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More "Bashfulness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... said the Master, "we have these results: for deferential demeanor, a worried one; for calm attentiveness, awkward bashfulness; for manly conduct, disorderliness; ...
— Chinese Literature • Anonymous
... America. Another passenger on the Mayflower was Priscilla Mullins, daughter of William Mullins, a maiden of unusual beauty, just blooming into womanhood. The gallant widower fell in love with Priscilla, but for some reason which does not clearly appear, but probably bashfulness, he sent another to do his courting. Standish himself was about thirty-seven years of age, and doubtless showed the effect of his hard service in the wars. Nevertheless, he might have won Priscilla had he gone for her in person, for, as the military leader of the colony, beset as ...
— The Land We Live In - The Story of Our Country • Henry Mann
... "I was," says he, "about seventeen, when I first came to town; an odd-looking boy, with short rough hair, and that sort of awkwardness which one always brings out of the country with one: however, in spite of my bashfulness and appearance, I used now and then to thrust myself into Will's, to have the pleasure of seeing the most celebrated wits of that time, who used to resort thither. The second time that ever I was there, Mr. Dryden was speaking of his own things, ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott
... texture can exceed the satin smoothness of the fibres which line its heart. There are a class of people in New England who betray the uprising of the softer feelings of our nature only by an increase of outward asperity—a sort of bashfulness and shyness leaves them no power of expression for these unwonted guests of the heart—they hurry them into inner chambers and slam the doors upon them, as if they were vexed at ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... apartment. Lord Evandale and she met with mutual embarrassment, which Lady Margaret, who only knew in general that their union had been postponed by her granddaughter's indisposition, set down to the bashfulness of a bride and bridegroom, and, to place them at ease, began to talk to Lady Emily on indifferent topics. At this moment Edith, with a countenance as pale as death, muttered, rather than whispered, to Lord Evandale a request to speak with ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... side of the head we have Modesty and Reverence, the former running down into Bashfulness and the latter into Humility or Servility. Next to these we find Sublimity, which was correctly suggested by the Edinburgh phrenologists. It lies ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, November 1887 - Volume 1, Number 10 • Various
... character of an ambassador, and the negotiation would not be difficult except in the matter of keeping my countenance. It was all too extravagantly nonsensical, and I conceived that it would be best to compose for myself a grave demeanour. I practised this in my boat as I went along, but the bashfulness that came secretly upon me the moment I stepped on the deck of the Diana is inexplicable. As soon as we had exchanged greetings Hermann asked me eagerly if I knew whether Falk ...
— Falk • Joseph Conrad
... no man from the moon could have been more an alien on those sidewalks. He was naturally diligent, active, quick-witted, and of good, though maybe a little too scholarly address; quick of temper, it is true, and uniting his quickness of temper with a certain bashfulness,—an unlucky combination, since, as a consequence, nobody had to get out of its way; but he was generous in fact and in speech, and never held malice a moment. But, besides the heavy odds which his small secret seemed to be against him, stopping him from accepting such valuable ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... absolutely that ever could occur to Barton, and it never had as yet, was the possibility of his being an object of interest personally to a woman, or to women. He was modest—almost to bashfulness; but as he never presumed, he was never snubbed; and now, on this summer afternoon, he had came upon a group of seven or eight of the most attractive girls of the neighborhood, accompanied by one or two strangers. There was Julia, never so lovely before, with a warm color on her cheek, ...
— Bart Ridgeley - A Story of Northern Ohio • A. G. Riddle
... preparing to hear some good stories about whaling; to my no small surprise, nearly every man maintained a profound silence. And not only that, but they looked embarrassed. Yes, here were a set of sea-dogs, many of whom without the slightest bashfulness had boarded great whales on the high seas—entire strangers to them—and duelled them dead without winking; and yet, here they sat at a social breakfast table—all of the same calling, all of kindred tastes—looking round as sheepishly at ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... people on that coast I never wish to meet. It was the caution of a child who had burnt his fingers, not once but many times. Had I known what I afterwards learned of Farmer Hosking's tribulations as landlord of a 'secluded country residence,' I should have approached him with the bashfulness proper to my suit and faltered as I undertook to prove the bright exception in a long line of painful experiences. He had bought the Tresillack estate twenty years before—on mortgage, I fancy—because the land adjoined his own ...
— Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... the burning bridge lighted our steps: the air was full of falling flakes of fire. The cottage was a quarter of a mile off. Hermione refused my arm, but, holding her skirts daintily, stepped bravely at my side. She exhibited no bashfulness, no excitement, no confusion, no fear: she was simply bent on business. We reached the peasant's farmyard. He and his family were outside the house. We like to say a Frenchman has no word for home. But the conclusion that the man of Anglo-Saxon birth deduces ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XXVI., December, 1880. • Various
... admiration had, in reality, been addressed to her moral qualities, her enthusiasm, her spirit, and her generosity. Yet that blush, evanescent as it was,—the mere possibility that I, so very a child, should have called up the most transitory sense of bashfulness or confusion upon any female cheek, first,—and suddenly, as with a flash of lightning, penetrating some utter darkness, illuminated to my own startled consciousness, never again to be obscured, the pure and powerful ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... mother was inside it, by her shadow on its glass. Suddenly, just as Hugh was about to say she need not hurry in—whereupon she would have vanished like a light blown out—she faced him. "D'you ever suffer from bashfulness—diffidence?" ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable
... to the village, a straggling, picturesque place, hidden in so deep a hollow as to be quite invisible from any distance. All the little cottage-girls whom we met, carrying their jugs and pitchers of water, curtseyed and wished us good morning with the prettiest air of bashfulness and good humour imaginable. One of them, a rosy, beautiful child, who proudly informed us that she was six years old, put down her jug at a cottage-gate and ran on before to show us the way, delighted to be singled out from her ...
— Rambles Beyond Railways; - or, Notes in Cornwall taken A-foot • Wilkie Collins
... worst piece of the Hexameron creation.... This is the composition of some amorous person, who, animated with the same spirit and affection as I am, hath undertaken, and judged it his duty too, to satisfie you, and he hopes so far as to work upon you a persuasion that the modesty, bashfulness, debonairete and civility, together with all qualifications that adorn and beautifie the soul, are as exemplarily eminent in women of this age as ever they were in any of the former; and instruct you to set a value on their ...
— The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare • J. J. Jusserand
... Bryan, inwardly highly amused at the girl's bashfulness in venturing in when she saw a ...
— Pretty Madcap Dorothy - How She Won a Lover • Laura Jean Libbey
... who said they did not care about music, especially Scottish music, it was so monotonous and insipid, laid aside their indifferent looks before three notes of the simplest air had left Mary Morrison's lips, as she sat faintly blushing, less in bashfulness than in her own emotion, with her little hands playing perhaps with flowers, and her eyes fixed on the ground, or raised, ever and anon, to the roof. "In all common things," would most people say, "she is but a very ordinary girl—but ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... in her moan'd reply 'Favor from one so sad and so forlorn As I am!' half abash'd him; yet unask'd, His bashfulness and tenderness at war, He set himself ...
— Enoch Arden, &c. • Alfred Tennyson
... sorry the lot fell upon me; for I was always bashful, and never thought much of myself but once. I think my bashfulness was mostly owing to my knowing myself to be not very good-looking. I believe that I am not considered a bad-looking old man; indeed, people who remember me at twenty-five say that I have grown handsome every ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various
... not know of Eudoxie's end. Lamuse said no more to any one of the ultimate and awful embrace in which he clasped her body. He regretted—I knew it—his whispered confidence to me that evening, and up to his death he kept the horrible affair sacred to himself, with tenacious bashfulness. So we see Farfadet continuing to live his airy existence with the living likeness of that fair hair, which he only leaves for the scarce monosyllables of his contact with us. Corporal Bertrand has still the same soldierly and serious ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... and Lucilla grew up in beauty. The stranger traits of her character increased in strength, but perhaps in the natural bashfulness of maidenhood they became more latent. At the age of fifteen, her elastic shape had grown round and full, and the wild girl had already ripened to the woman. An expression of thought, when the play of her features was in repose, that dwelt upon her lip and forehead, gave her the ...
— Godolphin, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the wife of To-jo. Among the Kro-lu she would find another mate after the manner of the strange Caspakian world; but she told me very frankly that whenever I returned, she would leave her mate and come to me, as she preferred me above all others. I was becoming a ladies' man after a lifetime of bashfulness! ...
— The Land That Time Forgot • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... got clear of the mouth of the river, we were tolerably well acquainted with each other. I made myself perfectly at home, and gained the friendship of all the passengers. I had none of that false shame or bashfulness about me which makes so many English boys appear to disadvantage among strangers, and prevents them from gaining the regard of their acquaintance, though I had perfect respect for my elders, and due deference for the opinions ...
— Mark Seaworth • William H.G. Kingston
... but feebly carried on. The space was almost impracticably small; and the Irish wenches combined the extreme of bashfulness about this innocent display with a surprising impudence and roughness of address. Most often, either the fiddle lifted up its voice unheeded, or only a couple of lads would be footing it and snapping fingers on the landing. And such was the eagerness of the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... she had ever seen him, and another gentleman, of whom her eye took in only the general outlines of fashion and comfortable circumstances, now too strange to it to go unnoted. In Fleda's usual mood her next movement would have been made with a demureness that would have looked like bashfulness. But the amusement and pleasure of the day just passed had for the moment set her spirits free from the burden that generally bound them down; and they were as elastic as her step, as she came forward and presented ...
— Queechy, Volume I • Elizabeth Wetherell
... natural timidity. This sentiment is especially strong in children. The sentiment of sexual modesty in man thus rests on timidity and on the fear of not doing as others do. It betrays itself toward women by awkwardness and bashfulness behind which eroticism is often ill concealed. The timid and bashful man carefully endeavors to hide his sexual feelings from others. The object of modesty is in itself immaterial to the psychology of this sentiment, and shame is sometimes inspired not only by very different ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel
... heart, the quick feelings, the earnestness, the modesty, the conscientiousness, the reverence for the good opinion of their fellow-men, which is the beginning of eternal life. Do you not see it in the young? Modesty, bashfulness, shame-facedness—as the good old English word was—that is the very beginning of all goodness in boys and girls. It is the very material out of which all other goodness is made; and those who laugh at, or torment, young people ...
— Westminster Sermons - with a Preface • Charles Kingsley
... fine instincts of women his infirmity was especially conspicuous, and he drifted into misogyny through bashfulness and pride; and yet misogyny was incompatible with his scheme of life and his ambition. He felt himself to be worthy of the full diapason of home life; he desired to be as other men were, besides ...
— Twenty-One Days in India; and, the Teapot Series • George Robert Aberigh-Mackay
... go his own way; and his only friend and protector had been Richard, whom, under the name of Fowen, he took for a genuine Englishman, and loved with all his heart. If anything would ever cure him of his wilful awkwardness and dogged bashfulness, it was likely to be the kindness of Richard—above all, in the absence of the tormentors, for Hamlyn de Valence alone of the other pages had been selected to attend upon the Prince in this expedition; and he, though scornful and peremptory, did not think the boy ...
— The Prince and the Page • Charlotte M. Yonge
... fail in its object. No flattery could ever prevail with him to listen to unjust petitions; and he held that to be overcome by the importunities of shameless and fawning entreaties, though some compliment it with the name of modesty and bashfulness, was the worst disgrace a great man could suffer. And he used to say, that he always felt as if they who could deny nothing could not have behaved well in the flower of ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... neglect the reparation of the moral condition of the race? We have suffered, my brethren, in the whole domain of morals. We are still suffering as a race in this regard. Take the sanctity of marriage, the facility of divorce, the chastity of woman, the shame, modesty, and bashfulness of girlhood, the abhorrence of illegitimacy, and there is no people in this land who, in these regards, have received such deadly thrusts as this race of ours. And these qualities are the grandest ...
— Sparkling Gems of Race Knowledge Worth Reading • Various
... to expect that a much-heralded book will fail, when it does eventually appear, to fulfil the promise of its publishers, it is the more pleasant to find oneself agreeing with Messrs. HODDER AND STOUGHTON that bashfulness on their part would have been out of place in regard to Mr. JAMES W. GERARD'S memoirs, My Four Years in Germany. As read in their completed and collected form these papers are not only, as one could foresee, of historic importance, but they are moreover capital reading. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Dec. 5, 1917 • Various
... a private audience then he kissed her hand, and those of the King and his saintly sister, Elizabeth, while the Queen gratefully expressed her thanks, and the King stood by, with tears in his eyes, but withheld by his awkward bashfulness from expressing the feelings ...
— A Book of Golden Deeds • Charlotte M. Yonge
... to his fingers ends—a tear of sentimental bashfulness—another of gratitude to my uncle Toby—and a tear of sorrow for his brother's misfortunes, started into his eye, and ran sweetly down his cheek together; my uncle Toby's kindled as one lamp does at ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... of bashfulness about it, but he followed his father, and in a few minutes more the rough, bearded, red-shirted fellows were giving him three of the most ringing cheers he had ever heard. Ha-ha-pah-no and Na-tee-kah looked at him with something that was half wonder. ...
— Two Arrows - A Story of Red and White • William O. Stoddard
... extended her hand. Scully, trembling, thrust forward one of his huge kid-gloves, and led her to the head of the country-dance. John Perkins—who I presume had been drinking pretty freely, so as to have forgotten his ordinary bashfulness—looked at the three Gorgons in blue, then at the pretty smiling one in white, and stepping up to her, without the smallest hesitation, asked her if ...
— The Bedford-Row Conspiracy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Billy highly offended, "why at home my folks were thinking of having a doctor treat me for bashfulness I'm ...
— The Boy Aviators in Africa • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... which had all the airs and graces of a village coquette, together with the bashfulness of a school miss, seemed to Katie and Dolores, but especially Katie, a very rich and wondrous thing. She always knew that Mrs. Russell was a gushing, sentimental creature, but had never before seen her ...
— A Castle in Spain - A Novel • James De Mille
... think he'll get over his bashfulness, and so will some of the others," answered Songbird Powell. "And let me tell you one thing—when I first got here I thought the men were a pretty rough crowd, but the more I get to know them, the more I'm satisfied they're ...
— The Rover Boys at Big Horn Ranch - The Cowboys' Double Round-Up • Edward Stratemeyer
... unexpected by Blanche, but it was done with such a noble grace by the boy, and with an air of such delicate refinement, while a glow of boyish bashfulness swept over his fine face, that the most fastidious could not have found in it just cause for resentment, much less the guileless ...
— The Brother Clerks - A Tale of New-Orleans • Xariffa
... the eastern country leaked out, and the consequence was, that he became a lion in Riverdale. The minister invited him to tea, as well as other prominent persons, for the sake of hearing his story; but Bobby declined the polite invitations from sheer bashfulness. He had not brass enough to make himself a hero; besides, the remembrance of his journey was anything but ...
— Now or Never - The Adventures of Bobby Bright • Oliver Optic
... — N. modesty; humility &c 879; diffidence, timidity; retiring disposition; unobtrusiveness; bashfulness &c adj.; mauvaise honte [Fr.]; blush, blushing; verecundity^; self-knowledge. reserve, constraint; demureness &c adj.; blushing honors [Henry VIII]. V. be modest &c adj.; retire, reserve oneself; give way to; draw in one's horns &c 879; hide ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... worthy for the press, were no other thing than wilfully to defraud yourself of an universal thank, your friends of their expectations, and sweet Gismund of a famous eternity, I will cease to doubt of any other pretence to cloak your bashfulness, hoping to read it in print (which lately lay neglected amongst your papers) at our ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VII (4th edition) • Various
... great conversational abilities and immense power of small talk, so that Verdant felt quite at ease in her society, and found his natural timidity and quiet bashfulness to be greatly diminished, even if they were not altogether put on one side. They were always such capital friends, and Miss Patty was so kind and thoughtful in making Verdant appear to the best advantage, and in looking over any little gaucheries to which his bashfulness ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... displeasure in the looks of both the mother and the son, yet, regardless of consequences, I ventured, uninvited, to enter the house. In order to shake off the restraint which I felt my society imposed, I found it absolutely necessary to divest myself of bashfulness, and to exert such conversational powers as I possessed. I succeeded so well that the discourse soon became lively and animated; and what chiefly delighted me was, that she, for whose sake I had committed my present rudeness, became radiant with smiles. I had been ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... tall, spectacled man emerged from the crowd, and, beaming with a pleasing elderly bashfulness through his spectacles, gave it as his opinion that though gorsoon was a term usually applied to the male child, it was equally applicable to the female. "But, indeed," he concluded, "the Bench has as good Irish as ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross
... the name of Reine Vincart had come to his lips, a feeling of bashfulness, in addition to his ordinary timidity, had prevented him from interrogating Claudet concerning the character of this mysterious queen of the woods. Like all novices in love-affairs Julien dreaded that his feelings should be divined, at the mere mention of the young girl's ...
— A Woodland Queen, Complete • Andre Theuriet
... which it was necessary that a gig should be hired all the way from Prestwick. Herriot had not been anxious to go over, alleging various excuses,—the absence of dress clothes, the calls of Stone and Toddy, his bashfulness, and the absurdity of paying fifteen shillings for a gig. But he went at last, constrained by his friend, and a very dull evening he passed. Lizzie was quite unlike her usual self,—was silent, grave, and solemnly courteous; Miss Macnulty had not a word to say for herself; and even ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... prey to the most thrilling terrors. You were a moving picture of tender masculinity in distress. You let bashfulness like a worm i' th' bud prey upon your damask cheek. Have you a damask cheek? Stand out! I wish to consider you impartially. YOU needn't look ...
— The Unspeakable Perk • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... downcast eyes - Our famous look of mild surprise (Which competition still defies) - Our celebrated "Sir!!!" Then all the crowd take down our looks In pocket memorandum books. To diagnose, Our modest pose The kodaks do their best: If evidence you would possess Of what is maiden bashfulness, You only need a button press - And WE do all ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... reputation of the profession in America far more than for our own, for we know better than the profession how very valuable publicity of the kind is to architects. The late Mr. Richardson, even to a comparatively late period in his professional career, was afflicted with the usual bashfulness about having his work published. We well remember the solicitations, the refusals, the renewed appeals, and, finally, the reluctant and conditional assent to have a single gelatine print from one of his perspectives published. This was ...
— The American Architect and Building News, Vol. 27, No. 733, January 11, 1890 • Various
... ladder I saw nothing save a young man with thick gauntlets standing guard over an iron wheel valve in a big pipe that ran along the deck. A stout, iron-grey man in uniform was leaning against the sky-light on the poop-deck as we came past the funnels. With a slight bashfulness Mr. Carville turned, and making a vague introductory gesture, pronounced our names. I caught the words "Chief Officer" and "come to have a look round!" There was a little further parley, in which the "Old Man," ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... discover the wounds of their souls to you, by appearing too rashly and too hastily severe. How enormous soever their sins may be, hear them, not only with patience, but with mildness; help out even their bashfulness, by testifying to them your compassion, and not seeming to be amazed at what you hear. Insinuate into them, that you have heard in confession sins of a much more crying nature: and, lest they should despair ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume XVI. (of 18) - The Life of St. Francis Xavier • John Dryden
... mind. When he did publish the collection, nothing appeared in the style and form of the publication that indicated any arrogance of merit. On the contrary, it was brought forward with a degree of diffidence, which, if it did not deserve the epithet of modesty, could incur nothing harsher than that of bashfulness. It was printed at the obscure market-town press of Newark, was altogether a very homely, rustic work, and no attempt was made to bespeak for it a good name from the critics. It was truly an innocent affair and an unpretending performance. But notwithstanding these, at least seeming, qualities ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt
... affections, relating the impressions of the environment with one another and with our impulses in quite different ways from those mere associations of coexistence and succession which are practically all that pure empiricism can admit. Take the love of drunkenness; take bashfulness, the terror {187} of high places, the tendency to sea-sickness, to faint at the sight of blood, the susceptibility to musical sounds; take the emotion of the comical, the passion for poetry, for mathematics, or for metaphysics,—no one ...
— The Will to Believe - and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy • William James
... qualifications pointed out, integrity, and a gentle and humane disposition,—honesty, and a good heart;— are such as any one may boldly lay claim to, without fear of being taxed with vanity or ostentation.—And if individuals in private stations, on any occasion are called upon to lay aside their bashfulness and modest dissidence, and come forward into public view, it must surely be, when by their exertions they can essentially contribute to promote measures which are calculated to increase the ...
— ESSAYS, Political, Economical and Philosophical. Volume 1. • Benjamin Rumford
... of thousands such as we are be a sacrifice for thee; May the wisdom of the creation be thy worthy portion; May thy dark narcissus-eye be ever full of modesty; May thy cheek be ever tinged with bashfulness! If it be necessary to learn the art of the magician, To sew up the eyes with the bands of enchantment, We will fly till we surpass the enchanter's bird, We will run like the deer in search of a remedy. Perchance we may draw the King nigh unto his moon, And ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb
... at the opening of 1833, provided unquestionably with, a large stock of schoolboy bashfulness. The first time that business required me to go to the arm of the chair to say something to the Speaker, Manners Sutton—the first of seven whose subject I have been—who was something of a Keate, I remember the revival in me bodily of the frame of mind in which a schoolboy stands before ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... to remember hard, after dozens of fluent and delightful letters, that he must encounter the old bashfulness again.... Plainly the Captain showed the years. There was the dark dry look of some inner consuming, and the trembling mouth was lined and assertive where formerly it was unnoticed in the general cheer. There was a break in rotundity. Perhaps this, more than anything else, put a strange hush upon ...
— Fate Knocks at the Door - A Novel • Will Levington Comfort
... now to where they were sitting, to select a flat boulder for spreading their table-cloth upon, and, amid the discussion on that subject, the matter pending between Knight and Elfride was shelved for a while. He read her refusal so certainly as the bashfulness of a girl in a novel position, that, upon the whole, he could tolerate such a beginning. Could Knight have been told that it was a sense of fidelity struggling against new love, whilst no less assuring as to his ultimate victory, it might have entirely abstracted the ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... the sound dying away, I made a full stop; while Narcissa, starting, blushed, and, with a timid accent answered, "Sir?" Confounded at this note of interrogation, I pronounced with the most sheepish bashfulness, "Madam!" To which she replied, "I beg pardon—I thought you had spoken to me." Another pause ensued—I made another effort, and, though my voice faltered very much at the beginning, made shift to express myself in this manner: "I say, madam, ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... That glass of hot whiskey-and-water, though it enhanced the melancholy tenderness of the young man, robbed him of his bashfulness, and loosened the strings of his tongue. "For three years! And there was a time when she worshipped the very stool on which I sat at the office. I don't like ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope
... down, though he had not been invited to do so, as he was wont to do in the bygone happy days when they were official colleagues together. It was Meyer's custom never to look those whom he was addressing in the face, which bashfulness deprived him, of course, of the advantage of being able to read from their countenances what impression he was making upon them. He was therefore greatly surprised when, on finishing his speech, his Honour Judge Bordacsi roared ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai
... glowed with pleasure at this boyish praise of her sister, and stored it up to repeat to Meg. Both peeped and critisized and chatted till they felt like old acquaintances. Laurie's bashfulness soon wore off, for Jo's gentlemanly demeanor amused and set him at his ease, and Jo was her merry self again, because her dress was forgotten and nobody lifted their eyebrows at her. She liked the 'Laurence boy' better than ever and took several good looks at him, so that she ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... where you come?" she asked with sweet bashfulness, raising two eyes as soft as brown velvet. "You speak English so very well—one ...
— The Point of View • Elinor Glyn
... faith! Have you no modesty, no maiden shame, No touch of bashfulness? What! will you tear Impatient answers from my gentle tongue? Fie, fie! ...
— A Midsummer Night's Dream • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... dullness of the poor Subanos. The latter, as they are so unused to intercourse with us, and so shut up in their own lives, had no arguments to oppose to what they did not understand; and showed their wonder, surprise, and bashfulness in brute silence. For that reason, where the Orangcayas govern (which are almost all villages of the Subanos or Indians of the mountain), there is scarce one who enjoys liberty. Those chiefs hold them so under ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 40 of 55 • Francisco Colin
... looked at me with timid surprise. She made no answer; though that earnest, yet timid gaze, long remained, and for that matter, still remains, vividly impressed upon my recollection. It seemed to express astonishment, startled sensibility, feminine bashfulness, and maiden coyness; but it did not appear to me that it expressed displeasure. There was no time, however, to ask for explanations, since the voices of Herman Mordaunt and Bulstrode were now heard at the very door, and, at the next ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... exceedingly genial soul, this young man, and wholly free of affectation. It seemed to Carrie he was as yet only overcoming the last traces of the bashfulness of youth. He did not seem apt at conversation, but he had the merit of being well dressed and wholly courageous. Carrie felt as if it were not going to be ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser
... his turn, not from bashfulness, but rather like a man who desires more carefully to ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... temperate diet so helpful in preserving thy virginity uncontaminated. And where is now that grave deportment, and that modest mien, and that plain attire which so become a virgin, and that beautiful blush of bashfulness, and that comely paleness—the delicate bloom of abstinence and vigils, that outshines every ruddier glow. How often in prayer that thou mightest keep unspotted thy virginal purity hast thou poured forth thy tears! How many letters ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... little girls of heaven such as the little boys who die when seven years old have for eternal playmates in some nook of Paradise. But even at this early age he was self-contained; and full of the exquisite bashfulness of adolescence he grew up without betraying the secret of his religious love. Mary grew up with him, being invariably a year or two older than himself, as should always be the case with one's chiefest friend. When he was eighteen, she was twenty; she no ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola
... well of the violet for its humility, I see no reason why I should quarrel with the aster for loving to make a show. Herein, too, plants are like men. An indisposition toward publicity is amiable in those to whom it is natural; but I am not clear that bashfulness is the only commendable quality. Let plants and men alike carry themselves according to their birthright. Providence has not ordained a diversity of gifts for nothing, and it is only a narrow philosophy that takes offense ...
— The Foot-path Way • Bradford Torrey
... the advice of Caius, sent his youngest son into the market-place, with a herald's rod in his hand. He, being a very handsome youth, and modestly addressing himself, with tears in his eyes and a becoming bashfulness, offered proposals of agreement to the consul and the whole senate. The greatest part of the assembly were inclinable to accept of the proposals; but Opimius said, that it did not become them to send messengers and capitulate with the senate, but to surrender ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... the speaker who had addressed them on the Kohlmarkt, conscious of his pledges and of the reward promised to him, overcame his momentary bashfulness and stepped boldly into the ante-room, where the others, encouraged by his example, followed him ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... tempered their desires and restrained them with gentle remedies, he has given to boys the boon of plenty, to young men merriment, and to the old security. But now, Scipio, that I have come to touch on your merits, I fear lest either your own noble modesty or my own native bashfulness may close my mouth. But I cannot refrain from touching on a very few of the many virtues which we so justly admire in you. Citizens whom he has saved, show with me that you ...
— The Apologia and Florida of Apuleius of Madaura • Lucius Apuleius
... and emphatic: "Though he will not rise and give him because he is his friend, yet because of his importunity, he will rise and give him as many as he needeth." The term [Greek: anaideian], translated "importunity," signifies freedom from the bashfulness which cannot ask a second time. The shamefacedness which prevents a modest man from importuning a fellow-creature for a gift, after the first request has been refused, is out of place in the intercourse between an empty but believing suppliant and the God of all grace. If this Jewish ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... on one occasion dragged him into a house of ill-fame, from which he made his escape, preserving himself for the woman whom he might fall in love with some day. A fortunate opportunity had never come to him, so that, what with bashfulness, limited means, obstinacy, the force of custom, at fifty-two years, and in spite of his residence in the capital, ...
— Bouvard and Pecuchet - A Tragi-comic Novel of Bourgeois Life • Gustave Flaubert
... while to have suspended his poetry: but he was soon called back to labour by the death of the Chancellor, for his place then became vacant; and though the Lord Hardwicke delayed for some time to give it away, Thomson's bashfulness or pride, or some other motive perhaps not more laudable, withheld him from soliciting; and the new Chancellor would not give him what he would not ask. He now relapsed to his former indigence; but the Prince of Wales was at that time struggling for popularity, and by the influence ...
— Lives of the Poets: Gay, Thomson, Young, and Others • Samuel Johnson
... manner round the room to a dirge-like march scraped upon the violin, the boys taking the parts of ladies jibbing away from their partners in a highly unlady-like fashion, and the boy burdened with the companionship of the younger Miss Mutlow walking along in a very agony of bashfulness. ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... little May, who did not know what bashfulness was, 'I wish I might go and see him, too. I should so like to know if he has ever seen the island where ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... asked Tom, with a courage at which he afterward rather wondered; but he was fast getting rid of his country bashfulness. ...
— The Young Adventurer - or Tom's Trip Across the Plains • Horatio Alger
... Betty with animation. "I adore bravery and shyness combined. Methinks 'twould be delightsome to be the woman who could teach him how to face such a battery. Thee didn't live up to thy opportunity, Peggy. It was thy duty to cure such a fine fellow of bashfulness. It was thy duty, I say. Would I could ...
— Peggy Owen and Liberty • Lucy Foster Madison
... goodness of heart, but the young women particularly were objects of attraction, being tall, robust, and beautifully formed, their faces beaming with smiles, and indicating unruffled good humour; while their manners and demeanour exhibited a degree of modesty and bashfulness, that would have done honour to the most virtuous and enlightened people on earth. Their teeth are described as beautifully white, like the finest ivory, and perfectly regular, without a single exception; and all ...
— The Eventful History Of The Mutiny And Piratical Seizure - Of H.M.S. Bounty: Its Cause And Consequences • Sir John Barrow
... was his only official one, and he was modestly proud of it and was devoted to its work and its interests. The extreme kindliness of his nature was recognized by all; in fact, people said that he was made entirely out of good impulses and bashfulness; that he could always be counted upon for help when it was needed, and for bashfulness both when it was needed and ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... rayahs, impute it to no want of modesty that, for once, I sink the graceful bashfulness of the virgin, and assume the more forward deportment of the queen. When all appear to possess such merit, how can I slight all but one by my decision? Let me rather leave it to the immortal Vishnu to decide who is most worthy to reign over this our ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat
... make excuses when in good humour with ourselves for the perhaps not unwilful slights of those whose approbation we wish to engage; so my sister found out a reason much to Mr. Lovelace's advantage for his not improving the opportunity that was given him.—It was bashfulness, truly, in him. [Bashfulness in Mr. Lovelace, my dear!]—Indeed, gay and lively as he is, he has not the look of an impudent man. But, I fancy, it is many, many years ago ...
— Clarissa, Volume 1 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... complexion so transparent, or an eye so expressive. Her vermeil-tinctured lips were new-blown roses that engrossed the sight, and seemed to solicit to be plucked. His heart was caught in the tangles of her hair. Such an unaffected bashfulness, and so modest a blush; such an harmonious and meaning tone of voice, that expressed in the softest accents, the most delicate sense and the most winning simplicity, could not but engage the attention of a swain so versed in the science of the fair ...
— Imogen - A Pastoral Romance • William Godwin
... Instincts.—Among these are placed such instinctive tendencies as bashfulness, sympathy, the gregarious instinct, or love of companionship, anger, ...
— Ontario Normal School Manuals: Science of Education • Ontario Ministry of Education
... Then she turned about, and with doubtful steps and the most attractive appearance of timidity, drew near to the young man. He on his side continued to advance with similar signals of distress and bashfulness. At length, when they were but some steps apart, he saw her eyes brim over, and she reached out both her hands ...
— The Dynamiter • Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Stevenson
... measures whatever to promote his own candidacy. While not assuming airs of reluctance or bashfulness, he discouraged on the part of strangers any suggestion as to his reelection. Among his friends he made no secret of his readiness to continue the work he was engaged in, if such should be the general wish. "A second term would be a great honor and a great labor, which together, ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay
... come, Papa dear, because—because I wouldn't let him! He got caught in the trap of his own horrid bashfulness." ...
— Dorothy's Travels • Evelyn Raymond
... I was falling in love with a rich Jewish girl whose face had a bashful expression of a peculiar type. There are different sorts of bashfulness. This girl had the bashfulness of sin, as I put it to myself. She looked as if her mind harbored illicit thoughts which she was trying to conceal. Her blushes seemed to be full of sex and her eyes full of secrets. She was not a pretty girl at all, but her "guilty look" disturbed me as long ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... habit, Sir John Finett stood confessed before them. He knelt penitently before the king, humbly assuring his Majesty that he had been preparing this device, and many others, to please and surprise him; but that, through the bungling of some, and the bashfulness of others, he was obliged to enact the parts himself. This excuse the king was graciously pleased to accept, commending him for his great ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... discuss their works, or merits, seriatim, as the judges call it; for I feel overwhelmed at the stringing together of such trisyllabic names. These gentlemen, as well as almost every one of their predecessors, are strangers to me; and you know my bashfulness and confusion in ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... upon the low ottoman directly before me; but from motives of bashfulness I had kept my eyes averted during the time I was speaking. She heard me without interruption, and I ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid
... thing I had not bargained for. I felt very lonely. Yet I could no more have proposed to the landlord and landlady to admit me to their society (though I should have liked it—very much) than I could have asked them to present me with a piece of plate. Here my great secret, the real bashfulness of my character, is to be observed. Like most bashful men, I judge of other people as if they were bashful too. Besides being far too shamefaced to make the proposal myself, I really had a delicate misgiving that it would be in the ...
— The Holly-Tree • Charles Dickens
... glanced up at Sergius and smiled tauntingly; and another who turned her face away, and seemed to be trying to hide it in the close inspection of a great bunch of fleece. But both the forwardness of the one and the bashfulness of the other were wasted upon the visitor. As a matter of fact, he was so lost in wonder at his courage and self-control as to be well past observing the idiosyncrasies of slaves; and, if his own attitude was acceptable, even to himself, his admiration for that of his hostess amounted to ...
— The Lion's Brood • Duffield Osborne
... is bashfulness. One who is bashful finds in his intercourse with his fellows many worries. His hands and feet are too large, he blushes at a word, he doesn't know what to say or how, he is confused if attention is directed his way, his thoughts fly to the ends of the earth the moment he is addressed, ...
— Quit Your Worrying! • George Wharton James
... began the girl, in great confusion. "I know—I only want one thing—to be of use to the people, and I can do nothing because I know nothing—" Her eyes were so truthful, so kind, and her expression of resoluteness and yet bashfulness was so touching, that Nekhludoff, as it often happened to him, suddenly felt as if he were in ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy
... borroweth no counterfeitures of other tongues to attire herself withal, but useth plainly her own with such shift as nature, craft, experience, and following of other excellent doth lead her unto, and if she want at any time (as being imperfect she must) yet let her borrow with such bashfulness that it may appear, that if either the mould of our own tongue could serve us to fashion a word of our own, or if the old denizened words could content and ease this need we would not ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... that sort of thing," he replied. "Afraid of the place getting frippery. I've heard them talking about it in the car. And as they own every blessed cottage in the place...." He left the deduction to my imagination, and continued with the least touch of bashfulness, "You wouldn't care to come to us, ...
— The Jervaise Comedy • J. D. Beresford
... referred her to Count Rechberg, the aide-de-camp on duty. With him Lola had more success. Boldness conquered where bashfulness would have failed. After a single swift glance, Count Rechberg decided that the applicant was eligible for admission to the "Presence," and reported ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... beside him. He gave her a smile of welcome, and explained to her, in his low voice, how it had happened that they had lost the track and the dog had not scented the animal till they were almost upon it. By this time she had forgotten her tears and her bashfulness, and he had drawn his knife to skin the bear on the spot. The flesh was of no value at this time; he meant to bury the carcass and take only the skin. So she held, and he skinned; then she ran down to the soeter for an axe and a spade; and although ...
— The Bridal March; One Day • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... seems strange, but it is so, I fancy, with the best of our young women. Her feeling of modesty—of bashfulness if you will—is outraged by being told that she is to admit this man as her lover. She won't make the worse wife on that account, when he gets ...
— The Golden Lion of Granpere • Anthony Trollope
... But when, as was often the case, the sensitive person was encouraged to openness by Fitzjames's downright ways, the implied compliment would be fully recognised. Lord Lytton, as an accomplished man of the world, was of course free from any awkward bashfulness; and at the very first interview was ready to meet Fitzjames half-way. His enthusiasm accordingly met with a rapid return. One of Fitzjames's favourite assertions was that nobody but a humbug could deny the pleasantness of flattery; and, in fact, I ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... sir, for I can't account for what he said any other way; and he turned to me, and he said to me, solemn-like, 'Is your head bad enough to send you to the Lord Jesus to make you whole?' I could not speak a word, partly from bashfulness, I suppose, for I was but ten years old. So he followed it up, as they say: 'Then you ought to be at school,' says he. I said nothing, because I couldn't. But never since then have I given in as long as I could stand. And I ...
— The Seaboard Parish Vol. 2 • George MacDonald
... with an inward burst. "A bashful, ridiculous fool! Why, in the name of all that's namby-pamby, doesn't he pop the question, like a man, and have done with it? Bashfulness is all very well—nobody likes a little of it better than I do; but there is no use running it ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming
... cup of coffee, Mr. O'Malley?" said the youth, with an air of almost timid bashfulness. "The doctor, I know, breakfasts at ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... in him an air of great superiority that is very satisfactory. He lives with his college set, ... and has the air of one who is accustomed to be petted and indulged by those he lives with. Take away Hawthorne's bashfulness, and let him talk easily and fast, and you would have a pretty good Tennyson. I told him that his friends and I were persuaded that it was important to his health to make an instant visit to Paris, and that I was to go on Monday if he was ready. He was very good-humored, ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... etc. A PERSON EMBARRASSED BY HIS BODY is the image suggested to us in all these examples. The reason that excessive stoutness is laughable is probably because it calls up an image of the same kind. I almost think that this too is what sometime makes bashfulness somewhat ridiculous. The bashful man rather gives the impression of a person embarrassed by his body, looking round for some convenient cloak-room in which to ...
— Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic • Henri Bergson
... folly hath wrought! Of a truth there's no call to complain of blindness in thy speech now, Master Alden. But still I have noted that if thou canst drive a bashful youth out of his bashfulness, there are no ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... business on his side and mixed business and sentiment on Mrs. Halligan's, Sylvester did not once look the landlady in the eye. His own eyes skipped hers, now across, now under, now over. There are some philanthropists who are overcome with such bashfulness in the face of their own good deeds. But, sitting back alone in his taxicab on his way to the station to buy Sheila's ticket to Millings, Sylvester turned his emerald rapidly about on his finger and whistled to himself. And cryptically he expressed ...
— Hidden Creek • Katharine Newlin Burt
... as other men do, I should sooner have learned the pleasures and pains of passion, the germ of which I carried in myself; but everything in me assumed an extraordinary character. The warmth of imagination, my bashfulness and solitude, caused me to turn back upon myself. For want of a real object, by the power of my vague desires, I evoked a phantom which never quitted me more. I know not whether the history of the human heart furnishes ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... after a few courteous words, came back to the blue eyes and brown hair; still he kept his look fixed upon her, and his tones grew sweeter and lower as he became more interested in talk, until this poor, dear Helen, what with surprise, and the bashfulness natural to one who had seen little of the gay world, and the stirring of deep, confused sympathies with this suffering father, whose heart seemed so full of kindness, felt her cheeks glowing with unwonted flame, and betrayed the pleasing trouble of her situation by looking so sweetly as to arrest ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various
... of the meal, to which Sam, despite his bashfulness, did full justice, Mr. Chester opened his pocket-book and produced ...
— Sam's Chance - And How He Improved It • Horatio Alger
... few city absconders, to keep them company; but there was only good-fellowship between them. The enthusiasm increased with each orator's efforts, until the surveyor made in his own brusque fashion, which was marked by true Western absence of bashfulness, the speech of the evening. Some one who had once served the English press sent a report to a Victoria journal, of which I have a copy, but no print could reproduce the essence of the man's vigorous personality which vibrated ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss
... the love is occasionally on the man's side; perhaps on the lady's. Perhaps some infatuated swain has ere this mistaken insensibility for modesty, dulness for maiden reserve, mere vacuity for sweet bashfulness, and a goose, in a word, for a swan. Perhaps some beloved female subscriber has arrayed an ass in the splendour and glory of her imagination; admired his dulness as manly simplicity; worshipped his selfishness as manly superiority; treated his stupidity ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... made loquacious, or smash with lemon squeezer the obstreperous, or hurl gutterward the cantankerous without a wrinkle coming to his white lawn tie, when he stood before woman he was voiceless, incoherent, stuttering, buried beneath a hot avalanche of bashfulness and misery. What then was he before Katherine? A trembler, with no word to say for himself, a stone without blarney, the dumbest lover that ever babbled of the weather in the ...
— The Trimmed Lamp and Others • O Henry
... once expressed her opinion that a young member would be better to sit in silence at least for one session, he was not driven to the mortification of feeling that he was incurring her contempt by his bashfulness. As regarded the men among whom he lived, I think he was almost annoyed at finding that no one seemed to expect that he should speak. Barrington Erle, when he had first talked of sending Phineas down to Loughshane, ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... 'high life,' was an alarming ordeal for the country youth, who made prodigious preparations, drove to the house in a state of abject terror, and in five minutes was sitting on an ottoman, talking to Lady Beaumont, and more at ease than he had ever been in his life. In truth, bashfulness was ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... What are painted pots? They are little dabs of wretched clay, but painted in beautiful colors; they are just what naivete, bashfulness, modesty, and darned socks like them would be to-day ...
— The Argonauts • Eliza Orzeszko (AKA Orzeszkowa)
... Lady Dulminster had arrived, and he made his way across the room to meet her with a quite youthful bashfulness, cannoning apologetically against Romeos and Marguerites, hoping that she would ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... among "sins of daily committal, to which we all are liable," the "sin" of "lying, from bashfulness [or modesty], or 'necessity.'"[1] Origen also speaks of the frequency of "lying, or of idle talking;"[2] as if possibly its frequency were in some sense an excuse for it. And Origen specifically claimed that the apostles Peter and Paul agreed together to deceive their hearers at Antioch ...
— A Lie Never Justifiable • H. Clay Trumbull
... Miss Sydney, they says so," replied the lad, whose condition as the father of a family seemed to cast him into depths of bashfulness. ...
— A Tar-Heel Baron • Mabell Shippie Clarke Pelton
... bashfulness with a courageous effort, she advanced toward the officer, who was still turning his back ...
— Andreas Hofer • Lousia Muhlbach
... Dick to congratulate him and examine the piece, he stood with a mingled feeling of bashfulness and delight at his unexpected good fortune. Recovering himself suddenly, he seized his old rifle, and dropping quietly to the outskirts of the crowd, while the men were still busy handling and discussing the merits of the prize, went up, unobserved, to a boy of about thirteen years of ...
— The Dog Crusoe and His Master - A Story of Adventure in the Western Prairies • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... knowing it, initiated them into spiritual things? At such a time we would throw ourselves at the feet of this father, would tell him in burning words of our admiration and gratitude. We cannot do it, for the soul has its own bashfulness; but who knows that our disquietude and embarrassment do not betray us, and unveil, better than words could do, the depths of our heart? The air they breathed at Portiuncula was all impregnated with ...
— Life of St. Francis of Assisi • Paul Sabatier
... doth not proceed from any malitious ill-natur'd Coyness, as some imagine, but from an ingenuous modesty and bashfulness, which usually accompanies, and is a proof of Simplicity: Tis very rare, says Pliny, to find a man so exquisitely skillful, as to be able to show those Features in a Picture which he hides, and I think it to be so difficult a task, that none ...
— De Carmine Pastorali (1684) • Rene Rapin
... deep that, as the letter dropped from my hand, I felt suddenly a stranger to all the present conditions of my existence, wholly ill at ease and out of place amid the familiar surroundings of my study. I became, in short, the gangling farm boy my aunt had known, scourged with chilblains and bashfulness, my hands cracked and sore from the corn husking. I felt the knuckles of my thumb tentatively, as though they were raw again. I sat again before her parlor organ, fumbling the scales with my stiff, red hands, while she, beside me, made canvas ...
— The Troll Garden and Selected Stories • Willa Cather
... a blind and misplaced passion. He was indeed utterly incapable of availing himself of the opportunities afforded by his situation, to involve his pupil in the toils of a mutual passion. Honour and gratitude alike forbade such a line of conduct, even had it been consistent with the natural bashfulness, simplicity, and innocence of his disposition. To sigh and suffer in secret, to form resolutions of separating himself from a situation so fraught with danger, and to postpone from day to day the accomplishment ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... upon a catre, Adela by his side, her hand clasping his. This without any bashfulness or reserve at her brother being present. Which he is, along with the dear old doctor, both now released from their bonds. It is a tableau of true love, wreathed with ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... only argumentative and half serious, had unwittingly touched a chord of simple history, and the flush which had risen to his cheek was not entirely bashfulness. The home and relationship of which they spoke so glibly, HE had never known; he was a foundling! As he lay awake that night he remembered the charitable institution which had protected his infancy, the master to whom he had later been apprenticed; that was all he knew of his childhood. In ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... by no means a constant accompaniment of diffidence. The consciousness of possessing great powers and deep sensibility often creates bashfulness. It is their veil and guard while maturing and strengthening. It is the flower-sheath, that folds the corolla, till prepared to encounter the sun's ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... silent—in solitude we soliloquise. So dearly do we love our own voice that we cannot bear to hear it mixed with that of others—perhaps drowned; and then our bashfulness tongue-ties us in the hush expectant of our "golden opinions," when all eyes are turned to the speechless "old man eloquent," and you might hear a tangle dishevelling itself in Neaera's hair. But all alone by ourselves, in the country, among trees standing still among untrodden ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... not," assented J.W., Sr., "but you can ask somebody else. I'll venture Mr. Drury can tell you where to find all you would want to talk about. Ask him. You're never bothered by bashfulness with him, if ...
— John Wesley, Jr. - The Story of an Experiment • Dan B. Brummitt
... crowded round Dick to congratulate him and examine the piece, he stood with a mingled feeling of bashfulness and delight at his unexpected good fortune. Recovering himself suddenly he seized his old rifle, and, dropping quietly to the outskirts of the crowd, while the men were still busy handling and discussing the merits of the prize, went up, unobserved, to a boy of about thirteen years of age, ...
— The Dog Crusoe and his Master • R.M. Ballantyne
... proportion as the Spirit of God is working in them, giving them the tender heart, the quick feelings, the earnestness, the modesty, the conscientiousness, the reverence for the good opinion of their fellow-men, which is the beginning of eternal life. Do you not see it in the young? Modesty, bashfulness, shame-facedness—as the good old English word was—that is the very beginning of all goodness in boys and girls. It is the very material out of which all other goodness is made; and those who laugh at, or torment, young people for being modest and bashful, ...
— Westminster Sermons - with a Preface • Charles Kingsley
... veil, and looked on them with a countenance in which bashfulness contended with dignity. Her exceeding beauty excited a murmur of surprise, and the younger knights told each other with their eyes, in silent correspondence, that Brian's best apology was in the ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... quietly suffers, Morellet shows his anger aloud. Grimm and Suard laugh heartily about it, and my dear Comte de Greuze does not notice it. Marmontel finds the example worthy to be imitated, and you, madame, make two of your most beautiful virtues do battle, bashfulness and politeness, and in this suffering you find me a little monster more embarrassing than odious. Dinner is announced. They leave the table and in the cafe all speak at the same time. M. Necker thinks everything well, bows his head and ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme
... could inform you, that among scores of belles, flatterers, triflers, who swim along these walks, self-satisfied and pleased, and looking defiances to men (and to modesty, I had like to have said; for bashfulness seems to be considered as want of breeding in all I see here); a pretty woman is as rare as a black swan; and when one such starts up, she is nicknamed a Beauty, and old fellows and young fellows are ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 383, August 1, 1829 • Various
... spiritual character of the one, and the trust reposed by her late father in the other, authorized them to be present upon the occasion. Eveline naturally blushed, as she advanced two steps to receive the handsome youthful envoy; and her bashfulness seemed infectious, for it was with some confusion that Damian went through the ceremony of saluting the hand which she extended towards him in token of welcome. Eveline was under the necessity ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... ate heavy meat three times a day, but took little or no exercise. The pimples on his face became worse and worse. He grew peevish and nervous. He hated girls, and when in their society was a very bull-calf for bashfulness and awkward self-consciousness. At times the strangest and most morbid fancies took possession of him, chief of which was that every one was looking at him while he was ...
— Vandover and the Brute • Frank Norris
... nothin'. I liked to do it," replied Jimmy, and then overcome by a sudden and unaccountable fit of bashfulness he ran hastily ...
— The Bishop's Shadow • I. T. Thurston
... her mind that she must see Alec before he went, but a secret bashfulness prevented her from writing to him. She was afraid that he would refuse, and she could not force herself upon him if she knew definitely that he did not want to see her. But with all her heart she wanted to ask ...
— The Explorer • W. Somerset Maugham
... delicate conscience was another grace in his eyes. He loved her more than ever for the honesty that must confess all its little sins. Sweet Leam! Leam having to confess! Leam! she who was almost too modest for an ordinary lover's comfort, needing to be tamed out of her savage bashfulness, not to be reproved for transgressing the proper reticence of an English maid. It was a pretty play, but it was only ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XVII, No. 102. June, 1876. • Various
... to say that Topham has suddenly come out as a juggler, and swallows candles, and does wonderful things with the poker very well indeed, but with a bashfulness and embarrassment ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 1 (of 3), 1833-1856 • Charles Dickens
... day with Aunt Clara, who had been entertaining some young guests, and invited Rose to meet them, for she thought it high time her niece conquered her bashfulness and saw a little of society. Dinner was over, and everyone had gone. Aunt Clara was resting before going out to an evening party, and Rose was waiting for Charlie to ...
— Eight Cousins • Louisa M. Alcott
... for, though she had commenced her explanation, with a firm intention to do justice to Paul, the bashfulness of her sex held her tongue tied, at the very moment her desire to speak was the strongest. An effort conquered the weakness, and the warm-hearted, generous-minded girl succeeded ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... now an' agin. Now, I shall take it as a favor if you'll allow the landlord to re-fill your glasses at my expense, and then drink good-luck to my expedition." All this with much volubility, and without a trace of bashfulness. ...
— The Gerrard Street Mystery and Other Weird Tales • John Charles Dent
... the voice, dragging in the name of Madame de Lastaola and asking me whether I was really so much in the confidence of that astonishing person. "Vous devez bien regretter son depart pour Paris," she cooed, looking with affected bashfulness at her fan. . . . How I got out of the room I really don't know. There was also a staircase. I did not fall down it head first—that much I am certain of; and I also remember that I wandered for a long ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... remember hard, after dozens of fluent and delightful letters, that he must encounter the old bashfulness again.... Plainly the Captain showed the years. There was the dark dry look of some inner consuming, and the trembling mouth was lined and assertive where formerly it was unnoticed in the general cheer. There was a break in rotundity. Perhaps this, more than ...
— Fate Knocks at the Door - A Novel • Will Levington Comfort
... withal, but useth plainly her own with such shift as nature, craft, experience, and following of other excellent doth lead her unto, and if she want at any time (as being imperfect she must) yet let her borrow with such bashfulness that it may appear, that if either the mould of our own tongue could serve us to fashion a word of our own, or if the old denizened words could content and ease this need we would not boldly venture of ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... them into spiritual things? At such a time we would throw ourselves at the feet of this father, would tell him in burning words of our admiration and gratitude. We cannot do it, for the soul has its own bashfulness; but who knows that our disquietude and embarrassment do not betray us, and unveil, better than words could do, the depths of our heart? The air they breathed at Portiuncula was all impregnated with joy and gratitude ...
— Life of St. Francis of Assisi • Paul Sabatier
... perhaps the departed might then be conscious how truly he had loved and honored him; and I believe the depth of his affection and the warmth of his friendship was known to none but himself. On one particular point I remember his often regretting his constitutional bashfulness and reserve; and that was, because, added to his retired life and the nature of his pursuits, it prevented him from knowing any thing of the persons among whom he lived. Long as he had resided at Keswick, I ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... Russell, which had all the airs and graces of a village coquette, together with the bashfulness of a school miss, seemed to Katie and Dolores, but especially Katie, a very rich and wondrous thing. She always knew that Mrs. Russell was a gushing, sentimental creature, but had never before seen her so deeply affected. But on this occasion the good ...
— A Castle in Spain - A Novel • James De Mille
... do—" and Amaryllis controlled her uneasy bashfulness. She really wished to talk ...
— The Price of Things • Elinor Glyn
... the people is most free, where it is made or given in such a manner that it can neither oblige nor disoblige another, nor through fear of an enemy, or bashfulness toward a friend, impair ...
— The Commonwealth of Oceana • James Harrington
... absence, which had to be explained, Bobby's trials in the eastern country leaked out, and the consequence was, that he became a lion in Riverdale. The minister invited him to tea, as well as other prominent persons, for the sake of hearing his story; but Bobby declined the polite invitations from sheer bashfulness. He had not brass enough to make himself a hero; besides, the remembrance of his journey was ...
— Now or Never - The Adventures of Bobby Bright • Oliver Optic
... Dean of Peterborough. "I was," says he, "about seventeen, when I first came to town; an odd-looking boy, with short rough hair, and that sort of awkwardness which one always brings out of the country with one: however, in spite of my bashfulness and appearance, I used now and then to thrust myself into Will's, to have the pleasure of seeing the most celebrated wits of that time, who used to resort thither. The second time that ever I was there, Mr. Dryden was speaking ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott
... Mr. Bryan, inwardly highly amused at the girl's bashfulness in venturing in when she saw a stranger ...
— Pretty Madcap Dorothy - How She Won a Lover • Laura Jean Libbey
... have proposed to the landlord and landlady to admit me to their society (though I should have liked it—very much) than I could have asked them to present me with a piece of plate. Here my great secret, the real bashfulness of my character, is to be observed. Like most bashful men, I judge of other people as if they were bashful too. Besides being far too shamefaced to make the proposal myself, I really had a delicate misgiving ...
— The Holly-Tree • Charles Dickens
... to meet in the street other boys of my age, very proud of their slip of a sweetheart, who would exultingly show me love-letters, photographs, and flowers, and who asked me if I hadn't a sweetheart with whom to correspond. A feeling of inexplicable bashfulness tied my tongue, and I only replied with an enigmatic and haughty smile. And when they questioned me as to what I thought of the beauty of their little maidens, I would shrug my shoulders and disdainfully call them ...
— First Love (Little Blue Book #1195) - And Other Fascinating Stories of Spanish Life • Various
... were gathered together in a full body, by the advice of Caius, sent his youngest son into the market-place, with a herald's rod in his hand. He, being a very handsome youth, and modestly addressing himself, with tears in his eyes and a becoming bashfulness, offered proposals of agreement to the consul and the whole senate. The greatest part of the assembly were inclinable to accept of the proposals; but Opimius said, that it did not become them to send messengers and capitulate with the senate, but to ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... of an ingenuous young man; after they had come before the judges, he was not able to say what he had intended, so much did his modesty confuse him there through his bashfulness. ...
— The Comedies of Terence - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Notes • Publius Terentius Afer, (AKA) Terence
... or an eye so expressive. Her vermeil-tinctured lips were new-blown roses that engrossed the sight, and seemed to solicit to be plucked. His heart was caught in the tangles of her hair. Such an unaffected bashfulness, and so modest a blush; such an harmonious and meaning tone of voice, that expressed in the softest accents, the most delicate sense and the most winning simplicity, could not but engage the attention of a swain so versed in the science of the ...
— Imogen - A Pastoral Romance • William Godwin
... the mountain, who came to offer her flowers, or chestnuts. On seeing me, she attempted to rise as if to meet me half-way, and her gesture was quite sufficient to encourage me to approach. She received me with a blushing look and tremulous lip, which I perceived, and which increased my own bashfulness. The strangeness of our situation was so embarrassing, that we remained some time without finding a word to say to each other. At last, with a timid and scarcely intelligible gesture, she motioned to me to sit down on the hay, not far from her; it seemed to me that she has expected ...
— Raphael - Pages Of The Book Of Life At Twenty • Alphonse de Lamartine
... proceeded. But not one response, either verbally or mentally, did Jacquelina make. The priest passed over her silence, naturally ascribing it to bashfulness, and honestly taking her ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... tea, and Teddy so far improved on his bashfulness that he made grabs at several things which would have disagreed with him if I had let him follow his inclinations. He affably received my hints on table etiquette, and smiled with gentleness when I told him he had eaten enough. The little ...
— The Chequers - Being the Natural History of a Public-House, Set Forth in - a Loafer's Diary • James Runciman
... to open the door myself, with a calmness and serenity that shall offer a marked contrast to his feverish and excited air, and shall throw suspicion of inebriety upon him. If he be inclined to timidity and bashfulness, during the best of the evening he is all too conscious of the disarrangement of his hair and cravat. If he is less sensitive, the result is often more distressing. A valued elderly friend once called upon me after undergoing a twofold struggle with the wind and a large Newfoundland dog (which ...
— Urban Sketches • Bret Harte
... mayhap, the Dawn (wretched 'prentice-boy!) opened in the east the shutters of the Day:—in other words, more than a dozen hours had passed. Corporal Brock had been relieved by Mr. Redcap, the latter by Mr. Sicklop, the one-eyed gentleman; Mrs. John Hayes, in spite of her sorrows and bashfulness, had followed the example of her husband, and fallen asleep by his side—slept for many hours—and awakened still under the guardianship of Mr. Brock's troop; and all parties began anxiously to expect the return of ...
— Catherine: A Story • William Makepeace Thackeray
... of envy, to hinder those that desire it, to partake of the good things that come into the world according to God's will, and this while the season is at the height, and is hastening away as it pleases God. Nay, if some, out of bashfulness, are unwilling to touch these fruits, let them be encouraged to take of them [I mean, those that are Israelites] as if they were themselves the owners and lords, on account of the kindred there is between them. Nay, let them desire men that come from other countries, to ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... His bashfulness fell from him as a garment. He took the message, saying he would keep it, so that it might not be lost. Then he piloted the two girls and Mrs. Putnam to the spot where Mary had ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IX (of X) • Various
... of the king, was confirmed in his first idea; that is to say, that love thoughts were hidden under all these fine words. This time, political cunning, keen as it was, made a mistake; this color was not caused by the bashfulness of a juvenile passion, but only by the painful contraction ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... about their shoulders, a part of it on each side being carelessly platted, and sometimes rolled up into an awkward lump, instead of being neatly tied on the top of the head, as the Esquimaux women in most other parts are accustomed to wear it. The youngest female had much natural bashfulness and timidity, and we considered her to be the only unmarried one, as she differed from the other three in not being tattooed upon the face. Two of them had their hands tattooed also, and the old woman had a few marks of the same kind about each wrist. ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... to be a virtue. It was invented only as a protection against envy. That there have always been rascals to urge this virtue, and to rejoice heartily over the bashfulness of a man of merit, has been shown at length in my chief work.[1] In Lichtenberg's Miscellaneous Writings I find this sentence quoted: Modesty should be the virtue of those who possess no other. Goethe has a well-known saying, which offends many people: It is only knaves who are modest!—Nur ...
— The Art of Literature • Arthur Schopenhauer
... young men, we regret to say, were not members of any of the temperance societies; and as they had partaken freely of the stimulating beverages which had been called for, they were getting very noisy and losing much of that bashfulness which had hitherto kept them silent. In this state of things, Mr. Hand was forced to entreat one of the veterans to amuse them with some ...
— The Yankee Tea-party - Or, Boston in 1773 • Henry C. Watson
... at me with timid surprise. She made no answer; though that earnest, yet timid gaze, long remained, and for that matter, still remains, vividly impressed upon my recollection. It seemed to express astonishment, startled sensibility, feminine bashfulness, and maiden coyness; but it did not appear to me that it expressed displeasure. There was no time, however, to ask for explanations, since the voices of Herman Mordaunt and Bulstrode were now heard at the very door, and, at the next instant, both ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... in the House of Commons which was elected in 1708. But the House of Commons was not the field for him. The bashfulness of his nature made his wit and eloquence useless in debate. He once rose, but could not overcome his diffidence, and ever after remained silent. Nobody can think it strange that a great writer should fail as a speaker. But many, ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... little thing, who carried herself gracefully, without bashfulness. Her soft brown hair, brushed smoothly back from the tanned oval face, fell in long, thick braids over the slim shoulders, and disappeared in crisp ribbon bows of the same color. The dress was a simple affair of light blue wool, which fitted the wearer perfectly ...
— Polly of Lady Gay Cottage • Emma C. Dowd
... to him and walked off, but Obadiah, his bashfulness for the moment quite forgotten in his jealous rage, followed her long ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy
... think of nothing else to say, and they were all silent. But at last, being ashamed of his bashfulness, and with an awkward laugh, ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... than our own, in particular, was more intelligent; the young women were modest, reserved in their manner, seldom entered into conversation with the men, and despite the fire in their eyes, manifested a certain peasant bashfulness, which seems to ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes
... not proceed from any malitious ill-natur'd Coyness, as some imagine, but from an ingenuous modesty and bashfulness, which usually accompanies, and is a proof of Simplicity: Tis very rare, says Pliny, to find a man so exquisitely skillful, as to be able to show those Features in a Picture which he hides, and I think it to be so difficult ...
— De Carmine Pastorali (1684) • Rene Rapin
... the most beautiful young woman in the world. The young woman had many suitors but rejected all, wishing only for the love of the bashful young man. He in his turn was accustomed to follow her about, longing for courage to declare his love, but bashfulness always sealed his lips. At last, despairing of ever making his unruly tongue tell of his passion, he took a dagger and, following her to the bathing place on the river bank, he cut out his own heart, cast it at her feet, ...
— Philippine Folk-Tales • Clara Kern Bayliss, Berton L. Maxfield, W. H. Millington,
... silence, I began to be urged, right and left, to speak. I was one of those whom this election had displeased; but with culpable timidity I had yielded to the authority of my superiors in dignity. With the bashfulness of youth I could only with great difficulty and much blushing prevail upon myself to open my mouth. The discussion was carried on, not in our mother tongue, but in the language of scholars. I therefore, though with great confusion of mind and face, betook myself to speaking in a manner to tickle ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume II. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... right. He was not wanting in courage; but no man from the moon could have been more an alien on those sidewalks. He was naturally diligent, active, quick-witted, and of good, though maybe a little too scholarly address; quick of temper, it is true, and uniting his quickness of temper with a certain bashfulness,—an unlucky combination, since, as a consequence, nobody had to get out of its way; but he was generous in fact and in speech, and never held malice a moment. But, besides the heavy odds which his small secret seemed to be against him, stopping him from ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... 170 Held in her hand, clear'd such a fatal storm, From hell she thought his person would defend her, Which night and Hellespont would quickly send her. With this confirm'd, she vow'd to banish quite All thought of any check to her delight; And, in contempt of silly bashfulness, She would the faith of her desires profess, Where her religion should be policy, To follow love with zeal her piety; Her chamber her cathedral-church should be, 180 And her Leander her chief deity; For in her love these did the gods forego; And though her knowledge did not teach ...
— The Works of Christopher Marlowe, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Christopher Marlowe
... not conceive why he lived in this narrow street, in this comfortless lodging, why he was so little to be seen in society, or how he employed himself. Without employment, in solitude, he was happy: only he felt out of humour with himself at his own bashfulness, which withheld him from trying to become nearer acquainted with this beauteous being, notwithstanding the friendliness with which she had several times greeted and thankt him. He knew not that she ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck
... some beer, and they sat down very cosily; and soon were chatting so comfortably, that Master Froggy thought he should soon get rid of his bashfulness, and then should be able to ask pretty Mrs. Mousey to marry him. Presently their little hostess proposed a song, and called upon Froggy to oblige; but, "Really," he replied, "I must be excused, for the fog last night gave me such a ...
— The Frog Who Would A Wooing Go • Charles Bennett
... came and caught the maiden in his arms, He pressed her to his bosom as a mother Presses her infant. She was pleased, and wept, But her's were tears of joy; Hung her head, and hid her beautuous face, Yet was she not ashamed. Her's was maiden bashfulness. Blushes she to be so caught in love? See her stolen glances! sunlit glances! see! She doth not ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 1 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... wasn't going to say that," said Julian, with his usual bashfulness, heightened in this case by some feeling which made him pale. "I meant, do you really believe that she has no kind of regard for ...
— The Unclassed • George Gissing
... situated in life that they can never enter the brilliant sphere in which honest women move, whether for want of a coat, or from their bashfulness, or from the failure of a ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... now went back to his tree, whither he was slowly followed by Margery; the girl yielding to a feverish desire to accompany him, at the very time she was half restrained by maiden bashfulness; though anxiety and the wish to learn the worst as ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper
... bright the tear in beauty's eye, Love half regrets to kiss it dry; So sweet the blush of bashfulness, Even pity scarce can ...
— What Great Men Have Said About Women - Ten Cent Pocket Series No. 77 • Various
... already too far gone to pour forth the babble of good plump grandmothers; she adored the child in secret with the bashfulness of a young girl, without knowing how to fondle him. Sometimes she took him on her knees, and gazed at him for a long time with her pale eyes. When the little one, frightened by her mute white visage, began to cry, she seemed perplexed by what she had done, and quickly put him down upon the ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... musicians were just striking up the opening bars of the Lancers; upon which several gentlemen amongst the assembly, which now numbered about forty, ran out into the open and took up positions, like colour-sergeants at drill, to be presently joined, in some bashfulness, by ...
— The Tinted Venus - A Farcical Romance • F. Anstey
... the historian acutely observes: "Ever thus, from the beginning of the world, have those been insulted who have fallen from a high estate. The multitude follows successful usurpation, but never offers a shield to fallen dignity." The bashfulness and silence of Prince Henry an ordinary writer would perhaps have called by those names; but Mr. Towle says: "He was neither loud nor forward in giving his views; he apparently felt that one so young should never seem dogmatic or positive on questions in regard to which age ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... all bout it," said she, "she was a fine woman." After I had got over the stupid bashfulness which I had for the moment, I went (as usual with me) to the extreme of baudy boldness. "Yes," said I laughing, "I wish it had been spilt in her cunt, instead of on the carpet." "Oh! for shame," said Louisa, "well it was waste, ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... entered with the caution of veterans in an enemy's country, and with a bashfulness that was painful to contemplate. They stood before the bar, they glanced cautiously to the right, and gently inclined their heads backward, until only a line of eyes and noses were visible from the ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... brought us to the village, a straggling, picturesque place, hidden in so deep a hollow as to be quite invisible from any distance. All the little cottage-girls whom we met, carrying their jugs and pitchers of water, curtseyed and wished us good morning with the prettiest air of bashfulness and good humour imaginable. One of them, a rosy, beautiful child, who proudly informed us that she was six years old, put down her jug at a cottage-gate and ran on before to show us the way, delighted to be singled ...
— Rambles Beyond Railways; - or, Notes in Cornwall taken A-foot • Wilkie Collins
... says Horace Walpole, the good old man was carried to St. Paul's, to contemplate the glorious chef-d'oeuvre of his genius. Steele, in the Tatler, refers to Wren's vexations, and attributes them to his modesty and bashfulness. ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... swung his legs against his horse's sides, and fell into a jog-trot in the direction indicated. I looked after him till his peaked cap was hidden behind the branches. This second stranger was not in the least like his predecessor in exterior. His face, plump and round as a ball, expressed bashfulness, good-nature, and humble meekness; his nose, also plump and round and streaked with blue veins, betokened a sensualist. On the front of his head there was not a single hair left, some thin brown tufts stuck out behind; there ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Volume II • Ivan Turgenev
... feel as if you're nine or ten, even if he hadn't sarcastically hinted that you had not been asked for your advice. But I say, Drew, old fellow, I think you're right, and if Blackbeard thinks it would be best he'll go to the old man like a shot. No bashfulness in him." ...
— The Kopje Garrison - A Story of the Boer War • George Manville Fenn
... aspect might have been said to suggest, at times, was bashfulness; because he would sit, in business offices ashore, sunburnt and smiling faintly, with downcast eyes. When he raised them, they were perceived to be direct in their glance and of blue colour. His hair was fair and extremely fine, ...
— Typhoon • Joseph Conrad
... the hesitating awkwardness of the next man presenting himself before her, not daring to ask the higher price and not willing to take the lower, for rustic bashfulness, and put him at his ease by saying airily, "Five cords? That makes thirty-five dollars. I always pay seven dollars a cord." After that, the procession of grinning men driving lumber-sleds toward the library became incessant. The minister attempted to remonstrate with ...
— Hillsboro People • Dorothy Canfield
... in the style and form of the publication that indicated any arrogance of merit. On the contrary, it was brought forward with a degree of diffidence, which, if it did not deserve the epithet of modesty, could incur nothing harsher than that of bashfulness. It was printed at the obscure market-town press of Newark, was altogether a very homely, rustic work, and no attempt was made to bespeak for it a good name from the critics. It was truly an innocent affair and an unpretending ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt
... time she paused. Then she turned about, and, with doubtful steps and the most attractive appearance of timidity, drew near to the young man. He on his side continued to advance with similar signals of distress and bashfulness. At length, when they were but some steps apart, he saw her eyes brim over, and she reached out both her hands ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... forward to present his glossy buckeye, hung on a plaited horse-hair string that had been constructed by small Jennie with long and infinite patience. Miss Lavinia's commendations threw both donor and constructor into an agony of bashfulness from which Pete took refuge in Rose Mary's skirts and Jennie behind her mother's chair. But at this juncture the arrival on the scene of action of young Bob Nickols with a whole two-horse wagon-load of pine cones, which the old lady doted on for the freshing up of the tiny fires always kept ...
— Rose of Old Harpeth • Maria Thompson Daviess
... and instinctive nature hold up their heads, as if they were of nobler origin. There is an incurable vulgar side of human nature which, when he cannot help but show it, the poet should never handle without a certain bashfulness; but instead of this Beaumont and Fletcher throw no veil whatever over nature. They express every thing bluntly in words; they make the spectator the unwilling confidant of all that more noble minds endeavour even to hide from themselves. The indecencies ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... my Don Quixote open in one hand, while she clasped with the other the child she carried on her arm. She looked at the book, and then from time to time she looked at me, very kindly but very curiously, with a faint smile, so that as I stood there, inwardly writhing in my bashfulness, I had the sense that in her eyes I was a queer boy. She returned the book without comment, after some questions, and I took it off to my room, where the confidential friend of Cervantes cried himself ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... if any doubts remained, were soon removed, for the stranger sank on the bank at her side, in an attitude in which female bashfulness was beautifully contrasted with her attire, and gave vent to her mirth in an uncontrollable burst ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... well as his aspirations. But as Lady Laura always recommended patience, and more than once expressed her opinion that a young member would be better to sit in silence at least for one session, he was not driven to the mortification of feeling that he was incurring her contempt by his bashfulness. As regarded the men among whom he lived, I think he was almost annoyed at finding that no one seemed to expect that he should speak. Barrington Erle, when he had first talked of sending Phineas down to Loughshane, had predicted for ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... instructed, made no less Haste thither. But how was she surprised and mortified, when Zeokinizul, having ask'd her what she wanted, view'd her for some Time without speaking a Word more. Tho' she was prepared to act her Part, she could not forbear blushing, tho' more out of Spite than Bashfulness. And as she could not presume to speak first, after staying about a Quarter of an Hour in the Apartment, she made a low Courtesy, and withdrew, full of Confusion ...
— The Amours of Zeokinizul, King of the Kofirans - Translated from the Arabic of the famous Traveller Krinelbol • Claude Prosper Jolyot de Crbillon
... stripes of gold lace on the upper part of one of the sleeves. He had twice stepped towards the cottage door, and twice drawn back, as if influenced by some unaccountable feeling—timidity, perhaps, or bashfulness; and yet the bearing of the man gave little indication of either. But, at length, as if he had gathered heart, he raised the latch and ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume III • Various
... her hand as if about to answer, then suddenly, as one who lost courage at the moment, relinquished his grasp; and drawing back as if afraid of what he had done, his dark countenance glowing with bashfulness, mixed with delight, he sat down by the fire on the opposite side from that which ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... opportunity. Harry set his face over the hopper and cradled industriously. He thought he was displaying proper firmness, but his hand trembled, his heart beat like a plunger, and he was the victim of an ignoble bashfulness. Chris approached with some timidity; but Maori bounded up to the young man, making elephantine overtures of friendliness, which were resented by Harry's cattle-dog Cop, who walked round and round the mastiff ...
— The Gold-Stealers - A Story of Waddy • Edward Dyson
... undefiled couch, and the progress in virginal purity, and the temperate diet so helpful in preserving thy virginity uncontaminated. And where is now that grave deportment, and that modest mien, and that plain attire which so become a virgin, and that beautiful blush of bashfulness, and that comely paleness—the delicate bloom of abstinence and vigils, that outshines every ruddier glow. How often in prayer that thou mightest keep unspotted thy virginal purity hast thou poured forth thy tears! How ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... more in public than is usual in the Peninsula. At Kota Bharu, women, both young and old, crowd the markets at all hours of the day, and do most of the selling and buying. They converse freely with strangers, go about unveiled, and shew no signs of that affected bashfulness, which cloaks the very indifferent morals of the average Malay woman, but which it is a point of honour with her to assume when in the presence ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford
... suddenly a stranger to all the present conditions of my existence, wholly ill at ease and out of place amid the familiar surroundings of my study. I became, in short, the gangling farmer-boy my aunt had known, scourged with chilblains and bashfulness, my hands cracked and sore from the corn husking. I sat again before her parlour organ, fumbling the scales with my stiff, red fingers, while she, beside me, made canvas mittens ...
— Youth and the Bright Medusa • Willa Cather
... Solomon, was a good humored looking man of some thirty years of age; he had, I afterwards learned, been for some years in my uncle's employ. Obadiah was a youth of about seventeen years of age. His extreme bashfulness in the presence of strangers in general, and of ladies in particular, caused him to appear very awkward. Added to this, he was, to use a common term, very homely in his personal appearance. His hair was very light, almost white; his eyes too were of a very light color, and uncommonly ...
— The Path of Duty, and Other Stories • H. S. Caswell
... is the composition of some amorous person, who, animated with the same spirit and affection as I am, hath undertaken, and judged it his duty too, to satisfie you, and he hopes so far as to work upon you a persuasion that the modesty, bashfulness, debonairete and civility, together with all qualifications that adorn and beautifie the soul, are as exemplarily eminent in women of this age as ever they were in any of the former; and instruct you to set a value on their actions as the best creatures in the worst of times, ...
— The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare • J. J. Jusserand
... personal character of the Indians of this part of South America is a degree of diffidence, bashfulness, or coldness, which affects all their actions. It is this that produces their quiet deliberation, their circuitous way of introducing a subject they have come to speak about, talking half an hour on different topics before mentioning it. Owing to this feeling, they will ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume 19 - Travel and Adventure • Various
... and duly installing the vice-M. D. and her charges, Dr. Spencer departed; and Ethel was launched on an unknown ocean, as pilot to an untried crew. She had been told to regard Leonard's bashfulness as a rare grace; but it was very inconvenient to have the boy wretchedly drooping, and owning nothing amiss, apparently unacquainted with any English words, except 'Thank you' and 'No, thank you.' ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... ward has become well enough acquainted with her husband so that she will not run away. The go-between returns the following day and claims her guerdon. Several cases passed under my observation, in which the husband was unable to use his marital rights for weeks owing to the timorousness and bashfulness of his youthful spouse. In no case was anything but patience and gentleness ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... his bashfulness and could associate with grown-up books, then he was admitted to the company of Scott, and Thackeray, and Dickens, who were and are, as far as one can see, to be the leaders of society. My fond recollection goes back to an evening in the ...
— Books and Bookmen • Ian Maclaren
... unselfish at the same time, his glance is projected downwards; and all things that are illumined by this double ray of light, nature conjures to discharge their strength, to reveal their most hidden secret, and this through bashfulness. It is more than a mere figure of speech to say that he surprised Nature with that glance, that he caught her naked; that is why she would conceal her shame by seeming precisely the reverse. What has hitherto been invisible, the inner life, seeks its salvation in the ...
— Thoughts out of Season (Part One) • Friedrich Nietzsche
... Gertie," he explained, "'twas on account of my bashfulness. Your mother, she wanted to sit along with me and hold hands, so—. Oh, all right; all right. You can show a glim now, Serena, if you want to. ...
— Cap'n Dan's Daughter • Joseph C. Lincoln
... the old buffalo-robe and a couple of rugs out to a straw-pile that had been hauled in to protect our winter perennials. There we indecorously reposed on our backs and went stargazing in comfort. And Gershom even forgot that painful bashfulness of his when he fell to talking about the planets. He slipped out of his shell and ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer
... boy and two girls, the eldest not more than six, and lovely as seraphs. They were going the rounds of the house, and singing at every chamber-door; but my sudden appearance frightened them into mute bashfulness. They remained for a moment playing on their lips with their fingers, and now and then stealing a shy glance, from under their eyebrows, until, as if by one impulse, they scampered away, and as they turned an angle of the gallery, I heard them laughing ...
— Old Christmas From the Sketch Book of Washington Irving • Washington Irving
... and avouched by our opposites. Saravia holdeth,(784) that by the sign of the cross we profess ourselves to be Christians; Bishop Mortoune calleth(785) the cross a sign of constant profession of Christianity; Hooker calleth(786) it "Christ's mark applied unto that part where bashfulness appeareth, in token that they which are Christians should be at no time ashamed of his ignominy;" Dr Burges(787) maintaineth the using of the surplice to signify the pureness that ought to be in the minister of God; ...
— The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Gillespie
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