"Shy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Mr. Charles Fox, of whose abilities he thought highly, but observed, that he did not talk much at our CLUB. I have heard Mr. Gibbon remark, 'that Mr. Fox could not be afraid of Dr. Johnson; yet he certainly was very shy of saying any thing in Dr. Johnson's presence[775].' Mr. Scott now quoted what was said of Alcibiades by a Greek poet[776], to which ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... Harry to tell her his love and his wishes. She understood him at once, and with sweet shy glances answered those two or three questions which are so generally whispered to a woman's heart and which hold the secret of her life and happiness. In this wonderful explanation the hour given was all too short, and Harry was just beginning to plead for ...
— The Measure of a Man • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... careful, Gypsy," called her father, nervously; "I'm really almost afraid to have you go. You might come to the precipice sooner, than you expect, and then the horse may shy." ...
— Gypsy's Cousin Joy • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... under the arrows of Rama. The heads, that once, sustained on Siva's breast, shone with heavenly splendour, now lie beneath the vulture's talons. Mandodari bewails the death of her husband. Sita is recovered, but Rama is rather shy of his bride, until her purity is established by her passing through the fiery ordeal: a test she successfully undergoes. Rama returns with Sita and his friends to Ayodhya, when Angada challenges them all to fight him, as it is now time to revenge his father's death. A ...
— Tales from the Hindu Dramatists • R. N. Dutta
... sons, stand to one another in a rational, not a conventional relation. Nothing is considered of so much importance as education, which the head of the house gives not only to the children, but to the whole household. He first develops his wife from a shy girl, brought up in careful seclusion, to the true woman of the house, capable of commanding and guiding the servants. The sons are brought up without any undue severity, carefully watched and counselled, and controlled 'rather by authority than by force.' ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... the school feeling as if her reason were rocking. She had never imagined that anything so nice could happen to her. Since the loss of her parents life had not been too bright. Sometimes she almost dreaded the holidays at her aunt's. She was shy and sensitive, and the impression that she was not altogether welcome there was a bitter one. It is very hard for a girl when she has no home of her own, and no one whose special prerogative it is to love ...
— A harum-scarum schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... all yet, however. Just as he was taking breath, a garcon entered with some custards and an enormous omelette soufflee, whose puffy brown sides bagged over the tin dish that contained it. "There's a tart!" cried Mr. Jorrocks; "Oh, my eyes, what a swell!—Well, I suppose I must have a shy at it.—'In for a penny in for a pound!' as we say at the Lord Mayor's feed. Know I shall be sick, but, however, here goes," sending his plate across the table to the garcon, who was going to help it. The first dive of the spoon undeceived him as he heard it sound at the bottom of the dish. ...
— Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities • Robert Smith Surtees
... odd but opportune melting. He placed his arm around her shoulders. She tried to escape it, but with a coy, shy movement, half hysterical, half girlish, unlike her usual stony, moral precision. "Yes, Joan," he repeated, laughingly, "but whose fault is it? Not HIS, remember! And I firmly believe he thinks you can ...
— The Argonauts of North Liberty • Bret Harte
... without the young monkeys. Your pet Marian is almost as shy as ever, though she has left off saying "can't," ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley
... lay back. Shy, deny thy kindred, the unco guid. Shy, supping with the godless, he sneaks the cup. A sire in Ultonian Antrim bade it him. Visits him here on quarter days. Mr Magee, sir, there's a gentleman to see you. Me? Says he's your father, sir. Give me my Wordsworth. Enter Magee Mor Matthew, a rugged ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... in drawing back her hand, and retreated to the window; Gerald was creeping after her, but Mr. Lyddell laid hold of his chin, and drew him back, saying. "What, shy, my man? we shall cure you at Oakworthy My boys will give you no peace if they see you getting ...
— The Two Guardians • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... experiment the Professor rather avoided me, as I gradually came to perceive. He would not sit on the same side in the carriage, and altogether seemed to fight shy ...
— My Reminiscences • Rabindranath Tagore
... the risk of losing my balance. Oh, what would I not have given to have asked advice of any one! But unfortunately I could not do so without at once betraying my ignorance of horsemanship. I therefore took care to bring up the rear, under the pretence that my horse was shy, and would not go well unless it saw the others before it. My real reason was that I wished to hide my manoeuvres from the gentlemen, for every moment I expected to fall. Frequently I clutched the saddle with both hands, as I swayed from side to side. I looked forward ...
— A Visit to the Holy Land • Ida Pfeiffer
... thought too hard that he should never meet the rest of us, except to touch hats, and we finally sank into one system. He was not permitted to talk with the men, unless an officer was by. With officers he had unrestrained intercourse, as far as they and he chose. But he grew shy, though he had favorites: I was one. Then the captain always asked him to dinner on Monday. Every mess in succession took up the invitation in its turn. According to the size of the ship, you had him at your mess more ...
— The Man Without a Country and Other Tales • Edward E. Hale
... Looks bigger to me, anyhow. You've got to get rid of that oil—find a market for it, sell it, ship it away to make room for more. Get busy, son." Crawford waved his hand after the manner of one who has shifted a responsibility and does not expect to worry about it. "Moreover an' likewise, we're shy of money to keep operatin' until we can sell the stuff. You'll have to raise scads of mazuma, son. In this oil game dollars sure have got wings. No matter how tight yore pockets are buttoned, ...
— Gunsight Pass - How Oil Came to the Cattle Country and Brought a New West • William MacLeod Raine
... helping hands, and announced that she would be there to welcome the bride to her temporary nest; and she was there in the crisp, cold starlight when the ambulance with its spanking team drove briskly into the big quadrangle, and in warm furs and happy blushes and half-shy delight, a very pretty girl was lifted from the dark interior and presented to the little knot of ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... though unseen, is heard the endless song And murmur of the never resting sea. 'T was winter, Roger, when you made this cup, But coming Spring guided your eager hand And round the edge you fashioned young green leaves, A proper chalice made to hold the shy And little flowers of the woods. And here They will forget their sad uprooting, lost In pleasure that this circle of bright leaves Should be their setting; once more they will dream They hear winds wandering through lofty trees And ...
— A Dome of Many-Coloured Glass • Amy Lowell
... on to be shy, a fine, gamey, treacherous lad the like of you. Was it in your house beyond ...
— The Playboy of the Western World • J. M. Synge
... good stage figure too, eh? Pooh! Only business, you know! But you mustn't be shy with me, my dear. And besides, if I am to do all this for you, you must do ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... very rich?" He had begun to strike her as almost embarrassed, so shy that he might have found himself with a young lady with whom he had little in common. She was literally moved by this apprehension to offer him some ...
— What Maisie Knew • Henry James
... special theoretical investigations are undertaken which originate from practical conditions. As long as industrial managers have no contact with the experiments of the laboratory and the experimentalists are shy of any contact with the industrial reality, humanity will pass through social suffering. The hope of mankind will be realized by the mutual fertilization ...
— Psychology and Industrial Efficiency • Hugo Muensterberg
... fully equipped, my travelling companion—if such a word can at all express the relation between the arrogant young blood, just fresh from assuming the toga virilis, and a modest child of profound sensibilities, but shy and reserved beyond even English reserve. The aged servant, with apparently constrained civility, presented my mother's compliments to him, with a request that he would take breakfast. This he hastily ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... probably read the word without blinking, it went off in my hands with a bang. They tell me - the Sassenach tell me - that in time I shall be able without a blush to make Albert say 'darling,' and even gather her up in his arms, but I begin to doubt it; the moment sees me as shy as ever; I still find it advisable to lock the door, and then - no witness save the dog - I 'do' it dourly with my teeth clenched, while the dog retreats into the far corner and moans. The bolder Englishman (I am told) will ...
— Margaret Ogilvy • James M. Barrie
... Oh, yes! but this thing has come a little between them. She has grown shy of going out, while he must be in the world; and all her life seems to vanish when he is away. Sometimes it makes my heart ache to think how much ...
— The Old Countess; or, The Two Proposals • Ann S. Stephens
... young man and woman are shy of sharing such imaginations, before the sharing is quite understood and openly promised. So, many times a silence fell upon their casual talk, when the same thing was in ...
— The Other Girls • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... low bow, ushered them to their table. Mr. Skinner saw the preparations for their repast, the oysters, the cocktails in tall glasses, the magnum of champagne in ice, and chuckled. To take supper with a duke was a novelty to him, but he was not shy. He sat down and tucked his serviette into his waistcoat, raised his glass, and suddenly set ...
— The Yellow Crayon • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... situation with such circumspection and modesty as not to offend the authorities of the kitchen and stable, among whom her behaviour was always exceedingly modest and affable. She was quite a different person from the haughty, shy, dissatisfied little girl whom we have known previously, and this change of temper proved great prudence, a sincere desire of amendment, or at any rate great moral courage on her part. Whether it was the ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... says Paul. He uses a very vivid, and some people might think, a very vulgar metaphor here. The word rendered terrified properly refers to a horse shying or plunging at some object. It is generally things half seen and mistaken for something more dreadful than themselves that make horses shy; and it is usually a half-look at adversaries, and a mistaken estimate of their strength, that make Christians afraid. Go up to your fears and speak to them, and as ghosts are said to do, they will ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... and drums. They were also great gardeners. In their dress they were simple, frugal in diet, though given to occasional excess; fond of war, but not cruel like the Assyrians; hospitable among themselves, shy of strangers, patriotic in feeling, ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord
... their marriage ceremonies. There were also on this estate numbers, at times, of a curious bird found only in Spain, Roumania, Asia Minor, and these plains of the Mark of Brandenburg, a large bustard called by the Germans "trappe." These birds were very shy and hard to approach. Although I had several shots at them with a rifle at four or five hundred yards I did not succeed in ...
— Face to Face with Kaiserism • James W. Gerard
... Griffiths told him that they remembered him well when he was a young lad, first going to sea, little thinking that from that day to this he should be knocking about the world far away from home. He looked very shy and reserved, and seemed inclined to keep close to Miles Soper and me, but in other respects he was as much in his senses as any of us. The doctor had found several roots and fruits, which he said were wholesome, and would serve us as food, ...
— Peter Trawl - The Adventures of a Whaler • W. H. G. Kingston
... beg, shy at their names. For myself, I know nothing more "actual," more bursting with plain common-sense, applicable to the daily life of plain persons like you and me (who hate airs, pose, and nonsense) than Marcus Aurelius or Epictetus. Read a chapter—and so short they are, the ...
— How to Live on 24 Hours a Day • Arnold Bennett
... for some time his companion's principal society, but he was indisposed to press them. He felt that he should see for himself, and at a prospect of entertainment of this kind, his fancy always kindled. Gordon was, moreover, at first rather shy of confidences, though after they had lain on the grass ten minutes there was ...
— Confidence • Henry James
... was a young un at 'Oogli, Shy as a girl to begin; Aggie de Castrer she made me, An' Aggie was clever as sin; Older than me, but my first un— More like a mother she were— Showed me the way to promotion an' pay, An' I ...
— Barrack-Room Ballads • Rudyard Kipling
... the day of this council and the departure of the army, we saw Yolanda at Castleman's. She was always waiting when we arrived. She had changed in many respects, but especially in her attitude regarding Max. She was kind and gentle, but shy. Having dropped her familiar manner, she did not go near him, but sat at a distance, holding Twonette's hand, and silently but constantly watching him, as if she were awaiting something. Her eyes, at times, seemed to be half-indignant ...
— Yolanda: Maid of Burgundy • Charles Major
... I spots pooty gurls when out cycling, I tips 'em the haffable nod; Wy not? If a gent carn't be civil without being scowled at, it's hodd. Ah! and some on 'em tumble, I tell yer, although they may look a mite shy; It is only the stuckuppy sort as consider it rude ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 102, May 7, 1892 • Various
... wonder of this marriage overcame Alexander Whitaker. This Indian maiden who was a creature of the woods, shy and proud as a wild animal, was to be married by him to an Englishman with centuries of civilization behind him. What boded it for them both ...
— The Princess Pocahontas • Virginia Watson
... yard. The fourth and fifth nights are known as ginitbet ("dark"), for then no fires are lighted, and the mediums dance alone. It is supposed that the black spirits, those who are deformed, or who are too shy to appear before the people, will come out at this time and enjoy ...
— The Tinguian - Social, Religious, and Economic Life of a Philippine Tribe • Fay-Cooper Cole
... your acquaintance, sir," said Mr. Seven Sachs, and the arch-famous American actor-author also lapsed into silence. But the silence of Mr. Seven Sachs was different from Rose Euclid's. He was not shy. A dark and handsome, tranquil, youngish man, with a redoubtable square chin, delicately rounded at the corners, he strikingly resembled his own figure on the stage; and moreover, he seemed to regard silence ...
— The Regent • E. Arnold Bennett
... world—tumultuously heaved To a great throne of azure laced with light And canopied in foam to grace their queen. Shrieking for joy came O-ce-an'i-des, And swift Ner-e'i-des rushed from afar, Or clove the waters by. Came eager-eyed Even shy Na-i'a-des from inland streams, With wild cries headlong darting through the waves; And Dryads from the shore stretched their long arms, While, hoarsely sounding, heard was Triton's shell; Shoutings uncouth, bewildered sounds, ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... hold upon her assured lover. At last the governor, tired of being held in an uncertainty, pressed her for a definite answer. She pleaded that she wished for more time, when he rose with dignity and answered her, "I will give you a lifetime." This experience made him extremely shy, and when thrown with his cousin Ursula he made no advance towards love-making. At last when she was nineteen and he ten years older she began asking him on every occasion, "What did you say, Cousin Matthew?" and he would answer her quietly, "Nothing." At last she asked him impatiently, "What ...
— Diary of Anna Green Winslow - A Boston School Girl of 1771 • Anna Green Winslow
... of it! No child could have been happier. He did not want for company; his playfellows were the dogs and cats and chickens, and any creature in and about the house. But most of all he loved the little shy creatures that lived in the sunshine among the flowers—the small birds and butterflies, and little beasties and creeping things he was accustomed to see outside the gate among the tall, wild sunflowers. There were acres of these plants, and they were ...
— A Little Boy Lost • Hudson, W. H.
... and shy violet Their simple incense seemed to wave on high; Surely we saw, with glances heavenward set, God smiling from his ...
— Bohemians of the Latin Quarter • Henry Murger
... and repeating the speech of Hector to Andromache. I was taken by surprise, and laid down the book; but he entreated me to continue the subject, and to oblige him I began the dialogue again, and he repeated the part of Andromache. Although heretofore a very shy boy, I now became warm, and at length impassioned; he encouraged me, and before we had concluded I almost fancied myself a hero. He was delighted; he took me in his arms, he embraced and caressed me; he saw that I had caught the "electric spark;" he wept over me with rapture, ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt
... commonplace, every-day existence—and these occurred even in their first days together—they were stiff, shy, self-conscious with each other. And their attempt to ignore this fact only made the self-consciousness the worse. It troubled ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... most unexpected move, and no mistake; but the ship ain't gone yet; and, from what I heard passin' among the others, just now, afore you come up, I ain't by no means sure as they'll leave to-night. Some of 'em is that greedy that they wants to stop and have a shy at the other treasure; and if they does, there's no knowin' what may happen betwixt now and then. And if they makes up their minds to go, I don't go with 'em. I'll slip overboard, and swim ashore, if there's no other way of ...
— The Cruise of the "Esmeralda" • Harry Collingwood
... thy sable beak, And glossy plumage dark and sleek, Thy crimson moon, and azure eye, Cock of the heath, so wildly shy!" etc.] ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... But you are all the same, blaspheme and jeer At any mystery beyond your sphere Of beer, and beef, and beer, and beef, and beer. Now you have frightened the shy god! ...
— Household Gods • Aleister Crowley
... down on the floor, looking with his big, kind eyes at the wayfarer, and seems to say, "I'm glad I found you and brought you here to my master. Eat and drink, and be comfortable; don't be shy; there's enough here always ...
— True Stories about Cats and Dogs • Eliza Lee Follen
... confess that I was relieved for I was lonesome and a bit nervous, and when I discovered that she knew a little English I could have hugged her. We spread our cold supper on the top of my dress suit case, put our one candle in the center, and proceeded to feast. Little Miss Izy was not as shy as she looked, and what she lacked in vocabulary she made up in enthusiasm. We got into a gale of laughter over our efforts to understand each other, and she was as curious about my costume as I was about hers. She watched me undress with unfeigned ...
— Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little
... time were polite to Richardson after he had won fame at the mature age of fifty. He was not the man to presume on his position. He was 'very shy of obtruding himself on persons of condition.' He never rose like Pope, whose origin was not very dissimilar, to speak to princes and ministers as an equal. He was always the obsequious and respectful shopkeeper. The great Warburton wrote a letter to his 'good ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... of the answer, given in a shy voice, astonished him. It was his turn to be embarrassed and he strove to turn the edge of ...
— A Mating in the Wilds • Ottwell Binns
... it did no good. And by the middle of the week, in the evening, after work, he came into the shop. He tried to come in carelessly and casually, but his whole carriage advertised the strong effort of will that compelled his legs to carry his reluctant body thither. Also, he was shy, and awkwarder than ever. Genevieve, on the contrary, was serener than ever, though fluttering most alarmingly within. He was incapable of speech, mumbled his order, looked anxiously at the clock, despatched his ice-cream soda in ...
— The Game • Jack London
... manoeuvre as much, but with more skill than she does, for every one sees the game that she is playing, and the consequence is, that the young men shy off, which they probably would not if she were quiet, for they are really clever, unaffected, and natural girls, very obliging, and without any pride; but how came you to be so intimate with ...
— Valerie • Frederick Marryat
... is ascribed, wished to make her own feet like two new moons; but whether she actually bound them, as at the present day, is purely a matter of conjecture. The modern style of binding inflicts great pain for a long time upon the little girls who have to endure it. They become very shy on the subject, and will on no account show their bare feet, though Manchu women and others with full-sized feet frequently walk about unshod, and the boat-girls at Canton and elsewhere never seem to wear shoes or ...
— The Civilization Of China • Herbert A. Giles
... a gentleman, "who met triumph with boredom," and "defeat, as a great gentleman should, with quiet courtesy and good humour." Samuel A. Derieux adds "Comet" to his list of superintelligent dogs in a story the Committee regard as one of his best. It should be compared with R.G. Kirk's "Gun-Shy" (Saturday Evening Post, October 22). Similar in theme, in sympathy and in the struggle—that of a trainer to overcome a noble dog's fear of the powder roar—the stories diverge in the matter of workmanship. Yet "Gun-Shy" ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... our love when the shy dawn unfoldeth The enchanted radiance of the morning sun— Recall our love when darkling night beholdeth Veiled trains of silvery stars pass one by one, When wild thy bosom palpitates with pleasure, Or when the shades of night lull thee in dreamy measure; Then lend ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson
... had subsided and the ferry would be fixed up, all the ferrymen except Simeon would not be wanted any longer and the Tartar would have to go from village to village, begging and looking for work. His wife was only seventeen; beautiful, soft, and shy.... Could she go unveiled begging through the villages? No. The idea of it ...
— The House with the Mezzanine and Other Stories • Anton Tchekoff
... daughter of a plain Concord farmer, a girl of delicate and shy temperament, who excelled so much in study that she was sent to a fine academy in a neighboring town, and won all the honors of the course. She met at the school, and in the society of the place, a refinement and cultivation, a social ...
— Literary and Social Essays • George William Curtis
... I must forswear my trade. You send me such ill-coupled folks, That 'tis a shame to sell them yokes. They squabble for a pin, a feather, And wonder how they came together. The husband's sullen, dogged, shy; The wife grows flippant in reply: He loves command and due restriction, And she as well likes contradiction: 20 She never slavishly submits; She'll have her will, or have her fits. He this way tugs, she t'other draws: The man grows jealous, and with cause. Nothing can save him but divorce; ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... are the things Psyche most cares for, not her radiant wings Or Cupid's shy caresses. She dreams of conquests that a world applauds, Or a Stage-wardrobe with a ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari Volume 98, January 4, 1890 • Various
... poses and crowded forward sympathetically. The orderly-sergeant took the sword and tenderly placed it in the scabbard. At the time, he leaned nervously backward, and did not allow even his finger to brush the body of the lieutenant. A wound gives strange dignity to him who bears it. Well men shy from this new and terrible majesty. It is as if the wounded man's hand is upon the curtain which hangs before the revelations of all existence—the meaning of ants, potentates, wars, cities, sunshine, snow, ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane
... "shy" servant of the Argaiolos, at the time of their exile in Switzerland, figures, as a woman, under the name of Gina, in the autobiographical novel of Albert Savarus, entitled "L'Ambitieux par l'Amour." ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe
... watch for that one face whose light was hope until it became the only reality in a universe of silence and darkness. His whole life seemed to focus now on the little face with its dimpled chin and shy, tremulous lips smiling ...
— The One Woman • Thomas Dixon
... her; and it was among the most romantic of names. It completed the picture. She now seemed to be listening and waiting, her attention on the unseen area door. He felt shy and yet very happy alone with her. Voices were distinctly heard. Who was Mrs. Lobley? Was Mr. Haim a little annoyed with his daughter, and was Marguerite exquisitely defiant? Time hung. The situation was slightly awkward, he thought. And it was obscure, alluring.... He stood ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett
... walking through a copse of young white birches,—their leaves scarce yet apparent,—over a ground delicate with wood-anemones, moist and mottled with dog's-tooth-violet leaves, and spangled with the delicate clusters of that shy creature, the Claytonia or Spring Beauty. All this was floored with last year's faded foliage, giving a singular bareness and whiteness to the foreground. Suddenly, as if entering a cavern, I stepped ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various
... me not to say anything about it. I think he is rather shy of having it talked about; and it is the only thing of which he is shy as ...
— Held Fast For England - A Tale of the Siege of Gibraltar (1779-83) • G. A. Henty
... taken young, the Orang-Utan soon becomes domesticated, and indeed seems to court human society, it is naturally a very wild and shy animal, though apparently sluggish and melancholy. The Dyaks affirm, that when the old males are wounded with arrows only, they will occasionally leave the trees and rush raging upon their enemies, whose sole safety lies in instant ...
— Evidence as to Man's Place in Nature • Thomas H. Huxley
... down in an appalling manner, with one leg among Slugg's gouges and other instruments of torture, and with the other in the spittoon. Then it would rear him up against the chandelier three or four times, and shy across and drive Potts' head through the oil portrait of Slugg's father over the mantel-piece. After bumping him against Slugg's ancestor it would swirl Potts around among the crockery on the wash-stand and dance him up and down in an exciting manner over the stove, until ...
— Elbow-Room - A Novel Without a Plot • Charles Heber Clark (AKA Max Adeler)
... all day except for an hour or two which I shall use in playing with Nancy, for her gay spirit will not allow anything but the Christmas spirit to prevail. She is so like our Dear One, so determined, cheerful, hopeful, courageous, yet very shy. Ned will be out all night at dances and tomorrow too, for he is a most popular chap and very well-behaved indeed. His manners are excellent and he has plenty of dash. He is learning these things now which I learned only after many years, ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane
... watching him, and awhile ago I saw him stagger an' fall. He'd fainted from overheat. I come as quick as I could. I got water in his hat and dashed it on him—look how wet it made him, but it revived him. He wanted to work on, but I made him stop and set down. He's timid and shy before you, but me 'n him are great friends, ain't we, Joe? He helped me hunt eggs the other day"—she was running on now in a tender, caressing tone—"and I gave him some of my pie. He could crawl to places I never got at before, and we raked in a peck that would have ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben
... the Greshamsbury young ladyhood if Mary Thorne was not there. Now she was excluded from all such bevies. Patience did not quarrel with her, certainly;—came to see her frequently;—invited her to walk;—invited her frequently to the parsonage. But Mary was shy of acceding to such invitations, and at last frankly told her friend Patience, that she would not again break bread in Greshamsbury in any house in which she was not thought fit to meet the other guests who habitually ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... love ruled the world; that I Adored her; called her "Nan." She merely looked a little shy, And ...
— When hearts are trumps • Thomas Winthrop Hall
... and attractive than his father's, but not so strong. In 1799 he was married to Miss Elizabeth Clarke Manning, the daughter of Richard Manning, and then only nineteen years of age. She appears to have been an exceptionally sensitive and rather shy young woman—such as would be likely to attract the attention of a chivalrous young mariner—but with fine traits of intellect ...
— The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne • Frank Preston Stearns
... company, besides Ann, Nabby Porter, Grandma's old hired woman whom she had made over to her, and a young man who had been serving as apprentice to Mr. Samuel. His name was Phineas Adams. He was very shy and silent, but ...
— The Pot of Gold - And Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins
... bird, and buried it deep in her little garden, by which time the car was ready. She had not shed a tear, nor did she ever mention the incident afterwards; which was characteristic, for she was always shy of showing any ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... Therefore we send them unto you; And if they are not all your due, Once they have looked into your face Your graciousness will give them place. You know they were not born to bloom Like roses in a crowded room; For though courageous they are shy, Loving but one sweet hand and eye. Ah, should you take them to the rest, The warmth, the shelter of your breast, Since on the bleak And frozen bosom of our snows They dared to smile, on yours who knows But that they might not dare ...
— Songs of Two • Arthur Sherburne Hardy
... and sweetness are no bars to answering a glance and giggling. But he paid no heed, at all, to pretty emigrants who would have been delighted by flirtatious glances. It may, in fact, have been because of the shy fright, not in the least resentful, but sweetly, girlishly embarrassed, with which Anna greeted his, whenever her eyes caught them, that he turned them toward her so exclusively and frequently. Admiring youth called to admiring youth in surreptitious glances ...
— The Old Flute-Player - A Romance of To-day • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey
... my condition at this moment after going through a course of them. I notice that the reviewers have been a little shy of these hexametric efforts. They have mostly described them as "interesting experiments" and have applauded Dr. BRIDGES for his adventurous industry and his careful scholarship, and thereafter they have skirmished on the outskirts and have shown a disinclination ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, June 6, 1917 • Various
... upon him the stamp of good taste and good breeding. In school he was always the model boy; in Oxford he wrote Latin verses on safe subjects, in the approved fashion; in politics he was content to "oil the machine" as he found it; in society he was shy and silent (though naturally a brilliant talker) because he feared to make some slip which might mar his prospects or the dignity of ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... alluded to another chart of part of the coast in the neighbourhood of Cape Leeuwin, as not conveying much information.* (* It was "figuree assez grossierement et sans details.") These statements are useful as enabling us to understand why Baudin was so shy about showing his charts to Flinders. If they gave little satisfaction to the writer of the Moniteur article, we can imagine what a critic who had been over the ground himself would have thought ...
— Terre Napoleon - A history of French explorations and projects in Australia • Ernest Scott
... difficulty should be executed before his eyes at the nod of the same master:(9) he was not cruel, thoughhe was reproached with being so, but—what perhaps was worse— he was cold and, in good as in evil, unimpassioned. In the tumult of battle he faced the enemy fearlessly; in civil life he was a shy man, whose cheek flushed on the slightest occasion; he spoke in public not without embarrassment, and generally was angular, stiff, and awkward in intercourse. With all his haughty obstinacy he was— as indeed persons ordinarily are, who make a display of their independence—a pliant tool in ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... youth, like a sun-god with his flying yellow locks and glorious symmetry of body, and the pas de deux between him and Magda was a thing to marvel at—sweeping through the whole gamut of love's emotion, from the first shy, delicate hesitancy of worshipping boy and girl to the rapturous abandon ...
— The Lamp of Fate • Margaret Pedler
... thyrsus-head has a steel point under it, they are too much startled by the surprise to venture approval. I confidently promise them, however, that if they will attend the rite repeatedly now as in days of yore, if my old boon-companions will call to mind the revels that once we shared, not be too shy of satyrs and Silenuses, and drink deep of the bowl I bring, the frenzy shall take hold upon them too, till their evoes ...
— Works, V3 • Lucian of Samosata
... put her little hand into his for a moment; then with a sudden shy caprice snatched it away, and hid her face on her father's shoulder, just peeping at him with her bright eyes. But she started up again suddenly as he was leaving the room, calling out "Adieu, ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter
... when she thought of him. His coming gave her pleasure always, and it was anticipated with a shy new consciousness since the night they had read each other's hearts more certainly through the tell-tale windows of their eyes. But though his coming gave her pleasure, it left her always with a disappointment. Concerning the one thing that had come ...
— The First Soprano • Mary Hitchcock
... Indian girl! I see her yet as she stood in all ways the ideal type of her race, lithe and active, with clean-cut aquiline features, olive-red complexion and long dark hair; but developed by her white-man training so that the shy Indian girl had given place to the alert, resourceful world-woman, at home equally in the salons of the rich and learned or in the stern of the birch canoe, where, with paddle poised, she was in absolute and fearless control, watching, warring and winning against the grim rocks that grinned ...
— The Shagganappi • E. Pauline Johnson
... and had grown quite hopeless about seeing his kind again. When there was a gap in the mountains, he could hear the querulous, senseless love-quarrel of flickers going on below him; passing a deep ravine, the note of the wood-thrush—that shy lyrist of the hills—might rise to him from a dense covert of maple and beech: or, with a startling call, a red-crested cock of the woods would beat his white-striped wings from spur to spur, as though he were keeping close to the long swells of an unseen ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox
... anxiety with which both Ludlow and the Patroon had undertaken to board the notorious smuggler had given place to an amazement and a curiosity that caused them nearly to forget their errand; while Alderman Van Beverout appeared shy and suspicious, manifestly thinking less of his niece, than of the consequences of so remarkable an interview. They all returned the salutation of their host, though each waited for ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... general, are not only rare as to the different species, but very scarce as to numbers; and these few are so shy, that, in all probability, they are continually harassed by the natives, perhaps to eat them as food, certainly to get possession of their feathers, which they use as ornaments. Those which frequent the woods, are crows and ravens, not at all different ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr
... drove the cart was shy at first, and sat very stolid and stiff beside Paul apparently absorbed in guiding his horse, but Paul was not troubled with shyness, or anything else but curiosity, and after he had looked at the horse and cart, and everything about him, his tongue refused to be silent any ...
— Paul the Courageous • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... remember'; for if he could, he would have remembered already. He cannot say, 'I will forget'; for the very effort fixes his attention on the obnoxious thing. All that we can do, when we seek to remember, is to wander back to somewhere about that point in our life where the shy thing lurks, and hope to catch some sight of it in the leafy coverts: and all we can do, when we want to forget, is to try and fill our mind with other subjects, and in the distractions of them to lose the oppressive and burdensome thoughts. But we know that that is but a partial remedy, ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... some tough work before we get to Khartoum. I only hope they won't catch us suddenly before we have time to get off those camels. Fancy being stuck up on one of those long-legged beasts with half a dozen niggers making a cock-shy ...
— The Dash for Khartoum - A Tale of Nile Expedition • George Alfred Henty
... book—19th Century Rogues in every walk of life Secret of the man who is universally interesting Seen through the wrong end of the telescope Shackles of belief worn so long Should sin a little more on the side of candid severity Should be very sorry to do good, as people called it Shy of his fellow-men, as the scholar seems always to be So refined, after the gigantic coarseness of California So many millionaires and so many tramps So touching that it brought the lump into my own throat Solution of the problem how and where to spend ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... and, in short, was everything that a wolf ought to be; at the same time, he lived with his fellow dogs like a dog, and was admitted to all their parties. But, little by little, the dogs perceived that he associated with wolves, and became shy of him; and it also happened that the wolves discovered that he was in fact a dog, and did not like to admit him any longer into their circles; so between both, the poor dog became neglected and miserable; and, unable to bear his undefined ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier
... made her timid again; she was no more the imperious goddess of the night. It was a shy and tender little maiden who nestled into the protecting strong arms of ...
— Halcyone • Elinor Glyn
... family circle that he had been instrumental in founding. Being no longer absorbed in business, he had come to detest its every detail, and so allowed his bankers to care for his fortune and his brother-in-law to disburse his income, while he himself strove to enjoy life in a shy and boyish fashion that was as unusual in a man of his wealth as it was admirable. He ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces at Millville • Edith Van Dyne
... Frenchmen had gone, Dick addressed himself to the last part of the letter, given in these pages. He bent himself to it with the concentration that turns a young face, even though but for the moment, into a prophetic hint of its far-off middle age. If he had kept enough of his shy self-consciousness to glance at himself in the glass, he would have been able to smile at the old fear of what the years might do to him. No heaviness there, such as he remembered in his father's face: only trouble, pain, and their mysteriously ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... in that either. Politicians are not the only ones who think interminable talk an indication of weakness. I knew a liveryman who was also a great horse-trader. Said he: "I shy clear across the road when a tonguey man tries to deal ...
— The Young Man and the World • Albert J. Beveridge
... one's fruit, and knows to a shade of purple when your grapes have cooked long enough in the sun. During the severe drought a few years ago the robins wholly vanished from my garden. I neither saw nor heard one for three weeks, meanwhile a small foreign grape-vine, rather shy of bearing, seemed to find the dusty air congenial, and, dreaming, perhaps of its sweet Argos across the sea, decked itself with a score or so of fair bunches. I watched them from day to day till they should have secreted sugar enough from the sunbeams, and at last made up my mind that ...
— My Garden Acquaintance • James Russell Lowell
... find you so weak and small, A human child, not a god at all; Two angry, sleepy eyes that cry, Two little hands so soft and shy, I'll hush you with a lullaby. ...
— The Fairy Changeling and Other Poems • Dora Sigerson
... stronger than this doubt touched the lips with a flying smile—shy and lovely. But she was far from happy. Since her talk with Polly especially, her pride was stabbed and tormented in all directions. And her nature was ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... tirelessly as the most patient of the wild creatures themselves—this, he had been taught by Uncle Andy, was one of the first essentials to the acquirement of true woodcraft, as only such stillness and such patience could admit one to anything like a real view of the secrets of the wild. Even the least shy of the wilderness folk are averse to going about their private and personal affairs under the eyes of strangers, and what the Child aspired to was the knowledge of how to catch them off their guard. He would learn to see for himself ...
— Children of the Wild • Charles G. D. Roberts
... a-goin' to brace her by an' by to see if there's any hope, To see if she's liable to shy when I'm ready to pitch the rope; To see if she's goin' to make a stand, or fly like a skeered up dove When I make a pass with the brandin' iron that's het in the fire o' love. I'll open the little home ...
— Songs of the Cattle Trail and Cow Camp • Various
... lonely Downs and as good an objective as the walker who sets out from Brighton, Rottingdean, or Lewes to climb hills can ask, is a charming little shy hamlet which nothing can harm, snugly reposing in its combe, above Piddinghoe. Piddinghoe (pronounced Pidd'nhoo) is a compact village at the foot of the hill; but it has suffered in picturesqueness and character by its proximity ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... constantly grieving in her quiet way for her departed lord. Her son grew up to the age of ten in this sad and lonely house, passing four of the most susceptible years of his life in the society of his sorrowful mother. He became a shy boy, and avoided the company of other children. His health began to suffer from the effects of such an unnatural state of affairs, and at the age of ten he was sent to live on a farm belonging to the family, on the shore of Sebago Lake, in Maine. The active out-door life which he led here entirely ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... know something about him," she said. "Is he shy before strangers? I heard you whispering with him on the other side of the door. Are you jealous, Anne? Are you afraid I shall fascinate him ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins
... book is not like war correspondence. It can be commended to those who were not there, but who wish to hear a true word or two. Mr. Beaman as a good-natured man remembers how squeamish we are, and being also shy and dainty indicates some matters but briefly. I wish, for one thing, that when describing the doings of his cavalry squadron after the disaster on the Fifth Army front—the author enables you to feel how slender ...
— Waiting for Daylight • Henry Major Tomlinson
... so quick and informal with us, make a ceremonious bow to the old lady with the Debats (who acknowledged it with "What a lovely sun! You'd think there was a fire burning.") speaking to her with a shy smile, with an air of constraint which called to my mind the other little girl that Gilberte must be when at home with her parents, or with friends of her parents, paying visits, in all the rest, that escaped me, of her existence. ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... of the shy mauvaise honte, peculiar to Englishmen, which these two beautiful boys exhibited on the occasion of a fancy ball, to which we were all invited, at the house of our friend, Mrs. E. G——. To me, of course, my first fancy ball was an event of unmixed delight, especially as my mother ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... because I must part from my mother and the rest. In all our games she was ever my partner, and I would search the country round for days to find such flowers as she chanced to love. When I came back from school it was the same, though by degrees Lily grew shyer, and I also grew suddenly shy, perceiving that from a child she had become a woman. Still we met often, and though neither said anything of it, it was sweet to ...
— Montezuma's Daughter • H. Rider Haggard
... bell, and desired Pierre to request Miss Van Cortlandt to join him in the library. Grace entered blushing and shy, but with a countenance beaming with inward peace. Her uncle regarded her a moment intently, and a tear glistened in his eye, again, as he tenderly kissed ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... days. The great pomp and ceremony which with us, and occasionally with a few rich Burmese, consecrate a man and a woman to each other for life, are absent at the greater number of Burmese marriages; and the reason they tell me is that the girl is shy. She does not like to be stared at, and wondered at, as a maiden about to be a wife; it troubles her that the affairs of her heart, her love, her marriage, should be so public. The young men come at night and throw stones upon the house roof, and demand presents from the bridegroom. He does ...
— The Soul of a People • H. Fielding
... indeed, I would as soon have thought of angling for gold fish in my aunt's glass globe—and there he sat fishing with great complacency. However, he seemed a little put out when we came up. "Ah, Tom, how do you do?—Miss, your most obsequious—no rain mullet deucedly shy, Tom— ah! what a glorious nibble—there—there again—I have him;" and sure enough, he had hooked a fine mountain mullet, weighing about a pound and a half, and in the ecstasy of the moment, and his hurry to land him handsomely, he regularly capsized in his chair, upset the rummer of brandy ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... physical existence An ample joy; that on the ocean beach Shared with the leaping waves their breezy glee; That in deep woods, or in forsaken clearings, Where the charred logs were hid by verdure new, And the shy wood-thrush lighted; or on hills Whence counties lay outspread beneath our gaze; Or by some rock-girt lake where sandy margins Sloped to the mirrored tints of waving trees,— Could feel no burden in the grasshopper, And no unrest in the long summer day? Would ...
— The Woman Who Dared • Epes Sargent
... Boissiere received me with distrust. The morning papers had made him man-shy; but, after a few "Your Excellencies" and a respectful inquiry regarding "His Royal Highness," his confidence revived. In the situation he saw nothing humorous, not even in an announcement on the wall which ...
— Real Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis
... period Miles saw little of his companions in arms personally, save that group of recruits who were being "licked into shape" along with him. At first he was disappointed with these, for most of them were shy, unlettered men; some, raw lads from the country; and others, men who seemed to have been loafers before joining, and were ...
— Blue Lights - Hot Work in the Soudan • R.M. Ballantyne
... yet met with by our navigators. Among the shoals and sand banks of the coast, they saw many large birds, and some in particular of the same kind which they had seen in Botany Bay. These they judged to be pelicans, but they were so shy as never to come within reach of a musket. On the shore was found a species of the bustard, one of which was shot that was equal in size to a turkey, weighing seventeen pounds and a half. All the gentlemen ...
— Narrative of the Voyages Round The World, • A. Kippis
... to smile an invitation to him to sit near her, should he show the inclination. For possibly he was too much embarrassed to make the first move. She must remember that he had had no one to teach him good manners and that he was always both shy and awkward ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Outside World • Margaret Vandercook
... golden dream— A morning fair—a path of flowers! But now another charm came o'er me: The ocean I had never seen; Yet suddenly it rolled before me, With all its crested waves of green! Soft sunny islands, far and lone, Where the shy petrel builds her nest; Deep coral caves to mermaids known— These were my visions bright and blest. Oh! how I yearned to meet the tide, And hear the bristling surges sweep; To stand the watery world beside, And ponder o'er the glorious deep! I bade my home adieu, ...
— Poems • Sam G. Goodrich
... precious associations of the human heart cluster around the word, and we love to remember those who have sorrowed with us in sorrow, and rejoiced with us when we were glad. But for the awkward and the shy the sympathetic are the very worst company. They do not wish to be sympathized with—they wish to be with people who are cold and indifferent; they like shy people like themselves. Put two shy people in ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... 737. coy: shy or reserved. cozened: cheated, beguiled. The origin of this word is interesting: a cozener is one who, for selfish ends, claims kindred or cousinship with another, and hence ...
— Milton's Comus • John Milton
... pocket-faced depredator, the chipmunk, was not carrying buckwheat for so many days to his hole for nothing: was he anticipating a state of torpidity, or providing against the demands of a very active appetite? Red and gray squirrels are more or less active all winter, though very shy, and, I am inclined to think, partially nocturnal in their habits. Here a gray one has just passed,—came down that tree and went up this; there he dug for a beechnut, and left the burr on the snow. How did he ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs |
