"Timidity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... questions which make up the Irish problem has arisen again and again within the circle of the English-speaking races. As a nation we have a body of experience applicable to the case of Ireland incomparably greater than that possessed by any other race in the world. If, from timidity, prejudice, or sheer neglect, we fail to use it, we shall earn the heavy censure reserved for those who sin ...
— The Framework of Home Rule • Erskine Childers
... that he read daily. He kept in close touch with the international situation, he fumed constantly at the inactivity of his own government in view of her state of unpreparedness for a war into which she must sooner or later be inevitably plunged. He lost all patience with what he considered the timidity of the President, and what he called the stupidity of congress. Was not the youngest and the reddest and the best of the Butler blood at the fighting line, ready at any moment to be spilled to the death ...
— The Flag • Homer Greene
... the perversity of my nature I persevered in my resolution not to see her. Then, as I should have expected, I got no further answers. 'She is disgusted,' I said to myself, 'with what she thinks my timidity in making no more definite advances'; and I resolved to seek her and make her acquaintance and—what? I did not know, nor do I now know, what might have come of it. I know only that I passed days and days trying to meet her, and all in vain; she was invisible as well as inaudible. ...
— Can Such Things Be? • Ambrose Bierce
... had produced no one in any responsible position who understood the nature of the convulsion through which we were passing; and endless discussion had resulted (as must always be the case) in fatal indecision and timidity. ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts
... American sweetheart," she whispered, and, approaching him with a sort of timidity, laid her little hands upon his arm. "Do you still think ...
— Fire-Tongue • Sax Rohmer
... easy and too prolonged possession of power, for power, when it is too easily attained and too securely held, is a great corrupter. Lord Halifax gives a description of The Trimmer, by which term he meant, of course, not a man of vacillation or timidity, but the man who deliberately "trims" the boat of State and endeavours to keep her on an even keel. When he sees that there are too many people, or too much cargo, on one side, with the result that the boat is heeling over, ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... one," rejoined Clotilde, with increasing timidity; "some one whom you know perfectly well, and ...
— Led Astray and The Sphinx - Two Novellas In One Volume • Octave Feuillet
... entered, and received me with an easy self-possession that showed no trace of the reserve and timidity which foreigners ...
— Servia, Youngest Member of the European Family • Andrew Archibald Paton
... native troops and the mine laborers will be able to wipe us out, themselves," von Schlichten said. "For the timidity and stupidity of our enemies, Allah make us truly thankful, amen. It's something no commander should depend on, but be glad when it happens. If Firkked had had a couple of regiments on hand outside the ...
— Uller Uprising • Henry Beam Piper, John D. Clark and John F. Carr
... that he was ill fitted for such a task, and that he was much more qualified for cleaning the plates than for preaching. However, yielding to the superior's reiterated order, he began to discourse with simplicity and timidity; but God, proposing to place conspicuously the lamp which was hidden under the bushel, he continued his discourse with so much eloquence, and showed himself to possess so profoundly learned a doctrine, that the audience ...
— The Life and Legends of Saint Francis of Assisi • Father Candide Chalippe
... wider separation which is about to take place between us affects me, you may partly conceive, though not feel it in the same degree with which it oppresses my heart. If you reflect seriously on what I have undergone with you two children in your tender years, you will not accuse me of timidity, but, on the contrary, do me the justice to own that I am, and ever have been, a man with the heart to venture every thing, though indeed I always employed the greatest circumspection and precaution. Against accidents it is impossible to provide, for God only sees into ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... however, a person of powerful common sense, had persuaded Mrs. Lessways that the truest kindness would be to give Florrie a trial. Florrie was very strong, and she had been brought up to work hard, and she enjoyed working hard. "Don't you, Florrie?" "Yes, aunt," with a delightful smiling, whispering timidity. She was the eldest of a family of ten, and had always assisted her mother in the management of a half-crown house and the nurture of a regiment of infants. But at thirteen and a half a girl ought to be earning money for her parents. Bless you! She knew what a ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... keen sense of pride her Highland birth had given her; and he feared what might happen if this sensitive and proud heart of hers were driven into rebellion by some—possibly unintentional—wrong. And this high-spirited, fearless, honor-loving girl—who was gentle and obedient, not through any timidity or limpness of character, but because she considered it her duty to be gentle and obedient—was to be cast aside and have her tenderest feelings outraged and wounded for the sake of an unscrupulous, shallow-brained woman of fashion, who was not fit to be Sheila's waiting-maid. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 30. September, 1873 • Various
... coming to a crisis, paused. Miss Wilkeson interpreted his silence as another attack of timidity. Time was valuable to her, and this kind of conversation might be kept up all night, and amount to nothing. She resolved ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... have been excessive to be distinguished in that age. In the Latin-English of Dr. Johnson, "It is not unlikely that Addison was first seduced to excess by the manumission which he obtained from the servile timidity of his sober hours." This failing must be regarded as a blot on ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... She brushed her timidity away and with the same gesture accepted Donnegan as something more than a dangerous vagrant. She took the lamp from the hands of the crone and sent her about her business, disregarding the mutterings and the warnings which trailed behind the departing form. Now she faced Donnegan, ...
— Gunman's Reckoning • Max Brand
... disposed to call her at a distance a woman of commanding presence; but never, after he had approached near enough to behold her face. Every thought of artifice, of practised effect, or of haughty pretension, fled before the childlike innocence, the sweet feminine timidity, and the more than cherub loveliness of that countenance, which yet in its lineaments was noble, whilst its expression was purely gentle and confiding. A shade of pensiveness there was about her; but ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... drove directly to the bathing house of the town, and the little girls took their first lesson in swimming. They all thought it "very nice," even Grace soon forgetting her timidity in the quiet water and with her father to ...
— Elsie at Nantucket • Martha Finley
... and preclude a dangerous partiality, let us ask ourselves how in the event of mediation we could be an impartial pacificator, behaving as we have hitherto done. The attitude of our Government has been strictly neutral, neutral to the verge of utter self-abnegation; and, as some regard it, timidity. ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 - What Americans Say to Europe • Various
... with an arm about the other's waist, and very merry until abreast of us, when they were as silent and downcast as if they had been passing by their sovereign queen or the Great Mogul. Their curiosity and timidity combined were quite amusing. We speculated upon the astonishment that would have seized upon their simple, innocent hearts, had they beheld, instead of us, a bevy of our city ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... called back; then, as the mare stumbled into a trot, "Well, come out and see us—if ye kin spare time from the jedge's." The latter clause seemed to be an afterthought intended with humor, for Bowlder accompanied it with the loud laughter of sylvan timidity, risking a joke. Harkless nodded without the least apprehension of his meaning, and waved farewell as Bowlder finally turned his attention to the mare. When the flop, flop of her hoofs had died out, the journalist realized ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington
... she would make no changes in religion, but "she had now told the lords distinctly that she would not recognise any of the laws which had been passed in the minority,[70] and she intended to act boldly; timidity would only encourage the people to be insolent;" "the lords were all quarrelling among themselves, and accusing one another; she could not learn the truth on any point of the late conspiracy; she did not know who were guilty ...
— The Reign of Mary Tudor • James Anthony Froude
... making nails. I say, a full-grown man; for I fear he can never grow any larger, physically or mentally. As I put my hand on his shoulders in a familiar way, to make myself at home with him, and to remove the timidity with which my sudden appearance seemed to inspire him, by a pleasant word or two of greeting, his flesh felt case-hardened into all the induration of toiling manhood, and as unsusceptible of growth as the anvil ...
— Jemmy Stubbins, or The Nailer Boy - Illustrations Of The Law Of Kindness • Unknown Author
... imagine, Cornish pirates became as naught. Such mental vibration as I had was now gone toward a tale of fashion in the days when Queen Anne was still alive. Of a consequence, I again sought the bookshop and stifling my timidity, I demanded such volumes as might set me most agreeably to ...
— There's Pippins And Cheese To Come • Charles S. Brooks
... friend. So popular was Abel Willard and so well known his character as a peacemaker and well-wisher to his country, that he might have remained unmolested and respected among his neighbors in spite of his royalist opinions; but, whether led by family ties or natural timidity, he sought refuge in Boston, and quick-coming events made it impossible for him to return. At the departure of the British forces for Halifax, he accompanied them. A letter from Edmund Quincy to his daughter Mrs. ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume I. No. VI. June, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... guests huddled close to the doorway; the lower end of the floor was crowded! the upper end deserted; but by degrees the lines of white muslin and pink and blue sateen extended, dotted with the darker figures of men in black suits. The conversation grew louder as the timidity of the early moments wore off. Groups at a distance called back and forth; conversations were carried on at top voice. Once, even a whole party hurried across the floor from one side of ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... been discovered, and his sacrifice of yesterday had gone for naught, that he stood before her, stammering, but without the power to say a word. Luckily for him, his utter embarrassment seemed to reassure her, and to calm that timidity which his brusque man-like irruption might well produce in the inexperienced, contemplative mind of the recluse. Her voice was very sweet, albeit ...
— In a Hollow of the Hills • Bret Harte
... his native place almost completely; no echo of its conversation is to be found in his tales or his journals. Such an echo would possibly not have been especially melodious, and if we regret the shyness and stiffness, the reserve, the timidity, the suspicion, or whatever it was, that kept him from knowing what there was to be known, it is not because we have any very definite assurance that his gains would have been great. Still, since a beautiful writer was growing up in Salem, it is a pity that he ...
— Hawthorne - (English Men of Letters Series) • Henry James, Junr.
... armament against the Dorian island of Me'los, which had provoked the enmity of Athens by its attachment to Sparta, and which was compelled, after a vigorous siege, to surrender at discretion. Meanwhile the feeble resistance of Sparta, and her apparent timidity, encouraged Athens to resume a project of aggrandizement which she had once before undertaken, but had been obliged to relinquish. This was no less than the virtual conquest of Sicily, whose important cities, under the leadership of Syracuse, had some years ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... a kindness and grace in him which was not condescension, and which almost dispelled the timidity which, being part of her nature, so unduly beset her at all times when she addressed or was addressed by a stranger. John Oxon, bowing his bright curls, and seeming ever to mock with his smiles, had caused her to be overcome ...
— A Lady of Quality • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... said I. 'The timidity of the knock shows that my visitor is one of two classes of persons—an autograph-hunter or a client, one of the two. You see I give you a chance to win. It may be an autograph-hunter, but I think it is a client. If it were a creditor, he would ...
— The Pursuit of the House-Boat • John Kendrick Bangs
... rosy face, bore her baby to the front, followed by another mother with less timidity. A little girl tip-toed along the aisle, and a boy, "just turned eight" trod heavily forward. Then Thomas Strong also arose, and silently took his place on the front seat alongside the mothers with the ...
— Story of Chester Lawrence • Nephi Anderson
... had themselves claimed. The Spaniards crashed through the bulwark, as though it had been a wall of glass. The Eletto was first to mount the rampart; the next instant he was shot dead, while his followers, undismayed, sprang over his body, and poured into the streets. The fatal gap, due to timidity and carelessness, let in the destructive tide. Champagny, seeing that the enemies had all crossed the barrier; leaped over a garden wall, passed through a house into a narrow lane, and thence to the nearest station of the ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... themselves to twice the trouble you desire, not to carry your point, but to defeat it; and in obviating needless objections, neglect the main business. If they do what you want, it is neither at the time nor in the manner that you wish. This timidity amounts to treachery; for by always anticipating some misfortune or disgrace, they realise their unmeaning apprehensions. The little bears sway in their minds over the great: a small inconvenience outweighs a solid and indispensable advantage; and their ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... their charter, the society could employ missionaries only in "the plantations, colonies, and factories belonging to the kingdom of Great Britain"; while they seem not to have been ready to consider the question touching the lands. The timidity or the lack of appreciation of the purely spiritual and ecclesiastical character of the Episcopate as such, which then prevailed, is painfully noticeable in the fact that, in the letter which communicated the ...
— Report Of Commemorative Services With The Sermons And Addresses At The Seabury Centenary, 1883-1885. • Diocese Of Connecticut
... ascended the hill on which the village is built Father Damien showed me on our left the chicken farm. The lepers are justly proud of it, and before many days I had a fine fowl sent me for dinner, which, after a little natural timidity, I ...
— Heroes Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... bed, bundles of clothing, blankets, sheets, and comforters, while I brought up the rear, dragging Flora's wagon, in which she was seated. My poor sister was quite cheerful, and did not seem to be disturbed by any timidity. ...
— Down The River - Buck Bradford and His Tyrants • Oliver Optic
... Martha—Mrs. Tully— returned for a several days' visit, and that Paula resumed the driving of Duddy and Fuddy in the high, one-seated Stude-baker trap. Duddy and Fuddy were spirited trotters, but Mrs. Tully, despite her elderliness and avoirdupois, was without timidity when Paula ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London
... Extra Session of Congress had rekindled the war fever in the country; and the constant chatter about the suffering Cuban and the duty of the United States, the black iniquity of the Speaker and the timidity of the President, were wearying to the more evenly balanced members of the community. "You say that we need a war," said Betty contemptuously one day, "that it will shake us up and do us good. If we had fallen as low as that, no war could lift us, certainly not the act of bullying a small ...
— Senator North • Gertrude Atherton
... with plans for the relief of Thaddeus. The idea of visiting the coffee-house to which she knew the Misses Dundas directed their letters, and of asking questions about a young and handsome man, made her timidity shrink. ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... quarrel between a man and an usher, the latter of whom had prevented the former from entering on finding that the admission ticket which he tendered was an old one, with its original date scratched out. The man, very rough at the outset, had then refrained from insisting, as if indeed sudden timidity had come upon him. And in this ill-dressed fellow Pierre was astonished to recognise Salvat, the journeyman engineer, whom he had seen going off in search of work that same morning. This time it was certainly he, tall, ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... taste of the intoxication of triumph, his first deep inspiration of ambition. He recalled his arrival in New York, his timidity, his dread lest he should be unable to make a living—"Poor boy," they used to say at home, "he will have to be supported. He is too much of a dreamer." He remembered his explorations of those now familiar streets—how acutely conscious he had ...
— The Great God Success • John Graham (David Graham Phillips)
... and had been succeeded, in what may be called the subordinate Secretaryship of State, by Sir William Trumball, a learned civilian and an experienced diplomatist, of moderate opinions, and of temper cautious to timidity. [602] The malecontents were emboldened by the lenity of the administration. William had scarcely sailed for the Continent when they held a great meeting at one of their favourite haunts, the Old King's ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... rescuer's adventures, nor much of the mare herself. Yet the girl's eyes sparkled, and her whole aspect was changed in the last hour. She seemed, as far as he could judge, to be in a state of the utmost excitement; she had shaken off the timidity which her brother's temper too often imposed on her, and with it her reticence and her shyness before strangers. All the Irish humour in her fluttered to the surface, and her tongue ran with an incredible gaiety. Uncle Ulick, the O'Beirnes, the buckeens, laughed frank admiration—sometimes ...
— The Wild Geese • Stanley John Weyman
... courage for Joseph to go to Pilate and avow his sympathy with a condemned criminal. The love must have been very true which was forced to speak by disaster and death. And to us the strongest motive for stiffening our vacillating timidity into an iron fortitude, and fortifying us strongly against the fear of what man can do to us, is to be found in gazing upon His dying love who met and conquered all evils and ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI • Alexander Maclaren
... satisfied with the conduct of his allies guarding Ciudad Rodrigo, and returned to resume command in that region. In the same despatch he complains bitterly of the niggardly policy of his government in regard to money and supplies. The same timidity on the part of ministers at home appears in a letter from Liverpool, almost forbidding him to accept the command-in-chief of the Spanish armies, which, however, was conferred upon him later in this year.[49] At present, ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick
... intimated that she had lost some one, and that I was to supply his place. All I know is that, after weeping a great deal, she finished by taking me in her arms and covering me with kisses. I had before suspected, from the absence of any of that bashful timidity found in a young girl, that she was a widow, and such I learned from ...
— Marmaduke Merry - A Tale of Naval Adventures in Bygone Days • William H. G. Kingston
... longer a boy—less of a boy, in fact, than Tom, if one may judge from the thoughtfulness of his face, which is somewhat paler, too, than one could wish; but his figure, though slight, is well knit and active, and all his old timidity has disappeared, and is replaced by silent, quaint fun, with which his face twinkles all over, as he listens to the broken talk between the other two, in which he ...
— Tom Brown's Schooldays • Thomas Hughes
... ought to be told. It is cowardly timidity for those of us who know them, to keep them from the Christian public. Heroes and heroines answer to the roll-call of A.M.A. workers. I have met them and mingled with them, the past three years, and I know the sinew and fibre of their courageous ...
— American Missionary, Vol. XLII., June, 1888., No. 6 • Various
... Captain himself replied to these questions, and the conversation becoming interesting, invited his new acquaintances on board; they immediately complied, and even when the whole crew surrounded them and overwhelmed them with questions, betrayed no symptom of the timidity universal ...
— A New Voyage Round the World in the Years 1823, 24, 25, and 26. Vol. 1 • Otto von Kotzebue
... demand carried with it rather the air of menace than entreaty; that the vain detail of his services, and the recompense due to them, was an injurious reproach; that to grant what had been so haughtily demanded would argue in the monarch both weakness and timidity; in a word, that to remit the punishment inflicted by my predecessors would be to condemn their judgment. Lastly, one told me in a whisper, 'His whole family are enemies to your house.' By these means the ministers prevailed. The young lord took the refusal so ill, that he retired from court, ...
— From This World to the Next • Henry Fielding
... "Immortals are but mortal after all, with all the timidity and weaknesses of mortality. But I agree to the proposition, and if you wish it I'll prepare to give ...
— The Enchanted Typewriter • John Kendrick Bangs
... is worth nothing at all. How can I tell?" he thought, with the heart-sickness of a great timidity. Now that he had left it there, it seemed to him so hazardous, so vain, so foolish, to dream that he, a little lad with bare feet who barely knew his letters, could do anything at which great painters, real artists, could ever deign to look. Yet he took heart as he went by the ...
— Stories By English Authors: Germany • Various
... readers that timidity was neither the captain's virtue nor his defect. But he made an effort to do what ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... was quite still, as if in worship, and perhaps it was; her face was inclined slightly upward, looking to the heavens and towards Rome. But that face—there was the picture! It was so young, so infantine, so modest; and yet, the youth and the timidity were elevated and refined by the earnest doubt, the preternatural terror, the unearthly hope, which dwelt upon her forehead—her parted lip, and her wistful and kindled eye. There was a sublimity in her loneliness ...
— Godolphin, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... earthquake in San Francisco,—they were to be found in many parts, always for the one purpose,—to resist interference with the enforcement of brothel slavery upon Chinese women. American men undertook this part of the business, because a certain timidity in the Chinese character when dealing with American women, and a fear of arousing race-prejudice, unfitted the Chinaman for coping with the American women,—Miss Culbertson, the pioneer, now sainted, Miss Lake, Miss Cameron and Miss Davis, who have fought their brave battles for ...
— Heathen Slaves and Christian Rulers • Elizabeth Wheeler Andrew and Katharine Caroline Bushnell
... discretion of a brave man. South Carolina will soon learn how much she has undervalued the people of the Free States. Because they prefer law to bowie-knives and revolvers, she has too lightly reckoned on their caution and timidity. She will find, that, though slow to kindle, they are as slow to yield, and that they are willing to risk their lives for the defence of law, though not for the breach of it. They are beginning to question the value of a peace that ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various
... different and inferior; to what degree the fine abandon of words spoken and actions performed in thought was replaced by a shivering prudence keeping guard on one side, and on the other a deplorable timidity trying ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... didactic. The little tragedy that takes place amongst this homely group of people makes quite a moving play, thanks to the skill with which the types are depicted—the bourgeois father and mother, with their mixture of timidity and self-interest; the manly, straightforward young politician, resolute to carry on the work that has sapped his brother's life; the warped, de-humanised nature of the journalist; the sturdy common-sense of the yeoman farmer; and the ...
— Three Dramas - The Editor—The Bankrupt—The King • Bjornstjerne M. Bjornson
... is only a "splinter;" and our "liberal" friends warn us not to rely upon it as a promise of the ballot to woman. What it is, we know full better than others. We recognize its meagerness; we see in it the timidity of politicians; but beyond and through it all, we farther see its promise of the future. We see in it the thin edge of the entering wedge which shall break woman's slavery in pieces and make us at last a nation truly free—a nation in which the caste of sex shall fall down by the caste of ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... to create around him an atmosphere constituted by persons whose ideals resemble his own. But it is not so with the erotic symbolist. He is nearly always alone. He is predisposed to isolation from the outset, for it would seem to be on a basis of excessive shyness and timidity that the manifestations of erotic symbolism are most likely to develop. When at length the symbolist realizes his own aspirations—which seem to him for the most part an altogether new phenomenon in the world—and at the same time realizes the wide degree in which they deviate from ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 5 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... had to weave about seventy-three yards of a kind of check for 3s., and a full week's work rarely brought him more than 5s. It seems astonishing that a man should stick year after year to such labour as this. But there is a strong adhesiveness, mingled with timidity, in some men, which helps to keep them down. In the front room of the cottage there was not a single article of furniture left, so far as I can remember. The weaver's wife was in the little kitchen, and, knowing the gentleman who was with me, she invited us forward. She was ...
— Home-Life of the Lancashire Factory Folk during the Cotton Famine • Edwin Waugh
... the house radiant,—Lady Ruth and Wingrave were alone. She watched him close the door and turn towards her, with a new timidity. The color came and went in her pale cheeks, her eyes were no longer tired. When he turned towards her, she leaned to him with a little seductive movement of her body. Her hands stole ...
— The Malefactor • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... their spirit of enterprise, that the softness of the female heart found irresistible. Nor less on the other hand did the knights regard the sex to whose service and defence they were sworn, as the objects of their perpetual deference. They approached them with a sort of gallant timidity, listened to their behests with submission, and thought the longest courtship and devotion nobly recompensed by the final ...
— Thoughts on Man - His Nature, Productions and Discoveries, Interspersed with - Some Particulars Respecting the Author • William Godwin
... moment all the girl's timidity was gone. If the man had been startled when she had announced her name, he displayed perfect ...
— The Man in the Twilight • Ridgwell Cullum
... grown out of all this timidity, and would have acquitted herself more acceptably in meeting, if she had met with consideration and kindness from the elders and influential members of the Society. But, for reasons not clearly explained, ...
— The Grimke Sisters - Sarah and Angelina Grimke: The First American Women Advocates of - Abolition and Woman's Rights • Catherine H. Birney
... our fears, and the awe-struck faces we all presented, but it was many hours ere some of us recovered ourselves, and for this show of timidity Gatty ...
— Yr Ynys Unyg - The Lonely Island • Julia de Winton
... The child, limited in experience, loves to come in touch with the things he knows about. It soothes his tenderness, allays his fears, makes him feel at home in the world,—and he hates to feel strange,—it calms his timidity, and satisfies his heart. The home and the people who live in it; the food, the clothing, and shelter of everyday life; the garden, the plant in it, or the live ant or toad; the friendly dog and cat, the road or street near by, the brook, the hill, the sky—these are a part of his world, and ...
— A Study of Fairy Tales • Laura F. Kready
... had gathered round the man, but with the timidity which characterises that class in such emergencies, they would not touch him. As I crossed the court, and they made way for me, the Spaniard, who was still standing, though in a strange and distorted fashion, turned ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman
... other side of the streak certainly commit acts at dinner which are rather ugly. Goodness knows what is the reason. Possibly the cynic would discover in our greater refinement a curious form of snobbishness, the sort of timidity about accomplishing before other people a natural function which in other aspects of life is certainly ...
— Our Stage and Its Critics • "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"
... closely beneath the high bank that her tall chimneys almost swept the overhanging branches; then, stealing from the treacherous shoal, she sped her way through the middle of the vast waters, as if ashamed of her former timidity. Here she shot through the narrow cut-off, and there left her foaming surge in the centre of the ...
— Hatchie, the Guardian Slave; or, The Heiress of Bellevue • Warren T. Ashton
... to give a detailed account of the labors of a small band of enfranchised females for the liberation of their enslaved and suffering sisters, whose weakness and timidity had hitherto prevented their rising and throwing off the yoke of the oppressor, man. So eloquently did she rehearse her tale, so still and patient was her listener, that she felt confident of gaining a new coaedjutor in the ranks of female reform. As she finished her recital, she directed a sharp, ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... was more than physical. It caused a sudden uprush of his old timidity and he stood irresolute, in everybody's way, spying at the distant golden head. It seemed as if they had wanted to avoid him, they had gone so quickly, just bowed and been carried on—if only Chrystie would look back and smile. Standing on his toes, jostled and elbowed, he caught ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner
... uncompleted cantilever arm, one of them thought something was about to fall, and ran swiftly in, over a steel beam, toward the body of the structure; whereafter, as nothing did fall, he was unmercifully twitted by his fellow workers for having shown timidity. ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street
... had long been ready, was placed on the table, and Jaqueline appeared to preside at it. She received the young captain with less frankness than she might generally have bestowed on her father's friends. There was a slight timidity in her manner, which, in spite of herself, she could not help exhibiting, and a blush rose for a moment to her cheek as she replied to ...
— The Lily of Leyden • W.H.G. Kingston
... With shrinking and timidity the Browning girl is unacquainted. As experience grows, these sensations may sadly touch her, but she will not have been prepared for them; no reason for feeling either had entered her dream ...
— Browning's Heroines • Ethel Colburn Mayne
... protection; but then came the warning, or rather threat, of some hidden mischief that must inevitably follow the disclosure. "Surely, in her own home, she might venture to walk unattended. The beggar she had known for some time in his periodical visits; and though she felt an unaccountable timidity in his presence, yet she certainly was minded to make an experiment of the adventure; but"——And in this happy state of doubt and fluctuation she remained until eventide, when a calm bright moon, as it again rose over the hill, saw Alice at the casement of her own chamber, ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... the bank he swerved and passed along, but not from timidity; it lacked seven minutes of the time Mr. Gibbs had set, and Dick had learned that a busy man is often almost as much annoyed by a premature caller as by one who ...
— Dick the Bank Boy - Or, A Missing Fortune • Frank V. Webster
... interests were bounded by himself, any day he might lose his life; it became a habit of mind with him to live by his own self-respect and the consciousness that he had done his duty. Like all shy men, he was habitually silent; but his shyness sprang by no means from timidity; it was a kind of modesty in him; he found any demonstration of vanity intolerable. There was no sort of swagger about his fearlessness in action; nothing escaped his eyes; he could give sensible advice to his ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... to see that all the alterations proposed are evidences of timidity. You may be sure that I do [? not] wish to publish, what those for whom I write do not like to have published. But print me half a dozen copies in the original state, and lay them up for me. It concludes ...
— Life of Johnson, Volume 6 (of 6) • James Boswell
... never a general, though a great soldier; never, naturally, a good courtier, although he had always a good idea of being so. He was never a good partizan, although all his life engaged in intrigues. That air of pride and timidity which your see in his private life, is turned in business into an apologetic manner. He always believed he had need of it; and this, combined with his 'Maxims,' which show little faith in virtue, and his habitual custom, ...
— Reflections - Or, Sentences and Moral Maxims • Francois Duc De La Rochefoucauld
... with mournful sympathy, and took both her hands in his. She pressed them to her lips, and when she raised her head, her timidity had given place ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... doubtless, had an important meaning. Perhaps the pilgrimage may be divided into four parts: 1. The convert flying from the wrath to come; instructed at the Interpreter's house; relieved of his burden at the cross; ascends the Hill Difficulty; overcomes his timidity; and, 2. Enters a church at the House Beautiful; and, as a private member, continues his journey, until, 3. He meets Evangelist, near Vanity Fair, and is found fit to become an itinerant preacher; in which calling he suffers ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... back shyly. "No, let us both go." She added, with a smile to cover her timidity, "Two ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... don't know," said Carrie, when he had concluded, her interest and desire to shine dramatically struggling with her timidity for the mastery. "I might go if you thought I'd ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser
... recognize the dress she wore, a pale yellow, that he had admired when he first saw her. It was Nellie, unmistakably; if it were she of the brown duster, she had discarded it, perhaps for greater freedom. He was near enough to call out now, but a sudden nervous timidity overcame him; his lips grew dry. What should he say to her? How account for his presence? "Miss Nellie, one moment!" he ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... changed so little that he took her hand in sudden timidity, recalling the days when he had sold her chickens before her hen-house door. But when he had settled her in one of the cane rocking-chairs beside the stove, his confidence returned and he responded heartily to her beneficent beam. ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... Mr. Merensky. In person the Basutus are thin and weakly when compared to the stalwart Zulu, and it is their consciousness of inferiority both to the white men, and their black brethren, that, together with their natural timidity, makes them submit as easily as they do to the yoke of ...
— Cetywayo and his White Neighbours - Remarks on Recent Events in Zululand, Natal, and the Transvaal • H. Rider Haggard
... very exactly her hours of recitation and at last she came, her arms filled with books, moving with such stately step she seemed a woman, tall and sedate. She perceived Jack waiting, but was not alarmed, for she comprehended something of his goodness and timidity. ...
— The Eagle's Heart • Hamlin Garland
... and has been stigmatised by 'the enlightened ones' as 'the reaction.' They say that the earlier nature-worship, which they call Pantheistic, speaks the true and genuine man; the later and more consciously Christian mood they regard as the product, not of deepened experience, but of timidity, or at least as the sign of decreasing insight. It is not so that I would interpret it. Wordsworth and his sister, with their rare gift of soul and eye, saw further into nature, and felt it more profoundly than common men can, and had no doubt found there something ...
— Recollections of a Tour Made in Scotland A.D. 1803 • Dorothy Wordsworth
... shoulders, a part of it on each side being carelessly platted, and sometimes rolled up into an awkward lump, instead of being neatly tied on the top of the head, as the Esquimaux women in most other parts are accustomed to wear it. The youngest female had much natural bashfulness and timidity, and we considered her to be the only unmarried one, as she differed from the other three in not being tattooed upon the face. Two of them had their hands tattooed also, and the old woman had a few marks of the same kind about each wrist. ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... Caesar; next, on Pompey's sailing for Greece, resolving to follow him thither; presently determining to stand neuter; then bent on retiring to the Pompeians in Sicily; and, when after all he had joined their camp in Greece, discovering such timidity and discontent as to draw from Pompey the bitter reproof, "I wish Cicero would go over to the enemy, that he may learn ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman
... extended through a wider field of adventure. The characteristics of both, however, are evidently the same;—a broken narrative—a redundancy of minute description—bursts of unequal and energetic poetry—and a general tone of spirit and animation, unchecked by timidity or affectation, and unchastised by any great delicacy of taste, or ...
— Early Reviews of English Poets • John Louis Haney
... in the epic of Gilgamesh we find Etana in the nether world. According to Jastrow, this attempted ascension was an offence against the gods, and his fall was his punishment. We are not told, however, that Etana had the impious desire of Ezekiel's first man, and if he fell, it was through his own timidity (contrast Ezek. xxviii. 16). But certainly the myth does help us to imagine a story in which, for some sin against the gods, some favoured hero was hurled down from the divine abode, and such a story may some day ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... How far they acted under orders and against their own judgment of what was sensible and sound in fighting-risks I do not know. General Trenchard, their supreme chief, believed in an aggressive policy at all costs, and was a Napoleon in this war of the skies, intolerant of timidity, not squeamish of heavy losses if the balance were tipped against the enemy. Some young flying-men complained to me bitterly that they were expected to fly or die over the German lines, whatever the weather or whatever the ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... the fashion for the whole North in chef d'oeuvres of the quills of the porcupine. She is a most observant "old wife." Watching, fascinated, the lightning play of the machine, "Much hard that, I think, harder than bead-work, eh?" Conquering her timidity, she at last glides across to find out how the dickens when you strike capital "A" at one end of the keyboard, it finds itself in the writing next to small "o" at the other end. There is something uncanny about it, ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron
... himself as if he had received a blow, and relaxed his grasp of Walter's hand; but Walter, struck with the sensitive timidity which unkindness had caused, and sorry to have given him pain in all his troubles, ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar
... when she said, "No," that Miss Pilbeam, despite her father's wrongs, began to soften a little. The upsetter of policemen was certainly good-looking; and his manner towards her so nicely balanced between boldness and timidity that a slight feeling of sadness at his lack of moral character ...
— Sailor's Knots (Entire Collection) • W.W. Jacobs
... face looked encouragement; but at the crucial moment he always held back. So much was at stake, and it was so essential that his first choice should be decisive. He dreaded stupidity, timidity, intolerance. The imaginative eye, the furrowed brow, were what he sought. He must reveal himself only to a heart versed in the tortuous motions of the human will; and he began to hate the dull benevolence of the average face. Once or twice, obscurely, ...
— Tales Of Men And Ghosts • Edith Wharton
... our comfort for the timidity of the poor, weak flesh which still shudders at death. If thou art a Christian, then know that thy Lord Jesus Christ, being raised from the dead, dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over him. Therefore, death hath no more dominion over thee, who art baptized ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. III - Trinity Sunday to Advent • Martin Luther
... the Portuguese in India was founded by three great men, Duarte Pacheco, Francisco de Almeyda, and Alfonso de Albuquerque; after whom scarcely was there a single successor who did not decline from their great character, having either a mixture of timidity with their valour, or of covetousness with their moderation, in which the vices predominated. In gaining this Indian crown, Pacheco alone acted with that fiery heat which melted the arms and riches of the zamorin; only Almeyda could ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VI - Early English Voyages Of Discovery To America • Robert Kerr
... barbarous, and he had never taken advantage of his skill with the gloves as the average man might very probably have done. To fight was to lower one's self-respect enormously, he thought. It was not a matter of timidity, but of very strong conviction—an entrenchment that had saved him from wreaking vengeance—in the hour when another man would have killed. But there, in that room in his home, he had stood face to face with a black, ...
— The Courage of Marge O'Doone • James Oliver Curwood
... mean between timidity and foolhardiness, has to do with evils. All evils are objects of fear; but there are some evils that even the brave man does right to fear—as disgrace. Poverty or disease he ought not to fear. Yet, he will not acquire the reputation of courage from not fearing these, nor will he acquire ...
— Moral Science; A Compendium of Ethics • Alexander Bain
... occupied by the German army," said the lieutenant, then, smiling a little at the maire's timidity. Was he wondering if a German burgomeister would submit as tamely were it a German village that had witnessed the arrival of invading troops? Probably not! Few German officers in those days thought it possible that an ...
— The Belgians to the Front • Colonel James Fiske
... Willard, Wing Biddlebaum, who for twenty years had been the town mystery, lost something of his timidity, and his shadowy personality, submerged in a sea of doubts, came forth to look at the world. With the young reporter at his side, he ventured in the light of day into Main Street or strode up and down on the rickety front ...
— Winesburg, Ohio • Sherwood Anderson
... during the guerilla war. The first of these three lay in the fact that the strategy was a conformation to the enemy's movements. This naturally gave him time to think and to develop his counter-move, with all advantages in the balance. No. 2 is to be found in the timidity of certain of the column commanders. Men who proverbially take every opportunity of sacrificing the main issue to pursue some subsidiary policy. Men whom De Wet loves, and whom he plays with, decoys, and bluffs until he achieves his object. Men whose heart will ...
— On the Heels of De Wet • The Intelligence Officer
... miserably, eating little, ashamed of his pennilessness, and made use of his talents only through great despair, wishing by any means to win that idle life which is the best all for those whose minds are occupied. The Florentine, out of bravado, came to the court gallantly attired, and from the timidity of youth and misfortune dared not ask his money from the king, who, seeing him thus dressed, believed him well with everything. The courtiers and the ladies used all to admire his beautiful works, and also their author; but of money he ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... life. True, it had its ludicrous side; but how is one to enjoy the humour of an amusing situation alone? and, to tell the truth, the six foot of plush and powder before me was somewhat alarming to my female timidity. I hear now the man's startled "I beg your ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII, No. 355, October 16, 1886 • Various
... wrote. The liberation of Sir John, Greisengesang's uneasy narrative, last of all, the scene between Seraphina and the Prince, had decided the conspirators to take a step of bold timidity. There had been a period of bustle, liveried messengers speeding here and there with notes; and at half-past ten in the morning, about an hour before its usual hour, the council of Grunewald sat ...
— Prince Otto • Robert Louis Stevenson
... imploring God's guidance and blessing in all their ways, and then read a short portion of Scripture, with an occasional word or two of simple explanation, and offer, himself, a short and simple prayer. In some cases, teachers are disposed to postpone this duty a day or two, from timidity or other causes, hoping that after becoming acquainted a little with the school, and having completed their more important arrangements, they shall find it easier to begin. But this is a sad mistake. The longer it is postponed, the more difficult and trying it will be. And ...
— The Teacher - Or, Moral Influences Employed in the Instruction and - Government of the Young • Jacob Abbott
... Indolence and timidity have united to popularise among us a flaccid latitudinarianism, which thinks itself a benign tolerance for the opinions of others. It is in truth only a pretentious form of being without settled opinions of our own, and without any desire to settle them. ...
— On Compromise • John Morley
... improvements and imaginary railroads and canals, for which neither surveys nor estimates had been made, to serve the dream-built cities of the speculator. If Mr. Lincoln had had more experience in the getting and use of dollars and more acquaintance with the shrinking timidity of large sums, he would have tried to dissipate these illusions of grandeur. But he went with the crowd, every member of ...
— A Man for the Ages - A Story of the Builders of Democracy • Irving Bacheller
... some degree lacked the heroic quality. He was not a John Knox or a Martin Luther. Each time his name is mentioned he shows timidity, and a disposition to remain hidden. Even in the noble deed of the day Jesus died, it is almost certain that Nicodemus was inspired to his part by ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... accusation made against Lieut.-Col. Dennis in this charge be correct, that he did so remove his force from the shelter of the steamer for the purpose of attacking an enemy, whose numbers he knew to be overwhelming—the proceeding savours rather of rashness than of timidity. Had Lieut.-Col. Dennis been the coward which his accusers would have the public believe, he would in such a case have eagerly availed himself of the remonstrances which it is stated were made to him, to return with the men under his command to the ...
— Troublous Times in Canada - A History of the Fenian Raids of 1866 and 1870 • John A. Macdonald
... himself seen all that he ought to have been able to see from his own standpoints? Can any of us do so? The force of early bias and education, the force of intellectual surroundings, the force of natural timidity, the force of dulness, were things which he could appreciate and make allowance for in any other age, and among any other people than his own; but as belonging to England and the Nineteenth Century they had no place in his theory of Nature; they were inconceivable, unnatural, unpardonable, ...
— The Fair Haven • Samuel Butler
... disturbance of mind, also excessive self-esteem and pride in the very things for which a man ought to be despised. I need not mention obstinate persistence in wrong-doing, or frivolity which cannot remain constant to one point; besides all this, there is headlong rashness, there is timidity which never gives us trustworthy counsel, and the numberless errors with which we struggle, the rashness of the most cowardly, the quarrels of our best friends, and that most common evil of trusting in what is ...
— L. Annaeus Seneca On Benefits • Seneca
... the two young persons, as they slowly paced the terrace. Both felt embarrassed: Jocelyn longing to give utterance to his feelings, but restrained by timidity—Aveline trembling lest more might be said than she ought to hear, or if obliged to hear, than she could rightly answer. Thus they walked on in silence. But it was a silence more eloquent than words, since each comprehended what the other felt. How much they would have said was proclaimed ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 1 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... McPherson was ordered to do. If Sherman had seen this clearly at the time, it is inconceivable that he would have sent less than one fourth of his army to execute the all-important part of the plan. And now he judges McPherson as manifesting timidity ( 2) because he did not at the critical moment attempt to accomplish, with his comparatively small force, what Sherman should have ordered to be done by ...
— Forty-Six Years in the Army • John M. Schofield
... are heard as we face a great decision. Comfort says, "Tarry a while." Opportunism says, "This is a good spot." Timidity asks, "How difficult ...
— United States Presidents' Inaugural Speeches - From Washington to George W. Bush • Various
... touches that body now. Two gentlemen of highest official and social standing and of large wealth, brothers in their faith in Jesus, and also in their timidity, now take steps at once to have the precious body of their dear friend tenderly cared for without regard to expense. So He is laid away in a new tomb in a garden among the flowers of the spring time. The last touch is one of ...
— Quiet Talks on John's Gospel • S. D. Gordon
... and after the first few steps the feeling of timidity began to wear off, and Celia descended more quickly till, about fifty feet from the top, some distance under where the fringe of ferns hung, and where it had seemed quite dark from above, but was really a pleasant greenish twilight, she found beneath her feet a few loose ...
— Cutlass and Cudgel • George Manville Fenn
... and CV in which the fight is renewed and Ravan severely reprimands his charioteer for timidity and want of confidence in his master's prowess, and orders him to charge straight at Rama on ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... architecture that his Holiness is continually having done, he almost always seeks Michael Angelo's advice and judgment, frequently sending the artists to seek him at his house. It grieves me, and it grieves also his Holiness, that by reason of a certain natural timidity, or let us say respect and reverence, which some call pride, Michael Angelo does not profit by the goodwill, kindness, and liberality of so great a Pontiff and so much his friend. As I first heard from the most ...
— Michael Angelo Buonarroti • Charles Holroyd
... or Chesapeake Bay, would have impaired our national jurisdiction over those waters. Senator Frye of Maine took the lead in a rub-a-dub agitation in the presence of which some Democratic Senators showed marked timidity. The administration of public services by congressional committees has the incurable defect that it reflects the particular interests and attachments of the committeemen. Presidential administration is so circumstanced that it tends to be nationally minded; ...
— The Cleveland Era - A Chronicle of the New Order in Politics, Volume 44 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Henry Jones Ford
... Already the Americans purchase, not only silks and fancy articles in France, but also even cotton goods of the superior qualities; the only obstacle which prevents the French from making still more rapid advancement than is at present the case, is first timidity of capitalists, deficiency of knowledge of the higher order of business, and extreme slowness in proceeding with any grand national operation, as for instance, her railroads, in which she has not only seen England surpass her ...
— How to Enjoy Paris in 1842 • F. Herve
... next morning, that if the recital she had heard were true, she was afraid Anastasia's company tired me, as she very well knew that when I really loved I cast timidity to ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... sudden fire that blazed at her from his. "Unless I consent to be a cripple all my days," she said, with a curious timidity wholly ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... light, direct hint of the parents toward a possible marriage? The idea of marriage roams continually in houses with grown-up girls, and takes every shape and disguise, and employs every subterfuge. A dread of compromising myself took hold of me as well as an extreme timidity before the obstinately correct and reserved attitude of the Misses Louise and Pauline. To choose one of them in preference to the other seemed to me as difficult as choosing between two drops of water; and ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... same impression, if repeated, or a similar one, is likely to find the old footmarks and follow them. Habit only makes the path easier to traverse, and thus the unreasoning terror of a child, of an infant, may perpetuate itself in a timidity which shames the ...
— A Mortal Antipathy • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... unpleasing circumstance, even under an intention only of marrying him, to find my friendship stronger for another; what then would it have been under the most sacred of all engagements, that of marriage? What wretchedness would have been the portion of both, had timidity, decorum, or false honor, carried me, with this partiality in my heart, to fulfill those views, entered into from compliance to my family, and continued from a false idea of propriety, and weak fear of the ...
— The History of Emily Montague • Frances Brooke
... but they mistrusted it. There were alarming symptoms in the steadfastness of the resistance, and others not less serious in the cowardice of adherents. Not one of the new Ministers appointed during the morning had taken possession of his Ministry—a significant timidity on the part of people ordinarily so prompt to throw themselves upon such things. M. Roulier, in particular, had disappeared, no one knew where—a sign of tempest. Putting Louis Bonaparte on one side, the coup d'etat continued ...
— The History of a Crime - The Testimony of an Eye-Witness • Victor Hugo
... apprised of the design, and took a warm interest in it. He would lend, he said, his best assistance to convey the villain to England, and would undertake that the ministers of the vengeance of James should find a secure asylum in France. Burnet was well aware of his danger: but timidity was not among his faults. He published a courageous answer to the charges which had been brought against him at Edinburgh. He knew, he said, that it was intended to execute him without a trial: but his trust was in the King of Kings, to whom innocent ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... with solicitude on Chia Lien's drunken fit the day before. The moment therefore it was light, she hastily crossed over, and sent for Chia Lien to repair to dowager lady Chia's apartments. Chia Lien was thus compelled to suppress all timidity and to repair to the front part of the mansion and fall on his knees at the feet of ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... his timidity, as a person of political aspirations, in treating the subject of slavery in a practical manner, reduced his conduct to the verge of cowardice, if not of duplicity. While writing to Dr. Price in this assured tone, and urging him to exhort the young men of the College ...
— Anti-Slavery Opinions before the Year 1800 - Read before the Cincinnati Literary Club, November 16, 1872 • William Frederick Poole
... should have been there to welcome the child— his conscience rather smote him that he was not—but it was the minister's unbroken habit of years to spend Saturday evening alone in his study. And it might be that, with a certain timidity, inherent in his character, he shrank from this first meeting, and wished to put off as long as possible what must inevitably be awkward, and might be very painful. So, in darkness and rain, unwelcomed save by his own ...
— A Noble Life • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... circumscribed by the hostile intentions of the other World Powers, by the existing territorial conditions, and by the armed force which is at the back of both. Our policy must necessarily be determined by the consideration of these conditions. We must accurately, and without bias or timidity, examine the circumstances which turn the scale when the forces which concern us are ...
— Germany and the Next War • Friedrich von Bernhardi
... speculated about him with Cyn. But yet—she sometimes felt that a certain something that had been on the wire was lacking now; that Clem, while realizing all her old expectations of "C," was not exactly what "C" had been to her. One reason of this she knew was her own inability to conquer a sort of timidity she felt in his presence, a timidity from which Cyn was certainly free. Well aware that beside the gay and brilliant Cyn she was nowhere, Nattie had a sensitive fear that he might be disappointed in her. But she ...
— Wired Love - A Romance of Dots and Dashes • Ella Cheever Thayer
... and protection against personal violence, but no favor. Powers and pre-eminences conferred on them are daggers put into the hands of assassins, to be plunged into our own bosoms in the moment the thrust can go home to the heart. Moderation can never reclaim them. They deem it timidity, and despise without fearing the tameness from which it flows. Backed by England, they never lose the hope that their day is to come, when the terrorism of their earlier power is to be merged in the more gratifying system,of deportation and the guillotine. Being now hors de combat ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... peculiarly the gift of an American. He went on from one sentence to another with rhythmic tones and unerring pronunciation. He never faltered, never repeated his words, never fell into those vile half-muttered hems and haws by which an Englishman in such a position so generally betrays his timidity. But during the whole time of my remaining in the room he did not give expression to a single thought. He went on from one soft platitude to another, and uttered words from which I would defy any one of his audience to carry away ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope
... these fears, that which is only the effect of motives much nearer at hand; such as the feebleness of their machine, the mildness of their temperament, the slender energy of their souls, their natural timidity, the ideas imbibed in their education, the fear of consequences immediately resulting from criminal actions, the physical evils attendant on unbridled irregularities: these are the true motives that restrain them; not the notions of a future life: which ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 1 • Baron D'Holbach
... seat he placed her at the window, and sat down opposite. It was her introduction to railway travel, and when the train moved off, and the locomotive sounded its prolonged shriek of departure, Regina started up, but, as if ashamed of her timidity, coloured and bit her lip. Observing that she appeared interested in watching the country through which they sped, Mr. Palma drew a book from his valise, and soon became so absorbed in the contents that he forgot tie silent figure on the seat ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... and it was a bitter morning in March when Dundee took another of his many farewells before he left his wife to attend the Convention at Edinburgh. It was only a month since he had come down from London, disheartened for the moment by the treachery of Royalists and the timidity of James, and he had found relief in administrating municipal affairs as Provost of Dundee. If it had been possible in consistence with his loyalty to the Jacobite cause, and the commission he had received from James, Dundee would have gladly withdrawn from public life and lived quietly with ...
— Graham of Claverhouse • Ian Maclaren
... tobacco." "Then all our visitors left, except four interesting young peasant girls, who still lingered." "They had all pleasant voices." "We listened to them with much pleasure; there was so much sweetness and feeling in their melody. Zachariah made up for his brother's timidity. Full of fun, what dreadful faces the young Gipsy would pull, they were absolutely frightful; then he would twist and turn his body into all sorts of serpentine contortions. If spoken to he would suddenly, with a hop, skip, and a jump alight in his tent as if he had tumbled from the sky, and, ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith |
