"Shyness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... water. Just to think of it took her breath away. But the window was doubtless unfastened as usual; should she go in by that? No. It was absurd, though, how she hesitated, especially after all that had happened; but be deterred by this most novel and uncomfortable shyness she would not! She had come so far, and it should not be for nothing. She ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... breathing out of her such as we might suppose to come from Eve, when she was just made, and her Creator brought her to Adam, saying, "Behold! here is a woman!" Not that I would convey the idea of especial gentleness, grace, modesty, and shyness, but of a certain warm and rich characteristic, which seems, for the most part, to have been refined away out of ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... American seems to consider himself the father of the man in a way never contemplated by the poet. He interrupts the conversation of his elders, he has a voice in every matter, he eats and drinks what seems good to him, he (or at any rate she) wears finger-rings of price, he has no shyness or even modesty. The theory of the equality of man is rampant in the nursery (though I use this word only in its conventional and figurative sense, for American children do not confine themselves to their nurseries). You will actually hear an American mother say ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead
... whose arms had held her fast, and then let her go for so bitter a length of time, in which her pride was lacerated and her heart brought low. She did not know how she was going to be met now, and a womanly shyness held her back. If she had said one word—his name only—it might have made a world of difference to them both at that moment; for he was tortured by failure, and now when hope was gone, here was the woman whom ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... virtuous man than Mill I never knew nor expect to know; and yet I have had the good fortune to know many wise and virtuous men. I never knew any man of really great intellect, who carried less of the ways of ordinary greatness about him. There was an added charm to the very shyness of his manner when one remembers how fearless he was, if the occasion ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard
... itself required to be explained. And Ishmael, who seemed to think that a confession of faith was imperatively demanded of him, looked anxious—as if eager, yet ashamed, to speak. Presently he conquered his shyness, ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... that rose like a fog-horn over the winds and waves whenever he ventured upon the high seas; and how he cut off remorselessly the grace-notes of Abby Lyden, who has begun to think herself an Albani; and how he overcame the shyness of the fisher lads, and brought clear to the front the sweet tenors of the schoolboys, on whom, he said, all his hopes depended. And how his own rich baritone ascended strongly and softly over all, blending into perfect harmony all discordance, and gently smothering the vagrant ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
... girl while his mother talked, and he seemed to detect in her a certain aloofness as far as he was concerned, although he was not sure that the impression was not due to his absence so long from the society of women. It gave him a feeling of shyness which he found difficult to overcome, and which he contrasted in his own mind with her ease and indifference ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... excuse for making himself unpleasant. In the mean time, arms and accoutrements were looked to, and the escort cleaned and smartened up as well as circumstances would permit. The natives overcame their shyness next morning, and brought us goat's milk and "rogan," or clarified butter. The Baluchis seldom eat meat, their food principally consisting of cakes or bread made of grain, with buttermilk and rice. A favourite preparation known as "shalansh," and called "krout" by the ...
— A Ride to India across Persia and Baluchistan • Harry De Windt
... today—a solitary figure, clad in the latest fashion, moodily pacing the Hammersmith Road—and asked myself "where among these is the girlish gush of a Bentley—the passionate volubility of a Vernede, the half-ethereal shyness of a Fordham?!!" I admitted that we had had misfortunes, one of us had a serious illness, another had had a very good story in the Strand Magazine: but I thought that a debating club of 12 members that had given three presidents to the University ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... any shyness about meeting this formidable conclave? Remember you have at least two good ...
— The Sword Maker • Robert Barr
... demurely on the after-deck, apparently absorbed in the shells and corals that lay spread before her; and by-and-by, it might be, Franci, who did not suffer from shyness, would venture on something more ...
— Nautilus • Laura E. Richards
... called out, one after the other, but as there were no further displays of pitiable shyness or nervous embarrassment (although errors were frequent) the proceedings began to bore us intensely, and once again we counted the minutes and longed for the end ...
— Combed Out • Fritz August Voigt
... forty years of utter solitude, I shrink at first from the conversation of human beings, and forget, in the habitual shyness of a recluse, the duties of a hospitable gentleman of Spain. My garden, and all which it produces, is at your service. Only let me entreat that these poor Indians shall have their share; for heathens though they be, Christ died for them; and I cannot but cherish in ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester
... the boy was without confidant or friend. Serious and eager, he came through school and college, and moved among a crowd of the indifferent, in the seclusion of his shyness. He grew up handsome, with an open, speaking countenance, with graceful, youthful ways; he was clever, he took prizes, he shone in the Speculative Society. It should seem he must become the centre of a crowd of friends; but something ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... was as to whether Fika would get his share all right; but I expect he did, for the Ajumbas are very honest men; and they were going back with my Fan friends. I found out, by the by, the reason of Fika's shyness in coming through to the Rembwe; it ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... and tried once more, vainly, to get the better of his shyness. He was blushing, and knew it: and he blushed the more, up to his temples and round to his ears. Christophe looked at him with a smile, and longed to take him in his arms. The young man looked ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland
... and somewhat freckled. He was the only man in the party whose outside tallied with this bill of particulars. He was said to be very shy. He is a shy man. Of this there is no doubt. It may not show on the surface, but the shyness is there. After days of intimacy one wonders to see that it is still in about as strong force as ever. There is a fine and beautiful nature hidden behind it, as all know who have read the Uncle Remus book; and a fine genius, too, as all ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... with the schoolboys. Sometimes in after days, speaking of these early times and of the constraint of many bygone rules and regulations, Mrs. Barbauld used to attribute to this early formal training something of the hesitation and shyness which troubled her and never entirely wore off. She does not seem to have been in any great harmony with her mother. One could imagine a fanciful and high-spirited child, timid and dutiful, and yet strong-willed, secretly rebelling against ...
— A Book of Sibyls - Miss Barbauld, Miss Edgeworth, Mrs Opie, Miss Austen • Anne Thackeray (Mrs. Richmond Ritchie)
... told her that stronger pressure than ever would now be brought on her. Her timidity, her maiden modesty, and her desire to do right set her on her defense. She determined to have loving but impartial advice, and so she overcame her shyness, and wrote to Mr. Hope. Even then she was in no hurry to enter on such a subject by letter, so she must commence by telling him that her father had set a great many people, most of them strangers, to dig for coal. That ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade
... such persons, let her look where she pleased. And then he has such a winning manner into the bargain, that I believe in my heart there's never a lady in the land could say no to him. And yet he has such a prodigious shyness, I never could make him own he had so much as asked the question. And ...
— Cecilia vol. 3 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... was pronounced. He merely bowed mechanically and had the appearance of not having removed his gaze from the floor since he entered the room. He was deathly pale, and his lips were closely pressed as if to preserve their firmness. Anne, emboldened by a shyness greater than her own, and relieved of the immediate prospect of meeting his eyes, examined him curiously after he had taken a chair and the others were amiably covering his silence with their chatter. He had dressed ...
— The Gorgeous Isle - A Romance; Scene: Nevis, B.W.I. 1842 • Gertrude Atherton
... attitude on his part failed to cloud Pearl's spirits. She had seen men taken with this not inexplicable shyness before, and she made no effort to rouse Harry from his abstraction or to lure him from his meditations; femininely, intuitively wise, she left that ...
— The Black Pearl • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... arm round my neck, her mouth on mine; her thoughts must embrace mine and be like sunshine in my heart. She was a symbol to me, but the symbol has become flesh and blood. When first she came into my thoughts it was as a child; but I have watched her day by day grow into a woman, whose shyness and ignorance make her turn away from me, but whom I must possess. (LAURA moves ...
— Three Comedies • Bjornstjerne M. Bjornson
... to shyness, was to-day as one stricken dumb. She could not think of this man walking by her side, so unconscious of evil, without unutterable humiliation. If he had been an altogether commonplace man—pompous, underbred, ridiculous in any way—the situation ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... unobserved by the door. The whole effect of a surprise, upon which we had been counting, was entirely lost. When at last every one had made the sign of the cross I became intolerably oppressed with a sudden, invincible, and deadly attack of shyness, so that the courage to, offer my present completely failed me. I hid myself behind Karl Ivanitch, who solemnly congratulated Grandmamma and, transferring his box from his right hand to his left, presented it to her. Then he withdrew a few steps ...
— Childhood • Leo Tolstoy
... and Walter was well enough to get up and lie on a couch of heather, covered with the blanket, which Larry had prepared for him in the next room. His voice had recovered its natural ring, and Claire had got over her unaccustomed shyness; and Mrs. Conyers, as she moved in and out, heard them laughing and chatting together, as they had done ten ...
— Orange and Green - A Tale of the Boyne and Limerick • G. A. Henty
... him. He dines at Friendly Hall, and makes all sorts of ridiculous blunders. His college chum, Frank Friendly, sends word to say that he and his sister Dinah, with sir Thomas and lady Friendly, will dine with him at Blushington House. After a few glasses of wine, Edward loses his shyness, makes a long speech, and becomes the accepted suitor ...
— 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.
... and Agnes Rivers was feeling quite at home in her uncle's house. She had lost much of her nervous shyness, but except with Mrs. Mittens she was very quiet and reserved. She was a little afraid of her uncle, as were the whole family; a little in awe of Eddie too, who was still somewhat stately and grand in his manner; and she always had an uncomfortable ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... touching confidence,' said I, approaching carelessly nearer as I spoke. 'But I admit the road is solitary hereabouts, and no doubt an accident soon happens. Little fear of anything of the kind with you! I like you for it, like your prudence, like that pastoral shyness of disposition. But why not put it out of my power to hurt? Why not open the door and bestow me here in the box, or whatever you please to call it?' And I laid my hand demonstratively on the body of ...
— St Ives • Robert Louis Stevenson
... that upon first going from school to Oxford, and entering into society different, in many respects, from any that you have hitherto been accustomed to, you feel some of that shyness which belongs to the character of most Englishmen. I should be sorry if you did not. You probably feel diffident, too, of your ability to bear your part in general conversation, and an apprehension of being, ...
— Advice to a Young Man upon First Going to Oxford - In Ten Letters, From an Uncle to His Nephew • Edward Berens
... nice!' exclaimed Mollie, quite forgetting her shyness. 'How I wish Cyril would come in! He does so love things to be nice—he and Kester are so particular. Mamma!' glancing up at a window above them, 'won't you please to hurry down? May I sit there, Miss Ross? I always pour out the tea, because mamma does not like the trouble, and Kester ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... story-teller speaks the dwarf's part throughout in a hurried and jerky manner, to illustrate the little man's shyness. ...
— Eskimo Folktales • Unknown
... not hear Lily laugh again, although the conversation continued. In reality, Lily was in a state of extreme shyness, and was, moreover, filled with a sense of wrong-doing. There had been something about Maria's denial which had not convinced her. In her heart of hearts, the heart of hearts of a foolish but loving girl, who never meant anybody any harm, and, on the contrary, wished everybody well, although ...
— By the Light of the Soul - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... her vague dislike of Hayman himself. Bert, who had met her and Bob for luncheon, had turned out to be, instead of a polished man of the world, a glib youth with an artificial laugh and a pair of sober, heavy-lidded eyes. Lorelei's shyness at meeting him had quickly disappeared when she found that he knew more theatrical people than she and that he was quite unable to talk interestingly about anything except choruses and coryphees. Of the former he was a merciless critic, of the latter he was an enthusiastic ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach
... he was always absurdly gentle; also he was fatherly; and at the same time betrayed a certain diffidence or shyness. He recognised that Smoke called for strong yet respectful management. The cat's circuitous methods puzzled him, and his elaborate pretences perhaps shocked the dog's liking for direct, undisguised action. Yet, ...
— Three John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... that makes the scrubby pastures and uplands tuneful from early morning until after sunset, flies away with exasperating shyness as you approach. Alighting on a convenient branch, he lures you on with his clear, sweet song. Follow him, and he only hops about from bush to bush, farther and farther away, singing as he goes a variety of strains, which is one of the bird's peculiarities. The song not only ...
— Bird Neighbors • Neltje Blanchan
... horses, she only glanced at me, and resumed her walk towards the landing, apparently determined to avoid me. I was rather vexed at this treatment, for I wished to invite her to ride down to the river. I knew nothing about the shyness and reserve of young ladies in civilized life. I drove on once more, and she stepped out of the road to permit the team to pass. She glanced at me again, and I saw that she was not angry with me. I stopped the horses, and then I ...
— Field and Forest - The Fortunes of a Farmer • Oliver Optic
... beyond all measure, Incurred the desperate displeasure Of his serene and raging highness: Whether he twitched his most revered And sacred beard, Or had intruded on the shyness Of the seraglio, or let fly An epigram at royalty, None knows: his sin was an occult one, But records tell us that the Sultan, Meaning to terrify he knave, Exclaimed, "'Tis time to stop that breath: Thy doom is sealed, presumptuous slave! Thou stand'st condemned to certain death: Silence, ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard
... stirrup there was a man inquiring after a pal, answering questions, and asking what they thought in England, and how recruiting was going. The air rang with crude, great-hearted jokes. We motor-cyclists stood aside just criticising the guns and men and horses. We felt again that shyness we had felt at Chatham in front of the professional soldier. Then we remembered that we had been through the Retreat and the Advance, and went ...
— Adventures of a Despatch Rider • W. H. L. Watson
... applause I still hear the noise; and, strangely enough, In my childish shyness it seemed like mire About to spot me; I feared Its touch, and secretly ...
— Musicians of To-Day • Romain Rolland
... the career of the Prophet. It was obvious that my poor uncomplaining old friend was really very miserable. The "thornless loto trees" were all thorny to him, and the "tal'h trees with piles of fruit, the outspread shade, and water outpoured" could not comfort him in his really very natural shyness. A happy thought occurred to me. In early and credulous youth I had studied the works of Cornelius Agrippa and Petrus de Abano. Their lessons, which had not hitherto been of much practical service, recurred to my mind. Stooping ...
— In the Wrong Paradise • Andrew Lang
... dance, and she danced so gracefully that he admired her more and more. Indeed, at supper, which was fortunately early, his admiration quite took away his appetite. For Cinderella, herself, with an involuntary shyness, sought out her sisters; placed herself beside them and offered them all sorts of civil attentions, which coming as they supposed from a stranger, and so magnificent a lady, ...
— The Junior Classics, Volume 1 • Willam Patten
... her aunt, quietly, "I rather like people who are not too sure of themselves, and I think all the more of Ranald for his shyness and modesty." ...
— The Man From Glengarry - A Tale Of The Ottawa • Ralph Connor
... reins, and it was not until they were well on their way along the Trumansburg road that the boy turned to her. How beautiful she looked, her shoulders completely covered with dusky-dark curls and her head bowed in maidenly shyness! All his doubts as to the expediency of his act were set at rest. She was deeply essential to his happiness, to his progress. To know she was his wife, married to him, so that none could separate them, ...
— The Secret of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... curl in a smile of greeting. But she stared at him without moving a muscle, just blankly stared, abstracting every scrap of feeling, even of animosity or coldness, out of her gaze. She saw the smile die on his lips, his eyes glance sideways, and again sideways, with that curious animal shyness which characterized him. It was as if he did not want to see her looking at him, and ran from side to side like a caged weasel, avoiding ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence
... of the kitchen and ushered the visitor in. Mrs. Burton was making a batch of bread, and had to limit her welcome to cheery words and smiles; but the twins immediately claimed him as an old friend, rushing upon him with a freedom from shyness which was surprising, until one knew that they were never troubled with that ...
— A Countess from Canada - A Story of Life in the Backwoods • Bessie Marchant
... his master, ready to carry out his orders, served no doubt as a sort of police, and welcomed newcomers by encouraging them to get over their shyness. When the doctor appeared there was a stir on the benches. Lavienne turned his head, and was strangely surprised ...
— The Commission in Lunacy • Honore de Balzac
... Faith, her hand trembled very much at first, and even her voice; but for all that, the sunshine within was easy to see, and there came a bright flash of it sometimes. In spite of timidity and shyness, every now and then something made her forget herself, and then the sunlight broke out; to be followed perhaps by a double cloud of gravity. But for the rest, she worked like a docile pupil, ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner
... sat when he was the theme of discourse; he incidentally mentioned little things "he" had said about "her" that morning, and marked how her color rose and her eyes flashed quick, joyful, questioning glance at his face, then fell in maiden shyness. He had speedily gauged the cause of that strange excitement displayed by Armitage at seeing him the morning he rode in with the scout. Now he was gauging, with infinite delight, the other side of the question. The brother-like, he ...
— From the Ranks • Charles King
... spite of his easy bearing, had been a little anxious as to how the two would meet again, and dreaded lest there might be some embarrassment. But beyond an air of shyness that sat strangely on both, and a kind of amused wonder at meeting after so many years, there was nothing to show that they had been more than mere acquaintances, and the ...
— Barbara in Brittany • E. A. Gillie
... would issue forth to take a drive with nobody in the Park; and then would come back in order to dress again and go and dine with nobody at the Piazza Coffee-House. He was as vain as a girl; and perhaps his extreme shyness was one of the results of his extreme vanity. If Miss Rebecca can get the better of him, and at her first entrance into life, she is a young ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... me, believing he had said enough, but I was stupefied by my ignorance, shyness and doubt. "Do you mean," I blurted out, "that you will give up marrying her—that I can have her ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 • Various
... and again brokenly she laughed; then suddenly raised her eyes to his, and gave him both her hands impetuously, confidingly, yet with a certain shyness notwithstanding. "I—I am going to marry again after all," she said, "if—if you will ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... merry little schoolboy of seven, bright-eyed and curly-haired, a mischievous little sprite, no doubt, but a very affectionate lovable little fellow. He chattered continually during the meal, and did a great deal to take off the sense of shyness that Ruth felt in the company of Julia and Ernest, and her aunt asked questions about the farm-life at Cressleigh, and talked of their plans for the next ...
— Ruth Arnold - or, the Country Cousin • Lucy Byerley
... say a piece out of the Third Reader real cute—the children next door taught her," said May, but Marguerite would not be exploited; she dug her blonde head into her mother's shoulder in a panic of shyness; and shortly afterward the Pages went away. Uncle George gave each child a dime, Julia kissed her little cousins good-bye, and Emeline felt a sick spasm of pity and shame as May bade the children thank them, and thanked them herself. Emeline drew her sister to the door, and pressed two silver dollars, ...
— The Story Of Julia Page - Works of Kathleen Norris, Volume V. • Kathleen Norris
... trousers, I felt that the eyes of the world were on me; and to escape them I hid behind convenient pieces of furniture while in the house and, so I am told, even sidled close to fences when I walked along the street. With my shyness there was a degree of self-consciousness which put me at a disadvantage in any family or social gathering. I talked little and was ill at ease when others ...
— A Mind That Found Itself - An Autobiography • Clifford Whittingham Beers
... to learn the harp, presently," Mr. Medlin explained; "but for the present, when we have no visitors—and I don't count you one, after this evening—she plays the piccolo. She is a little shy about it, but shyness is the ...
— Held Fast For England - A Tale of the Siege of Gibraltar (1779-83) • G. A. Henty
... the intervals. Wherever they might go wandering on other days, on market-day they were sure to be at home. Both stole sly glances out of the window at Farfrae's shoulders and poll. His face they seldom saw, for, either through shyness, or not to disturb his mercantile mood, he avoided looking towards ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... flame, That placid dame, The Moon's Celestial Highness; There's not a trace Upon her face Of diffidence or shyness: She borrows light That, through the night, Mankind may all acclaim her! And, truth to tell, She lights up well, So I, for one, don't ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... stories, of my play-box packed for a voyage, of the money in my pocket increased now by my eldest brother's unexpected generosity; and by dint of these violent mental exercises I had reduced my mind to a comfortable stupor by the time I reached the school gates. There I was overcome by shyness, and although I saw lights in the form-rooms and heard the voices of boys, I stood awkwardly in the playground, not knowing where I ought to go. The mist in the air surrounded the lights with a halo, and my nostrils were ...
— The Ghost Ship • Richard Middleton
... bit of a disciplinarian, and the effect was from him as well as in me; I dare say he let me feel whatever difference there was as helplessly as I felt it. At the first encounter with people he always was apt to have a certain frosty shyness, a smiling cold, as from the long, high-sunned winters of his Puritan race; he was not quite himself till he had made you aware of his quality: then no one could be sweeter, tenderer, warmer than he; then he made you free of his whole heart; but you must be his captive before ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... sole diversion, except when playing at home among her father's possessions or making a visit to Kitty, being found in the books of fairy-tales which the old hunchback, Tim Kelsey, had lent her. At first this natural shyness had held her aloof even from O'Day, content only to watch his face as he answered her childish appeals. But before the first week had passed she had slipped her hand into his, and before the month was over her arms were around his neck, her fresh, ...
— Felix O'Day • F. Hopkinson Smith
... own, with which no one else could interfere. It was a secret that would have been the sweeter for being shared with some one else, he felt, but Johan's peculiar attitude in this matter had filled him with a shyness not ...
— The Soul of a Child • Edwin Bjorkman
... Bruce's school, he was a shy, unpolished country lad, speaking the broad dialect of the pitmen; and the other boys would occasionally tease him, for the purpose of provoking an outburst of his Killingworth Doric. As the shyness got rubbed off, his love of fun began to show itself, and he was found able enough to hold his own amongst the other boys. As a scholar he was steady and diligent, and his master was accustomed to hold him up to the laggards of the school as an example of good conduct and industry. But his ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles
... hands, now, but his lean, intent face, striving to penetrate that masculine mask, trying to understand. Varying and odd reflections and emotions possessed her in turn, and passed—wonder, bewilderment at herself, at him; a slight sense of fear, then a brief and sudden access of shyness, succeeded by the by glow of an emotion new and strange and deep. And this, in turn, by vague bewilderment again, in which there was both a hint of fear, and a tinge of ...
— Between Friends • Robert W. Chambers
... silent people, this characteristic may, of course, be mere result of sloth and shyness, or lack of habit of the world, and they may be gabbling volubly in their hearts. Such as these are no kind of blessing, save perhaps negatively. Still less to be commended are those others, cutting a better figure (or thinking so), who measure their words from a dread of "giving themselves away"—of ...
— Hortus Vitae - Essays on the Gardening of Life • Violet Paget, AKA Vernon Lee
... thus happens that, as Adler remarks (Die Mangelhafte Geschlechtsempfindung des Weibes, p. 133), the sexual impulse in women is fettered by an inhibition which has to be conquered. A thin veil of reticence, shyness, and anxiety is constantly cast anew over a woman's love, and her wooer, in every act of courtship, has the enjoyment of conquering afresh ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... spell upon her which forbade her to raise them. Miss Olive Chancellor, it may be confided to the reader, to whom in the course of our history I shall be under the necessity of imparting much occult information, was subject to fits of tragic shyness, during which she was unable to meet even her own eyes in the mirror. One of these fits had suddenly seized her now, without any obvious cause, though, indeed, Mrs. Luna had made it worse by becoming instantly so personal. There was nothing in the world so personal as Mrs. Luna; her sister ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. I (of II) • Henry James
... him in the library. May I introduce Miss Bremerton—Sir Henry Chicksands.' The girl spoke with hurried shyness, the quick colour in her cheeks. The lady beside her bowed, and Sir Henry took off his hat. Each surveyed the other. 'A strong-minded female!' thought Sir Henry, who was by no means advanced in his views of ...
— Elizabeth's Campaign • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the captain in a low voice, "you talk like a fresh-water sailor. I can only attribute this shyness to some strange delusion, for surely,"—his voice assumed a slightly sneering tone as he said this—"surely I am not to suppose that you have become soft-hearted! Besides, you are wrong in regard to the cargo being aboard; there's a good ...
— The Coral Island • R.M. Ballantyne
... gold-studded fireplace! We used to have a curious visitor from the caves—a small black cat, which was tame enough to wander between our legs as we sat round the fire, but too wary to be caught. I can hardly imagine a prospector carrying a cat as companion, and yet how else did it get there? Its shyness inclined us to think it had strayed from civilisation. Jim tried to catch it one evening, and not only got scratched and bitten for his trouble, but so startled the beast that it never returned. Our party was now increased to five; for an extra hand, Alfred Morris, had ...
— Spinifex and Sand - Five Years' Pioneering and Exploration in Western Australia • David W Carnegie
... and sometimes a trying roommate. Rachel Morrison and Katherine Kittredge were also at Mrs. Chapin's, and Roberta Lewis, who adored Mary Brooks and was desperately afraid of every one else in the house, though Betty Wales guessed that shyness was at the bottom of Roberta's haughty manner. Eleanor Watson was the most prominent member of the group that year and part of the next. Betty admired her greatly but found her a very difficult person to win as a friend, though in the end she proved worthy of all the ...
— Betty Wales Senior • Margaret Warde
... particular came often, when the first shyness had worn away. He was an orphan, like Marie herself: a pretty, dark-eyed little fellow, who looked, she fancied, like the children at home in France. He did not expect her to talk and answer questions, but was content ...
— Marie • Laura E. Richards
... fears. She did not know what she feared; but that made her anxiety the more pervasive. Her husband had not reverted to the subject of his Saturday talks. He was unusually kind and considerate, with a softening of his quick manner, a touch of shyness in his consideration, that sickened her with new fears. She told herself that it was because she looked badly—because he knew about the doctor and the nerve tonic—that he showed this deference to her wishes, this eagerness to screen her from ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 2 (of 10) • Edith Wharton
... the head of a big "stock and station" firm. Some one else clapped him on the shoulder, and he turned to meet his banker; behind them towered half a dozen old squatter friends, with fellow clubmen, all trying at once to get hold of his hand. David Linton's constitutional shyness melted in the heartiness of their greeting. Beyond them Norah seemed to be the centre of a mass of girls, one of whom presently detached herself, and came to him. He said in amazement, "Why, it's ...
— Back To Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... trustworthy, but he had an extraordinary amount of moral in addition to physical courage. If any complaint were made, and Saat was called as a witness, far from the shyness too often evinced when the accuser is brought face to face with the accused, such was Saat's proudest moment; and, no matter who the man might be, the boy would challenge him, ...
— In the Heart of Africa • Samuel White Baker
... any of this aloud, but it was not pride that kept him from the avowal, only a very natural and reasonable shyness of talking about himself. He stopped rocking, and sat with his gaze fixed on the trees in the distance, without really seeing them a bit. A new feeling of half-dismayed contrition was springing up in his heart, but the bitterness of resentment and the ...
— Holiday Tales • Florence Wilford
... one opposite the Archduke. The Grand Duke Nicolas is here—he is so nice—also the Crown Prince of Wuertemberg,[43] Crown Prince of Saxony,[44] Prince Luitpold of Bavaria,[45] Prince Charles of Hesse[46] (who nearly dies of fright and shyness amongst so many people), and Heinrich; Prince Elimar of Oldenburg,[47] Prince Frederic of the Netherlands,[48] and the Grand Duke and Duchess of Weimar, who wish to be most particularly remembered ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume III (of 3), 1854-1861 • Queen of Great Britain Victoria
... life eminence in society, and that he would rise to be an ornament to the age in which he lived." At a comparatively early age he had outlived all his family, and thus became the owner of large landed property. He suddenly became a prey to strange, overmastering habits of indolence, apathy, and shyness, which gradually estranged him from all society. He neglected his property, allowed his rents to remain for years and years in the hands of his steward, without troubling himself about them, and allowed his dividends to grow up in the hands of his bankers without concerning himself ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume IV (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... and the civilised humanitarian in fearful anxious dependence watched the proceedings with awe. Through all these weeks he could never make up his mind to appeal to human compassion. In the wary primeval savage this shyness might have been natural, but the other too, the civilized creature, the thinker, the escaping "political" had developed an absurd form of morbid pessimism, a form of temporary insanity, originating perhaps in the physical worry and discomfort of the chain. These links, he fancied, made him odious ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... this literary bellicosity is pathological. Men overmuch in studies and universities get ill in their livers and sluggish in their circulations; they suffer from shyness, from a persuasion of excessive and neglected merit, old maid's melancholy, and a detestation of all the levities of life. And their suffering finds its vent in ferocious thoughts. A vigorous daily bath, a complete stoppage of wine, beer, spirits, and tobacco, and two hours ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... which belonged to his character came out in his dealings with Mary's family. Walter Gray came home to find his daughter's grand lover stretching his long figure on the grass at her feet, while the smaller Grays, their shyness quite departed, rolled and tumbled over him as confident as puppies. To be sure Walter Gray, with his disbelief in distinctions of rank as otherwise than accidental, was not unduly elated by the fine company ...
— Mary Gray • Katharine Tynan
... language is a queer instrument of thought. While coyness has the various meanings of shyness, modest reserve, bashfulness, shrinking from advances or familiarity, disdainfulness, the verb "to coy" may mean the exact opposite—to coax, allure, entice, woo, decoy. It is in this sense that "coyness" is obviously a trait of primitive maidens. ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... dark lashes. His eyes were dark, too. There was something about him that attracted her, even if his face was smeary with orange juice and streaked with dirty finger marks. She wanted to ask more about Captain Kidd, but her acquaintance with boys was as slight as with dogs. Overcome by a sudden shyness she threw her rope over her head and went skipping on down the boardwalk to meet ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston
... two young ladies between whom she was seated, rather with a wish of addressing, than a shyness of being attacked by them; but the elder, Miss Larolles, was earnestly engaged in discourse with a gentleman, and the younger, Miss Leeson, totally discouraged her, by the invariable silence and gravity with which from time to ...
— Cecilia Volume 1 • Frances Burney
... certain shyness from mentioning his wish at once to his grave master. He said how he had longed to see him once more, to hear how he was; and reproached him tenderly for not coming to see him. He added that he had certainly a great many curious things in his warehouses, and that he had promised himself the ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various
... with a detachment half so willingly. Yuranigh and he scarcely understood a word of what each other said, and yet the former had the address to overcome the usual difficulties to intercourse between strange natives, and their shyness to white men, and to induce this native thus to become our guide. He took us to the Culgoa, which we made at about seven miles from the Balonne, and I was so much pleased with the willing service and true civility of this native, that I presented him with an iron ...
— Journal of an Expedition into the Interior of Tropical Australia • Thomas Mitchell
... purchase of gilt scarfs and handkerchiefs, which strangers think proper to buy. And before the following authentic drawing could be made, many were the stratagems the wily artists were obliged to employ, to subdue the shyness of the little Mariam. In the first place, she would stand behind the door (from which in the darkness her beautiful black eyes gleamed out like penny tapers); nor could the entreaties of her brother and mamma bring her from that hiding-place. In order to conciliate the ...
— Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Azariah did not answer. You will teach me, he insisted, and Dan and Rachel kept silence, so that they might better observe Joseph working round Azariah with questions; and they were amused, for Joseph's curiosity had overcome his shyness; and, quite forgetful of his promise to listen and not to talk, he had begun to beg the scribe to tell him if the language they spoke had been brought back from Babylon, and how long it was since people had ceased to speak Hebrew. ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore
... I told her that William was married, and had a fine boy; to which she replied, 'And the man's a decent man too.' Her next-door neighbour came in with a baby on her arm, to request that I would accept of some fish, which I broiled in the ashes. She joined in our conversation, but with more shyness than her neighbour, being a very young woman. She happened to say that she was a stranger in that place, and had been bred and born a long way off. On my asking her where, she replied, 'At Leadhills;' and when I told her that ...
— Recollections of a Tour Made in Scotland A.D. 1803 • Dorothy Wordsworth
... a little shy of Cosmo—he had been away so long! but at intervals her shyness would yield and she would talk to him with much the same freedom as of old when they went to school together. In his rambles Cosmo would not pass her grandfather's cottage without going in to inquire after him and his wife, and having a little chat with Aggie. ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... hurdy-gurdy of my childhood, down to Kubelik and his successors, I have been more or less music-mad. You play—wonderfully!" Sudden, inexplicable shyness. ...
— The Drums Of Jeopardy • Harold MacGrath
... wind of the plain, when the forest which surrounded and supported it has been destroyed. Yes!" cried De Thou, growing animated, "this aim is a fine and noble one. Go on in your course with a resolute step; expel even that secret shame, that shyness, which a noble soul experiences before it can resolve upon flattering—upon paying what the world calls its court. Alas, kings are accustomed to these continual expressions of false admiration for them! Look upon them as a new language which must be learned—a ...
— Cinq Mars, Complete • Alfred de Vigny
... was alluded to before, a red flush dyed the face of Hamish. Certainly, it could not be a flush of guilt, while that ingenuous smile hovered on his lips. But Hamish seemed attacked with sudden shyness. "Your refusal to satisfy me on this point, when we previously spoke of it, tended to confirm my suspicions," continued Mr. Huntley. "I think you might make a confidant of me, Hamish. That money could not have dropped from the ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... elephants evince shyness, arising from their love of solitude and dislike of intrusion; any alarm they exhibit at his appearance may be reasonably traced to the slaughter which has reduced their numbers; and as some evidence of this, it has always been observed that an elephant exhibits greater impatience of the presence ...
— Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon • J. Emerson Tennent
... that a woman like you is not kissed for the first and last time by a man like me. Suppose I kissed you now? I should awaken something in you as yet half asleep. You're young and pulsing with life, and there are—thank Heaven!—few layers of that damnable young-girl shyness over you. The world would ...
— Uncanny Tales • Various
... steps to follow her, but a suffocating shyness stopped him abruptly and, in a horror lest she should glance round and detect him in the act, he turned and strode fiercely to the gate of his own home before he dared to look again. And when he did look, affecting great casualness in the action, ...
— Seventeen - A Tale Of Youth And Summer Time And The Baxter Family Especially William • Booth Tarkington
... her brother's judgment and like a well-bred French girl, she dared not raise her eyes to his,—with the half-minute of formalities she hurried away. But as she turned she gave him one quick glance that combined politeness, shyness, fear, curiosity, and pity,—a glance that went straight to his heart ...
— Mlle. Fouchette - A Novel of French Life • Charles Theodore Murray
... very kind with one hand," smiled Rachel. "I remember the first time I ever saw Aunt Jane. I was six years old. She held out to me a small velvet pincushion with beads on it. And then, because I did not, in my shyness, thank her quite as promptly as I should have done, she rapped my head with her bethimbled finger to 'teach me better manners.' It hurt horribly—I've always had a tender head. And that has been Aunt Jane's way ever since. When I grew too big for the thimble treatment ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... fellow fetched a start at this. He didn't know, of course, that everyone's "my dear" in Cornwall, and I'm bound to say I've seen foreigners taken aback by it—folks like commercial travellers, not given to shyness as a rule. ...
— News from the Duchy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... of her, tried to make her get over her shyness, adroitly made her tell him all about her usual life, took a long time in sounding her chest, helped her to dress and undress, in a very paternal way, gave her a potion and was so thoughtful and caressing, that the poor girl blushed and felt quite uncomfortable at it ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... the other hand, was given over to volcanic ebullitions of the most ungovernable hate and affection, joy and sorrow. The chains of love which Goldoni courted so willingly, Alfieri regarded with the greatest shyness. But while Goldoni healed his heart of all its bruises in a week or so, the tragic poet bore about him wounds that would not close. He enumerates three serious passions which possessed his whole ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... strict, quiet regularity. He may have moods of mirth and high moments of sparkling glee, but he looks as if he had never only laughed right out about once in his life, and had repented of it directly afterwards. If he had more dash and less shyness in him, less learned coolness and much more humour in his composition, he would reap a better harvest in both pulpit and general life. Mr. Orr is no roaring will o' the wisp minister; what he says he means; and what he means he reads. His prayers and sermons ...
— Our Churches and Chapels • Atticus
... man by ther name of Brent back thar in Coal City ter kinderly see ef anybody along ther road I come hed any timber they sought ter sell." The giant still spoke with a hulking shyness. "I hain't l'arned nothin', because I come through soon in ther mornin' an' ther roads was empty, but I reckon I'd better send him ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck
... was simplicity itself, ever spoke of her to me; but by the way he welcomed me I guessed that his daughter had privately commended me to his care. At the moment when I was beginning to overcome the foolish wonder and shyness which besets a young man at his first entrance into the great world, and to realize the pleasures it could give through the resources it offers to ambition, just, too, as I was beginning to make use of Henriette's maxims, ...
— The Lily of the Valley • Honore de Balzac
... not. There are many men in London, you know, who, some from shyness, some from misanthropy, have no wish for the company of their fellows. Yet they are not averse to comfortable chairs and the latest periodicals. It is for the convenience of these that the Diogenes Club was started, and it now contains the most unsociable and unclubable ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... tutor, I assured him he should not be placed till, by diligence, he might rank with those of his own age. He was pleased with this assurance, and felt himself on easier terms with his associates;—for a degree of shyness hung about him for some time. His manner and temper soon convinced me, that he might be led by a silken string to a point, rather than by a cable;—on that principle I acted. After some continuance at Harrow, and when the powers of his mind had begun to expand, the late Lord Carlisle, his ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. I. (of VI.) - With his Letters and Journals. • Thomas Moore
... sudden shyness, Allie put her hand into the one before her, as she glanced up at the boyish face which was looking down into her own. Something she read there, in the half-anxious expression of the brown eyes, made her forget her more formal salutation, and ...
— In Blue Creek Canon • Anna Chapin Ray
... hand. Do not laugh at me, ye self-assured ones, with your comfortable sense of your own powers,—ye who care as little for an audience as for a field of cabbages,—do not jeer at one who has felt the pangs of shyness and quailed under the imaginary terrors of a first public appearance. For you it may be a small matter to face an audience,—that nearest approximation to the many-headed monster which we can palpably encounter; but for one whose diffidence had become the standard of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... enough. Strange, if the experience of 200 years' hunting, and by such hunters too, did not bring them to that. We may safely believe, that if the lions of Africa were placed in the same circumstances, a very similar shyness and dread of the upright biped would soon exhibit itself. What all these creatures—bears, cougars, lynxes, wolves, and even alligators—are now, is no criterion of their past. Authentic history proves ...
— The Hunters' Feast - Conversations Around the Camp Fire • Mayne Reid
... its author. By a fortunate chance he happened to take lodgings in a house where Mr. Levett frequently visited, who readily obtained Johnson's permission to bring Mr. Langton to him; as indeed, Johnson, during the whole course of his life, had no shyness, real or affected, but was easy of access to all who were properly recommended, and even wished to see numbers at his levee, as his morning circle of company might, with strict propriety, be called, for ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... Jimmy to your remarks. It will help me to feel at home and enable me to overcome my shyness." ...
— Piccadilly Jim • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... country memories to the overworked slaves of our great cities, and that he may deserve those thanks which are all the more grateful that they are rather divined by the receiver than directly expressed by the giver. The reviewer cannot aspire to all the merit of this confidential privacy and pleasing shyness of gratitude, but he may fairly lay claim to a part of it, inasmuch as, though obliged to speak his thanks publicly, he need not do it to the author's face. We are again indebted to Mr. Whittier, as we have been so often before, for a very real and a very refined ...
— The Function Of The Poet And Other Essays • James Russell Lowell |
