"Timid" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the little one to support and propel itself are to be carefully watched, but not unnecessarily interfered with; neither frightened by expressions of fear, nor rendered timid by ...
— The Physical Life of Woman: - Advice to the Maiden, Wife and Mother • Dr. George H Napheys
... example already established in England, he gave a voice in this assembly to the "Third Estate," the common folk or "citizens," as well as to the nobles and the clergy. So even in France we find the people acquiring power, though as yet this Third Estate speaks with but a timid and subservient voice, requiring to be much encouraged by its money-asking sovereigns, who little dreamed it would one day be strong enough to demand a reckoning of ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... said in a timid voice, which she strove to render cheerful. "It is Jane." Rawdon was quite overcome by that kind voice and presence. He ran up to her—caught her in his arms—gasped out some inarticulate words of thanks and fairly sobbed on her shoulder. She did not ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... with his untamed will, drew the timid Lina firmly, but tenderly, from her vantage ground in the room, and hurried her away toward ...
— Mabel's Mistake • Ann S. Stephens
... who was haled before the narrator, Sir Thomas Overbury, J.P. Perry said that after starting for Charringworth to seek his master on the previous evening, about 8.45 P.M., he met by the way William Reed of Campden, and explained to him that as he was timid in the dark he would go back and take Edward Harrison's horse and return. Perry did as he had said, and Reed left him 'at Mr. Harrison's Court gate.' Perry dallied there till one Pierce came past, and with Pierce (he did not say why) 'he went a bow's shot into the fields,' and so back once more to ...
— Historical Mysteries • Andrew Lang
... Clare was exceedingly uncomfortable in his presence—it was almost as though she had something to conceal. On several occasions he had noticed that his sudden entrance into a room had confused her; once he had caught her hurriedly pushing a letter out of sight. She was now strangely timid when he was there; sometimes with a sudden furious beating of the heart he fancied that she was coming back to him again because she would make little half movements towards him and then draw back. Once ...
— Fortitude • Hugh Walpole
... stayed on for a day or so to clean up odd jobs neglected during the haying season. He was a gentle, timid little chap, the butt of the entire valley, of course, and particularly of John Spencer. Douglas often wondered why old Johnny consented to work each year at this season for his father. This wonderment was solved ...
— Judith of the Godless Valley • Honore Willsie
... where it is," said Robin, and he rang the front-door bell. There was a pause. Then lights shone, steps were heard, and at last a sound of much unbarring, unbolting, and unlocking. It might have been a prison. Then the door was opened by an elderly, timid-looking woman, who held a tallow candle above ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book II - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various
... Faith paid her timid respects in the drawing-room at last, made her welcome with a peculiar grace and empressement that had their own flattering weight and charm; for the lady was a sort of St. Peter of fashion, holding its mystic keys, and admitting or rejecting whom she would; and culled, ...
— Faith Gartney's Girlhood • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... the agitators, but their hearers, and find out what they instinctively conceive this land to look like, we should get the answer, timid and naive but at the same time the deepest and shrewdest that it is possible to give—that it is a land where there ...
— The New Society • Walther Rathenau
... order to march again when the long, snappish, disappointed howl of a jackal was heard, and the ponies ceased grazing and threw up their muzzles; while as Dickenson leaned forward to give his mount an encouraging pat he could feel that the timid creature's ...
— The Kopje Garrison - A Story of the Boer War • George Manville Fenn
... conformed, or they sin. There is indeed one type, the perfect manhood of Jesus, but it is all comprehensive, and each variety of our fragmentary manhood finds its own perfecting, and not its transmutation to another fashion of man, in being conformed to Him. Some of us are naturally fainthearted, timid, sceptical of any success, grave, melancholy, or hard to stir to any emotion. To such there will be an added difficulty in making quiet confident joy any very familiar guest in their home or in their place of prayer. But even such should ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... bedroom window. It portended no disturbance: I might sleep, thinks I, with the soft whispering to lull me, being willing for the magic shoes of sleep to take me far away from this agony as never man was before. The wind was blowing from the west: but not in gusts—a sailing breeze for the timid. I was glad that there was no venomous intention in the wind: 'twas a mild and dependable wind, grateful to such as fared easterly in the night. I wished that all men might fare that way, in the favoring breeze, but knew well enough that the purposes of men are contrary, the one to the other, ...
— The Cruise of the Shining Light • Norman Duncan
... been moulded only by the environment of his home, or by the home in combination with the less-powerful corrective of a day school. For the nervous child the passage from home to school life may involve considerable mental strain. He may be morbidly self-conscious and timid, or, unknown to himself—because he has as yet no power of self-analysis and has no opportunities of comparing himself with others—he may have developed certain eccentricities. In most cases the plunge into school life will be taken well enough; in a few the little vessel will ...
— The Nervous Child • Hector Charles Cameron
... years of age, Phebe "fell into the hands of a relative who kept the county jail," and her childhood knew little but the bitter fare and ceaseless drudgery of domestic slavery. She grew up with a crushed spirit, and was a timid, shrinking woman as long as she lived. She married Timothy H. Brown, a house-painter of Ellington, Ct., and passed her days there and in Monson, Mass., where she ...
— The Story of the Hymns and Tunes • Theron Brown and Hezekiah Butterworth
... marriage as could not fail to plunge her in infamy and ruin. Cranmer, if not exceedingly grieved, was at least greatly perplexed by the incident:—at first sight there appeared to be equal danger in concealing or discovering circumstances of a nature so delicate, and the archbishop was timid by nature, and cautious from the experience of a court. At length, all things well weighed, he judiciously preferred the hazard of making the communication at once, without reserve, and directly, to the person most interested; and, forming ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... fellow-pupils, who are attracted by her fearless and independent nature and her queenly bearing. She dreams of a distinguished professional career; but the course of her life is changed suddenly by pity for her timid little brother Adrian, the victim of his guardian-uncle's harshness. The story describes the daring means adopted by Augusta ...
— Condemned as a Nihilist - A Story of Escape from Siberia • George Alfred Henty
... these, the weaker, the more timid and the wiser kept away. Rash spirits led these meetings, and here was the same hot passion that I had felt back in the jail. These people did not want to think, the time for thinking had gone by. They wanted to act, to do something ...
— The Harbor • Ernest Poole
... im Puttzimmer Einer Reichen Roemerin.' Read of Sabina's face as she comes through the curtain of her bed-chamber to the chamber of her toilet. The slavegirls have long been chafing their white feet upon the marble floor. They stand, those timid Greek girls, marshalled in little battalions. Each has her appointed task, and all kneel in welcome as Sabina stalks, ugly and frowning, to the toilet chair. Scaphion steps forth from among them, and, dipping a tiny sponge in a bowl of hot milk, passes ...
— The Works of Max Beerbohm • Max Beerbohm
... which at the time seemed likely to rally the largest number of the people to its support? There were men then, warm friends of the administration, and still warmer friends of their country, who believed that a bolder, a less timid, a less cautious policy would have been wiser, that in revolutionary times boldness, what in other times would be rashness, is the highest prudence, on the side of the government as well as on the side of the revolution; ...
— The American Republic: Its Constitution, Tendencies, and Destiny • A. O. Brownson
... a ship for the sake of old times but he no longer hovered along the trade-routes; and timid merchants ...
— Tales of Wonder • Lord Dunsany
... the house, he felt quite timid, so imposingly did this great structure loom up from the simpler dwellings which surrounded it. Barney Ryan had built himself a palace, and ever since the day he had first moved into it he had been anxious to move out. The ladies of his family would not allow ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various
... altogether misplaced. A signal instance is the statue of the Virgin by Mocchi in the choir of the cathedral at Orvieto, so grand in itself, and yet so offensive as a devotional figure. Misplaced is also, I think, the sort of timid shrinking surprise which is the expression in some pictures. The moment is much too awful, the expectance much too sublime, for any such human, girlish emotions. If the painter intend to express the ...
— Legends of the Madonna • Mrs. Jameson
... and horror; this is the upseting and narrow escape of the white perogue It happened unfortunately for us this evening that Charbono was at the helm of this Perogue, in stead of Drewyer, who had previously steered her; Charbono cannot swim and is perhaps the most timid waterman in the world; perhaps it was equally unluckey that Capt. C. and myself were both on shore at that moment, a circumstance which rarely happened; and tho we were on the shore opposite to the perogue, were too far distant ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... title of Imperator—may doubtless have partly influenced Lucullus; but it is unjust to assume paltry and selfish motives for actions, which motives of duty quite suffice to explain. The Roman governing college at any rate—timid, indolent, ill informed, and above all beset by perpetual financial embarrassments—could never be expected, without direct compulsion, to take the initiative in an expedition so vast and costly. About the year 682 the legitimate representatives ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... timid, and wanted to be told when she could be bold with perfect safety, while Hazard's grasp of all subjects, though feminine in appearance, was masculine and persistent in reality. To be steadily strong was not in Esther's nature. She was audacious only by starts, and recoiled from her own audacity. ...
— Esther • Henry Adams
... not deny, what I have heard from some whose truth and sense I cannot question, that his manner, somewhat unusual, of drawing people out, however kindly intended, often abashed the timid, and alarmed the cautious; but, in the judgments to be formed of the understandings of all with whom he conversed, he was uncommonly indulgent. He allowed for the prejudices or for the deficiencies of education; ...
— Richard Lovell Edgeworth - A Selection From His Memoir • Richard Lovell Edgeworth
... hand was trembling. And when he tried to account for his nervous condition by reminding her that Anton Von Barwig's new symphony was to be played that night and that a member of the Royal family was to be present on the occasion, she had shaken her head gravely, accusing him of being a foolish, timid old boy. It needed all the courage he could muster up to enable him to ring the door-bell of Von Barwig's dwelling. There was such a death-like stillness that Poons thought for a moment no one was there; he dreaded he knew not what. As he stood listening to the silence, he thought he ...
— The Music Master - Novelized from the Play • Charles Klein
... have, by this time, been reached by aid of the stepping-stones of the grosser, as that the grosser are the corruption of the purer. Mr. Max Muller constantly asserts that the 'human mind advanced by small and timid steps from what is intelligible, to what is at first sight almost beyond comprehension' (p. 126). Among the objects which aided man to take these small and timid steps, he reckons rivers and trees, which excited, he says, religious awe. What he will not suppose is that the earliest small and timid ...
— Custom and Myth • Andrew Lang
... his large arm-chair at noontide, when I was fain to be quiet, and that he looked kindly and chatted pleasantly with me, as I sat on his knee at twilight. I found my place at once in the household. If I had any first feelings of strangeness to be overcome, which is probable, as I was but a timid child, or if I wept any tears under deserved reproof, or was in any trouble from childish indiscretions, the traces of these things have all vanished; nothing remains but the record of long summer-days ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various
... send her back to the dark room and lonely trundle-bed. She expected that Miss Thusa would call her a foolish child, and tell her parents all her terrors of the worm-eaten traveler, and she raised her timid eyes to her face, wondering at her silence. There was something in those prophetic orbs, which she could not read. There seemed to be a film over them, baffling her penetration, and she looked down ...
— Helen and Arthur - or, Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel • Caroline Lee Hentz
... only to look out of their windows, and the sailors of the shipping had only to lift their heads above the bulwarks, to behold a sight that appalled the stoutest hearted, and caused the very hair on the craniums of the timid to stand on end. ...
— Man on the Ocean - A Book about Boats and Ships • R.M. Ballantyne
... tipped the branches of the leafless trees with shafted sunlight, the enemy were hacking furiously at the palisades. Trapped and cornered, the most timid of animals will fight. With such fury, reckless from desperation, cherishing no hope, the Hurons now fought, but they were handicapped by lack of guns and balls. Thirty Iroquois had been slain, a hundred wounded, and the assailants drew off for breath. It ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... expected," said she. "They've found out where I am, and they'll come out here and try to pump me about it. But I don't envy 'em their job. Come in," she added, in answer to the Hon. MICHAEL'S somewhat timid knock. ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., No. 39., Saturday, December 24, 1870. • Various
... however, with his charger behind him, was foraging over the deck to find a stall, and in a fury Murguia plucked at his sleeve. But Driscoll wheeled of his own accord to inquire about horse accommodations, and then the Mexican wondered in his timid soul at his own boldness. It loomed before him as unutterably more preposterous than the lone wanderer's preposterous act of taking possession single handed. Yet the lone wanderer was only gazing down on ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... secure in his definite orthodoxy, he finds himself indifferent on many points (on the reality of witchcraft, for instance) concerning which Browne's more timid, personally grounded faith might indulge no scepticism, forced himself, nevertheless, to detect a vein of rationalism in a book which on the whole much attracted him, and hastily put forth his "animadversions" upon it. Browne, with all ...
— Appreciations, with an Essay on Style • Walter Horatio Pater
... confidence and respect. They needed all the courage of their opinions to support them against the obloquy which official slander had aroused. The courageous among them faced the polls in the spirit of a forlorn hope. The more timid quietly remained at home and refrained from voting, rather than subject themselves to certain ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... speaking very sternly to her, and that, alone, made Wyn desire to take her part. She could not bear to hear anybody scold a person so timid and humble. And at every decisive phrase Mr. Erad uttered, ...
— Wyn's Camping Days - or, The Outing of the Go-Ahead Club • Amy Bell Marlowe
... not surprised, when I came to know the disposition of the inhabitants, at the success of brigandage. It has never been my fortune before or since to live among such a timid population. One day at a large town a leading landed proprietor received notice that if he did not pay a certain sum in blackmail,—I forget at this distance of time the exact amount,—his farm or masseria would be robbed. This farm, which was in ...
— Stories By English Authors: Italy • Various
... Christian Temperance Union, held here one year ago, a resolution was offered by a most worthy lady, indorsing suffrage for women on all temperance questions. It was at once vigorously opposed by some, while others, although believing in it, feared it would divide their ranks if it passed, and felt too timid to give it their support. The lady offering it, seeing it would be defeated, withdrew it, at the same time giving notice that she should present the same, or one similar, to that body every year as long as she lived, or until it passed. Last month the same organization held ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... you an enterprise which was not exempt from blame to timid minds," he replied, audaciously, "I had only your own prosperity in view. As for me, whether I succeed or fail, I can make all results further my ends. If you marry Montauran, I shall be delighted to serve the Bourbons in Paris, where I am already a member of the Clichy ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac
... violent internal one; it quiets the palpitation of the heart, giving to the children sleep, and bringing back the Bacchantes to their right minds by the help of dances and acceptable sacrifices. But if fear has such power, will not a child who is always in a state of terror grow up timid and cowardly, whereas if he learns from the first to resist fear he will develop a habit of courage? 'Very true.' And we may say that the use of motion will inspire the souls of children with cheerfulness and therefore with courage. 'Of course.' Softness enervates and irritates the ...
— Laws • Plato
... window, whose curtains were slightly raised as if to satisfy some timid curiosity, I saw a woman who seemed old, though I cannot be sure that she was as old as she appeared to be. She was thin and yellow, and her eyes, under their red lids glowed in their black sockets. Though it was summer her body and her head were shrouded ...
— Balthasar - And Other Works - 1909 • Anatole France
... influence had piled tree on tree, in such a manner as had not only enabled the two males of the party to ascend to an elevation of some thirty feet above the level of the earth, but, with a little care and encouragement, to induce their more timid companions to accompany them. The vast trunks which had been broken and driven by the force of the gust lay blended like jack-straws; while their branches, still exhaling the fragrance of withering leaves, were interlaced in a manner to afford sufficient ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... passage over which requires not only days, but in some places even weeks to accomplish. We had traversed several of these valleys, and were now about to cross over the highest ridge of the Andes. Having travelled so far without encountering the Montoneros, even the most timid of our party had lost all apprehension ...
— Manco, the Peruvian Chief - An Englishman's Adventures in the Country of the Incas • W.H.G. Kingston
... light footsteps, and peeping out, he saw Billy Mink and Peter Rabbit and Jumper the Hare and Prickly Porky and Reddy Fox and Jimmy Skunk. Even timid little Whitefoot the Wood Mouse was where he could peer out and see without being seen. Of course, Chatterer the Red Squirrel and Happy Jack the Gray Squirrel were there. There they all sat in a great circle around ...
— The Adventures of Buster Bear • Thornton W. Burgess
... the lodge of Sishetakushin, her father, and wait for White Brother of the Snow. He is safe from the Matchi Manitu. She will wait and be contented. She will know that he is in the country of her people. She will wait for him till the sun grows timid and afraid, till the Spirit of the Frost grows bold and strong. Then White Brother of the Snow will come to the lodge of Sishetakushin, and there he will rest. Manikawan will prepare for him his nabwe (stew) and make for him warm garments from ...
— The Gaunt Gray Wolf - A Tale of Adventure With Ungava Bob • Dillon Wallace
... preach words of comfort and hope, to somewhat soothe the miseries of life, instead of frightening your brothers by tales of future punishment? Why? Because Christ's True Doctrine would bring you no earthly wealth, and all that you look for is gold, and gold! And to satisfy your end and bleed the timid souls, of money, you have invented a Purgatory! Why afflict orphans and widows with dreadful tales of the next life, only to extort from them a few cents? Have you forgotten what the Apostle said? 'Nolo vos ignorare, fratres, ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead
... silent and reflective. "Bob was an odd one. And, of course, I haven't seen him for years but I got a Christmas card and a little note every single year and he always seemed perfectly sane to me. As for killing himself or anybody else, I'd say he was much too timid a man for that. God forgive me if I'm being cruel to an old friend who's gone now, but he was afraid to step outside the house. I don't know how he got to work. He was always getting sick or getting hurt and staying home for weeks. I think he welcomed sickness just so he could hide at home safe." ...
— The Last Straw • William J. Smith
... henceforth. And I want to talk about something else. The first officer,—I don't know whether you have noticed him lately, but I tell you this: if we ever get into any trouble with this ship he'll go to pieces. Why, the other night, when the engine got tangled, he was as timid as a woman. That shock he had with the coal, as I said before, has broken his nerve, big man ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... enthusiasm is the quality that boldly faces and leaps lightly over them. By the power of enthusiasm the most extraordinary undertakings, that seemed impossible of accomplishment, have been successfully carried out. Enthusiasm makes weak men strong, and timid women courageous. Almost all the great works of art have been produced when the artist was intoxicated with a passion for beauty and form, which would not let him rest until his thought was expressed in marble or ...
— The True Citizen, How To Become One • W. F. Markwick, D. D. and W. A. Smith, A. B.
... 17. A timid woman should never marry a hesitating man, lest, like frightened children, each keep perpetually re-alarming the other ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis
... Joseph, "if I did not have in my pocket a letter from my former room-mate at Halle, introducing you as a manly, brave boy, and a future light in the world of science, I should suspect you were a disguised maiden; you blush like a girl, and are as timid as a lamb which has never left ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach
... And for Miss Flossie's timid greeting (the lifting of her upper lip that just showed two dear little white teeth) he gave back a reluctant and embarrassed smile. He used to like sitting by Flossie because she was so pretty and so plump. He used to be sorry for her, because ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... Christ suffering as our substitute the Great Exception, as some timid ones have granted. It is in line with God's Plan with Men; it is in line with the best and noblest there is in man; and the opposite teaching, that it is wrong to let the innocent bear the penalty of the guilty, is not only wrong, but horrible and the extreme of heartlessness. ...
— God's Plan with Men • T. T. (Thomas Theodore) Martin
... Often indeed it suited the policy of the Capets to weaken an over-mighty subject by protecting his rebellious serfs. But the bishops and the lay seigneurs offered a pertinacious opposition to all demands for enfranchisement; the King was a timid and vacillating ally, always inclined to desert the cause of the townsfolk for a bribe, always in fear that the movement might spread to his demesne. Whatever his sympathies, he could do little, when it came to blows, but stand aside and watch the conflict. Two examples will serve to illustrate ...
— Medieval Europe • H. W. C. Davis
... could be gained from Connie at present; and by-and-by Father John and the two detectives left her alone with Harris. When the door closed behind the three men a timid expression came into Connie's gentle eyes. Beyond doubt her father was sober, but he looked very queer—fearfully red in the face, nervous, trembling, bad in his temper. Connie had seen him in many moods, but this particular mood she had never witnessed in him before. ...
— Sue, A Little Heroine • L. T. Meade
... to dancers, not to dowagers and matrimonial slave-dealers, as heretofore. Mrs. Brown calculates her company; and thinking there is enough for a quadrille in either room, she commences to form them—pouncing, from time to time, upon timid young men by the door, who are led forward, like lambs from a flock, to sacrifice,—until the sets are completed—all but one couple—Mrs. Brown stating herself "distressed for ladies;"—a combination of suffering by no means acute, for she stood up herself, having engaged the amiable young Slowcoach ...
— Christmas Comes but Once A Year - Showing What Mr. Brown Did, Thought, and Intended to Do, - during that Festive Season. • Luke Limner
... Regent, never comes to see me, and never quits me, without kissing my hand before he embraces me; and he will not even take a chair if I hand it to him. He is not, however, at all timid, but chats familiarly with me, and we laugh and ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... That wine collects and increases the powers of the mind. He observes also, That it produces excellent effects on the minds of persons, who, though naturally timid, want no penetration. Plato maintains, as I have observed in the foregoing chapter, That wine warms as well the mind as the body. Monsieur Hofman says a great deal more, viz. That experience proves, that those climates which produce good wine, produce also ...
— Ebrietatis Encomium - or, the Praise of Drunkenness • Boniface Oinophilus
... though, to the sounds of firing in the distance, the reports of many pieces coming reverberating out of the chasm-like rift leading south. Their eyes, too, were as much upon the alert as those of some timid animal whose life depends upon its watchfulness from day to day, existing, as it does, in the midst of numberless enemies, who look upon ...
— Fix Bay'nets - The Regiment in the Hills • George Manville Fenn
... and sweeter and the little after-dinner group in the garden grew bigger—think of the excitement of the day when the lawyer brought home the architect and his timid wife! They came to live in Maman's room, the room that Felice had intended to keep for herself. But you'll know presently why she gave it to them. You remember it was only one flight up. He was a young architect well able to climb but Mrs. Architect couldn't. And he was a very new architect. ...
— Little Miss By-The-Day • Lucille Van Slyke
... deportment have become the culminating conception of the possibilities that lie in the female character. His heroines naturally conformed to his belief. They are usually spoken of as spotless beings. They are made up of retiring sweetness, artlessness, and simplicity. They are timid, shrinking, helpless. They shudder with terror on any decent pretext. But if they fail in higher qualities, they embody in themselves all conceivable combinations of the proprieties and minor morals. They always give utterance to the most unexceptionable ...
— James Fenimore Cooper - American Men of Letters • Thomas R. Lounsbury
... sir!" protested Rae Malgregor with a timid sort of dignity. "Why, it never had occurred to me for a moment that anybody blamed me for—anything!" Just from sheer astonishment her hands took a new clutch into the torn flapping corner of the motto that she still clung desperately to ...
— The White Linen Nurse • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... Yorkshire; his translation was the first issued under royal sanction, being dedicated to Henry VIII.; done at the instance of Thomas Cromwell, and brought out in 1535, and executed with a view to secure the favour of the authorities in Church and State, displaying a timid hesitancy unworthy of a manly faith in the truth; both he and his translation nevertheless were subjected to persecution, 2500 copies of the latter, printed in Paris, having been seized by the Inquisition and committed to the ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... their endless minute ritual actions, but among such lower races as the Kanekas of New Caledonia, the efficacy of religious functions is destroyed by the slightest accidental infraction of established rules.(1) The same timid conservatism presides over myth, and in each locality the mystery-plays, with their accompanying narratives, preserved inviolate the early forms of legend. Myth and ritual do not admit of being argued about. "C'etait le rite etabli. ...
— Myth, Ritual, and Religion, Vol. 1 • Andrew Lang
... in fact, fatigued with the attention the French authorities had given him. Everything that one could think of had been anticipated, he said. He thought there could be nothing more. Then there was a timid knock, and a nurse came in to say that she had been sent to see that the dressing on his arm was all right. He said that he had found it easier to submit to the French attentions than to undertake to explain that he didn't ...
— The Sleuth of St. James's Square • Melville Davisson Post
... the fire, [121] But lying Dick Talbot was so well known that his imprecations and gesticulations only strengthened the apprehension which they were meant to allay. Ever since the recall of Clarendon there had been a large emigration of timid and quiet people from the Irish ports to England. That emigration now went on faster than ever. It was not easy to obtain a passage on board of a well built or commodious vessel. But many persons, made bold by the excess of fear, and choosing rather to trust the winds and waves than ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... conclusion I arrive at, as to me the most probable, may either be reinforced, or another substituted for it. Be this as it may, such points as I have discussed, relating to such men as Newton, will not remain in abeyance for ever, let biographers be as timid as they will. ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 210, November 5, 1853 • Various
... a nice taxi on the rank at the bottom of the hill. The driver, a pleasant-looking young man in a white cap, seemed to have been waiting for her in particular; he met her timid invitation halfway and came across the road to her and jumped down and opened the door. He took her instructions as though they were after his own heart, and right in front of her as she sat was a kind of tin cornucopia full of artificial flowers ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... ever think of me as I was at Dunfield?' she asked presently, with timid utterance, hardly above her breath, risking what she had ...
— A Life's Morning • George Gissing
... in clean, orderly inmates, the dirty, ragged, quarrelling, scratching, screaming children of the back-streets, which, however, they were only a short time ago. All is changed: the miserable hut, the narrow street, and muddy lane, for a pretty room full of pleasant objects; the timid look and distrustful scowl, for sunny cheerfulness and open confidence. There is no unkind distinction among the lower classes in this country, and by this I mean the whole of the Austrian states. There being only ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 426 - Volume 17, New Series, February 28, 1852 • Various
... reconciled, or at least pacified, by having presented to her the skin or some of the blood of her dead lamb: whoever has witnessed the difficulty of inducing either ewe or cow to give her milk to an alien young one: whoever has seen the valour of the timid hen in defending her brood, and has observed that she never swallows a morsel that is fit for her young, until they be amply satisfied: whoever has seen the wild birds, though, at other times, shunning even the distant approach of man, ...
— Advice to Young Men • William Cobbett
... and Isabel, and myself. I was then a maiden of sixteen years. When Dame Isabelle's banners floated over the gates of the city, and her trumpets summoned the citizens to surrender, King Edward, who was a timid man, flung himself into the castle for safety, and with him all of us, saving my grandfather, and my Lord of Arundel, who ...
— The Well in the Desert - An Old Legend of the House of Arundel • Emily Sarah Holt
... of wars, revolutions, rebellions, skirmishes, and pronunciamentos, that newspapers have recorded during the last ten or twelve years, with an occasional particularly bloody and barbarous execution by way of interlude, have certainly not been calculated to reassure timid travellers; nor can we well wonder that, at the mere mention of an excursion beyond the Pyrenees, tourists are seized with a vertigo; and that visions, not only of rancid gaspachos and vermin-haunted couches, but ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 57, No. 352, February 1845 • Various
... long rough tongue athwart his skin gave him an agreeable sensation, awakened a strange deep sense of comradeship. He restrained his desire to stroke the creature's nose. It appeared that they now all wished to taste his neck; but some were timid, and the touch of their tongues simply a tickle, so that he was compelled to laugh, and at that peculiar sound they withdrew and gazed at him. There seemed to be no one with them; then, at a little distance, quite motionless in the shade of a ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... you'll find it very uninteresting, for I am going to visit some poor cottages," persisted Miss Amelyn, with a certain timid ingenuousness of manner which, however, was as distinct as Miss Desborough's bolder frankness. "I promised the rector's daughter to ...
— Stories in Light and Shadow • Bret Harte
... nothing happened, the timid ones aboard began to take more courage. Tom never for a moment lost heart. He knew what his craft could do, and he had taken her up in a terrific storm with a definite purpose in view. He was the calmest person aboard, with the ...
— Tom Swift and his Aerial Warship - or, The Naval Terror of the Seas • Victor Appleton
... head and hands, and carried them to Antony, whose wife, Julia, gloated with inhuman delight upon the pallid features, and in petty spite pierced with a needle the once eloquent tongue. Cicero had numerous faults; he was vain, vacillating, inconstant, timid, and the victim of morbid sensibility; but he was candid, truthful, just, generous, pure-minded, and warm-hearted. Gentle, sympathizing, and affectionate, he lived as a patriot and died ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... principle has many advocates among scientific men in our day, and some suppose the whole philosophy of homeopathy rests on the primal principle which Hippocrates advanced. He had great skill in diagnosis, by which medical genius is most severely tested. His practice was cautious and timid in contrast with that of his contemporaries. He is the author of the celebrated maxim, "Life is short and art is long." He divides the causes of disease into two principal classes,—the one comprehending the influence ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... cautioned him as to the laying down softly and taking up gently of those poor dusty shoes, so that his spirit was quite broken and his nerves were all unstrung when he was pushed into a room full of bright sunshine and of children who laughed at his frightened little face. The sunshine smote his timid eyes, the laughter smote his timid heart, and he turned to flee. But the door was shut, the large boy gone, and despair took him ...
— Little Citizens • Myra Kelly
... heart or voice, for both unite to make it the sweetest, happiest, the welcomest singer that was ever winged, like the high angels of God's love. It is the living ecstacy of joy when it mounts up into its "glorious privacy of light." On the earth it is timid, silent, and bashful, as if not at home, and not sure of its right to be there at all. It is rather homely withal, having nothing in feather, feature, or form, to attract notice. It is seemingly made to be heard, not seen, reversing the old axiom addressed to children when getting ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt
... likely to be timid," he remarked. "They sometimes scream at the wrong time. And if your wife happened to cry out just as I was about to drop on old Spot's back, he might jump. And that ...
— The Tale of Major Monkey • Arthur Scott Bailey
... Strange Man came up behind her while she was walking Homeward in the Dusk, she always gave a Timid Glance behind and Hurried, suspecting that he would Overtake her and seize her by both Wrists and tell her not to Scream. She would reach her own Door and lean against it, almost in a Swoon, and the Strange Man would pass by, ...
— More Fables • George Ade
... nine when the rather fierce-looking father of the girl entered the parlor where the timid lover was courting her. The father had his ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers
... He was so cold and determined that for a moment Maggie was timid. But she then laid ...
— The Moorland Cottage • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... specialists do, that from their formula there can be no deviation; because, as no two minds are constituted alike, so they cannot be affected alike. While one will yield by intense will exerted through my eyes, another may, by the same means, become fretful, timid, nervous, and more wakeful than he was before. The same rule applies to gesture, tones of the voice, and mesmeric passes. That which has a soothing and lulling effect on one, may have an opposite effect on another. There can be no unvarying rule applicable to all patients. The ...
— Complete Hypnotism: Mesmerism, Mind-Reading and Spiritualism • A. Alpheus
... bestow a fragmentary glance at any time on the refractory, for, almost at one and the same moment he had to check the impetuous, hold up a warning hand to the unruly, rescue a runaway child from innumerable horse-legs, pilot a stout but timid lady from what we may call refuge-island, in the middle of the roadway, to the pavement, answer an imbecile's question as to the whereabouts of the Tower or Saint Paul's, order a loitering cabby to move on, and look out ...
— Dusty Diamonds Cut and Polished - A Tale of City Arab Life and Adventure • R.M. Ballantyne
... character; I will give him a friend who will entirely suit him: then he considers what his friend ought to be, and having determined, he draws his friend. This process may be as quick as lightning when the master is great—one of the sons of the giants; or it may be slow and timid: but the process is always gone through, no touch or form is ever added to another by a good painter without a mental determination and affirmation. But when the hand has got into a habit, leaf No. 1. necessitates leaf No. 2.; ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... species, and considered as seductive, but imperfect beings, and (what may well provoke astonishment) women ultimately look upon themselves in the same light, and almost consider it as a privilege that they are entitled to show themselves futile, feeble, and timid. The women of America claim no ...
— A Treatise on Domestic Economy - For the Use of Young Ladies at Home and at School • Catherine Esther Beecher
... away, and came running. Her hands were inky, and she held a letter. She was no longer the timid little girl of the island, for somehow that escapade had emancipated her. She had waited for a few days in expectation of damnation, but, that failing to materialize, had turned over a leaf in her character, and became such a bully at home ...
— Aladdin O'Brien • Gouverneur Morris
... turned out that he had business at the other end of the town, at the north end, where some trustee lived who had to do with the Orphan Schools, and whom the curate was obliged to see; and Miss Wodehouse gave him a timid invitation to come back to dinner. "But you are not to go home to dress; we shall be quite alone—and you must be so tired," said the elder sister, who for some reason or other was shy of Mr Wentworth, and kept away from him whenever he called. So he went in on his way back, and ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... page, discovered flying from Paris and the law, with his wife, in a carriage. Lost in the dark on a moor, he follows a light, and enters an old lonely house. He is seized by ruffians, locked in, and expects to be murdered, which he knows that he cannot stand, for he is timid by nature. In fact, a ruffian puts a pistol to La Motte's breast with one hand, while with the other he drags along a beautiful girl of eighteen. "Swear that you will convey this girl where I may never see her more," ...
— Adventures among Books • Andrew Lang
... over quickly toward her, hat in hand. She was a mere slip of a girl, rather comely, I thought, with small childish features and a half-timid, half-bold look in her eyes. I could not remember having ...
— The Friendly Road - New Adventures in Contentment • (AKA David Grayson) Ray Stannard Baker
... Chancellor of the Exchequer was prepared to carry it out to the full. He was willing to carry it out to the full were he not restrained by the timidity, falsehood, and treachery of his colleagues, of whom, of course, the most timid, the most false, and the most treacherous was—the great god Jove, who sat blandly smiling on the ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... sun rose above the hills, and the short-lived day drew towards its close; still Frank did not return, and the poor child who watched so anxiously for him, after many short and timid wanderings towards the margin of the lake, returned to the igloo with a heart fluttering from mingled anxiety and terror. Throwing herself on the deerskin couch, she burst into a flood of tears. As she lay there, ...
— Ungava • R.M. Ballantyne
... own souls, the authorised exponents of morality play a secondary and for the most part a sorry part. The old Pope mournfully reflects that his seven years' tillage of the garden of the Church has issued only in the "timid leaf and the uncertain bud," while the perfect flower, Pompilia, has sprung up by the wayside 'neath the foot of the enemy, "a ...
— Robert Browning • C. H. Herford
... was a young woman in the garb of a peasant, but with something about her not belonging to the peasant. To the first glance she was more like a superior servant out for a holiday, but a second glance was bewildering. She stopped with a half timid but quiet look, then dropped ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... flew, scarcely touching the ground. The mile-stones looked like little timid beasts that vanished at our approach. Suddenly, at a turn of the road, we saw a vortex of smoke. It was the Northern Express. For a kilometre, it was a struggle, side by side, but an unequal struggle in which the issue was certain. We won the ...
— The Extraordinary Adventures of Arsene Lupin, Gentleman-Burglar • Maurice Leblanc
... just what were wanting to inspire me with some self-respect. Otherwise I should have so easily believed in my own nullity and in the insignificance of all my efforts. Success is necessary for the timid, praise is a moral stimulus, and admiration a strengthening elixir. We think we know ourselves, but as long as we are ignorant of our comparative value, our place in the social assessment, we do not know ourselves well enough. If we are to act with effect, we must ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the 1200 legionaries aroused private fears in the hearts of the more timid inhabitants, but Garibaldi knew how to keep his wild followers in hand, and gallant was the service ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... though he was, he had not been "spoilt" in the ordinary sense of the word. Mrs. Tudor, though gentle, and in some ways timid, was not a weak or silly woman. She had brought up her children on certain broad rules of "must," as to which she was as firm as a rock, and these had succeeded so well with the girls that it was a complete surprise as well as the greatest of sorrows to her when she first began ...
— Great Uncle Hoot-Toot • Mrs. Molesworth
... showing any signs of weariness, but he was plainly husbanding his strength. The sixth bout was tame—seldom had the Amphitheatre displayed so mild a set to. The heavy-armed man had seen Almo dispose of five like himself, he was timid; Almo was not timid, but he was cautious. The result was a tedious exhibition of fencing for position, each sword monotonously caught on the other shield. At the end Almo slashed his opponent's wrist, ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White
... course."[4268]—"The best and most virtuous men see in this the beginning of a new era of happiness for France and for the whole civilized world. The ambitious rejoice in the broad field open to their desires. But it would have been impossible to find the most morose, the most timid, the most enthusiastic of men anticipating any one of the extraordinary events towards which the assembled states ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... this after he had overheard a man in the smoking compartment complaining about his inability to obtain the reservation of a berth at Chicago. There was nothing timid about Marty Day. He immediately marched up to the man and drove a bargain with him worthy of Uncle ...
— The Mission of Janice Day • Helen Beecher Long
... made his calm presence felt. The children cried, indeed, and a few of the women shrieked aloud; but the men passengers and crew alike, bestirred themselves to collect necessary articles, to reassure the timid, and to make ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... Bellasys objected, with a timid obstinacy; "I can not argue with you; but I am sure it was ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... laid his hands upon her shoulders. At his look and touch her throat swelled, her bosom heaved, and the silken lids fluttered until she seemed choked by a very flood of sweet womanliness. She blushed like a little maid and laughed a timid, broken laugh; then pulling herself together, the merry, careless tone came into her voice and her ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach
... London for balm upon their wounds. The flattery of attentions had never been hers, nor the high credit of admiration so respectful as the good merchant's. He esteemed her the fairest and holiest of women, was as timid as a boy in her company, gasped like a fish and grew unmannerly hot; but I defy a young woman to be anything but gratified. Miranda shunned Caliban; but had she not rather he had been ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett
... mother, one morning"—I quote the anecdote from a newspaper[B] which came to hand while I was writing this chapter—"gave her two little ones books and toys to amuse them, while she went to attend to some work in an upper room. Half an hour passed quietly, and then a timid voice at the foot of ...
— Gentle Measures in the Management and Training of the Young • Jacob Abbott
... explained. From the behavior of the individual as a whole we may well conclude that summation is but a scientific expression for "nagging." Many other pathologic phenomena may be explained in a similar manner. Thus we can understand the variations in the gastric analyses in a timid patient alarmed over his condition and afraid of the hospital. He is integrated by fear, and as fear takes precedence over all other impulses, no organ functionates normally. For the same reason, one sees animals ...
— The Origin and Nature of Emotions • George W. Crile
... northwards, we meet, where the lichen-covered land projects into the frozen ocean, with the diminutive Laps, squat, ungraceful, with their flat features surmounted by pyramidal skulls of small capacity, and, as a race, unfitted for the arts either of peace or war. We meet also with the timid Namollas, with noses so flat as to be scarce visible in the women and children of the race; and with the swarthy Kamtschatkans, with their broad faces, protuberant bellies, and thin, ill-formed legs. Passing southwards, we come to the negro tribes, ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller
... in the room when I received the information respecting him and his anti-slavery character, she thought of course he was a quadroon like herself. But on arriving at the house, and finding out her mistake, she became more nervous and timid than ever. ...
— Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom • William and Ellen Craft
... third floor, accompanied by Monsieur de Cypierre, his governor. This young prince, destined before the end of the year to reign under the title of Charles IX., was only ten years old and extremely timid. The Duc d'Anjou and the Duc d'Alencon, his younger brothers, also the Princesse Marguerite, afterwards the wife of Henri IV. (la Reine Margot), were too young to come to court, and were therefore kept by their mother in ...
— Catherine de' Medici • Honore de Balzac
... taken to 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
... the afflicted, light to the blind, bread to the starving, life to the dying, and all this work continues. And its work for science, too, has been great. It has fostered science often and developed it. It has given great minds to it, and but for the fears of the timid its record in this respect would have been as great as in the other. Unfortunately, religious men started centuries ago with the idea that purely scientific investigation is unsafe—that theology must intervene. So began this ...
— Scientific American, Vol.22, No. 1, January 1, 1870 • Various
... all I've got in my head. And I'm not revolutionary, I'm for stability. Only I do see, that the firm stepping-place asks for a long stride to be taken. One can't get the English to take a stride—unless it's for a foot behind them: bother old Colney! Too timid, or too scrupulous, down we go into the mire. There!—But I want to say it! I want to save the existing order. I want, Christianity, instead of the Mammonism we 're threatened with. Great fortunes now are becoming ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... and hid behind the Town Hall, and at night when the people were asleep it went around and ate all the pussy-cats in the town. And then it mewed more than ever. And on the Saturday morning, when people were a little timid about going out, because the Dragon had no regular hour for calling, the Manticora went up and down the streets and drank all the milk that was left in the cans at the doors for people's teas, and it ...
— The Book of Dragons • Edith Nesbit
... Theodo'sius had assembled, and in obedience to the requisition, he marched towards Constantinople, at the head of the Gothic legions. The approach of his great rival with a powerful army alarmed the timid Rufi'nus; he obtained a peremptory edict from Arca'dius, commanding Stil'icho to return to Italy, and the promptitude with which the order was obeyed lulled the Eastern minister into fatal negligence. The troops arrived near Constantinople, under the guidance of Gai'nas a Gothic ...
— Pinnock's Improved Edition of Dr. Goldsmith's History of Rome • Oliver Goldsmith
... who had viewed her flights with admiration as he helped the timid and awkward tyros of the company, swung into step ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... be a little timid at first, but she soon gets over that, finding that these big, bearded men are a good deal more timid of her. Some of them actually colour up when she looks at them. She discovers that she is a wit; her ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay
... there," he said, in a timid, deprecating way. "I wanted to speak to you, if you could spare me a half-hour. This cottage is mine. I share it with Harrington of King's. Come in and ...
— Round the Red Lamp - Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life • Arthur Conan Doyle
... told her so much about you. To get her to come, I had to drive all the way home to-day. But it is worth it, even if I did have to get up before the sun did. She is the very best mother in all the world," said the boy, and he squeezed the arm of the timid little lady. ...
— Fireside Stories for Girls in Their Teens • Margaret White Eggleston
... talking about. She understands, because she is a girl, perhaps. Women have that faculty born in them. Banners and flags, and bands playing patriotic airs, and the feeling that the world is watching, have an inspiring effect on the most timid of men. Who told you that a soldier was never afraid, young sir? Whoever it was did not know what he was talking about. Yes, I have been afraid, deadly afraid, many times over, and no man dared to call Terence Digby a coward. To camp with a handful of men among the great lonely mountains, ...
— Betty Trevor • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey
... with God. When she was only a timid girl, helping her mother in the household, she continually sought after Him; and when, in later years, she became known by multitudes, and was written of in the newspapers, and greatly beloved by the ...
— Catherine Booth - A Sketch • Colonel Mildred Duff
... watch, when Harpstenah was called by her mother to assist her. The father's morning meal was prepared early, for he was going out to hunt. Wild duck, pigeons, and snipe, could be had in abundance; the timid grouse, too, could be roused up on the prairies. Larger game was there, too, for the deer flew swiftly past, and had even stopped to drink on the opposite ...
— Dahcotah - Life and Legends of the Sioux Around Fort Snelling • Mary Eastman
... did not seem to feel it, and she steadfastly refused all Fisher's timid advances. Farther away than ever he felt her to-day, and yet she had never looked so ...
— The Moving Finger • Mary Gaunt
... distinguished lawyer who had a witness upon the stand. He was endeavoring to locate the surroundings of a building in which an accident occurred, and he had put a female witness on the stand. "Now the location of the door: please give it," and she gave it in a timid way. "Will you now kindly give the location of the hall in which the accident occurred?" She gave it. "Now," he says, "we have arrived at the stairs; will you kindly tell me which way the stairs run?" She became ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... occurs from the slow decay of seasoned bloodwood, that if summary measures had not been taken the trough might have been embowered. The season seems to have been too damp for the night-jars, though quite to the taste of all species of pigeons. In the course of a few minutes the voice of the timid, tremulous, barred-shouldered dove came from among the yellow-flowered hibiscus of the beach, while the pheasant-tailed pigeon sounded its rich, dual note, the red-crowned fruit pigeon tolled its mournful chime, and the guttural of the magnificent fruit pigeon—often heard, ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... wilder, bigger beasts. That same day he made the long journey a second time, bringing the bear his dinner, with a comb of wild honey which the Hermit had found on the way home. And he had the joy of seeing the creature act no longer like an enemy, but like a timid friend. ...
— John of the Woods • Abbie Farwell Brown
... man clings servilely to the old ready-made opinions which he finds, because he is afraid of being called rash and radical; another rejects the traditions of his people from fear of being thought fearful, and timid, and a slave. The results are very different: one is the tame conservative and the other is the fiery iconoclast; but I beg you to see that the cause in both cases is the same. Both are cowards. Both are equally removed ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... wardrobe about with you," said the professor, "though it is rather curious taste to put them with vegetables. But here is something else," and the magician produced a small kitten, who regarded the audience with startled eyes and uttered a timid moan. ...
— The Store Boy • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... the chaste MIMOSA stands, From each rude touch withdraws her timid hands; Oft as light clouds o'er-pass the Summer-glade, Alarm'd she trembles at the moving shade; 305 And feels, alive through all her tender form, The whisper'd murmurs of the gathering storm; Shuts her sweet eye-lids ...
— The Botanic Garden. Part II. - Containing The Loves of the Plants. A Poem. - With Philosophical Notes. • Erasmus Darwin
... sovereign majority, which he is apparently so anxious to invoke, would, he says, be practically much less formidable in their action than timid persons might anticipate. And why should they be less formidable? "Because," says "X," "although each man, by reason of his manhood alone, has an equal voice with every other man in making the laws governing their common country, and regulating the distribution ...
— A Critical Examination of Socialism • William Hurrell Mallock
... is not shared by all; and when the breathless queen has reached the alighting-board, some groups will form and accompany her into the hive; where the sun, hero of every festivity in which the bees take part, is entering with little timid steps, and bathing in azure and shadow the waxen walls and curtains of honey. Nor does the new bride, indeed, show more concern than her people, there being not room for many emotions in her narrow, barbarous, practical brain. She has but one thought, which is to ...
— The Life of the Bee • Maurice Maeterlinck
... what sense is Jesus Christ to be feared? In the very sense in which his disciples feared him. But this was not in the sense of being timid or fearful of his presence. On the contrary, they desired to be with him and near him, for they felt secure in his presence. They could take hold of his hands and see the nail prints, and the spear mark in his side. John leaned on his breast at table, and the women took hold ...
— Life and Labors of Elder John Kline, the Martyr Missionary - Collated from his Diary by Benjamin Funk • John Kline
... His attention should then be turned to the emotions which it expresses. Let it be remembered that the paramount object should be to make the pupil understand the meaning and feel the spirit of the piece. If he is timid and diffident he should be encouraged. Tell him that even Daniel Webster could not make a declamation at the first attempt; but that he did not despair; he did not cease his ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... exclaimed. As he stood, with bent head and grave looks, he was the typical Jew of the Ghetto; crafty, timid, watchful, cynical, cruel; his grizzled hair, close-clipped, crisp, and curly; his face pensive, and yellow ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... Ramon Culvera. Nobody ever claimed there is any yellow in you. Your father was a gentleman and so is his son. You fight with men and not with timid girls. You wouldn't do this girl dirt because she is alone and has no friends near. Think of your own ...
— Steve Yeager • William MacLeod Raine
... she was in the south-west. Her course must, therefore, have been about northeast, as nearly as possible, directly before the wind; and whatever old Vlacco might have said to the contrary, she must have been steered by no timid or ignorant hands. ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... it!" Grace charged the girl who was too timid to interview Maid Mary. "We are going to find her house. And she's just wonderful." This last was pronounced with that effusion peculiar to the modern use of the word "wonderful." Nothing could possibly be more or at ...
— The Girl Scouts at Bellaire - Or Maid Mary's Awakening • Lilian C. McNamara Garis
... had the artfulness and the mean ambition of his class; but he was wholly free from the disgusting swagger and noisy bravado of his fraternity. There was an easy air of independence about him; a calm self-possession, and a sternness of glance, which might well daunt hearts less timid than those of poor slaves, accustomed from childhood and through life to cower before a driver's lash. The home plantation of Col. Lloyd afforded an ample field for the exercise of the qualifications for overseership, which he possessed in such ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass
... equal; or of the wilderness that blossomed like the rose, at the word of the Lord; to collect in his own hands at Christmas as much holly as his puny strength could carry, and add it to the shining heap already standing at the cathedral door; to follow it in, with timid steps, and watch with wondering eyes, the adorning of the altar, the pulpit, the stalls, and the pews; to observe with childish glee two tall branches, all glowing with their coral berries, placed by the bench where he knelt in church with ...
— Ellen Middleton—A Tale • Georgiana Fullerton
... IV., anxious to distinguish himself in a war with England, acknowledged him as the Duke of York, and found him a wife of noble birth, Lady Catherine Gordon. It was probably in order to rally even the most timid around him, in face of such a danger, that Henry obtained the consent of Parliament to an act declaring that no one supporting a king in actual possession of the crown could be subjected to the penalty of treason in the ...
— A Student's History of England, v. 1 (of 3) - From the earliest times to the Death of King Edward VII • Samuel Rawson Gardiner
... and completeness of his acceptance by the great ones of London rather overwhelmed and frightened him made him timid. Joaquin Miller writes: ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... entire dependence on a stranger, which, no doubt, helped to quell her spirit. But Mr Whittlestaff had eyes with which to see and ears with which to hear, and was not to be taken in by the outward appearance of the young lady. He had perceived that under that quiet guise and timid startled look there existed a power of fighting a battle for herself or for a friend, if an occasion should arise which should appear to herself to be sufficient. He had known her as one of her father's household, and of her step-mother's; and had seen probably some little instance of ...
— An Old Man's Love • Anthony Trollope
... Majesty does not use this power," De Froilette went on. "He may be timid, he may lack ambition, we will speak no treachery; but in times past there have been ambitious monarchs, and still little has happened. Why? Because, monsieur, recognizing that this country is one of the chief factors in preserving the peace of Europe, the nations have sent the ablest men they ...
— Princess Maritza • Percy Brebner
... passed through Kitty when she heard this. A real elopement with a handsome lover—just like the heroines in the story books. It was delightfully romantic, and yet there seemed to be something wrong about it. She was like a timid bather, longing to plunge into the water, yet hesitating through a vague fear. With a quick catching of the breath she turned to Vandeloup, and saw him with his burning scintillating eyes fastened on ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume
... Goldsmith. "Nay, but, my dear sir," rejoined Johnson, "why should you not see what every one else does?" "It is," replied Goldsmith, "for fear of something that he has resolved to kill himself; and will not that timid disposition restrain him?" "It does not signify," pursued Johnson, "that the fear of something made him resolve; it is upon the state of his mind, after the resolution is taken, that I argue. Suppose a man, either from fear, or pride, or conscience, or whatever ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... of this book has been with the approval of some of the best thinkers on the temperance question, and we doubt not that its careful perusal by all who read it will prove a stimulus in connection with the cause of temperance, and if they are timid or hesitating will cause them to become decisive in the noble work for humanity. It is a well-known fact that the grand old County of Brome is one of the banner counties in every thing which is helpful to the cause of morality, and we hereby offer a fraternal ...
— The Story of a Dark Plot - or Tyranny on the Frontier • A.L.O. C. and W.W. Smith
... might; but the moderate are not usually the most sincere, for the same circumspection which makes them moderate makes them likewise retentive of what could give offence: they are also timid in regard to fortune and favour, and hazard little. There is no mass of sincerity in any place. What there is must be picked up patiently, a grain or two at a time; and the season for it is after a storm, after the overflowing of banks, ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... I didn't act rash at all, sir, because I'm by nature a timid man," continued the Sergeant, who was a valiant man, and free. "I went to a palmist and paid him a dollar for my horrorscope. I told him I wanted a little woman, about my size, who would follow me around like a poodle dog. The palmist, he said, sir, he seen a little woman in my ...
— Betty at Fort Blizzard • Molly Elliot Seawell
... received in war. The visit was returned by them. 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 ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... that a narrative which had good authority in our ancient superstitions, and would have brought even a church deacon to Gallows Hill, in old witch times, should now be considered too grotesque and extravagant for timid maids to tremble at. Though it was past supper time, I detained them a while longer on the hill, and made a trial whether truth were more ...
— Sketches and Studies • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... stranger abruptly rose to his feet and towered up before her to the formidable height of six feet four or five, she could no longer master her mirth, but burst out into a most vehement fit of laughter. He stood calm and silent, and looked at her with a timid but strangely bitter smile. He was so very different from any man she had ever seen before; therefore she laughed, not necessarily because he amused her, but because his whole person was a surprise to her; and there he stood, tall and gaunt and timid, and said not a word, only ...
— Tales From Two Hemispheres • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... markers, are ample evidence of the existence of a virtual intention quite sufficient for the valid recitation of the office. St. Alphonsus writes, "Imo puto semper adesse exercite, intentionem actualem implendi officium" (n. 176). This question of intention gives great trouble to the timid and scrupulous, whose doubts and difficulties seem hard to solve. The common sense and common practice in everyday affairs seem to desert some people when they prepare to read the canonical hours. For, who has not seen the nervous, pious, anxious ...
— The Divine Office • Rev. E. J. Quigley
... fixed fact, invulnerable, backed up by wealth, talent, pride and political influence, and all opposition is vain. You Abolitionists are mere sentimentalists, visionaries, doctrinaires." This had great influence with the indifferent, the timid, and especially with those who vaunt themselves as "practical men," who boast that they care nothing for abstractions, but take business views of things. This plea and these men were largely influential in carrying forward some of ...
— American Missionary, Volume 43, No. 10, October, 1889 • Various
... it lifts any remonstrance in the caucus or the counting-room, why, like a shrewd man, laugh it out of countenance. What has our skeptic to do with the future world or with spiritual relations? Keep bugbears to frighten more timid and credulous persons. But only see how he uses the world, and plays his scheme, and foils his adversary and twists and bends his plastic morality, all because he is not troubled with scruples, and has no faith ...
— The Crown of Thorns - A Token for the Sorrowing • E. H. Chapin
... in which she beheld the sun that dispensed life and light. She had learned this, for he had often met her in Frau Sophia's house since his father's funeral. The child of the highway had never been taught to conceal her feelings and maintain timid reserve. Her eyes had told him eloquently enough, first her deep sympathy, and afterward the emotions which so passionately stirred her heart. Had the feelings which her glances were intended to reveal passed merely for the ardent gratitude of an ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... about. Mr. Crawley should not leave the house without refreshment. As to this, she carried her point; and Mr. Crawley—when the matter before him was cold roast-beef and hot potatoes, instead of the relative position of a parish priest and his parishioner—became humble, submissive, and almost timid. Lady Lufton recommended Madeira instead of sherry, and Mr. Crawley obeyed at once, and was, indeed, perfectly unconscious of the difference. Then there was a basket of seakale in the gig for Mrs. Crawley; that he would have left ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... of the Gaslight and Coke Company, Mr. George Livesey said many things with a view to inspire confidence of the future in the minds of timid gas proprietors. Among others he mentioned the advances now being made by invention in regard to improved appliances for developing the illuminating power of coal gas, with especial reference to a new burner just patented by Mr. Grimston. Mr. Livesey passed a very high encomium upon the burner, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 362, December 9, 1882 • Various
... the Burschenschaft, and prompted him to write and publish in his student paper a defense of Menzel against his critics. This led Menzel to invite Gutzkow to Stuttgart and to propose a cooeperation which could be but short-lived; for Menzel was timid and vacillating, whereas Gutzkow was sincere, courageous, and consistent. This steadfastness and singleness of purpose, combined with a remarkable power to appreciate, adopt, and express the leading thoughts and aspirations of his own time, make Gutzkow the most efficient leader of the whole ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... strangers to us, and whose trustworthiness we have never seen tried. But no possible good, but incalculable evil may and does arise from the too common practice of placing all conduct, the source of which we do not fully understand, to the worst of intentions. How often is the gentle, timid soul discouraged, and driven perhaps to despondency, by finding its 'good evil spoken of;' and a well-meant but mistaken action loaded with ...
— The Narrative of Sojourner Truth • Sojourner Truth
... contact with the enemy. To see the whites of their eyes is not sufficient; they must ride over the foe. In the rapid charge the carbine is not only useless, but a positive incumbrance. The saber is comparatively harmless; it serves to frighten the timid, but rarely ever deals a death-wound. Let two men encounter each other in the charge, one relying upon his pistol, the other upon his saber, and the former, though an ordinary marksman, will almost invariably ...
— Famous Adventures And Prison Escapes of the Civil War • Various
... would enjoy a sudden sunset—we want the clouds of gold that float in the azure sea. No one would enjoy a sudden sunrise—we are in love with the morning star, with the dawn that modestly heralds the day and draws aside, with timid hands, the curtains of the night. In other words, we want sequence, proportion, ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll
... to disturb us," Sweyn said scornfully; "of all the foes we have ever met none were so feeble and timid ...
— The Dragon and the Raven - or, The Days of King Alfred • G. A. Henty
... else—Mr. Slater, I think it was—thought fit to put in a defence, and thereupon a dispute arose as to why men bought first editions dear when they could buy last editions cheap. Brutal, domineering fellows bellowed their complete indifference to Shakespeare's Quartos till timid dilettanti turned pale ...
— In the Name of the Bodleian and Other Essays • Augustine Birrell
... unshaken, Though others may deceive; To give with willing pleasure, Or still with joy receive; To bring the mourner comfort, To wipe sad tears away; To help the timid doubter— This is my ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various
... direction which she expected to receive immediately on entering the room, perceived these preparations, she looked with curiosity, if not with uneasiness, at the two princesses. Anne seemed full of thought, while Madame maintained an affectation of indifference that would have alarmed a less timid ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere |
