— Famous Women: George Sand • Bertha Thomas
... extreme, and ruining him by sudden and excessive indulgence. Jesse, however, was not of a temperament to be easily spoilt. He had been so long an outcast from human society that he had become as wild and shy as his old companions of the fields and the coppice, the beasts of the earth and the birds of the air. The hare which he had himself given to Phoebe was easier to tame than ...
— Jesse Cliffe • Mary Russell Mitford
... America—promises to work a revolution; for notwithstanding the fact that, in many of the largest iron, steel, and glass factories in Pittsburg and its vicinity, natural gas has already been substituted for coal, the managers of some such works are shy of the new fuel, mainly for two reasons: 1. They doubt the continuity and regularity of its supply. 2. They do not deem the difference between the price of natural gas and coal sufficient as yet to justify the expenditure involved in the furnace changes necessary to the substitution ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 497, July 11, 1885 • Various
... sail as before in the middle distance, or night-hawks would cut their strange curves in the evening sky. Far out beyond, sea-gulls, mere specks of white, would wheel and plunge into the bay, and at our backs the woodcock, shy enough in any other presence, would whir fantastically through the woods. All nature was the same, but I was no longer its solitary admirer, for I held in my arms a gentle framework of delight such as no other man before or since ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 10 • Various
... took the sound up softly, and stood by the wet stones a little while, imitating the bird's trilling note, and laughing to hear it answer timidly, as if it took him for some great new bird without wings. Cocking its shy head and watching him shrewdly with its beady eye, it sat, almost persuaded that it was only size which made them different, until Nick clapped his cap upon his head and strolled ...
— Master Skylark • John Bennett
... something the Dakotas are very fond of, though usually it is connected with some of their dances or other heathen customs. Some of the old women wished to know if I was going to preach to them, evidently wanting to fight shy of anything of this sort, but I told them no, it was to be a real feast, not a ...
— American Missionary, Volume 43, No. 4, April, 1889 • Various
... hand of Miss Florida Vervain, who had come into the room to receive him. She was a girl of about seventeen years, who looked older; she was tall rather than short, and rather full,—though it could not be said that she erred in point of solidity. In the attitudes of shy hauteur into which she constantly fell, there was a touch of defiant awkwardness which had a certain fascination. She was blonde, with a throat and hands of milky whiteness; there was a suggestion of freckles on her regular face, where a quick color came and ...
— A Foregone Conclusion • W. D. Howells
... over and stood by Drusy's side, and they talked in a low, interested tone. She never talked to him in that way, never listened to what he had to say with such half-shy, half-coquettish attention. But she would not dance, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various
... we should have been polite and have talked all round what we wanted to say. It would have been cheek to tell you—the second time we met—that your eyes looked at me just as they did when you were a little child. I should have had to be decently careful because you might have felt shy. You don't feel shy now, do you? No, you don't," in caressing conviction ...
— Robin • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... blood had risen into their head. Powerless they dropped, as if paralyzed, the arms were hanging down, the musket fell out of their hands. The moment they lost their strength tears came to their eyes, repeatedly they arose, apparently deprived of their senses, and stared shy and terror-stricken at their surroundings. The physiognomy, the spasmodic contractions of the muscles of the face, manifested the cruel agony which they suffered. The eyes were very red, and drops of blood trickled from the conjunctiva. Without exaggeration ...
— Napoleon's Campaign in Russia Anno 1812 • Achilles Rose
... Phillis felt rather shy and uncomfortable as she picked her way warily among the rain-pools in the semi-darkness. Her companion was inclined to be silent; most likely he considered her churlish in repelling his civil offers of help: ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... he was prouder to have shaken hands with her than if she had been King George. The season at Grand Canary had not begun, and there were very few visitors at the hotel. Those who were there saw a frail nervous old lady, followed by a black girl who was too shy to raise her eyes. "We were certainly a frightened pair," Mary afterwards confessed. But the management attended to her as if she were a princess. "What love is wrapped round me!" she wrote. "All ...
— Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary • W. P. Livingstone
... look, and it was curious to see the ineffectual forces gather to veil what in spite of them wreathed in her smile and laid an additional roseleaf upon each cheek. The shy eyes retreated from view; then they were raised again as she touched his arm and said, with a demure softness, ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner
... June of that year." No clew is given to the identity of the editor who makes this statement. And here let me remark in passing that it is a remarkable fact that all the editors of the numerous editions of the protocols, both here and abroad, are very shy persons and hide under the mask of anonymity. Nor is any clew given to the identity of the traveler from Siberia. Another report, also by a traveler returned from Siberia, who may possibly be the same person, makes it appear that the Nilus who was at Irkutsk is the son of the man who died ...
— The Jew and American Ideals • John Spargo
... presidential chair, and guided the destinies of the most progressive half of the world, not a single man had been suggested by the political leaders even ten years before his election. No wonder politicians become shy ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... aim to swaller my grub whole. I'm shy a few teeth and some of the balance don't meet, so I can't consume vittles like I was a pulp-mill. I didn't start ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... tenderness of the Christmas-tide, I could not help doing the same by all the others who were present. And I remember now the dignity of mien in some, the frank ease in others, both graceful and gracious, with which my civility was met. If a few were a little shy, the rest more than made it up by their welcome of me, and a sort of politeness which had almost something courtly in it. Darry and Maria together gave me a seat, in the very centre and glow of the kitchen light and warmth; and the rest made a half circle around, ...
— Daisy • Elizabeth Wetherell
... hoped to settle the affair before dinner, but by the time she was gowned and primped, the first premature guest had arrived like the rashest primrose, shy, surprised, and surprising. Sir Joseph had gone below already. Lady Webling was hull down on ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... The girl, glancing with shy timidity at Genji, for whom she already had some liking, and thinking that perhaps there was impropriety in what she had spoken, went over to her nurse, and said, "Oh! I am very sleepy, and ...
— Japanese Literature - Including Selections from Genji Monogatari and Classical - Poetry and Drama of Japan • Various
... "He is shy," Keith explained. "But he can tell you all about the island. And now come home with me, Bishop. I feel as if it were time for luncheon. It must ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... door-way, or some quaint device in architecture, illustrative of embryo art and ancient manners. Mr. Lamb has the very soul of an antiquarian, as this implies a reflecting humanity; the film of the past hovers for ever before him. He is shy, sensitive, the reverse of every thing coarse, vulgar, obtrusive, and common-place. He would fain "shuffle off this mortal coil", and his spirit clothes itself in the garb of elder time, homelier, but ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... beheld from the height of the burg shapes of men grey and colourless creeping toward the lair from sunshine to shadow, like wild creatures shy and fearful of the hunter, or so ...
— The Roots of the Mountains • William Morris
... village maid 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— ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... was imprinted on his heart for ever; but he vaguely understood her position in the house; he felt that between him and her there existed a barrier which she dared not and could not break down. He was shy of his father, and, indeed, Ivan Petrovitch on his side never caressed him; his grandfather sometimes patted him on the head and gave him his hand to kiss, but he thought him and called him a little fool. After the death of Malanya Sergyevna, his aunt finally got him under her control. ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... singular and perpetual charm in a letter of yours—it never grows old; it never loses its novelty. One can say to one's self every morning: "There's that letter of Morse's. I haven't read it yet. I think I'll take another shy at it to-day, and maybe I shall be able in the course of a few days to make out what he means by those t's that look like w's, and those i's that haven't ...
— Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools - Edited With Notes, Study Helps, And Reading Lists • Various
... and ought to have made her way into the front rows near the platform where she might easily have found a seat, but Valmai was shy and retiring, and seeing there was no settled place for her, kept on the outskirts of the crowd, and at last found herself on the piece of uncultivated ground which bordered the corner of the Vicar's long meadow. ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine
... the moist heaps of last year's leaves to the shining rivulets in the wheel ruts by the way. A partridge whistled from the yellowing green of the wheat, and a rabbit stole noiselessly from the sassafras in the ditch and shot shy glances of alarm; but he did not turn his head, and his hand held ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... Secreti. To confirm this notion that these academies excited the jealousy of those despotic states of Italy, I find that several of them, at Florence as well as at Sienna, were considered as dangerous meetings, and in 1568 the Medici suddenly suppressed those of the "Insipids," the "Shy," the "Disheartened," and others, but more particularly the "Stunned," gli Intronati, which excited loud laments. We have also an account of an academy which called itself the Lanternists, from the circumstance that their first meetings were held at night, ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... mountain again, with never a shy or a snort—the horse knowing the rider, and the man the noble beast; the lizards wheetling merrily, and the paroquets on the tree-tops waking up to chatter with satisfaction. Then into the beaten track along by the sea-shore, the horse increasing his stride at every ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... Charter House; and thence to Oxford, where he first entered Queen's College, and later, became a member of Magdalen, to the beauty of whose architecture and natural situation the tradition of his walks and personality adds no small charm. He was a close student, shy in manner, given to late hours of work. His literary tastes and appetite were early disclosed, and in his twenty-second year he was already known in London, had written an 'Account of the Greatest English Poets,' and had addressed some complimentary verses to Dryden, then the ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... here represented as having the tongue of 'them that are taught,' and as having it, because morning by morning He has been wakened to hear God's lessons. He is thus God's scholar—a thought of which an unreflecting orthodoxy has been shy, but which it is necessary to admit unhesitatingly and ungrudgingly, if we would not reduce the manhood of Jesus to a mere phantasm. He Himself has said, 'As the Father taught Me, I speak these things.' With emphatic repetition, He was continually making that assertion, as, for ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... very shy all at once, "I remember you now; but you looked different somehow, and the sun was in my eyes; poor Sir Wilfred—yes, we heard he was dead—he came to see Aunt Griselda once before he went away. It must be very lonely for you at the Hall," and she glanced at his ...
— Wee Wifie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... leaves; she looked at the laughing white villas westward, the pale-green vineyards, the yellow cornfields; she looked at the rushing river, with the diamonds sparkling on its surface, at the far-away gleaming snows of Monte Sfiorito, at the scintillant blue shy overhead. ...
— The Cardinal's Snuff-Box • Henry Harland
... and inviolable intimacy is formed between them. The boy opens all his heart to his mother, telling her everything; and she, happy woman, knows how to be a boy's mother and to keep a mother's place without ever startling or checking the shy confidences, or causing him to desire to hide anything from her. The boy whispers his inmost thoughts to his mother, and listens to her wise and gentle counsels with loving eagerness and ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... the air pure; much in this world has to be taken for granted, and we cannot be for ever arguing over our first principles. If a man persists in talking of what he does not understand, he is put down; if he sports loose views on morals at a decent dinner party, the better sort of people fight shy of him, and he is not invited again; if he profess himself a Buddhist, a Mahometan, it is assumed that he has not adopted those beliefs on serious conviction but rather in wilful levity and eccentricity which does not deserve ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude
... orator; Swift, her greatest satirist; Goldsmith, her sweetest poet; Arthur Wellesley, her greatest fighter—not to mention Lord Bobs—all awfully Irish. And to America comes Alexander Turney Stewart, aged twenty, very Irish, shy, pink, blue of eye, with downy whiskers, intending to teach school until he could prepare ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 11 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen • Elbert Hubbard
... work gives us a sweet shy welcome. She is a Swedish girl, with the fair complexion and crisp, bright hair peculiar to the Scandinavian blonde-type. Her head reminds me of a Grenze that hangs in the Louvre, with its low knot of rippling hair, which fluffs out from her brow and frames a dear little face with soft ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth
... a geranium and smiles shy, like he always does when he's kidded. "If you please, sir," says he, "it's only a lady; to ...
— Wilt Thou Torchy • Sewell Ford
... be a stranger he must stand ready, as the French say, to pay with his person; and this was an obligation that Hawthorne was indisposed to incur. Our sense, as we read, that his reflections are those of a shy and susceptible man, with nothing at stake, mentally, in his appreciation of the country, is therefore a drawback to our confidence; but it is not a drawback sufficient to make it of no importance that he is at the same time singularly intelligent ...
— Hawthorne - (English Men of Letters Series) • Henry James, Junr.
... 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, ...
— The Hundred Best English Poems • Various
... down the road, while my grandfather sat down on the turf along with the soldiers, and smoked a pipe of tobacco. Very nice lads they were, too; but he felt shy in their company, thinking how badly he had deceived them, and also that the joke was near running dry. For, whatever cart the Jew might hire, the driver couldn't help recognising a man so widely known ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... like it,' said nurse afterwards, when talking it over with Mrs. Giles; 'but he seemed rather a high-handed gentleman, as if he wouldn't take no. I don't know whether the mistress would like it, most children would be shy of it, but none of these seem to know what shyness is; and Miss Betty seems to make friends wherever she goes. I can't understand it; Miss Molly, to my eyes, is much the ...
— Odd • Amy Le Feuvre
... John's meaning, surely he would have said, [Greek: en theo], not [Greek: pros ton theon], in the nearest proximity that is not confusion. But it is strange, that Sherlock should not have seen that Grotius had a hankering toward Socinianism, but, like a 'shy cock', and a man of the world, was always ready to unsay what he ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... go upon in crying down the credit of the 54th beyond hearsay and the self-evident fact that they are half their nominal strength. To assume they won't put up a fight is a certain way of making the best troops gun-shy. We are standing up to our necks in a time problem, and the tide is on the rise. There is not a moment to spare. The Turks have reinforced and they have brought back their guns; that is true. Now they will begin to dig trenches—indeed they are already ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume 2 • Ian Hamilton
... overpowered by the sense of his own utter loneliness and given his hand, if not his heart, to some other woman? And could not she who held his hand learn to reach his heart? And to whom would that hand have been given, the hand and all that went with it? What woman would this shy Welsh hermit, without friends or relations, have ever been thrown in with except herself—Elizabeth—who loved him as much as she could love anybody, which, perhaps, was not very much; who, at any rate, desired sorely to be his wife. Would not all this have come about ...
— Beatrice • H. Rider Haggard
... extract a passage from Madame Girardin's letter of March 7, 1847, in Vol. IV. of "Le Vicomte de Launay," where, after describing Mdlle. O'Meara's beauty, more especially her Irish look—"that mixture of sadness and serenity, of profound tenderness and shy dignity, which you never find in the proud and brilliant looks which you admire in the women of other ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... may find him—God will not pass him by. He will take him by the hand and lead him home." The old man had thought her touched by delirium then, though her words were but the parable of a mind fed by the poetry of life, by a shy spirit, to which meditation gave fancy and farseeing. David had come by his idealism honestly. The half-mystical spirit of his Uncle Benn had flowed on to another generation through the filter of a woman's sad soul. It had come to ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... of greening ranges and the coming of new calves. Soft winds dipped and wantoned with Lost Valley, in the Canon Country shy flowers, waxen, heavy-headed on thin stems, clung ...
— Tharon of Lost Valley • Vingie E. Roe
... Mississippi—it was a Friday, a day that I hate. All seamen and hunters do hate it; it's an unlucky day. All the bad luck I ever had, came to me on Fridays. I had a feeling that something would go wrong when we went on board the Helen M'Gregor. I thought Miss Lambton looked shy upon me, and the old gentleman stiffer than ever. I followed the Miss, however, wherever she went, so close, that once or twice I trod ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... to show her my sister's flowers; for no word of mine would those lovely eyes look up. She was not shy; her grace of manner was too perfect for that, but she was evidently afraid to look at me, and I reproached myself that I had perhaps frightened her ...
— Coralie • Charlotte M. Braeme
... the happiest days of both lives were spent, and many a time have the walls resounded to the great voice, laughing, praising or condemning, of Walter Savage Landor; while the shy Hawthorne has talked here too. Casa Guidi lodged not only the Brownings, but, at one time, Lowell, who was not, however, a very good Florentine. "As for pictures," I find him writing, in 1874, on a later visit, "I am tired to death of 'em,... and then most of them are so bad. I like ...
— A Wanderer in Florence • E. V. Lucas
... only think of the Squire of Briarwood as the lad from Eton—clumsy, shy, given to breaking teacups, and leaving the track of his footsteps in clay or ...
— Vixen, Volume I. • M. E. Braddon
... longer listening. She was smiling affectionately at a point straight before her, and Felicia, turning to see to whom that smile was addressed, saw Paul de Gery replying to Mademoiselle Joyeuse's shy and ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... called an author! The Adjutant, under whom it was my duty to act when I was a Serjeant Major, was, as almost all military officers are, or at least were, a very illiterate man, perceiving that every sentence of mine was in the same form and manner as sentences in print, became shy of letting me see pieces of his writing. The writing of orders, and other things, therefore, fell to me; and thus, though no nominal addition was made to my pay, and no nominal addition to my authority, I acquired the latter as effectually as if a law had been passed to confer it upon me. ...
— Advice to Young Men • William Cobbett
... 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 ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... remain something of an undiscovered country. Moreover, had she not told him that he rested her? To ask questions, however sympathetic, to volunteer consolation, however delicately worded, is to risk being officious; and to be officious, in however mild a degree, is to drive away the shy and illusive spirit of rest. And so Dominic Iglesias was coming, in the good nautical reading of that phrase, simply "to stand by" and wait where this woman was concerned. After all, it was but the reapplication of a lesson learned long ago ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... as Billy Moore does. But don't you all say a word, for John's mighty timid, and I don't believe, in spite of all these years, he's had a single notion yet. If he had had he'd have tried a set-to with you, Molly, like all the rest of the shy birds in town. He doesn't see a woman as anything but a patient at the end of a spoon, and mighty kind and gentle he does the dosing of them, too. Just the other day—dearie me, Judy, what has boiled ...
— The Melting of Molly • Maria Thompson Daviess
... saw Leon again, the lad came in a shadowy way to take the place he had momentarily designed for Joseph Strelitski. To-night it was Pinchas who assumed the paternal manner, but he mingled it with a subtle obsequiousness that made the shy simple lad uncomfortable, though when he came to read the poet's lofty sentiments which arrived (with an acrostic dedication) by the first post next morning, he conceived an enthusiastic admiration for the ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... broken gates, By slashes of pines around old estates; By planters' graves afield under clumps Of blackjack oaks and tobacco stumps; The empty quarters of negroes grin From clearings of cedar and chinquopin; From fodder stacks the wild swine flew, The shy young wheat the frost peeped through, And the swamp owl hooted as if she knew Of the crime, as she hailed: "Ahoy! Ahoy!" And the chiming hoofs of the horses drew ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend
... the two men in those days, receiving regularly the poet's sunny recognition and the statesman's rather unsympathetic stare. Both men were overwhelmingly famous, but, touched simultaneously by warmth and frost, I, a shy youngster, could keep my balance in their presence. Sumner in those years was the especial bete noire of the South and the conservative North, and the idol of the radicals—at once the most banned and the most ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer
... Keene, we must come to another part of our history. As there are three roads to larning, so there are three manes or implements by which boys are stimulated to larn: the first is the ruler, which you saw me shy at the thick skull of Johnny Target, and you see'd what a rap it gave him; well, then, the second is the ferrule—a thing you never heard of, perhaps; but I'll show it you; here it is," continued Mr O'Gallagher, ...
— Percival Keene • Frederick Marryat
... fashionable chaperon who had her in training. Salome would not grow pretty, in spite of all that could be done for her. Salome would not make a sensation, for all her father's wealth and her own expectations. She remained quiet, shy, silent, dreamy, even in the gayest society, as in the Highland solitudes, with one worship in her soul—the worship of that self-devoted son—that self-banished prince, whose "counterfeit presentment" she had seen in the tower at Lone, ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth
... he was modest and even shy, although both his father and grandfather were well-known chiefs. I could find few noteworthy incidents in his early life, save that he was an expert rider of wild horses. At one time I was pressing him to give me some interesting incident of his boyhood. He replied to ...
— Indian Heroes and Great Chieftains • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... a little shy when first introduced to these queer people; but they were so friendly and sincere that he soon grew to admire them very much, even finding some good qualities in the yellow hen. But he became nervous again when the next visitor ...
— Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz • L. Frank Baum.
... still madly dashing on, panting and blowing, and had almost given up all hope, I saw at a distance before me a heap of stones by the side of the road, probably placed there for the purpose of repairing it; a thought appeared to strike me—I will shy at those stones, and if I can't get rid of him so, resign myself to my fate. So I increased my speed, till arriving within about ten yards of the heap, I made a desperate start, turning half round with nearly the velocity of a millstone. Oh, the joy I experienced when I felt my enemy canted ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... gun, it is so dangerous. Don't stand there looking like a wild ox, but come up to the yoke. You are old, Uncle Silas, and I don't want to have to hurt you. Come now, come, come," and he held out his hand towards him as though he were a shy horse that he was endeavouring ...
— Jess • H. Rider Haggard
... with thoughtful look, The boy sought out a shaded nook, Apart from all—yet near The opening where the men had laid Their rations on the mossy glade, Beside the swamp-marsh drear. Silent was he, reserved and shy, Seldom raising cap or eye; Not many days since first his hand Had joined him to that patriot band; Yet none more truly did fulfill, The duties of his arm required, Though slight withal, and often still When the loud signal-gun was fired, ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848 • Various
... pretty Jane! Ah! never, never look so shy; But meet me in the evening, While the bloom is on the rye. The spring is waning fast, my love, The corn is in the ear, The summer nights are coming, love, The moon shines bright and clear. Then, pretty Jane, my dearest Jane! Ah! never look so shy, But meet me in the evening, While the ...
— Old Ballads • Various
... monarchs became absolute, the most refractory of that country used to write libels, called North Danes, against this great officer; but that practice has long since ceased. Count Holke seems rather proud of his favour, than shy of displaying it. ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... by your home, but you have not been taken by mine. Come with me; you will not mind much." There was a shy pleading in the Other Girl's tone. On the instant of offering hospitality to this dainty new friend, and acute perception of the barrenness of it overswept and dismayed her. In a flash she saw the patch on the seat of Tim's trousers, and instantly an ...
— Glory and the Other Girl • Annie Hamilton Donnell
... said something: a shy halting request that set his blood galloping: "Sahib, it is not far to Mandhatta—four kos, or perhaps it is five; would it be unpermitted to suggest that we go there, for the moon is beautiful and the ...
— Caste • W. A. Fraser
... needed no pressing to accept it. He did not get many invitations, poor chap! and the prospect of an afternoon at Bert's home seemed very attractive to him. He did enjoy himself thoroughly, too, even if he was so shy and awkward that Mrs. Lloyd and Mary were afraid to say very much to him; he seemed to find it so hard to ...
— Bert Lloyd's Boyhood - A Story from Nova Scotia • J. McDonald Oxley
... the West India islands, and the first of the kind that had been yet met with by our navigators. Among the shoals and sand banks of the coast, they saw many large birds, and some in particular of the same kind which they had seen in Botany Bay. These they judged to be pelicans, but they were so shy as never to come within reach of a musket. On the shore was found a species of the bustard, one of which was shot that was equal in size to a turkey, weighing seventeen pounds and a half. All the gentlemen agreed that this was ...
— Narrative of the Voyages Round The World, • A. Kippis
... to spend the summer here, are you?" says I. "Besides, it'll do you good to learn not to shy at a man just because he's done time. Show us ...
— Shorty McCabe on the Job • Sewell Ford
... Of the forest to his song There came lynxes streaky-golden, There came lions in a throng, Tawny-coated, ruddy-eyed, To that piper in his pride; And shy fawns he would embolden, Dappled dancers, out along The shadow by ...
— Alcestis • Euripides
... loved a butler o' the Bangletops for nigh hon to two 'undred years, but, some'ow or hother, he's kep' shy o' me. This'll fix 'im. But h'I say, Mr. Terwilliger, his one o' them Heyetalian dukes as good ...
— The Water Ghost and Others • John Kendrick Bangs
... the childish grace untaught, The innocent wiles, And all the sunny smiles, The cheek that flushed to greet some tiny treasure; The mouth demure, the tilted chin held high, The gleeful flashes of her glancing eye; Her shy bold look of wildness unconfined, And the gay impulse of her baby mind That none could tame, That sent her spinning round, A spirit of living flame Dancing in airy rapture o'er the ground— All these with that faint sigh are made to be ...
— The Vagabond and Other Poems from Punch • R. C. Lehmann
... laugh and a jest, that, no matter how innocent her words or her actions might be, an evil meaning was twisted out of them and applauded. Even her uncle laughed and seemed to agree when Heriot declared that a woman who was shy in her love affairs was always the most dangerous, and suggested that Mrs. Dearmer must look to her laurels now that Mistress Lanison had taken the field against her. To deny the insinuations, or to resent them, was only to make these men and women coarser, and increase ...
— The Brown Mask • Percy J. Brebner
... blooming On your own cheeks just such roses, On your hat you'll have to wear them. But now tell me, wherefore is it That I do so dearly love you? Not a word you ere have spoken, That could show me that you loved me. Sometimes only shy and bashful Did you raise at me your glances, And sometimes you played before me. Is it, then, your country's custom, That a woman's love is won ...
— The Trumpeter of Saekkingen - A Song from the Upper Rhine. • Joseph Victor von Scheffel
... is in so poor a plight. Our system is full of anomalies. A, who cut B whilst he was a shabby student, curries sedulously up to him and cudgels his memory for anecdotes about him when he becomes the great so-and-so. Let there be an end of this shy, proud reserve on the one hand, and this shuddering fine ladyism on the other; and we think we shall find both ourselves and the College bettered. Let it be a sufficient reason for intercourse that two men sit together on the same benches. Let the great A be held excused for nodding to ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... now and then with a languid indifference. The blue jays—as usual—were brazen in their ingratitude for any dole of commonplace crumbs, while spicy seeds were still strewn by every scented breeze. But shy and bold alike, they all flocked around Ruth's window, and sat on the sill within reach of her hand, and cocked their pretty heads as if it were feast enough only to look ...
— Round Anvil Rock - A Romance • Nancy Huston Banks
... Mr. Holmes," laughed the clerk. "We're rather shy on the nobility to-night. The nearest we come to anything worth while in that line is a baronet—Sir Henry Darlington of Dorsetshire, England. We can show you a nice line of ...
— R. Holmes & Co. • John Kendrick Bangs
... we are in Tyris rivulet! Part of a meadow is flooded; a herd of horses become shy from the snorting of the steamer's engine; they dash through the water in the meadow, and it spurts up all over them. It glitters there between the trees on the declivity: the Upsala students lie encamped there, and exercise themselves ...
— Pictures of Sweden • Hans Christian Andersen
... I can tell you what that bird was—a kingfisher, the celebrated halcyon of the ancients, about which so many tales are told. It lives on fish, which it catches in the manner you saw. It builds in holes in the banks, and is a shy, retired bird, never to be seen far from the stream ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... from the first shock of surprise and delight, came forward and greeted him with a shy reserve. She gave him her hand, and its gentle touch reanimated his soul. She smiled at him,—a gracious smile, and its light illumined the darkness of his heart. His sadness vanished. He once more felt an emotion ...
— The Redemption of David Corson • Charles Frederic Goss
... my reply she proceeded to explain to his lordship that the strangest change had come over me since I was a child, when I had been the sauciest little chatterbox in the world, whereas now I was so shy that it was nearly impossible to get a ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... damages their cherished furniture, and so choose the shade rather than its intrusive glare—there stood the house with which we have to deal. It was a modest building, not very straight, not large, not tall; not bold-faced, with great staring windows, but a shy, blinking house, with a conical roof going up into a peak over its garret window of four small panes of glass, like a cocked hat on the head of an elderly gentleman with one eye. It was not built of brick or lofty stone, but of wood and plaster; it was not planned ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... years old, came forward boldly enough, and submitted to be lifted to her knee. But Norman, aged five, had been once or twice sent to the school, with his brothers, when his absence was convenient at home, and certain unpleasant recollections of such times made him a little shy of meeting her friendly advances. Even Robin and Jack had been in their day afraid of the mistress and her tawse. But Marjorie had never been at the school, and had always seen her in her best mood in the manse parlour. She had had rather a dull ...
— Allison Bain - By a Way she knew not • Margaret Murray Robertson
... and probably won't come back," Scott remarked. "He has a plausible manner, but seems to have done no better in New York than you did in Montreal; it looks as if machinery agents are very shy about giving credit to the owners of half-developed mines. Anyhow, when he heard of a field for his talents in a Western town he didn't hesitate. Now he tells me that he finds the prospect of earning some money instead of ...
— The Lure of the North • Harold Bindloss
... my ideal, I should have wished her to be as nearly like Uncle James as the circumstances of the case would permit. I watched his yellow waistcoat and waving hands till they could be seen no longer, and then I settled myself primly upon the back seat, and ventured upon a shy conciliating promise to be ...
— Mrs. Overtheway's Remembrances • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... history up to a certain period of one of rather a peculiar mind and system of nerves, with an exterior shy and cold, under which lurk much curiosity, especially with regard to what is wild and extraordinary, a considerable quantity of energy and industry, and an unconquerable love of independence. It narrates his earliest dreams and feelings, dwells with minuteness on the ways, words, and characters of ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow
... enter the market with their beasts in an excited state, imagining that they then look gay; but distended nostrils, loose bowels, and reeking bodies are no recommendations to a purchaser. Good judges are shy of purchasing cattle in a heated state, because they do not know how long they may have been in it; and to cover any risk, will give at least five dollars a head below what they would have offered for them in a cool state. Some drovers have a habit of thumping at ...
— Cattle and Their Diseases • Robert Jennings
... subject, that they, who could have given satisfactory information upon it, would have rejoiced to do it. But I found it otherwise, and this frequently to my sorrow. There was an aversion in persons to appear before such a tribunal as they conceived the privy council to be. With men of shy or timid character this operated as an insuperable barrier in their way. But it operated more or less upon all. It was surprising to see what little circumstances affected many. When I took out my pen and ink to put down the information, ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade by the British Parliament (1808) • Thomas Clarkson
... folk upon the busy highways,—an endless procession that went and came. Pack-horses, war chariots, slaves and soldiers, nobles, merchants, and artificers, men with goods to sell and men without,—a motley throng from many lands. Nicanor, shy and fierce-eyed and of shaggy hair, tramping steadily southward in the wake of the swift-footed soldiers, felt that the world was a very mighty place, and never had he dreamed of such great people. As he drew nearer Londinium, the traffic ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor
... apparently one of the denizens of the infernal regions has got its tail smashed in a door and the heavy hot afternoon air is reft by an inchoate howl of agony. I drop my needlework and take to the deck; but it is after all only that shy retiring young man practising ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... for him. Not a bit of it! No child could have been happier. He did not want for company; his playfellows were the dogs and cats and chickens, and any creature in and about the house. But most of all he loved the little shy creatures that lived in the sunshine among the flowers—the small birds and butterflies, and little beasties and creeping things he was accustomed to see outside the gate among the tall, wild sunflowers. There were acres of these plants, and they were ...
— A Little Boy Lost • Hudson, W. H.
... Pedro, who is your prisoner, who makes the fourth in this curious quartette? He seems shy about showing his face, which would argue it an ugly one ...
— The Free Lances - A Romance of the Mexican Valley • Mayne Reid
... and Barbara came to him, putting out a shy hand. "Ah! So this is the little niece!" he exclaimed. "Well! Well!—When did ...
— Apron-Strings • Eleanor Gates
... go shy yourself jest because I'm here," he protested, as Wallie attempted to cut one in two with the butcher-knife. "I ain't feelin' so hungry—somethin' has took ...
— The Dude Wrangler • Caroline Lockhart
... soft shy eyes, with their fringe of dark lashes, were looking straight at him. As he gazed the child suddenly rose, and darted towards the brothers as if she had wings ...
— The Lord of Dynevor • Evelyn Everett-Green
... horn called all to supper, and a goodly party, including six children besides the Camp-bells, assembled in the long dining-room, armed with mountain appetites and the gayest spirits. It was impossible for anyone to be shy or sober, for such gales of merriment arose they blew the starch out of the stiffest, and made the saddest jolly. Mother Atkinson, as all called their hostess, was the merriest there, and the busiest; for she kept flying up to wait on the children, to bring out some ...
— Eight Cousins • Louisa M. Alcott
... in their noses, and paint as the others, but not much. They make the same signs of friendship, and their language seems to be one; but the others had proas, and these canoes. On the sides of some of these we saw the figures of several fish neatly cut, and these last were not so shy as the others. ...
— Early Australian Voyages • John Pinkerton
... smooth as Sunday all except his paws and ears. His paws and ears were sort of rumpled. His eyes were gold and very sweet like keepsakes you must never spend. He had a sad tail. He was a setter dog. He was meant to hunt. But he couldn't hunt because he was so shy. It was guns that ...
— Fairy Prince and Other Stories • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... refusals and all sorts of difficulties before my admittance to the Borda. And later I lived through many troublous years; years replete with struggles and mistakes,—I had many a Calvary to climb; I had to pay cruelly and in full for having been reared a sensitive, shy little creature, by force of will I had to recast and harden my physical as well as my moral being. One day, when I was about twenty-seven years of age, a circus director, after having seen my muscles that then had the elasticity ...
— The Story of a Child • Pierre Loti
... straight across the path. Now Norah usually took off her shoes and stockings and waded over this stream; but she did not like to do so with Karl looking on. Karl would have liked to pick her up in his arms and carry her across like a true hero of romance; but he was shy of proposing it. So he fetched some large flat stones, placed them dexterously in the stream, and sprang across himself, then he held out a hand to Norah who stepped over as quickly and gracefully as ...
— Fairy Tales from the German Forests • Margaret Arndt
... Bonchurch occupied him; but the expediency of making it clearer came soon after with a visit from Mr. Evans, who brought his half-year's accounts of sales, and some small disappointment for him in those of Copperfield. "The accounts are rather shy, after Dombey, and what you said comes true after all. I am not sorry I cannot bring myself to care much for what opinions people may form; and I have a strong belief, that, if any of my books ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... hardly take his eyes off the beautiful face of the lady, and for once he felt too shy to say much, but when he was outside the door his tongue ...
— Willie the Waif • Minie Herbert
... afraid of the astronomers,—said the Master.—They were shy, you know, of the Copernican system, for a long while; well they might be with an oubliette waiting for them if they ventured to think that the earth moved round the sun. Science settled that point finally ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... causes no little anxiety. With this a slight pallor of the face is associated and a peculiar lustre of the eyes. The children lose their former feeling of gayety and activity. They sleep more than usual, withdraw from their favorite game, they become grumbly and shy toward their surroundings and cry for the slightest reason. It also is very peculiar that they avoid trying their former little tricks, such as climbing up on chairs, opening of door bolts that are almost out of their reach, they even will not try to look through a latticed window ...
— Prof. Koch's Method to Cure Tuberculosis Popularly Treated • Max Birnbaum
... his rough whisker. That was my opinion, at least, when I saw her do it; and I held Mr. Peggotty to be thoroughly in the right. But she was so affectionate and sweet-natured, and had such a pleasant manner of being both sly and shy at once, that she captivated me more ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... As a good hawk, who duck or woodcock shy, Partridge or pigeon, or such other prey, Seeing towards her from a distance fly, Raises her head, and shows her blithe and gay; So Mandricardo, in security Of crushing Rodomont in that affray, Gladly ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... little of her reserve. She spoke freely to Richard of all her plans and fears and hopes. She no longer was shy in admitting her affection for him, her happiness in his presence, her loneliness without him. It was easy for Richard to see that she was gladly casting away every feeling that stood ...
— The Hallam Succession • Amelia Edith Barr
... his knife and fork Levin observed a ring, with a pure white diamond in it, flash upon the Captain's hand. He was a blue-eyed man, with a blush and a lisp at once, as of one shy, but at times he would look straight and bold at some one of the group, and then he seemed to lose his delicacy and become coarse and cold. One such look he gave at Hulda, who bowed her eyes before it, and looked ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... him well enough. They know what trouble he takes for them, and there's nobody dares cheek him. But they don't understand him. He's too shy. Wasn't it good fortune for me that he happens to be ...
— Lady Connie • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... not at the sight of so many thieves only, but at the circumstances I was in; being now to thrust myself in among so many people, who for some weeks had been so shy of myself that if I met anybody in the street I would cross ...
— A Journal of the Plague Year • Daniel Defoe
... two minutes' notice, and provided he has patience, and can wait for his little bird, he is almost sure to be rewarded for his pains,—if he wait long enough. This of course depends upon circumstances: when the birds are plenty and are not shy, it is a common thing to secure three or four at once in a very few minutes, while at other times an ...
— Camp Life in the Woods and the Tricks of Trapping and Trap Making • William Hamilton Gibson
... clasped it for a brief instant in a warm strong pressure, but dropped it again and there was a quick cold withdrawing of his eyes that she did not understand. The old Mark Carter would never have looked at her coolly, impersonally like that. What was it, was he shy of her after the long separation? Four years was a long time, of course, but there had been occasional letters. He had always been away when she was at home, and she had been home very little between her school years. There had been summer ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill |
