"Timid" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and more inactive than usual in his habits. He took long walks alone. Sometimes he took his son with him, as if by chance. He sometimes attempted a little timid tenderness with his wife; and this awkwardness, on his part, was ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... nails of the hand, and telling the disposition of persons with certain descriptions of nails. However absurd it may appear, we shall give examples of this superstition:—A person with broad nails is of gentle nature, timid, and bashful. Those whose nails grow into the flesh at the points or sides are given to luxury. A white mark on the nail bespeaks misfortune. Persons with very pale nails are subject to much infirmity of the flesh, and persecution by neighbours ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... her wildest grace, These northern scenes with weary feet I trace; O'er many a winding dale and painful steep, Th' abodes of covey'd grouse and timid sheep, ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... practice, or in some instances to prevent the combination of both. Before the sense of a nation is sufficiently enlightened, and before men have entered into the habits of a free communication with each other of their natural thoughts, a certain reserve—a timid prudence seizes on the human mind, and prevents it from obtaining its level with that vigor and promptitude that belongs to right.—An example of this influence discovers itself in the commencement of the present Revolution: ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... fashion in cravats that young Mr. Mason showed at the last Surrey horse-racing. Now when a Scot chooses to be a sycophant, he is more whole-hearted in the job than any one else on the globe, and I grew very weary of Mr. Lambie. He was no better than an old wife, and as timid as a hare forbye. When I spoke of fighting the English merchants, he held up his hands as if I had uttered blasphemy. So, being determined to find out for myself the truth about this wonderful new land, I left him the business ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan
... perpetually in danger of being injured. It is astonishing how unknowing the people seem to be, with any method to check bleeding from a wound temporarily; even the most simple method of pressure is in the majority of such accidents not resorted to. The sight of a little blood does not alone upset a timid, nervous woman, but many times the strongest of men; and why? because it naturally creates a feeling of awe and detestation. If a person is wounded by a machine, or otherwise, a crowd of all his fellow workmen gather around him, and look on the poor ...
— Scientific American Suppl. No. 299 • Various
... of an Odjibwa hunter, living on the shore of Lake Superior. From her earliest youth she was observed to be pensive and timid, and to spend much of her time in solitude and fasting. Whenever she could leave her father's lodge she would fly to the remote haunts and recesses of the woods, or sit upon some high promontory of rock overhanging the lake. But her favorite place was ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... disgusting habit in a gun. The menagerie was completed by the pompons, of which there were at least three. This noisome beast always lurks in thick bush, whence it barks chains of shell at the unsuspecting stranger. Fortunately its shell is small, and it is as timid as it ...
— From Capetown to Ladysmith - An Unfinished Record of the South African War • G. W. Steevens
... tigers, a refuge from the tyranny of Warren Hastings. Not able long to exist here, pressed at once by wild beasts and famine, the same despair drove them back; and seeking their last resource in arms, the most quiet, the most passive, the most timid of the human race rose up in an universal insurrection; and, what will always happen in popular tumults, the effects of the fury of the people fell on the meaner and sometimes the reluctant instruments of the tyranny, who in several places were massacred. The insurrection ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. X. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... and stood close to Nick. She had never been a timid girl; but since the night when she had lain watching a thief who slowly, slowly raised her window, twelve storeys above the ground, foolish and hitherto unknown terrors crept through her veins if she happened to wake in the dark. And now there certainly was a rustling which stirred the ...
— The Port of Adventure • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... Brown speaks of meeting Senator Conkling, General Garfield and Carl Schurz, all of whom were favourable. Secretary Fish is described as courteous and painstaking, but timid and lacking in grasp of the subject, and Brown speaks impatiently of the delays that are throwing the consideration of the draft treaty over to the end of the ...
— George Brown • John Lewis
... temptation to keep back the truth on this point is very strong, and we must not be hard on the timid ones. It is not always a fear of personal loss or suffering that keeps men from speaking freely on religious subjects, but a dread of lessening their usefulness, of hurting the minds of good though mistaken people, or of ...
— Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again - A Life Story • Joseph Barker
... them with wild eyes. "Much you need it, you stupid," he thundered at the youngster in unrestrained fury. "You will continue your studies in Russia, durak, stupid." His timid wife, however, seemed suddenly to gather courage and she exploded: "Yes, you should give your savings for the child's education here. Woe is me, in the Russian universities no ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... knocks once at each man's door. Our David Harum was forty, past, and he had often thought Opportunity was tapping, but when he opened wide the door, darkness there, and nothing more! Opportunity had knocked, but was too timid to stay. This time, he heard the knock, and when he opened up the door, Opportunity made a rush for him, grabbed him by the collar—catch-as-catch-can—in a grip he ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 12 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Scientists • Elbert Hubbard
... the apple should be placed beside the rod, and they should not be chastised for an offence about nuts or cherries as if they had broken open a money-box. His parents, he acknowledged, had meant it for the very best, but they had kept him, nevertheless, so strictly that he had become shy and timid. Theirs, however, was not that unloving severity which blunts the spirit of a child, and leads to artfulness and deceit. Their strictness, well intended, and proceeding from a genuine moral earnestness of purpose, furthered in him a strictness and ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin
... asked the gentleman his business. With a surprised, timid manner he faltered that he had met my wife and daughter at Onteora, and they had asked him to call. Fine lie, I thought, and I ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... then a change steals o'er her mournful dream, Her gloomy thoughts are chased away, and all things brighter seem, A timid and yet blissful smile lights up her beauteous brow, Her soft cheek crimsons, but, oh' not of ...
— The Poetical Works of Mrs. Leprohon (Mrs. R.E. Mullins) • Rosanna Eleanor Leprohon
... fool like an old fool," she said aloud, with sage-brush and timid prairie dogs for audience. "What you want to do is to keep sweet. Now git on." The final adjuration was to her car, to which she always spoke exactly as if ...
— Rimrock Trail • J. Allan Dunn
... members of the house; he proposed that in future cases of disfranchisement, the franchise should be allowed to drop altogether, instead of being transferred. The whole measure seemed to him incapable of alarming the most timid person, and it ought to be received with willingness by the sternest opposers of innovation. When he looked at other countries, the wisdom and policy of the measure was still more imperiously forced on his conviction. We could not shut our eyes to the fact that a collision between ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... doctor and Mrs. French drove up to the jail. There, at the bleak north door, swept by the chill March wind, and away from the genial light of the shining sun, they found Paulina and her children, a shivering, timid, shrinking group, looking pathetically strange and forlorn in ...
— The Foreigner • Ralph Connor
... bride at the altar before you, And the glad festival held through the length and breadth of the country Will henceforward to me be a glad anniversary also! But I am grieved to observe that the youth, who is always so active When he is here at home, abroad is so slow and so timid. Little at any time cares he to mix with the rest of the people; Yes, he even avoids young maidens' society ever, And the frolicsome dance, that great delight ...
— The Poems of Goethe • Goethe
... sensitiveness of ear made it all but impossible for me to practice either the piano or singing within hearing of her exclamations of impatient anguish at my false chords and flat intonations; and I suppose nothing but my sister's unquenchable musical genius would have sustained her naturally timid, sensitive disposition ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... into the rear of their comrades, were the first to fly and the last to fight. One sure token of fear betrayed their feebleness; for they always deliberately sought excuses to shirk, and followed with timid and sluggish advance in the rear of the fighters. It must be supposed, therefore, that these were the reasons why the king had escaped safely; for when he fled he was not pursued pertinaciously by the men of the front ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... classic was Riddell, a comparatively unknown boy in the school, who had come there a couple of years ago from a private school, and about whom the most that was known was that he was physically weak and timid, rarely taking part in any athletic exercises, having very few chums, interfering very little with anybody else, and reputed "pi."—as the more irreverent among the Willoughbites were wont to stigmatise any fellow who made a profession ...
— The Willoughby Captains • Talbot Baines Reed
... that there was a plot afloat, and it seemed that the scheme was to make him lose money on his horse. If he had been timid he would have hesitated about backing Nemo for anything; but the ones who had been taunting him had reckoned well on his mettle, and they had succeeded in pricking his pride and ...
— Frank Merriwell's Races • Burt L. Standish
... to sense its quality. When we attempted to purchase parlor car seats of the ticket agent at the Union Station and were informed by him that our train carried no parlor car, it seemed to us that his manner was touched with cynicism, and this impression was confirmed by his reply to our further timid inquiry as to ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street
... some paint on her palette, when a rap was heard at the door. Before she had time to say or do anything, in walked Mrs. Dyke with a timid little woman who came in like a martyr, but one resolved to die at her post if necessary. Grace was too astonished to speak for an instant, then rising, she put down her palette, wiped her hands and went forward with an invitation to the ...
— The Right Knock - A Story • Helen Van-Anderson
... might be to spring upon him and strike him down; and nature bade him flee at once for his life—bade him drop his gun, run to the first tree, and climb into its branches—escape as a timid beast, a ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn
... with timid servility to great names. The opinions of men of erudition, and genius, and holy zeal for religion, are to be examined with modest deference, but not to be received with implicit credulity. In the most enlightened and holy men, who, since the decease of the apostles, ...
— On Calvinism • William Hull
... ascribed to Him as the ruler of the universe. Moses quakes before that awful voice out of the midst of the bush, which commissions him to deliver his brethren. He is no longer bold, impetuous, impatient, but timid and modest. Long study and retirement from the busy haunts of men have made him self-distrustful. He replies to the great I Am, "Who am I, that I should bring forth the Children of Israel out of Egypt? Behold, I am not ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume II • John Lord
... about us we will sit down together and try to get up one in answer to it; we must succeed if we assist each other. No one can harm us if we keep together, and thus show people that we keep together. All unhappy love belongs either to timid people, or weak people, or sick people, or calculating people, who keep waiting for some special opportunity, or cunning people, who, in the end, smart for their own cunning; or to sensuous people that do not care enough for each other to forget rank and distinction; ...
— A Happy Boy • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... top is the gritty, plucky, hard worker and never the timid, uncertain, slow worker. An untried man is seldom put in a position of responsibility and power. The man selected is one that has done something, achieved results in some line, or taken the lead in his department. ...
— The Power of Concentration • Theron Q. Dumont
... what is called a most good-natured man, but of melancholy temperament, pottering, and timid, with a bent for everything mysterious and occult.... A half-whispered ah! was his habitual exclamation; he even died with this exclamation on his lips, two years after ...
— Dream Tales and Prose Poems • Ivan Turgenev
... fallen in the ways of error to deserve that our Lord should bless the too often half-hearted and grudging labour of his so-called servants. Come here, ma mignonne!" he continued, calling Babette, who approached him with a curious air of half-timid boldness—"Thou art but a very little girl," he said, laying his thin white hand softly on her tumbled brown curls—"Nevertheless, I should be a very foolish old man if I despised thee, or thy ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... himself. In the first place, he had never lived anywhere except in Pleasant Valley. In the second place, he was scarcely more than two months old when people began to notice him in the neighborhood of the stone wall. And in the third place, since he was somewhat timid he thought it just as well if people didn't know where he ...
— The Tale of Daddy Longlegs - Tuck-Me-In Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... first thing that struck me. She stood back against the wall underneath the shining frames, looking about her with a nervous, timid smile. Her hair was piled up on top of her head in the old way that she used to do when she was trying to imitate Vera, and I don't know why but that seemed to me a good omen, as though she were already on her way back to us. She was wearing ...
— The Secret City • Hugh Walpole
... swelling Jordan rolls between— A timid pilgrim, I; But grace shall order all the scene, And Christ ...
— The Power of Faith - Exemplified In The Life And Writings Of The Late Mrs. Isabella Graham. • Isabella Graham
... who troubles me," said Simon. "For, you know, the rascal is timid. I can't forget that. The suddenness overwhelms him. 'Twas so for weeks down in Capernaum whenever the soldiers came near us, and in Sidon when that weaver suddenly appeared. Oh, my friend and brother! If it is a question ...
— I.N.R.I. - A prisoner's Story of the Cross • Peter Rosegger
... obtaining a ground of quarrel less antiquated than the alliance, a quarter of a century earlier, between Amasis and Croesus, he demanded that a daughter of the Egyptian king should be sent to him as a secondary wife. Amasis, too timid to refuse, sent a damsel named Nitetis, who was not his daughter; and she, soon after her arrival, made Cambyses acquainted with the fraud. A ground of quarrel was thus secured, which might be put forward when ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 5. (of 7): Persia • George Rawlinson
... mistress's elementary ignorance and difficulties have a touching fitness. Few scholars would have disliked teaching the alphabet under such circumstances. But Dorothea herself was a little shocked and discouraged at her own stupidity, and the answers she got to some timid questions about the value of the Greek accents gave her a painful suspicion that here indeed there might be secrets not capable of explanation to a ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... and mapped out by squares. Then the teen age campaigners should go two and two for the purpose of a census-taking. The two-by-two system will result in more thorough work, and it gives the opportunity of helping the more timid boys by linking them with the bolder ones. An entire square should be worked by the partners, both making the same call, and every teen age boy in the town, whether a Sunday school attendant or not, can be located this way. ...
— The Boy and the Sunday School - A Manual of Principle and Method for the Work of the Sunday - School with Teen Age Boys • John L. Alexander
... had recovered himself considerably by this time, and twitched his wrist rather impatiently from the little doctor's timid grasp. ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... permission to make a digression, and being greeted with cries of "Go on!" from all sides, began in brief, clear sentences to show how the commerce of Nuremberg from small beginnings had reached its present prosperity. Instead of the timid, irregular exchange of goods as far as the Rhine, the Main, and the Danube, regular intercourse with Venice, Milan, Genoa, Bohemia, and Hungary, Flanders, Brabant, and the coast of the Baltic had commenced. Trade with the Italian cities, and through them, even with the Levant, had ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... mediaeval ideal rejuvenated and reinvigorated by the spirit of newer times. Being in the beginning of his career, as is generally believed, only an illuminator, he continued, with subtle delicacy and accurate, almost timid design, to illuminate in larger proportions on his panels, those figures which are often only parts of a decorative whole. But in his later works while still preserving the simplicity of handling, and the innate character of his ...
— Fra Angelico • J. B. Supino
... did not rise to the splendor of a costly supper. This kind of compromise with fashionable gayety was wisely deemed by Lu the best method of introducing Daniel to the beau monde,—a push given the timid eaglet by the maternal bird, with a soft tree-top between him and the vast expanse of society. How simple was the entertainment may be inferred from the fact that Lu felt somewhat discomposed when she got a note ...
— Humorous Masterpieces from American Literature • Various
... program; she was quite capable of the latter. After the piano was silenced, he lost himself again in his book to be recalled by an undecided knock on the door. He waited, not sure that it was a knock. The timid tap came again and he called, "Come in." The door opened, closed, and Rosemary stood facing him, her back against it. In her hands she held a brown ...
— Rosemary • Josephine Lawrence
... just glance at that class of songs, which in the collection would be called hunting songs. In these men are invited to the pleasures of the chase, as to pleasures of a superior kind. The triumphs over the timid hare are celebrated in these with a kind of enthusiastic joy, and celebrated too as triumphs, worthy of the character of men. Glory Is even attached to these pursuits. But the Quakers, as it will appear in a future chapter, endeavour to prevent their youth from following any of ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume I (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson
... they need abundant nourishment in the way of food and drink, since they require water but once a day, and can maintain life and strength on a plain which, to the naked eye, seems little more than a barren waste of sand. But because, in other respects, they are exceedingly timid and helpless creatures, especially in times and places of danger, the burdens which their welfare and safety impose upon the shepherd, while paternal and winning, are, nevertheless, arduous and manifold. ...
— The Shepherd Of My Soul • Rev. Charles J. Callan
... entertainer, whoever it might be. But no one appeared, and even after another long sleep, from which he awoke completely refreshed, there was no sign of anybody, though a fresh meal of dainty cakes and fruit was prepared upon the little table at his elbow. Being naturally timid, the silence began to terrify him, and he resolved to search once more through all the rooms; but it was of no use. Not even a servant was to be seen; there was no sign of life in the palace! He began to wonder what he should do, and to ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various
... France teaches us, with many other things, that there are more causes than have commonly been taken into our consideration, by which government may be subverted. The moneyed men, merchants, principal tradesmen, and men of letters (hitherto generally thought the peaceable and even timid part of society) are the chief actors in the French Revolution. But the fact is, that, as money increases and circulates, and as the circulation of news in politics and letters becomes more and more diffused, ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IV. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... Y.M.C.A. He was a vegetarian without being a bigoted one, liked moving pictures when they were concerned with travel, and spent most of his spare time in reading Swedenborg. He had no temper whatever. Nobody had ever witnessed anger in him, and all said he had the patience of Job. He was even timid of policemen, freight agents, and conductors, though he was not afraid of them. He was not afraid of anything, any more than was he enamoured of anything save Swedenborg. He was as colourless of character as the neutral-coloured clothes he wore, as the neutral-coloured hair that ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London
... her mouth when she addressed him. Now, he was equally at a loss to understand why or how the Grand Duchess was replaced by a gentle and tender-voiced maiden, who looked up at him from under her long curved lashes with timid and deprecatory glances. She insisted on mixing his granita herself, and brought it in the one valuable cup Marm Prudence possessed, a beautiful old bit of Lowestoft. She begged to hear from his own lips about his last raid—about all his raids. She had heard about some of them; ...
— Rita • Laura E. Richards
... came, "not to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance." Publicans and outcasts; those covered with a deeper than any bodily leprosy—laid bare their wounds to the "Great Physician;" and as conscious guilt and timid penitence crept abashed and imploring to His feet, they found nothing but a forgiving and a ...
— The Mind of Jesus • John R. Macduff
... mad or half-witted. Observing that he was in great joy and very puffed up at his victory, he said, "I who have been vanquished in the argument shall have a better night's rest than my victor." We can also test ourselves in regard to public speaking, if we are not timid and do not shrink from speaking when a large audience has unexpectedly been got together, nor dejected when we have only a small one to harangue to, and if we do not, when we have to speak to the people or before some magistrate, miss the opportunity through want of proper preparation; ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... the end of February, 1813, the timid Frederick William had been induced by public sentiment in Prussia to break with his oppressor and join Russia. On March 17, he issued a famous address "To my People," in which he called upon them to assist him in ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
... sit above our heads, on life's raised dais, and appeal at once to our respect and pity. A flavour of the old school, a touch of something different in their manner—which is freer and rounder, if they come of what is called a good family, and often more timid and precise if they are of the middle class—serves, in these days, to accentuate the difference of age and add a distinction to grey hairs. But their superiority is founded more deeply than by outward marks or gestures. They are before us in the march of man; they have ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... persistent intermeddler without proper warrant in Government affairs, an unscrupulous dealer in threats and promises amongst public men, a constant menace to sworn servants of the people in their offices of trust, a tempter of the corrupt and a terror to the timid who are delegated to power a remorseless enemy to wholesome legislation, a constant friend to conspirators against the common welfare for private gain—if such a compound of dangerous and insolent qualities merged in one personality, active, vigilant, ...
— How Members of Congress Are Bribed • Joseph Moore
... Working Man! For they, methought, were champions of the Cause, Fighters for Freedom, foremost in the van, Not servile scruplers, bound by rules and laws, Not men who dealt in dry Respectable traditions: leaders true, No timid Moderates, who would define Too strict a boundary 'twixt Mine and Thine, Potential martyrs, heart and soul ...
— The Casual Ward - academic and other oddments • A. D. Godley
... he careered swiftly over the plain, and sprang unsuspecting into the midst of the flock, only to find himself clenched in the relentless jaws of Kaiser and his comrades, wolves more terrible than himself under the clothing of timid sheep. A conversation once took place at the Lodge on the character ascribed to dogs in Scripture. It slightly vexed the good duchess that they were so often mentioned in the Bible, but only as emblems of what is foul and fierce, except in a single instance, ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... can follow all the same," she answered. He looked at her with a glance in which I read both surprise and grief, and for a minute he found no answer. When she moved to look at him he had turned away, and did not see how timid and beseeching her eyes were, for all the ...
— In Direst Peril • David Christie Murray
... at all. I can give a very good guess how it happened. She was a timid, shrinking, little thing, rather pretty—her features are not at all bad—and 'poor Mr Wolff' was a big burly fellow who took a fancy to her because she was a contrast to himself. She didn't say much, so he credited her with thinking ...
— The Fortunes of the Farrells • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... necessary, an addition of wealth to the world's dictionaries and of compass to the world's range of thought. Society, mistily conscious of the sympathy that lightens in any habitual name, seems to have become aware, by one of those wonderful processes of chary instinct which serve the great, vulnerable, timid organism in lieu of a brain, that to accept of the pickpocket his names for the mysteries of his trade is to accept also a new moral stand-point and outlook on the question of property. For this reason, and by no special masonic precautions of his own, the pickpocket is allowed to keep the ...
— Style • Walter Raleigh
... which he came. How peaceful and sweet the life of Woodstock seemed now. The little meeting-house, whose shingled spire still pointed at the stars, would always be sweet with the memory of Myra Thurber, whose timid clasp upon his arm troubled him then and pained him now. He had so little to give in return for her devotion—therefore he had given nothing. He had said good-bye almost harshly—his ambition hardening his heart ...
— The Light of the Star - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... smokes, silver runs the rain, Still the timid mists creep out when the sun lies down— Oh, I am weary waiting to return to you again, So take a pale, familiar face ...
— England over Seas • Lloyd Roberts
... hands together in her wonder that she could have missed seeing what was so clear, and laughed with a sweet scorn at her folly, as two people who love each other laugh at the little misunderstanding that has parted them. She was bold with Him, though she was so timid by nature, and ventured to laugh at herself, not to reproach herself—for His divine eyes spoke no blame, but smiled upon her folly too. And then He laid a hand upon her head, which seemed to fill her with currents of strength and joy running through all her veins. And then she ...
— A Little Pilgrim • Mrs. Oliphant
... Catholic official will declare against me for writing this book, which will further go to show the reader the vileness of this damnable creed, and which will also go to convince the reader what fear the followers of Catholicism have of the priestcraft, which will more fully convince you that timid, unsuspecting woman, who has been brought up to believe in the paganism of Catholicism, can be easily led to yield to the lustful desires of the priestcraft, for fear that by refusing his request that he would pronounce this terrible curse upon her, which ...
— Thirty Years In Hell - Or, From Darkness to Light • Bernard Fresenborg
... staff, and Harley became her Prime Minister. How did Defoe behave then? The first two numbers of the Review after the Lord Treasurer's fall are among the most masterly of his writings. He was not a small, mean, timid time-server and turncoat. He faced about with bold and steady caution, on the alert to give the lie to anybody who dared to accuse him of facing about at all. He frankly admitted that he was in a quandary what to say about the change that had taken ...
— Daniel Defoe • William Minto
... again, who, frightened by the hurly-burly, after a short wild wandering alone, join any group, as a refuge, if it be only visible, and seek a Church as an asylum for the timid rather than a ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor
... the day following that on which Bertie went, Mrs Bold, true also to her word, knocked at Dr Stanhope's door with a timid hand and palpitating heart. She was at once shown up to the back drawing-room, the folding doors of which were closed, so that in visiting the signora, Eleanor was not necessarily thrown into any communication with those in the front room. As she went up the stairs, ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... going to be timid like a mice," Seaton returned as the Skylark dropped rapidly toward a lagoon near the edge ...
— Skylark Three • Edward Elmer Smith
... down completely, and I sat there feeling big-footed and blundering at this revelation of what it was that had put that clear, logical mind of hers off the track, left her confused, groping, just a girl, timid, distrustful of her own judgment where her ...
— The Million-Dollar Suitcase • Alice MacGowan
... the tea," said Matilda, who luckily was not in one way a timid child. "I will pay for the wood if I ...
— Opportunities • Susan Warner
... efforts, in spite of every possible discouragement, but to bridle their tongues when abused, to "endure hardness," and manifest a prayerful, loving spirit towards those who despite fully used them. The very fighting made bold and happy Soldiers out of many of the tenderest and most timid Converts. ...
— The Authoritative Life of General William Booth • George Scott Railton
... yard to set in motion the needful preparations for the harvest at hand, he sat on with the dead: he could not leave her until his wife should come to take his place and keep her company! He brought a bible from the next room, sat down again, and waited beside her. In doubtful, timid, tremulous hope, not worthy of the name of hope—a mere sense of a scarcely possible possibility, he waited what he would not consent to believe he waited for. He would not deceive himself; he would give his wife no hint, but wait to see how she saw! He would put to ...
— Salted With Fire • George MacDonald
... shy man we know—Lord Chesterfield said he was the most timid man he ever knew—and it speaks well for his resolution and strength of purpose that he should have risen notwithstanding this timidity to so high a position in public affairs. His want of oratorical power was a drawback to his efficiency, and Sir James Macintosh was probably ...
— The Age of Pope - (1700-1744) • John Dennis
... first see her. Does it seem consistent with her retiring, almost timid, nature to press Lancelot to wear her favor and later to confess her love to him? How do you account for her doing it? What is ...
— Teachers' Outlines for Studies in English - Based on the Requirements for Admission to College • Gilbert Sykes Blakely
... she thrilled, like Achilles, at the first gleam and clangor of arms. The only thing that Sophie feared, and from which she shrank, was Sin. All else attracted her in proportion as it was powerful, stirring, or awe-inspiring. Delicate, sensitive, and apparently meek and timid as was her nature, her heart was firm as a Roman general's, and her soul as large and sympathetic as an Apostle's. Did the occasion offer, this pale minister's daughter was capable ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne
... long-tailed whip as she came. When the negroes had had enough of it and were whimpering for mercy, she turned her attention to the foreman. But she didn't whip him. She said, her voice as calm as a May morning, 'Go and get your time, Johnson. I've no room on the place for a timid man!'" ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... reached Washington on the morning of April 25, and, weary and travel-worn, but with banners flying and music playing, marched up Pennsylvania Avenue to the big white Executive Mansion, bringing cheer to the President and renewed courage to those timid citizens whose fright during this time had almost paralyzed the life of the town. Taking renewed courage they once more opened their houses and the shops that had been closed since the beginning of the ...
— The Boys' Life of Abraham Lincoln • Helen Nicolay
... received him at Milan with great honour, bestowed on him the Castello Adorno at Pavia, and sent him into the March of Ancona upon a military expedition. Of all Italian tyrants this Visconti was the most difficult to serve. Constitutionally timid, surrounded with a crowd of spies and base informers, shrinking from the sight of men in the recesses of his palace, and controlling the complicated affairs of his Duchy by means of correspondents and intelligencers, this last ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... otherwise rational, and tinges them all with its own semblance of insanity. But with the multitude, good Mr. Hooper was irreparably a bugbear. He could not walk the street with any peace of mind, so conscious was he that the gentle and timid would turn aside to avoid him, and that others would make it a point of hardihood to throw themselves in his way. The impertinence of the latter class compelled him to give up his customary walk at sunset to the burial ground; for when he ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... was not timid, and he was willing to trust his generals in making and executing their plans. The Secretary was very timid, and it was impossible for him to avoid interfering with the armies covering the capital when it was sought to defend it by an offensive ...
— Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete • Ulysses S. Grant
... redouble is so intricate that it is hard to consider, except when the specific case arises. Some players frequently redouble, as a kind of bluff, when convinced their declaration will fail, the intent being to frighten either the doubler or his partner into another declaration. Against a very timid player, this is sometimes successful, but unless it catch its victim, it is ...
— Auction of To-day • Milton C. Work
... Inez caught sight of Senor Ramo. She was rather a timid girl, and her troubles and, tribulations had not made her any bolder, but now, at the sight of the man she believed had done, or who contemplated doing her father an injury, the Spanish maid's courage rushed ...
— The Motor Girls on Waters Blue - Or The Strange Cruise of The Tartar • Margaret Penrose
... the reproach and contempt of all mankind. It is high time to relieve ourselves from the ignominy we have already sustained, and to rescue and restore the national credit. This can only be done by solid revenue. Disdaining, therefore, those little timid artifices, which, while they postpone the moment of difficulty, only increase the danger and confirm the ruin, I prefer the open declaration to all, of what is to be expected, and whence it is to be drawn. To the public creditors, therefore, I say, that until the States ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. XI • Various
... daughter. Frances began to image to herself the various scenes, tragic and comic, through which the poor motherless girl, highly connected on one side, meanly connected on the other, might have to pass. A crowd of unreal beings, good and bad, grave and ludicrous, surrounded the pretty, timid, young orphan; a coarse sea captain; an ugly insolent fop, blazing in a superb court dress; another fop, as ugly and as insolent, but lodged on Snow Hill, and tricked out in second-hand finery for the Hampstead ball; an old ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... proverb; and it was as sunny and auspicious a morning as heart could wish. The bride looked uncommonly beautiful; but, in fact, what woman does not look interesting on her wedding-day? I know no sight more charming and touching than that of a young and timid bride, in her robes of virgin white, led up trembling to the altar. When I thus behold a lovely girl, in the tenderness of her years, forsaking the house of her fathers and the home of her childhood, and, with the implicit, confiding, and the sweet self-abandonment ...
— Bracebridge Hall • Washington Irving
... thoroughly bewildered no doubt, took refuge in a compromise. They occupied an hour in considering and debating among themselves in their own room. (A jury of women would not have taken a minute!) Then they returned into Court, and gave their timid and trimming ...
— The Law and the Lady • Wilkie Collins
... the early period of the Edinburgh Review. Jeffrey, as editor for its first quarter of a century, may be taken more fully to represent its spirit. Jeffrey's trenchant, if not swaggering style, covered a very timid, sensitive, and, in some respects, a very conservative temperament. His objection to the 'Lake Poets' was the objection of the classical to the romantic school. Jeffrey's brightness of intellect may justify Carlyle's ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen
... was over—when the bride fell on her mother's breast and wept; and then, when turning thence, her eyes met the bridegroom's, and the tears were all smiled away—when, in that one rapid interchange of looks, spoke all that holy love can speak to love, and with timid frankness she placed her hand in his to whom she had just vowed her life,—a thrill went through the hearts of those present. Vaudemont sighed heavily. He heard his sigh echoed; but by one that had in its sound no breath of pain; he turned; Fanny had raised ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 5 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... left the earth as if her limbs were of spiral wire. When I reached the car my friend was standing in front of it, the gang-plank was ready, I leaped from the saddle and, running up the plank into the car, whistled to her; and she, timid and hesitating, yet unwilling to be separated from me, crept slowly and cautiously up the steep incline and stood beside me. Inside I found a complete suit of flannel clothes with a blanket and, better than all, a lunch-basket. My friend explained that he had bought the clothes as he came ...
— A Ride With A Mad Horse In A Freight-Car - 1898 • W. H. H. Murray
... amnesties—deluding and confounding every thing. No wonder, after all, that the London Times, comprehending nothing, should have been so wildly asinine as to see in the Message only a bid to conciliate the South!—a timid, making-up measure. The Times is behind our times, and no wonder, when a Russell flounders about for it among us, becoming more densely befogged and confused with every new idea which entangles itself ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... person,' the estate was entailed on Boswell. 'My father,' he tells Temple, 'is so different from me. We divaricate so much, as Dr Johnson said. He has a method of treating me which makes me feel like a timid boy, which to Boswell (comprehending all that my character does in my own imagination and in that of a wonderful number of mankind) is intolerable. It requires the utmost exertion of practical philosophy to keep myself quiet; ...
— James Boswell - Famous Scots Series • William Keith Leask
... ashore, and, using only the language of signs, exchanged some of the beads and gaudy trinkets for the curious articles of the savages. Endless varieties of fruit were so abundant that it was to be had for the simple trouble of plucking; while the timid natives stood in such awe of their visitors, that the thought of harming ...
— The Land of Mystery • Edward S. Ellis
... hammer with one hand, keeping the muzzle pointed toward the steward's head all the while, the latter grew as white as a sheet and trembled in every limb. After he thought he had inflicted sufficient torture upon the timid fellow, the Confederate put up his weapon ...
— Marcy The Blockade Runner • Harry Castlemon
... but the word, once passed, is inviolable. If he whispered treachery to one of the Red Branch he would not be Ardrie tomorrow. Nay, leave the window unbarred, or they will say the sons of Usna have returned timid as birds! Come, we are enough protection for thee. See, here is the chessboard of Concobar, with which he is wont to divine, playing a lonely game with fate. The pieces are set. We will finish the game, and so pass the time until the feast is ready. (He sits down) ...
— Imaginations and Reveries • (A.E.) George William Russell
... could say had the least effect, and so at last he agreed to take her to Peter. And so, hopping behind Jimmy Skunk, timid little Mrs. Peter Rabbit actually went into the Green Forest of which she was so much afraid, which shows how ...
— The Adventures of Prickly Porky • Thornton W. Burgess
... the bank examiner arrived. He made a quick inspection of the bank's affairs, and pronounced the institution "sound." The run on the bank stopped, and timid depositors began to bring back their money. The members of the Dodge family could once more hold ...
— The High School Left End - Dick & Co. Grilling on the Football Gridiron • H. Irving Hancock
... their heads in warning, and with tremulous gestures tell how the river was as cruel as it was strong and cold, and how death lurked in the eddy underneath the willows. But the reeds had to stand where they were, and those who stand still are always timid advisers. As for us, we could have shouted aloud. If this lively and beautiful river were, indeed, a thing of death's contrivance, the old ashen rogue had famously outwitted himself with us. I was living three to the minute. I was scoring points ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... at home, busily engaged in putting a clumsy patch on his blue "slop" jacket, and he answered Dick's timid knock with ...
— Dick Lionheart • Mary Rowles Jarvis
... the women, to their sensibility and zeal, to a conspiracy of their sympathies, that M. de Lally succeeds in the rehabilitation of his father. When they take a fancy to a person they become infatuated with him; Madame de Lauzun, very timid, goes so far as to publicly insult a man who speaks ill of M. Necker.—It must be borne in mind that, in this century, the women were queens, setting the fashion, giving the tone, leading in conversation and naturally shaping ideas and opinions[4245]. When they take the lead on the political ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... why, captain," she said. "I know Coenrad de Smet well, and one or two others. Good men ... don't get me wrong ... but born politicians, intuitive rather than logical thinkers. They believe, quite honestly, it's best to go back. And, of course, the timid and lazy and selfish ones will support them. They don't want to risk having Rustum there, a whole new world for the taking—and the vote to go against them. I've seen plenty of your photographs, captain. ...
— The Burning Bridge • Poul William Anderson
... Tromp remained seated at the broad, flat-topped desk, his head bent at an angle which gave Mr. Grimston a view of the tips of shaggy eyebrows, a broad nose, and that peculiar kind of protruding lower lip before which timid people quail. As there was no response, Mr. Grimston looked round vaguely on the sombre, handsome furnishings, fixing his gaze at last on the lithographed portrait of Mr. van Tromp senior, the founder of the ...
— The Inner Shrine • Basil King
... hand upon the Captain's arm, so sorrowful and timid, and the Captain with his rough face and burly figure, so quietly protective of her, stood in the rosy light of the bright evening sky, without saying a word. However strange the form of speech into which he might have fashioned the feeling, if he had had ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... strong, her own triumphs were her own. She had a real power of expressing the senses through her style; of conveying the very heat of blue skies or the bursting of palpable pomegranates. And just as Mrs. Oliphant transfused her more timid Victorian tales with a true and intense faith in the Christian mystery—so Ouida, with infinite fury and infinite confusion of thought, did fill her books with Byron and the remains of the French Revolution. ...
— The Victorian Age in Literature • G. K. Chesterton
... attached to her. Her shyness wore off by degrees. The more I saw of her the more I had reason to admire her. Her mind seemed to unfold itself leaf by leaf, and every time to discover new sweetness. Nobody knew her so well as I, for she was generally timid and silent, but I, in a manner, studied her excellence. Never did I meet more intuitive rectitude of mind, more native delicacy, more exquisite propriety in word, thought, or action, than in this young creature. I am not exaggerating; what I say was ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. VI, June, 1862 - Devoted To Literature and National Policy • Various
... Trinity Church, towards the East River, and he was not long in reaching that famous money mart, where millions of dollars change hands each day between the hours of 10 A.M. and 3 P.M. The grand approaches to many of the buildings made him feel timid, and he could not help but wonder if the place to which he was going ...
— Richard Dare's Venture • Edward Stratemeyer
... the depths of Corsica some subscribers to the statue of Paoli, curious to know how the monument is progressing; or, it may be, some worthy reader of Financial Truth, which died over two years ago, who calls to renew his subscription with a timid air, and begs a little more regularity, if possible, in the forwarding of the paper. There is a faith that nothing shakes. So, when one of these innocents falls among our hungry band, it is something terrible. He is surrounded, ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... angry; I will go directly"; and, having said this with an abject slavishness that formed a miraculous contrast with her late crossness and imperious chilliness, she put down her work hastily and went out; only at the door she curved her throat, and cast back, Parthian-like, a glance of timid reproach, as much as to say, "Need you have been so very harsh with a creature so ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... says he mildly and staring up at me eye to eye. "Use me kindly, for I'm a timid soul with a good heart, meaning ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... the king's daughter Scylla fell in love with Minos, their king, and pulled out the fatal hair from her father's head. So he died. In a modern Greek folk-tale a man's strength lies in three golden hairs on his head. When his mother pulls them out, he grows weak and timid and is slain by his enemies. In another modern Greek story the life of an enchanter is bound up with three doves which are in the belly of a wild boar. When the first dove is killed, the magician grows sick; when the second is killed, he grows very sick; and when the third is killed, he dies. In ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... a chair, and there was no more laughter. She was not a timid woman, and her fright was evident. Her son stepped to her side and laid his hand on her ...
— Jessica, the Heiress • Evelyn Raymond
... an old man when Lord Erskine was in the height of his reputation, was of timid manners and nervous disposition, usually prefacing his pleadings with an apology to that effect; and on one occasion, when opposed, in some cause, to Erskine, he happened to remark that "he felt himself growing more and more timid as he grew older." "No wonder," ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various
... midst of my brave army that timid counsels should be permitted.—Patriotism, discipline, patience, mutual confidence, all the military and civil virtues I find here. Here the principles of liberty and equality are cherished, the laws respected, property held sacred. Here calumnies and factions are unknown. ...
— Memoirs of General Lafayette • Lafayette
... One timid little woman ventured to say that it could not be Satan, for he was never known to do anything good. Another said there must be something uncanny about it, for she had experienced the most peculiar sensations when ...
— The Right Knock - A Story • Helen Van-Anderson
... here was onlie mine Aunt; a slow, timid, uncertayn Soule, who proved but a broken Reed ...
— Mary Powell & Deborah's Diary • Anne Manning
... seemed a very childish thing to her even when she read it to her godmother. But she shrank from Mrs. Walton's criticism. It was with many blushes that she began. Afterward she wondered why she should have been timid about it. Mrs. Walton applauded it so heartily, and entered into plans for making the entertainment a success as enthusiastically as ...
— The Little Colonel's Hero • Annie Fellows Johnston
... easy for her to assume the part of an elegant young lady, equipped for society with charming manners, a fastidious taste and indifferent ease. We occasionally laughed at her airs, but inwardly admired her superb assumptions of careless superiority: had she become timid, docile, admiring toward us, I dare say her reign would not have lasted ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various
... Madonna as the Christ-bearer is the ideal he always has in view. He falls short of it, not through any lack of earnestness, but because his type of womanhood is incapable of expressing such lofty idealism. His virgins are modelled upon the simple Andalusian maidens, sweet, timid, dark-eyed creatures. Their faces glow with gentle affection as they look wistfully out of the picture, or raise their eyes to heaven, as if dimly discerning the heights which they ...
— The Madonna in Art • Estelle M. Hurll
... men, a shepherd of the people. The only trouble in Norway, as elsewhere, is that the people will no longer consent to be shepherded. They refuse to be guided and ruled. They rebel against spiritual and secular authority, and follow no longer the bell-wether with the timid gregariousness of servility and irresolution. To bring the new age into the parsonage of the reverend obscurantist in the shape of a young girl—the fiancee of the pastor's son—was an interesting experiment ...
— Tales of Two Countries • Alexander Kielland
... school, however, and one of his first timid, inquiring glances was to discover the thrashing-block with which Mrs. Holman had threatened him. He had pictured it to himself giving blow after blow with a rod, and beating incessantly, like the chicory factory at ...
— One of Life's Slaves • Jonas Lauritz Idemil Lie
... They bought of Granganimeo twenty skins, worth as many nobles, for a tin dish which he coveted as a gorget. His wife offered a great box of pearls for armour and a sword. After some stay with the friendly and timid people, they returned to England about the middle of September. They brought to Ralegh chamois and other skins, a bracelet of pearls as big as peas, and two Indians, Manteo ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... strain on his loyalty, but he withstood it; he has, I believe, never expressed his opinion about the King; we can guess what it must have been. It was a melancholy picture: a King violent and timid, obstinate and irresolute; his will dragged now this way, now that, by his favourites, his wife and his brother; his own Ministers intriguing against each other; ambassadors recommending a policy instead of carrying out their instructions; ...
— Bismarck and the Foundation of the German Empire • James Wycliffe Headlam
... as if her skirts clung about her knees. There was an air of mingled surprise and defiance about her; she was a silent girl. 'Fronted like Juno,' he appears to cry, 'shaped like Hebe, and like Demeter in stature; sullen with most, but with one most sweetly apt, she looked watchful but was really timid, looked cold but was secretly afire. I knew soon enough how her case stood, how hope and doubt strove in her and choked her to silence. I guessed how within those reticent members swift love ran like wine; but because of this proud, brave mask of hers I was slow to understand her ...
— The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay • Maurice Hewlett
... together, like a vessel wrecked on the ocean, endeavoured to rescue it with great speed. For a short space of time, O Bharata, the battle that once more took place became exceedingly fierce, enhancing as it did the fears of timid and the joy of the brave. The dense showers of arrows shot in battle by Kripa, thick, as flights of locusts, covered the Srinjayas. Then Shikhandi, filled with rage, speedily proceeded against the grandson of Gautama (Kripa) and poured upon that bull amongst Brahmanas his arrowy downpours ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... again entered the car. Jean Forette was driving, and the detective again noticed the strange and sudden change in his manner. Whereas he had been morose and sullen the first part of the trip, timid and watchful of every crossing and turning, now he put on full speed and drove with the ...
— The Golf Course Mystery • Chester K. Steele
... learned something of Barclay as well. He and Bemis went over the county together,—the little fox and the old coyote, the people called them,—and where men were for sale, Bemis bought them, and where they were timid, John threatened them, and where they were neither, both John and Bemis fought with a ferocity that made men hate but respect the pair. And so though the Fifth Parallel Railroad never came to the Ridge, its successor, the Corn Belt Road, did come, ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... shyly and modestly, and each simultaneously proffered a timid hand. The average young man, already a little rattled by the duplicate vision of loveliness before him, could never make up his mind which hand to shake first; and by the time he had collected his faculties sufficiently to make an uncertain grab at one, both would be swiftly ...
— The Right Stuff - Some Episodes in the Career of a North Briton • Ian Hay
... old, and white-haired Frenchman, neatly dressed in a complete suit of nankeen with his broad-brimmed straw hat submissively in his hand, speaking all manner of fair and unintelligible French words to two Jacks, not of my ship, between which two, now pulled this way, now plucked that, was a timid and beautiful girl, of about fifteen years of age. There were several negroes, grinning and passive spectators of this scene. I understood it in a moment. So did my gentlemen in the tarpaulin hats. They were off to me in a less time ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... home? Indeed, I shall not then be able to bear life. Reflecting upon all this, O illustrious one, do that which should be done.' That best of Rishis, gratified with all she said, replied, 'Thou shall remain a virgin even if thou grantest my wish. And, O timid one, O beauteous lady, solicit the boon that thou desirest. O thou of fair smiles, my grace hath never before proved fruitless.' Thus addressed, the maiden asked for the boon that her body might emit a sweet ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa - Translated into English Prose - Adi Parva (First Parva, or First Book) • Kisari Mohan Ganguli (Translator)
... sang a Russian folk-song, as wild and sweet as the smile of a Slav, Jenkins artlessly manifested his pride without attempt at concealment, his broad face beamed expansively; and she, every time that she leaned forward to take breath, turned in his direction a timid, loving glance which sought him out over the music she held in her hand. And when she had finished, amid a murmur of delight and admiration, it was touching to see her secretly press her husband's hand, as if to reserve for herself a little corner of private happiness amid ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet |
