"Awkwardness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... been much nicer if Kate would have looked up readily, and said something kind and friendly; but the fit of awkwardness had come over her again, and with it a thought so selfish, that it can hardly be called otherwise than naughty—namely, that grown-up people in trouble were very tiresome, and never let ...
— Countess Kate • Charlotte M. Yonge
... and again a sense of the awkwardness of her position reddened her face and neck. The Colonel dismounted, despite her protest, and walked beside her. They chatted along indifferently, of the crops, her brother's new baby, the ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... muscles compared with the all-round exercise now taken in gymnasiums and classes for physical culture. It is recommended that all who are deficient in "manner," or who suffer an embarrassing self-consciousness because of their awkwardness of pose or movement, should take a course of training under an intelligent teacher, until every muscle learns its proper office. With the self-command which this training gives, ease of manner and dignity of bearing follow naturally; to ...
— Etiquette • Agnes H. Morton
... connecting drawing rooms Dick and Greg moved with a grace and lack of consciousness greatly in contrast with their semi-awkwardness in their earlier High School days. Many ...
— Dick Prescott's Third Year at West Point - Standing Firm for Flag and Honor • H. Irving Hancock
... hadn't the slightest doubt but that his tremendous pride would lead him to reject her aid and comfort, but how was he to accomplish this delicate procedure? The situation was fraught with as much awkwardness and embarrassment for ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... imbued with the spirit of his authors, that the idea of imitation is almost done away. There is an inward unction, a marrowy vein both in the thought and feeling, an intuition, deep and lively, of his subject, that carries off any quaintness or awkwardness arising from an antiquated style and dress. The matter is completely his own, though the manner is assumed. Perhaps his ideas are altogether so marked and individual, as to require their point and pungency to be neutralized by the affectation of a singular but traditional form of conveyance. ...
— Charles Lamb • Barry Cornwall
... manipulating the bow string. Hold the string with two fingers and the arrow between the first and second fingers. Grip firmly, but not so as to give awkwardness ...
— Camping For Boys • H.W. Gibson
... spirited conversation which ensued. The merry laughter which broke forth from these usually quiet stolid men was sufficient to mark their keen appreciation of what was said. One old chief, slightly confused, sought to excuse his awkwardness with the knife and fork to one of the young ladies, by stating that at home he never used them, but ate with his fingers. They exchanged signs for butter, coffee, milk, meat, bread, salt, sugar, knife, fork, ...
— Anecdotes & Incidents of the Deaf and Dumb • W. R. Roe
... edge of the car, stooping with a certain awkwardness; she took from him his missal and his purple bag as he gathered his cassock ...
— The Romantic • May Sinclair
... forgetting all the circumstances in her anxiety for her brother. "Sarah and myself placed them on him when the dragoons appeared; and it was our awkwardness that ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... that he was unconsciously and instinctively dropping into the fashion that to him was so sacred. Love always delights in imitation; and the disciples of a great teacher will unconsciously catch the trick of his intonation, even the awkwardness of his attitudes or the peculiarities of his way of looking at things—only, unfortunately, outsides are a good deal more easily imitated than insides. And many a disciple copies such external trifles, and talks ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... something that would make this hard job less difficult; for the ease with which I had carried a part of my food in long narrow bags, sausage-fashion—thereby getting rid of both the weight and the awkwardness of the tins—had put into my head the notion of carrying in that way the whole of my fresh supply, and so carrying at least twice as much of it. And I calculated—since I could go rapidly along my blazed path—that by cutting myself down to very short ...
— In the Sargasso Sea - A Novel • Thomas A. Janvier
... liberated now from the awkwardness of his false position. His day's rest and the attention he had received had done wonders towards effecting his recovery, and ordering a horse to be saddled, a few minutes later he passed out of the precincts of the Hall, and hoping that he ...
— Heiress of Haddon • William E. Doubleday
... was displeased with her stepson for paying attention to a nurse in her employ? Esther was not quite sure, but she felt a moment's awkwardness. It vanished, however, when a moment later she climbed into ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell
... length under this primitive system of exchanges. But when Maurice dispatched his cravat with a five-franc piece tied in it to the other bank, the Bavarian who was to return him a loaf of bread gave it, whether from awkwardness or malice, such an ineffectual toss that it fell in the water. The incident elicited shouts of laughter from the Germans. Twice again Maurice repeated the experiment, and twice his loaf went to feed the fishes. At last the Prussian officers, attracted by the uproar, ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... little ungraceful here and there. Suppose this stubbornness and self-trust in a youth, laboring in an art of which the executive part is confessedly to be best learnt from masters, and we shall hardly wonder that much of his work has a certain awkwardness and stiffness in it, or that he should be regarded with disfavor by many, even the most temperate, of the judges trained in the system he was breaking through, and with utter contempt and reprobation by the envious and the dull. Consider, further, that the particular system to be overthrown ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... clashes and jars which we all feel most keenly are those which occur when two standards of morals, both honestly held and believed in, are brought sharply together. The awkwardness and constraint we experience when two standards of conventions and manners clash but feebly prefigure ...
— Democracy and Social Ethics • Jane Addams
... dulness have indeed no power of affording delight, but they never give disgust except when they assume the dignity of knowledge, or ape the sprightliness of wit. Awkwardness and inelegance have none of those attractions by which ease and politeness take possession of the heart; but ridicule and censure seldom rise against them, unless they appear associated with that confidence which ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson
... chanced that, on one particular afternoon, the maid, either through awkwardness, or possibly through looking more at the handsome painter than the ground she was walking ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book II - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various
... gone by. In fact they are indispensable, if the spirit is to express itself without restraint. And the greater mechanical command one has the less noticeable it becomes. All that suggests effort, awkwardness, difficulty, repels the listener, who more than anything else delights in a singing violin tone. Vieuxtemps often said: Pas de trait pour le trait—chantez, chantez! (Not runs for the sake ...
— Violin Mastery - Talks with Master Violinists and Teachers • Frederick H. Martens
... The awkwardness of his position, a shyness that came over him at the thought that they must soon see him and wonder why he was there, suggested the wonder why he had desired that Bates should be happy; now that he saw him opulent in happiness, ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... these dazzling stars he himself moved in simple uniform and in a cocked hat ornamented with his favorite cheap little cockade. It was a well-calculated vanity, for with increasing corpulence plainness of dress called less attention to his waddling gait and growing awkwardness of gesture. ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... 'them that finds wins, and them that can't—och sure!—they loses;' saying also frequently 'your honour' instead of 'my lord.' I observed, on drawing nearer, that he handled the pea and thimble with some awkwardness, like that which might be expected from a novice in the trade. He contrived, however, to win several shillings, for he did not seem to play for gold, from 'their honours.' Awkward as he was, he evidently did his best, and never flung a chance away by permitting anyone to win. He had just won ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... garlands, spoons, and other little valuables, are placed. The high smooth round pole is then well greased; and now he who can climb up to the top may have what he can get,—a very laughable scene as you may suppose, of awkwardness and agility, and failures on the very brink of success. Now began a dance. The women danced very well, and, in general, I have observed throughout Germany that the women in the lower ranks degenerate far less from the ideal of a woman, than the ...
— Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1. • Coleridge, ed. Turnbull
... must meet in a village no bigger than South Harniss, would be awkward for both. And to meet Mrs. Fosdick might be more awkward still. He smiled as he surmised that the realization by the lady of that very awkwardness was probably responsible for the discovery that sea air was ...
— The Portygee • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... nothing better to do, John and Fluff went for a walk on the Sudbury road. They had played football before Bill, and each had realized his own awkwardness and insignificance. Poor Fluff, almost reduced to tears, with a big black bruise upon his white forehead, confessed that he preferred peaceful games—like croquet, and intended to apply for a doctor's certificate of exemption. Demanding sympathy, ...
— The Hill - A Romance of Friendship • Horace Annesley Vachell
... that subtle air of constraint which is the result of family jars—an electric disturbance in the home atmosphere which each and all feel. Theo, at the head of the table, looked grave and pained. Geoff was uncomfortable also, and, in his awkwardness, overtalked himself, in a frantic desire to smooth matters. Queenie and the captain himself were the only members of the family at their ease; while as for Alick, he sat sullen and dumb, ...
— The Captain's Bunk - A Story for Boys • M. B. Manwell
... awkwardness in having to point out to a man of his beauty and dignity that his duty lay in any other direction than the one he was so plainly heading for. I put it on the grounds of pity. I pleaded for Viola, I ...
— The Belfry • May Sinclair
... slopes, watching the manoeuvres of the soldiers, began gathering in daily augmenting crowds about the agency grounds, frequently applauding the leaping and hurdling, but only too readily jeering the awkwardness of some of the men in mounting and dismounting at the gallop, a thing they had learned and practised since early boyhood. Then Cranston and the other troop leaders got to working down toward the agency and, during the rests, moving ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... Titian's Assunta is foreshadowed in the fervour of the guards' expressions." Alvise, if he never thoroughly mastered the structure of the nude, and if his forms keep throughout some touch of the archaic, some awkwardness in the thickness of the figures, with their round heads, long thighs, and uncertain proportions, is yet extraordinarily refined and tender in sentiment, his line has a natural flow and beauty, and the heads of his Madonnas and saints cannot be ...
— The Venetian School of Painting • Evelyn March Phillipps
... last topic he, too, suddenly found his tongue. The cloud—of awkwardness, or of something else not to be analyzed—broke away, and he began to talk, and presently to ask questions, with readiness, even ...
— Marriage a la mode • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Greenfield; there were damask roses and old-fashioned lilies enough in the square garden to have furnished a whole century of poets with similes; and in the posy-bed under the front windows were tulips of Chinese awkwardness and splendor, beds of pinks spicy as all Arabia, blue hyacinths heavy with sweetness as well as bells, "pi'nies" rubicund and rank, hearts-ease clustered against the house, and sticky rose-acacias, pretty and impracticable, not to mention the grenadier ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... of the Hall moved down into the quadrangle, spreading their resentment like a miasma. The tragic passion of the crowd was merged in mere awkwardness. There was a general ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm
... a comic perception of the awkwardness of returning to one's own home unexpectedly, in the dead of night. At first I decided I would go to a hotel, then on second thoughts I determined to try the house, for I had a ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... seemed, in the throbbing riot of her senses, that she was lifted and swung into his arms, and handled with a great and terrible tenderness, and hugged and kissed with the hunger and awkwardness of a bear, and held with her feet off the ground, and rendered blind, dizzy, rapturous, and frightened, and utterly torn asunder from her old calm, ...
— The Man of the Forest • Zane Grey
... performances. You will have to put your shoulder under the huge mass of your Church's policy and try to keep step with some thousands whose shoulders are under it too; and the reproaches cast by the public and the press at the awkwardness of the whole squad and the unsteadiness of the ark will fall on you along ...
— The Preacher and His Models - The Yale Lectures on Preaching 1891 • James Stalker
... Hilda walked in together and immediately engaged in comfortable conversation; not the sort of nonsense talk usually resorted to by a young man and a young woman on their first meeting. They had no awkwardness to overcome, nor was either striving to make an impression on the other. Bonbright had forgotten who this girl was, and why she was present, until he saw his mother and Mrs. Lightener approach each other, cast covert glances in their direction, ...
— Youth Challenges • Clarence B Kelland
... contents of the accompanying case (from Strasbourg direct, and the gift of a friend, on whose taste as a gourmand Mr. Dawkins may rely), perhaps he will find that it is not a bad substitute for the plat which Mr. Deuceace's awkwardness destroyed. ...
— Memoirs of Mr. Charles J. Yellowplush - The Yellowplush Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... welfare of his men; cautious in his strategy, yet bold; reserved; he made his own plans, and saw personally to their carrying out;— above all, he never made mistakes and never lost a battle. His natural shyness and timidity and awkwardness vanished as soon as there was work to be done: in camp, or on the battlefield, he was a very different man from the shy Tiberius of ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... that she had no work before her, such as sewing or knitting. She abominated it; but in conversation, especially between a man and a woman who find themselves alone, it is useful. It not only relieves awkwardness, but it prevents too much edge and directness ...
— Miriam's Schooling and Other Papers - Gideon; Samuel; Saul; Miriam's Schooling; and Michael Trevanion • Mark Rutherford
... to M. Fieubert, the Treasurer, and that he was a great awkward fellow, who broke everything. That he had desired to be received into a monastery, thinking that he would there be made to smart for his awkwardness and the faults he should commit, and so he should sacrifice to God his life, with its pleasures; but that God had disappointed him, he having met with nothing but satisfaction in ...
— Talks To Teachers On Psychology; And To Students On Some Of Life's Ideals • William James
... young one. The youngster was at the awkward age, free of the teat, yet unable to travel alone. It was nibbling and playing some distance from its big mother when she had her first warning of Finn's approach, in the crackling of dead twigs under his powerful feet. The youngster showed awkwardness in getting to its snug retreat in the mother's pouch, and so, by these delays, Finn was given his glimpse of a big marsupial in the act of taking a fifteen-foot leap through the scrub. Finn almost sat down on his haunches from astonishment. But, unlike the ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson
... Duke's house were never his guests, but always hers. But he could not allow himself to be brought into an argument with Lord Chiltern as to the management of his own property. The Duchess was made to understand that she must prevent any such awkwardness. And she did prevent it. "And now, Lord Chiltern," she said, "how about the foxes?" She had taken care there should be a council of war around her. Lady Chiltern and Madame Goesler were ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... of those charities which have a miscellaneous appetite, and wonderful power of adaptation of the disused. Besides, though no one could have the least objection to their being bestowed on the Whites, the very fact of this being her third secret meeting with Kalliope was beginning to occasion an awkwardness in accounting for her knowledge of their needs. It was obvious to ask why she had not mentioned the first meeting, and this her pride would not endure. She had told her parents by letter. What more ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge
... languished. Henley was plainly not a success as a manager of delicate situations. What puzzled him beyond any mystery he had ever stumbled on in the intricate make-up of his charming neighbor was her evident cool and detached enjoyment of his and Long's awkwardness. At any rate, he reflected with satisfaction, he could extricate himself from the tangle, and in that, at least, he felt that he had ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben
... us that we were to build a hut for ourselves in which to pass the night, and took us to a spot where we found an abundance of bamboos, and the large palm leave? I have before described. She seemed much amused at our awkwardness in putting up the building, and quickly set to work to show us the way, so that in a short time we had a comfortable little hut for a ...
— In the Eastern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... preventing any very close scrutiny, and Deerslayer, himself, though of a brighter and fresher tint, had a countenance that was burnt by the sun to a hue scarcely less red than that of his Mohican companion. The awkwardness of the Delaware in his new attire caused his friend to smile more than once that day, but he carefully abstained from the use of any of those jokes which would have been bandied among white men on such an occasion, the habits of a chief, the dignity of a warrior on his first path, and the ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... question arises for them to settle, the Irish question, for instance,—the English question why did I not say? Their natures are subdued to what they work in. Their "good breeding" respects only secondary objects. The finest manners in the world are awkwardness and fatuity, when contrasted with a finer intelligence. They appear but as the fashions of past days,—mere courtliness, knee-buckles and small-clothes, out of date. It is the vice, but not the excellence of manners, that they are continually being deserted ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various
... cold of a dreary November evening, and found five or six men already assembled. He had got into another world; faces, manners, speeches, all were strange, and savoured neither of Eton, which was his own school, nor of Oxford itself. He was introduced, and found the awkwardness of a new acquaintance little relieved by the conversation which went on. It was a dropping fire of serious remarks; with pauses, relieved only by occasional "ahems," the sipping of tea, the sound of spoons falling against the saucers, ...
— Loss and Gain - The Story of a Convert • John Henry Newman
... decide on action, and that necessity was horrible. A false movement, an awkwardness, and the "doctors" would be warned, and everything lost. They must have the bombs under their coats; there were certainly at least two "living bombs." Their chests, as they breathed, must heave to and fro and their hearts beat ...
— The Secret of the Night • Gaston Leroux
... said the young assistant, colouring, for he had heard Valmai's story, and never having seen her, was now rather bewildered by her beauty, and the awkwardness of ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine
... feeling that every moment of her undiscovered presence added to the awkwardness of her situation, ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... France he had guarded the secret carefully—often by an air of indifference which fitted him well, a relic of his years of seclusion, and a native awkwardness which was always more or less in evidence before women. Whatever his secret misgivings, he had blessed the opportunity which chance and her own wild will had thrown in his way. And now—she would leave him, of course. There was nothing ...
— Madcap • George Gibbs
... a graduate now and all traces of the old awkwardness have left her. She is reserved but easy, simple and gracious in meeting those whom her work calls her to meet and her eye and her heart alike are open for the self-conscious girl wherever she meets her. If she were to try all her life, she tells me, she could never ...
— The Girl and Her Religion • Margaret Slattery
... mode of annoyance was meant to punish. It has been suggested that it might be the man's pantomimic protest against sitting at all. But the saddest commentary upon this vice of our hero is, that by some mysterious magnetism of awkwardness and ill-breeding, he has betrayed into imitation of it men whose early education has been less neglected than ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 6, May 7, 1870 • Various
... but—another question!—would they like to receive her into their house? At all events, though she did not reject the idea of this marriage, she desired not to be hurried. As for the seventy-five thousand roubles, Mr. Totski need not have found any difficulty or awkwardness about the matter; she quite understood the value of money, and would, of course, accept the gift. She thanked him for his delicacy, however, but saw no reason why Gavrila Ardalionovitch should ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... she had any burdens. He was rehearsing them all now, as he rubbed the lather over his chin, so busily that he did not hear Philippa's light step on the back stairs. Philippa could step very lightly when she chose, despite the fact that she was long and awkward, with that temporary awkwardness of a growing girl who finds it hard to adjust herself and her skirts to her constantly ...
— Flip's "Islands of Providence" • Annie Fellows Johnston
... rods of the trail. It was two months to a day after his death before I could find a mate for the Dave ox, and then I had to take another five-year-old steer off the cattle range of Nebraska. This steer, Dandy, evidently had never been handled; but he came of good stock and, with the exception of awkwardness, gave me no serious trouble. Dandy was purchased out of the stockyard at Omaha. He then weighed 1,470 pounds, and the day before he went to see the President he tipped the scales at the 1,760-pound notch. Dandy proved to ...
— Ox-Team Days on the Oregon Trail • Ezra Meeker
... joined his aunt and Miss Assher, and Mr. Gilfil tried to relieve Caterina from the awkwardness of sitting aloof and dumb, by telling her how a friend of his had broken his arm and staked his horse that morning, not at all appearing to heed that she hardly listened, and was looking towards the other ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... needn't say how welcome you are to my testimony. What I mainly seem to grasp, I should say, is that in regard to testifying at all unlimitedly by the aid of the newspapers, I have to reckon with a certain awkwardness in our position. Here comes up, you see, the question of our reconciling a rather indispensable degree of reserve as to the detail of our activity with the general American demand for publicity at any price. There are ways in which the close presence of war challenges the whole claim for publicity; ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... my awkwardness, which arises not from ignorance of the usages of polite society, but from a little surprise and nervousness, consequent on this somewhat unexpected visit. And I beseech you to reveal my indiscretion to no one, and especially not to my Wife. But before your Lordship enters into further ...
— Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions (Illustrated) • Edwin A. Abbott
... aristocracy, and its suppression was of course followed by a vigorous use of the gallows. No doubt the industrial conservatives of those days were as frightened, as angry, and as eager for strong measures as their successors are now: but the awkwardness of the newly liberated captive, in the use of his limbs and eyes, is due not to his recovered liberty, but to the narrowness and darkness of the dungeon in which he ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... scarlet tunics gleaming through the trees, to the delight of the old mountain guides, who chuckled over their Camilla-like exploits, and laughed, as they plucked the fragrant boughs for their spicy couch, over the ignorance and awkwardness of their lazy city beaux. These fair Dians shoot no deer, nor lure the springing trout. We blessed them as they went ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... eyes and wondering at the persistent air of ineffectiveness in the people who passed. When a band went by playing march music and followed by some fifty men wearing white plumes in their hats and walking with self-conscious awkwardness, he was startled. Among the people he thought there was a change. Something like a running shadow passed over them. The babbling of voices ceased and like himself the people began to nod their heads. A thought, gigantic in its simplicity, began to come into his mind but was wiped out immediately ...
— Marching Men • Sherwood Anderson
... his face as he spoke, and was gone in an instant. Neither Evie nor myself knew what to reply, and an awkward pause ensued. He seemed to feel the awkwardness of it just as much as either of us, and he changed the subject with an inquiry as to whether anything further had been heard or seen of the Motor Pirate during his ...
— The Motor Pirate • George Sidney Paternoster
... her humble place on Sundays, in the back pew next the door. She had been educated by a remembrance; Helena's young eyes forever looked at her reassuringly from a gay girlish face, Helena's sweet patience in teaching her own awkwardness could never be forgotten. ...
— The Queen's Twin and Other Stories • Sarah Orne Jewett
... old thing! It always stuck so I had to give a jerk. Now, there it is, topsy-turvy," and Thorny looked Much disgusted at his own awkwardness. ...
— Under the Lilacs • Louisa May Alcott
... Dame d'Atours. She was related to Madame de Maintenon, to whose favour she owed her marriage with the Comte de Mailly. She had come to Paris with all her provincial awkwardness, and, from want of wit, had never been able to get rid of it. On the contrary, she grafted thereon an immense conceit, caused by the favour of Madame de Maintenon. To complete the household, came M. de Fontaine-Martel, poor and gouty, who was first ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... continual exhibition of scenes the most hideous, in which human blood was poured out like water, and a human life sacrificed at any moment either to caprice in the populace, or to a strife of rivalry between the ayes and the noes, or as the penalty for any trifling instance of awkwardness in the performer himself? Even the more innocent exhibitions, in which brutes only were the sufferers, could not but be mortal to all the finer sensibilities. Five thousand wild animals, torn from their native abodes in the wilderness or forest, were often turned out to be hunted, ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... and, stupidly enough, as the guests began leaving the table Anthony Graham felt his own shyness and awkwardness returning. They were intending to dance for the rest of the evening, and dancing was another of the graces that had been left out of his education. However, he could find himself an inconspicuous corner somewhere, and it would be good enough fun ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Outside World • Margaret Vandercook
... for the new suit was unmistakably a success. Charlie was one of those few, but fortunate boys who can wear even shabby clothes with an air that gives them a certain elegance; and he had grace enough to enable him to escape the usual awkwardness, which comes to the young girl in managing her first train, to the boy in appearing in his first long suit. As Allie had said it made him look much older and more dignified, until she almost felt that she had lost ...
— In Blue Creek Canon • Anna Chapin Ray
... upon the Place through the Rue Saint-Pierre-aux-Boeufs. The sergeants of the watch were clearing a passage for it through the crowd, by stout blows from their clubs. Beside the cart rode several officers of justice and police, recognizable by their black costume and their awkwardness in the saddle. Master Jacques Charmolue ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... confidence which our great public schools, and none of them so much as Eton, are supposed to inspire, of that buoyant ease in holding up one's head, speaking out what is in one's mind, and flinging off all sheepishness and awkwardness, than to see an Eton assistant-master offering in fact himself as evidence that to combine boarding-house- keeping with teaching is a good thing, and his brother as evidence that to train and race little boys for competitive examinations is a good thing? Nay, and one sees that this frank-hearted ...
— Culture and Anarchy • Matthew Arnold
... begun to speak immediately on his entering the room, and so it happened that he had not kissed her as he always did at home-coming. When she had sat down, he came with awkwardness and timidity and bent his face ...
— The Nether World • George Gissing
... one, if his feelings remained unchanged; and if the eventful year that had elapsed since they parted had not replaced her image in his susceptible mind by another more cherished, and, perhaps, less obdurate. Again, to Lady Annabel the moment was one of great awkwardness, for the introduction of her husband to those with whom she was recently so intimate, and who were then aware that the name of that husband was never even mentioned in her presence, recalled the painful past with a disturbing vividness. Venetia, indeed, ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli
... to obey. He came slowly towards the sofa, while the tenor and the pianist vanished behind the screen. That he was sufficiently sensitive to be conscious of the awkwardness of the situation Miss Schley had pleasantly contrived was very apparent. He glowered upon Lady Holme, forcing his boyish face to assume a coarsely-determined and indifferent expression. But somehow the body, which she knew her husband ...
— The Woman With The Fan • Robert Hichens
... mitch hurt if it did;" and surveyed its legs with a smile. I was half inclined to make it try; however, he moved off to open the door, and, as he raised the latch, he looked up to the inscription above, and said, with a stupid mixture of awkwardness and elation: "Miss Catherine! ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte
... are not only encouraged, but made compulsory; but this is by no means a universal rule in girls' schools. It is not necessary, and is indeed highly undesirable, that the games adopted should be those of boys. In England especially, where the movements of women are so often marked by awkwardness, angularity and lack of grace, it is essential that nothing should be done to emphasize these characteristics, for where vigor involves violence we are in the presence of a lack of due neuro-muscular cooerdination. Swimming, when possible, and especially some forms of dancing, are admirably ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... upon a well-fed ambling mule, whose furniture was highly decorated, and whose bridle, according to the fashion of the day, was ornamented with silver bells. In his seat he had nothing of the awkwardness of the convent, but displayed the easy and habitual grace of a well-trained horseman. Indeed, it seemed that so humble a conveyance as a mule, in however good case, and however well broken to a pleasant ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... fluttered overhead, and in his new mood, he felt a resurgence of his old self-consciousness. He was provoked by the suspicion that he had shown less as a coming dramatist than as a present fool, and he contrasted his own awkwardness with Adams' whimsical ease of manner. Did a woman ever forget how a man appeared when she first met him? Would any amount of fame to-morrow obliterate from Laura's memory his embarrassment of yesterday? He had heard that the surface impression was what counted in the feminine mind, and ...
— The Wheel of Life • Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow
... signification from the respective positions of the ascensionists, clinging with feet and hands one above the other to the wall, bound by the rope and the similarity of their movements, so that the fall or the awkwardness of one put all in danger. And what danger! coquin de sort! It sufficed to hear fragments of the ice-wall bounding and dashing downward with the echo of their fall to imagine the open jaws of the monster watching there below to snap you up at the ...
— Tartarin On The Alps • Alphonse Daudet
... have this defect, we cannot conceal from ourselves that it must always originate in a want of the desire to please—a want, the evidence of which cannot fail to wound the self-love of those who detect, and indispose them towards those who betray it. By a disagreeable manner I do not mean the awkwardness often arising from timidity, or the too great familiarity originating in untutored good nature: but I refer to a superciliousness, or coldness, that marks a sense of superiority; or to a habit of contradiction, that renders ...
— The Idler in France • Marguerite Gardiner
... imperious and she yielded. He hurried on to join Eleanor, carrying the cloak with his usual awkwardness, and often trailing it in the dust. Lucy, who was very neat and precise in all her personal ways, suffered at the sight, and wished she had stood firm. But to be waited on and remembered by him was not a disagreeable experience; perhaps because it was still ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... said Ida, conclusively. "She is at the awkward age, too. But there is no awkwardness about Maria. She is ...
— By the Light of the Soul - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... scarcely fail to construe such action on his behalf as one inspired by deep personal interest, and she instinctively shrank from such revealment, fearing his glance, his word of welcome, his expressions of surprised gratitude. The awkwardness, the probable embarrassment involved, became more and more apparent as she looked forward to that meeting. If possible, she would gladly drop out, and so permit the other to bear on the message of warning alone. But, even with Mercedes' undoubted ...
— Beth Norvell - A Romance of the West • Randall Parrish
... premeditated, or so completely the result of an after-thought, than this; and now that it had proved so perfectly successful—now that he found himself admitted into the very heart of the little village, and into the bosoms of the people—he began, for the first time, to feel the awkwardness of the situation in which he had placed himself, and the responsibilities, if not dangers, to which it subjected him. To play the part of a mere preacher—to talk glibly, and with proper unction, in ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... in the courtyard with the scolding assistance of a maid-servant. When the troopers entered to search for the master of the house, they heard the maid vehemently "flyting" the great hulking lout for his awkwardness, and threatening to "draw a stick across his back" if he did not ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... back to her cheeks, her step grew lighter and quicker, her smile shone out more readily, and it became certain that she would soon be a treasure of help. It was great fun to see Diamond teaching her how to hold the baby, and wash and dress him, and often they laughed together over her awkwardness. But she had not many such lessons before she was able to perform those duties quite as well as ...
— At the Back of the North Wind • George MacDonald
... the well-meaning awkwardness of a servant, irritated by a tight shoe or a thoughtless remark, vexed at some careless neglect or needless misfortune, wounded by the ingratitude of child or friend. To tease is to give some slight and perhaps playful annoyance. ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... silently, and was opened a little later by the dubious George coming in to set a bountiful repast. Gunn, after cursing him for his slowness and awkwardness, drew his chair to the table and made the meal of one seldom able to satisfy his hunger. He finished at last, and after sitting for some time smoking, with his legs sprawled on the fender, rang for a candle and demanded to ...
— Lady of the Barge and Others, Entire Collection • W.W. Jacobs
... evening fire. If the men of the other camps were cool in their manner towards Dade when they met him, at least they were civil; except Manuel, who passed him by with lowered brows, and of him Dade took no notice. If he were watched curiously, in hope of detecting the awkwardness which would betray unfamiliarity with his work, Dade took no notice of that, either, except to grin now and then when he rode away. Altogether, he was well pleased with his reception and inclined to laugh at the forebodings he had felt; forebodings born of the knowledge that, unless ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower
... dining-room. There from the table under the window rose a tall, slim girl with a cat in her arms. She was evidently a little more lady-like than was habitual to her, but she had a gentle, delicate, small nature. Her brown hair almost covered her ears, her dark lashes came down in shy awkwardness over her beautiful blue eyes. She shook hands in a frank way, yet she was shrinking. Evidently she was not sure how her position would affect her visitor. And yet she was assured in herself, shrinking and timid ...
— England, My England • D.H. Lawrence
... His apparent awkwardness while out of his natural habitat is largely due to the peculiar formation of his limbs, and the stupid appearance of his small half-hidden eyes. These features seem to mark him to the casual observer as a dull animal, ...
— The Human Side of Animals • Royal Dixon
... slipping into a web of soft white; he recalled the school-teacher's bitter arraignment of her life, her prospects. "I didn't know you," he admitted, "and that's the fact; it was the dark." He hesitated once more, conscious of the awkwardness of his position, talking upward to an indistinguishable shape. "I heard you were ...
— Mountain Blood - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... with his ignorance of the figures, and his dreaded awkwardness amidst the trains, Jan was allowed to rest in peace. Mary Elmsley told him that if he would come over sometimes to their house in an evening, she and her young sisters would practise the figures with him, so that he might learn them. It was Jan's turn to laugh now. The notion of his practising ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... couple did not fall; they were struck on to a neighbouring bench, luckily: but there was a laugh at the expense of Stenio and the Queen of Scots—and Lord Kew, settling his panting partner on to a seat, came up to make excuses for his awkwardness to the lady who had been its victim. At the laugh produced by the catastrophe, the Duchesse's eyes gleamed ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... ring in Ken's ears like peals of bells. In spite of his awkwardness Coach Arthurs had made him a varsity man; in spite of his unpreparedness old Crab had given him a passing mark; in spite of his unworthiness President Halstead had made ...
— The Young Pitcher • Zane Grey
... who had manifestly entered upon the trial with a determination to convict, were still insistent for further prosecution had there been a shadow of ultimate success, there were others who had begun to realize, weeks before the end came, the awkwardness of the predicament in which they had allowed themselves and their party to be placed, and ...
— History of the Impeachment of Andrew Johnson, • Edumud G. Ross
... those oppressively quiet men who possess the unhappy knack of appearing wholly out of touch with all social surroundings. There was a reticence about him which almost all took for surliness, but which was in reality merely a somewhat unattractive mixture of awkwardness and laziness. ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell
... hear me? I will look after the Fraeulein; she is conscious now, and I have business with her." He motioned the old man back from the door and closed it behind him; then he returned to the pallet. "I'm not much of a nurse," he said, "You will have to put up with some awkwardness, child; but there—raise your head a little, so—and lean on my ...
— The Black Cross • Olive M. Briggs
... plans, however, may fail, and Hood's was balked by the awkwardness of a lieutenant of the watch, who hove-to (stopped) a frigate at night ahead of the fleet, and was consequently run down by a ship-of-the-line. The latter also received such injury as delayed the movement, several hours being ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan
... us, before he was anonymous—Dash is a sort of a kind of a spaniel; at least there is in his mongrel composition some sign of that beautiful race. Besides his ugliness, which is of the worst sort—that is to say, the shabbiest—he has a limp on one leg that gives a peculiar one-sided awkwardness to his gait; but independently of his great merit in being May's pet, he has other merits which serve to account for that phenomenon—being, beyond all comparison, the most faithful, attached, and affectionate animal that I have ever known; and that ...
— Our Village • Mary Russell Mitford
... he had no excuse to offer—for he was very ready with his excuses—he joined them at the family dinner. Audrey never passed such a miserable evening. She sat opposite him; there was no other guest to break the awkwardness—only Mr. Blake and her mother and father ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... in obedience to some hallowed custom; for the light of the sun pained their eyes, and all their movements were made with uncertainty and hesitation. With these a hunt by sunlight is the same as a hunt by night would be with us. There was the same confusion and awkwardness. ...
— A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder • James De Mille
... saying straight out what he wanted to say to his mother just as if she had been an ordinary human being. He told her all he knew of the twins, asked her to take them in for the present and be good to them, and explained the awkwardness of their position, apart from its tragedy, as Germans by birth stranded in New England, where opinion at that moment was so hostile to Germans. Then, continuing in candour, he had told his mother that here ...
— Christopher and Columbus • Countess Elizabeth Von Arnim
... adhesive jacket of scarlet cloth, who dawdles himself along with a little cane in his hand, swinging forward his enormous feet, curving his arms, throwing back his shoulders, arching his chest, with a mixture of awkwardness, fatuity and stiffness the most curious and the most exhilarating.... In his general aspect," adds this merciless critic, "he recalls the circus-rider, minus the latter's flexibility: skin-tight garments, simpering mouth, smile of a dancing-girl, attempt to be ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various
... eyes fell first. In the breathless awkwardness that beset him they seemed to stumble shamefully down to his desk, like a country-boy getting back to his seat after a thrashing on the teacher's platform. For the lady's gaze, profoundly liquid as it was, had not ...
— In the Arena - Stories of Political Life • Booth Tarkington
... pathetic language. His thoughtful eyes, his pure white forehead, and clustering ringlets of chestnut hair, had a wealth of appeal hidden beneath, conveying more subtle beauty than the production of the countless volumes of mystic ages. Thus situated, the secretary felt the awkwardness of his position. It was not curiosity that prompted; it was a secret influence which the young lieutenant inspired—an influence that held the former bound and enchained with no means of escape ...
— Lady Rosamond's Secret - A Romance of Fredericton • Rebecca Agatha Armour
... during the half-hour he had been absent; and I saw by the kind glance he threw on his mother, whose look answered his own more naturally than I could have hoped, that things were getting right; and, by way of removing the awkwardness of excessive sensibility, I ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper
... abnormally—that is to say, veraciously. Andrew Lang, who thinks that all children have genius, is thus partially justified; for till they have been taught to see conventionally, they see with fresh insight. Hence the awkwardness of their questions. Mr. Bernard Shaw recently wrote an article on "How to Become a Genius," but he omitted to supply the recipe. It is simply this: see what you do see, and not what everybody tells you you see. To think ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... croquet ground. He tied his horse to the fence outside, much to the disappointment of the rollicking negro boys, and walked up. Nina held in her lap a tray of coins which she was engaged in brightening. She assumed a sprightliness not quite natural, and evidently designed to obviate the awkwardness ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 1 • Various
... smithy, began suddenly to rear and plunge, and set at defiance the old dunderhead by whom it was held!—The ass of a ferryman, in his eagerness to lend his aid, let go his oar into the stream; and between the awkwardness of some and the rashness of others, in a moment the whole party were carried round by the eddy of the Dyle!—The next, and Ulrica was ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various
... All his awkwardness and shyness had dropped from him like a disguise. No one knew that he was a strange little boy or that his father owed money to all the tradespeople. He was just like anyone else. And he had run faster than the fastest of them. He had wanted to show her that ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie
... her face. She moved somehow more slowly, she did not flush on meeting her mother's eyes—on the contrary, she seemed to seek them, as though she would question her. During the whole evening, Lutchkov paid her a sort of awkward attention; but even this awkwardness gratified her innocent vanity. When they had both taken leave, with a promise to come again in a few days, she quietly went off to her own room, and for a long while, as it were, in bewilderment she looked about her. ...
— The Jew And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... child, for my sake. You shall have your own way in everything else. And I will arrange it all for you, and get his written promise to allow you to live in his house quite independently, like brother and sister, as long as you like, and there will be no awkwardness for you whatever. Do, my child, do consent to this," and the poor old lady knelt once more, and put her arms about her ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... she was distressed and sincerely distressed. But it was not upon her own account. She was not thinking of the awkwardness to her of this unexpected encounter. But she realised that she had given pain where she had meant not to give pain. Shere Ali had seen her. He had been assured that she sought to avoid him. And this was not the end. She must go on and give ...
— The Broken Road • A. E. W. Mason
... anything that may be amiss at the table, should be unobserved by a guest unless he is the cause of it. In that event some pleasant remark as to his awkwardness should be made and no more. The waiter should attend to ...
— The Book of Good Manners • W. C. Green
... straight before him and as he met her eyes his affected jauntiness dropped from him. With a boyish awkwardness he took her hand and held it for an instant as he looked at her. "My dear madam, you are a good woman," he said, and went whistling down ...
— The Battle Ground • Ellen Glasgow
... this sudden destruction of her greatest treasure, turned her back, and for one horrible moment it was all she could do to keep from bursting out crying. Peggy, seeing her turn away and realizing all that her awkwardness was costing Georgina, buried her face on her father's shoulder and went into such a wild paroxysm of sobbing and crying that all his ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston
... teaching, and that to such and such a man," only that references of the kind would be tedious. I fall back on what Emerson says: "Thought is the property of him who can entertain it; and of him who can adequately place it. A certain awkwardness marks the use of borrowed thoughts; but, as soon as we have learned what to do with them, they become our own. Thus all originality is relative." The thoughts that I shall express are my own to the extent that I have ...
— The Conquest of Fear • Basil King
... would retort upon her that she coddled them. Fanny would often decline to obey him, and he would make angry hints as to his clerical authority. In this way they had worked together pleasantly, without any of the awkwardness which on other terms would have arisen between a young man and a young woman. But now that he began to praise her with some peculiar intention of meaning in his tone, she was confounded. She had made no immediate ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope
... I can understand," I said, "how difficult it must be to get over all the gaps made by so many years of estrangement—of fancied death, even. Had you been looking for him for such a length of time, there would still be a great deal of awkwardness in the meeting, when ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor
... provide against which, as far as possible, he often turned his eyes to the part of the church where Jeanie and she were placed, and became soon aware that, although the loss of her head-gear, and the awkwardness of her situation, had given an uncommon and anxious air to the features of the former, yet she was in a state of mind very different from that of her companion. When he dismissed the congregation, he observed her look around with a wild and terrified look, as if uncertain ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... what would satisfy me for the two plans, MS. &c. connected with them. I really have never made a charge of this kind, and am at a loss how to calculate, much less to make a demand; but those who can perceive the labour, time, difficulties and contrivance, which the awkwardness of the ground created, may better be able to say, if L.250 for every thing, is unreasonable. At all events, it is not a charge, but I leave it to you; and in case you deem it extravagant, am ready to submit the whole to the ...
— The Trial of Charles Random de Berenger, Sir Thomas Cochrane, • William Brodie Gurney
... it. I'm in a deuced fright, Dartmore;" and so saying, and inwardly chuckling at the universal pleasure depicted in the countenances of Calton and the by-standers, who were all rejoiced at the idea of the "dandy being drubbed," I took the stick, and pretended great awkwardness, and lack of grace in the position ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... There was a slight awkwardness even to Tembarom in entering the dining-room that evening. He had not seen his fellow boarders, as his restless night had made him sleep later than usual. But Mrs. Bowse had told him of the ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... that it was impossible to stand upright. I was given sewing to do, but my first piece of work proved my incapacity, and my extremely short-sight made me equally helpless in waiting on the Duchess. I was astonished at the patience with which she bore my awkwardness, but my fellow-servants, with whom I was most unpopular, were less merciful. The hard and thankless existence, so different from anything which I had been accustomed, threw me into a profound depression, until I began ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various
... But Mrs. Mahon was too courteous to allow any one to remain disconcerted at her hospitable board. With ready tact she managed that the little incident should seem speedily forgotten. After a momentary awkwardness the girls began to chatter merrily again, ...
— Apples, Ripe and Rosy, Sir • Mary Catherine Crowley
... but with a love that had in it elements of fear, timidity, every possible sort of awkwardness. Moreover he was helpless. Ever since that first day when as a tiny child of four or five he had awakened to behold that figure, enormous in a long night-shirt, summoning God in the middle of the night with a candle flickering fantastic shadows on to the ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole |
