"Timorous" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... General, profiting by the precepts of his erstwhile companions in arms, had never soiled his military escutcheon by labor, nor had he ever risen to the higher planes of criminality. Rather as a mediocre pickpocket and a timorous confidence man had he eked out a meager existence, amply punctuated by seasons of straight bumming and intervals spent as the guest of various inhospitably hospitable states. Now, for the first time in his life, The General ...
— The Oakdale Affair • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... the fact, we think they are quite right. No doubt the best course of action is not to fight; but if a man does find it necessary to do so, surely the wisest plan is to get it over at once (as the dentist suggested to his timorous patient), and to do it in the ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... the Carthaginians with the idea that Fabius was approaching. When for this reason they retired he thought that he had vanquished them and sent messages to Rome magnifying his exploit and also slandering the dictator; he called Fabius timorous and hesitating and ...
— Dio's Rome, Volume 1 (of 6) • Cassius Dio
... setting common law at defiance, at another he is twisting the law to the purposes of corruption, and taking refuge behind the forms which he is expressly charged with heroically setting at defiance. Had Lord Mansfield been less timorous, Junius might have been less daring. At the close of one of his letters the reckless assailant writes "Beware how you indulge the first emotions of your resentment. This paper is delivered to the world, and cannot be ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... and continued as a man bereft of reason. He told me he had not often received letters from her during his absence, but that he knew her too well to be surprised at it, and was sensible how shy and timorous she was of writing; he made no doubt but she would have married him upon his return; he considered her as the most amiable and constant of her sex; he thought himself tenderly beloved by her; he lost her the moment he expected to be united to her ...
— The Princess of Cleves • Madame de La Fayette
... dim wood's lustrous child, Though born amid a race of uncouth men, And gentle as the fawn, which, through the wild, Trembled with timorous haste, and fled, and when She stood within the rude and silent glen, Of deepest forests, she appear'd more bright, Than other nymphs who roamed these regions then, And now—for o'er her form and sylph-like waist, A native modesty entranced ...
— Lays of Ancient Virginia, and Other Poems • James Avis Bartley
... reckoned rather timorous than bold to any excess. In prison, he said he was naturally inclined to fear in his temper, but desired those about him as he could not but do, to observe that the Lord had heard his prayer, and removed all fear from him, &c. At his own desire his lady took her leave of ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... hopping o'er the floor, Eyes all the smiling family askance, And pecks, and starts, and wonders where he is— Till more familiar grown, the table-crumbs Attract his slender feet. The foodless wilds Pour forth their brown inhabitants. The hare, Though timorous of heart and hard beset By death in various forms, dark snares, and dogs, And more unpitying men, the garden seeks Urged on by fearless want. The bleating kind Eye the bleak heaven, and next the glistening earth, With looks of ...
— The Age of Pope - (1700-1744) • John Dennis
... unless, perhaps, under very strong provocation. I mean the feelings, not the bodies. As against spears, knives, hatchets, clubs, or arrows, old Nelson had proved himself capable of taking his own part. In every other respect he had a timorous soul. So he sat on the back verandah with a concerned expression, and whenever the voices of his daughter and Jasper Allen reached him, he would blow out his cheeks and let the air escape with a dismal sound, like a ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad
... song it was, Counting of many unseen stars In an intangible sky Making new milky ways— Silver-shadow-paths that lead From sapphire abysses Into deeper abysses still. The deeps of our souls Lit by passion's burning flowers Tremulous, timorous flames of silver, That with thousand hands Our hearts sought to pluck and scatter, Or make barbed garlands For love's nuptial hour. Nuptial hour, briefer than a moment, Longer than Heaven's Eternal summer, When each flower burns to soothe, And each soothing petal burns anew; ...
— Sandhya - Songs of Twilight • Dhan Gopal Mukerji
... the minutes passed, her timorous gaze continued steadfastly on the stern countenance before her. She dully expected something terrible to happen when Ed Sorenson appeared, for she knew Ed would be angry; but she had been powerless to prevent the intrusion of this ...
— In the Shadow of the Hills • George C. Shedd
... her shriveled hand it would seem she held the very sapling which for the last time she had plucked from the bonny woods which had so long waved above her bit shealing, until driven thence by the timorous and weak-minded laird. With this she again touched me, and in a half inviting, ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848 • Various
... mob is always rash, timorous, and inactive. On the approach of Civilis they hurriedly snatched up their arms, and then immediately dropped them and took to flight. Misfortune now bred disunion, and the army of the Upper Rhine[327] dissociated itself from the rest. However, they set up the statues ...
— Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II • Caius Cornelius Tacitus
... shells, and coral. But to return to our subject. I have left the repository of our English kings for the contemplation of another day, when I shall find my mind disposed for so serious an amusement. I know that entertainments of this nature are apt to raise dark and dismal thoughts in timorous minds, and gloomy imaginations; but, for my own part, though I am always serious, I do not know what it is to be melancholy; and can therefore take a view of nature in her deep and solemn scenes, with the same pleasure as in her most gay and delightful ones. By this means I can improve myself ...
— On the Portraits of English Authors on Gardening, • Samuel Felton
... crossed the stile, when, he heard hasty but timorous feet behind him. He turned and saw his ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... sound continued to re-echo through the island, while the warm sun gleamed brightly down on the two terrified inhabitants of the hut; the cowering animals slunk trembling to their holes; and the timorous birds plunged into the sea, or circled far out ...
— Marguerite De Roberval - A Romance of the Days of Jacques Cartier • T. G. Marquis
... England, neurotic from the stress of the last sixty years, became unstable as water. And with the petty reverses of the beginning of the war, the last barriers of shame were broken down; their arrogance was dissipated, and suddenly the English became timorous as a conquered nation, deprecating, apologetic; like frightened women, they ran to and fro, wringing their hands. Reserve, restraint, self-possession, were swept away ... And now we are frankly emotional; reeds tottering in the wind, our boast is that we are not even reeds that think; we cry ...
— The Hero • William Somerset Maugham
... salvos overhead; while all round the horizon we could see sunshine and clear air upon the hills. What with the guns and the thunder, the herds were all frightened in the Golden Valley. We could see them tossing their heads, and running to and fro in timorous indecision; and when they had made up their minds, and the donkey followed the horse, and the cow was after the donkey, we could hear their hooves thundering abroad over the meadows. It had a martial ...
— An Inland Voyage • Robert Louis Stevenson
... to manage the miserable financial affairs of the chaplain, and lacking sufficient care, lacking playmates, lacking stimulation and love, the crippled child could not develop. Remained always dwarfish. He slunk around, pale and dreamy. Intimidated and timorous. Toward evening, bold shadows and horrific noises teemed on the twisty stairs with their grated windows, and in the great gloomy halls and passages. A more robust boy would have ignored such peripheral things, if he had ...
— The Prose of Alfred Lichtenstein • Alfred Lichtenstein
... timorous before; but at this he seemed to lose the power of speech a moment, and stared at me in a perfect enthusiasm ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... is subject to no passion. Strato, that all the passions and senses of the soul are in the rational or commanding part of it, and are not fixed in those places which are affected; for in this place patience takes its residence, and this is apparent in terrible and dolorous things, as also in timorous ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... himself. They read the same books, they went together to the theatre or for walks. He taught her cards and chess, and they played of nights;—she badly,—he, to make himself agreeable, but little less badly. Thus much, as far as external things are concerned. And now came personal intimacies, the timorous eyes of Rita, that so often sought his own, consulting them before they questioned those of her own husband,—the touches of cold hands, and unwonted communion. On one of his birthdays he received from Villela a costly cane, and from Rita, a hastily pencilled, ...
— Brazilian Tales • Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis
... the group. She found herself suddenly on terms of grown up equality with them. Her consciousness of the fact that David was tacitly waiting for her to become a woman, had made a woman of her already, and she looked on her guardians with the eyes of a woman, even though a very newly fledged and timorous one. ...
— Turn About Eleanor • Ethel M. Kelley
... a stillness like death The swamp fowl and timorous quail, Like the leaves in a hurricane's breath, Will start from their nests in the vale; And the forester,* snuffing the air, Will bound from his covert so dark, While we follow along in the rear, As arrows speed on to their mark! Then the swift hounds shall bring ...
— The Poems of Henry Kendall • Henry Kendall
... at first as if this could be but an insidious device for increasing her distress by the assistance of irony. Then reassured, little by little, by Rowland's benevolent visage, she gave him an appealing glance and a timorous "Really?" ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James
... read, the president, a timorous man, who perceived the agency of Robespierre in the advice of Petion, had quietly removed from his head the repudiated bonnet rouge, and the members of the society, one after another, followed his example. Robespierre alone, ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... slippers, always wore green spectacles, and exhibited, whenever he removed his shabby cap of a bygone period, a pointed skull, from the top of which trailed a few dirty filaments which even a poet could scarcely call hair. This man, of wan complexion, seemed timorous, ...
— A Start in Life • Honore de Balzac
... their existence as a class necessitates. All this we have to teach people, when we have taught ourselves; and I admit that the work is long and burdensome; as I began by saying, people have been made so timorous of change by the terror of starvation that even the unluckiest of them are stolid and hard to move. Hard as the work is, however, its reward is not doubtful. The mere fact that a body of men, however small, are banded together as Socialist missionaries shows that ...
— Signs of Change • William Morris
... minister to the caprice and vengeance of his mother, taking all opportunities of disturbing Julia's peace, slandering her reputation, and committing outrages against the tenants and domestics of her husband, who was a man of quiet and timorous disposition. ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... incontinently from the spot. Their fear was natural, for by remaining they might seem to be identifying themselves with a cause that was either lost or lawless. With the tribunes vanished the last trace of legality. The priests closed the temple to keep its precincts from the mob. The more timorous of the crowd fled in wild disorder, spreading wilder rumours. Tiberius was deposing the remaining tribunes from office; he was appointing himself to a further tribunate without the ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... vessel while the boats are pursuing the whale. As a general thing, these ship-keepers are as hardy fellows as the men comprising the boats' crews. But if there happen to be an unduly slender, clumsy, or timorous wight in the ship, that wight is certain to be made a ship-keeper. It was so in the Pequod with the little negro Pippin by nick-name, Pip by abbreviation. Poor Pip! ye have heard of him before; ye must remember his tambourine on that dramatic midnight, ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... people say? She did not care; she was going. She had been womanish and timorous too long; this was the great crisis which would decide her future; she must be worthy of it and of him. But remembering Aunt Maria, she sent a letter by messenger to the hacienda, explaining that pressing business called her to be absent for some weeks, and confessing in a postscript ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... always to be had in plenty, and as cheap as usual, as I said above; and provisions were never wanting in the markets, even to such a degree that I often wondered at it, and reproached myself with being so timorous and cautious in stirring abroad, when the country people came freely and boldly to market, as if there had been no manner of infection in the city, or danger ...
— A Journal of the Plague Year • Daniel Defoe
... with the work of devastation. Awful shapes seemed to flit by, borne on the wings of the tempest, animating and directing its fury. The actual danger was lost sight of in these wild apprehensions; and many timorous beings were scared beyond reason's verge by the excess ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... her then, and that her present quality might accord more with his worldly tastes and experience. It was, therefore, with a kind of timid delight that he saw Stacy apparently enter into her mood, and with a still more timorous amusement to notice that he seemed to sympathize not only with her, but with her half-rallying, half-serious attitude towards his (Barker's) inexperience and simplicity. He was glad that she had made a friend of Stacy, even in this ...
— The Three Partners • Bret Harte
... the downy dowagers nestle on the bough While the timorous voices soften low with dread, And we, walking underneath, little reckon their Mysteries are couching in the ...
— Verses • Susan Coolidge
... prospects a little beyond the horizon of breakfast. But who's afraid? As sailors whistle for a wind, Catalina really had but to whistle for anything with energy, and it was sure to come. Like Caesar to the pilot of Dyrrhachium, she might have said, for the comfort of her poor timorous boat, (though destined soon to perish,) 'Catalinam vehis, et fortunas ejus.' Meantime, being very doubtful as to the best course for sailing, and content if her course did but lie offshore, she 'carried on,' as sailors say, under easy sail, going, in ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... ill-sounding names of oppression and avarice. Oppression is often the CONSEQUENCE, but seldom or never the MEANS of riches; and though avarice will preserve a man from being necessitously poor, it generally makes him too timorous to be wealthy. ...
— Common Sense • Thomas Paine
... of persuading me to your new faith, to bid me beware, on the very first day of your preaching, of the wickedness of those who believe it. I thank you: but your affection for me makes you timorous. I dread nothing. They will not dare. Did they dare now, they would have dared long ago. As for that youth—to obey or to believe his word, even to seem aware of his existence, were shame to me henceforth. Because he is insolent ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... methinks I see her as an eagle mewing her mighty youth, and kindling her undazzled eyes at {29} the full midday beam; purging and unsealing her long abused sight at the fountain itself of heavenly radiance; while the whole noise of timorous and flocking birds, with those also that love the twilight, flutter about, amazed at what she means, and in their envious gabble would prognosticate a ...
— A Book of English Prose - Part II, Arranged for Secondary and High Schools • Percy Lubbock
... some very timorous guests," I observed. "Or, perhaps, you have had experiences here which have tended to alarm you. The house is so large and imposing for the quarter it is in I can readily imagine ...
— The Mayor's Wife • Anna Katharine Green
... the sky above it a square foot of green baize. Nor was his commonplace book neglected; and in August we come upon an entry which shows that poetical aspirations were again possessing him; this time not to be cast forth, either at the timorous voice of Prudence or the importunate bidding of Poverty. Burns has calmly and critically taken stock—so to speak—of his literary aptitudes and abilities, and recognised his fitness for a place in the ranks of Scotland's poets. 'However I am pleased with the works of our Scotch ...
— Robert Burns - Famous Scots Series • Gabriel Setoun
... Paradisal muse, Blind with much light, passed to the light more glorious Or deeper blindness, no man's hand, as thine, Has, on the world's most noblest chord of song, Struck certain magic strains. Ears satiate With the clamorous, timorous whisperings of to-day, Thrilled to perceive once more the spacious voice And serene utterance of old. We heard —With rapturous breath half-held, as a dreamer dreams Who dares not know it dreaming, lest he wake— The odorous, amorous style of poetry, ...
— The Collected Poems of Rupert Brooke • Rupert Brooke
... Numbers, they must be united; If we have Strength, it must be all exerted; If we have Courage it must be inflamed, And every Art and Stratagem be practis'd: We've more to do than fright a Pigeon Roost, Or start a timorous Flock of running Deer; Yes, we've a strong, a warlike stubborn Foe, Unus'd to be repuls'd and quit the Field, Nay, flush'd with Victories and long Success, Their Numbers, Strength, and Courage all renown'd, 'Tis ...
— Ponteach - The Savages of America • Robert Rogers
... near to the top of the hill, two men ran up to meet him, whose names were Timorous and Mistrust, to whom Christian said, Sirs, what ails you? You run the ...
— The Pilgrim's Progress in Words of One Syllable • Mary Godolphin
... their treasures from the shelves. Jack the Giant-killer's gone, Mother Goose and Oberon, Bluebeard and King Solomon. Robin, and Red Riding Hood Take together to the wood, And Sir Galahad lies hid In a cave with Captain Kidd. None of all the magic hosts, None remain but a few ghosts Of timorous heart, to linger on ...
— Fairies and Fusiliers • Robert Graves
... completely overhung by it, don't you see a shadowy, spectral object, something like a bow, which likewise bestrides the chasm? You do! Well, that shadowy, spectral object is the celebrated Devil's Bridge, or, as the timorous peasants of the locality call it, the Pont y Gwr Drwg. It is now merely preserved as an object of curiosity, the bridge above being alone used for transit, and is quite inaccessible except to birds and the climbing wicked boys of the neighbourhood, who sometimes at ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow
... strength, and it was the possession of this strength and the constant call and strain upon it, which gave Turgot in mien and speech a gravity that revolted the frivolous or indifferent, and seemed cold and timorous to the enthusiastic and urgent. Turgot had discovered that there was a law in the history of men, and he knew how this law limited ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3) - Turgot • John Morley
... part of so vilely abused parents are so timorous and afraid of devils and hobgoblins, and so deeply plunged in superstition, that they dare not gainsay nor contradict, much less oppose and resist those unnatural and impious actions, when the mole-catcher hath been present at the perpetrating ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... the reporters tip their chairs against the hair-greased wall, and sharpen their pencils. A few tardy visitors, familiar with the place, tiptoe in through the grimy doors, ducking and winking, and softly lifting and placing their chairs, with a mock-timorous upward glance toward the long, ungainly personage who, under a faded and tattered crimson canopy, fills the august bench of magistracy with its high oaken back. On the right, behind a rude wooden paling that rises ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... absurdest side of that remarkable thing, except Mackenzie's great trouvaille of the press-gang who unanimously melted into tears[390] at the plea of an affectionate father. Marmontel's masterpiece is not so very far removed in subject from this. It represents a good young man, who stirs up the timorous captain and crew of a ship against an Algerine pirate, and in the ensuing engagement, sabre in hand, makes a terrible carnage: "As soon as he sees an African coming on board, he runs to him and cuts him in half, crying, 'My poor mother!'" The filial hero varies this a little, ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... face. Any allusion made to his father by a fellow or by a master put his calm to rout in a moment. He waited in timorous silence to hear what Heron might say next. Heron, however, nudged him expressively with ...
— A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man • James Joyce
... was so timorous that she would grow pale whenever she spoke to any one, and she thought of nothing but the blows with which she was threatened; and she became thinner, more yellow and drier ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... imagination as a companion which led him into excesses, to rebel against his own instinct. Why should he refuse any pleasant temptation that came in his way? Why should he decline to go on the yacht? Was he not a prude, a timorous man to be so afraid for his own safety, not of body, but of mind and soul? Mrs. Shiffney's remarks about Continental artists stuck in his mind. Ought he not to fling off his armor, to descend boldly into the mid-stream of life, to let it take him on ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... Providence had not only provided the first shelters for man against the inclemency of the weather, but had also furnished him with places of secure refuge against the violence of his fellow-man. As sure as the rabbit runs to its hole on the sight of the sportsman, so did the oppressed and timorous when the ...
— Castles and Cave Dwellings of Europe • Sabine Baring-Gould
... Fall blunted from each indurated heart. Some sterner virtues o'er the mountain's breast May sit, like falcons, cow'ring on the nest; But all the gentler morals, such as play 235 Thro' life's more cultured walks, and charm the way, These, far dispersed, on timorous pinions fly, To sport and ...
— Selections from Five English Poets • Various
... came forward. The people are timorous, said they; we must threaten them; they will submit only to force. Soldiers, chastise this ...
— The Ruins • C. F. [Constantin Francois de] Volney
... this away, as it not only threatened to burn my hand but left the eyes unable to pierce the surrounding wall of darkness. In the silence of the night there came to mind the assertion of by no means our most timorous engineer, that he never passed over this trail after dark without carrying his revolver cocked in his hand. My fellow countrymen of the region all wore huge "six-shooters" with a large belt of cartridges always in sight, less for use than the salutary effect of having them visible, ...
— Tramping Through Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras - Being the Random Notes of an Incurable Vagabond • Harry A. Franck
... boys were somewhat abashed. It was a little embarrassing for them to find that their boastful, taunting rhymes had been directed against a poor timorous "young one," and a girl at that; but it was exasperating, too, for they had expected to see a comrade of ...
— Lisbeth Longfrock • Hans Aanrud
... that was raging all around. The malady partook of the constitutional languor of the patient. The general corruption, mitigated by his calm and unadventurous temperament, showed itself in omissions and desertions, not in positive crimes; and his inactivity, though sometimes timorous and selfish, becomes respectable when compared with the malevolent and perfidious restlessness of Shaftesbury ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... infection of our mental strife, Which, though it gives no bliss, yet spoils for rest; And we should win thee from thy own fair life, Like us distracted, and like us unblest. Soon, soon thy cheer would die, Thy hopes grow timorous, and unfix'd thy powers, And thy clear aims be cross and shifting made; And then thy glad perennial youth would fade, Fade, and grow old at last, ...
— Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... for the tinder-box, which lay within, handy for emergencies; found it, and kneeling on the grass-plot beside the mast, struck flint upon steel. As he blew upon the tinder and the faint glow lit up his face and nightcap, a timorous exclamation quavered down from one of the ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... creature was thirty-seven! But she was! Indeed, it was very doubtful if she would ever see thirty-eight again. Once he had had the most romantic feelings about her. He could recall the slim flexibility of her waist, the timorous melting invitation of her eyes. And now ... ...
— The Regent • E. Arnold Bennett
... Cambridge was Thomas Cranmer, a learned and amiable divine with marked leanings towards the New Learning; who in his early graduate days had fallen under the influence of the teaching at Cambridge of Erasmus; in scholarship subtle and erudite, in affairs guileless and easily swayed; timorous by nature, but capable of outbreaks of audacity as timid persons often are: a gentle and lovable man, but lacking in that robust self-confidence needed by one who would take a resolutely independent line; a man intended to be a student and forced by an unkind fate to assume the role ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes
... With a military education and military environments, he could not understand, and could not calmly brook, the cautious conservatism of the civilian, which would often temporize when swift, determined action seemed necessary, and which was often boastful at home, and timorous in the field. Able in action, fierce in assault, unerring in judgment, watchful in detail; with a sagacity and foresight that amounted almost to genius, and a memory that was marvellous, General Sherman was a great military ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 2 of 8 • Various
... And when the timorous trout I wait To take, and he devours my bait. How poor a thing, sometimes I find, Will captivate a greedy mind; And when none bite, I praise the wise, Whom vain allurements ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... of secularism or materialism in social disintegration, in the voluntary sterility and timorous acquisitiveness of the prosperous, and in the recklessness and bitterness of the lower strata. A godless civilization is a disease of which nations die by inches. I hope that this visitation has come just in time to save us. Experience is a good school, but its fees ...
— Mountain Meditations - and some subjects of the day and the war • L. Lind-af-Hageby
... with loud sobs infantine Sorrows rave, And wring their pale hands o'er their Mother's grave; Hears on the new-turn'd sod with gestures wild The kneeling Beauty call her buried child; Upbraid with timorous accents Heaven's decrees, And with sad sighs augment the passing breeze. 200 'Stern Time,' She cries, 'receives from Nature's womb Her beauteous births, and bears them to the tomb; Calls all her sons from earth's remotest bourn, And from the closing ...
— The Temple of Nature; or, the Origin of Society - A Poem, with Philosophical Notes • Erasmus Darwin
... enough dressed her clothes had an air of bewilderment, of general irresolution, as though each article was uncertain in its mind as to whether it purposed to remain where it had been put, or casually wander away on blind and timorous adventures. ...
— No. 13 Washington Square • Leroy Scott
... themselves. Look at the man in one light, and he shall seem wise, penetrating, discreet, and brave; behold him in another point of view, and you see a creature all over folly and indiscretion, weak and timorous as cowardice and indiscretion can make him. A man shall appear gentle, courteous, and benevolent to all mankind; follow him into his own house, maybe you see a tyrant morose and savage to all whose happiness depends upon his kindness. A third, ...
— Sterne • H.D. Traill
... him on the ground grievously wounded; then turning about to the rest, it was worth seeing with what agility he attacked and defeated them; and it seemed as if wings at that instant had sprung on Rozinante—so lightly and swiftly he moved! All the white-robed people, being timorous and unarmed, soon quitted the skirmish and ran over the plain with their lighted torches, looking like so many masqueraders on a carnival or festival night. The mourners were so wrapped up and muffled in their long robes that they could make no exertion; so that Don Quixote, ...
— Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... we still find favoring the blunt, and flushing the forward; strokes smooth up fools, crowning all their undertakings with success; but wisdom makes her followers bashful, sneaking and timorous, and therefore you commonly see that they are reduced to hard shifts; must grapple with poverty, cold and hunger; must lie recluse, despised, and unregarded; while fools roll in money, are advanced to dignities ...
— Little Journeys To The Homes Of Great Teachers • Elbert Hubbard
... his mind from a weight which had been oppressing it for some time, and set his heart at rest. Egan, it must be remarked, was an odd mixture of courage and cowardice: undaunted by personal danger, but strangely timorous where moral courage was required. A remarkable shyness, too, made him hesitate constantly in the utterance of a word which might explain away any difficulty in which he chanced to find himself; and this helped to keep his tongue tied in the matter where Larry ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... was sorry to disappoint that good fellow, Jack, all the same. Did he want me to sleep one night at his house on purpose to rob me and murder me? Girl as I was, and rendered timorous in some ways by the terrible shocks I had received, I couldn't for one moment believe it. I KNEW he was good: I KNEW he was honourable, gentle, ...
— Recalled to Life • Grant Allen
... Weyanoke, exhorted us to be on our guard, and in his prayer besought that no sedition or rebellion might raise its head amongst the Indian subjects of the Lord's anointed. Afterward, in the churchyard, between the services, the more timorous began to tell of divers portents which they had observed, and to recount old tales of how the savages distressed us in the Starving Time. The bolder spirits laughed them to scorn, but the women began to ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... different. Who could tell he had not returned overland from some port beyond the limits of the Republic? The existence of the treasure confused his thoughts with a peculiar sort of anxiety, as though his life had become bound up with it. It rendered him timorous for a moment before that enigmatic, lighted door. Devil take the fellow! He did not want to see him. There would be nothing to learn from his face, known or unknown. He was a fool to waste his time there ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... it were, was of short duration. No sooner had this physically weak but extremely wise old man entered upon the scene than his mental power became evident to every person there. Timorous hearts regained their composure, and the Curator—who in his ten years of service had never felt the burden of his position so acutely as in the last ten minutes—showed his relief by a volubility quite unnatural to him under ...
— The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green
... Wallingford. The great barons who thronged round him in his court had all been rebels; the younger among them had never known what order, government, or loyalty meant. The Church was hesitating and timorous. To the people he was an utter stranger, unable even to speak their tongue. But from the first Henry took his place as absolute master and leader. "A strict regard to justice was apparent in him, and at the very outset he bore the appearance ...
— Henry the Second • Mrs. J. R. Green
... house has no echoes; yet its pathetic shortcoming might well move pity. On that strait stage is acted a generous tragedy; to that inadequate soul is intrusted an enormous sorrow; a tempest of movement makes its home within that slender nature; and heroic happiness seeks that timorous heart. ...
— Essays • Alice Meynell
... 23rd.—These wretched Chinese are for the most part unarmed. When they are armed, they have no notion of directing their firearms. They are timorous, and without either tactics or discipline. I will venture to say that twenty-four determined men, with revolvers and a sufficient number of cartridges, might walk through China from ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin
... fatigue, she grew suddenly timorous. Her ears began to listen with terrible intentness till they imagined stealthy footsteps in the silken shrinkings of the damp snow. At last her eyes mastered the gloom till she could make out the glimmering pathway, the dim, black trunks shouldering up on either side of it, the clumps ...
— The House in the Water - A Book of Animal Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... all nations during the prevalence of the black plague is without parallel and beyond description. In the eyes of the timorous, danger was the certain harbinger of death; many fell victims to fear on the first appearance of the distemper, and the most stout-hearted lost their confidence. The pious closed their accounts with the world; their only remaining desire was for a participation in the consolations of religion. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... too eccentric and pinched her hand too much, in her anxiety over her Rodya she looked on his presence as providential, and was unwilling to notice all his peculiarities. But though Avdotya Romanovna shared her anxiety, and was not of timorous disposition, she could not see the glowing light in his eyes without wonder and almost alarm. It was only the unbounded confidence inspired by Nastasya's account of her brother's queer friend, which ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... she wended thicket or glade or wood-lawn, she would at whiles grow timorous, and tread light and heedfully, lest rustling leaves or crackling stick should arouse some strange creature in human shape, devil, or god now damned, or woman of the faery. But if such were there, either they were wise and would ...
— The Water of the Wondrous Isles • William Morris
... Penance which Pamela suffers from Lady Davers might be shorten'd: That she is too timorous after owning her Marriage to that Lady, and ought to have a little more Spirit, and [del. 5th] {get away sooner out at the Window, or} call her own Servants to protect, and carry her ...
— Samuel Richardson's Introduction to Pamela • Samuel Richardson
... might be the friendship of a potentate whose predecessor's hostility had been so formidable. "But," added the prudent Rohilla, "it must be remembered that the recollection of the past will make the Vazir timorous and suspicious. The negotiation will be as delicate as important. It should not be entrusted to ordinary agency, or to the impersonal ...
— The Fall of the Moghul Empire of Hindustan • H. G. Keene
... Detroit were with him; that I wanted an excuse to put them to death or otherwise treat them as I thought proper; that the cries of the widows and the fatherless on the frontiers, which they had occasioned, now required their blood from my hand; and that I did not choose to be so timorous as to disobey the absolute commands of their authority, which I looked upon to be next to divine; that I would rather lose fifty men than not to empower myself to execute this piece of business with propriety; that, if he chose to risk the massacre of his garrison for their sakes, it was ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester
... would go along nice and quiet for a talk with the boss or was inclined to make a fuss about it. In either event, so Cheesy was assured, he, could have his wish gratified. And Cheesy, who had the heart of a rabbit—a rabbit feeding on other folks' cabbage, but a timorous, nibbling bunny for ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb
... prayer of the heart is to give a strong faith. Mine was without limits, as was also my resignation to God, and my confidence in Him—my love of His will, and of the order of His providence over me. I was very timorous before, but now feared nothing. It is in such a case that one feels the efficacy of these words, "My yoke is easy, and my burden is ...
— The Autobiography of Madame Guyon • Jeanne Marie Bouvier de La Motte Guyon
... he saw what Dick had attempted to do. Had he been made of more timorous stuff the high school teacher would have closed his eyes ...
— The High School Boys' Training Hike • H. Irving Hancock
... society is a state of war between the sovereign and all the rest of its members. In every country alike the morality of the people is wholly neglected, and the one care of the government is to render them timorous and wretched. The common man desires no more than bread; he wins it by the sweat of his brow; joyfully would he eat it, if the injustice of the government did not make it bitter in his mouth. By the insanity of governments, ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley
... acquainted with any of us. He promised that I should have some hogs the next day; but I had much ado to obtain a promise from him to visit me on board. He said he was, mataou no to poupoue, that is, afraid of the guns. Indeed all his actions shewed him to be a timorous prince. He was about thirty years of age, six feet high, and a fine, personable, well-made man as one can see. All his subjects appeared uncovered before him, his father not excepted. What is meant by uncovering, is the making bare the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr
... lifted her face to his; as he bent to it he saw that her eyes were full of happy tears. But in another moment she seemed to have descended from her womanly eminence to helpless and timorous girlhood; and he understood that her courage and initiative were all for others, and that she had none for herself. It was evident that the effort of speaking had been much greater than her studied composure betrayed, and that at his first ...
— The Age of Innocence • Edith Wharton
... spread black looks under colour of religion, or to sow tares in the wheat-field, as you do, in a course of weak compliance with desire. Now that he draws so near to his deliverance, he can add but one act of service: to repent, to die smiling, and thus to build up in confidence and hope the more timorous of my surviving followers. I am not so hard a master. Try me; accept my help. Please yourself in life as you have done hitherto; please yourself more amply, spread your elbows at the board; and when the night begins to fall and the curtains to be drawn, ...
— Stories By English Authors: Germany • Various
... you say? Hel. I am not worthie of the wealth I owe, Nor dare I say 'tis mine: and yet it is, But like a timorous theefe, most faine would steale What law ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... hands; all of them trembling like aspen leaves; the chief looked up full in their faces, kneeling on the ground; light seemed to flash from his dark rolling eyes; his body was convulsed all over, as though he was enduring the utmost torture, and with a timorous, yet indefinable expression of countenance, in which all the passions of human nature were strangely blended, he drooped his head, eagerly grasped their proffered hands, and burst into tears. This was a sign of friendship, harmony followed, and war and bloodshed were thought of ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... this rare combination was his union of courage with patience, of firm nonconformity with silent conformity. Compliance is always a question of degree, depending on time, circumstance, and subject. Mr. Mill hit the exact mean, equally distant from timorous caution and self-indulgent violence. He was unrivalled in the difficult art of conciliating as much support as was possible and alienating as little sympathy as possible, for novel and extremely unpopular opinions. He was not one of those who strive to spread new faiths by brilliant swordplay ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Vol. 3 (of 3) - Essay 2: The Death of Mr Mill - Essay 3: Mr Mill's Autobiography • John Morley
... account to be rendered, or an affair of business to be discussed between them; and never kept any appointment but when its object was the raising of money. Thus, previous to catching this most shy and timorous bird, the Major made more than one futile attempt to hold him;—on one day it was a most innocent-looking invitation to dinner at Greenwich, to meet a few friends; the Baronet accepted, suspected something, and did not come; leaving the Major (who indeed proposed to represent in himself ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... make the Apparition by degrees to vanish: And having no assurance that he slept, he could have no cause to think it a Dream, or any thing but a Vision. And this is no very rare Accident: for even they that be perfectly awake, if they be timorous, and supperstitious, possessed with fearfull tales, and alone in the dark, are subject to the like fancies, and believe they see spirits and dead mens Ghosts walking in Churchyards; whereas it is either their Fancy onely, ...
— Leviathan • Thomas Hobbes
... At any rate, he wanted live cobras and offered a good price for them. So when Nagoo, the snake-charmer, heard that there was a large one in Beharilal's garden, he thought he might do good business by capturing it for the Jadoo-walla Saheb, and at the same time demanding a reward from the timorous Bunia for ridding him of such a dangerous neighbour. With this intent he repaired to the garden with all the apparatus of his art, his flat snake baskets, his mongoose and his crooked pipe. Having reconnoitred the ...
— Concerning Animals and Other Matters • E.H. Aitken, (AKA Edward Hamilton)
... shadow had been a refuge of cutthroats, every noise the oncoming of goblins. Fortunately for her, she did not know the contents of the tablets she carried pressed to her breast, or she would have been all the more timorous. Once a few half-sober topers screamed ribald words after her, as she stole past a low tavern. She had lost her way, in the darkness and fright, among the alleys; she had dodged into a doorway more than once to hide from ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... mine," I said to him, in a low voice, "I would not willingly seem either suspicious or timorous, and I hope I am neither. But I think I have reason for some unquiet. I have noticed something that seems curious to me in the composition ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... Mitis, I do know your thought; You'll say, your guests here will except at this: Pish! you are too timorous, and full of doubt. Then he, a patient, shall reject all physic, 'Cause the physician tells him, you are sick: Or, if I say, that he is vicious, You will not hear of virtue. Come, you are fond. Shall I be so extravagant, to think, That happy judgments, and composed spirits, Will challenge ...
— Every Man Out Of His Humour • Ben Jonson
... knows—at least, if every one does not know, every one who reads these pages may know henceforth—that the grisly bear of the western prairies and Rocky Mountains is one of the most desperate and most dreaded animals on the face of the earth; not dreaded merely by the weak and the timorous, but dreaded also by the bravest Indians and the boldest trappers. Of course we do not mean to say that by these latter the grisly bear is dreaded with anything like cowardly terror; but it is regarded with that degree of wholesome anxiety and extreme caution with which men usually regard ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne
... not of a timorous disposition naturally—at least I don't think I am—but absolutely I felt as if I couldn't stay in the room. I got up out of my chair and walked down the stairs, in the dark, to the dining-room. I felt all the way as if some one were following me. Do you know, ...
— Further Foolishness • Stephen Leacock
... hardly endure the thoughts of it. He spoke slightingly of most people, and rather before their faces than behind their backs; unless he was afraid of them, and of that sort there were a great many, for he was naturally somewhat timorous. When he had done himself any prejudice by his talk, or was apprehensive he should do so, and wished to make amends, he would say to the person whom he had disobliged, "I am sensible my tongue has done me a good deal of mischief; but ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various
... evils which his wild imposture would generate, and he recoiled from his task, not because there remained lurking in his breast some few sparks of honesty, but because he wanted courage; he was a scoundrel, but a timorous one, and always in dread of the penitentiary. With him, Mormonism was a mere money speculation, and he resolved to shelter himself behind some fool who might bear the whole odium, while he would reap a golden harvest, and quietly retire before the coming of a storm. But, as is often the case, he ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... Still, as the obscene jests, the fearful oaths, that from time to time rang through the vault, came on his ear, he cast his haughty eye in such disdain over the groups, that Gawtrey, observing him, trembled for his safety; and nothing but Philip's sense of his own impotence, and the brave, not timorous, desire not to perish by such hands, kept silent the fiery denunciations of a nature still proud and honest, that quivered on his lips. All present were armed with pistols and cutlasses except Morton, ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... as he counted up certain dividends obtained from mysterious shares in "miracle" health resorts, and a smile of satisfaction playing on the firm, well-shaped curve of his intellectual but hard mouth, he looked an imposing personage enough, of the very type to awe the weak and timorous. He was much entertained on this particular morning,—one might almost say he was greatly amused. Quite a humorous little comedy was being played at the Vatican,—a mock- solemn farce, which had the possibility of ending in serious disaster to the innocent,—and he, as a student ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... said. Dorn contemplated her confusedly. He frowned at the thought of having bored her, and an impulse to step abruptly from her side and leave became a part of his anger. He hesitated in his walking and her fingers, timorous and unconscious of themselves, reached for his arm. He wondered with a deeper confusion what she was dreaming about. Her hand as it lay on his forearm gave him a sense of companionship which his words sought clumsily ...
— Erik Dorn • Ben Hecht
... There was a ford there and on either bank a well-worn trail, broadened far out at the river's brim, where, for countless centuries, the wild things of the jungle and of the plains beyond had come down to drink, the carnivora with bold and fearless majesty, the herbivora timorous, ...
— Jungle Tales of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... Hindoos, but not with Mussulmen. There are other tribes, vestiges of the Tamulian race, differing somewhat in their rites from these, and approaching, in their habits, more to Hindoos; but all are timorous and retiring. ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... the 'old man,' as he is called, timorous of every unwonted sound that enters his large, erected ears, has been chased far from every ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... defended the valiant, nor submission the timorous: no age or sex was spared: infants on the breast were pierced by the same blow with their mothers, who implored for mercy: even a multitude to the number of ten thousand persons, who had surrendered themselves prisoners, ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... at him with a piteous appeal—the old, timorous, terrified appeal that had been so often seen on the boy's face, strangely returning on the gracious and ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... courage, and invincible character, which Fabius afterwards displayed, they then imagined had lain concealed under the apparent contrary qualities. The boy of genius may indeed seem slow and dull even to the phlegmatic; for thoughtful and observing dispositions conceal themselves in timorous silent characters, who have not yet experienced their strength; and that assiduous love, which cannot tear itself away from the secret instruction it is perpetually imbibing, cannot be easily distinguished from the pertinacity of the mere plodder. We often ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... things of the faith. Because I saw and know," says the Admiral, "that this people has no religion (secta) nor are they idolaters, but very mild and without knowing what evil is, nor how to kill others, nor how to take them, and without arms, and so timorous that from one of our men ten of them fly, although they do sport with them, and ready to believe and knowing that there is a God in heaven, and sure that we have come from heaven; and very ready at any prayer which we tell them to repeat, and they ...
— The Life of Christopher Columbus from his own Letters and Journals • Edward Everett Hale
... the stream which reflected the azure of the sky. On her brow sat the pride of the huntress Diana. Her attitude and the expression of her face betrayed a royalty which desired to conceal its greatness, a strange mixture of timorous boldness and superb timidity—and over it all, the brilliancy of youth—a nameless charm of innocence and childishness tempered in a charming manner the dignity ...
— The Cross of Berny • Emile de Girardin
... vain will timorous ones essay To set the metes and bounds of Liberty. For Freedom is its own eternal law; It makes its own conditions, and in storm Or calm alike fulfils the unerring Will. Let us not then despise it when it lies Still as a sleeping lion, while a swarm Of gnat-like ...
— Pike County Ballads and Other Poems • John Hay
... and buffaloe; the last of which were in such multitudes, that we cannot exaggerate in saying that at a single glance we saw three thousand of them before us. Of all the animals we had seen the antelope seems to possess the most wonderful fleetness: shy and timorous they generally repose only on the ridges, which command a view of all the approaches of an enemy: the acuteness of their sight distinguishes the most distant danger, the delicate sensibility of their smell defeats the precautions ...
— History of the Expedition under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark, Vol. I. • Meriwether Lewis and William Clark
... compensations and ignorant of its own worst wants. It woke in him the bitterness of the orphan dependant, who feels himself a burden and loathes his dependence. That utter lack of the commonest natural affection, in which he and Louie had been brought up—for Reuben's timorous advances had done but little to redress the balance—had not troubled him much, till suddenly it was writ so monstrous large in Hannah's refusal to take pity on the fainting and agonised Louie. Thenceforward every ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... observing this, put out his hand, and taking hers, shook it kindly; and bade her (but it was not in a cheering tone) "not be afraid." This gave her no confidence; and she began, before her father's arrival, to seclude herself in the apartments allotted for her during the time of his stay; and in the timorous expectation of his coming, her appetite declined, and she lost all her colour. Even Miss Woodley, whose spirits had been for some time elated with the hopes she had formed, on drawing near to the test, found those hopes vanished; and though she endeavoured to conceal it, she was full of ...
— A Simple Story • Mrs. Inchbald
... to the cottage, they found that Margaret had been somewhat impatient—old ladies, good old ladies, will be so at times—age is timorous and suspicious of ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... was not the strongest of characters. She was very sweet and amiable, intensely true and affectionate to those to whom she gave her heart, but she was somewhat timorous and somewhat ...
— A Young Mutineer • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... at this sheltering hour he nightly came, And found her trusty window open wide, And knew the signal of the timorous flame, That long the restless curtain would not hide Her form that stood beside; As scarce she dared to be delighted, Listening to that sweet tale, that is no shame To faithful lovers, ...
— Poems of To-Day: an Anthology • Various
... to carry the daily milk, the ice-man to leave the daily ice. But either of these would be afraid of exposing their vehicles to the heating orb of day,—the milkman afraid of turning the milk, the ice-man timorous of melting his ice,—and they probably avoid those directions where they shall meet the sun's rays. The student, who might inform us, has been burning the midnight oil. The student is not in the mood ...
— The Last of the Peterkins - With Others of Their Kin • Lucretia P. Hale
... the absence of a timorous demeanor its only offense. The Courier had its partisans, the Journal and the Democrat had their friends. The trio stood as ancient landmarks, as recognized and familiar institutions. Here was a double-headed monster which, without saying "by your leave" or "blast ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson
... The timorous but trusting little Grass Widow sat beside the Business Manager and told him her Hard-Luck Story in low, bird-like Notes. She said she was the only Support of her Little Boy, who was attending a Military School at Syracuse, N.Y. She turned the Liquid Orbs on him and had him to the ...
— More Fables • George Ade
... early from the Home Office, met her in that dark hall, to which he had paid no attention since his young wife died, fifteen years ago. Embracing him, with a smile of love almost timorous from intensity, Frances Freeland looked him up and down, and, catching what light there was gleaming on his temples, determined that she had in her bag, as soon as she could get it open, the very thing for dear John's ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... like a timorous granny who loves to scare herself with ghost stories, and adores the sensation of jumping into bed before the robber under it can catch her by ...
— In the Quarter • Robert W. Chambers
... boy, whom they called Musa. He was dark, slim, with timorous great eyes, and attired in red as a devil beneath his student's cloak. He apologised slowly in English for not being able to speak English. He said he was very French, and Tommy and Nick smiled, and he smiled back at them rather wistfully. When Tommy and Nick had spoken with the chauffeurs ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... chattering and lazy maids who so easily managed to get lost in the nearby groves. In the kitchen, too, she made her authority felt like a regular house-mistress, but the minute that she heard her husband's voice she shrank into a respectful and timorous silence. Upon sitting down at table, the China would look at him with devoted submission, her great, round eyes fixed on him, like an owl's. Desnoyers felt that in this mute admiration was mingled great astonishment at the energy with which the ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... lounge about in the luxury of a real undress uniform, now puts on his broadcloth and sash, and sustains a sweltering dignity; while all the brown girls of the place, arrayed in their gayest apparel, wage no timorous war on the hearts and pockets of too susceptible skippers. "Ah, me!" exclaimed our landlady, "is it not terrible? Excepting the Seora D. and myself, there is not a married woman in La Union!" "One wouldn't think so," soliloquized the Teniente, as ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... come into view of the "boucans" or beds of lignite coal which have been continuously burning here since Mackenzie saw them in 1789 and mistook their smoke for tepee fires. At this point of his journey, had Mackenzie been a timorous man, he would have turned back, for natives came to meet him and told him with great empressment that it would require several winters to get to the sea and that old age would come upon him before the period of his return. He would ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron
... case of the wicked uncle and the lost babes over again," declared Noel. "It also smacks of The Pilgrim's Progress. Old Bunyan would have made some good copy out of this. He'd have dubbed you Mistress Timorous and ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... of death on his own account; it was for the weak timorous girl by his side that all his sympathies were aroused. Doubtless she too possessed a faith firm enough to enable her to meet her fate undismayed—he believed she did; but what terrible bodily suffering must she pass through before the ...
— The Pirate Island - A Story of the South Pacific • Harry Collingwood
... up his bundle and obeyed the summons, advancing with an awkward almost stumbling step, suggestive of actual weakness as well as the extremity of shyness. Reaching the two men, he touched his cap humbly, and stood with timorous eyes upraised to the young ...
— "Seth" • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... a perfectly regular forehead and nose, tightly compressed lips, and a rather sharp chin. Her hair, of a chestnut shade, fell low on her slender neck. In her whole personality, in the expression of her face, intent and a little timorous, in her clear but changing glance, in her smile, which was, as it were, intense, in her soft and uneven voice, there was something nervous, electric, something impulsive and hurried, something, in fact, which could never be attractive to every ...
— On the Eve • Ivan Turgenev
... courage to bear; or is it a trick, a cold fit, only assum'd to try how much I love you? I have no arts, heaven knows, no guile or double meaning in my soul, 'tis all plain native simplicity, fearful and timorous as children in the night, trembling as doves pursu'd; born soft by nature, and made tender by love; what, oh! what will become of me then? Yet would I were confirm'd in all my fears: for as I am, my condition is more ...
— Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister • Aphra Behn
... long concealed? His influence with the ruling powers was evidently on the wane; the star, which was now Lord of the ascendant, shed on him a malign influence. Abjured by those whom he had served, hated by the royalists, and despised by all parties; could a more pitiable object be found, than a timorous, susceptible, falling villain; conscious of guilt, aware of danger, convinced of the necessity of repentance; but too much attached to temporal enjoyments to set ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... pretty quarry indeed and well worthy of so arduous a pursuit. For Renwick was not to be denied and as the girl turned into the path which led to the thatched arbor, he saw that she was breathing hard and the half-timorous laugh she threw over her shoulder at him only spurred him on to new endeavor. He reached the hedge as she disappeared, but his instinct was unerring and he leaped through the swaying branches just in time to see the hem of her skirt in the foliage on the other side and plunging through caught her ...
— The Secret Witness • George Gibbs
... during the summer; and had said nothing. But what was there for her to say? The hint must come from the other side; and Mrs. Hawley-Crowles could have wept with chagrin as she reflected gloomily on her own timorous spirit. ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... commanded, hauled stones for him all day, though he had not a word of their language. The swart, praying Italians raved themselves hoarse whenever he came into their lines; even the Cypriotes, sullen and timorous creatures, whom no power among themselves could have driven to the walls, fixed the great petraries and mangonels, and ran grinning into the trap of death for this tawny-haired hero who stood singing, bareheaded, within bow-shot of the Turks, and laughed ...
— The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay • Maurice Hewlett
... loaded with faults, and with those faults which naturally produce contempt. He is a thief, and a glutton, a coward, and a boaster, always ready to cheat the weak, and prey upon the poor; to terrify the timorous and insult the defenceless. At once obsequious and malignant, he satirises in their absence those whom he lives by flattering. He is familiar with the prince only as an agent of vice, but of this familiarity he is so proud ...
— Preface to Shakespeare • Samuel Johnson
... them quietly stabbed or shot—nothing was ever proved against him though everybody knew it was his work—he experienced no further opposition in his political career. Morena never threatens, they say; he performs. A safe man! From a timorous Liberal Government, his avowed enemies, he extorted the title of Commendatore; not because he attached any value to such outward distinctions but because, like a true Camorrista, he never lost an opportunity of showing that he ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... 4 But timorous mortals start and shrink To cross this narrow sea, And linger shivering on the brink, And fear ...
— Hymns and Spiritual Songs • Isaac Watts
... invincible, the whole country rose, took the scattered castles, and put their defenders to the sword. Gustav bore the rising on his shoulders from first to last. He was everywhere, ordering and leading. His fiery eloquence won over the timorous; his irresistible advance swept every obstacle aside. In May he took Upsala; by midsummer he was besieging Stockholm itself. Most of the other cities were in his hands. The Hanse towns had found out what this Gustav could do at home. They sang his praise, but as for backing him with their ...
— Hero Tales of the Far North • Jacob A. Riis
... for her and her mother that she loves so well. I meant to have bought or built one this very year. And after having made the pretty nest, to have wooed my pretty bird to come and occupy it. I meant to have been such a good boy to her mother, too! I pleased myself with fancying how the poor, little timorous woman would rest in so much peace and confidence in our home—with me and Lina. I have saved so much that I am richer than any one knows, and I meant to have accomplished all that this very time of coming home. I hurried home. I reached the house. I ran in like a wild boy ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... sacrificed the pleasures of dress and luxury; and renounced, for the praise of chastity, the soft endearments of conjugal society. Some ecclesiastic, of real or apparent sanctity, was chosen to direct their timorous conscience, and to amuse the vacant tenderness of their heart: and the unbounded confidence, which they hastily bestowed, was often abused by knaves and enthusiasts; who hastened from the extremities of the East, to enjoy, on a splendid theatre, the privileges ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... course he did!—then, as she retreated towards the open room-door, came the last outburst of her invectives, high-pitched in their voluble utterance, against him, against them both, against everybody, including Mr. Raddle in the kitchen—"a base, faint-hearted, timorous wretch, that's afraid to come upstairs and face the ruffinly creaturs—that's afraid to come—that's afraid!" Ending with her screaming descent of the stairs in the midst of a loud double-knock, upon the arrival just then of the Pickwickians, when, "in an uncontrollable burst of mental agony," ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent
... the ship with him and others and his guest, this far-away son of Great India. So, presently, he was taken to view the horses and the cattle. Whoever hath seen lions brought to a court for show hath seen some shrinking from too-close and heard timorous asking if the bars be really strong. And the old, wild beasts at Rome for the games. If one came by chance upon them in a narrow quarter there might be terror. And the bull that we goad to madness for a game in Spain—were barriers down ...
— 1492 • Mary Johnston
... confused, terrifying noise of panting breaths and trampling feet. It came sweeping down the broad trail. There were grunting cries, also; and Grom understood at once that a herd of pig-tapirs—heavy-footed, timorous beasts, as tall as heifers—were sweeping down upon them in mad flight ...
— In the Morning of Time • Charles G. D. Roberts
... Tutt, for all his professional shrewdness and ingenuity. Like many a hero of the battlefield and of the bar, once inside the palings of his own fence he became modest, gentle, even timorous. For Abigail, his wife, had no illusions about him and did not affect to have any. To her neither Tutt nor Mr. Tutt was any such great shakes. Had Tutt dared to let her know of many of the schemes which he devised for the profit or safety of his clients she would have thought less of him still; in ...
— Tutt and Mr. Tutt • Arthur Train
... ideas pressed on Waverley's mind, he resolved to go upon the open heath, and search if, among the slain, he could discover the body of his friend, with the pious intention of procuring for him the last rites of sepulture. The timorous young man who accompanied him remonstrated upon the danger of the attempt, but Edward was determined. The followers of the camp had already stripped the dead of all they could carry away; but the country ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... many fools. It is as easy way unto a duchess As to a hatted dame, if her love answer: But that by timorous honours, pale respects, Idle degrees of fear, men make their ways Hard ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... came for the purpose mentioned by Roughgrove, and his request was granted. He made a sign to a comrade he had left some distance behind, who, in a very few minutes, was seen to approach in a hasty though timorous pace. ...
— Wild Western Scenes • John Beauchamp Jones
... (but indeed this was no ordinary cat!) viz. Jacobina. He took Jacobina then, we say, upon his lap, and stroking her brindled sides with great tenderness, he bade Dealtry remark how singularly quiet the animal was in its manners. Nay, he was not contented until Peter himself had patted her with a timorous hand, and had reluctantly submitted the said hand to the honour of being licked by the cat in return. Jacobina, who, to do her justice, was always meek enough in the presence, and at the will, of her master, was, fortunately this day, on ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... timorous, every trifling noise Scatters my spirits, and announces to me The footstep of some messenger of evil. And you can tell me, sister, what the event is? Will he agree to do the Emperor's pleasure, And send the horse-regiments to the Cardinal? Tell me, has he dismiss'd ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. III • Kuno Francke (Editor-in-Chief)
... the prior made a sign to his servants, and immediately one of the most timorous and craven of the prisoners was brought up before him. He was far too cunning a judge to try first to bend the spirit of the hunchback. He knew that with that man he could do nothing, and he knew too what marvels were sometimes ...
— The Secret Chamber at Chad • Evelyn Everett-Green
... herself the step-mother, not the natural parent of her people, and would seem desirous that England should no longer subsist than she should enjoy the glory and satisfaction of governing it; that none but timorous princes, or tyrants, or faint-hearted women, ever stood in fear of their successors; and that the affections of the people were a firm and impregnable rampart to every sovereign, who, laying aside all artifice or by-ends, had courage and magnanimity ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume
... so foul, as I find it foul and base not to dare to own them. Every one is wary and discreet in confession, but men ought to be so in action. I wish that this excessive license of mine, may draw men to freedom above these timorous and mincing pretended virtues, sprung from our imperfections, and that at the expense of my immoderation, I may reduce them to reason. A man must see and study his vice to correct it, they who conceal it from others, ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... trouble to most of them who are subject to it, and they would be rid of it at any rate if they could. The sight is of no long duration, only continuing so long as they can keep their eyes steady without twinkling. The hardy, therefore, fix their look that they may see the longer; but the timorous see only glances—their eyes always twinkle at the first sight of the object. That which generally is seen by them are the species of living creatures, and of inanimate things, which be in motion, such as ships, and habits upon persons. They never see the species of any ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends - Scotland • Anonymous
... I am a merchant!" repeated Ignat, insinuatingly, and there was something discontented and almost timorous in his glance at the disenchanted face of ...
— Foma Gordyeff - (The Man Who Was Afraid) • Maxim Gorky |
