"Shy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... this hallucination, he turned toward her again, and found, as their eyes met, a little of the shy hesitation with which the mother's gaze had met his in the first days of ...
— Strong as Death • Guy de Maupassant
... eyes, dark, smoky-blue under black lashes, and when they held a gentle, half-shy, half-proud invitation, as they did then, they were very unsettling eyes.... And it was hot on that infernal camp stool. And there was a crick in the back of his neck and his errand was glaringly a ...
— The Palace of Darkened Windows • Mary Hastings Bradley
... fastidiousness of girlhood had developed into an absolute perversion of instinct. For all that is cardinal in this essential business of life she had one inseparable epithet—"horrid." Without any such training she would have been a shy lover, but now she was an impossible one. For the rest she had derived, I suppose, partly from the sort of fiction she got from the Public Library, and partly from the workroom talk at Smithie's. So far as the ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... pretty little girl with red lips—lives in Church Street. Well, as long as I could bring her a bit of liquorice when I went to see her all was smooth enough, and I got many a kiss when no one was nigh; but now that I can't fork out a bit as big as a marble, she's getting quite shy of me, and is always walking with Bill, the butcher's boy. I know he gives her bulls'-eyes—I seed him one day buying a ha'porth. Now, ain't ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... it into his head to do anything he did it without the slightest warning. If he decided to shy at a bit of paper he was out of the road before Johnnie Green knew what had happened. And if he wanted to take a wrong turn, just for fun, he darted off so fast that he usually had his way before Johnnie could shout "Whoa!" Everybody said that he was as quick ...
— The Tale of Pony Twinkleheels • Arthur Scott Bailey
... his hands in surprise. "Riddle after riddle! and to think that I myself have brought this boy to the house only last night for the first time in his life, and introduced him not an hour ago, and—talk of his being shy in the company of ladies!—he is head over ears in conspiracy with both of the girls, when I thought he had never seen them, and they did not know ...
— Dr. Dumany's Wife • Mr Jkai
... they didn't answer. The little people always had been shy. Yet without reaching a decision in so many words I knew suddenly that I had to talk to them. I'd come to the glen to work out a knotty problem, and I was up against a blank wall. Simply because I was so lonely that ...
— Houlihan's Equation • Walt Sheldon
... a razor," thought the lady, "and as shy as a partridge. Half measures won't do with him. I must fight him on his ...
— The Baronet's Bride • May Agnes Fleming
... now visits the Dead Sea, and hardly one of them follows the New Testament injunction to "remember Lot's wife." Nearly every one of them seems to think it best to forget her. Of the great mass of pious legends they are shy enough, but that of Lot's wife, as a rule, they seem never to have heard of, and if they do allude to it they simply cover the whole subject with a haze ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... listening, smiled. During the winter of '64-65 he had been in command of the first battalion of his regiment, but, on a theory of education, had enlisted after the war. This being known, held the men more shy of him than was ...
— Red Men and White • Owen Wister
... have seen, when the first cogitation of it at Bonchurch occupied him; but the expediency of making it clearer came soon after with a visit from Mr. Evans, who brought his half-year's accounts of sales, and some small disappointment for him in those of Copperfield. "The accounts are rather shy, after Dombey, and what you said comes true after all. I am not sorry I cannot bring myself to care much for what opinions people may form; and I have a strong belief, that, if any of my books are read years hence, Dombey will be ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... of Mariendorpt. She loves Hans, a servant to the minister, but Hans is shy, and Esther has to teach him how to woo and win her. Esther and Hans are similar to Helen and Modus, only in lower social grade.—S. Knowles, The Maid of ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... man who has made good comes back to visit in the old town. We're aching to rush up and wring his arm off, but we want to know how he feels about it first. One or two experiences have made us gun-shy. We can't forget Lyla Enbright, who moved away with her family years ago and married a national bank or something of the kind in the East. She didn't come home for ten years, but finally the father died and Lyla came back to sell off some property. A lot of us had made mud pies ...
— Homeburg Memories • George Helgesen Fitch
... noted for their preaching, and would often go up into the pulpits of the churches, where large crowds gathered to hear them, the Bishop even inviting St. Francis to preach in the cathedral. Now, among the brethren there was one called Ruffino, who was very shy and nervous and felt he simply couldn't preach and face a great crowd of people, all staring at him and waiting for his words. Now, St. Francis hated that any of his Friars should give in to themselves about anything. ...
— Stories of the Saints by Candle-Light • Vera C. Barclay
... which Brutus speaks, and the immediate result was my elevation to the head of the class to the evident disgust of my competitors, who grumbled out, "No wonder she can read, she goes to the theatre!" I had been before this very shy and reserved, not to say stupid, about reading in school, afraid of the sound of my own voice, and very unwilling to trust it; but the greater familiarity with the theatre seemed suddenly to unloose my tongue, and give birth as it were ...
— [19th Century Actor] Autobiographies • George Iles
... baby at my breast." Good, I know you also. "You, little girl with the golden hair and the soft eyes, what do you like?" "My canary, and a run among the wood hyacinths." "You, little boy with the dirty hands, and the low forehead, what do you like?" "A shy at the sparrows, and a game at pitch farthing." Good; we know them all now. What more need ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
... too, the long years in fighting we passed, Till Mounseer asked Bony to lead him; And Sir Arthur, grown tired of glory at last, Begged of one Mickey Free to succeed him. "But, acushla," says I, "the truth is I'm shy! There's a lady in Ballymacrazy! And I swore on the book—" He gave me a look, And cried: "Mickey, now ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... slowly by; So pale is he, so dull and shy, The very neighbors in the street Turn round to ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... planted some flowers, and made some things for Miranda's baby, and then"—she hesitated, with an adorably shy look full of that pathos, which made so many of her simplest statements seem claims for protection, "and then I went over ...
— Katrine • Elinor Macartney Lane
... little that was true. But the result was that gossip spread wide about Anthony, and he was held in the town to be a very fearful person, who could do strange mischief if he had a mind to; Anthony never cared to walk abroad, for he was of a shy habit, and disliked to meet the eyes of his fellows; but if he did go about, men began to look curiously after him as he went by, shook their heads and talked together with a dark pleasure, while children fled before his face and women feared him; all of which ...
— Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories - Reprinted from The Hill of Trouble and The Isles of Sunset • Arthur Christopher Benson
... when we reached the foot of the incline and our path broadened out as it turned to follow the windings of the little river toward the pond, mademoiselle rode up beside me, and with a very pretty air indeed, half arch, half shy, ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... his hole for nothing: was he anticipating a state of torpidity, or providing against the demands of a very active appetite? Red and gray squirrels are more or less active all winter, though very shy, and, I am inclined to think, partially nocturnal in their habits. Here a gray one has just passed,—came down that tree and went up this; there he dug for a beechnut, and left the burr on the snow. How did he ...
— In the Catskills • John Burroughs
... think that he might be shy, too?" she asked. "He left two children and came home to find two distrustful adults. Give ...
— Ralestone Luck • Andre Norton
... and after the tourist had gone he thought much of these two boxes. Indeed, he made and fixed up the first that same week, though he labelled it "For Church Repairs," fighting shy of "Restoration" as too magniloquent. The second cost him long searchings of heart, and he walked over and laid the case before Parson Kendall, Rector of the near parish of St. Cadox, a good Christian and a good fellow, with whom he sometimes smoked a pipe. ...
— The White Wolf and Other Fireside Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... a great world of spirit, the world of fact had been compromised and left cold and dry and unattractive and unpromising. No doubt it was necessary that the scientist should become hardened and weaned from all misleading expectation, and shy of all the spurious claims of sordid superstition and of childish fancy. He may have been unduly radical in cutting out everything that in any way recalled the misleading notions. In the end, we had to go through a stage of psychology without a "soul," and lately even a psychology without ...
— A Psychiatric Milestone - Bloomingdale Hospital Centenary, 1821-1921 • Various
... the door opened, and a trio of Indians padded softly into the store with gaily-beaded, moccasined feet. Two elderly bucks and a young squaw. The latter flashed a shy, roguish grin at the white men, and then with the customary effacement of Indian women withdrew to the rear of the store. Squatting down, all huddled-up in her blanket, she peered at them with the incurious, ...
— The Luck of the Mounted - A Tale of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • Ralph S. Kendall
... morning, has reported to me the very efficient help that he received from the men of the Imperial Light Horse as well as the other corps who were employed. When he told me last night that he was anxious to have a shy at the gun on Gun Hill, there was one thing that I determined on, and that was, that I would give him the best support that I could. I knew I could trust you to help on account of your knowledge of the business which you have ...
— Four Months Besieged - The Story of Ladysmith • H. H. S. Pearse
... Tiberius had no charm of manner: Drusus his brother quite put him in the shade. He carried with him the scars of his babyhood's perilous adventures, and the terror of that unremembered night of fire. He was desperately shy and sensitive; awkward in company; reserved, timid, retiring, silent. Within the nature so pent up were tense feelings; you would say ungovernable, only that he always did govern them. He went ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... ordered the covers to be removed and they were all taken off at one time. Then she took her seat at the head of the table and told us to stand at the foot. She then said: "generally the Emperor takes lunch with me when we have the theatre, but he is shy to-day, as you are all new to him. I hope he will get over it and not be so bashful. You three had better eat with me to-day." Of course, we knew that this was an especial favor, and thanked her by kowtowing before we commenced to eat. This kowtowing, or bowing ...
— Two Years in the Forbidden City • The Princess Der Ling
... Mr. Bell. "I've thought of that. Something to make her gun-shy and camera-shy. It's curious about her. In some ways she's a timid girl. She's afraid of ...
— Tish, The Chronicle of Her Escapades and Excursions • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... too hackneyed to be comforting at times, and the girl reminded herself that blood is thicker than water as she looked among her mother's papers for the Menotti address. They were her cousins, birds of a feather. She wrote them a queer, shy, charming letter in strange Italian, laboriously learnt out of a grammar, and then—since some days must elapse before she could get any answer—she conscientiously studied the advertisement columns of the papers. She might be a nursery governess if only she could be ...
— Olive in Italy • Moray Dalton
... know—" and Patty put her fingertip in her mouth, and looked so exaggeratedly shy that Jack ...
— Patty's Butterfly Days • Carolyn Wells
... widow come to live with her father-in-law. The old man himself went to fetch her and her year-old child. She proved to be a small, plain body, with an air of fright about her, as though life had surprised her. Out of respect for Eben, as they put it, the gossips went to call. They found her shy, and inclined to be silent; they drank their tea, and examined her with curiosity, while she, for her part, seemed to ...
— Autumn • Robert Nathan
... confidence the religious and moral teaching of the reverend fathers. A doctrine which preached separation from profane things; the attractions of a meditative and pious life, and mistrust of the world and its perilous pleasures, harmonized with the shy and melancholy timidity of his nature. Human beings, especially women, inspired him with secret aversion, which was increased by consciousness of his awkwardness and remissness whenever he found himself in the society of women or ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... sons fight shy of touching their father's body? Had it been your father or mine who was beaten down by a murderer's spite, we would surely have given him one fare-well ...
— The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley • Louis Tracy
... bearing away: that he had not been viewing her somehow by a partial, artificial light, and making a fond mistake. No! he found the impression true—rather, indeed, he gained than lost by this return: he took away with him a parting look —shy, but very soft—as beautiful, as innocent, as any little fawn could lift out of its cover of fern, or any ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... beg your pardon," said Mary, laughing and covering her mouth with her hand exactly in her old, shy, half-frightened way. ...
— What Katy Did Next • Susan Coolidge
... what I could of the cargo. Pretty soon I had, as nigh as I could reckon it, about fourteen pound out of the five scooped up and in the bucket. I begun to think the miracle of loaves and fishes was comin' to pass again. I was some shy on fish, but I was makin' up on loaves. Then I sort of looked matters over and found what I had in the bucket was about one pound of meal to seven of sawdust. Then I gave it up. Seemed to me the stuff might be more fillin' ...
— Shavings • Joseph C. Lincoln
... officials stated that the immigrant family when first arriving in the colony is shy and helpless. The introduction of the family to the new conditions and surroundings has to be made gradually. A representative of the company meets the family at the station and directs it to a hotel, where it stays a few days before ...
— A Stake in the Land • Peter Alexander Speek
... admire the wisdom of God, that he made me shy of women from my first conversion until now. When I have seen good men salute those women that they have visited, I have made my objection against it; and when they have answered, that it was but a piece of civility, I have told them, it is not a comely sight. Some indeed have urged the ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... front-and-back aprons of camote vines; the youth with them is nude. The three transplanters wear skirts, and one of them wears an open jacket. Besides these there are three children in and about the sementera; one is a pretty, laughing girl of about 9 years; one is a shy, faded-haired little girl of 3 or 4 years; and the other is a fat chunk of a boy about 5 years. All three are perfectly naked. It is impossible to say what clothing these toilers wore before I went among them to watch their work, but it is certain ...
— The Bontoc Igorot • Albert Ernest Jenks
... joyfully Adown the sunny meadow and lived a while of life 'Midst the herbs and the beasts and the waters so free from fear and strife, That thy years and thy might and thy wisdom, I had no part therein; But thou wert as the twin-born brother of the maiden slim and thin, The maiden shy in the feast-hall and blithe in wood and field. Thus have we fared, my father; and e'en now when thou bearest shield, On the last of thy days of mid-earth, twixt us 'tis even so That the heart of my like-aged brother is the heart of thee ...
— The House of the Wolfings - A Tale of the House of the Wolfings and All the Kindreds of the Mark Written in Prose and in Verse • William Morris
... Golden Horn) had just brought soup and a bottle of thin Hungarian claret, when the other three chairs at my table were taken by a Rumanian family returning from a holiday in Budapest—an urbane gentleman of middle age, a shy little daughter, and a dark-eyed wife, glittering with diamonds, who looked a ...
— Antwerp to Gallipoli - A Year of the War on Many Fronts—and Behind Them • Arthur Ruhl
... Sergey Ivanovitch with shining eyes, so like her father's fine eyes, she handed him his hat and made as though she would put it on for him, softening her freedom by a shy ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... learn'd in chivalrous renown, By song and story handed down, Painted my knights from those around, But placed them on poetic ground. The ample brow, too smooth for guile; The careless, fearless, open smile; The shaded and yet arching eye, At once reflective, kind, and shy; The undesigning, dauntless look,— Became to me a living book. I read the character conceal'd, Flash'd on by chance, or never known Even to bosoms like its own; Shrinking before a step intrude; Touch, look, and whisper, all too rude; Unsunn'd and fairest ...
— The Lay of Marie • Matilda Betham
... see him trace the wayward brook Amid the forest mysteries, Where at themselves shy aspens look, Or where, with many a gurgling crook, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 105, July 1866 • Various
... Englishman, he answered it courteously, and subsided. He had been snubbed too many times not to have learned this lesson. It never entered his head that the introduction might have been brought about by the girl's interest. He was too mortally shy of women to conceive of such a possibility. So his gratitude was extended to the purser, who, on his side, regretted his good-natured recommendations of the ...
— Parrot & Co. • Harold MacGrath
... a little when he came within sight of the station, for it looked as quiet and sleepy as though no train was expected for ages yet; and the eager, shy old man felt that the men at the station would laugh at him for arriving more than half-an-hour before any train was due. For a moment he decided to turn away and walk in some other direction until some of the time had passed, but the seats on the platform looked very restful, ...
— The Story of Jessie • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... out to him as he did wrong last time in going off, and what a lot of injury it did him; and he knew it, or else he wouldn't have kep' it so close, and gone without letting me know. But once bit twice shy, and I'm not going to be bit again. I'm not going to break my heart fancying he's made a hole in the water. That's what set me thinking about the lieutenant as I did. If he wasn't one of the easiest-going bits o' human ...
— The Queen's Scarlet - The Adventures and Misadventures of Sir Richard Frayne • George Manville Fenn
... silent, and felt the shy, care-taking glance of her maid. Garnet spoke again, in the guarded tone she ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable
... waited on her again as soon as he had changed his dress; and after a second long and gracious conference, was freely visited by all the lords, ladies, and gentlemen at court, excepting the secretary and his party, who appeared somewhat shy of him. But all these fair appearances quickly vanished. On revisiting the queen in the evening, he found her much changed towards him; she began to call him to account for his unauthorised return and the hazard to which he had committed all things in ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... and Mr. Boffin on the other, who had found themselves stranded disagreeably,—with no certain position,—unwilling to sit immediately behind a Treasury bench from which they were excluded, and too shy to place themselves immediately opposite. Seats beneath the gangway were, of course, open to such of them as were members of the Lower House, and those seats had to be used; but they were not accustomed to sit beneath ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... bread-cutting machine. Dessert was always kept in the remote apartment where Dominick Duckett presided, strumming a guitar, while his black face had a portentous gravity as he assigned the desserts for each table. What an ordeal it was for shy freshmen to rise and walk the length of the dining-room! How many tables were kept waiting for the next course while errant students surveyed the sunset through the kitchen windows! Some of us remember the tragic moments when, coming in hot and tired from crew practice, we found on the ...
— The Story of Wellesley • Florence Converse
... novel is a great event for English society. It is a kind of common friend, about whom people can speak the truth without fear of being compromised, and confess their emotions without being ashamed. We are a particularly shy and reserved people, and set about nothing so awkwardly as the simple art of getting really acquainted with each other. We meet over and over again in what is conventionally called "easy society," with the tacit understanding to go so far and no farther; to be as polite as we ought to be, ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... own weight in a short time. Taste for fruit. Eats with a relishing gulp, like Dr. Johnson's. Fond of cherries. Earliest mess of peas. Mulberries. Lion's share of the raspberries. Angleworms his delight. A few years ago I had a grapevine. A foreigner. Shy of bearing. This summer bore a score of bunches. They secreted sugar from the sunbeams. One morning, went to pick them. The robins beforehand with me. Bustled out from the leaves. Made shrill, unhandsome ...
— Higher Lessons in English • Alonzo Reed and Brainerd Kellogg
... great bare, disorderly place. Sawdust was scattered on the ground; huge boxes were standing about, some empty, some half unpacked. From farther away came sounds of loud voices talking and disputing, and the stamping of horses' feet. It was neither a pretty or a pleasant place; and Alice, feeling shy and half frightened, held Papa's hand tight, and squeezed it very hard ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... and attracted by the sound of music, I drew near the door, when Aunt Eunice kindly bade me enter. I did so, and was presented to Monsieur Penoyer. At first I was shy of him, for I remembered that Sally had said, "he don't know nothin'," and this in my estimation was the worst crime of which he could be guilty. Gradually my timidity gave way, and when, at Carrie's request, he played ...
— Homestead on the Hillside • Mary Jane Holmes
... station, and we spanked up together in the dog-cart. That was scrumptious. I do love rushing through the air behind a horse like Firefly, and father is such an old love, and always understands how you feel. He is very quiet and shy, and when anyone else is there he hardly speaks a word, but we chatter like anything when we are together. I have a kind of idea that he likes me best, though Spencer and Vere are the show members of the family. Spencer is the heir, ...
— The Heart of Una Sackville • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... self-conscious attitude a thorough training in the dance is a most effective remedy. The shy, constrained, awkward boys and girls mingle with their companions on terms of ordered freedom and equality. They are taught grace of movement; the spontaneous expression of their individuality is modified by contact with their associates; they acquire ...
— The Art of Stage Dancing - The Story of a Beautiful and Profitable Profession • Ned Wayburn
... much in my letters for fear of making you think I was unhappy; and I have always been very happy here with the dear sisters and the girls. But I thought you understood me, mamma—understood by instinct, as it were," said Lesley, kneeling by her mother's side, and throwing an occasional shy ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... these aberrations. Still, with all his faults, he had always been to them a kind son and brother, not loved the less for the anxieties he had caused them. But the pride and satisfaction they felt in his newly-won fame, would be deep, not demonstrative. For the Burns family were a shy, reserved race, and like so many of the Scottish peasantry, the more they felt, the less they would express. In this they were very unlike the poet, with whom to have a feeling and to express it were almost synonymous. His mother, ...
— Robert Burns • Principal Shairp
... only was the young man still slightly flustered, but vexed by the liveliness of his own emotions. Everything to-day savoured of exaggeration. The most ordinary incidents distended, inflated themselves in a really unaccountable manner. So that, frankly, he fought shy of finding himself alone with Damaris again. She seemed so constantly to betray him into ill-regulated feeling, ill-considered speech and action, which tended to endanger the completeness of his self-esteem. Therefore, although admitting his attitude to ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... and succulent, shelving down into black boggy pools here and there at the edge of which the green frog, stupidest of his tribe, sat waiting to be victimized by boy or snapping-turtle long after the shy and agile leopard-frog had taken the six-foot spring that plumped him into the middle of the pool. And on the neighboring banks the maiden-hair spread its flat disk of embroidered fronds on the wire-like stem that glistened ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... beaucoup chez nous, ils sont grands gobeurs de cerises.' It would appear from this that cherries are a favourite food with this bird, and the presence of cherry orchards would account for their settling down at St. George. I believe they are said to be very shy, and the absence of wood would account for their not being seen in the ...
— Birds of Guernsey (1879) • Cecil Smith
... day. In the morning some who were baptized last summer were confirmed, and at night there were baptized three girls and thirteen boys. Most of them were quite little fellows. I don't think any of us will easily forget their grave and sober but not shy looks, as one by one they stepped up to the Bishop. I think that all understood and meant what they said, that Baptism was no mere form with them, but a real solemn compact. All who were in my class (nine), or the Sunday ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... close, and Gregory watched with amusement, during the ensuing scene, the vagaries of the intoxicated crowd. People rose to their feet, clapping, shouting, bellowing, screaming. He saw on the platform the face of the massive lady, haggard, fierce, devouring; the face of the shy lady, suffused, the eyes half dazed with adoration like those of a saint in rapture. Old Mrs. Forrester, with her juvenile auburn head, laughed irrepressibly while she clapped, like a happy child. The old poet was nearly ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... funniest little inn you can imagine—where we had an excellent home-cooked meal; and there is one store and a blacksmith's shop, one church and one schoolhouse. These, with half a dozen ancient and curiously assorted residences, constitute the shy and retiring town of Cragg's Crossing. Ah, think we have ...
— Mary Louise in the Country • L. Frank Baum (AKA Edith Van Dyne)
... blame him for that—but we had no open break for I love him dearly, for all my opposing ways, and he saw that, and it helped, though he did say after I had given my promise to stop where I was and never to take up such work again, that—" here she stole a shy look at the face bent so eagerly towards her—"that I had lost my social status and need never hope now for the attentions of—of—well, of such men as he admires and puts faith in. So you see," her dimples all showing, "that I am not such a very good match for an Upjohn of Massachusetts, even ...
— The Golden Slipper • Anna Katharine Green
... accomplishments and humors. We (the gentlemen) drink schnapps together, smoke cigars, talk all the languages under the sun, tell our best anecdotes, and sing glees under the awning. The ladies look more beautiful than ever, and although they are still a little shy of us, as ladies in Europe generally are of the male sex, they sometimes favor us with a smile or a pleasant word, and thus contribute to our happiness. I don't know, for the life of me, what dire offense the man who founded European society was guilty ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... then, rousing herself a little, "Septimius," said she, "is there just a little drop of my drink left? Not that I want to live any longer, but if I could sip ever so little, I feel as if I should step into the other world quite cheery, with it warm in my heart, and not feel shy and bashful at ...
— Septimius Felton - or, The Elixir of Life • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Miss Satterly had said—some whimsical thing—and he could hear his heart pounding in the silence which followed. The little, nickel alarm clock tick-tick-ticked with such maddening precision and speed that Chip wanted to shy a book at it, but his eyes never left the rocky bluff opposite, and the clock ticked ...
— Chip, of the Flying U • B. M. Bower
... conceal anything. I tell you, Cherry, if the time ever comes when you love somebody better than all the world beside, don't let him know until he speaks for himself. Don't be lightly won. Better be shy and cold, than demonstrative and gushing, like Maude. Gretchen was shy as a fawn, and after I told her I loved her she would not believe it possible. But, child, you look fagged and tired. It is time you were in bed. I have ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... Asia consist of two groups, the first of which have no cheek pouches, but always have very long tails, They are true forest monkeys, very active and of a shy disposition. The most remarkable of these is the long-nosed monkey of Borneo, which is very large, of a pale brown color, and distinguished by possessing a long, pointed, fleshy nose, totally unlike ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 344, August 5, 1882 • Various
... death she had sought out Selene, but dame Hannah could not and would not conduct her to see the sick girl, for she learnt from Mary that she was the mother of her patient's faithless lover; and on a second visit Selene was so shy, so timid and so strange in her demeanor, that the old woman was forced to conclude that her visit ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... vain quest for lions some time before. A little grass shelter was below the tree, and as we approached a Wanderobo darted out and ran in terror from us. The Wanderobos are native hunters who live in the forests, and are as shy as wild animals. So we could not question him as to Colonel Roosevelt's camp. Later in the afternoon a native runner appeared from the direction of Sergoi with a message to the colonel, but he didn't know where the camp was and ...
— In Africa - Hunting Adventures in the Big Game Country • John T. McCutcheon
... plenty, thank you." It was the shy little voice of Heart's Delight. A soft pink color had come into her round cheeks. Everybody looked at her in surprise, for how did Heart's Delight know that Chip had plenty of ...
— Tell Me Another Story - The Book of Story Programs • Carolyn Sherwin Bailey
... competition; nor obtain that large and elastic revenue which is absolutely essential, if we are going to pursue a policy of social reform and mean real business. I cannot but hope that many of those who still shy at Tariff Reform, when they come to look at it from this point of view—to see it as I see it, not as an isolated thing, but as an essential and necessary part of a comprehensive national policy—will rally to our cause. I have travelled ...
— Constructive Imperialism • Viscount Milner
... stopped, looking at him, frankly puzzled. She knew little first-hand of horse foremen. But she had seen Carson, even talked with him. And she had seen other workmen. She would, until now, have summed them all up as illiterate, awkward, and impossibly backward and shy. A second long, curious glance at Lee failed to show that he was embarrassed, though in truth he had had time to be a bit ashamed of that moth-and-star observation of his. Instead, he appeared quite self-possessed. And he was good-looking, remarkably good-looking. ...
— Judith of Blue Lake Ranch • Jackson Gregory
... Boarder. A slender, shy slip of a girl had his arm, and he was gazing into her intent eyes ...
— Amarilly of Clothes-line Alley • Belle K. Maniates
... rolling hills, and in but few places are the altitudes at all impressive. It is a smiling island. It has been said, too, that everything in it is friendly to man: the people are amiable, warm-hearted; the very animals and insects are harmless. Cuban cattle are shy, but trusting; Cuban horses are patient and affectionate; the serpents have no poison, and although the spiders and the scorpions grow large and forbidding, their sting is ineffective. But here in the Cubitas range all was different. The land was ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach
... again in the chorus of the spheres. But like most ideals, I fear this is but a pleasant dream." Then, as the publisher turned away to replace the P. Ts. in a safe, he added softly: "Intelligence is never likely to be so widely diffused in Ante-land that the masses would fight shy of birth. There would always be a sufficient proportion of unborn fools left who would prefer the palpabilities of bodily form to the insubstantialities of pre-natal existence. Between you and me, our friend the publisher is ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... gentle youth, of nearly nineteen, darkly, pallidly handsome, sweet natured, and slovenly, like his mother, and, unlike her, poetical, idealistic, unpractical, shy, and self-conscious. He was, at this period, working in the office of one of the two solicitors, who, with the aid of a branch of a bank, a Petty Sessions Court, and the imposing, plate-glass bow-windows of Hallinan's hotel, enabled Cluhir to convince itself of its status as a town. ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... because she was Roberta Lewis, proud and shy and dreadfully afraid of pushing in where she wasn't wanted, she did not think it necessary to mention to Betty that she had borrowed a copy of the play from little Ruth Howard, who was Sara, and that she had read it over until she knew almost every ...
— Betty Wales Senior • Margaret Warde
... as well as in idle sport. A few handfuls of blady grass supply a sheaf of missiles, and with such cheap ammunition the sportsman is justified in providing himself profusely when intent upon the destruction of shy birds. Noiseless and rapid, if the shot misses there is no disturbing effect on the nerves of the bird. A dry twig falling or a leaf rustling has no more elemental shock than the flight of the dart. The unconscious bird hops about its ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... if Rousseau thought fit to try such tremendous appeals by taking 'a shy' at any random object, he should have governed his sortilegy (for such it may be called) with something more like equity. Fair play is a jewel: and in such a case, a man is supposed to play against an adverse party hid in darkness. To shy at a cow within six feet distance gives no chance at all to ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... rose thought upon her dream, and she went through the Palace and found her father. He was going to the assembly of the Phaeacians. She came to him, but she was shy about speaking of that which had been in her dream—her marriage day—since her parents had not spoken to her about such a thing. Saying that she was going to the river to wash the garments of the household, she asked for a wagon and for mules. 'So many garments have I lying soiled,' ...
— The Adventures of Odysseus and The Tales of Troy • Padriac Colum
... fellow?" would the Englishman say, pointing at the Frenchman, "I know him, and he's a confounded rogue. I recommend you to be shy of him." ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... permit no intrusion. Clerks from the village and farmers' sons would occasionally drop in of an evening, though they preferred taking her out to ride where they could see her away from her home. But the more respectable young men, with anxious mothers and sisters, were rather shy of poor Rose, and none seemed to care to go beyond a mild flirtation with a girl whose father was "on the rampage," as they expressed it, most of the time. On one occasion, when she had two young friends spending the evening, her father ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... assertions. There was, however, too much reason to believe that our people had been the aggressors, as the governor on his return from his excursion to Broken Bay, on landing at Camp Cove, found the natives there who had before frequently come up to him with confidence, unusually shy, and seemingly afraid of him and his party; and one, who after much invitation did venture to approach, pointed to some marks upon his shoulders, making signs they were caused by blows given with a stick. This, and their running away, whereas they had always before remained on the ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins
... gloomy, and that nobody was near. A curious coy uneasiness seemed to take possession of her. Whether she thought, for the first time, that she had made a mistake—that to wander about the castle alone with him was compromising, or whether it was the mere shy instinct of maidenhood, nobody knows; but she said suddenly, 'I will get something for you, and return in a ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... back; but the governor nodded for him to enter, and, feeling miserably shy and uncertain of himself, he followed the pair into the house. The room they entered was richly furnished, but gloomy. Samuel, boy that he was, felt how much lovelier his mother's simple living room was with its shining brass and the few plants blooming at the window. The governor sat ...
— The New Land - Stories of Jews Who Had a Part in the Making of Our Country • Elma Ehrlich Levinger
... moment he leaned a little towards her, and spoke almost in a whisper. "I feel as if I have caught a very rare, shy bird," he said. "I'm trying to teach it to trust me, but it takes a mighty lot of time and patience. Do you think I shall ever succeed, Sylvia? Do you think it will ever come ...
— The Top of the World • Ethel M. Dell
... been made by saving than in any other way. The race is not in the long run to the phenomenally swift nor the battle to the phenomenally strong, but to the good average all-round organism that is alike shy of Radical crotchets and old world obstructiveness. Festina, but festina lente—perhaps as involving so completely the contradiction in terms which must underlie all modification—is the motto they ...
— Luck or Cunning? • Samuel Butler
... think they would," Will replied. "Outlaws of the Cameron stamp resort to all sorts of tricks and crimes, but they usually fight shy of murder. I'm afraid, however, that the boys will be starved or ...
— The Call of the Beaver Patrol - or, A Break in the Glacier • V. T. Sherman
... the Dove are shy and hidden: they nestle among trees, and their bells sound in the mellowness of Sunday; or they are gathered into a silence of their own in the very midst of the town, so that one passes them by without observing them; they are as if invisible, offering ...
— Twilight in Italy • D.H. Lawrence
... said Nick, in disgust. "You know what I've been shy on all this blessed trip. A pair of wings; not angel wings, but canvas ones, to keep a new beginner swimmer from sinking. I tell you I'd never lost all this flesh with worry on this cranky, wobbly boat if I'd known ...
— Motor Boat Boys Mississippi Cruise - or, The Dash for Dixie • Louis Arundel
... twice that number of years. This was one of the wrongs nature had done him in apparent resentment of the social advantages he was born to, for he was rather abstemious, as Englishmen go. He looked a very shy person till he spoke, and then you found that he was not in the least shy. He looked so English that you would have expected a strong English accent of him, but his speech was more that of an American, without the nasality. This was ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... is here represented as having the tongue of 'them that are taught,' and as having it, because morning by morning He has been wakened to hear God's lessons. He is thus God's scholar—a thought of which an unreflecting orthodoxy has been shy, but which it is necessary to admit unhesitatingly and ungrudgingly, if we would not reduce the manhood of Jesus to a mere phantasm. He Himself has said, 'As the Father taught Me, I speak these things.' With emphatic repetition, He was ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... longer shy. Nature prompted me to an act of gallantry that gratified the lady immensely. Falling on my knees, I glued my lips to the delicious spot, pushing my tongue in as far as I could, and sucked it. It was quite spunky; I had no doubt but that Mr. B. had fucked her two or three times ...
— The Romance of Lust - A classic Victorian erotic novel • Anonymous
... violent crash and a stifled curse. Some one had tumbled over the wire which his assistant had just arranged. He heard feet running on the gravel pathway beyond. Mr. Watkins, like all true artists, was a singularly shy man, and he incontinently dropped his folding ladder and began running circumspectly through the shrubbery. He was indistinctly aware of two people hot upon his heels, and he fancied that he distinguished the outline of his assistant in front of him. In another moment he had vaulted ...
— Golden Stories - A Selection of the Best Fiction by the Foremost Writers • Various
... of art like another; and the fact that it is an ideal shape, with no existence in space, only to be spoken of in figures and metaphors, makes it all the more important that in our thought it should be protected by no romantic scruple. Or perhaps it is not really the book that we are shy of, but a still more fugitive phantom—our pleasure in it. It spoils the fun of a novel to know how it is made—is this a reflection that lurks at the back of our minds? Sometimes, ...
— The Craft of Fiction • Percy Lubbock
... eyes, saw that Rutella was watching him in the manner of a shy woman not wishing to break in too abruptly on the ...
— The Man from Time • Frank Belknap Long
... duty at a formal, as at an informal dinner It is at the small dinner that the skilful hostess has need of what Thackeray calls the "showman" quality. She brings each guest forward in turn to the center of the stage. In a lull in the conversation she says beguilingly to a clever but shy man, "John, what was that story you told me——" and then she repeats briefly an introduction to a topic in which "John" particularly shines. Or later on, she begins a narrative and breaks off suddenly, turning to some one ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... which streamed through the open doors, and talking philosophy.' According to Mr. J. E. A. Smith's volume on the Berkshire Hills, these gentlemen, both reserved in nature, though near neighbours and often in the same company, were inclined to be shy of each other, partly, perhaps, through the knowledge that Melville had written a very appreciative review of 'Mosses from an Old Manse' for the New York Literary World, edited by their mutual friends, the Duyckincks. 'But one day,' writes Mr. Smith, 'it chanced that when ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... the trap, Darry walked further into the marsh. It was a lonely place, seldom visited save by a few hunters in the season, who looked for mallard ducks there; or it might be some boy trapper, endeavoring to make a few dollars by catching some of the shy denizens wearing ...
— Darry the Life Saver - The Heroes of the Coast • Frank V. Webster
... a geranium and smiles shy, like he always does when he's kidded. "If you please, sir," says he, "it's only a lady; to ...
— Wilt Thou Torchy • Sewell Ford
... be, the English were at a loss to guess why the natives prevented their penetrating to the interior of the country. Was it owing to a naturally shy nature? or possibly because they were threatened with constant inroads from their neighbours. Their address in the use of arms and their bearing supported this idea, but it was impossible to ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne
... hinted once that he knew no one he would sooner leave the fortunes of his daughter with than with myself. I mooted the subject to his wife too, in one wild valour of a sudden meeting, and even she, once so shy of the topic, seemed to look upon ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... down on the table. "Oh, haven't I? What about that mysterious locked drawer of yours? Don't be shy, I say! You had it open when I came in. Show her to me like a good chap! ...
— The Safety Curtain, and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... Sometimes I fancied I must be close to the fringe of civilization, with the life of the outer world pulsing near at hand, for I could hear whispers of it; but I soon got over that idea. The local inhabitants were shy but friendly; they did me no harm. But—it was no place for ducks; they swam all over the pond and spent so much time catching bugs on the bottom that they had no leisure for ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach
... demanded of the frying-pan on its nail above the stove-shelf, was I getting out of it? What was it leading to? And what would it eventually bring me? It would eventually bring me crabbed and crow-footed old age, and fallen arches and a slabsided figure that a range-pinto would shy at. It would bring me empty year after year out here on the edge of Nowhere. It would bring me drab and spiritless drudgery, and faded eyes, and the heart under my ribs slowly but surely growing as dead as a door-nail, and the joy of living just as slowly but ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer
... the door opened and a tall, well-proportioned young man entered. His long dress was trimmed with costly fur. He closed the door after him and stood near it, as though shy or ashamed. He noticed that he was too late and that the common family prayers had been recited without him, that the eyes of his grandfather Saul, of two uncles and several women relatives were looking at him severely and inquisitively. Only the grandmother's ...
— An Obscure Apostle - A Dramatic Story • Eliza Orzeszko
... in the shop; and he shyly greeted a certain jolly Herr Sohnstein, a German lawyer of distinction, who was about the bakery a great deal and who popularly was believed to be a suitor for the plump Hedwig's plump hand. And these shy greetings might have gone on day after day for all eternity—or at least for so much of it as these several persons were entitled to live out on earth—without increasing one particle in cordiality, had there not been one other dweller in the bakery to act as a solvent upon ...
— An Idyl Of The East Side - 1891 • Thomas A. Janvier
... not a Londoner raised a cheer for the fine Bankers' Battalion of the Fusiliers which marched through the City to-day. We are really absurdly shy." "Quex Junior" in "Evening ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. CL, April 26, 1916 • Various
... eye was not uncritical also of Cicely at times, but to-night she was so relieved to see how Sir Reginald's temper improved under her smiles and half shy glances, that she let her stay up later than usual. Then when she and the girl went up to bed, she asked her husband ...
— Simon • J. Storer Clouston
... Lanning a severe lesson. He still remained down upon the young oarsman, but in the future he fought shy of our hero, knowing that Jerry would not stand ...
— The Young Oarsmen of Lakeview • Ralph Bonehill
... bound. Then quick the hero Lakshman too His garment from his shoulders threw, And, in the presence of his sire, Indued the ascetic's rough attire. But Sita, in her silks arrayed, Threw glances, trembling and afraid, On the bark coat she had to wear, Like a shy doe that eyes the snare. Ashamed and weeping for distress From the queen's hand she took the dress. The fair one, by her husband's side Who matched heaven's minstrel monarch,(312) cried: "How bind they on their woodland dress, Those hermits ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... magnificent this evening in black bombazine, with a mauve front cut in a shy triangle, and crowned with a black velvet ribbon round the base of her thin throat; black and mauve for evening wear was esteemed very chaste by nearly ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... "Not a better fellow than Jack Hall among the Cads," said an old Etonian, "or a more expert angler." Barb, Gudgeon, Dace, and Chub, seem to bite at his bidding; and if they should be a little shy, why Jack knows how to "go to ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... particular friend, and who managed the business so particularly ill, from some motive or some incapacity, that he did not give us an opportunity of presenting our letter. He did not 'dare' to present it for us, he said. She is shy—she distrusts bookmaking strangers, and she intended to be incognita while in Paris. He proposed that we should leave it at the theatre, and Robert refused. Robert said he wouldn't have our letter mixed up with the love letters of the ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... on a visit to the Wolcotts') looked shy and somewhat distressed, and promptly retired into a corner, where she resumed her conversation with her cousin, Josiah Huntington; and presently Betty came flying into the kitchen, her gown tucked up ready ...
— An Unwilling Maid • Jeanie Gould Lincoln
... for the idea," answered Mme. Bourjot, "thanks, too, to Renee. You could not have asked me anything that would have suited me better and given me so much pleasure. I think it would be very good for Noemi—the poor child is so shy that I am in despair! It would make her talk and come out of herself. For her mind, too, it would ...
— Rene Mauperin • Edmond de Goncourt and Jules de Goncourt
... exasperation; but though he said nothing, his sharp half-vicious pull on that arm seemed to say, "Confound you! Come up—will you!" The last two steps of the stair had a peculiar effect on Darius. He appeared to shy at them, and then finally to jib. It was no longer a reasonable creature that they were getting upstairs, but an incalculable and mysterious beast. They lifted him on to the landing, and he stood on the landing as if in his sleep. Both ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... seemed to begin a kind of sympathy between us. Instead of turning out badly, therefore, the episode of the glove served only to set me at my ease among the dreaded circle of guests, and to make me cease to feel oppressed with shyness. The sufferings of shy people proceed only from the doubts which they feel concerning the opinions of their fellows. No sooner are those opinions expressed (whether flattering or the ...
— Childhood • Leo Tolstoy
... man. I'm always shy the price of the ticket home. You're rich. You could return to civilization and have a good time all the rest ...
— The Ragged Edge • Harold MacGrath
... a man peculiarly capable of exercising the functions of a judge in such a matter, had he sat alone as a judge; but he was one who would be almost sure to differ from others who sat as equal assessors with him. Mr Oriel was a gentleman at all points; but he was very shy, very reticent, and altogether uninstructed in the ordinary daily intercourse of man with man. Any one knowing him might have predicted of him that he would be sure on such an occasion as this to be found floundering in a sea of doubts. Mr Quiverful was the father of a ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... all thought so shy— My eye! Never thought of a simper or sigh; For why? "O Lucius," said she, "Since you've now made so free, You may marry your Mary Malone, Your own; You may marry your Mary Malone." There's a moral contained in my song, Not wrong; ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... eloquence had shaken her first disapprobation; the visible happiness of the persons chiefly concerned pleaded yet more persuasively. What harm, after all, was done, except for a little trouble and a little gossip? To these Mary and John were utterly indifferent. At first they had been rather shy in referring, before one another, to their loves, but custom taught them to mention the names without confusion, and ere long they had exchanged confidences as to their future plans. John's arrangement was obviously the more prudent and becoming. He discountenanced Mary's suggestion of an unannounced ...
— Comedies of Courtship • Anthony Hope
... from me, you'd better draw out quietly, instead of being arrested, tried, shot, or imprisoned maybe—or being sent home with an unproved charge hanging over you, and having all your friends fight shy of you as a ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... once. She said: "Yea, that is not ill thought of; but we may not always keep our thrall in mind. If it be so as thou deemest, we shall come to know it most like when we next fall in with her; or if she hath been shy this time, then shall she pay the heavier for it; for we will question her by the Fountain in the Hall as to what betid by the Fountain ...
— The Wood Beyond the World • William Morris
... horses and cows. The alpaca, however, requiring better and scarcer forage—short, tender grass and plenty of water—frequents the most remote and lofty of the mountain pastures, is handled only when the fleece is removed, seldom sees any one except the peaceful shepherds, and is extremely shy of strangers, although not nearly as timid as its distant cousin the vicuna. I shall never forget the first time I ever saw some alpacas. They looked for all the world like the "woolly-dogs" of our toys shops—woolly along the neck right up to the eyes ...
— Inca Land - Explorations in the Highlands of Peru • Hiram Bingham
... ardent reader of books from childhood up, and he was enabled to gratify this taste by means of a very small village library, which contained several books of history, of which he was naturally fond. This boy, however, was a shy, devoted student, brave to maintain what he thought right, but so bashful that he was known to hide in the cellar when his parents were ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume III (of 6) - Orators and Reformers • Various
... are used to each other," she said when I Rose in the awkwardness of seeing, shy Of ...
— Poems New and Old • John Freeman
... filial duty, combined with a fear of some violence on her father's part towards her lover should he be provoked too far. Cuthbert was as certain as Philip could wish that Petronella's heart was entirely his. He had read the girl's secret in the tones of her voice and in the shy glances of her soft eyes. He told Philip, too, of the gold that was awaiting the girl in her uncle's keeping, and added that he was certain sure that Martin Holt would be glad enough to give it over to his niece if she had a sturdy husband of the Reformed faith to take care of her ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... up his work again, too shy to say what the bother was. Mrs. Honeychurch went back to ...
— A Room With A View • E. M. Forster
... Picturesque scenery on the river. Kangaroos numerous. Country improves as we ascend the river. A region of reeds. The water inaccessible from soft and muddy banks. Habits of our native guides. Natives very shy. Piper speaks to natives on the river. Good land on the Murray. Wood and water scarce. Junction of ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 2 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell
... Mr. Vavasor were such as at once to recommend him to the friendly reception of all, from Mr. Raymount to little Saffy, who had the rare charm of being shy without being rude. If not genial, his manners were yet friendly, and his carriage if not graceful was easy; both were apt to be abrupt where he was familiar. It was a kind of company bearing he had, but dashed with indifference, ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... queen before dinner, the little Princess Amelia was with her; and, though shy of me at first, we afterwards made a very pleasant acquaintance. She is a most lovely little thing, just three years old, and full of sense, spirit, and playful prettiness: yet decorous and dignified when called upon to appear en princesse to any strangers, as ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... I have done, 'that way' or this way! I have made what is vulgarly called a 'piece of work' about little; or seemed to make it. Forgive me. I am shy by nature:—and by position and experience, ... by having had my nerves shaken to excess, and by leading a life of such seclusion, ... by these things together and by others besides, I have appeared shy and ungrateful to you. Only not mistrustful. You could not mean ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... but he was fractious and would not go near the cliff. He made a detour, however, about a small group of trees and just as he came opposite them, something upon the snow-drift at the base of the largest tree, caused him to shy violently. ...
— Polly of Pebbly Pit • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... 12, '94 Livy darling, I came down from Hartford yesterday with Kipling, and he and Hutton and I had the small smoking compartment to ourselves and found him at last at his ease, and not shy. He was very pleasant company indeed. He is to be in the city a week, and I wish I could invite him to dinner, but it won't do. I should be interrupted by business, of course. The construction of a contract that will suit Paige's lawyer (not Paige) turns out ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Another shy glance told her that he was still regarding her with his look of wondering admiration. She pointed ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach
... enormous hat, the light all behind her, the pilastered doorway for a frame, a gay background of hothouse flowers, and in the figure itself a nervous hesitancy which struck an immediate chord of sympathy in Morna. She also was shy; the touch of imperfect nature was mutually discernible and discerned; and the two were kin from the meeting ...
— The Shadow of the Rope • E. W. Hornung
... lady informs me that she found in the Lock Hospital a girl whom she had formerly known, and who had become a wretched castaway, and the poor creature, when approached, hid her face under the bed-clothes, and could not be persuaded to uncover it. We often see little children, when shy or ashamed, turn away, and still standing up, bury their faces in their mother's gown; or they throw themselves face downwards on ...
— The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals • Charles Darwin
... capture, but "the festive symbolism of the contrast in the character of the sexes—courage in the man and shyness in the woman"—a fantastic suggestion which does not call for discussion, since, as we know, the normal primitive woman is anything but shy. Abercromby (I., 454) is another writer who believes that sham capture is not a survival of real capture, but merely a result of the innate general desire on the part of the men to display courage—a view which dodges the one thing that calls for an explanation—the resistance of ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... that I was so sorry I had to return to town that afternoon, as I had begun to love the scholastic peace of Oxbridge and valued so much the opportunity of meeting its greatest men. I was bright and poetical in streaks, and every shy—if I may use the expression—hit the coco-nut. Sometimes I glanced at Willie, my pseudo-brother. His face twitched a little, but he never actually gave way to his feelings. The Dean had ceased to pay ...
— Marge Askinforit • Barry Pain
... day taken into White's Club-House by a friend who wanted to write a note. Lord Carmarthen approached to speak to him; but feeling rather shy, he merely said, "Mr. Foote, your handkerchief is hanging out of your pocket." Foote, looking suspiciously round, and hurriedly thrusting the handkerchief back into his pocket, replied, "Thank you, my lord: you know the company better ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon
... off. I had most made up my mind to leave them off anyway, though they are awful stylish; they pinch my nose and make my head ache. But I'll wear them now," and here the white teeth came viciously together, "if they kill me. Why should he put me down that way? He made me shy for the first time in my life. It's a man's business to be shy before me. If I could only get hold of him somehow! I'd pay him well for making me feel so small. The fact is, I started wrong. I did not really know what I wanted; and that graven image of an English butler set me ...
— The Bread-winners - A Social Study • John Hay
... the other fellow who was in the ascendant when I entered the farm sitting-room in answer to the summons of a falsetto bell. I was shy. I felt like an intruder. I was afraid that Farmer Banks would treat me as a distinguished visitor, and that my efforts to attain the happy freedom of an equal might—in the eyes of Anne—appear condescending. The ...
— The Jervaise Comedy • J. D. Beresford
... women of Cho-sen, with the exception of the lower classes, are kept in seclusion. They are seldom allowed to go out, and when they do they cover their faces with white or green hoods, very similar in shape to those worn by the women at Malta. They appear, or pretend to be, shy of men, and foreigners in particular, and generally hide when one is approaching, especially if in a solitary street. I remember how astonished I was the first few days I was in Seoul, at the fact that every woman I came across in the streets was just on the point of opening a door ...
— Corea or Cho-sen • A (Arnold) Henry Savage-Landor |
