"Bashful" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... little place," Mr Proctor said, with satisfaction: "of course it is but a small living compared to Carlingford. I hope you will come and see me, after—it is furnished," said the bashful bridegroom: "it is a nuisance to have all that to ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... whiles some one did chant this lovely lay: Ah see, who so fair thing dost fain to see, In springing flower the image of thy day; All see thy virgin ROSE, how sweetly she Doth first peep forth with bashful modesty, That fairer seems the less you see her may; Lo! see soon after, how more bold and free Her bared bosom she doth broad display; Lo! see soon after, how she ...
— The Continental Monthly , Vol. 2 No. 5, November 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... to the door feelin' wonderful bashful, but when Barbie saw me, she went several different ...
— Happy Hawkins • Robert Alexander Wason
... lovesick Violet, and the Primrose pale Bow their sweet heads, and whisper to the gale; 15 With secret sighs the Virgin Lily droops, And jealous Cowslips hang their tawny cups. How the young Rose in beauty's damask pride Drinks the warm blushes of his bashful bride; With honey'd lips enamour'd Woodbines meet, 20 Clasp with fond arms, and ...
— The Botanic Garden. Part II. - Containing The Loves of the Plants. A Poem. - With Philosophical Notes. • Erasmus Darwin
... his neck. As he caught sight of Mr. Gubb, he started slightly and doubled his hand into a fist, but he immediately calmed himself and assumed a nonchalant air. As a matter of fact, Mr. Enderbury led a dog's life. For years he had loved Syrilla devotedly, but he was so bashful he had never dared to confess his love to her, and year after year he saw her smile upon one thin man after another. Now it was Mr. Lonergan; again it was Mr. Winterberry—or it was Mr. Gubb, or Smith, or Jones, or Doe; but ...
— Philo Gubb Correspondence-School Detective • Ellis Parker Butler
... horn; And how the woods berries and worms provide Without their pains, when earth has nought beside To answer their small wants. To view the graceful deer come tripping by, Then stop, and gaze, then turn, they know not why, Like bashful younkers in society. To mark the structure of a plant or tree, And all fair things of earth, ...
— Charles Lamb • Walter Jerrold
... him hold it, caress the stubby fingers in his thin ones, aware that hers was quite a homely hand, her poorest "point." She knew somehow that he wanted to kiss her, and she wondered what she should do if he tried,—whether she should be offended or let him "just once." He was a handsome, bashful boy, and she ...
— One Woman's Life • Robert Herrick
... themselves magnificently, and were attended by Imlac to the astronomer, who was pleased to see himself approached with respect by persons of so splendid an appearance. In the exchange of the first civilities he was timorous and bashful; but when the talk became regular, he recollected his powers, and justified the character which Imlac had given. Inquiring of Pekuah what could have turned her inclination towards astronomy, he received from her a history of her adventure at the Pyramid, ...
— Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia • Samuel Johnson
... the bashful merman began to blubber. Some of the mergirls put their hands over their mouths to hide their laughing, while they winked at each other and their eyes showed how they enjoyed the fun. To have a merman among them, at that ...
— Dutch Fairy Tales for Young Folks • William Elliot Griffis
... onlookers came forward with pleasant words on their lips, pleasant smiles on their faces. The children filed by his couch, bashful yet sympathetic; the women murmured, the young men grasped his hand. Mescal flitted by with downcast eye, with shy ...
— The Heritage of the Desert • Zane Grey
... shrilly, and the birds and beasts came scampering back and stood round in a respectful circle. The children tried to talk to them, but they looked bashful and would not ...
— Zodiac Town - The Rhymes of Amos and Ann • Nancy Byrd Turner
... some, too, whose behaviour cannot be reconciled with the hallucination of a hotel, and they must take the house for a public institution of some kind, though of what kind I cannot guess. There was an extremely bashful youth, for instance, who roamed the garden for a while on the day after the late Duke of Cambridge's funeral, and, suddenly dashing in by the back door, wanted to know why our flag was not at half-mast. There was also a lady who ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... well again, and by my means. Probably I might secure peace and comparative freedom for Olivia, but that was all. She could never be more to me than she was now. My only prospect was that of a dreary bachelorhood; and Captain Carey's bashful exultation made the future ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... intuition Frank divined the big bashful man's meaning. It was his roundabout way of asking the boy to commit him to the care of God before leaving him alone in ...
— The Young Woodsman - Life in the Forests of Canada • J. McDonald Oxley
... thee baptism, I would choose To christen thee, the bride, the bashful Muse, Or Muse of roses: since that name does fit Best with those virgin-verses thou hast writ: Which are so clean, so chaste, as none may fear Cato the censor, ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick
... still sat upon the throne of Charlemagne. His eldest son had died about ten years before, leaving a little boy, some twelve years of age, to inherit the crown his father had lost by death. The young Louis, grandchild of the reigning king, was mild, inoffensive, and bashful, with but little energy of mind, with no ardor of feeling, and singularly destitute of all passions. He was perfectly exemplary in his conduct, perhaps not so much from inherent strength of principle as from possessing that peculiarity ...
— Maria Antoinette - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... salt and water recently mixed, or moistened with ether. In cases of strangulated hernia, could acupuncture, or puncture with a capillary trocar, be used with safety and advantage to give exit to air contained in the strangulated bowel? Or to stimulate it into action? It is not uncommon for bashful men to conceal their being afflicted with a small hernia, which is the cause of their death; this circumstance should therefore always be enquired into. Is the seat or cause of the ileus always below the valve of the ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... were quieted by the shout of a boy that the preacher was a-coming; whereupon the reverend gentleman elbowed his way through the guests to the quiet couple, and requested them to stand up. A few hurried words by the clergyman, a few bashful replies from the young people, and the two were made one. The crowd rushed outside of the house, where a general scramble took place among the boys for their girls. Then a procession was formed, headed by the clergyman, which marched along the sandy road ...
— Voyage of The Paper Canoe • N. H. Bishop
... singing was not to be thought of, and we requested the men to favor us with some folk-songs. No bashful schoolgirls could have resisted our entreaties with more tortuous graces than did those untutored peasants. One of them was such an exact blond copy of a pretty brunette American, whom we had always regarded as the most affected of her sex, that we fairly stared ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood
... almost. amang, among. ance, once. auld, old. belyve, by and by. blate, bashful. blinkin, gleaming. blythe, happy. braw, brave, fine. cannie, easy. carking, fretting. certes, certain. chows, chews. claes, clothes. convoy, accompany. cracks, talks. craws, crows. drapping, dropping. ...
— Six Centuries of English Poetry - Tennyson to Chaucer • James Baldwin
... fifteen when I first saw her. A slender, golden-haired, shy and quiet girl, much in bashful and sensitive demeanour like her romantic namesake of "the untrodden ways." It is quite true that she had no Whyte blood in her veins, and Mrs. Rowe could most conscientiously declare that there was not the least resemblance between them. The Whyte features ...
— The Cockaynes in Paris - 'Gone abroad' • Blanchard Jerrold
... itself. Do not think the youth has no force, because he cannot speak to you and me. Hark! in the next room his voice is sufficiently clear and emphatic. It seems he knows how to speak to his contemporaries. Bashful or bold then, he will know how to make us ...
— Essays, First Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... am not a little girl. You need not be bashful. Two and two make four. I know that. But some people want them to make five. I know that, too. So speak out what ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope
... seemed to reflect itself in the soft oval of a youthful face as she passed behind it; but save for this noiseless movement the young lady gave not the smallest sign of existence, nor did any one notice her. And it was only when the summons came to dinner, and when Lucy called forth the bashful Jock to offer his awkward arm to Lady Randolph, that the unannounced and unconsidered guest came ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... Veiled queens and bashful maidens, erst they shunned the public eye, Blush nor shame suffused their faces as ...
— Maha-bharata - The Epic of Ancient India Condensed into English Verse • Anonymous
... Florinda and Grizzel were nice little girls enough, but they did not possess the strong sterling qualities of their brothers; their voices were not often heard at Plumstead Episcopi; they were bashful and timid by nature, slow to speak before company even when asked to do so; and though they looked very nice in their clean white muslin frocks and pink sashes, they were but little ...
— The Warden • Anthony Trollope
... me do those dancing exercises, standing up in the middle of the floor and telling me to be a flower and express myself as a flower, does she just mean not to be bashful?" ...
— Turn About Eleanor • Ethel M. Kelley
... the red hands, and shy, bashful manner of some young lady who at first struck him as an awkward simpleton, unattractive to the last degree, and surprisingly ridiculous. His doom was sealed. He had gone from the provinces to Paris; he had ...
— The Deserted Woman • Honore de Balzac
... as in her childhood, grew up into a home-lover. We all wondered why John Anderson, who was studying medicine, should fancy Mary, plain good girl that she was. John had been a bashful boy and a hard student whom the girls failed to interest. But the home Mary made for him later, and her two sons that grew up in it, are justification of his choice of wife. The two boys are men now, one in Seattle, ...
— The Price of the Prairie - A Story of Kansas • Margaret Hill McCarter
... The bashful boy in blushes; And the girl, with glancing eyes, Who hides her smiles, and hushes The laugh about to rise,— Then, with a quick invention, Assumes a serious face, To meet the words, "Attention! Every ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley
... The bashful look, the rising breast, Alternate spread alarms: The lovely stranger stands confess'd A maid in all ...
— MacMillan's Reading Books - Book V • Anonymous
... something of genius in a seemingly plodding scholar, and therewith also something of the waywardness popularly thought to belong to [213] genius. Preceptores, condiscipuli, alike, marvel at a sort of delicacy coming into the habits, the person, of that tall, bashful, broad-shouldered, very Kentish, lad; so unaffectedly nevertheless, that it is understood after all to be but the smartness properly significant of change to early manhood, like the down on his lip. Wistful anticipations of manhood are in fact aroused in him, ...
— Miscellaneous Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... to wait, perhaps, but time was inexorable. Save for one hurried interview, I did not see him again for a week, and then it was before the altar. His garrulity had fallen from him like a garment. He was preoccupied and a trifle bashful. He fumbled with the ring. I felt almost as though he was ...
— Select Conversations with an Uncle • H. G. Wells
... both, and Ulfinore Hung down his head, but yet did lift his eyes As if he fain would see a little more, For much, tho' bashful, ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume II • Theophilus Cibber
... picture-dealer in the Rue de Clichy, left her with plenty of leisure and an unoccupied heart. She met at the theatre a Monsieur Bondois, a manufacturer of electrical apparatus; he was still young, superior to his trade, and extremely well-mannered. He was blessed with an amorous temperament and a bashful nature, and, as young and beautiful women frightened him, he had accustomed himself to desiring only women who were not young and beautiful. Madame Nanteuil was still a very pleasing woman. But one night when ...
— A Mummer's Tale • Anatole France
... acquired the character of impudent. This is as great a fault as the other. A well-bred man keeps himself within the two, and steers the middle way. He is easy and firm in every company; is modest, but not bashful; steady, but not impudent. He copies the manners of the better people, and conforms to their customs ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... deigned to corrupt me and now you deign to leave me. That is all. And your vows of 'faithfulness till death'—they too are cancelled. There is no need for you to grieve at this parting, but since I see you so sad and can give you no other comfort—you once praised my harp-playing; but I was bashful and would not play to you. Now I am bolder, and if you choose, I will play ...
— More Translations from the Chinese • Various
... twenty-five miles through such a frosty air, Nan would have had to possess a delicate appetite indeed not to enjoy these viands. She felt bashful because of the presence of so many rough men; but they left her alone for the most part, and she could ...
— Nan Sherwood at Pine Camp - or, The Old Lumberman's Secret • Annie Roe Carr
... casually, climbing into his big car—were all evidences that she was as unconscious of his presence as Stan was. But in reality the future for herself of which Sandy confidently dreamed was one in which, in all innocent complacency, she took her place beside Owen as his wife. Clumsy, wild-haired, bashful he might be at twenty-two, but the farsighted Sandy saw him ten years, twenty years later, well groomed, assured of manner, devotedly happy in his home life. She considered him entirely unable to take care of himself, he ...
— The Treasure • Kathleen Norris
... PHILLIPS (Yeoville): But why should a Bill of this sort be brought before them now? The Government in the past had not been bashful in the appointing of Commissions, and one question he would ask was why, in this important matter, the Government had not appointed a Commission to take all the evidence and then come to the House with a measure which the House would have to approve of. Instead of that, they were cancelling the ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje
... deer, Athenais eager as a young wolf, bounded through the dry grass, and, now and then, some bold Acteon might, by the aid of the faint light, have perceived their straight and well-formed limbs somewhat displayed beneath the heavy folds of their satin petticoats. La Valliere, more refined and more bashful, allowed her dress to flow around her; retarded also by the lameness of her foot, it was not long before she called out to her companions to halt, and, left behind, she obliged them both to wait for her. At this moment, a man, concealed in ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... is often a terrible ordeal to a girl of eighteen, and Quenrede, though she had put on a few airs to impress the schoolgirls at the Rainbow League sale, was at bottom woefully bashful. She was still in the stage when her newly-turned-up hair looked as if it were unaccustomed to be coiled round her head; she had a painful habit of blushing, and had not yet acquired that general savoir faire ...
— A Popular Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... grew fuller and richer with its meed of reward. All the boys of the varsity were sought by the students, Ken most of all. Everywhere he went he was greeted with a regard that made him still more bashful and ashamed. If he stepped into Carlton Club, it was to be surrounded by a frankly admiring circle of students. He could not get a moment alone in the library. Professors had a smile for him and often stopped to chat. The proudest moment of his ...
— The Young Pitcher • Zane Grey
... to remark to what extent the increase of man's mental complexity transforms his sexual tactics. The simple, natural, and at the same time bashful, modest manner, in which a naive young man seeks to conquer a heart, usually produces no effect on the fashionable young lady, experienced in all refined pleasures and saturated with unhealthy novels. These young women are much more easily seduced ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel
... of. Late at night I arrived at the village where she resided—stabled my beast—took lodging at a hotel—inquired out her residence—and, betimes, the morning following, made my obeisance in her presence, and with that bashful, awkward grace—if I may be allowed so paradoxical a term—which my youth present purpose, and former good breeding combined, were calculated to produce. I was more embarrassed still a minute after, when, having given ...
— Ella Barnwell - A Historical Romance of Border Life • Emerson Bennett
... Uncle Kit suggested that we visit the emigrant camp and see the ladies, which did not altogether meet with my approval, but rather than be called bashful, I went along with the crowd. I was now twenty-one years of age, and this was the first time I had got sight of a white woman since I was fifteen, this now being ...
— Thirty-One Years on the Plains and In the Mountains • William F. Drannan
... that Virgil and that fount which poureth forth so large a stream of speech?" replied I to him with bashful front: "O honor and light of the other poem I may the long seal avail me, and the great love, which have made me search thy volume! Thou art my master and my author; thou alone art he from whom I took the fair style that ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 1, Hell [The Inferno] • Dante Alighieri
... it, or only to some rails on one side and a wall on the other. It, however, eventuates round a corner, at the main entrance. We recommend this back way, for the legitimate front road is much more intricate and harassing; you can only become acquainted with it, if topographically unenlightened, and bashful as to making inquiries, by hovering about an ancient windmill, moving up narrow hilly streets, flanked by angular bye-paths, and then following either the first woman you see with a prayer book in her hand, or the first man you catch a sight of with a good coat on his ...
— Our Churches and Chapels • Atticus
... from the ground; You scarcely saw its silvery gleam Among the herbs that hung around The borders of that winding stream,— A pretty stream, a placid stream, A softly gliding, bashful stream. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... were of homemade stuff; his shoes were coarse and heavy; he had no gloves on his hands; he was awkward and bashful. ...
— Fifty Famous People • James Baldwin
... afterwards state had to be lain aside, for Julia insisted on helping to wash the priceless Nankeen china while her husband smoked long cigars with Mijnheer on the veranda, but that was all her own fault. Denah came to tea drinking, she and her lately-wed husband, the bashful son of a well-to-do shipowner. She was very smiling and all bustling and greatly pleased with herself and all things, and if she thought poorly of Julia for washing the plates, she thought very well of the glittering rings she had left on the veranda-table and well, too, of her husband, who she ...
— The Good Comrade • Una L. Silberrad
... lambs frisk about him, thankful for the liberty they have regained, and he stretches out his hand for them to lick. Now he drives them along the extended green, and in a wild and thoughtless note carols a lively lay. He sings perhaps of the kind, but bashful shepherdess. His hat is bound about with ribbon; the memorial of her coy compliance and much-prized favour. How light is his heart, how chearful his gait, and how gay his countenance! He leads in a string a little frolic goat with curving horns: I suppose the prize that he bore off ...
— Imogen - A Pastoral Romance • William Godwin
... first morning, so as not to miss her, and hardly attended at all to the rest of the pageant of life that moved within the radius of her observation. Her heart beat fast when, about the middle of the morning, Mr. Wyse came round the dentist's corner, for it might be that the bashful Susan had sent him to make the announcement, but, if so, he was bashful too, for he walked by her house without pause. He looked rather worried, she thought (as well he might), and passing on he disappeared round the church ...
— Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson
... hat; one suspender held his trousers in place; his form was bony and awkward; his bare legs and arms were brown and sunburned and briar-scratched. He swung his horses around just as I passed by, and from under the flapping brim of his hat he cast a quick glance out of dark, half-bashful eyes, and modestly returned my salute. When his back was turned I took off my hat and sent a God-bless-you down the furrow ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... look as they stand in a line! Some are solemn with a sense of responsibility; some wear a smile half-bashful, half-provoked: but one air of determination ...
— Junior Classics, V6 • Various
... no answer; but when, with my fingers squeezed together a la Normande, he saw me make a gesture of grasping something, he could not prevent himself from smiling, with that bashful expression of Yes, which he had not courage to utter. The hypocrite had some shame about him, the shame of a ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 381 Saturday, July 18, 1829 • Various
... lambs and kids, which were frisking about them. Ayd knew the women, who belonged to his own tribe of Mezeine. Their husbands were fishermen, and were then at the sea-shore. They brought us some milk, and I bought a kid of them, which we intended to dress in the evening. The women were not at all bashful; I freely talked and laughed with them, but they remained at several yards distance from me. Ayd shook them by the hand, and kissed the children; but Hamd, who did not know them, kept at the same distance as ...
— Travels in Syria and the Holy Land • John Burckhardt
... partly fear, And partly 'twas a bashful art, That I might rather feel, than see. The ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... But I can't get to believe it. You, little mother mine, you that are so timid and bashful and quiet. That you—you should have done such ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge
... rejoined I, 'if you do brown that old fellow this season I'll knock under. However, don't be bashful about extending Smooth an invitation to breakfast: understand, he is rather fond of a good fish hash, which he thinks it is the profession of your French cook to ...
— The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth • Timothy Templeton
... evening of the card party, when he had become so fully conscious of the condition of things inside his heart, Quimby had been in a really pitiable state of unrest. Too bashful, or too deficient in self-confidence to seek the society of her who was the cause of all his uneasiness, as his inclinations directed, and not knowing how to make himself as charming to her as she was to him, he wandered ...
— Wired Love - A Romance of Dots and Dashes • Ella Cheever Thayer
... keeps the cross-roads store nigh us, clerked in Darley before he went in on his own hook out here, an' I've heard 'im tell of a lot o' pranks that they had over thar. He said thar was an old bachelor that, kept a dry-goods store who never had had much to do with women. He was bashful-like, but thar was one young woman that he had his eye on, an' now an' then he'd spruce up an' go to see 'er or take 'er out to meetin', but Jeff said he was too weak-kneed to pop the question, an' the gal went off on a visit ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben
... certain of the Odes (e.g. i. 14) to this period. About this time he made the acquaintance of Virgil, which ripened at least on Horace's part into warm affection. Virgil and Varius introduced him to Maecenas, [17] who received the bashful poet with distant hauteur, and did not again send for him until nine months had elapsed. Slow to make up his mind, but prompt to act when his decision was once taken, Maecenas then called for Horace, and in the poet's words bade him be reckoned among his friends; [18] and ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... runs up to her—"Oh, you silly kind mamma," she says, kissing her again, "that's what Harry would like;" and she broke out into a great joyful laugh: and Lady Castlewood blushed as bashful as a maid ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Tony's fancy. His unformulated criticism on the others was that they lacked action. True, in the view of St. Peter's an experienced-looking gentleman in a full-bottomed wig was pointing out the fairly obvious monument to a bashful companion, who had presumably not ventured to raise his eyes to it; while, at the doors of the Seraglio, a group of turbaned infidels observed with less hesitancy the approach of a veiled lady on a camel. But in Venice so many things were happening ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 2 (of 10) • Edith Wharton
... Casey was not bashful, nor was he over-fastidious; men who have lived long in the wilderness are not, as a rule. Still, he had his little whims, and he failed to react to the young lady's smile. His pale blue eyes were keen to observe details and even Casey ...
— Casey Ryan • B. M. Bower
... to her low; And, blushing on her, with a steadfast eye Receives the scroll without or yea or no And forth with bashful innocence doth hie. But they whose guilt within their bosoms lie Imagine every eye beholds their blame, For Lucrece thought he blush'd to ...
— The Rape of Lucrece • William Shakespeare [Clark edition]
... of him, measures a man by his clothes; but the man himself, if he be neither a genius nor a philosopher, but merely a clay-born, measures himself by his pocket-book. He cannot help it, and can no more fling it from him than can the bashful young man his self-consciousness when ...
— Revolution and Other Essays • Jack London
... in mute astonishment for a moment, flushing like a bashful girl meanwhile. Then, recovering himself, he muttered: "I will tell him, gentlemen; he will feel ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood
... does, he's a quizzin yer," cried Mr. Wagg; but nobody saw the pun, which disconcerted somewhat the bashful punster. "The dinner is from Griggs, in St. Paul's Churchyard; so is Bacon's," he whispered Pen. "Bungay writes to give half-a-crown a head more than Bacon, so does Bacon. They would poison each other's ices if they could get near them; and as for the made-dishes—they are poison. ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... you 'ave now paid five bob a week for nineteen weeks," ses the skipper, "and George 'as been kind enough and generous enough to let you off the rest. There's no need for you to look bashful, George; ...
— Deep Waters, The Entire Collection • W.W. Jacobs
... doubtful evidences of Massinger's supposed conversion to Roman Catholicism), The Picture (containing excellent passages, but for improbability and topsy-turviness of incident ranking with The Duke of Milan), The Emperor of the East, The Guardian, A Very Woman, The Bashful Lover, are all plays on which, if there were space, it would be interesting to comment; and they all display their author's strangely mixed merits and defects. The Roman Actor and The Fatal Dowry must have a little more attention. The first is, I think, Massinger's ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... keep out of her way, then. If she tries to do any missionary work among my chickens, I'll tell her a few home truths her husband's too bashful to tell her. It's my opinion she's got ...
— One of Ours • Willa Cather
... things. Like time and tide they wait for no man. Somebody might be dead or dying. So summoning all her courage, she cleared her throat. Then she gave a bashful little cough. Betty looked up with an absent-minded stare. She had been so busy polishing a figure of speech to her satisfaction that she had forgotten where she was. For an instant the preoccupied ...
— The Little Colonel: Maid of Honor • Annie Fellows Johnston
... been ungraceful. Even on Wilson, who was to the manner born of riotous spirits, it often sits awkwardly; in De Quincey's case it is, to borrow Sir Walter's admirable simile in another case, like "the forced impudence of a bashful man." Grim humour he can manage admirably, and he also—as in the passage about the fate which waited upon all who possessed anything which might be convenient to Wordsworth, if they died—can manage a certain kind of sly humour not much less admirably. ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... cold. When I came out of the hut, the morning sun was just getting the better of the mist, and spreading a cheery light over the square, which had looked dismal enough under a grey, rainy sky. I made all the women gather on the outskirts of the square to be measured and photographed. They were very bashful, and I almost pitied them, for the whole male population sat around making cruel remarks about them; indeed, if it had not been for the chiefs explicit orders, they would all have run away. They were ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser
... and shadowy face; two great storm-swept eyes looked into his out of a world of infinite pain, and he dropped his head in hesitation and shame, and kissed her hand. Miss Wynn thought him delightfully bashful. ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... at ease in the bosom of her household. Nor did our young officer abuse these acts of true kindness and personal privilege. Unassuming, gentle and affable Guy Trevelyan was more eagerly sought than seeking. Sir Howard admired his favorite, his diffidence and bashful coyness. "He is one to make a mark," said he. "Give me the disposition of Guy in preference to those aping and patronizing airs assumed by the majority of young gentlemen on entering the army." Once, on addressing Lieutenant-Colonel Trevelyan, ...
— Lady Rosamond's Secret - A Romance of Fredericton • Rebecca Agatha Armour
... doctor's daily visits and his daughter's patient nursing, was growing steadily stronger. Elizabeth brought along a guitar, which she played daintily, singing the choruses of all the popular songs the boys could ask for by name. After a little bashful hesitation, Dave chimed in, while the rest of the boys lay back ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Air on Lost Island • Gordon Stuart
... into his buggy. At first she was very silent, and Lawrence, who was a bashful lad at the best of times, felt tongue-tied and uncomfortable. But presently Bessy, pitying his evident embarrassment, began to talk to him. She could talk well, and Lawrence found himself entering easily into the spirit ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1905 to 1906 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... as bashful as they were clever, and did not come into sight if any one was watching. They were big enough to be seen easily, however, as proven by this: frequently one of them came ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates
... here intend to personate the bashful Author, and out of a point of Honour undervalue my Comedy. I should very unseasonably disoblige all the People of Paris, should I accuse them of having applauded a foolish Thing: as the Public is absolute Judge of ...
— The Pretentious Young Ladies • Moliere
... bashful when in the presence of ladies. I remember once we were invited to take tea at a friend's house, and while in the parlor I was called to the front ...
— Lincoln's Yarns and Stories • Alexander K. McClure
... ropes and approached. There was some blood on his lip, and he wiped it away. She marveled at so little sign of conflict. He came straight to her, glistening with sweat. The trainer threw him a robe, which he wrapped about him to his very chin. She thought the welter-weight was bashful, too. And Irish—that without a doubt from ...
— Winner Take All • Larry Evans
... with slow and cautious steps descended round and round. Then, with the gentleness of a nursing mother, he attended to the cut on her arm. During his progress through the operations of wiping it and binding it up anew, her face changed its aspect from pained indifference to something like bashful interest, interspersed with small tremors and shudders of ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... and Mixtus now philosophically reflects that the cause must come before the effect, and that the thing to be directly striven for is the commercial intercourse, not excluding a little war if that also should prove needful as a pioneer of Christianity. He has long been wont to feel bashful about his former religion; as if it were an old attachment having consequences which he did not abandon but kept in decent privacy, his avowed objects and actual position being incompatible ...
— Impressions of Theophrastus Such • George Eliot
... from interested motives are inexcusable; but the very modesty of women makes against their happiness in this point, by giving them a kind of bashful fear of objecting to such persons as their parents recommend as proper objects of ...
— The History of Emily Montague • Frances Brooke
... Bobby was afoot and on his way to the Ottawa Hotel. He ran fast until within a block of it; then unexpectedly his gait slackened to a walk, finally to a loiter. He became strangely reluctant, strangely bashful about approaching the place. This was not ...
— The Adventures of Bobby Orde • Stewart Edward White
... suddenly into a fit of shame and bashful embarrassment. The assurance that I had gained at Court forsook me, and I was tongue-tied as ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope
... gild thy tomb; besides, these cauls, These laces, ribands, and these fauls, These veils, wherewith we used to hide The bashful bride, When we conduct her to her groom: All, all, we ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... man I ever knew in that profession. He had the air of a gentle young lady, but at need he could prove himself one of the boldest and bloodiest fighters in the world. This agreeable gentleman observed me so attentively that he made me bashful and self-conscious; and seeing that he wanted to understand what I was doing, I courteously explained my plans. Suffice it to say, that we vied with each other in civilities, which made me do far better with this bastion than ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... novel was regarded as literature of a lower order; down almost to our time, critics scrupled to speak of it. When M. Villemain in his course of lectures on the eighteenth century came to Richardson, he experienced some embarrassment, and it was not without oratorical qualifications and certain bashful doubts that he dared to announce lectures on "Clarissa Harlowe" and "Sir Charles Grandison." He sought to justify himself on the ground that it was necessary to track out a special influence derived from England, "the influence of imagination united to moral sentiment in eloquent prose." But ...
— The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare • J. J. Jusserand
... lasses of Greenwich Fair, their charms were few, and their behavior, perhaps, not altogether commendable; and yet it was impossible not to feel a degree of faith in their innocent intentions, with such a half-bashful zest and entire simplicity did they keep up their part of the game. It put the spectator in good-humor to look at them, because there was still something of the old Arcadian life, the secure freedom of the antique age, in their way of surrendering ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... by his bearing, one would have supposed was a breach to mount. Max Emmanuel had smiled and said to himself: "In yonder direction lies Eugene's love-secret. We had better follow, for we may be useful in time of need. He seems to me to be too bashful to manage an intrigue ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... to face such danger, it may be said that they were as near contentment as often comes in life. And if the droll look of the man in the moon brought back to one a certain night years before, when, as a bashful boy, he could hardly find courage to kiss a blue-eyed girl whom he had walked home with, and who had since become very dear to him, it is not surprising. Neither was it at all strange, if, when looking seaward, that night, he could see far away in the ...
— Pocket Island - A Story of Country Life in New England • Charles Clark Munn
... mirth. Johnson, who understands what he does as well as any man, exposes the impertinence of an old fellow who has lost his senses, still pursuing pleasures with great mastery. The ingenious Mr. Pinkethman is a bashful rake, and is sheepish, without having modesty with great success. Mr. Bullock succeeds Nokes in the part of Bubble, and, in my opinion, is not much below him, for he does excellently that kind of folly we call absurdity, which is ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. III • Theophilus Cibber
... not a bit conceited—rather bashful, I should say. But embarrassment in him is attractive. No hero should be conceited. There is a wide difference between impertinence and frankness. Ferguson seems to speak frankly, but with a subtle shade. I think this is a very agreeable ...
— The Two-Gun Man • Charles Alden Seltzer
... man, "what has come over my bashful Marianne? What would the villagers say if they should see her now? And what comes behind? Kathi, with a horse. ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... Mrs. Marsham led him down one of the broad walks of the park, they encountered a little peasant lad, who looked a good deal impressed, but saluted the small nobleman with a bashful bow, and was about hurrying on, when the lordling asked, condescendingly, "What ...
— Stories of Many Lands • Grace Greenwood
... Dispensary Medical Association, of Buffalo, I wrote them about my case, and in reply, they said they were sure they could cure me. At that time I was weak in my arms and legs, had poor sight and, worst of all, I was very nervous and bashful. I could not sleep at night and feel refreshed in the morning. I could not look any one in the eye without ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... kind of good works," said Marjorie, "because I'm too bashful to talk to people and ...
— Miss Prudence - A Story of Two Girls' Lives. • Jennie Maria (Drinkwater) Conklin
... exclaimed. "Rose is too bashful for that." Then he hinted, "But you see I am going to take ...
— The Heart of the Rose • Mabel A. McKee
... might just as well eat my cutlet, too. Eat, my dear, eat; don't be bashful—you ought to be gaining in health. But do you know what I'll tell you, ladies?" she turns to her mates, "Why, our Pheclusha has a tape-worm, and when a person has a tape-worm, he always eats for two: half for himself, half for ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... his eyes and eyelids downwards, denotes thereby to be of a malicious nature, very treacherous, false, unfaithful, envious, miserable, impious towards God, and dishonest towards men. He whose eyes are small and conveniently round, is bashful and weak, very credulous, liberal to others, and even in his conversation. He whose eyes look asquint, is thereby denoted to be a deceitful person, unjust, envious, furious, a great liar, and as the effect of all that is miserable. He who hath a wandering eye and which is rolling up and ...
— The Works of Aristotle the Famous Philosopher • Anonymous
... poor woman the better. Let me see. Tell Paul Pringle to go and get the baby and bring it up to my cabin. That is the most airy and healthy place for the little chap. We must rig out a cot for it there. Freeborn himself would feel bashful at taking his child there. Either he or Pringle must act as nurse, though. I have no fancy for having one of the ship's boys making the attempt. They would be feeding him with salt beef and duff, or smothering him; and as for waking when he cries at ...
— True Blue • W.H.G. Kingston
... saying, "You'll give me a crown, won't you?"—a question at which the maiden aunt blushed intensely, as did Mrs. Brown, who attempted to hide her emotion by saying, "What strange things children do think of!"—at the same time helping a gentleman who had had enough—the bashful gentleman, who sat at the junction of the tables, and appeared so incommoded by the table-land of one being higher than the table-land of the other—causing his plate to oscillate in a very remarkable manner, and discharge its contents in his lap,—the ...
— Christmas Comes but Once A Year - Showing What Mr. Brown Did, Thought, and Intended to Do, - during that Festive Season. • Luke Limner
... occupied to torment other people, she became less caustic, more gentle, and indulgent. This change in her temper enchanted and amazed her family. Perhaps, at last, her selfishness was being transformed to love. It was a deep delight to her to look for the arrival of her bashful and unconfessed adorer. Though they had not uttered a word of passion, she knew that she was loved, and with what art did she not lead the stranger to unlock the stores of his information, which proved to be varied! She perceived that ...
— The Ball at Sceaux • Honore de Balzac
... partly upon a bashful modesty, partly upon ignorance, and partly upon unbelief. My answer ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... almond-cakes, and showed Mrs. Waldron the Vienna mode of clearing coffee. When I came back the fiddles were playing, and Aurelia going down the middle with a young gentleman in a scarlet coat. Poor little Robert Rowe was too bashful to find a partner, though he longed to dance; so I made another couple with him, and thus missed further speech, save that as we took our leave, both Sir George and the Dean complimented me, and said what there is no occasion to repeat just now, sir, when I ought to be fetching ...
— Love and Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... red, like a bashful woman's. He thought Blecker had divined his secret, would haul it out roughly in another moment. If this slang-talking Yankee should take little Lizzy's name into his mouth! But the Doctor was silent, even looked away until the heat on the poor ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... to a girl before. He hesitated, looked around at Max and James for support and at Bannon, and then, finding no help, he grinned, and the warm color surged over his face. The only one who saw it all was Hilda, and in spite of her embarrassment the sight of big, strong, bashful Pete was too much for her. A twinkle came into her eyes, and a faint smile hovered about her mouth. Pete saw it, misunderstood it, and, feeling relieved, went on, not knowing that by bringing that twinkle to Hilda's eyes, he ...
— Calumet 'K' • Samuel Merwin
... place of tutor in a rich burgomaster's family, where he fell in love with the pretty, amiable, and mischievous daughter. She fully reciprocated his feelings, and as her parents approved of the match, she gave the bashful young man all the encouragement she could: she felt very sure as to the nature of his sentiments towards her, but notwithstanding all she could do, the young man would not propose—as she rightly concluded, the thought of her superior ...
— Holidays at the Grange or A Week's Delight - Games and Stories for Parlor and Fireside • Emily Mayer Higgins
... in the shell, Bright pearl in its floating cell! Behold! how the shell's rose-hues, The cheek and the breast of snow, And the delicate limbs suffuse, Like a blush, with a bashful glow. Sailing on, slowly sailing O'er the wild water; All hail! as the fond light is hailing Her daughter, All hail! We are thine, all thine evermore: Not a leaf on the laughing shore, Not a wave on the heaving sea, ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... bashfulness, truly, in him. [Bashfulness in Mr. Lovelace, my dear!]—Indeed, gay and lively as he is, he has not the look of an impudent man. But, I fancy, it is many, many years ago since he was bashful. ...
— Clarissa, Volume 1 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... vessels, she took long pretend-journeys upon them—every detail of which she carefully carried out. The companions selected were those smiling friends that appeared at neighboring windows; or she chose hearty, happy laundresses from the roofs; adding, by way of variety, some small, bashful acquaintances made at the dancing-school ...
— The Poor Little Rich Girl • Eleanor Gates |
